As I was falling asleep last night, in that kinda in between space between wake and slumber, the words “left-libertarian” popped into my head. I had no idea why, but it was curious, I thought about it for a bit.
Part of the reason I believe was having listened to and being impressed (in some ways) with this blogginghead diavlog between Kerry Howley (from Reason) and Will Wilkinson (from Cato) on left-leaning libertarian immigration policy, especially guest worker programs.
Then today doing my blogging reading, I come across this article (h/t A.Sullivan) where Daniel Koffler argues that Obama’s governance philosophy should be called, you guessed it, “left-libertarian“. Now, that’s interesting.
Koffler discusses Obama’s main economics advisor Austin Goolsbee (a behavioral economist). Like all liberals, there is a concern about access to services like health care, quality education, job market, etc. But the difference is in what causal factors are involved and what should be done about them–as opposed to what Koffler calls “liberal orthodoxy” (think: John Edwards, Mario Cuomo, Paul Krugman–and Koffler thinks increasing Hilary Clinton, though that’s debatable, though she has struck a few anti-trade chords of late).
Koffler’s conclusion:
If this approach needs a name, call it left-libertarianism. Advancements in behavioural economics, public and rational choice theory, and game theory provide us with an opportunity to attend to inequality without crippling the economy, enhancing the coercive power of the state, or infringing on personal liberty (at least not to any extent greater than the welfare state already does; and as much as my libertarian friends might wish otherwise, the welfare state isn’t going anywhere). The cost – higher marginal tax rates – is real, but eminently justified by the benefits.
Again that last sentence is debatable, but on the whole I think it could be correct, if implemented properly.
The key link is between freedom of movement/labor and globalization. I have more study to do (a lot) in behavioral economics & game theory–though I do know that game theory gels well with evolutionary theory/psychology, see Nonzero by Bob Wright on the subject, also an Obama supporter interestingly.
Movement of people and labor in a globalized world also means movement of religion, cultures, languages (some dying, others hybridized), which links with Obama’s biography but also his sense about culture, race, and the need for discourse–from the “evil” Republicans to the “evil” Iranians.
I can’t find myself on board with the Club for Growth extreme anti-tax fundamentalism. I’m not on for WWIV neo-con uber war hawking. Nor old fashioned realist foreign policy either. Not down for top-down Democratic bureaucratic increase. And definitely can’t jive with the anti-immigration stuff coming from the right and Lou Dobbs-left. Nor the global warming catastrophizing Bali-Kyoto style of politics. Nor the Harry Reid Congressional Democratic types.
But this type of thinking prima facie (again more study/thought req’d) makes much more sense to me. I really like Koffler’s notion that this left-lib. is “orthogonal” to the traditional conservative-liberal axis.
Obama needs to start pushing policy differences to the Clintonian triangulation. Needs to add some meat to the sometimes rather abstract rhetoric of a new way forward. Hope with steely eyed clear thought behind it. He also needs to hammer home that his campaign style is more insurgent, grass-roots than an establishment run (though John Kerry’s endorsement may hurt not help that image).
[...] and the institute from Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus. This fits well I think with the left-libertarian [...]
Good thoughts, Chris.
fwiw, imho, and at the risk of over generalizing…
Obama leans Left Libertarian, while Clinton leans Left Authoritarian. They both generally agree on the ends desired, such as greater social and economic equality and security, but tend to advocate means that are, respectively, more Authoritarian or more Libertarian.
In contrast, Giuliani leans Right Authoritarian, while Paul leans Right Libertarian, and we can see most of their differences arising along this axis of centralized vs. decentralized power and wealth.
Clinton had been positioning herself as a centrist Authoritarian in the context of the Right Authoritarian ascendency post-9-11, pre-2006-elections. But with the Right Authoritarians looking increasingly corrupt, especially from the very effective critique of the Right Libertarians (e.g., Paul, Rockwell, Higgs), and with the Left Authoritarians being challenged from a surprise LL candidate like Obama (not to mention Kucinich, Gravel, and to some extent the new Gore), look for Clinton to position herself in the center of both axes, Triangulation-Squared.
My preference for Obama is to move toward a Centrist Libertarianism, inspiring people to shift the balance of power back from the center to the periphery, balancing social and economic freedom, transcending the old stagnant debate between status quo Left and Right Authoritarians, thereby out-flanking, out-triangulating Clinton (and Romney, who is another protean triangulator). “Yes we can!”
Anyway, just some thoughts…
Those are some brilliant thoughts my friend.
Do you know any good books/thinkers on things behavioral economics, game theory, and the like?
Any good left or centrist libertarian tracts (minus your own writings)?
Peace.
Chris
Chris,
Sorry for the delay. For behavioral econ, the definitive source is Kahnman and Tversky, Choices, Values, and Frames. These are the psychologists who did the most to establish the foundation of behavioral econ and finance. One has passed away and the other recently won the Nobel Prize for their joint work. For game theory, Osborne and Rubinstein, A Course in Game Theory is a good solid source. It includes a very good presentation of Nash equilibrium, which is a helpful frame for interpreting the international economic strategies of the great powers of the world (e.g., competitive currency devaluation). Fair warning: Both are dry academic treatments. If you want to read something that applies some of these ideas to the real world, check out Shiller’s Irrational Exuberance.
BE was a revelation in econ primarily because it used rigorously empirical methods to discover that individuals are not perfectly rational maximizers. Who would’ve thought? GT was a revelation because it gave economists a way to think about interactions between competitors in a market system., e.g., the idea that one firm’s strategy will take into consideration expectations about the strategies of other competing firms. To business strategists like myself who practice in the real world, these are far from revelatory. But they are very important to the extent that we want to ground market theory in empirically disconfirmable propositions–which I do, in my alter-ego as a market theorist.
My own contribution to this line of inquiry is to apply the action science of Argyris to market theory, as it is deeper than any of the theories in behavioral economics and game theory. It is also dialogical, deeply intersubjective, which is lacking in all the GT and BE models. As a matter of fact, I am not aware of a single other dialogical theory of the market in existence today.
As for Left Libertarianism, I think Habermas’s Theory of Communicative Action, together with Argyris’s real-world application in Action Science, contribute much to an understanding of how people engage and transform even subtle forms of social coercion and systematically distorted discourse to generate shared understanding in dialogue. This is my own basic vision of the LL potential, so I don’t know if others would agree. And of course JH and CA don’t identify their work as LL, but it seems clear enough to me that they are libertarian critiques of authoritarianism, born as they were in the wake of Naziism as a way to preclude future and, most importantly, less overt forms of authoritarianism (any examples come to mind?). And in the case of JH this libertarianism is accompanied by a persistent and in my view deeply flawed Marxist critique of the market economy, thus suggesting a Left-bias of at least JH’s libertarianism.
As for Right Libertarianism, I think Rothbard, For a New Liberty, and Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty, are the best. Higgs, Crisis and Leviathan, applies to great effect this form of RL to an analysis of the growth of the American state (i.e., any crisis will do as a justification to increase the size and power of the centralized state, which then persists long after the crisis has passed).
For all their insight into the machinery of authoritarianism, the RLs display an interesting lack of awareness of dialogical intersubjectivism, particularly the subtle coercion and systematically distorted discourse that pervades even the “free” market they champion. This again is uniquely my own critique of the market and all market theories without exception. It’s also the reason why I regard them as Right Libs, even though they regard themeselves as Libs against both Left and Right.
By integrating the strengths of the LLs with the strengths of the RLs, overcoming their respective weaknesses, I am attempting to offer a more balanced praxis that can create economic and social value simultaneously.
Apologies for the long-winded comment… this stuff is close to home for me.
Daniel
No apologies. I love this stuff and totally appreciate your thoughtful comment.
Argyris sounds very solid.
One thing that worries me with the current crop of candidates–both sides really–is who would be a budget equalizer? Not the Dems it seems–unless Hillary were to pull a re-do of Bill and run as more progressive and then govern as basically an economic moderate Republican. But if she has a Democratic Congress I wouldn’t expect it and the push, esp. on health care is getting too forceful I think from the ground.
Obama, as much as I love the guy, doesn’t seem particularly worried about how much his programs would cost.
McCain will keep us in Iraq forever so there goes the budget with him. Giuliani would keep us occupying half the Middle East, so not much with him.
I guess Romney could run (and actually govern) as a businessman keep the books Rockefeller Republican. Though with a Dem Congress it might just be gridlock. But he might also just be another Bush sell off the government to establishment cronies kinda Republican too for all I know.
Chris,
I think a balanced federal budget is off the table for years to come. Frankly, I don’t think it will be politically feasible for anyone’s first term.
The market economy is now very clearly in the midst of a deflationary-recessionary system dynamic wherein money-credit and productive output are both contracting. This is what the early stages of a depression look like in this unique new era. It may not come to pass as a full-blown deflationary-recession, but the basic system structure is in place and the dynamics are working in predictable ways.
The Feds already are and will continue to do everything possible to inflate money-credit and GDP over the next several years, fighting the market system’s natural drive to reduce asset prices (primarily housing, but also stocks and soon enough commercial real estate) and write-off the associated debt.
They did this with surprising effectiveness beginning in 2000, but at that time they had a balanced budget and a housing sector not yet maxed out in terms of debt and asset prices. Now they are in a desperate situation, far worse than the 2000 scenario and about all they have left in their conventional policy arsenal is to maintain massive budget deficits that are monetized by the Federal Reserve (i.e., the Fed buying new treasury securites to fund the deficits as a way to automatically create new money and thereby inflate GDP via excessive government spending). If they were to spend this extra $300B a year on domestic infrastructure and clean technology, rather than weapons that are destroyed in their use to destroy other people’s capital structure, then the deficits might not be nearly so bad for the economy.
Beyond this, look to the Fed to start systematically buying Treasury securities on the open market as a way to lower long-term interest rates–very unconventional, though I suspect they are already doing this now. They are also likely buying stocks through their secret accounts on Wall Street in order to preclude a crash.
This is serious game time for these guys, so from their perspective another 4 years of deficits is not only not a problem, but a key part of the short-term solution to a bigger problem than they will ever admit publicly.
Just some thoughts…
Daniel
yikes. looks like I need to buy some gold.
how’s your book coming btw?
Chris
The book has been on hold for 4.5 years while we moved and built a house. Crazy idea, far more time-consuming than i had anticipated. As the house nears completion, I’m looking forward to writing again, and blogging.
The book I was writing then will never be written as originally planned. But I will find time eventually to publish the core thesis and probably aim for a series of academic articles in peer-reviewed journals.
Thanks for asking.
[...] looking back over my blog, I noticed these comments to a post of mine from my friend Daniel O’Connor. He wrote the following on Jan 23rd of this year. That’s January of 2008. [...]
[...] looking back over my blog, I noticed these comments to a post of mine from my friend Daniel O’Connor. He wrote the following on Jan 23rd of this year. That’s January of 2008. [...]