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The Libertarian Worldview
The libertarian worldview “valorizes the individual, human rights, and respect for persons” (Simmons, 2020, p. 112). Someone who is narrating from the libertarian worldview will place a strong emphasis on an individual’s liberties and rights, and will bristle at any attempts—perceived or otherwise—to curtail them through coercion.
The libertarian worldview is made up of three sub-narratives, each of which presents a different permutation of the sentence “The Victim is abused by the Villain.”
- Consent – “Rational Citizens are coerced by the Bad King.” (Libertarian vs. Securitarian)
- Property – “Rational Citizens are coerced by the Ignorant Masses.” (Libertarian vs. Egalitarian)
- Merit – “Rational Citizens are coerced by Dangerous Enemies.” (Libertarian vs. Dignitarian)
Examples of the Consent Narrative
Rational citizens are coerced by the bad king.
John Locke
Second Treatise (1690/1980)
The natural liberty of man is to be free from any superior power on earth, and not to be under the will or legislative authority of man, but to have only the law of nature for his rule. The liberty of man in society is to be under no other legislative power but that established by consent.
Declaration of Independence of the United States
(1776)
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,—That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
Gene Sharp
From Dictatorship to Democracy: A Conceptual Framework for Liberation (2012)
The oft quoted phrase “Freedom is not free” is true. No outside force is coming to give oppressed people the freedom they so much want. People will have to learn how to take that freedom themselves. Easy it cannot be.
Ayn Rand
Atlas Shrugged (1957)
The man in Bedroom A, Car No. 1, was a professor of sociology who taught that individual ability is of no consequence, that individual effort is futile, that an individual conscience is a useless luxury, that there is no individual mind or character or achievement, that everything is achieved collectively, and that it’s masses that count, not men.
Examples of the Property Narrative
Rational citizens are coerced by the ignorant masses.
John Locke
Second Treatise (1690/1980)
But because no Political Society can be nor subsist without having in itself the power to preserve the property, and in order thereunto punish the offences of all those of that society; there and there only is political society.
Niccolo Machiavelli
The Prince (translated by N.H. Thompson, 1992)
Nevertheless, a Prince should inspire fear in such a fashion that if he do not win love he may escape hate. For a man may very well be feared and yet not hated, and this will be the case so long as he does not meddle with the property or with the women of his citizens and subjects. And if constrained to put any to death, he should do so only when there is manifest cause or reasonable justification. But, above all, he must abstain from the property of others. For men will sooner forget the death of their father than the loss of their patrimony.
Florence White Williams
The Little Red Hen (1924)
Then, probably because she had acquired the habit, the Red Hen called: ‘Who will eat the Bread?’ All the animals in the barnyard were watching hungrily and smacking their lips in anticipation, and the Pig said, ‘I will,’ the Cat said, ‘I will,’ the Rat said, ‘I will.’ But the Little Red Hen said, ‘No, you won’t. I will.’ And she did.
Hernando de Soto
The Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else (2000)
I do not think Bill Gates or any entrepreneur in the West could be successful without property rights systems based on a strong, well-integrated social contract. I humbly suggest that before any brahmin who lives in a bell jar tries to convince us that succeeding at capitalism requires certain cultural traits, we should first try to see what happens when developing and former communist countries establish property rights systems that can create capital for everyone.
Examples of the Merit Narrative
Rational citizens are coerced by dangerous enemies.
John Locke
A Letter Concerning Toleration (1689/2010)
It is one thing to persuade, another to command; one thing to press with arguments, another with penalties. This civil power alone has a right to do; to the other, goodwill is authority enough.
Milton Friedman
Capitalism and Freedom (1962)
On the contrary, I believe strongly that the color of a man’s skin or the religion of his parents is, by itself, no reason to treat him differently; that a man should be judged by what he is and what he does and not by these external characteristics. I deplore what seem to me the prejudice and narrowness of outlook of those whose tastes differ from mine in this respect and I think the less of them for it. But in a society based on free discussion, the appropriate recourse is for me to seek to persuade them that their tastes are bad and that they should change their views and their behavior, not to use coercive power to enforce my tastes and my attitudes on others.
Donald Trump
(quoted in The New York Times, August 6, 2015)
I think the big problem this country has is being politically correct. I’ve been challenged by so many people and I don’t, frankly, have time for total political correctness. And to be honest with you, this country doesn’t have time, either.
Allan Bloom
The Closing of the American Mind: How Higher Education Has Failed Democracy and Impoverished the Souls of Today’s Students (1987)
Affirmative action now institutionalizes the worst aspects of separatism. The fact is that the average black student’s achievements do not equal those of the average white student in the good universities, and everybody knows it. It is also a fact that the university degree of a black student is also tainted, and employers look on it with suspicion, or become guilty accomplices in the toleration of incompetence. The worst part of all this is that the black students, most of whom avidly support this system, hate its consequences. A disposition composed of equal parts of shame and resentment has settled on many black students who are beneficiaries of preferential treatment. They do not like the notion that whites are in the position to do them favors. They believe that everyone doubts their merit, their capacity for equal achievement. Their successes become questionable in their own eyes. Those who are good students fear that they are equated with those who are not, that their hard-won credentials are not credible. They are the victims of a stereotype, but one that has been chosen by black leadership.
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