I Chose Liberty - Ludwig von Mises Institute

Richard A. Epstein 107
There is a second sense in which my libertarian instincts are less insistent than those of
many modern libertarians. To most libertarians the constant theme is some variation of Mill’s
famous Harm Principle: that the minimal state should protect only against the use of force
and fraud. Libertarians are in general quite optimistic about the ability of ingenious negotiators
to overcome various hold-up and coordination problems that crop up in any complex
social setting. They therefore reject, or seriously curtail, state powers of taxation and eminent
domain. My own view is that some limitations on both these (interrelated) powers is surely
appropriate, and that it smacks of libertarian Utopianism to think that all coercive force can
be eliminated from collective life. The decision of the conscious libertarian to avoid governance
and to exalt voluntary alliances could lead to strong conflict situations in which gangsters set
up the new territorial government by wiping out their adversaries. Government there will be;
libertarians should try to set it up so as to limit its collective scope.
So what then is the core of my libertarian beliefs? Here I would organize these around
some very familiar watchwords: individual autonomy, as self-rule, but not unconstrained by
the rights of others; private property, with an eye to the commons; freedom of contract, with
an eye to externalities; limited government, with a fear of excessive concentrations of power.
But on most ordinary social interactions, including the full array of two-party relationships—
buyer-seller, landlord-tenant, employer-employee, insurer-insured; partner-partner—contract
should ordinarily be king. And while we have to tolerate the use of state coercive power to
build highways, we should work hard to keep government out of private employment and
property transactions. No minimum wages, no (or very few) safety regulations; no anti-discrimination
laws; no labor statutes; no rent control; little (strictly guarded) zoning; no crazyquilt
subsidies to peanuts or raisins; no trade barriers against low-priced imports, and the like.
This is a small government relative to what we do today. At a guess, we can cut out well over
half of government functions and curtail or contract out many others. All this leaves us with
a state that is larger than many defenders of a pure libertarian order might wish. Police and
military remain; roads, sewers, telecommunications and electric will all have some level of
government ownership or control; the inevitable tax, motor vehicle, voting, and land, copyright
and patent lists will need constant upgrade and servicing; as will intellectual property. But
the hope is that a small government will yield more sensible interventions of these key areas.
Mine is a more cautious classical liberalism. But it is sufficiently far removed from the mainstream
to warrant inclusion under the broader, somewhat ill-defined banner of classical liberalism,
or limited government libertarianism.
What then brought me to hold this peculiar set of beliefs? Normally one looks for
profound personal experiences that show the evils of government intervention. But as a
New York boy who flourished in the excellent public school system of the late 1940s and
1950s, first in Brooklyn and then in Great Neck Long Island, I can report no such tales. I
received a fine education from public institutions that was, for the most part, remarkably
free of various forms of indoctrination, at least for a youngster who did not realize he was
singing about race relations when he belted out at age seven, “You get white milk from a
brown skin cow, the color of the skin doesn’t matter no how.” Nor can one find in my
background any powerful figure who championed the cause of limited government. My
parents were both born and raised in New York City, and like most members of the Jewish