Why are libertarians associated with the right?

[angus]

Why are libertarians associated with the right?

Dude, it's because they are on the right.  

For example, consider this the Political Matrix scores, which can be linked to with the PM button above.  1045 posters have taken the quiz, and here are the average economic scores by party affiliation:

    Democratic        -4.13      
    Republican         +4.39
    Independent        -0.65
    Libertarian         +5.14
    Green                  -5.94
    Constitution        +4.76
    Other                -3.87
    Decline to State   -0.48

Bear in mind that positive scores are further right, and negative scores left.  Sure, it's a small (and self-selected) sample, but it should be obvious that at least among the posters in this forum, and by the standards of the Political Matrix test, Libertarians are the rightmost group.  Even Constitution party people, who are considered right-wing nuts, are not as far right as Libertarians.  This is only one data set, but I encourage to find other data and you'll see a strong correlation of self-identification with the LP with economically conservative benchmarks.

[angus]

Where do you see the averages, and how different are they for the social side (what I really associate conservatism with)?

Ah, but you used the word "right" in your question.  If you want to know about cultural issues, that's a different issue entirely.  The whole point of these dual-axis categorizations (Political Matrix, Political Compass, etc.) is to separate the left-right characterization from the anarchy-authority scale characterization.  Libertarians are on the right, without doubt, but that's only one piece of the label.  The other piece is how they motivate with regards to the cultural issues that do not, or only indirectly and insignificantly, affect one's bank account.  On that scale, Libertarians are the most libertarian.  (no surprise there.)  Also, it never seemed illogical to me that someone who favors rightist economic policy would also favor limited government interference in personal matters, since both stem from an ideology of self-reliance.

A bit off-topic, but I prefer a triaxial parameterization.  I think left-right questions about taxes, immigration, trade policy, and the like form one reasonable set of metrics, and I think the up-down axis which depends upon answers to questions about gay rights, drug legalization, or end-of-life issues is reasonable, but apart from those should be foreign policy.  I recognize that labor protectionism, military power projection, the Bush Doctrine, the Carter Doctrine, and other iconic ideologies involving foreign policy are deeply intertwined with domestic economic ideologies, but I know too many people who may be characterized as favoring leftist or rightist domestic economic policy, but whose regard for foreign diplomatic or military involvement is harder to predict.

[angus]

I won't bother linking it because Goldwater already has, but you can find investigate average "economic" and "social" scores from the Political Matrix.  You can also look at the specific scores of each member on a cartestian plot above the table.  (By the way, I don't see the cartesian graph today.  I get a JSON parse error.  Are you seeing that as well?  Maybe I need to download a newer version of some software.)

Here's a screenshot of the table:



Note that you can add your own score once you take the test.  It seems that only a small subset of atlas posters and erstwhile atlas posters have actually bothered to do this.  Greater participation would give us a better sense of cross-tabulation. 

As you can see, Libertarians are the rightmost group on the left-right scale, and they are penultimate on the liberal-illiberal scale.  Greens have the most extreme average score on that up-down axis.  You could call the libertarians the Liberal Right, whereas the Greens, at least among those in this forum who have posted a score, form the Liberal Left.  (Think:  John Locke vs. Noam Chomsky.  Both would probably have large negative "social" scores on this test, but one would be on the far right and the other on the far left.)   I do think you need to separate in your mind Left vs. Right from the other parameter, call it anarchy-authority, or liberal-illiberal, or whatever.  The whole point of these biaxial charts are to remind you that the two axes are not necessarily related.  For example, my "social score" is probably many standard deviations outside the mean, and pretty close to both the Green Party and the Libertarian Party average.  Unfortunately, neither is a good fit for me because the Greens are on the Left and the Libertarians on on the Right, while I am a centrist, or a Moderate Hero in the parlance of Atlasia.  As far as I know, no party is a good fit for me, which is fine because I'm not crazy about the idea of being a member of a cult in the first place.

[angus]

This is very interesting, angus. Thanks for going into detail on it.

I'd say that in my experience, even though the libertarians show up as very far to the "left" on their social scores, they tend to prioritize economic issues far more than social issues when it comes to advocacy and voting.

I think that has been my experience as well.

Also, if you like the politics quizzes, don't forget all these. 

[angus]

Lots of making fun of Trump and oversensitive college students.  A little Johnson

That's a funny read.