Libertarians have some serious questions to answer
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Dear libertarians,
As a conservative I am always intruiged by libertarian angles on some of the problems facing society. The government having faith in its citizens, giving them the freedom to make choices and not unduly interfering in their lives are all principles that I broadly subscribe to. What I find harder to reconcile is the seemingly unflinching commitment to markets and freedom versus my desire to see central or local government step in when things start to go wrong for certain individuals – a classic example being social services. The report on Baby P reignited my concerns and I really wonder how libertarians can look at what happened and not wince a little.
Before I go any further, let me remind you that I have little faith in government to get things right and I would very much like to see the government get its nose out of a huge number of policy areas. Authoritarian governments only lead us down the wrong road and we are witnessing the evidence of such failures in the papers every day at the moment. However, as I mentioned a few days ago when discussing the case of two sisters being abused by their dad for years in Sheffield, I am not a fan of government simply walking away from society and being restricted to a law enforcement role. Social services strikes me as a clear case of where libertarianism and free markets start to look very shaky. This originally surfaced when the Local Government Association called for the establishment of a central national database of at-risk families in the aftermath of the Sheffield abuse case, and I found it hard to disagree with them. In that instance, the failure to track at-risk children as the father kept moving his daughters between schools had devastating consequences. The prospect of the ContactPoint national database for all children is grotesque and would be a tragic loss of liberties for every child in the country, but the argument for following children thought to be in danger is more compelling.
The Baby P report yesterday brought this back to the fore. The amount of evidence suggesting that incompetence is rife within Haringey Council is shocking. However, the summary of the report also noted several issues that bring libertarian principles into question:
On the assumption that libertarians believe in small government and do not believe in large state-run institutions, I wonder how this can be interpreted in a positive light. If social services didn’t exist, how would any local area coordinate child protection services? How would information be shared properly? Would random individuals really step into the breach to save vulnerable children? Would they have the experience and knowledge to be able to help, even if they tried? Libertarians might say that in a free market some solutions would come forward (e.g. private social services agencies) but without a government to make sure that they don’t cut and run when things get tough, who can say that things would have been any better for Baby P? Market solutions don’t appear overnight, they evolve. While this wouldn’t be a problem for a price war between Tescos and Sainsburys, can you really apply the same logic to protecting children?
Markets have winners and losers by definition and I for one would not be happy with ‘losers’ when it comes to child abuse. It’s all well and good talking about principles of freedom and small government but seeing as no government would ever disband social services it does make me wonder whether libertarians have much to offer in this policy area. Innovation and enterprise is essential if local government is to move into the 21st century (preferably before the end of the 21st century) and I think the possibility of having competitive tenders for social services might work instead of having in-house and grossly incompetent social workers running the show and leaving children to be beaten to death. However, I look at what happened to Baby P and am very tempted to throw all ’small government’ arguments out the window. ‘Limited government’ makes sense and I think the state should be rolled back wherever possible, but the government should never walk away from helping those in desperate need and just hope that the market jumps in to save them.
Yours sincerely,
Witanagemot Blogs
I’ll bite.
I style myself as a libertarian conservative; I do believe in small government over a centralised behemoth so I guess this letter is sort of aimed at people like me.
When I say that I believe in small government, I can best explain that by reference to the classical liberal pillars that a government should protect its citizens life, liberty and property. Most of the time, this means arguing against ridiculous, anti-liberal measures like 42 days or the war on drugs or persecuting drinkers and smokers. This is to stress the liberty angle. Protecting the life of citizens is generally taken to mean having an army to fight off the Europeans (19th C French, 20th C Germans). However, I would argue that it is also a requirement to protect its citizens from within with solid law enforcement by competent authorities. This is where things went wrong with Baby P.
The social workers were incompetent, the Police were, for whatever reason, sidelined, the Doctors failed to spot what was going on and the life and liberty of a child were destroyed, which was a clear ‘fail’ in libertarian terms. This didn’t happen because of an overarching libertarian philosophy – this happened in a traditionally hard left borough under the watchful central control of the State. Nobody suggested on libertarian grounds that the social workers shouldn’t have visited 60 times; criticism is instead rightly focussed on the inept decisions taken by the Social Services team.
Part of the problem was that the mother’s fecklessness was rewarded by the state.
She had never worked, she had three children. Her house and all financial benefits were paid by the state.
This culture is part of the problem.
Agree with Shaun. ‘Small government’ shouldn’t mean ‘no government’, but it should have the right priorities.
Child protection would obviously be one of them.
Interesting comments.
I accept that many libertarians don’t want to dismantle the entire government, and that the welfare state culture in this country is shocking. However, I do not see how libertarianism squares with going into people’s houses and taking away their children? How can a libertarian ever support that when it’s a purely subjective judgement about who is fit to be a parent and who is not – based on criteria set by central government?
I even went onto the UK Libertarian Party website (I flogged myself afterwards) and didn’t find a single mention of social services, child protection or anything remotely similar – which seems to reinforce my view that the very existence of social services and the role it plays simply does not fit with libertarian principles.
In the Baby P case and in many others it seems that charities can have a lot more pwer than government. For example, the RSPCA has the right to remove neglected/abused animals from their owners and to ban them from keeping animals. Suffering dogs are also humanely put-down but for humans there is a constant legal battle as to whether someone has the right to take their own life – this to me should be where the libertarians fight. There can be no greater fight that the one to own our own lives, and have the right to end them.
Anway I digress, I am not a raving libertarian and am quite pleased about the smoking ban because as I see it – Everyone has a right to ‘clean air’. Baby P’s mother was banned from keeping pets after abuse – why can this not be done for children – surely if it is assumed that a person who abuses pets once is likely to do it again – can we not make the same assumption about people having children! This would require charities such as the NSPCC to have greater powers or much more effective power from government. I don’t see market forces ever protecting the vulnerable.
I can see where you’re coming from, LFaT, and I’m no libertarian by any stretch of the imagination, but I tend to side with the thought train which says Baby P was killed by a combination of two factors: psychoses and bureaucracy. The problems highlighted above are not problems with libertarian philosophy, per se, but with with the social services suffering a terrible communication breakdown (yes, yes, it’s always the same…)
You could argue it was too much state that was the problem, although I think it’s more like too inefficient a state. If there was a smaller, more streamlined more communicative social services infrastructure, this tragedy might have been averted. That said, there is no way to protect all the people all the time, and we shouldn’t brazenly believe that this is possible.
“I do not see how libertarianism squares with going into people’s houses and taking away their children? How can a libertarian ever support that when it’s a purely subjective judgement about who is fit to be a parent and who is not – based on criteria set by central government?”
That, to me, misunderstands what’s going on. Yes, the child does ‘belong’ to its parents but it, like them, has rights to life, liberty and property. The state has a duty to protect that child’s life – and its not subjective as life/death is a pretty binary state – and to keep it safe from crime, even if that crime is committed by its parents.
LFAT, what makes you think that libertarians are ’soft on crime’? Imprisoning, torturing, attacking and raping people; breaking into their cars and houses etc. are the worst ways in which one person can infringe another person’s liberty.
This is not to be confused with the libertarian-pragmatic view that drugs and brothels should be legalised, taxed and regulated has to do with reducing the harm that the illegality of such activities causes, as much as respecting the right of consenting individuals to indulge in them.
Stu, a more communicative social services infrastructure might help but who would put this in place in a free market society? Don’t you think that central government are the only people who could possibly make something like this happen?
Shaun, life and death is pretty binary but making a judgement on a child’s living conditions, physical health, mental well-being and the risk of abuse is far from binary. Every social worker in the country (the competent ones, at least) has to make judgements about vulnerable children and there is no black-and-white about it. In effect, the state sets out guidelines that social services have to implement – meaning that the state ultimately has a huge part to play in who gets taken into care and who doesn’t because local variations in child protection policies would surely be unpalatable, wouldn’t they?
All well and good, LFAT, but when you have a child whose fingernails have been pulled out a crime has so obviously been committed that it speaks to the incompetence of the social workers and doctors. They visited 60 times so they must’ve had an inkling something was wrong and I don’t think it was libertarianism that stayed their hand. When one of their number did break ranks and inform the central government, the actions of Haringey were to discipline her.
This was a classic bureaucratic failure where any attempt to blame an individual becomes a criticism of the system which then can’t be criticised as the system is just individuals exercising their judgement.
Nobody’s arguing for local variations in child protection – that’s almost as unacceptable as allowing for cultural variations permitting wife beating and so on – I am arguing, however, that its not un-libertarian to expect the authorities to protect people’s lives and liberty, even that of little kids. Is it simple? No! But that’s why we pay them a fair bit of money…
“But that’s why we pay them a fair bit of money…”
Even when they are suspended…
Ooooh, don’t get me started on people being suspended on full pay in the public sector for such gross incompetence that a child died and many others were no doubt placed at heightened risk.
I was tempted to write Sharon Shoesmith a letter this morning, but it clearly would have breached my ‘no swearing’ policy on this blog.
Shaun, your input is very helpful as ever. I wonder if every libertarian agrees with you? I guess part of my letter this morning was aimed at those extreme libertarians who believe in no role for government apart from enforcing the law, as I can’t see how that matches with the way that social services is forced to operate. Don’t forget that social services deals with children who are physically and mentally ‘deprived’ as well as those who are suffering from abuse.
“I wonder if every libertarian agrees with you? I guess part of my letter this morning was aimed at those extreme libertarians who believe in no role for government apart from enforcing the law”
They almost certainly don’t as I could probably start a row in a room on my own! That said, I think they key thing here is ‘enforcing the law’ – nobody denies that torturing and then beating to death a child is against the law and the problem here is that the laws which should have prohibited this were not enforced.
why do you think this is about government? It may well be about failure of government policies, but the problem with (this) government is that rather then deal with fixing the policies they would rather tinker with the failed solution.
Baby P was not failed by government, even if you think their policies are flawed; but rather by the organisation government entrusted with her safety. This is not about politics or government, but rather about the failure of Haringay Social Services.
“Social services strikes me as a clear case of where libertarianism and free markets start to look very shaky. ”
This statement would be valid if libertarians worked in social services. I suspect far too many social workers believe their “clients” – for want of a better word – are victims of a lack of state resources.
Naturally, this ignores the welfare state that funds feral irresponsible lifestyles in the first place!
Snafu and Alistair, the welfare state and Haringey social services cannot be separated from this situation. In terms of what caused the death of Baby P, too many people have got stuck at blaming the evil carers of the child instead of looking at how Baby P came to live in those circumstances in the first place.
That said, I don’t see how on the one hand Baby P was not failed by the government when social services is part of the government – albeit in its local guise. Social services is run on the basis of central government dictats and guidelines that are merely implemented by local authorities around the country. If social services cannot do their job properly then what solutions would libertarians put forward if the local arm of government has failed?
(I ask that in the full knowledge that libertarianism encompasses different views).
Yes, as a libertarian this is a difficult issue for me.
The problem is that where crimes are being committed against children that is very clearly a straightforward criminal matter and maybe the problem comes from the police’s general inability to prevent crime. As a state we take a special interest in preventing crime against certain vulnerable groups, but this is never going to be an easy business no matter how much money or effort we throw at it.
As with the Baby P case, it was a sudden escalation in violence that coincided with the arrival of the boyfriend’s brother that caused the actual death of the child – so the years of monitoring did not demonstrate a clear risk, nor could it ever have – just the usual petty neglect and carelessness associated with that particular type of household. The real failure seems to be the lack of diagnosis of broken back – the only real point at which his life might have been saved.
Should all cases where adults are suspected of committing actual prosecutable crimes against children be referred to the police to investigate and deal with? Should we give extra powers to the police to be able to put certain homes under surveillance if they can get a warrant from a judge?
In the current climate that seems unthinkable. Sometimes a price is too high.
Instead we have the social services doing the limited preventative work, with the added responsibility of providing support and assistance to parents who are basically struggling to be competent but actually want to be.
But where should the line be drawn? At which point do you decide that the state should act to take a child away from their parent(s)? I don’t have the answer. If it’s not an actual crime then you’re basically trying to predict who’s going to commit one, or who’s going to destroy their child’s life or liberty one day… it requires serious courage to take that kind of decision/
Do I want bigger and better funded social services? No I don’t. I’m fairly certain a smaller number of people who all have a sense of personal responsibility, who take ownership of issues they come across and didn’t rest until they were resolved one way or another, and possess the ability to get away from the bureaucratic, box-ticking, buck-passing mentality of the civil service could do a significantly better job in all walks of life, never mind social services.
The ‘I ticked every dot and followed every procedure so you can’t blame me’ attitude is the real threat to our society here. People have become so afraid of taking on responsibility or risks, or doing anything without explicit orders from a superior that these people are useless form-filling cretins. Are we surprised that organisations that have this mindset institutionalised become ineffective, inefficient and useless? I’m flippin’ well not.
Perhaps the problem is people not being allowed to take responsibility or risks rather than feeling too scared to do so?
Socialism encourages a deferential culture which has eroded personal responsibility in all kinds of areas (see my letter to Alex Hilton yesterday) and I fear that you are right to point the finger at people not taking ownership of this tragic case.
I think you make the assumption that if the state does not do something, then nothing will be done by anybody.
I would argue that not only does the state do most jobs badly (children in care for example), but the constant and increasing demands it puts on people’s resources (via taxes) mean that people will not have enough time/money/energy/etc left, to volunteer or work or contribute on those problems via charities or associations.
Add to that the “someone else’s job” mentality which it creates, and the state looks to be the solution when in fact it is the problem.
I do not think libertarians reduce everything to markets. They are human beings, and the desire to be responsible for one’s actions, and the freedom it confers, does not mean they do not care what happens around them.
Assaulting a child as happened in Baby P’s case would certanly not be tolerated in a libertarian society as it does indeed go against the very principle that would make libertarianism possible.
I agree with many people that too many unfit parents, are having children. In a very real sense there is no role for a mass unskilled working class any more, so some people have got nothing they can do except exist & breed.
I do not vilify all poor people or single parents, as that would be unfair in the extreme. It is only really those who are of very low intelligence.
But they are the people least likely to exercise restraint, so what to do? I think this is an indicator of why abortion may, regrettably, need to be legal, & adoption should be extended.
I am torn because withdrawing benefits would cause a lot of suffering, but the welfare state is arguably just as harsh in a different way. It is horrifying that things like the Sheffield abuse case & Baby P were waved through because, amongst certain sections of the underclass, it is just normal. Again, what to make of the new revelations as to children not being able to communicate properly on entering primary school?
A small state requires a small demand for the state which means strong families & communities. But how is this going to be accomplished when people of low intelligence struggle to function in modern society with the demise of unskilled labour?
It always struck me as funny that you needed a license to have a dog but anyone could have a kid. Major sorted that one out by doing away with dog licenses but I do feel he may have got it the wrong way round!
They would struggle to determine who would or wouldn’t be a good parent.
In a similar way, I think immigration should be restricted, but I’ve known many people be deported who would have been an asset to this country. How do we decide? That is the eternal question.
There should be a bit more humanity & less bureaucracy.
That’s the rub, isn’t it asquith?
I’d no more trust the state to say who should or shouldn’t be parents than I would walk down the street naked. Equally I’ve known UK natives to be complete wastes of skin who should be deported but when you start, where do you stop and who decides?
I’m too liberal, intellectually, to succumb to the odd reactionary spasm although I do still experience them as they’re visceral, from my gut.
Your generalised plea for more humanity and less bureaucracy chimes with my own, equally undeliverable belief that what we need is a greater dispersal of common sense to all people at all levels. Unfortunately common sense is a misnomer – having sense and being sensible is NOT common and if people were, just think of the problems we’d not have. Unplanned pregnancies? Very rare when people either don’t have sex or use contraception. Bankruptcy? Don’t blame the lender or the Interest rate, take some responsibility and use common sense to think through what will happen if you can’t repay! 20mph in a school zone? Use common sense and don’t drive fast around masses of unpredictable children! How different the world would be!
[...] Dear LFAT, [...]
This sounds like the type of argument Gordon Brown would deploy to rubbish Thatcherism.
Let me get this straight…you use the behaviour of evil people upon a baby as an excuse to attack libertarianism.
Its that sort of warped mentality that saw honest citizens disarmed after a loon went on a shooting spree (The state failed to enforce the law in that case and who suffered? Honest citizens…) and now the only people in the UK with guns are criminals and the police. Gun crime has gone up and the weapons are even more deadly.
Evil g and AID, I’m not attacking libertarianism. Read the post again please! I am constantly asking questions about libertarian perspectives because I found conflicts between what I understood libertarian to cherish (freedom, small government etc) and how social services has to operate.
That’s what this post is all about, me asking libertarians for their take and their solutions. Look at the comments above – I’m still asking questions in the comments and got some very good answers.
[...] Would Libertarianism Lead to More Baby Ps? [...]
Killing children is against the law. Libertarians believe in upholding the rule of law.
Preventing crime is the role of the Police, not State social services.
“questions about libertarian perspectives because I found conflicts between what I understood libertarian to cherish (freedom, small government etc) and how social services has to operate.”
Small government does not, and has never included, giving people the right to torture and murder people. Not even their children who may, legally, be their property up to a certain age. The point of the libertarian outrage on this thread is that just because you believe the state has no right to restrict what you put in your body, or how you choose to use your sexual organs, or dictate what you choose to believe in, doesn’t mean you in any way support the ‘rights’ of people to murder and abuse children or the idea that someone (the state) should not intervene in aforementioned crimes!
Old Holborn December 2nd, 2008 at 10:16 pm
“Killing children is against the law. Libertarians believe in upholding the rule of law.
Preventing crime is the role of the Police, not State social services.”
Indeed. Had the Police Office in this case been heeded, the baby would still be alive…
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/7732193.stm
Its not about libertarianism as nobody, at least nobody visible, is arguing that the f*ckup here was that the state and police should have just let these f*ckwit, scumbag, illiterate underclass yobs get on with their shambolic efforts at parenting/child torture.
To Old Holborn, well, yes, you’re right that it’s a police matter but the police only ‘prevent’ crime by acting as a deterrent, but not a very good one.
In terms of preventing crime they’re not actually very good at that. They’re more into punishing after the thing’s happened.
Their best bet is to catch people committing small crimes and in doing so prevent escalation to worse crimes – but domestic abuse is notoriously tricky to prosecute because by its very nature it all happens behind closed doors and in secret.
So do we give police the power to put families under surveillance – bug their houses, set up hidden cameras, that sort of thing – cos that’s the only real way you’re going to get the sort of evidence you need to secure a conviction. What sort of evidence would you need to get a warrant for this sort of thing? How would you prevent these powers being abused? Do we really want the police to have these kinds of powers?
This is sort of the problem here. Society says that we shouldn’t just punish people who commit crimes against children, but actually prevent them committing crimes in the first place and we really don’t have a clue how to do this. We’re trying to predict the future and that always ends well, doesn’t it?
Apologies in advance for the long comment.
I see myself as a libertarian and in cases like this I go back to Adam Smith and the Theory of the Moral Sentiments, on sympathy: “By the imagination we place ourselves in his situation, we conceive ourselves enduring all the same torments, we enter as it were into his body, and become in some measure the same person with him”. For me the bottom line is that you don’t need the government to express care, compassion, and concern in society; people do this naturally as can be seen in the outcry over the tragic case of Baby P.
How does the libertarian model allow the kind of intervention necessary to prevent this sort of horrible case? As pointed out in other comments, child abuse is already against the law; but how do we enforce this without some overwhelming state bureaucracy like social services? Defining “libertarianism” as only wanting “market forces” is wrong. Wanting minimal government doesn’t exclude co-operative or collective action (provided, of course, that it is lawful and voluntary). “Candid” in the comments above has already suggested my preferred solution: charities.
Without government funding is a charity capable of running a large scale “service” to the general public? The RNLI provides a successful volunteer lifesaving service for people at sea. Maybe more relevant to this question are the RSPCA (again, mentioned by Candid). They bring private prosecutions against abusive and neglectful animal owners, helped by government legislation e.g. the Animal Welfare Act. A similar charity for children should be doing the same: stepping in with inspections and action where necessary.
The problem with children’s charities stepping in now is that the government are already there, and this distorts the actions that charities take. From the NSPCC website on Baby P regarding their action: “We are working to shape the debate about child protection: talking directly to government and professionals who work with children, submitting evidence to the Laming review of the child protection system in England, and keeping the media and wider public informed.” Also, if government involvement leads people to assume they are already funding the efforts for improvement (via taxation), this reduces the amount of money charities would otherwise get.
What would I suggest as a plan for action?
If not already possible (I’m not a lawyer), pass legislation helping charities to take effective legal action rather than “shaping the debate”.
Make charitable contributions for certain charities tax deductible for income and inheritance tax – donations should increase allowing charities to expand their efforts without government funding or involvement.
Finally, once charities start to work through the changes, reduce government participation, scale back social services.
Tell people: We care, that’s why we’ve passed legislation to help the dedicated professionals employed by these charities, and we’re leaving them free to do their job. If you care too, you should donate some money or spend time volunteering. It should be “we can do something” instead of “someone must do something”.
I honestly believe there’s enough goodwill out there to fund this voluntarily, and I also believe that charities will work more efficiently than the government. If not, I would definitely question the reason for the government to take everyone’s money and spend it on something they don’t care enough about to fund voluntarily.
Thanks expat and thanks to everyone else. This has been one of the most valuable posts I’ve ever done on this blog. As a conservative, libertarianism seems tempting and worrying at the same time so I’ve been keen to listen to what you guys and gals have to say.
The role of the charitable and non-profit sector in supplying public services is something that I’m very keen on in general. The question of whether it can take the place of social services is perhaps for another day!
Hmmm…I go further, in theory at least, than even your definition of libertarianism. I am more of an anarchist. Though people easily misunderstand that as meaning absolutely no controls on what people do and no institutions to enforce them. That is wrong; anarchists would say that in doing away with government other structures, such as a “private law society”, would emerge that are more consenual and explicitly contract driven. And that anarchism rests on the core principle of self-ownership and that everyone has the right to do as they please insofar as it does not affect another’s ability to do the same.
I did think quite long and hard about how the BabyP case ought to affect that perspective. The first thing I found is that there are at least another couple of dozen inidents of the death of a child (half under one and most by parents themselves) in “child cruelty” type incidents (rather than accident or bizarre whole family suicide type incidents I assume) every year in Britain. In other words, BabyP is not the unique case that the (quite justified) moral outrage it has generated seems to suggest. Maybe it’s mostly because Haringay is seen as having “form” on this issue after Climbie.
But the message is that whatever various social services and child protection agencies do know they “fail” a lot more than they’re telling us. My suspicion is that this is down to most other cases being completely under the radar of the state protection apparatus until it’s too late (and if so – what use are those state agencies?). Determined sadists are often quite good at covering their tracks. Just look at both Fritzl in Austria and our own version in Sheffield the other week. We can be shocked and say someone must have noticed that level of abuse even with the most determined concealing by the perps, but no. It happens and nobody managed to stop it or even recognize it.
Also, even in an anarchist worldview, the care of a child is something that is a joint trust between parents and the rest of society – society would have ended up paying for the effects of his tortured life, as Martin Narey (deliberately) controversially said, if he had grown up to become a “feral yob”. Indeed, as Guido says, our welfare and benefits systems include some level of perverse incentive for people to have children who probably shouldn’t; or at least shouldn’t at a point in their lives when they can barely support themselves.
At the moment then we “contract out” to effectively disinterested parties (the state – who get paid in reality whatever the outcome and only get into any bother at all in the most egregious and publicly visible cases of failure) to carry out a function more properly suited to much more local, neighbourhood, and more importantly family, scrutiny. Where, in a “market anarchist” worldview, ought such oversight to lie? Can we imagine on whom there would be an economic incentive to ensure as far as is possible the safety of someone else’s child?
As others have mentioned, institutions such as the RSPCA (though I think they have been ceded too much power often) and the RNLI, already carry out an effective job in their respective fields. Something like the NSPCC would emerge as the champion of the most vulnerable in the last resort and would in a private law society be likely to take action to defend the “self-ownership” and freedom from aggression and coercion of a child, even against its parents. Should a hospital even allow a child born to someone who has not the means or willingness to make proper provision for bringing up a child (which could probably be evidenced from their pre-natal attitude or lake of attempt to make provision) to be taken home in the first place without much more scrutiny as to how good care they’re going to get?
Remember too, that we believe that in the absence of state-capitalism and the grossly distorted playing field that creates through privilege and patronage to the detriment of the poorest, even those poorest would be better equipped economically to make provision through friendly societies and such like for health care and so on. So I’m not suggesting that the poor should not be allowed to take their babies home. Just that in such an environment it would probably be more noticeable, not less, as to which parents had even made an honest attempt to make provision or establish a support network of family first, community second and paid for assistance third, and perhaps the economic incentive might fall on the delivering hospital at least to ensure that such prima facie support was available. They could then even at that early stage alert an organization such as NSPCC or find themselves on the receiving end of a negligence claim if anything bad happened.
Finally (I think), in such a more human scale society, I suggest it would be easier, not harder, for friends and neighbours to intervene earlier. It is in most of their economic interests often too not to be supporting or fostering in their midst the sort of home circumstances in which these sort of psychotic evil doers can function with impunity. Would the mother’s partner’s sadistic friend really only have been a problem for the child? Would not neighbours and other family members have an interest in ensuring they were driven from their midst? At the moment everyone is too tied up in making ends meet in an unfair world perhaps to care too much what happens next door until it spills over more obviously into their lives.
In summary, I’m not sure I can see how in an anarchist, private law type society, it could be any worse than relying on the economically disincentivised civil servants to whom we contract out our social and neighbourly awareness “duties”. And the altogether more humane, less oppressed society that ought to result from such freedoms may well be able to intervene earlier and more consensually in order to protect their own interests as well as those of the child.
One point here – the original question is based on a false pretense, whether it knows it or not, by assuming that Baby P, as a minor, was not subject to the same rights and duties as say me, a responsible (!) adult.
Whilst Baby P was not able to exercise his responsibilities, his rights remain unaffected. Including the right to live without being harmed by others – a right which it is indeed the state’s role to ensure (if it has any role at all). Since he was a person, Baby P could not belong to his parents, so if he was harmed, some state process should have sorted the problem and removed him to a less harmful situation.
Not sure whether that process should be police, social services or some other method – the logical Libertarian response would be to go back to first principles and find the way of responding to such problems that involved the clearest defence of the rights of those who cannot defend themselves with the least infringement of the rights of others (and it is worth restating, these do not include the right to be a parent, as it is not anyone’s right to ‘own’ a child).
Liberty is based on rights and responsibilities. As a libertarian, you have to balance the state and the individual’s role in these, but you cannot fall into the strange trap of assuming that liberty of the individual equals potential slavery of the child, who is a seperate individual.
conservatives have some serious questions to answer!!!!
Seeing this incident as unrelated to other aspects in society would be like watching a black and white movie.
The difference between libertarian vs. conservative mindset, is pretty much summed up in your second sentence. That government “gives” freedom to society. Government has no authority over my god given natural rights or nobody elses since I have no signed contract with them. There fore government should not have any authority to remove people’s children which is a very scary concept. Especially when statistics tell us that children are 5-6 more likely to die in government custody compared to staying at home in disfunctional homes.
libertyblogger.net
[...] After decades of emotionally charged pro-state agit-prop it becomes possible for intelligent commenters to say things like: “However, I look at what happened to Baby P and am very tempted to throw all ’small government’ arguments out the window. ‘Limited government’ makes sense and I think the state should be rolled back wherever possible, but the government should never walk away from helping those in desperate need and just hope that the market jumps in to save them.” http://www.lettersfromatory.com/2008/12/02/libertarians-have-some-serious-questions-to-answer/ [...]
Don Paskini tried to fisk this post. In my view, he did a fairly shyte job.
http://don-paskini.blogspot.com/2008/12/libertarianism-child-protection-fail.html
You should respond if you think, as I do, that he has been unfair…
I would recommend some of Murry N. Rothbard’s writings, which can be found at mises.org
My comment would be, before all of this “mess” few people would say that libertarians or their ideas (like the free market) were in control enough to make any difference. Now that this “mess” is upon us, many are quick to blame the free market an libertarian ideology for our current problems. How can it be that we were obscure and marginalized one day, while the next we were so in control and in power to be able to mess everything up?
“How can it be that we were obscure and marginalized one day, while the next we were so in control and in power to be able to mess everything up?”
Andrew Slominski
Ah. The perennial cry of one new to the sport of ’scapegoat hunting’…