Amidst the interesting chaos of a presidential race involving two candidates who a vast number of Americans don’t like, it would be wise for the American people to take their thinking to a higher level, one that involves what was is arguably the most important question of our time: What should be the role of government in a free society?
In the process of asking that general question, specific questions arise, such as the following:
1. Should the government be engaged in the business of charity? That is, is it the legitimate role of government in a free society to be helping people by giving them food, housing, education, healthcare, money, retirement pay, or any other type of welfare?
Libertarians, of course, say no. Does that mean that we oppose the concept of helping out other people? Of course not. We simply say that charity is none of the government’s business. We hold that charity should be left entirely to the private sector. A total separation of charity and the state, just as our American ancestors separated church and state. No more government charity of any kind, including Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, farm subsidies, education grants, public housing, food stamps, foreign aid, and any other form of government welfare.
Why do libertarians hold that government should not be in the charity business? Because libertarians believe in freedom. And freedom necessarily entails each person’s deciding for himself what to do with his own money — donate, share, invest, spend, invest, hoard, or whatever.
Indeed, unless charity comes from the willing heart of an individual, it means nothing. Let’s not forget, after all, that government “charity” involves the use of force. That’s what taxation is all about — the government’s forcible collection of money, on pain of fine and imprisonment for failing or refusing to do so. The government, primarily through the IRS, forcibly takes money from people to whom it belongs and gives it to people to whom it does not belong, which, needless to say, also involves a large amount of administrative expenses for performing this “service.”
How can force be reconciled with charity? It can’t be. Force and charity are opposites. When a person has his money forcibly taken from him and given to someone else, he is not engaged in charitable giving. He is being denied the right to decide for himself what to do with his own money.
Look at it this way: If a robber steals money from a person and then gives it to some needy person, no one considers that an act of charity. We all call it stealing. In principle, it’s no different when the government does the same thing.
Statists say that when the government does it, that’s different from when a robber does it because it’s being done by majority vote. They say that that’s what a democratic system is all about.
Really? We don’t permit the democratic system to enact laws that force people to attend church. That’s because we hold that whether a person goes to church or not is none of the government’s business, even if a majority of people want to force others to attend church. It’s the same with charity. Charity is none of the government’s business, even if a majority of the citizenry wish to force people to be good and caring to others.
So, not only would libertarian abolish all welfare programs, we naturally would also abolish the IRS and the income tax. Before anyone says that that’s impossible or pie in the sky, let’s keep in mind that our American ancestors lived without welfare-state programs, the income tax, and the IRS for more than a century. That’s because they believed, as today’s libertarians do, that such programs were antithetical to the principles of a free society.
2. Should the government be punishing people for ingesting harmful substances? Naturally, the drug war comes to mind, a decades-long government that has jailed, fined, and given criminal records to vast numbers of people for possessing or distributing illicit drugs. Also coming to mind is the experiment of Prohibition during the early part of the 20th century, when possession, distribution, and consumption of alcohol was illegal here in the United States.
Libertarians hold that what a person ingests, no matter how destructive, is none of the government’s business but instead is solely the business of each individual.
Again, that’s what genuine freedom is all about — deciding for yourself how to live your life, even if how you live it does not meet with the approval of others — but with condition: no force or fraud against other people.
In other words, no murder, rape, robbery, burglary, or other violent acts. Otherwise, you are free to ingest whatever you want, including booze, tobacco, marijuana, alcohol, cocaine, heroin, or any other substance.
That’s not to say, of course, that libertarians necessarily believe that such things are a healthy or wise course of action. We leave that decision to each person. That’s what freedom is all about — the right to choose between alternative courses of action, even if others disapprove, so long as one’s conduct doesn’t involve force or fraud against others.
Thus, we libertarians hold that the drug war should ended, immediately, not only because it is a total failure, and not only because it has done so much damage to society in terms of killings, gang warfare, mass incarceration, official corruption, and infringements on privacy, but especially because drug laws have no place in a free society.
From here we could go on to other specific questions, such as: Is it a legitimate function of government to regulate economic activity? Should the government be engaged in policing the world? Should the government be meddling in the affairs and disputes of other countries, including through invasions, occupations, assassinations, coups, and other regime-change operations? Should the government be in the business of issuing money and regulating the value of it? Should the government wield the power to draft people into military or national service? Should the government be in the mail-delivery service or the passenger train business?
Those are some of the specific questions, but the big overarching question is one that the American people should be exploring, discussing, and reflecting upon during this time of unceasing political chaos: What should be the role of government in a free society?
