Thirteen Things That Are Wrong With Libertarianism

Yes, right libertarianism (or more correctly, propertarianism) is becoming more popular with those in I.T. and the “new economy” types, but I, for one, am not impressed.

As J.K. Galbraith said, “…[the libertarian] is engaged in one of man’s oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness“.

Regardless of the morality of the thing, there are plenty of other reasons to dislike Libertarianism. Here are thirteen:

1. Libertarianism is highly axiomatic: There’s a set of rules to be applied to evaluate what is proper, and the outcome given is the answer which is correct in terms of the moral principle of the theory. This leads to quite a few tortured ‘terms of art’ in libertarian thought since, due to it’s axiomatic nature, the libertarian rhetoric cannot survive counter-factual arguments.
2. Non-Initiation of Force: Libertarians claim to believe that ” No person should initiate the use of force against another person.” Fine and dandy, except that what they really mean is “No person should do something improper according to Libertarian ideology“. For instance, government collecting taxes is “initiation of force”, governments enforcing contracts is not…
3. Negative Rights: Libertarian thought is based almost entirely on the concept of negative rights (freedom from…). There is little discussion of positive rights (freedom to…) in libertarian rhetoric. This type of empty Formalism makes for good sound bites, but does little to articulate a firm deontic position. Ruling out positive rights as a matter or principle create an argument by counter-factual: If negative rights are to be significant, then there must be a positive duty to protect and uphold them, transforming them into positive rights.
4. Non-Autonomous Sentient Beings: Libertarianism asserts that each autonomous agent initially fully owns herself and that agents have moral power to acquire property rights in natural resources and artifacts. What is the status of non-autonomous beings—such as children and many animals—that have moral standing (e.g., because sentient)? One possible reply is to deny that there are any non-autonomous beings wth moral standing (e.g., because only beings capable of having moral duties—agents—are owed any duties). Non-autonomous beings are simply things to be used. As such, they can be the full private property of agents. Few people, however, will accept that position. Children are not the full private property of their parents. Dogs may not be tortured for fun. Another possibility is to hold that non-autonomous sentient beings are also full self-owners, where the rights involved are understood as protecting their interests rather than their choices (see, for example, Vallentyne 2002). This, of course, would have the wild implication that rats are protected by rights of self-ownership. Perhaps there is some plausible intermediate position, but if so, it has not yet been developed adequately.
5. Historicism: According to libertarianism, the justice of the current distribution of legal rights over resources depends on what the past was like. Given that the history of the world is full of systematic violence (genocide, invasion, murder, assault, theft, etc.), we can be sure that the current distribution of legal rights over resources did not come about justly and that adequate reparations have not been made. At the same time, however, we have little knowledge of the specific rights violations that took place in the past (e.g., we have little knowledge of all but the most egregious rights violations that took place more than one hundred years ago). Thus, we have little knowledge of what justice today requires. The epistemic problem confronting libertarianism is similar to that confronting utilitarianism and other consequentialist theories. Consequentialist theories require knowledge of the entire future that will result from each possible action, and we have very little such knowledge. Libertarianism requires knowledge of the entire past, and we also have very little such knowledge. The appropriate answer in both cases is that the facts determine what is just, and we should simply make out best judgements about what is just based on what we know. Moral reality is complex, and it’s not surprising that it’s extremely difficult to know what is permissible.
6. “Natural” Rights: That there are such things as rights anterior to the establishment of governments: for natural, as applied to rights, if it mean anything, is meant to stand in opposition to legal — to such rights as are acknowledged to owe their existence to government, and are consequently posterior in their date to the establishment of government… That which has no existence cannot be destroyed — that which cannot be destroyed cannot require anything to preserve it from destruction. Natural rights is simple nonsense: natural and imprescriptible rights, rhetorical nonsense, — nonsense upon stilts. (Bentham, 1843).
7. Free Markets & Freedom From Coercion: Libertarians claim that the only economic order that respects individual freedom, is the free market. According to libertarians the free market is the sum of the voluntary exchanges, and contracts going on in a society, nothing more and nothing less. Any distribution that occurs in the operation of a free market, is therefore just since at no stage has anyone’s rights been violated, and all the exchanges were voluntary. The people involved in a free market must accept the rules of its operation, namely the rules that forbid attacks on others, using another’s property without their consent, trespass, and fraud. This means that the free market has to include the mechanisms for deterring crimes, and mechanisms for compensation and punishment should such crimes be committed. The amount of coercion required to prevent such crimes, depends on the level of acquiescence of the population to the free market rules. For a libertarian to claim that a libertarian society is totally free in this sense, and justify it by saying that they expect everyone to respect property rights in this way, is on a par with a socialist claiming that a socialist society is free from coercion, because they expect everyone to be willing to accept the socialist’s laws.
8. Enrichez vous!: If we take liberty to be the freedom from coercion, then this implies that the amount of property determines the amount of freedom you have, something which libertarians would explicitly deny. It also determines that property becomes the concept which determines what liberty is. Without property, you are completely subject to the whims/wishes of others, a state which I do not consider to be one of freedom.
9. Circular Arguments: Libertarian arguments mix the consequentalist (teleological) and the nonconsequentialist (deontological). The first is the province of free-market economists and other social scientists, who contend that laissez—faire capitalism produces desirable consequences. The second is the realm of libertarian philosophers, who contend that because of its intrinsic justice, laissez—faire is desirable a priori, regardless of its consequences. These two kinds of reasoning render each other superfluous. If libertarian philosophy is valid, there is no need to investigate the empirical consequences of laissez—faire. And if the a posteriori consequences of laissez—faire need to be investigated, then there is no need for a priori libertarian philosophy.
10. Anti-Democratic: Libertarians I have spoken to, and most I have read, rail against “mob rule”, usually along some variation of “Mob rule isn’t any prettier merely because the mob calls itself a government.” Corporate feudalism isn’t any prettier merely because the corporations prattle about free markets. Strawmen are SO easy to create. A landed aristocracy which derives its liberty and power from property ownership is bound to be a bit upset at the idea of the unpropertied voting. Seems no different even if you call it “libertarianism”.
11. Rational Choice Theory: Libertarians claim that without beginning from an assumption of humans as rational actors, there is no basis for the development of any coherent theory of political organization or rights. Typically rational choice theorists either ignore or recycle conventional wisdom through their models or they specify the models so vaguely as to render them compatible with every possible outcome. Often this vagueness is obscured by intimidating mathematics, creating a misleading appearance of rigor.
12. Moral Autonomy: Except in all instances of disagreement with practices in the ‘free market’ of course. In a libertarian world, no one has the moral autonomy to question or oppose the ‘free market’. I fail to see how elevating a new moral authority (the market) is a critique or repudiation of the concept of moral authorities (governments).
13. Process Legitimizes Outcome: Libertarians believe that there is no such thing as distributive justice in the normal sense. To them, the outcome of the ‘free market’ as they define it is always just, regardless of what that outcome is. Thus a libertarian cannot oppose racial, sexual or any other form of discrimination if they are the result of the market. Personal feelings about such circumstances must be treated as wrong-headed if such circumstances emerged as the result of a libertarian ‘free market’ society.