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I respect certain aspects of libertarianism. I understand that they want to protect the value of the individual. But it seems to me to be based on the idea that individuals are separate, self-contained, self-determining atoms. Libertarians talk as though individuals owe nothing to the society around them, as though they come into the world fully formed and then proceed to make millions of little "contracts" with each other.

Is that the way it is? It seems to me that people come into the world almost entirely unformed and that they slowly develop and acquire human characteristics. Furthermore, they owe almost everything they are to the society around them. Take a simple thing like language. It's the basis of all that we think and do, but we acquire it from the society around us. How far would the ideal libertarian individual get if he had to make up his own language from scratch? Nowhere.

For all practical purposes the entire self of the individual and all of the knowledge that he uses to create anything he creates is given to him by society. In this respect he owes his essence as a human being to the culture around him. And if that means that his rights are limited by the common good, then perhaps that is the way it should be.