The Ethics of Libertarianism
by J.P. Stephens
It is generally accepted that man is, by nature, a social creature. Even those who dispute the validity of a "natural order" will not argue that, if man in to survive, it is in his best interest to enter into a society. Given this situation, it is apparent that one of the most pressing questions concerning man is how his society ought to be governed. This being one of the most basic and important questions concerning man, it has been addressed from the earliest histories, from the theistic laws of the ancient Hebrews to the structured, philosophical approach taken by Socrates in The Republic. The current American political landscape, however, leaves little room for serious philosophical criticism. The two-party system and a long-established bureaucracy are, by their very nature, self-perpetuating and slow to change. One group, however, stands out as taking a clear and generally consistent approach to governing. This group is the Libertarian Party. The Libertarian Party is the self-appointed "party of principle," yet would their principles allow for a practical and ethical governing of the United States or, indeed, any country?
Libertarians feel that their idea of governing is the best for the country as well as for individuals and seem to be thoroughly unhappy with the current system. In the first line of their Statement of Principles, they "challenge the cult of the omnipotent state." Such strong language is not uncommon even in the official documents of the Libertarian Party. The Statement goes on to explain that they "hold that all individuals have the right to exercise sole dominion over their own lives, and have the right to live in whatever manner they choose, so long as they do not forcibly interfere with the equal right of others to live in whatever manner they choose." The Libertarians borrow from John Locke and the American forefathers defining individual rights as those of life, liberty of speech and action, and freedom of property. This sort of radical freedom is occasionally preached on both sides of the political spectrum, but it seems that only the Libertarian Party is willing to carry these principles to their logical ends. Next we will look at how these principles would be put into action by the party and what ends those principles might have.
The Libertarian Party’s Party Platform states that there is no conflict between individual rights and civil order. Even this premise, though seemingly innocuous, may, in fact, be flawed. The Libertarians support the repeal of all laws concerning "victimless crimes" including prostitution, the sale and use of alcohol and drugs, gambling, insider trading, and restrictions on the right to commit suicide. Perhaps, before moving on, these specific issues ought to be addressed that their repercussions might be understood. The legalization of prostitution would essentially allow the trade of sexual services for payment. This keeps very well with the Libertarian ideal of free trade and individual liberty. All bans and restrictions on the sale, possession and use of alcohol and drugs would be eliminated. This raises interesting questions, certainly there could be no restrictions to the sale of drugs or alcohol to minors, yet the Libertarian would likely reply that responsibility for a given child’s welfare is entrusted to the parent fully under their system. However, could a parent legally prohibit their child from using drugs or alcohol? A Libertarian government would clearly recognize that distinctions such as "minor" are purely arbitrary. A citizen must, then, have the rights of a citizen from birth. It would seem, then, that a parent could not legally prohibit their child from partaking of alcohol or drugs without violating that child’s individual liberties, and, therefore, the law. The legalization of gambling points out a significant flaw in the Libertarian social theory. While it may be an individual’s right to gamble away his entire paycheck, does his doing so not violate the rights of any dependants he may have to food, clothing and shelter? Furthermore, Libertarians would remove all laws barring acts of sex to which all members consent. Now, since we have established that a citizen must have the rights of a citizen from birth, does this allow children of any age to have sex with one another, provided it is consensual? Also, as seen earlier, would it not be a violation of the children’s civil rights for their parents to attempt to stop them? To take this scenario still one step further, it must be assumed that adults might freely engage in sex with children, provided that they are able to gain the child’s consent.
One of the most important, yet unsurprising, desires of the Libertarian party is the wish to end military conscription in the US. While this is a step in the direction of personal liberty, it undermines one of the most basic reasons for forming a government, protection from foreign invaders. Surely, given the choice, most people would rather let someone else risk their life to defend their liberty rather than put their own life on the line. It is the nature of a state, however, to compel all it’s able-bodied men to go to war in order to protect the freedoms of all. Further Libertarian changes would include a vast broadening of the first amendment to entail all manner of communications. This would include the abolition of the FCC, resulting in the free-market ownership of the airwaves, as well as a removal of all bans on language of any type in primarily tax-supported schools and a removal of restrictions on all types of communications equipment. The abolition of restrictions on communications equipment seems to offer another situation in which the rights of some infringe upon the rights of others. Restrictions on many types of recording equipment, for example, are designed to discourage the unauthorized reproduction of copyrighted material. The rights of some to duplicate a compact disk or videocassette may severely damage an artist’s right to reap the profit of his labors. This internal incoherence is a recurring theme in the Libertarian Party’s platform. In the case of juries, for instance, they support the abolition of jury duty and the instatement of all-volunteer juries. While this would protect the rights of would-be jurors, it tramples the defendant’s right to an impartial jury of his peers, for in most cases, someone who would choose to be on a jury has some sort of ulterior motive and would likely not prove impartial. This self-contradictory theme may be most plainly apparent in the group’s stance on abortion. It favors the repeal of all laws banning abortion, yet one of the group’s founding principles is the right to life. Now, obviously the critique of this would be that a fetus does not qualify as a life and is not, therefore protected as a citizen. This, however, is incoherent, for, as we have illustrated, any age at which a person inherits the rights of citizenry is inherently arbitrary. Therefore legalization of abortion denies one of the group’s most fundamental truths, the absolute sanctity of human life and the idea that only a given person may determine what to do with his or her own life. This violation of personal human rights strikes at the very core of Libertarian ideals and illustrates one of the greatest inconsistencies in the party platform.
In matters of economy and trade, Libertarians follow their own doctrine of self-government, "oppos[ing] all intervention by government into the area of economics." They believe that, "the only proper role of existing governments in the economic realm is to protect property rights, adjudicate disputes, and provide a legal framework in which voluntary trade is protected." Again, this is a principled stance, but it raises many questions concerning the efficacy of their government. The Libertarians propose the removal of all impediments to free trade, drastic cuts in taxation and government spending and an end to deficit budgets and inflationary monetary practices. These all sound like good ideas, opening up free trade and reducing the amount of money tied up in government bureaucracy. If we look more closely, however, there appear to be flaws in the system. For instance, Libertarians, "recognize the right of any individual to challenge the payment of taxes on moral, religious, legal, or constitutional grounds." Now, for a party that wishes to reduce the size of government, they aren’t doing much to help their cause here. The size of the agency required to process all the requests for tax exemption and to judge (by what standards?) whether or not they are valid would have to greatly surpass the current size of the IRS. Also, such a large agency would, I assume, have to be paid for by the few people left who still do pay their taxes. Certainly, that would be an unfair burden placed upon taxpayers. However, the reforms only start there. Libertarians support the eventual end of all taxation including the repeal of the sixteenth amendment which gives the government the right to levy income taxes. While this may be an ideologically sound position, practically it would be suicidal. The Libertarians do not appear to offer any alternative means of raising the funds necessary to run this government. True, the government would be greatly reduced, but still, there would be a need for some sort of taxation in order to pay government workers. The only seeming viable alternative to taxation would be private donations, which would obviously create conflicts of interests, wherein government representatives were indebted (literally) to private citizens or organizations. Such a government, so funded, could not rule impartially. In other matters of finance, the Libertarians are no less radical, seeking to end all government control of monetary funds, including the end of all legal tender laws. The minting of coins and bills would then be left to private enterprise, with the government’s only role being to protect against counterfeiting. It would seem that such a system would produce great difficulty in interstate and international trade, with the only possible solution being the development of a natural monopoly, such that tender from one given institution was essentially recognized as legal tender for the United States. Speaking of monopolies, it should be noted that Libertarians "condemn all coercive monopolies." However, they see the greatest coercive monopolies as being the products of state interference. Therefore, all anti-trust laws ought to be repealed, and businesses ought to be able to associate with each other or merge as they see fit. Finally, Libertarians would end all government trade barriers including tariffs and would also end all government subsidies to specific businesses.
The Libertarian Party calls for the abolition of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, and all such federally licensing and regulatory agencies. The value and safety of products, according to the Libertarian platform, would be determined by trial-and-error in the free market. Such a measure would end the testing of drugs by the FDA (which would also be abolished) forced labeling of foods and required contents of food and drugs. This is simply dangerous. What the Libertarian Party calls "paternalistic" is, in reality, a useful safeguard against unsafe products. The free market is simply not an adequate testing mechanism for that which may kill individuals. Following the party ideals, that each human life in inviolable, it ought to be conceded that some manner of standardized regulation is desirable, even if it does add bureaucracy to the sale of food and drugs. Finally, regarding governmental protection of its citizens, the Libertarian Party would do away with all federally-funded social programs, including but not limited to welfare and social security. While allowing for maximum personal freedom and understanding that there is little that the government does that could not be done more successfully by private organizations, this plan simply neglects the fact that, given this system, people would fall through the cracks. If the majority of Americans do not want other Americans to be starving, regardless of their work history, then some sort of social welfare program is necessary.
What might some philosophers say about Libertarianism? This is a valid question and one we will consider. First let us consider the Utilitarian/Marxists. To a proponent of these political beliefs the Libertarian system may be one of the most complete failures in all of history. To the Utilitarian, the only good worth considering is that of the greatest number. Certainly Libertarianism fails there, for it does not consider people in terms of groups or "greatest numbers" but rather as individuals with individual rights. Those rights must not be violated, even if it is to the disadvantage of the masses. The Marxist, of course, believes that nothing should come before the state. This is only a slight variation on Utilitarianism and the Libertarian conflict is much the same; the individual is inviolable, and so long as his actions do not directly violate the rights of others, his rights must not be affected by the state. Furthermore, Libertarianism promotes the most extreme form of laissez-faire capitalism ever known. Marxism calls for the communization of all goods and services. To the Marxist, Libertarianism is thoroughly evil for it allows the "privileged class" to keep all their wealth and to exploit the poor to no ends. By stressing the value of private property and individual rights, Libertarians undermine the state unity that was the goal of Marxism.
The Platonic view of Libertarianism is somewhat less clear, if only because Socrates was not ultimately very clear about what was the best state. In The Republic, after much discussion and conjecture Socrates creates a city very much like the former Soviet Union was meant to be. In this city, however, Socrates could not find justice. Furthermore, this city seemed to lead eventually to great injustice, including forcing philosophers to be kings against their will and to (it must be inferred) brothers and sisters having sexual relations with one another. After abandoning the city in speech, however, Socrates determines that the best city in reality is a Timocracy, where the city is ruled by a love of honor. Lovers of honor, Socrates explains, are spirited, and their spiritedness causes them to seek to bring things to unity. A Libertarian state is anything but unified. It is, in fact, more like what Socrates would consider the worst regime, the democracy. Because of the focus on individuality, unity is lost in the city and so the city is less like one city, but more like many. Socrates has described earlier how a disjointed city may be easily conquered in battle by fueling the factional warring within the city itself. The one redeeming quality of a democracy, however, is that "all manner of men" come to be in it. Thus, some truly great people are bound to come from a Libertarian society, but little will be done for the advancement of the city in general, and so the city or political entity would be a failure.
Ayn Rand and the Objectivist viewpoint smile luminously on Libertarianism, as it conforms almost precisely to the ideals of each. The extreme personal freedom, both socially and economically are the founding tenants of Objectivist political thought. The Objectivist justification for such a political system is that each man is possessor of himself and is, therefore, at liberty to dispose of himself and his property as he sees fit so long as he does not interfere with the rights of another. There is even some language in the Libertarian platform that is borrowed directly from Rand’s writings. According to Objectivist theory, a society like the one described by Libertarianism will lead to the greatest society imaginable and will actually fulfill utilitarian principles in the long run, without violating the rights of any man. Because each person is dependant upon only himself, he will be the sold determiner of his destiny and will, free from the constraints of an oppressive political and economic system, rise to achieve his fullest human potential. In doing so, he will improve the lives of all those around him both financially and spiritually. According to Rand, it is only with complete freedom that one can truly live.
The unfortunate truth of both Objectivism and Libertarianism is that they are not practical. I believe the fundamental flaw of Libertarianism lies in their very foundations, such that once removed, the entire system of political thought collapses. This flaw is the idea that there is such a thing as an individual human being in society. If Libertarianism were to be fully self-coherent it would have to advocate either hermatism or anarchy. When a person enters into a society, that person’s fate become inseparable from the fate of that community and the fate of the other individuals in that community. The Libertarian ideal of complete freedom until that freedom directly impedes the rights of another is shortsighted. Just because one’s actions don’t directly harm another doesn’t mean that the harm is not done. As the example earlier illustrated, anyone who has dependants cannot gamble away all his money without harming others. Likewise, someone who is impaired by alcohol cannot get behind the wheel of a car without endangering those on the road with him. It is as a society that we exist and we must consider ourselves, not solely as individuals, but as members of a society. Thus is we, as a society do not wish to have children starving, we may tax ourselves in order that we may set up organizations to feed those children. We must further consider that as well as having the freedom to some things, we have freedom from things as well. Though it may be a person’s right to use profanity, is it not equally a parent’s right to take their child to a public place without fear that they will be exposed to profane language or sights that a child ought not (in society’s view) to see? It is this tension between the individual and the communal that is, I believe, at the center of all political debate from the dawn of time until the present. I do not believe that there are any easy solutions that will provide for a just and ethical state. I believe what must be sought is a certain set of standards and values to which all members of society can agree. Those must then be enforced in such a way as to promote individual liberty and personal growth, but not at the expense of national unity or the security of our persons or property. It is a delicate balance, and it may well be best kept in this thoroughly imperfect republic of the United States. We are, unfortunately, prevented from enjoying the benefits of a just and benevolent philosopher king, but are also prevented from suffering at the hands of a capricious tyrant. Until something more effective comes along, it appears we must trust in our Constitution and the will of the people to guide us along the best path they can make.