I've had friends -- libertarians even -- say I seem to be a libertarian. Indeed, in many ways, my philosophy is close: I believe in minimal economic regulations and am also cautious about using government to "do good" in the social realm. So why am I not a libertarian?

When talking about politics, we typically talk about "liberal" versus "conservative", "left" versus "right".

According to the libertarian, this is wrong: there are two axes: economic and social freedom. According to the libertarian, liberals want all social freedoms, but no economic ones. Conservatives, on the other hand, they argue, want economic freedoms but not social ones. Thus the libertarian offers the most freedom, wanting the government out of both our social and economic affairs.

But the libertarian's premises are completely wrong, on both counts.

Economic Activity

First, conservatives don't want complete economic freedom. Instead, they want the minimum government necessary, not a complete lack of government. If you can imagine economic activity as a kind of game, then remember that you can't even play a game which has no rules.

Consider property rights. When anyone can do anything to a given plot of land, it is quicky denuded of all value. This is a well-known problem called "the tragedy of the commons". The solution is to create "property rights", whereby we all agree to grant someone exclusive control each chunk of land, thereby increasing the odds it will be treated in a sustainable manner. If the owner does not, the land loses its value and it will sell for less, and the owner will lose his or her investment.

Again, capitalism will not function amidst anarchy. You need a certain minimum number of rules and protections -- with a government of some sort as guarantor -- before any economic activity can occur.

A rightist might agitate for fewer laws about trade. But not because the rightist wants no laws, but rather because he feels the current body of laws has gone beyond the desired "minimum." In an anarchic third world country, a rightist like renouned economist Hernando de Soto might agitate for more governmental involvement in the economy.

No rightist I've met ultimately desires an absense of government economic influence, including repeal of property laws. That's strictly the territory of the radical libertarian.

Social Activity

Next, the libertarian is also dead wrong in their characterization of the left as wanting no social laws. If one were to examine actual leftists, rather than the libertarian's conveniently idealized conception of them, one would discover real leftists desire quite a number of social laws -- in many cases, apparently, more and stronger restrictions than conservatives would desire!

Consider speech: While the liberal rails against any limits on pornography, aruging it is a kind of "speech", the liberal is also quick to support limits on actual speech, including political speech (campaign finance laws), or religious speech (such as rules banning people from showing their faith at work or in school), or any speech directed against practices it holds sacred (protesting abortion too close to a clinic or opposing homosexuality).

Consider sex and childrearing (yes, they're still related): The liberal fights (successfully) against the long precedent by which US states can regulate private sexual behavior, but will also support codes which regulate sexual contact, and would put limits on the content of pornography (those filmed must use condoms).

Concerning children in the womb, the liberal screams she wants the state's laws "off her body", but once a child is born, she will heartily support any number of governmental rules and agencies in an attempt to regulate parents' ability to raise and educate their children. In vitro, the child is the mother's property; once born, the child is the state's property.

So it's not true liberals want all social freedoms. When compared to traditional American or Western values, liberals demand freedom where we've had rules, and demand rules where we've had freedom. In short, they demand a revolution.

And in this area the libertarian is also wrong about the conservative: Most conservatives are not really (as a liberal might put it) trying to "force their beliefs on others" through social regulation.

For example, few polite conservatives would support a law requiring people say "please" and "thank you". Few Christian conservatives would support a law mandating belief in Jesus. (To the contrary, the Christian would say such faith must be freely chosen.) Similarly, no conservative atheist I know wants to limit religious expression in the way so many angry leftist atheists I meet do. (To the contrary, most are quite faith-friendly. I even know one who attends religious services with her children, despite her own disbelief.)

In fact, most conservatives I know say they don't really care what you do in the privacy of your own home, but draw the line where it begins to affect others.

Which is the whole point of this essay.

As "a liberal who's been mugged by reality", the conservative pays more attention to costs, benefits, incentives, and unintended consequences. In economic activities, this lead to a decrease in trust of government as a problem-solving tool. But the social realm, this can lead to an increased appreciation of the real social costs of so-called "private" decisions.

Consider sex: Besides the often-mention public health issues, there's frequently the possibility a child will be conceived. The child was not party to the original decision, but was certainly affected, no? Also note that sexual infidelity contributes to divorce, which has further social impacts of increased promiscuity, drug use, and crime. All of these incur costs ("negative externalities") for or impact people not involved in the initial decision.

Consider drug legalization: Some say "If I want to smoke pot, that's my business." Perhaps. But if it impairs your ability to operate a vehicle, suddenly it's not such a private matter. If taking crystal meth makes you violent and more prone to crime, suddenly that's not so private either. And if you demand we all take care of you when you get sick, and drugs damage the body, then we have an interest there as well.

So the conservative grapples with these issues in the same way as with economic issues: trying, cautiously, to determine "right" level of social governmental regulation.

Clearly, unlike the libertarian, the conservative doesn't feel zero social laws would be optimal. (Drugs like crystal meth make this point well.) But, contrary to the liberal's hypocritical charge, she is neither attempting to "force" all her social mores onto others through governmental power. Instead, she simply seeks the most helpful minimum set of social limits to the benefit of all.

Instead, the question is just one of the specific set point, "Which social laws and how many are beneficial?" And of course, just as there are on economic issues, there are a range of opinions among conservatives as to what actions should be limited, when, and how.

This explains, for example, how conservatives can include both those in favor of gay marriage (such as Andrew Sullivan) and those opposed to it. Their underlying political philosophy doesn't differ -- they all agree there is a helpful minimal set of social laws. They just differ in opinion regarding how far we should go in regulating which actions.

Conclusion

Libertarians are deeply and observably wrong about the difference between liberals and conservatives. Conservatives simply want as little government "as necessary" in both social and economic realms, where the libertarian ideal is none. And liberals are quite happy with a lot of government involvment in both social and economic intercourse.

I believe conservatives pay more attention to costs and benefits. Compared to our current society, economically, this leads to a relatively higher reluctance to use government as a problem-solving tool. Socially, this can also lead to an increased sensitivity to the real effects so-called "private" decisions have on formerly uninvolved parties.

The libertarian wants, ultimately, no social nor economic laws. The conservative feels there is a "right" minimum level for each, and tends to err in the direction in which she thinks he least harm will be done. And the liberal tends to want to make large changes immediately with the goal of reaching that ever-illusive uptopia just around the corner, which we would inhabit -- trust them -- if only they got their way.

And that, my friends, is why I'm not a libertarian.

Nor a liberal, for that matter.

UPDATE: John Ray comments:

He seems however to have overlooked that many libertarians are Minimal Statists (as I am) rather than Anarcho-capitalists -- which is why they get on with conservatives. Both conservatives and Minimal Statists see SOME need for a State but the Minimal Statist wants to cut it back a lot further.

Indeed. The libertarians I hung out with in college, in retrospect, were probably a bit more radical than most.

But all of the above implies the two-dimensional libertarian model of political alignment is seriously flawed, a point Ray has made previously here, here, and here:

I don’t much like hitting people over the head with my academic research results on this blog but seeing that I have just done it once, I might as well do it again: I also did a general population survey of Californians (Ray, 1982) in which I looked at whether libertarian and conservative attitudes were statistically separable. They were not. Virtually all the libertarians were conservatives too. Despite the usual contentions to the contrary, there really is just one dimension of political attitudes out there in the big wide world of the English-speaking countries -- a Left/Right dimension with conservatives and libertarians at one end and socialists and lovers of big government at the other.

Heh. So maybe I am a libertarian. :-)

Or maybe there are none: they're all conservatives...

Regardless, I think their oft-championed model by implying leftists believe in social freedom (not especially), conservatives do not (again, not especially), and then choosing social issues which confirm that bias (by asking about, say, sexual freedoms, but not "hate speech").