How Hard Can It Be?
Jesse Walker has a great piece on how
Assuming the Dems’ next nominee won’t be a self-described libertarian, what can he (*) do to make himself attractive to libertarian voters?
The short answer — and this applies to Republican candidates too — is: (a) Don’t be as bad as the other guy, and (b) Be actively good on at least one important issue.
Then comes his all-important point number one:
Be good on the issues where the left is supposed to be good.
Let’s read that again:
Be good on the issues where the left is supposed to be good. When I was a lad, liberals were supposed to support peace and civil liberties (within the constraints, alas, of the Second Amendment Exception). These days, only one Democratic senator could bring himself to vote against the Patriot Act. John Kerry voted for the Patriot Act and the Iraq War, and since he wasn’t willing to say he’d gotten them wrong he was reduced to complaining that Bush hadn’t executed them properly.
Jesse’s precept means that so-called “fighting liberals” need not apply. It also leaves out the rare “Mark Shields Democrat,” who wants to win back working-class voters who have drifted right by combining welfare-state economics with Republican-style sexual regulation.
The electoral Democratic Party is halfway to meeting the second item on Jesse’s wish list (real tolerance). Gun control is pretty much dead as a liberal cause. Health fascism continues to bubble through the trial courts and trickle through the bureaucracy, though.
3. Don’t be a slave to the bureaucracy. Look, I don’t expect you to turn into a libertarian. But there are ways to achieve progressive goals without expanding the federal government, and if you’re willing to entertain enough of those ideas, you’ll be more appealing than a “free-market” president who makes LBJ look thrifty. You could talk about the harm done by agriculture subsidies, by occupational licensing, by eminent domain, by the insane tangle of patent law. And no, I don’t expect you to call for abolishing the welfare state — but maybe you’d like to replace those top-heavy bureacracies with a negative income tax?
Realistically, the country is going to have a social-safety net for the foreseeable future. We could have a simple, less bureaucratic system than we have. And we could stop making it so hard for willing people to earn an honest living.
Jesse concludes
So that’s all I ask. When Republicans are bad on civil liberties and foreign policy, be an alternative. Extend your social tolerance to folks to the other side of the culture war. And if you can’t be as pro-market as Hayek, try at least to be as pro-market as Jerry Brown.
So say we all.
UPDATE: Added link!
Comment by SomeCallMeTim —
June 8, 2006 @ 8:48 pm
There’s a decent-sized portion of the base that meets most of those requirements. Funnily enough, it’s the part of the base that the DLC and Clinton midwifed into existence.
Comment by Hal —
June 8, 2006 @ 9:19 pm
Just out of curiosity, what is the estimated size of the libertarian vote up for grabs here?
Note that I actually agree with all the preconditions here, but are we talking a swing of 1% or .01% of the voting electorate?
Comment by Hesiod —
June 8, 2006 @ 9:28 pm
What was the libertarian reaction to President Clinton’s large expansion of the Earned income Tax Credit? It’s essentially a ”negative income tax” by another name.
Also, the EFFECTIVE federal income tax rate under Clinton for the bottom 80% of income earners was less than 15%. That was after deductions, exemptions and credits being figured in.
Also, what about taxing fossil fuels at a higher rate? Would libertarian be opposed to that?
Comment by Hesiod —
June 8, 2006 @ 9:33 pm
True libertarians were never really in the GOP camp much. The Jack Benny libertarians will never switch sides.
Comment by Sifu Tweety —
June 8, 2006 @ 10:12 pm
I would say that liberal types have actually been pretty well on the forefront as far as finding ways to make beaureaucracy-mimizing public/private partnership approaches to social programs workable. The real issue I see, as far as creating the ”western strategy” kind of coalition we’re talking about here, is that those are often not the same people that are focussed on protecting civil liberties (exhibit A in my book, Ed Markey). But it’s pretty close, I think.
Or hope?
Whichever.
Comment by Leonard —
June 8, 2006 @ 10:30 pm
Hal, the Pew Center did a political typology study that might interest you.
Libertarians are mostly ”enterprisers” in their typology, 9% of the population and 10% of the voters. About half of them are religious, and thus unlikely converts. The other half, I’d guess, are the voters who’d Democrats would at least like to neutralize, if not turn. Probably can’t turn any but the quarter who get their news from the internet. So you’re talking about maybe a shift of 2.5% if Democrats get a really, really appealing candidate. Unlikely, at least until they’re in the wilderness a big longer. IMO, before Dems are likely to reach out to libertarians they need to run a candidate that is reasonably appealing again, a Gore and not a Kerry, and get spanked again anyway. If a Democrat runs and is elected, we’ll be back to the Clinton era dynamic.
Incidentally you can take their quiz online and see how it classifies you. I did, and came out an enterpriser regardless of the fact that I have ”liberal” beliefs on war and peace.
Comment by Avram —
June 8, 2006 @ 10:55 pm
”Health fascism”?
Comment by Avram —
June 8, 2006 @ 10:57 pm
Oh, that. I should have googled before posting.
Comment by Bruce Baugh —
June 8, 2006 @ 11:04 pm
Free-market approaches to matters that liberals think of as the common good are damned unlikely to fly at this point, I think. Liberals look at Enron, at S&Ls, at Halliburton, at graft and scams in charter schools, and on and on, and think, ”Fuck that noise.” A fairly common sentiment, at least in my circle, is that while there may come a day when the world of business is led by people who aren’t yearning to create an industrial feudalism and kleptocracy, that day isn’t yet, and it’s been proven adequately for the next couple decades.
Obviously I don’t expect this to be a popular sentiment among libertarians, but it does seem very common among the liberals and leftists I know, and in particular among those most likely to be involved in getting out the vote, campaigning for peace candidates, and like that.
Comment by Realish —
June 8, 2006 @ 11:21 pm
One area that would find agreement between progressives and libertarians, and be an electoral winner, is energy (and the constellation of related issues).
Right now a small set of old, dirty coal-fired power plants is dumping tons and tons of crap into our atmosphere, killing people and accelerating global warming. They got where they are not through the ”free market,” but through a history of collusion with the government that goes all the way back to the early 20th century. Bush is grossly and openly in their pocket.
Tax carbon; reduce the payroll tax. It’s revenue neutral, hurts corporate oligarchs, and reduces health-care costs.
Also remove all subsidies and sweetheart deals enjoyed by the oil, coal, natural-gas, and nuclear industries. Roll back regulations on electricity generation that insure a monopoly for large, centralized, inefficient plants, and allow communities to generate electricity from small-scale cellulosic ethanol, solar, wind, and cogeneration plants.
There is no sector that enjoys more government largess, and imposes more public cost, than the energy sector. Democrats and libertarians should unite to spark an entrepreneurial revolution in clean energy.
Comment by Katherine —
June 9, 2006 @ 12:36 am
I would reply: if you want the Democrats to be interested in you as a group rather than individuals, be good at the things libertarians are supposed to be good at.
A quite sig. majority of people I’ve encountered who describe themselves as libertarians are righteously opposed to tax cuts and gun control, but don’t so much give a crap about torture, unlimited executive power, or NSA wiretapping, or imprisoning journalists who get too uppity about the above, or the right to counsel, or political asylum…. They object to government harm to people less based on how much it actually harms people (the ”my sister” test), than on how much it affects them personally.
I mean, if someone describes themself as ”libertarian”, that’s what I assume they mean.
Not you Jim, nor Jesse, nor Radley Balko, nor Julian Sanchez, nor a number of other people. And maybe I just had the bad luck to run into a bunch of Federalist Society twerps–schmibertarianism seems to be rampant in the legal field, and maybe they’re completely unrepresentative. It’s probably also unfair to kvetch about ordinary private citizens as a response to kvetching about elected officials (since I can try to help elect better Democrats and pressure the ones we have, whereas what are you going to do, beat up Glenn Reynolds and force him to stop calling himself libertarian?).
Well, anyway, I’m keeping up my end of the bargain in any case, for independent reasons, but I don’t actually have much hope of libertarians caring.
Oh, a question: why aren’t you guys friendlier with the human rights orgs? You could teach them to stop being so damn wishy washy on free speech, they could teach you (a collective you, not you personally) some priorities about which govt abuses are worst.
Comment by Gary Farber —
June 9, 2006 @ 1:48 am
I could run on the platform you outline, more or less, Jim. But since I’m not electable to anything higher than, maybe, city council of a small town, I could support a candidate who runs on that platform, more or less.
But I don’t see at all as much contradiction as Bruce does (I agree that some folks would, to be sure); it seems to me that one can want to ensure that markets are fair, and that the rules are simple and well-understood, and still want them to be not encumbered by unnecessary or unnecessarily complicated regulation, without needing to oppose all regulation. Obviously, there will always be arguing over specifics, and the all-important details, but, still, in principle there should be some room in the middle for meeting and compromising.
Incidentally, I just found another way to break your comments: accidentally type an ”i” tag, and an ”/em” tag, and the comment vanishes.
Comment by Bruce Baugh —
June 9, 2006 @ 3:28 am
Gary: Certainly I see a lot of room for some clear-eyed, clear-headed libertarian analysis when it comes to improving the workings of bureaucracy, both public and private. I’d like to see more attention given to the simple reality that all institutions go wonky, and that while one can affect the pace of this, it’s still going to be necessary to purge from time to time, and work out means of handling this as un-destructively as possible. There’s also merit in asking what the smallest scale one can do some good at might be, for a particular problem, and like that. I guess I am at this point more comfortable with libertarianism as a source of methods.
Comment by Hal —
June 9, 2006 @ 9:49 am
Leonard,
Thanks. I’ve taken several of these types of tests and consistently come up a strong social libertarian and left of center on the fiscal policy axis.
I do, however, have a really hard time believing that we’re talking 10% of the voting population here. I think you might get 10% of the voting population claiming to be libertarian, but I think that’s mostly because all the cool college kids will identify that way. I think a better measure would likely be the percentage of votes the libertarian candidate got in the past elections, which - I believe - in the last election was 0.3% of the vote total.
Again, I think you could well be right on how people identify themselves. But the political issue is really how they vote. My observations have been that a lot of people like to believe their ”independent”, but in reality they consistently vote in particular patterns that belie that independence. I’m pretty sure the same thing holds for libertarians…
Anyways, just my thoughts…
Comment by Leonard —
June 9, 2006 @ 12:59 pm
Hal, it’s not 10% that are libertarian. It’s 10% who are ”enterprisers”, of which a subset is libertarian. I guessed maybe a quarter, that is 2.5% of the electorate. There would also smaller subsets of many of the other categories in the Pew study that are libertarians. (We don’t fit particular well into their categories.) But, for example, the libertarian subset of ”liberals” are probably already voting D, or not at all. So, might capture some votes there for Dems, but not a lot.
Whereas ”enterprisers” almost all vote, and they almost all vote R. Neutralizing them into non voters, or turning them, could get a fair number of votes for Ds. Operative word: ”could”. I don’t think it will happen for a long time, if ever.
Comment by Katherine —
June 9, 2006 @ 6:35 pm
”Libertarians are mostly ”enterprisers” in their typology, 9% of the population and 10% of the voters.”
Are you sure about this? Look at the internals (the detailed demographic questionaire).
Comment by Hal —
June 9, 2006 @ 8:52 pm
Leonard,
Again, thanks for the information. I did a deep dive of the ”enterprisers” demographics and come away pretty convinced that this democraphic ain’t going to budge. 95% of them approve of the job Bush is doing (96% have a favorable opinion of the guy). So, I’m thinking that these people are primarily interested in tax cuts, tax rates and such - the exclusion of pretty much everything else, apparently. With such a strong correlation of approval of Bush and this demographic, it’s pretty clear that Henley’s social libertarian platform won’t mean jack to them.
PATRIOT act (73%)? Apparently no problem with the enterprisers. Torture (45% justified + 24% rarely)? Holding US citizens without charges or counsel? Spying on US citizens without warrants? Hey, as long as those tax cuts keep coming, apparently they’re down with it.
I’m sure you’re a great guy and you must be in the 5% that doesn’t approve that Bush is a great guy, but if this is the target of this platform, I’m thinking this is probably a huge waste of time and resources (hey, 46% of them get their news primarily from Fox).
Again, I actually agree with the platform and it’s part of my personal core beliefs, but if you are correct in your assertion of the correlation between libertarians and ”enterprisers”, then they have little in common with me.
I’d have to agree with Katherine that these blokes don’t seem too much like libertarians to me - well, they *do* seem like the Glenn Reynolds style libertarian. But that ain’t no libertarian to me.
Present ”enterpriser” company excluded, naturally…
Comment by Katherine —
June 9, 2006 @ 9:10 pm
The thing that blew me away about the enterprisers: not only did the % who said torture was justified ”often” exceed the % who said it was justfied ”never” (24 percent to 10 percent). It also exceeded the % who said it was justified ”rarely” (22 percent).
They were also less likely to support gay marriage than even the ”social conservatives”–so not only are they not libertarians, they’re not even schmibertarians.
If I had to choose a name for this group based on their positions, it would be ”[expletive deleted] [expletive deleted] of [expletive deleted]s”. Lost cause. Hopefully the real libertarians are actually elsewhere. (Disaffecteds?)
Comment by Leonard —
June 9, 2006 @ 9:38 pm
Yeah, I read the thing too. And I agree, I don’t see myself in the company of ”enterprisers” as Pew found them. Nonetheless I am an ”enterpriser” in a lot of respects, at least as far as their survey goes (which I took, and it did put me there). As I said before, I don’t think most of these guys are reachable. Maybe a quarter, at most, which matches two of their stats: non religious (26%), and independent/Democrat leaning (18%/1%).
And as I also said, there are certainly other libertarians spread across the political spectrum as measured by Pew. You’ll find them also in ”Upbeats” and ”Disaffecteds”, and ”Liberals”. Just not as many, I’d guess. (I may be wrong.) But those groups’ libertarians may be much more easy for Dems to reach. The Liberals are already in the D coalition, so you’re not getting much out of them.
As Katherine mentioned upthread, she thinks most libertarians are selfish leave-me-alone types. I don’t doubt it. I think most voters are like that - basically, the attitude is ”what’s in it for me”. Libertarians are guys whose relationship with the state is largely negative. It taxes them for little to show. So, for us, ”what’s in it for me” translates easily into ”leave me alone”. Whereas for most groups, who are receiving substantial transfers, ”what’s in it for me” means ”keep the money coming”.
Most people, the average ones who see politics in strictly personal terms, are not going to be reachable ideologically. You can be for, or against, torture all you want, and it will only mildly affect their vote. What they care about is how much you’ll tax them, personally. Whether you want to take their guns, or their car, or whatever. Or how much money you promise them.
That’s why libertarians are always the patsy in any political coalition. All they want is to be left alone, and that’s the easiest thing in the world to promise, and the hardest to deliver. Somebody has to pay for all the programs necessary to keep the coalition happy.
It’s exceptional people that are ideologically motivated sufficiently to vote against their group’s interest. I’d guess that a higher percentage of ”enterprisers”, as libertarians, are ideological than that of most groups. Right now, sad as it is, Republicans still threaten libertarians’ selfish group interests (which are, basically, to be taxed less) than Democrats do. That’s what, IMO, Dems need to change before they’ll get any substantial number of libertarians voting for them.
Comment by Katherine —
June 9, 2006 @ 11:31 pm
No, their relationship with the state is NOT largely negative; I would say the opposite. They just decide the benefits somehow don’t count as state action. ”Let’s quit while I’m ahead”, is the attitude towards state interference. Which I find annoying.
There are worse motivations than self interest, but piously dressing up self interested arguments in proclamations about liberty for all, I also find annoying. Claiming to be economic realists, when you don’t believe in such basic tenets of economics as the existence of externalities, I also find annoying.
Let me emphasize again that I can’t speak to what libertarians are like; I can only speak to what people I have encountered who have called themselves libertarians are like. I was in a law school section with the Federalist Society Junior Auxiliary and I couldn’t stand them.
I guess what I don’t understand is why actual libertiarian think they have enough in common with these people to call yourselves by the same name.
Comment by Nicholas Weininger —
June 10, 2006 @ 12:30 am
Realish,
I’d go for your energy program in a second, as would any of the ”neo-Georgist” faction of libertarians. More generally, revenue-neutral tax shifts toward ”taxing bads, not goods” are a moral winner for libertarians as well as an obvious practical economic winner. All taxation is evil, but there are greater and lesser evils, and the kinds of taxation that fall on activities that create negative externalities (e.g. burning coal) are distinctly less evil than the kinds that fall on activities whose externalities are pretty much completely positive (e.g. working hard at interesting jobs, long-term capital investment, etc).
Dunno how you’d ever make a winning coalition for it, given how many vested interests it offends, but we’re all dreaming here anyway.
Comment by Leonard —
June 10, 2006 @ 9:12 am
Katherine, I don’t think it’s productive for us to debate whether or not entrepreneurs objectively have a positive relationship with the state. You say they do, I say not. What matters here is how they feel, and I hope we agree on that. They feel aggrieved that they play by the rules, never accept a dime in handouts, yet in return get regulated in crazy-making ways, and treated as a cash-cow. That is what I was talking about. You can argue all day long about how the state provides them with safe streets, courts, schools, etc. I get that. And there is certainly a sense in which they do come out in the positive with all that - after all, they could move to Haiti and try to do better. But that’s not what is the political motivating factor. I’m not saying it’s necessarily rational, just that it is.
If you have a libertarian who really doesn’t ”believe in” externalities, I’d like to know. What I think is more likely is that you know some people who don’t think externalities as a political problem are nearly as important as other things - say, lowering taxes and spending.
As for what I have in common with schmibertarians — all sorts of things. I can’t really comment on the ones you know — might be a weird sample; hard to say. But anyone who wants government spending lowered dramatically is in my camp, at least as far as that goes. We part, if we part, over other things.
Comment by Hal —
June 10, 2006 @ 11:19 am
Leonard,
I can only speak for myself, but having started my own successful business, ran it profitable for many years and then sold it, that this is at least one entrepreneur who has a positive relationship with the state.
I saw first hand precisely how much work and benefits go to small business. Small businesses are the lifeblood of a community and at least the communities I was a part of bent way over backwards to accommodate me. And to be clear, it was more than obvious to me as to why taxes and such actually mattered and - in fact - how they benefited me and my business.
And to be quite frank, I don’t think there was a lot of other businessmen I met who didn’t feel much the same way. Granted, this is hardly an objective study, but none-the-less, that’s what I’ve observed.
Myself, I think the people who *think* they’re self made and that dirty, grubby government is just ripping them off make horrible business people. They’re selfish, usually horribly deluded as to how much they’re contributing to the world, how much value they provide and usually are the first to threaten lawyers because of some bizarro world slight they’ve perceived to have happened - man, oh man, are they litigious.
Again, not trying to claim an objective measurement, just pointing out I’ve had quite different experiences in this area than you seem to…
Comment by Katherine —
June 10, 2006 @ 1:18 pm
Things that come from the state that help rich people:
roads; public transportation; police department; fire department; national defense; jails; courts; the town clerk and the register of deeds; the existence of legal entities called ”partnerships”, ”limited liability partnerships”, ”corporations” ”limited liability corporations,” etc., which are treated as people for many purposes; currency; the existence of arcane legal rules on things like ”commercial paper transactions” and ”secured transactions” which enable us to carry out business without carrying around giant, giant suitcases or trucks of cash and/or taking physical possession of all the tangible property involved; a work force educated in part by public schools or by government aid to private schools; running water; electricity (some private involvement but gov’t involvement was key); the benefits of all kinds of scientific research funded by the government; mandatory vaccination preventing epidemics that kill all kinds of people and have huge economic costs; all kinds of information compiled and kept by the government
etc. etc. ad infinitum.
Comment by Jim Henley —
June 10, 2006 @ 3:16 pm
Hesiod: You are correct that a lot of libertarians and conservatives opposed the expansion of the EITC at the time. I think we were wrong to do so.