Reason features a debate this month:
Libertarians traditionally have viewed coercion, especially when institutionalized in the form of government, as the main threat to freedom. But cultural pressures outside the state also can restrict people’s ability to live as they please. Is that another limit on liberty worth criticizing, or is it a function of voluntary choices?
Kerry Howley argues, yes, “freedom is about more than just the absence of government.” Todd Seavey answers, no, “Freedom’s Just Another Word for Kerry Howley’s Preferences,” and Daniel McCarthy contends that, “Tolerance is important but difficult to define and easily subverted.”
This is a debate that Howley and Seavey have been engaged in for years. See, for example, here, here, here and here. As Howley summed up her position in one of her prior exchanges with Seavey:
Thus, a black man who cannot hold employment by law is unfree, but a black man who cannot hold employment because social custom is such that no one will hire him is as free as any white man. A gay couple who must stay closeted to avoid social ostracism is as free as any hetero couple. A woman who has to choose between purdah and exile from her village is basically living in a libertarian paradise, so long as no one writes the rules down.
Howley also notes that Roderick Long and Charles Johnson address some similar issues in Libertarian Feminism: Can This Marriage Be Saved?
Ilya Somin has a long and detailed post on Howley’s piece, addressing some of the arguments and putting the debate within the context of libertarian thought more broadly. Howley responds here, and Somin fires round two here.
Muse Free argues that this is “the oldest libertarian debate” but also says that “it seems to be that these people are speaking a but past each other, or at the very least, their debate is more semantical than substantive.”
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