A few weeks back, I was following a comment war that had erupted on another user’s Diary between my fellow socialists and some apologists for capitalism. I usually don’t get involved in these arguments anymore, because in my experience, hardly anyone on Daily Kos entirely rejects either of these ideologies. Rather, on DK, those who describe themselves as ‘opposed’ to either socialism or capitalism are usually opposing the worst excesses of either ideology, but in actuality, support policies that are broadly consistent with both. Even my own views could be accurately characterized in this way; while I might be more radical than some on here in advocating for the sweeping nationalization of entire industries (e.g. petroleum, healthcare), or the more prevalent use of direct action tactics (e.g. general strikes), I certainly wouldn’t wish for every variety of private enterprise or property ownership come to an end.
But while following this comment war, I was more disturbed by a side remark that someone made while trying to pacify the more agitated parties. According to the commentator, as a “big tent” party, the Democrats have room for “everyone”, including not only both “capitalists” and “socialists”, but “even errant libertarians”. While I respect the intent behind the sentiment, as well as the spirit underlying “big tent” sentiments in general, it would be a disastrous mistake to pretend that we can welcome libertarians into the Democratic party. Furthermore, in light of the steady Republican descent into general insanity, and their associated abandonment of ‘free trade’ dogma, we’re likely to start seeing more overtures from Libertarian, Neoliberal types. Indeed, just last week, the Koch brothers released an impressively self-aggrandizing propaganda feature in which they impugned all who would act in “protectionist ways”, and expressed a desire for grater collaboration with Democratic politicians. It’s imperative then, that we understand why the doctrines of Libertarianism are inconsistent with whatever principles all those who truly are welcome in the Democratic “big tent” have in common.
“Libertarianism” can denote two very separate kinds of things; in the first instance, it’s a broad family of political theories, all of which are rooted in a deep concern for individual Liberty. In the second instance, it names a distinctive American political identity, claimed by such politicians as Ron and Rand Paul, which (they assert) involves a deep commitment to “limited government” and “respect for the Constitution” (as an aside, ever notice how Republicans seem to have an endless litany of flashy names for the same old tired doctrines? Yeah, that’s just one more reminder that Republicans are full of shit). For the sake of charity, I should be clear that the former meaning of “Libertarianism”, where it refers to a whole family of political theories that are all broadly within the philosophical tradition of John Locke, can come in either “Left wing” or “Right wing” varieties. Indeed, it might surprise many DK readers to find out that they, themselves, are most likely ‘Left Libertarians’.
If you consider yourself a “liberal”, but would object to being characterized as a “socialist”, then Left Libertarianism is most likely your theoretical home. Left Libertarians affirm the primacy of individual liberty, freedom from unjust harms or coercion, and the moral legitimacy of private property rights; it is in this last feature that they differ fundamentally from socialists, who deny that private ownership (particularly of property or business enterprises) entails any unique privileges or rights on the part of the owner. Moreover, Left Libertarianism is fundamentally an individualist theory of justice, whereas socialism adopts a more collectivist underlying ethic, which interprets the “just society” in terms of relations between social classes. There is an important ideological debate to be had then, for a newly resurgent Left, between Socialists and Left Libertarians. Since the Clinton era the Democratic party has adopted a primarily Left Libertarian orientation in terms of both its rhetoric and policy, and I think there’s good reason for Socialists to critique this orientation on both ethical and pragmatic grounds.
But notwithstanding this interesting theoretical dimension, the reality is that our national political discourse and cultural narrative has a well-worn name for Left Libertarians, namely, “Liberals”. And although I think the socialist critique of Left Libertarians is significant, and worthy of consideration, I’m perfectly comfortable delaying this critique until the American government is safely back in Democratic control. The reality is that conscientious Left Libertarians have far more in common with Socialists than existent (Right) Libertarians ever possibly could. Moreover, when virtually any American politician or voter chooses to identify her or himself as a “Libertarian”, it seems inevitably to be of the Right Libertarian variety they have in mind. As a millennial, I recall first encountering the adept salesmanship and slick marketing that’s characteristic of Right Libertarians when I wandered into a “Students for Liberty” meeting back in college. This was during the Obama era, and before I realized that “Students for Liberty” was little more than a Koch-sponsored front group for rationalizing and expanding exploitation. At the time, they had all sorts of earnest-sounding speakers, “activists” and lecturers getting up and preaching about the grave threat which expanding healthcare would pose to both “liberty” and “justice”. In retrospect, I realize what was especially cunning about this well-marketed bourgeois bullshit was that it tapped into the same sort of hip, youthful rhetoric typically employed by Liberals; the rhetoric of Liberation.
Freedom from drug prohibition, in particular, was used as an ideological beachhead from which the ‘Students for Liberty’ cultists could launch assaults on every facet of public welfare. Whenever the necessity or success of political action and governmental regulation were pointed out, the standard Libertarian tack would correspondingly be to fall back upon a purported “skepticism” about government efficiency, along with simplistic allegations of inevitable bureaucratic corruption and mismanagement. In this way, Libertarians could legitimize the obvious fallacy that no matter the social ill, private business and “the market” could cure it faster, better and cheaper, by rhetorically allying themselves with cautious rationality, intellectual integrity and the maintenance of an “open mind”. Politicians such as Rand and Ron Paul continue to play the part of the “conscientious conservative” well; while he has no problem acting as Trump’s obsequious, pathetic little errand-boy to Big Dad Vlad, Rand has taken every opportunity to morally grandstand as some ideologically principled maverick. Ron Paul ingratiated himself with a certain strain of Liberals by withholding explicit support for the kind of homophobic ‘social conservatism’ that was ascendant early in Obama’s first term, but his newspaper in Texas once proudly proclaimed the sentiments of avowed White Nationalists, denying and lambasting the reality of systemic racism.
Of course, Ron and Rand Paul are not likely to be welcomed into the Democratic Party fold anytime soon. But the recent Koch pronunciations about a possible realignment point to what is likely to be the upcoming Libertarian stalking-horse: the fraudulent reimagining of ‘free trade’ dogma into some sort of faux-‘human rights’ doctrine. Now to be clear about this, there is no doubt that efficient international trade is important. Moreover, there is no doubt that an unreflective, brute kind of protectionism is not workable as a long-term economic strategy. But opposition to ‘globalization’ based on concerns about colonialism, marginalization and economic displacement are very different from opposition to ‘globalization’ based on idiotic concepts of ‘race’ or ‘heritage’ like those propounded by notable pedophile-lover, Milo Yiannopolous. I am opposed to “free trade” where “free trade” means little more than the unfettered freedom of rich corporate bosses to outsource production as a way of getting around labor protections, and I am perfectly content to pay more for goods if doing so preserves the livelihoods of my fellow American workers. I suspect that most Liberals would, broadly speaking, agree on this, and even if they wouldn’t for the sake of solidarity, they certainly should for the sake of opposing the ruthless, Neo-Colonial exploitation of faraway populations, for the sake of human rights.
Where those faraway human rights are concerned, we can be sure that Libertarian infiltrators will want to feed us more optimistic horse shit about how “sweatshop jobs are still better than no jobs at all”, etc., etc. But this benign-sounding garbage was fraudulent in 2009 and it will be fraudulent again in 2018, 2019 and 2020. Once again, the Libertarian worship of not only individual Liberty, but more specifically, Liberty as it applies to private property, inevitably runs afoul of the sort of principles the Democratic Party needs to uphold. Indeed this is a necessary, and not contingent feature of (Right) Libertarian ideology itself, because precisely what distinguishes Left and Right Libertarianism is their assessment of the sanctity of private property rights. For the Right Libertarian, whoever owns a good or resource is merely whoever happens to appropriate that good or resource. Having appropriated it, whoever thereby ‘owns’ the good or resource enjoys a special right over its use, distribution and ownership transfer. While the Left Libertarian does uphold the moral importance of some private property rights, Left Libertarians (like most Liberals) would insist that certain kinds of goods and resources (e.g. fresh water, oxygen, etc.) are rightfully conceived of as “public”, with their appropriation entailing certain kinds of obligations for those who appropriate them. The Right Libertarian has no patience for such obligations; they subscribe to that oldest, simplest maxim, “finders, keepers”. The sanctity of private property rights under Right Libertarianism is such that no amount of external, unjust consequences justify violating them.
Such a view is not consistent with the liberal principles of the Democratic Party, period; this is true regardless of whether it’s we socialists or the more traditional liberals at the helm. Moreover, it would be wrong for the Democratic Party to warp or bend its principles in order to make such a viewpoint admissible as ‘Democratic’. Ultimately, while there is much to be said in favor of having a ‘big tent’ political party, we cannot do so where it would entail abandoning moral commitments that are supposed to distinguish our party from the other guys. To do so in the name of ideological ‘tolerance’ is foolishness, because functionally speaking, a party that stands for wildly contradictory principles of social justice to that extent stands for no principles whatsoever. Most Democrats, in the current day and age, would not say that we have room for misogyny, racism and homophobia in our party platform. To the extent that (Right) Libertarianism entails a necessary commitment to the primacy of property rights over human rights, it is necessarily inconsistent with standard Democratic principles of social justice. Thus there is no room in our big, happy Democratic tent for “Libertarians”, at least as that label is standardly understood in the present American political discourse. Given the vicissitudes of the view, we’re far better off without them anyways.