The Political Aquarium: Contrasting Libertarian Traditions in the US & Europe

Classic libertarianism, like most political ideologies, had a European conception. However, it was most readily accepted and flourished across the Atlantic, where it influenced the political leanings of the founding fathers of the modern-day United States.

The British philosopher John Locke is associated with the codification of Libertarian thought in his magnus opus “Two Treatises of Government”.[1] This was an explicit refutation of the political philosopher Robert Filmer, and an implicit critique of Thomas Hobbes. Both had written in defence of the traditional monarchical system, whose merits were in debate in the 17^thcentury. Writing in the wake of the English Civil War, Filmer and Hobbes were strongly in favour of a dominating, unifying, enforcing sovereign authority in the shape of a monarch.[2] [3]

The mode of political discourse at this time was based on what is known as Social Contract Theory. This was based on Hobbes’ imagining of a “State ofNature”, a unpoliticized state of being. It does not refer to a particular moment in human history to which one can look to and observe a world free of political influence, but rather, it refers to the state of the human condition when it is absolutely free of any political interference or social constructed institutions. For Hobbes, the state of nature meant a dangerous existence which was “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short”. This required the metaphorical social contract with a monarch which the citizens entrusted with keeping their security.

For Locke, the state of nature was not as dismal as painted by Hobbes. Instead, the sate of nature was virtuous as it allowed liberty and human nature ensured that neighbours’ actions were, for the most part, in concert. However, a social contract to allow minimal government was endorsed by Locke, as a means to preserving this liberty and providing the means to which individual freedoms could excel. This is the classic libertarian stance and was readily accepted by the founding fathers of the United States as the political basis for their new federation of states, which mandated direct government at the state, rather than national, level.

The libertarian standpoint is still very strong in the modern America with strong libertarian lobbies within the two major parties, and a smaller libertarian party also contesting elections. Even in the literary and motion-picture culture, in Randian heroes such as Howard Rourke and John Galt,[4] and in the hero protagonists of many old Westerns that celebrate the fiercely independent frontier spirit, there is a proud sense that libertarianism is in step with the American ideal and US exceptionalism.

While analysis of libertarianism in the US has often been best viewed in light of the American laissez-faire capitalist structure that prevails there, conversely, in Europe the tradition of libertarianism has traditionally been most associated with those who protest state socialism, which is seen as the injection of government into virtually every aspect of the state and therefore being the most suffocating system of government on individual freedoms and private property. Unlike the synchronicity of US libertarianism with the prevailing political culture and tradition, there is a distinctly counter-culture or political-opposition flavour to libertarianism in the European context.

The Austrian school of economics, a school of libertarian economic thought, was established by Ludwig von Mises and argued against the socialist trend in Europe in the early 20^th century, as European states began to adopt a so-called European Social Model, based around the emergence of the welfare state.[5] Mises decried that “The continued existence of society depends upon private property.”[6] However, the welfare state is an almost uniquely European, and proudly European phenomenon, and consequently libertarianism is relegated to the meek but important role of critique and reason.