Conservatives and progressives alike spent the 20th century arguing for universal political principles. But the world is not so malleable; even in a hyper-connected digital age elites struggle to maintain support for globalism against a tide of nationalist, populist, and breakaway movements. Libertarians should embrace this reality and reject universalism for the morally and tactically superior vision of radical self-determination.
For decades we’ve been conditioned to believe the world is getting smaller, and thus that globalism in all its forms is inevitable. Instant communication, inexpensive access to digital information, global trade, and cheap fast travel will combine to demonstrate once and for all that nationality, geography, culture, language, ethnicity—and even history— matter far less than a shared humanity.
Given this inevitable reality, old modes of living will be tossed aside by a world hungry for modernity. Universal suffrage, an article of faith in a post-monarchical world, will yield social democracies with robust safety nets, regulated capitalism, legal protections for women and minorities, and widely agreed-upon norms regarding social issues. Western conceptions of civil rights will spread far and wide, with technology bridging the old boundaries of nation states. Both progressives and conservatives share this vision, although the former emphasize a supra-national administrative state (“one world government”) while the latter focus on globally managed trade schemes under the auspices of international law.
Universalism provides the philosophical underpinnings for globalism. But it does not provide a roadmap for freedom. Libertarians, who want a non-political world organized around civil society and…