The Yale Free Press

Tom Palmer is a senior fellow at the Cato Institue, the most prominent libertarian think tank in Washington. He directs the Cato University, sits on the board of the Foundation for Economic Education, and lectures frequently around the country. He was a guest a the Yale Political Union on October 26 where he spoke on the topic Resolved: The State Ought Not Provide Welfare.

The Yale Free Press: Tell us a little about your role at the Cato institute. What would a typical day look like for you?

Tom Palmer: As you can imagine, it's unimaginably glamorous.  Ok, maybe not.  But it is fun.  I often lead seminars at Cato, meet foreign visitors (we had visitors today from the Republic of Georgia and tomorrow I will meet some people from Mauritania and from Syria), and so on.  I also do some editing, which is sometimes less than fun, but important.  One of the great pleasures is speaking in public; last Friday and Saturday I gave a number of talks in Portland, Oregon and this evening I gave lecture at Georgetown University.  I'm off on Friday to Oman, Jordan, Iraq, and Moscow.  My job is quite varied, so a "typical day" is a bit hard to imagine.  But it's always a challenge.

YFP: In what issue(s) are you currently the most interested?

TP: I'm quite involved in the spread of libertarian ideas in parts of the world where they are desperately needed, besides New Haven.  I'm involved with publishing ventures in Arabic and in Russian and I'm hoping to start ventures in Chinese and in Farsi.  I'll be working with people in those countries to promote publication of libertarian classics, establishment of libertarian think-tanks, and creation of a larger profile for libertarian ideas.  I'll also be working on setting up libertarian seminars for college students in the Middle East, starting next year.

YFP: What kind of questions or problems have arisen in your research about the above issue(s). In other words, what kinds of things would you debate about with your colleagues?

TP: That's a hard one.  I frequently discuss with my colleagues such matters as constitutional interpretation, foreign policy, and the relationship between political principles and the concrete moves that would instantiate them.

YFP: Why are you a libertarian, and what does that word mean to you?

TP: Whew.  What a hard question.  For one thing, I'd say that there can be a number of reasons for believing something.  There doesn't have to be just one.  Indeed, if several reasons lead one to the same conclusion, that's a good reason to be more confident in its truth.  I do believe that liberty is valuable for its own sake, for it's a constituent element of a good life, because self-directedness is a constituent element of happiness.  But liberty also makes possible the flourishing of human culture, and there's a lot to be said for that, not to mention rising material standards of living.  And, frankly, capitalism produces so much cool stuff and I'm a bit of a gadget lover.  (I wrote an essay that addresses the issue of self-directedness and the benefits of the basic libertarian principle of everyone having a "property in his or her own person"; it appeared in "Individual Rights Reconsidered," edited by Tibor Machan and published by Hoover Press at Stanford University; it's available on my website.

YFP: We noticed that you edited a book by objectivist David Kelley. What is your opinion of objectivism?

TP: I'm sympathetic, but I'm more eclectic in my views.  I don't see the same close connections between aesthetics, ethics, politics, and so on that the objectivists see.  But I am sympathetic to many, although not all, of their substantive views.

YFP: Especially with economic issues like welfare, lots of people get the conservative and libertarian positions confused. What are the subtleties that separate the conservative opponent of welfare from the libertarian one.

TP: Well, for one thing, conservatives often fail to notice that most welfare transfers are not to the poor, but among the middle and upper classes.  The second thing is that they frequently fail to grasp that welfare transfers to the poor are a part of a political-economic system that starts with restrictions that keep poor people out of the market (licensing, restrictions, zoning, etc.) and damages them and then provides transfer payments designed to keep them relatively docile and under control.  They fail to grasp what I consider the predatory nature of the welfare state.

YFP: Who is your favorite thinker?

TP: Hmmm....hmmmm.....Well, I'm a great admirer of Aristotle, not as an economist (he really got it almost all wrong in that area) or as a political scientist, but as a systematic thinker and as a deep source of insight into the formation of human character.  In politics, I'm a big fan of Benjamin Constant.  And I also greatly admire the artistic work of Robert Musil.  But my tastes and interests, like some of my views generally, are fairly eclectic.  (I wrote a lengthy bibliographical essay on the literature of liberty in "The Libertarian Reader," edited by David Boaz).

YFP: Who do you admire most in today's political landscape?

TP: I'm afraid that I can't think of one prominent politician whom I admire, at least in America.  Some in other countries deserve admiration in various ways (Vaclav Klaus in the Czech Republic, Mart Laar in Estonia, for example), but I'm very discouraged about the lack of commitment to the principles of liberty demonstrated by American politicians.

YFP: To what degree and in what ways do think-tanks like Cato and people like yourself influence decisions in Washington?

TP: It's greater than it seems at first, because it normally takes place over some years.  But consider the issue of "welfare reform," which was raised by Charles Murray in his book Losing Ground. Some years later, under president Clinton and a Republican Congress, we got quite substantial welfare reform.  Along the way, the Cato Institute produced the first studies showing what welfare "paid," i.e., what one would have had to earn in pre-tax income to equal a standard package of welfare benefits.  They were, I believe, the first to quantify the negative incentives to work that welfare payments provided and were important in the decision of many Democrats to support welfare reform.  On the issue of immigration policy, Cato studies had a big impact in blunting right-wing and labor union attacks on immigrants by showing that on net they pay more in taxes than they receive in benefits from the state.  You'd have to look at issues area by area, but I think you'd find a substantial influence over the years.  (A depressing exception is the subject of policy on narcotics, which I believe is currently terribly destructive of  both liberty and civil society.  But I have high hopes that in coming years political leaders will begin to see the wisdom of legalizing narcotics and ending the foolish and unwinnable "War on Drugs.")

YFP: What advice would you give to a young libertarian that wanted to make an impact but wasn't really sure how to go about it?

TP: Here's where I get to sound like an old person.  Ok, here goes:  Learn what you can while in university.  Have a good time engaging in debates, but remember that you're not in college to convert your professors, but to learn from them as much as you can.  Take the hard courses and do your best to learn all you can, so that you can become the kind of person to whom other people come for information, because your opinions are informed.  And here's some more old-person advice: try to figure out what your passion is and be sure never to abandon whatever it is that inspires it. It might be art, or theater, or business, or mathematics, or economics, or writing, or...well, one could go on.  And then find areas where there is an intersection between your pursuit of your own happiness and flourishing and the advance of your principles -- of liberty, of peace, of justice, of free exchange, and of toleration.  When you find a point of intersection, advance your own happiness and interests AND freedom at the same time.  

Finally, I hope that such a young libertarian will make the attainment of liberty a lifetime project, not just something to do for a few years or to pursue frantically for a few months. It may be one project among others, but I hope that it will be a project for an entire lifetime.  Liberty deserves nothing less.

Andrew Stegmaier is a sophomore in Calhoun College and Webmaster of the Yale Free Press.