A Libertarian Moment?

A Libertarian Moment?

With self-indulgence unbound, who needs a civic revolution?

By John Schwenkler,  December 14, 2008 The size and scope of our government are growing, and that doesn't seem likely to stop. "Bailout" and "stimulus" are burning up the competition in the race for Political Word of the Year. The war — in Iraq, in Afghanistan, on drugs, you name it — is still going on. There is serious talk of a "New New Deal" for the beginning of 2009, and military spending is currently the highest it's been since the end of World War II.

So why are Reason editors Nick Gillespie and Matt Welch so excited about the future of libertarianism?

"Turn away from the overhyped prize of the Oval Office and all the dreary, government expanding policies and politics that go with it," they write in a recent essay, and you can catch a glimpse of the "Libertarian Moment" looming just ahead. Just as the Americans of the 1970s "finally learned to live, dammit," and so despite residing in what was in many ways an "unfree world" still managed to "find plenty of freedom," our society is preparing for an awakening that will put the "Me Decade" to shame. Prepare, they warn, for "something far more radical, more game-changing, than all that we've grown to expect."

In explaining what this Libertarian Moment is going to be like, Gillespie and Welch largely eschew politics, pointing to cultural shifts and technological advances, with the rise of the Digital Age right at the top of the list. We are entering "a time of increasingly hyper-individualized, hyper-expanded choice over every aspect of our lives," they write, "from 401(k)s to hot and cold running coffee drinks, from life-saving pharmaceuticals to online dating services. […] Due to exponential advances in technology, broad-based increases in wealth, the ongoing networking of the world via trade and culture, and the decline of both state and private institutions of repression, never before has it been easier for more individuals to chart their own course." This is libertarianism, not simply as a program for political reform, but as a growing cultural consensus and a commitment to a certain style of life.

Gillespie and Welch insist, however, that this is only the beginning, and that serious political change isn't that far off. They point to the decline in voter identification with the two major parties, the splash made by Ron Paul in the 2008 Republican primaries, and the increasing frequency with which pundits identify themselves as "libertarian" as evidence that something is afoot. "The generation raised on the Internet has essentially been raised libertarian," they write, "even if they've never heard of the word." And so no matter how safe things might seem right now, no one in Washington should get too comfortable: "when the gap grows too wide between voter desire and government policy, between the way people actually live their lives and the way government wants them to behave, then a situation that looks stable can turn revolutionary overnight." The cultural changes Gillespie and Welch describe are the natural breeding ground for the political shifts they hope for.

That's certainly one way that things might go.

But it's also possible that something quite different could happen. A generation accustomed to carving out its own private spheres of freedom no matter the external circumstances might ultimately be one that lacks the revolutionary impulse that Gillespie and Welch assume is the natural outgrowth of a "hyper-individualized" culture. This is especially true when it comes to things like military policy and the drug war, where the worst effects of our government's actions are borne primarily by those in society's lower echelons: so long as no one takes serious steps toward instituting a draft or arresting a third of our high school students for drug use, you won't find many people agitating for revolt. And it's not that easy to start a revolution when you can't pull away from the X-Box.

The point is not, of course, that the Internet can't be an effective tool for political organization, or even that the rising generations are bound to be politically detached. But it's crucial to see the ways in which a cultural libertarianism of the sort Gillespie and Welch describe is one that can tend naturally toward complacency, a willingness to accept an unfree world so long as we can find some freedom within it. Especially given the sad state of our political environment, libertarians should be demanding a lot more than that.

John Schwenkler is a Culture11 contributing editor. His column, "The Trying," appears twice monthly.