Libertarianism

• Libertarianism (Very conservative)

• Liberty is the fundamental political ideal according to which the political society should be organized
• Nozick defended libertarianism based on the principle of equality
• Others defended it based on the principle of mutual advantage
• Libertarians argue for

• Market freedom
• Demand limitations on the use of the state of social policy
• Reject use of redistributive taxation methods to remedy social inequality

John Hospers

- First presidential candidate for the libertarian party in the US

• Foundation is John Stewart Mills principle of liberty

• People should be free to act as they see fit as long as it does not harm anyone else
• No human can be forced to act in a manner they do not see fit
• Extracts rights to liberty, life and property

• Each of these rights places a duty in the sense of forbearance upon others
• Commitment to the first two rights requires commitment to the third (property rights are what is needed in order to have long range planning)

• Blames intellectuals for (pg. 23-24)
• Two objections:

• Why property rights must be individual: says so long as everyone agrees to collective rights, this would be fine, provided everyone works, and;
• Why can’t everyone own everything (national ownership): this might sound nice but its practical implications are unacceptable, as everyone would be able to do with common properties as they wish  

• Role of government is limited to protection of citizens against aggression

• Excludes government intervention to remedy natural inequalities and the resulting injustices by means of redistribution of resources, such as taxation schemes or welfare policies (taxes just for protection)

• Divides laws enacted by government into three classes:

• Laws protecting individuals against themselves,
• Laws protecting individuals against aggression, and;
• Laws requiring people to help others

• He and other libertarians reject the first and third classes of law and only allow for the second class as the proper domain of government’s intervention

Robert Nozick

• Advocates libertarianism by relying on the principle of equality in an account that he calls ‘entitlement theory’
• The central claim of the theory is the following

• If we assume that everyone is entitled to the goods they currently possess, then just distribution is simply distribution that results from peoples free exchange

While the ultimate ground of this version of lib is different, it still results in various consequences: no public education, public health care, transportation, roads, or parks. This is not only intuitively unacceptable, it is self-defeating; for the failure to rectify disadvantageous circumstances can undermine the very values that the principle of respect for choices is intended to promote.