I love freedom as much as the next guy, but it is pretty self-evident that all freedoms cannot be concurrently defended; my freedom to kill, by definition, conflicts with another’s freedom to live. [Enter government, stage left].
Enumerating rights is the mechanism by which societies prioritize freedoms in the face of such conflicts. As such, a “right” is a declaration of restriction; when I say that all people have the right to live, I am also consequently saying that all freedoms depriving another of life should be restricted. Though, it becomes too easy to simply create more and more rights as we think of new things that would be nice to have (cough…socialism), thereby restricting individual liberty with every “advance.”
Classical Liberal thought notes the problem of a government that gets on a roll granting rights, and therefore argues that the government ought to stop at the fewest number of rights that allows individuals to be left alone and protected from attempts on the part of one to deprive another of the fruits of the other’s labor (i.e. his property). This makes it seem mildly paradoxical that thinkers such as Noam Chomsky advocate such a “light” sort of governance system, except for the fact that their solutions are a wee bit more…communist. And when I say wee, I mean wee like Shaq.
How is it possible that a system whose foundation was laid by our friends at Karl Marx Construction Co. has such a similar mission statement? The answer is Marx felt the minimum level of freedom restriction that Classical Liberals advocated was not strong enough to ensure a harmonizing of interests, or defense of negative rights (rights that don’t add things to you but prevent things from being taken away from you). In Marx’s view, Classical Liberal protections only go so far as the political realm, neglecting the economic realm in which we operate and produce.
As long as other individuals own the land and factories, the workers do not produce for themselves but for the bourgeoisie; since everything said individual does belongs to the bourgeoisie, he is functionally selling himself for an hourly fee. Instead of protecting peoples’ land and other “means of production,” a government can arguably seize these things and ensure that they work for the good of all, and do not work to allow the strong enslave the weak, as in the state of nature—part of the entire reason for government’s existence in the first place.
I think/am going to assume that I know what you’re thinking, and here is the response to the question I’ve presupposed: I’m not writing this article for the wrong paper; there is a valid reason as to why any good Classical Liberal should understand Marx (and no, the reason is not a hope that they turn Marxist).
When we do not mind the others’ babble, placing ourselves in a bubble, not only does it become impossible to respond to other peoples’ actual arguments, but we miss out on an opportunity; when we can view our own arguments from a different lens, we see our arguments as others see them and so can critique and improve them from the outside.
In Jon Stuart Mill’s famous treatise On Liberty, he argues that to exclude outside opinions from being heard is predicated upon the assumption that current ideas can not be improved further, destroying progress. By that same warrant, not even taking the time to genuinely understand other positions is to assume that there is nothing that you have to gain from it, because you have perfect knowledge, thereby, ironically, rejecting the basis of Classical Liberal thought.
So what lesson can we take from the concurrent analysis of these different opinions? Marx is right to an extent. In a capitalist system, if you want to play it safe and just refuse to take a risk on an investment, on a new enterprise, or on quitting your job and finding one in a company that better suits you, you may find yourself being “owned” by someone who is willing to take a chance on himself.
Why doesn’t Marxism work? Because risk is necessary for anything to get done in society, and not only does communism not have any mechanism to reward risk, it consolidates all the risk in the hands of the people collectively, the government, thereby significantly magnifying the downside.
If I believe in Wal-Mart’s philosophy and strategy, I can give Wal-Mart money to keep developing by purchasing stock in the company, and/or I can regularly go shopping at Wal-Mart. If I disagree with Wal-Mart?, and think that my principles are worth more than the $0.75 that I save on mouthwash, I can stop shopping at Wal-Mart and convince my peers to do the same, thereby forcing Wal-Mart to shift its strategy on the aggregate.
Capitalism is what people demand it to be, but if you are not willing to stand up for anything and take a chance, it’s not going to give you the right to a free pat on the back.
-Vamsi Bhadriraju
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