For a New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto
Continuing with my learning of Libertarianism, this week’s book is For a New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto by Murray N. Rothbard.
To understand why Rothbard wrote the Libertarian Manifesto, you need to understand how he came to the principles found therein. He was a economics and math major at Columbia University, but the Columbia he attended…the one here in the states, was definitely leaning towards Keynsian economics when he attended, and Ludwig von Mises was only a name to him and he had not even heard of the Austrian school of economics.
His introduction to this school of economic thought came about during a class on price controls, which led him down the rabbit hole, and he wrote ever more books decrying the evils of statism which culminated in For a New Liberty being written in 1973, and while my copy is definitely a later copy, with an introduction by Llewelyn H. Rockwell Jr which was written in 2005, about ten years after Rothbard’s death on January 7, 1995, I suspect my copy is based on an updated version, probably a 10 year edition, since chapter one references 1976 and chapter 15 references Jimmy Carter. Or maybe it was only a five year copy, since Ronald Reagan is not mentioned at all, and I’m pretty sure Rothbard had….thoughts….on Reagan. Which would surely have been included in the updated version had it been written during Reagan’s administration.
Anway, onto the book itself. It is exactly what it says: A Libertarian Manifesto. It’s part history book, part economics book, and all thinkum. It definitely made my head spin, and also made me wonder why he references Ayn Rand more than once, and even Isabel Paterson, but never mentions Heinlein, especially during his section on how courts and law enforcement would work, sans government. Because when I was reading this, all I could think of was the introduction of Stu La Joie in The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. Some young Stilyagi thought Stu had gotten too handsy with a young lady, so that grabbed him and found a judge to hear the case right then and there.
This book is a comprehensive overview of where what we have now came from, when it worked, when it stopped working, WHY it stopped working, and how we can replace it with libertarian principles. He addresses conscription, slavery, education, welfare, inflation, government and corporatism, police law and the courts, conservation, global politics, and that most beloved of libertarian boogeymen….The Public Road.
Now, I’m not going to recap all of these, because then what’s the point of recommending the book. But I do want to look at a couple of these that are my own pet peeve, starting with education.
Because what we have now, the compulsory educational system, is clearly failing. Kids are not being taught how to think, they are being taught what to think, as they are fully indoctrinated into the political duopoly. And this was happening as early as the release of this book, since Rothbard points that out in his chapter on education. He points out how inequitable taxing people for public school is, since people without children are paying to education children in subject matters that are entirely irrelevant. And children in lower income tax districts receive a subpar education compared to those in higher tax brackets, not because of private schools, but because those higher tax brackets pay for more updated facilities, better teachers, better school books….still in subjects that are irrelevant and leave our kids unprepared for the future.
He argues that forcing kids with no desire to go beyond basic reading is an invitation to delinquency and rising crime rates in our young. He counters the argument that finishing high school shows your trainable with this:
“The relative uselessness of the public school system for training manual labor is demonstrated by the fascinating work of MIND, a private educational service….deliberately chose high-school dropouts who were unskilled for manual jobs, and in a few short weeks, using intensive training and teaching machines, was able to each these dropouts basic skills and typing, and place them in corporate jobs. Ten years of public schooling had taught these youngsters less than a few weeks of private, job-oriented training!”
And it does not help that the push to get kids in to colleges has continued unabated in the nearly 50 years since this book was first published, and since people tend to push the “if you’re not college bound then you’re an idiot and a failure at life” ethos, it’s not surprise that most young people are apathetic about the future and prone to depression and ennui. So he addresses that.
And addresses that part of WHY people are pushing the college ethos so hard is that “intellectuals” (the quotes are mine) tend to support the state. Like there is a literal symbiosis with statism and college educated individuals. Certainly not helped by a lot of government positions…not all, but an alarming amount of them…require college educations, for what amounts to busy make-work. Depression and ennui continue unabated.
He discusses historical examples of when roads were built without government assistance and how the world did not stop turning. He points out historical examples of libertarian societies and how they worked out….Ireland and Africa are heavily represented in these chapters, so that was interesting.
And he points out non-interventionist state policies and when they were done well….by Joseph Fucking Stalin of all people. Like no shit, I read that chapter and my brain actually tried to rebel against what he was saying, just based on my own knowledge of how evil Stalin was. And he acknowledges that evil, says he’s not excusing the shit show that was communist Russia under Stalin’s regime….just that Stalin didn’t really have any intention of joining WWII, until Hitler attacked Russia. And that’s basically correct. Even the part of Poland that Stalin invaded had historically been Russian, and while that violated the non-aggression principle, since the Polish had formed their own state, he didn’t go any further than that, until Hitler pushed him.
And every time I’d be reading a section and think to myself “but what about…” like two pages later he’d address that. Which is why I say this was a comprehensive book. It was interesting to read, and I would swear it can’t be done, except that Javier Milei down in Argentina, is PROVING it can be done. It’s absolutely fascinating watching a libertarian paradise unfold in Argentina, and cheering him on. Because if he continues to pull it off, then this South American nation could lead the way to freedom in the 21st century, while America, the original land of the free, falls to statism and apathy.
This is a thinking book, it took a little longer than I thought it would to read, even though it’s only 403 pages, because I had to keep putting it down to process what I read and sort of internalize what he was saying. But if you want to know more about general libertarian principle, AND how it could be implemented now, this year, starting November 5, 2024, give it a read. It’s worth it.
