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About Libertarianism
We’ve seen recently here on Ricochet lots of threads trying to parse libertarianism, or qualify libertarianism, or trying to understand libertarianism. How about, rather do all that, let’s just say that libertarianism means one thing:
People should be free to do as they please so long as they don’t aggress against other people.
For some people, that’s building enormous buildings. For some people it’s writing poetry. For some people it’s taking Ecstasy at a concert. For some people it’s making art. For some people it’s sitting in a basement, sniffing glue and watching vintage pornography. For some people it’s writing obscure monographs. For some people it’s traveling the world. For some people it’s laying in a field while tripping on LSD. For some people it’s cooking meals for friends. For some people it’s opening a small business. For some people it’s drinking beer and watching football. For some people it’s living in a monastery and spending 12 hours every day in silent meditation.
Different people have different values and libertarianism is the acceptance that maybe there isn’t one right answer to every question and that people should be free to peruse their own values peacefully in whatever way they see fit.
It’s also the acceptance that using laws and police and courts to force what you see as the one best thing onto everyone else not only fails every time, but is morally wrong.
Please stop trying to parse libertarianism. Please stop trying to qualify libertarianism. Please stop trying to understand libertarianism. Whenever you see or encounter the word, just replace it with “freedom to peacefully do things.” Because that’s what it means.
And yeah, sometimes it means the freedom to end up in a gutter with your dirty heroin needle stuck in your arm, and sometimes it means Klan rallies, and sometimes it means hosting symposia on Holocaust denial.
But by and large, and history shows this over and over, that when people are free of government restrictions in their deeds and thoughts, the overall effect is a more peaceful and more productive society.
Published in General
Are you against zoning laws? Can the community decide what areas are residential and what are business?
The harm principle is the primary, but not only, libertarian axiom.
I think a better definition of aggression would be:
In general yes, I am against zoning laws. Private property does a much better job of land use management than government bureaucrats.
I think I’ll make my annual contribution to the Ricochet commenting community on this thread.
After long study and reflection I’ve come to the conclusion that libertarianism falls short of perfection. It’s in good company though because conservatism falls short too.
Far in the rear view mirror is liberalism and all of the other isms that value the collective over the individual.
That’s all for 2014, see you next year!
I am extremely wary of anyone who thinks their particular ideology is perfect. The fact that I don’t have all the answers, nor expect anyone else to, is why I am a libertarian. Where libertarians are wrong at least they grant people the freedom to prove them so.
But it’s wrong on a regular basis (this is coming from as stateless libertarian). If there are exceptions, it’s no longer an axiom. You can get around this by biting bullets, or by avoiding simplistic elegant-sounding positions that require you to defend it against all counter examples.
Jamie,
I always struggle with how this works. What stops a rich person from gaming the system? Is there any checks and balances? Can one person stop a freeway from being built? I get the feeling that Libertarians want to play football without refs. That seems nice but doesn’t sound practical.
The harm principle gets you most of the way there, particularly if you acknowledge that there are non-physical harms worth preventing.
The danger in discarding it entirely is that you have no reasonable arguments against keeping humans in the perfect security and prosperity of a zoo if you don’t give them primacy over their own lives, even when they will not maximize them.
As a libertarian, I am not against zoning laws. I recognize that there are behaviors that conflict. I think the ultimate libertarian principle is that the best government is the government that maximizes the choices that individuals have available to them. Sometimes zoning laws are a way to do that.
Given a choice between banning a behavior versus limiting that behavior to a particular geographical area, I prefer the geographical limitation. Hooray for nude beaches!
Bravo. The harm principle underlies effectively all law, not just Libertarianism. You, a purported “conservative”, have just tossed all law out the window.
I think your dislike of libertarianism is getting the best of you…
These are good questions and I struggle with them too. I struggle because I can’t predict what it will look like. It’s like asking someone to predict the next technological breakthrough. It’s all speculation, but I trust the market to produce breakthroughs I could never think of and I trust the market to construct rules that are more optimal than a planned community.
At that point, Merina, everything becomes meaningless. I may not be wise enough to define “harm” perfectly, but at least I am asking the right question. And I understand why I am asking the question. What questions are you asking?
I agree (although the people you see at nude beaches are never the ones you would hope to see there), but doesn’t that go against the definition in the OP?
I didn’t seem to have that problem in France.
I think I already mentioned, I’m not in perfect agreement with Fred. But he has the broad outline right.
So Saturday night, I couldn’t sleep worrying about the spread of heroin.
Then Sunday night, I couldn’t sleep worrying about the spread of libertarianism.
I read once somewhere that the best writers say what everyone else is thinking.
Fred, you must have read my mind. :)
I understand the appeal of libertarianism. And it is gaining popularity. But why does it feel like in 2050 America will be a collection of empty buildings?
Letting people kill themselves en masse, not caring that they are gone, frankly scares the heck out of me.
Libertarians in general seem to have a higher opinion of humanity than non-libertarians.
Enslaving people en masse, and not caring that they are slaves, scares me more. Yes, I understand that the slave-masters are only enslaving people for their own good. But there’s an old saying that strikes me as very true: “If you’re doing whatever you’re doing because your heart is in the right place, then it isn’t.”
Agreed. Where we part company is that I think drugging the entire population will do the enslaving. :)
This is a moving line, always, between allowing and encouraging.
It’s a big problem.
I know this much: I wouldn’t want anyone I loved to get sucked into a life on heroin.
Watch Anthony Bourdain’s latest episode of Points Unknown where he travels to Massachusetts. Turns out large parts of it are a collection of empty buildings inhabited by heroin addicts.
And it’s hardly libertarian. In fact, if his account is correct, it’s largely a result of the regulatory state.
Exactly. I agree with that diagnosis.
It’s why I left the Democrats. I wanted to help people. They see people as a collection of psychological and genetic traits that unalterably determine their fate.
I see the libertarians embracing the same thinking.
You guys may be right. Maybe I’m wrong.
But I’ll continue to live in my deluded state that people have potential and that we can help each other realize it. It doesn’t mean taking control of other people’s lives either. There are positive things we can do to help each other get up and walk on their own.
This post reminds me of when liberals say they have don’t really have any fixed ideology, they just do what is practical on each issue. Every political party has an agenda, a set of values, and policies they support.
‘Please stop trying to understand libertarianism.’ Boy, that sounds intellectually vain to me!
I’d love to see some evidence of that!
It’s an accurate statement about Democrats, but maybe I’m not understanding libertarianism. I apologize for hyperbole. :)
A falling-over person is like a falling-over building. If you want to fix the building, you can’t yell at it “Stand up!” That won’t work. But you can find a piece of wood and brace the building so it can stand up on its own.
The Democrats don’t even try. The conservatives teach people how to read.
LOL. No problem. Been guilty of that myself from time to time… :)
:)
Clearly something is off here because before I started reading Ricochet, I would have described myself as an Ayn Rand libertarian. I am definitely on that side of the conservative spectrum. I think that’s why I have read so much about libertarianism on Ricochet. And the libertarians on Ricochet have affected my thinking. And I can’t argue with the basic tenet that people should be free to do what they want as long as they aren’t hurting anyone else. That’s a slam dunk in the truth basket.
But putting the country on Ritalin, Prozac, and heroin isn’t good.
Marci, in a libertarian society Conservatives can still teach people to read or do any other good works. They just wouldn’t have the help of the government, which is as it should be. The government I’d like would only be good at protecting us from each other (mainly physical harm but also enforcing contracts, copyright, etc.), protect us from foreign threats, handle infrastructure and interstate commerce, about what the Constitution called for.
Advocating extending harm to include insulting the depressed (an example mentioned earlier) is the thin end of the wedge that has about upended society now. It isn’t government’s role.
Form private associations to fight injustice and mean folks, empower churches by tithing, print bumper stickers, whatever but if you give government the job of creating virtue, don’t be surprised if voters with different ideas of what that constitutes steamroll you. Those Founders that stressed small government were prescient beyond belief.
Given your sentiments, I doubt you were ever a Randian. And there’s no shame in that – I’m not one either.
Severely,
There is a difference between seeing a problem and advocating government intervention. You rightly point out that people who believe government should solve everything will legislate and tax to make a “solution” for any problem. There is agreement that that is not the way to go. Are you saying there is no harm done to depressed people?
Here is an example. Say a person was allergic to apples and you knew this. You would not be free to give them apples, would you? Of course if you did not know that would be different. Do you see how this relates to the harm principle?
The first is mean, the second is (arguably) poisoning.
Big difference. No, I don’t think being mean should be a crime—I’m not a Progressive.