E.G.

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Libertarianism and land #1.

As I understand it, the libertarian view on government, at least in its most extreme form, is that persons have an absolute right to dispose of themselves and the fruits of their labor however they please — and that no other considerations, however compelling they may seem, will ever justifying a government’s violating that right.  Let’s call this the "libertarian principle."

I have libertarian sympathies.  I believe that people do have the "absolute right" described in the libertarian principle, and believe that whenever it is violated, something bad has happened.  But I have a problem when I evaluate cases like this one:

A boy is trapped in the well.  Old Man Johnson has the only rope in town; it’s sitting in his barn, unused.  But he’s a stubborn fool and won’t allow us to use the rope to save the boy — he says he "might need it later."  So in order to save the boy, we have to steal Old Man Johnson’s rope. 

I, for one, would steal Old Man Johnson’s rope in this case.  And so, I suppose, would anyone sane; the costs of the "libertarian principle" are just too high in this case.  But this opens a floodgate: If considerations about human welfare can trump the libertarian principle, then why not abandon the libertarian principle altogether and just maximize human welfare?  "How bad off would obedience to the libertarian principle have to make people in order to justify violating it?"  I don’t see a principled way to answer that latter question.  So, despite my "initial" sympathy for the libertarian perspective, I am set drifting toward the opposite shore by "boy in the well"-style cases — cases in which the libertarian outlook disallows the very action which absolutely must be performed.

I don’t think it’s possible to reconcile all considerations about human well-being with the libertarian principle.  Sadly, I think that if you’re going to be a consistent libertarian, you’re going to have to let a certain number of boys in wells die.  But I think it’s possible to supplement the libertarian principle in such a way that comparatively fewer boys in wells die than one might think.  Over the course of two or three posts, scattered over the next few days, I’m going to try to do this. 

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One response to “Libertarianism and land #1.”

  1. Egarwaen Avatar
    Egarwaen

    The way I look at it, which probably comes from my computer science/mathematical background, is that libertarian principles provide a good “base case”. In general, allowing people liberty will produce good decisions that, while not maximizing human welfare, at least provide reasonable amounts of welfare and can be easily logically/morally justified.
    However, in some cases, like the boy stuck down the well, libertarian principles fall short. They assume, based on my readings, that everyone will have perfect information about the consequences of their actions and make perfectly logical choices that maximize their welfare, and that this will maximize everyone’s welfare. Libertarians assume that Old Man Johnson doesn’t exist. The problem is that humans don’t have perfect information, nor are humans especially rational.
    This, in turn, is why we need government, and why we must surrender some of our liberty to government in an effort to minimize the effect of the cases where the libertarian principle fails. For example, we allow government to regulate industry so that hidden costs not directly handled by our market system – like environmental pollution or worker abuse – are applied to the company. And so that abusive monopolies are broken to preserve the competition the market model assumes is present.

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