Natural Rights Libertarian

As a presidential candidate, Joe Biden campaigned for a national minimum wage of $15 per hour to replace the currently moribund floor of $7.25. President-elect Biden has recently doubled down. With the Democrats also now controlling both houses of Congress, this may become law, subject to the whims of just a few key senators, such as Joe Manchin of West Virginia.  

   If there were a Hall of Fame for truly awful economic ideas, the minimum wage would be a charter member. As I have previously argued, it is clearly rights-violating in that it, in Nozick’s memorable words, “prohibits capitalist acts between consenting adults.” Moreover, to the extent that utilitarianism can yield determinate results, it flunks even under this standard, as it harms the most vulnerable members of society to benefit the better off.

It’s nice to be reminded that not all of our young people have gone over to the Woke Side. I was recently interviewed at some length about my book Libertarian Philosophy in the Real World by Isadore Johnson, a junior at the University of Connecticut. Izzy is the co-founder of UConn’s chapter of Young Americans For Liberty, and is a local coordinator for Students for Liberty. My interview is the first of a series of podcasts he is planning with libertarian writers and public figures, which will be available through his college radio station, Spotify, and other venues. Izzy did his research, and conducted our discussion in a thoroughly competent and professional manner. I wish him success with his venture, and am proud to have inaugurated it.

John Mackey (the libertarian-leaning founder of Whole Foods) in his recent speech to the Federalist Society gave a full-throated defense of capitalism: “It’s capitalism that creates innovations that create the progress in the world…And it’s lifting humanity literally out of the dirt.”[i] While I am fully in accord with these sentiments, I believe it is worth pausing a few moments to consider the nature of “capitalism,” so as to better understand its origins and consequently the fragile nature of its virtues.

One conventional definition of this term is “an economic and political system in which a country’s trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state.”  However, we should understand that “capitalism” is not fundamental; it is not the intellectual analogue to one of the 118 elements displayed on the Periodic Table, but rather a “derivative,” meaning a compound that can be synthesized from one or more of these elements. In political economic terms what we call “capitalism” is the byproduct of and depends upon ordered liberty, or what we typically call today the rule of law.

My friend Danny Frederick has just published an exciting book, Freedom, Indeterminism, and Fallibilism, that approaches many familiar but vexing problems in moral and political philosophy from an innovative, promising direction. Drawing on ideas presented in his large oeuvre of published work, and utilizing many of Karl Poppers’ important insights, Danny sets forth provocative theories regarding rationality; free will; the moral basis for individual freedom, and its limits; the functions of the liberal state; and the problem of political authority. Although overturning much of the conventional thinking on these topics, Danny’s arguments should be congenial to classical liberals and libertarians.

Danny graciously accepted my invitation to present his own synopsis of his book on my blog , which appears below. I am sure he will be happy to address any questions readers of this may have. I hope his book gets the wide readership it deserves. Here is a link to the publisher’s (Palgrave Macmillan) website, providing additional information, excerpts, and purchasing information. Continue Reading »

If the response of our leaders to the COVID-19 pandemic demonstrates anything, it is the enduring truth and continuing relevance of the following observation made by the great mid-19th Century French liberal, Frederic Bastiat:

Socialism, like the ancient ideas from which it springs, confuses the distinction between government and society. As a result of this, every time we object to a thing being done by government, the socialists conclude that we object to its being done at all. We disapprove of state education. Then the socialists say that we are opposed to any education. We object to a state religion. Then the socialists say that we want no religion at all…It is as if the socialists were to accuse us of not wanting persons to eat because we do not want the state to raise grain. (The Law, 1850)

Here too, discourse on how to respond to this deadly virus has too often been cast in terms of those who want to “do something” and those who simply wish to let this contagion run its course. Or worse, a clash between those who truly care about their fellow citizens, and those whose only concern is filthy lucre.

Continue Reading »

As previously promised, here is a link to Danny and my paper offering a limited defense of immigration restrictions, just published in Cosmos + Taxis, a peer-reviewed, open access journal. Set forth immediately below is a summary, after which I offer a few thoughts on what I learned from the obstacles we had to surmount in getting it published.

Abstract: Contemporary liberal theorists generally support open borders and some argue that liberalism is incompatible with substantive immigration control. We argue that it has not been shown that there is an inconsistency in the idea of a liberal state enforcing such controls and that it may be obligatory for a liberal state to impose substantive restrictions on immigration. The immigration control on which we focus is that concerning people from societies that resemble closed societies, particularly those in which Islamic fundamentalism is endemic. We suggest that, if the threat we envision is real, then a liberal state has a right to limit immigration from such societies.

I am pleased to announce Danny Frederick’s and my paper, “The Liberal Defense of Immigration Control,” has been accepted for publication in the peer-reviewed, open access journal, Cosmos + Taxis.  I will link to this journal when our paper becomes available.  As you may know from prior posts, and as reflected in our title, we argue there that the characteristic duty of a liberal state is to secure “the maximum freedom of each person that is compatible with the equal freedom of all persons,” and that this obligation may in the circumstances we hypothesize require restrictions on immigration.

Danny Frederick’s and my paper “The Liberal Defense of Immigration Control” is still wanting a publisher. That’s the bad news. However, the good news is that even so it was recently referenced and discussed in the online magazine Quillette, one of the leading forums for classical liberal views. Specifically, Sam Kiss (a just-minted academic philosopher) in his essay “Is Liberal Immigration Anti-Democratic?—A Reply to Gadi Taub,” writes the following:

Some accept a fiduciary argument that says we may reconcile liberal rights with restrictionism because one of these rights is the right to strong liberal institutions. Taub hints at this kind of justification when he criticizes immigration to Europe and Israel. The idea is that allowing immigration, particularly immigration from authoritarian, conservative societies, threatens liberal institutions in the long-term. To their credit, the main proponents of the fiduciary argument, Danny Frederick and Mark D. Friedman, admit the evidence they have for believing immigration would weaken liberal institutions is limited. Since immigration restrictions are stringent, extensive restrictions on citizens, the evidence would have to be decisive. This isn’t the only problem with the fiduciary argument. What if institutions only count as strong liberal institutions if they have opened their borders? The reply may be that some features of liberal institutions matter more than others: whatever rights immigration restrictions violate are less important than any they supposedly protect. As immigration restrictions are so similar to restrictions on certain rights almost all liberals accept are basic, we’d have to look to citizenship to explain things here too. And the explanation can’t be circular. 

   Naturally, I am delighted that the ideas that Danny and I have worked so hard to develop and articulate have received this recognition. I will in due course address the reservations Kiss expresses about the “fiduciary argument,” but since I find the exchange between Taub and Kiss quite thought provoking in its own right, I will enter this discussion in broader terms.

A recent family vacation to Washington, D.C. crystallized my thinking regarding the statues and other tributes erected in earlier times to honor figures now considered disreputable and worse. Like gazillions of other tourists, we visited many of the majestic monuments dedicated by Congress to former presidents and public figures, including Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, FDR, and MLK.  It did not escape my notice that all of these men have flaws, when seen through 21^st century eyes, not appreciably worse than exhibited by those Confederate generals, leaders, and veterans whose statues and memorials have been razed, hidden, or renamed by many of our cities, municipalities, and colleges/universities over the last few years. Should our presidential memorials be next in line?

In my Libertarian Philosophy in the Real World (pp.162-67) and in blog posts here and here, I have defended the idea that a liberal state may permissibly impose immigration controls if required to maintain the tolerant, pluralistic nature of its polity. In light of the intense controversy surrounding this issue both within libertarian circles and more broadly, I wished to address this topic in a more thorough, comprehensive way.

As described in an earlier post, I was fortunate to recruit my friend Danny Frederick as a co-author, and we recently completed a draft that satisfies us both. Its title is “The Liberal Defense of Immigration Control,” and here is the abstract:

Liberal theorists generally support open borders and some recent work has argued that liberalism is incompatible with substantive immigration control. We argue that it has not been shown that there is an inconsistency in the idea of a liberal state enforcing such controls and that it may be obligatory for a liberal state to impose substantive, though relatively minor, restrictions on immigration. The immigration control on which we focus is that concerning people from societies that resemble closed societies, particularly those in which Islamic fundamentalism is endemic. We suggest that, if the threat we envision is real, then a liberal state has a right to limit, though not to prohibit, immigration from such societies.

We are still looking for a journal, but have decided to limit our search to those that permit self-publication prior to submission. Here is a link to our paper. We anticipate that it will undergo further revisions as part of the peer-review process, and so welcome all critical questions and comments in the hope of improving our arguments.