A Short Defense of the Philosophy of Liberty

Here I would like to deal with just a couple of the responses you typically would receive in trying to explain liberty, at least if you have the (mis)fortune to discuss the philosophy of liberty with a communist or fellow traveler.

There is a good short animated video (8 minutes) that presents the philosophical basis of the argument for a world without enforced mass coercion, taxation, and war.   Chances are you could have a real discussion if they were to actually watch it.  However, we will here deal with a typical verbal conversation between two people.

"What, no taxation?!"

Indeed, there ought not to be any taxes (even on the oft-hated "rich").  For one thing, to what advantage is it to confiscate money from some and put it in less productive and less efficient hands (those of the government)?

Furthermore, why can't people voluntarily get together to meet their needs and wants?  Why must there exist a gun-wielding middle-man?  People in society have a natural diversity in talent and level of productivity--- and what one has to offer can be exchanged for what another has to offer.  We don't need to try too hard to see in normal life the many ways we voluntarily work with others for our mutual benefit.  It may reflect the existence of a social instinct, an aspect of human nature that would have been useful to our tribal ancestors, the first humans to walk the earth.  Are we to believe such a social instinct to exist now only in an atrophied state? 

In this connection I want to highly recommend an article published late last year at foreignpolicy.com about "the unheralded alternative economic universe of System D."

It is amazing what people acting freely can do cooperating for mutual benefit, although we are not usually taught growing up to even notice it (although we are taught in school how a bill becomes a law...)   For example, there is an incredible amount of diversity in labor and materials involved in the creation of a simple pencil, all successfully put to use without something like centralized government direction overseeing the process---this is wonderfully displayed in the classic essay, "I, Pencil" by Leonard Read, which is the geneology of a simple #2 pencil.

"How are we to restrain the naturally wicked private sector if not by government coercion?" 

It is somewhat startling to realize, that really, the people must have been conditioned to hate themselves with something analogous to a knee-jerk reflex to widely believe a small group exercising coercion over everyone is necessary to act as savior.  Author Thomas E. Woods, Jr., in the first chapter of his (unfortunately) not-read-enough book "Rollback: Repealing Big Government Before the Coming Fiscal Collapse" verbalizes this insight rather well in summarizing one of the main points of said book:

"The critical first step for checking the seemingly unstoppable federal advance is to stick a dagger through the heart of the myths by which government has secured the confidence and consent of the people. We know these myths by heart. Government acts on behalf of the public good. It keeps us safe. It protects us against monopolies. Without it, America would be populated by illiterates, half of us would be dead from quack medicine or exploding consumer products, and the other half would lead a feudal existence under the iron fist of private firms that worked us to the bone for a dollar a week."
 
"But let's suppose that the federal government has in fact been an enemy of the people's welfare, and that the progress in our living standards has occurred in spite of its efforts. It pits individuals, firms, industries, regions, races, and age groups against each other in a zero-sum game of mutual plunder. It takes credit for improvements in material conditions that we in fact owe to the private sector, while refusing to accept responsibilty for the countless failures and social ills to which its own programs have given rise. Rather than bringing about the 'public good,' whatever that means, it rules over us through a series of fiefdoms seeking bigger budgets and more power. Despite the veneer of public-interest rhetoric by which it hides its real nature, it is a mere parasite on productive activity and a net minus in the story of human welfare." (Rollback, p. 3)

Woods tries to argue the latter depiction of the federal government better reflects reality. 

For one so inclined, there would appear to be many myths to be unlearned.  Thomas DiLorenzo of the Ludwig von Mises Institute offers as just one such myth the idea that government spending during World War II "proves" that government spending can help our economy.  This idea is connected to what has been called "the broken window fallacy."

I cannot leave this topic of the philosophy of liberty and its full implications without a word about law.  Rather than a condition of lawlessness, the condition that we wish to see manifest in reality is one where the noble ideal of the rule of law is in fact consistently applied!  Law ought to be returned to its original function of conflict resolution (there would be no "victimless crimes" and there would be a greater emphasis on restitution for the victim)

See this series of videos dealing with the subject of law without government---
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL1647CADF96760B37