Libertarian's Fundamental Commitments

A possible ordering of Zwolinski & Tomasi's list

In their new and excellent history of libertarianism, The Individualists (Princeton University Press, 2023), Matt Zwolinksi and John Tomasi claim libertarians have six basic commitments.  Zwolinski and Tomasi do not, at least in the first third of the book (I’m still reading), say whether they believe there is an order of importance to the six. 

I am inclined to think that Zwolinski and Tomasi are correct about the six commitments, but I also think that some are more fundamental than others. In this post, I will suggest one ordering.

Putting them in what I take to be order of fundamental importance, the six commitments are:

1. Individualism

2. Negative Liberty

3. Private Property

4. Skepticism of Authority

5. Spontaneous order

6. Markets

What I mean when I talk of “order of fundamental importance” is simply that if B is less fundamental than A, its importance is due to A (or something else more fundamental than B).  Something more fundamental can give something less fundamental value. For example, I think skepticism of authority is important because of negative liberty—as negative liberty is fundamental we ought to be skeptical about any attempts to limit it, so ought to be skeptical of authority.  I’ll say more about that below.

To begin, I take the individual to be the fundamental unit of normative value.  On my view, while its true that individuals do not exist without communities of some sort, communities exist for individuals.  If individuals are benefited by—or believe themselves to be benefited by—their community, then the community (likely) has moral value.  If not, likely not.  A community in which everyone suffers is not a community worth anything.  A community that forces some to suffer in order to make others prosper, is in need of reform—it is morally defective for reducing the welfare of individuals (that is, such a community harms some of its own members).

Because individuals are of the utmost normative priority, it seems to me that we must protect negative liberty.  People are more likely to flourish if they can decide for themselves what they do, free of interference.  This is not to say that they will always be right.  It is to say that they (at least as mature adults) almost certainly have more knowledge about what will make them flourish than anyone else.  When they do not, they may cause themselves hardship—but then they are likely to learn from their mistakes.  (Some might believe we ought to manipulate people in ways designed to help them flourish but it may well be that genuine flourishing requires deciding for oneself even if that opens the door to mistakes and the knowledge problem makes it unlikely that the manipulation would be more successful regardless.)

Importantly, I am not denying the importance of positive liberty.  In fact, I simply think the best way to promote positive liberty is by protecting negative liberty. This is largely because when no one is interfered with, everyone can work to their comparative advantage, creating more value for everyone, leaving everyone in greater position to exercise positive liberty. Protecting negative liberty makes positive liberty likely.  I also think it is likely easier to protect negative liberty than positive liberty—it requires only preventing unjust interference, whereas protecting positive liberty would require providing all that people need to live as they wish.  (I take it, by contrast, that socialists believe protecting positive liberty makes negative liberty likely and welfare liberals believe that both must be protected.) In short, the second commitment follows from the first.

With the value of individuals and negative liberty (somewhat) clear, we move on to private property and the skepticism of authority.  If individuals are the fundamentally valuable beings and are to be free of interference as much as possible (I would say permissible interference is in accord with the harm principle), they need to be able to do as they wish.  To do as they wish, they must (as Hegel emphasized) have the means to do as they wish and they must not be subject to inappropriate demands on their lives.  The means to do as they wish include their own native abilities and private property.  The fact that we believe individuals must not be subject to inappropriate demands is why we libertarians are skeptical of authority.  For a power to be a genuine (and morally permissible) authority means some demanding requirements are satisfied and since those requirements (whatever they are) are demanding, we will frequently wonder if the power actually satisfies them.  In short, the third and fourth commitments follow from the first and second (or is it just from the second?).

Having gotten through the first four commitments, the last two follow quite directly.  If we are skeptical of authority, we will not easily agree to allow any power to direct our lives.  We will live together freely, making agreements as we see fit.  That is, we will live with spontaneous order.  This is no small affair.  We will not simply accept some supposed authority telling us when to wake up, what to eat, how to communicate, how to trade, etc.  We will, in short, live with spontaneous order.  This is not, of course, a chaotic free for all; it is a system where agreements (loosely speaking; these are often implicit) between individuals determine what they do and interwoven sets of agreements between the multitude of people provide an order—an order not directed by any single source.  There is no central planner, no central clearing house for all decisions or knowledge, but there is order.  The market, of course, is an example of this, which is why I mention it last.  It may be that we should just say the commitment to markets is simply an example of the (fifth) commitment to spontaneous order.  It is, though, a spontaneous order that is specifically about private property—and a spontaneous order in which we use private property is a market.  In short, the last two commitments follow from the prior commitments, especially skepticism of authority (the fourth).

Obviously, I haven’t fully defended the claims I’ve made about which commitments follow from which, but I am interested to hear what people think.  Is my reasoning for thinking the order I’ve provided somehow misguided?  Am I missing a reason to think one I put later is more fundamental than I treat it?  Let me know.