Post-Socialism Libertarianism?

Will Wilkinson coins an awkward, though needed, term: "liberaltarianism." Liberaltarianism is basically libertarian political philosophy with a welfare state, which to many libertarians is a contradiction. But, Wilkinson notes that Hayek, Friedman and Buchanan all believed simultaneously in the central importance of individual liberty (and the institutions that supported economic efficiency) and a social safety net. Hayek, for instance, famously has a little aside in The Road to Serfdom where he, to many libertarians, embarrassingly defends the minimum wage. I think for that reason, and probably the fact that he wasn't as rabid an ideologue (at least compared to many in this camp), Ayn Rand held him with extreme suspicion. Milton Friedman advocated for a negative income tax, which today exists in our very effective earned income tax credit, which distributes funds to poor working families. The EITC has surpassed the older model of AFDC in terms of its size and plausibly its effectiveness (insofar as you believe in the dignity of work, the EITC seems superior to the AFDC block grants, and the TANF program which replaced it).

I blog on this because I think the strength of the libertarian political philosophy - and especially its strong association with Christian morality, as evidenced by the way in which the ideas moved so closely with evangelicalism in the United States - was much clearer when the world was seriously considering socialism as a way of organizing society's resources. Because socialism was such an extreme position, in which the state owned the means of production and the individual oftentimes became lost in that collectivism, as well as the corruption that socialism inevitably bred in countries that implemented it (resulting in both massive loss of life, plunder and disastrous economic outcomes), libertarianism which protected the individual from the state's coercion by placing legal constraints on the state's ability to seize property, was a slam dunk. This, not to mention the clear economic arguments against a society that forewent the price system which showed it was not a sustainable longrun equilibrium, made libertarian political philosophy (which was drew heavily on classical liberal economists) viable. But communism is no longer a threat to the world. My students were born after all that ended, and while libertarians now continually refight these battles against academic Marxists in literature departments, or wherever else that sect has retreated, for the most part socialism is not really on the table anywhere in the industrialized society. To always cast current economic debates, like universal healthcare, as simply a retreat into socialism is, I think, more a distraction than it is helpful (at best). The fact of the matter is, as a science, economic theory neither supports or endorses extreme libertarian political philosophy (the discovery of and careful elucidation of market failure is just one example), nor does it endorse progressivism. There's enough in modern economic theory to help you make your argument, but it does it for your opponent, too. So you're left with a choice of either picking and choosing, which I find intellectually dishonesty, or acknowledging that there's not as much in the science as you'd want to bang down your preferred ideology. For some of us, though, that is what makes economics so appealing - with its emphasis on logic, rationality and evidence, ideology has a hard time surviving in the environment. Ideology, in my experience, has trouble really blossoming in such a soil. So I find Wilkinenson's article really refreshing, and echoes some of my own sympathies.

But that means I'm left with basic questions about Christian morality and the economy that I can't simply answer by appealing to libertarian political philosophy like I once could. Now, much of this I do agree with, but it's mainly a matter of degree. How much of libertarianism is prudence, for instance, and how much of it is dogma? I'm teaching an ethics component to my principles of microeconomics class in the fall, and so for the first time in literally years am going back and rethinking the relationship between Christianity and capitalism. My leanings are much closer to that of Wilkinson's "liberaltarianism" than it is to libertarianism or conservatism, but those are kind of empty phrases to me too. I mainly believe economic efficiency is a valid goal, and secondly, believe that institutions should be protected which provide the individual with greatest choice so as to facilitate voluntary transactions. In other words, I'm a boring economist who believes in market failures, thinks government should be involved in correcting them, but who is also aware that government failures are sometimes worse. That puts me in the center, I think. The real challenge is to test those beliefs, borne out of mainstream economic theory, against a standard of Christian ethics - coherent enough to include in a class. Too bad Wilkinson doesn't have a book, otherwise I'd use it. I'm especially bummed that this book won't be out til November, otherwise I'd use it.