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.
