Years ago, my personal youthful idealism took the form of believing that if government left people alone it could and would solve all society’s ills–and make life way more fun as a happy consequence. How could anyone not be a libertarian?, I thought.

You know the type: government was almost always a hindrance to progress, people who weren’t successful were lazy, profits were the only ethical aim of business. That’s what got me out of bed in the morning.

Gradually I began to realize there were some real problems with the libertarianism I was so in love with. In particular, it’s easy for white dudes who grew up in the middle class like I did with plenty of demographic and educational advantages to proclaim that the only duty society has is to get the hell out of my way–others might not not have things so good. Also, to my dismay, the self-interested exchange of goods and services appears, in the real world, not to be able to address every area in society that we’d like to see get some of those benefits. Of course there’s an answer to this: the reason private charity isn’t taking full care of the needy is that taxes are too high and the government is squeezing it out, my libertarian friends would chant with me. Maybe, but secretly I never really bought into that one, even at the height of my personal prelapsarian pro-market fetishism.

The other problem I discovered was that there’s a tendency for libertarians to be a little, well, nuts. Is “nuts” too strong? To put it more charitably, libertarians’ political priorities are often so far from where the public discussion is at any time that they end up not being taken seriously and marginalizing themselves and their ideas. For example, the national Libertarian Party platform calls not for the reduction, not the stabilization, but “the repeal of the income tax.” Shortly after I moved to New York City, I was thrilled to see the Manhattan Libertarian Party on the news. Cool, I thought! What were they up to? Protesting a proposed toy-gun ban by handing out toy guns at New York City schools, of course. And it goes on. Libertarian-leaning Republican Ron Paul’s presidential campaign was notorious for his call to abolish the Fed. Legalizing marijuana somehow always finds a prominent place on the libertarian to-do list, even acting as a litmus test. Cutting taxes in order to shrink the size of government (theoretically, at least; somehow that second part never happens), while there was a point to it when Ronald Reagan championed the position in the days of 70%+ marginal tax rates, is not a one-size-fits-all policy response. It’s just not. See what I mean? “Nuts” seems about right after all.

Here’s the thing: I’m incredibly sympathetic to all of these views. (Yes, even Ron Paul’s gold-standard!) But emphasizing these positions is not the way to make the case for a libertarian seat at the grownups table. Telling people you’re a libertarian can feel downright embarrassing–I’m more eager to admit liking the Surreal Life or being a Yankees fan.

In short, the old libertarianism has to go.

Still, I refuse to believe I have to completely jettison all those old ideals about how individuals can do great things and contribute to society while seeking their own profits. There has to be a way to take the good parts of a pro-freedom philosophy and integrate them with the important criticisms of how that theory is often advocated. What’s more, as much as I’m unsatisfied with mainstream libertarianism, I can’t see myself comfortably identifying with one of the major parties either. (Generalizing far more than is fair,) Republicans are (a) far, far too intrusive into people’s private lives and choices, and (b) haven’t had much substance to their policy ideas–good or bad–in almost 30 years. (I suppose you could argue that Repubs brought it to some extent with the Contract with America, but I think that was mostly foot dragging and tantrum throwing. I get the impulse to keep government growth under control. But the CwA was little more than looking back to Reagan as the One True President and that’s basically been the party’s platform ever since. And even if Newt and company deserve some props, that was still 15 years ago!) Democrats, for their part, usually seem to be a lot more . . . sane, but as a group they tend to talk about equality, getting or paying your fair share, and other touchy-feely things without worrying about the consequences. On the other hand, at least Dems are kinda pathetic at being able to actually do anything.

And I’ve never felt comfortable calling myself a centrist or a moderate either. I understand why a lot of people unhappy with the major parties and ideologies like those terms and use them. They emphasize compromise and finding the truth “somewhere in the middle.” I appreciate that kind of posture to policy and theory, but I prefer a stronger point of view in my politics. I want to play the role of looking for new approaches and ideas out on the edge of the political landscape. Even if innovative, radical new thinking ultimately has to be fit into the box of what’s feasible, I want to focus on the daring instead of the pragmatic.

The point is, after all this shopping around for a new political home, it turns out that I want to keep being a libertarian. I just want to do it a bit differently. And come to think of it, isn’t libertarianism about doing your own thing, anyway?

Fortunately, I’m starting to see how others are updating libertarianism. For one thing, it’s clear there does need to be a healthy dose of pragmatic mainstreaming and reality-testing mixed in with pro-liberty thinking. Government solutions to certain problems–however sub-optimal–are here to stay, and instead of spending all our time bitching about that we need to contribute to making the government we do have smarter. (See a great piece by Tyler Cowen on this.) If the Democrats are the only ones talking about regulations, we’ll get regulations crafted only by Democrats. Energy should be spent ensuring that, given government’s continuing involvement, individuals are as free as possible to exercise their own creative innovations both in bringing more valuable goods and services to society and in alleviating society’s ills. (A la Michael Strong.) For another thing, there’s some reason to believe that in many cases conscious capitalism and social business can both outcompete less responsible companies and outperform government welfare programs. We need to make sure innovation isn’t crowded out by regulation. We also need to get excited about capitalists helping people more than government does when it happens.

My vision is that libertarianism will begin to be seen as an approach to solving problems rather than as a set of positions that made sense in the ’70s and ’80s. We should keep an emphasis on maximizing individuals’ freedom to create value for themselves and society, reluctance (but not refusal) to turn to government solutions to social problems, and shaping government actions to avoid stifling innovation as important values and interests to consider in choosing public policy. At the same time, we need to be willing to adapt to the reality that government can (cue scary music) play a role in maximizing individual liberty. The progressive and conservative movements have their important insights too, and people should continue to defend them as they feel drawn to do so. I feel drawn to advocate for the ideas of maximizing individual freedom.

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