Over at Marginal Revolution, Tyler Cowen asks Is the welfare state good for growth? (via ParaPundit), and comes up with a even-handed & nuanced answer. Speaking of nuance and subtlety, those are qualities that libertarians are often accused of not possessing, and frankly, often they (we?) are guilty as charged! A few observations:
1) Non-libertarians often conflate libertarians (often unsociable and obnoxious) with libertarianism, to the detriment of the latter.
2) Libertarians often socialize only with “like minded” individuals, which often deceives us about “human nature” because of selection biasing.
3) David Boaz, VP of the CATO Institute, once told me in a chagrined manner that libertarians often like to live around liberals (a subset of the Metrocon Syndrome, a reversal of the old Fusionist alliance).
Posted by razib at 12:21 PM