What It Means to Be a Libertarian

"By his definition I guess I’d say so. Like all these labels these days, a lot of them have been transmuted out of their original meaning. For instance, I’m what would have been called a liberal in the 19th and early 20th century. Yes, I guess in Europe that’s still the case. That is, I suppose, the root of libertarian as Charles Murray would define it. I like most of the things Charles Murray has written, but I was drawn to this little book because in it he tries to look beyond what works economically. Sometimes some of us get stuck on the economics, and it is important. But when he writes about human happiness and about the end objectives of the way we try to organise society, I just think he adds a lot. I also liked his book In Pursuit of Happiness and Good Government. I guess I could have chosen that one instead. He’s talking about simple, clear, intelligible rules – a willingness to tolerate a lot of freedom going on within certain boundary lines or rules. Absolutely. The way that diminishes human dignity. When I was talking earlier about dignity and autonomy, people like Murray really thought deeply about it and it’s certainly there in Friedman too. I think one of their heirs right now, who I’ve come to be impressed with, is Arthur Brooks. Right. He talks about earned success. It’s his new coinage and it’s a good one because what he’s pointing out is that ultimate satisfaction in life comes from those things which one does oneself, or for oneself, or for others, and can point to real results. Charles Murray, in more than one place, including the little book I’ve chosen, is very data driven. These are not the meanderings of some philosopher. Charles points out, and to me proves, for instance, that the welfare state produces the very misery that it was supposed to eliminate. I try to be. I mean, just to be simplistic about it, we believe that leaving the maximum number of dollars in the possession of those who earned them is an exercise in enlarging freedom. I do this little game sometimes if I’m in a high school classroom. I walk around and ask innocently, ‘Does anyone have a dollar bill?’ – and some kid will produce one and I just stuff it in my pocket and walk on. After the consternation and the giggling stop, I say, ‘What, What?’ Then I go into a little rap and I say, ‘Oh, Jonathan wants his money back – notice that he is a dollar less free than he was a minute ago; if he had that dollar he could decide, he could choose’. Then I talk about how inevitably we have to coerce money out of people to do necessary and important public business. But if we believe in freedom and liberty than we ought to do that only for necessary purposes. Then I go on to talk about competence and the fact that it becomes an equally solemn duty to never misspend a dollar. Maybe that’s not the right response but when I’m asked about governing as a libertarian, I would say that’s one way I do it. No, of course not. I got an e-mail last night telling me that we now have the fewest state employees in Indiana state government since 1979. I’m not saying we’re doing a whole lot less but, yes, we have stopped doing some things and many other things we are doing by contract. We are still delivering the service we believe in, but in more cost-effective ways, and in ways that, in small amounts, have grown the private economy of our state as opposed to the public sector. I think so. Our attitude here, I’ve expressed it a thousand times, is we believe in limited government, but within that sphere of things that government does, we believe government should do them as well as possible. We’ve done everything we can think of to implant the accountability that’s not really there. Government is a monopoly and we know how monopolies mistreat their customers and overcharge them because of the absence of competition, which is another major theme that runs through these books: the best regulator is competition."