Thoughts on freedom and libertarianism

Growing up as a kid in a poor country (but with a family not particularly rich or poor) and later coming to know a bit of all other economical layers of society - also living in a wealthy country as I do now - have provided me with a bit of an "outsider" background, which allows me to think about different perspectives, as I observe a lot in people about how they live and what the way they were raised tell them how one should expect things to be.

The unbearable lightness of being free

Freedom is great, right? Mostly every person we may ask should say so. But the bottom line is that things are not so simple. It has caught my attention early on that, even in the most tolerant societies, how much of a burden it is to deal with whoever may say the opposite as we believe. We have to fight from within against a very primal desire - that, I believe, lies on every single human being but it can be more or less controllable depending on the person - which is to impose our beliefs. Truly democratic, libertarian thinking goes in the other way, implying that everyone should have a voice, even the ones whose voices are disturbing for you*¹.

In less developed countries the situation is sometimes extreme, and the voices belonging to political opposition are persecuted, prosecuted, kept silent by any possible means, often the worst ones. In this exact moment many countries in the world do not have free press and you can be arrested or even killed for saying what you want. More developed countries are usually different in this aspect, although the tendency is still there: on those places, because people have a safer life and a much more respectful environment - consequence of having access to better education in a human point of view - this opposite voices are not seen as an immediate threat and, therefore, are better tolerated.

Thus, despite the fact this tendency to refrain over opposite beliefs is there, I still believe that Libertarian thinking is a relieving exercise and a very healthy position, like something that I believe we should pursue to become better human beings, less "primal" and more sensitive. As of now, we can live a decent life even when we have disabilities or when our bodies are not suited for heavy physical work, for example. In other times we would not have this possibility, this meaning we are increasingly leaning towards a more intellectualised, less primal-animalistic life. For instance, as an example, if we humans were totally animalistic we would be "leaving behind" all the kids that were born with disabilities like other animals do - now we think this would be cruel, which ultimately means we value what disabled people can bring to society.

Politics, but less politics

I recall listening to politicians in my country deeming legitimate many forms of persecution and violence in the name of a "common welfare" state such as a far-right or far-left state. The left-right duality is long overdue by now, the new duality that has to be discussed lies between statism and liberalism *². More than that, true libertarianism is neither belonging to left or right, that being easier to explain when referring to the extremes of both sides:

• Far-right can't cope with social freedom, which means minorities, differences to the concept of a "religious heritage family", with silent and peaceful ways of life that can be interpreted as attacks to the "moral establishment" (which is a quite fragile concept per se).
• Far-left cannot cope with economic freedom, with a world without government interference in daily life, with meritocracy *³.

In a certain point these extreme positions agree: free speech is potentially harmful to them, as people compare and organise and protest and set up revolutions to pursue one thing: liberty. I have grown fond of the very simple idea of being able to live a life without interference of external governments because of many situations I've witnessed (indirectly for the most part, lucky me):

• Not to able to say what one thinks.
• Not to be able to be different from what the "establishment" expect from you, even when that is not a matter of choice - different ethnics, sexual orientation, religion, habits.*⁴
• Not to be able to have the life that one wants because of government interference, such as when authorities choose a career for a person (happened on communist countries).
• Not to be able to accomplish things because of interference, such as when one is not able to start a business because of specific overtaxation.
• Not to be able to access knowledge (books, Internet) because of local prohibitions.

Those points above are not only addressed in libertarianism but in any political regime with a good amount of freedom, like in most western European countries now. With a libertarian mindset though, they are not only "common sense" - which may be clear but is a bendable concept - to become the obvious rule.

All there points (and other minor ones) all sum up to one thing regarding statism: when authorities make decisions on behalf of the citizen, those citizens can find the solution good or not. If they make good decisions, that's fine, but if they don't, the citizen cannot (in mostly every case) opt out of those, as this citizen is subject to the same interference as everyone else. They can decide based on actual desire of most people - which can also be a problem for a number of reasons, the most obvious being the "most is not all" motto - or based on other shadier aspects like lobbies, political bargains or even personal affairs - as it frequently happens.
Therefore, whenever there's a big, inflated state with governments that want to regulate everything and take care of everything, you can expect interferences in you life you didn't want, plus some more things: inefficiency and very often also corruption, made possible by a bulky, slow and muddy structure. Libertarian states are by definition slimmer, more efficient and less prone to corruption because they need to be less present as they do less and they regulate less.

Breaking free

Libertarianism is, in my opinion, a tendency for the future. As we became more aware of how important it is to keep our individuality and our educational systems improve to help us being raised valuing respect and tolerance, and at the same time when societies and politics improve and become more stable, I believe we increasingly need less interference, less structure, less regulations, which can be translated to more freedom.

In a further article, I plan to go over issues that Libertarianism brings or emphasises, in my opinion, such as the lack of jobs on the future societies - which may render the whole libertarian model unsustainable and may ask for some form of basic income - and our educational mindset, which most of the times don't prepare us very well to be truly free.

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*1 - Libertarianism tells about the "Harm principle" for that: read more
*2 - Liberalism is not the same as Libertarianism. Today it is common to define the latter a greater degree of the former, but for here it would be enough to say the former is a more conceptual thing. As a general rule though, statism is contrasted to liberalism, as it is a broader (and older) concept.
*3 - Meritocracy is a fascinating theme on what I intend to write about in the near future.
*4 - Some governments go into regulating the lives of "their" people up to a surreal extent sometimes, not only regarding more polemic things as drugs but also for very mundane things like haircuts, music, clothes.