Brian Shrugged
Kay Hymowitz describes why, though sympathetic, I am ultimately uncomfortable with libertarianism in her article, Freedom Fetishists.
On the one hand, libertarians make a fetish of freedom; it is their totalizing goal. On the other hand, libertarians depend on the family–an institution that, in crucial respects, is unfree–to produce the sort of people best suited to life in a free-market system (not to mention future members of their own movement). The complex, dynamic economy that libertarians have done so much to expand needs highly advanced human capital–that is, individuals of great moral, cognitive and emotional sophistication. Reams of social-science research prove that these qualities are best produced in traditional families with married parents.
Children do not come into the world respecting private property. They do not emerge from the womb ready to navigate the economic and moral complexities of an “age of abundance.” The only way they learn such things is through a long process of intensive socialization–a process that we now know, thanks to the failed experiments begun by the [left-wing] Aquarians and implicitly supported by libertarians, usually requires intact families and decent schools.
There is more to a successful, stable society - more to sustainable growth - than “everybody do what you please, just try not to hurt anybody.”
Absolute freedom does not maximize actual freedom.
