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Progressive Libertarianism and the Problems with Ron Paul

David calls out the Paul skeptics here at L&P. As one of them, I'll answer the bell.

First, let me say I consider myself a very staunch libertarian, and I have been for more than 25 years. I worked on the Ed Clark campaign in 1980 as a cherub-faced 16 year old. As I've argued here before, I consider myself a libertarian of the left in the senses that 1) I believe that libertarian policies will better achieve most of the aims of the left than will their own preferred policies and 2) libertarians should be joining forces with the left on cultural issues, e.g. feminism and gender issues. Even if we don't agree with them that more state intervention is the way to address the problems, we should be more willing to recognize the problems and talk about both policy and cultural solutions to them. It will then come as no surprise that I'm a Paul skeptic.

Paul may be the most libertarian of the bunch from either party, but I do indeed have concerns about several of his positions. Before I launch into them, let me just say that I'm in strong support of a number of his more controversial positions: getting out of Iraq ASAP, getting the state out of the monetary system (see my post on the relationship between these two positions here), ending the Drug War, and generally de-regulating the US economy. Nonetheless, here are my concerns:

1) Abortion. I'm strongly pro-choice and I do believe that one can and should find constitutional protection for the right to choose. I agree that Roe was bad constitutional law, but I'd say it got to the right result for the wrong reasons. Granted, Paul's argument to give it back to the states is better than a constitutional amendment banning it, but I think that forcing pregnant women to carry to term is akin to slavery, and in the same way I would not tolerate a state that permitted slavery, I am unwilling to tolerate the banning of abortion at the state level. I have always found talk of "states' rights" by libertarians to be strange - states have no rights, only individuals do. (The language of federalism is perfectly fine of course.) Not to mention that "states' rights" remains, like it or not, a certain kind of signal to neo-confederates and other folks I'd rather not be associated with.

2) Immigration. I'm very much an open-borders kinda guy. Paul's "build a wall" and denial of automatic citizenship to children born in the US both strike me as not just bad policy (immigrants contribute much more than they "take" - legal or illegal) but also highly anti-libertarian. Why should employers be prevented from engaging in labor contracts with adults from anywhere in the world? Why are some to be excluded? Don't people from other countries have the "natural right" to emigrate? Do we believe that people should be free to move or not? And why are libertarians, of all people, so concerned about the fictional lines drawn by politicians? Like free trade, isn't this about individuals interacting with other individuals?

3) Free trade. I understand his concerns about the regional free trade agreements and the ways in which they empower trans-national organizations to settle disputes. I also share his concerns about the special interest components of those agreements. That said, I believe those agreements have been net gains for free trade and for the well-being of much of the world. My problem with Paul's position is that it's too focused on the impact of these agreements on the US, ignoring the fact that they do much good for the rest of the world, whatever the effects at home. I think the effects are positive for us too, and I don't fear any "loss of sovereignty" from them. The inward looking aspect of his stance on free trade (and immigration) is a real problem for me.

All of this leads to my general discomfort with Paul, which I think I would characterize as a lack of cosmopolitanism. For example, I don't think he's a racist but there are reasons why he's getting donations from KKK leaders. Even though many of his positions are solidly libertarian, the way they are framed, along with the three above, lend themselves to appealing to the nativist/Buchanan types in a way that I think goes against the historical progressive spirit of classical liberalism. I share David Bernstein's concerns about the way in which Paul addresses the racism issue, even if there's nothing in it that is "un-libertarian" in policy terms. This is an example of the sort of left-libertarianism view I advocated for above (and that I believe L&P co-blogger Roderick Long shares, though I don't know what he thinks of Paul). If the true spirit of libertarianism is a cosmopolitan one, we can and should do a lot better than a policy statement on racism that refers largely, if not only, to the way in which state-enforced racial categories (mostly of the left) have "divided" America. That may well be a problem, but its silence on the racism of the right and the real ways in which people of color continue to face discrimination (though much less than in the past) cuts against the grain of what should be libertarianism's progressivism. What is so difficult and so wrong about saying racism exists in other forms and that as people committed to equal and individual rights we should work to end it?

Libertarianism's progressive spirit is one of cosmopolitanism and openness to cultural change (perhaps best captured in our own time by Virginia Postrel's work). Paul's cultural conservatism and several of his positions push in the opposite direction and, in my view, might do long-term damage to libertarianism even if it reaps some short-term benefits in this campaign. I do not believe the future of libertarianism is in making alliances with the forces of nativism and the wrong sort of isolationism, nor with those who cannot see the ways in which the US is still not a society that treats women, gays/lesbians, and persons of color as equal individuals, both under the law and culturally. (To be clear, I'm not advocating for any state intervention to address these problems - in fact, the state is the source of some/many but not all of them). The future of libertarianism is to align with Postrel's forces of "dynamism" both left and right. Paul's campaign is attracting young people, but I suspect mostly because he does indeed tell it like it is and that straight talking appeals to cynical youth. And I do admire Paul greatly for his honesty and his intellect. But in the long run, the young will never sign on to a movement rooted in cultural conservatism. Paul's campaign is, in that sense, running a huge risk of long-term damage to libertarianism.

We were born as a progressive and cosmopolitan movement and we forget our history at our own peril. In the end, that is why I cannot get all that enthusiatic about Paul, even as I agree that ending the Wars in Iraq and on Drugs might be the two most important steps toward a free, prosperous, and peaceful society that we could take.

Posted on Wednesday, November 28, 2007 at 4:27 PM | Comments (106) | Return

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