Blue Balloon

Ubi dubium ibi libertas

Libertarian thought provided the basic axes on which the modern western civilization was, and still is, built today - that is, individual liberty, the rule of law and capitalism. And not only it prevailed against marxism, collectivism, fascism and communism, but more than this, where applied, it helped create the necessary conditions for progress.

For nearly one century, libertarianism was the voice of reason against an irrational, dogmatic, mystical system of beliefs. But the most important thing to point out here is that the kind of ‘reason’ libertarianism is based upon and made it so special, actually relates to a negative sense of knowledge. Libertarianism’s principles proved to be better than others, because they embodied the fact that sometimes we just do not know what solution is good for a problem and that the right way to find it out is the hard way.

I am, as a libertarian, in favor of individual liberty and (of course) responsibility, not because I see humans as beings that live or should live alone (which I do not), neither because I believe that individuals do not need help (again, I do not). But because, if we begin building a system that tells people how to live or decides what kind of help they need, there will be a time when the smallest fault in the system (lack of knowledge is only one possible reason for such faults) will have the worst consequences for everyone. I support capitalism for similar reasons with individual liberty - because numerous ‘local’ economic decisions prove to be in the long run more safe than big central decisions. And finally, I support the rule of law because, together with a democratic mechanism for the limitation of arbitrary power, it provides a slow but safe way to capitilize on our experience and make changes when we know that they will be in the right direction.

None of the above is a golden rule for all the problems we might face as humans or humanity. There might well be cases where the above fail and other political ‘tools’ are needed (there is no society that is organized based on only these three principles). But remember, we do not have to choose between a perfect system and a faulty one. Nor we live after a perfect past where every problem was solved. The important thing to keep from libertarianism’s legacy is that individual liberty, rule of law and capitalism provide approximate rules of thumb that manage to avoid a lot of worst case scenarios and help in the creation of good life conditions. And they work well in expectation. Far better than every other political system tried on Earth. This happened because we managed to reason not only on what we know, but also on what we do not know.

I believe that the predominance of libertarianism was a big leap forward for the western societies that practiced its principles. It would be even greater if people could consider why this happened. It is essential, if we want to take still some leaps further.