Americans? Libertarians did try to warn you

"[I]n light of how the past year has unfolded, consider cutting your friendly neighbourhood libertarian some slack. After all, we did try to warn you.

"On immigration, speech and trade, Americans are living in a libertarian’s nightmare. ... a terrifying pattern and an undeniable vindication of the long-held libertarian view that the steady growth in the size of the federal government and executive power would lead to precisely this kind of runaway authoritarianism.

"Libertarians have argued that the only way to prevent such abuses is to reduce the power of the federal government itself — abolishing unaccountable federal agencies, scaling back the administrative state, cutting spending — and to restore the balance of powers by reining in the executive. This path has generally been treated as hopelessly naïve at best, and morally suspect at worst. ... Yet it has never been more obvious that the grab-and-grow approach to power is a destructive and self-defeating way to conduct politics.

"To see why, consider how we got here.

"The Department of Homeland Security arose with very little opposition in the wake of Sept. 11 ... As the years went on, Homeland Security — and especially Immigration and Customs Enforcement, within it — got comfortable operating under a series of exceptions to the Constitution ... So it can be no surprise that ICE officers are roaming the streets of American cities today with an unclear mandate, overpowered military-style gear and a dire misunderstanding of the constitutional limits on their behaviour.  ...

"Trump 2.0 has made the libertarian case more obvious ... But it would be a mistake to treat President Trump as the origin of the ultra-powerful presidency. He is merely picking up the weapons that previous administrations left lying around and waltzing through the loopholes they opened.

"Mr. Trump has a record of threatening media and platforms under various statutory and emergency authorities. He recently mused that when '97 percent' of media coverage is negative, it ceases to be 'free speech.'  ...

"But the project of growing executive power has been bipartisan. On speech, officials in the Biden administration leaned on social-media platforms to take down what they deemed Covid and election misinformation without explicit action from the F.C.C. The Supreme Court disposed of a case, Murthy v. Missouri, challenging this “jawboning” ...

"And Mr. Trump’s tariffs — levelled and removed at will and without the participation of Congress, where the Constitution places the primary power — have disrupted and destabilised the global economy and undermined America’s role in it. ...

"Mr. Trump’s tariffs depend on a legally dubious claim that trade deficits and ordinary commerce constitute a national emergency, allowing him to bypass Congress under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. (Jimmy Carter once invoked it to freeze Iranian assets.) Mr. Trump’s tariffs are not an aberration so much as the latest example of how emergency powers, once normalized, become a standing invitation to rule by fiat.

"One thing immigration, speech and trade have in common is that in recent American history, the power to control each of them has settled into the hands of the executive. ... The Supreme Court is reviewing the limits of the president’s control over tariffs and executive agencies. ... The libertarian prescription, now and always, is to scale back the size and scope of the federal government. Devolve power to states and individuals. Cut spending. And rebalance power away from the executive branch. ...

"The good news is that Americans are increasingly waking up to the dark reality of [an] overbearing federal government. ... Similarly, Americans of all stripes have turned dramatically against Mr. Trump’s ICE enforcement actions. There could be — a libertarian can still dream — a grass-roots movement to shrink government that doesn’t end up co-opted by one of the major parties, as the Tea Party was. ...

"But this glimmer of hope is faint. ...

"Instead of a winner takes all approach to power, it’s time to consider working toward a system where there is much less power for the winner to take. No one wished events would prove libertarians wrong more than libertarians themselves. There’s nothing more annoying than an 'I told you so.' But if more Americans are now ready to limit power before it is abused again, they are welcome to join us."

~ Katherine Mangu-Ward from her New York Times free-access op-ed 'Libertarians: We Told You So'

"Government immigration restrictions are how tyranny will come to modern America."

Two weeks ago Cato's Alex Nowrasteh debated comedian Dave Smith at NY's Soho Forum on the resolution “Government restrictions on the immigration of peaceful and healthy people make sense from a libertarian standpoint, especially in present-day America."

Alex was on the negative side.

He began by arguing that government immigration restrictions are how tyranny will come to America.

As he says below, "I didn't expect it to happen so quickly."

CLICK to watch (15 min.)

"Libertarianism differs fundamentally from both left liberal and conservative perspectives."

"Popular opinion views [left] liberalism and conservatism as radically different perspectives about the proper size and scope of government. ... Yet [left] liberal and conservative perspectives are the same in one key respect: both advocate using government to impose particular values.
    "Conservatives want to ban drugs, liberals guns. Conservatives advocate banning abortions, [left] liberals subsidising them. Conservatives support subsidies for home schooling and religious schools, [left[ liberals the same for low-income housing and 'clean' energy. ... Thus the goals of favoured policies differ, but not the belief that government should promote specific views ... —all of which involve government interference with private decisions ...
    "Libertarianism differs fundamentally from both [left] liberal and conservative perspectives. ... consistently ask[ing] whether government intervention does more harm than good. And it applies this skepticism regardless of the associated 'values.'
    "Thus libertarianism argues against both drug prohibition and gun control; against government protection of unions, but not against unions per se; against government-imposed affirmative action, but not against privately adopted affirmative action; against any government-imposed content moderation of social media, but not against private moderation policies; against all trade and immigration restrictions; against government restrictions on school choice; against government-mandated licenses; and against the government defining marriage.
    "Perhaps libertarians are wrong about the merits of some government interventions. But applying a consistent lens across policies helps understand the inconsistencies of both [left] liberal and conservative perspectives."

~ Jeffrey Miron from his post 'Libertarian Consistency'

"What part of libertarianism bothers you?"

 

[Hat tip Michael Hurd]

What the hell is Donald Trump doing at a Libertarian party convention? As David Boaz hints in this guest post — and Peter Goettler makes clear in his linked op-ed — it's probably because the US Libertarian party is now sadly un‐​libertarian ...

What’s Donald Trump Doing at the Libertarian Party Convention?

by David Boaz

The Libertarian Party presidential nominating convention is coming up this weekend, with Donald Trump as a featured speaker. This is apparently the first time in US history that a political party has had another party’s nominee at its own nominating convention. And what a choice!

The Libertarian Party was founded to “challenge the cult of the omnipotent state and defend the rights of the individual” and to specifically run candidates for office on a platform of personal liberty, economic liberty, and a peaceful foreign policy.

Needless to say, that’s not Donald Trump’s platform, nor does it describe his actions as president. Which is why most libertarians, except the LP faction that won control of the party in 2022, are mystified and appalled about why a self‐​proclaimed libertarian party would invite a would‐​be autocrat to dominate media coverage of its convention.

Just posted at the Washington Post is a column by Cato president and CEO Peter Goettler exploring this mystery. Goettler explains what libertarianism is:

Libertarianism, at its core, is the modern manifestation of classical liberalism, the transformative movement that, beginning in the 18th century, challenged monarchs, autocrats, mercantilism, caste society, slavery and religious persecution. As heirs to that tradition, libertarians believe in individual freedom, equality under the law, pluralism, toleration, free speech, freedom of religion, government by consent of the governed, the rule of law, private property, free markets and limited constitutional government.

And how Trump differs (as if it wasn’t obvious):

He allowed government spending and debt to continue to spiral upward, increasing the national debt by $8.4 trillion. Federal outlays soared from $4 trillion his first year (2017) to $6.8 trillion in his last year. He persists in railing against immigration and free trade, supports further expansion of presidential power and seeks to crack down on political enemies.

Goettler also points out how sadly un‐​libertarian the LP’s current leadership and its messaging are.

Read the whole thing.

* * * * 

David Boaz is a distinguished senior fellow of the Cato Institute. Over more than four decades as vice president for public policy and executive vice president, he played a key role in the development of the Cato Institute and the libertarian movement. He is the author of The Libertarian Mind: A Manifesto for Freedom and the editor of The Libertarian Reader.

What's a libertarian? "Someone who believes in unrestricted respect for the life projects of others."

 

Click through for the video...

Javier Milei on the difference between right wing, left wing, and libertarian:

Interviewer: What is it to be libertarian? ... Why do you define yourself as a libertarian?

Milei: I define it for you by default [by opposites].  

What would someone on the right be like? Someone who doesn't mind who you trade with -- is a liberal economically speaking -- but it bothers him who you get into bed with. Who is a "cultural conservative." 

Int.: Repeat that?

Milei: A right-winbg person is someone who is economically liberal, someone who doesn't care who you trade with, but cares who you sleep with. Who is a "cultural conservative."

Int.: Okay. I get it.

Milei: On the other hand, a left-wing person is liberal culturally --- they don't care who you get into bed with -- but is interventionist economically; they don't let you trade with whomever you want. 

So, what would a libertarian be? 

Someone who believes in unrestricted respect for the life project of others. [Who believes consenting adults can get into bed with whoever you want -- with every one you want.

Int.: Is that how a libertarian thinks? 

Milei:  Exactomento. 

And obviously you can trade with whoever you want.

Int.: You are libertarian then?

Milei: Exactomento.

PS: Learn Spanish with Javier Milei ...

[Pic by LaNewzViewz]

Javier Milei’s first 100 days ... [updated]

 

If you think the 100-day plan of the new government here is dramatic, then take a chill pill and look across the hemisphere at Argentina.

There, new president Javier Milei has just begun his term with his minister of economy announcing an "emergency package of measures" including, among other things:

• letting go every government employee who has been employed for less than 1 year
• appointed government positions are cut by 34%
• abolishing all government PR and related spending for projects
•  no more transfers to local government  
• suspension and cancellation of all public infrastructure (all subject to a lot of corruption in the past)
• reduction of energy and transport subsidies
• immediate devaluation of the peso from 350 to 800 pesos per dollar (with a plan towards rapid dollarisation)
• elimination of all export and import quotas and licences
• temporary increase in non-agricultural taxes for exports and imports (for uniformity, to the same level of present agricultural taxes)
• temporary expansion of direct aid through the child benefit and food aid debit card

This, he says, represents cuts to the govt's budget equivalent to over 5% of GDP, that should "completely balance the budget in 2024." The IMF supports the measures.

 Ian Vásquez points out in this guest post below that Milei assumed the presidency of Argentina promising a radical change to the economic and social model that has ruined his country. His challenge is enormous but the new president, he says, has made a politically astute start.

Javier Milei’s Inaugural Promise

by Ian Vásquez

Last Sunday Javier Milei assumed the presidency of Argentina promising a radical change to the economic and social model that has ruined his country. His challenge is enormous, but the new president has made a politically astute start.

Unlike what Argentines have become accustomed to from their political leaders, in his inauguration speech Milei treated them as adults. He presented a clear vision. The collectivism into which Argentina long ago headed, he declared, has failed. “For more than 100 years, politicians have insisted on defending a model that only generates poverty, stagnation and misery,” he explained.

He said that it is necessary to return to what made Argentina one of the richest countries in the world more than a century ago: classical liberalism. He again repeated what he meant by using liberal thinker Alberto Benegas Lynch, Jr.’s definition: “Liberalism is the unrestricted respect for the life project of others based on the principle of non‐​aggression and the defense of the right to life, liberty, and private property.” And he made clear that that is “the essence of the new social contract chosen by the Argentines.”

“This new social contract,” added Milei, “proposes a different country, a country in which the state does not direct our lives, but rather safeguards our rights.” In practice, he proposed nothing less than undoing the corporatist legacy of Peronism that has led the country from crisis to crisis and replacing it with institutions and policies that limit political power.

Milei was brutally honest about the difficulties facing the country. “I prefer to tell you an uncomfortable truth rather than a comfortable lie.” He described the legacy left by the outgoing government and that, as a result, economic activity, poverty, wages, and unemployment will get markedly worse before they get better. The fiscal deficit is around 15 percent of GDP; the monetary emission of the previous government will continue to create inflation for 18 to 24 months with the potential to reach up to 15,000 percent annually if things stay on the same path; the public debt has reached $100 billion; there is a lack of access to foreign markets; poverty afflicts 45 percent of the population and indigence 10 percent. The new president also described the calamitous conditions in which public security, education, and infrastructure find themselves.

For these and other reasons, it was not an exaggeration for the Argentine daily La Nación to declare that the outgoing president has been the worst in Argentine history. That is also why Milei explained there is no alternative to a strong adjustment: quite simply, “there is no money.” The priority will be fiscal adjustment and Argentines do not have the luxury to implement gradual reform.

Citing Argentine history, Milei showed that gradualism does not work. He could have cited the European post‐​communist experience as well, as countries that reformed quickly and in a coherent manner grew at higher rates and achieved lower inflation, greater levels of foreign investment, and the development of stronger institutions.

Also unlike past experience, the coming adjustment, Milei clarified, will fall almost entirely on the state and not on the private sector. Cleaning up public accounts in such a way is consistent with the most successful international practices and with Milei’s liberal vision. As the former professor rightly insisted, “the only way out of poverty is with more freedom.”

In the days and weeks to come, we will have more details about how the new government proposes to get out of the hole in which the country finds itself. Just this week, on Wednesday, the new finance minister announced a series of emergency measures including cuts to energy and transportation subsidies, an end to new infrastructure spending, a devaluation of the official exchange rate of about 50 percent, and a reduction in federal transfers to the provinces -- among other measures that, by and large, point the country in the right direction. The economic pain will be deep. [See above for a partial list of the emergency measures.]

There is no doubt that Milei will face political resistance from the Peronists and their allies, and that the challenge will be even greater given the new leader’s lack of a majority in Congress. But Milei has a popular mandate to bring about a paradigm shift and, as the crisis worsens, he is counting on the people to continue to understand who should be held responsible for Argentina’s mess.

* * * * 

Ian Vásquez is vice president for international studies at the Cato Institute and director of its Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity. He is a weekly columnist at El Comercio(Peru), and his articles have appeared in newspapers throughout the United States and Latin America.
    Vásquez has appeared on CNBC, NBC, C‑SPAN, CNN, Telemundo, Univisión, and Canadian Television, as well as NPR and Voice of America, discussing foreign policy and development issues.
    He received his bachelor’s degree from Northwestern University and his master’s degree from the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University. He is the coauthor of the Human Freedom Index, editor of Global Fortune: The Stumble and Rise of World Capitalism, and coeditor of Perpetuating Poverty: The World Bank, the IMF and the Developing World. He has testified numerous times in the U.S. Congress on economic development issues.
    Vásquez has been a term member of the US Council on Foreign Relations and is a member of the Mont Pèlerin Society.

    This article is based on a version that was originally published in El Comercio (Peru) on December 11, 2023, then at the Cato at Liberty blog.

RELATED:

• Can Argentina’s President Milei Afford to Delay Dollarisation?
• Can Milei Really Shut Down Argentina’s Central Bank?

Have Argentine voters truly voted to overturn their destructive economic past, and to rediscover liberty? As these four guest posts point out (including one from Milei's adviser Jesús Huerta de Soto), President-Elect Javier Milei has the credentials, and has offered as much liberty as (it seems) the Argentinian people are willing to accept. Will it be a revolution of liberty? History will only tell....

Have Argentine Voters FINALLY Chosen Liberty? Time Will Tell

Guest post by Octavio Bermudez

A historical event has taken place, not only for the libertarian movement but for the history of the world. The first libertarian president has been elected in none other country than Argentina.

The Argentinian people faced a dichotomy, either continue with the socialist road to serfdom embodied by the ruling Peronist regime or adopt a radical change towards liberty, the leader of said change being Javier Milei, self-proclaimed Rothbardian and anarcho-capitalist. Finally, with more than 55 percent of the votes, Argentinians elected Milei as their new president.

Argentina’s situation is critical and the people know it. 142,7 percent accumulated inflation this year, 40 percent of the population under poverty levels and at least 80 percent of public debt in terms of GDP, just to mention some of the main economic problems. Crime -which is rampant in many parts of the country- is the other main concern of the public that Milei has had to address in his campaign. He has done so mainly through his vice-president Victoria Villarruel, expert on defense and security matters.

Argentinians chose a free market path, a liberty road towards prosperity and justice.

Now, besides the celebration and enthusiasm that such an occasion merits, we libertarians (especially Argentinian libertarians) must draw upon the wisdom of the British economist Alfred Marshall who said that one must stay on our toes to keep our heart warm. Milei has introduced many libertarians’ ideas to Argentinian political discourse but not all of them have been received favorably by the general public or the media. Milei has had to engage in retreatism due to backlash regarding some free market-oriented ideas such as a voucher system for education, eliminating gun regulations, 100 percent bank reserves and privatising both education and the health system.

Milei has offered as much liberty as the Argentinian people are willing to accept. Socialist and collectivist ideals still prevail in major parts of the population, it would be an error to affirm that even half of the electors that choose Milei are full libertarians. Milei’s upcoming administration will be a test, if it succeeds in pushing for a libertarian program, then more people will rally behind the Gadsden flag and Argentina will serve as a beacon of freedom in Latin America.

Even more important is the cultural shift that has taken place due to Milei’s political activism. Books by the Austrian School of Economics and libertarians can be found in any bookstore (before Milei, those works were harder to access, almost clandestine) and liberty friendly universities and programs are now more frequented. Being a classical liberal or a libertarian is no longer a cultural crime in Argentina.

A libertarian hardcore has been formed and continues to grow, they are the vanguard of the movement, convincing lay people to support Milei’s reforms. True enough, many times they may not convince everyone to embrace libertarianism but at least they persuade them not to oppose it. That’s how the libertarian spirit in Argentina can grow.

Milei’s plan is a moderate one if seen through ideal lenses but as I have already pointed out, it is the most libertarian program that could be advanced upon without being ostracised by the public and mainstream media. Compromises were made after the general elections. The Libertarian-Republican alliance was formed to confront the Peronist regime in the ballot boxes, Milei allied himself with his former competitor Patricia Bullrich and former president Mauricio Macri to rally the necessary votes to win in the ballotage against the leftist Peronist candidate Sergio Massa. The alliance succeeded in calling for the votes necessary to win. It was an epic campaign, thousands attended Milei’s rallies crying out “Liberty!” In many parts of the country, shouts of joy and relief were heard when the Peronist candidate recognized his defeat on live TV. I of course joined the people in the cries for victory.

Bearing in mind the compromises made in the alliance to defeat Peronism, the most crucial libertarian proposals such as slashing public spending and taxes, deregulating the economy and labor market, free trade, privatization of public companies (like the oil company “YPF” and the state airline “Aerolineas Argentinas”) and abolition of the central bank are going to be implemented, at least on paper. Milei, although an anarcho-capitalist has had to moderate in order to gain office, once taking the reins of the state we shall see how much of the freedom program he proposes is implemented.

Will it be a revolution of liberty? History will only tell.

The Economics of Javier Milei

Guest post by David Howden

The election of Javier Milei brings the first libertarian/anarchocapitalist world leader in history. Although prolific in the Spanish-speaking world, English speakers know very little of the Argentine´s views. The fact that he heads the Libertarian Party of Argentina certainly hints at what direction his politics run.

Earlier this year, Philipp Bagus and I edited a two-volume book in honour of Jesús Huerta de Soto [see Bagus's and de Soto's post below.]. Milei wrote a chapter entitled “Capitalism, Socialism, and the Neoclassical Trap.” To my knowledge, it is Milei's only writing made directly in English for an English audience.

If anyone doubts Milei´s credentials, the chapter is a scathing critique of neoclassical growth theory. It also offers a full-blown Rothbardian alternative. Mises's work on interventionism and Hayek's knowledge problem form the basis of his analysis.

Milei identifies a crucial rationalistic error in neoclassical economic analysis:

Note that whenever situations arise that do not match the mathematical structure [modelled by the neoclassical analysis], they are considered “market failures,” and that is where the government appears to correct those failures. However, to successfully solve this problem, it is assumed that the government knows the utility function of all individuals (preferences) for the past, the present, the future, the time preference rate and knows the state of the current technology and all future enhancements, along with their respective amortization rates. In short, to solve the problem in question, the government should be able to master a significant amount of information that, by definition, individuals themselves ignore or are not able to handle, which exposes that the idea of the welfare state acting on the market to correct failures is a contradiction.

Furthermore, Milei concludes that:

when it is made clear that the correction of market failures by the government as proposed in the neoclassical paradigm is conceptually invalid, taking into consideration that the only ones who can internalize those effects are individuals, once the artificial separation of decision-making processes is eliminated, there will no longer be any reason for government intervention, which will not only stop the socialist advance but will also allow us to counterattack.

This is not your grandfather´s South American leader who politicises under the influence of neoclassical "Chicago Boy" economists. Milei is a full-blown libertarian. His Libertarian Party won yesterday´s run-off election by carrying nineteen of twenty-two Argentine states and 56% of the popular vote. After decades of socialism, a plurality of Argentine voters must surely be fed up with it.

A Statement on Javier Milei from Spanish Libertarians 

Guest post by Jesús Huerta de Soto and Philipp Bagus

Senior Mises Institute Fellow Jesús Huerta de Soto and Fellow Philipp Bagus write:

In our own name and in the name of the rest of the Spanish libertarians and anarcho-capitalists we want to send Javier Milei our most enthusiastic congratulations. Today is a historic day for liberty only comparable to the fall of the Berlin Wall and communism. For the first time in history an anarcho-capitalist has won the Presidency of a country as important as Argentina. This shows that in the end the ideas of liberty against statism, left or right, end up prevailing. Mises, Hayek, Rothbard and the great thinkers and theoreticians of liberty planted the ideas that Milei have had the enormous merit of making attractive to the broadest layers of the population and, especially, to the most vulnerable who are always the main victims of the manipulations of socialists and interventionists of all stripes. We are now advising him closely especially on the necessity to establish a 100 per cent reserve ratio on his dollarisation process to avoid any new "corralitos." Viva la libertad carajo.

Milei's Long-Term Victory Depends on Him Winning in the Battle of Ideas

Guest post by Ryan McMaken

Last Sunday, Javier Milei was elected president of Argentina by a comfortable margin, with 56 percent of the vote. He will be sworn in as president on December 10.

Over the past year, however, Milei has made a name for himself as an extremely vocal critic of socialism, central banks, and many types of government intervention in general. He has become memorable for fiery commentary condemning the Left's ideology and tactics while expressing an interest in immediate (i.e., not gradualist) change. He has said he seeks to abolish Argentina's central bank and introduce the US dollar as the country's dominant currency.

His fiscal policy is far more in the free-market direction than any other head of state in a country as large as Argentina (with 46 million residents). Milei has expressed admiration for the work of Murray Rothbard, F.A. Hayek, and a variety of economists who are more centrist than Rothbard and Hayek, but which we might reasonably describe as more-or-less free market. Moreover, Milei self-identifies as a supporter of the Austrian School of economics.

If Milei remains committed to reining in (or abolishing) the central bank, lowering taxes, and cutting government spending, Milei has the opportunity to push through real economic reforms that could provide relief to the beleaguered Argentine middle class. These people have suffered greatly under decades of easy-money-induced price inflation, and an ever-growing burden of taxation and regulation.

Many libertarian supporters of Milei (both inside and outside the country) have responded to Milei's candidacy with celebratory enthusiasm. Some have declared him the next Ron Paul, and many others seem to assume that his election will translate into actual implementation of his stated policies. That could happen, but unfortunately, the hard part has only begun.

It is entirely possible that Milei is sincere in his stated goals and in his apparent commitment to radical opposition against the disastrous status quo in Argentina. If so, that is excellent news. After Milei's election comes the real test, however. Assuming that Milei is sincere right now, that doesn't mean he won't later be unwilling to carry out such policies if they prove to be unpopular as his administration unfolds. Given his short history of serving in political office, we have little to suggest a likely outcome one way or another.

Another possibility is that we may find that he lacks the political skill necessary to harness and exploit what free-market sentiment in the country presently exists. He will have to do this to actually push through any of these reforms. What political skills are necessary? Milei must be able to convince a sizeable portion of the voting public that his policies will work or are working. This doesn't necessarily mean a majority have to be enthusiastically with him at all times. But he at least has to be able to use public opinion to pressure the legislature and powerful interest groups. Since Milei will not be a dictator as president, he will be forced to somehow squeeze concessions out of countless socialists and interventionists in government who quite literally hate him and his policies.

This is not just a problem in countries with democratic institutions. Not even dictators can simply enact radical policies at will. As absolutist monarchs and countless military dictators have found in their days, chief executives meet fierce opposition from entrenched interests within the state in all types of regimes—except, perhaps, in fully totalitarian ones. The sorts of reforms Milei wants will hurt many interest groups who have benefited from inflation and high government spending. The productive class may suffer greatly under these policies, but there are also millions of politically active voters who believe they benefit from Peronist-style economic policy. Those who think they stand to lose from reform will resist.

No Victory Is Possible without Progress in the Battle of Ideas

For the sake of argument, however, let's say that Milei is both sincere in his views and is also among the most skilled politician we've seen in decades. Let's say he is skilled at the tricks successful politicians employ to confound adversaries and build coalitions.

Ultimately, not even these skills can bring about the successful implementation of true radical free-market reforms if Milei and his supporters lose the battle of ideas in the meantime. Milei can only succeed if the public agrees that Milei's policies are "worth it." After all, as Milei tries to push through reforms such as tax cuts or limits on monetary inflation, his political opponents will flood the media with explanations of how Milei is hurting ordinary people, destroying the economy, or is somehow "a threat to democracy." Milei's intellectual opponents will trot out economists to explain how high taxes and inflation are actually good. The public will hear from various "experts" about how Milei is wrong, and that the usual socialists and interventionists have it right.

These tactics are especially dangerous in the short term because efforts by Milei to cut spending and rein in price inflation will be sure to cause plenty of short-term pain in the economy. Cuts in government spending and an end to easy monetary policy tend to pop financial bubbles and drive government-dependent industries into decline. Surging unemployment results in the short term as bankruptcies spike. That, of course, is bad news for any elected politician.

Unless the public can be convinced that this pain will lead to better days ahead, the public is likely to abandon Milei and his policies in short order. Then, four years form now, the Peronists will return to power and the status quo will proceed as if nothing ever happened.

The only antidote to this is to relentlessly fight the battle of ideas in academia, in the media, and with the public. Free-market intellectuals, activists, columnists, and speakers must never tire of endlessly recapitulating the truth about freedom, free markets, and peace. So long as a sizeable portion of the public thinks the Peronists "get it right," no free-market reformer can win.

After all, the only reason any people—including Milei—quote Austrian School economists or appreciate the wisdom of free-market classical liberals is because those people learned those ideas from some teacher, publication, or organisation. Without scholars like Rothbard, Hayek, and the others that Milei says he admires, there would be no Milei campaign as we know it. Without organizations like the Mises Institute, it is a safe bet we would not be hearing Milei call for the abolition of a central bank. Without hardcore classical liberals like Mises, Rothbard, Hayek, Molinari, and Bastiat, there would be virtually no one, anywhere, calling for radical cuts to taxes, spending, and state power overall.

Those who wage these battles of ideas provide the foundation for the political movements that build upon the ideas. Yet, these movements can only succeed if the public learns—to at least some extent—why fiat money is bad, why state power is a problem, and why high taxes are disastrous. The public doesn't need to know the technical details behind these arguments, of course, and is probably not interested. But the public must believe on some level that freedom and free markets are good things.

It remains to be seen if the voting public is willing to give Milei a chance to try beyond the very short term. Much of that will depend on whether or not Argentine libertarians have managed to sufficiently preserve or advance some lingering measure of pro-liberty sentiment. If they have not, Milei will fail politically, regardless of his political skills. If that happens, free-market activists and intellectuals will have to simply keep up the fight until the political situation again favours a viable free-market candidate.

The situation is no different for those of us in the rest of the world.

* * * * 

CONTRIBUTORS:

Octavio Bermudez is an Argentinian student and Austro-libertarian interested in Austrian economics, political philosophy, and history.

David Howden is Chair of the Department of Business and Economics, and professor of economics, at Saint Louis University at its Madrid campus.

Jesús Huerta de Soto is a Spanish economist of the Austrian School. He is a professor in the Department of Applied Economics at King Juan Carlos University of Madrid, Spain and a Senior Fellow at the Mises Institute. His website is here.

Philipp Bagus is professor at Universidad Rey Juan Carlos. He is a Fellow of the Mises Institute, an IREF scholar, and the author of numerous books.

Ryan McMaken is an economist and writer living in Colorado where he has taught political science since 2004. He has degrees in economics and political science from the University of Colorado and is an Associated Scholar of the Ludwig von Mises Institute in Auburn, Alabama.

These posts first appeared at the Power & Market blog.

Javier Milei: Argentina's First-Ever Libertarian President

In Argentina—one of the most statist countries in the world—a libertarian economist is now the president-elect. Javier Perez-Saavedra previews expectations ...

Javier Milei: Argentina's First-Ever Libertarian President

Guest post by Javier Perez-Savedra

Voters in Argentina have elected a libertarian as president for the first time in their history. On Sunday, Argentina had its second round of voting, and Javier Milei received 55.69% of the vote against the Peronist Sergio Massa’s 44.31%. In a country that suffers 143% annual inflation and a poverty rate hovering around 43%, Milei has a long and difficult road ahead.

Milei's win marks the first time in 40 years that someone outside Argentina's two largest parties was elected. La Libertad Avanza, Milei's 3-year-old political party, finally broke through the entrenched and archaic political apparatus. In a tweet back in June, Milei stated that Argentina was choosing between the old politics and the new ideas. During his presidential campaign, Milei pledged to tackle Argentina’s inflationary unhealthy economy by dollarising the peso and minimising government spending.

TRANSLATION:
WHAT IS THIS ELECTION ABOUT?
We Argentines have a historic opportunity. 
After decades of failures in 
which the same old people shared power, 
today we have the opportunity to do something different. 
Turn this sad page in our history.

In a country where only 6 million people work in the private sector and pay taxes to maintain 20 million public workers and pensioners, Milei has a long way to go. How can he steer the ship that is barely staying afloat? His plan is to minimise state regulations and trade barriers to let economic growth flourish. He has also raised closing the central bank, ending currency controls in the economy, and reversing the irresponsible fiscal policy and government spending of the past few years.

This morning, Argentina now has new incoming leadership and will hopefully see Javier Milei's classical liberal economic ideas play out and bear fruit. Argentina must shift from collectivist to individualist ideals. They must appreciate and celebrate the entrepreneurial spirit and create a society that unleashes and harnesses innovation. If the people of Argentina embrace these ideals and commit to changing the status quo, they will have a bright future. As Leonard Read wrote in his classic essay I, Pencil:

Leave all creative energies uninhibited. Merely organise society to act inharmony with this lesson. Let society’s legal apparatus remove all obstacles the best it can. Permit these creative know-hows freely to flow. Have faith that free men and women will respond to the Invisible Hand.

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Javier Perez-Saavedra, originally from Guatemala, is a passionate entrepreneur with a bachelor's degree focused in Business Administration and Management from Kennesaw State University - Michael J. Coles College of Business. He serves at the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE) as Product Development Director- Educational Strategic Projects and leads FEE in the Classroom, HEROES, and FEE en Español products. His post first appeared at the FEE blog.                     

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You would think that when serious problems exist in the world, the world would be desperate to understand the causes. Yet causality, as a field of inquiry, is in decline. The great tragedy, as Finn Andreen explains in this guest post, is that discovering the real and underlying causes for social and economic problems is too often deemed unnecessary (and far too often wilfully ignored), and the public’s support instead is too often for easy, simple, and wrong-headed statist solutions ...

Libertarianism and the Importance of Understanding Causality

by Finn Andreen

Even though support for the free market has become stronger in the last decades, and a self-proclaimed libertarian just elected to President in Argentina, libertarianism itself can still only be considered a fringe movement. Most people still believe that many social problems are due to “market failure” and therefore require state intervention to be “solved.” Despite the obvious flaws of modern socialism—with its unlikely combination of a redistributive welfare state and globalist crony capitalism—and despite libertarianism’s robust philosophical and empirical foundations, the liberalism of Ludwig von Mises is still far from enjoying the majority support that it so amply deserves.

There are many reasons for this. Of course, media bias and public education prevent the dissemination of the ideas of freedom in society and limit the understanding of the free market. However, an often overlooked, yet equally important, reason is a general disregard for causality. When the real and underlying causes for social and economic problems are unknown or misunderstood, the public’s support for wrong-headed statist solutions to these problems is not surprising.

The Importance of Causes

The importance of causes to human inquiry has been grasped since early antiquity, crystalising with Aristotle and his still seminal theory of causality. Following in this tradition, Herbert Spencer considered the discovery of causal laws the essence of science; those who disregard the importance of the identification of causes, he argued -- whatever the subject matter -- are liable to draw erroneous conclusions.

In the Twilight of the Idols, Friedrich Nietzsche chastised modern society for still making errors of causality, namely, “the error of false causality,” “the error of imaginary causes,” and “the error of the confusion of cause and effect.” Unfortunately, these errors are made all too frequently in economic and political life.

In the realm of international relations, for instance, a disregard for contemporary history has led to an ignorance of the real causes of serious political events. Today’s conflicts could arguably have been avoided if their many and deep causes had been soberly and objectively considered by decision-makers. When George Santayana said that “those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it” and when George Orwell wrote in his masterpiece 1984 that mastering the past is the key to mastering the present, both had in mind the crucial importance of knowing the actual causes of political events.

Nietzsche considered the error of the confusion of cause and effect to be the most dangerous one; he called it the “intrinsic perversion of reason.” This was not an exaggeration, considering the impact of this all-too-common reversal of causality. For example, this error happens when the state is absolved of the nefarious consequences of its previous actions, thereby empowering the state to legitimise policies that “solve” problems for which the state was itself originally responsible.

Examples: Recessions, Inflation, and Unemployment

As an example, it is possible to mention the boom-and-bust cycles of the typical state capitalist economy. The original cause for this cycle is the state, through its monopolistic monetary policy. As Murray Rothbard wrote, “The business cycle is generated by government: specifically, by bank credit expansion promoted and fueled by governmental expansion of bank reserves.”

Yet, during hard times—because this original cause of recessions is not generally recognised—the state itself is looked to by society to “save” the economy through measures such as bailouts or interest rate reductions (which mostly benefit big banks and strategic industries). This in turn sets the stage for the next artificial boom, and the cycle continues.

The problem of high inflation and high unemployment may be seen in the same way. Price inflation is caused by the state when its central bank increases the money supply to pay for its chronic budget deficits, with the added benefit of reducing the relative size of its enormous debt. Yet, when prices increase in the economy because of such actions, then the central bank itself is expected to come to the rescue—for instance, by artificially imposing price controls or hiking interest rates, thus slowing economic activity—to the further detriment of society.

High unemployment is also a phenomenon caused by the state, of course, when it imposes rigid labour laws and high taxation on companies, while redistributing “generous” unemployment benefits. Yet, when unemployment becomes “too” high because of these actions, then the state itself is expected to solve the problem—for instance, by providing tax incentives to companies for hiring low-skilled workers or by hiring more civil servants.

The Fallacy of “Market Failure”

It seems counterintuitive to believe that an agent responsible for social problems should also be the one to solve those problems. The only reason this flawed logic continues to be accepted is because of errors of causality. The real causes for economic problems are not well understood by the general public and are often confused with its consequences. In economics, this disregard for causal connections has probably wrecked as much damage upon societies as the international conflicts mentioned earlier by giving free rein to those who see few limits to the state’s regulation of economic and social life.

The same reasoning is applicable to an aspect that is usually blamed on the free market: so-called “externalities,” or the “external” costs that third parties sometimes bear. The extreme case of this is the concept of the “tragedy of the commons,” which is often used to justify the many globalist “green” initiatives to “fight” climate change. Quite apart from whether there are apocalyptic grounds to support such extreme social top-down policies, the libertarian view is that the real cause of many “externalities” is generally that private property rights have not been adequately defined.

Since causality is disregarded, social and economic problems such as those mentioned earlier are generally attributed to so-called “market failure,” thereby reducing the credibility of libertarianism among the general public. Indeed, libertarianism is usually rejected by the majority as a political and economic system because social problems are attributed erroneously to an incapability of the free market to provide solutions. There is rarely any perception that the real causes of these problems are statist interventions in the free market in the first place.

Libertarians have always recognized the importance of causality, as per the title of Mises’s magnum opus Human Action. Carl Menger, the founder of the Austrian School of Economics, explicitly mentioned that, as an important means of gaining insight into economic processes, he had “devoted special attention to the investigation of the causal connections.” Importantly, this was not only the position of the Austrian School at the time: “the search for these causal laws of reality was very much an international enterprise among economists in the last quarter of the nineteenth century and up to World War I.” However, for several sad and tragic reasons, this focus on causal connections in economic research was then lost.

As this article has tried to show, it is essential for causality in both economics and politics to be better understood -- by politicians, economists, and the general public. 

This is key to rein in the authoritarian inroads from governments that are taking place in all areas of life. 

And by demonstrating that the market only fails when it is constantly disrupted by state intervention, a better understanding of causal connections would also lead to an increase in the appreciation and popularity of libertarianism.

In fact, it would improve the standard of thinking all round.

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"Viva la libertad, carajo" => The thievery of politics is over in Argentina [updated]

Here's a decent agenda for NZ's incoming government, announced by Austrian-school economist and former rockstar Javier Milei who has just been elected President of Argentina:

"In terms of political logic, I am a mistake, because what I have come to do is in fact stamp out the privileges of politicians," Milei told Reuters last year.

"Socialism is crap," he says. 

When it was implemented in its pure form, it was an economic failure, it was a social failure, it was a cultural failure, and it also cost the lives of 150 million human beings. So, whatever some socialist, communist, or piece-of-shit leftist says, I just shove it up my arse.

Reasonable. As Reason magazine explains: 

So is he "right-wing," as you'll be hearing --- or even (as he'll be smeared) "far right"? No, of course not, he's a self-proclaimed libertarian, whom socialists/leftists hate because, he explains, 

we libertarians are the only ones who are able to confront the politicians and tell them that they are not the solution, that they are the problem.

They are.

Argentina has experienced 80 years of Peronism, with intervals of murderous military thugs as dictators [reminds Nikos Sotirakopoulos]. It has been the Greece of Latin America.

    It ranks no. 144 in the Economic Freedom Index; it's been a statist basket case.  That it elects someone who shouts freedom slogans from the rooftops is a political miracle. At the same time it makes sense: [the] country has been in urgent need of change. 

    My two concerns: 

1) Milei's anti-abortion stance, and the possibility to end up a conservative culture warrior edgelord; 

2) The balance of power in the legislative branch, which Milei still doesn’t control, and how it might halt meaningful reforms.

So, fingers crossed for Argentina then.  Let's hope he succeeds. 

This will be fun -- and instructive -- to watch.

Viva la libertad, carajo!*

* Long live freedom, dammit!

UPDATE:

The great libertarian conspiracy theory [updated]

 

"Libertarians are part of a vast conspiracy to take over the government and have it leave everybody alone."

~ Anonymous  

UPDATE:

"Labour are the party that says big government works, and then get elected and prove that it doesn't. National are the party that says government doesn't work, and then get elected and prove it."

~ apologies to PJ O'Rourke

'Ban this sick filth' ?

"One thing that comes with the territory of being a libertarian is a lifetime of explaining that one can very much not wish to say 'Ban this sick filth,' while still thinking the thing concerned is sick filth."

~ Natalie Solent, from her post 'So who signed off the Tots ‘n’ Bondage Bears ad, Balenciaga?'

Advice

"The next time you see someone enjoying something that isn't hurting anyone, that's not your cup of tea, instead of saying something negative, train yourself to think to yourself, 'I'm glad they are happy' and carry on with your life."

          ~ Mark MacKillop [hat tip Duncan B., Alex + TinyBuddha]

'Politicians are not agents of positive change, but thermometers that measure the temperature of public opinion.'

"Libertarians should treat politicians, not as agents of positive change, but as thermometers that measure the temperature of public opinion.
    'Change the temperature,' wrote Leonard Read, 'and there will be a change in what’s out front—naturally and spontaneously. The only purpose in keeping an eye on the thermometer is to know what the temperature is. If the underlying influential opinion—the temperature—is interventionist, we’ll have interventionists in public office regardless of the party labels they may choose for their adornment and public appeal.”
    'If,' on the other hand, as Read continued, 'the underlying influential opinion—the temperature—is libertarian, we’ll have spokesmen for libertarianism in public office. Nor will all the king’s horses and all the king’s men be able to alter the reading of the political thermometer one whit'.”

~ Jess Gill quoting Leonard Read, from her article 'Why Liz Truss Failed While Margaret Thatcher (Partly) Succeeded'

How Three Inspiring Women Moved the Needle Away From Socialism

When the world last century was ravaged by war and everywhere seemingly doomed to collapse into the abyss of collectivism, as Kerry McDonald outlines in this guest post for Women’s History Month, three articulate women fired a generation to reimbibe the universal human values of individual liberty, limited government, free-market capitalism, and entrepreneurship, and reignite a movement for their rebirth ...

How Three Inspiring Women Moved the Needle Away From Socialism

by Kerry McDonald

In 1943, as war ravaged the world and collectivist policies were ascendant worldwide, an extraordinary thing happened. Three women published three books that year that would jolt folk from their socialist stupor and remind them of the fundamental American values of individual liberty, limited government, free-market capitalism, and entrepreneurship. This Women’s History Month is an ideal time to reflect on how Rose Wilder Lane, Isabel Paterson, and Ayn Rand helped to catalyse the late-20th century movement toward freedom.

The “Libertarians of ‘43,” as Paterson biographer Stephen Cox dubbed these women*, were outspoken advocates of individualism and human ingenuity, and vocal critics of socialist ideology and big government policies. Cox explains that “women were more important to the creation of the libertarian movement than they were to the creation of any political movement not strictly focused on women’s rights.” The work of these three women continues to inspire a new generation of libertarian writers today, with their message more urgent than ever.

Rose Wilder Lane

The daughter of Laura Ingalls Wilder and Almanzo Wilder, Rose Wilder Lane is “Baby Rose” who many of us remember from the ninth book in the Little House on the Prairie series, The First Four Years. Born in 1886 in Dakota Territory, her years of growing up on the prairie likely instilled in Lane a sense of rugged individualism and self-reliance that ultimately found their way into her writings throughout the 20th century. Initially sympathetic to the ideas of socialism during World War I, after visiting the Soviet Union and parts of Europe with the American Red Cross (and witnessing the widespread corruption and the eradication of personal freedoms) she became one of its fiercest opponents. Returning to the US, she wrote widely, publishing books and writing articles for outlets such as Good Housekeeping, McCall’s, Ladies’ Home Journal, Harper’s, and the Saturday Evening Post.

By the late 1920s, Lane was reported to be one of the highest-paid women writers in the US. She became a vocal critic of Roosevelt’s New Deal, Social Security, and other government programs she felt disempowered individuals and gave greater authority to the state. In 1939, Leonard Read, who would go on to launch the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE) in 1946 as the country’s first libertarian think tank, republished an expanded version of one of Lane’s earlier influential essays, Give Me Liberty, where she describes her evolution from socialist-communist sympathiser to staunch individualist: “Many regard the collectivist State, as I did, as an extension of democracy. In this view, the picture is one of progressive steps to freedom,” she wrote. She went on to describe her experience living in the Soviet Union and seeing the results of collectivist policies first-hand:

I came out of the Soviet Union no longer a communist, because I believed in personal freedom. Like all Americans, I took for granted the individual liberty to which I had been born. It seemed as necessary and as inevitable as the air I breathed; it seemed the natural element in which human beings lived. The thought that I might lose it had never remotely occurred to me.

This essay set the tone for her influential 1943 book, The Discovery of Freedom, where she persuasively promotes individual liberty, limited government, and free markets. She explains how American freedom unleashes the full capacity of the human mind to discover and invent, thus leading to unprecedented progress and prosperity for all. Lane writes:

Human energy works to supply human needs and satisfy human desires, only when, and where, and precisely to the extent that men know they are free. It works effectively only to the extent that Government is weak, so that individuals are least prevented from acting freely, from using their energy of body and mind under their own individual control. All history shows this fact. Every detail of common experience today proves it. The electric light proves it; the car in the garage proves it. How did Edison create the electric light? How did Americans create the millions of American cars? They used free thought, free speech, free action and free-hold property. The unhindered use of natural human rights creates this whole modern world. Nothing else makes it possible for men to create new things, and improve them and keep on improving them.

Isabel Paterson

Lane’s contemporary and early ally, Isabel Paterson, echoed Lane’s ideas on individualism and freedom. Like Lane, Paterson was a prolific writer and enthusiastic proponent of libertarian ideals. Also born in 1886, in Canada, Paterson’s poor family moved around the American west and Canada when she was a child. Similar to Lane, Paterson had very little formal schooling and was mostly self-educated. She left home as a teenager to find work, taking a series of low-paying jobs, including one as a secretary to the publisher of a Washington newspaper who discovered her writing talent. From there her career took off.

In 1924, Paterson began writing a prominent literary column for the New York Herald Tribune, a position she held for 25 years where she emphasized libertarian themes. She was opposed to Prohibition, military conscription, government schooling, and crony capitalism. She favored free trade and immigration and was against the New Deal and central planning. Paterson defended free-market capitalism and celebrated entrepreneurship and invention. She became a US citizen in 1928 at age 42.

In 1943, Paterson published her pivotal book, The God of the Machine, that fully articulated her libertarian vision of personal and economic freedom and showed how statist policies can stifle human energy. “Capitalism is the economic system of individualism,” writes Paterson. She goes on to explain that 

it was assumed by superficial minds, such as Marx, that capitalism tended to concentration of wealth and a ‘class’ division of interests. But the ‘interest’ of capitalism is distribution. All the inventions of man have individualism as their end, because they spring from the individual function of intelligence, which is the creative and productive source. Freedom being the natural condition of man, inventions making for greater mobility resolve into individual means of transport. So far as co-operative action is useful toward the development of the individual, capitalism is fully able to carry out by voluntary association vast and complex operations of which collectivism is utterly incapable, and which are self-liquidating at the limit of their usefulness, if they are allowed to complete the process. No collectivist society can even permit co-operation; it relies upon compulsion; hence it remains static.

Rose Wilder Lane, who was friendly with former president Herbert Hoover, wrote to him in praise of Paterson’s book: “I try to restrain my enthusiasm, but it seems to me a book ranking with the best of Paine and Madison,” she said. Ayn Rand, the third of the “Libertarians of ‘43” also celebrated Paterson’s book. Rand wrote: "The God of the Machine is a document that could literally save the world ... The God of the Machine does for capitalism what Das Kapital does for the Reds and what the Bible did for Christianity.” Paterson, in turn, eagerly endorsed Rand’s 1943 novel, The Fountainhead, in her literary column.

Ayn Rand

Born in Russia in 1905, Rand lived through the Russian Revolution of 1917 when she saw her father’s pharmacy business in Petrograd confiscated by the state. The family escaped to the Crimean Peninsula where Rand attended high school. They returned to Petrograd in 1921, living through the Great Famine when they suffered from periodic starvation and millions of Russians perished. Rand was issued a visa to visit the US and arrived in New York City in 1926 at the age of 21, changing her name from Alissa Rosenbaum to Ayn Rand. She became a US citizen in 1931.

Rand’s childhood experiences revealed to her the evils of collectivist ideology and the doctrine of “altruism,” shaping her views in favour of individualism and the doctrine of “egoism.” The Fountainhead, along with her later magnum opus Atlas Shrugged, eloquently and entertainingly articulate her philosophy of “man as a heroic being with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute.”

In The Fountainhead, Rand’s main character Howard Roark explains the virtues of egoism and individual achievement more clearly: 

Men have been taught that the highest virtue is not to achieve, but to give. Yet one cannot give that which has not been created. Creation comes before distribution—or there will be nothing to distribute. The need of the creator comes before the need of any possible beneficiary. Yet we are taught to admire the second-hander who dispenses gifts he has not produced above the man who made the gifts possible. We praise an act of charity. We shrug at an act of achievement.

Rand became known as a “radical for capitalism,” explaining that capitalism is the only political and economic system that recognizes and respects individual rights. In her 1966 book, Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, Rand writes: 

Capitalism was the only system in history where wealth was not acquired by looting, but by production, not by force, but by trade, the only system that stood for man's right to his own mind, to his work, to his life, to his happiness, to himself.

Today’s Libertarian Moment

For Lane, Paterson and Rand, 1943 was a lonely time with only a small group of libertarian thinkers denouncing the collectivist policies and socialist ideology that the elites applauded. Their courage and conviction set the foundation for a renewed commitment to American ideals of individualism and opportunity, restrained government, free enterprise, and entrepreneurship. As the journalist John Chamberlain recorded: “Indeed, it was three women — [Isabel] Paterson, Rose Wilder Lane, and Ayn Rand — who, with scornful side glances at the male business community, had decided to rekindle a faith in an older American philosophy.”

Today, there are thankfully more of us who recognise and relay the principles of a free society, and there are more organisations that support these efforts, including Cato and FEE and the Ayn Rand Institute in the US, the IEA in London, which did so much to support Britain's late-twentieth century turn away from socialism -- and CIS in Sydney, which did much to inspire the dismantling of New Zealand's "Polish Shipyard."

At a time when individual rights have been relentlessly eroded due to lockdowns, economic freedom has been crushed for many of the small businesses deemed “non-essential,” and government has swelled while spending reaches unfathomable heights, the words and warnings of these three libertarian pioneers are more important than ever. Today’s freedom fighters have a crucial role to play in continuing to champion individualism over collectivism.

As Rand reminds us in Atlas Shrugged, we can each create the world we desire: “Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark, in the hopeless swamps of the approximate, the not-quite, the not-yet, the not-at-all. Do not let the hero in your soul perish in lonely frustration for the life you deserved, but have never been able to reach. Check your road and the nature of your battle. The world you desire can be won, it exists, it is real, it is possible, it's yours.”

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* Although Rand always fiercely spurned the term, calling libertarians "hippies of the right," and dubbing herself "a radical for capitalism."

Kerry McDonald

Kerry McDonald is a Senior Education Fellow at FEE and author of Unschooled: Raising Curious, Well-Educated Children Outside the Conventional Classroom (Chicago Review Press, 2019). She is also an adjunct scholar at The Cato Institute and a regular Forbes contributor. Kerry has a B.A. in economics from Bowdoin College and an M.Ed. in education policy from Harvard University. She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts with her husband and four children. You can sign up for her weekly newsletter on parenting and education here.
This post first appeared at the blog of the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE). If you are an emerging writer with a passion for liberty and free-market economics, check out FEE’s Hazlitt Fellowship and be part of their new generation of freedom-fighting writers. Or check out the annual Ayn Rand Essay Contest, which over the last thirty years has awarded over $2 million in total prize money to students around the world! (And to help you, there are a ton of new online resources to learn more about Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand.

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