Libertarian philosophies and economic theories have not had much influence in the United States for nearly a century. Only in opposition to Democrats and Progressives in general, have libertarians found a voice. It\u2019s easier to oppose a party in power than to govern.<\/p>\n
People claim to like libertarian ideas, until those ideas come close to being put into practice. People want their tax breaks. They want their special carve outs and expenditures. They want to tell other people how to live, too. Democrats and Republicans differ in which aspects of our private lives they wish to control, but they both want to control citizens in some way.<\/p>\n
Actual libertarianism is unpopular once understood.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n That doesn\u2019t mean I\u2019m going to abandon my ideals or ignore the economic models that suggest free markets do, generally, function well. I will cling to Adam Smith and John Stuart Mill to the bitter end.\u00a0I am an (almost) classical liberal<\/strong>, without a political home.<\/p>\n Unfortunately, no politician would be so dedicated \u2014 because voters claiming to be libertarian are not true libertarians.<\/p>\n The United States represented something of a pragmatic libertarian model from Reconstruction until Calvin Coolidge was succeeded by Herbert Hoover<\/a> in 1929, with Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson notably promoting more federal power. (Wilson was a horrible person and lousy president with authoritarian impulses, under the guide of scientific Taylorism.) After Hoover\u2019s presidency, there was never again a true libertarian movement. For all the bluster, Ronald Reagan did not change the increasingly paternalistic nature of our federal government. The Reagan years were not libertarian, as government expanded dramatically.<\/p>\n Hoover\u2019s reaction to the Great Depression earned him the designation of \u201csocialist\u201d from none other than Franklin D. Roosevelt during their presidential campaign. And with that campaign and the return of the Progressive movement \u2014 Hoover was a progressive Republican \u2014 the brief libertarian moment had its last gasp.<\/p>\n There\u00a0never was a libertarian moment<\/strong>, despite the following headline and essay from\u00a0The Atlantic<\/em>:<\/p>\n The Passing of the Libertarian Moment<\/a> KEVIN D. WILLIAMSON Philosophers and economists in the OECD nations, what we once called the \u201cdeveloped\u201d economies, live comfortably and can test and promote market-based theories. The freedoms we enjoy in wealthy nations allow us to study what made us wealthy. We\u2019re also able to critique our power, admitting that our nations exploited and oppressed other people. You do not have such self-examination in most self-avowed Communist nations.<\/p>\n And successful business leaders funded our universities and think tanks, further promoting market-based theories and market-friendly philosophies. Our schools of economics have their Marxists, yes, but you won\u2019t find many economic liberals in Cuban schools. Our openness to debate is a form of market: the marketplace of ideas, as every schoolchild learns.<\/p>\n Even Democratic Socialists in OECD nations view markets and freedoms as essential.<\/p>\n The reason we had the promotion of libertarian and neoliberal thought was that it existed in opposition to the USSR<\/a> and China. Opposition made libertarianism palatable for theorists, if not in practice. As Williamson notes:<\/p>\n But if libertarianism benefited from its rich friends<\/strong>, it surely benefited even more from its impoverished rivals: the Soviet Union, Castro\u2019s Cuba, North Korea, Mao\u2019s China, and other practitioners of robust \u00e9tatism. Despite the best hopes of the postwar conservative fusionists, libertarianism has always been more effective in opposition than in government<\/strong>. President Reagan<\/a> may have called himself a libertarian from time to time, but he also enacted protectionist tariffs, radically expanded the military and the federal police powers, and failed to exhibit a great deal of energy in resisting the deficit-swelling spending bills sent to his desk by Tip O\u2019Neill. The libertarian tendency mainly provided a useful ideological foil, not only to the totalitarian socialist projects of the time but also to more liberal efforts to expand the welfare states in the Western democracies. If you are not moving in the direction of Milton Friedman<\/a>, the argument went, then you are moving in the direction of Leonid Brezhnev\u2014it\u2019s Chairman Greenspan or Chairman Mao.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Neither Friedman nor Greenspan was a libertarian, but they were certainly neoliberal thinkers, shaped by Austrian economists. (Greenspan was problematically influenced by Ayn Rand<\/a>, too.) Friedman unapologetically promoted open markets and minimal regulation. Greenspan also promoted minimal regulation of business and financial markets.\u00a0I fear people use libertarian<\/em>\u00a0to mean Ayn Randian greed, when it means so much more.<\/p>\n When I hear someone claim to be libertarian, I wonder how well that person understands the coherent philosophies associated with left and right libertarianism. Instead, it seems that people claim to be libertarians when they don\u2019t want to be Republicans and disagree with Democrats.<\/p>\n
\nThe end of the Cold War and the rise of Donald Trump<\/a> have left classical liberals without a political home.<\/p>\n
\nAPR 2, 2018<\/p><\/blockquote>\n