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The law of equal liberty is the fundamental precept of liberalism and socialism. [1] Stated in various ways by many thinkers, it can be summarized as the view that all individuals must be granted the maximum possible freedom as long as that freedom does not interfere with the freedom of anyone else. [2] While socialists have been hostile to liberalism, which is accused of "providing an ideological cover for the depredation of capitalism", scholars have stated that "the goals of liberalism are not so different from those of the socialists", although this similarity in goals has been described as being deceptive due to the different meanings liberalism and socialism give to liberty, equality and solidarity, including the meaning, implications and norms of equal liberty derived from it. [3] [4]
In his Second Treatise of Government (1689), [5] John Locke wrote: "A state also of equality, wherein all the power and jurisdiction is reciprocal, no one having more than another; there being nothing more evident, than that creatures of the same species and rank, promiscuously born to all the same advantages of nature, and the use of the same faculties, should also be equal one amongst another without subordination or subjection, unless the lord and master of them all should, by any manifest declaration of his will, set one above another, and confer on him, by an evident and clear appointment, an undoubted right to dominion and sovereignty." [6]
In "A Full Vindication of the Measures of the Congress", written in 1774, [7] Alexander Hamilton wrote: "All men have one common original, they participate in one common nature, and consequently have one common right. No reason can be assigned why one man should exercise any power over his fellow creatures more than another, unless they voluntarily vest him with it." [8] In Social Statics (1851), [9] Herbert Spencer defined it as a natural law "that every man may claim the fullest liberty to exercise his faculties compatible with the possession of like liberty to every other man." [10] Stated another way by Spencer, "each has freedom to do all that he wills provided that he infringes not the equal freedom of any other." [11] [12] [13] American individualist anarchist and libertarian socialist Benjamin Tucker defined equal liberty as "the largest amount of liberty compatible with equality and mutuality of respect, on the part of individual's living in society, for their respective spheres of action." [14]
In 1775, Thomas Spence published a pamphlet titled Rights of Man [15] based on the law of equal liberty and stressed the equal right to land. According to Spence, we have equal rights to land as we have equal rights to life and liberty. To deny to some people this right "is in effect denying them a right to live. For the right to deprive anything of the means of living, supposes a right to deprive it of life." [16]
In 1795, Thomas Paine wrote Agrarian Justice , [17] stating: "Liberty and property are words that express every thing we possess that is not of an intellectual quality. Property is of two kinds. First, natural property, or that which is of the Creator's making, as Earth, Air, and Water. Secondly, artificial or acquired property, or that which is of man’s making or producing. Of this there can be no equality, because, in order to participate equally, it is first necessary that every man produces it equally, which is never the case; and if it were every man keeping his own, would be the same as participation. The equality of natural property is the subject treated of in this work. Every person born into the world is born the rightful proprietor of a certain species of property, or the value thereof." [18]
In Social Statics, Herbert Spencer based his political philosophy on the law of equal liberty. He pointed out that denying an equal right to use land could result in non landers being evicted from the planet and contradicts the law of equal freedom. This point was made further by land reformists especially championed by Henry George in Progress and Poverty , [19] where he sought to address this by preferably taxing land values. [20] George disagreed with Spencer that the equal right to use land implied that land should be nationalized. George criticized Spencer's lack of adherence to his own conclusions in A Perplexed Philosopher [21] and stated that equal right to use land does not imply the joint-ownership of land, therefore all that is necessary to achieve the law of equal freedom was to tax land with a land value tax which would disincentivise landbanking. [22]
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Socialism |
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Anarchism and socialism's idea of equal liberty rests on political, social and economic equality of opportunity. [23] Saul Newman's equal liberty is "'the idea that liberty and equality are inextricably linked, that one cannot be had without the other'. They both belong to the category of emancipation, they mutually resonate, and they are situated in a collective context. Equality does not come secondary to liberty, as usually happens under the liberal reading; the demand for it goes beyond the formal equality of rights and there is no tension between the two, no separation and conflict between individuals as passive recipients within society. Liberty is collective, as is its realization, being shared instead of diminished and being 'only imaginable in the contest of the liberty of all', and accompanied also by social and economic equality. The principle of equal-liberty is an 'open-ended horizon that allows for endless permutations and elaborations. Moreover, it is closer to anarchist political ethics: transcending the socialist as well as the liberal tradition, it entails that liberty and equality cannot be implemented within the state, and it interrogates all forms of domination and hierarchy." [24]
Mikhail Bakunin, who famously proclaimed that "[w]e are convinced that freedom without Socialism is privilege and injustice, and that Socialism without Freedom is slavery and brutality", [25] stated that "I am truly free only when all human beings, men and women, are equally free. The freedom of other men, far from negating or limiting my freedom, is, on the contrary, its necessary premise and confirmation." [23] Benjamin Tucker's notion of equal liberty implies that "each person is equally free to pursue his or her self-interest, and is bound only by 'a mutuality of respect.'" [14] Tucker stated that this is a contract or social convention rather than a natural right, writing: "Now equal liberty itself being a social convention (for there are no natural rights), it is obvious that anarchism recognizes the property of compelling individuals to regard one social convention. But it does not follow from this that it recognizes the propriety of compelling individuals to regard any and all social convention. Anarchism protects equal liberty (of which property based on labor is simply an expression in a particular sphere), not because it is a social convention, but because it is equal liberty, that is, because it is anarchism itself." [14] Tucker stated that equal liberty should be protected through voluntary association rather than through government because the latter is the negation of equal liberty. [14]
According to John F. Welsh, equal liberty is "an absolute or first principle for Tucker since it appears as a core concept in all of his writing. He makes it abundantly clear that equal liberty is inextricably tied to his notions of both anarchism and self-ownership. Tucker equates equal liberty with anarchism." [14] Although claiming that equal liberty is a social construction rather than a natural right, Tucker "infuses the notion with the rhetoric of rights, including the concepts of duty and compulsion." [14] For Tucker, people have "a duty to respect each other's rights, assuming the word 'right' to be used in the sense of the limit which the principle of equal liberty logically places upon might", referencing Max Stirner's egoist anarchism. [14] In addition, "man's only duty is to respect others' 'rights'" and that "man's only right over others is to enforce that duty." [14] Welsh states that Tucker based his notions of equal liberty on "the distinction between invasion and resistance, between government and defense." [14] Tucker used the term invasion to refer to the "line inside of which liberty of action", i.e. positive liberty, "does not conflict with others' liberty of action." [14]
For Paul Eltzbacher, people have the right to resist invasion and defend or protect their personal liberty. Eltzbacher wrote that "[t]he individual has the right to repel invasion of his sphere of action." [14] According to Welsh, Tucker proposed that "the law of equal liberty be given some teeth through the creation of 'defensive associations' that would act coercively on behalf of the anarchistic principle of equal liberty, prohibiting and demanding redress for invasive acts." [14] Richard P. Hiskes states in Community Without Coercion: Getting Along in the Minimal State that "the criticism of individualism for its alleged lack of communal sentiment is false: individualism as a means of political organization is capable of preserving individual liberty and providing for the welfare of all persons in society." [26]
Anarcho-capitalism is an anti-statist, libertarian, and anti-political philosophy and economic theory that seeks to abolish centralized states in favor of stateless societies with systems of private property enforced by private agencies, the non-aggression principle, free markets and the right-libertarian interpretation of self-ownership, which extends the concept to include control of private property as part of the self. In the absence of statute, anarcho-capitalists hold that society tends to contractually self-regulate and civilize through participation in the free market, which they describe as a voluntary society involving the voluntary exchange of services and goods. In a theoretical anarcho-capitalist society, the system of private property would still exist and be enforced by private defense agencies and/or insurance companies selected by customers which would operate competitively in a market and fulfill the roles of courts and the police. According to many anti-capitalist modern anarchist schools of thought, the word "anarchy" is sometimes considered to be the antithesis of hierarchy, therefore, "anarcho-capitalism" is sometimes considered to be a term with differences philosophically to what they personally consider to be true anarchism, as an Anarcho-Capitalist society would inherently contain hierarchy – though said hierarchy is largely considered consensual. This point is typically responded to by Anarcho-Capitalists by pointing out that etymologically, "anarchy" simply means "the absence of government," and by arguing that the stark difference between "government" and "governance" be considered; thus, many believe the philosophy's common name is indeed consistent, as it promotes private governance, but is vehemently anti-government.
"I define anarchist society as one where there is no legal possibility for coercive aggression against the person or property of any individual. Anarchists oppose the State because it has its very being in such aggression, namely, the expropriation of private property through taxation, the coercive exclusion of other providers of defense service from its territory, and all of the other depredations and coercions that are built upon these twin foci of invasions of individual rights." -Murray Rothbard in Society Without a State
Individualist anarchism is the branch of anarchism that emphasizes the individual and their will over external determinants such as groups, society, traditions and ideological systems. Although usually contrasted to social anarchism, both individualist and social anarchism have influenced each other. Mutualism, an economic theory particularly influential within individualist anarchism whose pursued liberty has been called the synthesis of communism and property, has been considered sometimes part of individualist anarchism and other times part of social anarchism. Many anarcho-communists regard themselves as radical individualists, seeing anarcho-communism as the best social system for the realization of individual freedom. Economically, while European individualist anarchists are pluralists who advocate anarchism without adjectives and synthesis anarchism, ranging from anarcho-communist to mutualist economic types, most American individualist anarchists advocate mutualism, a libertarian socialist form of market socialism, or a free-market socialist form of classical economics. Individualist anarchists are opposed to property that gives privilege and is exploitative, seeking to "destroy the tyranny of capital – that is, of property" by mutual credit.
Individualism is the moral stance, political philosophy, ideology and social outlook that emphasizes the intrinsic worth of the individual. Individualists promote the exercise of one's goals and desires and to value independence and self-reliance and advocate that interests of the individual should achieve precedence over the state or a social group while opposing external interference upon one's own interests by society or institutions such as the government. Individualism is often defined in contrast to totalitarianism, collectivism and more corporate social forms.
Free-market anarchism, or market anarchism, also known as free-market anti-capitalism, is the branch of anarchism that advocates a free-market economic system based on voluntary interactions without the involvement of the state. A form of individualist anarchism, and libertarian socialism, it is based on the economic theories of mutualism and individualist anarchism in the United States.
Self-ownership, also known as sovereignty of the individual or individual sovereignty, is the concept of property in one's own person, expressed as the moral or natural right of a person to have bodily integrity and be the exclusive controller of one's own body and life. Self-ownership is a central idea in several political philosophies that emphasize individualism, such as libertarianism, liberalism, and anarchism.
Liberty is the ability to do as one pleases, or a right or immunity enjoyed by prescription or by grant. It is a synonym for the word freedom.
The nature of capitalism is criticized by left-wing anarchists, who reject hierarchy and advocate stateless societies based on non-hierarchical voluntary associations. Anarchism is generally defined as the libertarian philosophy which holds the state to be undesirable, unnecessary and harmful as well as opposing authoritarianism, illegitimate authority and hierarchical organization in the conduct of human relations. Capitalism is generally considered by scholars to be an economic system that includes private ownership of the means of production, creation of goods or services for profit or income, the accumulation of capital, competitive markets, voluntary exchange and wage labor which has generally been opposed by anarchists historically. Since capitalism is variously defined by sources and there is no general consensus among scholars on the definition nor on how the term should be used as a historical category, the designation is applied to a variety of historical cases, varying in time, geography, politics and culture.
Mutualism is an anarchist school of thought and economic theory that advocates a socialist society based on free markets and usufructs, i.e. occupation and use property norms. One implementation of this system involves the establishment of a mutual-credit bank that would lend to producers at a minimal interest rate, just high enough to cover administration. Mutualism is based on a version of the labor theory of value that it uses as its basis for determining economic value. According to mutualist theory, when a worker sells the product of their labor, they ought to receive money, goods, or services in exchange that are equal in economic value, embodying "the amount of labor necessary to produce an article of exactly similar and equal utility". The product of the worker's labour factors the amount of both mental and physical labour into the price of their product.
Left-libertarianism, also known as egalitarian libertarianism, left-wing libertarianism, or social libertarianism, is a political philosophy and type of libertarianism that stresses both individual freedom and social equality. Left-libertarianism represents several related yet distinct approaches to political and social theory. Its classical usage refers to anti-authoritarian varieties of left-wing politics such as anarchism, especially social anarchism, whose adherents call it libertarianism, communalism, and libertarian Marxism, collectively termed libertarian socialism. A portion of the left wing of the green movement, including adherents of Murray Bookchin's social ecology, are also generally considered left-libertarian.
Libertarianism is a political philosophy that upholds liberty as a core value. Libertarians seek to maximize autonomy and political freedom, and minimize the state's encroachment on and violations of individual liberties; emphasizing the rule of law, pluralism, cosmopolitanism, cooperation, civil and political rights, bodily autonomy, free association, free trade, freedom of expression, freedom of choice, freedom of movement, individualism and voluntary association. Libertarians are often skeptical of or opposed to authority, state power, warfare, militarism and nationalism, but some libertarians diverge on the scope of their opposition to existing economic and political systems. Various schools of Libertarian thought offer a range of views regarding the legitimate functions of state and private power, often calling for the restriction or dissolution of coercive social institutions. Different categorizations have been used to distinguish various forms of Libertarianism. Scholars distinguish libertarian views on the nature of property and capital, usually along left–right or socialist–capitalist lines. Libertarians of various schools were influenced by liberal ideas.
Right-libertarianism, also known as libertarian capitalism or right-wing libertarianism, is a libertarian political philosophy that supports capitalist property rights and defends market distribution of natural resources and private property. The term right-libertarianism is used to distinguish this class of views on the nature of property and capital from left-libertarianism, a type of libertarianism that combines self-ownership with an egalitarian approach to natural resources. In contrast to socialist libertarianism, right-libertarianism supports free-market capitalism. Like most forms of libertarianism, it supports civil liberties, especially natural law, negative rights, the non-aggression principle, and a major reversal of the modern welfare state.
Anarchism is generally defined as the political philosophy which holds the state to be undesirable, unnecessary and harmful as well as opposing authority and hierarchical organization in the conduct of human relations. Proponents of anarchism, known as anarchists, advocate stateless societies based on non-hierarchical voluntary associations. While anarchism holds the state to be undesirable, unnecessary and harmful, opposition to the state is not its central or sole definition. Anarchism can entail opposing authority or hierarchy in the conduct of all human relations.
Individualist anarchism in the United States was strongly influenced by Benjamin Tucker, Josiah Warren, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Lysander Spooner, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Max Stirner, Herbert Spencer and Henry David Thoreau. Other important individualist anarchists in the United States were Stephen Pearl Andrews, William Batchelder Greene, Ezra Heywood, M. E. Lazarus, John Beverley Robinson, James L. Walker, Joseph Labadie, Steven Byington and Laurance Labadie.
Libertarianism is variously defined by sources as there is no general consensus among scholars on the definition nor on how one should use the term as a historical category. Scholars generally agree that libertarianism refers to the group of political philosophies which emphasize freedom, individual liberty and voluntary association. Libertarians generally advocate a society with little or no government power.
Individualist anarchism in Europe proceeded from the roots laid by William Godwin and soon expanded and diversified through Europe, incorporating influences from individualist anarchism in the United States. Individualist anarchism is a tradition of thought within the anarchist movement that emphasize the individual and his or her will over external determinants such as groups, society, traditions, and ideological systems. While most American individualist anarchists advocate mutualism, a libertarian socialist form of market socialism, or a free-market socialist form of classical economics, European individualist anarchists are pluralists who advocate anarchism without adjectives and synthesis anarchism, ranging from anarcho-communist to mutualist economic types.
Benjamin Ricketson Tucker was an American individualist anarchist and libertarian socialist. Tucker was the editor and publisher of the American individualist anarchist periodical Liberty (1881–1908). Tucker was a member of the First International, while describing his form of anarchism as "consistent Manchesterism" and stated that "the Anarchists are simply unterrified Jeffersonian Democrats."
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon was a French socialist, politician, philosopher, economist and the founder of mutualist philosophy. He was the first person to declare himself an anarchist, using that term, and is widely regarded as one of anarchism's most influential theorists. Proudhon is considered by many to be the "father of anarchism". Proudhon became a member of the French Parliament after the Revolution of 1848, whereafter he referred to himself as a federalist. Proudhon described the liberty he pursued as "the synthesis of community and property". Some consider his mutualism to be part of individualist anarchism while others regard it to be part of social anarchism.
Market socialism is a type of economic system involving the public, cooperative, or social ownership of the means of production in the framework of a market economy, or one that contains a mix of worker-owned, nationalized, and privately owned enterprises. The central idea is that, as in capitalism, businesses compete for profits, however they will be "owned, or at least governed," by those who work in them. Market socialism differs from non-market socialism in that the market mechanism is utilized for the allocation of capital goods and the means of production. Depending on the specific model of market socialism, profits generated by socially owned firms may variously be used to directly remunerate employees, accrue to society at large as the source of public finance, or be distributed amongst the population in a social dividend.
Anarchism is the political philosophy which holds ruling classes and the state to be undesirable, unnecessary and harmful, and opposes authority and hierarchical organization in the conduct of human relations.
Anarchism and libertarianism, as broad political ideologies with manifold historical and contemporary meanings, have contested definitions. Their adherents have a pluralistic and overlapping tradition that makes precise definition of the political ideology difficult or impossible, compounded by a lack of common features, differing priorities of subgroups, lack of academic acceptance, and contentious, historical usage.