I have been enjoying the recent dialogue over so-called liberaltarianism (links are in Ilya’s post). I don’t have that much to add except perhaps this:
In a two party system, such as ours, each party is a coalition that is striving to get past 50%, unlike a parliamentary system in which governments are formed by joining together enough distinct parties. This seems to be one of the reasons why the Libertarian Party was doomed from its inception (though I erroneously supported its formation way back when). It would seem that draining both parties of libertarians would have to make each party less libertarian at the margin. Becoming a part of each party’s coalition would make each somewhat more libertarian at the margin, however slightly. It would necessarily mean, however, that libertarians in either party would be in a coalition with some with whom they greatly disagree. That is politics in a two-party system.
Happily, some libertarians feel more comfortable with conservatives and others with progressives (i.e. modern liberals). Some are reasonably comfortable with both camps, depending on the situation. Libertarians should simply gravitate to where their inclinations take them. Some of this will turn on where each party is at a particular moment. For example, are Republicans “big government conservatives”? Are Democrats “New New Dealers”? Of course, other libertarians can abjure politics and parties altogether for some other activity that advances liberty.
I found this idea well summarized by a comment posted to Will Wilkenson’s blog:
The reality is that Republicans think A and when in power do B, while Democrats think C and when in power do B. Libertarians are generally against B. What we need is a substantial presence of libertarians in both parties, so that when in power there is an internal narrative that advises against doing B.
The key is the “internal narrative.” The tricky part is getting each coalition to value its libertarian contingent. To achieve this, however, would seem to require the sort of political engagement that at least some libertarians dispositionally dislike–which is how they gravitated to libertarianism in the first place.
Like I said, I don’t have anything particularly novel to say about this. But casting the issue in terms of 2 competing electoral coalitions may be more constructive than either employing Republican/Democrat or conservative/liberal dichotomies.
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