For almost any two political frameworks, discrete similarities in policy preferences can be found. Like graphs of two separate functions, it’s possible to reach the same point coming from two different directions only to diverge again. Libertarians and progressives are no exception to this. But the occasional intersection is not enough to form a durable coalition between these two groups. A better metaphor is needed to describe the dynamics of a libertarian-progressive alliance.
In his book Political Realism, Jonathan Rauch argued that libertarian and progressive critiques of political establishments and transactional politics “end up being twins separated at birth.” “Only over the preferred prescription—more government or less, more regulation or more privatization,” he writes, “are they at daggers drawn.” Though Rauch is harsh when he describes these two groups as “embark[ing] on an inherently destabilizing and unending mission to stop politics from doing what politics naturally does,” he is correct to point out the similarity between the two groups only stops when the rubber meets the road.
In my view, Rauch’s description works quite well; libertarians and progressives are far better analogized to twins separated at birth than two separate groups whose interests occasionally intersect. Both are skeptical of authority, committed to individual freedom, and each have been disappointed by the results (or lack thereof) that have come from close association with major political parties. There is much to be gained from a libertarian-progressive alliance where each group can “empower the best in each other and tame the worst” as Gary Winslett writes in the foreword to this collection.
In this essay, I would like to focus on how libertarians and progressives can “tame the worst '' in each other. The state, firms, and private institutions can all constrain and enhance individual choice and achievement in their own way. By helping each other overcome the ideological hang-ups that make progressives hesitant to praise private parties or criticize regulation and prevent libertarians from appreciating the contributions of the government and the harm that can be done by private actors, a united front can be formed against threats to individual freedom.
In practice, categorical rejection of government intervention by libertarians and markets by progressives is rare. Most libertarians appreciate the need for a state that protects individuals from violence and fraud, and many appreciate the benefits of milder forms of regulation and social insurance. Similarly, progressives unwilling to tolerate even some freedom to truck and barter are few and far between with many supporting mutual aid groups and community organizations separate from the state. However, such deviations from ultra-orthodox application of their respective ideologies are usually framed as exceptions to the general rules of progressives supporting and libertarians opposing state intervention on economic matters.
For a libertarian-progressive synthesis to succeed, libertarians should make the progressives’ support for government intervention beyond the “nightwatchman state” with some welfare on the side a load-bearing feature of their worldview. This means acknowledging, however reluctantly, the role state-crafted institutions play in facilitating markets, if not particular entities. Progressives can help libertarians overcome an aversion to government by identifying government interventions that may not be recognized as such. In doing so, they can help libertarians move beyond focusing on whether or not there should be “more” or “less” government and instead focus on “better” or “worse” policies for individual flourishing. Similarly, progressives should recognize that state interference with economic freedom is often the same as state interference with personal freedom. Libertarians can help progressives become more comfortable with the idea of deregulation and the pursuit of personal gain if it means giving individuals choices so all can benefit--even if some benefit more than others.
To begin with the libertarian blind spot, supporters of free markets should recognize the wide range of state interventions disguised as either deregulation or the natural functioning of markets. As Suzanne Mettler wrote in The Submerged State, “The ‘submerged state’ includes a conglomeration of federal policies that function by providing incentives, subsidies, or payments to private organizations or households to encourage or reimburse them for conducting activities deemed to serve a public purpose. Over the past thirty years, American political discourse has been dominated by a conservative public philosophy, one that espouses the virtues of small government.”
It’s easy for regulations to slip under the libertarian’s radar if they can be disguised as the functioning of a free market. Take, for example, intellectual property laws. While property in chattel or land can be appropriated through the mixing of labor described by John Locke in his Second Treatise of Government, such a process simply cannot work for intellectual property. The boundaries of what can be covered by a copyright or patent (and the exceptions to those exclusive rights) must be created by the state. When it comes to the institution of private property, patents are closer to taxi medallions than a plowed field.
There is some disagreement among libertarians in the case of intellectual property specifically. Milton Friedman, for example, described them as a “kind of governmentally created monopoly” in Capitalism and Freedom, but there is a general principle that can be derived from this example. For intellectual property “there is clearly a strong prima facie case for establishing property rights” to quote Friedman. But libertarians should be clear-eyed about the nature of such policies; a state intervention, no matter how appropriate or necessary it may be in certain contexts, is a state intervention nonetheless.
Enter progressives, stage left. As a group comfortable with the idea of government intervention, they are unafraid to point out when the government is acting, even if through a kludgeocracy of quasi-private mechanisms. Libertarians should take heed of such observations. Perhaps “submerged” policies should done away with altogether, but more often intervention in a particular sphere of life should be accepted and used as a jumping-off point to design better policies to achieve the intended goal of such policies. Sometimes, this means embracing a more direct form of intervention rather than too-clever-by-half forms of quasi-privatization.
If patents are a regulatory subsidy designed to “promote the Progress of...the useful Arts,” then the state is in the business of promoting innovation (as it should be). Embracing this fact opens up a whole universe of other policies such as R&D tax credits, direct subsidies to university and private-sector research, or “prize” systems. All of these are government interventions, and a libertarian comfortable with one should not be dismayed by the others. Similarly, the employer exclusion for healthcare benefits or the earned income tax credit are creatures of the welfare state, just like a wage subsidy, universal healthcare coverage, social security, and a universal basic income.
Reasonable people can disagree about the particulars of each of these policies, but for libertarians the lesson is this: Once the Rubicon of state intervention has been crossed, the question of whether or not the government should be involved is moot. When progressive correctly identify a feature of the “submerged state” as a government intervention like any other, libertarians should be not afraid nor dismayed. Instead, libertarians should lean into these interventions and promote designs that capitalize on the benefits of a liberal market system.
If it’s necessary for libertarians to recognize “submerged” interventions that allow markets to function more efficiently or make it so individuals can have some “freedom from the market” (to borrow from the title of Mike Konczal’s recent book) then it is equally necessary for progressives to appreciate the fact that some regulations and interventions restricting the freedom of private actors make the inevitable inequalities created by market systems intolerable. “Liberals and progressives,” write Brink Lindsey and Steven Teles in their book The Captured Economy, “have a mirror-image problem [from conservatives and libertarians]. Many on the left rail against unrestrained capitalism’s innate and immoral tendency toward invidious inequality...government matters only as the answer to inequality, never as a cause...Would it really not occur to [plutocrats] to push for rules that actively redistribute upward?”
Environmental review regulations are championed by progressives as necessary to protect the environment and the public from the ravages of pollution created by corporations. But these same regulations prevent the construction of housing by preventing denser construction projects. These policies have the effect of driving up housing costs and increasing carbon emissions by making public transit and walkable neighborhoods less viable than driving. Regulations placing hard barriers to entry on healthcare practitioners prevent quacks and snake-oil salesmen from harming patients. Yet they also create bottlenecks to the supply of practitioners, leading to increased prices and reduced access.
These are regressive regulations, in the words of Lindsey and Teles--government restrictions on the market that have the effect of slowing growth and redistributing wealth upwards. To be sure, few are those who support regulation for regulation’s sake. If a compelling case can be made against a rule that yields negative outcomes, there will be plenty of progressives willing to change it or do away with it entirely. Things get more complicated, however, when such changes are accurately described as “deregulation.”
Deregulation is a four-letter rather than twelve-letter word for the left, and it most certainly is associated with haphazardly tearing pages out of the Code of Federal Regulations for the sake of growth or lobotomizing agencies responsible for crafting and enforcing those rules. Many such deregulations have failed to bear fruit in no small part because they were merely replaced with regulations that are part of the “submerged state.” But just like libertarians can learn from progressive about the nature of regulations and interventions, progressives shouldn’t be afraid to embrace the benefits of deregulation, market liberalization, and profit.
Criminal justice reform--an area with little daylight between the preferred reforms of progressives and libertarians--is one agenda that can be accurately described as deregulation. In sentencing reform or use-of-force standards, it involves the government taking a lighter touch in enforcement. Ending the drug war or legalizing sex work is an even better example--what is prohibition but suffocation by red tape? Legalization in these spheres would create robust markets (not that there isn’t plenty of money to be made under prohibition), and progressives shouldn’t be afraid of that. Some basic protections for workers and consumers will be necessary, but at the end of the day these reforms will allow private actors to pursue their own ends and profits. There can be no clearer intersection of economic and personal liberty.
Though their endorsement of deregulation doesn’t need to be full throated, progressives should recognize that there are benefits to all parties in free (though not unregulated) markets where private actors can pursue their own ends, including their own financial ends. Perhaps subsidies will be necessary to ensure the indigent can afford rent in opportunity-rich areas and taxes on land or property will be necessary to finance them, but reservations about landlords turning a profit by providing housing should be tossed aside. “Greed is good” may be a bridge too far for progressives, but they would do well to take a page from libertarians and recognize that there is plenty of good to be done by letting firms and investors do well.
Unlike the outdated Cold War coalition to which libertarians belonged for the past half-century, a libertarian-progressive coalition creates the opportunity to advance a policy agenda that would cure what ails the United States. But more than that, it creates the opportunity for two groups to complement and improve each other instead of begrudgingly agreeing to disagree or delegating when conflict emerges. The three-legged stool was made up of three groups that came together in what is in retrospect an uneasy alliance in opposition to a common enemy. A libertarian-progressive coalition, on the other hand, can work toward a common goal of advancing human freedom. In areas where the two groups disagree on particular policy outcomes, we have our work cut out for us. But on other fronts, this alliance will bring together groups that complement each other to produce a robust platform to advance human freedom and flourishing.