It is — or used to be — the conventional wisdom that a more complex society needs more government, but the truth is just the opposite. The simpler the society, the less damage government planning does. Planning is cumbersome in an agricultural society, costly in an industrial economy, and impossible in the information age. Today collectivism and planning are outmoded and backward, a drag on social progress.

Two long wars, chronic deficits, the financial crisis, the costly drug war, the campaigns of Ron Paul and Rand Paul, the growth of executive power under Presidents Bush and Obama, and the revelations about NSA abuses have pushed millions more Americans in a libertarian direction.

David Boaz is the executive vice president of the Cato Institute — one of the oldest and most well-established libertarian think tanks in the world. He is a provocative commentator and a leading authority on domestic policy and the rise of libertarianism. He wrote the Encyclopedia Britannica entry on libertarianism, and is the author of several books which are credited with introducing the philosophy of libertarianism to mainstream America.

Over his 33 years at Cato and through his earlier activities in the libertarian policy sphere, David Boaz has played a key role in the development of both the Cato Institute and the libertarian movement at large.

Join him on Reddit’s iAMA forum for a very special discussion focused on libertarianism, the causes of what has been called “The Libertarian Moment,” and his new book, The Libertarian Mind — the ultimate resource for the current, burgeoning libertarian movement.