capitalism

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The Encyclopedia of Libertarianism
who are immediate parties to their outcome, but by
groups of experts or committees representing the wishes
of the larger population who claim to have some interest,
however tenuous, in the consequences. This
approach is predicated on the perception that nothing is
totally private, that all acts affect the general public in
some way or another, and that the entire collectivity has
a legitimate interest in the results of any decision we
make, whether it is what we read, what we ingest, whom
we choose as our sexual partners, indeed any and everything
that touch our lives that might be viewed as harmful
to the community or ourselves. What is truly
remarkable about the millions who support extensive
governments is that they seem to have lost sight of the
fact that those whom we empower to write and enforce
the laws are no more moral and decent than the rest of
us. Indeed, they are no less unethical and corrupt; in
fact, there is substantial evidence that they are often
more so than those over whom they govern, that for the
most part their overriding interest is their own immediate
welfare and their concerns extend no further than the
next election. Yet we constantly rely on them to correct
the evils we see around us and express surprise when no
improvement occurs.
The facts are that ultimately we are either
autonomous individuals empowered with primary
control over ourselves and the property we create, or
we are not. There are those who would claim that we
are a mix of both, but these philosophers have been
unable to locate the point at which individuals have
surrendered their autonomy to some sovereign entity
or in what that entity consists, whether an individual
sovereign or a collectivity, or who is empowered to
determine when the decisions of the sovereign take
precedence over the wishes of the individual. Perhaps
the most compelling of these theories of political
obligation, however, and one embraced by almost all
libertarians is that put forward by John Locke and that
formed the theoretical underpinnings of Jefferson’s
Declaration of Independence. “We hold these truths to
be self-evident,” Jefferson wrote,
that all men are created equal, that they are endowed
by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that
among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of
Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments
are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers
from the consent of the governed. That whenever any
Form of Government becomes destructive of these
ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish
it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation
on such principles, and organizing its powers in
such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect
their Safety and Happiness.
Despite attempts by some political theorists to
translate these words into a defense of an all-pervasive
government, their intent is clear. The crucial test of
all government, no matter how constituted, lies in
whether it respects the inalienable rights with which all
men are endowed. These rights, Locke and Jefferson
maintained, owe their existence neither to convention
nor to the presence of a sovereign who both created
them and made their exercise possible. They are rooted
in man’s very nature and are unconditional and nontransferable.
Men do not, nor can they, compromise
them by entering into civil society, nor can these rights
be modified in some way to conform to the dictates of
the magistrate. The transcendent purpose of government
is the preservation of these rights. The rights to
which Jefferson refers—and here he clearly follows
Locke—are to be understood not as mandating individual
or collective acts of any kind, but rather as
restraining men from acting in certain ways. Put more
simply, my right to something, say my liberty, entails
only prohibitions on others and not positive commands.
To the extent that I am free, I am “let alone,”
not “forced,” “required,” “commanded” by others to
do (or not to do) something that I “can,” “am able,”
“have the capacity” to do. The only boundaries limiting
the actions of other men are those prohibitions
against others that extend around my liberty.
The protection of this sphere constitutes the legitimate
boundary of state action. When rights are understood
in this manner, the rights of individuals cannot
conflict because their rights do nothing more than
constrain others from acting toward rights possessors
in certain ways. The notion that rights are forever
competing with each other arises when one includes
in an enumeration of rights those that impose obligations
on others and afflicts most contemporary discussions
of the subject. We commonly speak of the rights
of members of a community as in perpetual conflict,
but this is in large part due to the fact that politicians
and others who have vulgarized the language of political
theory have found it to their ideological advantage
to encourage the view that such conflicts are an
invariable part of political life. Thus, my right to
smoke directly conflicts with your right to a smokefree
environment and my right to spend my wages as