Liquidate the Libertarian Party?
Brian Doherty | November 20, 2008, 8:34pm
Over at the Volokh Conspiracy, reason contributor Ilya Somin repeats a pretty consistent call from the more intellectual end of the libertarian movement oh these past 25 years or so: give up on the Libertarian Party as a meaningful vehicle for political/ideological change. An excerpt:
....third party politics simply is not an effective way of promoting libertarianism in the "first past the post" American political system. That system makes it almost impossible for a third party to win any important elected offices. And such a party also can't be an effective tool for public education because the media isn't likely to devote much attention to a campaign with no chance of success.
Libertarians have had some genuine successes over the last 35 years. These include abolition of the draft (heavily influenced by Milton Friedman's ideas), deregulation of large portions of the economy (of which libertarians were the leading intellectual advocates), major reductions in tax rates (facilitated by libertarian economists, libertarian activists, and the legislative efforts of libertarian-leaning Republicans), the increasing popularity of school choice programs, increases in judicial protection for property rights, gun rights, and economic liberties (thanks in large part to advocacy by libertarian legal activists), and heightened respect for privacy and freedom of speech (promoted by libertarians in cooperation with other groups). Libertarian academics and intellectuals have also done much to make libertarian ideas more respectable and less marginal than they were in the 1960s and early 70s.
What all these successes have in common is that they were achieved either by working within the two major parties or by efforts outside the context of party politics altogether. The Libertarian Party didn't play a significant role in any of them.
Libertarians often emphasize that failed enterprises should be liquidated rather than kept going on artificial life support. That enables their resources to be reinvested in other, more successful firms. The point is well taken, and it applies to the Libertarian Party itself. For 35 years, the Party has consumed valuable resources, both financial and human. The money spent on the LP and the time donated by its committed activists could do a lot more to promote libertarianism if used in other ways.
Of course, for some people third party activism is exactly and only how they would care to participate in the game of public ideological change. And for some (including yours truly) getting hooked on the team-sports aspect of an ideological movement through what seems, especially to the young, its only significant action element, political parties running for office, leads them on to other parts of the ol' war for liberty (for better or for worse, I grant).
I wrote on how and why third party politics might be more a consumer good (for its own sake) than a capital good (meant to lead to something else, like political or ideological change, that is meaningful for its own sake) back in 2004.
Lamar | November 20, 2008, 11:37pm | #
If the LP had any goodwill, I'd say buy its IP portfolio, then stop all this 3rd party talk. Then recruit libertarian Democrats, moderate republicans and otherwise competent leaders who can claim to be for smaller government on at least 3 fiscal issues and 3 social issues. You can even be for gun control, so long as you believe that gun ownership is a good thing (and I don't mean a quick goose hunting photo-op).
Somebody needs to claim the center-right position, and at first blush, the LP seems to fit the bill. Libertarians are fiscally conservative, socially liberal, and pro-trade in lieu of war. Kick out the strict ideologues and recruit southern Democrats, northeastern Republicans, most anybody from the west.
Don't say, "government is the problem." Say "government is the third best solution." You got a problem with that? Try reading the Cato policy paper on vertical integration of electricity markets. Show me where it advocates a zero regulation regime.
OK, so I'm a little out of control here. I'm just tired of libertarians being unrealistic and impractical. Markets are the best way to allocate resources, not the only way. Government regulations screw things up more often than they help, but let's not pretend that no market anywhere needs oversight. For example, I'm a lawyer, and I believe that state-run bars are heavy handed (amounting many times to a protection ring), but free markets and malpractice suits are not enough to protect people from shitty lawyers who blow deadlines repeatedly.
Transform the LP from a fringe 3rd party into a reason-based (I'm already drinking, so can it) party that makes sense. Toll roads are great, developers should pay for roads that benefit their property, but privatizing the roads isn't going to get you anywhere.
Milton Friedman is dead. Let's put his ideas in our toolbox, right at the top. But let's also understand that Keynesian economics can have benefits, albeit short term and with a cost to the middle class. Low taxes are great, but deficit spending is irresponsible. Global trade is imperative, but if you bomb our embassy or target Americans, there will be nasty repercussions.
Appeal to the part of America that likes their guns, but at the same time wants science taught in schools and doesn't see Steve and Roger across town boinking each other as a threat to their family.
And please, please please please, no more Wayne Allyn Root. I just don't have the constitution to defend schmucks like that.
Ebeneezer Scrooge | November 21, 2008, 1:27am | #
economist,
Oh, yes, and of course the sacrosanct "right" to vote for whatever insane platform one wants.
Ain't democracy great?
Too bad every other option man has ever come up with sucks an even bigger moose.
On another thread somebody suggested that we should add more members to the House, like one rep for every 30k people. This way the HR would be too big for anybody to bribe off entirely. Interesting idea, maybe it'd actually be more representative.
I've thought that maybe we should do away with parties all together, and turn all elected positions into something like jury duty. Draw names from a hat, and that's how you get a seat in the house.
Maybe, we could still let the senate and president be elected, but I'm not sure why. Or we could do the "republic" thing and elect somebody who elects *somebody* who elects the president. Then we'd have a lot more somebody's to bitch about.
Or we could do the ancient Athens, Greece thing, go pure democracy, and then either banish or hang whatever politician pisses off the masses. In a country this size, we could have at least one hanging a day going on somewhere in the continental US.
Which, come to think of it, isn't such a bad idea.
Damn, I'm feeling better already.
Now I know what to do with the Libertarian party. We're gonna be the Vote and Hang Bunch.
ChrisH | November 21, 2008, 1:40am | #
the Party has consumed valuable resources, both financial and human
I am... "annoyed" I guess is the word, at the point of view that says, here are a bunch of people who've organized themselves in a way that promotes their own utiliy, and if they only did what *I* -- brilliant, all-knowing, clever I -- think they should do, we would all be so much better off.
That's a game for children and other social engineers.
The Party hasn't just "consumed" resources; it organized them, it produced them, it earned them.
I mean, I had no idea there was this huge vat in the middle of Missouri somewhere, labelled "resources for the freedom movement -- take all you want", and it turns out all those jerks in the LP are elbowing everyone else aside to hog it all to themselves. Pigs.
Aside from the many other good points that others have offered, I would add three.
1) Some of us, I don't know why, are just wired to be political in elections. I have absolutely no respect for government, so I can't see how I can care about elections, but I'm just programmed to go vote every election and having the "L" as one of the choices makes it rebelious rather than completely nauseating.
2) I have made friends for life in the LP. I guess I could have done that with HnR meet-ups, or anarcho-capitalist bridge clubs, but Ilya Somin hasn't seen fit to organize those in my area yet, so I think I'll just remain grateful for the LP.
3) As a practical matter, when you're a political party, you actually get free goodies from the state. When someone signs up with your political party, you get that info for free, plus whether they voted in the primary, etc etc. In an age where working lists is a big part of any movement, the LP gets state subsidized.
Let a thousand flowers bloom. I hope there will be more libertarian Republicans. Someone needs to step forward as a libertarian Democrat, so we can mess with their debates next time. (Not that I'm not thankful for Gravel!) I'm happy for the anti-party folks, for the non-voting folks.
If you have a better alternative, sell it to me. Really, I'm open to it. If your sales pitch starts with insulting my friends, dismissing my choices, and framing my efforts to build a movement as just being a loser... well, I think you have something to learn about salesmanship.
And if your marketing of an alternative is that bad, maybe you should stay away from the market-driven analogies, too.
Ebeneezer Scrooge | November 21, 2008, 2:15am | #
The reason the LP does terrible every time is there is too much "this election is just too important, so i'm going to go with team A (which i deem to be .05% better) this time" every fucking election.
So what? My Team or Bust?
If I had a bumper sticker on my car it would read
Just Say No To Kooks
I do not have such a bumper sticker for fear that everyone would think I, my very own self, was a kook.
But my own personal line in the sand is that I don't vote for anybody who's more than 45% kook. Ron Paul was nearer to getting my vote than anyone, but his kook fraction was running up around 65%.
Face it. The man got on the national stage and in true Barnie Fife form, shot his left foot whilst trying to draw his six gun. He did this by blabbering on and on about the gold standard, which utterly drowned out the validity of his economic message.
This left Ron Paul to hop around on his one good foot. But then, like Barnie Fife, he proceeded to shoot his own right foot whilst trying to draw his other six gun. He did this by walking into the Republican Convention -- at this very moment in history -- and blasting the Iraq war right out of the water. Any valid point he might have made, was thus assured to fall upon deaf ears.
Which left our hapless Ron Paul without a proverbial foot to stand on.
You can blabber all day about "well hey man, he was right you know". It doesn't change the fact that a good politician would have packaged his message a bit more subtly. If you start out with a literal series of blows to the people whom you must depend on for your support, they're going to blow you off.
In which case you aren't going to have any real impact on anything.
The thing that really sucks about politics is that it's ultimately a great big game of compromise. Because the alternative is another civil war.
Bill Woolsey | November 21, 2008, 7:21am | #
The Ron Paul campaign has shown that a libertarian candidacy within a major party results in more attention than the LP effort.
Reading the comments here, this apparently will require some people to loosen their ideas of partisanship. That is, to undertstand that supporting a good candidate in a major party primary doesn't require that one swear allegiance to the Party in question.
There are some problems. One problem is that too many libertarian activists get involved in selecting the least bad candidate at the Presidential level. Huckabee is no good. We should support Guiliani. No. The idea is to support libertarian campaigns in the Republican primary.
A related problem is that because the campaign is less of a longshot, there has traditionally been a tendency for the candidates to try to downplay their libertarian views to appeal to primary voters. For libertarian Republicans, that means running as a fiscal convervative and downplaying personal liberties and foreign policy. And, the libertarians who have won office often soon become traditional conservatives.
However, victory is very distant at this time. I think that the anwer is to just support candidates who run with a libertarian message (on the federal level, that is all three legs of the stool--personal liberty, economic freedom, and peace.) If some candidate starts off with such a message, and then, in subsequent campaigns runs on a more standard conservative (or liberal) message to win primary votes--stop supporting that candidate. If they win, and then, in order to win reelection, supports policies more consistent with the others in their party. Stop supporting them.
I don't advocate that people volunteer to do the household chores in the major parties. Just work on libertarian campaigns.
There is no need to prove party loyalty in the general election when a conservative (or liberal) wins.
Maybe, one day, when there are a significant number of libertarians in Congress, it may be time for try for a new party. For example, if the primary is clearly a stumbling block to reelection for some libertarians. (Close cals in the primary against, say, a religious right challenger, then easy victory in the general election even though the religious right sits on their hands.) Significant libertarian presence in both major parties. The libertian Republican Congressman from Idaho wins the primaries in the mountain west. The libertarian democrat from Oregan does well in New England and West Coast primaries. Libertarians can't win either primary, but maybe, a new party combining all 20 of them libertarian Congressmen..
We are so distant from that world.
At the Presidential level, especially, it is easier to get into primary debates than general election debates, and the campaign can focus on early states.
Paul proved that substantial interest can be generated. And while, he came nowhere close to winning, neither do LP candidates for high level office.
I think Paul had weaknesses as a candidate and his campaign made some serious errors. Such is life. But, he did generate a lot of attention.
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