Below are seven musts for the devout statist:

1.       Be Afraid. Fear is the essential ingredient for every government program. Understand that if we don’t pass [insert name of any bill] then our society will surely crumble by lunch. It doesn’t much matter if you are more afraid of the rich, the poor, the people that live in different geographic regions, the uncertainty of retirement planning, or the folks that want to grow their own vegetables. The important thing is that you are really afraid of something and look to the government as the solution. Mother America is the only thing keeping you safe and warm. 

2.       Don’t think for yourself. Blind obedience and strict loyalty to groupthink is essential for any well-ordered society. Free thinking is dangerous. We must have elected officials, bureaucrats in government schools, ivory tower academics, and a handful of elites in the media inform us of the acceptable talking points to use during our narrowly-bounded social discussions. It helps to be especially ignorant of history, economics, and philosophy. 

3.       Deny the Antecedent (1). You want to make sure to commit this logical fallacy every chance you get. It is a waste of time to try to imagine how something might work in the absence of state intervention (or might have actually worked in the absence of state intervention in the past). Any service that is currently provided by government can only be provided by government. There is no possible way that education services, unemployment insurance, or the provision of money could ever exist if not for the state. Obviously, it would be absurd to believe that the humans who currently construct the roads or deliver the mail would be able to do so if not for the direction of some central planner.

4.       Compromise on principle for the sake of expedience. There is no absolute truth. There is no black and white. Since all morals are relative, it does no harm to compromise your values for any perceived short-term gain. We must be practical if we want to make progress. Everyone knows that you must give to get in politics. This is why the two major political parties in the U.S. are such a model example. “You give us our welfare, and we will give you your warfare. You give us our warfare, and we will give you your welfare.” Obstructionists who rigidly cling to principles merely impeded the glorious growth of the state.   

5.       Make Utopian promises. If only we had more government, we could eliminate [insert any problem], and we could have [insert any benefit]. The state, and only the state, has the unique ability to transcend the economic law of scarcity and deliver an infinite abundance of goods and services at no cost. Every problem in the world is the result of some market failure. If a government program “fails” it is because there were not enough resources dedicated to its success. If any government solution “fails” to fix a problem it is just evidence that the problem was much worse than we thought. Things most certainly would have been all the more disastrous without the government stepping in to save us from the abyss. Our progressive march to utopia on earth is impeded by extremists and ideologues who want to limit the size and scope of the state.

6.       Grab it before someone else does. The world is like a giant piñata with a set amount of candy inside. When that papier-mâché donkey spills its contents out to the ravenous public, you better use both hands to get yours. Statists understand that economics is a zero-sum game. For every winner there is always a loser. Since there is only a set amount of goods, if one person has something, it must mean that they took it from another. If one person is wealthy, it must mean they exploited the weak. The state helps to make sure everyone gets their fair share of candy, but while we are waiting for true equality it is ok to use the state to get as much from the system as possible. Politics is an excellent way to internalize benefits to yourself while externalizing costs to someone else.

7.       Use violence to get what you want. Ultimately it is violence or the threat of violence that is backing every government program.  There are great lessons we can learn from young toddlers who don’t waste their time with rational persuasion. Like an unruly child, you should hit, scream, kick, bite, and take what you want. If you are too weak or too cowardly to use physical violence on your family and neighbors, you can always look to employing the blunt force of government to make people bend to your preferences.

(1) Denying the antecedent is a formal logical fallacy pertaining to the form or structure of an argument.  For example, let’s consider the following:  “If it rains, then the grass is wet. It is not raining. Therefore, the grass is not wet.” We would say this argument is invalid. The grass could be wet from the sprinklers not rain. Similarly, a statist argument is frequently “If the government delivers the mail, then we get our mail. In a free society, the government doesn't deliver the mail, therefore we don’t get our mail.” Of course we could still get our mail. Just because government employees wouldn't deliver mail doesn't mean that private companies wouldn't deliver mail.      


If you do not think you want to dutifully follow the 7 Essential Statist Maxims, maybe you would like some of the resources we have in the Liberty Library.

Here is an excerpt from a recent presentation by Robert Higgs at Mises University:

“States are clumsy and inept in many ways. Thank god. But, they are exceptionally good at reeking death and destruction. Indeed, if they were not, they could not sustain themselves as states. In a functional sense we may define the state as the organization with comparative advantage i_n deliberately, violently killing people and appropriating and destroying wealth. The debate between statists and anti-statists is in my judgment not evenly matched. Defending the continued existence of the state, despite having absolute certainty of a corresponding continuation of its intrinsic engagement in extortion, robbery, willful destruction of wealth, assault, kidnapping, murder, and countless other crimes, requires that one imagine non-state chaos, disorder, and death on a scale that non-state actors seem completely incapable of causing. In general, with regard to large-scale death and destruction, no person, group, or private organization can even begin to compare to the state, which is easily the greatest instrument of destruction known to man. Almost all non-state threats to life, liberty, and property appear to be relatively petty and therefore can be dealt with. In general, only states can pose truly massive threats and sooner or later the horrors with which they menace mankind inevitably come to pass…The state, which holds by far the greatest potential for harm and tends to be captured by the worst of the worst, is much too risky for anyone to justify its continued existence. To tolerate it is not simply to play with fire but to chance the destruction of the entire human race.” 

You can watch this compelling presentation in its entirety here:

Chances are you do. Government debt (treasuries, bills, bonds, notes) are a major component of most investment strategies. Is owning government debt a good idea? It might reduce risk in your portfolio. Some people like the low-risk return. However, investing in government debt comes at a price. It helps to fund some very bad things; things that you might not feel good about supporting with your money. Also, the only way the government can repay the debt (principle + interest) is to tax your neighbors, friends, and family. 

Personally, I think there are better ways to earn a return on the market without forcing others pay for my investment decisions. I choose not to invest in government debt and would encourage others to do the same. 

Writing in 1870, Lysander Spooner was less kind about people who choose to profit by investing in government debt: 

What do you think? Are you helping to fund robbery and even murder by investing in government debt?

Learn more about the economics and ethics of government debt and taxation in the Freedom Unfiltered Liberty Library.

Recently, Nancy Pelosi, the House Minority Leader (D-CA), publicly argued that any cuts to congressional pay would undermine “…the dignity of the job that we have rewarded.”

It is mildly amusing that Pelosi would point to the job that she and the rest of Congress are doing as her support for not cutting congressional pay while the rest of us suffer under the crushing weight of the fiscal leviathan and bloated federal bureaucracy. 

However, Pelosi is simply echoing what civic religion teaches: All good citizens should revere members of government with an extra-special kind of dignity because of their position. 

I admit that “dignity” and “Nancy Pelosi” might not be my first pairing in a word association exercise, but her comments did get me thinking about the concept.  What is dignity? Is it something you can earn or lose? Do some people deserve (or have) more dignity than others?

As usually understood, dignity is a concept pertaining to worth and value. It is often used to signify that someone has a certain right to be valued and her treatment by others should reflect this right. Moreover, the term is frequently used to suggest that a person is not receiving the respect deserved, as exemplified by the Congresswoman’s comments that forced congressional pay cuts are beneath her ‘dignity’.

Nancy Pelosi is correct that dignity is closely related to our ideas about respect. But how and why are the concepts of respect and dignity related?

Let’s start by exploring two popular, but unsatisfactory, views about dignity that are both based on the idea that human value is a comparable value, kind of like prices at the supermarket. The first is the idea that dignity is something to be deserved according to individual accomplishments, wealth, title, status, or social rank. In this view, certain people are alleged to have more innate value than others because of who they are or the merits of what they do.

The second is the idea that human value, and ultimately dignity, is dependent upon the judgment of others. This would mean that people derive their value as human beings from how they are valued by other people.

Note that both of these views rest on the idea that human beings can and should be valued differently from one another and that the value of individual people can change from one point in time to the next. Put simply, this notion holds that some people are worth more than others. That seems strange to me.

In fact, the primitive idea of comparable human worth has been used throughout history to justify some of the worst acts of humanity. Oppression, slavery, and even genocide have occurred when enough individuals in society grant credence to the idea that some people are worth more than others and can be used as mere means to some higher ends.

Preposterous as it may seem that anyone could still explicitly say that some persons are worth more than others, indeed all government officials, including Nancy Pelosi, maintain positions of political power precisely because most people at least implicitly believe exactly that.

Enough people in society have internalized the primitive thought that political status gives certain individuals the moral authority to rule over others. Similar to the days of rule by the divine right of kings, the perceived sanctity of political office affords today’s elected officials a higher-level of dignity not accessible to us mere mortals. We see evidence of this when we hear the average person deferentially referencing their “respect for the office” or when Nancy Pelosi is demanding the “respect for the office” she thinks she is owed. 

In a moment I will explain why having respect for a government office may be misplaced, but presently I will merely suggest that whether or not our rulers are popularly elected has no bearing on the fact that political power is still used to treat some people as mere means to a higher ends in a system that establishes a hierarchical relationship of rulers and subjects.

The primitive idea that some people are worth more than others has maintained a stronghold on human thought for most of history. Fortunately, that is beginning to change. 

We are beginning to understand, as the great 18th century German philosopher, Immanuel Kant, explains that human value and dignity are universal to all persons. For Kant, dignity is a distinctive kind of moral worth that all persons have. All persons are ends in themselves and the intrinsic value of one person cannot be compared against that of another. Dignity is an absolute and incomparable worth. It is not conditional. It is not a derivative of another higher value. For Kant, dignity is the supreme value.

Furthermore, dignity is closely related to our conceptions of personhood. Our rational capacities, as Kant argues, form the basis of our dignity (or absolute worth). As rational beings, we have the capacity to imagine different possible futures. We have the capacity to use our rational judgment to evaluate and choose. We have the capacity to act on reasons we believe to be our own. We have the capacity to value other rational beings as ends in themselves deserving of respect. Persons with rational capacities then are universally ends in themselves with an absolute dignity. 

Robin S. Dillon, further explains Kant’s account of respect for persons is the “…acknowledgement in attitude and conduct of the dignity of persons as ends in themselves….They must never be treated merely as means, as things that we may use however we want in order to advance our interests, and they must always be treated as the supremely valuable beings that they are.”  

In summary, Nancy Pelosi is not deserving of dignity because of her wealth, title, or position. She is a person with absolute dignity because of her status as a rational being and should be treated as such. Unfortunately, Nancy Pelosi and the rest of Congress do not recognize this universal principle in their interactions with other people. 

Moreover, it is not just the current office holders that have failed in this regard. The essential feature of any State is predicated on a failure to recognize the absolute dignity of all persons. Instead of respecting individuals as ends in themselves having equal worth, the State is the anti-social arrangement whereby people are treated as having unequal worth with unequal dignity. Some people are rulers, and other people are ruled. Some people receive political privilege, while others do not. Some people expropriate wealth, while the wealth of others is expropriated. Individuals are not ends in themselves but rather mere means to satisfy the desires of those in power. All are subjected to the arbitrary power of the State. 

Nancy Pelosi does not operate in a vacuum, but she does actively support the aggrandizement of the State apparatus. Nancy Pelosi’s blatant lack of respect for other human beings as moral equals is repugnant and deserves moral condemnation. That being said, we should neither say that Nancy Pelosi is underserving of dignity, nor that she has lost her dignity because of her reproachable behavior. We may, however, be perfectly justified in saying that she and the other members of Congress have failed to live up to that which dignity entails.

In Liberty,

Jason Riddle

I don't know about you, but I am pretty tired of hearing about the "1%" and the "47%" and "top 10%" and the "bottom 10%". Instead of bucketing people into relatively meaningless percentages, let's take a moment to reflect on the fact that behind each of these numbers are real human lives. We are talking about your friends, family, and neighbors. We are talking about you and me. We are the 100%.  

And something that should be of significant interest to all of us "in the 100%" is the idea of individual liberty.  Liberty is a concept that pertains to 100% of the persons in this country and around the world. Liberty is an integral part of the human experience, but it is often pushed to the background of political policy discussions.  Let's take a few quick minutes today to think about what liberty is and what it entails.

Liberty is the ability of an individual to have control over and be responsible for his or her own actions. Only the individual can have the ability to make choices and act according to his or her own reasons. Only the individual can be coerced by external forces. Only individuals are free or not free. The individual is the basic unit of social analysis. Liberty is a concept that applies to the individual and not to the group or the collective.

Liberty applies to all of us, but it is a mistake to categorize freedom as pertaining to races, religions, ethnic groups, social classes, nations, or any other collective entity such as "the 1%". There are certainly plenty of examples where individuals have used coercion to limit the freedom of other individuals on the basis of race, religion, and ethnicity, but to think of liberty (or lack there of) as belonging to the group is very dangerous. Many unspeakable travesties in human history have resulted from this tribal “us versus them” mentality; the same tribal "us versus them" analysis used by politicians and pundits to divide people in order to generate class warfare when it need not exist.

The idea that it is moral to subjugate an individual person for the betterment of the collective has been used to justify everything from the gross expropriation of property, to mass murder, to the system of government we have in the US today. Anytime the government grants special political privilege for things like corporate subsidies, bailouts, and welfare entitlement, the liberty of individual people is being sacrificed. Whenever members of our government act in any manner whatsoever, they limit the liberty of individual people. There may be justified cases where individual liberty should be limited. However, limits on liberty must always be scrutinized to the highest of standards. You should never ask your government to do on your behalf what you would not yourself be willing to force your friends, families, and neighbors to do for you.  So much of the confusion surrounding politics could be ended if we simply analyze policy using the yardstick of its impact on individual liberty.

“Libertarian thought emphasizes the dignity of each individual, which entails both rights and responsibility.” – David Boaz

In Liberty,

Jason Riddle

Opponents of Obamacare rightfully argue that this egregious piece of legislation does not address the root cause of the healthcare problem and will likely only make our nation's precarious economic situation all the more dismal. That being said, the Republican Party has neither addressed the healthcare issues at the root nor provided any real alternative either. In principle, the Republican alternative is a merely a water-downed version of the bad medicine prescribed by the Democrats. Throughout the last half century the Republicans have served as no more than a speed bump slowing the progress of socialized medicine.

Instead of the offering a principled alternative, the focus of the GOP has been merely to fight against the Democrats' baleful plan while accepting their premise.

In 1994, Republicans successfully fended off Clinton's healthcare proposal. After taking back control of Congress, for a decade and a half Republicans did nothing to fix the tangled regulatory mess caused by government bedevilment in healthcare. Instead of unwinding the crippling interventionist programs and regulations, Republicans complacently let the costly errors of an inherently flawed government-orchestrated system compound. Republicans had their chance and stood idle.

In the game of politics it might make sense for the minority party to steer clear from rallying around an alternative that has no chance of passing, but it is not enough for the Republicans to simply oppose bad policy when they've had years to address the root of the problem.

For the last three years we've witnessed a furious debate around healthcare reform in America. In typical fashion, the media and politicians (both Republicans and Democrats) directed our attention to arguing over detached, surface-level issues instead of the real problems. The bottom line is that the Republicans and Democrats have both shown they support socialized, government solutions to healthcare – only varying by degree. Democrats are just a more consistent and explicit in their message, but there is really not a material difference when it comes to basic principles.

Advocates for liberty should argue that Obamacare, and for that matter any government intervention in the market of providing health care, is a blatant violation of human rights. We, as human beings, may have certain responsibilities to help men and women in need, but using the force of government to coerce people into providing a service is not benevolence. It is immoral laziness.

I understand that access to medical care is, in many cases, a matter of life and death. The debate around this subject carries correspondingly weighty emotional arguments. The public is bombarded with anecdotal talking points from the popular media that confound a myriad of surface-level, consequential concretes without any reference to a consistent system of ideas. Typically, the arguments around health care are framed in a manner which presupposes that it is a human right to secure some entitlement to special privilege: "Everyone has a right to affordable care. We are a rich country. We should provide health care to people who need health care."

The astute reader may ask the question: “Who is the ‘we’ that must provide that care?” Perhaps the question one should consider is: “Can an entitlement to a good or service produced by another really be considered a human right. Can something be a right if it necessarily implies the obligation on the part of another?”

To assert that medical care must be provided as a human right is a contradiction. This necessarily implies that one person has a positive obligation to provide a product or service to another. The forced surrender of labor and property (whether it is forced medical care or mandatory insurance) for the benefit of another is a stark violation of human rights. Even with best intentions, central planners cannot magically create human rights by abrogating the human rights of another.

Moreover, it is misleading to think of healthcare as a “system” that can be controlled and distributed to the needy by a central authority. ‘Healthcare’ is a generalized term for a very specific combination of goods and service of a scarce quantity offered by and consumed by individual humans. Health care does not just appear automatically in nature. It must be produced by someone through intense physical and mental effort.

The claim that it is the role of government to ensure everyone is provided with health care or health insurance is analogous to claiming that it is the government’s role to ensure everyone has access to a car, cell phone, and color tv.  Should everyone enjoy the right to these goods as well? Unfortunately, self-described Progressives today answer “yes”.

Many people have come to view modern conveniences as necessities without considering what has made the increased standard of living possible.  Human advancement for centuries was gradual or flat.  It was a social system built on the principles of freedom and individual rights that catapulted mankind into realizing achievements past generations could not even conceptualize.

Advocates of using the centralized, monopolistic instrument of government coercion to force a group to work for the special privilege of another attempt to constrict the very engine that makes this debate even possible – a political/economic system that respects individual human rights.

Perhaps our vision of history and human rights has been skewed by our crystal-clear 21st century LASIK eyesight….

In Liberty,

Jason Riddle

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.