David Kirby and David Boaz have published a new Cato Institute study estimating the size of the “libertarian vote.” They conclude that about 14% of American voters are libertarian in the sense of broadly opposing government regulation in both the economic and social realms. As a libertarian think tank, Cato obviously has a strong interest interest in coming up with a high estimate of the number of libertarian voters. However, Boaz and Kirby rely on polling questions from the National Election Study, a widely respected comprehensive survey of American political opinion developed by primarily liberal political scientists. They also note that other research by Gallup and Zogby comes up with higher estimates for the number of libertarian voters (20 to 25 percent). Other recent surveys show that the vast majority of Americans prefer smaller government with fewer services to larger government with more services (58 to 38 percent), and that trust in government is generally low.
Obviously, most libertarian voters in the general population are not as radical in rejecting government intervention as many libertarian intellectuals are. But they do seem to favor substantial reductions in the size and scope of government relative to current levels. We intellectuals should not be too troubled by this. Conservative and liberal voters aren’t as ideologically consistent as their intellectual counterparts either.
Kirby and Boaz point out that libertarian voters generally lack a strong sense of identification with either party, and therefore are often a swing vote in elections. Obviously, very few of these voters identify with the tiny Libertarian Party either. It is true, of course, that most of these voters may not think of themselves as “libertarian” and many of them probably don’t even know the word. They are like the proverbial man who has been speaking prose all his life without knowing it. Several decades of studies going back to Converse’s classic work also show that most voters don’t have a good understanding of the meaning of “liberal” and “conservative” either.
Kirby and Boaz’s previous work on this subject suggests that libertarian voters tend to have higher education and income levels than the general population. This is consistent with other studies showing that increasing political knowledge tends to push opinion in a more libertarian direction, controlling for other variables. A key task for libertarian activists and intellectuals is to do a better job of mobilizing this libertarian constituency. In general, educated and affluent voters are easier to mobilize than those who are not.
In addition, we should work harder to get voters to connect their general distrust of government with specific issues. Here, the research on political knowledge is significant, since it shows that increasing knowledge translates to more libertarian positions on specific issues, as well as on general attitudes towards government. This is not to say that knowing more about politics necessarily turns you into a consistent libertarian; in most cases, it doesn’t. But, on average, it does tend to make people more libertarian than they would be otherwise.
Finally, I should reiterate my earlier view that the Libertarian Party is not a good vehicle for mobilizing the libertarian vote (see here and here), as proven by its dismal failures over more than 35 years. Rather, libertarians should work to increase their influence over the two major parties by mobilizing their constituency more effectively. With its substantial libertarian component, the Tea Party movement is an interesting start. But much more remains to be done.
CONFLICT OF INTEREST WATCH: I should perhaps note that I am a Cato Institute adjunct scholar, which is an unpaid position.
Mark N. says:
An interesting question is then why, besides the Libertarian Party’s ineptitude, libertarianism hasn’t been somewhat more successful in either party. One answer might be that 14% just isn’t enough to not be swamped by other groups. Another might be that it isn’t seen as enough of a swing vote to be worth campaigning for; my guess is that many libertarians are either “left” or “right” libertarians who mainly vote for one of the two major parties and don’t frequently change which of them they vote for (the “guns/taxes” v. “pot/speech” contingents). A third might be that people are really not as libertarian as they say: while 58% to 38% favor smaller government more broadly (when explicitly stacked up against bigger government), most specific proposals to cut the size of government fare much less well in polling. The latter is exacerbated by the fact that some prominent libertarian intellectuals seem to focus on particularly unpopular proposals, such as eliminating public schooling.
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January 21, 2010, 4:01 pmJ. Aldridge says:
How does a Libertarian differ from a Liberal?
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January 21, 2010, 4:07 pmIlya Somin says:
An interesting question is then why, besides the Libertarian Party’s ineptitude, libertarianism hasn’t been somewhat more successful in either party.
Some libertarian policy ideas have actually had political success (tax cuts, free trade, ending the draft). Others have been popular, but blocked by interest group power (e.g. — school choice). Still others have been outweighed by the greater influence of other ideological groups. After all, 15% is far from a majority.
One answer might be that 14% just isn’t enough to not be swamped by other groups. Another might be that it isn’t seen as enough of a swing vote to be worth campaigning for; my guess is that many libertarians are either “left” or “right” libertarians who mainly vote for one of the two major parties and don’t frequently change which of them they vote for (the “guns/taxes” v. “pot/speech” contingents).
This may be true of libertarian intellectuals. But Boaz and Kirby show that rank and file libertarian voters do in fact “swing” fairly often
A third might be that people are really not as libertarian as they say: while 58% to 38% favor smaller government more broadly (when explicitly stacked up against bigger government), most specific proposals to cut the size of government fare much less well in polling.
That’s often true, but depends on the proposal.
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January 21, 2010, 4:12 pmFloridan says:
“But they do seem to favor substantial reductions in the size and scope of government relative to current levels.”
All well and good, but once they are forced to get more specific about those reductions, it’s
usuallyinvariably “cut his program and not mine.”How about, as a start, governments reducing or eliminating funding for state universities.
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January 21, 2010, 4:12 pmIlya Somin says:
How does a Libertarian differ from a Liberal?
As those terms are used today, libertarians oppose government intervention both the economic and social fields, while liberals generally want broad government regulation and control of the economy.
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January 21, 2010, 4:13 pmIlya Somin says:
How about, as a start, governments reducing or eliminating funding for state universities.
Most state universities already get most of their funds from tuition (about 80% in the case of GMU laws school). I have no problem with making that 100%. Of course, state university funding is only a tiny portion of today’s overgrown government.
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January 21, 2010, 4:14 pmIlya Somin says:
it’s usually invariably “cut his program and not mine.”
I think many of these people would be happy to cut “my program” if it also meant cutting everyone else’s as well, thereby lowering their taxes and increasing economic growth. The difficulty is overcoming collective action problems and ignorance to make that happen, which I admit is a tall order.
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January 21, 2010, 4:16 pmAnthony says:
I think that it’s a mistake to equate ‘government should do less’ with being a libertarian; I’d bet on general disgruntlement and anti-government feeling, not any identifiable theory. In particular, it’s likely that many of the people who are opposed to big government are equally opposed to corporate interests. If you wanted a meaningful study for the actual proto-libertarian vote, you’d have to ask about multiple different things and count the number of people who agreed with all or most of them.
Also, asking people about reducing government, without specifying how government is to be reduced (‘Eliminating Waste’ does not count as specifying anything; instead, name the programs you’re going to cut), will always get much better responses than any more specific theory.
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January 21, 2010, 4:42 pmAnthony says:
Tax cuts are not a libertarian policy; spending cuts are libertarian policy (at which point, of course, you can reduce taxes). It’s a delusion to think that the first results in the second. Free trade may be a libertarian policy, but it’s a lot of other people’s policy as well. Ditto for ending the draft.
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January 21, 2010, 4:45 pmStuart_the_Viking says:
I am one of those people who holds libertarian values, but does not identify with or belong to the Libertarian party (LP). There are a couple of reasons for this.
1. I tend to be a loner, I don’t usually join ANYTHING. This is probably one of the main reasons.
2. I did try to do the whole Libertarian party thing because a friend of mine was a member (some sort of local LP officer) so he took me with. What a bunch of loony birds. While I agreed with them politically, personally I had little to nothing in common with them (see #1, but even more than usual).
3. The last meeting that I went to, a Ron Paul guy (it was back when Ron Paul was big) came in. He was condecending and insulting in ways that only the Ron Paul people could manage and basicly took over the whole meeting. The LP people just rolled over for him and let him talk FOR LIKE AN HOUR! Then thanked him for coming in as if he was an invited speaker (he wasn’t). No spine whatsoever. It really turned me off to the whole LP thing and I never went back.
I’m sure my experiences aren’t the same as everyone else. YMMV and all that. If you are a libertarian type and want to give the LP a try I encourage you to go ahead and do so, it just wasn’t for me.
s
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January 21, 2010, 4:56 pmyankee says:
Car drivers would be happy to see less money spent on fixing potholes if it also meant less money spent on public transit? Seniors would be happy to see their Social Security and Medicare cut if the government also cut funding for state universities and subsidized education loans? Conservatives would happily slash the military budget if liberals would agree to cut Medicaid and TANF? And so forth and so on.
In other words, your claim strikes me as ludicrously implausible, even if limited to people who express an abstract desire for less government. Do you have any evidence?
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January 21, 2010, 4:57 pmLindsey Abelard says:
It depends on what you mean by libertarian. There are Ayn Rand spouting fanatics. Then there are what I call the soft-libertarian people, like myself. Soft-libertarian would be someone who wants lower taxes and less government regulation, and would like the government to stay out of their bedroom (e.g. sex life). For us, the “ideal” libertarian society is something comparable to Hong Kong (without the government ownership of housing) or Singapore (without the social engineering BS).
I think the “tea party” people are mostly soft libertarians.
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January 21, 2010, 4:57 pmTheNino85 says:
So the growth in government programs can be seen a real-world example of the prisoner’s dilemma? Might not agree, but I find it interesting.
Anyway, what I think is the critical thing here is that one cannot make an equivalence between libertarian voters and libertarian intellectuals the same way one can make an equivalence between the conservative (and liberal) factions accordingly. There’s a reason why Rothbard started distancing himself from the libertarian movement later in life, going so far as to even support Buchanan. There’s this common consensus that I run into everywhere I go that libertarians are “socially liberal but economically conservative”. Which is a meaningless statement; one can believe that the government should allow gay marriage (or better yet, that government shouldn’t be regulating or sanctioning private relationships at all) even though they view it as immoral. Or that the government doesn’t have the right to legislate recreational drugs, but that said drugs are still immoral. Sadly, the libertarian intellectuals seemed to have embraced conventional wisdom. The libertarian intellectuals as they stand now seem to be largely Randian in nature, and there is an incredibly fierce anti-religion streak that goes well beyond the necessary “no unofficial offical state religion” aspect of libertarianism. Then there’s the downright worship of drug culture that goes on in many libertarian blogs. Both conservatives and liberals have religious and non-religious among their intellectual elites; can anyone even name a religious libertarian intellectual that isn’t dead or a member of the Republican party? In a country that’s only 14% atheist/agnostic/don’t care, you’re not going to attract a political following if you insist on telling them that their metaphysical beliefs are stupid and childish, and then talking about how many times you’ve done acid.
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January 21, 2010, 5:06 pmyankee says:
I’d also bet on political ignorance. No links handy, but people have a very poor idea of what the federal budget looks like. They wildly overestimate the amount spent on relatively unpopular programs like “welfare” and foreign aid. Conversely, they underestimate the amount spent on Social Security and Medicare, which are both extremely popular.
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January 21, 2010, 5:08 pmReader says:
How would you compare the large body of small-l libertarians in the country with the group that used to be called “Rockefeller Republicans” — i.e., the old-school northern Republican tradition, both urban and rural, going back to Lincoln?
The Rockefeller Republicans were generally fiscally conservative and socially liberal, but their identity was intentionally over-written by the “Southern Strategy,” leading most people today, several decades later, to think that “Republican” is a virtual synonym for “religious Right,” when this was historically not the case at all.
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January 21, 2010, 5:43 pmsardonic_sob says:
I do not self-identify as a Libertarian, even though in most respects I agree with libertarian philosophy and political theory. This is because while small-l libertarians tend to be about as tolerable as most other people (for me: not much) big-L Libertarians almost always end up coming across as self-righteous tax-dodging whackjobs. I also find them irritating when they turn out to be libertarian “except for...” something. And it’s always something. It’s not so much that they believe in freedom in general as that they don’t care what people do except when they do. The single largest “except for” seems to be abortion, but it varies.
That is, in any event, my experience.
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January 21, 2010, 6:24 pmOren says:
From my experiences, they know the word and associate with fringe positions asserting that the Federal Reserve and income tax are unconstitutional, the wisdom of the gold standard, State nullification and the like. [ Note, I’m not taking a position on the merits of these views, just noting that these are very small minority in the USA. ]
For whatever reason (and unlike liberal/conservative/federalist/...), the word has come to signify only the most extreme versions and not the “center of mass” of libertarian thought.
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January 21, 2010, 6:25 pmTim says:
Perhaps what you really mean is the way those words are used on this side of the pond. Liberal parties in English speaking countries across Europe are much like any libertarian I’ve met in the United States. My friends from Norway, Denmark, and Germany confirm this.
Good job Kirby and Boaz. I actually had the joy of meeting David Kirby in 2007. He’s a very nice guy.
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January 21, 2010, 6:39 pmGraham Shevlin says:
The word “liberal” has been co-opted as a perjorative slogan in modern America, one step down from “socialist” (which in turn is the 21st Century equivalent of “communist!” from the McCarthy era).
As Tim notes, most Northern Europeans would not recognize the caricature definition of “liberal” that many people in the USA have, assuming that you can get them to define “liberal” in the first place. One of my great joys is asking people to define “liberal” for me, and listening to a whole slew of incoherent responses that are all over the map.
But i digress slightly. About libertarianism...
I met a self-identified libertarian at a party in the Carolinas 3 years ago and he laid this joke on me:
Q. How do you know when you’re in a room full of libertarians?
A. You ask 10 of them for an opinion on an issue and you get 13 different answers
We both laughed, but the joke contains an element of truth. There is a very broad spectrum of philosophy under the banner of “libertarian”, ranging from proto-anarchists who believe that there should be next to no government, through to people who are in favour of large government as long as it is their kind of large government.
IMHO, the libertarian movement is an immature non-mass movement in that it has a very broad divergence of opinions contained within it, that have to be presentationally narrowed in order to convince any significant number of people to vote for them. This is the reverse of a mature mass movement, where there is a relatively homogeneous philosophy that often differs little from rival mass parties. In that latter case the party plays up or exaggerates differences in order to differentiate itself from rival parties.
I self-identify as libertarian with a small l at this time, because my experience of reading and listening to many self-identified Libertarians (with a large L) is that they are often authoritarians masquerading as libertarians. Sort of like the authoritarian approach to free speech where people are in favour of it until somebody says something that offends them. I also tend to adhere to the Groucho Marx idea that I wouldn’t join any party that would have me as a member. Watching the dysfunctional clusterfuck that is the current US two-party duopoly, I certainly would not join a major political party. Unfortunately the Libertarian Party has not impressed me, since it seems to end up picking candidates who are in many cases, closet authoritarians, or at best downright inconsistent in their political philosophies.
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January 21, 2010, 7:18 pmCrunchy Frog says:
If you accept that a growing fetus has just as much right to live as anyone else does, then there is nothing un-libertarian about being against abortion.
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January 21, 2010, 7:58 pmCrunchy Frog says:
Addendum to above: as a small-l libertarian, big-R Republican, it alsways amuses me when someone not of the same mindset tells me that all libertarians think X, do Y and don’t believe in Z, as if we all came off the Randian assembly line.
Usually, the person making the charge tends to agree with me on basic issues more often than not, but it takes a good deal of conversation (and several beers) to reach that conclusion.
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January 21, 2010, 8:08 pmGraham Shevlin says:
There is nothing intrinsically non-libertarian about being against abortion. I’m not in favour of abortion on a personal level. Where it starts to get decidedly non-libertarian is working on the principle that just because you dislike something or it offends your sensibilities, it should be restricted or outlawed. That’s tripping off down the slippery slope towards authoritarianism.
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January 21, 2010, 8:19 pmNorthern Dave says:
TheNino85 says:
“There’s this common consensus that I run into everywhere I go that libertarians are “socially liberal but economically conservative”. Which is a meaningless statement; one can believe that the government should allow gay marriage (or better yet, that government shouldn’t be regulating or sanctioning private relationships at all) even though they view it as immoral.”
I find this statement illogical.....if a behaviour is immoral it is intrinsically antisocial and government’s raison d’etre is the suppression of destructive antisocial behaviour (whether theft, murder, invasion, etc., etc.).
The phrase “socially liberal but economically conservative” is very, very exact and the connotation is clearly understood as reject the 10 commandments and bring back slavery and the boyar system. (Which Ayn Rand would have approved of and God frowns on :-) ).
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January 21, 2010, 8:25 pmAllan Walstad says:
An oversimplification, perhaps, but “libertarian” is basically the substitute for “liberal” since “liberal” was hijacked by watered-down socialists. Hayek kept calling himself a liberal. Most others got tired of the confusion and adopted “libertarian.”
On the peculiarity of capital-L Libertarians: Look, it’s generally not Joe Milquetoast who is going to espouse consistently non-mainstream positions, conventionally outrageous positions, straight-up. I don’t think that applies just to libertarianism. When something becomes mainstream, it becomes safe for all the “regular folks,” for whom fitting is more important than thinking rigorously and standing up for their beliefs, to join in.
Oren:
Constitutionality is not strictly a libertarian question. The wisdom of the gold standard is partly one, since libertarians oppose big government and a gold standard makes it more difficult for pols to finance their collectivist schemes by debasing the currency. “Fringe” can become mainstream remarkably quickly.
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January 21, 2010, 8:44 pmAllan Walstad says:
You’re entitled to your opinions regarding “government’s raison d’etre” and what constitutes “destructive antisocial behaviour,” but for libertarians government’s main responsibility (if any) is defense of liberty. And you can believe in the Bible without presuming it’s the government’s job to punish all sinners.
Pure bullshit.
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January 21, 2010, 8:51 pmNorthern Dave says:
Most libertarians would define collective defense of property rights (ie. the police and courts) as acceptable government because to them the theft of their property is an immoral act at a level requiring action. The police and courts prevent the anarchy of uncontrolled individual responses (I’ll admit I met one fellow who thought himself a libertarian and wanted true anarchy but that isn’t the standard — certainly on this site).
On the second point, I have never met a “socially liberal but economically conservative” person who isn’t a proto-slaver. The reason is simple. With no moral compass the economic ethics become whatever works to make the most money for me. Slavery is a very effective (short-term — like taking too much out of your corporation per annum) method of maximizing personal profit.
I would not be suprised to see slavery reprised in my lifetime with the current trends.
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January 21, 2010, 9:34 pmRicardo says:
Anthony who commented above is right on this one: tax cuts are not a libertarian policy. They are actually a policy from the supply-sider wing of the conservative movement. Libertarians like Milton Friedman understood the importance of cutting spending first and then taxes. Nobody today seems to want spending cuts these days which is a big chunk of the reason why we are in such a fiscal hole right now.
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January 21, 2010, 10:19 pmRicardo says:
Therein lies the flaw. “Socially liberal” is not the same as lacking a moral compass. Unless you want to define it that way. Thomas Paine and John Stuart Mill were both social liberals who voiced their opposition to slavery before it was necessarily politically correct to do so.
I’ve never met a True Scotsman either...
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January 21, 2010, 10:23 pmCB says:
It figures that free trade was a libertarian policy idea, and no doubt deregulation too. What is considered successful by the elite few who benefit, has been disastrous for the rest of the U.S. But I’m sure the libertarian elite will have their bags packed and ready to move on when they’ve screwed up our country enough to make it unlivable.
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January 21, 2010, 10:39 pmBenP says:
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January 21, 2010, 10:44 pmJohn Thacker says:
The bigger problem is that they show that rank and file libertarian voters “swing” in the opposite direction of the electorate as a whole, at least from 2000 to 2008. In 2002 and 2004, they moved away from Republicans; in 2006 and 2008, they moved back.
Obviously it can be more complicated than that, but in a worst case scenario, if adding a libertarian vote means losing more than one “anti-libertarian” vote, that’s bad news.
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January 21, 2010, 10:45 pmBenP says:
I think that’s the real success of Libertarian Intellectuals. Like some other groups that themselves don’t have the ability to take power, their ideas can get into the mainstream parties enough that they can be adopted.
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January 21, 2010, 10:48 pmAllan Walstad says:
Not to pile on, ND, but it does not appear to me that you are much of an authority on how libertarians define terms, or why. Why not just offer your own views straight-up, rather than play the straw man game?
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January 21, 2010, 11:40 pmDavid Gillies says:
“Proverbial” man who spoke in prose? That wasn’t a “proverb”. It was M. Jourdain in Molière’s Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme. Good grief.
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January 21, 2010, 11:51 pmTweets that mention The Volokh Conspiracy » Blog Archive » The Libertarian Vote -- Topsy.com says:
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Rubin Sfadj, Eugene Volokh. Eugene Volokh said: The Libertarian Vote: David Kirby and David Boaz have published a new Cato Institute study estimating the size of ... http://bit.ly/6wzTPW [...]
Ilya Somin says:
tax cuts are not a libertarian policy. They are actually a policy from the supply-sider wing of the conservative movement. Libertarians like Milton Friedman understood the importance of cutting spending first and then taxes. Nobody today seems to want spending cuts these days which is a big chunk of the reason why we are in such a fiscal hole right now.
Actually, Friedman endorsed the Reagan tax cuts despite the fact that they didn’t cut spending first. He argued that tax cuts would reduce spending over the long run by “starving the beast.” So too did other libertarian economists such as Gary Becker. I think this proved to be overoptimistic. But tax cuts without prior spending cuts was not just a policy advocated by conservative supply-siders.
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January 22, 2010, 7:17 amStuart_the_Viking says:
“if a behaviour is immoral it is intrinsically antisocial and government’s raison d’etre is the suppression of destructive antisocial behaviour (whether theft, murder, invasion, etc., etc.). ”
Northern Dave:
I mean no offence, but I have to say that you are wrong in this. Government’s “raison d’etre” as you say, is NOT to regulate morality. Your examples of theft, murder, invasion, etc are not examples of morality, they are examples of people violating the rights of others. THAT is the reason to have government, to pass laws that protect people’s rights (or punish the violaters of those rights). While yes, in most cultures theft is considered immoral, that immorality isn’t the reason it is illegal. It is illegal because theft violates the victum’s right to ownership. Murder likewise violates another persons right to life.
The bigest problem with the government regulating morality is that people have differing opinions as to what is and isn’t moral.
Here is an example:
My Grandfather would say that it is immoral for a man to um... “love” another man and therefore he believes that the government should step in and keep gay marraige illegal. My belief is that what ever two (or more) concenting adults want to do in the privacy of their own home, as long as it isn’t violating anyone elses rights, is none of the government’s business. If two men, or two women, (or even a group of 3 or more people really) want to officially commit to eachother (“marry”) then their is no reason for the government to step in and deny them because it is not violating the rights of others. If someone could show me a VALID reason why that violates someone’s rights, and no “waaa... I don’t want to explain that to my kids” isn’t a valid reason, I would be willing to re-think my opinion. Note: that hasn’t happened in the many years that I have made that challenge.
Please know that I didn’t pick gay marraige as my example because I thought that anyone in particular would or wouldn’t be offended by it. I picked it because it is a good example of government regulating morality, which it shouldn’t do, but has historically done anyway. This is one of the pitfalls of a Democracy. When the majority pushes their belief system onto the minority. It is the reason for the seperation of church and state and the reason that governments should not be involved in regulating morality.
Ok, sorry, I’ll put away my soap box now.
s
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January 22, 2010, 8:34 amStuart_the_Viking says:
Oh, and I have NEVER met a libertarian nor a Libertarian who thinks that slavery should be brought back. Not even the weirdo ones. To even suggest that is an outragous insult.
Slavery violates the rights of the enslaved. Therefore, the morality or immorality of slavery is a moot point. It should be illegal because it violates those rights.
s
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January 22, 2010, 8:51 amMidcolumbian says:
I would like to return to a point made earlier by Floridian, and it is a question for libertarian purists to ponder: Would the country be better off if the Morrill Act, which established land-grant universities and much of the state university system, had never been passed?
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January 22, 2010, 9:17 amsardonic_sob says:
I thought it would not take that long for an example to present itself. Goes to show you what I know.
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January 22, 2010, 9:58 amsardonic_sob says:
Isn’t it nice to know that the world still holds surprises?
I believe that consensual contractual slavery should be perfectly legal and enforceable, at the very least to the level of the Code Noir. Although if you insist that it’s not true slavery unless it’s hereditable and can be imposed nonconsensually, then you got me there.
Glad I could add to your life list!
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January 22, 2010, 10:06 amHan Solo says:
In my dreamworld, Just for once I want a president that will tell congress that he will not sign any bills that:
a) Are longer than 100 pages. More than that, your doing to much and hiding things. This would eliminate earmarks and crazy mandates to the states because they would have to be rill bills that would be evaluated on their own merits.
b) The first paragraph does not outline in detail what part of the constitution congress is enacting this legislation. Congress has no clue anymore what they should and should not be doing. Maybe this would at least get them to think for a brief second about it. And would also allow the public to see just how much the views of congress opinion on where they get their powers is much different than most of the people.
If it totally shuts down the federal government for 4 years, so be it. We will live.
The federal legislature needs to either be reigned in or ELIMINATED via revolution.
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January 22, 2010, 10:54 amHan Solo says:
>Oh, and I have NEVER met a libertarian nor a Libertarian
>who thinks that slavery should be brought back.
The essence of Libertarianism(essentially called minarchism which most Libertarians are) is the belief that the only proper role of government is to protect the individual, their rights and their property. This is pretty much the way the US government system was intended to function, not as the totalitarian nanny state we have today.
Slavery does not have a place anywhere in this.
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January 22, 2010, 11:02 amStuart_the_Viking says:
I have to admit a little ignorance as to what exactly Code Noir entailed, so I did a little looking and from what I found, your argument is inconsistent. Nothing that I found on Code Noir said anything about slavery being “consentual” or “contractual”. Code Noir also states that the children of a slave couple are slaves (article 12) and the children of a free man and a female slave are also slaves (article 13) therefore the hereditable part of your comment doesn’t follow.
Other articles in Code Noir:
Article 2 states that slaves must be baptized in the Roman Catholic Church and article 4 states that slave owners must be Roman Catholic.
Are you a Roman Catholic then?
Quite frankly, I THINK what you were trying to say that you supported was the consept of consentual, contractual “Sexual Slavery” as practiced by the dom/sub crowd, but I’m not sure and I don’t want to put words into your mouth. If that is the case, No, if it is consentual, it doesn’t really count as slavery (and has absolutely nothing to do with Code Noir), and I support your right to whatever deviant behavior you may or may not choose to partake in as long as it doesn’t violate the rights of others.
If I am wrong and you really think that you (or others like you) should really be allowed to go out and “capture you some negros”, then... well... expect me to shoot you if you try it in my neck of the woods. No offence intended, I’m sure your mother loves you and stuff, but it is far beyond time to put that crap in the past. Oh, and kidnapping is a forcable felony here abouts, so it would be legal to do so. I’m not really into illegally shooting people, that would be like murder or something.
Be sure to let me know which it is since now I am curious.
s
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January 22, 2010, 11:06 amStuart_the_Viking says:
Han Solo:
I have often wished for something simular. My idea was a president who refused to sign a bill if it contained more than one particular idea. Like a finance bill that had some non-finance related rider on it.
One bill, One law!
s
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January 22, 2010, 11:18 amsardonic_sob says:
While I do support the right of people to practice consensual deviant behavior, that’s not what I meant: I meant literally I think people should be able to sell themselves into slavery.
My reference to the Code Noir had more to do with its “floors” for the protection of rights which slaves could not lose or alienate (for instance, husbands and wives could not be sold apart, minor children could not be separated from their parents, slaves were not to be tortured, were to be given a certain minimum level of food and shelter, etc, etc.) You are absolutely right that I could have been clearer and lots of the stuff in the Code Noir is not consistent with my stated position, including and especially its implied approval of the nonconsensual imposition of slavery, either by capture or birth.
If I were suddenly given a Mandate to create a legal code for the governance of consensual slavery, I might very well decide that such “floors” are a reasonable restraint on alienation of self, in much the same way that while philosophically I believe in almost absolute freedom of contract, if I were a legal authority I would hold that as a matter of public policy, a contract between two individuals arranging for the murder of a third was not enforceable. I am a reasonably libertarian person, not an anarchist.
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January 22, 2010, 11:37 amStuart_the_Viking says:
Hmmm... interesting. That is certianly a lot to think about. My initial reaction is yea, if someone WANTS to sell thenselves they should be free to; but I don’t think it’s as simple as all that. First of all, there is the catch 22 of it, a good argument could be made that someone who is willing to sell themselves as a slave isn’t sane and therefore could not enter into a legal contract. I’m sure there are other reasons that it isn’t workable.
It’s at least an interesting thought puzzle.
s
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January 22, 2010, 12:09 pmBen P says:
The fundamental question with this is the general bar on specific performance for personal in contract law.
Assuming we were to even allow such indenture contracts, the question arises when someone breaches. If the indentured doesn’t wish to serve anymore, what’s the other party’s remedy? Present contract law would say, rightfully I think, you don’t get specific performance in personal service contracts. The other party’s just entitled to money damages.
I’d be hard pressed to find any moral justification for allowing a court of law (and the government by implication) to support someone being held to a labor contract against their will.
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January 22, 2010, 2:48 pmHan Solo says:
>That is certianly a lot to think about. My initial reaction is yea, if someone WANTS to sell
>themselves they should be free to; but I don’t think it’s as simple as all that.
Isn’t that pretty much the concept of ‘indentured servants’?
That was a pretty popular concept in the last few centuries with people exchanging something like passage to the new world, and food, shelter once they got there for a few years with being a servent to the person who paid their way.
This was quite popular in early America both in New England, and in the South among the immigrants from the poorer nations/classes of Europe that wished to come to America and were willing to commit to servitude for an amount of time in exchange for that change at a better life in the new country of opportunity.
It was also a common agreement for learning a trade. A person would agree to be a indentured servant in exchange for being taught by a blacksmith etc.
It was perfectly legal under English Law.
Personally I don’t like the idea because its just too easy for someone to be abused when they give up their rights like that.
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January 22, 2010, 2:49 pmCrunchy Frog says:
Huh? Did I run over your dog or something?
Does it make me to the right of the Republican party that I:
Think prostitution should be legal?
Think marijuana should be decriminalized (and even signed a petition to that effect)?
Am in favor of domestic partnerships?
Believe in reciprocal trade agreements?
Really Ben... if you need to hold up someone here as a strawman, there are better choices than me — but I suppose that would require intellectual honesty.
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January 22, 2010, 3:52 pmCrunchy Frog says:
I believe the correct term is “apprenticeship”.
An apprentice agrees to work for a skilled tradesman for a specific period of time, after which the tradesman certifies the apprentice as fully trained in the trade, who then becomes a “journeyman”. He is free to leave service at any time, but gives up the right to certification.
All in all, kinda like a 3rd year medical student.
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January 22, 2010, 3:58 pmBen P says:
I’ll take back using you as an example, but I think “in most respects republican” is a perfectly reasonable conclusion to draw from you describing yourself as “small l libertarian big R Republican.”
and I think that given the general tone about Obama in the comments here that the overall statement isn’t far off. For people who would describe themselves as not Republicans, there’s an awful lot of republican partisanship.
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January 22, 2010, 4:12 pmsardonic_sob says:
For the same reason we ever enforce specific performance: some things are not fungible. Anybody can cook, anybody can sing. Only Emeril can cook like Emeril; only Plácido Domingo can sing like Plácido Domingo. If I want to buy the exclusive right to have Emeril be my cook or Plácido Domingo my background singer as I move about through life, and I can find a price where they are willing to agree to that, forever, then what business is it of yours? It is not up to me to prove my actions are moral: it is up to you to show that they are so immoral that I shouldn’t be allowed to perform them.
Now, granted, you may believe that consensual chattel slavery, or even strictly enforced specific performance, is inherently immoral. But I don’t agree. Convince me.
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January 22, 2010, 8:16 pmsardonic_sob says:
Although the institution varied widely, in England and America some indentured servants became indentured servants to learn a trade, but most indentured themselves simply to either get money for their families or earn passage and get a general start in the colonies. In fact, many of them already had working experience or even knew a skilled or semiskilled trade. Usually an indentured servant got some money upon completing their indenture, and they could sometimes buy themselves free if they worked hard.
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January 22, 2010, 8:31 pmThe Libertarian Vote » FREE WHITEWATER says:
[...] and law professor Ilya Somin has a post up called ‘The Libertarian Vote,’ in which he describes recent findings on the number of libertarians in America: David Kirby [...]
SteveB says:
I asked a question on my blog: what kind of Republican would lead us into the future. The David Frums of the world are looking for moderates a la Susan Collins, the so-cons want another Christian Democrat-lite such as Mike Huckabee, and of course the Wall Streeters are most interested in a Romney-type. But what is happening in the Northeast, both in New Jersey and Massachusetts seems to be the birth of the “live-free-or-die Republican”. These individuals are fiscally conservative but socially libertarian. They would seem a solid choice for many Libertarians.
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January 23, 2010, 12:41 pmBenP says:
And what’s your remedy if they want out of the contract?
Not only are those type of holdings very few and far between, Specific performance is only even plausible as a remedy where the contempt power of the court or the power to award punitive damages gives the court leverage to require specific performance.
If someone is judgment proof already, using the court’s contempt power to order specific performance is somewhere between merely unworkable and utterly absurd. It’s the functional equivalent of a debtors prison. If forces the state to expend resources punishing people for the failure to live up to private agreements.
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January 23, 2010, 1:15 pmAaron says:
Ily, where are the limits of libertarian thought on ‘freedom-maximization’ in all spheres of life? I’m a conservative — solidly with libertarians on limits on the size of our federal government to areas within its constitutional authority, supply sider, reduce spending, school choice, etc. etc. etc. So, I guess the question is, are there any areas where you would be willing to limit ‘freedom’?
How would you answer a question for example, raised on the Corner, about allowing pornography on Saturday morning television? It seems like once you start going down the road of what freedoms you are OK with and which you aren’t, you will eventually run into some freedoms you wish to restrict.
Thanks in advance for any responses. I’m trying to reconcile my own positions and beliefs and any input is appreciated.
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January 24, 2010, 1:23 pmsardonic_sob says:
My first go at an answer to your first question is either, “There isn’t one,” or some kind of uber-bankruptcy where fine, you can leave, but every penny you make from now until forever goes to paying back your debt, plus interest. I go back and forth. As to how that first option works, it’s simple — the slave is property. Removing property from its owner’s control is theft. They get treated like any other form of stolen property. (Although of course if they just can’t keep their property under control we might have to start fining them for the equivalent of misuse of 911 or excessive alarm calls or whatever.) Runaway slaves were a problem back in the day but not to the extent that slavery was economically unworkable. With modern technology I’m pretty sure I can build a system where fugitive slaves are at least as easy to recover as a stolen car if not far more so. It also depends on the average economic value of the slave, in exactly the same way that the resources devoted to protecting cars from theft and/or recovery of stolen ones depends on their economic value.
If you are trying to convince me that the idea is logistically unworkable, you’re going to have to try harder than that but you might get somewhere. However, “can’t make the logistics work” is in no sense relevant to the question of inherent immorality.
And your last sentence is inconsistent with your prior sentences. Using state resources to punish people for the failure to live up to private agreements happens all the time. That’s what court fees are for. Escaped slaves (or runaway indentures) didn’t go to debtor’s prison. They were returned to their owners.
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January 25, 2010, 9:58 amThe Volokh Conspiracy » Blog Archive » Should Libertarians Learn to “Love Government” says:
[...] we should not underrate the massive distrust of government that exists in society today, and the growing belief that its sc.... Most of the people who feel this way are not consistent libertarians. But they may be willing to [...]
HC says:
Bingo.
The electorate is certainly in favor of spending cuts. But when you look at individiual voters, almost invariably it turns out that s/he has a long list of other people’s spending priorities that s/he wants to see cut, in favor his his/her own necessary and prudent spending.
Further, the polling tends, for various reasons, to underestimate the strength of social and nationalist conservatism in the general electorate. Just because you favor gun rights and are a big believer in low taxes does not necessarily mean you don’t think abortion is evil and murderous, the two beliefs often exist together in the same person. You can believe that government regulation is overdone and still also believe that gay marriage is a contradiction in terms, and this too is by no means uncommon. Just because one believes in domestic free markets doesn’t automatically mean one also believes in free trade internationally. And so on.
In the American electorate as currently constituted, liberatarianism is a fringe force, like it or not. Which makes the tendency of some on the Right to want to push an ever-harder libertarian agenda not just self-defeating, but near-suicidal.
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February 22, 2010, 12:04 pmHC says:
By that same logic, one could say, “I’m not in favor of shooting other people on a personal level. Where it starts to get decidedly non-libertarian is working on the principle that just because you dislike something or it offends your sensibilities, it should be restricted or outlawed.”
If take as a ‘given’ that an unborn child (as opposed to a pre-human fetus) is a separate human being, than the same logic that permits the destruction of such would necessarily permit any form of murder. Once can only consistantly argue that abortion is purely a private matter by also taking the premise that either:
1. ‘All interpersonal violence is a private matter’
or
2. ‘The unborn entity is not yet a full human being.’
Either must be taken on faith, they can not be proven or disproven.
A successful libertarian movement will of necessity be fored to come to terms with the role of principles taken on faith in all argument, politics, and social interaction.
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February 22, 2010, 12:18 pmHC says:
Contradiction in terms. The government cannot avoid being involved in the regulation of morality. You yourself argue in favor of it doing so when you call for the protection of ‘individual rights’.
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February 22, 2010, 12:53 pmHC says:
Sorry about the messy formatting on my previous post, it won’t let me edit it to fix it! I think it’s readable, though.
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February 22, 2010, 1:09 pmStuart_the_Viking says:
HC,
While I agree that the individual rights of people in a society find their birthplace in the pervading morals of that society, some of these morals are given more significance. These become the RIGHTS of the people. They are rights because they comprise the foundation that the society is built upon. For America (US), “Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” in the Declaration, the “Bill of Rights” in the Constitution. These are more than merely “moral assumptions”. This is what our government was designed to protect. The government was not designed to tell the people how to live their lives or to make moral decisions for the people, and should not. That is what I mean by regulating morals.
No, this is not what I was saying nor implying. For you to infer this you would have to be being willfully obtuse. Murder and theft are illegal because people have the RIGHTS to life and property, not merely because of the moral view that it is wrong. You are the one who seems to be insisting that rights do not exist and are merely moral assumptions. It is because morals differ from person to person that society has to pick out certain ideals and elevate them to the level of rights. If you were to insert something that isn’t a “right”, like marrying another man (or woman if you are female), there are a number of people who would find that to be immoral and would argue that it should be illegal for you to be allowed to do so. I am saying that they would be wrong. I am saying that the government should not regulate morality, and since the rights of the people who would deny your (purely hypothetical) wish to marry someone of the same sex are not being violated by you doing so, then the government should stay out of it.
The next argument would naturally be “Who decides what is a right and what isn’t?” The answer is basically “Society does (or more precisely has)”. I know that causes a bit of a logic loop. I think the best description I have found for it is here:
http://smallestminority.blogspot.com/2003/05/before-i-go-to-bed-who-am-i-fooling.html
That guy is a freakin genius.
s
ps: I am not a genius.
pps: Our President has gone as far as trying to declare “health insurance” as a human right. This is wrong-headed on so many levels. Rights aren’t just created by Presidential fiat, but that is a discussion for another day.
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February 22, 2010, 3:49 pm