This is a response to Hugh LaFollette’s essay entitled “Why Libertarianism Is Mistaken” which appears in an anthology, Justice and Economic Distribution.
The argument LaFollette presents is based upon a misrepresentation of libertarian theory. How he arrives there is, however, enlightening. He starts out:
“The problem with libertarianism can be seen once we recognize the limitations that negative rights (libertarian constraints) themselves place on individual liberty. Suppose, for example, that I am the biggest and strongest guy on the block. My size is a natural asset, a physical trait I inherited and then developed. But can I use my strength and size any way I please? No! At least not morally. Though I am physically capable of pummeling the peasants, pillaging property, and ravishing women, I am not morally justified in doing so. My freedom is restricted without my consent.”
No, your freedom is not restricted without your consent, Hugh. You may rape those women, or kill them and eat them for all I care. And you can be killed and eaten as well.
However, if you enter the social contract you then consent to not invade the sovereignty of others in exchange for a similar pledge from others.
“Consequently, everyone’s life is not, given the presence of negative general rights and negative general duties, free from the interference of others.”
In the state of nature no, but in the sentence above LaFollette specifies “the presence of negative rights.” If negative rights – individual sovereignty – is present in play, then any interference in the sovereign realm of others is specifically prohibited.
It appears that LaFollette wants to argue another point though, in a somewhat disorganized manner. He is arguing that individual sovereignty restricts freedom instead of extending it. Thus his next sentence is:
“For example, in the previously described case I could have all of the goods I wanted; I could take what I wanted, when I wanted.”
We all must agree with LaFollette here. Negative liberty does restrict liberty. In the example he provided, the big man could rape or kill or steal all he wanted. But individual sovereignty restricts his freedom. He can no longer exercise sovereignty over other individuals. I hardly feel the need to apologize for this restriction of freedom. But the point he is making is valid – if libertarians think that liberty is the highest moral good, they should be anarchists, not libertarians.
“To say that such actions are morally or legally impermissible significantly limits my freedom, and my “happiness,” without my consent. Of course I am not saying these restrictions are bad. Obviously they aren’t. But it does show that the libertarian fails to achieve his major objective, namely, to insure that an individual’s freedom cannot be limited without his consent. The libertarian’s own moral constraints limit each person’s freedom without consent.”
Here again LaFollette appears confused. The libertarian negative rights do not arrive unbidden or without consent. If the big man chooses not to consent to the social contract, that is his choice. As a party to the contract, he would be in possession of the rights provided by the contract, and he would also be bound by the terms of the contract; namely, he would be restricted from violating the sovereignty of others. If he chooses to not become a party to the contract, he is not bound by the restrictions, nor is he in possession of any rights.
Thus LaFollette’s primary objection to the libertarian social contract – that it hypocritically restricts freedom without consent – fails.
Also note how LaFollette attempts to frame the argument by saying, “the libertarian’s own moral constraints limit each person’s freedom without consent.” Libertarianism is social contractarian. It is not a moral doctrine, although some libertarians argue for it on moral grounds. Libertarianism effectively precludes the legislation of morality.
By framing libertarianism as a moral doctrine, he is setting up the argument so that later on he may deny that consent is meaningful, and suggest that, as long as we are impose our morality on people, by why impose liberalism on them?
The next example provided by LaFollette is even more confused.
“This is even more vividly seen when we look at an actual historical occurrence. In the nineteenth century American slaveholders were finally legally coerced into doing what they were already morally required to do: free their slaves. In many cases this led to the slave owners’ financial and social ruin: they lost their farms, their money, and their power. Of course they didn’t agree to their personal ruin; they didn’t agree to this restriction on their freedom. Morally they didn’t have to consent; it was a remedy long overdue. Even the libertarian would agree. The slave holders’ freedom was justifiably restricted by the presence of other people; the fact that there were other persons limited their acceptable alter natives. But that is exactly what the libertarian denies. Freedom, he claims, cannot be justifiably restricted without consent.”
Take note of the statement, “The slave holders’ freedom was justifiably restricted by the presence of other people.” This is libertarian individualism. We assert that the freedom to hold ownership of others is unjustifiable, and abolish of such freedom is not only justifiable, but a contractual obligation.
This makes his next sentence a bit beyond absurd.
“But that is exactly what the libertarian denies.”
What? Libertarians deny that any freedom, including the freedom to hold slaves, may be denied without the consent of the slaveholder?
Absurd!
Let’s make LaFollette’s straw man argument explicit: Libertarians deny that freedom may be denied without consent.
This is a straw man argument because libertarians hold no such belief. We assert that individuals are sovereign and no man may violate the sovereignty of another without his consent.
Slaveholding would obviously be violation of the principle, so the slaves or other libertarians would be justified in employing non-consensual violence against the slaveholder in order to restore the individual sovereignty of the slaves.
To suggest that individual sovereignty, i.e., libertarian liberty – includes the right to hold slaves demonstrates a gross and perhaps intentional ignorance of libertarian principles.
“In short, the difficulty in this: the libertarian talks as if there can be no legitimate non-consensual limitations on freedom, yet his very theory involves just such limitations.”
Libertarians do not “talk as if” there can be no legitimate non-consensual limitation of freedom. We say very clearly that if you attempt to non-consensually violate the liberty of an individual, we will non-consensually violate your skull with a bullet.
“This theoretical difficulty is extremely important. First, the libertarian objections against redistribution programs (like those practiced in the welfare state) are weakened, if not totally disarmed. His ever-present objection to these programs has always been that they are unjust because they are non-consensual limitations on freedom. However, as I have shown, libertarian constraints themselves demand such limitations. Therefore, that cannot be a compelling reason for rejecting welfare statism unless it is also a compelling reason for rejecting libertarianism.”
The argument up until now has been one, not against liberty per se, but against the idea of consensual society. The thrust of the argument is that consensual society is impossible and the idea should be dismissed.
Perhaps if I paraphrased the argument it would make better sense;
Libertarians think that a consensual society is possible, but then they restrict the freedom of rapists and of slaveholders without consent, so they should admit that society cannot be operated consensually, and drop their objections to nonconsensual government programs like welfare.
Again, a clarification. Libertarians do not suppose that society may be conducted without force. There are rapists and murders and socialists and others who would attempt to violate the sovereignty of the individual. If they had previously consented to the social contract, the force we use against them – including deadly force – is consensual.
It’s called enforcement of a contract.
If the rapist, murderer or socialist in question never consented to the social contract, then he has no claim of wrong doing against us. It would be difficult to violate his rights when he had none to begin with. Only parties to a contract enjoy the rights created by the contract. And insofar as we only retaliated when he initiated violence, any claim he could attempt to mount would be self-incrimination.
“You violated my individual freedom by arresting me,” he might say, but what does this amount to? It presupposes individual sovereignty, the very violation of which lead to his arrest in the first place. That’s the beauty of individual sovereignty. An individual does not need to consent to the social contract to enjoy the freedom afforded by an individualist government. And any attempt to mount a claim against an individualist government fails precisely because the claim itself would necessarily presuppose individual sovereignty.
Don’t believe me? Go ahead and try it. Make a claim without assuming individual sovereignty. The nature of a claim is “you did x to me, which you had no right to do”.
Either you assume individualism in order to assume individual sovereignty, or you don’t and your claim that we violated your individual sovereignty is left meaningless. We cannot be accused of violating your individual sovereignty if you did not have individual sovereignty to begin with.
To directly respond to the charge that libertarians advocate consensual society while resorting to nonconsensual violence against offenders – yes, we do advocate nonconsensual violence against those who violate consensual society. And it is entirely consistent to do so.
Libertarianism is not founded upon the assumption that consent is all that society needs to afford each man his liberty. Libertarianism is founded upon the belief that no individual, or group of individuals, own another individual. We are all sovereign individuals. Just as the UN’s job is to prevent armies from crossing borders, the individualist government exists primarily in order to exert nonconsensual force against violators of individual sovereignty.
LaFollette entirely misses misrepresents the libertarian ideology, and after attacking a straw man concludes that:
“There seems to be no reason, for example, for concluding that X’s freedom to make $l million should not be restricted to aid other people, e.g., to give some workers enough funds to help them escape the de facto slavery in which they find themselves.”
Consensual society is impossible so he opts to grant the collective unlimited sovereignty to dispose of individuals and their resources as the collective sees fit.
If collectivism, and not individual sovereignty, is the solution to the problem of anarchy, the problem would appear more appealing than the solution. Anarchy would at least afford me some freedom, albeit freedom bought and paid for with gunpowder.
Before concluding, I think we should ask ourselves if LaFollette was sincere in his criticism. There is one telling omission. It is generally agreed that theoretical libertarianism is summed as “it is wrong to initiate violence.”
Notice the keyword there – initiate. LaFollette never once mentioned this principle. He then frames a straw man argument around a non-existent libertarian prohibition of violence. If he had begun his essay with the actual principle and that ever so important word “initiate,” his argument would have been transparently misrepresentative of libertarianism. It is difficult for me to believe that this omission was due to mere sloppiness.
