-The ability to accept the spontaneous change that is the outcome of liberty. The spontaneous forces that operate unseen in a free society will produce outcomes no one can predict. But it is crucial that we accept these changes, or at least refrain from looking longingly at the State as a remedy. Politicians almost to a person rail almost exclusively against the outcomes of the spontaneous forces of a free society. They offer a phony salvation via State-sanctioned coercion, but that same salvation in practice results in nothing more than mass impoverishment, a free fall to a sub-animal quality of life.
Being “for liberty” means having “faith” in liberty. It means that, if liberty is treated as an inviolable principle, the spontaneous forces that are unleashed will handle any “crisis” that appears. Indeed, one only need worry when liberty is abandoned in order to “address” the crisis.
Liberty is important because of the invisible forces it unleashes that benefit all of us without any central direction. But it’s the most difficult public policy to defend precisely because its benefits are largely hidden from view. It’s too easy for political demagogues to find examples of “winners” or “losers” emerging from the market process as proof that it has failed, and almost too difficult for defenders of liberty to counter that the process that created language, money, culture, and manners, would vastly raise the quality of life for everyone on the planet if only we stepped out of its way.
