What is this strange thing called Libertarianism? I thought I had a pretty good idea, but I decided to investigate further after reading Candace Jackson's "Their Lives: The Women Targeted by the Clinton Machine," a book in which the author defined our former president's predilection for women against the larger themes of liberalism, conservatism, and libertarianism. I dithered about for a few months deciding which course I wanted to take before settling on Charles Murray's "What It Means to Be a Libertarian." I was familiar with the author from the brouhaha his book "The Bell Curve" kicked off roughly a decade ago, but knew little else about him. The name recognition, however, coupled with the knowledge that "What It Takes to Be a Libertarian" runs a scant 178 pages (at least in my hardback copy) convinced me that this was the place to start. The author will have to make his points quickly if he can fit everything into a book less than 200 pages in length, I thought to myself, and I was right. Murray's book is a model of to the point writing. What is this strange thing called Libertarianism? It's what I thought it was all along.
Libertarians, as Murray points out very quickly, differ in their opinions on specific issues as much as members of other political persuasions. But it's possible to distill one core belief that all libertarians share: the individual's freedom is central to human existence. Society works best when the individual retains the right to make as many choices in their life as possible. The archenemy of individual freedom is local, state, and national governments and their handmaidens bureaucracy, regulation, and spurious laws. Government, according to Murray, does have some important functions. For example, ensuring basic liability protections for consumers and protecting the markets from natural monopolies are important government functions. Murray changes his tune when it comes to things like social welfare programs, anti-drug laws, housing programs, agricultural and energy regulations, education, and anti-discrimination laws. He wants all of these governmental functions, and quite a few others to boot, eliminated. The reader can practically hear the heads of liberals and conservatives exploding while reading the list of policies, laws, and regulations the author thinks should go the way of the dinosaur.
Interestingly enough, Murray makes it all sound like common sense. He introduces a concept called the Trendline Test to prove how, time and time again, the government mucks up anything it tries to do beyond its basic functions. Remember the introduction of seatbelt laws? Remember how many lives they saved with the help of millions upon millions of tax dollars? According to Murray, a trend line shows that deaths due to car accidents began a serious decline thanks to safer cars and better technologies long before government decided to play superhero. Once the bureaucracy came into the picture, they made little difference. The same pattern repeats for other scenarios. Government often works best when it stands aside and lets private concerns deal with complex problems. Any issues that do need an organized response in the form of government, argues Murray, should embrace the concept of subsidiarity, or the idea that the best response comes at a local level closest to the individual. Education is a place subsidiarity should dominate, but it's also one of the few areas in which Murray claims that the national government ought to play a role. Give every kid in America a three thousand dollar voucher, return control of the schools to the local level, and thus watch the educational system soar as it becomes part of the market system.
"What It Means to Be a Libertarian" contains a lot of meat, far too much to chew on in a short review. It's an excellent and easy read, however, and makes a lot of sense. The book reinforced the fact that I'm a conservative and not a libertarian, though. How so? Well, I definitely support a smaller government that translates into a lighter tax burden, but I can't go this far. Libertarianism seems to share much with secular humanism in that this belief system places man firmly at the center of the universe. It's obviously an outgrowth of Enlightenment ideas about rationality, and the fact that Murray continually cites the Founding Fathers convinces me of this fact. They were big believers in the Enlightenment too, at least on paper. Can you see the problems here? One, mankind is not rational. We're not, we never have been, and you need to look around if you can't see that. Libertarianism needs rational beings to function effectively. Two, the lack of laws restricting drug use, prostitution, and other morally objectionable behaviors will never fly. Any society that has ever normalized these sorts of behaviors has collapsed utterly and absolutely. Humans need some sort of moral compass around which they can organize a functioning society and civilization.
Despite the problems I had with the theory that drives the book, I'm giving it five stars because of its succinct treatment of a complex political ideology. Charles Murray provides plenty of illuminating information to make his points, cuts through complex arguments with ease, and will have you supporting the abolition of at least SOME of the federal bureaucracy by the time you set the book down. Moreover, I found the annotated bibliography extremely worthwhile if the reader plans on following up this book with further reading. I think I will delve deeper since I'm interested in finding a book that examines the historical underpinnings of libertarianism more than this treatment did. Ultimately, you will come away from Murray's treatise fully understanding what it means to be a libertarian, even if you decide not to join in the fun.
