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An ethic is a rule governing conduct. Liberty is the antithesis of having rules on conduct. It is the absence of restraints on conduct. Therefore, it cannot be thought of as an ethic.

Don't get the wrong idea. I love liberty. I am quite sure I love it as much as anyone does. When the abomination that is the so-called PATRIOT Act was passed my response was to wonder what had become of "Give me liberty or give me death!" (For that matter, I have wondered what has happened to "All we have to fear is fear itself." I can't recall hearing either of those quotes post-9/11.)

Liberty is a standard of good governance. It can only be a gauge, however, a means of measuring good governance. Liberty cannot be an end in itself.

Even so, "Liberty!" is the eternal battle-cry of people on the political right in the U.S. Sure, it sounds good—even heroic—to espouse liberty, but in the end it can only be the product of a just society, not the source of one.

Governance is an inevitable, unavoidable consequence of living together in groups. There must be some rule of conduct—some ethic—upon which governance is to be based.

Making liberty the rule of governance would actually be counter-productive to good governance. My good friend who is a doctor is fond of pointing out that the perfect illustration of a society with liberty as an end in itself is the T.V. series, Deadwood. Liberty-as-an-end-in-itself as the rule of governance will only result in rule by the most ruthless.

To make liberty the rule of governance would create within society a "State of Nature." That term was used by Thomas Hobbes (Leviathan) then John Locke (Two Treatises of Government) in the 1600's to describe what life would be like for human beings if we did not live together in groups.

What the "state of nature" would look like depends on one's beliefs about 'human nature'. Hobbes famously described life in the State of Nature as "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short" in a ceaseless "war of all against all." ("Bellum omnium contra omnes" in the Latin phrase he used; the creators of Deadwood are obviously Hobbesians in that respect.) For Locke it would be a much more benign existence.

For both men the State of Nature obviously describes a state of complete liberty. Both thought that people accept the constraints necessary for living together in groups as a fair exchange for the absolute liberty of the State of Nature because in the end the benefits outweigh that cost (which is called the 'social contract'). Hobbes thought that bringing peaceful coexistence to the group required the existence of a single ruler powerful enough to control all others through fear. Locke thought the goal of governance had to be to maximize liberty.

So, Locke promoted liberty as an end in itself. In fact he made liberty the predicate of justice. He also included it in the a priori "Natural Rights" to which people are entitled merely by virtue of being humans (the other Natural Rights being, for him, life and property).

Locke was wrong. Given that, when it comes to governance, he is the most influential philosopher in the Modern era, his error might be the biggest mistake in the history of civilization.

Locke started by defining "injustice" as (avoiding his genderism) "being subject to the arbitrary will" of any other person. "Being subject to the arbitrary will" means having choices imposed on oneself without any input or any available recourse (other than to fight, even if fighting would certainly result in unpleasant consequences for oneself and possibly others, such as one's family).

The perspective Locke chose in defining injustice is hugely important. Ultimately, Locke was arguing against absolute monarchy as a form of government, backed by the doctrine of 'Divine Right'. That doctrine maintained that monarchs were in power because ultimately it was God's will that they be there, so monarchs could only be answerable to God. Within that doctrine, from the perspective of any mere subject, the rule of the monarch was—as it should be—completely arbitrary.

So, Locke's perspective was that of being on the receiving end of arbitrariness. That makes all the difference.

It is perfectly understandable that Locke would have that perspective, given the times in which he lived. Yet, that perspective created his mistake.

For Locke, the absence of being subject to the arbitrary will of any other person(s) is a state of justice. Since that would also be a state of liberty, Locke concluded that liberty is the predicate of justice. That mistakenly makes liberty into an ethic, a rule of governance.

Look at it from the other perspective. From the other perspective it is unjust for anyone to impose one's "arbitrary will" on any other person. So, one is acting justly if one restrains from imposing one's arbitrary will on any other person(s). (Even parents are required to take into account their children's best interests in choosing a course of action involving them.)

As a practical matter, if everyone is refraining from imposing one's arbitrary will on anyone else, that is a state of universal liberty. So, liberty and justice do end up being related. It is clear, however, that liberty is the product of justice, not the source of it.

If everyone is refraining from imposing one's arbitrary will on any other person, that can be called mutual respect. Thus, mutual respect is the (positive) ethic of justice.

As it happens, mutual respect is already used for governance in the democratic political process. That's because a belief in equality is the basis of the ethical structure of democracy and a belief in equality obviously implies a requirement of mutual respect. If one delves into the ethical structure of the democratic political process, it becomes clear that it is all about restraining people from arbitrarily imposing their wills on others—beginning with what can count as legitimate restrictions on participation in the process. [See the links at the end of the essay.]

The U.S. is the nation in which Locke's ideas about governance are most assiduously applied. The first of Locke's Two Treatises was concerned with using equality (from theBible, according to Locke) to argue against the doctrine of Divine Right. His second Treatise contained the argument for liberty-as-justice. Equality and liberty are the twin pillars of justice enshrined in this nation's Declaration of Independence.

This nation has emphasized equality in the political process and liberty in the economy. Since liberty is not and cannot be an ethic, that has made it seem that the economy is somehow outside of ethics (except for any personal ethical constraints one might acknowledge, whether acting within the economy as an independent individual or an agent for, say, a corporation).

That attitude has been reinforced with ideas from Adam Smith. Especially pertinent is the "Invisible Hand," a rhetorical device he used to describe how everyone pursuing one's own self-interest without external constraints will ensure the best possible economic outcomes for all. In other words, in the economy liberty as an end in itself will always produce the optimal results.

That view of liberty in the economy has been reinforced by the inefficacy of using equality as an ethic to govern the economy. No one has as yet come up with a way of using equality per se to govern a functional economy. That's because there is no way to accomplish that end. Equality implies the ethic of mutual respect, but in itself it is no more of an ethic than liberty is.

Mutual respect, however, is another matter. Not only can it be applied to governing the actions of people acting within the economy (in whatever capacity), but it can also be used as an ethic of governance for the economy as a whole. In the paradigm I have developed mutual respect is applied to the economy as a system by creating a "democratically distributed income." (In any strictly economic discussion of my proposal, leaving justice out of it, I refer to that income as the "allotted income.")

The economic device I invented to create such an income is a revolutionary monetary system. I was pleased to learn, in developing this system, that it eliminates any possibility of (involuntary) unemployment or poverty—at no cost to anyone, without having to redistribute anything—and would eliminate the need to use taxes—or debt—to fund government. At the same time, there would be no limit on income or property. The monetary system and the economy as a whole would be completely self-regulating: the means would not even exist to try to 'manage' the economy fiscally or monetarily. Also, it would improve our chances for environmental sustainability.

I had no idea when I started that using the ethical structure of political democracy as a template for creating a more just economic system would accomplish any of that. Best of all, none of those outcomes depends on people acting any particular way. All of them are built into the structure of that revolutionary monetary system.

So, mutual respect, the 'real' ethic in the just structure of the democratic political process, can be efficaciously applied to the structure of the market-based economy. It would maximize liberty in the economy and accomplish much more good.

There is much more about all this on my Web site, www.ajustsolution.com. (It is a free, ad-free Web site that is also free of solicitations for donations and unsolicited follow-ups.) [This isn't about 'driving' people to that site; it is simply too much to include it all here.]