What follows is a bibliographic attempt to answer the question of what makes libertarians and conservatives different. Where possible I have linked to the articles and books, but much of the debate transpired before the advent of the Internet, and as such, is only available in hard copy. Two sources in particular warrant special attention – Murray Rothbard and Bill Buckley’s National Review. In many ways they encapsulate the rift. Where as they may have found many points of agreement when National Review was founded in 1955 (and even this is a stretch), by the early 60’s, the New Right was far removed from its old right roots. Militant anti-communism coupled with an increasing social conservative statism were tendencies many libertarians found distasteful. If the modus vivendi of the early 1940 revival of the libertarian/conservative movement had been the defeat the leviathan state, only the libertarians stayed the course with any consistency. [Full article on LRC]
Source link: http://archive.mises.org/2649/libertarians-and-conservatives-an-annotated-bibliography/
Libertarians and Conservatives: An Annotated Bibliography
Previous post: Dollar in Trouble
Next post: The Whole Upgrade Thing
{ 4 comments }
The Federalist Society’s Conservative and Libertarian Legal Scholarship: An Annotated Bibliography may also of interest.
Thanks for the bibliography, very helpful. There is so much bosh on the internet and elsewhere that some people will be misguided unless they persevere. Hogwash like this: http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/5065/libcon.html I am afraid may convince a beginner of the wrong information.
The way I put it, a conservative is someone who believes that someone, somewhere, must have the final say, be the final authority, on human interactions. Libertarians don’t believe that.
Weird! THE item that, for me, most distinguishes the conservative from the libertarian is not apparently even mentioned here: The libertarian identifies freedom as being the best hope for human harmony and happiness. He judges everything according to whether or not it reflects and promotes freedom to greatest possible extent. By contrast, the conservative identifies “the family” as being the best hope for human harmony and happiness. A thing is good or bad according to whether or not it promotes “the family,” in the eyes of conservatives. Thus, conservatives will support censorship (especially of materials they deem unsuitable for children), enforced religion, enforced sexual prohibitions, enforced role differentiation for men and women, and other enforcements unacceptable to libertarians. Conservatives often look to heads of households and to ingrained custom to do the enforcing. They often share with the libertarians a dislike of enforcement by government–often because the government is not diligent ENOUGH in its enforcements! (Libertarians and conservatves do not differ significantly in macroeconomic philosophy).
Comments on this entry are closed.