Saturday, January 31, 2009
The Mises Institute recently started selling editions of the book "Liberty or Equality: The Challenge of Our Times".
Here is the description of the book: "Sometime in the 18th century, the word equality gained ground as a political ideal, but the idea was always vague. In this treatise, Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn argues that it reduced to one simple and very dangerous idea: equality of political power as embodied in democracy. He marshals the strongest possible case that democratic equality is the very basis not of liberty, as is commonly believed, but the total state. He uses national socialism as his prime example. He further argues the old notion of government by law is upheld in old monarchies, restrained by a noble elite. Aristocracy, not democracy, gave us liberty. On his side in this argument, he includes the whole of the old liberal tradition, and offers overwhelming evidence for his case. In our times, war and totalitarianism do indeed sail under the democratic flag. This book, capable of overturning most of what you thought you knew about political systems, was first published in 1952. 403 pages."
A number of objections can be made against this description alone. For one thing, it seems erroneous to propose that liberty and equality are absolutely dichotomous, and it hardly is the case that the state-democratic notion of equality in political power is the only possible interpretation or definition of equality in political philosophy. So this description asserts some false assumptions. Furthermore, the idea that monarchies were based on liberty and were meaningfully "restrained by law", or that "artistocracy gave us liberty" is of course nonsense. This is simply romanticist historical revisionism. Why couldn't one oppose both aristocracy and contemporary democracy? Wouldn't the view that both artisocratic government and democratic government violate liberty make more sense and be consistant? It seems like the tendency of the Hoppeans is to act as if old order artistocracies and liberty go hand in hand, which makes no sense at all and doesn't seem to be consistant with libertarianism. So much focus is narrowly put into opposing modern democracy and socialism that aristocratic and monarchal states end up being conflated with libertarianism.
Here is the description of the book: "Sometime in the 18th century, the word equality gained ground as a political ideal, but the idea was always vague. In this treatise, Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn argues that it reduced to one simple and very dangerous idea: equality of political power as embodied in democracy. He marshals the strongest possible case that democratic equality is the very basis not of liberty, as is commonly believed, but the total state. He uses national socialism as his prime example. He further argues the old notion of government by law is upheld in old monarchies, restrained by a noble elite. Aristocracy, not democracy, gave us liberty. On his side in this argument, he includes the whole of the old liberal tradition, and offers overwhelming evidence for his case. In our times, war and totalitarianism do indeed sail under the democratic flag. This book, capable of overturning most of what you thought you knew about political systems, was first published in 1952. 403 pages."
A number of objections can be made against this description alone. For one thing, it seems erroneous to propose that liberty and equality are absolutely dichotomous, and it hardly is the case that the state-democratic notion of equality in political power is the only possible interpretation or definition of equality in political philosophy. So this description asserts some false assumptions. Furthermore, the idea that monarchies were based on liberty and were meaningfully "restrained by law", or that "artistocracy gave us liberty" is of course nonsense. This is simply romanticist historical revisionism. Why couldn't one oppose both aristocracy and contemporary democracy? Wouldn't the view that both artisocratic government and democratic government violate liberty make more sense and be consistant? It seems like the tendency of the Hoppeans is to act as if old order artistocracies and liberty go hand in hand, which makes no sense at all and doesn't seem to be consistant with libertarianism. So much focus is narrowly put into opposing modern democracy and socialism that aristocratic and monarchal states end up being conflated with libertarianism.
Mikhail Bakunin and Collectivist Anarchism
Mikhail Bakunin was the Russian father of the strain of anarchism known as collectivist anarchism. He was initially loosely associated with both Karl Marx and Pierre Joseph Proudhon, and eventually he developed anarcho-collectivism using both of them as influences while deviating from them both at the same time. Bakunin's anarcho-collectivism, which wasn't completely developed until towards the end of Bakunin's life, differs from mutualism and individualist anarchism in certain significant ways, but it also differs from Marxist communism in certain ways as well. While it does call for collective worker ownership of the means of production, Bakunin's anarcho-collectivism is more along the lines of a half-way point towards communism since it still allows the renumeration of labor.
However, there are certainly some similarities between communism and Bakunin's ideas. Like the communists, Bakunin emphasized anti-theism. He reversed Voltaire's quote that "if god did not exist, it would be necessary to invent" him to "if god really existed, it would be necessary to abolish him". And like the communists, Bakunin had a materialist basis for his philosophy, which makes his economic analysis similar to that of Marx. The Russian, Polish and generally pan-slavic cultural context that Bakunin was working with was primarily a reaction to the royal or noble classes which were much more prevailent in such a context than in America and certain parts of Europe at the time. This helps explain the cultural trends towards collectivism that took place around Bakunin.
But beyond this, Bakunin was actually a critic of Marx. He rejected the notion of a "dictatorship of the proletariet" and supported the notion of decentralization or federalism, and hence there is supposed to be free association between the communes in an anarcho-collectivist society. While the goals between anarcho-collectivism and Marxism were quite similar, Bakunin fundamentally clashed with the Marxist communists over questions of strategy, rejecting formal political strategy in favor of a more social form of revolution and what he called "the propaganda of the deed". However, some controversy exists over the degree to which Bakunin's notion of "the propaganda of the deed" is dangerous and has been used to justify violence, and individualist anarchists tended to shy away from the revolutionary methods of many collectivist anarchists.
Bakunin is known to have been a strong supporter of the Paris Commune of 1871, which was surpressed by the French government. Bakunin persisted in favoring social revolution over political strategies, which eventually lead him to be purged by Marx from The First International. The difference between Marx and Bakunin over how to go about reaching their mutually held goals became irreconcilable. Bakunin thought that Marx's strategies would just lead to another despotism, which turned out to be a wise foresight. He strongly opposed the idea of seizing the power of the state as a method of revolution. In this regaurd, Bakunin must be credited as the first thinker to effectively try to depoliticize communism.
Bakunin's historical significance in anarchism more or less represents the planting of the seeds for all forthcoming collectivistic variants of anarchism such as anarcho-communism and anarcho-syndicalism. At the same time, it must be said that he also represents the initial cause of a fragmenting of communism between Marxist and anarchistic strains. In either case, Bakunin was most definitely a key figure in the history of anarchism.
However, there are certainly some similarities between communism and Bakunin's ideas. Like the communists, Bakunin emphasized anti-theism. He reversed Voltaire's quote that "if god did not exist, it would be necessary to invent" him to "if god really existed, it would be necessary to abolish him". And like the communists, Bakunin had a materialist basis for his philosophy, which makes his economic analysis similar to that of Marx. The Russian, Polish and generally pan-slavic cultural context that Bakunin was working with was primarily a reaction to the royal or noble classes which were much more prevailent in such a context than in America and certain parts of Europe at the time. This helps explain the cultural trends towards collectivism that took place around Bakunin.
But beyond this, Bakunin was actually a critic of Marx. He rejected the notion of a "dictatorship of the proletariet" and supported the notion of decentralization or federalism, and hence there is supposed to be free association between the communes in an anarcho-collectivist society. While the goals between anarcho-collectivism and Marxism were quite similar, Bakunin fundamentally clashed with the Marxist communists over questions of strategy, rejecting formal political strategy in favor of a more social form of revolution and what he called "the propaganda of the deed". However, some controversy exists over the degree to which Bakunin's notion of "the propaganda of the deed" is dangerous and has been used to justify violence, and individualist anarchists tended to shy away from the revolutionary methods of many collectivist anarchists.
Bakunin is known to have been a strong supporter of the Paris Commune of 1871, which was surpressed by the French government. Bakunin persisted in favoring social revolution over political strategies, which eventually lead him to be purged by Marx from The First International. The difference between Marx and Bakunin over how to go about reaching their mutually held goals became irreconcilable. Bakunin thought that Marx's strategies would just lead to another despotism, which turned out to be a wise foresight. He strongly opposed the idea of seizing the power of the state as a method of revolution. In this regaurd, Bakunin must be credited as the first thinker to effectively try to depoliticize communism.
Bakunin's historical significance in anarchism more or less represents the planting of the seeds for all forthcoming collectivistic variants of anarchism such as anarcho-communism and anarcho-syndicalism. At the same time, it must be said that he also represents the initial cause of a fragmenting of communism between Marxist and anarchistic strains. In either case, Bakunin was most definitely a key figure in the history of anarchism.
The Disposition of Property Under Market Anarchy
I have heard a lot of opining about how property is to be handled under market anarchy. Most of this discussion centers on how one acquires property legitimately in a free society, how to protect such property, how intrusions on ones property should be addressed, etc. Scarcely have I heard, dare I say never, any mention of how property should be conveyed at death. That is, when a property owner dies, what should happen to his property?
The most straightforward answer is that, well, clearly, the decedent (dead property owner) should convey all of his assets through testamentary disposition, e.g. a will. This answer is crystal clear, but the issue gets somewhat foggy if one asks a very obvious question: what if the decedent is intestate, i.e. he has no will?
At common law, the emphasis has always been placed on the biological relations of people when conveying property at death. It was a legal philosophy obsessed with blood: it wanted a decedent's property to end up in the hands of his blood relatives. Love it or hate it, this clear line of distinction about where your property went resolved a lot of problems. The state simply declared that upon your death all of your assets would be conveyed to your sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, etc. If the state could not find anyone to give your property to within your bloodline, the state would grant itself your property.
Today, most, if not all, states in the United States still have such a system in place. If you die intestate, your property passes through your state's law of intestacy, which generally means it goes to your spouse and your blood relatives. If the state has trouble finding the decedent's heirs, it will go up the ancestral line, and locate a consanguineous heir. If all else fails, the state does what it does best: it claims the property for itself.
The problem facing market anarchists concerns how property should pass in the absence of a will. Simply, if a man dies with property and has devised no document dealing with its disposition at his death, what is to be done with said property? Surely the answer is not to adopt the government's current practice and convey it to blood relatives. After all, what makes blood relatives so bloody (excuse the pun) special under property rights properly understood? Well, nothing. There is no reason to assert that property rights demand the conveyance of ones assets to blood relatives at death.
There are a few possibilities to remedy this situation in the absence of the state.
It could be that each business would form a contractual relationship with its customers, especially in the purchase of large products like a car or refrigerator, wherein each particular product would have its own method of conveyance if the decedent is intestate. The forces of economic law would engage to serve consumers as well. If consumers desired for their property to be conveyed a certain way, they could very well alter their purchasing decisions to reflect their preference for a certain method of property disposition. Thus, if Company A is competing against Company B and their products are similar in every way except the method in which property is conveyed at death, the company with the more preferred method would tend to draw consumers away from its competitor and to it. The result being that either the rival company adopts a different method (perhaps the same one as the other company) or the rival company eventually goes out of business.
The most obvious and economically sensible approach for a company to take is to make it clear when the customer purchases a product that the item will revert to the company should the customer die intestate. This option gives the various companies an incentive to collect their property (if it's profitable to do so): the property could be resold, scrapped for parts, etc.
Another method under a truly free market could be through the use of insurance. In the insurance contract, the insurance company could have a clause that says how property is conveyed at death if the insured dies intestate. The contract could be narrow and cover only the property which is directly insured, or it could be broad and cover much more than that. For example, if you have insurance on land, the insurance policy could have a broad clause that conveys all property on that land should the insured die intestate.
If all else fails, there is also the possibility that entrepreneurs will spring forth in the free market to resolve the unforeseen. At worst, the decedent's property could be treated as unused and unowned, opening an opportunity for it to be homesteaded once more. At first glance, this may seem chaotic, as it could encourage a run on the decedent's property: first come, first serve. However, businesses specializing in the disposition of a decedent's assets could arise to make the process much more smooth. If Tom dies intestate and has land, a house, a car, and other personal items, the Intestate Disposition Firm, for example, could handle the allocation of those assets to buyers by hosting an auction.
What if these firms fight over who gets to auction off the property? Well, consumers would tend not to reward such activity. If firms fight over the now unhomesteaded property, it could damage the property (destroying value) and scare away potential buyers. The firms that want to maximize their profit will have an incentive to auction off the property peacefully, as those who do so violently would be at a comparative disadvantage: the violent firm would get less for damaged property in a sale and would perhaps even need to discount further to entice frightened consumers into purchasing from them. So, in the aggregate, the peaceful firms will tend to push the violent firms out of business as consumers patronize them more relative to the violent firms, and the violent firms will tend to destroy value in the process of aggressing against one another. It could also be assumed that the peaceful firms would set up some customary business arrangement that helps determine which firm proceeds with the auction. The case may be that the geographic location of the decedent's property helps in this instance.
One final issue worth mentioning is conflicting conveyance schemes. For instance, if Tom has an insurance policy that conveys the same piece of property that another, independent contract also conveys, how is it resolved? Well, the method that is flexible enough to cover the strangest situations is to allow dispute resolution authorities to resolve it and formulate a solution for each individual case. If there are conflicting claims to the property, an arbitrator would have to be called in to resolve the dispute. The conflicting claims would have to be analyzed, and the arbitrator would operate in much the same fashion as he would resolving more ordinary disputes between people on the free market.
In sum, freedom works, like always, in resolving even the most mindbogglingly complicated situations.
The most straightforward answer is that, well, clearly, the decedent (dead property owner) should convey all of his assets through testamentary disposition, e.g. a will. This answer is crystal clear, but the issue gets somewhat foggy if one asks a very obvious question: what if the decedent is intestate, i.e. he has no will?
At common law, the emphasis has always been placed on the biological relations of people when conveying property at death. It was a legal philosophy obsessed with blood: it wanted a decedent's property to end up in the hands of his blood relatives. Love it or hate it, this clear line of distinction about where your property went resolved a lot of problems. The state simply declared that upon your death all of your assets would be conveyed to your sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, etc. If the state could not find anyone to give your property to within your bloodline, the state would grant itself your property.
Today, most, if not all, states in the United States still have such a system in place. If you die intestate, your property passes through your state's law of intestacy, which generally means it goes to your spouse and your blood relatives. If the state has trouble finding the decedent's heirs, it will go up the ancestral line, and locate a consanguineous heir. If all else fails, the state does what it does best: it claims the property for itself.
The problem facing market anarchists concerns how property should pass in the absence of a will. Simply, if a man dies with property and has devised no document dealing with its disposition at his death, what is to be done with said property? Surely the answer is not to adopt the government's current practice and convey it to blood relatives. After all, what makes blood relatives so bloody (excuse the pun) special under property rights properly understood? Well, nothing. There is no reason to assert that property rights demand the conveyance of ones assets to blood relatives at death.
There are a few possibilities to remedy this situation in the absence of the state.
It could be that each business would form a contractual relationship with its customers, especially in the purchase of large products like a car or refrigerator, wherein each particular product would have its own method of conveyance if the decedent is intestate. The forces of economic law would engage to serve consumers as well. If consumers desired for their property to be conveyed a certain way, they could very well alter their purchasing decisions to reflect their preference for a certain method of property disposition. Thus, if Company A is competing against Company B and their products are similar in every way except the method in which property is conveyed at death, the company with the more preferred method would tend to draw consumers away from its competitor and to it. The result being that either the rival company adopts a different method (perhaps the same one as the other company) or the rival company eventually goes out of business.
The most obvious and economically sensible approach for a company to take is to make it clear when the customer purchases a product that the item will revert to the company should the customer die intestate. This option gives the various companies an incentive to collect their property (if it's profitable to do so): the property could be resold, scrapped for parts, etc.
Another method under a truly free market could be through the use of insurance. In the insurance contract, the insurance company could have a clause that says how property is conveyed at death if the insured dies intestate. The contract could be narrow and cover only the property which is directly insured, or it could be broad and cover much more than that. For example, if you have insurance on land, the insurance policy could have a broad clause that conveys all property on that land should the insured die intestate.
If all else fails, there is also the possibility that entrepreneurs will spring forth in the free market to resolve the unforeseen. At worst, the decedent's property could be treated as unused and unowned, opening an opportunity for it to be homesteaded once more. At first glance, this may seem chaotic, as it could encourage a run on the decedent's property: first come, first serve. However, businesses specializing in the disposition of a decedent's assets could arise to make the process much more smooth. If Tom dies intestate and has land, a house, a car, and other personal items, the Intestate Disposition Firm, for example, could handle the allocation of those assets to buyers by hosting an auction.
What if these firms fight over who gets to auction off the property? Well, consumers would tend not to reward such activity. If firms fight over the now unhomesteaded property, it could damage the property (destroying value) and scare away potential buyers. The firms that want to maximize their profit will have an incentive to auction off the property peacefully, as those who do so violently would be at a comparative disadvantage: the violent firm would get less for damaged property in a sale and would perhaps even need to discount further to entice frightened consumers into purchasing from them. So, in the aggregate, the peaceful firms will tend to push the violent firms out of business as consumers patronize them more relative to the violent firms, and the violent firms will tend to destroy value in the process of aggressing against one another. It could also be assumed that the peaceful firms would set up some customary business arrangement that helps determine which firm proceeds with the auction. The case may be that the geographic location of the decedent's property helps in this instance.
One final issue worth mentioning is conflicting conveyance schemes. For instance, if Tom has an insurance policy that conveys the same piece of property that another, independent contract also conveys, how is it resolved? Well, the method that is flexible enough to cover the strangest situations is to allow dispute resolution authorities to resolve it and formulate a solution for each individual case. If there are conflicting claims to the property, an arbitrator would have to be called in to resolve the dispute. The conflicting claims would have to be analyzed, and the arbitrator would operate in much the same fashion as he would resolving more ordinary disputes between people on the free market.
In sum, freedom works, like always, in resolving even the most mindbogglingly complicated situations.
Friday, January 30, 2009
First Draft of Anarchic Iceland
Iceland was started by tax-evaders seeking to escape King Harald Fairhair’s attempt to impose central control and property taxes on all of Norway. Iceland was a frontier land with no formal leagal structure until 930 CE when the althing was established. Iceland then adopted a statist mode of organization in 1096 CE, whereupon it collapsed into chaotic statism in 1220 CE and submitted to Norway in 1262 CE.
Iceland had "no king but the law". Every year, about 40 chieftains would meet for two weeks a year to talk about issues and how to deal with them. The Icelanders called this meeting the althing, but is translated by most historians to mean a "parliament". However, it was very much unlike a parliament today in that bills weren't passed which affected all of Iceland. It was more of a gathering of the chieftains to make deals with each other and sort out whatever needed to be sorted out.
The chieftains were not elected and their power was not maintained by some army. The chieftains emerged into their positions - they were natural elites. Their power as political governors rested entirely on the voluntary support of each individual being governed. Not a majority, each individual person. It was not mob rule.
Chieftains existed primarily to resolve disputes, and appointed and paid judges to do carry out their law. They also appointed a few armed men to deal with cases where justice needed to be accelerated. The judges and soldiers who resolved disputes in connection to the chieftain formed the chieftaincy. The chieftaincy can thus be termed most appropriately a "dispute resolution organization".
If any customer of a chieftaincy was unsatisfied in any way, he could subscribe to another chieftaincy, start his own, or live off the grid. Anyone could start their own chieftaincy, all that was required were people willing to subscribe and recognition from the other chieftaincies.
One could also sell their chieftaincy to another man in the same way one can sell a company. However, if the customers of the chieftaincy didn't approve of the new owner, they could subscribe to another chieftaincy, and the judges and guards could quit and sell their services to another chieftaincy as well.
The chieftaincies were non-geographic. That is, you didn't have a border between chieftaincy A and chieftaincy B. There were no borders between the chieftaincies anymore than there are borders between coke and pepsi. This made it almost impossible to wage war since it wasn't clear where the "enemy" was.
In addition to the non-geographic nature of the chieftaincy, members of one chieftaincy could just subscribe to another. And so as soon as one chieftaincy started building up a large army for war, the customers would see their bills go up and then just leave that chieftaincy. If a chieftain said "I do not allow you to leave! You must pay the war tax and men of a certain age must fight!", and tried to use his armed men to enforce the taxation and conscription, then that would be a perfect opportunity for the other chieftaincies to move right in and take customers just as the aggressive chieftain was in the vulnerable position of fighting a guerrilla war against his own customers. On top of that, there was no guarantee that the tyrannical chieftain's armed men would even listen.
That explains, for lack of a better word, the "political" system of Iceland at the time. Though really there was no political system, and the services of defense and law were provided by individuals making deals with each other and were enforced by each other. There was no archon - no ghost, god, goblin or "government" to issue commandments from the clouds.
For the bulk of Icelanders, life centered around work and the accumulation of property. Property - like food, shelter and clothing, and land. Land ownership in Iceland was emergent. That is to say, it emerged from the interaction of individuals. Individuals each agreed who owned what land, and communities formed which agreed to common plots, rights of passage through property (easements), common services, and all of the things which are a part of living and getting along. People who meet each other face to face and parcel up land together formed the first-order cluster. Then when they came into contact with other clusters, they worked out how land is parceled up again. Typically the result was an agreement that the property arrangements within the clusters would be honored between them as well. That is, any person from cluster A would honor the property arrangements of any person in cluster B. This is much more complicated to explain than it is to understand.
If there was a dispute over grazing, fishing or land rights, that was submitted to the chieftain's judge. The chieftain's judge's rulings were mostly obeyed because the judge would issue a ruling boycotting the person who was in contempt of the court. That is to say, if someone shirked the judge's ruling, the judge would issue a warrant to the entire relevant community saying not to do business with this man, and the members of the relevant community would almost always comply. If the judge issued a ruling that was considered heinous, the community could choose to not boycott, appeal to the chieftain himself, or subscribe to another chieftaincy, or any combination of those things. If a single member of a community didn't like the ruling, he himself could subscribe to or form another chieftaincy.
Or if a man received a claim by a judge and was unable to collect on the claim and a boycott was impossible, he could sell the claim to a powerful individual who would then be able to enforce it and take the sum awarded by the judge to the original victim. And remember, said powerful individual's power rests on his men following him, who can desert or offer their services pro-bono to anyone they choose at any time.
But what if a dispute arose between people subscribed to two different chieftaincies? Well because chieftaincies want customers, the chieftaincies that can get along with other chieftaincies are the ones that succeed. And in this sense, a common, Iceland-wide law emerged. You had standard law in Iceland for the same reason you don't see rectangular credit cards, and for the same reason you have standard shoe sizes, soda sizes, rail gauges, and even time zones (it was the rail companies that agreed upon the time zones, not congress). Standardization just makes doing things easier, and given the "disutility of labor" (a fancy way of saying that people don't like to work) people will tend to standardize in things where they are dealing with other people. And so during each year the Icelandic parliament had the law of the land recited, and amendments were made as needed and agreed upon. If a cheiftan didn't agree, then he could apply a different law and be compatible with the other chieftaincies to the extent that those other chieftaincies were still willing to accommodate him.
Iceland was known as a land of constant feuding. This is because for most of it's history there was no war as we know it. Without a state, chieftains couldn't conscript massive numbers of unwilling men, and so quarrels were settled between the quarrelers themselves. This is in contrast with most of Europe at that time where disputes between kings where settled by way too many men dying for them with oaths of fealty and holy pomp and regalia in a manner best described as gang-like and psychotic.
Unfortunately, Iceland did eventually break down. In the late 900's and early 1000's, King Olaf of Norway sent christian militants to Iceland to intimidate Icelanders to become christian. Icelanders who were related to chieftains who visited Norway were often held as ransom, the ransom being that the chieftain had to convert to Christianity if he wanted his loved ones to return.
In 1000 CE, Iceland was split between the Christians and the Pagans, with the Christians wanting to make their faith compulsory and the Pagans advocating religious pluralism. But instead of war, Iceland settled on an appeal to the most respected member of Icelandic society, Chieftain Throgeirr Thorkelsson. Thorkelsson sided with the Christians, and that was that.
The reader may be puzzled as to how a society on the verge of civil war could end the conflict with a simple arbitration. The culture of due process, law and conflict avoidance was so ingrained in Icelandic society that this ruling was rather nonchalantly accepted. An illustration of this mentality is that many Icelanders would have trials to get the ghosts out of haunted houses. At the trial, it would be ruled that the ghosts were trespassing, and apparently the ghosts promptly left after receiving the verdict (?). The psychology of persons who lived their entire lives in an ordered and structured stateless society is radically different than that of persons living in the chaos of state "order".
At first the compulsion of Christianity didn't seem to pose a threat to Iceland's order, but it was a crack that could be expanded. A fully fledged state requires compulsion, and a compelled religion was in place.
Then in 1096, the churches all throughout Iceland issued a tithe at the behest of bishop Gissur Ísleifsson. He placated the Icelandic populace by assuring them that those who were willing to pay one-tenth of god's gifts receive a commensurate share in heaven.
The tithe was a 1% property tax. The first real tax in the history of Iceland. Moreover, the church tithe was geographically based, and so a person couldn't just subscribe to a new church. The church and the right to tithe the people in the area around it (until it bumped against another church's tithing zone) was called a Churchstead. And because everyone was required to be Christian, Icelanders couldn't just convert back to Paganism to avoid paying the tithe. Icelanders were stuck in the game because of what happened in 1000 CE.
Given the difficulty of moving into the area of a church that didn't tithe, this gave the chieftains (who typically owned the church in some manner) their first real power base. Beforehand they were dependent on trade with their customers, their services for their money and / or agricultural products. But with the introduction of the tithe, the chieftain had a steady source of income that he could use to spend on whatever he wanted. Before, if he spent his income on things like an army or personal luxuries, he would be less competitive in selling his dispute resolution services and could go out of business.
Now the chieftains had no accountability (except the hazy prospect of revolution). What's more is that by tying the chieftaincies to geography, it became impossible for a new chieftaincy to emerge, and so the chieftaincies could raise the tithes together.
And so with this steady stream of income-for-nothing (tithing aka taxation) over a given geographic area, the chieftains could finally build up armies and wage wars. This still took a very long time, 124 years until war broke out between chieftaincies with their tithe-supported armies. Between 1230 and 1264 intermittent war raged across Iceland as wealth became much more concentrated than ever before. As many people died during this time on a per-capita basis as die from murder or manslaughter in the United States today, that's how bad it was. The situation was exacerbated by King Haakon of Norway doing all he could to stir up trouble, spreading rumors, supporting invasions and then sending money to chieftains on the losing side of a conflict in order to prolong it. A more overt version of the Iran-Contra scandal.
In 1262, after several years of agonized discussion, the people of Iceland held public meetings throughout the land and eventually agreed to let Haakon take over. In 1264 Iceland was effectively under Norwegian rule.
The lesson here, which is the same lesson that can be culled from other anarchistic societies, is that the Icelanders needed a theory of anarchy. They were living in anarchy, and it was truly glorious especially given the natural resources of Iceland, but they weren't anarchists. They didn't understand why their system worked so well, that it worked because of the infinite fallback and negative feedback mechanisms that are inherent in human interaction.
Without understanding this, it is inevitable that a stateless society will stumble into archon rule. For a stateless society to be maintained, it must have a widely accepted theory of anarchy and the ability to identify and oppose archons, and not be fooled when archons claim that they need them to fight other archons, and never to compromise with archons. The artificial man of the state is immortal, and waited 70 years to impose Christianity, another 96 years to impose the tithe, and another 168 years rule over Iceland altogether.
Iceland had "no king but the law". Every year, about 40 chieftains would meet for two weeks a year to talk about issues and how to deal with them. The Icelanders called this meeting the althing, but is translated by most historians to mean a "parliament". However, it was very much unlike a parliament today in that bills weren't passed which affected all of Iceland. It was more of a gathering of the chieftains to make deals with each other and sort out whatever needed to be sorted out.
The chieftains were not elected and their power was not maintained by some army. The chieftains emerged into their positions - they were natural elites. Their power as political governors rested entirely on the voluntary support of each individual being governed. Not a majority, each individual person. It was not mob rule.
Chieftains existed primarily to resolve disputes, and appointed and paid judges to do carry out their law. They also appointed a few armed men to deal with cases where justice needed to be accelerated. The judges and soldiers who resolved disputes in connection to the chieftain formed the chieftaincy. The chieftaincy can thus be termed most appropriately a "dispute resolution organization".
If any customer of a chieftaincy was unsatisfied in any way, he could subscribe to another chieftaincy, start his own, or live off the grid. Anyone could start their own chieftaincy, all that was required were people willing to subscribe and recognition from the other chieftaincies.
One could also sell their chieftaincy to another man in the same way one can sell a company. However, if the customers of the chieftaincy didn't approve of the new owner, they could subscribe to another chieftaincy, and the judges and guards could quit and sell their services to another chieftaincy as well.
The chieftaincies were non-geographic. That is, you didn't have a border between chieftaincy A and chieftaincy B. There were no borders between the chieftaincies anymore than there are borders between coke and pepsi. This made it almost impossible to wage war since it wasn't clear where the "enemy" was.
In addition to the non-geographic nature of the chieftaincy, members of one chieftaincy could just subscribe to another. And so as soon as one chieftaincy started building up a large army for war, the customers would see their bills go up and then just leave that chieftaincy. If a chieftain said "I do not allow you to leave! You must pay the war tax and men of a certain age must fight!", and tried to use his armed men to enforce the taxation and conscription, then that would be a perfect opportunity for the other chieftaincies to move right in and take customers just as the aggressive chieftain was in the vulnerable position of fighting a guerrilla war against his own customers. On top of that, there was no guarantee that the tyrannical chieftain's armed men would even listen.
That explains, for lack of a better word, the "political" system of Iceland at the time. Though really there was no political system, and the services of defense and law were provided by individuals making deals with each other and were enforced by each other. There was no archon - no ghost, god, goblin or "government" to issue commandments from the clouds.
For the bulk of Icelanders, life centered around work and the accumulation of property. Property - like food, shelter and clothing, and land. Land ownership in Iceland was emergent. That is to say, it emerged from the interaction of individuals. Individuals each agreed who owned what land, and communities formed which agreed to common plots, rights of passage through property (easements), common services, and all of the things which are a part of living and getting along. People who meet each other face to face and parcel up land together formed the first-order cluster. Then when they came into contact with other clusters, they worked out how land is parceled up again. Typically the result was an agreement that the property arrangements within the clusters would be honored between them as well. That is, any person from cluster A would honor the property arrangements of any person in cluster B. This is much more complicated to explain than it is to understand.
If there was a dispute over grazing, fishing or land rights, that was submitted to the chieftain's judge. The chieftain's judge's rulings were mostly obeyed because the judge would issue a ruling boycotting the person who was in contempt of the court. That is to say, if someone shirked the judge's ruling, the judge would issue a warrant to the entire relevant community saying not to do business with this man, and the members of the relevant community would almost always comply. If the judge issued a ruling that was considered heinous, the community could choose to not boycott, appeal to the chieftain himself, or subscribe to another chieftaincy, or any combination of those things. If a single member of a community didn't like the ruling, he himself could subscribe to or form another chieftaincy.
Or if a man received a claim by a judge and was unable to collect on the claim and a boycott was impossible, he could sell the claim to a powerful individual who would then be able to enforce it and take the sum awarded by the judge to the original victim. And remember, said powerful individual's power rests on his men following him, who can desert or offer their services pro-bono to anyone they choose at any time.
But what if a dispute arose between people subscribed to two different chieftaincies? Well because chieftaincies want customers, the chieftaincies that can get along with other chieftaincies are the ones that succeed. And in this sense, a common, Iceland-wide law emerged. You had standard law in Iceland for the same reason you don't see rectangular credit cards, and for the same reason you have standard shoe sizes, soda sizes, rail gauges, and even time zones (it was the rail companies that agreed upon the time zones, not congress). Standardization just makes doing things easier, and given the "disutility of labor" (a fancy way of saying that people don't like to work) people will tend to standardize in things where they are dealing with other people. And so during each year the Icelandic parliament had the law of the land recited, and amendments were made as needed and agreed upon. If a cheiftan didn't agree, then he could apply a different law and be compatible with the other chieftaincies to the extent that those other chieftaincies were still willing to accommodate him.
Iceland was known as a land of constant feuding. This is because for most of it's history there was no war as we know it. Without a state, chieftains couldn't conscript massive numbers of unwilling men, and so quarrels were settled between the quarrelers themselves. This is in contrast with most of Europe at that time where disputes between kings where settled by way too many men dying for them with oaths of fealty and holy pomp and regalia in a manner best described as gang-like and psychotic.
Unfortunately, Iceland did eventually break down. In the late 900's and early 1000's, King Olaf of Norway sent christian militants to Iceland to intimidate Icelanders to become christian. Icelanders who were related to chieftains who visited Norway were often held as ransom, the ransom being that the chieftain had to convert to Christianity if he wanted his loved ones to return.
In 1000 CE, Iceland was split between the Christians and the Pagans, with the Christians wanting to make their faith compulsory and the Pagans advocating religious pluralism. But instead of war, Iceland settled on an appeal to the most respected member of Icelandic society, Chieftain Throgeirr Thorkelsson. Thorkelsson sided with the Christians, and that was that.
The reader may be puzzled as to how a society on the verge of civil war could end the conflict with a simple arbitration. The culture of due process, law and conflict avoidance was so ingrained in Icelandic society that this ruling was rather nonchalantly accepted. An illustration of this mentality is that many Icelanders would have trials to get the ghosts out of haunted houses. At the trial, it would be ruled that the ghosts were trespassing, and apparently the ghosts promptly left after receiving the verdict (?). The psychology of persons who lived their entire lives in an ordered and structured stateless society is radically different than that of persons living in the chaos of state "order".
At first the compulsion of Christianity didn't seem to pose a threat to Iceland's order, but it was a crack that could be expanded. A fully fledged state requires compulsion, and a compelled religion was in place.
Then in 1096, the churches all throughout Iceland issued a tithe at the behest of bishop Gissur Ísleifsson. He placated the Icelandic populace by assuring them that those who were willing to pay one-tenth of god's gifts receive a commensurate share in heaven.
The tithe was a 1% property tax. The first real tax in the history of Iceland. Moreover, the church tithe was geographically based, and so a person couldn't just subscribe to a new church. The church and the right to tithe the people in the area around it (until it bumped against another church's tithing zone) was called a Churchstead. And because everyone was required to be Christian, Icelanders couldn't just convert back to Paganism to avoid paying the tithe. Icelanders were stuck in the game because of what happened in 1000 CE.
Given the difficulty of moving into the area of a church that didn't tithe, this gave the chieftains (who typically owned the church in some manner) their first real power base. Beforehand they were dependent on trade with their customers, their services for their money and / or agricultural products. But with the introduction of the tithe, the chieftain had a steady source of income that he could use to spend on whatever he wanted. Before, if he spent his income on things like an army or personal luxuries, he would be less competitive in selling his dispute resolution services and could go out of business.
Now the chieftains had no accountability (except the hazy prospect of revolution). What's more is that by tying the chieftaincies to geography, it became impossible for a new chieftaincy to emerge, and so the chieftaincies could raise the tithes together.
And so with this steady stream of income-for-nothing (tithing aka taxation) over a given geographic area, the chieftains could finally build up armies and wage wars. This still took a very long time, 124 years until war broke out between chieftaincies with their tithe-supported armies. Between 1230 and 1264 intermittent war raged across Iceland as wealth became much more concentrated than ever before. As many people died during this time on a per-capita basis as die from murder or manslaughter in the United States today, that's how bad it was. The situation was exacerbated by King Haakon of Norway doing all he could to stir up trouble, spreading rumors, supporting invasions and then sending money to chieftains on the losing side of a conflict in order to prolong it. A more overt version of the Iran-Contra scandal.
In 1262, after several years of agonized discussion, the people of Iceland held public meetings throughout the land and eventually agreed to let Haakon take over. In 1264 Iceland was effectively under Norwegian rule.
The lesson here, which is the same lesson that can be culled from other anarchistic societies, is that the Icelanders needed a theory of anarchy. They were living in anarchy, and it was truly glorious especially given the natural resources of Iceland, but they weren't anarchists. They didn't understand why their system worked so well, that it worked because of the infinite fallback and negative feedback mechanisms that are inherent in human interaction.
Without understanding this, it is inevitable that a stateless society will stumble into archon rule. For a stateless society to be maintained, it must have a widely accepted theory of anarchy and the ability to identify and oppose archons, and not be fooled when archons claim that they need them to fight other archons, and never to compromise with archons. The artificial man of the state is immortal, and waited 70 years to impose Christianity, another 96 years to impose the tithe, and another 168 years rule over Iceland altogether.
Anarchic Ireland Rough Draft
This here is part of a short book I'm writing. Any editing one wants to do will be fan-freaking-tastic.
It is very tempting to write off the entire explanation of anarchistic Ireland (~650 CE to ~1650 CE) with "it was basically Iceland with different agreed upon laws". That said, anarchic Ireland was basically Iceland with different agreed upon laws and a different way of administering those laws.
Like Iceland, protection was provided by non-geographic voluntary agencies. In Ireland they were called "tuatha", and functioned much like the chieftaincy in Iceland. Any person could start a tuath, all he needed was people willing to pay money to subscribe to his tuath, but unlike medieval Iceland, the leader of the voluntary political unit did not appoint the judges. The only functions a "king" of a tuath had was to preside over the annual assembly, to serve as high priest, and lead the tuath in war (which was very rare in ancient Ireland). He did not decide upon the laws for members of the tuath, and he could not declare war without the tuath assembly's approval, though he did act as head diplomat.
When the king died, the next king was elected from within the family of the king. If there was no male heir, the tuatha was disbanded, and then most likely another highly respected man would form a "new" tuath with the same members, rituals, and subscription fee, and he would become king.
The assembly was made up of freemen, that is the landholding class. Those who didn't own land but lived as tenants on a freeman's land did not participate in the assembly. A good way to think about the tuath would be as homeowner's association / church branch / defense organization. If any member of the tuath found the land rules, subscription fee or anything unsatisfactory, he could join another tuath or form his own to the extent that he was able to. This threat of unlimited secession prevented any tyrannies of the majority from forming. Tenants of freemen could also join other tuatha, and you could have the tenant of a freeman who lived under a different tuath, and this prevented the freemen from using their presence in the assembly to exploit the tenants.
The reason each tuath functioned like any other tuath in Ireland was that the tuath itself was justified by and subject to the common law of all Ireland, called brehon Law.
Brehon law, like the common law in England and Iceland, is simply a product of the interactions of people, it's just what emerged. Because disputes arose, and people needed to resolve them, and all throughout Ireland people came up with rules within their local community - the people they know face to face, a.k.a. the first order cluster. Then when members of different first order clusters met with each other, they would learn of each others' laws and most often the laws would be similar, and the differences would be either be respected or the laws would be harmonized (in a not necessarily harmonious way). Eventually the common law emerged.
In this environment, certain men became very proficient in law, men who understood the intricacies and could identify when someone was invoking common law inappropriately. These men became known for their knowledge of common law and for their fair application of it, and eventually were called brehons. The brehon didn't create the law as much as he discovered it. Brehons were not appointed, they didn't go to a university and graduate, brehons simply emerged, and one could become known as a brehon if he was known for having a thorough understanding of brehon law and was known for issuing fair rulings as a judge, and people were willing to pay for his arbitration.
Whenever anyone had a dispute, he would submit to the adjudication of a well-known and respected brehon. The brehon would issue a ruling, and the loser of the ruling could either pay the entire settlement, part of it, or none. If he chose to pay part of it or none, then his tuath - either through an assembly or the king himself, could outlaw him (which means the tuath no longer protect him). If the tuath in general found a ruling by a brehon to be heinous, then the tuath may decide not to outlaw the defendant, and obviously no longer consider the brehon who issued the heinous ruling a
brehon.
If the tuath decided to outlaw a man for shirking a brehon's ruling, then that man, in theory, could subscribe to another tuath if that tuath would accept him.
Brehons could also decide if a ruling by another brehon was just, and so this man who recieved what he feels is an unjust ruling could still receive legal protection from any brehon who agreed with him. This is the infinite fallback of free human interaction.
The Irish brehon law sought to prevent conflicts from arising by allowing for insurance agreements called sureties. For example, two freemen who owned property could agree to a suretie that if either one of them trespassed on the other's property, they would have to pay a fine to the property owner. Usually violations of sureties resulting in the violating party simply paying the agreed upon fine and moving on, but if there was a dispute, then they would appeal to a brehon.
The fine for a given suretie could not exceed an individual's honor-price. The honor-price of an individual was related to his wealth, and a man could not enter into a contract in which he could not honor the fine for a breach of contract. This meant he couldn't receive loans greater than his honor price. I am not sure how a man's honor price was determined, and I can only assume it was the amount of income he could produce over a given period of time.
If a man entered a valid contract (this includes loans), in which the fine for violating the contract (or defaulting on the loan) was lower than his honor price, yet for whatever reason he was unable to pay the fine / loan, then he became a debtor to the other party who became a creditor. The creditor could then seize the assets (usually the farm) of the debtor, and the debtor would be a tenant of the creditor until he had paid back the loan or fine, at which point his status as a freeman was restored. Or the debtor could sell his assets to anyone to pay off the fine / loan, including the creditor himself.
"Wars" of a European sense did not occur between Irishmen at this time. Because kings could not tax or conscript, all participants in any war would have chosen to fight, and typically only the affected parties of a dispute would ever be willing to risk their lives to settle it. And so instead of wars as we know them, Ireland had feuds or brawls between parties numbering in the tens, not thousands.
Englishmen and many historians characterized Ireland at this time to be barbaric. They point to the fact that Ireland had no final arbiter of law, no king as they had defined it, and no coin of the realm. The first issue has been dealt with at length, and the reason Ireland had no coin of the realm was because there were no legal tender laws. The reason other areas had coins with a set value and some royal seal printed on it, was because the king had commanded that that coin be used and was required to be accepted by merchants. The value of the coin was set above it's value in metal content by royal decree. This way, the king could buy gold, melt it and pour it into a mold, and use one ounce of royal coinage to buy 2 ounces of gold with which to make more coinage, etc. It was free money with which the king could buy more stuff with.
That Ireland didn't have this violently enforced nonsense is not a sign of barbarism but of a level of civility the rest of the world would do well to emulate.
And it wasn't like the people of Ireland lacked the knowledge of the governments throughout Europe, or that they lacked the know-how to make coins. There is plenty of evidence that the Irish at this time were certainly as well off, as scholarly and as technologically advanced as the rest of Europe, if not more so. The Irish people have also garnered far greater attention and significance than their number would suggest. Throughout the years 650 to 1650, Ireland had a population ranging from 450,000 to 960,000, compared to England and France's populations of 7 and 18 million in 1300.
Conflicts that could be appropriately called wars in Ireland during this time are most easily found during the Viking, Norman and English invasions. By the 840's Vikings had begun raiding Ireland and England. In 839, Thorgest attempted to establish a kingdom in Ireland, but found it difficult to do so due to the lack of any central political authority in Ireland that could be conquered. His kingdom lasted from 839 to 845, at which point he was assassinated by Máel Sechnaill, who then led his tuath's army to victory over a Norse army attempting to reclaim the kingdom in 848.
In 852, Olaf the White (son of the Norwegian king at the time) and Ivar Beinlaus established a kingdom in and around Dublin bay. By 902 it was abandoned. Various other viking bigshots attempted to carve out kingdoms in Ireland, all with little success. In 1002 Brian Boru, a king of the tuath of Thomond, was able to rally enough support throughout Ireland to be recognized as the high king of Ireland. As such, he was able to raise an army and defeat a Viking army at the Battle of Clontarf in 1014, which ended the Viking kingdoms in Ireland. After the victory, Boru's descendants were unable to maintain a unified throne and most of Ireland went on as usual. While Ireland was nominally divided into outright compulsory kingdoms, these states were unable to exert much real control outside of their capitols. The Viking invasion illustrated the difficulty of conquering a stateless society, but also illustrated how war leads to the expansion of the state. While Ireland was still mostly anarchic following the battle of Clontarf, the seeds of statism had been planted.
In 1167, a Norman army from Wales invaded Ireland, which was defeated and the leader had to pay a ransom. In 1169, another Norman invasion was more successful and captured the cities of Leinster, Waterford and Dublin. By 1300 most of Ireland was nominally under Norman rule, though in fact their rule extended only to the capitols, and most Irishmen continued to live by the brehon law. Little had changed since 1014.
Over the next 200 years, the effect of assimilation and the visible ineffectualness of Norman law in Ireland resulted in the already limited Norman influence to be eroded. In 1531 Normans had officially gone native when the Lord Deputy of Ireland, Thomas Fitzgerald, began conspiring with the Yorkists to overthrow King Henry VII. In response, Henry had Fitzgerald killed and began a systematic colonization and establishment of real political control over Ireland.
It was found that actually securing control was far more difficult than securing the lord's pledges, and it wasn't until 1603 that King James I of England could establish nominal control over all of Ireland through a serious of attempts at conquests, colonization and deals with local tuaths and the nominal kings (who had been there since 1014). It wasn't until Cromwell's brutal conquest of Ireland from 1649 to 1653 which gave Englishmen the majority of of the land that it could be said that Ireland was truly conquered by England. Cromwell had to kill over 15,000 Irish rebels and 200,000 Irish civilians of a country with only around 1,500,000 people total, or about 14% of Ireland's total population. In comparison, Germany lost about 13% of it's population during World War 2.
Britain's conquest of Ireland, which over the course of the conquest never had a population of over 1.5 million and was separated from Britain only by 21 miles of ocean, took 484 years.
In contrast, the East India Company, a British sponsored venture, was able to conquer India in 240 years (1617 to 1857), and England was able to conquer areas of France far more populous than Ireland many times during the hundred years war.
Ireland is a testament to the effectiveness of anarchic defense. Ireland's defense was not characterized by fielding large armies and submitting to rule after a psychotic and murderous game of capture the flag. It was characterized by non-compliance and literally forcing the invader to go house to house and collect taxes person by person. Anarchic Ireland not only showed how effective a stateless legal order is, but also how difficult it is to conquer people who simply will not submit to being ruled, and who do not slump their shoulders and acquiesce once their flag has been captured and signatures exchanged.
When Napoleon invaded Russia, he had assumed that once he captured the flag capitol, he would "rule Russia". But upon arriving in a deserted Moscow, the base reality of the situation set in. All that was there were a collection of buildings, streets, sewers, etc. collectively called "Moscow". And standing in those streets were a bunch of men with muskets collectively called "the French Army". This apparently had something to do with "conquering" "Russia" (?).
What is conquest? When a soldier passes through a town, is he said to have "conquered" it?
Only when a population believes in the legitimacy of a state can it be said to be truly conquered. Ireland was able to stand against overwhelming force for nearly half a millennium because Irishmen saw through the empty pomp of the state. If Europeans had half the backbone that the Irish had, there would be no states today.
It is very tempting to write off the entire explanation of anarchistic Ireland (~650 CE to ~1650 CE) with "it was basically Iceland with different agreed upon laws". That said, anarchic Ireland was basically Iceland with different agreed upon laws and a different way of administering those laws.
Like Iceland, protection was provided by non-geographic voluntary agencies. In Ireland they were called "tuatha", and functioned much like the chieftaincy in Iceland. Any person could start a tuath, all he needed was people willing to pay money to subscribe to his tuath, but unlike medieval Iceland, the leader of the voluntary political unit did not appoint the judges. The only functions a "king" of a tuath had was to preside over the annual assembly, to serve as high priest, and lead the tuath in war (which was very rare in ancient Ireland). He did not decide upon the laws for members of the tuath, and he could not declare war without the tuath assembly's approval, though he did act as head diplomat.
When the king died, the next king was elected from within the family of the king. If there was no male heir, the tuatha was disbanded, and then most likely another highly respected man would form a "new" tuath with the same members, rituals, and subscription fee, and he would become king.
The assembly was made up of freemen, that is the landholding class. Those who didn't own land but lived as tenants on a freeman's land did not participate in the assembly. A good way to think about the tuath would be as homeowner's association / church branch / defense organization. If any member of the tuath found the land rules, subscription fee or anything unsatisfactory, he could join another tuath or form his own to the extent that he was able to. This threat of unlimited secession prevented any tyrannies of the majority from forming. Tenants of freemen could also join other tuatha, and you could have the tenant of a freeman who lived under a different tuath, and this prevented the freemen from using their presence in the assembly to exploit the tenants.
The reason each tuath functioned like any other tuath in Ireland was that the tuath itself was justified by and subject to the common law of all Ireland, called brehon Law.
Brehon law, like the common law in England and Iceland, is simply a product of the interactions of people, it's just what emerged. Because disputes arose, and people needed to resolve them, and all throughout Ireland people came up with rules within their local community - the people they know face to face, a.k.a. the first order cluster. Then when members of different first order clusters met with each other, they would learn of each others' laws and most often the laws would be similar, and the differences would be either be respected or the laws would be harmonized (in a not necessarily harmonious way). Eventually the common law emerged.
In this environment, certain men became very proficient in law, men who understood the intricacies and could identify when someone was invoking common law inappropriately. These men became known for their knowledge of common law and for their fair application of it, and eventually were called brehons. The brehon didn't create the law as much as he discovered it. Brehons were not appointed, they didn't go to a university and graduate, brehons simply emerged, and one could become known as a brehon if he was known for having a thorough understanding of brehon law and was known for issuing fair rulings as a judge, and people were willing to pay for his arbitration.
Whenever anyone had a dispute, he would submit to the adjudication of a well-known and respected brehon. The brehon would issue a ruling, and the loser of the ruling could either pay the entire settlement, part of it, or none. If he chose to pay part of it or none, then his tuath - either through an assembly or the king himself, could outlaw him (which means the tuath no longer protect him). If the tuath in general found a ruling by a brehon to be heinous, then the tuath may decide not to outlaw the defendant, and obviously no longer consider the brehon who issued the heinous ruling a
brehon.
If the tuath decided to outlaw a man for shirking a brehon's ruling, then that man, in theory, could subscribe to another tuath if that tuath would accept him.
Brehons could also decide if a ruling by another brehon was just, and so this man who recieved what he feels is an unjust ruling could still receive legal protection from any brehon who agreed with him. This is the infinite fallback of free human interaction.
The Irish brehon law sought to prevent conflicts from arising by allowing for insurance agreements called sureties. For example, two freemen who owned property could agree to a suretie that if either one of them trespassed on the other's property, they would have to pay a fine to the property owner. Usually violations of sureties resulting in the violating party simply paying the agreed upon fine and moving on, but if there was a dispute, then they would appeal to a brehon.
The fine for a given suretie could not exceed an individual's honor-price. The honor-price of an individual was related to his wealth, and a man could not enter into a contract in which he could not honor the fine for a breach of contract. This meant he couldn't receive loans greater than his honor price. I am not sure how a man's honor price was determined, and I can only assume it was the amount of income he could produce over a given period of time.
If a man entered a valid contract (this includes loans), in which the fine for violating the contract (or defaulting on the loan) was lower than his honor price, yet for whatever reason he was unable to pay the fine / loan, then he became a debtor to the other party who became a creditor. The creditor could then seize the assets (usually the farm) of the debtor, and the debtor would be a tenant of the creditor until he had paid back the loan or fine, at which point his status as a freeman was restored. Or the debtor could sell his assets to anyone to pay off the fine / loan, including the creditor himself.
"Wars" of a European sense did not occur between Irishmen at this time. Because kings could not tax or conscript, all participants in any war would have chosen to fight, and typically only the affected parties of a dispute would ever be willing to risk their lives to settle it. And so instead of wars as we know them, Ireland had feuds or brawls between parties numbering in the tens, not thousands.
Englishmen and many historians characterized Ireland at this time to be barbaric. They point to the fact that Ireland had no final arbiter of law, no king as they had defined it, and no coin of the realm. The first issue has been dealt with at length, and the reason Ireland had no coin of the realm was because there were no legal tender laws. The reason other areas had coins with a set value and some royal seal printed on it, was because the king had commanded that that coin be used and was required to be accepted by merchants. The value of the coin was set above it's value in metal content by royal decree. This way, the king could buy gold, melt it and pour it into a mold, and use one ounce of royal coinage to buy 2 ounces of gold with which to make more coinage, etc. It was free money with which the king could buy more stuff with.
That Ireland didn't have this violently enforced nonsense is not a sign of barbarism but of a level of civility the rest of the world would do well to emulate.
And it wasn't like the people of Ireland lacked the knowledge of the governments throughout Europe, or that they lacked the know-how to make coins. There is plenty of evidence that the Irish at this time were certainly as well off, as scholarly and as technologically advanced as the rest of Europe, if not more so. The Irish people have also garnered far greater attention and significance than their number would suggest. Throughout the years 650 to 1650, Ireland had a population ranging from 450,000 to 960,000, compared to England and France's populations of 7 and 18 million in 1300.
Conflicts that could be appropriately called wars in Ireland during this time are most easily found during the Viking, Norman and English invasions. By the 840's Vikings had begun raiding Ireland and England. In 839, Thorgest attempted to establish a kingdom in Ireland, but found it difficult to do so due to the lack of any central political authority in Ireland that could be conquered. His kingdom lasted from 839 to 845, at which point he was assassinated by Máel Sechnaill, who then led his tuath's army to victory over a Norse army attempting to reclaim the kingdom in 848.
In 852, Olaf the White (son of the Norwegian king at the time) and Ivar Beinlaus established a kingdom in and around Dublin bay. By 902 it was abandoned. Various other viking bigshots attempted to carve out kingdoms in Ireland, all with little success. In 1002 Brian Boru, a king of the tuath of Thomond, was able to rally enough support throughout Ireland to be recognized as the high king of Ireland. As such, he was able to raise an army and defeat a Viking army at the Battle of Clontarf in 1014, which ended the Viking kingdoms in Ireland. After the victory, Boru's descendants were unable to maintain a unified throne and most of Ireland went on as usual. While Ireland was nominally divided into outright compulsory kingdoms, these states were unable to exert much real control outside of their capitols. The Viking invasion illustrated the difficulty of conquering a stateless society, but also illustrated how war leads to the expansion of the state. While Ireland was still mostly anarchic following the battle of Clontarf, the seeds of statism had been planted.
In 1167, a Norman army from Wales invaded Ireland, which was defeated and the leader had to pay a ransom. In 1169, another Norman invasion was more successful and captured the cities of Leinster, Waterford and Dublin. By 1300 most of Ireland was nominally under Norman rule, though in fact their rule extended only to the capitols, and most Irishmen continued to live by the brehon law. Little had changed since 1014.
Over the next 200 years, the effect of assimilation and the visible ineffectualness of Norman law in Ireland resulted in the already limited Norman influence to be eroded. In 1531 Normans had officially gone native when the Lord Deputy of Ireland, Thomas Fitzgerald, began conspiring with the Yorkists to overthrow King Henry VII. In response, Henry had Fitzgerald killed and began a systematic colonization and establishment of real political control over Ireland.
It was found that actually securing control was far more difficult than securing the lord's pledges, and it wasn't until 1603 that King James I of England could establish nominal control over all of Ireland through a serious of attempts at conquests, colonization and deals with local tuaths and the nominal kings (who had been there since 1014). It wasn't until Cromwell's brutal conquest of Ireland from 1649 to 1653 which gave Englishmen the majority of of the land that it could be said that Ireland was truly conquered by England. Cromwell had to kill over 15,000 Irish rebels and 200,000 Irish civilians of a country with only around 1,500,000 people total, or about 14% of Ireland's total population. In comparison, Germany lost about 13% of it's population during World War 2.
Britain's conquest of Ireland, which over the course of the conquest never had a population of over 1.5 million and was separated from Britain only by 21 miles of ocean, took 484 years.
In contrast, the East India Company, a British sponsored venture, was able to conquer India in 240 years (1617 to 1857), and England was able to conquer areas of France far more populous than Ireland many times during the hundred years war.
Ireland is a testament to the effectiveness of anarchic defense. Ireland's defense was not characterized by fielding large armies and submitting to rule after a psychotic and murderous game of capture the flag. It was characterized by non-compliance and literally forcing the invader to go house to house and collect taxes person by person. Anarchic Ireland not only showed how effective a stateless legal order is, but also how difficult it is to conquer people who simply will not submit to being ruled, and who do not slump their shoulders and acquiesce once their flag has been captured and signatures exchanged.
When Napoleon invaded Russia, he had assumed that once he captured the flag capitol, he would "rule Russia". But upon arriving in a deserted Moscow, the base reality of the situation set in. All that was there were a collection of buildings, streets, sewers, etc. collectively called "Moscow". And standing in those streets were a bunch of men with muskets collectively called "the French Army". This apparently had something to do with "conquering" "Russia" (?).
What is conquest? When a soldier passes through a town, is he said to have "conquered" it?
Only when a population believes in the legitimacy of a state can it be said to be truly conquered. Ireland was able to stand against overwhelming force for nearly half a millennium because Irishmen saw through the empty pomp of the state. If Europeans had half the backbone that the Irish had, there would be no states today.
Gustave De Molinari and The Production of Security
Gustave De Molinari was a radical classical liberal associated with Frederic Bastiat and the French liberal school of economics. In his work "The Production of Security", Molinari was the first economist to propose the possibility of free competition for the production of security, which had been an untouched matter by laissez-faire economists up until this point. Frederic Bastiat, who was a fairly radical classical liberal economist for his time, initially was tempted to disagree with Molinari on this point, but when he was on his deathbed not long after the release of "The Production of Security" apparently he aknowledged that Molinari was the continuer of his work.
Molinari did not see any reason why economists should argue for free competition in all sorts of areas or industries, and then suddenly create a gigantic caviat for the production of security and arbitration. If there should be consumer choice and free entry to the provision of all sorts of products and services such as food, clothing, shelter and all sorts of types of industries, then why not security and arbitration? If there should be no legal monopoly on such things, why wouldn't this also apply to security and arbitration? Molinari came to oppose both "monopoly and communism" in any industry. In other words, he opposed both state and absolute communal control of industry, viewing free competition as the alternative.
Many contemporary free market anarchists consider Molinari to at least be a proto-anarchist, since he had technically surpassed the formal concept of "limited government" from an economic perspective. By the very least, what Molinari realized is a necessary component of market anarchism. Laissez-faire economists prior to Molinari simply did not question the state production of security or arbitration itelf. With this being aknowledged, Molinari never formally called himself an anarchist, but he did become associated with the movement known as panarchism, which tends to favor pluralism and legal aterritorialism. The degree to which panarchism is even distinguishable from anarchism without adjectives is debatable.
While he is not the most well-known historical figure, Molinari more or less represents the final conclusion of the French liberal school of economics and the first thinker to formally propose free competition in the production of security. In this regaurd, Molinari does have historical significance as a precursor to free market anarchism. Molinari's work was also circulated in America and partially praised by the individualist anarchist Benjamin Tucker, who favored free competition in the production of security himself. The revival of Molinari as a key figure is partially due to Murray Rothbard highlighting him and writting an editor's preface or foreward to the most recent English edition of "The Production of Security".
To an extent, the significance of Molinari's contribution has alot to do with how early on in time it was that he initially made it. "The Production of Security" was released in 1849, and the idea of free competition for the production of security was largely absent from laissez-faire economists throughout the rest of the century. Even the early leaders of the Austrian school of economics did not really touch the question. In fact, it more or less wasn't until the time of Murray Rothbard that a laissez-faire economist would meaningfully press the issue of free competition in the production of security. With this historical understanding, Molinari was quite radical for his time and he definitely has significance.
Molinari did not see any reason why economists should argue for free competition in all sorts of areas or industries, and then suddenly create a gigantic caviat for the production of security and arbitration. If there should be consumer choice and free entry to the provision of all sorts of products and services such as food, clothing, shelter and all sorts of types of industries, then why not security and arbitration? If there should be no legal monopoly on such things, why wouldn't this also apply to security and arbitration? Molinari came to oppose both "monopoly and communism" in any industry. In other words, he opposed both state and absolute communal control of industry, viewing free competition as the alternative.
Many contemporary free market anarchists consider Molinari to at least be a proto-anarchist, since he had technically surpassed the formal concept of "limited government" from an economic perspective. By the very least, what Molinari realized is a necessary component of market anarchism. Laissez-faire economists prior to Molinari simply did not question the state production of security or arbitration itelf. With this being aknowledged, Molinari never formally called himself an anarchist, but he did become associated with the movement known as panarchism, which tends to favor pluralism and legal aterritorialism. The degree to which panarchism is even distinguishable from anarchism without adjectives is debatable.
While he is not the most well-known historical figure, Molinari more or less represents the final conclusion of the French liberal school of economics and the first thinker to formally propose free competition in the production of security. In this regaurd, Molinari does have historical significance as a precursor to free market anarchism. Molinari's work was also circulated in America and partially praised by the individualist anarchist Benjamin Tucker, who favored free competition in the production of security himself. The revival of Molinari as a key figure is partially due to Murray Rothbard highlighting him and writting an editor's preface or foreward to the most recent English edition of "The Production of Security".
To an extent, the significance of Molinari's contribution has alot to do with how early on in time it was that he initially made it. "The Production of Security" was released in 1849, and the idea of free competition for the production of security was largely absent from laissez-faire economists throughout the rest of the century. Even the early leaders of the Austrian school of economics did not really touch the question. In fact, it more or less wasn't until the time of Murray Rothbard that a laissez-faire economist would meaningfully press the issue of free competition in the production of security. With this historical understanding, Molinari was quite radical for his time and he definitely has significance.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Benjamin Tucker: American Anarchist
Benjamin Tucker was arguably the leading figure of individualist anarchism in America in the 19th century. He was the editor and chief of the classic anarchist periodical "Liberty", which involved many key figures in early individualist anarchism such as Lysander Spooner, Stephen Pearl Andrews, Auberon Herbert, Joshua Ingalls and Victor Yarros. Tucker once half-jokingly said that anarchists are just unterrified Jeffersonian Democrats. Tucker's influences ranged from Proudhon to Max Stirner. In fact, he was the first person to have translated Max Stirner's "The Ego And His Own" and Proudhon's "What Is Property?" in America. He also was an early American translator of Friedrich Neitzsche's works prior to H.L. Mencken.
Tucker highlighted and opposed what he called "the four monopolies": the land monopoly, the money monopoly, the patent monopoly and the tariff monopoly. Hence, Tucker opposed institutional absentee landlordism, central banking, intellectual property law and international protectionism. He thought that various state interventions created and sustained monopolies and artifically concentrated capital. Tucker did not normatively oppose wage labor, but he thought that genuine free competition would improve the wage system and make the difference between wages and the alternatives start to become nullified or indistinguishable. He thought that large-scale institutional landlordism is dependant on state interventions. While he held some geoist or quasi-geoist views on land, he did not propose any kind of land value tax like the Goergists do.
Tucker also explicitly advocated voluntary defense institutions as an alternative to the state. Like Proudhon, while Tucker is classified as a socialist, he contextually supported private or individual property. While Tucker supported voluntary labor organization, he also opposed labor legislation. He was opposed to state-backed union bureaucracries and in favor of more organic worker organization. In Tucker's view, the labor legislation was only a reactionary and ultimately reformist measure added on top of the initial pro-capital legislation. The solution was to eliminate the initial pro-capital legislation and industrial welfare or to counteract it through voluntary social organization, not to favor or use the power of the state in misguided although perhaps well-intended attempts at philanthropy. Tucker rejected communism and even many of the popular trends in the more general movement of socialism, of which Tucker was a part for a while.
Tucker's earlier anarchism made use of natural rights philosophy, but eventually he came to adopt an egoist position influenced by Max Stirner, which does away with any formal concept of rights and ethics and justice. This change of Tucker's could be seen as a transition into what some today may classify as "post-left" anarchism. Tucker's egoist variant of individualist anarchism is in some ways a philosophical drifting away from classical liberalism and socialism. In either case, individualist anarchism split from that point onwards between natural rights proponents and egoists. This egoism was also partially picked up by other anarchist factions, even some anarcho-communists. In either case, Tucker's egoism lead him to take some positions that horrified some of his fellow natural rights proponents, and it could be argued that this is a factor responsible for the initial individualist anarchist movement fragmenting.
Tucker's influence on the history of anarchism and libertarian thought is notable. Murray Rothbard was a fan of Tucker's, despite some mild criticism of Tucker's enonomics in an article he wrote from the 1970's. In fact, the only significant thing that separates Tucker's classic individualist anarchism from Murray Rothbard's initial "anarcho-capitalism" is that Tucker favored a labor theory of value, while Rothbard integrated individualist anarchism with austrian economics. During the 60's and early 70's, arguably Rothbard classified as a classic individualist anarchist in some ways and was considered to be an individualist anarchist, only he was effectively trying to revive individualist anarchism in a different historical and cultural context. Tucker's legacy is also carried on by modern mutualists and individualist anarchists such as Kevin Carson. In either case, it is clear that modern market anarchism is dependant on the pre-existing history of individualist anarchism, which sets up its foundation, and the significance of Tucker's role as a leader of individualist anarchism in the 19th century is clear.
Tucker highlighted and opposed what he called "the four monopolies": the land monopoly, the money monopoly, the patent monopoly and the tariff monopoly. Hence, Tucker opposed institutional absentee landlordism, central banking, intellectual property law and international protectionism. He thought that various state interventions created and sustained monopolies and artifically concentrated capital. Tucker did not normatively oppose wage labor, but he thought that genuine free competition would improve the wage system and make the difference between wages and the alternatives start to become nullified or indistinguishable. He thought that large-scale institutional landlordism is dependant on state interventions. While he held some geoist or quasi-geoist views on land, he did not propose any kind of land value tax like the Goergists do.
Tucker also explicitly advocated voluntary defense institutions as an alternative to the state. Like Proudhon, while Tucker is classified as a socialist, he contextually supported private or individual property. While Tucker supported voluntary labor organization, he also opposed labor legislation. He was opposed to state-backed union bureaucracries and in favor of more organic worker organization. In Tucker's view, the labor legislation was only a reactionary and ultimately reformist measure added on top of the initial pro-capital legislation. The solution was to eliminate the initial pro-capital legislation and industrial welfare or to counteract it through voluntary social organization, not to favor or use the power of the state in misguided although perhaps well-intended attempts at philanthropy. Tucker rejected communism and even many of the popular trends in the more general movement of socialism, of which Tucker was a part for a while.
Tucker's earlier anarchism made use of natural rights philosophy, but eventually he came to adopt an egoist position influenced by Max Stirner, which does away with any formal concept of rights and ethics and justice. This change of Tucker's could be seen as a transition into what some today may classify as "post-left" anarchism. Tucker's egoist variant of individualist anarchism is in some ways a philosophical drifting away from classical liberalism and socialism. In either case, individualist anarchism split from that point onwards between natural rights proponents and egoists. This egoism was also partially picked up by other anarchist factions, even some anarcho-communists. In either case, Tucker's egoism lead him to take some positions that horrified some of his fellow natural rights proponents, and it could be argued that this is a factor responsible for the initial individualist anarchist movement fragmenting.
Tucker's influence on the history of anarchism and libertarian thought is notable. Murray Rothbard was a fan of Tucker's, despite some mild criticism of Tucker's enonomics in an article he wrote from the 1970's. In fact, the only significant thing that separates Tucker's classic individualist anarchism from Murray Rothbard's initial "anarcho-capitalism" is that Tucker favored a labor theory of value, while Rothbard integrated individualist anarchism with austrian economics. During the 60's and early 70's, arguably Rothbard classified as a classic individualist anarchist in some ways and was considered to be an individualist anarchist, only he was effectively trying to revive individualist anarchism in a different historical and cultural context. Tucker's legacy is also carried on by modern mutualists and individualist anarchists such as Kevin Carson. In either case, it is clear that modern market anarchism is dependant on the pre-existing history of individualist anarchism, which sets up its foundation, and the significance of Tucker's role as a leader of individualist anarchism in the 19th century is clear.
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
The Evolution Of Herbert Spencer
The British philosopher Herbert Spencer was a vital player in the developement of theories of evolution in the 19th century. It's important to note that Spencer was one of the first proponents of the theory of socio-cultural evolution, and social darwinism is a more specific thing than socio-cultural evolution. The kind of evolution that Spencer talked about is broader than biological evolution and is actually not darwinian in nature, but actually closer to lamarkianism. Spencer actually proposed the concept of socio-cultural evolution a number of years prior to Darwin's release of "Origin of Species" and the method and scope of his work differs from Darwin's.
Sometimes Spencer has been unfairly mischaracterized as a proto-nazi or proto-fascist, but this doesn't betray any genuine understanding of Spencer's political views. Herbert Spencer was a radical classical liberal who could easily be construed as a proto-anarchist. To be sure, Spencer was a utilitarian of sorts, but of a different variety than his contemporaries. Spencer was an individualist utilitarian. Compared to the views of most people during the period, Spencer's early views were actually relatively egalitarian. His notions of socio-cultural evolution lead him to take an organic and historically-based view of societies, and this eventually lead him even to the point of having the chapter "The Right To Ignore The State" in his book "Social Statics", which was removed in later editions. In either case, Spencer's philosophy lead him to oppose the political norms of his day, especially the "greatest good for the greatest number" maxim.
At first, the anarchistic conclusions of his evolutionary theory was speculative in nature. Spencer speculated about social evolution necessitating a level of independance and decentralization that effectively makes the state obsolete as a social organ. In this sense, Spencer entered a period of being a "philosophical anarchist" and it is worthwhile to speculate if he may have technically counted as an anarchist at one point, despite never formally calling himself an anarchist. In either case, some of Spencer's ideas did end up influencing the individualist anarchist Benjamin Tucker, and Proudhon's notion of spontaneous order and the social organism may at least indirectly be linked to Spencer's social evolutionary ideas in some ways. However, Benjamin Tucker later charged Spencer with drifting towards moderation and conservatism in his later years as a result of disillusionment, which Murray Rothbard retrospectively seemed to have agreed with to a degree as well.
Social evolutionary theory may have some gradualist implications, since one is working with long periods of time. To be sure, Spencer's philosophy of history is very different from Marx's. While Marx analized history through the lense of his class theory, Spencer was more broadly working within the sphere of social interaction rather than specializing in or limited to class analysis. While Spencer does speak of social organisms or social organs, he does this while remaining true to methodological individualism. Spencer analized history from the perspective of cooperation, contract and production vs. brute force, coercion and authoritarianism. Spencer favored social evolution towards a society based on contract, cooperation and production. He favored an industrial society rather than a militant one.
What understandably disillusioned Spencer later in life is that it became clear that history was not consistantly progressing in such a direction. Society was becoming both militant and industrial. Fascism and Marxism were on the rise and classical liberalism was fragmenting. Hence, Spencer's retreat into a conservative pessemism. Of course, this isn't to underwrite Spencer's earlier radicalism, which had anarchistic implications and has been influential on libertarians over the years. Spencer had some very keen insights into the nature of social interaction and the history of social organization, and he practically invented the basis for theories of socio-cultural evoltion. Hence, Spencer definitely has significance in the history of ideas.
Sometimes Spencer has been unfairly mischaracterized as a proto-nazi or proto-fascist, but this doesn't betray any genuine understanding of Spencer's political views. Herbert Spencer was a radical classical liberal who could easily be construed as a proto-anarchist. To be sure, Spencer was a utilitarian of sorts, but of a different variety than his contemporaries. Spencer was an individualist utilitarian. Compared to the views of most people during the period, Spencer's early views were actually relatively egalitarian. His notions of socio-cultural evolution lead him to take an organic and historically-based view of societies, and this eventually lead him even to the point of having the chapter "The Right To Ignore The State" in his book "Social Statics", which was removed in later editions. In either case, Spencer's philosophy lead him to oppose the political norms of his day, especially the "greatest good for the greatest number" maxim.
At first, the anarchistic conclusions of his evolutionary theory was speculative in nature. Spencer speculated about social evolution necessitating a level of independance and decentralization that effectively makes the state obsolete as a social organ. In this sense, Spencer entered a period of being a "philosophical anarchist" and it is worthwhile to speculate if he may have technically counted as an anarchist at one point, despite never formally calling himself an anarchist. In either case, some of Spencer's ideas did end up influencing the individualist anarchist Benjamin Tucker, and Proudhon's notion of spontaneous order and the social organism may at least indirectly be linked to Spencer's social evolutionary ideas in some ways. However, Benjamin Tucker later charged Spencer with drifting towards moderation and conservatism in his later years as a result of disillusionment, which Murray Rothbard retrospectively seemed to have agreed with to a degree as well.
Social evolutionary theory may have some gradualist implications, since one is working with long periods of time. To be sure, Spencer's philosophy of history is very different from Marx's. While Marx analized history through the lense of his class theory, Spencer was more broadly working within the sphere of social interaction rather than specializing in or limited to class analysis. While Spencer does speak of social organisms or social organs, he does this while remaining true to methodological individualism. Spencer analized history from the perspective of cooperation, contract and production vs. brute force, coercion and authoritarianism. Spencer favored social evolution towards a society based on contract, cooperation and production. He favored an industrial society rather than a militant one.
What understandably disillusioned Spencer later in life is that it became clear that history was not consistantly progressing in such a direction. Society was becoming both militant and industrial. Fascism and Marxism were on the rise and classical liberalism was fragmenting. Hence, Spencer's retreat into a conservative pessemism. Of course, this isn't to underwrite Spencer's earlier radicalism, which had anarchistic implications and has been influential on libertarians over the years. Spencer had some very keen insights into the nature of social interaction and the history of social organization, and he practically invented the basis for theories of socio-cultural evoltion. Hence, Spencer definitely has significance in the history of ideas.
Lysander Spooner: Libertarian Hero
The American individualist anarchist Lysander Spooner was one of the last natural law philosophers of the 19th century, and his crowning achievement is arguably the total demolition of the myth of the social contract. Spooner applied a libertarian theory of natural law to the United States Constitution that lead him to reject the authority of the constitution, leading to his radical work "No Treason: Constitution of No Authority", in which he applied common sense standards of justice and contract law to political institutions that delegitimized them. Spooner proved beyond the shadow of a doubt that the state is not genuinely based on consent, that the standard social contract and democratic arguments for the sovereignty of the state is a fraud.
Spooner was also a slavery abolitionist and a strong supporter of the principle of individual secession, which goes hand in hand. While maintaining a radical opposition to slavery, he simultaneously opposed the concept of "the union" and opposed the civil war. He more or less accused the northern states of only reforming and expanding slavery, although he wasn't necessarily completely sympathetic to the confederacy either. Furthermore, he tried to outcompete the government in mail delivery and got shut down by the government. Another notable feature of Spooner is that he explicitly took the position that vices are not crimes, coinciding with the standard libertarian opposition to prohibition laws and authoritarian forms of social planning. While Spooner may have a legalistic aura, his legalism was not statist in nature and he more fundamentally was working with ethics when it comes down to it.
Spooner was loosely associated with the individualist anarchist Benjamin Tucker and the periodical "Liberty". While in the grand scheme of things Spooner's political philosophy was similar to that of other individualist anarchists, it could be said that his approach to property appears to have a distinctively neo-lockean element to it, although Spooner is actually claimed to be a libertarian socialist by some. In either case, some genuine dividing lines did emerge as Benjamin Tucker adopted an egoist position under the influence of the work of Max Stirner, which philosophically clashes with Spooner's natural law position. Spooner was a strong advocate of "natural rights", while a Stirnerite egoism rejects the very concept of "right". So in a certain sense, from that point onward individualist anarchism can be seen as splitting between natural rights proponents and egoists, with Spooner remaining on the natural rights side.
Spooner could be viewed as the first political theorist to take natural law philosophy to the conclusion of anarchism. While Proudhon had of course already come to the conclusion of anarchism, his approach wasn't necessarily a strict natural law philosophy. The earliest natural law philosophies actually justified political absolutism. It wasn't until guys like Locke and Jefferson that it began to meaningfully take a more liberal character, justifying limits on political institutions. But all of these natural law approaches prior to that of Spooner ultimately justified state sovereignty on the grounds of some kind of social contract concept. Spooner took natural law philosophy to its logical conclusion by demonstrating that it is impossible for any state to genuinely be contractual as a state qua state, that all currently existing states must be illegitimate by the standards of natural law. Even Locke invoked the concept of the social contract being undoable, but he didn't take this far enough.
In a sense, Spooner can be seen as merely continueing the Jeffersonian project. The views of some of the later natural law philosophers and classical liberals such as Jefferson and Paine was arguably proto-anarchist in nature. "Philosophical anarchism" was common among the more radical American liberals and heavy emphasis was placed on decentralization. But they always ultimately maintained a pragmatic support for a minimal level of government. Spooner was the first natural law philosopher to overcome this limit, arguably representing the culmination of natural law philosophy. The developement of natural law philosophy in America more or less ends with Spooner, until Murray Rothbard picked it up around a century later and drew heavily on Spooner as a referance.
Spooner has a unique place in the history of anarchism and is worthy of it.
Spooner was also a slavery abolitionist and a strong supporter of the principle of individual secession, which goes hand in hand. While maintaining a radical opposition to slavery, he simultaneously opposed the concept of "the union" and opposed the civil war. He more or less accused the northern states of only reforming and expanding slavery, although he wasn't necessarily completely sympathetic to the confederacy either. Furthermore, he tried to outcompete the government in mail delivery and got shut down by the government. Another notable feature of Spooner is that he explicitly took the position that vices are not crimes, coinciding with the standard libertarian opposition to prohibition laws and authoritarian forms of social planning. While Spooner may have a legalistic aura, his legalism was not statist in nature and he more fundamentally was working with ethics when it comes down to it.
Spooner was loosely associated with the individualist anarchist Benjamin Tucker and the periodical "Liberty". While in the grand scheme of things Spooner's political philosophy was similar to that of other individualist anarchists, it could be said that his approach to property appears to have a distinctively neo-lockean element to it, although Spooner is actually claimed to be a libertarian socialist by some. In either case, some genuine dividing lines did emerge as Benjamin Tucker adopted an egoist position under the influence of the work of Max Stirner, which philosophically clashes with Spooner's natural law position. Spooner was a strong advocate of "natural rights", while a Stirnerite egoism rejects the very concept of "right". So in a certain sense, from that point onward individualist anarchism can be seen as splitting between natural rights proponents and egoists, with Spooner remaining on the natural rights side.
Spooner could be viewed as the first political theorist to take natural law philosophy to the conclusion of anarchism. While Proudhon had of course already come to the conclusion of anarchism, his approach wasn't necessarily a strict natural law philosophy. The earliest natural law philosophies actually justified political absolutism. It wasn't until guys like Locke and Jefferson that it began to meaningfully take a more liberal character, justifying limits on political institutions. But all of these natural law approaches prior to that of Spooner ultimately justified state sovereignty on the grounds of some kind of social contract concept. Spooner took natural law philosophy to its logical conclusion by demonstrating that it is impossible for any state to genuinely be contractual as a state qua state, that all currently existing states must be illegitimate by the standards of natural law. Even Locke invoked the concept of the social contract being undoable, but he didn't take this far enough.
In a sense, Spooner can be seen as merely continueing the Jeffersonian project. The views of some of the later natural law philosophers and classical liberals such as Jefferson and Paine was arguably proto-anarchist in nature. "Philosophical anarchism" was common among the more radical American liberals and heavy emphasis was placed on decentralization. But they always ultimately maintained a pragmatic support for a minimal level of government. Spooner was the first natural law philosopher to overcome this limit, arguably representing the culmination of natural law philosophy. The developement of natural law philosophy in America more or less ends with Spooner, until Murray Rothbard picked it up around a century later and drew heavily on Spooner as a referance.
Spooner has a unique place in the history of anarchism and is worthy of it.
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Remembering Proudhon
Many contemporary libertarians may be mystified at Proudhon being considered a libertarian, but Proudhon was undoubtably the first genuinely libertarian socialist. Proudhon's political philosophy represents a synthesis of sorts between classical liberalism and socialism, without yielding any ground to authoritarian strains of socialism, which eventually resulted in his anarchism. Proudhon was critical of both capitalism and communism, and was generally an opponent of absolutism, making heavy use of the mechanisms of synthesis and deconstruction, which obviously is at least partially Hegelian in nature. His political philosophy arguably became more radical as he aged, leading him to take more of a refined view on property.
The initial form of anarchism that Proudhon set the basis for, mutualism, predates anarcho-collectivism and anarcho-communism by a number decades and significantly differs from them in certain ways. Proudhon and Marx had certain fairly significant disagreements, leading Marx to more or less dismiss him as a "petty burgousie individualist". Unlike Marx and the communists, Proudhon did not advocate purely collective ownership or even worker ownership as an absolute norm. His idea was more along the lines of individual worker ownership of the means of production (I.E. I own my own tools, therefore I don't need to rent your tools). He also advocated cooperative management, but always in a context that allows for individual liberty. Proudhon supported the notions free contract and free competition, only placing more emphasis on cooperative forms of organization than many classical liberals.
Proudhon was most certainly an individualist in many ways, with the theme of "individual sovereignty" running strongly throughout his work. While he rejected the vulgar collectivism of the communists, he synthesized individualism with themes of social cooperation, which is to say that he steered clear of atomism. Proudhon envisioned a free society and the process of working towards such a society as a "spontaneous order" that is emergant from the free interactions of individuals. At the same time, he rejected utopianism and romanticism and he appears to have held a fairly pluralistic attitude with regaurd to what such a spontaneous order entails. The vision is always realistic in that it's not some kind of uniform model for the entire society.
It's important to note that mutualism (and its culmination within individualist anarchism) does not normatively or absolutely oppose wage labor, rent and interest per se. These things may contextually be opposed as a consequence of political authority and it may speculate about a trend towards such things starting to diminish in conditions of free competition, but they are not opposed on an absolute normative ethical level as in often the case with communism, syndicalism and collectivism. A mutualist qua mutualist cannot advocate arbitrary violence to oppose such things. Something more along the lines of agorism makes sense as a strategy for mutualists. Proudhon was skeptical towards traditional methods of revolution.
Proudhon's analysis of property is far more subtle and complicated than a first-reading or face-value-reading of his writtings may reveal. A statement such as "Property is theft", followed by seemingly contradicting statements such as "Property is impossible" and "Property is liberty" is likely to confuse the reader. To a degree, Proudhon is probably being rhetorical and is purposefully trying to intimidate the reader or grab their attention. But a more in-depth look reveals that he is quite creatively making use of synthesis and antithesis here, and a more clear meaning is revealed with this understanding. These statements are contextual and part of a process of synthesis and antithesis, not to be interpreted as absolutes.
What Proudhon is most strongly challenging is the arbitrary legal title to property, property as a legal construct that indeed is historically tracable back to theft in many ways. Property as a state legal construct often is the state doling out a privilege to the property that it initially stole. During Proudhon's time, many of the old legal private property titles that used to belong to the noble class and the feudal landlords had not completely been abandoned or abolished, and in the process of transformation into more modern capitalism, this privilege was slowly being transfered to a new industrial managerial class in bed with the state. Proudhon was more keenly aware of this than most of his collegues and associates.
There is also a context in which Proudon was very much in favor of private or individual property, viewing it as an indispensible counterweight to the state. Unlike the communists, Proudhon had no inherent problem with money, exchange and buisiness. The Marxist aesthetic distain for just about anything that has to do with commerence is nowhere to be found in him. Proudhon's vision of socialism was more along the lines of individual proprietorship, small cooperative buisinesses and unions of artisans. When not exploitative and when not an a monstrous scale, Proudhon supported more small-scale examples of what would be considered private property by contemporary free market anarchists.
Proudhon has been indispensibly influential on the history of anarchism, particularly individualist anarchism. The actual continuation of Proudhon's work was done by the early individualist anarchists such as Benjamin Tucker (prior to his transformation into a Stirnerite egoist), while the anarcho-collectivism of Bakunin and the anarcho-communism of Kropotkin significantly differed from this trend in certain ways. Some anarcho-communists were even lead to dismiss Proudhon from the anarchist tradition as just "a liberal disguised as a socialist". The rise of anarcho-collectivism and anarcho-communism has a notaby different cultural context, centered around Russia and somewhat detached from classical liberalism. Proudhon, on the other hand, was much more exposed to the classical liberalism of the French and Americans.
This isn't necessarily to completely dismiss figures such as Bakunin and Kropotkin out of hand, but to be clear about differences between the direction anarchism took from their standpoint vs. the standpoint of Proudhon and the individualists, as it was definitely the American individualist anarchists such as Josiah Warren and Benjamin Tucker who picked up where Proudhon left off. While Kroptkin arguably took anarchism in a direction that made it closer to Marxism, the individualist anarchists took it in a more individualistic direction or generally steered clear of such collectivistic tendencies. Over time, the individualists tended to come to reject the particular revolutionary methods of the collectivists and ventured to produce some fairly scathing criticisms of anarcho-communism.
Factional griping aside, Proudhon's legacy remains as the first formal anarchist and one who presented a political philosophy that can help bridge the gap between free market oriented thought and the anti-authoritarian left. I think that he is definitely important enough on both a historical and philosophical level that all libertarians should familiarize themselves with him to one degree or another.
The initial form of anarchism that Proudhon set the basis for, mutualism, predates anarcho-collectivism and anarcho-communism by a number decades and significantly differs from them in certain ways. Proudhon and Marx had certain fairly significant disagreements, leading Marx to more or less dismiss him as a "petty burgousie individualist". Unlike Marx and the communists, Proudhon did not advocate purely collective ownership or even worker ownership as an absolute norm. His idea was more along the lines of individual worker ownership of the means of production (I.E. I own my own tools, therefore I don't need to rent your tools). He also advocated cooperative management, but always in a context that allows for individual liberty. Proudhon supported the notions free contract and free competition, only placing more emphasis on cooperative forms of organization than many classical liberals.
Proudhon was most certainly an individualist in many ways, with the theme of "individual sovereignty" running strongly throughout his work. While he rejected the vulgar collectivism of the communists, he synthesized individualism with themes of social cooperation, which is to say that he steered clear of atomism. Proudhon envisioned a free society and the process of working towards such a society as a "spontaneous order" that is emergant from the free interactions of individuals. At the same time, he rejected utopianism and romanticism and he appears to have held a fairly pluralistic attitude with regaurd to what such a spontaneous order entails. The vision is always realistic in that it's not some kind of uniform model for the entire society.
It's important to note that mutualism (and its culmination within individualist anarchism) does not normatively or absolutely oppose wage labor, rent and interest per se. These things may contextually be opposed as a consequence of political authority and it may speculate about a trend towards such things starting to diminish in conditions of free competition, but they are not opposed on an absolute normative ethical level as in often the case with communism, syndicalism and collectivism. A mutualist qua mutualist cannot advocate arbitrary violence to oppose such things. Something more along the lines of agorism makes sense as a strategy for mutualists. Proudhon was skeptical towards traditional methods of revolution.
Proudhon's analysis of property is far more subtle and complicated than a first-reading or face-value-reading of his writtings may reveal. A statement such as "Property is theft", followed by seemingly contradicting statements such as "Property is impossible" and "Property is liberty" is likely to confuse the reader. To a degree, Proudhon is probably being rhetorical and is purposefully trying to intimidate the reader or grab their attention. But a more in-depth look reveals that he is quite creatively making use of synthesis and antithesis here, and a more clear meaning is revealed with this understanding. These statements are contextual and part of a process of synthesis and antithesis, not to be interpreted as absolutes.
What Proudhon is most strongly challenging is the arbitrary legal title to property, property as a legal construct that indeed is historically tracable back to theft in many ways. Property as a state legal construct often is the state doling out a privilege to the property that it initially stole. During Proudhon's time, many of the old legal private property titles that used to belong to the noble class and the feudal landlords had not completely been abandoned or abolished, and in the process of transformation into more modern capitalism, this privilege was slowly being transfered to a new industrial managerial class in bed with the state. Proudhon was more keenly aware of this than most of his collegues and associates.
There is also a context in which Proudon was very much in favor of private or individual property, viewing it as an indispensible counterweight to the state. Unlike the communists, Proudhon had no inherent problem with money, exchange and buisiness. The Marxist aesthetic distain for just about anything that has to do with commerence is nowhere to be found in him. Proudhon's vision of socialism was more along the lines of individual proprietorship, small cooperative buisinesses and unions of artisans. When not exploitative and when not an a monstrous scale, Proudhon supported more small-scale examples of what would be considered private property by contemporary free market anarchists.
Proudhon has been indispensibly influential on the history of anarchism, particularly individualist anarchism. The actual continuation of Proudhon's work was done by the early individualist anarchists such as Benjamin Tucker (prior to his transformation into a Stirnerite egoist), while the anarcho-collectivism of Bakunin and the anarcho-communism of Kropotkin significantly differed from this trend in certain ways. Some anarcho-communists were even lead to dismiss Proudhon from the anarchist tradition as just "a liberal disguised as a socialist". The rise of anarcho-collectivism and anarcho-communism has a notaby different cultural context, centered around Russia and somewhat detached from classical liberalism. Proudhon, on the other hand, was much more exposed to the classical liberalism of the French and Americans.
This isn't necessarily to completely dismiss figures such as Bakunin and Kropotkin out of hand, but to be clear about differences between the direction anarchism took from their standpoint vs. the standpoint of Proudhon and the individualists, as it was definitely the American individualist anarchists such as Josiah Warren and Benjamin Tucker who picked up where Proudhon left off. While Kroptkin arguably took anarchism in a direction that made it closer to Marxism, the individualist anarchists took it in a more individualistic direction or generally steered clear of such collectivistic tendencies. Over time, the individualists tended to come to reject the particular revolutionary methods of the collectivists and ventured to produce some fairly scathing criticisms of anarcho-communism.
Factional griping aside, Proudhon's legacy remains as the first formal anarchist and one who presented a political philosophy that can help bridge the gap between free market oriented thought and the anti-authoritarian left. I think that he is definitely important enough on both a historical and philosophical level that all libertarians should familiarize themselves with him to one degree or another.
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Struggling With Max Stirner
I have a great amount of respect for the near-forgotten figure Max Stirner. His ill-famed "The Ego and His Own" is probably the most radical, thought provoking and challenging writting that I have ever read. Not only did Stirner explicitly take an egoist position, question the very foundation of morality and critisize modern liberal secularism as not going far enough numerous decades before Neitzsche (and arguably manage to be even more radical than Neitzsche), but he did this as what many think is meant to be the logical completion of Hegel's project and during the same period as and loosely being associated through academia to Karl Marx and Engels.
The "young Hegelians" or "left-hegelians" such as Ludwig Feurbach and Karl Marx all had interacted with Stirner on a personal level in Academia prior to the release of "The Ego and His Own", and from their own perspectives they were trying to surpass Hegel. These young Hegelians came to take an explicitly atheist position, hence aschewing all of the overtly religious elements from the Hegelian project and shifting the emphasis more towards man or humanity. The end result tended towards some kind of secular humanism, and eventually communism as proposed by Marx and Engels (although the communism of Engels was arguably less collectivistic than that of Marx).
Stirner was a student of Hegel himself and passively participated in some of the interactions that took place among the left-hegelians. When he formally released "The Ego and His Own" it greatly shocked many of his collegues, since it took the Hegelian project in an entirely different direction and quite explicitly critisized the left-hegelians as only replacing the old godhead with a new one. Stirner did not critisize the left-hegelians on the grounds of their atheism, but on the grounds that they still cling to concepts that function in the same way as religion. From Stirner's perspective, they had not followed the logical progression far enough. The modern secular liberal had destroyed the basis for an incorporeal god but then proceeded to divinize earthly things and "humanity" in the abstract. In short, the cloak of power had only been secularized, not eliminated. The higher cause of the god had been functionally replaced with the higher cause of the state, the nation, humanity and all sorts of abstract concepts.
This realization of Stirner's and the period during which he realized it is not a trivial matter. Stirner's criticism applies about just as much to contemporary secularism now as it did when he wrote about it. Furthermore, the implications of what Stirner realized is more far reaching than a criticism of secular humanism, it has immense epistemological implications. Stirner effectively denied transcendentalism and rationalism long before anyone classified as a post-modernist did and he reached the conclusion of what by the very least is a strong nominalism using an egoist framework. Stirner had technically surpassed the entire enlightenment project by proclaiming that we should not be ruled by concepts. The enlightenment and secular humanist emphasis on the mind, from his perspective, was just as filled with "spooks" as religion. This is really just an extension on the phenomenology of mind.
While Stirner has been influential in one way or another on many anarchists (ranging from Benjamin Tucker to Emma Goldman) due to his rejection of the state and some of the aspects or implications of his egoism, he also rejected "morality", at least "morality with a big M", and critisized anarchists such as Proudhon for still clinging to morality. To be sure, Stirner seems to put the anarchist on a somewhat higher level because the anarchist doesn't accept the arbitrary authority of the law while the typical secular humanity or liberal still does, but he nonetheless critisized anarchism on the grounds that it still ultimately clung to a human-based morality. This is the point at which I personally start to struggle with Stirner, for while my own views on secular humanism and modern liberalism mirror his in many ways and I'm intrigued by the directions he took the phenomenology of mind, I am an ethical anarchist. That being said, the extent to which Stirner may really be an ethical nihilist is debatable.
Stirner also rejected the traditional notion of revolution, although this was actually picked up and adopted by many individualist anarchists. Certainly not all anarchists believe in violent revolution, revolution for its own sake or at least revolution in the same of a mere change of the seat of power (state-democratic revolution, if you will). So it's questionable wether this criticism should be interpreted to apply to all anarchists per se or wether the criticism is limited to anarchists. There are plenty of people who advocate violent and state-democratic revolutions who are not anarchists and most certainly only wish to change the seat of power, and there are plenty of anarchists who take either a pacifist stance or are generally not comfortable with the traditional method of revolution. If anything, Stirner's criticism could be applied as an anarchist criticism of political libertarianism.
If Proudhon is considered the first formal anarchist, Stirner is definitely the first formal egoist. To be sure, due to the implications of Stirner's phenomenology, Stirner was not an ethical egoist along the lines of Ayn Rand. There are different types of egoism, ranging from nihilist egoism to psychological egoism to ethical egoism. Nonetheless, it seems undoubtable that Stirner has been indispensibly influential on egoism in general, and he must have at least indirectly influenced Neitszche and Ayn Rand in one way or another. Whether or not Neitszche ever read Stirner (and even if he plagiarized him) is a controversy that hasn't been given a rest and has often been pushed under a rug, but I think it's rather undeniable given the historical period and academic connections that Neitszche must have read Stirner's "The Ego and His Own" at once point or another, and some studies have collected some fairly compelling evidence that he must have.
Stirner is not an easy person to classify. While he appears to very strongly oppose communism, democracy and humanism, there is no evidence to indicate that he was necessarily any more supportive of capitalism, conservatism and traditionalism. A knee-jerk response to Stirner from your average secular liberal may be to misunderstand him in such a way, but this is mostly due to cultural cliches and misunderstandings about egoism and individualism. But if anything, Stirner has surpassed all of these things from an egoist framework and as a consequence of his phenomeology. It is also possible for Stirner to be misunderstood as presenting a religious argument against atheism, but this kind of misunderstanding is only an affirmation of Stirner's criticisms of secular humanism.
The reason why Stirner has been pushed under the rug as a philosopher and figure in general, beyond the mere radicalness of his ideas by itself, largely has to do with Marx's own attempts to counter Stirner and all Marxist and post-marxist scholars more or less accepting Marx's line on Stirner. Marx obviously saw Stirner as a threat to his own project, and effectively denounced Stirner as a "petty burgouesie individualist". Very little criticism was directly aimed at Stirner's ideas, it was more of an emotional or knee-jerk reaction. The philosophical community in large part was either silent or dismissive of "The Ego and His Own". It was clearly far too radical for its time and even our time. But it's a shame that the reaction to Stirner has been to marginalize and ignore him, relegating him to a tiny little footnote in history. I highly suggest that anyone, anarchist or otherwise, read "The Ego and His Own" to challenge themselves and perhaps seek inspiration. Stirner most definitely is not irrelevant, and perhaps will become increasingly more relevant over time.
The "young Hegelians" or "left-hegelians" such as Ludwig Feurbach and Karl Marx all had interacted with Stirner on a personal level in Academia prior to the release of "The Ego and His Own", and from their own perspectives they were trying to surpass Hegel. These young Hegelians came to take an explicitly atheist position, hence aschewing all of the overtly religious elements from the Hegelian project and shifting the emphasis more towards man or humanity. The end result tended towards some kind of secular humanism, and eventually communism as proposed by Marx and Engels (although the communism of Engels was arguably less collectivistic than that of Marx).
Stirner was a student of Hegel himself and passively participated in some of the interactions that took place among the left-hegelians. When he formally released "The Ego and His Own" it greatly shocked many of his collegues, since it took the Hegelian project in an entirely different direction and quite explicitly critisized the left-hegelians as only replacing the old godhead with a new one. Stirner did not critisize the left-hegelians on the grounds of their atheism, but on the grounds that they still cling to concepts that function in the same way as religion. From Stirner's perspective, they had not followed the logical progression far enough. The modern secular liberal had destroyed the basis for an incorporeal god but then proceeded to divinize earthly things and "humanity" in the abstract. In short, the cloak of power had only been secularized, not eliminated. The higher cause of the god had been functionally replaced with the higher cause of the state, the nation, humanity and all sorts of abstract concepts.
This realization of Stirner's and the period during which he realized it is not a trivial matter. Stirner's criticism applies about just as much to contemporary secularism now as it did when he wrote about it. Furthermore, the implications of what Stirner realized is more far reaching than a criticism of secular humanism, it has immense epistemological implications. Stirner effectively denied transcendentalism and rationalism long before anyone classified as a post-modernist did and he reached the conclusion of what by the very least is a strong nominalism using an egoist framework. Stirner had technically surpassed the entire enlightenment project by proclaiming that we should not be ruled by concepts. The enlightenment and secular humanist emphasis on the mind, from his perspective, was just as filled with "spooks" as religion. This is really just an extension on the phenomenology of mind.
While Stirner has been influential in one way or another on many anarchists (ranging from Benjamin Tucker to Emma Goldman) due to his rejection of the state and some of the aspects or implications of his egoism, he also rejected "morality", at least "morality with a big M", and critisized anarchists such as Proudhon for still clinging to morality. To be sure, Stirner seems to put the anarchist on a somewhat higher level because the anarchist doesn't accept the arbitrary authority of the law while the typical secular humanity or liberal still does, but he nonetheless critisized anarchism on the grounds that it still ultimately clung to a human-based morality. This is the point at which I personally start to struggle with Stirner, for while my own views on secular humanism and modern liberalism mirror his in many ways and I'm intrigued by the directions he took the phenomenology of mind, I am an ethical anarchist. That being said, the extent to which Stirner may really be an ethical nihilist is debatable.
Stirner also rejected the traditional notion of revolution, although this was actually picked up and adopted by many individualist anarchists. Certainly not all anarchists believe in violent revolution, revolution for its own sake or at least revolution in the same of a mere change of the seat of power (state-democratic revolution, if you will). So it's questionable wether this criticism should be interpreted to apply to all anarchists per se or wether the criticism is limited to anarchists. There are plenty of people who advocate violent and state-democratic revolutions who are not anarchists and most certainly only wish to change the seat of power, and there are plenty of anarchists who take either a pacifist stance or are generally not comfortable with the traditional method of revolution. If anything, Stirner's criticism could be applied as an anarchist criticism of political libertarianism.
If Proudhon is considered the first formal anarchist, Stirner is definitely the first formal egoist. To be sure, due to the implications of Stirner's phenomenology, Stirner was not an ethical egoist along the lines of Ayn Rand. There are different types of egoism, ranging from nihilist egoism to psychological egoism to ethical egoism. Nonetheless, it seems undoubtable that Stirner has been indispensibly influential on egoism in general, and he must have at least indirectly influenced Neitszche and Ayn Rand in one way or another. Whether or not Neitszche ever read Stirner (and even if he plagiarized him) is a controversy that hasn't been given a rest and has often been pushed under a rug, but I think it's rather undeniable given the historical period and academic connections that Neitszche must have read Stirner's "The Ego and His Own" at once point or another, and some studies have collected some fairly compelling evidence that he must have.
Stirner is not an easy person to classify. While he appears to very strongly oppose communism, democracy and humanism, there is no evidence to indicate that he was necessarily any more supportive of capitalism, conservatism and traditionalism. A knee-jerk response to Stirner from your average secular liberal may be to misunderstand him in such a way, but this is mostly due to cultural cliches and misunderstandings about egoism and individualism. But if anything, Stirner has surpassed all of these things from an egoist framework and as a consequence of his phenomeology. It is also possible for Stirner to be misunderstood as presenting a religious argument against atheism, but this kind of misunderstanding is only an affirmation of Stirner's criticisms of secular humanism.
The reason why Stirner has been pushed under the rug as a philosopher and figure in general, beyond the mere radicalness of his ideas by itself, largely has to do with Marx's own attempts to counter Stirner and all Marxist and post-marxist scholars more or less accepting Marx's line on Stirner. Marx obviously saw Stirner as a threat to his own project, and effectively denounced Stirner as a "petty burgouesie individualist". Very little criticism was directly aimed at Stirner's ideas, it was more of an emotional or knee-jerk reaction. The philosophical community in large part was either silent or dismissive of "The Ego and His Own". It was clearly far too radical for its time and even our time. But it's a shame that the reaction to Stirner has been to marginalize and ignore him, relegating him to a tiny little footnote in history. I highly suggest that anyone, anarchist or otherwise, read "The Ego and His Own" to challenge themselves and perhaps seek inspiration. Stirner most definitely is not irrelevant, and perhaps will become increasingly more relevant over time.
Friday, January 23, 2009
Libertarian Disillusionment
Let's face it: the libertarian movement is in shambles. There is no commonly understood definition of what libertarianism is even among self-proclaimed libertarians, and to the extent that there is, this is only loosely based on a handful of principles which are nonetheless still interpreted and applied in many different ways. Self-proclaimed libertarians can't even agree with eachother on simple single issues like immigration and intellectual property. Hell, there isn't even a consensus on what anarchism and statism really is, and some people's favor for a government/state distinction sometimes adds to confusion.
Frankly, some of the positions taken by certain self-proclaimed libertarians are outright psychopathic. I've even debated with people who will actually defend the absurd implication of being allowed to arbitrarily shoot a child for being on your lawn, and to add insult to injury this is defended in the name of non-aggression and property rights! It seems like an alarming number of self-proclaimed libertarians defend aggression in the name of non-aggression. They have latched onto libertarianism only as a sugar-coating or legitimization for their own personal motivation to get away with psychopathy.
This is especially true in the case of explicitly right-wing libertarians, who appear to only nominally oppose the current secular state because they view it as competition to their own prefered forms of authoritarianism. Libertarian concepts are only useful to these people as a means of justifying racism, classism, parental authority, the church and feudal landlords. This extends well beyond the normal implications of a vulgar libertarianism, as it is vulgar in every sense possible. These right-wing libertarians only dislike the state because they mistakenly see it as standing in the way of "natural heirarchy" and "natural authority".
They then go on to essentially propose their authoritarian preferances as the new state, while sugar-coating it with libertarian concepts or terminology to give it legitimacy. Their views on the establishment of a libertarian society almost directly mirrors the artisocratic justifications for political systems. This can be blatantly seen in Hans Hoppe's concept of "natural elites", which is just a right-libertarian version of the exact same artistocratic justification for the state that traditional conservatives give, despite having a veneer of being opposed to the current statist intellectuals (who are mostly disliked for their socially liberal tendencies of all things).
By no means am I letting some of the crazier elements on "the left" off the hook here either though. Frankly, many of the anarcho-syndicalists and anarcho-communists are practically indistinguishable from Stalinists in my experience. Oh, sure, they might have some sensible egalitarian rhetoric sometimes, but they often fall back on explicitly marxist and authoritan socialist positions out of their zeal to oppose private tyranny. This is particularly true of the Chomskyites, who worshop whatever Chomsky says without any second thought, all the while advocating the practical universalization of state power in the name of egalitarianism! We're supposed to tolerate the increasing encrouchment of the state into our lives out of the false promise that it will rid us of economic exploitation and the state will then just wither away. Nonesense!
Just as I'm highly skeptical of the "private city" models of anarcho-capitalists, the idea of a global federation of unions terrifies me, and the "worker's council" models of anarcho-communists may very well give reason for suspicion that mirror the reasons for having suspicion about anarcho-capitalist models. Now, I know that ideally this federation of unions idea is supposed to be decentralized and leave an option for secession, but sometimes I get the sneaking suspicion that some of these people aren't really advocating them that way, they are normatively advocating them as a uniform or absolute system. I've even seen some anarcho-communists justify using violence to stop people from making or engaging in wage labor contracts, even against the consent of the worker in the scenario. This perplexes me, especially since the anarcho-communist is actually going against "the workers"!
So what do we see? We see an incredibly divisive and one-dimensional split between two completely wrong parties: anarcho-capitalists and right-wing libertarians who arbitrarily defend the status quo and tradition on one end, and anarcho-communists and anarcho-syndicalists who advocate arbitrary violence in the name of turning the world into a gigantic ant farm on the other end. As these two parties fight more and more, they are radicalized even more in their respective wrong directions. The anarcho-capitalist and right-libertarian's knee-jerk opposition to all things "left" leads them down the path of becoming arch-conservatives, and the anarcho-communist's knee-jerk opposition to all things "property" leads them down the path of becoming just another group of authoritarian socialists.
When I made the jump from being a minarchist to an anarchist, I had the impression that I had crossed a hurdle that leaves room for more clarity and consensus. I was wrong. The minarchist vs. anarchist debate is actually being mirrored within the anarchist movement in all sorts of different ways. Hence, you will find some market anarchists opposing the proposals of anarcho-capitalists on the grounds that such proposals are indistinguishable from a state or blatantly risk devolving into a state, and you will find social anarchists opposing the proposals of anarcho-communists on the grounds that such proposals are indistinguishable from a state or undermine basic principles. These are the more rational people in the bunch to the extent that they are genuinely being sure not to let authoritarianism be snuck in through the back door.
This gives good reason for disillusionment.
Frankly, some of the positions taken by certain self-proclaimed libertarians are outright psychopathic. I've even debated with people who will actually defend the absurd implication of being allowed to arbitrarily shoot a child for being on your lawn, and to add insult to injury this is defended in the name of non-aggression and property rights! It seems like an alarming number of self-proclaimed libertarians defend aggression in the name of non-aggression. They have latched onto libertarianism only as a sugar-coating or legitimization for their own personal motivation to get away with psychopathy.
This is especially true in the case of explicitly right-wing libertarians, who appear to only nominally oppose the current secular state because they view it as competition to their own prefered forms of authoritarianism. Libertarian concepts are only useful to these people as a means of justifying racism, classism, parental authority, the church and feudal landlords. This extends well beyond the normal implications of a vulgar libertarianism, as it is vulgar in every sense possible. These right-wing libertarians only dislike the state because they mistakenly see it as standing in the way of "natural heirarchy" and "natural authority".
They then go on to essentially propose their authoritarian preferances as the new state, while sugar-coating it with libertarian concepts or terminology to give it legitimacy. Their views on the establishment of a libertarian society almost directly mirrors the artisocratic justifications for political systems. This can be blatantly seen in Hans Hoppe's concept of "natural elites", which is just a right-libertarian version of the exact same artistocratic justification for the state that traditional conservatives give, despite having a veneer of being opposed to the current statist intellectuals (who are mostly disliked for their socially liberal tendencies of all things).
By no means am I letting some of the crazier elements on "the left" off the hook here either though. Frankly, many of the anarcho-syndicalists and anarcho-communists are practically indistinguishable from Stalinists in my experience. Oh, sure, they might have some sensible egalitarian rhetoric sometimes, but they often fall back on explicitly marxist and authoritan socialist positions out of their zeal to oppose private tyranny. This is particularly true of the Chomskyites, who worshop whatever Chomsky says without any second thought, all the while advocating the practical universalization of state power in the name of egalitarianism! We're supposed to tolerate the increasing encrouchment of the state into our lives out of the false promise that it will rid us of economic exploitation and the state will then just wither away. Nonesense!
Just as I'm highly skeptical of the "private city" models of anarcho-capitalists, the idea of a global federation of unions terrifies me, and the "worker's council" models of anarcho-communists may very well give reason for suspicion that mirror the reasons for having suspicion about anarcho-capitalist models. Now, I know that ideally this federation of unions idea is supposed to be decentralized and leave an option for secession, but sometimes I get the sneaking suspicion that some of these people aren't really advocating them that way, they are normatively advocating them as a uniform or absolute system. I've even seen some anarcho-communists justify using violence to stop people from making or engaging in wage labor contracts, even against the consent of the worker in the scenario. This perplexes me, especially since the anarcho-communist is actually going against "the workers"!
So what do we see? We see an incredibly divisive and one-dimensional split between two completely wrong parties: anarcho-capitalists and right-wing libertarians who arbitrarily defend the status quo and tradition on one end, and anarcho-communists and anarcho-syndicalists who advocate arbitrary violence in the name of turning the world into a gigantic ant farm on the other end. As these two parties fight more and more, they are radicalized even more in their respective wrong directions. The anarcho-capitalist and right-libertarian's knee-jerk opposition to all things "left" leads them down the path of becoming arch-conservatives, and the anarcho-communist's knee-jerk opposition to all things "property" leads them down the path of becoming just another group of authoritarian socialists.
When I made the jump from being a minarchist to an anarchist, I had the impression that I had crossed a hurdle that leaves room for more clarity and consensus. I was wrong. The minarchist vs. anarchist debate is actually being mirrored within the anarchist movement in all sorts of different ways. Hence, you will find some market anarchists opposing the proposals of anarcho-capitalists on the grounds that such proposals are indistinguishable from a state or blatantly risk devolving into a state, and you will find social anarchists opposing the proposals of anarcho-communists on the grounds that such proposals are indistinguishable from a state or undermine basic principles. These are the more rational people in the bunch to the extent that they are genuinely being sure not to let authoritarianism be snuck in through the back door.
This gives good reason for disillusionment.
Thursday, January 22, 2009
On Amoralist Anarchism
I've been a part of numerous online social networks or general social groups online that contains some amoralist anarchists, who either are former libertarian anarchists who have come to reject libertarianism or they are anarchists who rejected libertarianism from the get-go and reached the conclusion of anarchism from a completely different conceptual framework.
On the most personal level, the youtuber D4Shawn and the persona formerly known as Stodles (who now runs this website) are the two amoralist anarchists that I've interacted with most. D4Shawn used to be a libertarian anarchist, and made a separate channel one day trying to approach anarchism from a more utilitarian or relativistic perspective, which has recently devolved into an ethical nihilism. Stodles never was a libertarian, he jumped straight from white nationalism to anarchism, which created some confusion about his position along the way.
Both Stodles and D4Shawn philosophically reject libertarianism while still prefering anarchism. D4Shawn effectively claims that ethics is completely useless metaphysical mumbo-jumbo, and thinks that we should be speaking in purely preferential terms. Stodles even appears to go so far as to imply that any conception of ethics inherently leads to rulership. On the other hand, both of them practically take positions that may very well tend towards libertarian anarchism, but it is functionally a mere statement of preferance from their perspective. This starts to hint at the complications that leads me to see this approach as silly.
While these amoralists may philosophicaly reject libertarianism, they essentially practically support it and they cannot completely avoid value-laden terminology. So while they may loudly proclaim their opposition to ethical principles and rights-concepts until they are blue in the face, they ultimately would like to live their lives in a way consistant with certain ethical principles and rights-concepts. While, unlike Stefan Molyneux, I am not argueing that this by itself proves those ethical principles and rights-concepts, it certainly gives reason for pause when comparing one's behavior to one's philosophy and may hint at a need to reanalyze the moral-practical dichotomy.
Anarchism is indistinguishable from anomie if there is an ethical vacuum. There is no such thing as a society in an ethical vacuum. Even if one concedes to the existance of some kind of subjectivity, I don't think it logically follows that ethics is completely useless and irrelevant. An anarchist society either cannot conceptually be an anarchist society to begin with or will not last as an anarchist society for long if its philosophical and cultural norms deliberately undermine it. So it doesn't make sense to act like anarchism is compatible with any set of values or to act as if all values are equal.
Various ethical principles can undermine anarchism, help foster it and widen its scope. Furthermore, merely having an ethical principle, wether it's sensible or not, doesn't necessarily lead to the use of violence to enforce it. Questions of the use of violence inherently are ethical questions themselves, and the behavior of an individual doesn't always align with their philosophy. There really is no such thing as a person who has no ethical considerations, and this includes self-proclaimed ethical nihilists and various post-modernists. Noone can really divorce themselves from goals, reasons for goals and means towards goals.
Such things almost always have a reason. It makes no sense to proclaim that you favor a society in which rulership is normatively shunned, and then say you have no real reason for it other than preferance. To borrow Molyneuxian terminology, that reduces it to the level of "I like ice cream". Surely, a cause such as anarchism is not at the level of "I like ice cream". If one is putting foreward anarchism as a goal, surely one must explain why it is your goal beyond a mere appeal to the fact that your do favor the goal. It makes no sense to have a goal, and then proclaim neutrality as soon as the question of its foundation and application comes up.
So, by the very least, this ethical nihilism is highly impractical. If taken to its extremes, one is simply advocating anomie. If one is more practical about it, one is nonetheless sort of advocating both anarchy and anomie at once. On one hand, I think there's a sense in which this ethical nihilism is harmless, since the ethical nihilist may practically take a libertarian type of position anyways and most people aren't going to practically take ethical nihilism seriously. Sometimes they even bring up some interesting points. On the other hand, it poses a threat to libertarian anarchism to the extent that it encourages people to either think that anarchism is a pandora's box compatible with any set of values or to ultimately reject libertarian values in the name of putting on a facade of neutrality.
On the most personal level, the youtuber D4Shawn and the persona formerly known as Stodles (who now runs this website) are the two amoralist anarchists that I've interacted with most. D4Shawn used to be a libertarian anarchist, and made a separate channel one day trying to approach anarchism from a more utilitarian or relativistic perspective, which has recently devolved into an ethical nihilism. Stodles never was a libertarian, he jumped straight from white nationalism to anarchism, which created some confusion about his position along the way.
Both Stodles and D4Shawn philosophically reject libertarianism while still prefering anarchism. D4Shawn effectively claims that ethics is completely useless metaphysical mumbo-jumbo, and thinks that we should be speaking in purely preferential terms. Stodles even appears to go so far as to imply that any conception of ethics inherently leads to rulership. On the other hand, both of them practically take positions that may very well tend towards libertarian anarchism, but it is functionally a mere statement of preferance from their perspective. This starts to hint at the complications that leads me to see this approach as silly.
While these amoralists may philosophicaly reject libertarianism, they essentially practically support it and they cannot completely avoid value-laden terminology. So while they may loudly proclaim their opposition to ethical principles and rights-concepts until they are blue in the face, they ultimately would like to live their lives in a way consistant with certain ethical principles and rights-concepts. While, unlike Stefan Molyneux, I am not argueing that this by itself proves those ethical principles and rights-concepts, it certainly gives reason for pause when comparing one's behavior to one's philosophy and may hint at a need to reanalyze the moral-practical dichotomy.
Anarchism is indistinguishable from anomie if there is an ethical vacuum. There is no such thing as a society in an ethical vacuum. Even if one concedes to the existance of some kind of subjectivity, I don't think it logically follows that ethics is completely useless and irrelevant. An anarchist society either cannot conceptually be an anarchist society to begin with or will not last as an anarchist society for long if its philosophical and cultural norms deliberately undermine it. So it doesn't make sense to act like anarchism is compatible with any set of values or to act as if all values are equal.
Various ethical principles can undermine anarchism, help foster it and widen its scope. Furthermore, merely having an ethical principle, wether it's sensible or not, doesn't necessarily lead to the use of violence to enforce it. Questions of the use of violence inherently are ethical questions themselves, and the behavior of an individual doesn't always align with their philosophy. There really is no such thing as a person who has no ethical considerations, and this includes self-proclaimed ethical nihilists and various post-modernists. Noone can really divorce themselves from goals, reasons for goals and means towards goals.
Such things almost always have a reason. It makes no sense to proclaim that you favor a society in which rulership is normatively shunned, and then say you have no real reason for it other than preferance. To borrow Molyneuxian terminology, that reduces it to the level of "I like ice cream". Surely, a cause such as anarchism is not at the level of "I like ice cream". If one is putting foreward anarchism as a goal, surely one must explain why it is your goal beyond a mere appeal to the fact that your do favor the goal. It makes no sense to have a goal, and then proclaim neutrality as soon as the question of its foundation and application comes up.
So, by the very least, this ethical nihilism is highly impractical. If taken to its extremes, one is simply advocating anomie. If one is more practical about it, one is nonetheless sort of advocating both anarchy and anomie at once. On one hand, I think there's a sense in which this ethical nihilism is harmless, since the ethical nihilist may practically take a libertarian type of position anyways and most people aren't going to practically take ethical nihilism seriously. Sometimes they even bring up some interesting points. On the other hand, it poses a threat to libertarian anarchism to the extent that it encourages people to either think that anarchism is a pandora's box compatible with any set of values or to ultimately reject libertarian values in the name of putting on a facade of neutrality.
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
On The Relationship Between Libertarianism, Anarchism and Values
While it is true that the derivation of the word libertarian is essentially as a code word for an anarchist after some of the more violent parts of the history of the labor movement, I think that there is a sense in which there is a distinction between libertarianism and anarchism. In my understanding, libertarianism is a social philosophy or set of social philosophies that logically leads to the conclusion of anarchism. Anarchism as a phenomenon is a state of interpersonal relations that is consistant with the ethical norms involved in libertarianism. Or, to put it another way, libertarianism is the philosophical framework out of which order is established in conditions of anarchism. Libertarianism is a like a meta-theory of justice.
Technically, there is such thing as a non-libertarian anarchist. There are both libertarian anarchists and non-libertarian anarchists. Non-libertarian anarchists generally lean towards some kind of ethical nihilism, and hence they tend to see libertarianism as kind of useless (although some may be mildly tolerant of libertarian anarchists), or they bundle libertarianisn with all sorts of values that blatantly undermine it, to the point where their philosophical framework actually justifies authoritarianism (this can be seen in some of the attempts at libertarian-conservative fusionism).
Also, it is possible for someone to be a libertarian at least nominally and not be an anarchist. So there are both libertarian anarchists and libertarians who are not anarchists, which generally describes the classic anarchist vs. minarchist split. The existance of libertarians who are not anarchists is a consequence of either too narrow or an interpretation of the principles or the superimposition of principles that create tension with libertarianism. Non-anarchist libertarians do not see the existance of a state or any fundamentals of a state as violating the libertarian principles, or they do see that but pragmatically endorse a minimal state anyways.
Then there are some libertarians who label themselves as anarchists but functionally take a minarchist position, or even a rabidly authoritarian position. This is often a consequence of bundling libertarianism with values that create tension, and the alien values win out. It probably is a great disservice to libertarianism to even grace such people with the term libertarian, but it is part of the baggage of the modern libertarian movement. At least some of the anarcho-capitalists functionally take minarchist or authoritarian positions, and likewise some of the libertarian socialists fall back on authoritarian socialist positions.
There's also a distinction between political libertarians and apolitical libertarians, and this distinction actually crosses over into the territory of both minarchists and anarchists. The side of apolitical libertarianism is best represented by the agorists, who make opposition to the political process and the use of direct action and civil disobedience as an alternative a key issue. The side of political libertarianism is best represented by the Libertarian Party and the Ron Paul movement. This distinction may also lead to the problem of anarchists falling back into functional minarchism or authoritarianism.
Philosophical approaches to libertarianism is fairly fragmented into numerous different sub-categories. Utilitarians vs. natural righters, egoists vs. universalists, left-libertarians vs. right-libertarians, thin libertarians vs. thick libertarians, libertarian socialists vs. free market libertarians, anarcho-capitalists vs. individualist anarchists, and so on and so forth. The logical implications of libertarianism and wether or not certain values or compatible or incompatible with libertarianism is hotly debated. Most of the people involved generally agree on the same principles but interpret and apply them in different ways.
This creates a degree of vagueness that undermines any clear definition for libertarianism. In some cases, a false dichotomy or semantic ambiguity is involved and a reconciliation is to be made, and in other cases incompatible values are smuggled in by one side or the principles are not being properly defined, interpreted or applied by one side. The plumbline and/or thin approach to libertarianism also creates a lot of vagueness in terms of clearly defining libertarianism or putting it into its proper context. On one hand, libertarianism is portrayed as a "big tent" that is open to any set of values, while on the other hand certain incompatible or tension-creating values are smuggled in.
Suppose I went around calling myself an "anarcho-monarchist" and advocated a monarchy model as if it was compatible with libertarian anarchism. Would anyone really take such a thing seriously? While perhaps such a model would be on a smaller scale than the current state, would it be compatible with libertarianism? Does literally any value become legitimate so long as it's implemented on a smaller scale? It is clear to me that the answer to all of these questions is a great big "no". While decentralization is generally preferable to centralization, decentralization only has to do with size and scope rather than content. It has nothing to do with content. A mini-theocracy is still a theocracy, a mini-monarchy is still a monarchy, and a mini-state is still a state.
In some sense, the problem is that there is not enough decentralization in such examples. That some people actually advocate such things under the banner of libertarian anarchism perplexes me. The very principle of the values in question are authoritarian in nature, so it makes no sense to expect them to mix well with libertarian values. Such values very overtly undermine libertarianism and anarchism. So it should be clear that libertarianism cannot be combined with any old set of values without risking undermining itself. Authoritarian libertarianism and conservative anarchism are simply contradictions in terms.
This is not to say that pluralism does not have its place in the context of libertarian anarchism. But that's precisely where the pluralism is: in the context of libertarian anarchism. It is not a completely arbitrary pluralism, it has qualifications. It is absolutely true that many different forms of voluntary association can co-exist peacefully in a libertarian anarchist society, but this is conditional upon a clear understanding of what it means for something to be voluntary or coercive and what constitutes the proportional and just use of force given various different circumstances, or by the very least, a generally live and let live attitude. This means that questions of philosophy and culture are not completely irrelevant to libertarianism. Anarchism without adjectives definitely has it's context though, and its main limitation is that it cannot be compatible with values or systems that inherently undermine the overall anarchist principle involved.
Technically, there is such thing as a non-libertarian anarchist. There are both libertarian anarchists and non-libertarian anarchists. Non-libertarian anarchists generally lean towards some kind of ethical nihilism, and hence they tend to see libertarianism as kind of useless (although some may be mildly tolerant of libertarian anarchists), or they bundle libertarianisn with all sorts of values that blatantly undermine it, to the point where their philosophical framework actually justifies authoritarianism (this can be seen in some of the attempts at libertarian-conservative fusionism).
Also, it is possible for someone to be a libertarian at least nominally and not be an anarchist. So there are both libertarian anarchists and libertarians who are not anarchists, which generally describes the classic anarchist vs. minarchist split. The existance of libertarians who are not anarchists is a consequence of either too narrow or an interpretation of the principles or the superimposition of principles that create tension with libertarianism. Non-anarchist libertarians do not see the existance of a state or any fundamentals of a state as violating the libertarian principles, or they do see that but pragmatically endorse a minimal state anyways.
Then there are some libertarians who label themselves as anarchists but functionally take a minarchist position, or even a rabidly authoritarian position. This is often a consequence of bundling libertarianism with values that create tension, and the alien values win out. It probably is a great disservice to libertarianism to even grace such people with the term libertarian, but it is part of the baggage of the modern libertarian movement. At least some of the anarcho-capitalists functionally take minarchist or authoritarian positions, and likewise some of the libertarian socialists fall back on authoritarian socialist positions.
There's also a distinction between political libertarians and apolitical libertarians, and this distinction actually crosses over into the territory of both minarchists and anarchists. The side of apolitical libertarianism is best represented by the agorists, who make opposition to the political process and the use of direct action and civil disobedience as an alternative a key issue. The side of political libertarianism is best represented by the Libertarian Party and the Ron Paul movement. This distinction may also lead to the problem of anarchists falling back into functional minarchism or authoritarianism.
Philosophical approaches to libertarianism is fairly fragmented into numerous different sub-categories. Utilitarians vs. natural righters, egoists vs. universalists, left-libertarians vs. right-libertarians, thin libertarians vs. thick libertarians, libertarian socialists vs. free market libertarians, anarcho-capitalists vs. individualist anarchists, and so on and so forth. The logical implications of libertarianism and wether or not certain values or compatible or incompatible with libertarianism is hotly debated. Most of the people involved generally agree on the same principles but interpret and apply them in different ways.
This creates a degree of vagueness that undermines any clear definition for libertarianism. In some cases, a false dichotomy or semantic ambiguity is involved and a reconciliation is to be made, and in other cases incompatible values are smuggled in by one side or the principles are not being properly defined, interpreted or applied by one side. The plumbline and/or thin approach to libertarianism also creates a lot of vagueness in terms of clearly defining libertarianism or putting it into its proper context. On one hand, libertarianism is portrayed as a "big tent" that is open to any set of values, while on the other hand certain incompatible or tension-creating values are smuggled in.
Suppose I went around calling myself an "anarcho-monarchist" and advocated a monarchy model as if it was compatible with libertarian anarchism. Would anyone really take such a thing seriously? While perhaps such a model would be on a smaller scale than the current state, would it be compatible with libertarianism? Does literally any value become legitimate so long as it's implemented on a smaller scale? It is clear to me that the answer to all of these questions is a great big "no". While decentralization is generally preferable to centralization, decentralization only has to do with size and scope rather than content. It has nothing to do with content. A mini-theocracy is still a theocracy, a mini-monarchy is still a monarchy, and a mini-state is still a state.
In some sense, the problem is that there is not enough decentralization in such examples. That some people actually advocate such things under the banner of libertarian anarchism perplexes me. The very principle of the values in question are authoritarian in nature, so it makes no sense to expect them to mix well with libertarian values. Such values very overtly undermine libertarianism and anarchism. So it should be clear that libertarianism cannot be combined with any old set of values without risking undermining itself. Authoritarian libertarianism and conservative anarchism are simply contradictions in terms.
This is not to say that pluralism does not have its place in the context of libertarian anarchism. But that's precisely where the pluralism is: in the context of libertarian anarchism. It is not a completely arbitrary pluralism, it has qualifications. It is absolutely true that many different forms of voluntary association can co-exist peacefully in a libertarian anarchist society, but this is conditional upon a clear understanding of what it means for something to be voluntary or coercive and what constitutes the proportional and just use of force given various different circumstances, or by the very least, a generally live and let live attitude. This means that questions of philosophy and culture are not completely irrelevant to libertarianism. Anarchism without adjectives definitely has it's context though, and its main limitation is that it cannot be compatible with values or systems that inherently undermine the overall anarchist principle involved.
More On The Problems Of A Thin Libertarianism
A number of years ago, Walter Block wrote this article, in which he claims, "libertarianism is a theory concerned with the justified use of aggression, or violence, based on property rights, not morality". I find this claim to be incredibly perplexing because, to my knowledge, questions of the justified use of aggression and property rights inherently are moral questions. Why wouldn't they be? Individual liberty and property rights are ethical norms, and the process of clearly defining them requires a social philosophy. It seems to me that Walter Block is actually not being Rothbardian enough, given that Rothbard explicitly denounced taking a purely legalistic and utilitarian approach to libertarianism. That's why he wrote "The Ethics of Liberty", essentially as a protractor for libertarianism as a social philosophy.
To act as if libertarianism is neutral to morality would be misleading. Libertarianism is not a purely legalistic theory or a legal system, it is a social philosophy that functions as a guide for evaluating legal systems and as a pretext for legal systems. Once the libertarian pretext for a legal system is established, that's when there's a cut off point beyond which there is pluralism or neutrality. But one cannot just conceptually superimpose whatever kind of legal system one wants onto libertarianism, as if it's completely arbitrary. Libertarianism as a social philosophy provides a clear criteria for establishing a legal system; the legal system cannot undermine the ethical norms or it is inconsistant. Libertarianism cannot rationally be bundled with values or preferances that directly or indirectly contradict it, such as an authoritarian legal framework.
In short, Walter Block is conceptually putting the cart before the horse. A libertarian ethical framework provides the context for a legitimate legal system. A legitimate legal system does not create that context, that context must be established prior to the formation of any legal system. Individual sovereignty is not a principle that only applies after a legal system has been established. The non-aggression principle is not a floating abstraction and contextless axoim that somehow constitutes a legal system. It is a very specific principle that has a specific relationship to other ethical concepts and a specific definition of its terms. It requires a more integrated theory of interpersonal ethics to be made clear, otherwise it's reduced to meaninglessness.
To act as if libertarianism is neutral to morality would be misleading. Libertarianism is not a purely legalistic theory or a legal system, it is a social philosophy that functions as a guide for evaluating legal systems and as a pretext for legal systems. Once the libertarian pretext for a legal system is established, that's when there's a cut off point beyond which there is pluralism or neutrality. But one cannot just conceptually superimpose whatever kind of legal system one wants onto libertarianism, as if it's completely arbitrary. Libertarianism as a social philosophy provides a clear criteria for establishing a legal system; the legal system cannot undermine the ethical norms or it is inconsistant. Libertarianism cannot rationally be bundled with values or preferances that directly or indirectly contradict it, such as an authoritarian legal framework.
In short, Walter Block is conceptually putting the cart before the horse. A libertarian ethical framework provides the context for a legitimate legal system. A legitimate legal system does not create that context, that context must be established prior to the formation of any legal system. Individual sovereignty is not a principle that only applies after a legal system has been established. The non-aggression principle is not a floating abstraction and contextless axoim that somehow constitutes a legal system. It is a very specific principle that has a specific relationship to other ethical concepts and a specific definition of its terms. It requires a more integrated theory of interpersonal ethics to be made clear, otherwise it's reduced to meaninglessness.
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Putting The NAP In Its Proper Context
I contend that the non-aggression principle is not a contextless axoim and it requires a specific definition of the difference between genuine self-defense and the initiation of violence. There is a grave problem that thin libertarianism and plumb-line libertarianism runs into, which is that the non-aggression principle has to be properly specified and taken into its proper context relative to other more specific principles or values. Otherwise, one's conception of libertarianism may start to undermine itself by either assuming values that contradict the NAP or through vagueness in the definition of what constitutes the initiation of violence.
For example, I would contend that the value of revenge and the traditional concept of punishment inherently undermines and violates the NAP. I consider them to constitute justifications for ex-post-facto violence, which is a particular form of the initiation of violence. I would also contend that an absolutist view in favor of violence in defense of property rights undermines and violates the NAP because it justifies pre-emptive violence on the mere grounds that someone is on your property. So I think that genuine self-defense has to be clearly distinguished from pre-emptive and ex-post-facto violence, and the context for genuine self-defense is an actual threat to one's life.
The absolutist view, in contrast, is completely arbitrary because anyone at any time can just go "hey, you're on my property" and cap someone. But merely being on someone's property is an arbitrary reason to justify the initiation of force. You need more of a specific context than just "there is someone on my property". The "punishment" of being shot to death isn't even remotely proportional to the crime of trespassing or loitering. Compared to life vs. death, tresspassing and loitering is a fairly minor matter. It certainly does not merit arbitrarily shooting people unless the people truly do present an overt threat of force.
Furthermore, I reject the idea that being on someone else's property means you forfeit your right to life and liberty. It might mean that you have an incentive to generally cooperate, compromise and abstain from infringement, but not that you lose all of your rights all of a sudden. A theory of property rights that overtly undermines the right to life and liberty needs to be fixed, otherwise it is going to be hopelessly inconsistant, even sinking to the level of justifying what are clear cases of assault and murder. Clearly, a consistant theory of rights has to uphold all of the rights, not misdefine rights to the point where one's alleged defense of one right inherently violates another right in the overall network of rights-concepts.
While Objectivists may tend to have a more integrated social philosophy than thin libertarians, Objectivists also fail to put the NAP in it's proper context, since at least the Piekoff-influenced Objectivists openly justify pre-emptive violence on the largest scale possible in the form of the invasive military apparatus, and there is a degree to which Rand was wishy washy on questions of American imperialism and she definitely seemed to throw a bit of a bone to the political right on questions of foreign policy. The problem with this interpretation of the NAP is that it totally turns a blind eye to the mass-death of innocent bystanders in the crossfire of conflict between nation-states. Scruples over private military proposals aside, thin libertarians actually tend to be pretty good on these sort of questions.
Where thin libertarians tend to fail most, however, is in the realm of pre-emptive violence on a smaller scale, in the context of individual private property owners. It's at this point that thin libertarianism may carve a possible path towards vulgar libertarianism, with the baggage of advocacy of the alleged right of property owners to arbitrarily shoot alleged tresspassers and justifications for feudal or quasi-feudal landlordism. These kind of libertarians tend to treat property rights as axoimatic, and effectively they trump life and liberty in their framework. The tendency is to act as if property rights grants completely arbitrary or absolute decision-making power over other people who are on or make use of your property.
This is problematic because it creates tension with the more fundamental principles involved in individual sovereignty. The fact that I'm on someone's property or the fact that I may technically be capable of leaving someone's property does not mean that literally whatever they decide to do to me is inherently justified. The decision-making power that property rights grants a person should not be completely arbitrary, since it always must be put into the context of consistantly respecting other people's rights. Being on someone else's property should not imply that you are their defacto slave or no longer deserve to live, only that one probably has to compromise with the owner in order to make use of the property. Owning property should not logically grant someone completely absolute and unilaterial decision-making power over other people.
So if views on the NAP or the use of violence in general could be put on a spectrum or organized, I'd categorize it like this: (1) Pacifism - All violence is unjustified, including self-defense (2) Thick Libertarianism - The initiation of violence is unjustified, self-defense is justified when there is an actual threat to life (3) Thin Libertarianism - The initiation of violence is unjustified, except in defense of property rights, which is to be categorized as self-defense (4) Objectivism - The initiation of violence is unjustified, except when it is rational "retaliation" (I.E. ex-post-facto or pre-emptive violence is justified), which is to be categorized as self-defense. The problem with both elements of Objectivism and thin libertarianism is that they smuggle in initiations of force by miscategorizing them as self-defense. The thick libertarian option seems the most rational.
For example, I would contend that the value of revenge and the traditional concept of punishment inherently undermines and violates the NAP. I consider them to constitute justifications for ex-post-facto violence, which is a particular form of the initiation of violence. I would also contend that an absolutist view in favor of violence in defense of property rights undermines and violates the NAP because it justifies pre-emptive violence on the mere grounds that someone is on your property. So I think that genuine self-defense has to be clearly distinguished from pre-emptive and ex-post-facto violence, and the context for genuine self-defense is an actual threat to one's life.
The absolutist view, in contrast, is completely arbitrary because anyone at any time can just go "hey, you're on my property" and cap someone. But merely being on someone's property is an arbitrary reason to justify the initiation of force. You need more of a specific context than just "there is someone on my property". The "punishment" of being shot to death isn't even remotely proportional to the crime of trespassing or loitering. Compared to life vs. death, tresspassing and loitering is a fairly minor matter. It certainly does not merit arbitrarily shooting people unless the people truly do present an overt threat of force.
Furthermore, I reject the idea that being on someone else's property means you forfeit your right to life and liberty. It might mean that you have an incentive to generally cooperate, compromise and abstain from infringement, but not that you lose all of your rights all of a sudden. A theory of property rights that overtly undermines the right to life and liberty needs to be fixed, otherwise it is going to be hopelessly inconsistant, even sinking to the level of justifying what are clear cases of assault and murder. Clearly, a consistant theory of rights has to uphold all of the rights, not misdefine rights to the point where one's alleged defense of one right inherently violates another right in the overall network of rights-concepts.
While Objectivists may tend to have a more integrated social philosophy than thin libertarians, Objectivists also fail to put the NAP in it's proper context, since at least the Piekoff-influenced Objectivists openly justify pre-emptive violence on the largest scale possible in the form of the invasive military apparatus, and there is a degree to which Rand was wishy washy on questions of American imperialism and she definitely seemed to throw a bit of a bone to the political right on questions of foreign policy. The problem with this interpretation of the NAP is that it totally turns a blind eye to the mass-death of innocent bystanders in the crossfire of conflict between nation-states. Scruples over private military proposals aside, thin libertarians actually tend to be pretty good on these sort of questions.
Where thin libertarians tend to fail most, however, is in the realm of pre-emptive violence on a smaller scale, in the context of individual private property owners. It's at this point that thin libertarianism may carve a possible path towards vulgar libertarianism, with the baggage of advocacy of the alleged right of property owners to arbitrarily shoot alleged tresspassers and justifications for feudal or quasi-feudal landlordism. These kind of libertarians tend to treat property rights as axoimatic, and effectively they trump life and liberty in their framework. The tendency is to act as if property rights grants completely arbitrary or absolute decision-making power over other people who are on or make use of your property.
This is problematic because it creates tension with the more fundamental principles involved in individual sovereignty. The fact that I'm on someone's property or the fact that I may technically be capable of leaving someone's property does not mean that literally whatever they decide to do to me is inherently justified. The decision-making power that property rights grants a person should not be completely arbitrary, since it always must be put into the context of consistantly respecting other people's rights. Being on someone else's property should not imply that you are their defacto slave or no longer deserve to live, only that one probably has to compromise with the owner in order to make use of the property. Owning property should not logically grant someone completely absolute and unilaterial decision-making power over other people.
So if views on the NAP or the use of violence in general could be put on a spectrum or organized, I'd categorize it like this: (1) Pacifism - All violence is unjustified, including self-defense (2) Thick Libertarianism - The initiation of violence is unjustified, self-defense is justified when there is an actual threat to life (3) Thin Libertarianism - The initiation of violence is unjustified, except in defense of property rights, which is to be categorized as self-defense (4) Objectivism - The initiation of violence is unjustified, except when it is rational "retaliation" (I.E. ex-post-facto or pre-emptive violence is justified), which is to be categorized as self-defense. The problem with both elements of Objectivism and thin libertarianism is that they smuggle in initiations of force by miscategorizing them as self-defense. The thick libertarian option seems the most rational.
Friday, January 16, 2009
Positive and Negative Liberty
There are numerous different takes on positive liberty. The 1st take is that it's an unchosen positive obligation, otherwise generally known as "positive rights" (which may as well be substituted with the term "positive benefits for the masses"), which inherently violates a consistantly applied negative liberty. But in this view, everyone is inherently entitled to (insert arbitrary positive benefit here). All libertarians have to reject this position by default because no contract can coercively be enforced onto 3rd parties of people who did not consent and are logistically incapable of consenting to the particular contract (this is part of why both state social contracts and corporate status are illegitimate). This usually devolves into libertarians championing negative rights vs. left-statists championing positive rights.
However, the 2nd take is that the context of negative liberty, I.E. the freedom from imposition and aggression by others, inherently grants the freedom to pursue positive benefits, mutual aid or mutual self-interest in that context. This freedom to pursue positive benefits for yourself and others given condition of consistant negative liberty, in turn, is what sets up a contractual basis for "positive liberty". So liberty is both positive and negative in a sense. It prohibits decision-making power over you by others and justifies your own decision-making power over yourself. In this context, a libertarian can consistantly advocate concepts such as mutual aid and cooperative management. This usually devolves into vulgar and thin libertarians denying the reconciliation vs. neo-artistotileans and left-libertarians defending such a reconciliation.
The three main points of the reconciliation are that (1) negative liberty, by itself, does not absolutely gaurantee survival, happiness or flourishing and (2) yet without negative liberty, one cannot freely or adequately pursue survival, happiness or flourishing and (3) hence, positive liberty, insofar as it is restricted to the context of negative liberty, is the basis out of which we can establish methods of cooperation to better foster survival, happiness or flourishing. However, I'm not entirely satisfied by the invokation of the concept of happiness when something more along the lines of "self-actualization" or "personal growth or progression" is what is really meant, and I find Rand's emphasis on survival as the justification for ethics to be distasteful. That being said, one cannot reasonably divorce ethics from the context of goals.
However, the 2nd take is that the context of negative liberty, I.E. the freedom from imposition and aggression by others, inherently grants the freedom to pursue positive benefits, mutual aid or mutual self-interest in that context. This freedom to pursue positive benefits for yourself and others given condition of consistant negative liberty, in turn, is what sets up a contractual basis for "positive liberty". So liberty is both positive and negative in a sense. It prohibits decision-making power over you by others and justifies your own decision-making power over yourself. In this context, a libertarian can consistantly advocate concepts such as mutual aid and cooperative management. This usually devolves into vulgar and thin libertarians denying the reconciliation vs. neo-artistotileans and left-libertarians defending such a reconciliation.
The three main points of the reconciliation are that (1) negative liberty, by itself, does not absolutely gaurantee survival, happiness or flourishing and (2) yet without negative liberty, one cannot freely or adequately pursue survival, happiness or flourishing and (3) hence, positive liberty, insofar as it is restricted to the context of negative liberty, is the basis out of which we can establish methods of cooperation to better foster survival, happiness or flourishing. However, I'm not entirely satisfied by the invokation of the concept of happiness when something more along the lines of "self-actualization" or "personal growth or progression" is what is really meant, and I find Rand's emphasis on survival as the justification for ethics to be distasteful. That being said, one cannot reasonably divorce ethics from the context of goals.
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