Switching Sides

By now you’ve read Brink Lindsey’s New Republic article on liberal-libertarian fusionism, and you’ve probably read Jonah Goldberg’s brief response as well as Sebastian Mallaby’s column. It’s a good piece, certainly much more persuasive than Markos Moulitsas’ absurd notion of the Libertarian Democrat. But I don’t think I entirely buy it—at least not yet.

Lindsey’s argument, to oversimplify, boils down to asking libertarians to give up hardline support for economic freedom and become pragmatic capitalists, while asking progressives to give up collective identity, hard egalitarianism, and serious centralized economic planning. Needless to say, this strikes me as a difficult proposition. Libertarian angst against Republicans is strong enough right now that it might seem plausible, but I have a hard time believing that there’s really all that much support amongst libertarians for a party whose key positions include a general support for strong business regulations and government programs. This, in fact, is why I’m so reticent to endorse conservative proposals to use government for its ends (even if I have a general respect for those ends). Libertarians aren’t really all that likely to hop parties en masse anytime soon, but if the right makes an active switch away from small government to managed government, they’ll follow Lindsey and turn away.

Of course, as Goldberg notes, there’s an upside to this:

We should all hope that Lindsey's project succeeds. Who among us unapologetic conservatives wouldn't like to see the two parties get in a bidding war over who is more libertarian on economic issues?

And sure, it’d be nice. But it’s also pretty much impossible—and exactly why a true libertarian-liberal alliance will never really happen.