Jonathan Swift: An Early Libertarian

In many ways, I consider Jonathan Swift to be one of the first libertarians. His penetrating satire of early18^th-century Great Britain brilliantly condemns the problems of British mercantilism and points out its devastating effects, but unlike other commentators, he does not devolve into senselessly bashing or blaming capitalism for the hardships of society. Though he was a landed Tory, a party commonly associated with landed gentry opposed to home industry-threatening trade, his pro-market views even preceded the advent of modern capitalism with Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations. Swift's life in the land o' the Irish likely provided him with some insight on the topic.

After living in Ireland, Swift took interest in the Ireland's economic development- considering that it was widely regarded to be a particularly well-endowed country that could be one of the richest in Europe, while at the same time it was one of the poorest. It was virtually the Mexico of Europe. In his sermon On the Causes of the Wretched Condition of Ireland, Swift complains of the burdens of the mercantile system: "the first cause of our misery is the intolerable hardships we lie under in every branch of trade, by which we are become as hewers of wood, and drawers of water, to our rigorous neighbors." Swift condemned a vast array of trade-discriminatory acts that essentially served as protectionist economic policy for British home industries. The Navigation Acts in particular made it expensive both to import and export goods between Ireland and the colonies, while other laws prohibited Irish wool producers from competing with their British counterparts, and did the same for livestock producers. The British justified this on the basis of the same argument used to justify the restrictions placed on the American colonies, citing unproven economic dogma as the specific reasoning for each policy. On this, he commented that Ireland was prevented from trading freely "by the superiority of mere power," alluding to the fact that British politicians had claimed to be part of a nation governed by "Law and Reason," yet undertook policies justified by nothing but force, particularly regarding trade and the colonies.

In true libertarian form, Gulliver's Travels is not only a commentary on British society, but a commentary on mainstream criticisms of it. Libertarians criticize the statist criticisms of the status quo, noting that the dichotomy gives one a choice between state power, and state power. Thus, the goal of libertarian criticism is to undermine the "statist quo," specifically. In the same way, Gulliver's Travels is one big, amalgamated work in which Swift implicitly states, "this is the way it is," through his commentary manifested in Gulliver's character, his views on British society, and the different lands to which he travels.