REGARDLESS OF OUR POLITICAL COMMITMENTS, we all want the world to be better. We want people everywhere to be healthier, happier, safer, and more prosperous than ever before. Political liberty—the freedom to live our lives as we want while affording others the right to do the same, free from the heavy hand of the state—is the best way to achieve that goal. Visions of Liberty is more than just an introduction to the broad scope of political liberty. It will leave you with a strong sense—a clear vision—of what the application of genuine libertarian policies looks like in practice. Our contributors take different approaches. Some look to the past, pointing out how things worked before government got involved. Others look forward, offering future histories that describe how things could play out if we make certain choices. But each of them shares the firm belief that when freed from the meddlesome and coercive hand of the state, people can do amazing things. Liberty unleashes our drive for ingenuity and sense of compassion. This radical vision of a world that might be is truly worth striving for. AARON ROSS POWELL is director and editor of Libertarianism.org, which presents introductory material as well as new scholarship related to libertarian philosophy, theory, and history. He is also the cohost of the podcast Free Thoughts. PAUL MATZKO is the assistant editor for tech and innovation at Libertarianism.org. His book, The Radio Right: How a Band of Broad- casters Took on the Federal Government and Built the Modern Conservative Movement, was published by Oxford University Press in 2020. Edited by AARON ROSS $14.95 POWELL & PAUL MATZKO Visions of Liberty-PB-v6.indd 1 1/27/20 9:39 AM VISIONS of LIBERTY 113516_FM_R7.inddVisions of Liberty-title pages-v2.indd 1 1 1/19/201/14/20 4:529:39 AM 113516_FM_R7.indd 2 1/19/20 4:52 AM VISIONS of LIBERTY Edited by AARON ROSS POWELL & PAUL MATZKO 113516_FM_R7.inddVisions of Liberty-title pages-v2.indd 3 2 1/19/201/14/20 4:529:39 AM Copyright © 2020 by the Cato Institute. All rights reserved. Print ISBN: 978-1-948647-25-0 eBook ISBN: 978-1-948647-26-7 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data available. Cover design: Lindy Martin, Faceout Studio Cover imagery: Shutterstock Printed in Canada. CATO INSTITUTE 1000 Massachusetts Avenue NW Washington, DC 20001 www.cato.org 113516_FM.indd 4 2/1/20 12:18 AM CONTENTS FOREWORD . vii David Boaz INTRODUCTION. .1 Aaron Ross Powell and Paul Matzko 1. POVERTY AND WELFARE . .5 Michael D. Tanner 2. EDUCATION. 21 Neal P. McCluskey 3. HEALTH CARE . 41 Michael F. Cannon 4. THE WAR ON DRUGS . 55 Trevor Burru s 5. THE FUNDING OF SCIENCE . 79 Terence Kealey 6. REGULATORY SCIENCE . 101 Patrick J. Michaels 7. CRIMINAL JUSTICE . 121 Clark Neily 8. INTELLIGENCE AND SURVEILLANCE . 147 Patrick G. Eddington 9. UNSHACKLING OUR FREEDOM TO TRADE . 161 Daniel J. Ikenson 10. IMMIGRATION. 183 Alex Nowrasteh 11. FOREIGN POLICY AND NATIONAL DEFENSE . 229 John Glaser 12. MONEY AND BANKING . 247 George Selgin 13. CRYPTOCURRENCIES . 269 Diego Zuluaga v 113516_FM_R7.indd 5 1/19/20 4:52 AM 14. DIGITAL EXPRESSION. 287 Will Duffield 15. TECHNOLOGY. 305 Matthew Feeney 16. A HISTORY OF LIBERTARIAN UTOPIANISM . 319 Anthony Comegna 17. THE PRESIDENCY. 329 Gene Healy 18. THE STATE IN THE GAPS . 345 Jason Kuznicki Notes . 355 Index . 393 About the Editors . 417 About the Contributors . 419 vi 113516_FM_R7.indd 6 1/19/20 4:52 AM Foreword David Boaz Libertarians are often criticized for their “ivory tower” mindset, spinning out abstract theories that don’t account for real-world problems. It is a charge familiar to visionary thinkers from across the political spectrum. But sometimes libertarian policy experts display the opposite tendency. They can become so immersed in the details of policy, or so focused on short-term improvements, that the inspiring vision is lost. From school choice to health savings accounts to needle exchanges, libertarian policy proposals are designed to lessen the negative effects of existing government policies. That is a valuable goal, to be sure, but it is insufficiently inspiring to people looking for a fundamental alternative to the status quo. One of the great modern thinkers in the classical liberal/ libertarian community, F. A. Hayek, warned us not to be timid about proposing sweeping change: Socialist thought owes its appeal to the young largely to its visionary character; the very courage to indulge in vii 113516_Foreword_R7.indd 7 1/19/20 4:53 AM VISIONS OF LIBERTY Utopian thought is in this respect a source of strength to the socialists which traditional liberalism sadly lacks. We must make the building of a free society once more an intellectual adventure, a deed of courage. What we lack is a liberal Utopia, a program which seems neither a mere defense of things as they are nor a diluted kind of socialism, but a truly liberal radicalism which does not spare the susceptibilities of the mighty . which is not too severely practical, and which does not confine itself to what appears today as politically possible.1 In this book, Cato Institute policy analysts take a step back from current debates and ask instead what a full libertarian transformation of their field would accomplish. What would education, health care, or money and banking look like in a libertarian utopia? Unlike some utopias—remember, etymologically the word means “no place”—this libertarian utopia is intended to be possible and achievable, fully in accord with the laws of physics and economics and the reality of human nature. Peace, freedom, and abundance, brought about by the rule of law, the protection of individual rights, property rights, and free markets—that utopian vision is attainable. If I were to choose one word to underlie the following pre- scriptions for a libertarian utopia, it might be “separation.” We’ve already recognized the benefits of the separation of church and state. How about the separation of education and state, family viii 113516_Foreword.indd 8 2/1/20 12:20 AM FOREWORD and state, money and state, art and state? Some ideologies prom- ise to take control of state power and wield it in different ways. Libertarians propose to radically reduce, limit, and constrain state power so as to allow society to develop spontaneously. One intellectual problem in describing a libertarian utopia is our ignorance of the future. We don’t know what will hap- pen when people are free to create, invent, innovate, and trade. What will the schools look like in your libertarian world? What will happen to the poor? And, always, who will build the roads? Since I’m not assigned here to describe a future policy outcome, I can just say that I don’t know. I don’t know what the schools will look like or if there will even be schools. No one really knows how society will evolve. Predictions about the future have often been wildly off. Bill Gates published a book in 1995 that was dismissive of this new thing called the internet. A year later, he had to publish a new edition that devoted much more attention to the web. And Google.com was registered a year after that. It’s hard to predict inventions because it’s hard to predict the ways people will find to achieve their goals. One of my favorite stories about this comes from a Cato paper published in 1987 by logistics expert Robert V. Delaney. He pointed out that by 1977, a number of economists had concluded that regulation had raised trucking rates by 40 percent or more; the Congressional Budget Office estimated that deregulation would lead to annual savings of $5 billion to $8 billion. But in 1987, after about seven years of deregulation, Delaney estimated that the annual savings ix 113516_Foreword.indd 9 2/1/20 12:20 AM VISIONS OF LIBERTY had been $56 billion to $90 billion. Why the huge discrepancy? Delaney found that improved trucking practices had allowed companies to make massive reductions in their logistics and inventory costs. Economists had not anticipated the efficien- cies that businesses would find once reliable and inexpensive trucking existed. This intellectual humility—libertarians’ willingness to admit that they don’t know exactly what will happen if their advice is implemented—has obvious political problems. People aren’t keen on voting for candidates who won’t promise specific results. Members of Congress hesitate to deregulate or privatize without a guarantee that no one will be unhappy. All I can say is that, when we get beyond immediate incremental reforms, my study of economics, sociology, and history convinces me that freedom works better than coercion, markets work better than monopoly, and competition works better than control. When countries stop trying to enforce a single religion, they become more peaceful and harmonious. When barriers to the legal equality of women, racial minorities, gay people, or other marginalized people are elimi- nated, those individuals are free to flourish in ways that benefit not only themselves but also others. When markets were liberated in northwestern Europe around 1800, we got a 30-fold increase in living standards. When Maoist communism was replaced by a partially open, market economy in China, a billion people rose out of poverty. The more freedom countries have, as measured by the Economic Freedom of the World survey and the Human Freedom Index, the more prosperous their citizens are. x 113516_Foreword_R7.indd 10 1/19/20 4:53 AM FOREWORD The authors in this book draw on those understandings to present their visions of how a libertarian society would work in various areas.