by Robert Locke, March 14, 2005 Issue, The American Conservative
“…[L]ibertarianism is basically the Marxism of the Right. If Marxism
is the delusion that one can run society purely on altruism and
collectivism, then libertarianism is the mirror-image delusion that one
can run it purely on selfishness and individualism. Society in fact
requires both individualism and collectivism, both selfishness and
altruism, to function. Like Marxism, libertarianism offers the
fraudulent intellectual security of a complete a priori account of the
political good without the effort of empirical investigation. Like
Marxism, it aspires, overtly or covertly, to reduce social life to
economics. And like Marxism, it has its historical myths and a genius
for making its followers feel like an elect unbound by the moral rules
of their society.
The most fundamental problem with libertarianism is very simple:
freedom, though a good thing, is simply not the only good thing in
life…”