Libertarianism

"(...) Libertarian societies in all their variety would not be utopias, of course. Libertarianism does not propose an end to evil or even to coercion, but only the flourishing of civilization in the absence of institutionalized coercion. Crime would not disappear, poor taste would still exist, and even conservative communities would remain beset with imperfection. Removing the privileges of the state would make these evils smaller, less centralized, and more manageable, however. This picture is no abstraction or economic construct; it arises from the practice of actual institutions.

The record of civil society and the free market is as old as the human race. The libertarian idea of society would hold true even if a degree of coercion were absolutely necessary and ineradicable: the more authority residing in civil society rather than the state, the better. But there are at least a few prima facie considerations that lend weight to so-called radical libertarianism.

The most widely agreed upon of all so-called public goods, national defense, is not what it seems. The mightiest military on earth failed to prevent the atrocity on 9/11. On the contrary, U.S. interference in the Middle East and support for thuggish regimes has endangered Americans. Is a country ripe for invasion without a standing army? The last 200-odd years have shown many instances, including our own Revolutionary War, where guerrilla forces have been more effective than regular armies. Nor is there any need for conscription when people want to defend their homes; conscription is what states need to make people fight for causes in which they don’t believe.

A libertarian order is not coming any time soon, but it should be plain to anyone who undertakes the investigation that the solution to war, bureaucracy, taxation, personal irresponsibility, and the rot of culture is not more government, it’s less."