Who’s more libertarian: Paul Ryan or Tom Morello?

Screen Shot 2013-10-12 at 1.34.06 PMI was researching 18th century French economists this afternoon when I stumbled across an interesting tab on the right side of Jean-Baptiste Say’s Wikipedia page.

On the page is a list of the “schools” of libertarianism. It’s a fairly thorough list, and I was familiar with almost every one except for Geolibertarianism, which I’ve decided to bookmark for further research.

What struck me was seeing for the first time the philosophical delineations that can be made amongst the many different kinds of thought associated with the pursuit of liberty. Very often in debates fruitful discussion flies off the tracks with a pointless argument over how ‘libertarian’ someone is or isn’t. I’ve always been of the mind that it’s varying degrees on a left/right scale, where anarchism is total liberty, and to the far right is despotism. But when you take your head out of your own bubble, you can see that it’s a much murkier issue than most ‘libertarians’ might admit.

Consider that any modern libertarian would, by a majority vote, state that Anarchist communists aren’t libertarians. Consider that Libertarian Marxism is here, directly alongside Individualist Anarchism, which would put a Max Stirner side-by-side with a Che Guevera. But they are listed here as part of that same school. Almost all in this school would argue that they are truly libertarians.

How can this be?

Clearly it is because of individual libertarian’s willingness to identify themselves with a particular set of values. And of course, values are subjective and must be chosen freely. But its subjectivity does serve the very satisfying purpose of being able to write off criticisms from those who might question your ‘libertarian bona fides’, if there even is such a thing.

Ask yourself this question. Who is more libertarian: Congressman Paul Ryan or Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello? The answer will tell you more about yourself and your biases rather than successfully settling the issue of which one of them could be technically ‘more’ libertarian than the other. Either one could make a case, and it would still be purely subjective. (Morello famously rebuked Ryan as being “part of the machine” he’s raging against when the congressman claimed to like his music).

"Left" libertarianism is characterized by a tendency to favor both individual freedom and social justice
“Left” libertarianism is characterized by a tendency to favor both individual freedom and social justice

To illustrate this phenomenon are the many readers of The Libertarian Republic that do identify themselves as libertarian socialists. These are people who believe in social safety nets and certain functions that must be centrally planned through institutional government. They do however believe that there are limits to government, whether it be privacy such as the NSA’s spying or on gay marriage. In this they are more libertarian than many conservatives, who may identify as libertarians due to their economic views. Many of these readers write that they read the articles about justice, foreign policy and civil liberties, but profoundly disagree on domestic economics. A great many other readers would claim they are not libertarians for this, but is that really true?

"Right" libertarianism is characterized by a belief in capitalism, property rights, and limited government.
“Right” libertarianism is characterized by a belief in capitalism, property rights, and limited government.

It would seem it really is a waste of time to even discuss if someone is a libertarian, or not. Some people are more libertarian than others. Some may not be libertarian at all. But there is no one who can lay claim to any sort of “true libertarianism”. It would be like former Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart who, when ruling on what constituted obscenity, infamously wrote, ” I know it when I see it…”

Also, what the hell is Panarchism?