Libertymás, A Holiday for the Rest of Us

– December 8, 2019 Reading Time: 2 minutes

In the spirit of Seinfeld’s Festivus, the holiday “for the rest of us,” I proffer Libertymás. It’s Spanglish for “more liberty” rather than short for liberty’s mass, a la Michaelmas. (The key is that little mark above the a.)

Every holiday needs its lore and its special activities, television shows, songs, and such. Obviously, Libertymás must feature a Liberty Pole but beyond that, its holiday culture remains an open market, except where intellectual property rights kill the fun. Thankfully, I have a song in mind for Libertymás that follows “The Twelve Days of Christmas,” which is in the public domain.

For the sake of everyone’s sanity, I will not sing it and will only offer the final verse of this (in)famous cumulative song:

On the twelfth day of Libertymás, reason gave to us
Twelve new episodes of South Park a year
Eleven refutations of the Green New Deal and MMT
Ten consecutive years of balanced budgets
Nine ways of reforming healthcare and insurance
Eight mechanisms for protecting free expression
Seven substitutes for Social Security
Six solid checks against arbitrary government
Five reasons to return to goooooooold
Four easy ways to fix higher education
Three percent real per capita GDP growth
Two defunct political parties
And a Classical Liberal in the White House!

Of course not all things Christmas can be adapted easily to Libertymás. It’s a Wonderful Life just wouldn’t work if the Federal Reserve did its job and acted as a lender of last resort, thus turning the “Great Depression” into the “Recession of 1929-30” and Hoover into a two-termer. The whole gift “giving” thing would probably have to go, too.

Ironically, Libertymás could be more in tune with Christianity than Christmas, as currently practiced in most American households. As Jeffrey Tucker recently pointed out, Mary and Joseph were stuck in that manger because of an onerous tax, and the same tyrannical government carried out the crucifixion.

“Christian liberty” is a complex concept but closer to the spirit of Libertymás than the rampant commercialization of Christ’s Mass. Shouldn’t we celebrate something good, liberty, and approach the state torture and execution of a young man simply for his words with more solemnity? I’m not saying, I’m just saying.

Merry Libertymás!

Robert E. Wright is the (co)author or (co)editor of over two dozen major books, book series, and edited collections, including AIER’s The Best of Thomas Paine (2021) and Financial Exclusion (2019). He has also (co)authored numerous articles for important journals, including the American Economic Review, Business History Review, Independent Review, Journal of Private Enterprise, Review of Finance, and Southern Economic Review. Robert has taught business, economics, and policy courses at Augustana University, NYU’s Stern School of Business, Temple University, the University of Virginia, and elsewhere since taking his Ph.D. in History from SUNY Buffalo in 1997. Robert E. Wright was formerly a Senior Research Faculty at the American Institute for Economic Research.