Socialist magazine warns Poilievre is a libertarian

American socialist magazine Jacobin has warned its readers that Pierre Poilievre is not just another right-wing populist, but has a "radical libertarian agenda". 

Pierre Poilievre Wants Radical Austerity for Canada | Jacobin | Ryan Kelpin:

February 1, 2025 - "Much has been written about [Pierre] Poilievre in recent years, often framing him as the champion of the Freedom Convoy, anti-lockdown politics during the height of COVID-19, or a right-wing populist fighting against woke tyranny. While these characterizations highlight key elements of his political strategy, they risk oversimplifying his ideology. Poilievre is not merely a populist reactionary; he is a deeply ideological figure with a long-standing engagement with ... particularly the ideas of Milton Friedman. His contemporary anti-state politics are grounded in this intellectual lineage.... Understanding Poilievre’s ideological foundations is critical to grasping the broader implications of his rise — and the threat it poses.

"Poilievre has often expressed admiration for Friedrich Hayek and the Virginia School of public choice founders James M. Buchanan and Gordon Tullock. However, his most consistent and fervent ideological inspiration comes from Friedman’s radical libertarian critiques of the state. This is evident in Poilievre’s decades-long proselytizing in the name of two of Friedman’s most significant books: 1962’s Capitalism and Freedom and 1963’s A Monetary History of the United States, 1867–1960. During his formative years in Calgary, he became an avid reader of Capitalism and Freedom, shaping his worldview around Friedman’s ideas about voluntary exchange versus coercion, economic freedom versus the bureaucracy of the welfare state, and the role of inflation and monetary theory. These ideas informed many of his university essays, including his 1999 scholarship-winning 'Building Canada Through Freedom' essay.... 

"Poilievre himself traced this ideological lineage in [a] recent interview with Jordan Peterson, stating, 'I’ve been saying precisely the same thing the entire time . . . building Canada on freedom. The entire piece was on making government small and maximizing personal freedom'.... For Friedman and Poilievre, voluntary exchange occurs in a social and power vacuum. This notion presents a romanticized view of private economy in which real-world consequences and inequality do not exist. Poilievre has expressed this extreme interpretation of voluntary exchange in stark terms, stating, 'Everything the government does, even the good things, is done by the coercive force of taxation, a gun to the head.' He has fleshed this out even further in the House of Commons:

Every exchange in a free market economy, literally every single one, without exception, is based on voluntary exchange. . . . By contrast, every single transaction done by government is done by force, even legitimate, desirable transactions. . . . However, surely, we should also agree that the use of that force should be limited to cases where it is absolutely unavoidable and necessary. We should not expand government into areas people can decide upon and act out on their own volition. The government continually gets involved in areas that are easily done through voluntary exchange. In fact, it replaces free choice with force very often....

"Poilievre routinely draws on not just Friedman but also Buchanan, whose public choice theory influenced Friedman’s later work, including Free to Choose. Poilievre’s rhetoric reflects their shared disdain for the welfare state, which he once referred to in a National Post op-ed as 'truly horrific,' claiming: '[it] ... engenders a self-serving bureaucracy whose survival depends on a growing clientele of poor welfare recipients. To end poverty, this bureaucracy would have to put itself out of business, something it will never do'....

"Poilievre has routinely championed several key neoliberal policy ideas. Dating to his time in the right-wing populist Reform Party, he has supported the idea of balanced budget legislation — or at least the principle of cutting $1 from government spending for every $1 of new expenditure. This approach aims to depoliticize spending by limiting the ability of 'special interests' to extract benefits from self-serving politicians and a growth-focused bureaucracy. Poilievre has also endorsed Friedman’s specific neoliberal proposals, such as a negative income tax system — where people earning below a certain threshold would receive payments to bring them up to that minimum income level — as well as universal basic income (UBI).... UBI, as Poilievre understands it ... would come with a catch: 'Governments would pay for Friedman’s basic income by eliminating all other programs, including housing, drug plans, childcare and the bureaucrats who administer it all.' Poilievre has criticized attempts to use UBI as a distributive tool....

"Poilievre has become most notable for his focus on the inflationary crisis of the 2020s. But there has been little examination of the intellectual roots of his inflation rhetoric — it is a mistake to understand it as simply part of his constructed populist persona. When asked by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation what book on economics he would recommend, he held up one book to the camera: his well-worn and bookmarked copy of Friedman and Anna Schwartz’s A Monetary History of the United States, saying that it 'taught [him] was that money supply was the driver of inflation.' This tome has become a cornerstone of his political philosophy, referenced frequently in interviews, his Friedman-inspired Free to Choose–esque YouTube video series Debtonation [see video] and even on the House floor....

"Poilievre’s views on inflation reproduce Friedman’s monetarism and his argument that the overproduction of money supply drives up purchasing costs and government deficits, characterizing inflation as an invisible, coercive tax created by centralized government. As he describes it, 'You could not design a more damaging and unjust tax than the inflation tax.' In his Debtonation series, Poilievre takes Friedman’s ideas to their extremes, making questionable connections between overproduction of the money supply, inflation, government debt, and even the suicide rate. He doesn’t simply reproduce Friedman’s ideas; he amplifies them to appeal to contemporary political audiences. Poilievre clearly views himself not just as a proponent of Friedman but as his Canadian ideological heir apparent....

"Poilievre’s view of the state and capitalism represents a more radical libertarian agenda than that of any previous potential Canadian prime minister. He is an idealogue, a true believer, but also a pragmatist and convincing speaker. If he has his way in 2025, Canada will continue deepening its commitment to neoliberalism, but with a Friedmanite flavor not yet seen in the country."

Read more: https://jacobin.com/2025/02/poilievre-friedman-neoliberalism-canada-converatives

Debtonation (Episode 1) | Pierre Poilievre | December 27, 2025:

FEE on "the 'Libertarian-Minded' Pierre Poilievre"

The world's oldest libertarian thinktank, the Foundation for Economic Education, acknowledges Pierre Poilievre's 'libertarian streak' but notes he will be limited in how far he can change Canada's governance.

Taymaz Valley, Poilievre at Iran protest, October 2022. CC BY 2.0, Wikimedia Commons.

Meet Canada’s Next Prime Minister — the ‘Libertarian-Minded’ Pierre Poilievre | Foundation for Economic Education | Patrick Carroll:

February 5, 2025 - "Born in Calgary, Alberta, in 1979, Pierre Poilievre has been involved in politics nearly his entire life. After earning a BA in international relations at the University of Calgary, he went on to become a Conservative Member of Parliament (MP) in 2004 at the age of 25. He has worked as an MP ever since, slowly climbing the Party ladder, becoming leader in 2022. 

"Poilievre’s political philosophy is essentially conservative, but what makes him unusual is that he also has a considerable libertarian streak — a rare quality in the upper echelons of Canadian politics. In his teens he read Milton Friedman’s Capitalism and Freedom, a book he later cited as 'seminal' to his political thinking. As a second-year undergraduate in 1999, he was a finalist in the national As Prime Minister, I Would… essay contest, winning $10,000 and a four-month internship at Magna International. His entry, 'Building Canada Through Freedom,' spells out his principles — and his ambitions — in no uncertain terms:

Therefore, as Prime Minister, what I would do to improve living standards is not nearly as important as what I would not do. As Prime Minister, I would relinquish to citizens as much of my social, political, and economic control as possible, leaving people to cultivate their own personal prosperity and to govern their own affairs as directly as possible.

"His focus on liberty has continued throughout his career. He described himself as 'libertarian-minded' to media outlets when he first became an MP in 2004 and is regularly criticized by those on the left for viewing free markets favorably and government intervention with suspicion.... 

"Poilievre’s pro-freedom credentials were further underscored when he was interviewed on Robert Breedlove’s podcast in 2022.... Poilievre told Breedlove he was a regular listener and fan of the show. This in itself is revealing: Breedlove is a Bitcoiner, a self-described 'Freedom Maximalist,' and an influential figure in the modern liberty movement. Poilievre went on to reference 'one of my favorite economists, Thomas Sowell,' and specifically cited Sowell’s famous 'first lesson' quote: 'The first lesson of economics is scarcity: There is never enough of anything to satisfy all those who want it. The first lesson of politics is to disregard the first lesson of economics'....

"Poilievre is tapping into the classical liberal side of the Canadian identity. He has been especially focused on his plan to 'Axe the Carbon Tax,' referring to a divisive carbon tax-and-rebate program introduced by the Liberals in 2019 as part of their climate agenda. But while he will likely succeed in rolling back the carbon tax, there is reason to doubt that he will be able to make any sizable pro-freedom changes.

"Poilievre may be libertarian-minded at heart, but most Canadian voters are not. Thus, if he wants to get elected, he needs to present Canadians with a considerably moderated version of his ideas, and that’s exactly what he’s been doing. In his mind, presumably, it’s better to get elected on a moderate platform than campaign on what he actually believes and lose in a landslide. Unfortunately, even if this strategy works and he becomes Prime Minister, he will be severely limited in his ability to make any meaningful changes, because he will almost certainly be ousted from power should he ever try to do so.

"There’s an interesting lesson here about power. While it’s easy to think that the person in charge can do whatever they want within constitutional limits, the fact is that they are always beholden to the will of the majority. And as Ludwig von Mises argued — echoing Étienne de la Boétie and David Hume — this isn’t just true of democracies; it’s true of all systems of government. Political 'might' always rests, not on force, but on opinion. If a ruler won’t exercise power in a way that comports with public opinion, they are quickly replaced by someone who will — violently, if necessary.... 

"Poilievre may want to move Canada in a free market, classical liberal direction. He may have great intentions for removing government regulations in both the economic and social spheres. But the problem is that Canadian public opinion is still thoroughly statist."

Read more: https://fee.org/articles/meet-canadas-next-prime-minister-the-libertarian-minded-pierre-poilievre/

Pierre Poilievre: A Political Life (w/ Andrew Lawton, True North) | Conversations That Matter | August 23, 2024:

Corporate Canada lost Faustian climate bargain

With the passage of Bill C-59, which outlaws "greenwashing" claims, Corporate Canada has lost its climate bargain with the Trudeau government, writes Bruce Pardy.

Corporate Canada betrayed capitalism. Now it has been betrayed | National Post | Bruce Pardy:

July 5, 2024 - "After years of colluding with climate hysteria and betraying capitalism, Canadian companies have been dumped at the curb. On June 20, Bill C-59 received Royal Assent. It’s a hodgepodge bill of humdrum provisions, hundreds of pages long.... But buried in the stack are two sections that prohibit 'greenwashing.' Businesses cannot claim that their products or practices help to protect against climate change or provide other environmental benefits unless they can prove the claims are true. The provisions amend the Competition Act and make climate and other environmental claims subject to the same regulatory regime as false advertising.

"Companies and industry associations have taken down climate pledges and environmental commitments from their websites and social media. 'Ottawa’s ban on "greenwashing" has already put a chill on climate disclosure targets,' objected Deborah Yedlin, president and CEO of the Calgary Chamber of Commerce, in a commentary for CTV. It will affect the entire economy, she wrote, add bureaucratic burden, halt investment, and weigh on Canada’s sagging productivity. Corporate Canada has lost its climate bargain.

"Over the course of decades, Western countries, but nowhere more than Canada, have undergone a cultural revolution. Accelerating climate activism, aggressive social justice ideology and managerial government have changed the landscape. Business elites, instead of defending capitalism, competition, open markets, the rule of law and other values of Western civilization, decided to switch rather than fight. To protect their own prosperity and influence, corporate leaders learned to speak the language and adopt the norms of progressive collectivism. They became cheerleaders for the new regime. Many came to believe in it themselves....

"The social responsibility of business became not merely to increase its profits, as Milton Friedman famously insisted, but to serve as social welfare agencies. They were not just to obey the law and deliver products and services that people wanted to buy, but to pursue social and environmental causes. They would serve the interests not just of their shareholders but their 'stakeholders,' as 'Environmental, Social and Governance' (ESG) models demanded. In their marketing and rhetoric, they embraced climate action, corporate social responsibility, social licence, 'equity, diversity and inclusion' (EDI) and social justice. They promoted the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which are a blueprint for socialist managerialism. The Business Council of Canada endorsed carbon pricing and Canada’s climate plans. Major oil companies promoted net zero and repeated the kinds of claims that governments themselves made: that climate action in Canada helps to prevent the climate from changing.

"Such claims are patently false. Even if you believe in anthropogenic climate change, if your country doesn’t contribute much to the problem, cutting its contribution isn’t a solution. Bringing Canadian carbon emissions to zero would make no measurable difference to anything. Countries that together produce far and away most of the emissions on Earth have no intention of changing their paths.... 

"Canada excels at climate boondoggles. Carbon taxes are just more money for government coffers that do not necessarily reduce emissions, if that actually mattered. Wind and solar power, a lucrative source of government largesse that some businesses have adeptly saddled up to, don’t replace fossil fuels. Carbon capture and storage, perhaps the most pathetic pretend of them all, is a breathtakingly expensive symbolic gesture that cannot be applied at scale. The Paris accord and its net zero aspirations are climate fairy tales. Canadian business leaders would never say any of this. That was the deal: pay homage to the climate gods, and you can be on the team. But now they can’t.

"Progressive statism has never been about the climate, or transgenderism, or whatever the cause du jour. The target has always been Western values and principles. Free enterprise is anathema to its aspirations, and as it turns out, so is prosperity itself. Canadian companies have betrayed the economic principles of their own society.... The Canadian business community still does not understand the point of the revolution. There can be no survivors."

Read more: https://nationalpost.com/opinion/corporate-canada-betrayed-capitalism-now-it-has-been-betrayed

Four academic doctrines destroying Canada, Bruce Pardy, chapter author for The 1867 Project | Aristotle Foundation | June 13, 2023:

Milei gov't balances budget in first month

Javier Milei's administration achieved a balanced budget in January, its first month of office, the first time the government of Argentina has had a positive balance in over a decade..

Argentina sees first monthly budget surplus in 12 years | Straits Times | AFP:

February 18, 2024 - "The Argentine government in January saw its first monthly budget surplus in nearly 12 years, as new President Javier Milei continues to push for strong spending cuts, the Economy Ministry announced. January was the first full month in office for Mr Milei, a far-right [sic] libertarian who took office in December, and it ended with a positive balance for public-sector finances of US$589 million (S$800 million) at the official exchange rate, the government said late on Feb 16. The figure includes payment of interest on the public debt....

"Milei has been negotiating with the International Monetary Fund over its US$44 billion loan and has vowed to achieve balance in public finances in 2024 [see video]. 'The zero deficit is not negotiable,' Economy Minister Luis Caputo said on Feb 16 on X, formerly Twitter....

"Following a 50 per cent devaluation of the peso, a lifting of price controls and strong rate increases, Argentina saw an inflation rate for January of 20.6 per cent, with a 12-month rate of 254.2 per cent. The year 2023, the final year of the centre-left government of Mr Alberto Fernandez, ended with a 211 per cent inflation rate. With poverty affecting 45 per cent of the population, Mr Milei has predicted an economic rebound within three months."

Read more: https://www.straitstimes.com/world/argentina-sees-first-monthly-budget-surplus-in-12-years

Javier Milei's Budget Miracle: Libertarian Principles in Action! | GoldSilver | February 27, 2024:

Javier Milei’s Argentine success is paving the way for freedom and prosperity across Latin America | New York Post | Axel Kaiser:

February 14, 2024 - "Shortly after coming to power, Milei dramatically narrowed the gap between the official and the market exchange rates by devaluing the peso 54%. He went on to shut down ministries and public offices and lay off swarms of useless bureaucrats. He also passed an emergency decree with 300 measures to deregulate the economy. Among them are the privatization of all public companies, the elimination of rent controls, an open-sky policy, cutting subsidies to different sectors of the economy, ending import restrictions, deregulating satellite services and many others....

"During the first month of Milei’s administration, public spending decreased by 30% in real terms compared with the previous year and the previous month. In other words, the government is already spending almost a third less than in the same period last year when adjusted for inflation. Needless to say, this is only the beginning of the 6.1 points of gross domestic product worth of deficit spending Milei has to adjust to restore a balanced budget. Most of this adjustment (3.2% of GDP) will affect the public sector by cutting spending, while a temporary taxation increase (2.9% of GDP) will do the rest.

"Despite the harsh measures adopted so far and the challenges some of them face in the courts and congress, Milei’s popularity has stayed at around 60%.... [T]he demonstrations the infamous Argentinian unions orchestrated have not been able to harm the government. If anything, they have contributed to increased public support for Milei’s efforts to fight what he calls the 'caste' of 'parasites' that have exploited Argentinians for so long.

"If he is successful in getting rid of the 'caste\” so he can turn Argentina around, the ideological and political impact throughout the region will be enormous — even more so because he and other free-market advocates have already achieved a lasting change in the mentality and values of millions of young people by replacing collectivist and statist ideas with notions of individual responsibility and freedom."

Read more: https://nypost.com/2024/02/14/opinion/javier-mileis-argentine-success-is-paving-the-way-for-freedom-and-prosperity-across-latin-america/

Is the free market just a Big Myth?

Is the free market just a myth dreamed up and propagandized by big business and libertarian economists?

The Big Myth Is Full of Recycled Anti-Capitalist Cheap Shots | Reason - Phillip W. Magness:

February 25, 2023 - "New academic 'histories' now appear on a near-monthly basis, each blaming a variety of social ills on the conspiratorial machinations around a single idea: the free market. Almost everything in this genre follows the same formula. When the American electorate fails to embrace the political priorities of an Ivy League humanities department, these disheartened authors cast about for a blameworthy culprit. They settle on 'market fundamentalism' or 'neoliberalism.' The explanation then takes a paranoid turn, declaring the targeted theories a 'manufactured myth' arising from the 'inventions' of 20th century business interests.... All eventually settle on a mundane conspiracy of business interests and libertarian economists, who allegedly derailed America from its progressive path by convincing people that markets work better than government at solving problems.

"At some 550 pages, The Big Myth: How American Business Taught Us To Loathe Government and Love the Free Market is among the most loquacious entrants into this crowded literature. Harvard University's Naomi Oreskes and California Institute of Technology historian Erik Conway lay out their conspiracy theory with formulaic precision, but their book is atypical in one significant way. While most of the other works in the anti-neoliberalism genre manage at least to excavate some interesting archival findings about libertarian economists (before badly misinterpreting them), this book is remarkably light on original content.... A reader ... will be left wondering why this same story needed yet another repackaged recitation....

"The Big Myth is structured in sequential vignettes about various themes and figures such as Ludwig von Mises, Leonard Read, Friedrich Hayek, Rose Wilder Lane, and Milton Friedman, all of whom are portrayed as either willing propagandists for big business or hapless dupes of the same. The authors expend almost no effort on understanding the arguments of the thinkers they set out to debunk.

"A revealing example appears in the book's treatment of Leonard Read's 1958 essay "I, Pencil." Read's story is a fairly straightforward allegory for Adam Smith's famous concept of the "invisible hand," showing how complex social coordination arises from routine economic exchanges and signals in the absence of a centralized design. To Oreskes and Conway, however, the metaphor is literally the hand of God working from above to ensure the market system provides. As they put it, 'God made the marketplace and the marketplace made the pencil; ergo God made the pencil'....

"Interpretive peculiarities continue in their treatment of Ludwig von Mises' Socialism. After initially acknowledging that the book was written in German in 1922, Oreskes and Conway soon drift into anachronism by insinuating that it was intended as a critique of President Franklin Roosevelt. ("Mises's use of the term socialism was misleading," they contend, "because no credible American political leader in 1944 was advocating central planning.") They augment this ascription of prophecy with a sleight of hand, replacing the revolutionary Marxists of Mises' original commentaries with the comparatively benign Norman Thomas as their own preferred avatar of socialism. Like other texts in the anti-neoliberalism genre, The Big Myth removes 20th century free market authors from their historical context by hand-waving the Soviet Union out of existence and proceeding as if socialism means nothing more than a narrow swath of modern Scandinavian social democracies.

"Such errors are frequently paired with another recurring theme: the authors' fundamental inability to approach their opponents with anything remotely resembling intellectual charity. The book is filled with gratuitous swipes, many of them comically ahistorical. This usually means either a false accusation of racism or a disparaging attack on a target's qualifications. Mises receives both types of abuse. After dubbing him an 'absolutist who sympathized with fascism,' Oreskes and Conway launch into an extended attack on the Austrian economist's migration to the United States in 1940. In their telling, Mises ... struggled to find a respectable academic job until 'dark money' funders created a succession of positions for him at New York University..... Meanwhile, Mises' academic work in the United States gained higher honors than either Oreskes or Conway has ever achieved.... 

"They casually brand Milton Friedman a 'racist extremist' and defender of segregation, but not for any actual defense of segregation. The authors simply disagree with his argument that markets were more effective tools for bringing about integration than government edicts.....

"They accuse Friedrich Hayek of eschewing 'the essence of scholarship,' which 'is to look past the immediacies of time and place,' while themselves constantly processing history through their modern partisan commitments. They accuse free market economists of venturing outside their scientific expertise while offering their own decidedly nonexpert opinions on everything from economic inequality to COVID-19.

"The authors' discussion of the latter subject, which closes the book, is unintentionally comedic. Oreskes and Conway use the pandemic to contrast U.S. 'market failure' with the alleged success of 'countries that mounted a strong, coordinated response,' China foremost among them. As their book went to press, China's centralized 'zero-COVID' regime was collapsing into the same unfettered disease spread that Oreskes and Conway ascribe to free markets. But readers should not expect any self-interrogation from this pair."

Read more: https://reason.com/2023/02/25/the-big-myth-is-full-of-recycled-anti-capitalist-cheap-shots/

The economic ideas behind the 'Great Reset'

Terence Corcoran: The murky rise of Klaus Schwab's stakeholder 'capitalism' and the WEF's Davos corporate plan | Financial Post:

January 22, 2021 - "For several years now the World Economic Forum [WEF], host of the annual corporate celebrity bash known as the Davos Summit, has been a driving global force behind a move to overthrow market capitalism and profit-maximizing corporations and replace them with a new economic model called 'stakeholder capitalism'.... In the words of Klaus Schwab, the 82-year-old German economist who founded the WEF in 1973, the existing corporate enterprise model, the shareholder version that has dominated much of the world’s economic progress over the past century, needs to be replaced. 'We need a change of mindset, moving from short-term to long-term thinking, moving from shareholder capitalism to stakeholder responsibility. Environmental, social and good governance have to be a measured part of corporate and governmental accountability.'

"With the U.S. government now under Democratic Party control, a reformation of capitalism appears to be underway. 'It’s way past time we put an end to the era of shareholder capitalism,' said Joe Biden when he outlined his platform last July.... An army of academics, consultants, executives and politicians is already on board the stakeholder movement....

"Schwab claims to have invented the stakeholder concept as a replacement for the shareholder version of corporate purpose most often associated with Nobel economist Milton Friedman. But in fact Schwab’s stakeholderism ... has a long and messy history.... Ending shareholder capitalism by merging private enterprise with government power is not a new idea....  In the United States, the idea ... reached a peak of sorts in the 1970s when Ralph Nader ... proposed a U.S. federal charter of major U.S. corporations 'whereby a government gives the corporate entity existence and that entity, in return, agrees to serve the public interest'.... Nader’s call for a U.S. government 'federal charter' for corporations was revived in 2018 by Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren. She proposed an Accountable Capitalism Act that would force American corporations with more than $1 billion in annual revenue to obtain a federal charter.... Corporate directors would be obligated to consider the interests of all corporate stakeholders, 'including employees, customers, shareholders, and the communities in which the company operates'....

"University of Calgary economist Randall Morck, editor of A History of Corporate Governance Around the World, sets the origins of legalized stakeholderism in Germany and the passage of the National Socialist government’s Shareholder Law of 1937. The law, writes Morck, 'freed corporate managers and directors of their specific fiduciary duty to shareholders and substituted a general duty to all stakeholders.' A paper in the 1938 issue of The American Economic Review described the new German corporate model as an application of the leading ideas of the German government at the time. The objectives of the law included 'protection of the interests of the public, employee and company by granting the state broad powers of intervention.' All forms of economic activity must observe the principle of 'public welfare before individual gain.' Beyond Germany, during the early years of the 20th century, many theorists and corporate executives embraced stakeholderism....

"The current effort to 'put an end to the era of shareholder capitalism,' as Biden said, aims to undo the free-market foundations of shareholder capitalism.... 'We must move on from neoliberalism in the post-COVID era,' says Schwab. We need to abandon the 'sacred cows,' such as 'free-market fundamentalism,' ...'start to build institutional platforms for public-private co-operation.' In his new book ... Schwab lists the four key power sectors that would sit at the corporate governance table: governments, civil society, corporations, and such international organizations as the United Nations. In that model, shareholders are likely to end up standing in line behind stakeholders — and stateholders.

"Shareholders are already taking a back seat. Corporate managers today fund the arts, finance political parties, give to charities, declare their climate-change activism and set up multimillion-dollar foundations that sponsor radical environmentalism. Supporters of the stakeholder movement include major institutional investors, accounting organizations, agencies and giant consultancies seeking to cash in on the corporate need for advice.... Canada’s top government-based pension plans, from the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board to the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan — the country’s largest shareholders — are now backing the stakeholder movement....

"Overhanging the stakeholder juggernaut is the total absence of any method to measure the performance of stakeholder governance. Randall Morck at the University of Calgary argues that loading multiple social and political responsibilities ... on to corporate executives and boards would likely lead to gross distortions in corporate decision-making at the expense of shareholders. 'Presented with a multitude of objectives, the decision-maker ends up focusing on none. Thus, with no way to keep score, stakeholder theory leaves top corporate managers unaccountable for their actions'....

"Two Harvard law professors — Lucian Bebchuk and Roberto Tallarita — recently described what they refer to as 'The Illusory Promise of Stakeholder Governance.' Stakeholderism, they conclude, 'would insulate corporate leaders from shareholder pressures and make them less accountable.” Even more bluntly, Bebchuk and Tallarita argue that the rise in support for stakeholderism among corporate leaders and their advisors 'is motivated, at least in part, by a desire to obtain insulation from hedge fund activists and institutional investors. In other words, they seek to advance managerialism by putting it in stakeholder’s clothing.' The result would be detrimental to shareholders and the economy. It would also, they add, undermine the achievement of stakeholder objectives. 'For those interested in addressing corporate externalities and protecting corporate stakeholders, embracing stakeholderism would be counterproductive.'

"Scholarship on the purpose of corporations dates back centuries, but the current prevalence of 'stakeholder capitalism' theory in law, economics and politics is an affront to fundamental principles. How can they call it 'capitalism' when the result would be the destruction of capitalism as we know it? Call it what it is: Stateholderism. That seems to be the plan."

Read more: https://financialpost.com/opinion/terence-corcoran-the-murky-rise-of-stakeholder-capitalism

The social responsibility of business

 How Liberals Opened the Door to Libertarian Economics | New York Times Magazine - Kurt Andersen:

September 13, 2020 - "On September 13th, 1970, the New York Times Magazine published an essay by Milton Friedman entitled “The Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits,” which turned out to be one of the most influential economic arguments of the century. To mark its 50th anniversary, DealBook and the Times Magazine assembled experts including chief executives, Nobel Laureate economists and top think-tank leaders to debate and dissect the legacy of Friedman’s ideas."
Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/11/business/dealbook/milton-friedman-free-markets.html

A Friedman doctrine - The Social Responsibility Of Business Is to Increase Its Profits | New York Times Magazine - Milton Friedman: 

September 13, 1970 - "The discussions of the 'social responsibilities of business' are notable for their analytical looseness and lack of rigor. What does it mean to say that 'business' has responsibilities? Only people can have responsibilities. A corporation is an artificial person and in this sense may have artificial responsibilities, but 'business' as a whole cannot be said to have responsibilities, even in this vague sense. The first step toward clarity in examining the doctrine of the social responsibility of business is to ask precisely what it implies for whom.

"Presumably, the individuals who are to be responsible are businessmen, which means individual proprietors or corporate executives. Most of the discussion of social responsibility is directed at corporations, so in what follows I shall mostly neglect the individual proprietor and speak of corporate executives.

"In a free‐enterprise, private‐property system, a corporate executive is an employe of the owners of the business. He has direct responsibility to his employers. That responsibility is to conduct the business in accordance with their desires, which generally will be to make as much money as possible while conforming to the basic rules of the society, both those embodied in law and those embodied in ethical custom. Of course, in some cases his employers may have a different objective. A group of persons might establish a corporation for an eleemosynary purpose — for example, a hospital or school. The manager of such a corporation will not have money profit as his objective but the rendering of certain services. In either case, the key point is that ... the manager is the agent of the individuals who own the corporation or establish the eleemosynary institution, and his primary responsibility is to them....

"What does it mean to say that the corporate executive has a 'social responsibility' in his capacity as businessman? If this statement is not pure rhetoric, it must mean that he is to act in some way that is not in the interest of his employers. For example, that he is to refrain from increasing the price of the product in order to contribute to the social objective of preventing inflation.... Or that he is to make expenditures on reducing pollution beyond the amount that is in the best interests of the corporation or that is required by law.... Or that, at the expense of corporate profits, he is to hire 'hard core' unemployed ... to contribute to the social objective of reducing poverty. 

"In each of these cases, the corporate executive would be spending someone else's money for a general social interest. Insofar as his actions in accord with his 'social responsibility reduce returns to stock holders, he is spending their money. Insofar as his actions raise the price to customers, he is spending the customers’ money. Insofar as his actions lower the wages of some employes, he is spending their money....

"[I]t may well be in the long‐run interest of a corporation that is a major employer in a small community to devote resources to providing amenities to that community or to improving its government. That may make it easier to attract desirable employees, it may reduce the wage bill or ... have other worthwhile effects. Or it may be that, given the laws about the deductibility of corporate charitable contributions, the stockholders can contribute more to charities they favor by having the corporation make the gift than by doing it themselves, since they can in that way contribute an amount that would otherwise have been paid as corporate taxes. In each of these — and many similar — cases, there is a strong temptation to rationalize these actions as an exercise of 'social responsibility.' In the present climate of opinion ... this is one way for a corporation to generate goodwill as a by‐product of expenditures that are entirely justified in its own self‐interest....

"[But] blameworthy or not, the use of the cloak of social responsibility, and the nonsense spoken in its name by influential and prestigious businessmen, does clearly harm the foundations of a free society. I have been impressed time and again by the schizophrenic character of many businessmen. They are capable of being extremely far‐sighted and clear‐headed in matters that are internal to their businesses. They are incredibly short sighted and muddle‐headed in matters that are outside their businesses but affect the possible survival of business in general.... This short sightedness is ... exemplified in speeches by businessmen on social responsibility. This may gain them kudos in the short run. But it helps to strengthen the already too prevalent view that the pursuit of profits is wicked and immoral and must be curbed and controlled by external forces. Once this view is adopted, the external forces that curb the market will not be the social consciences, however highly developed, of the pontificating executives; it will be the iron fist of Government bureaucrats. Here, as with price and wage controls, business men seem to me to reveal a suicidal impulse.

"The political principle that under lies the market mechanism is unanimity. In an ideal free market resting on private property, no individual can coerce any other, all cooperation is voluntary, all parties to such cooperation benefit or they need not participate. There are no 'social' values, no 'social' responsibilities in any sense other than the shared values and responsibilities of individuals. Society is a collection of individuals and of the various groups they voluntarily form.

"The political principle that underlies the political mechanism is conformity. The individual must serve more general social interest — whether that be determined by church or a dictator or a majority. The individual may have a vote and a say in what is to be done, but if he is overruled, he must conform. It is appropriate for some to require others to contribute to a general social purpose whether they wish to or not.

"Unfortunately, unanimity is not always feasible. There are some respects in which conformity appears unavoidable, so I do not see how one can avoid the use of the political mechanism altogether. But the doctrine of 'social responsibility' taken seriously would extend the scope of the political mechanism to every human activity. It does not differ in philosophy from the most explicitly collectivist doctrine. It differs only by professing to believe that collectivist ends can be attained without collectivist means. That is why, in my book Capitalism and Freedom, I have called it a 'fundamentally subversive doctrine' in a free society, and have said that in such a society, 'there is one and only one social responsibility of business — to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits so long as it stays within the rules of the game, which is to say, engages in open and free competition without deception [or] fraud.'”

Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/1970/09/13/archives/a-friedman-doctrine-the-social-responsibility-of-business-is-to.html

GOP's new non-libertarian conservative ideology

GOLDBERG: Conservative divide pits anti-left against anti-state | Toronto Sun  - Jonah Goldberg:

January 25, 2020 - "For most Americans, conservatism basically means the stuff Republicans are for.... I don’t mean this as a criticism.... One of the great things about America is that politics – never mind political philosophy – isn’t a big part of most people’s lives. Associating a body of ideas with the institutions (political parties) that are directly charged with putting ideas into action is a pragmatic way to cut to the chase. Paying attention to what the eggheads and theorists of the left and right want the parties to do is only worthwhile if you’re especially interested in politics.

"The challenge for conservatives these days is that the Republican Party really doesn’t know what it’s for, beyond defending President Trump and opposing Democrats and socialism. While the fight over impeachment sucks up all of the oxygen in public, there’s a robust battle behind the scenes about what it means to be a conservative.

"Some of it has spilled out into public view, usually centering on nationalism – what it means, what it requires in terms of policy, how it differs from traditional conservatism or whether it differs at all. Sens. Josh Hawley and Marco Rubio, for example, have offered thoughtful versions of 'economic nationalism,' pitting it against libertarianism (both real and imagined) ... a common theme is the idea that government should be more interventionist in the economy: Policymakers should be more willing to overrule the marketplace on everything from big tech to child care to trade....

"Trump has now given more aid to farmers than Obama ever gave Detroit, and if an elected Republican has complained about it, I missed it. In fairness, the farmer bailouts were necessitated by the president’s trade wars. But that just demonstrates Republicans’ willingness to substitute their judgment for the market’s....

"There’s a cultural version of the nationalist project as well. Some conservative intellectuals – mostly, but not exclusively, Catholic – believe the state has a role in imposing its judgment in the marketplace of ideas....

"[T]here are those who are anti-left and those who are anti-state. For ... illustration, some people are opposed to public schools because they don’t think education is a proper task for the state. (Milton Friedman called them 'government schools.') Others on the right think public schools are fine; they just object to how progressives operate them....

"Another fault line revolves around the question, 'Which state are we talking about?'.... I’m very libertarian at the national level, mostly libertarian at the state level and pretty communitarian at the local level. Letting people live the way they want to live where they actually live, so long as basic civil rights are respected, has always struck me as the best way to maximize happiness and democratic accountability.

"This raises a final question: Can the state actually do what you want it to do? At the core of the conservative critique of the left has always been a basic skepticism that top-down planning from Washington can work. It used to be that the champions of such planning were mostly on the left. That’s not true any longer. And it remains to be seen whether top-down planning from the right works any better than it does from the left."

Read more: https://torontosun.com/opinion/columnists/goldberg-conservative-divide-pits-anti-left-against-anti-state
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Keith Komar declares for Ontario LP leader

Longtime Libertarian Party of Canada activist, and (full disclosure) occasional GDPA columnist, Keith Komar has declared his candidacy for the position of Ontario Libertarian Party leader, up for election this November. Komar, currently running for the LPC in Bradford in the 2020 federal election, supplied GDPA with a biography, which reads in part: 

"Keith is a single father of 2 originally from Cranbrook B.C.... He is an activist for many causes and has supported marriage equality since the early 1990s.... Keith’s activism for the Cannabis industry began in 2015.... Keith is a staunch supporter of property rights and freedom of speech.

"Keith was first introduced to Libertarianism in 2008 while following the U.S. election. He was immediately captivated by Dr. Paul and his unapologetic stances on property rights and personal freedoms. Keith is well-read on many topics, has read all of Ayn Rand's books, and is a follower of Milton Friedman and Frederick Hayek.

"In September 2015 Keith found Tim Moen and the Libertarian Party of Canada and supported the local candidate in Grand Prairie for the 2015 election.  In 2016, Keith became involved with the BC Libertarian Party and helped grow its membership and candidate numbers for the 2017 provincial election. Keith himself garnered the 2nd highest percentage of votes for the party in that election (2.5%) and the 3rd highest vote total (410).

"In 2018 Keith moved back to Ontario and became involved with the Ontario Libertarian Party.... Keith represented the Libertarian Party of Canada in the York-Simcoe riding in Bradford during the 2019 federal by-election, and will run there again in October for the general election."

British PM gives key cabinet posts to libertarians

Leader: The tyranny of the free-market right | The New Statesman:

July 31, 2019 - "Boris Johnson’s ruthlessly efficient cabinet reshuffle was marked by the ascension of the libertarians in the modern Conservative Party.

"In 2012, a group of five recently elected Tory MPs published Britannia Unchained, a hymn to deregulation, tax cuts and privatisation. Two of its co-authors, Priti Patel and Dominic Raab, now hold two of the great offices of state (the Home Office and the Foreign Office). A further two, International Trade Secretary Liz Truss and business minister Kwasi Kwarteng, are also cabinet members.

"As prime minister, Theresa May wanted to rehabilitate the state as an economic actor and denounced the 'libertarian right' as well as the 'socialist left'. But for Britannia Unchained’s authors, Brexit is a means further to roll back the frontiers of government. In May 2016, Ms Patel, the then employment minister, declared: 'If we could just halve the burdens of the EU social and employment legislation we could deliver a £4.3bn boost to our economy and 60,000 new jobs.'

"The appeal of leaving the EU without an agreement, as Mr Johnson has threatened, is precisely that it could create the conditions to impose policies unachievable in normal times. Libertarians are fond of recalling the words of Milton Friedman, who wrote in Capitalism and Freedom (1962), 'Only a crisis – actual or perceived – produces real change. When that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around'....

"Mr Johnson’s government is more ideologically heterogeneous than it may first appear. The Prime Minister is a political magpie who embraces or discards policies based on his own advancement....  As Mr Johnson is pragmatic enough to recognise, public support for higher government spending (funded by increased taxes) is at a 15-year high of 60 per cent, according to the most recent British Social Attitudes survey.

"Yet Mr Johnson, a career opportunist, does not represent a coherent alternative to his party’s libertarian wing. The predominance of the free-market right among his cabinet is another symptom of the closing of the conservative mind. Should the Prime Minister falter, Conservative MPs and their outriders will clamour for a 'true believer'. Mr Johnson’s premiership, then, may not mark the end of the great moving right show but yet another staging post along the route ... to becoming a fully Americanised market society."

Read more: https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2019/07/leader-tyranny-free-market-right

5 books to boost your knowledge of liberty

Five Books to Jumpstart Your Knowledge of Libertarianism - Remso Martinez, Advocates for Self-Government:

June 5, 2019 - "So, you want to learn more about libertarianism? Check out these books and don’t forget to take the World’s Smallest Political Quiz.

Don’t Hurt People and Don’t Take Their Stuff: A Libertarian Manifesto by Matt Kibbe
"Written by the organizer behind the Tea Party revolution that ... armed us with a new generation of pro-liberty leaders in Congress and across the country, ... this is the perfect primer for anyone [who is] liberty curious and wants to lift the veil and peek into a world where it’s not cool to hurt people and take their stuff.

Anthem by Ayn Rand
"This short novella by Russian writer and philosopher Ayn Rand was dystopian before dystopian novels were cool.... Anthem puts you in the mind of a character who lives in a world where 'I' isn’t a word and free will is punishable by death....

Road to Serfdom by F.A. Hayek
"Dedicated to the socialists in all parties who refused to observe the mistakes of our past ... Hayek shows the reader how the desire for collective action leads to the enslavement of freedom itself. This book exposes the reader to the mindset of those who cry for more regulation and central control, and how their desire for order simply means more chains on the society they imagine they are freeing from the perils of an unjust world.

Free to Choose by Milton Friedman
"Milton Friedman took the world of politics and economics by storm simply by stating loud and proud that society thrives when people are left to make their own decisions.... Friedman shows how deregulation, free markets, and individual choice takes people from victimhood to empowerment when government gets out of the way....

Stay Away From the Libertarians! by Remso W. Martinez
"A shameless plug.... I take you through a brief history of the modern libertarian movement from 2012 through 2016 and show you how libertarians have changed the way millions view the relationship between themselves and the state.... [Y]ou’ll learn once and for all why lazy academics, the fake news, and statist politicians in both parties fear libertarians."

Read more: https://www.theadvocates.org/2019/06/five-books-to-jumpstart-your-knowledge-of-libertarianism/

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Democrat floats idea of universal national service

Pete Buttigieg’s National Service Plan Is a Really Bad Idea Whose Time Might Have Come – Reason.com - Nick Gillespie:

April 17, 2019 - "Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg told Rachel Maddow recently that 'national service will become one of the themes of [my] 2020 campaign'.... [T]he defining element of the plan put forward by the Afghanistan War veteran and mayor of South Bend, Indiana, is its vagueness. In fact, it's not even clear if Buttigieg would make a year's worth of service for high school grads mandatory or not. At one point he says he hopes to 'make it, if not legally obligatory, then a social norm,' which can be read both as wanting to make it mandatory or simply a cultural expectation. There's no mention of a national service plan in his book, Shortest Way Home, and there's no mention of it on his campaign website either....

"Buttigieg invoked the World War II service of John F. Kennedy and George H.W. Bush and his own military service as positive examples of privileged people mixing with people they otherwise would never get to know (he implies that JFK served with African Americans, but the military was segregated during World War II). That sort of service across class, geographical, and racial lines, he argues, is good for America.... Maddow piped up that she has long 'struggled with the civilian-military divide" and "the easy answer is there should be a draft,' even as she acknowledged that the Pentagon is firmly against conscription....

"The libertarian argument against military conscription was best summarized by Milton Friedman, who served on the federal commission that helped end the draft in the early 1970s. After listening to Gen. William Westmoreland, the U.S. commander in Vietnam, inveigh against an all-volunteer army as mere 'mercenaries,' Friedman replied, 'General, would you rather command an army of slaves?' The same logic applies to mandatory non-military national service.

"Buttigieg was emphatic that he's not talking about forcing people to serve only in the military. Again, there were no details, but his national service plan would include having 18-year-old kids sign up for the armed forces or for a wide variety of other public-sector jobs....

"Beyond being deeply illiberal, mandatory national service is profoundly at odds with the American experience. Unlike most European countries, for most of our history, we didn't have conscription unless there was an active war.... More important, citing elements of the total mobilization of American society to fight World War II in order to sell peacetime policy proposals is a category error. Regardless of the lack of 'social cohesion,' we should not be looking for guidance now to a period when food, gas, and more were rationed and the government effectively controlled the economy and virtually all aspects of life....

"In talking with Maddow, Mayor Pete granted that any sort of program would also cost a lot of money, which, along with the sheer vagueness of his plan, works against its odds of becoming a reality. Yet this may be a bad idea whose time is coming, especially as Millennials such as Buttigieg ascend into positions of power.

"The Green New Deal championed by fellow Millennial Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez includes a plan for the government to guarantee everyone a job, which is sort of the kissing cousin of national service and underscores younger Americans' anxiety about finding employment. And a 2017 poll of 18-to-29-year-olds by Harvard's Institute of Politics found 50 percent supporting voluntary national service (the good news: Just 7 percent support mandatory service)."

Read more: https://reason.com/2019/04/17/pete-buttigiegs-national-service-plan-is-a-really-bad-idea-whose-time-might-have-come/
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Alternet revives "libertarianism is racism" smear

Here’s why this economist believes libertarianism is essentially a form of white supremacy – Alternet.org - Cody Fenwick:

January 3, 2019 - [I]n a recent Twitter discussion on several different economics themes, documented by economist Brad DeLong, Marshall Steinbaum offered a theory.... The discussants were debating the merit of anti-monopolistic policies and to what extent it could be useful to frame the messaging around the topic in a way that would get libertarians on board.

“'You might have noticed that I don’t particularly care about "winning over" libertarians given their longstanding intellectual commitments,' Steinbaum, research director at the Roosevelt institute, said. 'If it is self-defeating to refuse to ally with white supremacy, then fine.'

“'Are you equating libertarianism with white supremacy?' asked E. Glenn Weyl, founder of RadicalxChange.

“'I am indeed, with much in the historical record to back me up. For example: "the United States, with trivial exceptions, has never been a colonial country." —Milton Friedman,' replied Steinbaum. 'There are flavors, but they all serve one another’s purposes and are part of the same political movement, yes.'

"Weyl, for one, outright rejected the view: 'Marshall is equating libertarianism with white supremacy. I think this is roughly equivalent to equating socialism with Stalinism, conservatism with Nazism or Islam with terrorism. This attitude of some of the left is unbelievably destructive and dangerous.'

"But DeLong, noting that he does not always agree with Steinbaum, argued persuasively for his point of view in a follow-up blog post. Libertarianism, he wrote, 'is a Frankenstein’s monster that got its lightning-bolt juice from massive resistance to the Civil Rights Movement'....

"DeLong pointed out that when Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) first entered national politics, he sparked a backlash by saying he opposed the 1964 Civil Rights Act because it restricted private businesses’ right to engage in racist discrimination. Paul has since avoided discussion of this view, but it remains a revealing episode of his thinking....

"In principle, of course, anyone might discriminate against anyone else at public accommodations in Paul’s view. But we know how this plays out: White people use their property rights and 'freedom' from government regulation to further marginalize and oppress the black minority. Thinking that this is a world more in line with the ideal of 'freedom,' rather than a world in which fair treatment can be more readily enforced, is an unavoidably white supremacist idea.

"It’s also worth noting that Ron Paul, the senator’s father and  predecessor in the Senate and at the forefront of national libertarianism, was caught having published wildly racist remarks in his own personal newsletter."

Read more: https://www.alternet.org/2019/01/heres-why-this-economist-believe-libertarianism-is-essentially-a-form-of-white-supremacy/
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UPDATE: The AlterNet article was reprinted January 4, 2019, by Salon, under the title "Here’s why economist Brad DeLong believes libertarianism is essentially a form of white supremacy"
https://www.salon.com/2019/01/04/heres-why-this-economist-believes-libertarianism-is-essentially-a-form-of-white-supremacy_partner/

David Boaz remembers Andrea Millen Rich

RIP Andrea Rich | Cato @ Liberty - David Boaz:

August 1, 2018 - "I am saddened to report that my dear friend Andrea Millen Rich died this morning at her home in Philadelphia at the age of 79 after a 19-year battle with lung cancer....For more than 40 years Andrea was at the center of the libertarian movement, a mentor, counselor, friend, supporter, facilitator, networker, and gracious hostess....

"She was the first chair of the New York Libertarian Party in 1973-74. The vice chair was Howard S. Rich, whom she soon married. From 1974 to 1977 she was vice chair of the national Libertarian Party, and in 1980 she played a key role in developing television advertising for the campaign of Ed Clark, the Libertarian presidential nominee.

"From 1982 to 2005 she was the president of Laissez-Faire Books, which billed itself as 'the world’s largest collection of books on liberty.' It had a retail location on Mercer Street in Greenwich Village.... But in those pre-Amazon days, it was far better known for its monthly catalog that reached libertarians around the world. Through its Fox & Wilkes publishing imprint it brought many classic libertarian books back into print.....

"Andrea often negotiated with publishers to make books more affordable, and some books only found publishers because Laissez-Faire could guarantee an audience beyond the small academic market.

"Through her work with Laissez-Faire she became friendly with leading libertarian writers including Milton and Rose Friedman, Robert Nozick, Thomas Sowell, Nathaniel Branden, Thomas Szasz, Charles Murray, Richard Epstein, David Kelley, and Margit von Mises, widow of economist Ludwig von Mises.

"As president of the Center for Independent Thought [CIT], the parent organization of Laissez-Faire Books, she also launched and managed the Thomas S. Szasz Award for Outstanding Contributions to the Cause of Civil Liberties and the Roy A. Childs Fund for Independent Scholars.

"CIT’s biggest project was Stossel in the Classroom, which repackaged ABC News and Fox Business videos on economics and public policy by John Stossel for classroom use. The videos have been viewed by tens of millions of high school students – according to Stossel, reaching more people than ABC News and Fox News."

Read more: https://www.cato.org/blog/rip-andrea-rich
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LPC leader Moen rules out joining Bernier's party

Libertarian leader responds to calls for Bernier alliance - The Post Millennial - Dean Tea:

August 25, 2018 - "In a video posted to his personal Facebook page late Thursday night, Libertarian Party [of Canada] leader Tim Moen addressed queries as to whether he would consider joining and running for Maxime Bernier’s newly announced political party, or whether a merger of the Libertarian Party and that of Maxime Bernier's is possible....

"Earlier this year, following Bernier’s narrow loss to Andrew Scheer in the Conservative leadership race, Moen and the Libertarians ... adopt[ed] Mad Max’s leadership platform wholesale, and Moen promis[ed] to step aside and hand the reins to Bernier if he would join the Libertarian Party. According to Moen, the two had a handful of polite conversations, but Bernier remained noncommittal.

"In his video statement, Moen expressed his misgivings regarding the possibility of a Conservative party offshoot achieving lasting reform and adopting libertarian values in a meaningful way.... 'Conservatives tend to be rudderless. They’re driven by panic and fear of the Liberals...They abandon principles for votes ... [to] avoid the Liberals getting power, and in doing so become the very thing they fear the most.'

"In a clear reference to the Reform and Alliance experiments ... he predicted that another political experiment of the sort is likely to end the same way.... 'They break down and split into competing factions, only to have fear of the Liberals reunite them again under some banner of reform so they can go ahead and lose their soul again.'

"Moen doesn’t seem to think that anything will be different for the new party of Maxime Bernier, who unabashedly spouts libertarian talking points, regularly quoting revered libertarian theorists like Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman .'I suspect it would be a watered-down version of our party principles and platform..... Are we going to see any discussion on meaningful restrictions on government? An end to Health Canada, a restriction on military interventionism?... Is he going to get on stage like Ron Paul and say, "End the Bank of Canada, end the income tax, legalize all the drugs."? I have my doubts.'

"Furthermore, he questions the staying power of a new party beyond the personal popularity of Bernier himself.... 'My guess is that this party is going to be a flash in the pan and fizzle as soon as Max looses his seat or retires.... I’m not going to merge the Libertarian Party with Max’s new party. Max’s party is likely to burn bright and then flame out and I’m not going to let our party die by hitching it to his.'

"He emphasized his party’s long track record of sticking to principled libertarian messaging, in an effort to steer conservative and other mainstream parties in their direction.

"'Western civilization is built on ideas; primarily the idea of individual liberty. Our party has been standing on those principles ... for over 45 years. We have been unflinching.... As far as I can tell, we’re making a difference. Libertarianism is on the rise. I don’t think [Mad Max] would have got 49% in the leadership election had it not been for the work our party has been doing for the last 45 years.'"

Read more: https://www.thepostmillennial.com/libertarian-leader-responds-to-calls-for-bernier-alliance/
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The story behind Estonia's economic miracle

How Estonia—Yes, Estonia—Became One of the Wealthiest Countries in Eastern Europe - Foundation for Economic Education - Working for a free and prosperous world - by Luis Pablo de la Horra:

March 23, 2018 - "The question of why some countries are rich and prosperous whereas others seem to be condemned to the scourge of poverty has been around for centuries. Many factors have been argued to be the determinants of prosperity.... Yet, since at least the publication in 1776 of The Wealth of Nations, we know that ...  Free trade, a reliable legal framework that protects private property and enforces contracts, and sound money are necessary conditions for countries to thrive.... Estonia is a paradigmatic example...

"On Aug. 20, 1991, Estonia gained its independence after 51 years under the yoke of communism. The country was first occupied by the Red Army in June 1940...  One year later, the Nazi Army invaded the Soviet Union, occupying Estonia until 1944, when the Soviets retook the country. The political instability in the Soviet Union during the early 90s precipitated the restoration of democracy in the Baltic country.

"From day one, the new government committed to undertaking market-oriented reforms that ... included monetary reform, the creation of a free-trade zone, a balanced budget, the privatization of state-owned companies, and the introduction of a flat-rate income tax.... Mart Laar, Estonia’s Prime Minister during two periods: 1992-1994 and 1999-2002 ...has claimed that he took inspiration from Milton Friedman’s bestseller'Free to Choose....

"These reforms paved the way for the incredible rise in living standards that Estonia has experienced..... Today, Estonia is considered a high-income country... The purchasing power of Estonians has increased 400 percent over the last two decades.... In addition, life expectancy has moved from 66 years in 1994 to 77 years in 2016.....

"Government finances are healthy ... public debt is only 9.5 percent of GDP. In terms of the labor market, Estonia’s unemployment rate is 5.3 percent, well below the EU average. Finally, its efficient and attractive corporate tax system (undistributed profits aren’t taxed) has placed Estonia as a worldwide center for high-tech companies, boosting foreign investments and economic growth....

"In terms of PPP-adjusted income, Estonia ranks first ahead of countries such as Russia or Latvia and well above the median income. The picture is similar when it comes to other indicators like life expectancy or infant mortality rate, where Estonia shows that economic progress has a real impact on the living standards of people.

"Estonia is the living example that human progress is closely linked to economic freedom.... The only thing we can do is to spread the word so that all countries have the opportunity to improve their living standards like Estonia did in the early 1990s."

Read more: https://fee.org/articles/how-estonia-yes-estonia-became-one-of-the-wealthiest-countries-in-eastern-europe/?utm_medium=push&utm_source=push_notification
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Liberty magazine marks its 30th year

We’re Here! | Liberty Unbound - Stephen Cox:

August 28, 2017 - "Thirty years ago, the first issue of Liberty appeared. It was dated August 1987, and it emerged from an old house high on a hill in the little town of Port Townsend, Washington, overlooking the Puget Sound.

"Liberty was born at the moment when technology was making it possible to create a national magazine in one’s own home — if you were willing to perform the backbreaking effort necessary to get it to other people’s homes. R.W. Bradford and Kathy Bradford, who lived in the house on the hill, were willing to do that. Timothy Virkkala was their learned assistant in the project. And this, I suppose, is where I come into the story. I was Bill Bradford’s old friend from Michigan, our home state, who was privileged to become an editor-at-long-distance.... One of Liberty’s first gifts to me was a svelte little plastic fax machine into which I could feed my handwritten copy (or copy embodied in a bad, bad computer printout), so it could be transmitted to Liberty HQ and retyped for publication....

"Within a few years, all copy became digital, human and financial costs-per-word decreased, and Liberty was being mailed to thousands of readers, all over the world. We started at six big issues a year, then went to 11 or 12 big issues. From the start, we had attracted most of the great names in the libertarian movement, and we continued to attract them, from Murray Rothbard to John Hospers to Milton Friedman.... .

"In December 2005, Bill died in his house on the hill, after a long and heroic struggle with cancer. One of his last concerns was the future of Liberty. We talked on the phone, a couple of weeks before his death, and I agreed to take the job as editor in chief. The good thing about me was that I had been an editor from the start and had been the only person, besides Bill himself, who had written something for every issue. The bad thing was that I lacked Bill’s gargantuan energy, his intimate knowledge of everything libertarian, and his . . . just everything that distinguished him as a great human being. For me, the good thing about my new job was that I got to collaborate with the amazing people who did the real work: Kathy Bradford, Mark Rand, Patrick Quealy, and Drew Ferguson....

"In 2010, Liberty passed into its third technological era. Print journalism was on its way out. Fewer people wanted to wait for Liberty to arrive by mail. Bill had once been proud that we had subscribers in virtually every real country in the world, but changes in postal rates had nearly eliminated our worldwide audience. We needed to make a change, and we did: in late 2010, we became an online journal....

"Substantial writing is writing that endures, and I think you’ll find that the great majority of the writing we’ve published retains its interest in a way that journal writing ordinarily does not."

Read more: http://www.libertyunbound.com/node/1751
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Scandinavia is 'a far cry' from actual socialism

Scandinavia is no socialist Valhalla - CapX - Madeleine Grant, Intitute of Economic Affairs:

June 28, 2017 - "Scandinavia occupies a special place in the minds of socialists around the world.... Over in America, all manner of people, from presidential candidates to Nobel-prize winning economists have argued that policy makers should take Scandinavia as a model for reducing inequality and promoting more balanced growth. But is it really the socialist Valhalla it’s feted to be?

"Addressing Harvard University last year, Danish PM Lars Løkke Rasmussen tried to set the record straight. 'I know that some people associate the Nordic model with some sort of socialism’, he said. 'I would like to make one thing clear. Denmark is far from a socialist planned economy. Denmark is a market economy.'

"Indeed, viewing Scandinavian countries as socialist – or even left-wing – overlooks an essential truth about how their economies are organised. While these nations do have high taxes and generous welfare, in many respects, their markets are unusually free, adopting exactly the kind of policies that the British Left, with its rigid adherence to central planning and intervention, spends its time fighting against....

"Neither Sweden, Norway nor Denmark actually has a minimum wage. Instead, wages are decided by mutual agreement between unions and employers, which usually vary according to the industry or occupation in question. In this respect, Scandinavian labour markets are far more flexible and decentralised than Britain’s....

"Corporate tax rates in Scandinavia compare favourably with those of overtly capitalist countries. Sweden and Denmark’s are among the lowest in the EU 15, while Finland’s, at 20 per cent, is on a par with Britain. Norway has the highest rate of the five countries, but, at 27 per cent, is still significantly lower than America’s (nearly 40 per cent).

"In a recent count, about 20 per cent of public hospital care and about 30 per cent of public primary care [in Sweden] was provided by private companies – compared with around 6 per cent in Britain.... Sweden’s education system – inspired by the ideas of that well-known socialist thinker Milton Friedman – allows parents to top-up the cost of private schooling with government-funded vouchers, and has led to a surge of choice and competition in schools.

"Norway, another nation often held up as an example of a “better way” by the British Left, is also something of a red herring.... Norway’s vast oil reserves ... allowed it to build up the largest sovereign wealth fund in the world (predicted to reach $1 trillion by 2020). Thus is Norwegian 'socialism', ironically, funded by investment in capitalist projects around the world.... Last year, for the first time ever, Norway’s government took more money from the fund than the fund itself derives from oil revenues....

"Scandinavia’s prosperity has only ever been threatened when its nations have embraced genuinely socialist policies. In the 1970s, the size of the Swedish state began to expand in earnest under successive socialist governments. Punitive taxation, including effective marginal rates that topped 100 per cent in some cases, prompted a mass exodus of wealthy citizens and entrepreneurs.... By 1993, when public spending had reached 67 per cent of GDP, Sweden had dropped from being the 4th richest nation in the world in the 1970s, to the 14th. Both Swedish and Danish citizens have since begun to reject 'tax and spend' at the ballot box and recent years have seen a growth in support for centre-right parties, promising fiscal restraint....

"The success of the Nordic Model hinges on its embrace of free-market capitalism, competition and defence of private property – a far cry from the centralised planning system espoused by the socialist Left."

Read more: https://capx.co/AAaKu
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WWE wrestler Kane to run for mayor

WWE's Kane Runs For Mayor - Being Libertarian - Brandon Kirby:

March 25, 2017 -  "Best known for lighting people on fire and chokeslamming his enemies, World Wresting Entertainment’s Glenn Jacobs, better known as Kane, sets his sights on the political ring to run for Knox County [Tennessee] mayor, according to the Associated Press.

"Standing at 6’9 and weighing over 324lbs, The Devil’s Favourite Demon had a successful 22-year career in the WWE.... Outside of the world of wrestling, Jacobs and his wife own and operate Jacobs Insurance Associates, LLC, offering auto, business, flood, home, life, and motorcycle insurance.

"The successful businessman and entertainer’s bid for mayor is sure to excite libertarians. Jacobs is actively involved in libertarian politics, supporting Ron Paul’s presidential campaign, is a member of the Free State Project, and spoke at the New Hampshire Liberty Forum and the Ludwig von Mises Institute.

"In an interview with Fox Business, Jacobs cited Harry Browne, Milton Friedman, Murray Rothbard, and Mary Ruwart as influences on his political thinking. The former world champion also cited the non-aggression principle as his guiding principle.

"In an interview with Tom Woods, Jacobs elaborated, 'Then I realized that it really is a philosophy that we’re talking about, you know — the nonaggression axiom, that the government should be bound by the same moral laws that the rest of us are. Once you realize that, you’re like, "Oh!" Your entire world opens up, and then your entire paradigm changes.'

"In the interview he also indicated that he believes taxation is theft."

Read more: https://beinglibertarian.com/wwes-kane-runs-mayor/
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Ayn Rand’s enduring influence

Ayn Rand’s philosophy of selfishness has a deep influence on the mindset of the right - Gene H. Bell-Villad, The Raw Story:

April 22, 2015 - "Ayn Rand (1904-82) has arisen from the dead. Over the last decade the pop philosopher and propaganda fictionist extraordinaire has moved steadily from the cultish margins to the mainstream of US conservatism....

"In a larger sense, though, Rand had never died. Sales of her books remained steadily in the six figures in the years following her demise, their underground influence an unacknowledged-if-discomforting fact of American life. A couple of reader surveys carried out in the 1990s by Book-of-the-Month Club and the Library of Congress, and by the Modern Library imprint, showed Rand’s Atlas Shrugged and Fountainhead near the top of the polling results, according to author Brian Doherty. And, in the wake of the 2008 financial meltdown, sales of her works tripled.

"Randianism, what she called Objectivism, now exists as a mass phenomenon, a grass-roots presence, a kind of folklore. 'Who Is John Galt?', her recurring slogan from Atlas Shrugged, can be seen on placards at Tea Party rallies, on leaflets casually affixed to telephone poles or on the shopping bags of Lululemon Athletics, the Canadian sports apparel company. The firm’s CEO, Chip Wilson, is an avowed Rand fan. So are the current corporate chiefs at Exxon, Sears, the BB & T Bank in North Carolina and the funky Whole Foods chain...."

"Randthought, which I discuss in my book, On Nabokov, Ayn Rand and the Libertarian Mind, serves as a major doctrinal component within the mindset of the libertarian, the latter being the most significant American ideological development of the last 35 years....

"Rand did not invent libertarianism. The thinking, sans the name, had been around since at least the 1920s. And her contemporaries, economists such as Milton Friedman and the so-called Austrian School, gave the set of ideas academic standing and respectability. In Rand’s truculent fiction, however, an abstract theory effectively took on flesh via dashing heroes and unabashed hero worship, vivid myths and technological magic, page-turning suspense and torrid, violent sex. For every studious reader of economist Friedrich von Hayek, there are dozens, perhaps hundreds of eager devourers of Rand....

"In many respects, America is becoming — in echo of the title of a book by journalist Gary Weiss — an 'Ayn Rand Nation'."

Read more: http://www.rawstory.com/2015/04/ayn-rands-philosophy-of-selfishness-has-a-deep-influence-on-the-mindset-of-the-right/
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