PROUD TO BE A LIBERTARIAN

2 PARAGRAPHS 4 LIBERTY: 421

While on our recently-concluded music tour of Nashville, Memphis and New Orleans I read the book Modern Libertarians: A Brief History of Classical Liberalism of the United States by Brian Doherty (CATO, 2024).  In summary, this book reinforced my views that the Libertarian approach to government – and to life in general – is the most productive and beneficially effective.  And what is that approach?  Generally, government should focus upon the protection of its citizens’ lives and property from direct violence and theft, as well as provide an institution for the resolution of disputes.  How does that work so well?  A Free People would spontaneously develop the institutions that a healthy and wealthy culture needs, wherein most governments attempt to redistribute wealth – or to manage the economy through taxing or regulating it – making society poorer without making it any safer or more fair.  As proof, the last hundred years has – as a result of market freedom – seen huge increases in the world’s economy and life expectancy, including a substantial drop in infant mortality and overall malnourishment.

Who are some of the proponents of this libertarian approach to life?  Just a few of these luminaries are:

• Mencius who, as a disciple of Confucius, wrote that “In a nation, the people are the most important, the state is next and the ruler is the least important.”
• Thomas  Jefferson, who embedded the purposes and restrictions of a limited government in our Declaration of Independence.
• Herbert Spencer might as well have written the underlying theme of the libertarian philosophy when he wrote that human beings should be able to do whatever they wish, as long as that freedom does not impede someone else’s freedom to do the same.
• Ludwig von Mises who, in his book Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis (1922), explained how socialism was destructive of a happy and rich civilization.
• New York Times Editorialist Henry Hazlitt who, in his book Economics in One Lesson, wrote that the inherent value of government spending is more questionable when you learn to focus not on the visible things government did with the resources it took by taxation, but instead upon all of the unseen things that would have happened had the government not taken those resources.
• F. A. Hayek, who wrote extensively about how government spending triggers inflation, which reduces workers’ wages and would not be tolerated if the workers actually realized what was happening.
• Ayn Rand with her pivotal real life adventure novels We the Living, The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, which all focused upon a “Natural Rights” ethic.
• Dr. Milton Friedman who in 1980, with his book and television series entitled Free to Choose, persuasively argued that all People of Goodwill wanted prosperity and peace, and explained how freedom was the best way for us all to get there.  In addition, by writing hundreds of columns about economics in Newsweek Magazine he explained why volunteer armies and school vouchers achieve positive results, and why minimum wages, urban renewal and usury laws are harmful.  Furthermore, by being an advisor to presidents and other important decisionmakers, and by setting up a new economic system in Chile after the fall of Dictator Augusto Pinochet that is still functioning successfully today, he was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize.

Obviously, this column can only touch the surface of the benefits the libertarian approach can bring to people, and it does not even address the fine libertarian organizations that have also added so much to our society, such as CATO, REASON Foundation, Institute for Humane Studies, Institute for Justice and others which deserve a full column in their own right.  But I hope that this introductory column will help lead people into a deeper understanding and appreciation of the importance and benefits of what these libertarian leaders have done – and continue to do.

(Sign at a Veterinary Clinic: “Dogs prepare you for babies; Cats prepare you for teenagers. . .”)