United States Why Do Libertarians Always Lose?

[The Name of Love]

I've spoken in great lengths on this website about the theoretical problems with Libertarianism, how I think it wouldn't make for a cohesive society, that its understanding of human nature and the State is wrong, etc. But this thread is NOT about that.

This thread is about the failure of libertarianism as a political movement. This failure has been seen multiple times throughout the movement's history. They can't seem to get their people into office or even gain widespread support. This is very odd to me because libertarian principles are, on their face, very hard to disagree with. Liberty, political freedom, voluntary association, the non-aggression principle... who can really argue against that? It's the political incarnation of live and let live, the distilled wisdom of the Enlightenment boiled down into a few simple slogans.

It isn't because it's unpopular. Libertarians have similar numbers in the population to conservatives and liberals. And while self-identified libertarians aren't that common, a large number of people have libertarian beliefs. Yet they lose. A lot.

I'd like to hear you guys' answers to this problem.

 

[Floridaman]

At the end of the day freedom is not natural for humans, like all animals most desire to either rule or be ruled, only a small portion of the populace normally is able to desire freedom, and more importantly want it.to resolve that problem people must be continually reminded that a state powerful enough to give you what you want is also powerful enough to take away all that you need.

 

[Abhorsen]

In the US, our (libertarian) ideas are being enacted, despite having almost no representation. Since the turn of the millenia:
Sodomy Laws? Gone
Gay Marriage? Check.
Gays themselves? Basically normalized, even among the right.
Gun Rights? Now recognized as an individual right.
Marijuana? Soon to be legal.
Criminal Justice Reform? Stuff is finally happening, and republicans are on board.
Section 240? Put into the USMCA, so its nearly impossible to revoke.
Net 'neutrality'? Gone.
Thousands of Regulations Noped by Trump.
And I could go on.

Our big losses? Obamacare, the War on terror, Surveillance state, and the continuing debt. Maybe the Coronavirus will fuck us too, idk. But that's not all losses.

 

[Cherico]

America's two party system makes it very hard for a third party to get ground the same thing happens in other countries but as has been said libertarians and classical liberals have had a lot of serious victories over the years.

its not all bad news.

 

[The Name of Love]

In the US, our (libertarian) ideas are being enacted, despite having almost no representation. Since the turn of the millenia:
Sodomy Laws? Gone
Gay Marriage? Check.
Gays themselves? Basically normalized, even among the right.
Gun Rights? Now recognized as an individual right.
Marijuana? Soon to be legal.
Criminal Justice Reform? Stuff is finally happening, and republicans are on board.
Section 240? Put into the USMCA, so its nearly impossible to revoke.
Net 'neutrality'? Gone.
Thousands of Regulations Noped by Trump.
And I could go on.

Most of these things are either things that the Left wanted before libertarians even came onto the scene or just temporary deals done by Republicans that will be undone the next time a Democrat gets into power.

 

[Doomsought]

Because the Democrats and Republicans have both enacted a system to give them control of the ballot.

 

[Abhorsen]

Most of these things are either things that the Left wanted before libertarians even came onto the scene or just temporary deals done by Republicans that will be undone the next time a Democrat gets into power.

Really? The libertarian party beat out gay groups in campaigning for Marriage equality, all the way back with the first party platform in 1972. Meanwhile, the Dem's VP nominee was calling gays 'queers' as a slur. We also beat the liberals to believing in criminal justice reform (the Dem's were the ones behind it getting worse in the 90's), and Marijuana legalization. They adopted our platform in these, not the other way around. Gun rights are also here to stay, because those are constitutional ones. Section 240 is in the USMCA, so I'd like to see them attack that. Some of the regulations might be restored, but not all of them, so that's a win as well.

More, we are winning the republican party. The Republican party is quickly losing many of its social conservatives and diversifying. Legal weed, criminal justice reform, and gay marriage taking over the republicans. The republicans may start to like tariffs a little more, but that's a fine trade.

 

[The Name of Love]

Really? The libertarian party beat out gay groups in campaigning for Marriage equality, all the way back with the first party platform in 1972. Meanwhile, the Dem's VP nominee was calling gays 'queers' as a slur. We also beat the liberals to believing in criminal justice reform (the Dem's were the ones behind it getting worse in the 90's), and Marijuana legalization. They adopted our platform in these, not the other way around. Gun rights are also here to stay, because those are constitutional ones. Section 240 is in the USMCA, so I'd like to see them attack that. Some of the regulations might be restored, but not all of them, so that's a win as well.

More, we are winning the republican party. The Republican party is quickly losing many of its social conservatives and diversifying. Legal weed, criminal justice reform, and gay marriage taking over the republicans. The republicans may start to like tariffs a little more, but that's a fine trade.

So what I'm hearing here is that libertarians are just leftists on steroids who like low taxes and that, when communitarian/populist conservatives talk about how both parties are libertarian in nature, they're essentially correct?

I personally don't believe that. I mean, from the rhetoric of libertarians like those of the Mises Institute, it appears that America is becoming more and more statist each year.

 

[S'task]

More, we are winning the republican party. The Republican party is quickly losing many of its social conservatives and diversifying. Legal weed, criminal justice reform, and gay marriage taking over the republicans. The republicans may start to like tariffs a little more, but that's a fine trade.

You... you really believe that?

You do realize that the social conservatives were a major force in pushing for criminal justice reform, right? Legal weed has never had a lot of opposition within social conservatives either, that was always more of a core standard of the "tough on crime" Republican centrists. Gay marriage is about the ONLY issue that social conservatives had strong opposition too, and, to be frank, despite libertarian assurances that it would be "live and let live", their concerns with it being weaponized against religious individuals has played out almost immediately.

Meanwhile, the present Republic core coalition is an alliance of Reform Party nationalists, led by trump, and the Social Conservatives. The Libertarians and Business Republicans aren't even at the table with Trump, which is why you're seeing more protectionist economic and border control policies being pursued, while the Libertarian positions of "free trade" and open borders are being systemically rejected.

------------

As to why Libertarians, independently, have had no real electoral success, that is actually much less to do with any of the appeal of their policies and more to do with the way America's two party system works. Firstly, the two parties have cooperated with each other to craft electoral law in such a way as to ensure they retain dominance. Simply getting a third party candidate on ballots of any significance is HARD, often requiring significant numbers of people to sign petitions to simply get them ballot ACCESS.

Then, of course, you run into the scale issue. The Ds and Rs are old and BIG, they have a lot of money and people to move around, and of course, they also have name recognition. Since the parties are so well known, and their general political positions so well known, party affiliation aligns well to basic political positions. Sure not EVER member of the party holds to the EXACT party line, but you in general know what you're getting when voting for a Republican or Democrat. For third parties, even Libertarians, that's not really the case. Libertarians can individually vary wildly on a lot of issues that are of primary concern to voters (IE, Abortion), and for lesser known third parties it takes a LOT more for people to know what their political positions even ARE.

Then you have issues where the Libertarian Party are transparently acting as spoilers. I saw this happen in Virginia, where for years the Libertarian Party would run statewide candidates specifically designed to pull votes from Republicans in order to let the Democrat win. The 2013 Virginia Governor Race and the 2014 Virginia Senate Midterm are both examples of where the Libertarian party acted explicitly as quislings for the Democrats against the Republicans. Remove the Libertarian from those races, and Virginia's shift to a "Blue State" decelerates considerably. This poisons people's opinion of them when you're not a Libertarian purist, as I know that personally I'd gone from Libertarian friendly to never willing to vote for a Libertarian Party candidate explicitly because how they have enabled the slow destruction of my home State.

 

[Cherico]

So what I'm hearing here is that libertarians are just leftists on steroids who like low taxes and that, when communitarian/populist conservatives talk about how both parties are libertarian in nature, they're essentially correct?

I personally don't believe that. I mean, from the rhetoric of libertarians like those of the Mises Institute, it appears that America is becoming more and more statist each year.

ugh this once again

The three great foundational impulses are liberty, equality, and stability.

These impulses are mutually exculsive.

Libertarians are motivated by liberty, the people you call leftests are motivated by equality, and your motivation is stability.

The reason why libertarians look like socialists to you is because your primary motivation is stability and both sections of the quadrant are willing to sacerfice that to get more of what they want.

Like wise Socialists see libertarians and you as exactly the same because we prioritize freedom/stability over a world where every one is exactly the same.

Likke wise Libertarians see socialists and extreme nationalists as the same because of their authoritarian tendencies.

 

[The Name of Love]

ugh this once again

Cherico, I do agree with you on this. I'm criticizing @Abhorsen, who I was reading as essentially saying that libertarianism is synonymous with leftism and is, in fact, more progressive than leftism.

 

[Lord Sovereign]

I'd argue it has a great deal to do with a problem that a lot of up and coming Parties across the western world suffer from, which is a failure to know "when to fight and when not to fight" so to speak. We saw this last year with the total destruction of UKIP. Having got Brexit, they flailed around not knowing what to do and dropped off the electoral map. New leadership managed to stabilize the party financially and with membership numbers, but then led it straight into elections the Party just wasn't ready for. Having faded from relevance, failed to rebrand themselves and find an electoral heartland, they were annihilated.

They were at the time the closest thing Britain had to a liberal party and their views weren't unpopular. They just failed to put in the logistics work before committing to battle, and underestimated how badly their previous death spiral had affected them.

Another key thing all anglosphere (definitely not the case in Europe. AFD, Sweden Democrats and the like know what they're doing) up and coming parties, not just in the case of the Libertarians, seem to struggle with is complete ignorance over how important local elections are. They go running to the bigger ones, errantly believing now is the time, instead of carefully crafting an electoral heartland for themselves by getting on the electoral map via local elections. You've simply got to be willing to put in decades of work to even think of returning seats to the larger organs of government.

 

[LordsFire]

ugh this once again

The three great foundational impulses are liberty, equality, and stability.

These impulses are mutually exculsive.

Libertarians are motivated by liberty, the people you call leftests are motivated by equality, and your motivation is stability.

The reason why libertarians look like socialists to you is because your primary motivation is stability and both sections of the quadrant are willing to sacerfice that to get more of what they want.

Like wise Socialists see libertarians and you as exactly the same because we prioritize freedom/stability over a world where every one is exactly the same.

Likke wise Libertarians see socialists and extreme nationalists as the same because of their authoritarian tendencies.

This is a fundamentally flawed scaling function, because it uses a hard-leftist definition of 'equality.'

American Conservatives are, and basically always have been, for equality before the eyes of the law, equal dignity and rights. We also support equality of opportunity, but not in the impossible form 'everybody has the exact same family and wealth at the start of their life' that the hard left do.

By some definitions of Libertarianism, several strains of Conservative are hardcore Libertarians. There are a number of Conservatives who have always opposed the 'war on drugs,' because they don't believe the state has any business with what you put in your body. They (largely including myself) will argue with you personally that it's immoral and a bad idea, but it's not the state's business to try to control that.

By any definition of Libertarianism that is in favor of small-government, Conservatism has far more in common with Libertarianism than Progressivism ever has.

The thing is, there has arisen a form of 'Libertarian' that wants 'Liberty' in the form of 'free stuff.' That's the flavor that has ties to the political left, and doesn't see how self-defeating their own positions are.

You've simply got to be willing to put in decades of work to even think of returning seats to the larger organs of government.

I very much agree with this. Every time a 'Constitution Party' or 'Green Party' or the 'Libertarian Party' try to run someone for Federal-level office, or even something on the level of a State Governorship, without that person having an established track record as a member of that party, they're just courting the spoiler effect. If you're not willing to put in the work, stop wrecking the work other people have done, and giving the election to people on the opposite side of the spectrum from you, rather than just not being purist enough for your tastes.

 

[Abhorsen]

So what I'm hearing here is that libertarians are just leftists on steroids who like low taxes and that, when communitarian/populist conservatives talk about how both parties are libertarian in nature, they're essentially correct?

I personally don't believe that. I mean, from the rhetoric of libertarians like those of the Mises Institute, it appears that America is becoming more and more statist each year.

Look, The gay marriage thing is just fact. You can read the 1972 LP platform if you want, it's right there. As for economic freedom, that's important, but other ones are also important, like freedom to do what you want with your body, and freedom to defend yourself.

In addition, the Mises institute is right wing culturally for libertarians, and they focus on economics, so they might be slightly less happy. In addition, it's in their best interest to emphasize how bad things are (like any institution). Maybe look at reason.com (the flagship libertarian news organization)? They tend to be happy.

You... you really believe that?

You do realize that the social conservatives were a major force in pushing for criminal justice reform, right? Legal weed has never had a lot of opposition within social conservatives either, that was always more of a core standard of the "tough on crime" Republican centrists. Gay marriage is about the ONLY issue that social conservatives had strong opposition too, and, to be frank, despite libertarian assurances that it would be "live and let live", their concerns with it being weaponized against religious individuals has played out almost immediately.

Meanwhile, the present Republic core coalition is an alliance of Reform Party nationalists, led by trump, and the Social Conservatives. The Libertarians and Business Republicans aren't even at the table with Trump, which is why you're seeing more protectionist economic and border control policies being pursued, while the Libertarian positions of "free trade" and open borders are being systemically rejected.

------------

As to why Libertarians, independently, have had no real electoral success, that is actually much less to do with any of the appeal of their policies and more to do with the way America's two party system works. Firstly, the two parties have cooperated with each other to craft electoral law in such a way as to ensure they retain dominance. Simply getting a third party candidate on ballots of any significance is HARD, often requiring significant numbers of people to sign petitions to simply get them ballot ACCESS.

Then, of course, you run into the scale issue. The Ds and Rs are old and BIG, they have a lot of money and people to move around, and of course, they also have name recognition. Since the parties are so well known, and their general political positions so well known, party affiliation aligns well to basic political positions. Sure not EVER member of the party holds to the EXACT party line, but you in general know what you're getting when voting for a Republican or Democrat. For third parties, even Libertarians, that's not really the case. Libertarians can individually vary wildly on a lot of issues that are of primary concern to voters (IE, Abortion), and for lesser known third parties it takes a LOT more for people to know what their political positions even ARE.

Then you have issues where the Libertarian Party are transparently acting as spoilers. I saw this happen in Virginia, where for years the Libertarian Party would run statewide candidates specifically designed to pull votes from Republicans in order to let the Democrat win. The 2013 Virginia Governor Race and the 2014 Virginia Senate Midterm are both examples of where the Libertarian party acted explicitly as quislings for the Democrats against the Republicans. Remove the Libertarian from those races, and Virginia's shift to a "Blue State" decelerates considerably. This poisons people's opinion of them when you're not a Libertarian purist, as I know that personally I'd gone from Libertarian friendly to never willing to vote for a Libertarian Party candidate explicitly because how they have enabled the slow destruction of my home State.

Sorry, I phrased this wrong and ended up saying something I don't believe in.

The Republican party is quickly losing many of its social conservatives and diversifying.

More accurately, many social conservatives, upon realizing they are losing the culture war, are quickly becoming more libertarian on issues, notably porn and gay marriage. (See, for example, Ben Shapiro, who has gone libertarian on both of these things). I do agree they were definitely major movers on criminal justice reform, but so were the libertarians.

But as for the ideological takeover of the republican party, we are doing fairly well, with Trump being a set back on free trade and immigration, but then I've never been married to those parts of libertarianism. I do like free trade, but not with awful countries like China, and I like some immigration, but not illegal immigration, so I'm fine with both here.

 

[Lord Sovereign]

I very much agree with this. Every time a 'Constitution Party' or 'Green Party' or the 'Libertarian Party' try to run someone for Federal-level office, or even something on the level of a State Governorship, without that person having an established track record as a member of that party, they're just courting the spoiler effect. If you're not willing to put in the work, stop wrecking the work other people have done, and giving the election to people on the opposite side of the spectrum from you, rather than just not being purist enough for your tastes.

Precisely. Until these parties start taking this seriously (and yes, I will use those strong words) these arrogant bastards will exist as nothing else than a protest vote. Thank ever living fuck there are parties in Europe who've gotten wise to this and one or two over in Britain are following their lead. Because the establishment needs a shakeup.

 

[The Name of Love]

Look, The gay marriage thing is just fact. You can read the 1972 LP platform if you want, it's right there. As for economic freedom, that's important, but other ones are also important, like freedom to do what you want with your body, and freedom to defend yourself.

In addition, the Mises institute is right wing culturally for libertarians, and they focus on economics, so they might be slightly less happy. In addition, it's in their best interest to emphasize how bad things are (like any institution). Maybe look at reason.com (the flagship libertarian news organization)? They tend to be happy.

That's actually pretty interesting. So you would agree with someone like Tucker Carlson, who claims that the ruling class are a bunch of libertarians or at least are implementing libertarianism as political policy?

 

[Abhorsen]

That's actually pretty interesting. So you would agree with someone like Tucker Carlson, who claims that the ruling class are a bunch of libertarians or at least are implementing libertarianism as political policy?

As a whole, it is being implemented. I wouldn't say that anyone in the ruling class actually believes in it, or even just it's social beliefs, but by the parties prioritizing differently, the libertarian stuff is happening. The Left succeeded with non-gun civil rights, the Right has pushed for gun and speech rights (Yes, I do support citizens united, on principle if not in practice). The courts have been very good to us, and I'm really excited about Gorsuch.

The ruling class, however, definitely don't believe in the libertarian economic ideas outside of immigration and free trade (the two things I care least about). They love crony capitalism, they just differ on who the cronies are.

As for Tucker Carlson, he straight up doesn't like capitalism, despite his denials and being on Fox. He comes across as economically illiterate sometimes. But I get this, as most of economics is "Your instinctual attempt to legislate being a good person is actually the problem. Please be more of a selfish git, everyone will be happier in the long run."

 

[The Name of Love]

As a whole, it is being implemented. I wouldn't say that anyone in the ruling class actually believes in it, or even just it's social beliefs, but by the parties prioritizing differently, the libertarian stuff is happening. The Left succeeded with non-gun civil rights, the Right has pushed for gun and speech rights (Yes, I do support citizens united, on principle if not in practice). The courts have been very good to us, and I'm really excited about Gorsuch.

The ruling class, however, definitely don't believe in the libertarian economic ideas outside of immigration and free trade (the two things I care least about). They love crony capitalism, they just differ on who the cronies are.

I largely agree with you, actually. Libertarian stuff is happening but economic libertarianism outside of free trade and immigration isn't. You think that mainstream parties co-opt a lot of libertarian policies, so people don't really care about the libertarians themselves?

As for Tucker Carlson, he straight up doesn't like capitalism, despite his denials and being on Fox. He comes across as economically illiterate sometimes. But I get this, as most of economics is "Your instinctual attempt to legislate being a good person is actually the problem. Please be more of a selfish git, everyone will be happier in the long run."

There are several problems with this.

First, when you say someone "doesn't like capitalism," that's a fundamentally ambiguous statement.

For instance, here are just some of the things that might come to someone's mind when "capitalism" is mentioned:

1. Private property, including in the basic means of production
2. Market competition
3. The existence of corporations as legal persons
4. Inequalities in wealth and income
5. An economic order primarily oriented to the private sector, with government acting at the margins and only where necessary
6. Doctrinaire laissez-faire
7. The market as the dominant social institution, with an ethos of consumerism and commodification of everything as its sequel
8. Corporations so powerful that they are effectively unanswerable to government or public opinion
9. Doctrinaire minimalization or even elimination of social welfare institutions, even when there is no feasible private sector alternative
10. Globalization of a kind that entails dissolution of corporate and individual loyalties to the nation state

A true conservative has no problems with 1-5, and some of those points he would have to support on natural law grounds. 6-10, however, are unambiguously bad things to a conservative.

So when Tucker Carlson criticizes the current economic order, he may have in mind things like "putting the economy first" or "making corporations too powerful" or "globalization." He might have no problems with things like "private property in the health care sector" or "income inequality as such" or "market competition." These sorts of things would need to be parsed out.

Second, I find no idea more despicable than that interpretation of the invisible hand. In fact, I opposed that idea even back when I was a libertarian. In my libertarian days, laissez-faire market economies were a good thing because it minimized selfishness and rent-seeking and created incentives for people to act in a responsible, pro-social manner. This is the view of the economy outlined by people like Ludwig von Mises. By contrast, socialists were truly self-centered, which was why they were the loudest and most annoyingly moralistic of them all.

 

[Abhorsen]

I largely agree with you, actually. Libertarian stuff is happening but economic libertarianism outside of free trade and immigration isn't. You think that mainstream parties co-opt a lot of libertarian policies, so people don't really care about the libertarians themselves?

Basically yes. But co-opt isn't the word I would use. They frequently come to the same conclusion as a libertarian for different reasons. Also, libertarians are quite happy for their causes to be co-opted, because then they might be enacted.

I would add the deregulation is also happening on the economic front, so that's a good thing.

First, when you say someone "doesn't like capitalism," that's a fundamentally ambiguous statement.

Well, he's a little ambiguous about it too, but these two stick out to me. He supports banning self-driving cars on the basis that it would protect jobs for truckers. He derides 'vulture capitalism', apparently not realizing that vultures are a necessary part of both the ecosystem and economy. Stuff like that. This might not seem damning, but both of these are fundamental parts of creative destruction, which is why capitalism fuels innovation, and communism doesn't. He seems to like the word capitalism, but not it's actual implementation.

Second, I find no idea more despicable than that interpretation of the invisible hand.

What interpretation of the invisible hand? It wasn't clear from reading your post.

 

[The Name of Love]

Well, he's a little ambiguous about it too, but these two stick out to me. He supports banning self-driving cars on the basis that it would protect jobs for truckers. He derides 'vulture capitalism', apparently not realizing that vultures are a necessary part of both the ecosystem and economy. Stuff like that. This might not seem damning, but both of these are fundamental parts of creative destruction, which is why capitalism fuels innovation, and communism doesn't. He seems to like the word capitalism, but not it's actual implementation.

If I had to guess, I’d say Carlson is against creative destruction and not capitalism as such. He likes people being able to own their own things and being free to buy and sell, but he doesn’t want a situation where robots cause mass unemployment, which is what he thinks is inevitable unless government action is taken. He’s a capitalist convinced that creative destruction will lead to the destructions of people’s livelihoods, which will in turn lead to a socialist revolution.

If you want to find what I think is the best possible defense of this view, this is an essay by Mencius Moldbug on the subject.

What interpretation of the invisible hand? It wasn't clear from reading your post.

The invisible hand, as Adam Smith understood it, was simply a description of how a baker doesn’t have to like you in order to make bread for you. Wanting to make a profit for yourself isn’t the same as behaving like a “selfish git.” Only an egoist would confuse healthy self-interest with selfishness (where you have a disordered love of yourself).