Title sums it up. Feel free to ignore my answer - I know I’m wordy.

Something that’s changed: I had a fling with the libertarian party back in 2015/2016, but now I’m a leftist again.

I felt as if libertarians championed certain social causes better and more consistently than Clinton and other establishment democrats. I also supported (and still mostly do) free trade. However, I think I realized that free trade leading to efficient allocation of resources isn’t something that’s meaningful on its own. I’ve come back to the position that certain inefficiencies in our markets are necessary - such as ensuring that people are homed and can afford healthcare, or the understanding that the private sector will never be able to act on the societal value of say, ecosystems or stable CO2 levels, without intervention. Efficient allocation doesn’t address suffering.

Something I’m unsure of: Public goods/services

From local parks to national defense, our governments provide us with goods based on unknowable assumptions on the good’s societal value. I’ve had a lot of conflicting feelings about these. Can some public services be privatized without punishing the poor and creating losers? Can some private services be made public without snuffing out innovation and driving up prices? It comes down to predicting the societal value of the good/service, which, again, is unknowable.

So let’s look at USPS: on one end, rural America would be screwed without it. We don’t have internet everywhere, and private shippers are under no obligation to run routes in remote, unprofitable areas. On the other hand, if 99% of my mail, as a city dweller, is spam/ads, then it’s almost like corporations are benefitting more from USPS than I ever will.

Let’s look at schools: does school choice have to be such a bad thing? Sure, a lot of voucher programs ended up sending kids to schools that underperform, funnel money, or are run by literal sun god worshipping cults. But then again, cookie cutter public education doesn’t seem like a good answer either. There are just too many types of kids, and some public schools are nearly worthless. Is it possible to install charter school oversight that doesn’t make voucher programs insanely expensive?

Internet: anti-competitive behavior has meant that citizens pay inflated prices for a low cost service while large chunks of the country will never be profitable enough for major ISPs to care. I’m tempted to say that internet should be a public good across the nation.