Virtue and libertarianism

Reason posted a debate on virtue libertarianism, which is more or less defined in opposition to "libertine libertarianism," an ideology which is "radically indifferent to the choices that people make with their freedom." William Ruger and Jason Sorens define it as follows:

What we call virtue libertarianism is the alternative to libertinism of the stronger and weaker varieties. Virtue libertarians recognize that we have a duty to respect our own moral nature and to promote its development in others in proportion to the responsibility we have for them. Heavy drug use that destroys one's own moral or rational faculties is inconsistent with that duty. Sexual license, gluttony, and the ancient vice of pleonexia—an excessive desire to acquire material and other goods—can overpower the virtue of self-command, which Adam Smith astutely recognized as the key to all the other virtues. To respect others, we must act beneficently and generously toward them, not just refrain from taking their freedom. 

I'm not going to comment on how well Ruger and Sorens did in making their argument for virtue libertarianism. What struck me was how libertarians around the web reacted, particularly at Bleeding Heart Libertarians, a blog I like to follow.

I know this might not be such a charitable summary, but essentially it boils down to this: other libertarians accuse Ruger and Sorens of attacking a straw man, and then immediately proceed to behave exactly like that straw man. To be specific, we have libertarians saying that of course we ought to be virtuous, but who's to say that porn, drugs, and decadent lifestyles are really all that bad?

This is where I get off the bus with libertarians. I have absolutely no interest in debating these things with people who think themselves too enlightened, too sophisticated for traditional morals. If these thinkers wish for evidence that such vices are bad, I can only point to centuries of moral tradition telling us as much. Pornography and drugs are degrading, inasmuch as they treat the human body is nothing more than a pleasure factory, and not as a sacred gift to be appreciated and maintained respectfully.

That doesn't mean libertarian policies are wrong. Just because it is wrong to use cocaine doesn't mean that the government is justified using violence to prevent its use. One can never merely ask the question, "Is it wrong to do X?" in order to derive good policy. One must also ask the subsequent question, "What is the morally appropriate response to X?"

At bottom, I suppose I am really not a libertarian at all, insofar as I do not really believe in self-ownership. I support libertarian policies because I don't believe the government owns me. But as for self-ownership, I belong to God, not to myself. Indeed, I find the very concept of self-ownership incoherent. For if I own something, this means I can dispose of it as I will. Yet if I dispose of myself (i.e. commit suicide) then I have destroyed my ability to make any future decisions. My supposed freedom to do with myself whatever I will negates my freedom. (Yes, this does have policy implications. Unlike, I suppose, the majority of libertarians, I don't support the right to assisted suicide, although end of life issues can be tricky.)

By the way, I believe Christianity is the religion of liberty, but I think that deserves a separate post. What's really essential at this point is that I have no interest in libertine libertarianism. And yes, this is real phenomenon which can easily be found, among other places, at Reason.com. I have no interest in defending a college woman's right to become a porn actress in order to pay for her studies. I have no interest in defending the recreational use of drugs as a fun and therefore good thing. Neither do I have any interest, for that matter, in claiming that Americans ought to own as many guns as they want, or that they should have as much money as they want. All of these things--sex, drugs, weapons, money--very quickly become vices, and I don't think society is better for rejoicing at the abundance of such vices.

Again, I offer no defense of this proposition, because my opponents share none of the foundational assumptions on which it is based. If one approaches moral questions like a rationalist, insisting on scientific evidence that such behaviors really are destructive, then one is never going to be convinced. The only thing I can point out to libertarians is how ironic it is that they should take such an approach, given that one of their intellectual leaders is one such as F. A. Hayek.

Libertarianism's surprising virtue

There is a virtue which I have found--to my surprise--to be far more deeply cultivated among libertarians, as a political movement, than either progressives or conservatives. That virtue is gratitude.

I say I am surprised by this because before I started reading a certain collection of libertarian media, I associated libertarianism with a certain angry crowd who complained endlessly about the government and the downfall of freedom. Now, there is certainly room to complain endlessly about the government. But what I have found is that between Reason Magazine's regular coverage of technological and social innovation, or the quietly optimistic tone of blogs such as Marginal Revolution ("small steps toward a much better world"), or especially the Cato Institute's new project humanprogress.org, there seems to be a trend among libertarians of a more intellectual variety to emphasize the positive.

More deeply, libertarians start with the premise that for us modern humans, especially Westerners, our entire way of life is nothing short of a miracle. They then form a political philosophy based on the study of how that way of life came into being, combined with intuitive moral reasoning (which, it is often acknowledged, is itself a product of our way of life). They conclude that a maximal amount of individual freedom and a government firmly restrained by the rule of law is not only how we got here, but also the way we continue to advance in leaps and bounds.

There is a certain cheerfulness in the whole story. Although most of humankind in all times and places struggled to get by, today we are blessed to have received the right kind of institutions which allow both freedom and prosperity to flourish. If we can but use that freedom, in part to defend those institutions but mostly to pursue whatever good ideas we are fortunate to stumble upon, then the potential for future progress is practically infinite.

Now contrast this story with progressivism. Especially when speaking about poverty, progressives tend to assume that if something is wrong in the world, it must be our fault, or more particularly the fault of big bad rich people. Never mind how any of those riches got there in the first place. The conversation most certainly does not start (or end) with gratitude, but rather with a demand. The poor are entitled to progress, and if we don't give it to them we are thieves and bandits.

Conservatives, too, suffer from a lack of gratitude, but for a different reason. While conservatives wholeheartedly agree that we ought to be thankful for having inherited the right kind of institutions, their gratefulness is soured by a pessimistic view of future progress. It seems that conservatives have very little faith in the very institutions for which they are so thankful. Especially when speaking about immigration, they bemoan any major cultural change as an existential threat to our way of life.

I don't deny that both progressive and conservative impulses are necessary. At times progress must be demanded, and at other times it must be critiqued. But I think both sides ultimately propose policies that are built on a distortion of reality, and society pays for that. Whether it is the ever expanding welfare state proposed by progressives or the ever more authoritarian federal law enforcement agencies bolstered by conservatives, the cost and burden of government continues to grow. This is truly a cause for concern.

Yet despite the continual errors of conservatives and progressives in government, I deeply appreciate how libertarians have not lost their spark of optimism. We indeed have so much to be thankful for, and we have so much at our disposal to make the world a better place. As technological progress outpaces government regulation, experimentation will lead to better ways of doing things before our leaders get their hands on the brakes. Cultural change is nothing to be afraid of, so long as we succeed in transmitting the fundamental ideas which have served us so well until now. The institutions which make freedom possible are not fragile; they are alive and well.

As a Christian, I think the very first step to a happy life is thanksgiving. We did absolutely nothing to cause our own existence. We owe every molecule in our body to inheritance. What we do with that wonderful inheritance--and in our day it is more wonderful than our ancestors could have ever imagined!--is up to us, but we will most likely do better if we start by recognizing how good it is.

So I think it is fitting that our politics should start with gratitude, as well. Let no discussion of any of society's problems begin without first acknowledging what we have to be thankful for. And once we study and determine where all these good things came from, then let's decide how we can do even better.

My one simple rule of politics

I have a simple rule for choosing the right view on any particular political issue. Whatever position makes you feel better about yourself--more patriotic, more compassionate, more socially conscious, more "American" (or whatever nationality you like)--is probably wrong. The right position is the one that makes you feel deflated--that you are just one small individual in a very large world, of no greater or lesser value than any of the other 7 billion people who walk the earth, wise enough to take care of perhaps your own affairs but not others', and that if there is hope for human progress, it comes from the unpredictable changes that occur when all these billions of people stumble onto solutions to their various problems.

To be sure, if you want to feel more compassionate, you can be more compassionate--by giving your money, your time, your work, and yourself to others. If you want to be more patriotic, you can do that, too--for instance, by joining the military (or perhaps better yet by actually reading what the Founding Fathers thought about government). But if believing in a particular public policy makes you feel any of these things without you actually doing anything, then it's wrong. Don't believe it. And definitely stop listening to anyone who tells you that you must believe in a particularly policy or else you won't be considered compassionate, patriotic, socially conscious, and so on.

In a word, the rule I'm talking about is humility.

That pretty much sums up my Christian pseudo-libertarianism. I say "pseudo" because it's not a philosophy primarily based on a love of liberty or a hatred of coercion. It's primarily based on a steadfast opposition to pride. And I suppose that makes it even less popular than actual libertarianism. In a world in which humans try so savagely to find a chieftain to rule their tribe, it's unlikely that humility will ever be considered a political virtue. I know of a man who once tried to declare himself a humble king. Well, they crucified him.

There is good news that comes after, or so I've been told. And I hope it's true, because if it isn't then I guess we'll just have to accept that the powerful get their way after all.

Immigration restrictions are the modern day slavery

Bryan Caplan has convinced me that supporting open borders--all the way, no restrictions--really is the right thing to do. Also, the fact that he has convinced me proves the point he was making in this post, where he compares the defense of open-borders to abolitionism:

The obvious moral objection is that comparing slavery and immigration restrictions is absurd hyperbole. But it's absurd hyperbole to call this apt comparison "absurd hyperbole." Yes, enslaving a Haitian is plainly worse than forbidding him to accept a job offer anywhere on earth except Haiti. But they're both dire harms. How would you react if the world's laws barred you from every non-Haitian labor market on earth? With weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Paradoxically, you might say, it's precisely Caplan's doctrinaire attitude that gradually made me reconsider the facts and adopt my present position. This corresponds with what he says further down: "Moderates are better at bargaining with people holding preferences fixed. Abolitionists are better at changing preferences." It also helps when the abolitionist is a highly well-informed economist.

I'm not sure why Caplan uses Haiti as his illustrative example every time he talks about the issue, but he really can get the point across. Immigration restrictions constitute one of the gravest injustices of our time, one which reinforces global social hierarchies--the poor remain poor while the rich remain rich--for no good reasons that cannot be addressed in other, more humane ways. This essay has pretty good answers to all the standard objections, particularly the ones which come from the right of the political spectrum.

Common political wisdom would suggest that the left is more naturally receptive to immigration, but I'm not so convinced. My guess is that in the long run, the left will have difficulty with truly open borders, precisely because of the difficulties presented in running a welfare state while letting everyone in (a classical right-wing objection to open immigration, to which the libertarian can reply, "Oh, well!"). And if what Caplan reports about the inverse relationship between diversity and redistribution is true, good old European socialists may be the last to embrace open borders.

As for me, I've come to see this as a plain implication of the existence of universal human rights. It comes down to a really fundamental question about the purpose of democratic governments. I don't believe that we can prohibit the movement of foreigners--of individual human beings who happen not to be born in our country--in the name of democracy, that is in the name of protecting our own interests. Indeed, when a country excludes certain people from immigration, it doesn't protect anyone's property, it only forces people not to exchange, and therefore not to mutually benefit from one another. For each immigrant you deport for trying to work in the U.S., you also deprive an employer of an employee he wanted to hire.

And this is a moral issue. If it were only a matter of economics, I think the empirical evidence might still make me an open borders libertarian, but the issue is far more urgent than that. There are people all around the world who could make a better life for themselves and their families if they had the freedom to move somewhere else. We need to let that happen. The first step is being convinced if the desirability of that goal.

I haven't thought what the next step might be, but I'm sure that will come.

Libertarian realism

Libertarians are often accused these days of being utopians. Sure, the free market would work in a perfect world, but in the real world there are predatory businesses and other such monsters crawling under every bed. We need the government to look out for the little guy, or else who knows what will happen to society?

But while libertarians may on occasion speak too highly of the virtues of spontaneous order, I think the reality is that conservatives and liberals buy into a vision of government which is naive in one extreme or another. On the one hand, conservatives talk often as if we get the government we "deserve," as if somehow if we were just more true to our traditional values we would have an ever-thriving society. On the other hand, liberals seem to think we need to "take back" the government, as if we, together, united, can change society for the better.

I think the libertarian critique is the most profoundly realistic vision of government you can have. On the one hand, no, we don't necessarily have the government we deserve (for better or for worse), because we have not nearly as much control over government's formation as our democratic institutions would suggest. On the other hand, there is no way to collectively take charge of government--such massive collective action simply doesn't exist in the real world.

Don't get me wrong. Values matter, and social movements make a difference. They just don't make the difference we expect. Libertarians instinctively believe that government should always be reformed, and we also expect that no matter how much reform takes place it will still never be perfect. The role of the individual in politics is not so much to take responsibility for government as it is to take responsibility for his own beliefs, his own actions, his own civic ties, and his own vote. If the government turns out bigger or worse than it ought to be, it's not the fault of the individual. But it is the fault of the individual if he takes the defeatest attitude of one so victimized by the system that he fails even to better his own situation.

I've been accused of being an idealist before, but I think that's because people underestimate how dangerous the real idealists are. The real idealists are the megalomaniacs in Washington who actually believe they're doing what's best for the country. God save us from the idealists.

Things that make libertarians sound like jerks

Last week I saw a photo with more profound political commentary (one of that endless supply you see on facebook) that went like this:

1,000 dollar monthly Social Security check for Grandma is bankrupting America.

Yet a billionaire not paying taxes is making America prosperous.

Up is Down in America!

Check and mate. At least as far as our instincts are concerned. Clearly the big greedy corporations are controlling everything, and this is evidence that we are the victims of a cruel right-wing ideology of laissez-faire economics.

There are many points where I can agree with my left-wing friends, including when it comes to corporate greed. No one can be naïve about the lengths to which powerful people will go to maintain their power, or wealthy people to maintain their status. Equally important is the realization that people are not perfect, and left to their own devices they often do pretty terrible things to themselves and others. And I also very much agree with the assertion that a society is only just insofar as it is capable of protecting the weak and vulnerable, and helping as much as possible those who are less fortunate.

It is thus with a deep sigh in my chest that I must point out something critically important about billionaires versus Grandma. Yes, it might make me sound like a jerk, because our instincts are not naturally wired this way, but here is a simple fact: billionaires not paying taxes really do help make us prosperous.

Now, before you jump too far ahead of me, please note that I am not saying billionaires have no duty to pay taxes. The duty to pay taxes comes from the cost of certain necessary public services.

However, a sound understanding of our economic system should leave you with no other conclusion than this: on the whole, every dollar of profit made by a business is, in fact, a sign of added prosperity to the society. (Note: the qualification "on the whole" will be very important later.)

I find that this statement runs counter to our instincts, and it is therefore not very widely accepted even though it is the fundamental principle on which our economic system runs. Most people are willing to say that, sure, if you make a lot of money, you must have worked very hard and therefore deserve quite a lot of it. Good for you is a common way to summarize this feeling. After all, we like personal achievement and appreciate an individual's right to benefit from his own work. What isn't at all clear is how this actually helps the rest of us.

By this reasoning, we arrive at the conclusion that there are limits on how much profit a company (or individual) should make. There is only so much that one person can really deserve. Here is where our instincts go totally off track. Because we so firmly believe that the amount of money one makes should be attached to the effort he puts in or merit he possesses, we react with disgust at the idea of one man making in one minute as another man makes in a whole year. Surely no man is that much better than another.

Very few people indeed are so bold in their egoism as to defend such an economic system on the basis of moral merit. What is unfortunately so poorly understood is that individual merit is not the justification for the economic system that brings some people such astounding profits. No, the real justification is--and here I reiterate--that every dollar of additional profit, no matter how great the profits already are, means more prosperity in the society as a whole--not just for him who gained that profit.

Why is this so? There is no point in trying to search for an original explanation, because the right explanation is very simple and by now very old. It is a simple logical deduction from the definition of profit. Profit is nothing other than the price at which something is sold minus the cost to produce it. If the profit is anything greater than zero, this necessarily means the product was more valuable than the cost--the cost being everything that went into producing it. If the product is more valuable than its cost, this necessarily means society is better off for that product existing rather than not existing. QED

The real question is why we have so much trouble accepting the argument. Perhaps the reason we have trouble is that it seems highly impersonal. Can a number with a dollar sign next to it really tell us that society has benefited? Given the number of things we buy for which we later have no use, or the number of times we actually regret having bought something, it is easy to be skeptical of the idea that profit always means a benefit to society.

Here's where that qualification becomes important: "on the whole" means that profit is never a perfect indicator of benefit added. But I submit that there is no perfect indicator of benefit added. Most of our measurements are very imprecise. Money--that horrible, impersonal device for measuring value--has at least the benefit that we are always critical of it. When you realize later that a purchase wasn't very smart, you are careful not to make a similarly bad purchase again, because it's painfully obvious that you only have so much money.

The market will never give us a perfect representation of value, but it is extremely adaptive, correcting its own failures more quickly than any other system comparably large. Contrast this, say, with our system of government, which continues to fail in the same way no matter how much people complain about the same problems over and over.

Thus, the truth is, billionaires, whether or not they pay taxes, do on the whole add value to society so long as they keep producing things people are willing to buy. Paying taxes is something completely independent of this market process. You don't benefit the United States primarily by earning a lot of money and then paying part of it to the government. That idea is simply economic nonsense from beginning to end. The primary way in which you benefit the society around you is by producing things we need or want. And the only way to know what people need and want, in a world so immensely complex and interconnected as ours, is to follow the prices. It may seem impersonal, but I defy anyone to try bartering one on one with 300 million other Americans, much less seven billion people around the world.

Helping Grandma seems much more personal, and therefore we like to think about helping Grandma and not about billionaires making money. The irony is, helping Grandma in this case really is every bit as impersonal as big corporations that make money. If you think that paying a check to the government means you've helped Grandma, I defy you to verify whether that's true. It is truly astounding to me that people are so spiteful of corporations that produce things which they themselves buy, only to be so blindly trusting of politicians who say that their money is really going to help their neighbor.

So now that you're convinced that I am a mean libertarian who has no heart, I want to encourage you by saying that yes; I do think the state has an important role to play in helping Grandma; no, I don't think billionaires should evade taxes; and no, like I said already, I don't think money can measure the value of everything. There are really many things on which I can wholeheartedly agree with progressives, including many of the excesses of modern banking, monstrous corporations, and the catastrophy that awaits our environment if we do nothing to curb pollution. But one thing always comes back to give me a headache when I talk with people on the left, and that is this unrelenting, gut-level suspicion of a very fundamental economic fact: profit is good.

I want to close on a personal note. I, myself, have very little desire for money, and I really have very little ambition for business. As I write this little blog post, I realize that my own instincts run very much counter to the conclusions I've reached about our economic system. Thus, I hope that those who share many of my ideals about a great many political issues will realize that it is not a set of different values that separates us, but only a matter of interpreting the facts. I think those of us with an interest in political questions have an obligation to think both morally and logically about the economic system, because it will not do to simply follow our gut-level feelings. If those who pride themselves on their ability to think rigorously on political questions cannot bring themselves to understand the fundamental importance of profit in a complex economy, the only direction I see left is for society to hand over more and more power to the state. And that can only end in disaster, as it already has in the past.

Drug legalization: the moral argument

As I've just read in the news that Pat Robertson, of all people, has come out in favor of legalizing marijuana, I thought I would take a stab at the issue generally. There are many angles from which you could approach this issue: social, political, moral, medical, and even fiscal concerns come into the picture. While I think all of these are important, I want to stick with the moral/political side of things, because this is where our principles are really put to the test.

So here's the claim: drugs should be legalized, with certain regulations as necessary to prevent harm to those who are particularly vulnerable (such as children). Some positive arguments, as Robertson himself elucidates, include the following. First, it would reduce our prison population, saving us lots of money which we currently spend needlessly. Second, it would prevent violence in the form of "drug wars" between black market rivals or between drug dealers and police. Third, it would eliminate the rather obvious disparity in the legal system between wealthy drug users who find it easy to get away with and those in the lower class who are easy targets for police. Beyond these, legalization would probably also have a good effect on our economy, by creating more legitimate jobs, as unsavory as it might sound to most people.

Now let's deal with three objections. First, there's the paternalistic objection: shouldn't we save people from themselves? After all, drug addiction is pretty bad, and everyone hooked on drugs could use a little incentive to get off drugs. Do we really want to leave people alone while they ruin their lives, and possibly impose costs on the rest of us due to their poor health and poor decisions?

The answer to this is pretty clear: we don't need to make something illegal to help people stop doing it. On the contrary, it would probably be easier to help people quit their addictions if drug use were legal, since it would be easy for people to be out in the open about their use. If you want to be paternalistic, then let's have a compromise: instead of spending government funding on guns and prisons, let's spend it on rehab centers. Alcoholism is a real problem for many people, yet we don't arrest people for drinking. (We tried that before, it didn't turn out so well.) Or take smoking as an example: an entire industry has built up around helping people to quit, from nicotine patches to chewing gum.

A second objection has to do with law and order: aren't drug users more likely to be involved in other crimes? Well, let's weigh the moral merit of such an objection. Is it right to punish people for doing something they are going to do? Should I punish someone for using drugs because I think it will lead to violence? Again, take the issue of alcohol use. We punish people for drunk driving, but not for drinking. That's because drunk driving endangers lives, while drinking does not. But doesn't drinking lead to drunk driving? Well, in general, no. There is a pretty clear dividing line between the choice to use drugs in the privacy of your own home or private club, for example, and the choice to drive a two-ton piece of machinery down the road while intoxicated. One should not be punished because of bad associations between two distinct activities.

Thirdly, there is the following objection, related to the first two: won't legalization lead to more drug use, thereby degrading the morals of society? Some will answer this by pointing to studies that show eventual declines in drug use in countries where it has been legalized. However, let us make a more philosophical point in response to this objection. It is obvious that we cannot make illegal all things which are wrong. How can we possibly draw the line between things which should be legal and those which should be illegal?

To solve this puzzle, I propose the following test: is it peaceful? As someone with libertarian leanings, I believe that society must work first to be a peaceful society, and then we can focus on solving particular moral problems. Progress is best made through peace. When people feel coerced into abiding by a particular moral code, they tend to resent whoever assumes this moral authority over them. Within certain institutions such as the family, this can be a necessary and even healthy thing; but between existing communities of people, this is an unhealthy relationship which can only cause long-standing tension.

I have never used any drugs other than alcohol; I've never even smoked. But there really is virtue in tolerance, by which I mean permitting other people to do things you actually do not prefer. I grow increasingly discouraged that tolerance has fallen out of favor in our society; we seem to be forced to choose between endorsing or forbidding. If everything we find disgusting must be illegal, and likewise everything we make legal must be actively accepted as good, then our democracy will surely deteriorate (as it has done) into a tug of war, to which there is no end. I refuse to hold any stance on drug use other than tolerance: I think drug use is wrong, and I think it should be legal.

Simply ask yourself, do you really want men with guns locking someone away merely for possessing a substance which has certain negative effects on the human body when consumed? Does this punishment fit the crime? Perhaps a tax is a more fitting punishment; or, just maybe, the mere use of drugs is benign enough to simply be left alone, as are most activities done in private.

In praise of the Living Wage campaign at UVA

You might be wondering what a guy with libertarian leanings, who has actually defended the abolition of minimum wage laws, is doing praising the "Living Wage" campaign at the University of Virginia. That might be because you, like me, initially assumed upon reading the words "living wage" that the activist organization demanding better pay for UVA employees is another political action team wanting to get legislation passed to achieve their objectives. Or it might be because you, like so many of us in this world, have been fooled by stereotypes, having been taught through a steady diet of mainstream media that libertarians are greedy, selfish jerks who think everyone should have to fend for himself. Whatever the reason you're surprised, if indeed you are, I hope to explain clearly and succinctly why you shouldn't be.

The Living Wage campaign exists for the purpose of demanding better pay for employees of the University of Virginia. Its specific wage demands (which can be read here) are based on the Economic Policy Institute's estimation of what it costs to live in Charlottesville and raise a family of four. It further demands structural changes in the university that will make the improvement of wages an ongoing process. The rationale behind these demands is simple: we, as a university, ought to live up to our stated goal of being a "caring community."

Why I support this. I have joined 2,255 other people in signing a petition that the university meet Living Wage standards. As a Christian, I believe all human beings have a responsibility to care for the poor among us, and we as Christians are particularly responsible for advocating for those less fortunate. I also believe it is our duty to take part in shaping the institutions of which we are part. Communities are shaped by powerful institutions, and we have a moral obligation to insist that those institutions adhere to good and just principles. Human beings cannot thrive without communities that look out for the common interest.

As a libertarian, I believe it is vital for individuals to be active on the ground in making the world a better place. Indeed, it is our general complacency about the needs of our own communities that invites greater and more intrusive intervention from the state. From my point of view, the point of libertarianism is not for us all to float around in an atomistic world of self-interested individuals with no ties to any institutions or communities. No, the point is for all of us individuals to be free to create, shape, and reform those institutions with which we are naturally affiliated. If the university of which I am a part does not reflect the morals which I hold dear, then I have a right and even a duty to make this known to the community.

Response to objections. So what about economics? What about the minimum wage? Doesn't that do more harm than good? (I've seen posters on campus suggesting exactly that.)

I think this is based on a misunderstanding of what is being demanded. The Living Wage campaign exists to change the values that govern UVA's policies, not to change laws. It is more than probable that many activists in the campaign would disagree with my political views very sharply. But as far as I can see, despite whatever traditional ties there may be between this kind of activism and leftist politics, the purpose of the campaign is not explicitly political. And anyway, I don't see why we libertarians can't take back some of that moral high ground that the leftists want to take from us.

(I was particularly agitated in my soul when I read this statement on the campaign web site, from an anonymous employee of the university: “The problem is that so many workers get locked into the low wage that stays there… you end up losing ground financially because of inflation and such… and so a lot of people are making less money then they were making years ago.” [Emphasis mine.] And people wonder why we Ron Paul fans keep going on about monetary policy...)

So in response to the economic argument, I would say it is not correct that a university policy of paying its employees well would do more harm than good. UVA must decide, as all firms must, how it will allocate its resources, based on its guiding principles. The Living Wage campaign simply pleads that one of those guiding principles be that we care for the needy in our community. That is a proper moral stance, and if "economics" is ever used as an argument against your morals, you must always side with your morals.

The reason minimum wage laws don't make sense (to me) is that the government can't possibly know all the legitimate exceptions to the rules they make up. What if a young teenager wants to try working on a farm one summer? What if young woman fresh out of college is willing to work a low-paying internship just to gain skills that will and her a fulfilling career? What if a young immigrant is willing to work for next to nothing because it's actually worth quite a bit in his home country? In all of these cases, it's none of the state's business if these individuals choose to take on a particular risk or hardship. Provided individuals are free to choose between competing firms, the government should have no say in their personal decisions.

But again, we have the right and the moral responsibility to help shape the values that guide our own institutions to which we belong. So long as the goal isn't the use of coercion, I have nothing but enthusiasm for a campaign to increase the welfare of the community.

I know of no other reasonable objections to the Living Wage campaign, but if there are any, I'd love to hear them. For now, at least, I'm a supporter, and I look forward to receiving campaign updates. I can only give my apologies to those (particularly of my friends) who have been active in campaigning, including the recent hunger strike, as I am a relative late-comer to this cause.

Against Libertarianism

Whenever you happen to start finding yourself attracted to a particular philosophy, whether political or otherwise, it is important to attack it with all the intellectual might you can summon. Philosophies are powerful forces. They can shape a society for better or for ill. Just as each of us individually should think before he acts, so also society must have some means of contemplating various paths before it takes one. There is no other way for society to do that other than for individuals within it to do the thinking themselves, and engage in conversation with each other.

In that spirit, let me now enumerate my qualms with the philosophy generally called “libertarianism” in our day. Although the history of both that word at the philosophy with which I am dealing is a bit complicated, I will generally take for granted that anyone reading this is more or less familiar with the kinds of ideas I’m talking about. Libertarians believe in individual rights, including rights to life, liberty, and property. They believe in limited government (or, in the case of anarchocapitalists, no government at all) and they think that the mark of a good society is a minimal use of force and coercion. Libertarians believe in free markets and civil liberties: they don’t believe anyone should interfere with what we buy and sell, where we choose to live, who we choose to associate with, what we choose to say or believe, or how we choose to use our own property.

I find that there is much to appreciate about libertarianism, and politically I more or less identify as a libertarian because there is no broader category that defines my political beliefs. However, progress is never achieved by speaking only in generalities. Here I want to nail down some specific major objections (or at least qualms) I have concerning the ideas that usually fall under the label “libertarian.”

1.      Personal Autonomy

My first objection to libertarianism is philosophical in nature. Libertarians often make two claims about personal autonomy. The first is that people are autonomous, and the second is that they should be left to their autonomy. Let me take each of these claims in order.

The first claim: all people are autonomous individuals. This is plainly false. Indeed, there would be absolutely no reason for a market economy if this were true. There is simply no way the number of human beings currently living could actually live if not for the fact that they cooperate with one another. Libertarians who equate free market economics with the idea that everyone should be left alone to fend for himself are only helping the opposition, since everyone knows we can’t simply fend for ourselves and hope to survive.

No one acts independently of all other people. We all make decisions based on the morals, beliefs, and customs of other people around us. This is most obvious when we think of the obvious fact that we all come into this world as children. We learn the most basic skills which enable us to survive from our parents. Only gradually do we gain a greater degree of independence, and this independence is never absolute. Even the most independent among us will have to base his decisions on the decisions made by others.

This is more than an abstract philosophical point. Have you ever noticed how little libertarians have to say about the lives of children? Can a libertarian who supports the legalization of prostitution make a coherent argument against child prostitution? Why is a 17 year-old off limits when an 18 year-old has the right to do what she wants with her body? It is simply impossible to come up with a coherent position if we imagine that at some point people magically turn into autonomous adults.

Indeed, the idea of absolute personal autonomy is what leads to many of the major pitfalls of liberalism, which libertarians hate so much. If all people are simply autonomous individuals, then the only way to prevent them from destroying each other is through a powerful state. In the real world, liberty works precisely because we are not autonomous individuals. Rather, we rely on a highly complex set of institutions, many of which have no formal existence, and which arise through a process of cultural evolution, rather than human design.

The second claim: all people ought to be left alone to make their own decisions. If absolute personal autonomy does not exist, then insisting that society ought to protect it is nonsensical. If our goal is to defend liberty, then we need a definition of “liberty” which refers to something real. Perhaps in the near future, I will provide such a definition of my own. For now, I think it will do to refer to F. A. Hayek’s definition from The Constitution of Liberty, in which he defines a free society as one in which coercion is minimized. Defining “coercion” is complicated, of course, and I’ll simply ask the reader to read his book for some ideas.

2.      Morality

It is common for libertarians to claim that the government should not legislate morality. This is a piece of rhetoric which is also popular among liberals, and it is so pervasive that most people in our country have a hard time seeing just how silly it is. All law is legislated morality. If a law isn’t about right and wrong, it probably shouldn’t be a law!

The objection typically raised to all sorts of legislation is that we shouldn’t use legislation to impose our “personal morality” on others. For instance, Christians who might oppose homosexual practice should not use the law to forbid it. The principle underlying this claim is that all people should be allowed to make any choice they want about their own lives, so long as it does not hurt anyone. This is a worthy principle—don’t misunderstand me—but it is, indeed, a moral principle.

The question is not whether we are going to legislate morality. The question is, what moral principles should guide our legislation? We certainly cannot legislate all morality, as numerous examples will illustrate. For instance, most of us agree that it is wrong to insult other people and hurt their feelings. But no one would suggest that the government should pass a law banning such insults. Why not? Because most of us also realize that such things can easily be resolved without the use of government force, and it would be wrong to use force wherever it is unnecessary--not to mention the waste of resources involved in using such extraordinary means to solve such a trivial problem.

Libertarians have a long intellectual tradition with some good ideas about which morals should guide legislation. Such principles include equal rights for all individuals and the principle of non-aggression. These principles may be flawed or not, but they are certainly moral principles, and they should be compared to other moral principles, rather than treated as above or outside of morality. Essentially, I am not here criticizing the ideas of libertarians so much as their rhetoric.

3.      Property

I have on occasion heard libertarians complain that Thomas Jefferson should have kept the trio “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” as “life, liberty, and property.” This fixation on property rights gives libertarianism a decidedly right-wing feel, at least in present-day America. In many ways I applaud libertarians for their emphasis on personal property, but I think it needs to be grounded in a proper moral framework.

In particular, I don’t think human beings are always entitled to use things in whatever way they desire. This is an especially important point to make in an age when we are most aware of the damage we have done to the earth. If libertarians are silent about environmental concerns, then the movement is either irrelevant or possibly even dangerous. Besides, it is hardly self-evident that human beings are entitled to own pieces of land and do with them what we please.

Ownership is not so much a matter of people have power over things as it is a way of establishing parameters for human cooperation. That is why some form of property rights is inevitable, radical left-wing claims notwithstanding. If we are going to have any interaction with the physical world whatsoever, we are eventually going to be faced with the question of how we share it. A political system with no property rights is implicitly a system of collectivist property rights, which inevitably means a powerful governing authority must take charge of setting guidelines for the use of valuable resources.

Libertarians are right to critique collectivist property rights, because such a system must rely on concentrated power and coercion. However, it is also the case the personal property rights depend on coercion. For instance, if a bank has the right to trade a loan for interest on that loan, then in the future it will have the right to coerce me based on a decision I make now. The question the libertarian should ask himself is whether the current system of property rights actually minimizes coercion. Too often libertarians are fixated on the economic question of efficiency and prosperity and not, ironically enough, on the question of liberty.

I happen to think that banks should be allowed to charge interest (yet certainly not without exception). Nevertheless, we ought to recognize that this rule depends on a common acceptance of property rights which have not always been deemed acceptable in the course of human civilization. There might be good reasons for that. Libertarians should not be mere defenders of the status quo, but should constantly be reassessing how well our current notion of property works in favor of liberty. Perhaps it is worth bringing up old controversies in the hopes of shedding new light on our present situation, especially as protestors call for debt forgiveness and tighter regulations on banks.

This concludes my critique of libertarianism, which is not to say I’ve covered every flaw. In future posts, I’ll try to offer something more constructive by suggesting ways in which libertarians could more clearly define a sound political philosophy. I would like to conclude by affirming that I do think liberty is the most valuable trait of our society, and that we ought to work to defend it. But if we don’t take the time to think about what we mean by this, we’ll find ourselves drifting in a direction none of us wanted.

Bastiat on democracy

Frederic Bastiat makes fun of the contradiction between the socialists' view of voting rights and their view of individual liberties:

When it is time to vote, apparently the voter is not to be asked for any guarantee of his wisdom. His will and capacity to choose wisely are taken for granted. Can the people be mistaken? Are we not living in an age of enlightenment? What! are the people always to be kept on leashes? Have they not won their rights by great effort and sacrifice? Have they not given ample proof of their intelligence and wisdom? Are they not adults? Are they not capable of judging for themselves? Do they not know what is best for themselves? Is there a class or a man who would be so bold as to set himself above the people, and judge and act for them? No, no, the people are and should be free. They desire to manage their own affairs, and they should do so. But when the legislator is finally elected--ah! then indeed does the tone of his speech undergo a radical change. The people are returned to passiveness, inertness, and unconsciousness; the legislator enters into omnipotence. Now it is for him to initiate, to direct, to propel, and to organize. Mankind has only to submit; the hour of despotism has struck. We now observe this fatal idea: The people who, during the election, where so wise, so moral, and so perfect, now have no tendencies whatever; or if they have any, they are tendencies that lead downward into degradation.

And I can't resist reproducing this passage:

The claims of these organizers of humanity raise another question which I have often asked them and which, so far as I know, they have never answered: If the natural tendencies of mankind are so bad that it is not safe to permit people to be free, how is it that the tendencies of these organizers are always good? Do not the legislators and their appointed agents also belong to the human race? Or do they believe that they themselves are made of a finer clay than the rest of mankind? The organizers maintain that society, when left undirected, rushes headlong to its inevitable destruction because the instincts of the people are so perverse. The legislators claim to stop this suicidal course and to give it a saner direction. Apparently, then, the legislators and the organizers have received from Heaven an intelligence and virtue that place them beyond and above mankind; if so, let them show their titles to this superiority.

I daresay this essay is still one of the best defenses of a free society in existence. Bastiat shows us how a true egalitarian is also a libertarian.

Republicans and businessmen

Here is, finally, a Republican explaining true free market principles (the link is here). I listened to the whole Bloomberg debate from the other night. All of the other Republicans (beside Ron Paul) were touting the virtues of having private sector experience, claiming this makes them better equipped (than Obama) to "manage the economy."

Let's think about that for a moment. Do we need businessmen with their experience "managing" the economy?

No. In the first place, the government is not a business, as Ron Paul expresses quite well. Its purpose is not to maximize profit. Its purpose is to execute impartial justice and protect the American people. It sounds so sensible and even conservative to insist that government ought to act more like a business and balance its budget. But the important thing actually is not balancing its budget, but minimizing coercion.

In the second place, businessmen are likely to be biased toward businesses. "Corporate welfare" is no less part of big government policies than actual welfare. Who wins when the government gives big bailouts? The "little guy"? In the sense that he may not have to change his current employment, maybe...but in terms of justice it is, of course, the rich and powerful who benefit at the expense of the poor when government "manages the economy." And in the long run this management will make us all poorer than we otherwise would have been.

It is a myth that supporters of the free market must be people who appreciate business sense and buy into the attitudes of business culture. It is often quite the opposite. If businessmen are allowed to use political means to pursue their own interests, this is a perversion of justice and not a free market. Political means are coercive. The only legitimate market means for making a profit are non-coercive activities.

That Republicans are generally the party of businessmen makes them less, not more, attractive to a free market libertarian.

Milton Friedman on balancing the budget

Milton Friedman, that crazy Tea Party activist (and Nobel Prize winning economist), insisted that balancing the government's budget isn't the real problem. The real fundamental question is, as you can hear at 6:42,

"The real question is, how much are you required to spend, one way or another--directly or indirectly, by taxes, by lending, by inflation--what fraction of your income are you required to devote to have other people spend it, supposedly on your behalf?"

Today it is accepted by virtually everyone that any reasonable person would accept that we need to balance the federal budget by a combination of spending cuts and revenue increases. Of course, that's what normal people must do, so clearly that is what the federal government must do. Thus, to suggest that taxes should not be increased to pay for the federal budget is taken as doctrinaire, the crazed thinking of Tea Party fanatics. Was Milton Friedman, then, simply a fanatic?

As shocking as it sounds to suggest that a great majority of the population is in error, that is unfortunately the case today (as nearly always). The government is not a for-profit business. It is not a household. It does not increase revenue by working harder or by making a better product. If this were how the government increased revenue, I'd be all in favor of it. But let's be clear, that is not what is meant when people so casually suggest "increasing revenue." What is obviously meant is increasing taxes.

Now as Milton Friedman points out in this video, government deficit is already a tax. That money has to be paid off somehow. Make no mistake, when the government spends money, it is always spending your money. The more money the government spends, the more of your money is being spent. In other words, the more the government spends, the less freedom you have.

Unfortunately, conservatives have tried to make the case that we can balance the budget like reasonable businessmen and yet not increase taxes. The government is not a business, and we don't need businessmen running the government. What we need is a government that protects, rather than degrades, our liberty. This can only be done by reducing the amount of money government forces us to spend. Raising taxes is not a morally neutral way of "increasing revenue." It is an immoral act of force, which can only be justified insofar as it is necessary to defend our country and provide a legal system which upholds individual liberty.

There are other options, of course. It is possible, in theory, that the government could charter legitimate businesses, which must play by all the same rules as other businesses in a state of free market competition. From such firms the government could, in theory, generate revenue for various programs it would like to maintain. That is, of course, never how it works in practice. Businesses with government charters almost always get special privileges. But I wanted to mention this, lest anyone think that I am dogmatically opposed to all means of providing public services through the federal government. No, all I am dogmatically opposed to is coercion, which happens every time the government spends your money without asking your permission.

ReasonTV on international adoption policy

One of the more interesting pieces I've seen by ReasonTV. It's nice to see libertarians talking about real humanitarian issues, you know?

I think it's really sad that we don't think about these issues more. Our political discourse is so wrapped up in American issues, we rarely ever think about how political ideas affect those less fortunate all over the world. The "international community" is really a euphemism for a bunch of elites with mind-boggling amounts of power over the lives of other people. That kind of power is dangerous, even in the hands of good people. You'll find in this video yet another story of immense harm done in the name of good intentions.

There is also reason to question, to a certain extent, the very intentions driving international policies emanating from the UN. In the middle of the video you'll find some of the interviews critiquing the idea that there's some inherent value in a child growing up in her native culture. Any policies which seek to preserve abstract cultural identities are inherently flawed. People, including children, ought to be viewed as individuals, and we ought to work toward allowing all people the greatest possible opportunity for individual thriving. There are many people who seem to believe there is something morally desirable about preserving culture, but I confess I don't think this belief has any basis whatsoever.

I also think this is a very important issue from a sanctity of life perspective. Everyone who cares about abortion cares (or ought to care) about adoption. If life is sacred, we need some societal mechanisms by which we can care for life, and I think one of those mechanisms should be a voluntary adoption process. The problem is that government doesn't seem to want to solve issues of abuse by simply forcing laws. It seems to want to solve them by just taking over the whole process. That is precisely the way in which, on any given issue, government becomes more of a hindrance than a help. It is tragic that there isn't more widespread belief in the ability of free cooperation to take care of orphans.

Watch the video, tell me what you think.

Legislating morality

What should be the government's role in legislating morality?

The claim you sometimes hear on the left is that the government should not legislate morality at all. This is complete disingenuous. All law is legislated morality. Laws aren't simply recommendations; they come backed with a threat of coercion. If the government is going to threaten to coerce me if I don't follow a particular law, they had better have a good moral argument why I should obey the law. Otherwise, they are no more than brute tyrants. In fact, the left wants to legislate morality all the time and it is completely irrational that they would call it anything else. From income redistribution to food regulations to funding social welfare programs, the left has in mind a moral vision for our country which is has every right to defend in a free society. Only don't pretend no morals are being enforced.

The right, on the other hand, will often strongly endorse the belief that all law is legislated morality. The enthusiasm is a little too strong, however, and very often the right has a very uncritical view of the relationship between morals and laws. For instance, many conservatives will go so far as to propose a constitutional amendment "to protect the institution of marriage." Yet no Republican has seriously proposed a federal ban on divorce. "Traditional values" don't seem to have a clear definition, and the phrase is mostly tossed around in order to rally support for the latest trend in conservative activism.

Libertarians, commonly speaking, tend to favor the left's position that the government ought not to legislate morality. Arguably they are more consistent in this, since they oppose government intervention in both personal and economic spheres of life. Yet unless you are actually an anarchist (in which case none of this applies to you) then you must concede that the government's role is in fact to enforce laws which protect freedom. Thus the argument I made against the left still applies: laws must really be enforced morals, or else they are nothing but tyrannical decrees.

Hopefully each of these caricatures can help warn us against pitfalls in our reasoning about these issues. The fact that we really don't think very clearly about this question shows up in political debates all the time. Very rarely to people have sound principles in mind when they decide that something ought to be law. They implicitly base their arguments on personal experience, without recognizing the unavoidable fact that our personal experience captures an exceedingly minuscule portion of reality.

Muslim libertarians

The Minaret of Freedom Institute is a group of Muslim scholars dedicated to libertarian values, including both civil and economic freedom. As they put it,

The Minaret of Freedom Institute was founded in 1993 with a dual mission for educating both Muslims and non-Muslims. For non-Muslims our mission is:

1. to counter distortions and misconceptions about Islamic beliefs and practice
2. to demonstrate the Islamic origins of modern values like the rule of law and sciences like market economics
3. to advance the status of Muslim peoples maligned by a hostile environment in the West and oppressed by repressive political regimes in the East

(Keep reading on their web site.)

To be honest, I know embarrassingly little about Muslim thought in the modern world, considering how important it is in our time. But since ideas are often processed best through synthesis, it's nice that there are organizations like this, who combine a discussion of Islamic thought with ideas I'm already quite familiar with.

It's amazing what you can discover on Youtube.

Bryan Caplan on immigration restrictions

This guy is fantastic.

It's a long video, so here's a brief synopsis: Most of the arguments against free immigration are based on claims that are at best exaggerated. Moreover, even if we accept all of the reasons usually given, there are cheaper and more humane ways to deal with the problems mentioned. For instance, if we're concerned about immigration lowering wages (which doesn't happen to any significant extent) or about immigrants soaking up welfare benefits (which really aren't that much to begin with) there is a simple solution: charge a flat fee for immigration (say, $30,000), or have a higher rate of taxes (say, an extra 10%) on immigrant workers. These suggestions are just concessions, of course. The real point is this: once a reasonable person has heard the facts, there really is no moral reason why he should oppose open immigration.

Give Me Liberty and Give Me Beer

Matt Zwolinski admits that his entire political philosophy is really based on the love of beer:

I am a lover of craft beer, and a homebrewer. And the fact is, freedom makes for good beer. Just look, for example, at the American experience. Prohibition in the 1920s destroyed what had once been a surprisingly successful and diverse American brewing industry, leaving only a few large brewers of cheap, flavorless swill in its wake. It wasn’t until the 1980s that innovative, interesting, flavorful beers began to reappear on the American market, driven in part by Jimmy Carter’s legalization of homebrewing in 1978. Many of today’s most innovative professional brewers got their start as homebrewers – Alesmith’s Peter Zien, X of Rogue’s Jeff Schultz, Dogfish Head’s Sam Calagione, New Belgium’s Jeff Lebesch, and Sierra Nevada’s Ken Grossman, for example.

Read the rest of his article to find out about how government regulations stifle greater diversity and quality in beer selection. Also, in the comments section you can read about how both the beer and wine industry are affected by government favoritism toward certain distributors owned by major corporations.

Which reminds me of a claim Joel Salatin made in Everything I Want to Do Is Illegal, that the original Model T could run either on gasoline or alcohol, and that before prohibition things were looking pretty bright for alcohol to be the up and coming fuel source. Even today, alcohol is a fairly significant fuel source, which leads Salatin to speculate about how we might cure ourselves of dependence on foreign oil by deregulating the production and sale of liquor.

It's worth pointing out what the result of a highly regulated alcohol business is. During Prohibition, alcohol production didn't go away; it simply got into the hands of corrupt people willing to do dangerous things--hence the phrase "bootleggers and Baptists." Even in a regulated industry, the production over goes into the hands of giant corporations whose goal is pure profit. As a result, millions of people in this country drink a watered down product. No wonder so many Americans drink so irresponsibly. The stuff they drink is so bad they can't imagine drinking it for anything other than the buzz.

By contrast, a deregulated (or rather a self-regulated) industry would allow more entrepreneurs into the business, and the more people are allowed to try for themselves, the more care and attention is placed into developing unique and tasty products. In the world of microbrews, you have to be known by taste--you certainly can't be known by your Superbowl commercials.

I suspect that Americans would on the whole be more responsible and more sophisticated drinkers if, ironically enough, there weren't so many restrictions on the production and sale of alcohol.

Why shouldn't government be big?

Conservatives and libertarians often complain that government is "too big." Part of what they mean by this is that the government is involved in too many things, and this is detrimental to society because the government is less efficient in doing these things than the private sector.

Stated in this way, this mantra is actually an empirical claim which may be false. How do we know the government is less efficient than the private sector in everything that it does? Very often I suspect it is, but sometimes perhaps it isn't. And even if it is less efficient, the underlying principle really has not been addressed: why does the government turn out to be inefficient?

More importantly the real question is, can the solution really be for the government to simply stop doing the things it is doing? This seems like a regressive step, an admission of defeat, a blithe acceptance that maybe some problems just can't be solved. This is the kind of thinking that makes progressives' blood boil.

And rightfully so. The most aggravating thing I've found about conservatives is that often they are in fact conservative in the negative sense: they often want to call "not problems" things that are problems, and rather than optimistically seeking solutions they simply wish to be left alone. I'll be the first to complain about Obama's health care plan, but where were the conservative Republicans when they had a chance to address the problems of health care themselves? Why did they not address immigration reform? And why is it that under their watch no one spotted any of the systemic economic problems that led to the current recession? If the Left has recently had many bad ideas, the Right has simply had no ideas, which is in fact worse during times of crisis, when some idea, even a bad one, will move to fill the vacuum.

So if we're to avoid this kind of "do nothing" attitude, what are we to do about big government? Is it a problem? What exactly is the reason we are so upset by it? How do we fix that?

Sheldon Richman on the Guilded Age

Arguing that the Guilded Age brings a false sense of nostalgia to many lovers of capitalism (and subtly remarking that "capitalism" may not be the best name for a belief in the free market, see this link) Sheldon Richman writes:

The Gilded Age of course has been criticized by enemies of the free market — corporatism and the free market have been sloppily and even intentionally conflated — but what’s often unappreciated is that writers sympathetic to the free market have disparaged the Gilded Age as broadly illiberal and contrary to the spirit of free enterprise. Where many libertarians see laissez faire, these writers saw corruption and privilege distorting commerce.

As one of the authors cited put it:

The interpretation of American history which views the latest nineteenth-century businessman as a free enterpriser, while describing government activity as an attempt to restrain laissez-faire, is simply not borne out by the facts.

The whole article is worth a read, especially if you're into history and/or economics.

What I appreciate most about it is the progressive streak it entails: true freedom, including truly free markets, still have not been attained, and we should be trying to move forward, not backward. Unfortunately both the Left and the Right almost completely miss the central point of free markets, namely that all privilege should be abolished. The Left seems to think abolishing privilege also requires controlling markets (which is a gross non-sequitur with painful consequences), while the Right apparently doesn't mind a system with privilege (which is morally repugnant).

I guess that's why I'm (basically) a libertarian.

World War II and economics

One of the reasons I've become more interested in libertarian economists than conservative ones is that, to be perfectly honest, I grew up getting the general impression that World War II helped drive us out of the Great Depression. Surely this was the only explanation left if you rejected the idea that the New Deal fixed everything. Not so, according to just about every libertarian I've read. Apparently it's a good deal more subtle than that, as Alexander Field points out (via Tyler Cowen):

Had trends persisted in the absence of war, employment, TFP, and labor productivity would all likely have been higher in 1942…housing construction was robust and growing in 1939, 1940, and 1941, and when the postwar housing boom emerged with full force in 1946, it took off from where it had been arrested in 1941. Since the failure of residential construction to revive fully was one of the major contributors to the persistence of low private investment spending during the Depression, its signs of revival in the years immediately preceding the war suggest that had peace continued, investment, output, and employment growth would have continued as the economy reapproached capacity.

…There continues to be a popular perception that war is beneficial to an economy, particularly if it does not lead to much physical damaged to the country prosecuting it. The U.S. experience during the Second World War is the typical poster child for this point of view. Detailed research into the effects of armed conflict, however, has usually produced more nuanced interpretations…In that spirit, the research reported in this chapter represents a revisionist approach to the analysis of the Second World War, although one that is not entirely unanticipated.

There's something refreshing about libertarianism which is both anti-Keynesian and anti-war. It all goes back to the broken window fallacy.