On Libertarian Taxonomy

Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Over at the Bleeding Heart Libertarians blog, Andrew Cohen made a post presenting a possible taxonomy for liberalism and libertarianism. Needless to say, I find some of the definitions to be fairly incomplete if not incorrect. 

For example, libertarianism in general is defined as follows:

"Libertarianism: A family of liberal views that take negative liberty (freedom from interference) to be the most important (and guiding) value in the organization of a just state, insisting it must be present for all. (Some call this “classical liberalism.”)"

There are two main objections to this that I see. The first objection is that not all libertarians think that there is necessarily a dichotomy between positive and negative liberty, or make no concessions to some sense of positive liberty, therefore they can't take the position that negative liberty takes precedence. Are these people (most likely to come from the ALLiance left-libertarian category briefly touched on later in the blogpost) not libertarians? The second objection is the obvious one that will come up for those who consider themselves libertarian anarchists: the pretense of the organization of a "just state" doesn't exist for libertarian anarchists. This paragraph therefore fails as a general definition of libertarianism.

The next issue I see is that there seems to be little ground for distinguishing "Bleeding Heart Libertarians" from "Right-Libertarians", given the definitions in question. Cohen's post defines "right-libertarianism" as follows:

"“Right” Libertarians: A family of libertarian (and hence liberal) views that take property rights in external goods (often justified with appeal to self-ownership) to be absolute or nearly absolute. That emphasis sometimes makes them consider coercive redistribution to be necessarily immoral. Some (perhaps most) in this family may nonetheless agree that it is a benefit of the view that if instantiated, most would do better than if society was organized along other lines."

It defines "BHL's" as follows:

"A family of libertarian (and hence liberal) views that also share a deep concern to prevent suffering (and perhaps promote at least minimal individual well-being). Some in this camp may approve of limited government interventions to end suffering; all agree that allowing individuals extensive (negative) liberty is likely to create the least suffering possible. Some may favor pretty strong, if not absolute property rights."

Aside from the vague part about "a deep concern to prevent suffering", the definition of BHL as being focused on negative liberty and favoring strong if not absolute property rights just blends it right back in with both the definition of "right-libertarianism" and the general definition of libertarianism. The only real distinguishing feature I can see from this description is "some in this camp may approve of limited government interventions to end suffering", which is vague enough to make BHL not particular distinguishable from the definition of minarchism that is given in the same post:

"Minimal State or Minarchist BHLs: A family of BHL views that take government to be an element of the state that should be used to protect individuals, especially their negative liberty, but sometimes also minimal levels of well-being."

If we remove the minarchism vs. libertarian anarchism issue, we end up with BHL being defined very loosely as "utilitarian right-libertarians with a social concience". I say "utilitarian" because there is the premise that strong or absolute property rights and negative liberty will produce the greatest good for the greatest number (or, reframed in the negative language used, the least suffering for the least number). If we add explicit minarchism to the definition, then there's not much basis to distinguish Ludwig Von Mises from BHL.

If the only distinguishing feature of BHL's vs. other libertarians is that the former are capable of thinking about people's suffering (which I would say is basic empathy that anyone espousing any political philosophy should have) while maintaining more or less the same positions as the other libertarians in substance then it doesn't seem like much is going on here. There don't appear to be much grounds for considering something a particularly new or distinguished political philosophy on such a basis.

The taxonomy also flubs when it gets to defining "left-libertarianism". It defines it as follows:

“Left” Libertarians (“LLs”): A family of libertarian (and hence liberal) views that take liberty to be of such value that it must be distributed equally (and may believe the “Right” Libertarian way of defining and emphasizing property rights hinders that). Likely also to take equal opportunity of well-being as a value, but to consider it extensionally equivalent to equal liberty. Some in this camp limit property rights in natural resources, perhaps defining property (or the bundle of rights that it is) in such a way that makes this clear.

"Left-libertarianism" is a term that's been used to cover everything from anarcho-communism to Noam Chomsky to Hillel Steiner to agorism. This definition simply can't do it justice, or make the necessary distinctions between different usages of "left-libertarian" (as far as I'm aware, there are at least three, as I just touched on: libertarian socialism or social anarchism, Steiner's views, and the ALLiance of the Libertarian Left sense of the term). It would seem to be the case that this definition mostly focuses on the ALL sense of the term, and doesn't even necessarily do that justice either.

Based on the definition given, there doesn't seem to be too much of a basis to distinguish LL's from regular libertarians, other than the vague statement that "some" LL's limit property rights in natural resources (but then, so do right-libertarian minarchists in a way), or the vague statement that the "right-libertarian" emphasis on property rights is seen as hindering "equal liberty". And "equal liberty" is also supported by the right-libertarian in their own terms; afterall, everyone has "self-ownership" and the same "property rights" over what they "justly" own in that view. Other things just aren't considered liberty. I suppose "equal oppurtunity of well-being" could be seen as a point of contention between the two, but if LL's considering it "extensionally equivolent to equal liberty" means "reducing it to the more fundamental thing: liberty", then the prioritizing of "liberty" is still common between the two.

The taxomony continues to confuse things by defining "anarchist LL's" as:

"Anarchist LLs: A family of LL views that believe private agencies can better guarantee the equal distribution of liberty (and equal opportunity of well-being) than a government."

It's interesting here that anarchist left-libertarianism has almost been defined as anarcho-capitalism, with the emphasis on "private agencies" vs. "the government". This description is not only really narrow in scope in terms of the issues that concern the anarchist left (hint: it's not just about which institutions gaurantee liberty), but it simply doesn't jibe very much with anything to the left of individualist anarchism (why would an anarcho-syndicalist care about "private agencies"?). This definition only focuses on the question of legal institutions, and ends up being vague enough to imply that anarchist LL is about private defense organizations and courts.

That just about exhausts the criticism I have for this taxonomy and the definitions within it. While I couldn't necessarily expect people to provide extremely detailed definitions that map out the specific nuances within political philosophy, even within the confines of sticking to a paragraph per label a more accurate and less confusing picture could have been painted. In either case, I'm not sure what the people at the BHL blog are trying to accomplish other than to dress up right-libertarianism in social concience without changing its substance. Even by the definitions given in this taxonomy, BHL is basically utilitarian right-libertarianism, mostly of a minarchist variety. This suspicion is only confirmed by most of the content of the blog.