DOASKDOTELL BOOK REVIEW of Charles Murray’s What It Means to Be a Libertarian

Author (or Editor): Murray, Charles

Title: What It Means to Be a Libertarian: A Personal View

Fiction?

Publisher: Broadway

Date: 1997

ISBN: 0767900391

Series Name:

Physical description: hardbound

Relevance to DOASKDOTELL libertarianism

Review:

Book Review of Charles Murray's little book on libertarianism

What It Means to Be a Libertarian: A Personal View

Charles Murray

Broadway Books, 1997.

Charles Murray attracted some notoriety with his earlier collaboration, The Bell Curve. Maybe some readers were surprised in 1997 when Murray called himself a libertarian.

But in this little book, he makes his sincerity convincing. Whereas Boaz's work, published almost the same time, is ambitiously Mahlerian in style, this little work is like a (minimalist) Satie miniature. Murray provides straightforward explanations as to how libertarianism is to work in practice, including the way freedom is discrimination's best antidote.

But the height of Murray's book is just two words, in answer to the typical charge that libertarianism lets vulnerable people destroy themselves, with drugs, sex, gambling. His brutal answer: that's tough! Oh, he does explain it.

Related: David Boaz. Libertarianism

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