RSS 2.0 FeedThe Liberaltarian Myth
by Doug MataconisThere’s really only one reason why the still-ongoing talk of a libertarian alliance with liberal Democrats is pretty much nonsense:
You don’t need a political synthesis, if you think you are holding all the cards. This is where Brink, Will, and other Liberaltarians are kidding themselves. Today there are few in the Democratic Party or on the left that are even vaguely interested. There are no allies… There is no synthesis… There is no relationship… They are just not that into you. As it stands today, the liberaltarians are just libertarians playing with themselves. Nothing new there.
In other words, just as libertarian Republicans have found themselves invited to the dance only to be left holding a glass slipper, those who think that Democrats actually need libertarian support realize that it’s really just all about political power.
Now that the Democrats have the power, you don’t hear anything more from Kos or others on the left who seemed to be reaching out to libertarians.
Why ?
They don’t need us anymore.
Doug,
I think it is more of a case of the party out of power trying to enhance it’s base while the party in power can afford to be more doctrinaire.
Of the two, I think the latter is worse: not being asked to the dance or being asked and then abandoned by one’s date.
Comment by Stephen Gordon — March 4, 2009 @ 8:36 amLiberaltarians are oxymoronic, as liberals oppose property rights and prefer collectivism to individualism. These are basic tenets of any definition of libertarianism.
Comment by ArmedPorkypine — March 4, 2009 @ 6:06 pmactually classic liberalism is in line with a base set of modern libertarian philosophy. neoliberal is actually the original philosophy of a modern “liberal.” also, neoconservatives and neoliberal philosophy intersect at many philosophical points.
Comment by domesticsecurity — March 4, 2009 @ 6:22 pmDoug, et al:
As the author of several of the posts to which this is all a response, it is frustrating to me the extent to which this whole liber-al-tarianism idea is being misunderstood. It is not, as is assumed, first and foremost about creating a coalition of liberals and libertarians, although this may be the long term (by which I mean over the course of several decades) result. To the extent that it has any short-term political goals, those goals are solely to create dialogue between liberals and libertarians on specific issues, much as there has long been a dialogue between conservatives and libertarians on specific issues.
The primary goal, instead, is to create a better libertarianism that is more in line with libertarian ideals of maximizing individual freedom. No doubt anarcho-capitalists should disagree with some of the ideas implied by the project since it implicitly accepts the notion that the State is a necessary entity; but anarcho-capitalists also already reject the right-leaning libertarianism that accepts the need for a State with respect to other areas.
Part of what liber-al-tarianism seeks to do is to separate libertarianism from the conservative values that have inevitably infected it after such a long coalition with the Right. This means an emphasis on limited government rather than small government (the two are not the same thing), amongst other things. But philosophically, it is still distinctly libertarian.
The belief is that the governing philosophy that will develop will most likely have a greater appeal to certain groups of modern liberals than to conservatives as, like it or not, liberalism and libertarianism share more common intellectual roots than conservatism and libertarianism. But ultimately, it doesn’t matter much whether the resulting governing philosophy has more appeal to liberals or conservatives, or even if it lacks appeal to either; what matters first and foremost, as Wilkinson has tried to explain on numerous occasions, is getting the governing philosophy right. So if liberals aren’t listening, that doesn’t mean we stop trying to talk to them and it definitely doesn’t mean we give up on getting the philosophy right.
For me, I would ultimately prefer that libertarians in general be much more political free agents than allied with one side or another, allowing us to keep a foot in both camps. And in the intermediate term, I think that is precisely what will happen, liber-al-tarianism or no liber-al-tarianism. But in the long run, libertarians will wind up primarily in one political coalition again, like it or not – that’s just the nature of a two-party system. I strongly think that coalition will be what we now consider the coalition of the Left, but that is a positive rather than a normative belief. As I said above, my normative belief is that libertarians will be best off as political independents; and a big part of liber-al-tarianism is, in my view, an attempt to make that possible by trying to remove the ideological blinders created by the long coalition with the Right.
Comment by Mark — March 5, 2009 @ 7:01 amMark,
I’ll admit to not following this debate very closely but I just can’t get my brain around the idea that modern “liberals” would really sign on to libertarian ideas, specifically in the areas of economics and government control of the economy, in anything but an opportunistic fashion.
Comment by Doug Mataconis — March 5, 2009 @ 11:06 amDoug: The thing is that is largely true of conservatives as well. But liberals are no more monolithic than conservatives, and there are some liberals that could over time be willing to listen to libertarian economic arguments.
There’s an argument to be made (and Wilkinson has made it) that the Dem response to the current economic crisis is actually more likely to make some liberals open to libertarian arguments down the line because that Dem response is so completely destined for failure. I’m not sure I agree with him on that point, though I agree with him on most of his other points (my argument has more to do with just the nature of coalition politics in America).
Either way, the goal of liber-al-tarianism is not to create some grand coalition of liberals and libertarians, as it is so often portrayed. It’s about creating dialogue on specific issues where liberals and libertarians have the same ends but prefer vastly different means and improving libertarian philosophy.
Comment by Mark — March 5, 2009 @ 12:13 pm