Commentary from the liberterrain…
Whenever people attack libertarianism they inevitably reveal their true motives, whether they intend to or not, whether they even recognize their own motives or not. What motivates them is that they just can't bear to surrender the advantages they derive from anti-libertarian coercion, intimidation and fraud.
In his "Libertarian Illusions" article in the Huffington Post Jeffery Sachs writes, "Like many extreme ideologies, libertarianism gives a single answer to a complicated world."
That single answer, of course, is the non-aggression principal that rejects the initiation of force, intimidation and fraud by individuals and governments.
These simple rules are ones that the Jeffery Sachs of the world should have learned in kindergarten: don't fight, don't bully, don't lie.
The world isn't complicated except when people like politicians, bureaucrats, lawyers and self-aggrandizing government certified professionals in all endeavors of human activity consciously, purposely, cynically craft a complicated world.
They do this because forcing, bullying and defrauding others gives them an advantage over those others.
In a libertarian society that rejects such antisocial behavior they would have to interact voluntarily to earn every advantage they get.
"Libertarians," Sachs asserts, "hold that individual liberty should never be sacrificed in the pursuit of other values or causes. Compassion, justice, civic responsibility, honesty, decency, humility, respect, and even survival of the poor, weak, and vulnerable - all are to take a back seat."
Sachs has managed to get it exactly backwards.
It's that "individual liberty" that makes the pursuit of all those "other values or causes" possible. The non-coercion implicit in individual liberty requires voluntary, as opposed to involuntary, action.
How does a society achieve compassion and justice through coercion, intimidation and fraud?
Responsibility, including his listed "civic responsibility," is the corollary to individual liberty, not it's opposite as Sachs seems to imply.
Honesty, decency, humility, and respect are all direct results of freedom and responsibility.
It's voluntary interactions amongst decent people that guarantees the survival of the poor, weak, and vulnerable. Coercive bureaucratic government welfarism masquerading as compassion is the true illusion.
But Sachs, like so many who have mastered the artificially manufactured complications of their specialty (He's Director of Earth Institute at Columbia University) have a vested interest in forever promoting a status quo world that rests on coercion, intimidation and fraud.
Not only did Sachs forget the simple rules from kindergarten but he clearly never learned rule one about libertarianism.
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