Charles Murray -- Libertarian

Best-selling author and policy analyst Charles Murray has written some of the most hotly-debated and influential social policy books of recent decades.

Losing Ground: American Social Policy 1950-1980 (1984) devastated the case for the welfare state by showing that it was not only ineffectual, it actually left the poor worse off than ever before. It is, and remains, one of the most important and influential policy books of our generation.

In Pursuit of Happiness and Good Government (1988): examines current social problems and human goals and drives, and argues that a small, limited, Jeffersonian-type government provides the best structure for "the pursuit of happiness" and all that phrase implies.

The Bell Curve (with Richard J. Herrnstein, 1994) examines in great detail highly controversial views regarding IQ and social policy.

What It Means To Be A Libertarian (1997) is a brief, eloquently written and ingeniously argued introduction to libertarianism. It is a delight to read, filled with novel and insightful arguments for libertarianism.

A witty and insightful writer and speaker, Murray has been a guest on most major TV talk shows. He is Bradley Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

Quotable:

"Freedom is first of all our birthright... An adult making an honest living and minding his own business deserves to be left alone to live his life. He deserves to be free."

"Applied to personal behavior, the libertarian ethic is simple but stark: Thou shalt not initiate the use of force. Thou shalt not deceive or defraud. Anyone who observes both these injunctions faithfully has gone a long way toward being an admirable human being as defined by any of the world's great ethical system."

"Human freedom has always had to depend first on the individual's understanding that he is the custodian of his life, no matter who tries to say otherwise."

from In Pursuit of Happiness and Good Government:

"But I finally came to rest in the belief that Jeffersonian democracy is still the best way to run society... it may just be that on certain fundamental questions of government, Jefferson and his colleagues were right more universally than they knew. In particular, they understood that the vitality of communities and the freedoms of individuals are intertwined."