Reading the "Public Use" clause

[Ilya Somin]

Regarding Rand and Nozick, I don't know what was on the dust jacket, but
Nozick is very critical of Rand's version of libertarianism in the book
itself, at pg. 179. So Nozick, even circa 1974, was not a Randian. I don't
doubt that Rand had a substantial impact on the culture of her time. But
lots of people have done similar things without being a major political
theorist.

I think that a libertarianism that includes minimal welfare rights is not
doomed to incoherence. However, I'm not going to try to attempt a
full-blown defense of that view here, both because I'm not a philosopher
and because of space and topic constraints. All I want to prove here is
that libertarianism that does not categorically oppose all redistribution
on principle is well within the mainstream of what is usually regarded as
the libertarian intellectual tradition. Certainly, if Hayek and Friedman
are not real libertarians, it is hard to say who is. That does not prove,
of course, that their view is correct, merely that it can reasonably be
considered libertarian.

With that, I should stop posting on this topic, but if time permits, I
would not be opposed to discussing libertarianism with interested parties
off-list.


Ilya Somin



On Fri, 24 Jun 2005 RJLipkin at aol.com wrote:

> Regarding Rand's status as  a political philosopher or general intellectual,
> I seem to recall the jacket of  Anarchy, State and Utopia touted the work as
> the best contemporary statement of  Rand's philosophy.  (Does anyone have the
> original book jacket? It's  entirely possible that I read that claim in a
> review at the time). The relevance  of this point is that, though Nozick is a much
> more significant philosopher  than Rand, she had a significant impact on
> academic culture in the  fifties and early sixties.  Nozick gave Rand in particular
> and  libertarianism generally an enormous appeal even to some lefties in the
> late  seventies.
>
>         As I mentioned in an  earlier response, I think we should be careful
> to distinguish between  philosophical libertarians and economic libertarians.
> For one thing, economic  libertarians might be more inclined to include some
> non-libertarian elements in  their theories with the hope of making them more
> persuasive to non-libertarians,  while keeping their theories mainly
> libertarian.  Most philosophers,  at least in the analytic tradition, are not inclined
> to make such  compromises.
>
>         The basic issue here, and  of course I oversimplify, is that
> libertarianism's commitment to liberty permits  coercion in defense of the nation and
> to enforce contracts.  Economic  "libertarianism" embracing redistribution
> needs to explain how safety-net  legislation is compatible with those grounds of
> coercion. Moreover, such  libertarians need to identify and describe what
> principle of governmental  coercion permits safety-net redistribution if defense
> and contract do not.  Finally, if such an additional "libertarian" principle is
> identified, I think it  would be extremely helpful to show why the final
> theory deserves the description  "libertarianism." One can, of course, call
> oneself a "libertarian," while  advocating safety-net redistribution, but surely
> that doesn't make it so.
>
> Bobby
>
> Robert Justin  Lipkin
> Professor of Law
> Widener University School of  Law
> Delaware
>