Libertarianism: Political Career and Risks

When society has been lobotomized or programmed into believing that government is a “given”, and that the individual is not only branded as immoral (e.g. greed) but more importantly, nonexistent (e.g. nationalism), then looking for a political career from the standpoint of liberty seems almost close to nil.

But this shouldn’t stop passionate freedom loving disciples from preaching the truth. Austrian economist Bob Wenzel writes,

And that's what libertarians need to know about running for office. It's not about compromising your principles to gain more votes, its not about hiding your true views on taxes and minimum wage laws to gain more votes, it's about running to get the hardcore libertarian message out.

It's about hoping that after you give a speech where you denounce minimum wage laws, all taxes and the local public fire department, that at least one person, maybe two, wander over to you after your speech and tell you that what you said sounded interesting. It's about losing the election, but at the same time advancing the libertarian cause.

In other words, it's okay for a libertarian to run for office, if it's the Ron Paul way. If it's about losing the election but spreading the word. If it's about writing op-eds, appearing in debates and being interviewed on radio about hardcore libertarianism.

Libertarians aren't close to getting elected in most places with just a libertarian message. But the message can be spread. Ron Paul has proved that. If this is done in enough places, enough times, the message can be spread even more, and more people will catch on.

Then some day, perhaps five years from now, perhaps ten, we may hear of people sticking completely to libertarian principle and winning here and winning there. That will be the signal that large numbers of people at that time want liberty and understand what liberty is.

Embracing the principle of freedom confronts mountains of sacrifices and risks, particularly the risk of ostracism and of losing social privileges in the face of massive tentacle of influence by governments in almost every aspect of our lives.

The great Ludwig von Mises sets a shining example of this fight of principle over convenience; Professor Mises sacrificed a glamorous teaching career.

In an encomium, one of the greatest student by Professor Mises, the preeminent dean of the Austrian school Murray Rothbard reveals of the career life of Mises,

But it remains an ineradicable blot on the record of American academia that Mises was never able to find a paid, full-time post in any American university. It is truly shameful that at a time when every third-rate Marxoid refugee was able to find a prestigious berth in academia, that one of the great minds of the twentieth century could not find an academic post. Mises's widow Margit, in her moving memoir about life with Lu, records their happiness and her gratitude that the New York University Graduate School of Business Administration, in 1945, appointed Mises as Visiting Professor teaching one course a term. Mises was delighted to be back at university teaching; but the present writer cannot be nearly as enthusiastic about a part-time post paying the pittance of $2,000 a year. Mises's course was, at first, on "Statism and the Profit Motive," and it later changed to one on "Socialism." This part-time teaching post was renewed until 1949…

Likewise, in the face of Keynesian revolution, the great Mises stuck to his convictions when the rest sold out, again from Professor Rothbard,

It must have been galling to Mises that, in contrast to his shabby treatment at the hands of American academia, favorite former students who had abandoned Misesian doctrines for Keynesianism, but whose only real contributions to economics had come as Misesians, received high and prestigious academic posts. Thus Gottfried Haberler was ensconced as full professor at Harvard, and Fritz Machlup went to John Hopkins and later to Princeton. Oskar Morgenstern, too, landed at Princeton. All of these high academic positions were, of course, paid for by the university

Well, even the soul of American revolution Thomas Paine, known for this famous passage…

Society in every state is a blessing, but government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one.

…had a melancholic-tragic ending.

Author George Smith accounts for Mr. Paine’s demise,

The man who inspired the country to secede from a corrupt state had six people in attendance at his funeral, none of whom were dignitaries.

The struggle for the cause of liberty is a tall order.

But I think the information age will most likely tilt the balance from the dominant political mindset towards liberty.

Quote of the Day: Ethical Defense of Liberty Knows NO Borders

an ethical defense of liberty, as well as an economic defense of liberty, applies equally to both sides of any national border. Anyone who claims to defend market liberty for his own people should be equally prepared to defend market liberty for the people on the other side of the national border. This is the doctrine of the rule of law. This widespread acceptance of this principle has made the West rich.

This is from Professor Gary North from his excellent article on the immorality of tariffs or why tariffs are undeclared acts of war against other nations.

Quote of the Day: Libertarianism is the Philosophy of Freedom

libertarianism is simply the philosophy of freedom: freedom for one to do with his person and property as he chooses as long as in doing so he doesn’t aggress against the person or property of another. “The only freedom which deserves the name,” said political philosopher John Stuart Mill, “is that of pursuing our own good in our own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs, or impede their efforts to obtain it.” Or, in the simple words of Leonard Read, “anything that’s peaceful.”

That’s from the splendid review by Lawrence Vance of Judge Andrew P. Napolitano’s latest book It Is Dangerous to Be Right When the Government Is Wrong: The Case for Personal Freedom (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2011); 240 pages. (lewrockwell.com)

Judge Napolitano's book is on my wishlist.

Henry Hazlitt on the Task of Libertarians

The great late Henry Hazlitt, in an article at the Mises Institute today, tells Libertarians to work on TWO fundamental aspects in preaching liberty. (dedicated to my Filipino libertarians and Casey Phyle friends, as well as, passive libertarian audiences or visitors)

One is to specialize or apply liberty in our respective field of expertise… (bold emphasis mine)

We libertarians have our work cut out for us.

In order to indicate further the dimensions of this work, it is not merely the organized bureaucracy that the libertarian has to answer; it is the individual private zealots. A day never passes without some ardent reformer or group of reformers suggesting some new government intervention, some new statist scheme to fill some alleged "need" or relieve some alleged distress. They accompany their scheme by elaborate statistics that supposedly prove the need or the distress that they want the taxpayers to relieve. So it comes about that the reputed "experts" on relief, unemployment insurance, Social Security, Medicare, subsidized housing, foreign aid, and the like are precisely the people who are advocating more relief, unemployment insurance, Social Security, Medicare, subsidized housing, foreign aid, and all the rest…

We libertarians cannot content ourselves merely with repeating pious generalities about liberty, free enterprise, and limited government. To assert and repeat these general principles is absolutely necessary, of course, either as prologue or conclusion. But if we hope to be individually or collectively effective, we must individually master a great deal of detailed knowledge, and make ourselves specialists in one or two lines, so that we can show how our libertarian principles apply in special fields, and so that we can convincingly dispute the proponents of statist schemes for public housing, farm subsidies, increased relief, bigger Social Security benefits, bigger Medicare, guaranteed incomes, bigger government spending, bigger taxation, especially more progressive income taxation, higher tariffs or import quotas, restrictions or penalties on foreign investment and foreign travel, price controls, wage controls, rent controls, interest rate controls, more laws for so-called consumer protection, and still tighter regulations and restrictions on business everywhere.

This means, among other things, that libertarians must form and maintain organizations not only to promote their broad principles — as do, for example, the Foundation for Economic Education at Irvington-on-Hudson, New York, the American Institute for Economic Research at Great Barrington, Massachusetts, and the American Economic Foundation in New York City — but to promote these principles in special fields. I am thinking, for example, of such excellent existing specialized organizations as the Citizens Foreign Aid Committee, the Economists' National Committee on Monetary Policy, the Tax Foundation, and so on.

…which should include or cover law and politics.

But, of course, liberty cannot be enlarged or preserved unless its necessity is understood in many other fields — and most notably in law and in politics.

We have to ask, for example, whether liberty, economic progress, and political stability can be preserved if we continue to allow the people on relief — the people who are mainly or solely supported by the government and who live at the expense of the taxpayers — to exercise the franchise. The great liberals of the 19th and early 20th centuries, including John Stuart Mill and A.V. Dicey, expressed the most serious misgivings on this point.

Second is to focus on inflation, as all interventionism starts and ends with inflationism… (italics original, bold mine)

This issue has the inherent advantage that it can be made clear and simple because fundamentally it is clear and simple. All inflation is government made. All inflation is the result of increasing the quantity of money and credit; and the cure is simply to halt the increase.

If libertarians lose on the inflation issue, they are threatened with the loss of every other issue. If libertarians could win the inflation issue, they could come close to winning everything else. If they could succeed in halting the increase in the quantity of money, it would be because they could halt the chronic deficits that force this increase. If they could halt these chronic deficits, it would be because they had halted the rapid increase in welfare spending and all the socialistic schemes that are dependent on welfare spending. If they could halt the constant increase in spending, they could halt the constant increase in government power.

Well this blog is has both contents. The truth will set us free.

Video: Murray Rothbard on Understanding Libertarianism

(hat tip Bob Wenzel)

Quote of the Day: The Supremacy of Public Opinion

This timely quote from yesterday’s article at the Mises Institute is dedicated to my libertarian and Casey Phyle friends, as well as my, passive freedom loving readers…

Here the best theories are useless if not supported by public opinion. They cannot work if not accepted by a majority of the people. Whatever the system of government may be, there cannot be any question of ruling a nation lastingly on the ground of doctrines at variance with public opinion. In the end the philosophy of the majority prevails. In the long run there cannot be any such thing as an unpopular system of government. The difference between democracy and despotism does not affect the final outcome. It refers only to the method by which the adjustment of the system of government to the ideology held by public opinion is brought about. Unpopular autocrats can only be dethroned by revolutionary upheavals, while unpopular democratic rulers are peacefully ousted in the next election.

The supremacy of public opinion determines not only the singular role that economics occupies in the complex of thought and knowledge. It determines the whole process of human history.

The customary discussions concerning the role the individual plays in history miss the point. Everything that is thought, done and accomplished is a performance of individuals. New ideas and innovations are always an achievement of uncommon men. But these great men cannot succeed in adjusting social conditions to their plans if they do not convince public opinion.

The flowering of human society depends on two factors: the intellectual power of outstanding men to conceive sound social and economic theories, and the ability of these or other men to make these ideologies palatable to the majority.

That’s an excerpt from the magnum opus of the great Professor Ludwig von Mises.

The bottom line is that the battle for freedom fundamentally hinges on the arena of education, where ideas of liberty must be made “palatable to the majority”.

In short, communicate to educate. And we can speak or write or do both. Aside from traditional mediums, the internet has facilitated horizontal flow of communications through blogs (such as this), podcasts, social media, youtube, or etc…, which essentially bypasses the top-down flow communication monopolized and controlled by statists and their cronies. Debates can be held on neutral grounds which runs to our favor.

Remember the more the sources of ideas of freedom, the greater the chances that these may become public talking points.

Localizing freedom or merging freedom with domestic applications should increase the topical relevance that should connect with the local audience and thus attract wider participants.

In other words, communicate freedom under the framework of your specialty.

Consequently, a widening reach to the public implies higher chances for social acceptability or a change in public opinion. It’s no easy task as Professor von Mises and our free market champions have shown.

But the deepening of the information age and the law of depreciating returns for vertical organizations has been and will continue to provide us with useful examples of why individual liberty is the only option to the economically unsustainable alternative of statism. There is no middle of the road compromise.

Freedom and the basic law economics are inherently compatible. And that's why I am optimistic that the knowledge revolution will provide the ideological justification for political reforms that should lead to social decentralization.

Peter Thiel Pays People to Drop Out of College and Pursue Entrepreneurship

Billionaire entrepreneur and libertarian Peter Thiel pays students to drop out of college to pursue entrepreneurship.

From CBSNews.com

One of the wealthiest, best-educated American entrepreneurs, Peter Thiel, isn't convinced college is worth the cost. With only half of recent U.S. college graduates in full-time jobs, and student loans now at $1 trillion, Thiel has come up with his own small-scale solution: pay a couple dozen of the nation's most promising students $100,000 to walk away from college and pursue their passions.

See the interview below.

Some noteworthy parts of the interview… [bold emphasis mine]

Peter Thiel: We have a bubble in education, like we had a bubble in housing in the last decade. Everybody believed you had to have a house. They'd pay whatever it took. Today, everybody believes that we need to go to college, and people will pay whatever it takes.

Morley Safer: You describe college administrators as subprime mortgage lenders, in other words conmen.

Peter Thiel: Not all of them, but certainly the for-profit schools, the less good colleges are like the subprime mortgage lenders where people are being conned into thinking that this credential is the one thing you need to do better in life. And they're actually not any better off after having gone to college; they typically are worse off because they've amassed all this debt.

More Peter Thiel quotes:

Peter Thiel: I'm saying that people should think hard about why they're going to college. If your life plan is to be a professor or to be a doctor or some other career where you need a specific credential you should and probably have to go to college. If your plan is to do something very different you should think really hard about it.

Peter Thiel: I did not realize how wrong-- how screwed up the education system is. We now have $1 trillion in student debt in the U.S. That trillion dollars-- wanna describe it cynically? You can say it's paid for $1 trillion of lies about how good education is.

Peter Thiel: We have a society where successful people are encouraged to go to college. But it is a-- it's a mistake to think that that's what makes people successful.

In the interview, Mr. Peter Thiel has been criticized for advocating or pursuing “anti-education” sentiment. But such accusation represents a misplaced understanding of Mr. Thiel’s position: the growing impracticability and irrelevance of the current “screwed up” educational system.

In other words, Mr. Thiel has not been anti-education “where you need a specific credential you should and probably have to go to college”, but rather he points out that the cost benefit tradeoff of higher education has become infeasible, and worse, the quality of education has not been aligned with the “education” necessary for work. And this is evidenced by the decreasing returns of higher education.

Finally Mr. Thiel doesn’t really pay people to drop out of college to become bums. He has instead been preaching entrepreneurship to students.

To quote anew the great Ludwig von Mises on the relationship between education and entrepreneurship,

In order to succeed in business a man does not need a degree from a school of business administration. These schools train the subalterns for routine jobs. They certainly do not train entrepreneurs. An entrepreneur cannot be trained. A man becomes an entrepreneur in seizing an opportunity and filling the gap. No special education is required for such a display of keen judgment, foresight, and energy. The most successful businessmen were often uneducated when measured by the scholastic standards of the teaching profession. But they were equal [p. 315] to their social function of adjusting production to the most urgent demand. Because of these merits the consumers chose them for business leadership.

Once again Peter Thiel

Mark Zuckerberg from Facebook didn't complete Harvard. Steve Jobs dropped out of Reed College. Bill Gates dropped out of Harvard. When you do something entrepreneurial, the credentials are not what really matters. What matters is having the right idea at the right time, the right place.

Peter Thiel has definitely not been out of touch with reality.

Pirate Island: More Dreams of a Government Free Community

Dreams of getting government off their backs are being put into reality through chartered cities, free cities, seasteading and now the Pirate Island.

From the register.co.uk (hat tip Bob Wenzel)

Over 100 international tech companies have registered their interest in the floating geek city, Blueseed, which will be launched next year in international waters outside of Silicon Valley.

The visa-free, start-up friendly concept launched late last year aims to create a fully commercial technology incubator where global entrepreneurs can live and work in close proximity to the Valley, accessing VC dosh and talent as required.

A new research report released by Blueseed reveals that the bulk of registered demand germinated from the US at 20.3%, Indian start-ups rank second at 10.5% and Australians third at 6%.

The research found that international start-ups nominated living and working in an “awesome” start-up- and technology- oriented space; proximity to Silicon Valley's investors and an alternative to having to get US work visas for company founders or employees as the key reasons for getting on board.

The Blueseed model budgets for around 1,000 live-in entrepreneurs on deck with costs ranging US$1,200 to $3,000 per month, per person for living quarters and office space.

It is most likely that Blueseed will revamp a decommissioned luxury cruise liner which the founders estimate would cost between $10 -$25 million to fit out.

Quote of the Day: Emotional Inequality

Why should exhibiting those particular feelings be primary in making the case for a free society? Other passions are part of the morally-healthy package: Admiration for those who have achieved a lot. Anger at those who violate rights. Respect for those who exhibit independence and integrity. And of course empathy for those who are struggling with poverty. But empathy for the poor is not more morally special than respect for integrity or anger at bullies and tyrants, and it is a mistake to single it out for special foundational political status. Instead, political theorists concerned with the moral foundations of liberal society should be concerned with general principles of moral character that enable individuals to live freely.

That’s from philosopher Stephen Hicks discussing one the flaws of social justice oriented bleeding heart libertarians (hat tip Professor David Henderson)

Quote of the Day: Freedom is the Essence of Humanity

Oh they tell us that in a democratic system, we can vote and that this is our choice. We have nothing to complain about. If we don’t like the system, we can change it. But this is wholly illusory. The government completely owns the democratic system and administers it to generate the types of results that government wants. More and more people are catching on to this, which is why voter participation falls further in every election season.

The great thinkers of the libertarian tradition have always told us that freedom and the good life are absolutely inseparable. I think of Thomas Jefferson, Frederic Bastiat, Herbert Spencer, Albert Jay Nock, Ludwig von Mises, Murray Rothbard, F.A. Hayek and so many others. Even contemporary authors have addressed the theme. They had long warned that every step away from freedom would mean a diminution of the quality of life. We are seeing these prophecies come true.

Too often public policy debates take place on the wrong level. The core point is not to make the “system” work better or otherwise fine-tune the rules within a bureaucracy. We need to start talking about larger issues about the dignity of the human person, the moral status of freedom and the rights and liberties of the individual in society. The expansion of the state is not just wrong as a matter of “public policy”; it is wrong because it is dangerous to the good life and the quality of life.

To kill freedom is to kill the essence of what makes us human.

(bold emphasis mine)

The stirring excerpt is from the prolific Jeffrey A. Tucker at the Laissez Faire Books.

Again, the mainstream’s public policy debates can be summarized into the following alternatives 1) change the authority involved 2) throw money at the problem 3) control, restrain or prohibit activities of parties perceived as immoral and or 4) tax the alleged offenders.

And that’s why politics tend to become mostly personality oriented as policy debates have been premised on a system which is largely perceived as a “given”, and where the solution has been reduced to “saintliness” or “virtuosity” of those in power. The solution of which is like eternally Waiting for Godot who never comes.

Instead what truly matters is to debate the ethics, as well as, the feasibility from which the incumbent political system has been established. [Well anyway maybe economic realities would render the debate moot]

Unfortunately, all of which of mainstream’s way of solving social problems evolve around restricting people’s freedom.

Yet ironically and fortunately, many people find ways to circumvent or fight the repressive system—built to benefit and preserve the interests of the political insiders which thrive on patron-client relations or state (crony) capitalism—through the informal economy, black markets and corruption (as response to arbitrary regulations or statutes).

Bottom line: The battle for freedom continues.

Video: The Ideas Behind the Ron Paul Revolution

(hat tip Lew Rockwell Blog)

Nassim Taleb Endorses Ron Paul

My favorite iconoclast Nassim Taleb goes for Ron Paul.

From Benzinga.com (hat tip Bob Wenzel)

Nassim Taleb, the best-selling author of The Black Swan, endorsed the presidential aspirations of Ron Paul. "From the risk vantage point, Paul is the only candidate that represents my values," he told CNBC earlier today.

"There are four key issues that no one else is addressing," said NYU Politechnic Institute and Oxford University professor, the first three of which he identified as the deficit, the Fed, and US militarism. "Then there is the notion that America is about resilience. You do not achieve that through bailouts," he told CNBC.

"I want a system that gets better after every shock. A system that relies on bailouts is not such a system," he said, noting that Ron Paul is the only candidate willing to take the risk to talk about the hot button issues.

"He is doing the equivalent of chemotherapy on the fundamental issues," said Taleb. "It may hurt, but that is the only choice you have. You cannot advocate for novocaine when in fact you need a root canal."

It is interesting to see an intersection of views with people of different backgrounds.

Here is Nassim Taleb in Davos 2009,

It was effortless to talk about complexity and its effect on risk: how redundancy, diversity, and such properties were central in avoiding collapse.

In short both believe in forces of decentralization in dealing with a complex world. That’s fundamentally the opposite of all standing US presidential candidates out there.

My preference for Ron Paul is not only because he represents the Classical Liberal-Austrian School of Economics and libertarian perspective, but he is for me, the ideal freedom fighter.

A Ron Paul victory will resonate for the cause of (individual) freedom around the world. But even if he loses, the Ron Paul revolution has been emblematic of the political trends of the information age era.

I may be wrong, but I think the establishment will do everything it can to block a Ron Paul presidency. And even if Ron Paul does win the presidency, I fear that he may target for assassination as a Ron Paul regime (that’s if he keeps up with his ideals and promises) will be devastating to entrenched vested interest groups (both from the interests of the left-the welfare class, and the right-the warfare class).

Cartoon(s) of the Day: The Johari Window of Libertarians

From Cato’s Dan Mitchell

From Bastiat Institute (facebook)

Differentiating Phony Rights from Real Rights

In a letter to a newspaper, Professor David Henderson refutes what the mainstream and leftists call as “rights”

A real right is, say, my right not to be murdered. The only responsibility that imposes on you and others is not to murder me. In other words, it's a responsibility not to do something. The "right" to good housing, though, is a phony right because it implies that someone else has a positive duty to provide it. And let's not hide behind government. The only way government can provide things is by forcibly taking from others.

Except for the preservation of the natural rights to life, liberty, and property, I’d be very leery of anyone claiming for (positive) “rights” (which are disguised grants to state power) as such would extrapolate to more taxes, restriction of civil liberties and inflation.

Quote of the Day: Libertarian Values

Libertarians do hold that the right to individual liberty across the board is the prime political value but by no means the prime value. Politics for libertarians can be thoroughly derivative, meant mainly to secure the possibility for a full moral or ethical life. Why be free? Mainly to be able to choose right from wrong, that’s why…

The only thing libertarianism has to say about one’s moral convictions is that they may not include coercing anyone else to do anything. Coercion is using unprovoked force on people, ones who haven’t violated the rights of others. If you believe it is your moral duty or responsibility to rob Peter so as to help out Paul, that will not fly. It is like holding that one has the moral duty to rape or kidnap someone. Some may--and sadly some do--claim that this is what they ought to do but they are confused or vicious. Only vis-a-vis children or invalids could one have such moral duties or responsibilities, never toward intact adults.

Despite what we could call the thinness of libertarian politics--the opposite end of the thickness of any kind of totalitarian regime--it does not follow that libertarians hold “that only freedom matters.” That’s what matters politically but as far as how human beings should conduct themselves in their lives, a plethora of moral requirements will be on the agenda for everyone. Fathers, mothers, friends, colleagues, sports partners, farmers, engineers, doctors, and all others who occupy some such role in life have a list of virtues they ought to practice. Hence even college courses in medical, business, engineering and legal ethics, for example.

On top of it there is just the ethics for living one’s human life, ethics addressed by numerous philosophies and religions and nearly all libertarians embrace one or another of these in their personal, nonpolitical lives.

[italics mine]

That’s from Professor Tibor R. Machan who defends against stereotyped misrepresentations or on spurious (begging the questions) claims that for Libertarianism “only freedom matters” to the "exclusion of all other values".

Video: Ron Paul: A Victory for the Cause of Liberty

Mr. Ron Paul has had a remarkable showing at the New Hampshire Republican primaries. In contrast to other opponents whose surge and fall has been abrupt, Mr. Paul's rise has, so far, been surprisingly consistent.

Here is Mr. Paul's fantastic speech after a strong second place finish (hat tip Bob Wenzel)


Despite mainstream media's blatant blackout in the coverage of Mr. Paul in the recent past, the apparent snowballing of the Ron Paul revolution have been symptomatic of the marginal changes in the way forces of decentralization have been upending traditional media and the way conventional top down politics has functioned. As mainstream personality the former chief economist of the IMF Simon Johnson said, despite his flawed criticism, Ron Paul must be taken seriously.

Yet unknown to most, such phenomenon has partly been facilitated or amplified by the advances of technology.

Importantly, Mr. Paul in the above video underscores on what has been a growing or deepening trend: the emerging receptiveness of the public to the cause of liberty as previously discussed.

Ron Paul's campaign, even if he loses the nomination, will serve as showcase to inspire, not only in the US but around the world, the importance of civil liberties and economic freedom.

Interesting signs of times.

The Libertarian Legacy in the Philippines

A libertarian friend posted this wonderful and stirring write up on our egroup dealing with the largely unseen influence of libertarianism on Philippines** which prompted me to request his permission for publication on this blog.

[Let me note that the article serves a prologue to his forthcoming paper/book.]

For those of you who aren't really interested in history, please remember 21 January 1899. This is a date of triumph for libertarians during what I call the "First Epoch" (1812 - 1903).

Flashback. In 1812, classical liberals in Spain sign the Constitution of Cádiz bringing the ideas of (European) liberty to the Spanish Empire. It is the fourth charter from the Age of Enlightenment, the first three being the US, France, and Poland. The 1812 Spanish charter is the grandfather of almost a third of the planet's laws and a model for other liberal constitutions in Europe, Latin America, the Caribbean, Florida (then under Spanish rule), and Asia (Philippines, Guam, Palau, Marianas are still one country). It remains in force until 1816 when absolutist factions realize that they are losing the empire and take control of the government. From then on, it is a swing between liberals, socialists, and autocrats and this spills out across the Empire.

In 1868, liberals once again have control of the empire and a year later a new liberal charter is written, the Constitución de la Monarquía española de 1869. Carlos María de la Torre y Nava Cerrada is appointed governor-general to the Philippines and together with his wife abolishes censorship and extends to Filipinos the rights of free speech and assembly contained in the new Spanish constitution.

He was our version of Ron Paul and his actions inspired future generations of Filipino liberals (and socialists) including José Rizal. de la Torre reigns until 1871 when the political pendulum of Spain once more swings back towards absolutism. His successor Rafael de Izquierdo y Gutiérrez works to undo all the liberal reforms taking away the political freedoms from the Filipinos, without understanding that liberty cannot just be taste-tested. Once a man has liberty, he cannot not have it. The Cavite Mutiny happens ten months later.

Ten years later, José Rizal decides to pick up where de la Torre left off. After another ten years studying Spanish liberty (and unfortunately European socialism), Rizal organises La Liga Filipina to promote peaceful reform. It is crushed and the liberals and socialists split into two organizations, the Andres Bonifacio's Katipunan (which advocates revolution) and Apolinario Mabini's Cuerpo de Compromisarios (which understands that we are still socially and politically immature and continues faithfully the objectives of the Liga Filipina.

The Cuerpo de Compromisarios are regarded as traitors for sticking to peace in a time of blood-lust. Membership dwindles and they attach themselves as administrators to Aguinaldo's Magdalo faction, knowing that Magdiwang plans genocide. These liberals take their time and wait for an opportunity to save the country from the mess that is the War for Independence.

23 June 1898, the Cuerpo de Compromisarios (now known in the school history books as the Constitutionalists) quietly nudge Aguinaldo to abolish the military dictatorship and plan for civilian rule. By this time, the Cuerpo de Compromisarios is the quiet influence in the administration of the government and acknowledge that it is the Filipino military (particularly the 'showbiz personalities' AKA national heroes) that is the greatest threat to Filipino liberty, much more than Spain and the US combined.

One 21 January 1899, the Malolos Constitution is promulgated. After seven months of wrangling, Felipe Gonzáles Calderón y Roca of the Cuerpo de Compromisarios single-handedly writes this charter. Calderón is pragmatic and understands the idea of "liberty with Filipino characteristics". Rather than imposing some abstract ideal, he takes into account not only what Filipinos want in a government, but what they will accept, and how they understand things. For example, Calderón was a Freemason, and yet he refused to place Masonic ideals into the Constitution and even championed the society's chief enemy, the Catholic Church simply because most Filipinos were Catholic and were quite comfortable with it and Freemasonry was at the time both a fringe group and viewed with suspicion. Practical workability was preferred to strict adherence to ideology.

He also has 86 years of watching how the children of the 1812 Constitution have grown on his side and begins to cherry pick the best features from them all.

From Florida and the American allies, the notion that democracy and republicanism are two different forms of government. The word democracy is not found anywhere in the republican document. The ordinary Filipinos want a gigantic list of rights guaranteed by the government because they know that the government has a tendency to do whatever as long as there is nothing specifically prohibiting them from doing so. Calderón gets this from the Constitución de la Monarquía española de 1869 which de la Torre brought with him.

From the Central American republics Calderón sees many South American presidencies becoming dictatorships in all but name since there is so much power attached to the office and wants to nip that in the bud so he comes up with the idea of a President who is constrained by another agency from unilateral action. The president also has no power to call for martial rule even in emergencies. It didn't work well in the Roman Republic so why would it work here? 1972 Calderón proved right.

Actual executive power lies in the collegial Consejo de Gobierno, taken from the Swiss Bundesrat. The Swiss structure is role model for Filipinos particularly in the South where the Republic of Negros uses it as the model of government.

Most may not be aware of it, but libertarianism has vital links to our present state. It is a heritage that deserves not only recognition, but requires revivalism.

I earlier posted Jose Rizal’s Libertarian Roots here

[Thanks dude]

**partial list of references

Calderón, F. (1907). Mis memorias sobre la revolución filipina: segunda etapa, 1898 á 1901. Manila: Imp. de el Renacimiento

Payne, S. (1973). A History of Spain and Portugal, v. 2. Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press.

Libertarian Cities May Rise at Honduras

This is refreshing news, in a world of governments, here is a chance to prove the viability of Libertarian ideas. Honduras plans to open “free cities”.

From the Economist, (bold emphasis mine) [hat tip Bob Wenzel]

Now, for the first time, libertarians have a real chance to implement their ideas. In addition to a big special development region, the Honduran government intends to approve two smaller zones. And two libertarian-leaning start-ups have already signed a preliminary memorandum of understanding with the Honduran government to develop them.

One firm goes by the name of Future Cities Development Corporation. It was co-founded by Patri Friedman, a grandson of Milton Friedman, a Nobel laureate in economics, and until recently executive director of the Seasteading Institute, a group producing research on how to build ocean-based communes. The other is called Grupo Ciudades Libres (Free Cities Group) and is the brainchild of Michael Strong and Kevin Lyons, two entrepreneurs and libertarian activists.

Both share a purpose: to build “free cities”. Last April all three spoke at a conference organised by Universidad Francisco Marroquín, a libertarian outfit in Guatemala. In September they and Giancarlo Ibárgüen, the university’s president, launched the Free Cities Institute, a think-tank, to foster the cause.

As so often with enthusiasts, divisions within the cause run deep. The two firms hail from different parts of the libertarian spectrum. Mr Friedman is an outspoken critic of democracy. It is “ill-suited for a libertarian state”, he wrote in an essay in 2009—because it is “rigged against libertarians” (they would always lose) and inefficient. Rather than giving its citizens a voice, he argues, they should be free to exit; cities should compete for them by offering the best services.

The second firm’s backers appear to be less radical. A founder of several charter schools, Mr Strong is now the force behind FLOW, a movement that claims to combine libertarian thinking “with love, compassion, social and environmental consciousness”, says its website. He too prefers exit over voice (meaning that he thinks that leaving and joining are better constraints on executive power than the ballot box). But he also believes that democratic consent is needed in certain areas, such as criminal justice. His goal in Honduras is less to implement libertarian ideals than to reduce poverty and to speed up economic development.

Some in the Honduran government have libertarian leanings, which is one reason why the authorities have moved so quickly. But when the master developers for the new zones are selected next year, strong political credentials will not be enough—and may even prove to be a drawback. Mr Friedman is stressing a difference between his political beliefs and his firm. “Ideology makes bad business,” he says, adding that Future Cities Development wants to focus on the needs of the people who live in the city.

Yet the biggest hurdle for the libertarian start-ups may be that the transparency commission, which will oversee the development regions, is unlikely to give them free rein. The “constitutional statute” for the development zones, which the Honduran national congress passed in August, does not leave much wiggle room in key areas, not least when it comes to democracy: ultimately their citizens will vote.

While I applaud the idea, I have some reservations.

“Free cities” will remain subject to the politics of Honduras. At the moment, free cities may thrive where “Some in the Honduran government have libertarian leanings”. But since the nature of politics is one of oscillation, then a change in regime could risk undermining the project.

[As an aside, to learn about “libertarian leaning” officials in Honduras is good news enough. Slowly but surely the classical liberal-libertarian creed seem to be percolating into the world and empowering some to get enough political influence to attempt to shape policies in the direction of the free market. Certainly signs of times]

Besides, success from such experiment will ripple into the world, and perhaps incite revolts and topple governments already encumbered with welfare crisis. This is something that socialists, politicians and their cronies won’t allow to happen, so one can’t discount massive efforts to conduct sabotage operations through various covert means such as infiltration.

In my view, the best “free city” model will emerge spontaneously out of the remnants of the collapsed welfare based nation states sometime soon.

In the meantime, the libertarian battle will remain with spreading freedom through education.

Yet one of the best reforms present day governments can do would be to allow people the freedom to vote with our feet or the freedom to exit.

Doing so will allow for tighter competition among nations. People will gravitate to nations where they would be treated best or where they think the type of governance fits them.

Of course, doing so translates to less tax revenues and less political control. So this brings us back to square one—the natural resistance to change by the beneficiaries of the incumbent political system.

Nevertheless, I wish the “free cities” project all the best. Perhaps I could pay them a visit soon.

Video: Richard Epstein on US Inequality

New York University Law Professor Richard Epstein at the PBS Hour talks about "inequality"...

Watch Does U.S. Economic Inequality Have a Good Side? on PBS. See more from PBS NewsHour.

Here are some noteworthy quotes, (transcript here)

Inequality as drivers for innovation...

What's good about inequality is if, in fact, it turns out that inequality creates an incentive for people to produce and to create wealth, it's a wonderful force for innovation. So let's just go and take somebody like Bill Gates again or any entrepreneur.

Guy earns $50 billion, right? How much consumer welfare has he created by selling products? We can estimate the amount of gains to purchases, because everybody who buys one of his products or one of Steve Jobs' products, in effect, values it more than he receives.

The social gain from inequality to consumers of those goods probably dwarfs the entrepreneurial gain by a factor of 10-1 or 20-1.

Non-neutrality of tax policies.

You can tell the difference between a liberal and conservative by the following test. A liberal believes that changes in taxes have very little effect on production, but huge effects favorable on distribution.

Folks like myself believe it's exactly the opposite. Very high tax rates or even small changes in taxes have very adverse effects on production, and they do very little to produce redistribution, because the money gets dissipated and taken away through the political process in the ways that even the most ardent supporters of redistribution will not like.

Difference between then and now...

First of all, the highest marginal tax rates were also accompanied with tax shelters for everybody in those rates. The second thing is that the monies that were being spent in those days were being spent in much more intelligent ways. That is, if you go and you look at either state or federal budgets and see the amount of money that is spent on what we would call standard infrastructure improvements, and spent well, like the interstate highway program in 1956, that was very high.

The money that is spent today on infrastructure improvements of a good variety is a tiny fraction of what it was then. And the amount of money that is spent essentially on transfer payments has mushroomed enormously.

The fundamental truth is, the tax system is more redistributive than it was before, which will lead to a reduction in efforts, and the regulatory burden on the economy is vastly greater, and we would expect lower levels of growth.

How profits advance overall welfare...

It's the possibility of earning a high rate of return which does it.

And what happens is, if you let people go through voluntary transactions that produce mutual gain, you will increase overall welfare, you will improve the position of those on the bottom. But increased overall welfare will produce greater skews in income, because in a world with genuine opportunities, you will create billionaires.

In a world without it, the people at the bottom will remain where they were, there will be nobody at the top to subsidize them, so everybody will turn out to be worse off.

Is Slovakia’s Classical Liberal Party the Last Stand Against the Euro Bailout?

Today the Slovakian parliament will vote to ratify on the rescue mechanism for the Eurozone.

However, there seems to be a complication—a party of libertarian-classical liberals led by Richard Sulik, leader of Slovakia’s libertarian Freedom and Solidarity (SaS) party—are opposed to its passage.

From Sunday’s Financial Times (bold emphasis)

A hardline libertarian party in one of the newest, smallest and poorest members of Europe’s single currency looks set to throw a spanner in the machinery of expanding the eurozone’s bail-out fund – seen as crucial to restoring market confidence in the bloc.

Despite pressure from across the continent, Richard Sulik, leader of Slovakia’s libertarian Freedom and Solidarity (SaS) party, repeated on Sunday that his party would reject the measure.

A last-minute meeting of the four-party ruling coalition is set for today in an effort to persuade Mr Sulik to back down and support the extension of the European financial stability facility at a crunch vote on Tuesday.

Mr Sulik made clear that his 21 MPs will reject the EFSF expansion if the other coalition parties do not agree to his proposals. Without those votes, the 77-member governing coalition has no chance of a majority in the 150-seat parliament.

Last week SaS offered to support the EFSF, but in return for a Slovakian veto on how its contribution would be spent and an outright refusal to participate in the permanent European stability mechanism, due to replace the EFSF next year….

The quiet-voiced Mr Sulik looks more like a demure bureaucrat rather than what he is – a self-made millionaire and one of the last of central Europe’s true believers in economic liberalism. Free market doctrine was hugely fashionable in the 1990s across the region, when ministers who had gained most of their experience from economic texts found themselves in power. They pursued radical solutions to eliminate the last remnants of state socialism.

“We are a classical liberal party. We are defenders of the Austrian school of economics,” says Juraj Droba, an SaS MP, describing his party’s relationship with the neoliberal school.

If the Slovakian parliament fails to garner the required votes, then whatever gains that we’ve seen in the financial markets lately—mostly based around expectations of political promises—will turn out to be fleeting.

Anyway even if the rescue package gets ratified, the EFSF is no guarantee of success. Bailouts incentivizes moral hazard or reckless behavior, which is why we are seeing this continuing crisis which began to unravel in 2008.

Hopefully Slovakia’s classical liberals will remain steadfast in their quest to champion sound money policies and continue to fight against tyrannical redistributionist policies that favors the political and banking elites. (hat tip Angel Martin, David Boaz).