What It Means to Be a Libertarian: A Personal Interpretation by Charles Murray (PDF)

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Charles Murray believes that America’s founders had it right–strict limits on the power of the central government and strict protection of the individual are the keys to a genuinely free society. In What It Means to Be a Libertarian, he proposes a government reduced to the barest essentials: an executive branch consisting only of the White House and trimmed-down departments of state, defense, justice, and environment protection; a Congress so limited in power that it meets only a few months each year; and a federal code stripped of all but a handful of regulations.Combining the tenets of classical Libertarian philosophy with his own highly-original, always provocative thinking, Murray shows why less government advances individual happiness and promotes more vital communities and a richer culture. By applying the truths our founders held to be self-evident to today’s most urgent social and political problems, he creates a clear, workable vision for the future.

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Editorial Reviews: From the Inside Flap ay believes that America’s founders had it right–strict limits on the power of the central government and strict protection of the individual are the keys to a genuinely free society. In What It Means to Be a Libertarian, he proposes a government reduced to the barest essentials: an executive branch consisting only of the White House and trimmed-down departments of state, defense, justice, and environment protection; a Congress so limited in power that it meets only a few months each year; and a federal code stripped of all but a handful of regulations.Combining the tenets of classical Libertarian philosophy with his own highly-original, always provocative thinking, Murray shows why less government advances individual happiness and promotes more vital communities and a richer culture. By applying the truths our founders held to be self-evident to today’s most urgent social and political problems, he creates a clear, workable vision for the future. About the Author Charles Murray is the author of two of the most widely debated and influential social policy books in recent decades, Losing Ground: American Society Policy 1950-1980 and, with the late Richard J. Herrnstein, The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life. The Bradley Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, Murray lives with his family near Washington, D.C. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. In the last quarter of the eighteenth century the American Founders created a society based on the belief that human happiness is intimately connected with personal freedom and responsibility. The twin pillars of the system they created were limits on the power of the central government and protection of individual rights.A few people, of whom I am one, think that the Founders’ insights are as true today as they were two centuries ago. We believe that human happiness requires freedom and that freedom requires limited government. Limited government means a very small one, shorn of almost all the apparatus we have come to take for granted during the last sixty years.Most people are baffled by such a view. Don’t we realize that this is postindustrial America, not Jefferson’s agrarian society? Don’t we realize that without big government millions of the elderly would be destitute, corporations would destroy the environment, and employers would be free once more to exploit their workers? Where do we suppose blacks would be if it weren’t for the government? Women? Haven’t we noticed that America has huge social problems that aren’t going to be dealt with unless the government does something about them?This book tries to explain how we can believe that the less government, the better. Why a society run on the principles of limited government would advance human happiness. How such a society would lead to greater individual fulfillment, more vital communities, a richer culture. Why such a society would contain fewer poor people, fewer neglected children, fewer criminals. How such a society would not abandon the less fortunate but would care for them better than does the society we have now.Many books address the historical, economic, sociological, philosophical, and constitutional issues raised is pages. A bibliographic essay at the end of the book points you to some of the basic sources, but the book you are about to read contains no footnotes. It has no tables and but a single graph. My purpose is not to provide proofs but to explain a way of looking at the world. Read more

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐The book was ok but short on methods for achieving better political changes. It seems to me things have moved farther away not closer, to a reduction in government control but to a downright increase in dominance as the governments objective. 2019 was the pinnacle of Western Society and I don’t see much hope for our future now that control of communication is being consolidated by the forces of power.

⭐If you actually read what Charles Murray actually writes he is a lot less controversial than he is represented to be in the media. Sure, he is challenging and, sure, he would like things to be a lot different than they are today. However, by taking us far away from today we can get some perspective on what it is we are really doing versus what we think we are doing. This book is a series of short chapters and thought experiments on what we could do to radically shrink our government and actually free ourselves to live our lives the way we think best.The book is in three sections. In the first he lays out the framework of what limited government would actually mean. Nearly everyone comfortable with our large and centralized bureaucracy will be in danger of getting the bends from reading this. However, I urge you to press on and read the second section on “How Would It Work?”. Here are the thought experiments that will show you how to eliminate so much waste and freedom reducing regulation from our lives. The last section has the title “Is It Possible?”.In this last section Murray notes that Americans do not want to give up all government, but that if we wanted to truly be free, we could achieve it and not abandon ourselves to a Hobbesian nightmare of solitary, nasty, brutish, and short lives. Is he persuasive? I like Murray and would like to move in his direction more than in the direction we continue to drift today. We are abandoning ourselves to a nanny state that cannot deliver on her promises. We then try to solve the failures we see by redoubling our reliance and dependency on the very institutions that are failing us. We seem to be possessed of the delusion that those who work in government are imbued with special powers, judgment, and moral sensibilities above our own. In writing it this plainly, its absurdity is manifest. However, we fear to give up our childish security blanket so we can get more comfort from pretending.However, you will have to decide for yourself and reading this book, even if you reject it after thinking about it, will do you a great service. Just be sure to actually work out Murray’s ideas in your own mind rather than a simple emotional rejection.

⭐Hey folks,Charles Murray has a great talent for explaining and simplifying things. Libertarian thought is very much targeted toward personal freedom and personal responsibility and the rights of other folks to also have personal freedom and responsibility. Murray’s “interpretation” of libertarian principals is very astute and should be simple for us as a society to accomplish. While I applaud his idealism and hope for our libertarian future, the negative skeptic in me thinks our nation and society has long since passed its tipping point where we can achieve a true libertarian society. To me, it seems we are on the same path as our socialist nanny-state neighbors in Europe and elsewhere.Murray is a great thinker with admirable ideas for our future, but it can never come about under our current constitutional government. Our only chance for a libertarian society relies on our reforming our government under a new constitution carefully crafted to avoid the pitfalls we have made under our current one. If we were to reform our government with the goal of a libertarian society, I would nominate Charles Murray to be one of the thinkers involved in crafting a new constitutional government.Best wishes,Dave Wile

⭐Though Murray claims only to be a “small ‘l’ libertarian” and hasn’t bought into the complete Libertarian way of thinking, I believe that he either doesn’t have a true understanding of what Libertarians believe about government – or just plain neglected to rationalize his reasons for differing from those beliefs.He deviates far from libertarian thought with his plan for education – the area he believes that the Federal government should play a major role in. I have to wonder if he *really* understands where money comes from when he talks about “government funded” schools. Hasn’t he figured out that that’s OUR money he wants the government spending – and spending badly?! He also is under the mistaken impression that the Federal government will be handing out this (our) money – yet not having a say in how it is spent.I would still have bought this book if the price were right, though I was hoping for a book that contained what the title implied. Murray has quite a few Libertarian beliefs, but should not have passed his thoughts off under the title “What it means to be a Libertarian” – even if he does add the disclaimer “A personal interpretation.” There is entirely too much of that in politics today.

⭐You may not agree with all the points Murray makes and this side of Libertarianism may not be exactly what you had in mind for the New World, but it makes a lot of good valid points.If you’re for Chance, Freedom and gov limitation, you’d sure want to read this book.I didn’t agree with all his views, but that’s exactly what Libertarianism is about.

⭐Great book.

⭐excellent every politician should read

⭐A good book for enjoyable read

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