Libertarian Claims Research Articles

The Neoliberal Turn: Libertarian Justice and Public Policy

Abstract In this paper I criticize a growing movement within public policy circles that self-identifies as neoliberal. The issue I take up here is the sense in which the neoliberal label signals a turn away from libertarian political philosophy. The are many import ant figures in this movement, but my focus here will be on Will Wilkinson of the Niskanen Center, not least because he has most prolifically written against libertarian political philosophy. Neoliberals oppose the idea that the rights that libertarianism claims people have are useful guides for making the world a freer place because they forestall too much governmental/democratic political action that they purport to be necessary for increasing freedom. Wilkinson mistakenly takes libertarianism to be a set of ideal public policies for achieving a perfectly free society. If it were, he would be right to turn away from it. But placing rights to freedom at the center of their theory of justice does not commit libertarians to an all-or-nothing approach to political change. Consequences and strategy matter – particularly in a non-ideal world – without abandoning the idea that each individual has a right to freedom. In mistaking libertarian moral claims as a set of policy prescriptions, Wilkinson complains that idealistic policy prescriptions not only fail to take account of how those who disagree will respond to such policies if implemented, but also thereby undermines the justice of those policies in the first instance. Wilkinson proposes that change in the direction of freedom must go through the proper channels of actually-existing democratic legitimacy. It as this stage that Wilkinson’s project comes into direct conflict with libertarianism. Whilst libertarianism is not committed to any particular method of creating a free society under non-ideal conditions, and therefore does not rule out democratic political activism as one among many means of doing that, it cannot be committed to the permanence of democratic political authority, and this is what Wilkinson’s neoliberalism demands above all else. It turns out that Foucault’s characterization of neoliberalism long ago is still accurate to Wilkinson’s own view: that neoliberalism is not about creating a society of free individuals, it is about designing the state apparatus in ways that are inspired by the workings of free society – it is about legitimizing the chains, not breaking them. Neoliberalism is not a pragmatic alternative to libertarianism, but rather a gross misapplication of it.

Always in control? Sovereign states in cyberspace

AbstractFor well over twenty years, we have witnessed an intriguing debate about the nature of cyberspace. Used for everything from communication to commerce, it has transformed the way individuals and societies live. But how has it impacted the sovereignty of states? An initial wave of scholars argued that it had dramatically diminished centralised control by states, helped by a tidal wave of globalisation and freedom. These libertarian claims were considerable. More recently, a new wave of writing has argued that states have begun to recover control in cyberspace, focusing on either the police work of authoritarian regimes or the revelations of Edward Snowden. Both claims were wide of the mark. By contrast, this article argues that we have often misunderstood the materiality of cyberspace and its consequences for control. It not only challenges the libertarian narrative of freedom, it suggests that the anarchic imaginary of the Internet as a ‘Wild West’ was deliberately promoted by states in order to distract from the reality. The Internet, like previous forms of electronic connectivity, consists mostly of a physical infrastructure located in specific geographies and jurisdictions. Rather than circumscribing sovereignty, it has offered centralised authority new ways of conducting statecraft. Indeed, the Internet, high-speed computing, and voice recognition were all the result of security research by a single information hegemon and therefore it has always been in control.

Cotidiano de combate: imagens subvertidas em uma escola pública da cidade de Campinas

Este texto procura descrever experiências realizadas em uma escola da periferia de Campinas, tendo como inspiração a pedagogia libertária, ou anarquista. Com a consciência de que a implantação da própria pedagogia libertária em escolas sob o comando do Estado e, portanto imersas em uma ideologia capitalista, é praticamente impossível sugerir práticas de aula que busquem "anarquismos": movimentos, pensares, amores, batalhas que movimentem o pensamento e abram linhas de fuga, tocando as pretensões libertárias. No caso das experiências descritas neste texto, utilizamos, como possíveis anarquismos, fotografias de pichações que sofreram manipulação digital, tornando-se uma "hiper-realidade".

The Mass Media as Discursive Network: Building on the Implications of Libertarian and Communitarian Claims for News Media Ethics Theory

The Mass Media as Discursive Network: Building on the Implications of Libertarian and Communitarian Claims for News Media Ethics Theory

The Market for Toleration: A Case Study in an Aspect of the Ambiguity of ‘Positive Economics’

Liberal apologists for the free market commonly claim for it the virtue of promoting toleration by eroding – through financial penalties – economically irrelevant ‘discrimination’. This claim is contested both by a consideration of a range of evidence from economic anthropology and by a critique of the conceptual position held to sustain it. Anthropological evidence suggests that ‘perfect’ markets frequently generate long-term non-contractual dyadic ties which undermine the one-off spot-contract constitutive of the ideal market. Furthermore, the pursuit of such ties often follows and so reinforces ethnic or religious distinction. Conceptually, the liberal argument's validity hinges on the assumption that market actors prefer to maximize money-holdings rather than express intolerance or maintain discrimination. This assertion is not only empirically false, but, if true, would ironically undermine the liberal claim that free markets are ‘neutral’ with regard to actors' preferences. Thus, libertarian claims about the effect of the operation of the market can only be sustained by violating their own theoretical premisses.

Obscenity, Libertarian Values, and Decision Making in the Supreme Court

The degree to which the Supreme Court has been willing to support the libertarian claims of obscenity litigation has varied substantially since the High Tribunal first addressed the issue. By the admission of the justices themselves, the law of obscenity has proven to be problematic, at best. In this analysis, a model is developed that accounts for the voting behavior of the justices in obscenity cases. The results suggest that the High Court is especially sensitive to the states' aim of eradicating obscene materials. Although the increased conservatism of the bench has made the justices less prone to vote against the government, there is evidence of support for the liberal position, particularly when the argument is made by some organized interest. The justices, although not necessarily protective of those against whom the government acts, recognize the need to balance the necessity of serving legitimate governmental interests against the potential threat to free expression.

Gibbardian libertarian claims revisited

Two resolution schemes for the impossibility theorems on the Gibbard-Kelly claims of libertarian rights, which are rather contrasting with each other, are proposed and their implications discussed. The first scheme asserts that there exists a collective choice rule satisfying the Pareto principle and the Gibbard-Kelly libertarian claims if there exists at least one socially unconcerned individual. The second scheme asserts existence of an eligible collective choice rule if there exists at least one liberal individual.

Rational Choice, Collective Decisions, and Social Welfare.

Left freely to themselves, a group of rational individuals often fail to cooperate even when the product of social cooperation is beneficial to all. Hence, the author argues, a rule of collective decision making is clearly needed that specifies how social cooperation should be organised among contributing individuals. Suzumura gives a systematic presentation of the Arrovian impossibility theorems of social choice theory, so as to describe and enumerate the various factors that are responsible for the stability of the voluntary association of free and rational individuals. Among other topics covered are an axiomatic characterisation of the concept of a rational choice, the simple majority decision rule and its extensions, the social choice implications of the concept of equity as nonenvy, the constrained majoritarian collective choice rules and the conflict between the Paretian ethics and the libertarian claims of individual rights.

Justice-constrained libertarian claims and Pareto efficient collective decisions

This paper discusses justice-constrained libertarian claims that were proposed as a way to circumvent the impossibility of the Paretian liberal. Since most of the results are negative in character, we suggest an alternative route: A requirement on the structure of individual orderings should be combined with the idea that under particular circumstances individual decisiveness should be controlled by higher-order principles.

Societal opposition on ethical grounds and the liberal paradox

It has been shown that justice-constrained libertarian claims can resolve Sen's impossibility of a Paretian liberal. The underlying libertarian claims are extremely weak, however. Therefore, we propose to apply one of the ‘standard’ resolution schemes and add a justice constraint that is more appealing.

Alternative libertarian claims and Sen's paradox

One of the ways of escaping from Sen's impossibility of a Paretian liberal is to weaken Sen's libertarian condition imposed on the collective choice rule. This paper compares three different versions of a revised libertarian claim: (1) Gibbard's theory of alienable rights (1974), (2) Gaertner's and Kruger's approach of self-supporting preferences (1981), and (3) a modification of Gibbard's theory which combines a weakened condition for alienating rights with the requirement of unconditional preferences. A new possibility theorem is obtained for version (3). It is shown that all three approaches are logically independent. Furthermore, it turns out that, under the original as well as the modified version of Gibbard's theory, the alienation of rights can be achieved through strategic misrepresentation of preferences by other members of society, whereas the concept of self-supporting preferences does not admit this kind of manipulation of rights. Approach (2) appears, therefore, to agree more closely with our intuitions concerning the nature of individual rights.

On the Consistency of Libertarian Claims: A Correction

On the Consistency of Libertarian Claims: A Correction

On the Consistency of Libertarian Claims

Journal Article On the Consistency of Libertarian Claims Get access Kotaro Suzumura Kotaro Suzumura London School of Economics and Kyoto Institute of Economic Research, Kyoto University Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Review of Economic Studies, Volume 45, Issue 2, June 1978, Pages 329–342, https://doi.org/10.2307/2297347 Published: 01 June 1978 Article history Received: 01 September 1976 Accepted: 01 March 1977 Published: 01 June 1978

State Supreme Courts and the Legacy of the Warren Court: Some Old Inquiries for a New Situation*

Since the advent of the Burger Court, Justice Brennan, among others, has noted and applauded the increasing tendency of those presenting civil libertarian claims to rely less on United States Supreme Court interpretation of the federal Constitution and more on state court readings of state constitutions. In much the same farewell-to-the-Warren-Court spirit, legal commentators have reviewed and indicated ways which state courts have, and might, base rulings on state constitutions. Scholarly interest has been revived in the one-hundred year old principle that the Supreme Court will not review state supreme court decisions based upon an independent and adequate state ground. The Burger Court's restriction of access to federal courts has led one federal judge to predict that state courts will assume increasing responsibility for defending federal rights. Techniques which state courts might employ to adjudicate federal claims have been canvassed.'

C. A. Campbell's Effort of Will Argument

C. A. Campbell has for many years defended vigorously, and often persuasively, the following libertarian claims: (1) that the libertarian concept of freedom of choice is meaningful; (2) that the libertarian variety of freedom of choice is necessary for moral responsibility; and (3) that the libertarian variety of freedom of choice is a reality. This paper will be concerned with Campbell's effort of will argument for the last claim.