Classical liberalism does not disavow the state. Indeed, it embraces and celebrates it, but only, the classical liberals insist, in the form of “limited government.” This regime, sustained by taxation, includes legislators who enact rules, executives who control police and armed forces to enforce the rules, and judges who settle disputes between persons and between persons and the state. In many versions it also includes active engagement in the construction and maintenance of public works (now often called infrastructure) and a system of government schools (now often with compulsory attendance). The classical liberal imagines that this setup will support free markets and more generally a free society and that it can be sustained indefinitely.
Category: Against Leviathan
The Promise of Economic Equality
In a world where individuals always differ enormously in personal attributes and circumstances, in personal conduct and social constraints, it is difficult to think of anything more unfair than ensuring that in spite of all these differences, everyone ends up with the same income or wealth.
Paved with Political Bullshit
These charlatans know full well that, for example, the public interest they claim to serve is nothing but a rhetorical cloak for the benefits they seek to channel at public expense to their friends and supporters.
Who Owns a Man’s Life?
No doubt, a man can ruin his life by using opioids recklessly. A man can also ruin his life by a reckless use of whores, fast cars, and false religion. Perhaps Trump’s next great proposal will be for capital punishment of pimps, Maserati dealers, and storefront preachers.
Against the Whole Concept and Construction of the Balance of International Payments
The location of the trading partners has no economic significance whatsoever. Trading entities enter into exchanges voluntarily, each one in each transaction anticipating a gain from the trade. Hence, in expectational terms, every such trade entails a gain from trade, or in other words an addition to the trader’s wealth.
On Socialism’s Rhetorical Appeal
Aside from the utter impossibility of attaining such abundance without private property and free markets, this vision has a fatal element of abstraction from the realities of the Iron Law of Oligarchy.
The Two Types of Socio-Economic Problems
If the problem is real and the government undertakes to solve it, the result in nearly every case will be that special interests, especially the government itself, will be further empowered and enriched and, on top of this insult to justice and prosperity, the real problem will be made worse rather than solved, setting in motion further calls for government intervention and creating an endless chain of action and reaction leading toward a leviathan state.
Give Freedom a Chance
One of the typical responses to criticism of a government policy, program, or other undertaking is the demand for an answer to the question, “What is your alternative?” Often this challenge demands a blueprint or other detailed plan for the alternative to the governmental status quo. Absent such a fully articulated plan, one’s criticism is often dismissed as mere carping by someone who has no idea about how to replace the present government undertaking. My own alternative is simply freedom.
The Opt-Out Option
There’s an old saying, You can’t beat city hall. And another that advises, If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em. Together, these aphorisms, were they our only guides, would suggest that we recognize we can’t defeat the state and its intrinsic domination of society, and therefore that we plunge into the political fray, striving to get as much of the state’s loot for ourselves as we can. There is another alternative, however.
A Catch-22 in Organizing for the Pursuit of Liberty
There’s a Catch-22 in regard to efforts aimed at diminishing state domination and enlarging genuine liberty. A substantial number of people may support these goals, but in order to achieve real gains, they must organize to raise money, build public support, and obstruct the state’s attempts to plunder and bully them. The catch is that the organizations they create are run by organizers or managers who have incentives to turn their organizations into vehicles for their own power-quest or for workaday jobbery.