Correcting Kinsley on Libertarianism

An American liberal like Kinsley should (after 6+ years of the “War on Terror”) be aware of the great downside to a government monopoly of the military. Everything that is wrong with government control of, say, automobile production, carries over into the arena of defense. For example, costs are vastly inflated, and inefficiency abounds, because there is no direct link between the customer and the service provider. Notice that the typical argument for government provision of military services doesn’t explain why the government would do a good job here (as opposed to the horrible job that everyone knows the government would do in computer, TV, or book production). Rather, the argument is always, “The market can’t do it, so the government has to.” It turns out that the free market could indeed provide adequate military defense. FULL ARTICLE