NAVERSON AND STERBA

“Libertarianism: The word means roughly "believer in liberty". Libertarians believe in individual conscience and individual choice, and reject the use of force or fraud to compel others except in direct response to force or fraud. Some libertarians reject *all* use of force, even in self-defense."  Today our discussion will be about two views on libertarianism. One – introduced by James Sterba, another – by the traditional libertarian Jan Narveson. 
James Sterba distinguishes two types of libertarianism: Spenserian and Lockean. His main argument to both of them is that right to welfare is a necessary fact that derives from the theory of libertarianism. Without it he finds both views of it contradicting themselves. 
He sees a serious conflict in the Spenserian implementation of the view of liberty to the resolution of the rich and the poor problem. He explains it in a following way. Since for H. Spenser and his followers the basics for all human rights is the right to liberty (another words supporters of this view derive all the rights from right to liberty), there is a conflict of liberties arising when we are speaking about the welfare distribution. From one point, that is logical that every person has a right to live, but that does not mean that it is the right to receive from others all the necessary or desired recourses for life, it is simply the right not to be killed. The same thing is with the right to property. It does not imply in itself that one has to receive or take it from someone. It simply means that he has a right to have property without someone unjustly taking it away from the owner. 
Also it is reasonable that there are certain basic needs that the poor have to meet. From the other side the resources to fulfill these needs can be found in the excess of the welfare of the rich ones, who could use it for their luxury purposes. The question that arises is basically the following: is it morally fair to take the access of the welfare from the rich and to give it to the poor so that they could satisfy their basic needs? 
Sterba describes it from Spenserian view as follows: he uses the principle of distinction between “ought” and “can”. He implies that performing the above described act of welfare distribution leads to a certain level of liberty violation of both parties. In this case we see the violation of the rich to use this money for luxury goods, from the other side there is also a violation of the liberty of the poor not to be interfered by taking something from the rich. From myself I will add that this distribution also violates the liberty of the poor to the motivation of self-development, because that is proven by many examples that: 1) there is no situation in life that has no way to lead you to success; 2) the motivation to find this way is found only when a person knows that there is no other solutions to his contemporary state. 
But let’s get back to Sterba and Spenser. The principle of distinction between “ought” and “can” states that before implying any decision, the reason and morality should be linked in appropriate way. It also states that it is morally fair in the severe circumstances to require people to do certain things that under regular conditions would be a reasonable thing or action to ask them about. Speaking about the given case with the poor and rich we find that in is more reasonable and morally right to require the rich to give up some of their excessive welfare to the poor, so that they could satisfy their basic needs, rather then to require from the poor to sit and die from hunger, cold, etc., even though it will violate the liberty of the poor to not interfering by taking from the poor. So, basically the solution will be not “plausible” since it violates the liberties of both groups”.
Sterba also provides the analysis of the Lockean perspective for this case. The difference of Lockean view of liberty from Spenserian is that it takes a set of certain rights and then defines liberty as the absence of constraints and violations of those rights. The right to life in this case would have the same meaning, in fact. It is a right not to be killed. 
From this perspective if the rich do not give the poor the opportunity to fulfill their basic needs (on account of the first ones), the poor will eventually starve to death. Therefore now the rich can be viewed as the murderers. Is it unjust? Sterba says that the libertarians would argue that it was not since it was simply the implementation of the rights of the rich. In order to analyze this Sterba divides the property rights on conditional upon the sufficient opportunities and resources to fulfill basic needs, and unconditional one. Certainly from the first approach the action was just and from the second – unjust. 
He also divided the welfare rights of the person as “negative” and “positive” ones and came to the conclusion that it is almost impossible to practically imply them because once you start fulfilling the “negative welfare right” you are violating the “positive” one. Therefore he concludes that this approach would eventually lead to accepting the same type of the welfare institutions as favored by welfare liberals.
Certainly, there is a lot of criticism found for the point of view on libertarianism that James Sterba expresses. One of the critics of his ideas is the professor of philosophy of the University of Waterloo, Jan Narveson. He is a supporter of the traditional libertarian position. 
Narveson starts criticizing Sterba’s ideas first for the division of libertarianism into two views. He states that both philosophers, Spenser and Locke, were speaking about the same thing, which is that life health and property are not distinct from the liberty; moreover they are tightly connected and based on each other. 
Another big criticism that Narveson is stating toward Sterba’s definition that under Lockean view the rights should be divided on negative and positive and that eventually in both versions of libertarianism the requirement to share the welfare will be implied to the rich. He also criticizes the suggestion of the conflict of liberties. According to Narveson, if we assume that the welfare earned by the rich was not the result of their violent actions toward others, which is absolutely possible under the capitalist system, then taking it away from them to feed some poor guy would be unfair. Moreover it would violate the right of the rich person. He absolutely justly states that in case of traditional libertarianism, liberty is what shows us why and when the rich are entitled to their wealth and success. And the main thing that is noted here is that those people are now in the better state because of the effort that they were making throughout their lives. He claims that it would be a rude violation of rights if the poor just go ahead and take the wealth of those who were working hard for it just because it is there. According to Narveson, certainly the poor have the right to ask for it from the rich but the rich at the same time have the right to refuse. 
Also, he suggests that there is also no conflict of rights that was also introduced by Sterba, there might be though the conflict of desires, where the poor are certainly eager to have the benefits of the rich, but the rich don’t want the poor to have it by taking from them, though they would be absolutely happy if they will gain it by the means that don’t require violation of other’s rights. 
Narveson agrees that there is a necessity to find a general liberty principle that would be good and true for everyone; as well he agrees that it is very hard to find a fundamental right. In discussing it he refers to the Hobbesian-Kantian idea. 
Also he criticizes Sterba for bad definitions of his frequently used terms, such as “the rich”, “the poor”, “basic need” etc. Without them it is impossible to look for any solutions or to justify the view that Sterba is providing.
Moreover there is hardly any society that would eagerly accept the system that would suggest that things that were earned by them as the result of their effort would be taken from them. The professor is providing on the contrary a contemporary capitalist system. He shows a free enterprise picture that is explaining how the rich get richer by providing the opportunities for the others to improve their welfare rather then on the account of the poor. Under this system eventually people who have a lot of money can spend it on charity, and many of them do so.
Narveson also states that there can be no right to welfare in a democratic society, since welfare is the condition that a person gets with the help of his own work and effort. The democratic society does not scare people into democracy, in the same way – there is no way to provide oneself with welfare except for him doing it on voluntary basis. If there would be an established right to welfare – it would be a dictatorship. What is welfare? How high or low should it be? Who establishes the standards? Every person should have a liberty to choose his status in life, as well as every person should have a liberty to decide how he wants to distribute his welfare. 
Provided above description of the views of two philosophers, from my point of view, shows a strong superiority of the Narveson’s position. The reasons for that are quite simple and obvious. Anyone would hardly deny that the biblical principle “do on to others as you want to be done to you” is certainly great. If we put ourselves on the place of the poor, obviously we would be verbally supporting Sterba and his idea. But our reasoning (if we have a clear conscience) will definitely tell us that it is unfair to take things away from people whether they are rich or poor. 
As I have stated above, there is no situation in this life when there is no way to improve it. Yes, sometimes we do turn for help, and in the contemporary society there are enough sources to receive it, especially if you are a citizen of a civilized country. These sources might be the charity funds, but those collect money on the voluntary bases, not forcing people. 
From the other side the implementation of the parasitic theory of Sterba partially does take place in the whole world. In every country there always exists some kind of a law system that does enforce people, who earn money, to give away a part of it. This part is usually distributed to different social, military and other governmental programs. And I think it is very unfair, because many of these programs many of tax-payers do not support. So, Sterbian approach actually is the one that exists in the real world right now quite successfully. If he thinks that there should be even more sharing, then probably he should start a new way of communism: take everything from everyone and divide equally. There was a sad experience of this system in the former USSR. The whole world had a chance to observe its effect on economy. 
Another point that I really enjoyed in Narveson’s view is that peace is the fundamental principal of liberty. Peace inside the country is possible only under condition that the society is satisfied. Under Sterba’s theory it is hardly possible. Also the system proposed by him in the real world will lead to a high corruption, as well as very high taxes do in the underdeveloping countries. People would simply make their best effort to hide incomes.
The last argument I imply against Sterbian approach to libertarianism is that it contradicts its definition. Libertarianism assumes no violence force or fraud, which is completely ignored by James Sterba. 

Bibliography:
1. Louis P. Pojman. Political Philosophy Classic and Contemporary Readings. New York: McGraw Hill - NY