How many types of libertarian can there be?

Thursday, 8th January 2009

Many, many, many. If the GOP increasingly suffers from a suffocating orthodoxy, the libertarian movement (if that's not an oxymoron) is amusingly/alarmingly/pedictably/irrelevently heterodox. As Brian Doherty explains:

Joining the former, and previous more or less useful classifications such as anarchist and minarchist, paleo and cosmo, utilitarian and natural rightsers, is the division between "policy libertarians" and "structural libertarians," explicated by Jacob Lyles over at "Distributed Republic."

Then again, since libertarianism is as much a sensibility as anything else, it's scarcely surprising it should be such a divided house.

UPDATE: Dave Weigel has a characteristically good - and entertaining! - review of "a thrilling and dispiriting year for libertarian politics" under the never-out-of-fashion headline Where Did It All Go Wrong?

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jagorev

January 8th, 2009 8:18pm Report this comment

I just had to share this screenshot: http://i42.tinypic.com/34y4ihk.gif Not a photoshop, I swear.

ben

January 8th, 2009 8:35pm Report this comment

Well, the biggest problem that Libertarian has in the US right now is Ron Paul, and the "paleolibertarian" coterie of racist loons that he pals around with. Having cranky bigots like Ron Paul and Lew Rockwell as its standard bearers is the last thing that any movement needs.