“Neoliberal in the streets, libertarian in the sheets.”
I’ve long called myself a libertarian. But I am also pragmatic. And while I may like the idea of a Nozickian nightwatchman state, I’m not going to reject a less ambitious program that increases freedom and human flourishing. So I view most self-described neoliberals as natural allies.
May 16, 2023·edited May 17, 2023Liked by Matt Zwolinski
I'm not sure empiricism vs. rationalism is the best way to understand the neoliberal vs. libertarian divide.
There are two camps that I do not think fit that conceptualization very well: radical Hayekians and also libertarian neoclassical economists. For the former, let me ask how exactly do Don Lavoie-type libertarians fit into that mold? They are pretty strongly anti-rationalist (see Lavoie's own engagement with 20th-century philosophy of science and strongly empiricist neo-pragmatists like Richard Bernstein). Yet, I'd call them far more libertarian in their radical conclusions than neo-liberal. The opposite problem is there for radically libertarian neoclassical economists like David Friedman or Bryan Caplan. They seem quite empiricist in their neoclassical economic orientation yet are very clearly strongly libertarian, consequentialist market anarchists.
Also, how would you fit libertarian thinkers in the Virginia School of Political Economy into this conceptual scheme? Is James Buchanan supposed to be a rationalist libertarian or an empiricist neo-liberal? He seems closer to rationalist than empiricist in epistemology (I could be wrong on that) yet closer to a neo-liberal than a libertarian politically.
Personally, I would probably cringe a bit if you called me a neoliberal (I am closer to a libertarian) and would cringe even harder if you called me a rationalist (my epistemological views are far closer to Rorty or Dewey than Descartes or Spinoza).
I think of the neoliberal/libertarian divide more as a divide of how seriously they take ideal theory, and how usefully they view more idealistic proposals versus ones closer to the status quo than a divide about epistemology. Libertarians are far more comfortable with a higher degree of idealization than neoliberals. There also seems to be a related emotional divide: neoliberals are far more fearful about losing the gains in freedom in the equality status quo liberal democracies have gotten us, and libertarians are far more optimistic about achieving a far more radically free and liberal (in the most radical sense of the term) society without losing those gains. Essentially, I think the difference is more that neoliberals are more small-c conservative than libertarians.
Edit: Was just reminded that Caplan is not actually a consequentialist, but a Rossian pluralist. Regardless, he's definitely not a believer in the type of hyper-rationalist foundationalism you are describing libertarians as doing.
Edit 2: Thinking about this more, if there is an epistemic divide between the two (I'm not convinced there is) it is probably more a divide between more and less foundationalist views of justification rather than empiricism/rationalism--with libertarians being more foundationalist than neoliberals. But even then, the Lavoie-camp is strongly anti-foundationalist yet clearly libertarian.
Great questions, and great examples! I must admit to not being as familiar with Lavoie's work as I should be. That's a deficiency that I've been meaning to correct for a while. I like your point about ideal theory too.
Your point about Caplan seems right to me. And I think Friedman too. Though like Caplan, Friedman has denied being a pure consequentialist.
The problem, it seems to me, is that it seems extremely unlikely that pure consequentialism will yield strictly libertarian conclusions. That it will *never* be the case that some form of government intervention could reasonably be expected to produce better consequences than laissez-faire. The only ways to avoid that conclusion, it seems to me, are to resort to a kind of indirect consequentialism a la Spencer, or to appeal to non-consequentialist considerations when the consequentialist ones run out (what Jeffrey Friedman called the "Libertarian Straddle".)
I cannot recommend deep engagement with Lavoie enough. He might be my biggest intellectual influence. “National Economic Planning: What is Left?” is perhaps my favorite economics book ever published. Further, you’d find his applications of Gadamer’s hermeneutics and twentieth century philosophy of science to questions of economic methodology and social epistemology quite fascinating as a philosopher. Reading Lavoie also turned me on to some of my biggest philosophical influences (Gadamer, Lakatos, Richard Bernstein, etc.)
As for David Friedman, somebody did point out to me that he is not identifying as a consequential these days. I thought he was one both because his old work like Machinery of Freedom seemed to rely nearly exclusively on consequentialist arguments and last I talked to him in person (an SFL conference at University of Michigan I invited him to speak at when I was an undergraduate) he seemed to identify as one. I am either misremembering that (which seems probable) or he has changed his mind since.
Finally, on your points about consequentialism, I am inclined to agree that a consistent consequentialism does not lead to strict libertarianism. However, I do want to do justice for a sec to the a Spencerian indirect consequentialism you allude to could possibly lead to strict libertarianism. If you take what Lavoie calls the knowledge (think Mises-Hayek) and power (think public choice critiques) problems for the state very seriously, it might be the case that a very strong rule against the very existence of the state is the best approximation of act consequentialism. This seems to be what Lavoie is up to (I am unsure what his exact views in ethical theory were) as well as some of his students: e.g., Steve Horwitz used to talk like this a lot. It’s also worth noting that some strictly consequentialist left market anarchists like William Gillis go in this direction.
My concern with all that that the rule against state coercion seems to act more like a deontological (negative) duty than a consequentialist rule in its degree of strength, so I begin to wonder whether these thinkers really are being good consequentialists. Also, there are obvious and big empirical concerns as to whether such a strict rule against government coercion can be empirically justified as approximating act consequentialism in the first place.
At any rate, I am not a consequentialist to begin with so can stay content riding the libertarian straddle as is consistent with pluralist deontology.
“ nobody puts baby in a corner”. Great article about first principles. I’m not a philosopher. So libertarians have first principles. But there must be some meaning in the word “first“ implying there are other principles that follow. I might phrase it: “the initiation of force is wrong.“ The body politic, then wishes to impose by force the detailed content of a voluntary employment contract. Such a law, if you can call it a law, certainly violates the first principle. Now what? To me the second principle is what I would call the “burden of proof.“ Take the minimum wage law as an example. It is justified if and only if all contracts to which it applies have some inherent unfairness. I can think of 1000’s of reasons why sub minimum wage contracts are just and absolutely proper. Therefore minimum wage laws, to me, never pass the burden of proof to become real law. On the other hand driving 70 mph on a busy residential street passes my burden. I’m not sure I helped.
An excellent and pithy distinction! Interestingly, it seems to imply a lot of the people who modernly write on libertarianism/write for handbooks on libertarianism/are often called libertarians are in fact neoliberals. Seems correct to me, but any student approaching this area of political philosophy is doomed to be confused by all the inconsistent labeling.
I see the balancing of competing priorities as just accepting the need for political compromise. My personal ethic is libertarian, but if I want to actually make the world better/freer, I need to engage with the fact that most of my countrymen are not libertarian and embrace incremental compromise. Acknowledging tradeoffs is how compromise works.
Some people care about liberty, others about equality, others about reducing suffering, others about adhering to God's will, etc. - but pretty much everyone cares about consequences. They're the tiebreaker of universal appeal. So if I trade 5 units of liberty for 100 units of equality on one issue in exchange for an egalitarian doing the same in reverse, the world gets 95 units freer and more equal and everybody wins, etc. I've found the neoliberals are better at thinking that pragmatically and quantitatively than most of our other national tribes.
“Neoliberal in the streets, libertarian in the sheets.”
I’ve long called myself a libertarian. But I am also pragmatic. And while I may like the idea of a Nozickian nightwatchman state, I’m not going to reject a less ambitious program that increases freedom and human flourishing. So I view most self-described neoliberals as natural allies.
I'm not sure empiricism vs. rationalism is the best way to understand the neoliberal vs. libertarian divide.
There are two camps that I do not think fit that conceptualization very well: radical Hayekians and also libertarian neoclassical economists. For the former, let me ask how exactly do Don Lavoie-type libertarians fit into that mold? They are pretty strongly anti-rationalist (see Lavoie's own engagement with 20th-century philosophy of science and strongly empiricist neo-pragmatists like Richard Bernstein). Yet, I'd call them far more libertarian in their radical conclusions than neo-liberal. The opposite problem is there for radically libertarian neoclassical economists like David Friedman or Bryan Caplan. They seem quite empiricist in their neoclassical economic orientation yet are very clearly strongly libertarian, consequentialist market anarchists.
Also, how would you fit libertarian thinkers in the Virginia School of Political Economy into this conceptual scheme? Is James Buchanan supposed to be a rationalist libertarian or an empiricist neo-liberal? He seems closer to rationalist than empiricist in epistemology (I could be wrong on that) yet closer to a neo-liberal than a libertarian politically.
Personally, I would probably cringe a bit if you called me a neoliberal (I am closer to a libertarian) and would cringe even harder if you called me a rationalist (my epistemological views are far closer to Rorty or Dewey than Descartes or Spinoza).
I think of the neoliberal/libertarian divide more as a divide of how seriously they take ideal theory, and how usefully they view more idealistic proposals versus ones closer to the status quo than a divide about epistemology. Libertarians are far more comfortable with a higher degree of idealization than neoliberals. There also seems to be a related emotional divide: neoliberals are far more fearful about losing the gains in freedom in the equality status quo liberal democracies have gotten us, and libertarians are far more optimistic about achieving a far more radically free and liberal (in the most radical sense of the term) society without losing those gains. Essentially, I think the difference is more that neoliberals are more small-c conservative than libertarians.
Edit: Was just reminded that Caplan is not actually a consequentialist, but a Rossian pluralist. Regardless, he's definitely not a believer in the type of hyper-rationalist foundationalism you are describing libertarians as doing.
Edit 2: Thinking about this more, if there is an epistemic divide between the two (I'm not convinced there is) it is probably more a divide between more and less foundationalist views of justification rather than empiricism/rationalism--with libertarians being more foundationalist than neoliberals. But even then, the Lavoie-camp is strongly anti-foundationalist yet clearly libertarian.
Great questions, and great examples! I must admit to not being as familiar with Lavoie's work as I should be. That's a deficiency that I've been meaning to correct for a while. I like your point about ideal theory too.
Your point about Caplan seems right to me. And I think Friedman too. Though like Caplan, Friedman has denied being a pure consequentialist.
The problem, it seems to me, is that it seems extremely unlikely that pure consequentialism will yield strictly libertarian conclusions. That it will *never* be the case that some form of government intervention could reasonably be expected to produce better consequences than laissez-faire. The only ways to avoid that conclusion, it seems to me, are to resort to a kind of indirect consequentialism a la Spencer, or to appeal to non-consequentialist considerations when the consequentialist ones run out (what Jeffrey Friedman called the "Libertarian Straddle".)
I cannot recommend deep engagement with Lavoie enough. He might be my biggest intellectual influence. “National Economic Planning: What is Left?” is perhaps my favorite economics book ever published. Further, you’d find his applications of Gadamer’s hermeneutics and twentieth century philosophy of science to questions of economic methodology and social epistemology quite fascinating as a philosopher. Reading Lavoie also turned me on to some of my biggest philosophical influences (Gadamer, Lakatos, Richard Bernstein, etc.)
As for David Friedman, somebody did point out to me that he is not identifying as a consequential these days. I thought he was one both because his old work like Machinery of Freedom seemed to rely nearly exclusively on consequentialist arguments and last I talked to him in person (an SFL conference at University of Michigan I invited him to speak at when I was an undergraduate) he seemed to identify as one. I am either misremembering that (which seems probable) or he has changed his mind since.
Finally, on your points about consequentialism, I am inclined to agree that a consistent consequentialism does not lead to strict libertarianism. However, I do want to do justice for a sec to the a Spencerian indirect consequentialism you allude to could possibly lead to strict libertarianism. If you take what Lavoie calls the knowledge (think Mises-Hayek) and power (think public choice critiques) problems for the state very seriously, it might be the case that a very strong rule against the very existence of the state is the best approximation of act consequentialism. This seems to be what Lavoie is up to (I am unsure what his exact views in ethical theory were) as well as some of his students: e.g., Steve Horwitz used to talk like this a lot. It’s also worth noting that some strictly consequentialist left market anarchists like William Gillis go in this direction.
My concern with all that that the rule against state coercion seems to act more like a deontological (negative) duty than a consequentialist rule in its degree of strength, so I begin to wonder whether these thinkers really are being good consequentialists. Also, there are obvious and big empirical concerns as to whether such a strict rule against government coercion can be empirically justified as approximating act consequentialism in the first place.
At any rate, I am not a consequentialist to begin with so can stay content riding the libertarian straddle as is consistent with pluralist deontology.
“ nobody puts baby in a corner”. Great article about first principles. I’m not a philosopher. So libertarians have first principles. But there must be some meaning in the word “first“ implying there are other principles that follow. I might phrase it: “the initiation of force is wrong.“ The body politic, then wishes to impose by force the detailed content of a voluntary employment contract. Such a law, if you can call it a law, certainly violates the first principle. Now what? To me the second principle is what I would call the “burden of proof.“ Take the minimum wage law as an example. It is justified if and only if all contracts to which it applies have some inherent unfairness. I can think of 1000’s of reasons why sub minimum wage contracts are just and absolutely proper. Therefore minimum wage laws, to me, never pass the burden of proof to become real law. On the other hand driving 70 mph on a busy residential street passes my burden. I’m not sure I helped.
Subscribe to my Substack then The Neoliberal Standard. Excellent piece
An excellent and pithy distinction! Interestingly, it seems to imply a lot of the people who modernly write on libertarianism/write for handbooks on libertarianism/are often called libertarians are in fact neoliberals. Seems correct to me, but any student approaching this area of political philosophy is doomed to be confused by all the inconsistent labeling.
I see the balancing of competing priorities as just accepting the need for political compromise. My personal ethic is libertarian, but if I want to actually make the world better/freer, I need to engage with the fact that most of my countrymen are not libertarian and embrace incremental compromise. Acknowledging tradeoffs is how compromise works.
Some people care about liberty, others about equality, others about reducing suffering, others about adhering to God's will, etc. - but pretty much everyone cares about consequences. They're the tiebreaker of universal appeal. So if I trade 5 units of liberty for 100 units of equality on one issue in exchange for an egalitarian doing the same in reverse, the world gets 95 units freer and more equal and everybody wins, etc. I've found the neoliberals are better at thinking that pragmatically and quantitatively than most of our other national tribes.