From a libertarian viewpoint—that is, from the point of view of giving priority to the value of individual liberty—it is not obvious whether Brexit or Remain is the best solution. And there is something wrong in what a British Conservative politician asked rhetorically: “What is liberty if not to govern ourselves?”
As Benjamin Constant explained, a liberty so described would be “ancient liberty,” the liberty of 50% plus 1 (at best) to “govern ourselves,” which means the power of 50% plus 1 (at best) to govern the rest. Constant also called ancient liberty “collective freedom.” “Modern liberty,” on the other hand, is individual liberty: to all extent possible, it allows each individual to govern himself. It is at the very least misleading to describe this system as “governing ourselves.”
One objection is that individual liberty can be guaranteed only by a state where libertarian-leaning people “govern themselves” in the sense that they are not governed by a foreign tyrant. Ultimately, we meet Anthony de Jasay’s argument that the only function of a “capitalist state,” or minimal state, would be to prevent a takeover by a non-minimal state, that is, by a state actually intent on governing. Governing and being governed, that is the problem.
The validity of the objection does require libertarian-minded people agreeing to every individual governing himself, and fundamentally disagreeing with “governing ourselves.” Seeing clearly through this might call for James Buchanan’s social contract theory. In the case of Brexit as in other “sovereignty” conflicts, it is not clear where the worst Leviathan danger lies.
READER COMMENTS
Mark Bahner
Apr 14 2019 at 4:15pm
I think Mather Byles put it well:
As we say in the U.S., “your mileage may vary”…but substituting different numbers of tyrants and different distances, the question is still a good one.
robc
Apr 15 2019 at 9:11am
False choice.
I prefer 1 tyrant internally.
Nick Ronalds
Apr 14 2019 at 7:24pm
Interesting and thoughtful post, with grist for further contemplation (e.g., via the links). Deep questions in clear language.
Phil H
Apr 14 2019 at 10:41pm
I have an answer to this, which you may disagree with, but I think is worth consideration.
(1) Abandon the notion of sovereignty, which so far as I can tell means some form of absolute power.
(2) Embrace a complex and dynamic set of multiple levels of governance. The current set include: individual rights (human rights); local authority (one or more levels); authority at the level of the national government; supranational authority (international law, membership of UN/NATO/EU etc.).
The downside of a system like this is complexity and a lot of bureaucracy. The upsides, which I think far outweigh the downsides are (1) plenty of checks and balances in the interplay between the levels; (1b) no excessive concentration of power with any single group; (2) room for innovation as authority for different things can be transferred between levels, depending on circumstances.
This is one of the reasons I favour membership of the EU – it’s another layer of governance that reduces the concentration of power at the national level.
My answer is not a libertarian answer, of course, but I do think it is the best way to guarantee liberty. Perhaps counterintuitively, having more (levels of) government can lead, through a system of checks and balances, to less government.
Jackson Mejia
Apr 15 2019 at 10:19am
Perhaps the more rules there are, the more likely they are to be contradictory, and the lower the probability of enforcement for each additional rule. I suppose this can be useful for eroding the legitimacy of the authority and for emphasizing what the law (properly understood) actually is. It may also lead to greater incidence of corruption and arbitrary enforcement of rules, both of which may or may not be good for individual liberty. In the case where it is certain that a rule requiring execution for sedition will be enforced versus the case where the probability varies, the second is likely better. However, a greater degree of uncertainty and a reduction in the perceived rule of law are likely not good for economic efficiency, which is important for future exercise of liberty.
Phil H
Apr 15 2019 at 12:09pm
That is absolutely correct, this multi-level government idea does have to be paired with strong rule-of-law.
Mark Z
Apr 15 2019 at 6:10pm
I think this can be accomplished though at a particular level by dividing power vertically rather than horizontally (or the opposite? I’m not sure which corresponds to which).
I think higher levels of government tend to gradually subordinate lower levels, making intra-level division of power more sustainable (though one could challenge that and argue that executive branches tend to subordinate the others). I think this has happened to some extent in the EU (that is, I think the EU centralized beyond what too many of its constituents wanted).
I would also make the distinction between discretionary tyranny and bureaucratic tyranny, and argue that a more multifaceted state may guard against the former but be conducive to the latter. One may end up with a society impervious to dictatorship, but where one must spend years to obtain five different permits costing thousands of dollars just to repave your driveway.
Phil H
Apr 15 2019 at 6:33pm
All of that is possible, but I think it’s important to be as empirical as possible about it.
“higher levels of government tend to gradually subordinate lower levels…”
Basically, I see that as happening up to about the middle of the 20th century. Bandit kings got more and more power, and the result was the catastrophic world wars, and the disastrous centralized killer states, especially the communist ones. But since then, effective democracy does seem to have sorted a lot of those problems out. In the USA, the wrangling between federal, state, and local government is perpetual, but it’s not obvious to me that the federal level is winning. Internationally, the adoption of human rights was a massive blow against absolute state power. So while this tendency exists, I actually think it’s quite well controlled at the moment.
“the EU centralized beyond what too many of its constituents wanted”
Only Britain, really. Elsewhere it’s mainly confined to the lunatic right fringe. But sure, it’s always a possibility, and then you’ll get a reaction… safely contained within the bureaucratic sphere. I hate Brexit, but I have to admit that as major constitutional upheavals go, it has been very peaceful.
“bureaucratic tyranny…five different permits…”
Sure, possibly. But I suspect I have a much more positive view of bureaucracy than you do. I see it as the violence muffler. By making things slow, it defangs conflict, and mainly stops us hitting each other. The potential for stifling economic growth does exist, and I agree we should be wary of it, but I don’t think it’s quite what you pointed to. I saw a bunch of links to papers lately indicating that the real growth bottleneck comes with the transition from small business to big business (cf. Tyler Cowen’s new book). Basically, spunky entrepreneurial drive-pavers and food-truck guys aren’t the ones who make the difference, even though they make for great human interest stories. The businesses that transform lives are the behemoth corporations – who tend to be expert at manipulating bureaucracy anyway.
So the bureaucracy issue worries me less than you, I guess.
Pierre Lemieux
Apr 15 2019 at 10:44pm
Phil: I think your answer is a libertarian answer, although not an anarcho-capitalist one. And you raise very good points.
Dalton Lee Gossett
Apr 16 2019 at 10:34am
This is a very interesting post concerning rhetoric and ethics. The issue of how society should govern itself has been around for all of time. However, I think that when it comes to discussing an effective way to be governed less arguments are correct opposed to the majority of wrong ones. Lemieux, the author of “Governing Ourselves”, explains the reasoning behind the libertarian viewpoint of individual liberty. With what he stated about the viewpoint; I agree that each person is allowed as much freedom possible with the obligation of first governing their actions.
Furthermore, in the article, Lemieux mentioned the similarity to the social contract theory, which was actually first created by the philosopher Thomas Hobbes. In my opinion, the concept of governing ourselves and individual justice sounds very similar to the basis of Aristotle’s golden mean rule. It is explained as finding the mean between the two extremes of excess and deficiency. This Greek philosopher often explained the concept with courage as a virtue. Having too much courage in a situation can lead to recklessness, while having too little in a situation can lead to cowardice.
This same rule I believe is very similar to what is talked about in this article because it is a basis that depends on a certain balance. When it comes to our individual liberties, of course the goal is to have a fair amount, but at what cost? The reason we give up some of our liberties or freedom is so that we may buy into the idea of security. Security provided to us by the government and the laws that they put into place. By obeying these laws, we as individuals take part in the social contract made by society to essentially do the right thing. The payoff of giving up this initial freedom to follow laws, is the security and protection also offered to one if an opposing person was to object to them.
However, society does not want to see this scale tilt more in one direction than another. That would result in either too much regulation or too much freedom, leading to chaos. That is why having a balance or golden mean is a imperative idea when mentioning individual freedom. In conclusion, I believe discussions like this mentioning society and its rules should always factor in the basis of which we live by, which is ethics.
Mark Brady
Apr 17 2019 at 1:31am
Would Pierre say that, “From a libertarian viewpoint—that is, from the point of view of giving priority to the value of individual liberty—it is not obvious whether the United States should remain independent or join other American nation-states in a pan-American union”?
Pierre Lemieux
Apr 19 2019 at 11:03am
No, because I think the probability of American (individual) liberty, how much vacillating it is, being diluted in a pan-American union is very high. I am not persuaded (but open to to persuasion) that English liberty, or which little of it remains, is less protected in the EU than it would be in an independent UK. Look at hate laws and their application. Or look at the internet-control project of the UK government (if the Economist’s current story is to be believed). Or look at gun control, worse in the UK than in many other European countries. In many areas, the trend to crush individual liberty seems stronger in the UK.
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