Ebeling: A libertarian foreign policy cannot be couched in quite the same way that foreign policy is spoken of today in comtemporary domestic and world politics. By which I mean, today foreign policy is considered a responsibility for government to actively pursue either economic or political or military goalsoutside of the borders of their own nation or state. I seems to me that for a libertarian, to the extent that one speaks of foreign policy, it is merely the requirement of that free government to provide those limited defensive actions needed to protect the life and territorial integrity of citizens within that country. For example, it would not involve foreign entanglements or interventions in other countries. It really would be an extremely limited role, concerned with anticipating and deflecting any overt military aggression that would threaten the territory of the United States and the life and property of Americans within the territory of the United States.
MR: Would circumstances such as mass human rights abuses justify American involvement in a foreign war?
Ebeling: The responsibility of the United States government under the Constitution is to protect the life and property of American citizens from the aggression of foreign powers, and that is all the Constitution specifies the U.S. government to do. It seems to me a libertarian approach on these matters should be the foreign policy should be left up to the discretion of individuals Ñ what I would call a privatization of foreign policy. If there are causes that individuals consider worthwhile assisting in foreign lands when a nation faces aggression or when a minority is unjustly oppressed, any American should have the unhindered freedom to volunteer or to offer their services for pay, or to provide any type of humanitarian or military assistance. But I do not believe that it would be considered legitimate for the U.S. government to expropriate the wealth of some Americans to support a foreign adventure advocated by other Americans when those Americans who do not support the intervention to be coerced in that matter.
MR: The United States, by and large, was founded upon a position of neutrality and non-intervention in foreign affairs. Today, however, American diplomacy and the American military span the globe. What accounts for this drastic change?
Ebeling: To a great extent it is the thinking that arose around the decade of the First World War and particularily symbolized in the thinking of Woodrow Wilson Ñ that it was the responsibility of America to make the world safe for democracy, that somehow we represent the good, the virtuous, the just, the morally correct, and the world was filled with ignorant people, social barbarians, those who either through ignorance or vice cannot put their own houses in order, and we Ñ the wise, the good, the virtuous, high above them on this hill of American perfection Ñ are meant to go out and purify them for their own good. And that, unfortunately, has been the underlying premise and ideology that guided Franklin Roosevelt into World War II, and has been the guiding light of American foreign policy since the Second World War.
MR: Many label the twentieth century the "Century of War." What has mass military conflict become so prominent in the last 100 years?
Ebeling: This is because of collectivism. Throughout most of the ninteenth century, wars were either non-existent or extremely limited. The reason is that the ninteenth century was guided by the principles of classical liberalism, for the most part, though imperfectly and incompletely, but it served as sort of an idea for the age, a concept that permeated much of the political thinking. The ninteenth century was more influenced by the classical liberal ideals of limited government, individual freedom, respect for private property, and that peaceful intercourse through trade and commerce and the globalization of the division of labor was the best way to achieve peace, harmony, and prosperity. But the last 100 years has seen the triumph of collectivism, where the state is viewed as the engine of all that is good, all human relationships are politicized, all connections and interactions among citizens of different countries are not private affairs, but are raised to the level of affairs of state. Collectivist demons like communism and Nazism have had their own visions of world domination. America has viewed itself as the purifying crusader to give the world democracy and good government and good society. It is these collectivist notions that have sent all these nations into war and brought about the death and destruction of so many of their citizens.
MR: Turning to economic matters, many people, in both major political parties, contend that government must play some role in stabilizing economic fluctuations. What are your views concerning this?
Ebeling: Any government is almost always the major instigator of economic instability, what traditionally is known as the ups and downs and fluctuations of the business cycle, the booms and busts of inflation and depression. There is nothing inherent in a market economy that makes it open to economy-wide destablization such as inflation and depression. It is government mismanagement, intervention, and control of the money supply that is the primary cause of such fluctuation. If we could move toward a privatized monetary system that is an end to monetary central planning, we would move a great deal toward eliminating such business cycle fluctuations.
MR: In response to what you have said, many are skeptical of the effectiveness of free markets, stating that markets will result in externalities such as air pollution. Can markets function effectively without some amount of governmental regulation?
Ebeling: To my mind, the cause of our environmental and pollution problems is due precisely to the fact that private property rights have not been extended or defined or enforced in these areas. This is an example of what economists call the tragedy of the commons. When no one owns anything, and everything belongs to "everyone," then there is no incentive on the part of any one individual to care for, husband, economize, maintain, or improve that common resource. He might as well use as much of it as he can, in any abusive way, because if he doesn't it is an open field for anyone else to use before he himself can grab all that he is interested in acquiring. Once you privatize any resource then you immediately create an incentive for individuals to care for it. Why? Because if they abuse it or fail to maintain it or do not enhance it in profitable ways then they bear the cost of that. They see a diminishment of the services that the resource could have given them. They miss out on a profit opportunity that could have been gained by a wise and judicious husbanding of the resource in question. So I think that if property rights were extended to common areas, which include rivers and lakes, and if there were an evolution of property rights so as to determine what property rights dilineations could be developed in air space above land property, for example, the vast majority of these concerns would soon disappear.
MR: Others maintain that free markets will fall victim to the power of monopolies. Would this be the case?
Ebeling: Historically, monopolies are almost always the creation of government. When Adam Smith wrote The Wealth of Nations, he specifically reserves the term "monopoly" most often for government- bestowed privileges that give a producers or a seller the exclusive right to deal in a particular product within a geographical area, protected by legal barriers from the competition of others. It is extremely difficult, if not practically impossible in most normal market situations for a monopoly to be formed and sustained by market conditions.
MR: In the past, you have stated that the Republicans' "Contract with America," while far from perfect, is a positive step toward smaller government. How would you assess the efforts of the Republicans as the 104th Congress draws to a close?
Ebeling: A dismal failure. Now when the Republican Congress came into session, what is now about a year and a half ago, based upon the "Contract with America" and the rhetoric of many of the congresional Republican leaders, one could hold out hopes that expenditures would be cut, that departments in the government would be abolished, that programs and regulatory agencies would be repealed. They now have had a year and a half and the budget is bigger, no department has been abolished or even faced the serious discussion of such, the regulatory agencies and government programs stand unrepealed. In any noticable way, this is a dismal failure. The usual response by my Republican friends would be that they have had to deal with Bill Clinton and the Senate is not as "conservative" as the House Republicans who came with the last election, and that is all probably true. But it just does not change the fact that to the extent they could have established an agenda, a framework for analyzing and presenting a vision of America to the electorate in this election year. They basically chose to move backwards, compromise, and fail to do what they promised. I view the "Contract with America," though once it seemed to offer a notion of a movement in a direction, as a fraud.