There are many features to the libertarian worldview. Individualism is the foundational principle of libertarianism. Human beings have dignity and are capable of making their own decisions. Everyone has the right to choose how they pursue life, liberty, and ownership of property and no one has the right to encroach upon an individual’s freedoms. Furthermore, people must be responsible for the consequences of their decisions. Libertarians also emphasize the value spontaneous order. Absent of central planners, the accumulation of people’s free choices is a complex network of real order. Civil societies, languages, markets, and laws have come about because free and like-minded individuals collaborate in order to each achieve their purposes.
Libertarians are very skeptical of government. Because of their emphasis on individualism and spontaneous order, they view much of the existing political structure as unnecessary. However, most libertarians believe that the state is responsible to protect the inherent rights of humans. Valid functions of the state include law enforcement, the justice system, and basic military. Libertarians especially emphasize the need for protecting incentives. Incentives motivate individuals. Without incentives, societies will not advance. Therefore, the state must ensure that individuals get to keep the rewards of their efforts.
Libertarian philosophy stresses the importance of free markets. As individuals have the right to secure property, they also have the right to voluntarily exchange it. Overall, free markets are the best way to effectively and efficiently distribute scarce resources. One aspect of the free market that libertarians emphasize is the resulting natural harmony of interests. Each participant in the free market does so with their own purposes and self-focused goals in mind. However, the free market does not create massive group conflicts or societal divisions (as political systems often do). Instead, through competition and prices, the market materially advances all of its participants in the long run. Thus, libertarians believe that self-focused behavior has the potential to actually benefit societies.
There are several distinctions within the libertarian movement. Libertarians disagree with each other over several questions. For one, what justifies libertarianism? Consequentialists do not adhere to any moral standard, but look at ideas through the lenses of cost benefit analysis. On the other hand, moralists believe that inherent natural rights provide the foundation for libertarianism. The subject of private property is another source of contention between libertarians. Propertarians assert that morality is completely rooted in property rights. Paradoxically, there also exists a libertarian socialist camp which advocates for the abolishment of all authority structures including private property. The proper extent of the state is another question. Full anarchists believe that all state functions are unnecessary and that free markets are able to replace even law enforcement and justice systems. Minarchists are less extreme; they believe in an extremely limited government.

Libertarians want all individuals to have the most opportunities to achieve success, which is possible through a free and competitive market. This allows every person the right to offer their goods and services to others on the free market. Libertarians are pro-capitalism. They strive for an economy with free markets, market-banking, healthcare and trade. They oppose inflationary monetary policies and government subsidies or any type of government control on the market. Libertarians support monopolies, noting that individuals do best for society when they are following their private interests.
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When it comes to property rights, Libertarians believe that individual’s should be free to make choices for themselves. They want owners to be able to exercise full control of their property without government interference. The party opposes control on wages, rents, interest rates, and any violation of the right to own private property. They only ask that while one exercises complete control that they do not infringe on the rights of others.
Libertarians support minimal taxation. They want to repeal the income tax as well as abolish the IRS. Replacing welfare, stopping bailing out industries, phasing out the Social Security system and lowering military expenses are all ways to reduce government spending. They propose that private groups are more effective tool for the underprivileged. Libertarians believe that the government should enforce a Balanced Budget Amendment financed by expenditure cuts rather than raising taxes.
In terms of education, Libertarians want to restore authority to parents. Parents should be able to send their children to any school they wish and should have responsibility for all funds. This free market will give an array of choices giving less fortunate children more opportunities to attain a good education. This change will allow schools to have more accountability and greater parental involvement.
Many members of the Libertarian party align themselves with the party, because of the economic liberties. [Some research sentence about how this is true] Then, dive into the economists? Good transition?
Some of the great libertarian economists are still alive today and continue to contribute to society as a whole. One of these economists is Bruce L. Benson. He was born on March 18, 1949. He received his Ph.D. in Economics from Texas A&M University and afterwards he went on to teach at a variety of universities such as Pennsylvania State University and Montana State University. He became a senior fellow in political economics at the Independent Institute. He was also appointed a member of the board of trustees at the Southern Economic Association. He is most widely recognized for his work in law and economics. He is a self-pronounced libertarian and a major exponent of Anarcho-capitalism legal theory. This theory holds that the society would be better off without the presence of any government entity whatsoever. This idea developed from the libertarian belief that government interference only disrupts the natural fluctuations of the economy. Due to this, they feel that the government meddling only hurts society rather than helps it. The other side of this party is the minarchists. Minarchists believe that there should be a tiny government with limited power restricted to only retaliatory force. This is tied to another belief of libertarians which states that no person should ever initiate force against another, unless for protection. He has written many published works through his life on various topics such as individual ownership of property, excessive government interference, and the effectiveness of non-state institutions compared to the government.
Another of these economists is Thomas E. Woods, Jr. who was born on August 1, 1972. He is interesting because he has no degree in economics; in fact, he has a B.A. in History from Harvard University and a Ph.D. in History from Columbia University. He is an American historian, political analyst, and author who has written countless books. His many published books have helped him become a New York Times Bestselling Author. He is also a self-pronounced Libertarian who is firmly against the Federal Reserve. He feels that their loose monetary policy and frugal creation of money caused the rapid inflation and “bubble burst” of the recent economic downturn. According to Woods, stimulus spending does not work because it only reinflates the bubble during its recovery due to the resulting rise in perceived wealth. Woods goes into detail about this in his essay, “Beware of Obamanomics.” In the essay he explains how the jobs created by the government unprofitable. This is because the government has no way of measuring efficiency and therefore produces less than another company would with the same resources. Since the resources consumed are greater than the resources produced, it is an unprofitable venture. Along with the main idea that allowing the economy to fluctuate freely is the best choice for society, there is no stimulus needed if the government had waited long enough for the market to correct itself. If the market is allowed to operate freely, as libertarians often desire, it will result in economic success from hard work and entrepreneurial skill, rather than through political connections as it so often is in this day and age.
When discovering who is a deceased libertarian economist, one must look at which economists stressed the ideals of libertarianism. Many dead economists did not deliberately say they were libertarian. This is mainly because the party did not begin until the December of 1971. One economist, such as this, was Milton Friedman.
Milton Friedman was Born on July 31st 1912 and died on November 16, 2006. Being one of the most popular economists of his time, he taught at the University of Chicago for over 30 years. In addition, he won the Nobel Memorial Prize for economics in 1976. He was so respected in his field that he was an economic advisor for President Reagan back in the 1980’s.
When analyzing his views of economics, one can clearly establish that he was libertarian. First of all, he strongly advocated for a free market with minimal government oppression. As a result of this, he was against Keynesian theory that claimed that a lot of government intervention was good for the economy. Friedman did not like the Federal Reserve but understood that it wasn’t going to be shut down any time soon. That’s why he stated that the Federal Reserve should affect monetary policy only when necessary and as less as possible. Finally, he supported the idea of School choice. School choice was the ideal that families should be able to send their kids to schools wherever they wanted. This could consist of choosing a private school or a public school outside of one’s county.
Another Economist that believed in Libertarianism was Friedrich A. Hayek. He was born in the May of 1899 in Vienna, Austria. However, he became a British citizen in 1938 to escape the fascist movement (Nazi Germany) occurring in Austria at the time. He received a Doctorate of Law and Political Science at the University of Vienna and won the Nobel Memorial Prize for economics in 1974.
Like Milton Friedman, Hayek also believed that an economy should consist of a free market with minimal government intervention. This can easily be depicted by him concerning his book titled, “The Road to Serfdom.” In this book, Hayek describes the dangers of Socialism not allowing the market to function by itself. The book has sold millions of copies and is still studied amongst Universities. Hayek believed that the government should only be involved in a couple of matters. These reasons were (and a lot of them are mentioned in, “The Road to Serfdom”) affecting monetary policy, preventing monopolies from controlling prices, setting environmental regulations, and providing public safety. These are all Libertarian views seen today.