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Paleolibertarianism (also known as the "Paleo strategy") is aright-libertarian politicalactivism strategy aimed at uniting libertarians andpaleoconservatives.[1] It was developed by Americananarcho-capitalist theoristsMurray Rothbard andLew Rockwell in the American political context after theend of the Cold War. From 1989 to 1995, they sought to communicate libertarian notions of opposition togovernment intervention by using messages accessible to theworking class andmiddle class people of the time. They combined libertarianfree market views with thecultural conservatism of paleoconservatism, while also opposingprotectionism. The strategy also embraced the paleoconservative reverence fortradition andreligion. This approach, usually identified asright-wing populism, was intended toradicalize citizens against the state.[2][3][4] The name they chose for this style of activism evoked the roots of modern libertarianism, hence the prefixpaleo. That founding movement was Americanclassical liberalism, which shared theanti-war and anti-New Deal sentiments of theOld Right in the first half of the 20th century. Paleolibertarianism is generally seen as aright-wing ideology.
The paleolibertarian strategy was expected to shift the libertarian movement away from the influence of public policy-oriented libertarian organizations based inWashington, D.C. (who were accused of giving up on communicating the complete libertarian message and of adopting the political and cultural valuesinside the Beltway to gain acceptance among the political elite[2][5]); and to simultaneously shift American right-wing politics away from theneoconservative movement and its promotion of hawkish or interventionist foreign policy usually characterized asimperialist by libertarian thinkers.[3][independent source needed]
According to Rockwell, the paleolibertarian movement hearkens back to such thinkers as "Ludwig von Mises,Albert Jay Nock,Garet Garrett, and the entire interwarOld Right that opposed theNew Deal and favored the Old Republic"[6] and distinguished themselves fromneo-libertarians, Beltway libertarianism (a pejorative term used byhardline libertarians to describe libertarians who have gained traction in theBeltway, i.e.,Washington, D.C., who are accused of surrendering libertarian values to the Beltway values in order to have betterpublic relations with the Beltway elite),left-libertarianism andlifestyle libertarianism.[6][7] According to Rockwell, paleolibertarianism "made its peace withreligion as the bedrock of liberty,property, and thenatural order".[independent source needed]
Paleolibertarianism developed in opposition to the link between socialavant-garde and libertarianism as if they were indivisible issues. In his 1990 essay "The Case for Paleo-Libertarianism", Rockwell charged mainstream libertarians with "hatred ofWestern culture".[4] He argued that "pornographic photography,'free'-thinking, chaotic painting, atonal music, deconstructionist literature,Bauhaus architecture, andmodernist films have nothing in common with the libertarian political agenda—no matter how much individual libertarians may revel in them".[4] Of paleolibertarians, he wrote that "we obey, and we ought to obey, traditions of manners and taste".[4] After explaining why libertarians friendly with conventional culture could make a better argument for liberty to the middle classes, Rockwell predicted "in the new movement, libertarians who personify the present corruption will sink to their natural level, as will theLibertarian Party, which has been their diabolic pulpit".[4][independent source needed]
In short, according to Lew Rockwell, the motivation of this "paleo" libertarian movement—in contrast with the "modal" libertarian movement of the Beltway and the Libertarian Party as it existed in the early '90s—was the application of the libertarian principles in ways that lead to the radicalization of the middle classes against the state.[2][independent source needed]
In the 1992 essay "Right-Wing Populism: A Strategy for the Paleo Movement", Rothbard reflected on the ability of libertarians to gain the disaffected working and middle classes usingright-wing populism methods to deliver libertarian ideas.[8][9]
In the 1990s, a "paleoconservative-paleolibertarian alliance was forged", centred on theJohn Randolph Club founded in 1989 bytraditionalist CatholicThomas Fleming and Rothbard.[10] Rockwell and Rothbard supported paleoconservativeRepublican candidatePat Buchanan in the1992 presidential election and described Buchanan as the political leader of the "paleo movement".[11] In 1992, Rothbard declared that "with Pat Buchanan as our leader, we shall break the clock ofsocial democracy".[12] The Rockwell and Rothbard intention with this alliance was to rebirth ananti-war andanti-welfare right-wing and to fight theneoconservative leadership of the Republican Party in the context of the end ofCold War.[3]
Three years later, Rothbard said Buchanan developed too much faith ineconomic planning andcentralized state power which eventually led paleolibertarians to withdraw their support for Buchanan.[3] In addition to Buchanan'seconomic nationalism,Paul Gottfried later complained of a lack of funding, infighting, media hostility or blackout and vilification as "racists" and "anti-Semites".[13] The paleolibertarian strategy did not produce practical results and generated little external sympathy. John Randolph Club was disintegrated in 1995 due to incompatibility of ideas and personalities between libertarian and conservative factions.[14][independent source needed]
Rothbard died in 1995. Rockwell asserted in 1999 that with Rothbard's death the paleolibertarian organizing had ended.[2] In 2007, Rockwell stated that he no longer used the term "paleolibertarian"—because it was distorted by its past association with the term paleoconservative as "some kind of socially conservative libertarian", something that "was not the point at all" of paleolibertarianism—and that all libertarians should be "happy with the term libertarian."[5]
During the2016 Republican Party presidential primaries and the campaign for the2016 United States presidential election, several figures active in 1990s paleolibertarianism expressed levels of sympathy for the messages of then-candidateDonald Trump. Lew Rockwell was sympathetic to Trump's 2016 presidential campaign because of his message against the Republican Party and Democratic Party establishments,[15] as was RothbardianJustin Raimondo, who voted for Trump on the basis of foreign policy.[16][better source needed] In a 2016 pre-election debate withReason editorNick Gillespie,Austrian School anarcho-capitalist economistWalter Block advised libertarians living inbattleground states to support Trump rather than cast their votes forLibertarian Party nomineeGary Johnson, citing the Trump campaign's foreign policy.[17][18]
In line with these views, libertarian columnist Ilana Mercer authored a book in June 2016 about presidential candidate Trump titledThe Trump Revolution: The Donald's Creative Destruction Deconstructed, a critical examination of then-candidate Trump from a libertarian perspective.[19][better source needed] In discussing Mercer's book,Objectivist-libertarian scholarChris Matthew Sciabarra observed that Mercer endorsed "not necessarily the policies of Trump, but 'The Process of Trump'".[20][self-published source?] Scabbarra further noted that "[t]he most interesting of her arguments is the bolstering of liberty by Donald J. Trump [...] smashing an enmeshed political spoils system to bits: the media complex, the political and party complex, the conservative poseur complex. In the age of unconstitutional government—Democratic and Republican—this process ofcreative destruction can only increase the freedom quotient".[20][self-published source?]
Following the2022 Libertarian National Convention, theMises Caucus, a paleolibertarian faction, became the dominant faction on the Libertarian National Committee.[21][22]
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Rothbard pointed to David Duke and Joseph McCarthy as models for an "Outreach to the Rednecks," which would fashion a broad libertarian/paleoconservative coalition by targeting the disaffected working and middle classes
Media related toPaleolibertarianism at Wikimedia Commons
