Libertarianism: A Primer / The Libertarian Reader
Boaz, David
Will Libertarianism Be the Ideology of the 21st Century? Libertarianism: A Primer David Boaz Free Press / 314 pages /$23 The Libertarian Reader: Classic and Contemporary Readings From Lao-tzu to...
...Boaz is especially weak in his chapter on "Contemporary Issues...
...God granted their wish, but warned that kings would take their sons for his own fields, their daughters for his own kitchens, their land for his own castle, and their beasts for his own work...
...You have no choice but to pay the IRS, or you will go to jail...
...there is only a man's property right...
...Private companies, of course, amass power through voluntary payment—people freely pay them for some service...
...In the factory he visits, voluntary division-oflabor has developed an irrefutably superior system of making pins...
...Since taxation is coercive, the ultimate libertarian goal is to eliminate it...
...Both polemics cover similar philosophical ground with markedly different success...
...Sum your points, plot your score: the questions are worded so that you can't help but turn out libertarian...
...Judges 21:25 says that Israel didn't have a king...
...Government, on the other hand, gets its money through taxation...
...Who should decide if you wear a seatbelt...
...In a world of constantly changing climes, it's these local voluntary organizations that must adapt or fade away...
...We've arrived at libertarianism, he thinks, through the process of elimination...
...Instead, "every man did that which is right in his own eyes," and judges settled disputes...
...Or buy earthquake insurance...
...Smith found that this division of labor allowed them to average 4,80o pins a day per person...
...The fact that he has to listen to words he doesn't like is just another form of trespassing...
...And, indeed, Boaz proffers Adam Smith's explanation of a little thought-about industry: pin manufacturers...
...In the seventies Washington's management of the economy brought stagflation...
...He can also be silly, calling for an extra amendment on the Bill of Rights that reads "And we mean it...
...You can almost feel the argument for free markets ahead...
...In the 1960's Americans saw their government spy on its own people...
...Agree with Tocqueville on civil life and you can hardly object to Charles Murray's vision of community...
...Adam Smith's crisp observations ground conservative economics: Milton Friedman is only a natural extension...
...But will we skip quickly from the "intrusive" eighties to a dawning Eden...
...Boaz doesn't consider such complicated cases...
...Libertarianism: A Primer David Boaz Free Press / 314 pages /$23 The Libertarian Reader: Classic and Contemporary Readings From Lao-tzu to Milton Friedman David Boaz Free Press /458 pages /$25 REVIEWED BY Stephen Glass T he appendix to David Boaz's new primer on libertarianism is a quiz to rate your ideology...
...In a well-excerpted passage from F. A. Hayek's Law, Legislation and Liberty the point is made that churches, clubs, and fraternal groups achieve goals better because they are "grown" from a specific purpose...
...What's different this time around...
...Baseball players sell entertainment, General Motors sells cars...
...Governments, on the other hand, are less able and have less urgency to change...
...From there you're pulled into Reason magazine, the Fodor's guide to the libertarian utopia...
...W hile the anthology will persuade the fence-sitter of the morality, if not the urgency of libertarianism, Libertarianism: A Primer will merelyannoy the waiverer...
...While frequently overlooked by atheist libertarians, this passage provides the moral seed for much of early libertarianism...
...But now, Americans are set to "apply those lessons," and he cheers "a limited government to usher in an unlimited force...
...In the Primer, Boaz forecasts a rosily libertarian twenty-first century: an era void of tyranny and bursting with wealth...
...Its influence resonated in the Federalist papers, which called for ratification of the Constitution's restrained government, and in Tocqueville's fears that even goodhearted governments would overextend their reach and degrade their citizens...
...He calls for an urgent tax reduction to restore economic growth, but how much...
...dence is unconvincing...
...Libertarians date their skepticism of power back to the Bible...
...The politically correct college professor, for instance, might argue that speech he doesn't like has to be banned since it invades his most sacrosanct property: his person...
...Its style is swollen, and Boaz's prose frequently consists of rhetorical questions that seem to provide evidence but are really just air: he asserts high taxes discourage labor (no doubt) but then goes on: "Why work overtime...
...Worst of all, Boaz uses the shotgun syntax that's common, and effective, in Washington think tanks but is insufficient for a wider audience...
...Or give to charity...
...Without this spontaneous order each would have trouble making zo pins daily...
...He does, however, offer specific proposals: the libertarian might want to amend the Constitution, for example, to require a balanced budget, add term limits, give the president the line-item veto, and forbid the Congress from delegating its lawmaking authority...
...It's an unsatisfying argument...
...He launches from here to his famous explanation of the "invisible hand" and the inherent value of free trade...
...Beneath the jargon his argument goes roughly so: since America is awash in rights-talk, any honest definition of libertarianism must begin by defining the scope of rights libertarians believe in...
...But as proof he offers only a handful of tired polls and a few pundits...
...Murray Rothbard's essay dismisses the common leftist argument lumping corporations and the state together as equally dangerous...
...But in Samuel I, the Jews begged for a king...
...These are limited to property rights, though inclusive of non-traditional property rights like free speech...
...He says the libertarian goal "is a society free of coercion...
...Thankfully, Rothbard's vitriol for government is quickly tempered with Richard Epstein's explanation of the efficiency of severely limited government: "Government works best when it establishes the rules of the road, not when it seeks to determine the composition of the traffic...
...during the next decade, government's cost exploded...
...There is undoubtedly a kernel of truth in this analysis, but it won't sway opponents...
...for good measure he even cites Dave Barry...
...Next, more than a dozen essays make a convincing case that spontaneous and more efficient order germinates when government is restrained...
...Why invest...
...Except for this last, these dicta are not, philosophically speaking, in the least bit libertarian...
...B y contrast The Libertarian Reader is structured to suggest, at least, a logical argument—and a seamless historical transition from skepticism of power to individual rights to free markets...
...It's in Samuel that Thomas Paine found biblical evidence that the British royalty was not divinely inspired...
...And, while nearly all libertarians support a balanced budget amendment, many do so more for strategic The American Spectator • March 1997 71 than moral reasons...
...Like the rest of Libertarianism: A Primer, the test is too simple for the libertarian devout, and unconvincing for the unchurched...
...The disparate readings, harmonized by Boaz's introductions, lull the conservative reader into libertarianism...
...It would dramatically slow spending and therefore the size of government) In all, as Boaz states elsewhere in the book, libertarianism (like liberalism or conservatism) is an abstract philosophy that does not always have agreement on political proposals...
...The eviSTEPHEN GLASS is an assistant editor at the New Republic...
...Zero taxes...
...If you don't like sports or need to drive, you don't have to pay...
...Boaz points to evidence that the libertarian political movement is growing...
...Surely Athens's liberated serfs also said they would never go back—and people have always sought government's shelter...
...The early and mid-twentieth century was dominated by Hitler, Stalin, and other statists...
...On this ethical foundation, Boaz's anthology builds the case that the state is 70 March 1997 • The American Spectator the greatest aggressor...
...Some libertarians believe the people should be allowed to continually re-elect their congressmen, while others oppose the line-item veto, on the grounds that it grants excessive power to the executive branch...
...His other new book, however, The Libertarian Reader, is a juicy anthology right for all...
...The manufacturing process was divided into 18 operations: one draws out the wire, another straightens it, still another cuts, and so on...
...Thus one has the right to say whatever one wants on one's own land: "He certainly does not have it on property on which he is trespassing...there is no such thing as a separate 'right to free speech...
...To present these ideas as if they were touchstones of libertarian thought muddles the philosophy...
Vol. 30 • March 1997 • No. 3
