The modern pro-liberty movement has been divided, almost from its beginning, by factionalism and schisms. Nowhere do these philosophical disagreements more clearly manifest themselves than in differences over the meaning and application of two basic political principles: “individual rights” and “non-initiation of force.”
What do the principles of “rights” and “non-aggression” mean and imply in the context of a philosophy of rational self-interest? How does the Objectivist view of these principles differ from conceptions of them held by many libertarians and anarchists? Robert Bidinotto will trace a range of heated political disagreements among self-defined proponents of liberty—from foreign policy to legal theory to the nature of government itself—back to profound, underlying differences in basic philosophy.
Robert Bidinotto, editor of Criminal Justice? (FEE, 1994), is the editor-in-chief of The New Individualist. He has spoken and written extensively on politics from an Objectivist perspective.