heinleinblog

In his own words, Heinlein found common ground with those at the forefront of modern libertarianism.

“I would say that my position is not too far from that of Ayn Rand’s; that I would like to see government reduced to no more than internal police and courts, external armed forces — with the other matters handled otherwise. I’m sick of the way the government sticks its nose into everything, now,” he said in The Robert Heinlein Interview And Other Heinleinana by J. Neil Schulman.

Heinlein was much more colorful when expressing the thoughts of Jubal Harshaw, Heinlein’s thinly veiled surrogate in Stranger in a Strange Land (1961) – “Government! Three-fourths parasitic and the rest stupid fumbling –Oh, Harshaw conceded that man, a social animal, could no more avoid government than an individual could escape the necessity of bowel movements. But simply because an evil was necessary was no reason to term it good. He wished that government would wander off and get lost!”

These thoughts also saw light Podkayne of Mars (1962). “…Think about it,” says Poddy’s Uncle Tom, himself a former politician. “Politics is just a name for the way we get things done… without fighting. We dicker and compromise and everybody thinks he has received a raw deal, but somehow after a tedious amount of talk we come up with some jury-rigged way to do it without getting anybody’s head bashed in. That’s politics. The only other way to settle a dispute is by bashing a few heads in… and that is what happens when one or both sides is no longer willing to dicker. That’s why I say politics is good even when it is bad… because the only alternative is force — and somebody gets hurt.”

In 1946, Heinlein wrote TAKE BACK YOUR GOVERNMENT: A Practical Handbook For the Private Citizen Who Wants Democracy To Work. It was published after his death. In it he wrote:

“From politics I have come to believe the following:

(1) Most people are basically honest, kind and decent.

(2) The American people are wise enough to run their own affairs. They do not need Fuehrers, Strong Men, Technocrats, Commissars, Silver Shirts, Theocrats, or any other sort of dictator.

(3) Americans have a compatible community of ambitions. Most of them don’t want to be rich but do want enough economic security to permit them to raise families in decent comfort without fear of the future. They want the least government necessary to this purpose and don’t greatly mind what the other fellow does as long as it does not interfere with them living their own lives. As a people we are neither money mad nor prying. We are easygoing and anarchistic. We may want to keep up with the Joneses — but not with the Vanderbilts. We don’t like cops.

(4) Democracy is not an automatic condition resulting from laws and constitutions. It is a living, dynamic process which must be worked at by you yourself — or it ceases to be democracy, even if the shell and form remains.

(5) One way or another, any government which remains in power is a representative government. If your city government is a crooked machine, then it is because you and your neighbors prefer it that way — prefer it to the effort of running your own affairs. Hitler’s government was a popular government; the vast majority of Germans preferred the rule of gangsters to the effort of thinking and doing for themselves. They abdicated their franchise.

(6) Democracy is the most efficient form of government ever invented by the human race. On the record, it has worked better in peace and in war than fascism, communism, or any other form of dictatorship. As for the mythical yardstick of ‘benevolent’ monarchy or dictatorship — there ain’t no such animal!

(7) A single citizen, with no political connections and no money, can be extremely effective in politics.”

Heinlein has been accused of being a fascist or at least, hostile to democracy. Obviously, this was not the case in 1946, at about the time he was supposedly beginning his transition into an authoritarian and fascist.