David Boaz and the state of libertarianism

He saw the glass half full

David Boaz (pronounced “Boze”) has died. In an essay re-posted shortly before his death, Boaz wrote,

In his book Enlightenment Now, Steven Pinker identifies four themes of the Enlightenment: reason, science, humanism, and progress.

Liberalism arose in that environment. People began to question the role of the state and the established church. They argued for liberty for all based on the equal natural rights and dignity of every person. John Locke, often regarded as the father of liberalism, argued in his Second Treatise of Government that every person has a property in his own person and in “the work of his hands”; that government is formed to protect life, liberty, and property and is based on the consent of the governed; and that if government exceeds its proper role, the people are entitled to replace it.

These developments provided the intellectual underpinnings for the classical liberal societies of the 19th century. But then

From the disastrous World War I on, governments grew in size, scope, and power. Exorbitant taxation, militarism, conscription, censorship, nationalization, and central planning signaled that the era of liberalism, which had so recently supplanted the old order, was now itself supplanted by the era of the megastate.

Still,

For all the growth of government in the past century, liberalism remains the basic operating system of the United States, Europe, and many other parts of the world, even if it is facing attacks.

But

Now we have Democrats moving left in all the wrong ways—far more spending than even the Obama administration, openly socialist officials, and aggressive efforts to restrict free speech in the name of fighting “hate speech.” Meanwhile, Republicans are moving to the wrong kind of right—a culture war pitting Americans against Americans and a new willingness to use state power to hurt their opponents, including private businesses.

I share that assessment. But it is unusually negative for Boaz, who ordinarily had the most optimistic take on the state of the libertarian movement. And indeed, he turns upbeat.

maybe there’s room for a new political grouping, which we might call the classical liberal center.

…Most Americans, at least before the culture wars intensified and negative polarization set in, were content with both the cultural liberations of the 1960s and the economic liberations begun in the 1980s.

That broadly “liberal” center is politically homeless today. If we approach politics and policy reasonably, that combination on economy and culture could provide a nucleus for that broad center of peaceful and productive people in a society of liberty under law.

He concludes,

Committed classical liberals are tempted to be too depressed. We read the morning papers, or watch the cable shows, and we think the world is indeed on “the road to serfdom.” But we should reject a counsel of despair. We’ve been fighting ignorance, superstition, privilege, and power for many centuries. Our classical liberal forebears have won great victories. The fight is not over, but liberalism remains the only workable operating system for a world of peace, growth, and progress.

As an aside, if you peruse The UnPopulist, Shikha Dalmia’s site that hosted this version of the Boaz essay, you will find a sort of phobia about Donald Trump and the European “far right” that would make you think you stepped into the pages of the Washington Post. Apparently, Dalmia has arranged for her compatriots fainting couches a counter-conference to be held after the National Conservative Conference that will be in DC next month. I have my differences with the NatCons, but I don’t see them as the Threat to Democracy that the UnPopulists do.

In any case, I will miss David Boaz. My main difference with him was that I am temperamentally pessimistic and he was usually able to see the glass as half full.

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Liberalism Once Saved The World—It Can Do So Again