Continuing from yesterday…

• The liberal element of liberal-democracy is negative: Where is the majority prohibited from infringing upon the liberty of the individual (at the expense of the collective’s freedom to shape its collective life)?
• The democratic element of liberal-democracy is positive: Where is the majority free to impose laws on individuals in order to shape its collective life (at the expense of individual liberty)?

I think Libertarians are deeply confused about their policies being most favorable to individual liberties. What makes Libertarianism essentially conservative is that deregulated markets create mechanisms for imposing law on individuals and for creating collective identity, but in the private realm. And it is no accident that the most vehemently individualistic Libertarians I know all enjoy employment arrangements that distance them from the often extreme levels of control imposed in corporate employment. They have state jobs, or bounce around (a.k.a. get bounced out of) jobs, or are un-/under-employed. Yet, without a trace of irony, they continue to extoll the liberty-bestowing powers of the deregulated market.