Why Be Libertarian?

by Murray N. Rothbard on June 17, 2013

[This essay is chapter 15 of the book Egalitarianism As a Revolt Against Nature.]

Why be libertarian, anyway? By this we mean, what's the point of the whole thing? Why engage in a deep and lifelong commitment to the principle and the goal of individual liberty? For such a commitment, in our largely unfree world, means inevitably a radical disagreement with, and alienation from, the status quo, an alienation which equally inevitably imposes many sacrifices in money and prestige. When life is short and the moment of victory far in the future, why go through all this?

Incredibly, we have found among the increasing number of libertarians in this country many people who come to a libertarian commitment from one or another extremely narrow and personal point of view……. The consequence of the narrow and myopic vision of both the gamester and the would-be profit maker is that neither group has the slightest interest in the work of building a libertarian movement…… we must also see that utilitarianism — the common ground of free-market economists — is unsatisfactory for developing a flourishing libertarian movement.. ……"A flourishing libertarian movement, a lifelong dedication to liberty can only be grounded on a passion for justice."...To Read More....

My Take - Interesting article. One of the things I gleaned over the last few years is the reason so many have trouble defining Libertarianism is because so many Libertarians can't define it.  They pretty much all agree that government is too big, too costly, too intrusive and those who run it have “forgotten their place”!  After that it gets really complicated because then you need alternatives to what exists.  One of the rules of life that can’t be forgotten is “if there is no alternative there is no problem”.  You can ignore that and go happily your own way, but at some point ignoring the idea there has to be an alternative as a solution to any issue has to come back to bite you on the can.  The phrase quoted in the article; "A flourishing libertarian movement, a lifelong dedication to liberty can only be grounded on a passion for justice.” has an almost religious appeal to it, and to some extent reminds me of the emotional appeals used by leftists.  It’s my opinion that there will never be a fully independent Libertarian Party because it is politically heterodoxical telling those who claim to be conservatives but seem to be more comfortable with the liberals; ‘you’re wrong and I going to tell you why!”  Libertarians are the ones who bring traditional politicians back to reality, and that will be their role in the future; supplying the intellectual response to leftist emotion.  However, some of their views defy the lessons of history, and the stability of a value based society, especially involving drugs, and same sex marriage.  While promoting free expression they ignore the foundationally destructive consequences of these actions.