My response to Brink Lindsey's essay on "The Libertarian Center" is now up at the Cato Unbound site. As Jonah Goldberg notes, he and I may disagree about many things, but we're on a pretty similar page with regard to a lot of the issues Lindsey raises, in particular that while libertarians may like the results of the liberal cultural politics agenda, it's not actually a libertarian agenda.
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The Unlibertarian Center
13 Jul 2007 10:08 am
Comments (9)
You know, if the results are pretty libertarian, who cares about the underlying philosophy? I'm not even sure how much of a philosophical libertarian I am, and was a registered big "L" for 10 years. I still vote for those jokers once in a while.
who proclaim that they are “socially liberal but fiscally conservative” – that is, run-of-the-mill upscale Democrats
Actually he could have left off "upscale". I think most Democrats, especially since Paul Simon (the guy with the bow tie, not the singer ... although maybe the singer has the same politics. this I would not know), are pretty much fiscally conservative (if only in order to keep the federal coffers big enough to fund economically liberal programs). Indeed, it used to be that economic and fiscal conservatism went together until the Reagan years when economic conservatives figured out that if the government ran out of money, it couldn't be economically liberal. And pretty much all Dems, not just upscale ones, reacted and embraced fiscal conservatism.
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One of the biggest con jobs of recent years is liberal outrage over conservatives imposing morality. It's a staple of Democratic talking points and it is hooey. Yes, of course, conservatives believe in imposing morality to one extent or another. But so do liberals. Indeed, liberals push for statist economic policies out of moral conviction. Sure, many will claim their economic policies are the best policies on the merits. But you don't need to scratch very far beneath the surface to get even these people to agree that their real aim is to redress wrongs, do good, help the little guy, make society more just, fair, nice and so on.
I resemble this remark!
Actually, the mirror image of this is what rankles me about certain conservatives -- the talk about making our laws be in accord with the "Judeo-Christian" tradition yet they actively oppose key legislating key elements of that tradition (the Talmud is chock full of consumer protections that not even the most moonbatty of dirty hippies is pushing to legislate here ... and we all know Jesus' feelings on wealth).
Of course, their response is to ignore the legally obligatory aspects of "tzedakah" (lit. justice) and tithes to the poor in Biblical law and claim that these things should be matters of private charity ... whilst arguing that individuals in a "moral" (i.e. "moral" in terms of nobody does anything icky or engages in teh hawt sexxx) society will magically be upright citizens and just businesspeople, etc. Which, of course, has been shown to be wrong throughout history and is against the teachings of the "Judeo-Christian" tradition (read Isaiah, e.g. also, this is something Jesus was always wont to point out).
However, what Dems., including myself, mean to say is that you cannot legislate peculiar morality. I ought not to say "it's against Noachide laws to eat blood, therefore I propose we ban blood sausages". Similarly, for government to discriminate between gay and straight marriage simply because of how some people interpret a few, selected Biblical verses is inappropriate.
As Jonah Goldberg points out our claim that our "economic policies are the best policies on the merits" is somewhat of a figleaf for the moral argument (and it may be good politics, as some have argued, to make the moral argument directly) -- but that figleaf is necessary. If you cannot find such a secular figleaf for a moral argument, it is "special pleeding" and hence not an appropriate basis for legislation in a secular society.
Liberal morals legislation, IMHO, has those figleafs. I fail to see any such figleaf justifying, e.g., the discrimination between gay marriage and straight marriage, supported by conservatives. And while such figleafs exist for abortion, they are invariably so sexist as to violate other principles of equality before the law. In general, IMHO, liberal morals legislation is covered by secular figleafs and conservative morals legislation is not. That is the real difference to which the liberal argument -- that is otherwise, as JG points out, "hooey" -- alludes.
Nice essay. On the Gillespie link, I was reminded of the threatened libertarian take-over of New Hampshire. Either there aren't as many principled libertarians around as one would think, or there are other considerations that are more important. Or both.
That's a nice piece.
"As Jonah Goldberg notes, he and I may disagree about many things, but we're on a pretty similar page with regard to a lot of the issues Lindsey raises"
Only Lindsey could get everyone to sing Kumbaya.
As you note, he's a smart guy, except when he talks about libertarianism.
If libertarians ever get around to actually opposing restraints on governmental power other than the authority to tax, then they can call themselves and the policies they endorse "libertarian."
And if they ever get around to noticing that the unchecked accumulation of power in economic and corporate institutions is threatening to the exact same interests and for the exact same reasons that they purportedly worry about governmental excess, they they can call themselves "not stupid."
It baffles me why economic libertarianism is taken seriously at all. I guess if we just close our eyes and tap our ruby slippers together the experiences of the late 19th and early 20th centuries that caused us to abandon social darwinist economics in the first place will just go away.
It seems to me that Lindsey is a smart guy, and he's been around the block enough to have a good grasp of the big picture, but he hasn't quite shed the libertarian chrysalis he's cocooned himself in.
A society that fosters individual liberty is a good thing. And a society like that is going to require a moderate level of collective cooperation and central authority to survive the tragedy-of-the-commons externalities of individual freedom, the power of concentrated wealth, and the tendency of like-minded groups to push outsiders and non-conforming individuals around.
Freedom is both an individual enterprise and a collective enterprise. Liberals and conservatives, despite their profound differences of opinion about what "freedom" should look like, both generally understand this. Libertarians don't. Their first principles reject this understanding, which is why it's difficult to take them seriously.
I haven't read other articles by Lindsey, so I don't know if this is plausible, but it sounds like he's less interested in libertarianism as a movement derived from first principles, and more as a general tendency to oppose government intervention. If that's the case, then arguments that anti-discrimination legislation aren't libertarian are beside the point. It might be hard for the first principles libertarian to explain how anti-discrimination laws follow from the principle of non-aggression or whatnot, but the pragmatic libertarian just thinks they're a decent idea.
It seems like this transition has happened to most political discourse in America, even among intellectuals. People seem less interested in deriving their political positions from an overall theory of justice. When they do try, it looks a lot like window dressing.
If that's true, then the agreement is (as you say) far more important than the disagreement you have with Lindsey. Then the only real disagreement expressed in those articles is about the trajectory of government involvement in health care, etc.
Comments closed July 27, 2007.
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Heads in the Sand
That was on the money.
Posted by theCoach | July 13, 2007 10:41 AM