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May 9, 2024 - 8:00pm
In 2016, a number of prominent US conservatives gathered to formally debate whether the much-vaunted “libertarian moment” was merely a mirage. Nearly a decade later, the American Right’s libertarian contingent has seemingly been dealt its final blow.
FreedomWorks, the once-influential libertarian-leaning conservative organisation, shut down operations on Wednesday following a precipitous decline in revenue and years of internal strife over Donald Trump. The small-government ethos that defined FreedomWorks — and much of the GOP establishment — fell out of fashion as Trump and Republican voters embraced economic protectionism and more restrictive immigration policies.
The group’s president told Politico that a “huge gap” had grown between the organisation’s leadership and its members — a conflict emblematic of the conservative establishment’s struggle with the GOP’s populist drift since 2015.
Libertarian ideology at one point had strong institutional power and financial backing on the Right, with corporations having an obvious financial interest in promoting deregulation, free-market economics and low taxes.
The Tea Party movement, which grew to prominence under the Barack Obama administration, emphasised fiscal conservatism and limited government. The grassroots movement featured protests against government mismanagement attracting large crowds of ordinary voters, but it also enjoyed backing from libertarian-leaning think tanks and activist groups funded by corporate interests.
The ties between the economic libertarians of the Right and the corporate world didn’t end with the collapse of the Tea Party. Both Facebook and Google made sizeable contributions to conservative bulwarks such as the Heritage Foundation, the Competitive Enterprise Institute and State Policy Network in the late 2010s.
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SubscribeDon’t worry; I’ve been becoming more libertarian over the last several years to pick up the slack.
Free Markets are superior to Command Economics but Market Socialism boxes out Libertarians. When the entire economy operates through “public-private partnerships” than corporate deregulation itself becomes a tool of government.
Governments are directing Corporations and Corporations are directing governments. Libertarianism assumes a separate public and private sphere which simply does not exist any more.
I’m sure the Italians tried this “corporatism” in the 1930s. How did it go?
Competition with China and other countries, where the government and corporations are closely intertwined (not necessarily better in governance depending on how you look at it), presents a significant barrier to the ideals of the traditional free market. These nations can manipulate a failing market, whereas the principles of a free market often lead to unchecked declines, with no safety net in place which no one in their right mind wants anymore. The U.S. struggles because it often treats ideas as if they were reality, a notion that the rest of the world finds laughable, as reality is grounded in tangible, earthly matters. So I am not surprised this idea is dying, it was only a facade in the first place…the supporters did not truly believe it! If they did, it would not fail.
Cry me a river. If you want your economic policies to be respected, then they have to work out as promised every once in a while.
I think libertarianism has become a little bit like communism in that respect, that its true believers say it’s never been tried properly.
Unlike communism, which has in fact been tried over and over again with the same dismal results, libertarianism hasn’t really, so claiming that economic policies don’t work is a bit premature.
I would describe myself as libertarian, but even I see a role for government in a modern state. Just a lot smaller than any modern country I can think of. Pre-handover Hong Kong perhaps.
It will be interesting to see how Mr Milei fares in Argentina. He’s about the only guy apparently trying to apply libertarian principles to the actual reality of governing a country.
Libertarianism has been tried- Somalia, Haiti, Sudan, the CHAZ…
May it never be tried again.
I think the promise of libertarianism in its strong form at least is a mirage, but it is a bit of a ludicrous comparison to make with those failed states!
I never heard of Freedom Works. Did anyone?
I for one welcome the slow death of lolbertarianism. It was always little more than an excuse for large multiconglomerates to avoid regulation and taxes.
Libertarians seemed to prefer a corporate tax rate of zero. This always made sense to me, at least for the U.S. Corporate taxes don’t raise much revenue and the taxes are almost always ultimately paid by individual customers of those corporations.
Another indication that libertarianism has lost is yesterday’s 6-3 re-affirmation of civil forfeiture by the SCOTUS.