David Friedman on The Moon is a Harsh Mistress

Here is David Friedman on The Corbett Report talking about The Moon is a Harsh Mistress -- a book about an anarchist human society on the moon. The whole interview is great, as is anything involving David Friedman doing what he does best... saying stuff.

This summary of the libertarian objective stuck with me,

What we can hope to do is make more people abandon the assumption that government is a benevolent sort of God, reaching out to do things. To realize that government has no resources to use of it's own, that whatever it uses it takes from someone else. And also that government is just a bunch of people like everything else, that those people act in their own interest not in the general interest. And that the claim that having the government do this results in having the right thing being done, is a claim that you have to give some justification for not something you can assume.

Democracy is the most common justification for why to expect the right thing to be done. If they don't do what's best for us, we'll kick them out, right? More serious analysis of Democracy and the incentives of voters usually doesn't come out that way.

I think that focusing on David Friedman's set of goals is how I'll deal with future political disputes.