Interesting, of course. My sense is that a coalition between classical liberals and contemporary liberals in the US at the moment is a chimera. Yes, of course there are streams, or better, streamlets, in the Democratic Party that are not insane. But classical liberalism is a streamlet, too. Even together, a quantité negligiable.
My sense is that the US of A, as well as western Europe, has moved left over my lifetime, caused by the Brahminization of the left. My political preferences were more or less formed ca. 1969, at the age of 19, after I read Capitalism and Freedom. [I still have the paperback copy, yellow pages, bent corners, and all, I studied then.] Of course, details changed as my understanding grew. Still, I would say I was slightly left of center at the time.
Back in the US for many years after some years in Europe, I have found that while my views have not changed, I am now considered a right-wing extremist!
I was trying to use the word "liberal" the way Yglesias used it, though it's probably best to not use it. The Left noticed that the word they had stolen earlier was no longer highly esteemed [by, say, the 1980's or '90's], so they reverted to the word they had stolen earlier from Christian reform movements -- progressives.
But all this illustrates well what the Left does best -- rewrite dictionaries.
My point is no more and no less that prior to 10 years ago, “liberal” was not a perfectly accurate description of the overall left, but at least it was not the opposite of the truth.
Today, by contrast - and note that since “progressive” fell out of favor, the ones who are not hard leftists have largely gone back to the term “liberal” - its use is Orwellian, since there is simply no way they can be characterized on net as liberal, given in general how many of their policy goals are explicitly illiberal, and how on speech in particular they have become so hostile to the First and most important liberal value.
I think the faction Yglesias is a part of is as liberal as the "liberals" of ten years ago, probably more. How much of the left they represent I don't know. But they are more liberal than Trump et. al.
We surely do agree on “the faction Yglesias is a part of is as liberal as the ‘liberals’ of ten years ago.”
We surely disagree on the “probably more”, and if you have any evidence there, I’d love to hear it.
We even more surely very strongly disagree on the “more liberal than Trump et al.” point, but since you refuse to provide the relevant specifics of “Trump et al” or “MAGA Republicans” illiberalism, and compare it, and seem to be engaged in a lot of wishful thinking on where the Yglesiaises actually stand today, it is quite difficult to have the discussion.
Frank! Compadre! My political views were completely encompassed by “Capitalism and Freedom” in 1969 as well. I affectionately referred to it as “Capitalism and Friedman”. I continued to swim in the CaF ocean until David tossed me the life-preserver titled “The Machinery of Freedom”…thank you David!
The first mention I remember of left anarchists was when some anarchists' union fought in the Spanish Civil War, and the oxymoron made no sense. I later read a description which said some went so far in their denial of private property that they it was fair game to move into a random house while the "owners" were away shopping or working, but the most inexplicable were the ones that shared toothbrushes and underwear. Now granted, I'm sure most meant washed underwear, but still ... and toothbrushes? That was probably about the same time I realized that collectivists are just plain crazy.
Seattle at one time proposed a law that required homeowners to rent out "unused" bedrooms, such as when children moved out. The concept itself is bizarre and unworkable, since it's a no brainer to fill them with boxes or turn them into offices, libraries, hobby rooms, any number of ways. But I cannot help but conclude that yes, they are crazy, insane, non compos mentos, if they think such an invasion of privacy and disrespect for property rights makes any sense.
Got any examples of crazier than such a hatred of private property as sharing toothbrushes and underwear?
Without private property, there is no society. I do not think any society is even possible without the concept of private property. The notoriously anti-private property Comanche Indians of North America marked their arrows so they would know who had killed an animal.
“If you take a walk through the countryside, from Indonesia to Peru, and you walk by field after field — in each field a different dog is going to bark at you. Even dogs know what private property is all about. The only one who does not know it is the government.” — Hernando de Soto
Equally, private property is not possible without society. But right anarchists presume to build society on basis of private property which is madness.
Why is that madness? Just because you don’t like it?
You own yourself. That is a fundamental axiom of liberty.
If you own yourself, you own the fruits of your labor, otherwise that makes you a slave of whoever steals from you or forces you to work for them.
Exchanging the fruits of your labor follows inexorably.
You may as well claim building society on the basis of oral or written communications, or on the basis of humans having hearts and lungs, is madness. Property is a natural inevitable derivation of liberty, of owning yourself.
Nozick has given an example of pouring a bottle of ketchup in the ocean. So you mixed your labor of pouring a bottle with ocean. Do you own ocean?
"You own the fruit of your labor" is fine as far as it goes but laws of a tribe or a state are required to define how much labor must be mixed with precisely what things to define ownership.
“It is even more true now. Left liberals, even the abundance faction, may not be classical liberals but they are closer to us and we are closer to them than either of us is to the Maga Republicans on the right or the progressive Democrats on the left.”
IMO this was *such* a fantastic essay until this final sentence.
And to be clear, it’s not that the sentence is entirely incorrect. And with a narrow, uncharitable reading, it can be construed to be correct.
But by casually inserting the mostly ill-defined phrase “MAGA Republicans”, it strongly implies that classical liberals are closer to today’s “left liberals” like Yglesias than to the center of today’s GOP.
And that’s not true. To me, almost self-evidently so.
Now of course it would be true if “MAGA Republicans” refers *only* to the worst elements of the populist right agenda, I’m more than happy to concede.
But there is precious little evidence - either in Trump’s total record or anywhere else, like polls of what GOP voters or even self-described MAGA voters support - that this caricature is remotely accurate.
Even as I’m happy to concede that “MAGA” is slightly more illiberal than the highly imperfect Trump, who’s is himself clearly somewhat more illiberal than the “center-right” in the GOP that existed before Trump came down the escalator in 2015.
My assertion is that the midpoint of MAGA is in fact at least as close to “classical liberal” as left-liberals like Yglesias.
The left has moved SO far left, and what this essay misses is that the “center-left” and “left liberals” have moved at least as far, and in almost all cases further, towards the illiberal left in the last 11 years than the average person on the right has become more illiberal in that same timespan.
But of course I’m surely influenced by my wishful thinking belief that “the correct answer” is for anyone actually old-school center-left, actually for abundance, let alone already classical liberal or libertarian on economic issues, to understand that the center of the GOP despite MAGA is *so* much* closer to their positions and policy objectives than today’s almost completely illiberal left.
And as importantly by the non-wishful observation that said illiberal left has already swallowed the Dem party.
Did you read the Yglesias post? On the basis of that and a few other people connected with that faction I think you are mistaken, that those people are closer to us than the Democrats who called themselves liberals ten or fifteen years ago were, in part because they are reacting against the Progressives in their party.
No, David, I did not read that post, because it is paywalled.
I have read many Yglesias posts.
He is not a center-leftist. I don’t believe he ever was.
I have no per se problem with referring to him as a left-liberal.
I would actually claim he is broadly speaking an old-school progressive in the mold of Bill Maher and Alan Dershowitz in terms of his preferred policies.
Do you have ANY material evidence for this “those people are closer to us than the Democrats who called themselves liberals ten or fifteen years ago were, in part because they are reacting against the Progressives in their party” claim?
Do you have all that much specific evidence for your claim that his policy preferences are closer to classical liberal besides the two obvious ones of wanting more immigration and lower spending on the military?
More importantly, any evidence that they have moved closer to classical liberalism in the last 10-15 years?
I am unaware of even a single example where the center-left or left-liberals have moved further towards classical liberalism in the last 10 years, let alone the far stronger claim that in aggregate they have.
Mitigating strongly against your claim is the reality that they have not in fact denounced their left flank but are working hard to elect leftists across the board.
Yglesias himself in many blog posts is quite open about this. I.e. his arguments are entirely about what he thinks is most helpful for Democrats to be elected in order to have ruling majorities, and towards that end he does often argue *tactically* with hard leftists that they should move towards the center or at least be more tolerant of center-left candidates in purple locales.
Now if we were talking Ezra Klein (the prototypical “Abundance” guy) or Josh Barro (the prototypical center-left guy), I’d still disagree with you. IMO Klein is merely trying to reintroduce the left arguments of 2005 in 2024. so I’d still disagree with you, but I’d concede your argument would at least be somewhat stronger.
But if you have evidence for your extraordinary claim of these folks literally having moved towards more liberal policy positions in reaction to the activist left, I’m all ears.
I'm with this in general. Trump is a less bad choice than any current Democrat I am aware of, and so are MAGA Republicans, whom I think of more as being unconcerned with Trump's actual policies and mostly follow along because he is not a typical politician, whom he scares the piss out of.
Compare that with the woke anti-science anti-reality Democrats. I do not recall a single Democrat in the last 10 or 15 years who exhibited even the slightest resistance to the wokists who run their party now. Trumpists are pathetic in their obeisance to Trump, but that pales in comparison to Democrats' blind obedience to wokism, DEI, Magical Money Theory, applauding political murders (Kirk, the health care CEO, even the attempts on Trump and the Supreme Court justice), economic barbarism (minimum wage laws, occupational licensing, regulation out the wazoo), climate catastrophism, and too many other irrational beliefs (beliefs, mind you, not just policies).
I cannot imagine voting for any Democrat under the current circumstances. They come as close to being institutionally (as in the party, not clinically) insane as I can imagine, and I can't imagine what it would take to change them. Trump at least will be out of legal power in 2½ years, and out of influence soon after (he's 80 years old!), and his successors will fail miserably at keeping his legacy intact, as all second generation heirs do. The Democrats? No end in sight.
I hope Trump will be out of if influence after his term ends, but I am not sure he will be. The city political machines of the past used their control of primaries to stay in power and he has been doing the same thing, so I am not sure he won't remain party boss for another decade or more.
I meant partly that Trump is old and mortal, and whether his body or brain expires first, he has a limited lifespan left.
The other part is that his various crown princes will have to compete to be the new MAGA king, whether Trump designates a favorite or not. Competition requires differentiating themselves from each other, which requires deviations from what Trump did or would do were he still in charge. As with all dynasties, the successors won't be as capable, and will spend too much effort trying to emulate Trump instead of being their own man. Trump supporters will have to choose from the various crown princes, not including Trump, and Trump's influence will wane.
Yes, he’s made quite an interesting recovery from his illness. The Babylon Bee (or is it Not The Bee?) has been making lots of jokes about recovering from being a Democrat. But whatever he’s going through, he seems like the most independent thinker in the Senate after Rand Paul. The Democrats will probably try to primary him, but he’s still got, I think, 4 years.
The best, even ahead of Rand Paul, was Massie, but AIPAC has now bought his seat for cash and of course the legacy media have made this outrage a non-story.
The current Democratic "mainstream" actually wants to turn the country into what the right has correctly labeled "anarcho-tyranny," meaning that Antifa and similar terrorist groups will not only run wild, raping, pillaging, and murdering, but the police will protect them against any of their victims defending himself. Under those conditions (which already exist in places like Portland and Minneapolis), the best hope for a return to freedom will be either the populist-right rising in civil war, or that another Pinochet carries out a successful coup and then purges the communists.
The problem with this is that "abundance democrats" aren't really a thing. They have no power in the Democrat party and even the individual characters who claim this label cave when asked to give a full throated endorsement of the implied policies. An abundance democrat is basically a Republican, minus whatever baggage you (in your head) may attach to that because of Trump.
My own sense is that Trump has been successful in elections because of culture issues (immigration, DEI, gender stuff, somewhat climate). I don't think any of his non-Republican (and non-libertarian) economic policies will have legs when he is gone.
Abundance Democrats absolutely are a thing. They are Democrats in favor of abundance, in the abstract, totally in denial of the obvious fact that all their policies, without exception, raise prices--that is, diminish abundance.
When an abundance Democrat actually embraces pro-market policies, he either leaves or is expelled from the Democratic Party. Are there exceptions? Maybe. Many people are not significant to the Party, so not worth the trouble of expelling; and I should be surprised to see a donor expelled.
(Well, maybe donors are expelled, as time goes on. Democratic candidates advertise not taking money from AIPAC, and other Jewish organizations and people are surely coming up, and other obstacles to the left after them.)
Anyway, if you know of an exception, a truly pro-market Democrat, please let me know.
On way to think about the term "liberal" is in contrast to the term "conservative." In the 19th century and before, liberals favored liberty, but did so out of values developed during the Enlightenment: reason, freedom, individualism, democracy, rule of law, separation of power and checks and balances, etc. In contrast, conservatives believed (to varying degrees) in strong authoritarian governments and monarchies (and often the divine right of kings -- note that this was the subject of Locke's lesser read FIRST treatise on government).
These 19th century ideas do not fit neatly into modern political ideologies, but they do to some degree.
20th Century Socialism is in some sense liberal, in that it claims to be derived from reason and rational principles. (A more careful theoretical economic analysis and historical evidence shows that it fails on all of these, but that is at least what its proponents argue.) And in some senses it is conservative in that it envisions great restrictions on freedom and individualism.
Modern libertarianism is certainly liberal in the 19th century sense.
The modern center-left has some aspects of 19th century liberalism: It believes in freedom of speech, religion, much economic freedom, rule of law, democracy. However, as David correctly notes, it advocates for a large amount of government power in economic areas and thus less freedom there.
The modern center-right is similar. It believes in freedom of speech, religion, much economic freedom, rule of law, democracy. It advocates for more economic freedom (sometimes) and less personal or social freedom than the center left.
But contrast these two with the far-left and far-right.
The far-left or progressive left favors much greater restrictions on economic freedom and personal freedom. There is a lot of focus on group rights (and thus the focus is less on individualism). There is endless focus on wrongs committed based on race, gender, sexual orientation, etc -- that is collective wrongs, even though the individual victims might be individuals. This looks more like 19th century conservatism than the center left, although the orientation -- group rights of victims and economic redistribution -- is very different than the divine right of kings.
The far-right is authoritarian, and cares very little about the rule of law and democracy. (Trump and his supporters, for example). Tariffs, January 6, bullying foreign states, etc.
Until (say) 2010, both the far left and far right were marginal fringe movements in both parties. So people could have a reasonable discussion about in what sense Democrats or Republicans or Libertarians were liberal or conservative. But with the rise of progressive Democrats and MAGA Republicans, both the center-left and center-right from 2010 are looking pretty liberal compared to the recent authoritarian anti-liberal (in the 19th century sense) newcomers.
American conservatives sought--and seek--to preserve the founding (usually as modified by Lincoln's refounding), which is to say, to preserve what used to be called a liberal project.
American conservatives have never favored monarchy. British Tories were not for any absolute monarchy either. Both of them were more pro-liberty than anything now.
“Left liberals, even the abundance faction, may not be classical liberals but they are closer to us and we are closer to them than either of us is to the Maga Republicans on the right or the progressive Democrats on the left.”
But they keep running progressives!
I like to know where the evil is coming from. At least Trump is predictable. I will always vote for a candidate who lowers some taxes over a lunatic that threatens more taxes. But in the final analysis either extreme is bad—pick your poison.
And then that faction turns around and endorses Mamdani. Remember Mamdani's main opponent during the election in question was Cuomo, so they can't even claim "stopping Republicans" as a justification.
“the moderate left of the current U.S. political spectrum — abandoned that negative liberty in favor of what is sometime called positive liberty, the right to an adequate level of food, education, medicine paid for and provided, if necessary, by someone else.”
It’s the “paid for….by someone else” that makes it anti-liberty!
There was never such a thing as a “libertarian”, just republicans who smoked weed and didn’t go to church.
At this point, anyone who says that freedom is their main ideological center and hasn’t been voting straight ticket dem since at least Obama is full of shit.
I’m just describing what I see on the news. Nothing Biden has done has ever gotten close to actual rapist trump and his rape of children and adults. You have voted for a rapist too many times for me not to think your kind loves rape
"Trans rights" consists of the "right" to force everybody else to pretend that black is white, two plus two is five, and that a man can become a woman.
The problem isn't their existence. The problem is their insistence that the rest of the world recognize their delusions to the extent of men in women's locker rooms, beating up women in women's sports, in violation of both common decency and Title IX.
Yes absolutely. Did any of them send gunmen into cities to batter them into submission? Did they ever force programs on fox or whatever right wing shock jock off the air like Trump did with Colbert?
“Bang bang. You’re dead liberal”: actual ice agents sent by the GOP
“It may not have occurred to him that if the best form of government is very bad that is a reason not to give government the power to do things even if the alternatives are imperfect, hence that libertarian opposition to government power over the economy”.
It may not have occurred to him that the United States had the best form of government until rent seeking broke it along with presidents like Lincoln, Wilson and FDR—turning representatives government that placed the individual in charge of his own life into a democracy.
My impression is that the abundance folks don’t really have their heart in it. They know that the outcomes are bad, and they know that things need to change. It seems that they also recognize that a far more libertarian legal and regulatory regime is a necessary, and probably sufficient, condition to bring about the abundance that they claim that they want. That is to say, I think that they know that abundance requires a political party that has a fundamentally laissez fairer approach to anything to do with economics, and they also know that the Democratic Party does not view the world that way. Yet they still call themselves Democrats. Given that libertarians only matter to the extent that they can influence the views and preferences of liberals and conservatives, I am not even sure what it means for libertarians to ally with liberals or Democrats. Libertarians have only an immaterial number of votes to offer. Maybe there are some wealthy libertarians who could fund think tanks or magazines or podcasts or influencers working to try to create a fusionist ideal that some members of the Democratic Party could endorse?
It's interesting that Yglesias brings up the role of the state in public transportation. Whether or not he's correct to take for the granted the utility of governmental intervention there, it's notable that in my experience, a large majority of arguments against libertarianism focus on functions that account for a very small percentage of total government expenditures.
'But who will build the roads?' If all a government did was build roads, that would entail reducing the scope of the government by something like 99.9%.
As David notes, the fact that libertarians think that most questions are already answered by their ideology isn't unique to libertarians.
I'll add, that the reason libertarians appear to stand out in this regard is simply that their general ideology is very different from the norm.
By definition, a 'question' is something being debated. Since the views of libertarians are at the edge of the Overton window, most "questions" are rather uninteresting, since they presuppose radically different assumptions.
It would be more apparent that the same applies equally to Yglesias and those of his ideology, in the context of "questions" in a very different society, be it a libertarian one, an Islamist one, or a premodern European one. There, most "questions" would equally uninteresting to Yglesias, for the same reason.
The think is from the point of view of Yglesias's "managerial liberalism" he doesn't know the answer to most questions. His answer to most policy questions would be "I defer to the wisdom of the experts in [insert relevant government department]".
The libertarian response to that is "we don't know everything and neither does the government either, that's why the issue should be left to the individual citizens involved to do what they think is best without government interference".
If the question were whether one should sacrifice a virgin to the gods, or any old girl, I don't think Yglesias would feel the need to defer to experts - he'd say that the question is moot, since you shouldn't sacrifice anyone to the gods.
The main issue is which options are considered questions. Within the realm of issues treated as questions in the current political climate, it may be that Yglesias defers to "experts." But as I note, that's basically mechanically a function of one's distance to the political median which defines 'questions.' Were Yglesias far from the median, as in my examples, I think that he'd view most 'questions' as self-evident.
Yes, but the Left liberals whom you think are closer to us than to the progressive Democrats on the left, do they think so? If they can have alliance with only them or us, will they pick us?
I do not think they will, but I would love to see it.
Interesting, of course. My sense is that a coalition between classical liberals and contemporary liberals in the US at the moment is a chimera. Yes, of course there are streams, or better, streamlets, in the Democratic Party that are not insane. But classical liberalism is a streamlet, too. Even together, a quantité negligiable.
My sense is that the US of A, as well as western Europe, has moved left over my lifetime, caused by the Brahminization of the left. My political preferences were more or less formed ca. 1969, at the age of 19, after I read Capitalism and Freedom. [I still have the paperback copy, yellow pages, bent corners, and all, I studied then.] Of course, details changed as my understanding grew. Still, I would say I was slightly left of center at the time.
Back in the US for many years after some years in Europe, I have found that while my views have not changed, I am now considered a right-wing extremist!
“…contemporary liberals in the US…”
You of course mean leftists, as they are no longer reasonably described as liberal.
I was trying to use the word "liberal" the way Yglesias used it, though it's probably best to not use it. The Left noticed that the word they had stolen earlier was no longer highly esteemed [by, say, the 1980's or '90's], so they reverted to the word they had stolen earlier from Christian reform movements -- progressives.
But all this illustrates well what the Left does best -- rewrite dictionaries.
We indeed agree.
My point is no more and no less that prior to 10 years ago, “liberal” was not a perfectly accurate description of the overall left, but at least it was not the opposite of the truth.
Today, by contrast - and note that since “progressive” fell out of favor, the ones who are not hard leftists have largely gone back to the term “liberal” - its use is Orwellian, since there is simply no way they can be characterized on net as liberal, given in general how many of their policy goals are explicitly illiberal, and how on speech in particular they have become so hostile to the First and most important liberal value.
I think the faction Yglesias is a part of is as liberal as the "liberals" of ten years ago, probably more. How much of the left they represent I don't know. But they are more liberal than Trump et. al.
We surely do agree on “the faction Yglesias is a part of is as liberal as the ‘liberals’ of ten years ago.”
We surely disagree on the “probably more”, and if you have any evidence there, I’d love to hear it.
We even more surely very strongly disagree on the “more liberal than Trump et al.” point, but since you refuse to provide the relevant specifics of “Trump et al” or “MAGA Republicans” illiberalism, and compare it, and seem to be engaged in a lot of wishful thinking on where the Yglesiaises actually stand today, it is quite difficult to have the discussion.
See Kelsey Piper on affirmative action:https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/can-a-liberal-society-do-affirmative
Frank! Compadre! My political views were completely encompassed by “Capitalism and Freedom” in 1969 as well. I affectionately referred to it as “Capitalism and Friedman”. I continued to swim in the CaF ocean until David tossed me the life-preserver titled “The Machinery of Freedom”…thank you David!
> One that we stole from the left anarchists, but since they don’t believe in property rights …
I literally LOL when I read this.
The first mention I remember of left anarchists was when some anarchists' union fought in the Spanish Civil War, and the oxymoron made no sense. I later read a description which said some went so far in their denial of private property that they it was fair game to move into a random house while the "owners" were away shopping or working, but the most inexplicable were the ones that shared toothbrushes and underwear. Now granted, I'm sure most meant washed underwear, but still ... and toothbrushes? That was probably about the same time I realized that collectivists are just plain crazy.
Seattle at one time proposed a law that required homeowners to rent out "unused" bedrooms, such as when children moved out. The concept itself is bizarre and unworkable, since it's a no brainer to fill them with boxes or turn them into offices, libraries, hobby rooms, any number of ways. But I cannot help but conclude that yes, they are crazy, insane, non compos mentos, if they think such an invasion of privacy and disrespect for property rights makes any sense.
The left anarchists are no more crazy than the right anarchists.
Got any examples of crazier than such a hatred of private property as sharing toothbrushes and underwear?
Without private property, there is no society. I do not think any society is even possible without the concept of private property. The notoriously anti-private property Comanche Indians of North America marked their arrows so they would know who had killed an animal.
“If you take a walk through the countryside, from Indonesia to Peru, and you walk by field after field — in each field a different dog is going to bark at you. Even dogs know what private property is all about. The only one who does not know it is the government.” — Hernando de Soto
Equally, private property is not possible without society. But right anarchists presume to build society on basis of private property which is madness.
Why is that madness? Just because you don’t like it?
You own yourself. That is a fundamental axiom of liberty.
If you own yourself, you own the fruits of your labor, otherwise that makes you a slave of whoever steals from you or forces you to work for them.
Exchanging the fruits of your labor follows inexorably.
You may as well claim building society on the basis of oral or written communications, or on the basis of humans having hearts and lungs, is madness. Property is a natural inevitable derivation of liberty, of owning yourself.
Nozick has given an example of pouring a bottle of ketchup in the ocean. So you mixed your labor of pouring a bottle with ocean. Do you own ocean?
"You own the fruit of your labor" is fine as far as it goes but laws of a tribe or a state are required to define how much labor must be mixed with precisely what things to define ownership.
“It is even more true now. Left liberals, even the abundance faction, may not be classical liberals but they are closer to us and we are closer to them than either of us is to the Maga Republicans on the right or the progressive Democrats on the left.”
IMO this was *such* a fantastic essay until this final sentence.
And to be clear, it’s not that the sentence is entirely incorrect. And with a narrow, uncharitable reading, it can be construed to be correct.
But by casually inserting the mostly ill-defined phrase “MAGA Republicans”, it strongly implies that classical liberals are closer to today’s “left liberals” like Yglesias than to the center of today’s GOP.
And that’s not true. To me, almost self-evidently so.
Now of course it would be true if “MAGA Republicans” refers *only* to the worst elements of the populist right agenda, I’m more than happy to concede.
But there is precious little evidence - either in Trump’s total record or anywhere else, like polls of what GOP voters or even self-described MAGA voters support - that this caricature is remotely accurate.
Even as I’m happy to concede that “MAGA” is slightly more illiberal than the highly imperfect Trump, who’s is himself clearly somewhat more illiberal than the “center-right” in the GOP that existed before Trump came down the escalator in 2015.
My assertion is that the midpoint of MAGA is in fact at least as close to “classical liberal” as left-liberals like Yglesias.
The left has moved SO far left, and what this essay misses is that the “center-left” and “left liberals” have moved at least as far, and in almost all cases further, towards the illiberal left in the last 11 years than the average person on the right has become more illiberal in that same timespan.
But of course I’m surely influenced by my wishful thinking belief that “the correct answer” is for anyone actually old-school center-left, actually for abundance, let alone already classical liberal or libertarian on economic issues, to understand that the center of the GOP despite MAGA is *so* much* closer to their positions and policy objectives than today’s almost completely illiberal left.
And as importantly by the non-wishful observation that said illiberal left has already swallowed the Dem party.
Did you read the Yglesias post? On the basis of that and a few other people connected with that faction I think you are mistaken, that those people are closer to us than the Democrats who called themselves liberals ten or fifteen years ago were, in part because they are reacting against the Progressives in their party.
No, David, I did not read that post, because it is paywalled.
I have read many Yglesias posts.
He is not a center-leftist. I don’t believe he ever was.
I have no per se problem with referring to him as a left-liberal.
I would actually claim he is broadly speaking an old-school progressive in the mold of Bill Maher and Alan Dershowitz in terms of his preferred policies.
Do you have ANY material evidence for this “those people are closer to us than the Democrats who called themselves liberals ten or fifteen years ago were, in part because they are reacting against the Progressives in their party” claim?
Do you have all that much specific evidence for your claim that his policy preferences are closer to classical liberal besides the two obvious ones of wanting more immigration and lower spending on the military?
More importantly, any evidence that they have moved closer to classical liberalism in the last 10-15 years?
I am unaware of even a single example where the center-left or left-liberals have moved further towards classical liberalism in the last 10 years, let alone the far stronger claim that in aggregate they have.
Mitigating strongly against your claim is the reality that they have not in fact denounced their left flank but are working hard to elect leftists across the board.
Yglesias himself in many blog posts is quite open about this. I.e. his arguments are entirely about what he thinks is most helpful for Democrats to be elected in order to have ruling majorities, and towards that end he does often argue *tactically* with hard leftists that they should move towards the center or at least be more tolerant of center-left candidates in purple locales.
Now if we were talking Ezra Klein (the prototypical “Abundance” guy) or Josh Barro (the prototypical center-left guy), I’d still disagree with you. IMO Klein is merely trying to reintroduce the left arguments of 2005 in 2024. so I’d still disagree with you, but I’d concede your argument would at least be somewhat stronger.
But if you have evidence for your extraordinary claim of these folks literally having moved towards more liberal policy positions in reaction to the activist left, I’m all ears.
I'm with this in general. Trump is a less bad choice than any current Democrat I am aware of, and so are MAGA Republicans, whom I think of more as being unconcerned with Trump's actual policies and mostly follow along because he is not a typical politician, whom he scares the piss out of.
Compare that with the woke anti-science anti-reality Democrats. I do not recall a single Democrat in the last 10 or 15 years who exhibited even the slightest resistance to the wokists who run their party now. Trumpists are pathetic in their obeisance to Trump, but that pales in comparison to Democrats' blind obedience to wokism, DEI, Magical Money Theory, applauding political murders (Kirk, the health care CEO, even the attempts on Trump and the Supreme Court justice), economic barbarism (minimum wage laws, occupational licensing, regulation out the wazoo), climate catastrophism, and too many other irrational beliefs (beliefs, mind you, not just policies).
I cannot imagine voting for any Democrat under the current circumstances. They come as close to being institutionally (as in the party, not clinically) insane as I can imagine, and I can't imagine what it would take to change them. Trump at least will be out of legal power in 2½ years, and out of influence soon after (he's 80 years old!), and his successors will fail miserably at keeping his legacy intact, as all second generation heirs do. The Democrats? No end in sight.
I hope Trump will be out of if influence after his term ends, but I am not sure he will be. The city political machines of the past used their control of primaries to stay in power and he has been doing the same thing, so I am not sure he won't remain party boss for another decade or more.
I meant partly that Trump is old and mortal, and whether his body or brain expires first, he has a limited lifespan left.
The other part is that his various crown princes will have to compete to be the new MAGA king, whether Trump designates a favorite or not. Competition requires differentiating themselves from each other, which requires deviations from what Trump did or would do were he still in charge. As with all dynasties, the successors won't be as capable, and will spend too much effort trying to emulate Trump instead of being their own man. Trump supporters will have to choose from the various crown princes, not including Trump, and Trump's influence will wane.
Fetterman might be the best Democrat going, and he is currently being exiled from the party, so I expect you are quite correct.
Yes, he’s made quite an interesting recovery from his illness. The Babylon Bee (or is it Not The Bee?) has been making lots of jokes about recovering from being a Democrat. But whatever he’s going through, he seems like the most independent thinker in the Senate after Rand Paul. The Democrats will probably try to primary him, but he’s still got, I think, 4 years.
The best, even ahead of Rand Paul, was Massie, but AIPAC has now bought his seat for cash and of course the legacy media have made this outrage a non-story.
The current Democratic "mainstream" actually wants to turn the country into what the right has correctly labeled "anarcho-tyranny," meaning that Antifa and similar terrorist groups will not only run wild, raping, pillaging, and murdering, but the police will protect them against any of their victims defending himself. Under those conditions (which already exist in places like Portland and Minneapolis), the best hope for a return to freedom will be either the populist-right rising in civil war, or that another Pinochet carries out a successful coup and then purges the communists.
For those who prefer brevity, and to give credit where it is due, the TL/DR version is:
Colin Wright was correct then, and even more correct now.
https://www.wsj.com/opinion/elon-musk-tweeted-my-cartoon-woke-progressive-left-wing-media-right-viral-twitter-politics-culture-liberal-center-11651504379
https://x.com/SwipeWright/status/1462114108535312388
The problem with this is that "abundance democrats" aren't really a thing. They have no power in the Democrat party and even the individual characters who claim this label cave when asked to give a full throated endorsement of the implied policies. An abundance democrat is basically a Republican, minus whatever baggage you (in your head) may attach to that because of Trump.
My own sense is that Trump has been successful in elections because of culture issues (immigration, DEI, gender stuff, somewhat climate). I don't think any of his non-Republican (and non-libertarian) economic policies will have legs when he is gone.
Abundance Democrats absolutely are a thing. They are Democrats in favor of abundance, in the abstract, totally in denial of the obvious fact that all their policies, without exception, raise prices--that is, diminish abundance.
When an abundance Democrat actually embraces pro-market policies, he either leaves or is expelled from the Democratic Party. Are there exceptions? Maybe. Many people are not significant to the Party, so not worth the trouble of expelling; and I should be surprised to see a donor expelled.
(Well, maybe donors are expelled, as time goes on. Democratic candidates advertise not taking money from AIPAC, and other Jewish organizations and people are surely coming up, and other obstacles to the left after them.)
Anyway, if you know of an exception, a truly pro-market Democrat, please let me know.
A quibble... didn't Alfred Kahn get transportation deregulation done under President Carter, not Clinton?
Yes. I fixed it on Substack but can't edit the X or FB or email versions.
So far my son is the only one who has pointed out my other mistake, Linus for Charley Brown.
Yes!
As some evidence that Abundance Democrats are more liberal than the "liberal" Democrats of ten years ago, Kelsey Piper contra affirmative action: https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/can-a-liberal-society-do-affirmative
On way to think about the term "liberal" is in contrast to the term "conservative." In the 19th century and before, liberals favored liberty, but did so out of values developed during the Enlightenment: reason, freedom, individualism, democracy, rule of law, separation of power and checks and balances, etc. In contrast, conservatives believed (to varying degrees) in strong authoritarian governments and monarchies (and often the divine right of kings -- note that this was the subject of Locke's lesser read FIRST treatise on government).
These 19th century ideas do not fit neatly into modern political ideologies, but they do to some degree.
20th Century Socialism is in some sense liberal, in that it claims to be derived from reason and rational principles. (A more careful theoretical economic analysis and historical evidence shows that it fails on all of these, but that is at least what its proponents argue.) And in some senses it is conservative in that it envisions great restrictions on freedom and individualism.
Modern libertarianism is certainly liberal in the 19th century sense.
The modern center-left has some aspects of 19th century liberalism: It believes in freedom of speech, religion, much economic freedom, rule of law, democracy. However, as David correctly notes, it advocates for a large amount of government power in economic areas and thus less freedom there.
The modern center-right is similar. It believes in freedom of speech, religion, much economic freedom, rule of law, democracy. It advocates for more economic freedom (sometimes) and less personal or social freedom than the center left.
But contrast these two with the far-left and far-right.
The far-left or progressive left favors much greater restrictions on economic freedom and personal freedom. There is a lot of focus on group rights (and thus the focus is less on individualism). There is endless focus on wrongs committed based on race, gender, sexual orientation, etc -- that is collective wrongs, even though the individual victims might be individuals. This looks more like 19th century conservatism than the center left, although the orientation -- group rights of victims and economic redistribution -- is very different than the divine right of kings.
The far-right is authoritarian, and cares very little about the rule of law and democracy. (Trump and his supporters, for example). Tariffs, January 6, bullying foreign states, etc.
Until (say) 2010, both the far left and far right were marginal fringe movements in both parties. So people could have a reasonable discussion about in what sense Democrats or Republicans or Libertarians were liberal or conservative. But with the rise of progressive Democrats and MAGA Republicans, both the center-left and center-right from 2010 are looking pretty liberal compared to the recent authoritarian anti-liberal (in the 19th century sense) newcomers.
American conservatives sought--and seek--to preserve the founding (usually as modified by Lincoln's refounding), which is to say, to preserve what used to be called a liberal project.
American conservatives have never favored monarchy. British Tories were not for any absolute monarchy either. Both of them were more pro-liberty than anything now.
“Left liberals, even the abundance faction, may not be classical liberals but they are closer to us and we are closer to them than either of us is to the Maga Republicans on the right or the progressive Democrats on the left.”
But they keep running progressives!
I like to know where the evil is coming from. At least Trump is predictable. I will always vote for a candidate who lowers some taxes over a lunatic that threatens more taxes. But in the final analysis either extreme is bad—pick your poison.
Your "they" is the Democratic party. I am responding to a faction in that party that wants it to stop running progressives.
David,
I will be ready and willing to vote for a real moderate, but I don’t believe it will happen in my lifetime.
And then that faction turns around and endorses Mamdani. Remember Mamdani's main opponent during the election in question was Cuomo, so they can't even claim "stopping Republicans" as a justification.
“the moderate left of the current U.S. political spectrum — abandoned that negative liberty in favor of what is sometime called positive liberty, the right to an adequate level of food, education, medicine paid for and provided, if necessary, by someone else.”
It’s the “paid for….by someone else” that makes it anti-liberty!
There was never such a thing as a “libertarian”, just republicans who smoked weed and didn’t go to church.
At this point, anyone who says that freedom is their main ideological center and hasn’t been voting straight ticket dem since at least Obama is full of shit.
Say what? Obama, Hillary, Biden, Harris, and every single Democrat candidate were freedom-loving, more than every single Republican?
You've got TDS, example No. 18476367.
Gay marriage? Free expression? Trans rights? Marijuana? Abortion? Or is it just muh guns for you?
Nope, still got TDS if you think every single Republican is the worst of the bunch.
Politically_Illinois appears to be the result of being successfully brainwashed by The Daily Show.
https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/896d899e-328c-4965-8345-563555365cd1_1836x806.webp
Posting 10 year old 4chan posts isn’t an argument.
You’ve fallen for chud derangement syndrome
The argument is in the 4chan post.
I'd ask you to read it, but decades of being brainwashed by your TV appears to have destroyed your capacity for rational thought.
You’re the deranged one, you can’t even acknowledge reality. Yea, anyone still rolling with the label Republican is part of the scum bunch.
Don’t you have a pedophile to vote for?
Like Biden, always pawing children, showering with his daughter?
I can’t imagine what a shrunken brain it must take to see the world as so black and white.
I’m just describing what I see on the news. Nothing Biden has done has ever gotten close to actual rapist trump and his rape of children and adults. You have voted for a rapist too many times for me not to think your kind loves rape
"Trans rights" consists of the "right" to force everybody else to pretend that black is white, two plus two is five, and that a man can become a woman.
Trans people exist sorry that makes you mad. They’ve always existed the whole history of humanity
The problem isn't their existence. The problem is their insistence that the rest of the world recognize their delusions to the extent of men in women's locker rooms, beating up women in women's sports, in violation of both common decency and Title IX.
Deluded people exit. That doesn't mean we should indulge their delusions.
Yes absolutely. Did any of them send gunmen into cities to batter them into submission? Did they ever force programs on fox or whatever right wing shock jock off the air like Trump did with Colbert?
“Bang bang. You’re dead liberal”: actual ice agents sent by the GOP
> Did they ever force programs on fox or whatever right wing shock jock off the air like Trump did with Colbert?
You mean like the Biden's regime social media censorship comple?
Laughable, you compare being banned for saying the n word to state censorship
Ok, so you have no idea what you're talking about.
Maybe if you had spent less time letting propagandists like Colbert melt your brain, you'd still have retained the capacity for rational thought.
“It may not have occurred to him that if the best form of government is very bad that is a reason not to give government the power to do things even if the alternatives are imperfect, hence that libertarian opposition to government power over the economy”.
It may not have occurred to him that the United States had the best form of government until rent seeking broke it along with presidents like Lincoln, Wilson and FDR—turning representatives government that placed the individual in charge of his own life into a democracy.
Didn’t trucking get deregulated in 1980, at the end of the Carter administration? Was Clinton even governor of Arkansas yet at that time?
✅
My impression is that the abundance folks don’t really have their heart in it. They know that the outcomes are bad, and they know that things need to change. It seems that they also recognize that a far more libertarian legal and regulatory regime is a necessary, and probably sufficient, condition to bring about the abundance that they claim that they want. That is to say, I think that they know that abundance requires a political party that has a fundamentally laissez fairer approach to anything to do with economics, and they also know that the Democratic Party does not view the world that way. Yet they still call themselves Democrats. Given that libertarians only matter to the extent that they can influence the views and preferences of liberals and conservatives, I am not even sure what it means for libertarians to ally with liberals or Democrats. Libertarians have only an immaterial number of votes to offer. Maybe there are some wealthy libertarians who could fund think tanks or magazines or podcasts or influencers working to try to create a fusionist ideal that some members of the Democratic Party could endorse?
It's interesting that Yglesias brings up the role of the state in public transportation. Whether or not he's correct to take for the granted the utility of governmental intervention there, it's notable that in my experience, a large majority of arguments against libertarianism focus on functions that account for a very small percentage of total government expenditures.
'But who will build the roads?' If all a government did was build roads, that would entail reducing the scope of the government by something like 99.9%.
Defenders of government seem least enthusiastic to defend the enterprises that account for the overwhelming majority of governance. Even when it comes to public transit, we can ask, "if not for government, who would spend $231 billion on not building high speed rail?" (https://reason.org/commentary/as-estimated-cost-for-high-speed-rail-soars-california-lawmakers-move-to-hide-information-from-taxpayers/).
As David notes, the fact that libertarians think that most questions are already answered by their ideology isn't unique to libertarians.
I'll add, that the reason libertarians appear to stand out in this regard is simply that their general ideology is very different from the norm.
By definition, a 'question' is something being debated. Since the views of libertarians are at the edge of the Overton window, most "questions" are rather uninteresting, since they presuppose radically different assumptions.
It would be more apparent that the same applies equally to Yglesias and those of his ideology, in the context of "questions" in a very different society, be it a libertarian one, an Islamist one, or a premodern European one. There, most "questions" would equally uninteresting to Yglesias, for the same reason.
The think is from the point of view of Yglesias's "managerial liberalism" he doesn't know the answer to most questions. His answer to most policy questions would be "I defer to the wisdom of the experts in [insert relevant government department]".
The libertarian response to that is "we don't know everything and neither does the government either, that's why the issue should be left to the individual citizens involved to do what they think is best without government interference".
If the question were whether one should sacrifice a virgin to the gods, or any old girl, I don't think Yglesias would feel the need to defer to experts - he'd say that the question is moot, since you shouldn't sacrifice anyone to the gods.
The main issue is which options are considered questions. Within the realm of issues treated as questions in the current political climate, it may be that Yglesias defers to "experts." But as I note, that's basically mechanically a function of one's distance to the political median which defines 'questions.' Were Yglesias far from the median, as in my examples, I think that he'd view most 'questions' as self-evident.
Yes, but the Left liberals whom you think are closer to us than to the progressive Democrats on the left, do they think so? If they can have alliance with only them or us, will they pick us?
I do not think they will, but I would love to see it.