Today’s question is “Is it imperative to have a moral society for libertarianism to work? Or will liberty make society function better?” Let’s start by examining morality.
The foundation of libertarianism is something called the Nonaggression principle. It is the basic morality that our parents taught us as kids. Don’t hit people. Don’t take their stuff. Treat everyone with respect. Mary Ruwart called it the Good Neighbor Policy in her book Healing the World.
The foundation of government causes us to violate these basic principles. For example, social security takes money from one generation to give to another. Money is a symbol of labor and expertise, and an individual trades their time and effort for the money that is then redistributed to another individual who did not spend effort or time for that dollar. In a word, this is theft. It is immoral.
As private institutions have waned in power and impact, the government has grown in size and scope. As a result, Americans turn to politics to find meaning and seek protection and salvation. The problem is that politics pits one group against another. People begin to act immorally in pursuit of power.
The government also perverts the notion of what is moral. Social security is moral to some because it is a social safety net. Believing this is true necessitates ignoring the theft that takes place to keep the program afloat. Morality does not change because most people voted to make immorality acceptable.
Given these facts, waiting for society to become “more moral” is an impossibility and is unworkable.
Podcast: Download
