Simon's World

Libertarianism redux

After reading the answer from Steve from http://livefreeorgripe.wordpress.com/ to my earlier post on libertarianism (here), I thought my answer really deserved a separate post.

My general problem with libertarianism isn’t that it seeks to expand the scope of individual freedom – this I wholeheartedly agree with. Rather, it’s the fact that libertarians have limited the idea of individual liberty to freedom from government coercion. My way of thinking is that in most cases this is an insufficient approach, and in some a completely counterproductive one.

As long as we choose to live in society, the concept of total, unfettered liberty is a Utopian dream. What there is is a delicate balance of power relationships between the individual and others members of society. There really are two types of interactions – individual-to-individual and individual-to-group. For the sake of this argument I’ll stick to relations between individuals and groups, though groups are obviously themselves composed of individuals, no matter how monolithic they may appear.

In dealing with groups, an individual is generally at a disadvantage – groups by their very nature have more power, and this is the main reason why they are formed in the first place. The bigger the group, generally the more powerful it is. The power of a group over an individual is also directly related to the amount of influence it has over the individual’s material and emotional well-being. In my mind, there is really no substantive difference between the government and any other group exercising its power over an individual – the difference lies entirely in its magnitude.

In his post Steve rightly points out that businesses do not have many of the powers vested in most governments – to imprison, to prosecute, to dispossess, sometimes to kill. However, this is only a question of the balance between their power against those of others – in a completely unregulated world (i.e. anarchy) the power vacuum would soon be filled by groups that, unfettered by government power, would assume many of those prerogatives themselves.

The second issue is one I’ve mentioned before, but one that bears repeating: for me personal liberty is not some abstract idea, but rather the sum total of real opportunities for action open to the individual. Theoretical freedom is worthless if, for instance, economic conditions make it impossible for you to take advantage of it.

Now I don’t know about anybody else, but I’m not of a mind to get back to the sweatshop-ridden, child-laboring, subsistence-wage, laissez-faire capitalism of the 19th century. On the other hand, I’ve had more than my share of experiences as an entrepreneur and employer set upon by a burgeoning bureaucracy to know that totalizing government regulation is not the way to go, either. For me, the question is how to maximize real individual freedom not by limiting one side of the power equation, but by balancing all sides of it so as to have them leave the most opportunities for action to the individual.

Related posts:

1. Libertarianism and power
2. More deep thoughts on libertarianism