Libertarian International Organization | Voluntary Governance, Rights, Progress

Brazil's 'Super-Green' Mayor Antanas Mockus helped citizens work wonders with 'market-friendly' Green policies and community problem solving groups. He now leads a consulting venture, has spoken at Harvard, and has run for President, sparking further reform: http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2004/03.11/01-mockus.html

Extreme Conservative and pseudo-Libertarian critics of Libertarianism love to claim Libertarians should get practical, stop talking about philosophy, avoid 'extreme' ideas, recognize democracy and freedom conflict,  and join the conservatives to attack everyone else in expensive campaigns. They apparently have not met Columbia's Antanas Mockus.

Philosopher, past University President  and mathematical theorist Mayor Antanas Mockus who, as a Green, emphasizes his trans-partisan and collaborative posture, has revitalized transpartisan use of Libertarian tools doing things by 'unleashing people power' many Libertarian advocates elsewhere might otherwise fear pre-mature. As mayor of the capital, Bogota, in two non-consecutive terms, he evidenced Libertarian tools that:

•  De-localized governance to thousands of local 1000 voter or less problem solving groups who quickly found methods to do more with less taxes
• Abolished the police force for volunteer watches and the 7000 local groups, with the result of plummeting crime and incidents ( the municipal force was retained), including 70% drop in murders
• Leadership by example and incident focus activities--derided as stunts by an uncomprehending media--that cut water waste, domestic violence and traffic incidents dramatically
• Market /choice based policies that kept unemployment rates stable despite worsening conditions elsewhere and helped cut taxes and rules
• Voluntary taxes increased revenues 10% covering projects proposed by the groups, massively increasing sewer and water services, for example.

Mockus is one of the growing number of  non-partisan "non-Libertarian Libertarians in public office" who use Libertarian-oriented devolution, best practice, and choice tools as a starting point of study by citizen groups that, when empowered to look at all the data, put them to work. Continuing his work with the new mayor, the result was  to "...in less than 10 years turned one of the world's most dangerous, violent and corrupt capitals into a peaceful model city populated by caring citizens" according to the promotion of a movie on him. Mockus felt this worked well with Green Values of localism and more.

His consulting group at http://www.corpovisionarios.com/ continues the work internationally. Page down at our site for similar stories of mayors and public officials using LIO and Libertarian tools.