Liberty, Freedom, and Power

The following are reflections upon Murray N. Rothbard’s The Ethics of Liberty, which I am reading for the third time (and the second time in two weeks!).

On Liberty

What is Liberty? I very much like Rothbard’s definition: The absence of molestation or invasion of one’s person or just property. The word just is there to distinguish between property acquired through means in accordance with Natural Law, that is, through production, trade, or gift and that property acquired by violence or the threat thereof. That is, if I stole your watch, I’ve unjustly made it my property and it would be your right to invade my property and person to repossess your property.

On Power

One thing I do not care for in Rothbard’s argumentation is his use of the word power. He claims that in the free society, we would not have the “power” to invade another’s person or property, either because we would all refrain from doing so, or because other would prevent us from doing so.

“I don’t have the power to do something” seems to be equivalent to “I am prevented by (threat of) force from doing something.”

So…

1. Liberty is the ability to do anything within my power.
2. That which is  outside my power (see above) to bring about does not limit my freedom/liberty.
3. So if a law prevents me from, say, painting my house pink, then my freedom is not at all restricted because the act of painting my house pink is no longer within the range of my abilities/ power

It would seem that according to Rothbard, ability is power. That is, leaping the ocean in a single bound is impossible because it is

1. not within my power, nor
2. within the scope of my abilities, nor
3. in my human nature to do so.

I don’t know why he lets Power into the discussion. His definition of liberty seems to do well enough on its own. Now, I still need to go back and read the thing again to really be sure I’m understanding him right. As much as I like Rothbard’s style, argumentation, and depth of knowledge, he is still an imperfect human being and not beyond criticism. So I intend to delve further in an attempt to either reconcile the above comments on power, or reject it.

Open questions:

1. Is there a difference between liberty and freedom? This might be a silly semantic argument or it may have real teeth. Either way, it must be recognized that other languages may either have only one word (German springs to mind, as that language has only the word Freiheit) or even more than our two to describe these concepts.
2. Where do these words come from and what were their original meanings?W
3. What changes in connotation has it undergone? After all, it seems that one can use Freedom to describe virtually anything, including socialism, redistributism, and worse.

Musing #1: Word Debasement

The following is not finished. I haven't even proofread it yet, but I'm tired of getting halfway finished with an essay, and then putting it "temporarily" on the shelf to be perfected at a later date. So you'll have to deal with the mistakes and inaccuracies. Sorry!! I am of course always open to criticisms and suggestions.

This semester (Winter 2011/12), I have a course called Freedom is not for Free. Despite the name, it is actually conducted in German. One of the questions dealt with is the meaning of freedom. There are a plethora of possible meanings, including:

• the absence of power
• the ability to make one's own decisions
• wealth
• equality

and many more that are not coming to me right now. Basically, the debate seems to center around morality of holding a gun to someone's head to extort money, services, or anything else from him. That is of course what the State does in effect. There are naturally people on both sides of this issue and everywhere in between. But regardless of whether you believe this kind of action is moral or not, you cannot just wish it away. If your definition of freedom is the absence of such behavior you might be called a libertarian. If your definition of freedom is the use of such behavior to establish equality, then you might be called a liberal.

Here's the rub, how useless is a term such as Freedom if it can be applied to both viewpoints? Here's the power of language. 

1. There exists a Worthy Ideal (in this case: the absence of the state of affairs of being bossed around, plundered, killed, etc)
2. This Worthy Ideal is assigned a name (in this case: Freedom)
3. This word comes to represent a Good Thing in the minds of most people (although perhaps not in the minds of those doing the plundering)
4. Along comes a second concept, diametrically opposed to the first worthy ideal (say, the Welfare State). Whatever its other benefits, this second concept is in direct contradiction with the first. But its proponents cannot admit that this new proposal would eliminate or reduce the availability of the first. So they undertake to convince people that they can have their cake and eat it too. Thus they apply to their concept that very same word that rings so true in the people's ears. Once they have convinced enough people of the new meaning of the word to have sufficiently muddied the debate, they are well on their way. For now, every time they describe their program, it is very difficult for the opposition to argue against it, for who, after all, can be against this Good Thing? Why, you must be heartless! And forever thereafter, people will argue over the meaning of Freedom.
5. Sometimes it becomes necessary for the original Worthy Ideal to take on a new name in order to re-establish the distinction between two polar opposites. (This happened in the case of modern terms "libertarian" or "classical liberal." People who today carry these titles would have simply been called a "liberal" right up until about a hundred years ago.)
6. Sometimes no new name is discovered and the blind debate rages on, each side laying claim to a word that denotes a Good Thing. This allows allows politicians to claim that we are fighting wars "for freedom." Well who could be against that? It allows demagogues to promise freedom from fear, hunger, want, and on and on. 

This would be essentially impossible, but what if we could just assign new names to these two concepts? From now on, we have to use the following two ridiculous words instead of the wrecked term Freedom:

• Clipwobble =  the absence of the state of affairs of being bossed around, plundered, killed, etc. In other words, it is immoral to hold a gun to someone's head in order to extort money, services, or anything else from him. It it moral to defend oneself against such behavior.
• Stribswop = the state of affairs of where one group of people is legally and morally allowed to boss around, plunder, etc in order to get what they want. In this state of affairs, it may of course be possible to all to plunder all, with no one having a good idea of who's actually coming out on top after it all.

It would be obvious from now on that one either supports Clipwobble or Stribswop. You can't support both. See how much clearer that is? This is a silly example, but it should illustrate an important point. 

Give it time though. Eventually, Stribswoppers will claim to be Clipwobblers, and the whole cycle will start again.