As part of an increasingly absurd debate among libertarians over whether Americans were freer in 1880 than today, Bryan Caplan has managed to argue that women had secured more liberty in the 19th century despite not being able to vote. His justification is that even though women were required to subsume their rights to their husband, marriage was "voluntary," and women were expected to be homemakers. Yup, it's a tendentious argument and remarkably lacking in a realistic view of society at the time.
This kind of weird rationalization isn't all that unusual among libertarians when they start trying to define freedom. The Mercatus Center at George Mason University publishes a freedom ranking each year of the 50 states. Their standards are fascinating and revealing: A state's tax rate and debt-levels apparently say more about the freedom of its citizens than whether the police departments are effective ("We do not code the effectiveness of state governments in punishing rights violations"). The presence of labor unions and health insurance regulation both drag down freedom, while the right to same-sex marriage isn't considered a freedom issue at all. Reproductive choice isn't counted, either. It seems as though the number of people imprisoned by a state is counted about the same as whether corporations have limits on donations to political candidates.
This is not what most people think of when considering freedom, and why I find it hard to take libertarianism all that seriously. In its most common form, the ideology becomes an argument for unbinding corporate interests rather than for freedom as people operating in a real social environment generally construe it. That's why Caplan can argue that women were more liberated in 1880 than today. That's why the Mercatus Center believes a state that bars individuals from marrying people they love, from controlling their own health care, and being safe in their homes is freer than a neighbor which grants those basic personal rights, all so long as corporations aren't oppressed with burdensome taxes and safety regulations.
-- Tim Fernholz
