What It Means to Be a Libertarian: A Personal Interpretation

National Review, Feb 24, 1997 by Loren E. Lomasky

"IT was born to the mainstream of Liberalism, became a bulwark of Radicalism, today is usually called Conservatism, but more accurately goes under a different title." If this were a Jeopardy! session and you offered up "What is Libertarianism?" you would earn Alex Trebek's benediction. If, however, another contestant beat you to the buzzer, you would do well to bone up with Charles Murray's vigorous and engaging What It Means to Be a Libertarian.

Last spotted in the company of Richard Herrnstein as co-author of The Bell Curve, Murray has been no stranger to controversy since his emergence into public view with Losing Ground. But this book is liable to generate more puzzlement than polemics. Old friends and foes alike will ask: Why on earth is Murray parading under the banner of libertarianism? Isn't that the political party that surfaces during each presidential cycle to capture something under one-half of 1 per cent of votes cast? Doesn't libertarianism give short shrift to the inculcation of virtue and community values, items that have always been central to Murray's concerns?

Murray argues that, rather than being politically marginal for Americans, libertarianism is the conviction that spurred the nation's Founders. The inalienable rights affirmed by the Declaration of Independence bear a decidedly libertarian stamp; deconstruct him all you like, Patrick Henry cannot be construed as proclaiming, "Give me NEA subsidies or give me death!" In its inception this republic was conceived as a political order in which government is both strong and limited. As The Federalist observed, a state strong enough to act effectively for the common good can be kept from becoming despotic only if it is bound by tight cords that restrict its scope of permissible activity. Properly functioning, it maintains the rule of law, defends against external and internal aggressors, and arranges for the production of those few public goods that are generally valued by the citizenry but which will not be adequately provided via private activity. And that is all. Government so understood is fiercely protective of individuals' property rights, and, especially in the American version, it incorporates a principle of subsidiarity mandating that government functions are to be carried out at the most local feasible level.

Murray also rejects the accusation that libertarians are indifferent to virtue. Rather, they believe that a society in which individual autonomy is respected, including especially the right freely to associate with (and dissociate from) whomsoever one pleases, is the political framework most conducive to individual responsibility. In a free society one fully bears the costs and reaps the benefits of one's choices. A welfare state spreads them across the populace. By taxing away gains it diminishes inducements to live productively, and by subsidizing improvident behavior it fatally undermines individuals' character and frays social bonds. Murray has made a career of cudgeling the Great Society and all its noxious spawn. Here he does not alter the details of the critique but rather embeds it more deeply in the cement of political philosophy: Make individuals less free and you will render them less virtuous; it's that simple.

Although few of our compatriots characterize their political views as libertarian, for many of them libertarianism is the default position. That is, they accept for the most part that so long as no one else is harmed, individuals should be let alone to make their own choices. Interference is justified only to achieve some major desideratum that would otherwise be forfeited. On the Left, egalitarian and social-justice considerations are invoked as justifying intrusions into the domain of private decision-making. On the Right these encroachments are more often supported in the name of keeping people from doing themselves physical or spiritual harm, and to preserve the moral underpinnings of civil society. Libertarianism must, therefore, post sentries on both flanks. Murray does a competent job of setting out policy analyses that blunt both thrusts, but the defense against the Left reveals little that is new. Hayek's Constitution of Liberty is deeper, Milton Friedman's Capitalism and Freedom more incisively pathbreaking, David Friedman's Machinery of Freedom more radical and programmatically consistent. The distinctive contribution of What It Means to Be a Libertarian is its proffered rapprochement to the Right.

Murray first acknowledges the dispositional conservatism that cautions against ballyhooed but untested nostrums. If we were to dismantle the entire regulatory and redistributive apparatus of the Federal Government, we would perhaps then experience an effulgence of prosperity and good feeling. Perhaps -- but perhaps not. Accordingly, Murray does not insist on a cold-turkey transition to libertarianism. Are you worried that in the absence of governmental regulation the food you purchased in the supermarket would be contaminated, the medications you brought home from the pharmacy would be lethal, safety at your workplace would be imperiled? Murray's stipulation is elegantly pragmatic: retain the old regulatory apparatus for those companies and consumers who choose to transact business under its strictures while liberating those who find it oppressive. If it should prove that Ralph Nader was right after all and libertarians were wrong, then the regulatory octopus will still be there to welcome back chastened free-marketers who formerly scorned its embrace.