Category Archives: Blog

In previous posts (here and here) I have discussed Nozick’s somewhat neglected libertarian “framework for utopia,” which he lays out in Part III of ASU. Very briefly, in a perfect world the minimal state would provide the institutional skeleton around which individuals and communities could construct their own preferred modes of living. So long as people join them voluntarily and are free to leave, such communities may be distinctly illiberal. The state would function to ensure that the various sub-units do not aggress against each other, and would safeguard each person’s right of exit.

Nozick is operating here in the realm of ideal theory, and accordingly does not attempt to thoroughly address various practical problems that would arise under his framework. See ASU, 329-31. For one thing, children do not voluntarily elect to live in a particular jurisdiction, but are born, socialized, and educated wherever their parents have decided to reside.  Furthermore, exit from such communities will inevitably involve certain costs.  Such facts might, in the real world, require a more interventionist state than anticipated by Nozick in his idealized setting.  Apart from this, there may be certain group rules and practices that are so abhorrent to other communities, even if adopted on a consensual basis, that the latter may not wish to “share the same roof” with them, even symbolically.

Putting these complexities aside, Nozick’s idea has striking similarities to the federalism that the framers understood to be the essence of our constitution. “Federalism” is defined by my dictionary as “the distribution of power in an organization (as a government) between a central authority and the constituent units.” The founding fathers embraced this idea: all responsibilities not formally delegated to the federal government were to remain with the several states and ultimately repose in the people themselves (see the Ninth and Tenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution). The remaining substantive guarantees set forth in the Bill of Rights originally applied only to the federal government. Continue Reading »

The leveling down argument has discredited the claim that equality of condition has any intrinsic value. Nevertheless, a rigid egalitarianism remains an article of faith among many of our politicians and opinion leaders, and thus continues to serve as a handy excuse for the violation of rights; e.g. “capital should be much more aggressively taxed because…equality.”[1]  It also, in the two ways discussed below, rears its ugly head in the sphere of educational policy, and again reveals its intellectual bankruptcy. Continue Reading »

The ongoing negotiations between Greece’s hard-left leaders and its European creditors (together with the IMF) regarding whether the former will agree to the fiscal and tax reforms demanded by the latter are becoming more farcical by the day. The last five months have brought non-stop drama, melodrama, and posturing, but no resolution. Its creditors see Greece as a potential financial black hole into which ever-larger loans enter but are never repaid. For their part, the Greeks are reluctant to face the fact that cannot both have their cake (the Euro) and eat it too (by continuing to pile up external debt). Continue Reading »

We have just marked the eight hundredth anniversary of the Magna Carta, forced by the great barons on England’s King John on June 15, 1215. It had its origin primarily in the King’s insatiable appetite for new taxes, which he sought to impose in violation of prevailing feudal law and custom. This agreement was an important victory for property rights and not coincidentally the first step in the establishment of the rule of law (however imperfect) in Britain, and by extension, the English-speaking world.

In honor of the occasion, I offer an excerpt from my Libertarian Philosophy in the Real World: The Politics of Natural Rights (pp. 34-6), where I summarize and defend the libertarian case for stringent property rights. Continue Reading »

As most everyone knows by now, Pamela Geller, the head of an organization called American Freedom Defense Initiative, isn’t fond of traditional Islam. In fact, she regards those who promote sharia, or Islamic law, as a mortal threat to America and to liberal values generally. Many Muslims do in fact interpret sharia as justifying the use of deadly force against those who dare to depict the Prophet. In response, she recently sponsored a “draw Muhammad contest” in Garland, Texas, which resulted in the timely death of two terrorists who attempted a Charlie Hebdo style massacre (welcome to Texas).

As a result on staging this event, Geller has been accused of a wide variety of things: hate speech, bigotry, provocation, incitement, the “abuse” of free speech, and so forth. The nationally syndicated columnist Kathleen Parker’s comments are representative. In an opinion piece titled “Pamela Geller’s Abuse of Free Speech,” she describes the contest as “provocative” and “incendiary,” and then writes:

And Geller’s contribution to these [First Amendment] protections and our unwavering dedication to its preservation is, exactly, what? A taunt. Shouldn’t one at least aspire to some originality? It’s been done. And each time, the result is the same. You haul out a picture of Muhammad; “they” haul out a fatwa. Cat puts out cheese; mouse gets eaten. What does one expect?

As argued below, whatever one thinks of Geller’s underlying thesis, not only was she completely within her rights to stage her “contest,” but her tactics are unobjectionable, if not laudable. Continue Reading »

Guest post by Danny Frederick

The traditional problem of free will arose out of theology. God was supposed to know everything, in which case He would have perfect foreknowledge. But if God knows beforehand what we are going to do, how can we be free either to do it or not?

In the Enlightenment, the problem arose out of science, specifically, the success of Newton’s theory. For here was a clear and (relatively) simple theory of the world, expressed in precise mathematical formulae, which made predictions about the motions of every kind of matter, whether large or small, whether on earth or in the heavens, whether solid or fluid; and the predictions were borne out by experimental testing. Furthermore some of the predictions were very surprising and counterintuitive, so people expected them to fail; yet they also survived testing. The theory was even used to predict the existence, size and orbit of a planet in the solar system which no one had previously known about; and when telescopes were pointed in the relevant portion of the night sky, there it was! Neptune was discovered. People could not believe that this theory could be false. It was generally accepted as firmly established truth. The success of Newton’s theory marked the transition from the open-minded and critical Renaissance to the dogmatic Enlightenment. Continue Reading »

Our blue states and “progressive” major cities now seem to be competing to determine which jurisdiction can establish the highest minimum wage. At this moment, Los Angeles is in the lead at $15.37/hour (for hotel workers), with Seattle and San Francisco close behind at $15.00 (all workers). Obviously, such laws violate the freedom of employers and employees to enter into consensual arrangements at any rate of compensation below the legal floor, and thus are ruled out on libertarian principles.

Sadly, the electorate is generally unmoved by appeals to abstract notions like freedom of contract, so opponents of such laws often resort to a handy reductio ad absurdum: if raising the minimum wage to $15/hr. is such a great idea, why stop there; why not $30/hr. or even $150/hr.? The point of this argument is easy to grasp, even by the economically illiterate. Clearly, a floor of $150/hr. would not produce wealthy workers, but would instead generate layoff notices for most of them. Continue Reading »

I believe that no political controversy generates more misinformation, grossly erroneous historical claims, and outright lies than the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Libertarians are perhaps more afflicted than most with this disease, which often lapses over into anti-Semitism. I do not mean the classical, overt hatred of Jews, but rather an eagerness to apply one set of ethical standards to the sole Jewish state and a radically different, much more lenient standard, to all other nations.

This recently hit quite close to home, when the fifth grade teacher at the private school my eldest boy attends chose to illuminate her “political systems” module with a case study of the above-mentioned dispute. She then published on the school blog the essays written by her students regarding this struggle, which had a decidedly anti-Israel slant. The centerpiece of her educational program was an (undated) report prepared by the Council for Arab-British Understanding[1], titled “Israeli-Palestinian Conflict” (the “Report”). Continue Reading »

In an earlier post I offered my perspective on Prosecutor Robert McCulloch’s conduct in directing the St. Louis County grand jury investigation that found no basis for indicting officer Darren Wilson in the shooting death of Michael Brown. There, I argued that based on the information then available the prosecutor acted correctly in not seeking an indictment, a position now borne out by the U.S. Department of Justice’s report on the shooting, which found that: Wilson’s use of force was not “objectively unreasonable” under the applicable federal statute, and thus no federal grand jury indictment was warranted. However, a second DOJ report blasted the small city of Ferguson, Missouri (the location of the incident) for various forms of racism, not related to Brown’s death.

Before proceeding further, we would be wise to consult the analysis of the DOJ reports offered by Professor Richard Epstein, one of the preeminent scholars now working in the classical liberal tradition. With respect to the report concerning Wilson, he notes that based on the facts and circumstances he cites, “It is not just the case that there is insufficient evidence to support a criminal prosecution. It is that, beyond a reasonable doubt, the evidence supports that Wilson’s conduct was fully justified.” In other words, it is clear that he acted righty in defense of his own life and in defense of the public at large (what would have happened if Brown had walked away with the officer’s gun?). Continue Reading »

Imagine that a collection of highly committed members of a Social Democrat style political party charter a cruise ship to sail around the Pacific in order to charge themselves up for the next election. The group consists of one thousand adults. Sadly, the ship suffers a catastrophic malfunction, and the group is shipwrecked on a remote and uninhabited island (well-known, however, to philosophers). Fortunately, the island has rich soil, ample potable water, and a moderate climate, and they are able to salvage the stores and equipment from the ship. Accordingly, there is every prospect that the group can survive until they are rescued. Continue Reading »