From left to libertarian

Arnold Kling asks: why do more people travel from the far left towards libertarianism than make the opposite journey?
He makes many good points, but I fear his contrast between the two is drawn in the wrong place.
He says the far left commit the fundamental attribution error - it "believes that bad policies come from evil motives." However, "libertarians believe that context is more important. We believe that government power is inherently corrupting, regardless of who holds leadership positions or how they are influenced."
No doubt, this is true of many leftists and many libertarians. But I don't think it's the key distinction.
For one thing, many non-leftists also commit the fundamental attribution error. For example, some supporters of the war in Iraq believe that because Bush's motives are good, the policy is good.
Also, many leftists are, of course, smart enough to know that government power is inherently corrupting. Here in England, many think this is the history of the Labour party.
I'd split (right) libertarians and the left on a different issue - how comfortable are you with inequalities of wealth?
This issue, I guess helps explain why people move from the far left to right libertarianism more than vice versa. As folks get older, they get richer. And the richer you are, the easier it is to tolerate inequality, not just for reasons of self-interest.
I'm not accusing Arnold of this. There is, though, one aspect of his autobiography that puzzles me:

From 1986 through 1994, I worked for Freddie Mac, as it made the transition from a government agency to a shareholder-owned, profit-driven corporation. I was involved in several major innovations, including the introduction of credit scoring into mortgage underwriting. These experiences were bittersweet at best. I found myself strongly opposed by the bureaucracy when I tried to persuade senior management to undertake the innovations. Then, when senior management finally agreed to move forward, these same bureaucrats would leap aboard the new project and shove me aside. I came away with very mixed feelings about large corporate organizations. I now say that "You would not be so afraid of large corporations if you had ever worked for one."

But you could draw another inference here. These bureaucrats were, presumably, drawing big salaries despite being mere rent-seekers. Couldn't the lesson therefore be that some inequalities aren't related to economic efficiency, and that market forces don't grind so small as to ensure that inequalities are due solely to differences in productivity?
Maybe, then, Arnold was too quick to abandon the left - not least because leftism is compatible (pdf) with some forms of libertarianism.

Comments

[Laurent GUERBY]

"how comfortable are you with inequalities of wealth?"

I'd say this is not a good split question. A better one IMHO:

"how comfortable are you with inequalities of the initial (from birth) distribution of wealth?"

If you're looking at the present distribution, another question could be:

"do you think there's a level of inequality of wealth, whatever the reason, that would require a change in state policy to lower it?"

[Steve bm]

Large corporations are not free market entities - they are intimately attached to the state, and spend a lot of time lobbying politicians, and buying influence within political parties. This is especially true of Freddie Mac - surely a politically connected organization if anything is.

Your inference is therefore invalid - would corporations like this even exist in a free market? Dubious, methinks.

[Bernie Hughes]

"I'd split (right) libertarians and the left on a different issue - how comfortable are you with inequalities of wealth?"

I suggest it's not so much a question of being comfortable with inequalities as with doubting that government has the moral authority to intervene in the attempt to artificially iron them out.

[TStockmann]

"This issue, I guess helps explain why people move from the far left to right libertarianism more than vice versa. As folks get older, they get richer. And the richer you are, the easier it is to tolerate inequality, not just for reasons of self-interest."

Interesting as always to see how a potentially symmetrical move can always be phrased to disguise the symmetry in favor of one direction or another. Contrast:

"This issue, I guess helps explain why people begin on the far left and move to right libertarianism more than vice versa. As folks get older, they have invested much of their life in acquiring a call on society's resources and, with a shorter life ahead of them, have less risk tolerance. Since you start out with little invested, the easier it was to tolerate the confiscation of that investment, not just for reasons of self-interest."

I think there is probably a less nakedly partisan way of combining these two.

In terms of the conclusion, although libertarians are as various as leftists, I would counterpropose: libertarians are largely indifferent to questions of relative inequality per se; some remain sensitive to absolute poverty and some remain sensitive to a concentration of power in institutions other than the government that can act nearly as coercively against liberty as a government. Some don't care about either of these. Two other questions that may distinguish specific libertarian positions: the more general sense of a government's position in promotiing the common good defined by a time-horizon that exceeds individual self-interest; the moral status of children, as largely pre-choice actors.

[TStockmann]

Another possibily useful distinction:

Libertarians who believe property embodies a natural right versus libertarians who would call property (as opposed to possession) a government license, a social construct, but one that should be expansive and unfettered as a matter of common good, defined by their own values.

[nz conservative]

no money in socialism these days, may as well be a libertarian.

[james higham]

..As folks get older, they have invested much of their life in acquiring a call on society's resources and, with a shorter life ahead of them, have less risk tolerance...

Yes, I really think this is so, certainly in my case. I do believe the government which governs least governs best and like one fellow blogger's manifesto to this end [advocate in Scotland].

[Phil]

Personally I always find the opposition between leftism and libertarianism counter-intuitive and rather irritating - as a child of the sixties* *In the literal sense, at least I've been a libertarian leftist for most of my adult life. But I guess I am that much more suspicious of the state's ability to extend individual liberty than I would have been twenty years ago, so perhaps the pattern does hold to some extent.

What puzzles me about right-libertarians is their apparent starting-point, the freedom to *own* - particularly when this is extended, as it generally is, to cover the freedom for one person to own large chunks of another person's life. Freedom of action can be universalised much more coherently, surely.

[Phil]

Oops - embedded footnote. Should read:

...as a child of the sixties*, I've been a libertarian leftist...

*In the literal sense, at least.