William Galston writes
(Link fixed),
Prime Minister Boris Johnson campaigned as the second coming not of Margaret Thatcher but of Benjamin Disraeli. His pledge of “one-nation Conservatism” means his government will lavish funds on long-neglected parts of central and northern England and on the National Health Service, which he terms a “beautiful idea that represents the best of our country.” In the short term, that means larger deficits; in the longer term, higher taxes. Proponents of limited government—a dwindling band—will be licking their wounds for years.
Note the last sentence in particular. Recently, when I have talked about The Three Languages of Politics, I have just talked about the Progressive oppressor-oppressed axis and the Conservative civilization-barbarism axis. I don’t mention libertarians.
I joke about 2016 being an “extinction event” that wiped out libertarians. Also fiscal conservatives and sane Democrats (like Galston). Libertarianism survives as a scapegoat–it turns out that we have been running the world all along, although we didn’t realize it. We caused the financial crisis, the opioid crisis, etc.
Don’t you remember? Libertarians were in power during the era of “unfettered capitalism.”
Yes, people want free stuff, but they’ve also realized that elites have a bigger head start (e.g. lower tax rates than middle class, dysfunctional immigration system where immigrants have fewer rights, bank bailouts).
A consistent libertarianism that sometimes left elites worse off would have more credibility.
A consistent libertarianism that sometimes left elites worse off would have more credibility
But a ‘consistent libertarianism’ would do just that. One of the main and most offensive ways that elites gain and preserve their status is via big government (Through cronyism — government subsidies, contracts, and jobs. Through protectionism. Through regulations that protect large incumbents in various industries. Through occupational licensing and ‘certificate of need’ programs. Libertarians seek to end all of these corrupt practices and sweetheart deals for the well-connected with political pull).
It’s good that there are some consolations to 2016. Libertarianism-for-me-but-not-for-thee of the “I Support Trump’s Tariffs But Need An Exemption” pedigree has indeed been running the world all along.
Don’t forget the high cost of healthcare. Because your doctor is not an actual government employee, the problems with healthcare are obviously from capitalism run amok.
The power of prayer is questionable, but the altar of free enterprise that we libertarians worship appears to be quite efficacious.
I joke about 2016 being an “extinction event” that wiped out libertarians.
1) Of course how has Trump governed with huge tax cuts and not much else. His trade deals are kept under control so the impact not really either way much.
2) Libertarians love free movement of people and goods across nation borders while loving local economy and institutions. So they love image Jon Galt and Laura Wilder even though the Jon Galts throw the Wilders off their land endlessly. And the Jon Galts become the Taggarts quicker than you think….Look at Zuckerberg and Gates.
3) Support for libertarians increases most when most of the population enjoys its gains (so 1994 – 2004) versus recessionary times (2007 – 20018). So it is not dead but in hibernation. Who would have thought Sanders would impact national politics the way he has in 1998.
“…even though the Jon Galts throw the Wilders off their land endlessly”
Can you provide even one example of a wealthy libertarian throwing people off their land please?
“And the Jon Galts become the Taggarts quicker than you think….Look at Zuckerberg and Gates”
When were Zuckerberg and Gates ever libertarians? And then there’s this:
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/carney-how-hatch-forced-microsoft-to-play-k-streets-game
How possible do you think it is to run a large organization in the U.S. now without playing the game in DC?
I think that the link was intended to go here: https://www.wsj.com/articles/boris-johnson-and-the-great-realignment-11576626535
Article without the paywall at The Internet Archive.
Nice spot on that web site, thanks.
No need to worry, Niskanen-Mercatus hybrid-vigor of State Capacity Liberal-tarianism will surely revive the movement’s fortunes.
Because nothing excites the passions for personal liberty and freedom like “more effective police state, tax carbon, redistribute wealth, embrace the assumptions of identity group politics, and racing to achieve economic equilibrium with the global bottom.”
Maybe it’ll keep non-legal libertarianism alive just enough to remain this phantom bogeyman which has been secretly controlling the world for decades and causing all our problems.
Sorry, I’ll throttle down the snark now.
More seriously, an analogy can be drawn to similar and contemporaneous slow-motion extinction events for Mainline Protestant Churches.
The problem is Conquest’s Second Law, “Any organization not explicitly right-wing sooner or later becomes left-wing.” Conquest himself used the Church of England as an example.
Once any organization or movement makes enough compromises with the left or progressivism, it becomes impossible to take a hard stand in opposition on anything, or to make a plausible, acceptable, principled defense which can effectively preserve any remaining meaningful distinctions, and so, what’s the point of not ditching the whole thing and just going all in with the progressives? One is running on the fumes of inertia without reproduction of replacements, and so generational turnover will reveal rapid evaporation and “hollowing out”.
You need to go back to blogging. I miss reading you on a daily basis.
The problem with ideology is, if you’ve got an ideology, you’ve already got your mind made up. You know all the answers and that makes evidence irrelevant and arguments a waste of time. You tend to govern by assertion and attacks.
– Bill Clinton
Well we will see how much debt Johnson incurs. Probably a lot less by any measure than what will be added on under the next US administration’s Medicare for All scheme to nationalize the entire health industry. Trump has been a huge disappointment in cutting spending and reducing debt but at least he isn’t trying to outlaw private health insurance.
One doesn’t hear much about the principle of subsidiaries in libertarian discourse. Everything they want to do seems to be top down. And libertarians seem to be non-existent in state and local government. Libertariansm wouldn’t be so hollowed out I imagine if there was ever one on a school board.
And there seems to be a large share of USA constitutional fetishists amongst libertarians who refuse to see how the judiciary has destroyed any constitutional restraints on government. Denmark and other countries show us that it is possible to have a constitutionally restrained judiciary and in turn a constitutionally restrained state.
Libertarians seem to enjoy proposing radical measures but few seem to support the adoption of proportional representation so that they could be represented in government and their persuasiveness reflected in elections. All too many are comfortably smug Bryan Caplan -ites willing to judge the electorate as negligent for not subscribing to the various ideological positions they deem correct.
In proportional representation countries, libertarians have been elected governors and have had to endure the hard work of incremental change in persuading people to support a position. The last time something like that happened in the USA was when Milton Friedman persuaded enough people to adopt the volunteer military. But they don’t make them like Milton Friedman anymore.
Libertarians would likely have much more influence if they were less didactic and more interested in serving the welfare of the general public. FH Buckley, an anti-libertarian in the sense that he puts public welfare above abstract ideology, will publish a book on secession this year and it will be the most libertarian book published in the USA but will nevertheless be widely ignored or dismissed in libertarian circles because of fear or for ideological impurity. Which is a shame. Who knows how many states would start themselves over in a pluralist model and attain greater levels of peace, prosperity, individual autonomy and human flourishing. Instead, libertarians will be content to go along with President Bloomberg and call big-gulp ban governance “state capacity libertarianism” and necessary to address climate change.
Galston also writes:
When an inexplicable realignment is in progress, it is time to revisit our core assumptions. The heart of Trumpism/Brexitism is blue-collar men permanently shifting political coalitions and the problem of the traditional political coalitions is assuming that the attitudes of these (mostly) men has changed when its really their assumptions that need to be revisited.
This equally applies to libertarians who are now politically homeless if not extinct. I’m not as cynical/pessimistic as Handle and Edgar about libertarianism. I think the anarchist/minarchist strain is now extinct but Cowen’s State Capacity Libertarianism is an opportunity for free market fiscal conservatives and classical liberals to revisit their core assumptions.
Whatever you want to call it, the style of libertariansim/liberalism I follow can be described as TheGoldenRule + PositiveSumAnalysis. TheGoldenRule supports the hyper-individualism of anarchist libertarian positions while the PositiveSumAnalysis does not rule out the possibility that some government programs are truly fiscally conservative.
If this sounds oxymoronic, consider public auto insurance in Canada, and specifically the fact that it is widely supported institution run by the Alberta government; the most staunchly individualistic, fiscally conservative, and pro free market province in Canada. To reconcile this state of affairs, one only has to revisit the assumption that big government programs are socialist. Anyone doing a PositiveSumAnalysis of public car insurance in Alberta vs private car insurance in Ontario will conclude that the Alberta approach is about 2x more cost effective (I don’t know the real numbers) but that the costs of changing course in Ontario is not worth the effort.
The opportunity for State Capacity Libertarians is to emphasize TheGoldenRule whenever Social Justice Activists and Protectionists want to throw it under the bus for TheGreaterGood while also emphasizing that if a PositiveSumAnalysis does not support the expectations of a specific policy (e.g. minimum wage, immigration) then maybe its time to revisit your core assumptions.
sheesh, I can’t get the link syntax right either. Public Auto Insurance in Canada.
double sheesh, I didn’t notice that my:
I first describe the potentially problem with adding links and then I dutifully going about experiencing each use case. Mobile: check. Can’t edit typing/syntax errors: check. Overzealous moderation plugin: check.
Manitoba, not Alberta.
My bad. I was going on my memory which is obviously faulty. I should have read the Wikipedia link more closely. Manitoba and Saskatchewan both have public auto insurance but they were implemented by left-wing NDP/CCF governments. That undermines my Conservative public insurance thesis but it doesn’t change the possibility that public auto insurance may a viable cost option. Thanks for the correction.
From what I know about AB, I went looking. One interesting thing, I found, is the provincial government basically lays out what damages can be, and ppl must carry a pretty hefty amt of coverage (200k min?) And only in certain instances can you sue. So maybe a good combination of private insurance and stiff regulations.
Kling is playing fast and loose with the meaning of “libertarian”.
“State Capacity Libertarians” advocating big leviathan states centered around the universities aren’t libertarian.
I’d argue that Dominic Cummings and the Tory Party willing to make some compromises to win an election is more libertarian than the “State Capacity Libertarian”.
The issues of national values, the role of religion, the nature of sexual mores, the treatment of sex as fundamental or merely subject to preference, the right to favor certain norms, racial groups, or ethnicities, and the role that respect for a nation’s heritage should be allowed to shape policy and the national conversation are not something that one can be indifferent to. It’s like discussing the age of consent. There must be constraints and one must make a choice. There is no “liberatarian” solution. With respect to immigration I have met those on both sides of the issue with many against illegal aliens being treated as immigrants. But those who advocate open immigration are fighting against the concept of the nation itself which is inevitably a collective concept of who should be considered part of the group and how those rules should be structured. The idea that first principles should determine the answer is clueless. It’s like those libertarians I know who claim that both patriotism and treason have no meaning except in extremely limited cases. The issues at play today are at the very heart of which values permit bourgeois, Western liberalism to exist at all. Those like Hanson who go to absurd conclusions such as saying that a world of digital Ems should be just as deserving of our loyalty as humans is the absurd reductio that is an extension of those who say all cultures should be treated as equal in our nation. It can’t be done and shouldn’t. That’s why the future is more conflict. Inevitable and inescapable. Liberal rules were made possible by war, coercion, and assimilation. To pretend otherwise is why there have been zero liberatarian nations that industrialized, thrived, and provided their own security from invaders.
I wouldn’t be too depressed about it from an intellectual standpoint. The greatest libertarian intellectual developments – from the likes of Hayek, Friedman, Buchanan, etc. – came when classical liberalism was in an ebb, not during the following ‘neoliberal golden age.’
Not to give too much credit to Peter Turchin, but I think there’s definitely a cyclicality to popular ideology. I think ‘neoliberalism’ – compared to its old competitors, which are basically the same ones trying to dislodge it today, has been quite a success, but people naturally grow dissatisfied with the status quo. I’d propose cyclical version of Schumpeter/Rogge’s (classical) liberal pessimism; not that socialism is destined to beat out capitalism despite capitalism’s success, but that we have to ‘retry’ socialism every 50 years to remind ourselves how much worse it is, to be psychologically reinnoculated against it.
The UK has about 50% of their debt priced in ten year bonds from the past. They thinks rates are low, but the rollover effect make the rate they pay on all debt to be about 2.1% with a growth rate of 1.8%. (By rollover I just mean general past bond with interest due)
Current ten year for the UK bond is .77%. As the rollovers do occur, their elite think interest expense drops. But money exits the bond market as interest expense drops, that expense is income to the bond holders. This is not cheap money, it is money in which the bond buyers have a clearer look ahead than the bond seller. UK gov will pay the real rate, that is why it is called real, it comes from their hides.
In stead of calling these rates low, call them a measure of the Bank of England’s market share, it is dropping. The pound is pricing events in their economy with a much greater error than need be. They will get viscous cycle, large pricing error leads to confused government leading to worse pricing error, a spiral.
I often find your posts difficult to understand. I can’t decide whether the problem is:
1) They are too short and you don’t explain enough;
2) Your written English is not good;
3) I am dense;
4) They don’t make sense.
The idea that “deficits don’t matter” might be true in the case of:
1) 90% or more international trade occurs using a currency (medium of account) from a country / union with a big and increasing deficit, and
2) fairly stable currency exchange rates (10% or less change per quarter)
I’ve always favored a Balanced Budget amendment, but the lack “punishment” over excessive deficits weakens the opposition to the very politically popular spending of more gov’t money.
Fiscal conservatives have been losing elections; big spending “conservatives” more often win. Winning is required for political movements to be successful at getting their “leaders” elected, altho having their policies adopted and enacted is what winning should mean for a political philosophy.
Legalization of drugs and open borders are two Libertarian positions. Both with positive and negative effects. Libs will be blamed for the negative effects, and get little or no credit for any positive effects.