When I first started teaching, David Henderson gave me some advice: to be open about who I am regarding my economic philosophy. At the beginning of class (and several other times throughout), I mention that I am a classical liberal—a free-market economist who argues that individuals rather than governments are best suited to deal with complex social relationships and problems. I don’t rule out government intervention completely, but I make a strong presumption of liberty that must be overcome before government intervention is justified. Law exists to enhance liberty, not restrict it.
That is some of the best teaching advice I have gotten. For many students, especially those who might disagree philosophically with me, it prompts conversations outside of class about economics and liberalism. On campus, we have beautiful live oaks. On nice days I hold office hours outside, so I have had many great conversations with students in their shade. Some of the students have liberal leanings. Others do not but are interested in the philosophy (or wish to pose counterarguments). But all leave the conversation enriched. Or, at least, I do.
Recently, one student asked why I am a liberal.1 It is a good question, and the answer has evolved. Certainly, I am a liberal for empirical reasons. Liberalism has led to unprecedented human flourishing, virtually eliminating true poverty in liberal countries. Liberal countries tend to be more tolerant, peaceful, wealthy, healthy, creative, and happy. There are countless books that document this, but for those who want a more dramatic read, I recommend The Rise of the Cajun Mariners: The Race for Big Oil by Woody Falgoux. Woody tells the story of the Cajun boaters who started with nothing, gambled it all, and became “oil boat barons.” It is a tale that could only come about in a liberal market economy. As Thomas Sowell once said, “I do not have faith in the market. I have evidence about the market.”
If you asked me, “Why liberalism?” 20 years ago, when I first started learning economics as a high school student, I would have stopped with the empirical evidence. But I have since engaged with many liberal thinkers, both past (Adam Smith, Frederic Bastiat, John Millar, A.V. Dicey, F.A. Hayek, James M. Buchanan, etc.) and present (Don Boudreaux, David Henderson, Pierre Lemieux, Russ Roberts, Dan Klein, etc.)2.
Over that time, I have come to appreciate a deeper understanding of “liberalism” and “human flourishing.” In fact, I’d say my view now is much less geared toward the empirical; even if liberalism did not result in better material outcomes, I would still be a liberal. I think James Buchanan put it best in his essay “Natural and Artifactual Man” (reprinted in Volume 1 of The Collected Works of James M. Buchanan):
Man wants liberty to become the man he wants to become. He does so precisely because he does not know what man he will want to become in time. Let us remove once and for all the instrumental defense of liberty, the only one that can possibly be derived directly from orthodox economic analysis. Man does not want liberty in order to maximize his utility, or that of society of which he is a part. He wants liberty to become the man he wants to become. (pg 259, emphasis in original.)
Liberalism lets people both discover and become the best versions of themselves, whatever that version may be. Will some people mess up? Of course. And that is ok. Will some use their freedom to abuse others? Of course. And that is where a liberal government in a liberal society has a role: to punish those who commit injustice. To me, that freedom to find and live your best life, whatever it may entail, so long as you are not harming others, is beautiful.
Liberalism is truly a social philosophy. It encourages social behavior because it encourages peace. Because of this, liberalism encourages societal cohesion in a way that collectivist ideologies that do not prioritize individuals cannot. It encourages human flourishing in a myriad of ways. And for that, I am a classical liberal.
Live oaks in the quad at Nicholls State, photo by the author.
[1] I use “liberal” and “classical liberal” interchangeably in this post. They mean the same thing. “Liberal” here does not refer to the American left or Democratic Party.
[2] These lists are not exhaustive. I have been blessed to engage with many great thinkers. The exclusion from these lists does not imply a lack of influence or is not meant as a snub to anyone.
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READER COMMENTS
David Seltzer
Nov 5 2025 at 2:03pm
Jon: Good stuff. In my experience, I’ve observed those who used liberty to became the person they wanted to become, as being charitable and giving. Given that no individual is duty-bound to to provide for others, beneficence is a profound benefit of liberty.
John Foster
Nov 5 2025 at 2:08pm
Nice piece, Jon. And nice pic! I lived in Baton Rouge for many years and know the spot you’re referencing.
I couldn’t agree more that it’s best to be very open about your orientation and potential biases. I do the same in our lessons for middle schoolers; “this is my best, most objective take on the facts, but if there’s a bias it runs in the direction of free markets…”
We constantly discover better viewpoints and to insist that our current one has no room for improvement is either delusional or dishonest.
Keep up the good work!
John
Mactoul
Nov 5 2025 at 10:51pm
I wonder if you would address critiques of liberalism such as Patrick Deneen’s Why liberalism failed.
While the 19c liberals such as Macaulay were confidant and unabashed about superiority of liberal civilization to nonliberal cultures, the 21st century defenses tend towards a markedly apologetic tone.
While the 19c heyday of liberalism was marked by co-existence and tension with other currents such as imperialism, traditional religious faith and nationalism, the present undiluted liberalism illustrates the weaknesses of the liberal idea of treating individuals above all. The ensuing neglect of due privileges of family life has led to family dysfunction on extremely serious scale in all liberal countries. The collapse of birth rate alone means that no liberal country is sustainable even in the short run.
Liberalism has been running on the accumulated social capital but ruin in a country, though large, is not infinite.
Jon Murphy
Nov 6 2025 at 7:15am
I am unaware of any liberal who neglects family life. Can you give an example?
Also, one should note that collapsing birth rates are happening ’round the world, even in illiberal countries. In fact, places like Russia and China cannot pay people to have children and have birth rates way lower than many liberal countries. There’s a stronger story tied to relative wealth than political reasons.
In short, your hypothesis is short on both evidence and theory.
Jon Murphy
Nov 6 2025 at 9:33am
No. I do not have time to read the book and others have already addressed it (see, eg, my GMU classmate Erik Matson and Jordan Ballor here).
Mactoul
Nov 7 2025 at 3:41am
It is hardly a review. Deneen is mentioned just once.
Jon Murphy
Nov 7 2025 at 7:35am
You do realize the whole article is critiquing his argument, right? I mean, I assume you read at least the first paragraph and didn’t just do “ctrl-F,” see his name only appears once, and just stop there.
Mactoul
Nov 7 2025 at 8:24pm
The key argument that primacy of private judgment renders a society open to disintegration is not answered by citations to Adam Smith and his moral sentiments.
Primacy of private judgment is at most implicit in Adam Smith but has been explicitly posited only much later such as in the quote from Buchanan you approvingly posted.
Jon Murphy
Nov 7 2025 at 11:45pm
I really wish you’d read an article as opposed to doing a ctrl+f.
Knut P. Heen
Nov 6 2025 at 8:10am
For me the issue is rather simple. I do not want other people to enforce their crazy ideas on me therefore I do not enforce my crazy ideas on them.
Most people want liberty for themselves, but most people are also greedy enough to take the liberty away from other people if they can. The result is a prisoner’s dilemma type of situation in which everyone’s liberty is crushed.
David Seltzer
Nov 6 2025 at 8:45am
Knut: Yes indeed. Some of us who so value liberty, will try to preserve it by any means required. Despots who coerce do so at their own mortal peril. Just sayin’.
Jon Murphy
Nov 6 2025 at 9:33am
Also yes. Although the ideas needn’t be crazy.
Mactoul
Nov 7 2025 at 3:40am
And who can object to that. But, if values are subjective, harm is too. Gays are said to be harmed if their marriages are not celebrated, Trans people are grievously harmed if they are misgendered. But minors are not harmed by irreversible gender affirmation procedures. So, government must act to preven harms, with harm as defined by the current liberal dogma.
This, incidentally, shows that the essential liberal idea, the denial of the moral authority of the political community, is unworkable, even for the liberals themselves, When in power, they appropriate all moral authority for themselves.
Jon Murphy
Nov 7 2025 at 7:33am
It doesn’t obviously follow from your premise that harm is subjective. You need to build that case, not merely assert it.
David Seltzer
Nov 7 2025 at 10:12am
Mactoul…Chill brother. Harm is subjective??? Is getting punched in the mouth subjective? Legally, harm refers to injury, loss, or damage a person suffers whether physical or material. Am I to seek redress whenever someone utters an antisemitic comment because my feelings were hurt? My former trainer and I watched as a fighter we trained get knocked unconscious. Mark leaned over and said, “That’s what’s you call getting your feelings hurt.”
Jon Murphy
Nov 7 2025 at 2:50pm
To build on David’s response, I am unaware of any liberal who would say harm is subjective. I tend to see that more in illiberal philosophies like Critical Theory. “Harm” refers to something very specific: physical, pecuniary, or legal damage done. As Adam Smith put it:
Mactoul
Nov 7 2025 at 7:44pm
Isn’t human dignity supposed to be an essential concept of liberalism? Anything that offends against human dignity is then naturally a harm.
Adam Smith never said
And naturally anything that hinders this liberty is a grievous harm.
Liberalism keeps discovering more and more offenses against human dignity which then require more and more government intrusions on liberty of others.
Jon Murphy
Nov 7 2025 at 11:44pm
Ok, but that’s not the same as saying harm is subjective. I really wish you’d pick one argument and stick with it as opposed to pinballing between unrelated things.
Mactoul
Nov 8 2025 at 9:10pm
What offends human dignity can be and in practice invariably subjective.
Jon Murphy
Nov 9 2025 at 8:41am
For illiberal philosophies, that’s true. It’s not true in liberalism.
nobody.really
Nov 8 2025 at 8:35pm
I say Mactoul has a point. Even if we might all agree that certain categories of behaviors/outcomes constitute “harms,” I expect we could find categories about which we would disagree. And yes, that means that whoever is in power gets to impose their understandings on others. Libertarianism/classical liberalism provides the best guide I know of for structuring these policies, but I expect we could find disagreements even among its adherents. (When the goddess Eris sought to stir up trouble on Mount Libertarius, she tossed a golden apple into a gathering of gods bearing the inscription, “To what extent should government regulate externalities?”–thereby triggering a war.)
But what remedy? Does Patrick Deneen offer a philosophy to resolve this problem–or does he merely propose to be the philosopher king, imposing his preferences on others?
Jon Murphy
Nov 9 2025 at 8:42am
Mactoul’s point only holds in illiberal philosophies. It’s not a feature of liberalism.
Grand Rapids Mike
Nov 7 2025 at 2:00pm
Another book to check on is the “The Frackers”. You could call it a case study Liberalism in Action”. It’s not about theory. it how a bunch of wildcatters created the shale revolution. The book is very readable, informative and well written.
Mactoul
Nov 8 2025 at 9:27pm
This could mean anything or nothing. Should we restructure all existing cultures, institutions, customs, laws for sake of this vagueness?
This quote perfectly illustrates the truth of Dostoevsky’s insight in The Possessed:
Jon Murphy
Nov 9 2025 at 8:46am
I highly recommend you read the article the quote is from (especially if you want to critique it). He both starts and ends with that argument and builds the case throughout. If you engage in the whole argument (or even the argument in this post), you’ll see it’s not as vague as you think.
I highly recommend you read the authors you intend to critique rather than being vague.
Daniel B.
Nov 9 2025 at 5:56pm
I have to disagree with Buchanan. Where is this “man” he is talking about? I don’t see him when I see memes on Reddit with over 20k upvotes saying that thanks to Mamdani’s electoral victory, landlords will have to find “actual jobs,” with the mocking title “cry me a river.” Milton Friedman was closer to the truth when he wrote “Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself.” With due respect to Buchanan, “man” has been quite happy to give up freedom when he thought the consequences of freedom were bad. That’s the opposite of what we’d expect if “man does not want liberty in order to maximize his utility, or that of society of which he is a part.”
Seeing smart people like Buchanan write things like “let us remove once and for all” the consequentialist argument for liberty is so frustrating. “Swiper no swiping” does not work any better in the real world at preventing what Walter Williams called theft than “Swiper no coercing” or “Swiper no forcing.” Williams – whom I respect – would presumably realize that calling out a mugger who is robbing him as a thief would be unlikely to stop the theft from happening to him. So I don’t understand why he thought doing the same thing actually would be likely to stop a “political thief” from taking stuff from him via the voting booth, rather than a knife to his back (like muggers might do).
Two of the biggest sources of opposition to free markets are people’s beliefs about labor markets and the market for medical care. My recommendation is that economists like you try to make some sort of reading list for such topics (and regulation in general) with books and articles, not stuff that doesn’t address those concerns such as the book you recommended in this post. (Yes, you sort of do this by mentioning a ton of people – including good economists like Hayek, Henderson, and Boudreaux – but the transaction costs for finding their posts on certain topics are higher without a reading list, and that will discourage people from finding those thoughts.) Trying to address things like Alan Manning’s “dynamic monopsony” or other search friction monopsony theories, or “cream skimming” that is said to be an issue in the market for individual health insurance, would be better than saying “even if liberalism did not result in better material outcomes, I would still be a liberal.” Even if that’s the correct position to take, most people don’t believe that. Better to convince Swipers that it’s in their interest not to regulate (e.g., because regulation won’t have the effects they think it will) than hope against hope they will find a lack of better material outcomes acceptable.
(By the way I am skeptical of government intervention in general like you seem to be, including in the two markets I just mentioned. But that skepticism was created by people who talked about the consequences of intervention in those areas – e.g., to my knowledge David Neumark’s book Minimum Wages discusses Manning’s monopsony model, as well as a bunch of stuff showing the negative consequences of minimum wages. I haven’t read the book; I just skimmed it on a whim and found that Manning is mentioned in it. Arguments about consequences were way more effective than stuff like Buchanan’s notions about freedom.)
Jon Murphy
Nov 10 2025 at 5:42pm
There’s always been a duality, a tension, in humans: on the one hand, they want to be free themselves. On the other, they wish to dominate other people. I discuss a little of this tension here. Mayhap I will expand upon it in the future. But the presence of one does not negate the power of the other. Indeed, it is the role of liberal philosophy and liberal government to keep the domineering compulsion in check while promoting the self-improvement compulsion.
Daniel B.
Nov 11 2025 at 1:27am
Well, yes, people do want freedom for themselves… although wanting something for yourself does not necessarily translate to wanting it for other people (as I’m sure we both agree). The issue is: how best to “keep the domineering compulsion in check”?
I sort of get what Buchanan is going for, but what he’s talking about just… doesn’t match what is going on. Many people disbelieve in freedom because (for example) they think it won’t lead to them getting higher wages or better medical care. He asserts that “man does not want liberty in order to maximize his utility.” But if this is true, then why are so many popular arguments against the freedom he wants about increasing utility (e.g., “minimum wages prevent exploitation”)?
Furthermore, as I said originally, when Buchanan said “Let us remove once and for all the instrumental defense of liberty,” he was not just wrong, but dangerously wrong. Removing that just… isn’t the way to persuade people to believe in freedom. That specific type of “liberal philosophy” won’t keep the “domineering compulsion” in check, any more than “Swiper no swiping” would keep a real life Swiper’s (i.e., a thief’s) “compulsion to steal from me” in check.
I highly recommend that, rather than recommending books like Cajun Mariners, you recommend books or articles or reading lists, that address the topics people are relatively more concerned about, such as labor markets and healthcare – stuff people badly need education on. I know that will be time consuming. (If you don’t make a full list, even just one or two readings on the subjects would help.) But unless someone does stuff like that, then the human flourishing you desire will not happen, because people won’t believe in the rules and policies required for it to happen. That’s because they will be generally persuaded more by stuff like that – it addresses their concerns more directly.
You are an economist, and I am not. You have the education (such as reading journal articles, and answering tricky questions in class and getting feedback on your answers) that the public doesn’t have. Please try to use that to produce even just a few recommendations for the public to learn more about labor economics or health economics. (I’m not expecting you to give a full course in these things; I’m not even sure how that would be possible, except by outsourcing that to others – i.e, to simply recommend a textbook for people to read. I’m just trying to emphasize how important these specific subjects are. The marginal value of a labor economics reading recommendation is higher than for a recommendation about what appears to be some rags to riches story.)
Jon Murphy
Nov 11 2025 at 2:41pm
The paper is making the case for liberty from a broader viewpoint than just the empirical viewpoint. If you want the answer on keeping domineering in check, I recommend some of his other works like Limits of Liberty, Reason of Rules, and Calculus of Consent.
Daniel B.
Nov 11 2025 at 3:20pm
Thanks 🙂
If there was just one book or article you’d recommend for labor economics or health economics to laymen, what would it be? (Even if it’s just an economics textbook… most economics textbooks don’t go into that much detail on either of those markets unfortunately, so more specialized stuff seems to be required.)
I actually have Ronald Ehrenberg’s book on labor economics, although I haven’t read it yet. (For health economics I read Andrew Friedson’s intro to health economics book a few months ago.) But I’m just curious what you’d recommend. I want to understand “the market process” perspective…
Jon Murphy
Nov 11 2025 at 4:30pm
Good question. I don’t know off the top of my head. I’ll ask my colleague, Dr Meder. He’s a labor economist.
Jon Murphy
Nov 12 2025 at 6:06am
I asked my colleague who is a labor economist what he’d recommend. He said:
Other than a basic textbook, it’d depend on what you’re interested in. Labor is a huge field. Different topics will have different books. Eg if you’re interested in gender, Claudia Goodwin is a good person to read.
Daniel B.
Nov 12 2025 at 6:27pm
Huh? You talked to a parking meder? I know economists like the price system, but that’s a little much…
Jokes aside, what I was interested in was a general overview of labor markets and it looks like a labor economics textbook like Ronald Ehrenberg’s will have to do for that purpose. Hopefully someday I’ll read it… right now I’ve been reading David Friedman’s intermediate Price Theory book so hopefully that will help prepare me for it. Thanks for the recommendations 🙂
Robert Ferrell
Nov 12 2025 at 11:49am
How do you distinguish “liberal” from other ideologies? As you point out, liberalism is very social. There’s that famous thought experiment, “if you are the only person in the world you have no rights only responsibilities”. Without other people in the mix “liberal” isn’t useful.
To bring in 2 writers that many people say are “liberal” and “extremely not liberal”, Adam Smith and Karl Marx actually have lots of overlap. For instance, Wealth of Nations has concern about division of labor: workers would become “as stupid and ignorant as it is possible for a human creature to become”. Marx pushed a (more radical) version of that with something about alienation of labor. That’s just one example. Many passages from Smith, especially in TTMS (thank you Russ Roberts), would be classified as anti-liberal socialism by many today.
For me, “liberalism” means knowing whatever balance I’ve (we’ve) found between forced collective behavior and extreme individualism is not perfect, so liberals (individuals or governments) always examine results and try to self-correct. (“Liberalism” means: “I know I’m wrong in some way, I will try to learn how I’m wrong and change something to make me less wrong.”) I haven’t found a more explicit definition that is useful. Do you have an operating one that you use? I think here you’re suggesting you have a normative version of liberalism, but I’m not sure how that works.
Jon Murphy
Nov 12 2025 at 12:07pm
I follow Adam Smith: a liberal is those who follow the simple system of natural liberty:
Robert Ferrell
Nov 13 2025 at 10:04am
Do you find that adequately distinguishes your thinking from those you wouldn’t consider “liberal”? I don’t.
For instance, “the duty of erecting and maintaining certain publick works and certain publick institutions, which it can never be for the interest of any individual, or small number of individuals, to erect and maintain; because the profit could never repay the expence to any individual or small number of individuals, though it may frequently do much more than repay it to a great society. ” is the justification, by some, for government-supplied health care and also for a universal basic income.
I am open to both of those as possible components of a “good” government (UBI is a stretch for me, but I will remain open to the possibility). But my attitude of “perhaps” is quite different from others who use variants of Smith’s words to say “absolutely, government provided health care is a right of all citizens, it fits right into one of Smith’s system of natural liberty”. My thinking is also different from those who say “I know exactly which public institutions governments must provide. Health care and UBI aren’t in that set.” Such thinkers are not liberal, IMO.
Smith’s writings were positive, of course, rather than normative. What I find very compelling is he is grounded in empirical observation, and not making normative claims about how humans “should” think and behave. I read Smith (& Hume) as saying “this is how we used to be, then we changed to doing XYZ and life is better, so doing XYZ is better than what we did before”. For me, that introspection and embracing change is the essence of liberalism.
Jon Murphy
Nov 13 2025 at 11:07am
Yes. Otherwise, I wouldn’t use it.
That would be an abuse of language by them. I’ve never heard that reasoning in all my years as a liberal.
Regardless, universal health care nor UBI are inherently illiberal.
Agreed. It wouldn’t be a right. I don’t know of any liberal who would say it is a right.
Comments are closed.