Libertarian political philosophy, as a practical matter, does not offer a prefabricated set of solutions to collective problems. Rather, it’s a liberty-based approach to ameliorating collective problems that begins by acknowledging (among other things) the dispersion, incompleteness, and tacit dimension of relevant knowledge. Thus, the approach favors decentralization, competition (in ideas and services), and choice about what trade-offs to make and with whom to cooperate. Perhaps ironically, to succeed, individualism requires and produces the collective intelligence that only markets embody.
Henry Hazlitt, ‘Economic Conscience of a Nation’
Henry Hazlitt’s life story reads like a microcosm of the American century. Born in Philadelphia on November 28, 1894, he lost his father in infancy and left the City College of New York to support his widowed mother. In the fluid labor market of the time he bounced...