Why the libertarian party is so small

Last night I read Hayek's essay, _"Free" Enterprise and Competitive Order_. Hayek states in the beginning of his essay that people today aren't generally backing free-market supporting economic political practices and the purpose of the essay is to give free-market oriented people a strategy to increase support.

Certain institutions must be in place for free market economics to 'work.' Ya know, the normal stuff... property rights, 'rules of the game' as Heyne puts it in _The Economic Way of Thinking_, contract enforcement, and so on. Hayek writes that we must find a system that will not just reduce the size of the state, but we must form one that will protect market institutions. The idea behind the essay was that a more positive stance from the market-advocates would win the favor of the masses.

Hayek then argues that most libertarians support a policy of what I'll call "slash and burn" politics. This stance could make libertarian ideology less appealing to a larger number of people. According to Hayek, people think the government should fill certain roles like taking care of the poor and achieving full employment. He goes on to say that the libertarians should come up with a policy that doesn't argue against 'taking care of the poor' or 'full employment', but devise a system that will allow the government to perform normally expected government actions without interfering with market processes as much as possible. Obviously a key part of the future discussion would be finding a system that interferes least with the market. Of course, there can be no political system that does not interfere with the market at all.

Hayek does make some interesting points though. He argues against patents and against progressive income tax when backed by ideas based in egalitarianism.

I think that Hayek is wrong about free-market oriented people having to give in to certain positions like 'full employment' and 'welfare' in order to gain public support, but it may not be a bad idea to ‘soften’ many of our arguments. At least when I'm in discussions with people, I almost always end up saying something that sounds totally ridiculous to them like "who cares about the poor" or "of course, the private road owner could charge the person trying to get to the hospital a million dollars" so maybe Hayek has a point there. People supporting free markets, including myself, should probably make bigger efforts to explain the "softer side" on things like how a free market would lower unemployment or how it would make the 'poor' better off. I’m not convinced that this is the reason why there are so few libertarians, but it could be a start. I know not everyone argues the same way I do, but I’ve heard quite a few libertarians taking the same route as me.