Libertarianism is the foundation of the American way. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness

Radical Capitalists Chris Dierkes Monday, February 26, 2007

An interview from CSpan BookTV with Brian Doherty author of the new biography of modern libertarianism Radicals for Capitalism. Fascinating interview and fills a vacuum in the literature. Whatever one's views on the subject matter, he does a very good job of informing--Doherty himself is a libertarian so his views are shaded in that direction. But overall I think he does a fair job--I definitely want to give the book a read. No way to cover all of libertarianism, but just a few thoughts. I come at this topic more from the political philosophy than economics side, but with libertarians the two are always mixed. They certainly are an interesting bred, given that they don't fit very well into either established political party. The recent argument for Liberal-tarians I think is not going much of anywhere, but major new right conservatism is not all libertarian either. Doherty begins by stating that libertarianism is the foundation of the American way. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Interestingly, always pursuing happiness is from the spiritual point of view meditation upon the fact that one is unhappy. As long as one is pursuing happiness, one will never actually be happy. Sadly, says a lot about our country...

In other words, libertarianism as Doherty points out grows out of the fields of economics. I think the automatic linkage of economic market theory to how governments should run (key on should, value judgment) is problematic. I'm not saying there aren't ways in which the two do line up, but the radical-ness (or I would say absolute-ness) of that linkage for a libertarian is what I find wrongheaded. Because every step then is one slippery slope closer to totalitarianism. Trans-fat bans (which I really could care less about) becomes as one libertarian wrote the jack-boot on the throat. Really? In a world where our government is sending people to Egypt and prisons in Eastern Europe to be tortured outside government regulation (there's a piece of evidence against libertarianism) people who want to eat trans-fats are co-martyrs with innocent people tortured? When the ideological element of that is cut away, the movement can claim some major social achievements. e.g. Milton Friedman was a major force behind ending the military draft and moving to an all volunteer army. Note the emphasis on individualism... posted by CJ Smith @ 9:37 AM 2 comments