The Principles of Liberty

PREAMBLE

Whereas liberty is the condition in which coercion of some by others is reduced as much as possible in society;

Whereas the rule of law, not the rule of men, is the foundation of a free civilization;

Whereas the spontaneous order emerging from the free actions of individuals produces outcomes superior to any consciously designed arrangement;

Whereas the dispersion of knowledge throughout society is such that no single mind or body can possess sufficient information to direct the affairs of others;

Whereas coercion is the greatest threat to human dignity and productive social life;

The Founding Father hereby resolves and enacts the following:

SECTION I — THE NATURE OF LIBERTY

1.1 Liberty is defined as the absence of coercion by other persons. It is not the ability to do whatever one pleases, nor the possession of any particular means or outcomes, but solely freedom from the arbitrary will of another.

1.2 Liberty in this sense is distinguished from political liberty, inner freedom, and material capacity. This law concerns itself solely with liberty as freedom from coercion.

1.3 A free person may be poor, may lack opportunity, and may be constrained by circumstance, yet still be free in the sense this law affirms, so long as no other person or body compels that person by threat of force.

1.4 Coercion occurs when one person so controls the environment of another that the latter has no choice but to act as the former directs. Coercion makes a person a tool of another's will rather than a self-directed agent.

1.5 The reduction of coercion in society is the primary purpose of just law and just government.

1.6 When spontaneous order, undesigned wisdom, and control and structuring are spoken of, it is in reference to the human capacity. No single human person can design society, and still men in general cannot uniformly and exactly do it either. God is the only person who can willfully and intelligently design society and order events; and He reveals this process to many different individuals and groups working together. Therefore the accumulated wisdom of a society is the revealing of this willful divine design, but it cannot be thus controlled by men.

SECTION II — THE RULE OF LAW

2.1 The rule of law means that government in all its actions is bound by rules fixed and announced beforehand, rules which make it possible for individuals to foresee with reasonable certainty how authority will use its coercive power and plan their individual affairs accordingly.

2.2 Law shall be general and abstract. It shall not be directed at specific persons, groups, or outcomes, but shall apply equally to all without exception or privilege. It is predicated on the Christian respect for the proliferation of man's individual gifts and bents on his accord, as God sees fit to bestow.

2.3 Law shall be known and certain. It shall be publicly available, clearly written, and stable over time so that individuals may order their conduct with confidence.

2.4 Law shall be equal. The same rules that bind citizens bind government officers. No one stands above the law.

2.5 The rule of law requires that all exercises of coercive power by government conform strictly to previously established and publicly known rules. Administrative discretion that exceeds this is incompatible with the rule of law.

2.6 Legislation that grants officials discretionary power to coerce individuals according to the official's own judgment of desirable outcomes is contrary to the rule of law and is hereby condemned.

2.7 No retroactive law shall be enacted or enforced.

SECTION III — LAW, LEGISLATION, AND SPONTANEOUS ORDER

3.1 Law, in its true sense, is not made but discovered. The rules of just conduct emerge from the long experience of human social life and are prior to any act of legislation.

3.2 Legislation is the deliberate enactment of rules by authorized bodies. Legislation is legitimate only when it articulates, clarifies, or enforces the prior and emergent rules of just conduct. Legislation that purports to design social outcomes from above is not law in this sense but mere command.

3.3 The spontaneous order of society, emerging from the free interactions of countless individuals, each acting on their own knowledge, is not the product of design and cannot be improved upon by design. It is a higher order of complexity than any planned arrangement.

3.4 The price system is the primary mechanism by which the dispersed and inarticulate knowledge of millions of individuals is coordinated. No government body can replicate or improve upon this mechanism by central direction.

3.5 Attempts to organize economic or social life according to a central plan necessarily fail because the knowledge required for such planning is not available to any single mind or body and cannot be made so available.

3.6 Government shall confine itself to establishing the framework of general rules within which the spontaneous order of free persons may operate. It shall not attempt to direct the outcomes of that order.

SECTION IV — COERCION AND ITS LIMITS

4.1 The only legitimate use of coercion by government is to prevent or remedy coercion by private persons.

4.2 Government may coerce an individual only to enforce compliance with the general rules of just conduct that apply equally to all.

4.3 Coercion for the purpose of achieving particular social or economic outcomes, redistributing wealth, equalizing conditions, or realizing any vision of a planned society is not legitimate.

4.4 Taxation is recognized as a form of coercion. It is legitimate only where it is general, non-discriminatory, clearly authorized by law, and used only to fund those functions of government necessary to maintain the framework of liberty.

4.5 Taxation levied for the purpose of redistributing wealth or engineering social outcomes exceeds the legitimate scope of government coercion.

SECTION V — ECONOMIC FREEDOM

5.1 Economic freedom and political freedom are inseparable. The erosion of one necessarily entails the erosion of the other.

5.2 Private property is the institutional foundation of individual liberty. Without the security of property, individuals cannot form independent plans of life free from the coercion of others or of government.

5.3 Freedom of contract is affirmed as a necessary component of a free society. Individuals shall be free to enter into voluntary agreements on terms of their own choosing.

5.4 No government body shall fix prices, wages, or the terms of voluntary exchange. The coordination of economic activity shall be left to the free decisions of individuals operating within the general rules of just conduct.

5.5 Competition is affirmed as the organizing principle of economic life. No government body shall suppress competition through regulation, licensing barriers, or the grant of monopoly privilege except where strictly necessary to maintain the conditions of competition itself.

5.6 No government body shall direct investment, allocate resources, or organize production according to any central plan.

SECTION VI — THE WELFARE STATE AND ITS LIMITS

6.1 Government may legitimately provide a minimum floor of subsistence beneath which no citizen shall fall, where the ordinary mechanisms of the market have failed through no fault of the individual, so long as such provision does not destroy the incentive structure or the general framework of a free market economy.

6.2 Such provision shall be general and universal in its application. It shall not be used as an instrument of direction, control, or social engineering.

6.3 Any system of social provision that grants government discretionary power over the conditions of individuals, makes individuals dependent on the favor of administrators, or requires individuals to conform their behavior to government preferences in exchange for benefits is incompatible with liberty.

6.4 The expansion of government provision beyond a defined minimum floor, and the use of such provision to pursue equality of outcome or to reshape social arrangements, is condemned as incompatible with a free society.

6.5 Monopoly provision of services by government, whether in education, housing, welfare, or other domains, forecloses the competition and diversity of provision through which individuals exercise meaningful choice and through which better arrangements are discovered.

SECTION VII — DEMOCRACY AND ITS PROPER LIMITS

7.1 Democracy is affirmed as a mechanism for the peaceful transfer and accountability of power. It is not affirmed as unlimited popular sovereignty over the rights of individuals.

7.2 Democratic majorities do not possess the authority to enact laws that violate the general rules of just conduct applicable to all persons equally.

7.3 The rule of law constrains democratic government. A law passed by majority that is not general, not abstract, and not equally applicable is not consistent with the rule of law regardless of its democratic pedigree.

7.4 The purpose of a constitution is to constrain government, including democratic government, within the framework of general rules. Constitutional limits are not procedural suggestions but binding expressions of the prior law of liberty.

7.5 The unlimited sovereignty of democratic majorities, when not constrained by the rule of law and constitutional limits, leads inevitably toward the same concentration of power and suppression of liberty as other forms of unlimited government.

SECTION VIII — TRADITION, CULTURE, AND INSTITUTIONAL EVOLUTION

8.1 The institutions through which free societies have achieved ordered liberty, including law, property, contract, family, religion, and voluntary association, are the product of a long and largely undesigned evolution. They embody accumulated knowledge and experience that no deliberate design can replicate or safely discard.

8.2 Reform of institutions shall proceed incrementally and with deference to the wisdom embedded in existing arrangements. Radical redesign of social institutions according to abstract theories is condemned as incompatible with the nature of social knowledge.

8.3 The moral and cultural inheritance of a civilization is not the product of any individual's design and is not the property of any government to remake. It is the spontaneous product of generations of human experience and shall be accorded respect accordingly.

8.4 The family, religious institutions, and voluntary associations are the primary institutions through which social order is maintained and transmitted. Government shall not supplant, undermine, or engineer replacements for these institutions.

SECTION IX — ENFORCEMENT

9.1 No law, regulation, rule, or administrative action inconsistent with the principles of this law shall be deemed valid.

9.2 Any exercise of government power that is not grounded in general, abstract, publicly known, and equally applicable rules is contrary to this law and subject to challenge and repeal.

9.3 Citizens possess standing to challenge any government action that constitutes coercion not authorized by the general rules of just conduct as defined herein.

9.4 All existing statutes, regulations, and administrative rules shall be reviewed for consistency with the principles of this law, and those found inconsistent shall be repealed.