As a postscript to the post below, a friend IMed to complain about something I’ve noticed as well over the past few years: As libertarian ideas become somewhat less marginal, gain a more recognizable voice in the national debate, we start to see the term “libertarian” applied to all sorts of notions on which I hadn’t realized we had any monopoly. If you think stifling economic regulations may be ill-advised, you’re a libertarian. If you think judicial oversight should be required before intelligence agencies spy on Americans, you’re a libertarian. If you think parental filtering of the media coming into a household is preferable to government censorship that reduces the contents of your cable box to what’s fit for a sandbox, you’re a libertarian. If you think (sober) 20-year-old women are competent to decide whether their bodies should be photographed—even in exchange for money!—hell, you’re practically an anarchist.
Given that I realize most Americans are not, in fact, libertarians, this sort of rhetorical pigeonholing is a bit unsettling. I had been under the impression that most of these were perfectly mainline positions of genus liberal, regardless of whether one fell into the libertarian subspecies or not. So in case anyone is persuaded by this: I promise, much as some of us might like to take credit for it, libertarians did not invent civil liberties. These are not pernicious libertarian ideas that have recently infected the brains of a few misguided liberals or conservatives. They are hoary elements of both traditions that a few illiberal progressives and authoritarian conservatives seem anxious to define away. I promise, the stuff we genuine libertarians believe is much wackier than that.
8 responses so far ↓
1 Gabriel M. // May 23, 2007 at 1:40 pm
There’s an upside. People labeled “libertarians” might make peace with it and take an interest in these ideas.
In the past, there were many libertarians in the closet. These days, they feel confident enough to come out.
On the other hand, there’s certainly a sort of vibe related to this… I called it Mainstream Libertarianism vs “True” Libertarianism:
http://gabriel.mihalache.name/econ/2007/05/mainstream_libertarianism_vs_t.php
2 Kevin B. O'Reilly // May 23, 2007 at 1:56 pm
I don’t understand your complaint. None of the examples you gave sound as though liberterianism was misidentified with a given policy position. We should be encouraging those positions to be described as libertarian, even though they’re not uniquely libertarian. I mean, we don’t want to get ridiculous about it. Opposing monarchy isn’t really the “libertarian” position, so much as the republican or democratic one. But I view this as a healthy development in our political rhetoric.
3 LP // May 23, 2007 at 2:10 pm
Much depends on context here. Sometimes people drop the L-word as a means of marginalizing the ideas under discussion, which seems to be what you’re seeing. But sometimes, people are happily identifying themselves as ‘libertarian’ even when they’re adopting a relatively non-wacky, classical liberal idea. Of course, everyone still knows those wacky positions are part of libertarianism too, but this ‘mainstreaming’ can only be good for our side: it fosters the impression that libertarian ideas are cool and reasonable, not scary.
4 Matt Z // May 23, 2007 at 7:40 pm
Yeah, I think I might be guilty of using the word “libertarian” to women engaging in a non coercive free market exchange to recieve money for taking off their clothes. Of course, my blog has a total of three coments and one trackback link, so I won’t be suprised if other writers were responsible for this post
5 Julian Sanchez // May 23, 2007 at 9:11 pm
Matt-
Oh, no, I didn’t mean you… or, really, that there’s anything per se inaccurate as describing “the libertarian position” on all these issues as I have above. What I really meant was the implication that these are somehow exclusively libertarian positions, and that (for instance) a progressive who expressed reservations about limiting the freedom of adult women to make certain inds of choices was necessarily somehow infected with a libertarian worldview.
6 thoreau // May 23, 2007 at 11:16 pm
There’s nothing wrong with describing something as a “libertarian position” if it is indeed a libertarian position.
7 Eric the .5b // May 24, 2007 at 12:41 am
I suspect it is about marginalization. “While libertarians might complain about the government monitoring all our phone calls, sensible people have to come to terms with it”, etc. It’s a scare term for “insufficiently enthusiastic about the government thing I support”.
8 Dave W. // May 24, 2007 at 5:37 am
I have long found it odd that people who don’t want the US military drastically slashed can be counted as libertarians. If you ask me, that is where this defining down started.
Drastic Social Security cuts should probably be used as more of a litmus test for “libertarianism” than the gun rights absolutism that is used in that fashion.