Home > Alex Massie

Wednesday 8 February 2012

The Liberaltarian Future?

Friday, 27th August 2010

Liberaltarianism is, in case you haven't been following this mildly esoteric debate in Washington, the notion that rather than hitch their wagons to conservativism American libertarians and libertarian-minded folk should also explore relations with (US) liberals in order to further the libertarian agenda. This has proven an oddly controversial idea and, generally, has been dismissed as a) a joke, b) a fool's errand or c) simply impossible.

Now Brink Lindsey, who first coined the awkward term "liberaltarian" in a now famous-for-DC essay in the New Republic and his colleague Will Wilkinson* are leaving the libertarian Cato Institute. This has tongues wagging. In some circles anyway. See Tim Carney's Washington Examiner column, for instance. Indeed, Carney followed up by asking if there's even any such thing as a liberal-libertarian politician and suggested that "maybe there's something about the socially liberal agenda that draws someone away from economic freedom."

Maybe in America. But does this debate have to be confined to the United States? I don't see why it has to be quite so insular. Indeed, the Heritage Foundation's Economic Liberty Index suggests that, actually, there's little to no necessary contradiction between social liberalism and economic freedom.

For instance: Heritage hammers Denmark and Sweden for high levels of government spending but both countries are ranked "freer" than the US in matters as non-trivial as business, trade and investment freedoms. Indeed, Sweden and Denmark each score better than the United States in seven of the ten areas measured**. (Britain comes out 5-4 ahead of the US with the property rights fixture ending in a draw. Germany is tied 5-5 with the Americans. Canada, Australia and New Zealand also do better than America.)

Now clearly if you were building a libertarian society from scratch you might not end up with something that looks very much like Denmark. And if tax rates are the only - or at least principle - measure you employ then, sure, Denmark and Sweden might look pretty hellish to you. But it depends which taxes you're talking about and, for that matter, what aspects of government spending you're unhappy with. Tim Lee puts it well:

In the conservative (and fusionist) worldview, government activities are evaluated using a simplistic “size of government” metric that treats every dollar of government spending as equally bad, regardless of how it’s used. This has some unfortunate results. It means that cutting children’s health care spending is just as good as cutting a dollar from subsidies for wealthy corporations. And since wealthy corporations typically have lobbyists and poor children don’t, the way this works out in practice is that conservative politicians staunchly oppose the former while letting the latter slide.

Quite. Libertarians dreaming of nirvana - or conservatives who think libertarians can't possibly forge any meaningful, if even temporary, alliances with the left - are starting from the wrong place. At some point you have to deal with the world as it is, not how it might be had everything been different from the beginning.

So, sure, you wouldn't start with something like the NHS. And you might not sign on to every aspect of German labour laws. But that doesn't mean there can't be liberal (in a classical, european sense) advances in Britain or Germany. Indeed, both countries are currently governed by socially-liberal, economically-conservative coalitions. If you want to see whether "liberaltarianism" is possible then you might look to these countries.

Germany's Free Democrats and, to a lesser extent, some Liberal Democrats in Britain would probably come within a US definition of "liberaltarian". Rock-ribbed libertarians can find plenty to be unhappy with in each instance but these governments are much, much closer and friendlier to what I'd term real liberalism than anything on offer from either party in the US or from any of the alternatives in the UK and Germany.

And anyway, liberaltarianism - or whatever you want to call it - has enjoyed great successes in recent decades. Regardless of how it has happened libertarian preferences have gained ground in areas such as trade, education reform, labour mobility, deregulation, gay rights and a host of other matters. There's even some (small) signs of progress on the drug war. With some obvious exceptions, things like wage and price and currency controls are old hat. Markets, despite the recent unpleasantness, remain vital and much more accepted as such than was the case in, say, 1975.

So, sure, you can argue that governments continue to exceed their legitimate purpose and do so flagrantly and without shame. That's to be expected. But by any sensible measurement the centre of political gravity in Britain and much of the rest of europe has moved towards, not away from, libertarian preferences over the course of the last fourty years. This is a much more socially and economically liberal world than it was. Not perfect, but better. Despite Bush and Obama I think you can make a comparable argument about the United States too.

Liberals' job, then, is to keep poking their opponents on the right and the left. There will be plenty of setbacks but the notion that because the left is hopeless in some areas (as is the right) any alliance, however temporary or limited, is rendered pointless seems a stretch and something designed to keep libertarians in a conservative big tent that has lately proved an uncomfortable berth. Indeed, one could almost argue that to the extent that (some) conservatives are already on board with some parts of the libertarian worldview, the obvious thing to do is despatch missionary expeditions into enemy territory in the hope of (eventually!) winning converts there too.

There's not going to be a "pure" libertarian government in any western country any time soon. Which rather means you need to make the best of matters as they are, not flounce from the field because not everything is arranged as you'd like it to be. Even libertarians are allowed their occasional moments of pragmatism. Perfection ain't around the corner but improvement is.

At the very least any international survey must conclude that it is not impossible to combine economic-conservatism with social-liberalism. Perhaps it may be more difficult in the United States but that's a matter for another time.

*Disclosure: Will is a friend. I've also recommended Brink's book before.

**Admittedly, the US tends to be narrowly defeated in some categories but wins big in areas such as spending and tax. Nevertheless, the point stands.

Filed under: Americana (455 more articles) , Germany (125 more articles) , Lib Dems (97 more articles) , Liberalism (36 more articles) , Libertarians (142 more articles) , Think-tanks (8 more articles)

Previous Back to Alex Massie Next

Blogs: Martin Bright | Susan Hill | Melanie Phillips | Coffee House | Faith Based

Actions: Print this article | Email to a friend | Permalink | Comments (21)

Post this entry to: del.icio.us | Digg | Newsvine | NowPublic | Reddit

Post comment

Old Holborn

August 27th, 2010 10:07pm Report this comment

*Sigh*

The last things Libertarians is government

Craig Strachan

August 27th, 2010 11:12pm Report this comment

Yup. Some of us liberaltarians are already there: I voted for Badnarik in '04 and Obama in '08.

cabbie@conservativecabbie.com

August 27th, 2010 11:44pm Report this comment

Craig

And are you feeling a little foolish? I mean that seriously. I can see how you could cling on to some of Obama's actions as being libertarian, Ground Zero Mosque for example. But the'yre really at the edges of what is basically a big government takeover of the economy and a rejection of personal choice. If you supported the idea of Obamacare, the Wall Street regulation, the bailouts, the support for unions, the drilling moratorium, then I hate to tell you, you're not a liberaltarian, you're just a liberal.

Re-reading that, I realise it comes over a bit pushy. Not intended, it was eant to start a serious discussion. Do you really think you can support those things (if you do) and claim part of the libertarian banner?

cerebus

August 28th, 2010 12:09am Report this comment

Jason Sorens did an interesting sequence of posts estimating the size of the libertarian bloc in each US state. He then modeled "state respect for individual freedom as a function of libertarian constituency, liberal constituency, political institutions, and some demographic controls" which resulted in this (depressing for liberaltarians) graph.

http://pileusblog.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/liberalfreedom.png

It would be interesting to see similar data for europe.

Alex Massie

August 28th, 2010 2:55am Report this comment

ConCabbie - No, of course I don't think Obama is any kind of libertarian-minded liberal (in the US sense of the term). Nor does anyone else. But that's not the idea (though, yes, he's been disappointing on matters such as Gitmo, civil liberties etc).

The question isn't whether libertarians will like Democrats more than they like Republicans, or expect to win on every front with either. It's whether to be entangled - as a default position - with either.

There are all sorts of problems in dealing with Democrats but there are also, at least tentatively, some areas in which the two can perhaps work together. That's all.

And anyway, Tim Carney was asking if there is any such thing as a "liberaltarian". I think there is, though you don't find so many in the US as you can in Europe.

Alex Massie

August 28th, 2010 2:56am Report this comment

Old Holborn - the purity of your feeling is fine and dandy. But even libertarians have to live with reality as it is. That means improving government, not simply trying to wish it away...

Rhoda Klapp

August 28th, 2010 3:04pm Report this comment

So it's like, keep the big government, but legalize dope?

Craig Strachan

August 28th, 2010 4:24pm Report this comment

Alex Massie: "The question isn't whether libertarians will like Democrats more than they like Republicans, or expect to win on every front with either. It's whether to be entangled - as a default position - with either. "

I suspect a fair proportion of the ever-growing proportion of voters who register as independents are in fact libertarian-minded. The Republicans under Bush became associated with authoritarianism, big government, and a hubristic (and hideously expensive) foreign policy. The Democrats are less authoritarian and have better instincts on foreign policy, but are just as fond of big government solutions at home as the Republicans.

By rights, there should be ample space for a libertarian party to make progress.

Just not the Libertarian Party we actually have in the US, which nominated the authoritarian and reactionary Bob Barr for President in 2008.

Craig Strachan

August 28th, 2010 4:31pm Report this comment

If I may, this is one of the more intriguing libertarian projects around at the moment:

http://freestateproject.org/

Sign up to move to New Hampshire, where you can have "Live Free or Die" on your car license plate. (Assuming they continue to tax and license cars once they have acheived the libertarian idyll!)

Baron

August 28th, 2010 6:21pm Report this comment

a sure sign of a culture that has peaked, is decaying, will fall apart; the accumulated wealth is getting siphoned off, very little remains of the hunger to create more of it, no amount of a detached-from-the-real life theorising by the subdolous intelligencia can stop the rot. A convulsion followed by an implosion?

liberaltarianism, my arse.

paulg

August 28th, 2010 9:11pm Report this comment

Libertarianism is a philosophical position that cannot be maintained in the real world.

Only Genghis Khan was a historical libertarian. Your not suggesting that you can emulate his exploits, are you Massie?

Your talking nonsense, only conservatism can protect liberty by enforcing laws, that protect liberty.

ndm

August 28th, 2010 9:16pm Report this comment

Those who believe in the nobility of libertarianism really ought to read Jane Meyer's article describing how the Koch brothers have captured libertarianism and bent it to support their goals. Liberaltarianism has no place in their world which is centered solely on pretending that what is good for their company is good for America.

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/08/30/100830fa_fact_mayer?currentPage=all

Craig Strachan

August 28th, 2010 9:27pm Report this comment

ndm - the Koch's are big funders of the Tea Party. Tea Partiers are sadly prone to be social conservatives/religious nuts/racists for whom "liberty" means basically "states rights".

The libertarians I know in CA tend to be more of the pot head/gun nut/conspiracy theorist stamp. Which is to say, much more congenial folks.

ndm

August 28th, 2010 9:57pm Report this comment

Craig Strachan writes:

-- Tea Partiers are sadly prone to be social conservatives/religious nuts/racists for whom "liberty" means basically "states rights".

I doubt the average tea partier has the faintest notion of "states right." The only rights they care about are the rights historically attributed to white people.

ndm

August 28th, 2010 9:59pm Report this comment

paulg writes:

-- Your talking nonsense, only conservatism can protect liberty by enforcing laws, that protect liberty.

It takes a lot of ignorance to write this after eight years of the Bush Administration.

yank

August 29th, 2010 3:03pm Report this comment

cerebus: "Jason Sorens did an interesting sequence of posts estimating the size of the libertarian bloc in each US state. He then modeled "state respect for individual freedom as a function of libertarian constituency, liberal constituency, political institutions, and some demographic controls" which resulted in this (depressing for liberaltarians) graph.

http://pileusblog.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/liberalfreedom.png

It would be interesting to see similar data for europe."

Yes, it would be interesting to see those statistics for Europe, Mr. cerebus.

No offense to the Spectator, but once again, one of your bloggers here displays a facile understanding of the US, and in this case of the libertarian strain within it, of which the blogger fancies specific knowledge.

As Mr. cerebus implies, to reference Heritage's liberty index, absent specific reference to the US' federalist system, is naive at best. For you Brits, I'd recommend seeking other sources of information re the US, because here be dragons.

Europe's leftists and economic liberals will of course find common ground, simply because the churches of Europe are vacant and overgrown. Not so here in the US, which drives the few "liberaltarian" types here to hysterical shrieking, as they single-mindedly seek one portion of the spectrum to absorb that which they are zealous over, as their enlightened brethren in Europe so "wisely" do.

And the end results are plain, as any comprehensive review of personal and economic freedom would clearly show. Greece and California/New York are one, as we know.

But of course, that Euro/CaliNewYork partisan political fusion is not the real world. The liberaltarians, like all zealots, refuse to accept that real world, refuse to deal with it on its own terms.

The libertarian strain here, despite the efforts of the more zealous, is not partisan. Thus, the Libertarian Party is doomed to failure almost always, certainly at the national level. Mouth breathers such as Badnarik and Barr will don the soiled trappings, but they do not represent us.

But as a philosophy? Certainly, it is all. The 15-20% of the electorate that "is libertarian, but just don't know it", well that is the libertarian philosophy's electoral contribution, because it is those 15-20% that are the "independents", and decide all elections here, at most all levels. They see right through all this partisan bologna, and know that all are to be despised (or even sometimes embraced), and vote accordingly. In this, they are as one with the libertarian strain. It is here we make our mark. Our true mark. One in which we influence sector-by-sector, issue-by-issue, person-by-person, and not sinking ourselves into the muck of partisan politics.

Now, as for the recent spate of "liberaltarians", well, like the "Obamacons", they are our best source of parody, right now. Left, Right, Center and 5th-dimensional, we're all laughing uproariously at them (well, the Left isn't laughing so hard). The liberaltarians went partisan, and lost all, and are currently donning their hair shirts.

It's all about the philosophy, boys and girls. That be where it's at.

And right now, that philosophy will soon drive 5 electoral votes into Texas, votes stripped from the hide of states less favorable of personal and economic freedom and liberty. The 15-20% have made it so (with our useful philosophical input, of course).

Let us know how the Euro liberaltarian fusionists work that all out. Not hard to predict the path for them, as it won't be much different than the one in Cali/New York, I suspect, but with no handy relief mechanism available, as freedom and liberty continue to erode.

It's a bright, beautiful world. Best to open one's eyes and take a look at it.

Stuart Seacole Smith

August 30th, 2010 9:46am Report this comment

I thought that anything goes youghurt weaving social policy + big-spending leftist govt = libtard?

Tim Carpenter LPUK

August 31st, 2010 9:10am Report this comment

@Alex “Indeed, the Heritage Foundation's Economic Liberty Index suggests that, actually, there's little to no necessary contradiction between social liberalism and economic freedom.”

Of course there isn’t. It requires hypocrisy and tolerance of dissonance to maintain one to the exclusion of the other, as found in all three main parties in the UK.

The fundamental freedoms – from force and fraud, of association, of speech and the Rule of Law (as in property rights, due process etc, not “rule BY (petty) laws”) result in both economic and social freedoms if one is consistent. This is the stance of the Libertarian Party in the UK.

@Alex “At some point you have to deal with the world as it is, not how it might be had everything been different from the beginning.”

Correct. Our policies and strategy is focused upon how to get from here without causing more harm than good, and to introduce practical and achievable policies. Examples are a move to voucher funding and ending the de facto State monopoly for schools (a proper one, not the fake implementation by Gove) and dismantling the de facto state monopoly of healthcare (again, unlike the fake system of the Coalition that retains central control).

Working with faux “Liberals” who, being Statists and closet Authoritarians, still feel they know best, is very dangerous, as they may seek only a veneer of choice that defuses public desire for real improvements and liberty. An example was the Liberal Democrats pushing for LEA veto over schools. A small thing, no? A mere bagatelle? Rather, a lynchpin that would stymie the entire project and not by accident, either.

Tim Carpenter
Policy Director
Libertarian Party, UK

ndm

August 31st, 2010 6:23pm Report this comment

It is interesting that the only policy Tim Carpenter puts forward is that old upper middle class tax break - "a move to voucher funding."

This is certainly not a genuinely libertarian idea because a school taking vouchers would almost certainly have to undergo more public scrutiny than it currently does to ensure that public money is not wasted.

I am all for private schools AND public schools with differing levels of scrutiny because of their funding source. This would appear to make me more libertarian than the Policy Director of the Libertarian Party, UK.

My suspicion is that, at least in the US, libertarians are hard-core conservatives who are scared they would never get a decent date if they presented their true persona.

Craig Strachan

August 31st, 2010 10:01pm Report this comment

yank: "Europe's leftists and economic liberals will of course find common ground, simply because the churches of Europe are vacant and overgrown"

A lot of churches in the U.K. have been converted into really cool apartments. That's "highest and best use" in my book!

yank

August 31st, 2010 11:44pm Report this comment

ndm: "This is certainly not a genuinely libertarian idea because a school taking vouchers would almost certainly have to undergo more public scrutiny than it currently does to ensure that public money is not wasted."

Right, because we certainly cannot trust parents to choose which schools are acceptable for their children, and which are to be rejected. Clearly, that should only be done by an authoritarian government. How dare those libertarians propose to terminate all those bureaucrats, and empower parents?

I'm always amused to read the authoritarian leftists' views as to what is or is not libertarian, particularly the Euro-leftists. It's always a hoot!

And always the reactionary impulse, this time for the need for more "public scrutiny". It's like... they can't even imagine a world where there isn't a need for more authoritarianism. Every possible idea means more authoritarianism, and less personal freedom and economic liberty.

It's a truly bizarre worldview.

Post comment