Posted on 04/18/2015 4:39:28 AM PDT by Kaslin
Rand Paul’s entry into the presidential race raises an interesting question: Just how many people consider themselves “libertarian” and what is the potential voting strength of this segment of the population?
Paul Krugman weighed in early with the brash claim that "there basically aren't any libertarians." But as David Henderson reminds us, once again Krugman’s opinions are nowhere near factual reality.
Gallup, which has been polling on the issue for quite some time, finds that 38 percent of the public identifies as “conservative” and 24 percent as “liberal” in the latest poll
Gallup doesn’t ask people if they are libertarian, but fortunately other polls have asked that question in various ways. In 2006 the Cato Institute commissioned Zogby International to ask 596 voters this question: “Would you describe yourself as fiscally conservative and socially liberal?” Fully 59 percent of the respondents said “yes.”
Then Zogby asked the same question of the same number of voters, but this time they added the “L” label: “Would you describe yourself as fiscally conservative and socially liberal, also known as libertarian?” David Boaz recounts the results:
The addition of the word “libertarian” clearly made the question more challenging. What surprised us was how small the drop-off was. A healthy 44 percent of respondents answered “yes” to that question, accepting a self-description as “libertarian.”
If that result is anywhere close to accurate it means that libertarians out number both conservative and liberals among the electorate. Or perhaps more precisely, more people seem to lean libertarian than lean conservative or liberal.
So why don’t we see more elections in which a libertarian candidate is opposed by an anti-libertarian (someone who advocates more government both in the boardroom and the bedroom)? In other words, why aren’t more candidates consistently in favor of more government across the board, or less government across the board?
Think of the process of producing votes as analogous to a business producing a good or service. Just as a firm needs both capital and labor, so do political candidates. Then we can apply the:
Goodman/Porter Theorem on Political Coalitions
: Candidates who are capital-intensive will seek labor-intensive supporters to add to their coalition; candidates that are labor-intensive will do the opposite.
This follows from the law of diminishing returns. The more capital you have, the less valuable one more unit of it is. Similarly, for labor.
Suppose that we start out with a Republican candidate who is supported with heavy capital contributions from the business community (because of her generally free enterprise positions) and a Democratic candidate who has a lot of support from labor (because of his support for various kinds of government intervention). Although, unions do give a lot of money to Democrats, they also provide a lot of boots on the ground, which I will call “labor.” So initially, the Republican is relatively capital intensive and the Democrat is relatively labor intensive. At this point a unit of labor is far more valuable to the Republican and a unit of capital is far more valuable to the Democrat.
Where can the Republican get labor? From social conservatives. Where can the Democrat get capital? From wealthy liberals who care about social issues (and the environment) and from The New York Times and other media outlets who believe in laissez faire in the market for ideas – no matter how regulated the market for goods and services is. I am counting newspapers editorials and biased reporting as a capital contribution – the alternative to paid advertising.
This theorem seem to fit the facts reasonably well. At least better than alternative explanations which assume that the process is basically irrational.
Political scientist Hans Noel argues that parties have, in a sense, been captured by ideologues who have persuaded those who pay close attention to politics to adopt “conservative” or “liberal” ideologies. Johnathan Bernstein at Bloomberg argues that:
[L]ooking for ideologies among voters is sort of pointless. People have impulses on various issues, but it is the parties that organize those impulses into something resembling overall world views. The parties do this by teaching their adherents which positions they should take on all those subjects the rank-and-file voter doesn’t care about much.
In other words, parties have ideologies, but not people? I don’t think so.
Back to our original question. Just how many libertarians are there? Krugman is joined by polling expert Nathan Cohn and by columnist Nate Silver in the belief that they are few and far between. But that depends crucially on how you define libertarian and how you word the questions put to votes. Political scientist John Sides, for example, thinks that a libertarian is someone who wants government to provide “fewer services.” But who wants fewer services? That’s not the public policy option. The question is: do you want more services plus higher taxes to pay for them or do you want fewer services and a tax cut?
In Krugman’s view of the world, the choice being a libertarian and not being one is a choice between “social insurance” and “no social insurance”? But what does “no social insurance” mean? Abolish Social Security? Abolish Medicare?
The question should be: Do you want to participate in a Ponzi scheme in which you have no court-enforced right to any future benefits or would you like private ownership of your retirement benefits, fully protected by the laws of contract?aa
This should prove to be an interesting thread...
This article is an example of what is known as defining a problem away. The author sets up all his definitions so that his conclusions have to follow. For example, biased reporting is “capital”. LOL.
Does the "socially liberal" description include legalization of prostitution and drugs? Where in this simplistic description does foreign policy fit? Libertarians are non-interventionists.
blah blah blah. The fact is that eight percent more people call themselves democrats than republicans. We NEED to rock the independent vote in our favor or we will lose.
We also need to somehow win the hearts and minds of marginal democrats and explain how NO ONE wins in the end with an entitlement culture.
SS is the biggest scam ever. You can potentially invest six percent of your salary for 50 years and then die and receive nothing.
Most likely
The track record of the Libertarian Party is not encouraging. I’m really not sure that a lot of people want legal drugs and legal prostitution.
Libertarians tend to be fiscal conservatives (good) and social liberals (bad). Socially liberal ideas tend to cause enough difficulties in people’s lives that they start looking around for government charity to rescue them. That’s when fiscal conservatism goes out the window. Social liberalism is always “more important” than fiscal conservatism.
I will stay a Conservative. And I will vote for Ted Cruz.
12% - you forget the employer’s half.
Since I’m self employed I pay both halves.
Do you realize that many demonrats call themselves independent because they are ashamed to admit that they are liberals?
For starters, 85% of Americans think of abortion as a grim and horrific option — rape, incest, life-o-mother ONLY. Thus, one could say that 85% of Americans are social-conservatives.
Secondly, the ‘pot’ issue is getting slowly temporized. That’s the big driver in libertarians.
Thridly, most Americans don’t want to simply cut off this generation of poor Senior Citizens from SS, nor do they want those seniors to suffer much. That is being ‘socially liberal’.
Fourth — most Americans are getting fed up with government unions and teachers’ unions, an issue rarely addressed, and a drain on the federal budget as well as state budgets which raid just about everything to shore up government union pension plans.
Conclusion — these polls don’t reveal very much.
Employed persons do too. They just don't know it. Both halves come out of the employer's pocket and both halves are paid to obtain the employee's services. The only difference being two different descriptions on the paycheck.
Good point about legalized prostitution. Do we really want to raise our little girl to sleep their way up the corporate ladder when they grow up?
Don’t get me more depressed. I want to be optimistic but how do you overcome single white women, blacks, Hispanics, gays, Jews (we may get 40 percent support after the Obama debacle), the young and Asians. Are older white men and married white females enough? And how are we Not making the case to Jewish and Asian Americans that they have no place in the democratic party?
That's because the vast majority of Americans don't have a clue what a “libertarian” is...
“SS is the biggest scam ever.”
But this current generation can’t turn its back on the poor dependents of SS, can it? Touch that rail and you lose the White House. We need a multi-generational exit strategy with UN-taxed pension plans, and that requires a constitutional amendment. Before that, we need a better-educated voter base.
There's a world of difference between the "big-L" Libertarian Party and a "small-l" libertarian.
For example, most historians agree that Thomas Jefferson would properly be described as a libertarian -- that is a "classic liberal". But I'm quite sure he'd take issue with much of the Libertarian Party platform.
(Damned Liberals misappropriated the word. They're actually leftists, socialists, and communists. And nuts.)
Losertarians are fun to laugh at...
I agree 100 percent on a multi generational plan. What also needs to be addressed is that people are living a LOT longer than when SS was implemented. Private accounts are more in line with capitalism, and if not that then the retirement age must be lifted. It is a huge issue to tackle. Or we could decimate the ranks of federal employees and their ridiculous pensions. But like Pelosi said “there is no room left to cut” even though a recent report stated that HUGE numbers of federal employees dedicate their whole day to union activities.
So will I. Nothing wrong your choice, it's to early for me to decide, by December I should know though
Here is a list of the primaries for 2016
January [edit]
I’ve always been for total disclosure on the pay stub.
When you ask most folks how much they make they’ll mention “take home”.
I think most folks would be surprised if the stub started out with “Net Worth to the Company this pay period” and then start through all the employer paid fees like Unemployment Insurance, etc, their half of SS and then running with what the people usually see.
Would open a few eyes.
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