commentary Charles Murray's war on equality 15 November 2012 Libertarian ideas won't help the disadvantaged gain back control over their lives, writes Paul O'Callaghan . When it comes to equality of opportunity, free market think tanker Charles Murray is a professional pessimist. He argues that there's nothing governments can do to improve the life chances of disadvantaged citizens. His solution is to give up on early childhood interventions and welfare to work programs and rely on a system of unconditional cash payments instead. Murray wants us to accept that our society will always be unequal and to stop trying to change it. Murray is coming to Australia as a guest of the Centre for Independent Studies , a free market think tank devoted to making government smaller. Australian commentators often talk about the debate between Murray and his critics as if it were part of a larger debate between the right and left. That's misleading. Many on the right, including some at the Centre for Independent Studies, disagree with Murray's views. Murray is not a conservative or a generic 'right winger' -- he's a libertarian. As a libertarian he wants to radically limit the role of government. He's less worried about how much it costs than he is about how much it does. In a 2001 interview with Susan Windybank of the Centre for Independent Studies he sketched an outlines of a libertarian plan to reform welfare: "Suppose that a deal could be struck with the Left saying we will