Energy Policy: Liberty or Death
“Give me liberty or give me death!”
Sunday, March 23, 2025 marks 250 years since Patrick Henry’s famous declaration. As America approaches its 250th birthday in 2026, R Street is celebrating our founding-era principles and how they intersect with today’s policy challenges. Explore more from our policy teams.
“Give me liberty or give me death.” While these immortal words from Patrick Henry speak to our country’s profound commitment to political freedom, they are quite literal when it comes to energy. To see why, one need only look at a satellite map of the Korean peninsula at night. Without knowing better, one might conclude that South Korea is an island, glowing with the lights of its cities and industry. This is because North Korea—a nation of 26 million people similar to the south in its history, ancestry, and language—is made all but invisible from its lack of electricity.
Around the time of the American Revolution, energy became the fuel for a different but related kind of revolution—the Industrial Revolution. The Watt steam engine, invented in the auspicious year of 1776, allowed for a radical expansion in production and development that spurred historically unprecedented levels of sustained economic growth. To this day, energy forms the foundation of modern life and economic activity, from manufacturing to medicine to the digital platforms that structure social life. Not only has this energy helped us become more prosperous, but it has helped us live longer, too.
The specifics of energy consumption have changed over time. It was only in the 1880s that coal replaced wood as the largest energy source, and it took until the 1960s for coal to be displaced in turn by oil and the top energy producing fuel. Today, a variety of energy sources, from wind and solar to geothermal and advanced nuclear seek to battle to become top dog in the energy pack. However, while the specific energy sources may have changed, the recurring theme in America and the west has been the reliance on liberty to achieve growth and develop energy resources. More than almost any country, America has relied on the private market to guide energy development.
This reliance on liberty as the guiding principle of energy policy has a variety of benefits. It permits—indeed, encourages—innovation, as individuals and organizations have strong incentives to find new ways to produce energy and to put that energy to productive purposes. Liberty also empowers consumers, which not only encourages lower prices but has driven companies to reduce the environmental impact of their products in recent years. And liberty allows the economy to adjust more easily to changes in the energy and economic landscape.
But one should not be Pollyannaish on the subject. America’s energy policy, past and present, contains many regulations and restrictions on liberty and the marketplace; however, liberty remains a good overall principle to guide the energy regulatory system. As the United States approaches its 250th anniversary, now is a good time to reflect on the role liberty has played in making this country great and to resist the temptation to depart from this principle for petty or short-sighted political purposes.