There are a bewildering variety of political ideologies out there these days that are labeled libertarian. Indeed, some self-styled “left-wing” and “right-wing” libertarians hold views that are radically opposed to one another. However, the common core value is individual liberty – freedom. Who could object to that?
The short answer is that it is either naïve, or disingenuous, and almost certainly self-serving to champion personal freedom as an inherent, “natural right” without acknowledging the social context – the severe constraints, inescapable limitations, and reciprocal obligations associated with living in, and benefitting from, a complex society. For starters, how about the rule of law?
The basic problem with libertarianism is that it is grounded in an idealized, hypothetical “state of nature” that never in fact existed. The roots of libertarianism can be traced back to the philosopher John Locke’s vision of society as a voluntary compact among self-interested individuals for the purpose of securing their inherent rights to “life, liberty, and estate [or property],” in Locke’s words. We now know that humankind evolved over 5-7 million years in closely cooperating, interdependent social groups. We have never been free-living individuals.
To be sure, many modern-day libertarians also accept the caveat – first advanced by the economist Adam Smith and by nineteenth century Utilitarian philosophers but most recently identified especially with the American conservative philosopher Robert Nozick and others – that our freedom must also adhere to the rule that it does not cause “harm” to others. But this constraint has much sharper teeth than many libertarians may realize. In fact, one person’s freedom almost always has an impact on other people’s self-interests. We are seldom totally isolated from one another.
For instance, if you are “free” under the local zoning ordinance to build a new high-rise apartment building in Seattle with a view of Puget Sound, you may very well be blocking the view (and depressing the property values) for the older buildings located behind you and causing increased traffic congestion in the neighborhood to boot. Likewise, the freedom of oil companies to engage in fracking may be causing earthquakes and property damage to those who are living in the local area. But most important, any society that fails to provide for the basic needs of all its members is literally causing serious harm. With some 50% of the world’s population living in more or less severe poverty while the top 1% own 50% of the wealth, these days many societies are guilty of harming their citizens.
The reality is that almost all of us are enmeshed in a tacit social contract, and we absolutely depend upon many others to provide for our inescapable basic needs – including an array of some 14 domains of biological imperatives for our survival and well-being. A complex human society is first and foremost a “collective survival enterprise.” (Thus, our competitive “free market” capitalist economic system is, at heart, an instrumentality for serving this purpose, and so is our government, at its best.) Accordingly, the right to life takes precedence over liberty, or property rights for that matter.
We are also a deeply cooperative species, and most of what we do involves social relationships and activities that we pursue together with others, very often in large organizations these days. In other words, an ideology of radical freedom is totally disconnected from the day-to-day reality of how even libertarians live their lives. Reciprocity is, in fact, a far more important social value. It is a key building block for our cooperative relationships and collective action. In fact, any personal “rights” exist only if other people are willing to recognize and accommodate to them. (Consider, for example, the fact that our “inalienable rights” do not as a rule extend to those we consider to be outsiders, or aliens, or enemies.)
As the social critic Charles Morgan long ago observed, freedom is the space inside the walls of the room we inhabit. Those “walls” include our basic needs, our interdependence, and the social contract that undergirds our collective survival enterprise. We are all inside this room together.
