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Etica & Politica / Ethics
& Politics, 2003, 2 http://www.units.it/etica/2003_2/BOUILLON.htm
Breaking the circle: The definition of
individual liberty (1)
It goes without saying that the concept of
individual freedom is most vital to the liberal ideal of a free society,
because we do not know what is meant by a free society unless the meaning of
individual freedom is sufficiently clear. Hence it does not come as a
surprise that classical liberals distinguished negative freedom and positive
freedom from the beginning. We find the negative concept of liberty already
in a terse remark by Thomas Hobbes. “A free man is he that ... is
not hindered to do what he hath the will to do.” (2) Antony Flew has commented on this: “It is a
pity that he apparently failed to notice both that, always supposing that
people would in fact intervene to constrain or coerce someone, then that
person must remain in that particular respect unfree; and that this is the
case regardless of whether or not „he hath the will to do“ whatever it may
be.” (3) Flew brings to our attention that Hobbes’s
definition is obviously too narrow for it excludes two kinds of situations
which surely go for coercion. The first one is a situation in which a person
is not actually hindered but would be coerced if he acted in a particular
way, and the second one is a situation in which a person is hindered
(actually or potentially) to do what he has not the will to do but could do
if he had the will to do it. In other words, Hobbes definition is not
convincing. Hence, it does not meet the clever remark by Bruno Leoni on the
definition of freedom. “Everybody can define what he thinks freedom
to be, but as soon as he wants us to accept his formulation as our own, he
has to produce some truly convincing argument.” (4) Nowadays, most thinkers, liberal and others,
share the conviction that individual liberty presupposes the absence of
coercion. They also consent that unintentional restraint or intervention does
not count as coercion. “Coercion implies the deliberate interference of other
human beings within the area in which I could otherwise
act. ... This is what the classical English political philosophers
meant when they used this word.” (5) However clarifying this is, Berlin’s
explication is incomplete. (6) It does not say what is meant by deliberate
interference or by coercion. As Hayek noticed, it is the concept of coercion
on which thinkers most widely differ. (7) 2. Hayek’s definition of
individual freedom Friedrich A. Hayek, in his Constitution of
Liberty, undertakes an exploration of what is meant by coercion,
acknowledging that a clear concept of liberty presupposes a clear concept of
coercion. “Our definition of liberty depends upon the meaning of the concept
of coercion, and it will not be precise until we have similarly defined that
term.” (8) Furthermore, Hayek pointed out that freedom
“refers solely to a relation of men to other men, and the only infringement
on it is coercion by men. This means, in particular, that the range of
physical possibilities from which a person can choose at a given moment has
no direct relevance to freedom. The rock climber on a difficult pitch who
sees only one way out to save his life is unquestionably free, though we
would hardly say he has any choice.” (9) 2.1
Hayek’s confusion of freedom and power Apparently, Hayek was very much aware of the
distinction between freedom and power. Nonetheless, he himself confused
freedom and power on several occasions, obviously mislead by a residue of
consequentialist ethics. He wrote: “So long as the services of a particular
person are not crucial to my existence or the preservation of what I most
value, the conditions he exacts for rendering these services cannot properly
be called ‘coercion’. A monopolist could exercise true coercion, however, if
he were, say, the owner of a spring in an oasis. Let us say that other
persons settled there on the assumption that water would always be available
at a reasonable price and then found, perhaps because a second spring dried
up, that they had no choice but to do whatever the owner of the spring
demanded of them if they were to survive: here would be a clear case of
coercion.“ (10) And Hayek goes on, “So long as the services
of a particular person are not crucial to my existence or the preservation of
what I most value, the conditions he exacts for rendering these services
cannot properly be called ‘coercion’”. (11) What is “crucial to my existence or the
preservation of what I value most”? What is an “unreasonable price”? Hayek
gives no answer. Murray Rothbard rightly remarked that Hayek failed
attempting “to distinguish, merely quantitatively, between ‘mild’ and ‘more
severe’ forms of coercion”. (12) A monopolist has the right under freedom to
refuse any exchange he likes to refuse, however disastrous the consequences
may be. (13) Mitigating the consequences of those who
suffer under the economic power of others is honourable. Doing it by
confusing the terms is intellectually inappropriate. Even more entangling than Hayek’s confusion
of freedom with power is his definition of coercion. “By ‘coercion’ we mean
such control of the environment or circumstances of a person by an other
that, in order to avoid greater evil, he is forced to act not according to a
coherent plan of his own but to serve the ends of an other.” (14) This definition creates confusions in at least two
respects. 2.2
Coercion people like Hayek’s definition neglects cases in which
coercion that makes a person serving another person’s ends goes along with
the coherent plan of that person. An old movie, starring Henry Fonda as
lieutenant and John Wayne as recruit, illustrates such cases in which men are
coerced - but coherently with their own plan. The troop reaches an old
abandoned fortress. Some soldiers find a left cask filled with whiskey. Asked
what to do, the lieutenant gives order to annihilate the whiskey. It goes
without saying that the soldiers were happy to follow that order. It also
goes without saying that the soldiers had clear order to do so and, hence,
were coerced to annihilate the whiskey. It is unclear which part of the environment
and of the circumstances has to be changed by another person in order to
produce possible coercion. Hayek is more precise on this elsewhere. “Freedom
thus presupposes that the individual has some assured private sphere, that
there is some set of circumstances in his environment with which others
cannot interfere”. (15) 2.3
Private sphere vs. protected sphere However, to Hayek, not only that strictly
private sphere should be protected from coercion, “reasonable expectations”
should be protected too. “In determining where the boundaries of the
protected sphere ought to be drawn, the important question is whether the
actions of other people that we wish to see prevented would actually
interfere with the reasonable expectations of the protected person.” (16) But which expectations are reasonable in
Hayek’s view? He gives two examples. “The enforcement of religious
conformity, for instance, was a legitimate object of government when people
believed in the collective responsibility of the community toward some deity
and it was thought that the sins of any member would be visited upon all.” (17) Moreover, Hayek follows Bertrand Russell’s opinion
on the treatment of homosexuality. Russell wrote: „If it were still believed,
as it once was, that the toleration of such behaviour would expose the
community to the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah, the community would have every right
to interfere.“ Hayek adds: “But where such factual beliefs do not prevail,
private practice among adults, however abhorrent it may be to the majority,
is not a proper subject for coercive action for a state whose object is to
minimise coercion.” (18) Hayek seems to ignore or neglect that the
private sphere of one person easily can collide with the protected sphere of
another person. He does not provide an analytic criterion of reasonable
expectations. Who are “the people”, especially if some members of the
community do not share the view of the majority, however qualified this may
be? Hence the protected sphere becomes arbitrary. Religious freedom and
homosexuality do not limit the private sphere of possible and legitimate actions
of others, though it might infringe with others “protected sphere”, if these
fear religious freedom or homosexuality to influence their interests in a
negative way. (19) A related and no less fatal consequence is
that the protected spheres of all individuals cannot be upheld in a
non-contradictory way, since in a world of contradictory minds the protected
sphere of one necessarily overlaps with the protected spheres of others. Thus, Hayek conception of the private sphere
is self-contradictory and, hence, unacceptable. (20) 3.
Rothbard’s definition of individual liberty As the previous chapter indicates, Hayek’s
definition of individual liberty includes several shortcomings, some of them
noticed and mentioned by Murray Rothbard. Unfortunately, Rothbard’s
definition is only in some respects better than Hayek’s. Rohtbard defines
individual freedom using an expression by Herbert Spencer: “A man is free
when he is not aggressed against.” (21) What Rothbard has in mind is that a person
is free as long as his or her self-ownership and private property is not
subject to any offence, actual or threatened. He does not make any
concessions to what Hayek calls the “protected sphere” or to services which
are “crucial” to another person’s existence or to the preservation of what
that person “values most”. In this respect, Rothbard is much clearer and more
coherent. However, he does not define what he means by
aggression. In a similar way, Rothbard’s closest ally, Hans-Hermann Hoppe,
does not define what is meant by physical force when characterising coercion
as “the initiation or the threat of physical violence against another person
or its legitimately - via original
appropriation, production or exchange - acquired property.” (22) It goes without saying that our daily
experience with physical force seems to make an explication of it redundant.
However, for the purpose of our definition, we need to be more explicit when
it comes to aggression and physical force for another reason. Aggression and
physical force may well describe interventions in another person’s
self-ownership and/or legitimately acquired private property (privacy, for
short). And for both hold that they are not accepted or demanded freely by
the person suffering the offense, as it is with coercion. (23) Coercion, whether actual or threatened, is seen as
an encroachment to which the coerced person has not consented. However, the fact of absent free consent (24) raises the greatest difficulty to the definition
of individual liberty, because the definition becomes circular if individual
freedom is defined as the absence of an intervention (actual or threatened,
named aggression, physical force, or coercion) to which the suffering party
has not voluntarily consented. In other words, Rothbard’s definition of
individual liberty is circular, because it says nothing else but: “A man is
free when he is not exposed to an unfree encroachment in his privacy.” (25) 4.
Jasay’s definition of individual liberty (26) Another potential source for a strict
definition of individual liberty is the work of Anthony de Jasay. In his
approach to strict liberalism, contracts as the source of rights play a
central role. It goes without saying that rights deriving from a contract are
worth the paper on which they are written only if all parties included
voluntarily agreed upon the contract. Forced contracts are based on
non-contractual obligations and thus establish no rights. Hence obviously,
freedom is a necessary cornerstone in Jasay’s thinking. However, if I am not
mistaken, Jasay does not explicitly define freedom, though he stresses, of
course, that freedom includes the absence of coercion in a person’s set of
feasible acts. The point he is making about coercion is the following: “Coercion is an intentional act by A, whether
actual or threatened, whose effect is to change B’s set of feasible
alternatives as to make his chosen alternative different from what A presumed
B’s preferred alternative to be. Successful coercion must make B act
otherwise than A thought that he had intended to act. It achieves this by
intrusion into B’s feasible set. Successful coercion alters the cost of
alternatives so as to make B choose as A wishes, and not as A thought B
wished.” (27) The point about this definition is that it
does not lose its applicability if one replaces the term coercion either by
trade or seduction. (28) At another place, Jasay gives a different
definition of coercion that avoids this ambiguity when saying that, “ ‘A
coerces B’ means: ‘A has given B reason to believe that if B committed a
certain act, or omitted another, A would inflict some sanctions upon him.’ ”.
(29) Jasay too,
as Rothbard, does not give in, as Hayek does, when it comes to “protected
spheres” or “crucial services”. (30) And he generally excludes the withholding
of benefits from coercion. (31) Administering a sanction means to harm
someone, according to Jasay. Harms, i.e. torts, are inadmissible actions as
are breaches of obligations. As in Rothbard and Hoppe, we meet the
circularity problem in Jasay, for sanctions include aggression or physical
force upon the privacy of a person to which that person has not freely
consented. 5. Preconditions of
coercion: intentional acting and private goods As we have seen, Rothbard, Hoppe, and Jasay
consent that freedom is the absence of coercion in a person’s privacy or
private sphere. Before we go on, let us reflect on what we necessarily assume
when we talk of coercion and of a private sphere. Let us start with two very
plain remarks. If coercion takes place it cannot but interfere in the sphere
of possible actions of another person. If a person acts he cannot but consume goods.
Whether these goods are objects, living beings, or even the person’s body
does not matter. However, with respect to the relation between
men and goods, we usually tell private from non-private goods, namely goods
from which others are excluded and goods open to joined consumption. Though
we could think of a world without non-private goods, we cannot imagine a
world without private goods. Our conceptions and our use of speech presuppose
at least some goods, e.g. human beings, to be private. Otherwise it would not
make sense to say, for instance: “I am playing piano”. If I would not own my
body exclusively, I would give a false statement, for it was not me, rather
me and others who played piano. Despite from that, goods enable us do things
we could not do if they were absent. If Andrew hinders Bruce to use a good,
than Bruce lacks an advantage he otherwise had. This is so no matter whether
the good is private or non-private. However, we distinguish these two possible
cases for good reasons. Recall the case of Diogenes. Alexander approached him
while he laid in the sun. Being asked what Alexander could do for him, he
answered: “Step out of the sun”. Alexander hindered him to use a non-private
good (sun). Though cases like these can be unpleasant, we do not say that
they can constitute coercion. Otherwise we constantly could claim that others
coerce us as soon as they make or want to make use of any non-private good.
Vice versa, they could claim the same when we opt to use that very
non-private good. Hence, mutual exclusive claims of coercion were not only
possible. They were both valid. Thus, we had no analytic criterion to decide
on the superiority of these claims. If, in turn, the good was private, then
mutual exclusive claims of that kind could not be equally valid. Private
goods have an analytic criterion by which the superiority of mutual exclusive
claims can be decided, i.e. sovereignty. (32) Of private goods, we can say that they are
owned exclusively by one person. Though it seems redundant to note, we should
state for the sake of clarity that we assume that the use of own private
goods cannot constitute coercion. Otherwise the word “coercion” similarly
would become useless. All could claim that others coerce them when these use
their own goods, and vice versa. For instance, I could claim Steve to coerce
me to walk when he prefers to ride his car alone. He could claim, in turn,
that I would coerce him to buy expensive gas, for I use my power exclusively
to walk rather than to push his car. Thus, we may conclude that the term
“coercion” presupposes not only the assumption of private goods. It also
presupposes that someone is in certain way obstructed by another person or by
other people to use one or more of his private goods. Of course, saying that
“someone is obstructed by another or by others in a certain way” needs some
specification. It goes without saying that an obstruction
constitutes coercion only, if it is done intentionally, and if it
sufficiently causes the objection. Saying so, in turn presupposes some other
assumptions. It presupposes that man can act. Otherwise we
would not talk of coercion and connote this word with moral assumption, e.g.
that coercion is morally bad. It also presupposes also that the “coercer”
as well as the “coerced” can act. If an act, though intended to be coercion,
forces another person to react like a physical object, then we do not talk of
coercion at all. To keep the definition “freedom is the absence of coercion”
free from self-contradictions, we have to conclude the following: Coercion is
possible only if it is an intentional act that sufficiently causes an
interference in an other’s private sphere. Of course, from what we said the
private sphere of a person is nothing else than the sum of all possible ways
of consuming the goods owned by that person. Otherwise the private sphere of
Andrew could overlap with the private sphere of Bruce. This possibility is
excluded by the definition of a private good (good used by one person
exclusively). 6. The circularity
problem and its solution: meta-decisions vs. object-decisions As we said in the beginning, freedom is the
absence of coercion. Taking into consideration the above made explications,
we can specify that definition as follows. Freedom is the absence of an
intentional interference in the private sphere of another person, sufficient
to produce the intended effect. Though this definition is much clearer than
that of Hayek, it is certainly not the final word on that subject. With the
help of that very definition we cannot distinguish between interventions in a
private sphere to which the owner of that sphere agrees and those to which he
does not. It goes without saying that only the latter can entail coercion
whereas the former cannot. Suppose, a husband asks his wife to take away his
cookies for he feels to weak to resist the smell. Doing so, the wife
interferes in her husband’s private sphere (for the cookies are his). Her
action is sufficient to cause what she intended. However, we would not call
her action coercion, simply because the husband wanted her to do what she
did. The same analogously holds for Odysseus sailing through the Sirens. (33) To eliminate these cases, we have to specify the
definition of freedom a little bit more. If freedom is the absence of an intentional
interference in the private sphere of another person, sufficient to produce
the intended effect, than why not simply add: to which that person does not
freely agree? The reason for this is quite obvious. The italicised supplement
introduces the definiendum (free, freedom) into the definiens and, hence,
makes the definition worthless. The hitherto developed definition needs
another supplement that avoids that disastrous consequence. The crucial task is to express the same
without smuggling in the definiendum into the definiens. How can this be
achieved? How can the useless phrase “to which that person does not freely
agree” be substituted by a fruitful one? Certainly, it would be of no help to
use instead the formula, “which means no costs to that person”, because a
person might freely agree to that another person interferes into his private
sphere and creates costs, e.g., a husband agrees to be deprived of his
cookies. Hence, what we are looking for is a criterion that distinguishes two
types of costs of intervention in private spheres by others; one that
involves coercion and one that does not. In search for that criterion one ought to
notice a very simple fact, i.e., that the perception of a new information
creates a new decision. As soon as we perceive new information we cannot but
decide whether or not to change our plans because of the new data. This
happens every day hundreds of times. These situations constitute what we
might call “either-or-choices”. Of course, these “either-or-choices” of our
daily life are often routinized. Nonetheless, they call for decisions caused
by new information. For instance, when we start to cross a street and
perceive an approaching car, then we have to decide either to pursue the
existing plan or to change it. When we read a sales offer, then we cannot but
decide either to react to it or to stay to the status. When we on our way to
our home cross the market and being asked by the merchant to buy either
apples, oranges, or bananas, then again we cannot other than decide whether
to stay to our original plan or to change it, i.e., to “react” to that offer.
Of course, this decision we will make will be somehow influenced by the offer
itself, e.g. by the price and quality of the fruits. Nonetheless, the
decision either to react to the offer or not is not to be confused
with the choice between apples, oranges, or bananas. It was even there if
there was no choice between apples, oranges, and bananas, for instance, if
the merchant spoke to us in a foreign language or too faint to be clearly
understood. If it was the case that the merchant conveyed no choice between
apples, oranges, or bananas, then we still had to decide whether we deviated
from our original plan (i.e., react to the foreign speaking merchant) or
stayed to our original intention (i.e., going home unflustered). The first
decision precedes the second analytically, although it might coincide with it
chronologically. To distinguish these two types of decision a
terminological distinction is useful. It is also useful to start with the
description of the second decision of the example mentioned above. The second
decision (choice between three different fruits) is characterised by the fact
that it constitutes a decision among different objects. I propose to call
that second decision an object-decision. The number of objects does not
influence the character of an object-decision. With respect to the fact that
the content (objects) does not determine the decision as such and in order to
distinguish the two types of decisions clearly, I propose to call the first
decision meta-decision. The first decision (meta-decision) is a decision
between staying to the original plan or deviating from it, hence an
“either-or-choice”. Having these two and only these two alternatives is a
constitutional character of a meta-decision. The decision is necessarily no
other than a decision between “either” “or”, independent of the content of
the plan to which one either stays or from which one deviates. However, what is the distinction between
object-decision and meta-decision good for, beside from the fact that it
might serve as an analytical insight of decision processes? The decision
helps us out of our circular definition. To use that help, let us look,
firstly, at a typical case of coercion and, secondly, at that very case
transformed into a typical case of free choice. (A) Suppose,
you liked to keep your money and your life. Suppose also, an armed robber
asked for your “Money or life!”. That would be a clear case of what we use to
call coercion. (B) Suppose
now, that, ceteris paribus, the same person would be unarmed and obviously
unable to threat or extort you in any possible way, and suppose, that very
person would kindly ask you to give him either your money or your life. Then
we would not say that he coerces you. We would classify its saying as a case
in which he offers you a free choice. (Although it does not matter
analytically, we also would classify his saying as silly.) Now, let us separate the meta-decision from
the object-decision. With regard to the object-decision, the two cases (A and
B) do not differ. In both cases you have the choice either to give your money
or your life. Hence, in both cases the costs of your decision will be the
same. With respect to the possible meta-decisions,
we notice a difference. The costs of a positive meta-decision (i.e., to
consider the offer of the person), however huge, are the same in both cases.
Nonetheless, the costs of a negative meta-decision (i.e., to ignore the offer
of the person) differ decisively. In the first case you have to expect
additional costs by the person (e.g., being shot or hurt). In the second case
you do not have to expect such costs. Hence, under the above mentioned
preconditions the difference between a case of coercion and a case of free
choice is in the artificial costs (34) which
are to be expected in case of a negative meta-decision. We now have found a differentia specifica
that moves our provisional definition out of the vicious circle. Freedom, we
defined provisionally, is the absence of an intentional interference in the
private sphere of another person, sufficient to produce the intended effect.
To abridge this definition, I propose to speak of “artificial interference”
instead of “intentional interference, sufficient to produce the intended
effect”. Hence, the short version of our previous provisional definition
would be: Freedom is the absence of artificial interference in the private
sphere of another person. Considering our final reflections on
non-circular definitions we can resume: Freedom is the absence of artificial
interference in the private sphere of another person that would produce
artificial costs for that person if she/he opted for a negative
meta-decision. Notes (1) Throughout this text, we use individual
liberty and individual freedom synonymously. (2) Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, 1651, II
(xxi). (3) Antony Flew, Equality in Liberty and
Justice, London: Routledge 1989, p. 5. (4) Bruno Leoni, Freedom and the Law,
expanded 3. edition, reprinted by Liberty Fund, Indianapolis 1991,
p. 4. (5) Isaah Berlin, Two Concepts of Liberty (1958),
cited after Liberty, ed. by David Miller, Oxford: OUP 1991,
p. 35. (6) Berlin later said what he had meant.
Unfortunately he introduced more vagueness by saying that freedom is
"absence of obstacles to possible choices and activities" put by
"alterable human practices." (See Isaah Berlin, Four Essays on
Liberty, Oxford: OUP 1969, pp. xxxixf.) This comes close to confusing
"freedom" with "opportunity". On this see
William A. Parent, "Some recent work on the concept of
liberty", in: American Philosophical Quarterly, July 1974,
pp. 149-153 and Murray Rothbard, The Ethics of Liberty, Atlantic
Highlands, N.J.: Humanities Press 1982, pp. 216ff. (7) See Friedrich A. Hayek, The
Constitution of Liberty, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1960,
p. 19. (8) Friedrich A. Hayek, The
Constitution of Liberty, p. 20. (9) Ivi,
p. 12. (10)
Ivi, p. 136. (11) Ibidem. (12) Murray Rothbard, The Ethics of Liberty,
p. 223. (13) I abstain from intruding into this argument
any deeper. For further criticism see Ronald Hamowys book review of The
Constitution of Liberty in: New Individualist Review, 1961, 1,1,
pp. 28ff.; and William Meckling, Michael Jensen, “Human rights and the
meaning of freedom”, unpublished manuscript 1985, S. 19, and David Miller,
“Introduction” in the anthology Liberty, p. 15: “Finally, Hayek
appears to put the cat among the pigeons when he concedes that in certain
circumstances economic power might be used in a coercive manner. Once the
possibility has been conceded, why restrict the circumstances as narrowly as
Hayek does, confining them to extreme cases where an individual enjoys a
monopoly of a vital resource? Why not admit that the distribution of
resources is always going to be relevant to the distribution of negative liberty
in a society?”. (14) Friedrich A. Hayek, The
Constitution of Liberty, pp. 20ff. (15)
Ivi, p. 13. (16)
Ivi, p. 145. (17)
Ibidem. (18) Ivi, p. 451, note 18. (19) Obviously, you cannot have both. Forbidding
homosexuality or religious freedom means interfering with other’s privacy. It
reduces the possible and legitimate actions of others. Vice versa, respecting
their privacy leaves the domain of interests of those who have reasonable
expectations - whatever these may be - of the “right” behaviour unprotected. (20) For
an extended version of my critique see my Freiheit, Liberalismus und
Wohlfahrtsstaat, Baden-Baden: Nomos 1996, chapter two. (21) Murray N. Rothbard, For a New Liberty
(New York: Macmillan, 1973), p. 8. (22) Hans-Hermann Hoppe, “F.A. Hayek on
Government and Social Evolution: a Critique”, in: Christoph Frei and Robert
Nef (eds.), Contending with Hayek, Bern, Berlin: Lang, 1994, p. 131. (23) Of course, there are many encroachments in
a person’s privacy to which this person freely gives its consent. The
agreement to an operation might serve as an example. (24) Of course, consent, by definition, is free.
However, we stress this here to illustrate the circularity problem that is
decisive for our concern. (25) In other words, a man is free as long as he
freely agreed to all encroachments in his privacy. (26) It should be noted that Anthony de Jasay
sharply distinguishes between freedom and liberty. To him the feasible is
free, whereas a liberty is any feasible action that is neither a tort, nor a
breach of an obligation, nor the exercise of a right. (27) See Anthony de Jasay, Before Resorting
to Politics, Cheltenham: Elgar 1996, p. 26. (28) “Trade offer and seduction are intentional
acts by A, whether actual or threatened, whose effect is to change B’s set of
feasible alternatives as to make his chosen alternative different from what A
presumed B’s preferred alternative to be. Successful trade offers and
seductions must make B act otherwise than A thought that he had intended to
act. It achieves this by intrusion into B’s feasible set. Successful trade
offers and seductions alter the cost of alternatives so as to make B choose
as A wishes, and not as A thought B wished.” (29) Anthony de Jasay, Against Politics. On
Government, Anarchy and Order, London: Routledge, 1997, p. 163. (30)
Ivi, p. 167. (31)
Ivi, p.163. (32) See Anthony de Jasay, Choice, Contract,
Consent: A Restatement of Liberalism, London: Institute of Economic
Affairs, 1991, p. 75.: “... collective
ownership defeats the very purpose of property, which is to vest individuals
the sovereignty over employment of scarce resources. Sovereignty over certain
types of decisions may be delegated revocably, or transferred for good, but
it cannot be shared ...”. (33) As we know from Homer, Odysseus asked his
men to tie him at the mast of his ship. With their help he was able to listen
to the seductive singing of the Sirens without becoming a victim of their
tempting melodies. Of course, although they hindered him to move, they did
not coerce him, because he agreed to what they did. (34) It goes without saying that these costs
must be intended and sufficiently caused by that person in question. Therefore,
I call them artificial costs, for short. |
