we’ve been deserted, left and right.
For libertarians, the ground has shifted. In recent years, libertarians have been deserted by former allies left and right.
We used to say that a shorthand description of libertarianism was “liberal on social issues, conservative on economic issues.” No more.
Libertarians were aligned with liberals on the issue of gay marriage, which libertarians saw as a a matter of individual rights. But the left now seems focused on group justice, not individual rights. For today’s progressives, social justice means paying close attention to race and gender rather than treating people as equal individuals. Another indicator that progressives and libertarians have parted ways on social issues is that some progressives now reject the value of freedom of speech.
Not all liberals go along with the new progressive trends. Some liberals, including Jonathan Haidt and Steven Pinker, are prominent defenders of the older liberal values of individual dignity and freedom of inquiry. Other liberals, such as the brothers Bret Weinstein and Eric Weinstein, champion the old liberalism by participating in what they call the intellectual dark web.
But many young progressives reject this old-fashioned liberalism. The most ardent progressives now look upon a Haidt or a Pinker as at best suspect and at worst unacceptable. Their traditional liberalism, like libertarianism, is anathema to the contemporary progressive.
Turning to the right, libertarians have been deserted by their erstwhile friends on economic issues. Conservatives used to support free trade, but now they favor tariffs and trade wars. Conservatives used to stand for fiscal responsibility, but now they spend freely and run up deficits even during good economic times.
So libertarians can no longer say that they are on the left on social issues and on the right on economic issues. They can say that they stand where the left used to stand on social issues and where the right used to stand on economic issues. But that is confusing.
Don’t ask why they’re deserting you. Ask what you’re offering to attract them.
In about two weeks, a young Millennial is moving into my spare bedroom. She will start a job that, these days, counts as decently paid and unusually secure. She’s moving in with me because she can’t afford an apartment of her own and a car (necessary in this area) while repaying her student loans, even with such a job. She has a practical college degree, a remarkable work ethic, and an ordinary level of talent.
There are millions like her. What solutions does libertarianism offer to their problems?
Libertarians and libertarian-adjacent economists have been amongst the biggest critics of housing regulation and zoning policy for exactly that reason.
https://reason.com/tag/zoning/
https://www.idiosyncraticwhisk.com/
etc.
And on another level – there’s nowhere in the US that has anything resembling libertarian’s preferred policies, so it’s hard to see why we should be blamed for the failed outcomes of other policy regimes.
Fixes to zoning policy might help a bit, but they’re kind of tangential to her core problem. Her core problem is that market wages for uneducated labor are too low to support a decent lifestyle, and that the costs of education are too high and the economic benefits of education too small to make education an effective escape route from poverty. Health insurance is another core problem (she doesn’t have any, and can’t afford it, and is kind of pissed about how the “affordable care act” winds up costing he money each year).
“Conservatives used to stand for fiscal responsibility, but now they spend freely and run up deficits even during good economic times.”
By now, you mean since 1981?
“For today’s progressives, social justice means paying close attention to race and gender rather than treating people as equal individuals. Another indicator that progressives and libertarians have parted ways on social issues is that some progressives now reject the value of freedom of speech.”
Seriously, is it any different from what Republicans were saying about the (Bill) Clinton years? Remember? Feminists, gays, PC censorship at universities? The complaining about media? How an Al Gore (or Mondale or Dukakis) Administration would mean leftist totalitarianism?
“There are millions like her. What solutions does libertarianism offer to their problems?” – Jay
Tax cuts for the rich and “drill, baby, drill”. Isn’t she an oil company executive?
Well, “drill, baby, drill” does offer her lower gas prices, and less of a chance of getting involved in another war in the Middle East.
“less of a chance of getting involved in another war in the Middle East.”
I thought American involvement in Middle East wars had something to do with 9-11 or freedom or WMDs, terrorism or Iranians. It is not clear what oil has to do with it at all. OK, lower gas leices can help a little with the “can’t afford a car” part, I guess, but it surely falls short of a real economic plan.
I don’t see libertarians as immune to the religious/cultural wars that are being waged right now. In the future, I predict that the libertarian label will decline and former libertarians will either join the Blue Tribe as “low tax progressives” or the Red Tribe as “low tariff nationalists”.
Good point.