The origins of liberty

Realizing Freedom:  Libertarian Theory, History, and Practice
by Tom Palmer
(Cato Institute, 2009, 496 pages)

It is very easy to take for granted the freedom we enjoy and to overlook the encroachment of government into the private sphere.

Tom Palmer is a Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute and written extensively on libertarian theory, history and practice.  His Realizing Freedom draws together a number of decades advocating limited government and individual liberty.

Palmer convincingly argues that the greatest advances civilisations have achieved have not been orchestrated by government.  The advancement of culture, philosophy and technology has been achieved through individuals pursuing ideas.  Governments today would like us to think our world is the product of government fiat, but it is as important as ever to remember that we need our liberty to adapt, create and improve;  these are essential for a constantly improving society.

Palmer begins Realizing Freedom with an essay entitled "Freedom Properly Understood".  Here Palmer examines the liberty over the millennia of its evolution.  To understand liberty -- and, indeed, advocate liberty -- it is essential to understand its history.  Palmer examines the role of associations of merchants, artisans and citizens in increasing individual liberty, as well as how they improved living conditions and resisted oppression.  Palmer stresses the supremacy of the rule of law, that is the "mutual enjoyment of equal freedom."

Much liberal thought focuses on free markets.  As a consequence, opponents of liberalism spread myths about it.  Palmer rebuts some twenty of these common myths, ranging from the immorality of markets, to the "problem" of externalities, to markets and inequality.  However, Palmer does argue that the American (and by extension, the Australian) model of governance is not suitable for developing nations.  Developing nations can ill-afford the luxuries that these developed nations enjoy.

America's Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Australian Securities and Investments Commission are but two of the luxuries developing nations do not deserve thrust upon them.  Palmer argues that America has such a well-developed economy that it can afford the extravagance of the SEC to regulate its financial markets inefficiently.  Developing nations need to be efficient so they develop and improve at a faster rate -- thus decreasing poverty, disease and increasing the need to develop regulatory agencies.

As Palmer makes clear, libertarianism is the culmination of millennia of philosophical argument and thought.  Civil society is invariably linked to liberalism.  Freedom of thought can only occur in a society that encourages dissenting opinion and public debate.  Palmer links the origins of civil society with the emergence of the city-state in Europe in the eleventh century onward.  The notion of a "burgher" -- the urban middle class -- endowed the inhabitants of such cities with rights and privileges not extended to those living in the countryside.

This is one of the earliest occurrences of a social contract where the governing authorities undertook to maintain social order formed under free agreement of individuals.

Progressing from the development of the liberal ideal, Palmer dissects the inherent problems in the authoritarian or illiberal doctrines espoused in Marxism, and the notion of the conflict of classes.  However, most interesting is Palmer's take on the collapse of socialism in Eastern Europe.  Palmer posits the Soviet Union was unable to maintain its Empire;  therefore, socialism collapsed in Eastern Europe.  Palmer goes on:

Perhaps the silent heroes in the revolutions of 1989 were Sony and Mitsubishi and others who keep making more powerful and fantastic devices that convey more information in smaller packages at lower cost.

The most disconcerting thought in Realizing Freedom is not that we do not have governments that hold liberal democratic values but that there is a misunderstanding of these values by those charged with their advocacy.

After reading Realizing Freedom it is clear that much more work needs to be done to ensure liberty of the individual and to limit state intervention.