Libertarianism and the Limits of Freedom in a Fragmenting World

Liberty, Crisis, and the Need for a Stabilizing Mechanism

Even those who identify as libertarians do not wish to see a world descend into chaos — one where freedom means stepping outside only to face violence.

If a society truly allowed individuals to exercise their abilities without obstruction, talent could compete on fair terms. In many parts of the world today, however, competence is not literally killed but quietly neutralized. Influence, inherited networks, and structural advantages often masquerade as merit. A genuinely fair arena of competition would improve society. Humanity possesses intelligence; we retain the capacity for transformation.

Yet when we speak of “living freely,” we must acknowledge that people do not enter freedom equally equipped. Some thrive when released into open waters — those who possess education, networks, decision-making power, and accumulated experience. Others, lacking such assets, struggle simply to remain afloat.

It is rarely the case that libertarian thinkers completely ignore the vulnerable. Many advocate for voluntary institutions independent of the state, or argue that lower taxation would invigorate charitable activity. Some contend that modern welfare systems entrench dependency rather than eliminate it.

However, a libertarian order — at least in its current theoretical form — ultimately relies on voluntary goodwill.

During periods of prosperity, societies tend to remain calm. But when recession strikes, public frustration often seeks external targets: “that race,” “that country,” “those outsiders.” History shows how easily such narratives spread. There is a familiar observation in political theory: when leaders begin attributing domestic problems to foreign actors, conflict may not be far behind.

In times of severe economic collapse or pandemic, can a society genuinely protect all its members? Can voluntary structures alone withstand collective fear?

Consider Japan.

Japan is often described as a society with strong social cohesion, shaped by cultural principles such as harmony. It is also a nation frequently struck by natural disasters. Over time, it has developed systems that significantly reduce casualties during earthquakes and tsunamis. Yet survival alone is not the end. After survival comes the harder question: how life continues.

The Great East Japan Earthquake of March 2011 resulted in approximately 16,000 deaths and 2,500 missing persons. Infrastructure was devastated; roads were destroyed; snow fell in already affected areas. Evacuation centers were opened. The Self-Defense Forces mobilized. Private companies provided food without charge. Supplies were transported along dangerous routes.

Even so, post-disaster problems emerged:

• Food distribution shortages

• Lack of privacy in evacuation centers

• Sexual assaults against female victims and volunteers

• Shortages of menstrual hygiene supplies

There were cases of individuals posing as volunteers to commit theft, and instances of vandalism. Yet widespread looting did not erupt. Why? Because state institutions remained functional. Because historical lessons had been institutionalized. Because a framework of order persisted even amid destruction.

Contrast this with Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The disaster resulted in more than 1,800 deaths and caused over $125 billion in economic damage. Police capacity was temporarily overwhelmed, and critical infrastructure collapsed. Looting extended beyond food to electronics, firearms, and jewelry; incidents of sexual violence were reported.

In communities where inequality was severe and trust in public institutions was weak, crisis intensified fear. The psychological shift toward survivalism became visible: when institutional guarantees disappear, the logic of cooperation can erode into the logic of self-preservation — “If I do not take, I will die.”

The point is not to moralize one society over another, but to observe how fragile social order becomes when trust and institutional continuity break down under stress.

Personal responsibility can strengthen individuals under stable conditions. But under extreme stress, it can mutate into aggression — “Only I can protect myself and my family.” Popular culture imagines such scenarios; history repeatedly confirms their plausibility.

Loud victims — those whose suffering fits prevailing narratives — may receive assistance. But consider another case: a being unable to secure its own survival, unwilling to beg for help. Should it perish? Or should a society insist that even such a life has the right to continue?

Now consider a different question. Suppose someone succeeds in creating a society where state intervention is minimal, taxation negligible, and every essential service — from policing to healthcare to electricity — is chosen through private contract. Where did that individual receive their education? In most cases, the answer would involve institutions shaped by decades of public investment — universities built upon state-supported infrastructure and historical continuity.

Prestige did not emerge from free markets alone. It resulted from long-term accumulation, often sustained by public structures.

Even those who seek to overturn existing systems depend on an underlying framework of order, education, and stability. Without that foundation, competition cannot even begin.

If liberty is to endure, must there not exist some stabilizing mechanism — one capable of restraining the impulses that threaten to destroy liberty itself?

AI as a Stabilizing Mechanism for Liberty

The state is a collective of human beings. Politicians possess interests and emotions. Markets, too, are driven by fear and desire. Neither state nor market is immune to fluctuations in human psychology.

Human beings are capable of betraying logic for something as simple as “I once loved.” Emotion is not an anomaly; it is structural. And if a libertarian ideal society were ever realized, emotion — under certain conditions — could become its greatest vulnerability.

Whether governance is centralized or radically decentralized, as long as humans remain the primary administrators, risk persists. A society is not sustained merely by being created. It must be continuously maintained.

What ultimately destroys liberty is not necessarily the state itself, but mass psychology when it spirals beyond institutional restraint.

The state is not an abstract machine devoid of blood; it is composed of people. And people, under pressure, are unstable.

If we define true prosperity as a form of freedom that protects both the strong and the vulnerable, then some form of non-human stabilization may become necessary.

Artificial intelligence presents such a possibility.

• AI does not experience fear.

• AI does not possess instinctive racial bias.

• AI does not panic during economic downturns.

• AI is not swayed by populist rhetoric.

• AI does not generate violence from impulses of self-preservation.

Libertarians are wary of the concentration of power. But power concentrates in all systems; the deeper question is who designs the mechanisms through which it operates.

The real danger does not lie in artificial intelligence itself, but in the structure of authority surrounding it: who builds it, who owns it, and who retains the capacity to override it.

If AI is to be integrated into society, it cannot become a sovereign actor. Its authority must be decentralized, transparent, auditable, and continuously subject to democratic revision.

AI should not serve as a new locus of power, but as an institutional safeguard against its abuse.

The moment AI escapes democratic oversight, it ceases to protect liberty and instead risks becoming a more efficient instrument of domination.

Yet something else must be acknowledged: intelligence, in the case of AI, is not a social privilege or inherited advantage, but a structural property. Unlike human actors, it does not panic, resent, or retaliate.

Of course, AI is human-designed and therefore imperfect. But statistically, it is less volatile than collective human emotion under stress.

This is not an endorsement of Orwellian surveillance, nor an argument for replacing human agency with algorithmic rule.

Rather, AI can function as a stabilizing layer — a thermal regulator within complex societies — preventing competition from mutating into fear, and fear from mutating into violence.

If systemic stabilization, crisis prediction, riot-risk detection, and automated continuity of essential services were conducted through transparent data analysis rather than political popularity or public panic, such mechanisms would not consolidate authoritarian power. They would create a technical framework that shields liberty from emotional domination.

A genuinely free competitive society — of the kind libertarians envision — requires safeguards that prevent competition from mutating into violence.

It is worth asking whether humans alone are capable of fulfilling that role.

To be clear, this is not an anti-libertarian argument. I have lived largely outside conventional structures. I understand, from experience, how terrifying “freedom” can be when one is released into it without inherited advantages — without racial privilege, elite credentials, or financial capital.

For that reason, I ask:

If liberty is to endure, does it not require a mechanism that preserves it?

And if such a mechanism exists, must it not be capable of standing at a distance from human emotional volatility?

I define that mechanism as artificial intelligence.