Elusive Libertarians: Do “libertarian leanings” constitute a significant political movement?

National Review Online ^ | February 18, 2010 | John Zogby & Zeljka Buturovic

[Delacon]

A number of commentators have recently taken up the notion that libertarianism has become a significant force in contemporary American politics. This conviction is partly based on the assumption that, by being different from both liberals and conservatives, libertarians can enter coalitions with both, thus boosting their political power beyond their numbers. For example, David Kirby and David Boaz of the Cato Institute recently argued that, although unaware of the appropriate label for their beliefs, a significant number of Americans have “libertarian leanings” and that they are not only swing but bellwether voters; their support for Republicans, for example, ominously dropped 13 points during George W. Bush’s years in the White House. Several libertarians have argued that progressivism is, at the very least, as much a natural ally of libertarianism as is conservatism, and have advocated a fusion between the two, dubbed liberaltarianism.

On the face of it, this is not an unreasonable argument. However, our polling data at Zogby International indicate that libertarianism does not play as significant a role as the media hype would suggest. Very few people claim adherence to libertarian philosophy. Among those who do, a majority identifies with the political Right because of the large role economic freedom plays in libertarian ideology. For the most part, libertarians are a fraction within the conservative coalition — not a stand-alone movement.

Here are some of our data that show this. As a rule, we at Zogby ask two questions about ideology: a qualitative one, where people can choose a political label — progressive, liberal, moderate, conservative, very conservative, or libertarian — and a quantitative one, in which we ask them to position themselves on a 1–9 ideological scale, where 1 is extremely liberal and 9 is extremely conservative.

In all our surveys, almost all our respondents answer both questions. Our December 2009 survey results are typical. First, we found 2 percent of likely voters describing their ideology as “libertarian.” Second, over 90 percent of these self-described libertarians were willing to position themselves on a continuum between Left and Right — although they were free to say they were “something else” or “not sure.” Of those who answered the question, 89 percent chose 5 or higher, with most choosing 6, 7, or 8. Here are the average scores for various ideological groups on our 1–9 scale in our December survey:

 

	Average ideological score on a 1-9 scale
Progressive	1.7
Liberal	2.8
Moderate	4.8
Conservative	7.1
Very conservative	8.3
Libertarian	6.4
Total	5.2

 

To be sure, libertarians and conservatives have quite different views on a number of issues. For example, when we ask questions about foreign policy, we find that voters who describe themselves as libertarians often hold views that are a combination of those held by progressive and very conservative voters. Here is just one example:

However, different as conservative and libertarian positions can be on some issues, this appears not to matter very much. The reason is that economic issues are central to the libertarian worldview, and on these issues, libertarians have far more in common with the Right than with the Left. According to our July 2009 survey, 69 percent of conservative and 68 percent of very conservative adults share the view of 64 percent of libertarians that “Economic freedom is the foundation for all other freedoms.” In that survey, we asked: Which of the following issue categories is most important to your current ideology: social/cultural issues (abortion, gay rights, gun control); economic issues (free markets, free trade, union rights); foreign-policy issues (intervention in other countries, national defense); or environmental/energy issues (government subsidies, global warming)?

 

 

Which of the following issue categories is most important to your current ideology:
	Social/ Cultural	Economics	Foreign Policy	Energy/ Environment	Other/ Not Sure
Progressive	35%	23%	8%	25%	10%
Liberal	34%	24%	7%	25%	11%
Moderate	19%	40%	12%	16%	12%
Conservative	24%	47%	15%	5%	9%
Very conservative	38%	37%	13%	4%	8%
Libertarian	17%	60%	8%	4%	11%
Total	25%	38%	12%	14%	11%

 
In the past, we at Zogby were often pestered by libertarians. “We are unfairly forced in your surveys,” they complained, “to choose between two crude views neither of which captures our philosophy.” It was in reaction to their insistence that they are fundamentally different from both liberals and conservatives that we added the “libertarian” category on our ideology question.

In this, we were not alone. Theories have been developed to accommodate ideological patterns that do not fit the somewhat limited Left–Right continuum. For example, The Political Compass has attempted to map attitudes toward economic and social freedom more accurately by creating four possible ideological types (authoritarian Left, authoritarian Right, libertarian Left, and libertarian Right). More elaborately, Brian Mitchell’s Eight Ways to Run the Country uses attitudes toward hierarchy and use of force to establish eight political types, two of which serve merely to disentangle the Hayek from the von Mises variety of libertarianism.

Let us for a moment follow these writers’ assumption that a person’s ideology is solely determined by his policy views. And let us also assume that social and economic liberties can largely be disentangled and that libertarians are as close to liberals on social issues as they are to conservatives on economic ones — a view implicit in the argument for liberaltarianism. Still, our data show that different aspects of ideology are not equally important for a person’s ideological identity, and, somewhat ironically, that this is especially true of libertarians. For all their insistence that liberty has multiple facets, libertarians appear to cherish one of them much more than others. This means that liberaltarians should not hold their breath waiting for self-described libertarians to join them.

Of course, as Kirby and Boaz point out, few people use the libertarian label to describe themselves. Part of the elusive promise of libertarianism as a political force is the assumption that there are plenty of unconscious libertarians, who have a broad, vague preference for both economic and social liberties. However, one has to wonder how much these people care about either of them. If they have not bothered to learn the name of their presumed philosophy, the chances that they are applying it with vigor and consistency to multiple domains must be rather slim. Libertarians proper might indeed derive their issue positions from general principles. But a vast majority of voters do not. Realistically speaking, libertarian philosophy is too abstract for a significant number of voters to have bothered to study it, let alone embrace it.

Political philosophy is cognitively complex and, in principle, allows for endless distinctions to be drawn and combinations of beliefs and convictions to be made. Yet when we look at people — as opposed to ideas — we see that a vast majority of voters have no problem with a binary choice. The Political Compass’s ratings of American politicians typically leave two and sometimes three of their four quadrants empty. Mitchell admitted that, of his eight ideological types, only three play a significant role in American politics.

One reason for this is that ideology is not only a theoretical but also a social category, and someone’s ideological identification depends not only on what he believes about policy but also on what sort of person he wants to be seen as being. Among libertarians, some see themselves as liberal intellectuals made better by their knowledge of economics and hence eager tutors to the partly benighted liberal elite. Others resent liberal intellectuals and feel a psychological kinship with modest men relying on common sense.

As a result, political coalitions depend not merely on compatibility of ideas among various factions but also on psychological affinities that particular people have for one another. Ed Kilgore points to secularism as a possible bridge between libertarians and liberal intellectuals. But he also points out the unacceptable eagerness — from the liberal point of view — with which libertarians have embraced the tea partiers. Our own data suggest that most libertarians find the company of conservatives to be more congenial than that of liberals. As Kirby and Boaz point out, libertarians sometimes part company with Republicans. Yet it is less clear how often, psychologically speaking, they part company with conservatives.

Politics is a social endeavor where practice trumps theory and results trump reasons and justifications. A robust political force should not need so much theoretical refinement and so much data collection for its power to be recognized. The libertarian movement is decades old, has its own party and tens of thousands of pages written on its behalf, and still struggles to be recognized and appreciated. Yet the political significance of the tea-party movement was recognized within months of its coming into existence, without anyone having predicted its arrival and with many still struggling to understand what the tea-partiers stand for. In the end, we find it unlikely that a significant group of voters committed to their philosophy — whatever that philosophy might be — would fail, decade after decade, to put into high office anyone seriously supportive of it.

— John Zogby is president and CEO of Zogby International, a global polling and market-research company. He is the author of The Way We’ll Be: The Zogby Report on the Transformation of the American Dream (Random House, 2008). Zeljka Buturovic is a research associate at Zogby International and co-author of the forthcoming book Tržišno Rešenje (Market Solution).

[Delacon]

As good an explaination of why its called the REPUBLICAN Liberty Caucus instead of the Libertarian Republican caucus as I have ever seen. I am a conservative with some libertarian leanings but I gotta say, come on libertarians and jump in, the water is fine. But then you all never really hop out of the pool in the first place.

[parsifal]

Dude, they snuck into the pool a long time ago. That’s the main problem the GOP has IMHO.

parsy, who wants to fling poop at Libertarians

[Delacon]

Well I wish President Reagan and Barry Goldwater were still around because they would disagree with you. Reagan once said that the best part of the conservative movement was its libertarian inclination that always first asks “Can the private sector do it better”? (going from memory here)

[parsifal]

I know. That was when the GOP started to go off over the libertarian cliff in regard to economics. Now, your everyday conservative believes all kind of libertarian econo-babble.

parsy, who takes his hat off and bows his head to the fallen GOP

[Delacon]

So you are saying that Reagan and Goldwater who basically started the conservative movement immediately drove it off the cliff by welcoming libertarianism into the tent(and they did it early on btw)? William F Buckly, another founder of the conservative movement also did by inviting Frank “Fusionism” Meyer to join his staff at National Review. What you said doesnt make sense dude.

[gogogodzilla]

Parsy, who needs the federal government to tell him,and everyone else, how to spend one’s money and live one’s life.

I hope you don’t supervise anyone at work, because based off your political beliefs, you probably are an extreme micromanager.

[mnehring]

Lowercase “l” libertarians, yes, uppercase “L” no.

[bamahead]

...come on libertarians and jump in, the water is fine. But then you all never really hop out of the pool in the first place...

You're going to need to get the RINO's out of the water first...



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[bamahead]

Careful. We fling back.

[parsifal]

If true, and I assume it is, I suspect the early conservatives knew not what they were letting in under the Big Tent. “Limited” gov’t and “no” gov’t are alike in that each want “less” gov’t than we have now. But the libertarians are like the “every single word in the Bible is literally true” crowd. And they have done to conservatism what the fundies did to religion where you now have otherwise sensible people now think the Earth is only 6,000 years old, and if you don’t believe it, then you are a CINO (Christian in name only.)

So, with the GOP and its conservatives, if you believe in social security, you are a socialist Rino. Ditto for minimum wages, wage and hour laws, worker’s comp laws, child labor laws, FDA, social security, medicare, etc.
Believe in those you and you are a socialist.

Don’t believe me? Wait and see how many “conservatives” jump on this and other posts when social security comes up. or minimum wages. Keep an eye out and you will see what I mean.

Check in on a few “Taxes are going up” threads and listen to the wailing and gnashing of teeth from so-called conservatives who are scared to death that there will not be a rich person to take care of them and give them a job.

This is not “conservatism.” This is libertarian orthodoxy. And it will continue to cripple the GOP. You might get back in power over the Obama reaction. But it is only a reprieve. The GOP has lost its way because of the gov’t-nihiklist libertarians.

parsy, who has experienced all this

[aSeattleConservative]

Very few people claim adherence to libertarian philosophy. Among those who do, a majority identifies with the political Right because of the large role economic freedom plays in libertarian ideology. For the most part, libertarians are a fraction within the conservative coalition — not a stand-alone movement.

Other than both parties agreeing that buying shoddy products from China produced by slave labor is a good thing, I'm not aware of too many more likenesses between republicans and liberaltarians.

Keeping in mind that if you claim you are neutral on a subject, you really are for it (by not enforcing laws against it, you're in support of it):

Conservatives AREN'T for open borders, liberaltarians are.
Conservative AREN'T for abortion: liberaltarians are.
Conservatives believe that homosexuality is an abomination; i.e. they're against same sex deviants marrying. Liberaltarians believe that marriage shouldn't be sanctioned by the state.
Conservatives believe that drug use is harmful to the individual, and thus harmful to society. Liberaltarians think they can do anything they want with their body, as long as it "directly" doesn't hurt anyone else (in other words, they can't see past the ash on their doobie).
Conservatives believe in God and His laws; liberaltarians live in a la la moral relativist land. Even the so-called "Christian libertarians" don't believe that government has a role in punishment. Scripture says differently.

Why sling poop at a party that already wallows in it?

[GovernmentShrinker]

Libertarians are the people who don’t want the government spending your money on having kids put condoms on cucumbers and read “Heather Has Two Mommies” OR on goofy “abstinence education”. Bottom line, libertarians are people who want you to keep your money and spend it on whatever YOU want to. The founding fathers wanted the same thing.

[Delacon]

A very good point. Bush era big governmant, compassionate conservatives should be drowned. I’ll catch heat for this but Huckabee “lets use the government to save their souls” conservatives should meet the same demise.

[bamahead]

You won’t catch any heat from me.

[Delacon]

Frank Meyer once said “A virtue enforced is no virtue at all”. Iows if you force someone to be moral, where is the virtue in that?

[Dead Corpse]

Fling it at me then. Careful though, I'm part monkey and I have very good aim.

As for L/libertarian... I'm a Jeffersonian libertarian. I believe in the full promise of freedom the Founders tried to establish for this Country. I do not feel that "ends justify the means" in most government endeavors as they are uniquely untrustworthy and duplicitous to a fault. I do not believe in a Nanny State, no matter how noble the intentions.

Ready? Set... Fling!!!

[parsifal]

Thank you! I will be careful. After all, Libertarians are experts at disseminating poo.

parsy, who is diving for cover

[Dead Corpse]

So you prefer a socialized/managed economy to a free market? How Democrat of you...

*fling splat*

Gotcha...

[Dead Corpse]

Not since they swallowed the "anti-war at any cost"/9-11 Truther/abortion is OK crap. That was when I fell out with the LP...

What originally attracted me was their RKBA/private property/free market stance. Too bad they don't focus more on that...

[parsifal]

Here is a really good article on the difference between a small government conservative and a Libertarian. I had already formulated my ideas way before I read this, but this guy says it so well, and hits so many points, that it is the best explanation I have ever seen:

http://www.zompist.com/libertos.html

parsy, who hopes you enjoy it