by Sam Wells
Thursday, January 22, 2009
A libertarian is a person - any person - who consistently
advocates individual freedom and consistently opposes the initiation of the use
of coercion by anyone upon the person or property of anyone else for any
reason. (Coercion is here defined as any action taken by a human being
against the will or without the permission of another human being with respect
to his or her body or property. This includes murder, rape, kidnaping,
assault, trespassing, burglary, robbery, arson and fraud.) Some
libertarians (such as the late Robert LeFevre) not only oppose all forms of
initiatory coercion, but also the use of retaliatory coercion (revenge or
criminal justice). The vast majority of libertarians, however, maintain
that physical force used in self-defense or defense of one's family or property
is fully justifiable.
But, all
libertarians, by definition, at least oppose the initiatory use of
coercion. They support the rational principle of the individual human
rights of life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness. This means
that each individual has the right to keep what he earns for himself and his
family, and this includes the right to use, trade, sell, give away, or dispose
of his property as he sees fit. A person who violates the rights of
others by initiating coercion, violence, or fraud against them forfeits his
right to be left alone by government and may be arrested, charged, tried, and
imprisoned, deported or executed if convicted (depending on the nature of his
or her crimes). The basic, proper function of lawful government is
therefore limited to protecting these rights of the peaceful individual from
criminals and foreign aggression, and in not violating these rights itself, for
if government is allowed to go beyond this legitimate function and itself
initiates force in violation of the rights of peaceful citizens, it necessarily
contradicts the only rational justification for its own existence by acting
criminally itself.
Real
libertarians take individual rights seriously - seriously enough to
consistently uphold them against the initiation of the use of force by anyone
(including government) for any reason. This means that government must be
bound by the policy of "laissez faire" - which means that government
has no business coercively interfering with the lives of peaceful
(non-coercive) citizens in their private affairs and voluntary (market)
relationships.
Libertarians may or may not approve of some of the things that some people may
do in private or in voluntary relations, but whatever their own code of personal
moral conduct is, they do not seek to ban any private or voluntary activities
by the use of force, including the force of government action. To do so
would be to violate the very principle of individual rights of person and
property, and thereby undercut any rational argument in favor of freedom or
defense of the free-market system. Those exception makers and outright
coercive busy-bodies in our midst (referred to as "interventionists"
or "statists" by libertarians) who do want to abandon government
by principle and instead put Whim in charge of the use of legal coercion
are the people who help set the stage for arbitrary and capricious governmental
tyranny - leading in the direction of totalitarian dictatorship.
Libertarians Are Not Classical (European)
Conservatives
Libertarians are not "conservatives"; libertarians are radicals
(principled advocates) for individual freedom and responsibility - and the pure
free-market private-enterprise economic system which would result from a consistent
application of that principle. A "conservative" on the other
hand is one who wishes to preserve the status quo. The status quo in
America today is the semi-socialist, semi-fascist mixed-economy welfare-state -
a system inimical to personal freedom and responsibility. Libertarians do
not support such a system, and oppose any and all measures to expand it while
favoring the total repeal of interventionist laws and regulatory agencies.
Conservatives of the William F. Buckley or William Bennett variety are
generally more concerned with imposing "order" than with allowing
freedom. Although they often (and rightly) complain that government has
got "too big" and too meddlesome in our lives, on some specific
issues they themselves favor using the political power of government to
legislate and enforce their view of morality upon the populace in "the
national interest" or for the "social good." William
Bennett, for example, opposes the legalization and/or decriminalization of the
sale and use of heroin and cocaine, and he continues to support the no-win
"War on Drugs" which is causing violence to escalate in our
society. Libertarians, on the other hand, realize that "enforced
morality" (in such personal matters) is a contradiction in terms; without
freedom of choice there can be no moral responsibility or personal growth.
Libertarians also perceive that freedom brings about a more complex, dynamic
and harmonious order in society (coordinated by the market price mechanism)
than any static view of order imposed by central political planning and
regulations of our non-coercive behaviors. Some conservatives
occasionally seem to forget how miserably the government-planned societies
under hard-core socialism have failed to fulfill their glorious promises.
Outside of its legitimate functions of protecting people from criminal violence
and foreign threats, government does nothing as well or as economically as a
private-enterprise market economy based on private property rights with
individual freedom of enterprise and exchange.
Libertarians are for individual freedom - and this includes the freedom of
people to do some things that we and other people may disapprove of. A
person should be free (from coercive interference) to do what he pleases with
his own life and property, as long as he does not violate (through coercive
interference) the same right of other peaceful persons to do what they want
with their lives and properties. (The second clause is logically implied
in the first.) Libertarians do not oppose non-coercive persuasion,
educational efforts, private advertising campaigns, organized boycotts, or even
social ostracism as means of trying to effect changes in the private behavior
of others. (Many people have stopped smoking tobacco in recent years
partly as a result of education and persuasion by friends and family
members.) What libertarians do oppose is the attempt by anyone
(individuals or government officials) to impose their own views of
"fairness" or personal morality on others through the initiation of
the use of coercion, by either personal violence or political legislation and
governmental action. This principled position sets libertarians apart
from conservatives as well as other non-libertarians.
Libertarians Are Not Welfare-State
"Liberals"
Libertarians are not to be confused with the so-called "civil
libertarians" which typify the membership and leadership of the American
Civil Liberties Union. It is true that the ACLU has come to the defense
of freedom of speech for certain minorities (e.g., nazis, communists, and
anarchists) and this is commendable - but the podium has often been at
taxpayers' expense, which is a contradiction from the real libertarian
perspective. Many "civil libertarians" believe that some people
have a "right" to violate the rights of others; they claim there is a
"right to a job" or a "right" to welfare payments or a
"right" to "free education" or a "right" to free
child care - all at the expense of the people (usually the taxpayers) who are
forced to pay for these so-called "rights." Real
libertarians are for true freedom, not "freedom" at the forced
expense of others. The only obligation that true rights impose on the
citizen is of a negative kind: not to interfere with the rights of other
peaceful people - i.e., to refrain from the initiation of the use of
coercion. This is the core principle of libertarianism and is sometimes
called the 'Non-Aggression Axiom'.
Welfare-state "liberals" and "civil libertarians" speak of
"rights" of people as members of specially privileged groups, such as
"women's rights" or "gay rights" or "rights of the
handicapped" or even so-called "animal rights"! Real
libertarians know that there are only individual rights, not group
rights. There is no such thing as "gay rights" or "black
rights" or "white rights" or left-handed Martian rights.
Government must not be used to dish out special privileges to any group for any
reason, since government cannot give anyone anything unless it takes it away
from others by force, thereby violating their rights. There can be no
such thing as a "right" to violate the rights of others.
No
doubt there are some well-intentioned ACLU members who do promote true civil
liberties and uphold human rights; however, the ACLU has not come to the
defense of the rights of school children whose freedom is being violated daily
by compulsory attendance laws and the tyranny of Federally-ordered forced
busing. Nor do I know of any case in which the ACLU has defended the
constitutional rights of businessmen who are being harassed by OSHA agents and
other bureaucrats, or hounded by such arbitrary and subjective laws as the
antitrust acts. Indeed, many "civil libertarians" seem
callously insensitive to the victims of crime and legal plunder - while they
defend known criminals from justice.
Because of their consistent adherence to the principle of individual rights,
libertarians are the only true defenders of liberty -- civil or otherwise.
Real libertarians understand that freedom of speech and other civil liberties
depend on the sanctity of private property - not its violation by
anti-discrimination laws and other forms of government intervention.
Libertarians Are Not for Unlimited
Majority Rule
Libertarians are not democrats. While majority rule may or may not be as
good as any other mechanism for selecting the men and women who administer the
offices of government, libertarians deny that anyone or any group has a right to
rule over other peaceful (non-coercive) citizens - whether they are in the
majority or minority at any given time. If stealing is wrong for an
individual to do, it is still wrong when conducted by a large group or by a
majority vote. The number of people involved in an act does not change
the rightness or wrongness of the act in that sense. There is no magic
number that turns an individual wrong into a collective right. In a
libertarian republic, the basic policy of government (i.e., laissez faire) is
set by reference to fundamental principle -- the principle of individual rights
-- and not determined by a show of hands. Libertarians uphold the right of the
peaceful individual to self-ownership and private property against any who
would violate this right - even a majority.
Libertarians Are Not Anarchists
Libertarians are not anarchists. While it is true that some individuals
favor a political system of competing vigilante committees, and refer to this
position as "anarcho-capitalism" (a view formerly held by libertarian
economist Murray Rothbard), this is a confusing misnomer based on an apparent
failure to clearly distinguish between the nature of market institutions (which
do not involve the use of coercion at all, either initiatory or retaliatory)
and the nature of coercive entities (criminal or legal). Actually,
libertarianism rests on the concepts of individualism, self-ownership, private
property, & voluntary (market) exchange. Classical anarchism not only
opposed the political state, but also some voluntary organizations of which it
disapproved. Most importantly, true anarchists opposed private property -
without which no voluntary relationships are possible. Today's
libertarians are in the classical liberal tradition of Algernon Sidney, John
Locke, Adam Smith, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Edmund Burke, Herbert
Spencer, and Frederic Bastiat - not the anarchist tradition of Proudhon,
Kropotkin, and Bakunin. Virtually all the major thinkers and
writers which inspired the libertarian cause -- Frederic Bastiat, HerbertSpencer, Auberon Herbert, Henry Hazlitt, F. A. Hayek, Ludwig vonMises, Leonard Read, Ayn Rand, George Reisman -- whatever differences they
may have had, they all supported the libertarian position of advocating a
general policy of laissez faire be imposed on government -- and they all
opposed anarchy and anarchism as antithetical to liberty.
Libertarians Are Not Pragmatists
Libertarians
do not advocate freedom or the free-market economy merely because "it
works" (which it does better than any other system); they support it as
the only non-coercive and just system - the system in which people are free to
deal with one another on a voluntary basis as traders (exchangers of goods and
services) instead of as masters and slaves - or as privileged class and
exploited host. Others advocate government by whim. Libertarians
adhere to certain principles, and without the guidance of principles and
standards, all that is left is pragmatic expediency and the tyranny of
government by whim. One might say that libertarians are "idealists"
in the popular sense of that word; after all, libertarians stand for certain ideals
- goals to strive for (e.g., less government intervention, more individual
freedom and moral responsibility, free markets, etc.). Because
libertarianism is based on man's nature and the nature of reality, it is the
most practicable social system. Libertarians are practical idealists.
No comments:
Post a Comment