Libertarianism and Liberty
How Not to Argue for Limited Government and Lower TaxesThis article is part of Libertarianism and Liberty, a forum on arguments for libertarian policy conclusions.
Libertarianism presents itself as a simple, clear, and principled view. It appears to provide a moral basis, in the value of individual liberty, for a specific political program of limited government and low taxes. The moral significance of liberty seems obvious even to those who believe it is not the only thing that matters. But the claim of the libertarian political program to be founded on this value is illusory. Three lines of thought lead to conclusions that might be seen as libertarian. But none of these shows that respect for the value of individual liberty should lead one to support the political program of low taxes and limited government that libertarians are supposed to favor.
- One route to libertarian conclusions appeals to an idea of productive efficiency.
- A second, quite different view is what might be called “motorcycle-helmet libertarianism,” which gives fundamental place to the value of having control over how one’s life goes in important respects.
- Enforcing any law involves coercively telling people what to do. Certainly this is true of property laws, which libertarians favor. So the libertarian idea is a narrower one, that no one should be coercively told what to do as long as he or she is not violating the rights of others. This intuitively appealing idea is the third route to libertarian conclusions, which starts not from the value of control over one’s life but from an idea of non-interference, given content by an enumerated list of rights.
http://www.bostonreview.net/BR36.5/ndf_t_m_scanlon_libertarianism_liberty.php