Franklin Club: Should Libertarians be Isolationists?

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Should Libertarians be Isolationists?

16 Dec 2021 discussion Free Entry

Libertarians are often perceived as strong isolationists - arguing for little to no international involvement. As Murray Rothbard said, “libertarians desire to limit, to whittle down, the area of government power in all directions and as much as possible...In foreign affairs, the goal is the same: to keep the government from interfering in the affairs of other governments or other countries...The idea is to shackle the government from acting abroad just as we try to shake the government at home.” To put it simply, engagement in foreign affairs requires government involvement, which some classical liberals consider to be ipso facto immoral. 

While isolationist policies are quite popular among American libertarians, the overwhelming majority of Georgians who share liberal values tend to be fond of international engagement and military alliances such as NATO. This split is most clearly exemplified by the Georgian public’s reaction to Carpenter’s recent piece for CATO. Though the article was published under a libertarian mantle, classical liberals in Georgia were highly critical of its claims. 

With this controversy in mind, Franklin Club has decided to organize a panel discussion on this topic - Franklin Talks: What is a “libertarian foreign policy”?

Moderator:

Sandro Tarkhan-Mouravi - Co-Founder and CoB of Franklin Club.

Speakers: 

Gia Japaridze - Former Ambassador, Lecturer at the University of Georgia

Revaz Topuria - Co-Founder of Franklin Club, Lecturer at University of Georgia & Free University of Tbilisi.

More speakers TBD