Libertarian conservatism, also referred to as conservative libertarianismGraber, Mark A. (1991). Transforming Free Speech: The Ambiguous Legacy of Civil Libertarianism. Berkeley, California: University of California Press. p. 18. .Narveson, Jan (2001). The Libertarian Idea (revised ed.). Peterborough, Ontario: Broadview Press. p. 8. .Passavent, Paul (2003). No Escape: Freedom of Speech and the Paradox of Rights. New York: New York University Press. . and, more rarely, conservatarianism,Cooke, Charles C.W. (March 23, 2015). "Conservatarianism" . National Review. Retrieved September 23, 2020.Polumbo, Brad (April 4, 2019). "What Is a Conservatarian?" Libertarianism. Retrieved September 23, 2020. is a libertarian political and social philosophy that combines conservatism and libertarianism, representing the libertarian wing of conservatism and vice versa.
Libertarian conservatism advocates the greatest possible economic liberty and the least possible government regulation of social life (described as "small government"), mirroring laissez-faire classical liberalism, but harnesses this to a belief in a more socially conservative philosophy emphasizing authority, morality, and duty. Primarily an American ideology, libertarian conservatism prioritizes liberty, promoting free expression, freedom of choice and free-market capitalism to achieve conservative ends while rejecting liberal social engineering.Piper, J. Richard (1997). Ideologies and Institutions: American Conservative and Liberal Governance Prescriptions Since 1933. Rowman & Littlefield. pp. 110–111. .
Although having similarities to liberal conservatism and therefore mainstream American conservatism with both being influenced by classical liberal thought; libertarian conservatives are far more anti-statist and are much more hostile to government intervention in both social and economic matters.
Philosophy In political science, libertarian conservatism is an ideology that combines the advocacy of economic and legal principles such as fiscal discipline, respect for contracts, defense of private property and free markets, fewer laws banning minor crimes, and the traditional conservative stress on self-help and freedom of choice under a laissez-faire and economically liberal capitalist society with social tenets such as the importance of religion and the value of religious morality through a framework of limited, constitutional, representative government. For Margaret Randall, libertarian conservatism began as an expression of liberal individualism and the demand for personal freedom.
Unity or conflict In 2006, Nelson Hultberg wrote that there is "philosophical common ground" between libertarians and conservatives. According to Hultberg, "[t]he true conservative movement was, from the start, a blend of political libertarianism, cultural conservatism, and non-interventionism abroad bequeathed to us via the Founding Fathers". He said that such libertarian conservatism was "hijacked" by neoconservatism, "by the very enemies it was formed to fight—Fabians, New Dealers, welfarists, progressives, globalists, interventionists, militarists, nation builders, and all the rest of the collectivist ilk that was assiduously working to destroy the Founders' Republic of States".Hultberg, Nelson (December 20, 2006). "True Conservatism vs. Neo-Conservatism". Americans for a Free Republic. . Retrieved August 20, 2008.
Other scholars, such as conservative philosopher Russell Kirk, have highlighted the contrasts between conservatives and libertarians, stating that "to talk of forming a league or coalition between these two is like advocating a union of ice and fire". Libertarian activist Jerome Tuccille wrote: "Libertarianism is basically Aristotelian (reason, objectivity, individual self-sufficiency) while conservatism is just fundamentally Platonic (privileged elitism, mysticism, collective order)."
According to Andrew Gilbert, conservative parties such as the British Conservative Party and the American Republican Party hold a significant libertarian conservative wing, although Gilbert argues that "it is questionable to what extent conservatism and libertarianism are compatible".Gilbert, Andrew (2018). British Conservatism and the Legal Regulation of Intimate Relationships. London: Bloomsbury Publishing. p. 40. . "Political parties which are usually considered to be conservative parties (such as the US Republican Party or the British Conservative Party) are also known for having a significant libertarian grouping within their ranks (especially in America), yet it is questionable to what extent conservatism and libertarianism are compatible." According to Mark A. Graber, libertarian conservatives are "philosophically consistent liberal legal individualists".
In 1998, George Wescott Carey edited Freedom and Virtue: The Conservative/Libertarian Debate, a book which contains essays that Carey describes as representing "the tension between liberty and morality" and "the main fault line dividing the two philosophies".Carey, George Wescott, ed. (1998). Freedom & Virtue: The Conservative Libertarian Debate. Intercollegiate Studies Institute. . For Brian Farmer, "Libertarianism is a form of Conservatism often considered separate from the more mainstream conservative ideologies, partially because it is a bit more extreme, and partially because Libertarians often separate themselves from other forms of more mainstream Conservatism".Farmer, Brian (2008). American Conservatism: History, Theory and Practice. Newcastle upon Tyne, England: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. p. 71. .
Economics Libertarian conservatism subscribes to the libertarian idea of free-market capitalism, advocating minimal to no government interference in the market. A number of libertarian conservatives favor the Austrian School of economics and are critical of fiat money. Libertarian conservatives also support wherever possible privatizing services traditionally run or provided by the government, from airports and air traffic control systems to toll roads and toll booths. Libertarian conservatism advocates economic freedom in the product and capital markets and consumption whilst excluding collective action, collective bargaining and labor organization in general.Zafirovski, Milan (2007). Democracy, Economy, and Conservatism: Political and Economic Freedoms and Their Antithesis in the Third Millennium: Modern Free Society and Its Nemesis. Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books. p. 309. .
History
In the 1950s, Frank Meyer, a prominent contributor to the National Review, called his own combination of libertarianism and conservatism fusionism.Feser, Edward (December 22, 2001). "What Libertarianism Isn't" . Lew Rockwell.com. Retrieved December 22, 2001.Raico, Ralph (Fall 1964). "Is Libertarianism Amoral?" . New Individualist Review. 3 (3): 29–36. The agorist philosopher Samuel Edward Konkin III coined the term right-libertarianism in order to describe this mixed ideology.
In a 1975 interview with Reason, California Governor Ronald Reagan appealed to libertarians when he stated to "believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism".Klausner, Manuel (July 1975). "Inside Ronald Reagan" . Reason. Retrieved May 2, 2020. Ron Paul was one of the first elected officials in the nation to support Reagan's presidential campaign and actively campaigned for Reagan in 1976 and 1980. However, Ron Paul quickly became disillusioned with the Reagan administration's policies after Reagan's election in 1980 and later recalled being the only Republican to vote against Reagan budget proposals in 1981, aghast that "in 1977, Jimmy Carter proposed a budget with a $38 billion deficit, and every Republican in the House voted against it. In 1981, Reagan proposed a budget with a $45 billion deficit—which turned out to be $113 billion—and Republicans were cheering his great victory. They were living in a storybook land". Ron Paul expressed his disgust with the political culture of both major parties in a speech delivered in 1984 upon resigning from the House of Representatives to prepare for a failed run for the Senate and eventually apologized to his libertarian friends for having supported Reagan. By 1987, Ron Paul was ready to sever all ties to the Republican Party as explained in a blistering resignation letter. While affiliated with both Libertarian and Republican parties at different times, Ron Paul stated to have always been a libertarian at heart.
In the 1980s, libertarians such as Ron Paul and Murray RothbardRothbard, Murray (1984). "The Reagan Phenomenon" . Free Life: The Journal of the Libertarian Alliance. Libertarian Alliance. '4 (1): 1–7. Retrieved September 20, 2020 – via the Mises Institute.Riggenbach, Jeff (February 5, 2011). "The Reagan Fraud – and After" . Mises Institute. Retrieved September 20, 2020. criticized President Reagan, Reaganomics and policies of the Reagan administration for, among other reasons, having turned the United States' big trade deficit into debt and the United States became a debtor nation for the first time since World War I under the Reagan administration.Kilborn, Peter T. (September 17, 1985). "U.S. Turns Into Debtor Nation" . The New York Times. Retrieved May 2, 2020.Johnston, Oswald (September 17, 1985). "Big Trade Deficit Turns U.S. Into Debtor Nation : First Time Since 1914" . Los Angeles Times. Retrieved May 2, 2020. Rothbard argued that the presidency of Reagan has been "a disaster for libertarianism in the United States"Weltch, Matt (September 9, 2011). "Rothbard on Reagan in Reason" . Reason. Reason Foundation. Retrieved September 20, 2020. and Ron Paul described Reagan himself as "a dramatic failure".
Already a radical classical liberal and anti-interventionist strongly influenced by the Old Right, especially its opposition to the managerial state whilst being more unequivocally anti-war and anti-imperialist,See Raimondo, Enemy; Brian Doherty, Radicals for Capitalism: A Freewheeling History of the Modern American Libertarian Movement (New York: Public Affairs 2007). Rothbard had become the doyen of libertarianism in the United States.Raimondo, Enemy 372–383.Doherty 565–569. After his departure from the New Left, with which he helped build for a few years a relationship with other libertarians,Murray N. Rothbard, "Left and Right: The Prospects for Liberty," Left and Right: A Journal of Libertarian Thought 1.1 (Spring 1965): 4–22.Roderick T. Long, "Rothbard's 'Left and Right': Forty Years Later" (Rothbard Memorial Lecture, Austrian Scholars Conference 2006). Rothbard had involved the segment of the libertarian movement loyal to him in an alliance with the growing paleoconservative movement,Raimondo, Enemy 266–295.Doherty 561–565. seen by many observers, libertarian and otherwise, as flirting with racism and social reaction. Suggesting that libertarians needed a new cultural profile that would make them more acceptable to socially and culturally conservative people, Rothbard criticized the tendency of proponents of libertarianism to appeal to "'free spirits,' to people who don't want to push other people around, and who don't want to be pushed around themselves" in contrast to "the bulk of Americans", who "might well be tight-assed conformists, who want to stamp out drugs in their vicinity, kick out people with strange dress habits, etc." whilst emphasizing that this was relevant as a matter of strategy. Rothbard argued that the failure to pitch the libertarian message to Middle America might result in the loss of "the tight-assed majority".Murray Rothbard, letter to David Bergland, June 5, 1986, qtd. Raimondo 263–264.