RICHARD POSNER: An Pragmatic Economic Libertarian by Ihering Guedes Alcoforado

“ I consider myself to be a pragmatic economic libertarian. Let me
explain those words, taking them in reverse order. By libertarian, I mean
someone who believes in minimum government — as little government as
possible. I mean someone who is suspicious of public intervention, who
thinks that people should look to themselves rather than to their government
for their -happiness, their future, their success in life. I mean a practitioner
of laissez faire in a general sense, not in a literal sense. I mean a smallgovernment person. […] [POSNER, 1994:169]
.
The reason I affixed the adjective ‘economic’ is not that I am
protective only of economic liberty — in fact, I do not see any sharp distinction
between economic liberty on the one hand and personal or political liberties
on the other hand — but that I use economic theory to try to figure out what
the appropriate boundaries of the minimum state are. Basically my view is
that the role of government is to intervene and correct, the best it can, serious market failures. [POSNER, 1994:169/170]

“My third term, pragmatic, comes from my opening remark about not
being enthusiastic about moral discourse. I do not derive my economic
libertarian views from a foundational moral philosophy such as the
philosophy of Kant, or Locke’s philosophy ofnatural rights, or utilitarianism,
or anything of that sort. I regard moral philosophy as a weak field, a field
in disarray, a field in which consensus is impossible to achieve in our
society. I do not think it provides a promising foundation for a philosophy
of government. You can if you want describe wealth maximization or
libertarianism or laissez faire as moral philosophies. My point is only that I
do not intend to try to derive my free-market views from something more
fundamental, more rigorously philosophical. And the consequence of this lack
of foundations is that I am not dogmatically attached to any of my freemarket views. I do think the minimum state defined by the economic analysis
of market failure is the state that works best to achieve the common goals of
most people in the world.” [POSNER, 1994:170]

REFERÊNCIA
POSNER, Richard A., / Law and Economics is Moral IN MALLOY, Robin P., & EVENSKY, Jerry.,(eds.) Adam Smith and the Philosophy of Law and Economics. Berlin: Springer, 1994 pp. 167/178