Russell Kirk’s prescription of having no major alliances between conservatives and libertarians is wise. Conservatives may stand with libertarians against tyranny and for sensible free market policies, but in the end, I think even accepting the term libertarian is unwise.
Should you be a libertarian? The answer, as with every term, depends on how you define it. Many critics of free market economics think that any skepticism about the ability of the state to manage local, state, or national economies by fixing prices and wages, telling industries what and how much to produce, regulating every aspect of businesses in the name of safety, and limiting trade with other free market actors is (shudder) libertarianism.
“You oppose this 2 trillion-dollar aid package and the demand that there be no COVID deaths before we allow you to serve that cheeseburger? Despicable libertarian!”
If being a believer in free markets—with all the proper caveats—makes one a libertarian, then you should definitely be a libertarian. Friends of mine will call themselves libertarians with this in mind. They think liberty a good word and one that we ought to all embrace as long as we understand that it is liberty under God and the natural moral law. They want to emphasize how much we’ve learned about how decentralized economic and social activity so often works better—not perfectly, mind you!—than do the best laid plans of politicians and social scientists. They want to make sure we understand that the liberty of individuals, families, and associations must be protected from the overweening powers of the state and increasingly the woke corporations who are not interested in liberty.
If the term means someone who is a member of the Libertarian Party or votes for their candidates, the answer is almost always no. While in a local race, a Libertarian would almost certainly be preferable to most candidates aligned with Democrats or other “progressive” parties, on the national stage they never have a chance at victory—commentator Michael Medved often calls them “losertarians”—and they often function to siphon votes away from other conservative candidates. And though they often have a number of good policy positions—presidential candidate Jo Jorgensen was not only good on a number of economic and foreign policy issues but also opposed the tyrannies exercised in the name of COVID—their positions on drug decriminalization and legalization strike me as entirely unwise.
This leads me to a third, consistent and philosophical understanding of libertarian that was delineated by Russell Kirk in his famous 1981 essay, “Libertarians: the Chirping Sectaries.” Therein he described a “tiny minority” of “ideologues who call themselves libertarians” who have a “fanatic attachment to a simple solitary principle—that is, to the notion of personal freedom as the whole end of the civil social order, and indeed of human existence.” In his essay, Dr. Kirk repudiated any notion of an alliance between consistent libertarians and conservatives, despite their common opposition to collectivism, because of how much they differ on the nature of human nature, society, government, and liberty itself.
Conservatives (like Christians) view human nature as fallen while libertarians (like anarchists and Marxists, Kirk observes) view it as benign and good, though damaged by institutions. Conservatives “declare that society is a community of souls, joining the dead, the living, and those yet unborn; and that it coheres through what Aristotle called friendship and Christians call love of neighbor.” They think custom, though not infallible, is necessarily a part of human society and not to be disposed of. Libertarians declare that society is cemented by “self-interest” and look askance at customs. Conservatives view government as ordained by God, yet in need of constraints since it is operated by fallen humans. Libertarians view it as intrinsically “an oppressor.” And conservatives view liberty as essential to human beings, though only finally good when it is used in favor of good and oriented to truth.
Is Kirk fair and accurate in this description? I thought of his essay again recently when I watched a short satirical video called “Libertarian PBS” produced by the libertarian magazine Reason. It took recognizable PBS shows such as “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood,” “Sesame Street,” “The Great British Bake Off,” and others, and injected libertarian themes. While due allowance needs to be made for the satirical nature, what it showed was still the stark division identified by Dr. Kirk.
Bits that highlighted the problems with qualified immunity, eminent domain, the national debt, and politicians using insider knowledge to get rich amused me. I like Muppet police officers singing about how qualified immunity is “not for you” and “just for me,” but when it came to depicting what libertarians would teach kids, it was disturbing—even allowing for the jokiness.
In one bit Barney the Dinosaur sings, “I love you and you love me, and we all own our own bodies, so marry who you want and do whatever drugs you choose, and when it’s time you can die with dignity by determining your own end-of-life plan.” A character in a travel show lights up a joint and says, “We’re in international waters. That means I can marry a robot and sell a kidney on eBay” On the “Great ‘Murican Baking Show,” a British host tells the ‘Murican, Jack, he must bake a “gay wedding cake.” When Jack refuses, citing his rights, the host kicks him off, calling him a “homophobic, bearded meat gobbler.”
Well, ha ha.
This video matches up with recent articles on the website, which focus on this strange notion of owning one’s own body and doing whatever one wants with it—and especially demonizing those who disagree. One article, “Arkansas Lawmakers Interfere in Trans Teens’ Choices,” by Scott Shackford, criticizes Arkansas lawmakers who have proposed legislation that would ban giving hormone-suppressing drugs, performing “gender reassignment” surgeries, and doing other cosmetic alterations to adolescents. It proposes that if doctors agree that such a “treatment” is necessary, it should be done. And by way of attacking the bill’s co-sponsors, the article notes that she has tried to make abortion more difficult to obtain in Arkansas.
I don’t think Mr. Shackford asked those babies what they want to do with their bodies that they presumably own. As Dr. Kirk observed, “It was recently a plank in the platform of the Libertarian Party that expectant mothers should enjoy a right to abortion on demand; while to the reflecting conservative, the slaughter of innocents is the most despicable of evils.”
Other recent articles assume that showing a strong American trust in big tech and billionaires is a good thing. And many others associate the goals of drug legalization and normalization, as well as those of “sex work,” as goods. I’m familiar with prudential arguments as to why certain vices should not be legally proscribed; indeed, St. Thomas Aquinas has one for prostitution. It is a fallen world, and the limits on what a society and a government can do officially to make it less destructive are limited. But the naivety shown about the power of Big Tech and the enthusiasm for psychotropic drugs and selling one’s body are frightening.
If this is “libertarianism,” and it appears to be for one of its major in-house magazines, I want no part in it and neither should you. Dr. Kirk’s prescription of no major alliances between conservatives and libertarians seems to be a wise thing, even if we can continue to use libertarian research and unite with libertarians on certain narrow issues. Conservatives can stand with libertarians against tyranny and for sensible free market policies. But in the end, I think even accepting the term libertarian is unwise. Too many people hear it and don’t hear “under God and the natural law.” What they hear is the voice of a selfishness that will indeed allow for tyranny when the price is right.
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I think that while I identify as a Conservative Christian Monarchist, Libertarianism might simply be more realistic at this point for the Federal Government. While Conservatives often accuse Libertarians of living in the world of abstractions, right now in many respects it is Conservatives who refuse to accept how hostile the US government is to any kind of Traditionalism and think they can tame this beast, or use it like an older state run by Classically Educated Western Aristocracy. The reality at this point is that the sheer number of government employees who are already on the Left along with Civil Rights legislation, Affirmative Action, and University indoctrination will prevent Conservatives from controlling these institutions. Just look at Trump drastically increasing the military budget only for the military to go after the Right.
I don’t really agree with Libertarianism in abstract, I believe society needs laws protecting families at bare minimum to survive, and not protecting Christianity is immoral; But with what the Federal government is, we just need to burn it to the ground. Dismantle its spy programs, starve the military industrial complex of its money, get rid of the Civil Rights Act and Affirmative Action, try to off load welfare programs on state government, no longer bailout companies, end the wars, end the universalist foreign policy that promotes the idea of an end of history, repeal Federal gun laws, promote the idea of going back to not forcing the Bill of Rights or Federal Immigration monopoly on local governments.
These institutions are rotten enough that I don’t think they can be fixed. Just try to cut them down while trying to build Conservative private and local institutions is the only viable strategy, IMO. By increasing government, Trump gave the swamp more water.
I actually wondered if some of the parts of that video were tacitly admitting libertarianism, if taken too strictly, can lead to results that are unwise or even vaguely insane.
On the cooking thing I was initially offended a bit, but listening to it closer it did say he has a right to his beliefs but the contest has a right to kick him out because they are, to libertarians, closed-minded and bad. And I think if the issue were just “social conservatives are not allowed in certain contests or voluntary associations” I’d be fine with that. I kind of agree with the libertarian approach there then. In a country where the majority now consider homosexual activity morally good “You’re a bigot, but we’ll let you do your thing in your own life and business” I think is the best result plausible.
Thank you David, very well presented.
I think this article does a good job in distinguishing conservatives who like libertarian/small government policy from true libertarians who believe in the libertarian philosophy. A lot of conservatives (like me) call themselves libertarian but their views stem from a conservatism worldview.
I have always thought that “libertarian” derives from “liberal”, and indeed once upon a long time ago, “liberal” meant one who was opposed to overbearing government.
As noted, the prime difference is not any given political position, but the attitude.
In its simplest iteration, Conservatives and Christians (not necessarily overlapping sets) believe in Original Sin, and Liberals (along with Libertarians Marxists, Freudians, etc.) believe humans are capable of perfecting themselves without any external agency (except that of the social worker, vanguard, analyst, etc.)
While a mere hundred years is insufficient time to ponder large issues, the sad history of the XXth Century would seem to come down firmly on the side of Original Sin, as the other presentations presume to strut their hour upon the stage, but can’t seem to last even that paltry amount of time.
Further, one must ask what is so especially “conservative” about the “creative destruction” of capitalism, in view of what it has done to families, communities, classes, and entire nations (not to mention Empires.) But that is a rant for another occasion.
Funny, I don’t think libertarians should make alliances with big-government conservatives, so we’re in agreement on that point.
The Danish Conservative Peoples Party is of course based on Lutheran Christendom, with the two regimentes doctrine. Necessarily it compromises with libertarians on values politics (such as the sexual revolution) and with social democrats on economic politics (well fare state) because morals and reason are considered to be under the secular regimente, of the people. Conservatism in the Anglo-American sense of Burke and Kirk is not possible in Scandinavia. To them, morals and reason were more spiritual, handed down through tradition from God. However, Scandinavia still has national churches and monarchies worthwhile to conserve, and these exert conservative influences through the people on all the political parties. That is how the spiritual regimente works on all parties. There are no extreme political points of view, all parties are conservative-libertarian-socialist, mainly disagreeing only on economic interests. It is very hard for catholics in Denmark to vote sensibly, because Lutherdom is given premise. Probably, while I enjoy membership in the Conservative Peoples Party, I must vote for the Christian Democrats, who will gain no seats.
I have struggled with Libertarians for a long time. Philosophically, as noted in the article they come up with many positions that are hard to fathom as a Conservative. Specifically, the positions on abortion, drugs, and (amazingly something I never thought we would have to deal with) giving chemical castration drugs to minors. Conservatism, rightly, has a lot of problems with all of these. Asa Hutchinson’s contention that such conservatives as Ronald Reagan and William Buckley would be on his side of the argument is laughable at best.
My other struggle with Libertarians has nothing to do with their ideas, but their political approach. The simple fact is that we have a Democratic Party controlled U.S. Senate because of Libertarians (had 13,471 of the 115,039 Libertarian voters in the Georgia general election voted for Perdue, the Senate would still be Republican–even if the rest voted for the Democrat!). Their existence as a party indicates that they do not have a concept of forging coalitions (not that conservatives are much better). They would have far more impact on the government if they would put their energy into the existing Republican party–even if it is “rigged” as they think. I guess I could take them more seriously if they would attempt to run and win at the local level so we could see how they would actually try to govern.