Libertarian Divorce?

By Donald Devine

So libertarians are demanding a divorce from the conservative movement because conservatives do not support freedom? As the man said, It depends on the definition of freedom.

A debate recently sponsored by the hip America's Future Foundation, called, "Conservatives and Libertarians: Can This Marriage Be Saved?" made the point dramatically. This organization of young leaders cleverly split the debate so that different self-described conservatives and libertarians represented both sides of the issue, forcing principled divisions between the two viewpoints. Debate was explicitly oriented around the question, did 20th century philosopher Frank Meyer's "fusion" of the two ideological perspectives still make sense today.

What the discussion proved was that one's position on the debate subject was more important than the labels. Both the self-described conservative and the libertarian who supported the "marriage" turned out to be fusionist conservatives. The "conservative" and the "libertarian" supporting the divorce were, respectively, a Tory, old-line governmental traditionalist, and a capital letter-L Libertarian who demanded that government policies result in freedom (as he defined it). The traditionalist wanted to split the "marriage" because libertarians were disdainful of the president and his policies—not treating him with the "proper respect" (what could be more Tory?). The big-L Libertarian denied there ever was a marriage because conservatives supported "authoritarian institutions" and opposed free lifestyles like gay marriage, drugs, pornography, reproductive (abortion) freedom and secularism generally, all of which rights are to be guaranteed by the state.

Three ideologies emerged from the debate: fusionist conservatism, Tory conservatism and statist Libertarianism. Tory conservatism was the ideology that defined the Republican Party before Ronald Reagan adopted Meyer's philosophy and transformed the GOP from an establishment party in perpetual minority to a libertarian-conservative majority. The problem with Toryism is, there just are not enough people in modern times that will blindly defer to authorities. Statist Libertarianism is even a smaller minority, as documented by the Libertarian Party vote. Most people do favor "authoritarian" institutions like family, religion and community and the traditional values they advance independent of what state authorities define as right.

Meyer and Reagan adopted a program that combined both traditionalism and libertarianism, not in a rigid fusion as some of their critics suggest, but in what Meyer himself described as a "tension" between freedom and tradition. Free peoples established institutions to represent their values in a private sphere and demanded freedom to act on them from a government that was only to set a few, broad societal rules and otherwise leave the institutions free to each go their own way. These institutional mores were to be enforced through private social pressure rather than through state coercion. The formula was "libertarian means for traditional ends," fusing the best elements of both ideologies.

Statist Libertarianism is admittedly a provocative description. But it has validity. Nick Gillespie, editor-in-chief of the libertarian magazine, Reason, made a very strong case for "divorce." Yet, it was all premised upon defining libertarianism as an end. He criticized Republicans for too much spending and amassing too much power when they became a majority, especially under the Bushes; but the fusionists in the debate agreed with him on this. The difference was that conservatives supported repressive authoritarian institutions like family and church, Gillespie argued, while libertarians supported modern free lifestyles. When asked the question, what would his position be if freedom led to the free choice of "authoritarian" institutions like the family, community and religion, he responded: "That is a good question but history shows no such tendency. Freedom leads to freedom."

Not only does this avoid the question, Nobel laureate F.A. Hayek (who Gillespie quoted in support of his own position) was clear that the history of liberty was the development of institutions that were able to counter the weight of the state. When asked whether libertarianism should not be defined by means rather than ends, Gillespie was forced to agree but denied that free means could lead to traditional ends, defining what freedom must produce. In fact, history proves the opposite, that these "authoritarian" institutions were the solution for freedom, not the obstacle. Not only did Hayek set the family as one of the two essential preconditions for freedom, he said: "Paradoxical as it may appear, it is probably true that a successful free society will always in a large measure be a tradition-bound society."

Even more interestingly, when asked about the power of the Supreme Court and the national courts generally in thwarting freedom, Gillespie denied that the courts were intrusive but had generally played a constructive role. Here is the contradiction for the capital-L Libertarian. He needs the power of the state to create his type of freedom. It is evident to him—even if he will not admit the possibility—that unless the national courts overcome private, local, state and national norms, "libertarian" free lifestyles will be frustrated by social pressure (rather than by force) from traditional institutions. Big-L Libertarianism, in fact, is a variant of progressivism, dependent upon its concept of "positive freedom."

Modern liberalism, under T.H. Green, Leonard Hobhouse and Gunnar Myrdal, considered the freedom of Adam Smith and the American founders as "negative freedom," as limiting the national government to passing a few general, neutral rules that would allow freedom under them without taking any further positive steps to promote liberty. The fathers of progressivism, however, argued this kind of freedom could not guarantee that good things would result from a neutral role. What if the free people chose bad things, or did not help their neighbor, or contribute to society? Government had to promote a "positive freedom" that would guarantee all of these good ends. The modern restatement of this doctrine was made in E.J. Dionne's They Only Look Dead, the bible of the New Democrats and the logic of the welfare state.

The only difference between statist Democrats and statist Libertarians is that they want government to promote different ends. The former want a more extensive welfare state and the later want a "free" society without "authoritarian" institutions influencing how people should think and act. They both even rely extensively on the federal courts because the popular branches oppose their end-states. They both want the state to decide what society will look like. Big-L Libertarians want the state to promote "freedom is freedom" as society's end, following other statists who know what specific ends are good for society.

Hayek had a better solution. It was his "Constitution of Liberty," following John Locke, which defined a free society as one that only created very general rules and left the rest of social life to individuals, families and associations (including religious ones) to determine their own destiny under them. But he (as did Smith) found that these laws had to be based upon the existing moral rules of the society. There was no other choice than outside imposition of alternative values. It is true that even Hayek (and Smith and Locke) allowed the government to perform certain social functions beyond rule making that they thought could not be performed privately. Yet, in his final statement, his magisterial "Law, Legislation and Liberty," Hayek required almost all of these social functions be performed by local government as the least statist—indeed, almost voluntary—alternative.

Big-L Libertarians view associations as authoritarian, getting in the way of personal freedom. Apparently, only government courts are exceptions. These must suppress the free associations by defining them out of social life because they use pressure to restrict personal freedom. Separation of church and state is interpreted to mean exclusion of church from government and granting ultimate resolution of all church matters through government courts, rather than each staying within in its own sphere. For example, capital-L Libertarians want the state to define marriage to include single-sex unions when it was the state in relatively modern times that usurped the churches from what was their private control of their own marriage contracts. Why would a real means-libertarian not favor re-privatizing the marriage contract, respecting the church's copyright on defining it as between one man and one woman, and only supporting private civil unions as another private alternative? In the debate, Gillespie even objected to a question about the Supreme Court's Texas sodomy decision because the questioner used the term "sodomy," calling it disrespectful since it was now a constitutional right. Do big-L Libertarians now propose to interdict words sanctified by the state?

This big-L Libertarianism is not the libertarianism of Hayek, who viewed associational freedom as the primary means to restrict the power of the state. In fact, these big-L Libertarians are not libertarians at all for they are ends-libertarians—surely a contradiction in terms—rather than Hayekean means-libertarians. As Hayek maintained, if an ideology has a specific picture of what society should look like, it will use the state to enforce it. As this debate argument suggests, big-L Libertarians know precisely how society must look—individuals must have no restrictions, public or private, on their personal freedom—and the state should use the courts to enforce this outcome.

In a Hayekean free society, traditionalists must rely upon free means or authorities, especially national ones, will abuse their power and threaten the tradition and its institutions. That is, they need real libertarians who require that societal means be free means, not specific ends forced by government or courts in the name of "freedom." Likewise, true libertarians need traditionalists because a free society must have traditional norms to keep the peace, protect property and provide incentives for prosperity. How this works out at the end is anyone's guess.

Freedom does not lead to freedom, at least as defined as "free lifestyles." Freedom is unpredictable. Meyer, Hayek and Reagan had it just right. Freedom needs tradition or it has no standards upon which rules can be set that people will accept as fair in orienting future activities, and tradition needs freedom, defined as limiting government and leaving private institutions to define how liberty works out for society. This marriage of means and ends cannot be broken without disastrous results for both parties, just as in a real life divorce.