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Charles Johnson has some interesting suggestions about third-party strategy here and here. While I'm not sold on the idea of giving up a presidential race (which after all gets our message onto C-span), the general idea of focusing on winnable races and on referenda seems plausible. Referenda are a particularly promising strategy because you don't have to get people on board with the entire libertarian agenda; break the agenda into particular issues and build coalitions supporting referenda on each of those issues. Not all states support voter initiatives but many do, and it's often easier to get a referendum on the ballot than getting a candidate on.
Similar story to mine Roderick.
All about the same time in 1980, I read "The Fountainhead" in high school, read Robert Ringer's "Restoring the American Dream", and started getting into Rush. The irony of this was that I had been chosen to be among a group of high schoolers who would do volunteer work for the GOP convention in Detroit that year (I grew up there). In between being chosen and the convention, my move to libertarianism was largely complete.
That summer I read "Atlas Shrugged" and "For a New Liberty" among other things. Game, set, and match, libertarianism. :) I also had a brief dalliance with the Clark campaign as well, as their MI state headquarters were less than a mile from my house.
The LP wasn't central to my coming to be a libertarian, but it certainly was a player.
When libertarians argue about what strategy is best, it's worth keeping in mind the ambiguity of that question. It might mean -- and libertarians (myself included) sometimes seem to make the mistake of meaning -- "what would be the best strategy for the libertarian movement as a whole to adopt?" The reason that's a mistake is that although it might be an interesting question, there's no way in hell that the entire libertarian movement can be gotten to adopt any one strategy. There's a constant temptation for libertarians to want to centrally plan the libertarian movement, but it can't be done.
So the relevant practical question is: given the inevitably continuing proliferation of strategies, which would be the best one to *increase*? I don't know whether or not it would be a good idea for all the LP libertarians to move into the major parties, but nobody will ever be in a position to make the decision to move all or most of the current LP libertarians into the major parties (this hooks up with Gil's point above about fungibility). The LP is not going away. So a major-party strategy is only going to divide the libertarians *between* the LP and the major parties. That's not a decisive argument against it, but it's something to keep in mind.
I hold no brief for any particular strategy here. As Aeon points out above, my argument for voting LP, to force major-party candidates to move libertarianward to win voters back, can also be adapted to an argument for getting involved in a major party, thus introducing the same dynamic there.
My first introduction was Rand, in high school in 1979. But my second introduction was Ed Clark's campaign in 1980 -- I was torn (believe it or not) between Reagan and Clark, though I was too young to vote anyway.
Well, FEE came in somewhere there too; a friend in church introduced the Freeman to me. (A glimpse of my Reaganite, churchgoing days!) But apart from Rand I didn't read that much libertarian literature until college. (In my last year of high school I did try, probably on the basis of Rand's recommendation, to struggle my way through _Human Action_, trying to figure out what the hell this praxeology stuff was all about ....)
I assume "Acton's Disease" refers to the corrupting influence of power.
It occurs to me that my previous comment was incomplete. Another thing that helped expose me to libertarian ideas other than the philosophy I was studying was Reason Magazine. I distinctly remember the first time I saw an issue at the college bookstore, and their slogan "free minds and free markets" really grabbed me. I picked up that issue, and within a year or so I had decided to subscribe.
I am very critical of the LP, and think it has done more than its fair share of stupid things. However, the first time I heard the word "libertarian" I was about seven years old and was watching the news and saw an LP candidate on television. At age fourteen, I looked deeper into the party, getting a bunch of their literature -- not the best libertarian literature in the world, but enough to get me further interested. I don't know if I would have discovered the movement if not for the party.
I was so disappointed by the presidential candidate this year that I actually voted for a major party for the first time in my life.
The problem with the major parties is that they would dilute the libertarian message, true. But the problem with the LP is that it is being run by people whom the general electorate will immediately write off as lunatics.
Yes, we ought to be educating the electorate. But when your candidate is peddling obviously fraudulent tax schemes, well... You're not going to win many votes. You have to work within the system in order to change it.
No, this doesn't mean trashing our principles and selling out to the major parties. But what the LP has been doing is little short of suicide--and a particularly nasty suicide, too, as the good guys are getting a bad name. Work toward a libertarian society gradually and incrementally; have a political party that does the same. It's the only chance there is, as I see it.
Simple Gallup polling about political
perspectives show that a clear majority
of Republicans are conservative.
If libertarians ran primary campaigns within
the Republican Party, they would generally lose.
Unless, of course, they ran conservative campaigns.
But then, what is the point? I do think libertarians
who are hiding their libertarianism probably govern
better than real conservatives, but there is a long
record of libertarians politicians who turn
conservative--presumably because of these political
realities.
Personally, I have no problem with have a libertarian
political movement that runs in one of the major
party's primaries--and lose.
So what if libertarians get a reputation of refusing
to support the party's nominee if he or she is not
a libertarian?
I have little use for the notion that some kind of
libertarian leaders will deliver the libertarian vote
to someone in return for some kind of political
concessions. Who else needs "credibility?"
The quasi-official status of the "two-party" system
makes any notion of party loyalty pointless.
Is it really true that all of the losing NFC teams
are supposed to root for the NFC champion in the
superbowl?
Oh -- I thought what you meant by "hold no brief for" was something like you refuse to support it (even, say, with votes) or to dislike it because of its tactics or some such.
I generally vote Libertarian but the party has made virtually no headway. It has been stuck at a (declining) fraction of one percent for the last twenty four years.....despite the usual predictions every four years that a "breakthrough" is about to happen Because of this, it continues to lose credibility.
Yes, the LP reaches, and sometimes inspires, a small part of the population but it seems unable to expand and carry the message beyond that group.
Mr Beito,
I am a generation behind you, having come to the LP during Andre Marrou's race (I was in college at the time). Could you explain just a little bit by what you mean by holding no brief?
I have had largely positive experiences in the LP, the good will of people I have met in my county and surrounding counties, and the fruitfulness of our limited efforts at promulgating the ideas of liberty, although I admit my experience is mainly limited to the Texas LP and especially that of Montgomery, Harris, and Brazos County LP folks.
Well, I kindly remember my first step into libertarianism, when I found out that many leftists advocated what I wanted to limited all the time. I must say that in my youth I really was a follower of Green Movements and Socialism (or rather democratic-Socialism, as it is called today). I thought it a great idea to have everyone do what he can do best for the better of the society.
During that period I stumbled about children who called themselves Anarchists, although they coudln't really describe what anarchy is, until one said: "The Survival of the Fittest, everyone against everyone else!" I then asked myself why they still worked together, when they believed in this sort of anarchy.
I finally found essays on Anarchy about a certain Proudhon. And from that on, I developed to a Libertarian, because I rejected the leftist believe that everyone is equally able to do things :)
I hold no brief for the LP (I was heavily involved in that organization from 1975 to 1982) but there is one major problem (at least for me) with joining the GOP. Once libertarians become Republicans they undertake a de facto obligation to support the nominees of that party. If they don't, they will have no credibility as "good Republicans."
A better strategy would be to form an organization which would run libertarian-friendly candidates in both parties but remain independent of both. A good model would be the old Non-Partisan League in the Dakotas in the decades before World War II which elected many people to office in both parties.
"If only mushy R-L or D-L compromise candidates run, then most of the public is never hit with a libertarian message."
Barnett's point was precisely that absent an LP, perhaps there would less mush in one of the major parties. If all the politically active libertarians weren't siphoned off by the LP, maybe the Republicrats (or the Demopublicans) would have to be more libertarian. I wonder how this squares with Roderick's defense of the LP. Rod?
Since you asked - My first introduction to libertarianism, perhaps unsurprisingly, was via philosophy: first Locke and Mill and Nozick, and later Hayek, Machan, Rasmussen, Den Uyl, Narveson, Rothbard, Barnett, Benson. (Perhaps it will interest some that I didn't read any Rand until after all of the above).
What exactly is Acton's Disease?
While I was waiting for a girlfriend at LAX coming from the 1st LP convention, John Hospers was leaving the airport and bumped into me. I asked him what fool they had put up as their Presidential candidate. He mumbled something to me with a somewhat sheepish look on his face. Little did I know that he was the joker in the pack. I have always found the LP methodology wrong from the very first step. Here you have it: going hat in hand, upon bent knee, to the Great Machine of the State, asking to take up the cudgels of political power--to do what? This is very educational for young libertarians. We must embrace the socialism of the state. We do not take our lives into our own hands and free ourselves from the state, we must forsake self-responsibility to tell others, "Vote for Me!, Vote Yourself Free! Hand me the power of the state and I'll toss it away, like Frodo with the Ring of Power!" The reality is far different. I have known people to crumble over the first whiff of an inkling of a possibility that they might get some crumb of power. Just a taste becomes an addiction far beyond their dreams. With all of the monies directed into political campaigning, we are telling our own allies that we don't have enough imagination to develop and use the intellectual and social tools to frame paths to freedom without the state, and apply them in our own lives. Rather than engaging in ballot boxing or coming down with Acton's Disease, I would suggest that we form PA's (Politicoholism Anonymous) groups and Szasz Treatment Centers for politicians to learn how to take responsibility for their own actions instead of telling others how to think, act and live.
Just a thought.
I have two other points that counter Barnett's conclusions. First, the facts:
A libertarian may only be comfortable working on the campaign of a Libertarian. Years ago, when I wrote a letter of support for Mark Brewer's primary race for Dick Armey's open seat (TX-7), I got several responses from LPers who said they would never support a Republican in any way. This, notwithstanding the fact that I, as the TX-8 LP congressional candidate, and Drew Parks, as the TX-7 LP congressional candidate (yes, candidate for the same race as Brewer) were both working on Brewer's campaign. Then again, there were lots of LPers that helped Brewer, too.
There were two Constitution Party members that helped me against the Republican incumbent in my 2000 race.
LPers have pooled resources with Greens, such as in the Badnarik campaign.
Stated abstractly:
The political support (including writing letters to the editor, donating money, stuffing envelopes, manning phone banks, walking precincts, working polls, etc.) that an individual is willing to give is not necessarily fungible to a major party, and where it is, it is not clear that Libertarians would lend support chiefly the either the R's or D's. What's the old joke about a man and wife who take the long trip to town just to cancel each other's vote?
Further, the fungibility that does exist has a much smaller scale than Barnett's analysis admits. You can donate $100 to the LP presidential candidate and the Democratic candidate. And, you can attend the fundraiser for the local incumbent Sheriff. Or any combination. Or nothing.
Many people, even in the LP, think of the purpose of the LP is to get people into office. That's not its stated purpose. Its purpose is to advance liberty by the means of running and electing. Generally, we run lots more than we elect. But, the running acheives part of the goal. When the public reads a voter's guide with clear libertarian proposals, part of that public is favorably influenced.
If only mushy R-L or D-L compromise candidates run, then most of the public is never hit with a libertarian message.
The main problem with Barnett's argument is that it does not mention the very important fact that the LP has historically been an important introduction for lots of people to the libertarian movement at large.
I know lots of LPers (myself included) that are anarchocapitalists, but continue to meet and engage and persuade people that come to LP meetings; and, we use it as a place for fellowship. The explosive growth of the internet has replaced this function of the LP to some extent, but historically, the LP has been one of the most important institutions for bringing new people into the movement.
If you reply to this comment, please note whether your first introduction to libertarianism was via the LP (including, for instance, seeing an LP candidate).