I offer two comments on the Technician’s recent series on libertarianism. First, libertarianism is not anarchy. It is conventional to associate the economic aspects of libertarianism with a market economy, which assigns an important role to government. Providing a minimum of law and order is a usual responsibility of government, and people find it difficult to carry out voluntary trades in failed states, such as Somalia and Syria today. Defining and enforcing property rights is another essential function for a market economy, and if governments fail to perform this function, problems result. In the 19th century when no one was assigned ownership of buffaloes, they were hunted to near extinction. Now with privately owned herds in the West,

extinction is no longer an issue. Enforcement of contracts is another essential function of government in a market economy. If two people agree to trade gold, but the seller provides fool’s gold instead of real gold, it is important to enforce the contract in a non-violent way.

Secondly, how successful have governments been in performing these and other functions? Mass migration of desperate refugees is an example of numerous failed states unable to provide law and order to their citizens. In the United States, the public’s opinion of government is at an all-time low. Criticism of government performance applies to the president, Congress and both major political parties. Polarization is so extreme that people express satisfaction when Congress and the president agree not to shut down the government. Whether the government should take on another task should always be subject to cost/benefit analysis. However, recent evidence of government performance suggests the government has been trying to do too many things, and they have not done them well.

Thomas Grennes

Professor of Economics, Emeritus

North Carolina State University