Sources

David Boaz, Libertarianism: A Primer (New York: The Free Press, 1997). Boaz is Executive VP of the Cato Institute (for which I have written a briefing paper on the pervasivness doctrine, and hope to write on other free speech topics as well.) The book is a clearly written, very readable exposition of Libertarian doctrine. Unlike Murray, below, Boaz is completely uncompromising, apparently denying that there are any "public goods". For example, Boaz apparently thinks we should privatize the oceans (p. 249).

Charles Murray, What it Means to be a Libertarian, (New York: Broadway Books, 1997.) Murray is the co-author of the notorious The Bell Curve. In this essay (178 pages) he lays out a nondogmatic personal view of libertarianism; he believes that there are a few things that governments do better than free markets.

F.A. Hayek, The Road to Serfdom (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994). This is a classic exposition, first published in the '40's, of why government planning does not work and is inconsistent with personal liberty. I agree with most of Hayek's conclusions--and though he has become a poster boy for conservatives and libertarians, Hayek very definitely believed that there is an extensive area of "public goods" which cannot be effectively handled by the market and which government is required to protect.