Matt Yglesias on Libertarianism, Abundance Liberalism, and a Possible Alliance Between the Two

None of this proves that extreme views are always right, and moderate ones always misguided. The point is not that we should always adopt the most extreme possible positions, but that there is often little or no relationship between the validity of a position and its distance from mainstream opinion. Mainstream public opinion is heavily influenced by ignorance and irrational thinking, and therefore is at best a very weak barometer of truth. Extremism isn’t always a virtue, but neither is it necessarily a vice, either.

I think extreme libertarian views are largely correct. Yglesias thinks otherwise. But such disagreements should be resolved by logic and evidence, not appeals to “moderation.” Whether a view is extreme or not says little about its truth.

Extreme views are often politically more difficult to push through for political reasons than more moderate ones. But, as noted in my earlier post on extremism, there is still often value in advocating them. In addition to the reasons I gave before, I would note that promoting true-but-extreme ideas can help expand the “Overton Window” of what is politically feasible in the long run.

Yglesias also argues that libertarians too often claim that “the worries [cited by advocates of regulation] are overblown — because if they’re not overblown, there is a reasonable argument for regulation, and a libertarian is never going to say there’s a reasonable argument for regulation.” For example, he cites libertarians who he believes downplay the risks of smoking.

There is some truth to this point. When people advocate regulation to solve some problem, many libertarians do indeed tend to dismiss evidence that there is a problem at all. And sometimes this dismissal overlooks strong empirical evidence to the contrary. Notable examples include global warming and the Covid pandemic (in both of which cases libertarians were overrepresented among those wrongly claiming there is little or no problem at all).

Libertarian economist Bryan Caplan once outlined “six stages of libertarian denial” that government regulation to address some issue is justified (I commented on Caplan’s theory here). Stage 1 is “Deny the problem exists.” Often, that denial is warranted, as many restrictions on liberty really are enacted in response to bogus or vastly overstated problems. But not always.

But it’s also important to remember that there are a range of other libertarian criticisms of government intervention, which apply even if there is some genuine problem out there. As Caplan summarizes, they include 1) arguments that government is the cause of the problem, 2) arguments that intervention will make the problem worse rather than better, 3) arguments that the the government solution isn’t worth the cost, and 4) appeals to non-consequentialist principles of liberty and autonomy. Caplan also notes the possibility of 5) “Yield on libertarian principle, but try to minimize the deviation.”

More sophisticated libertarian thinkers recognize that we often have to rely on points 1-4, and that rare cases of 5 also exist. Thus, on smoking, gambling and other similar issues, which Yglesias raises, most libertarians recognize that there are risks to health and financial well-being. But we argue that 1) people still have a right to decide for themselves whether the risks are worth the benefits (a person can rationally decide that the enjoyment they get from smoking or gambling outweighs the risk), 2) government systematically does a poor job of such balancing, worse than individuals deciding for themselves, and 3) enormous harm is caused by creating large black markets for risky goods that many people want to consume (the harm caused by alcohol Prohibition and the War on Drugs are notable examples). Escaping Paternalism: Rationality, Behavioral Economics, and Public Policy, by libertarian economists Mario Rizzo and Glen Whitman (which I reviewed here), is a great overview of these sorts of flaws in paternalistic policies. And most of their points apply even in cases where the behavior in question really is risky.

Yglesias’s next critique of libertarians is that “[t]hey rightly sing the praises of capitalism as a driver of growth, prosperity, and progress. But they tend to ignore the extent to which actual modern industrial economies were built with a large state role in transportation, electrical utilities, banking and monetary policy, and other commanding heights of the economy.” Serious libertarian thinkers recognize there has been a large governmental role on many of these issues. But they argue that all or most of them would be better handled by the private sector.

Elsewhere, I have summarized how libertarian scholars have done extensive work showing that the private sector is superior to government at providing a wide range of local and regional public goods, but are not as strong on issues involving nationwide and worldwide public goods. But even if we need government intervention to deal with some of the latter, that’s only a small portion of the activity of the modern state.

Yglesias claims libertarians don’t sufficiently appreciate the value of democracy:

From Nozick’s “demoktesis” thought experiment, where he analogized voting to slavery, to Peter Thiel’s 2009 proclamation that “I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible,” there have always been those who resolve the contradiction between property rights and democracy in favor of property.

I believe this resolution breaks faith with the fundamental classical liberal commitment in the Declaration of Independence and elsewhere to equal rights under law. Democratic self-governance has many well-known flaws, but Winston Churchill’s famous turn of phrase “the worst form of government except for all those other forms that have been tried” holds true today.

Most libertarians would agree that democracy is superior to other forms of government. Nozick’s “demoktesis” parable from his classic book Anarchy, the State and Utopia, is not to the contrary. He wasn’t trying to show that authoritarianism is superior to democracy, but that unjust policies that violate human rights cannot be justified merely because they are enacted through a democratic process. As for Peter Thiel, the man is not a libertarian and has not been for a long time.

But, even if democracy is better than dictatorship or oligarchy, it still has severe flaws, such as tyranny of the majority, and widespread voter ignorance and bias.  Thus, it needs to be subjected to tight constitutional constraints. Many left-liberals readily recognize this when it comes to noneconomic “personal” liberties, and discrimination on the basis of race, sex, sexual orientation, and other such categories. Libertarians’ distinctive contribution is to emphasize that these concerns also arise when it comes to the economic powers of the state, and that the distinction between “economic” and “personal” freedoms is largely fallacious, or at least misleading. Abundance liberals may not be willing to go so far. But their appreciation for the importance of economic liberty and property rights in many spheres should lead them to at least recognize that the economic powers of government should be subject to at least some significant constraints.

Lastly, Yglesias notes that “the abusive aspects of Trumpian governance have relatively little to do with the specific state functions — infrastructure spending, the welfare state, paternalistic regulation — that divide progressive liberals from right-libertarians.” At least as to paternalistic regulation, this isn’t true. The War on Drugs is a form of paternalistic regulation, and it is a key rationale for some of Trump’s worst abuses, such as the murderous Caribbean boat strikes, and efforts to claim there is an ongoing “invasion” of the United States justifying invocation of sweeping emergency powers. In addition, Trump’s assault on free speech relies heavily on the FCC – the type of regulatory agency libertarians have long warned against and argued for abolishing.

In sum, I am largely unpersuaded by Yglesias’s critiques of libertarianism. He, perhaps, will not be persuaded by my response. But he is right that libertarians and abundance liberals have much in common, and have much to gain from an alliance. As noted in my original post on abundance liberalism, that alliance can be based on extensive agreement on multiple key issues (housing, immigration, free trade, nuclear power, and perhaps others), and some important broader principles (individualism, understanding of Econ 101), even if there are persistent differences on other points.