Prior to my discovery of libertarianism back in the late 1970s, when I was in my late 20s, I had no doubts that I lived in a free society. After all, I had attended 12 years of public (i.e., government) schools, four years of a state-supported college, and then three years of a state-supported law school. Given that indoctrination is the aim of every governmental educational system, I was, in the words of the songwriter Lee Greenwood, proud to be an American because at least I knew I was free.
And then I discovered libertarianism. It was a Road to Damascus experience for me. Immediately, the inches-thick layer of indoctrination that had encased my mind for more than 25 years began cracking apart. I was recognizing that it had all been a lie. I wasn’t free at all. I was living in a society in which people’s lives, fortunes, and activities were controlled and managed by government.
It was at that moment that I decided that I wanted to be free. I decided that I wanted to experience what it was like to live the life of a free person before I passed from this life. After all, we’ve all been given only one life to live. I figured that I wanted to live that one life in freedom.
That meant (1) defining what freedom actually is; (2) identifying the infringements on liberty; and (3) getting those infringements removed. If all we accomplish is a reform of an infringement, then we haven’t achieved freedom because freedom necessarily entails the removal, not the reform, of infringements on liberty.
Libertarian reformers and school vouchers
As I began delving into libertarianism, however, I learned that there were other libertarians who had decided to devote their lives to welfare-warfare state reform. I could not understand why they would do that. Surely, they understood that even if they succeeded in achieving their reforms, they still would not be free. Why would they settle for reform, which left their serfdom intact, rather than fight for actual freedom?
One of the best examples of this phenomenon involved the issue of school vouchers. That was a controversial topic within the libertarian movement back in the 1980s. Conservatives, of course, loved vouchers because they saw them as a way (1) to permit poorer students to transfer into private schools and (2) improve the public-school system through “choice and competition.”
Led by Milton Friedman, reform-oriented libertarians latched on to vouchers and labeled them a libertarian public-policy educational program. Friedman’s support for vouchers was based on his belief that vouchers would gradually lead to the end of all governmental involvement in education, but his supporters, realizing that that was never going to happen, ended up arguing that vouchers would at least save some students from public schooling and, at the same time, improve the public-school system through “choice and competition.”
But Friedman’s thesis was always fallacious. There was no way that vouchers would ever lead to the separation of school and state. In fact, quite the contrary. By their very nature, school vouchers were always going to more deeply embed the state into education. Moreover, although they hated to admit it, the fact is that reform-oriented libertarians would always be consigned to promoting state involvement in education and, even worse, under the guise of “advancing libertarianism.”
Let’s assume, for example, that the voucher program turned out to be a resounding success. Let’s assume that it enabled many poorer students to escape public schooling and get into a private school. Let’s assume also that public schools were improved through “choice and competition.”
Where would that success leave the reform-oriented libertarians? It would naturally leave them glowing with pride and basking in the glory of their “success.” What would be their position after, say, 10 years of such “success?” Why, they would, of course, be advocating for an expansion of their voucher system. The last thing they would be doing is advocating a separation of school and state because that would entail a dismantling of their vast, growing, and successful voucher program. The reform-oriented libertarians would undoubtedly be shunning and looking down their noses at those libertarians who rejected reform and who continued striving for educational freedom.
What if the voucher program turned out to be a fiasco? In that case, people would blame libertarians and libertarianism. Would reform-oriented libertarians throw in the towel and begin calling for genuine educational liberty? I don’t think so. I think they would just double-down and work closely with conservatives to figure out how to make the voucher program succeed. They would not be willing to abandon the program to which they had devoted much of their lives and efforts.
Over time, however, it is safe to say that the reform-oriented mindset became the dominant mindset within the libertarian movement. I would venture to say that most libertarians became proponents of this “public-policy measure” to improve the educational system. Moreover, school vouchers are now widely accepted as “libertarian” or as consistent with libertarian principles.
The nonaggression principle
Yet, such is actually not the case. What has long gone missing in the voucher controversy is that this “libertarian” reform measure violates the core principle of the libertarian philosophy — the nonaggression principle. In fact, the dark irony is that school vouchers are based on the same socialist scheme on which public schooling is based — taxation and redistribution.
The nonaggression principle holds that it is morally wrong to initiate force against another person. As every libertarian understands, taxation is based on force. Try not paying your taxes and see what happens. The state will come after you with everything it has — liens and foreclosures, garnishments, attachments, audits, indictments, incarceration, and fines. There is nothing voluntary about taxation.
The state uses its coercive apparatus of taxation to fund its public-schooling system. Even people who don’t have children are forced to fund this system. That is one of the reasons that libertarians have long opposed public schooling — because its funding mechanism
violates the core principle of our philosophy — the nonaggression principle.
But the discomforting fact is that so do vouchers. With vouchers, the state taxes people in order to provide a voucher for someone to use at a private school. Thus, from the very beginning, reform-oriented libertarians have advocated a program that violates the core principle of the libertarian philosophy. Even worse, reform-oriented libertarians labeled school vouchers as “libertarian,” now the predominant sentiment of the libertarian movement. They have convinced themselves in the process that a violation of the core principle of their philosophy was simply not that big a deal or, even worse, that the end justified the means.
Given that libertarianism has come to encompass reform measures designed to improve our welfare-warfare state way of life, is it any wonder that so many people have no real idea of what genuine libertarianism is all about — that is, that it’s about freedom — genuine freedom — not some sort of warmed-over welfare-warfare state serfdom? In the minds of many people, libertarianism is nothing more than a mush of welfare-warfare state reform measures, all of which involve the initiation of force against others. That’s undoubtedly why many in the mainstream press now refer to libertarianism or to some libertarian think tanks or educational foundations as “right-wing.”
Social Security reform
Another good example of reform-oriented libertarianism involves Social Security, the crown jewel of American socialism. When I discovered libertarianism in the late 1970s, it was commonly understood among libertarians that a genuinely free society was one in which there was an absence of socialism. Thus, to achieve freedom (which remains my goal), it is necessary to repeal, not reform, all socialist programs in America, including Social Security.
Over time, however, reform-oriented libertarians began proposing Social Security reform rather than eradication. Some of them felt that Social Security was too deeply ingrained in America’s political system and that it would be impossible to persuade people to give it up. Thus, they essentially gave up on achieving liberty and settled for achieving reform, in the name of “advancing libertarianism.”
The reformers introduced new terms to apply to Social Security that, over time, became popular within the libertarian movement. These terms included “privatization” and “gradualism.” The term “privatization” appealed to many libertarians because it conjured up the concept of private property. But the “privatization” schemes were actually a far cry from genuine principles of private property. There were, of course, variations among the various “privatization” reform proposals, but they all left the federal government in charge of planning and directing people’s retirement. That’s why reformers called for “privatization” rather than simply repeal. In fact, one of the most popular libertarian Social Security reform plans was the fascist plan adopted by the brutal Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, which enabled people to “opt out” of the socialist plan but required them to invest their money in some government-approved stock fund.
Whenever a libertarian would raise the notion of Social Security repeal, the reformers would immediately criticize him for his heartless attitude toward seniors. “Socialism is a contract,” the reform-oriented libertarians would cry. “We have got to honor the contract.”
Of course, nothing could be further from the truth. Social Security is nothing more than a welfare program, no different from any other welfare program. Moreover, there is no contract with socialism, and there never has been one. No one can sue for breach of contract if the state decides to repeal its welfare-state programs.
A contract with socialism?
But there is something important to realize about the contract theory that is promoted by reform-oriented libertarians: It will take at least 70 years to honor this so-called contract. That’s because people from 18 years old on up have paid Social Security taxes. Therefore, to honor all of these “contracts” would require Social Security to continue for at least another 70 years — until those 18-year-olds reach their 90s and then die.
So, under reform-oriented libertarianism, everyone just needs to understand that freedom — genuine freedom — that is, life without socialism — will not be able to be achieved for some 90 years. For those of us who still wish to experience what it’s like to live in a genuinely free society in our lifetimes, that’s not exactly an attractive proposition.
“But it’s not fair to pull the rug out from underneath people,” the reform-oriented libertarians cry. What is fascinating is that they never seem to realize that their sense of care and compassion is being demonstrated through the coercive apparatus of the state.
Yes, as a socialist program, Social Security, just like school vouchers, is based on a direct violation of the core principle of the libertarian nonaggression principle. That’s because the state uses the coercive apparatus of taxation to fund it.
Thus, reform-oriented libertarians are essentially saying, “Since Social Security has become an established part of American life, we libertarians should continue advocating a direct violation of the core principle of our philosophy.”
Why not simply repeal Social Security? According to the libertarian reformers, that would mean that millions of seniors would be dying in the streets. That’s because freedom, they say, just doesn’t work. You can’t depend on children and grandchildren, church groups, neighborhood groups, friends, relatives, and grant-making foundations to help out those in need. They just won’t come through, the reformers say. We need the coercive apparatus of the state’s tax-and-welfare sections to do the job for us.
I would venture to say that the reformers were successful in inducing the vast majority of libertarians to accept Social Security reform as the predominate sentiment in the libertarian movement, just as they have done with school vouchers.
Welfare-warfare-state serfdom
Unfortunately, the same is true, I would say, with respect to other areas of our welfare-warfare state way of life, such as healthcare (i.e., Medicare and Medicaid), drug reform (i.e., settling for legalization of only marijuana or for reform of mandatory-minimum sentences and asset-forfeiture laws); monetary reform (end the Fed and leave the state’s paper-money system intact); regulatory reform; criminal-justice reform; military reform; CIA reform; NSA reform; and foreign-policy reform. Reform, reform, reform.
That’s fine for libertarians who have come to settle for reform of the welfare-warfare state serfdom under which we have lived all of our lives. But it’s not fine for us libertarians who have still not given up on our desire to live in a genuinely free society. For us, we have no desire to live the one life we were given as serfs, no matter how well-reformed our serfdom might be. We want to live our lives as genuinely free people, which is why we continue to reject the reform-oriented mindset that has unfortunately come to consume the libertarian movement and why we continue to advocate for the repeal of every single infringement that is preventing us from being genuinely free.
This article was originally published in the February 2024 issue of Future of Freedom.