Progress pill
Philosophy of liberalism

Individual autonomy and collective self-defence

Freedom as a Social Project

Individual autonomy and collective self-defence

  • The individual as the foundation of political freedom
  • Nations as voluntary associations
  • Secession and freedom of government
  • Toward international security founded on law

The individual as the foundation of political freedom

The doctrine of freedom rests on a principle that deserves to be stated with the greatest possible clarity: the individual is the inescapable starting point for any reflection on liberty. This is not a preference or an aesthetic choice; it is a factual observation of human nature. We do not enjoy things collectively; we do not possess an innate collective will, but an individual will of our own. Through exchange and contract, collective decisions can emerge, but the primary foundation always remains the individual, not the nation, the group, or any other collective category.
Benjamin Constant (1767–1830), the great Swiss-French liberal, born in Lausanne and shaped by the upheavals of the Revolution and the Empire, devoted much of his career to working out the precise implications of this individualist foundation. In his Principes de politique applicables à tous les gouvernements (1815), he wrote with the precision of a man who had seen what happens when the collective swallows the individual:
"There is a part of human existence which by necessity remains individual and independent, and which is, of right, outside any social competence. Sovereignty exists only in a limited and relative fashion. The jurisdiction of society stops where individual independence begins. If society crosses this boundary, it is as guilty of tyranny as the despot whose only title is the sword."
This recognition has important consequences for political organisation. Unfreedom almost always manifests itself in the subjugation of the individual in the name of a supposed collective interest: the nation, the race, the class, the general will. Laws must therefore be founded on the recognition of human rights and fundamental freedoms, while framing this freedom so that it does not infringe on the similar freedoms of others. Constant, in his Commentaire sur l'ouvrage de Filangieri (1822), insists on the necessary silence of the law when the individual makes a just and legitimate use of his liberty and property.
In other words, the law has no legitimate voice over what I do with my own body, my own time, and my own goods, as long as I harm no one else. This silence of the law is an essential principle: the only permissible limitation on individual freedom lies in the protection of the freedoms of others.
Constant elaborated this thought with an image that has lost none of its force:
"Ask yourselves what must be the domain of society and the domain of the individual. Society has rights over actions that harm it; over actions that harm others; over actions that could harm the exercise of the rights of others. But over actions that concern only the individual himself, society has no right to speak: such actions are outside its competence."

Nations as voluntary associations

The liberal society is founded on voluntary exchange and contract, which profoundly transforms our understanding of the nation. Nations are to be understood as large associations through and within which individuals organise the administration of justice and the police. They are not superior entities that dominate or possess individuals; they are instruments that individuals create and can, in principle, reform or replace.
What are the true foundations of national unity? History teaches us that the pretexts usually invoked, such as unity of language, culture, or history, do not withstand impartial analysis. The wars that have enlarged certain territories have not been waged on the basis of linguistic or cultural affinities but according to opportunities for political expansion. The great movement of colonisation is a perfect illustration: France governed populations speaking hundreds of languages without claiming any cultural affinity with them; the criterion was power, not kinship.
Molinari, reflecting on the question of nationality in his Cours d'économie politique (1863), wrote:
"What is a nation, if one examines it without prejudice? A company, a very large company, formed originally for the purpose of mutual defence against external aggression and internal disorder. Like all companies, it is legitimate only insofar as it is freely joined and freely left. The moment it places the individual in a condition analogous to that of a serf bound to his master's land, it has ceased to be a society and become a prison."
In other words, we must think differently about politics, gradually replacing political serfdom with increasingly contractual and voluntary foundations. The nation is not a mystical entity with claims over its members' lives and fortunes; it is an association of individuals that derives its legitimacy from the services it renders and the consent of those it governs.

Secession and freedom of government

The notion of secession is the logical continuation of this reflection. If the nation is a voluntary association, then the right to leave it must, in principle, exist. Gustave de Molinari explored this question in particular depth at the time of the American Civil War, a conflict that forced European liberals to confront the tension between two principles they both cherished: the freedom of peoples and the abolition of slavery.
In his analysis of the conflict, Molinari posed the question that liberalism could not evade:
"What is slavery, if not the most radical form of the denial of self-ownership? And what is forced membership in a political union, if not a milder but structurally identical denial of that same right? The man who cannot leave a political community without the consent of those who govern it is not fully free. He is, to use the language of the law, attached to the soil of a particular jurisdiction as the serf was attached to the domain of his lord."
True freedom of contract does not simply consist in being party to a social contract; it implies the freedom to sign or not to sign, and thus to choose to enter or leave a group under voluntary conditions. Collective secession enables a group of people to break away from one nation to form another, or to join an entity already formed. Territorial or geographical pretexts are no more valid than linguistic ones, as demonstrated by the existence of landlocked states and political groups sharing different languages. In other words, the map is not the argument; the consent of the governed is the only legitimate foundation of political authority.

Toward international security founded on law

As early as 1713, the Abbé de Saint-Pierre (1658–1743) identified the need for organised international security, sketching in his Projet pour rendre la paix perpétuelle en Europe the outlines of what a federation of nations might look like. He was a visionary: he understood that peace is not a natural state of humanity but a construction, requiring the same kind of institutional framework that makes domestic peace possible within nations.
Historically, security was established gradually: first between tribes, then on a national scale with the end of serfdom and the creation of vast states. Today, the proportion of human relations conducted on an international basis has grown considerably, making it ever more imperative to establish security on very broad boundaries. Commerce, correspondence, and travel have woven a web of human interdependence that no single state can encompass.
Molinari, in his La Grandeur et décadence de la guerre (1898), wrote with the confidence of a man who had devoted a long life to thinking about the economics of peace:
"War is the most costly of all human enterprises, and the least productive. Every cannon shot represents a quantity of capital destroyed, every soldier killed represents a quantity of intelligence, energy, and productive capacity annihilated forever. The nations that devote themselves to war impoverish themselves; those that devote themselves to commerce enrich themselves. The lesson of history is clear: the future belongs to the peaceful arts, and to the institutions that make them possible."
A state of international law that would recognise freedom of action while punishing infringements of that freedom does not yet exist on a global scale. We must prepare for its organisation, as history is moving toward an increasingly liberal functioning of societies. Security is an indispensable condition for voluntary human relations, since without it, innocent freedom can neither be recognised nor practically implemented. Indeed, freedom that is constantly in danger is freedom destroyed in advance: the merchant who cannot ship his goods without risking piracy, the traveller who cannot cross a border without risking imprisonment, the worker who cannot change employers without risking violence, none of these people is truly free.
Quiz
Quiz1/5
What fundamental characteristic must distinguish true contractual freedom in political organization from mere participation in existing social contracts?