Is the rise of libertarianism in the U.S. good for the left wing?

Great Debates
1

Some would say – I’m sure Sam Stone would say – that libertarianism is on the rise on the American right.

But does that herald a great new age for libertarianism in America, or a force that will do for the GOP what the 1960s New Left did for, or, rather, to the Democrats?

In this article, Michael Lind argues that the recent emergence of hard-libertarian figures such as Ron Paul and Paul Ryan (who openly cite Ayn Rand as an intellectual hero) as serious voices of the American right is the best thing that could happen to the American left. The libertarians have been around a while, but William Buckley et al. read the Randians out of the modern conservative movement early on – and then the movement went from success to success. “The coalition survived the end of the Cold War, but not the presidency of George W. Bush.”

Lind takes it as established that in the past few years both the neocons and the religious right have been marginalized, or soon will be. (Anyone disagree on that, BTW? I think it’s fairly obvious on both counts.)

That leaves the libertarians. (Lind seems to blur the distinction, here, between the libertarians and the nativist-isolationist paleoconservatives such as Pat Buchanan, but let that pass for the moment.)

2

A certain amount of libertarian leaning is OK. However, I’ve noticed a more extreme and more frequently happening form of libertarianism. The sort that seems to be cropping up looks less like a political or social theory, and more like simple selfishness, taken to extremes. Selfishness is like greed or ambition. They are good things, in moderation. In excess, not so much.

3

OK for the country, or OK for the right’s electoral prospects? (The latter is what Lind is talking about.)

4

OK for the country.

As to the Right’s political prospects, they (just as the left does) have some positions or goals that a libertarian would not be likely to support. It would be a bad bet to count on the libertarian vote as a permanent or dependable vote. If they stuck to “small government”, individual liberties, etc, it would work. But then again, any “true libertarian” would never ever support some “projects” such as the Patriot Act. Cross them once, and they’d drop the Right like a bad habit.

As to the left, chances are slim, because there is more emphasis on social programs.

5

political ideologies don’t strengthen and weaken in isolation. They respond to events in other political camps and in the country overall. It’s dialectics, the push and the shove. E.g. if everyone is disgusted with the direction of the reigning GOP, you can get the rise of libertarians. But if as a result there is the rise of the left wing, which you allege is inevitable, the Conservatives will stop infighting and close ranks.

In general, political fragmentation is likely to happen in victory or a quiet situation, a stasis, when everybody is happy and can spend time settling scores and arguing minor points. By contrast, in defeat and rout people don’t argue, they unite to fight back.

6

When the New Left electorally weakened the Dems in the 1970s, paving the way for the ascendancy of movement conservatism and the election of Reagan, the Dems did not stop infighting and close ranks.

7

What’s “The Right”?

The currently well-established “right” in American politics is most certainly not libertarian, and so presumably the rise of different people to political influence and power in their place would be bad for “the right,” since they would no longer have that power and influence.

8

For practical purposes, whoever predominates in the GOP. Lind’s point is that ideological libertarians such as Paul and Ryan are supplanting the neocons and the religious conservatives in that role.

9

Definitely. I’m a Libertarian and I’m not part of the ‘right.’ I hate Republicans as much as I hate Democrats. :stuck_out_tongue:

10

I do think the religious right and the neocons are losing ground to the libertarians.

What effect this will have overall is hard to say, because it’s hard to draw a bead on exactly where the political center in the U.S. is. Not long ago, progressives were saying that America is progressive, that the people would support a wide array of progressive policies if only a strong progressive leader could be elected along with majorities in the House and Senate. They were talking about a permanent re-alignment of the country along progressive lines.

That clearly didn’t happen. In fact, what we’ve seen is a strong pushback from the political ‘center’ against most of the progressive agenda. Health Care reform is polling badly. Cap and Trade and Card Check are polling badly. Congress’s approval rating is back down near single digits, and Obama’s disapproval rating is now higher than his approval rating.

But does that mean the true center in America is libertarian? That’s not clear at all. People are gravitating that way because it’s currently the main opposition force to the progressives. But I suspect that if a truly libertarian president were elected, and he had a majority in the House and Senate, and he tried to move the country as far to the right as Obama is trying to move it to the left, there would be an equal hue and cry, and the ‘center’ would start shifting left again in opposition.

But maybe not. Maybe Bush was unpopular for the same reason Obama is unpopular - he was really a big-government Republican, willing to cut deals with special interests and make grand compromises on important matters like fiscal sanity in order to get his own agenda passed (in this case, the Iraq war). Maybe a principled, small-government conservative who’s a social moderate would resonate in the country and become wildly popular. But I have my doubts. The special interests in America are just too strong. The unions, large corporations, organizations of retired persons, and other special interests are able to rally huge crowds and raise large amounts of money to oppose anything they don’t like.

In my more cynical moments, I think that large democracies are simply doomed. Once the people figure out they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury, it’s just a matter of time before they divvy up all the wealth and continue clamoring for more until the nation is bankrupt. The U.S. has not gone as far down that path as the social democracies in Europe because its founding legal documents prevented unlimited mob rule. But that’s just a speed bump on the inevitable road to decline and fiscal ruin.

The American people don’t want their taxes raised. But they also don’t want their government services cut. Right now, there’s a huge fiscal gap between the services the government offers and the money it needs to pay for them. What’s not clear is whether there is more tolerance in the country for service cuts than there is for tax increases. We’ll find out the answer to that within the next 10-15 years, because if a solution isn’t found America is in a world of hurt.

11

No, Sam, that’s not where the pushback is coming from. It’s coming from the right and from some of the “special interests” you talk about.

What you are describing – the “Tytler Cycle” or “Tyler Cycle” it’s sometimes called (based on a confused and dishonest misattribution – see Snopes) – has never actually happened to any republic in all of human history. Many republics have been destroyed or self-destructed, but not one by the path of the public voting itself largesse from the treasury.

12

we can always be the first one. Besides, the largesse is not now being voted to the public per se. It is voted to the special interests who have convinced the public that it will benefit from giving them more money. E.g. the healthcare industry convinced a lot of the public that instead of reforming themselves by cutting exorbitant salaries and waste the thing to do is to give them more money extracted from people via the IRS. Of course, not all the public is convinced, since many do understand that the increasingly empoverished (from the failing economy) productive classes will end up robbed to pay these special interests under the flag of helping the poor.

13

Of course, because they want to tell others what to do and what to believe. This is the antithesis of libertarianism, which puts individual liberties ahead of the powers of the government.

But would they move to the right? Both the left and the right have factions that want more control and regulation (though not of the same things). Libertarianism could be seen as a reaction against what people might consider increasing control and regulation of things they believe are none of the government’s business.

14

I would love to believe that, because it’s the way I feel.

But notice that in the middle of this ‘libertarian’ uprising, there’s an uprising in Florida over funding cuts to NASA, which will cost Florida jobs.

When Reagan tried to actually cut government, he ran into huge roadblocks. The AARP mobilized against him. The unions mobilized against him. The welfare recipients and the industry that benefits from managing them rebelled against him.

Or look what happened to Arnold in California. He started off as a politician much like we’re talking about - a fiscal conservative/social moderate. He was very close to being a Libertarian - he introduced Milton Friedman’s ‘Free to Choose’ on PBS when it aired in the 80’s, and he used to quote people like Von Mises and Friedrich Hayek. When he tried to implement even modest cuts in government services in California, he got completely steamrollered by the special interests and their supporters in the legislature. Now he’s just another big-government liberal. He kept the moderate social policies, and completely abandoned free markets and small government.

15

You seem to be saying that the only political obstacle to reform in a libertarian direction is that it would step on the toes of too many vested interests, and not that any significant part of the American people have any ideological commitment to the vision of general welfare that underlay the New Deal or the Great Society. Do you actually believe that? If so, on what basis?

16

My concern is the libertarians will offer a nice narrative but no real substance, and will get elected anyway.

“We want to cut your taxes” = people vote them into office. However they never mention the cuts to education, health care, military, aid for the elderly, infrastructure etc. until they are in power.

If they do have a damaging effect, it might take years until the effects seep down into public consciousness.

Another issue is young people may feel they have to pay ever increasing taxes for medicare and social security while not benefiting from those programs. And that could create an avenue for the libertarians to appeal to young people who are currently the most progressive age demographic in the nation. Play on their resentment about paying larger and larger tax burdens for entitlement programs. It can have the same effect as the culture war did to pit middle class whites against poor blacks and latinos had to empower the GOP.

So if people really knew what the libertarians truly stood for (cutting education, health care, military and pensions; corporate totalism; weakening national sovereignty), they’d never get elected. However if all the libertarians and the media offer are soundbites about cutting taxes and no policies/substance beyond that, who knows what’ll happen.

Then again, when Palin first came on the scene she was extremely popular. But due to new media people quickly found out there was no substance and realized what would happen if she was really in charge. Now barely 1.5 years later she is one of the least respected public political figures. So maybe I am underestimating the media and the public’s ability to look beyond sound bites and talking points.

17

I believe the recent resurgence of libertarianism is mostly a conservative rebranding after a disastrous run. It is very easy to lob anti-spending bombs from the sidelines when you do not have any power and are not accountable to those relying on government funds. While there are principled libertarians, it seems libertarian is the “cool” thing to call yourself now. After a few years of Democratic rule, Republicans will no longer be anathema, and libertarians will again be 15-25 year old white college guys.

To tie this into the OP, libertarianism is not good for the left because libertarian ideals are very attractive. Who does not like thinking they are rugged winners who do not need help from the government? Hell, I’d be a libertarian if society provided equal access to all.

18

That’s not really what I meant. The ‘special interests’ are often representatives of large groups of people. The AARP represents millions.

I think people generally believe this:

  • My taxes should be low.
  • I don’t really care how high your taxes are.
  • Services -I- get from the government are a good thing
  • Services other people get should be cut.
  • My subsidies are critically important and a proper function of government.
  • Your subsidies are pork.
  • I generally want poor people to be helped.
  • Do not raise my taxes to pay for it.
    The reason so many countries run deficits is precisely because of the self-contradictory viewpoint of the voting public. Everyone wants their benefits, no one wants to pay more in tax, and therefore the most palatable course of action for politicians is to provide both and run up debt.

The special interests make this process worse by feeding off the worst instincts of all sides. On the left, they scream and kick at any sign of a downsizing of government. On the right, they scream and kick at any sign of tax increases. They make so much noise on both sides that they scare politicians down the easy path.

19

It seems to me that this is largely true - and not just of a libertarian movement, but ANY political movement that proposes substantial change.

20

Is there any actual proof that the libertarian wing of the republican party is growing, or the religious right is shrinking?