r/ClassicalLiberalism

Clickbaitey title, but that helps tranction eh?

Im not gonna make this into a sneaky subversion piece, so lets get straight to the point. I used to be a big fan of Nozick, Locke, Mises and Hayek, because I thought they were the peak of the liberal tradition, until I took a philosophy class in uni, realized that I - and thus they - lack extremely in various philosophical fundamentals, and decided to get into Tara Smith, Ayn Rand, Jiří Kinkor and Eric Mack:D

The first authors that I mentioned have one huge common problem, which is that they largely ignore meta-questions of liberal philosophical tradition, and either focus on post-arguments (in the sense of criticizing something based on implicitly and vaguely established groundwork) or they simply focus on economics and analyze everything through the economic lense. None of these authors care too much about a metaphysics/ontology, meta-ethics and ethics, epistemology, esthetics etc.

Most popularly recommended liberal/libertarian authors are in fact economists or heavily economics-leaning.

I understand the thinkers that I mentioned are held dearly by tons of people in the liberty movement, so criticizing them is always a minefield, but none of them offer a complex and robust defense, and primarily a clarification, of the liberal tradition as a whole. Clarification and complexity is necessary so that the gaps (meta-ethics, epistemology etc), which many authors simply ignore or fail to fill, are not subjectively solved by reader, which usually leads to confusions, fragmentation and possibly even destruction.

Example: All of you are familiar with the schism surrounding the definition of "liberalism", but such schism exists in regards to other terms as well, such as morality, relativism, subjectivism, altruism, objectivity, rationality, gender, capitalism, democracy, self-interest etc.

To me its extremely dangerous, that some liberals for instance derive rights from religious mysticism, or some odd superficial mechanism or evasion. It cannot be the case that such crucial important parts of the philosophy are left up to relativist interpretations, as that simply leads to fragmentation.

Example: How many of you have wondered where do rights come from? Are you really satisfied with the idea that they simply come from the state of nature, no-questions-asked?

2nd Example: Some of you may have heard the something along the lines of "I think this is LEGALLY their right, but MORALLY wrong", without the person actually explaining according to what standard is it morally wrong or why does the differentation exist in the first place.

If you dont have a proper axiomatic groundwork for liberal philosophy, you cannot ever hope to create a liberty culture which will defend and argue for a proper liberal polity. You cannot rely on the outside influences of bankrupt philosophy to fill in the gaps, because those are the very things that cause those and that which liberals fight against.

At this point you guys should know what is up, at least somewhat, if youve been in the movement for a while. The world is not monophilosophically aligned and needs to be simply shown the facts and thats it. The world is philosophically broken, and Im willing to go as far as to say that you NEED the right philosophy to survive.

The first step is for free-market liberals to stop apologising. A series of popular criticisms of capitalism, each containing a grain of truth, has in aggregate obscured the fundamental wisdom that private enterprise is at the root of human prosperity. Yes, people aren’t always rational, as behavioural economics shows. True, inequality matters and growth is better when broad-based. Free trade and globalisation create losers as well as winners. But this is the best time in human history to be born, given record real incomes, high life expectancy and low rates of extreme poverty.

Should the right to vote and political representation be completely independent of tax contributions, or does a healthy republic require a stronger connection between those who fund government and those who direct its spending? How would classical liberal principles of individual rights, equality before the law, and limited government address this question?

According to Robert Nozick, a disconnect between value and reward amongst intellectuals creates animosity towards capitalism:

>Intellectuals feel they are the most valuable people, the ones with the highest merit, and that society should reward people in accordance with their value and merit. But a capitalist society does not satisfy the principle of distribution “to each according to his merit or value"...[T]he market distributes to those who satisfy the perceived market-​expressed demands of others, and how much it so distributes depends on how much is demanded and how great the alternative supply is...[T]he sense of unrecognized superiority, of entitlement betrayed, produces [animus against the capitalist system].

There's a brief but important (and classically Nozick) point on patterns of distribution: "The justice of a distribution may reside in its arising from a just process of voluntary exchange of justly acquired property and services. Whatever outcome is produced by that process will be just, but there is no particular pattern the outcome must fit". Intellectuals, or anyone else, who equates justice with "distribution in accordance to value" will often be disappointed with reality in a market-based order.

Nozick then spends a bit more time on schools as an institution that produces "feelings of superior value on the part of intellectuals" and opposition to capitalism. Basically, intellectuals do well in school but wider society has different standards of reward and this can cause "downward mobility" that is "especially productive of resentment and animus".

From a classical liberal perspective, taxation should be neutral, limited, and applied as equally as possible under the law. A free society functions best when government avoids creating broad categories of protected groups who are permanently shielded from obligations that other citizens are required to bear. While targeted relief may be appropriate in cases of genuine financial hardship, the principle should remain that all property owners contribute fairly to the local services and institutions from which they benefit.

Today, the median age of homeownership continues to rise, while younger generations face higher housing costs, greater debt burdens, and delayed entry into the housing market. Yet many property tax systems place disproportionate burdens on newer homeowners and working families because large categories of property owners receive exemptions based primarily on age or status rather than financial need. This creates a system in which the tax burden is increasingly concentrated on a smaller portion of the population.

Classical liberalism emphasizes equality before the law and skepticism toward systems of privilege, even when those privileges are politically popular. Broad exemptions for seniors or veterans, regardless of income or wealth, can distort fairness by shifting the responsibility of funding local government onto younger citizens and families who may already be economically strained. A wealthy retiree living in a highly appreciated home may ultimately contribute less than a younger family that recently purchased a modest home at modern market prices.

A fairer and more liberal approach would avoid broad categorical exemptions in favor of narrowly tailored relief based on genuine financial hardship. If a person truly cannot afford rising property taxes, temporary assistance or tax deferrals may be justified. However, exemptions should not become permanent privileges disconnected from economic reality. In a society committed to equal treatment under the law, the responsibility to support local infrastructure, schools, emergency services, and community institutions should be shared as broadly and evenly as possible.