Difference between revisions of "A Non-Libertarian FAQ"

[[Category:Basics|107]]

 

{{DES | des = A general introduction to discussion with libertarians, with an extensive discussion of arguments commonly used by libertarian evangelists.  This is the original FAQ, little changed from when it originated in 1994. See also: [[More FAQS]] and [[Criticisms of the Non-Libertarian FAQ]]. | show=}}

 

Libertarians frequently try to present themselves as the group to join to defend your freedom and rights. Lots of other organizations (many of which you would not want to be associated with, such as Scientologists) also fight for freedom and rights. I prefer the ACLU. (Indeed, if you wish to act effectively, the ACLU is the way to go: they advertise that they take on 6,000 cases a year free of charge, and claim involvement in 80% of landmark Supreme Court cases since 1920.) Another obviously effective organization is the NRA (National Rifle Association): it is not libertarian either.

Some libertarians make a big deal about needing to actually sign a contract. Take them to a restaurant and see if they think it ethical to walk out without paying because they didn't sign anything. Even if it is a restaurant with a minimum charge and they haven't ordered anything. The restaurant gets to set the price and the method of contract so that even your presence creates a debt. Shrink wrap contracts are common in several business realms: government too.  What is a libertarian going to do about that? Create a regulation?

 

This is a prize piece of libertarian rhetoric, because it slides in the accusation that taxation is extortion. This analogy initially seems strong, because both are territorial. However, libertarians consider contractual rental of land by owners (which is also fundamentally territorial) ethical, and consider coercion of squatters by those owners ethical. The key difference is who owns what. The Mafia doesn't own anything to contract about. The landowner owns the land in a limited sense called "[[Fee Simple|fee simple]]". And the US government owns rights to govern its territory. (These rights are a form of property, much as mineral rights are a form of property. They are known as allodial title.  Let's not confuse them with rights of individuals.) Thus, the social contract can be required by the territorial property holder: the USA.

 

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: [https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/George_Washington#Spurious_attributions This is a well-known false attribution to Washington, and its first known use was 1902.]  But, if we still wish to use that analogy without the pious authority of a founding father of the US, let's note that we now exploit combustion for vastly more purposes, in vastly greater quantity, and for vastly greater benefit than George Washington would have dreamed of. Likewise we use modern liberal government for more purposes and benefits than George Washington would have dreamed of.

 

:We could also note that "Capitalism, like fire, is a dangerous servant and a fearful master."

: This quote is one of the central ideas of "The Law", a piece of philosophical propaganda full of errors and uncompelling arguments. Let's start with a simple demonstration of its ambiguity. Did men make laws to support or suppress life, liberty, and property? At first glance, since we like those three [Fallacies_Of_Philosophy#Glittering_Generalities_Of_Propaganda|glittering generalities]], we'd say support. But if we change the generalities and keep the "logic" the same:

: Now, Bastiat does get more specific. If you read a few sentences further into "The Law", he presumes natural rights from god, a simple fallacy of reification (pretending an idea is a real thing.) But the real source of rights is might. Individuals don't have rights to protect their lives, liberty and property: they have minuscule powers to attempt to create such rights. Law is an attempt to benefit those within society by creating rights through conventions that reduce in-society conflict and utilize combined powers efficiently. Bastiat has the tail wagging the dog: collective rights being justified by individual rights, when in actual society individual rights are produced by collective might.

: It's hard to accept philosophy like this which starts by preferring imaginary rights to basic observable facts of society.

: But if you want get into a founder quoting contest, Ben Franklin wrote: "Private property ... is a Creature of Society, and is subject to the Calls of that Society, whenever its Necessities shall require it, even to its last Farthing, its contributors therefore to the public Exigencies are not to be considered a Benefit on the Public, entitling the Contributors to the Distinctions of Honor and Power, but as the Return of an Obligation previously received, or as payment for a just Debt." We could find quite a few other appropriate quotes with a little searching.

: Libertarians might endorse their interpretation of the initial quote without the backing of Jefferson: if so, let them present a working example of such a government before we take it as more than a utopian ideal.

: The inescapable evils of coercive behavior are not unique to government. Our government is where we choose to channel and regulate them, because the alternative (private, unregulated coercion) gives much worse results, as the history of privately owned states (monarchies, dictatorships, despotisms) and private "law" such as slavery, mafias, warlords, etc. show rather clearly. We have constructed a government that is jointly owned by all, because private ownership gives too much incentive for profit through coercion of others.

; "A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves money from the Public Treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits from the Public Treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy always followed by dictatorship."  

 

: [https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Alexander_Fraser_Tytler This is another false quotation.  Its first known use is in 1951.]  But if we pretend to take it seriously:

: Unlike the Athenian Republic, in the USA the money in the Public Treasury comes directly from the pockets of the majority, the middle class. This might be the most significant deterrent to loose fiscal policy.

: Bumper sticker analogies are as poor a method of understanding libertarianism (let alone anything else) as science fiction. Too bad so many libertarians make such heavy use of those methods.

: People who compare us to animals usually know little about animals and less about people. If we look to animals for models we can find all sorts of unacceptable (and conflicting) behaviors which are entirely natural. Characterizations of humans as animals for most philosophical purposes have historically ignored sociological, anthropological, and sociobiological knowledge in favor of conveniently parochial observations.

: There is no "true law". Innumerable political and religious sects might claim it, but I'd think that if there was such a thing, people could recognize it and agree on it.

 

 

 

: This sentence, from the first chapter of his "On Liberty", seems rather final.  But a mere two paragraphs later, he starts explaining at greater length traditional liberal duties: "There are also many positive acts for the benefit of others, which he may rightfully be compelled to perform; such as, to give evidence in a court of justice; to bear his fair share in the common defense, or in any other joint work necessary to the interest of the society of which he enjoys the protection; and to perform certain acts of individual beneficence, such as saving a fellow-creature's life, or interposing to protect the defenseless against ill-usage, things which whenever it is obviously a man's duty to do, he may rightfully be made responsible to society for not doing."  Mill was obviously not a libertarian.

: The presumption that the US government is the equivalent of mob rule is ludicrous. The assertion that libertarian anarchy would be better is unsupported by real examples. (Libertarian minarchy doesn't change the form of government from "mob rule".)

: It is also another motherhood and apple pie issue; it applies to EVERY political theory. The question is what provisions are made for coping with necessary imperfections; libertarians tend to assume "the same as today but better", without any experience of what their proposed changes actually will do.

: According to Perry Metzger, who claims to have popularized the phrase, the correct usage is "you *have* to make a comparison of libertarianism against the existing system rather than against your ideals of what you'd like your system to do." However, since there is no real example of libertarianism, that would be comparing the real current system against an ideal libertarian system. That's hardly a fair or valid comparison.

: There is one valid way of using this phrase: to indicate that perfection is not a possible result. That is a rare usage.

: Now, if you were making the analogy about anarcho-capitalism, it would become "three wolves competing to be first to 'add value' to the sheep by slaughtering it and sell it to the others."

: This is really a classic libertarian strawman, used by many flavors of anarchists for centuries. The authors of the US Constitution were well aware of this: they devoted a segment of the Federalist papers to it: "... it may be concluded that a pure democracy... can admit of no cure for the mischiefs of faction... A republic, by which I mean a government in which the scheme of representation takes place, opens a different prospect, and promises the cure for which we are seeking." Federalist No. 10, James Madison.

;<span>Walter Adams "The Bigness Complex"</span>

;<span>A. B. Atkinson "The Economic Consequences of Rolling Back the Welfare State"</span>

:MIT Press, 1999. Points out unintended negative side effects of reduction of government.

;<span>James Arnt Aune "Selling The Free Market"</span>

:Guilford Press, 2000. Explains the neoliberal rhetoric of markets, and how "economic correctness" is used harmfully to trump all other values. Criticizes Nozick, Rand, Murray, and Posner.

;<span>Nicholas Barr "The Economics of the Welfare State"</span>

:Stanford University Press, 1999. A thorough overview of the real world economics of market failures and government interventions.

;<span>Norman P. Barry "On Classical Liberalism and Libertarianism"</span>

:MacMillan 1987

;<span>Jeremy Bentham "Anarchical Fallacies"</span>

;<span>David C. Berliner and Bruce J. Biddle "The Manufactured Crisis: Myths, Fraud, and the Attack on America's Public Schools"</span>

:Rebuts propaganda against public schools recited by libertarians.

;<span>Colin Bird "The Myth of Liberal Individualism"</span>

:Classical liberalism was not what libertarians claim it was.

;<span>John R. E. Bliese "The Greening of Conservative America"</span>

:A conservative refutes common conservative anti-environmental claims that are much parroted by libertarians.

;<span>Paulina Borsook "Cyberselfish: A Critical Romp Through the Terribly Libertarian Culture of High Tech"</span>

:A thorough and humorous skewering of the libertarian pretensions of the digerati.

;<span>Frank Bourgin "The Great Challenge: The Myth of Laissez-Faire in the Early Republic"</span>

;<span>Harry Brighouse "Justice (Key Concepts)"</span>

:Contains 20 pages of criticism of Friedman and Nozick's ideas of justice.

;<span>Peter G. Brown "Restoring Public Trust"</span>

:A progressive refutation and alternative to Milton Friedman's "Free To Choose".

;<span>John Bryant "Libertarian Dirt"</span>

:Socratic Press, 1995. A ranting pamphlet about Murray Rothbard; 2/3 self promotion and blank pages. Not recommended.

;<span>Allen Buchanan "Ethics, Efficiency, and the Market"</span>

:Rowman & Littlefield, 1985. From the cover: "... contains the most thorough and systematic analysis of economic and moral arguments both for and against the market as an instrument of resource allocation." The chapter, "Moral Arguments For and Against the Market" occupies most of the book.

;<span>David Card and Alan B. Krueger "Myth and Measurement: The New Economics Of The Minimum Wage"</span>

:Princeton Univ. Press, 1997. Libertarians claim the minimum wage destroys jobs: real-world evidence points the other way.

;<span>George W. Carey, editor "Freedom & Virtue : The Conservative Libertarian Debate"</span>

:Intercollegiate Studies Inst., 1998. Conservatives and Libertarians duke it out.

;<span>Noam Chomsky "Profit Over People: Neoliberalism And Global Order"</span>

:Seven Stories Press 1999. Places the current ascendsncy of neoliberalism in historic context as yet another form of oppression by elites.

;<span>G. A. Cohen "Self-Ownership, Freedom, and Equality (Studies in Marxism and Social Theory)"</span>

:Cambridge Univ Press, 1995.

;<span>Joseph Collins and John Lear "Chile's Free-Market Miracle: A Second Look"</span>

:Food First, 1995. A major criticism of the neoliberal makeover of Chile.

;<span>Stephanie Coontz "The Way We Never Were: American Families and the Nostalgia Trap"</span>

:Basic Books, 2000. How many modern claims of family "institutions" are historically incorrect.

;<span>Charles Derber "Corporation Nation: How Corporations Are Taking Over Our Lives, And What We Can Do About It"</span>

:St. Martin's Press 1998. Ascendency of corporate power is decried as illiberal, and a new positive populism is prescribed.

;<span>George W. Downs and Patrick D. Larkey "The Search For Government Efficiency: From Hubris to Helplessness"</span>

:Random House, 1986. A serious, scholarly study of efficiency. Not a polemic but very necessary to balance the government as inefficient polemics.

;<span>William A Edmundson "Three Anarchical Fallacies : An Essay on Political Authority"</span>

:Cambridge University Press 1998. Exposes fallacies inspired by the ideas of obedience, coercion, and intrusion. Challenges many assumptions of libertarians and others.

;<span>Albert Ellis "Is Objectivism A Religion?"</span>

:L. Stuart, 1968.

;<span>Peter Erickson "The Stance of Atlas: An Examination of The Philosophy of Ayn Rand"</span>

:Herakles Pub. 1997. Shows some fundamental errors in Rand's philosophy, and identifies some earlier alternatives that are supposedly correct.

;<span>Sidney Fine "Laissez-Faire and the General Welfare State"</span>

:UMP, 1956. History of the triumph of progressivism over laissez-faire.

;<span>Thomas Frank "One Market Under God: Extreme Capitalism, Market Populism, and the End of Economic Democracy"</span>

:Doubleday 2000. Deflates the propaganda and hype for markets that are the new justification for ever-growing inequality.

;<span>Barbara H. Fried "The Progressive Assault On Laissez Faire: Robert Hale And The First Law And Economics Movement"</span>

:Harvard University Press 1998. The first, full-length study of Hale's work, which showed that "private", unregulated economic relations were in fact determined by a state imposed regime of property and contract rights which were hard to square with common-sense notions of social justice.

;<span>Jeffrey Friedman "What's Wrong With Libertarianism" [PDF] and "The Libertarian Straddle: Rejoinder to Palmer and Sciabarra" [PDF]</span>

:The editor of Critical Review magazine details how libertarian philosophy and economics rely on each other, and neither can bear the weight.

;<span>John Kenneth Galbraith "The Good Society: the Humane Agenda"</span>

:Houghton Mifflin Co. 1997. The "why"s of liberalism, illustrating the competing goals in society and how to resolve them compassionately. A book of pragmatic compromise, that asks what is wanted by people rather than what ideology demands.

;<span>Willard Gaylin and Bruce Jennings "The Perversion of Autonomy : The Proper Uses of Coercion and Constraints in a Liberal Society"</span>

:Free Press, 1996. Discusses the balance in a liberal society between the autonomy of the individual against the responsibility of individuals toward the community at large.

;<span>Charles T. Goodsell "The Case for Bureaucracy: A Public Administration Polemic"</span>

:Chatham House, 1994. Reexamines empirical findings on U.S. bureaucratic performance, noting how well the American system really works.

;<span>John Gray "Beyond the New Right: Markets, Government and the Common Environment"</span>

:Routledge 1994. John Gray once held views very close to libertarianism, but in this book he repudiates both neoclassical liberalism and libertarianism. Chapter 3, "The Moral Foundations of Market Institutions" contains some strong criticisms of the libertarian position.

;<span>John Gray "False Dawn: The Delusions of Global Capitalism"</span>

:New Press 1999. A critique of the politics of neo-liberalism that shows the ideological connections between neo-liberalism and Marxism.

;<span>Donald P. Green "Pathologies of Rational Choice Theory"</span>

:Yale University Press, 1994. A serious, scholarly study of the intellectual failures of Rational Choice Theory.

;<span>William Greider "One World, Ready or Not : The Manic Logic of Global Capitalism"</span>

:Simon & Schuster 1997. A liberal examination of the implications of the global industrial revolution.

;<span>Alan Haworth "Anti-Libertarianism: Markets, Philosophy, and Myth"</span>

:Routledge 1994.

;<span>Dennis Henigan, Bruce Nicholson, David Hemenway "Guns and the Constitution"</span>

:Aletheia Press 1995. A book-length FAQ of refutations of the gun-ownership propaganda and mythology promulgated by the NRA and gleefully parroted by libertarians. Essential reading. The "Guns And The Judiciary" section is now available online.

;<span>Richard Hofstadter "Social Darwinism in American Thought"</span>

:Beacon Press, 1992. Rebukes Spencerian Social Darwinist arguments for laissez-faire.

;<span>Stephen Holmes, Cass Sunstein "The Cost of Rights: Why Liberty Depends on Taxes"</span>

:W. W. Norton 1999. Legally enforceable rights cost money, a fact ignored by libertarian ideologues.

;<span>William E. Hudson "American Democracy in Peril"</span>

:Chatham House, 1996. Chapter 3 "The second challenge: radical individualism" has a subsection "The flaws of libertarianism."

;<span>Thomas Parke Hughes "Rescuing Prometheus"</span>

:Pantheon Books 1998. An analysis of how four large-scale government projects basically invented and then transformed modern systems management and operations research while also developing much of the core technology of the post-modern world.

;<span>Attracta Ingram "A Political Theory of Rights"</span>

:Oxford University Press 1994. Ingram argues that the libertarian concept of self-ownership is inadequate, and proposes a (much more complex) theory of rights based in a principle of self-government. Chapters 1-3, form a useful exposition and critique of the standard libertarian position.

;<span>Jane Kelsey "Rolling Back the State: Privatisation of Power in Aotearoa/New Zealand"</span>

:Paul & Co Publishing Consortium 1996. Details the unhappy consequences of a real-world libertarian economic experiment.

;<span>Naomi Klein "No Logo: Taking aim at the Brand Bullies"</span>

:Picado USA 2000. Discusses the ill effects of allowing popular culture to be shaped by branding in the quest for corporate profits.

;<span>Roland Kley "Hayek's Social and Political Thought"</span>

:Oxford University Press 1994. Shows that Hayek's concept of a spontaneous order doesn't stand up to scrutiny, undermining a body of theory libertarians often draw upon to show that free markets work.

;<span>Harold Kyriazi "Libertarian Party at Sea on Land"</span>

:Robert Schalkenbach Foundation 2000. A libertarian criticizes the Libertarian Party positions regarding ownership of natural resources for inconsistency with its own principles.

;<span>Robert Kuttner "Everything for Sale: The Virtues and Limits of Markets"</span>

:Knopf, 1997. Why mixed economies would outperform pure markets. Essential for countering libertarian economic arguments.

;<span>Will Kymlicka "Contemporary Political Philosophy: An Introduction"</span>

:Oxford University Press, 1991. Now the standard text in the field; very highly regarded. Has a long chapter on libertarianism. Not at all kind to it.

;<span>William Leach "Land of Desire"</span>

:Vintage Books, 1993. Discusses the rise of America's consumerist culture and shows how our capitalist system has depended on government support at every stage of its development.

;<span>Lawrence Lessig "Code: And Other Laws of Cyberspace"</span>

:Basic Books, 1999. A non-libertarian view of the threats to freedom in cyberspace both from government and the market. Makes the point that freedom comes from a particular kind of government, not no government.

;<span>Charles E. Lindblom "The Market System: What It Is, How It Works, and What To Make of It"</span>

:Yale Univ. Pr. 2001. The big picture of what markets do well and poorly, their benefits and harms. Very balanced.

;<span>Steven Luper-Foy "The Possibility of Knowledge: Nozick and His Critics"</span>

;<span>Linda McQuaig "The Cult of Impotence: Selling the Myth of Powerlessness in the Global Economy"</span>

:Viking 1998. Why economic globalization and its effects are not inevitable, and why democratic government can and should ameliorate those effects.

;<span>Irving S. Michelman "The Moral Limitations of Capitalism"</span>

:Proposes criteria for establishing positive economic rights.

;<span>Liam Murphy and Thomas Nagel "The Myth of Ownership: Taxes and Justice"</span>

:Explains property rights as government creations, and taxes as part of property.

;<span>Stephen L. Newman "Liberalism at Wits' End: The Libertarian Revolt Against the Modern State"</span>

:Cornell University Press in 1984

;<span>William J. Novak "The People's Welfare: Law and Regulation in Nineteenth-Century America"</span>

:Univ. of North Carolina Pr., 1996. "Blasts to pieces... the libertarian fantasy that until the twentieth century the American state left private property owners and economic entrepreneurs alone." --Robert W. Gordon, Yale Law School.

;<span>Greg S. Nyquist "Ayn Rand Contra Human Nature"</span>

:iUniverse.com, 2001. Perhaps the most extensive criticism of Rand. Finds that her assumptions about human nature do not match scientific knowledge of human nature. Link to online text!

;<span>William F. O'Neill "With Charity Toward None: An Analysis Of Ayn Rand's Philosophy"</span>

:Littlefield, Adams, 1972.

;<span>Philippe Van Parijs "Real Freedom for All: What (If Anything) Can Justify Capitalism?"</span>

:Oxford University Press, 1998. Policy implications for resolving the conflict between capitalism's unacceptable inequality and the paramount importance of real freedom.

;<span>Philippe Van Parijs et al. "What's Wrong With a Free Lunch?"</span>

:Beacon Press, 2001. 16 widely varied points of view on the idea of a Universal Basic Income as an antidote to the extreme inequalities of capitalism.

;<span>Jeffrey Paul, editor "Reading Nozick"</span>

:(anthology of essays about "Anarchy, State, And Utopia")

;<span>Michael Perelman "The Invention of Capitalism : Classical Political Economy and the Secret History of Primitive Accumulation"</span>

:An academic examination of how governments created the preconditions for capitalism by separating peasants from their land, following the advice of classical economists such as Adam Smith.

;<span>Karl Polanyi, Joseph E. Stiglitz, Fred Block "[[The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time]]"</span>

:Explains the socially constructed nature of "free markets", as opposed to "spontaneous order".

;<span>Margaret Jane Radin "Contested Commodities: The Trouble with Trade in Sex, Children, Body Parts, and Other Things"</span>

:An examination of how non-market values are important to personhood, and how social and economic inequality threaten those values, necessitating regulation.

;<span>Jack N. Rakove "Original Meanings: Politics and Ideas in the Making of the Constitution"</span>

:Pullitzer Prize winning background that helps to understand the fallacies in simplistic libertarian constitutional interpretations.

;<span>Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber "Trust Us, We're Experts: How Industry Manipulates Science and Gambles With Your Future"</span>

:Details of the public relations and brownlash manipulations of CATO, Steven Milloy, and others.

;<span>Elton Rayack "Not So Free To Choose"</span>

:An extensive criticism of Milton Friedman's economic and social philosophy.

;<span>John W. Robbins "Answer to Ayn Rand : [a critique of the philosophy of objectivism]"</span>

;<span>John W. Robbins "Without a Prayer: Ayn Rand and the Close of Her System"</span>

:Apparently a rebuttal from a religious point of view.

;<span>L.A. Rollins "The Myth of Natural Rights"</span>

;<span>Douglas Rushkoff "Coercion: Why We Listen to What 'They' Say"</span>

:The coercive and manipulative arms race between marketers and the public.

;<span>Scott Ryan "Objectivism and the Corruption of Rationality: A Critique of Ayn Rand's Epistemology"</span>

:A technical analysis that finds Objectivism to be both incoherent and unoriginal.

;<span>Schwartz, Peter "Libertarianism: The perversion of liberty"</span>

:An article reprinted in "The Voice of Reason: Essays in Objectivist Thought".

;<span>Amartya Sen "Development As Freedom"</span>

:A Nobel prize-winning economist explains elimination of "capability deprivation" in five categories as being crucial to freedom. Shows libertarian ideas of economic freedom to be dreadfully incomplete for liberty or freedom.

;<span>Thomas A. Spragens, Jr. "The Limitations of Libertarianism."</span>

:Responsive Community (Spring 1992)45-47. (Part 2.)

;<span>James P. Sterba "Contemporary Social and Political Philosophy"</span>

:Wadsworth, 1994. His chapter on libertarianism makes the argument that, "... the right to a social minimum endorsed by welfare liberals is also required by the libertarian's own ideal of liberty."

;<span>James P. Sterba "Morality in Practice"</span>

:Fifth edition, Wadsworth, 1997. Another statement of the above argument. A longer version of this article will appear as "Reconciling Liberty and Equality or Why Libertarians must be Socialists" in Liberty and Equality, edited by Larry May and Jonothan Schonsheck (MIT, 1996).

;<span>Jean Stefancic and Richard Delgado "No Mercy: How Conservative Think Tanks and Foundations Changed America's Social Agenda"</span>

:(Temple Univ. Press 1996). The influence of Cato and Heritage Foundations.

;<span>Cass Sunstein "Free Markets and Social Justice"</span>

:(Oxford Univ. Press 1997). Takes on the claims of the Law and Economics camp, libertarians such as Epstein and Posner.

;<span>Rick Tilman "Ideology and Utopia in the Social Philosophy of the Libertarian Economists (Contributions in Economics and Economic History, No. 223)"</span>

:(Greenwood Publishing Group 2001). Challenges libertarian definitions of freedom and democracy, and shows how libertarianism undermines democracy, civil liberties, and social equality.

;<span>Lars Udehn "The Limits of Public Choice: A sociological critique of the economic theory of politics"</span>

:(Routledge 1996).

;<span>Jeff Walker "The Ayn Rand Cult"</span>

:(Open Court 1998). Questions the originality of Rand's ideas, and presents the cult-like organization of Objectivism.

;<span>Gary Wills "A Necessary Evil: A History of American Distrust of Government"</span>

:(Simon & Schuster 1999) A strong refutation of historical revisionist interpretations of the Founders and Constitution as supporting antigovernment positions.

;<span>Robert Anton Wilson "Natural Law"

;<span>Donald A. Wittman "The Myth of Democratic Failure: Why Political Institutions Are Efficient"</span>

:University of Chicago Press, 1995. "... refutes one of the cornerstone beliefs of economics and political science: that economic markets are more efficient than the processes and institutions of democratic government."

;<span>Jonathan Wolff "Robert Nozick: Property, Justice and the Minimal State"</span>

:Blackwell 1991. Summarizes and invents numerous philosophical refutations of Nozick's Anarchy, State, and Utopia, a much parrotted work. Libertarians are generally unaware of the flaws and incompleteness of their "best" philosophy.

;<span>John Cunningham Wood and Ronald N. Woods "Milton Friedman: critical assessments"</span>

:Routledge 1990.