The Niskanen Center is a think-tank that develops and promotes policy proposals. Here’s how the Niskanen Center describes their approach to policy-making:
We are globalists who share progressives’ desire to robustly address economic and social inequality, liberals’ commitment to toleration and civil liberties, moderates’ embrace of empiricism rather than dogma, conservatives’ belief in the wealth creating power of free markets, and libertarians’ skepticism about the ability of technocratic elites to solve complex economic and social problems.
While most policy organizations are comfortable with ideological adjectives such as progressive, liberal, centrist, conservative, and libertarian, we find the left-right dichotomy too constraining. Many of us started out in the libertarian world, but we’ve come to recognize the need for government action—while remaining wary of technocratic fixes that underestimate the complexities involved in micromanaging social and economic affairs.
An open society is thus anchored in the fundamental liberal principles of free speech, individual privacy and choice, the rule of law, a competitive market economy, cosmopolitanism, tolerance, and representative democracy.
A closed society, on the other hand, embraces a fixed social order, if only as an ideal, and justifies that closed order with historical prophecy, utopian visions, and the inevitability of Manichean struggle. Visions of closed societies have spawned the authoritarianism and totalitarianism that have plagued—and continue to threaten—modern civilization.
— “Who We Are” from The Niskanen Center Conspectus
To elaborate:
Technocracy is “an ideological stance” that technical elites need to run things because the masses and the market can’t be trusted to achieve decent outcomes. We need technocrats, but they can go overboard with the urge to control and micromanage. Hence: wariness. Democracy and markets can be messy but good things come with the messiness (to a point).
Empiricists view knowledge as tentative and subject to revision. They stress evidence over grand ideas, deeply-held beliefs and intuition. Empiricism is the guiding principle of the scientific method.
Globalists recognize the importance of international cooperation, agreements and institutions. That doesn’t mean they support world government.
Manichean relates a dualistic view of the world, dividing things into either good or evil, light or dark, black or white, involving no shades of gray. Think Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren.
Cosmopolitanism is an attitude of respect and consideration towards other people, no matter what their citizenship status or nationality. Cosmopolitans are open to the influence of other cultures and tend not to be nationalists or populists.
Examples of policies that transcend the left-right divide:
An embrace of empiricism over dogma means that no policy proposal is sacrosanct. That said, the Niskanen Center currently:
Promotes carbon taxation as the best federal response to climate risk, in that it maximizes individuals’ and companies’ ability to use trial and error to efficiently reduce carbon emissions.
Envisions a free-market welfare state, in which vulnerable populations share in the fruits of economic growth, with an emphasis on the effectiveness of cash transfers at reducing poverty.
Supports freer movement of people with four priorities: protecting vulnerable immigrant populations, relieving labor shortages by liberalized migration, strengthening humanitarian immigration, and energizing U.S. economic growth with foreign entrepreneurs, investors, and workers.
Believes that universal health care is both warranted and achievable in the United States if done on a bipartisan basis. While not beholden to any one model of reform, they support universal catastrophic coverage as a near-term policy goal.
Sounds good to me.