Anderson: Political sentiment in this country is more diverse than just two poles; a two-party system is a reductionist simplification of the diversity of views actually out there. There are probably as many views as there are people, on some level. And it suggests that in a marketplace of opinion where there are ways to have political actions that don’t involve conform-ing to the two-party system, you would see more diversity and more variety in both politicians and policies.
Does that mean that the Long Tail of political opinion that we can see in the blogosphere might some day result in things like an independent party or a third party? I don’t know. Hope springs eternal. But we’re seeing a clear Long Tail in the political conversation.
reason: Though whether that can be translated into political action is open to question. Simply because of the first-past-the-post electoral system in the U.S., which doesn’t reward small parties or coalitions, there may be structural limits on the number of choices we’ll ever have in terms of major parties. What did Henry Ford say about cars? You can have any color you want, as long as it’s black.
Anderson: We have a scarcity effect in our ability to act on the political system.
reason: How do you define yourself politically?
Anderson: I call myself a small-l libertarian.
reason: What does that mean for you?
Anderson: It means I’'m free market. I’'m socially liberal. I hate labels, and I’m sure you do as well. I’'m socially liberal and fiscally conservative. What does fiscally conservative mean? It means I believe in markets.
Markets harness collective intelligence. No one of us has the answers, and all of us together will not necessarily come up with a right answer every time. But we will come up with a better answer together than any one of us. Not every time, but statistically, over time.
reason: Who’d you vote for in 2004?
Anderson: Oh, God, do we really need to talk about that? I hate politics.
reason: It’s always interesting.
Anderson: I didn’t vote.
reason: OK. What about 2000? Wired has been conducting something of a love affair with Al Gore of late; he was your May 2006 cover boy. You must have voted for Gore, a bete noire of most libertarians, in 2000, right?
Anderson: But I’m not proud of this. I wish the system would put forward politicians that I could vote for.
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