The Primacy of Individual Rights and the Regulation of Organizational Conduct: The Construction and Application of a Libertarian Governance Framework

This paper aims to construct a governance framework grounded in thefundamental principles of libertarianism to address the traditionaltension between individual liberty and public safety. The core argumentrests upon two mutually supporting propositions:first, that naturalrights belong exclusively to individuals, and organizations, as artificialentities, possess no original natural rights; second, that the democraticprocess is the legitimate mechanism through which individualsendowed with natural rights collectively establish public contracts.From these two propositions, a "two-tier governance structure" isderived. On the first tier, concerning individual conduct, the law inprinciple imposes no prohibition, thereby protecting the absolutesovereignty of individuals over their own bodies and property, inaccordance with the primacy of human rights. On the second tier,concerning organizational conduct, the entire citizenry may, throughdemocratic referenda, decide whether and under what conditions toauthorize organizations to engage in specific types of activities, based onthe principle that organizations have no natural rights. In this manner,the government can indirectly resolve issues of public safety by severingcommercial supply chains organized by institutions, without infringingupon individual rights. This paper applies this framework to traditionalgovernance challenges such as narcotics, military-grade weapons, andconsumption taxes, in order to demonstrate its theoretical explanatorypower and potential for practical application.