Libertarians and the Left

I listened to a recent video put out by a woman of the left. I see myself as a radical libertarian with a moderate temperament. I think that the more libertarian we make our country, the better off we will be. I realize that not everyone sees things this way, and I want to work to improve things in the real world. I don't think we should forgo modest improvement in order to hold out for radical change, but I think that the more change we can implement in the libertarian direction the better.

When I make suggestions to others, I think that it is important that I give suggestions that they will find useful in helping them achieve things that they value. For this reason I am motivated to try to find common ground between libertarians and the left. I realize that many on the left will be skeptical, so I should start with something obvious. At the same time this might give other libertarians some ideas about how we might better coordinate our efforts so as to achieve our own political ends.

The most obvious common end of both libertarians and those on the left is to make war less common. Both leftists and libertarians will find themselves opposing many of the wars our country fights. One thing that could motivate a libertarian to cooperate with the left would be an amendment to the constitution that would restrain the government's ability to start wars. It could insist that they be declared by congress. It might also insist that the proposed war conform to certain abstract moral and ethical criteria. For instance the country that we declare war against must be guilty of aggression or some gross violation of human rights.

Another area that I thought of is the idea that the government is supposed to serve the people. Those on the left see this as a matter of class conflict, in contrast to libertarians who are more likely to see this in terms of the rulers versus the ruled. Nevertheless, when it comes to concrete proposals to address this problem, there might be some common ground between libertarians and the left. As I see it there are two ways of addressing this problem. One is that the people should be able to understand what their government is doing so that they know whether to support it or oppose it. The second is that we need to be able to hold those in power accountable for the result of their effort.

If the people are to understand what their government is doing, we will need to place a limitation on the amount of legislation that it can pass. The people can not be expected to read and understand laws that are unlimited in both number and length. If people on the left were to support limiting the number or length of laws, then libertarians would be likely to support this.

Next there is the idea that the government should be held accountable for the effect that the laws have. If the left is uncomfortable with limiting the power of our government to pass legislation, then they might be more inclined to support making the government more accountable. In this area I see potential for cooperation. We see that members of congress are re-elected at a rate that is somewhere above ninety percent when they have an approval rating that is less than thirty percent. When the economy performs badly, there are no consequences for those who hold office. This is a serious defect in our political system, one that is apparent to all regardless of political affiliation.

I’ve pointed out in previous posts what I thought we could do about this problem. As I see it, it is that people in a certain district will have a motivation to re-elect the incumbent because power within the legislature is awarded on the basis of seniority. That is, the members of congress who have served the longest have the most clout. The political power that a legislator has enables him or her to send more goodies back to the constituents. Thus there is a price that the voters in a district will have to pay if they want to replace the incumbent. The one that they replace him or her with will start over as the low man on the totem pole.

We could fix this by having the voters decide what proportion of the legislature should be replaced. Then the appropriate number of legislators could be dismissed at random. Any fair method of replacing them