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David Boaz, Libertarianism: A Primer (New York: The Free Press, 1997), 314 pp., $39.95, ISBN 0 684 83198 8.
Libertarianism, according to David Boaz, is `the view that each person has the right to live his life in any way he chooses so long as he respects the equal rights of others'. In characteristic American fashion, Boaz is happy to push this idea as far as it can go. He favours a state that consumes about 5% of GDP, which is about what economists calculate would provide bare-minimum public goods against internal and external aggression. Most of the other functions of government can, Boaz argues, be better provided by the private sector, or are counterproductive and should not be provided...