Today is the 82nd birthday of Butler Shaffer, one of the great pioneers of the libertarian movement. Butler taught at the Freedom School of Robert LeFevre and, until his recent retirement, he was Professor of Law at Southwestern Law School in Los Angeles. He is an outstanding legal theorist and historian. In Boundaries of Order, he shows how people can establish a social order without the use or threat of force. Government is a hindrance, not a help to social cooperation; and In Restraint of Trade: The Business Campaign Against Competition, 1918-1938, he offers a detailed case study of coercive interference with the free market. He is a master of the Socratic method of teaching, a great friend, and, what is almost as important, a great punster.
