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April 19, 2006
Libertarianism in One Lesson
David Bergland ran for US president on the Libertarian ticket in 1984. Dad bought me his book, Libertarianism in One Lesson, which has gone through eight printings at least.
What interested me in reading this book was to compare my own leanings to those of a Libertarian who has thought out his position and written it up. Libertarianism seems like an ascendant current in US politics for two reasons in my very humble opinion. The first reason is that Libertarians greatly favor self-determination and freedom, even if it's at ones own expense, a position more and more Americans consider the right one. The second reason is that Libertarians see the free market as a better solution to economic problems, and most Americans agree with that.
On the one hand, I found much to agree with in this book. I definitely agree that free markets were and are better than having the king decide what commerce can take place, and are better than having some "representative" bureaucracy decide in place of the king. (The current US and Western European economies have this kind of state intervention to varying degrees.)
On the other hand, I don't agree that we cannot do better than free markets, nor that we cannot think about alternatives. Bergland would call parecon Utopian, then he would continue believing in a magical free market alternative that has never existed either at scale. Some experimentation is called for.
Posted by Mark at April 19, 2006 06:45 PM
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