zwolinski - a brief history of libertarianism

8/10/2019 Zwolinski - A Brief History of Libertarianism

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A Brie f His tory o f Liber tar ianism

Matt Zwolinski

Philosophy, University of San Diego

John Tomasi

Political Science, Brown University

Chapter 1: What is Libertarianism?

Origins of Libertarianism

We think that libertarianism is best understood as afamily of political

philosophies rather than a single coherent theory. Like any family, the

libertarian family has different branches, each with unique characteristics. Here

we find a family line that carries the chin of a studious great-uncle. There, a

branch with the dark eyes of a difficult aunt. Elsewhere, we find new lines

begun by young scholars eager to develop versions of libertarianism all their

own.

Imagine that we were asked to design facial-recognition software to

identify all members of the libertarian family (the kind of thing, for example,

that some governmental agency might wish to do). Is there an idea or set of

commitments that might be used to zero a view as libertarian?

The word libertarian is built on the word liberty, so that might seem

a promising place to begin. And that, indeed, is where the word itself

apparently did begin. In its earliest uses in the late 18thcentury, the term


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libertarian referred simply to one who believed in human liberty. But not,

originally, topolitical or economic liberty. Rather, the libertarian was one who

believed in liberty of the will.1Libertarians opposed the doctrine of

necessitarianism (what we would now call determinism) and thus believedthat human beings possess the power of free will.

It would not be long, however, before the meaning of the term was

extended from metaphysics to social philosophy. The Oxford English Dictionary

reports the first usage of the word in the sense of an advocate or defender of

liberty (especially in the political or social spheres) to have occurred in

England in 1796.2

A few similar references can be found scattered about thefirst half of the 19thcentury. But for the most part, the term was applied in a

somewhat dismissive way to the views of othersrather than as a self-description,

and mostly in the limited context of English debates over the French

Revolution.3

However, as we shall see when we examine the later history of the word,

there is a serious problem in trying to define a political creed in terms of afundamental commitment to liberty. After all, saying that a libertarian believes

in liberty is only helpful is we have a common understanding of liberty to fall

back on. And we have never had such a common understanding. Or, rather, we

1The Oxford English Dictionary attributes the first usage of the word libertarian toWilliam Belsham in 1789, who asked in hisEssays, Philosophical, Historical, and Literary,What is the difference between the Libertarian...and the Necessarian? (Third Edition,

November 2010).2Lately marched out of the Prison at Bristol, 450 of the French Libertarians,LondonPacket 12 February, 1796 (Third Edition, November 2010).3Stephan Kinsella, for instance, reports the following 1802 usage in The British Critic:The authors Latin versesmark him for a furiousLibertarian(if we may coin such aterm) and a zealous admirer of France, and her liberty, under Bonaparte, such Liberty!See The British Critic, volume XX, London, 1802, p. 432. From the authors own search,this appears to be the earliest use of the term in this sense recorded in Google Books.


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have never had a common single common understanding. Montesquieu

exaggerated only slightly when he noted that There is no word that admits of

more various significations, and has made more varied impressions on the

human mind, than that of liberty,4

and Lord Acton stretched the truth only alittle more when he claimed that liberty is an idea of which there are two

hundred definitions, and that this wealth of interpretation has caused more

bloodshed than anything, except theology."5Different persons and sects have

used the word liberty to refer to radically different ideas and so, if all that

libertarian means is an advocateof liberty, we should expect the term to

rapidly degenerate into confusion as it comes to be embraced by disparate

political parties with little in the way of substantive political, moral, or

philosophical commonalities.

And this, in fact, is precisely what we find. Many contemporary

American libertarians, for instance, who are familiar with the term libertarian

only as a reference to individuals like Ayn Rand, Milton Friedman, and Murray

Rothbard, will be surprised to learn that their modern label derives from a term

(libertaire) coined and self-applied by a French anarcho-communist.6For

Joseph Djacque, private property and the state are simply two different ways

in which social relationships became infused with hierarchy and oppression.7A

consistent defender of liberty, he thus thought, must seek the complete

4Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws,volume 1,translated by Thomas Nugent (London:The Colonial Press, 1900), p. 149.5Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton, Inaugural Lecture on the Study ofHistory, inLectures on Modern History (London: Macmillan and Co., Ltd., 1906), p. 12.6Joseph Djacque coined the term in an 1857 letter to the French mutualist anarchistPierre Joseph Proudhon, in which he criticized what he regarded as the latters refusal tosupport the freedom and rights of women. See his De ltre-humain mle et femelle, May,1857. (http://joseph.dejacque.free.fr/ecrits/lettreapjp.htm). He later went on to7The etymological discussion here and in the remainder of this section owes much toseveral conversations between Matt Zwolinski and Charles Johnson.


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abolition of both. Djacque popularized these ideas, and his new label for

them, through his influential anarcho-communist newsletter, Le Libertaire,

which he published out of New York from 1858 to 1861, and the term

libertarian saw a marked increase in use in the English language around thistime.

The term caught on among anarchists in Europe and the United States,

spreading in the latter half of the 19thcentury from communist anarchists like

Djacque, who opposed private property, to individualist anarchists like

Benjamin Tucker, who favored it. Both groups believed that opposition to the

state was a necessary corollary of libertarianism, but the word libertarianitself was still used in a broad sense, as a kind of antonym to authoritarian.8

And it was this broader sense of the word that would ultimately triumph. Thus,

while the anti-statism of Djacque and Tucker would remain an important

element of libertarianism, the term was also used in the late 19thcentury to refer

to those who opposed the excesses of state authority without opposing the state

as such,9and by the early twentieth century was used to refer even to a kind of

cultural support for liberty that had nothing directly to do with the state at all

8Tucker uses the term in several of the essays collected in Benjamin Tucker,Instead of aBook: By a Man Too Busy to Write One(New York: Elibron Classics, 2005)., always with thisbroad meaning. See, for instance, State Socialism and Anarchism: How Far They

Agree, and Wherein They Differ (1888: There are two socialismsone is dictatorial,the other libertarian), A Libertarians Pet Despotisms (1887), and Liberty and theGeorge Theory (1887: But the divorce laws, instead of being libertarian, are an expressrecognition of the rightfulness of authority over the sexual relations).9In 1878, for instance, Sir John Robert Seeley described a libertarian as one who canproperly be said to defend liberty by opposing tyranny and resist[ing] the establishedGovernment.Life and Times of Stein or Germany and Russia in the Napoleonic Age, volume 3(Cambridge University Press, 1878), p. 355.


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a kind of precursor, perhaps, to the contemporary idea of civil

libertarianism.10

One of the most important figures behind the development of the

contemporary American usage of the word libertarian was Charles T.

Sprading, a wealthy landowner and libertarian activist who lost much of his

fortune in the San Francisco earthquake of 1906. In his 1913 book, Liberty and

the Great Libertarians, Sprading made a self-conscious effort to promote the

word libertarian as a way of referring to a broad spectrum of anti-statist ideas

and personalities.11Indeed, he begins his book by noting that the libertarians

excerpted in it were chosen from all different political parties and economicschools including Republicans, Democrats, Socialists, Single-Taxers,

Anarchists, and Womens Rights advocates.12So broad was the libertarian

tent, for Sprading, that the Individualist and the Communist could both find

a home in it. Providing, that is, that neither group attempts to impose its views

by force on the other.

Plans voluntarily accepted by individuals or groups of individuals andnot forced upon others are in no way a violation of liberty. They would

be if others were forced to do so by the seizure of "all means of

production and distribution," as the State Socialists purpose to do,

thereby excluding non-conformers from their use. It is not the

10In 1901, Frederick William Maitland characterized the English as individualists andlibertarians for their dislike of the thought of an editor [having to defend] his proofsheets sentence by sentence before an official board of critics. From William Stubbs,Bishop of Oxford, The English Historical Review, vol. 16, no. 63 (Jul, 1901), p. 419.11Charles T. Sprading,Liberty and the Great Libertarians(Los Angeles: Golden Press, 1913).12Ibid., 5.


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difference in taste between individuals that Libertarians object to, but the

forcing of one's tastes upon another.13

In making opposition to the initiation of force central to his definition of

libertarianism, and welding that opposition to the affirmation of private

property,, Sprading paved the way for the current American meaning of the

term, in which people like Rand, Friedman, and Rothbard are seen as

paradigmatic libertarians, while anarcho-communists like Peter Kropotkin,

Emma Goldman, and Murray Bookchin, are either forgotten altogether or

denied the label of true libertarian.

But if Sparding paved the way for the contemporary usage, it was

Leonard Read who applied the sealant. Read, a California businessman and

general manager of the Los Angeles branch of the U.S. Chamber of

Commerce, is best known in libertarian circles today for his creation of the

Foundation for Economic Education in 1946, an organization that sought to

promote a philosophy of free markets and limited government in a variety of

ways, perhaps most significantly through its publication, The Freeman.14

Readand his organization worked closely with most of the important figures in the

post-war libertarian movement in the United States, including Ayn Rand, Rose

Wilder Lane, Freidrich Hayek, Ludwig von Mises, and Henry Hazlett. He is

generally credited, and has credited himself, with popularizing the label of

libertarian as a shorthand way of referring to the free market, private

property, limited government philosophy and the moral and ethical tenets

13Ibid., 6.14See, for a discussion of Read and the Foundation for Economic Education, BrianDoherty,Radicals for Capitalism: A Freewheeling History of the Modern American LibertarianMovement(New York: Public Affairs, 2007), chapter 4.


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which underlie these institutions.15And, indeed, The Freeman did publish one

of the earliest explicit calls to embrace the name libertarian for the

burgeoning free-market movement. Lamenting the fact that the word liberal

had been corrupted by leftists, Dean Russell called on his readers to reservefor our own good use the good and honorable word libertarian, which he

defined as the belief that government should protect all persons equally

against external and internal aggression, but should otherwise generally leave

people alone to work out their own problems and aspirations.16This

identification of libertarianism with an opposition to aggression would later

be seized upon by Murray Rothbard, who would take it so far as to identify the

Nonaggression axiom as the defining principle of libertarian thought.17But

while Rothbards usage resonated with certain radical elements of the

libertarian movement, it never quite penetrated into popular usage, where the

term libertarian still serves to identify a principled commitment to something

like Reads free market[s], private property, [and] limited government,

without specifying the particular moral foundations on which that commitment

must rest.

15Leonard Read, Talking to Myself (Irvington-on-Hudson: The Foundation for EconomicEducation, 1970), 120-21. See also Reads 1975 interview withReason magazine in whichhe says Im the one who brought about and popularized the word libertarian.

Educating for Freedom: An Interview with Leonard Read,Reason, April, 1975, p.5.Ironically, Read goes on to complain that the word has now been taken over byanarchists [and] out-and-out socialists.I am indebted to Stephan Kinsella for thereferences. See his The Origin of Libertarianism,http://archive.mises.org/18385/the-origin-of-libertarianism/.16Dean Russell, Who is a Libertarian? The Freeman, May 1, 1950.http://www.fee.org/the_freeman/detail/who-is-a-libertarian#axzz2d1BZd09517The libertarian creed rests upon one central axiom: that no man or group of men mayaggress against the person or property of anyone else. This may be called thenonaggression axiom. Aggression is defined as the initiation of the use or threat ofphysical violence against the person or property of anyone else. Aggression is thereforesynonymous with invasion. Murray N. Rothbard,For a New Liberty(New York: Collier,1978), 27.


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Libertarianism and Liberty

The term libertarian has, in the United States at least, thus come torefer to something more specific than simply one who advocates liberty.

Libertarians advocate not just liberty but a particular vision of liberty as applied

to economic and political questions. But the precise details of that vision, and

its role in the system of libertarian thought, have often been misunderstood.

It has often been said, for instance, that libertarianism is distinguished by

its exclusive focus on what has been called negative liberty (freedom from), asopposed topositive liberty (freedom to).18On this view, an individuals liberty is

violated if others forcefully interfere with her doing what she wants to do if,

say, men with guns threaten violence to prevent her from crossing a national

border. But it is notviolated if she merely lacks the internal or external means

necessary to do what she wants if, say, she is too weak from disease to walk

across the border, or if the border is a river that she has no boat to cross.

But this common characterization of libertarianism is inadequate in two

distinct ways. First, it is inaccurate insofar as it suggests that libertarians are

necessarily unconcernedwith positive liberty, or even that they are less concerned

with positive liberty than with negative liberty. Libertarians do, it is true, believe

that negative liberty is the only form of freedom that can legitimately be

18The locus classicusof this distinction is Isaiah Berlin, "Two Concepts of Liberty," inFourEssays on Liberty, ed. Isaiah Berlin(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1969). It is worthnoting that Berlin, too, uses the word libertarian in something like the broad sense thatprevailed in the 19thcentury, referring to those thinks such as Locke and Mill inEngland, and Constant and Tocqueville in France, who thought that there ought toexist a certain minimum area of personal freedom which must on no account be violatedp. 124.


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demanded from others as a matter of moral right.19But this is compatible with

believing that positive liberty is a significant moral value,20and even with the

claim (which some contemporary libertarians have endorsed) that negative

liberty is valuable only because and to the extent thatit serves as a means ofobtaining what really matters for its own sake the positive liberty to do what

one most wishes to do.21

But there is a second and even more serious way in which this

characterization is inaccurate. If negative liberty is understood merely as freedom

from forceful interference, then libertarianism turns out not to be committed

to negative liberty after all!22

After all, libertarians are ardent supporters ofrights of private property and, as many of libertarianisms critics have pointed

out, property rights seem to entail and require limitations on the negative

freedom of others.23After all, part of what it means to own an object perhaps

the most important part is to have the right to forcefully exclude others from

19Eric Mack and Gerald Gaus, "Classical Liberalism and Libertarianism: The Liberty

Tradition," inHandbook of Political Theory, ed. Gerald Gaus and ChandranKukathas(London: Sage, 2004), 116-17.20See, for instance, David Schmidtz and Jason Brennan,A Brief History of Liberty(NewYork: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010).21Tyler Cowen, The Paradox of Libertarianism, Cato Unbound, March 11, 2007http://www.cato-unbound.org/2007/03/11/tyler-cowen/paradox-libertarianism.22Precisely how negative liberty should be characterized turns out to be a rather difficultmatter, involving questions about just what kinds of interferenceare to count as violatingit (force, sure, but what about a non-violent boycott? Or a threat to reveal embarrassinginformation?), questions about what sorts of things are being interfered with (Actions?Desires? Fully-informed desires?), whether interference must be intentional, and so on.

For our purposes here, though, these details do not matter much. So long as negativeliberty is understood in a non-moralized way, the problems identified in this paragraph willpertain. See, for an overview, Carter, Ian, "Positive and Negative Liberty", The StanfordEncyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2012 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL =.23For example, see G. A. Cohen, "Freedom and Money," in On the Currency of EgalitarianJustice and Other Essays in Political Philosophy, ed. G. A. Cohen and MichaelOtsuka(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2011).


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using it without ones consent.24Freedom from interference with ones

property is therefore secured only by the threatof interference with others.

Libertarians thus do not believe that all forceful interference with others

is wrong. A kidnapper who seizes you and imprisons you in a cabin is

wrongfully interfering with your freedom. But a property owner who forcefully

prevents a traveller from walking across his land (or through his house) is not.

The difference, of course, is that the property owner has a right to

exclude others from using his land without his consent, whereas the kidnapper

does not have a right to seize and imprison your body. The kind of freedom

that libertarians are concerned to protect, then, is not just non-interference as

such, but non-interference with ones rights.Or, as John Locke wrote, it is a

liberty to dispose and order as he lists his person, actions, possessions, and his

whole property, within the allowance of those laws under which he is, and

therein not to be subject to the arbitrary will of another, but freely follow his

own.25Such a view of liberty is social rather than mechanistic, insofar as it

focuses on the interpersonal relationships between human beings rather thanthe mere physical impediment of lack impediment of things.26But it is also a

conception that, unlike the view of freedom as non-interference, allows the

libertarian to view the protection of all individuals freedom as compossible:

protecting the property of one person might require interfering with the desired

activity of others, but protecting the rights of one individual does not necessitate

infringing the rights of others. Thus, the libertarian who adopts this conception

24See David Schmidtz, "The Institution of Property," Social Philosophy and Policy11, no. 2(1994).#&,-./01 !"#$%& ()"*+,-".2 &(326See George H. Smith, The System of Liberty: Themes in the History of Classical Liberalism(NewYork: Cambridge University Press, 2013), chapter 7. Smith contrasts the Lockean, socialconcept of freedom with the Hobbesian, mechanistic one.


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of freedom can consistently hold that the realization of libertarian ideals would

yield a maximum of freedomfor everyone.

Something like this conception of freedom seems to be central to

libertarianism. But while it is central, it cannot befundamental. It cannot be

fundamental because according to this understanding, we cannot even know

what freedom is until we know what rights people have. And so, on this

account, a theory of rights must come logically prior to a full theory of

freedom.

This does not mean, however, that a theory of rights is itself basic. For

some libertarians, it might be. But other libertarians will attempt to ground

rights themselves in some other more basic value or belief a commitment to

respecting autonomy, for instance, or to treating persons as ends in themselves,

or even to the maximization of human welfare. The libertarian account of

rights, then, like the libertarian account of freedom, will thus be something on

which libertarians converge, but not necessarily the idea on which libertarianism is

based.

E Plur ibus

Is itpossible to identify a precise set of beliefs on which libertarianism

must be based? Is it possible even to identify a set of beliefs that alllibertarians

and only libertarians share? Unfortunately, at least from the perspective of

philosophical tidiness, there is good reason to doubt that either of these goals

are achievable.

After all, contemporary libertarians are an extraordinarily diverse group!

Some, lsuch as Ayn Rand, believe that the government should be strictly


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limited to the provision of police, courts, and military protection.27Others, like

Murray Rothbard, believe that the only justifiable government isno

government at all.28Some, like Friedrich Hayek, believe that taxation may

legitimately be used to fund public education, public goods, and even acomprehensive system of social insurance.29Others, like Robert Nozick, view

all taxation of the earned income as morally on a par with forced labor and

thus almost always impermissible.30

All libertarians emphasize the importance of free markets and private

property, yet some, such as Lysander Spooner, oppose the institution of wage

labor,31

others, such as Benjamin Tucker, oppose as usurious the charging ofinterest and rent,32and still others, such as Herbert Spencer and Henry George,

oppose the full private ownership of land.33

Some libertarians, such as Ayn Rand, are militant atheists,34while others,

such as Leonard Read, are devout believers.35Some libertarians, like Volteryne

27

Ayn Rand, "The Nature of Governement," in The Virtue of Selfishness(New York, NY:Signet, 1964), 109.28See Murray N. Rothbard, The Ethics of Liberty(New Jersey: Humanities Press, 1982),especially part III.29On Hayeks support for social insurance, see Friedrich A. Hayek, The Road to Serfdom,ed. Bruce Caldwell, vol. II, The Collected Works of F.A. Hayek (Chicago: University of

Chicago Press, 2007), 148. For his support of the state provision of public goods andpublic education, see The Constitution of Liberty(Chicago: University of Chicago Press,1960), p. 223 and chapter 24, respectively.30See Robert Nozick,Anarchy, State, and Utopia(New York: Basic Books, 1974), 169.31See Lysander Spooner, Poverty: Its Illegal Causes and Its Legal Cure, and A Letter

to Grover Cleveland.32See Benjamin Tucker, "State Socialism and Anarchism: How Far They Agree, andWherein They Differ," inInstead of a Book: By a Man Too Busy to Write One(New York:Elibron Classics, 2005).33See Herbert Spencer, Social Statics(New York, NY: Robert Schalkenbach Foundation,1995), chapter IX; Henry George,Progress and Poverty(New York: D. Appleton andCompany, 1886).34SeePlayboys interview with Ayn Rand, March, 1964.


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de Cleyre, are cultural liberals with deep concerns about patriarchy and the

oppressiveness of traditional marriage,36while others, like Charles Murray, are

cultural conservatives who lament the decline of traditional marriage as a

symptoms of cultural decline.37

And some libertarians, like Murray Rothbard,are both extreme liberals andextreme conservatives, depending on which

decade they happened to be writing in!38

Finally, when it comes to moral foundations, libertarians stake out claims

all over the philosophical map, Some, such as Milton and David Friedman,

ground their beliefs in broadly consequentialist appeals to economic

efficiency,39

others (like Jan Narveson) appealing to contractarian logic,40

others(like Randy Barnett) basing their libertarianism on the idea of natural rights,41

others (like Douglas Rasmussesn and Douglas Den Uyl) seeking justification in

Aristotelian principles of perfection,42and still others (like Tibor Machan) in

ethical egoism.43

35

See Leonard Read ?36See Voltairine de Cleyre, "Those Who Marry Do Ill," inExquisite Rebel: The Essays ofVoltairine De Cleyre - Feminist, Anarchist, Genius, ed. Sharon Presley and CrispinSartwell(Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2005).37See Charles A. Murray, What It Means to Be a Libertarian(Broadway, 2010);Losing Ground:American Social Policy, 1950-1980(Basic books, 1994).38For the left-wing Rothbard, see Murray N. Rothbard, "Left and Right: The Prospectsfor Liberty,"Left and Right: A Journal of Libertarian Thought1, no. 1 (1965). For the right-wing Rothbard, see "Right-Wing Populism: A Strategy for the Paleo Movement," TheRothbard-Rockwell Report(1992).39See David Friedman, The Machinery of Freedom: Guide to Radical Capitalism, 2nd ed.(LaSalle, IL: Open Court, 1989), especially part III; Milton Friedman, Capitalism and Freedom,40th Anniversary ed.(Chicago: University of Chicago, 2002).40See Jan Narveson, The Libertarian Idea(Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1988).41See Randy E. Barnett, The Structure of Liberty: Justice and the Rule of Law(Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press, 1998).42See Douglas B. Rasmussen and Douglas J. Den Uyl,Norms of Liberty: A Perfectionist Basisfor Non-Perfectionist Politics(University Park, PA: Penn State University Press, 2005).43See Tibor R. Machan,Individuals and Their Rights(Open Court LaSalle, Ill., 1989).


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Characteristics of the Libertarian Family

Given the diversity of libertarian positions, it is difficult to imagine anyway of completing the sentence You are a libertarian if and only if Rather

than pursuing what we regard as a futile quest for a set of necessary and

sufficient conditions, then, we propose to define libertarianism in terms of the

somewhat looser notion of family resemblance. We believe that there are six

core ideas that are shared by paradigmatic libertarians. But, to continue with the

software metaphor with which this chapter began, we see these six ideas as

informal markers of membership.44Attention to these ideas allows us to identify

what is common among the libertarian family, even given the uniqueness of

each and every libertarian face. Our six markers of libertarianism are:

commitment to rights of private property, skepticism of authority, appreciation

of free markets, individualism, cosmopolitanism, and a belief in the explanatory

and normative significance of spontaneous order.

Each of these six ideas can be understood in different ways. In a

moment we will specify the range of understandings that is characteristic of

libertarian theories. For now, note that a number of non-libertarian political

ideologies may also be committed to one or more of these six ideas, and may

be committed to one or another of these ideas even as they are traditionally

understood by libertarians. But libertarianism is a doctrine (or family of

doctrines) distinguished by its members commitment to all six ideas

44We are not the first to propose defining libertarianism in these terms, though ourparticular selection of markers, and our characterization of them, is unique. See, foranother example with a much more extensive set of characteristics, Mack and Gaus,"Classical Liberalism and Libertarianism: The Liberty Tradition."


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simultaneously, and to the belief that that they form an integrated framework for

understanding the world.45

Still, even the presence of all six ideas is not always enough for a positive

libertarian ID. For libertarians also deny that there is any other commitment---

say, to solidarity, to material egalitarianism, or to cultural integrity---that is more

primary than these six. Imagine running our software on a candidate that

exhibits all six libertarian characteristics as relatively minor features

earlobes and cheeks, say, hairline and brow. Yet imagine that this candidates

face is dominated by some distinctly non-libertarian feature---say a swollen,

indeed aprobuscular, commitment to the ideal of cultural integrity (the idea thatthe state should above all prevent cultural change, say by prohibiting the use of

rival languages on signs or in schools, providing tax-funded support for

entertainers and art forms judged to be native, and so forth). Despite the

presence of the other markers, our software would screen out that candidate as

non-libertarian, and rightly so. After all, such a view has a non-libertarian

commitment front and center, dominating all the rest. So our software would

pick out as libertarian only views that exhibit a simultaneous commitment to a

particular interpretation of our six core ideas, and for whom that conjunctive

commitment is dominated by no rival commitment or idea.

Let us turn, then, to an examination of the six core ideas of

libertarianism: commitment to rights of private property, skepticism of

authority, appreciation of free markets, individualism, cosmopolitanism, and a

belief in the explanatory and normative significance of spontaneous order. In

what particular way do libertarians understand each of these ideas?

45We shall have more to say about this second claim later in the chapter.


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Property

We will begin our analysis with the libertarian commitment to rights ofprivate property, not merely because we have to start somewhere, but because this

idea comes closer than any other to constituting an essential condition of any

libertarian view. If the six core ideas that we have described can be thought of

as markers of membership in our libertarian facial recognition software, then a

commitment to rights of private property is like the nose on the face.

All liberals value the civil and political rights of individuals: the right to afair trial, freedom of expression, political participation, personal autonomy, and

so on. And all liberals agree that rights topersonal property like the right to

own your own car and your own furniture are an important component of

personal autonomy and are worthy of political protection.46What distinguishes

the libertarian view of property from other merely liberal views is the scope, the

weight, and the basicness thatthey assign to private property rights.

Libertarians are, first of all, distinguished from other liberals by their

belief that individuals should be able to acquire rights of private property in a

wider array of objects.47At a minimum, libertarians believe that rights of property

46 This is true even of the 20th centurys most important anti-libertarian liberalphilosopher, John Rawls. See John Rawls, A Theory of Justice, 1st ed.(Cambridge: BelknapPress, 1971), 61.%(45 607851 78 7 90:0;76 ;0 ?7@81 6AB0;57;A7:8 C7D-; E;-E0;5@ A: 7 -/*00")

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should extend beyondpersonal property like cars and clothes to encompass

productive property like factories and land.48But many libertarians go farther still,

and argue that we should regard peoples relation to their own body parts as a

kind of private property, and that various forms of currently public propertylike roads, parks, and oceans should be converted to private property as well.49

Libertarians also differ from other political liberals in the moral weight

they assign to rights of private property. Again, there is a range of views to be

found within the libertarian camp. But, at a minimum, libertarians have argued

that rights of private property should be treated as morally on a parwith the

other civil and political rights of citizens. Rights of property, like civil andpolitical rights, are basic rights, and whatever social and juridical weight is

accorded to the latter should be accorded in equal measure to the former as

well. On this view, property rights are component parts of a multifaceted,

liberty-protecting scheme. Like freedoms of speech and religion, the economic

freedoms of citizens merit foundational protection. But foundational does

not mean absolute. Any system that admits a plurality of basic rights must

allow for the possibility of conflict between those rights, and unless one kind of

right is held to be somehow more basic than the others, must allow for a process

of weighing and balancing to determine which right trumps in each particular

situation. Sometimes property rights will win out, but not always.50

In contrast to this view, some libertarians have adopted the position that

property rights are more basic than other rights. At the limit, this view suggests

48Though, as we will explore in more detail in the next chapter, some libertarians havetaken heterodox positions on the issue of land ownership.49Kidney sales, privatize roads, parks, oceans50The view expressed here has much in common with the classical liberal idea of thepresumption of liberty, discussed Smith, The System of Liberty: Themes in the History ofClassical Liberalism, chapter 1.


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that civil and political rights are not merely less weighty than property rights:

such rights are themselves types ofproperty rights.51So, for example, libertarians

of this sort might hold that rights of free speech hold only because and to the

extent that the speaker has a property right in (or permission from the propertyright holder to use) the various physical objects utilized in the act of speech.

You have the right to write what you want in the newspaper you own, but not

to say whatever you want in the mall, park, or sidewalk that belongs to

somebody else. Freedom of speech, like freedom of religion, freedom of

movement, and every other kind of freedom, is derivative of and dependent for

its force and justification on the underlying rights of property. On this view,

then, property rights always trump because, in the ultimate analysis, there are

no other kinds of right with which they could possibly conflict!

Libertarians base their support of private property in a variety of moral

arguments. Perhaps the most well-known libertarian argument, however,

grounds property rights in physical objects like houses and money in a more

fundamental property right held by each person in his or her self. Because each

of us owns our bodies, we therefore own the labor that our bodies produce.

And so, libertarians argue, when we expend our labor upon things that are not

yet owned by anybody else, we can, under certain conditions, come to own

them too.52Our property rights in things like houses and money are thus

ultimately produced and justified by our more basic property right in our

person. And, therefore, when our property rights in things like houses and

51See, for example, Jan Narveson, who equates liberty with property and writes that is istherefore plausible to construe all rights as property rights. Narveson, The LibertarianIdea, 66.52The most famous version of this argument, of course, is found in chapter five of JohnLockes Second Treatise. More contemporary, and more distinctively libertarian, versionscan be found in Nozick,Anarchy, State, and Utopia; Rothbard, The Ethics of Liberty.


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money are infringed upon, the libertarian holds that it is really our basic

property in our self that it infringed upon. Thus the libertarian slogan, taxation

is slavery!, is not meant merelyas a provocative bit of rhetoric. It is meant to

expose a deep but often difficult to discern truth about the basis and meaningof property.

But while an appeal to self-ownership is probably the most famous

libertarian strategy for defending rights of private property, it is by no means

the only one. Some libertarians have sought to base their defense on different

but equally deontological grounds such as an appeal to negative liberty, or to

autonomy.53

Other libertarians have sought to provide a more consequentialistjustification, by showing how private property replaces the zero- (or negative-)

sum transactions of the commons with the positive-sum transactions of a

market economy.54Or by showing how rights of private property are

instrumentally valuable in securing other important civil and political rights.55

For the most part, though, individuals in the libertarian intellectual tradition

have refrained from drawing sharp distinctions between consequentialist and

deontological arguments, believing instead that respect for private property is

both a moral duty and a wise social policy.56Libertarians, especially those

53For the former, see Narveson, The Libertarian Idea. For the latter, see Horacio Spector,Autonomy and Rights(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992).54See Schmidtz, "The Institution of Property."55See, for example, Gerald Gauss survey of the empirical evidence in Gerald F. Gaus,"Coercion, Ownership, and the Redistributive State: Justificatory Liberalism's Classical

Tilt," ibid.27, no. 1 (2010).56That fact that justice and utility both point in the same direction in so many libertarianarguments is surely a fact that calls out for explanation. One possible explanation is theskeptical one. The reason justice and utility line up for libertarians, this line of reasoninggoes, is because libertarians frame their arguments to fit their conclusions, rather than theother way around. See, for a somewhat sympathetic expression of this skepticism, JeffreyFriedman, "What's Wrong with Libertarianism?," Critical Review11, no. 3 (1997).However there are other, less skeptical explanations available as well. For instance,


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outside the discipline of academic philosophy, have thus tended to help

themselves generously to both sorts of arguments, without always

distinguishing clearly between them.

Skepticism of Authority

If property can be thought of as the nose on our libertarian face, our

second characteristic, skepticism of authority, is more of an attitude or, if you

like, a distinguishing look on the faceof libertarians. When a political leader says

Trust me, the libertarian twists her mouth to one side and raises an eye inway that says: I dont.

At a minimum, this libertarian skepticism is directed atpolitical

authorities. Drawing on the work of Friedrich Hayek and others, libertarians

doubt that political authorities are as wise as they sometimes claim to be.57And

drawing on the work of public choice theorists, libertarians doubt that political

authorities are asbenevolent

as they purport to be.

58

Politicians, bureaucrats,soldiers and police officers might not be any worse than the common run of

humanity, but they certainly arent any better. They suffer from the same

ignorance, the same vanity, the same biases, and the same self-interestedness as

the rest of us. But by virtue of the political power they wield, those common

perhaps justice and utility do not come into conflict because the content of justice is partlya function of utilitarian considerations? See, for a discussion of many such possible

explanations, and an endorsement of one, Roderick Long, "Why Does Justice Have GoodConsequences?," http://praxeology.net/whyjust.htm.57See, for instance, Friedrich A. Hayek, "The Use of Knowledge in Society,"AmericanEconomic Review35, no. 4 (1945); "The Pretense of Knowledge," inNew Studies in Politics,Economics and the History of Ideas(London: Routledge, 1978).58See, for instance, James Buchanan and Gordon Tullock, The Calculus of Consent(AnnArbor: University of Michigan Press, 1962); Gordon Tullock, R. D. Tollison, and C. K.Rowley, The Political Economy of Rent Seeking(Boston: Kluwer, 1988).


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defects have the potential to do far more damage than most people could hope

or fear to accomplish.

Libertarians thus doubt that political actors are authorities in the sense

of people who are especially competent, virtuous, or wise. But, as a result of

this skepticism and of other more philosophical considerations, libertarians are

also generally skeptical about political authority in another, deeper sense. They

are skeptical that political actors have authority in the sense of the right to rule

over others, and to command their obedience.

At a minimum, libertarians believe that politicians and governments lack

the broad authority they claim. Libertarians believe that many of the things that

governments currently do are illegitimate. They are activities that government has

no business being involved in, and indeed no right to be involved in. No

libertarian, for instance, believes that the government of the United States has

the authority to forcibly prevent private businesses from offering to deliver

mail in competition with the United States Post Office, or indeed in running a

post office at all.59

Nor do most libertarians believe the government has theauthority to ban drugs such as marijuana and cocaine, to draft citizens in time

of war, to transfer wealth from some classes of citizens to others, to

monopolize the printing of currency, and so on. Most of these actions are, of

course, perfectly legal. But even if governments have the legal authority to

pursue these policies, libertarians believe that they lack the moral authority to do

59One famous libertarian Lysander Spooner even set entered into a legal battle withthe United States government after setting up his own quite successful competing mailservice, the American Letter Mail Company, in 1844.


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so. And when law exceeds the boundaries established by morality, libertarians

believe, it is simply naked force, and nothing more.60

Indeed, some libertarians take this reasoning a step further and deny that

governments have any authority at all. For these libertarians, there is no such

thing as the right to rule over others in the way that governments claim. The

only way that such a right to rule could have come about is through consent

through one group of people agreeing to follow the commands of another. But

most people over whom governments claim authority never consented to it.

The idea of a social contract, libertarians have pointed out, is a myth, a

fiction that serves to hide governments true origins in conquest andexploitation.61Thus allgovernments, even the most benign, are illegitimate, and

the extreme form of the libertarian skepticism of political authority is

anarchism.62

Appreciation of Free Markets

Libertarians enthusiasm for free markets is without a doubt their most

well known characteristic. But it is also, and perhaps for this reason, the most

misunderstood one. It is widely believed, for instance, that libertarians are

60Many libertarians follow Locke, for instance, in defining tyranny as the exercise ofpower beyond right. Second Treatise, chapter XVIII, section 199.61On the myth of the social contract, see Lysander Spooner, "No Treason No. Iv: TheConstitution of No Authority," in The Lysander Spooner Reader, ed. Lysander Spooner and

George H. Smith(San Francisco: Fox & Wilkes, 1992). For one representative libertarianaccount of the so-called conquest theory of the state, see Albert Jay Nock, Our Enemy, theState(San Francisco: Fox & Wilkes, 1994). Nock draws heavily on the work of the Germansociologist Franz Oppenheimer, especially his The State(San Francisco: Fox & Wilkes,1997).62For a recent and highly sophisticated exposition of this position, see Michael Huemer,The Problem of Political Authority: An Examination of the Right to Coerce and the Duty toObey(Palgrave Macmillan, 2012).


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cheerleaders for American capitalism; that they deplore socialism; and that they

base their doctrine on a narrow economic vision of humanity that focuses

exclusively on the rational pursuit of self-interest to the neglect of sociality,

community, and respect for tradition. And there is, in each of these claims, acertain element of truth. But these common beliefs also reveal certain

widespread misunderstandings about the nature of libertarianism, some of

which run deep.

To begin, it is worth stressing that most libertarians support free markets

only because and only to the extent that they are a form of voluntary,

cooperative social organization. But not everything that we call a market istruly a form of voluntary, cooperative social organization. And, of course, not

every form of voluntary, cooperative social organization is a market.

Karl Polanyi famously described a "market society" as one in

which instead of the economy being embedded in social relations, social

relations are embedded in the economy."63And critics of libertarianism often

seem to assume that the libertarian support of free markets entails support formarket society in this sense.64But this assumption is supported neither by the

logic of the libertarian argument for free markets, nor by what libertarians

themselves have said about the relationship between markets and other forms

of social organization. Libertarians who support markets because they respect

the right of individuals to engage in voluntary cooperative organization likewise

support other forms of voluntary cooperative organization into which

63Karl Polanyi, "The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of OurTime Author: Karl Polanyi, Publisher: Beacon Press Pa," (2001): 57.64Consider, for example, the titles of two recent anti-libertarian books, both of whichsuggest this misunderstanding: Michael J. Sandel, What Money Can't Buy: The Moral Limitsof Markets(Macmillan, 2012); Debra Satz, Why Some Things Should Not Be for Sale: The MoralLimits of Markets(Oxford University Press, 2010).


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individuals can and do enter families, friendships, monastic orders, kibbutzim,

mutual-aid societies, clubs, and others that are governed by norms and values

quite different from those governing the market order.

Nor are libertarians who support markets for more consequentialist

reasons barred from endorsing these other forms of social organization. If

markets produce good consequences, it is because they are a good tool for

solving a certain kind of social problem. But not every social problem is the

same, and there is no reason to think that the kind of organization that works

to coordinate the behavior of strangers on a large scale will be the best way of

coordinating behavior among families, neighborhoods, or religiouscommunities, where norms of altruism and solidarity play a much greater and

effective role. Indeed, there is every reason to think that the attempt to impose

the norms and values of the market on these other organizations would be

disastrous. Society requires both the extended order of the market and the

various sub-orders that compose it even though, as Hayek warned, the attempt

to navigate both worlds simultaneously can lead to difficulties:

If we were to apply the unmodified, uncurbed, rules of the micro-cosmos

(i.e. of the small band or troop, or of, say, our families) to the macro-

cosmos (our wider civilisation), as our instincts and sentimental yearnings

often make us wish to do, we would destroy it. Yet if we were always to apply

the rules of the extended order to our more intimate groupings, we would

crush them. So we must learn to live in two sorts of world at once.65

So, libertarians do not support turning everything into a market. But nor do

they support every institution that we call a market today. After all,

65Friedrich A. Hayek and W.W. Bartley III, The Fatal Conceit: The Errors ofSocialism(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988), 18.


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libertarians supportfree markets, and many if not most real world markets are

rigged in ways that systematically advantage certain classes to the disadvantage of

others.66

We shall have much more to say about such rigging in chapter four. But

before we discuss the cases in which libertarians dont support markets, we

ought to say at least a little bit about the reasons why they often do. As with

each of the other characteristics, libertarians reach their conclusions about

markets by a variety of different routes. But we can broadly, and roughly, divide

the arguments in to two categories.

In the first category are arguments that make reference to the beneficial

consequences of free markets. The most important single argument of this sort

is based on the mutually beneficial nature of market exchange. Because both

parties must consent in order for a market exchange to take place, such

exchanges will generally be mutually beneficialin the sense that both parties will

walk away with something that they value more than whatever they gave up.

This fact establishes a very strong moral presumption against third parties(including governments) blocking or interfering with those exchanges. And, on

a larger scale, it is this fact that accounts for the ability of market economies to

create wealth on a massive scale. There basic physical building blocks of the

universe might be finite, but wealth is not, since wealth is a function of how

that stuff is arranged to satisfy our wants, not merely how much of it there is.

The consequentialist case for free markets can be fleshed out by Hayeksarguments on the ability of market prices to convey dispersed information to

66See, for a discussion, Charles W. Johnson, "Markets Freed from Capitalism," inMarketsNot Capitalism, ed. Gary Chartier and Charles W. Johnson(New York: MinorCompositions, 2010).


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market actors in a decentralized manner,67by Deirdre McCloskeys work on the

bourgeois virtues fostered by market societies,68by Tyler Cowens research

on the beneficial effects of markets on art and culture,69and other sources that

will be discussed throughout this book.

But the libertarian support for markets, like the libertarian support for

property, is based not only on appeals to consequences but on an appeal to

justice. Part of that appeal, of course, is based on the underlying justice of

property rights themselves. After all, if you owns something and would like to

trade it in exchange for something that one desires more, why should anyone

else have the right to stop you? What grounds could there possibly be forforbidding capitalist acts between consenting adults, at least when those acts

are voluntary and do not violate the rights of third parties?70Markets, then,

embody justice insofar as they respect a persons ownership over her person

and her rightful possessions. To this basic case, libertarians have added a host

of subsidiary ones, such as the role of markets in embodying and promoting

reciprocity, in satisfying norms of desert, in instituting a relation among

persons as free and equal, in satisfying standards of social justice, and in

meeting peoples basic needs.71

67Hayek, "The Use of Knowledge in Society."68Deirdre N. McCloskey, The Bourgeois Virtues: Ethics for an Age of Commerce(Chicago:University of Chicago Press, 2006).69Tyler Cowen,In Praise of Commercial Culture(Harvard University Press, 1998).70The characteristically delightful phrase comes from Nozick,Anarchy, State, and Utopia,163.71On markets and equality, see Roderick Long, "Equality: The Unknown Ideal," MisesDaily. On markets and social justice, see John Tomasi,Free Market Fairness(Princeton:Princeton University Press, 2011). And for a discussion of markets and need, reciprocity,equality, and desert, see David Schmidtz,Elements of Justice(Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, 2006).


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Spontaneous Order

The fourth characteristic of libertarianism is a belief in the explanatory

power and normative significance of spontaneous orders. Like social theorists

of any political stripe, libertarians recognize the importance of organization and

coordination in social life. But what sets libertarians apart is their belief that

such order can be, and usually ought to be, allowed to evolve from the bottom

up through the peaceful interactions of individuals, rather than being imposed

coercively by a technocratic elite. Order is bestgrown, not made. And it is

something that emerges, often in unanticipated ways, rather than something that

is designedin advance.

Suppose you wanted to design a college campus, and were trying to

decide where the sidewalks ought to go.72One way to go about this task would

be to think in advance about where people were likely to want to go, and to

place your sidewalks so as to make travel between those places as efficient as

possible. This is order by design. An alternative approach would be to wait to

see where students wear down the lawn, and put the sidewalks there. This isorder by emergence.

Spontaneous orders are those which, in the words of the Scottish moral

philosopher Adam Ferguson [1767], arise as the result of human action, but

not the execution of any human design.73Like the pathways across the

campus lawn, such orders arise out of the intentional actions of human agents.

But no agent designed or evenforesaw the overall order that resulted from heraction and those of the many other individuals who participated in the process.

72The example has been attributed to Gary Wolfram. See Gus DiZerega, "TimothySandefurs Criticism of Spontaneous Order," Studies in Emergent Order(2009).73Adam Ferguson,An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Part III, section II. See alsoFriedrich A. Hayek, "Kinds of Order in Society,"New Individualist Review3, no. 2 (1964).


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The vocabulary and grammar of language is an example of spontaneous order.

No one decided that Google would become a verb, and attempts to design

more logical languages from scratch have had little success. The use of

certain commodities such as gold as a medium of exchange in a bartereconomy is another example.74

Perhaps the most famous example of a spontaneous order, however, is

Adam Smiths description of the process of wealth creation in a market

economy. Individual actors in such an economy, Smith noted, do not intend to

make their society rich. In buying low and selling high, each agent intends only

to make himselfwealthier. But because his own wealth can only be increased byselling individuals goods that they value more than the money they pay for it,

he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an

end that was no part of his intention. Nor is it always the worse for the society

that it was no part of it. By pursuing his own interest he frequently promotes

that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote

it.75

Since the time of Smith and Ferguson, libertarians have taken the

concept of spontaneous order and run with it, finding examples in the

evolution of property rights,76of common law,77of the rules of pirate ships,78

74See, for a discussion, Carl Menger,Principles of Economics(Institute for Humane Studies,1976), 257-62.75Adam Smith,An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Edwin Cannan,ed., (London: Methuen, 1904). Vol. 1., CHAPTER II: OF RESTRAINTS UPON THEIMPORTATION FROM FOREIGN COUNTRIES OF SUCH GOODS AS CAN BEPRODUCED AT HOME76property77See, for a discussion, John Hasnas, "Toward a Theory of Empirical Natural Rights,"Social Philosophy and Policy22, no. 1 (2005).78Peter T. Leeson, The Invisible Hook: The Hidden Economics of Pirates(Cambridge Univ Press,2009).


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and of the state itself.79As the examples have multiplied, however, the basic

concept of spontaneity has sometimes seemed less than fully clear.80Can a state

really be a spontaneous order if part of its evolution involves the violent

imposition of rules upon recalcitrant individuals? Can Wikipedia really be aspontaneous order if the resulting product a reliable reference source was a

predetermined goal of that was then consciously and deliberately pursued by

the individuals who contributed to it?

To answer these questions, it is useful to follow Charles Johnson in

distinguishing between three different ways in which order can be

spontaneous.81

An order can be spontaneous in the sense of being 1) consensualrather than coerced, 2)polycentric rather than directive, or 3) emergentrather than

consciously designed. Some orders, such as the network of pathways on the

college campus, are spontaneous in all three senses. They arise from the

consensual activities of different individuals; those individuals act on their own

independent judgment; and the resulting pattern is not part of the intention of

any of the individuals who contribute to them. But orders can be consensual

without being emergent (Wikipedia), polycentric without being consensual (the

common law), and so on.

Thus, when libertarians discuss the spontaneity of market orders, they

do so both in order to stress the voluntary nature of those orders, and in order

to point the way in which those orders exceed in many ways the power of

conscious human understanding. Even a lowly No. 2 pencil, Leonard Read

noted, results from such a complex amalgamation of human activity---

79See Nozick,Anarchy, State, and Utopia, part 1.80See, for a discussion of some of the conceptual difficulties, Timothy Sandefur, "SomeProblems with Spontaneous Order," The Independent Review14, no. 1 (2009).81Charles W. Johnson, "Women and the Invisible Fist,"(2013).


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lumberjacks, miners, metal-workers, chemists, accountants, lawyers, etc.--- that

there is literally not a single person on the face of this earth who knows

everything it takes to make one.82Likewise, there is no single person or group

of persons in charge of the diverse and intricate set of predictions, plans, andactions necessary to feed the citizens of a complex metropolis like Paris. And

yet the people of Paris are fed, and fed well.83When dealing with complex

systems, from ecosystems to market economies, the attempt to impose a

consciously designed order from above often backfires, and the unavoidable

narrowness of our perspective and knowledge causes our interventions to yield

82

Leonard E. Read, "I, Pencil: My Family Tree as Told to Leonard E. Read," Library ofEconomics and Liberty, http://www.econlib.org/library/Essays/rdPncl1.html.83On coming to Paris for a visit, I said to myself: Here are a million human beings whowould all die in a few days if supplies of all sorts did not flow into this great metropolis. Itstaggers the imagination to try to comprehend the vast multiplicity of objects that mustpass through its gates tomorrow, if its inhabitants are to be preserved from the horrors offamine, insurrection, and pillage. And yet all are sleeping peacefully at this moment,without being disturbed for a single instant by the idea of so frightful a prospect. On theother hand, eighty departments have worked today, without co-operative planning ormutual arrangements, to keep Paris supplied. How does each succeeding day manage tobring to this gigantic market just what is necessaryneither too much nor too little?

What, then, is the resourceful and secret power that governs the amazing regularity ofsuch complicated movements, a regularity in which everyone has such implicit faith,although his prosperity and his very life depend upon it? That power is an absolute principle,the principle of free exchange. We put our faith in that inner light which Providence hasplaced in the hearts of all men, and to which has been entrusted the preservation and theunlimited improvement of our species, a light we term self-interest,which is so illuminating,so constant, and so penetrating, when it is left free of every hindrance. Where would yoube, inhabitants of Paris, if some cabinet minister decided to substitute for that powercontrivances of his own invention, however superior we might suppose them to be; if heproposed to subject this prodigious mechanism to his supreme direction, to take control ofall of it into his own hands, to determine by whom, where, how, and under what

conditions everything should be produced, transported, exchanged, and consumed?Although there may be much suffering within your walls, although misery, despair, andperhaps starvation, cause more tears to flow than your warmhearted charity can wipeaway, it is probable, I dare say it is certain, that the arbitrary intervention of thegovernment would infinitely multiply this suffering and spread among all of you the illsthat now affect only a small number of your fellow citizens. Frdric Bastiat, "There AreNo Absolute Principles," inEconomic Sophisms(Irvington-On-Hudson, NY: Foundation forEconomic Education, 1964).


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consequences that we never intended, and did not desire.84

Individualism

Libertarians are individualists through and through: ontologically,

normatively, and politically. Ontologically, libertarians hold that individuals are

the ultimate unit of analysis, and not groups like races, communities, or nations.

Only individuals are agents capable of choice, only individuals are the sites of

moral value, and only individuals can truly bear rights and responsibilities.85

Libertarians do not deny that groups exist and that they play an important rolein our lives. But they insist that when we talk, for instance, of the government

of the United States choosing a policy in order to benefit its citizens, this is

mere shorthand for what is really going on. Some particular individuals with

political power made choices that benefitted some other people (and likely

harmed some others).

Libertarianism is normatively individualistic in that it insists that eachpersons life if valuable in itself. According to libertarians, the value of every

persons life is situated in the person living that life, rather than being situated

in some group of which that individual is a member. As a moral matter,

libertarians say, it is the interests or preferences of individuals---not those of

groups---with which we must always be concerned.

84Though he does not use the terminology, James C. Scotts Seeing Like a Stateserves as auseful study in the contrast between spontaneous and nonspontaneous orders, and hisopening chapter on scientific forest management in Germany provides a poignantexample of the unintended consequences that can arise from the attempt to impose alogical design on a complex ecosystem. James C. Scott, Seeing Like a State: How CertainSchemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998).85See, for a discussion, Mack and Gaus, "Classical Liberalism and Libertarianism: TheLiberty Tradition," 116.


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Because of their commitment to normative individualism, libertarians

tend to think that responsibility for the well-being of each individual resides

ultimately those individuals themselves. People write the stories of their lives

through the choices and efforts they themselves make. So too, normativeindividualism leads libertarians to deny that individuals can be sacrificed for the

greater good. Libertarians resist policies that would impose costs on

individuals, however few, in the attempt to generate greater benefits for some

group, however large.86Finally, normative individualism also sets libertarians on

a course to oppose victimless crimes. If prostitution, drug-taking, or

unorthodox sexual behaviors are to be outlawed, for example, such activities

must be shown to be badfor someone more specifically, to be bad for

someone in a way that violates their rights. To limit the freedom of individuals

in these areas, it is not enough to claim that such activities constitute a kind of

free floating evil, or that they harm the interests (or offend the sensibility) of

the community or group. For libertarians, groups have no basic moral standing:

only individuals do.

86Nozicks account of libertarianism inAnacrhy, State, and Utopiawas famously criticized byThomas Nagel for simply assuming the truth of libertarian rights and failing to providethem with any moral foundation. See Thomas Nagel, "Libertarianism withoutFoundations," Yale Law Journal85(1975). But Nozick actually did provide at least a sketchof a foundation. In a crucial passage, for instance, he addresses the issue of social trade-offs as follows: there is no social entity with a good that undergoes sacrifice for its owngood. There are only individual people, different individual people, with their ownindividual lives. Using one of these people for the benefit of others, uses him and benefitsthe others. Nothing moreTo use a person in this way does not sufficiently respect and

take account of the fact that he is a separate person, that his is the only life he has.Hedoes not get some overbalancing good from his sacrifice, and no one is entitled to forcethis upon him. Nozick,Anarchy, State, and Utopia, 32-33. Interestingly, John Rawls appealsto this very same idea as part of the moral foundation of his liberal-egalitarian account inA Theory of Justice, 27. How the same moral idea could be developed in such strikinglydifferent political directions is something of a puzzle. See, for a discussion, MattZwolinski, "The Separateness of Persons and Liberal Theory,"Journal of Value Inquiry42,no. 2 (2008).


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Finally, libertarians are politically individualistic. Part of what this means

is simply that libertarians want their political institutions to reflect the moral

significance of individuals by enforcing a regime of exclusively libertarian

rights. But libertarians are also individualistic in the way they understand thenature and grounding ofpolitical authority. For, libertarians believe that political

authority is something that must be justified to each individual as a separate

person. For, as Locke pointed out in his Second Treatise, there is nothing more

evident than

that creatures of the same species and rank, promiscuously born to all

the same advantages of nature, and the use of the same faculties, shouldalso be equal one amongst another without subordination or subjection,

unless the lord and master of them all should, by any manifest

declaration of his will, set one above another, and confer on him, by an

evident and clear appointment, an undoubted right to dominion and

sovereignty.87

Since there exists no natural or divine authority among men, the onlyway by which any human being can come to have authority over another is by

justifyingit, and justifying it to the person over whom he claims authority. In

traditional social contract theory, a doctrine to which many libertarians are

attracted, justification is obtained only upon receipt of the actual express

consent of the governed. Some contemporary libertarians soften this doctrine

somewhat to allow that authority might be justified when it is in the interestof

the governed, even if they have not explicitly consented. But that even this

lowered hurdle is still a relatively difficult one to clear is shown by the

attraction that philosophical anarchism holds to so many libertarians.

87Locke, Second Treatise, chapter 2, paragraph 4.


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Cosmopolitanism

Partly as a consequence of their individualism, libertarians ascribe littlemoral significance to the existence of national boundaries. Individuals,

libertarians believe, have the same basic moral status no matter where (or

when) they reside. Governments have legitimate political power (if they can

have it at all) only insofar as theyprotect those rights. They are therefore morally

forbidden from violating the individual rights of their own citizens. But they

are equally forbidden from violating the rights of noncitizens, whether they

reside within the nations borders or without.

The libertarian position on international relations can thus be

understood by simply pretending that nations dont exist at all, and thinking

about the ways that it would permissible or impermissible for individuals to treat

each other. If A and B are trading partners, would B be acting within his rights

to employ physical violence to stop C from taking Bs place? If not, then why

would it be permissible when states do it and call it protectionism?88If A and

B dont like living around people who speak some different language, could

they legitimately use physical violence to stop C from renting his house to D,

who speaks that language? If not, then why would it be OK for states to do it

and call it an immigration restriction?89If A wants Bs land, can he kill him

for it? Can he kill C because C inconveniently stands in between A and B,

88The 19thcentury French economist Frdric Bastiat was fond of (and famous for) usingsuch micro-level arguments to demonstrate the folly of protectionism. See, in particular,the essays collected in hisEconomic Sophisms(Irvington-on-Hudson, NY: Foundation forEconomic Education, 1964).89This style of argument is employed by the libertarian philosopher Michael Huemerthroughout his article, "Is There a Right to Immigrate?," Social Theory and Practice36, no. 3(2010).


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whom A wants to kill? Can A kill 25% of the people who live in the same city

as D, just to stop D from unjustly attacking A?90If not, then why would it be

permissible for states to do these things, and call them acts of war?

Libertarians are thus skeptical of the nationalistic sentiments that have

led so many to be willing to sacrifice individual rights especially the individual

rights of the other for the sake of the nation. Thats not to say that libertarians

can never be patriots. But when they are, it is a guarded and somewhat abstract

patriotism. Ayn Rand, for instance, wrote that the United States of America is

the greatest, the noblest and, in its original founding principles, the only moral

country in the history of the world.91

But as the quotation suggests, Randspatriotism was a product of and limited by her judgment that the U.S better

satisfied the requirements of a timeless morality than any other country. When

those requirements are violated, libertarians have generally felt little need to

stick up for their country right or wrong, and had little respect for those who

do. Thus Herbert Spencer was only being unusually (though characteristically)

blunt when he wrote, in a short discussion of patriotism and military service,

that when men hire themselves out to shoot other men to order, asking

nothing about the justice of their cause, I dont care if they are shot

themselves.92

A libertarian world order would thus be one characterized by free trade,

free migration, and peace. For those libertarians who base their theory on a

belief in natural rights, these doctrines are simply the logical consequence of

90It is estimated that approximately 66,000 out of the 255,000 residents of Hiroshima,roughly 26%, were killed by the atomic bomb dropped by the United States in 1945.91Ayn Rand, "Philosophy: Who Needs It?," inPhilosophy: Who Needs It?(New York: Signet,1984).92Herbert Spencer, "Patriotism," inFacts and Comments(New York: D. Appleton andCompany, 1902).


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respecting those rights consistently, for all human beings regardless of

nationality. And for those libertarians who ground their doctrine on

considerations of expediency, the same generalizations that make peaceful,

voluntary cooperation a good policy within a nation also make it a good onebetween nations.

Libertarians thus disagree with those on the left who celebrate open

migration but condemn free trade. And they disagree with those on the right

who think free trade is a great idea except when it comes to the free trade of

labor across borders. For libertarians, the immorality of protectionism, closed

borders, and war all rest on the more fundamental immorality of usingaggressive violence to achieve the states goals at the expense of individual

freedom. Those who reject such violence, libertarians argue, should reject it

consistently, for all policies, and for all persons across the board.

Varieties of Libertarianism

If libertarianism is a family defined by a combination of the six

characteristics described in the previous section, we should not be surprised to

find significant variation among the members of that family, depending on

precisely how those characteristics are interpreted and combined. In this section,

we explore three dimensions of variation within the libertarian family:

variations in the object of libertarian belief, variation in the moral ground of

libertarian belief, and variation in theform of libertarian belief.

Variations in Object: Thick vs. Thin Libertarianism


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So far in this chapter our focus has been on describing what we see as

the six defining characteristics of libertarian theory. But what, exactly, is

libertarianism a theory of? What is its proper object, or domain?

The answer to this question might seem obvious. Libertarianism is a

political theory, and so its object or domain is the realm ofpolitics.

Libertarianism is a theory about the proper size and scope of the state: one that

tells us that the state ought to be limited to (at most) protecting peoples rights

to life and property, and prohibited from otherwise interfering in peoples

economic, religious, or personal choices.

But the inadequacy of this characterization becomes clear once we give it

a moments thought. Libertarians do, it is true, characteristically think the state

ought to do no more than protect peoples negative, individual rights, and that

it would be wrong for the state to, say, engage in the large scale transfer of

wealth from some citizens to others.

But why? Libertarians come to their conclusions about the proper size

and scope of the state for a reason. But what is that reason? For many

libertarians, the reason is to be found in an underlying theory of individual rights.

It is wrong for the state to force us to practice a certain religion, or to take away

our property without our consent, because each of us has a right not to be

aggressed upon in certain ways. The state is bound to respect and protect those

rights, and is forbidden from violating them.

But if this is the reason offered by the libertarian, then libertarianism

isntjust about the proper size and scope about the state. For, after all, if it is

wrong for the state to do certain things because they would violate individual

rights, then it is wrong for anyone to do those things. Even Murray Rothbard,

who once wrote that the distinctive element of his work and that of other


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radical libertarians was a a deep and pervasive hatred of the State and all of its

works, based on the conviction that the State is the enemy of mankind,

sometimes recognized that anti-statism was not the sole or even the primary

focus of libertarian thought.93

Thus, he once wrote that

libertarians had misled themselves by making their main dichotomy

"government" vs. "private" with the former bad and the latter good

What we libertarians object to is not government per se but crime,

what we object to is unjust or criminal property titles; what we are for is

not "private" property per se but just, innocent, non-criminal private

property. It is justice vs. injustice, innocence vs. criminality that must beour major libertarian focus.94

As we will see below, not all libertarians base their political conclusions

in an underlying moral theory of natural rights. Some libertarians come to their

beliefs by way of an economic analysis of markets and of politics. For these

libertarians, the kinds of considerations that lead them to conclude that policies

of taxation and redistribution are generally wrong (e.g. considerations about theinefficiency of bureaucracy, or of state aid) might apply only to the state, and

not to the action of private individuals.

For most libertarians, however, libertarianism will be a theory about

something more than just the state, as such. For those in the Rothbardian

natural rights tradition, libertarianism is fundamentally a theory about property

93Murray N. Rothbard, "Do You Hate the State?," The Libertarian Forum10, no. 7 (1977).94"Confiscation and the Homestead Principle," The Libertarian Forum1, no. 4 (1969).


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rights and the proper use of force. Conclusions about the statefollow from this

fundamental theory, but do not constitute the core of it.95

For some, the object of libertarian theory is even broader than this.

Charles Johnson, for instance, argues that we should understand libertarianism

as a thick doctrine rather than as a thin one about the use of force alone.96

After all, whatever moral, economic, and other kinds of reasons libertarians

draw on to support their political views will inevitably be ones that have

implications beyond libertarianism itself. They will, in other words, also be

reasons for endorsing other values, projects, and cultural practices beyond

strictly political ones. Similarly, the practical realization of libertarian politicalinstitutions might turn out to depend on people holding certain moral beliefs

or engaging in certain cultural practices. In either of these cases, a libertarian

would have reasons qua libertarian to endorse certain values, ideas, or practices

beyond the narrow scope of politics.

To illustrate the difference between thick and thin libertarianism,

consider the issue of interracial marriage an issue that, in most places in theUnited States, is no longer an issue at all but an ordinary feature of everyday

life. Is the spread and cultural acceptance of interracial marriage something that

libertarians qua libertarians should celebrate? In their recent book on libertarian

politics, Reason Magazine editors Nick Gillespie and Matt Welch say that it is.

95Thus the libertarian periodicalLiberty was not changing the subject when it polled itsreaders about various aspects of libertarian thought, including questions about the moralpermissibility of a number of individual actions, such as whether someone who fell off thebalcony of a 50 story building and managed to catch a flagpole on the way down wouldbe justified in trespassing across the flagpole owners property. See "The Liberty Poll:Who We Are and What We Think,"Liberty, July 1988.96Charles W. Johnson, "Libertarianism through Thick and Thin," inMarkets NotCapitalism, ed. Gary Chartier and Charles W. Johnson(New York, NY: MinorCompositions, 2008).


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Libertarianism is about freedom and personal choice, and so when choice is

expanded whether because of an increase in political liberty or because of a

liberalization of cultural attitudes this is something that libertarians as such

ought to celebrate.97

In his review of the book, however, the libertarian criticDavid Gordon expressed skepticism. What do you think of interracial

marriage? It would be hard, offhand, to think of a question less relevant to

libertarianism, as usually understood. Of course, no one has the right forcibly

to prevent such marriages. What more need a libertarian say about this issue?98

Or consider some of the different ways in which the six characteristics

of libertarian thought might be interpreted. Should libertarians limit theirskepticism of authority topolitical authority? Or are (many of) the same

considerations that underlie that skepticism also good reasons for being

skeptical of parental, aesthetic, or ecclesiastical authorities?99

To consider a case in somewhat more detail, consider the libertarian

appreciation of spontaneous order. Thin and thick libertarians alike draw on

this concept to argue that government intervention in culture and the economyought to be limited or forbidden. But should libertarians qua libertarians draw

any implications beyond this political one? Many libertarians are cultural

optimists, believing that technological advances and cultural changes are

97Nick Gillespie and Matt Welch, The Declaration of Independents: How Libertarian Politics CanFix What's Wrong with America(New York: Public Affairs, 2011).98David Gordon, "A Political Philosophy or a Social Attitude?,"

http://www.lewrockwell.com/1970/01/david-gordon/a-political-philosophy-or-a-social-attitude/.99Whether skepticism about governmental authority rationally entails skepticism aboutother forms of authority or not, at least one study purports to show that libertarians are asa matter of psychological fact significantly more skeptical than average about the moralrelevance of authority as a general matter, and not just when it comes to politics. SeeRavi Iyer et al., "Understanding Libertarian Morality: The Psychological Dispositions ofSelf-Identified Libertarians,"PloS one7, no. 8 (2012).


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generally working to make life better, not worse.100Is this merely a coincidence?

Or is there something within libertarianism itself that leads libertarians to take

an optimistic stance regarding, say, the impact of new technologies such as

Facebook and text messaging on human relationships and sociality? A thicklibertarian is likely to think that there is. New technologies, it is true, destroy

old ways of pursuing and expressing certain kinds of values. But one of the

insights that comes from thinking about spontaneous order is that people find

ways of adapting new technologies to their lives, and using them to find new

and better ways of giving their lives meaning. From the bottom up, they mold

technology to enrich their

zwolinski - a brief history of libertarianism

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