The Private Sector Narrative -- Part II

In my previous post, I created two broad categories -- Statists and Libertarians. Libertarians are all those who believe the government should not have the power to violate individual rights or possess the ability to control the economy through central planning and policy -- this category can include conservatives, moderates or liberals, and it has nothing to do the Libertarian Party.

We are in dire need of universal principles to guide political philosophy so that the private sphere is protected from government intervention. The private sector story is a story of individualism and community. America was created as a reaction to domination. The story of freedom is a story of progress pushed forward by the creative tension between individuals and communities. How to live together in freedom was a problem our nation had to answer, and the answer was a Constitution which describes what type of government is necessary to protect basic, individual rights so that free people can live in community with respect for each other's rights to life, liberty, property and the pursuit of happiness. However, it could have been decided communities could contract with private protection agencies, a totally different arrangement than a federal government, and the principles would be the same.

Other political theories exist which deny the existence of individual rights and subjugate the individual to domination by the state -- the state decides which, if any, rights exist. In America the idea is, or was, that rights exist prior to the state, and government is instituted to protect these rights, and protection of rights is the only valid justification of government.

Libertarians, in my broad sense of the word, believe the private sector is capable of using universal principles as moral guidelines to live in community, to work together in cooperation and competition in order to live well and flourish. A morally just society does not use physical coercion -- the government (or a private protection agency) which is created to protect rights is given a monopoly on coercion to use only to prevent coercion in the private realm. In other words, an individual is protected from anyone, or any group, taking that individual's life, liberty or property or preventing that individual from pursuing happiness.

By "taking" it's meant through murder taking life, through enslavement taking liberty or through force or fraud taking property. Although, the protective entity has a monopoly on coercion, this entity is also limited in power and prevented by agreement from violating individual rights -- it only has the authority to protect individuals from rights violations and to punish the violators.

So, this is a simple outline of a free country, but it's a good place to start to see where we are today. Can the libertarian principles of our Founders be revived? Some of the Founders such as Hamilton had a different view of how we should be governed, giving the federal government a much more powerful role in central planning and control. There has been a conflict and a battle since the beginning between statists and libertarians. I suspect it was the intention of those like Jefferson for Americans to deal with the problems of domination and freedom on an ongoing basis so that rights are alway protected from would-be autocrats. Has American government become too powerful?

Between the two World Wars and the Great Depression, American government, as did states all over the world, took more control over the economy and society at large. Somewhere along the line the American story of limited government, liberty, individual rights and a free market became the story of a powerful state instituting laws, regulations and social programs based on what politicians and state officials thought was the best way for the economy to work and for society to interact, although the "moral space" of individuals in the private sector, as Nozick put it, was still greater than in most other countries.

In this story, it's less important what are the right or wrong ways for humans to live, there's always been disagreement along these lines, than the importance of being able to choose how to live as long as living that way doesn't violate the rights of others. Any argument from any country, in the west, east, middle-east, Africa, whatever, that their way of life is right and moral makes little sense unless there's freedom of choice. People living under tyranny, forced by authorities to act in certain ways, can't be said to be moral if they don't have the choice to act otherwise.

So, the question in the private sector narrative is not so much that America should be, or is, morally superior, it's if we are going to have the ability to choose what we think is moral, guided by universal principles which promote community respect by preventing violation of individual rights? We still have moral space, but it's shrinking. Is this the way we want to live? Are we going to choose universal principles which allow us freedom of choice, or are we going to be guided by statist directives regarding morality and the correct to live?

More later.