David Boaz

David Douglas Boaz (; August 29, 1953 – June 7, 2024) was a libertarian author, philosopher and editor. He was a distinguished senior fellow and the executive vice president of the Cato Institute, an American libertarian think tank. Boaz was a prominent advocate for individual liberty, limited government, free markets, and non-interventionist foreign policy.

Boaz authored several works on libertarian philosophy, including Libertarianism: A Primer and The Libertarian Mind: A Manifesto for Freedom. He was an early proponent of civil liberties, marriage equality, drug policy reform, and school choice, contributing to the mainstream acceptance of these issues in public discourse. Boaz is regarded as a key figure in the development and promotion of modern libertarian thought.

Early years and education Boaz was born on August 29, 1953, in Mayfield, Kentucky. His father was a judge, and one of his uncles, through marriage, was Frank Stubblefield, who served as a Democratic member of the U.S. House of Representatives. Boaz studied history at Vanderbilt University from 1971 to 1975, and as a young man was involved with the Young Americans for Freedom and the College Republicans.

Career Boaz eventually parted with the conservative movement, and worked on Ed Clark's campaigns for governor of California in 1978 and for president in 1980. He was also the editor of The Libertarian Reader and co-editor of the Cato Handbook for Congress (2003) and the Cato Handbook on Policy (2005). He frequently discussed on national television and radio shows such topics as education choice, the growth of government, the ownership society, his support of drug legalization as a consequence of the individual right to self-determination, a non-interventionist foreign policy, and the rise of libertarianism. Boaz said his views were informed by classical liberalism and opposed to populism. He appeared on ABC's Politically Incorrect, CNN's Crossfire, NPR's Talk of the Nation and All Things Considered, Fox News Channel, BBC, Voice of America and Radio Free Europe. A graduate of Vanderbilt University, he was once the editor of The New Guard magazine and was executive director of the Council for a Competitive Economy prior to joining Cato. In 2022, he retired as executive vice president of Cato and was named a distinguished senior fellow. He continued to write and appear on television until shortly before his death.

Books Market Liberalism: A Paradigm for the 21st Century, Editor with Edward H. Crane, 1993. . Libertarianism: A Primer, Free Press 1997. . The Libertarian Reader, Editor, Free Press 1997. . The Politics of Freedom: Taking on The Left, The Right and Threats to Our Liberties, 2008. . The Libertarian Vote: Swing Voters, Tea Parties, and the Fiscally Conservative, Socially Liberal Center, with David Kirby and Emily Ekins, 2012. The Libertarian Mind: A Manifesto for Freedom, Simon & Schuster, 2015.