Will Wilkinson on why libertarians feel an increasing affinity for the liberal left rather than the socially conservative right:
with the obsolescence of the anti-communist alliance with
conservatives, many libertarians have sloughed off much of their
previously tactically useful sympathy for socially conservative
initiatives. Freed to be full-on social liberals, many libertarians are
left sensing a much deeper cultural affinity for the left than the
right. And this leads naturally toRead seeing more clearly their
ideological affinities with welfare liberals. And then you read
thinkers like Hayek, Friedman, and Buchanan, and you think: Oh, yes.
This is extremely sensible. And now that the welfare-liberal elite has
become rather more economically literate and is no longer sighing over
five year plans, there is no reason to think they cannot find this
sensible, too.So that’s where I’m at. An old-fashioned market liberal who thinks
Hayek, Friedman, and Buchanan get it right, and who thinks Rawlsian
welfare liberals should be able to recognize themselves in these
thinkers.
Read the full post here. His blog, the Fly Bottle, is stimulating and challenging.