What Does It Take To Be A Card-Carrying Libertarian?
I’ve noticed that a lot of Ricochetti seem to self-identify as libertarians. This is interesting to me because I haven’t personally known a lot of real, grown-up libertarians. Undergraduate students, in my experience, are often quite attracted to libertarianism; in fact, they generally divide pretty neatly between the libertarians and the socialists. As they age, however, many move on to something a little more substantial.
That, at any rate, is how I tend to think about it. Libertarianism has always seemed a bit juvenile to me, which is not, of course, to deny that very smart people can sometimes get stuck in it. (I think utilitarianism is rather juvenile too, but it’s captured the loyalties of some very intelligent people in academic philosophy.) It could be, however, that I only think that because of the circumstantial fact that most of the libertarians I’ve known were themselves juveniles, and not particularly sophisticated mouthpieces for the philosophy. I’m willing to revisit the question.
I can’t really commit right now to tackling an extended reading list, which I would presumably need to do in order to get a nuanced perspective on the many flavors of libertarianism. But it would help a lot if I could get an answer to the above question. What must a person commit to in order to qualify as a libertarian? And, for those of you who identify yourselves with libertarianism, what’s the attraction?
Before you answer, it might help if I stated what I believe to be the attraction for the undergraduates. Libertarianism is what I like to call a “low buy-in” view. The “buy-in” I have in mind is something like, “commitment to a definite view of human nature, and to normative claims about how human beings should live”. Aristotelian, virtue-oriented moral theories are thus “high buy-in”. You have to commit to a lot to get on board with these theories. Utilitarianism, by contrast, has a very low buy-in. In its crudest form, it doesn’t ask you to commit to much of anything except that pleasure is good and pain bad.
Undergraduates love the low buy-in. I think it’s mainly because, being simpletons themselves, they hate to think that other people might know better than them, and even more to think that they should submit to the wisdom others in deciding how to live. Accordingly, they flock to low buy-in views, and the ones that most value opportunity become libertarians, while the security-lovers become socialists.
What’s the attraction for the more-mature conservative, though? To be sure, there are plenty of reasons for a non-moral relativist to favor limited government. In the first place, government tends to be inefficient at most jobs. Also, a person living in a pluralist society might pragmatically recognize that a small, relatively neutral government is the most optimal of the realizable options. Finally, there is the deep truth that some level of freedom is necessary for human beings to achieve full moral maturity, and exercise the virtues. Conservatives at different times have articulated all of these as reasons for favoring limited government, but it seems to me that they are not, per se, libertarian reasons (which is not necessarily to say that they are incompatible with libertarianism). The first two are too pragmatic; the libertarian sees small government as a requirement of justice. The third doesn’t clearly justify as limited a government as most libertarians seem to think we should have.
I’ll stop here, and hope other people offer their thoughts. But just to remind you, the two questions are, first, what most fundamentally defines a libertarian? And second, what’s the attraction of this view for mature conservatives?
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Jun '10
Re: What Does It Take To Be A Card-Carrying Libertarian?
Fat Dave
Which is why I've always held that Libertarianism is no more than a marginally-useful descriptor of sentiments and not a true ideology, because every Libertarian I know makes broad exceptions for their pet biases. "I'm Libertarian, but I'm a Civil War buff, so National Battlefield Parks are essential to preserve our identity as Americans." I'm watching this phenomenon go on amongst "Libertarian" TEA Partiers who've managed to win seats in local government around here. · 11 hours ago
How is libertarianism any less of an ideology than conservatism? Libertarian thinkers laid the groundwork and provided the intellectual heft for the nascent conservative movement. Spencer, Mencken, Hayek, Rand, von Mises, Friedman... any of those ringing a bell?
I'm sorry that your exposure to libertarians has been so negative. Please bear in mind, though, that anyone can call himself anything. That applies to all political ideologies. Tom DeLay, Trent Lott, John Boehner, Mitch McConnell, George Bush, and Mitt Romney all consider themselves to be conservatives, and most people are willing to accommodate them. Why have a more stringent standard for those who ascribe to libertarian ideas?
Jun '10
Re: What Does It Take To Be A Card-Carrying Libertarian?
Howellis:
In all these cases, there is always a utilitarian dimension to the issue. It is never decided solely on the grounds of rights. Thus, the straw man of the absolute libertarian posited by the original post is easily knocked down. It’s more useful to consider, issue by issue, what liberties can withstand a challenge from competing liberties or from negative consequences. · 9 hours ago
Beautifully done. Hear, hear.
Jun '10
Re: What Does It Take To Be A Card-Carrying Libertarian?
Mothership_Greg
I thought libertarians loved OSHA...? · 10 hours ago
The Order of Sexy Hawaiian Acrobats?
Love 'em.
Nov '11
Re: What Does It Take To Be A Card-Carrying Libertarian?
Casey Taylor
Mothership_Greg
I thought libertarians loved OSHA...? · 10 hours ago
The Order of Sexy Hawaiian Acrobats?
Love 'em. · 36 minutes ago
I am disappointed that this isn't a real thing.
Jun '10
Re: What Does It Take To Be A Card-Carrying Libertarian?
Mothership_Greg
Casey Taylor
Mothership_Greg
I thought libertarians loved OSHA...? · 10 hours ago
The Order of Sexy Hawaiian Acrobats?
Love 'em. · 36 minutes ago
I am disappointed that this isn't a real thing. · 48 minutes ago
You looked it up, didn't you?
Jan '11
Re: What Does It Take To Be A Card-Carrying Libertarian?
I'm okay with the last two as well. But being "pro" something is loaded language. I simply don't mind these four things [leaving out the killing of the unborn] being permissible. Dare I say that I am not "pro-prohibition", "pro-banning", or "pro-forbiddance".
Mar '11
Re: What Does It Take To Be A Card-Carrying Libertarian?
Casey Taylor
I'm sorry that your exposure to libertarians has been so negative. Please bear in mind, though, that anyone can call himself anything. That applies to all political ideologies. Tom DeLay, Trent Lott, John Boehner, Mitch McConnell, George Bush, and Mitt Romney all consider themselves to be conservatives, and most people are willing to accommodate them. Why have a more stringent standard for those who ascribe to libertarian ideas? · 1 hour agoHow is libertarianism any less of an ideology than conservatism? Libertarian thinkers laid the groundwork and provided the intellectual heft for the nascent conservative movement. Spencer, Mencken, Hayek, Rand, von Mises, Friedman... any of those ringing a bell?
I've read most of them. I just don't see many self-proclaimed libertarians doing a good job of standing firm when confronted by their own biases or self-interest. I sympathize with true libertarians, and agree with many of the philosophical tenets. I just see the word bandied around to the point that it has no meaning.
Mar '11
Re: What Does It Take To Be A Card-Carrying Libertarian?
Casey Taylor
Product safety and statutory compliance, the same as with food, cosmetics, cars, or anything else.
Just because someone's libertarian doesn't mean he believes that there's no use for government. You're conflating anarchism with libertarianism. Also, you should meet more libertarians; most of us don't think how you think we think.
Oversight of trade and safety, both product and work-related, with domestic industries are inarguably Constitutional roles of government; where libertarians and Libertarians find issue is the leveland extentof oversight, not the fact that it exists. · 2 hours ago
Edited 1 hour ago
You'll find more libertarians who want to completely deregulate all industries than you may think. (Until they get elected.) And I'm not as sour on libertarianism as you may infer from my posts. I'm just wary of people who claim to be libertarian today. It has become quite a faddish philosophy. Kind of the conservative hipsterism.
Apr '12
Re: What Does It Take To Be A Card-Carrying Libertarian?
Why make libertarians, in particular, come to a precise formulation of their commitments? It's a fair question, and I guess my answers would be the following:
1) Defining conservatism is also a worthwhile endeavor, to which many smart people (Russell Kirk, for example) have devoted considerable energy. So, the answer to the question "why libertarianism and not conservatism" is mostly just, "it's what I was thinking about that particular day".
2) Libertarians, though, are the least comfortable fit within the GOP. Some of them, in fact, aren't even in the GOP. They're kind of doing their own thing, which makes it that much more interesting to define what libertarianism is.
3) Even if they are conservatives (whatever that means exactly), they are still distinctive for being the subset of conservatism that has far and away the most pride and/or separate identity. I hear people self-identify as libertarians all the time; by contrast, I hardly ever hear people self-identify as a neo-con, paleo-con or social conservative. If you regard it as part of your identity, seems like you should be able to address the question of what it most fundamentally means.
Apr '12
Re: What Does It Take To Be A Card-Carrying Libertarian?
Amy Schley
Who are we to infringe on one's God-given rights (taxation, denial of use of property) simply to vainly attempt to shield people from consequences? Might as well try to stop storm systems from making tornadoes. · 11 hours ago
This just seems completely untrue. It's much easier to control humans than storm systems. In fact, most people seem to yearn for authority of some kind, and to respond to it, whereas I only know of one man with a demonstrated ability to stop the wind and rain.
As far as ancient Israel goes, it's true that the people demanded a kind, and that this may have been unwise. (Though again, note that they demanded it; they wanted to be subject to authority.) But before that they had judges, and from what I've read of the Old Testament, it doesn't sound like ancient Israel before Saul was exactly a libertarian paradise. Have you read the story of the guy who got stoned for gathering wood on the Sabbath?
Jun '10
Re: What Does It Take To Be A Card-Carrying Libertarian?
Fat Dave
You'll find more libertarians who want to completely deregulate all industries than you may think. (Until they get elected.) And I'm not as sour on libertarianism as you may infer from my posts. I'm just wary of people who claim to be libertarian today. It has become quite a faddish philosophy. Kind of the conservative hipsterism. · 15 minutes ago
You have hit the nail square on its flat little head. Libertarianism is hot right now, for good or ill, and it remains to be seen whether this moment in political history will produce the legacy of Goldwater '64 or Mondale '72.
Jun '10
Re: What Does It Take To Be A Card-Carrying Libertarian?
Rachel Lu
As far as ancient Israel goes, it's true that the people demanded a kind, and that this may have been unwise. (Though again, note that they demanded it; they wanted to be subject to authority.) But before that they had judges, and from what I've read of the Old Testament, it doesn't sound like ancient Israel before Saul was exactly a libertarian paradise. Have you read the story of the guy who got stoned for gathering wood on the Sabbath? · 14 minutes ago
The People demand authority, G-d warns them against it and tells them to manage their own affairs. Got it.
Seems like libertarians are on pretty firm ground.
Edited on July 23, 2012 at 5:15amMay '11
Re: What Does It Take To Be A Card-Carrying Libertarian?
Rachel, you seem to have a strange understanding of conservatism. Libertarians are not a subset of conservatives. Some republicans have libertarian streaks.
.
Conservatives, especially republicans, believe in big government and big business in cahoots. Romney in this sense is a conservative. Conservatives tend towards xenophobic border fences and would if it could make everyone a Christian.
.
The tea party has succeeded because it focuses on economics and taxes and stays away from the conservative issues that drive libertarians away. Libertarians are not conservatives. And neither are most Americans. When given a viable alternative, Americans tend towards libertarianism because that is closer to the ideal of what our country was founded to be.
Jun '10
Re: What Does It Take To Be A Card-Carrying Libertarian?
Fat Dave
I've read most of them. I just don't see many self-proclaimed libertarians doing a good job of standing firm when confronted by their own biases or self-interest. I sympathize with true libertarians, and agree with many of the philosophical tenets. I just see the word bandied around to the point that it has no meaning. · 40 minutes ago
Well, I hope that in some small way I can shift the approval meter in a friendlier direction.
Edited on July 23, 2012 at 6:20amI agree with you that hypocrisy is a problem among a good many of the faux-political, but that's a human failing not specific to those who call themselves libertarians.
Dec '10
Re: What Does It Take To Be A Card-Carrying Libertarian?
Rachel Lu
Since it's not really good for us to be left totally to our own devices, I don't see why there should exist any prima facie obligation against coercion.
This here pretty much defines why you don't understand or agree with libertarians.
If you hold this notion as a core belief, you're simply never going to understand libertarianism.
More discussion on the matter is basically moot.
Dec '10
Re: What Does It Take To Be A Card-Carrying Libertarian?
Well, now you've met one who's not pro-choice or pro-cannabis.
Dec '10
Re: What Does It Take To Be A Card-Carrying Libertarian?
CoolHand
Well, now you've met one who's not pro-choice or pro-cannabis. · 7 minutes ago
I should add that I'm not anti-cannabis either.
To the extent that I think about it at all, I dislike weed and the losers that smoke it habitually, but I also see a great deal of evil done in the name of eradicating it.
I honestly don't think that legalizing weed is going to solve anything socially, but it very well might reduce the size of the heel on our throats.
I dunno.
What I do know is that I'm not the jumping up and down to have a hash brownie for breakfast kind of libertarian.
May '11
Re: What Does It Take To Be A Card-Carrying Libertarian?
In 3,000 years the moral philosophers have never come up with an a priori explanation of moral principles that are convincing to me (Kant is bunk), so I have lost interest in finding such principles. I am a libertarian for one simple reason -- it works. Where government exists to secure the life, liberty and property of individual citizens, people are happy and prosperous. Where government exists to coerce citizens to serve society for the "greater good," people are miserable.
In other words, I believe in libertarianism for the same reason I believe that a penny and an anvil, dropped in a vaccum, fall at the same rate. Not because it ought to be true, but because it demonstrably is true.
Feb '12
Re: What Does It Take To Be A Card-Carrying Libertarian?
Rachel Lu
This just seems completely untrue. It's much easier to control humans than storm systems.
Many of the people who disagree with libertarianism do so because we seem uncharitable, e.g. We support the fire department not intervening when a man who wouldn't pay for fire protection services set his own house on fire.
We believe in making people live with the consequences of one's actions, and we see many kinds of government interference as attempting to disconnect the consequences from the action. e.g. people don't buy health insurance and then go to the emergency room because the hospital can't refuse to treat them.
Ultimately though, it can't be done. Someone still has to pay -- and separating the actor from the recipient merely insures that those consequences will be worse. Privatizing a benefit and socializing a cost is often a bad idea, and forcing people to take on that cost is immoral.
That is what is like trying to stop the tornadoes, or stop photosynthesis, or interrupt one's metabolism. All actions have consequences, and it is not the job of government to try to step between the two.
Re: What Does It Take To Be A Card-Carrying Libertarian?
I'm radically small government and free market. As for the rest. I believe a human's right to life is the first freedom that must be protected and that taking that life is not legitimate. With regard to porn and cannabis, I am actually extremely anti-porn (if not cannabis) but I think the best way to handle fighting it is through strong social institutions and not the government. Too much downside. Ditto with drugs that cause a lot of damage to those who take them.
I will say, though, that as a libertarian who got there philosophically .... I have always been mildly annoyed by the people who are only libertarian because, say, they like drugs.