Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gxg78 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T04:22:17.433Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

THE LIBERTARIAN NONAGGRESSION PRINCIPLE

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 April 2016

Matt Zwolinski
Matt Zwolinski*
Affiliation:
Philosophy, University of San Diego
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract:

Libertarianism is a controversial political theory. But it is often presented as a resting upon a simple, indeed commonsense, moral principle. The libertarian “Nonaggression Principle” (NAP) prohibits aggression against the persons or property of others, and it is on this basis that the libertarian opposition to redistributive taxation, legal paternalism, and perhaps even the state itself is thought to rest. This essay critically examines the NAP and the extent to which it can provide support for libertarian political theory. It identifies two problems with existing libertarian appeals to the NAP. First, insofar as libertarians employ a moralized understanding of aggression, their principle is really about the protection of property rights rather than the prohibition of aggression. Second, the absolutist prohibition on aggression, which libertarians typically endorse and which is necessary to generate strongly libertarian conclusions, is grossly implausible. The essay concludes by setting forth a version of the NAP that does not suffer from these problems. It argues that this more moderate and defensible version of the NAP still has important libertarian implications, but that a full defense of libertarianism cannot rely upon appeals to nonaggression alone.

Type
Research Article
Information
Social Philosophy and Policy , Volume 32 , Issue 2 , Spring 2016 , pp. 62 - 90
Copyright
Copyright © Social Philosophy and Policy Foundation 2016 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 For the most philosophically sophisticated such presentation, see Michael Huemer, The Problem of Political Authority: An Examination of the Right to Coerce and the Duty to Obey (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), 176–78.

2 See Kibbe, Matt, Don't Hurt People and Don't Take Their Stuff: A Libertarian Manifesto (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2014);Google Scholar Jacob H Huebert, Libertarianism Today (ABC-CLIO, 2010), 4.

3 Many, but not all. For a typology of various approaches to libertarianism, see Matt Zwolinski, “Libertarianism,” The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, http://www.iep.utm.edu/libertar/. See also Jason Brennan, Libertarianism: What Everyone Needs to Know (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012). For a historically based overview of the diversity of libertarian thought, see Zwolinski, Matt and Tomasi, John, Libertarianism: A Progressive Intellectual History (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, forthcoming in 2017).Google Scholar

4 Rothbard, Murray N., For a New Liberty, 2nd ed. (Auburn, AL: Ludwig von Mises Institute, 2006)Google Scholar, 27. In this passage, Rothbard actually calls it the Nonaggression “Axiom,” but a charitable interpretation seems to suggest that we not take that term too literally. Rothbard does, after all, just a few pages later discuss “three broad types of foundation for the libertarian axiom,” which seems to suggest he was using the phrase in something other than its strict, mathematical sense (p. 30).

5 An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought: Economic Thought Before Adam Smith, vol. 1 (Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, 1995), 316–17. Rothbard is somewhat unclear regarding the relationship between the homesteading principle and the NAP. Sometimes, Rothbard writes as though the NAP is the single foundational axiom of libertarianism: “The libertarian creed rests upon one central axiom…” (For a New Liberty [New York: Collier, 1973], 23). Elsewhere, he writes as though the homesteading principle and the NAP are both logical implications of a more foundational principle of self-ownership (ibid., 31–37). As shall become clearer as the analysis of this essay proceeds, the latter position is the more internally consistent one. I will begin, however, by seeing how far libertarianism can go with the NAP alone, without recourse to a more foundational principle, or a supplemental one.

6 Rothbard, For a New Liberty, 27.

7 Rothbard himself was an anarchist who thought that the state was best understood as “a criminal band,” and who looked back upon his initial conversion to anarchism as “a simple exercise in logic” (ibid., 57); The Betrayal of the American Right (Ludwig von Mises Institute, 2007), 74.

8 To be clear, I remain agnostic (at least for purposes of this paper) about whether these more radical claims might be justified all-things-considered. My point here is a more limited one. It is that the most defensible version of a NAP will not by itself be enough to justify them.

9 See, for a more elaborate discussion, Barry, Norman P., On Classical Liberalism and Libertarianiam (London: Macmillan, 1986);Google Scholar Mack, Eric and Gaus, Gerald, “Classical Liberalism and Libertarianism: The Liberty Tradition,” in Handbook of Political Theory, ed. Gaus, Gerald and Kukathas, Chandran (London: Sage, 2004);Google Scholar Zwolinski and Tomasi, Libertarianism: A Progressive Intellectual History, chap. 1.

10 See Narveson, Jan, The Libertarian Idea (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1988);Google Scholar Mack, Eric, “Self-Ownership, Marxism, and Egalitarianism: Part 1: Challenges to Historical Entitlement,” Politics, Philosophy and Economics 1, no. 1 (2002);Google Scholar “Self-Ownership, Marxism, and Egalitarianism: Part II: Challenges to the Self-Ownership Thesis” Politics, Philosophy and Economics 1, no. 2 (2002); “The Natural Right of Property,” Social Philosophy and Policy 27, no. 1 (2010).

11 See Friedrich A. Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty, ed. Bruce Caldwell, The Collected Works of F. A. Hayek (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011); Lomasky, Loren E., Persons, Rights, and the Moral Community (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987);Google Scholar Epstein, Richard A., Principles for a Free Society: Reconciling Individual Liberty with the Common Good (New York: Basic Books, 1998);Google Scholar Schmidtz, David, Elements of Justice (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

12 Nozick, Robert, Anarchy, State, and Utopia (New York: Basic Books, 1974), 33.Google Scholar

13 Huemer, The Problem of Political Authority: An Examination of the Right to Coerce and the Duty to Obey, 177.

14 Because she considered her political views to be just one part of a complete philosophical system, and because she perceived many libertarians of her time to be hostile to the foundational elements of that system, Rand refused to identify herself as a “libertarian.” See Ayn Rand, “Brief Summary,” The Objectivist 10, no. 9 (1971). Nevertheless, Rand’s ideas had a tremendous influence on the development of twentieth-century libertarianism, and “libertarian” is clearly a better categorization for her political theory than any alternative. See Doherty, Brian, Radicals for Capitalism: A Freewheeling History of the Modern American Libertarian Movement (New York: Public Affairs, 2007)Google Scholar, especially chapter 3.

15 Rand, Ayn, “The Objectivist Ethics,” in The Virtue of Selfishness (New York: Signet, 1964), 32;Google Scholar “The Nature of Governement,” in The Virtue of Selfishness (New York, NY: Signet, 1964), 108.

16 I stipulate that George is “knowingly” trespassing merely to strengthen the intuition. Most libertarians do not hold that a violation of property rights must be intentional in order for it to be justifiable for the property owner to use (some appropriate level of) violence to stop it.

17 For one of the earliest and most influential examples of this argument in the libertarian literature, see Lysander Spooner, “A Letter to Grover Cleveland, on His False Inaugural Address, the Usurpations and Crimes of Lawmakers and Judges, and the Consequent Poverty, Ignorance, and Servitude of the People,” in The Collected Works of Lysander Spooner (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1886), 186–87.

18 This point has been made by other critics of libertarianism, most notably by G. A. Cohen Cohen, G. A., Self-Ownership, Freedom, and Equality (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995).CrossRefGoogle Scholar See also Weinberg, Justin, “Freedom, Self-Ownership, and Libertarian Philosophical Diaspora,” Critical Review 11, no. 3 (1997).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

19 See, for discussion, David Zimmerman, “Taking Liberties: The Perils of ‘Moralizing’ Freedom and Coercion in Social Theory and Practice,” Social Theory and Practice (2002).

20 See Cohen’s similar point regarding “force” in Cohen, Self-Ownership, Freedom, and Equality, 39, 61.

21 Common law battery is generally defined as voluntarily and intentionally causing an unconsented harmful or offensive contact with another person’s body or with something very closely associated with their body (for instance, a hat or a purse). Common law assault is defined as creating a reasonable fear of an imminent battery. See Glannon, Joesph W., The Law of Torts: Examples and Explanations, 4th ed. (Austin, TX: Wolters Kluwer, 2010).Google Scholar

22 Rothbard, For a New Liberty, 27. Emphasis added.

23 Rand, “The Objectivist Ethics,” 32; “The Nature of Government,” 108. Emphasis modified from original.

24 But not always, as we will see in the next section.

25 Sharon might employ actual force to retain possession of Tom’s money, should her fraud be discovered. But she might not. She might instead flee the country, or spend the money on consumption, etc.

26 G. A. Cohen makes a similar argument regarding libertarian “freedom” in Cohen, G. A., “Freedom and Money,” in On the Currency of Egalitarian Justice and Other Essays in Political Philosophy, ed. Cohen, G. A. and Otsuka, Michael (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2011).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

27 At the risk of belaboring the point, this does not entail, nor is it meant to suggest, that they are wrong in doing so. The point is merely that one cannot argue that they are not wrong by appealing to aggression in the way that libertarians standardly do.

28 The most forceful and influential expression of this concern is still to be found in the work of G. A. Cohen, especially in Cohen, “Freedom and Money” and Self-Ownership, Freedom, and Equality. But see also Karl Widerquist, Independence, Propertylessness, and Basic Income: A Theory of Freedom as the Power to Say No (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013).

29 “[I]f one portion of the earth’s surface may justly become the possession of an individual, and may be held by him for his sole use and benefit, as a thing to which he has an exclusive right, then other portions of the earth’s surface may be so held; and eventually the whole of the earth’s surface may be so held; and our planet may thus lapse altogether into private hands. Observe now the dilemma to which this leads. Supposing the entire habitable globe to be so enclosed, it follows that if the landowners have a valid right to its surface, all who are not landowners, have no right at all to its surface. Hence, such can exist on the earth by sufferance only. They are all trespassers. Save by the permission of the lords of the soil, they can have no room for the soles of their feet. Nay, should the others think fit to deny them a resting-place, these landless men might equitably be expelled from the earth altogether.” Spencer, Herbert, Social Statics (New York, NY: Robert Schalkenbach Foundation, 1995), 103–104.Google Scholar Spencer’s argument here is similar, at least in its conclusions, to the position taken by Henry George, who argued that landowners had no valid claim to the economic rent generated by their land, and that such rent could legitimately be confiscated through the mechanism of a “Single Tax.” I discuss Spencer and George’s arguments in the context of a libertarian argument for a Basic Income Guarantee in Zwolinski, Matt, “Property Rights, Coercion, and the Welfare State: The Libertarian Case for a Basic Income for All,” The Independent Review 19, no. 4 (2015).Google Scholar

30 See, for example, Rothbard, For a New Liberty, chap. 8.

31 And just as it is irrelevant how great a benefit coercion can produce, it is likewise irrelevant how small a cost coercion imposes upon its victims. As Robert Nozick writes, libertarianism “holds that stealing a penny or a pin or anything else from someone violates his rights. [It] does not select a threshold measure of harm as a lower limit” (Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia, 75).

32 The language here is adapted from Alan Gewirth, “Are There Any Absolute Rights?” The Philosophical Quarterly (1981): 2.

33 For discussion, see Rainbolt, G., The Concept of Rights (Dordrecht: Springer, 2006);Google Scholar Judith Jarvis Thomson, The Realm of Rights (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005); Shafer-Landau, Russ, “Specifying Absolute Rights,” Arizona Law Review 37 (1995).Google Scholar

34 See Moore, Michael, Placing Blame: A General Theory of the Criminal Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), chap. 17.Google Scholar

35 Michael Huemer appears to endorse a presumptive version of the NAP in Huemer, The Problem of Political Authority: An Examination of the Right to Coerce and the Duty to Obey. Jan Narveson also defends a non-absolutist form of libertarianism, though his discussion is couched in terms of “liberty” rather than “aggression.” See Narveson, The Libertarian Idea.

36 On “absolutism,” see Rothbard, For a New Liberty, 23, 29. On “lifeboat ethics,” see The Ethics of Liberty (Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press, 1982), chap. 20, where he dismisses the problem of lifeboat ethics in good libertarian fashion by noting that “The vital question here is: who owns the lifeboat?”

37 Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia, 30.

38 Nozick does, at one point, seem to suggest that some sort of safety net — or, at least, some sort of patterned principle of justice that would likely give support to a safety net — might be justifiable. But the justification he suggests is rectification for past injustice. This, in turn, suggests that he might not think of the force employed in such a scheme as aggression at all, since the violence would depend entirely for its justification on its being the proper response to the previous unjust use of force. See ibid., 230–31.

39 Williams, Bernard, “A Critique of Utilitarianism,” in Utilitarianism: For and Against, ed. Smart, J. J. C. and Williams, Bernard (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1973), 98.Google Scholar

40 Foot, Philippa, “The Problem of Abortion and the Doctrine of Double Effect,” Oxford Review 5 (1967).Google Scholar

41 See David Edmonds, Would You Kill the Fat Man?: The Trolley Problem and What Your Answer Tells Us About Right and Wrong (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2013), chap. 9.

42 An absolutist libertarian could conceivably hold that pulling the switch in the trolley case was morally permissible in the same way that other rights-theorists sometimes do — by appealing to the Doctrine of Double Effect. For one does not intend the death of the single individual on the side-track, but only foresees it as a regrettable side effect of the action necessary to save the life of the five. Regardless of the substantive merits of this move, however, virtually no libertarians seem to make it. There is no discussion of the doctrine of Double Effect in Narveson, The Libertarian Idea, in Hospers, John, Libertarianism: A Political Philosophy for Tomorrow (Los Angeles, CA: Nash Publishing, 1971)Google Scholar, or in Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia. Rothbard does note in passing that one aspect of his own doctrine “recalls” the doctrine of double effect, but even here the reference is to the requirement of proportionality, and not the distinction between intended and merely foreseen effects. See Rothbard, The Ethics of Liberty, 80. For a sophisticated discussion, see Pincione, Guido, “The Trolley Problem as a Problem for Libertarians,” Utilitas 19, no. 4 (2007).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

43 Rothbard, For a New Liberty, 27. To be fair, Rothbard is discussing an example that involves preventing people from being murdered, despite the “psychic pleasure” that such murders might produce. But the point he makes in discussing that example — that the consequences of enforcing rights is irrelevant to the justification of those rights — is a perfectly general one, and one with implications that are not always as welcome as those generated in Rothbard’s own chosen example.

44 They are, needless to say, not the only contrived thought experiments that might pose a problem for the absolutist libertarian. Philippa Foot presents the case of a group of spelunkers stuck in a cave, the mouth of which is blocked by a fat man who has become stuck. Waters in the cave are rising, and the only method of saving yourself and the other members of the group from drowning is to blow the fat man up with the stick of dynamite you conveniently brought along. As Foot notes, this case does not appear to be one that can be avoided by means of the Doctrine of Double Effect. See Foot, “The Problem of Abortion and the Doctrine of Double Effect.”

45 My point here is related to Jeffrey Friedman’s discussion of the “libertarian straddle,” in which libertarians rely on empirical arguments to cover up the weaknesses in their moral arguments, and rely on moral arguments to cover up the weaknesses in their empirical arguments. See Friedman, Jeffrey, “What’s Wrong with Libertarianism?” Critical Review 11, no. 3 (1997).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

46 See, for a discussion of this sort of argument, Roderick Long, “Why Libertarians Believe There Is Only One Right,” (2014).

47 See, for the classic discussion, Steiner, Hillel, An Essay on Rights (New York: Blackwell, 1994).Google Scholar

48 Rothbard supports a prohibition of fraud on the grounds that fraud is a kind of “implicit theft.” See Rothbard, The Ethics of Liberty, chap. 12. The view that fraud is really a “kind of” force and may thus be justly prohibited on libertarian grounds has a long pedigree in libertarian thought. Ayn Rand, for instance, famously described fraud as involving the “indirect use of force” (Rand, “The Nature of Government,” 111). Auberon Herbert, writing at the dawn of the twentieth century, called fraud the “twin-brother of force . . . which by cunning sets aside the consent of the individual, as force sets it aside openly and violently.” See Herbert, Auberon, “Mr. Spencer and the Great Machine,” in The Right and Wrong of Compulsion by the State, ed. Herbert, Auberon and Mack, Eric (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1978), 313.Google Scholar

49 See, for an extended version of this argument, Child, James, “Can Libertarianism Sustain a Fraud Standard?” Ethics 104, no. 4 (1994).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

50 To forestall irrelevant objections, let us suppose that the child is being kept in her parent’s home, but that the parent is in no way physically preventing the child from leaving. The child is, owing to its physical immaturity, simply unable to leave, and unable to find food for itself.

51 Rothbard, The Ethics of Liberty, 100.

52 Tucker, Benjamin, Instead of a Book: By a Man Too Busy to Write One (New York: Elibron Classics, 2005), 144 Google Scholar. In at least one important respect, however, Rothbard’s position is a good deal more moderate than Tucker’s. For Tucker, at least at the late stage of his intellectual career when he had abandoned Spencerian natural rights theory for Stirnirite egoism, held that even physical aggression against a baby would be within a parent’s rights. “I am asked by a correspondent if I would passively see a woman throw her baby into the fire as a man throws his newspaper. I expected that this question would be put to me; hence it finds me prepared. I answer that it is highly probable that I would personally interfere in such a case. But it is as probable, and perhaps more so, that I would personally interfere to prevent the owner of a masterpiece by Titian from applying the torch to the canvas. My interference in the former case no more invalidates the mother’s property right in her child than my interference in the latter case would invalidate the property right of the owner of the painting. If I interfere in either case, I am an invader, acting in obedience to my injured feelings. As such I deserve to be punished.” “On Picket Duty,” Liberty XI, no. 9 (1895).

53 The material in this section draws heavily on Zwolinski, Matt, “Libertarianism and Pollution,” in The Routledge Companion to Environmental Ethics, ed. Hale, Benjamin and Light, Andrew (New York: Routledge, 2015).Google Scholar

54 Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia, 57.

55 Martin Anderson, “George Bush Environmentalist,” The Christian Science Monitor, January 4 1989, 19. Cited in Walter Block, Economics and the Environment: A Reconciliation (Fraser Institute, 1990), ix–x.

56 Rothbard, For a New Liberty, 256.

57 On the environmental implications of Rawlsianism compared with libertarianism, see Taylor, Roger, “The Environmental Implications of Liberalism,” Critical Review 6, no. 2–3 (1992).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

58 See Edwin G. Dolan, “Controlling Acid Rain,” in Economics and the Environment: A Reconciliation, ed. Walter E. Block (The Fraser Institute, 1990).

59 For a friendly reflection on the implications of libertarianism for climate change by a critic of libertarianism, see Peter Singer, One World: The Ethics of Globalization (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2004), chap. 2. For two attempts by scholars sympathetic to libertarianism to tackle the issue themselves, see Edwin G. Dolan, “Science, Public Policy, and Global Warming: Rethinking the Market-Liberal Position,” Cato Journal 26 (2006); Shahar, Dan C., “Justice and Climate Change: Toward a Libertarian Analysis,” The Independent Review 14, no. 2 (2009).Google Scholar

60 Friedman, David, The Machinery of Freedom: Guide to Radical Capitalism, 2nd ed. (La Salle, IL: Open Court, 1989), 168.Google Scholar

61 For similar critiques, see Friedman, Jeffrey, “Politics or Scholarship?” Critical Review 6, no. 2–3 (1992): 430–32;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Railton, Peter, “Locke, Stock, and Peril: Natural Property Rights, Pollution, and Risk,” in To Breathe Freely, ed. Gibson, Mary (Trenton, NJ: Rowman and Littlefield, 1985);Google Scholar Sobel, David, “Backing Away from Libertarian Self-Ownership,” Ethics 123, no. 1 (2012)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Sagoff, Mark, “Free-Market Versus Libertarian Environmentalism,” Critical Review 6, nos. 2–3 (1992): 226–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

62 Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia, 79. The property versus liability rule terminology as applied to Nozick comes from Mack, Eric, “Nozickian Arguments for the More-Than-Minimal State,” in The Cambridge Companion to Nozick’s Anarchy, State, and Utopia, ed. Bader, Ralf M. and Meadowcroft, John (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 108.Google Scholar

63 Rothbard, Murray N., “Law, Property Rights, and Air Pollution,” Cato Journal 2, no. 1 (1982).Google Scholar

64 Mack, “Nozickian Arguments for the More-Than-Minimal State,” 108–109.

65 For more on the problems with Nozick’s approach, see Railton, “Locke, Stock, and Peril: Natural Property Rights, Pollution, and Risk.”; Sobel, “Backing Away from Libertarian Self-Ownership.” For more on Rothbard, see Friedman, “Politics or Scholarship?”

66 Libertarians standardly argue against the morality of various kinds of governmental actions, for instance, by claiming that those same actions would clearly be wrong if done by one private individual against another. See, for examples of this sort of argument, Rothbard, For a New Liberty, chap. 3; Huemer, The Problem of Political Authority: An Examination of the Right to Coerce and the Duty to Obey, chap. 1.

67 On the distinction between moral rules and moral principles, see Schmidtz, David, “The Language of Ethics,” in Ethical Dilemmas in the Water Industry, ed. Davis, Cheryl (Washington, DC: American Water Works Association, 2001 Google Scholar).

68 See Kymlicka, Will, Contemporary Political Philosophy: An Introduction, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002),Google Scholar chap. 4; Locke, John, The Second Treatise of Government [1690] , ed. Thomas P. Peardon (New York: MacMillan, 1952);Google Scholar Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia. But see Eric Mack, “Robert Nozick’s Political Philosophy,” http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2015/entries/nozick-political/, for an argument that the role of self-ownership in Nozick’s thought has been largely overstated.

69 Strictly speaking, the norm against aggression rules out unwanted touching. Perhaps there are other forms of “using” a person’s body without his consent that do not involve unwanted touching. If so, these would not be ruled out by a norm against aggression.

70 Berlin, Isaiah, “Two Concepts of Liberty,” in Four Essays on Liberty, ed. Berlin, Isaiah (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1969), 172.Google Scholar

71 Supra, n. 14.

72 For a thoughtful and important libertarian discussion of these issues, see Schmidtz, David, “The Institution of Property,” Social Philosophy and Policy 11, no. 2 (1994).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

73 For an overview of recent literature on left-libertarianism, see Peter Vallentyne, “Left–Libertarianism: A Primer,” in Left-Libertarianism and Its Critics: The Contemporary Debate, ed. Peter Vallentyne and Hillel Steiner (Basingstoke, UK; New York: Palgrave, 2000). The intralibertarian debate on this topic, however, is not new. The fascinating debate between Herbert Spencer and Henry George in the late nineteenth century anticipates contemporary debates in many important respects. See Spencer, Social Statics; The Principles of Ethics, vol. 2 (Liberty Fund, 1978); Spencer, Herbert and Verinder, Frederick, Mr. Herbert Spencer and the Land Restoration League (London: Page and Pratt, 1895);Google Scholar George, Henry, A Perpelexed Philosopher: An Examination of Mr. Herbert Spencer's Various Utterances on the Land Question, with Some Incidental Reference to His Synthetic Philosophy (New York: Charles L. Webster & Company, 1892).Google Scholar

74 I believe that it can, and I make the argument in Zwolinski, “Property Rights, Coercion, and the Welfare State: The Libertarian Case for a Basic Income for All.”

75 Huemer, The Problem of Political Authority: An Examination of the Right to Coerce and the Duty to Obey.

76 See Zwolinski and Tomasi, Libertarianism: A Progressive Intellectual History.

77 For an overview of this idea, see Norman P. Barry, “The Tradition of Spontaneous Order,” Literature of Liberty 2 (1982). While the idea has its roots in the Scottish Enlightenment and especially in the ideas of Adam Smith and David Hume, the most important contributions to the concept in the twentieth century were undoubtedly made by Friedrich Hayek. See Hayek, Friedrich A., “Kinds of Order in Society,” New Individualist Review 3, no. 2 (1964).Google Scholar

78 This skepticism manifests itself both in philosophical doubts about the legitimacy of claims to authority (see Spooner, “A Letter to Grover Cleveland, on His False Inaugural Address, the Usurpations and Crimes of Lawmakers and Judges, and the Consequent Poverty, Ignorance, and Servitude of the People” and Huemer, The Problem of Political Authority: An Examination of the Right to Coerce and the Duty to Obey), and in more empirically based doubts about the wisdom and benevolence of purported authorities, and their assumed ability to effectively achieve desirable social goals (see James Buchanan and Gordon Tullock, The Calculus of Consent [Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1962]; Gordon Tullock, R. D. Tollison, and C. K. Rowley, The Political Economy of Rent Seeking [Boston: Kluwer, 1988]; Herbert, “Mr. Spencer and the Great Machine.”)

79 Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations (Indianpolis: Liberty Fund, 1982); Hayek, Friedrich A., “The Use of Knowledge in Society,” American Economic Review 35, no. 4 (1945);Google Scholar Milton Friedman and Rose Friedman, Free to Choose: A Personal Statement (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1990).

80 Schmidtz, David and Goodin, Robert E., Social Welfare and Individual Responsibility: For and Against (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998);CrossRefGoogle Scholar Spencer, Social Statics.