alternet | These four libertarian/conservative dystopias are offered, as Rod
Serling used to say in "The Twilight Zone," "for your consideration."
The “Libertarian/Conservative”
I’ve
qualified my previous writings on libertarianism with disclaimers
explaining that I’m addressing a specific, popular subset of libertarian
thought. But I’ve still run afoul of dozens of people who say, “I’m a
libertarian and I don’t think those things.” I’ve still received
comments like those from David Brin, who correctly notes that I’m not addressing libertarians like Friedrich Hayek in my criticism.
True.
But Hayek ain’t in the saddle these days. Ayn Rand is leading the
posse, to the extent any intellectual figure is. But I'll put my
disclaimer upfront this time: I acknowledge that, as
libertarian-friendly writer John Danaher puts it, “’libertarianism’ has come to denote a broad, often fractious, group of political theories.”
I
suppose it’s only fitting that a philosophy celebrating competing
markets would, to a certain extent, be a set of competing markets
itself.
But it seems even clearer that a “libertarian”
in today’s political environment is almost always someone who ascribes
to certain core philosophies: He abhors government, hates taxation, and
is hostile to collective action on behalf of the less fortunate. Name
any prominent modern libertarian—Ayn Rand, Paul Ryan, Ron Paul, Peter
Thiel, Rand Paul—and they are likely to fit this description.
These
figures represent a singular and increasingly dominant libertarian
vision. To avoid future confusion, I'll give their brand of thought an
admittedly imperfect name: “libertarian/conservative.” It is that
vision, and their future, which I address here—and it's a frightening
future.
