Note: Updated and revised version included as chap. 2 of Legal Foundations of a Free Society (Houston: Papinian Press, 2023). LFFS version below.
Related:
- See also discussion of this issue in A Critique of Mutualist Occupancy and
- comment on Roderick Long’s “POOTMOP” Redux
***
“What Libertarianism Is,” in Jörg Guido Hülsmann & Stephan Kinsella, eds., Property, Freedom, and Society: Essays in Honor of Hans-Hermann Hoppe (Auburn, Ala.: Mises Institute, 2009) (PDF); adapted as “What Libertarianism Is,” Mises Daily (August 21, 2009), and also as “What Libertarianism Is,” LewRockwell.com (Aug. 24, 2009) (audio). Also translated into several other languages.
See also
- “Stephan Kinsella on Libertarian Legal Theory, Self-Ownership and Drug Laws,” interview with Anthony Wile, The Daily Bell (July 20, 2014)
- Interview by The Libertarian (Keir Martland), May 10, 2013
- “Faculty Spotlight Interview: Stephan Kinsella,” Mises Economics Blog (Feb. 11, 2011)
- Re note 26: “What “counts” as “sufficient” homesteading? We can see that the answer to these questions is related to the issue of what is the thing in dispute. In other words, if B claims ownership of a thing possessed (or formerly possessed) by A, then the very framing of the dispute helps to identify what the thing is in dispute, and what counts as possession of it.” See also David Dürr, “The Inescapability of Law, and of Mises, Rothbard, and Hoppe“: “the final “source” of law is the conflict at the occasion of which the law is called upon. Or in short, the conflict creates its own legal solution.”
2
What Libertarianism Is
Originally published in Property, Freedom, and Society: Essays in Honor of Hans-Hermann Hoppe (Guido Hülsmann & Stephan Kinsella, eds., Mises Institute, 2009). The original author’s note thanked “fellow Hoppe aficionados Juan Fernando Carpio, Paul Edwards, Gil Guillory, Manuel Lora, and Patrick Tinsley for helpful comments.”
PROPERTY, RIGHTS, AND LIBERTY
Libertarians tend to agree on a wide array of policies and principles. Nonetheless it is not easy to find consensus on what libertarianism’s defining characteristic is, or on what distinguishes it from other political theories and systems.
Various formulations abound. It is said that libertarianism is about: individual rights; property rights;[1] the free market; capitalism; justice; the nonaggression principle. Not all these will do, however. Capitalism and the free market describe the catallactic conditions that arise or are permitted in a libertarian society, but do not encompass other aspects of libertarianism. And individual rights, justice, and aggression collapse into property rights. As Murray Rothbard explained, individual rights are property rights.[2] And justice is just giving someone his due—which, again, depends on what his rights are.[3]
The nonaggression principle is also dependent on property rights, since what aggression is depends on what our (property) rights are. If you hit me, it is aggression because I have a property right in my body. If I take from you the apple you possess, this is trespass, aggression, only because you own the apple. One cannot identify an act of aggression without implicitly assigning a corresponding property right to the victim.[4]
So, as descriptive terms for our political philosophy, capitalism and the free market are too narrow, and justice, individual rights, and aggression all boil down to, or are defined in terms of, property rights.
What of property rights, then? Is this what differentiates libertarianism from other political philosophies—that we favor property rights, and all others do not? Surely such a claim is untenable. After all, a property right is simply the exclusive right to control a scarce resource—what I often refer to now as conflictable resources.[5] Property rights specify which persons own—have the right to control—various scarce resources in a given region or jurisdiction. Yet everyone and every political theory advances some theory of property. None of the various forms of socialism deny property rights; each socialism will specify an owner for every scarce resource.[6] If the state nationalizes an industry, it is asserting ownership of these means of production. If the state taxes you, it is implicitly asserting ownership of the funds taken. If my land is transferred to a private developer by eminent domain statutes, the developer is now the owner. If the law allows a recipient of racial discrimination to sue his employer for a sum of money—he is the (new) owner of the money.[7] If the state conscripts someone, or imprisons them as the penalty for refusing to serve in the military, or for failure to pay taxes, or for using illegal narcotics, then the state is claiming legal ownership of the person’s body.
Protection of and respect for property rights is thus not unique to libertarianism. Every legal system defines and enforces some property rights system. What is distinctive about libertarianism is its particular property assignment rules—its view as to who is the owner of each contestable, conflictable resource, and how to determine this.
LIBERTARIAN PROPERTY RIGHTS
A system of property rights assigns a particular owner to every scarce (conflictable) resource.[8] These resources obviously include natural resources such as land, fruits of trees, and so on. Objects found in nature are not the only scarce resources, however. Each human actor has, controls, and is identified and associated with a unique human body, which is also a scarce resource.[9] Both human bodies and non-human scarce resources are desired for use as means by actors in the pursuit of various goals.[10]
Accordingly, any political or legal system must assign ownership rights in human bodies as well as in external things.
The libertarian view is that individual rights—property rights—are assigned according to a few simple principles: self-ownership, in the case of human bodies; and, in the case of previously-unowned external things (conflictable resources), in accordance with principles of original appropriation, contractual title transfer, and rectification.[11] Let us discuss these in turn in the following sections. Note that in this chapter I aim mostly to describe libertarian principles, not necessarily to justify them; subsequent chapters provide further arguments in support of these principles.
PROPERTY IN BODIES
Let us consider first the libertarian property assignment rules with respect to human bodies, and the corresponding notion of aggression as it pertains to bodies.[12]
Libertarians often refer to the non-aggression principle, or NAP, as their prime value. As Ayn Rand said, “So long as men desire to live together, no man may initiate—do you hear me? No man may start—the use of physical force against others.”[13] Or, as Rothbard put it:
The libertarian creed rests upon one central axiom: that no man or group of men may aggress against the person or property of anyone else. This may be called the “nonaggression axiom.” “Aggression” is defined as the initiation of the use or threat of physical violence against the person or property of anyone else. Aggression is therefore synonymous with invasion.[14]
In other words, libertarians maintain that the only way to violate rights is by initiating force—that is, by committing aggression. (Libertarianism also holds that, while the initiation of force against another person’s body is impermissible, force used in response to aggression—such as defensive, restitutive, or retaliatory/punitive force—is justified.[15]) Now in the case of the body, it is clear what aggression is: invading the borders of someone’s body, commonly called battery, or, more generally, using the body of another without his or her consent.[16] The very notion of interpersonal aggression presupposes property rights in bodies—more particularly, that each person is, at least prima facie, the owner of his own body.[17]
Non-libertarian political philosophies have a different view. In these systems, each person has some limited rights in his own body, but not complete or exclusive rights. Society or the state, purporting to be society’s agent, has certain rights in each citizen’s body, too. This partial slavery is implicit in state actions and laws such as taxation, conscription, and drug prohibitions.[18] The libertarian says that each person is the full owner of his body: he has the right to control his body, to decide whether or not he ingests narcotics, joins an army, pays taxes, and so on. Those various non-libertarians who endorse any such state prohibitions, however, necessarily maintain that the state, or society, is at least a partial owner of the body of those subject to such laws—or even a complete owner in the case of conscriptees or non-aggressor “criminals” incarcerated for life or executed. Libertarians believe in self-ownership. Non-libertarians—statists—of all stripes advocate some form of slavery.[19]
SELF-OWNERSHIP AND CONFLICT AVOIDANCE
Without property rights, there is always the possibility of conflict over contestable resources. By assigning an owner to each resource, legal systems make possible conflict-free use of resources by establishing public, visible boundaries that non-owners can avoid. Libertarianism does not endorse just any property assignment rule, however.[20] It favors self-ownership over other-ownership (slavery).[21]
The libertarian seeks property assignment rules because he values or accepts various grundnorms such as justice, peace, prosperity, cooperation, conflict-avoidance, civilization.[22] The libertarian view is that self-ownership is the only property assignment rule compatible with these grundnorms; it is implied by them. As Professor Hoppe has shown, the assignment of ownership to a given resource must not be random, arbitrary, particularistic, or biased if it is to actually be a property norm that can serve the function of conflict-avoidance.[23] Property title has to be assigned to one of competing claimants based on “the existence of an objective, intersubjectively ascertainable link between owner and the” resource claimed.[24] In the case of one’s own body, it is the unique relationship between a person and his body—his direct and immediate control over his body, and the fact that, at least in some sense, a body is a given person and vice versa—that constitutes the objective link sufficient to give that person a claim to his body superior to typical third party claimants.
Moreover, any outsider who claims another’s body cannot deny this objective link and its special status, since the outsider also necessarily presupposes this in his own case. This is so because in seeking dominion over the other, in asserting ownership over the other’s body, he has to presuppose his own ownership of his body, which demonstrates he does place a certain significance on this link, at the same time that he disregards the significance of the other’s link to his own body.[25]
Libertarianism realizes that only the self-ownership rule is universalizable and compatible with the goals of peace, cooperation, and conflict avoidance. We recognize that each person is prima facie the owner of his own body because, by virtue of his unique link to and connection with his own body—his direct and immediate control over it—he has a better claim to it than anyone else.
PROPERTY IN EXTERNAL THINGS
Libertarians apply similar reasoning in the case of other scarce resources—namely, external objects in the world that, unlike bodies, were at one point unowned. In the case of bodies, the idea of aggression being impermissible immediately implies self-ownership. In the case of external objects, however, we must identify who the owner is before we can determine what constitutes aggression.
As in the case with bodies, humans need to be able to use external objects as means to achieve various ends. Because these things are scarce, there is also the potential for conflict. And as in the case with bodies, libertarians favor assigning property rights so as to permit the peaceful, conflict-free, productive use of such resources. As in the case with bodies, then, property is assigned to the person with the best claim or link to a given scarce resource—with the “best claim” standard based on the goals of permitting peaceful, conflict-free human interaction and use of resources.
Unlike human bodies, however, external objects are not parts of one’s identity, are not directly controlled by one’s will—and, significantly, they are initially unowned.[26] Here, the libertarian realizes that the relevant objective link is original appropriation—the transformation or embordering of a previously unowned resource, Lockean homesteading, the first use or possession of the thing.[27] Under this approach, the first (prior) user of a previously unowned thing has a prima facie better claim than a second (later) claimant solely by virtue of his being earlier.
Why is appropriation the relevant link for determination of ownership? First, keep in mind that the question with respect to such scarce resources is: who is the resource’s owner? Recall that ownership is the right to control, use, or possess,[28] while possession is actual control—“the factual authority that a person exercises over a corporeal thing.”[29] The question is not who has physical possession; it is who has ownership. Thus, asking who is the owner of a resource presupposes a distinction between ownership and possession—between the right to control (or exclude) (ownership, or property rights), and actual control (possession; economic dominion). And the answer has to take into account the nature of previously-unowned things: to wit, that they must at some point become owned by a first owner.
The answer must also take into account the presupposed goals of those seeking this answer: rules that permit conflict-free use of resources. For this reason, the answer cannot be whoever has the resource or whoever is able to take it is its owner. To hold such a view is to adopt a might makes right system where ownership collapses into possession for want of a distinction.[30] Such a “system,” far from avoiding conflict, makes conflict inevitable.[31]
Instead of a might-makes-right approach, from the insights noted above it is obvious that ownership presupposes the prior-later distinction: whoever any given system specifies as the owner of a resource has a better claim than latecomers.[32] If he does not, then he is not an owner, but merely the current user or possessor, in a might-makes-right world in which there is no such thing as ownership—which contradicts the presuppositions of the inquiry itself. If the first owner does not have a better claim than latecomers, then he is not an owner, but merely a possessor, and there is no such thing as ownership. More generally, latecomers’ claims are inferior to those of prior possessors or claimants, who either homesteaded the resource or who can trace their title back to the homesteader or earlier owner.[33] The crucial importance of the prior-later distinction to libertarian theory is why Professor Hoppe repeatedly emphasizes it in his writing.[34]
Thus, the libertarian position on property rights is that, in order to permit conflict-free, productive use of scarce resources, property titles to particular resources are assigned to particular owners. As noted above, however, the title assignment must not be random, arbitrary, or particularistic; instead, it has to be assigned based on “the existence of an objective, intersubjectively ascertainable link between owner and the” resource claimed.[35] As can be seen from the considerations presented above, the link is the physical transformation or embordering of the original homesteader, or a chain of title traceable by contract back to him.[36]
As Hoppe summarizes self-ownership rights and property rights in external resources based in original appropriation and contractual title transfer:
But who owns what scarce resource as his private property and who does not? First: Each person owns his physical body that only he and no one else controls directly (I can control your body only in-directly, by first directly controlling my body, and vice versa) and that only he directly controls also in particular when discussing and arguing the question at hand. Otherwise, if body-ownership were assigned to some indirect body-controller, conflict would become unavoidable as the direct body-controller cannot give up his direct control over his body as long as he is alive; and in particular, otherwise it would be impossible that any two persons, as the contenders in any property dispute, could ever argue and debate the question whose will is to prevail, since arguing and debating presupposes that both, the proponent and the opponent, have exclusive control over their respective bodies and so come to the correct judgment on their own, without a fight (in a conflict-free form of interaction).
And second, as for scarce resources that can be controlled only indirectly (that must be appropriated with our own nature-given, i.e., un-appropriated, body): Exclusive control (property) is acquired by and assigned to that person, who appropriated the resource in question first or who acquired it through voluntary (conflict-free) exchange from its previous owner. For only the first appropriator of a resource (and all later owners connected to him through a chain of voluntary exchanges) can possibly acquire and gain control over it without conflict, i.e., peacefully. Otherwise, if exclusive control is assigned instead to latecomers, conflict is not avoided but contrary to the very purpose of norms made unavoidable and permanent.[37]
CONSISTENCY AND PRINCIPLE
Not only libertarians are civilized. Most people give some weight to some of the above considerations. In their eyes, a person is the owner of his own body—usually. A homesteader owns the resource he appropriates—unless the state takes it from him “by operation of law.”[38] This is the principal distinction between libertarians and non-libertarians: libertarians are consistently opposed to aggression, defined in terms of invasion of property borders, where property rights are understood to be assigned on the basis of self-ownership, in the case of bodies, and on the basis of prior possession or homesteading and contractual transfer of title, in the case of other things (plus transfers for purposes of rectification).
This framework for rights is motivated by the libertarian’s consistent and principled valuing of peaceful interaction and cooperation—in short, of civilized behavior. A parallel to the Misesian view of human action may be illuminating here. According to Mises, human action is aimed at alleviating some felt uneasiness.[39] Thus, means are employed, according to the actor’s understanding of causal laws, to achieve various ends—ultimately, the removal of some felt uneasiness.
Civilized man feels uneasy at the prospect of violent struggles with others. On the one hand, he wants, for some practical reason, to control a given scarce resource and to use violence against another person, if necessary, to achieve this control. On the other hand, he also wants to avoid a wrongful use of force. Civilized man, for some reason, feels reluctance, uneasiness, at the prospect of violent interaction with his fellow man. Perhaps he has reluctance to violently clash with others over certain objects because he has empathy with them.[40] Perhaps the instinct to cooperate is a result of social evolution. As Mises noted,
There are people whose only aim is to improve the condition of their own ego. There are other people with whom awareness of the troubles of their fellow men causes as much uneasiness as or even more uneasiness than their own wants.[41]
Whatever the reason, because of this uneasiness, when there is the potential for violent conflict, the civilized man seeks justification for the forceful control of a scarce resource which he desires but which some other person opposes. Empathy—or whatever spurs man to adopt the libertarian grundnorms—gives rise to a certain form of uneasiness, which gives rise to ethical action. Civilized man may be defined as he who seeks justification for the use of interpersonal violence. When the inevitable need to engage in violence arises—for defense of life or property—civilized man seeks justification. Naturally, since this justification-seeking is done by people who are inclined to reason and peace (justification is after all a peaceful activity that necessarily takes place during discourse),[42] what they seek are rules that are fair, potentially acceptable to all, grounded in the nature of things, and universalizable, and that permit conflict-free use of resources. Libertarian property rights principles emerge as the only candidate that satisfies these criteria. Thus, if civilized man is he who seeks justification for the use of violence, the libertarian is he who is serious about this endeavor. He has a deep, principled, innate opposition to violence, and an equally deep commitment to peace and cooperation.
For the foregoing reasons, libertarianism may be said to be the political philosophy that consistently favors social rules aimed at promoting peace, prosperity, and cooperation.[43] It recognizes that the only rules that satisfy the civilized grundnorms are the self-ownership principle and the Lockean homesteading principle, applied as consistently as possible.
And as I have argued elsewhere, because the state necessarily commits aggression, the consistent libertarian, in opposing aggression, is also an anarchist.[44]
APPENDIX I
“PROPERTY”—CONCEPT AND TERMINOLOGY
As noted above, the material here was originally intended to appear in footnote 5, above. Due to its length, I include this material in this appendix.
Concept and Definition of “Property”
As Professor Yiannopoulos explains:
Property is a word with high emotional overtones and so many meanings that it has defied attempts at accurate all-inclusive definition. The English word property derives from the Latin proprietas, a noun form of proprius, which means one’s own. In the United States, the word property is frequently used to denote indiscriminately either the objects of rights … or the rights that persons have with respect to things. Thus, lands, automobiles, and jewels are said to be property; and rights, such as ownership, servitudes, and leases, are likewise said to be property. This latent confusion between rights and their objects has its roots in texts of Roman law and is also encountered in other legal systems of the western world. Accurate analysis should reserve the use of the word property for the designation of rights that persons have with respect to things.
Property may be defined as an exclusive right to control an economic good…; it is the name of a concept that refers to the rights and obligations, privileges and restrictions that govern the relations of man with respect to things of value. People everywhere and at all times desire the possession of things that are necessary for survival or valuable by cultural definition and which, as a result of the demand placed upon them, become scarce. Laws enforced by organized society control the competition for, and guarantee the enjoyment of, these desired things. What is guaranteed to be one’s own is property.…
[Property rights] confer a direct and immediate authority over a thing.[45]
In this book, I endeavor to use the term “property” to refer to rights a person has with respect to a given thing or resource, instead of to the thing itself, but on occasion (partly due to the fact that many of these chapters are over 20 years old and I did not want to rewrite everything completely), I will employ the more colloquial usage where “property” refers to the object or resource or thing owned. It is sometimes necessary to avoid the inconvenience of nonstandard language in order to communicate (just as I use the term “intellectual property” in discussing modern patent and copyright law, even though I dislike the term,[46] so that people understand what I’m referring to).
“Things”
As Yiannopoulos notes:
Accurate definition of the word things is indispensable in view of the fact that only things in the legal sense may be objects of property rights.… In most legal systems, including common law jurisdictions, Louisiana, and legal systems of the French family, the word things applies both to physical objects and incorporeals [intangibles]. In legal systems following the model of the German Civil Code, however, the word things applies only to corporeal objects that are susceptible of appropriation.[47]
Thus, the concept of “thing” in the civil law (res under Roman law; bien (good) and chose (corporeal thing) under French law; Sache under German law) denotes certain objects of rights in the law.
Things are also divided into different types, such as common, public, and private; corporeals and incorporeals; and movables and immovables.[48] Things are divided into other types, as well, such as things in commerce and out of commerce, consumable and non-consumable, and so on.[49]
The civil law concept of things, especially private things, more or less corresponds to the notion of economic goods, or appropriable objects having a pecuniary value, which itself is close to the concept of conflictable (contestable, rivalrous, scarce) resources I use in this book to refer to the types of things that can be the subject of property rights—that can be owned (see the section “Conflictable vs. Scarce,” below). They are things that can be used by acting man as means of action—possessed—and in society, that can be owned (property rights).[50]
Property as a Right to Exclude
Technically speaking, a property right is not a right to control a resource but a right to exclude others from using the resource. Ironically, this is how patent rights work, although most non-specialists have trouble understanding this; having a patent on an invention does not allow the inventor to make or use it, but only to prevent others from doing so.[51]
I have explained elsewhere why property rights do not give the owner a right to control or use the resource.[52] However, for our purposes in this chapter, this distinction is not particularly germane.
Property as a Right between People
Moreover, as noted in “A Libertarian Theory of Contract” (ch. 9), n.1, property rights can be conceived of not as a right between a human actor and an owned object, but rather as a right as between human actors, but with respect to particular (owned) resources.
As Judge Alex Kozinski writes:
But what is property? That is not an easy question to answer. I remember sitting in my first-year property course on the first day of class when the professor … asked the fundamental question: What are property rights? … I threw up my hand and without even waiting to be called on I shouted out, “Property rights define the relationship between people and their property.”
Professor Krier stopped dead in his tracks, spun around, and gave me a long look. Finally he said: “That’s very peculiar, Mr. Kozinski. Have you always had relations with inanimate objects? Most people I know have relations with other people.”
That was certainly not the last time I said something really dumb in class, but the lesson was not lost on me. Property rights are, of course, a species of relationships between people. At the minimum, they define the degree to which individuals may exclude other individuals from the use and enjoyment of their goods and services….[53]
Conflictable vs. Scarce
As noted elsewhere, in recent years I tend to emphasize the rivalrous or “conflictable” nature of ownable resources to avoid the inevitable equivocation when the term “scarce” is used. When I refer to scarce resources in this book it is to be understood as meaning conflictable resources.[54]
APPENDIX II
MUTUALIST OCCUPANCY
As noted above, the material here was originally intended to appear in footnote 31, above. Due to its length, I include this material in this appendix.
As pointed out in the text above, any workable and just legal system must distinguish ownership from possession, and must recognize the prior-later distinction. Instead of a might-makes-right approach, the owner of a resource has a better claim than latecomers. If he does not, then he is not an owner, but merely the current user or possessor, in a might-makes-right world in which there is no such thing as ownership.
I have observed that this is also the reason the mutualist “occupancy” position on land ownership is unlibertarian and unjust.
Mutualist Kevin Carson writes:
For mutualists, occupancy and use is the only legitimate standard for establishing ownership of land, regardless of how many times it has changed hands. An existing owner may transfer ownership by sale or gift; but the new owner may establish legitimate title to the land only by his own occupancy and use. A change in occupancy will amount to a change in ownership.… The actual occupant is considered the owner of a tract of land, and any attempt to collect rent by a self-styled [“absentee”] landlord is regarded as a violent invasion of the possessor’s absolute right of property.[55]
Thus, for mutualism, the “actual occupant” is the “owner”; the “possessor” has the right of property. If a homesteader of land stops personally using or occupying it, he loses his ownership. Carson contends this is compatible with libertarianism:
[A]ll property rights theories, including Lockean, make provision for adverse possession and constructive abandonment of property. They differ only in degree, rather than kind: in the “stickiness” of property.… There is a large element of convention in any property rights system—Georgist, mutualist, and both proviso and nonproviso Lockeanism—in determining what constitutes transfer and abandonment.[56]
In other words, Lockeanism, Georgism, and mutualism are all types of libertarianism, differing only in degree. In Carson’s view, the gray areas in issues like adverse possession and abandonment leave room for mutualism’s “occupancy” requirement for maintaining land ownership.[57]
But the concepts of adverse possession and abandonment cannot be stretched to cover the mutualist occupancy requirement. The mutualist occupancy view is essentially a use or working requirement, which is distinct from doctrines of adverse possession and abandonment. The doctrine of abandonment in positive law and in libertarian theory is based on the idea that ownership acquired by intentionally appropriating a previously unowned thing may be lost when the owner’s intent to own terminates. Ownership is acquired by a merger of possession and intent to own. Likewise, when the intent to own ceases, ownership does too—this is the case with both abandonment of ownership and transfer of title to another person, which is basically an abandonment of property “in favor” of a particular new owner.[58]
The legal system must therefore develop rules to determine when property has been abandoned, including default rules that apply in the absence of clear evidence. Acquisitive prescription is based on an implicit presumption that the owner has abandoned his property claims if he does not defend it within a reasonable time period against an adverse possessor. But such rules apply to adverse possessors—those who possess the property with the intent to own and in a sufficiently public fashion that the owner knows or should know of this.[59] The “public” requirement means that the possessor possesses the property openly as owner, adverse or hostile to the owner’s ownership—which is not the case when, for example, a lessee or employee uses an apartment or manufacturing facility under color of title and permission from the owner. Rules of abandonment and adverse possession are default rules that apply when the owner has not made his intention sufficiently clear—by neglect, apathy, death, absence, or other reason.
In fact, the very idea of abandonment rests on the distinction between ownership and possession. Property is more than possession; it is a right to possess, originating and sustained by the owner’s intention to possess as owner. And abandonment occurs when the intent to own terminates. This happens even when the (immediately preceding) owner temporarily maintains possession but has lost ownership, as when he gives or sells the thing to another party.[60]
Clearly, default abandonment and adverse possession rules are categorically different from a working requirement, whereby ownership is lost in the absence of use.[61] Ownership is not lost by nonuse, however, and a working requirement is not implied by default rules regarding abandonment and adverse possession. See, e.g., Louisiana Civil Code, art. 481 (emphasis added): “The ownership and the possession of a thing are distinct.… Ownership exists independently of any exercise of it and may not be lost by nonuse. Ownership is lost when acquisitive prescription accrues in favor of an adverse possessor.” Carson is wrong to imply that abandonment and adverse possession rules can yield a working (or use or occupancy) requirement for maintaining ownership. In fact, these are distinct legal doctrines. Thus, when a factory owner contractually allows workers to use it, or a landlord permits tenants to live in an apartment, there is no question that the owner does not intend to abandon the property, and there is no adverse possession (and if there were, the owner could institute the appropriate action to eject them and regain possession).[62] There is no need for “default” rules here to resolve an ambiguous situation.[63]
A final note here: I cite positive law here not as an argument from authority, but as an illustration that even the positive law carefully distinguishes between possession and ownership—and also between a use or working requirement to maintain ownership, and the potential to lose title by abandonment or adverse possession—to illustrate the flaws in Carson’s view that an occupancy requirement is just one variant of adverse possession or default abandonment rules. Furthermore, the civilian legal rules cited derive from legal principles developed over the ages in largely decentralized fashion, and can thus be useful in our own libertarian efforts to develop concrete applications of abstract libertarian principles.[64]
[Endnotes—notes: some formatting such as italics may be lost in the notes below]
[1] Although the term “private property rights” is widely used, property rights are in a sense necessarily public, since the borders or boundaries of property must be publicly visible so that non-owners can avoid trespass. For more on this aspect of property borders, see Hans-Hermann Hoppe, A Theory of Socialism and Capitalism: Economics, Politics, and Ethics (Auburn, Ala.: Mises Institute, 2010; www.hanshoppe.com/tsc), pp. 167–68; “A Libertarian Theory of Contract: Title Transfer, Binding Promises, and Inalienability” (ch. 9), at n.38; “Law and Intellectual Property in a Stateless Society” (ch. 14), Part II.C, note 7 and accompanying text, text at notes 24–25, and Part III.B; Stephan Kinsella, Against Intellectual Property (Auburn, Ala.: Mises Institute, 2008), pp. 30–31, 49; “Selling Does Not Imply Ownership, and Vice-Versa: A Dissection” (ch. 11), text at n.24. See also idem, “How To Think About Property (2019),” StephanKinsella.com (April 25, 2021); and Randy E. Barnett, “A Consent Theory of Contract,” Colum. L. Rev. 86 (1986; www.randybarnett.com/pre-2000): 269–321, at 291, 303.
[2] Murray N. Rothbard, “‘Human Rights’ as Property Rights,” in The Ethics of Liberty (New York: New York University Press, 1998; https://mises.org/library/human-rights-property-
rights); idem, For a New Liberty, 2d ed. (Auburn, Ala.: Mises Institute, 2006; https://mises.org/library/new-liberty-libertarian-manifesto), p. 42 et pass. See also “Against Intellectual Property After Twenty Years: Looking Back and Looking Forward” (ch. 15), Part IV.B.
[3] “Justice is the constant and perpetual wish to render every one his due.… The maxims of law are these: to live honestly, to hurt no one, to give every one his due.” J.A.C. Thomas, ed., The Institutes of Justinian: Text, Translation, and Commentary, J.A.C. Thomas, trans. (Amsterdam: North-Holland Publishing Company, 1975).
[4] The standard libertarian litany is that the nonaggression principle (the NAP; sometimes also called the nonaggression axiom by libertarians, in an idiosyncratic usage of the term “axiom,” no doubt inspired by Ayn Rand’s idiosyncratic use of the term axiom) prohibits the initiation of force against the person or property of someone else—or threats thereof, or fraud. Some libertarians or libertarian critics argue that trespass to owned resources, fraud, and threats do not quite fit into the NAP because these things are not actually “aggression,” as the term is properly understood. (See, e.g., the criticisms of libertarianism for being unable to explain why fraud may be prohibited, by James Child and Benjamin Ferguson, as discussed in “A Libertarian Theory of Contract” (ch. 9), Part III.E. The NAP in a literal sense prohibits hitting or using someone’s body (“aggression”) without their permission, which implies self- or body-ownership. Thus, the NAP implies self-ownership, and vice-versa. They are merely different ways of expressing the same view: owning one’s body implies that aggression against it is impermissible; the prohibition against aggression implies self/body-ownership. (See also “On Libertarian Legal Theory, Self-Ownership and Drug Laws” (ch. 23).)
The rationale for body-ownership, however, is extended by libertarians to develop similar property rights in external resources; and also to prohibit threats and fraud. (See ibid.) Thus, in my view, the term “nonaggression principle” is an acceptable shorthand for basic libertarian property rights principles—self-ownership plus ownership of external resources based on original appropriation, and fraud and threats—as long as it is kept in mind that in literal terms it refers to body-ownership and that the other property rights are extensions of and based on this primary property right. See also Kinsella, “Aggression and Property Rights Plank in the Libertarian Party Platform,” StephanKinsella.com (May 30, 2022); idem, “KOL259 | “How To Think About Property”, New Hampshire Liberty Forum 2019,” Kinsella on Liberty Podcast (Feb. 9, 2019); “On Libertarian Legal Theory, Self-Ownership and Drug Laws” (ch. 23); “Libertarianism After Fifty Years: What Have We Learned?” (ch. 25); Kinsella, “KOL229 | Ernie Hancock Show: IP Debate with Alan Korwin,” Kinsella on Liberty Podcast (Nov. 16, 2017); idem, “KOL161 | Argumentation Ethics, Estoppel, and Libertarian Rights: Adam Smith Forum, Moscow (2014),” Kinsella on Liberty Podcast (Nov. 7, 2014).
[5] In revising this chapter, this footnote grew to unmanageable length. I have placed the relevant commentary in Appendix I, below.
[6] For a systematic analysis of various forms of socialism, from Socialism Russian-Style, Socialism Social-Democratic Style, the Socialism of Conservatism, the Socialism of Social Engineering, see Hoppe, A Theory of Socialism and Capitalism, chaps. 3–6. Recognizing the common elements of various forms of socialism and their distinction from libertarianism (capitalism), Hoppe incisively defines socialism as “an institutionalized interference with or aggression against private property and private property claims.” Ibid., p. 2. See also the quote from Hoppe in note 14, below.
[7] Even the private thief, by taking your watch, is implicitly acting on the maxim that he has the right to control it—that he is its owner. He does not deny property rights—he simply differs from the libertarian as to who the owner is. In fact, as Adam Smith observed: “If there is any society among robbers and murderers, they must at least, according to the trite observation, abstain from robbing and murdering one another.” Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, [1759] 1982), II.II.3.
[8] As Hoppe points out in the Foreword, regarding the principle of “private property and original appropriation: Logically, what is required to avoid all conflict regarding external material objects used or usable as means of action, i.e. as goods, is clear: every good must always and at all times be owned privately, i.e. controlled exclusively by some specified person.”
Note also that it is only scarce (conflictable) things that can be owned, that is, be the subject of property rights. For example, as noted in the section “IP Rights as Negative Easements” in “Against Intellectual Property After Twenty Years” (ch. 15), information or knowledge (recipes, in general), as a non-scarce, non-conflictable thing, cannot be owned; any law purporting to assign property rights in such things is just a disguised reassignment of property rights in existing conflictable resources (money, factories, printing presses, etc).
[9] As Hoppe observes, even in a paradise with a superabundance of goods:
every person’s physical body would still be a scarce resource and thus the need for the establishment of property rules, i.e., rules regarding people’s bodies, would exist. One is not used to thinking of one’s own body in terms of a scarce good, but in imagining the most ideal situation one could ever hope for, the Garden of Eden, it becomes possible to realize that one’s body is indeed the prototype of a scarce good for the use of which property rights, i.e., rights of exclusive ownership, somehow have to be established, in order to avoid clashes.
Hoppe, A Theory of Socialism and Capitalism, pp. 8–9. See also Hans-Hermann Hoppe, “Of Common, Public, and Private Property and the Rationale for Total Privatization,” in The Great Fiction: Property, Economy, Society, and the Politics of Decline (Second Expanded Edition, Mises Institute, 2021; www.hanshoppe.com/tgf); Hans-Hermann Hoppe, “On The Ethics of Argumentation,” Property and Freedom Podcast (episode 163; 2016; www.PropertyAndFreedom.org); and “Causation and Aggression” (ch. 8) (discussing the use of other humans’ bodies as means).
N.b.: correlating (not: equating) an actor’s “self” or person with his corporeal body is not mystical or incoherent, as some (even soi-disant libertarian!) critics confusingly maintain, any more than it is mystical to conceptually distinguish the mind from the brain. See “How We Come to Own Ourselves” (ch. 4), at n.1 et pass.
[10] See “Causation and Aggression” (ch. 8).
[11] As Narveson writes:
Robert Nozick has most usefully divided the space for principles on the subject of property into three classes: (1) initial acquisition, that is, the acquisition of property rights in external things from a previous condition in which they were unowned by anyone in particular; (2) transfer, that is, the passing of property (that is to say, property rights) from one rightholder to another; and (3) rectification, which is the business of restoring just distributions of property when they have been upset by admittedly unjust practices such as theft and fraud.
Jan Narveson, The Libertarian Idea, reissue ed. (Broadview Press, 2001), p. 69. See also Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia (New York: Basic Books, 1974), ch. 7, section I; Roderick T. Long, “Why Libertarians Believe There is Only One Right,” C4SS.org (April 7, 2014; https://c4ss.org/content/25648) (“Libertarian property rights are, famously, governed by principles of justice in initial appropriation (mixing one’s labour with previously unowned resources), justice in transfer (mutual consent), and justice in rectification (say, restitution plus damages)”); and Gary Chartier, Anarchy and Legal Order: Law and Politics for a Stateless Society (Cambridge University Press, 2013), at 64–65, et seq., elaborating on the “baseline possessory rules” corresponding to original appropriation and contractual title transfer. Regarding transfers made for purposes of rectification, see ibid., chap. 5, “Rectifying Injury,” esp. §II.C.2, and “A Libertarian Theory of Punishment and Rights” (ch. 5), at Parts IV.B and IV.G.
See also Kinsella, “The Limits of Libertarianism?: A Dissenting View,” StephanKinsella.com (April 20, 2014); idem, “KOL345 | Kinsella’s Libertarian “Constitution” or: State Constitutions vs. the Libertarian Private Law Code (PorcFest 2021),” Kinsella on Liberty Podcast (June 26, 2021).
[12] This issue is discussed in further detail in “How We Come to Own Ourselves” (ch. 4); see also “A Libertarian Theory of Punishment and Rights” (ch. 5).
[13] Ayn Rand, “Galt’s Speech,” in For the New Intellectual, quoted in “Physical Force” entry, The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z, Harry Binswanger, ed. (New York: New American Library, 1986; https://perma.cc/L4YA-96CC). Ironically, Objectivists often excoriate libertarians for having a “contextless” concept of aggression—that is, that “aggression” or “rights” is meaningless unless these concepts are embedded in the larger philosophical framework of Objectivism—despite Galt’s straightforward, physicalist definition of aggression as the initiation of physical force against others. In “Q&A on Libertarianism,” The Ayn Rand Lexicon (http://aynrandlexicon.com/ayn-rand-ideas/ari-q-and-a-on-libertarianism.html), for example, (someone at) the Ayn Rand Institute writes:
The “libertarians,” in this usage of the term, plagiarize Ayn Rand’s non-initiation of force principle and convert it into an axiom, denying the need for and relevance of philosophical fundamentals—not only the underlying ethics, but also the underlying metaphysics and epistemology.… libertarianism declares that the value of liberty and the evil of initiating force are self-evident primaries, needing no justification or even explanation—leaving undefined such key concepts as “liberty,” “force,” “justice,” “good,” and “evil.” It claims compatibility with all views in metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics—even subjectivism, mysticism, skepticism, altruism, and nihilism—substituting “hate the state” for intellectual content.
See also Peter Schwartz, “Libertarianism: The Perversion of Liberty,” in Ayn Rand, The Voice of Reason: Essays in Objectivist Thought (Meridian, 1990) and the “Libertarians” entry in The Ayn Rand Lexicon (http://aynrandlexicon.com/).
But as noted above, Rand own’s formulation in support of the NAP—“no man may initiate—do you hear me? No man may start—the use of physical force against others”—relies on rudimentary concepts like physical force and the initiation thereof, which do not really require much explanation; rather, her theory builds on these fairly uncontroversial concepts. Just as her theory can use these basic concepts as building blocks, libertarians can coherently use these principles in articulating what we oppose, without lapsing into subjectivism, nihilism, etc. People can communicate with language without adopting the whole of Objectivism, after all. See also Walter Block’s response to Schwartz: “Libertarianism vs. Objectivism: A Response to Peter Schwartz,” Reason Papers No. 26 (Summer 2003; https://reasonpapers.com/archives/): 39–62.
[14] Rothbard, For a New Liberty, p. 23. See also idem, “Property and Criminality,” in idem, The Ethics of Liberty: “The fundamental axiom of libertarian theory is that each person must be a self-owner, and that no one has the right to interfere with such self-ownership” (p. 60), and “What … aggressive violence means is that one man invades the property of another without the victim’s consent. The invasion may be against a man’s property in his person (as in the case of bodily assault), or against his property in tangible goods (as in robbery or trespass)” (p. 45). Hoppe writes:
If … an action is performed that uninvitedly invades or changes the physical integrity of another person’s body and puts this body to a use that is not to this very person’s own liking, this action … is called aggression.… Next to the concept of action, property is the most basic category in the social sciences. As a matter of fact, all other concepts to be introduced in this chapter—aggression, contract, capitalism and socialism—are definable in terms of property: aggression being aggression against property, contract being a nonaggressive relationship between property owners, socialism being an institutionalized policy of aggression against property, and capitalism being an institutionalized policy of the recognition of property and contractualism.
Hoppe, A Theory of Socialism and Capitalism, pp. 22, 18.
In earlier years of the modern libertarian movement (see “Libertarianism After Fifty Years: What Have We Learned?” (ch. 25); Kinsella, “Foreword,” in Chase Rachels, A Spontaneous Order: The Capitalist Case For A Stateless Society (2015; https://archive.org/details/ASpontaneousOrder0)), what most libertarians now refer to as the non-aggression principle was sometimes called the non-aggression axiom, probably because of Rand’s somewhat idiosyncratic use of the term axiom in her philosophy. See “Axioms” entry The Ayn Rand Lexicon (http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/axioms.html). Rothbard himself, who was initially heavily influenced by Rand, sometimes uses this phraseology, as can be seen in the passages quoted above. Not all libertarians believe the NAP is “axiomatic” in Rand’s sense—a proposition that is self-evidently true because its denial results in contradiction—but all consistent and coherent libertarians oppose the legitimacy of aggression, for whatever reasons, and thus favor the non-aggression principle (i.e., self-ownership), at least to a large extent.
[15] See “A Libertarian Theory of Punishment and Rights” (ch. 5).
[16] The following terms and formulations may be considered as roughly synonymous, depending on context: aggression; initiation of force; trespass; invasion; unconsented to (or uninvited) change in the physical integrity (or use, control or possession) of another person’s body or property. See also Kinsella, “Aggression and Property Rights Plank in the Libertarian Party Platform”; idem, “Hoppe on Property Rights in Physical Integrity vs Value,” StephanKinsella.com (June 12, 2011). For further discussion of how to define the concept of “rights,” see “Dialogical Arguments for Libertarian Rights” (ch. 6), n.22 and accompanying text, et pass.
[17] “Prima facie,” because some rights in one’s body are arguably forfeited or lost in certain circumstances, e.g. when one commits a crime, thus authorizing the victim to at least use defensive force against the body of the aggressor (implying the aggressor is to that extent not the owner of his body). For more on this see “A Libertarian Theory of Contract” (ch. 9), Part III.B; “Inalienability and Punishment: A Reply to George Smith” (ch. 10); and “Knowledge, Calculation, Conflict, and Law” (ch. 19), at n.81 and accompanying text.
[18] See Robert W. McGee, “The Body as Property Doctrine,” in Christoph Lütge, ed., Handbook of the Philosophical Foundations of Business Ethics (Springer, 2013).
[19] Similarly, Hoppe argues:
There can be no socialism without a state, and as long as there is a state there is socialism. The state, then, is the very institution that puts socialism into action; and as socialism rests on aggressive violence directed against innocent victims, aggressive violence is the nature of any state.
Hoppe, A Theory of Socialism and Capitalism, p. 177.
[20] On the importance of the concept of scarcity and the possibility of conflict for the emergence of property rules, see Hoppe, A Theory of Socialism and Capitalism, pp. 20–21, 160, et pass.; and the discussion thereof in Kinsella, “Thoughts on the Latecomer and Homesteading Ideas; or, Why the Very Idea of ‘Ownership’ Implies that only Libertarian Principles are Justifiable,” Mises Economics Blog (Aug. 15, 2007).
[21] See also “How We Come to Own Ourselves” (ch. 4).
[22] “Grundnorm” was legal philosopher Hans Kelsen’s term for the hypothetical basic norm or rule that serves as the basis or ultimate source for the legitimacy of a legal system. See Hans Kelsen, General Theory of Law and State, Anders Wedberg, trans. (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1949). I employ this term to refer to the fundamental norms presupposed by civilized people, e.g., in argumentative discourse, which in turn imply libertarian norms.
That the libertarian grundnorms are, in fact, necessarily presupposed by all civilized people to the extent they are civilized—during argumentative justification, that is—is shown by Hoppe in his “argumentation ethics” defense of libertarian rights. See Hoppe, A Theory of Socialism and Capitalism, chap. 7; “Dialogical Arguments for Libertarian Rights” (ch. 6); and “Defending Argumentation Ethics” (ch. 7).
For discussion of why people (to one extent or the other) do value these underlying norms, see Kinsella, “The Division of Labor as the Source of Grundnorms and Rights,” Mises Economics Blog (April 24, 2009), and idem, “Empathy and the Source of Rights,” Mises Economics Blog (Sept. 6, 2006). See also “A Libertarian Theory of Punishment and Rights” (ch. 5), text at notes 3 and 77:
Civilized people are also concerned about justifying punishment. They want to punish, but they also want to know that such punishment is justified. They want to be able to punish legitimately—hence the interest in punishment theories.…Theories of punishment are concerned with justifying punishment, with offering decent people who are reluctant to act immorally a reason why they may punish others. This is useful, of course, for offering moral people guidance and assurance that they may properly deal with those who seek to harm them.
[23] See Hoppe, A Theory of Socialism and Capitalism, pp. 157–65. See also “A Libertarian Theory of Punishment and Rights” (ch. 5), Parts III.C “Punishing Aggressive Behavior” and III.D “Potential Defenses by the Aggressor”; “Defending Argumentation Ethics” (ch. 7); Kinsella, “The problem of particularistic ethics or, why everyone really has to admit the validity of the universalizability principle,” StephanKinsella.com (Nov. 10, 2011); “How We Come to Own Ourselves” (ch. 4), n.15; and “Dialogical Arguments for Libertarian Rights” (ch. 6), n.43 and accompanying text.
[24] Hoppe, A Theory of Socialism and Capitalism, p. 23. See also “Selling Does Not Imply Ownership, and Vice-Versa: A Dissection” (ch. 11). For further discussion of the necessity of objective property rules that can determine what resources may be used now, without having to wait for the approval of late-comers, see “How We Come To Own Ourselves” (ch. 4), n.14 and accompanying text.
[25] For elaboration on this point, see “How We Come To Own Ourselves” (ch. 4), the sections “Direct Control” and “Summary”; “Defending Argumentation Ethics” (ch. 7); “Law and Intellectual Property in a Stateless Society” (ch. 14), Part II.C; Hoppe, A Theory of Socialism and Capitalism, chaps. 1, 2, and 7. See also the quote by Auberon Herbert and the related citation to Rothbard in “How We Come to Own Ourselves” (ch. 4), n.7.
[26] For further discussion of the difference between bodies and things homesteaded for purposes of rights, see “A Libertarian Theory of Contract” (ch. 9), Part III.B; and “How We Come to Own Ourselves” (ch. 4). See also Kasper Lippert-Rasmussen, “Against Self-Ownership: There are No Fact-Insensitive Ownership Rights Over One’s Body,” Philosophy & Public Affairs 36, no. 1 (2008): 86–118, at 88–89 (footnotes omitted):
[R]ight- and left-libertarians … agree that:
The Asymmetry Thesis: Ownership of external resources is intrinsically different, morally, from ownership of one’s mind and body.
For example, each person enters the world owning himself or herself, but ownership of external resources is acquired through personal exercise of the moral power to acquire such ownership.
Nozick’s subscription to the asymmetry thesis is evident in his admittedly rather sketchy, but broadly Lockean, account of how one can become the owner of an unowned external object, for he offers no comparable account of how one can become the owner—morally speaking—of one’s own—nonmorally speaking—mind and body. Absent special circumstances, such as organ theft, one simply starts owning oneself. Similarly, Otsuka thinks that ownership of external things is conditional upon the satisfaction of an egalitarian proviso enjoining equal opportunities for welfare; he assumes that ownership of oneself is not conditional in this sense.
Citing Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1974), pp. 174–82 and Michael Otsuka, Libertarianism Without Inequality (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), pp. 22–29.
See also Olle Torpman, “Mid-Libertarianism and the Utilitarian Proviso,” J. Value Inquiry (Sept. 2, 2021; https://philpapers.org/rec/TORMAT-4), at §1.1 (last emphasis added):
Libertarianism’s most salient thesis concerns full moral self-ownership, according to which every person has fundamental moral rights to anything that counts as herself—including her body parts, organs, blood, eggs, sperms, stem cells, thoughts, etc. We may call these personal resources. Most versions of libertarianism also allow people to gain moral ownership over natural resources (i.e., non-personal resources)—such as land, minerals, water, air, etc. We may call these external resources. While the rights to our personal resources are natural and thus in need of no acquisition, the rights to external resources must somehow be acquired…
Citing Eric Mack, “The Natural Right of Property,” Social Philosophy and Policy 27, no. 1 (2010): 53–78, at 54, and Bas van der Vossen, “What counts as original appropriation?,” Politics, Philosophy & Economics 8, no. 4 (2009): 355–373, at 368.
[27] “Original appropriation” is the broader concept for the acquisition of previously-unowned scarce (conflictable) resources, including land or realty (immovables), while “homesteading” is sometimes used as a subset of original appropriation that involves immovables (land), such as a “homestead.” However, homesteading is often used more generally and in this book I often use “homesteading” synonymously with original appropriation to refer to appropriation of any type of unowned, conflictable resource, whether movable or immovable.
On the nature of appropriation of unowned scarce resources, see Hoppe’s and de Jasay’s ideas quoted and discussed in Kinsella, “Thoughts on the Latecomer and Homesteading Ideas,” and note 32, below. In particular, see Hoppe, A Theory of Socialism and Capitalism, pp. 24, 160–62, 169–71; and Anthony de Jasay, Against Politics: On Government, Anarchy, and Order (London & New York: Routledge, 1997), pp. 158 et seq., 171 et seq., et pass. De Jasay is also discussed extensively in “Review of Anthony de Jasay, Against Politics: On Government, Anarchy, and Order” (ch. 20). De Jasay’s argument presupposes the value of justice, efficiency, and order. Given these goals, he argues for three principles of politics: (1) if in doubt, abstain from political action (pp. 147 et seq.); (2) the feasible is presumed free (pp. 158 et seq.); and (3) let exclusion stand (pp. 171 et seq.). In connection with principle (3), “let exclusion stand,” de Jasay offers insightful comments about the nature of homesteading or appropriation of unowned goods. De Jasay equates property with its owner’s “excluding” others from using it, for example by enclosing or fencing in immovable property (land) or finding or creating (and keeping) movable property (corporeal, tangible objects). He concludes that since an appropriated thing has no other owner, prima facie no one is entitled to object to the first possessor claiming ownership. Thus, the principle means “let ownership stand,” i.e., that claims to ownership of property appropriated from the state of nature or acquired ultimately through a chain of title tracing back to such an appropriation should be respected. This is consistent with Hoppe’s defense of the “natural” theory of property. Hoppe, A Theory of Socialism and Capitalism, pp. 20–24 & chap. 7. For further discussion of the nature of appropriation, see Jörg Guido Hülsmann, “The A Priori Foundations of Property Economics,” Q.J. Austrian Econ. 7, no. 4 (Winter 2004; https://mises.org/library/priori-foundations-property-economics-0): 51–57.
[28] See note 5 and accompanying text, above, and Appendix I.
[29] A.N. Yiannopoulos, Louisiana Civil Law Treatise, Property (West Group, 4th ed. 2001), § 301 (emphasis added); see also Louisiana Civil Code (https://www.legis.la.gov/legis/Laws_Toc.aspx?folder=67&level=Parent), art. 3421 (“Possession is the detention or enjoyment of a corporeal thing, movable or immovable, that one holds or exercises by himself or by another who keeps or exercises it in his name” (emphasis added)). See also discussion of this point in “Selling Does Not Imply Ownership, and Vice-Versa: A Dissection” (ch. 11), at n.35 et pass.
[30] See, in this connection, the quote from Adam Smith in note 7, above.
[31] This is also, incidentally, the reason the mutualist “occupancy” position on land ownership is unlibertarian and unjust. In revising this chapter, this footnote grew to unmanageable length. I have placed the relevant commentary in Appendix II, below.
[32] See Kinsella, “Thoughts on the Latecomer and Homesteading Ideas.”
[33] See Louisiana Code of Civil Procedure, art. 3653, providing:
To obtain a judgment recognizing his ownership of immovable property…, the plaintiff … shall:
(1) Prove that he has acquired ownership from a previous owner or by acquisitive prescription, if the court finds that the defendant is in possession thereof; or
(2) Prove a better title thereto than the defendant, if the court finds that the latter is not in possession thereof.
When the titles of the parties are traced to a common author, he is presumed to be the previous owner.
See also Louisiana Civil Code, arts. 526, 531–32; Yiannopoulos, Louisiana Civil Law Treatise, Property, §§ 255–79 & 347 et pass.
[34] See, e.g., Hoppe, A Theory of Socialism and Capitalism, pp. 168–71; idem, The Economics and Ethics of Private Property: Studies in Political Economy and Philosophy (Auburn, Ala.: Mises Institute, 2006 [1993]; www.hanshoppe.com/eepp), pp. 327–30; see also discussion of these and related matters in Kinsella, “Thoughts on the Latecomer and Homesteading Ideas”; “Defending Argumentation Ethics” (ch. 7), the section “Objective Links: First Use, Verbal Claims, and the Prior-Later Distinction.” In particular, for further discussion of the necessity of objective property rules that can determine what resources may be used now, without having to wait for the approval of latecomers, see “How We Come To Own Ourselves” (ch. 4), n.14 and accompanying text.
See also, in this connection, de Jasay, Against Politics, further discussed and quoted in Kinsella, “Thoughts on the Latecomer and Homesteading Ideas,” as well as in “Review of Anthony de Jasay, Against Politics” (ch. 20). See also de Jasay’s argument (note 27, above) that since an appropriated thing has no other owner, prima facie no one is entitled to object to the first possessor claiming ownership. De Jasay’s “let exclusion stand” idea, along with the Hoppean emphasis on the prior-later distinction, sheds light on the nature of homesteading itself. Often the question is asked as to what types of acts constitute or are sufficient for homesteading (or “embordering” as Hoppe sometimes refers to it); what type of “labor” must be “mixed with” a thing; and to what property does the homesteading extend? What “counts” as “sufficient” homesteading? We can see that the answer to these questions is related to the issue of what is the thing in dispute. In other words, if B claims ownership of a thing possessed (or formerly possessed) by A, then the very framing of the dispute helps to identify what the thing is in dispute, and what counts as possession of it. If B claims ownership of a given resource, he wants the right to control it, to a certain extent, and according to its nature. Then the question becomes, did someone else previously control “it” (whatever is in dispute), according to its nature; i.e., did someone else already homestead it, so that B is only a latecomer? This ties in with de Jasay’s “let exclusion stand” principle, which rests on the idea that if someone is actually able to control a resource such that others are excluded, then this exclusion should “stand.” Of course, the physical nature of a given scarce resource and the way in which humans use such resources will determine the nature of actions needed to “control” it and exclude others. See also on this Rothbard’s discussion of the “relevant technological unit” in Murray N. Rothbard, “Law, Property Rights, and Air Pollution,” in Economic Controversies (Auburn, Ala.: Mises Institute, 2011; https://mises.org/library/economic-controversies); also B.K. Marcus, “The Spectrum Should Be Private Property: The
Economics, History, and Future of Wireless Technology,” Mises Daily (Oct. 29, 2004, https://mises.org/library/spectrum-should-be-private-property-economics-history-and-future-wireless-technology) and idem, “Radio Free Rothbard,” J. Libertarian Stud. 20, no. 2 (Spring 2006; https://mises.org/library/radio-free-rothbard): 17–51.
[35] Hoppe, A Theory of Socialism and Capitalism, p. 23.
[36] To be clear, this does not mean that ownership or title can be established only if one can trace one’s title back to “Adam” or the first homesteader. See the “common author” rules noted in note 33, above; Kinsella, “Rothbard on the ‘Original Sin’ in Land Titles: 1969 vs. 1974,” StephanKinsella.com (Nov. 5, 2014); idem, “Mises, Rothbard, and Hoppe on the ‘Original Sin’ in the Distribution of Property Rights,” StephanKinsella.com (Oct. 7, 2014); and “Libertarianism After Fifty Years: What Have We Learned?” (ch. 25). Many libertarians are tripped up by this issue. See, e.g. R.W. Bradford, “A Contrast of Visions,” Liberty 10, no.4 (March 1997; https://perma.cc/7FDT-G7FD): 57–63, at 58.
On the title transfer theory of contract, see “A Libertarian Theory of Contract” (ch. 9); Williamson M. Evers, “Toward a Reformulation of the Law of Contracts,” J. Libertarian Stud. 1, no. 1 (Winter 1977; https://mises.org/library/toward-reformulation-law-contracts): 3–13; Rothbard, “Property Rights and the Theory of Contracts,” in The Ethics of Liberty (https://mises.org/library/property-rights-and-theory-contracts).
[37] Hans-Hermann Hoppe “A Realistic Libertarianism,” LewRockwell.com (Sept. 30, 2013; https://www.hanshoppe.com/2014/10/a-realistic-libertarianism/); see also similar argument in idem, “Of Common, Public, and Private Property and the Rationale for Total Privatization,” at pp. 85–87.
[38] State laws and constitutional provisions often pay lip service to the existence of various personal and property rights, but then take them back by recognizing the right of the state to regulate or infringe the right so long as it is “by law” or “not arbitrary.” See, e.g., Constitution of Russia, art. 25 (“The home shall be inviolable. No one shall have the right to get into a house against the will of those living there, except for the cases established by a federal law or by court decision”) and art. 34 (“Everyone shall have the right to freely use his or her abilities and property for entrepreneurial or any other economic activity not prohibited by the law”); Constitution of Estonia, art. 31 (“Estonian citizens shall have the right to engage in commercial activities and to form profit-making associations and leagues. The law may determine conditions and procedures for the exercise of this right”); Universal Declaration of Human Rights, art. 17 (“Everyone has the right to own property alone as well as in association with others.… No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property”); art. 29(2) (“In the exercise of his rights and freedoms, everyone shall be subject only to such limitations as are determined by law solely for the purpose of securing due recognition and respect for the rights and freedoms of others and of meeting the just requirements of morality, public order and the general welfare in a democratic society”).
[39] Ludwig von Mises, Human Action: A Treatise on Economics, Scholar’s ed. (Auburn, Ala: Mises Institute, 1998; https://mises.org/library/human-action-0), pp. 13–14, et pass.
[40] For further discussion of the role of empathy in the adoption of libertarian grundnorms, see note 22, above.
[41] Mises, Human Action, p. 14.
[42] As Hoppe explains, “Justification—proof, conjecture, refutation—is argumentative justification.” Hoppe, The Economics and Ethics of Private Property, p. 384; also ibid., p. 413; and Hoppe, A Theory of Socialism and Capitalism, p. 155 et pass.
[43] For this reason Henry Hazlitt’s proposed name “cooperatism” for the freedom philosophy, has some appeal, to me at least. See Kinsella, “The new libertarianism: anti-capitalist and socialist; or: I prefer Hazlitt’s ‘Cooperatism,’” StephanKinsella.com (June 19, 2009).
[44] See “What It Means to Be an Anarcho-Capitalist” (ch. 3); also Jan Narveson, “The Anarchist’s Case,” in Respecting Persons in Theory and Practice (Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2002; https://perma.cc/2P24-H4JL).
[45] Yiannopoulos, Louisiana Civil Law Treatise, Property, §§ 1, 2 (citations omitted; last two emphases in first paragraph added; first emphasis of second paragraph in original and remaining emphasis added; emphasis added in third paragraph). See also Louisiana Civil Code, art. 477 (“Ownership is the right that confers on a person direct, immediate, and exclusive authority over a thing. The owner of a thing may use, enjoy, and dispose of it within the limits and under the conditions established by law”). See also “Against Intellectual Property After Twenty Years” (ch. 15), n.31 and accompanying text; J.W. Harris, Property and Justice (Oxford University Press, 1996), pp. 9, 11–13, et pass. (discussing different uses of the term “property”); and “A Libertarian Theory of Contract” (ch. 9), n.1. See also Kinsella, “Libertarian Answer Man: Self-ownership for slaves and Crusoe; and Yiannopoulos on Accurate Analysis and the term ‘Property’; Mises distinguishing between juristic and economic categories of ‘ownership,’” StephanKinsella.com (April 3, 2021).
[46] See Kinsella, “Intellectual Properganda,” Mises Economics Blog (Dec. 6, 2010); “Against Intellectual Property After Twenty Years” (ch. 15), Part IV.I. See also the discussion of Böhm-Bawerk on the use of inaccurate terms, in “On the Logic of Libertarianism and Why Intellectual Property Doesn’t Exist” (ch. 24), n.32.
[47] Yiannopoulos, Louisiana Civil Law Treatise, Property, § 2 (emphasis added).
[48] Louisiana Civil Code, arts. 448, 453. See also J.W. Harris, “The Elusiveness of Property,” in Peter Wahlgren, Perspectives on Jurisprudence: Essays in Honor of Jes Bjarup (Stockholm Institute for Scandinavian Law, 2005; https://perma.cc/SW6Z-FYTV), p. 128 (discussing different views on whether property rights only include tangible or corporeal things or whether it is broader).
[49] See Yiannopoulos, Louisiana Civil Law Treatise, Property, §§ 1–2, 12–16, 18–44.
[50] Emanuele Martinelli, “On Whether We Own What We Think” (draft, 2019; https://www.academia.edu/93535130/On_Whether_We_Own_What_We_Think), p. 6 (“Thing is taken to be ‘anything one could use’”). On the distinction between possession and ownership, see the section “Property in External Things,” above.
[51] See 35 U.S.C. §271, https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/35/271; Connell v. Sears, Roebuck Co., 722 F.2d 1542, 1547 (Fed. Cir. 1983; https://casetext.com/case/connell-v-sears-roebuck-co) (“the right to exclude recognized in a patent is but the essence of the concept of property”), citing Schenck v. Nortron Corp., 713 F.2d 782 (Fed. Cir. 1983; https://casetext.com/case/carl-schenck-ag-v-nortron-corp); Bitlaw, “Rights Granted Under U.S. Patent Law,” https://www.bitlaw.com/patent/rights.html; see also Thomas W. Merrill, “Property and the Right to Exclude,” Neb. L. Rev. 77 (1998; https://scholarship.law.columbia.edu/faculty_scholarship/3553): 730–55, p. 749 and n.10 and related text, in particular; Harris, Property and Justice; James Y. Stern, “The Essential Structure of Property Law,” Mich. L. Rev. 115, no. 7 (May 2017; https://repository.law.umich.edu/mlr/vol115/iss7/2/): 1167–1212, p. 1171 n.15, referencing and comparing Bloomer v. McQuewan, 55 U.S. 539, 549 (1852) (“The franchise which the patent grants, consists altogether in the right to exclude every one from making, using, or vending the thing patented, without the permission of the patentee. This is all that he obtains by the patent.”), Robert Patrick Merges & John Fitzgerald Duffy, Patent Law and Policy: Cases and Materials (6th ed. 2013), p. 49 (“Unlike other forms of property, however, a patent includes only the right to exclude and nothing else.” (emphasis omitted), and Frank H. Easterbrook, “Intellectual Property Is Still Property,” Harv. J.L. & Pub. Pol’y 13, no. 1 (Winter 1990; https://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/journal_articles/309/): 108–118, p. 112 (“[A] right to exclude in intellectual property is no different in principle from the right to exclude in physical property.”).
[52] See “Against Intellectual Property After Twenty Years” (ch. 15), n.62 and Part IV.H et pass. See also Kinsella, “The Non-Aggression Principle as a Limit on Action, Not on Property Rights,” StephanKinsella.com (Jan. 22, 2010) and idem, “IP and Aggression as Limits on Property Rights: How They Differ,” StephanKinsella.com (Jan. 22, 2010).
[53] Alex Kozinski, “Of Profligacy, Piracy, and Private Property,” Harv. J.L. & Pub. Pol’y. 13, no. 1 (Winter 1990; https://perma.cc/Z8AD-634V): 17–21, p. 19. See further references in “A Libertarian Theory of Contract” (ch. 9), n.1.
[54] See “Against Intellectual Property After Twenty Years” (ch. 15), text at n.29. On the term “conflictable,” see Kinsella, “On Conflictability and Conflictable Resources,” StephanKinsella.com (Jan. 31, 2022); see also “How We Come to Own Ourselves” (ch. 4), text at n.10; “A Libertarian Theory of Punishment and Rights” (ch. 5), at n.62; “Dialogical Arguments for Libertarian Rights” (ch. 6), at n.6; “Causation and Aggression” (ch. 8), at n.19.
[55] Kevin A. Carson, Studies in Mutualist Political Economy (Self-published: Fayetteville, Ark., 2004; http://mutualist.org/id47.html), chap. 5, sec. A (emphasis added).
[56] Kevin A. Carson, “Carson’s Rejoinders,” J. Libertarian Stud. 20, no. 1 (Winter 2006; https://mises.org/library/carsons-rejoinders): 97–136, p. 133 (emphasis added).
[57] For a critique of Georgism, see Rothbard, “The Single Tax: Economic and Moral Implications,” in Economic Controversies.
[58] See “A Libertarian Theory of Contract” (ch. 9), Part III.A; also Louisiana Civil Code, art. 3418 (“A thing is abandoned when its owner relinquishes possession with the intent to give up ownership”) and art. 3424 (“To acquire possession, one must intend to possess as owner and must take corporeal possession of the thing”; emphasis added).
[59] See Yiannopoulos, Louisiana Civil Law Treatise, Property, § 316; see also Louisiana Civil Code, art. 3424 (“To acquire possession, one must intend to possess as owner and must take corporeal possession of the thing”; emphasis added) and art. 3476 (to acquire title by acquisitive prescription, “The possession must be continuous, uninterrupted, peaceable, public, and unequivocal”; emphasis added); see also art. 3473.
[60] As I argue in “A Libertarian Theory of Contract” (ch. 9), Part III.A at n.31 and accompanying text et seq.
[61] See, e.g., Louisiana Mineral Code, § 27 (http://law.justia.com/louisiana/codes/21/87935.html) (“A mineral servitude is extinguished by: … prescription resulting from nonuse for ten years”).
[62] See Yiannopoulos, Louisiana Civil Law Treatise, Property, §§ 255, 261, 263–66, 332–33, 335 et pass.; Louisiana Code of Civil Procedure (https://www.legis.la.gov/legis/Laws_Toc.aspx?folder=68&level=Parent), arts. 3651, 3653 & 3655; Louisiana Civil Code, Arts. 526 & 531).
[63] For another critique of Carson, see Roderick T. Long, “Land-Locked: A Critique of Carson on Property Rights,” J. Libertarian Stud. 20, no. 1 (Winter 2006; https://mises.org/library/land-locked-critique-carson-property-rights): 87–95.
[64] See “Legislation and the Discovery of Law in a Free Society” (ch. 13); also “Knowledge, Calculation, Conflict, and Law” (ch. 19), the section “The Third-Order Problem of Knowledge and the Common Law,” text at n. 24 et seq. (discussing Randy Barnett’s views on the distinction between abstract legal rights and more concrete rules that serve as guides to action). I discuss some of this also in “A Critique of Mutualist Occupancy,” StephanKinsella.com (Aug. 2, 2009).
Comments (133)
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{ 135 comments… read them below or add one }
August 24, 2009 at 11:09 am
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All we do know is that no such system has ever evolved naturally, despite disputable claims that the early American West, or Viking Iceland, or tribal Ireland, were close.
No such system? The entire body of what we now call commercial law was created privately. It was then co-opted by various governments.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lex_mercatoria
the early American West evolved into the modern government-based American West as it grew
No, it didn’t “evolve.” It wasn’t a passive process. Gangsters moved in, and took things over.
The real trick was for the gangsters to convince their victims they were a force for good. It is a lie that has been passed on down through the generations, which you now repeat.
The model I think is appropriate is the model that we currently live under, although of course it’s a “fixer-upper”. I guess it’s my conservative side that thinks that completely tearing down the framework of our society and rebuilding it from scratch, based on a political / philosophical system, might be a bit imprudent. The last time that was tried, based on the philosophy of Messrs Marx and Engels, it didn’t work out so well, if memory serves.
Socialism fails because of the calculation problem. It is impossible to coordinate production and consumption without markets and prices. Not for you, not for the Russkies, not for the most powerful conceivable computer. Impossible. Socialism was never good “on paper” or “in theory.”
Your adherence to the existence of the state, in whatever form, is the reason you will never see a “minimal state.”
Minarchist libertarianism is and will always be doomed to failure because you have conceded that statist relationships have the capacity to solve complex, long-term social problems.
Once you do that, you have already lost the debate. You have conceded that aggression is not only necessary, but it’s an affirmatively good idea, to be applied where and when it suits you.
Then, for some reason, you are surprised and offended that other people have taken that idea and expanded on it for their own benefit. They say, “Hey, if the state works over there where Russ likes him some organized violence (e.g., to keep the peasants from rioting), let’s use it over here where it suits me!”
That’s the dynamic that produced the modern welfare-warfare state. The two sides play off each other, in a symbiotic dance. Side A wants to use state violence to achieve X, and Side B wants state violence to achieve Y. So, each side gives a little to get a little, and you end up with Side A agreeing to Side B’s demands, and vice versa.
It’s a game that’s as old as the hills. It was going on in ancient Rome. Bastiat complained about the two halves of the French Assembly dividing up the wealth of the population in the 1850s.
It’s a complete fantasy to think that these people who call themselves the state are going to just walk away from all that power. It’s absurd. You could more easily walk into your local hang-out of La Cosa Nostra, the Russian Mob, the Triads, or MS13, and explain to them, in a carefully-crafted logical argument, how they really ought to be in the business of providing blankets and shoes and food to orphans. Try joining one of those organizations and reforming it from within. It’s ridiculous.
I have no illusions that the idea of the state will go away just because anarchism is the truth, preferable, or economically advantageous. It’s a criminal enterprise, and so the people who populate it are not susceptible to pleas that they stop being criminal.
The state will collapse, of course, allowing normal, peaceful, anarchic relationships to more fully flourish, but not because anarchists say so. It will collapse because states all collapse, and for the same reasons — the parasite eventually kills its host.
August 24, 2009 at 11:19 am
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“Standard answer” indeed! You’re no statist, you claim, yet you buy and use the State’s biggest whoppers. That was a new tautology on me though: we must keep the State so that it will always protects us from the welfare addicts it always creates.
I’m starting to get pretty embarrassed talking here, this is all little league stuff. We don’t have to say (and won’t say) “bye bye tomorrow”. Come on – if you’re even sincere about any of this – this is probably the source of your problems with anarchism. Of course “ancapistan” shouldn’t be (won’t be, CAN’T be) decreed; the State’s poor, stunted creations couldn’t handle it. This is all a false dilemma. Bah!
“Conservative side”, yep, thanks for showing it so clearly in public.
August 24, 2009 at 11:53 am
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I guess it’s my conservative side that thinks that completely tearing down the framework of our society and rebuilding it from scratch, based on a political / philosophical system, might be a bit imprudent.
But of course, that would never happen. People are too used to the habits and institutions that they’ve grown up with to to toss them aside and build society from scratch (at least most of them). That doesn’t need to happen to make an anarchist society, anyway. governments didn’t create money, they simply took over the production of money. Governments didn’t create the institution of marriage, they simply wormed their way in with their regulations. Much of our life and society would not be turned topsy-turvey if we went to anarchism overnight (though of course, even that’s unlikely to happen). The difference that anarchism would make would be gradual, and would mostly be noticeable only over a period of time and accumulated changes.
In any case, I think you guys have beaten this definition of “libertarianism” into the ground, and don’t see anything productive about the back and forth going on now. August 24, 2009 at 11:59 am
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Magnus wrote:
“It’s a complete fantasy to think that these people who call themselves the state are going to just walk away from all that power. It’s absurd.”
And when the Revolution takes place, and we have ancap, all “those people who call themselves the state are going to just walk away”? No, they’ll probably be the first ones to start up PDAs, just like the old KGB is the new Russian Mafia.
“Minarchist libertarianism is and will always be doomed to failure because you have conceded that statist relationships have the capacity to solve complex, long-term social problems.”
Well, sure, I have conceded that. Get your head out of your ancap philosophy book, and take a look at history. The US has used “statist” relationships to “solve complex, long-term social problems” for going on 235 years now. And most peoples’ lives aren’t that bad. Face it, the “statist relationships” work.
“The state will collapse, of course, allowing normal, peaceful, anarchic relationships to more fully flourish, but not because anarchists say so. It will collapse because states all collapse, and for the same reasons — the parasite eventually kills its host.”
If the state does collapse, it will probably cause a hell of a lot of rights violations, and pain and suffering, in the process. Wouldn’t it be better to try to fix the system and thus avoid all this? Or do you believe in “Let justice be done, though the heavens fall”? This is the kind of thinking that resulted in the Terror in the French Revolution, or the deaths of millions of kulaks in Soviet Russia.
mpolzkill wrote:
“That was a new tautology on me though: we must keep the State so that it will always protects us from the welfare addicts it always creates.”
Oh please. Those “rioting welfare addicts” were just a convenient example.
“I’m starting to get pretty embarrassed talking here, this is all little league stuff. We don’t have to say (and won’t say) “bye bye tomorrow”. ….”
Please, you’re getting all worked up over nothing. My idea of government “going bye bye” was just a rhetorical device, nothing more. What is “little league” is all you guys pretending that you have never heard any of the classical liberal justifications for government before, and pretending that ancap is intuitively obvious whereas minarchism is a radical new theory, when of course the opposite is the case.
“”Conservative side”, yep, thanks for showing it so clearly in public.”
Not a problem. I don’t see a problem with having a “conservative side”, if that means having a sense of prudence, and thinking that throwing the baby out with the bathwater is wasteful.
August 24, 2009 at 12:03 pm
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Testify, Brother Magnus!
I really liked that, esp.: “Try joining one of those organizations and reforming it from within. It’s ridiculous.”
That made me think of something and I believe it belongs here on “What Libertarianism Is”:
Ron Paul’s second career does not advance libertarianism. I dearly love Dr. Paul, but he always reminds me of Nock’s great line about a minister trying to take over a whorehouse. I believe that all political efforts cause more harm than good. Paul has done an incredible job in spreading the word to the receptive (he said the name Spooner on national television, that almost made me cry) but I think this is more than counteracted by the alarm he sets off in all the other political groups. All political actors know in their hearts that all opposing political actors are scum and must be destroyed. NO beautiful & intricate philosophy can survive the ensuing shitstorm or the way the media masters can smear shit on it by the expert way they put two separate ideas into one mental box for most people. I’d bet the average person sees Paul in KKK robes, just as they saw Iraqis flying into the WTC.
What we need for action is something more along the lines of Gandhi’s making his own salt. The great obstacle is that where the Indians KNEW the British were exactly as Magnus describes them, we have millions like Russ that just aren’t going to see that D.C. is every bit as bad as London. (Not to insult Russ too much, but there could be another reason he is a hopeless case: it seems he is very comfortable with the “Raj”, he has said how comfy he is, he may very well be one of their contractors)
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Michael A. Clem wrote:
“In any case, I think you guys have beaten this definition of “libertarianism” into the ground, and don’t see anything productive about the back and forth going on now.”
You’re probably right. I’ve restated my main contention, that a minarchist is a *type* of libertarian (and not just 98% of a “true” anarchist libertarian), enough times that if Stephan or whoever is still unwilling to accept that, I probably won’t be able to change his mind.
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mpolzkill wrote:
“we have millions like Russ that just aren’t going to see that D.C. is every bit as bad as London.”
*sigh*
Of course I think DC is bad. That’s why I want to make it much smaller than it is now. Jesus Harold Christ on a frickin’ rubber crutch, you guys just don’t seem to have a sense of proportion. Just because both Hitler and I are “statists” according to your nonstandard definition, that does not mean I would like to live in Fourth Reich Germany.
“(Not to insult Russ too much, but there could be another reason he is a hopeless case: it seems he is very comfortable with the “Raj”, he has said how comfy he is, he may very well be one of their contractors)”
So I take it that you are an outlaw, living on the lam, staying one step ahead of the system by the virtue of your wit, charm and wicked left hook? Puuulleeeeze! You are probably a relatively comfortable member of the bourgeoisie, just like me. (And no, I don’t work for the government.)
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Haha, in this case that would be Tom Woods’ “Demon Baby”.
A true conservative wants to conserve ANYTHING that makes him comfy. A conservative has no principles but self interest. It may be that he sees further than other conservatives, his self interest may not be AS narrow. It may be that what he wants saved is worth saving, but need not be and usually isn’t.
I’m the opposite of worked up, exposure to conservatives temporarily depresses & enervates me.
As M.A. Clem just said, we’re looking bad here, not getting anywhere, it’s embarrassing.I love classical liberalism, recommend it to those who have an emotional need for a master as the only tolerable statism there is; but if you haven’t noticed, classical liberalism, after bringing us most everything good about the modern world, died a whimpering death. Why not work on and call for something now that’s even greater than Classical Liberalism? And why would your weak sauce ever appeal to many?
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Excuse me, Gandhi wanted to make London smaller? I missed that somehow.
Your definition of statist was the one without proportion. Hitler was a totalitarian statist, you are an appeasing statist.
We’re all outlaws just hoping a D.A. spotlight doesn’t land on us (if we have any sense), literally, that’s how big the law book has gotten. That aside, I am closer to one of those cave dwelling poor schmucks one hears of (though I don’t avoid the public roads, not my strain of libertarianism), haha.
I didn’t say you directly worked for them, I said you may be a contractor. That’s a big group, I know; it could be said that in our fascist economy we are all government contractors. I think I want to stop working for them more than you do.
August 24, 2009 at 1:21 pm
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I have loved reading the exchange in these threads between Russ on one side and Stephan and co. on the other. I would just like to add two minor clarifications of my own to both sides:
First, Stephan, you insist that you oppose aggression, but not consequentialism, and that you “don’t mind” if Russ opposes aggression on consequentialist grounds. But this is not true. Consequentialism is incompatible, as Russ pointed out, with your deontological opposition to aggression. Moreover, your (perfectly valid) refutations of Russ’s views were also refutations of consequentialism. Consequentialism is always self-contradictory, and always easy to refute for the clear-thinking. To deny this is the province of those who haven’t caught up on the last couple decades of analytic philosophy.
And Russ, though your style of argument is one I really admire for the most part, you have a troublingly loose grasp of logical terms like “ad hom” and “reductio ad absurdum”. Stephan was demonstrating that any support for a state logically requires socialism or what you call “statism”. Of course, you can claim to oppose interventionism and to simultaneously support a state. Just as I can claim to believe there is no literal “God” while continuing to call myself a Christian. That doesn’t mean that you and I don’t contradict ourselves in the process. Stephan was helping you by showing you that, and his arguments were not “ad hominem”. You showed a glimpse of understanding his real arguments, which were in fact “reductio ad absurdum”. But you evaded the argument. Stephan’s point is that if it is morally permissible for an entity to violate rights in order to prevent more rights violations, then there is no logical distinction between rights violations like taxation and rights violations like rape. It is easy for an ancap to oppose rape, because anarchist libertarianism is consistantly anti-aggression. You, unlike Stephan, cannot say “I would not rape in order to minimize other rapes” without contradicting yourself and falling into absurdity. If you want to say that (and you should want to say that), you will have to abandon your incoherent “sort-of-statism” and return to the truth (not “purity”, mind you, but plain old truth) of anarchism. And conversely, minarchism offers not results or practicality, but merely untruths and support for evil.
Though I disliked Stephan’s use of the word “despise” earlier, overall I think his tone has been unexceptional (despite your frequent complaints of name-calling), and it is clear that he has proved that he is right and you are wrong.
Thanks again to you both (and to you others as well).
August 24, 2009 at 1:58 pm
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I was the one who used the term “despise.” In this case, I was referring not to people I despise (since I have only love in my heart), but rather to the false equivalence between anarchism and Communism.
They are both so extreme, the story goes, and Communism was so wrong, that anarchism must also be wrong, and therefore the best route must be somewhere in the middle.
This line of “thinking” is just so trivial, so meaningless, so useless, so vacuous, while posing as the supremely reasonable alternative. It makes me sick.
It’s not reasonable. In fact, it’s anti-reason. It is frequently the least-defensible position in the entire spectrum of opinion.
My feelings on this subject are part of my general disdain for the “moderate” position, which people typically adopt for no other reason than that it is easy and requires no intellectual rigor, while pretending to be the epitome of maturity and wisdom.
Moderates are the intellectual equivalent of the sheep who is always to be found in the dead center of the herd.
August 24, 2009 at 6:36 pm
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I agree.
Anarchism can not be called extreme by any means. And, really neither can Communism [in the sense of communal, not the State sense}.
All societies evolved from some system of anarchy, some better than others, so how extreme can that be?
Many peoples also lived communally before “States” took over.
The problem is the failure to choose and adapt “working” systems and somehow institute them on a large scale. It’s possible no system will work on a large scale. The State seems to be the outcome of “bigness”. Bigness breeds it and it breeds bigness itself.
It’s really difficult to say if we have witnessed paricular “types” of systems fail or just the failure of “States”. The last gasp is always an unsucessful attempt to “control” what has become uncontrollable and this will always present itself as “socialistic”, whether it started that way or not.
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Hehehe… I feel like Michael Corleone: “Just when I thought I was out… they pull me back in.” *grin*
mpolzkill wrote:
“A true conservative wants to conserve ANYTHING that makes him comfy. A conservative has no principles but self interest.”
No, conservativism is based on not having the “fatal conceit” that I have the perfect system, derived from pure reason alone, without resort to past experience. It’s based on the idea of piecemeal reform of government, not completely tearing it down, and hoping you can rebuild it all in time. These are ideas from people like Hayek and Popper, despite the fact that they might have resented being identified as conservatives.
Rafael Garcia wrote:
“…you have a troublingly loose grasp of logical terms like “ad hom” and “reductio ad absurdum”. …You, unlike Stephan, cannot say “I would not rape in order to minimize other rapes” without contradicting yourself and falling into absurdity. If you want to say that (and you should want to say that), you will have to abandon your incoherent “sort-of-statism” and return to the truth (not “purity”, mind you, but plain old truth) of anarchism….”
The reason I “evaded” Stephan’s “trap” is because I honestly thought it was kinda silly. I can’t for the life of me see how raping people could ever reduce the total amount of rapes; that’s much more ridiculous than any hypothetical that I ever came up with. Making sure people pay their fair share for a minimal state, and denying them the opportunity to opt out of that and join a PDA instead, is not rape. Not even close; if I were a rape victim, I’d probably be offended by the suggestion of equivalency. So I just didn’t walk into a perfectly obvious and completely contrived “philosopher’s dilemma”. If I were to walk into the trap and say that I would condone rape to reduce the total amount, firstly, it sounds absurd to condone rape (which it is, because it’s an absurd hypothetical). That makes it, on the face of it, a reductio ad absurdem argument (which is valid enough, logically speaking). Secondly, it would color me as a moral monster, hence the charges of ad hominem attack. I think I used the terms accurately enough.
“…it is clear that he has proved that he is right and you are wrong.”
Well, this is a matter of opinion, of course, and since I *am* playing to a hostile audience, I will take such evaluations with a grain of salt. But it has been fun.
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gene wrote:
“The problem is the failure to choose and adapt “working” systems and somehow institute them on a large scale. It’s possible no system will work on a large scale. The State seems to be the outcome of “bigness”. Bigness breeds it and it breeds bigness itself.”
This is possible. The problem is that “bigness” seems to be better for accumulating militaristic power. If a state broke up into a large number of small states into order solve its “bigness” problem, that might well make it vulnerable to another, big, militaristic state (Hans-Herman Hoppe’s take on ancap and defense notwithstanding).
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i agree russ,
smaller states or groups are much easier to handle, but they can be easily dominated.
small states group together for protection and this makes others do the same.
eventually the amount of force necessary is so large, that it abuses its power and eventually the abuse leads to its collapse.
i think it is also why anarchy is so hard to maintain when population is dense. its not so much that the system of anarchy is archaic or inferior, but the dominance of larger force [State].
force seems to be the double edged sword.
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I can’t for the life of me see how raping people could ever reduce the total amount of rapes; that’s much more ridiculous than any hypothetical that I ever came up with.
That’s the point. He was illustrating the absurdity of advocating institutionalized stealing as a means of reduce the incidence of stealing.
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Russ,
Tear what down? I’m a panarchist, no one HAS to be master-less. You have touchingly communicated your fear at ever losing your imaginary protectors; I wouldn’t rip away a child’s security blanket and I won’t be decreeing any “Ancapistan” (absurd, I know, but this absurd straw man is the basis of your criticism).
August 24, 2009 at 9:37 pm
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I feel like this debate has gone around in circles. We have, on the one hand, libertarian-anarchists arguing that some variation of anarcho-capitalism is a viable political structure, and on the other we have libertarian-minarchists arguing that it’ll never work. As much as I love discussions like these because I always learn something, I think we’re really spinning our wheels here. My MAIN point, Russ, is not to convince you that anarcho-capitalism is the end-all/be-all or the cat’s meow of political configurations. You’re obviously well-read and nothing I or anyone else said could drastically change your mind into a hard-core Rothbardian. But that’s not what’s at stake.
Russ, you think it’s okay for a government to violate everyone’s rights a little bit if it equals a lesser number of rights violations in the absence of government. In fact, this is essentially the sole purpose of government, in your opinion–to minimize the amount and severity of rights violations. I think there’s a few things wrong with this approach.
“Suffering caused by rights violations is my only concern.”
You’re right to point out that the SUFFERING caused by rights violations should be the ultimate end; without it, “rights violations” is just another empty term devoid of anything meaningful, and your choice to mitigate them without any reference to the suffering (interpreted broadly) would be irrelevant. Rights violations only make sense in that regard. But why stop there? Isn’t this slightly arbitrary? Why is it okay for a government to lessen suffering by lessening rights violations, but it’s not okay to lessen suffering through some other altrustic approach?
Here’s an example, let’s imagine we have a group of medical scientists/doctors who’ve stumbled upon a miracle cure for disease X. Several thousands of people die each year by this disease and every one of these cases can be remedied by their miracle cure. Problem is, is the doctors are exceptionally greedy and they decide to charge a “monopoly price” for this curative potion. A price which is much too expensive for the several hundreds, even thousands, of people. To what extent is it justified to regulate the profits of these doctors to ensure that every individual can be cured. Let’s say there are 10 doctors. A regulation on each one would be (I’m guessing) 10 rights violations, but thousands would live. If there were no regulations on these doctors, then there would be obviously 0 rights violations (because certainly people DO NOT have a RIGHT to medicine), but thousands would die. Now, if you’re true intent is to minimze rights violations, then you’d pick the latter option, which would minimize the amount of suffering THROUGH rights violations–that is, no regulations against the scientists; however, it would MAXIMIZE the amount of suffering total–that is, thousands would die. You have a few options here:
You could say “Screw ‘em, there’s so such thing as a monopoly price anyway”, in which case you’re more principled than you think. Or you could go ahead and regulate the doctors to lessen the amount of suffering and death, which would mean crossing the threshold from “principle” to “pragmatic”, but at the cost of clarity. You’ve realized sometimes there’s more dreadful suffering than the kind caused by rights violations so you agree to focus on suffering generally. This isn’t good territory to be in, especially when trying to defend the minimal state from potential expansion.
Or, you could allow those suffering from their illness a “positive right” to have “affordable healthcare for all.” I don’t need to run into scenarios where that could lead, do I? I’ll speak to the more general claim of providing “positive rights” for your citizens. I’m assuming–perhaps you’ve mentioned it in an earlier post–that in your minimal state an individual’s rights are (mostly) negative, that is, freedom NOT have one’s property violated, etc. By giving people positive rights, you basically win by DEFAULT. The state becomes necessary to protect the very rights it itself creates and defines. Of course, a life in anarchy will have a greater amount of rights violations if the state can make rights at will.
“I wouldn’t have a problem with that, so long as the free riders moved on along to some other country.”
You agree that if a civilian doesn’t want to take part in government he’s “free” so long as he migrates somewhere else. Although I don’t agree with that last point, I think we’re headed in the right direction. You are welcome to enjoy your minimal state, and I (or perhaps not) and others who so choose can either consent or not consent. We may differ about what is done with the non-consenters, but if you recognize the value in the act of consenting, then you recognize the value in being able to choose anarchy, whether or not you choose to be an anarchist yourself. That’s what this debate should be about.
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“This is debatable. A lot of people who do care do not agree at all. The idea is to prevent state-sponsored terrorism (the really dangerous kind with WMDs involved) by providing a “negative example” to those states that could do so. Assuming for sake of argument that a terrorist could set off a nuke in NYC, that would involve a huge level of rights violations, that would make years of war seem relatively paltry in comparison.”
This proves my earlier point exactly. A government charged with the responsibility to reduce suffering through rights violations can basically do whatever the hell it wants, so long as its intent stays true to the original purpose. Disregarding the fact that there’s NO WAY to KNOW if a particular course of action will actually result in MORE or LESS rights violations, an administration is pretty much given free reign to intervene wherever and whenever it wants. Hell, a future president COULD say “Canada is planning to invade in order to murder, rape, and kill our children. The results could be catastrophic; the death toll is sure to number in the hundreds of millions! Let’s go to WAAAR!!!” Yes, I know, far-fetched–but that’s the point. Anything becomes justifiable if its purpose is to reduce rights violations. ANYTHING! And there’s no recourse. Future rights violations would be, for the most part, purely speculative.
August 24, 2009 at 11:14 pm
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RUSS: I can’t for the life of me see how raping people could ever reduce the total amount of rapes; that’s much more ridiculous than any hypothetical that I ever came up with.
MAGNUS: That’s the point. He was illustrating the absurdity of advocating institutionalized stealing as a means of reduce the incidence of stealing.
ME: I’m not sure who Magnus refers to here, but the argument was originally Stephan’s, and presumably Stephan had two distinct arguments in mind with this example. I was more interested in the second.
1) We can accept utilitarianism for the sake of argument, and then ask: why do we expect minarchism will minimize crime instead of anarchism? Stephan (and magnus et al.) had many arguments on this point, and several of them were stronger than the rape analogy. I personally have not thought about this question enough to weigh in on it, though I found the arguments on both sides interesting. As Stephan has pointed out elsewhere on this blog, it’s irrelevant, because there is another (logically prior) argument that the “rape” example serves.
2) Utilitarianism itself is, in my opinion, outdated and easily refuted. The first claim, that it is outdated, I fully admit to be pure rhetoric and ad hominem (though it explains its appeal to even such luminaries as Mises, Mill, and Bentham). But the second claim, that it is easily refuted, was demonstrated by Stephan’s reductio ad absurdum (which I paraphrased in my last post). Of course you don’t want to say that you condone rape in order to minimize total rapes, because this does sound monstrous. But that is not ad hominem, that is the point – to show that your position is, when thought about clearly and logically, monstrous. The only reason we entertain arguments by utilitarians is because in the end, we don’t take them too seriously. If you really were a person who would kill eight innocent men to save nine, or rape one child to save two, you would be beneath moral discourse. Your arguments show you to be a far more morally and intellectually sensitive being than that, despite your unfortunate attachment to the utilitarian creed (and thus, to the minimal state). Note that for argument 2, the fact that rapes do not in fact stop other rapes is entirely incidental. We are arguing purely about the logical coherence of utilitarianism at that point, not about facts of the world.
I will drop this subject now, because I’m sure that the cranky preaching of a natural law supporter will not magically convert all utilitarians on this board to deontological libertarian anarchists. Otherwise Stephan would have done it already (with help from Magnus, Othyem, and mpolzkill).
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The argument goes around in circles because the basis of the situation does the same.
we can’t get around force. the only way to deter what one might conceive of as “wrong” force is to counteract it with greater force.
in order to have greater force, someone or some group must have the ability to use it. with this ability comes power and eventually or even originally, abuse.
with this abuse comes submission or the need for even greater force, etc.
it doesn’t really change whether the background is anarchy or statist. the nature of force controls the system, not the other way around.
so, we all have the right idea believing that we should not agress and try to live in peace but the problem is you need one [or group] mother —— to keep the peace and that same bad a– dude [or dudes] will eventually mess everything up. and you always need someone deciding when to call the dude, etc. so control enters and things slide downhill!
my personal view is anarchy and low population is the way to go. if you don’t like the particular situation, you can move and it will be different. Since we have neither, just hope for the best!
August 25, 2009 at 1:29 am
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A big point is: would S. Kinsella & friends not bug poor ol’ Russ but actually bug real aggressors and robbers? If a mugger held up S. Kinsella, would he lecture the mugger on not using aggression to get what he wants? Or is S. Kinsella prepared for such a scenario whereby he has the ability to use retaliatory force against a mugger or a group thereof? Or is S. Kinsella hoping in the ‘goodness of humanity’ and hope he’ll never have to face a mugger? Or will S. Kinsella say “yes sir, yes sir, three bags full sir” and give the mugger what he wants with any retaliation whatsoever?
If most Libertarians subscribe to one or both of the last two scenario then anarchotopia is unrealisable. After all, one group of people who are strong to give governments crap are Mexican Druglords yet if they could defeat governments and become the new powers their rule is hardly going to be any better.
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I wouldn’t rip away a child’s security blanket and I won’t be decreeing any “Ancapistan” (absurd, I know, but this absurd straw man is the basis of your criticism)
You’re not speaking the statist language, mpolzkill. Unfortunately, the essential component of Russ’s security blanket is knowing that he can force you (and everyone else) to pay for and participate in his state.
Your live-and-let-live attitude is a feature of voluntarism, not statism. Forcing everyone to comply is the whole point of the state, its defining feature, its raison d’etre.
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Gil,
There are more scenarios that could be imagined when Mr. Kinsella still has all of the money and freedom that was already stolen from him by your “bada**” of choice: the “unreal” robber according to your conventional view. We radical libertarians are always at a disadvantage in these discussions because it is impossible to know what an unfettered market will come up with. Your average criminal is not as intelligent as your average peaceful citizen. In a free world, why we would all just sit back and let ourselves be robbed without coming up with some systems and technology to defeat them, I don’t know. I do know why we allow ourselves to be robbed right now by your “unreal” robbers: because there are just too many like you and Russ with this massive mental block.
In an alternate example, we already know what you and Russ do when these “unreal” robbers take away almost all of our rights to defend ourselves, on 9/11/2001 totally drop the ball protecting the sheep they have slowly neutered over the last 80 years or so, Federalize airport security (their every failure brings them further aggrandizement), then spend a trillion of our dollars insanely slaughtering and torturing Iraqis, brazenly start spying on us…ad infinitum. You say something like: “Boy, I wish they would decide to make themselves smaller, but don’t forget, we always need our magic-badged protectors, can’t ever tear down all the wonderful things they’ve done”.
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Magnus,
You hit the button there: language. As a very young man I learned the language of Lysander Spooner (that’s why, no matter how hard I try to cool it down, it’s at least a bit overheated, ha ha). Russ seems to be baffled, he can’t understand why we seem to be calling him a bad guy. He’s not, he’s just trapped by the slave language he was trained in by his masters. Gil thinks it’s funny that we seem to be attacking Russ. It’s because that’s where the battle is: the State’s main campaign is always to put its outposts in every mind.
That reminds me, you conservatives here; how’s your battle against public school coming along? Does it look like the “liberals” are going to give you back your kids any time soon? Keep on saying you hope they get smaller, that should do the trick.
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Okay, now we’re really going off in strange directions. An obvious point is that there’s no reason debating with someone who isn’t interested in debate. Would Stephan argue with an armed robber? I can’t answer for him, but I suspect that he would not, unless he thought it might distract the robber and give him a chance to take action. But the absurdity of the question is that it says little about the political system: it can be asked of anyone, today. Would you ask the robber to wait while you pulled out your cell phone to call the local police to come to your aid?
Russ, on the other hand, is clearly more interested in debate and discussion on the morality and practicality of these issues, as the rest of us are, and presumably wants to get at some worthwhile truth. Thus, talking to Russ makes sense, while trying to talk to an armed robber doesn’t. -
M.A. Clem,
“says little about the political system”
I don’t know, it says a lot about Gil & conservatism, I’d say. For instance, I think their phantasmagorias are the place to look when you want to find the root causes of the “Cold War”.
Great talking to you all, I look forward to tonight and reading what you all come up with. Take care.
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“Thus, talking to Russ makes sense, while trying to talk to an armed robber doesn’t.” – M. A. Clem
Uh huh . . . No, it shows a capacity for talk and nothing else. It reminds me of the story of when the poor people of New York would riot – did they trash the rich side town to make a real statement, nope, they trash their own side of town where it was safe to do so and where there’d be little to no repercussions. Nope, you have no ability to make a real difference in the real world but taking on Russ over the ‘real’ meaning of ‘Libertarianism’ gives a cheap feeling of ‘doing something’.
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Gil, your impatience with education and obsession with action are surprising. This Institute is dedicated to education, that is its purpose, and education is achieved by talking and writing. Moreover, what “action” do you suggest, if educating others is not “real” enough for you? Either you are recommending violent revolution, in which case you are not the safest person to be communicating with openly, or you are recommending political action, which is intrinsically evil (as all this “useless” talking has been trying to prove to you and others). As Mises would exhort us: tu ne cede malis, sed contra audentior ito. That is, “first, do no evil. but proceed ever more boldly against it.” Political activism usually breaks the first injunction, under the pretense of carrying out the second.
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So, Rafael, you don’t like violent revolution (which ironically was the way in which America got to secede from Britian) nor do you like getting involved in politics (I do respect Ron Paul for pro-active in his beliefs even if I probably wouldn’t agree with all of his beliefs) so what’s left: ‘education’. Okeedokee.
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Good point, Gil. I should clarify, political action is only immoral for an anarchist, not a minarchist. And even there, I’m not sure about it yet, I’ve yet to read enough on both sides.
Violent revolution against the State is not, of course, intrinsically wrong. But it can be quite stupid, if public opinion doesn’t support it. This is not 1776, and Obama is not seen the same way as George III was.
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“But it can be quite stupid, if public opinion doesn’t support it. This is not 1776, and Obama is not seen the same way as George III was.” – Rafael.
Bit late but – it is estimated that the ‘revolution’ was only supported by 30% of the population. The rebels believed in what they were doing not whether the majority like it or not.
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Nope, you have no ability to make a real difference in the real world but taking on Russ over the ‘real’ meaning of ‘Libertarianism’ gives a cheap feeling of ‘doing something’.
Talking doesn’t preclude doing other things, too. But if ideas are so unimportant to the workings of the world, why are you bothering to talk? Actions speak louder than words, don’t they?
In truth, though, human action is meaningless without the thought or idea that guides it. Both thought and action are necessary for meaningful purpose. And, naturally enough, different ideas lead to different actions. The purpose of talking to others about these ideas is to persuade them to take different actions. You can argue about how effective such talk is in persuading people, but you cannot argue without accepting the fact that you, too, are trying to persuade people to take different actions–otherwise, why would you argue? Just to make noise? October 11, 2009 at 8:20 pm
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Russ,
Russ, have you seen A Clockwork Orange? Since a lot of this discussion is hypothetical and no anarcho-cap nor a true monarchist state has existed, go with me on this scenario. Stephan has referred to you endorsing rape to prevent other rapes, and while you see this as extreme and unrelated, he is merely addressing the principle of allowing lesser evils to take place for the sake of preventing greater evils. Let’s say 1 out of 100 men will commit a rape; but it has been proven that if exposed to a live violent rape at a young age only 1 out of 100,000 will commit rape (similar to the process in Clockwork Orange). Would you be okay and support educational techniques that place 100,000 young male kids in a room and then allow a girl who was kidnapped to be brought in and raped (by an already convicted rapist) in front of them, knowing that this would lead to a lot less women being raped overall?
@Russ
You’re confusing libertarianism with some other consequentialist/utilitarian moral philosophy. The fact that you think Stephan Kinsella’s (and many, many other’s) conception of libertarianism–i.e, a form of (philosophical) anarchism–will lead to “more pain, hardship, suffering, and death” has ultimately nothing to do with property rights in oneself and the extension of that.
So, more people will suffer in an anarchist society? Well, let them *each* voluntarily enter into an explicit agreement and re-enter life under government. Those “rugged individualists” as they’re so called can try to hash out a nasty, brutish, and short life for themselves on the outside. What’s wrong with that?
@Nick
“I would love to know when the arbitrary(surely not “natural: see nature) right to not be coerced is applied to the human being. Surely a 2 year old can be punished for disobedience, can he not?”
I’m always surprised when I see people dispute such fundamental axioms as self-ownership. Anyways, you’re presumably comparing a government’s power to coerce and discipline its citizenry as equivilant to a parent’s power to discipline his or her child. Although libertarianians have differing viewpoints on this, the philosopher A. John Simmons has pointed out, it’s an assumption to assume that parents, in fact, have ANY “right” to discipline their children for disobedience. Children, strictly speaking, have no “natural duty” to obey their parents. Now, whether or not they have a MORAL duty to obey their parents, I think, is largely dependent upon their circumstances and is another issue altogether. Moreover, even if children DID in fact have some natural duty to obey their parents, it still doesn’t follow that this analogy applies equally to the child/parent citizen/government framework.
Peter wrote:
“Well, sure; Adolf Hitler could call himself libertarian if he wanted. But him calling himself libertarian doesn’t mean he is libertarian.”
No, Hitler wouldn’t be a libertarian even if he called himself one. But I am a libertarian, just not the kind Stephan would prefer that I be. Stephan is like a Peikoffian Objectivist saying that a Kellyite isn’t really an Objectivist, or a Leninist saying a Trotskyite isn’t a real Marxist. Or, for you Monty Python fans, a member of the Judean People’s Front saying a member of the People’s Front of Judea isn’t a real Jew. 
Magnus wrote:
“Since when did I consent to having my liberty and property put to a vote?”
I never said you did. A valid, minimal state doesn’t put your rights up for a vote. It only protects your rights.
Othyem wrote:
“You’re confusing libertarianism with some other consequentialist/utilitarian moral philosophy. ”
No, you and Stephan are confusing libertarianism as a whole with your particular formulation of libertarianism. Stephan is just another person who thinks that his is the only “true” version of X-ism, whatever X might happen to be.
“So, more people will suffer in an anarchist society? Well, let them *each* voluntarily enter into an explicit agreement and re-enter life under government. Those “rugged individualists” as they’re so called can try to hash out a nasty, brutish, and short life for themselves on the outside. What’s wrong with that?”
What’s wrong is that the “rugged individualists” might happen to interact with those of us who believe in a minimal government in a way such that somebody thinks their rights got violated. Then what happens? Hatfield-McCoy blood feuds? If all the anarchists were “on the outside”, that would be different. I wouldn’t mind if all the anarchists ran off to Somalia to live. (I think they would be supremely stupid to do so, but that’s another matter.)
“Since when did I consent to having my liberty and property put to a vote?” – Magnus.
Are you descendant of a Libertarian family who lived in America before the Founding Fathers who in turn forced a new style of government onto your family? If a government was set up voluntarily before your family arrived do you as an immigrant have the right to trash the society because they are ‘using force & fraud against’ you (“i signed nothing”)? How annoying would it be for minarchist societies facing repeated sorties from anarchists trying to seize public land and property from the minarchists on the contention the public property is effectively the ‘commons’ and therefore they have to right to homestead it and minarchists are ‘iniating force’ when they’re trying to stop the anarchists.
But I am a libertarian, just not the kind Stephan would prefer that I be.
You’re a mostly-libertarian, perhaps, but you’re not all the way there since you advocate the anti-libertarian initiation of force to accomplish certain ends.
If a government was set up voluntarily before your family arrived do you as an immigrant have the right to trash the society because they are ‘using force & fraud against’ you (“i signed nothing”)?
Absolutely. Of course.
How annoying would it be for minarchist societies facing repeated sorties from anarchists trying to seize public land and property from the minarchists on the contention the public property is effectively the ‘commons’ and therefore they have to right to homestead it and minarchists are ‘iniating force’ when they’re trying to stop the anarchists.
I’m sure it would be very annoying. That’s the minarchists’ problem. What’s it got to do with right and wrong?
I never said you did. A valid, minimal state doesn’t put your rights up for a vote. It only protects your rights.
Why don’t you tell me exactly what you think this supposedly-valid “minimal state” actually does? Then I’ll tell you if it violates my rights.
In your answer, please pay special attention to the manner in which this supposedly-valid “minimal state” obtains funds for its minimal activities.
Please also address the extent to which people would be permitted, without threat of retaliation or coercion, to opt out of the “services” that this “minimal state” claims to provide.
Are you descendant of a Libertarian family who lived in America before the Founding Fathers who in turn forced a new style of government onto your family? If a government was set up voluntarily before your family arrived do you as an immigrant have the right to trash the society because they are ‘using force & fraud against’ you (“i signed nothing”)? How annoying would it be for minarchist societies facing repeated sorties from anarchists trying to seize public land and property from the minarchists on the contention the public property is effectively the ‘commons’ and therefore they have to right to homestead it and minarchists are ‘iniating force’ when they’re trying to stop the anarchists.
1. There are no “Founding Fathers.” Their proclamations about having “founded” anything are meaningless and not binding on me or anyone else.
2. The purported definition of a certain patch of dirt as “America,” as a territory in which their proclamations were to supposedly be perpetually binding as to all who tread upon it, is utterly void and ineffective.
3. Any “government” that was voluntarily set up before I arrived is only binding on the actual people who consented to it, not me or anyone else. Consent cannot be imputed, by force, on someone, even upon a late-comer.
4. There is no such thing as “public land” because there is no such thing as a “public.” It’s a completely imaginary concept. The claim of ownership, by anyone, over unused land is totally invalid. It’s just noise and hot air, and can be properly disregarded.
“There is no such thing as ‘public land’ because there is no such thing as a ‘public’. It’s a completely imaginary concept. The claim of ownership, by anyone, over unused land is totally invalid. It’s just noise and hot air, and can be properly disregarded. ”
What a coinkidink! The imperial Old World nations thought the same way towards the natives of the New World.
Nick,
One should not be punished for disobedience but only for wrongdoing.
Parents should teach children to use their heads, make up their own minds, take responsibilities, take calculated risks, critical thinking.
But parents should not teach children to obey, this is really destructive.
Hitler had an army of obedient drones. Obedience at all costs is apocalyptic.
Damn, it’s like listening to a skipping record here (did that date me?)
Peter wrote:
“You’re a mostly-libertarian, perhaps, but you’re not all the way there since you advocate the anti-libertarian initiation of force to accomplish certain ends.”
No, I’m a libertarian. You, Stephan or even Murray Rothbard don’t get the sole right to decide what the word means, especially if you are against IP. “Libertarianism” is just a general term. Wikipedia has a good definition:
“Libertarianism is a term used to describe a broad spectrum of political philosophies which seek to maximize individual liberty and minimize or even abolish the state.”
The Rothbardian version of libertarianism, which defines libertarianism as the position of being against all initiation of force, is only one definition among many. It implies either that anarchism would result in the maximal individual liberty, or that maximizing liberty is not important, neither of which I can agree with. And I hate to tell you, but Rothbard’s definition is on the fringe of a fringe movement. Of course, to you guys, that’s good, because that makes you more pure and radical.
I can’t understand why you guys can’t be civil with others who want to go in the same general political direction as you. Heck, once we achieve a minimal government, and you want to go further, then you can go your own way. But we’re a long way from that day, and until then, why can’t we work together without all this “You’re not a *pure* libertarian!” crap? Must you divide the libertarian movement into little, tiny, ineffectual splinter groups just for the sake of doctrinal purity, when the libertarian movement is ineffectual enough already? What is it with you guys? Do you all have Asperger’s Syndrome or something? It’s no wonder people like Michael Medved call us “Losertarians”.
Hi Stephen.
Regarding these assertions in your article:
“Libertarianism recognizes that only the self-ownership rule is universalizable and compatible with the goals of peace, cooperation, and conflict-avoidance.â€
and
“Libertarian property rights principles emerge as the only candidate that satisfies these criteria.â€
I am unaware of any proof that the principle of voluntarism or voluntary consent is not universalizable as a principle of libertarianism that can serve to achieve the goals of peace, cooperation, and conflict-avoidance. So I have to disagree with these assertions.
Lockean property rights theory is how the Rothbard/Hoppe school of libertarian thought grounds its defense of libertarianism. Certainly the theories of Rothbard and Hoppe are not identical with libertarianism.
In your article, I couldn’t find a single use of the words “voluntary†or “voluntary consent,†though I found one reference to “consent.†Because of this, many non-Rothbardian libertarians will interpret your particular conception of libertarianism as an argument for a single libertarian legal order, to be instituted as the single legal order for all libertarians, without regard to individual voluntary consent.
I’m not necessarily proposing you change your conception of libertarianism to include voluntary consent, because I think doing so may undercut the natural law theoretical position. But I do claim that the conscious avoidance of a theory of libertarianism based on voluntary consent cannot go unnoticed by non-Rothbardian libertarians, and to the extent a theory of libertarianism is advanced which seeks to bypass or override the voluntary consent of individuals, it will be strenuously disavowed by other schools of libertarian though.
Sorry. Last word should be “thought.”
Adam:
“Libertarian property rights principles emerge as the only candidate that satisfies these criteria.â€
I am unaware of any proof that the principle of voluntarism or voluntary consent is not universalizable as a principle of libertarianism that can serve to achieve the goals of peace, cooperation, and conflict-avoidance. So I have to disagree with these assertions.
I am not sure what you mean by “voluntarism” or “voluntary consent.” It only makes sense to me if it implies property rights. After all, consent, or permission, implies the right to withold consent, or permission–and this consent is necessarily pertaining to a user of a particular scarce resource that some other person wants to use, and that you apparently have the right to withhold or grant consent for. I.e., that you have ownership of–property rights in.
So you seem to be talking about property rights but insisting on using idiosyncratic language to describe it and eschewing perfectly good terms like property rights.
If “voluntarism” means something other than property rights, then it is not libertarian.
In short, my argument is that only X satisfies the “goals of peace, cooperation, and conflict-avoidance.†And X means assigning exclusive rights to control in a universalizable control. The word to describe this right to conttrol is “property right”.
So if a buddy of mine puts a gun to head, am I violating his rights if I take it away from him? What if he’s in my house when he does it?
Russ,
You are dead right on a lot of things, especially Stephan’s pompous attitude and his uncivil style of writing and responding. The other part is of course the rather dogmatic “axiom” of opposing all aggression. I specifically find the translation “absence of agression” funny because it is metaphysically impossible, at least as long a we are talking of a world of human beings (warts and all). I fully agree with your idea of “being for liberty” rather than “opposing aggression”.
Stephan’s notion that liberty means the absence of aggression is nothing short of peurile because Liberty means “being able to act as per the dictates of ones own mind”. While that requires the absence of the initiation of force, it cannot be defined as the absence of the initiation of force.
Keep writing in. You make sense.
Mark,
” So if a buddy of mine puts a gun to head, am I violating his rights if I take it away from him? What if he’s in my house when he does it? ”
If you are using this to puncture a huge hole in the notion that property rights are the basis of all rights, then I think this is a good beginning. Frankly, as Ayn Rand said, the basis of all rights, including the right to property, is the Right to Life. The situation you have put forward is best addressed starting from that axiom.
Great example 
Bala wrote:
“You are dead right on a lot of things, especially Stephan’s pompous attitude and his uncivil style of writing and responding.”
I actually think that Stephan is a decent person, else he wouldn’t care so much about libertarianism. And since he cares so much, occasionally he gets a bit over-zealous. But so do I, and my zeal can make me very sarcastic, and thus uncivil, myself. That’s rather inconsistent with my Rodney King “can’t we all just get along” rant earlier. So I apologize for my excesses to Stephan. I think we’re both on the same side, when it comes right down to it. We just disagree on details.
“Keep writing in. You make sense.”
Thank you.
I would like to ask Stephan a few questions. He has been hammering on my position for a while now, so I would like him to clarify his position.
1) Are you for or against the lowest level of aggression possible in society? If against, why?
2) Do you think that if we lived in an anarcho-libertarian “polity” (for lack of a better word), that would result in the lowest level of aggression possible in society?
Russ:
So I apologize for my excesses to Stephan. I think we’re both on the same side, when it comes right down to it. We just disagree on details.
Of course.
I would like to ask Stephan a few questions. He has been hammering on my position for a while now, so I would like him to clarify his position.
1) Are you for or against the lowest level of aggression possible in society? If against, why?
Well, I am against aggression just as you are (presumably) against rape. All aggression is wrong as all rape is wrong. Preferably there would be no aggression, and no rape. But just as 1 rape is not as bad as 100, a small amount of aggression is less undesirable than a large amount.
2) Do you think that if we lived in an anarcho-libertarian “polity” (for lack of a better word), that would result in the lowest level of aggression possible in society?
Well I believe the most worrisome aggression is institutionalized aggression. If you achieve anarchy that means you have abolished the source of public aggression. All that is left is a relatively small degree of private crime (relatively small for a number of reasons: first, to achieve anarchy, the ideas of liberty would have to be widespread; second, society b/c of the greater free market would be immensely wealthier, thus reducing the need for crime, and increasing the means at the disposal of civilized people to spend on security to stave off whatever crime is left).
Stephan Kinsella wrote:
“”1) Are you for or against the lowest level of aggression possible in society? If against, why?”
Well, I am against aggression just as you are (presumably) against rape. All aggression is wrong as all rape is wrong. Preferably there would be no aggression, and no rape. But just as 1 rape is not as bad as 100, a small amount of aggression is less undesirable than a large amount.”
I will take your answer as an agreement that you would prefer the “lowest level of aggression possible in society”. (And yes, of course I am against rape.)
“”2) Do you think that if we lived in an anarcho-libertarian “polity” (for lack of a better word), that would result in the lowest level of aggression possible in society?
Well I believe the most worrisome aggression is institutionalized aggression. If you achieve anarchy that means you have abolished the source of public aggression. All that is left is a relatively small degree of private crime …”
Hmmm… I think this assumes that the “relatively small degree of private crime” will stay small without a State to keep it that way. Of course, some of the reasons you give below could keep the private crime small:
“(relatively small for a number of reasons: first, to achieve anarchy, the ideas of liberty would have to be widespread; second, society b/c of the greater free market would be immensely wealthier, thus reducing the need for crime, and increasing the means at the disposal of civilized people to spend on security to stave off whatever crime is left).”
But, I’m just not convinced. I could be wrong, but I think that PDAs could quite possibly cause a high level of private crime as they compete against one another. And competing PDAs might not be so good at controlling other private crime.
At any rate, I’ll interpret your answer to my second question as saying that you believe that aggression will be minimized under anarcho-libertarianism.
Let me ask one more question, if I may. Let’s say that Ruritania becomes a minimal libertarian State, is renamed Libertaria, and we all move there. Then let’s say that western Libertaria has an anarcho-libertarian revolution, breaks off from Libertaria proper, and renames itself Ancapistan. So you move to Ancapistan to enjoy the pleasures of unfettered freedom. Let’s say it turns out that I am right, and there is less actual freedom in Ancapistan than in Libertaria. Would you then change your mind and become a minarchist? In other words, are you for maximum freedom, or for abolishing the State, assuming that these two options are not completely equivalent?
See discussion at BrainPolice’s Critique of “What Libertarianism Isâ€
and The Definition and Scope of Libertarianism.
Russ:
Hmmm… I think this assumes that the “relatively small degree of private crime” will stay small without a State to keep it that way.
Do states keep crime down now? No; they make it worse (think of the fallout of drug prohibition alone); and add to it with their own (think: war, jails, taxes).
But, I’m just not convinced.
So?
I could be wrong, but I think that PDAs could quite possibly cause a high level of private crime as they compete against one another.
Aaaand, then we are left with another state. How is that worse?
And competing PDAs might not be so good at controlling other private crime.
Are states?
At any rate, I’ll interpret your answer to my second question as saying that you believe that aggression will be minimized under anarcho-libertarianism.
I believe it probably would be but this is not why I’m an anarchist nor is this view essential to my being an anarchist. I’m an anarchist for exactly the reasons I said, and I apologize for being precise and clear and not maundering or using fuzzy, loosey-goosey language. I would not endorse aggression even if it was to stop other aggression. I have, you know, principles. I’m against aggression because it’s wrong. I would not rape or condone a rape, even if I thought it would stop other rapes. Sometimes you have to take a stand, y’know?
Would you then change your mind and become a minarchist? In other words, are you for maximum freedom, or for abolishing the State, assuming that these two options are not completely equivalent?
Not sure. I don’t think the hypo is specified in enough detail (nor could it be), nor that it avoids all problematic assumptions, to allow an answer. It’s easier to be guided by principle than to pick everything apart in an attempt to justify compromise and ad hocery.
Moved from the “The Irrelevance of the Impossibility of Anarcho-Libertarianism” thread.
mpolzkill wrote:
“I wonder if Russ will have a Buckleyesque response to that post! (but can one be simultaneously “crypto” AND honest?)”
Well… ah… it behooves me to say that … ah… I find your attempt to … ah… denigrate me as a … ah … crypto-statist to be quite… ah… nugatory.
Was that Buckleyesque enough for ya? 
If not, how about this:
Now listen, you queer, you stop calling me a crypto-statist or I’ll sock you in the goddamn face and you’ll stay plastered!
(Disclaimer: That was intended as humor. I have no desire to reach through my computer screen and sock mpolzkill.)
“But Russ here has defined “statist”: one who wants to use the State to get what he wants (simple, I know).”
No, I have defined “statist” in no such way because I have never identified myself as a statist; you did that. If I were to define statism, it would be something along the lines of this: “The doctrine or policy of subordinating the individual unconditionally to a state or government with unlimited powers. Statism includes both socialism and interventionism”. (This definition gives the meaning of the word as Mises used it, and is from “Mises Made Easy”, which is available on this site.) The word “statism” has never meant simply “the belief that a government is necessary”, or else that would make Mises himself a statist. It is only used in this sense by illiterates, or by anarchists who are trying an ad hominem argument.
“I will never understand what makes most of the billions of statists with their perhaps millions of different pet systems think that they and their fellow travelers will ever take the reins.”
I really have no desire to “take the reins”. I am a computer geek. I have neither the patience, the administrative skills, nor the people skills, necessary to become an effective statesman. And I have no idea whether my “fellow travelers” will ever take the reins.
Stephan Kinsella wrote (moved from the “The Irrelevance of the Impossibility of Anarcho-Libertarianism” thread):
“Thank you. Finally. Finally. An honest faux-libertarian crypto-statist.”
See my last post to mpolzkill about your misuse of the term “statism”. This kind of obvious ad hominem argument is beneath you, Stephan.
“And you do realize the key libertarian insight is that human freedom–human rights–can only be infringed by the use of initiated force. You are aware of this view, are you not?”
Yeah. So?
“What makes you think a “small State”, one that only violates a “minimal amount of rights,” is possible?”
I don’t know that a minimal state is possible. I do know that we have had much smaller states in the past, and did just fine. I think that, in politics, the goal should be, at least in principle, reachable. I believe a minimal government is reachable, at least in principle. I’m not so sure about anarcho-capitalism. It seems utopian to me, and I’ve never thought that anything comes of utopianism.
“What makes you think this State won’t tend to be manned by people a la “the worst rise to the top” and then the inexorable logic of their position will lead them to gradually expand their power?”
I don’t know that this won’t happen. Limiting government does seem to be a constant Sisyphean struggle. And if I became convinced that ancap would work better than a minimal state, I would become an anarcho-capitalist again. I am not unalterably wedded to the idea of a state. I just think, right now, that a very small state is the best way to maximize freedom.
Russ:
“Thank you. Finally. Finally. An honest faux-libertarian crypto-statist.”
See my last post to mpolzkill about your misuse of the term “statism”. This kind of obvious ad hominem argument is beneath you, Stephan.
It’s not ad hominem at all. I’m an anarcho-libertarian. I criticize your pro-aggression views.
I don’t know that a minimal state is possible. I do know that we have had much smaller states in the past, and did just fine.
“Did just fine”?! Who did? What about the people whose rights were infringed by said criminal states? did they “do just fine”?
I think that, in politics, the goal should be, at least in principle, reachable. I believe a minimal government is reachable, at least in principle.
Why in the world would you believe this?
Stephan Kinsella wrote:
“Do states keep crime down now? No; they make it worse (think of the fallout of drug prohibition alone)”
But a minimal state would not prohibit voluntary acts, else it wouldn’t be a minimal state. So you’re comparing apples and oranges.
“I believe it probably would be but this is not why I’m an anarchist nor is this view essential to my being an anarchist. I’m an anarchist for exactly the reasons I said, and I apologize for being precise and clear and not maundering or using fuzzy, loosey-goosey language.”
I fail to see how saying that I am for the minimal possible amount of rights violations is “fuzzy, loosey-goosey language”. Seems clear enough to me. Other than that, when I use my “judgment” instead of “principle”, well, that may be fuzzier, but sometimes reality is not as precise and clear-cut as we would like it to be.
“I would not endorse aggression even if it was to stop other aggression. I have, you know, principles.”
One man’s principles are another man’s dogma.
“I’m against aggression because it’s wrong. I would not rape or condone a rape, even if I thought it would stop other rapes.”
I didn’t realize I was saying that a minimal state would have to rape people to protect rights. As a matter of fact, I know I didn’t say that, because that’s a just plain ludicrous thing to say. A minimal state would tax people, true (at a much lower rate than today), and it would monopolize certain functions, true (many less functions than today). But to say that a minarchist libertarian is in favor of raping people to lower the total number of rapes is just ridiculous. It’s apparently a reductio ad absurdem argument, but in reality it’s just another ad hominem attack in disguise. You don’t seem to know how not to make them.
“It’s easier to be guided by principle than to pick everything apart in an attempt to justify compromise and ad hocery.”
Yes, a pragmatic political philosophy is much more difficult to follow than a dogmatic political philosophy that does all the thinking for you with one easy-to-follow “principle”. After all, in a pragmatic philosophy, you have to exercise your own judgment, think about strategy and tactics, think about what is possible, what is likely, and what is not, think about what is right and wrong, think about when it is acceptable to commit a lesser evil to prevent a greater one, etc. How convenient it must be to slice through all that tedious judging and thinking with one simple, easy-to-follow rule! (It slices! It dices! It makes Julienne fries!) Heck, it shouldn’t be called the Zero Aggression Principle, it should be called the Zero Effort Principle!
If only it were that simple. But I believe in a sort of secular version of Original Sin. We aren’t perfect, never will be, and government is the price we must pay. We will never be allowed back in the Garden.
Stephan Kinsella wrote:
“It’s not ad hominem at all. I’m an anarcho-libertarian. I criticize your pro-aggression views.”
First, I’m not “pro-aggression” (another ad hominem; I was right, you don’t know how to stop yourself). As I’ve repeated ad nauseum, I am for the *minimal* amount of rights violations possible. Apparently, you don’t understand what the word “minimal” means, or that someone who wants to minimize something is not in favor of it.
At any rate, calling me a “statist”, when according to any sane definition of the word (like Percy Greaves’ definition) I am not even close to one, *is* an ad hominem attack.
“What about the people whose rights were infringed by said criminal states? did they “do just fine”?”
For the most part, yes. When the US government was small, not being able to choose their own PDA had not been among peoples’ most pressing problems.
Russ wrote:
“I think that, in politics, the goal should be, at least in principle, reachable. I believe a minimal government is reachable, at least in principle.”
Stephan replied:
“Why in the world would you believe this?”
Well, first, we now live under a government that monopolizes certain functions, so we know this model “works” for a sufficiently small definition of “works”. We haven’t fallen into a complete Hobbesian war of man against man, or even a case of small warlords fighting each other for power and killing off all the little people in the process. The center still holds; not all has fallen apart; at least not yet.
Second, we used to live under an even smaller government than at present, which arguably “worked” better than the one we have now, so I see no reason why the government couldn’t be made smaller and better again. It’s possible in the future because it was possible in the past.
Last, there’s no a priori reason why government officials couldn’t restrain themselves from violating rights where it’s not absolutely necessary. Granted, it would take a serious cultural shift, where voters and politicians would take freedom seriously, and probably a reorganization of government, such as returning to some serious sort of federalism instead of nationalism that’s called federalism. That may indeed be unrealistic, but it still seems less unrealistic than visions of Ancapistan. (This may be why you favor a “principled” anarcho-libertarianism, where impossibility doesn’t matter; because you know in your heart of hearts that any vision of Ancapistan is completely unrealistic.)
Russ,
Ha ha, glad you caught my W.F.B. allusion.
I misspoke: you personified MY definition of “statist”. I know my definition isn’t the accepted one, but I think it’s an honest (no ad hom, an attempt to define your position) and literal reading using the word “state” (Websters: “a politically organized body of people usually occupying a definite territory”) Your definition of “statism” seems better suited to “totalitarian”.
It is possible that I’m illiterate, I don’t know. Help me correct this, kind sir:
state = state
-ist = advocate
state advocate = you.
You may not be up for it, but don’t you want your flavour of minarchists to seize control of state power? You don’t prefer the gang holding it now, to be sure. You think it’s possible for your gang to take the reins or else you wouldn’t advocate the State, right? Or you just like being “realistic”?
Couple other questions on what you just said: weren’t the abolitionists of the 19th century considered to be at least as nutty as “Utopianists”?
You also said: “But a minimal state would not prohibit voluntary acts, else it wouldn’t be a minimal state.”
This minimal state you envision; it (with Mises) would observe the right to seceed, down to the level of the individual? If so, THAT sounds downright “Utopian”.
(Thanks for the dialogue, jests & civility, very fun.)
mpolzkill wrote:
“…I know my definition isn’t the accepted one, but I think it’s an honest (no ad hom, an attempt to define your position) and literal reading…”
Fair enough. But your use of a non-standard definition for the word may lead one to mistakenly conclude that you are trying to implicitly conflate their position and totalitarianism. It seems it would be easier to just use the accepted definition, even if you think it’s not as intuitively obvious, to avoid this kind of confusion.
Russ wrote:
“But a minimal state would not prohibit voluntary acts, else it wouldn’t be a minimal state.”
mpolzkill replied:
“This minimal state you envision; it (with Mises) would observe the right to seceed, down to the level of the individual? If so, THAT sounds downright “Utopian”.”
I do not think that individuals have the right to secede or else such a minimal state would be the functional equivalent of anarcho-libertarianism, wouldn’t it? I should have said “But a minimal state would not prohibit voluntary acts *such as drug use*, else it wouldn’t be a minimal state.” If it allowed all voluntary acts, such as allowing a PDA to replace it for certain individuals, it wouldn’t be even a minimal state, would it? It would be, at best, an “ultra-minimal” state, as in Nozick.
The comprising “states” (in the sense of Ohio or Texas) of a minimalist “state” (in the sense of nation) would still have the right to secede, though.
mpolzkill,
I skipped some of your earlier post.
“You may not be up for it, but don’t you want your flavour of minarchists to seize control of state power? You don’t prefer the gang holding it now, to be sure. You think it’s possible for your gang to take the reins or else you wouldn’t advocate the State, right? Or you just like being “realistic”?”
Yes, I think it’s possible for my “gang” to take the reins. Whether this is realistic or not, I think it’s more realistic than ancap. At the very least, I think it’s possible for a gang that is more libertarian than the current gang to take the reins.
“Couple other questions on what you just said: weren’t the abolitionists of the 19th century considered to be at least as nutty as “Utopianists”?”
They were considered to be Utopians by some, yes. But I don’t see any real equivalency here. We know now that we can live quite well without slavery; in fact it was known well before 1860, since the Northwest Ordinance banned slavery in what was then the Northwest in 1785 (I believe), and those colonies (later, states) did fine. We don’t know that Ancapistan is possible; there has never been such a place. Maybe, just maybe, that is because there cannot be such a place? That is what I believe, although I must add that I would be delighted were events to reveal that I am wrong.
@Russ: “You’re not a *pure* libertarian!” crap? Must you divide the libertarian movement into little, tiny, ineffectual splinter groups just for the sake of doctrinal purity, when the libertarian movement is ineffectual enough already?”
This isn’t, nor has it ever been, a pissing contest about who’s the purest, most fringe libertarian strictly for the hell of it. It’s about being logically consistent and recognizing the logical extensions of your beliefs. In this, a Rothbardian approach is the most coherent, in my opinion. Stephan’s right: liberty and freedom have such a vague, insignificant meaning outside of any reference to aggression, or force, or violence.
Russ, you seem to be caught up in an entirely unnecessary point. Correct me if I’m wrong, but your whole reasoning turns on whether or not anarcho-capitalism–or some variation thereof–is more detrimental to society than a minimal state, which you seem to think it is. A minimal state, according to you, is the best–or better–alternative in order to reduce the amount of suffering that would or could result in an anarchist world. Well, so what? What does that have to do with whether or not the state has a legitimate right to use force against its citizens? Your example of Ancapistan and Libertaria misses the point. What if life in an anarcho-capitalist is less free and less enjoyable than life under a minimal state? Well, first of all, it depends–less free to whom, and less enjoyable to whom? And secondly, what does it matter? Considering the fact that an anarcho-capitalist society has never really existed in full, it may or may not be what everyone thinks it’ll be. Perhaps its theoretical problems cannot be ironed out and living in anarchy is doomed to more violence, pain, and an eventual reconstruction of the state. And if that were so, then I’m sure myself and many others who elected to live in anarchy would re-enter a life under statehood. But that has nothing to do with the legitimacy of the state. And that’s the whole issue here. If I decided that living in anarchy sucked, and that living under a limited government were better, even though I would have to cede some of my rights–such as the right to exact retribution–I would be making a conscious, rational, voluntary *CHOICE* to live under it. There’s no contradiction. They’re not mutually exclusive philosophies. One can believe that government has *NO* legitimate right to force citizens to obey its laws, fund its programs, and fight its wars in principle AND STILL want to be a citizen under it, recognizing that sometimes–or many times–there are MORAL reasons to endorse it. Your moral reason is that living in anarchy would cause more pain and suffering than a minimal state, which I think is a legitimate concern and I have no problem with it. We’re all concerned with limiting the suffering of people and if it turned out that anarcho-capitalism was such a political system that did nothing but aggravate that then we would probably see its endorsement wither and die. That, however, has no bearing on whether or not it’s ethical to allow individuals to make that choice for themselves.
@Russ: “What’s wrong is that the “rugged individualists” might happen to interact with those of us who believe in a minimal government in a way such that somebody thinks their rights got violated. Then what happens? Hatfield-McCoy blood feuds? If all the anarchists were “on the outside”, that would be different.” [emphasis mine]
Okay, so if we could find a way to resolve the free-rider paradox with those anarchists who don’t want to become citizens then we’ve solved the problem, right? Well, if so, then your criticisms are misdirected. Instead of focusing on anarchism vs. minarchism, we should be channeling our mental energy into how we can find a resolution for that. Then it’ll be a win/win. I won’t go into it–this is already getting long–but how about having people in the state’s territory accept the laws either through an explicit or tacit agreement, much in the same way it’s done when traveling abroad.
Othyem wrote:
“This isn’t, nor has it ever been, a pissing contest about who’s the purest, most fringe libertarian…”
It seems that way to me, at least with Stephan. Otherwise, why the focus on “principles” rather than results? Why write an article called “The Irrelevancy of the Impossibility of Anarcho-Libertarianism”, as if results matter not a whit, as long as one’s heart is pure? Why say I am a statist when I obviously am not, any more than Mises was? Why say I am not even a libertarian when I obviously am?
“Stephan’s right: liberty and freedom have such a vague, insignificant meaning outside of any reference to aggression, or force, or violence.”
I don’t disagree with this. That is why I focus on the maximization of liberty *as* the minimization of rights violations (or aggression, as Stephan puts it), which I agree are essentially the same thing. Otherwise, it is too easy to define freedom as the freedom from want, or some other socialistic definition.
“Correct me if I’m wrong, but your whole reasoning turns on whether or not anarcho-capitalism–or some variation thereof–is more detrimental to society than a minimal state, which you seem to think it is. A minimal state, according to you, is the best–or better–alternative in order to reduce the amount of suffering that would or could result in an anarchist world. Well, so what?”
I do think that anarcho-capitalism would be more detrimental to society than a minimal gov’t, but not for a fuzzy reason (at least it’s not fuzzy to me), but because I believe ancap would result in more rights violations. It has nothing to do with suffering in general, but with suffering caused by rights violations. There will always be suffering, and if I cared about minimizing suffering in general I would probably be a socialist. In fact, I think a hell of a lot of suffering is self-inflicted, and that’s a problem for the sufferer to deal with himself. Other suffering is not inflicted by anyone in particular, but simply due to bad luck or inability to compete. Voluntary charity, not socialism, can take care of this.
“What does that have to do with whether or not the state has a legitimate right to use force against its citizens?”
I don’t really care about whether everything a state does is “legitimate” or not according to some abstract, rationalistic philosophy. My political philosophy cares about minimizing rights violations, period. If a state does that, it legitimizes itself, so to speak. I am completely “results-oriented”. I care nothing for all this talk of “principles” and “legitmacy”; I care about minimizing rights violations.
“Okay, so if we could find a way to resolve the free-rider paradox with those anarchists who don’t want to become citizens then we’ve solved the problem, right? Well, if so, then your criticisms are misdirected. Instead of focusing on anarchism vs. minarchism, we should be channeling our mental energy into how we can find a resolution for that. Then it’ll be a win/win.”
But there is a way to resolve the free-rider paradox, and make sure that everybody pays their fair share. It’s called “government”! True, that won’t make a hard-core anarcho-capitalist happy, but that’s tough. Nothing will make a hard-core anarcho-capitalist happy except the impossible (if I’m right about ancap, that is), and why should I care about that?
Russ!
“if I cared about minimizing suffering in general I would probably be a socialist”
!
You mean as a person who appears to eschew principles and generally has rather naive ideas about intentions and results?
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
“But there is a way to resolve the free-rider paradox, and make sure that everybody pays their fair share. It’s called “government”!”
!!
Goldman Sachs & the Pentagon agree with you 100%.
Wow, Russ…as the old joke goes: “you can’t get there from here.”
Russ:
“This isn’t, nor has it ever been, a pissing contest about who’s the purest, most fringe libertarian…”
It seems that way to me, at least with Stephan. Otherwise, why the focus on “principles” rather than results? Why write an article called “The Irrelevancy of the Impossibility of Anarcho-Libertarianism”, as if results matter not a whit, as long as one’s heart is pure?
Because people like you, who focus on “results” and strategy and activism respond to our arguments against the immorality of state aggression by bringing up such irrelevancies as “but you haven’t shown how anarchy will ‘work’”. If your kind didn’t bring up such disingenous charges, there would be no need to reject them.
Why say I am a statist when I obviously am not, any more than Mises was? Why say I am not even a libertarian when I obviously am?
Libertarians include both anarcho- and minarchist libertarians. Sure. But we anarcho-libertarians believe our libertarian principles imply that all crime, all aggression, is wrong–including state aggression. Thus we think you minarchists have it 98% right, but you are not quite there.
Likewise, you think we are incorrect–but the burden is obviously on you to demonstrate that state aggression is libertarian and justifiable.
I do think that anarcho-capitalism would be more detrimental to society than a minimal gov’t, but not for a fuzzy reason (at least it’s not fuzzy to me), but because I believe ancap would result in more rights violations. It has nothing to do with suffering in general, but with suffering caused by rights violations. There will always be suffering, and if I cared about minimizing suffering in general I would probably be a socialist. In fact, I think a hell of a lot of suffering is self-inflicted, and that’s a problem for the sufferer to deal with himself. Other suffering is not inflicted by anyone in particular, but simply due to bad luck or inability to compete. Voluntary charity, not socialism, can take care of this.
One way to minimize aggression is to refuse to commit or endorse it. Period.
I don’t really care about whether everything a state does is “legitimate” or not according to some abstract, rationalistic philosophy. My political philosophy cares about minimizing rights violations, period. If a state does that, it legitimizes itself, so to speak.
Even if you believe that in some hypothetical dreamworld, a minimal state could exist that would do this, you have to admit that our state, and every state that exists, and every state that has ever existed, comes nowhere near this goal — all states that exist, or have existed, or that we can expect to exist, are criminal, were criminal, and will be criminal–and unlibertarian. As such, we libertarians are against the state.
@Russ: “But there is a way to resolve the free-rider paradox, and make sure that everybody pays their fair share. It’s called “government”! True, that won’t make a hard-core anarcho-capitalist happy, but that’s tough.”
Then that doesn’t really solve anything. You’re for limiting rights violations. Then let’s limit them all the way, i.e., insert a clause into your minarchist government requiring a form of explicit consent, and work out a formal system for punishing those who haven’t consented. Retribution wouldn’t disappear for those who’re in a state of nature.
“My political philosophy cares about minimizing rights violations, period. If a state does that, it legitimizes itself”
To you, yes. But obviously let’s not forget about those rights violations that occur through forcing others under your form of government. Also, most people consider the US as a legitimate state–in the theoretical sense–although its number of rights violations is too numerous to count. Who decides when the number of rights violations is in equilibrium? How do you quantify that, and what weight do you give each right? And further, how do you know that there will be more rights violations in an anarcho-capitalist world? I could just as easily say I favor socialism because there would be less rights violations. If I could get a large majority of people to agree with me then, according to you, it wouldn’t be wrong to establish this form of government on everyone else. All that is necessary would be to believe that less rights violations were occuring under my system–not dissimilar to what’s happening now.
“Voluntary charity, not socialism, can take care of this.”
Again, how do you know? Many people say that relying on charity to guarantee basic needs, such as medical care, food, shelter, and so forth is too risky to leave to (capricious?) altruistic human beings, and therefore forced welfare redistribution is needed to assure this doesn’t happen–a rights violation, of course. I disagree, but it’s not unlike your argument that anarcho-capitalism is too risky a system and will lead to more rights violations, therefore we need a system (i.e., government) in place to assure this doesn’t happen.
“I am completely “results-oriented”. I care nothing for all this talk of “principles” and “legitmacy”; I care about minimizing rights violations.”
Or so you think. Your minimization of rights violations is itself a principle.
Many libertarians, including Stephan Kinsella, differ from me on this. It’s assumed that government is a priori illegitimate. Now, while I agree that government everywhere UP TO THIS POINT is illegitimate, i.e., no government YET has relied on the explicit consent of its citizenry to rule and make rules (except in those extremely rare, perhaps ceremonial, individual situations). This however doesn’t preclude the possibility that some government somewhere in the future (at least hypothetically) does so. Based just on history, though, and not even considering psychology, I don’t think this’ll ever happen; but it’s at least IMAGINABLE. We can conceive of a government that asks consent from each and every member. It’s not a logical contradiction
I don’t know about you, but I get sick and tired hearing about how the (unjust) wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are “protecting our freedoms.” It’s obvious to anyone who cares that those wars have nothing to do with our freedom, or our liberty, or our safety, except to endanger it. But what’s to keep those in your minimal state from defining what is good for you? They can always raise the specter of further “rights violations” if we don’t do X, whatever X is. You say “there’s no a priori why government officials can’t restrain themselves.” Yeah, I agree, it’s not a logical necessity that exists in all possible worlds; but that’s beside the point. You don’t get to pick the attributes of the members of your world and the say “Wallah! See, with a few minor adjustments, the minimal state DOES work. It IS better than anarchism.” If that were so, then all anyone would have to do is shift the cultural and philosophical attitudes to where they wanted them and ipso facto there ya have it, a perfect society. I agree however than any drastic change in government will be preceded by a shift in beliefs and attitudes, and there’s nothing wrong with specifying those beliefs best suited to whatever political configuration suits your fancy. But it certainly doesn’t win any arguments.
Stephan Kinsella wrote:
“Because people like you, who focus on “results” and strategy and activism respond to our arguments against the immorality of state aggression by bringing up such irrelevancies as “but you haven’t shown how anarchy will ‘work’”. ”
Irrelevant? Not at all. If your version of libertarianism results in more of the aggression you are supposedly against, I fail to see how that can be irrelevant.
“Likewise, you think we are incorrect–but the burden is obviously on you to demonstrate that state aggression is libertarian and justifiable.”
Again, hardly. Since nothing like ancap has ever existed, the burden is “obviously” on you to prove that it could deliver something better than minarchism, at least if you want to convince those of us who are concerned about results.
“One way to minimize aggression is to refuse to commit or endorse it. Period.”
That’s really quite simplistic. If you were a pacifist you could just as well say that the fundamental political problem is not the initiation of force, but force, period. Then you would by that standard refuse to commit or endorse any force. Of course, if all decent people did so, it would only result in the slaughter or enslavement of all decent people by those who are not decent. That would result in more force, not less. It’s a self-defeating philosophy, at least if you are concerned about outcome in this world, instead of the state of your immortal soul in the next. In my opinion, you are basically doing the same thing, except not quite so obviously.
“Even if you believe that in some hypothetical dreamworld, a minimal state could exist…”
An anarcho-capitalist calling minarchism a hypothetical dreamworld?! That’s rich! We’ve certainly been closer to minarchism than we have ancap.
“…you have to admit that our state, and every state that exists, and every state that has ever existed, comes nowhere near this goal…”
But compared to what we have now, some states that have existed (earlier versions of the USA, for instance) were certainly a lot closer.
“…all states that exist, or have existed, or that we can expect to exist, are criminal, were criminal, and will be criminal-and unlibertarian.”
No, I don’t have to admit that all states that we can expect to exist will be criminal.
“As such, we libertarians are against the state.”
*sigh* As Reagan would have said, “There he goes again!” Saying that “we libertarians are against the state” implies that since I am for a (minimal) state, I am not a libertarian.
I do think that anarcho-capitalism would be more detrimental to society than a minimal gov’t, but not for a fuzzy reason (at least it’s not fuzzy to me), but because I believe ancap would result in more rights violations. It has nothing to do with suffering in general, but with suffering caused by rights violations.
You have stated this position a couple of dozen times now, in various ways. You simply believe, hands down, that anarchism leads to more aggression in a society than people would experience under the rule of some (unspecified) state.
You have staked out this position, but not once have you told us where this belief comes from, what it rests on.
What is your reasoning that leads you to this conclusion?
What evidence do you have for this belief?
It strikes me as a belief that is impervious to reason and evidence. It appears that its origin is fear. It seems like anarchism is a situation that you have a hard time envisioning, in concrete detail, so you have filled in those missing details with a kind of Mad Max cartoonish scenario.
Why do you think that you can solve complex, long-term, dynamic, economic social problems through aggressive violence, like taking their money by force to fund state officials’ income, or requiring them to submit to their final “authority”?
Do you at least understand that the state is merely the term that is given to legitimized, regularized, institutionalized violence?
Othyem wrote:
“You’re for limiting rights violations. Then let’s limit them all the way, i.e., insert a clause into your minarchist government requiring a form of explicit consent, and work out a formal system for punishing those who haven’t consented.”
Then we have the free rider problem again. If the state can’t fund itself, it probably could not ensure the minimal level of rights violations.
“But obviously let’s not forget about those rights violations that occur through forcing others under your form of government.”
I don’t forget that. I think the total level of rights violations would still be higher in ancap. Of course, I can’t prove that; it’s just a judgment call or intuition, whatever you want to call it.
Russ wrote:
“Voluntary charity, not socialism, can take care of this.”
Otheym replied:
“Again, how do you know?”
I don’t. And what’s more, I don’t really care. Suffering caused by rights violations is my only concern, as far as my political philosophy goes.
“Your minimization of rights violations is itself a principle.”
Whatever. What I mean is that I don’t care about legitimacy or justifying rights violations or a philosophy that consists of never condoning rights violations, when those things are separated from outcome.
“It’s obvious to anyone who cares that those wars have nothing to do with our freedom, or our liberty, or our safety, except to endanger it.”
This is debatable. A lot of people who do care do not agree at all. The idea is to prevent state-sponsored terrorism (the really dangerous kind with WMDs involved) by providing a “negative example” to those states that could do so. Assuming for sake of argument that a terrorist could set off a nuke in NYC, that would involve a huge level of rights violations, that would make years of war seem relatively paltry in comparison.
“But what’s to keep those in your minimal state from defining what is good for you?”
Not a whole lot. Humans are imperfect, and “Out of the crooked timber of humanity no straight thing was ever made”.
“I agree however than any drastic change in government will be preceded by a shift in beliefs and attitudes, and there’s nothing wrong with specifying those beliefs best suited to whatever political configuration suits your fancy. But it certainly doesn’t win any arguments.”
I think it’s better than Stephan’s strategy of completely ignoring outcomes, stubbornly saying that we must never condone aggression no matter what, and then saying that if this results in more aggression then so be it because at least this way we will be principled and have clear consciences while Rome burns. Most people do, as a matter of fact, care about outcomes. Defining a goal, and then exploring how it can be achieved, seems a lot more practical, especially when so many people have more or less the same goal.
Magnus wrote:
“Why do you think that you can solve complex, long-term, dynamic, economic social problems through aggressive violence, like taking their money by force to fund state officials’ income, or requiring them to submit to their final “authority”?”
Because that’s the way that we have solved such problems for quite some time (all of recorded history, as far as I can tell), and despite the glaring imperfections of the system, it more or less works. It would obviously (to me) work better if we eliminated the more obvious imperfections, while keeping the basic idea.
“Do you at least understand that the state is merely the term that is given to legitimized, regularized, institutionalized violence?”
In a word, yes. “Government is not reason; it is not eloquence; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.” – George Washington
“It strikes me as a belief that is impervious to reason and evidence. It appears that its origin is fear. It seems like anarchism is a situation that you have a hard time envisioning, in concrete detail, so you have filled in those missing details with a kind of Mad Max cartoonish scenario.”
Well, considering how the planet Earth has never seen anything even remotely like ancap, it is a bit hard for me to envision in concrete detail, yes. I wouldn’t say my resistance is an imperviousness to evidence, since as far as I can tell, there is no evidence regarding ancap. None whatsoever. As for an imperviousness to reason, I like to flatter myself that that is not the case, but I confess I would prefer if the arguments were more convincing, involved actual evidence, and focused on outcome. I also confess that fear has something to do with it. Truth be told, my life under our current system is not all bad. Trying ancap would be the equivalent of risking all on one roll of the dice, when you don’t know what the odds are, and don’t really even know if the number you’re betting on is one of the possible rolls.
Russ:
I don’t forget that. I think the total level of rights violations would still be higher in ancap. Of course, I can’t prove that; it’s just a judgment call or intuition, whatever you want to call it.
I used to think this too, when I was a newb quasi-Randroid. Then I read some more and wised up.
@Russ: “Then we have the free rider problem again. If the state can’t fund itself, it probably could not ensure the minimal level of rights violations.”
Actually, no. I’m assuming you’re talking about a truly limited government in which it inherits its powers through the willful relinguishment of some of each individual member’s rights, and whose power does not exceed the rights of the aggregate. If the state of nature is as horrible as you imagine then there will be no shortage of people who desire to be under the state’s protection, and therefore there won’t be a shortage of funds for the state to function. I’m not against government, per se, because I believe–as do most libertarians–in the “right” to freely associate and enter into contracts with whomever one chooses, whether that be a labor union, or in this case a government. To solve this, just have, as part of becoming a citizen, a clearly defined set of laws, regulations, legal rights, tax rates, etc., and have people sign these contracts. If they should have a change of heart, they should be able to opt out. It seems to be, then, that the only problem, is finding out what to do with free-riders. Here we have a perfectly limited, minimal state defined however you want to define it, with the simple caveat that members entering must explicitly consent to give up a few of their rights for the enjoyment of the state’s services (e.g., law enforcement, etc.). Those who do not wish to enter into a contract with the government are free not to do so.
Let’s pause. If you recognize this scenario as one step slightly better than the clumsy approach of forcing everyone to follow your prescription of an ideal society by being force-fed government, then we’re making progress. In fact, that’s the whole point. You should always give people a choice, or else it’s slavery under another name. The only problem, and it’s a minor one at that, is the free-rider dilemma. What do you do with those individuals who don’t consent to be a part of the government? Surely, this can be solved, and if it can’t be entirely eradicated, then its prominence as a problem can be reduced. And in going this route, you’d have the added benefit of not violating the rights of those individuals who wouldn’t want to live under your minimal state.
Ya know, it’s not necessary to endorse anarcho-capitalism, or think that it’ll “work” for you to recognize the legitimacy in it. You say you don’t care about such things, but why the hell not? Voluntary consent is one of the most fundamental attributes of self-ownership. Sure, you have moral reasons for endorsing the state, but that has no bearing on legitimacy. If you recognize that it doesn’t, then you’re (somewhat of) an anarchist.
Why, oh why, Othyem, should an immigrant arrive on U.S. shores and start telling the U.S. Federal Government they should disband because the immigrant doesn’t like this rule or that tax? Can I come onto your personal residence and tell you what I don’t like about this or that and raid your fridge while I’m at it? I haven’t signed any contracts with you.
Then again what if the common organisation in Anarchtopia are HOAs because large gated communities with full-time security guards roaming the private streets within the HOAs are the most secure form of private existence in Anarchtopia? That is to say, well you could start your own private sovereign farm and try to be self-sufficient but are quickly overrun by land pirates and because you’re in the middle of nowhere in particular, you have no one to cry to. What if the safest and most properous HOAs got to where they are through the Protestant Ethic and not marijuana-feuled hippie values? You could find yourself choosing between the lawless, crime-laden badlands or wealthy-gated HOAs city-states with prohibitive moral laws. Oops? Would things go full-circle?
(I’m joining in this discussion late, so sorry if someone has already addressed this point..)
Gil,
You ask why “should an immigrant arrive on U.S. shores and start telling the U.S. Federal Government they should disband because the immigrant doesn’t like this rule or that tax? Can I come onto your personal residence and tell you what I don’t like about this or that and raid your fridge while I’m at it? I haven’t signed any contracts with you.”
But that is an invalid analogy because you ‘own’ your personal residence and the contents of your fridge and you can set the rules for visitors who wish to come into your home because you have (presumably) acquired these in a manner consistent with libertarian principles. In contrast, the U.S. government does *not* ‘own’ the entire geographical area that is currently under its jurisdiction because, as a state, it is in the institutional embodiment of the negation of libertarian principles.
That does not mean that an ‘immigrant’ who comes onto U.S. shores (as you can see the language itself is misleading as it implies the U.S. government has a legitimate claim to the territory) can start *acting* in contravention of any government rule they don’t like because many government laws are consistent with libertarian principles.
Othyem wrote:
“Here we have a perfectly limited, minimal state defined however you want to define it, with the simple caveat that members entering must explicitly consent to give up a few of their rights for the enjoyment of the state’s services (e.g., law enforcement, etc.). Those who do not wish to enter into a contract with the government are free not to do so.”
I wouldn’t have a problem with that, so long as the free riders moved on along to some other country. For one, they *are* free riders, and are benefitting from the government’s protective services (even if they *say* they don’t want that) without paying their fair share. Second, the big problem I have with ancap is the idea of having multiple arbiters of last resort in a given geographical area. If those arbiters don’t play nice with each other, then you could have a big, bloody mess. And each free rider is essentially setting himself up as his own arbiter of last resort, unless he joins a PDA, in which case you still have the same problem.
“Ya know, it’s not necessary to endorse anarcho-capitalism, or think that it’ll “work” for you to recognize the legitimacy in it. You say you don’t care about such things, but why the hell not?”
In theory, ancap does sound good, I’ll admit. The only problem is, since there has never been a real ancap nation before, ancap is nothing *but* theory. Socialism sounded good in theory, too, to a lot of people, until they realized that it kills the golden goose. (Unfortunately, some people still haven’t realized this.) Anyway, if I’m right, and ancap does turn into a Mad Max nightmare, then what am I supposed to think? “Well, life sure does suck here in Ancapistan, but at least we don’t have an illegimate government, like the one we used to have that made life less sucky”? That seems a bit Panglossian to me.
Stephan Kinsella wrote:
“I used to think this too, when I was a newb quasi-Randroid. Then I read some more and wised up.”
I looked at your link briefly, and as you might guess, I subscribe to the “Common view on freedom and government” in Figure 4, except in my preferred version the maximum of the curve would be closer to the origin.
I don’t think that reading more is the solution. I could read all day, and it would all be nothing but theory, since there is zero ancap experience. And you know what they say about theory and practice; in theory, theory works, but it practice it doesn’t. Besides, I have read all the major evangelism for ancap, as far as I am aware. In fact, I used to consider myself ancap. But in recent years I did some re-evaluation, and came to the conclusion that my previous belief that ancap would ‘work’ was simply due to a fervent desire that it would work. In other words, I succumbed to wishful thinking.
Fuss,
“I subscribe to the “Common view on freedom and government” ”
And I susbscribe to the view of freedom VS government.
The only problem is, since there has never been a real ancap nation before, ancap is nothing *but* theory.
Anarchy is all around us. It exists in every voluntary interaction you see every day. Anarchy is the defining characteristic of 95% of every situation and relationship in your life.
You are clinging to this fantasy that, by bullying people and stealing things in the 5% of life that is controlled by statist (i.e., violent) relationships, the state is somehow keeping the other 95% of life from turning into Mad Max.
Anarchy never goes away. It is a natural and inevitable result of the fact that humans are independent economic actors, and therefore capable of cooperating or competing with each other, as they see fit. Anarchy is the way human society works, even when one gang becomes so large that it suppresses most of the rival gangs and gets to call itself a “government.”
What you call the government is really just another gang. They are not official. They are not superior. They are just a mafia organization that has grown to be larger than other mafia organizations.
A more anarchic society that most Americans are somewhat familiar with is the American frontier, which eventually became limited to what we call the Old West. Several generations of Hollywood propaganda has distorted most people’s understanding of the American frontier, but for a brief time, people got away from the gangsters and the banksters and the government mob and its cronies.
If you do real research on it, you’ll find that it was far from a crazy, gun-slinging murder-fest. It was tremendous economic growth, and virtually no crime.
http://mises.org/journals/jls/3_1/3_1_2.pdf
http://mises.org/article.aspx?Id=1449
Compare the crime rate of the American frontier, over its 300-year history, to, for example, the so-called Civil War, which was a 100% government operation that killed 600,000 people.
Russ,
It obviously takes more than reading, it appears that most words just bounce right off you. EVERYTHING that works is “anarchy”. The market is “anarchy”, you know, people behaving voluntarily to each others agreed mutual benefit. We can’t ever get too much of that. It works SO well in fact, that it is still able to keep us all aloft despite the ever growing and now mind-bendingly massive parasitical scam/incredibly naive complex of wishful thinking called “government”.
“Evangelism”
?!
And now you again talk of how socialism sounds good (THAT old saw!). I just watched the Quentin Tarantino fantasy which consists primarily of scenes where American and British agents behind German lines have lengthy conversations with Nazis and slowly give away clues of their non-Hun-ship. Something made me think of this, ha ha.
Oops, I hadn’t realized that Brother Magnus had already given you a bit of the same Gospel.
“And now you again talk of how socialism sounds good (THAT old saw!).”
My point was the a lot of otherwise intelligent people used to think that socialism sounds good.
I don’t really think it sounds that good, because I’m more concerned with having other people leave me alone than with guaranteed economic security (which is a false guarantee anyway). The only part of the socialist sales pitch that ever appealed to me was the part about nobody going hungry, or never having to live homeless out in the bitter cold, etc. But then I realized that capitalism is much more likely to solve these problems than socialism. And I realized that back in the 9th grade, when my social studies teacher (I actually had a good one) taught us what socialism is in theory, and what it is in practice, and how the theory and practice diverge.
Brother Magnus wrote:
“Anarchy is all around us….”
Brother mpolzkill wrote:
“The market is “anarchy”…”
“Oops, I hadn’t realized that Brother Magnus had already given you a bit of the same Gospel.”
Not a problem. I’ll address both together.
The standard answer to this is, of course, that although the market is unplanned, the market is *not* anarchy, because the market depends upon the framework of law and order that the government provides, and could not function without said framework. Let’s say that government goes bye bye tomorrow. It might prove hard to conduct day to day business when the people who are no longer getting their welfare checks all decide to riot, and you can no longer get to your place of business. If your place of business were burning down in the riot, that could also put a crimp in your plans. Or if union workers who can no longer use the government to extort businesses decide to destroy your physical plant, that could affect the bottom line. Riots are bad for business. So are other things, like thieves, robbers, and vast hordes of rampaging Canadians (*grin*). That’s why we have government. Among its legitimate functions is protecting us from such unpleasantnesses.
Of course, you could respond that in ancap, PDAs will fill the legitimate role of government, without that nasty chemical after-taste. And that very well might be. Or it very well might not be. We have no way of knowing. All we do know is that no such system has ever evolved naturally, despite disputable claims that the early American West, or Viking Iceland, or tribal Ireland, were close. At any rate, I have no desire to live like a Viking or Irish tribesman, and the early American West evolved into the modern government-based American West as it grew, so I don’t think those models are appropriate for an ancap that could work in a hi-tech, high population density modern society.
The model I think is appropriate is the model that we currently live under, although of course it’s a “fixer-upper”. I guess it’s my conservative side that thinks that completely tearing down the framework of our society and rebuilding it from scratch, based on a political / philosophical system, might be a bit imprudent. The last time that was tried, based on the philosophy of Messrs Marx and Engels, it didn’t work out so well, if memory serves.
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All we do know is that no such system has ever evolved naturally, despite disputable claims that the early American West, or Viking Iceland, or tribal Ireland, were close.
No such system? The entire body of what we now call commercial law was created privately. It was then co-opted by various governments.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lex_mercatoria
the early American West evolved into the modern government-based American West as it grew
No, it didn’t “evolve.” It wasn’t a passive process. Gangsters moved in, and took things over.
The real trick was for the gangsters to convince their victims they were a force for good. It is a lie that has been passed on down through the generations, which you now repeat.
The model I think is appropriate is the model that we currently live under, although of course it’s a “fixer-upper”. I guess it’s my conservative side that thinks that completely tearing down the framework of our society and rebuilding it from scratch, based on a political / philosophical system, might be a bit imprudent. The last time that was tried, based on the philosophy of Messrs Marx and Engels, it didn’t work out so well, if memory serves.
Socialism fails because of the calculation problem. It is impossible to coordinate production and consumption without markets and prices. Not for you, not for the Russkies, not for the most powerful conceivable computer. Impossible. Socialism was never good “on paper” or “in theory.”
Your adherence to the existence of the state, in whatever form, is the reason you will never see a “minimal state.”
Minarchist libertarianism is and will always be doomed to failure because you have conceded that statist relationships have the capacity to solve complex, long-term social problems.
Once you do that, you have already lost the debate. You have conceded that aggression is not only necessary, but it’s an affirmatively good idea, to be applied where and when it suits you.
Then, for some reason, you are surprised and offended that other people have taken that idea and expanded on it for their own benefit. They say, “Hey, if the state works over there where Russ likes him some organized violence (e.g., to keep the peasants from rioting), let’s use it over here where it suits me!”
That’s the dynamic that produced the modern welfare-warfare state. The two sides play off each other, in a symbiotic dance. Side A wants to use state violence to achieve X, and Side B wants state violence to achieve Y. So, each side gives a little to get a little, and you end up with Side A agreeing to Side B’s demands, and vice versa.
It’s a game that’s as old as the hills. It was going on in ancient Rome. Bastiat complained about the two halves of the French Assembly dividing up the wealth of the population in the 1850s.
It’s a complete fantasy to think that these people who call themselves the state are going to just walk away from all that power. It’s absurd. You could more easily walk into your local hang-out of La Cosa Nostra, the Russian Mob, the Triads, or MS13, and explain to them, in a carefully-crafted logical argument, how they really ought to be in the business of providing blankets and shoes and food to orphans. Try joining one of those organizations and reforming it from within. It’s ridiculous.
I have no illusions that the idea of the state will go away just because anarchism is the truth, preferable, or economically advantageous. It’s a criminal enterprise, and so the people who populate it are not susceptible to pleas that they stop being criminal.
The state will collapse, of course, allowing normal, peaceful, anarchic relationships to more fully flourish, but not because anarchists say so. It will collapse because states all collapse, and for the same reasons — the parasite eventually kills its host.
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“Standard answer” indeed! You’re no statist, you claim, yet you buy and use the State’s biggest whoppers. That was a new tautology on me though: we must keep the State so that it will always protects us from the welfare addicts it always creates.
I’m starting to get pretty embarrassed talking here, this is all little league stuff. We don’t have to say (and won’t say) “bye bye tomorrow”. Come on – if you’re even sincere about any of this – this is probably the source of your problems with anarchism. Of course “ancapistan” shouldn’t be (won’t be, CAN’T be) decreed; the State’s poor, stunted creations couldn’t handle it. This is all a false dilemma. Bah!
“Conservative side”, yep, thanks for showing it so clearly in public.
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I guess it’s my conservative side that thinks that completely tearing down the framework of our society and rebuilding it from scratch, based on a political / philosophical system, might be a bit imprudent.
But of course, that would never happen. People are too used to the habits and institutions that they’ve grown up with to to toss them aside and build society from scratch (at least most of them). That doesn’t need to happen to make an anarchist society, anyway. governments didn’t create money, they simply took over the production of money. Governments didn’t create the institution of marriage, they simply wormed their way in with their regulations. Much of our life and society would not be turned topsy-turvey if we went to anarchism overnight (though of course, even that’s unlikely to happen). The difference that anarchism would make would be gradual, and would mostly be noticeable only over a period of time and accumulated changes.
In any case, I think you guys have beaten this definition of “libertarianism” into the ground, and don’t see anything productive about the back and forth going on now. -
Magnus wrote:
“It’s a complete fantasy to think that these people who call themselves the state are going to just walk away from all that power. It’s absurd.”
And when the Revolution takes place, and we have ancap, all “those people who call themselves the state are going to just walk away”? No, they’ll probably be the first ones to start up PDAs, just like the old KGB is the new Russian Mafia.
“Minarchist libertarianism is and will always be doomed to failure because you have conceded that statist relationships have the capacity to solve complex, long-term social problems.”
Well, sure, I have conceded that. Get your head out of your ancap philosophy book, and take a look at history. The US has used “statist” relationships to “solve complex, long-term social problems” for going on 235 years now. And most peoples’ lives aren’t that bad. Face it, the “statist relationships” work.
“The state will collapse, of course, allowing normal, peaceful, anarchic relationships to more fully flourish, but not because anarchists say so. It will collapse because states all collapse, and for the same reasons — the parasite eventually kills its host.”
If the state does collapse, it will probably cause a hell of a lot of rights violations, and pain and suffering, in the process. Wouldn’t it be better to try to fix the system and thus avoid all this? Or do you believe in “Let justice be done, though the heavens fall”? This is the kind of thinking that resulted in the Terror in the French Revolution, or the deaths of millions of kulaks in Soviet Russia.
mpolzkill wrote:
“That was a new tautology on me though: we must keep the State so that it will always protects us from the welfare addicts it always creates.”
Oh please. Those “rioting welfare addicts” were just a convenient example.
“I’m starting to get pretty embarrassed talking here, this is all little league stuff. We don’t have to say (and won’t say) “bye bye tomorrow”. ….”
Please, you’re getting all worked up over nothing. My idea of government “going bye bye” was just a rhetorical device, nothing more. What is “little league” is all you guys pretending that you have never heard any of the classical liberal justifications for government before, and pretending that ancap is intuitively obvious whereas minarchism is a radical new theory, when of course the opposite is the case.
“”Conservative side”, yep, thanks for showing it so clearly in public.”
Not a problem. I don’t see a problem with having a “conservative side”, if that means having a sense of prudence, and thinking that throwing the baby out with the bathwater is wasteful.
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Testify, Brother Magnus!
I really liked that, esp.: “Try joining one of those organizations and reforming it from within. It’s ridiculous.”
That made me think of something and I believe it belongs here on “What Libertarianism Is”:
Ron Paul’s second career does not advance libertarianism. I dearly love Dr. Paul, but he always reminds me of Nock’s great line about a minister trying to take over a whorehouse. I believe that all political efforts cause more harm than good. Paul has done an incredible job in spreading the word to the receptive (he said the name Spooner on national television, that almost made me cry) but I think this is more than counteracted by the alarm he sets off in all the other political groups. All political actors know in their hearts that all opposing political actors are scum and must be destroyed. NO beautiful & intricate philosophy can survive the ensuing shitstorm or the way the media masters can smear shit on it by the expert way they put two separate ideas into one mental box for most people. I’d bet the average person sees Paul in KKK robes, just as they saw Iraqis flying into the WTC.
What we need for action is something more along the lines of Gandhi’s making his own salt. The great obstacle is that where the Indians KNEW the British were exactly as Magnus describes them, we have millions like Russ that just aren’t going to see that D.C. is every bit as bad as London. (Not to insult Russ too much, but there could be another reason he is a hopeless case: it seems he is very comfortable with the “Raj”, he has said how comfy he is, he may very well be one of their contractors)
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Michael A. Clem wrote:
“In any case, I think you guys have beaten this definition of “libertarianism” into the ground, and don’t see anything productive about the back and forth going on now.”
You’re probably right. I’ve restated my main contention, that a minarchist is a *type* of libertarian (and not just 98% of a “true” anarchist libertarian), enough times that if Stephan or whoever is still unwilling to accept that, I probably won’t be able to change his mind.
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mpolzkill wrote:
“we have millions like Russ that just aren’t going to see that D.C. is every bit as bad as London.”
*sigh*
Of course I think DC is bad. That’s why I want to make it much smaller than it is now. Jesus Harold Christ on a frickin’ rubber crutch, you guys just don’t seem to have a sense of proportion. Just because both Hitler and I are “statists” according to your nonstandard definition, that does not mean I would like to live in Fourth Reich Germany.
“(Not to insult Russ too much, but there could be another reason he is a hopeless case: it seems he is very comfortable with the “Raj”, he has said how comfy he is, he may very well be one of their contractors)”
So I take it that you are an outlaw, living on the lam, staying one step ahead of the system by the virtue of your wit, charm and wicked left hook? Puuulleeeeze! You are probably a relatively comfortable member of the bourgeoisie, just like me. (And no, I don’t work for the government.)
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Haha, in this case that would be Tom Woods’ “Demon Baby”.
A true conservative wants to conserve ANYTHING that makes him comfy. A conservative has no principles but self interest. It may be that he sees further than other conservatives, his self interest may not be AS narrow. It may be that what he wants saved is worth saving, but need not be and usually isn’t.
I’m the opposite of worked up, exposure to conservatives temporarily depresses & enervates me.
As M.A. Clem just said, we’re looking bad here, not getting anywhere, it’s embarrassing.I love classical liberalism, recommend it to those who have an emotional need for a master as the only tolerable statism there is; but if you haven’t noticed, classical liberalism, after bringing us most everything good about the modern world, died a whimpering death. Why not work on and call for something now that’s even greater than Classical Liberalism? And why would your weak sauce ever appeal to many?
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Excuse me, Gandhi wanted to make London smaller? I missed that somehow.
Your definition of statist was the one without proportion. Hitler was a totalitarian statist, you are an appeasing statist.
We’re all outlaws just hoping a D.A. spotlight doesn’t land on us (if we have any sense), literally, that’s how big the law book has gotten. That aside, I am closer to one of those cave dwelling poor schmucks one hears of (though I don’t avoid the public roads, not my strain of libertarianism), haha.
I didn’t say you directly worked for them, I said you may be a contractor. That’s a big group, I know; it could be said that in our fascist economy we are all government contractors. I think I want to stop working for them more than you do.
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I have loved reading the exchange in these threads between Russ on one side and Stephan and co. on the other. I would just like to add two minor clarifications of my own to both sides:
First, Stephan, you insist that you oppose aggression, but not consequentialism, and that you “don’t mind” if Russ opposes aggression on consequentialist grounds. But this is not true. Consequentialism is incompatible, as Russ pointed out, with your deontological opposition to aggression. Moreover, your (perfectly valid) refutations of Russ’s views were also refutations of consequentialism. Consequentialism is always self-contradictory, and always easy to refute for the clear-thinking. To deny this is the province of those who haven’t caught up on the last couple decades of analytic philosophy.
And Russ, though your style of argument is one I really admire for the most part, you have a troublingly loose grasp of logical terms like “ad hom” and “reductio ad absurdum”. Stephan was demonstrating that any support for a state logically requires socialism or what you call “statism”. Of course, you can claim to oppose interventionism and to simultaneously support a state. Just as I can claim to believe there is no literal “God” while continuing to call myself a Christian. That doesn’t mean that you and I don’t contradict ourselves in the process. Stephan was helping you by showing you that, and his arguments were not “ad hominem”. You showed a glimpse of understanding his real arguments, which were in fact “reductio ad absurdum”. But you evaded the argument. Stephan’s point is that if it is morally permissible for an entity to violate rights in order to prevent more rights violations, then there is no logical distinction between rights violations like taxation and rights violations like rape. It is easy for an ancap to oppose rape, because anarchist libertarianism is consistantly anti-aggression. You, unlike Stephan, cannot say “I would not rape in order to minimize other rapes” without contradicting yourself and falling into absurdity. If you want to say that (and you should want to say that), you will have to abandon your incoherent “sort-of-statism” and return to the truth (not “purity”, mind you, but plain old truth) of anarchism. And conversely, minarchism offers not results or practicality, but merely untruths and support for evil.
Though I disliked Stephan’s use of the word “despise” earlier, overall I think his tone has been unexceptional (despite your frequent complaints of name-calling), and it is clear that he has proved that he is right and you are wrong.
Thanks again to you both (and to you others as well).
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I was the one who used the term “despise.” In this case, I was referring not to people I despise (since I have only love in my heart), but rather to the false equivalence between anarchism and Communism.
They are both so extreme, the story goes, and Communism was so wrong, that anarchism must also be wrong, and therefore the best route must be somewhere in the middle.
This line of “thinking” is just so trivial, so meaningless, so useless, so vacuous, while posing as the supremely reasonable alternative. It makes me sick.
It’s not reasonable. In fact, it’s anti-reason. It is frequently the least-defensible position in the entire spectrum of opinion.
My feelings on this subject are part of my general disdain for the “moderate” position, which people typically adopt for no other reason than that it is easy and requires no intellectual rigor, while pretending to be the epitome of maturity and wisdom.
Moderates are the intellectual equivalent of the sheep who is always to be found in the dead center of the herd.
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I agree.
Anarchism can not be called extreme by any means. And, really neither can Communism [in the sense of communal, not the State sense}.
All societies evolved from some system of anarchy, some better than others, so how extreme can that be?
Many peoples also lived communally before “States” took over.
The problem is the failure to choose and adapt “working” systems and somehow institute them on a large scale. It’s possible no system will work on a large scale. The State seems to be the outcome of “bigness”. Bigness breeds it and it breeds bigness itself.
It’s really difficult to say if we have witnessed paricular “types” of systems fail or just the failure of “States”. The last gasp is always an unsucessful attempt to “control” what has become uncontrollable and this will always present itself as “socialistic”, whether it started that way or not.
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Hehehe… I feel like Michael Corleone: “Just when I thought I was out… they pull me back in.” *grin*
mpolzkill wrote:
“A true conservative wants to conserve ANYTHING that makes him comfy. A conservative has no principles but self interest.”
No, conservativism is based on not having the “fatal conceit” that I have the perfect system, derived from pure reason alone, without resort to past experience. It’s based on the idea of piecemeal reform of government, not completely tearing it down, and hoping you can rebuild it all in time. These are ideas from people like Hayek and Popper, despite the fact that they might have resented being identified as conservatives.
Rafael Garcia wrote:
“…you have a troublingly loose grasp of logical terms like “ad hom” and “reductio ad absurdum”. …You, unlike Stephan, cannot say “I would not rape in order to minimize other rapes” without contradicting yourself and falling into absurdity. If you want to say that (and you should want to say that), you will have to abandon your incoherent “sort-of-statism” and return to the truth (not “purity”, mind you, but plain old truth) of anarchism….”
The reason I “evaded” Stephan’s “trap” is because I honestly thought it was kinda silly. I can’t for the life of me see how raping people could ever reduce the total amount of rapes; that’s much more ridiculous than any hypothetical that I ever came up with. Making sure people pay their fair share for a minimal state, and denying them the opportunity to opt out of that and join a PDA instead, is not rape. Not even close; if I were a rape victim, I’d probably be offended by the suggestion of equivalency. So I just didn’t walk into a perfectly obvious and completely contrived “philosopher’s dilemma”. If I were to walk into the trap and say that I would condone rape to reduce the total amount, firstly, it sounds absurd to condone rape (which it is, because it’s an absurd hypothetical). That makes it, on the face of it, a reductio ad absurdem argument (which is valid enough, logically speaking). Secondly, it would color me as a moral monster, hence the charges of ad hominem attack. I think I used the terms accurately enough.
“…it is clear that he has proved that he is right and you are wrong.”
Well, this is a matter of opinion, of course, and since I *am* playing to a hostile audience, I will take such evaluations with a grain of salt. But it has been fun.
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gene wrote:
“The problem is the failure to choose and adapt “working” systems and somehow institute them on a large scale. It’s possible no system will work on a large scale. The State seems to be the outcome of “bigness”. Bigness breeds it and it breeds bigness itself.”
This is possible. The problem is that “bigness” seems to be better for accumulating militaristic power. If a state broke up into a large number of small states into order solve its “bigness” problem, that might well make it vulnerable to another, big, militaristic state (Hans-Herman Hoppe’s take on ancap and defense notwithstanding).
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i agree russ,
smaller states or groups are much easier to handle, but they can be easily dominated.
small states group together for protection and this makes others do the same.
eventually the amount of force necessary is so large, that it abuses its power and eventually the abuse leads to its collapse.
i think it is also why anarchy is so hard to maintain when population is dense. its not so much that the system of anarchy is archaic or inferior, but the dominance of larger force [State].
force seems to be the double edged sword.
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I can’t for the life of me see how raping people could ever reduce the total amount of rapes; that’s much more ridiculous than any hypothetical that I ever came up with.
That’s the point. He was illustrating the absurdity of advocating institutionalized stealing as a means of reduce the incidence of stealing.
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Russ,
Tear what down? I’m a panarchist, no one HAS to be master-less. You have touchingly communicated your fear at ever losing your imaginary protectors; I wouldn’t rip away a child’s security blanket and I won’t be decreeing any “Ancapistan” (absurd, I know, but this absurd straw man is the basis of your criticism).
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I feel like this debate has gone around in circles. We have, on the one hand, libertarian-anarchists arguing that some variation of anarcho-capitalism is a viable political structure, and on the other we have libertarian-minarchists arguing that it’ll never work. As much as I love discussions like these because I always learn something, I think we’re really spinning our wheels here. My MAIN point, Russ, is not to convince you that anarcho-capitalism is the end-all/be-all or the cat’s meow of political configurations. You’re obviously well-read and nothing I or anyone else said could drastically change your mind into a hard-core Rothbardian. But that’s not what’s at stake.
Russ, you think it’s okay for a government to violate everyone’s rights a little bit if it equals a lesser number of rights violations in the absence of government. In fact, this is essentially the sole purpose of government, in your opinion–to minimize the amount and severity of rights violations. I think there’s a few things wrong with this approach.
“Suffering caused by rights violations is my only concern.”
You’re right to point out that the SUFFERING caused by rights violations should be the ultimate end; without it, “rights violations” is just another empty term devoid of anything meaningful, and your choice to mitigate them without any reference to the suffering (interpreted broadly) would be irrelevant. Rights violations only make sense in that regard. But why stop there? Isn’t this slightly arbitrary? Why is it okay for a government to lessen suffering by lessening rights violations, but it’s not okay to lessen suffering through some other altrustic approach?
Here’s an example, let’s imagine we have a group of medical scientists/doctors who’ve stumbled upon a miracle cure for disease X. Several thousands of people die each year by this disease and every one of these cases can be remedied by their miracle cure. Problem is, is the doctors are exceptionally greedy and they decide to charge a “monopoly price” for this curative potion. A price which is much too expensive for the several hundreds, even thousands, of people. To what extent is it justified to regulate the profits of these doctors to ensure that every individual can be cured. Let’s say there are 10 doctors. A regulation on each one would be (I’m guessing) 10 rights violations, but thousands would live. If there were no regulations on these doctors, then there would be obviously 0 rights violations (because certainly people DO NOT have a RIGHT to medicine), but thousands would die. Now, if you’re true intent is to minimze rights violations, then you’d pick the latter option, which would minimize the amount of suffering THROUGH rights violations–that is, no regulations against the scientists; however, it would MAXIMIZE the amount of suffering total–that is, thousands would die. You have a few options here:
You could say “Screw ‘em, there’s so such thing as a monopoly price anyway”, in which case you’re more principled than you think. Or you could go ahead and regulate the doctors to lessen the amount of suffering and death, which would mean crossing the threshold from “principle” to “pragmatic”, but at the cost of clarity. You’ve realized sometimes there’s more dreadful suffering than the kind caused by rights violations so you agree to focus on suffering generally. This isn’t good territory to be in, especially when trying to defend the minimal state from potential expansion.
Or, you could allow those suffering from their illness a “positive right” to have “affordable healthcare for all.” I don’t need to run into scenarios where that could lead, do I? I’ll speak to the more general claim of providing “positive rights” for your citizens. I’m assuming–perhaps you’ve mentioned it in an earlier post–that in your minimal state an individual’s rights are (mostly) negative, that is, freedom NOT have one’s property violated, etc. By giving people positive rights, you basically win by DEFAULT. The state becomes necessary to protect the very rights it itself creates and defines. Of course, a life in anarchy will have a greater amount of rights violations if the state can make rights at will.
“I wouldn’t have a problem with that, so long as the free riders moved on along to some other country.”
You agree that if a civilian doesn’t want to take part in government he’s “free” so long as he migrates somewhere else. Although I don’t agree with that last point, I think we’re headed in the right direction. You are welcome to enjoy your minimal state, and I (or perhaps not) and others who so choose can either consent or not consent. We may differ about what is done with the non-consenters, but if you recognize the value in the act of consenting, then you recognize the value in being able to choose anarchy, whether or not you choose to be an anarchist yourself. That’s what this debate should be about.
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“This is debatable. A lot of people who do care do not agree at all. The idea is to prevent state-sponsored terrorism (the really dangerous kind with WMDs involved) by providing a “negative example” to those states that could do so. Assuming for sake of argument that a terrorist could set off a nuke in NYC, that would involve a huge level of rights violations, that would make years of war seem relatively paltry in comparison.”
This proves my earlier point exactly. A government charged with the responsibility to reduce suffering through rights violations can basically do whatever the hell it wants, so long as its intent stays true to the original purpose. Disregarding the fact that there’s NO WAY to KNOW if a particular course of action will actually result in MORE or LESS rights violations, an administration is pretty much given free reign to intervene wherever and whenever it wants. Hell, a future president COULD say “Canada is planning to invade in order to murder, rape, and kill our children. The results could be catastrophic; the death toll is sure to number in the hundreds of millions! Let’s go to WAAAR!!!” Yes, I know, far-fetched–but that’s the point. Anything becomes justifiable if its purpose is to reduce rights violations. ANYTHING! And there’s no recourse. Future rights violations would be, for the most part, purely speculative.
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RUSS: I can’t for the life of me see how raping people could ever reduce the total amount of rapes; that’s much more ridiculous than any hypothetical that I ever came up with.
MAGNUS: That’s the point. He was illustrating the absurdity of advocating institutionalized stealing as a means of reduce the incidence of stealing.
ME: I’m not sure who Magnus refers to here, but the argument was originally Stephan’s, and presumably Stephan had two distinct arguments in mind with this example. I was more interested in the second.
1) We can accept utilitarianism for the sake of argument, and then ask: why do we expect minarchism will minimize crime instead of anarchism? Stephan (and magnus et al.) had many arguments on this point, and several of them were stronger than the rape analogy. I personally have not thought about this question enough to weigh in on it, though I found the arguments on both sides interesting. As Stephan has pointed out elsewhere on this blog, it’s irrelevant, because there is another (logically prior) argument that the “rape” example serves.
2) Utilitarianism itself is, in my opinion, outdated and easily refuted. The first claim, that it is outdated, I fully admit to be pure rhetoric and ad hominem (though it explains its appeal to even such luminaries as Mises, Mill, and Bentham). But the second claim, that it is easily refuted, was demonstrated by Stephan’s reductio ad absurdum (which I paraphrased in my last post). Of course you don’t want to say that you condone rape in order to minimize total rapes, because this does sound monstrous. But that is not ad hominem, that is the point – to show that your position is, when thought about clearly and logically, monstrous. The only reason we entertain arguments by utilitarians is because in the end, we don’t take them too seriously. If you really were a person who would kill eight innocent men to save nine, or rape one child to save two, you would be beneath moral discourse. Your arguments show you to be a far more morally and intellectually sensitive being than that, despite your unfortunate attachment to the utilitarian creed (and thus, to the minimal state). Note that for argument 2, the fact that rapes do not in fact stop other rapes is entirely incidental. We are arguing purely about the logical coherence of utilitarianism at that point, not about facts of the world.
I will drop this subject now, because I’m sure that the cranky preaching of a natural law supporter will not magically convert all utilitarians on this board to deontological libertarian anarchists. Otherwise Stephan would have done it already (with help from Magnus, Othyem, and mpolzkill).
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The argument goes around in circles because the basis of the situation does the same.
we can’t get around force. the only way to deter what one might conceive of as “wrong” force is to counteract it with greater force.
in order to have greater force, someone or some group must have the ability to use it. with this ability comes power and eventually or even originally, abuse.
with this abuse comes submission or the need for even greater force, etc.
it doesn’t really change whether the background is anarchy or statist. the nature of force controls the system, not the other way around.
so, we all have the right idea believing that we should not agress and try to live in peace but the problem is you need one [or group] mother —— to keep the peace and that same bad a– dude [or dudes] will eventually mess everything up. and you always need someone deciding when to call the dude, etc. so control enters and things slide downhill!
my personal view is anarchy and low population is the way to go. if you don’t like the particular situation, you can move and it will be different. Since we have neither, just hope for the best!
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A big point is: would S. Kinsella & friends not bug poor ol’ Russ but actually bug real aggressors and robbers? If a mugger held up S. Kinsella, would he lecture the mugger on not using aggression to get what he wants? Or is S. Kinsella prepared for such a scenario whereby he has the ability to use retaliatory force against a mugger or a group thereof? Or is S. Kinsella hoping in the ‘goodness of humanity’ and hope he’ll never have to face a mugger? Or will S. Kinsella say “yes sir, yes sir, three bags full sir” and give the mugger what he wants with any retaliation whatsoever?
If most Libertarians subscribe to one or both of the last two scenario then anarchotopia is unrealisable. After all, one group of people who are strong to give governments crap are Mexican Druglords yet if they could defeat governments and become the new powers their rule is hardly going to be any better.
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I wouldn’t rip away a child’s security blanket and I won’t be decreeing any “Ancapistan” (absurd, I know, but this absurd straw man is the basis of your criticism)
You’re not speaking the statist language, mpolzkill. Unfortunately, the essential component of Russ’s security blanket is knowing that he can force you (and everyone else) to pay for and participate in his state.
Your live-and-let-live attitude is a feature of voluntarism, not statism. Forcing everyone to comply is the whole point of the state, its defining feature, its raison d’etre.
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Gil,
There are more scenarios that could be imagined when Mr. Kinsella still has all of the money and freedom that was already stolen from him by your “bada**” of choice: the “unreal” robber according to your conventional view. We radical libertarians are always at a disadvantage in these discussions because it is impossible to know what an unfettered market will come up with. Your average criminal is not as intelligent as your average peaceful citizen. In a free world, why we would all just sit back and let ourselves be robbed without coming up with some systems and technology to defeat them, I don’t know. I do know why we allow ourselves to be robbed right now by your “unreal” robbers: because there are just too many like you and Russ with this massive mental block.
In an alternate example, we already know what you and Russ do when these “unreal” robbers take away almost all of our rights to defend ourselves, on 9/11/2001 totally drop the ball protecting the sheep they have slowly neutered over the last 80 years or so, Federalize airport security (their every failure brings them further aggrandizement), then spend a trillion of our dollars insanely slaughtering and torturing Iraqis, brazenly start spying on us…ad infinitum. You say something like: “Boy, I wish they would decide to make themselves smaller, but don’t forget, we always need our magic-badged protectors, can’t ever tear down all the wonderful things they’ve done”.
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Magnus,
You hit the button there: language. As a very young man I learned the language of Lysander Spooner (that’s why, no matter how hard I try to cool it down, it’s at least a bit overheated, ha ha). Russ seems to be baffled, he can’t understand why we seem to be calling him a bad guy. He’s not, he’s just trapped by the slave language he was trained in by his masters. Gil thinks it’s funny that we seem to be attacking Russ. It’s because that’s where the battle is: the State’s main campaign is always to put its outposts in every mind.
That reminds me, you conservatives here; how’s your battle against public school coming along? Does it look like the “liberals” are going to give you back your kids any time soon? Keep on saying you hope they get smaller, that should do the trick.
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Okay, now we’re really going off in strange directions. An obvious point is that there’s no reason debating with someone who isn’t interested in debate. Would Stephan argue with an armed robber? I can’t answer for him, but I suspect that he would not, unless he thought it might distract the robber and give him a chance to take action. But the absurdity of the question is that it says little about the political system: it can be asked of anyone, today. Would you ask the robber to wait while you pulled out your cell phone to call the local police to come to your aid?
Russ, on the other hand, is clearly more interested in debate and discussion on the morality and practicality of these issues, as the rest of us are, and presumably wants to get at some worthwhile truth. Thus, talking to Russ makes sense, while trying to talk to an armed robber doesn’t. -
M.A. Clem,
“says little about the political system”
I don’t know, it says a lot about Gil & conservatism, I’d say. For instance, I think their phantasmagorias are the place to look when you want to find the root causes of the “Cold War”.
Great talking to you all, I look forward to tonight and reading what you all come up with. Take care.
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“Thus, talking to Russ makes sense, while trying to talk to an armed robber doesn’t.” – M. A. Clem
Uh huh . . . No, it shows a capacity for talk and nothing else. It reminds me of the story of when the poor people of New York would riot – did they trash the rich side town to make a real statement, nope, they trash their own side of town where it was safe to do so and where there’d be little to no repercussions. Nope, you have no ability to make a real difference in the real world but taking on Russ over the ‘real’ meaning of ‘Libertarianism’ gives a cheap feeling of ‘doing something’.
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Gil, your impatience with education and obsession with action are surprising. This Institute is dedicated to education, that is its purpose, and education is achieved by talking and writing. Moreover, what “action” do you suggest, if educating others is not “real” enough for you? Either you are recommending violent revolution, in which case you are not the safest person to be communicating with openly, or you are recommending political action, which is intrinsically evil (as all this “useless” talking has been trying to prove to you and others). As Mises would exhort us: tu ne cede malis, sed contra audentior ito. That is, “first, do no evil. but proceed ever more boldly against it.” Political activism usually breaks the first injunction, under the pretense of carrying out the second.
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So, Rafael, you don’t like violent revolution (which ironically was the way in which America got to secede from Britian) nor do you like getting involved in politics (I do respect Ron Paul for pro-active in his beliefs even if I probably wouldn’t agree with all of his beliefs) so what’s left: ‘education’. Okeedokee.
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Good point, Gil. I should clarify, political action is only immoral for an anarchist, not a minarchist. And even there, I’m not sure about it yet, I’ve yet to read enough on both sides.
Violent revolution against the State is not, of course, intrinsically wrong. But it can be quite stupid, if public opinion doesn’t support it. This is not 1776, and Obama is not seen the same way as George III was.
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“But it can be quite stupid, if public opinion doesn’t support it. This is not 1776, and Obama is not seen the same way as George III was.” – Rafael.
Bit late but – it is estimated that the ‘revolution’ was only supported by 30% of the population. The rebels believed in what they were doing not whether the majority like it or not.
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Nope, you have no ability to make a real difference in the real world but taking on Russ over the ‘real’ meaning of ‘Libertarianism’ gives a cheap feeling of ‘doing something’.
Talking doesn’t preclude doing other things, too. But if ideas are so unimportant to the workings of the world, why are you bothering to talk? Actions speak louder than words, don’t they?
In truth, though, human action is meaningless without the thought or idea that guides it. Both thought and action are necessary for meaningful purpose. And, naturally enough, different ideas lead to different actions. The purpose of talking to others about these ideas is to persuade them to take different actions. You can argue about how effective such talk is in persuading people, but you cannot argue without accepting the fact that you, too, are trying to persuade people to take different actions–otherwise, why would you argue? Just to make noise? -
Russ,
Russ, have you seen A Clockwork Orange? Since a lot of this discussion is hypothetical and no anarcho-cap nor a true monarchist state has existed, go with me on this scenario. Stephan has referred to you endorsing rape to prevent other rapes, and while you see this as extreme and unrelated, he is merely addressing the principle of allowing lesser evils to take place for the sake of preventing greater evils. Let’s say 1 out of 100 men will commit a rape; but it has been proven that if exposed to a live violent rape at a young age only 1 out of 100,000 will commit rape (similar to the process in Clockwork Orange). Would you be okay and support educational techniques that place 100,000 young male kids in a room and then allow a girl who was kidnapped to be brought in and raped (by an already convicted rapist) in front of them, knowing that this would lead to a lot less women being raped overall?
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More:
August 21, 2009 at 10:27 pm
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@Russ
You’re confusing libertarianism with some other consequentialist/utilitarian moral philosophy. The fact that you think Stephan Kinsella’s (and many, many other’s) conception of libertarianism–i.e, a form of (philosophical) anarchism–will lead to “more pain, hardship, suffering, and death” has ultimately nothing to do with property rights in oneself and the extension of that.
So, more people will suffer in an anarchist society? Well, let them *each* voluntarily enter into an explicit agreement and re-enter life under government. Those “rugged individualists” as they’re so called can try to hash out a nasty, brutish, and short life for themselves on the outside. What’s wrong with that?
@Nick
“I would love to know when the arbitrary(surely not “natural: see nature) right to not be coerced is applied to the human being. Surely a 2 year old can be punished for disobedience, can he not?”
I’m always surprised when I see people dispute such fundamental axioms as self-ownership. Anyways, you’re presumably comparing a government’s power to coerce and discipline its citizenry as equivilant to a parent’s power to discipline his or her child. Although libertarianians have differing viewpoints on this, the philosopher A. John Simmons has pointed out, it’s an assumption to assume that parents, in fact, have ANY “right” to discipline their children for disobedience. Children, strictly speaking, have no “natural duty” to obey their parents. Now, whether or not they have a MORAL duty to obey their parents, I think, is largely dependent upon their circumstances and is another issue altogether. Moreover, even if children DID in fact have some natural duty to obey their parents, it still doesn’t follow that this analogy applies equally to the child/parent citizen/government framework.
August 21, 2009 at 11:58 pm
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Peter wrote:
“Well, sure; Adolf Hitler could call himself libertarian if he wanted. But him calling himself libertarian doesn’t mean he is libertarian.”
No, Hitler wouldn’t be a libertarian even if he called himself one. But I am a libertarian, just not the kind Stephan would prefer that I be. Stephan is like a Peikoffian Objectivist saying that a Kellyite isn’t really an Objectivist, or a Leninist saying a Trotskyite isn’t a real Marxist. Or, for you Monty Python fans, a member of the Judean People’s Front saying a member of the People’s Front of Judea isn’t a real Jew.
Magnus wrote:
“Since when did I consent to having my liberty and property put to a vote?”
I never said you did. A valid, minimal state doesn’t put your rights up for a vote. It only protects your rights.
Othyem wrote:
“You’re confusing libertarianism with some other consequentialist/utilitarian moral philosophy. ”
No, you and Stephan are confusing libertarianism as a whole with your particular formulation of libertarianism. Stephan is just another person who thinks that his is the only “true” version of X-ism, whatever X might happen to be.
“So, more people will suffer in an anarchist society? Well, let them *each* voluntarily enter into an explicit agreement and re-enter life under government. Those “rugged individualists” as they’re so called can try to hash out a nasty, brutish, and short life for themselves on the outside. What’s wrong with that?”
What’s wrong is that the “rugged individualists” might happen to interact with those of us who believe in a minimal government in a way such that somebody thinks their rights got violated. Then what happens? Hatfield-McCoy blood feuds? If all the anarchists were “on the outside”, that would be different. I wouldn’t mind if all the anarchists ran off to Somalia to live. (I think they would be supremely stupid to do so, but that’s another matter.)
August 22, 2009 at 12:53 am
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“Since when did I consent to having my liberty and property put to a vote?” – Magnus.
Are you descendant of a Libertarian family who lived in America before the Founding Fathers who in turn forced a new style of government onto your family? If a government was set up voluntarily before your family arrived do you as an immigrant have the right to trash the society because they are ‘using force & fraud against’ you (“i signed nothing”)? How annoying would it be for minarchist societies facing repeated sorties from anarchists trying to seize public land and property from the minarchists on the contention the public property is effectively the ‘commons’ and therefore they have to right to homestead it and minarchists are ‘iniating force’ when they’re trying to stop the anarchists.
August 22, 2009 at 1:54 am
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But I am a libertarian, just not the kind Stephan would prefer that I be.
You’re a mostly-libertarian, perhaps, but you’re not all the way there since you advocate the anti-libertarian initiation of force to accomplish certain ends.
If a government was set up voluntarily before your family arrived do you as an immigrant have the right to trash the society because they are ‘using force & fraud against’ you (“i signed nothing”)?
Absolutely. Of course.
How annoying would it be for minarchist societies facing repeated sorties from anarchists trying to seize public land and property from the minarchists on the contention the public property is effectively the ‘commons’ and therefore they have to right to homestead it and minarchists are ‘iniating force’ when they’re trying to stop the anarchists.
I’m sure it would be very annoying. That’s the minarchists’ problem. What’s it got to do with right and wrong?
August 22, 2009 at 2:41 am
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I never said you did. A valid, minimal state doesn’t put your rights up for a vote. It only protects your rights.
Why don’t you tell me exactly what you think this supposedly-valid “minimal state” actually does? Then I’ll tell you if it violates my rights.
In your answer, please pay special attention to the manner in which this supposedly-valid “minimal state” obtains funds for its minimal activities.
Please also address the extent to which people would be permitted, without threat of retaliation or coercion, to opt out of the “services” that this “minimal state” claims to provide.
Are you descendant of a Libertarian family who lived in America before the Founding Fathers who in turn forced a new style of government onto your family? If a government was set up voluntarily before your family arrived do you as an immigrant have the right to trash the society because they are ‘using force & fraud against’ you (“i signed nothing”)? How annoying would it be for minarchist societies facing repeated sorties from anarchists trying to seize public land and property from the minarchists on the contention the public property is effectively the ‘commons’ and therefore they have to right to homestead it and minarchists are ‘iniating force’ when they’re trying to stop the anarchists.
1. There are no “Founding Fathers.” Their proclamations about having “founded” anything are meaningless and not binding on me or anyone else.
2. The purported definition of a certain patch of dirt as “America,” as a territory in which their proclamations were to supposedly be perpetually binding as to all who tread upon it, is utterly void and ineffective.
3. Any “government” that was voluntarily set up before I arrived is only binding on the actual people who consented to it, not me or anyone else. Consent cannot be imputed, by force, on someone, even upon a late-comer.
4. There is no such thing as “public land” because there is no such thing as a “public.” It’s a completely imaginary concept. The claim of ownership, by anyone, over unused land is totally invalid. It’s just noise and hot air, and can be properly disregarded.
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“There is no such thing as ‘public land’ because there is no such thing as a ‘public’. It’s a completely imaginary concept. The claim of ownership, by anyone, over unused land is totally invalid. It’s just noise and hot air, and can be properly disregarded. ”
What a coinkidink! The imperial Old World nations thought the same way towards the natives of the New World.
August 22, 2009 at 8:46 am
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Nick,
One should not be punished for disobedience but only for wrongdoing.
Parents should teach children to use their heads, make up their own minds, take responsibilities, take calculated risks, critical thinking.
But parents should not teach children to obey, this is really destructive.
Hitler had an army of obedient drones. Obedience at all costs is apocalyptic.
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Damn, it’s like listening to a skipping record here (did that date me?)
Peter wrote:
“You’re a mostly-libertarian, perhaps, but you’re not all the way there since you advocate the anti-libertarian initiation of force to accomplish certain ends.”
No, I’m a libertarian. You, Stephan or even Murray Rothbard don’t get the sole right to decide what the word means, especially if you are against IP. “Libertarianism” is just a general term. Wikipedia has a good definition:
“Libertarianism is a term used to describe a broad spectrum of political philosophies which seek to maximize individual liberty and minimize or even abolish the state.”
The Rothbardian version of libertarianism, which defines libertarianism as the position of being against all initiation of force, is only one definition among many. It implies either that anarchism would result in the maximal individual liberty, or that maximizing liberty is not important, neither of which I can agree with. And I hate to tell you, but Rothbard’s definition is on the fringe of a fringe movement. Of course, to you guys, that’s good, because that makes you more pure and radical.
I can’t understand why you guys can’t be civil with others who want to go in the same general political direction as you. Heck, once we achieve a minimal government, and you want to go further, then you can go your own way. But we’re a long way from that day, and until then, why can’t we work together without all this “You’re not a *pure* libertarian!” crap? Must you divide the libertarian movement into little, tiny, ineffectual splinter groups just for the sake of doctrinal purity, when the libertarian movement is ineffectual enough already? What is it with you guys? Do you all have Asperger’s Syndrome or something? It’s no wonder people like Michael Medved call us “Losertarians”.
August 22, 2009 at 2:21 pm
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Hi Stephen.
Regarding these assertions in your article:
“Libertarianism recognizes that only the self-ownership rule is universalizable and compatible with the goals of peace, cooperation, and conflict-avoidance.â€
and
“Libertarian property rights principles emerge as the only candidate that satisfies these criteria.â€
I am unaware of any proof that the principle of voluntarism or voluntary consent is not universalizable as a principle of libertarianism that can serve to achieve the goals of peace, cooperation, and conflict-avoidance. So I have to disagree with these assertions.
Lockean property rights theory is how the Rothbard/Hoppe school of libertarian thought grounds its defense of libertarianism. Certainly the theories of Rothbard and Hoppe are not identical with libertarianism.
In your article, I couldn’t find a single use of the words “voluntary†or “voluntary consent,†though I found one reference to “consent.†Because of this, many non-Rothbardian libertarians will interpret your particular conception of libertarianism as an argument for a single libertarian legal order, to be instituted as the single legal order for all libertarians, without regard to individual voluntary consent.
I’m not necessarily proposing you change your conception of libertarianism to include voluntary consent, because I think doing so may undercut the natural law theoretical position. But I do claim that the conscious avoidance of a theory of libertarianism based on voluntary consent cannot go unnoticed by non-Rothbardian libertarians, and to the extent a theory of libertarianism is advanced which seeks to bypass or override the voluntary consent of individuals, it will be strenuously disavowed by other schools of libertarian though.
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Sorry. Last word should be “thought.”
August 22, 2009 at 3:56 pm
August 22, 2009 at 9:09 pm
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So if a buddy of mine puts a gun to head, am I violating his rights if I take it away from him? What if he’s in my house when he does it?
August 22, 2009 at 9:10 pm
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Russ,
You are dead right on a lot of things, especially Stephan’s pompous attitude and his uncivil style of writing and responding. The other part is of course the rather dogmatic “axiom” of opposing all aggression. I specifically find the translation “absence of agression” funny because it is metaphysically impossible, at least as long a we are talking of a world of human beings (warts and all). I fully agree with your idea of “being for liberty” rather than “opposing aggression”.
Stephan’s notion that liberty means the absence of aggression is nothing short of peurile because Liberty means “being able to act as per the dictates of ones own mind”. While that requires the absence of the initiation of force, it cannot be defined as the absence of the initiation of force.
Keep writing in. You make sense.
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Mark,
” So if a buddy of mine puts a gun to head, am I violating his rights if I take it away from him? What if he’s in my house when he does it? ”
If you are using this to puncture a huge hole in the notion that property rights are the basis of all rights, then I think this is a good beginning. Frankly, as Ayn Rand said, the basis of all rights, including the right to property, is the Right to Life. The situation you have put forward is best addressed starting from that axiom.
Great example
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Bala wrote:
“You are dead right on a lot of things, especially Stephan’s pompous attitude and his uncivil style of writing and responding.”
I actually think that Stephan is a decent person, else he wouldn’t care so much about libertarianism. And since he cares so much, occasionally he gets a bit over-zealous. But so do I, and my zeal can make me very sarcastic, and thus uncivil, myself. That’s rather inconsistent with my Rodney King “can’t we all just get along” rant earlier. So I apologize for my excesses to Stephan. I think we’re both on the same side, when it comes right down to it. We just disagree on details.
“Keep writing in. You make sense.”
Thank you.
I would like to ask Stephan a few questions. He has been hammering on my position for a while now, so I would like him to clarify his position.
1) Are you for or against the lowest level of aggression possible in society? If against, why?
2) Do you think that if we lived in an anarcho-libertarian “polity” (for lack of a better word), that would result in the lowest level of aggression possible in society?
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Stephan Kinsella wrote:
“”1) Are you for or against the lowest level of aggression possible in society? If against, why?”
Well, I am against aggression just as you are (presumably) against rape. All aggression is wrong as all rape is wrong. Preferably there would be no aggression, and no rape. But just as 1 rape is not as bad as 100, a small amount of aggression is less undesirable than a large amount.”
I will take your answer as an agreement that you would prefer the “lowest level of aggression possible in society”. (And yes, of course I am against rape.)
“”2) Do you think that if we lived in an anarcho-libertarian “polity” (for lack of a better word), that would result in the lowest level of aggression possible in society?
Well I believe the most worrisome aggression is institutionalized aggression. If you achieve anarchy that means you have abolished the source of public aggression. All that is left is a relatively small degree of private crime …”
Hmmm… I think this assumes that the “relatively small degree of private crime” will stay small without a State to keep it that way. Of course, some of the reasons you give below could keep the private crime small:
“(relatively small for a number of reasons: first, to achieve anarchy, the ideas of liberty would have to be widespread; second, society b/c of the greater free market would be immensely wealthier, thus reducing the need for crime, and increasing the means at the disposal of civilized people to spend on security to stave off whatever crime is left).”
But, I’m just not convinced. I could be wrong, but I think that PDAs could quite possibly cause a high level of private crime as they compete against one another. And competing PDAs might not be so good at controlling other private crime.
At any rate, I’ll interpret your answer to my second question as saying that you believe that aggression will be minimized under anarcho-libertarianism.
Let me ask one more question, if I may. Let’s say that Ruritania becomes a minimal libertarian State, is renamed Libertaria, and we all move there. Then let’s say that western Libertaria has an anarcho-libertarian revolution, breaks off from Libertaria proper, and renames itself Ancapistan. So you move to Ancapistan to enjoy the pleasures of unfettered freedom. Let’s say it turns out that I am right, and there is less actual freedom in Ancapistan than in Libertaria. Would you then change your mind and become a minarchist? In other words, are you for maximum freedom, or for abolishing the State, assuming that these two options are not completely equivalent?
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Moved from the “The Irrelevance of the Impossibility of Anarcho-Libertarianism” thread.
mpolzkill wrote:
“I wonder if Russ will have a Buckleyesque response to that post! (but can one be simultaneously “crypto” AND honest?)”
Well… ah… it behooves me to say that … ah… I find your attempt to … ah… denigrate me as a … ah … crypto-statist to be quite… ah… nugatory.
Was that Buckleyesque enough for ya?
If not, how about this:Now listen, you queer, you stop calling me a crypto-statist or I’ll sock you in the goddamn face and you’ll stay plastered!
(Disclaimer: That was intended as humor. I have no desire to reach through my computer screen and sock mpolzkill.)
“But Russ here has defined “statist”: one who wants to use the State to get what he wants (simple, I know).”
No, I have defined “statist” in no such way because I have never identified myself as a statist; you did that. If I were to define statism, it would be something along the lines of this: “The doctrine or policy of subordinating the individual unconditionally to a state or government with unlimited powers. Statism includes both socialism and interventionism”. (This definition gives the meaning of the word as Mises used it, and is from “Mises Made Easy”, which is available on this site.) The word “statism” has never meant simply “the belief that a government is necessary”, or else that would make Mises himself a statist. It is only used in this sense by illiterates, or by anarchists who are trying an ad hominem argument.
“I will never understand what makes most of the billions of statists with their perhaps millions of different pet systems think that they and their fellow travelers will ever take the reins.”
I really have no desire to “take the reins”. I am a computer geek. I have neither the patience, the administrative skills, nor the people skills, necessary to become an effective statesman. And I have no idea whether my “fellow travelers” will ever take the reins.
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Stephan Kinsella wrote (moved from the “The Irrelevance of the Impossibility of Anarcho-Libertarianism” thread):
“Thank you. Finally. Finally. An honest faux-libertarian crypto-statist.”
See my last post to mpolzkill about your misuse of the term “statism”. This kind of obvious ad hominem argument is beneath you, Stephan.
“And you do realize the key libertarian insight is that human freedom–human rights–can only be infringed by the use of initiated force. You are aware of this view, are you not?”
Yeah. So?
“What makes you think a “small State”, one that only violates a “minimal amount of rights,” is possible?”
I don’t know that a minimal state is possible. I do know that we have had much smaller states in the past, and did just fine. I think that, in politics, the goal should be, at least in principle, reachable. I believe a minimal government is reachable, at least in principle. I’m not so sure about anarcho-capitalism. It seems utopian to me, and I’ve never thought that anything comes of utopianism.
“What makes you think this State won’t tend to be manned by people a la “the worst rise to the top” and then the inexorable logic of their position will lead them to gradually expand their power?”
I don’t know that this won’t happen. Limiting government does seem to be a constant Sisyphean struggle. And if I became convinced that ancap would work better than a minimal state, I would become an anarcho-capitalist again. I am not unalterably wedded to the idea of a state. I just think, right now, that a very small state is the best way to maximize freedom.
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Stephan Kinsella wrote:
“Do states keep crime down now? No; they make it worse (think of the fallout of drug prohibition alone)”
But a minimal state would not prohibit voluntary acts, else it wouldn’t be a minimal state. So you’re comparing apples and oranges.
“I believe it probably would be but this is not why I’m an anarchist nor is this view essential to my being an anarchist. I’m an anarchist for exactly the reasons I said, and I apologize for being precise and clear and not maundering or using fuzzy, loosey-goosey language.”
I fail to see how saying that I am for the minimal possible amount of rights violations is “fuzzy, loosey-goosey language”. Seems clear enough to me. Other than that, when I use my “judgment” instead of “principle”, well, that may be fuzzier, but sometimes reality is not as precise and clear-cut as we would like it to be.
“I would not endorse aggression even if it was to stop other aggression. I have, you know, principles.”
One man’s principles are another man’s dogma.
“I’m against aggression because it’s wrong. I would not rape or condone a rape, even if I thought it would stop other rapes.”
I didn’t realize I was saying that a minimal state would have to rape people to protect rights. As a matter of fact, I know I didn’t say that, because that’s a just plain ludicrous thing to say. A minimal state would tax people, true (at a much lower rate than today), and it would monopolize certain functions, true (many less functions than today). But to say that a minarchist libertarian is in favor of raping people to lower the total number of rapes is just ridiculous. It’s apparently a reductio ad absurdem argument, but in reality it’s just another ad hominem attack in disguise. You don’t seem to know how not to make them.
“It’s easier to be guided by principle than to pick everything apart in an attempt to justify compromise and ad hocery.”
Yes, a pragmatic political philosophy is much more difficult to follow than a dogmatic political philosophy that does all the thinking for you with one easy-to-follow “principle”. After all, in a pragmatic philosophy, you have to exercise your own judgment, think about strategy and tactics, think about what is possible, what is likely, and what is not, think about what is right and wrong, think about when it is acceptable to commit a lesser evil to prevent a greater one, etc. How convenient it must be to slice through all that tedious judging and thinking with one simple, easy-to-follow rule! (It slices! It dices! It makes Julienne fries!) Heck, it shouldn’t be called the Zero Aggression Principle, it should be called the Zero Effort Principle!
If only it were that simple. But I believe in a sort of secular version of Original Sin. We aren’t perfect, never will be, and government is the price we must pay. We will never be allowed back in the Garden.
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Stephan Kinsella wrote:
“It’s not ad hominem at all. I’m an anarcho-libertarian. I criticize your pro-aggression views.”
First, I’m not “pro-aggression” (another ad hominem; I was right, you don’t know how to stop yourself). As I’ve repeated ad nauseum, I am for the *minimal* amount of rights violations possible. Apparently, you don’t understand what the word “minimal” means, or that someone who wants to minimize something is not in favor of it.
At any rate, calling me a “statist”, when according to any sane definition of the word (like Percy Greaves’ definition) I am not even close to one, *is* an ad hominem attack.
“What about the people whose rights were infringed by said criminal states? did they “do just fine”?”
For the most part, yes. When the US government was small, not being able to choose their own PDA had not been among peoples’ most pressing problems.
Russ wrote:
“I think that, in politics, the goal should be, at least in principle, reachable. I believe a minimal government is reachable, at least in principle.”Stephan replied:
“Why in the world would you believe this?”Well, first, we now live under a government that monopolizes certain functions, so we know this model “works” for a sufficiently small definition of “works”. We haven’t fallen into a complete Hobbesian war of man against man, or even a case of small warlords fighting each other for power and killing off all the little people in the process. The center still holds; not all has fallen apart; at least not yet.
Second, we used to live under an even smaller government than at present, which arguably “worked” better than the one we have now, so I see no reason why the government couldn’t be made smaller and better again. It’s possible in the future because it was possible in the past.
Last, there’s no a priori reason why government officials couldn’t restrain themselves from violating rights where it’s not absolutely necessary. Granted, it would take a serious cultural shift, where voters and politicians would take freedom seriously, and probably a reorganization of government, such as returning to some serious sort of federalism instead of nationalism that’s called federalism. That may indeed be unrealistic, but it still seems less unrealistic than visions of Ancapistan. (This may be why you favor a “principled” anarcho-libertarianism, where impossibility doesn’t matter; because you know in your heart of hearts that any vision of Ancapistan is completely unrealistic.)
August 23, 2009 at 5:06 pm
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Russ,
Ha ha, glad you caught my W.F.B. allusion.
I misspoke: you personified MY definition of “statist”. I know my definition isn’t the accepted one, but I think it’s an honest (no ad hom, an attempt to define your position) and literal reading using the word “state” (Websters: “a politically organized body of people usually occupying a definite territory”) Your definition of “statism” seems better suited to “totalitarian”.
It is possible that I’m illiterate, I don’t know. Help me correct this, kind sir:
state = state
-ist = advocate
state advocate = you.You may not be up for it, but don’t you want your flavour of minarchists to seize control of state power? You don’t prefer the gang holding it now, to be sure. You think it’s possible for your gang to take the reins or else you wouldn’t advocate the State, right? Or you just like being “realistic”?
Couple other questions on what you just said: weren’t the abolitionists of the 19th century considered to be at least as nutty as “Utopianists”?
You also said: “But a minimal state would not prohibit voluntary acts, else it wouldn’t be a minimal state.”
This minimal state you envision; it (with Mises) would observe the right to seceed, down to the level of the individual? If so, THAT sounds downright “Utopian”.
(Thanks for the dialogue, jests & civility, very fun.)
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mpolzkill wrote:
“…I know my definition isn’t the accepted one, but I think it’s an honest (no ad hom, an attempt to define your position) and literal reading…”
Fair enough. But your use of a non-standard definition for the word may lead one to mistakenly conclude that you are trying to implicitly conflate their position and totalitarianism. It seems it would be easier to just use the accepted definition, even if you think it’s not as intuitively obvious, to avoid this kind of confusion.
Russ wrote:
“But a minimal state would not prohibit voluntary acts, else it wouldn’t be a minimal state.”
mpolzkill replied:
“This minimal state you envision; it (with Mises) would observe the right to seceed, down to the level of the individual? If so, THAT sounds downright “Utopian”.”
I do not think that individuals have the right to secede or else such a minimal state would be the functional equivalent of anarcho-libertarianism, wouldn’t it? I should have said “But a minimal state would not prohibit voluntary acts *such as drug use*, else it wouldn’t be a minimal state.” If it allowed all voluntary acts, such as allowing a PDA to replace it for certain individuals, it wouldn’t be even a minimal state, would it? It would be, at best, an “ultra-minimal” state, as in Nozick.
The comprising “states” (in the sense of Ohio or Texas) of a minimalist “state” (in the sense of nation) would still have the right to secede, though.
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mpolzkill,
I skipped some of your earlier post.
“You may not be up for it, but don’t you want your flavour of minarchists to seize control of state power? You don’t prefer the gang holding it now, to be sure. You think it’s possible for your gang to take the reins or else you wouldn’t advocate the State, right? Or you just like being “realistic”?”
Yes, I think it’s possible for my “gang” to take the reins. Whether this is realistic or not, I think it’s more realistic than ancap. At the very least, I think it’s possible for a gang that is more libertarian than the current gang to take the reins.
“Couple other questions on what you just said: weren’t the abolitionists of the 19th century considered to be at least as nutty as “Utopianists”?”
They were considered to be Utopians by some, yes. But I don’t see any real equivalency here. We know now that we can live quite well without slavery; in fact it was known well before 1860, since the Northwest Ordinance banned slavery in what was then the Northwest in 1785 (I believe), and those colonies (later, states) did fine. We don’t know that Ancapistan is possible; there has never been such a place. Maybe, just maybe, that is because there cannot be such a place? That is what I believe, although I must add that I would be delighted were events to reveal that I am wrong.
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@Russ: “You’re not a *pure* libertarian!” crap? Must you divide the libertarian movement into little, tiny, ineffectual splinter groups just for the sake of doctrinal purity, when the libertarian movement is ineffectual enough already?”
This isn’t, nor has it ever been, a pissing contest about who’s the purest, most fringe libertarian strictly for the hell of it. It’s about being logically consistent and recognizing the logical extensions of your beliefs. In this, a Rothbardian approach is the most coherent, in my opinion. Stephan’s right: liberty and freedom have such a vague, insignificant meaning outside of any reference to aggression, or force, or violence.
Russ, you seem to be caught up in an entirely unnecessary point. Correct me if I’m wrong, but your whole reasoning turns on whether or not anarcho-capitalism–or some variation thereof–is more detrimental to society than a minimal state, which you seem to think it is. A minimal state, according to you, is the best–or better–alternative in order to reduce the amount of suffering that would or could result in an anarchist world. Well, so what? What does that have to do with whether or not the state has a legitimate right to use force against its citizens? Your example of Ancapistan and Libertaria misses the point. What if life in an anarcho-capitalist is less free and less enjoyable than life under a minimal state? Well, first of all, it depends–less free to whom, and less enjoyable to whom? And secondly, what does it matter? Considering the fact that an anarcho-capitalist society has never really existed in full, it may or may not be what everyone thinks it’ll be. Perhaps its theoretical problems cannot be ironed out and living in anarchy is doomed to more violence, pain, and an eventual reconstruction of the state. And if that were so, then I’m sure myself and many others who elected to live in anarchy would re-enter a life under statehood. But that has nothing to do with the legitimacy of the state. And that’s the whole issue here. If I decided that living in anarchy sucked, and that living under a limited government were better, even though I would have to cede some of my rights–such as the right to exact retribution–I would be making a conscious, rational, voluntary *CHOICE* to live under it. There’s no contradiction. They’re not mutually exclusive philosophies. One can believe that government has *NO* legitimate right to force citizens to obey its laws, fund its programs, and fight its wars in principle AND STILL want to be a citizen under it, recognizing that sometimes–or many times–there are MORAL reasons to endorse it. Your moral reason is that living in anarchy would cause more pain and suffering than a minimal state, which I think is a legitimate concern and I have no problem with it. We’re all concerned with limiting the suffering of people and if it turned out that anarcho-capitalism was such a political system that did nothing but aggravate that then we would probably see its endorsement wither and die. That, however, has no bearing on whether or not it’s ethical to allow individuals to make that choice for themselves.
@Russ: “What’s wrong is that the “rugged individualists” might happen to interact with those of us who believe in a minimal government in a way such that somebody thinks their rights got violated. Then what happens? Hatfield-McCoy blood feuds? If all the anarchists were “on the outside”, that would be different.” [emphasis mine]
Okay, so if we could find a way to resolve the free-rider paradox with those anarchists who don’t want to become citizens then we’ve solved the problem, right? Well, if so, then your criticisms are misdirected. Instead of focusing on anarchism vs. minarchism, we should be channeling our mental energy into how we can find a resolution for that. Then it’ll be a win/win. I won’t go into it–this is already getting long–but how about having people in the state’s territory accept the laws either through an explicit or tacit agreement, much in the same way it’s done when traveling abroad.
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Othyem wrote:
“This isn’t, nor has it ever been, a pissing contest about who’s the purest, most fringe libertarian…”
It seems that way to me, at least with Stephan. Otherwise, why the focus on “principles” rather than results? Why write an article called “The Irrelevancy of the Impossibility of Anarcho-Libertarianism”, as if results matter not a whit, as long as one’s heart is pure? Why say I am a statist when I obviously am not, any more than Mises was? Why say I am not even a libertarian when I obviously am?
“Stephan’s right: liberty and freedom have such a vague, insignificant meaning outside of any reference to aggression, or force, or violence.”
I don’t disagree with this. That is why I focus on the maximization of liberty *as* the minimization of rights violations (or aggression, as Stephan puts it), which I agree are essentially the same thing. Otherwise, it is too easy to define freedom as the freedom from want, or some other socialistic definition.
“Correct me if I’m wrong, but your whole reasoning turns on whether or not anarcho-capitalism–or some variation thereof–is more detrimental to society than a minimal state, which you seem to think it is. A minimal state, according to you, is the best–or better–alternative in order to reduce the amount of suffering that would or could result in an anarchist world. Well, so what?”
I do think that anarcho-capitalism would be more detrimental to society than a minimal gov’t, but not for a fuzzy reason (at least it’s not fuzzy to me), but because I believe ancap would result in more rights violations. It has nothing to do with suffering in general, but with suffering caused by rights violations. There will always be suffering, and if I cared about minimizing suffering in general I would probably be a socialist. In fact, I think a hell of a lot of suffering is self-inflicted, and that’s a problem for the sufferer to deal with himself. Other suffering is not inflicted by anyone in particular, but simply due to bad luck or inability to compete. Voluntary charity, not socialism, can take care of this.
“What does that have to do with whether or not the state has a legitimate right to use force against its citizens?”
I don’t really care about whether everything a state does is “legitimate” or not according to some abstract, rationalistic philosophy. My political philosophy cares about minimizing rights violations, period. If a state does that, it legitimizes itself, so to speak. I am completely “results-oriented”. I care nothing for all this talk of “principles” and “legitmacy”; I care about minimizing rights violations.
“Okay, so if we could find a way to resolve the free-rider paradox with those anarchists who don’t want to become citizens then we’ve solved the problem, right? Well, if so, then your criticisms are misdirected. Instead of focusing on anarchism vs. minarchism, we should be channeling our mental energy into how we can find a resolution for that. Then it’ll be a win/win.”
But there is a way to resolve the free-rider paradox, and make sure that everybody pays their fair share. It’s called “government”! True, that won’t make a hard-core anarcho-capitalist happy, but that’s tough. Nothing will make a hard-core anarcho-capitalist happy except the impossible (if I’m right about ancap, that is), and why should I care about that?
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Russ!
“if I cared about minimizing suffering in general I would probably be a socialist”
!
You mean as a person who appears to eschew principles and generally has rather naive ideas about intentions and results?
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“But there is a way to resolve the free-rider paradox, and make sure that everybody pays their fair share. It’s called “government”!”
!!
Goldman Sachs & the Pentagon agree with you 100%.
Wow, Russ…as the old joke goes: “you can’t get there from here.”
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@Russ: “But there is a way to resolve the free-rider paradox, and make sure that everybody pays their fair share. It’s called “government”! True, that won’t make a hard-core anarcho-capitalist happy, but that’s tough.”
Then that doesn’t really solve anything. You’re for limiting rights violations. Then let’s limit them all the way, i.e., insert a clause into your minarchist government requiring a form of explicit consent, and work out a formal system for punishing those who haven’t consented. Retribution wouldn’t disappear for those who’re in a state of nature.
“My political philosophy cares about minimizing rights violations, period. If a state does that, it legitimizes itself”
To you, yes. But obviously let’s not forget about those rights violations that occur through forcing others under your form of government. Also, most people consider the US as a legitimate state–in the theoretical sense–although its number of rights violations is too numerous to count. Who decides when the number of rights violations is in equilibrium? How do you quantify that, and what weight do you give each right? And further, how do you know that there will be more rights violations in an anarcho-capitalist world? I could just as easily say I favor socialism because there would be less rights violations. If I could get a large majority of people to agree with me then, according to you, it wouldn’t be wrong to establish this form of government on everyone else. All that is necessary would be to believe that less rights violations were occuring under my system–not dissimilar to what’s happening now.
“Voluntary charity, not socialism, can take care of this.”
Again, how do you know? Many people say that relying on charity to guarantee basic needs, such as medical care, food, shelter, and so forth is too risky to leave to (capricious?) altruistic human beings, and therefore forced welfare redistribution is needed to assure this doesn’t happen–a rights violation, of course. I disagree, but it’s not unlike your argument that anarcho-capitalism is too risky a system and will lead to more rights violations, therefore we need a system (i.e., government) in place to assure this doesn’t happen.
“I am completely “results-oriented”. I care nothing for all this talk of “principles” and “legitmacy”; I care about minimizing rights violations.”
Or so you think. Your minimization of rights violations is itself a principle.
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Many libertarians, including Stephan Kinsella, differ from me on this. It’s assumed that government is a priori illegitimate. Now, while I agree that government everywhere UP TO THIS POINT is illegitimate, i.e., no government YET has relied on the explicit consent of its citizenry to rule and make rules (except in those extremely rare, perhaps ceremonial, individual situations). This however doesn’t preclude the possibility that some government somewhere in the future (at least hypothetically) does so. Based just on history, though, and not even considering psychology, I don’t think this’ll ever happen; but it’s at least IMAGINABLE. We can conceive of a government that asks consent from each and every member. It’s not a logical contradiction
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I don’t know about you, but I get sick and tired hearing about how the (unjust) wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are “protecting our freedoms.” It’s obvious to anyone who cares that those wars have nothing to do with our freedom, or our liberty, or our safety, except to endanger it. But what’s to keep those in your minimal state from defining what is good for you? They can always raise the specter of further “rights violations” if we don’t do X, whatever X is. You say “there’s no a priori why government officials can’t restrain themselves.” Yeah, I agree, it’s not a logical necessity that exists in all possible worlds; but that’s beside the point. You don’t get to pick the attributes of the members of your world and the say “Wallah! See, with a few minor adjustments, the minimal state DOES work. It IS better than anarchism.” If that were so, then all anyone would have to do is shift the cultural and philosophical attitudes to where they wanted them and ipso facto there ya have it, a perfect society. I agree however than any drastic change in government will be preceded by a shift in beliefs and attitudes, and there’s nothing wrong with specifying those beliefs best suited to whatever political configuration suits your fancy. But it certainly doesn’t win any arguments.
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Stephan Kinsella wrote:
“Because people like you, who focus on “results” and strategy and activism respond to our arguments against the immorality of state aggression by bringing up such irrelevancies as “but you haven’t shown how anarchy will ‘work’”. ”
Irrelevant? Not at all. If your version of libertarianism results in more of the aggression you are supposedly against, I fail to see how that can be irrelevant.
“Likewise, you think we are incorrect–but the burden is obviously on you to demonstrate that state aggression is libertarian and justifiable.”
Again, hardly. Since nothing like ancap has ever existed, the burden is “obviously” on you to prove that it could deliver something better than minarchism, at least if you want to convince those of us who are concerned about results.
“One way to minimize aggression is to refuse to commit or endorse it. Period.”
That’s really quite simplistic. If you were a pacifist you could just as well say that the fundamental political problem is not the initiation of force, but force, period. Then you would by that standard refuse to commit or endorse any force. Of course, if all decent people did so, it would only result in the slaughter or enslavement of all decent people by those who are not decent. That would result in more force, not less. It’s a self-defeating philosophy, at least if you are concerned about outcome in this world, instead of the state of your immortal soul in the next. In my opinion, you are basically doing the same thing, except not quite so obviously.
“Even if you believe that in some hypothetical dreamworld, a minimal state could exist…”
An anarcho-capitalist calling minarchism a hypothetical dreamworld?! That’s rich! We’ve certainly been closer to minarchism than we have ancap.
“…you have to admit that our state, and every state that exists, and every state that has ever existed, comes nowhere near this goal…”
But compared to what we have now, some states that have existed (earlier versions of the USA, for instance) were certainly a lot closer.
“…all states that exist, or have existed, or that we can expect to exist, are criminal, were criminal, and will be criminal-and unlibertarian.”
No, I don’t have to admit that all states that we can expect to exist will be criminal.
“As such, we libertarians are against the state.”
*sigh* As Reagan would have said, “There he goes again!” Saying that “we libertarians are against the state” implies that since I am for a (minimal) state, I am not a libertarian.
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I do think that anarcho-capitalism would be more detrimental to society than a minimal gov’t, but not for a fuzzy reason (at least it’s not fuzzy to me), but because I believe ancap would result in more rights violations. It has nothing to do with suffering in general, but with suffering caused by rights violations.
You have stated this position a couple of dozen times now, in various ways. You simply believe, hands down, that anarchism leads to more aggression in a society than people would experience under the rule of some (unspecified) state.
You have staked out this position, but not once have you told us where this belief comes from, what it rests on.
What is your reasoning that leads you to this conclusion?
What evidence do you have for this belief?
It strikes me as a belief that is impervious to reason and evidence. It appears that its origin is fear. It seems like anarchism is a situation that you have a hard time envisioning, in concrete detail, so you have filled in those missing details with a kind of Mad Max cartoonish scenario.
Why do you think that you can solve complex, long-term, dynamic, economic social problems through aggressive violence, like taking their money by force to fund state officials’ income, or requiring them to submit to their final “authority”?
Do you at least understand that the state is merely the term that is given to legitimized, regularized, institutionalized violence?
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Othyem wrote:
“You’re for limiting rights violations. Then let’s limit them all the way, i.e., insert a clause into your minarchist government requiring a form of explicit consent, and work out a formal system for punishing those who haven’t consented.”
Then we have the free rider problem again. If the state can’t fund itself, it probably could not ensure the minimal level of rights violations.
“But obviously let’s not forget about those rights violations that occur through forcing others under your form of government.”
I don’t forget that. I think the total level of rights violations would still be higher in ancap. Of course, I can’t prove that; it’s just a judgment call or intuition, whatever you want to call it.
Russ wrote:
“Voluntary charity, not socialism, can take care of this.”Otheym replied:
“Again, how do you know?”I don’t. And what’s more, I don’t really care. Suffering caused by rights violations is my only concern, as far as my political philosophy goes.
“Your minimization of rights violations is itself a principle.”
Whatever. What I mean is that I don’t care about legitimacy or justifying rights violations or a philosophy that consists of never condoning rights violations, when those things are separated from outcome.
“It’s obvious to anyone who cares that those wars have nothing to do with our freedom, or our liberty, or our safety, except to endanger it.”
This is debatable. A lot of people who do care do not agree at all. The idea is to prevent state-sponsored terrorism (the really dangerous kind with WMDs involved) by providing a “negative example” to those states that could do so. Assuming for sake of argument that a terrorist could set off a nuke in NYC, that would involve a huge level of rights violations, that would make years of war seem relatively paltry in comparison.
“But what’s to keep those in your minimal state from defining what is good for you?”
Not a whole lot. Humans are imperfect, and “Out of the crooked timber of humanity no straight thing was ever made”.
“I agree however than any drastic change in government will be preceded by a shift in beliefs and attitudes, and there’s nothing wrong with specifying those beliefs best suited to whatever political configuration suits your fancy. But it certainly doesn’t win any arguments.”
I think it’s better than Stephan’s strategy of completely ignoring outcomes, stubbornly saying that we must never condone aggression no matter what, and then saying that if this results in more aggression then so be it because at least this way we will be principled and have clear consciences while Rome burns. Most people do, as a matter of fact, care about outcomes. Defining a goal, and then exploring how it can be achieved, seems a lot more practical, especially when so many people have more or less the same goal.
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Magnus wrote:
“Why do you think that you can solve complex, long-term, dynamic, economic social problems through aggressive violence, like taking their money by force to fund state officials’ income, or requiring them to submit to their final “authority”?”
Because that’s the way that we have solved such problems for quite some time (all of recorded history, as far as I can tell), and despite the glaring imperfections of the system, it more or less works. It would obviously (to me) work better if we eliminated the more obvious imperfections, while keeping the basic idea.
“Do you at least understand that the state is merely the term that is given to legitimized, regularized, institutionalized violence?”
In a word, yes. “Government is not reason; it is not eloquence; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.” – George Washington
“It strikes me as a belief that is impervious to reason and evidence. It appears that its origin is fear. It seems like anarchism is a situation that you have a hard time envisioning, in concrete detail, so you have filled in those missing details with a kind of Mad Max cartoonish scenario.”
Well, considering how the planet Earth has never seen anything even remotely like ancap, it is a bit hard for me to envision in concrete detail, yes. I wouldn’t say my resistance is an imperviousness to evidence, since as far as I can tell, there is no evidence regarding ancap. None whatsoever. As for an imperviousness to reason, I like to flatter myself that that is not the case, but I confess I would prefer if the arguments were more convincing, involved actual evidence, and focused on outcome. I also confess that fear has something to do with it. Truth be told, my life under our current system is not all bad. Trying ancap would be the equivalent of risking all on one roll of the dice, when you don’t know what the odds are, and don’t really even know if the number you’re betting on is one of the possible rolls.
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@Russ: “Then we have the free rider problem again. If the state can’t fund itself, it probably could not ensure the minimal level of rights violations.”
Actually, no. I’m assuming you’re talking about a truly limited government in which it inherits its powers through the willful relinguishment of some of each individual member’s rights, and whose power does not exceed the rights of the aggregate. If the state of nature is as horrible as you imagine then there will be no shortage of people who desire to be under the state’s protection, and therefore there won’t be a shortage of funds for the state to function. I’m not against government, per se, because I believe–as do most libertarians–in the “right” to freely associate and enter into contracts with whomever one chooses, whether that be a labor union, or in this case a government. To solve this, just have, as part of becoming a citizen, a clearly defined set of laws, regulations, legal rights, tax rates, etc., and have people sign these contracts. If they should have a change of heart, they should be able to opt out. It seems to be, then, that the only problem, is finding out what to do with free-riders. Here we have a perfectly limited, minimal state defined however you want to define it, with the simple caveat that members entering must explicitly consent to give up a few of their rights for the enjoyment of the state’s services (e.g., law enforcement, etc.). Those who do not wish to enter into a contract with the government are free not to do so.
Let’s pause. If you recognize this scenario as one step slightly better than the clumsy approach of forcing everyone to follow your prescription of an ideal society by being force-fed government, then we’re making progress. In fact, that’s the whole point. You should always give people a choice, or else it’s slavery under another name. The only problem, and it’s a minor one at that, is the free-rider dilemma. What do you do with those individuals who don’t consent to be a part of the government? Surely, this can be solved, and if it can’t be entirely eradicated, then its prominence as a problem can be reduced. And in going this route, you’d have the added benefit of not violating the rights of those individuals who wouldn’t want to live under your minimal state.
Ya know, it’s not necessary to endorse anarcho-capitalism, or think that it’ll “work” for you to recognize the legitimacy in it. You say you don’t care about such things, but why the hell not? Voluntary consent is one of the most fundamental attributes of self-ownership. Sure, you have moral reasons for endorsing the state, but that has no bearing on legitimacy. If you recognize that it doesn’t, then you’re (somewhat of) an anarchist.
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Why, oh why, Othyem, should an immigrant arrive on U.S. shores and start telling the U.S. Federal Government they should disband because the immigrant doesn’t like this rule or that tax? Can I come onto your personal residence and tell you what I don’t like about this or that and raid your fridge while I’m at it? I haven’t signed any contracts with you.
Then again what if the common organisation in Anarchtopia are HOAs because large gated communities with full-time security guards roaming the private streets within the HOAs are the most secure form of private existence in Anarchtopia? That is to say, well you could start your own private sovereign farm and try to be self-sufficient but are quickly overrun by land pirates and because you’re in the middle of nowhere in particular, you have no one to cry to. What if the safest and most properous HOAs got to where they are through the Protestant Ethic and not marijuana-feuled hippie values? You could find yourself choosing between the lawless, crime-laden badlands or wealthy-gated HOAs city-states with prohibitive moral laws. Oops? Would things go full-circle?
August 24, 2009 at 3:13 am
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(I’m joining in this discussion late, so sorry if someone has already addressed this point..)
Gil,
You ask why “should an immigrant arrive on U.S. shores and start telling the U.S. Federal Government they should disband because the immigrant doesn’t like this rule or that tax? Can I come onto your personal residence and tell you what I don’t like about this or that and raid your fridge while I’m at it? I haven’t signed any contracts with you.”
But that is an invalid analogy because you ‘own’ your personal residence and the contents of your fridge and you can set the rules for visitors who wish to come into your home because you have (presumably) acquired these in a manner consistent with libertarian principles. In contrast, the U.S. government does *not* ‘own’ the entire geographical area that is currently under its jurisdiction because, as a state, it is in the institutional embodiment of the negation of libertarian principles.
That does not mean that an ‘immigrant’ who comes onto U.S. shores (as you can see the language itself is misleading as it implies the U.S. government has a legitimate claim to the territory) can start *acting* in contravention of any government rule they don’t like because many government laws are consistent with libertarian principles.
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Othyem wrote:
“Here we have a perfectly limited, minimal state defined however you want to define it, with the simple caveat that members entering must explicitly consent to give up a few of their rights for the enjoyment of the state’s services (e.g., law enforcement, etc.). Those who do not wish to enter into a contract with the government are free not to do so.”
I wouldn’t have a problem with that, so long as the free riders moved on along to some other country. For one, they *are* free riders, and are benefitting from the government’s protective services (even if they *say* they don’t want that) without paying their fair share. Second, the big problem I have with ancap is the idea of having multiple arbiters of last resort in a given geographical area. If those arbiters don’t play nice with each other, then you could have a big, bloody mess. And each free rider is essentially setting himself up as his own arbiter of last resort, unless he joins a PDA, in which case you still have the same problem.
“Ya know, it’s not necessary to endorse anarcho-capitalism, or think that it’ll “work” for you to recognize the legitimacy in it. You say you don’t care about such things, but why the hell not?”
In theory, ancap does sound good, I’ll admit. The only problem is, since there has never been a real ancap nation before, ancap is nothing *but* theory. Socialism sounded good in theory, too, to a lot of people, until they realized that it kills the golden goose. (Unfortunately, some people still haven’t realized this.) Anyway, if I’m right, and ancap does turn into a Mad Max nightmare, then what am I supposed to think? “Well, life sure does suck here in Ancapistan, but at least we don’t have an illegimate government, like the one we used to have that made life less sucky”? That seems a bit Panglossian to me.
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Stephan Kinsella wrote:
“I used to think this too, when I was a newb quasi-Randroid. Then I read some more and wised up.”
I looked at your link briefly, and as you might guess, I subscribe to the “Common view on freedom and government” in Figure 4, except in my preferred version the maximum of the curve would be closer to the origin.
I don’t think that reading more is the solution. I could read all day, and it would all be nothing but theory, since there is zero ancap experience. And you know what they say about theory and practice; in theory, theory works, but it practice it doesn’t. Besides, I have read all the major evangelism for ancap, as far as I am aware. In fact, I used to consider myself ancap. But in recent years I did some re-evaluation, and came to the conclusion that my previous belief that ancap would ‘work’ was simply due to a fervent desire that it would work. In other words, I succumbed to wishful thinking.
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Fuss,
“I subscribe to the “Common view on freedom and government” ”
And I susbscribe to the view of freedom VS government.
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The only problem is, since there has never been a real ancap nation before, ancap is nothing *but* theory.
Anarchy is all around us. It exists in every voluntary interaction you see every day. Anarchy is the defining characteristic of 95% of every situation and relationship in your life.
You are clinging to this fantasy that, by bullying people and stealing things in the 5% of life that is controlled by statist (i.e., violent) relationships, the state is somehow keeping the other 95% of life from turning into Mad Max.
Anarchy never goes away. It is a natural and inevitable result of the fact that humans are independent economic actors, and therefore capable of cooperating or competing with each other, as they see fit. Anarchy is the way human society works, even when one gang becomes so large that it suppresses most of the rival gangs and gets to call itself a “government.”
What you call the government is really just another gang. They are not official. They are not superior. They are just a mafia organization that has grown to be larger than other mafia organizations.
A more anarchic society that most Americans are somewhat familiar with is the American frontier, which eventually became limited to what we call the Old West. Several generations of Hollywood propaganda has distorted most people’s understanding of the American frontier, but for a brief time, people got away from the gangsters and the banksters and the government mob and its cronies.
If you do real research on it, you’ll find that it was far from a crazy, gun-slinging murder-fest. It was tremendous economic growth, and virtually no crime.
http://mises.org/journals/jls/3_1/3_1_2.pdf
http://mises.org/article.aspx?Id=1449
Compare the crime rate of the American frontier, over its 300-year history, to, for example, the so-called Civil War, which was a 100% government operation that killed 600,000 people.
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Russ,
It obviously takes more than reading, it appears that most words just bounce right off you. EVERYTHING that works is “anarchy”. The market is “anarchy”, you know, people behaving voluntarily to each others agreed mutual benefit. We can’t ever get too much of that. It works SO well in fact, that it is still able to keep us all aloft despite the ever growing and now mind-bendingly massive parasitical scam/incredibly naive complex of wishful thinking called “government”.
“Evangelism”
?!
And now you again talk of how socialism sounds good (THAT old saw!). I just watched the Quentin Tarantino fantasy which consists primarily of scenes where American and British agents behind German lines have lengthy conversations with Nazis and slowly give away clues of their non-Hun-ship. Something made me think of this, ha ha.
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Oops, I hadn’t realized that Brother Magnus had already given you a bit of the same Gospel.
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“And now you again talk of how socialism sounds good (THAT old saw!).”
My point was the a lot of otherwise intelligent people used to think that socialism sounds good.
I don’t really think it sounds that good, because I’m more concerned with having other people leave me alone than with guaranteed economic security (which is a false guarantee anyway). The only part of the socialist sales pitch that ever appealed to me was the part about nobody going hungry, or never having to live homeless out in the bitter cold, etc. But then I realized that capitalism is much more likely to solve these problems than socialism. And I realized that back in the 9th grade, when my social studies teacher (I actually had a good one) taught us what socialism is in theory, and what it is in practice, and how the theory and practice diverge.
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Brother Magnus wrote:
“Anarchy is all around us….”
Brother mpolzkill wrote:
“The market is “anarchy”…”
“Oops, I hadn’t realized that Brother Magnus had already given you a bit of the same Gospel.”
Not a problem. I’ll address both together.
The standard answer to this is, of course, that although the market is unplanned, the market is *not* anarchy, because the market depends upon the framework of law and order that the government provides, and could not function without said framework. Let’s say that government goes bye bye tomorrow. It might prove hard to conduct day to day business when the people who are no longer getting their welfare checks all decide to riot, and you can no longer get to your place of business. If your place of business were burning down in the riot, that could also put a crimp in your plans. Or if union workers who can no longer use the government to extort businesses decide to destroy your physical plant, that could affect the bottom line. Riots are bad for business. So are other things, like thieves, robbers, and vast hordes of rampaging Canadians (*grin*). That’s why we have government. Among its legitimate functions is protecting us from such unpleasantnesses.
Of course, you could respond that in ancap, PDAs will fill the legitimate role of government, without that nasty chemical after-taste. And that very well might be. Or it very well might not be. We have no way of knowing. All we do know is that no such system has ever evolved naturally, despite disputable claims that the early American West, or Viking Iceland, or tribal Ireland, were close. At any rate, I have no desire to live like a Viking or Irish tribesman, and the early American West evolved into the modern government-based American West as it grew, so I don’t think those models are appropriate for an ancap that could work in a hi-tech, high population density modern society.
The model I think is appropriate is the model that we currently live under, although of course it’s a “fixer-upper”. I guess it’s my conservative side that thinks that completely tearing down the framework of our society and rebuilding it from scratch, based on a political / philosophical system, might be a bit imprudent. The last time that was tried, based on the philosophy of Messrs Marx and Engels, it didn’t work out so well, if memory serves.
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So anything under visible spectrum can be broad cast, anything visible or over visible can only be cast inside the primises of the private property owner.
As long as you cast your red inside your own property or have the agreement of other property owners to cast it on theirs, you cannot broad cast red.
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BilyamQuite controversial, but as an option has the right to exist
Published: August 21, 2009 1:06 PM
You have well defined why I am not a libertarian.While it is true that a person has a superior claim to their body; this claim is not absolute in reality and in practicality.
I have a claim to my children’s bodies. …Wait! Oops, that didn’t sound right!….I have a responsibility to my children that gives me authority (a partial claim) over them. My claim over them is to protect them among other things from themselves lest they fail into real slavery. I might also need to protect one child from the ill effects of self imposed harm of another of my children.
Society has a claim as well. This claim is much less than the claim of the individual to himself, or the parent to child or spouse to spouse; but there is a claim. Society is harmed by individuals who enslave themselves. (Narcotics for example).Is it Libertarian to allow the personal ingestion of Narcotics and the sale of Narcotics?
The sale of Narcotics is an invasion of the buyers right to freedom. I know that you know that but does the buyer/user know that?I also agree with Stephan that a firm, precise and complete acceptance of the libertarian philosophy leads to anarchy.
The problem SweetLiberty has is that he does not buy the libertarian philosophy without limits. He is both practical and prudent.
Libertarian principles, just like communist principles, lead to disaster when all other considerations are rejected.
Libertarian principles are good but they are not absolute and must be subordinate at times to other claims.
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Libertarian principles are good but they are not absolute and must be subordinate at times to other claims.”You are claiming that both poles are “extremes” out of wich nothing good can outcome.So if freedom is bad and totalitarianism is bad, how can there be a “just” middle between two wrongs ?If getting closer to libertarianism or closer to totalitarianism is wrong, how can moving in the “middle” be any “better” ?By moving away from libertarianism, you are moving towards totalitarianism, by moving away from totalitarianism you are moving towards libertarianism.
By your own criteria, disaster will happen no matter what we do.
It is my understanding that the best path to avoid disaster is to move as close to libertarianism as possible and as far from totalitarianism as possible.
And my view is that the “centrist” and those looking for a “just” “middle” are in fact the worse kind, because they favor some level of government intervention in everything.
If rightists want government intervention in social and moral affairs, they want none in economics affairs (in theory), if leftists want government intervention in economics affairs, they want none in social and moral affairs (in theory).
But centrists want some interventions in social, moral and economic affairs. It turns out that centrists are the ones who drive government growth the most.
Those “moderates” are the ones who inflate government the most.
I think that the libertarian stand, no government intervention whatsoever, is the best.
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Freedom is supported by some prohibitions/ restrictions.
I did say that libertarian ideas are good and I did not say:
“freedom is bad”
What is bad is using Libertarian ideals without any consideration of community.Community and solidarity are good.
Liberty and subsidierity are good.Chuck out either one and you have bad. And, I have not thought it thru, but I would bet libertarianism taken to the extreme would lead to totalitarianism.I speculate that western Europe have focused much to much on community to the exclusion of the property rights of individuals.In the USA often it boils down to how can I get the most right to property being Democrat or Republican and the debate we have is not even much considered.
Published: August 21, 2009 2:31 PM
You cannot force solidarity.
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Less… when compared by weight, or volume?
“Sorry, but Stephan Kinsella alone does not get to define “what libertarianism is”.”
Wrong. I homesteaded it. 🙂
Published: August 21, 2009 3:05 PM
And, you are right that solidarity cannot be imposed on another. At least the virtue of solidarity.
However, it is solidarity that drives the community to outlaw murder, slavery, breaking of contract or fraud. It is solidarity that drives the community to establish a civil justice system for the redress of wrongs.
Justice requires that laws are applied equally to all without prejudice.
Put these two things together and you have coercive laws that are applied to all to protect each others freedom.
Note: I have not said a word about transfer payments. I am refuting the concept of Libertarian ideal being good proposed by Stephan Kinsella and am not defending the welfare state.
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It’s nothing. Mere child’s play. Just a level 2 boomerang principle (see n. 32 of my Punishment and Proportionality).
Joshua Park:
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“Isn’t it instead that libertarians oppose initiation of aggression ? It’s not the aggression but the initiation of it that libertarians oppose.”No. Aggression means initiated force. To say initiated aggression is redundant, like saying unjustified taxation or bad murder.
Published: August 21, 2009 5:15 PM
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Liberty, or freedom… from what? From the initiation of force–from aggression. Not, say, freedom from want, right? So “liberty” is meaningless without reference to aggression.
If you believe aggression–the initiation of force, the invasion of the bodies of, innocent people–you are not libertarian, to that extent. Sorry.
It is perfectly fine with me if you oppose aggression for consequentialist reasons. Your reasons are not what is at issue: it is whether or not you oppose aggression, not the reason you have for your views.
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I am not sure what you mean by “voluntarism” or “voluntary consent.” It only makes sense to me if it implies property rights. After all, consent, or permission, implies the right to withold consent, or permission–and this consent is necessarily pertaining to a user of a particular scarce resource that some other person wants to use, and that you apparently have the right to withhold or grant consent for. I.e., that you have ownership of–property rights in.
So you seem to be talking about property rights but insisting on using idiosyncratic language to describe it and eschewing perfectly good terms like property rights.
If “voluntarism” means something other than property rights, then it is not libertarian.
In short, my argument is that only X satisfies the “goals of peace, cooperation, and conflict-avoidance.” And X means assigning exclusive rights to control in a universalizable control. The word to describe this right to conttrol is “property right”.
Published: August 22, 2009 3:56 PM
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Well, I am against aggression just as you are (presumably) against rape. All aggression is wrong as all rape is wrong. Preferably there would be no aggression, and no rape. But just as 1 rape is not as bad as 100, a small amount of aggression is less undesirable than a large amount.
Well I believe the most worrisome aggression is institutionalized aggression. If you achieve anarchy that means you have abolished the source of public aggression. All that is left is a relatively small degree of private crime (relatively small for a number of reasons: first, to achieve anarchy, the ideas of liberty would have to be widespread; second, society b/c of the greater free market would be immensely wealthier, thus reducing the need for crime, and increasing the means at the disposal of civilized people to spend on security to stave off whatever crime is left).
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and The Definition and Scope of Libertarianism.
Published: August 23, 2009 2:39 PM
Do states keep crime down now? No; they make it worse (think of the fallout of drug prohibition alone); and add to it with their own (think: war, jails, taxes).
So?
Aaaand, then we are left with another state. How is that worse?
Are states?
I believe it probably would be but this is not why I’m an anarchist nor is this view essential to my being an anarchist. I’m an anarchist for exactly the reasons I said, and I apologize for being precise and clear and not maundering or using fuzzy, loosey-goosey language. I would not endorse aggression even if it was to stop other aggression. I have, you know, principles. I’m against aggression because it’s wrong. I would not rape or condone a rape, even if I thought it would stop other rapes. Sometimes you have to take a stand, y’know?
Not sure. I don’t think the hypo is specified in enough detail (nor could it be), nor that it avoids all problematic assumptions, to allow an answer. It’s easier to be guided by principle than to pick everything apart in an attempt to justify compromise and ad hocery.
Published: August 23, 2009 2:45 PM
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It’s not ad hominem at all. I’m an anarcho-libertarian. I criticize your pro-aggression views.
“Did just fine”?! Who did? What about the people whose rights were infringed by said criminal states? did they “do just fine”?
Why in the world would you believe this?
Published: August 23, 2009 3:22 PM
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“I think that, in politics, the goal should be, at least in principle, reachable. I believe a minimal government is reachable, at least in principle.”Stephan replied:
“Why in the world would you believe this?”Well, first, we now live under a government that monopolizes certain functions, so we know this model “works” for a sufficiently small definition of “works”. We haven’t fallen into a complete Hobbesian war of man against man, or even a case of small warlords fighting each other for power and killing off all the little people in the process. The center still holds; not all has fallen apart; at least not yet.Second, we used to live under an even smaller government than at present, which arguably “worked” better than the one we have now, so I see no reason why the government couldn’t be made smaller and better again. It’s possible in the future because it was possible in the past.Last, there’s no a priori reason why government officials couldn’t restrain themselves from violating rights where it’s not absolutely necessary. Granted, it would take a serious cultural shift, where voters and politicians would take freedom seriously, and probably a reorganization of government, such as returning to some serious sort of federalism instead of nationalism that’s called federalism. That may indeed be unrealistic, but it still seems less unrealistic than visions of Ancapistan. (This may be why you favor a “principled” anarcho-libertarianism, where impossibility doesn’t matter; because you know in your heart of hearts that any vision of Ancapistan is completely unrealistic.)
Published: August 23, 2009 4:46 PM
-ist = advocate
state advocate = you.You may not be up for it, but don’t you want your flavour of minarchists to seize control of state power? You don’t prefer the gang holding it now, to be sure. You think it’s possible for your gang to take the reins or else you wouldn’t advocate the State, right? Or you just like being “realistic”?Couple other questions on what you just said: weren’t the abolitionists of the 19th century considered to be at least as nutty as “Utopianists”?You also said: “But a minimal state would not prohibit voluntary acts, else it wouldn’t be a minimal state.”This minimal state you envision; it (with Mises) would observe the right to seceed, down to the level of the individual? If so, THAT sounds downright “Utopian”.(Thanks for the dialogue, jests & civility, very fun.)
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Because people like you, who focus on “results” and strategy and activism respond to our arguments against the immorality of state aggression by bringing up such irrelevancies as “but you haven’t shown how anarchy will ‘work'”. If your kind didn’t bring up such disingenous charges, there would be no need to reject them.
Libertarians include both anarcho- and minarchist libertarians. Sure. But we anarcho-libertarians believe our libertarian principles imply that all crime, all aggression, is wrong–including state aggression. Thus we think you minarchists have it 98% right, but you are not quite there.
Likewise, you think we are incorrect–but the burden is obviously on you to demonstrate that state aggression is libertarian and justifiable.
I do think that anarcho-capitalism would be more detrimental to society than a minimal gov’t, but not for a fuzzy reason (at least it’s not fuzzy to me), but because I believe ancap would result in more rights violations. It has nothing to do with suffering in general, but with suffering caused by rights violations. There will always be suffering, and if I cared about minimizing suffering in general I would probably be a socialist. In fact, I think a hell of a lot of suffering is self-inflicted, and that’s a problem for the sufferer to deal with himself. Other suffering is not inflicted by anyone in particular, but simply due to bad luck or inability to compete. Voluntary charity, not socialism, can take care of this.
One way to minimize aggression is to refuse to commit or endorse it. Period.
Even if you believe that in some hypothetical dreamworld, a minimal state could exist that would do this, you have to admit that our state, and every state that exists, and every state that has ever existed, comes nowhere near this goal — all states that exist, or have existed, or that we can expect to exist, are criminal, were criminal, and will be criminal–and unlibertarian. As such, we libertarians are against the state.
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No, I don’t have to admit that all states that we can expect to exist will be criminal.
“As such, we libertarians are against the state.”
*sigh* As Reagan would have said, “There he goes again!” Saying that “we libertarians are against the state” implies that since I am for a (minimal) state, I am not a libertarian.
Published: August 23, 2009 10:09 PM
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“Voluntary charity, not socialism, can take care of this.”Otheym replied:
“Again, how do you know?”I don’t. And what’s more, I don’t really care. Suffering caused by rights violations is my only concern, as far as my political philosophy goes.”Your minimization of rights violations is itself a principle.”Whatever. What I mean is that I don’t care about legitimacy or justifying rights violations or a philosophy that consists of never condoning rights violations, when those things are separated from outcome.”It’s obvious to anyone who cares that those wars have nothing to do with our freedom, or our liberty, or our safety, except to endanger it.”This is debatable. A lot of people who do care do not agree at all. The idea is to prevent state-sponsored terrorism (the really dangerous kind with WMDs involved) by providing a “negative example” to those states that could do so. Assuming for sake of argument that a terrorist could set off a nuke in NYC, that would involve a huge level of rights violations, that would make years of war seem relatively paltry in comparison.
“But what’s to keep those in your minimal state from defining what is good for you?”
Not a whole lot. Humans are imperfect, and “Out of the crooked timber of humanity no straight thing was ever made”.
“I agree however than any drastic change in government will be preceded by a shift in beliefs and attitudes, and there’s nothing wrong with specifying those beliefs best suited to whatever political configuration suits your fancy. But it certainly doesn’t win any arguments.”
I think it’s better than Stephan’s strategy of completely ignoring outcomes, stubbornly saying that we must never condone aggression no matter what, and then saying that if this results in more aggression then so be it because at least this way we will be principled and have clear consciences while Rome burns. Most people do, as a matter of fact, care about outcomes. Defining a goal, and then exploring how it can be achieved, seems a lot more practical, especially when so many people have more or less the same goal.
Published: August 23, 2009 10:38 PM
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I used to think this too, when I was a newb quasi-Randroid. Then I read some more and wised up.
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That’s the dynamic that produced the modern welfare-warfare state. The two sides play off each other, in a symbiotic dance. Side A wants to use state violence to achieve X, and Side B wants state violence to achieve Y. So, each side gives a little to get a little, and you end up with Side A agreeing to Side B’s demands, and vice versa.
It’s a game that’s as old as the hills. It was going on in ancient Rome. Bastiat complained about the two halves of the French Assembly dividing up the wealth of the population in the 1850s.
It’s a complete fantasy to think that these people who call themselves the state are going to just walk away from all that power. It’s absurd. You could more easily walk into your local hang-out of La Cosa Nostra, the Russian Mob, the Triads, or MS13, and explain to them, in a carefully-crafted logical argument, how they really ought to be in the business of providing blankets and shoes and food to orphans. Try joining one of those organizations and reforming it from within. It’s ridiculous.
I have no illusions that the idea of the state will go away just because anarchism is the truth, preferable, or economically advantageous. It’s a criminal enterprise, and so the people who populate it are not susceptible to pleas that they stop being criminal.
The state will collapse, of course, allowing normal, peaceful, anarchic relationships to more fully flourish, but not because anarchists say so. It will collapse because states all collapse, and for the same reasons — the parasite eventually kills its host.
Published: August 24, 2009 11:09 AM
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“”Conservative side”, yep, thanks for showing it so clearly in public.”
Not a problem. I don’t see a problem with having a “conservative side”, if that means having a sense of prudence, and thinking that throwing the baby out with the bathwater is wasteful.
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As M.A. Clem just said, we’re looking bad here, not getting anywhere, it’s embarrassing.I love classical liberalism, recommend it to those who have an emotional need for a master as the only tolerable statism there is; but if you haven’t noticed, classical liberalism, after bringing us most everything good about the modern world, died a whimpering death. Why not work on and call for something now that’s even greater than Classical Liberalism? And why would your weak sauce ever appeal to many?
Published: August 24, 2009 12:22 PM
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True. I was too loose. I meant I don’t care why he opposes aggression, so long as he does.
Though I disliked Stephan’s use of the word “despise” earlier, overall I think his tone has been unexceptional (despite your frequent complaints of name-calling), and it is clear that he has proved that he is right and you are wrong.
Yes, that was a bit overboard by me; I didn’t take the time to subtly distinguish between criminals, outright statists, and imperfect libertarians.
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