Law of equal liberty
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The law of equal liberty is the fundamental precept of
Definition
In his
In "A Full Vindication of the Measures of the Congress", written in 1774,
Proponents and views
Georgism
Equal right of land
In 1775, Thomas Spence published a pamphlet titled Rights of Man[15] based on the law of equal liberty and stressed the equal right to land. According to Spence, we have equal rights to land as we have equal rights to life and liberty. To deny to some people this right "is in effect denying them a right to live. For the right to deprive anything of the means of living, supposes a right to deprive it of life."[16]
In 1795, Thomas Paine wrote Agrarian Justice,[17] stating: "Liberty and property are words that express every thing we possess that is not of an intellectual quality. Property is of two kinds. First, natural property, or that which is of the Creator's making, as Earth, Air, and Water. Secondly, artificial or acquired property, or that which is of man’s making or producing. Of this there can be no equality, because, in order to participate equally, it is first necessary that every man produces it equally, which is never the case; and if it were every man keeping his own, would be the same as participation. The equality of natural property is the subject treated of in this work. Every person born into the world is born the rightful proprietor of a certain species of property, or the value thereof."[18]
In Social Statics, Herbert Spencer based his political philosophy on the law of equal liberty. He pointed out that denying an equal right to use land could result in non landers being evicted from the planet and contradicts the law of equal freedom. This point was made further by land reformists especially championed by Henry George in Progress and Poverty,[19] where he sought to address this by preferably taxing land values.[20] George disagreed with Spencer that the equal right to use land implied that land should be nationalized. George criticized Spencer's lack of adherence to his own conclusions in A Perplexed Philosopher[21] and stated that equal right to use land does not imply the joint-ownership of land, therefore all that is necessary to achieve the law of equal freedom was to tax land with a land value tax which would disincentivise landbanking.[22]
Socialism
Equal liberty
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Socialism |
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According to John F. Welsh, equal liberty is "an absolute or first principle for Tucker since it appears as a core concept in all of his writing. He makes it abundantly clear that equal liberty is inextricably tied to his notions of both anarchism and self-ownership. Tucker equates equal liberty with anarchism."[14] Although claiming that equal liberty is a social construction rather than a natural right, Tucker "infuses the notion with the rhetoric of rights, including the concepts of duty and compulsion."[14] For Tucker, people have "a duty to respect each other's rights, assuming the word 'right' to be used in the sense of the limit which the principle of equal liberty logically places upon might", referencing Max Stirner's egoist anarchism.[14] In addition, "man's only duty is to respect others' 'rights'" and that "man's only right over others is to enforce that duty."[14] Welsh states that Tucker based his notions of equal liberty on "the distinction between invasion and resistance, between government and defense."[14] Tucker used the term invasion to refer to the "line inside of which liberty of action", i.e. positive liberty, "does not conflict with others' liberty of action."[14]
For Paul Eltzbacher, people have the right to resist invasion and defend or protect their personal liberty. Eltzbacher wrote that "[t]he individual has the right to repel invasion of his sphere of action."[14] According to Welsh, Tucker proposed that "the law of equal liberty be given some teeth through the creation of 'defensive associations' that would act coercively on behalf of the anarchistic principle of equal liberty, prohibiting and demanding redress for invasive acts."[14] Richard P. Hiskes states in Community Without Coercion: Getting Along in the Minimal State that "the criticism of individualism for its alleged lack of communal sentiment is false: individualism as a means of political organization is capable of preserving individual liberty and providing for the welfare of all persons in society."[26]
See also
References
- ISBN 9780748654161.
- ISBN 9781475900538.
- ISBN 9780719061516.
- ISBN 9780739166352.
- ^ Locke, John (1821) [1689]. "II". Second Treatise of Government. Whitmore and Fenn, and C. Brown. p. 189.
- ISBN 9780739104125.
- ^ Hamilton, Alexander (15 December 1774). "A Full Vindication of the Measures of the Congress". National Archives of Founders Online. In Syrett, Harold C., ed. (1961). The Papers of Alexander Hamilton. 1 (1768–1778). New York: Columbia University Press. pp. 45–78.
- ISBN 9780195363074.
- ^ Spencer, Herbert (1851). "Chapter 4". Social Statics: Or, the Conditions Essential to Human Happiness Specified, and the First of Them Developed. London: Chapman.
- ISBN 9781610161077.
- ISBN 9780415181877.
- ISBN 9788171883660.
- ISBN 9780191090790.
- ^ ISBN 9780739141564.
- ^ Spence, Thomas (1793) [1775]. Rights of Man. Newcastle upon Tyne: The Philosophical Society. Retrieved 1 October 2020 – via Thomas Spence Society.
- ISBN 9780521570053.
- . Retrieved 1 October 2020 – via Earthsharing Devon.
- . Retrieved 1 October 2020 – via Earthsharing Devon.
- ^ George, Henry (1879). Progress and Poverty: An Enquiry Into the Cause of Industrial Depressions, and of Increase of Want with Increase of Wealth. The Remedy. London: K. Paul, Trench & Company.
- ISBN 9781878822925.
- ^ George, Henry (1879). A Perplexed Philosopher. New York: Doubleday, Page & Company.
- ^ Smith, George H. (2 July 2013). "Herbert Spencer, Henry George, and the Land Question". Libertarianism. Retrieved 1 October 2020.
- ^ ISBN 9781441166869.
- ISBN 9781441124456.
- ISBN 9781849352260.
- ISBN 9780874131789.
Bibliography
- Hiskes, Richard P. (1982). Community Without Coercion: Getting Along in the Minimal State. Newark: University of Delaware Press. ISBN 9780874131789.
- Sprading, Charles (2015). Liberty and the Great Libertarians (illustrated ed.). Auburn: Mises Institute. ISBN 9781610161077.
- Welsh, John F. (2010). Max Stirner's Dialectical Egoism: A New Interpretation (illustrated ed.). Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 9780739141564.
Further reading
- Boaz, David, ed. (2015). The Libertarian Reader: Classic & Contemporary Writings from Lao-Tzu to Milton Friedman (reprint re-edition ed.). New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 9781476752891.
- ISBN 9780786731886.