The Greatest Good

    What is the greatest good? A libertarian friend recently stated with finality that Liberty is the greatest moral good in the world.  This shows a confusion as to what liberty is.  Liberty is a premise within which infinite variation of events could occur.  Liberty is choice, freedom, and Independence from coercive elements.  Without Liberty morality has no meaning, morality assumes a free moral agent making the good or bad choice.  Doing a moral act such as feeding a homeless man is made irrelevant when that morality is forced by a coercive government who takes from you to give to the hungry.  You didn't give because you recognized the value of that homeless persons life, but you gave to prevent the state from exercising violence against you.  The situation becomes worst still because once the hungry man is full the state is either helpless or uninterested in this mans intrinsic value.  On the other hand, if a free individual were to invest in the betterment of a hungry person, they would not feel that that investment had a good return if the hungry man was simply given a single meal.  The free person might use a variety of investment options which would have varying results.  There already is a thriving market of competitive charities, all of which result in much more significant life change on the part of the beneficiary.  While upward mobility is almost unheard of among those on welfare, the situation is very different when it comes to private sector charities.  It's driven by the same factors which cause other aspects of a free market to far surpass government programs.  The investors are looking for certain results and if the charities in question do not show those results then those charitable dollars go elsewhere.  Compare the insanity of U.S. foreign aid, which almost exclusively lines the pockets of dictators with the Christian international organization World Vision, who allows individuals to provide food, shelter, and education to one child somewhere around the world for $35/month.  The idiocy and irrelevance of government is undeniable.  Within tyranny charity becomes impotent and immoral since the act is usually used as a tactic to shackle the lower class to the ruling class which gave them this utterly useless aid.  On the other hand, within liberty, actions have meaning and they are done without coercion.  Tyranny is evil, But Liberty is the potential for good.