...Yet Another Political Spectrum!

I was overjoyed today when I saw Frank van Dun's essay "Freedom and Property: Where They Conflict" posted as a Mises Daily at my favorite anarcho-capitalist economics website. I was even more impressed when I saw that it's a chapter in that new book in honor of His Princely Majesty Hans the Great.

That essay wasn't my introduction to left-libertarianism. When it comes to economic and criminal justice, I've been some kind of a left-libertarian for about as long as I've been a libertarian (and I didn't consider myself a libertarian until I adopted views that pretty much amount to anarchism).

Neither was the essay my introduction to Frank van Dun. I was familiar with his work since the summer before last, when I tried to find a constructive and straightforward debate on limited liability and instead found this rich yet notably continental essay against it. I also found other rich yet continental essays at his website, and read to exhaustion.

That summer I was lucky enough to find and read the essay I mention and link at the top, or one almost identical to it. What's so "revolutionary" about it is its suggestion that if you want to be completely pro-freedom, then not only do you have to be anti-government but you also have to be a little anti-capitalist. Again, I've had that sentiment since I started calling myself a libertarian. But an essay like this helps you put it into words.

Being introduced to ideas like this can change how you mentally map out political views. The Nolan Chart, which I bet accompanied (or even constituted) your introduction to Libertarianism, helped you distinguish libertarians from regular off-the-wall moderates, centrists who say "We need a little government to do a little of everything", and totalitarians. Here's an even better political spectrum.

I'd like to offer a more zoomed-in political spectrum that can show where left-libertarianism stands and how it relates to other factions of the ideology we call "Libertarianism".

First, get a blank piece of paper. Fold it hamburger style, and then as it's folded hamburger style fold it hot dog style. When you unfold it and look at it "landscape" you should have four collumns. At the top center, write "4 Strands of Pro-Market Libertarianism". I say "Pro-Market" libertarianism because there are leftist factions that call themselves libertarian and which totally reject individual property rights (and which I'm a little sympathetic to).

In the furthest right collumn, write "Classical Liberalism". This is the political philosophy of those who have the strongest claim to being the ideological heirs of Thomas Jefferson. Classical Liberals understand that government is a monopoly on the use and threat of violence, and insist that its role should be strictly limited to the provision of those services that cannot possibly be provided in the free market - things like the common defense, police and courts, environmental protection, roads (Walter Block once called Milton Friedman a "road socialist", and Friedman responded "Yes, you're right, I'm a road socialist!"), universal access to education, and regulation or outright provision of "natural monopolies" like water, gas, and electricity. Classical Liberals also believe that government services should be as decentralized as possible. If gas and electricity can be doled out by the cities, then let the cities do it, and not any bigger government. If access to secondary education can be provided by state governments, then let the state governments do it, and keep the Federal Government out of it. The Federal Government should only be providing those services that can only be addressed on a national level, like national defense.

In the collumn just to the left of that, write "Objectivist Minarchism". Objectivists believe that government exists only to protect you and your stuff, and that's it. The only legitimate roles of government, they believe, are military, police, and courts. Everything else should be left up to the free market. Probably all of them dabble in clever daydreams about "voluntary taxation".

In the middle left collumn, write "Anarcho-Capitalism". These are the ones who recognize that (a) if all transactions should be voluntary, then there's no place for taxes anyway, and (b) if there is to be complete economic freedom, then there should be free trade in government services, and government as a monopoly of violence is just as illegitimate as any other monopoly that uses government force to make itself the only option available to consumers.

Then, in the far left collumn, write "Left-Libertarianism". Put simply, Left-Libertarians recognize that coercion is not just an action, but also a state of being. It is possible for coercive conditions to result from "voluntary" transactions - the mere fact that no one initiated the threat or use of force does not mean that everything is now really voluntary. There can be coercion even when no one was beaten, defrauded, or extorted. Probably the best example is the encirclement problem that van Dun writes about.

Now, roll up the paper so that the Classical Liberalism collumn overlaps a little with the Left-Libertarianism collumn, and staple the two ends together.

Both Classical Liberalism and Left-Libertarianism recognize that there should be limits on property rights, and that the way strict libertarian capitalists define property rights isn't good enough. Classical Liberalism and Left-Libertarianism differ on how that limit should be made.

Classical Liberals would want the limits drawn out and enforced by government. The limitations on economic power of private elite then amount to increases in the power of the political elite. Left-Libertarians, on the other hand, want the limits drawn out through the consideration of each individual case by arbiters selected by the involved parties. Authority and Power would be as separated as humanly possible.

Classical Liberalism and Left-Libertarianism also both accept the traditional distinction between the public and private spheres. In this regard, Left-Libertarianism is more "conservative" than anarcho-capitalism, which relegates everything to the private sphere. In a free society, not only would it be possible for certain resources to be set aside for public use, but it would be essential - it wouldn't be a free society if everyone always has to do another's bidding just to get around and get by.

Some of the ideas that Liberals have brought to the table in the past hundred years might actually become useful for Left-Libertarians. There is much opportunity to develop anarchist legal theories on which goods and services should be freely available to the public, how they should be made available, and what legal tools are necessary for that to happen, and many ideas can be borrowed not just from the Classical Liberals, but also from socialist anarchists and even from Contemporary Liberals (neither of whom I put on this spectrum because they're both anti-market, but if you must add them the socialist anarchists would be to the left of and overlapping with the Left-Libertarians and the Contemporary Liberals would be to the right of the Classical Liberals).

Again, Liberals and Left-Libertarians would disagree on how the public sphere should be created and maintained. Liberals think the public sphere should be managed by the monopoly of violence. Left-Libertarians insist that a public option from government is not a moral option, and that public resources should be provided in ways that are completely voluntary.

On a less theoretical note, I didn't vote for or against the measure on our ballot this month (we had one thing on our ballots). It was one of these "you'll approve of wrenching more money from everyone around you or you hate children" kinda deals. I wrote in my own measure, with Yes/Si and No/No options, and ticked Yes/Si. It calls for repealing all truancy laws and funding public schools completely through donation.