The Outer Limits of Freedom: Trading Liberty for the Happiness that Society brings

N’ER A DAY GOES BY in America without somebody somewhere discussing Liberty.  230 years ago, the American Revolution brought Her to our shores. And since then, hundreds of thousands of Americans have died defending the Constitution we wrote and amended to keep Liberty safe.

Liberty is the absence of exploitation.  It’s resisting or avoiding each one of tyranny’s three forms – unbridled government, rapacious business, and disrespectful Majority Rule.

Achieving pure liberty is nearly impossible...but if anyone ever did, it was probably the subsistence farmer:  Relying solely upon his family, livestock, virtuous work ethic, ingenuity, and Providence, the “yeoman farmer,” as Jefferson fondly called him, could gain total independence from his fellow man, and separate himself from the array of corrupting temptations associated with dependent relationships.

But, being totally free kind of sucks … because you’re on your own:  bad weather, a round of disease, an unfriendly visit by marauders, etc, and it’s “Game Over, thanks for playing.”

United we Stand…

So, people form societies to tackle their collective challenges together. And almost immediately, they cede certain individual liberties to the larger group in the spirit of cooperation. Perhaps they agree to close a city park at dusk…or limit the number of days they graze their livestock upon the common pastures each month. Or maybe they sacrifice some time and effort to build a town hall…or give up years of their lives – even life itself – to serve in the militia, etc, etc.     

Founding Father Gouverneur Morris – the man who actually penned the Constitution’s Preamble – recognized the tradeoff Liberty requires:  “Individuals entering society must give up a Share of Liberty to preserve the Rest, draw[ing] with Precision the Line between those Rights which must be surrendered and those which may be reserved.”

Societies protect the rights they wish to “reserve” by forming governments that help resolve internal conflicts and provide the public goods that private markets cannot adequately (or profitably) provide, ranging from universal daily mail service to national security.

Taxation with Representation

Governments require taxation in order to exist, which offends some members of society who believe that all taxation is theft – that it’s a veiled attack upon Liberty… But taxes only become “theft” if the services they purchase aren’t worth the costs. Alan Greenspan explained it this way:  “Some believe taxation is immoral because it allows for government appropriation of private property by force. Yet if taxation is wrong, how do we reliably finance the essential functions of government, including the protection of individuals’ rights through police power?”

Ultimately, taxation represents the “Share of Liberty” one gives up to protect the rest. If government uses the revenues it receives to protect other liberties, then Liberty thrives. Freedom of Speech, for example, is useless if the citizen speaking is uneducated. And freedom of religion becomes irrelevant to a person who has just been murdered by a street gang that an under-resourced police force couldn’t defend her from….

Government threatens Liberty only to the degree that it mis-purposes or mis-directs tax monies that it’s given to spend.  Lesson Learned:  Our energies are best spent scrutinizing suspect government programs and instituting spending controls. If, instead, we only focus upon lowering taxation levels, all we’ll accomplish is the shifting of Society’s tax burden from the generation that ordered the spending to that generation’s children and grandchildren….

Liberty’s Perpetual Tension

“The one thing worse than being exploited is not being exploited.”  
    –Joan Robinson

Going it alone is tough – too tough. Better then to choose “mutually voluntary exploitation,” where government exploits the people for their tax monies and the people, in turn, exploit the government for its services and safety nets. Oliver Wendell Holmes captured this concept well, “Taxes are what we pay for civilized society, including the chance to insure.” Success therefore lies in limiting government to its proper functions [the next blog’s topic].

In 1789, America’s newly ratified Constitution sparked a perpetual internal conversation, which, on one hand demanded, “Leave me alone and protect my rights,” and on the other hand, simultaneously asked, “What do we all agree is needed for progress, and what must each of us, at least for the moment, sacrifice (in resources and perhaps in personal rights) in order to advance our mutually agreed upon goals?”  The exigencies of each evolving moment since then have dictated which hand has been the “upper hand.”  

And here’s the Miracle:  the Conversation never ended… And it never will, so long as Lady Liberty’s torch continues to burn brightly, and so long as enough Americans continue loving Her gifts deeply enough to “mutually pledge [their] Lives, [their] Fortunes, and [their] sacred Honor” protecting Her.