Salter: American liberty in the 21st century

For the past 18 months, I’ve had the pleasure of defending America’s philosophy of liberty in these pages. My first column in this series, “Conserving liberty: Why libertarianism deserves a hearing,” appeared on July 4, 2021. It’s been quite a journey! Thanks to my editors, Doug Hensley and Adam Young, for encouraging me to write these articles. And of course, thanks to my readers. Your attention, consideration, and engagement made it all worthwhile.

Conclusions are a good place to sum up. In that spirit, I’d like to leave you with a reminder of the important lessons we’ve learned:

American conservatives should conserve the Founding. Conservatives conserve. What they conserve depends on their heritage and traditions. For Americans, the thing to be conserved is the Founding itself. Although it seems paradoxical, American conservatives must be liberals at heart, because the American Revolution was a liberal revolution dedicated to securing man’s natural rights of life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness. Remember: “liberal” does not mean “left-wing.” The very root of the word “liberal” means “freedom.” Liberty is at the heart of what it means to be an American.

Liberty, not license. All true liberty is ordered liberty. Freedom ultimately means the right to do one’s duty. As human persons, we recognize our obligations to God, our families, our local communities, and our nation. Government promotes human flourishing by limiting itself to protecting our natural rights. Other communal organizations—churches, universities, fraternal societies—exist to help us become virtuous. The government’s job is to help us become free.

Government is inherently violent. Perhaps you’ve heard the phrase, “Government is just another name for the things we do together.” This sounds nice, but it’s nonsense. We engage in non-governmental collective action all the time. If you’re a member of a country club, a church council, a school committee, or any similar group, you’ve participated in “the things we do together.” What distinguishes government is not collectivity, but coercion. Government is violence, plain and simple. Only the government has the right to initiate violence to compel otherwise peaceful persons against their will. To protect our natural rights, this power must be held in check. Written constitutions, the rule of law, and democracy are all ways to limit the government to its proper protective function.

Libertarianism can end our political arms race. American government has many problems. The biggest is that the government has gotten too big and tries to do too much. This causes partisan polarization. When the stakes of politics get too high, friends become enemies because our neighbors’ political preferences may become a threat to our preferred way of life. To lower the stakes, we need to embrace a philosophy of liberty. Libertarianism can solve our polarization problem by strictly limiting the acceptable scope of politics. Many social problems should be solved through voluntary collective action. In contrast, we should use government only if there’s no other choice.

Liberty is social; coercion is anti-social. King Stephen I of Hungary, venerated as a saint in both the Christian East and West, wisely counseled his people, “A nation of one language and the same customs is weak and fragile.” In other words, a nation is a community of communities. Each of those communities is devoted to a substantive good, and perhaps even the highest good. It is inevitable that these communities will disagree, as we’ve always disagreed about the nature and content of a life well-lived. Yet even communities with radically different moral commitments can live together peacefully and productively if they respect the dignity of human persons. The government’s job is to serve as a referee, ensuring no community violates our God-given natural rights. Libertarianism is a profoundly social philosophy because it guards the foundations of authentic community.

The future is freedom. We confront enormous challenges. The economy is stagnant. The dollar rapidly depreciates. Federal spending, especially entitlement programs, are fundamentally unviable. Hostile powers abroad threaten our peace and security, the Chinese Communist Party chief among them. Despite these problems, America can flourish if we rediscover the value of liberty. Slashing regulations and curbing the Federal Reserve can restore our economy. Spending restraint and judicious entitlement reform can put us on a fiscally sustainable path. We can’t beat China by adopting their heavy-handed form of authoritarian capitalism, but we can by embracing America’s traditional free-market dynamism. Undoubtedly we need prudent reforms spearheaded by capable public servants. But these policies must embody, not repudiate, America’s basic governing philosophy. We want America to flourish as America—the world’s greatest experiment in ordered liberty.

Are we worthy of the Founders’ legacy? I believe so. The 21st century can be the century of American liberty. National renewal will come if we stay true to what makes our country unique. To paraphrase Milton Friedman: Only by putting freedom first can we achieve greatness and equality. Join me in conserving what sets America apart from the mass of ordinary nations.

Alexander William Salter is the Georgie G. Snyder Associate Professor of Economics in the Rawls College of Business at Texas Tech University, a research fellow at TTU’s Free Market Institute, and a community member of the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal editorial board. The views in this column are solely his own.

This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: Salter: American liberty in the 21st century