I was recently asked: “What are the foundations of a free society?”

Here is my brief answer:

The foundation of a free society is a reason-based philosophy of liberty. By applying the concepts of an objectively determined morality, using the individual’s life as the ultimate standard of value, we are able to understand the concept of individual rights. Every person has a right to his or her own life. A right is freedom to act, not freedom to have any object unearned. Moreover, a right is a freedom from coercion, not a positive obligation or a claim upon the life of another. The right to life is the fundamental right from which all other rights are derived.

Since individual effort is required to sustain life, a right to life necessitates individuals are free to voluntarily act based on their own judgment and choices and to keep and dispose of the products of their individual physical and mental labor. From this we are able to deduce the right to justly-acquired property and the right to engage in voluntary exchange.

The right to self-defense is a necessary corollary to the right to life and the right to property. Every person has the right to defend his or her life, liberty, and justly-earned property. Just as the individual has the right to defend his or her own life, people have the right to voluntarily organize in order to protect their rights. The protection of individuals against the initiation of force by aggressors is the only role of any ‘protective institution’ in a free society.

The rational means by which to determine if an action should or should not be deterred by lawful force is to assess the action in terms of whether or not the action violates the individual rights of another. A society must operate under the rule of law if it is to remain free. Objective laws compatible with human rights are the only just laws, and the defense of individual rights is the fundamental principle of a proper legal system.

Finally, it must be noted that the conditions necessary to create and maintain a free society do not come about automatically. If a reason-based philosophy of liberty is the foundation of a free society, the concepts of individual rights briefly discussed above may be thought of as the pillars. However, neither the foundation nor the pillars of a free society can be constructed without individual members taking the initiative to educate themselves about the requirements of liberty. The mortar that holds the structure of a free society together must necessarily include the virtues of individual responsibility, honesty, integrity, and self-esteem.

A society well-educated in these fundamental principles will not be easily shaken by the seductive temptation of using political, coercive means to obtain short-term gain at the expense of others. Ultimately, a free society rests on the shoulders of individuals of exceptional character who take on the responsibility to understand the philosophy of liberty, share this message with others, and lead by example.

And isn't freedom what makes life worth living?

In Liberty,

Jason Riddle

The material luxuries and basic civil liberties we enjoy as Americans did not always exist in abundance (and still do not exist for most people in the world today). The freedoms we take for granted and the copious wealth to which many of us now feel a strong sense of entitlement are the direct results of a society that held great respect for property rights and the rule of law. The basic concept is the idea that men and women do not exist for the purpose of serving as tools for other people to use as they see fit. This seems to be a very simple concept, but I will repeat it again for emphasis. Men and women do not exist to serve as tools for other people.

Let's think about it another way. Is the purpose of any one person’s existence – their reason for having life on earth - is it to be a servant for another? Does he or she live only by the permission of others? I like to think most Americans would say, NO! 

Sometimes it is a useful exercise to step outside of yourself and imagine life in another country...or even a past century. Imagine how people in North Korea might answer. Imagine how someone living 250 years ago (anywhere in the world) might have answered that question. In those societies it was and is accepted as inevitable that the purpose of certain human life is to serve the will of the ruling class. Many of these people may not even be able to imagine what it is like to be free.

Today we all agree that slavery is evil. The thought of forcing someone to work under threat of physical harm is outrageous, but the concept of individual human rights is actually a very recent development in the span of human history. It is so new that it is still not widely understood.

What can we learn about the struggle to abolish slavery? We learn that it didn't happen overnight, and it didn't happen until the ideological foundation was sufficient to support such a drastic societal change. For thousands of years, slavery was an accepted institution in most all cultures. It was only with the discovery of the concept of human rights that the ideological shift began to allow for the permanent abolishing of this gruesome practice from civil society.

In thinking about slavery, and why it is bad, people also start thinking about liberty, and why it is good. By working to end slavery, the classical liberal thinkers began to make the positive case for liberty.

Below is an excerpt from a recent article by Edward Stringham and Jeffrey Rogers Hummel titled First, Ideological Change; Second, Social Change

"Perhaps one of the most stunning historical changes to result from an underlying ideological change in people's preferences was the abolition of chattel slavery. Slavery had been a source of forced labor since the dawn of civilization. People had owned slaves on every continent and for every conceivable task. Slavery, along with such other forms of unfree or quasifree labor as serfdom, debt bondage, involuntary apprenticeship, and indentured servitude, was the unenviable status of most humans prior to the Industrial Revolution.

Although no one liked being a slave, the institution was universally accepted as inevitable if not desirable until the first stirrings of antislavery fervor emerged in the late 18th century. Today, in contrast, we live in a world where the freedom to quit a job at will has become the accepted standard. Slavery may still persist clandestinely, but no ruler, no matter how vile or ruthless, would dare get up and publicly endorse owning another human being.

The abolitionist movement, despite beginning as a minuscule minority in most countries, eliminated in a little over a century a labor system that had been ubiquitous for millennia....The abolition of chattel slavery thus stands as the most impressive and enduring of all of classical liberalism's triumphs."

Read more of from this article, First, Ideological Change; Second, Social Change at Mises.org

For centuries, chattel slavery was popularly accepted in most all societies as inevitable. Similarly, in our society today, we accept the violations of a coercive central government as inevitable. We accept income tax as inevitable. We accept a despotic Federal government that passes new legislation that diminishes individual liberty and encroaches on individual human rights on a daily basis as inevitable.

Rule by a coercive, despotic central government is not inevitable. For the same reason slavery is wrong, our current system of government is wrong. People do not live by permission of government or society. It is immoral to use the force of a central agency to make people work for the benefit of another group. Yet, this is the system most people in the US accept and promote today. We don't like to think of it that way, but that is exactly what it is.

All too often we repeat the slogans and catchphrases of the past without a second thought. It is sometimes helpful to step back and break the bonds of limited thinking. It is then that the real issues and the real solutions become much clearer. Just look at any of the legislation that has come out of Washington in the past 80 years. Most all of it is a strict violation of the principle of human rights.

In short, every man and woman has a right to live their life. When this concept is fully understood we can begin to move toward a free society. And it is then, when the ideological shift occurs, the necessary societal changes will become as obvious to future generations as the rejection of slavery is to us today.

I am optimistic liberty will prevail because liberty is right. It is moral. It is good.

In Liberty,

Jason Riddle

At its core, the argument for individual liberty is a moral one. Individual liberty is worth fighting for because it is right and good. More specifically, it is individual freedom that makes the concept of morality possible. Freedom to think and act is closely related to our understanding of moral responsibility, blameworthiness, and praiseworthiness. According to Lawrence C. Becker, “Morality…is the activity of deciding what rational agents ought to do and be, all things considered, and then doing or being those things.” If external factors entirely determine what we do, if it is not up to us, how can we be responsible?

For example, many people would consider it to be moral and praiseworthy to volunteer your time to help children learn reading skills, or perhaps donate some of your money to a charity that helps improve literacy. However, I’m not sure you get the same moral brownie points if a robber steals your wallet at gun point and then happens to use your money to fund that same charity. When coercion is initiated, forcing you to act contrary to your will, your status as a morally responsible agent is negated. This is one of the main reasons why many argue that the initiation of force is dreadful and should be barred from social interactions.

Unfortunately, it has been the case in far too many societies throughout history and today that the use of arbitrary force and coercive control has dominated human relationships and even oppressed entire nations. The tremendous price that people have been willing to pay for just a taste of freedom is evidence to the fact that that individual liberty is an integral part of what it means to live a truly human life. What is unique about the human experience is that we have the capacity to imagine different possible desired futures. Perhaps, most importantly of all, we can reason and deliberate among those alternatives, we can choose between the alternatives, and we can act in a way we believe moves us toward our desired state. It could be argued that we are free to act morally only to the extent that we possess these capacities and we have opportunities to exercise them. In some sense, it is freedom that makes all the other “goodness” of a human life possible. Freedom is a precondition for the good.

Finally, it must be noted that when thinking about why liberty is good, we often think in terms of material prosperity. Freer societies tend to produce more material wealth relative to command economies that are less free. However, other things that are important to the dignified human existence, like intellectual pursuits and self-actualization, are contingent on the liberty to exercise our human capacities as well. The capacities necessary for the production of material prosperity are not different from nor mutually exclusive to those required for the generation of intellectual and spiritual prosperity. Just as personal and economic freedoms are not divisible, the human capacities required for material, intellectual, and spiritual flourishing are one and the same. Individual liberty is a necessary requirement for a good human life.

Why then, if individual liberty is an ingredient for the good life, do people fear it so? Well, as George Bernard Shaw once wrote, “Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it.” Let’s encourage our family and friends to be morally responsible adults and live up to the standards of freedom.

In Liberty,

Jason Riddle

Remember back to your days as a young child on the playground. You were taught to play nice with the other kids – don’t hit, don’t take Billy’s toy without his permission, don’t lie, share with your friends. The lessons were simple. As adults it seems that things have gotten much more complicated. In many ways this may be true. Yet, when it comes to the ground rules for peaceful, productive interactions with others, I’m not sure the fundamentals have changed.

Perhaps at times we consciously or unconsciously ignore our childhood teachings. Most adults understand that stealing is wrong, but many still believe that it is necessary to take Billy’s modest and prudent savings to bailout large institutions that gambled recklessly and lost…in order to save the system. Others may proclaim that if Billy has become a rich businessman, it is perfectly acceptable to take his property and give it to others who have less. They argue that it is necessary to set principles aside for the moment if it helps advance their immediate goal, whatever that may be. “Principles are idealistic,” they say. “In the grownup world, you have to be practical.”

I am not convinced there should ever be a conflict between the practical and the principled – that is, if the principle is rightly understood and the correct action is taken in its pursuit, we put ourselves in the best position for success. Of course, there will always be the possibility of unforeseen external factors. However, even setting obvious stipulations aside, it is far too common that otherwise reasonable, just goals are attempted using inappropriate means. To err is human. In order to avoid common mistakes we can learn much from the teachings of economics, history, and philosophy.  

It may also be the case, however, as it often is, that the principles we were taught might not actually be the best guidelines for us to follow.  For example, as a child you might have heard an adult preaching the Golden Rule: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”. This sounds harmless enough if taken to mean that we should treat others with the same respect with which we wish to be treated. But does it also mean that because you like ice cream, you should give Amanda, your lactose intolerant friend, a cone stacked high with cookies n’ cream? If taken literally, the Golden Rule seems to also permit us to take action for other people if we think we know best as to what they should want and how they should act based on our own preferences.

Perhaps that is not what we really mean. Maybe a better adaptation (or an additional constraint) to place on the Golden Rule would go something like this: “Don’t do unto others as you wouldn’t want them to do unto you.” Rather than forcing our preferences on other people, maybe we should refrain from interfering with them in ways that are not justified. This idea is the crux of what advocates for individual liberty call the non-aggression principle: Don’t commit acts of aggression against otherwise peaceful human beings. Aggression may include things like physical coercion, threats or intimidation, and fraud. While this is not the only principle of liberty, many regard it as the foundation upon which the other principles of appropriate social interaction rest.

After all, isn’t the non-aggression principle really at the heart of all those playground lessons? Maybe we as adults could remember something from those childhood teachings.