Read the opening paragraphs on the Libertarianism Page on Wikipedia and you are sure to walk away a confused person. What is Libertarianism and what does a Libertarian really stand for?
To be honest, I was not a libertarian for most of my life. Not even close. While not extraordinarily liberal, I still considered myself a democrat. My belief was that government, composed of the elected representatives of the people, was best equipped to fulfill the common agenda and thereby help the country progress. And I assumed that the larger this entity the more “help” it could provide the people. I believed that the government should indeed be in charge of the libraries, the schools and the mail delivery system since, after all, who else could perform such quintessentially “large and important” tasks?
Over time, however, the repeated failures to deliver even the most basic of services in a cost effective and efficient manner caused me to wonder what the reason could be for this breakdown in the democratic process that is hailed as the best form of society. The answer, while staring in my face forever, didn’t hit me for quite awhile: “There is no incentive to perform”.
Yes, there are those ugly words again: Incentive. Self-interest. Capitalism. Profit.
It’s a wonder that the very words that embody the spirit in an individual to rise and shine everyday and be the best that he or she can be, are now so maligned as to be almost considered insulting. Try calling someone a capitalist or a (heresy!) “profit-seeker” and he is more likely to cringe than hold his head up high.
How we did we get here?
How did we get from “When every individual performs with the sole intent to personally profit, the entire society progresses rapidly” to “Profit-seeking and capitalism is bad for the society”? Even so-called supporters of capitalism in general seem to have pre-conceived “exception-clauses”. For example: “Oh yes, capitalism is great but it will not work in health-care”. or “Oh yes, for-profit works in all cases, but not in social -services”.
Pardon me, but I beg to differ.
There are enough real world examples to show that private profit-seekers trounce government-run, incentive-less operations (Fedex and UPS vs USPS is just one example) that this point should be patently obvious to everyone. But it’s not and we continue to see large groups of people still calling for increased government presence in their lives.
And so this blog. An evaluation to see if being a libertarian really does mean a better understanding of why things work out the way they do. Why do artificial price-points either raise or lower prices to those points and effectively hurt the very people they are supposed to help? Why do destructive tactics like Cash-For-Clunkers or wars in the name of constructive solutions never seem to work out in the long run? Libertarians are apparently privy to these solutions and much more.
While I will use information from pro-liberty organizations and websites like The Heritage Foundation, Cato Institute, Ludwig Von Mises Institute, Lew Rockwell and others, I certainly hope to add my own commentary on the events I see unfold around the world and try to make sense of them from a purely Free Market and “Laissez-Faire” Capitalistic approach.
While I set off to do that, I would like to leave you with a quick reading list:
- The Liberty Manifesto from the Cato Institute explains what we libertarians are all about (hint: nothing, really: we just want to be left alone!). My favorite section from this piece (written around May 1993):
“Freedom is not empowerment. Empowerment is what the Serbs have in Bosnia. Anybody can grab a gun and be empowered. It’s not entitlement. An entitlement is what people on welfare get, and how free are they? It’s not an endlessly expanding list of rights — the “right” to education, the “right” to health care, the “right” to food and housing. That’s not freedom, that’s dependency. Those aren’t rights, those are the rations of slavery — hay and a barn for human cattle.” - What is Libertarianism? A fairly well-written explanation of libertarianism and what it stands (or doesn’t stand) for (in four words? “Live and let live”).
- I, Pencil: Oh, I could not sign off an introductory post on libertarianism and free-market capitalism without linking to this little gem of a masterpiece now, could I ?! A stunning narration of the magical effects of Adam Smith’s invisible hand told from the perspective of an ordinary pencil.
During this journey, I will be blogging here for more detailed observations but for shorter, more frequent updates, follow me on Twitter. As I mentioned in my first post, comments, suggestions and criticisms (especially criticisms!) are not only welcome, they are highly encouraged!
To Liberty!
