What Is Libertarianism and Why Is It Important? Part I 

Philip Vander Elst

      Philip Vander Elst is a British freelance author, journalist and lecturer. For many years he was editor of Freedom Today and has worked on the staff of the Centre for Policy Studies and the Institute of Economic Affairs. This is the first article in a series of four. These articles are from the pamphlet, “Libertarianism, A Christian Critique,” published by The Christian Institute.          

      Libertarianism is an eclectic philosophy and movement which is principally American in origin but now has a significant following in Britain and other parts of the English-speaking world. Although it is made up of different political and philosophical strands, and there is plenty of disagreement among Libertarians over particular issues, its core doctrine encapsulates the following propositions:

(1) The individual is an end in himself and possesses “natural rights” stemming from the requirements of his nature as an active and rational being;

(2) The individual mind is the source of all creativity and the fountainhead of all human progress;

(3) Liberty is the essential condition of all human progress and achievement;

(4) The right to personal liberty is absolute so long as its exercise does not infringe the equal rights of others;

(5) Private property rights are also absolute because the individual has an unlimited right to the product of his labour;

(6) Free market capitalism is the only economic system compatible with freedom and the individual’s “natural rights”;

(7) The role of the State should be strictly limited to the protection of life, liberty and property, and to the enforcement of contracts;

(8) Taxation for any other purpose than the protection of life, liberty and property (i.e., to finance the “Nightwatchman State”), is theft;

(9) In the areas of sex, marriage, and the family, there are no moral or cultural absolutes: all forms of sexuality, “marriage,” family structures and “lifestyles” are equally valid and permissible so long as they result from freedom of choice; and

(10) Since individuals have an absolute right to do what they like with their lives, bodies, and property as long as they respect the rights of others, there should—in a free society—be no restrictions on the consumption or sale (at least by adults) of drugs, pornography, video nasties, and other perverse substances and forms of “entertainment.”

      Finally, in addition to a belief in these propositions, there is a marked tendency among most (though not all) Libertarians towards atheism and theophobia. By that, I mean they not only tend to disbelieve in the existence of God; they actually dislike the very idea of God. To many Libertarians, the possibility that there is a Creator to whom they owe their existence, and to whom they are ultimately accountable for the use they make of their lives, is extremely unwelcome. It not only poses an unacceptable threat to their sense of personal pride and autonomy, but also offends their moral sensibilities, since they equate reverence for God with the totalitarian worship of power. Hence a note of hostility towards theism and Christianity is often sounded in Libertarian literature.

      So much, then, by way of a brief description of the essential elements of Libertarian ideology. What about its history? What are its origins and who are some of its key thinkers and advocates? What, if anything, does it have in common with other political and philosophical movements?

      Although the intellectual pedigree of Libertarianism can be traced to particular thinkers over the last few centuries, the modern Libertarian movement is mainly a post-war American phenomenon which began to spread outside the United States at the end of the 1970s. With its modern roots in the anti-socialist and isolationist “Old Right” of the 1930s, whose thinkers were the fiercest opponents of President Roosevelt’s “New Deal,” Libertarianism took off in America in the 1960s, and advanced rapidly in the 1970s and ‘80s. Today, after thirty years of growth and development, it can boast a substantial number of prominent thinkers, publications, and academic “think tanks” and there is even a Libertarian political party which has contested every American presidential election since 1972.

      Whilst there is no single intellectual “guru” of the Libertarian movement, two thinkers, both of whom are now dead, have had a disproportionate impact on the growth of Libertarianism and the development of its doctrine.

      The first, was the female Russian-born writer and philosopher, Ayn Rand, who emigrated to the United States in the 1920s and died in 1982. She founded a philosophical school called “Objectivism” and expounded her views in non-fictional books like The Virtue of Selfishness and Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, but the secret of her wide influence has lain in her eloquent and emotionally powerful philosophical novels, which virtually every Libertarian has read and which are often the entry-point into the Libertarian movement. Of these philosophical novels, the two most famous ones are The Fountainhead (1943) and Atlas Shrugged (1957). Sales are numbered in millions and they are regularly reprinted. What is their central message and why are they so popular?

      The Fountainhead is the story of a brilliant young American architect, called Howard Roark, who defies conventional opinion by refusing to compromise his moral and aesthetic standards in the pursuit of professional success. As such, it is a celebration of individual integrity, creativity and achievement, and its central message—as the title implies—is that the individual ego is the fountainhead of human progress. Atlas Shrugged, by contrast, is a much longer book, with a larger cast of characters, and tells the story of how a group of brilliant inventors, businessmen and intellectuals “stop the motor of the world” in a future socialist America. They go on strike and so ensure that their creative talents cease to prop up what they consider to be an immoral and oppressive social system. Both books, therefore, incorporate similar themes, though their fullest expression is in Atlas Shrugged. In it “altruism” is portrayed as an ascetic, life-hating philosophy which sacrifices the individual to the collective and glorifies the State. Atlas Shrugged also contains a savage attack on religion, giving voice to Ayn Rand’s theophobic conviction that belief in God is a form of psychological self-abasement which promotes irrationality, obscurantism and tyranny.

      Ayn Rand’s novels appeal to that spirit of rugged individualism which has always been a strong and widely admired feature of American culture. Unfortunately, by glorifying personal creativity and freedom in the unbalanced way she does, and by equating the idea of “service” and helping others with coercion and slavery, her philosophy also gratifies personal pride, selfishness, and materialism, as well as appealing to more generous emotions.

      The second key figure in the development of the Libertarian movement has been the late Professor Murray Rothbard, an extremely able free-market economist and scholar, whose corpus of work includes books on history and political philosophy as well as economics. Amongst these, the three most influential have been America’s Great Depression; Man, Economy, and State; and For a New Liberty. Whilst the first is a powerful indictment of State mismanagement and regulation of the monetary system, responsible—in Rothbard’s eyes—for the Great Depression of the 1930s, the second is a detailed philosophical exposition of the case for “anarcho-capitalism” and the abolition of the State. For a New Liberty, on the other hand, is a more popular work aimed at a larger audience, and is in effect, as its subtitle indicates, The Libertarian Manifesto. In it Rothbard not only outlines detailed arguments and policies for dismantling the State, in favour of both personal choice and the free market in every area of life, from the regulation of drugs and sexual behaviour, to education, welfare, law and order, and foreign policy. He also sets out, in uncompromising terms, the moral principle upon which the whole of Libertarianism is based.

      “The Libertarian creed,” he declares,

. . . rests upon one central axiom: that no man or group of men may aggress against the person or property of anyone else. This may be called the “nonaggression axiom.” “Aggression” is defined as the initiation of the use or threat of physical violence against the person or property of anyone else. Aggression is therefore synonymous with invasion.

If no man may aggress against another . . . this at once implies that the libertarian stands foursquare for what are generally known as “civil liberties”: the freedom to speak, publish, assemble, and to engage in such “victimless crimes” as pornography, sexual deviation and prostitution . . . since the libertarian also opposes invasion of the rights of private property, this also means that he just as emphatically opposes government interference with property rights or with the free-market economy through controls, regulations, subsidies, or prohibitions.

      Although it must again be emphasised that Libertarianism is an eclectic creed, with internal differences of opinion between, for example, anarchists and supporters of the “Minimum State,” most Libertarians are familiar with the writings of Rand and Rothbard and share most of their views.

      How relevant, though, is Libertarianism to life in 21st century Britain? Extremely, is the short answer.

 

      At the political level, it has exerted a strong influence on the younger and more intellectual elements within the Conservative Party, whilst the numerous publications of the London-based Libertarian Alliance attract many intelligent readers and political activists. It is, however, the cultural impact of Libertarianism which is most significant today. In a nutshell, it both appeals to and reinforces that dislike of authority which is such a marked feature of contemporary British and Western culture. Whilst its attitude to taxation, government regulation, and the Welfare State, is only shared by a small minority, its agnosticism in the area of “personal morality” and its indifference or hostility towards Christianity puts it firmly in the cultural mainstream.     Ω