Libertarian Girl

Sean Gabb of the UK’s Libertarian Alliance writes:

“There are those who think libertarianism involves a defence of riches and of the rich. Some libertarians seem to agree. I do not. A libertarian is someone who wants to be left alone, and who wants to leave others alone, and who wants others to be left alone. People must be taken as the owners of their bodies and of what they create in or appropriate from the external world.

Given that all exchange and other association needs therefore to be voluntary, we move to an endorsement of what is called the free market. If some people do better in life in others, so much the better for them. If they contrive to pass on some part of their success to their children, so much the better again.

This is not, however, an endorsement of actually existing capitalism. A free society is not Tesco minus the State. It is a place of small craftsmen and farmers and traders, of artists and of unlicensed doctors and lawyers, and of others needed if individuals and free associations of individuals are to live well. We cannot say much more than this about the arrangements of a free society. But we can be sure it would have no place for big business as it now is found.

Gabb goes on to mention that businesses are given a gift from the state, limited liability, which allows them to take risks that they otherwise would not. It’s clear that huge corporations as exist today would not exist under libertarianism. Would limited liability exist in a libertarian state? What do you think?

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This entry was posted on Saturday, March 1st, 2008 at 11:59 pm and is filed under Free market economics, Non-free market, libertarianism. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.