Sam--

Thank you for a thoughtful, and thought provoking, reply.

We can agree, I hope, that the free market libertarianism represented on this list serv by, among others, Mr. South, is intellectually coherent and principled.

I am open to be instructed here--I am by no means an expert on the fine details of libertarian thought.  But to my knowledge, libertarians simply do not concern themselves with the issue of the death of the republic; that is, they do not examine with any great care the attitudes, dispositions, and character necessary among citizens to sustain a thriving republic.  Rather, they assume that so long as citizens pursue their own desires and appetites--that is, strive to maximize their own utility--the public good will ensue.

We care about this, with regard to the topics of Virginia History, because public (collective, governmental) support for public history can not be justified by libertarians.  Mr. South is correct, it seems to me, that if you are a principled libertarian, you ought to transfer the land at Fort Monroe (and at every other state supported public history site) to private developers, to be used as they see fit.  

The ultimate justification for public history--and one that to my eye, public historians often lose sight of--is that it merits public support because it produces a public good.  Why, after all, does history matter?  One of the oldest, and still to my mind most important, justifications for the dissemination of historical knowledge is because history contributes to the development of the character of citizens, in such a fashion as to promote the long term stability of the republic.  

Put another way:  libertarians just assume that the republic will endure, and that they need waste no energy in examining what conditions allow for that stability and endurance.  But by encouraging citizens to cultivate their baser appetites and desires, they encourage egoism.  Egoism, in turn, undermines the conditions that permit democracy to thrive.  If you have never done so, you really owe it to yourself to read Tocqueville, who analyzes this issue with some depth and perception.

So--having invoked Hayek, how do you think Hayek would answer Tocqueville?  And in answering Tocqueville, how would Hayek contribute to our conversation about government support for public history?

All best,
Kevin

---- Original message ----
>Date: Fri, 24 Oct 2008 08:34:00 -0500
>From: Sam Treynor <[log in to unmask]>  
>Subject: Re: Ft Monroe & public funds  
>To: [log in to unmask]
>
>Achieving maximum public utility requires knowing what that result is.  As
>Friedrich Hayek points out, that knowledge problem can't be solved by people
>trying to govern the economy, because they can't acquire enough information
>to make the right decisions.  Only the sum of everyone's individual choices,
>as facilitated by markets, can maximize economic benefit.
>
>That the rule of law can be sustained without government is well argued by
>Murray Rothbard in Man, Economy, and the State.  (But this is to move from
>libertarianism to anarchism - most libertarians would accept the need for
>government enforcement of a rule of law.)
>
>But even if the Hayekian point were wrong, the libertarian argument that
>government depends on the initiation of force, and the initiation of force
>is morally wrong, would still deny the right of government to impose its
>will on private free markets.
>
>Sam Treynor
Kevin R. Hardwick, Ph.D.
Department of History
James Madison University

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