British conservative journalist Roger Scruton came under fire in recent weeks after admitting that he has taken money to write positive articles about the tobacco industry.
For free-marketeers, who defend the right of individuals to make free choices in a marketplace, constrained only by property rights, it is tempting to say that Scruton's error calls into question only his journalistic integrity, not his philosophical principles. But is it that simple?
Scruton clearly saw himself fighting the regulations that governments have increasingly placed upon the tobacco industry, and that much is in keeping with basic libertarian principles of freedom and resistance to force. Scruton went a step farther, though, writing about the "moral and social benefits" of smoking and arguing that smoking "makes a real and positive contribution to health" because it "calms the nerves and imposes moments of rest and contemplation." He glorified smoking.
Non-libertarians, hearing this, might be tempted to conclude that free-marketeers are insane or that Scruton is just a sell-out, but I think what is going on is both less sinister and more troubling for thoughtful admirers of the market. It seems Scruton has taken something that has been increasingly regulated and, in retaliation, is turning it into a virtue. This same sort of knee-jerk reaction can be seen in liberals who, rather than just standing on principle and defending freedom of speech, feel compelled to find great artistic merit in every offensive piece of art, such as the recently-unveiled, tax-funded statues of defecating nuns at a new wine and food center in California. A similar knee-jerk reaction can be seen in conservatives who turn insensitive racial or sexual comments into heroic actions or make those comments sound like necessary parts of workplace conversation, instead of just arguing that such things are better regulated by social and professional pressure than by government regulations.
Tobacco, whether freely chosen or forced upon people at gunpoint, whether regulated or unregulated, is dangerous. It causes about half the premature deaths in America and is highly addictive, more so than most familiar illegal drugs. Libertarians of all people should be especially cautious about cavalierly treating this addictive and deadly substance, which has taken more American lives than all terrorist acts and wars combined, as if it were merely another harmless widget for sale: sofas, comic books, oven mitts...cigarettes. Indeed, if all products—or even a great many—on the market affected customers the way that cigarettes do, it might well be time to switch to a more paternalistic philosophy. Fortunately, few products are as harmful as tobacco, and we have habits of individual choice and personal responsibility that can be brought to bear on the problem of tobacco.
If the real goal of libertarianism is not to create mere chaos, as critics imply, but to create a world where private mechanisms (friendly advice, sarcastic comments, good journalism) can steer people toward decisions that will foster their long-term happiness and well-being, libertarians have a special responsibility to prove that they are aware of freedom's occasional dangers, such as tobacco, and are willing to call attention to them.
We should no more glamorize smoking because the government attacks it than we should glamorize overdosing on sleeping pills or drinking and driving. For conservative Scruton to do so is wrong for moral and philosophical reasons, regardless of whether tobacco industry money fostered the glamorizing articles.
In another blow to libertarianism, last month brought the death (from stomach cancer, not lung cancer) of perhaps the most respected libertarian philosopher, Robert Nozick, Harvard professor and author of Anarchy, State, and Utopia. Nozick was very thorough and open in his philosophizing, willing to discuss the areas of a theory that were weak or tentative and talk about how those areas might change if other assumptions were shifted slightly. Philosophy was always a work in progress for him, not a perfect system. As a result, he was willing to acknowledge supplemental virtues, such as compassion and reason, that ought to round out the thinking of agents in a free society.
The Scruton scandal provides overeager libertarians—and defenders of tobacco in general, and perhaps even some of the people who sell tobacco—with a chance to revise their thinking. If ever there were an issue on which the familiar mantra about freedom entailing responsibility were appropriate, it is this one. One can desire the minimization of regulation and still regard the choice to smoke as wrong and the choice to sell cigarettes as evil. Give me liberty, not death.
