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.