My Problem with Libertarianism

Ever since I have heard of the political philosophy of Libertarianism I had my doubts on whether it could work in real life - same as with Communism, in fact. Sure, some aspects of it may sound appealing (again, just like with Communism), but I just don't buy that it could function in a large-scale society (again like Communism, which so far has been shown that it can also only work in small communities).

Sure, it would be nice if transfers of money or other property involving your own could only happen with your consent - but the big problem is that "property" is largely a legal fiction created by the consent of society as a whole. There is no "natural", scientific definition of property, and property as a concept exists only because there are a sufficient number of people willing to enforce it (with force, if necessary). And like all legal fictions it runs into problems when you examine it closer and consider its implications.

For example, let's assume someone owns a small forest on the top of a hill. One day, the owner of this property decides that he wants to chop down all the trees and sell the lumber. It's his right - after all, the forest is his property.

Yet the forest also stored a lot of ground water between the roots of the trees - and a farm located downhill which was owned by someone else depended on that water. Now the ground will be far drier, the harvests smaller, and the farmland worth less. Thus, the owner of the forest - by doing what he wants with his own property - has directly harmed the property of the second. Does the farmer deserve compensation from the owner of the hilltop property, or not?

And the example can be extended to a far larger scale. Take the Ogallala Aquifer, which supplies irrigation water for most of the Great Plains region of the United States. Consumption of the aquifer water far out-paces its regeneration, and it is likely that it will run dry within the next few decades, effectively putting an end to irrigation in much of the area. Could you really get every farmer in this region to voluntarily limit their water consumption to a sustainable level? I think not - if this decision is left to freely-entered agreements between citizens, then the inevitable outcome will be that the aquifer will run dry, rendering vast stretches of farmland nearly worthless. If there is going to be any solution at all, it will have to involve a government which must be willing to enforce its decisions with force. Hopefully most farmers working these lands will support the government concept and have voted for it - but if a significant minority refuses to honor any agreement because they feel that they can do what they want with their land, then everyone will suffer.

And beyond natural resources there is infrastructure to consider. Almost everyone is dependent on the roads that lead from their homes to their places of work, places to shop, and anywhere else they want to go. If these roads are owned privately, and the owners of even part of the route decide to charge more for their use or even prevent others from using them entirely, then everyone who is dependent on these roads suffers and the properties these roads connect to will drastically drop in value - and their owners are harmed, simply because someone else is doing with their property what they want.

Of course, building an effective road and transportation system is likely to involve forcing others to relinquish their property, as there are constraints on the shape and paths of transportation networks. Without the power of eminent domain, your paths will be a lot more inefficient and circuitous, to the economic detriment of all who need to use them. This is especially important in densely-populated places like Europe where properties have been subdivided over many, many centuries. Other regions, like the Americas, may have more room for settlements to expand without government intervention - but that's only because the governments in question invoked eminent domain against all the prior inhabitants of the land.

Thus, some amount of coercion is necessary for any large-scale society to function at all - and the best one can hope for is a government that only uses this force as little as possible, and is responsive to the needs of its citizens.

Just to make it clear, though - I do not advocate for the government to take over all matters of commerce. Far from it! The markets have brought us vast wealth and standards of living our ancestors could only dream of. However, I do not believe that the free market is the answer to each and every problem we are facing - some problems are best solved by the markets, while others are best tackled by the government, while others still will fare better when both cooperate. As always, real life requires compromise - and compromise is something that doesn't seem to fare well in Libertarianism.