A Tale of Two Horseshoes

Cass Sunstein, On Classical Liberalism, Hayek, Freedom, and Serfdom

Once upon a time, I regarded Hayek, Ludwig von Mises, and the Austrians — and also Robert Nozick, Murray Rothbard, and the libertarians — with respect and admiration, but in important ways as adversaries.

They were not (I thought) on my team. I no longer think that. I think that they are on my team, or (much better), that I am on their team. Among other things, they saw something crucial about a foundation of the liberal tradition: freedom from fear.

There is a personal reason for my former view. I spent over a quarter of the century at the University of Chicago, and while I learned so much from Richard Posner and Richard Epstein, and also from Gary Becker and George Stigler, they represented, in a way, the prevailing wisdom in the Chicago environment.

Cass goes on to list six things that he thought that prevailing wisdom got wrong, and adds:

(By the way, I still think (1), (2), (3), (4), (5), and (6).).

But:

Hayek and the Mont Pelerins (and Posner and Epstein) seemed to be fighting old battles, and in important ways to be wrong. With respect to authoritarianism and tyranny, and the power of the state, of course they were right; but still, those battles seemed old.

But those battles never were old. In important ways, Hayek and the Mont Pelerins (and Posner and Epstein, and Becker and Stigler) were right. Liberalism is a big tent. It’s much more than good to see them under it. It’s an honor to be there with them.

The post interested me for three reasons:

1. I too was at the University of Chicago, interacting with the same people.

2. I was, and am, a classical liberal/libertarian.

3. The post raises a puzzle to which I think I have the answer. He has the same critique of our position as before but we are now allies; he is now on our team.

What has changed?¹

I think the answer is that he used to take it for granted that the state, in the developed world and increasingly elsewhere, was on his side, that liberalism² was and would continue to be the dominant ideology, that the classical liberals were fighting old battles, battles already won. What changed that was the rise of Donald Trump and his European allies on the right, illiberal progressivism on the left, ideologies that explicitly rejected liberalism, broadly defined to include both his version and mine.

Suddenly the battles did not look so old. Or so won.

Part of the reason Cass and I may now be allies:

Phillip W. Magness, The Postliberal War on Economics

The growing influence of postliberals is undeniable, but liberals on the left and right seem taken aback, confused about an ideology that marries extreme social conservatism with a hostility to mainstream economics, the latter a conventionally left-wing position. …

The postliberals’ master explanation for why everything feels off is to blame free markets, libertarianism, liberalism, “neoliberalism,” or even just plain economics. To hear them tell it, everything is the fault of liberalism: declining birth rates, fentanyl addiction, family breakdown, environmental degradation, cultural decay, illegal immigration, the 2008 to 2009 financial crisis, the COVID-19 pandemic, a reported wave of angry, listless young men … the list goes on.

But postliberalism’s critique of economics is intellectually shallow—its proponents don’t understand the discipline they attack,

…

The book’s thesis held that both progressive and classical versions of liberalism have eroded the ancient and communitarian dimensions of society — family, religion, culture — by prioritizing individual autonomy and economic growth. Over time, a society’s community and culture become degraded by the uninhibited forces of consumption-driven individualism.

…

It’s particularly revealing that libertarians, rather than the left, have become the primary intellectual scapegoat of the postliberal scene. ...

According to their charge, libertarians foster an “illusion of neutrality” for the state in the public sphere. This, in turn, somehow caused the cancel culture epidemic of wokeism, the leftward political tilt of Big Tech, and a progressive-left understanding of American history to become “enshrined as public dogma.”

Ahmari doesn’t explain the underlying mechanism, but piecing together his argument for him, he seems to believe that the left is willing to wield state power in service of wokeness, so the right’s failure to respond in kind amounts to unilaterally disarming itself.

One of the people I argue with online is an intelligent conservative with no interest in understanding economic arguments; he views economics as a fake science that only exists to produce arguments for policies that favor the elites. After reading this I think I know where that, as well as other elements of his worldview and arguments, are coming from.

The attack on liberalism, broadly defined, is not only from the right.

Matthew Yglesias, The fox in liberalism’s henhouse

Critical Race Theory and related identitarian ideas fooled many of us into thinking it was just a new, strange version of liberalism. …

Once you accept (even half-consciously) that groups, not individuals, are the basic units that matter, that “neutral” rules are just tools of oppression, that justice is about rebalancing power between groups rather than individual rights, you’ve already stepped outside the liberal project, whether you admit it or not.

…

Liberal principles are worth fighting for, in ways that the current hysterical climate on the American right should make clear. Helen Andrews wants to drive women en masse out of professional workplaces on the basis of broad stereotypes and generalizations about sex differences. This is a terrible idea, but it’s hard to explain why it’s a terrible idea without recourse to old-fashioned ideas like judging people on their own merits rather than as manifestations of groups. People appalled by the rise of “groyper” sentiments on the right should also think hard about the possibility that it was not a great idea to frame politics as a zero-sum contest between racial groups.

Horseshoe theory is the observation of common elements between extreme left and extreme right, support for legalized marijuana back when that was something only extremists believed in or open borders, which still is.

Think of it as the libertarian horseshoe.

Postliberalism and Critical Race Theory may be another.

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1. I put that question to Cass as a comment on his post but have not yet gotten a response.

2. The modern version, John Rawls not Adam Smith.