They’re libertarians and they don’t know it. That’s long been the view of Cato Institute co-founder Ed Crane. It’s what he expressed decades ago to recently passed Cato executive vice president David Boaz. Boaz was a conservative when he first met Crane, but Crane knew from their conversations that Boaz was a libertarian precisely because Boaz was for freedom of choice, the concept that animates libertarianism.
People should be free to live as they want, while owning the good or bad results of their individual decisions. How else for individuals to positively evolve?
In a policy way, most unwittingly express their libertarianism when they reveal disdain for the policies of whomever occupies the White House at any given time. A frequent libertarian response is that you don’t dislike the occupant as much as you’re troubled by how much power the occupant has.
It speaks to an animating principle of libertarianism in a U.S. policy sense: abide a Constitution that leaves the vast majority of policymaking to the states so that free people can choose their individual policy bliss. If policymaking is local, people per Crane can go to bed early on presidential election nights.
Crane’s thinking and more came to mind while reading prominent Australian businessman Ron Manners’ new book, The Impatient Libertarian: Which Road Ahead? Manners is the founder and former Chairman of Croesus Mining, a major gold producer, among a myriad of pursuits that includes his role as Chairman of the Mannkal Economic Education Foundation, a libertarian think tank.
Manners’ combination of private sector achievement with his passionate support of libertarianism is a way to pivot to someone Manners holds in high regard, Sir Antony Fisher (1915-1988). Manners writes in The Impatient Libertarian that in the aftermath of the 2nd World War, Fisher considered going into politics, only to be told by no less than Austrian school eminence Friedrich Hayek that “politicians are not leaders, they are followers.” Hayek’s point was that if Fisher really wanted to have a policy impact, it was essential that he “win the public,” after which politicians would follow.
Hayek added that it’s difficult to achieve anything without money. So true. Fisher took Hayek’s advice seriously, and went on to become the biggest chicken farmer in England. Fisher’s success enabled his founding of free market organizations Institute for Economic Affairs (UK), the Atlas Network (global), and also the Manhattan Institute. Hayek was right about the value of earning money first, but there was more.
As Manners recalls, upon entering the chicken farming business Fisher discovered that American chickens had twice as much meat on them. Fisher’s intent was to “bring back some of these chickens to breed in England, but his request was denied by the Egg Marketing Board.” Stop and think about that: a government-created entity meant to seemingly make markets regular? No wonder England was in so much economic trouble throughout much of the 2nd half of the 20th century.
What’s important is that entrepreneurs by their very name are rarely deterred by rules set up to make producers equal. Manners writes that “a week or two before Easter, Fisher went to America, got half a suitcase of fertilised eggs, wrapped them all up so that they looked like Easter eggs, brought them back in his bag, got them through Customs and started breeding super chickens, becoming the biggest chicken producer in the United Kingdom.” The proceeds from the eventual sale of the chicken business funded the aforementioned organizations founded by Fisher, but his business experiences plainly informed the passion that Fisher brought to the freedom and free market movement: he increasingly saw up close just how meddlesome government had become. In short, Hayek’s advice to Fisher was doubly good.
It should be added that Manners lived the advice Hayek gave to Fisher. As mentioned previously, he figured and figures prominently in Australian business, has innovated in all manner of ways (including double rollers for toilet tissue), plus he lived the absurdity of bureaucracy. Consider his description of how shipments made their way to his town of Kalgoorlie: “we tired of seeing the materials and equipment, ordered for the operating of the mining industry, coming through Kalgoorlie, non-stop, on the train. However, we were not permitted to take them off the train. It had to go to Perth (another day’s travel) and then be brought back, some three and a half weeks later to Kalgoorlie.” Manners “could not see the logic in this ‘Government Policy’” and many others. Like Fisher, his real world experiences have informed his attempts to shape ideas.
Manners’ book provides sketches of Fisher, along with Leonard Read (Foundation for Economic Education), John Hospers (libertarian scholar, Libertarian Party nominee for President of the United States in 1972), Friedrich Hayek, and Prince Philip (yes, that one), “the five individuals who have affected me the most, their influence deeply imbedded into Mannkal.” FEE (short for Foundation for Economic Education) is the best place to start, simply because it ties into this review’s introduction.
They’re libertarians and they don’t know it. It’s written here again. Applied to Manners, his father had a mining engineering business. Manners writes that after school he would work at the business, including “unpacking big machinery crates of Timken roller bearings from Ohio, USA.” What’s notable about this is that one afternoon while removing the roller bearings from the packing materials, Manners noticed “crumpled pages from a magazine.” He subsequently took them home, “and later that night smoothed them out to find that they were the pages of The Freeman magazine” published by FEE.
Manners deduced that Timken’s owner must have been a FEE supporter given his circulation of The Freeman. The main thing is that the magazine had a profound impact on Manners. He describes the thoughts within it as ‘new,’ but the speculation here is that Manners, like Boaz, was already a free thinker, after which the commentary about “business ethics, the moral foundations for capitalism, and the concepts of free markets and individual responsibility” that filled the pages of The Freeman came naturally to him.
About FEE and its founder in Leonard Read, Manners writes early on that Read “had the earliest impact on the development of my philosophical thinking.” Of greater importance, Manners describes Read’s belief that “there had to be a strategy in place to share” the ideas of liberty “in such a way that people were more receptive to them.” It all brings to mind a conversation Manners recalls with Hayek, one that seemingly ties the thinking of Hayek, Fisher, and Read together well.
As Hayek was making an economic point, he apparently was making it to Manners too quickly, too obscurely, or both. Manners stopped him, essentially asked him to slow down, and reminded him that “I’m not an economist!” Hayek responded with, “I’m glad you’re not an economist. We economists simply dream our ideas and think our thoughts, but business people like you go out and fire bullets.” Amen.
How it ties it some of the greatest influences on Manners beyond Hayek is that Hayek believed deeply a la Read that good ideas are just ideas absent reaching the people with them. That’s why Hayek wanted to keep Fisher out of politics, and in business. The business side would put Fisher in the position (and no doubt Manners too) to fund organizations meant to convey the ideas of liberty to the people, after which politicians would follow. Crane and Cato had a similar philosophy: rather than preach to politicians, they would bring the genius of liberty to the people through op-eds, white papers, books, and seminars around the U.S. and the world. Change the minds of the people, and politicians will follow.
Even better, the ideas of freedom are good ones. They’re great ones. It’s something I always remind my work colleagues of: we’ve got the easy job. Think about it. We’re making a case for individual liberty, while the opposition is arguing in favor of control from the proverbial Commanding Heights. We should pity them, all the while relentlessly making our case.
It’s a reminder of why Cato, Mannkal, FEE, Atlas, and other organizations like them are so important. Exactly because the philosophy that informs their commentary is rooted in individual freedom and free markets, it makes sense. Really, who could argue against the visible results of unfettered economic activity, but of much greater importance, who could argue with the genius of leaving people free to live as they wish? Crane in particular focuses on the individual freedom part of freedom and free markets advocacy not because he’s not a deep believer in free markets, but because he believes that individual freedom pre-supposes freedom of the commercial kind. Lightly paraphrasing Crane here: if people are free, they’ll have all the economic growth they could ever want.
One senses Manners thinks a lot like Crane, though with a variation or two that will be discussed at review’s end. For now, it’s useful too feature a comment from Manners that read to your reviewer as crucially important, and one that libertarians themselves would do well to internalize. And they should internalize it because it seems more than a few libertarians are getting squishy, or “yes, but” about immigration. They justify ever larger and more armed government to limit it with the justification that Milton Friedman once said, “you can’t simultaneously have free immigration and a welfare state.” The bet here is that if alive today, Friedman would say the quote attributed to him has been perverted by conservatives and libertarians alike. And if they’re not hiding behind Friedman to defend government-imposed restrictions, they excuse their own increasing comfort with government as rooted in their reluctance to allow in individuals from “statist” countries lest they bring those ideas with them to the U.S.
Manners’ answer to such nonsensical thinking can be found in his initial description of modern Australia, followed by what he writes subsequent to his description: “Australia has, until recently, been a relatively free society allowing individuals more room to manage their own affairs within stable and common law that avoids favouritism and protects life, liberty and property.” What’s most crucial is what follows. Manners adds that “as anyone may observe, those virtues are practiced most in countries to which refugees flee and least in countries from which they escape.” Yes!
Manners’ line is the best rebuke yet from a libertarian of libertarians prone to straddling the immigration question. They’re coming to the U.S., Australia, and other mostly free countries precisely because they’re attracted to the qualities informed by freedom and the rule of law that make those countries so great to begin with. In which case there’s no need to worry about “assimilation” and other excuses for more government, more restrictions, or both. By virtue of making their way to free countries, the escapees are revealing their preference for freedom. Or as Crane once put it to P.J. O’Rourke about Cuban refugees who battled shark-infested waters in order to get to Florida, they proved they were Americans by getting themselves to its shores. Stamp their passports.
As for the welfare angle that so many use, it’s utter nonsense that is revealed not just visibly by the tireless work ethic of immigrants, but empirically by the remittances home from those immigrants. In other words, the biggest driver of Mexico’s economy is neither oil nor tourism, rather it is economic activity that takes place in the United States the fruits of which are consumed in Mexico. Needless to say, Manners’s line about refugees and where they go will used by yours truly for a long time to come.
Moving to John Hospers, he’ll forever be an answer to a trivia question about who the winner was of one electoral vote in a 1972 presidential election won in a landslide by Richard Nixon. Hospers also secured 3,971 actual votes.
What appealed to Manners most of all about Hospers was his “elevation of heroic self-responsibility.” Critics thought the latter “unspeakably evil,” but Manners wisely found good.
Which brings us to Prince Philip. On its face, how interesting. Or better yet, who knew? Though from a Tina Brown book about the royals, some of the quips from Prince Philip gave off the impression of a free thinker. Which may or may not be the point.
As Manners explains it, Philip was the opposite of the philosophical Hospers. What Manners deems a libertarian mind within the royal wasn’t driven by “a deep interest in philosophy and economics,” but instead “a firm commitment to achieving outcomes.” Explained more simply, Prince Philip was “100% strategy.” And he was effective with his “just getting on with it approach” to outcome.
In particular, he organized Commonwealth Study conferences “to look into the tensions, problems, and opportunities created by the dichotomy between industrial enterprise and community development.” More specifically, the Prince thought progress could be had if the “warring parties” got together and bonded.
Back to Hayek, Manners helpfully includes the comments from Keynes to Hayek about The Road to Serfdom, that “morally and philosophically I find myself in agreement with virtually the whole of it.” Keynes was so much better than his disciples whom he properly described as “fools” in a later interview conducted by Hayek. Beyond that, it would be interesting to ask Manners if he worries about many of the disciples of Hayek and Mises, and whether or not the “fools” description applies to some of them. I say yes.
Most pertinent about Hayek is that Manners writes of how he wanted his insights “to be understood by us all, and most importantly, he wanted to see them implemented.” Were they? I say yes? Cato, IEA, Mannkal, and the freedom movement broadly won, and won big.
All it takes to see this is to look back to the 1970s in the U.S., and to some of the Australian leaders whom Manners plainly disdained like Gough Whitlam and Bob Hawke. It’s difficult to imagine either being elected in Australia today, while in the U.S. it’s easy to forget that in the 1970s ownership of a telephone was illegal, gasoline prices were controlled and gas frequently sold on an odd/even day basis, air travel was centrally planned by the Civil Aeronautics Board, top tax rates were as high as 70%, and most damning of all, it was accepted wisdom among the vast majority of economists that the Soviet economy rivaled that of the U.S. Yes, freedom and free markets won. And they once again won big.
Which brings up some disagreements with Manners, disagreements that it seems Crane might share. With his contention that the left have fought the free market right via “cultural/philosophical terms” that has included their bastardization of “progressive,” the normally ebullient Manners laments that “No wonder they have won the culture wars.” I don’t think so. See above, but also see how they’ve had to bastardize “progressive” in the first place all the while adopting various acronyms like ESG and DEI to hide their true intentions. That’s not the stuff of winners, after which a decades-long march of equity markets upward (since the early 1980s) signals that a marketplace comprised of all known information sees the free market side as the big winner yet again.
After Manners’ surprising conclusion about culture wars that he and others won, the great Australian businessman and thinker digs himself into the government deficit and debt trap throughout the book. So many libertarians find their way to this same trap, though not Crane. I’ll wager Manners too could be convinced that a focus on deficits and debt is worse than a trap, it’s also a distraction. Please read on.
And in reading on, it will be said up front that government spending is the most hideous, economy-sapping tax of all. Which is why I’m eager to convince Manners to at least contemplate another way of thinking about it. Manners laments politicians “unable to hold back from advocating for spending vast quantities of our future generation’s earnings to repay the crippling debt they have accumulated whilst buying votes to remain ‘in power.’”
First off, Manners arguably shouldn’t concede so much. Government spending is central planning of precious resources. Which means it’s a wet blanket on freedom and growth always and everywhere. Yet people want freedom adn growth. It seems the real vote buying would be had in politicians spending less.
Second, the “crippling debt.” How could it be? Manners is from the private sector, so he knows how difficult capital is to attain whether it’s individuals or businesses. In the real world occupied by Manners, money is never “easy.” What’s important about this is that governments only have money to spend insofar as they have taxable access to the earnings of their citizenry. Which is just a comment that the surest sign debt in a country like the U.S. isn’t “crippling,” is all the debt. There’s quite simply no way the world would line up to buy U.S. debt at such low interest rates unless those buyers operating in the world’s deepest market had a strong impression that the U.S. can and will pay it off with ease.
All of which speaks to the real problem with the debt. It’s not the debt run up by countries at low rates of interest that signal future ease of paying it off, but the massive governments being left behind to future generations. Crucial there is that the spending is our burden now, and also that of future generations that will inherit massive governments in concert with societies that are much less advanced than they otherwise would be if governments were smaller.
From all this, some will conclude that countries have large deficits and debt because they overspend. No, that’s backwards. Borrowing is an effect of the market’s belief in an individual, business, or country’s ability to pay it back. Put another way, the U.S. doesn’t have soaring debt because it overspends, but because lenders are confident that the U.S. Treasury will take in enormous amounts of tax revenues in the present, and exponentially greater amounts in the future. Yes, the problem is too much tax revenue now and the expectation of much more tax revenue in the future.
This is important because left, right, supply side, and libertarians continue to make deficits and debt about too little taxation (the left), too little taxation and too much spending (right and libertarians), and too much taxation that is keeping tax revenues too low (supply side) on the way to deficits and debt. They’re all wrong. As we see in the private sector all the time, those who can borrow with ease have high incomings now, and the expectation of much higher incomings in the future. If we want to bring down government spending and debt we must crucially bring taxes so low that tax revenues actually fall, and with it, willingness among lenders to lend to our governments.
It seems Manners would be open to such an argument, and perhaps persuaded? He writes of governments “having got themselves into debt” before declaring “partial bankruptcy” via devaluation, but if the latter were the norm then it’s safe to say there would be very little government debt. Few offer up capital with an eye on not getting it back, and we’ve seen this up close in the U.S.: In 1980 the U.S. had total debt of $900 billion and yields on our 10-year Treasuries were 11%. Forty-four years later, and there’s $36 trillion of debt. Yet the 10-year yields 4.68%. The problem is governments aren’t bankrupt enough, and markets signals are confirming this truth.
Beyond disagreement about the debt, in writing about it the joyous, freedom-loving, freedom-winning Manners at times gives off the impression of pessimism. It doesn’t read like him. Manners explains his impatience early on in the book as a function of looking around, and seeing “governments growing in scope, national debt soaring and entitlement and authoritarianism on the rise.” No, think of how far we’ve come. Manners should be bursting.
To pick up his excellent book is to get the feeling of a happy warrior who sees a bright future, a future that Manners did so much to create. Stick to the positive, I say. Our argument is the winning one, and Manners et have done a great deal win the argument. It seems we could even win the deficit and debt argument if willing to make it about how we’re all overtaxed. Would Manners agree? Hopefully more books are coming from him that will address so much more.
This post was originally published on here
