Choosing Libertarian Island

Shipwreck survivors on unknown islands are beloved by the writers of fiction, by cartoonists, and also by philosophers. Crawling up the beach on day on the island I have in mind were a "libertarian" Bob, and Ann,  who might, for want of a better label, be called a “left libertarian,” as will emerge. The pair were spotted by a stranger who helped them into the shade of the nearest palm.

I.  Wherein the Basic Moral of the Story

Once the rescuees were sufficiently recovered, their rescuer explained the lay of the land. Geographically it was not very complex.  They were on the typical tropical shore, getting moderate rainfall, supplied with spotty coconut trees, fruit trees, and berry bushes, and surrounded by sea that yielded fish with some time and effort. The sea also gave up the occasional survivors of wrecks from the shoals so common in the area, and this accounted for the entire population.  Cargo and loose items from the wrecks also washed up from time to time. 

Looking to the west they could see another island about a mile away. They had come ashore on what its inhabitants ingeniously called “Isle One,” the other being “Isle Two.”   Isle One was a little better supplied with the aforesaid fruits, berries, and fish than Isle Two, and also benefited from more flotsam and jetsam. The chief difference between the two islands, however, was a matter of social organization.  Isle One had, from the time of its earliest habitation, exacted a labor requirement from its residents.   

What the labor would consist in, how many hours, and penalties for failure to labor were decided from time to time by majority vote. Isle Two had no such requirement, no voting, indeed nothing that resembled a government. On both islands invasions of the physical integrity or property of any of the residents were handled by an ad hoc posse of neighbors, and historically this had worked admirably to keep physical violence, theft, and the like to an absolute minimum

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There were sufficient resources to support life on both islands, if this had to be won with somewhat more effort on Isle Two.  Partly because of this latter circumstance, partly due to historical contingency, and partly the consequence of the labor requirement, Isle One had some facilities and institutions that Isle Two lacked, including, in addition to their Isle One  Assembly, a library (benefiting from washed up crates of books), performance and meeting spaces, musical groups (percussion and variations on lutes and reed flutes as well as choral), and a pottery hut with a wood fired kiln. Book clubs and, of course, philosophy discussion groups were all the rage on Isle One. 

Isle Two was more sparsely populated. Some of its inhabitants were recluses; some had antagonisms with particular Ones, as the denizens of the first island were called; some had political/social reasons for being Twos. It is not that the population of Isle Two never got together for a sing, had no books, or had never made a flute, but they did have a good deal less of everything of that sort.

The newcomers would be asked to make a long term commitment to Isle One or Isle Two, The currents and winds between the two islands made the trip, although not very distant, difficult and a little risky in the islanders’ crude dugout canoes. So there was very little travel between the two.  New arrivals were regarded as a special case, and the natives would get either Ann or Bob or the two of them over to Isle Two if one or both so desired.

Asked whether they did wish to make the trip, each replied with assurance, Bob in the affirmative and Ann the negative. Ann had been impressed with the richer set of leisure time opportunities of Isle One, as well as with the fact that there apparently would be more time left over for leisure and other activities from what would have to be spent hunting and gathering—more time even after factoring in the compulsory community labor, currently 5 hours per week.

For Bob it was precisely this labor requirement that was the deal breaker. “Coerced labor is the very definition of slavery,” he declaimed. The rescuer, attempting to calm him down, emphasized that it was only five hours a week, and as people imposed it upon themselves, it was never too onerous or disagreeable, and most people most of the time felt good about doing it. Moreover, it had produced many improvements, materially contributing to that richness of life that attracted Ann. 

Bob:

The phrase “imposed upon themselves” makes it sound as if it is all voluntary, but, of course, it isn’t.  Majority rule means that the minority doesn’t impose it on themselves; the majority imposes it on them. If all community work were a matter of individual charitable decision, with no coercion at all, that would be different. As it is I have a choice between a completely free society and an unfree society. Of course I choose liberty. Live free or die! 

Ann:

I understand that during the time that you would be doing your required labor on Isle One, you would have no control over what you did. You would then have no options. But in the other 163 hours in the week, you will have more control over what you do because you will have more options. That seems to me a clear gain in freedom, not a loss. Freedom is having choices.

 Bob:

No, that’s wrong, wrong, wrong. ‘Freedom’ and ‘liberty’ are political concepts. They are about not being prevented by other people from doing things. If the population of the two islands all disappeared, except you, you would have more choices on Isle One, and your life would be, as you say richer, and also easier in Isle One, but on neither island would you be unfree. If ‘liberty’ even applies when you are utterly out of society, then you have perfect liberty on either island.”

Ann:

I agree that freedom and liberty are political. Your tone of voice suggests that you think the disagreement between us is substantive and normative, not merely terminological. With that too I agree. Still, I could give you the words “freedom” and “liberty,” agreeing to use them as you insist, although I think that gets us into more conceptual awkwardness than you anticipate. (See Crocker, Positive Liberty.)

I would advance my political agenda by talking about the importance of real life options and opportunities, and the expansion of individual and collective capabilities.  Interpersonal coercion is one way all these interrelated dimensions of possibilities open to human choice can be closed down. It is not, however, the only way. Poverty and disease can be as effective as the Gestapo in restricting us to a narrow set of unappealing life choices.

Bob, I’ll bet back home you objected more vehemently to a large tax than a small one. You saw the large one as taking away from you more options as to how you could live and what you could do.  The way we lose the range of what we can choose to do is important. Force, coercion, and the abuse of power are bad in themselves, and when they restrict what I can do, that makes the restriction worse. The loss of real choices is also bad in itself, however, and the greater that loss the worse it makes whatever was its cause, whether happenstance, my own error, the negligence of another, or intentional interference without or with the color of state authority.

If you would strongly prefer Isle One to Isle Two had Isle One no work requirement, then I think your decision in favor of Two is simply thralldom to your ideology. If you get into that canoe knowing that you will be giving up a much richer set of things that you really would like to do to avoid a small dose of a pretty benign form of democratic coercion, then I think you have a serious cutlery-nose-face-spite problem.

Bob:      

You seem incapable of grasping principle.  One must never give in to tyranny.

I am not sure that either Bob or Ann will be willing to let the matter drop and let Bob paddle away into the sunset. I suspect they will return with a Part II going a little farther into what might and might not be special about force and coercion as choice killers.