In a post below, Anthony asks:
Does the GSS or any other large poll have sufficient data to do this for the population at large?
How to classify “libertarian” and “statist” is difficult in the GSS. After all, libertarians in particular disagree on a lot of issues. But there are a set of “speech” related questions, combined with questions about social security and welfare, which I will sort them well. The variables are:
SPKRAC = Allow racist to speak
SPKATH = Allow anti-religionist to speak
SPKCOM = Allow Communist to speak
SPKHOMO = Allow homosexual to speak
NATSOC = Social security spending right, or too little or too much
NATFARE = Welfare spending right, or too little or too much
The libertarians below would allow for people to speak in all cases, and thought too much was being spent on Social Security and Welfare (the former was a minority position, the latter a majority). The statists were in the inverse. No surprises….
Update: Please add the percentages of the classes vertically by category. That is, add males + females along the column “Libertarian” and then “Statist”.
| Libertarian | Statist | |
| Male | 58.6 | 40.9 |
| Female | 41.4 | 59.1 |
| White | 95.8 | 46.2 |
| Black | 0 | 44.8 |
| Know God Exists | 56.2 | 84.4 |
| Democrat | 11.4 | 59.5 |
| Independent | 17.1 | 21.9 |
| Republican | 71.5 | 18.7 |
| Liberal | 13.4 | 27.8 |
| Moderate | 24.3 | 39.9 |
| Conservative | 62.3 | 32.3 |
Some categories do not add to 100% because some classes have been omitted.
I am sorry, I cannot work out how to read this table at all. How can 95.8% of whites be libertarian and 46.2% be statist, for example?
Lorenzo – I interpreted the table exactly as you did, encountered a similar problem, and have now switched. That is, now I read those two numbers as saying that 95.8% of libertarians are white and 46.2% of statists are white. I do not know if my new reading is correct – it is simply what was left over after my first reading didn’t make sense.
constant, it is correct.
No black libertarians? I guess they didn’t ask Walter Williams.
But seriously, all readers of Reason Magazine should see this poll. A lot of libertarians favor a complete open border policy. The fact that almost all libertarians are white means that most immigrants are going to be pretty statist in their views.
@John you said… “But seriously, all readers of Reason Magazine should see this poll. A lot of libertarians favor a complete open border policy. The fact that almost all libertarians are white means that most immigrants are going to be pretty statist in their views.”
That doesn’t change the libertarian view. The view is based on what libertarian usually call Natural Rights. Even if some of them happen to not like the result, it won’t change the libertarian view on open borders.
This does seem to poop all over the “liberaltarian” hopes. The part I’m interested in is the “know God exists” catagory, seems to be bucking the other trends (mild coorelations between conservatism and knowing, etc). Why the outlier there?
The fact that 96% of libertarians are white is probably going to be taken as evidence that libertarianism really is an “I’m all right, Jack” ideology (given the advantageous position of whites in the society where the survey was taken).
I think it may have something to do with the definitions, though – the religion question, too. Am I correct in assuming that these columns represent people with scores of 0/6 and 6/6 on that set of questions? (The statist category must be *tiny* if that’s the case… they want more spending on social security and welfare, but communists shouldn’t even be allowed to speak? That’s completely incoherent.)
Liberaltarians are explicitly ruled out of this libertarian category because they didn’t vote for less social security and welfare spending. (On the other hand, classic authoritarians are likewise out of the statist category – in the US, at least, most don’t support more social security and welfare spending.)
Similarly, the requirement that you have to be in favor of allowing atheists to speak to count as a libertarian (and against it to count as a statist – Stalin would be surprised) probably explains the “know God exists” numbers. (Again the statist column is bizarre – some people who don’t themselves know God exists are nevertheless unwilling to allow anyone else to say that he doesn’t? WTF?)