For a New Liberty CTIR Literature Series 1Part 1Chapters 1-3

The Libertarian Heritage: The American Revolution and Classical Liberalism

Pre-American Revolution• John Locke.

▫Focused on the often negative consequences of government.

•Cato’s Letters. ▫Newspaper articles written in early 1720s

published in London. ▫Government always led to negative

consequences.▫“Men possessed of power, rather than part

with it, will do any thing, even the worst and the blackest to keep it.”

Post American Revolution• Thomas Jefferson the

libertarian?▫ Purchase of Louisiana

Territory. ▫ Imperialist drive toward

war with Britain.▫ [Alien and Sedition Acts;

Sent navy to fight Barbary pirates; embargo on shipping with Britain].

Resistance to Liberty

•Those in power changed the meaning of old labels.▫Laissez-faire libertarians = liberals,

progressives. NEW = old-fashioned, reactionary,

conservative. •What labels are used today?

▫Radicals, extremists, anarchists, crazies…

Liberals

•18th century: hostility towards executive branch and bureaucracy.

•19th century: tolerated and welcomed it.

What changed?

•Abandonment of the philosophy of natural rights. ▫Replacement by technocratic utilitarianism.

Case by case. ▫Liberty VS common good.

Consequences of the Change

•No more consistency. ▫What are the differences between natural

rights and common good? Or rather property rights VS common good. Is it that easy to define?

•No support for radical or immediate change. ▫Must apply cost and benefit analysis.

Social Darwinism

•Looooooong change. ▫Revolution = evolution.

Property and Exchange

The Nonaggression Axiom

•“No man or group of men may aggress against the person or property of another.” ▫Aggression = initiation of the use or threat

of physical violence against the person or property of anyone else.

•What is initiation? What is a threat? What is physical? What is violence? Who is anyone?

Political Ideologies

•The Left. ▫Opposed to violence of war. ▫Supports violence of taxation and

government control. •The Right.

▫Supports protection of private property.▫Supports war and prohibition of immoral

activities.

The Libertarian

•History shows one central aggressor: the State.

•If immoral = private individual; then immoral = state. ▫No exemptions for any person or group.

The Power of Language

•War?▫Or mass murder?

•Conscription? ▫Or slavery?

•Taxation?▫Or forcible theft?

Example – Taxation.

•Is it voluntary?•What happens if you don’t pay?

▫Jail/fine = coercive violence. ▫What private institution can do this?

Foundation for the Axiom•Emotivist.

▫Liberty based on emotions. •Utilitarian.

▫Liberty better than alternatives. •Natural Rights.

▫We live in a world of many entities. Each entity has a specific nature, which can be investigated by man’s reason. Copper has distinct properties. Man does too.

But does copper define itself? Who does? Who defines man?

Natural Rights VS Utilitarianism?

Nature of Man

•Each individual must, in order to act, choose his own ends and employ his own means in order to attain them.

•Necessary path of human nature is to be free to learn; to interfere by using violence is contrary.▫But man begins as a child. Do parents use

violence? Do teachers? Are the child’s actions voluntary?

Right to Self Ownership

•Absolute right of each man, by virtue of being human, to own himself.

•Contrast with communism. ▫Every man should have right to own equal

share of everyone else. Utopian and impossible? Supervision and

control leads to ruling class. What about a basic income only? And, so what? What if the consequences are

better?

Who Owns the Property?•Food must be grown, minerals must be

mined, clay must be molded. •The owner = the one who created,

produced or transformed the item. •John Locke:

▫“Though the water running in the fountain be every one’s, yet who can doubt but that in the pitcher is his only who drew it out? His labour hath taken it out of the hands of Nature where it was common…and hath thereby appropriated it to himself.”

The Homesteader

•The creator or producer of the property.

Society VS the Individual

•What does society look like? Who is society?

•Society is a label for a set of interacting individuals.

• If, 10 people acted together and took another’s property. Can they offer the defense of taking the property for society?

•Only individuals can exist, think, and act.

Free Exchange

•If a man owns property, then he has the right to give away or exchange these property titles to another.

Freedom

•Condition in which person’s ownership rights in his own body and property are not aggressed against.

•Contrast with slavery. ▫Condition in which the slave has little or no

self ownership. ▫Dictionary: “Submission to a dominating

influence.” ▫What is the better definition?

Crime

•Act of aggression against a man’s property right.

Property Rights VS Human Rights•The Left.

▫Rejects property rights (taxation, regulation). ▫Supports right to abortion, free speech.

An additional right? •The Libertarian.

▫Property rights = human rights. ▫The human right of a free press depends

upon the human right of a property in newsprint.

▫Consistency.

Example – Freedom of Speech•Shouldn’t the government prohibit someone

from shouting “fire” in a crowded theater? ▫If so, it gets complicated. ▫But who has the property interest? Society?

If owner, he has committed fraud (breached contract/theft).

If consumer, he has violated the property right of the owner and other guests. As a guest, he has gained access to the property on

certain terms.

Themes

•Power of language. •Consistency. •Ruling class.

Thank you!

•http://www.criticalthinkingisrequired.com/