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Charles Wheelan, Ph.D. The Naked Economist

Charles Wheelan, Ph.D., The Naked Economist

Confessions of a Maturing Libertarian

by Charles Wheelan, Ph.D.

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Posted on Tuesday, June 24, 2008, 12:00AM

I began teaching an undergraduate economics course this week. A few minutes into a discussion on health care, I recognized a familiar persona at the back of the room: the libertarian. Every class has one, and it's usually one of the brightest, most engaged, most strident students.

Blast from the Past

I always appreciate the input from such students for three reasons. First, it's healthy for discussion. The essence of public policy is deciding what government should and should not do. The libertarian point of view, which basically argues for minimal government authority, helps to anchor that debate. Government has certainly caused plenty of problems, and the "law of unintended consequences" -- the notion that implementing a policy to fix one problem often creates another -- is one of the most important concepts for any policymaker to understand.

Second, I'm in New Hampshire for the summer, and when you're in a state where the motto (stamped on every license plate) is "Live Free or Die," some of that individualist spirit is bound to rub off.

Last, and perhaps most significant, I used to be that libertarian student at the back of the room. When I was a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Chicago, home of Milton Friedman and his intellectual peers, I was smitten with the wonders of the market. Like Alan Greenspan, I was enamored with the powerful and provocative writings of Ayn Rand. (Unlike Alan Greenspan, I never hung out with Ayn Rand, nor did I date Barbara Walters, regardless of what her new autobiography may claim.)

Stop Me if You've Heard This

I've discovered just one problem with my elegant libertarian philosophy after spending two decades in public policy: It's terribly impractical for actually governing society. My whole quibble with libertarians can be boiled down to one banal question: What's the libertarian point of view on stoplights?

I like stoplights. More to the point, they're a simple and tangible example of how government can make us better off: They enable complete strangers to interact more safely and efficiently. Given a choice between the freedom to speed through an intersection at any time and the coercive red light, I'll tolerate the red light.

That's kind of silly, so consider a more significant example, like counterterrorism. In a world of libertarians, who finds Osama bin Laden?

Better Regulate Than Never

True, most libertarians aren't absolutists; they would concede that defense, including counterterrorism, is a legitimate function of a small, focused government. But would that include stopping genocide? The sad reality is that millions of people can kill each other in the rest of the world and it doesn't directly threaten our well-being. I'm not comfortable with that. Would the protagonists in Ayn Rand's novels have paid taxes to stop the Holocaust?

Or consider something that's likely to affect us directly: climate change. The stampede of evidence suggests that our carbon-based activities are changing the planet in ways that will have some nasty consequences in the long run. Reducing our carbon emissions is going to require global cooperation that's a heck of a lot more complicated than a stoplight -- but it's the same basic idea.

I wrote my dissertation on how government regulation can often be politically motivated and counterproductive. But I still think there's a place for regulation -- for lots of it, actually. The more complicated products become, including sophisticated financial instruments, the more difficult it is to live by the aphorism "buyer beware." How can a consumer reasonably be expected to know that a household cleaning product causes cancer in kids?

Flipping on Libertarianism

I'm comfortable with the government making that kind of determination for me -- in part because I learned the hard way. I flipped over in a Ford Explorer during the stretch when Ford was still insisting that such rollovers were caused by shoddy Firestone tires. The first federal rollover rating system for cars and trucks was released three days after my accident.

Of course, the libertarian in me never goes away entirely, nor should it. One of my disappointments with the Republican party is that the small-government wing has been pummeled by the more activist social conservatives, who are far from libertarian. (The Democrats have never really had a libertarian streak.)

The libertarians have two powerful intellectual arguments that have an important place in public policy: 1) Government should not regulate private behavior that has no negative spillover effects on the rest of society; and 2) We should always be wary of unchecked government authority -- the whole "absolute power corrupts absolutely" thing.

Policy Tweaks

Given that, here are a few areas where our current policies could use a dose of libertarian thinking:

• Illegal Drugs: What we're doing now isn't working. Milton Friedman once observed that most of the problems associated with illegal drugs arise from the fact that they're illegal.

He makes a darn good point. We're trying to stop a voluntary exchange between individuals who really want to use a product and the "firms" who can make a lot of money providing it. These people are going to find each other no matter what we throw at them. (I read recently that Mexican drug dealers have designed special submarines to move drugs thousands of miles by sea so that they can be smuggled into the United States in coastal areas with less legal scrutiny.)

What we're doing now empowers ruthless criminals. Remember Prohibition? Somehow we need to formulate a drug policy that recognizes the distinction between private behaviors that have social costs and those that don't. If you want to smoke pot in your apartment, I don't really care. But if you rob a bank to buy that marijuana, then you should go to jail -- for bank robbery. We've done a decent job in that respect with alcohol. Your drinking is your business; your drinking and driving will land you behind bars.

• Gay Marriage: Is your life really affected if two guys or two girls you've never met before get married in San Francisco? Think of it as a contract between two people that bestows certain unique mutual rights (such as inheritance and medical visitation), and then move on.

• Gun Control: If someone is carrying a gun on the street, it's my business. If they're keeping it in their home, it's not. It seems like the acrimonious debate over guns in this country would benefit from that basic distinction.

• Guantanamo Bay: Here's a case where we could all use a dose of libertarian wariness toward unchecked government authority.

Libertarians don't like government in large part because they don't trust government. They don't like electronic tolling because it can be used by the government to track a driver's whereabouts. They don't like gun registration because the government would know where all the guns are and might someday swoop in and take them all away. I understand these points, even if I don't necessarily agree with them.

We all have some appreciation that government doesn't always get things right, and that unmonitored bureaucrats can wreak havoc. Given that general distrust of formal authority, where is the outrage over torture and unlimited detention? Our government has been holding people at Guantanamo Bay, and clearly torturing some of them, for years now with no formal charges. Isn't this exactly what we're supposed to be afraid of? Two decades from now, we'll be ashamed that it happened on our watch.

Creeping Libertarianism

The libertarian perspective enriches any policy debate. I'm sympathetic to the core philosophy. Someday, I may even have one of those "Live Free or Die" license plates. But for now, I'm not ready to give up stoplights.

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  • Joe S - Thursday, August 7, 2008, 10:45AM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 1/5

    Ah, the old socialist canard that certain things would not be done if big brother didn't force them upon us. I'll take your stop light example. In a pure libertarian society, roads would be built and maintained privately for a profit. They could be funded by tolls. But more likely, I would expect that they would be financed by the companies that rely upon them to transport their products and get customers to their stores. The private owners would surely design their roads to be safe or no one would use them. I have seen arguments (with supporting data) that round-abouts are superior to stop lights because they actually put physical barriers to keep drivers from having collisions. Profit-seeking firms would certainly seek out such superior solutions while government has little incentive to do so. Free markets are not only more ethical, but more efficient. Your other topics would require their own treatment, and I do concede that real-world problems rarely have straight forward solutions. But I believe that there are serious dangers to allowing government (the apparatus of coercion) to do anything.

  • ep - Thursday, August 7, 2008, 1:50AM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 2/5

    As a practicing libertarian, Dr. Wheelan, I hope you do your students a favor and brush up on basic policy principles--and more importantly learn to distinguish that of core absolutist philosophy from modern policy. Of course we all want stop lights to make us safer. The problems begin, however, when the federal government steps in and (unconstitutionally) mandates what is best for every stop light in the country. I drive my cities streets each and every day. My fellow citizens are the best decision-makers for my city's stop-lights--not the federal government. We are all worse off when the federal government passes blanket laws that decide what's best for every city's stop lights. That's the libertarian policy approach--much removed from your rhetoric. And that is the problem we now face daily--federally mandated/created problems. You claim your comfortable with the government making important determinations for you. But you fail to recognize or research that, in fact, the federal government actually caused your Ford Explorer problem. Thank federal "oversight" for your your flip. Case in point: 1. NHTSA is created by Congress in 1966. By law, NHTSA's responsibilities include: reducing deaths, injuries, and economic losses resulting from motor vehicle crashes by setting and enforcing safety standards; investigating safety defects in motor vehicles; setting and enforcing fuel economy standards; and conducting research on driver behavior and traffic safety 2. "CAFÉ," the stringent FEDERAL laws of the 1970s that sent Detroit into a tailspin, severally hamper the auto industry. But the government exempts light trucks from the tough new standards. Thus, automakers came up with the idea of putting the body of a passenger car on a truck frame: the SUV is born. 3. 1973: NHTSA warns that rollovers are a serious problem, and should be regulated. Congress balks. 4. 1980: Rollovers Make National Headlines. The design, of course, is unsafe, and the Bronco II, was killing people in rollovers much more often than other SUVs. 5. Throughout, 1980s and 1990s NHTSA investigates staggering Bronco II rollover problem. 6. 1986: A Congressman Petitions, and NHTSA Declines to Regulate SUVs 7. 1988: non-profit (AKA private) safety groups petition NHTSA about rollover safety--petition denied. 8. 1990, NHTSA’s refuses to order a recall of the Bronco II. (Today, NHTSA officials blame Regan and Bush 1 for not blowing the whistle earlier (more government!)). 9. 91-99. Congress attempts, but miserably fails to gain regulatory equality among SUVs relative to cars. 10. 2000: Ford-Firestone Scandal Explodes (thank you media, for doing the government's job!!) 11. '01: Emergency!!! 85 percent of Americans support a federal rollover prevention "minimum standard!" 12. '01-02: Congress passes New Car Assessment Program and Rollover Ratings--and they suck. 13. '04: They suck so bad, they are "quickly" revised....wait for it...revised to a dynamic test version that Car&Driver and Consumer Reports have used for YEARS. 14. 2003-04: Despite resounding evidence, NHTSA decides not to investigate the Ford Explorer. Shocking. (Perhaps they felt equally culpable?) 15. '05-06: The SUV is finally relatively rollover safe!! 16. '07-08: Too late!! The economy is in shambles, nobody wants an SUV! We did it!! After 30 years, we made the SUV somewhat rollover safe! But wait, how many thousand of preventable Deaths and Injuries occurred during that time? What is the ultimate cause of your explorer rollover, you may ask? Essentially, federal regulation took away your choices: the "choice" to by an SUV and years over blubbering. And the absolute crux of the entire matter: Consumer Reports and Car&Driver--the private industry--reported on the rollover problems from the very begging. It reported the Bronco II, it reported the Explorer. All of it was available since day one. So why didn't we listen? Because we ignorantly gave our freedoms away to the government.

  • John - Monday, August 4, 2008, 4:39PM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 3/5

    I'm not a libertarian, though I tend to see their side more than that of neo-cons, but I think that there's actually a big split of two groups of libertarians. One is the Ayn Rand, libertarian/libertine, who sees license to engage in any activity, be it healthy, deviant or otherwise and an inherint "right". The other is the Murray Rothbard wing, which does believe in God, morality, etc., but distrusts government to such an extreme as to prefer anarchy (though they would distinguish "anarcy" from "chaos"). Since I prefer Burke, Kirk, and Mises over the anarcho-capitalists, I guess that I can't be called a libertarian.

  • mbounarati - Thursday, July 31, 2008, 9:29AM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 4/5

    Overall good but I disagree that "If someone is carrying a gun on the street, its my business". The criminals carry them regardless of the law so while you're crying and peeing you pants when they point that gun around you'll be glad that your fellow armed citizens can fight back on your behalf. And gay marriage is about breaking down the traditional family which we'll all regret someday.

  • Chris - Wednesday, July 30, 2008, 5:06AM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 5/5

    I agree with you and think I should probably mature a bit as a libertarian myself. My only criticism is with your reference to history: no one paid taxes in order to stop the Holocaust. They didn't know it was going on. They fought Germany so that Germany wouldn't dominate Europe. The myth itself should be let go; but the principle it teaches--to stop Hitler like dictators from killing everyone in their path--should be kept. Taxpayers will lose a little and the world as a whole will gain a lot. That is the kind of small sacrifice libertarians should concede. That said, if Germany in the 1930s had been libertarian, there wouldn't have been any problem!

  • Yahoo! Finance User - Tuesday, July 22, 2008, 8:42AM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 1/5

    Please read the book "What it Means to Be a Libertarian" You have no idea what you're talking about.

  • DANIEL - Wednesday, July 16, 2008, 5:32PM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 4/5

    Great article that reinforces the sensibility of being sensible, but I'm not sure what it's doing here in the financial pages. As for Spock's comments, get off your high horse - that kind of moral posturing is the antithesis of a free society. I think we can say you've never been stoned, so shut it until you've experienced mushrooms.

  • JTurn - Wednesday, July 16, 2008, 9:48AM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 4/5

    The problem with anything that is unregulated is that the people who understand it best can manipulate it for their own ends, to the detriment of others or society in general. Adding a level of regulation simply means that you also have to figure out how to manipulate the regulators, or define the regulations to your advantage. If our government was truly as altruistic as the Founding Fathers hoped they would be, this would not be a problem, as government would always be run for the benefit of the governed. Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way. And we have only ourselves to blame - if we paid attention to our representative's votes and kicked them out of office when they did stupid stuff, then they would have to pay a lot more attention to us. And yet, even in the 'big sweep' of 2006, when Congress had a 25% approval rating, 95% of the House of Representatives got re-elected. A truth that cannot be too often repeated: if you ignore your representatives, they will ignore you.

  • DeanE - Monday, July 14, 2008, 9:25AM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 4/5

    I consider myself a "libertarian" but I own bank stock. Should I cheer that freddie and fanny are being bailed out? we will pay for this someday but this is what happens when you turn off the stoplights to save electricity

  • Yahoo! Finance User - Saturday, July 12, 2008, 10:34AM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 4/5

    libertarianism closely resembles commonsense would'nt you say?

  • Edward - Wednesday, July 9, 2008, 3:02PM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 5/5

    Its a thought provoking article, even if you don't agree with any or all of his opinions. On the issue of the legal status of drugs, we have statistics on what it means to have them illegal but none if they were legal, so its a guess to say legal would be bad.

  • binderzz - Wednesday, July 9, 2008, 1:36AM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 1/5

    Nothing proves the emptiness of Milton Friedman's notions more than the idea that illegal drugs only cause problems because they're illegal. Illegal drugs cause problems because the users are too stoned to earn a decent living and have to steal to support their habit. If Charlie is finally beginning to step back from Friedman worship, maybe there's some hope for Charlie in the real world yet. Now, if we can just convince Charlie that everything and everybody can't necessarily be bought. That there are some things money can't buy.

  • Yahoo! Finance User - Tuesday, July 8, 2008, 4:10PM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 1/5

    Wheelan is wrong on drugs. He should take a walk through some families and communities that have been decimated by drugs. Making drugs legal will do nothing for those families and communities, except maybe succeed in having more people getting hooked on coke/meth/what have you. The problem with drugs isn't so much the criminals that sell it it's the lives it destroys, especially when those lives are parents with children.Wheelan misses the boat.

  • Yahoo! Finance User - Thursday, July 3, 2008, 2:10PM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 4/5

    Nice article. I also was the libertarian in the back of the economics classroom who has since moderated my views. That said, I think it's critically important to understand libertarian arguments and actively be able to refute them before accepting the alternative. Unfortunately, I find those on the left are rarely, if ever, even remotely familiar with "classical" economic arguments. It's not that they disagree with them -- they're not even aware of them. Instead of debating someone on the economic left, suggest you switch positions. I do this all the time. Usually, I get their position 100%. The can't even get off the blocks.

  • Richard - Wednesday, July 2, 2008, 7:10PM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 3/5

    Sorry myopic false dichotomists, but Libertarianism in today’s world is a recipe for Malthusian catastrophe. Capitalism is an effective tool to achieve a goal in a vacuum; by itself, capitalism has no regard for collateral damages to the overall system through impacts on related systems. Nuclear waste disposal, fire departments, none of these things would exist in a truly capitalistic system unless there was a Government function that created an economic incentive or regulatory function addressing them. Bottom line: Government regulation needs to become a finely tuned science that quickly generates a simple and efficient monetary incentives system around industries that forces them to act in the interests of the entire globe, irregardless of “border” or “country”, or the interests of capital and power mongering elites. Right now we have a system that is corrupt, clumsy, slow, and horribly inefficient. We have International central bank system that is trying to manage mostly unregulated capital markets that are corrupt and simply too noisy. What we need is a tax system that 100% passive and inherent in capital markets, and encourages behaviors that are deemed as beneficial for society. We do NOT need an IRS, or tax industry. These things are obsolete ticks sucking the blood out of our future. They need to be revolutionized to become automated extensions of public policy decisions, implemented through computers into a 100% electronic currency system. The 100% electronic currency system must have extreme privacy regulations but be traceable in the most dire of circumstances when a subpoena is granted by the court system. Any George Bushesque abuse of the electronic currency system should be punishable by death, including all the individual's known relatives. After all, anyone in a position of such power must have strong disincentives in place to prevent abuse, right? I wish that this rule was in place today! The benefits must be deemed using the scientific method with computer assistance, not with the lies and deceptions of major media and politicians. The method for determining what is beneficial should be a three party system. Politicians who are elected to this system should forego all outside financial interests. Indeed, accepting any income or “perks” besides their allotted salary should be considered an act of treason with the consequences mentioned in the last paragraph. Everything from the number of children you have to your environmental impact needs to be regulated by a transparent and passive economic incentives system.

  • Heather - Tuesday, July 1, 2008, 12:02AM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 5/5

    I find it difficult to believe we are all reading the same article. The divergent comments posted here from the self-proclaimed libertarians prove that they cannot agree what it is, much less that the ideas of libertarianism will always work.

  • Yahoo! Finance User - Monday, June 30, 2008, 11:20PM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 2/5

    There are very few things that the government needs to get involved in that they actually make a positive difference in. Government has a reverse midas touch. It definitely doesn't turn to gold (it just sucks it in and melts it). Let's face it, at this point is just to damn big. I do agree that the government does have an important job to do. That's pay off the ridiculous debt that's been run up and stop spending money it doesn't have. It's time to ween Iraq off of our military. It's time to cut spending on all stuff that is not directed toward educating our children or generating a positive return on the investment. What about other forms of energy? What about global warming, does this great country have a strategy to minimize our emissions? Why aren't Americans angry with what our politicians are doing and the state of our great country?

  • Yahoo! Finance User - Monday, June 30, 2008, 11:19PM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 3/5

    Libertarianism =! Anarchy! I think you are getting the two confused... But yes, I generally share your "social liberal, fiscal conservative, foreign policy moderate" views.

  • D - Monday, June 30, 2008, 6:55PM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 1/5

    If you're a true libertarian, you already know who finds Osama Bin Laden. Nobody, because any true libertarian knows 9/11 was an inside job meant to take away our liberties. Google 9/11 mysteries if you doubt it. For the uniformed who deny this assertion...do your homework, or go back and take physics 101 in college, because that's all you need to know you've been lied to. As far as stop signs go...libertarians practice common law. If not stopping harms someone else, you owe the injured party. Running stop signs and getting fined by big brother cameras where nobody is harmed is a loss of freedom i don't want AND it's completely unconstitutional. At the heart of the libertarian movement is self responsibility. The argument for government is always "What'll we do without all that government to keep us safe?" Well, guess what...we're all about to find out just how beneficial all this big government is now that big government is rearing it's ugly tyrannical head and waging wars and attacking people who demand justice. "In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act." - George Orwell True libertarians, and 9/11 truthers understand this point well. The rest of the crowd is just being led like sheep to the slaughter.

  • Yahoo! Finance User - Monday, June 30, 2008, 5:51PM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 1/5

    The authors hypocrisy finally reached the limit. In the past, I have read about how great offshoring jobs and importing workers through the H1-B program is for the economy, and why can't the workers losing their jobs see that?? As a tenured college professor, he is immune from any of these challenges, is he not? I would like to see college profs have their jobs challenged by imports from other countries and see if they can still muster their smart &*( smiles. A "libertarian" college professor? Let me repeat... a TENURED Libertarian College Professor. That makes as much sense as Lenin taking endorsement money from Coca-Cola.

  • jadethief - Monday, June 30, 2008, 3:20PM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 5/5

    Great piece. What's interesting in the comments is how many commenters claim to be libertarian themselves (while claiming Wheelan never was), and yet contradict each other. Well, which one of you is it?

  • Yahoo! Finance User - Monday, June 30, 2008, 2:17PM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 5/5

    I'ts unusual, but I agree with everything you said. There are clearly things that government can, and should do. Abuse of power has been taken to a new level by the Bush/Chaney cabal, and we should be ashamed that it happened on our watch.

  • Yahoo! Finance User - Monday, June 30, 2008, 12:42PM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 1/5

    To a prior comment, please don't compare President Reagan to the Bushes. Ronald Reagan pulled this country out of a mess which, by any objective measure, was far greater than any subsequent mess. Pres Reagan was one of our greatest presidents who made the people of this country beleive in themselves again. Bush Sr threw away much of Pres Reagan's legacy. Neither Bush Sr or Bush Jr were / are half the leader Reagan was and unfortunately, neither is McCain. Consistently principled conservatives like like Reagan, Gingrich, Kemp, and Gramm brought ordinary Americans to the Republican party, but the big spending, Washington insider, business as usual, Republican leadership is chasing those same Americans to the Libertarians and possibly elsewhere. Libertarians are the only current alternatives to the one party system we now have in Washington -- the Republocrats. To Mr. McCain -- Obama light won't cut it.

  • double d - Monday, June 30, 2008, 10:06AM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 1/5

    By assuimng there would be no roads or stoplights in a libertarian society, the author shows how much he doesn't understand the philosophy he is writing about. Please see this great article on libertarian roads by Walter Block: http://www.mises.org/journals/jls/3_2/3_2_7.pdf Also, there's no reason why you should consider it to be your business if someone chooses to carry a gun. If they are using the gun to shoot people, that is a different matter. The escalating crime rates in Washington DC should prove how futile gun restrictions really are.

  • Yahoo! Finance User - Monday, June 30, 2008, 9:00AM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 3/5

    Ron Paul will fix everything.

  • Yahoo! Finance User - Monday, June 30, 2008, 4:51AM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 1/5

    If you think Ayn Rand was a libertarian you either did not read or did not understand her writings.

  • Yahoo! Finance User - Sunday, June 29, 2008, 11:58PM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 1/5

    28 years ago, it seemed this country was as bad as it is today. Intrest rates going through the roof, the markets were doing lousy, GM had a stock price equivalent to what it has today, and this country was on the verge of war, with terrorists holding this country hostage. Yet 28 years later...as Ronald Reagan put it against Walter Mondale...."Well, there you go again!" Only difference is that it is a REPUBLICAN with a 28% approval rating (probably will be half that by the end of the summer..), and the conservatives that were drinking and celebrating like mad in 1980, are running away like the bunch of rats from the old lady's kitchen in the movie Ratatouille! After 28 years, and holding the White House 19 of those years, and during the period of 2000-2006 with control of the House of Reps/U.S. Senate, you complain again...that government is too big, too expensive. Well, don't blame the loyal opposition folks. We did not vote for your President with the 28% approval rating, who sent us to war in Iraq, with no exit strategy, other than to use it to further future GOP political gain (and after the lies all came out it plays out like a bunch of drivel from 2001...the "evil dooers.."). Yet after 28 years, your trickle-down theory has shown again, that it does nothing more, that make the richest people in this country...even richer. If that were NOT the case, you'd be voting for McCain...conservatives. But Mr. McCain...apparently isn't conservative enough for you. Too bad my misguided friends out there who after 28 years with over half of that under GOP control, you have not learned your lessons. Yet again, because you have brought this country down to depths only seen during the Great Depression, you still hold to your beliefs. You would think that last Friday would have been some form of example to you. Well maybe this one will help you understand. In January of 2001, when Bill Clinton left office, the DOW was running just short of 10,850. Last Friday, the DOW closed at 11,346....just 600 points short of when Bill Clinton left office. That under the watch of the man, who got a D- in College Microeconomics. In just 2 days...that can happen. With Oil reaching new highs every day, gasoline threatening the $7.00 levels, and foreclosures and a soft real estate market getting strongly adverse...it won't take long that George W., and his trickle-down theory passed to him by his Daddy, and the late Ronald Reagan, will fail again, and yet more of you 4/5 stars will pass on the drivel...that you will vote Libertarian, because McCain (or should I say...McSame/McBush), isn't that stupid. However as history has proved us in 1980, 84, 88, 2000, and 2004, we haven't learned much. However it isn't my fault....I didn't vote Republican!

  • Stevie P - Sunday, June 29, 2008, 11:49PM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 4/5

    I appreciate the subtlties and nuances with which the author examines libertarian philosophy in modern day society. Thinking in terms of absolutes does not serve either the greater good or the best interests of the individual. There are shades of grey within which we operate and function. By ignoring this, libertarian fundamentalists are promoting a utopian philosophy, and we all know what has happened to those approaches to organizing society, both on the far left and far right.

  • Yahoo! Finance User - Sunday, June 29, 2008, 11:12PM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 3/5

    I agree that the Republican Party has completely abandoned the idea of restrained government. With Barr being nominated by the Libertarian Party, I think the traditional libertarian ideals will start eroding in that party too. The answer to the stoplight question is easy once one recognizes that roads should not be owned or operated by the sovereign. Whoever owns the road has an incentive to operate stoplights in such a way to protect the health and safety of his customers while maximizing traffic efficiency. People wouldn't pay fees for licenses to drive on unsafe roads. Same goes for gun control. If the owners of a street or other property want to prohibit guns on their property, they can simply condition entry on not carrying guns. Government should get out of the marriage-recognition business altogether. Any group of two or more people (lovers, friends, siblings, parents-children, business partners) should have the same flexibility as married couples in establishing joint property and inheritance rights.

  • Steve - Sunday, June 29, 2008, 9:23PM ET  Report Abuse

    • Overall: 5/5

    Whenever I see a 3 star rating I smile. Here is an article that's worth the time to read. The Libertarian Party has sunk to a new low with a right-wing wonk leading the charge. I am reminded of Thoreau's words - 'these days we have professors of philosophy but no philosophers'. The same is true regarding libertarian leaders. We have libertarian leaders but no libertarians. Someone who is not pro-choice, pro-life, pro-gun, etc... but rather pro-rights!

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