think or speak, but instead want to build a
society where people can make their own
choices, form their own institutions, and
live as free as possible from coercion, that
opens up a larger, clearer space for debate
and persuasion without fear.
Reason is, and has long been, a big
tent project. Even in the early Objectivist-
inflected days, the crew producing the
publication could best be described as
mot ley. Reason is the unlikely lovechild of
a philosopher, a lawyer, and an engineer
(Tibor Machan, Manny Klausner, and
Robert Poole, respectively). All three of
those paternal lines weave through this
issue, which grapples with the abstract
(consequentialism or deontology?), the
legalistic (is baking a cake speech?), and
the practical (how much should we worry
about corporate data collection?).
But Reason has been running point/
counterpoint articles for its entire history.
In the 1970s, the magazine hosted debates
over the goals of the Libertarian Party. In
2005, Reason ran a face-off between semi-
conductor magnate T.J. Rodgers, Whole
Foods founder John Mackey, and Uncle
Milton himself; Rodgers out-Friedmanned
Friedman on the question of whether
“the social responsibility of business is to
increase its profits,” while Mackey articu-
lated a view that went on to form the basis
of his “conscious capitalism” philosophy.
In 2016, we published a heated debate over
immigration between two immigrants,with the direction of the conversation,
stood up, declared “You’re all a bunch of
socialists!” and stomped out of the room.
If that is what happens when the gods
gather at Olympus, what hope is there for
peace among mere mortals?
This story comes up with astonishing
frequency whenever a group of libertar-
ians assembles. (What is the collective
noun for libertarians, anyway? If it’s a
herd of cows and a murder of crows, is it a
solo of libertarians? A prickle?) The story is
typically presented as a fable, a cautionary
tale about hot-tempered absolutism. And
once someone gets rolling on the oral his-
tory of Mont Pelerin, the phrase “herding
cats” is rarely far behind (perhaps libertar-
ians could borrow from the cats and use
clowder for their collective noun).
To be fair, it isn’t hard to draw a dotted
line between an individualistic, anti-
authoritarian ideology and a distaste for
being told to sit down and shut up at a con-
ference. The implied conclusion is fatalis-
tic: Libertarians are uniquely doomed to
struggle against our natural extremism,
factionalism, standoffishness. Our inabil-
ity to face the same direction and march
together is an inextricable part of our
characters and will always spell our defeat
against our collectivist enemies.
At least in my experience, however,
there’s nothing uniquely feline about
fans of free markets. Instead, humans
everywhere are fractious beasts. PTA
meetings and church youth groups can be
indistinguishable in tone from the most
contentious libertarian gathering. In fact,
the situation in the PTA meeting is often
worse, because there aren’t shared prin-
ciples to appeal to for resolution. Certainly
any colhose of communists (why do they
get their own collective noun?) will report
similar woes—except, of course, in com-
munist states where dissent means death.
And sometimes even then.
What distinguishes libertarians is
not the existence of fervent intramural
disagreement. But libertarians do have an
edge when it comes to finding a way out of
conflict. It’s a lot easier to solve problems
when you aren’t trying to get everyone on
the same page at the point of a gun. If you
don’t think there’s one right way to live or4 OCTOBER 2018 Illustration: Joanna Andreasson. Source image: flavijus/iStockFUTURE
‘ YOU ’ RE ALL
A BUNCH OF
SOCIALISTS!’
How to disagree with
other libertarians
KATHERINE MANGU-WARD
IN MILTON FRIEDMAN’S memoir, writ-
ten with his wife and partner Rose, he
recounts the story of the founding of the
Mont Pelerin Society in the late 1940s.
“Although all of the participants shared
the same basic values,” Friedman writes
of a crew that included Friedrich Hayek,
Henry Hazlitt, and Karl Popper, “they
were by no means agreed on how to coun-
ter the attack on those values, or on the
politics required to implement them.”
This disagreement culminated in a partic-
ularly touchy meeting where the Austrian
economist Ludwig von Mises, frustratedIt’s a lot easier to
solve problems
when you aren’t
trying to get
everyone on the
same page at the
point of a gun.