Freedom

Tired of the hackneyed ‘Frankenstein’ theme, wherein robots destroyed their creators, the science fiction writer, Isaac Asimov came up with stories of robots that obeyed his three laws, namely :

1)A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2)A robot must obey orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3)A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

In short, a robot was programmed to protect itself, so long as that act did not harm a human being.

Similarly, Libertarian philosophy preaches the principle of individual liberty, that an individual human being has sovereign rights over his life and property, making allowance only for the life, liberty or property of another human being. An individual enjoys total freedom, except when such freedom impinges on the freedom of another individual.

At a time when this principle was propounded or when Ayn Rand wrote her “Atlas Shrugged’ glorifying the role of entrepreneurial industrialists who created wealth in a free market, it was assumed that such acts did not harm any other human being and so were in consonance with the philosophy of individual liberty.

But, is there any act of an individual’s that does not impact another human being? . Bastiat, who came up with the definition, “Existence, faculties, assimilation—in other words, personality, liberty, property—that is what man is.”, also argued, in the same breath, that even the freedom to vote could be confined to the ones who have the capacity to weigh issues, :

“Because it is not the voter alone who must bear the consequences of his vote; because each vote involves and affects the whole community; because the community clearly has the right to require some guarantee as to the acts on which its welfare and existence depend.” ( via).

So, even my right to vote comes with a certain caveat.

But, back to the question, “Is there any act of an individual that does not impact another human being? Now, we are a little more enlightened on the matter than during the era of Ayn Rand. An American industrialist quietly pouring metal in his steel plant is consuming and depleting non-recyclable resources that belong to the earth, and emitting CO2 that adds to the greenhouse effect and changes the climate where I live. Every single substance that any one of us, using our individual freedom, quietly produce and consume - from a paper cup to pins to Coke and pizzas- profoundly impacts individuals in distant parts of the world.

That’s why the concept needs a re-think today. That’s why regulation becomes necessary. Libertarian cheerleaders again claim that a ‘carbon trade’ mechanism, when let loose in a free market, will automatically ensure the happening of whatever is intended to be achieved through regulation. This is saying that whatever harm the free market has created will be cured by the same free market, which certainly lacks credibility.

Note : Taking a cue from my previous post, a friend comments that he is not sure if I am trying nowadays to be the most humorous of the serious writers or the most serious of the humour writers and will the real Raj stand up and stop making an ass of himself? So, in deference to these sentiments, I shall label such posts as “boring stuff’ for ease of skipping. I am coming up with such posts merely to understand the subjects myself.