Liberty & the state

The only purpose for which power can rightfully be exercised over anyone against their will is to prevent harm to others.

It rules out coercing people for their own good or to enforce majority morals. Harm is necessary but not sufficient: some harms (losing to a competitor) are part of a free society, and Mill made exceptions such as selling oneself into slavery.

John Stuart Mill, On Liberty (1859)

Conduct that concerns only yourself (or consenting others) versus conduct that affects others' interests.

Over the first, 'the individual is sovereign'. Society may still advise, persuade or avoid you, but not punish. Critics note that almost any act affects someone; Mill's answer was to look for definite damage to definite interests.

Mill, On Liberty (1859), ch. 4

Silencing an opinion assumes infallibility: the opinion may be true, partly true, or false but useful for understanding why the truth is true.

Mill's four grounds for free speech. The phrase 'marketplace of ideas' came later (from Justice Holmes's 1919 dissent in Abrams v. United States), but the argument is Mill's.

Mill, On Liberty (1859), ch. 2

A true belief held without ever hearing the case against it becomes a formula repeated, not understood.

Mill argued that even a false opinion helps keep the truth alive, and that where no dissenters exist, teachers should invent the strongest objections (the devil's advocate).

Mill, On Liberty (1859), ch. 2

Oppression of minorities by a democratic majority, through law or through the social pressure of opinion.

Tocqueville made the phrase famous; Mill adopted it and stressed social tyranny, which 'leaves fewer means of escape'. Madison's answer in Federalist 10 was a large republic with many shifting factions plus constitutional limits.

Tocqueville, Democracy in America (1835); Mill, On Liberty (1859)

Voluntary groups (churches, clubs, charities, town meetings, companies) through which citizens solve common problems without the state.

Tocqueville saw them as the school of self-government in a democracy: the habit of acting together is learned by doing, and it is what stands between isolated individuals and an all-powerful state.

Tocqueville, Democracy in America, vol. 2 (1840)

A mild, tutelary central power that provides for everyone's needs and in doing so takes away the habit and capacity of governing themselves.

It doesn't tyrannize; it 'hinders, compresses, enervates'. Tocqueville feared it more than violent despotism for democracies because people would welcome it.

Tocqueville, Democracy in America, vol. 2 (1840)

Freedom from interference: the area within which a person can act unobstructed by others.

Berlin defended it as the safer ideal: it doesn't require anyone to know what you really want, only that they leave you alone within a protected area.

Isaiah Berlin, Two Concepts of Liberty (1958)

Freedom as self-mastery: being your own master, governing yourself and acting on your rational will.

A noble idea that Berlin thought could be turned upside down: if your 'true self' is identified with the state, the nation or history, coercing you can be called liberating you.

Isaiah Berlin, Two Concepts of Liberty (1958)

Ancient liberty was sharing directly in collective sovereignty; modern liberty is enjoying a protected private life, with government by representatives.

Constant argued that the French revolutionaries had tried to impose ancient liberty on modern commercial people, with terrible results, and also warned moderns not to give up political participation entirely.

Benjamin Constant, The Liberty of the Ancients Compared with that of the Moderns (1819)

A distribution is just if it arose from just acquisition and voluntary transfer, with past injustices rectified.

It is a historical theory: you can't tell whether a distribution is just by its shape alone, only by how it came about. This puts it at odds with end-state theories such as Rawls's.

Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia (1974)

Start from any distribution you think just; let a million fans freely pay 25¢ each to watch Wilt play; the new, unequal distribution arose by voluntary steps from a just one.

Nozick's conclusion: 'liberty upsets patterns'. Keeping a pattern requires continual interference with people's choices. Critics (Cohen, Rawlsians) reply that fans didn't consent to the effects on third parties, and that taxes known in advance are part of the background rules.

Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia (1974)

A state limited to protection against force, theft and fraud and the enforcement of contracts: the 'night-watchman'.

Nozick argued that it could arise from anarchy without violating anyone's rights, and that any more extensive state would violate them. He described it as a framework for utopias: people form whatever communities they like within it.

Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia (1974)

Reform by small, reversible steps aimed at removing concrete evils, with results checked and mistakes corrected.

Popper contrasted it with utopian engineering, which aims at an ideal society through total reconstruction. Since we can't foresee consequences, a plan too big to evaluate or undo can't learn from its errors, and tends to suppress the criticism it would need.

Karl Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies (1945); The Poverty of Historicism (1957)

A society in which institutions and beliefs are open to criticism and leaders can be removed without bloodshed.

Popper's version of democracy is not 'who should rule?' but 'how can we get rid of bad rulers without violence?'. It is falsifiability applied to politics: policies are conjectures to be tested.

Karl Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies (1945)

Unlimited tolerance can lead to the disappearance of tolerance, if the intolerant are allowed to destroy it.

Popper did not mean suppressing intolerant opinions as such: as long as they can be countered by argument, suppression would be unwise. The right to suppress applies when they refuse argument and answer with fists or pistols.

Karl Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies (1945), vol. 1, notes to ch. 7

Legislative, executive and judicial power held by different people so that none can make, carry out and judge its own laws.

Montesquieu, drawing on England's constitution, held that liberty is lost when these powers are united in one person or body. It became a blueprint for the US Constitution.

Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws (1748)

Giving each branch the constitutional means and personal motive to resist encroachment by the others.

'Ambition must be made to counteract ambition' (Federalist 51). Parchment barriers aren't enough; checks work only if those holding power in each branch have an interest in using them, which a single dominant party can undermine.

James Madison, Federalist Nos. 47–51 (1788)