Rich and Good-Looking? Why Libertarianism Goes Nowhere

2007.04.02   prev     next

Advocates For Self-Governmant has a nice, diamond-shaped graph that shows how two simple issues, sexual freedom (they call it “personal freedom”) and economic freedom (i.e. free trade) relate to the major political camps:

Leftist

Libertarian sexual freedom economic freedom Statist

Rightist

I think their graph does a fine job of summing up what’s going on in American politics (and probably much of world politics as well). But I think they think the graph is somehow going to win converts to Libertarianism. Good luck.

Who wants sexual freedom? Mostly, people who have the opportunity to have lots of great sex. In other words, good-looking people. Who wants sexual activity to be a heavily regulated, everybody-gets-one-mate system? Mostly, people who aren’t so good-looking.

And who wants no ceiling on how rich you can be? Mostly, people who are rich, or who think they’re on their way to becoming rich. Who wants tight government limits on how rich you can be? Mostly, people who aren’t rich, and who think (usually correctly) that they’re not likely to ever become rich.

Probably the strongest counter-argument to the above would be to point out that lots of leftist politicians and activists are rich, and lots of rightist politicians and activists are good-looking. But individuals who make political activism a major part of their lives have different motivations than the average, bulk voter. I’m talking about the latter. And even then, only about what they do in the voting booth, which may or may not correspond to what they say over munchies at a social.

If I’m right, what does it mean? It means that the Libertarian vote comes from whatever rather small fraction of the electorate happens to be both rich (or on-the-way) and good-looking. Is that a recipe for winning elections? I doubt it.

Call me cynical, but I think something really fundamental has to change before we’ll see a society governed by Libertarian principles, instead of a constant policy struggle between leftists and rightists. Since my personal hunch is that most physical ugliness and wealth-sabotaging behavior is caused by mutational damage to the DNA, I must conclude that successful Libertarianism will have to wait for the big DNA fix-it project to yield substantial fruit.

In my lifetime? I doubt it.

2007.09.26 — minor grammatical improvement