For those who haven't noticed, the “new world order” proclaimed by President George Herbert Walker Bush before a joint session of Congress on the eleventh of September, 1990 (yes, I know) has pretty much turned out to be a bust. But here it is as he tried to imagine it:

We stand today at a unique and extraordinary moment. The crisis in the Persian Gulf, as grave as it is, also offers a rare opportunity to move toward an historic period of cooperation. Out of these troubled times, our fifth objective -- a new world order -- can emerge: a new era -- freer from the threat of terror, stronger in the pursuit of justice, and more secure in the quest for peace. An era in which the nations of the world, East and West, North and South, can prosper and live in harmony. A hundred generations have searched for this elusive path to peace, while a thousand wars raged across the span of human endeavor. Today that new world is struggling to be born, a world quite different from the one we've known. A world where the rule of law supplants the rule of the jungle. A world in which nations recognize the shared responsibility for freedom and justice. A world where the strong respect the rights of the weak. This is the vision that I shared with President Gorbachev in Helsinki. He and other leaders from Europe, the Gulf, and around the world understand that how we manage this crisis today could shape the future for generations to come.

Like many proponents of school vouchers, I first learned of them from Milton and Rose Friedman’s book Free to Choose. And as anyone who remembers reading FTC can tell you, the system envisioned by the Friedmans was, first and foremost, a universal system: every student got a voucher redeemable for tuition at the school of their choice. The ensuing competition amongst schools—even public schools—would force them all to deliver the quality customers want or risk insolvency. The whole idea was too replace the political imperatives which currently drive public school systems to spend enormous amounts of money attaining mediocrity with the market imperatives famous for producing the quality and efficiency customers demand in the normal marketplace.

The Liberal Capitalist Party is proud to include in its canon Letter from a Birmingham Jail, the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King's right-between-the-eyes exegisis revealing the central, critical importance of the concept of equality before the law to the success of western (and especially American) civilization. Certainly no figure in 20th century American history elucidates with such exquisite poignancy the raw moral force underlying the supplication of "liberty and justice for all."

Forming a national political party in the United States is no small undertaking. Over the generations, the major parties have implemented all manner of obstacles that up and coming parties must overcome, and in recent decades the Federal Election Commission has erected others. At the state level the obstacles are centered mainly around expensive ballot access provisions, while at the Federal level the obstacles are tied to contributions and spending on “Federal election activities.” Any political parties with aspirations beyond the local level live or die by the finesse they are able to bring to bear circumventing these obstacles. 

For over two hundred years our nation has endured politically and prospered primarily due to the fully codified, 7,600 word-long Constitution of the United States of America. Unlike many national constitutions around the world, the US Constitution provides an explicit, predictable, stable framework of rules not for the organization of society, but for the operation of the government itself.

The Liberal Capitalist Party is America’s first post-collectivist political party. It’s now the 21st century, and it’s time to recognize the unqualified verdict of science and history: capitalism is economics. Over the last seventy years we’ve seen capitalist theories expand, withstand the processes of scientific enquiry, and come to dominate university economics departments. Meanwhile, collectivist economic theory, by virtue of it’s failure, first retreated to political science departments, and is today only taught in various liberal arts and cultural studies programs. We point this out not to demean anyone or mock anyone’s personal beliefs, but rather to point out that the economic debate of collectivism versus the marketplace is simply over, and it’s time to advance to the next level.

By
F.A. Hayek

American Economic Review, XXXV, No. 4; September, 1945, pp. 519-30.

The Republicans have been trying to turn the word "liberal" into an epithet for decades, but have had only limited success as they have a serious obstacle to overcome: by almost every measure America is a liberal country. The root word for "liberal" and for "liberty" are the same; a liberal is simply one who espouses a philosophy of freedom in some context. To the theocrats and dictators of the world, concepts like freedom of speech and of the press, or religion, or the right of property, or the right to bear arms all seem dangerously liberal. Yet these are values that are cherished by even the most conservative Americans. From some perspective, we are all liberals.

Much of the Liberal Capitalist worldview results from reasoning out the implications of three principal truths regarding our human selves and the world in which we live. The first truth is that constant change is here to stay. Whether we consider the life of a fruit fly or the shifting of continents, no thing endures; everything changes. Secondly, in this world of incessant change, all knowledge is “local” knowledge, only knowable by those closest to it. The stream of information we receive from outside of our immediate locales, no matter how rich, is but the merest fraction of all the important things there are to know. And third, in the end, all human knowledge which we don’t simply happen upon is the product of trial and error. We have made our long, slow trek from cave to skyscraper almost exclusively by endless iterations of trial and error.

     For a general definition of good faith, look here. In the context of our national  politics, good faith means assuming your opponent has the best  interests of the American people at heart. We all want America to be  secure and successful. We all want to keep drugs out of our kids'  hands, we all want our schools to work, our tax system to be fair and  so on. While we may disagree as to how to best accomplish these  goals, or indeed even on the basic functioning of society, or the  best principles on which to base our policies, practicing good faith  means that we don't assume that everyone who disagrees with us is  evil, venal, or a dupe. At one time, this was understood to be the  fundamental social contract that enables civilized discourse.

     Liberal Capitalists believe that experimentation and decentralization is the best approach to take in complex situations where the best solution is unknown, or cannot be agreed upon. This is one reason why we support a federalist approach to such endlessly contentious American political issues as abortion, same-sex marriage, gun control, public education, and alcohol and drug laws. Such experimentation will produce data that will quickly inform their supporters if their ideas are succeeding or failing. Failed models will be abandoned, and successful programs more widely adopted. The state and local political process will insure that no populace is subject to an experiment that is not subject to vigorous public debate by all parties involved. Federalism was designed to produce just such advancement, and it is still a fully functional and thoroughly American solution today.

This is a collection of wonderfully written essays first published on the author's website. Together, these essays serve as a primer for American confidence in the twenty-first century.