Lack of liberty in a Libertarian Political Economy
Autor: Belle Biajoni | Publicado: 2014-11-20T18:39:00-05:00




The current state of affairs in
the International order can be seen in two very distinct ways. First
as the desired outcome in which a human rights law exist and
individual liberty is taken into consideration and respected
independent of social status or nationality. Freedom is not only a
interest of all individuals, but it is a moral right since all humans
have the basic needs of being the ruler of their own body in order to
act consciously and flourish in this reality, and it have become a
legal right for all since the abolishment of slavery. Second as a
international order driven by capital, in which individual freedom is
the most desired right and the market is what guide self-interested
human beings in the competitive collective life.  Although liberal
theories of the nineteenth century represent an advance toward the
ideas of equality and justice, numerous contradictions arise. Not
always the implementation of liberal ideas can reconcile the economic
interests and the ethical aspects. Moral life is only actually
achievable based in cooperation, reciprocity and the development of
responsibility and commitment, since without this basic virtues life
become a life of vices and competition which are characteristics that
don't make society evolve justly. Nowadays the market economy is
developing and taking control over the sovereignty of states, since
now policies and national decisions aren’t based on the needs of
the majority of the people, instead they are usually resolved with
the interests of the ruling elite which owns land and multinational
companies, due to this fact individuals are being divided into
categories of people in which capital is what drive these
self-interested assets of the government. Viable and effective
individual liberty can only be achievable when the Law acknowledges
the equality of human rights among all. In the current period, where
there is a huge social injustice and lack of  human rights, a new
conception of what is a right need to be drawn, and it can only be
achieved based in a just ethical theory that respects the dignity of
human beings as individuals independent of economic or national
status. In this sense the other isn't the limit of our liberty, or a
competitive being that only acts based on its own utility and freedom
of choice, but instead a condition to achieve collective liberty. 
The Utilitarian moral theory holds liberty as an essential virtue but
changes its indispensable characteristics, since liberty have no
meaning where there is no individual liberty of action, and where
accomplishments in life are based on monetary purchasing power.

 The first option is largely
argued in Rights discourse; in this case the state would be like a
Republic, in which above all economics incentives it is the Law that
guides and endeavors individuals. Multiculturalism would be protected
and granted under this law of rights of man, without racial/national
divisions or privileges, and people would be seen as equal socially
and under the law, not only as self interested individualist labor
power sellers in the market. Since it seems to be a situation in
which nations have decided what is best for individuals, and
proclaimed some essential Human rights that are seen as the basis for
a social animal that have needs and desires and lives collectively,
it is a rights based morality aimed to the collective good
independent of nationality or monetary power. John Locke have claimed
that law creates a condition, a sociable atmosphere for the enjoyment
of liberty, and therefore where law ends, tyranny begins and without
a disciplined life liberty has no meaning, society wants liberty
since it is a genuine virtue, and only through law it can be achieved
(1). The second option is largely argued in modern Economics
discourse as well as on current interpretations of utilitarian moral
theory, it seems to be a situation in which above the state there are
the giants of the ruling market, corporations. In this case the state
isn't sovereign, it is Imperialist since company owners are the ones
with power, and are the ones that make decisions based on a goal that
most of the time is beneficial only to themselves, not to the
majority of the population. This society is largely dependent on
capital generated by monopolist firms and freedom is what is preached
to be the most desirable right held by citizens in which independent
of their culture, religion, social status and ethnicity they are seen
as equal in the sense they are all self-interested individuals that
strive for a never ending goal of attaining more and more capital;
The right to freedom is seen as fulfilled, since the interpretation
of it is one of people being self-determined in the sense that the
state don’t interfere in individuals choices and capabilities,
these individuals want to be left alone by the state, and government
intervention isn't desirable, since individual liberty is society's
main goal. Which makes people see their individual achievements and
misfortunes as belonging only to themselves, they think they achieve
a high social status due to their own potentials, and that they are
in poverty due to their laziness, but the fact is that differently
from that, liberty shouldn’t be a barrier and a separation of men
due to the possession of material wealth and individual potential,
since social injustice is everywhere and people don’t have the same
abilities to act due to lack of resources.  Many other problems arise
with the Libertarian moral theory, since it doesn't account for human
rights, neither for other essential virtues other than
individualistic liberty.  


 A human rights perspective can
be seen in the article by Wiredu analysing the Akan society (2). He
describes that the definition of a person influences a lot the Akan
analysis of politics and law, according to their culture people are
very interdependent one another from when we are born until we become
elder. The degrees of an individual becoming a person is what makes
available social status in the community and rights, which according
to Wiredu involved duties and obligations to self, household and
community; the more obligations more of a person an individual was
considered.  I agree with Wiredu that the Akan notions of human
dignity and justice can be similar to those expressed in
International human rights standards, since they are all related in
the sense that these virtues are essential for any individual to
flourish and to achieve their potentials and accomplishments, they
are also both grounded in moral rights, which are ethical principles
held and desired by all human beings.  The Akan concept of what
constitutes an individual gives room to many other virtues that
together construct an ideology of reciprocity and of equal rights,
since it is a communal/tribal way of seeing society instead of a
individualistic capitalist ideology which it is the one that we share
in the twenty first century. So even though the foundation is the
same, their concept of equality among all people is very divergent
from the one we hold, the libertarian view of things made people
think as if they were independent and different from each other, and
Wiredu clearly show the dependency that all humans have to each
other; the Western ideology is one of independence from each other
since we are very competitive and individualistic.  Reciprocity and
communal society is also clear when Wiredu presents that the tribal
rights don't have to be enforced in order to be a right, instead they
are principles that everybody agree to and everybody participate inn
for the simple fact of being a person, if an International order was
to be implanted this would be a good way of seeing it, as rational
principles that individuals hold by their factual status of a person
that participate in and exist with the world, independent of their
national status or monetary power. Since by having this principles in
mind a more interdependent way of seeing the other could be achieved
and the virtue of reciprocity could start to affect individuals and
their private interests.


 The shift in ideology is very
clear, going from the Akan to the Western taught, while the Akan held
a mutually beneficial community with rights, the Western holds
autonomous individuals that have rights but don't necessarily enjoy
them due to lack of capital or citizenship. According to socialist
economist Karl Marx the ideology of dialectical materialism,
considers that "social being determines consciousness", ie,
"the mode of production of material life conditions the
development of social life, intellectual, and political as a whole."
(3) This means that expressions of human consciousness - including
moral - are a reflection of the relationships men establish in
society to produce its existence, and therefore change as the modes
of production change, we can see in the Akan analysis by Wiredu that
their ideology was a much more egalitarian than the liberal moral
theory due to both a small scale/tribal production process, and
essentially to their definitions of what constitute a person and how
interdependence is the essence of everyone. A world economy based on
trade, foreign commodities and specialization have shifted the way
individuals see themselves and the things we deal with in our
everyday life. The over appreciation of the material world and the
market economy created both a inconsideration of the individual, or
the other, as well as a division of people based precisely on their
material possessions. Marx seeks to recover man in productive
activity which determines the relations of production that are very
specific according to time and place. This type of analysis allows
one to observe that where there is society divided into classes with
antagonistic interests, the moral of the ruling class dominates,
imposes itself on the dominant class and becomes an ideological tool
to maintain their domination. One example is that people that are
considered of a lower class want to buy goods that are unachievable
to them in order to be similar to the higher class, in Economics we
call this activity conspicuous consumption, in which the lower class
isn't aware of themselves and of their limitations, but instead want
to show off that their purchasing power is high, illusively, as if
that would make them a higher category of a person. Therefore they
strive to work even more in order to buy the goods that the more
privileged people own, but this purchasing power isn't the nature of
the problem of their disregard as individuals, rather it becomes a
stronger control from the ruling class over them, since they work
even more and continue to suffer negligence even when owning the more
expensive commodities. This clearly show that individuals of the
lower class don’t have freedom of choice when buying commodities,
since they are heavily influenced by the higher class in their
choices and desires. 


 For Marx moral concerns the
personal sphere, there is no way to live morally in a world that has
not yet established the order of social justice. A Social justice can
still be libertarian and democratic like the one that rules
International order nowadays, but it would have to insure the
protection of the less privileged or the class that don't achieve
their potentials due to inequality of land and capital distribution.
These could be done if a principle that generated a general happiness
based on human rights took place, but this principle can't depend on
capital, instead it must hold capital as an opportunity of action
that was created in order to make our lives easier instead of
dividing us. The author Wiredu (2) describes a society that was
libertarian and democratic, since individuals could act based on
their own will and potential, their actions weren’t controlled by
an authoritative government, instead a person could achieve more
influence over the collective life depending on how much of a person
it become. But the Akan society is a modern libertarian, since state
intervention is supported to help the ones that lack resources. The
government could interfere in the lives of the Akan individuals that
couldn't reach their potential through redistribution, this aspect is
very important since land was of a very high value to the Akan
society, more than education, since land was what made labor possible
and consequently subsistence. Nowadays scholars argue that there is a
difference between having a right from enjoying that right, in other
words, if it is acknowledged by the government a right to freedom it
doesn’t necessarily follow that people are going to be free, or
that freedom will be the same to all individuals in that society.
This is a individualistic and unjust way of claiming a right, since
if there is no enjoyment then there is no right, there is privilege.
Liberal democracy is a democracy of rights and not of factual
liberty, formal and not substantial freedom, because it allows the
elitism of power: only those that own land/capital have political
power, only the ones that are from the right nation with the right
amount of money are able to fully enjoy rights. Another Rights
scholar, Joel
Feinberg (4) argues
that rights aren't the same as deserving the substance of the right,
in this sense to deserve something or to work for something does not
follow that it will be factually enjoyed. Since Rights entail other
peoples duties, and if the duty holder have more economic power then
the right holder, it doesn't follow that the persons right will be
provided. Even though the second class citizen have the legal right
and deserve the substance of their right, if the powerful other
(government, higher class) don't recognize this right then it doesn't
follow that they must supply the substance of that right. The result
is that men are not as equal as it seems, and therefore the freedom
of choice isn't a individual liberty but instead a equivalence of
each other in terms of laws and the status quo. This is related to
rights since lawmaking need to adjust to this economical divisions,
rights must become the assurance of the enjoyment of substances
rather than just right claims that can be without substance,
therefore only formal. Such as the right to Education, someone that
owns capital is able to pick and choose from a vast number of schools
while someone that lack monetary power have to subject themselves to
the schools that the government ascribes. The ones with less capital
have less freedom of choice even though the right of education per se
is being fulfilled is it clear that the ones with more money have
more ability to enjoy it. The way it is nowadays only the capital
holders are able to enjoy factual rights, and that is unfair,
therefore a Law must be created in order to assure that the ones with
less potential and resources, or the second class of citizens, are
protected, respected, and granted with actual rights. 


 According to the Libertarian
theory, to be free is to decide and act like you want, without any
causal determination, neither coming from outside (environment in
which we live), nor inside (desires, character). Even assuming that
such forces exist; the free act belongs to an independent scheme
which makes up individual human freedom. Being free is therefore to
be uncaused, or only caused by oneself. Transcendence is the act by
which man performs the movement to overcome himself, or negate the
influences that come from outside and inside acting egocentrically;
while also overcoming his dimensions of liberty (5). Freedom is not a
gift, something that is given, nor is it a starting point, but it is
the result of a labor intensive task, something that man must conquer
in order to hold a just International order that respects differences
rather then equate them in a capital driven Imperialist society.
Therefore it only depend on us being aware of what freedom is
becoming and adjust it to the majority will, a right to freedom must
follow from a enjoyment of freedom, there are many obstacles to
achieve it but in order to evolve and progress society must
acknowledge what it have become (purchasing power) and alter it in a
way to benefit the whole. Freedom is not the absence of obstacles,
but the development of the ability to master them and overcome them,
and one obstacle to the achievement of a Fundamental Rights agreement
is corporations that have conquered competition and are monopolists
of the modern world. America is preached to be a 'free country' for
the fact that when one is looking for a job, aka willing to sell
their labor power on the market, the company in which the person
applies to can't ask about their age, nationality or religion. The
question that arise is whether this is a assurance of individual
freedom, or if this is simply the disregard of individual identity.
The fact that the employer isn't concerned with your differences
means that everyone can enjoy rights equally or rather that what the
employer wants from you is precisely what you have in common with
everyone else? That is your willing to earn capital and to labor for
it. It is a fine line that divides respecting and disconsidering, and
this line must be drawn by rights as well as by the values held by
this society.  


 When the ultimate value is
Liberty, it becomes very blurry what must be provided and what must
be attained egocentrically. Rights discourse scholar MacDonald (5)
makes a distinction on how things are vs. how things should be, she
claims that the conditions of a good society are determined by human
decisions, and human decisions according to her are expressions of
values. In contrast Utilitarian theorist John Stuart Mill (6) have
claimed that one conduct is legitimate as soon as there is no harm to
others, as well as claiming that evil means justify good ends, and
that the goal is to have more happiness in society as a overall
addition of individual units of pleasure. Both scholars argue for
liberty, the fact that MacDonald claims that what drives a good
society are precisely expressions of value is very contrary to Mill's
'unit of happiness' since the fact that no one was harmed doesn't
follow from a general expression of value or justice. The utilitarian
moral theory try to simplify actions based on what is good and what
is bad, but not everything can be reduced to that, and this additions
of units can be very broad, for example, according to 21st
century Utilitarian economists, pleasure is gathered through
consumption, so the more a society consumes the happier the society
is, I think this isn't a legitimate claim, since other expressions of
value must play a role when happiness is to be achieved other than
purchasing power. Like we saw when mentioning Marx, the happiness
that is derived from purchasing power only creates a greater control
from the ones in power over the workers, since the workers believe
that they would be treated better if they own the same type of
commodities as the higher class, but that doesn't follow precisely
because of what they intrinsically are:  unprivileged due to
socioeconomic situation. 


 According to Moral theorist
Arendt (7) a new emancipated society, which I call market economy,
have taken away the security of human and social rights from
individuals that are considered of a lower status. The individuals
that are considered as a second class citizenship, which is a concept
that can be seen in terms of national identity or economic class
aren't “persecuted for what they have done or taught” but instead
because of what they unchangeably were – born into the wrong kind.”
In a just International agreement on human rights there should be no
division on kinds of people like the one claimed by Arendt, people
should be seen as equal, by the simple fact that they are embodied
rational individuals that share the same space and time and that are
intrinsically interdependent from when they are born until they
become of age. In the current interests of our time individuals are
claimed free but don't have the same capabilities of actions as the
ones that own capital and property, therefore their claims are
invalid due to lack of rights enjoyment and freedom of choice. In one
family, two brothers can be of different classes and with no sense of
love or socialism, the one brother can be of a monetary disadvantage,
which makes him a second class citizen more subjected to punishment
and suffering, while the second brother can be of a high economic
status and enjoy a life more safe and free. This illustrates how this
capitalist notion of individual independence as well as this
distinction of kinds of human beings, as if people weren't all the
same, can be caused due to Economic disparities which consequently
promotes much more rights to the ones that are considered a better
type of person, and generate more misery to the less privileged
class.   


  Another point according to
Arendt that is related to a Human rights perspective is when she
asserts the “fundamental deprivation of human rights is manifested
first and above all in the deprivation of a place in the world which
makes opinions significant and actions effective. This second class
citizens are “deprived not of the right to freedom, but of the
right to action, not to the right to think whatever they please, but
of the right to opinion” (7) The equivalence of all individuals
under a market economy is taken as a given way of living, in other
words as a determination of this reality, and people subject
themselves to it without being able to have awareness of what it is
or how it works, and more importantly, without factually enjoying
their individual rights. The individuals in this society don't have
opinions towards what civil and economical principles should be
enforced or implemented, they can neither act effectively since the
whole system is bureaucratic and alienated from the individual in the
form of institutions and corporations that together form a scheme
that confounds and leaves them with Laws that punish but don't
provide. Individuals are seen as means to ends, since what the
economy and the government want from you is your labor power so that
you contribute to the production and distribution of goods in the
claimed free society, in which people believe that everything depends
on themselves, and their responsibility to community and nation are
acknowledged by the Laws that exist, but reality instead can be seen
as very different from that, since the economy and the government are
million multinational owners that want to take advantage of each one
of us in order to benefit no one other than themselves and their
interests. On one hand money is the major symbol of power, on the
other hand it is a piece of paper printed by the Federal Bank (which
is privately owned). On one hand celebrities and politicians show
conspicuously their social status and purchasing power, while on the
other hand there is poverty, famine and people that don't even have
conditions to subsist. 


 When trying to exert their
freedom, the second class of citizens finds that the free choice of
the privileged individuals increasingly delimits their own space of
action. In the jungle of competition, where each fights for himself
and don't own obligations to none, the substance of the right is an
illusion. Beyond, when the poor want to express their wishes and
desires, the scene immediately assumes the character of a disorder or
unjustified struggle. Therefore the less privileged not only suffer
from a life without factual rights, but when they become conscious of
the class conflict they can't even try to fight democratically
without getting pepper sprayed. In the Libertarian moral theory as
well as in the Utilitarian, the concept of freedom don't have its
starting point in the individual freedom, but rather in the
collective interest, since it is from the collective that the
individual behavior is regulated. So the Libertarian theory have been
essentially misidentified since it claims to be the establishment of
individual liberty while on the big picture it is collectively based.
And moreover, in the current state the collective interest isn't the
interest that benefits the 'minorities' as some like to call, but
instead the interest of the owners of corporations that are
dominating the states and the law without any restraints, holding
money as decoy, and holding people as means to the achievement of a
global domination without human rights.  


 Only Laws can prevent the abuse
of power, I argue that the only check to power from the dominants of
today's reality is a Human Rights declaration. In which independent
of an individual social status or national identity they are
respected and considered as self-worth human beings that come from a
communal way of subsistence, which are social animals, and therefore
must act according to their reality. The ultimate goal in this case
is to have behaviors that are governed by universal principles, which
are principles of justice: the equality of human rights, respect for
the dignity of human beings as individuals, recognizing Kant's
ethical standards (8), that people are ends in themselves and need to
be treated as such. In an International order driven by capital the
people are means for the generation of national wealth, since
individuals that are considered as the second class citizenship are
commodities in the labor market, which are exchangeable and
perishable. The concept of freedom suffer a dialectical change since
it became a disregard of who you are; freedom become a value very
similar to equality in which everyone is seen as competitive
individuals striving for capital and their identity, nationality, sex
and ethnicity stop concerning the state since all what they need is
your willingness to labor in order to generate capital to the
Economy. Through Rights discourse and philosophical reasoning
individuals are able to see that some essential aspects of reality
vanish in this environment, such as virtues other than Liberty.




Bibliography:


 "John
 Locke: Natural Rights to Life, Liberty, and Property.":
 The Freeman : Foundation for Economic Education.
 N.p., n.d. Web. 08 May 2014.


 Wiredu,
 Kwasi: “Human rights in Africa : cross-cultural perspectives”
 pages 243-260
 
 


 Marxists
 Internet Archive."Dialectical
 Materialism”.
 N.p., n.d. Web. 09 May 2014.
 
 


 Feinberg,
 “The nature and value of rights”
 pages 243-258


 Sartre, Jean-Paul. "The
 Body." Being and
 Nothingness: An Essay on Phenomenological Ontology.
 New York: Philosophical Library, 1956. Print.


 "Theories
 of Rights."Rights
 and Duties.
 MacDonald, n.d. Web. 09 May 2014.
 
 


 "John
 Stuart Mill: On Liberty."Utilitarian
 Moral Theory.
 N.p., n.d. Web. 09 May 2014.
 
 


 Arendt,
 Hannah. "The Perplexities of the Rights of Man.” The
 Origins of Totalitarianism.
 San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1973. N. pag. Print.
 
 


 Kant – Class notes on March,
 2014