A lib-lib Romance: don't count liberals and libertarians as hitched just yet

National Review, Dec 31, 2006 by Jonah Goldberg

'LIBERTARIAN" has become something of a feel-good word lately. Markos Moulitsas, the guru behind the Daily Kos, penned an essay not too long ago making the case for the "libertarian Democrat." His analysis is thin gruel, but what's interesting is that arguably the most partisan left-wing Democrat in America is eager to claim the libertarian label for his side. At the same time, mainstream liberals have been proclaiming that they always loved and respected those supposedly libertarian conservatives of yesteryear, like Reagan and Goldwater.

Meanwhile, on the right, many conservatives eager to distinguish themselves from the messiness of the Bush administration and the unrepentant jobbery of the congressional GOP now use the word "libertarian" like an alibi: "Hey man, I didn't do it. I'm a libertarian."

Perhaps sensing an opportunity here, professional libertarians are flexing their muscle. The Cato Institute put out a paper holding that some 15 percent of voters are libertarian and that, more important, they are the much-coveted "swing voters" who decide elections. And in a number of very close elections in November, many libertarians seemed almost giddy that they might have been responsible for the defeat of Republicans.

In its most basic form, the libertarian complaint should be familiar by now: From Terri Schiavo to diarrheic spending, the GOP has betrayed its commitment to limited government. So, the libertarians reason, why not "experiment" with the Democrats a bit? They expand government too, but at least they're more liberty-loving when it comes to drugs, sex, abortion, etc.

The problem here is that "libertarian" is a shmoo-like word but libertarians are not shmoo-like people (shmoos being the magical creatures from Lil' Abner who could take any form and be anything). Everyone likes to think he's in favor of maximizing freedom. But in reality most folks want to maximize only the freedoms they like. I often ask self-described libertarians if they support government censorship of hardcore pornography on Saturday-morning broadcast television. If they say yes, then they aren't really pure libertarians. If they say no, I congratulate them on their consistency and tell them why their political ambitions are doomed.

"Libertarian-leaning" people are often quite severe about which "freedoms" they want liberalized and which they don't. Indeed, they're often single-issue voters. Just ask the folks at Libertarians for Life. Meanwhile, some doctrinaire libertarians are fixated on legalizing drugs, others on gay marriage, and some, amazingly enough, on defending the moral legitimacy of the Confederacy. A bloc of centrist swing voters this ain't. The point is that most of the talk about "libertarians" switching sides has been exactly that, talk.

Until now. Brink Lindsey, a vice president at the Cato Institute and one of the sharpest libertarian wonks in Washington, upped the ante from flirtatious jibber-jabber to genuine philosophical wooing. In a recent issue of The New Republic, Lindsey restates the familiar libertarian gripes, but goes on to argue that the fusionist project launched by Frank Meyer in these pages five decades ago has essentially run its course. "Fusionism" was the label (coined by L. Brent Bozell) to describe Meyer's view that the ends of traditional morality could be reached only by libertarian means: Virtue not freely chosen cannot be virtuous, he argued.

Lindsey goes further still. He argues that, empirically speaking, fusionism was a mistake for libertarians from the get-go. An "honest survey of the past half-century shows a much better match between libertarian means and progressive ends." He proposes "a refashioned liberalism that incorporate[s] key libertarian concerns and insights" and "make[s] possible a truly progressive politics once again." This politics, as he envisions it, is "not progressive in the sense of hewing to a particular set of preexisting left-wing commitments, but ... joins together under one banner the causes of both cultural and economic progress."

What makes Lindsey's overture significant is that he comes from the branch of libertarianism that actually matters: economics. Economic libertarians, under the leadership of Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman, have been so successful in the conservative movement--and the conservative movement has been so successful because of them--that "economic conservative" and "libertarian" have long been synonyms. But here's Lindsey, an economic libertarian par excellence, trying to convince liberals that free markets are "progressive." He wants liberals to accept the fact that libertarian means achieve liberal cultural ends. Rich societies become more tolerant of sexual freedom and civil rights, and invest more in education and the environment--and societies become rich by following the advice of the Friedmans and Hayeks. Lindsey proposes finding common ground with liberals on issues from agriculture subsidies (which are bad for the environment) to tax reform. His policy proposals would warm the cockles of any NR editor's heart, and we should wish him luck.