But the libertarians also endorse the "like liberty principle:" This is "the right to live your life as you choose so long as you don't infringe on the equal rights of others." (David Boaz, Libertarianism, a Primer, 59). Similarly, William Bayes:
Where do my rights end? Where yours begin. I may do anything I wish with my own life, liberty and property without your consent; but I may do nothing with your life, liberty and property without your consent.... ("What is Property?", The Freeman, July 1970, p. 348. My emphasis, EP).
Again, a commendable principle. However, while libertarians endorse the"like liberty principle" in the abstract, they fail to do so in their economic policies. For if the libertarians scrupulously followed the like liberty principle, they would cease to be libertarians. The economic "liberty" that they promote, along with the Republican Right, exacts "liberty costs" in others.
For example:
Food and Drugs. "Free" of government regulation, corporations are free to manufacture, and merchants are free to sell, contaminated and spoiled food, and harmful or ineffective drugs -- as they did prior to the establishment of the federal Food and Drug Administration.
Air and water pollution. Absent environmental protection laws, the general public is poisoned by toxic substances are "freely" tossed into our waterways and released into our common atmosphere. The remedy? The Environmental Protection Agency.
Work safety (e.g. mines). Before "big government" constrained the "liberty" of mine owners and mill workers with work safety regulation, mine workers died young with black lung disease and textile mills employed children in sweat shops.
Consu mer protection. Without government regulation, the individual has no recourse when injured by a faulty product. Example: the exploding gas tanks in the Ford Pintos.
Investment protection. With the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act, investment bankers are now "at liberty" to gamble with your money. Your savings are still protected by the New Deal FDIC. But for how long?
Free Markets (yes, I said "free markets'). The libertarians will not tell you this, but "the free market" can only function under government regulation, without which fraud, monopolization, and bribery proliferate. As history once again teaches us an unregulated market contains the seeds of its own destruction. Furthermore, the "totally free" market is a myth, as I explain here.
Summing up: "liberty" and "freedom" for "the one-percent" is obtained at the cost of the liberty and freedom of the general public. As Robert Kuttner observes:
A young person from a poor family who does not need to incur crippling debt to attend university is a freer person. A low-income mother who cannot afford to pay the doctor attains a new degree of freedom when she and her children are covered by Medicaid. A worker who might be compelled to choose between his job and his physical safety becomes freer if government health and safety regulations are enforced. The employee of a big-box store who can take paid family leave when a child gets sick is freer than one whose entire life is at the whim of the boss; likewise a worker with a union contract that provides protection from arbitrary dismissal or theft of wages.
The need for "big government regulation" was not decided in academic seminar rooms or derived from dogmatic "first principles." These protections did not appear "spontaneously" ("as if by an invisible hand") out of the aggregate activities of "utility maximizing" individuals. They were imposed by law (i.e., government) and enforce by sanctions (government again), following the demand of the general public -- i.e., the victims of previously unregulated "free" activity of individuals and corporations. History provides the proof, for history has shown us, time again, that when privileged individuals and corporations are unconstrained (i.e. "free") there are victims: unconsenting and innocent individuals whose liberties are sacrificed.
But aren't governments always corrupted by waste, fraud and abuse?
No argument here. As noted above, governments, like all human institutions are imperfect. At worst, governments are tyrannical, in which case the only recourse might be revolution. But following a revolution, the tyranny must be replaced by a new government, hopefully benign but nonetheless necessary.
Consider an analogy : no community is completely free of crime or without accidental fires, which means that the police and fire departments are never completely effective. So what is the rational response? Abolition of police and fire department? Of course not! The rational response is to improve these services. Even the most doctrinaire libertarian would agree, according to the principle that governments legitimately protect life, liberty and property. Libertarians are minimalists, not anarchists.
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