Reflecting on My 1,000th Blog Entry and Why I'm Still a Libertarian, Pandemic or Not

I can't believe it, but this is the 1,000th piece I have written for Libertarian Jew. Assuming that I spent an average of two hours on each blog entry, that would mean that I have spent over an entire month of my life blogging. I reflect back on why I started writing this blog in the first place. During my young adult years, I was staunchly conservative. What drew me close to conservatism in college were the ideas of individual freedom, limited government, lower taxes, personal responsibility, and fiscal discipline from the government. I found camaraderie amongst my conservative friends during college (although a lot of them turned out to be libertarian like me). I developed a love and appreciation for what conservatism was supposed to stand for.

That started to change in 2009 when I started to re-examine some of my firmly-held conservative beliefs. The first one was my stance on same-sex marriage. Certainly at that time, the standard right-wing belief was to be against same-sex marriage. I held that belief mostly because of influence from family and friends. I asked myself if conservatives believe in individual freedom, how can one deny a union between consenting adults or right to contract? It didn't make sense to me anymore.

Afterwards, I questioned my beliefs in criminalizing marijuana and restricting immigration to the U.S. I also scrutinized my views about the wars that the U.S. was fighting. Not only did those wars drive up the federal budget deficit, but the government limited individual freedom with the Patriot Act and the creation of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). During this stage of my life, I was reading a lot of Milton Friedman, Frederich Hayek, and Frédéric Bastiat, which is a reading list that heavily points towards classical liberalism. I realized that conservatism was not an accurate reflection of my values. Individual freedom, limited government, lower taxes, and personal responsibility are ideas much more consistently and better represented in libertarianism.

Once I abandoned conservatism for libertarianism, I started writing this blog. My earlier pieces were more political commentary than anything else, although I did occasionally blog on my recently founded religion of Judaism as a way to explore various practices and rituals of the Jewish religion. During my graduate school program in public policy, my blog shifted from commentary to analysis. It became a place to scrutinize and analyze my own views. Libertarian Jew was a way for me to develop and ultimately solidify why I am a libertarian. It also provided me a modest way to educate others about libertarianism, which is why I thank you, the reader, for taking the time over the years (or however long you have read my blog) for being part of my readership.

This leads to a question I have been giving a lot of thought lately. Why be libertarian at all? What do I find so appealing about libertarianism that I remain libertarian over a decade later? There are multiple types of libertarianism, and I am not going to speak for all libertarians. That being said, I would like to divide my personal reasoning for being libertarian into two categories: a values-based argument and an outcomes-based argument revolving around consequential libertarianism.

My Values-Based Reasons for Being Libertarian

1. I love liberty. "Life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness" is a good way to sum it up. On a personal level, I feel that as long as I am not harming anyone, I should have the freedom to spend my money how I want, practice whatever religion I would like, marry whatever consenting adult I choose, associate with whomever I would like, and consume what I want. That is the premise behind the non-aggression axiom. I feel that way not only on an individual level, but a societal one. Without free will, ethics become meaningless. We are responsible for our choices, both good and bad. Plus, the freedom to pursue your goals and live life on your own terms is exhilarating. 
2. Respect of other individuals, autonomy, and personal responsibility. Libertarians view the individual as the basic unit of social analysis. Libertarianism doesn't view things in terms of communal or group rights, but rather individual rights. It doesn't matter if you are straight, gay, bisexual, or have another sexual orientation. I don't care if you are Democrat, Republican, or independent. You could be Jewish, Christian, Muslim, atheist, agnostic, or identify with another religion. The point is that regardless of who you are, libertarianism cares about the dignity of the individual. That entails both individual rights and responsibilities. My rights end where your rights begin, and you take ownership of your decisions, good or bad. Being able to extend this respect and dignity beyond white males in power, whether we are talking about women, African-Americans, those of minority religions or sexual orientations, or other disenfranchised individuals, has been one of the greatest libertarian triumphs in history. 
3. Limited government and rule of law. Libertarianism is not hedonism. Per the non-agression axiom, individuals are able to pursue their interests and live their lives as long as they respect others. To protect an individual's rights, individuals formed governments. At the same time, government can be a dangerous institution because of the power it wields.  I, along with most libertarians, believe in limited government. This means that I believe that there are certain roles that the government ought to play. However, too much concentrated government power is the best way to strip one of individual rights. History books are replete of examples of where government is the worst abuser of individual rights, whether they be Mao Zedong, Adolph Hitler, Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand, Benito Mussolini, Fidel Castro, or Augusto Pinochet. As Lord Acton said, "Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely."
4. Tolerance and diversity. These are expected outcomes of a pluralistic, multicultural society that respects individual rights. Libertarianism demands that we mind our own business, even when we would rather not. It imposes a minimalist level of morality of "do not do unto others as you would want done unto you," also known as the non-agression axiom. It is about establishing a basic framework of rules so that people can pursue their lives as freely as possible. Tolerance is not acceptance. Some might live a religious lifestyle while others live a secular one. Some will be wicked, others virtuous. Most people are somewhere in between virtuous and righteous I don't have to agree with your beliefs or life choices to get along with you. As long as you live in peace and respect another's individuality and rights, that's what counts. As a side note, libertarianism has provided me with the openness to get along with people who are different than me, and as a result, makes for a richer life experience.  

My Outcomes-Based Reasons for Being Libertarian
As much I hold to the aforementioned values, I find they are an incomplete description as to why I am libertarian. I recognize that people can have wildly divergent views, values, and opinions. I also recognize that values are more subjective, although the more minimalist values of respect for others (e.g., don't murder, don't steal) are more universal in nature. I respect freedom, but others might not. That is why I ultimately define myself as a consequentialist libertarian. Essentially, I hold to consequential libertarianism because I find that limited government and a liberalized, market-based economy work best.

Obviously, what constitutes the "best" or metrics involved varies from topic to topic. If you are looking for topic-specific examples, my blog provides a myriad of examples. Both markets and governments have failures. A market-based system and a government-based system both have human actors, which makes the process definitionally fallible. However, when accounting for each and comparing market failures to government failures, I heavily favor markets over governments because in the vast majority of instances, a market-based policy outperforms a government-based one. As Nobel Prize-winning economist Gary Becker points out, "On the whole, government failure is far more pervasive, damaging, and less self-correcting, than is market failure."

I advocate for capitalism because it works. One could counter me by saying that if communism worked well, I could become an advocate for communism. Holding a consequentialist view of public policy, that is theoretically possible. Here's the catch with that criticism: Anything can work in theory because you could manipulate the hypotheticals to say whatever you like. In practice, communism failed, plain and simple. Communism has not been around for that long, and yet it caused so much misery and the deaths of millions. Socialism has also failed, but the magnitude of the failure is not that of communism.

As I explain in my debunking about myths on capitalism, allowing for freer trade, greater foreign investment, and market liberalization has given us a quality of life that no government policy has. There is no political or economic system that can hold a candle to the amount of poverty alleviation or improvements in life that a market-based system has provided. On the other hand, government policy and regulation is by and large stifling; it does more harm than good.

The harm of government regulation has proven itself to be especially true during the COVID-19 pandemic. Earlier this month, I came up with a list of 15 major government regulations that made us more vulnerable as a result. If it were not for these regulations, we would have had a better handle on COVID-19, and more lives would have been spared. Much like they did in the Great Recession, lavish unemployment benefits are most likely going to create prolonged unemployment. Trump's ban on green cards is going to make economic recovery more difficult. This only covers the topics I have recently blogged about. I'm sure that by enacting rushed legislation in a middle of a crisis, the other provisions of COVID-related legislation are going to have unintended consequences that are going to reverberate well beyond the pandemic.

When I say "let the private sector" fight the pandemic, what do I mean? The private sector is not some abstract or amorphous blob. It is a network of private actors (e.g., individuals, businesses) using spontaneous order to fix problems. It is doctors, nurses, and other healthcare professionals treating patients. It is grocery store staff working diligently to make sure that our store shelves are stacked with items we need. It is the researchers who are going at it day and night to find treatments and a possible vaccine. It is the truck drivers working overtime to transport goods. It is the manufacturers who, in spite of FDA regulations, will manufacture ventilators, masks, and hospital beds to deal with the influx in demand for medical goods and services. While the government has a role to play in mitigating the spread of COVID-19, its main role should be to get out of the way and remove the regulations that have made our response to fighting the pandemic all the more difficult.

All of this goes to why I remain libertarian. Not only is libertarianism a reflection of my values, but it is what brings the greatest amount of utility (life satisfaction) to people. Capitalism, justifiable skepticism of government intervention, deregulation, and respect for individuals are good values and mores to hold to, regardless of whether we are in a pandemic or not.