Postrel on the Threats to LibertyMike Rappaport

Virginia Postrel writes:

For decades . . . the empiricist tradition has achievedlibertarian goals.  [W]e can call this secondintellectual strand the Hayek-Friedman tradition, though thatunnecessarily truncates the list of Nobel laureates it has produced. . . . Libertarianism need not be formulaic. There has long been a lively,open-ended libertarianism for inquiring minds, whether curious aboutthe results of trucking deregulation, the consequences of Aid toFamilies with Dependent Children, the incentives that shapebureaucratic action, the neurological basis of interpersonal trust, thecauses of the Islamic world s economic decline, or the predictivepotential of idea futures markets. Not all this work has beenempirical. The tradition has produced great theorists, including Hayek,Coase, James Buchanan, Armen Alchian, and Richard Epstein, to name justa few. But their theories are informed, tested, and revised byempirical observation, just as Adam Smith s were. Most of thelibertarian movement s persuasive and policy triumphs have come fromthis non-utopian, empiricist approach.

Instead of theContinental quest for certainty, this second intellectual tradition isinspired by the Anglo-Scottish heritage of skeptical inquiry. It is thetradition of Smith and Hume, animated by a love not only of liberty butof the learning, prosperity, and cosmopolitan sociability made possibleby a society in which ideas and goods can be freely exchanged. It looksfor understanding, for facts, and for solutions to specific problems.Its distrust of grand plans and refusal to embrace the one bestway even the one best libertarian way made it out of place in the 20thcentury. They make it essential for the 21st.

Postel then argues that the threats to liberty in the 21st century are different than those imposed by the statism of the 20th:

While the last century s greatest threats to liberty, prosperity, andpeace came from totalitarian nation-states, today s come fromtransnational organizations ranging from imperialistic regulators (theEuropean Union) to violent religious crusaders and from failed states where warring gangs have superseded governments. Focusing on thenation-state as the source of all threats to liberty is anachronistic.

Well, maybe.  But perhaps I am too much of a 20th century man to really accept this argument.