And yet it provides the philosophical backstop and elaboration of the philosophy underlying Human Action . It is Mises' great methodological work, explaining the basis of his approach to economics, and providing scintillating critiques of such fallacious alternatives as historicism, scientism, and Marxian dialectical mate rialism. I suppose there is some confusion over this point of view because the Harris government in Ontario has forced the merger of Toronto and now Ottawa. But though the Harris Conservatives sometimes say nice things about the free market and have indeed reduced the level of taxation, they are more like authoritarian statists than libertarians. The provincial government's size has not been cut in any significant way and bossing everybody around seems to be their favorite method of governing.
Libertarians have a totally different perspective.
They think big government, at any level, only breeds big bureaucracy, big spending, big taxes, big waste and red tape, and results in an administration that inevitably looses touch with what citizens really want. Let's break it up into smaller, more efficient, more locally responsible pieces instead of creating another bureaucratic mastodon. Our megalomaniac politicians will then certainly lose power and prestige, but it is ordinary citizens in the whole region who will benefit.