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Here’s a letter to a new and very angry correspondent.

Ms. Becker:

I’m sorry that you so strongly disapprove of my recent AIER column in defense of libertarianism. Your core complaint is this:

You libertarians have ridiculously high opinions of human nature, assuming most people can approach saintliness. Serious conservatives don’t. We are sober. We are grounded in reality. We know that man is weak, fallible and most of all tempted into sin.

With respect, I disagree that we libertarians have such a high opinion of human nature. Precisely because we understand, as you put it, that humans are “weak, fallible and most of all tempted into sin,” we insist that the power of some individuals to coerce other individuals should be kept to an absolute minimum.

No serious libertarian argues that freedom produces anything close to heaven on earth, with no one succumbing to self-destructive or anti-social temptations. But we recognize two related realities that are missed by many conservatives as well as by progressives.

First, when adults are free to use their own (and only their own) private property – including their own bodies – under a rule of law, each individual personally experiences more of the costs of his or her bad behavior, and reaps more of the fruits of his or her good behavior, than is the case when that freedom is curtailed. This ‘internalization’ of consequences obviously doesn’t turn everyone into a saint – or prevent everyone from being a devil – but it does keep to a minimum the amount of ‘bad’ behavior while encouraging the greatest possible amount of ‘good’ behavior.

Second, any curtailment of libertarian freedom necessarily empowers some individuals to coerce other individuals. Given that we humans are indeed imperfect creatures, it is you – not any libertarian – who is unrealistically optimistic about human nature. I cannot fathom your faith that political power transforms individuals who cannot voluntarily manage their own affairs well into individuals who can coercively manage other individuals’ affairs well.

A truly sober and realistic assessment of human nature leads people of goodwill naturally to a wish to reduce as much as possible the power of the state.

Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Professor of Economics
and
Martha and Nelson Getchell Chair for the Study of Free Market Capitalism at the Mercatus Center
George Mason University
Fairfax, VA 22030

The post Someone Who Can’t Be Trusted to Run His or Her Own Life Cannot Be Trusted to Run the Lives of Other People appeared first on Cafe Hayek.

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