Differences between Objectivist Politics and Libertarian Politics
by Joseph Rowlands
Objectivists have sometimes argued that you can't accept the Objectivist politics without the philosophical base. Certainly if you try, there should be significant differences due to the lack of grounding. Since the September 11 terrorist attacks, it's become quite clear that there are in fact significant differences between Objectivist and libertarian views. This article is a start at spelling out some of these differences.
Before continuing, we have to identify the limits of such an analysis. The first major limitation is that libertarians do not have a common philosophical base that they agree on. So while some may accept certain ideas, there's no reason to expect all of them to. In other words, any particular point may not be attributable to every libertarian. Another limitation to this analysis is that there is no necessary difference between the Objectivist and libertarian views, so this discussion is aimed at identifying actual existing differences, and not trying to imply that they are inevitable.
The first major difference I want to identify is the difference between the NIOF (non-initiation of force) principle vs. rule. Libertarians tend to start with politics, ignoring ethics in order to be more inclusive. Because of that, the NIOF principle cannot be put into the context of a wider value hierarchy. Without the ability to relate the NIOF principle to a wider standard of value, it turns into a context-free rule. How do you know when you should apply it and when you shouldn't? You must always apply it. How do you know in what contexts it's applicable? It's applicable in every context.
The Objectivist position is different. Obviously the NIOF principle is an important part of our lives, but it aims to further our lives. If a context appears where it doesn't further our lives, following it would be suicide. By understanding why the NIOF principle supports life as the standard of value, you're not stuck with mindless obedience to a rule. The case that comes up the most is in a war situation where innocent civilians may be killed in the process. The rule-following libertarians would let themselves be killed before violating their moral rules, forgetting that morality's goal is their own lives.
There is a second consequence to this view of NIOF as a rule. Without a connection to a wider moral standard, violations of the NIOF cannot be compared with one another. That means all rights violations would have to be treated as equally bad. If someone kills someone, or steals his newspaper, it's still a violation of the rule.
Of course that's an absurd position, and I doubt anyone would maintain it consistently or with a straight face. But because of the inability to measure the degree of immorality by reference to a wider standard, it does allow many absurd conclusions. To give an example, some people suggest that the United States is a police state without freedom of speech, comparing it to totalitarian regimes. Although the violations of freedom of speech are of course a travesty, that kind of comparison can only exist with the most blatant of context droppings.
Others suggest that the US is less free than China, because we have seat-belt laws while they don't. The fact that freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, and freedom of reproduction are violently repressed in China is ignored because you can ride around without a bicycle helmet. How else to explain this than a complete inability to compare outcomes?
The next major difference between libertarian and Objectivist politics is the Objectivist position that the deaths of innocent people in the process of exercising retaliatory force is the blame of the person who created the situation. At first this may sound like a difference between NIOF the rule vs. the principle, but it's really a question of moral responsibility.
If someone creates a situation where the lives of two people are in opposition, where survival of one requires killing of the other, it is the person who created the situation that is to blame. So if a dictator threatens the lives of people but uses innocent people as human shields, the moral blame for those deaths rest on the dictator. A person or group may be shoved into a situation where they have to choose between their lives or doing something that would ordinarily be considered an initiation of force. They only have the choice to pursue their lives or die. Only an altruistic morality can judge their actions aimed at survival as immoral. The immoral act was made by the one who created this situation and who destroyed the harmony of interests that the NIOF principle is based on.
It's commonly accepted that there is a difference between murder and killing in self-defense. The same act, taking the life of another human being, has different moral connotations depending on the context. If your life is at stake, the act is no longer considered immoral. The same thing is true of the conflict caused by the dictator and the human shields. The context determines the morality of the actions.
A final difference between libertarians and Objectivists that I want to discuss in this article is the view of the importance of retaliatory force. The emphasis by libertarians is on the lack of initiation of force. As I've mentioned in my article "Two Sides of Libertarianism", this position wouldn't successfully differentiate libertarianism with pacifism. That means retaliatory force is seen as not entirely immoral, but probably not virtuous.
It also has the problem that it focuses on what you shouldn't do, instead of giving you options. It doesn't address the issue of how you go about securing freedom at all. It's more concerned with moral judgment than with life-directed action. Securing your freedom is less important than absolutely avoiding accidentally violating someone's rights. The result is that it worships inaction in the face of rights violators.
This isn't meant to be an exhaustive list of the differences between Objectivist and libertarian politics, but hopefully it gives some idea of why there are so many disagreements in recent years.
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