In Defense of Libertarianism

Libertarians. Yeah, you know, those crazy people. Depending on who you talk to, they're either maniacal liars, maniacal fools, or both. You probably know one and think he's really weird. You, as a representative Columbian and therefore a liberal, can have a great conversation with him about civil rights, gay marriage, and the like, but as soon as you start talking welfare or economic policy, forget it! He's clearly gone off the deep end. With conservatives, it's the same reaction, only vice versa on the issues. The libertarian is off somewhere-not in the middle, for that would imply some sort of compromise between the two, but rather, somehow simultaneously at both extremes and at neither.

Libertarianism turns around one central tenet: freedom, liberty, individual rights for all, and mutual respect all around. In other words, people should have the right to do what they want, when they want, and how they want it, so long as it doesn't infringe on the rights of other people.

Admittedly, most political and social theories, at least those that gain traction in our society, have a line somewhere stating something to that effect-but in too many of them, it's mere lip service. Think of Robespierre's revolution: freedom! liberty! justice! KILL ALL ENEMIES OF THE STATE! You may not want to admit it, but if you subscribe to one of the two sides in America's binary system, you're a low-grade Robespierre.

There's a contradiction here-what academics in their high-falutin' discourse call a "tension." Most of the prevalent political ideologies have it. Republicans have it when they get on their high holy horse about the sanctity of life and then siphon cash off to the National Rifle Association. Democrats have it when they speak of bolstering the economy and creating jobs and then turn around and loosen welfare standards (sorry Democrats!). As to the fascists, don't get me started. Libertarians, though? They don't have it.

Libertarianism supports, in general, less government intrusion into private affairs. This plays out in the old trope, in which there is some truth, that libertarians are socially liberal and economically conservative. They manage to be liberal and conservative at the same time. Let the citizens bear arms, the libertarian says, but if they shoot someone without reason, punish them-hard. Let gays get married-what harm will they do to anyone else? Don't institute a draft, don't regulate the press, don't censor TV, don't clamp down on immigration; those are infringements on basic human freedom. At the same time, don't provide farm subsidies, don't implement protective tariffs, and don't institute a minimum wage. Why? These things, too, tweak with individual liberties; they unfairly and un-meritocratically help some, sometimes less-deserving, parties, and harm others. If you think about politics and public policy in the same old ruts of thought, wrapping your brain around these apparent policy mismatches seems impossible. But there's no contradiction here. It all hinges on this wonderful Copernican revolution: the setting front and center of individual rights tempered by respect for the rights of others.

There's one attack on libertarianism, though, that damn near shoots it dead in the water. It's a nasty beast that's hobbled the greats from Plato on up to today. Its name? Feasibility. How, the line goes, can libertarians possibly think anything they talk about will work? How can they advocate so many personal freedoms and expect everybody to just get along and everything to just work? That's, well, crazy. Haven't they read Hobbes? People are nasty, brutish creatures-give them an inch and they'll take a mile, give them a gun and they'll shoot their neighbor in the face. And libertarians propose turning the inner beast loose!

Well, not really. That's a facile, straw-man understanding. Libertarians aren't anarchists (at least, not the smart ones)-they understand that some government is necessary just to make people get along. How much government? A police force seems necessary. A defense force probably, as well. Other institutions? Perhaps. But does the government know what crops should be grown, and when and where and how much, let alone what farmers should do the growing? Libertarianism predicts what experience shows: over-regulation is a recipe for naught but pork-barrel cronyism.

And from this example comes the strongest argument for libertarianism. Politicians today on both sides of the aisle sit up there in Congress like kids in a candy store, treating their society like a giant playpen. They push buttons, tweak knobs, turn dials, just to see what lights will flash and what sort of show they can project out the window, never realizing that they're at the helm of the space shuttle, and if they push the wrong lever, they could go spinning down in flames. Admittedly, they have rules they're supposed to follow, of which sometimes they're cognizant, and sometimes, not. Meanwhile, the mission controllers-commentators, pundits, and the people at large-seek to solve the astronauts' problems by tacking on regulation after regulation, addendum after addendum, one smothering layer of bureaucracy after another in a Rube Goldberg contraption of leviathan proportions, until finally, disgusted with their own handiwork, they step outside for a cigarette. Meanwhile, the astronauts take license to muck about more than ever, and even the lawyers can't find a straight track through the maze. The traditional "solution," in short, to over-regulation has been to add more regulation. But all the while, the real solution has been for the mission controllers to simplify the rules, pare down the levers, and when feasible, get the monkeys the hell out of the cockpit. Such is the proposal of libertarianism.