School boy suspended for 'crisp dealing'. A Libertarian dilemma

Here's a Libertarian quandary for you. Is it acceptable to libertarians that a schoolboy is suspended from school and punished, for selling 'Discos' crisps to fellow pupils on the blackmarket?

Well, while you're thinking about that, you might like to read this story in the Mail about just such an occurrence.

A 12 year old lad was caught doing this at Liverpool's Cardinal Heenan High School. According to Wikipedia, this school is a Comprehensive that specialises in Sports, Performing Arts and other extra curricular activities. Steven Gerrard is an ex-pupil.

So, a state-run shit hole, then. No doubt imbued with the usual post-60s left wing values and the corrupt social democratic agenda of the liberal elite that gets foisted onto the young fertile minds by a Socialist, Guardian reading Staff Room.

From the piece...

"...headmaster Dave Forshaw said parents and pupils must abide by the school rules or go elsewhere.

'We are a healthy school and proud of it,' he said.

'If parents are not happy then they are perfectly free to take their children to a school that allows pupils to sell these things..."

I have highlighted certain parts of the quote for a reason.

On the face of it, many libertarians, including myself, would take one look at this story and be disgusted at the outrageous, stupid and draconian authoritarianism of the school policy towards the entrepreneurial youngster. He was selling crisps, a fairly harmless food, to a market that was willing to participate in a voluntary and private exchange of wealth for product. No-one could ever be harmed by this action.

"Quick, pass me a credit card, I want to do a line of this shit before my Chemistry class with Miss Beck......... WOOOOOOO-HEEEEEEE!!!!!!"

However, there is a strong strand of libertarianism that ardently defends the ultimate rights of the owner of a forum, property or establishment over the rights of the people that enter that sphere.

Many libertarians take the private property argument, and take it to the ultimate degree, defending it to the death. So a pub landlord could make up whatever rules he wishes, and punters would have to either obey, or go elsewhere. A landowner could allow, ban, build and behave exactly as he or she liked on their land, and the rights of whoever trespassed would be nullified.

I take a very different view. My libertarian beliefs are such that I cannot accept that it is right and liberal to bar people, on the basis that ownership of a building or land belongs to one person who is making up all the rules.

If you took this logic to the end, you will discover that the Nuremberg Trials of the '40s in Germany were false, and that the Nazi war criminals did nothing wrong, because they were acting according to Hitler's rules. Hitler owned Germany. Everyone within it had, under a sovereign state, pledged allegiance to the Fuhrer, and so whatever happened was just and permissible.

Is this acceptable to libertarians? Would this be justified in a libertarian country?

If we are to accept fundamental rights, liberties and freedoms, they must apply to all people, wherever they may go and whatever they do, so long as they don't infringe on the rights of their fellow man. The lad who got suspended at the school harmed no-one, so in my eyes, the suspension was morally indefensible and a total infringement on his rights.

There is a twist here.

The school doesn't belong to the headmaster, does it? It is property of the state. The state's property, in effect, belongs to the people. The tax payer pays for it. So it could be argued that the private property argument no longer applies. The rules were made up by the Headmaster, probably in conjunction with school governors. They, in turn, derive their powers from educational authorities, who in turn get their powers from the government, who in turn is chosen by the people to represent them.

My guess is that private property obsessed libertarians would be likely to oppose the school's decision, even when considering the words of the school's headmaster. Because the question of private property rights does not exist.

Most libertarians, therefore, would probably disagree with the action taken by the school in this instance.

I believe that the banning of pupils selling crisps is a matter that should be decided by the public.

This is why my belief system is so heavily set up the fundamental importance of referenda. It is why I support the Swiss system, more direct democracy, more accountability and proper people power.

It is why I have much time for strands of left-libertarian thinking, which caters more for the will of the people as a whole, rather than the desires and rights of one off individuals in one off positions of power and influence.

While I would always argue it wrong to ban pupils for selling crisps, taking all the factors here into account, the right and rational solution would be to put matters like this before the people.

My left and right wing libertarian ideals come together to effectively cancel each other out in terms of where I appear on the political spectrum. I am a centrist libertarian, not because I have fluffy middle of the road views, but because I am strongly opinionated except only by taking various ideas and fitting them together.

But Libertarians, of all hues, would diverge from the classic 'conservative', reactionary assessment of the crisp-dealing incident. A Daily Mail reader or a reactionary from the conservative right would either support the draconian punishment as the child broke established rules, or, they would oppose it on the basis that the school is probably lax on drug dealing or other wrongs and misdemeanors, and likely has a sex education policy which is morally wrong.

We would attack the authoritarian right position on both counts. Firstly, just because rules are in place, doesn't mean they are instantly right. Authority must be questioned, and sometimes, it is actually appropriate for children to do the piping up in dissent. The child was not suspended for disrupting a classroom and damaging the education of his peers. He was suspended unjustly. A child would be able to know that.

Secondly, just because a school might have a lot of bad policies and ideas about other things, doesn't automatically make the crisp dealing OK, because the crisp dealing must be a lesser wrong.

Of course, the crisp dealing is OK (I believe). But this is based on its own merit. It is based on an assessment of the case in hand, regardless of other considerations. The trouble with reactionary, social, moral and cultural conservatives, is that they so often play the game of moral equivalents in a very similar way that left wingers do about things like war and western imperialism.

You might despise a Headmaster for allowing sex education and the handing out of the pill and condoms and a whole host of other liberal measures. But that, in itself, cannot logically influence any given position or rule regarding the selling of Discos crisps. To win an argument, you have to take every scenario and question of liberty on its own merits.

Curiously, leftists would probably be divided on the decision to suspend the lad. Your younger, health and safety obsessed, social democratic weirdos (including the very political 'progressive' liberal chef Jamie Oliver) would be likely to agree with the suspension.

Their logic would dictate that obesity is bad. The role of the state is to solve things and intervene with rules and enforcement to make things happen. If you stopped people selling bad food to others, obesity and poor health would decline. Therefore the ends justify the means.

I also think that a lot of lefties, bar Marxist types who despise business and individual effort and initiative, would oppose the suspension for being too harsh and too silly.

I'd be interested to see the results of a survey that asked people for their opinion on the punishment meted out to the crisp-dealing 12 year old, whilst also asking them for information on their political persuasions. I am sure you'd find a link.