Good essay! Food for thought. There are so many ways that people can be compartmentalized, it makes me skeptical about a fracturing of the USA into red and blue states. I don't see that as a real possibility, but I do foresee states becoming economically detached from the federal govt, which is maybe for the best. The way the feds bribe states with Monopoly money is detrimental to both the federal and state fiscal health. And it seems that left & right populism are threatening the viability of our top-down governance. The Swiss have a better system, I think.
Another approach I think about often is libertarian vs authoritarian, rather than left or right; which is what I was referring to when I used the word populism above. Yglesias seems biased when he uses the terms "God-given hierarchy" which sounds authoritarian, vs "equality and reason" which sound libertarian. But that's a red herring for the left, isn't it?
Here's how I would describe it: The right, broadly, sees society as a hierarchy of moral discipline, not necessarily religious, but often. Authority flows from serious-minded militants, whose mandate is to ensure law & order for the safety of the citizenry. If God is at the apex of the pyramid, it happens to be a God with traditional values. The left, broadly, favors expansive freedom of expression, but really for their own kind these days. They profess concern with equality and justice, but don't seem to be interested in property rights, except for their own and those of the lower caste. Note that both left and right are wary of free speech for their opponents, and both fall for populist rhetoric: On the left, populism looks like Marxist redistribution and class warfare; on the right it looks like Judeo-Christian nationalism.
The main thing that concerns me these days [besides the leftist insanity on college campuses and the curious aversion to seeing the rising threat from radical Islam, which is violently opposed to all the Enlightenment values of western democracies] is the mockery of libertarians from both left and right politicians and pundits, and the constant criticism of capitalism trotted out by its chief beneficiaries. I feel like we are witnessing a historic tidal wave of the sort that causes nations to "sleepwalk" into war. Of course, it only seems like sleepwalking from a distant vantage point; when you're caught up in the tidal wave, it seems inevitable.
It's no coincidence that the French Revolution led to the Reign of Terror, nor that Orwell saw the left as the greater danger--despite being a socialist at heart his entire life. His experience in the Spanish Civil War soured him on the reality of human nature to a great degree; at least that's what I got from reading Animal Farm. After the events of the past four years, the leftist claim on "equality & reason" is looking rather dubious. Hard to say where things went wrong...was it Bernie becoming a millionaire by publishing a best-selling book on the evils of capitalism? Was it when progressives decreed that Asians no longer deserve "oppressed minority" status in school admissions? Or when they decided that antisemitism can only be condemned in some elaborate, unspecified context?
It seems we are at a point where the right in America [and hopefully Europe] needs to reassert their position, and I hope they don't take it too far. But freedom--and acceptance of libertarians like you and me--is conditional upon some degree of public order. When I read a critique of Javier Milei by a Latin American journalist in Reason Magazine, I was glad that she told the truth: Nobody can waltz into a cronyist bureaucracy like that and start flipping tables like Jesus in the temple. Not that you'd even have enough insider support to get elected if you were really as libertarian as Milei claims to be. But at least he's heading in the right direction, which is a major step for the subcontinent. I was a bit disappointed with her rebuke of Bukele in El Salvador. He has, in fact, taken over the government in an illiberal fashion--but compared to the days when gangsters could do whatever they wanted to any hapless citizen, it's paradise now. I sure hope that Milei doesn't become a cynical caricature of a Ted Nugent faux libertarian, and I hope Bukele doesn't turn into Pinochet. But what was the alternative in either case? Corrupt oligarchs drove Argentina into the ground, and the gangs that took over from the revolutionaries of past wars destroyed El Salvador. Latin America tends to lean socialist, but I'm not sure whether that's cultural [like the misguided ramblings of popes], or whether it's a reaction to all the bad behavior of American corporations [more mercantilist than capitalist] in the 20th century.
But I think a new day is dawning in Latin America, in which they see free-market capitalism as their path to progress. I really hope so, and as a libertarian I hope that Americans can realize that the drug war we have been pursuing since Nixon has undermined Latin America's potential for prosperity, and has driven millions of migrants across our border--including unknown numbers of gang members. I don't agree with many of today's libertarian purists, either; I think it's naive to cling to principles when they become untenable.
I think America's libertarian ethos of unrestricted immigration and military isolationism are reliant on having vast open territories where ethnic enclaves have plenty of breathing room, an economy that needed massive amounts of unskilled labor for a long time, and the good fortune of having secure borders due to geographical fortune--as well as fantastically abundant natural resources. Now that all of those underlying assumptions have changed dramatically, it might be time to update our ideals for the future. Unfortunately, too many people [including libertarians] confuse border security with opposition to immigration, and our history of colonial exploits with intelligent defense strategy. And by defense, I mean not only within US territory, but forming cooperative alliances with our ideological partners and behaving responsibly.
As Kissinger famously said, "To be an enemy of the US can be dangerous, but to be a friend can be fatal." Yet we don't need to continue our errors of the past, which damaged our reputation for the benefit of the power brokers. Nor do we need to be isolationists, as we can no longer afford to do. The most immediate threat from China is not Taiwan, but control over the Indian Ocean and South China Sea. It was not only nuclear detente that resulted in peace between the world powers since 1945, it was also the globalization of commerce--which relied indisputably on the US Navy as the thin blue line standing against state-sponsored piracy. We've seen what that looks like when Somalia is the sponsoring state; I'm not keen to see what it looks like when the CCP controls the waves. Their incursions on foreign fishing rights are a mild harbinger of things to come, if we lose our hegemony.
Sorry, I guess I should be writing my own blog, not blowing up yours with my brain farts...
Smart points! I see little I disagree with. This is definitely the longest comment I’ve seen, maybe you should start your own Substack haha. (Though I appreciate it here, too!)
Another way to look at this would be in terms of Emmanuel Tod's ideas about family structure as a model for politics. In exogamic societies (endogamic societies like much of the Arab world are a different case), you have the son either remaining under the father's control or setting up separately; and you have one son preeminent or all sons equal. Call the first two A, a and the second two B, b. Then you have four cases: AB (which Tod says is found in Germany and Japan), Ab (Russia and China), aB (the Anglosphere), and ab (France). (Tod actually has a much more detailed map of regional patterns.) Tod started out by noting that the countries that have adopted communism by internal processes, rather than having it imposed on them at gunpoint, are all Ab: their model of a family is that all the sons are equal and all subject to authority. He draws out political implications for the other three also. It seems as if the "right" would fit AB, and the "left" would fit ab.
Anyone who truly believes the Leftists in the US are anti-hierarchy hasn't spent much time in Academia, nor with Leftist/Marxist 'protesters, in my view.
Beginnin in 1966, then living another type of life, then returning to Acdemia in the mid-1980s, I am fully prepared to debate anyone on the accepted existence of hierarchies in those two very Left groups.
They both have 'leaders' and those who strive to lead. I don't think over the past 35 years I have seen a single professor willing to give up their place on the hierarchy to move down to a more egalitarian position. And it's not just for reasons of securing tenure.
And I have been around way too many protest groups not to recognize the hierarchy jostling that takes place as the most pure of the pure thought try to push down those who are willing to compromise with their opponents.
Come on. Humans are just as hierarchical in nature as are chickens. Granted, there are usually some outliers, but 99% want that hierarchy, a secure place on it, and a higher rank if they can get it. At best I've seen those who want to tear down the old hierarchy (and their place on it) but want to replace it with another one where, oddly enough, they expect a higher rank.
So I see Yglesias' definition as flawed from the start.
I agree in part, and in the post I note: “their egalitarian instincts can’t stand such a steep hierarchy (this is being charitable; the history of socialist countries shows that some leftists, deep down, really just want a hierarchy that they’re on top of. But others are surely true-believers.)”
But I also don’t think we should underestimate humans’ natural egalitarian instincts. Many of the leading activists are probably cold-blooded climbers, but they get as much support as they do because of a deep human intuition for egalitarianism/leftism.
Some time ago I read about French political color symbolism in the 19th century. Apparently "white" stood for the established (Catholic) church, the monarchy, the landed nobility, and the army; "red" for organized labor and socialism; and "blue" for free expression and market economics. That would have been a better thing to borrow that the simpleminded left vs. right that we labor under.
Just on the intro, religion only being associated with the right in certain conexts feels disingenuous. Of course in theory that can be true. But the vastly dominant mode of religion in the Abrahamic world has been (often despotic and crushing) conservatism since the time of Constantine. As Americans talking about the European left/right terminology it makes no sense to pretend religion isn't the foundation of the right pole of thinking.
Wait I was disagreeing with you! 😆 I think it's disingenuous in an American context to pretend religion isn't foundational to conservatism and hierarchical thinking, which I understood you as disagreeing with?
On the main point of the essay, I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on the practical shape of your 2D framework as opposed to the philosophical shape. I think liberty is a worthy axis in a framework of thinking about society and political philosophy. But my view is that libertarianism as such is deeply unserious.
As in, whether in principle or not, in outcome modern libertarianism as a political structure would be more hierarchical and with less practical liberty for the vast majority on most dimensions than any other structure except maybe the most far right theocracy.
Oh, I misread. Well — it might be true that religion has always tended toward the right in the US (though it’s not obvious. What about abolition, and treatment of natives, for example?) Regardless, it’s clear that it doesn’t inherently have to be the case. There exist secular strains of the right (such as Neitschean, and ultranationalist rightists) compared to which an institution like the Catholic Church (look at the current pope) is very clearly left-wing.
On your other point, I’m not sure why you think it would be like that. Pre-CCP Hong Kong is probably the best example of libertarian law in action, in my book. And they had lots of freedom.
To start with the easy to discount extreme certain, consider the case where property rights enforcement is a private contractual agreement. That's just a silly technocrat description of warlordism!
There's shades and what have yous as you shift away from that. But each step is just an admission that liberty as defined my modern libertarians as the only important goal of societal organization is nonsensical.
I agree with you, but we must also recognize that a great deal of supposed "Libertarians” in America are not so, they are right wingers masquerading under another label.
I was, for example, banned on a libertarian forum for pointing out (correctly) that although the prices of many goods have increase in nominal terms, the prices have fallen relative to wages: https://www.lianeon.org/p/the-evaporation-of-everything
I was banned, in essence, that I didn’t toe the ideological line that the “Federal Reserve” made living unaffordable.
If you're not already familiar with them, Antony Davies and James Harrigan have a podcast called Words & Numbers which I listen to religiously. They are excellent at remaining sober in light of the temptations to be pessimistic/optimistic, instead just explaining how things are. Also what libertarian forum is this? Even though I'm very comfortable with the Austrian approach, which constantly bemoans central banking, I can also admit that you're right while also pointing out that the fall in prices relative to wages is not due to the federal reserve but rather due to innovation, profit/loss, and supply/demand. If they were so triggered by this, they might be new libertarians unfamiliar with some of the nuances or so insular that they've suffered a certain level of intellectual atrophy.
I have a somewhat different view about this topic.
Unfortunately, in re the phrase “far right”, we are operating under a deliberate misdirection dating back to the 30s and 40s.
German and Italian National Socialism (aka fascism) were self-evidently far left ideologies, incorporating collectivist programmes and actions determined, propagated and controlled by the State. Individual rights were subservient to the national goals and directions. It most respects it was like Communism, except that (like China today) a degree of rigorously overseen free market enterprise and personal profit making was allowed, as long as it didn’t interfere with or contradict State edicts. However, fascism was certainly to the right of Communism, and Stalin, paranoid of every measure not exactly to his philosophy, propagandised fascism as “far right” (ironically, Lenin spent a great deal of effort fighting against “left wing communists”, but that’s another story).
Post-war, Soviet misinformation and Western useful idiots maintained the fiction that “far right” was actually across the spectrum on the other side of centrism, instead of simply to the right of Communism and the left of centrism. Also, because German socialism was nationalistic (racist in character) and anti-Semitic, these wrongly became the property of the right. Ludicrously, both Marxist China and North Korea and before that Pol Pot’s Cambodia, were rabidly nationalistic, and Western Marxists since the 1950s rabidly anti-Semitic (disguised as anti-Israeli), yet the labels still stick.
Islam (and Islamists), a highly conservative, anti-gay, patriarchal, reactionary prescriptive and proscriptive State-centric authority, would, under the current misattribution, be of course far right, which pleads for a reason why “far left” groups are supporting their goals, instead of, as they do with far more moderate and socially modern Christian groups, condemning them.
What is termed “far right racism” today is actually “cultural preference” (that is, I prefer and want to promote my culture over yours, nothing personal, as do you yours), and it seems normal that current citizens of the UK or EU or US would prefer NOT to have large numbers of people coming in who hate them and their culture. It’s infuriating that the entire ME can bar immigration and ME refugees, and Japan and China refuse to countenance immigration at all, without criticism, whereas the generous West is condemned for wanting to curate new arrivals to preference those who love us and want to fit it.
This idea reminds me of the "Nolan Chart" and similar efforts in the past to try to explain why libertarians (and certain others) don't seem to fit on a left-right political spectrum.
The underlying problem is that people hold varying and disparate opinions on a lot of issues with some correlation between them. Two axes are going to be better than one; would three be better? In order to make sense to people, the axes chosen should not have a lot of correlation built in.
The statistical method of factor analysis is used to try to find the best ways to separate out the interdependencies - but the resulting factors are not always something you can explain.
I haven't fully fleshed it out, but it's something like cosmopolitan versus tribal. I grew up in a very small town in a very rural area. The people there are great people, but insular, I guess is the best word. They have a saying that if you move into town (or really the whole county) from 'away' no matter how good a person you are or how well you fit in, you'll always be that "person who moved in." That is, some of your habits won't change enough for you to ever be "one of us." That doesn't mean you won't be valued and treated well, you'll just always be identified as a sort of outsider. Your children with then be "the kids of those folks who moved in". They'll be about half what they got from your old culture and habits and half our culture. But the third generation will be "us."
This is not a pejorative thing, but an acknowledgement of a slow-moving culture that is relatively satisfying to most. It's about long-term connections. Those who aren''t satisfied move out. But if they come back to visit, they may still be "one of us."
I'm an example, After I remarried, I brought my new suburban wife to see where I grew up. We went to the local coffee shop about 6AM and I sat. As people came or left, many of them stopped by our table and said hi, and got introduced, and asked about my mom and such and then left. My wife would ask, "How long since you last saw him?' And I'd say, "Bobby Joe? About 15 years I guess." And she'd say, "He acted like he saw you yesterday." Yep.
Tribals aren't exactly conservative in the ideological sense, they just like relative cultural permanence more than change and new things. They want to know who is connected to who. When I return to visit now, I'm frequently introduced to those too young to remember me as "Sue's oldest brother, Bobby and Jim's (both deceased decades) boy." They want to know who I'm connected to. And every family has at least one person who can list all the family out to about 4th cousins.
Cosmopolitans OTOH are not exactly liberal ideologically,but are less concerned with long-term connections and seek more novelty and new connections. Cities, of course, as a whole, ar every cosmopolitan, yet keep pockets (neighborhoods) that can be extremely tribal. But Cosmopolitians want the churn and opportunities to change their lives that are hard to find in a tribal community. Cities provide that.
Or maybe I'm looking for something a bit like that in how the individual identifies the nation as a whole. Is it "one nation" as all of us are basically Americans, many of whom look and act different from one another, or are we a bunch of tribes, whether identified by physical, cultural, or ideologocal things who compete but function as a nation? Are we a melting pot, or are we a salad bowl?
Two ways, I think, of looking at a very similar pairs of axes.
Anyway, I think how we look at The Other is important. You can be idvividualist or collectivist and still end up on either end.
This probably isn't real clear. I'm still working on it.
Great essay. I've always found it weird that libertarians in America have been so aligned with the right when they are more neutral or lefty going back to John Stuart Mill and, as you say, Lafayette.
Back in the mid-2000s, Brink Lindsey and Will Wilkinson founded a movement called Liberaltarians that tried to align libertarians with Democrats and specifically against Bush/Cheney. I wish they had been more successful.
> Because the concerns of Libertarianism are separate, the ideology can find itself allied with either the left or right
Libertarianism is not principled, it's amoral and "feels good do it", as a Russian emigree once called them "hippies of the right". Collectivists actually have a moral principle, altruism, that guides them and appeals to feelings and whims. Libertarians, with their denial of morality, can't make a moral stand against the collectivists and, therefore, will never make headwinds. Therefore, Libertarians, whether on the right or left, will be a marginalized people.
The Libertarian chameleon only exists because they would claim morality does not exist, or it isn't important outside of the non-aggression principle. Its amoralism is what gets them in trouble and it's why the Libertarian has no chance against other collectivists (equalitarian or otherwise) and why they are less than 1-2% of the US population. Its lack of moral cohesion is why.
It’s not true at all that libertarians are categorically amoral — their morality is premised on the individual, but that’s only “amoral” from a collectivist standpoint. I suggest reading more Ayn Rand if one wants to internalize this.
Then I’m not sure why you think libertarians are “amoral” then. Libertarians take an individualist approach, same as Rand … every free individual will come to different conclusions about what the good life is. That doesn’t make them “amoral.”
There are a million "hierarchies" one could choose from. I think part of the confusion is that this left/right distinction can only apply to a single salient axis at a time.
When the patricians and the plebs were having political conflicts during the Roman Republic, nobody was questioning whether the slaves should be freed. That wasn't a salient issue.
Similarly, the patricians would claim that there was a separate hierarchical conflict between Republican senators and demagogic would be tyrants. There can be multiple salient conflicts at once that conflict.
Some issues defy simple hierarchy/egalitarian framing. Is marriage as an institution hierarchical or egalitarian?
As far as authoritarian versus freedom goes, how do you characterize Singapore. At libertarian could easily make a case for or against, but most seem to make cases for. LKY would probably say that his curtailments of certain liberties are pragmatic necessities to protect other liberties, given human nature and the context of statesmanship.
Most libertarians think that immigration is great, but Elon Musk, standard bearer for free speech and deregulation, thinks The Great Replacement is an extinction level event for liberty.
Agreed, a lot of the confusion coming from shifts in the hierarchy that’s being fought over.
The libertarian division on Singapore makes perfect sense in my model — the pro-hierarchy individualists love it for the reasons you give, and the egalitarian individualists are too put off by its hierarchy to endorse it.
Elon Musk can be a hero of individualist pro-hierarchy people, regardless of collectivist concerns he may have in his own politics.
Good essay! Food for thought. There are so many ways that people can be compartmentalized, it makes me skeptical about a fracturing of the USA into red and blue states. I don't see that as a real possibility, but I do foresee states becoming economically detached from the federal govt, which is maybe for the best. The way the feds bribe states with Monopoly money is detrimental to both the federal and state fiscal health. And it seems that left & right populism are threatening the viability of our top-down governance. The Swiss have a better system, I think.
Another approach I think about often is libertarian vs authoritarian, rather than left or right; which is what I was referring to when I used the word populism above. Yglesias seems biased when he uses the terms "God-given hierarchy" which sounds authoritarian, vs "equality and reason" which sound libertarian. But that's a red herring for the left, isn't it?
Here's how I would describe it: The right, broadly, sees society as a hierarchy of moral discipline, not necessarily religious, but often. Authority flows from serious-minded militants, whose mandate is to ensure law & order for the safety of the citizenry. If God is at the apex of the pyramid, it happens to be a God with traditional values. The left, broadly, favors expansive freedom of expression, but really for their own kind these days. They profess concern with equality and justice, but don't seem to be interested in property rights, except for their own and those of the lower caste. Note that both left and right are wary of free speech for their opponents, and both fall for populist rhetoric: On the left, populism looks like Marxist redistribution and class warfare; on the right it looks like Judeo-Christian nationalism.
The main thing that concerns me these days [besides the leftist insanity on college campuses and the curious aversion to seeing the rising threat from radical Islam, which is violently opposed to all the Enlightenment values of western democracies] is the mockery of libertarians from both left and right politicians and pundits, and the constant criticism of capitalism trotted out by its chief beneficiaries. I feel like we are witnessing a historic tidal wave of the sort that causes nations to "sleepwalk" into war. Of course, it only seems like sleepwalking from a distant vantage point; when you're caught up in the tidal wave, it seems inevitable.
It's no coincidence that the French Revolution led to the Reign of Terror, nor that Orwell saw the left as the greater danger--despite being a socialist at heart his entire life. His experience in the Spanish Civil War soured him on the reality of human nature to a great degree; at least that's what I got from reading Animal Farm. After the events of the past four years, the leftist claim on "equality & reason" is looking rather dubious. Hard to say where things went wrong...was it Bernie becoming a millionaire by publishing a best-selling book on the evils of capitalism? Was it when progressives decreed that Asians no longer deserve "oppressed minority" status in school admissions? Or when they decided that antisemitism can only be condemned in some elaborate, unspecified context?
It seems we are at a point where the right in America [and hopefully Europe] needs to reassert their position, and I hope they don't take it too far. But freedom--and acceptance of libertarians like you and me--is conditional upon some degree of public order. When I read a critique of Javier Milei by a Latin American journalist in Reason Magazine, I was glad that she told the truth: Nobody can waltz into a cronyist bureaucracy like that and start flipping tables like Jesus in the temple. Not that you'd even have enough insider support to get elected if you were really as libertarian as Milei claims to be. But at least he's heading in the right direction, which is a major step for the subcontinent. I was a bit disappointed with her rebuke of Bukele in El Salvador. He has, in fact, taken over the government in an illiberal fashion--but compared to the days when gangsters could do whatever they wanted to any hapless citizen, it's paradise now. I sure hope that Milei doesn't become a cynical caricature of a Ted Nugent faux libertarian, and I hope Bukele doesn't turn into Pinochet. But what was the alternative in either case? Corrupt oligarchs drove Argentina into the ground, and the gangs that took over from the revolutionaries of past wars destroyed El Salvador. Latin America tends to lean socialist, but I'm not sure whether that's cultural [like the misguided ramblings of popes], or whether it's a reaction to all the bad behavior of American corporations [more mercantilist than capitalist] in the 20th century.
But I think a new day is dawning in Latin America, in which they see free-market capitalism as their path to progress. I really hope so, and as a libertarian I hope that Americans can realize that the drug war we have been pursuing since Nixon has undermined Latin America's potential for prosperity, and has driven millions of migrants across our border--including unknown numbers of gang members. I don't agree with many of today's libertarian purists, either; I think it's naive to cling to principles when they become untenable.
I think America's libertarian ethos of unrestricted immigration and military isolationism are reliant on having vast open territories where ethnic enclaves have plenty of breathing room, an economy that needed massive amounts of unskilled labor for a long time, and the good fortune of having secure borders due to geographical fortune--as well as fantastically abundant natural resources. Now that all of those underlying assumptions have changed dramatically, it might be time to update our ideals for the future. Unfortunately, too many people [including libertarians] confuse border security with opposition to immigration, and our history of colonial exploits with intelligent defense strategy. And by defense, I mean not only within US territory, but forming cooperative alliances with our ideological partners and behaving responsibly.
As Kissinger famously said, "To be an enemy of the US can be dangerous, but to be a friend can be fatal." Yet we don't need to continue our errors of the past, which damaged our reputation for the benefit of the power brokers. Nor do we need to be isolationists, as we can no longer afford to do. The most immediate threat from China is not Taiwan, but control over the Indian Ocean and South China Sea. It was not only nuclear detente that resulted in peace between the world powers since 1945, it was also the globalization of commerce--which relied indisputably on the US Navy as the thin blue line standing against state-sponsored piracy. We've seen what that looks like when Somalia is the sponsoring state; I'm not keen to see what it looks like when the CCP controls the waves. Their incursions on foreign fishing rights are a mild harbinger of things to come, if we lose our hegemony.
Sorry, I guess I should be writing my own blog, not blowing up yours with my brain farts...
Smart points! I see little I disagree with. This is definitely the longest comment I’ve seen, maybe you should start your own Substack haha. (Though I appreciate it here, too!)
I gotta take it easy burning the midnight oil... 🥃
Another way to look at this would be in terms of Emmanuel Tod's ideas about family structure as a model for politics. In exogamic societies (endogamic societies like much of the Arab world are a different case), you have the son either remaining under the father's control or setting up separately; and you have one son preeminent or all sons equal. Call the first two A, a and the second two B, b. Then you have four cases: AB (which Tod says is found in Germany and Japan), Ab (Russia and China), aB (the Anglosphere), and ab (France). (Tod actually has a much more detailed map of regional patterns.) Tod started out by noting that the countries that have adopted communism by internal processes, rather than having it imposed on them at gunpoint, are all Ab: their model of a family is that all the sons are equal and all subject to authority. He draws out political implications for the other three also. It seems as if the "right" would fit AB, and the "left" would fit ab.
Interesting
Anyone who truly believes the Leftists in the US are anti-hierarchy hasn't spent much time in Academia, nor with Leftist/Marxist 'protesters, in my view.
Beginnin in 1966, then living another type of life, then returning to Acdemia in the mid-1980s, I am fully prepared to debate anyone on the accepted existence of hierarchies in those two very Left groups.
They both have 'leaders' and those who strive to lead. I don't think over the past 35 years I have seen a single professor willing to give up their place on the hierarchy to move down to a more egalitarian position. And it's not just for reasons of securing tenure.
And I have been around way too many protest groups not to recognize the hierarchy jostling that takes place as the most pure of the pure thought try to push down those who are willing to compromise with their opponents.
Come on. Humans are just as hierarchical in nature as are chickens. Granted, there are usually some outliers, but 99% want that hierarchy, a secure place on it, and a higher rank if they can get it. At best I've seen those who want to tear down the old hierarchy (and their place on it) but want to replace it with another one where, oddly enough, they expect a higher rank.
So I see Yglesias' definition as flawed from the start.
I agree in part, and in the post I note: “their egalitarian instincts can’t stand such a steep hierarchy (this is being charitable; the history of socialist countries shows that some leftists, deep down, really just want a hierarchy that they’re on top of. But others are surely true-believers.)”
But I also don’t think we should underestimate humans’ natural egalitarian instincts. Many of the leading activists are probably cold-blooded climbers, but they get as much support as they do because of a deep human intuition for egalitarianism/leftism.
Some time ago I read about French political color symbolism in the 19th century. Apparently "white" stood for the established (Catholic) church, the monarchy, the landed nobility, and the army; "red" for organized labor and socialism; and "blue" for free expression and market economics. That would have been a better thing to borrow that the simpleminded left vs. right that we labor under.
Interesting!
Just on the intro, religion only being associated with the right in certain conexts feels disingenuous. Of course in theory that can be true. But the vastly dominant mode of religion in the Abrahamic world has been (often despotic and crushing) conservatism since the time of Constantine. As Americans talking about the European left/right terminology it makes no sense to pretend religion isn't the foundation of the right pole of thinking.
Well, I agree — as I say in the post, it doesn’t belong in the definition. May just be an oversight of his rather than disingenuous though.
Wait I was disagreeing with you! 😆 I think it's disingenuous in an American context to pretend religion isn't foundational to conservatism and hierarchical thinking, which I understood you as disagreeing with?
On the main point of the essay, I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on the practical shape of your 2D framework as opposed to the philosophical shape. I think liberty is a worthy axis in a framework of thinking about society and political philosophy. But my view is that libertarianism as such is deeply unserious.
As in, whether in principle or not, in outcome modern libertarianism as a political structure would be more hierarchical and with less practical liberty for the vast majority on most dimensions than any other structure except maybe the most far right theocracy.
Oh, I misread. Well — it might be true that religion has always tended toward the right in the US (though it’s not obvious. What about abolition, and treatment of natives, for example?) Regardless, it’s clear that it doesn’t inherently have to be the case. There exist secular strains of the right (such as Neitschean, and ultranationalist rightists) compared to which an institution like the Catholic Church (look at the current pope) is very clearly left-wing.
On your other point, I’m not sure why you think it would be like that. Pre-CCP Hong Kong is probably the best example of libertarian law in action, in my book. And they had lots of freedom.
To start with the easy to discount extreme certain, consider the case where property rights enforcement is a private contractual agreement. That's just a silly technocrat description of warlordism!
There's shades and what have yous as you shift away from that. But each step is just an admission that liberty as defined my modern libertarians as the only important goal of societal organization is nonsensical.
Extreme case. Damn autocorrect!
I agree with you, but we must also recognize that a great deal of supposed "Libertarians” in America are not so, they are right wingers masquerading under another label.
I was, for example, banned on a libertarian forum for pointing out (correctly) that although the prices of many goods have increase in nominal terms, the prices have fallen relative to wages: https://www.lianeon.org/p/the-evaporation-of-everything
I was banned, in essence, that I didn’t toe the ideological line that the “Federal Reserve” made living unaffordable.
Interesting. I’m not sure banning someone for offering an argument supporting the Fed makes them “right wing”, but it does make them intolerant!
If you're not already familiar with them, Antony Davies and James Harrigan have a podcast called Words & Numbers which I listen to religiously. They are excellent at remaining sober in light of the temptations to be pessimistic/optimistic, instead just explaining how things are. Also what libertarian forum is this? Even though I'm very comfortable with the Austrian approach, which constantly bemoans central banking, I can also admit that you're right while also pointing out that the fall in prices relative to wages is not due to the federal reserve but rather due to innovation, profit/loss, and supply/demand. If they were so triggered by this, they might be new libertarians unfamiliar with some of the nuances or so insular that they've suffered a certain level of intellectual atrophy.
It was a reddit libertarian forum. No loss I guess.
I have a somewhat different view about this topic.
Unfortunately, in re the phrase “far right”, we are operating under a deliberate misdirection dating back to the 30s and 40s.
German and Italian National Socialism (aka fascism) were self-evidently far left ideologies, incorporating collectivist programmes and actions determined, propagated and controlled by the State. Individual rights were subservient to the national goals and directions. It most respects it was like Communism, except that (like China today) a degree of rigorously overseen free market enterprise and personal profit making was allowed, as long as it didn’t interfere with or contradict State edicts. However, fascism was certainly to the right of Communism, and Stalin, paranoid of every measure not exactly to his philosophy, propagandised fascism as “far right” (ironically, Lenin spent a great deal of effort fighting against “left wing communists”, but that’s another story).
Post-war, Soviet misinformation and Western useful idiots maintained the fiction that “far right” was actually across the spectrum on the other side of centrism, instead of simply to the right of Communism and the left of centrism. Also, because German socialism was nationalistic (racist in character) and anti-Semitic, these wrongly became the property of the right. Ludicrously, both Marxist China and North Korea and before that Pol Pot’s Cambodia, were rabidly nationalistic, and Western Marxists since the 1950s rabidly anti-Semitic (disguised as anti-Israeli), yet the labels still stick.
Islam (and Islamists), a highly conservative, anti-gay, patriarchal, reactionary prescriptive and proscriptive State-centric authority, would, under the current misattribution, be of course far right, which pleads for a reason why “far left” groups are supporting their goals, instead of, as they do with far more moderate and socially modern Christian groups, condemning them.
What is termed “far right racism” today is actually “cultural preference” (that is, I prefer and want to promote my culture over yours, nothing personal, as do you yours), and it seems normal that current citizens of the UK or EU or US would prefer NOT to have large numbers of people coming in who hate them and their culture. It’s infuriating that the entire ME can bar immigration and ME refugees, and Japan and China refuse to countenance immigration at all, without criticism, whereas the generous West is condemned for wanting to curate new arrivals to preference those who love us and want to fit it.
This idea reminds me of the "Nolan Chart" and similar efforts in the past to try to explain why libertarians (and certain others) don't seem to fit on a left-right political spectrum.
The underlying problem is that people hold varying and disparate opinions on a lot of issues with some correlation between them. Two axes are going to be better than one; would three be better? In order to make sense to people, the axes chosen should not have a lot of correlation built in.
The statistical method of factor analysis is used to try to find the best ways to separate out the interdependencies - but the resulting factors are not always something you can explain.
I agree. This would be interesting to do this with survey data in a more rigorous empirical way.
If anyone wants to collaborate on such a project, let me know.
I might think a 3-dimensional diamond shape might work. 4 extremes on a plane through the center and two more at the top and pottom.
What is the third dimension you’d add?
I haven't fully fleshed it out, but it's something like cosmopolitan versus tribal. I grew up in a very small town in a very rural area. The people there are great people, but insular, I guess is the best word. They have a saying that if you move into town (or really the whole county) from 'away' no matter how good a person you are or how well you fit in, you'll always be that "person who moved in." That is, some of your habits won't change enough for you to ever be "one of us." That doesn't mean you won't be valued and treated well, you'll just always be identified as a sort of outsider. Your children with then be "the kids of those folks who moved in". They'll be about half what they got from your old culture and habits and half our culture. But the third generation will be "us."
This is not a pejorative thing, but an acknowledgement of a slow-moving culture that is relatively satisfying to most. It's about long-term connections. Those who aren''t satisfied move out. But if they come back to visit, they may still be "one of us."
I'm an example, After I remarried, I brought my new suburban wife to see where I grew up. We went to the local coffee shop about 6AM and I sat. As people came or left, many of them stopped by our table and said hi, and got introduced, and asked about my mom and such and then left. My wife would ask, "How long since you last saw him?' And I'd say, "Bobby Joe? About 15 years I guess." And she'd say, "He acted like he saw you yesterday." Yep.
Tribals aren't exactly conservative in the ideological sense, they just like relative cultural permanence more than change and new things. They want to know who is connected to who. When I return to visit now, I'm frequently introduced to those too young to remember me as "Sue's oldest brother, Bobby and Jim's (both deceased decades) boy." They want to know who I'm connected to. And every family has at least one person who can list all the family out to about 4th cousins.
Cosmopolitans OTOH are not exactly liberal ideologically,but are less concerned with long-term connections and seek more novelty and new connections. Cities, of course, as a whole, ar every cosmopolitan, yet keep pockets (neighborhoods) that can be extremely tribal. But Cosmopolitians want the churn and opportunities to change their lives that are hard to find in a tribal community. Cities provide that.
Or maybe I'm looking for something a bit like that in how the individual identifies the nation as a whole. Is it "one nation" as all of us are basically Americans, many of whom look and act different from one another, or are we a bunch of tribes, whether identified by physical, cultural, or ideologocal things who compete but function as a nation? Are we a melting pot, or are we a salad bowl?
Two ways, I think, of looking at a very similar pairs of axes.
Anyway, I think how we look at The Other is important. You can be idvividualist or collectivist and still end up on either end.
This probably isn't real clear. I'm still working on it.
Great essay. I've always found it weird that libertarians in America have been so aligned with the right when they are more neutral or lefty going back to John Stuart Mill and, as you say, Lafayette.
Back in the mid-2000s, Brink Lindsey and Will Wilkinson founded a movement called Liberaltarians that tried to align libertarians with Democrats and specifically against Bush/Cheney. I wish they had been more successful.
> Because the concerns of Libertarianism are separate, the ideology can find itself allied with either the left or right
Libertarianism is not principled, it's amoral and "feels good do it", as a Russian emigree once called them "hippies of the right". Collectivists actually have a moral principle, altruism, that guides them and appeals to feelings and whims. Libertarians, with their denial of morality, can't make a moral stand against the collectivists and, therefore, will never make headwinds. Therefore, Libertarians, whether on the right or left, will be a marginalized people.
No, this is incorrect. As I think my post makes clear.
The Libertarian chameleon only exists because they would claim morality does not exist, or it isn't important outside of the non-aggression principle. Its amoralism is what gets them in trouble and it's why the Libertarian has no chance against other collectivists (equalitarian or otherwise) and why they are less than 1-2% of the US population. Its lack of moral cohesion is why.
It’s not true at all that libertarians are categorically amoral — their morality is premised on the individual, but that’s only “amoral” from a collectivist standpoint. I suggest reading more Ayn Rand if one wants to internalize this.
Very interesting because I'm 100% aligned with her perspective and that of the current leadership of ARI.
Then I’m not sure why you think libertarians are “amoral” then. Libertarians take an individualist approach, same as Rand … every free individual will come to different conclusions about what the good life is. That doesn’t make them “amoral.”
There are a million "hierarchies" one could choose from. I think part of the confusion is that this left/right distinction can only apply to a single salient axis at a time.
When the patricians and the plebs were having political conflicts during the Roman Republic, nobody was questioning whether the slaves should be freed. That wasn't a salient issue.
Similarly, the patricians would claim that there was a separate hierarchical conflict between Republican senators and demagogic would be tyrants. There can be multiple salient conflicts at once that conflict.
Some issues defy simple hierarchy/egalitarian framing. Is marriage as an institution hierarchical or egalitarian?
As far as authoritarian versus freedom goes, how do you characterize Singapore. At libertarian could easily make a case for or against, but most seem to make cases for. LKY would probably say that his curtailments of certain liberties are pragmatic necessities to protect other liberties, given human nature and the context of statesmanship.
Most libertarians think that immigration is great, but Elon Musk, standard bearer for free speech and deregulation, thinks The Great Replacement is an extinction level event for liberty.
Agreed, a lot of the confusion coming from shifts in the hierarchy that’s being fought over.
The libertarian division on Singapore makes perfect sense in my model — the pro-hierarchy individualists love it for the reasons you give, and the egalitarian individualists are too put off by its hierarchy to endorse it.
Elon Musk can be a hero of individualist pro-hierarchy people, regardless of collectivist concerns he may have in his own politics.