David Boaz is the Executive Vice President of the Cato Institute and the author of The Libertarian Mind: A Manifesto for Freedom, Libertarianism: A Primer, and The Libertarian Reader. He appeared on The Bob Zadek Show in April 2015 to discuss The Libertarian Mind and again in April 2018 to discuss what Bob Zadek framed as the libertarian ethos. Across both appearances, Boaz described libertarianism as a political philosophy concerned with the relationship between the individual and the state, distinguished it from a complete ethical system, and applied its principles to topics including wealth transfers, private property, and political tribalism.
Defining libertarianism
Bob Zadek opened the 2015 episode by asking whether libertarianism is a moral and economic philosophy with a political component, and what its core precepts are. Boaz answered that while Zadek’s description was fair, he would be careful about the moral philosophy point, because libertarianism is a political philosophy and not a complete philosophy of life. He said it is not an ethical guide to how to live one’s life, and that libertarianism does not have much to say about how one should treat one’s wife or business partners, except to not use coercion against them David Boaz on The Libertarian Mind (2015).
Boaz summarized the rule libertarianism proposes for living together in kindergarten terms: don’t hit other people, don’t take their stuff, and keep your promises. He said that if people do those things, society will have peace, social harmony, and economic growth. He described libertarianism as the philosophy of freedom, about the relationship between the individual and the state, and said it holds that people should be free to live their lives any way they choose so long as they respect the equal rights of others.
Zadek proposed that libertarianism is a social philosophy describing how people ought to live in a community, not necessarily a governmental philosophy, though it has clear implications for the political system. Boaz agreed. Zadek also suggested that libertarianism is not per se an economic system, but that living according to it will produce wealth, economic opportunity, and personal well-being. Boaz agreed but noted that different libertarians come to libertarianism in different ways: some through a belief in individual rights, others through studying economics and concluding that respecting property rights and market exchange produces a well-functioning and growing economy. Those who start from philosophy, he said, believe it is wrong to treat human beings as merely means and not ends, and wrong to use force to require other people to make choices they would not otherwise make.
The Cato Institute
In the 2015 episode, Zadek asked Boaz to describe the Cato Institute’s mission. Boaz said Cato is a non-partisan, independent libertarian think tank that studies and publishes books and studies on public policy issues from education to taxes to foreign and defense policy. He said it is supported by 15,000 individual contributors and has a staff of about 40 scholars, arguably including himself, writing books and studies. He noted a blog at Cato.org where issues are commented on daily, and said the goal is to increase public understanding of the ideas of freedom and limited government David Boaz on The Libertarian Mind (2015).
In the 2018 episode, Zadek introduced Boaz again as Executive Vice President of the Cato Institute and described Cato as one of the most important organizations in his life. Zadek said he found the Cato Institute about 25 years earlier and that it was founded back in the 70s, adding that Boaz would correct him if he was off by the date. Zadek said Cato has been a pillar of libertarian scholarship and public policy doctrine and a lodestar leading himself and millions of others toward an understanding of their relationship to their fellow man, their government, and the world. Boaz thanked him for his kind words David Boaz on the Libertarian Ethos (2018).
Wealth transfers and charity
In the 2015 episode, Zadek asked Boaz to explain the libertarian opposition to wealth transfers, in which government in its Robin Hood mode takes from the rich to give to the poor. Boaz said there is a moral problem with taking money from people by force and giving it to other people, and also a social problem created when people get on government programs and are able to stay for years and decades. He said that is not a very satisfying life, and that the question should be not how to get people welfare but how to get people better lives. He argued that a robust, stronger market economy would be better for everybody, especially those who have not been able to find jobs or good jobs, along with a system of charity that would be bigger if people had more money in their pockets to give David Boaz on The Libertarian Mind (2015).
Boaz said the difference between charity and government is that people engaged in charity are usually more local, more decentralized, more focused on the individual families they deal with, and more focused on helping people get their lives together rather than simply giving them money. He compared this to foreign aid: seeing pictures of people starving in Africa prompts the instinct to send money and food, which he called a noble, charitable instinct, but he asked whether it would be better if the people of Africa did not need baskets of food sent from the United States. He said what Africa needs is free markets, private property, the rule of law, and systems that allow people to work and produce and trade and grow or trade for their own food, medicine, and clothes. He said the same ought to be worked on in the United States: a social system that allows people to take care of themselves and have the life satisfaction that comes from knowing they take care of themselves and their family rather than depending on government.
Zadek said that liberals and progressives do not own the issue of caring for others, and that the issue is how to fix what everyone concedes we owe to others to fix, whether by giving a hungry African a fish or a fishing rod. Boaz agreed and cited the folk wisdom that giving a man a fish feeds him for a day while teaching him to fish feeds him for a lifetime. He said it is probably not that the people of Africa do not know how to fish, but that their social system does not encourage people to take responsibility for themselves; if government is rapacious and takes most of what you produce, there is no point in fishing.
Private property and civilization
In the 2018 episode, a caller named Michael asked Boaz whether he was familiar with Robert Wenzel’s book Foundations of Private Property Society, which Michael described as a groundbreaking take on libertarianism whose main premise is that the only structure in private property society is respect for private property. Boaz said he was not familiar with the book. He then said private property is certainly an important part of civilization, and that one cannot even have farming without a piece of property one can call one’s own, where the effort put in will repay oneself and one’s family and where the food grown can be eaten or traded David Boaz on the Libertarian Ethos (2018).
Boaz said one would not want to plant a crop or build a shack on property without knowing it is one’s own. He said societies that have tried to abolish private property, notably the Soviet Union and the other communist countries, found themselves economic basket cases, and he cited Venezuela as a current example, along with Russia, China, and the countries the Soviet Union conquered. He said the abolition of private property has been a socialist dream for a couple hundred years, and that the objection that private property means you get to keep me out is met by the nicer-sounding idea that the earth belongs to all of us—but some countries tried that, and it became a disaster.
Political tribalism and the arrogance of power
In the 2018 episode, Zadek asked Boaz to explain tribalism and why it represents a threat. Boaz said that historically, in all of human history, tribalism was the idea that you can only trust people close to you and like you—family, extended family, or the village—and that this expanded to community, nation, religious group, or racial group. He said that in modern America the phenomenon is more a kind of political tribalism, where people line up as on the red team or the blue team, watch Fox News or listen to NPR, and do not trust or like the people on the other side David Boaz on the Libertarian Ethos (2018).
Boaz said this makes informed political conversation difficult because both sides demonize the other, and that it is particularly difficult for libertarians, who reject some ideas of the right and some of the left, to get a hearing. He traced the worsening to around 1998 with the Monica Lewinsky scandal and the attempted impeachment of President Clinton, followed by the 2000 election and the Florida vote, which he said required everybody to line up for Bush or Gore. He said tribalism intensified through the Bush years, the Obama years with hysteria against Obama and the rise of the Tea Party, and the rise of Trump. His concern, he said, is that people shut their ears to policy discussion and simply say they are on one team or the other. Zadek added that the media has become equally polarized and that people tend to listen to echo chambers.
Zadek then argued that one of the most profound differences between a libertarian governmental point of view and a non-libertarian one is the hubris and arrogance of those who believe someone with power knows better how you ought to organize your life than you do. He said such people ascend to power with that hubris and exercise power protecting us from ourselves, whereas most individuals, asked in private whether they know best how to run their life, would say they do and want the freedom to do so. He said this arrogance thrives on instilling fear: once you convince the population that they need protection, guidance, and control, populism takes over and a strong dictator-type individual ascends as savior. He asked Boaz whether he was overstating the case about fear.
Boaz answered that fear is not the only way government is built up, but that the organization of fear is one of the ways. He said that if you feel you cannot handle some problem—street crime, the dangers of the 1%, or Mexicans coming across the border who are rapists and murderers and bringing drugs—you may flee to someone who promises to protect you from that threat. He said this was seen throughout President Trump’s campaign in 2015 and 2016, which he described as almost entirely about fear of others, fear of crime, fear of immigrants, and fear of foreign trade, adding that we are supposed to be afraid of people sending us cars and computers to consider buying.
Across episodes: the two conversations
The 2015 and 2018 episodes both feature Boaz defining libertarianism as a political philosophy about the relationship between the individual and the state, and both touch on the Cato Institute’s mission and the threat that fear and concentrated power pose to individual self-direction. The 2015 conversation centers on the book The Libertarian Mind and its applications to wealth transfers and charity; the 2018 conversation shifts to political tribalism, private property, and the arrogance of power, with Zadek advancing the fear-and-hubris framing and Boaz agreeing and extending it to the Trump campaign. The excerpts show no development in Boaz’s core definition of libertarianism between the two appearances; what changes is the set of topics and the political context Zadek and Boaz address.
What the sources do not cover
The excerpts do not state the date or place of Boaz’s birth, his education, or his career before the Cato Institute. They do not give the founding date of the Cato Institute beyond Zadek’s tentative reference to the 70s, which he invited Boaz to correct. They do not describe the contents of The Libertarian Mind beyond the purposes Boaz states for writing it, nor do they cover Boaz’s views on issues such as drug policy, religious freedom, or anti-discrimination law that the episode summary lists as topics. The excerpts also do not record any disagreement between Zadek and Boaz on the definition of libertarianism or on the role of fear in politics.
Episodes
2 appearances, 2015–2018.
- David Boaz on The Libertarian Mind (2015) — Core principles and history of libertarianism. Executive Vice President of the Cato Institute
- David Boaz on the Libertarian Ethos (2018) — Core principles of libertarianism and individual rights. Executive Vice President of the Cato Institute