The author is one of the most prominent British bloggers (see his blog here). In 2005 he edited the book 2005 Blogged: Dispatches from the Blogosphere. His weekly BritBlog Roundup lists the best in British blogging.

An uncompromising critic of politics and politicians, he gives his view on liberalism and libertarianism:

Quite why two online magazines have asked for my ruminations on the philosophy of political parties is unknown, perhaps unknowable. I’m generally regarded, by those extraordinarily few who have ever heard of me, as some form of paleo-Thatcherite, one whose only complaint with the Reagan Administration was that there was only one James Watt, with Thatcher herself that she was simply too wet.

These things are true, of course, we all know them to be so but it’s not quite the done thing in polite society to actually say them out loud. I’ll therefore restrict myself to what we might have in common rather than get all divisive.

You are, of course, only reading one of those two online magazines, at least currently, so it might be worth my introducing the other to you. Jon Henke, of the QandO blog, runs an occasional magazine called The Neolibertarian. One of his continual complaints is that the libertarian movement in the US is continually splitting into evermore fractious groupuscules, rather like the various Trots and so on on the left. Failure to agree with The Blessed Ayn’s instructions on the placement of the comma leads to ostracization and those with the temerity to mutter that 30 page speeches on the glories of the businessman do not great novels make are cast into the outer darkness of the Republican Party. The Neolibertarian is an attempt to identify and popularize those thoughts and policies upon which people do actually agree, the basic tenets if you will, rather than whatever it is that divides the Judean People’s Front from The Popular Front for Judea this week.

Rob Knight of the Liberal Review tells me that he’s doing something similar in the UK. Moving slightly away from the former mission of talking only to those who are actually members of the Liberal Democratic Party (if that is what it’s called this month) and attempting to reach out to those who share the basic conceits of liberalism. All those Classical Liberals, Manchester, those who’ve been privileged to use the finest urinals in the UK (The National Liberal Club if you don’t know) no doubt.

I’m sure that at this point there’s a little head scratching going on. US libertarians don’t think of themselves as liberals, UK liberals certainly don’t think of themselves as libertarians. To a large extent this is down to the vagaries of the two languages. Leave aside the militant wings of the two philosophies, Lew Rockwell’s stormtroopers on the one hand and the bearded sandalistas in the UK and you’ll find that there’s a great deal in common. Or, if you prefer, that the basic philosophy that both feed from is the same one.

I’ve said before in other venues that I don’t really do political philosophy. Mostly because I don’t understand what people are talking about. I most certainly don’t listen to or read political speeches (unless it’s research so I can make fun of them) so the last one that I agreed with is somewhat old, found in the history books not the media. A certain Campbell-Bannerman back in 1898:

"I should say it means the acknowledgment in practical life of the truth that men are best governed who govern themselves; that the general sense of mankind, if left alone, will make for righteousness; that artificial privileges and restraints upon freedom, so far as they are not required in the interests of the community, are hurtful; and that the laws, while, of course, they cannot equalise conditions, can at least avoid aggravating inequalities, and ought to have for their object the securing to every man the best chance he can have of a good and useful life."

I realize that there will be those who disagree but that to me seems to encompass the very heart of what liberalism (UK version) or libertarianism (US version) is actually all about. Doing the least, interfering the least, while still doing those things that are necessary for government to do. Precisely what those necessary things are might still divide us but the general idea is important to me. That our aim is to have the minimum government possible and the maximum individual liberty and freedom consistent with the maintenance of civilization.

But if I am such a minarchist as that why am I not in supplication before the shrine of St Rand each evening? Partly because when I came to such a position I’d not read much of her work, being rather driven by the obvious evidence of quite how badly politics and politicians cock up whatever it is that they attempt. Yes, there are things that only they can do, I’m really quite happy with the State’s monopoly on organized violence, that we only have one criminal law system (unlike some countries I have lived where that imposed by the local Mafiosi is just as important, if in fact not of more immediate importance) and well, you can extend the list as you like. When I mentioned this in another place I was offered a couple of books by the Ayn Rand Institute to straighten me out. Of course, I took them, free is good. I learned four things.

1) She’s a terrible writer. But then kettle. Pot. Black I suppose.
2) Alan Greenspan can in fact express himself in clear and elegant English prose. Really, who knew?
3) There’s something about the word "objective" or "objectively" that makes the English keep thinking they’re reading Lenin’s Tomb or some other such Trostkyist (or have they gone beyond that now, Hoxaist? Pottist? Pollist is of course in The Guardian twice a week.) nonsense.
4) I’m not and never could be an Objectivist. What is it with this constant denigration of altruism? The care and feeling that we individuals have for our fellow humans, that empathy, is one of the few things that stops us all starting off the day with a mass suicide.

So, ritual snarl at the philosophy of libertarianism over, what is it that I actually believe in? Or perhaps more importantly, what do I think are the defining elements that unite both liberals and libertarians (make sure to adjust your language with those two words folks)?

The first is that Campbell-Bannerman quotation above. The second is this from Sir John Cowperthwaite, one time Financial Secretary in Hong Kong:

"In the long run, the aggregate of decisions of individual businessmen, exercising individual judgment in a free economy, even if often mistaken, is less likely to do harm than the centralised decisions of a government, and certainly the harm is likely to be counteracted faster."

I realize that a political philosophy based on the snippets of two such speeches is not exactly the result of intense and deep thought. One who proposed it might even be accused of shallowness (something I am clearly guilty of) but if there ever again exists a political party that makes those two the mainstay of their platform then they’ll have my vote.

Well, assuming I put aside my contempt for politicians for long enough to actually believe anything said by the vote-stealers.

But my hope is that within those two quotes is encapsulated the things that we do actually agree upon, the things that mean that we differ from left and right alike. Conservatives all to often wish to use the power of the State to interfere with social freedoms and the left with economic ones. What makes both liberals and libertarians unique is that we don’t have a list of pet causes where intervention is justified because we know how people are supposed to behave. Rather, as long as no harm is being done to the rights of others, people should behave just as they damn well please, in all fields and areas of life.