SDB on Libertarianism

Here.

I’ve sometimes wondered, while reading SDB, exactly why he eschews the “Libertarian” label when he strikes me as having a fairly-strong libertarian impulse. The other day, he explained it: while he places a high premium on freedom (liberty), he does not believe that government intervention in the market and issues pertaining to “property rights” is axiomatically bad. That makes sense.

I’m quite a bit to the left of SDB, which I’m sure everyone knows. Not only do I not think that “the free market” is ideally disposed to solve all problems, I do not think that “the free market” is something so important that it must be protected at the expense of leaving unsolved those problems which it cannot solve. That’s why I consider libertarianism to be a valuable impulse, but seriously faulty as an ideology.