Let’s Train to Take the Train to Liberty
Most probably, very few presidents, of any party and of any country, would be able to articulate similar arguments, in a similar rational way as Milei does. This is not surprising from politicians. But would any libertarian leader be able to match Milei? Especially, would any Libertarian Party leader be able to match – not to say to beat – Javier Milei in rationality, in daring, in sound argumentation?
I doubt it. I doubt it from experience. Of course, I would be more than happy to be proven wrong. But for the sake of this paper, let’s assume I am not wrong, or at least that we still have a long way.
At this point, one may wonder why I am taking Javier Milei as such an example, such a reference. Let me make it clear, I do not regard Javier Milei as the ultimate reference in terms of libertarian ideas. There are many areas where he is inconsistent with the core principles of the libertarian doctrine. In many ways, he unveils more as an – almost – Austrian economist with a conservative mind than one would expect from a Gadsden flag holder. But this is rather marginal for the point. The point is that, all in all, he did exposed himself to the Argentinians very much like a quite strong libertarian. Even if not perfect, Milei proved able to face politicians, journalists, challengers with strong self-assurance.
Relevance with assurance, that is the example we need to catch up with, to duplicate everywhere. Milei’s exposure to the world media has obviously opened a large communication window for us all. Whatever Milei’s own destiny, whether he succeeds or he does not, we owe him and we owe our giant ancestors – Molinari, Mises, Rothbard – to seize the moment and to speak up. Loud and clear.
Many of us have some experience of limited public exposure. Certainly, they may still have room for improvement to become or to overcome Javier Milei. But beyond the current teams, we need to be more. There needs to be more of us. Many, many more, everywhere. We need to train more Mileis.
We need to train many more to take the train to Liberty – an obvious wink to Atlas Shrugged. We need to develop a network of trainers, to train trainers and more, so that more of us are able to spread the doctrine – for one – and to be true leaders to their organisation, able to speak broadly.
When I say that we need to be trained, let’s refer back to Milei. On any question or challenge, he knows what to reply, with supporting data or with some quote to illustrate. In Italy, he finds himself thus challenged: You cut public spending, while us In Europe we all spend more and more! How come? Milei replies: And where is growth weakest? Answer: in Europe. Milei then wins with a smile.
This certainly is only a limited, minor example, but at least I can share a concrete one that I have co-developed with my friend Laurent Seiter. For French speakers, we have developed a series of 31 videos (here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLo-2gJXRQglGzvByOh5QAX17T7Tpq3-sB) that covers the – almost – full spectrum of the austro-libertarian doctrine in an accessible way – at least this was the intent. So far, we have quite positive feedback. Sure, this is not perfect, this is not a train the trainer, this is in French, this is only a milestone. But the numbers say that it meets the demand.
Thus, I would like to call whoever reads this paper, whoever cares for growing our numbers while the Milei window is still open to either reach out to me for any initiative of the kind to be developed, or to go and develop some strongly matured, strongly doctrine aligned training material. To go training.
The point being, beware: All this is not only about developing some libertarian training. It is about developing strong libertarian training. Strong in both ways: Strong words and Strongly sound. Very.
To summarize our crucial need for training, let me quote Murray Rothbard in The Ethics of Liberty:
“But it should be stressed that ideas do not float by themselves in a vacuum; they are influential only insofar as they are adopted and put forward by people. For the idea of liberty to triumph, then, there must be an active group of dedicated libertarians, people who are knowledgeable in liberty and are willing to spread the message to others. In short, there must be an active and self-conscious libertarian movement. This may seem self-evident, but there has been a curious reluctance on the part of many libertarians to think of themselves as part of a conscious and ongoing movement, or to become involved in movement activity.”
Vive la Liberté, Bordel !
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