Libertarianism

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LIBERTARIANISM

Libertarians like to think of themselves as defenders of liberty. For example, Friedrich A. von Hayek sees his work as restating an ideal of liberty for "We are concerned with that condition of men in which coercion of some by others is reduced as much as possible in society" (1960, p. 11). Similarly, John Hospers believes that libertarianism is "a philosophy of personal liberty—the liberty of each person to live according to his own choices, provided that he does not attempt to coerce others and thus prevent them from living according to their choices" (1971, p.5). And Robert Nozick (1974) claims that, if a conception of justice goes beyond libertarian "side-constraints," it cannot avoid the prospect of continually interfering with people's lives.

Libertarians have interpreted their ideal of liberty in two basically different ways. Some, following Herbert Spencer (1820–1903), have taken a right to liberty as basic and have derived all other rights from this right to liberty. Others, following John Locke, have taken a set of rights, including typically a right to life and a right to property, as basic and have defined liberty as the absence of constraints in the exercise of these rights. Both groups of libertarians regard liberty as the ultimate political ideal, but they do so for different reasons. For Spencerian libertarians liberty is the ultimate political ideal because all other rights are derived from a right to liberty. For Lockean libertarians liberty is the ultimate political ideal because liberty is just the absence of constraints in the exercise of people's fundamental rights.

Spencerian and Lockean Libertarians

Consider the view of Spencerian libertarians, who take a right to liberty to be basic and define all other rights in terms of this right to liberty. According to this view liberty is usually interpreted as being unconstrained by other persons from doing what one wants or is able to do. Interpreting liberty this way, libertarians like to limit constraints to positive acts (i.e., acts of commission) that prevent people from doing what they otherwise want or are able to do. In contrast, welfare liberals and socialists interpret constraints to include, in addition, negative acts (acts of omission) that prevent people from doing what they otherwise want or are able to do. In fact, this is one way to understand the debate between defenders of negative liberty and defenders of positive liberty. This is because defenders of negative liberty interpret constraints to include only positive acts of others that prevent people from doing what they otherwise want or are able to do, while defenders of positive liberty interpret constraints to include both positive and negative acts of others that prevent people from doing what they otherwise want or are able to do.

Suppose then we interpret constraints in the manner favored by libertarians to include only positive acts by others that prevent people from doing what they otherwise want or are able to do. Libertarians go on to characterize their political ideal as requiring that each person should have the greatest amount of liberty commensurate with the same liberty for all. From this ideal they claim that a number of more specific requirements, in particular a right to life, a right to freedom of speech, press, and assembly, and a right to property, can be derived.

Here, it is important to observe that the libertarian's right to life is not a right to receive from others the goods and resources necessary for preserving one's life. It is not a right to welfare: It is simply a right not to be killed unjustly. Correspondingly, the libertarian's right to property is not a right to receive from others the goods and resources necessary to meet one's basic needs, but a right to acquire goods and resources either by initial acquisitions or by voluntary agreements.

Of course, libertarians would allow that it would be nice of the rich to share their surplus goods and resources with the poor. Nevertheless, they deny that government has a duty to provide for such needs. Libertarians claim that some good things, such as providing welfare to the needy, are requirements of charity rather than justice. Accordingly, failure to make such provisions is neither blameworthy nor punishable. As a consequence, libertarians contend that such acts of charity should not be coercively required. For this reason they are opposed to any coercively supported welfare program.

For a similar reason libertarians are opposed to coercively supported opportunity programs. This is because the basic opportunities one has under a libertarian conception of justice are primarily a function of the property one controls, and since unequal property distributions are taken to be justified under a libertarian conception of justice, unequal basic opportunities are also regarded as justified.

The same opposition to coercively supported welfare and equal opportunity programs characterizes Lockean libertarians, who take a set of rights, typically including a right to life and a right to property, as basic and then interpret liberty as being unconstrained by other persons from doing what one has a right to do. According to this view a right to life is simply a right not to be killed unjustly; it is not a right to receive welfare. Correspondingly, a right to property is a right to acquire property either by initial acquisitions or by voluntary transactions; it is not a right to receive from others whatever goods and resources one needs to maintain oneself. Understanding a right to life and a right to property in this way, libertarians reject both coercively supported welfare programs and equal opportunity programs as violations of liberty.

A Partial Defense

In support of their view libertarians advance examples of the following sort. The first two are adapted from Milton Friedman (1962), and the last one is from Robert Nozick (1974).

In the first example you are to suppose that you and three friends are walking along the street and you happen to notice and retrieve a $100 bill lying on the pavement. Suppose a rich fellow had passed by earlier throwing away $100 bills, and you have been lucky enough to find one of them. Now, according to Friedman, it would be nice of you to share your good fortune with your friends. Nevertheless, they have no right to demand that you do so, and hence, they would not be justified in forcing you to share the $100 bill with them. Similarly, Friedman would have us believe that it would be nice of us to provide welfare to the less fortunate members of our society. Nevertheless, the less fortunate members have no right to welfare, and hence they would not be justified in forcing us to provide such.

The second example, which Friedman regards as analogous to the first, involves supposing that there are four Robinson Crusoes, each marooned on four uninhabited islands in the same neighborhood. One of these Crusoes happens to land on a large and fruitful island, which enables him to live easily and well. The others happen to land on tiny and rather barren islands from which they can barely scratch a living. Suppose one day they discover the existence of each other. Now, according to Friedman, it would be nice of the fortunate Crusoe to share the resources of his island with the other three Crusoes, but the other three Crusoes have no right to demand that he share those resources, and it would be wrong for them to force him to do so. Correspondingly, Friedman thinks it would be nice of us to provide the less fortunate in our society with welfare, but the less fortunate have no right to demand that we do so, and it would be wrong for them to force us to do so.

In the third example Nozick asks us to imagine that we are in a society that has just distributed income according to some ideal pattern, possibly a pattern of equality. We are further to imagine that in such a society someone with the talents of Wilt Chamberlain or Michael Jordan offers to play basketball for us provided that he receives one dollar from every home game ticket that is sold. Suppose we agree to these terms, and two million people attend the home games to see this new Wilt Chamberlain or Michael Jordan play, thereby securing for him an income of $2 million. Since such an income would surely upset the initial pattern of income distribution whatever that happened to be, Nozick contends that this illustrates how an ideal of liberty upsets the patterns required by other conceptions of justice and calls for the rejection of these conceptions of justice.

The Minimal or Night-Watchman State

Libertarians think that only a minimal or night-watchman state can be justified in terms of their ideal of liberty. The libertarian argument for the minimal or night-watchman state begins with the acceptable premise that voluntary agreements represent an ultimate ideal for social interaction. This ideal, libertarians contend, finds its fullest expression in a market economy where buyers and sellers, employers and employees, voluntarily agree to exchange the goods they possess. Thus, it is assumed that the requirements for voluntary agreements between persons with unequal resources are easily satisfied in a market economy. As long as alternative contractual arrangements make it possible for buyers and sellers, employers and employees, to take their business elsewhere, libertarians believe that agreements reached in market transactions are completely voluntary. On these grounds libertarians claim that the only significant role left for the state is to prevent and rectify departures from a market economy resulting from fraud, theft, or the use of force. Any more extensive role for the state, they contend, would restrict people's liberty; that is to say, it would restrict liberty understood negatively as the absence of interference by other persons. Accordingly, libertarians conclude that only a night-watchman state can be justified in terms of an ideal of negative liberty.

The libertarian argument for the night-watchman state also seeks to show that other social ideas cannot justify a more extensive state. Libertarians either maintain that other social ideals purporting to justify a more extensive state are themselves without justification, or they claim that these social ideals have lower priority when compared with the ideal of negative liberty. But there are not always agreements as to which critical approach is appropriate. Thus with respect to an ideal of equality, Nozick (1974) and Hayek (1960) adopt different approaches: Nozick maintains that an ideal of equality has not been effectively justified, while Hayek maintains that the ideal has some validity but that negative liberty is the superior ideal. Allowing for such disagreements, both critical approaches could also be used by libertarians against various conceptions of positive liberty.

Nozick even goes so far as to claims that taxation of earnings from labor is on a par with forced labor. Still, libertarians are not similarly sensitive to the loss of liberty that occurs in the marketplace. For example, when an employer decides to lay someone off, Hospers (1971) claims that the employer is simply deciding against continuing a voluntary exchange and is not restricting the person's liberty. Likewise, Hayek (1960) claims that as long as workers who are laid off can find alternative employment their liberty is not being restricted. But how can requiring a person to pay $500 into a social security program under threat of greater financial loss infringe on the person's liberty when requiring a person to take a job paying $500 less under threat of greater financial loss does not infringe on the person's liberty? Surely it would seem that if one requirement restricts a person's liberty, the other will also.

To distinguish these cases, some libertarians claim that only intentional interference by others restricts a person's liberty. Requiring a person to pay $500 into a social security program under threat of greater financial loss, they contend, is intentional interference by others and hence restricts the person's liberty, while requiring a person to take a job paying $500 less under a similar threat is but the unintended result of individuals trying to better themselves in a market economy and hence does not restrict the person's liberty. But whether interference with a person's life is intentional or not is relevant only when determining the extent to which others are responsible for that interference. Although people are clearly more responsible for actions done intentionally they can still be responsible for actions done unintentionally, especially if they were morally negligent and should have foreseen the consequences of their actions. Since moral responsibility can extend to both intentional and unintentional interference with a person's life, there seems to be no reason for not considering both types of interference to be restrictions of a person's liberty. What is crucial to liberty as a social ideal is whether people are morally responsible for interfering with a person's life irrespective of whether that interference is intentional or not.

A Basic Difficulty

A basic difficulty with the libertarian's conception of justice is the claim that rights to life and property, as the libertarian understands these rights, derive from an ideal of liberty. Why should we think that an ideal of liberty requires a right to life and a right to property that excludes a right to welfare? Surely it would seem that a right to property (as the libertarian understands it) might well justify a rich person's depriving a poor person of the liberty to acquire the goods and resources necessary for meeting his or her basic nutritional needs. How then could we appeal to an ideal of liberty to justify such a deprivation of liberty? Surely we couldn't claim that such a deprivation is justified for the sake of preserving a rich person's freedom to use the goods and resources he or she possesses to meet luxury needs. By any neutral assessment it would seem that the liberty of the deserving poor not to be interfered with when taking from the surplus possessions of the rich what they require to meet their basic needs would have priority over the liberty of the rich not to be interfered with when using their surplus possessions to meet their luxury needs. But if this is the case, then a right to welfare, and possibly a right to equal opportunity as well, would be grounded in the libertarian's own ideal of liberty.