Universal values

Prof Donald Boudreaux on universal liberal values:

“Classical-liberal (or, if you prefer, libertarian) political values are no more than the application to society at large, and to government, of some of the most fundamental and indispensable rules that every decent person learns early in life and adheres to until death.

In this light it is interesting to read a recent observation about libertarianism by University of Virginia government professor Colin Bird. He tries his hand at explaining the increased acceptance, over the past 30 years, of libertarian ideas. In his opinion, this success results from the fact that libertarianism was able to represent itself as the true heir to the liberal mainstream rather than as a revolutionary departure from Western political values. That is not to deny that libertarians often portrayed themselves as radical and even socially progressive: but at root libertarianism claims to be radicalizing the familiar (individualism, freedom, rights) rather than to be familiarizing the truly radical.

Indeed so! Professor Bird, however, believes that radically insisting (as libertarians do) that the government be bound by all of the same basic rules of decency that bind individuals does not really render libertarians radical. As I recently wrote in this space, if by “radical” we mean consistently sticking to sound principles, then libertarians are indeed radical—and radical in a way that deserves praise.”