An Argument Agianst Minarchy

The primary role of government is to protect the rights of the individual.  This truth is self-evident, if The Declaration of Independence and The Social Contract are to be believed.  From this, minarchists, (the core of The Libertarian Party), draw the conclusion that the one and only role of government is to protect those rights, deemed by them as life liberty and property, the "Natural Rights" of man.  The philoshopy is summed up by the phrase, "minimum government, maximum liberty."

Sounds great, until those pesky modern liberals show up with these idea's about "Positive Liberty", the power to fulfill your potential. For instance, if the government doesn't support seniors in their old age, they my not find the liberty to retire. They say that the government should work to achieve a balance of high positive liberty, and high negative liberty (freedom from having your rights infringed open). 

Minarchists deny, that positive liberty is a concern of the government, claiming you are not entitled to force others to give you and opportunities.  I am not going to deny that claim.  What I am going to do is claim that we have one positive liberty that we should be granted by nature.  The right to live from the land.



Consider this, when we are born, we are born suited to live of the land.  Our hunter-gatherer ancestors always took for granted that they did not have to rely on other humans or the ownership of property to survive.  And they had a right to take that for granted as well, as humans are made from the same matter that was once in other organisms and before that the earth and atmosphere.  We are part of the earth, that is simple science, and as such we are entitled to the chance to reap the benefits of the earth.  Modern society no longer allows all of us to do that.  I propose, therefore, that society must compensate all of it's members with the resources to survive and prosper, at least until it is possible once more to live from the land without "purchasing" it.