Libertarian ideals and its critics
I think the core feature of libertarian philosophy to me is very simple: nobody should be forced into involuntary servitude. In other words, nobody should be forced to sacrifice, even for the good of the larger humanity! It is thus a direct refutation of the communist philosophy of "from each according to his ability to each according to his needs"! What can possibly other people have against this libertarian ideal?
I think the problem with libertarians is that when others (that is those which are not declared themselves libertarians) give up their freedom voluntarily they protest! Now this is ridiculous! Apparently, it looks as if individuals have all the freedom in the world except the freedom to give up their freedom!
Nevertheless, I understand why libertarians feel that way! Unfortunately, because of huge transaction costs involved, when majority people in a society give up their freedom in return for better security or other such benefits from the Govt., libertarians who do not want to make that compromise are forced to do just that! Therefore, what is voluntary loss of freedom for majority becomes forced servitude for freedom-minded people! That's why libertarians attack Patriot Act because of loss of civil liberties while majority of the people blame them for being in-sensitive to the security needs of the society!
In reply to such criticisms, libertarians try to show that compromising freedom in order to gain security is a stupid idea! Remember the phrase: “Those who give up their freedom to gain a little security, neither deserve the freedom neither the security”. However, this kind of libertarian arguments about freedom-security trade-off actually gives rise to a very different practical debate and misleads people about true libertarian ideals! I know this because it happened with me!
The real issue in implementation of libertarian ideals is the question of transaction costs! If we can bring down transaction costs then it is possible to have a society in which individuals will be able to make their own tradeoffs between freedom and other goods! Nobody will be forced to live others compromises! Now, obviously that is an ideal!
However, we can certainly march towards that goal if not completely reach it!
As I mentioned earlier many practically minded people are not actually against the libertarian ideals as such, but think libertarians are too stupid or naive to believe such an ideal situation can actually happen! However, many people in this world believe implicitly or explicitly in communist philosophy and thus are against libertarian ideals!
To reduce the confusion libertarians needs to deals with these two classes of people differently! For the former, they need to accept improbability (not impossibility) of their ideals but should explain the need to work together to move in that direction by reducing transaction costs! I am sure very few practical minded people would have any problems with that! With the latter, I think it is an ideological fight! Believe me, without libertarians taking on burden of this fight, world will be a very dangerous place to live (if there is any life left at all) because of fascism or communism!
Practical minded people need to acknowledge the contribution of libertarian idealists in winning this fight!
posted by Ashish @ Wednesday, August 13, 2003
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