Libertarianism 101: The Non-Aggression Principle

Libertarianism 101:  The Non-Aggression Principle

By Allan Davis, Jr

The NAP--Non Aggression Principle--lies at the heart of libertarianism.

The NAP is very simple. It says that no one has the right to initiate aggression against another person.  Aggression is defined as you might expect; anything that hurts someone--assault, rape, murder, theft, etc, all fall under the definition.

Notice that there’s nothing in here about self defense.  Libertarianism is not pacifism.  In other words, libertarians are not allowed to start fights--but they are perfectly entitled to finish them.  You have the right to life, which means you have the right to defend yourself.

That’s it, in a nutshell.  You are not allowed to attack someone, or rob them, or anything, and you are allowed to defend yourself, your property, or other people against aggression.

So, then, why does libertarianism have a bad reputation?

Let’s answer that question with another question.  What is the magic number?

In other words, how many people does it take for the rule to go away?  How many people do you have to have on your side to make it okay to initiate aggression against someone?  Three friends?  A simple majority of the town?  Fifty-one percent of the national population?  535 votes?

None of the above.

No matter how many people agree that it’s okay to steal a person’s property, it’s not okay.  Even if you can get fifty one percent of the population to agree with you that someone needs to give up his money, or his land, or his property, or his life, that doesn’t change the fact of “initiating aggression,” and doesn’t make it right.

That’s the key factor of libertarianism.  Might most definitely does not make right, even when that might is defined by population, or government, or law, or tradition, or anything else.  Theft is theft.  Aggression is aggression.

And that’s where libertarianism gets a bad reputation.  We have all been raised to believe that government is a good thing; it protects us from ourselves and each other.

At the same time, government is aggression, by any metric.  Government has the power to steal from us (in Eminent Domain, Civil Asset Forfeiture, and even taxes).  Government has the power to cage us (for any of a countless number of offenses, many of which harm no one).  Government has the power to kill us.

And government has to have these powers.  Government wouldn’t be government if it was run on donations instead of taxes, and it wouldn’t be an effective government if it couldn’t hand down punishments for breaking the rules.

Libertarians are, for the most part, the only people asking these questions:

• How much government is too much?
• Should government have all of the powers it has?
• Is government really necessary?
• Is democracy a good thing?

Hopefully, this lays out a solid foundation for discussing libertarianism in general.  Thanks for reading.  Please feel free to suggest topics for more Libertarianism 101 articles in the comments below.