The term “right wing liberal” is fascinating. It’s from an article excerpted below. The excerpt below is the introductory paragraph to a reprint of a libertarian article from 1968.

The 1968 article was written by a libertarian.

The libertarian shows how in about 1950 he was considered a right wing Republican.

But by 1968, Republicans had moved toward state-imposed morality and religious belief, state-suppression of dissent, constant warmaking and empire building, disdain for individual liberty, and corporate statism.

But because libertarians such as the author supported individual liberty, free speech, and peace, libertarians like himself were labelled “leftists”.

So his point is that, without changing anything about his political philosophy, the author moved from being regarded as a right wing Republican to a left-wing Democrat.

And he calls himself a “right wing liberal”. I don’t think he qualifies as a fellow “Radical Moderate”, though, because he is too anti-state.

I am moderate on statism issues. The state has a large role to play in modern society. Our state should play less of a role in some areas, and more of a role in others.

But to hardcore libertarians, the state has very very little role to play.

Confessions of a Right-Wing Liberal by Murray N. Rothbard

Confessions of a Right-Wing Liberal

by Murray N. Rothbard

This classic piece appeared in Ramparts, VI, 4, June 15, 1968. It was the fulfillment of an ideological trend that began a few years earlier when consistent libertarians, led by Rothbard, sensed an estrangement from the American right-wing due to its support of militarism, police power, and the corporate state. Here Rothbard presents a rationale for why he and others had, by 1968, largely given up on the Right as a viable reform movement toward liberty, realized that the Right was squarely on the side of power, and thereby developed an alternative intellectual historiography. The relevance of this essay in our own time hardly needs to be explained, given the record on liberty of the Republican president, congress, and judiciary, to say nothing of conservative and right-wing media.