In a discussion about his new book, Modern Libertarianism, author Brian Doherty stressed that it is important, even in the polarizing age of President Trump, to focus on the policies and the ideas—did the libertarian idea win? “It’s the ideas’ victories that are important,” he said, and not so much the personalities involved. He noted that Milton Friedman, for instance, chose to work with people on the right to promote his libertarian views, and sometimes Muray Rothbard worked with the political left to advance a libertarian position.
Doherty explained that he does not like many of Trump’s policies, especially on trade, and that there is a division between libertarians who want to roll back big government by hook or by crook and libertarians who think Trump’s approach is too erratic and dangerous. The views of both sides are “understandable,” he said. However, he again noted, “It’s not about being” for Trump or against Trump—“it’s about whether the policies are correct.”
Below is an abridged video clip and transcript of Doherty’s discussion with Cato’s Senior Vice President for Policy Gene Healy on February 25. You can view the entire exchange here. As the video begins, Doherty explains what libertarianism is in general.
Brian Doherty: Freedom is great. Of course, we all believe in freedom. As Ayn Rand noted in her puckishly if not trollishly titled book, The Virtue of Selfishness, a lot of people look at obsession with your own liberty as selfishness. And she tried to explain, “Yes, it is, and also that’s great.” But you can also frame the libertarian project as not about liberty per se, but about the flip side of liberty, which is we are minimizing the areas in which anyone else is justified in using violent force against you. In those areas where no one is justified in using it, that is the area of your liberty.
I found that has been a rhetorically effective way to explain “what are you guys all about? What is it you want?” Well, we want human social relations to be based the least possible they can be on violence. Some of us think that means eliminating it, perhaps entirely, except for in self-defense. Some think we need a little more.
Gene Healy: What’s the broader history of opening—not just [Murray] Rothbard—but attempts for a left fusionism with libertarians?
Brian Doherty: It really does come down to him [Rothbard]. If you talk about even people like Mises—who was Rothbard’s great teacher—Mises, Hayek, Rand, Friedmann, and despite Friedman’s role in the draft, these are not people who would have ever felt comfortable, like you say, writing something in praise of [Che] Guevara.
The reason Rothbard was able to do it [in 1967], and this touches on what I was just talking about, is he would often get down to the idea that you’ve got to smash the State—right? Maybe the way you’re doing it isn’t exactly strategically perfect or motivated by libertarianism, and maybe what you want to replace it with is terrible in the case of Guevara. But if you are out there actually doing damage to this hideous institution of rapine and destruction and theft that is the State, you’re going to cheer that. He always did, and it made a lot of other libertarians uncomfortable with him.
Brian Doherty: … I wrote this book because we’re human beings and human history actually unfolds through humans and ideas are spread through humans. But it’s about the ideas. What’s important about it is not how great a novelist Ayn Rand was or how influential a figure Milton Friedmann was or what a nuanced, complicated, fascinating to contemplate figure, either Hayek or Rothbard in their own ways were. I mean, that’s great. It allows people like me to write books that are probably more fun to read because you can connect them to human beings.
But it’s the ideas’ victories that are important.
And certainly, if you are still a professional advocate of libertarian ideas, it’s probably futile to get hung up and like, “Well, who won this victory?” It’s like, well, did the idea win?
I don’t like things about Trump. Well, I don’t like things about Trump either. But if Trump was the instrument for mocking and deriding everyone in the Republican coalition whoever thought the Iraq war was a great idea, that’s great. You don’t even have to say great for Trump, if it grinds your teeth to say great for Trump. You just have to say great for that idea because that’s an important idea.
Gene Healy: Well, speaking of Trump and libertarian crackups, is it possible we’re going through a bit of one now? You touched on this a little bit in the last chapter of Modern Libertarianism. But in the last almost ten years, ever since he came down the escalator, everything has been about Donald Trump, which is the way he likes it, living rent-free in everyone’s head—and rent-free, sad to say, in a lot of libertarian minds as well. So, you talk a little bit about the rise of the Mises caucus, some of the stuff that happened in the LP [Libertarian Party]. Are we in the middle of another libertarian crackup that’s spurred by the guy who came down the escalator?
Brian Doherty: Yeah, I think we probably are. We talked a little bit about this earlier, the distinction I was trying to draw between how an ideal Hayekian might look at the whole DOGE thing versus how a Rothbardian might look at it. You’re definitely going to see libertarians taking both sides, and you’re going to see, as libertarians love to do, getting super mad at the other libertarians, the ones who are like, “How can you not see that this is a nightmare? Okay, sure, some government employees are getting fired, but if they’re not changing policy, that doesn’t mean government is actually shrinking. It just means government is going to be doing the things that makes us all do even worse than it did it before.” Versus, we’ve had decades of attempting to ever make the federal workforce shrink. Then, of course, you can get back to the things Clinton did, which, quite honestly, I speak to you, I’m not an expert in, so I don’t want to get too deep into it.
But maybe there were other ways to do it that aren’t just letting Elon Musk do whatever he wants. We’re seeing those fights happen in real time, and they’re probably going to get uglier.
I think maybe two years from now we’ll actually understand more about, oh, what was the effect of everything that DOGE has been doing in the first two months? Politics has gotten—not gotten. It’s always been very personal. I feel like there’s not going to be a lot of side-changing. Even no matter what we see two years from now. I think the people who thought it was a great idea right now are still going to think it was a great idea, and the people who doubted it are probably still going to doubt it.
I do want to say I intended this book, and I hope for this book to have a shelf life beyond the controversies of not even 2025, because obviously I finished writing in 2024. … I think probably lots of libertarians who, for what I think were very sensible reasons, looking at what Trump One did, who never really expected anything government-shrinking to come out of Trump. I’ve been a little surprised, and I should think anyone would be a little surprised. I did not expect even chaotic and possibly fruitless slashes of the federal bureaucracy to happen instantly, and they have. It’s interesting to watch, and it will be interesting to watch libertarians fight about the hows and whys of it.
Gene Healy: It’s sad to say, but the smart money is probably it ends up something like the Republican mid-90s chest pounding about getting rid of four or five cabinet departments. If you had a lot of skin in the game, that’s probably the safer way to bet. Sorry, go ahead.
Brian Doherty: I was going to say another—we should bring it back to this. I mentioned this earlier, but I guess I feel like I’ll mention it again because I think one of the things about Trump discourse that gets people very head-up is like, “You’re not saying the important thing. You’re not repeating enough. You’re not saying it loud enough.” And so, I will repeat, Trump’s attitudes and actions about the international flow of human bodies, human goods, and capital are terrible, ridiculously unlibertarian. I actually have an article in what I think is the new issue of Reason—though, when you work for a magazine, your sense of what’s the last issue and the next issue and the new issue get mixed up.
But somewhat recently, there’s an article I wrote that’s actually derived from this book that talks about Mises, particularly, and how Mises used to be a darling of the right, and how I think there’s certain things about Trumpism that have gone very wrong by ignoring Mises. But even that, you should understand, was written before he actually took office again the second time, so it doesn’t really deal with the DOGE stuff. That stuff is terrible.
The power grabs, I’m definitely enough of a Hayekian to think, yeah, it’s not great when one mercurial guy who seems to be really angry and mad at a lot of people and be very driven by revenge against his enemies is attempting to accrue all sorts of power and decision-making strictly in himself. That’s alarming and it’s terrible. And again, perhaps bloodlessly, I would prefer judging policies and ideas rather than people. And if all the terrible things about Trump make you feel like, “Well, I can’t even say it’s a good idea to cut some government jobs and cut some government programs.” I don’t think that’s fruitful.
I don’t think it’s good for the libertarian cause or any cause. But it’s understandable. But similarly, just because you like that doesn’t mean you have to go, “I’m for Trump, and everything Trump does is great because Trump is great.” It’s not about being—it’s about whether the policies are correct.
Gene Healy: I want to say I can’t speak for the audience, but I, for one, did not suspect you of being Trump-curious in any way.
Brian Doherty is a senior editor at Reason and the author of six books, most recently Modern Libertarianism: A Brief History of Classical Liberalism in the United States (Libertarianism.org/Cato Institute). To purchase Modern Libertarianism, click here.