Wednesday, May 30, 2007

Libertarian Paternalism

Over at The Volokh Conspiracy, Ilya Somin has a couple of posts about "libertarian paternalism". I won't get into the specifics of that particular philosophy other than to say that it troubles me.

I have, many times and in many places, derided the couching of various liberty depriving systems in the language of liberty. Libertarian paternalism is no different so it is not surprising that reading through the comments to those posts, you find, not libertarians, but rather leftists defending the idea.

My main fear is that someone generally ignorant of political philosophy equates these authoritarian systems with actual libertarianism.

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