Atlas / Claim checks / Is libertarianism right wing
Is libertarianism right wing? The claim, measured
“Libertarians are just right-wingers who want to smoke weed.”
Measured against Minarchist Libertarianism and American Fusionist Conservatism
Strongest case for the claim
Libertarian parties ally with conservative ones in practice almost everywhere, share their economic programme almost entirely, and draw voters from the same pool. On tax, regulation and public spending there is no meaningful daylight.
Strongest case against
On drug legalisation, sex work, immigration, free expression, surveillance, conscription and foreign intervention the two traditions are opposed. Minarchist libertarianism scores −08 on the authority axis, where the conservative movement scores −04, and −04 on membership, where the movement scores +03.
What the coordinates show. Minarchism and American fusionist conservatism are 12.4 apart. They agree almost exactly on economics and diverge on culture, membership and scale. Calling libertarianism right-wing is true on one axis of six and produces a systematically wrong prediction on the other five.
The six measurements
| Axis | Nozick, LP | Buckley, Meyer | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|
| EC · Economic organisation | +10 | +08 | 2 |
| CU · Social and cultural order | −03 | +06 | 9 |
| AU · Organisation of power | −08 | −04 | 4 |
| SC · Scale of decision | −07 | −04 | 3 |
| ID · Rule of membership | −04 | +03 | 7 |
| CH · Method and tempo | −03 | −06 | 3 |
Both cases are stated because the atlas does not settle arguments by assertion. Where the underlying dispute is conceptual rather than factual, that is said plainly rather than resolved.
Full comparisonCheck it yourself
The interactive atlas holds 319 organisations on six independent axes with the evidence for every score. Paste any claim that equates two political things and it will find them and report the measurement.