We hear it all of the time, “You, Libertarians, benefit from the State!” “Ayn Rand received social security checks.” “You use public roads, public schools, and benefit from the rest of society.” “Well, that’s the price you pay to live in a civilized society.” The erroneous attacks continue one after the other.
The common logical fallacy here, is known as a ‘tu quoque’ argument, also known as an ‘appeal to hypocrisy.’ According to Webster’s Dictionary this means, “a retort charging an adversary with being or doing what he criticizes in others.” In other words, if someone criticizes something and suggests it should be done differently or not at all, and the other person responds, “Well, you do it (or benefit from it), too,” this is a logical fallacy as it does not address the concern or topic at hand. Instead, when a person uses this appeal to hypocrisy, they are attempting to negate the argument by attacking the person rather than the issue. It is very similar to an ‘ad hominem’ logical fallacy.
The contention held by Libertarians is that many things currently done by government should be done differently or not at all. This assertion does not disagree that people benefit from statism, it simply addresses the issues of varying topics. For example, many Libertarians attend public schools. When it is argued that taxes should not be paying for schools, this does not mean that schools should not exist at all or that education is a bad thing. Libertarianism proposes that education should be privately funded by families, charities, religious institutions, companies, etc. When Libertarians attend public schools now, it is because they are taking advantage of the system that they were coerced into and forced to pay taxes to. Why should questioning a system necessarily mean one is no longer allowed to be a part of that system, yet they were forced to pay for?
The benefits of statism are comparable to that of a band of thieves that feed their families and pay other businesses. It is a system that advocates positive liberty, which means that it costs everyone to support it, while simultaneously purports that everyone benefits from its existence. Libertarianism repudiates this concept, and instead proposes negative liberty. Negative liberty means that it costs others nothing and one is free to go about their life, as this philosophy condemns coercion.
It is very common that critics of Libertarianism conflate the terms “society” and “state.” They see these as interchangeable, or one in the same. As a correction, “society” is the free association of peoples out of spontaneous order. Whereas the “state” is the power over the people, and in many cases a coercive power.
It is out of human nature that people wish to freely associate and trade with others. People benefit and progress by having societies because of their ability to freely speak, trade, and live with less worries than they would in nature without others. When people begin to impede on the lives, Liberty, or property of others, this no longer stays as a freedom of association, it becomes dogmatic statism. The existence of a state should be only to protect the lives, Liberty, and property of its citizens, and nothing more.
When these naysayers of Libertarianism suggest that Libertarians want to benefit from society and not pay into it, they misconstrue the basic principles of Libertarianism while concurrently mixing “state” with “society.” There is no price to live in a civilized society, as the wording itself indicates that people live “civilized,” meaning the respect for other individuals, and within “society,” meaning a voluntary association of people. So, to suggest that there is a price to act civilized and to voluntarily associate, is a contradiction.
The Libertarian position is that individuals are to be free as in the philosophy of negative liberty, to freely associate and trade, and that it is through this that a secondary outcome of prosperity and greater peace will emerge. People benefit from society, but can live freely without association with others if they so choose. Society is harmed by positive liberty and statism as it leads to the demise of individual Liberty, justice, and society itself.
To make it very clear, Libertarians cherish society being the freedom of association while holding individual Liberty as the most basic fundamental of human existence and flourishing. Furthermore, Libertarians advocate for what is one of the most crucial characteristics in a just system, and that is personal responsibility.
“With great Liberty, comes great responsibility.”
