Non-Libertarian FAQ: Libertarian Philosophy

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This article is from the Libertarian FAQ, by Joe Dehn jwd3@dehnbase.fidonet.org, Robert Bickford rab.AT.daft.com, Mike Huben mhuben@world.std.com and Advocates for Self-Government http://www.self-gov.org/ with numerous contributions by others.

46 Non-Libertarian FAQ: Libertarian Philosophy

Libertarianism does have a lot of philosophical literature which is much
more sophisticated than the evangelistic and bumper sticker arguments
critiqued above. However, much of it can be critiqued as fundamentally
flawed. James K. Galbraith, criticizing many economists, might well have
been criticizing libertarians when he wrote (in a letter in Slate, Nov. 5,
1996):

I don't accept that much of use can be learned about policy in
this way [well-structured deduction from metaphysical first
principles.] When the world deviates from the principles, as it
usually does, the simple lessons go astray. This is not a
complaint against math. It is a complaint against indiscriminate
application of the deductive method, sometimes called the
Ricardian vice, to problems of human action. Mine is an old gripe
against much of what professional economists do; not against
science but against scientism, against the pretense of science. To
combat it, I spend my research time wrestling with real-world
data, and I spend much of my writing time warring against the
policy ideas of aggressive, ahistorical deductivists.

A thorough discussion of problems of libertarian philosophy would be well
beyond the scope of this FAQ, though an overview might one day be developed.
In the mean time, a few sources are available at the "Critiques of
Libertarianism" site ( http://world.std.com/~mhuben/libindex.html ), and
still better are a number of the excellent critical references listed below.