Can There Be A “Libertarian Left”?

By Ali Hassan Massoud

Nearly all of the people I know who consider themselves liberal democrats, libertarians, market anarchists, and other species within the freedomista genus began their political lives as conservatives. This evolution was quite understandable.

In the second half of the twentieth century it was the conservatives who stood against the tide of the New Deal collectivism that dominated American politics.

The right opposed New Deal social schemes, foreign meddling, and the sharp and steady decline of liberty that these policies led to. It was a natural course of progression for those who believed that people acting on their own rational self-interest benefit society and the individual the most. Very much more so than the blunt force trauma that states cause in their attempts at social engineering or “herd management” as the cynics among us call it.

This natural progression from being a liberal democrat of conservative views to a libertarian and then to a market anarchist was a common path that many if not most of us followed. As one’s understanding of political philosophy increased along with one’s life experiences the migration from conservative to libertarian or even anarcho-capitalist was a logical progression of thought for many.

This natural political progression though was undone in the 1980’s by the capture of the conservative movement by ex-leftist neo-conservatives, the Israel lobby, and the Christian Right who flooded into the conservative movement beginning in 1980. These new actors were the shock troops for the new cadre and they renounced and even attacked previously held principles of modern conservatism such as privacy rights, separation of church and state, and non-intervention in the affairs of other societies.

The Christian Right has sought to reinsert the state into all levels of American society’s religious and spiritual life. Also the Christian Right’s program is to encourage censorship, impose bans on abortion rights, and certain reproductive methods and practices. They have even begun to call into question established scientific principles solely on the basis of their conflict with religious scripture.

The neo-conservative faction along with the Israel lobby has sought to persuade the American political classes, academia, and the mass media for American to devote the highest military and diplomatic priority to defending and bolstering the state of Israel.

With new hands on the levers of conservative and Republican political power many longstanding principles of American conservatism were rejected and the new leadership replaced them with their own ideas. These new ideas were actively antagonistic to many long held conservative principles.

In fact these three factions have become the modern leadership of the Republican Party. Gone for now, and perhaps forever are the small government, low tax, free-trade, and non-interventionist principles that were the hallmarks of conservative ideology for generations, except in rhetoric. Today’s “big government conservatives” seem unaware that such a concept is as oxymoronic as “dry water”.

So where will tomorrow’s nascent and budding new generation of liberal democrats, libertarians, and anarchists come from then? One speculation is they will emerge from the populist and individualist strains within the American social democratic left.

The social democrats have their problems with seeing modern reality for what it is too however. While they see clearly the intrusive hand of government power when it tries to foist religiosity, curtail reproductive rights, define marriage, sexual behavior between adults, and “goes to war” against recreational drug choices, they still see government and government only, as the key to establishing any kind of a just society. This is the social democratic left’s most serious handicap and is the principle barrier to them becoming a means for the forces of liberty to endure and prevail.

I will not go into the various permutations and doctrines of the various factions and individuals of the social democratic left here. Suffice it to say that they all have an innate suspicion of concentrated power, economic monopolies, and special interest influence that vanguard political, economic, ethnic, and religious domination of American society of the many by the few.

This deep suspicion is a solidly embedded meme in American political culture that may yet again become a vehicle for political and culture movements for liberty and against states and statism. Movements exploring this possibility exist today and could in time become significant.

Modern freedomistas will now need to find a new path to fulfill their political evolution. The modern conservative movement is now too authoritarian and dominated by mercantile special interests, Christian fundamentalists, and a powerful lobby whose loyalty is to a foreign state and not to America. The libertarian social democratic left has its own drawbacks as well, however at the present it is the only alternative besides trying a new political party or movement.

Ali Massoud writes for the Internet and blogs.