David Friedman on Different Types of Libertarian Activism and the Changing the World Assumption

by Stephan Kinsella on March 28, 2026

David Friedman’s recent Made in Ancapia interview has this clip:

Me encanta

David Friedman sobre Javier Milei:

✒️| “Sería bueno para el libertarismo si resulta que tener un presidente libertario que empuja las ideas de la libertad hace a un país rico. (…) Le deseo suerte.” pic.twitter.com/h0CrzLmdlP

— Made in Ancapia (@MadeInAncapia) March 27, 2026

Here he comments about different ways libertarians can try to change the world:

24:50 So what is your point of view of anarcho-capitalists going into politics?

David Friedman: My general view of libertarians trying to change the world is that the right way to do it is different for different people. Okay? You don’t — libertarianism should not be a hierarchical organization with some smart person at the top telling everybody else what to do. Because the right answer is different for different people. I think it would be a mistake for me to go into politics because I don’t think that’s something that I either would enjoy or would be very good at. But it would also [] be a mistake for a lot of libertarians to be professors because that would not be something they’d be good at and would enjoy it.

And there are a whole bunch of different ways that you can change the world. I think in the US, using the political system to change the world directly is not a practical tactic except maybe at a very local level. Yeah. And maybe we’ll be in by the time you’re in your lifetime but not, I think, in mine.

So I think in the US the sensible use of the political system by libertarians is as a way of getting attention to ideas that most people most of the time are not thinking about. Political questions during a presidential election — at least some of them are. And therefore, if you run a libertarian candidate, he can give talks and spread ideas. And if you’re very lucky, those ideas will convince some people. And the major parties will say, “Well, maybe we should be a little bit more libertarian in this way or that way in order to get some more votes.” And I think that’s the political option in the US at present, is not to elect a libertarian president who will save the world, but to get the Republicans and the Democrats to run slightly more libertarian candidates and make the world a little bit better.

But it’s a big world and Milei actually did win. So it may be that there are places where for one reason or another it is practical to do better than that.

And I wish him luck. But … I don’t speak his language. I don’t know him. And I’m really not confident. I don’t have any way of knowing whether he is good enough at what he’s doing so he can pull it off, or how doable it is. But I certainly hope so. It would be very nice — it would be nice for Argentina if it became a rich country again, which it once was, as you may know. And it would also be nice for libertarianism if it turned out that having a libertarian president who was willing to push libertarian ideas actually made a country rich. Well, we’ve seen that—Chile in a sense was the first example. It wasn’t a particularly libertarian politician, but it was a pro-free market politician—and Chile in fact got a whole lot better off as a result and eventually it lost out politically. So, but maybe Argentina won’t.

By the way some on Twitter are saying this shows Friedman “praising” Milei; of course that is not at all what Friedman says.

Now Friedman is right that there are different ways to “change the world”—that is, to engage in activism. I have made this point for decades. The narrow electoral politics activist—LP members, people who go to rallies, whatever—they are always exhorting others to join and disdain intellectuals. But of course there is also intellectual activism—developing or spreading ideas in an attempt to “change the world.” In fact the Objectivists used to have a newsletter called “The Intellectual Activist.” There ought to be a division and specialization of labor in this regard: different people should engage in different types and levels of activism, depending on their skills, interests, resources, and preferences.

But note that even this more nuanced and sophisticated view presumes that of course one should engage in activism, to try to “change the world.” It takes it for granted that we all have be running around all the time looking to find the best lever to use to change the world. But there is no obligation at all to engage in activism. It’s enough to be a good person, and to be “libertarian” in one’s actions. There is no moral or other obligation to study libertarianism or Austrian economics, to run around discussing it with people or trying to “educate” them or proselytize, to hand out ISIL pamphlets to your unlucky cousins or uncles at Thanksgiving dinner, and so on.

In fact it is somewhat unnatural to devote one’s live to trying to change the world, or to politics at all. As Ayn Rand said, in her March 1964 Playboy interview:

PLAYBOY: But you are interested in politics, or at least in political theory, aren’t you?

RAND: Let me answer you this way: When I came here from Soviet Russia, I was interested in politics for only one reason—to reach the day when I would not have to be interested in politics. I wanted to secure a society in which I would be free to pursue my own concerns and goals, knowing that the government would not interfere to wreck them, knowing that my life, my work, my future were not at the mercy of the state or of a dictator’s whim. This is still my attitude today. Only today I know that such a society is an ideal not yet achieved, that I cannot expect others to achieve it for me, and that I, like every other responsible citizen, must do everything possible to achieve it. In other words, I am interested in politics only in order to secure and protect freedom.

What libertarians should want is a libertarian world—a world with widespread respect for property rights ¹ and radically reduced acts of aggression: that is, virtually no institutionalized aggression (no state) and trivial, minimal levels of private aggression. In this world, libertarians would have to find some new hobbies. There would be no need for activists. Sure, maybe there would be some few toiling away recording the history of the world finally achieving liberty, and writing about what we should to to keep it, but as Rand says, we should be ” interested in politics for only one reason—to reach the day when” we will “not have to be interested in politics.”