The Online Library of Liberty

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• Associate Editors
• Editorial
• Bibliographical Essay: Economics and Ideology: Aspects of the Post-ricardian Literature
• I: Political Economy
• The Classical Model of Political Economy
• Modernization, Ideology, and Economic Freedom
• Individualism Vs. Collectivism?
• The Industrial Revolution and Literacy
• Parliamentary Enclosure and Uprooted Labor
• Smith's Critique of Monopoly
• Ricardo and the “dual Development”
• Ricardo On Money
• Inflation and Political Crisis: Germany
• Inflation and Unemployment
• Government and Inflation: the Mccracken Report
• II: Concepts of Liberty
• Liberty and Its Components
• Is the Right to Freedom Vacuuous?
• Liberty, Slavery, and Utilitarianism
• Individualism, Freedom, and Society
• Liberty and Habeas Corpus
• Should Britain Have a Bill of Rights?
• Locke, Women, and Freedom
• Locke, Women, Freedom, and Individualism
• Locke, Property, and Individualism
• Children, Freedom, and Individualism
• Liberty and Mental Illness
• Sismondi and Liberty
• Mill: On Liberty
• Mill, Freedom, and Happiness
• Freedom of Speech and Moral Development
• Freedom In Kant, Hegel, and Marx
• Marx, Freedom, and Property
• Neoconservatives, Liberty, and Equality
• Freedom: the Politics of Justice and Existence
• Liberty and the American Revolution
• American Libertarians
• III: Economics and Public Policy
• How Economics Influences Political Theory
• Why Democracies Choose Deficits
• Inflation and the Welfare State
• Monetarism and the Depression
• Asian Monetary History: Gold & Silver
• Specie Money Vs. Antibullionists
• Inflation Effects On Capital
• Consumption of Public Health Services
• Factory Regulation and Vested Interests
• Poverty Programs and Government
• The Costs of Regulating Market Information
• Rent Regulation
• Engels On Economics
• IV: Social Analysis
• The Depoliticization of Society
• Is Philosophy Politically Subversive?
• Plato's Republic As a Political Dystopia
• Cicero and Modern Political Philosophy
• The Roman Jurist Gaius and Social Thought
• The Myth of Social Hierarchy
• Contract and Political Thought
• Private Vs. Public: the Domain of Freedom
• Montaigne and the Value of Tolerance
• Commerce, Utility, Character, and Republicanism
• Quintin Skinner and Western Political Thought
• Public Choice
• Editorial Board
• Contents of Vol. 33 No. 2
• Contents of Vol. 33 No. 3

American Libertarians

David De Leon

• University of Maryland, Baltimore

“Right Libertarianism,” in The American as Anarchist: Reflections on Indigenous Radicalism. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1979.

The dominant characteristic of “right libertarianism” is opposition to the power of the state. One can distinguish several different varieties of this type of political doctrine, of which individualist anarchism is the most extreme.

The emphasis on individualism in American Literature is noteworthy. For example, Emerson stressed the authority of the self over the state: “with the appearance of the wise man the State expires.” Individualism assumed a more egoistic form in the poetry of Whitman.

Thoreau gave individualism a distinctly political form in his well-known opposition to the paying of a poll-tax. Henry George developed a much more systematic version of individualist politics. His single-tax position,

if carried out, would mean that the state would have little to do beyond collecting the land tax and preserving order.

The most consistent version of right libertarianism was developed by Benjamin Tucker and the circle of writers around Liberty. Tucker's views express the interests of some small tradesmen and manufacturers. He assumed that no government was necessary. Disputes among individuals would be settled by private bargaining, and, if necessary, by boycotts, Tucker, as well as writers such as Lysander Spooner, emphasized the lack of consent of individuals to the state. Tucker's views developed out of his youthful experience of the New England reform tradition.

III

Economics and Public Policy

Economic theory and policies—whether sound or faulty—determine the health of a society and the chances of its material progress or decline. If sound economic insights fail to inform and “penetrate” political theory, a plague of social ills ensue. This is the recurrent and chilling lesson of economic history written in the suffering, frustrations, and catastrophes that characterize depressions, spiraling inflation, trade imbalances, energy shortages, and food or transportation disruptions. Economic science, far from being an abstract, ivory tower irrelevance, exercises a most practical influence—for good or evil—on our politics and individual lives. This vividly appears in the present set of summaries which investigate questions of inflation, depression, and monetary policy.

Since government economic intervention tends to create social, political, cultural, and financial dislocations, the second summary is of vital importance: why do citizens in democracies choose a policy of deficit financing with its calamitous inflationary consequences? The final summary sets forth, from such an unlikely source as Friedrich Engels, insights into the importance of competitive, free markets to allocate resources and guide production efficiently and humanely.