Friday, March 24, 2006

Libertarianism

"Libertarianism does not require society saying 'Yes' to everything an individual wants to do. But libertarianism does require that the individual be allowed to say 'No' to anything."

I found this at http://decnavda.blogspot.com/2005/04/self-ownership.html
Very interesting blog about Libertarianism. Unfortunately it looks to be defunct but some of the archives are available.

Also; Libertarian Views of Government

There are three different "levels" of possible government compatible with libertarianism. Libertarians will usually be discovered arguing for one of these as "the" appropriate libertarian view, but all are compatible with self-ownership.

1. Anarchy. Zero. Government is evil. If less is better, none is best. Government commands are not voluntary suggestions; all government is the use of coercion, and all coercion is morally wrong or ineffective (zero or negative sum games as opposed to positive sum games in voluntary cooperation).

2. Minarchy. Government is a necessary evil. A monopoly on force is needed to protect individuals from violations of their rights by other individuals. In minarchy, the purpose of government is to prevent government.

3. A Rights-Respecting Government. Government can be good. There is no imposed limit on the size or functions of government, but it must respect the self-ownership rights of individuals just as any other entity. If I am forbidden from using a piece of property, it does not matter whether that property is owned by Bob Smith, Intel, or the government. Likewise, I cannot be abused, killed, enslaved, or deprived of my rightful property by either Bob Smith, Intel, or the government.


I hadn't considered 3. If self-ownership and property rights were strictly observed such a government would in any case be small because the private sector would crowd them out. No?
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1 comment:

Unknown said...

I can't see how (3) exist in the form I think is intended. Primarily because they could not fund themselves since they respect the property of tax payers. (2) doesn't suffer from that since a minarchy at least pretends to thieve and agress as little as possible by saying that a minimum taxation is required.
As far as I can see, (3) is actually anarcho-capitalism correctly understood, as opposed to the less useful anarchy definition in (1). If the govt in (3) cannot tax and cannot pre-emptively use force to do stuff, then they become another voluntary supplier like anyone else (is this what you mean by being crowded out by the private sector?). Since they cannot maintain a monopoly of force in a particular area (by definition) then the situation becomes one of competing law enforcers, i.e. a form of voluntary Rothbardian market anarchy.

2:12 PM

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