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Why I was a Libertarian
by Bo Fredricsson
bogunnar@kth.se

Special to The Libertarian Enterprise

When the Soviet Union dissolved, and looking at the way it dissolved, an entirely internal affair, I got this feeling that there must be something wrong with my world view. How could it have been such a surprise to me if I was a reasonably well informed person. In 1992 I had some spare time and happened to see an ad from The Conservative Book Club. They offered a free book for joining, and an otherwise quite expensive book, Human Action by Luwig von Mises.

450 books later (about 100,000 pages), I have been a Libertarian for several years. Many of these books are treating three subjects in particular, Praxeology, History and Ethics.

When I came from Sweden to the U.S. in 1966 with a suitcase, $800 and a degree in Electronics Engineering I was almost a Social Democrat. Over the years I became more conservative, and at one time Rush Limbaugh was on my radio most days. My reading was almost only science and technology, and I felt that other people had their good handle on their specialties.

It was another big surprise to me that in the field of economics, about 95% of its writers, teachers etc. did not have a good understanding of their subject. Praxeology did not seem to be popular among them. It seems that History is another subject where a writer can do some damage if he doesn't have an outlook that is at least friendly to praxeology.

When it comes to Ethics, how could anyone object to the following propositions: Every person owns herself and Nobody has the right to initiate force. Automatically, these propositions lead to the conclusion that the State is our enemy, and that the Market is our friend.

Just like the Liberal label was hijacked by Social Democrats, the Libertarian label has now been hijacked by Minarchists (or worse). Therefore, I suggest that we start a new party called the NoTax Party. It is difficult to imagine how a NoTax Party could be hijacked by statists.

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