By Jacob G. Hornberger
The Future of Freedom Foundation
September 8, 2026
For the life of me, I just cannot understand why anyone would choose serfdom over freedom. After all, we've been given only one life to live. Wouldn't it be better to live that one life in freedom rather than serfdom ? The answer seems self-evident to me.
It goes without saying that both conservatives and progressives accepted the serfdom society a long time ago. Today, both of them are enthusiastic supporters of it.
However, unfortunately there is also a large number of libertarians who have chosen serfdom over freedom. That just makes no sense to me. Libertarianism is about freedom, not serfdom.
Mind you, such libertarians are definitely committed to improving the serfdom under which we live, but at the end of the day, it remains serfdom. A serfdom society is not converted into a free society simply because the serfdom is improved.
Consider, for example, school vouchers. Many libertarians love school vouchers, a socialist measure designed to improve public (i.e., government) schooling through "choice" and "competition." For decades, some libertarians have devoted unbelievably large amounts of time, energy, resources, research, articles, op-eds, books, and money to achieving voucher programs.
But a free society necessarily is one in which there is a separation of education and the state, just as our ancestors separated church and state. Moreover, public schooling and school vouchers are both socialist measures, ones by which the government takes money from one group of people by force and gives it to another group of people. It's a serfdom way of life, one in which the state is the master and the families are the serfs.
Or consider Social Security and Medicare, both of which are classic socialist programs. Every libertarian knows that socialism is the opposite of freedom. Yet, there is a large number of libertarians who are loathe to publicly advocate the immediate repeal of these and other welfare-state programs. Instead, they come up their own personal plans on how to save, reform, and improve American welfare-state socialism.
Yet, such libertarians have to realize that so long as we continue to live under socialist programs, including Social Security and Medicare (and public schooling), we are not living lives of freedom. To experience what it's like to live in a genuinely free society, we have to rid our nation of all socialist programs. There is no way around it. Sure, libertarians might come up with great plans that really do save, reform, and improve American socialism, but, in the process, they have chosen serfdom over freedom.
Consider the drug war. Some libertarians want the federal government to give people permission to smoke marijuana, even while leaving the hard drugs subject to government control and prohibition. But permission is not freedom. It's serfdom. When government wields the power to punish a person for what he ingests, that makes the government the master and the person a serf.
Consider the immigration-control system. There is a large number of libertarians who support ICE, the Border Patrol, Homeland Security, and the immigration police state that has enveloped our nation. In the name of "securing our border" and "keeping us safe," they endorse such tyrannical measures as warrantless trespasses and searches onto private property, fixed highway checkpoints, roving Border Patrol checkpoints, the criminalization of hiring, transporting, and caring for illegals immigrants, forced deportations, a Berlin Wall and eminent domain stealing of private property, the boarding of Greyhound buses to check people's papers, mass secret surveillance, snitches, and other aspects of immigration police-state tyranny.
Why ? Remember: It's only one life we've been given. Why choose tyrannical serfdom over freedom?
Consider the national-security state, which is a type of political system in which the government vests itself with omnipotent powers, such as assassination, torture, and indefinite detention, including of American citizens. There is no possibility whatsoever that anyone living in a national-security state can be considered to be free. Instead, when one lives under omnipotent government, one is clearly a serf while the government is clearly the master.
Consider the income tax and tariffs. When the Sixteenth Amendment was adopted, the American people were immediately converted into serfs and the federal government became their master. That's because the federal government now wielded the power to determine how much of people's income they would be permitted to keep, much as a parent decides how much an allowance his children will be given. Under President Trump, Americans also have discovered that they live under a system where the president can set tariff-taxes in whatever amount he chooses whenever he wants. That's a classic master-serf relationship.
Nonetheless, there are plenty of libertarians who settle for their personal plans to reform the U.S. tax code and "rein in" the president's power to set tariff-taxes, especially since they need these tyrannical taxes to fund the welfare-warfare state programs they are committed to saving, reforming, and improving.
Finally, it's worth reminding ourselves of something important: Our 19th-century American ancestors who lived in 1890, for example, without all of the tyrannical measures listed above. Unlike Americans today, they chose to be the masters and to make the federal government the servant.
I just don't get it. It's only one life we have been given. Why would anyone, especially a self-described libertarian, choose to make that one life one of serfdom rather than a life of freedom. It is quite befuddling to me.
Reprinted with permission from The Future of Freedom Foundation.