Libertarians -- Not Utopians, not Cynics
By John Crouch, Attorney at Law,
Crouch & Crouch, Arlington, Virginia; (703)
528-6700;
Other Crouch Articles
There is no factual basis for E. J. Dionne's charge that libertarians are
"utopians." ["Libertarian Lure," op-ed, Dec. 6] It is
an easy label to slap on anyone, and Dionne will get away with it because
few readers are familiar with us, but no one who has even glanced at our
publications could believe that we ignore "messy realities." Most
libertarians think that because reality is so irremediably messy, voluntary
cooperation under a strong, impartial common law system is the most practical,
flexible way to deal with it. Unprovoked threats, force and extortion tend
to have socially mischievous effects, and we think it is foolish to expect
better results when well-intentioned governments use them than when private
citizens do.
Unlike utopians, we don't hope to transform humans into angels or to make
them cogs in some wonderful new system. We simply want governments to stop
doing harm, and to let society manage its own problems by lawful means.
Human societies have always had ways of looking out for children and old
people, helping the poor and making people be responsible. For example,
to adapt to the massive changes of the late 19th century, all sorts of voluntary
mutual help groups, insurance and pension funds developed. Governments supplanted
these (and outlawed some) not because they failed, but because of a Utopian
faith in technocrats and large monopolies.
It will take a few years for society to wean itself from government, because
much of its immune system, its shock absorbers, its lubrication, its ability
to adjust, has been taxed away. As Meng-tzu observed 2200 years ago, "When
taxes exceed 10 percent, the very old and the very young are rolled into
canals and drainage ditches." It's especially hard to be generous and
tolerant when nothing we own is secure, and everything is up for grabs by
one political faction or another.
It seems that when libertarians aren't being called utopian or euphoric,
we're accused of being cynics. Actually, we are squarely in the middle on
the question of human goodness: we believe that people are pretty much good
enough to govern themselves, but not good enough to govern each other
very much. That is the view of human nature upon which America's system
of government is founded.
John Crouch
Williamsburg, Va.
[published in Washington Post ca. Dec. 11, 1993. I was at a conference
of libertarians near Washington on the day it was published, but none of
them mentioned it to me -- perhaps none of them read the Post. ]
Return to: Crouch Articles | Crouch
& Crouch?