Libertarianism rising in Latin America

Latin America's economic conditions are ripe for radical change — and U.S.-backed libertarian influence networks see an opportunity.

Illustration courtesy The Intercept.

Why Libertarianism Is Rising in Latin America | Foreign Policy | Juan P. Villasmil:

November 16, 2023 - "National populism is increasingly defining right-wing electoral politics in the United States and Europe. But Latin America has chosen a different path — emerging as a bastion of libertarianism on the global stage. "This year alone, 

• a self-described anarcho-capitalist has become the new face of Argentina’s opposition. Javier Milei earned the most votes in the country’s August presidential primaries and then eliminated center-right candidate Patricia Bullrich in the first round of presidential elections on Oct. 22. Milei is set to face off with Economy Minister Sergio Massa, of the governing Peronist movement, in a Nov. 19 runoff.... Massa finished first in the Oct. 22 election, but ... [t]he right-of-center vote was split between Bullrich and Milei, and Bullrich has since endorsed Milei. So has former conservative President Mauricio Macri. Polling is inconsistent, but Milei leads six national polls in a survey of 10 polls assessed by El Observador.... [Milei won - gd]
• On the same day as Argentina’s first-round election, Venezuela’s María Corina Machado and her libertarian party humiliated the traditional opposition in primaries ahead of expected presidential elections next year. Machado, who has been compared to former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, is one of the lone voices in Venezuela’s opposition openly advocating for the privatization of the oil industry.... Her party has also organized seminars celebrating libertarian titan Milton Friedman. Machado herself has shown support for socially progressive causes such as gay marriage, distancing herself from both social conservatism and Keynesian economics.
• "In Uruguay, meanwhile, a libertarian party inspired by Milei officially registered with authorities on Sep. 29, saying it seeks to 'go beyond' right vs. left discourse and aims to respect 'everyone’s individual rights.' 
• In Ecuador, Daniel Noboa — the son of the country’s wealthiest man — recently defeated his socialist rival and is set to continue the pro-business legacy of his predecessor Guillermo Lasso. Noboa’s principles are the most confusing of any of the aforementioned politicians. He defines himself as center-left while citing free enterprise as his priority. In 2021, his predecessor — and now supporter — Lasso earned an endorsement from Ecuador’s Libertarian Movement.

"The political economy of Latin America helps explain why it has become the perfect breeding ground for libertarianism. The rapid growth of the movement, though, should be attributed to a network of libertarian think tanks, leaders, and activists who have long peddled influence — and are starting to see it pay off....

"From 1970 to 1982, Latin America’s total debt levels increased by more than 1,000 percent (from $29 to $327 billion). The lost decade, as scholars now call it, angered millions of Latin Americans... It was then, as popular discontent soared, that the Soviet Union found the perfect conditions to further challenge the United States in its hemisphere, which in turn only reinvigorated U.S. interventionism. Both countries aided Latin American dictatorships that killed hundreds in their respective quests to expand socialist and capitalist economic models. Most notably, the United States backed Chile’s Augusto Pinochet and Argentina’s Jorge Videla while the Soviets supported Cuba’s Fidel Castro and Nicaragua’s Daniel Ortega. The politically motivated decisions of this era accelerated Latin American dysfunction, fostering a reactionary loop of capitalism begetting socialism and vice versa.

"Latin America was then — and remains today—the most unequal region in the world.... [E]ight out of the 20 most economically unequal countries on the planet are located in the region. It is there where socialists found the perfect terrain to spread their ideas, and after they governed, the inflation-ridden and capital-fleeing states they left behind became cannon fodder for the pro-business political class.... But when inequality remained, socialists once again reaped the ideal conditions for their movement to flourish.... Over the past few years, ... Chile and Colombia, which previously resisted the so-called 'Pink Tide,' have elected socialists, while in Argentina and Brazil, conservative presidents failed to win reelection.

"As the left’s grasp over the region increased, libertarians were organizing. Dissatisfied with both socialism and what they viewed as a weak conservative opposition, social media-savvy public intellectuals such as Milei became icons. He was not alone: Less famous members of this cohort include Guatemala’s Gloria Álvarez (who announced that she would run for president even though she didn’t meet the age limit) and Chile’s Axel Kaiser (who founded the libertarian think tank Foundation for Progress)....

"Wealthy Americans, such as the Koch brothers, have played a role funding not only libertarian think tanks in the United States, including the Cato Institute, but have also founded networks with a vast presence in Latin America. The Atlas Network, for instance — which describes itself as a 'think tank that creates think tanks' — has around 500 partners around the world, and its friends include Machado, Colombian presidential-candidate-in-the-making María Fernanda Cabal, and Peruvian Nobel Prize winner Mario Vargas Llosa. In 2018, the network created a Center for Latin America ... and at the time included more than 80 affiliate civil society organizations. Two notable members are Chile’s Fundación Piensa and Argentina’s Libertad y Progreso. The Argentinian think tank also partners with the Cato Institute, the Acton Institute, and the Heritage Foundation.

"Similarly, under the banner of free-market economics, regional alliances have also been strengthened. The Liberal Network for Latin America (RELIAL) was established in 2004. It is the regional organization of Liberal International, which was founded in Oxford, England, in 1947, and has since become the preeminent global liberal organization, with dozens of member political parties throughout the world. RELIAL now includes 42 institutions from 17 Latin American countries, such as research institutes and foundations. Machado’s party is a member.... According to a 2009 Aporrea report by Eva Golinger, the American journalist-turned-Chávez advisor, CEDICE has received direct financial support and strategic advice from the U.S. government since 2001. Golinger, known for using Freedom of Information Act requests to uncover U.S. involvement in Venezuela, has drawn connections between the National Endowment for Democracy, the U.S. Agency for International Development, and CEDICE.... Golinger’s report also points out how the Cato Institute has worked alongside CEDICE, such as via the ElCato-CEDICE University in Caracas, as well as directly with Venezuela’s opposition. Cato granted the Milton Friedman Prize to Venezuelan politician Yon Goicoechea in 2008....

"Russian American writer Ayn Rand has become an ideological sweetheart among Latin America’s right-of-center activists. Groups such as the Ayn Rand Latin America Center have held Ayn Rand conventions in Argentina and Brazil, and Rand’s Atlas Shrugged has flooded Latin American bookshelves following the publication of a translation in 2019. Milei has even called for an “Atlas rebellion.” Venezuelan libertarian activists based in the United States—including Univision’s Linea de Fuego talk show host Franklin Camargo and the Young America’s Foundation’s Daniel Di Martino—showcase the growing influence of those who love Rand’s ideas.... 

"Latin American libertarians have taken organizing seriously. As new elections approach, don’t be surprised by their success."

Read more: https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/11/16/argentina-election-milei-venezuela-machado-libertarianism-economics-us-influence/

Libertarian law student group forming in Canada

Libertarian student group Runnymede Society seeks to shake up Canada’s legal culture - The Globe and Mail - Sean Fine:

September 10, 2019 - "A libertarian student group has developed a growing presence in law schools, where it seeks to shake up a legal culture it views as devoutly uncritical of the Supreme Court and established Canadian legal norms. From a tiny group on a handful of campuses three years ago, the Runnymede Society now has a presence on nearly all of the country’s 18 law campuses....

"Similar to the influential Federalist Society in the United States, which also started as a student group, Runnymede has a core view that judges too often are guided by their own political preferences, rather than applying the law. In its first book of essays, published late last month with the provocative title Attacks on the Rule of Law From Within, and in edgy remarks at its events from leading judges, it has sought to spark a debate on some cherished Canadian principles, such as the Charter of Rights and Freedoms being a living tree that changes with the times.

"'Obviously the Canadian legal community is a small community, and the game is influencing the influencers, says Joanna Baron, a Runnymede founder and now the executive director of its parent group, the Calgary-based Canadian Constitution Foundation....

"Runnymede, which is non-partisan, has 'partnered' with the Federalist Society for some of its events, accepting speakers from the U.S. group, says Runnymede national director Mark Mancini, whose website biography says he has 'a mandate to shift the legal culture in Canada towards liberty.' (Runnymede is the name of the meadow where the Magna Carta was written in the 12th century.)...

"The Runnymede Society says it is not socially conservative and does not have the Federalist Society’s deep attachment to originalism – the idea that the Constitution should be interpreted as its authors intended, rather than according to the living-tree approach widely used in Canadian courts. But it wants students exposed to both views, Ms. Baron says....

"And 'liberty-oriented legal arguments are still seen as outliers.' One example of a liberty-oriented argument comes in the biggest case under way involving the Canadian Constitution Foundation – the eight-year-old Cambie Surgeries case in Vancouver, in which the foundation has retained leading lawyers to argue for a right to private medical care....

"Runnymede Society has a $250,000 annual budget, Mr. Mancini says, and gives charitable-tax receipts through the Canadian Constitution Foundation, which received just more than $5-million in donations in the year ending in March, 2019, from individuals and foundations. The biggest part of those donations was given for the Cambie case, Ms. Baron said....

"With the exception of a grant of about $10,000 from the U.S.-based Atlas Network, which funds groups supporting the rule of law and free markets, it has received no money from foreign sources, Ms. Baron said."

Read more: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-libertarian-student-group-runnymede-society-seeks-to-shake-up-legal/
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CBC ties Bernier to Kochs in 'smear job' interview

Maxime Bernier is furious after being interviewed by the CBC — and he may have a point | The Kingston Whig-Standard - Stuart Thomson:

September 25, 2018 - "After a CBC interview aired Sunday, Maxime Bernier’s Twitter account launched into an angry rant, accusing host Wendy Mesley of a 'smear job' ... arguing that Mesley fabricated a story 'about a libertarian conspiracy funded by US billionaires, and implies with her repeated questions about it that I violate Canadian electoral laws.' Mesley pushed back on the same platform, saying she never made that claim....

"But ... how strong are his connections to the two libertarian American billionaires Charles and David Koch?

"The Koch brothers are two American oil-and-gas billionaires who have become renowned in the last decade for massive donations to free-market think tanks and right-wing politicians. Just like people on the right describe George Soros as the mastermind of all nefarious activity on the left ... the Kochs are the scary billionaires on the right....

"Bernier once worked at the Montreal Economic Institute, one of the nearly 500 think tanks partnered with the Atlas Network, which is heavily funded by the Koch brothers....

"Mesley asked Bernier if he would accept help for his new party from the Koch brothers or the Atlas Network. Bernier explained that Canadian election laws prevent him from accepting money from American billionaires....

"'Later in the interview, Mesley asked Bernier what he would do 'if the Koch brothers call you?' 'I don’t know why you are asking that question,' Bernier responded.

"Twelve of Mesley’s 17 questions or follow-ups are about the Koch brothers or libertarianism.

"It’s hard to make an argument that Bernier’s 13-year-old connection to a think tank that was partly funded by a network of think tanks that is partly funded by the Koch brothers is relevant to the average Canadian....

"CBC producers may have been influenced by an investigation by the left-leaning investigative news site The Intercept, which demonstrated the influence of the Atlas Network on Latin American politics. That movement, which is working in opposition to leftist populism, is distinct from the Trump-style right wing populism that is also sweeping across Europe, which has nationalist and authoritarian overtones. Koch-linked think tanks warily keep an eye on right and left-wing authoritarianism, which they see as a threat to economic freedom....

"Although the CBC interview goes to great lengths to tie Bernier to the Koch brothers ... Bernier’s most controversial policy position — decrying increasing levels of immigration — is at odds with the Kochs.... For Bernier, who has always been stridently libertarian, his immigration position is a diversion from his ideological playbook. It could be a major shift in his thinking or simply political opportunism. And if the CBC gets him back for an interview, that would be a good question to ask."

Read more: https://www.thewhig.com/news/politics/maxime-bernier-is-furious-after-being-interviewed-by-the-cbc-and-he-may-have-a-point/wcm/e52125f5-2a68-4f7a-a135-7f57d76f245a
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Libertarian land reform in South Africa

Restoring Property Rights to Generational Apartheid Victims - Atlas Network:

"Maria Mothupi held the official deed to her land for the first time.... Until she was 99 years old, she had never experienced living in her own home or in a home legally owned by her family, because she was only two years old when the 1913 Land Act banned land ownership by black people in South Africa — a law that continues to have consequences today, despite its repeal more than two decades ago....

"This unlikely happy chapter toward the end of a hard life came about thanks to the Free Market Foundation (FMF) of South Africa’s Khaya Lam (My House) Land Reform project. FMF’s pilot project focused on the Ngwathe municipal area of the Free State province, where FMF Director Eustace Davie estimates that there are about 20,000 houses for which the ownership rights have not been documented and registered.

"The Khaya Lam project has already provided resources to carry out the conversion of some of these properties — out of an estimated 5 to 7 million that are eligible countrywide — to freehold title ownership.... Progress, however, has been slow.... Distrust, ambiguity, and prohibitive costs have all worked together to prevent a more rapid transfer of otherwise available titles. Through bulk processing and other cost reduction measures, FMF has reduced the cost from about $378 to $122 per title deed.

"The major purpose of the Ngwathe pilot project was to determine the most rapid and cost-efficient method of registering the rights of the homeowners and placing them in possession of title deeds that prove their rights and enable them to trade with their property legally, in any way they please.... More than 800 of the Ngwathe houses had either already been converted or were in the process of being converted by the end of October 2015, and by January 2016 FMF had 300 conversions sponsored in Cape Town and another 60 in the town of Grabouw.

"'Our task is to make everyone in the country aware of how the country will change for the better if we can extinguish the effects of one of the greatest crimes of apartheid: depriving black South Africans of property rights for 78 years,' Davie said. 'Calls for information are coming in from all over the country'....

"FMF is one of Atlas Network’s more-than-450 global partners working to restore and strengthen property rights.... Liberty Institute in New Delhi, India ... developed an innovative project that provides villagers with GPS devices and satellite mapping technology in order to prove their farming claims to the government and establish legal title to their own ancestral lands..... [I]in Honduras, where some believe uncertainty in property rights accounts for as much as 4 percent of their prohibitive loan interest rates, Atlas Network partner Fundación Eléutera has worked during the past year to help government leaders transform an ongoing and costly land titling digitalization effort by using blockchain technology....

"By protecting property rights, FMF through its Khaya Lam land titling project and these other projects by Atlas Network partners all strengthen individual liberty and prosperity."

Read more: https://www.atlasnetwork.org/poverty/stories/restoring-property-rights-to-generational-apartheid-victims
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Antony Fisher, libertarian think-tank pioneer

Sphere of Influence: How American Libertarians Are Remaking Latin American Politics - Lee Fang, The Intercept:

August 9, 2017 - "Antony Fisher, a British entrepreneur and the founder of the Atlas Network, pioneered the sale of libertarian economics to the broader public.... Fisher made it his mission to, in the words of an associate, 'litter the world with free-market think tanks.'

"The basis for Fisher’s ideals came from Friedrich Hayek, a forbearer of modern thought on limited government. In 1946, after reading the Reader’s Digest version of Hayek’s seminal book, The Road to Serfdom, Fisher sought a meeting with the Austrian economist in London....

"Fisher was propelled forward by a fateful visit to [Leonard] Read’s newly formed nonprofit, the Foundation for Economic Education [FEE], in New York, which was founded to help sponsor and promote the ideas of free-market intellectuals. There, libertarian economist F.A. Harper, at the time working at FEE, advised Fisher on methods for creating his own nonprofit in the U.K....

"In 1955, Fisher founded the Institute of Economic Affairs [IEA].... The institute was a place to showcase opposition to British society’s growing welfare state, connecting journalists to free-market academics and disseminating critiques on a regular basis through opinion columns, radio interviews, and conferences. Businesses provided the bulk of funding to IEA, as leading British industrial and banking giants — from Barclays to BP — pitched in with annual contributions....

"As the economic slowdown and rising inflation of the 1970s shook the foundations of British society, Tory politicians gravitated more and more to the IEA to provide an alternative vision — and IEA obliged with accessible issue briefs and talking points politicians could use to bring free-market concepts to the public. The Atlas Network proudly proclaims that the IEA 'laid the intellectual groundwork for what later became the Thatcher Revolution of the 1980s.' IEA staff provided speechwriting for Margaret Thatcher; supplemented her campaign with policy papers on topics as varied as labor unions and price controls; and provided a response to her critics in the mass media. In a letter to Fisher after her 1979 victory, Thatcher wrote that the IEA created 'the climate of opinion which made our victory possible'....

"Hayek [had] set up an invitation-only group of free-market economists called the Mont Pelerin Society. One of its members, Ed Feulner, helped found the conservative Washington think tank the Heritage Foundation, drawing on IEA’s work for inspiration. Another Mont Pelerin member, Ed Crane, founded the Cato Institute, the most prominent libertarian think tank....

"In 1981, Fisher, who had settled in San Francisco, set out to develop the Atlas Economic Research Foundation at the urging of Hayek. Fisher had used his success with IEA to court corporate donors to help establish a string of smaller, sometimes regional think tanks in New York, Canada, California, and Texas, among other places. With Atlas, though, the scale for Fisher’s free-market think tank project would now be global: a nonprofit dedicated to continuing his work of establishing libertarian beachheads in every country of the world. 'The more institutes established throughout the world,' Fisher declared, 'the more opportunity to tackle diverse problems begging for resolution.'"

Read more: https://theintercept.com/2017/08/09/atlas-network-alejandro-chafuen-libertarian-think-tank-latin-america-brazil/
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Atlas Network spreads liberty in Latin America

Sphere of Influence: How American Libertarians Are Remaking Latin American Politics - Lee Fang, The Intercept:

August 9, 2017 - "Alejandro Chafuen ... was among friends at the 2017 Latin America Liberty Forum. The international meeting of libertarian activists was sponsored by the Atlas Economic Research Foundation, a leadership-training nonprofit now known simply as the Atlas Network, which Chafuen has led since 1991....

"Chafuen pointed to numerous Atlas-affiliated leaders now in the spotlight: ministers in the new conservative government in Argentina, senators in Bolivia, and the leaders of the Free Brazil Movement that took down Dilma Rousseff’s presidency, where Chafuen’s network sprang to life before his very eyes.... A rightward shift is afoot in Latin American politics [and] the Atlas Network seems ever-present, a common thread nudging political developments along......

"[T]he Atlas Network, which receives funding from Koch foundations, has recreated methods honed in the Western world for developing countries. The network is expansive, currently boasting loose partnerships with 450 think tanks around the world. Atlas says it dispensed over $5 million to its partners in 2016 alone.

"Over the years, Atlas and its affiliated charitable foundations have provided hundreds of grants to conservative and free-market think tanks in Latin America, including the libertarian network that supported the Free Brazil Movement and organizations behind a libertarian push in Argentina, including Fundación Pensar, the Atlas think tank that merged with the political party formed by Mauricio Macri, a businessman who now leads the country. The leaders of the Free Brazil Movement and the founder of Fundación Eléutera in Honduras, an influential post-coup neoliberal think tank, have received financial support from Atlas, and are among the next generation of political operatives that have gone through Atlas’s training seminars.

"The Atlas Network spans dozens of other think tanks across the region.... It gives grants for new think tanks, provides courses on political management and public relations, sponsors networking events around the world, and, in recent years, has devoted special resources to prodding libertarians to influence public opinion through social media and online videos. An annual competition encourages Atlas’s network to produce viral YouTube videos promoting laissez-faire ideas and ridiculing proponents of the welfare state....

"Chafuen intimated that there was more to come: more think tanks, more efforts to overturn leftist governments, and more Atlas devotees and alumni elevated to the highest levels of government the world over. 'The work is ongoing,' he said."

Read more: https://theintercept.com/2017/08/09/atlas-network-alejandro-chafuen-libertarian-think-tank-latin-america-brazil/
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Social Liberty Party goes libertarian in Brazil

Brazil's Rand Paul: Can Libertarianism Fix Crime and Corruption? | Rising Stars | OZY - Anna Jean Kaiser, Daily Dose:

June 28, 2017 - "Fabio Ostermann ... 32, is a key player in Brazil’s growing libertarian movement, which has risen against a backdrop of the country’s collapsing left. He’s led youth groups on college campuses, co-organized some of the country’s largest-ever protests — which may have helped impeach the country’s leftist president, Dilma Rousseff. Now, he’s the president of the Social Liberty Party in his home state, which he is reforming to defend classical libertarian ideals.

"He ran and lost for mayor of his hometown of Porto Alegre, but now has his eye on a lower house seat in 2018 — and on launching a larger campaign in next year’s presidential and congressional elections to occupy the political vacuum created by the left’s disintegration with a rebranded, youthful, American-influenced libertarianism. Ostermann’s brand of libertarianism calls for widespread privatizations, deregulation of the economy and open trade markets. He’s pro marijuana legalization and favors gay marriage....

"Ostermann was trained by the United States’ most influential libertarian organizations — the Cato Institute, the Atlas Network and the Charles Koch Foundation.... He took a course on libertarian theory with Cato and earned a Koch summer fellowship to work at the Atlas Network. Newly evangelized, Ostermann returned to Brazil in 2009, where he co-founded Estudantes pela Liberdade — the Brazilian chapter of Students for Liberty, another U.S.-based libertarian group....

"From that came the Free Brazil Movement. They started rallying hard to impeach Rousseff. On March 15, 2015, Free Brazil and other organizations mobilized 3 million people to protest in 229 cities across the country — the largest protest since the fall of the military dictatorship in 1985....

"If elected, Ostermann’s first policy order of business would be the mass privatization of Brazil’s $70 billion-plus social safety net. He supports voucher systems for private schools and health care. 'I don’t think the government has the competence or capacity to manage these services in a country as chaotic as Brazil,' he says, though he’s happy to let the government spend on sanitation, security and 'basic infrastructure.' (That doesn’t include soccer stadiums, he adds, in sardonic reference to some $25 billion spent on the World Cup and the Olympics in 2014 and 2016 — though that number is frequently contested in Brazil.)

"When talking marijuana legalization, he situates his pro stance in response to Brazil’s bloody drug landscape, where drug crime causes near-constant violence in urban centers. In 2015, Brazil had more than 56,000 homicides, landing it the world’s highest murder rate in terms of absolute numbers, which in large part is due to drug-related crimes. In turn, Brazil also has the world’s fourth-largest prison population. 'To leave drug traffickers and cartels to have a monopoly over marijuana is a crime against society and an ineffective way to spend taxpayer money,' he says.

"Ostermann defends this latter stance despite the fact that it may have lost him his race last year. It’s his obsession with ideological purity that might keep him and his party from finding success."

Read more: http://www.ozy.com/rising-stars/brazils-rand-paul-can-libertarianism-fix-crime-and-corruption/77161
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Chase Foundation gives $800K/year to libertarian policy network

Chasing Free Enterprise: An Investor Gives Steadily for Libertarian Think Tanks — Inside Philanthropy - Ade Adeniji:

June 20, 2017 - "The Los Angeles-based Reason Foundation's motto is 'free minds, free markets.' Among its trustees is Derwood S. Chase, Jr., who steers Chase Investment Counsel Corporation in Charlottesville, Virginia.

"Chase, who graduated from the University of Virginia and holds a Harvard MBA, also sits on the board of the right-leaning Fraser Institute in Vancouver, Canada, which starts to paint a picture of the type of organizations that Chase is interested in.

"His Chase Foundation of Virginia was established in the mid-1990s, and in recent years has given in the neighborhood of $700,000 to $800,000 annually to a number of libertarian or conservative policy organizations across the country and north of the border.

"Besides the Reason Foundation and Fraser Institute, Chase, via his foundation, has also backed Acton Institute in Michigan, a think tank whose mission is 'to promote a free and virtuous society characterized by individual liberty and sustained by religious principles.' The outfit is named after English Historian Lord John Acton, behind the well-known dictum 'power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.'

"Chase has also supported places like the Atlas Network, Buckeye Institute for Public Policy in Ohio, Cascade Policy Institute in Portland, Cato Institute, Competitive Enterprise Institute, Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), Goodman Institute for Public Policy in Miami, Institute for Energy Research, Manhattan Institute for Public Policy, and Montreal Economic Institute....

"As we've reported in the past, such giving has allowed the right to scale up a comprehensive policy infrastructure to influence policy at all levels of government."

Read more: https://www.insidephilanthropy.com/home/2017/6/20/derwood-chase-philanthropy-think-tanks
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2000 attend International S4L conference in DC

Libertarians will tough it out for 2016 election | Newsday - Cathy Young:

March 1, 2016 - "About 2,000 people, most of them young, gathered at a Washington, D.C., hotel over the weekend for a conference where Bernie Sanders fans rubbed elbows with Ted Cruz supporters — even though the main political choice from the current field of candidates was 'none of the above.'

"For International Students for Liberty, a libertarian group founded in 2008 and the host of the conference, the main issue was promoting freedom — a value that, despite much lip service, neither major party honors in practice. (Disclosure: I am affiliated with two conference sponsors, Reason magazine and the Cato Institute.)....

"Libertarianism in pure form — which rejects social welfare programs, government regulations, foreign involvements, and restrictions on personal behavior including hard drug use — is not a popular philosophy. Luckily, libertarian groups tend to have a big-tent approach that focuses on expanding personal, political, and economic freedoms, not on ideological purity....

"The panel on “Why the World Is Actually Getting More Libertarian,” featuring Reason editors Matt Welch and Nick Gillespie and syndicated columnist George F. Will, often sounded like a refutation of its title: Gillespie asked whether the 'libertarian moment' was over and whether we should be concerned about 'the authoritarian moment'..... Will agreed, observing that 'the current front-runner in the party that has a libertarian wing' — Donald Trump — wants to daily deport thousands of immigrants here illegally and to make it easier to sue journalists for libel.

"On the optimistic side, Welch pointed out that a record 27 percent of Americans in a recent poll could be classified as at least mild libertarians (defined by agreeing that government should do less to regulate the economy and should not promote traditional morality). Yet Will noted that Americans often 'talk the Jeffersonian talk' while voting for politicians who promise that the state will take care of them....

"As the Cato Institute’s Doug Bandow argued on another panel, 'Government has a tendency to grow and take over everything.' Even those who agree on the need for a social safety net and for some governmental restrictions in the economic and personal realms can agree that, in Bandow’s words, 'We should err on the side of liberty' against 'the expansive state'...

"The solution to anti-freedom trends, most agreed, is conversation and education. In an inspiring session titled 'Why We Fight,' Tom Palmer, who has spent decades advocating for freedom around the world as an activist with the libertarian Atlas Network, noted that this fight is “a long-term effort,” in everything from the fall of communism to the legalization of marijuana. "

"As for the depressing election? At the conference’s keynote dinner, Students for Liberty president Alexander McCorbin reminded the gathering that the good thing about this election cycle is that it’s a cycle. It will pass; the call for liberty will endure."

Read more: http://www.newsday.com/opinion/columnists/cathy-young/libertarians-will-tough-it-out-for-2016-election-1.11527842
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