The Libertarian Dem

Link to Kos' post on being a libertarian Democrat, via Reason. I've only skimmed the post and not looked at the comments at all yet, but it looks pretty good and needs to be noted here. Excerpt:

Of course, this also means that government isn't always the solution to the nation's problems. There are times when business-government partnerships can be extremely effective (such as job retraining efforts for displaced workers). There are times when government really should butt out (like a great deal of small-business regulation). Our first proposed solution to a problem facing our nation shouldn't be more regulation, more government programs, more bureaucracy.

The key here isn't universal liberty from government intrusion, but policies that maximize individual freedom, and who can protect those individual freedoms best from those who would infringe.

I am very much a Libertarian Dem, and this is exactly what my next book will be about. It's progressivism for a new century. And that's what this new breed of Democrat is building in the Mountain West and Virginia and Ohio.

Looking forward to the book!

...but he is not libertarian Democrat. His idea that the government needs to protect citizens against "evil corporations" is flawed: it is government support and protections that have overly empowered businesses. The US market would be much different if the federal government didn't dole out billions in corporate welfare, protect businesses with tariff and captial barriers (think CFIUS and Dubai Ports World), and arbitrarily declare that corporations are people.

A libertarian Democrat believes that all people and businesses should essentially be treated the same, regardless of their characteristics or origin. The left libertarians on this site may agree in public mechanisms that help collectively mitigate certain national risks (health care and pensions) - and we even in principle agree with the idea of public education - but these programs need to be provided in a market-style fashion ensures efficiency.

The core belief of a libertarian Democrat is not that people need to be free from government intrusion - it is that the government is a poor solution for most problems because it is a monopolistic soveriegn system. Whenever you put absolute power in the hands of a few, even an elected few, you will also loose efficiency and encounter free-riding and corruption. The less power we have to delegate to the government, the better.

Also, I reject kos's list of "libertarian Democrats": Webb is a populist and xenophobe and Tester and Schweitzer are more in the modern liberal mold. Hackett is really the only candidate worth a libertarian nod.

I'm going to be making a longer post on some of my reactions to Markos, but I wanted to at least reply to this thread first. I hope that as time goes on, more and more Democrats will be turned on to the knowledge that while some corporations may be a threat, they are being armed by the government.

Business isn't evil - heck, it makes the world go 'round. The same is true of capitalism. The only "evil" (I would describe it as "wrong") thing about corporations is the notion of corporate personage.

This was a very disappointing post from Kos. I'm a poster there, and I've been trying to appeal to folks there to make alliances with libertarians (both because it is the right thing to do, and because it will help Democrats win elections). Sadly, this post I think will only serve to drive a wedge even further between the left and libertarian blogosphere. It manages to be both condescending to libertarians and to Democrats, in my opinion, which is a pretty tight needle to thread.

Then again, I don't have a convention named after me.

I'm ztn BTW over at Kos. It's as if he used our L word to define his L word. Kos has a lot to learn. But I think he's better than that diary leads on. His major problem is that his minions are more socialist than he is.

As a small l-libertarian, and one more fiscally conservative than 99.9% of the kos crowd, it is good to see each of you fighting the good fight. The saviors of liberty will likely not be the Libertarians, but the Liberals willing to stand up for the classic ideals. As expected, their beliefs about what a libertarian is and is not often (but not always) stand in the way of true discourse. We can only hope that more will see the light that replacing one government-protected monopoly (in the form of a corporation) with another government-protected monopoly (government itself) will do nothing to solve society's problems.

The Republican party is the party of barriers. The Democrats have attempted to counter those barriers by building bridges. Why not try tearing down the walls first?