Freedom means that the government doesn't try to solve the problem of poverty

Brooks channels Hayek (by Russell Roberts) from Cafe Hayek by Russell Roberts
David Brooks, in this provocative critique of Republican Libertarianism, uses the insights of Hayek without mentioning him...

Unfortunately, economists and Republicans and columnists often use "the market" as short hand for economic freedom. But most people take it to mean the stock market or at most, the pecuniary parts of our lives. This mistake is why people ask how poor people can possibly survive if there is more liberty. Or the argument that the market "delivers the goods" but alas, it produces inequality. Some respond by trying to argue that economic freedom does indeed help the poor. They're right but that doesn't comfort the skeptic who is worried abot today's poor person. But freedom doesn't mean poor people starving. Freedom means that the government doesn't try to solve the problem of poverty, but rather it leaves the door open to voluntary community rather than coerced community.

Brooks understands that while pocket book issues are important, they don't inspire. Freedom is important not because it makes us rich but because it makes our lives more meaningful. Not because freedom lets us prosper--it does--but because freedom lets us express all that is important about our humanity. Top down approaches deaden that humanity.

I talk about these issues in The Invisible Heart and The Price of Everything. The Invisible Heart deals with the free-riding problem that arises with voluntary aid to the poor.

For A Life Without Our The State from ANTIDOTE by Sauvik
I began my morning reading an interview with George Selgin, the great scholar of money and banking, published in the official magazine of the Richmond Federal Reserve. This is just about as “mainstream” as you can get. So he does scoff at Rothbardian libertarians...

I have also written recently on why “The State should have nothing to do with money, except punish fraud.” This pious statement should also be taken to imply that things are seriously wrong when it is The State that is committing monetary fraud and actually operating in the manner of a “counterfeiter.” [...]

Why not just ask for Free Markets? And let The “demonic” State recede, and go on receding, until it finally withers away?