Tylor Cowen goes to bat against paleolibertarianism
Tylor Cowen, who has artfully managed to turn economic analysis into a running commentary on life style enhancement, has recently given a succinct summary of his objections to what he no doubt considers the “fundamentalist” version of libertarianism. Many people would like to replace this older ideology of the right, which might be called paleolibertarianism, popularized from the time of Albert J. Nock to that of Murray Rothbard under the slogan “our enemy is the state” with somthing like “look at the state we’ve gotten ourselves into…can’t something be done to improve it?” Tyler Cowen is by no means the only person who shares this point of view, he is simply its most articulate advocate. The idea is that the monker “libertarian” is just too good to be wasted on anarchists and other of their ilk who really want to radically curb the principle of coercion in public life. Rather it should be awarded to the respectable oppenents of leftism: the social democrats, neoconservatives, and life style liberals who otherwise would have nothing better to call themselves than “cosmopolitans.”
It is to Cowen’s credit that he has come up with a list of priciples which distinguish these pro-capitalist cosmopolitains from libertarians, and that he has admitted that in the eyes of the latter the former are heretics. In an address to the Institute of Humane Studies he formulated a series of principles which, in his mind at least, distinguished pro-freedom cosmopolitans from libertarians. This is, of course, a “galaxy far far away” from yours truely, and moreover I am relying on second hand information, the blog of skepticlawyer who seems to live in Australia (at least my own hemisphere). None the less to the extent that I can reconstruct Cowen’s address, the principles seem to be five in number:
1. People are freer now that they were in the past
2. The proportional size of the state has diminished in relation to the growth of civil society.
3. It is meaningful to speak of postive as well as negative rights.
4. The establishment of the rule of law is anterior to any possible calculus of freedom vs. unfreedom among a population, and a prerequisite for any advance in freedom.
5. The cultural values of a population must be considered anterior to any abstract notion of the advance in freedom. Less freedom may be preferable, in the eyes of the population, to the sacrifice of other values to the end of greater freedom.
These are weighty statements which almost guarantee the consent of our prudence and common sense. Whether they are true is yet another question. I hope some mind equal to the task will refute them in their totality and preserve the radical integrity of the libertarian movement. After all a slogan like “look at the state we’ve gotten ourselves into…can’t something be done to improve it” is less likely to send people to the barracades than “hate the state.” But then of course, that may be the real motive for the cosmopolitans’ defection from old-style radical libertarianism. It may be an attempt to put prudence and self-preservation ahead of principle, certainly an understandable motive…but one which opens up the possibility of refutation.
I for one find it difficult to resist the temptation of chiping away piecemeal at these “heresies”…if only to see if some deeper foundation can be discovered for the paleoconservative position. Tylor has thrown down the gauntlet…now let’s see how many will take up the challenge!
