Has the Libertarian Movement Gone Kooky?

I. Alan Reynolds

The criticisms of libertarians by Ernest van den Haag and Lawrence V. Cott [June 8] rest on extremely restrictive conceptions of both libertarian and conservative views, definitions that preclude diversity. Professor van den Haag somehow defines the elimination of “half the present government activities” as conservative, and elimination of all government as libertarian. Since no shadings are admitted to exist between these positions, it follows by definition that there must be “unbridgeable chasms” between them; van den Haag literally has no word at all to describe those who favor a very small, strictly limited government. In reality, of course, opinions are not sharply discontinuous but spread in varying degrees along many dimensions.