I Chose Liberty - Ludwig von Mises Institute

222 I Chose Liberty: Autobiographies of Contemporary Libertarians
ideas that I was making my own, and once I started I never slacked off. There would be many
obstacles and many opportunities. But whatever came, I kept pushing ahead regardless.
I have no illusions about the impact of my work on the community of political philosophy
and economy. Whatever its quality, the regard in which it is held is very mixed.
And it is plain enough that my work isn’t coming out from Oxford or Harvard or Princeton
University Press, nor am I asked to write for The New York Times Magazine, the New York
Review of Books, The New Republic, or even The Public Interest. (I have, however, managed
to squeeze into the pages of The American Scholar, Free Inquiry, National Review, The
Humanist, Barron’s, Economic Affairs, and many good scholarly forums.)
The unevenness of my success is no doubt in part due to the often low regard in which
the scholarly community holds libertarian and other ideas I am associated with. In part it
may be due to the lack of upward mobility in academic circles. And in part to my admittedly
sometimes hurried writing. Still, if I am to judge, the latter cannot be definitive; for
many writers within the mainstream community manage to lope onto the front stage fairly
easily, despite their occasional lapses. The bottom line, if there is one, has to do with what
I champion in my works, which is the most radical idea in the history of politics: the individual
is sovereign and not beholden to others in any enforceable way.
I have enjoyed the good fortune to be able to make the case for this idea on innumerable
fronts, in innumerable regions of the globe, where I have encountered if not always the
highest accolades, then at least a good deal of interest and respectful opposition. This
response has made the journey very enjoyable, even apart from the very important fact that
the causes I have championed are exceptionally worthy.
Tibor Machan holds the Freedom Communications Professorship of Free Enterprise and Business
Ethics at the Argyros School of Business & Economics, Chapman University.
48
ERIC MACK
A JOURNEY IN LIBERTARIANLAND
In a way, it all began with Boswell’s The Life of Samuel Johnson. In my junior year of
high school my friend Steve Brecher had gotten me to read Ayn Rand’s novels. I don’t
recall how he got me to read them. He probably appealed to the natural perversity that I
revealed in our first intellectual conversation. He, already an Objectivist, said, “I’m a