Escape from Leviathan: Libertarianism without Justificationism [Paperback]

I thank Julius Blumfeld for his various kind words and especially for his welcome criticisms. I shall do my best to reply to these.

It is true that justificationists, both libertarians and non-libertarians, often vehemently reject the critical-rationalist approach. And this means that the book faces an extra but, I believe, necessary hurdle. (There is also the problem of the relative lack of interest in libertarian ideas in the UK, which is possibly why there are more reviews of this book on amazon.com.) I do hold that libertarian thinkers cannot “prove or justify libertarianism.” However, I should add that would-be justificationists often do something valuable nevertheless, namely explaining libertarianism. For so-called justifications (foundations, support, etc.) are often really explanations of how libertarianism is supposed to work. But these explanations are themselves, perforce, ultimately conjectural and rarely as clear as they might be if their proponents understood this. So, although they cannot achieve their ostensible purpose, I am far from dismissing everything written in the name of ‘justification’ as being a complete waste of time. Conversely, I note that critical rationalists sometimes fail to explain how they think something works, apparently out of the fear of that conjectural explanation being seen as an attempted justification. But it is sometimes merely bemusing to hear a bold and tersely expressed conjecture without any explanation of what it involves and its context.

Blumfeld suggests that I have left “certain questions tantalisingly unanswered.” I suggest that a closer reading of the book would reveal some answers to these questions after all. But no doubt they could have been more clearly stated, which I shall attempt here.

He asks first, “Why are liberty, welfare and anarchy compatible?” The answer is that it is partly causal. It is partly a contingent fact about the free market as an aspect of liberty, for instance, that it increases welfare. We can easily imagine systematic market disasters that would do no such thing. People are individually aiming for utility (welfare) and the market and voluntary interactions are usually the route they take. So the apparent direction of causality may depend on what you are looking at or the way you are looking at it. It is also partly “tautological” or, rather, a priori. For we see that anarchy is an extreme form of liberty where no one is ruled. And we see that liberty, as not being proactively imposed on, is ipso facto desirable (and thus far welfare enhancing). But I argue, at some length, that any conceptual connections are not merely tendentious or sleights of hand. They withstand critical scrutiny as plausible accounts of what these things must be about. There are certainly conceptual connections between my “definitions of liberty and welfare” (also anarchy and rationality) but not enough, I think, to say that they are really “similar” definitions. For I allow the clear possibility that they could diverge, but I bring in evidence and arguments that they do not do so as a matter of reality. So I don’t think that “at some deeper level they are the same thing or ... both manifestations of some deeper underlying principle.”

Blumfeld suggests that Escape from Leviathan “provides only limited guidance as to how we are to derive rules and laws that will maximise liberty.” However, it explains how self-ownership and private property are derived from maximising liberty. So there is a presumption that these will often be sufficient to do the job, and that ought to be “concrete” enough. Where there are difficult and novel cases then we sometimes have to resort to the original formula. For instance, David Friedman cites various cases where absolute property rights do not work. One case is of any trivial light generated on your property not being allowed to cross onto my property without my permission. My solution is that my ‘suffering’ the light is a lesser imposition (usually too trivial for compensation) than your having to go without a light or possibly have perfectly light-proof curtains at all times. We must prefer the lesser imposition as maximising liberty (and, as Friedman does realise, utility). Having such an abstract formula seems to be the opposite of pragmatism. So, to respond to Blumfeld’s interest, I think that only the liberty formula can ultimately “derive libertarian laws and rules.” Economic analysis can assist in this but economics itself is silent on what is libertarian unless it uses some extra-economics conception of liberty. Economics is best at showing where utility lies.

I fully admit that my theory of, libertarian, liberty “does not always fit comfortably with the meaning that most libertarians would attach to it.” It is quite different from many other definitions or theories (for instance, by rejecting coercion and the harm principle as at all relevant and rejecting self-ownership and private property as central, rather than derived). Many of those other libertarian definitions of liberty are vague or tacit. I am trying to capture the theory of liberty that is presupposed or logically entailed, whether or not this is realised. I originally wrote of liberty as being the absence of initiated imposed costs (on persons by other persons) and then immediately shortened this for ease to “the absence of imposed costs.” I now think it is slightly clearer to write of the “absence of proactively imposed costs.” But that is the definition in a pre-propertarian world. Once property has been derived as being libertarian (when acquired and held in a way compatible with liberty), then it is clearer in everyday life to speak of liberty as the ‘absence of proactive impositions (or possibly restrictions)’ where property is assumed to be libertarian. Thus the proactively imposed damage to Blumfeld’s bumper must be “a loss of liberty” in the defended sense. Admittedly, this is an unusual way to describe it. But perhaps it sounds less odd to say, which is equivalent, that he has been ‘proactively restricted’ in his enjoyment of his property. Libertarianism does entail having all the enforceable rules and laws ultimately in terms of liberty. This can occasionally sound odd, but that is what libertarianism is about. Without it we have undecideable or incomplete rules and laws from a libertarian viewpoint, and possibly additional inconsistent principles.

Now for the “scope of the conjecture”, in particular the thought experiment posed. I state in the book that it is supposed to be a practical conjecture about the real world. Liberty and welfare have a systematic tendency to go hand in hand. We can see that they will occasionally conflict (in particular at the micro and personal level: someone might steal to save his life) but this will not be systematic enough for us to alter the rules to increase liberty or welfare. Is Blumfeld’s “small but identifiable group of people [who] would be indisputably worse off in a world of maximum liberty” a refutation? First, note that this is a mere, and non-concrete, logical possibility. I ruled out those as refutations of the practical thesis that the compatibility thesis is supposed to be. It is hard to say much more without more, imagined, details. For instance, the group of people who have their hearts set on ruling other people, perhaps even having them as slaves, might themselves be less happy all their lives. But to give into them would surely decrease overall liberty and overall welfare in reality. How can liberty and welfare plausibly clash in reality? We can relevantly discuss any putative cases, but it is not enough merely to suppose that they logically might. However, I can answer Blumfeld’s final question clearly: no, ‘welfare’ does not “mean welfare for literally everybody.” The thesis is not that everyone will always have more welfare if liberty is maximised. The extreme classical liberal (or libertarian) compatibility thesis is that there is no systematic practical clash between maximising liberty and maximising welfare such that we have to choose between maximising the one or the other. For instance, if the state really improved welfare (via state legislation, education, healthcare, etc.) compared to the market and charity, then we would have just such a clear practical clash. But as we both know, it does not.

J C Lester (January 2006)

This book is an important advance in libertarian theory. Lester does not waste his time with endless "justifications" for libertarianism. Nor does he seek to persuade us that liberty is better than welfare. His conjecture is that liberty, welfare and anarchy are compatible (the "compatibility thesis") so there is no need to choose between them. We can be both free and rich.

There are two great virtues to Lester's approach. The first is his epistemology. Following Popper, Lester proceeds on the basis that the way to ascertain the truth of a theory is not to try and prove it (a task which he sees as logically impossible), but rather to test it with searching criticisms. His provisional conclusion is that, so far at least, nobody has succeeded in refuting the compatibility of liberty, welfare and anarchy.

It is of course implicit in Lester's approach that those libertarian thinkers who continue to devote their time and effort to attempts to prove or justify libertarianism from first principles are misguided. This is a message which is harsh, even shocking (and may explain the hostile reception the book has received in some quarters), but also very liberating.

The second great virtue of Lester's approach is the far-reaching nature of the conjecture that liberty, welfare and anarchy are compatible. If it is true, then there is no need to chose between them. We need not sacrifice liberty to create a better world. To the contrary, the way to a better world is to maximise liberty. If this conjecture is true, it is a killer blow for statists of all kinds.

If the book has a fault, it is that it leaves certain questions tantalisingly unanswered. Four areas in particular would benefit from consideration by Lester in a future work.

The first is the deep structure of the relationship between Lester's conceptions of liberty and welfare. Why are liberty, welfare and anarchy compatible? Is it just an extraordinarily improbable coincidence? Or is there a causal relationship? If so, which way does it flow? Or might it be that Lester's conjecture is actually tautologous? Does the alleged compatibility of these things flow from the definitions which Lester uses? In particular, Lester's definitions of liberty and welfare are similar. Perhaps the two are compatible because, at some deeper level they are the same thing or because they are both manifestations of some deeper underlying principle.

The second is that Lester provides only limited guidance as to how we are to derive rules and laws that will maximise liberty. There are many areas of social life where it is unclear what arrangements are best likely to maximise liberty; and although Lester provides many interesting and original suggestions, he does not (at least as far as I can tell) provide concrete criteria to guide us. In that regard, Lester seems to be something of a pragmatist. It would be interesting to know, for example, what Lester thinks of David Friedman's view that economic analysis is the best way to derive libertarian laws and rules.

The third is that Lester's definition of liberty is one that does not always fit comfortably with the meaning that most libertarians would attach to it. Lester treats liberty as being infringed by the imposition of unconsented costs. But by this measure, my liberty is infringed by a careless driver who damages my bumper. One should not be over-concerned by matters of definition, but it is surely stretching matters rather to describe the damage to my bumper as a loss of liberty!

Finally, Lester is not always clear as to the scope of the conjecture. For example, would the conjecture be disproved if it were possible to show that a small but identifiable group of people would be indisputably worse off in a world of maximum liberty, even if the vast majority of people would be better off? Does welfare mean welfare for literally everybody or just most people?

Nevertheless, these are are minor criticisms of a major work. This is a book that deserve to be read by all those who are serious about human liberty as well as by all those who are serious about human welfare.

After all, if Lester is right, they are the very same people.

This book probably represents a landmark in the literature of liberalism on two counts. One of these is the robust statement of his major thesis on the compatibility of free markets, liberty and welfare. The other is the way he uses the non-authoritarian theory of rationality expounded by Karl Popper and William W Bartley.

"In practice (rather than in imaginary cases) and in the long term, there are no systematic clashes among interpersonal liberty, general welfare, and market anarchy, where these terms are to be understood roughly as follows...". Those who seek linguistic precision may be alarmed that his terms are to be understood roughly. Lester has quite deliberately avoided the kind of conceptual analysis, the teasing out of the meaning of terms, that Popper has labeled "essentialism". At least one reviewer noted the remarkable amount of meat that is packed into the book. This is partly due to the self-conscious avoidance of essentialism, partly to Lester's firm grasp on his materials and party to the mode of argumentation that he has adopted, following the non-justificationist or non-foundational line that has been articulated by Popper and Bartley.

The main characteristic of this approach is that it only attempts to achieve what is possible, which is the formation of a critical preference for one option rather than another, in the light of the evidence and arguments that are available up to date. He does not attempt the impossible, namely a logically conclusive proof of his case. What is possible is to propose a theory or a doctrine and subject it to criticism, then if it stands up we may proceed with that theory or doctrine until such time as an alternative is proposed that has better credentials and stands up to criticism at least as well as the previous candidate.

Turning to the organization of the book, after the Introduction are four chapters; Rationality, Liberty, Welfare and Anarchy. Each chapter is tightly organised and packed with crisply presented arguments which resist efforts to paraphrase them. Consequently no short review will do justice to the contents of the book or its organisation. Lester's theory of rationality has to reconcile two extreme views in economics - the neglected subjective, "a priori" approach of Menger and the Austrians, and the standard objective, empirical account. He adopts the theory that agents are self-interested utility-maximisers and he addresses a number of standard objections that are raised against this concept. He argues, successfully in my view, that the objections do no damage to his thesis.

Liberty is formulated as the absence of initiated or proactively imposed cost, or in the case of a mutual clash of imposed costs, the minimisation of imposed costs. This means avoiding or minimising the subjective costs imposed on us by other people, without our consent. Lester explains this formulation, compares it with typical libertarian alternatives to illustrate its strengths and then tests it by attempting to solve some problems presented to libertarians by David Friedman and John Gray. This is the longest chapter and it covers a huge amount of ground, including intellectual property rights and a theory of restitution for crimes and torts. In addition to the criticism of Friedman and Gray there is also a rejoinder to Amartya Sen and to Karl Popper.

The criticism of John Gray is important because for some time he enjoyed a high profile as a rare instance of a classical liberal Oxford don. Lester also responds to Gray's charge of "restrictivism", directed at liberals on the ground that they do not accept that freedom is "an essentially contested concept". In response, Lester accuses Gray of "conflationism", that is, importing a raft of contentious theories from elsewhere (psychology, hermeneutics, epistemology) to muddle and confuse the issues, at the same time appealing to various authorities and ultimately overriding interpersonal liberty in favour of some other goal.

Welfare is a sticking point for many people of good will who support freedom but believe that they cannot be libertarians because of all the poor people who need assistance. Actually support for deserving poor people could be provided by a VWA (Voluntary Welfare Association), dispensing funds from voluntary donations from all the people who currently vote to support welfare policies. The main targets in the chapter on welfare are R M Hare, Amartya Sen, Bernard Williams, John Rawls, John Harsanyi and Alan Ryan.

The final chapter on anarchy is very short because most of the work to defend private property and the market order has been done in previous chapters. "Basic conceptual confusion and mere prejudice are more the real problems" (page 193). He casts a critical eye over some conceptual aspects of the state and then he turns to John Rawls again as an exemplar of confusion and prejudice. Finally, Lester identifies the way that Rawls has simply ignored the libertarian position on the state, which is perceived as providing the arena where the most divisive issues can be removed from the political agenda.