ELI ON LIBERTY Asking people to forego parasitism (if they’re weak) or predation

ELI ON LIBERTY

Asking people to forego parasitism (if they’re weak) or predation (if they’re strong) is asking them to bear a substantial opportunity cost. They will only do so if someone stands ready to impose a higher actual cost for choosing to engage in them.

Liberty must be manufactured by violence.

Libertarians love to sing liberty’s praises, and there is much to be said in its favor. But it does not follow from this that liberty is always in everyone’s best interests. There are many people who stand to lose more from liberty than they would stand to gain. (And not just because they misperceive the situation.) There are still more people for whom the uncertainty over what they would stand to gain or lose would make desiring liberty irrational.

The incentives that favor liberty do not exist by default, they must be proactively created. And in order for this to happen there must be people likely to benefit from liberty, people who can make good use of it, strong people, capable people, wise people, intelligent people, responsible people, farsighted people; in short, aristocrats. And they must organize to impose liberty on the remainder by force, and in many cases, to their detriment, or to their enduring resentment.

– Northman