Libertarian Thought Website

In the Good Old Days…

Ah, the Good Old Days of Libertarian Thought, before capitalism and greedy industrialists ruined everything. This is the wonderful world of the “Little House on the Prairie”. Let’s see how much better things were back then.

* People lived to 40 years old. Who wants to live longer anyway ? I mean, at 40 you’ve about seen it all, right ?
* Medicine was much more down-to-earth. If you had a broken leg, Uncle Willy would pop it back into place, and then he’d tie a board to your leg. You might walk a …

The Government Takes a Vacation

In the town of Lebanon, Maine, where about five thousand people live, they don’t need a government this summer. After the population voted down all town budgets, the Town Office is closed until at least the next vote – August 14th – and most services are privately contracted in the meantime. And most people are content with the situation. Not only that, but they did it before, a decade ago.

That means no more police station, car registrations, marriage licenses, health code violations, tax collectors, animal control officers or rescue teams in Lebanon, for the …

Measuring progress

Progress is a vast, encompassing word. People have varying opinions about it. Some people see it as an unfortunate but necessary process, by which we can finally have a higher standard of life. Some people are anti-progress : anti-technologists, communists, ascetists, and so on.

Because of all these different views, measuring progress is also a muddled endeavour. Everyone claims his own brand of “progress”. For example, environmentalists claim that such measures must incorporate resource preservation. “Civil rights” advocates claim that they must include equality and socialisation of society as a standard. Obviously, we as libertarians think quite …

The Fallacy of Collectives : What Common Good ?

We hear a lot of rhetoric about “society”, “culture”, and “the common good”. We are often asked by politicians and journalists to surrender our freedom for these things. But one rarely stops to ask oneself what it is exactly we are surrendering to. The notion of a society existing as an independent entity is, to say the least, problematic. How may we understand the problem ? And more importantly, how can we understand group dynamics from a rational viewpoint, and how does it apply to politics ?

Aggregates in action

We …

The World Drug War

“We have seen the enemy, and it is us”. Never in modern history has this been so true. Government propaganda has cast not only dangerous criminals and traitors as the enemy, but every individual that lives under its jurisdiction. The wars against poverty, against drugs, against technology, against arms, and everything that the majority deems evil, are numbered without end.

Even in the middle of this war, most people do not oppose it. We permit an attitude of permissiveness about government intrusion to exist, which permits constant attacks against drug users and the subsistance of …