>>768659i don't know about compatible, but i wish there was some kind of rapprochement between the left and the libertarians who're actually committed to libertarianism, as opposed to just wanting a free-for-all where they can build rape palaces or shoot minorities. (who are, really, "conservatives") both should be able to find agreement on something as basic as being in favor of human flourishing and opposed to purposeful human misery. (which isn't much, i grant you, but it's a dark world we live in.)
the world is drifting in an illiberal direction, for the worse, in such a way that even high-neoliberalism will come to look like a golden age. state capacity in most of the benevolent areas (health, education, welfare, civic infrastructure, etc.) is in freefall while it remains strong in malevolent ones (war, security, restrictions on what consenting individuals can do) and increasingly governments are taken over by the openly, actively malicious.
i think where libertarians went wrong is that they got very worked up about taxes because they're the most visible annoyance to the individual. taxes are trivial: pay the tax and move on. the cost curve moves a little, that's all. meanwhile regulations are where the devil really lives. socialists and liberals are negatively polarized by conservatives and libertarians complaining about regulations (conservatives, i might say, with a non-zero chance of active malice. e.g. as a matter of personality, they would pour oil in a river just to piss off environmentalists. libertarians more on principle) but regulations are often utterly stupid. (to cross over with a liberal social issue: why should the state regulate who gets to use which bathroom? what on earth is wrong with leaving that to the establishment itself? you might say "anti-discrimination protection!", and there i'd say you might have a case… but almost all legislation in this area is to
mandate discrimination that private firms
don't want to engage in!)
i think this is even true for capitalist economic growth, for the most part. i've become sympathetic to the case that many regulations are using the wrong tool for the job - e.g. most regulations could achieve their ends by being reformulated as taxes and transfers. (e.g. why is it basically illegal to convert a gas station in DC to another use? if the concern is that DC might run out of gas stations, just throw some of the property tax revenue from non-gas stations at subsidizing new gas stations. The current regulation actively discourages converting a lot to a gas station, since you might not be able to convert it back!)
truthfully this line of thought creates a minor dilemma: it is basically unlabelled. there isn't a snappy label out there for welfarist-libertarianism. neither market socialism nor anarchism comfortably fits either.