Elements of Libertarian Leadership

184 Pages·2009·6.25 MB·English

by  Leonard E. Read

ELEMENTS OF
LIBERTARIAN
LEADERSHIP

ELEMENTS OF
LIBERTARIAN
LEADERSHIP
Notes on the theory, methods,
and practice of freedom
BY LEONARD E. READ
The Foundation for Economic Education, Inc.
Irvington-on-Hudson, New York 1962
THE AUTHOR AND PUBLISHER
Leonard E. Read, author of Conscience of
the Majority, Government-An Ideal Con
cept, Miracle of the Market, Students of
Liberty, Why Not Try Freedom?, and other
books and articles, is President of the Foun
dation for Economic Education, organized
in 1946.
The Foundation is an educational cham
pion of private ownership, the free market,
the profit and loss system, and limited gov
ernment. It is nonprofit and nonpolitical.
Sample copies of the Foundation's month
ly study journal, THE FREEMAN, are avail
able on request.
PUBLISHED MARCH 1962
Copyright 1962, by Leonard E. Read. Permission to reprint
granted without special request. PRINTED IN U.S.A.
CONTENTS
Page
1. FAITH AND FREEDOM 13
Liberty will be restored as we recapture a sense of
our earthly purpose and know the source of our
rights.
2. CONSISTENCY REQUIRES A PREMISE 32
Unless we are aware ofour basic assumptions, social
frictions are inevitable.
3. BOOBY TRAPS 47
It is important to avoid blind alleys.
4. WHY DO WE LOSE LIBERTY? 66
The fallacies of authoritarianism are too generally
accepted.
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6 ELEMENTS OF LIBERTARIAN LEADERSHIP
Page
5. EMERGENCE OF A LEADERSHIP 85
We can't predict who will lead the libertarian ren
aissance. It may be you.
6. HUMILITY AND LEADERSHIP 92
The libertarian thinker is one who has an aware
ness of his own shortcomings.
7. INTEGRITY AND LEADERSHIP 101
What we say and do must accurately reflect what we
really believe.
8. THE METHODS OF LEADERSHIP 113
Only the highest grade methods can achieve the
chief political good-individual liberty.
9. THE MANNERS OF LEADERSHIP
Not anger or impatience or discouragement, but un
yielding good will is the proper stance.
CONTENTS 7
Page
10. AIDS TO LEADERSHIP 141
Each of us who would further the restoration of lib
erty must become a more creative person himself.
11. THREE LEVELS OF LEADERSHIP 161
The first stage is open to almost anyone, but there is
room to aspire.
12. CAN BUSY PEOPLE BECOME
LIBERTARIAN LEADERS? 169
The answer is yes: only busy people can accomplish
this task.
13. LIBERATED!
The cause of freedom does not need new arguments
as much as it needs a renewed attention to our un
discovered selves.

FOREWORD
IT IS DIFFICULTeven to set forth the libertarian ideal, but
expounding it is simple compared to living by it. None
theless, life lived according to right principles can never
be more than sporadic except as the ideal is sought for,
held up, and used as a guide.
I have no reason for attempting a manual of liber
tarian leadership except the conviction-born of three
decades of trial and error-that our waning individual
libertyis more difficult to restore than mostpeoplejudge.
It would be shameful for any person, thinking he knows
how deep the ore lies, to keep silent while millions of
people wastefully prospect on the surface.
First, a word about terms. I use freedom and liberty as
synonyms, that is, interchangeably. A case has been made
for ascribing different values to these terms but the dis
tinction, if any, is never generally understood and, thus,
is more or less useless for communicative purposes.
The term libertarian is used because nothing better
has been found to replace liberal, a term that has been
most successfully appropriated by contemporary authori
tarians. As long as liberal meant liberation from the au-
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10 ELEMENTS OF LIBERTARIAN LEADERSHIP
thoritarian state, it was a handy and useful generaliza
tion. It has come to mean little more than state liberality
with other people's money.
Next, the solution to the problem of rescuing an in
dividual liberty on the skids requires, broadly speaking,
the mastery of two disciplines: the philosophy of free
dom and the methodology of freedom. The former has
to do with an understanding of what freedom actually is,
and the latter with the techniques, means, and methods
by which an improved state of freedom may be effected.
The emphasis in this volume is on methodology. As
suming an individual has mastered the philosophical as
pects of freedom, what can he do about it? With whom
does he work? What are his limitations? His potentiali
ties?
Methodology must not be sold short. Indeed, if every
one-freedom devotees and their opposites-had his
method right, there would beno real philosophical prob
lem. Right method, according to this thesis, consists of
self-improvement. If everyone were devoted to the per
fection of self, there could be no meddlers amongst us,
and without meddlers there could be no socialism.
Of course, philosophy and methodology cannot be
compartmented, entirely. To be a master of liberty's
rationale one must, to be consistent, behave in a liber
tarian manner. One cannot, for instance, stand truly for
liberty and regard as villains or fools those who disagree,
without qualifying as an intellectual authoritarian!
So, throughout this volume there will be traces of