Libertarians: Rich White Males of the Republican Party


~ Ludwig von Mises writing to Ayn Rand

In the above videos (I think he mentions it in the first one), brainpolice2 mentioned the data of libertarians being mostly white males from the upper middle class. The point being they’re supposedly out of touch with the average person and particularly out of touch with demographics that have in the past lacked political power and representation (minorities, immigrants, women, etc).

I thought I’d seen this data before, but I decided I should verify it. I found some data from the Cato Institute (which certaintly represents wealthy libertarians). Indeed, libertarians are 82% white (80% for all demographics) and 7% black (12% for all demographics). So, that isn’t all that extremely off the average and in fact is the same as what Cato labels as liberal (both groups being below the 83% white and 10% black of conservatives). This is a bit confusing as I’d have to look at their definitions more closely, but one comparison stood out. Cato’s diagram of ideologies puts populism opposite of libertarianism and populism has the highest percentage of minorities at 15% black (and 80% white). The Democratic party tends to draw both liberals and populists which is why there is higher representation of minorities among Democrats.

I suspect, however, that with the Tea Party there has been an increase of populism among whites which oddly has combined forces (at least in part) with the opposing ideology of libertarianism. I think this is because conservatism stands between the two and conservative nationalism bleeds over into libertarianism and populism. Anyway, at least in 2006 when this data was taken, white libertarians were the demographic most opposed to black populism (opposed both in terms of ideology and minority representation).

Some other demographic details:

Libertarians – second most well educated (after liberals), second most secular and least church attending (after liberals), highest percentage of males of any demographic, youngest demographic (youthful idealism?), wealthiest demographic (idealism supported by a comfortable lifestyle?), below average percentage in all regions except for the west where they have the highest representation of all demographics (I’m not sure why that is), mostly identified as Republican.

And let me compare to their opposite ideology:

Populists – least well educated, one of the most religiously identified and church attending (only slightly below conservatives), majority female, oldest demographic, poorest demogrpahic, most southern demographic, Cato doesn’t have the political identification data for this demographic (going by Pew data in “Beyond Red vs Blue”, I’d assume that this demographic would mostly Democrat).

According to Cato definitions, libertarians are socially liberal and fiscally conservative and populists are socially conservative and fiscally liberal. Since I brought up the Pew data, my guess is that these two ideologies would correlate to the Pew Demographics in the following way. Libertarians seem to be a perfect fit for what Pew labels as Enterprisers (which are basically the rich, white, males who vote almost entirely Republican and are the most loyal viewers of Fox News). Populists are probably mostly what Pew labels as Conservative Democrats and Disadvantaged Democrats (which have higher percentages of minorities, females, and the poor), although populists might also be found among the demographic Pew labels as Pro-Government Conservatives (the poor, female minorities who are almost evenly split between Republican and Indpendent).

In conclusion, it would seem that libertarians in the US are simply the rich, white, male demographic of the conservative movement who mostly identify as Republican. If I’m reading the data correctly (from the two above sources), libertarians seem less prone towards identifying as Independent than many other demographics (such as liberals or else conservatives who are some combination of poor, minority and female). Rupert Murdoch, the self-identified libertarian and former board member of the libertarian Cato Institute, is the Chairman and CEO of News Corporation, the owner of Fox News Channel. Murdoch seems the perfect representative of this libertarian demographic and he seems to have intentionally conflated libertarianism with the Republican party.

Ron Paul is another libertarian who fits the description of rich, white, male Republican. He might be a bit different than Murdoch in emphasizing civil libertarianism slightly more, but I doubt they’d disagree on much. Ron Paul did show his true libertarian colors recently.

Compared to many conservatives, I like how Ron Paul comes off as well-intentioned in his values. I get the sense that he is the complete opposite of the cynical neo-conservative who will use anything, including libertarian rhetoric, to win votes. In the comment section of the above video, there was a mocking portrayal of libertarianism which was on target. Despite good intentions, even someone like Ron Paul often comes off as a bit detached from the average American’s experience.

clownporn1 wrote (see comments here):


– George Carlin

Libertarianism is a fad political ideology for 13 year old boys, first year college students, and white business owners who use the “private property” argument so they don’t have to serve blacks.

This morning I was awoken by my alarm clock powered by electricity generated by the public power monopoly regulated by the US Department of Energy.I then took a shower in the clean water provided by the municipal water utility.




self pwnage you say

39 thoughts on “Libertarians: Rich White Males of the Republican Party

  1. Self pwnage? Not really.

    You assume that Libertarians are for eliminating all government institutions ever created. That is not so. Most Libertarians are quite realistic and understand we do need taxes and the government to take care of some things. Libertarians feel that there’s just too much government involvement right now. The government is constantly doing things that do not make sense financially. (Iraq War, anyone?)

    Also, I hate it when people assume that Libertarian, Tea Party, and Fox News are all the same thing. Let me speak for Libertarians when I say, we cannot stand the Tea Party (basically much more rabid, hypocritical Republicans) and we do not like Fox News.

    Almost all of the jokes on Libertarians are pretty stupid because they’re basically all straw-man arguments. Hope this helps. Go on to see what the Libertarian party is really about….

  2. The Tea Party started as a grass roots organization on excessive taxation, nothing more. Started with local protests on the steps of State capitals. The Republicans saw this movement and started salivating. They saw the masses and created a plan to highjack the movement. The Republicans started to expand on the movement by incorporating other conservative social issues into it, thus diluting the true nature of the movement. So when a Libertarian says they hate the Tea Party, they really mean it.

    Also, with any political ideology, each has a “conservative” and “liberal” wing to it. This became very apparent when Ron Paul came to the forefront. He’s a conservative Libertarian, because he is anti abortion. Nowhere in the Libertarian cause, does it state any position on abortion. David Koch would probably describe the other end of the spectrum of Libertarianism. Hell the true nature of Libertarianism is freedom of individual choice.

    • I agree with you to an extent, at least on the first part of your comment.

      There was an original grassroots movement behind the Tea Party. I see it as related to the anti-war movement during Bush’s adminstration which wasn’t a partisan movement as it included libertarians, liberals, anarchists, independents, and pacifists of different types. Yes, most if not all genuine libertarians would hate the Tea Party, but there are many people claiming to be libertarian.

      Your example of David Koch demonstrates the failing of the libertarian movement. The libertarian movement is so far right that a corporatist neo-liberal (which has absolutely nothing to do with liberalism) can be seen as leftwing libertarian. Give me a fucking break. A real leftwing libertarian is Noam Chomsky or Henry David Thoreau.

      That is the problem. Rightwing libertarians see a libertarian who is slightly less rightwing and call him a leftwinger. Rightwing libertarians don’t even acknowledge the fact that libertarianism began as a socialist workers’ movement.

      Anyway, I don’t know if it is even valid to call David Koch a genuine libertarian of any variety. He is one of those who co-opted the Tea Party for the purposes of promoting corporatism. David Koch is just the other side of the coin of Glenn Beck. Rupert Murdoch also identifies as a libertarian (including having been on the board of directors of the Cato Institute), despite operating a propaganda operation for the the furthest rightwing of the Republican party. Murdoch and the Koch brothers are corporatists who have hijacked the libertarian movement to defend their wealth and power. They don’t care about libertarian ideals of freedom and equal rights. They for damned sure ain’t civil libertarians.

  3. What you have accomplished in both your original post and comments is to specify the names of some libertarians who are, indeed, acting in self-interest and that neither you nor many others understand what a contemporary libertarian identifies him- or herself as. No self-described or self-respecting libertarian I know align themselves with any of the figureheads you mentions. I could say all liberals suffer groupthink influenced by arch-progressives like Pelosi, Reid, Emmanuel or Villaraigosa, but that wouldn’t be any more accurate. Corpratists very much infest the leadership of both parties, so to suggest the modern libertarian movement espouses such views or individuals is utter nonsense.

    “Libertarians will criticize the government and yet with lobbyists they have some of the most influence over the policies the government implements.”

    Utter fallacy of the utmost absurdity. If this doesn’t illustrate that you haven’t a clue what you’re talking about, nothing will.

    • What the fuck are you talking about, fuckface?


      These aren’t just some libertarians. The Koch brothers and Murdoch have funded and been on the boards of libertarian think tanks, have been involved with the Libertarian Party including as I recall one of the Koch brothers running as a libertarian candidate, and Murdoch with his media empire decides how libertarianism is understood in politics and in society as a whole.

      Libertarianism today wouldn’t be what it is without these particular libertarians and others like them. It’s because of wealth and powerful rightwing libertarians such as these that most people, including many right-libertarians, are completely ignorant of the existence of left-libertarians and completely ignorant that libertarianism began as a socialist workers movement.


      These ‘figureheads’ are the leaders, architects, and funders of the contemporary movement of (right-)libertarianism. There would be no libertarian think tanks to influence politics without them. There would be no rightwing media to give libertarianism a mainstream voice. There would be no well known Libertarian Party to help shift the political narrative far to the right.


      You could say all kinds of bullshit. Most Democrats identify as either conservatives or moderates and about half of liberals identify as independents. Obviously, it can’t be rationally claimed that liberals suffer groupthink influenced by arch-corporatist Democratic politicians, especially considering that data shows liberals as a demographic are the most intelligent, most highly educated, and most well informed of any demographic in the entire country.


      Yes, corporatists very much infest the leadership of the Republican Party, the Democratic Party, and the Libertarian Party. Those are the three parties of the corporatists and a liberal majority exists in none of them, not even the so-called ‘liberal’ Democrats. If you want to find a majority liberal party, you have to look to third parties such as the Green Party.


      Project much?

      A fact is a fact. Do self-identified libertarians criticize the government? Yes. Do self-identified libertarians use lobbyists to influence government policies? It can’t be doubted. The Koch brothers and Murdoch (combined together with the think tanks like the Cato Institute and astroturf like the Tea Party) have massive influence.

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  5. You do not seem to understand (among other things) that there are 2 major schools of Libertarianism, the Rothbarian (represented mainly at and, and the beltway (represented mainly by Cato, Reason, and Koch. Most of us Rothbardians hate Cato, Koch, Reason, Fox News, and every Republican except Ron Paul.

    • I know that I know more about libertarianism than you do. I’ve come to realize that left-libertarians know a lot about right-libertarians. However, right-libertarians no very little if anything about left-libertarians, often right-libertarians are ignorant about the very existence of left-libertarianism and the historical roots of libertarianism in general.

      Yes, I know there are two major schools of right-libertarianism. Your statement that there are only two major schools of libertarianism demonstrates you are one of those ignorant right-libertarians. There are many schools of libertarianism.

      As for the two you do acknowledge, I also acknowledge them. I wasn’t equating all libertarians as being the same. In fact, I acknowledge more diversity in libertarianism than you do.

      Yes, there is a difference between Rothbardian libertarians (along with other more independent libertarians, left and right) and Establishment libertarians. I never said otherwise, despite your making that assumption. Even so, on a practical level of politics (such as the Libertarian Party), there are many close connections, collaborations and mergings between these two schools of right-libertarianism. If not for the Establishment libertarians, the Rothbardian libertarians would be as unknown as the left-libertarians. It’s this association with Establishment libertarians that distinguishes right-libertarians from left-libertarians.

      Thanks for playing. Please try again.

  6. Did you know that Libertarianism began as a socialist workers’ movement in Europe? I bet you didn’t know that.
    Wow thanks for making my bullshit meter explode. Libertarianism traces its roots as a political movement back to 18th and 19th century classical liberalism. Depending the philosophers one considers as founding the movement you could go back to the 17th century or even further however one is then bending more of the facts to fit ideology. The term liberal used to mean the opposite of what it does today. However it was hijacked in the late 1800’s in the United States to replace the term socialism. And classical liberals morphed to be closer to Republicans of Old, not modern neo-cons or conservatives. If you really want an introduction on the roots of Libertarianism and all three parties I suggest you read “Why I am not a Conservative” by F.A. Hayek.

    • Ignorance isn’t a flattering trait to possess.

      I suggest you read “History” by people who aren’t right-wing partisans, propagandists and rhetoricians.


      In educating yourself out of ignorance, I’d also suggest learning more about the historical origins of classical liberalism and socialism in the US:

      • Lol @ I suggest you read “History” by people who aren’t right-wing partisans, propagandists and rhetoricians.
        So much better to quote “History” from a leftist partisan, propagandist and rhetorician. Not to mention the sources used in your required previous blog writing. What you are referring to is social liberalism which came after initial classical liberal ideas had long been brewing on both the European continent and in Great Britain.

        The fact that he is a European historian and disagrees with you must mean he is an overt right-wing, hack, propagandist etc. Oh wait he must be ignorant too.
        Again if you would like to learn more about libertarianism/liberalism and Hayek I suggest you take a listen to the above.

        Overt hostility and childish name calling to any criticism quickly betrays ones ignorance and in this case a seeming lack of self-esteem.


          I admit it. I am hostile to ignorance. The anti-intellectualism among American right-wingers is frustrating. I don’t hide my strong criticisms of those who willfully embrace ignorance… nor should I. It’s not name-calling. Saying an ignorant person is ignorant is simply stating a fact.

          I’m genuinely sorry that the truth hurts your feelings.

          With that said, now let me deal with the specific issues of ignorance that I’m faced with in dealing with people like you. In my following comments, I’ll share some comments and quotes from other posts I’ve written.







          “I am convinced, that if﻿ all men were to live as simply as I then did, thieving and robbery would be unknown. These take place only in communities where some have got more than is sufficient while others have not enough.”﻿

        • I recommend reading this book by Kaye. Here are two posts, among others, where I discuss and quote Kaye’s analysis of Paine. Below the second link are some passages from his book.

          Thomas Paine and the Promise of America by Harvey J. Kaye:


          – – –



          – – –


          – – –



          – – –





          – – –











          The contest of ideologies in American society hasn’t been between traditional conservatism and radical liberalism. Rather, it’s been a contest between John Locke’s self-oriented liberalism and Thomas Paine’s social-oriented liberalism, the former often defending class divisions (in defense of the ownership rights of the ownership class) and the latter challenging them.

          – – –

          It should be clearly noted that this progressive direction isn’t anything new. I’d argue that the continuing progressive revolution is the central story of America and of post-Enlightenment Western civilization in general.

          People seem to have short memories when it comes to history. The labor movement and the creation of the first unions preceded the American revolution. In fact, all of the working class riotings and organizing in Britain and Europe at that time were behind much of the revolutionary fervor in America. It was Paine who first described the progressive vision of a “Free and independent States of America” (i.e., the unified vision of liberty and equality, of individual freedom and collective betterment), and it was Paine who was first inspired by the working class movement in England. The ideal of progress wasn’t just discovered in the 20th century. If the founding generation didn’t care about progressivism (i.e., social progress), they wouldn’t have fought a revolution to create a new kind of democratic republic.

          No one should be surprised that America’s progressivism, which began before America was even a country and which inspired the American Revolution, still continues to this day and will continue for as long as the American Dream continues. America was founded on and remains defined by the seeking of improvement, individual and collective. To oppose progressivism is to oppose America and all that America stands for.


          “Yet Nichols distorts history by dragooning reformist liberals into his socialist tradition. For example, Tom Paine is posthumously drafted as a socialist hero because he favoured a version of a welfare state and progressive taxation, even though these are compatible with an economy based primarily on private property. Nichols does not mention Paine’s belief in minimal government or his support of an armed citizenry, which are cited today by American libertarians and opponents of gun control.”

          There is no inherent conflict between libertarianism and socialism, between valuing both liberty and fairness, both negative and positive freedom, between valuing both individual and collective good, both private and public good. I can’t stand this ideological mindset of either/or absolutism and win/lose scenarios.

          Socialism can’t co-exist with capitalism, but it can co-exist with a free market (a criticism even made by some libertarians such as John C. Medaille). And why is this reviewer so simpleminded as to think someone can’t simultaneously support socialism, minimal government and gun rights. The reviewer asks why Nichols doesn’t mention Paine’s belief in minimal government. If the reviewer is demanding fairness, then why didn’t he mention Paine’s belief in a government that is strong enough and central enough to enforce regulation of ownership rights and to constrain the problems caused by private ownership?



          – – –




          Unlike most of the founders, Paine was a genuine progressive.



          As Benjamin Franklin said:


          And as John Adams said:





          – – –



          However, Paine is more central to my argument, especially considering he was the first to refer to America as a united country and the first to formulate a version of Bill of Rights. Paine didn’t deny we are born with various inequalities, but he observed that most of the major inequalities in modern civilization are created by modern civilization. I’d suggest you read Paine in more detail to understand this position. He describes it in great detail in ‘Agrarian Justice’.

          I’d go so far as to argue that the ideas and policies of the Populist and Progressive Eras were rooted in the thinking of the founding fathers.

          For example, in ‘Agrarian Justice’, Paine formulated an early version of social security among other proposals of a what right-wingers would call a “welfare state”. Or take the Civil War as another example. Lincoln admired Paine and was inspired by Paine’s advocation of universal suffrage. Paine wanted literal freedom for all to be written into the constitution. Having failed that, it was left to Lincoln to finish the American Revolution that Paine originally inspired. In the terms of our disccusion, I think it’s hard to argue that the federal government enforcing equal rights (beginning with the Civil War and being furthered with the Civil Rights movement) is merely establishing equal opportunity. The government was, in fact, demanding basic results of equality in the real world. The government didn’t just offer slaves the opportunity to work themselves out of slavery.

        • Let me simplify all that I’ve shared in response to your comment.

          The most broad definition of ‘classical liberalism’ is all liberalism prior to the 20th century. You acknowledge that there had been many types of liberalism prior to the 20th century, but you use 20th century right-wing labels to separate them. Such distinctions weren’t seen as clearly, if at all, in the 18th and 19th centuries. There was much cross-over between what you distinguish as classical liberals and social liberals. Even socialism was part of the mix back then, the early Republican Party partly having been inspired by and having included socialists.

          What happened in the 20th century is that conservatism fell out of favor. This left a void. So, the earlier liberalism was split into two broad categories. The more individualistic-oriented liberalism was anointed as the new conservatism and the more community-oriented liberalism was made the sole inheritor of the title of ‘liberal’. As such, 20th century politics has mostly been a competition between varieties of liberalism, although conservatism mid-century sought to re-assert itself in a new radicalized (i.e., liberalized) version.

          As I quoted in one post:

          “America is conservative in fundamental principles…
          But the principles conserved are liberal
          and some, indeed, are radical.”
          ~ Gunnar Myrdal

          ~ Mark Twain

          In The Liberal Tradition in America, Louis Hartz wrote:


        • Let me point out the obvious. I get frustrated with these kinds of discussions, and I am sorry about expressing my frustrations as I do (if I were only a better man…). I’ll try to explain the reasons for my frustration.

          In my experience: Left-libertarians at least know the basic position of most right-libertarians and the varieties of right-libertarianism. But right-libertarians commonly know little if anything about left-libertarianism. Some right-libertarians only acknowledge left-libertarianism in order to dismiss it, some even claiming there is no such thing as left-libertarianism. Many of these right-libertarians don’t even seem interested in learning what left-libertarianism is.

          I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. Right-libertarians have their own shows in the mainstream media (such as Adam Kokesh on Russia Today and Judge Napolitano on Fox News). Right-libertarians get mainstream attention because the Establishment right-libertarians are very wealthy and powerful (such as the Koch brothers and Rupert Murcoch, all who are closely involved with the Rand corporation, the former heavily involved in the LIbertarian Party and the latter owning a media empire). Right-libertarians like to pretend to be victims of mainstream politics, but they are closer to mainstream politics than left-libertarians could ever hope of achieving anytime in the near future.

          Left-libertarians are very familiar with right-libertarians because right-libertarians are in the media all the time. The same can’t be said of left-libertarians. For example, Ron Paul is mentioned thousands of times in the mainstream media for every single time Noam Chomsky is mentioned. Unsurprisingly, most right-libertarians are oblivious that they aren’t the only kind of libertarians.

          It reminds me of the research showing the average atheist knows more about the Bible than the average Christian. Being an atheist is frustrating in a similar way to being a left-libertarian.

          Worse of all, left-wingers get blamed for supposedly supporting statism. I’ve met few socialists who support communism of the Leninist or Maoist varieties. Many socialists are libertarians and most are either anarchists or minarchists. An example of a socialist left-libertarian is Noam Chomsky. Despite being the most well known left-winger, few Americans (especially right-wingers) know much about Chomsky’s views of almost anything.

          It’s even more frustrating to hear right-wingers trying to make 18th and 19th century liberalism into a conservative movement. That is just straight up bullshit. Liberals, of course, interpret the liberalism of the past more broadly (i.e., more liberally). Liberalism is never a single ideology. Liberalism embraces change. Only a conservative would try to grasp onto the liberalism of the past in order to turn it into a dogmatic unchanging ideology.

          This was explained well with something I quoted (by Alan Wolfe) in one of the blogs I’ve already referenced:





          • Lol @ hurts my feelings!!!! You call people fucktards and I am the childish ignorant one LMAO. God I’m sorry the city of Iowa City doesn’t give you more to do so that you could do something productive rather than spend hours repeating meaningless regurgitated dribble full of half truths and misunderstandings. But in reality all you really did was copy and paste but, wow, copy and paste you did! Good lord man thank god you are not in graduate school -or an undergraduate- you would be laughed right out of any classroom. Then again you did go to school in the south so I guess it is understandable. Good luck I hope you get back on your meds soon. Though the lack of them does appear to make you at least funny.

          • That is rather pathetic. Do you ever look at yourself in the mirror? You went to all that time and effort in research about me so that you could personally attack me like a little boy throwing taunts on a playground. And that is supposed to show how mature you are? Am I supposed to have a pissing match with you or something? LOL

            Have you considered I openly state personal facts like that because I don’t give a shit about pathetic losers like you? Anyone who would make such personal attacks probably is projecting their own personal problems. If you had any depth of knowledge or if you had a rational argument, you probably would have offered it by now. Your attacks are just distractions from your unwillingness or inability to debate intelligently.

            Anyway, how is telling me things I already know an insult? In particular, how is my living in Iowa City an insult? Are you really that shallow and desperate? Apparently, I really did hurt your feelings.

            By the way, Iowa City has one of the highest rates of highly educated people in the entire country. It used to, in fact, have the highest per capita of college graduates of any city in the US. That was true a few years ago, but I don’t know more recent statistics. Also, Iowa City has one of the oldest writer workshops in the world and is the only UNESCO city of literature in North America. Some of America’s greatest writers have taught or been taught in Iowa City. I’m surrounded by people far more intelligent and well educated than you, and you think that is a criticism against me in some bizarre way. Could you explain your thought processes behind this supposed insult?

            So you think I’d get laughed out of any classroom for making intelligent comments, huh? Most of what I copied and pasted was my own thoughts and writings based on years of reading. There is no reason to be jealous. You too could educate yourself if you wanted to.

            By the way, I love your self-enclosed ‘logic’. If I spend years coming up with original thoughts and commentary as I have, then I am somehow “repeating meaningless regurgitated dribble full of half truths and misunderstandings”. If I carefully quote and cite books written by experts in relevant fields, then all I did was “copy and paste”. So, if you don’t respect either original thought or expert opinions, then what do you respect? Are you just one of those anti-intellectuals who attacks other people for being intellectual because you are incapable of intellectual thought yourself?

            Yes, I went to some schools in the South. And I went to some schools in the Midwest. What is your fucking point? My God, you are beyond pathetic. I was also raised by two intelligent and highly educated parents, one who was a college professor. Also, since graduating from high school, I’ve read thousands of academic books. If you ever come close to having learned half as much as I have in my life, then come back and we will an intelligent discussion.

            I call fucktarded people fucktards. So? A fucktard just generally means someone who is a ‘fucker’ (i.e., someone who is an asshole and/or is generally rude) and a ‘retard’ (i.e., someone who is low IQ and/or willfully ignorant). If someone comes on my blog and rudely makes an ignorant comment, then it’s perfectly rational for me to call them a ‘fucktard’.

            Here is a simple rule of life. If you go to someone’s house or blog and act rudely, you will probably be treated rudely. If you go to someone’s house or blog and act respectfully, you will probably be treated respectfully. If you go to someone’s house or blog and challenge someone’s opinions with ignorant statements, you will probably have those ignorant statements challenged. If you go to someone’s house or blog and start an intelligent discussion, you will probably be joined in with intelligent discussion. You get what you give in life.

    • Don’t be a fucktard. I realize it may be fun pretending to be stupid, but you must not forget that people often become what they pretend to be.

      Any non-fucktarded person knows that “third party” is a general category. In general use, it refers to all parties outside of the two-party system.

      I realize you can’t actually be as stupid as you are pretending. I only ask you to act like an adult while commenting in my blog. All future fucktarded comments by you will be deleted.

  7. Each party has certain common threads. It is just that the more visible, such as politicians, Ron Paul, Paul Rand “seem to” represent the vast majority of that particular party to those who know little about the party. I am amused that Libertarians such as Ron and Rand Paul are condescending toward government. They think any form of government that competes with the Republican Party is inferior and not real. That the only real election is the one they, the Republicans win. Ron and Rand Paul run for office under the theme, “government is bad.” They then get elected and prove it.

    • It’s nice to get a respectful response from someone on this post, whether or not a person agrees with me.

      I do like that you point out the issue of “seem to” represent. When looking at polls, right-libertarianism doesn’t represent the average Republican and certainly doesn’t represent the average conservative. Did you know around 1/3 of Democrats identify as conservatives?

      As for your last remark, I’ve said the same thing myself so many times that I’ve lost count. Sadly, no matter how many times they prove it, their base apparently believes that it will magically work the next time.

  8. I think you hit it spot on. The Koch brothers appear to promote libertarianism, but then seek to selectively advocate for a policy or the repeal of a policy if it personally favors them. I don’t think this necessarily makes their methods for data aggregation, analysis, and synthesis inherently flawed or biased, but there certainly appears to be a conflict of interest. When referencing The Heritage Foundation’s Index of Economic Freedom, how can we possibly determine whether or not they have invalidated the data that favors certain criteria, data mining, etc. that may or may not be favorable to the Koch brothers or any other funder in some way? I feel like the data itself has become invalidated as a result. What do you think? I guess if other institutions who were independent of each other corroborated the data then I would feel a little bit better about it.

    • You bring up a good point.

      With the Index of Economic Freedom, it’s quite possible that they created their criteria after rather than before looking at the data and so designed the criteria to mine the data. Even if they didn’t look at the data first, it’s obvious that they are hyper-ideological and so their conception of freedom is no doubt far from neutral and probably far from being egalitarian and fair. The question is whose freedom are they measuring: the freedom of the typical rich white male libertarian?

      I’ve studied enough about political conceptions of freedom to know the entire field is almost impossible to discuss because of the entrenched biases. I specifically know the libertarian view of freedom and I know that a libertarian wouldn’t include positve liberty as part of their measure of freedom. This means those who already have positive freedom (i.e., inherited privilege and wealth) use negative liberty to defend against other groups from gaining positive freedom. For damn sure, those with inherited privilege and wealth didn’t gain it through mere negative liberty.

      The only thing negative liberty can do is defend the liberty you already have, but it can’t give you freedom if you lack it. So, the demographics in America that have experienced centuries of oppression and disadvantage have a less romantic notion of negative freedom, especially since it was this conception of freedom that was originally used to disenfranchise them of power (such as Lockean land rights being used to justify stealing Native American land or classical liberal free market ideals being used to justify slavery).

    • First, let me point out that wealth in and of itself wasn’t the central point of my post. I was pointing out wealth disparities, but also other things as well. I still see no wealth data that contradicts this particular point.

      More importantly, I was trying to get at the issue of how well groups match the average American and so, by implication, how well they might represent the average American. I was also making a point about stereotypes and how well certain political groups fit their respective stereotypes. Libertarians seem to fit the stereotype most people hold of Libertarians. However, as I’ve explained in other posts, Liberals often don’t fit the Liberal stereotype:

      Anyway, I’ll now analyze some of the data about wealth.

      From the Cato link, there is a diversity of income among both libertarians and liberals. Libertarians have a higher percentage at the highest income bracket (31% at $75,000+ compared to 29% for liberals; within that 31%, 6% of libertarians are $105,000 +). However, liberals have slightly more at the middle class range (16% at $50,000–$74,999 compared to 10% for libertarians). As for the poor end, the percentage difference between libertarians and liberals is very small.

      That does support the claim made in my post. The wealthiest Americans are disproportionately represented among libertarians (as per capita of the libertarian demographic). It is true, though, that liberals don’t tend to be poor. Liberalism is more middle class values for liberals include the highest percentage of well-educated professionals.

      Out of curiosity, I thought I’d do a comparison with data from Pew’s Beyond Red Vs. Blue.

      It isn’t a perfect comparison because Pew organizes their data differently. They organize people into groups according to their actual beliefs rather than their self-identified label. If anything, the Pew data should tell us more about actual libertarians and liberals than the Cato data. Also, the Pew data is more recent from 2011 whereas the Cato data is from 2006. The Cato report actually is using data from a diversity of sources rather than a single source. The problem with this is that I’m thinking they are mixing data of self-reported political labels and data like Pew which organizes people according to their actual positions. The Cato wealth data comes from a 2006 Pew report:

      So, it ends up being a comparison between Pew data from 2006 and Pew data from 2011. Plus, I’m not sure those two Pew sets of data were looking at the same thing and certainly not dividing the demographics up in the same way. I think the 2011 data might have been a larger survey and so used a larger sampling.

      The Pew data of Solid Liberals is basically all consistent liberals in that they are liberal across the board, socially and economically. However, this doesn’t necessarily include all people identifying as liberal. Also, oddly, a significant number of Solid Liberals don’t even identify as liberal.

      Pew description of Libertarians:

      “Libertarians are relatively comfortable financially– nearly half (46%) say they are professional or business class, among the highest of the typology groups.”

      “Most (85%) are non-Hispanic white and two-thirds (67%) are male. Well educated (71% have attended college) and affluent (39% have incomes of $75,000 or more).”

      “36% trade stocks.”

      Pew description of Solid Liberals:

      “Compared with the general public, more live in the Northeast (25%) and the West (28%). About half (49%) are college graduates , including 27% with post-graduate experience, the most of any group. 57% are female.”

      Take the gender angle. The American population is about 51% Female. Solid Liberals are only slightly above average at 57%. Libertarians are way below average 33%.

      There is interesting data on more specific economic issues.

      Libertarians and Solid Liberals express about the same average financial stress in terms of satisfaction or dissatisfaction with financial situation. However, 42% of Libertarians and 48% of Liberals have had a member of the household unemployed in the past year (2011 or so).

      This would seem to imply Solid Liberals were hit harder by the recession, but there is a complicating factor. Solid Liberals are almost equally divided between, in relation to the recession, those who have had a “Major effect and not recovered”, those who have had a “Major effect but mostly recovered”, and those who “Didn’t have a major effect”. On the other hand, Libertarians have a lower percentage in the middle category and a higher percentage at each extreme end. I’m not sure why that is or what it means other than some Libertarians being very well off and others not so much.

      However, that doesn’t seem entirely correct as Solid Liberals have a higher percentage (22%) than Libertarians (16%) of those with a family income <$30k. There is an obvious subjective self-assessment aspect for some of these questions. When asked "Do you now, or will you, have enough income to lead the kind of life you want? ", 25% of Libertarians and 18% of Solid Liberals state that they "Won’t have enough in the future". It would appear that Libertarians are less satisfied with having a lower income, even though fewer of them have a lower income.

      This dissatisfaction maybe makes sense as Libertarians have the highest percentage that believe that "Most people can get ahead it if they're willing to work hard". This implies that the social reality of our economy isn't conforming to the belief of many Libertarians. Solid Liberals have the lowest percentage that believe this. Solid Liberals are also a successful group, one of the wealthier and highest achieving of any demographic. Yet Solid Liberals don't seem to expect that our society is a true meritocracy and so they are less dissatisfied with the social reality of our economy.

      Libertarians have the highest employment rate and the lowest unemployment rate compared to every other demographic group. Solid Liberals closer to the national average.

      Libertarians are mostly white non-hispanic males with a disproportionate number of the wealthy. However, there is a significant number of Libertarians across the income spectrum. More oddly, libertarians aren't particularly well educated with the majority lacking a college degree.

      Liberals are closer to being representative of the average demographics of the country in terms of gender and race. However, they tend to be more middle class professionals and have the highest education levels of all Americans. Education, however, only partly correlates to wealth as much wealth is inherited, especially among the wealthiest.

      So, it depends on what data you're looking at and how the demographics are divided. However, no matter which data set, my original claim remains true. Libertarians have the highest percentage of the wealthiest Americans.

  9. I wanted to quickly respond to “The Why of Libertarianism” from the Ask A Libertarian blog. This post was linked in that post:

    Let me be clear. I tend toward libertarianism. Of course, I prefer the original meaning of libertarianism that always meant left-wing in Europe. I’m just tired of the bullshit spouted by right-wingers.

    This is made clear by the quote used in the post at that ‘libertarian’ blog. It’s by Henry David Thoreau: “That government is best which governs least.” The thing is that Thoreau was a left-wing libertarian. as I previously explained:

    That is the problem I have with right-wingers. There is a total lack of larger context, historical and ideological. It becomes yet another form of groupthink, the complete opposite of what libertarianism should be about.

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