Application
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Now to some applications as some libertarians see it. Society with the least amount of coercion is preferable. More freedom is preferable and maximum individual freedom is achieved at a certain level of rights – property being essential one. State is needed to enforce those rights – protect persons and property from violence – including foreign invasion, and fraud – enforcement of contracts, explicit and implicit.
The members of the society have obligation to respect other people’s domain – body/property, to honor contracts and implicit agreements, to help enforce the rules – financially and personally, including military service if necessary. That’s it – the necessary minimum corresponding to the maximum freedom.
State revenue is somehow collected (taxes, fees) for primary goals (army, police, courts) and to create the public goods – those where everyone benefits but nobody has an incentive to create them single-handedly – like lighthouses, possibly roads that could be commonly owned.
All the transactions between adults are accomplished without coercion and to mutual benefit. When exchanging services/property in an honest transaction, each side made the best choice available to him/her. Reasonable honest disclosure of goods/services rendered is assumed and protected by state against fraud or contract violation.
Restricting such transaction would mean forcing both sides into worse alternative choices available to them.
To foresee some questions:
Yes, shared property can exist – streets, air, and sea, objects - whatever people decide.
No, you cannot pollute, unless you somehow figure out a way to only pollute your property and not affect the other’s property. The acceptable limits of non-pollution – air, water, noise, light must be worked out by the state in light of the traditions and reviewed based on newly available knowledge. Shared resources, like animals, river, and sunlight have to be regulated.
Yes, the robber barons of late did violate other people’s property and even rights, but that was exactly because the government did not perform its function of protecting people’s rights.
Anything that originates in one’s domain is part of it and that person’s property – unless explicitly/implicitly agreed with other people.
One can do anything in one’s domain that does not violate other people’s domains unless agreed. Nobody can enter the domain without owner’s permission.
That means an intruder is completely within the owner’s power – which simplifies sentencing and the whole punishment debate. Nobody has to decide on the proper punishment and proper response but the owner – whatever cause of intrusion. That would simplify legal system enormously.
That does not mean you can invite and murder a person – by extending an invitation you enter into an implicit contract to respect his domain/body within yours, or, if he has a heart attack to allow ambulance to get to him.
Not only the actual violations of a private domain but risks must be considered. So a person can be restricted from building a private nuclear reactor unless his property is appropriate (size, wind, groundwater) and construction approved.
No, an ambulance is not a right guaranteed by state, neither is sewer. Use the services of a private one. Or have a communal arrangement – municipal, town, whatever.
Neither is a disaster relief. If you decide to grow “cheap” wheat in a tornado-prone area, add the cost of reinforced house or replacement or insurance premiums to the price of your product. Oh, yes – charity will be there, we are all nice people and do not need state coercion to help others in need, even if their actions are the results of bad decisions and taking unreasonable risks.
School system – private too. Or communal. Surely, we are all supposed to benefit from some guy going through school/college with program created according to some latest educational whim – but if some people decide not to take advantage of such “benefit”, who is to say otherwise in a free society?
Any person coming into society that supports the operation of the society has a claim for rights – through others incurring corresponding obligations in return for his/her cooperation. The difference between citizen and foreigner does not disappear but becomes rather moot. A neighbor can sell his lot to whomever he wants and the new owner is bound to behave. And few would care much about his political views since the only thing the government does is run police and military. Of course it would suck to find oneself in the middle of a Chinese area with all stores switching to an unknown language, but then a use of some common language can somehow be mandated as necessary to maintain a society. That’s a tricky question best left for lawyers.
Discrimination could not be an issue in such a society. Obviously, what we understand as discrimination now – preferential treatment based on other things than qualifications – may exist. Any person is not restricted in whom he hires or sells his property to since both are voluntary interaction. There is a cost to discrimination and the one discriminating bears it – by getting a less qualified worker or inferior product and driving more qualified one to his competitors.
Now the controversial stuff.
A child originates within a person’s body, so a child belongs to that person – part of his/her domain. A child does not have claim to any rights other than those voluntarily claimed on its behalf by its parents (see Rights above) – since nobody has incurred any obligation to such child/fetus. Parent has rights in a society by supporting its operation and can claim such rights for a child.
Nobody is allowed to offer anything – candy, ride, pornography, a book, let alone drugs or alcohol to an underage child because it would violate the parent’s domain - unless the parents agree, of course. Nobody can claim rights for someone else’s child because enforcing them would mean violating the parents’ domain.
When a child grows old enough to support the operation of the society, he claims the same rights as others. The exact moment when that occurs is a tricky question. Probably when a child steps outside and says “I am my own responsibility” and the parent says “OK, I am not responsible for him/her anymore and whatever is done to him/her is not a violation of my domain“. Probably the prevailing tradition will have a say on the age.
If a parent loses a fetus/child due to someone’s action, he/she can claim manslaughter/murder since he can claim full rights for that fetus/child. Alternatively, if a parent does not claim such rights – including ownership of a domain, the abortion is not considered a violation and not a murder. That makes it easy for me to define my stand on abortion – I do not have to decide anything and leave that decision to the parents in question, however abortion is abhorrent to me – or alternatively, however I’d have preferred some people aborted
Oh, yea – I cannot do anything about that since getting to the fetus/child would violate the parent’s domain.
By the way, those are extreme cases, never fear – the free society can certainly have additional restrictions/obligations in affect based on prevailing customs/traditions, including definitions of murder and child and what right one has.
I am often asked about libertarian stand drugs, prostitution, and alcohol. We – majority, anyway - dislike those things and most would not condone engaging in them. But we cannot claim any right to regulate voluntary and honest transaction between consenting adults (children excluded as explained earlier). Me having such right to regulate what does not affect my body/property would mean obligation of those people to let me interfere with what they would like to do – and why would anyone incur such an obligation without coercion?
This is a very rough outline, there are many complicated issues, some of them unresolved or maybe even unsolvable – where traditions and customs would have to take place of reason.
I guess it is not a surprise that libertarians do not consider US to be a completely free state or operating under the Rule of Law – even though it is arguably the most free state in the world.
Fire up the questions and opposing points. I recommend that you post ask for more detailed explanations if some item seems wrong.
You can always claim that the author is an idiot and/or comes from the wrong background to have a reasonable opinion and is greedy to boot, but I know for sure many very smart people, including Americans of impeccable credentials and good morals share those views.
miko
