"I have no idea why one would want to descend and degrade ones intellect by using the left right label" -- asks Rob
This is a wonderful question.
The shortest useful answer is that it's done on purpose. Were I ever so slightly less long-winded, I might have left it here.
The next shortest is that it is in order to call attention to the "objectively" and wrongly rightist tint to the standard libertarian position.
I prefer the interestingness answer:
It's a claim about what is interesting, not about what is true. To listen at the objectivist conferences, the libertarian discussions on the internet, and such, there tend to be four major flows of conversation.
1. What the masters said: Rothbard, Rand, Friedman I, Hayek, Spencer, etc.
All of these are admirably positioned off the left-right axis.
2. What libertarian positions are supported by no one else:
Drug legalization. Privatization of the roads. Government = Mafia.
3. What libertarian positions are shared by the right:
Taxes. Regulation. Government excess. Government corruption. Guns.
4. Opposition to liberals
Discrimination is not irrational. Lack of HNU (gender/race/individual). Indeed, this sums it up nicely.
Furthermore, the libertarians TEND (not in all cases) to prefer to listen to media that is rightist. And laugh at the takedowns of liberal silliness (which are funny). And begin to identify (in fact, not in name) with folks from the conservative political spectrum. Thomas Sowell (who I respect greatly) is a great example of a libertarian who is significantly along the conservative spectrum (look at his analysis of poor conservative vs. poor liberal positions). Glenn Reynolds is in the same camp. And if one were to agree with the standard liberal critique of positions...who finances you matters to what you say.
Climate Scientists are funded if their studies merit more study (are alarmist). How shocking that global warming discussions are alarmist.
Rush is funded by listeners who have a strong Christian bent. Shocking again that Rush has become more religious over the years.
Cato is notably <CORRECTION>somewhat. Not a majority, by any means </CORRECTION>funded by Koch Industries. How shocking that their position on unused property is advantageous to large oil corporations.
With all that...and the truly second-axis positions from the original experts...why the hell are libertarians so closely aligned with the right? (semi-rhetorical)
Rothbard recommended the other way. Brin recommends the other way. Wilkinson leans the other way. But most don't. Most actually lean significantly rightward.
My claim is that the political right answer many <EDIT> but not all or even most </EDIT>boring questions in a boringly correct way. On the other hand, those on the political left answer many interesting questions in a shockingly wrong way. I hold that the topics from the political left are more interesting and more deserving of study in general than those from the political right, AND that the libertarian response tends to be to dismiss those questions at least partly because the answers suck so badly, or the apparent consequences are anti-libertarian. Instead, let's address the questions...with a sciabarra/marx/hayek inspired dialectical approach, and a clarity about economics and heredity and the nature of politics that somehow seems to escape the leftist worldview.
So I call myself a left-libertarian. Some days. Other days, it's mutualist, anarcho-capitalist, agorist, market anarcho-socialist.... (I threw that last one in just to annoy my readers).
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You mention mutualist, I had to look that up...do you now find value/truth in the "labor theory of value?"
I think most of the people I read/listen to are on either on the libertarian left or talk/speak/interact with those on the left much more than those on the right. I don't listen to the radio much, so right-libertarians may constitute a majority of the body Libertaria.
Of course not. LToV was discredited way before Marx...and seems (unless I'm missing something) to be a simple technical question.
However...Kevin Carson (mutualism guy) seems to have an odd position around LToV. He has at least partially repudiated the critique on the Wikipedia page
Could be that you encounter the leftists more than I have recently. I'll add some distinguishing features between leftists and rightists soon.
I listen to a fair amount of the blogging heads TV stuff.. they tend to pair liberals and libertarians frequently. I tend to dislike liberal/conservative conversations as they usually devolve into democrat/republican. Where as the libertarianish folk tend to quickly dis-associate from republicans and move back to substance.
Outside of Greg Mankiw I rarely encounter anyone that I would identify on the economic right in the blogshere. I read the standard libertarianish Marginal Revolution, Econlog, Cafe Hayek, Megan etc.
I guess there is Steve Sailor, and Future Pundit though they again seem more complicated than just right wing....though they definitely have illiberal views.
I still find there are enough pigeons filling the left and right holes that I feel no need to force myself into one. But if you are finding it a helpful distinction please do endure.
"With all that...and the truly second-axis positions from the original experts...why the hell are libertarians so closely aligned with the right?"
I think this is 90% because for most of the time the left was in power. Now that we have experienced a full republican president/congress combo its a lot less palatable. I find this well reflected in the discussions I read/listen too. There is a lag, but the libertarians having no impulse to power, will criticize who ever is in power.
So if you want a bigger left libertarian movement, get the republicans back in power. Be careful what you wish for :)
I understand the appeal of using the labels "Left and Right", but the idea of using Right Vs. Left as a model is a lot like the Bohr model of the atom...
It's a gross oversimplification that is basically wrong on every level. Yeah, it's pretty to look at, but it's simply wrong for trying to predict anything with any real degree of accuracy.
Then again, I've been accused of being to the right of Ayn Rand. I've also been told I would have made a pretty good Hippie. Let's plot that on a linear scale.
Rob,
The "big L" Libertarians align with the Right for mostly historical reasons. The founding members of the party were disafected Goldwater Republicans. After the Republican party abandoned Goldwater's principles in an attempt to win elections the GRs basically "took their ball and went home"
I would be interested in hearing what the interesting questions are.
this is 90% because for most of the time the left was in power.
The Left is ALWAYS in power in modern America (and even moreso in most of The Rest Of The World).
Sayeth Mencius, who sold me on this idea,
The left is the party of the educational organs, at whose head is the press and universities. This is our 20th-century version of the established church.
Here at UR, we sometimes call it the Cathedral – although it is essential to note that, unlike an ordinary organization, it has no central administrator. No, this will not make it easier to deal with. ...
Whatever you make of the left-right axis, you have to admit that there exists some force which has been pulling the Anglo-American political system leftward for at least the last three centuries. Whatever this unfathomable stellar emanation may be, it has gotten us from the Stuarts to Barack Obama. Personally, I would like a refund. But that’s just me. ...
intellectuals cluster to the left, generally adopting as a social norm the principle of pas d’ennemis a gauche, pas d’amis a droit, because like everyone else they are drawn to power. The left is chaos and anarchy, and the more anarchy you have, the more power there is to go around. The more orderly a system is, the fewer people get to issue orders. The same asymmetry is why corporations and the military, whose system of hierarchical executive authority is inherently orderly, cluster to the right.
Once the cluster exists, however, it works by any means necessary. The reverence of anarchy is a mindset in which an essentially Machiavellian, tribal model of power flourishes. To the bishops of the Cathedral, anything that strengthens their influence is a good thing, and vice versa. The analysis is completely reflexive, far below the conscious level. Consider this comparison of the coverage between the regime of Pinochet and that of Castro. Despite atrocities that are comparable at most – not to mention a much better record in providing responsible and effective government – Pinochet receives the full-out two-minute hate, whereas the treatment of Castro tends to have, at most, a gentle and wistful disapproval. ...
The problem is not just that our present system of government – which might be described succinctly as an atheistic theocracy – is accidentally similar to Puritan Massachusetts. As anatomists put it, these structures are not just analogous. They are homologous. This architecture of government – theocracy secured through democratic means – is a single continuous thread in American history.
He writes a ton about how our whole official 'permanent government' (gov't's non-elected and basically untouchable employees) is and has always been left of center. He also writes about how the major press organs (NYT esp.) are always in mutual love with that permanent government...and the huge competitive advantage for 'news' that continuous streams of informal (and technically illegal, but hey) leaks give that established press.
want a bigger left libertarian movement, get the republicans back in power. Be careful what you wish for :)
ha
Or, if the Republicans have never really been 'in power,' just wait for more libertarians to SELL OUT and lust after 'influence' (their own slivers of power)...which is what Mencius accuses the Cato Institute & Wilkinson of doing in the Beltway...while the Austrians' LvMI limps along in Alabama.
1. Mark: I appreciate the history, which strongly reinforces my point.
2. Rob: I am suspicious of the republicans in power leading to lots more left-leaning libertarians. Though...I suppose that with Anti-war.com being (co-?)founded by libertarians that's not all the way true. Regardless, the libertarian/objectivist/etc. outcry against Democrat/liberal idiocy is far far more strident than the outcry against equivalent conservative positions.
3. Andrew: I suppose I should give Moldbug's (rather fringe) position a seat at the Thiel table:
"I no longer believe that freedom is compatible with Democracy."
to go along with the rest of us.
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