Reason has an interesting debate on the question of libertarian political strategy. Should libertarians seek to forge an alliance with conservatives or liberals or neither? Conservative columnist Jonah Goldberg and Tea Party leader Matt Kibbe argue for reconsituting the libertarian-conservative coalition that was badly frayed if not completely severed during the Bush years. Cato Institute scholar Brink Lindsey argues against that view. Although I am much closer to Lindsey’s political views than Goldberg’s, I find myself agreeing somewhat more with Goldberg’s position in this particular debate.
I. Brink Lindsey’s Retreat from Liberaltarianism.
Lindsey seems to have stepped back from his much-discussed 2006 argument for a “liberaltarian” coalition between libertarians and liberals.
Today, Lindsey argues that libertarians should instead try to occupy “the center,” because an alliance with the left is no more viable than one with the right:
Does that mean I think that libertarians should ally with the left instead? No, that’s equally unappealing. I do believe that libertarian ideas are better expressed in the language of liberalism rather than that of conservatism. But it’s clear enough that for now and the foreseeable future, the left is no more viable a home for libertarians than is the right.
It would be interesting to know what led to Lindsey’s change of heart about liberaltarianism. I suspect that the vast expansion of government promoted by the Obama administration and the decline of relatively pro-market views among liberal intellectuals were both contributing factors. Lindsey’s new view of liberaltarianism is now remarkably similar to the one I expressed back when he made his original proposal: that liberals and libertarians have much in common in terms of ultimate values, but relatively little common ground in terms of practical policy agendas.
II. What Would Libertarian Centrism Look Like?
I would also be interested to learn more about what Lindsey means when he urges libertarians to seek out the center. Lindsey does advise this:
Declaring independence from the right would require big changes. Cooperation with the right on free-market causes would need to be supplemented by an equivalent level of cooperation with the left on personal freedom, civil liberties, and foreign policy issues. Funding for political candidates should be reserved for politicians whose commitment to individual freedom goes beyond economic issues. In the resources they deploy, the causes they support, the language they use, and the politicians they back, libertarians should be making the point that their differences with the right are every bit as important as their differences with the left.
It’s not clear to me, however, that Lindsey’s program is much different from what many libertarian organizations are already doing. Many of them have long championed such causes as drug legalization (a signature libertarian issue, if there is one), removing restrictions on immigration, and curtailing law enforcement powers, for example. Defense policy is an issue that divides libertarians among themselves, as Lindsey himself has reason to know. Still, more isolationist libertarians have not been shy about expressing their differences with conservatives in this field. Lindsey’s own employer, the Cato Institute, is a good example. Overall, it’s hard to name any prominent libertarian organization or think tank that hasn’t been involved in major causes that put them at odds with conservatives. At the level of the mass public, libertarian-leaning voters have in fact tended to be “swing voters” in recent elections, with a relatively weak sense of partisan loyalty.
To the extent that this hasn’t resulted in “an equivalent level” of cooperation with the left as that with the right on economic policy, it may be because few liberals have been willing to reciprocate. It’s striking that Lindsey’s own highly publicized efforts at forging liberaltarian cooperation met with little or no positive response among liberals. The same goes for similar attempts by other prominent libertarian intellectuals. Another factor is that the the left’s commitment to “noneconomic” freedom has eroded over the last several decades. Many on the left now favor such policies as paternalistic regulation, censorship of “hate speech,” government-mandated “diversity,” and so on. There are still important social issues where libertarians and the left see eye to eye. But there are also many where left-wing liberals favor not laissez-faire but a different kind of government intervention from that supported by the social right.
A successful libertarian centrism – if possible at all – would require a much stronger foundation that Lindsey lays out here. Among other things, it would have to overcome the difficulties associated with operating outside the two major parties in a political system like ours. The longtime failures of the Libertarian Party are relevant here. It would also have to reckon with the reality emphasized by Goldberg: many libertarian positions simply are not centrist in the important sense that they are far from those of the median voter.
Even if a strong centrist libertarian movement were created, that still would not eliminate the need for political coalitions with either the left or the right. So long as libertarians are not a political majority (and they are in fact about 10-15% of the electorate), they cannot succeed without cooperation from other political movements.
III. The Libertarian-Conservative Alternative.
In the short run, I think there is no alternative to some sort of political coalition with conservatives, a position I argued for back in 2008, soon after Obama’s election. As I expected, Obama and the Democrats have heavily emphasized expanded government spending and economic regulation – precisely those issues that divide libertarians from liberals while uniting them with conservatives. Moreover, the conservative backlash against Obama has to a large extent taken a libertarian small-government form rather than the nativist or right-wing populist forms that could easily have happened. It’s noteworthy that the Tea Party movement has overwhelmingly focused on libertarian themes, to the point where some social conservatives have attacked it for failing to emphasize social issues.
Most important, libertarians have a strong interest in restoring divided government, which would make it much harder for the Democrats to enact more massive expansions of government power. Historically, divided government has been a great boon to the small-government cause. For the moment, the only way to restore divided government is to cooperate with conservative Republicans. I hope for a Republican victory in 2010 for much the same reasons as I wanted a Democratic one back in 2006.
I also think that some of Lindsey’s arguments against a libertarian-conservative alliance are overblown. For example, he argues that the conservative movement is no longer a fit ally for libertarians because it has been taken over by “a raving, anti-intellectual populism, as expressed by (among many, many others) Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck.” I’m no fan of either Palin or Beck. Still, just about any major political movement has its share of crude demagogues. As Lindsey admits, libertarians and conservatives were able to productively cooperate on many issues from the 1970s to the 90s. It’s not clear to me that Palin and Beck are any more objectionable than Phyllis Schlafly, Jerry Falwell, and Jesse Helms were. The typical conservative activist of thirty years ago was likely more anti-intellectual, populist, and xenophobic than, say, today’s Tea Party activists, who are on average more educated than the general population and often cite high-brow writers like Hayek.
Finally, it seems to me that the political right is now in flux. Having suffered painful defeats in 2006 and 2008, and witnessed the failure of Bush’s efforts to establish Republican dominance through “compassionate conservatism,” many conservative Republicans may be open to moving in a more small-government oriented direction. The newfound prominence of libertarian-leaning Republicans like Mitch Daniels and Paul Ryan is some evidence of that. Libertarians might help influence the GOP in that direction. By contrast, there seems little chance of our being able to effectively influence the course of liberal Democrats at this particular point in time, when most of them seem more committed than ever to expanding the power of government and less willing than a decade ago to consider reducing it. Political defeat might change that, as it did in the 1980s and 90s. But the defeat will probably have to come first.
That said, I also think that there is a lot to Lindsey’s critique of the right for its major streaks of nationalism, illiberalism, intolerance, and xenophobia. On these points, Lindsey is often more persuasive than Jonah Goldberg’s rebuttal. Hayek’s classic critique of conservatism remains relevant here. For these reasons, I don’t propose any full-blown “fusionism” of the kind once advocated by Frank Meyer. I have too many deep disagreements with conservatives to want that (see, e.g., here, here, and here). Short-term or even medium-term political cooperation is not the same thing as a deep affinity. I also don’t propose that we ignore the many flaws of the right or forget about the wrongs of the Bush era. Political allies don’t have to be soulmates. But we can and should recognize that right now we have an important common interest.
Serious says:
Lindsey’s tapping into the most crucial thing. To feel proud and confident, and to set yourself apart from the vulgar, the mean and the dumb. Libertarians should be more confident.
He’s very clear that there is us and then there’s them. They’re the ugly, subhuman, uncultured mass. They’re the enemies of everything good. We should never forget that everything about us proves that we’re the elect. And everything about them is low, disgusting and base. They shop at the wrong stores. They watch the wrong sports. All their tacky hobbies are crass. They’re the mob. They’re really like a lower form of life.
They speak wrong. They dress wrong. They’re morally wrong. The most crucial thing is to know that what unites us, and makes us strong, is that we are not them.
We have to make a virtue of snobbery, and set ourselves apart, just as every successful religious or philosophical or even scientific movement has ridiculed those outside of it. Like Lindsey, we have to be proud.
July 13, 2010, 5:58 amTomG says:
http://polycentricorder.blogspot.com/
July 13, 2010, 6:02 amCame upon this a few weeks back:
NowMDJD says:
Prof Somin,
Are you equating Sarah Palin with Schlafly, Helms and Falwell? Is she a crude demagogue? What has she said or done to place her in this company?
July 13, 2010, 6:21 amsteve har says:
Regarding: “I’m no fan of either Palin or Beck. Still, just about any major political movement has its share of crude demagogues.”
So your program is:
-tolerate demagogues,
-form alliances of short-term opportunity
-throw the latest batch of big gov’t bums out
and…
-avoid significant budget cuts
-live off of Chinese labor and bubble economies
-keep your existing tax deductions and portfolio positions
-you got yours, the rest of those poor bastards should go see Ayn Rand and get religion.
Easy Street Recluse, eh?
July 13, 2010, 7:12 amwm13 says:
I guess my question would be: the country took Prof. Somin’s advice in 2006. Can someone explain how we are better off? What great benefit was achieved or harm avoided? (Other than, as the first commentator notes, the harm of valorizing culturally inferior beings?) Because it seems to me that the economy is much worse off, our overseas wars continue but are going badly, North Korea and Iran are just as threatening as ever (I thought once Prof. Somin’s friends got rid of John Bolton, peace would break out), government regulation is much more intrusive, speech codes continue to proliferate, and taxes are going up.
Based on experience to date, the best thing is to do the opposite of whatever libertarians recommend.
July 13, 2010, 7:33 amShag from Brookline says:
This post suggests this question: Do libertarians have principles?
July 13, 2010, 7:34 amScott says:
The problem, as I see it, is that by forming a ‘coalition’ with either party the libertarian has to give up a part of his/her soul. It falls back on the idea that when you compromise on your values, you’ve allowed the other side to win because you have shown how little your values mean to you.
I think more than forming any coalition with either party, there needs to be a constant pushing of education and discussion with everyone about what the libertarian ‘really’ believes. For instance, you mention drug use. I don’t believe many libertarians are pro-drug use; but are rather objectivists that understand a person has the right to use their body as they see fit. So yes, keep legalization as a major component of the philosophy, but do a better education as to why.
Teach new, young, active libertarians how to make good arguments to the left and right. Its not imperative that anyone teaches a leftist or rightist libertarian viewpoints; rather, it is imperative that each person who considers themself as libertarian to know how to debunk at least one conservative and one liberal view. From there, if the person is honest with themselves, that conservative/liberal will do the rest.
Use individual rights with liberals. Take on abortion, or drug use, or whatever. Let the person dig their own whole with the arguing (libertarian must take the other side until the liberals proved their point) and then use that logical conclusion that they argued do the work for you. A simple “well, I see your point, and that is a logical conclusion to the idea that a person has an inherent right to free speech (or whatever). Now, lets take that same premise and apply it to gun ownership (self defense, drug use, etc) and see what we find…”. I think you get the point and anyone who is honest with themselves and their reasoning will begin the slow (or rapid) unraveling of each of their currently held positions. However, I do believe some need a bit longer and maybe some more ‘lessons’ before they get the point; since some people have been filled with so much garbage and rhetoric, they’ve lost any sense of where their premises lie.
For conservatives, use fiscal responsibility and maybe some individual rights (gun ownership for one). The process is much the same. The difference, at least from my own perspective, is that conservatives tend to be much more difficult to ‘convert’ and/or ‘think for themselves.’ Not that conservatives are less educated or less capable of understanding logical reasoning; rather, I think it goes to conservatives being a bit more stubborn and in some cases a little more militant in their values. Its definitely still doable, but the libertarian has to be cautious to not trigger the stubborn side too early in the conversation.
This is where, I believe, the libertarian focus needs to be. Right now, there should be massive movement amongst libertarians to pull the fringe and moderate elements of both parties into the libertarian camp. The last thing the libertarian camp should do, at any time, is side and partner up with one of the major parties whole scale (issue points are permissible, so long as the reasoning behind it are fully explained and differentiated from the major parties reasons).
Last point. I’m not a big Beck fan either, but I’ve noticed lately when I catch his show, that he seems to be coming around to a more libertarian viewpoint. Also, if you’ve seen him lately, he’s doing one thing that I highly admire. He’s been encouraging people to read and educate themselves. People are listening, I’ve seen them buy books he recommends, and this (assuming he’s providing good book recommendations) is a win for the libertarian movement, since education tends to bring about more questions, which brings about more understanding of human nature and natural rights. So, yes, Beck has been a neo-con tool in the past, but I’d watch him closely. If he’s not doing it solely as a salesman (which he may be), he might be a good advocate for the libertarian stance.
July 13, 2010, 7:51 amRob P says:
What, then, of immigration? This issue seems to gain populist, if not political, steam by the day. If libertarians are going to “form a coalition” with the right in this country, they’ll have two options: 1) push out the Jan Brewer-Tom Tancredo-J.D. Hayworth wing of the party, one of the most popular segments of Republicans at the moment, or 2) entrench themselves in the xenophobia that drives the success of Brewer and others. My libertarian friends have as much contempt as I do for the racism, populism and short-sightedness that drives the anti-immigrant folks on the right. In my opinion, immigration makes a libertarian-conservative movement a non-starter in the current political environment.
July 13, 2010, 9:03 ambob sykes says:
Liberalism is a totalitarian ideology with its gloves on. The libertarian/liberal alliance was always idiotic. Merely to have proposed it proves that Lindsey is a very stupid, very ignorant man.
July 13, 2010, 9:08 amAnon says:
(disclaimer: I’m not a libertarian)
I think Scott is correct in that libertarians should not lose their “soul” in order to align more closely with the Republican party, although running as a Republican candidate (or Democratic candidate, for that matter) doesn’t require drastic compromising unless you are in state where the primary will be rough without such compromising– and I have no idea whether this is true in all states or only some. The reason why libertarians should not align with Republicans is because the way forward for a party that wants to be a party is for individuals to start thinking like libertarians, thinking of themselves as libertarians. Instead of taking a position here or there, they need to approach policy issues from a distinctively libertarian perspective (which, as I shall discuss may include a few different perspectives). If people never begin to think like libertarians, their attitudes on issues dear to libertarians will be too fledging and change if they conflict with conservative values or even an incoherent argument against them by conservatives. Think about Roby George, a current intellectual darling of the right, who sees no problem with legislating morality. And, yes, Glen Beck is a fan of George.
Finally, I disagree with Scott that all libertarians are objectivists– this is pretty obvious. I think this misconception hurts libertarians because it turns off those who embrace libertarianism from a different philosophical perspective as well as those who do not want to embrace a (bizarre and philosophically weak) moral view along with their preference for small government or belief in the intrinsic and/or instrumental value of liberty.
July 13, 2010, 9:12 amBlue says:
I’m a a small-government centrist, not a libertarian…and I thought from the beginning that a liberal-libertarian alliance was theoretically ignorant.
The reality is that libertarianism is primarily about smaller government–and the only potential partner in that quest is the conservative side of the political spectrum. Liberals in the US are simply not credible partners because the solutions for liberals always–always–involve an expansion of government.
Of course, if all libertarianism means to you is being able to smoke pot legally then the liberals are your folks.
July 13, 2010, 9:14 amBlue says:
Really? A theoretical concern with the right of non-citizens to move freely into the US means it’s a non-starter? A proper concern with effective rule of law means its a non-starter?
July 13, 2010, 9:16 amthirdeblue says:
I don’t understand this pooh-poohing of Democrats since 2008. What exactly should have been done in the past 2 years that were not done and what should not have been done that was? Or when Democrats govern from the platform they ran on, that’s a bridge too far? I don’t get it.
I would like to know what the libertarian response to the economic downturn would have been. Tax cuts? Nothing? Liberalizing gun laws? Abolishing the Department of Education? Flat tax? ZOMG! NOBAMA IS A MUSLIN!?
July 13, 2010, 9:17 amAssistant Village Idiot says:
Lindsey’s hyperventilating about conservatives, especially religious people, with exaggerated, inflammatory adjectives, destroys the credibility of his reasonable talking points in the discussion. It is hard to accept treatment from a doctor who claims your fever is three degrees higher than the thermometer says. Relatedly, I can’t tell if first-commenter Serious is a send-up or means what he says, but he captures this exactly. Lindsey doesn’t want to be one of those icky people who dress funny and listen to the wrong music. There’s a good libertarian, do-as-you-will spirit, eh?
As to the Bush abandonment of libertarian coalition partners, I generally concur. But libertarians are not in some American center in practical politics, however much they can squint and see themselves as the center philosophically. Small-government anythings are under unrelenting pressure in Washington and state capitals to do something. This is not just their meddling personalities forcing things on the people. The people beg for it. Even libertarians succumb, gradually moving to the do-something default of government. They start from farther away and move more slowly, but they do it.
I’m not saying don’t criticise it, but don’t be surprised by it. It should not be seen as a betrayal, but as a sign a politicians’s time is done. Send someone new into the battle, Washington wore this one out.
July 13, 2010, 9:36 amBlue says:
Yeah, nationalizing the health care sector is a libertarian policy.
July 13, 2010, 9:37 amOrenWithAnE says:
Because they are in power. Your recipe is one for always being in opposition (that is, moving for divided government).
Conversely, one could place aside the government spending and start on policies that are likely to be well received by the current Hill. Rescheduling marijuana, for instance, to Schedule II (while preserving the rights of States to regulate it further, if they desire) or getting reciprocal CCW (2 votes shy in the Senate).
Libertarianism is not, as I understand, simple oppositional-ism.
July 13, 2010, 9:41 amHouston Lawyer says:
Clearly all liberals are as pure as the driven snow and none of their leaders ever engage in demagoguery. Therefore an alignment with them will allow you to share in their smugness. The South Park episode described the essence of modern liberalism best.
Please list for me any law passed by the current Congress that advanced a cause championed by libertarians.
July 13, 2010, 9:43 amBama 1L says:
I believe I speak for the entire country when I say, “Regardless of what we did, we did not do it because of Professor Somin.”
July 13, 2010, 9:50 amOrenWithAnE says:
(1) CCW reciprocity failed by 2 votes in the Senate (with 58 votes in favor).
July 13, 2010, 10:06 am(2) Holder’s memo to the DOJ on not prosecuting MMJ patients in compliance with State Law (no, not a law by Congress, but a fine move forward).
Jardinero1 says:
You answer your own question very well.
July 13, 2010, 10:08 amAnon21 says:
That would be nice if they were actually following through with it. But am I wrong in saying that federal agents have continued to raid medical marijuana users’ homes in California, despite Holder’s memo?
July 13, 2010, 10:13 amAlast says:
I am reminded of the Clinton administration’s directive that intelligence departments were not to pay or otherwise support “really bad guys” no matter how important or useful they may otherwise be to U.S. interests.
Such blind allegiance to dogma is counterproductive, just like zero tolerance policies cause a 2nd grader to be expelled when her parent puts a plastic butter knife in her lunch pail.
Libertarians (which I consider myself one) as well as every other political persuasion, have to remain open to the relative value of the other guy’s point of view, and be willing to adopt any “good ideas” regardless of technical conflict with dogma.
July 13, 2010, 10:17 amOrenWithAnE says:
Well you have to satisfy the dependent clause (“in compliance with State Law”) to be protected by the memo.
Holder reserves the right for the DOJ to enforce Federal law against putative-MMJ patients that they feel are not in compliance with State law. That is, they realize that CA is not the most diligent State in enforcing the terms and conditions of their laws on MMJ and so the mere fact that the State has not prosecuted them is not sufficient to establish that they were complying with the relevant law.
July 13, 2010, 10:31 amLC says:
The old dichotomy that liberals support “personal freedom” is simply no longer true!
The left seeks to impose its own PC-ish values deeply and pervasively into all aspects of society (as has been pointed out on this very site).
July 13, 2010, 10:31 amDenver says:
Tell me oh sage,
How can a libertarian vote socialist and be libertarian?
Can a libertarian be a Marxist? Zounds.
July 13, 2010, 10:37 amPierre Corneille says:
It seems to me that liberals are marginally (very marginally, perhaps) better at preserving and expanding non-economic liberties than conservatives are at limiting the size of government and generally preserving and expanding what libertarians see as “economic freedoms.” I confess this is just an impression, and I need to reflect more on this.
Still, if my statement is true, then it seems that it’s one argument for libertarians to ally with liberals. In such an alliance, libertarians are more likely to get a half of loaf than they would in an alliance with the conservatives.
Of course, there are other points to consider, such as Mr. Somin’s argument for divided government.
July 13, 2010, 10:38 amArthur Kirkland says:
People who care more about the liberty of dollars will favor the conservative camp and people who care more about the liberty of people will favor the liberal camp.
Libertarians, however, will find the platform of the Republican Party (and conservative principles), and the platform of the Democratic Party (and liberal principles), equally unacceptable.
Anyone who considers Mitch Daniels “libertarian-leaning,” for example, is no libertarian.
July 13, 2010, 10:39 amG.R. Mead says:
Structure builds better political coalitions than policies. The Democratic Party is the current case in point — there is little deep ideological agreement of any coherent character in the interest groups that coalesce to form the party — but they all agree on one thing — power should be structured centrally to make better advantage of it. Thus, the competing concerns over policy to be deployed by that centralized power structure are secondary to growing it and keeping it intact for each of them when they get “their turn” at making their wish to the federal policy genie.
This pattern also existed for the Progressive Republicans from about 1890 until the First world War and Prohibition, and then the tables turned to the Democrats with FDR.
The reason it persists is because the structure of patronage has been progressively centralized. The horses go there because that’s where the water is. Reagan showed that Executive policy and personnel changes alone cannot change it. Gingrich et al. showed that Congressional policy alone cannot change it. The only way that it changes is to find ways to shift where the patronage flows, and then the politics will follow it — because it has no other choice.
If Katrina, the Gulf oil disaster, and the easy money mortgage debacle show anything — it is that we must revive the States as independent political actors on the national political scene at every turn of federal policy — and not just as walk-on showgirls every four years. Not only is centralized effort incompetent — it is incoherent — when it really matters.
And now it really matters.
July 13, 2010, 10:40 amNaG says:
Let’s make this even simpler: libertarians will tend to affiliate with whichever ideology is NOT in power, because the ideology that IS in power will surely abuse its advantage in ways that libertarians would oppose.
Both major parties have the tendency to advocate for less government when in the minority, and advocate more government when in the majority. Thus, libertarians will have a natural affinity for the minority party. It’s not a matter of shifting principles. It’s the fact that the Democrats that caused Lindsey to envision “liberaltarians” changed once Democrats reclaimed the majority, and the Republicans who repulsed libertarians during the W. years have changed since they became the minority. Minority parties simply have different tactics and arguments than majority parties, even when the underlying principles are the same.
July 13, 2010, 10:52 ammack says:
The problem with the Libertarian movement is: one its primary advocates have a deaf ear – they do not and have never taken the time to relate to and listen to the concerns of the average man and woman in this country and thus come across as pontificating lecturing elitist boobs; and two they are so wedded to property rights over all other rights and corporatism/big business that they ignore the damage that corporatism has done to the freedoms and lives of average citizens; and three they fail to understand the horrific impact that so called free trade and unchecked illegal immigration has had on the dwindling middle class. This last one is the deal breaker with the American people, just ask most legal immigrants – those that love to throw the race card and look down from their high horses with their long moral noses at the anti-illegal immigrant movement, deny the real issue – which is jobs and wages. Neither major party seriously want to do anything about it and the smaller parities mostly don’t either. Republicans want the cheap labor and Democrats want the votes.
So called free trade – which isn’t free – anymore than most so called free markets – all of which are manipulated by governments and corporations – manipulating laws to exclude individuals and true entrepreneurs – has cost quality manufacturing jobs for people in this country. Then of those jobs left – a massive influx of illegal immigrants – creates a surplus of cheap labor – taking jobs not just in agriculture – but formerly higher paying jobs in construction and the like – leading to more and more individuals getting specialized training and additional schooling to compete for the fewer and fewer good paying jobs – which in the end only increases the pool of labor available for those jobs which leads to a labor surplus and the ability of companies to keep wages low.
Add to that the incompetence or malfeasance of public officials for 40 years to develop a real energy policy directed towards cheap energy and you have what you see today – America as a nation sliding into irrelevance and on track to become a second tier nation economically – with an increasingly dwindling middle class and ever increasing economic pressures on families.
What more and more people want to know is were do they send the thank you card to those that fiddled while Rome burned. Thank you Democrats, thanky you Republicans, thank you Greenies, and thank you Libertarians.
This message sent to you by a small l libertarian christian – who supports gay rights, abortion as in keep the state out of it though I do not support it morally, property rights for individuals, the right to keep and bear arms, legal immigration, limited government, and individual liberty.
July 13, 2010, 10:52 amwm13 says:
I’m not a libertarian, but I’m guessing that it wouldn’t have involved an $800 billion stimulus, a massive expansion of government involvement in the health care sector, and more regulation of credit card fees. But I may be wrong: most libertarians, at least in the blogosphere, voted for the Congress and the president that implemented those measures, so maybe I don’t understand libertarians, at least not the intellectual kind.
July 13, 2010, 10:59 amprs130 says:
rather than “forge an alliance with conservatives or liberals or neither”, libertarians should assert themselves in Republican and Democratic primaries.
July 13, 2010, 11:00 amAlast says:
The problem is that centralized power is desired by the source of the patronage…. they would rather buy a senator for $1 million each, then have to buy 50 state legislators for $50K each. So any attempt to shift the patronage is doomed to failure.
July 13, 2010, 11:02 amgeokstr says:
In return for:
1) beginning the takeover of one-sixth of the economy, while hiding the huge net cost with budgetary trickery
2) bailing out the domestic auto industry and giving controlling interest to unions
3) instituting a racialist policy at the DOJ
4) getting ready to allow the Bush tax cuts to expire in the face of a recession
5) about to pass a law regulating pretty much every financial transaction (while setting up new “Diversity Offices” everywhere, and ignoring the elephants – Fannie/Freddie) (maybe they’ll bring back Raines/Gorelick/Rahm to run them)
6) looking to pass cap ‘n tax to further destroy the economy
7) creating/saving jobs at about a million and a half dollars per
8) effectively blocking the Gulf cleanup until it’s too late
9) pretty much continuing all the other Bush policies that libertarians (and supposedly, leftists) hated – like rendition, Gitmo, DOMA, ad nauseum
10) etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc
Boy, Libertarians are a cheap date. Next thing you know, they’ll be
sellinggiving the proverbial rope to the Democrats.(Yes, yes, I realize that strictly speaking, Congress didn’t do all the above, but leftists did, and you can hardly separate the administration from Congress when they have all the power.)
July 13, 2010, 11:07 amBoovers says:
I have no opinions on whether libertarians should align themselves with conservaties or liberals, but I thought that your characterization of Paul Ryan as “libertarian-leaning” should be addressed. On issues of fiscal policy I would agree, but on social issues he’s anything but “libertarian-leaning.” A Few examples:
Voted YES on prohibiting job discrimination based on sexual orientation. (Nov 2007)
Voted YES on Constitutionally defining marriage as one-man-one-woman. (Jul 2006)
Voted YES on making the PATRIOT Act permanent. (Dec 2005)
Voted YES on Constitutional Amendment banning same-sex marriage. (Sep 2004)
Voted YES on banning gay adoptions in DC. (Jul 1999)
Voted YES on prohibiting needle exchange & medical marijuana in DC. (Oct 1999)
The list goes on…
July 13, 2010, 11:11 amMartinned says:
…or follow the British LibDems on the long path to electoral reform.
July 13, 2010, 11:15 amAlast says:
Voting (both in the legislature and at the election ballot box) is not like a math problem where there is a “right” answer but is rather a multiple choice question with no correct answers — and as the standardized tests all say “pick the best answer” given the available choices.
July 13, 2010, 11:16 amG.R. Mead says:
That has been the assumption. There is a way, however; it runs through Executive, the enforcement agencies and to the States.
The key questions:
What is the only entity given the actual function of “law enforcement” in the terms of the Constitution ?
What did all American “law enforcement” bodies historically develop from ?
and:
What federal enforcement agents are NOT ‘Officers of the United States’ and what, then, might they be ‘officers’ of ? Hint: Steele v. United States, 267 U.S. 505 (1925)
July 13, 2010, 11:16 amgeokstr says:
Right.
It’s been obvious for a long time that the “liberty of people” is the last thing on the minds of the left. Unless of course, you mean the freedom to choose an abortion or suckle at the public teat. But try having an independent opinion and be a leftist – it’s the sure path to excommunication.
July 13, 2010, 11:20 amThales says:
“Is she a crude demagogue?”
Yes.
“What has she said or done to place her in this company?”
See almost all remarks she has made about foreign and military policy (esp. her “advice” about Iran), family values, “drill baby drill” etc.
On to the substance of the liberaltarian/conservotarian/centrotarian debate. I’m essentially a liberaltarian and think it’s quite a coherent set of ideas; it’s not really different at the core from what John Stuart Mill advocated as a philosopher and member of Parliament. Markets are devices for allocating scarce resources to their most efficient use and communicating information about value. They aren’t magical, or to be fetishized. We support, generally speaking, a less constrained market system because it produces consumer surplus and (what is the same thing) a socially optimal output of a given good or service. (Price or quantity controls from a central planner can’t do that without omniscience/omnibenevolence). Government exists in part to correct market failures, such as anticompetitive price fixing and external harms that are not reflected in the nominal price of a good (such as the damage from pollutants that go into manufacturing it, for example). As a free marketeer that rejects central planning, but that also recognizes social problems the market does not or cannot solve alone, unless you are committed to Austrian economic ideology or a robust version of absolute property rights that denies any legitimacy to regulation (and why are you so committed, if you are?) the debate is over the reasonableness and prudence of regulation. It sounds to me as if on that front there is ample room for libertarians to make their case in either major party, but the Republicans have the added baggage of many socially conservative commitments that are simply not justifiable except as aesthetic preferences of the majority about how the minority ought to live.
July 13, 2010, 11:22 amrobert h. says:
3) instituting a racialist policy at the DOJ
Don’t forget Holder’s Dept. of Just Us (Oppressed Minorities, Inc.) bringing suit against beleaguered AZ for attending to the border defense of its white, brown and black, red, yellow and gray citizenry.
July 13, 2010, 11:25 amAlast says:
Unfortunately, legal truisms are largely ineffective against the modern federal government, and have not been for decades as the Court today first determines the outcome it wants, and then proceeds to justify the outcome. Over 220 times, the Court has reversed itself and overulled prior holdings. That’s 220 changes in the Constitution, sometimes due to just one justice changing his mind (i.e. minimum wage applied to the states) and often not for legal reasons, but just because the (correct) prior interpretation was hard to implement. The current crop of justices are to legal scholarship what creationists are to the scientific method.
July 13, 2010, 11:26 amMartinned says:
That is cool…
July 13, 2010, 11:28 amOn sentence that is sure to upset the left and the right in equal measure…
TK75 says:
While the lofty intellectual debates and concerns about losing one’s soul are all well and good for the academy or a message board discussion, far too often principled libertarians lose sight of the real world.
As Slick Willy once said so succinctly, “It’s the economy stupid.”
Working from within to reestablish the Goldwater wing of the Republican party will always be a better choice for libertarians to advance our primary goals of individual freedom and limited government. I think the Obama/Reid/Pelosi disaster has proven once and for all that Democrats are at their core totalitarian statists who want to impose their vision of a perfect society upon all of us, the very antithesis of being “Free to Choose.”
July 13, 2010, 11:31 amyankee says:
10-15%? I call b.s. based on answers to vague questions. Are 10-15% really going to give the libertarian answer to any significant number of specific policy questions?
Welfare State: Should Social Security be abolished, or at least cut to a tiny means-tested program for the poorest seniors?
Health Care: Should Medicare be abolished, or at least cut to a tiny means-tested program for the poorest seniors?
International Relations: Should the United States enact unrestricted free trade?
Civil Rights: Should racial discrimination in private-sector employment be legalized?
Industry Regulation: Should food companies be free to sell tainted meat and put large quantities of lead in children’s toys?
Education: Should public schools be abolished?
Financial Reform: Should the financial crisis be dealt with by eliminating regulation of Wall Street?
People talk a good game about disliking “spending” and “regulation,” but when you look at specific issues it turns out spending and regulation are wildly popular.
July 13, 2010, 11:33 amWonks Anonymous says:
Lindsey complains about creationism & conspiracy theories, but neither of those is unlibertarian. The latter may even tend to go with anti-authoritarianism. They may be stupid, but “libertarianism” has never been defined to exclude stupidity.
July 13, 2010, 11:35 amDaniel Chapman says:
That “liberty of dollars” vs. “liberty of people” dichotomy gave me a chuckle… thanks, Arthur Kirkland. I pictured you throwing your money into the wind and shouting “you’re free!”
Seriously though… where’d you get that line? Did you make it up yourself?
July 13, 2010, 11:40 amScrutineer says:
Speaking of short-sightedness, do you think the electorate will become more libertarian or less libertarian if we open our border to Mexico and permit (or continue to permit) mass immigration for the next few decades?
July 13, 2010, 11:43 amBlue says:
Really? So racial quotas and gerrymandered voting districts extend the “liberty of people”?
July 13, 2010, 11:44 amThales says:
Interpolated responses to geokstr below:
“1) beginning the takeover of one-sixth of the economy, while hiding the huge net cost with budgetary trickery
Um, it’s more modest–mandating coverage and banning rescission and preexisting conditions. It’s Switzerland/the Netherlands, not Canada or France.
2) bailing out the domestic auto industry and giving controlling interest to unions
. . . breaking a decades-long logjam, giving the unions less of an incentive to nickel and dime the company to death now that they own part of it (though not a “controlling” stake). If this had not been done when it was done, we might have an even more serious unemployment shock than we have now.
3) instituting a racialist policy at the DOJ
What does this mean?
4) getting ready to allow the Bush tax cuts to expire in the face of a recession
For those making over $250Km, taking us only part of the way to the horrible Clinton levels–everyone else keeps them or gets a further cut.
5) about to pass a law regulating pretty much every financial transaction (while setting up new “Diversity Offices” everywhere, and ignoring the elephants — Fannie/Freddie) (maybe they’ll bring back Raines/Gorelick/Rahm to run them)
And paring back government support via the Fed discount window for banks that engage in very risky behavior–also providing for an orderly winddown of effectively insolvent big financial firms that makes their bond and equity holders feel losses. Sounds *more* free market than the present to me. Otherwise you greatly exaggerate the impact of the bill. You have a good point about the mortgage GSEs. I am not sure what you mean about diversity offices.
6) looking to pass cap ‘n tax to further destroy the economy
You mean internalize the costs burners of carbon impose on the rest of us while allowing the market mechanism to drive reductions? That sounds pretty conservative and tied to personal responsibility to me. Also it’s straight out of Ronald Coase, who endorsed the idea.
7) creating/saving jobs at about a million and a half dollars per
Speculative and involves unknowable counterfactuals.
8) effectively blocking the Gulf cleanup until it’s too late
Huh? How?
9) pretty much continuing all the other Bush policies that libertarians (and supposedly, leftists) hated — like rendition, Gitmo, DOMA, ad nauseum
To be fair, Obama tried to shut down Gitmo and a frenzy of bipartisan paranoia cut off funds to do it. He supports legislative repeal of DOMA, also don’t ask don’t tell. The courts may force his hand faster on the first one.
10) etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc”
Actually not much cetera. Obama’s a pretty incremental, conservative president, to the costernation of many of his supporters.
July 13, 2010, 11:46 amMartinned says:
In many policy areas, mass imigration requires a smaller government, since anything else would mean massive tax increases. That is one of the reasons why small-government types have traditionally favoured immigration.
July 13, 2010, 11:47 amThales says:
Also geokstr has a point about health care costs on #1. Hopefully the pilot programs in the act will encourage doctors and hospitals to act more like the Mayo Clinic, compensated on health outcomes, and less like the strip malls in Plano Texas, filled with useless medical imaging services. Time will tell, but many of us liberaltarians would have preferred Wyden-Bennett.
July 13, 2010, 11:48 amAlast says:
Yes. The problem is that promises made to get the money should be honored. For people 25 and under, give them their money back, and go to a new system. For over 25, allow people to chose to get their investment back (less the proper amount that should have been used solely for legitimate uses) or stay in the system at the current rates.
Same answer.
Yes, with exceptions for situations of vital national importance where free trade could seriously impact national security.
Yes… but this is politically not doable.
Not the way you put it. Of course the pure libertarian believes private organizations will use their labels to provide the consumer with choices to select safe products, that is not realistic. A goverment role in setting minimum standards is appropriate, but that role should be much smaller than it is now.
It should be left to the states. There is a role for the government to do things that are of great benefit and need to the interests of the country as a whole, but are so large and systemic, that they are properly within the sphere of the collective oversight. Interstate highways, military, telecommunications infrastructure, foreign policy, are examples at the federal level. State highways, ports, and public schools are examples at the state level.
No, but more laws are not necessarily the answer. More transparency is the answer, and regulation of of systemic risk to national security.
Thus we have a spending parallel to the voting paradox in McDonald.
The line of cases leading to and flowing from Wickard v. Filburn must be vitiated. Four constitutional amendment have come forth expressly to undo SCOTUS decisions. One more is needed to undo the damage from Wickard and progeny.
July 13, 2010, 11:54 amNowMDJD says:
So support of a vigorously pro-democracy foreign policy makes her a crude demogogue and places her in the same category as Falwell or Helms. I see.
Does a desire to open up new oil fields to drilling make one, ipso facto, a crude demogogue as well?
If her views on family values are crudely demogogic, then I guess that the Catholic and Latter Day Saints churches are as well. They’re on the same bus as Falwell and Helms, right?
It seems that people who disagree with you must not only be wrong, but dishonest as well.
July 13, 2010, 11:56 amAlast says:
Don’t confuse immigration with border control.
Our church welcomes all comers. But it has a low, white picket fence, and expects guests to come in through the gate, and enter thought the door and be greeted.
You can be in favor of unlimited immigration, but at the same time expect deadly force to be used to seal the border, and require all that free immigration to come in through the front door(s) and be greeted (and inspected for contraband).
July 13, 2010, 11:58 amJohn Thacker says:
Yes, but one problem for libertarians is that we have also been anti-swing voters. In 2002 and 2004, libertarians swung away from Republicans and Bush because of “compassionate conservatism,” even as the overall electorate swung towards Bush. In 2008, libertarians overall swung towards McCain compared to Bush, even as the electorate did the obvious.
Now, you can claim that libertarians are merely ahead of the curve each time. But it may also be that libertarians are sometimes quite different from the median voter.
July 13, 2010, 12:03 pmGuest14 says:
It’s hard to take so-called libertarians seriously when they all seem to oppose free labor markets out of thinly-veiled racism.
July 13, 2010, 12:04 pmMark Field says:
I agree very much with Thales; frankly, I don’t understand so-called “libertarians” who would disagree with much that he said.
That said, libertarians have been joined at the hip to conservatives for 45 years or more, and I don’t see a divorce as very likely. That means you’ll continue to be treated by the right as useful idiots. Plus ca change….
July 13, 2010, 12:05 pmbailey says:
You get the impression, with the insults directed to “nationalism”, that libertarians just regard their fellow citizens as an inconvenience. They don’t particularly care about things like national borders from what I read. After all, one unit of production from Mexico is no different from one unit of production from the United States. Then, when push comes to shove, they support vast expansions of government power under Democratic pols, all the while proclaiming themselves to be the real proponents of freedom and limited government. I wonder why they just are not taken seriously?
July 13, 2010, 12:14 pmfalafalafocus says:
I completely agree with you. After all, when people are asked these completely unbiased and clear policy questions, they naturally agree with the liberal position, rather than the libertarian position, in droves. Thus, the idea of libertarians having any political strength is a lie!
(Then again, it could just be that your questions are not as neutral as you seem to think. Nope, that can’t be it. Down with the libertarians!)
July 13, 2010, 12:19 pmhardee har says:
Listening to academics who make their living sucking on the government tit talking about Libertarianism is about as useful as listening to a crack whore discuss Voltaire.
July 13, 2010, 12:27 pmMark Horning says:
The two major political parties are in fact coalition parties. Each has distinct subgroups of folks who really don;t like the other groups. The only thing they hate more is the other party.
Thus the republican party is composed of Fiscal Conservatives, Social Conservatives, and the Neo-conservatives. They hate each other, and the only think keeping them from taking out the long knives is that for each group the democrats are worse.
Gnerally speaking, Libertarians align well with the Fiscal Conservative portion (aka Goldwater Republicans), it’s the other two groups that cause us heartburn.
The Democrats are more diverse, and their internal divisions are just as vexing to them. Do you think the Union Thugs and the Gaia Worshipers (environmental extreemists) get along any better than the Fiscal and Social Conservatives? The handfull of folks in the Democratic party with whom Libertarians might ally are generally single issue votors (drug legalization), not ideological fellow travelers.
July 13, 2010, 12:36 pmArthur Kirkland says:
Yes, an original. Which is neither a boast nor a confession, because I can’t tell whether you were mocking it or praising it.
Both liberties are good, as a general proposition, although each requires reasonable regulation. The definition of “reasonable” distinguishes liberals from conservatives and libertarians from both.
July 13, 2010, 12:48 pmArthur Kirkland says:
Which could be highly useful, for a particular person in a certain circumstance.
July 13, 2010, 12:49 pmG.R. Mead says:
You are assuming my approach requires judicial action. In fact, the beauty of it is that it would flow from a purely federal Executive decision in cooperation with the State Executives. There is no need of any Amendment or new legislation. It is entirely a political question – over which both Congress and the President have explicit power, which would keep the Court substantially at bay. But the exercise of the express power of Congress on this topic would only confirm the President’s political strategy of decentralization, because of the express Constitutional role of the States on this topic, which has been too long ignored.
All it requires is a willing Commander-in-Chief (the term is used advisedly) to use this wedge on the nature and Constitutional status of law enforcement agencies to tilt the patronage playing field back to the political establishments of the States. Arizona has the right idea — but the wrong instrument.
July 13, 2010, 12:50 pmThales says:
“Listening to academics who make their living sucking on the government tit talking about Libertarianism is about as useful as listening to a crack whore discuss Voltaire.”
Wow–I’m so glad we’ve elevated the discourse. Do you include all public university professors in this indictment? If they suddenly transfer across town to Private U do they regain credibility, only to lose it again when they go work for State U.?
July 13, 2010, 12:53 pmG.R. Mead says:
Alleluia & Amen.
Say on, Brother Alast…
July 13, 2010, 12:56 pmbailey says:
hardee har-there’s your lesson. You can’t mock libertarians, either. They are elevated on a higher moral plane and are unmockable. You can’t point out little issues like voting for or endorsing candidates who want to vastly expand the government while proclaiming themselves libertarians devoted to the expansion of freedom.
July 13, 2010, 12:57 pmfalse seriousness says:
You can’t even get the basics right. How are you capable of participating in an intelligent discussion if you don’t understand anything?
July 13, 2010, 1:06 pmAlast says:
No, I’m saying that it requires judicial in-action, and they will not sit on their hands and allow large portions of their hegemony to be eroded…. neither will Congress.
July 13, 2010, 1:07 pmbyomtov says:
Ilya,
he argues that the conservative movement is no longer a fit ally for libertarians because it has been taken over by “a raving, anti-intellectual populism, as expressed by (among many, many others) Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck.” I’m no fan of either Palin or Beck. Still, just about any major political movement has its share of crude demagogues.
Yes it does, but Lindsey’s point is different. He says the conservative movement has been, “taken over” by raving anti-intellectual populism.
Do you think Palin, Beck, and others of their sort are marginal, or even secondary, figures in the conservative movement?
July 13, 2010, 1:07 pmBlue says:
What Obamacare will lead to, inevitably, is the nationalization of health care. It’s the thin end of a wedge.
July 13, 2010, 1:11 pmMark Field says:
I’m sure David Vitter learned his Voltaire that way.
July 13, 2010, 1:12 pmmack says:
Yes labor from virtual slaves in China, from illegals in the US, and from terrorized workers in Mexico – should be treated the same – as work from citizens or legal workers in the US.
And belief that a nation means anything at all – is moronic – borders mean nothing – else you are a racist.
July 13, 2010, 1:16 pmAlast says:
Nuclear options are not the answer. Neither side will actually use them, but the threat of their use is the grease that gets the wheels turning. Neither side will litigate the question of filibusters of senate confirmations, because neither side will risk the loss of their power…. hence compromise.
The trick is to convince the other side that there is 1) an outcome worse than the proposed compromise, and 2) that outcome might actually happen. No matter how unthinkable the other outcome is, if it has no chance of happening, it is a hollow threat. This is indeed a self-fulfilling truism, because if the worst comes close to reality, the question can be mooted by acquiescence to the compromise. This is the theory behind state Article V applications — Congress will never, ever call such a convention, even if it is demanded by all 50 states. It will instead, as it has done several times before, propose the amendment wanted, using the language the Congress prefers. The state applications are just the mechanism to force Congress to accept the less-undesirable alternative.
July 13, 2010, 1:16 pmHilary (the other one) says:
Nuclear options are not the answer. Neither side will actually use them, but the threat of their use is the grease that gets the wheels turning. Neither side will litigate the question of filibusters of senate confirmations, because neither side will risk the loss of their power…. hence compromise.
The trick is to convince the other side that there is 1) an outcome worse than the proposed compromise, and 2) that outcome might actually happen. No matter how unthinkable the other outcome is, if it has no chance of happening, it is a hollow threat.
This is indeed a self-enforcing mechanism, because if the worst comes close to reality, the question can be mooted by acquiescence to the compromise. This is the theory behind state Article V applications — Congress will never, ever call such a convention, even if it is demanded by all 50 states. It will instead, as it has done several times before, propose the amendment wanted, using the language the Congress prefers. The state applications are just the mechanism to force Congress to accept the less-undesirable alternative.
July 13, 2010, 1:19 pmJohn Thacker says:
Brink does not merely make that argument. His point is different from that. He also argues that it was somehow different in the past. As Ilya points out, Jesse Helms, Phyllis Schlafly, and Jerry Falwell were certainly not marginal or secondary figures in this past that Lindsey is pointing to, in addition to more disreputable fringe figures.
There’s room for a consistent point of view saying that libertarians should never have worked with conservatives in the 1950s through 1990s. But I just can’t grant his point that conservatism now is somehow more anti-intellectual than it was in the past; his arguments now would apply equally well in the past.
I thought it was conservatives, not libertarians, who were supposed to look at the 1950s or 1980s with rose-colored glassed, but Brink seems to be doing that here.
July 13, 2010, 1:27 pmScrutineer says:
I predict you will get larger government along with tax increases because that is what the changing electorate will increasingly want.
The “traditional” argument you cite in favor of mass immigration is completely new and unpersuasive to me. Can you point me to someone else who’s made it? Maybe someone at Cato?
July 13, 2010, 1:28 pmfalse seriousness says:
Dude, Somalia is a libertarian paradise. Go check it out, then decide if the US should model itself on that.
July 13, 2010, 1:29 pmyankee says:
Would people support abolishing Social Security, Medicare, public schools, employment nondiscrimination laws, etc. if the question were framed differently?
July 13, 2010, 1:31 pmWhite American Cheese says:
Just in case it is impossible for someone to visit the teaparty.org website and an understanding of the Tea Party is required before comparing it with where-ever the libertarians stand, I’ll list the tea party core principles as listed on their website – because I would hate to see a comparison to include the tea party without the pertinent background information:
TEA PARTY NON-NEGOTIABLE CORE BELIEFS
Illegal Aliens Are Here illegally.
Pro-Domestic Employment Is Indispensable.
Stronger Military Is Essential.
Special Interests Eliminated.
Gun Ownership Is Sacred.
Government Must Be Downsized.
National Budget Must Be Balanced.
Deficit Spending Will End.
Bail-out And Stimulus Plans Are Illegal.
Reduce Personal Income Taxes A Must.
Reduce Business Income Taxes Is Mandatory.
Political Offices Available To Average Citizens.
Intrusive Government Stopped.
English As Core Language Is Required.
Traditional Family Values Are Encouraged.
Common Sense Constitutional
Conservative Self-Governance
For the record I strongly agree with everything listed, except I can accept some deficit spending (not like we have been doing )if it includes a plan with a goal to balance the budget.
July 13, 2010, 1:35 pmMetamorf says:
I largely agree with Ilya’s post on this, but also think a) it goes far to easy on the sneering Brink Lindsey (I like the comment from Serious above), and b) it relies too much on labels or pigeon-holes for very complex sets of political and personal values, beliefs, objectives, etc. — far easier to make needed alliances if we don’t worry so much about the label we paste on our foreheads.
I’ve put up a longer critique of Lindsey — . excerpt:
July 13, 2010, 1:36 pmbailey says:
So, under the “libertariocentrist” position, the serious intellectuals are folks like Dodd, Frank, the Fannie/Freddie Gang and, of course, Obama (who the Libertarians endorsed anyway). And you say that conservatives aren’t intellectually serious? Glenn Beck is a giant of consistency and intellect when compared to leaps of logic like this.
July 13, 2010, 1:41 pmJosh Wittner says:
Ezra Klein from the Washington Post pretty well sums up how most non-small government thinking people think (imo):
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2010/07/government_size_as_philosophy.html
July 13, 2010, 1:48 pmMike P says:
I’ve asked this many times before. But I’ll ask this again. Brink Lindsay voted for George W. Bush twice and supported the Iraq War. He now admits those were mistakes.
Two years ago, he supported Barack Obama and was talking about a libertaltarian alliance. As you note, he has backed away from those things but, to my knowledge, hasn’t yet explicitly said they were mistakes.
How many more “mistakes” does he have to own up to before he figures out just how worthless his political advice is?
July 13, 2010, 1:53 pmCynical says:
The stock libertarian position on immigration is suicidal. The vast bulk of would-be immigrants are not PhDs or even H1B’s, they are unskilled laborers. They push the least-skilled citizens out of work (forcing them to vote for the welfare state out of self-preservation) and qualify for large social subsidies (either by themselves or through their children). These are all guaranteed votes for the left, and will force government to move in a non-libertarian direction.
July 13, 2010, 1:54 pmbailey says:
Cynical-they don’t really care about those folks. It’s “xenophobic” to care about the production units in the Country over the production units from another Country. Libertarians are citizens of the World, not the United States.
July 13, 2010, 2:05 pmWhite American Cheese says:
You should agree with me that most political commentators are like chameleons waiting for a sign to which way the wind is blowing before deciding which side to solicit (for money of course).
These folks remind me of the boatman from the movie Josey Wales, and also the quote from Groucho Marx
” I have principles…if you don’t like these I have others.”
July 13, 2010, 2:09 pmDespicable creatures.
David Welker says:
Somin is entirely correct.
A liberal and libertarian alliance would not be desirable for liberals unless libertarians were willing to move away from rigid adherence to their ideology. In my experience, most libertarians just are not that intellectually flexible.
While libertarians who assert that liberals want bigger government for its own sake are wrong, liberals are not willing to give up government as a tool to create economic and social justice. So don’t even ask. We might adjust our use of that tool due to specific and articulable concerns, but we will not throw out the baby with the bath water. Liberals believe that libertarian “faith” in markets and the “invisible hand” is more a matter of religion than fact. That does not mean that liberals do not like markets. We like markets. But we see their limitations and do not ignore those limitations as a matter of slavish faith to an imaginary invisible hand that will somehow make everything better. Basically, a liberal typically looks at a libertarian and sees someone who is either (1) extremely naive in their slavish and rigid faith in free markets as not simply useful tools, but instead the path to utopia and/or (2) foolish in rejecting the pragmatic observation that you use different tools for different problems; if the market is a tool, it isn’t a tool to solve all problems that deserve to be solved and/or (3) arrogant in not being flexible and open to a variety of approaches to solving serious problems if those approaches happen to involve a role for government and/or (4) arrogant in thinking that a top-down, comprehensive, and anti-pragmatic ideology like libertarianism could possible present the best solution for all the varied problems and difficulties presented by our complex world (which isn’t to say that some libertarians don’t have pragmatic tendencies, only that the premise and tendency of libertarianism is anti-pragmatic in that it attempts to universalize a limited number of simplistic premises) (5) insincere in their concern about social justice, as illustrated by their desire to tolerate racial discrimination and/or (6) insincere in their concern for social justice, in that their answer for most social problems is to do nothing or let the market (charity) take care of it and/or (7) insincere in their concern for social justice, as illustrated by the selling of their souls on a consistent basis to conservatives and always prioritizing economic issues over social issues (which is the tradeoff that libertarians always and voluntarily make when allying themselves with conservatives).
A conservative/libertarian alliance makes much more sense for both liberals and libertarians. Liberals would rather defeat you at the ballot box than accept your corrupted ideology. Or to put it another way, an alliance with liberals would require libertarians to prioritize their preferences concerning social issues over economic issues, just as their current alliance with conservatives requires libertarians to prioritize economic issues over social issues. And we know what libertarians really care about more: the idea of a large bank being regulated positively freaks out a libertarian, whereas they can deal with and accept the conservatives stomping out personal liberties. It is a matter of priorities, really.
July 13, 2010, 2:11 pmCrunchy Frog says:
Why is it that I keep seeing “Libertarians believe (insert random nutjob position here, i.e. unfettered immigration)” from commenters who are decidedly Non-libertarian?
Yes, Arthur Kirkland, I am talking to you, and the rest of the lefties.
Until you get off your high horse an make a serious attempt at understanding libertarian philosophy, and recognize that small-l libertarians readily admit that yes, there are limits to pure theory, then you will continue to be regarded as an unserious troll, out to muddy the waters and distract attention from the sheer disaster that your preferred liberal politics has resulted in the past 1 1/2 years.
July 13, 2010, 2:18 pmG.R. Mead says:
I think they will — and have frequently in the past. Standing to contest the larger policy being implemented by the means I suggest will be VERY hard to establish at the District Court and Circuit levels.
The approach I advocate involves orders as Commander in Chief to individual federal law enforcement officers, directing them under a clause of the Constitution as to whom they are properly to report (and be appointed by — but all in due time), when the President deems no exigency to require their service in the immediate employment of the United States. Of course most of them are already serve within the geographic limits of various States anyway.
Despite that change of reporting authority, it does not necessarily involve any material change in the individual’s material circumstances, Congressional funding under existing laws or their individual compensation otherwise — because the Constitution already makes those things expressly proper for the institutional function of law enforcement. It implicates no constitutional rights, and no core competing judicial concerns such as habeas as was the case with Boumediene and Hamdan.
Just substitute the correct word for “army” in the following holding, and then ask to whom those who are not ‘officers of the United States’ (Steele, supra) and yet involved in federal law enforcement are ordinarily supposed to report when serving that function under the language of the Constitution (1,8,15&16):
Once started, the retail politics of who, where, and when to reassign operative law enforcement personnel to State oversight (and, eventually the associated portions of the agency budgets, without need of legislative change), becomes a patronage fountain for the President allied with the States through this institutional arrangement set forht in the Constitution — just like Congress’s oversight and budget functions have been patronage fountains for them in the creation of all of these agencies, when the President was politically amenable to that. The federal debt has dried that fountain up now. Time to move on, and sell off the political inventory …
Political competition — it is a good thing.
The budgetary issues will create broader possibilities of Congressional standing, but by then the selective process of retail politics in handing out choice law enforcement plums to eager State political establishments, having enlisted a State’s Congressmen and senators as happy political brokers for the “who, where, and when,” will have taken over the dynamic … and the only real complaint will be from those to whom the President is not yet getting around to devolving the Constitutional law enforcement institution back to the ordinary care of the States — and they would have little ground for standing to contest his discretionary inaction, “at this time,” as to their state or district.
July 13, 2010, 2:19 pmDavid Welker says:
This is an excellent link summarizing the mainstream liberal position quite nicely.
July 13, 2010, 2:20 pmAssistant Village Idiot says:
Now go back and read NaG’s comment (about 1/4 way down) again. An excellent observation, and perhaps the only useful thing I have taken from the discussion.
July 13, 2010, 2:37 pmAlast says:
You have a low opinion of liberals. An intelligent liberal sees a libertarian as someone who defaults to freedom… that freedom is the natural state and should be the first response. Not the only response, but the default subject to being persuaded otherwise. In some cases, freedom of one infringes the freedom of another (murder, theft, fraud for examples). Libertarianism is not anarchy, although that is is the way some people try to paint it.
July 13, 2010, 2:43 pmArthur Kirkland says:
I have not stated that libertarians prefer unfettered immigration (maybe not even mentioned immigration at all); you may be talking to me, but you don’t know what you are talking about. (Are you here on loan from the Heritage Foundation, after a stint in the Bush Jr. Department of Defense?)
I have said that libertarians — not Instalibertarians, not conservatives who want to avoid being called conservatives, not “libertarians” who carve exceptions on gays, abortion, the drug war, “war president” (more accurate: “faux war president”) powers, and the other important points of personal liberty — should find Democratic and Republican platforms equally objectionable.
The past eighteen months have been a sheer disaster — except when measured against the seven years that preceded them, caused much of the problem, and constituted a thorough repudiation of Republican and conservative governance.
A conservative proposing to giving pointers to others, from higher ground, on what constitutes “libertarian philosphy?” Good luck with that.
July 13, 2010, 2:49 pmBob from Ohio says:
Souless libertarians of the Lindsey and Somin type who sneer at people with religious or traditional values (ie, most conservatives) should align themselves with liberals. It is a more comfortable social fit. No dealing with icky people like Sarah Palin.
We’ll struggle on without you. I hope you like the higher taxes and gun bans though.
July 13, 2010, 2:55 pmbyomtov says:
White American Cheese,
OK. You’ve convinced me. I read the Tea Party’s Core Principles you listed.
They really are incoherent. I’d like someone to take that list of angry slogans mixed with sheer foolishness (stimulus is illegal??) and translate it into a consistent set of policies.
Where will you cut the budget? Actual numbers, please.
How much will you increase defense spending while doing it?
What tax cuts do you propose, and how will they affect your plan to balance the budget? (No Lafferism, please).
What do you mean by “traditional family values encouraged?” Specifics, please.
When you say “political office available to average citizens,” what changes to our current electoral structure do you have in mind?
Put all that into concrete form, and then see how the voters like it.
July 13, 2010, 2:59 pmAultimer says:
Libertarians oppose “free” labor markets the same way we oppose free speech and free beer.
I think you’re in the usual anti-libertarian trap – you note that freedom has negative side effects and conclude that libertarians are actually in favor of the side effects, using freedom as a pretext. The trap breaks down when you notice that libertarians appear to be in favor of ALL negative side effects of freedom.
July 13, 2010, 3:07 pmyankee says:
As an ex-libertarian, I know perfectly well what libertarianism is.
You can still be a libertarian without taking the hardcore libertarian position on every issue, or even if you take a simply anti-libertarian position on a few issues. But if you take the anti-libertarian position on a large number of issues, you’re not much of a libertarian.
Going back to the list I presented above, I find it hard to believe that 10-15% of the American population takes the libertarian position on more than one or two of those issues, even if you change “abolish” to “substantially cut/relax.”
July 13, 2010, 3:13 pmMark Horning says:
The stock Libertarian position on immigration has been “We do not have an immigration problem, we have a wellfare problem.”
The point that unfettered imigration in a context of a welfare state is suicide is quite correct, but most Libertarians understand that the real problem is the welfare state, not folks who want to come here to work.
Trying to solve one issue without regard to the other is nonsensical.
July 13, 2010, 3:13 pmAultimer says:
And liberals seem arrogant in thinking that ANY government ideology presents the best solution for all the varied problems and difficulties presented by our complex world.
Libertarians believe that government is rarely the best solution to problems and difficulties, and often a morally wrong one.
July 13, 2010, 3:18 pmJohn Thacker says:
Really? I think it’s full of self-delusion. People who have a “practical preference for larger government in certain areas where it seems to make sense,” even those who claim to support smaller government “wherever practical” in the abstract, in reality are always pushing for larger government.
Ezra Klein and others may say that they’re for smaller government in some areas, like farm subsidies, but in reality absolutely none of the areas where they’re for smaller government are issues important enough to them for them to be activists or to base their votes.
If you’re “for larger government on any issue that’s importance, and for smaller government on any unimportant issue,” you’ll quickly find that in practice you’re for larger government on every issue of the day. It’s indistinguishable from being philosophically pro-government.
Plenty of people who supported the Iraq War would say that they’re “for peace, but with a practical preference for war in those certain areas where it’s unfortunately necessary.” We still call them hawks.
It’s a self-delusional attempt by liberals to pretend that they’re the only practical or pragmatic people. Many people who end up being in favor in smaller government on nearly every issue would also argue that they’re open-minded, but that the weight of the data supports smaller government on most issues.
July 13, 2010, 3:19 pmArthur Kirkland says:
The libertarians whose libertarianism is restricted to commercial libertarianism are “soulless?”
Why are values better nor worse for being religious? Altruism and charity are admirable qualities that sometimes are religion-based, sometimes not. Bigotry and preference for the supernatural over science (or violence over reason) are objectionsable qualities that sometimes are religion-based, sometime not. Some religious people have been arrested for protesting nuclear armament; others believe the Air Force bombs for God. Some religious people work in hospices catering to gays; other try to make life as miserable for gays as they can manage. Some religious people support government programs that assist the needy; others decry them. Some people promote use of controlled substances on religious grounds; others support criminalization of the same substances on religious grounds.
If you like big government (surveillance, secrecy, deficits, nanny-state moralism based on particular interpretations of certain religious texts) and big business, you’re a natural conservative-libertarian. For the rest of us, “conservatarianism” is a strange, small point on the continuum.
July 13, 2010, 3:24 pmJohn Thacker says:
Some libertarians do pretend that the market is perfect. But if liberals look at libertarians and see only that, they’re engaging a strawman.
Straw (or naive) libertarian: “The market is perfect.”
Liberal reply: “The market in imperfect here, so government should step in.”
Pragmatic libertarian reply: “But your analysis assumes that the government is perfect too. It’s unfair to compare perfect government with imperfect markets. Even admitting that markets are imperfect, in this case they’re still better than the reality of government.”
I don’t have a slavish faith that markets are perfect. But I don’t have a slavish faith that governments are perfect either, and I find that most liberals compare real markets to idealized governments. You can get away with blaming government failure with having the wrong people in charge when the wrong people (in your view) are elected, I suppose.
July 13, 2010, 3:25 pmCrunchy Frog says:
I can’t speak for what all (scare quote) libertarians believe. Nobody can. Anyone who claims otherwise is being intellectually dishonest.
I can tell you how I stand on a few things, however:
The drug war is a total failure, and responsible for more heartache than the drugs themselves could ever be. It is also antithetical to personal freedom (you are going to see that theme a lot).
I believe in (at least) civil unions, with all the rights and responsibilities of marriage. While I personally don’t care what you call it, there is enough Burkean conservatism in me to resist thumbing my nose at the religious sensibilities of 85% of the population.
I am for legal immigration. Emphasis on “legal”. One of the few defined constitutional powers is border security. Build the damn fence first. Stop the influx of illegal immigration. Then and only then can we have a discussion on what to do with the illegals already here (my take – let them remain, provided they buy into American culture and learn English, but on no terms shall there be a “path to citizenship”).
A common language is essential for a common culture. English should be the official language of the United States, and those who refuse to learn it should not be coddled.
If you believe that a fetus is a human being, as I do, then it is entitled to all the rights of any other person. Yes, that means that abortion is indeed murder.
DADT is a joke, and the only thing it accomplishes is an “out” for people who are unsatisfied with their deployments, such as the “gay” Arabic translators at Club Gitmo.
Personally I believe in a muscular foreign policy. As there are Bad Guys out there who want to do us harm, I would rather get them before they get us, and fight on their home turf instead of ours. If that makes me a hypocrit, so be it.
Whether my views correspond to those of some official spokeshole of the Heritage Foundation is left as an exercise for the reader.
July 13, 2010, 3:25 pmbailey says:
It’s not a welfare problem. Again, if the libertarian position is that we need to import third world slaves, it follows that it will have an impact on the low wage workers of this Country (a negative impact, not a Nancy Pelosi now you can devote your time to the “arts” impact). You think, reading their stuff, that they are Americans until someone comes along and makes them a better offer.
July 13, 2010, 3:33 pmThales says:
“The point that unfettered imigration in a context of a welfare state is suicide is quite correct, but most Libertarians understand that the real problem is the welfare state, not folks who want to come here to work.”
What massive welfare state do you refer to that is a magnet for immigrants, exactly? You may have a point with respect to public schools and emergency room care. But illegal immigrants pay sales and other consumption taxes into the system (which by most objective studies appear to offset what they take out) and generally *don’t* receive positive payments fromt the state or federal governments, precisely because they fear being tracked, caught and deported. I think the larger magnet is rather the ability to work and earn money. To the extent that pressures from that movement drive domestic wages down, and there’s little evidence it does significantly, because up until recently there was a marked domestic preference away (at any wage) from jobs that illegal immigrants tend to staff, the welfare state conflict is more at the level of state and federal minimum wage laws, which of course benefit *citizens* and *lawful permanent residents* rather than illegal aliens. In conclusion, the “welfare state problem” to the extent it is one, is largely one of lazy American citizens and permanent residents.
July 13, 2010, 3:34 pmCynical says:
Yet without the votes to abolish the welfare state as a prerequisite, open borders is simply nuts. And it still goes right back to a welfare state as unskilled immigrants put the lower classes into grinding poverty which they’ll happily re-instate a welfare state to ameliorate. Then there is the huge negative effect on freedom from crowding, the far higher costs of pollution control when per-capita emissions have to be so much lower just to maintain the status quo, water supplies…
The stock Libertarian position is suicidal, with or without a welfare state.
July 13, 2010, 3:35 pmAlast says:
Well said.
Markets are better than government to the extent that they have their own drivers and independancies. Many of the flaws in markets are due to foibles of the humans in those markets. Whereas government is much more exposed to the eccentricities of human foibles. Government is much more likely to screw things up than markets, but markets are not immune either.
A benevolent government is better than a malevolent market, but neither of those extremes exist. Those that pretend they exist are delusional, and solutions that rely on their existence are doomed to failure.
July 13, 2010, 3:37 pmPB says:
I am a moderate Libertarian and find almost nothing appealing from the American left. Other than their open mind to matters sexual they are hostile to the most basic libertarian instincts, personal responsibility and distrust of power. Liberals are absolutley hostile to these ideas. How many times have I heard that “individualism” is a racist ideology line coming from liberal social thinkers. Give me a break. People who claim to be libertarians and think there is something for them on the left are lying to themselves. May as well call themsevles blue dogs.
The vast majority of my socially conservative associates are opposed to big government and would be happy too see power devolve to the states and local political units. That belief alone puts then light years ahead of liberals.
July 13, 2010, 3:38 pmyankee says:
Absolutely not. Wars are the ultimate in huge government programs, liberals think most of them are unnecessary and immoral, and if you think it’s not a voting and activist issue you slept through the Bush administration.
July 13, 2010, 3:39 pmAlast says:
I had a hilarious discussion with a liberal over this…. I said how about we count all of the illegal immigrants already here today, allow them to become citizens in 10 years after paying fines, etc., but we reduce that number 1 for 1 for each illegal that enters the country after today. That way, each of the illegals here will have an incentive to stop any future illegals from coming.
It made his head spin like the girl in the Exorcist.
July 13, 2010, 3:41 pmCrunchy Frog says:
Interesting definition of “big government” you have there. Interesting still that you think only conservatives are guilty of the sins you list.
Surveillance – I don’t see a repeal of the Patriot Act. Democrats have the votes – why haven’t they acted?
Secrecy – Every administration tries to keep things secret, the current one being no exception. Worse yet is that the media is carrying its water for it as well.
Deficits – no comment necessary.
Nanny-state moralism – Exactly which party wants to make it illegal for me to smoke, eat trans-fats, or do a myriad of other things that don’t qualify as politically correct? I forget.
July 13, 2010, 3:41 pmMetamorf says:
Ezra Klein’s brief post has been referred to a few times here, and I thought it would be worth saying a little more about it — about, e.g.:
I think he’s right that liberals, at least (as opposed, say, to whatever socialists are calling themselves these days — “progressives”? “anti-capitalists”?) generally haven’t really thought far enough to decide that they’re positively in favor of Big Government per se (though, in the immediate wake of the Obama victory, there were some triumphalist exceptions). But the contention that theirs is just a “practical preference” for larger government where “it seems to make sense” is delusion. “Seems to make sense” is a good phrase to illustrate the sort of impressionistic, I-just-sorta-feel-it thought processes going on here. As a general rule, it’s usually safe to say that larger government will always “seem to make sense” to such liberals, except in those areas to which they’re traditionally hostile — e.g., the military, businesses of various sorts.
July 13, 2010, 4:04 pmfalse seriousness says:
You do understand that the recession started in 12/07 right? That the wars, criminal surveillance, torture, expansion of federal mandate, bailouts and TARP occurred longer than 1.5 years ago?
None are so blind as those who will not see…
July 13, 2010, 4:13 pmKevin says:
If you look at where the parties lie on the two-axis Nolan chart, the major parties span the left and right wings and stretch to the center, but the LP just lies at the outer limits of the otherwise vacant center-lib space.
The 3rd-party purer-than-thou attitude might make for personal satisfaction but makes any real impact impossible.
July 13, 2010, 4:22 pmKevin says:
Nah, just tax them a dollar each for each additional illegal.
July 13, 2010, 4:24 pmBob from Ohio says:
Cruncey Frog, he defined “nanny-state moralism” as only “that based on particular interpretations of certain religious texts”.
All the other nanny-stateism you talk about seems to be based on immorality acording to AK.
July 13, 2010, 4:33 pmAdam Berkowicz says:
While I think Jonah downplayed the right’s tenacious attitude on cultural issues such as abortion and same sex-marriages, I do think he got the better of Brink on this one (this coming from a major Cato supporter).
The fact is that, while cultural issues divide libertarians and conservatives, these cultural issues primarily stay on the back burner. But furthermore, I don’t see why we libertarians should worry about permanent alignments with either major party. We understand where we do and do not fit in with the Democrats and Republicans, so why not continue this trend? The main problems with libertarians is that we tend to only think from a national perspective. I do not believe the libertarian stance has been properly illustrated at a local level. Our community cannot grow if we do not begin to fill seats in school boards and city councils.
July 13, 2010, 4:35 pmMark Field says:
In reading the comments here, I’ve come to believe that Prof. Somin and those he cites may be operating under a faulty premise. They seem to assume that libertarians are desireable to liberals and conservatives alike, thus leaving it to the libertarians themselves to choose.
In contrast, the comments from both liberals and conservatives in this thread don’t show much interest in libertarians. Many on both sides see libertarians as ideological nuts and would rather not have them as “partners”. Speaking for the liberal side, we got rid of the ideological nuts (communists) who purported to be our allies many years ago, and don’t need to repeat that experience. I imagine the conservatives, having (at least publicly) eliminated the segregationists, feel the same way.
If they had the self-awareness to recognize that they were NOT the belles of the ball, what would libertarians do?
July 13, 2010, 4:37 pmKamal says:
As a former Libertarian, who now considers himself Liberal, i’d like to say that the view that Libertarianism is more connected to Liberalism than it is to Conservatism is obvious and correct. The goals are identical: maximizing liberty. The issue here is that Liberals understand that when you have scarce resources,laizze faire economics restrict liberties and do not protect them.
It would be interesting to see the arguments from that standpoint; both sides agreeing that what is important is to maximize liberty. If that requires growing or shrinking government involvement, that’s fine. The goal should not be the governments size; that should be a by-product of good discussions around how to quantify liberty.
July 13, 2010, 4:40 pmCrunchy Frog says:
Oh, well it’s perfectly okay then.
/sarc
July 13, 2010, 4:41 pmBob from Ohio says:
Well, they are mainly atheists, so “soulless” is right according to their own beliefs.
July 13, 2010, 4:45 pmKamal says:
Oh, and to cite evidence for my post, see Illya’s incorrect statement:
Are you going to distill any discussion down to the size of influence that we the people have in protecting our own liberties and try to figure out how how to limit that? Don’t libertarians understand that ‘we the people’ are not as big a threat to liberties as corporations are? That is not to say there isn’t a danger from mob rule; of course there is. But right now, at this moment, who is restricting liberties more; those with all of the resources, or those with none?
July 13, 2010, 4:48 pmKamal says:
Atheists acknowledge the soul is a by-product physical actions. Just because we don’t believe in magic doesn’t mean we don’t acknowledge the appearance of individuality.
July 13, 2010, 4:52 pmThorley Winston says:
I think that a large part of the reason why these “cultural issues” stay on the backburner is because there isn’t really a “libertarian” position on abortion or civil marriage (or foreign policy for that matter). Abortion has always fallen outside of “libertarian” philosophy because there are competing rights at issue – the mother’s, the child’s, and the father’s and for better or worse when there are competing rights, government is the mechanism by which we resolve them. “Civil marriage” – whether we have it or how we define it – doesn’t infringe on anyone’s “rights” (as libertarians usually use the term to refer to “negative liberties”). Granted, that doesn’t preclude some libertarians from staking out a position on these issues but if they do, it’s likely based on their own policy or cultural preferences rather than a logical and necessary extension of adopting a libertarian political philosophy.
July 13, 2010, 5:00 pmyankee says:
Also, Ilya’s claims to the contrary, the number of libertarian voters is miniscule. You can get a lot of people to make vaguely libertarian noises but the market for massive cuts to Social Security and Medicare, repealing civil rights laws, repealing food and drug safety regulations, privatizing the roads, privatizing the public schools, opening the borders to unrestricted free trade, deregulating Wall Street, etc. etc. etc., is tiny.
People like to complain about how we have too much spending and regulation, but actual government spending and regulation are wildly popular.
July 13, 2010, 5:02 pmJoseph Slater says:
Mark Field:
I agree that liberals and conservatives — or more practically, Democrats and Republicans — typically don’t spend a lot of time trying to appeal to libertarians qua libertarians, and that reality is not always reflected in the comments (or main post) here. I’m not sure it’s because both sides see libertarians as “nuts,” though. I think it’s because, with all due respect to the libertarian VC folks who help make this a blog I often find very interesting, the number of libertarians (at least as defined on this blog) is fairly trivial.
In other words, I think Yankee has been making a good point. Look at his list of libertarian points (e.g., abolishing Social Security, Medicare, many basic health and safety laws, employment laws like Title VII) — not only do I agree that there aren’t 10-15% of the population that agrees with most of them, I would guess there is significantly less than 5% that agree. And of that small minority, of those who seriously consider voting for Dems or Repubs, I would guess that almost all vote for Repubs, so only a miniscule number of libertarians are “in play.”
Now if I were a libertarian, none of that would stop me from thinking seriously about which party was a better compromise fit for my beliefs. And I’m not suggesting libertarians shouldn’t have serious conversations about that. But in any “coalition,” it’s likely that the libertarians are the ones that will have to reach out.
July 13, 2010, 5:04 pmJoseph Slater says:
Dang, I was writing as Yankee was posting. Oh well, I still agree with him.
Kamal:
I agree strongly with you that libertarians seem to exaggerate the threats to liberty from democratic government and underestimate or even dismiss conceptually the idea that powerful economic interests can limit liberty. But to get into this discussion, one needs a definition of “liberty” — or to use a word other posters have used, “freedom.” It’s not as if libertarians say, “we like freedom and liberty” and conservatives and liberals both say, “well, we don’t like either of those things so much.” It’s a question of what liberty and freedom means. Libertarians will say, for example, that employers should have the freedom/liberty to refuse to hire / fire employees for any reason including the race, sex, or religion of the employee. Liberals (and at this point, probably most conservatives) have a different conception of liberty, which includes certain civil rights.
My point is not to get into a deep discussion of “freedom,” positive rights vs. negative rights, economic rights vs. other types of rights, etc. It’s just that words like “freedom” and “liberty” are not self-defining and the concepts behind those words can be highly contested among well-meaning folks.
July 13, 2010, 5:12 pmKamal says:
I don’t think we need to redefine liberty or freedom. What we need to do is understand how to quantify it, in order to evaluate competing proposals. One way to do this is to look at how many options/choices are created vs. suppressed for a given action. Once you have done that, you will quickly realize how related libertarian and liberal positions are, and how far removed conservative interests are.
For Example:
July 13, 2010, 5:26 pmdrug legalization: Millions of choices are created vs. no choices suppressed.
Duracomm says:
false seriousness said,
Zimbabwe was once the grain basket of Africa.
Lots of government brought famine and hyperinflation to Zimbabwe and in some years (according to the cia world fact book) made its economy worse than somalia’s.
Too much government is far more destructive than no government at all.
An economic fact clueless hacks who like to use somalia as a critique of conservatives or libertarians are completely ignorant of.
July 13, 2010, 5:37 pmMark Field says:
Joseph Slater: I mostly agree, but I also think that most of the libertarians here demonstrate an ideological rigidity which makes them unattractive to either party.
July 13, 2010, 5:41 pmKamal says:
Or perhaps a valid disagreement about what ‘too much’ government means. As in, when you are able to increase the amount of liberties *everyone* has, then it’s not so big that you can say it’s supressing more people than it helps.
July 13, 2010, 5:47 pmAlast says:
Really? Which ones? What in particular makes them so “unattractive?”
July 13, 2010, 5:56 pmsalty, clovis says:
Serious – you live in a leafy suburb, right? Far away from the folks toward whom we’re not supposed to be “snobbish”?
July 13, 2010, 6:04 pmMikeC says:
People like to complain about how we have too much spending and regulation, but actual government spending and regulation are wildly popular.
Until the bill comes in the mail, yes. Afterwards, about 80% of the populace will start demanding a better way of accomplishing the same things.
Personally, I’m in favor of all the things you listed, from means-testing SS and Medicare to abolishing public schools. Why? Because I pay part of the bills, and see the (at best) mediocre results of said spending and regulation, that’s why.
The regulation and spending are much, much, much more expensive than the results justify. Not one of the programs Yankee listed have actually solved the problems they were intended to address. FWIW, I also support ending the Drug War for the same reason.
July 13, 2010, 6:17 pmDuracomm says:
Kamal said,
Libertarians don’t understand that statement because it is flatly incorrect and could not be more wrong.
Walmart can’t put a gun to my head and force me to behave in certain ways. “we the people” in the form of the federal and state governments do it every single day.
Those with all of the resources are restricting liberties more. The group with all of the resources would be government.
Corporations do exert influence through rent seeking and regulatory capture.
A prime example of this would be how the drug testing corporations got the government to require drug testing of people getting a commercial drivers license. The drug testing corporations could not force companies to drug test so they got the government to force companies to drug test.
An event that occurred during the administration of that liberal bastion of civil liberties bill clinton.
The solution to problems like this is to reduce the size of government and its intrusion into peoples lives. This effective, commonsense solution is something liberals are incapable of even considering.
July 13, 2010, 6:25 pmOrenWithAnE says:
Which is to say they will never get any of their agenda implemented because they categorically refuse to cooperate with the people capable of making policies. This is either brilliant or terrible and I cannot tell.
July 13, 2010, 6:47 pmJoseph Slater says:
Kamal:
I think you and I agree on at least some political/economic matters, but I’m skeptical that you will be able to convince libertarians that you’re right (as some of the recent comments indicate).
You write: I don’t think we need to redefine liberty or freedom. What we need to do is understand how to quantify it, in order to evaluate competing proposals. One way to do this is to look at how many options/choices are created vs. suppressed for a given action. Once you have done that, you will quickly realize how related libertarian and liberal positions are, and how far removed conservative interests are.
First, I’m not arguing for “redefining” rights, merely that we need to define them clearly, because folks haven’t different conceptions of rights, and what “freedom” and “liberty” mean. Let’s take the example of Title VII of the CRA — hotly debated here after Rand Paul’s comments. I’m for it and I assume you’re for it. A number of libertarians here argued against it. How would your calculus decided the issue? Blacks and other minorities have more employment options because of it, but employers are denied certain options/choices (to insist on an all-white workforce even if qualified blacks apply, for example). What’s the most important: the employers’ “freedom” to not hire black folks if they don’t want to, or the “freedom” of black folks from arbitrary, irrational economic discrimination?
I would say the latter, but not because of the number of choices involved. Indeed, to defend Title VII, I think I have to get into definitions of liberty, rights, justice, and into history and practice, etc. Those who attack Title VII also do that, at least implicitly (property rights trump the competing claims because. . . .).
Having said all that, as a liberal, I wish you good luck with the project of getting libertarians to join with liberals.
July 13, 2010, 6:52 pmfalse seriousness says:
I’m laughing at your idea that Zimbabwe is some sort of “liberal” counterweight to the libertarian paradise (i.e. disaster) that is Somalia. But it is probably the best you got, so you might as well go with it.
July 13, 2010, 6:58 pmSeattle Law Student says:
Umm…yeah they can. Walmart moves into Smalltown X and starts selling and hiring. If you’re a small business owner you can either lower prices, and the wages you pay or go out of business. In both scenarios you have an option – Respond to Walmart’s effective ultimatum or die.
The invisible hand’s tendency to bitch-slap everyone who isn’t already well off is among the reasons why liberals (and many moderates) don’t care for libertarian orthodoxy.
July 13, 2010, 6:59 pmArthur Kirkland says:
Distrust of power causes you to lean toward the right — home of limitless detention, Total Information Awareness, no-knock warrants, “free-speech” pens a mile from the speech’s target, kidnappings, national security letters, secret prisons, disdain of habeas corpus, torture, government secrecy, the shrinking Fourth Amendment, slanted intelligence, school prayer, mistaken invasions, the drug war, the ‘nobody’s perfect’ death penalty — and disdain the left?
That sounds neither moderate nor libertarian, other than in the sense that we are all libertarians — including me, every bit as much as you, if not more.
July 13, 2010, 7:00 pmArthur Kirkland says:
Your analysis disregards the $500,000 state grant, the $650,000 infrastructure funding allocation and the $1.75 million tax abatement arranged after hiring the best-connected lawyer in town as an advocate, the state legislator’s wife as a lobbyist, the municipal council member as a surveyor and the county commissioner’s brother as a ‘development partner.’
I nonetheless caught your point.
July 13, 2010, 7:07 pmArthur Kirkland says:
For those who endorse libertarian principles regarding commercial matters, wouldn’t religion (overriding reason and principle) be expected to constitute the leading reason to adopt a contradictory approach to non-commercial issues?
Shouldn’t it be the other way around: People who prize liberty of people display a great deal of soul, while those who prize the liberty of dollars display a lack of soul?
In any event, if atheists are right, everyone is soulless. If the religious are right, no one is soulless. (If agnostics are right, who the hell knows?) But, in any event, if anyone is soulless, everyone is soulless.
July 13, 2010, 7:22 pmabe says:
The libertarian agenda to advance “pure” personal freedom is nonsense, as even most believers will make exceptions to and compromise this bedrock ideal on account of real life.
In a clan, party or polity there always will be restrictions on individual liberty based on the Common Good. All politics devolves to is what is considered to be of the commons and necessary to “good”.
The Democrats believe good is achieved through positive engineering, governmental manipulation and social/ legal sanctions, that Better is Best. They support prescriptive and proscriptive policy.
Republicans are more into negative rights and government restrictions, that Better is the enemy of Good. They adjure us with Thou Shalts and Shalt Nots, as well– just different ones.
Libertarians are into Me and marijuana and ??!! open borders and isolationism, as long as the roads and telecommunications work through Federal centralized oversight. By and large, they support individual freedoms… but also some collective responsibility that impinges on or would tax those “freedoms.” They, too, would impose a regimen of what’s permissible or not, of necessity or “principled” prioritization. IOW, good’s not enough when best is great, in theory, but there are the exceptions to idealized atomized liberties…
July 13, 2010, 7:29 pmfalse seriousness says:
I thought your other comment was stupid, but then there’s this gem….
Let’s explore your beef for just a minute, because I hear these shallow soundbites a lot these days. Should companies be able to sell products that harm children? Yes or no. If Yes, then we know a lot about your morals. If No, then you actually support the idea of regulation. Someone has to do it, and it has to be meaningful, or it will be meaningless.
Ideally, regulations work like traffic signals in a road. Traffic flows better with them, even though at times I have to stop or slow down because of the use of signals. If there were no traffic signals, things would be a mess and I might or might not make it home each night. It’s an important and valid trade off. I’m not losing “liberty” through use of traffic signals; I’m saved from the tyranny of not having traffic signals and greatly increased risk of death or injury. Now, things aren’t ideal, and they don’t function ideally in the real world. But the point is, we keep trying to make things better, and actually, over time they do get better.
To use another example, it used to be that large employers did not have to pay you with money. They could pay you with their own issued coins, which you could only spend at their stores for everything they thought you needed, and you would actually go into debt more paying their inflated prices. Is it a good idea for government to legislate against that? Is that an “intrusion”?
Or maybe you support all prior “progress” (social security, child labor, sick pay, food inspection), but think everything is perfect now and any further progress is dangerous and an “intrusion”? That seems weird.
Or maybe you are as oblivious as Rand Paul denouncing the provisions of the Civil Rights Act that actually enabled Martin Luther King to eat at the lunch counter with white people; I guess he was not aware his position echoed the “states rights” call of opponents at that time. Whose side were you on? Either you support the ability of government to integrate or you don’t. I prefer a society that doesn’t have that kind of discrimination, but it was a battle to get there. You want to turn the clock back apparently. If you do, have the guts to say so; if you don’t, then aren’t you disagreeing with your own views?
This is pretty basic stuff, and I understand there is more complexity, but you don’t seem to grasp the basics.
July 13, 2010, 7:41 pmKamal says:
This is my point.. you seem oblivious to the fact that if Walmart and other large corporations own the country to the point where you can’t make a life for yourself without working for one of them, so yes, they do restrict freedom far more than any government liberals are proposing. What’s the point of protecting property if you must be a slave for most your life to own any?
If everyone had property to protect, then i’d go back to being a libertarian. I do have property but only through the luck of birth. Many people are not so fortunate, and saying “okay.. we are protecting property at the sake of life and liberty now that it’s all of it has been divided” is evil.
As an atheist, I don’t use that word lightly.
July 13, 2010, 7:42 pmDuracomm says:
Arthur Kirkland, illustrating his inability to grasp facts said,
Arthur, answer this simple question.
In your example who gave all of those benefits to walmart? Who took money from taxpayers and gave it to well connected corporations.
Big government took money from taxpayers and gave it to politically connected corporations. Big government, not walmart, is the force behind this action you complain about.
I mentioned this in my comment saying,
July 13, 2010, 7:49 pmChris Green says:
I think you mean ‘slap’ anyone who isn’t running their business as efficiently as Walmart. That includes a lot of people who were very well off before Walmart came to town, and then got poor very quickly.
I understand the reactionary dislike of Walmart. I feel bad for the small business owners who’s companies went under. However, in the end, for better or for worse, more efficient business models and technologies always replace old ones, and there will always be nostalgia for the past. Steam engines and textile mills put thousands out of work at the dawn of the Industrial Age, yet without the industrial revolution, there would be no cure to many of the diseases we are afflicted with, no airplanes, no trains (in other words, no visiting family members who lives far away), no dishwashers, no microwaves, no vacuum cleaners, limited food supply, periodic famines that killed a lot of people and ice cream would be really, really expensive. Yet, despite all this, people had many of the same reactions to the earliest industrial devices that people have toward Walmart today.
July 13, 2010, 7:52 pmwilky says:
I’d say closed minds, on an idividual level, has resricted more freedom then laizze faire economics ever has. And Liberals are far from the open minded that they fancy themselves as.
July 13, 2010, 7:53 pmAdam Kamp says:
As a libertarian-leaning progressive, I can only say hey, come on to the Democratic Party! You have a better chance of procuring a shift in economic libertarianism from the Democrats than social libertarianism from the Republicans, because the politicians will, in a pinch, go where the money is.
Seriously, though, the main problem with libertarianism is that it has no center. Imagine that the Republican Party consisted only of the people with the views of the furthest right Senators, and then try to imagine it getting any sort of real national prominence, or even developing the kind of party machinery necessary to consistently win races. Won’t happen.
Sorry, but libertarians are going to have to figure out how to create the kind of politically palatable platform that can be elected–MODERATELY free-market, MODERATELY social-liberal. And then you may have a chance.
July 13, 2010, 7:59 pmnewscaper says:
I too scoff at the brilliant strategy of getting Dems in Congress in 2006, that clearly produced not a single positive thing.
I’m also tired of the reflexive bashing of Beck et al. I’m not a fan of Beck (his style is too over the top for me, and he’s sloppy at the margins) but he is a net positive in educating people.
The reflexive bashing of those who are for getting illegal immigration under control is also annoying — what part of being concerned about it , while we still have a welfare state and have mostly lost the battle of our republic turning into a demo [mob] ocracy, don’t you get? There is a lot of room for principled disagreement.
I also think the bit about liberals and *libertarians* sharing “ultimate values” is utter nonsense. Libertarians want freedom while liberals want individual freedom without individual responsibility — something very, very different. [And the hardcore communists/socialists/progressives who consider the 'liberals' useful idiots, only care about 'personal freedom' in the context of using it to undermine traditional 'NGOs' of family, church and local voluntary civic groups.]
July 13, 2010, 8:01 pmBy contrast, sane conservatives want ‘ordered liberty’, with issues as to the extent of the ‘ordered’ part.
richard40 says:
Lindsey is a fool, and I strongly suspect whether he is actually a libertarian, at least on fiscal issues. Libertarians can never ally with dems or leftists, since the whole basis of leftist idealogy is using government to solve everything and dictate everything. Even on the issue of drug legalization and pornography, most dems are no longer libertarian. As bad as Bush was for libertarians, even he has occasionally proposed some libertarian leaning programs, like his tax cuts, and the proposal for privitising social security accounts. I can’t think of a single Obama (or dem congress) policy that can remotely be described as libertarian. Libertarians can occasionally ally with conservatives, as long as they are the small government fiscal variety, rather than the Bush kind, and we should now, to stop the statist Obama agenda. But the alliance with Obama leftists was always a foolish idea. The only sensible thing to do in 2008 was either vote for an actual libertarian candidate, or sit it out.
Lindsey is also dead wrong about Glen Beck. Yes, Beck sometimes seems like a demagague, but he is one that libertarians should love. Actually to a lot of average americans, doctrinaire full blown libertarianism, Ayn Rand style, seems extreme too. Becks main targets are big government liberalism and socialism, and Woodrow Wilson style progressivism, all deserving statist targets. He has embraced Von Hayek economics and encouraged people to buy the book. He encourages people to study history, and study the founders, and return to the small government, individualistic values of the founders. He has often stated that the main political divide is not between left and right (He correctly said that Communism and Fascism are effective the same thing, totalitarianism), but between those who favor big government totalitarianism, and those who favor small government individualism. He frequently has on libertarian guests, discussing libertarian solutions, and agrees with them. He approves of the small government values, individualism, and stress on self reliance of the tea parties. This does not sound to me like a mindless demagague, but somebody who encourages conservatives to study and think about libertarian ideas. Yes he wont come out in favor of legal pot, but can Linsey name a single prominent dem politician that has? Yes he frequently talks about the importance of faith, but has never proposed any right wing style moralist government dictates. Is being religious anti libertarian, I hope not. And unlike Rush Limbaugh he has severly criticised Bush era republicanism. Beck is currently doing an excellent job of introducing conservatives to many libertarian values, and we should applaud him for it.
Linsey is also dead wrong about the Tea Party. The Tea party has a decided libertarian bent for a conservative group. They frequently criticise and mistrust Bush style conservatism, and have actively worked to defeat some establishment republicans who were soft on spending and big government. Their unifying principle is small government, less spending, less taxes, pro gun rights. They explicitly dont have any litmus test on social issues, and allow both conservative, moderate, and libertarian views there. True they are pro war, but many libertarians are divided there too. Once again, the Tea Party is doing an excellent job of introducing conservatives to many libertarian values, and we should applaud them for it.
July 13, 2010, 8:11 pmfalse seriousness says:
You are right about importance of creative destruction – and the ability of an economy to handle the dissolution of one industry while another springs up. The story of the old time barrel makers, or candle makers or wagon wheel manufacturers.
The real issue is whether social safety nets are a good idea for a society, to help in the transitions, to mitigate the harsh requirements of creative destruction on real people (like, families or children). I am a believer in a regulator on the free market playground, an insurer of basic needs (the “general welfare” stuff in the Constitution). I think it’s better, and more economically empowering for our country, if people are educated. So I support public education. I believe good roads are important, so I support taxes to pay for roads. I believe people should have a sense of some security, so I support social security for the old, the poor or the sick. I believe it’s better if people don’t die from preventable illnesses, or go bankrupt if they chose not to die from a preventable illness, or even to be supported so they can die with dignity.
These basic social compacts used to be understood and accepted; now you hear from all sorts of idiots who apparently haven’t even considered it – like the pathetic teabaggers screaming, “keep government out of my medicare!”
Personally, I often shop at Walmart because the prices and selection are good.
July 13, 2010, 8:11 pmDuracomm says:
false seriousness,
Your comment was a long version of saying conservatives should move to somalia if they like limited government.
Your ignorance of facts makes it impossible for you to recognize that regulations are often designed to do nothing but protect powerful corporations.
Licensing is Anti-Competitive — This Time, Its Personal
July 13, 2010, 8:24 pmSeattle Law Student says:
Chris – Walmart is efficient because it can exert near-monopoly power on suppliers and can capture government. It might be a great and profitable company without those abilities, but we’ll never know.
What we do know is that the system doesn’t work well for most people. The libertarian approach seems to rely, like dogmatic communism, on people behaving in a fashion contrary to nature. The natural state of unfettered capitalism leads in short order to company stores, monopolies, cartels, and other anti-competitive institutions because there is more money to be made that way.
Duracomm – Big government doesn’t give that stuff away. Bad-government does. There is a difference. Lack of oversight (oh no another government program) causes it. Privately financed campaigns where the better financed candidate beats the better candidate causes it.
July 13, 2010, 8:24 pmnoahp says:
Dear Ilya: Go into the real estate business; draw up contracts; come back in a year and tell me you are still a libertarian! People will not honor contracts! (And you will enter into thoughts of murder most foul!).
A pifle of a post. Substance is hinted but not delivered.
The conservative movement and hopefully Libertarians as well are and must concentrate on stopping Obama. He is not a professional economist but apparently that is nota real liability since since his orbit is dominated by ideologues who are completely blind to the concept of stability and marginal incentives. I am almost wondering if he is so childish that his determination to be “not Bush” is inflamed by a book quoting “W” last year that he is “clueless”. You might note that none of his economic policies really make sense…couldn’t have that…”too Republican”.
July 13, 2010, 8:26 pmfalse seriousness says:
I absolutely agree that regulations should not be rented out to the highest industry bidders. Do you suppose that it is an argument against regulations? Argument by anecdote, that’s your best shot? Seriously, think about this stuff for more than 15 seconds, because I’m just not seeing evidence that you have.
July 13, 2010, 8:32 pmleo marvin says:
Who has the time to woo furry little libertarians to take acorns from my hand when there’s a Coulter-Kristol feud to enjoy?
July 13, 2010, 8:32 pmabe says:
Woo furry little creatures, leo?
Some of us are waiting for
July 13, 2010, 8:42 pmPelosi and MichelleHairy Reid to woo us in a Democratic staging of the Vagina Monologues.David R. Graham says:
Bill Safire had it right: “Libertarian Conservative.” Not going to improve on that.
July 13, 2010, 8:42 pmArthur Kirkland says:
If government doesn’t build roads (the infrastructure allocation) and collect taxes (the tax-increment financing arrangement), who will? Are we to rely on private roads (with toll-boxes installed at every intersection)?
Ignoring Wal Mart’s culpability seems wrong. Fixing the problem by disinclining Wal Mart and government officials to act improperly seems preferable to focusing entirely on government.
But the more important point is the flimsiness of arguments that Wal Mart’s success is simply that of an efficient business benefiting from free markets. The billions in Wal Mart profits some are striving to shield from inheritance tax were frequently assembled with government dollars — direct, such as those paid in grants and tax abatements, and indirect, such as those provided to fund their workers’ health care.
July 13, 2010, 8:48 pmwally world shopper says:
Furry, fuzzy Democratic hirsute Reid, et al. who, as de facto green trade globalists but also heavily pensioned unionists, want me to pay more than I need to for domestic AND foreign goods and services.
Guess I’m not to patronize importer, minimum wage hirer Walmart in favor of favored localized biz and trans-national politics.
July 13, 2010, 9:09 pmInquiring Mind says:
I am not a libertarian, I toyed with it when I was in my 20s and then realized that no libertarians were satisfactorally answering my bigger questions.
As I see it, both the modern political left and the libertarian philosophy have a fatal flaw involving unstated assumptions. People will behave badly. Some percentage will always fail to plan ahead. Then there are those who simply have a run of bad luck. The leftist answer is many expensive programs that end up encouraging more people to fail to plan ahead. They also discourages people from producing children to pay for the future benefits. Hence it all collapes after three or four generations as the money runs out. That’s because financial capital is not a given. At some point people are less productive as well as less fecund and cheating on taxes becomes a widely practiced fine art.
The libertarian solution to people behaving badly/bad luck seems to be to have them rely on the voluntary kindness of others. This assumes a large reservoir of constantly replenished moral capital. There is a problem with this as a solution after the third generation has started to collect Social Security. It is no coincidence that divorce rates skyrocketed in this nation about the time the greatest generation fully realized that Social Security and then Medicare meant they were relieved of the burden of caring for their own parents. That knowledge altered the relationship of parent to child in fundamental ways and made divorce much more attractive. Since then family ties have frayed even further with staggering illegitimacy rates. Such fractured families often have no sense of obligation to each other. Indeed these fractures breed behavior that tends to the downright anti social.
The question for those who want a smaller government after we have so damaged family bonds is who going to take care of those who can’t take care of themselves when the social programs disappear? Where is all that kindess going to come from if there aren’t strong families and vigorous religious institutions? Do the libertarians have some super secret third way they are keeping under wraps to spring when the time us right? Would any time ever be right considering that libertarians are proven dunces when it comes to political strategy, prone to snits and throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
It has always seemed to me that many of the bobo libertarians have a lot in common with fashion models, starlets and denizens of the gay club scene. They think they are far cooler than everyone else, they tend to assume their luck will never run out and they fool themselves they will never get old or helpless.
July 13, 2010, 9:12 pmMaybe that’s why for all the talk of going Galt, they almost never. Poor, old libertarians who lived up to their principles seem scarcer than hen’s teeth.
Duracomm says:
Seattle Law Student, not getting the point, said,
Typical big government supporter reasoning.
The solution to big government screw ups is to increase the size of government.
The mind boggles.
July 13, 2010, 9:16 pmArthur Kirkland says:
I hope you are not referring to Jon Stewart’s (and Stephen Colbert’s) periodic assessments of Chancellor Beck’s work? They don’t bash, unless bash means “rebroadcast Beck’s performance.”
July 13, 2010, 9:27 pmmattski says:
Duracomm, I recommend this book. In my opinion you’ve got it backwards. You’ve heard of “regulatory capture”? Well, this is “government capture” by big money.
If you were very rich and very powerful you would look to get your way by whatever means were available, no? If you could commandeer the local government by buying favors, twisting arms, hiring the best lawyers, etc, you’d do it. The reason local governments are vulnerable to this kind of corporate extortion is not that these local governments are too large and powerful!! Rather, they’re too flimsy. They’re not democratic (representative of the citizenry) enough!
The libertarian “solution” to corporate capture of gov’t is to get rid of gov’t. That isn’t a solution, it’s despair.
July 13, 2010, 9:27 pmhamlet's oh feel ya! says:
This assumes a large reservoir of constantly replenished moral capital.
Moral malice is inexhaustible from what some of us have experienced on account of the righteous, self-appointed
July 13, 2010, 9:28 pmequalizersresenters. I say this as a Republican-leaning woman who has seen the Libertarian to Left types employ their principled heft with gusto for creative destruction of some’s family bonds and reputations in the service of themselves.Seattle Law Student says:
Mattski – I couldn’t have said it better.
July 13, 2010, 9:44 pmDaily Pundit » Libertarians and the Right…Or the Left? says:
[...] The Volokh Conspiracy » From “Liberaltarianism” to Libertarian Centrism? [...]
July 13, 2010, 10:03 pmArthur Kirkland says:
Nor could I. I just try to hold the line until the bigger guns arrive to deliver victory to the liberal-libertarian alliance.
July 13, 2010, 10:16 pmMetamorf says:
It’s never going to be enough, mattski. It’s like what people used to refer to as “actually existing socialism” — it was never socialist enough! At some point, you have to start thinking that maybe your model just isn’t going to work.
No, the libertarian solution to corporate capture of gov’t is to get gov’t out of business. That isn’t despair, it’s hope.
July 13, 2010, 11:32 pmSuperSkeptic says:
I feel like Justice Kennedy…
July 14, 2010, 12:33 amBrandon says:
We need to find a way to become mainstream and sell our views AS LIBERTARIANS (not “libertarian centrists” or “liberaltarians”) to voters! And I think voters are so turned off by libertarianism because a lot of them are just too damned dogmatic. They don’t understand that the rest of the nation LIKES taxation and doesn’t think of it the way we tend to. We have to use baby steps to convince them we’re right, not beat them over the head with our positions. That’ll just make things worse for us.
Open any major libertarian book espousing our points of view, and more often than not, it’s something like 80% pure theory and principles and only 20% empirical evidence that what we espouse ACTUALLY WORKS. Libertarians NEED to emphasize the evidence that we’re right. When people ask, “How do you know it’ll work?” and we just spout the same old talking points to them that we do amongst each other, they’ll think, “Wow, this guy’s an idiot. He can’t prove to me his plan works but he’s telling everyone it’s gonna heal the country.” We sound like morons doing that. We NEED to grow up!
And let’s hold off on Austrian econ until it’s actually been EMPIRICALLY PROVEN. Until and unless studies show that all the stuff Hayek and Mises and Menger have been saying about interest rates and money supply is totally true with actual statistical analysis, we shouldn’t waste time espousing it. You look like an idiot when you espouse an economic school of thought that HAS YET TO BE PROVEN! I mean, to invent a term like “praxeology”, which is just shorthand for, “I didn’t learn how to empirically prove theories with statistical tools, so I’m going to assume logic and observation is enough.” It just doesn’t cut it. Neoclassical is good enough, and that HAS been proven.
July 14, 2010, 5:11 amBrandon says:
The worst thing you can do when trying to convince someone your ideology is right is to beat them over the head with your talking points and using strawmen. Saying “You don’t care about the Constitution” simply because they don’t agree with us is idiotic! Even if they are careless about constitutionalism, you don’t say it to their faces when TRYING to convince them to switch sides! Have a little fucking tact. The biggest fault of the liberty movement is that so many of its members have no idea how to properly debate and persuade newcomers. The only folks we’ll persuade with our current ways are some on the fence and others who probably would’ve gone libertarian anyway.
And I think any fusionist alliance is a mistake. Why should we rely on either the Left or the Right to help do our bidding?? It’s stupid! It’s asinine! So we’re supposed to just switch between supporting one or the other major FAILED party to keep gov’t divided? That’s nonsense! All you’re doing there is SAVING FACE. We want REFORM and cutting gov’t, not just keeping gov’t from growing. Come on, Volokh. You can do better than that.
July 14, 2010, 5:15 amBrandon says:
Besides, what guarantees do we have that a new Republican majority in 2010 will POSSIBLY cut gov’t all that much? It seems clear to me the GOP establishment’s bitching in the House and Senate is mostly partisan, simply because a Democrat is in the WH instead of a Republican. I mean, WHERE WERE the tea parties when Bush was in power??! Did it REALLY take 8 years for conservatives to realize big gov’t is terrible? Or were they afraid that the alternative, liberal Dems in power, was somehow “so much worse” that they didn’t wanna rock the boat and weaken Bush’s power, esp. in the 04 election?
July 14, 2010, 5:20 amBrandon says:
Why are the tea parties ONLY staying within this bullshit 2-party system? If the tea parties are so DAMN dynamic, as guys like Volokh would have us believe, why are they NOT endorsing a single 3rd-party candidate???? Why is it only Republicans who claim “I’m a real Republican who actually cares about limited gov’t”? I mean, come on. Scott Brown? The man’s a statist! Or how about Marco Rubio? Oh yeah, REAL big alternative to Crist. Pfft. Ever heard of Alex Snitker, florida voters?
July 14, 2010, 5:24 amBrandon says:
I dunno about you, but I’m TIRED of the liberty movement compromising and only working inside the duopoly when it gets “serious” about changing shit. We need to get Americans to THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX! To get them to stop voting along party lines and wake the hell up.
July 14, 2010, 5:26 amSG says:
Libertarians need to resign themselves to the fact that it will always be a fringe movement. Most people like spending other people’s money and telling others how to live. If you’re a libertarian and wish to cast relevant votes (i.e, (R) or (D)), vote to preserve a balance of power between the two parties. If both parties are well represented in Washington (i.e., not the single party abomination that is in place today), then you’ll have to accept that whatever ultimately does make it through the sausage grinder likely does represent the general will of the American people.
July 14, 2010, 6:37 ammattski says:
It occurs to me that we have some common ground here. For example, I’ve heard voices at the VC—voices which sound to my ear libertarian/conservative—put emphasis on transparency. Transparency, perhaps, is appealing to libertarians because it sounds spare, minimal, efficient. I agree. But I suspect gov’t needs to be robust enough to resist seductions/incursions by the powerful.
Let’s be realistic: lots of powerful interests who operate profitably in the dark are not going to be thrilled about “transparency.” If you’re going to make reforms which reduce the advantages of the wealthy you’re going to meet resistance. Well-heeled resistance. The government needs to be sufficiently robust to effect transparency.
And Metamorf, when you say “at some point you have to start thinking that maybe your model just isn’t going to work” you’re really going off into an ahistorical la-la land.
Are you going to tell me that democracy hasn’t made a difference in human history? That would be laughable. Hey, you want a great (and I mean great) overview of the birth of democratic government? Try this.
Also, when you say “it’s never going to be enough” that sounds a lot like despair.
July 14, 2010, 7:15 ammattski says:
Classique.
July 14, 2010, 7:18 amMetamorf says:
No, I just mean it’s never going to be enough for what you want, which is both a powerful government and one immune to control by the powerful. IF that’s what you want, you have some reason to despair, but only until you let go of unreal expectations.
In and of themselves, both “transparency” and democracy are fine, but in the real world neither will be enough — nor will any further “reforms” ever be enough — to get at the root of the problem, which is: to the extent that government is involved with business, business will be involved with government. Reduce the first and you’ll reduce the second (among other benefits). And that’s where hope comes in — real hope and change!
Thanks for the tip on the Izzy Stone book, though. And in case you haven’t yet read it, here’s another book to look into.
July 14, 2010, 8:37 amAultimer says:
Somalia is anarchist, not libertarian. That’s analogous to calling Soviet Russia a liberal paradise, since liberals prefer government control.
July 14, 2010, 9:19 amfalse seriousness says:
That’s a better rebuttal than Zimbabwe at least.
Libertarianism fails because the devil is in the details on where you draw the lines so you don’t have anarchy. If I have to worry that you are selling my child poison, am I more “free” than if I don’t have to worry that you are selling my child poison?
There are reasons we have the rules we do. Because misery required them.
July 14, 2010, 10:58 amyankee says:
I wouldn’t say “always,” the ideas that dominate today’s politics were all fringe at one point. But no liberaltarian or conservatarian alliance is going anywhere until libertarians can bring a significant number of votes to the table, and that’s going to require mass conversions.
July 14, 2010, 11:13 amNaG says:
OrenWithAnE: “Which is to say they will never get any of their agenda implemented because they categorically refuse to cooperate with the people capable of making policies. This is either brilliant or terrible and I cannot tell.”
I do not think that libertarians would “categorically refuse to cooperate” with the majority. Or, at least, if they want to have relevance, they will pick and choose cooperation on some level. Minority parties with a compelling argument can still move the general public in their direction, and by extension cause the majority party (that wants to hold on to power) to modify its views. And once in a while you might get a majority party that retains its minority-party mindset (like some would say happened with Reagan). But yeah, given the state of the current major parties, libertarians will likely always be fighting from behind, with most of their victories coming from the defeat of legislation rather than its enactment.
July 14, 2010, 1:10 pmDuracomm says:
First thing the liberals say when anyone even suggests limiting the size of government is a variation of what false seriousness said
Folks like false seriousness tend to have a minor panic attack and throw up the Somalia strawman at the mere suggestion of reducing the current gargantuan size of government.
I pointed out that lots of government in Zimbabwe reduced Zimbabwe to rubble and caused famine there. Ironic since Zimbabwe was the grain basket of africa and exported lots of food before too much government disease set in.
The problem of lots of government caused so much destruction in Zimbabwe that in some years it is ranked lower than Somalia in the CIA world fact book.
false seriousness then said,
The Somalia strawman is an ignorant argument.
Zimbabwe shows just how much ignorance is required to make the Somalia argument.
July 14, 2010, 1:54 pmfalse seriousness says:
You clearly didn’t use your 15 seconds. Maybe you still have time on the clock.
July 14, 2010, 2:10 pmDuracomm says:
false seriousness, arguing with the libertarian voices in his head, said,
Lets illustrate the vacousness of that statement by fixing it.
Erecting another somalia style strawman he then says
This why folks like false seriousness can’t be taken seriously.
Either ignorance or partisan fervor makes them believe advocating for a smaller, more common sense set of regulations, that don’t favor politically connected interest groups, is just the same as wanting to poison children.
July 14, 2010, 2:20 pmDuracomm says:
Here is another good example of the regulatory state in action.
It shows why those compassionate liberals who love big government and all its exquisitely planned and executed regulations with all their heart are just darned compassionate people.
If Only His Bootstraps Were Made of Red Tape
Of course to compassionate big government liberals like false seriousness stopping this kind of abuse of homeless people is just like wanting to sell poison children.
July 14, 2010, 2:32 pmfalse seriousness says:
Are you bravely taking the position that bad regulation is bad, or that ALL regulation is bad?
This distinction may be beyond your capacity, but we can only hope for the best.
So you do favor regulations that prevent companies from selling poison to children? Who does it and how do they do it?
July 14, 2010, 3:02 pmDuracomm says:
false seriousness,
My statement on regulations was
From statements like that you and like minded liberals consistently throw up two straw man arguments.
1. Limited government equals no government (somalia)
2. Limited regulation equals poisoning children.
You need to understand that recognizing
is not the same thing as supporting the poisoning of children.
When you understand that you might be able to move beyond ludicrous straw men arguments.
July 14, 2010, 3:17 pmfalse seriousness says:
You appear unable to state that you favor regulations that preclude companies from poisoning children. Pretty sad really. I had no trouble agreeing that regulations should not be sold to the highest industry bidder, and like you, I am boldly and bravely against bad regulations.
Now I’m trying to move you past the basics on regulations. To do that, you have first have to concede that there should be regulations that preclude companies from poisoning children.
Once you do that, then we just move you down the list of topics, and viola! another liberal is born. Or you don’t do that, and express your support for the right of companies to poison children.
Your move Chief.
July 14, 2010, 3:41 pmMetamorf says:
That’s why we have laws, false. Do you think we need regulations to preclude you from poisoning children? Or do you think the lack of such regulation means you have the right to poison children? If not, the voila! Another libertarian is born!
July 14, 2010, 4:15 pmfalse seriousness says:
There isn’t much of a distinction. Regulations are implemented by agencies with lawful authority to implement them.
And no, I don’t have plans to poison children, but sadly, people have made money doing that in the past – and the very recent past at that. They were caught by regulators. I don’t see much risk of me becoming a libertarian based on this point, but I respect the attempt.
Anyway, our little discussion here wasn’t very nuanced, as you might have noticed.
July 14, 2010, 4:52 pmSeattle Law Student says:
Metamorf – I’m not sure I get your point. Regulations are laws put into practice. Freestanding regulations without authorizing law are ultra vires and according to basic administrative law (at least here in WA) are not enforceable.
Edit: beat me to the punch false
July 14, 2010, 4:55 pmDuracomm says:
false seriousness, still flogging a straw man and arguing in bad faith, said,
I support the laws against murder and assault so yes I do support regulations against poisoning children.
But since you are all about using regulations to help the children I am sure you will be willing to state that you oppose the political action to end vouchers in washington dc.
Since this was so important to the children I’m sure you will strongly support actions to bring the vouchers back.
Ignoring Facts in the Name of Science, Screwing Over Children in the Name of the Kids
The children or regulations designed to protect powerful, politically connected interest, which is more important to you false seriousness?
July 14, 2010, 5:57 pmmattski says:
Small quibble: I consider myself fairly realistic so I wouldn’t expect “immunity to control by the powerful” in my government. That’s too strong a statement. I do believe sunlight is the best disinfectant. And I don’t believe that the level of transparency in gov’t today is the best we can get. Do you? So I see every reason to try for more, and to avoid statements—unsupportable if you ask me—which pretend to know the future and foreclose upon various forms of progress.
(I don’t have a theory, as Libertarians often seem to, that allows me to predict the results of efforts to reform our democratic institutions. What I have is a certain experience with human nature and the knowledge that people sometimes behave surprisingly nobly.)
I found this quotation in a review of Freedom To Choose:
“There will always be shoddy products, quacks, con artists. But on the whole, market competition, when it is permitted to work, protects the consumer better than do the alternative government mechanisms that have been increasingly superimposed on the market.”
“When it is permitted to work”
Left himself a little loophole, didn’t he?
July 14, 2010, 6:13 pmDuracomm says:
Adam Kamp said,
The problem with that statement is the democrats need to shift from social conservatism also. The democrats are bad on both social freedom and economic liberty.
Making them a worse on personal freedom than the republicans.
New at Reason: Richard Abowitz on the Obscenity Trial of John Stagliano
Hope and Change!!Never mind, meet the new boss same as the old boss.
July 14, 2010, 6:13 pmfalse seriousness says:
Whew, I thought I was going to have refer to you as the “Guy Who Opposes Regulations That Prevent The Poisoning Of Children”.
We have so many directions to move in… how do you feel about deceptive ads designed to take old people’s money?
Or, should insurance companies be sufficiently capitalized to cover the losses on the policies they are selling? Do you favor that too?
Man, a whole new universe! I’m proud of you Duracomm, our newest liberal! I mean, I still won’t equate poisoning of children with education vouchers, but we’ll take our little victories when we can!
Can you actually demonstrate that voucher programs are superior? Provide some links (or are you only capable of regurgitating Reason?). I certainly support the importance of public education – and not having religious and mystical thinking crammed down the throats of children, but I’m willing to hear it out.
July 14, 2010, 6:21 pmfalse seriousness says:
Again with the Reason quote. Are they paying you or something? Maybe you are a sock puppet for Nick Gillespie?
I agree that it’s bad when a liberal DOJ behaves like a conservative DOJ. Fire Holder and clean house; get some real liberals in there. That’s fine with me.
I don’t really want to hear about your porn fetish though….
July 14, 2010, 6:29 pmDuracomm says:
false seriousness,
If you are serious about civil liberties it pays to be familiar with reason and cato.
But wait it gets better.
In the Obama Age of No More Federal Medical Marijuana Raids…More Federal Medical Marijuana Raids
July 14, 2010, 6:52 pmHope and Change !!
Duracomm says:
false seriousness,
There is probably not much difference between us on civil liberties.
The main difference is I have had a bellyful of watching big government roll over innocent people while protecting powerful, politically connected interests.
Pay attention to events on the ground and you are likely to get there too.
“I used to be somebody that trusted the government. Now I really don’t trust anything.”
July 14, 2010, 7:01 pmDuracomm says:
Department of education study on the washington dc voucher program.
Evaluation of the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program
July 14, 2010, 7:17 pmfalse seriousness says:
Hey, beat up on the Obama DOJ as much as you want, I’m right there with you. The more it behaves like a Bush-era conservative DOJ, the more disgusted I am. Let’s get some real liberals in there.
I see nothing to defend there. I can only note that it is in fact behaving like a conservative DOJ.
And you are a pro-pot reformer too? My work here is done.
CATO is mostly a joke though. A lot of Reason is a joke, but Ralko has done some good stuff.
July 14, 2010, 7:38 pmMetamorf says:
We can always do better, mattski, and therefore we should. No argument there.
Yes. The loophole is that the state too often prevents it from working, through (among other things) precisely the kind of regulations that false and Seattle above think are necessary to prevent businesses from poisoning children. They say nothing about evil witches.
The point, simply, is that it’s not in the interest of businesses to poison children, even, or perhaps especially, granting boundless greed. Of course, it’s not in the interests of bureaucrats who administer the regulations either, but they typically lack both the expertise and the simple self-interest (apart from ass-covering) of business — businesses, after all, do at least have their own survival at heart.
July 14, 2010, 7:48 pmfalse seriousness says:
I lived in DC for a couple of years. The biggest problem with DC is not the teachers’ union, but the outstandingly corrupt and incompetent political class there. I would sooner have voted for someone like David Vitter than Marion Berry, and you can’t know how painful that would be to me. Given a choice of picking between Vitter and Berry, or killing myself by sawing off 1 inch of my body at a time, that’s a tough one and I’d waffle back and forth, but in the end I guess I would pick voting for Vitter.
Political leadership in DC appears to be improving with guys like Fenty, but lord knows the hole that douchebags like Berry put them in.
The biggest problem with democracy is that sometimes people vote for the wrong guy. The thing that makes democracy great is that they get a chance to fix those mistakes.
July 14, 2010, 8:00 pmfalse seriousness says:
This is demonstrably false – because businesses have in fact sold poison to children. Regulations provide minimal standards, and so businesses, rather then forced in a race to the bottom, actually compete based on customer service or whatever. That’s a win / win, but it does require monitoring to work. Otherwise, scrupulous businesses end up competing with unscrupulous businesses, and that can be hard and results in a lot of harm to people before it’s corrected. The point is prevention of harm. You don’t just write off harm to children or families as a temporary market correction. That’s amoral and short-sighted.
The vulnerability of the customer base dictates the level of regulation necessary. There’s a reason why the insurance industry is more heavily regulated, because that population is very vulnerable and the potential harm is great. And you know what? it makes the business better and more profitable.
Take disability insurance for example. If you believe you are just going to get screwed, you won’t buy it. If you believe you won’t get screwed, you are more inclined to buy it.
An individual business may decide it’s better in the short term to screw over thousands of policyholders, but that is actually hard to do with regulators who are vigilant. That’s the point. Sometimes they aren’t vigilant, and bad things happen to industries, and then good businesses get punished in the fallout, and people lose their jobs and policyholders don’t get paid on their claims. Avoiding those cycles is good for everyone.
I work in the compliance area of a large insurer, and I firmly believe that regulation is critical to our business. It protects us from short-termers interested only in an immediate performance metric bonus. We don’t have to race to the bottom in figuring out ways to deny claims, because we’re relatively assured that the playing field is level. Then we compete on efficiency and customer service. More people see they can trust what we sell, which is pretty complicated, and they may buy it, and that’s good.
I sit across the table from regulators, and I very much respect what they do. Some are good, and some aren’t. I respect and appreciate the smart and tough ones. Sometimes I grit my teeth at what I perceive to be foolishness or ignorance from them, but at the end of the day, it’s good for business.
Having someone look over your shoulder improves performance. That’s pretty basic, and it astounds me people try to dispute that with this libertarian garbage.
July 14, 2010, 8:34 pmMetamorf says:
No, this is false — both demonstrably and logically. Businesses have sold poison to children inadvertently, it’s no doubt true, just as bureaucrats have allowed poison to be sold to children (bureaucrats themselves, of course, don’t “sell” anything to anyone, since they’re not in the business of doing anything of productive value whatever). But — and I think this may be news to you — businesses actually do compete based on customer service even without regulations.
It’s interesting that you say you work for a large corporation. I think it’s quite true that large corporate entities have a direct interest in colluding with state bureaucrats — to whom, and their political masters, they pay a lot of money — to generate reams of very costly regulations that then operate as a barrier to entry against smaller competitors. Having someone game the system in this way is an old corporatist (as opposed to capitalist) dodge, and it disgusts, but no longer astounds, me that people try to cover it up with this statist garbage.
July 14, 2010, 8:55 pmfalse seriousness says:
Not much to add to that. I’m busy colluding with my corporate masters and the statist bureaucrats, and their political masters, to squeeze out competitors that would actually represent more pay competition and job opportunity for me. Damn, why can’t I just work in my own self-interest. Doesn’t your philosophy cover that?
July 14, 2010, 10:02 pmRob Berra says:
One could reasonably say that what passes for conservatism these days is a totalitarian ideology with its gloves off. More realistically, however, we should look at where different ideologies want to exercise power.
Conservatives generally want government to exercise power in matters of personal choice (sexuality, drug use, etc.), but maintain maximum freedom in matters economic (corporate power/personhood, taxation).
Liberals want government to maximize personal freedoms, but exercise tight control on economic entities in order to act as a countervailing force to the power of large corporate and similar entities.
Libertarians risk being an example of Burke’s dictum that the only thing needed for the triumph of evil is for the good among us to do nothing.
Oh, and I’m aware that generalizations generally suck, before anyone points that out.
Hey, great idea! Let’s insult people with whom we disagree. Yeah, that’ll convince them that we’re right. Oh, wait…
July 15, 2010, 12:39 amDuracomm says:
Rob Berra, not paying attention to current events said,
You cannot say that without being ignorant of the the obama adminstrations bailout of big banks, the obama administrations massive subsidy of politically connected industries, the obama administrations prosecution of adult film producers, the obama administrations continuing raids on medical marijuana clinincs, the obama administrations continuation of wiretapping, etc, etc.
Democrats and liberals give us most of the social conservatism of the republicans and they stack on top of it even more meddling in peoples day to day lives. In areas ranging from economics to plumbing fixtures, to food liberal democrats refuse to give people any relief from their overbearing meddling.
This is why civil liberties continue to degrade.
Too many civil liberties advocates are happy to sit down, shut up, and ignore civil liberties abuses if the democrats are in power.
July 15, 2010, 8:59 amDuracomm says:
Rob Berra,
Here is another example of the democrats hostility to civil liberties.
Democrats block amendment to ensure press access to oil spill
July 15, 2010, 9:48 amkrys says:
Depends on a few things:
1) Are libertarians worried about threats to liberty NOT from the government — from business interests, for example? Think privacy issues!
2) Are libertarians more worried about individual liberty in terms of economic liberty (e.g., business regulation) or civil rights (e.g., wiretapping).
Republican party seems to be all about economic liberty in terms of being anti business regulation — at the risk of just trading off one set of business interests for another set of business interests (witness position on financial reform). The republican focus on wars and national security and immigration is a conflict with individual liberty too.
July 15, 2010, 2:14 pm