Libertarianism is understood by many to mean simply “Leave us alone!” This message has great appeal among economic conservatives, foreign policy isolationists, social liberals—and the young. Libertarians generally believe that government does not have the right to tell us how to conduct our personal lives, so long as we are not injuring anyone else. In the social realm, libertarians fall out of line with many other conservatives who fear this approach may be slouching toward libertinism. But in the economic realm, the libertarian movement has defined conservatism for much of the twentieth century.
In his essay, economist Dr. Yaron Brook reviews the important twentieth-century libertarian economists, who are central to the larger conservative tradition. These economists are strong advocates of limited government, low taxes, and free markets, and their views are widely endorsed by conservatives in general.
And then there is Ayn Rand. Standing somewhat apart from conservatism and libertarianism, Ayn Rand and her philosophy, objectivism, developed as a very distinctive modern strand of philosophy and ethics. Brook explains that Rand challenged conventional morality and altruism, which she associated with the traditional virtue of self-sacrifice on behalf of others or one’s group. Rand believed that altruism leads to statism: liberals and socialists using altruism to call on us to sacrifice ourselves for the good of the collective. Rand’s message resonates in this era in which the Left increasingly takes the labor of some and hands it to others, in the name of altruism.
Dr. Yaron Brook is the executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute. Dr. Brook received his M.B.A. and Ph.D. in finance from the University of Texas at Austin. He is a columnist at Forbes.com, and his articles have been featured in the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Investor’s Business Daily, and many other publications. He is a frequent guest on national radio and television programs and is a coauthor of Neoconservatism: An Obituary for an Idea and a contributing author to Winning the Unwinnable War: America’s Self-Crippled Response to Islamic Totalitarianism. Dr. Brook is coauthor with ARI fellow Don Watkins of the national best seller Free Market Revolution: How Ayn Rand’s Ideas Can End Big Government. A former finance professor, he speaks internationally on such topics as the causes of the financial crisis, the morality of capitalism, ending the growth of the state, and U.S. foreign policy.