US Representative Justin Amash (R-MI) is far from the first, and is unlikely to be the last, politician to equate libertarianism and conservatism (“Rep. Justin Amash: Conservative and libertarian ‘basically the same philosophy,'” by Jack Hunter, Rare, February 16).
But the comparison is not only just plain wrong: It benefits supporters of statism on both the putative “left” and “right” at the expense of liberty. It allows conservative politicians to pretend to be libertarians (pandering to, and often fooling, libertarian-leaning voters) and “progressive” politicians to falsely caricature libertarians as conservatives (so as to preemptively defeat libertarian ideas without having to actually engage them).
It’s not that conservative politicians can never be “libertarian-leaning,” as Amash himself arguably is (a rarity among conservatives, he actually DOES usually vote against big government instead of just talking the “smaller government” talk out of one side of his mouth while growing government as fast as he can with the other). It’s that any similarities between libertarianism and conservatism are contingent and coincidental, not essential.
The central tenet of libertarianism is liberty. While there’s considerable debate within the libertarian movement itself as to the nature and scope of the liberty to be protected, libertarians generally defend the freedom to do as one wills, provided one does not coercively infringe the freedom of others.
The central tenet of conservatism is conservation. Similarly, there’s considerable debate within the conservative movement as to WHAT must be “conserved” — Amash wants to “conserve” the long-dead “classical liberal principles” of America’s founders, which are nominally libertarian in many respects; some conservatives would repeal the New Deal and “conserve” Coolidgeism; most modern conservatives want to “save” the New Deal by putting it on a more reasonable fiscal footing, but would love to ditch the Great Society — but once again there’s no doubt about conservatism’s philosophical lodestar: “Protecting” society from radical change.
To explain the difference in terms of one issue, take same-sex marriage:
For libertarians, the answer to “should a same-sex couple be permitted to marry?” is “it neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg — end of discussion.” Libertarians have held this position ever since the issue first came to their attention.
Conservatives, on the other hand, are at odds with each other on it.
Amash, for example, tweeted last year that the “[r]eal threat to traditional marriage & religious liberty is government, not gay couples who love each other & want to spend lives together” — a libertarian answer, but also the answer one would expect from someone who wants to “conserve” a Madisonian/Jeffersonian view of government’s role.
Then there are conservatives (e.g. Jonah Goldberg) who now tentatively support, or have at least stopped actively opposing, same-sex marriage because they regard the fight as pretty much over. They’re coming around to “conserving” the emerging new status quo rather than the old one.
And of course there are conservatives who still want to “conserve” a past in which same-sex marriage was illegal. They’re afraid of the prospective effect of rapid and radical social change on existing institutions (and power/authority relations), and want to use the force of the state, in a very un-libertarian way, to stop and/or reverse that social change. This is the conservatism which, per William F. Buckley, Jr., “stands athwart history, yelling Stop, at a time when no one is inclined to do so, or to have much patience with those who so urge it.”
As an anarchist — a libertarian who takes the principle all the way and advocates the abolition of the state — I think that Amash wastes his libertarian pearls by casting them before congressional swine. On the other hand, I can’t really hold it against him and it’s nice to see someone speaking truth to power on Capitol Hill. I just wish he’d give up the silly notion that “conservatives” can ever be more than temporary allies of convenience.
Citations to this article:
- Thomas L. Knapp, No, Congressman Amash, Conservatism Is Not Libertarianism, Before It’s News, 02/17/14
Conservatism is not libertarianism, but surely paleoconservatism and paleolibertarianism are identical. They're certainly indistinguishable to me. I'm much more at peace with and even in solidarity with anarcho-capitalists (who aren't paleo) than I am with paleolibertarianism, which I consider an enemy ideology.
My recent post Humanist Centrism
FORGET, PLEASE, modern “conservatism.” It has been a failure because it has been, operationally, de facto, Godless. In the political/civil government realm it has ignored Christ and what Scripture says about the role and purpose of civil government. Thus, it failed. Such secular conservatism will not defeat secular liberalism because to God they are two atheistic peas-in-a-pod and thus predestined to failure. As Stonewall Jackson's Chief of Staff R.L. Dabney said of such a humanistic belief more than 100 years ago:
”[Secular conservatism] is a party which never conserves anything. Its history has been that it demurs to each aggression of the progressive party, and aims to save its credit by a respectable amount of growling, but always acquiesces at last in the innovation. What was the resisted novelty of yesterday is today one of the accepted principles of conservatism; it is now conservative only in affecting to resist the next innovation, which will tomorrow be forced upon its timidity and will be succeeded by some third revolution; to be denounced and then adopted in its turn.
“American conservatism is merely the shadow that follows Radicalism as it moves forward towards perdition. It remains behind it, but never retards it, and always advances near its leader. This pretended salt hath utterly lost its savor: wherewith shall it be salted? Its impotency is not hard, indeed, to explain. It is worthless because it is the conservatism of expediency only, and not of sturdy principle. It intends to risk nothing serious for the sake of the truth."
In any event, “politics,” for the most part today, is whoring after false gods. It will not save us. Our country is turning into Hell because the church in America has forgotten God (Psalm 9:17) and refuses to kiss His Son (Psalm 2.) See, please, 2 Chronicles 7:14ff for the way to get our land healed.
John Lofton, Recovering Republican
Dir., The God And Government Project
Active Facebook Wall https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-God-And-Govern…
JLof@aol.com
I am an atheist and an anarchist and you, sir, are the enemy!
Conservatives seem quite lost, grasping at ideologies as their demographic shrinks. In terms of war, immigration, and drug laws, I imagine your average US libertarian would find more in common with the Democratic Party rhetoric, although the party's actions betray them. It's about priorities really: A libertarian with a deeper understanding of liberty beyond "no taxes!" should see right through the conservative's ruse.
My prediction: The Republican Party is either going to become the de facto Libertarian/Liberal Party (that is, state-capitalist with no emphasis on social issues) or become irrelevant. Anarchists will have little to celebrate about either way, as their form of "Libertarianism" is far removed from our understanding of it, being nothing more than another rationalization for the economic status quo.
you're on the wrong site, pally. Kindly take this God and Government nonsense and GTFO. Kindly
With regard to US politics, liberal and conservative look set to be replaced by progressive and libertarian as identifiers for the centre-left and centre-right respectively.
Translated, this means social democracy versus libertarian capitalism (or right-libertarianism).
I can only hope that the libertarian Left can somehow try to reclaim the word and finally disseminate into mainstream consciousness the alternative to statism and capitalism which has always been there: horizontal organisation based on voluntary cooperation and participatory democracy.