The Difference Between a Liberal and a Libertarian (From Jonathan Haidt’s Righteous Mind)

A liberal and a libertarian walk into a bar…

Not really. But have you ever looked for a good, succinct explanation of the difference between a liberal and a libertarian? I came across one recently in Jonathan Haidt’s The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion:

Libertarians are the direct descendants of the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Englightenment reformers who fought to free people and markets from the control of kings and clergy. Libertarians love liberty; that is their sacred value. Many libertarians wish they could simply be known as liberals, but they lost that term in the United States (though not in Europe) when liberalism split into two camps in the late nineteenth century. Some liberals began to see powerful corporations and wealthy industrialists as the chief threats to liberty. These ‘new liberals’ (also known as ‘left liberals’ or ‘progressives’) looks to government as the only force capable of protecting the public and rescuing the many victims of the brutal practices of early industrial capitalism. Liberals who continued to fear government as the chief threat to liberty became known as “classical liberals,” “right liberals” (in some countries), or libertarians (in the United States) (p. 350).

He goes on to explain that liberals sought to make use of government to protect individual rights and freedoms (to “safeguard liberty”) but also to “advance the general welfare of the people,” by doing things like “breaking up monopolies and creating new government agencies to regulate labor practices and to ensure the quality of foods and medicines.” But libertarians, in contrast, saw these things as a capitulation to the authority of government and a fast to the abdication of liberty (freedom from control, authority, constraint).

Haidt has developed a “moral matrix,” based on his extensive empirical, psychological research, which suggests there are six “moral foundations,” which comprise our (human) moral intuitions: (1) Care/Harm; (2) Liberty/oppression; (3) Fairness/cheating;  (4) Loyalty/betrayal; (5) Authority / Subversion; and (6) Sanctity / Degradation. I can’t go into an explanation of all these here (I’m working on a review of the book, and will share other pieces later). But the point is that some of us are inspired by or drawn to several of these values or moral intuitions, but not so much to others. Haidt says that his research shows that

libertarians join liberals in scoring very low on the Loyalty, Authority, and Sanctity foundations. Where they diverge from liberals most sharply is on two measures: the Care foundation, where they score very low (even lower than conservatives), and on…economic liberty, where they score extremely high (a little higher than conservatives, a lot higher than liberals).

For the record, Haidt notes that he has empathy with a number of libertarian positions: “I believe that libertarians are right on many points.”

Personally, though, I must admit to feeling more tension than empathy with a perspective that is defined by low scores on the foundation of “Care.”

For Haidt’s popular Ted Talk summarizing his book and research, go here 

For Bill Moyer’s fascinating interview of Haidt, go here

For Haidt’s website, where you can take the “moral foundations” test yourself, go here.