… is from page 15 of the late Brian Doherty’s excellent 2007 book, Radicals for Capitalism: A Freewheeling History of the Modern American Libertarian Movement:
Libertarianism is based in economic theory, as economic science teaches how workable order can arise from the seeming chaos of free actions uncoordinated by a single outside intelligence, and how government intervention is apt to upset that balance. It is based in moral theory, positing what is or is not right when it comes to a human being, or group of human beings, using force or coercion on another. It is based in political theory, exploring the likely effects of granting human beings power over others. It is ultimately a delicate ecological balance of all these, with history in the mix as well, to further understand how the constant struggle of liberty versus power tends to play out in the real world.
DBx: Yes.
The libertarian – and the classical liberal – looks at, say, the current “partial government shutdown” that today has many Americans waiting in long lines just to get through airport security and concludes: “Yep, this is an unsurprising result of political control of human action.” The libertarian – and the classical liberal – is thus aghast that Substacks, newspapers, magazines, blogs, and the social-mediasphere teem with pundits who sincerely believe that the same agency that literally cannot balance its budget and keep its security staff on the job should be trusted with the power to try to outperform the market at allocating resources.
