Should the Left Embrace Left-Libertarianism?

Abstract

Left political philosophers have adopted a vast array of theoretical perspectives for diagnosing the ills of contemporary capitalist societies and they offer a plethora of different prescriptions for remedying these injustices. In this chapter I critically assess another principled account of justice that functions at the level of ideal theory - left-libertarianism. ‘Left-libertarian theories of justice hold that agents are full self-owners and that natural resources are owned in some egalitarian manner’ (Vallentyne and Steiner, 2000b, p. 1). Debates concerning the viability of left-libertarianism as a political theory are beginning to gain momentum. Barbara Fried (2004, 2005) argues that one of the pillars of left-libertarianism - self-ownership - is an indeterminate concept and that left-libertarianism is indistinguishable from liberal egalitarianism. Mathias Risse (2004) argues that left-libertarianism is incoherent. Left-libertarians have retorted (Vallentyne, Steiner and Otsuka, 2005) by arguing that their theory is coherent, determinate and relevant. For the most part, the central focus of these spirited debates has been on the philosophical underpinnings of left-libertarianism rather than on its practical prescriptions.