Ayn Rand and Natural Rights

Abstract

In the language of set theory, contractarianism and natural rights theories have a very large intersection but neither is a proper subset of the other. It might seem that the unanimity requirement of Buchanan’s contractarianism, the one being examined here, incorporates natural rights. After all, it is unanimity that distinguishes the social contract: no one is forced into it, and it is precisely the ban on initiating coercion that characterizes or is a principal conclusion of natural rights theories, and in particular that of Ayn Rand. The difference is chiefly one of emphasis: natural rights theory emphasizes bilateral exchange in the economy, while contractarianism emphasizes omnilateral exchange in the polity. At first blush, the two theories, except for emphasis, are identical.