expect spiritual growth when living in a cardboard shack outside some Latin
American city ruled by a corrupt and violentoligarchy. Thus the general
political thrust, that the Church should use all its efforts, material, political and
doctrinal, to bring about social justice, jargonistically called ‘the preferential
option for the poor’, is not in itself a heretical position, however embarrassing
it may be for a Church traditionally on good terms with the exploiting classes.
The real problem comes when, advocating social justice, liberation theologians
turn to what they sometimes openly admit to be a Marxist analysis ofclassand
poverty. There is no way to avoid the fact thatMarxismis a materialistic
theory, and overtly treats religion as an ideological phenomenon (‘the opium
of the people’ in Marx’s own words), a consequence ofalienation. Thus,
according to the most orthodox of theologians, beliefs incompatible with basic
Christian doctrine are incorporated into liberation theology. Priests may
legitimately put effort into achieving social justice (by non-violent means),
but can never see it as their primary role, cannot act in ways dictated by an anti-
religious theory, and above all cannot disregard the priority of personal moral
salvation or believe it to be incompatible with any socio-political structure
whatsoever.
Libertarianism
Libertarianism is primarily an American political theory, though it has adher-
ents in Western Europe. At its simplest it is an extreme form ofLiberalism
lacking most of the moral overtones of traditional Liberalism. A libertarian
believes that radical individual freedom and complete self-reliance is the most
desirable of political states, and should be used as the yardstick against which to
judge actual social systems and their restrictions on freedom. Libertarianism is
not anarchism, mainly because it accepts the need for a state, whereas
anarchism propounds regulation by peer-group or other non-state pressure
and libertarians want individuals to be genuinely free and independent, not
simply free from a coercive state. Anarchism often imagines high degrees of
voluntary collectivism—libertarians imagine any collective action as purely
contractual and based on coincidence of sheer self-interest.
The libertarian believes in something usually called a ‘minimal state’ where
only a very few crucial matters need to be, or morally can be, dealt with by the
state, and the state’s power to coerce financial or other contributions towards
such provision is severely limited. Probably the only services easily accepted as
suitable for the state are internal and external security provision—the police
and the army. Even emergency-service provision like that of fire brigades is
often seen as something best left to private insurance. Absolutely no interven-
tion in an individual’s free choice on the ground that it is in his interest could
be accepted—libertarians commonly criticize legislation restricting the use of
Libertarianism