Great essay. I'd argue that rather than actually being conservative (the use of technological advances to improve the efficiency of the state and cut through irrational hindrances doesn't exactly scream conservativism) state capacity libertarianism is actually just classical liberalism. It wants to do to the state pretty much what liberals wanted to do to their states in the 18th and 19th centuries.
I can see why in the modern American context the word liberal has become toxic. I don't think state capacity libertarianism will succeed as a replacement term. Until a one word descriptor is widely used, I'll be sceptical about whether classical liberalism will actually revive, as so many policy geeks want it to.
In the UK context, there was an attempt to revive the term Whiggism to describe something roughly equivalent to state capacity libertarianism a few years ago. Which unsurprisingly failed to catch on. If you have to explain your team name, you've already failed. If in doing so you have to explain 19th century politics, and why you're spelling wig with an h, your failure is embarrassing.
I've been looking for a book about the Alberta rat extinction for some time now. I would not have believed it was possible. Could the province of Saskachewan do likewise? If not, why not? If so, why haven't they started on the project already? Do you know of any?
It would be nice to kill the term "state capacity" in favor of something more lucid. Sometimes it seems to mean administrative efficiency. Sometimes it seems to mean civic virtue. Sometimes it seems to mean social trust, sometimes rational, growth-oriented policymaking, sometimes up-to-date technology. All those things seem like real, coherent things in a way that "state capacity" isn't.
Never forget the rent-seeking attraction to socialise the losses and privatise the profits, if not the state, (bring back absolute autocratic monarchy they say, we'll all be free…)(Who is king then? Pick me! pick me!).
State capacity libertarianism is just the old John Stewart piece of rhetoric: "I don't want smaller government, I want good government!". No body wants a giant State machine breathing down their necks. Even authoritarians will except themselves from such strictures, the strictures are always for other people.
Just call it what it is: boring old social democracy. The US has gone so far right it doesn't even recognize basic common sense.
Great essay. I'd argue that rather than actually being conservative (the use of technological advances to improve the efficiency of the state and cut through irrational hindrances doesn't exactly scream conservativism) state capacity libertarianism is actually just classical liberalism. It wants to do to the state pretty much what liberals wanted to do to their states in the 18th and 19th centuries.
I can see why in the modern American context the word liberal has become toxic. I don't think state capacity libertarianism will succeed as a replacement term. Until a one word descriptor is widely used, I'll be sceptical about whether classical liberalism will actually revive, as so many policy geeks want it to.
In the UK context, there was an attempt to revive the term Whiggism to describe something roughly equivalent to state capacity libertarianism a few years ago. Which unsurprisingly failed to catch on. If you have to explain your team name, you've already failed. If in doing so you have to explain 19th century politics, and why you're spelling wig with an h, your failure is embarrassing.
How about Woke?
I've been looking for a book about the Alberta rat extinction for some time now. I would not have believed it was possible. Could the province of Saskachewan do likewise? If not, why not? If so, why haven't they started on the project already? Do you know of any?
It would be nice to kill the term "state capacity" in favor of something more lucid. Sometimes it seems to mean administrative efficiency. Sometimes it seems to mean civic virtue. Sometimes it seems to mean social trust, sometimes rational, growth-oriented policymaking, sometimes up-to-date technology. All those things seem like real, coherent things in a way that "state capacity" isn't.
Never forget the rent-seeking attraction to socialise the losses and privatise the profits, if not the state, (bring back absolute autocratic monarchy they say, we'll all be free…)(Who is king then? Pick me! pick me!).
State capacity libertarianism is just the old John Stewart piece of rhetoric: "I don't want smaller government, I want good government!". No body wants a giant State machine breathing down their necks. Even authoritarians will except themselves from such strictures, the strictures are always for other people.
Just call it what it is: boring old social democracy. The US has gone so far right it doesn't even recognize basic common sense.