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Does left-libertarianism havecoherent foundations?
Mathias Risse
Harvard University, USA
abstract
Left-libertarian theories of justice hold that agents are full self-owners andthat natural resources are owned in some egalitarian manner. Somephilosophers find left-libertarianism promising because it seems that itcoherently underwrites both some demands of material equality and somelimits on the permissible means of promoting such equality. However, themain goal of this article is to argue that, as far as coherence is concerned, atleast one formulation of left-libertarianism is in trouble. This formulation isthat of Michael Otsuka, who published it first in a 1998 article, and now in histhought-provoking book 
 Libertarianism Without Inequality
. In a nutshell, myobjection is that the set of reasons that support egalitarian ownership of natural resources as Otsuka understands it stand in a deep tension with the setof reasons that would prompt one to endorse Otsuka’s right to self-ownership.In light of their underlying commitments, a defender of either of the viewsthat left-libertarianism combines would actually have to reject the other. Thisincoherence, it seems, can only be remedied either by an approach thatrenders left-libertarianism incomplete in a way that can only be fixed byendorsing more commitments than most left-libertarians would want to or byan approach that leaves left-libertarianism a philosophically shallow theory.
keywords
equality, left-libertarianism, libertarianism, original appropriation, property,self-ownership
1.
Left-libertarianism is not a new star on the sky of political philosophy, but it wasthrough the recent publication of Peter Vallentyne and Hillel Steiner’s antholo-
politics,philosophy&economicsarticle
DOI:10.1177/1470594X04046246Mathias Risse is an Assistant Professor of Public Policy and Philosophy at the John F. KennedySchool of Government, 79 JFK St., Eliot 209, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA[email: mathias_risse@ksg.harvard.edu]
337
©SAGE Publications LtdLondonThousand Oaks,CAand New Delhi1470-594X200405 3(3) 337–364
 
gies that it became clearly visible as a contemporary movement with distincthistorical roots. ‘Left-libertarian theories of justice’, explains Vallentyne:
hold that agents are full self-owners and that natural resources are owned in someegalitarian manner. Unlike most versions of egalitarianism, left-libertarianism endorsesfull self-ownership, and thus places specific limits on what others may do to one’sperson without one’s permission. Unlike . . . right-libertarianism . . . it holds thatnatural resources . . . may be privately appropriated only with the permission of, orwith a significant payment to, the members of society. Like right-libertarianism, left-libertarianism holds that the basic rights of individuals are ownership rights . . . Left-libertarianism is promising because it
coherently
underwrites both some demands of material equality and some limits on the permissible means of promoting this equality.
1
It is easy to see why left-libertarianism is philosophically appealing. We areasked to accept an apparently plausible and minimal claim about persons (‘who
would 
own them if not they themselves?’), as well as an equally plausible andminimal claim about external resources (‘surely all persons must, in some sense,be situated equally with regard to such resources, since it is nobody’s accom-plishment that those exist’). However, the main goal of this article is to questionwhat Vallentyne claims in that last sentence: as far as
coherence
is concerned, atleast one formulation of left-libertarianism is in trouble. This formulation is thatof Michael Otsuka, who published it first in a 1998 article, and now in histhought-provoking book 
 Libertarianism Without Inequality
(hereafter referredto as LWI).
2
In a nutshell, my objection is that the set of reasons that supportegalitarian ownership of natural resources as Otsuka understands it stand in adeep tension with the set of reasons that would prompt one to endorse Otsuka’sright to self-ownership. In light of their underlying commitments, a defender of either of the views that left-libertarianism combines would actually have to rejectthe other. This incoherence, it seems, can only be remedied either by an approachthat renders left-libertarianism incomplete in a way that can only be fixed byendorsing more commitments than most left-libertarians would want to or by anapproach that leaves left-libertarianism a philosophically shallow theory.
3
To be clear, I grant that Otsuka’s brand of libertarianism is
consistent 
: theremay well be circumstances under which individuals find both their libertarianright to self-ownership and egalitarian ownership of external resources respected.However, there is no unified point of view, no single stance from which thepositions combined here look jointly plausible. To put my main point differently,Otsuka’s left-libertarianism brings two views together that are compatible in thesense of being consistent, but not compatible in the sense of being coherent; itis possible that the two principles could be jointly realized, but the reasonsfor accepting the principles cannot be harmonized – lest one renders left-libertarianism incomplete in a manner that its defenders will have trouble fixingor turn it into a shallow theory.
4
If I am right, the objection does not stand andfall with Otsuka’s specific formulation of self-ownership, nor with his version of 
politics, philosophy & economics 3(3)338
 
egalitarian ownership of resources. The problem lies in the attempt to combinetwo ideas that resist such combination, and thus raises doubts about the verypossibility of a credible
left-
libertarianism. While I sense that this concern aboutleft-libertarianism is widespread, I state my objection with caution: more is worthsaying here, so left-libertarians may well command resources to respond that Iam unaware of. This is so especially since my concern, once properly spelled out,turns on a broad range of substantive and methodological issues.The idea that natural resources are owned in an egalitarian manner, central toleft-libertarianism, and more generally the subject of the original ownershipstatus of the world, is under-explored. This is surprising, because on the face of it that subject matters profoundly. If external resources are commonly owned,radical changes in domestic and international politics may seem mandatory.Associations of people excluding others from their territory without compensa-tion (states) would become questionable. Individuals would not be entitled towealth because of inheritance or luck if less fortunate co-owners have overridingclaims. Also, common ownership of external resources provides strong reasonsto care about the environment: we are guardians of resources that we
 possess
onlybecause we are currently alive, but we do not
own
any more than our 22nd-century offspring do (we are ‘but tenants for a day’, as Henry George put it
5
).Since despite such potential implications, the original ownership status of theworld is rarely subject to scrutiny, I investigate both that idea and how it can becombined with libertarian self-ownership in a broader manner than requiredfor assessing Otsuka’s views. While I will be unable to follow up on importantquestions that this inquiry touches, it is a secondary, but distinct, purpose of thisarticle to trigger more interest in this subject of the original ownership status of the world. The challenge posed by this subject is to explore what arguments favorone thesis about original ownership over another, and more philosophical light isneeded here. My focus in this article, at any rate, will be on ideas about originalownership and how they can be combined with self-ownership, rather than onexploring different versions of self-ownership itself.
6
A note should be made regarding right-libertarianism. If we define right- andleft-libertarians as mutually exclusive and jointly exhaustive groups, right-libertarianism’s
differentia
is the denial of any recognizably egalitarian owner-ship of external resources. There are different ways of subscribing to such adenial. Jan Narveson seems to deny that any compensation is owed if unownedresources are acquired.
7
Right-libertarians of this kind do acknowledge con-straints on appropriation, but only nonmoral constraints, such as the requirementthat appropriation by first occupancy extends only to things the occupier canmeaningfully be said to occupy. Other right-libertarians insist that objects of appropriation
in the relevant sense
are not ‘external’ to begin with. So no ques-tion about ownership of ‘external’ objects arises. Israel Kirzner, for one, arguesthat ‘until a resource has been discovered,
it has not 
, in the sense relevant to therights of access and common use,
existed at all
’.
8
Although
left-
libertarians tend
Risse: Does left-libertarianism have coherent foundations?339
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