What is a Libertarian?
I recently wrote this for one of my online college courses, and thought that sharing what I’ve been working on would be a good way to get back into the swing of working on my blog as well.
What is a Libertarian?
With the recent attention being paid to Ron Paul’s presidential campaign, the word “libertarian” is being used more frequently in the main-stream media and elsewhere. Occasionally it is used in a derogatory fashion; other times it is complimentary. We should look at the term and what it truly means before using it in any manner. In any situation, it is always helpful to better understand a term before applying it. Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary defines libertarian as: “1. an advocate of the doctrine of free will; 2. a: a person who upholds the principles of individual liberty especially of thought and action; b capitalized: a member of a political party advocating libertarian principles (2011).” It is principally the second, two-part definition which will be explored in this case.
What it means to be a libertarian varies from person to person, so it is important to look at the meaning of the word before delving into the different facets of the expression. There are two basic types of libertarians, as denoted in the dictionary definition. There are the Big “L” Libertarians, i.e. the Libertarian Party, and the small “l” libertarians, which include anarchists or anti-statists. Both advocate the principles of human rights, non-aggression, and self-ownership, yet there is disagreement upon how to manage these issues.
The central tenet of libertarianism is the principle of self-ownership. What does self-ownership mean? In essence, self-ownership is the belief that individuals have proprietary ownership of not only their bodies and minds, but the fruits of their labor. David McGregor (2005) puts it this way:
If you spent ten hours of your life, last week, on the creation of a new coffee table for your home, then that object is the result of your own life’s effort. You expended your own energy in its creation. And, as a result, it is now your property—and rightly so, because it was created by your energy and intention. Ultimately, it is a product of your mind—brought to fruition via the actions of your body.
So then, self-ownership is not only the ownership of one’s own body and mind, as in what to eat and therefore do, but also the products of one’s own work or energy. For example, this is what leads to the conclusion by some that taxation is equivalent to extortion. Even when used for “good” ends, the conclusion is that taxation is not voluntary and therefore is theft.
The Libertarian Party seeks to minimize the impact that the State has upon the life of the individual. A major part of the Libertarian Party’s platform is the maximization of individual rights as opposed to interference by the state. The Libertarian Party believes that the state should be relegated to the defense against force and fraud (Finkelstein, 2007), i.e. human rights. The “small ‘l’” libertarian could believe that the state is both unnecessary and harmful. The room for variation within this ideology can cause some confusion in this way.
There are and have been a good number of thinkers who have not only advocated a free society but also self-ownership without the state. It is important to understand that not all who support a minimal state are at the same time advocating the abolition of the state in its entirety. One of the reasons that anti-state libertarians advocate a stateless society is the monopoly by government on the use of force. This is seen as crucial to the state’s existence (Rothbard, 1998). In other words, if one individual does not have the right to aggress upon another, how can the state?
Because there are variations of all schools of thought, it is necessary to get a background of what one is addressing before wholly endorsing or opposing. Libertarianism is no exception. There are libertarians who fully believe that the State is a means to the end of protection of human rights, and those who believe that the State does not do such things and therefore endorse only voluntary association. Both, however, believe that libertarianism is the ability to do what one chooses with one’s own life, so long as one does not infringe upon another’s right to do the same. In other words, my rights end where yours begin.
There is danger, however, in labeling a group, especially when based on pre-conceived notions, rather than on cold, hard, fact. No matter the ideology one supports, it is always beneficial to have a general understanding of all ideologies rather than to support one blindly. Libertarianism, as an example, embraces ideals based in both the “left” and “right” paradigms, and one would do well to understand all ideologies before supporting one.
Resources
libertarian. (2011). In Merriam-Webster.com.
Retrieved November 22, 2011, from http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/hacker
McGregor, D. (January 2005). Self-ownership: the foundation of freedom. Retrieved November 20, 2011 from http://www.strike-the-root.com/51/macgregor/macgregor2.html
Rothbard, M. (1989). The ethics of liberty. Retrieved March 12, 2010 from http://mises.org/rothbard/ethics/ethics.asp
