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*Realizing Freedom*
That's the title of the new Tom Palmer book and the subtitle is apt: Libertarian Theory, History, and Practice. It delivers what it promises plus the very short essays (Iraq, gay pride in Moscow) are quite interesting. I view this book as defining one of the main threads in modern libertarian thought:
1. Cato-influenced (for lack of a better word). There is an orthodox reading of what "being libertarian" means, defined by the troika of free markets, non-interventionism, and civil liberties. It is based on individual rights but does not insist on anarchism. A ruling principle is that libertarians should not endorse state interventions. I read Palmer's book as belonging to this tradition, broadly speaking.
2. Rothbardian anarchism. Free-market protection agencies will replace government-as-we-know-it. War is evil and the problems of anarchy pale in comparison. David Friedman offered a more utilitarian-sounding version of this approach, shorn of Misesian influence.
3. Mises Institute nationalism. Gold standard, a priori reasoning, monetary apocalypse, and suspicious of immigration because maybe private landowners would not have let those people into their living rooms.
4. Jeff Friedman and Critical Review: Everything is up for grabs, let's be consequentialists and focus on the welfare state because that's where the action is. Marx is dead. The case for some version of libertarianism ultimately rests upon voter ignorance and, dare I say it, voter irrationality.
5. "Hayek libertarianism." All or most of the great libertarian thinkers are ultimately compatible with each other and we have a big tent of all sorts of classical liberal ideas. Hayek and Friedman are the chosen "public faces" of this approach. "There's a classical liberal tradition and classical liberal values and we can be fuzzy on a lot of other things."
What am I leaving out? And which will win out as the dominant strand?
Posted by Tyler Cowen on July 7, 2009 at 02:45 PM in Books, Philosophy | Permalink
Comments
I think we need to mention Jeffersonian Agrarianism as well as Ron Paul Constitutionalism. True, these may be melded into the various other threads, but they are important enough to stand alone. Especially the latter, as a popular face of minimal government today.
Posted by: Sean at Jul 7, 2009 3:02:13 PM
I would include crypto-anarchism and agorism as a separate category.
I see Seasteading as being a meta-libertarian world view (let sovereign governments compete amongst each other).
Posted by: kevin at Jul 7, 2009 3:04:08 PM
I'd personally like to know which one you identify as closest to your own views.
Posted by: Melvin at Jul 7, 2009 3:05:09 PM
Objectivism - hooray for laissez-faire capitalism with minimal government to guard basic rights to life/liberty/property - though God forbid you ever use the label 'libertarian'
Posted by: Aaron at Jul 7, 2009 3:19:18 PM
Principled pragmatism and personal liberty, of which you are carving a nice niche, which I admire, while at the same time hoping it fails on theoretical and pragmatic terms. But I'm enjoying the ride. It is reminiscent of early Harry Browne.
Cato advocates while you primarily advocate understanding including cultural political tolerance: I really don't give a $#!+ what California does, as long as they don't get my money when they go bankrupt. I can tolerate the rich and I can tolerate the poor. Cato seeks to work within the establishment, while public choice is essentially subversive and critical, at least and until there is no more need for such a movement. People from both sides have little appreciation for the similarities between civil society and government. It's the similarities that draw the differences into stark contrast. It may not sound that novel that "my movement advocates understanding" but every day it sounds more novel to me.
The risk with 5 is providing intellectual cover for the opposition. I'd like to see you keep 5 alive whenever anyone on the statist side says "Tyler Cowen says so-and-so" by correcting them with extreme prejudice. At the end of the day, all of the arguments are good. Even liberals can be convinced to choose inaction to disaster.
Posted by: Andrew at Jul 7, 2009 3:20:47 PM
Hayek, at least in theory.
Posted by: Michael F. Martin at Jul 7, 2009 3:21:34 PM
Thoughts on left-libertarianism?
Posted by: ya at Jul 7, 2009 3:25:30 PM
How will "dominance" be assessed? By number of words produced?
Posted by: Philo at Jul 7, 2009 3:28:47 PM
How about the view that "theory" trumps reality.
I see a lot of hypothesis that is contradicted as fact, taken as proven theory.
For example, cutting taxes is claimed to stimulate the economy and create jobs. The theory is that people will spend their money more wisely than government, that government building such things as roads and bridges and health care systems and schools and providing education is all wasted spending. If taxes are cut, then the people will do all those things better and cheaper.
So, we have had,
06/07/2001 Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001
03/09/2002 Job Creation and Worker Assistance Act of 2002
05/28/2003 Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003
05/17/2006 Tax Increase Prevention and Reconciliation Act of 2005
02/13/2008 Economic Stimulus Act of 2008
10/03/2008 Tax Extenders and Alternative Minimum Tax Relief Act of 2008
02/17/2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009
and with job creation that beats only the Hoover years, and the most unproductive and wasteful investment in US history.
Posted by: mulp at Jul 7, 2009 3:47:27 PM
Anti-2 and -3, but I can sort of -5 along with -1. Not sure how I feel about -4. I'm feeling more at home with Peggy Noonan's description of the broader-tent Republican coalition of something like "the free market is good, government is inefficient but necessary, and communism is very, very bad," though of course the country club Republicans would disagree with me on the degree of overlap between "the free market is good" and "my business is good."
Posted by: Tom at Jul 7, 2009 3:58:49 PM
The troika discussed in case one really seems like 2 groups, those who are libertarian because they think it is right and those that are libertarian because they want to be left alone. One might contrast the libertarianism of the technology elites that once dominated discourse on the Internet (or as a persistent strain in law, economics, and philosophy programs) in as the former while the casual libertarianism of the rural American West is the latter.
Posted by: OneEyedMan at Jul 7, 2009 4:03:43 PM
I think a more appropriate name for what Cato espouses when it comes to libertarianism is the "Reformed Baptist Church of God, Reformation of 1915" after the Emo Phillips routine on Protestantism. To be a true libertarian in their eyes means subscribing to 271 separate theses on government's role in the economy and to deviate from any one of them makes you a collectivist.
Posted by: bob paulson at Jul 7, 2009 4:15:26 PM
"Mises Institute nationalism"
What in the...? The Mises Institute is very heavily Rothbardian. In fact, the politics of the LvMI and Rothbard are basically indistinguishable.
And what's this about immigration? If there's a position at all (and I don't believe there is), the anti-immigrationists are surely in the minority.
Posted by: J. Kelly at Jul 7, 2009 4:20:00 PM
You forgot Ayn Rand's Objectivism and Pierre-Joseph Proudhon's Mutualism.
Posted by: Jayson Virissimo at Jul 7, 2009 4:21:23 PM
I identify with 5, but I always enjoy reading David Friedman's "The Machinery Of Freedom". I can only fit in with 5 because I'm also a big fan of Adam Smith and Edmund Burke, both of whom were very pragmatic, as I tend to be.
Only 5 can really work. I could try and convince everyone of that, but, truly, it's simply where I fit in.
Posted by: Don the libertarian Democrat at Jul 7, 2009 4:22:16 PM
For example, cutting taxes is claimed to stimulate the economy and create jobs. The theory is that people will spend their money more wisely than government, that government building such things as roads and bridges and health care systems and schools and providing education is all wasted spending. If taxes are cut, then the people will do all those things better and cheaper.So, we have had,
06/07/2001 Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001
03/09/2002 Job Creation and Worker Assistance Act of 2002
05/28/2003 Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003
05/17/2006 Tax Increase Prevention and Reconciliation Act of 2005
02/13/2008 Economic Stimulus Act of 2008
10/03/2008 Tax Extenders and Alternative Minimum Tax Relief Act of 2008
02/17/2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009
and with job creation that beats only the Hoover years, and the most unproductive and wasteful investment in US history.
Real taxation has never been lowered. Government spending as a percentage of GDP has increased. When we look at the economic pie, the government is taking a bigger slice year after year. It doesn't matter if the government takes a slice of the pie via outright confiscation, or gets suckers to voluntarily "invest" in government debt (that will be impossible to ever pay back), in the end there is less pie for the rest of us.
Tax rates are a way to make sure certain political constituencies are less hurt by the government spending (and therefore, less hurt by the real taxation). But there has been no real tax decreases in my lifetime, except totally fictional ones on paper. At any given time, there is a fixed amount of goods and services available... the more goods and services the government consumes, the less goods and services there are for the rest of us. Government has steadily increase the amount of goods and services it consumes (and thus, the amount of goods and services it denies to the rest of us).
To make it simple: IF THERE IS NO CUT IN SPENDING, THERE IS NO CUT IN TAXES!!!
Posted by: Vehical Driver at Jul 7, 2009 4:32:12 PM
The dominant strand will be Cato's approach because too many people are unwilling to take a legitimate stance on 'Rothbardian anarchism.' Any minarchist approach will fail over time. Government is inherently evil. The contradiction where one admits this yet believes government will succeed in 'only' providing protection from aggression has always been beyond me. A 'revolution at the margin' is doomed to fail.
Posted by: Corey at Jul 7, 2009 4:35:27 PM
Corey, any bet that pays off only if we "win" may fail. The other skill in gambling is limiting your risk.
Posted by: Andrew at Jul 7, 2009 4:46:02 PM
It is my impression that Libertarians believe that there is never any reason for government to intervene in the market. Is that true? The idea that government intervention is never Pareto improving is absurd to me.
Posted by: Eric at Jul 7, 2009 4:47:49 PM
If one can be convinced at all, which itself seems hopeless, it is likely a process. Once everyone is some type of libertarian, who knows which type it will be, and who cares?
Posted by: Andrew at Jul 7, 2009 4:51:08 PM
What about Moldbug's Neocameralism?
Posted by: kevin nowell at Jul 7, 2009 4:55:26 PM
Ummm...How about Tullock-Buchanan libertarianism?
I am a moderate libertarian because of those two. It is the funniest thing ever to see faith in politics. The idea that politicians get together and try to make people's lives better? THE BEST!!
Posted by: John Pertz at Jul 7, 2009 4:56:21 PM
All you need to argue for libertarianism is a photo of Air Force One flying over the Statue of Liberty.
Related to Tyler's brand would be Claire Wolff libertarians. Ignore the hell out of government until you have to shoot them. The shooting part is what separates them from Tyler. And Tyler doesn't ignore them because he gets paid to pay attention.
Posted by: Andrew at Jul 7, 2009 4:58:26 PM
I've always felt there should be room for a Willhem Ropke 'Humane Economy' strand of libertarianism.
Also I'm not sure about the Mises Institute Nationalism's description and viability as a unique strand. I don't think immigration is a major issue; overall it's very Rothbardian.
Posted by: axiomata at Jul 7, 2009 5:06:11 PM
Can somebody update me on the history politics between Mises Institute and GMU?
Posted by: S Andrews at Jul 7, 2009 5:08:05 PM
