By Edgardo Tenreiro
There is no non-question-begging basis for a stateless and taxless future. But a Thomistic starting point is superior to a Lockean view of absolute self-ownership based on the evaluation and implications of each position.
Libertarians and anarcho-capitalists argue that absolute self-ownership is a more consistent alternative on which to base freedom and laissez-faire economics, one that is better than a utilitarian justification for liberalism (see for example Murray Rothbard’s The Ethics of Liberty for the self-ownership argument and Ludwig von Mises’sHuman Action for the utilitarian argument.) In addition, self-ownership serves as an essential foundational element for the libertarian non-aggression principle and the illegitimacy of taxation and the state.
However, while very sympathetic to the principle of self-ownership, I have had serious difficulty accepting certain of its logical ethical consequences and have wondered if there are other non-utilitarian and non-self-ownership philosophical alternatives that can serve as a more solid foundation to laissez-faire economics.
The utilitarian justification for laissez-faire liberalism is open to the following criticism: Since utilitarians argue that objective ethics do not exist, they have no way of anchoring freedom in anything other than the whims of public opinion. But what if the majority believes in state interventionism or socialism or economic nihilism? asks Rothbard in The Ethics of Liberty. What would prevent that majority from acting in ways contrary to the protection of private property, freedom, limited government and other values of liberalism?
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