Net Benefit

Yes, the LP does indeed perform activities the move the nation in the direction or more liberty. Unfortunately, there are also necessary activities for maintaining the party that provide little or no enhancement to liberty, such as the petitioning efforts to get on and stay on the ballot. The need for such activities has been an irritant to the party members since the party's inception. But the worse problem are those party activities that lessen the prospects for liberty! The baneful effect of such efforts nearly neutralizes the positive efforts. Thus, the net beneficial effort is a small fraction of the total effort expended by the LP faithful.

Indeed, many libertarians question whether the net result is even a positive number. Thus, they stay on the sidelines or work within the competing parties (another questionable effort!).

The diagram above shows a conservative picture of what can be accomplished by a refocusing of effort using the Hippocrates' maxim: "First, do no harm." Note that I assume increasing productive activity to be difficult, so the green area is only a little bit bigger. However, it is possible to drastically cut back down on those activies that reduce liberty if LP members so choose. The result is a manyfold increase in net benefit with no increase in party activity.

Once we achieve this manyfold increase, we can expect many small-l types to jump on the bandwagon. With the resulting efforts we can then get occasional support from single-issue allies. At this point the LP becomes a real force...

But back to reality. You will note that even in the refocused effort diagram, there is still activity that result in less liberty, and much more activity that does not result in more liberty but doesn't hurt. Such activities are necessary. To clarify, a better definition and breakdown of the activity types is on the next page.

Copyright 2000, Carl S. Milsted, Jr. All rights reserved.