The New Libertarians

In this excellent article my favorite kind of libertarianism gets some serious love. This is exactly the kind of stuff I wish that more libertarian minded people would get involved in!

http://www.fee.org/the_freeman/detail/the-new-libertarianism

The article describes a conference organized by the Students for Liberty. I was recently at another of their conferences and it was a blast. Even though most of the people attending were conventional political types, there were a substantial number of people there thinking outside the political box, talking about anarchy, entrepreneurship etc.

From the article:

When I was in college, I can’t remember anyone doing this. We trusted that the system would take care of us, and our job was to fit in. These young people do not have this view. The existing system is something they will use, but only on the path to bypassing it with new innovations and businesses to change the future. 

To be sure, this is a group that is very commercially astute. They see business as the way to change the world. The tools they use every day to navigate the world—buying everything from coffee to concert tickets, getting around cities, planning trips, talking to friends and family—came to them via the private sector. Government contributes nothing to their lives apart from annoyance. 

What’s more, among these libertarians, there is very little hope that political change is a viable option. What would be the mechanism of change? The two-party system? The trends in politics are inexorably worse, regardless of the promise. The trends in commercial life are toward progress every day. Which seems like the better path?