Christian Libertarianism

On a couple of occasions I've had Christians I value highly query how libertarianism can be consistent with the Christian faith. The general gist is 'But how can you be both; libertarians believe that anything goes, don't they?' The thing about libertarianism is that, like many things, it's not binary, it is a spectrum, ranging from hard libertarianism to soft libertarianism. Generally libertarians are to the right on economics and to the left on social issues. Some hard libertarians do believe that pretty much anything goes as long as it doesn't encroach on other people's well-being. Some even go so far as to insist that there is no need for any state or taxes whatsoever.

Libertarianism, like Christianity itself, has a mainstream with sensible moderates, and it has extreme ends with fundamentalists. The aim, as ever, should always be as Pascal identified it - that one "does not prove greatness by standing at an extremity, but by touching both extremities at once and filling all that lies between them".

I'm a libertarian when it comes to free market potential, and this is on the basis that it is clear that our values and our talents are formed through our inter-personal relationships, not from on high by top-down State micromanagement. The State is best when it acts to protect our liberties, our relationships and the fruits of our labour.  The free market is the canvas on which the colours of commercial co-operation are expressed, and on which our skills, ideas and efforts are co-ordinated - and all this is bootstrapped by abidance to rules, as well as harnessing honesty, trust and good economic relations.

As a Christian, my economic principles are based on the successes of the free market - trade, innovation, supply, demand, prices, labour, productivity and consumerism - but also in using that framework to take it to an even higher level of personal responsibility towards others. That, I think, is the biggest challenge in the modern globalised market, where the world is interconnected and economically unbound by national, cultural or ethnic boundaries; it is to conflate the qualities of the free market with the Christ-like virtues of loving God and loving one's neighbour as oneself, on top of charity, prodigious generosity, and helping the poor become self-sufficient and with a greater standard of living.

Christianity to me simply means getting one's faith right. Libertarianism to me simply means getting one's economics right. They are not in the least bit incompatible, as long as one doesn't become so extreme that the virtues of being caring, kind and responsible humans are compromised in favour of an espousal of freedom that divests us of love and grace towards fellow human beings.