Should We Welcome a Libertarian Future?

David Boaz and Charles Murray each discuss their respective books about what it means to be a libertarian in this 1997 Cato debate.

David Boaz

David Boaz was a distinguished senior fellow of the Cato Institute and played a key role in the development of the Cato Institute and the libertarian movement. He was the author of The Libertarian Mind: A Manifesto for Freedom and the editor of The Libertarian Reader.

Boaz was a provocative commentator and a leading authority on domestic issues such as education choice, drug legalization, the growth of government, and the rise of libertarianism. Boaz was the former editor of New Guard magazine and was executive director of the Council for a Competitive Economy prior to joining Cato in 1981. The earlier edition of The Libertarian Mind, titled Libertarianism: A Primer, was described by the Los Angeles Times as “a well-​researched manifesto of libertarian ideas.” His other books include The Politics of Freedom and the Cato Handbook for Policymakers.

His articles have been published in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, National Review, and Slate, and he wrote the entry on libertarianism for Encyclopedia Britannica. He was a frequent guest on national television and radio shows and has appeared on ABC’s Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher, CNN’s Crossfire, NPR’s Talk of the Nation and All Things Considered, The McLaughlin Group, Stossel, The Independents, Fox News, BBC, Voice of America, Radio Free Europe, and other media.

Charles Murray

Charles Murray is a political scientist, author, and scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.

William A. Galston

William A. Galston currently holds the Ezra Zilkha Chair in the Brookings Institution’s Governance Studies Program, where he serves as a senior fellow.

Robert J. Shapiro

Robert J. Shapiro is co-​founder and chairman of Sonecon, LLC, and former Undersecretary of Commerce in the Clinton administration.

David Boaz is the executive vice president of the Cato Institute, and has played a key role in both the Institute’s development and the growth of the American libertarian movement at large.

Charles Murray is a political scientist, author, and scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.

William A. Galston currently holds the Ezra Zilkha Chair in the Brookings Institution’s Governance Studies Program, where he serves as a senior fellow.

Robert J. Shapiro is co-​founder and chairman of Sonecon, LLC, and former Undersecretary of Commerce in the Clinton administration.

In this 1997 policy forum at the Cato Institute, Boaz and Murray present their books, respectively titled Libertarianism: A Primer and What it Means to be a Libertarian. Galston and Shapiro offer their comments.