Introduction
Time for a Gold New Deal
We, the philosophical descendants of those libertarians who were the founders of our Nation, which was formed for the sole purpose of protecting the rights of individuals, recognize that our political structure has drifted away from this singular legitimacy. We, therefore, recommit to the decentralization of authority inherent in our Constitution and to limit the power of our government, as required by the Bill of Rights.
These words were used by Franklin Roosevelt 90 years ago:
This is more than a political campaign; it is a call to arms. Give me your help, not to win votes alone, but to win in this crusade to restore America to its own people.
Understand that what in 1932 was called the New Deal, came before von Mises had written Socialism, before Hayek had written The Road to Serfdom, before Milton and Rose Friedman had written Free to Choose. It was even before a two-year-old in North Carolina named Thomas Sowell had moved to Harlem and discovered the New York City public library, tried out for the Brooklyn Dodgers, became a Marine, studied at Harvard, corrected that at the University of Chicago, and eventually became whom we recognize today as our most important living economist.
FDR believed our society’s problems would be solved by the resolution of class conflict, at its heart a communist ideology that led to enormously heavy-handed socialistic government programs. We now know with the benefit of hindsight and a greater understanding of economics, that social and economic development actually come from the self-interested decisions made by individuals operating in an environment of freedom.
With malice toward no character of our American past, we now recognize as libertarians, as readers of history and students of economics that the time has come to correct course. The time has come to put our nation back on the footing the Founders intended. It’s time for a Gold New Deal.
