Book Review: “If You Can Keep It: Why We Nearly Lost It & How We Get It Back”

Robin Koerner’s recently released book If You Can Keep It is a passionate call to arms for Americans who care about preserving the ideals of a constitutional republic, founded on the principles of liberty. The work covers a lot of ground in 300 pages, ranging from Koerner’s examination of prevailing media paradigms in the US to his prescriptions for how to most effectively advance the cause of liberty.

The author utilizes his extensive experience as founder of WatchingAmerica.com to explain and challenge the media paradigms that dominate American culture, providing the reader with a toolkit for critically engaging with news reporting and overcoming prevalent biases. After outlining classical liberalism as an alternative to the prevailing status quo, Koerner then examines the various ways in which America has lost touch with its original identity as a land of opportunity and freedom: “if we are serious about our national identity as the Land of the Free, but we let stand what stands in America today, then we are surely kidding ourselves.” Liberty is presented as the moderate position: one that succeeds in reconciling liberal and conservative concerns. It is with this stance that Koerner defines himself as the original Blue Republican.

The closing section of the book is imbued with a welcome optimism for the future of liberty in the American republic. If You Can Keep It advocates strategic pluralism for the contemporary American libertarian movement, combining a cultural renaissance of love and liberty with principled, pragmatic compromise in the area of party politics. Koerner’s roadmap for liberty is one that makes room for activism within the sphere of the state, as well as outside it.

Much of If You Can Keep It strikes the reader as utterly original. Koerner’s application of Thomas Kuhn’s thought to the structure of American media is intuitive and gripping. It also makes his plea to step outside prevailing paradigms by reading foreign news outlets and consuming visual media even more powerful.

Another strength of the book is the way in which the author refuses to engage in “outgrouping.” Rather than assuming bad intentions on the part of those oppose the ideas of liberty, Koerner argues that the dominant conservative and liberal paradigms can be transcended by recognizing that:

“…while the Left seeks to measure good policy by whether principles of Liberty and Fairness are evident in their formulation the Right seeks to measure good policy by whether principles of Liberty and Fairness are evident in their effects.”

Koerner’s indictment of how American politics lost touch with its founding principles also merits attention. He provides a detailed account of the erosion of privacy in post-9/11 America, criticizing attempts to portray Fourth Amendment rights as an obstacle to national security. If You Can Keep It also covers increasingly hostile attitudes towards the preservation of property rights and voluntary exchange. By highlighting the flaws of the US monetary system and explaining how crony capitalism (manifested in ways such as the state viewing corporations as people) is a departure from the principles of liberty, Koerner hopes to demonstrate that classical liberal thought bridges the divide between liberal and conservative concerns:

“Classical liberals should stop conceding the initiative by defending capitalism in spite of its impact on social and economic justice; the should be seizing it by actively promoting capitalism because of its unparalleled positive impact on social and economic justice.”

Koerner is especially convincing when he discusses the need for communicating liberty in terms of love. For the author, liberty is love politicized. Like liberty, love is “kind, expansive and fundamentally non-constraining.” Like Students For Liberty, Koerner encourages activists to seek common ground with others, celebrate diversity and refrain from putting down the “morality, motivation or intelligence of those with whom you disagree.”

The book closes with a critique of the ideological purism that characterizes some aspects of the liberty movement, and instead emphasizes the benefits of “principled compromise.” Arguing that we shouldn’t make the perfect the enemy of the good, Koerner states that we must “pursue liberty with the humility, civility and tolerance of diversity with which we are seeking to replace the arrogance, corruption and authoritarianism that infects our politics today.” Whilst Students For Liberty’s comparative advantage lies outside the realm of party politics, Koerner’s pluralist approach to political activism reflects the need to take advantage of the wide range of talent within the contemporary liberty movement.

In summary, If You Can Keep It is an essential read for advocates of liberty. With wit and rigour, Robin Koerner has produced an original work that expertly outlines America’s departure from its founding ideals. Perhaps more crucially, the book contains plenty of information and advice for anyone interested in returning to those ideals and promoting freedom in America.