>> thank you for the conversation. ms. bales: thank you. >> you are watching american history tv, only on c-span3. next, cato institute senior fellow tom palmer explores the key ideas of libertarianism and their evolution in europe during the modern era. and 15 minute long talk is part of a symposium on history and philosophy posted by the cato institute. >> what i want to talk about now is the libertarian synthesis, and this is where history and philosophy come together. i want to focus on the historical evolution of key ideas that we characterize as libertarian. i mentioned that the first movement that you could characterize as a fully libertarian movement was the levelers in the 17th century, in england. ,ou can find libertarian ideas

things that feed into this synthesis elsewhere and before that time, but that was the first that really put it all together into a coherent theory. or is a statement that i rather find admirable -- there is a statement that i rather find admirable from adam smith about what it takes to create a prosperous society. -- to the highest degree of opulence and the lowest, barbarism. peace, easy taxes and a tolerable administration of justice. one thing i like about smith's formulation is the importance of atce to societies that are war or engaged in constant destruction, and the destruction and disruption of life and treasure. say itxes -- he does not has to be zero. there should be some provision of public goods, but they should not be oppressive and burdensome . and a tolerable administration of justice. a very common sensical

approach. a tolerable administration of justice, when you go to the courts of law there was a very high likelihood that the outcome would be an acceptable adjudication of a dispute, and not the imposition of warfare or some class rule or some special interest, where the judge says, what religion are you or what family are you from? rather, the justice is likely to be acceptable. all of the rest being brought about by the natural course of things. a very interesting phrase -- there was another movement in france that fed into this as well. of nature.e rule an order is not civilly created by the hand of a ruler directing people, but there was a natural order in the world. we had to allow nature to r ule. all governments which worked this natural course and force

things into another channel or endeavor to arrest the progress of society are unnatural, and to support themselves are obliged to be oppressive and tyrannical. i think that is a pretty nice, concise statement of a thoughtful libertarian perspective on the world. but i want to go a little deeper in the it wasn't someone's living room where this was cooked up. you sometimes hear contemporary figures say it was in this living room or this particular salon, and that is a big mistake. it is a modern idea but you can find elements of it in medieval thought, ancient thought, europe and asia, as well. it is not even a uniquely european idea. we talked about this a little bit with some people here at lunch. libertarian ideas emerged as a defense of evolved systems of

privileges, liberties, and s thatities -- immunitie were under attack in the 17th and 18th century by absolutist states. there is a very important sense in which they wanted to defend some systems of order and rights and privileges and liberties that were under attack from a new philosophy of absolutism. it is very common for people who are not thoughtful about the matter to say this idea of absolute rule is a medieval idea. it is not. it is a modern idea. the idea that the ruler is above the law. i am sure i would not characterize something medieval or modern, but the more common idea in europe was that everyone is subject to the law. not that there was a pope, emperor, or king who was above it. and that system of liberties comes under attack from absolute leaders who were inspired by this modern idea of absolute

power and of power creating order. people defend their liberties. in the process, they defend a theory of liberty. that's is part of the historical progression. to go from liberties, which might be different between you and me, to collective liberty. all of us have an equal right equalityality -- and before the law. in the process of this struggle, those ideas were clarified. they were made more abstract. that is a very important part. it is not just your liberty or your privilege or your immunity because of your status, but a right that every human being can aspire to. that is part of making it more abstract. it does not refer to you in this particular circumstance, living in this town or a member of that family, but to the right of a human being. and then, extend it to everyone. i mentioned the text of the declaration of independence. in different context, that text

takes on more significance. i mentioned frederick douglass, who is a very important figure in american history who says, in 1854, on july 4, this was the progress -- promise that was made. what about me and people like me? does it not extend to us? that was taking the text and putting it in another context and demanding that those rights be available to him and others like him. as this emergence of libertarian thought proceeds, we can see three reinforcing elements that create free, prosperous and successful societies. we will talk about them in order. the first is the idea of individual rights. or individual, indestructible rights. these rights are not something you receive as a gift from people with power. they are not dispensed like a

doctor gives a prescription. hillary clinton or donald trump says here, i will give you a prescription for some rights. those rights can be taken away, if they are merely prescribed. these are imperceptible rights. some features of being a human being, such that we demand that others respect us and treat us in a certain way. and second, the idea of spontaneous order. order is not something that is planned and created, although there is such order. this conference was consciously planned and created. the tables were laid out in a certain way. that is a created order, but much of the order in life is not like that. it emerges spontaneously. and third, limited government and the rule of law. these three ideas support each other, rather like a chair. each leg gives support to the others. when rights are well-defined and legally secure, society is more and not less orderly.

this is counterintuitive for many people. they think if everyone has these rights, it will be chaotic. everyone is doing whatever they want to do, it will be chaotic. you need to have a boss. it turns out when rights are well-defined and legally secure, order is much more pervasive in society. a higher degree of planned coordination among persons. the law is there to help us define our rights and to protect them, which enables us to interact. when i know what is yours and what is mine, we have a better foundation for peaceful cooperation. if i want the things that you have and we both agree they are yours, i can negotiate with you to give you something you would find preferable to what is currently in your possession. when rights are not well defined, people will fight over them. this is an important reason for why property rights create

harmonious societies. just because, what is the baseline for negotiation toward improvement. what is important is the purpose of law is to facilitate an order of actions and not to aim at some particular outcome. this is the preferred arrangement. the arrangement is what will emerge out of the voluntary interactions of persons. it is not known in advance. -- and the process, create little cds of central planning, if you want to think of it that way. within a wider, spontaneous order. but that order is what makes popular those islands of planning. you can think of firms and organizations and the way the , seminar is structured. my colleagues put together an agenda. they make everything seem so effortless but i assure you, , they work hard to make sure all these people from around the world came together in this one

place to have a seminar. the food is delivered on time and the coffee comes at the right time. all that took a lot of planning. it is made possible by the spontaneous order of the market economy that allows that to happen. so, let's turn to individual rights. legally secured and voluntarily transferable rights provide a foundation for peaceful, social cooperation. legal equality allows everyone to utilize their knowledge. there is no cast of persons who due something and others are forbidden to do that. unlike caste based societies, where you are limited to this one thing you are born into. you have knowledge other people don't have and you have the freedom to put it to use, for your benefit and the benefit of others. in the struggle against feudal privilege, this was called

careers open to talent. that was the slogan of the day, to eliminate feudal privilege and allow anyone to compete. to put their own knowledge to use, for mutual benefit. but also, knowing what you may do, what i may do, what is allowed and what is not, allows us to cooperate to achieve mutually beneficial ends. i like this particular image. it is not merely human beings that are able to cooperate, but also some animals, even if their understanding of property rights may be limited, compared to ours. this idea of rights, has rather ancient roots. one of the figures i greatly admire as a person, marcus cicero, one of the greatest roman statesman, unlike almost all other major figures known to

us in roman history he was not a , military man. he was a lawyer. he believed in persuading people, where as so many others and military backgrounds cicero , did not. indeed, when he had been present with the armies that were opposing caesar, they made it very clear that he was a fifth wheel and was encouraged to go back to rome and be a kind of spy in rome and work in the senate. he was murdered, under mark antony. his head and hands were cut off and displayed in the forum and the wife of mark anthony came up and stuck a pin through his tongue, so he would be shut up forever. a deeply malevolent person. because of his speeches he gave against mark antony, which were

modeled on the speeches in greek, denouncing the tyranny. in his book on duties, one of the most important single text in european history after the bible and the gluten bragg -- and the gutenberg press is introduced, it is the second most published book after the bible for a long. of time. it was by cicero. it has a huge impact. a great deal of the knowledge we have of the ancient world comes from cicero. we have more books by him than anyone else and, i think, some 900 letters that he had written to his friend. he redirected them, by the way. there are several sections missing that suggest cicero may have been a participant in the killing of caesar.

there is a gap just prior to that. but in that book, which is a very powerful work, he has a statement which is quoted repeatedly by philosophers and theologians. this had a great impact. we are all constrained by one and the same law of nature. that is going back to aristotle's concept of nature. there is not a greek and persian nature, there is nature. if it is true, that we are certainly forbidden by the law of nature from acting violently against another person. this is pregnant with implications from the libertarian perspective. it is not to say that cicero was a libertarian. that would be too much. indeed, not that he acted in every way that would have been consistent with a libertarian. that is too much, also. in the context of the time, i think he acquitted himself very nobly and honorably from a libertarian perspective. he also sent a message to the future that was very powerful

about the equality of rights under human nature and the preference of volunteer -- voluntary cooperation over violence. among the people who quote him are very important figures in the church, and here, the idea of dominion, which means from then latin coming house. the master of the house. but you have dominion over your own self. it is an important concept. one of the great lawyer hopes -- s and legal opinion about the crusades, which we know were brutal and violent wars for the cross, with terrible crimes committed on both sides. no real clean hands in this conflict.

but the question was raised, whether christians could kill, enslave or dispossess muslims and jews, because they were not christians. he said, the answer is, no. you may not. i maintain that jurisdiction can belong to infidels, properly, and without sin. these things are made not only for the faithful, but for every rational creature, as has been said. this principle that every rational creature is entitled to some respect -- as we know this was honored more in theory than in practice on the field of battle and there are similar , statements among muslim thinkers, as well. this deserves to be mentioned as well, but those did not have the impact on european thought, which is primarily what i will focus on. this is repeatedly quoted throughout the ages, that it is

not your religion that entitles you to respect, it is your rational nature. you are the animal who can talk. this idea of self-control of property and your own person, as john locke would later phrase it, goes through a number of different modifications and reformulations. power, in the papal his defense of a very powerful book, an argument by the way, for a centralized power, he talks about ownership.

it refers to the human will or freedom in itself. it is through these that we are capable of certain acts and their opposites. that is to say, we can do this or something else. we have that power. that capacity to make choice. it is for this reason that man alone among the animals is said to have ownership or control of his actions. that is interesting language. you own your acts. john locke also uses this language. this language that the human being owns his acts. this control belongs by nature. it is not acquired through an act of wealth or choice. we have moral agency. we can be held accountable for our acts. the recognition of that distinguishes us from inanimate objects. we can argue about it. certainly most other living beings, maybe not all. maybe some living beings also

have moral agency. my cats, for example have moral , agency. but, we find human beings have the ability to make choices and we can hold them accountable. we don't do that for other animals and certainly not for inanimate things. this principle is then tested in a particularly stark way when the europeans come in contact with people in what they call , but not by the local people, the new world, and especially in the spanish empire. the spaniards come in contact with people, indians they come to be called, it is disputed what that means. whether they thought they got to india, or it means people of god. i don't think there is any resolution of the origin of the term indians. they are enslaved and treated with extraordinary brutality and acts of extermination.

in spain, a number of figures associated with a proto-libertarian school of social thought, rises to defend them. there is a short book on the american indians. it is a powerful book and you can get it in english or spanish translation. he addressed very clearly, in as much as he is a person, every indian has free will and is a master of his actions. by natural law, every man has a right to his own life. he argues against the coercive baptism of indigenous people. as you can see from the image, he was a priest. of course he wants everyone to be forced to go to church. not at all. he and his followers argued that within the context of catholic doctrine, this was a sin. to force someone to convert, a

very important and powerful and clever argument. they argued it is an act of violence to hold the sword to someone and say come to church. you have committed a crime, right there. secondly, if that person comes to church and professes a belief they do not hold, you are forced -- you have forced that person to commit the sin of hypocrisy and that crime will fall on your head, not on that person, because that person is acting under duress. very powerful, within the context of his own religion, why we should not force people into conversion. the other figure, a great figure in this movement, had come to the new world. he was deeply influenced by what he saw. he went as a young adventurer very exciting. that he sawstories

christopher columbus sell off and he wanted to be an adventurer. what he saw shocked him. it was an utter horror. he was converted by a priest -- i don't think the name was recorded -- who told him, look what is happening here. this is unconscionable. how can you allow this to happen? he wrote several books, one of which was a huge bestseller and he described seeing human beings hunted on horseback with spears for sport. chased down and speared. then, human flesh sold in butcher shops as food for dogs. he said, this cannot be right. he said this is a great crime. he devoted his life to the advance of the indigenous people. in 1550, he debated in front of the fathers of the church, defending the rights of

indigenous people to their own lives. it is an extraordinarily powerful book. you can read it in english or spanish translation. he hammered at them and he made the point. he said, if you want them to come to church, treat them as humans. you don't bring your pets to church. you don't bring in your cows to take communion. if you want them to be in church, they are entitled to the respect of a human being. and he convinced, officially at least, the leaders of the church. he gave every arguments. great cities, kings judges and laws, persons who engage in commerce, buying, selling, lending, and other aspects. in contrast, he argued that

indians were natural slaves. aristotle discussed slavery and would talk about slaves by nature. i find aristotle's discussion a bit puzzling, because a slave by nature has no internal motion of his own. no desire. he just waits. somehow the master completes him by giving him something to do. he is part of the body of the master. it is such an odd description. it certainly did not apply to the slaves he observed around him, some of whom tried to run away, for example, thereby showing they did have some desires of their own. be that as it may, it was interpreted by many as a defense of slavery. you could also interpret it as a subtle and sly undermining of the principal. a difficult text to interpret. but cipolla said aristotle showed us slavery is natural and god so loved the spaniards, he made a whole continent full of them for us.

and they need us. we complete their lives. he hammers this and says this is nonsense. craziness. these people have their own affairs and run their own lives. as he concluded the debate, he said of the indians, he said, christ has given his life for them. why then do we persecute them with such inhuman savagery? the past, because it cannot be undone, must be attributed to our own weakness, provided that what is taken unjustly is restored. it is a remarkably magnanimous deterrent. this is a great wickedness. we have an obligation to restore what can be restored. you cannot undo the past, but you can give back what was unjustly taken. this was important in the idea

of individual rights, expense of the spaniards with the end hands his seminal in this regard -- is seminal in this regard. now, going back to europe and thinking about conflicts in europe over religion. if i know the true religion, naturally i should force you to follow it. i am helping you. the doctrine of righteous persecution was, when i burn you at the stake for following the wrong religion, i am doing the kindest act possible. because in those last moments of agony, you might repent and accept the true gospel, as i understand it. so, various groups are murdering and killing each other. there is a common theory, popular among 20th and 21st century figures that religious toleration came about when religion declined. that it was scientifically minded, atheistic people who advanced religious freedom.

this is comfortable for people who don't embrace religion. it happens to be wrong. the people who defended religious freedom were deeply, profoundly religious people. one of the most important debated with john calvin. he was a person of great religious faith. as has been pointed out by some intellectual historians, the atheists were usually not going out promoting their views. they were afraid, so they kept their heads down and talked with each other. people who were willing to fight for religious freedom were the ones motivated by their own religious faith. he was one of the most important. when john calvin organized the murder of -- he said, to kill a man is not to protect the doctrine, but it is to kill a man. they did not defend the

doctrine, they killed a man. that is all they achieved. they did not advance the true faith they just murdered , someone. these pioneered of movement for religious freedom. i mentioned in england, the levellers, all of them were protestants. but they defended the rights of the catholics. indeed, william wallman wrote a n essay called in defense of the papists. he wrote that in good faith to defend the rights of the catholics, although he was not a catholic. because they believed in the freedom of conscience and freedom of religion. as he put it, we can live together peaceably only when we control our intolerance.

there will be differences of opinion, we can come to a general understanding and love one another and enter the bonds of peace ending the day when we shall attain unity of faith. that'll happen way in the future. in the meantime, go to your church. i go to mine. my neighbor goes to synagogue. another goes to temple. another goes to mosque. and we can live together, peacefully. now, a little digression about the nature of rights. this is important, partly because of the way the english language is structured, but also it has to do with conceptual relationships. we talk about right. in english language, we can say that is the right thing to do or that is not right. we also talk about, i have a right. they are connected in some ways but it is complex. , we can talk about objective and subjective right. discusses objective right, as it comes later known. he says, right or justice, he

says it is that disposition or habit which renders men apt to do just things and causes them to act justly and to wish what is just. the focus is on the objective ordering of the world. that is the right thing to do. that is right. but then there is a lawyer's approach. here, a very important figure in the development of legal theories of rights. he quoted in the digest, justice is the steady and enduring will to render unto every one his right, the basic principle of rights are to live honorably and not harm another person. to render to each his own. a somewhat different approach on what rights are all about. you have objective right and subjective right. i have run into some professors of philosophy, who did not impress me, who say it is a

contradiction to say you have a right to do what is wrong. if it is wrong, it can't be right. if it is not right, you cannot have a right to do it. this is not deep. [laughter] tom: it was thomas aquinas who helped us understand the relationship between them. he wants to reconcile the roman law with aristotle and with christianity. many people who think of saint thomas think of him attempting to reconcile science with his christian faith, but there is at least a third element that is very important for st. thomas and that is the roman law. here, he says we have aristotle who says one thing and roman law says another, what to do? naturally, he needs to show they are compatible. he says the definition of justice is fitting if understood

correctly. the proper matter of justice consists of those things that belong to our intercourse with other human beings. hence the act of justice is indicated in the words -- and he quotes -- rendering to each one his right, a man is said to be just because he respects the rights of others. in other words, the way that we get a just society is by respecting rights. this is a great innovation. in my opinion, insufficiently appreciated. someone who comes across the same idea, but as far as i know did not read thomas, is robert nosick. justice preserving transformation. if you start with a system of rights that is just and every step within it is just in accordance with rights, the outcome will be just.

nozick did not believe in history of philosophy, he thought it was a waste of time, but he came up with so many ideas that were developed by others. and in this case by thomas aquinas. why is this important? it is parallel to the arguments about socialism. no one can know the objectively correct allocation of all the resources in society. where this table should go in -- and where that iron ore should go and that truck should be. it is impossible. what i can know is what you own and what i own and prices that emerge in the market economy. prices will help us coordinate our behavior so we will generate, if not optimal, we will generate beneficial systems of coordinated plans and prosperity. but no one could have known what the optimal allocation was in advance. i can know what a price is. when coffee goes up, i will

shift my drinking habits. people would. and similarly for thomas and within theriting system are right, i cannot know what the outcome would be. in almost all cases, we have a clear understanding of our rights and those of others, and that generates a just society, but it was a justice that could not have been predicted in advance. the particular pattern of allocation that emerges. it emerges by a just process. the focus was on the rights of individuals, rather than rights for groups or castes. the first self-conscious mentioned, made that clear. there is sometimes confusion in historic text about, who were

the levellers? and you will find some people who argue that they were kind of proto-marxist, or coming as we had in my view this is a confusion about what the levellers meant. first, the term leveller was an insult. they did not generally call themselves that, it is whether enemies called them. that is very, in political nomenclature, the term you have is the one that you enemies of like to you and you and end a badge of pride. there were a second group called the diggers who were communist. -- and you end up accepting it as a badge of pride. there were a second group called the diggers who were communist. they said no, we are the true levellers. what the levellers wanted was for everyone to be equal before the law. but they didn't want redistribution. so, there is sometimes confusion. there is a rock band called the levellers, which is a communist rock band, or was, back in the

when i first read christopher 1980's. hill's books, i bought them in east germany, which was something that tells about his own cartoonist predilections, werehese levelers believers in property, limited government, freedom of trade, basically libertarian ideas. you can see down there, that is the title of the essay. against all tyrants , it is against the whole thing. to every individual in nature is given a property of nature. for everyone, as he is himself, so he has a self propriety, lc else could you not be himself. just your identity is a foundation of your right, your property, in your own person. this becomes a very powerful

foundation for libertarian ideas. i think it is worth in foundation for libertarian this context, talking a bit more about freedom of religion, something that people feel really passionately about. about the eternal. about their relationship with god. this idea that we can live together, equally and freely, is a great innovation and a great achievement. i particularly like george washington's formulation of it. if you go online, you can find his letters, several of them, to the hebrew congregation. he received letters congratulating him on becoming the president and he wrote back exceptionally elegant responses to them. i will read it. it is quite powerful and the subtext is significant. washington was a serious and deep thinker. the citizens of the united states have a right to upload themselves, for coming up with a policy worthy of imitation.

now, the letter had been written to him as a kind of thank you for tottering, "the jews." powerfulesponse was so -- it is not to be spoken of as this this were the indulgence of one class of people come of that another enjoyed the exercise of your inherent rights, for happily, the government of the united states requires only that the live under its protection commission demeaned themselves as good citizens and giving on all occasions their effectual support backstop notice what he is saying. he is saying, "get off your knees next up , you do not have to thank me ". tolerating you duc these are your rights to live as

equal citizens. it would be inconsistent with the frankness of my character not to avow that i am pleased with your favorable opinion of my administration and wishes. what a powerful and beautiful conclusion. may the children of the stock of abraham who dwell in this land continue to enjoy the goodwill of the other inhabitants, while everyone shall sit in safety under his own fig tree and there shall be none to make him fraid ". it was beautiful, and it was the statement being offered. not that we are willing to tolerate you. we could crush you and persecute you, but for now we will not. instead, we want to live together as equal citizens in a free society, where there shall be none to make him afraid. this receives powerful support from individuals who embrace this idea. i have shown a few here. ke sisters, sarah and angelina, who dedicated their lives to eliminating the horror of slavery. having to witness people brutalized and beaten and oppressed and in chains.

they said it was intolerable. they could not stand it, and dedicated their whole lives. josiah wedgwood, down in the lower corner. that famous image, am i not a man and a brother? which he produced on medallions to sell to support the antislavery cause. this was supported by business people and merchants. every proper middle-class family would buy one and put it outside to demonstrate they believed in freedom and opposed the horror of slavery. william wilberforce, such an amazing figure. there is a wonderful movie about ". "amazing grace i highly recommend it. 50 years of struggle for this cause. so much suffering and so many times he was tempted to give up. it was impossible, but he persevered and lived to see the abolition of slavery all throughout the british empire. first, the slave trade, then,

the institution of slavery itself. then there's someone also elect to introduce you to, sarah alder , she lived her life by her own rights and was a powerful champion of liberty. she lived her life by her own rights. she and isabel patterson were very important writers in north america. she was from canada and elaine was from the united states. both of them were married but they seem to have misplaced their husbands. because, we don't know anything about them at all. the only thing we know about isabel patterson's husband, she once commented that he was so cheap, that there was only one name, patterson.

there are two people who made their living as independent journalists and writers. they survived writing books and magazine articles. she wrote a very powerful book in a 1943, "the discovery of freedom your car she was a little ashamed of it. ". the discovery of freedom she was a little ashamed of it. she wrote it in a few weeks. she did make a few errors in it. you don't have a library and her internet wasn't working very well, so there were some factual mistakes. later editors have gone through and corrected them. >> it is a beautiful statement of the struggle for freedom and multiple civilizations and ". ures i should add, my muslim libertarian friends, have republished the essay, correcting all of the mistakes. they were minor. but they consider it very beautiful, because they said that she saw the liberty that we see possible in our own religion and civilization and culture, so she is very popular in those circles. i highly recommend her book on one of by the way,

the kings actually propose to her. she turned him down and he married another american lady instead, but she had quite a colorful life. she was a powerful advocate for libertarian ideas in america and also, globally. out of this came a sense, something very important. let me mention one more thing on about frederick douglass. cato just published a book by my frederick douglass, "self-made man ". douglas is one of the most inspiring figures in the entire libertarian tradition. he liberated himself from slavery. his story is told in two so many autobiographies, there are so many books about him, he is extraordinarily inspiring. what a human being he was and what he accomplished. an inspiring figure. if you want a good read, read tim's book and after that, pick up one of his autobiographies. but this notion, the libertarian

creed which is so frequently misstated by our critics, they say it is about selfishness. all you care about is you. if all i cared about was me, i wouldn't be doing this. there are a lot of other things i can do for me, rather than spend my time trying to bring freedom to all of you as well. to be a libertarian doesn't mean that i just want freedom for me. most people want that. it is when i want freedom for you, that is what matters. that was expressed so beautifully. i saw this on a trip to brazil on a statue, engraved. buco, he joachim de dedicate his life to eliminating slavery in brazil. the last country in the americas to eliminate slavery. it says " educate your children, educate yourselves in the love for the freedom of others. he will be aware of the freedoms

or offend you will have the courage to defend it ". for example, our colleague at boseato institute, david use any intoxicating substances does not except coca-cola. that's it. do not offer him a pepsi. e will reject it out of hand. it is coca-cola. he doesn't smoke anything, doesn't drink any alcohol, no bad habits like that. but he has dedicated many years of his life to the cause of marijuana legalization and ending the drug war. not because he wants to light up. not because that is important to him personally, but because he says it is wrong to put people in cages and visit violence on them, smash down doors, create black markets. all the horrors of the war on drugs. it is wrong. but he doesn't do it because he wants to smoke. he definitely does not. being a libertarian is not being a selfish person. caring about what is yours. it means that you don't want to

use force on other people, and you believe in respecting their rights. property and rights, a little side point, we sometimes hear people say, oh, all you care about is property rights, what about human rights? on a mistaken understanding of what "property" means. john locke is very clear. to go back to his texts. i don't consider them like the bible, but they are important. his property, that is his life, liberty and estate -- property doesn't just mean your estate, your staff, as we would say today, it is your life, your freedom and your estate that is your property. life, liberties and estates, which i call in a general name, property. so, property means a right. when we say property rights, it is a bit redundant. today. it means right rights, trying to recapture this older language. was -- i have a property in my person.

i have a property in my opinions. property means rights and is at the foundation of the libertarian view. now, spontaneous order. to run through some more. i mentioned the importance in professionalthe= tzu in developing this idea. in his poem, the more prohibitions there are, the poor the people will be. the more edicts, the more thieves and bandits. and then this notion, i cannot say that term in chinese, i cannot say it correctly, but my colleague says the best , translation is not an activity, as it is often translated. a better translation would be active inactivity. which is a little paradoxical. it means, get the rules right and stand back and let the order emerge. wei ". is "wu

another phrase would be laissez-faire. a looser translation of wu weu. therefore, the stage is set, as long as i do nothing, the people themselves will be transformed. so long as i act only by inactivity, the people will themselves become prosperous. in other words, the ruler, the king, the magistrate has a responsibility to set a system of law and justice and rights and then let the order emerge. he also said something a bit cryptic. he said, governing a great country, a great kingdom, is like frying a small fish. then he stops. okay, how are those like each other? one way, i asked people who do fry small fish, what is it like to fry a small fish? they said, you don't poke at it all the time. you put it in the pan and let it cook. if you constantly poke at it, it is ruined.

that was his idea about interventionism. don't consciously intervene and to people's business, let them create the order that they are able to create. now, the libertarian understanding of order is much more radical than other understandings. when people talk about order, it usually has an authoritarian tone to it. order. we have to make everything "orderly ". there are different understandings of order. there is the order of the military parade, everyone margin information. there is the order of a graveyard, with all the headstones lined up. various kinds of order. the order of a human society is not like that. it is an order that emerges, not that is imposed. and it is unpredictable, and changes. goodness, i have thomas aquinas under that, and i meant, james buchanan. i apologize for that.

[laughter] not thomas aquinas. i have to go back and correct that, that is the noble winning economist, james buchanan. profound,mething so and i recommend reading his short essay on this -- the order of the market emerges only from the process of voluntary exchange. the order is, itself, defined as the process that delivers it. generates it. t, the result cannot exist independently of the training process. absent this process, there is and can be no order. it is not the case that there is an optimal allocation of resources and we can get there by market or by socialism, he said, absent the market, it is not even possible to talk about an order. the order is so directly connected to the process that generates it, but it is unnoble, we

cannot riddick the things that will rep. rice: from it as a consequence. so how would this issue come out a free society? part of the answer is, i don't know. i don't know because i don't have a blueprint for how people will order themselves. it is fun to go back and read socialist blueprints about what the future of society would be like, there are many of them. they are utterly hilarious to read them. welcome of they have some understanding, technology would allow us to do things -- when the telephone came about, they organized great symphonies with a telephone. then i will be at the other end listening to the symphony. that will be great. not understanding that technology would come up with all kinds of ways. that people would invent things, that nobody would have predicted amazon.com and this endless list of things. it is a market order that produces those outcomes, they are unpredictable. now, some interactions for

disharmony in mutual benefit, and others produce disorder. adam smith says as long as people are selfish, you will get an efficient outcome. that is terrible. adam smith did not say that, he did not say anything even remotely like that. he was focused on the rules. if the rules are right, people will pursue their interests. under any set of rules. -- you need the right roles, then he can become wealthy by helping other people. but under the wrong rules, you become rich by stealing from them. right? thieves are selfish, but they don't make society better. it is not selfishness that makes the world go round. he doesn't say anything like remotely like that. he just says, let's face it, people will pursue their own interests. ok, live with it. let us get the rights and the rules for which those interests are channeled, in ways that are beneficial to others, as well. there is the famous zero-sum game, in which the sum of the payoffs is equal to zero. this is the one that most people think characterizes most human interactions.

if i get 10, someone else lost 10. it is a dangerous mentality and in fact, these are most never exist blackboards. in the real world, only on blackboards. a real zero-sum transactions are extremely rare. some gambling circumstances could be characterized as zero-sum. normally, you get a different set of arrangements. negativ-sum gains are extremely common. the sum of the benefits is less than zero. you walk down the street, someone comes up behind and smacks you on your head. he takes your wallet. you might have $40 in your wallet. the thief gets $40, you have $200 in medical bills. you have a negative-sum outcome. theft and corruption and looting and violence is always negative -sum. government corruption is always negative-sum.

after dictators are overthrown, people say, we will redistribute what the dictator took and we will be rich. in your dreams. because the harm they did was much greater than the benefit they received. it is hard to realize about the eism does thete i societies, the kind of predatory statism. these are common. there is another kind as well, the positive sum game. the sum of the payoffs are greater than zero. john stossel opened my eyes to thinking about this in a new way years ago. he called it the double thank you. he said, you go to the store and you buy something, it is you say $1.70. thank you. they give it to you and then the store owner or clerk says thank you. so you both say thank you. that is weird, when you think about it. tumbley, if i were to and fall off and someone helped me get up, i would say, thank you. that person says, you're welcome. it would be a very strange and disturbing world if i fell down,

said thank you, and the other person said no no, thank you. there is something morally wrong about that world. [laughter] but in an exchange, we both say thank you. why? we both benefited from it. the transaction is positive-sum. what we want to do is transform m gains into -sum gain. that is one way of understanding the process of libertarian reform. turning negative some gains into positive sum games with cooperative outcomes. now, respectful rights have a huge transformative impact on the world. quite often, people ask what causes poverty? it is not unique or alone or deep in this regard, but in a piece i published with cambridge university press, i was the only person in the book that said , that is the wrong question.

the other side, what do you mean? there was a muslim was a socialist, a christian who was a socialist, and atheist who was a socialist, all of these socialists, and me. i said, that is a wrong question. the question is what causes wealth? poverty is what you get when you fail to produce wealth. contrast, wealth is not something you get when you fail to produce poverty. we try really hard to create poverty, we failed, and now everyone is rich. [laughter] that is not how the world works. we need to understand what causes wealth in the markets, in exchange, in property. put it very neatly, one of the wisest things written -- the problem with existing structures, the relevant problem is how it creates and destroys wealth. -- how it creates and destroys them. we should be less concerned about facebook's monopoly,

because facebook is very worried about the next thing that is going to come along and knock them off their perch, and rightly so. at cato, someone published a piece and quoted senior government officials complaining about the locked in, perpetual monopoly of myspace and how there had to be antitrust action to break up myspace. [laughter] this creative destruction overturns old patterns, but it creates new ones. we have to understand, it is destructive. does notriter industry exist anymore. when i was a boy, it was a really big industry and my goal in life was to become a typewriter repair man. because you would always have a job. there were many tv shows about typewriter repair and it seemed like a cool job to have. what happened to typewriter repair men? they are all victims of cold and brutal capitalism. [laughter] they went to the great

typewriter repairman graveyards and died in the millions. no, they got other jobs, they found other things to do, and now we have computers. and frankly, there better. i could never play a movie on my -- and frankly, they are better. i could never play a movie on my typewriter. if i talked to it, people would report me. [laughter] i talk to my computer all the time. what we need is what i call a hayek called a "spontaneous and abstract order of action ". this idea of libertarian order, different from the socialist mentality. it results in an overall order, that they not only do not unnecessarily interfere with thereother, but also, will be at least a good chance that correspondence will actually occur, or a modest understanding of order. it is about people able to coordinate their plans. or to put it bluntly, when i go into the grocery store, there is food there. not toxic products, or

automobile tires. store," thereod is food there. our plans are coordinated. food shows up. how does it get there? even though a socialist planner would want to know exactly which rutabagas go to which markets, markets solve that problem. let me round out to the next section by talking about the conception of law that is appropriate to that order. it is common among legal theorists to define law as a set john austin date, as a set of order and commands issued by superiors with the right to compel obedience. it is a common view of what law is about. but it is not compatible with our understanding. it was put more neatly -- it is

the enterprise of subjecting human conduct to the governance of rules. law is much wider than the state and need not be violent. there is law governing ebay and interactions on the internet. there are all kinds of laws. it is when we subject our conduct to rules and are able to coordinate our behavior and know what to expect from one another. much more pluralistic and less state-centric view of legal order. finaling then, to the point, which is limited government and the rule of law. problemthis serious that james harrington put out, how we can restrain those who manage the state. be come of to them in question seems to be how commonwealth is an empire of laws and not men. we want the rule of law, not the rule of god kings or one man who who says, "i am your voice, and my command is the law ". as we hear from so many politicians in the united states.

now, if we think about it, it also means, law is not just command, it is about a society of people who can restrain themselves -- sorry, i skipped magna-- i did talk about such principles as magna carta and so on. these are very important for putting limits on the power of the state. explicit, open and clear limits. power is not unlimited in this tradition. in the process, laws spread throughout europe. competition spurred the spread. -- the spread of municipal laws and constitutions. important cities was the city of magdeburg, which had a really efficient code. the laws of the city spread throughout europe. cities would send people to copy magdeburg to copy down the laws as a template for them. it became a sort of supreme court of adjudication throughout europe. when there was some dispute, people would send the case

to the court at magdeburg. so this spread the common legal culture throughout europe. through competitive processes. you could copy whatever laws you wanted. these were especially good ones. and as a consequence, they won out in the competition. now, i unfortunately skipped ahead again -- my great hero, norbert elliott, such an interesting person. i wish i had met him. even from his photo, he looks just looks like someone you would really be able to learn from. but in his books, he studied how it is that people came to achieve greater self-mastery and self- control. it had to do with the growing specialization of societies. people become more self-reliant. the south-determining person. self-determining person. this is a process that takes place along with the market economy. control of impulses, especially impulses toward violence. the good news is, this seems to be a long-term trend in society come up societies continue to become less bylund.

again, i highly recommend steven pinker's book on this, this is a part of the libertarian transformation of the world. now, john locke addressed the question about law and property. we sometimes hear people say, oh, there are too many laws, i am against law, we don't need law. but, they are confusing laws and commands. i agree, we don't need more comments from the state or regulatory agencies, from the president, or whomever they may have in mind. but john locke has a different understanding. is a veryk this powerful sentence -- "where there is no law, there is no freedom ". this is something i have come to understand much more, working in the post-soviet space and in in europe, and in transitional countries emerging out of dictatorships, the importance of the rule of law. ingredient and something we understand better i think, then pre-vista and a rations, because you have seen

underground how important the rule of law is. contrary to the rule of law is arbitrary power. arbitrary power by others. ,o the libertarian synthesis you have the pillars of individual rights, spontaneous order and the rule of law, and then the way the they are related. when rights are legally secure and what in contract, free people generate orders of action. much more complex than any planner could have imagined and and they voluntarily coordinate behavior for mutual advantage. to the really the key process. so our challenge as libertarians is to secure liberty through law , to limiting the state, but also by creating systems of law that allow people to voluntarily coordinate their behavior. with that, i thank you, and have

a little bit of time for conversation. if you would like to come up to the microphones. thank you very much. [applause] ? yes sir. >> quick question. in a pure market economy, does the government have any proactive role in protecting its citizens, or is it only retroactive for punishing violators? jacob: that is a broad question. certainly, you would say limited government has a responsibility to protect us from invasion, from incursion. national defense. to protect us from criminals. you don't have to wait after the fact, you would have police enforcers. as a general matter, it is very all crimeso prevent in advance. the police are there to follow up afterward. most of the crime prevention that takes place in society is not connected to the state. not to say you don't need a state at all, but we put locks on our doors.

we invest a great deal of money in protecting what is ours. think about keys, for example. you can have a car with gnocchi for an ignition, you can just push a button and it will go. but instead, we spend a lot of money on keys. it is kind of an important feature of the price of it. i was once in switzerland and they had motorbikes with no keys. i had never seen anything like that in my life. people got on it, pushed an ignition button and drove off. that told me, this is a high very high trust, low crime society, and it could also become, maybe those people in the past two did steal --orbikes disappeared, but the good thing is that they did not have to invest a lot of money. we invent a lot of crime prevention, independently of the government and what they spend. but maybe we do need the state to protect us after the fact. i would point out that even the process of apprehending criminals is not state monopolized. we do have bounty hunters in the

-- bounty agents in the united states, bounty hunters, and they catch more fugitives than the police do, with much, much, much less violence. they have a bad reputation because of some trashy reality tv shows, but the fact is, there are not immunized like police officers are. if they hurt you, they bear liability for it, so they avoid violence. so even within that context, a lot of law enforcement takes place, even in cases like that, through private, nonstate actors. yes sir. scioscia i want to say so far, i have agreed with everything you said, especially when it comes to inalienable rights, individual rationality's, free will. my question might be limited a bit in the presentation, what do you think the metaphysical foundation of those claims of objective morality are, because many opponents of say, libertarianism, whether it is

marxism, academia, they are explicit in saying that god, is no free will, no no transcendence, we are just a bag of gas and bones, so i think important for libertarians to not on the claim natural rights and free will, but also it against metaphysical reasoning. so i just wanted to get your opinion on that. scioscia here are some good news, we don't have to agree on those it questions to agree on certain outcomes. so one can be a very devout catholic or muslim or nonbeliever or whatever and still be libertarian. because we are more concerned about the conclusions, which is mutual respect for each other's rights. so there is no requirement that there be one true or one best foundation. isust don't think that necessary at all, and thank

goodness for that. the second point though, you might find a common view about human choice and an understanding of rights that need not be as metaphysically grounded as people think. this was addressed by a number of thinkers. there is a deep connection between rights and consequences. so contemporary college professors might, some of them, i have met a few who say, look, either you believe in rights, or you believe and consequences, --litarian or other then they look at people in the past and say, oh my god, these people were all confused, john locke was confused. and i say, really? are they confused, or do you just have a really dumb and simplistic taxonomy and it is their fault they don't fit in your boxes? one the way we would know what rights are are the consequences that have flowed from not respecting, or respecting them.

so, consequences are very important to the theory of rights, in almost all -- i would almost all-- formulations, that there is some connection. that is history and examining how societies prosper. which ones prosper and which ones fail, that is an important element of that. but, you don't always have to go down to those deep metaphysical points. there are those who deny these things because they argue that collective identity is the right real one. someone like martin heidegger nationallly malevolent socialist thinker, and is becoming more clear that he was a real nazi, through and through, as his writings are finally being published years after his death on that season. that. he argues that his ideas are not about individual existence. it is about the german people. that that was the only true and real thing, and that you and i are just epiphenomenal foam on

, we are just the surface. we are insignificant. we are nothing. people of that mentality are willing to kill millions of other beings, because nothing is lost. nothing was lost. are, is an intersection of social forces greater than yourself, and you, yourself, do not exist. at that metaphysical level, i do robustly reject that, although, we don't have to spell out my own view. we have a few more minutes, so probably the last question now. >> we are going through this trade war with china and china is guilty of the theft of intellectual property, improper trade practices, everything. we are losing economic power. how does the libertarian position offer a favorable outcome to that situation? prof. levy: i think you painted too gloomy a picture.

i don't think we are losing -- >> did you catch today's paper? prof. levy: no, but i will look at it later. i have heard these claims, especially from our president, and i don't think he has a deep understanding of trade. when he says, we have lost 800 billion dollars, that is an overstatement of the magnitude of the trade deficit, but let's assume he had gotten the number correct. it is the same as saying we gained that much in investment. there is an accounting identity that neither he nor wilbur ross understands. this goes a little bit far from the theory of individual rights. savings minus investments equals exports minus imports. if imports are greater than exports, a means investment is greater than savings. so the same thing we call a trade deficit can be translated into a capital account surplus. so i have two headlines, the u.s. trade deficit goes up and people say, oh my god, that is bad.

the same facts in another headline -- more foreigners invest more in our economy. that doesn't sound negative. they are actually the same. they are simply the same. so, the question about chinese behavior on intellectual property by the wto, is an important matter that is covered by wto law, and i think it should have been hashed out at that level. but punishing soybean farmers to protect people who do business in china and have been wrong i case, iave a legitimate don't think it is the correct answer. but, we can talk about that further and i will be happy to see the news article you pointed out. i think to the extent that there are legitimate complaints about chinese behavior, they are best handled in a form of law, the wto, and not through what we have been seeing. we will see how it plays out, but i am not optimistic about the current path.

i am authentically very scared about the harm that will be visited on us through a trade war. with that, we have 27 seconds left. so i will take that time. start againwe will on time with the next presentation. and remember, this evening dinner will not be here. , we will be meeting at 5:45 pm for transportation to the winery, where they actually do make wine, and will have wonderful food and a presentation. thank you very much. [applause] >> next, mcgill university political science professor jacob levy talks about how the concept of liberty and western civilization changed during the 18th and 19th centuries. minute longd 15 session is part of the symposium on history and philosophy posted by the cato institute.