Seven Newsworthy Heads of State and Why No Libertarian Could Admire Them

by Kitty Testa

There are 196 countries in the world, and nobody—not even Hillary Clinton—can name all of those heads of state.  Most of us are limited to those that are deemed newsworthy by the American press.  So when Gary Johnson was asked by Chris Matthews which foreign leader he admired most, it’s completely understandable why he had no answer.  If there were a truly libertarian country, libertarians might all just move there.  But most of the world is controlled by statists of various stripes, and certainly those leaders that show up in our headlines are often the worst.

Here are seven headline-grabbing world leaders that no libertarian could possibly admire.

1. Xi Jinping, General Secretary of the Communist Party of China, President  of the People’s Republic of China, Chairman of the Central Military Commission and member of the Politburo Standing Committee

Xi Jinping’s titles are enough to preempt admiration from a libertarian, but some international observers view him as a reformer.  Granted, he has presided over a period in which the one-child ban was lifted and replaced with a two-child ban.  (I suppose that’s a 100% improvement?)  He has initiated policies to crack down on official corruption, and has proffered a new ideology called the Chinese Dream.  But Xi’s Chinese Dream is not individualist, but nationalist.  His regime has increased restrictions on the Internet in China, and he supports no reforms that allow for individuals to challenge the authority of the Communist Party.  China is a country where prisoners’ organs are forcefully taken for sale to the wealthy in need of transplants. There’s nothing to admire in their supreme leader.

2. Vladimir Putin, President of Russia

Donald Trump has made it clear that he admires the Russian president for his leadership skills, but that’s not enough to turn a libertarian head.  Putin’s reputation as an international outlaw was strengthened just yesterday when an investigative team led by the Netherlands concluded that it was Russia that shot down a Malaysian passenger jet in 2014, an action that Putin still denies.  Putin is a staunch ally of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, and he brought Russian military might into the Syrian fray just a year ago under the guise of fighting the Islamic State (ISIS).  But many are skeptical of Putin’s stated intentions, noting that Russian air strikes are taking out Assad’s rebels.  Putin’s other military adventures over the past couple of years include invasions into Ukraine and Crimea.  What he really wants is what Catherine the Great wanted: a seaport for land-locked Russia.  Surely there are better ways to achieve this without violation of the non-aggression principle.