Jonah,

I, too, await with anticipation a response from Brink Lindsey or Will Wilkinson to your question about the fate of the liberaltarian project. But please allow me to offer a couple of thoughts, as a committed fusionist.

As a political strategy, liberaltarianism was understandably attractive to libertarian activists. No one likes to be taken for granted. And no one feels good about participating in a political coalition that repeatedly yields disappointing policy outcomes.

The problem is that, judged as a political strategy, it’s just not practical.

In theory, libertarian views overlap with the traditional GOP on economics and the traditional Dems on social issues, with foreign policy a bit more debatable. So libertarian votes might be thought to be up for grabs between the two party coalitions, thus giving them some leverage. But the reality is that for most libertarian voters, economics trumps social issues–for good reason. Most libertarians would rather live in a society with a smaller welfare state and illegal drugs than they would live in a bigger welfare state with legal drugs. As it happens, there are some folks out there who think they are libertarians, but when push comes to shove they just want the right to get stoned or get married. Perhaps they should get what they want, but that doesn’t mean they truly believe in smaller government. Nor do they have the makings of a powerful or lasting political coalition, anyway.

Cato’s own political analysis suggests that small-l libertarian voters were overwhelmingly Republican (like three-quarters) until 2006, when they became just a majority-Republican bloc. This seems primarily to be a consequence of disaffection with GOP spending profligacy, along with various other boneheaded policies and at least the conduct, if not the instigation, of the Iraq campaign. Republicans suffered when they lost these votes, some of which went to Dems and some of which simply went poof.

But that’s not the same as suggesting that there is at least as much of a natural affinity between libertarians and modern-day liberals as there is between libertarians and modern-day conservatives, if not more. This statement just isn’t true. The principles of liberty and virtue are certainly in tension within the broadly construed Right, but the principles of liberty and egalitarianism would be perpetually at war within a reconstructed Left. The current struggle against bailout/stimulus mania has been a clarifying moment, it seems to me. In the social-democrat future that the American Left wants, the private sphere must give way as costs are socialized and power is centralized. Virtually everything becomes the government’s business–including what you eat, drink, or smoke, not just where you bank.

Finally, Democratic flirtations with liberaltarianism were always about dividing their opponents and seizing power in Washington, not evidence of self-reflection about first principles or proof of interest in innovative applications. Don’t be so gullible, McFly.

BTW, nice analogy there about rubbing the libertarian cat’s fur backwards. Meow.