Anarchism Is Not Panstatism/Polystatism

Saturday, February 21, 2009

I've recently run into some major trouble with some people who seem to be interpreting anarchist pluralism or anarchism without adjectives to mean a total open-endedness that allows one to establish whatever sort of system or organization they prefer, regaurdless of the content of that preference or its compatability with any particular principle of justice. In other words, these people are trying to completely divorce anarchism from any unifying or fundamental principles, and are redefining it to mean the same thing as polyarchy. Even on an etymological level, one should be able to see the difference between anarchy (no rulers) and polyarchy (multiple rulers). While anarchism without adjectives might have the appearance of being structured as a polyarchy, it isn't polyarchy in and of itself due to a lack of institutional rulership.

As far as I understand it, anarchism without adjectives is not completely open-ended, it is based on the context of anarchism. It'sanarchism without adjectives, not anything without adjectives. It has preconditions or qualifiers, particularly at least a basic fundamental understanding or agreement as to what distinguishes voluntary interaction or organization from rulership, or a basic understanding of what distinguishes initiation from defense. Otherwise, anyone can claim that any particular authoritarian preference they have is defacto compatible with anarchism, and anarchism is more or less redefined out of existance. Anarchist pluralism is pluralism contextual to voluntary interaction, not a completely open-ended hodge-podge of whatever people happen to like. Anarchist emergence is emergence contextual to voluntary interaction, not a broader sense of emergence as in "whatever occurs over the course of history".

To be sure, polycentric order is an aspect of anarchism, or the two can overlap. However, anarchism as such should not be conflated with polycentric order per se. Technically, one could have a polycentric order, and internal to each organization things are highly authoritarian. So while decentralization is an important aspect of anarchism, it is a necessary but not sufficientelement of it. Decentralization for decentralization's sake, without regaurd for the actual qualatative content of a given association, is nonsensical and suicidal. This is part of the problem with things such as "state's rights", for while it may be a useful tool against federal governments, it may also be a tool for empowering more local authorities. On one hand, this problem is due to there not being enough decentralization (decentralization ends at individual choice), and on the other hand, this problem represents a lack of any coherant principles or basic concept of justice.

The preferential nature of anarchism without adjectives is not completely open-ended. It means that one can follow their preferences with regaurd to what affects them, but they cannot enforce their preferences on innocent bystanders or unconsenting 3rd parties of people. The basic principle is supposed to mutually apply, I.E. I cannot rule you and you cannot rule me. Anarchism without adjectives does not mean that just because things are more decentralized or on a more local level, it's suddenly okay to rule people. Neither does it mean that the meaning of rulership is completely open-ended and can be redefinined by anyone as they please in order to justify their preferences or the unilateral enforcement thereof. This error seems to be thin libertarianism on speed, which results in no libertarianism at all.

Using such an approach, one can redefine their preference for a particular kind of state or rulership to superficially appearcompatible with anarchism, by blurring the definition of anarchism and voluntarism and rulership and force, and by displaying a superficial pluralism. At such a point, one is likely engaging in obscurantism and using anarchism as a sugar-coating or tool for their more fundamental and esoteric ideology (in the case of "national anarchism", this is clearly generally being done with respect to white nationalism). Why be an anarchist in the first place if there is no real difference between your "anarchism" and a particular proposal for a state? This is counter-intuitive if not deceptive, to say the least.

Of course, different anarchists can have pragmatic differences and different preferances for how they'd prefer to voluntarily organize or what purely personal values they would like to voluntarily pursue. But these differences are reconciled under a general umbrella of anarchism without adjectives, which involves at least a basic consensus with regaurd to non-rulership and "live and let live". This also tends to imply a degree of federation between anarchists; complete isolation or atomism is clearly not desirable. The differences, when in the context of anarchism without adjectives, are not really primary ethical differances. The basic ethical norm of personal sovereignty and the non-rulership that follows from it is supposed to be what unifies anarchists, and provides the proper context for anarchism without adjectives.

Posted by Brainpolice at 3:03 PM 

Labels: Anarchism, Anrchism Without Adjectives, Justice, Pluralism, Political Theory, Polycentrism

Objectivism and War

Saturday, May 31, 2008

[cross-posted at Brainpolice at The Mises Community]

So the other day an Objectivist wrote this gem at their blog:

"On this Memorial Day, I would like to honor the three men of the American Civil War who understood the terrible need for total war: President Abraham Lincoln, General Ulysses S. Grant, and General William T. Sherman. Their vigorous prosecution of the war preserved the Union, the very first nation founded on the principles of individual rights -- and, at the time, the only such nation. In so doing, they ended the most loathsome violation of rights ever known to man: chattel slavery. Without them, without the brave Union soldiers who fought under them, America would not exist today.*So thank you, Mssrs. Lincoln, Grant, and Sherman. We are forever in your debt."

While a properly revised view of the so-called "civil war" renders this view highly absurd (since the civil war was not primarily fought over slavery so much as tariffs and secession, the war was essentially a case of the government attacking its own civilian population, Lincoln was a racist who more or less supported slavery and advocated deporting freed slaves back to Africa, Lincoln eggregiously violated the personal rights of both northerners and southerners alike in the process of executing the war, etc.) my concern is more broadly with what has unfortunately become the cliche objectivist view of warfare. Reading the commentary on this blog post by some of the objectivists is illuminating and disturbing.

Objectivists tend to blur the distinction between genuine defensive force and pre-emptive force or outright blatant initiations of force. They view outright invasions of territories as justified acts of "defense" or "retaliation". Due to this warped view of the legitimacy of force, many Objectivists not only legitimize the bulk of wars in America history, they also legitimize our current wars and call for further foreign interventions in places like Iran and Venezuela. This is absolute lunacy! Objectivists have apparently soaked up neoconservative premises with respect to foreign policy. And they have the pompous audacity to do so in the name of "reason", "objectivity", "individualism". Unfortunately, what they are really doing is diving head first into a sea of irrationalism and collectivism.

Objectivists assert that a tyrannical government loses its rights or legitimacy (which is true enough at face value, although all governments are tyrannical and illegitimate in my definition) and conclude that they may be "retaliated" against. From the standpoint of the people tyrannized over by the government, I agree that they can rightfully retaliate against their own government. The problem is that the objectivists draw insane conclusions from a seemingly true premise, as they seem to think that if a foreign government is "tyrannical", this justifies other governments not only "retaliating" against them but invading entire foreign territories and waging total war against not only the foreign governments but the civilian populations. This is an absurd justification for initiating force against innocent bystanders. It also opens up a subjective can of worms in which different governments are treated as being better or worse relative to eachother, and legitimizing otherwise illegitimate governments in the process.

Apparently objectivists have no qualms whatsoever with targeting entire civilian populations. They rationalize this by essentially saying that those within the "country" of the "bad guys" bear moral responsibility for what their government does. This is a blatantly collectivist viewpoint. Someone who just so happens to be born within the territory of a tyrannical government is not responsible for what some powerful men in an ivory tower do. Punishing people for the crimes of others is not justice, it's a monstrous injustice. Blaming and exercising force on entire populations within a territory for the actions of their governments, which they essentially have no control over, is collective guilt. Objectivists are supposed to be the ultimate opponents of collectivism, yet when it comes to foreign policy they appear to be die-hard collectivists, treating entire "nations" as bearing responsibility for the actions of a few powerful men within them. In the objectivist paradime, innocent bystanders can legitimately be murdered in the crossfire of conflicts between governments.

What is the objectivist response to libertarian criticisms of their highly disingenous pro-war views? They straw man libertarians as being pacifists. This is intellectually dishonest. Now, it is true that a libertarian can be a pacifist, but if one is intellectually honest it should be rather clear that what libertarians fundamentally oppose is not all force but the initiation of force and consequentially most libertarians are not pacifists. Most libertarians fully advocate self-defense. The problem is that what objectivists advocate is not self-defense but pre-emptive force and outright initiations of aggression. The accusation that libertarians advocate just sitting there and allowing oneself to be aggressed against by foreign entities is absurd. At least from the standpoint of the average America, they haven't been aggressed against by any foreign people. The objectivist view is totally warped, as it is the America government that is aggressing against the average people within foreign territories. It is precisely those people, the people the objectivists favor attacking, who have the moral right of self-defense.

It is interesting how objectivist premises that are correct in and of themselves at face value can be turned around to critisize objectivists, since objectivism as a political doctrine contradicts its own ethical theory in many ways. What immediately comes to mind is their criticism of altruism, which I more or less agree with myself. It is my contention that objectivists hold an altruistic view of the military. That is, they seem to buy into the nationalistic premise that soldiers (particularly ones from your own country) are virtuous and sacrifice themselves for the sake of our freedom. In this view, our freedom depends on the sacrifices of allegedly brave men in the military and in the state apparatus. In my understanding, the objectivist view of warfare and foreign policy actually contradicts rational egoism, properly understood.

Another contradiction is between the objectivist ideal of government and what they support with respect to currently existing governments. One of the more admirable traits of the objectivist political doctrine is that it is opposed to taxation. Yet the stance of objectivists on currently existing issues fully support making use of tax-funded government institutions like the military. How can people who proclaim that taxation is evil out of one side of their mouths simultaneously claim that tax-funded institutions are legitimate and advocate that they take particular policies? If objectivists were consistant, they would advocate the liberty of anti-war people to refuse to pay for their wars.

But while objectivism is supposed to be about objectivity and reason, consistancy is not a word that describes its political doctrine. The word hypocrisy describes it much better.

I'm not Anti American.

[cross posted from anarchyisnotchaos]

It's actually been some time since I last heard this thrown at me in the electronic world, but I get it a lot in the meat world. To me, it always seemed obvious, but I guess I better illustrate.

I've been called anti American for some time by many and various people. Even before I styled myself an anarchist. 

It's not true, people. Since I'm putting this on both AINC and polycentric order, I know an international audience will read this. But I'm aiming it primarily at my fellow Americans, for two reasons. 

One, my observation has been that foreigners understand that when I refer to America's actions and denounce them, I am speaking primarily about The United States of America. That would be the foreign sovereign ruling over what purports to be fifty independent states in cooperation. That all ended a long time ago. 1913, to be precise. 

And Two, Americans need it more. A great many of my countrymen do not understand the difference between America and the United States of America. 

America is a place. It's a label on a map describing, primarily to the english speaking world, the northern hemisphere of what was once called the "new world". Both Canada and the United States. It also describes South and Central America, but not so much culturally.

It can also refer to the ideals of it's settlers, or at least a significant amount of them. For instance, the idea that the common citizen should have a say in the affairs of state. Democracy wasn't spawned here, contrary to what a LOT of Americans think, but it did spread itself farther than at any other time in history. The twentieth Century was the Century of Democracy. 

Yet Democracy is a failure. It was recognized as such by the founders. Even, reluctantly, by Thomas Jefferson. So they put it as PART of the system. A republic. Representative democracy to elect the rulers. And a means of ousting them. All states were to retain their sovereignty, relinquishing some rights and privileges as a price of membership. But as Sovereign States, they always had the right to seceed. This was never questioned during that period. Later, the Federal Government waged war on thirteen States that exercised that right, thus settling the question. Not by reason, or right, Nor treaty or any consideration for the legitimate (relatively) bounds of the Constitution. By Force of Arms it was established that the Union is not to be broken.

But it wouldn't be truly established until 1913, with the passage of the seventeenth amendment. The sixteenth was also passed that year (sorta, it wasn't properly ratified until somewhat later). But the seventeenth was the end of the Republican Form of government "guaranteed" by the Federal Constitution. The seventeenth, without ever directly declaring it, announced that the States were no longer sovereign. And removed what was probably the greatest of the original checks and balances. 

The seventeenth Amendment eliminated the Senate in all but name. The function of the Senate was to be the representatives of the individual state governments. How they were chosen, prior to the seventeenth, was as the State Government chose. No uniform standard actually existed between states, because that was the POINT!!! The Senate represented the corporate entity of the state.

The House of Representatives were the representatives of the People at large, proportionate to population. Elected by direct democracy. Exactly the same function the Senate now serves. Clever, eh? They never SAY the states are no longer relevant and therefore no longer represented, but the States no longer have control of who represents them. Instead, Senators are now elected by direct democracy.

All of this and much more has been done deliberately, maliciously, and deceitfully by the United States of America. I hate them with every fibre of my being. Those sons of bitches have defiled my country and turned it into a wasteland of stagnation and low expectations. Basically because they got away with it. Even though I know it's not true, I still think of ALL politicians and Federal bureaucrats as deliberately evil. But it's not true. Some of them are accidentally evil. And they're worse!

They have polluted indiscriminately. I don't see this as the kind of "life and death right now" issue that the environmentalists do, but I still don't see the point of shitting where you eat once you learn not to. But worse, worst, they have polluted our minds and ideals. The American Dream used to be liberty. Now, it's a house you can't afford in a kingdom you don't want.

American Culture is partially to blame for this, though we've been led. I've been all over the country, and most Americans seem to be really REALLY naive about the world around them. Much more than people from the UK and Australia, at least. Our Media is pure garbage. Half of what they say is either untrue or misleading, and the other half is useless information about useless people in a couple of cities. Americans think of themselves as moral people, for the most part, and don't want to believe that The United States of America has committed and is committing grossly immoral acts from ANY philosophy except, possibly, some forms of nihilism. 

They are blinkered. Because the government has relentlessly pounded home the idea that WE are the United States of America. This has made people feel personally responsible and simultaneously helpless as they believe that the actions taken by the state are necessary, and that we chose them. 

It's completely false. Even in it's conceptual language, the government makes itself clearly separate from the people. Just like all other governments. It is a ruling institution over a certain geographic area. The American Government was supposed to be ANSWERABLE to the people. Not part of them. They are supposed to be our employees, and they are supposed to follow the book. They are and do neither. 

Unless somebody reading this is a legislator, I think it safe to say you've never passed a law in your life, nor had ANY INPUT AT ALL in the process other than choosing your overlord. Even then, the lesser overlords given the current state of Imperia... I mean, Presidential power. 

And while we're on the subject, if you're fool enough to think you can reform the government via elections, STOP FUCKING WORRYING ABOUT THE PRESIDENTIAL RACE!!! "We the People" do NOT elect the President. I don't personally elect anybody, because I'm an anarchist and absolutelyHATE the government. But if you wanna play, and have any effect, negative or positive, worry about who you can actually elect. They threw you two branches. 

Now, these are the kinds of things I say to you who say I hate America. Horseshit. You're ignoring the argument and committing an ad hominem. Whether I hate America or love it with all my heart has absolutely nothing to do with the arguments I've presented against it's rulers. 

I was born in America, in the Occupied Territory of Washington. I've travelled all of the west, most of the north and a fair bit of the south. Some of it is magnificent. Some is plain. Some, like Pittsburgh, is a blight on the planet. All in all, it's my home. I love America. I hate it's rulers, and I am disgusted with how easily we were led into an Empire. 

Our rulers have been immensely successful in reversing every gain the founders aimed for or were argued into agreeing with. We have become horribly entangled in foreign alliances, grievances, and petty wars. Our rulers tax us outrageously, even if you are fool enough to think that Tax is not an outrage to begin with. They deliberately debase our currency. They divide man against man and nation against nation with malice aforethought. They tell us what we may or may not ingest. What risks we may or may not take. What kinds of property we may own, and under what circumstances. What we may accept in trade, and how we do so. Who we love. Who we associate with. Who we fuck. Everything. To paraphrase Ayn Rand, they have made so many rules with so many variations that you cannot live and not be in violation of the law. This is very deliberate. This allows them to hold you accountable IN YOUR OWN MIND to them. Because we all concede that Criminal Acts are, well, Criminal. They have fashioned us all criminals. Thus, we are all liable to the "justice system" at a time and place of their choosing. 

But they "forgot" to tell you something. 

We outnumber them. By really a lot. 

If you love America as your home, and want to keep it a place worth calling home, then you need rid of the parasite that rules you from the swamp nobody wanted on the east coast. The foreign nation called The United States of America. Then, maybe, we can be great as a people again.

Monday, May 26, 2008

Left-Libertarianism

[cross-posted at Brainpolice at The Mises Community]

I consider myself a left-libertarian. To avoid any confusion over what this may imply, I fully support private property, voluntary exchange, money, rent, employment, and so on (or more strictly speaking, I don't advocate their abolition). And I completely oppose the state. I advocate a free market in everything, from clothing and shelter to defense and arbitration. I have a dislike for people like Noam Chomsky, who I feel is largely economically illiterate and confused. I'm not a marxist or a communist or a syndicalist. Some may therefore be thinking, "so what's so 'left' about it? what differentiates you from 'right' libertarians? you sound like any other anarcho-capitalist to me!". I'd like to explain myself in order to make it clear that there is a very real distinction to be made.

Firstly, it is worth exploring how one views power in general. All libertarians, particularly market anarchists, oppose the power of the state. A lot of emphasis is placed on the power of the state and how it effects society. However, in my understanding, while the left-libertarian joins their comrades in opposing the state, they oppose the concentration of power and centralization in general. This includes the concentration or centralization of so-called "private power". While cookie-cutter anarcho-capitalists make brilliant arguments against state power, they tend to specialize so much in doing so that they may neglect the problems with the concentration of "private" power. Their libertarianism is "thin" in the sense that it is restricted to anti-statism.

The cookie-cutter anarcho-capitalist often seems to act as if whatever is "private" is legitimate in all respects. It's almost as if the principles somehow magically don't apply when we are dealing with non-state organizations. But to use a simple example, a gang or mafia may be "private" but it certainly is not legitimate. The left-libertarian views matters more broadly, that is, they apply libertarian principles not only to delegitimize the state but also to any other group of "private" people who violate rights. The left-libertarian's libertarianism is "thick" in the sense that it is more than just a matter of anti-statism, it is more broadly a matter of anti-authoritarianism and anti-centralization. The left-libertarian may additionally oppose corporations, extremely large buisinesses and possibly even organized religion. The left-libertarian sees no good reason why buisinesses should be centralized.

Karl Hess once described "the right" as supporting the concentration of power into the fewest hands possible, while in contrast "the left" stands for spreading it about as much as possible in an equilibrium. "The left" implies "equality of authority" in which everyone's freedom is limited by the like freedom of everyone else - a mere restatement of the non-aggression principle. Using this analysis, right-libertarians are to "the left" to the extent that they oppose the concentration of power in the hands of the state, but they nonetheless are still to "the right" to the extent that they still support private concentrations of power. While the right-libertarian may be consistantly anti-state, they are not consistantly opposed to the concentration of power. They may even fully endorse "private" concentrations of power and portray such organizations as victims of the state.

In short, the right-libertarian or cookie-cutter anarcho-capitalist, while they are likely fully aware and informed of the fact that we don't currently live in a free market or free society, functions as a "vulgar libertarian". What this means is that they function as apologists for big buisiness, corporations and currently existing conditions or property titles. They use free market theories or analysis to legitimize conditions and organizations that came about in a non-free market. They tend to cling to a worldview in which "big buisiness is America's most persecuted minority", as Ayn Rand once stated. They still tend to think of state intervention as somehow being inherently anti-buisiness, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. The right-libertarian is essentially pro-buisiness more or less across the board without proper consideration for context. The left-libertarian calls them out on this.

Another difference between the left-libertarian and the right-libertarian is over what they think society will be like in the absence of the state. Cookie-cutter anarcho-capitalists essentially envision a society more or less identifical to currently existing society but without the state. But the left-libertarian sees much more broad implications that would seem to radically alter the organizational structure of a society. The left-libertarian does not think that the results of a free market would mirror current economic conditions by any stretch of the imagination. Left-libertarians may tend to think that free competition would function as a check on the general size of economic organizations, and therefore draconian large buisinesses simply couldn't survive or exist. They may also be tolerant of or more open to possible "socialistic" experiments within a free market, or advocate a signficant increase in self-employment over standard wage-employment.

The difference between the two sides can also be thought of in terms of how one's position relates to the traditions of the anti-authoritarian left, or how one views their own position in relation to it. It's partially a matter of historical context and the political spectrum. Right-libertarians buy into the cliche that socialism is inherently a statist/political system, while left-libertarians aknowledge the existance and possibility of voluntary or anarchistic socialism (in short, all they're really doing is taking an anarchist without adjectives approach). To the right-libertarian, all socialist forms of organization are inherently violent or political systems - all socialism is state-socialism. To the left-libertarian, there is a distinction to be made between state-socialism and genuinely libertarian socialism. The left-libertarian has a much greater degree of tolerance for "socialistic" forms of organization so long as they are voluntary, while the right-libertarian considers all "socialistic" forms of organization to be inherently involuntary.

There's a major difference in terms of where one finds their roots. To the right-libertarian, their philosophy derives from and grew out of the "old right" and the founding fathers of America. To the left-libertarian, their philosophy derives from and grew out of the old libertarian left (the mutualists, the individualist anarchists, the voluntaryists, etc.) and wouldn't exist without them. The left-libertarian sees market anarchism as having grown out of old non-state socialist traditions and is likely to see ideas such as mutualism as not really being that far off from their own position in the grand scheme of things. In contrast, the right-libertarian is largely out of touch with such roots and probably considers mutualists and other more voluntaristic socialists to be enemies. They see little to no connection between these ideas and contemporary market anarchism, where the left-libertarian does.

Another major difference is over strategy and where one thinks their true alliances lie. The left-libertarian is much more likely to be opposed to the political process and consequentially they may not vote, argue against running for office and regularly denounce the libertarian party and reformism. The left-libertarian is a radical and a revolutionary. In contrast, the right-libertarian essentially functions as a minarchist in practise as they regularly participate in the political process, encourage people to participate in it, run for office themselves and advocate reformist strategies. Comparatively, the right-libertarian is a gradualist and even counter-revolutionary. The right-libertarian more or less takes the exact same strategy that a minarchist would, and consequentially falls prey to political oppurtunism and get-liberty-quick schemes.

The difference over where one thinks their alliances are is also significant. Right-libertarians regularly ally with conservatives, particularly paleoconservatives. To the right-libertarian, conservatism is the closest thing to libertarianism on the political spectrum and conservatives inherently are less statist then "the left". They may even views themselves as an extension of the conservative movement. The left-libertarian, in contrast, wants nothing to do with conservatism and sees no reason why it should be regaurded as somehow less statist than "the left". The left-libertarian sees conservatives as hijacking the libertarian movement and employing quasi-libertarian rhetoric to get people to associate their own positions with liberty and free markets. To the left-libertarian, conservatism in the original sense of the term is the polar opposite of liberty, as it stands for the status quo, the romantisization of the past and an endless sea of authoritarian tendencies.

From the perspective of the left-libertarian, sometimes the right-libertarian takes positions on current issues that in fact are conservative rather than libertarian. One of the most common cases of this is over the issue of immigration, in which right-libertarians essentially support restricting people from crossing political borders. To the left-libertarian, this merely grants legitimacy to the state and treats it as if it were a legitimate private property owner. The same is true of many so-called "privatization" schemes in which the state sells "its" property off to a single economic organization, essentially transfering from a state held monopoly to a private monopoly. The left-libertarian is much more skeptical of so-called "free market" reforms than the right-libertarian is, being much more likely to consider them manifestations of mercantalism or corporatism.

Another difference between the two may simply be a matter of cultural traits or preferances. Right-libertarians may often be strict "cultural conservatives" and therefore have traits such as opposition to multiculturalism, feminism and secularism. They may openly praise "the family", "the church" and "the nation". In contrast, the left-libertarian is much more likely to see these things such as multiculturalism and secularism as being good and support voluntaryist versions of them. The left-libertarian may add things such as anti-racism and anti-patriarchy to their agenda, and such things need not be imposed by the state but a result of voluntary efforts. And while many right-libertarians may tend to praise "the family", the left-libertarian may very well be skeptical about the organizational structure of many families and view them as abusive. And perhaps most importantly, the left-libertarian is not a nationalist.

It should be clear at this point what the left-libertarian is not: they are not vulgar libertarians, conservatives, in bed with conservatives, anti-immigrationists, reformists, extreme gradualists, and so on. It is likely (although not necessarily mandatory) that they are not racists, organized religion supporters, nationalists, chauvenists, and so on. The left-libertarian is not an apologist for "private" concentrations of power and corporations. The left-libertarian may very well oppose corporations. In short, the left-libertarian has distanced themselves from conservative traits as much as possible and view themselves as supporting liberty in a much more broad sense than your cookie-cutter anarcho-capitalist does. It is in the context of this much more broad perspective that they are to "the left" of their comrades.

Bob Barr Gets LP Nominations

[cross-posted at Brainpolice at The Mises Community]

Foreward Note: Niccolo beat me to making a response to this, and as usual his tone is much more powerful than mine.

So Bob Barr got the LP's nomination at their most recent convention. There is a lot of dirt on this man from a libertarian perspective, ranging from his past support for the drug war and actually being the author of the defense of marriage act. Like all political oppurtunists, he has claimed to have changed his position since then in order to appease the demands of his consistuency. Like all political oppurtunists, this does not mean that he is sincere or that he does not still hold to those positions or would not support them pragmatically.

In the two-party system, politicians usually move (I.E. flip-flop or oppurtunistically change their position) towards "the center" in order to get more support. In the libertarian party, politicians usually move to a more radical position (rhetorically, that is) in order to shy away from their blatantly unlibertarian or even anti-libertarian past. In the case of "Big L" libertarians, this is usually in the conservative direction (their past, that is).

To me, this just proves what I've been trying to tell libertarians for a long time: that the movement is being infiltrated by conservatives and that the party is a waste of time that becomes less principled each year. The libertarian party has become little more than a mini-GOP that some old disguntled conservatives have flocked to out of disillusionment with the Republicans and neoconservatives.

On the other hand, with people like Mary Ruwart aside, the closest thing to a libertarian "left" within the party now is Mike Gravel, who isn't even a libertarian at all in the philosophical sense. Not only is the LP being infiltrated by conservatives, but the "left-wing" of the libertarian party is essentially non-existant. Since I'm a "left-libertarian", this makes me dislike the party even more.

While I'm not in favor of the party or political strategies at all, putting myself in a cost-benefit analysis mindset for a moment, Mary Ruwart was probably the best option presented (even though she's been chided by the conservative elements of the movement for her position on/against the age of consent, which really should not be controversial at least within libertarian circles). She did get close at first but Barr moved past her by the end of the convention.

If the moral of the story hasn't been made clear to libertarians by now, I don't know what else will get through to them. Clearly the LP and electoral politics in general has not been, is not and never will be a meaningful strategy for liberty. It is has proved to be counterproductive time and time again. Each year, the Libertarian Party waters itself down more and more. Political libertarianism is a cosmic joke.

The Unlibertarian Party: And Their Dear Leader

Oh yes, what a crystal clear message for the world that political action, not to mention political action through the United States’ “Libertarian” Party, is not only a waste of time, but a corrupted disease that spreads through the veins of the body of the liberty movement! Yes, what an obvious light to shine on the picture of the state of the arch-enemy of liberty – politics!

With the election of Bob Barr to the United States’ “Libertarian” Party, SEK3’s position on “get-liberty-quick schemes” and their damage to the liberty movement seems unmistakably strong. Indeed, what great irony for a US politician to charge the US Federal government with the task of, “securing our borders from criminals, terrorists and those seeking to take advantage of the American taxpayer”! Of course, as a side note, this plan would be perfectly fine, if it meant kicking the real criminals, terrorists, and exploiters of the entrepreneuriat out of the realm of life – forget the “country”! – i.e. the Congressman, politicians, and their millions of hoards of privileged business elites, corrupt labour officials, and military mass-murderers. Something seems to insinuate, however, that Bob Barr, the same man that once proclaimed a “constitutional right and responsibility… to pass laws protecting citizens from dangerous and addictive narcotics,” will largely disagree with that.

Dear LORD, do the gods of irony show no mercy? Perhaps not. After all what could be more ironic than a “Libertarian” Party nominating this blue-eyed, political gypsy who not only voted as a consistent protectionist in his term of office, but is also one of the most renowned drug-warriors in the history of the war on drugs.

Then again, perhaps this isn’t such a contrast. After all, the “Libertarian” Party isn’t actually for libertarians! So who cares if they elect this representative of the great Satan as their leader? Who cares if those that supported Ron Paul are also to support the same man that wished to ban the practice of Wicca in the US military? Don’t you Ron Paul “revolutionaries” feel good now? After all, who besides the unlibertarian “Libertarian” Party supports Barr the Drug-Warrior? Why, the now very wealthy Ron Paul!

I personally hope you “rEVOLutionaries” can sleep at night with the millions of victims of the drug war rotting in the state’s dungeons; your "movement" makes me sick and so do you if you still stand by it.

Thursday, May 22, 2008

Absolutes

[Originally posted at LessGovernment.com.]

The debate surrounding subjective and objective knowledge is age-old and will probably endure to the end of human existence and beyond. In all the years this site [LessGovernment.com] has been online, I have never offered any sort of comprehensive summation of my views on this issue, so I would like to attempt to do that briefly here.
As a disclaimer, please keep in mind that this is the perspective of a layman whose only real interest in philosophy is limited to basic logic and concepts rooted in reality, as opposed to mystical musing about whether existence exists and whether it is anything more than a perpetual dream within an immaterial cosmic consciousness. Philosophy is a tool for discovering truth and enhancing my life with relevant, coherent, consistent principles. Any persons who want to send me treatises on the virtues ofsolipsism or dualism can, therefore, save themselves the trouble.

Let me begin by offering some definitions.

Objectivism - the philosophical position that certain truths are true everywhere, independent of human thoughts, emotions, opinions, etc. Ethical objectivism or moderate moral realism is the position that certain acts are objectively right or wrong, independent of human opinion.

Subjectivism - a philosophical tenet that accords primacy to subjective experience as fundamental of all measure and law.Ethical subjectivism is the meta-ethical belief that all ethical sentences reduce to factual statements about the attitudes of individuals.

Truth - conformity with fact or reality; a verified or indisputable fact, proposition, principle, or the like.

Generally, I will be referring to objectivism and subjectivism in the context of ethical considerations, but there might be broader implications if the reader chooses to apply them.
Truth in and of itself is a fairly straightforward idea, but there is a depth to the analysis one might engage in that is beyond the scope of this article and possibly beyond my ability to care. As such, I'm content with the above definition and will elaborate only in stating that truth may be categorized as self-evident, empirical or deductive.

"I exist" is an example of a self-evident truth, because someone making the statement must exist in order to do so. Likewise, "I do not exist" is self-refuting, because someone making the statement must exist in order to claim that he doesn't exist. An empirical truth is one than can be observed and tested. This encompasses science and general everyday observations about the universe. Deductive truth is usually found through logic, wherein a series of premises lead to a conclusion. Faulty premises can and often do result in faulty conclusions.

So there's that, but is any of this truth objective or --- *gasp* --- absolute?
In short, it is irrelevant. If the human senses are so unreliable, and human logic so imprecise, that the identification of objective truth and accessibility of objective reality remain inexorably out of our grasp; and even if we are to ignore the performative contradiction of asserting that nothing is absolutely true --- then the only conclusion one can draw from this is that humans are limited and that there might be aspects of existence that are beyond our ability to detect. As such, if we cannot detect something, which means neither the thing itself nor its effects are testable or observable at all, then that thing --- the higher, unknowable truth --- is functionally nonexistent to humans and irrelevant. Even if what we can test and observe does not produce any manner of objective or absolute truth, it is pointless to argue in favor of proceeding otherwise on the grounds that truth is unknowable or inaccessible.
Maybe this position can be dubbed "irrelevantism." I don't know if there is an existing term or phrase that suffices.

In terms of ethics, then, it becomes apparent that quibbles over objectivity and subjectivity are quite meaningless. The simple solution is to subject ethical propositions to the same rigor one might reserve for any other claim, namely logic and empirical testing. If ethical claims evaluated in this manner are not objective, then neither is any science or discipline ever conceived by mankind, and such status is impossible to attain. It becomes moot to consider anything beyond whether a particular claim is consistent with known reality.
So it is for this reason that I am sympathetic toward objectivism but ultimately convinced by neither objectivism nor subjectivism. Objectivists (including the big-O Randian variants) defeat their own cause by claiming objectivity through reason but reaching so many opposing conclusions that they might as well just call themselves relativists. The Randian philosophy isn't even internally consistent (which is a whole other article). In the subjectivist camp, as alluded to previously, it is impossible to even make claims without contradicting the core premise of subjectivism. Some might call this consistency, but I call it garbled nonsense.
My solution to this mess is to consider any ethical proposition that checks out under logical and empirical scrutiny to be valid, until which time the available data points to something else. So goes science. Murray Rothbard's proposals are mostly good in this regard (though he frequently referred to rights and such, and while I think certain right-ish principles derive from reality, I've yet to see a coherent defense of rights as they are usually posed). Robert Nozick's philosophical ideas always struck me as intriguing, though, like the Randian Objectivists, some of his conclusions fall short of his purported principles. David D. Friedman is uber-practical, and his book The Machinery of Freedom is partly responsible for my acceptance of anarchism, but libertarian consequentialism is an ethical black hole that can "logically" justify almost anything.

In the older school, Lysander Spooner remains perhaps one of the best proponents of natural law --- arguably my favorite --- and his No Treason papers have yet to be successfully challenged to my knowledge. However, he too was regrettably mired in the concept of rights without any real explanation of whether such things even exist external to cultural conventions. Other philosophers --- Hobbes, Locke, Hume, Jefferson, Stirner, Proudhon, Thoreau, Nietzsche, Kant --- all made their venerable contributions to human thought as well as their respective fair shares of absurdity.

Not long ago, I reviewed a book by Stefan Molyneux titled Universally Preferable Behaviour: A Rational Proof of Secular Ethics. While I did not (and still do not) feel qualified to judge whether the ethical "beast" (to borrow Molyneux's metaphor) has been conquered, I can speak for myself in saying that UPB succeeds where other systems have failed. The reason it succeeds is that it is not a system, per se, that attempts to tell a person what he should or should not do. Rather, it is a framework for evaluating the truth value of ethical statements. For example, "Murder is moral" self-detonates because it requires one person to be moral by murdering and another to be immoral by not murdering. This is, of course, incredibly simplistic, so rather than risk misrepresenting the book, I must recommend reading it for oneself, as it and several others are freely available in digital format at Freedomainradio.com. To date, UPB is the most logical and comprehensible approach to ethics that I've encountered. That by no means makes it objective or even true, but like any other proposal subject to rational analysis, it either stands or does not.

Critiques of UPB have been posted at RationalAnimal.net (Part 1 and Part 2) and Back to the Drawing Board, and I encourage anyone who has read the book to take a look at these two sites.

All of the above in consideration, my conclusion for the time being is that there is no reason to proceed as though ethics cannot be regarded as objective, at least to the reason-centric extent apprehensible by humans. We know that murder and theft are mostly undesirable, with only certain segments of the population embracing them as viable foundations for an ideal society (theruling class, typically, along with those who benefit from the violence of the ruling class). As David Friedman observed, "The direct use of force is such a poor solution to any problem, it is generally employed only by small children and large nations."
It strikes me as truly pointless to engage in prolonged debates over whether murder, theft and a general disregard for self-sovereignty constitute moral virtues, evils or neither. Humanity has spent thousands of years on the path of slavery and slaughter. Governments and their armies haven't solved these problems. Even when they try to, the end result often either involves a mere changing of the guard or is even worse than the original situation. To call the track record of religion in terms of peace and prosperity abysmal is a grand understatement. The collusion of humanity's two main authoritative institutions is perhaps the most dreaded scenario of all for those of us who value progress and liberty.
So even if one considers objective human ethics to be dubious, unknowable or outright impossible, that is a poor excuse for approaching life as though nothing can be good, bad, right or wrong. If objectivity is beyond our reach as humans, then we can depend only on the science and logic that have given us modern medicine, computers and spaceflight. If objectivity is out there but remains undiscovered, that is likewise a poor excuse for dismissing ethics, as doing so amounts to little more than a self-fulfilling prophecy. If objectivity exists and can be demonstrated, then I eagerly long to discover the proof of this.

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Does Social Evolution Necessitate Decentralization?

[cross-posted at Brainpolice at The Mises Community]

Social evolution can be thought of in terms of increased complexity. Simple forms of organization are uniliteral and homogenous, while more complexity in an organizational structure implies pluralism. Increased plurality, combined with a finite number of variables or resources to work with, implies smaller units. The more complex that a pattern is, the harder it is to understand or calculate or predict it from a central point or plan. The more simple and centralized that an organization is, the harder it is to keep track of all of the variables involved (I.E. the calculation problem comes into play).

It follows that as the complexity of an economy or society increases, entropy occurs as attempts at central planning fail and become increasingly obsolete methods for organization. Social evolution would seem to point in the direction of increasingly smaller social units and an increase in the diversity of social units both relative to eachother and in terms of their internal nature. This would seem to imply the long-term inevitable collapse of states and large organizations in general as being "unfit" for the proper environment for human developement. In short, at some point the social and economic interactions of people in and of itself starts to outpace currently existing institutions.

While the calculation problem is usually used to show how state-socialism is an impractical failure, it also implies its ultimate demise. And it additionally functions nicely as a much more broad theory of institutional analysis in general that may extend to certain non-governmental institutions. An organization is an organization and the calculation problem is ultimately an organizational theory in addition to being an economic theory. The calculation problem essentially proves that decentralization is more efficient than centralizaton as methods of economic organization. When integrated with theories of spontaneous order and social evolution, the calculation problem starts to have a new and increased significance.

But while social evolutionary and economic theories are very helpful in understanding such matters, ultimately sucessful social evolution depends on the driving force of social revolution and some degree of beneficial change in the general ideological atmosphere. Progress results from sucessful and beneficial deviations from the norm, which in turn implies concepts such as civil disobedience and education. Societies start to stagnate when they become too apathetic to develope and use independant mechanisms to counter the negative and harmful traits of the existing organizational structure. That is, the seeds of sucessful social evolution are to be found as far outside of and as independantly from the existing organizational structure as possible.

Monday, May 19, 2008

An Introduction to Christian Anarchism

Introduction:

In a recent e-mail, a fellow Anarchist, and a co-contributor to the blog, inquired about the position of Christian Anarchism; both questioning the validity of the title and the substance of its content, his inquiry represents a great deal of confusion within the broader Anarchist movement – namely, the religion dilemma. Indeed, any Christian Anarchist must understand that most Anarchists tend to look at any branch of religion, not just Christianity, with great suspicion and that if Christian Anarchists wish to join the ranks of Anarchist comrades, they must first present their case by answering a few of the common objections.

Of the most common challenges to the Christian Anarchist there includes the question of authority and how a Christian can account for his rejection of authority given his adherence to God, the Bakunin assertion that God is the ultimate enslaver of humanity, the supposed lack of “reason” or “proof” that suggests the Christian faith to be an irrational one, and also the general tendency of Anarchists to favor a culture separated from traditional paths associated with Christian movements. Though to a Christian Anarchist all of these objections seem unwarranted, they still pervade in the minds of anti-authoritarians as principled and solid. Given this state of mind then, the job of the Christian Anarchist is simply to demonstrate the fallacies hiding behind the veils of rhetoric in these objections in hopes of converting fellow Anarchists not to the religion itself, at least not necessarily, but to the mindset that Christian Anarchism does indeed represent a serious movement within the Anarchist movement and that as all other Anarchists, Christian Anarchists deserve the same amount of respect for their convictions and support in their methods of direct action.

Saturday, May 17, 2008

Free Association Resolves Cultural Conflict

[cross-posted at Brainpolice at The Mises Community]

I've touched on this before, but this is a point that I really want to drive home. The very existance of state-provided and/or monopolized services is a boon to cultural conflict over how those services are used and who gets to use them, since the individual must pay for them no matter what and has no real alternative to the singular provider of the service (I.E. the state).

For example, there is endless conflict over the public education system precisely because the individual has little choice but to make use of and pay for it. Everyone battles to pressure the state to enforce their particular preferances for education models, since they don't have a meaningful option to form alternative associations with those who explicitly agree with their preferances. Whatever standards are set by the state apply to everyone involved. If someone objects to a particular standard, they have no choice but to pay for it anyways and quite likely them or their children will end up having to abide by that standard and attend those particular schools.

If people were free to persue such services based on genuine consent, then each individual or group with their own preferances would be able to form into mutual associations and hence a more broad and plural scope of options would exist. Noone would be forced into a model or association that they don't desire or to pay for someone else's preferances. If a given group prefers creationism, they could organize into their own associations that teach creationism. If a given group prefers evolution, they could do likewise. If a given group prefers gay marriages, they can form their own associations to provide them. If a given group does not prefer them, they can form their own associations that don't provide them. Such questions would be reduced in significance to a matter of what flavor of ice cream one prefers.

The incentive for such cultural conflict that we currently see in our politically dominated society is removed when people are free to simply "live and let live". They don't have to fight over how to use a singular organization precisely because they have the option to opt out of them and form alternative organizations. People might still disagree with eachother, but their disagreement would not be manifested in such direct hostility and they would not be able to or find any reasonable need to force their particular preferances onto everyone else. The individual can simply disassociate and freely compete with those whom they disagree with. There would no longer be a singular monopolistic apparatus to fight for control over. One can simply patronize or form alternative associations. It's a win-win situation for all.

This does not necessarily imply absolute cultural separatism, as if each group completely isolates themselves from eachother geographically. Free association does not necessarily imply that, for example, all of the Catholics will band together and form an exclusively Catholic community or all of the Muslim people will form an exclusively Muslim community. Such groups can peacefully co-exist and intermingle within a given geographical area or community. Within a single community there may exist a vast multitude of different associations and organizations for an individual to choose from to best suite their personal and cultural preferances.

There is no reason why a single community cannot contain a variety of different social combinations within it that are in free competition with eachother. While each individual social combination may certainly be exclusive, they cannot be exclusive with respect to other people's property and associations. They cannot exclude someone from the community as a whole unless they were the only social combination in the entire community, which is highly unlikely. The implications of free association is actually an increase in pluralism rather than homogeneity. Extreme homogeniety only occurs when there is a central plan imposed onto an entire society, when each respective group has no choice but to conform to a single standard or participate in a single social combination within a given geographical area. It is only when there is an institution such as the state that cultural and economic standards or models can be forced onto everyone uniformly.

In the absence of the centralized and coercive institutional means by which a single plan can be imposed onto an entire community, the natural result would seem to be more pluralistic than it otherwise would have been. Only a coercive geographical monopoly can uniformly control everyone within the territory or exclude people from the entire territory. Once the draconian geographical apparatus of control is removed, there is much more leeway for people to develope alternatives (and hence more plurality) within a given geographical area.

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

A Reply to a Concern About Language

In my last blog post on Polycentric Order, I received a comment that struck me as particularly interesting and helpful. Under the blog, a co-author noted two personal problems he had with my particular article; one of his problems being that it was far too venomous and the other being the usage of Psalms 137:8-9 at the very end. As this is a revision to that article I want to make it clear that I am defending the positions taken in it, but that does not necessesarily mean that I am attacking the questions put forth afterwards.

First, as far as the sectarian sentiments set soundfully to the dangerous subject of class conflict go, I do not see any reason for a man to shy away from being perfectly vicious in his convictions. After all, if the principles he espouses are the ones he believes in, why should he be anything less? The sectarian language itself, however, does not seem to be the entire cause of objection. As noted by the inquisitor, the very nature of class distinction is a black and white one, but living in a grey world it becomes difficult to consistently apply the principles of it. In the particular case of Agorist class theory, however, it seems that there is a solution to this problem. As SEK3 once noted, people exist on a spectrum of Agorism, acting either in a Counter-Economic or Statist fashion, but always in one or the other. For those that are purely statist, however, they possess no wealth or property and as SEK3 notes, “their loot is forfeit to revolutionary Agorists as agents of the victims.”

However, the question of the pure Statists vs. the pure Agorists is an obvious one. Of course the Statists are evil and of course the Agorists are good, but what of the majority that falls in the middle between the two? SEK3 said this about the middle,

To the statists, they are the victims, the herds of cattle to be slaughtered and sheep to be sheared. To the Agorists, they are the external marketplace, to receive nearly everything in trade – but trust.

And some day they shall either take control of their lives and polarize one way or the other, or fail to do so and shall stagnate in the statist swamp or be blown away on the winds of revolutionary change.

It is here important to remember that Agorism is not an instant revolution; it is a phase system working from phase 0 to 4. By the third phase, however, the lines between the Agorists and Statists would probably be visibly drawn with few landing in the middle. Remember, though the language is inflammatory, the Agorist message is only one of peace and free markets, only introducing a “militant” phase with the birth of private defense agencies prosecuting the pure statists for past grievances and contemporary statist acts for justified restitutions as the market Anarchist mantra dictates. To confuse language used for poetic reasons, not directly calling for any unjustified physical conflict, with an ambiguous call to arms is a great tragedy introduced to the English language with the replacement of poetry for formal works of boredom and taint.

For the second objection I come to admit that perhaps slipping in a bit of the Bible might be uncalled for if only it didn’t possess the right context. I make no mistake in defining myself as a Christian, nor do I make one of defining myself as a poet. Psalms contains some very poetic verses and when it comes to justice against evil, no one does it better than the mighty LORD, God of Heaven and Earth. Though this particular seed of faith may not be expressed by other Anarchists, perhaps the poetry of Psalms could at least be appreciated given the correct context of the issue? If the Atheist can denounce God in his speech calling for Anarchism, why can’t a Christian praise Him in his?

The Militia

The tendency to throw away what is seen as more socialistic institutions is unfortunately quite prevalent within the anarcho-capitalist or market anarchist camp. There are plenty of arguments to show the inevitable collapse of certain socialistic organizations and even to show how such non-collectivized organizations would simply out compete them. But this need not always be so and indeed some of the perceived and real benefits of various organizations are quite marketable and competitive with established or upcoming firms which make a "profit" (in quotes because the word profit has so much baggage. For here and for these purposes it will be used to distinguish the difference between say, Prudential Insurance and the Salvation Army. One "for profit" the later "non profit" in as much as the later sorts can be said to NOT make a "profit")

One such institution, that is quite the 'social' one, yet still highly respected and even revered amongst market anarchists is the volunteer, non profit, institution known as: the militia. The militia highlights, to me, the ideal voluntary "socialistic" market institution.

the market anarchist and the militia:

The appeal of the militia to the market anarchist is fairly well known. Market anarchist, more so than other anarchists in my experience at least, glorify and support the private ownership of arms. A militia marks the presence of a well armed populace with free access to whatever arms they see as necessary for their defense. With every home in possession of arms, the market anarchist, I would think, sees the militia as a natural development. That people would organize themselves as they saw fit to provide for a common defense of their homes and businesses in the case of invasion by a foreign state or some other large organized and orchestrated threat to their posterity and property. Many see the militia in glorified eyes due to their reverence for the American Revolutions cause/causes and I think rightfully see the militia as a natural revolutionary force of free men fighting for their own and not for the states own.

The militia however has a few problems which it shares with other collectivized institutions that I believe a market can force them to solve these however to allow them to exist along side and even in conjunction with private defense agencies. The following are three problems and some various solutions to these problems:

Problem - the division of labor

The militia lacks a strong division of labor. In asking people to multi task between being a plumber, computer programmer, electrician, manager, or the like, and being a weekend warrior is not an easy thing to do. Economic science shows that the division of labor provides all with far more luxury, free time, and better provision of services and products than in its absence or less divided form. This would apply to the provision of defense as well there is no reason to assume it is an exception to this rule. A mason who devotes his working life to learning the tools of his trade, learning the art of masonry will be a better brick layer and stone worker than those that do this and try to learn to paint as well for example. The same goes for the security agent or volunteer community warrior. If a man splits his time between the two he will not be as powerful or useful a soldier as one who does not. And will also find other artisans or bricklayers surpassing his skill or usefulness. So to compete with professional soldiers is a difficult thing for a militia to do.

However this diversity in labor also brings strengths to the table. Soldiers tend to be uniformly trained in standardized methods and to employ standardized tactics which have proven effective and the like over countless battles. But the militia mans mind, while not benefiting from this wealth of obvious battlefield knowledge, also is not crippled or chained by it. By coming in with little official battlefield tactical training the militia man has a fresh look and a fresh mind in these matters. Generals Nathan Bedford Forrest, John S. Mosby, and John Hunt Morgan were renown for their military ingenuity. Leading much smaller forces to many a victory over northern invaders in the civil war. Their tactics were copied over the years by more modern 'cavalry' and are still analyzed today. Their revolutionary tactical advantage was to use the horse not as a shock troop but as a means to carry infantry over long distances and to strike unexpectedly, thereby turning a flashy almost medieval (and long since outdated) cavalry force into a rapid deployment infantry force. None of them had any military training prior to the war or a West Point education. They simply were men not exposed to established doctrine and standards of knowledge and practice of West Point and therefore not mentally chained to old ideas of the use of cavalry. Free to think and evolve, this disadvantage became a strength.

Another issue that the militias diversity and lack of 100% devotion of time to war training may bring to the table is the various wartime applications of otherwise peacetime professions. The manager and the labor coordinator are obvious pick for leaders and commanders, shipping department leads and laborers have much to bring to the table in the realm of logistics, the cook, the park ranger, the mason (again with the mason... I am thinking wartime engineers), the construction man, the nurse, the doctor all have OBVIOUSLY useful skills to bring with them to a battle and especially a war. It is no surprise that the United States Army advertises itself as a place to learn the arts of the market in its commercials, many civilian applications are equally as useful in wartime and more highly valued than war skills apparently.

I believe this gap in training is also further addressed every day by the advancement of technology in fields of surveillance and weaponry. To train to kill effectively with a sword is much more difficult and time consuming than to train to use a bow efficiently. Which in turn is much more time crunching than to use a musket. Which takes more time to master than the rifle. And so on. And who knows what tomorrows weapons of choice will be and how much more efficient and easier to use they will become. The gap between a martial man and one who is not is essentially training and if the tools of the martial trade require less training everyday than to become, at least a competent if not expert, soldier will only decrease as technology advances and access to knowledge grows with such things as the Internet. And without the state to stand in the way of acquiring the means to enter a martial discipline there is absolutely nothing to disrupt such spontaneous and voluntary entrance into the realm of martial training. Again, market benefit: militia.

Problem – lack of devotion

The militia has trouble when it comes to maintaining a trained force. For a people to function as a military unit they either must be forged in the fires of battle through harsh and costly experience or must train beforehand. Obviously to learn to swim in shallow water is a better method than just jumping into the deep end of the local swimming pool and so is training to use ones arms on a battlefield patently more productive than trying to learn as you go along... as you dodge bullets from an invading force you do not want to be caught asking the militia man next to you, “how does this safety thing work again?”. So again the private professional soldier/warrior comes out on top in that they have no disincentive to train. That is the mercenary or subscription soldier has no incentive to invest their time elsewhere. Or yet another way to say this, no incentive NOT to train. If I make no 'profit' from war time preparations of training myself, but make the bulk (at least) of my earnings and income through my labor as a mason, then I will tend to devote more and more of my time to masonry and less of it to training for wartime activities that may or may not even come to pass.

This, again, also has non obvious advantages to militia as well. This ensures that a man whose primary bread winning activity is NOT war is not anxious to make it for his own gain. While the Prudential Protection agency has many incentives to not wage war (as pointed out extensively by other market oriented anarchists which resemble this advantage of the militia) the incentive to not wage war is most apparent to the economically ignorant in the militia as they but a body of ones neighbors and family and friends, ones own immediate community, who are generally recognized as having some invested common interest in the local areas safety and not much else. I submit the attempted invasion of Canada and subsequent desertion of the militia as a result, as evidence of the natural nobility of a citizen militia. English general James Wolfe : "the Americans are in general the dirtiest, most contemptible cowardly dogs, that you can conceive. There is no depending upon them in action. They…desert by battalions, officers and all." Americans were fed up of fighting Britain's aggressive wars away from their homes for matters not of defense. The militia were simply more concerned with defending their own and making their everyday business than invading and marching for whomever has high ambitions and a few pounds of gold to throw at them (interesting note to you union boys out there: these militia men were payed in contracts negotiated by the militia units elected officers... which the British often violated, but thats another issue).

In addition to the strong incentive not to invade, there is tied to a lack of devotion in this sense, a tendency to not blindly follow orders. One officer during the Ticonderoga campaign is quoted as saying the following about the militia men: "Almost every man his own master and a general." With militia officers democratically elected, "the notion of liberty so generally prevails, that they are impatient under all kind of superiority and authority." This further goes to illustrate the benefits of seeing all men as men and not sovereigns over ones self. Militia men from Massachusetts were notorious for assassinating and mutinying against officers who were not cooperative with what they wanted. Or attempted to go beyond “leader” to “ruler”.

Yet another factor is key in counter balancing this disadvantage. That key is the lack of a state. Without the institutionalized secular religion of state as the "obvious" and "best" and "necessary" provider of security, people will have to make actualdecisions on how to best to devote their time and money to the provision of their own defense. Protection's blade will be thrust into the market and sharpened by the hammers of competition! Perhaps in the absence of state, our neighborhood mason will decide to devote some of the earnings of his labor to a small protection agency. Or perhaps he will decide to join a local militia. Perhaps he sees this option as requiring nothing more than a few hours of training. With no one providing him with "free" defense he will look to those offering to do so for trade or in conjunction as real solutions and only the best in his eyes will survive this process. The only cost typically associated with a militia is providing your own arms and showing up! It has little to no cost, traditionally, whatsoever...beyond providing your own gun and other equipments of war (the cost of which, opened to a competitive and free market, would drastically lower... compare the cost of the AK in Afghanistan with an AK in America for example). This should appeal to the ridiculously poor and be VERY difficult to compete with as well as appealing to our socialistic buddies. :-)

Where militias certainly, I would think, have a large advantage over security firms is that they are local. Excluding any such truckers or nomads militia, it is recognized that the militia will be localized to the members general vicinity, to where their homes lie, as most people are not truckers and live in mostly permanent settlements in a specific area. This certainly means that a militia within a given area is concerned far more with that area than anyone who does not reside there or has merely opened a Acme Protection Forces franchise in the area. Militia men would be the most concerned about their community because simply, they ARE the communities inhabitants! I think most security firms would probably have a hard time leaving one community for the next unless their reputation far exceeds that of the local militia they wish to compete with. It is difficult to ask a man to you do not know to trust you more than his everyday neighbor of 10+ years. And I believe this gives credence to my idea that security firms could/would likely arise first from local militias along side insurance agencies.

Problem - Capital. And a rambling about how the militia may turn more towards the market.

A militia is the organization of several individuals to provide for a defense. It need not and often does not involve a central tank of funds to purchase common arms or equipment. This has obvious problems. Without regular dues or subscriptions or whatnot, without an income, the militia as a organization is going to come into huge internal conflicts of what should be purchased by each of the members, or what some members ought to get together to purchase that they cannot afford to upon their own, regardless of what leadership it has. If a militia cannot purchase an aircraft defense either because it cannot decide in time or cannot raise enough funds, and the anarchist community is assaulted by a foreign state air force, then it seems the militia is near useless and will be wiped out.

But we are not in the poor house yet! Militias can indeed borrow the subscription model of businesses and thereby become more like a security firm, the difference being they would collect these donations/dues from participating militia members. Sort of like the customers being also the employees. I happen to think many security firms would arise in this very manner, maybe extending protection to people who choose not to participate in actual militia deployment and choosing to charge them more for an active protection since they are not laying their own lives on the line.

Or perhaps a militia would become a provider of training services to the populace. Perhaps the BUSINESS of the militia would arise to solve this problem by training professional soldiers and citizens alike. Verily I imagine many militias marketing themselves much like a union (the kind that don't piss me off by lobbying for force and favoritism) as being the peoples army, the peoples defense, the working mans army, etc etc to the point of disgust (expect very campy commercials and red and black advertisements in local papers by anarcho-syndy workers militias, haha). Accepting donations and perhaps offering some special training or community service to militia members seems a logical step for the raising of funds. (if all else fails, there is always the dreaded bake sale :-0)

Militia leadership might even become, or decide to hire, specialists at training large numbers of ordinary people to function as a mass OF ordinary people and with ordinary weekend warriors in the case of invasion. Obviously some folk would like to join the fight for their homes when shit hits the fan instead of running away, regardless of whether they have a protection firm subscription or not. I can see militias coming in to provide these people with both the basic equipment and training needed in a hurry to be of use in the skirmish. Still more people will simply want to be able to handle themselves or to diversify their investments in their own defense so as to not put all their eggs in one basket.

Militias might even, as a body of people advertising themselves as the peoples defense, act as a watchdog agency like Consumer Reports except oriented more towards protection services and organizations, putting out quarterly or monthly publications. Who watches the watchmen? The friendly neighborhood militia of course (which really IS the neighborhood in a way). Notable and trusted local militia might be seen as more trustworthy than Acme Security inc. for reasons stated earlier and it might even be a sign of good faith for large security firms to donate to local militias or to openly support working in conjunction with the local militia.

One advantage though of the dispersement and non collectivity or centralization is that no one is tied to the use of arms or standards or tactics that they themselves do not prefer. It is largely observed, for instance, that peoples taste in firearms varies like our tastes in dress, automobiles, and sexual partners. Our skills are all different. If I find that, as an individual, I perform better with and prefer AK variants to the various AR variants that the local militia I am apart of has elected to use as standard, then I am in no way obligated to follow that standard. Maybe there are others who feel the same way and we can form our own unit within the militia or perhaps can splinter entirely to form our own militia organization. One is not heavily invested in a traditional militia organization and so defecting has no significant loss tied to it.

Decentralization of funds also means that people that are apart of the militia may be more atomistic and individually capable of carrying on in a war as a resister in themselves. One is more likely to carry all the means to act effectively alone if one realizes they have no one else's funds to use or a common equipment to be furnished for them. Further, there is no central point at which fortunes of militia can be seized or frozen as it is dispersed amongst its individual members. Making invasion forces attempts to seize all capital of the militia damn near impossible.

Conclusion

The militia is an organization that has many benefits that it ought to recognize and market towards the people in a competitive and free market. Its strong incentives to peace being one of its biggest selling points, I believe the militia will be a staple in the market for defense and work along side and in conjunction with security professionals in an anarchist society.

A Call To Revolution

[crossposted from Anarchy Is Not Chaos]

Good evening y'all.I have and will continue to argue with statists as to why they are choosing the wrong path. It's part of who I am. But today, I'm not speaking to the people who believe in the State. I don't much care about them. They've chosen to be a slave, and that is their shame, not mine.

Instead, I'm speaking to those who live under the state, but either reject it or question it. You are my brothers and sisters, not those who labor under the yoke because they think they owe it to themselves. You, like me, do not have such a base opinion of yourself. You don't need to subsume yourself in a "Greater" Whole in order to feel complete. You do not bend the knee just because you're told to. You have discovered the seeds of liberty and discontent.
You know that humans are not perfect, nor always moral, yet you still wish to be human. You know that no society ever conceived will avoid every pitfall nor fulfill every wish. Yet you still wish to improve society. You either know or at least suspect that if the old attitude that humans are irredeemably evil, then we would never have come this far.

Those of you my age and older remember a different world where the rules were not so imposing, and it was actually possible to be free in most things. Those of you around or under twenty years of age have already seen it change for the worse, and it's obvious even having never tasted the freedom that men twice your age once took for granted. We remember when it was good to be alive, and people who left this country wanted to come back.
You see that all this is lost, and some of you want it back. Or at least some return to "normalcy" rather than the current nightmare pace on a treadmill at high speed. All of us, young and old, basically wonder What Went Wrong and How Do We Fix It.

Many of you, even though realizing the State is deeply flawed in an of itself still seek your solution there. To you, my words are fairly simple. Your courage is appreciated and valuable to the cause of liberty, but you are using the wrong engines. Working within the system strengthens it. By no means am I saying you should not work the system against itself, but I am saying that attempts at reform WITHIN the Federal System as it stands will only strengthen them. You may win some temporary concessions, but you will ultimately have become suborned, even if not in your person, in the public mind to the system. You would be better off to vote for the greater evil, the greater incompetent, the most tax and spend buffoon on the planet, then to try and fix the system. By doing this, you are helping to destroy it far faster than any revolution of arms in the street could. By trying to reform it, you send the message that it is worth preserving an instrumentality that has completely failed in every aim it's founders put forth.

It is not worth saving.

It is time for a change.

Liberty is worth dying for. Our forefathers believed that, and many thousands of them DID die in the only Civil War this nation has actually ever seen. It ended in 1781. By 1789 the seeds of tyranny were already sewn anew in the newly adopted Constitution of the United States of America. Not that the document itself is inherently evil. It was a well intentioned attempt to bring a new sort of order to a society that had always before labored under a King. Given that background, it was a noble attempt. It was doomed to failure from the beginning. It has major flaws IN IT'S CONCEPTION, regardless of the words of the document. No contract should be valid upon people merely because they were born in a certain place. No Government should be perpetual. At BEST, a semi coherent State might be useful in Time of War. A temporary alliance to repel an invader, agreed upon beforehand BY THE PARTICIPANTS, and for a limited SPECIFIED Time could be useful. After that people should be able to freely return to their own property and pursue their own lives. From this basic error, that any group of men has the RIGHT to bind Posterity forever, flowed all the other errors of this admittedly well intentioned document. That a Perpetual Organization that could only operate via theft on a grand scale should ever be allowed to exist is it's other major error.

These errors, and upon reading the histories of the Men who created the document, they were probably honest errors, must be corrected. In so doing we will commit other errors. It is our nature. We improve, we fail. Both are true, and this dichotomy, in my arrogant opinion, needs to be embraced rather than fought. Constant flux in the way society operates is INEVITABLE, and usually for the better. So long as every man and woman has the ability to CHOOSE whether or not they shall change is paramount. This goal, and the United States of America, are incompatible. But the Dream that created the United States is FULLY compatible with this goal!
It is far past time. Yet for the most part even the dedicated Anarchist quails at Revolution. It is fraught with danger, and the ends often uncertain. We know in our hearts, even if we haven't fully admitted it, that the old means of revolution are closed to us. We cannot take up arms and drive off the invader, for He is too deeply entrenched. We cannot replace our Overlords at the ballot with a new set of Overlords and hope to accomplish anything. So we need to Revolt in another way, or multiple other ways.

We need a Revolution of the American Mind. We need people to lose their apathy and LIVE! Yet the forces arrayed against us, particularly that apathy, seem often insurmountable. They are not. There are ways.

There is always a way.

If you wish to use Political means, by all means do so. The Ballot isn't the answer. Instead, use your talents. If you are an able speaker, SPEAK! If you have a handy turn with the written word, WRITE! Above all else, if we are to ever become free, we must educate as many people as possible that it's POSSIBLE!

Remember that a handfull of men turned thirteen Crown Colonies to revolution to FORM this experiment in the first place! And remember how they did it. Neither the Cannon nor the Bayonet won the War for Independence. Words won the war. Written and Spoken WORDS! If the words had not been there, and had not been shamelessly and tirelessly promoted by men who had a vision of a society where they could be free, then the revolution would never have occured. Most of the people, then as now, were complacent even when angered. "This is the way it has always been" came to mean "This is the Way it will Always Be" in their minds. Just like now. Yet it's never been true! It hasn't always been like this, and that's been true in every generation. The older men can always tell you of a time when things were different. Not always better, but ALWAYS different! This is the essence of what it means to be alive, and being alive is a wonderful thing!Sit down with your friends and stand up in front of your fellows and preach the word of Liberty. Ask them to join you, and when your numbers be such that it's possible, call them forth to repudiate their overlords and dismantle their house of lies and deceit! If one town withdraws, then another follows, then another two or three, That is how it will be won! Against a frontal assault, our Overlords are nearly impervious. But they cannot survive the death of a thousand cuts. And the simple refusal to obey them is a more powerful weapon even than the Mighty Nuclear Bomb.

Soldiers of the State will have no qualms returning fire on the field of battle, but all but the very worst of them will quail before firing on a crowd of civlians who simply will not obey them. And when the Worst Sort does so anyway, that too is to our advantage. In the Modern world it don't take weeks to spread the news of an atrocity. It takes minutes.

Yes, if we are to succeed, there will be people who die in the cause. This is tragic, in the actual meaning of the term, but it is inevitable. Some things are worth dying for. But in the longer term, and this is far more important, Liberty is worth LIVING for!

Those unwilling? Leave them to be. By your very act of leaving them to their own devices, you strengthen our cause. Because they see that the way they subscribe to requires the initiation of force, but ours does not. They will see that we can be quite fierce in our defence, but that our attacks are all in the realm of ideas. As our ideas take root, many of the complacent will join us.Some will hold out to the bitter end to remain under Rulership. Oh well. So long as they see the futility of ever stopping us from living as we will, and so long as they allow us our space, they are of no consequence. They will always be able to find someone to rule them, and I say that in that event, we'll be well rid of them both, rulers and peasants alike. Then Free Men can build a society by voluntary association and trade, free from the "need" for Overlords.

And to those who fervently desire to live under a State? My parting words to you are from a True American Patriot. "If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We seek not your counsel, nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you; May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen."
-Samuel Adams

Edit- this is going to be the opening page of my website

Monday, May 12, 2008

Why The State Can't Discriminate

[cross-posted at Brainpolice at The Mises Community]

My position on racial discrimination and segregation is essentially based on the following premises: (1) on a personal level, I'm opposed to racism (2) however, if an individual legitimately owns a given piece of property, they have the liberty to exclude other people from using that property (3) that being siad, in terms of hiring employees and a buisiness owner's relationship with customers, racial discrimnation and exclusion in general is suicidal in the long-term if said buisinesses are in free competition with non-discriminatory or less exclusive buisinesses (4) therefore, a free market process itself will tend to weed out the racists over time and (5) the proper solution to the issue is social or economic and should be persued through more direct action - civil disobedience, social pressure, education, mass-boycotts, out-competing the racists, the discriminated groups forming their own organizations, and so on.

However, this is only in the context of discrimination of members of the lay public. What about discrimination or exclusion by the agents of the state? Should the exact same logic be applied to the state? I'm compelled to say "no" because the limited principled defense of the liberty of the discriminator is predicated on the requirement that they justly own the property to begin with, and the state does not legitimately control the territory. If the state is exclusive or discriminates, it would be doing it with stolen resources, what are in fact the very resources of the victims of the exclusion or discrimination. To try to come up with a libertarian defense of state discrimination would be to make the error of treating the state as if it were a legitimate private property owner, which would legitimize nationalism. I'm not sure if this error should be considered a manifestation of "vulgar libertarianism" or if it deserves another term in its own right.

If the state enforced discrimination as being mandatory within the territory or discriminates over who is allowed to use state property and services, what we would have is institutionalized segregation. The state would be asserting control over how other people use their own property and excluding people from use of what is actually not justly owned by the state agents or possibly even what is really partially the product of what was stolen from the person being excluded. To varying degrees, this is more or less what the individual states did during the period of blatant institutionalized segregation in America. The state did much more than defend private owner's right to be exclusive, since the state was exclusive itself and widened discrimination into community-wide and state-wide legal precedents which essentially established discrimination as a norm.

Of course, when institutionalized segregation gave way at least partially to intstitutionalized integration, the federal government started acting as a discriminator in other respects. It started creating and enforcing precedents making it mandatory to be inclusive and also to start to be more exclusive towards other groups. To some degree, some non-racist people have ended up being persecuted by anti-discrimination or forced integration laws, which has merely added fuel to the fire and made people more sympathetic towards racism. And affirmative action is mandated discrimination all the same, only geared towards different groups. Anything remotely resembling a racial quota is discriminatory and in fact racist to the core.

Immigration controls and political border enforcement are essentially institutionalized segregation, though not always based strictly on race. Some people try to defend a closed border policy on the basis of private property rights and by comparing the nation to a home. But such an analogy is fallacious and highly misleading. The state's agents do not justly control the entire territory. And the entire nation is not "ours", we each own individual plots of property within it. While an individual who justly owns a given piece of property may legitimately exclude others from use of it, they do not have the legitimate authority to demand that their neighbor do the same. Noone can legitimately exclude people from other people's legitimately aquired property. And this is precisely what the state would be doing by trying to exclude someone from entering the entire "nation" and effectively outlawing individual owners from allowing others to use their property. It also would constitute a barrier to entry to unused/unowned property.

The implications of treating the state as a legitimate private property owner are very totalitarian when it comes down to it, and of course such a view inherently legitimizes the state. If the entire territory is legitimately controlled by the state, then everything within it can be used and distributed however state agents want, and everyone within it may be treated as pawns. But the fact of the matter is that state institutions are a product of the mass-expropriation of land (which eventually manifests itself in the coercive territorial monopoly) and intergenational extortion (which eventually manifests itself as taxation). In a certain sense, the state is merely a gigantic and institutionalized case of absentee landlordship. Everyone within the territory produces everything while the state claims a piece of their production and excercises control over everything as if it were the legitimate ownership of the entire territory.

This is why the state must be treated as a criminal organization, a criminal organization that has stolen everything that it controls. The only difference between the state and other criminal organizations is that it is highly centralized, enjoys a massive territorial monopoly and has an ideological cloak of legitimacy. In order for justice to truly be served, the victims of this criminal organization have every right in the world to take back what was stolen from them and their ancestors. Such a criminal organization should not be defended as if its agents are at liberty to determine how stolen property is used, and as a consequence it is absurd to try to legitimize such a criminal organization excluding people from using what was stolen from them or what currently has no legitimate owner at all.