Politicians promising decisive government action have an obvious public relations advantage over libertarians advocating market-based solutions. Though less visible, market-based solutions have numerous inherent advantages over political solutions, including:

1. The market is non-coercive.
2. The market can accomodate multiple solutions, whereas majority-rule politics is winner-take-all.
3. In the market, voting occurs every day, while in politics it happens once a year at best.

Below are some examples of free-market solutions to some of today's issues. You might also check out Larry Elder's 10 Steps to Fix America, which prioritizes libertarian solutions by their positive impact on the US.

I. Protecting the Environment

Without legislation or litigation, The Nature Conservancy defends the environment in the most honest and straightforward way possible: they buy it. The Constitution requires that any time the Government confiscates property (a "taking"), the owner must receive just compensation, but this right has in recent years been trampled upon. The Nature Conservancy satisfies both moral imperatives: protecting the environment for ourselves and our posterity, and collectively paying for it, rather than legally stealing from an individual owner. Your donations make it possible.

II. The Drug War

The shadow economy is that area of commerce where voluntary transactions are prohibited, for example buying meat during wartime beyond your ration, or cigarettes without taxes, or alcohol during Prohibition. In modern-day America, there are three major "sins" that constitute the bulk of the shadow economy: prostitution, gambling, and prohibited drugs. It is the Drug War that is currently contributing most to the high US homicide rate and filling up our prisons, but all activity in the shadow economy has much in common:

• Transactions occur between consenting individuals. They will act to avoid detection, and there is no victim to notify the authorities. The police will therefore find it nearly impossible to enforce the prohibition, and will be tempted to resort to illegal means themselves, such as wire-tapping and searches without probably cause. Ordinary citizens are no longer customers of the police, but adversaries.
• If a transaction goes wrong, the aggrieved party cannot turn to the police for help. He or she must therefore rely on himself or herself (or pimp or gang) to be judge, jury, and executioner. Proliferation of firearms in such a jungle is an obvious consequence.
• The risk of selling in the shadow economy drives up prices and profits, attracting people for whom the risk/reward ratio is sufficiently favorable. The temptation of easy money corrupts many people who would otherwise have found honest work. In this unregulated jungle, only increasingly vicious players survive.

• High profits and a lack of victims enable the participants to pay the police to look the other way, or to shut down only the weaker players. The most insidious product of the shadow economy is governmental corruption. Incidents on the US border with Mexico are increasingly disturbing, but are nothing compared with the potential for internal corruption, such as the threat posed by the Russian mafia.

The libertarian solution? Corruption only grows in the shadows, so shine a bright light on it: legalize all victimless crimes. Once this activity is out in the open, it can be policed and regulated.

Listen to an excellent discussion on drug legalization at Talk of the Nation.

III. Gun Control

The 2nd amendment to the US Constitution guarantees the right to bear arms not just for hunting, not just for personal self defense, but for collective defense against an oppressive government. Lacking a historical perspective, many people today consider this anachronistic, but today's parasitic level of taxation and government encroachment on personal freedoms would have led to riots even one hundred years ago, let alone two hundred. The best way to immediately reduce the market for guns is to shrink the shadow economy by legalizing victimless crimes. Demilitarization of this huge part of the economy would create a virtuous circle as increasing numbers of people felt safe enough to eschew guns. The high US homicide rate drops to a level quite typical of western industrial nations when you remove from the statistics the drug/gang-related war casualties.

Read an excellent, balanced article by Cathy Young in Salon on the benefits of gun ownership. For an econometric analysis, check out what John Lott has to say.

IV. Charity: The Third Pillar of Islam

Advocates of government monopoly of do-gooding are prone to a typical psychological error: each of us trusts himself to do good, but does not trust anyone else to contribute. In fact, we are a gift-giving animal, using gifts for reciprocal altruism (trade), improving reputation, and achieving status. This tendency has produced and continues to finance many of America's greatest universities. Our thriving charity industry is only a shadow of its potential, were we to end the government's unfair competition.

Read more about the gift-giving instinct and its role in the Open Source movement. Listen to an excellent discussion of charity on Talk of the Nation

Anyone who doubts the charity instinct should check out this sampling of charity organizations, which does not even include individual charities.

V. Free Education

Trick question: What was the proper choice in the recent California vote on Proposition 227:

• Immigrant children are entitled to learn in their own language (Spanish).
• Immigrant children should be required to learn in English.

Libertarian answer: We shouldn't be voting on such a question! While one may have one's personal opinion about which instructional method is better, it really is a matter for individual schools and individual parents to decide. There is no reason why both solutions cannot coexist, in infinite variations, with the market finally deciding. Politicizing an issue leads to acrimonious debate from which emerges a one-size-fits-all decision that pleases no one.

Privatizing education would free each individual school to innovate and respond to its customers: the parents and pupils. Customers can continuously show their approval with their wallets and their feet. A voucher system would free poor students to attend alternative schools, which would become as responsive as any other service industry. Why do 75% of black parents favor vouchers? See how the hypocrites in Congress send their kids to private schools. Break up the government monopoly!

VI. Electoral Reform: Campaign Finance vs. Term Limits

Contributing money to a political candidate constitutes freedom of speech, and so cannot be limited under the Constitution. While the idea is at first glance appealing, campaign finance limits in fact reduce access to underdog challengers and traditionally unempowered groups, favoring the incumbent and the establishment, with their inherently far greater access to the media. Is there another way to see to it that money does not buy influence? Open Secrets monitors who is giving how much to which candidates, and makes the numbers freely available to the public. We are free to contribute to whom we please, and also to vote for whom we please, armed with information.

Term limits would ensure that incumbancy is no longer synonymous with electoral victory. Term limits solve a collective action problem that ordinary voting can not. We already have a two-term limit for the presidency, and there is no reason why we could not do the same for the other offices.

VII. Fighting Poverty

If we really want to reduce global poverty, we will vigorously and consistently promote the same principles that have already brought growth and prosperity to the industrialized world. Democracy is a necessary condition, but not sufficient: economic freedom and the rule of law are nearly as important. The Index of Economic Freedom rates each country in the world by several variables that correlate most highly with development, such as the rule of law and the protection of private property, Transparency International rates countries by their levels of corruption, and Human Rights Watch monitors personal freedom. Of course, poverty is not limited to the third world; the industrialized world is far from perfect in understanding and applying these principles as well. Read what Henry Hazlitt has to say about conquering poverty.

VIII. Personal Saving and Investment

Karl Marx's dream of the workers owning the means of production is finally being realized: at the end of the millenium in the United States, 76 million individuals, from 43% of US households, own stock either individually or in mutual funds, and the number continues to rise. This glorious democratization of capital ownership is accomplished with the help of a thriving investment industry, including brokerages like Charles Schwab and education and information sources like The Motley Fool. Low taxes and individual investment enable ordinary individuals to acquire the capital to become free of the need to work: emancipation should be accessible to everyone in all free countries. Unfortunately, in much of the western world, workers labor under feudalistic tax regimes, unable to free themselves, and dependent on the whim of the State to provide for them in old age or time of need. Today's workers pay for today's pensioners in an inexorably narrowing pyramid; such a pyramid scheme would be illegal if anyone but the government were to attempt it. The libertarian solution is to encourage everyone, starting as early in childhood as possible, to save for themselves. If the US had a private pension system like Chile's, we would all be retiring as millionaires. Everyone should read the book The Richest Man in Babylon, and drum into every child's head: save 10%, no matter how old or how young, or how rich or how poor.