This morning I spoke to the juniors at my kids’ (private) school about libertarianism, as part of a course they’re taking on political philosophy. The session lasted 90 minutes. I do a lot of public speaking, and I can tell you that high school students are a tough audience. But they laughed at my jokes, which means I kept their attention. It went really well, in fact.
I had them read Rothbard’s The Anatomy of the State in advance.
Here’s the outline I worked from:
Libertarianism
— concerned with use of violence in society
— nonaggression principle
— key text: Frederic Bastiat, The Law (1850)
Sources
— utilitarianism
— e.g., Ludwig von Mises
— natural rights
— e.g., Murray Rothbard
— John Locke
— “Every man has a property in his own person.”
— Rothbardian development of Locke
— each person is a full self-owner
— denial of this principle leads to absurdities
Social Harmony Promoted
— conflict-free use of productive resources
— how property rights provide social peace
— Robinson Crusoe
— may do whatever he pleases; social cooperation does not arise
— Crusoe and Friday, without scarcity of goods
— still, potential conflict over standing room
— rule: place body anywhere, provided no one else already standing there
— Crusoe, Friday, and scarcity of goods
— own physical bodies, places and nature-given goods they occupy and put to use
—again, so long as nobody else has done so before him
— libertarian principle: first user/homesteader
— other possibilities
— property acquired by verbal declaration
— property accrues to second (or third, or fourth, etc.) user
— property held by no one
Implication: Laissez-Faire Economy
— individuals free to buy and sell, and to make contracts
— profit drives production into socially optimal channels
— price system and government interference
— price floors, price ceilings
The “Someone in Charge” Mentality
— contrary examples
— English language
— physics
— “I, Pencil” essay
Myths and Misconceptions
— leads to “monopoly”
— nineteenth-century stats
— Carnegie
— Rockefeller
— James J. Hill
— Vanderbilt
— low wages
— Industrial Revolution
— “standard of living” debate
— what makes wages rise?
— “rich get richer, poor get poorer”
— “atomistic individualism”
Some of these themes are raised in “The Libertarian Speech I Would Deliver to the Whole Country,” some remarks I made last year.