The End of Political Libertarianism?
Last time I checked, the Cato Institute's financials were in remarkable shape. Since I am also in the think tank business, the structure of financial contributions to 501(c)3 public policy organizations has always interested me, and I know from various Cato insiders that the pool of money flowing into Cato and other libertarian groups looks a lot like Howard Dean's enormous burst of diversified believer-contributors during his presidential campaign: huge and growing.
But my colleague Michael Lind has penned a thought-provoking Financial Times op-ed punctuating what he believes is the "end of libertarian politics."
It's a stimulating and complex piece -- best for junkies of cosmic political discourse -- but I'm not sure I agree with his framing.
While I agree with him that the two constructs most on the table today are "moderate social democracy and big-government conservatism", I'm not sure that the political realities Lind is diagnosing are static and stable enough to mark the end of a movement that seems to be growing rather than diminishing.
Lind not only pronounces the end of political libertarianism, but he also includes the demise of an activist, socialist left. To some degree, while the jury is still out that the Lamont win over Lieberman may prove more anomalous than trend-setting, a good deal of his support has come from a revived, passionate left whose ideals track closely with what Lind would characterize as the socialist left.
There are numerous movements that have gone into decline -- at least cosmetic decline in terms of political impact if not diminishment in funding and numbers of adherents. Liberal internationalism for instance has fallen from the skies, as has realism, in foreign policy circles -- though I am working with a number of people to help revive a hybrid of these in the form of American internationalism that may correct the downward trends.
Lind is to some degree documenting yet another realm in which George W. Bush has been impressively disruptive. It's about Bush -- and his impact on our world and social structures. Bush has exploited fear of terrorism to create a big-government, big-brother state, from which Americans are largely buffered from feeling the pressure of direct costs, and that is entirely antithetical to the tenets of classic Republican conservatism.
That's not the death of libertarianism as much as it is the failure of all competing political philosphies to stand strong against the will and determination of a would-be monarch who doesn't really believe in limits on federal, and particularly, executive power.
Michael Lind makes one think though. The real question about the libertarian movement is why so much of the libertarian crowd has been silent about the massive expansion of the state, of presidential authority, and the diminishment of "liberty" at home and abroad.
I have numerous friends at the Cato Institute, Reason magazine, and other bulwarks in the libertarian political and policy movement -- and there are some heroes out there who have spoken truth to power. But there are others who are closet big government, big brother radical/activists who are rather high up the libertarian hierarchy who have helped squelch libertarian outrage at what has happened to the domestic and foreign policy portfolios of this country.
My hope is that Lind is wrong and that the libertarian movment remains a vital part of the American political ecosystem and that they root out and expel those leaders in their institutions who worship at the throne of G.W. Bush and have forgotten what the pursuit and preservation of liberty are all about.
-- Steve Clemons is Senior Fellow and Director of the American Strategy Program at the New America Foundation and publishes the popular political blog, The Washington Note.
Comments (16)
"I'm not sure I agree with his framing."
One of things I love about Lind is that I always find his writing insightful, usually find his conclusions correct, but almost never agree with his framing.
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I miss Lind's contributions to TPMCafe. The place is poorer for his absence.
August 18, 2006 7:56 AM | Reply | Permalink
Michael Lind's posts here at TPMCafe have always been self-serving, with his disdain for anything to the left of him glaringly obvious. From his piece:
And Lind just happens to see "moderate social democracy" -- his own ilk, I assume -- as what's left over. Self-serving, indeed.
Here's some of Lind's wisdom, from just last week:
Ah yes, the worse Iraq gets, the better it is for Republicans. Wisdom, indeed.
Contrast Lind's view of the future of libertarianism with kos's piece, "The Libertarian Dem." A much more accurate view of how libertarianism is playing in today's politics.
Oh, and I love the use of the word "socialism." Can't you feel the love?
I realize I'm being very negative, it's just that, unlike petey, I've never read anything by Lind that made any sense in the real world.
Have questions about the Cafe? Try here.
August 18, 2006 8:16 AM | Reply | Permalink
I really have to take issue with this:
"Bush has exploited fear of terrorism to create a big-government, big-brother state ... that is entirely antithetical to the tenets of classic Republican conservatism."
In the strict sense that "tenets" refer to rhetoric, not reality, this is correct, but I think it is both a factual and political error to pretend that the Republican party of the last 35 years ever meant a word of this. Both Nixon and Reagan tested the limits of the Constitution in moving the country towards authoritarianism. Bush is completely in this tradition, and it is hard to see how this can be viewed as not a "big bad government" position. The sincere Libertarians have been played, that's all. The Republicans agree with the tax cuts and the deregulation of business, but have always sought to maximize power when they held it (and even the Communists favored restrictions on government power when they were out of power). We've got to stop helping the Republicans by pretending that Bush is not a real Republican; he is their epitome.
As to the substance, I think Libertarianism is alive and well, because what I hear from grassroots conservatives I run into is still this "get the government off my back" stuff. The welfare state has, in fact, been much trimmed, but the public is too sensible to want to see that go straight to the bone. OTOH, several states have passed medical Marijuana laws and only the big bad federal government is holding them back. This is the work of another centrist trying to pretend that anything not of the center is dead. That is only true, and only to a degree, is times of stability, peace, and prosperity. Seen them around much lately?
August 18, 2006 8:38 AM | Reply | Permalink
So let's see. . . (1) No, I am not worried about Cato's going into bankruptcy. The wingnuts have used their enormous cash advantage and disdain of academic standards to set up all those pretend think tanks, and I am sure they will keep throwing money around. (2) There's no logical correlation between their financial statement and the metaphoric bankruptcy of their ideas and influence.
(3) It's not news that the GOP has cobbled together a coalition of unlikely allies, including libertarians, corporate types wanting a handout, authoritarians, values voters, racists, and whatever else. Why should the inconsistency now seem a death knell? (4) They all do agree in trusting to a pro-business agenda, and it's done frighteningly well. No, we didn't get an increase in the minimum wage. Deregulation, in the sense of both markets and protections accorded safety or the environment, has continued. The rich still have their tax cut. Social programs are not thriving. The court moves further right. Etc., etc. (5) Ok, we have so far kept social security, but I count it as a sign of influence that they got their proposal as far as they did, given that an overwhelming majority wants social security.
(6) What unites all these mistakes? One more: Lind agrees completely with movement conservatives in their image of "big government" connecting social programs and huge burdens on taxpayers and the national debt. When it comes down to it, Lind is a right winger, and his little think tank exists to kill the liberal agenda. I don't miss him, and I'm sure he's glad to have his representative still with us.
John
http://www.haberarts.com/
August 18, 2006 8:54 AM | Reply | Permalink
They are silent because they have been stupified by world events. What is happening does not meld well with their worldview and it is difficult to speak when you don't have the vocabulary in your ideology to do so coherently. It's like when Marxists talk about religion. They don't understand religion. American Libertarains don't understand conservative authoritarianism.
If you read the key thinkers in the American Libertarian movement you notice immediately that American Libertarianism is very much defined by its anti-communism and by an absolutist defense of private property. For the American Libertarian economic freedom is FREEDOM. All other values stem from economic freedom and if you maximize economic freedom than you maximize freedom itself.
You can see how the current administration has made their heads explode. For here you have a tax cutting government that is radically reducing the personal freedoms of Americans and openly abusing the constitution to augment the powers of the executive branch (clasic tyranny). They can't compute that. A pro-economic freedom government should not do that in their worldview.
Maybe, just maybe, economic freedom is not the cornerstone of freedom itself but one of many pillars and American libertarianism needs to reexamine its theoretical foundations? It is very hard for them to think around this. It requires a radical reexamination of their beliefs.
August 18, 2006 9:06 AM | Reply | Permalink
Things, perhaps, come in waves. In a certain context of security, I mused about the issue of personal identification, biometrics, etc. Of course, much is made of this in an antiterrorism context, and not necessarily a useful context there.
Nevertheless, when terror was much less and I was a road warrior much more, my elite frequent flyer cards were of much assistance in traveling. Those were a form of weak authentication.
To be honest, I worry more about corporate surveillance than government surveillance. Besides the Fair Credit Reporting Act, there isn't too much legislation affecting not so much privacy, but identity theft, fake identification, etc. Some companies are starting to be creatively useful: I just opened a checking account with BankOfAmerica, and they have a very nice anti-phishing device that is quite common in the military, but rare commercially: mutual authentication. When I log into what I believe to be BankOfAmerica, I see a mutually agreed secret on their side before I enter my secret.
Biometrics are a two-edged sword. In principle, they can be used for tracking, but much less so in practice: it's fairly unlikely, other than implementing position reporting in a cell phone, that biometrics can be used to follow people. In general, the technology requires that the person being interrogated take some positive step to come in contact with a sensor.
Universal health care is only likely to be feasible with electronic health records, and there are multiple issues of authentication. One is authenticating access by medical personnel, and another is identifying an unconscious or confused patient.
Anarcho-libertarians utterly reject this sort of thing, but I believe there is a rational set of risk-benefit tradeoffs that need to be considered in social policy -- and in resisting corporate as well as government intrusion.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
August 18, 2006 9:07 AM | Reply | Permalink
Real libertarianism, on social issues, really never got started in this country. It has nothing to do with 9-11 and everything to do with the fact that we're kind of a nation of prudes. We freak out over the notion tha somebody might be experimenting with drugs or that they might pay for sex. We have national politicians complaining about the content of video games. We've arrested people for running online gaming sites, even from countries where it is legal for them to do so, on the basis that Americans might play. Heck, most places have ridiculous laws about the sale of liquor on Sunday. It's the social issues, more than the security issues, where we see libertarian thought at its intellectual best and practical worst. The biggest problem that a social libertarian faces is the busybody mindset of the average American.
thosethingswesay.blogspot.com
August 18, 2006 9:28 AM | Reply | Permalink
Michael Lind is actually pretty good when he's smacking "small government" conservatives around. (And fundamentalists, for that matter.) See also this piece on Bruce Bartlett's "Impostor", a book which too many people liked just because it harshly criticized Bush. But as Lind pointed out, Bartlett was slamming Bush from a looney-right, drown-the-government POV.
Lind defends Lieberman, but I'd like Lieberman a lot better if he were more like Lind: i.e., willing to smash the right in the mouth when it's called for. And of course Lieberman probably wouldn't have been primaried if he had, as Lind urges, consistently supported policies that benefit the bottom 80%, rather than helping the Republicans abolish Social Security, and whoring out to the banks on the bankruptcy bill.
August 18, 2006 10:07 AM | Reply | Permalink
Many libertarians are indeed disgusted with how their support of what they thought was going to be randian, laissez faire, pro-business conservatism has ended up with nothing more than borrow and spend, privacy-eating, big government.
Disillusioned libertarians are ripe for the picking. Ms. Clinton has the right idea sponsoring privacy legislation. It should go further. A movement in support of a Privacy Amendment - that's right, a constitutional amendment guaranteeing a right to privacy - would cement the libertarian base's support for a whole generation and make the big government neocons a long term, if not permanent, minority.
August 18, 2006 10:09 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'd be all for such a bill, but I don't know how many "libertarians" you'd pick up. There's a word for libertarians primarily concerned with free speech, privacy, and the rights of the accused: they are called liberals. Whereas Republicans who lean libertarian are mostly concerned about taxes, guns, and keeping the local fundies from shutting down the topless bars.
August 18, 2006 10:36 AM | Reply | Permalink
Americans may not be "buffered" from the direct costs if one considers the damage to our international standing. Take a look at why Bush is called the "Iranian Candidate."
Times of London by Gerard Baker
August 18, 2006 11:14 AM | Reply | Permalink
Oh come on. Libertarianism is nothing more than a goofball ideology or theory like astrology or phrenomology. It is similar to these ideas in that there is a great deal of circular reasoning and selfserving hot air expended on them, but no practical application to reality.
Libertarianism was the product of a specific time and place, the coddled post-war, post-depression generation that fell in love with the idea of driving anywhere without limitation, but were outraged at the notion of paying for the roads. It's watchwords are incompetence and mystical thinking. It was a movement that steadfastly refused to address its own contradictions or problems.
Libertarianism has no real historical roots or following, has no real international following, has no intellectual tradition, and no serious scholarly respect.
Its insulting to refer to the Cato Institute as a source of serious thinking. It's merely one of these 'circle jerk' organizations whose idea of scholarship is uncritical back patting.
By chance, the world has seen the emergence of modern age Libertarian societies, where the virtues of private gun ownership, unrestricted private property rights and freedom from government have been made a reality... Somali, Afghanistan, the Congo. I haven't checked lately, how's it worked out for them?
Now this might seem like I'm being harsh. But not really. If creationism, holocaust denial, lamarkianism or astrology tarted themselves up as political theories worth consideration, I'd treat them the same way.
The reality is that that things are serious, ladies and gentlemen. And junk philosophies are no longer amusing. They damage and divert serious discussions, and take us away from the real issues.
The End of Political Libertarianism? Good riddance.
August 18, 2006 11:22 AM | Reply | Permalink
Naw. Libertarians (or "glibertarians" as they should henceforth be known) are conservatives who wanted to sleep with liberal women in college and needed to hide their true ideology to have any chance (small as it may have been).
sPh
August 18, 2006 12:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
The real question about the libertarian movement is why so much of the libertarian crowd has been silent about the massive expansion of the state, of presidential authority, and the diminishment of "liberty" at home and abroad.
Though I am more of a civil libertarian then a full blown capital (L) Libertarian (hence my Cafe "name"), I have been screaming about all of the things that you claim libertarians are "silent" about. And the ACLU is doing most of the legal heavy lifting in challenging the Bush Administration infringements on our civil liberties. While the Libertarian Party is relegated to the dust bin in terms of being a "political party" the movement is alive and well if you ask me. If the economic libertarians are willing to sell their soul to the neocons, and their abuses, just so they don't have to pay taxes they are making a big mistake...
August 18, 2006 12:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
I should ask "if political libertarianism ends, when did it begin?"
Libertarians do have one Congressman who caucuses with Republicans but who does not hesitate to criticise "fellow Republicans".
Raymondo runs a rather lively if cooky website "antiwar.com".
Cato institute is all to often an obedient apendage to the plethora of conservative think tanks that are a welfare program to otherwise unemployable tinkerers.
Bulk of people with "libertarian views" vote for authoritarian right because they would rather have lower taxes than more personal freedom.
All of this stays the same, in the same stasis I ever remember (before I crossed Atlantic in 1980 I did not follow such minutia of American political scene as libertarians). As Geraldo Rivera said about Comedy Central "they live in their little world, trying to get the question of WWI straight". (Comedy Central got accused of something else, but libertarian are still exercised about the lies that President Wilson used to involve USA in WWI.)
August 18, 2006 9:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
"I realize I'm being very negative, it's just that, unlike petey, I've never read anything by Lind that made any sense in the real world."
Given your grasp on American politics, cscs, I'm not surprised in the least that Lind wouldn't make any sense to you.
And I'm also not surprised in the least that you'd be so negative towards him. You normally fight like hell to stay inside the cocoon.
You're a small-tent Democrat, cscs, and I agree that folks like Lind are certainly not of interest to you.
August 19, 2006 1:40 AM | Reply | Permalink