Is Politics Insoluble?

The Task Confronting Libertarians *
From time to time over the last thirty years, after I have
talked or written about some new restriction on human lib-
erty in the economic field, some new attack on private enter-
prise, I have been asked in person or received a letter asking,
"What can / do"—to fight the inflationist or socialist trend?
Other writers or lecturers, I find, are often asked the same
question.
The answer is seldom an easy one. For it depends on the
circumstances and ability of the questioner—who may be a
businessman, a housewife, a student, informed or not, intelli-
gent or not, articulate or not. And the answer must vary with
these presumed circumstances.
The general answer is easier than the particular answer.
So here I want to write about the task now confronting all lib-
ertarians considered collectively.
This task has become tremendous, and seems to grow
greater every day. A few nations that have already gone com-
pletely communist, like Soviet Russia and its satellites, try, as
a result of sad experience, to draw back a little from complete
centralization, and experiment with one or two quasi-capital-
istic techniques; but the world's prevailing drift—in more
than 100 out of the 107 nations and mini-nations that are now
members of the International Monetary Fund—is in the direc-
tion of increasing socialism and controls.
The task of the tiny minority that is trying to combat this
socialistic drift seems nearly hopeless. The war must be
*From the March 1968 issue of The Freeman.
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