The libertarian fantasy: “What’s Left?” January 2020 (MRR #440)

There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.

John Rogers
Kung Fu Monkey — Ephemera, blog post, 3-19-09

The idea of expanding the traditional one-dimensional Left-Right political spectrum into a two-dimensional political map is an old one. Beginning in the 1950s, several double-axis models were proposed: Authoritarian-Democratic/Radical-Conservative (Eysenck), Left-Right/Ideological Rigidity (Greenberg & Jonas), Traditionalist-Secular/Self Expressionist-Survivalist (Inglehart), Liberty-Control/Irrationalism-Rationalism (Pournelle), and Kratos-Akrateia/Archy-Anarchy (Mitchell). The American libertarian David Nolan proposed his two axis diamond-shaped Nolan Chart in 1969 based on economic freedom and political freedom, which everybody knows about but nobody uses outside of libertarian circles. Which brings is to the problem of libertarianism. Continue reading