I'm not well read on austrian views, so forgive me if this is a pretty basic question.
A few days ago I started wondering about the separation of economic and personal freedom, which seems quite common. I came to the conclusion that they can't be seperated. If a state takes 100% of the fruits of your labor, whether you build a house or a pull a potato from the ground, you are not left with an ability to act. Hence you cannot exercise personal freedom. You cannot move or even think without requiring nourishment, which in this case would be provided or not provided by the state.
So without economic freedom there is no personal freedom?
Please point out any problem in this logic that you may notice. And also, if anyone knows of good literature dealing with this, I'd be grateful for the information.
You've hit the nail on the head. You can't have one without the other.
For an article specifically related to this issue, I would recommend "The Ethics and Economics of Private Property" by Hans Hermann Hoppe, available at mises.org
If you're new to Austrian Economics I would recommend reading first Henry Hazlitt's book "Economics in One Lesson" . Linda and Morris Tannehill's book "The Market for Liberty" is a great primer on anarcho-capitalism.
As always, though, Murray Rothbard is the best if you really want to get into the meat of things. "Man, Economy and State" is the ultimate work on economics, though very long, but well worth reading again and again (read Henry Hazlitt's book first though). "For a New Liberty" is probably the best layman's guide to libertarianism, "The Ethics of Liberty" is a brilliant and more scholarly work in the same area of study.
All thse books are very readable. What makes them so clear is not just their author's predisposition to clarity, but that Austrian Economics and Libertarianism are so incredibly logical. Most mainstream social science textbooks send you to sleep in a heartbeat, because they don't make sense. These, you won't be able to put down! Murray Rothbard and Henry Hazliitt's books can be found online for free on the Mises site. Hope this helps.
Thank you for the info. I am actually reading Hazlitt's Economics in One Lesson and I ordered a ton of other books as well from the shop. Figured I'd read Callahan's Economics for Real People next.
I am finding that Austrian economics works pretty much in the way I have deducted free markets to work on my own. I have always disliked the murky reasoning of some economists, so it is nice to find a logical alternative. Of course there are issues that I haven't really considered, like do wars cause economic growth. I had been under a vague impression that war is beneficial to an economy, so it was refreshing to learn something new.
If you hadn't said it, I was going to. ;) The two cannot be easily separated. In fact I do not think it is a tenable distinction, at all.
All the books Leonidia has recommended are great. I would also recommend Jan Narveson's The Libertarian Idea, Tibor Machan's Libertarianism Defended, den Uyl's and Rasmussen's Norms of Liberty and Rand's The Virtue of Selfishness.
Henry Hazlitt's Time Will Run Back explains why political freedom can not exist in a communist society without ownership. Its also a good lesson in free market economics and the premise is very interesting, a completely communist society reinvents freedom.
It does have a flaw though. Hazlitt was not an anarchist so the hero is never able to realize his Marxist goal of achieving full communism, making the State disappear, so instead he must settle for transforming it to American style democracy. This makes the ending rather inconsistent with the freedom theme of the book. War is also an important theme, as Hazlitt was an interventionist/ anti-communist, but he uses it to advocate free market policies during war.
Time Will Run Back
Peace
Libertas est Veritas:So without economic freedom there is no personal freedom?Please point out any problem in this logic that you may notice. And also, if anyone knows of good literature dealing with this, I'd be grateful for the information.
I don't see anything wrong with your logic. I myself accept distinction between economic freedom and personal freedom. All liberty derives from self-ownership, and is expressed as volition. Deprive a man of choices, and you deprive him of liberty. Based on that, I view taxation as something worse than mere robbery or extortion, as every tax is an opportunity cost imposed upon the taxpayer without his consent.
It's one thing for me to do without a book I want because I bought my wife flowers. I decided for myself that I'd gain more from pampering my wife.
It's one thing for me to do without a book because I had to repair my car. After all, without a car, I cannot get to work, which prevents me from making more money that I could use to buy that book next week.
It's another thing entirely for me to have to do without a book because some meddlesome thug in Washington decided that his cause outweighed my right to make my own decisions. Taxation isn't just a theft of money; it's a theft of choices as well. For the money I pay in federal income and payroll taxes, I could pay my rent for 10 months. I could take my wife to Europe. I could buy upgrades for my car to improve its performance and gas mileage.
Instead, I'm stuck footing the bill for some stranger's idealism, and $DEITY forbid I express any resentment.
note that the idea that war might be beneficial to an economy is a dressing up of the "broken window fallacy",
(unless its a simple act of theft?)
Where there is no property there is no justice; a proposition as certain as any demonstration in Euclid
Fools! not to see that what they madly desire would be a calamity to them as no hands but their own could bring
There is no difference between personal and economic freedom. All rights are property rights, and without property rights one has no freedom.
Parsidius: There is no difference between personal and economic freedom. All rights are property rights, and without property rights one has no freedom.
agreed. It stems from self ownership. but what makes us self owners?
Hoppes statement that self-ownership is axiomatic. "His reasoning is that a person contradicts himself when he argues against self-ownership. The person making this argument is caught in a 'performative contradiction' because, in choosing to use persuasion instead of force to have others agree that they are not sovereign over themselves, that person implicitly grants that those who he is trying to persuade have a right to disagree. If they have a right to disagree, then they have legitimate authority over themselves."
However one AnCap gave me this in response to Hoppe:
"Hoppe's argument fails because he assumes atomic self-ownership. I can argue against self-ownership of myself, for example I could argue I belong to my parents asking for their permission to do so. A person might also argue that we are merely self-owners of our larynx in order to argue and that everything else belongs to someone else. A religious person might argue that god is the sole owner of our body and leases to us with some term and conditions (say: don't commit suicide). I have the impression that you do not draw a clear distinction between ownership and control. Ownership does not mean control, it means rightful control. The state controls my tax money, but he is not its rightful owner. As I said, I could argue that I belong to my parents *with my parent permission*, which means they would grant me the right to use my body in order to argue. They could even grant me most of the rights to my body but retain some of them for example. I could also be stealing the right to my body in arguing, I could say I belong to my father, but argue against his will and recognize my own arguing as inherently wrongful. When I argue with my mouth, I merely demonstrate control, not rightful control."
does hoppes arguement really fail? Does this man above have a point that he and I are confusing control with ownership? Is hoppes arguementation ethic flawed on these accounts?
The state is a disease and Liberty is the both the victim and the only means to a lasting cure.
1. What is presented in this thread is an argument that individual liberty cannot exist without economic liberty. One could also make the argument that economic liberty cannot exist without personal liberty, as I do here.
2. Economics in One Lesson is an amazing book, I recommend it to every man, woman, and child on the planet.
3. War is extremely detrimental to the overall economy. At best, it benefits select industries, but always to the detriment of the consumer, the worker, and other business interests which, on a free market, would otherwise be serving consumer demand. Harry Browne has a brilliant little clip about war here.
JonBostwick:Hazlitt was not an anarchist so the hero is never able to realize his Marxist goal of achieving full communism, making the State disappear, so instead he must settle for transforming it to American style democracy.
I like that, only through Slavery can you realize Freedom...
Personal and economic freedom is the same. Some economic actions has a personal aspect, like the freedom to buy and use all goods and services. Some personal actions has an economic aspect, like the freedom trade the goods you want with others. There isn't a clear distinction, as they are determined subjectively.
By ideology, all economic systems try to utilize maximum personal freedom by government intervention or other, such as "positive liberty". These systems have failed of what they are intended to do. Economic libertarianism has proven to be the best of these, so in practical terms, economic freedom means personal freedom.
ThorsMitersaw:It stems from self ownership. but what makes us self owners? Hoppes statement that self-ownership is axiomatic.
It stems from self ownership. but what makes us self owners?
Hoppes statement that self-ownership is axiomatic.
Two thoughts. First, instead of coming at it from the self ownership position, you can as easily come at it from the voluntary vs coercion position. That is, there is no distinction between economic and personal liberty because voluntary action undergirds both. If you advocate voluntary action in the personal sphere, but coercion in the economic sphere, or vice versa, you can make no claim to philosophical consistency. This is the fundamental philosophical and ethical problem that the 2 major parties in the US have today. They both advocate coercion sometimes and non-coercion at others. If coercion is justified for any action, then there is no logic as to why that cannot be extended until coercion consumes all. So perhaps a moral argument is easier to make if we think in terms of coercion, rather than ownership.
Next, the statement that we own ourselves is, IMO, axiomatic - a categorical imperative. It cannot be extracted from some deeper truth and objectively proven. If someone disagrees with this axiom, then there are no grounds for agreement whatsoever, as far as I can see. Of course, religious types will insist that the Creator 'gave' us natural rights, which stem from self-ownership (though these same folks often insist that their Creator owns them). Others will insist that they are ours due to our humanity, or due to some aspect of our humanity (like volition).
The question here, as I see it, is - do you come at this from a moralistic position, or from a practical position? That is, are you a libertarian or anarchist because it's *right*, or because it *works*? In this regard, here's a thought provoking article:
http://www.libertyunbound.com/archive/2005_01/editors-right.html
None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free. - Goethe
Libertas est Veritas:I'm not well read on austrian views, so forgive me if this is a pretty basic question. A few days ago I started wondering about the separation of economic and personal freedom, which seems quite common. I came to the conclusion that they can't be seperated. If a state takes 100% of the fruits of your labor, whether you build a house or a pull a potato from the ground, you are not left with an ability to act. Hence you cannot exercise personal freedom. You cannot move or even think without requiring nourishment, which in this case would be provided or not provided by the state.So without economic freedom there is no personal freedom?Please point out any problem in this logic that you may notice. And also, if anyone knows of good literature dealing with this, I'd be grateful for the information.
I don't agree that all true freedom must be founded upon economic freedom or property rights, something that Libertarians tend to believe.
I define freedom as the following:
The ability to do X, to overcome obstacle Y, to achieve Z
The reason economic and social freedom has been seen as contradictory is because both sides have only understood part of the equation. The red part is called "negative freedom." The blue part is called "positive freedom."
But neither clearly involves any kind of freedom. Both must be combined for there to be any meaningful freedom.
The ability to act without any chance of your acts accomplishing anything doesn't give people the freedom anymore than having your choices made for you.
"Austrian economics and freedom are not synonymous." -JAlanKatz
Nathyn: Libertas est Veritas: I'm not well read on austrian views, so forgive me if this is a pretty basic question. A few days ago I started wondering about the separation of economic and personal freedom, which seems quite common. I came to the conclusion that they can't be seperated. If a state takes 100% of the fruits of your labor, whether you build a house or a pull a potato from the ground, you are not left with an ability to act. Hence you cannot exercise personal freedom. You cannot move or even think without requiring nourishment, which in this case would be provided or not provided by the state. So without economic freedom there is no personal freedom? Please point out any problem in this logic that you may notice. And also, if anyone knows of good literature dealing with this, I'd be grateful for the information. I don't agree that all true freedom must be founded upon economic freedom or property rights, something that Libertarians tend to believe. I define freedom as the following: The ability to do X, to overcome obstacle Y, to achieve Z The reason economic and social freedom has been seen as contradictory is because both sides have only understood part of the equation. The red part is called "negative freedom." The blue part is called "positive freedom." But neither clearly involves any kind of freedom. Both must be combined for there to be any meaningful freedom. The ability to act without any chance of your acts accomplishing anything doesn't give people the freedom anymore than having your choices made for you.
Libertas est Veritas: I'm not well read on austrian views, so forgive me if this is a pretty basic question. A few days ago I started wondering about the separation of economic and personal freedom, which seems quite common. I came to the conclusion that they can't be seperated. If a state takes 100% of the fruits of your labor, whether you build a house or a pull a potato from the ground, you are not left with an ability to act. Hence you cannot exercise personal freedom. You cannot move or even think without requiring nourishment, which in this case would be provided or not provided by the state. So without economic freedom there is no personal freedom? Please point out any problem in this logic that you may notice. And also, if anyone knows of good literature dealing with this, I'd be grateful for the information.
Hello Nathyn. I am happy that this post was not answered yet because it allows me to say that you are wrong without sounding too redundant. You should seriously drop the colors and go back to the basics because this is what you need to work on.
Negative freedom is really simply the ability to act upon your own assertment of a situation by taking into account reality without other people forbidding you from doing so (in as much as your action does not attack another person's negative freedom. Negative freedom is thus a universal concept as it can be applied to everyone at the same time without being contradictatory).
Your definition of positive freedom is also wrong. Positive freedom is not about achieving anything: its about "freeing" oneself from the requirements of reality. Being positively free from something simply means that you transfer your own burden to other people. That it also means that you ought to be able to do anything your body enables you to do is irrevelant: if you do act in this way, you will be tresspassing others' property rights sooner or later and will be transfering a part of your own burden to them.
Your concept of a "meaninful freedom" is self-contradictatory. You cannot have negative freedom if others are to have positive freedom (because you would have to take part of others' burden for them to be free from it). What you called positive freedom is just what I call "success". Success is never guaranteed and to make it part of an equation that would define the best form of liberty is wrong. For you, to be free is:
-To be free from others' use of force againts you. AND
-To be free from some parts of reality (and thus implicitely denying negative freedom to others). AND
-To be successful
I agree with Yan for the most part.