Pod Insights Freakonomics Radio 259. Ten Signs You Might Be a Libertarian About this episode Gary Johnson, the Libertarian Party's presidential candidate, likes to say that most Americans are libertarians but don't know it yet. So why can't Libertarians (and other third parties) gain more political traction?
Transcript 8,763 words · 17 speakers
Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:01 Stephen J. Dubner? Freakonomics Radio is sponsored by Southern New Hampshire University. The best investments are the ones you make in yourself, and no one knows that better than Southern New Hampshire University. With more than 200 online degree programs, no set class times, and low online tuition, Southern New Hampshire University is built to fit your life today and set you up for success tomorrow. Education is an investment. Why not make it a smart one? Apply for free at SNHU.edu/freakonomics. Freakonomics Radio is sponsored by Progressive. Whoever says saving money is hard doesn't know that new customers who bundle and save with Progressive save hundreds, because switching your home and auto insurance is better than
0:43 Stephen J. Dubner? cutting down on the things you love, like those iced lattes that help you get ready to face the day. So, switch your home and auto to Progressive and see if you could save and keep sipping away. Get your quote today at progressive.com. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company affiliates and other insurers. Not available in all states. Freakonomics Radio is sponsored by PNC Bank. Boring. Great word, bad rep. Yet, time and time again, here at Freakonomics, we find that when something culture-changing happens, boring things like calculations and careful planning are usually behind it. Which begs the question, why not apply it to other aspects of life? Like banking, for example?
1:26 Stephen J. Dubner? Well, PNC Bank did since its inception, proving time and again that the best banking strategy isn't the exciting type, but the steady, reliable, definitely-not-Yolo type. PNC Bank: Brilliantly boring since 1865. Brilliantly boring since 1865 is a registered mark of the PNC Financial Services Group, Inc. PNC Bank, National Association, Member FDIC.
1:54 Stephen J. Dubner? Freakonomics Radio is sponsored by ChatGPT. ChatGPT Work is a new way to work in ChatGPT. ChatGPT Work can pull info from across your apps and connect to your tools to help you create finished work. You can even automate work in ChatGPT with the Scheduled Tasks feature, and the whole time, you stay in control. Put ChatGPT to work on your most ambitious ideas and projects. Get started at chatgpt.com by selecting Work Mode, available on Plus and Pro plans.
2:41 Stephen J. Dubner? This year's presidential campaign has been pretty high profile, so of course you know which candidates are still in the running, right? I am your voice.
2:54 Stephen J. Dubner? Yeah, you know that guy.
2:56 Speaker 01 Don't believe anyone who says I alone can fix it.
3:04 Stephen J. Dubner? Sure, you know her too. But can you name this guy?
3:09 Speaker 02 I'm gonna be the next president.
3:13 Stephen J. Dubner? That is Gary Johnson, and yes, he's still running.
3:22 Stephen J. Dubner? Johnson is the Libertarian Party's nominee for president, and he does have a lot going for him. He was a two-term Republican governor of New Mexico, a state that typically votes Democratic. His vice presidential running mate, William Weld, can make the same claim but from Massachusetts. Johnson, prior to politics, was a successful businessman, founding one of New Mexico's biggest construction companies. He's an accomplished athlete. He's got a lot of impressive attributes in an election year whose two main candidates haven't always been so impressive. Gary Johnson has just one big problem.
3:59 Speaker 02 Right now, 65% of Americans don't even know that I exist.
4:05 Stephen J. Dubner? Today on Freakonomics Radio, a conversation with Gary Johnson, and maybe we'll get his nonexistent numbers down to 64%. We also try to figure out why libertarians haven't gained more traction.
4:17 Speaker 03 Either there's something wrong with the salesman of libertarian ideas, or there's something wrong with the product they're selling, and I suspect that it's a chunk of both.
4:24 Stephen J. Dubner? We visit New Hampshire, site of a theoretical libertarian takeover.
4:29 Speaker 02 We are firing the starting gun on a mass migration of freedom lovers to New Hampshire.
4:34 Stephen J. Dubner? And Gary Johnson tells us what would happen in the very, very, very, very unlikely event that he is elected president.
4:42 Speaker 02 I would sign legislation that allowed for a self-direction of social security funds. I do advocate abolishing the Department of Education, Department of Commerce, Department of Housing and Urban Development, abolish income tax and corporate tax, and replace all of it with one federal consumption tax.
5:01 Stephen J. Dubner? But remember, very, very, very, very unlikely.
5:16 Speaker 04 From WNYC Studios, this is Freakonomics Radio, the podcast that explores the hidden side of everything. Here's your host, Stephen Dubner.
5:30 Stephen J. Dubner? When we spoke with Gary Johnson a few weeks ago, it was before an appearance on MSNBC that threw his campaign into chaos.
5:39 Speaker 02 What would you do if you were elected about Aleppo?
5:43 Stephen J. Dubner? And what is Aleppo? Aleppo is the city in Syria that's the epicenter of that country's civil war and refugee crisis. Johnson, in his defense, says he misunderstood the question. He heard Aleppo as an acronym of some sort, not the city. But the mess-up got people talking about Johnson's grasp of foreign affairs. At the time of our interview, Johnson was really liking his chances of becoming president.
6:09 Speaker 02 I'll give myself a 33% chance of getting elected.
6:18 Stephen J. Dubner? Okay, we cheated a little bit right there. We took something a political candidate said out of context. Imagine that. Here's the whole thing that Johnson said.
6:28 Speaker 02 Well, I think that getting into the presidential debates, I would put the odds at just over 50%. They're better than not. And if we're in the presidential debates, I'll give myself a 33% chance of getting elected.
6:46 Stephen J. Dubner? But Johnson has so far failed to get into the presidential debates. He hasn't met the threshold set by the Commission on Presidential Debates of reaching 15% across five national polls.
6:58 Speaker 02 The Presidential Debate Commission, which really oversees a rigged game, what they won't say is, is that Gary Johnson wasn't in any of these polls.
7:08 Stephen J. Dubner? So, let's be realistic. Johnson's chances of becoming president are pretty much nil. Same goes for Green Party candidate Jill Stein, which isn't at all surprising. American political history is littered with failed third and third and a half party campaigns. The Libertarian Party, founded in 1971, claims to be the third-largest political party in the US, but that's not saying much. In 2012, Johnson also ran for president and got more votes than any Libertarian Party candidate in history, 1.2 million. But in percentage terms, it's about 1%.
7:49 Stephen J. Dubner? The paradox, at least as Gary Johnson sees it, is that most Americans are Libertarian, but as he likes to say, they just don't know it yet.
7:58 Speaker 02 I think most Americans are about smaller government, meaning keep government out of my pocketbook, keep government out of the bedroom. So I think most Americans are fiscally conservative. I think most Americans, when it comes to social issues, really don't care what others are, as long as, as long as you don't force it on me. And then, really, an integral part of being libertarian is really taking a stand against intervening militarily to try and bring about regime changes. That in my lifetime, I can't think of one single regime change that has resulted in
8:42 Speaker 02 things being better and not worse.
8:44 Stephen J. Dubner? What would you say is the single most abusive or heavy-handed thing the US government does regularly? Would it be military action? Would it be the way it taxes? Would it be the way it runs its education, transportation departments? What's the one you would pick?
9:01 Speaker 02 Well, government is force. I think that people don't really understand fundamentally what government is, is that when it comes to taxes, I mean, that's, you know, they will force you to pay taxes. When it comes to our military, that is force. It should be used judiciously. The war on drugs. I'm going to say that the war on drugs has resulted in perhaps the worst human egregiances government can conduct on its citizenry of any example in my lifetime.
9:41 Stephen J. Dubner? Grievances meaning imprisonment? Meaning what?
9:45 Speaker 02 Well, meaning getting arrested, oftentimes incarcerated, but along with arrest, oftentimes no incarceration, but felony convictions, the fact that tens of millions of Americans are convicted felons in this country that but for our drug laws would otherwise be taxpaying, law-abiding citizens.
10:08 Stephen J. Dubner? Now, you're in favor of smart immigration, presumably administered by the federal government, but there are a number of institutions and agencies you'd like to do away with. The Department of Education, for instance, the IRS, perhaps the Federal Reserve, HUD, and so on. So let me just ask you, in the case of education, you'd like to give power over the schools to the state and local institutions, but why if the federal government is good enough to set immigration policy, why not education policy?
10:37 Speaker 02 Well, education policy, I don't think people realize that it's not giving money to the states. Federal government takes money from the states and they give back less money than if the states just kept it in the first place. I mean, it's a negative. It's crazy, you know, you basically give up six cents on every educational dollar you spend because of its bureaucratic wash and dry from the federal government. I advocate eliminating income tax and corporate tax, and I'm not, you know, I'm not going to get elected king or dictator here.
11:19 Speaker 02 There are constitutional limits to being president, and I hope to be a good steward of the office. But that said, I get to either sign or veto what comes out of Congress. If I could wave a magic wand, I would abolish income tax and corporate tax and replace all of it with one federal consumption tax, which I think would create tens of millions of jobs. I think it would issue pink slips to 80% of Washington lobbyists. I do advocate abolishing the Department of Education, the Department of Commerce, and the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Those are the three that, you know, just are at the top.
12:04 Stephen J. Dubner? You're running me as VP is like you, a former Republican governor. What does it say about the GOP that its nominee is someone the party itself seems to despise while two former Republican governors are running on the Libertarian ticket?
12:20 Speaker 02 Well, I think the GOP has lost its ways with its social conservative stand, that they're not being inclusive when it comes to their social conservative agenda. And because they're not inclusive, I do believe that they're turning off half of Republicans. I do believe that more than half of Republicans are Republicans because of smaller government, of less government interference in our lives, less spending by the government, but...
12:57 Speaker 02 Half the Republican Party right now. This, this social conservative dogma that I do believe turns most people off.
13:13 Stephen J. Dubner? As much as the Republican Party may turn off some potentially like-minded voters, the same could be said about the Libertarian Party. It has its share of misfits, ideologues, and, well, oddballs. At this year's convention, one candidate for party chairman, James Weeks, used his allotted time onstage to perform a striptease.
13:39 Stephen J. Dubner? To be fair, the audience didn't approve. Nor did it approve, however, when, during a debate, Gary Johnson said it's a good idea to require a driver's license for people who want to operate a motor vehicle.
13:54 Speaker 02 You know, I'd like to see some competency exhibited by people before they drive.
14:04 Stephen J. Dubner? On some political dimensions, Gary Johnson isn't outside the mainstream at all. On others, he surely is. As governor of New Mexico, you liked to cut taxes, you liked to balance the budget, you liked to veto lots and lots of legislation that you thought would be burdensome. What makes you think that that kind of behavior would make you a suitable candidate for the presidency? Because that's not the behavior that we typically associate, at least in recent history, with the presidency.
14:35 Speaker 02 Well, it really applies to both me and Bill Weld. What you're leaving out of that equation is, is that both of us got elected as Republicans in heavily Democrat states. And you would think that my having vetoed that much legislation, that I would have gotten ridden out on a rail, when in fact, I got re-elected by a bigger margin the second time than the first time. And the same applied to Bill Weld. So I really do think that if Trump or if Clinton are, get elected, I think things are going to be more polarized than ever. I don't think anything will get done.
15:17 Speaker 02 As opposed to arguably two former Republican governors as libertarians get elected that are going to hire Republicans, Democrats, libertarians, bipartisan administration, and kind of be able to stand back and challenge both sides to come to the middle to address the issues that do face the country. I'm making the argument that that third scenario might just work.
15:46 Stephen J. Dubner? And I guess this is what you mean when you say that most Americans are libertarians, but they just don't know it yet. Would you consider that to some degree a failure of, I don't know what to call it, branding by the Libertarian Party or the Libertarian movement?
16:00 Speaker 02 No, I think really that it is a function of the two-party system and just how exclusive it is and just, I mean, right now, 65% of Americans don't even know that I exist. And if they did, I think most of them would actually self-identify as libertarians. So not an issue of branding as much as attention. And clearly, the Libertarian Party right now is growing leaps and bounds because of the attention. And of course, that has to do with arguably the two most polarizing figures of all time and space in American politics.
16:44 Stephen J. Dubner? Talk for just a moment about what happens to Social Security benefits when the beneficiary dies and what you might do about that?
16:52 Speaker 02 Well, if you, so first of all, I am not, I'm advocating that we reform Social Security. And I'm not advocating cutting Social Security. But there does need to be some reform to Social Security. One would be to raise the retirement age, another that you could have a very fair means testing, means testing, should you get back more money than what you paid into Social Security, given a certain level of income. If you were to privatize Social Security, and I'm back to king and dictator and president, so I just get to sign legislation that might be able to change this, but I would sign legislation
17:37 Speaker 02 that allowed for a self-direction of Social Security funds.
17:44 Speaker 02 If you were to do that, you would actually be able to retain those funds and be able to pass them on to your heirs. Something that currently does not exist with social security. Social security, if you die at a young age, the government gets whatever it is that you paid into that. And it really, it's just one of those untold, um, middle class, lower class. This is one of the biggest assets that a person has when they retire. And if they die at a young age, they can't pass that, uh, that asset on to their heirs.
18:22 Speaker 02 I'd love to see some actuarial study or some legislation that might remedy that also, allowing families to get ahead after you die.
18:33 Stephen J. Dubner? Yeah, wouldn't you rather just have that money privatized from the outset?
18:37 Speaker 02 Well, I don't think that, uh, I don't think Congress, I mean, being reality based, and if that legislation were to get to my desk, um, yes, I think that that would be a big improvement, uh, but I don't think that legislation is going to ever get to my desk.
18:55 Stephen J. Dubner? Okay. As a reality-based human, who sounds pretty sane to me, from what I can tell, what is the one piece of legislation that if you're not dependent on anyone else, that if you were to be the president as king or the king as president, that you could with the stroke of a pen, actually enact one piece of magical legislation, what would that one be?
19:20 Speaker 02 It would be a balanced budget. I think we are headed to a fiscal cliff unless we address the entitlements Medicaid and Medicare. As I mentioned earlier, social security, imminently fixable, but reform to go along with that. And of course, you can't balance the federal budget if you're not going to reduce, uh, military spending. And the Pentagon itself says that 20% of US bases could be eliminated, and yet there's not the political will to go along with that. So balancing the federal budget, I think, has very long-term positive, uh, impact on the economy, uh, jobs, uh, wealth in this country going forward.
20:05 Stephen J. Dubner? Do you find yourself attracted in whole or in part to Gary Johnson's positions? If so, you are not alone, not quite at least. At this moment, the political forecasting website 538.com projects the Libertarian ticket getting just under 9% of the popular vote, which would be the best third-party or independent showing since Ross Perot got 19% in 1992. And a 9% showing would be nine times better than Johnson's last campaign four years ago, but even that would translate into one-half of 1% of the electoral vote.
20:44 Stephen J. Dubner? So barring a cataclysm or a miracle, Gary Johnson is not going to be the next president of the United States. So, coming up on Freakonomics Radio, what's a Libertarian supposed to do to find some political satisfaction?
21:00 Speaker 05 Maybe Libertarians could try to have a Libertarian state.
21:07 Stephen J. Dubner? And if you want to hear past Freakonomics Radio episodes about politics, you might start with the 2012 episode called "We the Sheeple," or one from just a few weeks back called "10 Ideas to Make Politics Less Rotten." You can get all our podcasts for free at Freakonomics.com via iTunes, or if you're an Androider with apps like Pocket Casts, Podcast Addict, or Stitcher.
21:35 Stephen J. Dubner? Freakonomics Radio is sponsored by Southern New Hampshire University. There's no hiding how convenient Southern New Hampshire University makes college. They offer over 80 career-focused graduate programs online. Classes have no set meeting times, so you can balance life and learning, and online tuition rates are some of the lowest in the country, making it all a little more manageable. A school this willing to work with you is worth the investment. Visit SNHU.edu/freakonomics to learn more.
22:06 Stephen J. Dubner? Freakonomics Radio is sponsored by Progressive. Whoever says saving money is hard doesn't know that new customers who bundle and save with Progressive save hundreds because switching your home and auto insurance is better than cutting down on the things you love, like those iced lattes that help you get ready to face the day. So, switch your home and auto to Progressive and see if you could save and keep sipping away. Get your quote today at progressive.com. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company affiliates and other insurers. Not available in all states. Freakonomics Radio is sponsored by hotels.com. Hotels.com helps you find and book the right stay for work faster. With business preferences, save your travel must haves, like gym access or breakfast,
22:51 Stephen J. Dubner? just once, then get tailored results whenever you search for work travel. Plus, with a free membership, you can save up to 20% on hotels and earn rewards on every stay for future travel. Book now at hotels.com. Visit hotels.com for details.
23:18 Stephen J. Dubner? The libertarians, as sensible as some of their positions may seem, have not exactly won over the American people. Their absolute numbers are relatively small, roughly 400,000 registered voters nationally. But they're also spread too thin to have any real impact in big elections. So, what if they picked one state and persuaded thousands of like-minded people to move there? Even if they couldn't pull off a libertarian utopia, at least there'd be one state that's friendlier toward their ideas and where they might gain some political leverage. That is exactly what one group of libertarian-minded activists is trying to do. The state they've chosen? New Hampshire. State motto?
24:02 Stephen J. Dubner? Live free or die. We sent our senior producer, Christopher Wirth, to visit.
24:14 Speaker 06 Just as you would find with any political party, libertarians are a mixed bunch. You've got your Libertarian Party, Gary Johnson-type libertarians, who oppose foreign military interventions and want to abolish the Federal Reserve. And then you've got those who aren't members of the party, or who don't even like being called libertarians, but do share a common cause in the advance of liberty. This is the anarcho-capitalist wing of the libertarian-ish movement. The folks who dream of a world with no government whatsoever.
24:44 Speaker 07 So it's basically a society where no one can have rule or authority over someone else.
24:50 Speaker 06 That's Raul Prado, a 26-year-old biology student from Los Angeles. He was learning to shoot a semi-automatic rifle at a firing range in a forest in northern New Hampshire.
25:00 Speaker 07 I think it's just a good tool to learn to respect. You know, if you're inefficient with a tool, you're not going to know how to use it, you know, if it ever comes to that.
25:10 Speaker 06 Gun rights are a big deal to a lot of libertarian types, many of whom believe personal protection is a responsibility that should not be left to the police alone.
25:26 Speaker 06 Prado had come all the way to New Hampshire for what's known as Porkfest, or the Porcupine Freedom Festival. It's an annual, week-long gathering of roughly 2,000 people at a camping ground in the mountains. Porkfest is organized by the Free State Project, which is trying to persuade libertarians, or libertarian-minded people, to move to New Hampshire. It's an enticing thought for Prado, who believes his own home state of California has gone way too far in curtailing his individual liberties.
25:54 Speaker 07 It's a nanny state. For example, in LA, they've outlawed plastic bags. You know, and I believe that. I think if an individual wants to reuse, you know, plastic bags, they should. I don't think some people in suits that I've never met should be able to decide what I think is best to store my goods.
26:11 Speaker 06 And so what's your plan now?
26:13 Speaker 07 My plan is to graduate and get my degree within two years, and move over here and do some sort of teaching. And if not, open like a restaurant or something.
26:24 Speaker 06 Prado is a first-generation Mexican-American. And he says one thing he's noticed about New Hampshire is the lack of Hispanics and good Mexican restaurants.
26:33 Speaker 07 So I feel like I know how to make a pretty good dish or two. And I think it'd be a great place to, you know, expose people.
26:40 Speaker 06 See, you see your niche.
26:41 Speaker 07 Pretty much, yeah, because there's not a lot of minorities here. And I don't necessarily see that as a bad thing, but I see it as an opportunity.
26:52 Speaker 06 And that's the kind of entrepreneurial thinking free staters want to hear, particularly this free stater.
26:58 Speaker 05 My name's Jason Sorens. I'm a lecturer at Dartmouth College and vice president of the Free State Project.
27:03 Speaker 06 Sorens founded the Free State Project 15 years ago when he was a grad student at Yale. At the time, he was conducting research on secessionist movements, and he was feeling very disillusioned with the prospects of libertarianism in national politics. This was during the George W. Bush administration. And in the depth of his despair, Sorens proposed a solution. And this is a quote here from his original statement of intent, published in 2001, in which he envisioned free-minded people of all stripes establish residence in a small state and take over the state government.
27:38 Speaker 05 Maybe libertarians could try to have a libertarian state, and we could use that position to try to press for more autonomy for the state in economic policies, criminal justice policies, things like that, and create a freer society.
27:54 Speaker 06 Sorens believed a libertarian state could even threaten secession to force Washington to meet its demands. And he figured that if the Free State Project could get 20,000 people to sign a pledge to move to this hypothetical libertarian state, then everyone could move there en masse.
28:12 Speaker 05 You know, it's a tall order to get 20,000 people to move to a particular state, a small state, for an idea. And I thought, well, probably it won't happen, but it's worth a try because nothing else is working.
28:26 Speaker 06 In 2001, Sorens wrote in the online publication The Libertarian Enterprise, "20,000 hardcore libertarian activists can go a long way in a small state." So he collaborated with other libertarians. They collected signatures and began casting about for a state suitable for this libertarian experiment. Even Gary Johnson got involved.
28:47 Speaker 02 When the Free State Project was in its formation, they came to New Mexico, and I made them a pitch as governor.
28:55 Speaker 06 But Free Staters ultimately chose New Hampshire. A, because it is small, just 1.3 million people, spread out over a mere 9,000 or so square miles. And B, because the state already leans in a direction that's favorable to libertarian ideas. For example, while New Hampshireites do pay property taxes, the state has no income or sales tax.
29:16 Speaker 05 New Hampshire is distinct in that it combines fairly low taxes and a fairly modest level of economic regulation with a good bit of social toleration and personal freedom. There's no seatbelt law for adults. So it just has a lot of different characteristics that make it a more libertarian state than a lot of other states, maybe more than any other state.
29:41 Speaker 06 The Free State Project also lists the fact that New Hampshire has few restrictions on firearms. In addition to the no-seatbelt law, adult motorcyclists also aren't required to wear a helmet. And New Hampshire's state constitution doesn't have any specific prohibition on secession from the rest of the United States. These are all characteristics that libertarians like. And earlier this year, a decade and a half after the Free State Project was conceived, the organization finally announced its 20,000th signer. Here's Sorens at the Free State Project's press conference back in February.
30:13 Speaker 02 This is a great day in the history of human freedom.
30:22 Speaker 05 It sounds grandiose, but I really believe it's true. We are firing the starting gun on a mass migration of freedom lovers to New Hampshire.
30:30 Speaker 06 The plan now, Soren says, is to get those 20,000 free staters to actually move to New Hampshire and do it within the next five years.
30:38 Speaker 05 It'll be a tough lift, but we've got a lot more resources now that have been coming in, financial resources, now that we've triggered the move. And we're going to keep getting people signed up because we know that not all of those 20,000 are going to move. So we're going to try to sign up 40,000 people so that we can expect 20,000 of those to move, and I think we can do it.
30:58 Speaker 06 Soren says a handful of wealthy individuals have recently joined the Free State Cause. He wouldn't name them, but Porkfest is sponsored by the Charles Koch Institute and Americans for Prosperity. It's a political advocacy group funded by the Koch Brothers, longtime supporters of libertarian and conservative causes. And not all free staters have waited for the 20,000 signer to make the move. Soren says nearly 2,000 people have already moved to New Hampshire over the past decade or so. He and his family moved in 2013, once he'd landed a job at Dartmouth, located in Hanover, New Hampshire. And he says the group has managed to establish a tight-knit community here. When a member moves to the state, for example, a handful of free staters usually show up to help unload their belongings.
31:43 Speaker 05 The concentration of libertarians in New Hampshire is much higher than you'll find anywhere else. You know, on any given night for just a random sort of get-together or meeting or whatever, you'll get 40 or 50 free staters showing up. And, you know, you couldn't get that in New York City for a major annual event, probably. So, yeah, we're having a big impact here, and there's just a lot going on, and that energizes people.
32:08 Speaker 08 A great thing about New Hampshire is that all types are welcome here.
32:12 Speaker 06 That's Mark Warden of Porcupine Real Estate, a Realtor who specializes in free state clientele. Warden himself moved from Nevada in 2007. And he says he's hiring more real estate agents to prepare for what he believes will be a major influx of free staters.
32:28 Speaker 08 We're seeing 10, 20, 30 a month move to New Hampshire. And they think it's great if there's a libertarian Realtor they can count on and they can trust. So if they come to me and say, "Hey, Mark, I want to be on 30 acres. I want to be able to shoot on my own property," for example, "or raise my own food. I want to have chickens and have big gardens so I can be self-reliant, or maybe even live off the grid." I don't look at them like, "Are they crazy?" They know that I speak the same language and can help them find that kind of property that's going to meet their needs.
32:56 Speaker 06 Are you the libertarian Realtor in New Hampshire?
33:00 Speaker 08 Yes, probably the libertarian Realtor in the United States, and certainly for New Hampshire.
33:04 Speaker 06 So how many people would you estimate you've helped get into homes and helped move to New Hampshire from other places?
33:10 Speaker 08 Just in the last four years, it's been over 125 homes, transactions. And if you double that for the number of people, several hundred.
33:18 Speaker 06 Among those people, a husband and wife from Louisiana named Forrest and Callie. They didn't want to give their last names. They took the Free State Pledge 15 years ago and are finally ready to move to New Hampshire. When I met them, they just made an offer on a property outside Manchester.
33:34 Speaker 09 It's a cabin with a very open floor plan, and it's on 10 acres in the middle of the woods.
33:41 Speaker 06 So what is it about moving to New Hampshire and the Free State Project and libertarianism? What is it about here that appeals to you?
33:49 Speaker 10 Ah, it's kind of just knowing that you're around people that kind of ideologically agree with you and align with you.
33:57 Speaker 09 The people here, they understand that we own our own bodies. And so everything stems from that. Do you have ownership of your own body or not? Are you a slave to the government? They own your production or not? So yeah, I think people here already believe that. We want to move here and help them keep New Hampshire awesome.
34:20 Speaker 06 One big change in the Free State Project since it got underway 15 years ago, Jason Sorens and other members no longer talk about taking over New Hampshire's state government, nor do they advocate secession, at least not openly. Sorens has grown more pragmatic, or maybe just more realistic.
34:37 Speaker 05 I really don't think we're going to end up with anything that looks like a pure libertarian utopia or anything like that. I just don't think that exists on Earth or ever could happen. That's just not the way societies work. But I do think we can make progress on lots of different margins where we have good answers that would help people achieve their ends.
34:57 Speaker 06 Takeover or not, New Hampshire is something of an ideal state for getting elected to office. Its House of Representatives is made up of 400 members, which makes it among the country's largest legislative bodies, again, in a state with just 1.3 million people. This means the barriers to entry in New Hampshire state politics are pretty low.
35:18 Speaker 05 The state House districts are very, very small. There's a state rep for every about 3,500 people. And so it's very easy to get elected if you put in the legwork. And state reps make $100 a year in New Hampshire, and state senators make $200 a year. So there's no professional political class, really. And right now, my understanding is that there are about 18 Free State Project movers who are in the state House. And in addition to that, there's a wider libertarian caucus, so sort of natives who are friendly to libertarian ideas, of about 80 legislators. So that's about 20% of the state House that is, roughly speaking, libertarian most of the time.
36:03 Speaker 06 One of those Free Staters running for office this year is Carla Garrick, who moved from New York in 2008.
36:10 Speaker 11 I am running for New Hampshire Senate in District 20. It happened by accident, but I'm pretty excited about it.
36:20 Speaker 06 Garrick is up against a Democratic incumbent who's been in the Senate for 18 years. If elected, Garrick would try to limit police powers. She'd put an end to the purchase of armored police vehicles. She'd get rid of DUI checkpoints, which she believes are unconstitutional.
36:35 Speaker 11 For me, the bottom line is, America is moving towards a totalitarian authoritarian police state, and I don't want that to happen, or at least not in New Hampshire.
36:46 Speaker 06 And again, Garrick assures us, this is not about taking over the state.
36:51 Speaker 11 I don't want to take over. I want to keep New Hampshire awesome.
36:59 Speaker 06 But not everyone believes the Free State Project has abandoned its plans for government domination or secession.
37:05 Speaker 12 The little tap dance that they play.
37:08 Speaker 06 Caitlin Rollo is a former state representative, a Democrat.
37:12 Speaker 12 And, you know, if you had a few folks move into your town and then start running for office, you're like, oh, wow, that's great. There's enthusiasm, there's excitement. And then when you find out, well, they want New Hampshire to secede from the Union, that's a little extreme and kind of makes people feel a little bit uncomfortable.
37:26 Speaker 06 That said, Rollo does not think Free Staters will actually get 20,000 people to move.
37:32 Speaker 12 They've been collecting signatures now, specifically with New Hampshire as the intended state, since 2003. They just met that goal. And so you're talking about a time period of 13 years where people have been signing on to this petition, saying that, yes, you know, if we get all these signatures, that I will move to New Hampshire to be part of our libertopia that we create, where we'll have limited government. But that's a long period of time.
38:00 Speaker 06 The Free State Project does acknowledge it's been a long time. In fact, the contact information for a lot of the people who signed up years ago is no longer valid, but they're spending more than $300,000 this year to contact who they can, remind them of their oath, and let them know it's time to move.
38:21 Stephen J. Dubner? That is Christopher Wirth, reporting from the free-ish state of New Hampshire. It gives you the sense that the libertarian movement, for all its enthusiasm, doesn't exert much leverage in the political arena. True, Gary Johnson may get a much larger share of the vote for president this time around, but for a party that's been around for 45 years, it hasn't exactly captured the public's imagination.
38:43 Speaker 03 What does this tell you? It tells you that in the war of ideas, you're losing, you're not winning.
38:49 Stephen J. Dubner? That's Jerry Taylor.
38:50 Speaker 03 I'm the president of the Niskanen Center, which is a think tank here in Washington, DC.
38:55 Stephen J. Dubner? Is it a libertarian think tank per se, or not quite?
38:58 Speaker 03 It is indeed.
38:59 Stephen J. Dubner? And how would you define Niskanen's mission?
39:01 Speaker 03 Well, we are engaged directly in the policymaking process. Our audience is the policy elite here in Washington, DC, and our job is to craft libertarian-oriented policy reforms and to promote them on Capitol Hill with the idea of actually trying to translate wishes into reality.
39:18 Stephen J. Dubner? Taylor does not align himself with the Free State Project, or what he calls the more idiosyncratic subgroups in the Libertarian Party.
39:26 Speaker 03 It's more of an offshoot of its more fundamentalist wing, I suspect.
39:30 Stephen J. Dubner? And what does Taylor think of the Libertarian political party?
39:33 Speaker 03 Well, I'm probably not the best person to ask, because I've never been a member of the Libertarian Party.
39:37 Stephen J. Dubner? Oh, is that right? Why is that?
39:39 Speaker 03 The American political system is essentially rigged to produce a two-party system. And it's virtually impossible to imagine a world in which a third party could sustain itself over a long period of time and become a relevant political actor. So if you're trying to advance your ideas in American politics, you either have to advance them in the Democratic Party, or you have to advance them in the Republican Party.
40:00 Stephen J. Dubner? So that's how Taylor spends his days.
40:03 Speaker 03 Libertarians have spent a tremendous amount of time and energy since 1970 promoting their ideas, and yet there's no indication that libertarian sentiment in this country is any larger today than it was then. There is no real clear evidence that libertarian ideas are penetrating academia amongst intellectuals to any greater extent than they ever have been in the past. The reality is that in politics libertarianism has faced a market test and lost repeatedly and I think this is an important bit of information for libertarians who believe in markets and the functionality of markets to face up to the fact that libertarian ideas have failed two very important market tests, a political market test and electoral market
40:45 Speaker 03 test. So either there's something wrong with the salesman of libertarian ideas or there's something wrong with the product they're selling and I suspect that it's a chunk of both.
41:00 Stephen J. Dubner? Consider, for example, the potential risks associated with climate change.
41:04 Speaker 03 We think that libertarians have gone down the wrong road on this issue. How you feel about the role of government or individual liberty has nothing to do with how you should feel about atmospheric physics. The reality is, is that the climate is changing, that change is being driven by industrial emissions and that imposes risks and this is a straight-up risk management exercise and the best means of addressing this risk, in our opinion, is to price carbon and harness market actors and price signals to sort out when, where, and how to reduce emissions rather than have regulators and the EPA do that job. I think that's a pretty free market position, but it's one that's a little heterodox in my community.
41:43 Stephen J. Dubner? This is a position to which Taylor himself is a convert. He used to work at the Cato Institute, a more established libertarian think tank.
41:52 Speaker 03 Over the course of that 20-odd-year span at the Cato Institute, I moved from climate skeptic and opponent to climate action to someone who embraced the same.
42:02 Stephen J. Dubner? Here's Taylor before the conversion.
42:05 Speaker 03 Warming has almost as many, if not more, benefits than downside.
42:09 Speaker 02 These are not monumental problems that are outside our ability to handle as they arise.
42:14 Speaker 03 I'd lost faith in the scientific narratives that we were offering to resist climate action, and I also lost faith in the economic arguments against action. If you look at public opinion surveys of the libertarian voter, to the extent to which they exist, you find, for instance, that they support action to address climate change at higher rates than virtually any other ideological subtribe in the United States. But their opinions aren't represented very well by the institutional voices of libertarianism.
42:42 Stephen J. Dubner? I have to say, for someone who runs a libertarian think tank, you don't sound like you're very fond of libertarians.
42:48 Speaker 03 Well, I think that unfortunately, a lot of libertarians are rather dogmatic about their ideas and rather absolutist, and that they're not really necessarily in the persuasion business as much as they might need to be, and they're more in the "this I shall believe" and "Christ on a cross" kind of business. And if you want to move people into your camp, you have to persuade them, which means that you have to accept the values and the underlying sentiments of the people you're trying to persuade. You have to understand their arguments, and you have to make a compelling case. And unfortunately, if anybody saw, say, the Libertarian National Convention recently...
43:26 Stephen J. Dubner? I did watch some of that.
43:28 Speaker 03 Yeah.
43:29 Stephen J. Dubner? That was...
43:30 Speaker 03 That's not a persuasion place. That's something else, but it's not about sweet romancing people into your camp.
43:36 Stephen J. Dubner? As reality TV goes, it was pretty rambunctious, though, I have to say.
43:40 Speaker 03 Yeah, well, I mean, it can be a pretty entertaining place.
43:43 Speaker 13 The government requires licenses to get married. They require a license to drive. What's next, requiring a license to make toast in your own damn toaster? Absolutely not.
43:57 Stephen J. Dubner? Let me read you a fairly short list of topics, and give me the standard, or what you see as the standard libertarian position, on the following issues. So, first of all, the size and role of the federal government?
44:11 Speaker 03 Probably cut by 90%.
44:14 Stephen J. Dubner? What survives?
44:16 Speaker 03 The standard libertarian position is that we need a military that is capable of defending the continental shorelines of the United States from foreign intrusion, which would imply a far less military presence than we have. We would be disengaged from global alliances and bases in Europe and whatnot, since we're only interested in the security of our own nation, no other nation. And welfare disappears, and public expenditures, for the most part, disappear on, you know, you name it. All the government does is has a court system, it has a police force, and it has a few rules of the road here or there, but otherwise, government goes back to the levels it was before the progressive era, which was very, very small.
44:59 Stephen J. Dubner? So Department of Education, gone. Department of Transportation, gone.
45:02 Speaker 03 Labor regulations, gone. Minimal wage is gone. OSHA regulations, gone. Antitrust operations disappear. The economy becomes a real laissez-faire operation.
45:13 Stephen J. Dubner? Internal Revenue Service?
45:14 Speaker 03 Gone. Well, somebody has to pay even the minimal bills, but I think most libertarians would oppose income taxes to do so.
45:20 Stephen J. Dubner? What kind of taxation? Give me, again, the standard position on taxation generally, then?
45:26 Speaker 03 Well, I think it's a bit confused. I mean, for a lot of libertarians, they will puff out their chest and say taxation is theft. Well, if taxation is theft, then there is no legitimate way of funding even these minimal responsibilities of the government, except, say, bake sales or something like that.
45:42 Stephen J. Dubner? As a political pragmatist, Jerry Taylor finds himself wishing that established politicians who are sympathetic to libertarian ideas would borrow some of that pragmatism. Like Rand Paul, the libertarian-leaning Republican senator, who early in this year's campaign was seen as a viable presidential contender. Paul has opposed parts of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that require private businesses to serve any and all customers, requiring a southern lunch counter, for instance, to serve African Americans. Here's Paul on MSNBC in 2010.
46:20 Speaker 14 There's ten different titles, you know, to the Civil Rights Act. And nine out of ten deal with public institutions, and I'm absolutely in favor of. One deals with private institutions, and had I been around, I would have tried to modify that.
46:35 Speaker 03 Why would compel someone to say that? And he said, "Well, I believe in freedom of association. I was against Jim Crow laws, but I'm also against telling people who they have to do business with." Well, you've just alienated pretty much ninety-five percent of America with that statement. What libertarians believe is that rights to life, liberty, and property, the fundamental objectives of the federal government, and it was put here solely to ensure those rights. So, most libertarians would oppose welfare, they would oppose wealth transfers of most kinds, they would oppose interventions in the economy to make the market more efficient, because none of these things have to do with protecting rights to life, liberty, and property. So libertarians, as they're generally understood today, basically hold a position that, in
47:19 Speaker 03 an ideal world, we would rewind the clock probably right before the progressive era. Not in all cases, there have been some advances since then that libertarians would applaud. But libertarians have a fairly radical view of the sort of changes that are necessary to secure individual liberty in the original design of the Constitution. So, for instance, Friedrich Hayek, who's one of the great champions of libertarianism in the United States, Friedrich Hayek supported welfare programs, he supported wealth transfers. So did Milton Friedman, one of the most influential libertarians of our time. They also supported public parks, and they supported public arts. And it turns out that libertarianism, at one point, and still from a number of different voices, simply represents liberalism as we understand it with a healthy respect for
48:02 Speaker 03 the individual that is sometimes lacking in other liberals.
48:05 Stephen J. Dubner? I guess if you give that version of libertarianism, then you're having to rely on an older definition of liberalism as well, though, almost, aren't you?
48:13 Speaker 03 Well, yes and no. I mean, for instance, a couple of people I have a pretty high regard for, Nick Gillespie and Matt Welsh over at Reason Magazine, which is the, probably the most prominent libertarian journal in the United States, they've argued that we have more individual liberties and freedom today than any other time in human history, and this is a tremendous indicator of the libertarian moment that they talk about. Now, it's interesting, to a large extent, they're correct. On the other hand, isn't it interesting that all of this individual liberty that they celebrate was delivered by a rather aggressive federal government and a very mixed economy?
48:51 Speaker 03 And yet, it turns out that government is not necessarily an enemy of liberty, oftentimes it's a necessary facilitator of liberty. So, for instance, we have government restricting our rights and freedom of association, right? They tell white restaurateurs they can't keep blacks off a lunch counter. A lot of libertarians consider that a terrible violation of individual liberty, but are we freer as a whole because of that? Absolutely we are. And it turns out that a lot of libertarian instinct, which is to think that to the very extent the government expands liberty retreats, is not necessarily correct.
49:29 Stephen J. Dubner? Jerry Taylor, for his part, will keep trying to sort out the most useful libertarian ideas and rather than support idiosyncratic subgroups or lost political causes, he'll try to feed those ideas into the two main political parties.
49:44 Speaker 03 For the most part, the Libertarian Party is trying to undertake the impossible, which is to be a viable third contender. And I see it as a quixotic game. It's also very difficult because the Libertarian Party, for anybody who's paid a whole lot of attention to it, has a very, very conflicted set of opinions about what its mission really is. Most political parties, they're put on this earth for one thing, to win elections. So that's what a political party does, right? It's trying to win an election. But in the Libertarian Party, putting forward arguments and candidates who are capable of winning elections oftentimes creates an uproar because there are people who violate some really deep fundamental principles of the libertarian order. And so Gary Johnson, for instance...
50:27 Stephen J. Dubner? What do you mean by that? Meaning, in order to be electable, you can't be truly libertarian?
50:31 Speaker 03 Well, sure. I mean, if you're a... If you want to run a campaign based on abolishing the Civil Rights Act and abolishing all welfare and, for some libertarians, eliminating rules about sexual age of consent and issues like that, you're just putting your head in a political woodchipper. So if Gary Johnson and Bill Weld want to try to take advantage of the opportunity they presently have in American politics and offer something that could actually get votes, which might be not a conversation about these matters, but a conversation about taxes and spending and things like that... Well, you get a taste of what happens. Libertarian faithful rebel and say you're selling out the party.
51:08 Stephen J. Dubner? And that's what happened, you will recall, when Gary Johnson suggested to the Libertarian Party faithful that it's OK for the government to require a driver's license.
51:19 Speaker 02 You know, I'd like to see some competency exhibited by people before they drive.
51:28 Stephen J. Dubner? I was curious how Johnson feels about his place in the Libertarian firmament.
51:36 Stephen J. Dubner? Now, let me ask you this. There are a lot of different kinds of Libertarians, as you well know. Some of them are, we shall say, a little outrageous. The party convention this year where you were nominated was a bit of a freak show. Are you ever embarrassed to be part of the Libertarian Party?
51:52 Speaker 02 No, I'm not. And I don't want to say that the Libertarian Party has a corner on the freak market. If you've been to the Republican convention, if you've been to the Democrat convention, and I did get the nomination along with Bill Weld, so I am the official spokesperson, I guess, for the Libertarian Party. And I'd like to think that nothing that's coming out of my mouth could be denoted as freakish.
52:24 Stephen J. Dubner? We do know that a third-party candidate can pull votes from the other candidates. Can you imagine a scenario where you might worry that your votes were pulling from the candidate that you would prefer and where you would drop out? Or is that not a possibility?
52:36 Speaker 02 Not a possibility. I lose no sleep over ruining this two-party oligopoly.
52:43 Stephen J. Dubner? All right. I thank you very much. I wish you all the best.
52:46 Speaker 02 Well, same here.
52:55 Stephen J. Dubner? Coming up next week on Freakonomics Radio, we follow up with something Gary Johnson spoke of in today's show.
53:02 Speaker 02 You know, I'm not going to get elected king or dictator here. There are constitutional limits to being president.
53:09 Stephen J. Dubner? But what happens when presidents ignore those limits, which they do with astonishing regularity?
53:16 Speaker 02 Yeah, it's a huge deal. And interestingly, it's one that people often don't really understand.
53:21 Stephen J. Dubner? What would the founders think?
53:23 Speaker 02 Oh, the founders could not possibly have imagined that the president would become as powerful as he has.
53:30 Stephen J. Dubner? And aside from ego... Why do presidents so often break the rules?
53:36 Speaker 15 The law actually prevents presidents from doing great things. That, in a nutshell, is the problem.
53:42 Stephen J. Dubner? Do you have to be a lawbreaker to be a good president? That's next time on Freakonomics Radio.
53:55 Stephen J. Dubner? Freakonomics Radio is produced by WNYC Studios and Dubner Productions. This episode was produced by Christopher Wirth. Our staff also includes Irvic Gunja, Jake Howitt, Merritt Jacob, Greg Rosalsky, Caitlin Pierce, Alison Hockenberry, Emma Morgenstern, and Harry Huggins. Remember, you can subscribe to Freakonomics Radio on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also visit Freakonomics.com, where you'll find our entire podcast archive, including a complete transcript of every episode we've ever made, along with music credits and much more. Thanks for listening.
54:50 Stephen J. Dubner? Freakonomics Radio is sponsored by EverPure. Is the value of AI not living up to the promise? The problem is probably your data, not your AI models. When it's scattered across different systems, getting your data AI-ready is a challenge. You keep your AI waiting, and everything slows down. EverPure unifies your data, so you can see it, understand it, and control it all from one simple place and get it AI-ready fast. Unlock the true value of your AI at everpuredata.com.
55:22 Stephen J. Dubner? Freakonomics Radio is sponsored by Ozempic. Innovation happens through rethinking what's possible. And when it comes to GLP-1s, Ozempic Pill does just that. Learn more about Ozempic semaglutide tablets, 4 in 9mg, by calling 1-833-OZEMPIC or visit Ozempic.com to view the medication guide and ask your doctor what's possible with FDA-approved Ozempic Pill.
55:53 Stephen J. Dubner? Freakonomics Radio is sponsored by Southern Company. The world and its energy needs are always changing. Southern Company's commitment to meeting this demand stays the same. That's because Southern Company believes energy is more than a utility. It's what powers possibilities. So they are looking ahead and investing $80 billion in infrastructure upgrades and are committed to fueling growth in ways that benefit all customers so that reliable and affordable energy is accessible for generations to come. Go to southerncompany.com to learn more. Southern Company, building the future of energy.
56:30 Speaker 16 This episode is brought to you by Charles Schwab. Is there a right time to sell a stock? Are you taking the right risks with your portfolio? Financial decisions can be tricky, and often, your own cognitive and emotional biases can lead you astray. Financial Decoder, an original podcast from Charles Schwab, can help. Join host Mark Reapy as he offers practical solutions to help overcome the cognitive and emotional biases that may affect your investing decisions. Listen at schwab.com/financialdecoder.
Previous 258. Why Uber Is an Economist’s Dream Next 260. Has the U.S. Presidency Become a Dictatorship? Page updated October 25, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated
