Saturday, May 31, 2008
[cross-posted at Brainpolice at The Mises Community]
So the other day an Objectivist wrote this gem at their blog:
"On this Memorial Day, I would like to honor the three men of the American Civil War who understood the terrible need for total war: President Abraham Lincoln, General Ulysses S. Grant, and General William T. Sherman. Their vigorous prosecution of the war preserved the Union, the very first nation founded on the principles of individual rights -- and, at the time, the only such nation. In so doing, they ended the most loathsome violation of rights ever known to man: chattel slavery. Without them, without the brave Union soldiers who fought under them, America would not exist today.*So thank you, Mssrs. Lincoln, Grant, and Sherman. We are forever in your debt."
While a properly revised view of the so-called "civil war" renders this view highly absurd (since the civil war was not primarily fought over slavery so much as tariffs and secession, the war was essentially a case of the government attacking its own civilian population, Lincoln was a racist who more or less supported slavery and advocated deporting freed slaves back to Africa, Lincoln eggregiously violated the personal rights of both northerners and southerners alike in the process of executing the war, etc.) my concern is more broadly with what has unfortunately become the cliche objectivist view of warfare. Reading the commentary on this blog post by some of the objectivists is illuminating and disturbing.
Objectivists tend to blur the distinction between genuine defensive force and pre-emptive force or outright blatant initiations of force. They view outright invasions of territories as justified acts of "defense" or "retaliation". Due to this warped view of the legitimacy of force, many Objectivists not only legitimize the bulk of wars in America history, they also legitimize our current wars and call for further foreign interventions in places like Iran and Venezuela. This is absolute lunacy! Objectivists have apparently soaked up neoconservative premises with respect to foreign policy. And they have the pompous audacity to do so in the name of "reason", "objectivity", "individualism". Unfortunately, what they are really doing is diving head first into a sea of irrationalism and collectivism.
Objectivists assert that a tyrannical government loses its rights or legitimacy (which is true enough at face value, although all governments are tyrannical and illegitimate in my definition) and conclude that they may be "retaliated" against. From the standpoint of the people tyrannized over by the government, I agree that they can rightfully retaliate against their own government. The problem is that the objectivists draw insane conclusions from a seemingly true premise, as they seem to think that if a foreign government is "tyrannical", this justifies other governments not only "retaliating" against them but invading entire foreign territories and waging total war against not only the foreign governments but the civilian populations. This is an absurd justification for initiating force against innocent bystanders. It also opens up a subjective can of worms in which different governments are treated as being better or worse relative to eachother, and legitimizing otherwise illegitimate governments in the process.
Apparently objectivists have no qualms whatsoever with targeting entire civilian populations. They rationalize this by essentially saying that those within the "country" of the "bad guys" bear moral responsibility for what their government does. This is a blatantly collectivist viewpoint. Someone who just so happens to be born within the territory of a tyrannical government is not responsible for what some powerful men in an ivory tower do. Punishing people for the crimes of others is not justice, it's a monstrous injustice. Blaming and exercising force on entire populations within a territory for the actions of their governments, which they essentially have no control over, is collective guilt. Objectivists are supposed to be the ultimate opponents of collectivism, yet when it comes to foreign policy they appear to be die-hard collectivists, treating entire "nations" as bearing responsibility for the actions of a few powerful men within them. In the objectivist paradime, innocent bystanders can legitimately be murdered in the crossfire of conflicts between governments.
What is the objectivist response to libertarian criticisms of their highly disingenous pro-war views? They straw man libertarians as being pacifists. This is intellectually dishonest. Now, it is true that a libertarian can be a pacifist, but if one is intellectually honest it should be rather clear that what libertarians fundamentally oppose is not all force but the initiation of force and consequentially most libertarians are not pacifists. Most libertarians fully advocate self-defense. The problem is that what objectivists advocate is not self-defense but pre-emptive force and outright initiations of aggression. The accusation that libertarians advocate just sitting there and allowing oneself to be aggressed against by foreign entities is absurd. At least from the standpoint of the average America, they haven't been aggressed against by any foreign people. The objectivist view is totally warped, as it is the America government that is aggressing against the average people within foreign territories. It is precisely those people, the people the objectivists favor attacking, who have the moral right of self-defense.
It is interesting how objectivist premises that are correct in and of themselves at face value can be turned around to critisize objectivists, since objectivism as a political doctrine contradicts its own ethical theory in many ways. What immediately comes to mind is their criticism of altruism, which I more or less agree with myself. It is my contention that objectivists hold an altruistic view of the military. That is, they seem to buy into the nationalistic premise that soldiers (particularly ones from your own country) are virtuous and sacrifice themselves for the sake of our freedom. In this view, our freedom depends on the sacrifices of allegedly brave men in the military and in the state apparatus. In my understanding, the objectivist view of warfare and foreign policy actually contradicts rational egoism, properly understood.
Another contradiction is between the objectivist ideal of government and what they support with respect to currently existing governments. One of the more admirable traits of the objectivist political doctrine is that it is opposed to taxation. Yet the stance of objectivists on currently existing issues fully support making use of tax-funded government institutions like the military. How can people who proclaim that taxation is evil out of one side of their mouths simultaneously claim that tax-funded institutions are legitimate and advocate that they take particular policies? If objectivists were consistant, they would advocate the liberty of anti-war people to refuse to pay for their wars.
But while objectivism is supposed to be about objectivity and reason, consistancy is not a word that describes its political doctrine. The word hypocrisy describes it much better.
So the other day an Objectivist wrote this gem at their blog:
"On this Memorial Day, I would like to honor the three men of the American Civil War who understood the terrible need for total war: President Abraham Lincoln, General Ulysses S. Grant, and General William T. Sherman. Their vigorous prosecution of the war preserved the Union, the very first nation founded on the principles of individual rights -- and, at the time, the only such nation. In so doing, they ended the most loathsome violation of rights ever known to man: chattel slavery. Without them, without the brave Union soldiers who fought under them, America would not exist today.*So thank you, Mssrs. Lincoln, Grant, and Sherman. We are forever in your debt."
While a properly revised view of the so-called "civil war" renders this view highly absurd (since the civil war was not primarily fought over slavery so much as tariffs and secession, the war was essentially a case of the government attacking its own civilian population, Lincoln was a racist who more or less supported slavery and advocated deporting freed slaves back to Africa, Lincoln eggregiously violated the personal rights of both northerners and southerners alike in the process of executing the war, etc.) my concern is more broadly with what has unfortunately become the cliche objectivist view of warfare. Reading the commentary on this blog post by some of the objectivists is illuminating and disturbing.
Objectivists tend to blur the distinction between genuine defensive force and pre-emptive force or outright blatant initiations of force. They view outright invasions of territories as justified acts of "defense" or "retaliation". Due to this warped view of the legitimacy of force, many Objectivists not only legitimize the bulk of wars in America history, they also legitimize our current wars and call for further foreign interventions in places like Iran and Venezuela. This is absolute lunacy! Objectivists have apparently soaked up neoconservative premises with respect to foreign policy. And they have the pompous audacity to do so in the name of "reason", "objectivity", "individualism". Unfortunately, what they are really doing is diving head first into a sea of irrationalism and collectivism.
Objectivists assert that a tyrannical government loses its rights or legitimacy (which is true enough at face value, although all governments are tyrannical and illegitimate in my definition) and conclude that they may be "retaliated" against. From the standpoint of the people tyrannized over by the government, I agree that they can rightfully retaliate against their own government. The problem is that the objectivists draw insane conclusions from a seemingly true premise, as they seem to think that if a foreign government is "tyrannical", this justifies other governments not only "retaliating" against them but invading entire foreign territories and waging total war against not only the foreign governments but the civilian populations. This is an absurd justification for initiating force against innocent bystanders. It also opens up a subjective can of worms in which different governments are treated as being better or worse relative to eachother, and legitimizing otherwise illegitimate governments in the process.
Apparently objectivists have no qualms whatsoever with targeting entire civilian populations. They rationalize this by essentially saying that those within the "country" of the "bad guys" bear moral responsibility for what their government does. This is a blatantly collectivist viewpoint. Someone who just so happens to be born within the territory of a tyrannical government is not responsible for what some powerful men in an ivory tower do. Punishing people for the crimes of others is not justice, it's a monstrous injustice. Blaming and exercising force on entire populations within a territory for the actions of their governments, which they essentially have no control over, is collective guilt. Objectivists are supposed to be the ultimate opponents of collectivism, yet when it comes to foreign policy they appear to be die-hard collectivists, treating entire "nations" as bearing responsibility for the actions of a few powerful men within them. In the objectivist paradime, innocent bystanders can legitimately be murdered in the crossfire of conflicts between governments.
What is the objectivist response to libertarian criticisms of their highly disingenous pro-war views? They straw man libertarians as being pacifists. This is intellectually dishonest. Now, it is true that a libertarian can be a pacifist, but if one is intellectually honest it should be rather clear that what libertarians fundamentally oppose is not all force but the initiation of force and consequentially most libertarians are not pacifists. Most libertarians fully advocate self-defense. The problem is that what objectivists advocate is not self-defense but pre-emptive force and outright initiations of aggression. The accusation that libertarians advocate just sitting there and allowing oneself to be aggressed against by foreign entities is absurd. At least from the standpoint of the average America, they haven't been aggressed against by any foreign people. The objectivist view is totally warped, as it is the America government that is aggressing against the average people within foreign territories. It is precisely those people, the people the objectivists favor attacking, who have the moral right of self-defense.
It is interesting how objectivist premises that are correct in and of themselves at face value can be turned around to critisize objectivists, since objectivism as a political doctrine contradicts its own ethical theory in many ways. What immediately comes to mind is their criticism of altruism, which I more or less agree with myself. It is my contention that objectivists hold an altruistic view of the military. That is, they seem to buy into the nationalistic premise that soldiers (particularly ones from your own country) are virtuous and sacrifice themselves for the sake of our freedom. In this view, our freedom depends on the sacrifices of allegedly brave men in the military and in the state apparatus. In my understanding, the objectivist view of warfare and foreign policy actually contradicts rational egoism, properly understood.
Another contradiction is between the objectivist ideal of government and what they support with respect to currently existing governments. One of the more admirable traits of the objectivist political doctrine is that it is opposed to taxation. Yet the stance of objectivists on currently existing issues fully support making use of tax-funded government institutions like the military. How can people who proclaim that taxation is evil out of one side of their mouths simultaneously claim that tax-funded institutions are legitimate and advocate that they take particular policies? If objectivists were consistant, they would advocate the liberty of anti-war people to refuse to pay for their wars.
But while objectivism is supposed to be about objectivity and reason, consistancy is not a word that describes its political doctrine. The word hypocrisy describes it much better.
I'm not Anti American.
[cross posted from anarchyisnotchaos]
It's actually been some time since I last heard this thrown at me in the electronic world, but I get it a lot in the meat world. To me, it always seemed obvious, but I guess I better illustrate.
I've been called anti American for some time by many and various people. Even before I styled myself an anarchist.
It's not true, people. Since I'm putting this on both AINC and polycentric order, I know an international audience will read this. But I'm aiming it primarily at my fellow Americans, for two reasons.
One, my observation has been that foreigners understand that when I refer to America's actions and denounce them, I am speaking primarily about The United States of America. That would be the foreign sovereign ruling over what purports to be fifty independent states in cooperation. That all ended a long time ago. 1913, to be precise.
And Two, Americans need it more. A great many of my countrymen do not understand the difference between America and the United States of America.
America is a place. It's a label on a map describing, primarily to the english speaking world, the northern hemisphere of what was once called the "new world". Both Canada and the United States. It also describes South and Central America, but not so much culturally.
It can also refer to the ideals of it's settlers, or at least a significant amount of them. For instance, the idea that the common citizen should have a say in the affairs of state. Democracy wasn't spawned here, contrary to what a LOT of Americans think, but it did spread itself farther than at any other time in history. The twentieth Century was the Century of Democracy.
Yet Democracy is a failure. It was recognized as such by the founders. Even, reluctantly, by Thomas Jefferson. So they put it as PART of the system. A republic. Representative democracy to elect the rulers. And a means of ousting them. All states were to retain their sovereignty, relinquishing some rights and privileges as a price of membership. But as Sovereign States, they always had the right to seceed. This was never questioned during that period. Later, the Federal Government waged war on thirteen States that exercised that right, thus settling the question. Not by reason, or right, Nor treaty or any consideration for the legitimate (relatively) bounds of the Constitution. By Force of Arms it was established that the Union is not to be broken.
But it wouldn't be truly established until 1913, with the passage of the seventeenth amendment. The sixteenth was also passed that year (sorta, it wasn't properly ratified until somewhat later). But the seventeenth was the end of the Republican Form of government "guaranteed" by the Federal Constitution. The seventeenth, without ever directly declaring it, announced that the States were no longer sovereign. And removed what was probably the greatest of the original checks and balances.
The seventeenth Amendment eliminated the Senate in all but name. The function of the Senate was to be the representatives of the individual state governments. How they were chosen, prior to the seventeenth, was as the State Government chose. No uniform standard actually existed between states, because that was the POINT!!! The Senate represented the corporate entity of the state.
The House of Representatives were the representatives of the People at large, proportionate to population. Elected by direct democracy. Exactly the same function the Senate now serves. Clever, eh? They never SAY the states are no longer relevant and therefore no longer represented, but the States no longer have control of who represents them. Instead, Senators are now elected by direct democracy.
All of this and much more has been done deliberately, maliciously, and deceitfully by the United States of America. I hate them with every fibre of my being. Those sons of bitches have defiled my country and turned it into a wasteland of stagnation and low expectations. Basically because they got away with it. Even though I know it's not true, I still think of ALL politicians and Federal bureaucrats as deliberately evil. But it's not true. Some of them are accidentally evil. And they're worse!
They have polluted indiscriminately. I don't see this as the kind of "life and death right now" issue that the environmentalists do, but I still don't see the point of shitting where you eat once you learn not to. But worse, worst, they have polluted our minds and ideals. The American Dream used to be liberty. Now, it's a house you can't afford in a kingdom you don't want.
American Culture is partially to blame for this, though we've been led. I've been all over the country, and most Americans seem to be really REALLY naive about the world around them. Much more than people from the UK and Australia, at least. Our Media is pure garbage. Half of what they say is either untrue or misleading, and the other half is useless information about useless people in a couple of cities. Americans think of themselves as moral people, for the most part, and don't want to believe that The United States of America has committed and is committing grossly immoral acts from ANY philosophy except, possibly, some forms of nihilism.
They are blinkered. Because the government has relentlessly pounded home the idea that WE are the United States of America. This has made people feel personally responsible and simultaneously helpless as they believe that the actions taken by the state are necessary, and that we chose them.
It's completely false. Even in it's conceptual language, the government makes itself clearly separate from the people. Just like all other governments. It is a ruling institution over a certain geographic area. The American Government was supposed to be ANSWERABLE to the people. Not part of them. They are supposed to be our employees, and they are supposed to follow the book. They are and do neither.
Unless somebody reading this is a legislator, I think it safe to say you've never passed a law in your life, nor had ANY INPUT AT ALL in the process other than choosing your overlord. Even then, the lesser overlords given the current state of Imperia... I mean, Presidential power.
And while we're on the subject, if you're fool enough to think you can reform the government via elections, STOP FUCKING WORRYING ABOUT THE PRESIDENTIAL RACE!!! "We the People" do NOT elect the President. I don't personally elect anybody, because I'm an anarchist and absolutelyHATE the government. But if you wanna play, and have any effect, negative or positive, worry about who you can actually elect. They threw you two branches.
Now, these are the kinds of things I say to you who say I hate America. Horseshit. You're ignoring the argument and committing an ad hominem. Whether I hate America or love it with all my heart has absolutely nothing to do with the arguments I've presented against it's rulers.
I was born in America, in the Occupied Territory of Washington. I've travelled all of the west, most of the north and a fair bit of the south. Some of it is magnificent. Some is plain. Some, like Pittsburgh, is a blight on the planet. All in all, it's my home. I love America. I hate it's rulers, and I am disgusted with how easily we were led into an Empire.
Our rulers have been immensely successful in reversing every gain the founders aimed for or were argued into agreeing with. We have become horribly entangled in foreign alliances, grievances, and petty wars. Our rulers tax us outrageously, even if you are fool enough to think that Tax is not an outrage to begin with. They deliberately debase our currency. They divide man against man and nation against nation with malice aforethought. They tell us what we may or may not ingest. What risks we may or may not take. What kinds of property we may own, and under what circumstances. What we may accept in trade, and how we do so. Who we love. Who we associate with. Who we fuck. Everything. To paraphrase Ayn Rand, they have made so many rules with so many variations that you cannot live and not be in violation of the law. This is very deliberate. This allows them to hold you accountable IN YOUR OWN MIND to them. Because we all concede that Criminal Acts are, well, Criminal. They have fashioned us all criminals. Thus, we are all liable to the "justice system" at a time and place of their choosing.
But they "forgot" to tell you something.
We outnumber them. By really a lot.
If you love America as your home, and want to keep it a place worth calling home, then you need rid of the parasite that rules you from the swamp nobody wanted on the east coast. The foreign nation called The United States of America. Then, maybe, we can be great as a people again.
It's actually been some time since I last heard this thrown at me in the electronic world, but I get it a lot in the meat world. To me, it always seemed obvious, but I guess I better illustrate.
I've been called anti American for some time by many and various people. Even before I styled myself an anarchist.
It's not true, people. Since I'm putting this on both AINC and polycentric order, I know an international audience will read this. But I'm aiming it primarily at my fellow Americans, for two reasons.
One, my observation has been that foreigners understand that when I refer to America's actions and denounce them, I am speaking primarily about The United States of America. That would be the foreign sovereign ruling over what purports to be fifty independent states in cooperation. That all ended a long time ago. 1913, to be precise.
And Two, Americans need it more. A great many of my countrymen do not understand the difference between America and the United States of America.
America is a place. It's a label on a map describing, primarily to the english speaking world, the northern hemisphere of what was once called the "new world". Both Canada and the United States. It also describes South and Central America, but not so much culturally.
It can also refer to the ideals of it's settlers, or at least a significant amount of them. For instance, the idea that the common citizen should have a say in the affairs of state. Democracy wasn't spawned here, contrary to what a LOT of Americans think, but it did spread itself farther than at any other time in history. The twentieth Century was the Century of Democracy.
Yet Democracy is a failure. It was recognized as such by the founders. Even, reluctantly, by Thomas Jefferson. So they put it as PART of the system. A republic. Representative democracy to elect the rulers. And a means of ousting them. All states were to retain their sovereignty, relinquishing some rights and privileges as a price of membership. But as Sovereign States, they always had the right to seceed. This was never questioned during that period. Later, the Federal Government waged war on thirteen States that exercised that right, thus settling the question. Not by reason, or right, Nor treaty or any consideration for the legitimate (relatively) bounds of the Constitution. By Force of Arms it was established that the Union is not to be broken.
But it wouldn't be truly established until 1913, with the passage of the seventeenth amendment. The sixteenth was also passed that year (sorta, it wasn't properly ratified until somewhat later). But the seventeenth was the end of the Republican Form of government "guaranteed" by the Federal Constitution. The seventeenth, without ever directly declaring it, announced that the States were no longer sovereign. And removed what was probably the greatest of the original checks and balances.
The seventeenth Amendment eliminated the Senate in all but name. The function of the Senate was to be the representatives of the individual state governments. How they were chosen, prior to the seventeenth, was as the State Government chose. No uniform standard actually existed between states, because that was the POINT!!! The Senate represented the corporate entity of the state.
The House of Representatives were the representatives of the People at large, proportionate to population. Elected by direct democracy. Exactly the same function the Senate now serves. Clever, eh? They never SAY the states are no longer relevant and therefore no longer represented, but the States no longer have control of who represents them. Instead, Senators are now elected by direct democracy.
All of this and much more has been done deliberately, maliciously, and deceitfully by the United States of America. I hate them with every fibre of my being. Those sons of bitches have defiled my country and turned it into a wasteland of stagnation and low expectations. Basically because they got away with it. Even though I know it's not true, I still think of ALL politicians and Federal bureaucrats as deliberately evil. But it's not true. Some of them are accidentally evil. And they're worse!
They have polluted indiscriminately. I don't see this as the kind of "life and death right now" issue that the environmentalists do, but I still don't see the point of shitting where you eat once you learn not to. But worse, worst, they have polluted our minds and ideals. The American Dream used to be liberty. Now, it's a house you can't afford in a kingdom you don't want.
American Culture is partially to blame for this, though we've been led. I've been all over the country, and most Americans seem to be really REALLY naive about the world around them. Much more than people from the UK and Australia, at least. Our Media is pure garbage. Half of what they say is either untrue or misleading, and the other half is useless information about useless people in a couple of cities. Americans think of themselves as moral people, for the most part, and don't want to believe that The United States of America has committed and is committing grossly immoral acts from ANY philosophy except, possibly, some forms of nihilism.
They are blinkered. Because the government has relentlessly pounded home the idea that WE are the United States of America. This has made people feel personally responsible and simultaneously helpless as they believe that the actions taken by the state are necessary, and that we chose them.
It's completely false. Even in it's conceptual language, the government makes itself clearly separate from the people. Just like all other governments. It is a ruling institution over a certain geographic area. The American Government was supposed to be ANSWERABLE to the people. Not part of them. They are supposed to be our employees, and they are supposed to follow the book. They are and do neither.
Unless somebody reading this is a legislator, I think it safe to say you've never passed a law in your life, nor had ANY INPUT AT ALL in the process other than choosing your overlord. Even then, the lesser overlords given the current state of Imperia... I mean, Presidential power.
And while we're on the subject, if you're fool enough to think you can reform the government via elections, STOP FUCKING WORRYING ABOUT THE PRESIDENTIAL RACE!!! "We the People" do NOT elect the President. I don't personally elect anybody, because I'm an anarchist and absolutelyHATE the government. But if you wanna play, and have any effect, negative or positive, worry about who you can actually elect. They threw you two branches.
Now, these are the kinds of things I say to you who say I hate America. Horseshit. You're ignoring the argument and committing an ad hominem. Whether I hate America or love it with all my heart has absolutely nothing to do with the arguments I've presented against it's rulers.
I was born in America, in the Occupied Territory of Washington. I've travelled all of the west, most of the north and a fair bit of the south. Some of it is magnificent. Some is plain. Some, like Pittsburgh, is a blight on the planet. All in all, it's my home. I love America. I hate it's rulers, and I am disgusted with how easily we were led into an Empire.
Our rulers have been immensely successful in reversing every gain the founders aimed for or were argued into agreeing with. We have become horribly entangled in foreign alliances, grievances, and petty wars. Our rulers tax us outrageously, even if you are fool enough to think that Tax is not an outrage to begin with. They deliberately debase our currency. They divide man against man and nation against nation with malice aforethought. They tell us what we may or may not ingest. What risks we may or may not take. What kinds of property we may own, and under what circumstances. What we may accept in trade, and how we do so. Who we love. Who we associate with. Who we fuck. Everything. To paraphrase Ayn Rand, they have made so many rules with so many variations that you cannot live and not be in violation of the law. This is very deliberate. This allows them to hold you accountable IN YOUR OWN MIND to them. Because we all concede that Criminal Acts are, well, Criminal. They have fashioned us all criminals. Thus, we are all liable to the "justice system" at a time and place of their choosing.
But they "forgot" to tell you something.
We outnumber them. By really a lot.
If you love America as your home, and want to keep it a place worth calling home, then you need rid of the parasite that rules you from the swamp nobody wanted on the east coast. The foreign nation called The United States of America. Then, maybe, we can be great as a people again.
Monday, May 26, 2008
Left-Libertarianism
[cross-posted at Brainpolice at The Mises Community]
I consider myself a left-libertarian. To avoid any confusion over what this may imply, I fully support private property, voluntary exchange, money, rent, employment, and so on (or more strictly speaking, I don't advocate their abolition). And I completely oppose the state. I advocate a free market in everything, from clothing and shelter to defense and arbitration. I have a dislike for people like Noam Chomsky, who I feel is largely economically illiterate and confused. I'm not a marxist or a communist or a syndicalist. Some may therefore be thinking, "so what's so 'left' about it? what differentiates you from 'right' libertarians? you sound like any other anarcho-capitalist to me!". I'd like to explain myself in order to make it clear that there is a very real distinction to be made.
Firstly, it is worth exploring how one views power in general. All libertarians, particularly market anarchists, oppose the power of the state. A lot of emphasis is placed on the power of the state and how it effects society. However, in my understanding, while the left-libertarian joins their comrades in opposing the state, they oppose the concentration of power and centralization in general. This includes the concentration or centralization of so-called "private power". While cookie-cutter anarcho-capitalists make brilliant arguments against state power, they tend to specialize so much in doing so that they may neglect the problems with the concentration of "private" power. Their libertarianism is "thin" in the sense that it is restricted to anti-statism.
The cookie-cutter anarcho-capitalist often seems to act as if whatever is "private" is legitimate in all respects. It's almost as if the principles somehow magically don't apply when we are dealing with non-state organizations. But to use a simple example, a gang or mafia may be "private" but it certainly is not legitimate. The left-libertarian views matters more broadly, that is, they apply libertarian principles not only to delegitimize the state but also to any other group of "private" people who violate rights. The left-libertarian's libertarianism is "thick" in the sense that it is more than just a matter of anti-statism, it is more broadly a matter of anti-authoritarianism and anti-centralization. The left-libertarian may additionally oppose corporations, extremely large buisinesses and possibly even organized religion. The left-libertarian sees no good reason why buisinesses should be centralized.
Karl Hess once described "the right" as supporting the concentration of power into the fewest hands possible, while in contrast "the left" stands for spreading it about as much as possible in an equilibrium. "The left" implies "equality of authority" in which everyone's freedom is limited by the like freedom of everyone else - a mere restatement of the non-aggression principle. Using this analysis, right-libertarians are to "the left" to the extent that they oppose the concentration of power in the hands of the state, but they nonetheless are still to "the right" to the extent that they still support private concentrations of power. While the right-libertarian may be consistantly anti-state, they are not consistantly opposed to the concentration of power. They may even fully endorse "private" concentrations of power and portray such organizations as victims of the state.
In short, the right-libertarian or cookie-cutter anarcho-capitalist, while they are likely fully aware and informed of the fact that we don't currently live in a free market or free society, functions as a "vulgar libertarian". What this means is that they function as apologists for big buisiness, corporations and currently existing conditions or property titles. They use free market theories or analysis to legitimize conditions and organizations that came about in a non-free market. They tend to cling to a worldview in which "big buisiness is America's most persecuted minority", as Ayn Rand once stated. They still tend to think of state intervention as somehow being inherently anti-buisiness, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. The right-libertarian is essentially pro-buisiness more or less across the board without proper consideration for context. The left-libertarian calls them out on this.
Another difference between the left-libertarian and the right-libertarian is over what they think society will be like in the absence of the state. Cookie-cutter anarcho-capitalists essentially envision a society more or less identifical to currently existing society but without the state. But the left-libertarian sees much more broad implications that would seem to radically alter the organizational structure of a society. The left-libertarian does not think that the results of a free market would mirror current economic conditions by any stretch of the imagination. Left-libertarians may tend to think that free competition would function as a check on the general size of economic organizations, and therefore draconian large buisinesses simply couldn't survive or exist. They may also be tolerant of or more open to possible "socialistic" experiments within a free market, or advocate a signficant increase in self-employment over standard wage-employment.
The difference between the two sides can also be thought of in terms of how one's position relates to the traditions of the anti-authoritarian left, or how one views their own position in relation to it. It's partially a matter of historical context and the political spectrum. Right-libertarians buy into the cliche that socialism is inherently a statist/political system, while left-libertarians aknowledge the existance and possibility of voluntary or anarchistic socialism (in short, all they're really doing is taking an anarchist without adjectives approach). To the right-libertarian, all socialist forms of organization are inherently violent or political systems - all socialism is state-socialism. To the left-libertarian, there is a distinction to be made between state-socialism and genuinely libertarian socialism. The left-libertarian has a much greater degree of tolerance for "socialistic" forms of organization so long as they are voluntary, while the right-libertarian considers all "socialistic" forms of organization to be inherently involuntary.
There's a major difference in terms of where one finds their roots. To the right-libertarian, their philosophy derives from and grew out of the "old right" and the founding fathers of America. To the left-libertarian, their philosophy derives from and grew out of the old libertarian left (the mutualists, the individualist anarchists, the voluntaryists, etc.) and wouldn't exist without them. The left-libertarian sees market anarchism as having grown out of old non-state socialist traditions and is likely to see ideas such as mutualism as not really being that far off from their own position in the grand scheme of things. In contrast, the right-libertarian is largely out of touch with such roots and probably considers mutualists and other more voluntaristic socialists to be enemies. They see little to no connection between these ideas and contemporary market anarchism, where the left-libertarian does.
Another major difference is over strategy and where one thinks their true alliances lie. The left-libertarian is much more likely to be opposed to the political process and consequentially they may not vote, argue against running for office and regularly denounce the libertarian party and reformism. The left-libertarian is a radical and a revolutionary. In contrast, the right-libertarian essentially functions as a minarchist in practise as they regularly participate in the political process, encourage people to participate in it, run for office themselves and advocate reformist strategies. Comparatively, the right-libertarian is a gradualist and even counter-revolutionary. The right-libertarian more or less takes the exact same strategy that a minarchist would, and consequentially falls prey to political oppurtunism and get-liberty-quick schemes.
The difference over where one thinks their alliances are is also significant. Right-libertarians regularly ally with conservatives, particularly paleoconservatives. To the right-libertarian, conservatism is the closest thing to libertarianism on the political spectrum and conservatives inherently are less statist then "the left". They may even views themselves as an extension of the conservative movement. The left-libertarian, in contrast, wants nothing to do with conservatism and sees no reason why it should be regaurded as somehow less statist than "the left". The left-libertarian sees conservatives as hijacking the libertarian movement and employing quasi-libertarian rhetoric to get people to associate their own positions with liberty and free markets. To the left-libertarian, conservatism in the original sense of the term is the polar opposite of liberty, as it stands for the status quo, the romantisization of the past and an endless sea of authoritarian tendencies.
From the perspective of the left-libertarian, sometimes the right-libertarian takes positions on current issues that in fact are conservative rather than libertarian. One of the most common cases of this is over the issue of immigration, in which right-libertarians essentially support restricting people from crossing political borders. To the left-libertarian, this merely grants legitimacy to the state and treats it as if it were a legitimate private property owner. The same is true of many so-called "privatization" schemes in which the state sells "its" property off to a single economic organization, essentially transfering from a state held monopoly to a private monopoly. The left-libertarian is much more skeptical of so-called "free market" reforms than the right-libertarian is, being much more likely to consider them manifestations of mercantalism or corporatism.
Another difference between the two may simply be a matter of cultural traits or preferances. Right-libertarians may often be strict "cultural conservatives" and therefore have traits such as opposition to multiculturalism, feminism and secularism. They may openly praise "the family", "the church" and "the nation". In contrast, the left-libertarian is much more likely to see these things such as multiculturalism and secularism as being good and support voluntaryist versions of them. The left-libertarian may add things such as anti-racism and anti-patriarchy to their agenda, and such things need not be imposed by the state but a result of voluntary efforts. And while many right-libertarians may tend to praise "the family", the left-libertarian may very well be skeptical about the organizational structure of many families and view them as abusive. And perhaps most importantly, the left-libertarian is not a nationalist.
It should be clear at this point what the left-libertarian is not: they are not vulgar libertarians, conservatives, in bed with conservatives, anti-immigrationists, reformists, extreme gradualists, and so on. It is likely (although not necessarily mandatory) that they are not racists, organized religion supporters, nationalists, chauvenists, and so on. The left-libertarian is not an apologist for "private" concentrations of power and corporations. The left-libertarian may very well oppose corporations. In short, the left-libertarian has distanced themselves from conservative traits as much as possible and view themselves as supporting liberty in a much more broad sense than your cookie-cutter anarcho-capitalist does. It is in the context of this much more broad perspective that they are to "the left" of their comrades.
I consider myself a left-libertarian. To avoid any confusion over what this may imply, I fully support private property, voluntary exchange, money, rent, employment, and so on (or more strictly speaking, I don't advocate their abolition). And I completely oppose the state. I advocate a free market in everything, from clothing and shelter to defense and arbitration. I have a dislike for people like Noam Chomsky, who I feel is largely economically illiterate and confused. I'm not a marxist or a communist or a syndicalist. Some may therefore be thinking, "so what's so 'left' about it? what differentiates you from 'right' libertarians? you sound like any other anarcho-capitalist to me!". I'd like to explain myself in order to make it clear that there is a very real distinction to be made.
Firstly, it is worth exploring how one views power in general. All libertarians, particularly market anarchists, oppose the power of the state. A lot of emphasis is placed on the power of the state and how it effects society. However, in my understanding, while the left-libertarian joins their comrades in opposing the state, they oppose the concentration of power and centralization in general. This includes the concentration or centralization of so-called "private power". While cookie-cutter anarcho-capitalists make brilliant arguments against state power, they tend to specialize so much in doing so that they may neglect the problems with the concentration of "private" power. Their libertarianism is "thin" in the sense that it is restricted to anti-statism.
The cookie-cutter anarcho-capitalist often seems to act as if whatever is "private" is legitimate in all respects. It's almost as if the principles somehow magically don't apply when we are dealing with non-state organizations. But to use a simple example, a gang or mafia may be "private" but it certainly is not legitimate. The left-libertarian views matters more broadly, that is, they apply libertarian principles not only to delegitimize the state but also to any other group of "private" people who violate rights. The left-libertarian's libertarianism is "thick" in the sense that it is more than just a matter of anti-statism, it is more broadly a matter of anti-authoritarianism and anti-centralization. The left-libertarian may additionally oppose corporations, extremely large buisinesses and possibly even organized religion. The left-libertarian sees no good reason why buisinesses should be centralized.
Karl Hess once described "the right" as supporting the concentration of power into the fewest hands possible, while in contrast "the left" stands for spreading it about as much as possible in an equilibrium. "The left" implies "equality of authority" in which everyone's freedom is limited by the like freedom of everyone else - a mere restatement of the non-aggression principle. Using this analysis, right-libertarians are to "the left" to the extent that they oppose the concentration of power in the hands of the state, but they nonetheless are still to "the right" to the extent that they still support private concentrations of power. While the right-libertarian may be consistantly anti-state, they are not consistantly opposed to the concentration of power. They may even fully endorse "private" concentrations of power and portray such organizations as victims of the state.
In short, the right-libertarian or cookie-cutter anarcho-capitalist, while they are likely fully aware and informed of the fact that we don't currently live in a free market or free society, functions as a "vulgar libertarian". What this means is that they function as apologists for big buisiness, corporations and currently existing conditions or property titles. They use free market theories or analysis to legitimize conditions and organizations that came about in a non-free market. They tend to cling to a worldview in which "big buisiness is America's most persecuted minority", as Ayn Rand once stated. They still tend to think of state intervention as somehow being inherently anti-buisiness, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. The right-libertarian is essentially pro-buisiness more or less across the board without proper consideration for context. The left-libertarian calls them out on this.
Another difference between the left-libertarian and the right-libertarian is over what they think society will be like in the absence of the state. Cookie-cutter anarcho-capitalists essentially envision a society more or less identifical to currently existing society but without the state. But the left-libertarian sees much more broad implications that would seem to radically alter the organizational structure of a society. The left-libertarian does not think that the results of a free market would mirror current economic conditions by any stretch of the imagination. Left-libertarians may tend to think that free competition would function as a check on the general size of economic organizations, and therefore draconian large buisinesses simply couldn't survive or exist. They may also be tolerant of or more open to possible "socialistic" experiments within a free market, or advocate a signficant increase in self-employment over standard wage-employment.
The difference between the two sides can also be thought of in terms of how one's position relates to the traditions of the anti-authoritarian left, or how one views their own position in relation to it. It's partially a matter of historical context and the political spectrum. Right-libertarians buy into the cliche that socialism is inherently a statist/political system, while left-libertarians aknowledge the existance and possibility of voluntary or anarchistic socialism (in short, all they're really doing is taking an anarchist without adjectives approach). To the right-libertarian, all socialist forms of organization are inherently violent or political systems - all socialism is state-socialism. To the left-libertarian, there is a distinction to be made between state-socialism and genuinely libertarian socialism. The left-libertarian has a much greater degree of tolerance for "socialistic" forms of organization so long as they are voluntary, while the right-libertarian considers all "socialistic" forms of organization to be inherently involuntary.
There's a major difference in terms of where one finds their roots. To the right-libertarian, their philosophy derives from and grew out of the "old right" and the founding fathers of America. To the left-libertarian, their philosophy derives from and grew out of the old libertarian left (the mutualists, the individualist anarchists, the voluntaryists, etc.) and wouldn't exist without them. The left-libertarian sees market anarchism as having grown out of old non-state socialist traditions and is likely to see ideas such as mutualism as not really being that far off from their own position in the grand scheme of things. In contrast, the right-libertarian is largely out of touch with such roots and probably considers mutualists and other more voluntaristic socialists to be enemies. They see little to no connection between these ideas and contemporary market anarchism, where the left-libertarian does.
Another major difference is over strategy and where one thinks their true alliances lie. The left-libertarian is much more likely to be opposed to the political process and consequentially they may not vote, argue against running for office and regularly denounce the libertarian party and reformism. The left-libertarian is a radical and a revolutionary. In contrast, the right-libertarian essentially functions as a minarchist in practise as they regularly participate in the political process, encourage people to participate in it, run for office themselves and advocate reformist strategies. Comparatively, the right-libertarian is a gradualist and even counter-revolutionary. The right-libertarian more or less takes the exact same strategy that a minarchist would, and consequentially falls prey to political oppurtunism and get-liberty-quick schemes.
The difference over where one thinks their alliances are is also significant. Right-libertarians regularly ally with conservatives, particularly paleoconservatives. To the right-libertarian, conservatism is the closest thing to libertarianism on the political spectrum and conservatives inherently are less statist then "the left". They may even views themselves as an extension of the conservative movement. The left-libertarian, in contrast, wants nothing to do with conservatism and sees no reason why it should be regaurded as somehow less statist than "the left". The left-libertarian sees conservatives as hijacking the libertarian movement and employing quasi-libertarian rhetoric to get people to associate their own positions with liberty and free markets. To the left-libertarian, conservatism in the original sense of the term is the polar opposite of liberty, as it stands for the status quo, the romantisization of the past and an endless sea of authoritarian tendencies.
From the perspective of the left-libertarian, sometimes the right-libertarian takes positions on current issues that in fact are conservative rather than libertarian. One of the most common cases of this is over the issue of immigration, in which right-libertarians essentially support restricting people from crossing political borders. To the left-libertarian, this merely grants legitimacy to the state and treats it as if it were a legitimate private property owner. The same is true of many so-called "privatization" schemes in which the state sells "its" property off to a single economic organization, essentially transfering from a state held monopoly to a private monopoly. The left-libertarian is much more skeptical of so-called "free market" reforms than the right-libertarian is, being much more likely to consider them manifestations of mercantalism or corporatism.
Another difference between the two may simply be a matter of cultural traits or preferances. Right-libertarians may often be strict "cultural conservatives" and therefore have traits such as opposition to multiculturalism, feminism and secularism. They may openly praise "the family", "the church" and "the nation". In contrast, the left-libertarian is much more likely to see these things such as multiculturalism and secularism as being good and support voluntaryist versions of them. The left-libertarian may add things such as anti-racism and anti-patriarchy to their agenda, and such things need not be imposed by the state but a result of voluntary efforts. And while many right-libertarians may tend to praise "the family", the left-libertarian may very well be skeptical about the organizational structure of many families and view them as abusive. And perhaps most importantly, the left-libertarian is not a nationalist.
It should be clear at this point what the left-libertarian is not: they are not vulgar libertarians, conservatives, in bed with conservatives, anti-immigrationists, reformists, extreme gradualists, and so on. It is likely (although not necessarily mandatory) that they are not racists, organized religion supporters, nationalists, chauvenists, and so on. The left-libertarian is not an apologist for "private" concentrations of power and corporations. The left-libertarian may very well oppose corporations. In short, the left-libertarian has distanced themselves from conservative traits as much as possible and view themselves as supporting liberty in a much more broad sense than your cookie-cutter anarcho-capitalist does. It is in the context of this much more broad perspective that they are to "the left" of their comrades.
Bob Barr Gets LP Nominations
[cross-posted at Brainpolice at The Mises Community]
Foreward Note: Niccolo beat me to making a response to this, and as usual his tone is much more powerful than mine.
So Bob Barr got the LP's nomination at their most recent convention. There is a lot of dirt on this man from a libertarian perspective, ranging from his past support for the drug war and actually being the author of the defense of marriage act. Like all political oppurtunists, he has claimed to have changed his position since then in order to appease the demands of his consistuency. Like all political oppurtunists, this does not mean that he is sincere or that he does not still hold to those positions or would not support them pragmatically.
In the two-party system, politicians usually move (I.E. flip-flop or oppurtunistically change their position) towards "the center" in order to get more support. In the libertarian party, politicians usually move to a more radical position (rhetorically, that is) in order to shy away from their blatantly unlibertarian or even anti-libertarian past. In the case of "Big L" libertarians, this is usually in the conservative direction (their past, that is).
To me, this just proves what I've been trying to tell libertarians for a long time: that the movement is being infiltrated by conservatives and that the party is a waste of time that becomes less principled each year. The libertarian party has become little more than a mini-GOP that some old disguntled conservatives have flocked to out of disillusionment with the Republicans and neoconservatives.
On the other hand, with people like Mary Ruwart aside, the closest thing to a libertarian "left" within the party now is Mike Gravel, who isn't even a libertarian at all in the philosophical sense. Not only is the LP being infiltrated by conservatives, but the "left-wing" of the libertarian party is essentially non-existant. Since I'm a "left-libertarian", this makes me dislike the party even more.
While I'm not in favor of the party or political strategies at all, putting myself in a cost-benefit analysis mindset for a moment, Mary Ruwart was probably the best option presented (even though she's been chided by the conservative elements of the movement for her position on/against the age of consent, which really should not be controversial at least within libertarian circles). She did get close at first but Barr moved past her by the end of the convention.
If the moral of the story hasn't been made clear to libertarians by now, I don't know what else will get through to them. Clearly the LP and electoral politics in general has not been, is not and never will be a meaningful strategy for liberty. It is has proved to be counterproductive time and time again. Each year, the Libertarian Party waters itself down more and more. Political libertarianism is a cosmic joke.
Foreward Note: Niccolo beat me to making a response to this, and as usual his tone is much more powerful than mine.
So Bob Barr got the LP's nomination at their most recent convention. There is a lot of dirt on this man from a libertarian perspective, ranging from his past support for the drug war and actually being the author of the defense of marriage act. Like all political oppurtunists, he has claimed to have changed his position since then in order to appease the demands of his consistuency. Like all political oppurtunists, this does not mean that he is sincere or that he does not still hold to those positions or would not support them pragmatically.
In the two-party system, politicians usually move (I.E. flip-flop or oppurtunistically change their position) towards "the center" in order to get more support. In the libertarian party, politicians usually move to a more radical position (rhetorically, that is) in order to shy away from their blatantly unlibertarian or even anti-libertarian past. In the case of "Big L" libertarians, this is usually in the conservative direction (their past, that is).
To me, this just proves what I've been trying to tell libertarians for a long time: that the movement is being infiltrated by conservatives and that the party is a waste of time that becomes less principled each year. The libertarian party has become little more than a mini-GOP that some old disguntled conservatives have flocked to out of disillusionment with the Republicans and neoconservatives.
On the other hand, with people like Mary Ruwart aside, the closest thing to a libertarian "left" within the party now is Mike Gravel, who isn't even a libertarian at all in the philosophical sense. Not only is the LP being infiltrated by conservatives, but the "left-wing" of the libertarian party is essentially non-existant. Since I'm a "left-libertarian", this makes me dislike the party even more.
While I'm not in favor of the party or political strategies at all, putting myself in a cost-benefit analysis mindset for a moment, Mary Ruwart was probably the best option presented (even though she's been chided by the conservative elements of the movement for her position on/against the age of consent, which really should not be controversial at least within libertarian circles). She did get close at first but Barr moved past her by the end of the convention.
If the moral of the story hasn't been made clear to libertarians by now, I don't know what else will get through to them. Clearly the LP and electoral politics in general has not been, is not and never will be a meaningful strategy for liberty. It is has proved to be counterproductive time and time again. Each year, the Libertarian Party waters itself down more and more. Political libertarianism is a cosmic joke.
The Unlibertarian Party: And Their Dear Leader
Oh yes, what a crystal clear message for the world that political action, not to mention political action through the United States’ “Libertarian” Party, is not only a waste of time, but a corrupted disease that spreads through the veins of the body of the liberty movement! Yes, what an obvious light to shine on the picture of the state of the arch-enemy of liberty – politics!
With the election of Bob Barr to the United States’ “Libertarian” Party, SEK3’s position on “get-liberty-quick schemes” and their damage to the liberty movement seems unmistakably strong. Indeed, what great irony for a US politician to charge the US Federal government with the task of, “securing our borders from criminals, terrorists and those seeking to take advantage of the American taxpayer”! Of course, as a side note, this plan would be perfectly fine, if it meant kicking the real criminals, terrorists, and exploiters of the entrepreneuriat out of the realm of life – forget the “country”! – i.e. the Congressman, politicians, and their millions of hoards of privileged business elites, corrupt labour officials, and military mass-murderers. Something seems to insinuate, however, that Bob Barr, the same man that once proclaimed a “constitutional right and responsibility… to pass laws protecting citizens from dangerous and addictive narcotics,” will largely disagree with that.
Dear LORD, do the gods of irony show no mercy? Perhaps not. After all what could be more ironic than a “Libertarian” Party nominating this blue-eyed, political gypsy who not only voted as a consistent protectionist in his term of office, but is also one of the most renowned drug-warriors in the history of the war on drugs.
Then again, perhaps this isn’t such a contrast. After all, the “Libertarian” Party isn’t actually for libertarians! So who cares if they elect this representative of the great Satan as their leader? Who cares if those that supported Ron Paul are also to support the same man that wished to ban the practice of Wicca in the US military? Don’t you Ron Paul “revolutionaries” feel good now? After all, who besides the unlibertarian “Libertarian” Party supports Barr the Drug-Warrior? Why, the now very wealthy Ron Paul!
Then again, perhaps this isn’t such a contrast. After all, the “Libertarian” Party isn’t actually for libertarians! So who cares if they elect this representative of the great Satan as their leader? Who cares if those that supported Ron Paul are also to support the same man that wished to ban the practice of Wicca in the US military? Don’t you Ron Paul “revolutionaries” feel good now? After all, who besides the unlibertarian “Libertarian” Party supports Barr the Drug-Warrior? Why, the now very wealthy Ron Paul!
I personally hope you “rEVOLutionaries” can sleep at night with the millions of victims of the drug war rotting in the state’s dungeons; your "movement" makes me sick and so do you if you still stand by it.
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Absolutes
[Originally posted at LessGovernment.com.]
The debate surrounding subjective and objective knowledge is age-old and will probably endure to the end of human existence and beyond. In all the years this site [LessGovernment.com] has been online, I have never offered any sort of comprehensive summation of my views on this issue, so I would like to attempt to do that briefly here.
As a disclaimer, please keep in mind that this is the perspective of a layman whose only real interest in philosophy is limited to basic logic and concepts rooted in reality, as opposed to mystical musing about whether existence exists and whether it is anything more than a perpetual dream within an immaterial cosmic consciousness. Philosophy is a tool for discovering truth and enhancing my life with relevant, coherent, consistent principles. Any persons who want to send me treatises on the virtues ofsolipsism or dualism can, therefore, save themselves the trouble.
Let me begin by offering some definitions.
Objectivism - the philosophical position that certain truths are true everywhere, independent of human thoughts, emotions, opinions, etc. Ethical objectivism or moderate moral realism is the position that certain acts are objectively right or wrong, independent of human opinion.
Subjectivism - a philosophical tenet that accords primacy to subjective experience as fundamental of all measure and law.Ethical subjectivism is the meta-ethical belief that all ethical sentences reduce to factual statements about the attitudes of individuals.
Generally, I will be referring to objectivism and subjectivism in the context of ethical considerations, but there might be broader implications if the reader chooses to apply them.Truth - conformity with fact or reality; a verified or indisputable fact, proposition, principle, or the like.
Truth in and of itself is a fairly straightforward idea, but there is a depth to the analysis one might engage in that is beyond the scope of this article and possibly beyond my ability to care. As such, I'm content with the above definition and will elaborate only in stating that truth may be categorized as self-evident, empirical or deductive.
"I exist" is an example of a self-evident truth, because someone making the statement must exist in order to do so. Likewise, "I do not exist" is self-refuting, because someone making the statement must exist in order to claim that he doesn't exist. An empirical truth is one than can be observed and tested. This encompasses science and general everyday observations about the universe. Deductive truth is usually found through logic, wherein a series of premises lead to a conclusion. Faulty premises can and often do result in faulty conclusions.
So there's that, but is any of this truth objective or --- *gasp* --- absolute?
In short, it is irrelevant. If the human senses are so unreliable, and human logic so imprecise, that the identification of objective truth and accessibility of objective reality remain inexorably out of our grasp; and even if we are to ignore the performative contradiction of asserting that nothing is absolutely true --- then the only conclusion one can draw from this is that humans are limited and that there might be aspects of existence that are beyond our ability to detect. As such, if we cannot detect something, which means neither the thing itself nor its effects are testable or observable at all, then that thing --- the higher, unknowable truth --- is functionally nonexistent to humans and irrelevant. Even if what we can test and observe does not produce any manner of objective or absolute truth, it is pointless to argue in favor of proceeding otherwise on the grounds that truth is unknowable or inaccessible.
Maybe this position can be dubbed "irrelevantism." I don't know if there is an existing term or phrase that suffices.
In terms of ethics, then, it becomes apparent that quibbles over objectivity and subjectivity are quite meaningless. The simple solution is to subject ethical propositions to the same rigor one might reserve for any other claim, namely logic and empirical testing. If ethical claims evaluated in this manner are not objective, then neither is any science or discipline ever conceived by mankind, and such status is impossible to attain. It becomes moot to consider anything beyond whether a particular claim is consistent with known reality.
So it is for this reason that I am sympathetic toward objectivism but ultimately convinced by neither objectivism nor subjectivism. Objectivists (including the big-O Randian variants) defeat their own cause by claiming objectivity through reason but reaching so many opposing conclusions that they might as well just call themselves relativists. The Randian philosophy isn't even internally consistent (which is a whole other article). In the subjectivist camp, as alluded to previously, it is impossible to even make claims without contradicting the core premise of subjectivism. Some might call this consistency, but I call it garbled nonsense.
My solution to this mess is to consider any ethical proposition that checks out under logical and empirical scrutiny to be valid, until which time the available data points to something else. So goes science. Murray Rothbard's proposals are mostly good in this regard (though he frequently referred to rights and such, and while I think certain right-ish principles derive from reality, I've yet to see a coherent defense of rights as they are usually posed). Robert Nozick's philosophical ideas always struck me as intriguing, though, like the Randian Objectivists, some of his conclusions fall short of his purported principles. David D. Friedman is uber-practical, and his book The Machinery of Freedom is partly responsible for my acceptance of anarchism, but libertarian consequentialism is an ethical black hole that can "logically" justify almost anything.
In the older school, Lysander Spooner remains perhaps one of the best proponents of natural law --- arguably my favorite --- and his No Treason papers have yet to be successfully challenged to my knowledge. However, he too was regrettably mired in the concept of rights without any real explanation of whether such things even exist external to cultural conventions. Other philosophers --- Hobbes, Locke, Hume, Jefferson, Stirner, Proudhon, Thoreau, Nietzsche, Kant --- all made their venerable contributions to human thought as well as their respective fair shares of absurdity.
Not long ago, I reviewed a book by Stefan Molyneux titled Universally Preferable Behaviour: A Rational Proof of Secular Ethics. While I did not (and still do not) feel qualified to judge whether the ethical "beast" (to borrow Molyneux's metaphor) has been conquered, I can speak for myself in saying that UPB succeeds where other systems have failed. The reason it succeeds is that it is not a system, per se, that attempts to tell a person what he should or should not do. Rather, it is a framework for evaluating the truth value of ethical statements. For example, "Murder is moral" self-detonates because it requires one person to be moral by murdering and another to be immoral by not murdering. This is, of course, incredibly simplistic, so rather than risk misrepresenting the book, I must recommend reading it for oneself, as it and several others are freely available in digital format at Freedomainradio.com. To date, UPB is the most logical and comprehensible approach to ethics that I've encountered. That by no means makes it objective or even true, but like any other proposal subject to rational analysis, it either stands or does not.
Critiques of UPB have been posted at RationalAnimal.net (Part 1 and Part 2) and Back to the Drawing Board, and I encourage anyone who has read the book to take a look at these two sites.
All of the above in consideration, my conclusion for the time being is that there is no reason to proceed as though ethics cannot be regarded as objective, at least to the reason-centric extent apprehensible by humans. We know that murder and theft are mostly undesirable, with only certain segments of the population embracing them as viable foundations for an ideal society (theruling class, typically, along with those who benefit from the violence of the ruling class). As David Friedman observed, "The direct use of force is such a poor solution to any problem, it is generally employed only by small children and large nations."
It strikes me as truly pointless to engage in prolonged debates over whether murder, theft and a general disregard for self-sovereignty constitute moral virtues, evils or neither. Humanity has spent thousands of years on the path of slavery and slaughter. Governments and their armies haven't solved these problems. Even when they try to, the end result often either involves a mere changing of the guard or is even worse than the original situation. To call the track record of religion in terms of peace and prosperity abysmal is a grand understatement. The collusion of humanity's two main authoritative institutions is perhaps the most dreaded scenario of all for those of us who value progress and liberty.
So even if one considers objective human ethics to be dubious, unknowable or outright impossible, that is a poor excuse for approaching life as though nothing can be good, bad, right or wrong. If objectivity is beyond our reach as humans, then we can depend only on the science and logic that have given us modern medicine, computers and spaceflight. If objectivity is out there but remains undiscovered, that is likewise a poor excuse for dismissing ethics, as doing so amounts to little more than a self-fulfilling prophecy. If objectivity exists and can be demonstrated, then I eagerly long to discover the proof of this.
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Does Social Evolution Necessitate Decentralization?
[cross-posted at Brainpolice at The Mises Community]
Social evolution can be thought of in terms of increased complexity. Simple forms of organization are uniliteral and homogenous, while more complexity in an organizational structure implies pluralism. Increased plurality, combined with a finite number of variables or resources to work with, implies smaller units. The more complex that a pattern is, the harder it is to understand or calculate or predict it from a central point or plan. The more simple and centralized that an organization is, the harder it is to keep track of all of the variables involved (I.E. the calculation problem comes into play).
It follows that as the complexity of an economy or society increases, entropy occurs as attempts at central planning fail and become increasingly obsolete methods for organization. Social evolution would seem to point in the direction of increasingly smaller social units and an increase in the diversity of social units both relative to eachother and in terms of their internal nature. This would seem to imply the long-term inevitable collapse of states and large organizations in general as being "unfit" for the proper environment for human developement. In short, at some point the social and economic interactions of people in and of itself starts to outpace currently existing institutions.
While the calculation problem is usually used to show how state-socialism is an impractical failure, it also implies its ultimate demise. And it additionally functions nicely as a much more broad theory of institutional analysis in general that may extend to certain non-governmental institutions. An organization is an organization and the calculation problem is ultimately an organizational theory in addition to being an economic theory. The calculation problem essentially proves that decentralization is more efficient than centralizaton as methods of economic organization. When integrated with theories of spontaneous order and social evolution, the calculation problem starts to have a new and increased significance.
But while social evolutionary and economic theories are very helpful in understanding such matters, ultimately sucessful social evolution depends on the driving force of social revolution and some degree of beneficial change in the general ideological atmosphere. Progress results from sucessful and beneficial deviations from the norm, which in turn implies concepts such as civil disobedience and education. Societies start to stagnate when they become too apathetic to develope and use independant mechanisms to counter the negative and harmful traits of the existing organizational structure. That is, the seeds of sucessful social evolution are to be found as far outside of and as independantly from the existing organizational structure as possible.
Social evolution can be thought of in terms of increased complexity. Simple forms of organization are uniliteral and homogenous, while more complexity in an organizational structure implies pluralism. Increased plurality, combined with a finite number of variables or resources to work with, implies smaller units. The more complex that a pattern is, the harder it is to understand or calculate or predict it from a central point or plan. The more simple and centralized that an organization is, the harder it is to keep track of all of the variables involved (I.E. the calculation problem comes into play).
It follows that as the complexity of an economy or society increases, entropy occurs as attempts at central planning fail and become increasingly obsolete methods for organization. Social evolution would seem to point in the direction of increasingly smaller social units and an increase in the diversity of social units both relative to eachother and in terms of their internal nature. This would seem to imply the long-term inevitable collapse of states and large organizations in general as being "unfit" for the proper environment for human developement. In short, at some point the social and economic interactions of people in and of itself starts to outpace currently existing institutions.
While the calculation problem is usually used to show how state-socialism is an impractical failure, it also implies its ultimate demise. And it additionally functions nicely as a much more broad theory of institutional analysis in general that may extend to certain non-governmental institutions. An organization is an organization and the calculation problem is ultimately an organizational theory in addition to being an economic theory. The calculation problem essentially proves that decentralization is more efficient than centralizaton as methods of economic organization. When integrated with theories of spontaneous order and social evolution, the calculation problem starts to have a new and increased significance.
But while social evolutionary and economic theories are very helpful in understanding such matters, ultimately sucessful social evolution depends on the driving force of social revolution and some degree of beneficial change in the general ideological atmosphere. Progress results from sucessful and beneficial deviations from the norm, which in turn implies concepts such as civil disobedience and education. Societies start to stagnate when they become too apathetic to develope and use independant mechanisms to counter the negative and harmful traits of the existing organizational structure. That is, the seeds of sucessful social evolution are to be found as far outside of and as independantly from the existing organizational structure as possible.
Monday, May 19, 2008
An Introduction to Christian Anarchism
Introduction:
In a recent e-mail, a fellow Anarchist, and a co-contributor to the blog, inquired about the position of Christian Anarchism; both questioning the validity of the title and the substance of its content, his inquiry represents a great deal of confusion within the broader Anarchist movement – namely, the religion dilemma. Indeed, any Christian Anarchist must understand that most Anarchists tend to look at any branch of religion, not just Christianity, with great suspicion and that if Christian Anarchists wish to join the ranks of Anarchist comrades, they must first present their case by answering a few of the common objections.
Saturday, May 17, 2008
Free Association Resolves Cultural Conflict
[cross-posted at Brainpolice at The Mises Community]
I've touched on this before, but this is a point that I really want to drive home. The very existance of state-provided and/or monopolized services is a boon to cultural conflict over how those services are used and who gets to use them, since the individual must pay for them no matter what and has no real alternative to the singular provider of the service (I.E. the state).
For example, there is endless conflict over the public education system precisely because the individual has little choice but to make use of and pay for it. Everyone battles to pressure the state to enforce their particular preferances for education models, since they don't have a meaningful option to form alternative associations with those who explicitly agree with their preferances. Whatever standards are set by the state apply to everyone involved. If someone objects to a particular standard, they have no choice but to pay for it anyways and quite likely them or their children will end up having to abide by that standard and attend those particular schools.
If people were free to persue such services based on genuine consent, then each individual or group with their own preferances would be able to form into mutual associations and hence a more broad and plural scope of options would exist. Noone would be forced into a model or association that they don't desire or to pay for someone else's preferances. If a given group prefers creationism, they could organize into their own associations that teach creationism. If a given group prefers evolution, they could do likewise. If a given group prefers gay marriages, they can form their own associations to provide them. If a given group does not prefer them, they can form their own associations that don't provide them. Such questions would be reduced in significance to a matter of what flavor of ice cream one prefers.
The incentive for such cultural conflict that we currently see in our politically dominated society is removed when people are free to simply "live and let live". They don't have to fight over how to use a singular organization precisely because they have the option to opt out of them and form alternative organizations. People might still disagree with eachother, but their disagreement would not be manifested in such direct hostility and they would not be able to or find any reasonable need to force their particular preferances onto everyone else. The individual can simply disassociate and freely compete with those whom they disagree with. There would no longer be a singular monopolistic apparatus to fight for control over. One can simply patronize or form alternative associations. It's a win-win situation for all.
This does not necessarily imply absolute cultural separatism, as if each group completely isolates themselves from eachother geographically. Free association does not necessarily imply that, for example, all of the Catholics will band together and form an exclusively Catholic community or all of the Muslim people will form an exclusively Muslim community. Such groups can peacefully co-exist and intermingle within a given geographical area or community. Within a single community there may exist a vast multitude of different associations and organizations for an individual to choose from to best suite their personal and cultural preferances.
There is no reason why a single community cannot contain a variety of different social combinations within it that are in free competition with eachother. While each individual social combination may certainly be exclusive, they cannot be exclusive with respect to other people's property and associations. They cannot exclude someone from the community as a whole unless they were the only social combination in the entire community, which is highly unlikely. The implications of free association is actually an increase in pluralism rather than homogeneity. Extreme homogeniety only occurs when there is a central plan imposed onto an entire society, when each respective group has no choice but to conform to a single standard or participate in a single social combination within a given geographical area. It is only when there is an institution such as the state that cultural and economic standards or models can be forced onto everyone uniformly.
In the absence of the centralized and coercive institutional means by which a single plan can be imposed onto an entire community, the natural result would seem to be more pluralistic than it otherwise would have been. Only a coercive geographical monopoly can uniformly control everyone within the territory or exclude people from the entire territory. Once the draconian geographical apparatus of control is removed, there is much more leeway for people to develope alternatives (and hence more plurality) within a given geographical area.
I've touched on this before, but this is a point that I really want to drive home. The very existance of state-provided and/or monopolized services is a boon to cultural conflict over how those services are used and who gets to use them, since the individual must pay for them no matter what and has no real alternative to the singular provider of the service (I.E. the state).
For example, there is endless conflict over the public education system precisely because the individual has little choice but to make use of and pay for it. Everyone battles to pressure the state to enforce their particular preferances for education models, since they don't have a meaningful option to form alternative associations with those who explicitly agree with their preferances. Whatever standards are set by the state apply to everyone involved. If someone objects to a particular standard, they have no choice but to pay for it anyways and quite likely them or their children will end up having to abide by that standard and attend those particular schools.
If people were free to persue such services based on genuine consent, then each individual or group with their own preferances would be able to form into mutual associations and hence a more broad and plural scope of options would exist. Noone would be forced into a model or association that they don't desire or to pay for someone else's preferances. If a given group prefers creationism, they could organize into their own associations that teach creationism. If a given group prefers evolution, they could do likewise. If a given group prefers gay marriages, they can form their own associations to provide them. If a given group does not prefer them, they can form their own associations that don't provide them. Such questions would be reduced in significance to a matter of what flavor of ice cream one prefers.
The incentive for such cultural conflict that we currently see in our politically dominated society is removed when people are free to simply "live and let live". They don't have to fight over how to use a singular organization precisely because they have the option to opt out of them and form alternative organizations. People might still disagree with eachother, but their disagreement would not be manifested in such direct hostility and they would not be able to or find any reasonable need to force their particular preferances onto everyone else. The individual can simply disassociate and freely compete with those whom they disagree with. There would no longer be a singular monopolistic apparatus to fight for control over. One can simply patronize or form alternative associations. It's a win-win situation for all.
This does not necessarily imply absolute cultural separatism, as if each group completely isolates themselves from eachother geographically. Free association does not necessarily imply that, for example, all of the Catholics will band together and form an exclusively Catholic community or all of the Muslim people will form an exclusively Muslim community. Such groups can peacefully co-exist and intermingle within a given geographical area or community. Within a single community there may exist a vast multitude of different associations and organizations for an individual to choose from to best suite their personal and cultural preferances.
There is no reason why a single community cannot contain a variety of different social combinations within it that are in free competition with eachother. While each individual social combination may certainly be exclusive, they cannot be exclusive with respect to other people's property and associations. They cannot exclude someone from the community as a whole unless they were the only social combination in the entire community, which is highly unlikely. The implications of free association is actually an increase in pluralism rather than homogeneity. Extreme homogeniety only occurs when there is a central plan imposed onto an entire society, when each respective group has no choice but to conform to a single standard or participate in a single social combination within a given geographical area. It is only when there is an institution such as the state that cultural and economic standards or models can be forced onto everyone uniformly.
In the absence of the centralized and coercive institutional means by which a single plan can be imposed onto an entire community, the natural result would seem to be more pluralistic than it otherwise would have been. Only a coercive geographical monopoly can uniformly control everyone within the territory or exclude people from the entire territory. Once the draconian geographical apparatus of control is removed, there is much more leeway for people to develope alternatives (and hence more plurality) within a given geographical area.
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
A Reply to a Concern About Language
In my last blog post on Polycentric Order, I received a comment that struck me as particularly interesting and helpful. Under the blog, a co-author noted two personal problems he had with my particular article; one of his problems being that it was far too venomous and the other being the usage of Psalms 137:8-9 at the very end. As this is a revision to that article I want to make it clear that I am defending the positions taken in it, but that does not necessesarily mean that I am attacking the questions put forth afterwards.
First, as far as the sectarian sentiments set soundfully to the dangerous subject of class conflict go, I do not see any reason for a man to shy away from being perfectly vicious in his convictions. After all, if the principles he espouses are the ones he believes in, why should he be anything less? The sectarian language itself, however, does not seem to be the entire cause of objection. As noted by the inquisitor, the very nature of class distinction is a black and white one, but living in a grey world it becomes difficult to consistently apply the principles of it. In the particular case of Agorist class theory, however, it seems that there is a solution to this problem. As SEK3 once noted, people exist on a spectrum of Agorism, acting either in a Counter-Economic or Statist fashion, but always in one or the other. For those that are purely statist, however, they possess no wealth or property and as SEK3 notes, “their loot is forfeit to revolutionary Agorists as agents of the victims.”
However, the question of the pure Statists vs. the pure Agorists is an obvious one. Of course the Statists are evil and of course the Agorists are good, but what of the majority that falls in the middle between the two? SEK3 said this about the middle,
To the statists, they are the victims, the herds of cattle to be slaughtered and sheep to be sheared. To the Agorists, they are the external marketplace, to receive nearly everything in trade – but trust.
And some day they shall either take control of their lives and polarize one way or the other, or fail to do so and shall stagnate in the statist swamp or be blown away on the winds of revolutionary change.
It is here important to remember that Agorism is not an instant revolution; it is a phase system working from phase 0 to 4. By the third phase, however, the lines between the Agorists and Statists would probably be visibly drawn with few landing in the middle. Remember, though the language is inflammatory, the Agorist message is only one of peace and free markets, only introducing a “militant” phase with the birth of private defense agencies prosecuting the pure statists for past grievances and contemporary statist acts for justified restitutions as the market Anarchist mantra dictates. To confuse language used for poetic reasons, not directly calling for any unjustified physical conflict, with an ambiguous call to arms is a great tragedy introduced to the English language with the replacement of poetry for formal works of boredom and taint.
For the second objection I come to admit that perhaps slipping in a bit of the Bible might be uncalled for if only it didn’t possess the right context. I make no mistake in defining myself as a Christian, nor do I make one of defining myself as a poet. Psalms contains some very poetic verses and when it comes to justice against evil, no one does it better than the mighty LORD, God of Heaven and Earth. Though this particular seed of faith may not be expressed by other Anarchists, perhaps the poetry of Psalms could at least be appreciated given the correct context of the issue? If the Atheist can denounce God in his speech calling for Anarchism, why can’t a Christian praise Him in his?
The Militia
The tendency to throw away what is seen as more socialistic institutions is unfortunately quite prevalent within the anarcho-capitalist or market anarchist camp. There are plenty of arguments to show the inevitable collapse of certain socialistic organizations and even to show how such non-collectivized organizations would simply out compete them. But this need not always be so and indeed some of the perceived and real benefits of various organizations are quite marketable and competitive with established or upcoming firms which make a "profit" (in quotes because the word profit has so much baggage. For here and for these purposes it will be used to distinguish the difference between say, Prudential Insurance and the Salvation Army. One "for profit" the later "non profit" in as much as the later sorts can be said to NOT make a "profit")
Conclusion
One such institution, that is quite the 'social' one, yet still highly respected and even revered amongst market anarchists is the volunteer, non profit, institution known as: the militia. The militia highlights, to me, the ideal voluntary "socialistic" market institution.
the market anarchist and the militia:
The appeal of the militia to the market anarchist is fairly well known. Market anarchist, more so than other anarchists in my experience at least, glorify and support the private ownership of arms. A militia marks the presence of a well armed populace with free access to whatever arms they see as necessary for their defense. With every home in possession of arms, the market anarchist, I would think, sees the militia as a natural development. That people would organize themselves as they saw fit to provide for a common defense of their homes and businesses in the case of invasion by a foreign state or some other large organized and orchestrated threat to their posterity and property. Many see the militia in glorified eyes due to their reverence for the American Revolutions cause/causes and I think rightfully see the militia as a natural revolutionary force of free men fighting for their own and not for the states own.
The militia however has a few problems which it shares with other collectivized institutions that I believe a market can force them to solve these however to allow them to exist along side and even in conjunction with private defense agencies. The following are three problems and some various solutions to these problems:
Problem - the division of labor
The militia lacks a strong division of labor. In asking people to multi task between being a plumber, computer programmer, electrician, manager, or the like, and being a weekend warrior is not an easy thing to do. Economic science shows that the division of labor provides all with far more luxury, free time, and better provision of services and products than in its absence or less divided form. This would apply to the provision of defense as well there is no reason to assume it is an exception to this rule. A mason who devotes his working life to learning the tools of his trade, learning the art of masonry will be a better brick layer and stone worker than those that do this and try to learn to paint as well for example. The same goes for the security agent or volunteer community warrior. If a man splits his time between the two he will not be as powerful or useful a soldier as one who does not. And will also find other artisans or bricklayers surpassing his skill or usefulness. So to compete with professional soldiers is a difficult thing for a militia to do.
However this diversity in labor also brings strengths to the table. Soldiers tend to be uniformly trained in standardized methods and to employ standardized tactics which have proven effective and the like over countless battles. But the militia mans mind, while not benefiting from this wealth of obvious battlefield knowledge, also is not crippled or chained by it. By coming in with little official battlefield tactical training the militia man has a fresh look and a fresh mind in these matters. Generals Nathan Bedford Forrest, John S. Mosby, and John Hunt Morgan were renown for their military ingenuity. Leading much smaller forces to many a victory over northern invaders in the civil war. Their tactics were copied over the years by more modern 'cavalry' and are still analyzed today. Their revolutionary tactical advantage was to use the horse not as a shock troop but as a means to carry infantry over long distances and to strike unexpectedly, thereby turning a flashy almost medieval (and long since outdated) cavalry force into a rapid deployment infantry force. None of them had any military training prior to the war or a West Point education. They simply were men not exposed to established doctrine and standards of knowledge and practice of West Point and therefore not mentally chained to old ideas of the use of cavalry. Free to think and evolve, this disadvantage became a strength.
Another issue that the militias diversity and lack of 100% devotion of time to war training may bring to the table is the various wartime applications of otherwise peacetime professions. The manager and the labor coordinator are obvious pick for leaders and commanders, shipping department leads and laborers have much to bring to the table in the realm of logistics, the cook, the park ranger, the mason (again with the mason... I am thinking wartime engineers), the construction man, the nurse, the doctor all have OBVIOUSLY useful skills to bring with them to a battle and especially a war. It is no surprise that the United States Army advertises itself as a place to learn the arts of the market in its commercials, many civilian applications are equally as useful in wartime and more highly valued than war skills apparently.
I believe this gap in training is also further addressed every day by the advancement of technology in fields of surveillance and weaponry. To train to kill effectively with a sword is much more difficult and time consuming than to train to use a bow efficiently. Which in turn is much more time crunching than to use a musket. Which takes more time to master than the rifle. And so on. And who knows what tomorrows weapons of choice will be and how much more efficient and easier to use they will become. The gap between a martial man and one who is not is essentially training and if the tools of the martial trade require less training everyday than to become, at least a competent if not expert, soldier will only decrease as technology advances and access to knowledge grows with such things as the Internet. And without the state to stand in the way of acquiring the means to enter a martial discipline there is absolutely nothing to disrupt such spontaneous and voluntary entrance into the realm of martial training. Again, market benefit: militia.
Problem – lack of devotion
The militia has trouble when it comes to maintaining a trained force. For a people to function as a military unit they either must be forged in the fires of battle through harsh and costly experience or must train beforehand. Obviously to learn to swim in shallow water is a better method than just jumping into the deep end of the local swimming pool and so is training to use ones arms on a battlefield patently more productive than trying to learn as you go along... as you dodge bullets from an invading force you do not want to be caught asking the militia man next to you, “how does this safety thing work again?”. So again the private professional soldier/warrior comes out on top in that they have no disincentive to train. That is the mercenary or subscription soldier has no incentive to invest their time elsewhere. Or yet another way to say this, no incentive NOT to train. If I make no 'profit' from war time preparations of training myself, but make the bulk (at least) of my earnings and income through my labor as a mason, then I will tend to devote more and more of my time to masonry and less of it to training for wartime activities that may or may not even come to pass.
This, again, also has non obvious advantages to militia as well. This ensures that a man whose primary bread winning activity is NOT war is not anxious to make it for his own gain. While the Prudential Protection agency has many incentives to not wage war (as pointed out extensively by other market oriented anarchists which resemble this advantage of the militia) the incentive to not wage war is most apparent to the economically ignorant in the militia as they but a body of ones neighbors and family and friends, ones own immediate community, who are generally recognized as having some invested common interest in the local areas safety and not much else. I submit the attempted invasion of Canada and subsequent desertion of the militia as a result, as evidence of the natural nobility of a citizen militia. English general James Wolfe : "the Americans are in general the dirtiest, most contemptible cowardly dogs, that you can conceive. There is no depending upon them in action. They…desert by battalions, officers and all." Americans were fed up of fighting Britain's aggressive wars away from their homes for matters not of defense. The militia were simply more concerned with defending their own and making their everyday business than invading and marching for whomever has high ambitions and a few pounds of gold to throw at them (interesting note to you union boys out there: these militia men were payed in contracts negotiated by the militia units elected officers... which the British often violated, but thats another issue).
In addition to the strong incentive not to invade, there is tied to a lack of devotion in this sense, a tendency to not blindly follow orders. One officer during the Ticonderoga campaign is quoted as saying the following about the militia men: "Almost every man his own master and a general." With militia officers democratically elected, "the notion of liberty so generally prevails, that they are impatient under all kind of superiority and authority." This further goes to illustrate the benefits of seeing all men as men and not sovereigns over ones self. Militia men from Massachusetts were notorious for assassinating and mutinying against officers who were not cooperative with what they wanted. Or attempted to go beyond “leader” to “ruler”.
Yet another factor is key in counter balancing this disadvantage. That key is the lack of a state. Without the institutionalized secular religion of state as the "obvious" and "best" and "necessary" provider of security, people will have to make actualdecisions on how to best to devote their time and money to the provision of their own defense. Protection's blade will be thrust into the market and sharpened by the hammers of competition! Perhaps in the absence of state, our neighborhood mason will decide to devote some of the earnings of his labor to a small protection agency. Or perhaps he will decide to join a local militia. Perhaps he sees this option as requiring nothing more than a few hours of training. With no one providing him with "free" defense he will look to those offering to do so for trade or in conjunction as real solutions and only the best in his eyes will survive this process. The only cost typically associated with a militia is providing your own arms and showing up! It has little to no cost, traditionally, whatsoever...beyond providing your own gun and other equipments of war (the cost of which, opened to a competitive and free market, would drastically lower... compare the cost of the AK in Afghanistan with an AK in America for example). This should appeal to the ridiculously poor and be VERY difficult to compete with as well as appealing to our socialistic buddies. :-)
Where militias certainly, I would think, have a large advantage over security firms is that they are local. Excluding any such truckers or nomads militia, it is recognized that the militia will be localized to the members general vicinity, to where their homes lie, as most people are not truckers and live in mostly permanent settlements in a specific area. This certainly means that a militia within a given area is concerned far more with that area than anyone who does not reside there or has merely opened a Acme Protection Forces franchise in the area. Militia men would be the most concerned about their community because simply, they ARE the communities inhabitants! I think most security firms would probably have a hard time leaving one community for the next unless their reputation far exceeds that of the local militia they wish to compete with. It is difficult to ask a man to you do not know to trust you more than his everyday neighbor of 10+ years. And I believe this gives credence to my idea that security firms could/would likely arise first from local militias along side insurance agencies.
Problem - Capital. And a rambling about how the militia may turn more towards the market.
A militia is the organization of several individuals to provide for a defense. It need not and often does not involve a central tank of funds to purchase common arms or equipment. This has obvious problems. Without regular dues or subscriptions or whatnot, without an income, the militia as a organization is going to come into huge internal conflicts of what should be purchased by each of the members, or what some members ought to get together to purchase that they cannot afford to upon their own, regardless of what leadership it has. If a militia cannot purchase an aircraft defense either because it cannot decide in time or cannot raise enough funds, and the anarchist community is assaulted by a foreign state air force, then it seems the militia is near useless and will be wiped out.
But we are not in the poor house yet! Militias can indeed borrow the subscription model of businesses and thereby become more like a security firm, the difference being they would collect these donations/dues from participating militia members. Sort of like the customers being also the employees. I happen to think many security firms would arise in this very manner, maybe extending protection to people who choose not to participate in actual militia deployment and choosing to charge them more for an active protection since they are not laying their own lives on the line.
Or perhaps a militia would become a provider of training services to the populace. Perhaps the BUSINESS of the militia would arise to solve this problem by training professional soldiers and citizens alike. Verily I imagine many militias marketing themselves much like a union (the kind that don't piss me off by lobbying for force and favoritism) as being the peoples army, the peoples defense, the working mans army, etc etc to the point of disgust (expect very campy commercials and red and black advertisements in local papers by anarcho-syndy workers militias, haha). Accepting donations and perhaps offering some special training or community service to militia members seems a logical step for the raising of funds. (if all else fails, there is always the dreaded bake sale :-0)
Militia leadership might even become, or decide to hire, specialists at training large numbers of ordinary people to function as a mass OF ordinary people and with ordinary weekend warriors in the case of invasion. Obviously some folk would like to join the fight for their homes when shit hits the fan instead of running away, regardless of whether they have a protection firm subscription or not. I can see militias coming in to provide these people with both the basic equipment and training needed in a hurry to be of use in the skirmish. Still more people will simply want to be able to handle themselves or to diversify their investments in their own defense so as to not put all their eggs in one basket.
Militias might even, as a body of people advertising themselves as the peoples defense, act as a watchdog agency like Consumer Reports except oriented more towards protection services and organizations, putting out quarterly or monthly publications. Who watches the watchmen? The friendly neighborhood militia of course (which really IS the neighborhood in a way). Notable and trusted local militia might be seen as more trustworthy than Acme Security inc. for reasons stated earlier and it might even be a sign of good faith for large security firms to donate to local militias or to openly support working in conjunction with the local militia.
One advantage though of the dispersement and non collectivity or centralization is that no one is tied to the use of arms or standards or tactics that they themselves do not prefer. It is largely observed, for instance, that peoples taste in firearms varies like our tastes in dress, automobiles, and sexual partners. Our skills are all different. If I find that, as an individual, I perform better with and prefer AK variants to the various AR variants that the local militia I am apart of has elected to use as standard, then I am in no way obligated to follow that standard. Maybe there are others who feel the same way and we can form our own unit within the militia or perhaps can splinter entirely to form our own militia organization. One is not heavily invested in a traditional militia organization and so defecting has no significant loss tied to it.
Decentralization of funds also means that people that are apart of the militia may be more atomistic and individually capable of carrying on in a war as a resister in themselves. One is more likely to carry all the means to act effectively alone if one realizes they have no one else's funds to use or a common equipment to be furnished for them. Further, there is no central point at which fortunes of militia can be seized or frozen as it is dispersed amongst its individual members. Making invasion forces attempts to seize all capital of the militia damn near impossible.
The militia is an organization that has many benefits that it ought to recognize and market towards the people in a competitive and free market. Its strong incentives to peace being one of its biggest selling points, I believe the militia will be a staple in the market for defense and work along side and in conjunction with security professionals in an anarchist society.
A Call To Revolution
[crossposted from Anarchy Is Not Chaos]
Good evening y'all.I have and will continue to argue with statists as to why they are choosing the wrong path. It's part of who I am. But today, I'm not speaking to the people who believe in the State. I don't much care about them. They've chosen to be a slave, and that is their shame, not mine.
Instead, I'm speaking to those who live under the state, but either reject it or question it. You are my brothers and sisters, not those who labor under the yoke because they think they owe it to themselves. You, like me, do not have such a base opinion of yourself. You don't need to subsume yourself in a "Greater" Whole in order to feel complete. You do not bend the knee just because you're told to. You have discovered the seeds of liberty and discontent.
You know that humans are not perfect, nor always moral, yet you still wish to be human. You know that no society ever conceived will avoid every pitfall nor fulfill every wish. Yet you still wish to improve society. You either know or at least suspect that if the old attitude that humans are irredeemably evil, then we would never have come this far.
Those of you my age and older remember a different world where the rules were not so imposing, and it was actually possible to be free in most things. Those of you around or under twenty years of age have already seen it change for the worse, and it's obvious even having never tasted the freedom that men twice your age once took for granted. We remember when it was good to be alive, and people who left this country wanted to come back.
You see that all this is lost, and some of you want it back. Or at least some return to "normalcy" rather than the current nightmare pace on a treadmill at high speed. All of us, young and old, basically wonder What Went Wrong and How Do We Fix It.
Many of you, even though realizing the State is deeply flawed in an of itself still seek your solution there. To you, my words are fairly simple. Your courage is appreciated and valuable to the cause of liberty, but you are using the wrong engines. Working within the system strengthens it. By no means am I saying you should not work the system against itself, but I am saying that attempts at reform WITHIN the Federal System as it stands will only strengthen them. You may win some temporary concessions, but you will ultimately have become suborned, even if not in your person, in the public mind to the system. You would be better off to vote for the greater evil, the greater incompetent, the most tax and spend buffoon on the planet, then to try and fix the system. By doing this, you are helping to destroy it far faster than any revolution of arms in the street could. By trying to reform it, you send the message that it is worth preserving an instrumentality that has completely failed in every aim it's founders put forth.
It is not worth saving.
It is time for a change.
Liberty is worth dying for. Our forefathers believed that, and many thousands of them DID die in the only Civil War this nation has actually ever seen. It ended in 1781. By 1789 the seeds of tyranny were already sewn anew in the newly adopted Constitution of the United States of America. Not that the document itself is inherently evil. It was a well intentioned attempt to bring a new sort of order to a society that had always before labored under a King. Given that background, it was a noble attempt. It was doomed to failure from the beginning. It has major flaws IN IT'S CONCEPTION, regardless of the words of the document. No contract should be valid upon people merely because they were born in a certain place. No Government should be perpetual. At BEST, a semi coherent State might be useful in Time of War. A temporary alliance to repel an invader, agreed upon beforehand BY THE PARTICIPANTS, and for a limited SPECIFIED Time could be useful. After that people should be able to freely return to their own property and pursue their own lives. From this basic error, that any group of men has the RIGHT to bind Posterity forever, flowed all the other errors of this admittedly well intentioned document. That a Perpetual Organization that could only operate via theft on a grand scale should ever be allowed to exist is it's other major error.
These errors, and upon reading the histories of the Men who created the document, they were probably honest errors, must be corrected. In so doing we will commit other errors. It is our nature. We improve, we fail. Both are true, and this dichotomy, in my arrogant opinion, needs to be embraced rather than fought. Constant flux in the way society operates is INEVITABLE, and usually for the better. So long as every man and woman has the ability to CHOOSE whether or not they shall change is paramount. This goal, and the United States of America, are incompatible. But the Dream that created the United States is FULLY compatible with this goal!
It is far past time. Yet for the most part even the dedicated Anarchist quails at Revolution. It is fraught with danger, and the ends often uncertain. We know in our hearts, even if we haven't fully admitted it, that the old means of revolution are closed to us. We cannot take up arms and drive off the invader, for He is too deeply entrenched. We cannot replace our Overlords at the ballot with a new set of Overlords and hope to accomplish anything. So we need to Revolt in another way, or multiple other ways.
We need a Revolution of the American Mind. We need people to lose their apathy and LIVE! Yet the forces arrayed against us, particularly that apathy, seem often insurmountable. They are not. There are ways.
There is always a way.
If you wish to use Political means, by all means do so. The Ballot isn't the answer. Instead, use your talents. If you are an able speaker, SPEAK! If you have a handy turn with the written word, WRITE! Above all else, if we are to ever become free, we must educate as many people as possible that it's POSSIBLE!
Remember that a handfull of men turned thirteen Crown Colonies to revolution to FORM this experiment in the first place! And remember how they did it. Neither the Cannon nor the Bayonet won the War for Independence. Words won the war. Written and Spoken WORDS! If the words had not been there, and had not been shamelessly and tirelessly promoted by men who had a vision of a society where they could be free, then the revolution would never have occured. Most of the people, then as now, were complacent even when angered. "This is the way it has always been" came to mean "This is the Way it will Always Be" in their minds. Just like now. Yet it's never been true! It hasn't always been like this, and that's been true in every generation. The older men can always tell you of a time when things were different. Not always better, but ALWAYS different! This is the essence of what it means to be alive, and being alive is a wonderful thing!Sit down with your friends and stand up in front of your fellows and preach the word of Liberty. Ask them to join you, and when your numbers be such that it's possible, call them forth to repudiate their overlords and dismantle their house of lies and deceit! If one town withdraws, then another follows, then another two or three, That is how it will be won! Against a frontal assault, our Overlords are nearly impervious. But they cannot survive the death of a thousand cuts. And the simple refusal to obey them is a more powerful weapon even than the Mighty Nuclear Bomb.
Soldiers of the State will have no qualms returning fire on the field of battle, but all but the very worst of them will quail before firing on a crowd of civlians who simply will not obey them. And when the Worst Sort does so anyway, that too is to our advantage. In the Modern world it don't take weeks to spread the news of an atrocity. It takes minutes.
Yes, if we are to succeed, there will be people who die in the cause. This is tragic, in the actual meaning of the term, but it is inevitable. Some things are worth dying for. But in the longer term, and this is far more important, Liberty is worth LIVING for!
Those unwilling? Leave them to be. By your very act of leaving them to their own devices, you strengthen our cause. Because they see that the way they subscribe to requires the initiation of force, but ours does not. They will see that we can be quite fierce in our defence, but that our attacks are all in the realm of ideas. As our ideas take root, many of the complacent will join us.Some will hold out to the bitter end to remain under Rulership. Oh well. So long as they see the futility of ever stopping us from living as we will, and so long as they allow us our space, they are of no consequence. They will always be able to find someone to rule them, and I say that in that event, we'll be well rid of them both, rulers and peasants alike. Then Free Men can build a society by voluntary association and trade, free from the "need" for Overlords.
And to those who fervently desire to live under a State? My parting words to you are from a True American Patriot. "If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We seek not your counsel, nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you; May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen."
-Samuel Adams
Edit- this is going to be the opening page of my website
Good evening y'all.I have and will continue to argue with statists as to why they are choosing the wrong path. It's part of who I am. But today, I'm not speaking to the people who believe in the State. I don't much care about them. They've chosen to be a slave, and that is their shame, not mine.
Instead, I'm speaking to those who live under the state, but either reject it or question it. You are my brothers and sisters, not those who labor under the yoke because they think they owe it to themselves. You, like me, do not have such a base opinion of yourself. You don't need to subsume yourself in a "Greater" Whole in order to feel complete. You do not bend the knee just because you're told to. You have discovered the seeds of liberty and discontent.
You know that humans are not perfect, nor always moral, yet you still wish to be human. You know that no society ever conceived will avoid every pitfall nor fulfill every wish. Yet you still wish to improve society. You either know or at least suspect that if the old attitude that humans are irredeemably evil, then we would never have come this far.
Those of you my age and older remember a different world where the rules were not so imposing, and it was actually possible to be free in most things. Those of you around or under twenty years of age have already seen it change for the worse, and it's obvious even having never tasted the freedom that men twice your age once took for granted. We remember when it was good to be alive, and people who left this country wanted to come back.
You see that all this is lost, and some of you want it back. Or at least some return to "normalcy" rather than the current nightmare pace on a treadmill at high speed. All of us, young and old, basically wonder What Went Wrong and How Do We Fix It.
Many of you, even though realizing the State is deeply flawed in an of itself still seek your solution there. To you, my words are fairly simple. Your courage is appreciated and valuable to the cause of liberty, but you are using the wrong engines. Working within the system strengthens it. By no means am I saying you should not work the system against itself, but I am saying that attempts at reform WITHIN the Federal System as it stands will only strengthen them. You may win some temporary concessions, but you will ultimately have become suborned, even if not in your person, in the public mind to the system. You would be better off to vote for the greater evil, the greater incompetent, the most tax and spend buffoon on the planet, then to try and fix the system. By doing this, you are helping to destroy it far faster than any revolution of arms in the street could. By trying to reform it, you send the message that it is worth preserving an instrumentality that has completely failed in every aim it's founders put forth.
It is not worth saving.
It is time for a change.
Liberty is worth dying for. Our forefathers believed that, and many thousands of them DID die in the only Civil War this nation has actually ever seen. It ended in 1781. By 1789 the seeds of tyranny were already sewn anew in the newly adopted Constitution of the United States of America. Not that the document itself is inherently evil. It was a well intentioned attempt to bring a new sort of order to a society that had always before labored under a King. Given that background, it was a noble attempt. It was doomed to failure from the beginning. It has major flaws IN IT'S CONCEPTION, regardless of the words of the document. No contract should be valid upon people merely because they were born in a certain place. No Government should be perpetual. At BEST, a semi coherent State might be useful in Time of War. A temporary alliance to repel an invader, agreed upon beforehand BY THE PARTICIPANTS, and for a limited SPECIFIED Time could be useful. After that people should be able to freely return to their own property and pursue their own lives. From this basic error, that any group of men has the RIGHT to bind Posterity forever, flowed all the other errors of this admittedly well intentioned document. That a Perpetual Organization that could only operate via theft on a grand scale should ever be allowed to exist is it's other major error.
These errors, and upon reading the histories of the Men who created the document, they were probably honest errors, must be corrected. In so doing we will commit other errors. It is our nature. We improve, we fail. Both are true, and this dichotomy, in my arrogant opinion, needs to be embraced rather than fought. Constant flux in the way society operates is INEVITABLE, and usually for the better. So long as every man and woman has the ability to CHOOSE whether or not they shall change is paramount. This goal, and the United States of America, are incompatible. But the Dream that created the United States is FULLY compatible with this goal!
It is far past time. Yet for the most part even the dedicated Anarchist quails at Revolution. It is fraught with danger, and the ends often uncertain. We know in our hearts, even if we haven't fully admitted it, that the old means of revolution are closed to us. We cannot take up arms and drive off the invader, for He is too deeply entrenched. We cannot replace our Overlords at the ballot with a new set of Overlords and hope to accomplish anything. So we need to Revolt in another way, or multiple other ways.
We need a Revolution of the American Mind. We need people to lose their apathy and LIVE! Yet the forces arrayed against us, particularly that apathy, seem often insurmountable. They are not. There are ways.
There is always a way.
If you wish to use Political means, by all means do so. The Ballot isn't the answer. Instead, use your talents. If you are an able speaker, SPEAK! If you have a handy turn with the written word, WRITE! Above all else, if we are to ever become free, we must educate as many people as possible that it's POSSIBLE!
Remember that a handfull of men turned thirteen Crown Colonies to revolution to FORM this experiment in the first place! And remember how they did it. Neither the Cannon nor the Bayonet won the War for Independence. Words won the war. Written and Spoken WORDS! If the words had not been there, and had not been shamelessly and tirelessly promoted by men who had a vision of a society where they could be free, then the revolution would never have occured. Most of the people, then as now, were complacent even when angered. "This is the way it has always been" came to mean "This is the Way it will Always Be" in their minds. Just like now. Yet it's never been true! It hasn't always been like this, and that's been true in every generation. The older men can always tell you of a time when things were different. Not always better, but ALWAYS different! This is the essence of what it means to be alive, and being alive is a wonderful thing!Sit down with your friends and stand up in front of your fellows and preach the word of Liberty. Ask them to join you, and when your numbers be such that it's possible, call them forth to repudiate their overlords and dismantle their house of lies and deceit! If one town withdraws, then another follows, then another two or three, That is how it will be won! Against a frontal assault, our Overlords are nearly impervious. But they cannot survive the death of a thousand cuts. And the simple refusal to obey them is a more powerful weapon even than the Mighty Nuclear Bomb.
Soldiers of the State will have no qualms returning fire on the field of battle, but all but the very worst of them will quail before firing on a crowd of civlians who simply will not obey them. And when the Worst Sort does so anyway, that too is to our advantage. In the Modern world it don't take weeks to spread the news of an atrocity. It takes minutes.
Yes, if we are to succeed, there will be people who die in the cause. This is tragic, in the actual meaning of the term, but it is inevitable. Some things are worth dying for. But in the longer term, and this is far more important, Liberty is worth LIVING for!
Those unwilling? Leave them to be. By your very act of leaving them to their own devices, you strengthen our cause. Because they see that the way they subscribe to requires the initiation of force, but ours does not. They will see that we can be quite fierce in our defence, but that our attacks are all in the realm of ideas. As our ideas take root, many of the complacent will join us.Some will hold out to the bitter end to remain under Rulership. Oh well. So long as they see the futility of ever stopping us from living as we will, and so long as they allow us our space, they are of no consequence. They will always be able to find someone to rule them, and I say that in that event, we'll be well rid of them both, rulers and peasants alike. Then Free Men can build a society by voluntary association and trade, free from the "need" for Overlords.
And to those who fervently desire to live under a State? My parting words to you are from a True American Patriot. "If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We seek not your counsel, nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you; May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen."
-Samuel Adams
Edit- this is going to be the opening page of my website
Monday, May 12, 2008
Why The State Can't Discriminate
[cross-posted at Brainpolice at The Mises Community]
My position on racial discrimination and segregation is essentially based on the following premises: (1) on a personal level, I'm opposed to racism (2) however, if an individual legitimately owns a given piece of property, they have the liberty to exclude other people from using that property (3) that being siad, in terms of hiring employees and a buisiness owner's relationship with customers, racial discrimnation and exclusion in general is suicidal in the long-term if said buisinesses are in free competition with non-discriminatory or less exclusive buisinesses (4) therefore, a free market process itself will tend to weed out the racists over time and (5) the proper solution to the issue is social or economic and should be persued through more direct action - civil disobedience, social pressure, education, mass-boycotts, out-competing the racists, the discriminated groups forming their own organizations, and so on.
However, this is only in the context of discrimination of members of the lay public. What about discrimination or exclusion by the agents of the state? Should the exact same logic be applied to the state? I'm compelled to say "no" because the limited principled defense of the liberty of the discriminator is predicated on the requirement that they justly own the property to begin with, and the state does not legitimately control the territory. If the state is exclusive or discriminates, it would be doing it with stolen resources, what are in fact the very resources of the victims of the exclusion or discrimination. To try to come up with a libertarian defense of state discrimination would be to make the error of treating the state as if it were a legitimate private property owner, which would legitimize nationalism. I'm not sure if this error should be considered a manifestation of "vulgar libertarianism" or if it deserves another term in its own right.
If the state enforced discrimination as being mandatory within the territory or discriminates over who is allowed to use state property and services, what we would have is institutionalized segregation. The state would be asserting control over how other people use their own property and excluding people from use of what is actually not justly owned by the state agents or possibly even what is really partially the product of what was stolen from the person being excluded. To varying degrees, this is more or less what the individual states did during the period of blatant institutionalized segregation in America. The state did much more than defend private owner's right to be exclusive, since the state was exclusive itself and widened discrimination into community-wide and state-wide legal precedents which essentially established discrimination as a norm.
Of course, when institutionalized segregation gave way at least partially to intstitutionalized integration, the federal government started acting as a discriminator in other respects. It started creating and enforcing precedents making it mandatory to be inclusive and also to start to be more exclusive towards other groups. To some degree, some non-racist people have ended up being persecuted by anti-discrimination or forced integration laws, which has merely added fuel to the fire and made people more sympathetic towards racism. And affirmative action is mandated discrimination all the same, only geared towards different groups. Anything remotely resembling a racial quota is discriminatory and in fact racist to the core.
Immigration controls and political border enforcement are essentially institutionalized segregation, though not always based strictly on race. Some people try to defend a closed border policy on the basis of private property rights and by comparing the nation to a home. But such an analogy is fallacious and highly misleading. The state's agents do not justly control the entire territory. And the entire nation is not "ours", we each own individual plots of property within it. While an individual who justly owns a given piece of property may legitimately exclude others from use of it, they do not have the legitimate authority to demand that their neighbor do the same. Noone can legitimately exclude people from other people's legitimately aquired property. And this is precisely what the state would be doing by trying to exclude someone from entering the entire "nation" and effectively outlawing individual owners from allowing others to use their property. It also would constitute a barrier to entry to unused/unowned property.
The implications of treating the state as a legitimate private property owner are very totalitarian when it comes down to it, and of course such a view inherently legitimizes the state. If the entire territory is legitimately controlled by the state, then everything within it can be used and distributed however state agents want, and everyone within it may be treated as pawns. But the fact of the matter is that state institutions are a product of the mass-expropriation of land (which eventually manifests itself in the coercive territorial monopoly) and intergenational extortion (which eventually manifests itself as taxation). In a certain sense, the state is merely a gigantic and institutionalized case of absentee landlordship. Everyone within the territory produces everything while the state claims a piece of their production and excercises control over everything as if it were the legitimate ownership of the entire territory.
This is why the state must be treated as a criminal organization, a criminal organization that has stolen everything that it controls. The only difference between the state and other criminal organizations is that it is highly centralized, enjoys a massive territorial monopoly and has an ideological cloak of legitimacy. In order for justice to truly be served, the victims of this criminal organization have every right in the world to take back what was stolen from them and their ancestors. Such a criminal organization should not be defended as if its agents are at liberty to determine how stolen property is used, and as a consequence it is absurd to try to legitimize such a criminal organization excluding people from using what was stolen from them or what currently has no legitimate owner at all.
My position on racial discrimination and segregation is essentially based on the following premises: (1) on a personal level, I'm opposed to racism (2) however, if an individual legitimately owns a given piece of property, they have the liberty to exclude other people from using that property (3) that being siad, in terms of hiring employees and a buisiness owner's relationship with customers, racial discrimnation and exclusion in general is suicidal in the long-term if said buisinesses are in free competition with non-discriminatory or less exclusive buisinesses (4) therefore, a free market process itself will tend to weed out the racists over time and (5) the proper solution to the issue is social or economic and should be persued through more direct action - civil disobedience, social pressure, education, mass-boycotts, out-competing the racists, the discriminated groups forming their own organizations, and so on.
However, this is only in the context of discrimination of members of the lay public. What about discrimination or exclusion by the agents of the state? Should the exact same logic be applied to the state? I'm compelled to say "no" because the limited principled defense of the liberty of the discriminator is predicated on the requirement that they justly own the property to begin with, and the state does not legitimately control the territory. If the state is exclusive or discriminates, it would be doing it with stolen resources, what are in fact the very resources of the victims of the exclusion or discrimination. To try to come up with a libertarian defense of state discrimination would be to make the error of treating the state as if it were a legitimate private property owner, which would legitimize nationalism. I'm not sure if this error should be considered a manifestation of "vulgar libertarianism" or if it deserves another term in its own right.
If the state enforced discrimination as being mandatory within the territory or discriminates over who is allowed to use state property and services, what we would have is institutionalized segregation. The state would be asserting control over how other people use their own property and excluding people from use of what is actually not justly owned by the state agents or possibly even what is really partially the product of what was stolen from the person being excluded. To varying degrees, this is more or less what the individual states did during the period of blatant institutionalized segregation in America. The state did much more than defend private owner's right to be exclusive, since the state was exclusive itself and widened discrimination into community-wide and state-wide legal precedents which essentially established discrimination as a norm.
Of course, when institutionalized segregation gave way at least partially to intstitutionalized integration, the federal government started acting as a discriminator in other respects. It started creating and enforcing precedents making it mandatory to be inclusive and also to start to be more exclusive towards other groups. To some degree, some non-racist people have ended up being persecuted by anti-discrimination or forced integration laws, which has merely added fuel to the fire and made people more sympathetic towards racism. And affirmative action is mandated discrimination all the same, only geared towards different groups. Anything remotely resembling a racial quota is discriminatory and in fact racist to the core.
Immigration controls and political border enforcement are essentially institutionalized segregation, though not always based strictly on race. Some people try to defend a closed border policy on the basis of private property rights and by comparing the nation to a home. But such an analogy is fallacious and highly misleading. The state's agents do not justly control the entire territory. And the entire nation is not "ours", we each own individual plots of property within it. While an individual who justly owns a given piece of property may legitimately exclude others from use of it, they do not have the legitimate authority to demand that their neighbor do the same. Noone can legitimately exclude people from other people's legitimately aquired property. And this is precisely what the state would be doing by trying to exclude someone from entering the entire "nation" and effectively outlawing individual owners from allowing others to use their property. It also would constitute a barrier to entry to unused/unowned property.
The implications of treating the state as a legitimate private property owner are very totalitarian when it comes down to it, and of course such a view inherently legitimizes the state. If the entire territory is legitimately controlled by the state, then everything within it can be used and distributed however state agents want, and everyone within it may be treated as pawns. But the fact of the matter is that state institutions are a product of the mass-expropriation of land (which eventually manifests itself in the coercive territorial monopoly) and intergenational extortion (which eventually manifests itself as taxation). In a certain sense, the state is merely a gigantic and institutionalized case of absentee landlordship. Everyone within the territory produces everything while the state claims a piece of their production and excercises control over everything as if it were the legitimate ownership of the entire territory.
This is why the state must be treated as a criminal organization, a criminal organization that has stolen everything that it controls. The only difference between the state and other criminal organizations is that it is highly centralized, enjoys a massive territorial monopoly and has an ideological cloak of legitimacy. In order for justice to truly be served, the victims of this criminal organization have every right in the world to take back what was stolen from them and their ancestors. Such a criminal organization should not be defended as if its agents are at liberty to determine how stolen property is used, and as a consequence it is absurd to try to legitimize such a criminal organization excluding people from using what was stolen from them or what currently has no legitimate owner at all.
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
False Realism and Utopianism
[cross-posted at Brainpolice at The Mises Community]
Conservatism is a defense of the existing order or past existing orders as "natural". Any potential alternative to the existing order or to the romantisized past order is immediately brushed aside as "unnatural" and "utopian" or "idealistic". In the conservative view, all existing inequalities are "natural" in a sort of deterministic sense. The conservative strongly emphasizes nature over nurture to explain and defend currently existing or past existing conditions. On the other hand, utopian left-wing ideologies such as Marxism strongly emphasize nurture over nature and hence attribute the vast majority if not all currently existing conditions and inequalities to political, economic and cultural influences in a deterministic sense. Nothing short of a significant transformation in human nature can possibly obtain the ultimate end sought of a purely egalitarian society, and the desirability and implications of such a purely egalitarian society is alarmingly questionable upon reasonable reflection.
The conservative errs in considering the existing order or past orders to be inevitable into the future or that they can possibly sustain themselves perpetually. They tend to ignore the extent to which inequalities are the effect of influences such as state intervention and bureaucracy. The conservative tends to defend the unequitable effects of state intervention as if they came about naturally on the free market, and therefore concludes that currently existing disparaties between various groups of people are both inevitable and justified. When anyone proposes or attempts to change such conditions or the existing order in general in a significant way, the status quo is defended by the conservative. The conservative has little to no concept of the dynamic nature of society over time and fails to see the potential changes that can be made and the advantages that can be reaped. Conservatism can be seen as a very pessemistic view in a sense, particularly pessemistic towards the future.
The marxist engages in the opposite error. They blame all existing inequalities and negative conditions on the non-existant free market and then arbitrarily proclaim that it's just a phase of history that will inevitably be surpassed by a collectivistic utopia, if only all the workers magically take over the state and somehow voluntarily dissolve it. The marxist does not recognize the degree to which state intervention is the primary cause or enabler of the inequities that they have so much distain for. They put themselves foreward as being proponents of change in the right direction, but what they ultimately have to offer is more of the same: state intervention and centralization. The actual cause of the problems which they aim to solve is precisely what they propose as a solution, and therefore their "change" isn't a meaningful or beneficial one. They propose what in some ways amounts to an authoritarian heirarchy as the solution to authoritarian heirarchy or dictatorship as a solution to dictatorship.
The distinction between and reliance upon nature and nurture is often a false dichotomy. That which involves human influence is often characterized as "nurture", yet human beings are a part and product of "nature". The real question is a matter of which particular parts or aspects of "nature" are influencing other particular parts or aspects of "nature". There are some issues with the use of the term "natural" to begin with. In a certain sense, everything and whatever the current state of affairs happens to be is "natural". The only alternative to something being "natural" would be for it to not exist, unless of course one is proposing that there is some kind of supernatural realm which would still ultimately reduce to non-existance. That being said, it is definitely nonsensical to consider all present conditions and all present forms of organization to be inevitable and a permanent state of affairs. Stasis is not "natural". Organizations and organizational forms are never permanent in the grand scheme of things, so it would be more genuinely "realistic" to propose that the eventual dissolution of the existing order is "natural" and inevitable at some point.
While the conservative puts themselves foreward as a realist, they are truly nothing but a proponent of either stasis or "turning back the clock" to "the good old days", which becomes their own romantic utopia. The extent to which they see current affairs as moving in an "unnatural" direction causes them to become reactionaries, desparately trying to cling on to old traditions. On the other hand, the marxist sees the present as "unnatural" and proclaims an inevitable utopian future to be a "natural" progression. They've drawn erroneous conclusions from the basis of the hegelian dialectic, philosophy of history and social evolutionary theory. Both involve the bastardization and politicization of science as a handy rhetorical authority and a misguided appeal to either nature or nurture.
Conservatism is a defense of the existing order or past existing orders as "natural". Any potential alternative to the existing order or to the romantisized past order is immediately brushed aside as "unnatural" and "utopian" or "idealistic". In the conservative view, all existing inequalities are "natural" in a sort of deterministic sense. The conservative strongly emphasizes nature over nurture to explain and defend currently existing or past existing conditions. On the other hand, utopian left-wing ideologies such as Marxism strongly emphasize nurture over nature and hence attribute the vast majority if not all currently existing conditions and inequalities to political, economic and cultural influences in a deterministic sense. Nothing short of a significant transformation in human nature can possibly obtain the ultimate end sought of a purely egalitarian society, and the desirability and implications of such a purely egalitarian society is alarmingly questionable upon reasonable reflection.
The conservative errs in considering the existing order or past orders to be inevitable into the future or that they can possibly sustain themselves perpetually. They tend to ignore the extent to which inequalities are the effect of influences such as state intervention and bureaucracy. The conservative tends to defend the unequitable effects of state intervention as if they came about naturally on the free market, and therefore concludes that currently existing disparaties between various groups of people are both inevitable and justified. When anyone proposes or attempts to change such conditions or the existing order in general in a significant way, the status quo is defended by the conservative. The conservative has little to no concept of the dynamic nature of society over time and fails to see the potential changes that can be made and the advantages that can be reaped. Conservatism can be seen as a very pessemistic view in a sense, particularly pessemistic towards the future.
The marxist engages in the opposite error. They blame all existing inequalities and negative conditions on the non-existant free market and then arbitrarily proclaim that it's just a phase of history that will inevitably be surpassed by a collectivistic utopia, if only all the workers magically take over the state and somehow voluntarily dissolve it. The marxist does not recognize the degree to which state intervention is the primary cause or enabler of the inequities that they have so much distain for. They put themselves foreward as being proponents of change in the right direction, but what they ultimately have to offer is more of the same: state intervention and centralization. The actual cause of the problems which they aim to solve is precisely what they propose as a solution, and therefore their "change" isn't a meaningful or beneficial one. They propose what in some ways amounts to an authoritarian heirarchy as the solution to authoritarian heirarchy or dictatorship as a solution to dictatorship.
The distinction between and reliance upon nature and nurture is often a false dichotomy. That which involves human influence is often characterized as "nurture", yet human beings are a part and product of "nature". The real question is a matter of which particular parts or aspects of "nature" are influencing other particular parts or aspects of "nature". There are some issues with the use of the term "natural" to begin with. In a certain sense, everything and whatever the current state of affairs happens to be is "natural". The only alternative to something being "natural" would be for it to not exist, unless of course one is proposing that there is some kind of supernatural realm which would still ultimately reduce to non-existance. That being said, it is definitely nonsensical to consider all present conditions and all present forms of organization to be inevitable and a permanent state of affairs. Stasis is not "natural". Organizations and organizational forms are never permanent in the grand scheme of things, so it would be more genuinely "realistic" to propose that the eventual dissolution of the existing order is "natural" and inevitable at some point.
While the conservative puts themselves foreward as a realist, they are truly nothing but a proponent of either stasis or "turning back the clock" to "the good old days", which becomes their own romantic utopia. The extent to which they see current affairs as moving in an "unnatural" direction causes them to become reactionaries, desparately trying to cling on to old traditions. On the other hand, the marxist sees the present as "unnatural" and proclaims an inevitable utopian future to be a "natural" progression. They've drawn erroneous conclusions from the basis of the hegelian dialectic, philosophy of history and social evolutionary theory. Both involve the bastardization and politicization of science as a handy rhetorical authority and a misguided appeal to either nature or nurture.
Sunday, June 22, 2008
Judeo-Christian Morality vs. The Free Society
[cross-posted at Brainpolice at The Mises Community]
I'd like to explain why I think that traditional judeo-christian morality does not synch up very well with the principles of liberty and does not provide a beneficial cultural framework for a free society. In many ways, I'm not going to be saying anything particularly new here, as this criticism has essentially already been made by both Friedrich Nietzsche and Ayn Rand in their own respectively unique ways, although of course I'm going to be putting this into my own words and expressing it from my own perspective which is both similar to that of Neitzche and Rand and altogether my own. Unfortunately, most people and most libertarians for that matter are not particularly familiar with the substance of this kind of criticism of judeo-christian morality or at least do not entirely grasp what the meat of the issue is.
The Devaluation of the Earthly
To start off, let's consider the implications of the general concept of an afterlife in judeo-christian tradition. According to this view, this life is only a test or a transitional stage. What ultimately matters is that which allegedly lies beyond. As a consequence, the life and time that we have on this earth in the now is devalued. The concept of the afterlife basically posits that the only real purpose of life in the here and now is to prepare for the afterlife. In the grand scheme of things, earthly matters are more or less characterized as meaningless or insignificant. The earthly may even be construed as immoral. Salvation is construed as lieing outside of material existance and consequentially material existance starts to lose its meaning and significance.
The picture gets even more gloomy when we introduce the concept of original sin, which is basically a sweeping declaration of ancestral guilt for all of mankind. Apparently everyone is guilty from birth and "the flesh" is somehow inherently bad. And the most fundamental feature that makes us human, I.E. free will, is characterized as the source of evil in the world. Yet while a free willing agent most certainly is capable of evil, free will is neutral to morality and could also lead to good. Furthermore, morality as such couldn't exist without free will, as without agency there is no responsibility for one's actions. Interestingly, the fatalistic implications of the notion of god as the first cause and watchmaker contradicts the concept of free will. The notion that god has a "divine plan" that will inevitably pan out throughout the course of history cannot be reconciled with the notion that human beings have some kind of free will.
Leaving the meaning and implications of free will aside (I'm leaning towards some kind of compatibalism on the general free will question at the moment), the implications of the concept of original sin and the afterlife are fairly silly. What's implied is that since we are all inherently sinners, we must spend our entire lives paying off this debt we have allegedly incurred. Hence, we have a whole slew of unchosen positive obligations. We are supposed to feel guilty for being "of the flesh" and for having biological drives and psychological motivations. Allegedly it is an imperative that we strive to deny or suppress much of the fundamental characteristics of what makes us human in this life as a path to a gauranteed ticket to the afterlife.
The Seven Deadly Sins
Consider the 7 deadly sins: pride, avarice, lust, anger, gluttony, envy and sloth. Before I go into an analysis of these individually, consider this: has there ever been a point in your life when you did not feel any of these emotions at all? No, these are all traits that pretty much describe some fundamental aspects of what it means to be a human. And that leads us to another realization: most of these are emotions or feelings, ones which all of us experience at some point or another, although of course they can be manifested in terms of agency. In either case, quite clearly the implication of this is that it is essentially impossible for us to exist as humans qua humans without "sinning". Furthermore, all of these "sins" have one thing in common: avoiding them constitutes self-denial or self-sacrifice. It's all meant to imply that that which has to do with the self is somehow evil.
Why is pride considered a sin? If anything, is self-esteem not a good thing? What is wrong with being proud of one's accomplishments? Putting forth pride as a sin is a rather sweeping declaration that ignores the positive side of pride, I.E. individual self-esteem based on one's actual merits. Pride as such is not necessarily the same thing as narcissism. The narcissist is not proud of their actual self or their actual merits and accomplishments. Rather, they have created a fantasy world in which they have merits and accomplishments that aren't really theirs. The narcissist does not hold themselves up, they push everyone else down. But should we therefore abandon pride altogether out of the fear of narcissism and essentially propose that all self-esteem and pride-driven self-improvement is evil?
What about avarice, which may be substituted with the term "greed"? We must first note once again that by itself it's just a motivation or emotion, I.E. the desire to have more of something or to keep the plentiful amount that one already has. As realized in agency, it would mean the pursuit of more or the pursuit of holding on to what one already has. It is easy to see how the more socialistic interpretations of christianity may draw from this. But once again it is far too sweeping to consider this inherently immoral. Why is wanting to keep what you have immoral? Why is pursueing more immoral? Does the actual means by which one does this irrelevant, or should distinctions be made between various ways of obtaining plenty or hoarding what one has? Is there no distinction between claiming that which is others and merely pursueing more for yourself in a voluntary or mutual way? And by what standard does one determine how much is too much? Once again, this sin reduces to the notion that the self and its gratification is somehow evil.
What about lust, which is usually meant to imply sexual desire? Why is it immoral to have sexual desire, and how can one possibly be a human being without experiencing this in some form or another, especially when one is young? Is sexual desire not a fundamental biological drive within us? It certainly seems far to sweeping to consider all sexual desire immoral. While rape may be immoral, voluntary sexual interactions between adults isn't. While promiscuous sexual interactions may be unhealthy for the individual in the long-term, it hardly makes any sense to proclaim it to be inherently evil. In either case, if everyone lived their lives as total prudes then the human race would slowly start to die off. There is, afterall, a connection between sex and the propogation of the species. On an interesting note, this sin contradicts the dictim "be fruitful and multiply", so obviously victorian prudism isn't the only possible interpretation.
Why is anger considered a sin? Perhaps anger can be misdirected or lead to immoral behaviors, but it need not be so. Anger is an emotion that everyone experiences in one form or another at some point in their life. And how can one possibly not be angry at injustice or immorality? There are times when anger can be a rather good thing, a way for one to release pent up energy or frustration without necessarily hurting anyone else. It would be absurd to expect people, especially people that are in rather dire situations, to go through life smiling and being slap-happy all the time. And sometimes anger goes along with honesty. Sometimes the alternative to expressing anger or frustration is to lie to people just to keep a facade going. I'd rather be both angry and brutally honest to someone then to perpetuate a false sense of comfort which merely enables what is actually a bad situation.
Why is gluttony considered a sin? I find this to be perhaps the most silly of the 7 deadly sins, since at face value it has to do with nothing but food, although of course it can be construed to imply that one shouldn't take recreational drugs (although I've always thought that food is a drug in a sense). As a motivation or desire, gluttony simply means to want another cookie from the cookie jar. While eating or drinking too much can obviously lead to obesity and some major health problems, it hardly makes any sense to make minimalism in eating and drinking habits a moral imperative. Are we really going to call fat people immoral? I'd rather live in a free and prosperous society full of fat slobs who munch on junk food all day than an unfree and unprosprous society where everyone is surprisingly physically fit.
The case of envy is a bit more complicated then the others. Envy may be characterized as the desire to have something that someone else has. It is often used interchangably with jealousy, but there is a bit of a distinction. Once again, taken simply as an emotion or desire to have something that someone else has, I don't necessarily see anything wrong with envy. I want an extremely talented group of musicians to play with and lots of studio equipment and I don't have it but Steve Vai does, therefore I suppose I envy the guitarist Steve Vai. That doesn't mean that I'm going to try to steal his band or his studio equipment. It's simply that he has something that I want and that I probably will never have. Should that stop me from pursueing my dreams and trying to obtain those things for myself? I think not.
What about sloth? Sloth may be another word for laziness or leisure. Of course I can easily see how this can be a bad thing in that a lazy person may be dependant on others and do little or nothing for themselves, hence showing a lack of responsibility and ability, but I would hardly consider it immoral. For one thing, some people are this way due to their nature, sometimes because of a very real mental or physical handicap. And even when a perfectly capable person chooses to be lazy, that is their perogative. I'm not going to consider someone immoral for wanting to take a long break from working and spend their time in leisure instead. Surely it would be absurd to consider it a moral imperative that people be working and productive at all times. We're human beings, not robots. I can envision a slave-master cracking a whip at a slave and calling them slothful for taking a break from the hard physical labor that they are forced to do.
All of these alleged sins can be and have been propogated in negative ways. Pride as a sin can be used to crush people's self-esteem. Avarice or greed as a sin can be used to keep people poor or to discourage economic mobility. Lust as a sin can be used to keep the women for oneself or as a method of population control. Anger as a sin can be used to perpetuate dishonesty and to enable bad relationships. Gluttony as a sin can be used to keep people hungry, to essentially starve people. Envy as a sin can be used to discourage people from pursueing their dreams. Sloth as a sin can be used to foster compulsory labor. When they are taken to their logical conclusion and consistantly applied, they amount to the total denial of self-interest, desire and personal well-being. Taken as absolutes, they would require people to be mindless automatons with no trace of humanity.
Altruism As Slave Morality
Let's take a look at the concept of altruism. Altruism is posited in one form or another by most organized religions. It essentially proposes that the individual has an unchosen positive obligation to serve others and that their fundamental purpose in life is to serve others. On the flip side, self-interest is essentially demonized as immoral. This is a very warped view when broken down rationally. Unfortunately, criticism of altruism is often misunderstood because in most people's minds altruism is the same thing as benevolence and empathy, but nothing could be further from the truth. Altruism as an ethic implies unchosen positive obligations. If an individual does not live up to this positive obligation they are viewed as immoral rights violators and they are supposed to be compulsed to live up to the obligation. Afterall, an ethical theory without imperatives wouldn't be functional. In either case, actually choosing to be kind or giving to other people is not fundamentally altruistic because it still involves agency and a genuine desire on the part of the person to benefit another. In true acts of kindness and giving, the emphasis is not on denying oneself but to benefiting another, and the benefit may even be mutual.
Altruism actually leads to nihilism, and the problem of nihilism is something that both Nietzsche and Rand were trying to avoid in their own unique ways (and while Nietzsche was in some ways an immoralist while Rand was quite clearly a moralist, Nietzsche nonetheless essentially proposes a form of egoism as his personal morality). The logical end of altruism is the total devaluation of the self to the point of absolute selflessness. Your life, your values and your property are deprived of value and meaning and you're expect to act as if they don't exist or don't matter. Of course, from my perspective selflessness is impossible both ontologically and psychologically. The self follows from one's very existance as an individual human being and a human beong's fundamental psychological motivations are inward and personal. However, the attempted implementation of altruism as an ethic does have very real effects.
The notion of unchosen positive obligations, whether it be to a deity, a family or an entire society, is inherently incompatible with negative rights and individual sovereignty. Every positive obligation, to the extent that it is not chosen or not a genuine debt, implies a negative rights violation as soon as it is enforced. The result is that people are coerced to associate with other people and to provide goods and services for other people. The individual is forced to sacrifice their own values, their life and their property, regaurdless of their circumstances and regaurdless of their consent. Altruism is at the heart of both communitarianism and dictatorship. In communitarianism, the individual's life and values and property is sacrificed to "the community" or "the majority". In dictatorship, the individual's life and values and property is sacrificed to the dictator and more people can potentially be effected. In either case, in all cases altruism is the morality obligatory upon what amounts to slaves, sometimes subtley and sometimes quite blatantly.
It's important to note that all of this self-sacrificing, self-denying morality has historically been encouraged by people in political and religious power to get the masses to be complacent or obedient. The masses are discouraged from pursueing their own values and bettering their own lives. What largely goes unnoticed is that this is used to benefit the values and lives of various groups of elites. The masses are encouraged to follow a morality of servitude, and when there are servants there are masters. This is what Nietzsche meant when he drew a distinction between "slave morality" and "master morality". Slave morality functions as an ideology that masters or rulers can propagate on to get the masses to accept their enslavement to them as a moral imperative. The masters or rulers, of course, don't actually follow slave morality. They are its beneficiaries. It is just a convenient mentality to propogate to the masses, an apologetic device meant to make it so that servitude seems like a moral imperative. In practise, the masses engage in self-denial to the benefit of a small group of rulers and associated elites. Hence, it's a parasitic relationship.
If the principle of altruism were universally applied to all human beings, and of course it never is and it would be impossible to do consistantly enforce it in the real world, the implication is that everyone is eachother's slave. Since this cannot be realized in practise, since it defies fundamental facts about human existance, motivation and behavior, what one ends up with is at least two distinct classes of people: the masters and the slaves. Quite likely, the attempt to implement altruism will lead to more of a plural latticework of master-slave relationships while still not reaching the consistant extreme of enslaving everyone to eachother. But usually the slaves outnumber the masters by far or a select elite of people function as masters to a much greater degree than anyone else does, and therefore altruism most often leads to some kind of oligarchy, even if it is a mildly democratic oligarchy. Altruism has historically been an apologetic and enabler of both religious and political tyranny.
Master morality, as I interpret it, amounts to hedonism and "might makes right". Master morality should not be construed as the proper alternative to slave morality, nor is it necessarily the polar opposite of slave morality in a certain context. While master morality is not altruistic, master morality is most certainly not any kind of rational egoism. It is anomie or lawlessness, since the masters are not subject to their own rules. Master morality entails an outwardly oriented sense of self that justifies imposing oneself onto others, sometimes using altruism as a ruse or a mask to hide behind. Rational egoism involves an inwardly oriented sense of self that merely justifies being free from the imposition of others, being at liberty to voluntarily pursue one's self-interest and values without restraint. The rational egoist proclaims that noone else may rule over them, but simultaneously they do not claim to rule over anyone else. Rulers don't believe this or function in this way. They claim the right to rule over others while superficially and hypocritically trying to demand that noone else rule over them.
Judeo-Christian morality essentially proposes slave morality as a solution to master morality. In its zeal to oppose hedonism and anomie, it provides a false alternative that only enables the hedonism and anomie of certain people while devalueing everyone else. A society that is dominantly filled with people who accept slave morality will not have the necessary mindset or attitude to resist the yoke of tyranny. It provides the perfect atmosphere for rulers to arise and dominate the naive masses. The cultural framework of a free society must contain the personal sense of value and purpose necessary for people to actively free themselves, otherwise their lack of confidence and their lack of any genuine sense of self-worth and personal value will enable tyranny. It's time to reject both slave morality and master morality to persue some meaningful alternatives.
I'd like to explain why I think that traditional judeo-christian morality does not synch up very well with the principles of liberty and does not provide a beneficial cultural framework for a free society. In many ways, I'm not going to be saying anything particularly new here, as this criticism has essentially already been made by both Friedrich Nietzsche and Ayn Rand in their own respectively unique ways, although of course I'm going to be putting this into my own words and expressing it from my own perspective which is both similar to that of Neitzche and Rand and altogether my own. Unfortunately, most people and most libertarians for that matter are not particularly familiar with the substance of this kind of criticism of judeo-christian morality or at least do not entirely grasp what the meat of the issue is.
The Devaluation of the Earthly
To start off, let's consider the implications of the general concept of an afterlife in judeo-christian tradition. According to this view, this life is only a test or a transitional stage. What ultimately matters is that which allegedly lies beyond. As a consequence, the life and time that we have on this earth in the now is devalued. The concept of the afterlife basically posits that the only real purpose of life in the here and now is to prepare for the afterlife. In the grand scheme of things, earthly matters are more or less characterized as meaningless or insignificant. The earthly may even be construed as immoral. Salvation is construed as lieing outside of material existance and consequentially material existance starts to lose its meaning and significance.
The picture gets even more gloomy when we introduce the concept of original sin, which is basically a sweeping declaration of ancestral guilt for all of mankind. Apparently everyone is guilty from birth and "the flesh" is somehow inherently bad. And the most fundamental feature that makes us human, I.E. free will, is characterized as the source of evil in the world. Yet while a free willing agent most certainly is capable of evil, free will is neutral to morality and could also lead to good. Furthermore, morality as such couldn't exist without free will, as without agency there is no responsibility for one's actions. Interestingly, the fatalistic implications of the notion of god as the first cause and watchmaker contradicts the concept of free will. The notion that god has a "divine plan" that will inevitably pan out throughout the course of history cannot be reconciled with the notion that human beings have some kind of free will.
Leaving the meaning and implications of free will aside (I'm leaning towards some kind of compatibalism on the general free will question at the moment), the implications of the concept of original sin and the afterlife are fairly silly. What's implied is that since we are all inherently sinners, we must spend our entire lives paying off this debt we have allegedly incurred. Hence, we have a whole slew of unchosen positive obligations. We are supposed to feel guilty for being "of the flesh" and for having biological drives and psychological motivations. Allegedly it is an imperative that we strive to deny or suppress much of the fundamental characteristics of what makes us human in this life as a path to a gauranteed ticket to the afterlife.
The Seven Deadly Sins
Consider the 7 deadly sins: pride, avarice, lust, anger, gluttony, envy and sloth. Before I go into an analysis of these individually, consider this: has there ever been a point in your life when you did not feel any of these emotions at all? No, these are all traits that pretty much describe some fundamental aspects of what it means to be a human. And that leads us to another realization: most of these are emotions or feelings, ones which all of us experience at some point or another, although of course they can be manifested in terms of agency. In either case, quite clearly the implication of this is that it is essentially impossible for us to exist as humans qua humans without "sinning". Furthermore, all of these "sins" have one thing in common: avoiding them constitutes self-denial or self-sacrifice. It's all meant to imply that that which has to do with the self is somehow evil.
Why is pride considered a sin? If anything, is self-esteem not a good thing? What is wrong with being proud of one's accomplishments? Putting forth pride as a sin is a rather sweeping declaration that ignores the positive side of pride, I.E. individual self-esteem based on one's actual merits. Pride as such is not necessarily the same thing as narcissism. The narcissist is not proud of their actual self or their actual merits and accomplishments. Rather, they have created a fantasy world in which they have merits and accomplishments that aren't really theirs. The narcissist does not hold themselves up, they push everyone else down. But should we therefore abandon pride altogether out of the fear of narcissism and essentially propose that all self-esteem and pride-driven self-improvement is evil?
What about avarice, which may be substituted with the term "greed"? We must first note once again that by itself it's just a motivation or emotion, I.E. the desire to have more of something or to keep the plentiful amount that one already has. As realized in agency, it would mean the pursuit of more or the pursuit of holding on to what one already has. It is easy to see how the more socialistic interpretations of christianity may draw from this. But once again it is far too sweeping to consider this inherently immoral. Why is wanting to keep what you have immoral? Why is pursueing more immoral? Does the actual means by which one does this irrelevant, or should distinctions be made between various ways of obtaining plenty or hoarding what one has? Is there no distinction between claiming that which is others and merely pursueing more for yourself in a voluntary or mutual way? And by what standard does one determine how much is too much? Once again, this sin reduces to the notion that the self and its gratification is somehow evil.
What about lust, which is usually meant to imply sexual desire? Why is it immoral to have sexual desire, and how can one possibly be a human being without experiencing this in some form or another, especially when one is young? Is sexual desire not a fundamental biological drive within us? It certainly seems far to sweeping to consider all sexual desire immoral. While rape may be immoral, voluntary sexual interactions between adults isn't. While promiscuous sexual interactions may be unhealthy for the individual in the long-term, it hardly makes any sense to proclaim it to be inherently evil. In either case, if everyone lived their lives as total prudes then the human race would slowly start to die off. There is, afterall, a connection between sex and the propogation of the species. On an interesting note, this sin contradicts the dictim "be fruitful and multiply", so obviously victorian prudism isn't the only possible interpretation.
Why is anger considered a sin? Perhaps anger can be misdirected or lead to immoral behaviors, but it need not be so. Anger is an emotion that everyone experiences in one form or another at some point in their life. And how can one possibly not be angry at injustice or immorality? There are times when anger can be a rather good thing, a way for one to release pent up energy or frustration without necessarily hurting anyone else. It would be absurd to expect people, especially people that are in rather dire situations, to go through life smiling and being slap-happy all the time. And sometimes anger goes along with honesty. Sometimes the alternative to expressing anger or frustration is to lie to people just to keep a facade going. I'd rather be both angry and brutally honest to someone then to perpetuate a false sense of comfort which merely enables what is actually a bad situation.
Why is gluttony considered a sin? I find this to be perhaps the most silly of the 7 deadly sins, since at face value it has to do with nothing but food, although of course it can be construed to imply that one shouldn't take recreational drugs (although I've always thought that food is a drug in a sense). As a motivation or desire, gluttony simply means to want another cookie from the cookie jar. While eating or drinking too much can obviously lead to obesity and some major health problems, it hardly makes any sense to make minimalism in eating and drinking habits a moral imperative. Are we really going to call fat people immoral? I'd rather live in a free and prosperous society full of fat slobs who munch on junk food all day than an unfree and unprosprous society where everyone is surprisingly physically fit.
The case of envy is a bit more complicated then the others. Envy may be characterized as the desire to have something that someone else has. It is often used interchangably with jealousy, but there is a bit of a distinction. Once again, taken simply as an emotion or desire to have something that someone else has, I don't necessarily see anything wrong with envy. I want an extremely talented group of musicians to play with and lots of studio equipment and I don't have it but Steve Vai does, therefore I suppose I envy the guitarist Steve Vai. That doesn't mean that I'm going to try to steal his band or his studio equipment. It's simply that he has something that I want and that I probably will never have. Should that stop me from pursueing my dreams and trying to obtain those things for myself? I think not.
What about sloth? Sloth may be another word for laziness or leisure. Of course I can easily see how this can be a bad thing in that a lazy person may be dependant on others and do little or nothing for themselves, hence showing a lack of responsibility and ability, but I would hardly consider it immoral. For one thing, some people are this way due to their nature, sometimes because of a very real mental or physical handicap. And even when a perfectly capable person chooses to be lazy, that is their perogative. I'm not going to consider someone immoral for wanting to take a long break from working and spend their time in leisure instead. Surely it would be absurd to consider it a moral imperative that people be working and productive at all times. We're human beings, not robots. I can envision a slave-master cracking a whip at a slave and calling them slothful for taking a break from the hard physical labor that they are forced to do.
All of these alleged sins can be and have been propogated in negative ways. Pride as a sin can be used to crush people's self-esteem. Avarice or greed as a sin can be used to keep people poor or to discourage economic mobility. Lust as a sin can be used to keep the women for oneself or as a method of population control. Anger as a sin can be used to perpetuate dishonesty and to enable bad relationships. Gluttony as a sin can be used to keep people hungry, to essentially starve people. Envy as a sin can be used to discourage people from pursueing their dreams. Sloth as a sin can be used to foster compulsory labor. When they are taken to their logical conclusion and consistantly applied, they amount to the total denial of self-interest, desire and personal well-being. Taken as absolutes, they would require people to be mindless automatons with no trace of humanity.
Altruism As Slave Morality
Let's take a look at the concept of altruism. Altruism is posited in one form or another by most organized religions. It essentially proposes that the individual has an unchosen positive obligation to serve others and that their fundamental purpose in life is to serve others. On the flip side, self-interest is essentially demonized as immoral. This is a very warped view when broken down rationally. Unfortunately, criticism of altruism is often misunderstood because in most people's minds altruism is the same thing as benevolence and empathy, but nothing could be further from the truth. Altruism as an ethic implies unchosen positive obligations. If an individual does not live up to this positive obligation they are viewed as immoral rights violators and they are supposed to be compulsed to live up to the obligation. Afterall, an ethical theory without imperatives wouldn't be functional. In either case, actually choosing to be kind or giving to other people is not fundamentally altruistic because it still involves agency and a genuine desire on the part of the person to benefit another. In true acts of kindness and giving, the emphasis is not on denying oneself but to benefiting another, and the benefit may even be mutual.
Altruism actually leads to nihilism, and the problem of nihilism is something that both Nietzsche and Rand were trying to avoid in their own unique ways (and while Nietzsche was in some ways an immoralist while Rand was quite clearly a moralist, Nietzsche nonetheless essentially proposes a form of egoism as his personal morality). The logical end of altruism is the total devaluation of the self to the point of absolute selflessness. Your life, your values and your property are deprived of value and meaning and you're expect to act as if they don't exist or don't matter. Of course, from my perspective selflessness is impossible both ontologically and psychologically. The self follows from one's very existance as an individual human being and a human beong's fundamental psychological motivations are inward and personal. However, the attempted implementation of altruism as an ethic does have very real effects.
The notion of unchosen positive obligations, whether it be to a deity, a family or an entire society, is inherently incompatible with negative rights and individual sovereignty. Every positive obligation, to the extent that it is not chosen or not a genuine debt, implies a negative rights violation as soon as it is enforced. The result is that people are coerced to associate with other people and to provide goods and services for other people. The individual is forced to sacrifice their own values, their life and their property, regaurdless of their circumstances and regaurdless of their consent. Altruism is at the heart of both communitarianism and dictatorship. In communitarianism, the individual's life and values and property is sacrificed to "the community" or "the majority". In dictatorship, the individual's life and values and property is sacrificed to the dictator and more people can potentially be effected. In either case, in all cases altruism is the morality obligatory upon what amounts to slaves, sometimes subtley and sometimes quite blatantly.
It's important to note that all of this self-sacrificing, self-denying morality has historically been encouraged by people in political and religious power to get the masses to be complacent or obedient. The masses are discouraged from pursueing their own values and bettering their own lives. What largely goes unnoticed is that this is used to benefit the values and lives of various groups of elites. The masses are encouraged to follow a morality of servitude, and when there are servants there are masters. This is what Nietzsche meant when he drew a distinction between "slave morality" and "master morality". Slave morality functions as an ideology that masters or rulers can propagate on to get the masses to accept their enslavement to them as a moral imperative. The masters or rulers, of course, don't actually follow slave morality. They are its beneficiaries. It is just a convenient mentality to propogate to the masses, an apologetic device meant to make it so that servitude seems like a moral imperative. In practise, the masses engage in self-denial to the benefit of a small group of rulers and associated elites. Hence, it's a parasitic relationship.
If the principle of altruism were universally applied to all human beings, and of course it never is and it would be impossible to do consistantly enforce it in the real world, the implication is that everyone is eachother's slave. Since this cannot be realized in practise, since it defies fundamental facts about human existance, motivation and behavior, what one ends up with is at least two distinct classes of people: the masters and the slaves. Quite likely, the attempt to implement altruism will lead to more of a plural latticework of master-slave relationships while still not reaching the consistant extreme of enslaving everyone to eachother. But usually the slaves outnumber the masters by far or a select elite of people function as masters to a much greater degree than anyone else does, and therefore altruism most often leads to some kind of oligarchy, even if it is a mildly democratic oligarchy. Altruism has historically been an apologetic and enabler of both religious and political tyranny.
Master morality, as I interpret it, amounts to hedonism and "might makes right". Master morality should not be construed as the proper alternative to slave morality, nor is it necessarily the polar opposite of slave morality in a certain context. While master morality is not altruistic, master morality is most certainly not any kind of rational egoism. It is anomie or lawlessness, since the masters are not subject to their own rules. Master morality entails an outwardly oriented sense of self that justifies imposing oneself onto others, sometimes using altruism as a ruse or a mask to hide behind. Rational egoism involves an inwardly oriented sense of self that merely justifies being free from the imposition of others, being at liberty to voluntarily pursue one's self-interest and values without restraint. The rational egoist proclaims that noone else may rule over them, but simultaneously they do not claim to rule over anyone else. Rulers don't believe this or function in this way. They claim the right to rule over others while superficially and hypocritically trying to demand that noone else rule over them.
Judeo-Christian morality essentially proposes slave morality as a solution to master morality. In its zeal to oppose hedonism and anomie, it provides a false alternative that only enables the hedonism and anomie of certain people while devalueing everyone else. A society that is dominantly filled with people who accept slave morality will not have the necessary mindset or attitude to resist the yoke of tyranny. It provides the perfect atmosphere for rulers to arise and dominate the naive masses. The cultural framework of a free society must contain the personal sense of value and purpose necessary for people to actively free themselves, otherwise their lack of confidence and their lack of any genuine sense of self-worth and personal value will enable tyranny. It's time to reject both slave morality and master morality to persue some meaningful alternatives.
A Change of Focus
A Different Focus. Crossposted from Anarchy Is Not Chaos Forum
As anarchists, we find ourselves in our "normal" conversations we tend to spend our time and intellectual energy in deconstructing the State.
This is, of course, necessary. But what most of the people we're talking to are failing to see is "what's on the other side"?
Not so much in the areas of ABSENCE we're always talking about, like how one would defend against criminals in the absence of rulers, etcetera. Basically we show how the current rules are flawed, but what people perceive is that we're against the state.
THIS DOESN'T INDICATE THAT WE ARE FOR ANYTHING.
That's not part of the discussion, for the most part. Yeah, in very general terms, such as the theories of anarcho capitalism/mutualism/syndicalism etcetera. The terms have a lot of meaning TO us, because while this isn't the common domain of discussion when talking to a statist, it IS our common point of meeting when we talk amongst one another!
Now obviously, a great many of us publish on the web. So our thoughts on what might come are out there, but it's really not the main focus of our websites and blogs. That focus is deconstructing the state.
I've fallen into this trap myself, so don't think any finger that seems to be pointing at you isn't pointing three back at me! But I've noticed that my responses, while engaging, have become somewhat rote. I hear a specific question, and as geeks are wont to do, I go deep on that subject. But I missed the underlying question. Luckily, a few Statist people who I either respect or enjoy, have been smart enough to ask the question directly. And I still missed it at first. But it eventually penetrated.
Ladies, Gentlemen, and anyone else reading this, the statist isn't really asking you why government is doing it wrong, nor why the specific point that their nameless fears attached a name to, or really much at all of the things we constantly clobber them with.
Their question is "What comes after?"
Assuming that we could correctly answer the major infrastructure and social conditions to the point where a significant grouping of people decided that they were willing to give anarchy an honest go, HOW WOULD THEY LIVE? By this, I don't mean "by what means", as all of the anarchic theories expound on that in great detail. Some will be right, some wrong, and a lot in between. You and I understand that. We can envision a society in which all interactions are for mutual gain, or at least utterly voluntary. We understand, even as most of them do, that a crime can only be done to someone else without their consent. But we're not painting a picture. They are not seeing the anarchist's vision of society, they are seeing what we oppose and then putting whatever model they are FAMILIAR with in it's place when looking at our ideals.
So let's grant one of the more damning ones that we often clobber Statist "spokesmen" with. That Anarchy will inevibably lead to a massive increase in violence. That lacking central authorities, people will engage in all sorts of delinquent behaviour that is directly harmful to their neighbors because that's just the way things are.
THEY ARE RIGHT. That IS the way things are. We're trying to tell them how things COULD BE, which is a very different animal. And I think we are failing more than we should. Anarchic theory is a rich subject with a long history and a lot of branches. It's a position almost entirely held forth on by intellectuals. Most people, regardless of actual intellect, are not intellectuals. I would bet a fair amount that the vast majority of anarchists who post on the subject find that most of their peers get NO enjoyment out of the pursuit of knowledge unless it's to a specific purpose. Even then, a great many dislike learning things in great detail. They want to know what the damn button on the remote does, not how it does it.
So that, then, is going to be the focus of these forums (Anarchy Is Not Chaos). Here, I want to try to paint a picture of what an anarchist society would look like. How it would function, how it's people would likely present and carry themselves, all these little details that we all think about, but seldom elaborate on.
As anarchists, we find ourselves in our "normal" conversations we tend to spend our time and intellectual energy in deconstructing the State.
This is, of course, necessary. But what most of the people we're talking to are failing to see is "what's on the other side"?
Not so much in the areas of ABSENCE we're always talking about, like how one would defend against criminals in the absence of rulers, etcetera. Basically we show how the current rules are flawed, but what people perceive is that we're against the state.
THIS DOESN'T INDICATE THAT WE ARE FOR ANYTHING.
That's not part of the discussion, for the most part. Yeah, in very general terms, such as the theories of anarcho capitalism/mutualism/syndicalism etcetera. The terms have a lot of meaning TO us, because while this isn't the common domain of discussion when talking to a statist, it IS our common point of meeting when we talk amongst one another!
Now obviously, a great many of us publish on the web. So our thoughts on what might come are out there, but it's really not the main focus of our websites and blogs. That focus is deconstructing the state.
I've fallen into this trap myself, so don't think any finger that seems to be pointing at you isn't pointing three back at me! But I've noticed that my responses, while engaging, have become somewhat rote. I hear a specific question, and as geeks are wont to do, I go deep on that subject. But I missed the underlying question. Luckily, a few Statist people who I either respect or enjoy, have been smart enough to ask the question directly. And I still missed it at first. But it eventually penetrated.
Ladies, Gentlemen, and anyone else reading this, the statist isn't really asking you why government is doing it wrong, nor why the specific point that their nameless fears attached a name to, or really much at all of the things we constantly clobber them with.
Their question is "What comes after?"
Assuming that we could correctly answer the major infrastructure and social conditions to the point where a significant grouping of people decided that they were willing to give anarchy an honest go, HOW WOULD THEY LIVE? By this, I don't mean "by what means", as all of the anarchic theories expound on that in great detail. Some will be right, some wrong, and a lot in between. You and I understand that. We can envision a society in which all interactions are for mutual gain, or at least utterly voluntary. We understand, even as most of them do, that a crime can only be done to someone else without their consent. But we're not painting a picture. They are not seeing the anarchist's vision of society, they are seeing what we oppose and then putting whatever model they are FAMILIAR with in it's place when looking at our ideals.
So let's grant one of the more damning ones that we often clobber Statist "spokesmen" with. That Anarchy will inevibably lead to a massive increase in violence. That lacking central authorities, people will engage in all sorts of delinquent behaviour that is directly harmful to their neighbors because that's just the way things are.
THEY ARE RIGHT. That IS the way things are. We're trying to tell them how things COULD BE, which is a very different animal. And I think we are failing more than we should. Anarchic theory is a rich subject with a long history and a lot of branches. It's a position almost entirely held forth on by intellectuals. Most people, regardless of actual intellect, are not intellectuals. I would bet a fair amount that the vast majority of anarchists who post on the subject find that most of their peers get NO enjoyment out of the pursuit of knowledge unless it's to a specific purpose. Even then, a great many dislike learning things in great detail. They want to know what the damn button on the remote does, not how it does it.
So that, then, is going to be the focus of these forums (Anarchy Is Not Chaos). Here, I want to try to paint a picture of what an anarchist society would look like. How it would function, how it's people would likely present and carry themselves, all these little details that we all think about, but seldom elaborate on.
Thursday, June 19, 2008
Additional Notes On Libertarianism and Religion
Just to avoid any confusion or misunderstandings, my last blog post should not be construed to imply that I think that a religious person cannot be a libertarian. They very well can be a libertarian, although I do think that this may certainly put them in a position of cognitive dissonance to the extent that their religion may contain some authoritarian ideas. Neither do I mean to imply that atheists are necessarily more prone to libertarianism. On the contrary, I find that the vast majority of atheists still cling to abstractions and have substituted their own irrational secular forms of spirituality with organized religion. Unfortunately, most atheists are statists and still believe in non-existant essences (see Max Stirner's "The Ego and its Own" for a more in depth analysis of this problem).
What I take issue with is the notion that organized religion is a meaningful and particularly libertarian alternative to the state. Nonsense: organized religion is often a creature of the state and has almost always been in union with the state. I also take issue with the notion that judeo-christian culture and morality has historically been the main source for freedom in the west. My view is practically the exact opposite: that freedom has (marginally and contextually) increased precisely to the extent to which society has abandoned organized religion and judeo-christian morality in favor of more reasonable and comparatively secular modes of thought and interaction. Indeed, the first half-decent taste of freedom occured precisely during that period in which religious tradition was beginning to be seriously questioned, I.E. the enlightenment.
I object to the claims of those who seem to think that religion, or more specifically judeo-christian culture, is a prerequisite or a necessary and beneficial cultural climate for a free society. While there definitely may be cultural climates that are more beneficial than others for a free society, traditionalist religion is not one of them. I have some fears that even if a free society is reached, traditionalism and religious thinking presents a potential threat in that it may lead to the rise of authoritarianism all over again. To maintain a free society, there needs to be a general skepticism towards authority, which includes religious authority. Otherwise, you can kiss the free society goodbye as it goes through the transition towards tribalism and theocracy.
What I take issue with is the notion that organized religion is a meaningful and particularly libertarian alternative to the state. Nonsense: organized religion is often a creature of the state and has almost always been in union with the state. I also take issue with the notion that judeo-christian culture and morality has historically been the main source for freedom in the west. My view is practically the exact opposite: that freedom has (marginally and contextually) increased precisely to the extent to which society has abandoned organized religion and judeo-christian morality in favor of more reasonable and comparatively secular modes of thought and interaction. Indeed, the first half-decent taste of freedom occured precisely during that period in which religious tradition was beginning to be seriously questioned, I.E. the enlightenment.
I object to the claims of those who seem to think that religion, or more specifically judeo-christian culture, is a prerequisite or a necessary and beneficial cultural climate for a free society. While there definitely may be cultural climates that are more beneficial than others for a free society, traditionalist religion is not one of them. I have some fears that even if a free society is reached, traditionalism and religious thinking presents a potential threat in that it may lead to the rise of authoritarianism all over again. To maintain a free society, there needs to be a general skepticism towards authority, which includes religious authority. Otherwise, you can kiss the free society goodbye as it goes through the transition towards tribalism and theocracy.
Walter Block: Wrong on Religion
[cross-posted at Brainpolice at The Mises Community]
Walter Block recently wrote an article at LewRockwell.com on the topic of religion and state. He critisizes what he considers to be an irrational hatred of religion that many libertarians have apparently inherented from Ayn Rand. While he is an atheist himself, he defends the premise that religion is a bulwark against the state. He has a tendency to occasionally make very counter-intuitive claims. Block writes:
"Why pick on religion and the family? Because these are the two great competitors – against the state – for allegiance on the part of the people. The Communists were quite right, from their own evil perspective, to focus on these two institutions. All enemies of the overweening state, then, would do well to embrace religion and the family as their friends, whether they are themselves atheists or not, parents or not.
The main reason religion sticks in the craw of secular leaders is that this institution defines moral authority independently of their power. Every other organization in society (with the possible exception of the family) sees the state as the source of ultimate ethical sanction. Despite the fact that some religious leaders have indeed bowed the knee to government officials, there is a natural and basic enmity between the two sources of authority. The pope and other religious leaders may not have any regiments of soldiers, but they do have something lacking on the part of presidents and prime ministers, greatly to the regret of the latter."
While he certainly has a valid point in that religion and the family have the potential to be competitors against the state, I think that he neglects important aspects of what the libertarian strong atheist's criticism of religion really is. Firstly, we see a very clear ideological relationship between the two. Statism and theism tend to rest on very similar if not identical premises: that without a "higher power" or "higher authority" (either god or the state) there can be no order or morality, that human society must have been and must be deliberately planned by a designer, that knowledge must be held and selectively passed down from an elite (either the clergy or intelligence bureaucrats) who are exclusively able to properly interpret relevant texts, that floating abstractions (either a deity, a society or a nation) really do exist and that one must sacrifice their values and lives to them, that self-interest is a sin, and so on.
In short, as far as I can tell, statism is a religion in and of itself. Does this vindicate the other religions? No, it doesn't. If anything, it shows how close the relationship between the two really is, a relationship that is much closer than your "Christianity is the historical source of liberty in the west" claiming libertarian would be willing to aknowledge (I find that claim to be disingenuous and misleading nonsense, by the way). I see a very clear relationship between most of traditional religious morality and the morality put foreward by most brands of statism. It's precisely what Nietzsche called "slave morality" or what Ayn Rand identifies in her own unique way as "altruism". One's own values, general well-being and happiness is de-emphasized while servitude to an ideal and to others is put foreward as being the greatest virtue. The moral themes of traditionalist Christianity and much of statism are clearly interwoven.
Statism relies in large part on the exploitation of the religious impulse, both directly and indirectly. If anything, a country full of extremely devout religion people are good pickings for state recruitment and obedience. Indeed, not only do states rely on rituals and symbolism that may dupe even the most atheistic zealot, but sometimes they rely directly on the rituals and symbolism of certain religions. Many if not most politicians put themselves foreward as being devoutly religious and pander to the religious community all the time, and in large part the religious masses fall for it, especially in America. Religious institutions are in large part in patronage with the state, despite the thin veneer of separation of church and state that exists in America. In terms of what is being said at the pulpit, American Christianity in particular has become increasingly political, whether preachers function as cheerleaders for militarism and neoconservatism or conduits for the message of state-socialism.
Another issue, a historical issue, has to do with the rise of the state as an institution in relation to the family and organized religion. The fact of the matter is that these two institutions are historically at the root of state power. The state grew out of them in more primitive times. In some cases, they were literally the same institution. The earliest governments were familial and hereditary. Out of the family comes the tribe (an extended family) and out of the tribe comes the most primitive forms of government, which paved the way for monarchy. Furthermore, many of the earliest political leaders were simultaneously religious leaders. In the most primitive form the shaman served this function. Much of organized religion itself can easily be seen as creations of the state in the first place, particularly with respect to the judeo-christian religions. In the case of Christianity, I see it as a construct of the Roman state to gain obedience and unity.
Historically, and even in contemporary times, religion most definitely has not functioned as a competitor of the state, and even to the extent that it has it has most often been a statist competitor in and of itself. The state and organized religion have had a synergetic relationship from the very beginning, and even when religious institutions are more independant they have the potential to become states in and of themselves. Competition between authoritarianisms isn't a good kind of competition. As any anarchist should be aware of, substituting one form of authoritarianism with another doesn't really solve anything. Substituting the church for the secular state doesn't necessarily imply an increase in freedom. I see no reason why what may very well amount to a church-state, even if comparatively small, is an improvement over a secular state. I think what Block fails to see is that the primary issue is with arbitrary authority, and religion is included under this general umbrella.
As Stefan Molyneux has brilliantly argued (although the argument is not entirely his own; it's not as if he invented this concept), the psychology of the family is directly linked to the psychology of the state. People's ideological support for the state can in many ways be linked to a subconcious attachment to their parents, an imposed feeling of guilt and fear, a sort of unchosen positive obligation for life to one's parents. The psychology of the typical citezen in relation to the state can in some ways be seen as representative of the psychology of the person who is abused by their family and yet enables their own abuse. The exact same sentiments of servitude and obligation that many people hold with respect to the family is merely blown up on a larger scale with respect to the nation, society and state. The problem of statism can be seen as the inevitable outgrowth of family-worshop.
Reading further into the article, Block goes on to write this howler:
"Such is my own position. I reject religion, all religion, since, as an atheist, I am unconvinced of the existence of God. Indeed, I go further. I am no agnostic: I am convinced of His non-existence. However, as a political animal, I warmly embrace this institution. It is a bulwark against totalitarianism. He who wishes to oppose statist depredations cannot do so without the support of religion. Opposition to religion, even if based on intellectual grounds and not intended as a political statement, nevertheless amounts to de facto support of government."
Surely you cannot be serious in your claim that "opposition to religion...amounts to de facto support of government", our dear Mr. Block? Surely you jest? This is utter nonsense, and you know it. You can't seriously be trying to pull the wool over our eyes to this extent. An ideological opposition to religion in and of itself has nothing to do with government. And neither does an activist and yet apolitical opposition to religion constitute support of government. My own opposition to religion is entirely apolitical in its means; it's not like I'm lobbying the government and encouraging it to shut down churches and burn Christians at the stake. To assert that an atheist anarchist is a defacto supporter of government for being passionate about atheism is downright silly on its face. I'm frankly insulted by this statement. I also wonder how Block, who says that he is an atheist himself, can not see how he would be a "defacto supporter of government" according to his own statement here.
As a side note, despite Block's intention to connect all or much of this anti-religious sentiment to Ayn Rand, I myself did not gain my anti-religious perspective from Ayn Rand and did not enter libertarianism through Objectivism. I've had a distrust of religious authority long before I had even heard of libertarianism. Furthermore, I think that Block is being misleading in implying that the people he is critisizing make hatred of religion a fundamental principle. No, the dislike of religion is merely an implication of a broader principle against arbitrary authority and in favor of reason. Opposition to religion is not a first-principle for anyone in question here. On the contrary, it follows from something much more fundamental. Hell, even opposition to the state is not necessarily a first principle. In either case, the implication the opposition to religion is the primary focus of any of the people in question is simply false, including in the case of Rand herself. It was never the primary focus, only an implication of a much more fundamental philosophical framework.
I have a lot of respect for Walter Block, in fact he's one of my favorite contemporary libertarians, but occasionally when he writes a piece like this I lose a bit of that respect.
Walter Block recently wrote an article at LewRockwell.com on the topic of religion and state. He critisizes what he considers to be an irrational hatred of religion that many libertarians have apparently inherented from Ayn Rand. While he is an atheist himself, he defends the premise that religion is a bulwark against the state. He has a tendency to occasionally make very counter-intuitive claims. Block writes:
"Why pick on religion and the family? Because these are the two great competitors – against the state – for allegiance on the part of the people. The Communists were quite right, from their own evil perspective, to focus on these two institutions. All enemies of the overweening state, then, would do well to embrace religion and the family as their friends, whether they are themselves atheists or not, parents or not.
The main reason religion sticks in the craw of secular leaders is that this institution defines moral authority independently of their power. Every other organization in society (with the possible exception of the family) sees the state as the source of ultimate ethical sanction. Despite the fact that some religious leaders have indeed bowed the knee to government officials, there is a natural and basic enmity between the two sources of authority. The pope and other religious leaders may not have any regiments of soldiers, but they do have something lacking on the part of presidents and prime ministers, greatly to the regret of the latter."
While he certainly has a valid point in that religion and the family have the potential to be competitors against the state, I think that he neglects important aspects of what the libertarian strong atheist's criticism of religion really is. Firstly, we see a very clear ideological relationship between the two. Statism and theism tend to rest on very similar if not identical premises: that without a "higher power" or "higher authority" (either god or the state) there can be no order or morality, that human society must have been and must be deliberately planned by a designer, that knowledge must be held and selectively passed down from an elite (either the clergy or intelligence bureaucrats) who are exclusively able to properly interpret relevant texts, that floating abstractions (either a deity, a society or a nation) really do exist and that one must sacrifice their values and lives to them, that self-interest is a sin, and so on.
In short, as far as I can tell, statism is a religion in and of itself. Does this vindicate the other religions? No, it doesn't. If anything, it shows how close the relationship between the two really is, a relationship that is much closer than your "Christianity is the historical source of liberty in the west" claiming libertarian would be willing to aknowledge (I find that claim to be disingenuous and misleading nonsense, by the way). I see a very clear relationship between most of traditional religious morality and the morality put foreward by most brands of statism. It's precisely what Nietzsche called "slave morality" or what Ayn Rand identifies in her own unique way as "altruism". One's own values, general well-being and happiness is de-emphasized while servitude to an ideal and to others is put foreward as being the greatest virtue. The moral themes of traditionalist Christianity and much of statism are clearly interwoven.
Statism relies in large part on the exploitation of the religious impulse, both directly and indirectly. If anything, a country full of extremely devout religion people are good pickings for state recruitment and obedience. Indeed, not only do states rely on rituals and symbolism that may dupe even the most atheistic zealot, but sometimes they rely directly on the rituals and symbolism of certain religions. Many if not most politicians put themselves foreward as being devoutly religious and pander to the religious community all the time, and in large part the religious masses fall for it, especially in America. Religious institutions are in large part in patronage with the state, despite the thin veneer of separation of church and state that exists in America. In terms of what is being said at the pulpit, American Christianity in particular has become increasingly political, whether preachers function as cheerleaders for militarism and neoconservatism or conduits for the message of state-socialism.
Another issue, a historical issue, has to do with the rise of the state as an institution in relation to the family and organized religion. The fact of the matter is that these two institutions are historically at the root of state power. The state grew out of them in more primitive times. In some cases, they were literally the same institution. The earliest governments were familial and hereditary. Out of the family comes the tribe (an extended family) and out of the tribe comes the most primitive forms of government, which paved the way for monarchy. Furthermore, many of the earliest political leaders were simultaneously religious leaders. In the most primitive form the shaman served this function. Much of organized religion itself can easily be seen as creations of the state in the first place, particularly with respect to the judeo-christian religions. In the case of Christianity, I see it as a construct of the Roman state to gain obedience and unity.
Historically, and even in contemporary times, religion most definitely has not functioned as a competitor of the state, and even to the extent that it has it has most often been a statist competitor in and of itself. The state and organized religion have had a synergetic relationship from the very beginning, and even when religious institutions are more independant they have the potential to become states in and of themselves. Competition between authoritarianisms isn't a good kind of competition. As any anarchist should be aware of, substituting one form of authoritarianism with another doesn't really solve anything. Substituting the church for the secular state doesn't necessarily imply an increase in freedom. I see no reason why what may very well amount to a church-state, even if comparatively small, is an improvement over a secular state. I think what Block fails to see is that the primary issue is with arbitrary authority, and religion is included under this general umbrella.
As Stefan Molyneux has brilliantly argued (although the argument is not entirely his own; it's not as if he invented this concept), the psychology of the family is directly linked to the psychology of the state. People's ideological support for the state can in many ways be linked to a subconcious attachment to their parents, an imposed feeling of guilt and fear, a sort of unchosen positive obligation for life to one's parents. The psychology of the typical citezen in relation to the state can in some ways be seen as representative of the psychology of the person who is abused by their family and yet enables their own abuse. The exact same sentiments of servitude and obligation that many people hold with respect to the family is merely blown up on a larger scale with respect to the nation, society and state. The problem of statism can be seen as the inevitable outgrowth of family-worshop.
Reading further into the article, Block goes on to write this howler:
"Such is my own position. I reject religion, all religion, since, as an atheist, I am unconvinced of the existence of God. Indeed, I go further. I am no agnostic: I am convinced of His non-existence. However, as a political animal, I warmly embrace this institution. It is a bulwark against totalitarianism. He who wishes to oppose statist depredations cannot do so without the support of religion. Opposition to religion, even if based on intellectual grounds and not intended as a political statement, nevertheless amounts to de facto support of government."
Surely you cannot be serious in your claim that "opposition to religion...amounts to de facto support of government", our dear Mr. Block? Surely you jest? This is utter nonsense, and you know it. You can't seriously be trying to pull the wool over our eyes to this extent. An ideological opposition to religion in and of itself has nothing to do with government. And neither does an activist and yet apolitical opposition to religion constitute support of government. My own opposition to religion is entirely apolitical in its means; it's not like I'm lobbying the government and encouraging it to shut down churches and burn Christians at the stake. To assert that an atheist anarchist is a defacto supporter of government for being passionate about atheism is downright silly on its face. I'm frankly insulted by this statement. I also wonder how Block, who says that he is an atheist himself, can not see how he would be a "defacto supporter of government" according to his own statement here.
As a side note, despite Block's intention to connect all or much of this anti-religious sentiment to Ayn Rand, I myself did not gain my anti-religious perspective from Ayn Rand and did not enter libertarianism through Objectivism. I've had a distrust of religious authority long before I had even heard of libertarianism. Furthermore, I think that Block is being misleading in implying that the people he is critisizing make hatred of religion a fundamental principle. No, the dislike of religion is merely an implication of a broader principle against arbitrary authority and in favor of reason. Opposition to religion is not a first-principle for anyone in question here. On the contrary, it follows from something much more fundamental. Hell, even opposition to the state is not necessarily a first principle. In either case, the implication the opposition to religion is the primary focus of any of the people in question is simply false, including in the case of Rand herself. It was never the primary focus, only an implication of a much more fundamental philosophical framework.
I have a lot of respect for Walter Block, in fact he's one of my favorite contemporary libertarians, but occasionally when he writes a piece like this I lose a bit of that respect.
Friday, June 13, 2008
Speak English or Die!
From a distant perspective, among the many poisons that seem capable of most fatally infecting the libertarian movement the worst of all the toxins – aside from reformism – inherits its core from the vilest form of collectivism. Constructing itself as a pandering plot to the most base of contemporary human vices, that being nationalism, the way which many “conservative libertarians” deal with their self-titled “immigration problem” will be, left unchallenged, the inevitable fungus that infests within the throat of libertarianism, closing its air ducts until the gargled gasps grow faint in the unsuspecting night of inevitable extinction for a movement overtaken by an antithetical fringe.
Like many corruptions of principle within the libertarian movement, the specific dilemma many “conservative libertarians” face in regards to the blood thirsty little niños and niñas running through Big Bend National Park, as though they were just like the children of the Imperial United States of America, is one that largely confuses the message of freedom and its required applications in consistent libertarian ideology. However, unlike any other corruption of libertarian spirit, this divide between the factions of principled libertarians and conservatives dressed in libertarian drag strikes at the foundation of the libertarian message showing exactly why libertarians and “liberty-leaning” conservatives don’t share the common ancestor that the folks at Lew Rockwell would have one assume. The message of liberty being one of unbridled advocacy of equal individual rights regardless of skin colour, ethnicity, gender, or personal creed, it would be impossible to merely accept this difference in perspective as an unimportant, quirky divide between allies. Yes, though all corruptions cross the libertarian border of acceptability, this xenophobia, this nationalism goes far beyond the horizon.
Absolutely, the idea that any “libertarian” could ever deny an individual his rights, whether for the interests of preserving the precious nation and its welfare state, as Ron Paul believes; for guarding the ethnic “purity” of the community’s local bigots, as Hans-Hermann Hoppe would defend; or for simply adhering to the orders of “the overwhelming majority of Americans who don’t support the “open the borders” position” to goose-step along the way in heel-toe fashion, asJustin Raimondo asserts, is a patently absurd one to take. Yes, nothing strikes the heart of irony more than a conservative politician attempting to appeal to libertarians by telling them – libertarians are Anarchists, remember – that “immigration laws will be enforced.” What nerve! What lunacy! What a bad choice in message given the audience…
Immigration law? Law? To hell with the state’s law! To hell with borders! To hell with the nation, the republic, baseball, apple pie, and whatever other American icons the nationalists will proclaim to protect by domineering over the free movement of individual human beings! Yes, Ronald Paul, to hell with your legislation against those “lower creatures” you call non-Americans and damn the nation that refuses to accept an individual’s simple right to exist over unowned land because his birth did not occur in between the given coordinates – though if Paul and his fellow xenophobes had their way, not even that would stop the goon squads of INS or ICE from kidnapping and relocating entire families or neighborhoods of Latinos.
Then again, maybe this message is wrong. Perhaps the conservative doctrines are correct. Perhaps the government does own the land it deems is its territory, despite not mixing any labour with it. Perhaps the state and its servants do possess the right to subjugate outsiders for not being born in the same geographic area, though much could once be said for many of their precious founders. Perhaps Americans are superior. Perhaps you should speak English or die. Perhaps pigs will fly.
Perhaps, perhaps, but nowhere outside of the minds of men like Madison Grant or Albert Johnson.
Outside of the standard invocations against the obviously misguided conservatives wandering into the park of liberty angry and disenchanted with the very pet whirlwind of corruption they created, however, as Agorists the planning of what to do in response deserves a much greater area for focus. For the Agorists looking to counter-act the counter-revolutionary ploys of destroying the libertarian name by mixing it with the nationalism and conservatism, a smart point of attack would be to encourage people in other countries to bypass the legal restrictions on immigration and to help those in need looking to undermine the statutes of the Imperial USA when they decide to move. Agorists everywhere should assist immigrants from all parts of the world without the discrimination of the conservatives; spreading the message of counter-economics with the positive influence of working as a pure, counter-economic coyote, the Agorists looking to counter-act conservatism should not only support immigrants, but should also take them under the watchful wings of local alliances.
The immigrant populous represents a key market for Agorists to tap into; already ignoring the state, they are far ahead of any of the conservatives in their libertarian credentials. With the proper education of liberty, the market for Agorism will explode, if only through attaining key business-relations with already counter-economic Latinos. Take it as a great bit of advice to focus Agorist energy and recruitment on those that the state deems unwanted, for their disenchantment with the government already qualifies them for an “enemy of my enemy” relationship; expanding this further will prove to be a most rewarding venture.
Saturday, June 7, 2008
The Distribution of Power
[cross-posted at Brainpolice at The Mises Community]
In modern political jargon, conservatives are associated with the concept of "small government" or "limited government". If this is interpreted to refer to the degree of government power there is, historically conservatives have not stood for it. Indeed, so-called "conservative" governments and parties have historically supported quite a high degree of government power. However, if this is interpeted to refer to the amount of people who weild government power, conservatism has always stood for "small government" in this sense. This understanding of the terms and their implications coincides well with Karl Hess's claim, which was articulated in his brillaint article "The Death of Politics", that the defining characteristic of a "right-wing" regime is the concentration of power into the fewest hands possible.
Using this analysis, monarchy is actually as small or limited of a government possible. In contrast, democracy in the original sense of the term refers to an equilibrium of power that is spread out in as many hands as possible. Assuming that there is a finite amount of power available, this would imply a decrease in the actual amount of power weilded by each individual. Taken to it's logical conclusion, the end result would actually be the negation of political power as such, as it is essentially rendered obsolete in terms of the degree of power able to be held by a person. It is a sort of checks and balances in which each respective individual's power is kept in check, as each individual's liberty is limited by the like liberty of everyone else. The individual is sovereign only over themselves. This concept was once dubbed "the law of equal freedom" by Herbert Spencer and was adopted by the individualist anarchist Benjamin Tucker. It is also another way of phrasing what contemporary libertarians call the non-aggression principle.
In applying such an analysis to modern politics, the bulk of what is considered to be the political left today would actually have to be considered "right-wing" and undemocratic under these definitions, since left-liberals most certainly do favor the concentration of power. The disagreements between the contemporary political left and right can mostly be seen as a matter of which particular individuals or interest groups should weild this concentration of power and how they should use it. Democrats favor concentrating power in the hands of Democrats and Republicans favor concentrating power in the hands of Republicans. The welfare state concentrates power into the hands of welfare bureaucracies and the warfare state concentrates power into the military bureaucracies. State-socialists favor concentrating power in the hands of socialists and state-capitalists favor concentrating power in the hands of capitalists. No matter which way one slices it, the principle of oligarchy is at work. People from such groups may often pander to the concept of democracy, but only as a means to enable oligarchy.
The concept being used here does not strictly apply to governmental institutions. It applies to institutions and power in general, and therefore there are concerns with respect to the concentration of so-called "private" power. The contemporary political left is concerned about the private concentration of power, and in and of itself this is a worthwhile concern, although this concern is often held on the basis or erroneously logic. Furthermore, the solution to the concentration of private power that is often proposed by the contemporary political left is entirely wrong and counterproductive. The error that is made is that the contemporary left advocates concentrating power in the hands of the state in the name of combating private power. This merely shifts the power into different hands. It does not solve the problem at all. It creates new problems. This is one of the fundamental flaws of Marxism as a strategy: it essentially creates a dictatorship in the name of combating private power. What one is left with is an all-powerful government that absorbs the private power into itself. In short, the state itself becomes the monopoly capitalist. Mikhail Bakunin was aware of this problem, which is why he rather sharply critisized Marx.
The contemporary political right faces a bit of a different problem. While they have superficially had anti-government sentiments ingrained into them, they often function as knee-jerk apologists for private concentrations of power. While they may sometimes quite correctly see the problem with governmental concentrations of power, they often overlook the problems with private concentrations of power and the degree to which the two are synergetic. The solution proposed is essentially to artificially empower private institutions. But the political right falls into an inevitable contradiction in doing so, as the only way to do this is through political means, and hence by relying on governmental concentrations of power. The political right also tends to idolize the military. Hence, the conservative's claim to being anti-government is based on a bed of sand. Government is perfectly fine to them, so long as it is in their control, used to stamp out foreign enemies and to empower their allies in the so-called "private" sector. At best, what one is left with is a mixture of the concentration of governmental and private power. But even in the process of pursueing their ends, since they favor political means to those ends, they nonetheless may theoretically empower the state just as much as anyone on the political left would. Even elements within the movement of anarcho-capitalism may fall into the trap of trying to join or infiltrate the state in the name of abolishing it, hence my usage of the term "right-wing marxists" to describe anarcho-capitalists who still favor political strategies.
Political systems usually are some mixture of governmental and private concentrations of power and while the two spheres may superficially be separate they are in patronage with one another and have a high degree of synergy. But this is not really a "balance of power" so much as a conglomeration of power. Merging different power elites together doesn't create a balance. A true "balance of power" would be a social order in accordance with the law of equal freedom - an equilbruim literally between individuals. Such a social order is only possible in the conditions reflected in anarchism. Archism of any sort inherently negates "equality of authority", as Roderick Long describes it. So long as institutions such as the state exist, a true balance of power and equilibrium of liberty is not possible because the very nature of such institutions is that of oligarchy and hence there is an extreme imbalance and inconsistancy in how principles are applied to human beings. Therefore the solution can only be found in anarchism, properly understood.
In modern political jargon, conservatives are associated with the concept of "small government" or "limited government". If this is interpreted to refer to the degree of government power there is, historically conservatives have not stood for it. Indeed, so-called "conservative" governments and parties have historically supported quite a high degree of government power. However, if this is interpeted to refer to the amount of people who weild government power, conservatism has always stood for "small government" in this sense. This understanding of the terms and their implications coincides well with Karl Hess's claim, which was articulated in his brillaint article "The Death of Politics", that the defining characteristic of a "right-wing" regime is the concentration of power into the fewest hands possible.
Using this analysis, monarchy is actually as small or limited of a government possible. In contrast, democracy in the original sense of the term refers to an equilibrium of power that is spread out in as many hands as possible. Assuming that there is a finite amount of power available, this would imply a decrease in the actual amount of power weilded by each individual. Taken to it's logical conclusion, the end result would actually be the negation of political power as such, as it is essentially rendered obsolete in terms of the degree of power able to be held by a person. It is a sort of checks and balances in which each respective individual's power is kept in check, as each individual's liberty is limited by the like liberty of everyone else. The individual is sovereign only over themselves. This concept was once dubbed "the law of equal freedom" by Herbert Spencer and was adopted by the individualist anarchist Benjamin Tucker. It is also another way of phrasing what contemporary libertarians call the non-aggression principle.
In applying such an analysis to modern politics, the bulk of what is considered to be the political left today would actually have to be considered "right-wing" and undemocratic under these definitions, since left-liberals most certainly do favor the concentration of power. The disagreements between the contemporary political left and right can mostly be seen as a matter of which particular individuals or interest groups should weild this concentration of power and how they should use it. Democrats favor concentrating power in the hands of Democrats and Republicans favor concentrating power in the hands of Republicans. The welfare state concentrates power into the hands of welfare bureaucracies and the warfare state concentrates power into the military bureaucracies. State-socialists favor concentrating power in the hands of socialists and state-capitalists favor concentrating power in the hands of capitalists. No matter which way one slices it, the principle of oligarchy is at work. People from such groups may often pander to the concept of democracy, but only as a means to enable oligarchy.
The concept being used here does not strictly apply to governmental institutions. It applies to institutions and power in general, and therefore there are concerns with respect to the concentration of so-called "private" power. The contemporary political left is concerned about the private concentration of power, and in and of itself this is a worthwhile concern, although this concern is often held on the basis or erroneously logic. Furthermore, the solution to the concentration of private power that is often proposed by the contemporary political left is entirely wrong and counterproductive. The error that is made is that the contemporary left advocates concentrating power in the hands of the state in the name of combating private power. This merely shifts the power into different hands. It does not solve the problem at all. It creates new problems. This is one of the fundamental flaws of Marxism as a strategy: it essentially creates a dictatorship in the name of combating private power. What one is left with is an all-powerful government that absorbs the private power into itself. In short, the state itself becomes the monopoly capitalist. Mikhail Bakunin was aware of this problem, which is why he rather sharply critisized Marx.
The contemporary political right faces a bit of a different problem. While they have superficially had anti-government sentiments ingrained into them, they often function as knee-jerk apologists for private concentrations of power. While they may sometimes quite correctly see the problem with governmental concentrations of power, they often overlook the problems with private concentrations of power and the degree to which the two are synergetic. The solution proposed is essentially to artificially empower private institutions. But the political right falls into an inevitable contradiction in doing so, as the only way to do this is through political means, and hence by relying on governmental concentrations of power. The political right also tends to idolize the military. Hence, the conservative's claim to being anti-government is based on a bed of sand. Government is perfectly fine to them, so long as it is in their control, used to stamp out foreign enemies and to empower their allies in the so-called "private" sector. At best, what one is left with is a mixture of the concentration of governmental and private power. But even in the process of pursueing their ends, since they favor political means to those ends, they nonetheless may theoretically empower the state just as much as anyone on the political left would. Even elements within the movement of anarcho-capitalism may fall into the trap of trying to join or infiltrate the state in the name of abolishing it, hence my usage of the term "right-wing marxists" to describe anarcho-capitalists who still favor political strategies.
Political systems usually are some mixture of governmental and private concentrations of power and while the two spheres may superficially be separate they are in patronage with one another and have a high degree of synergy. But this is not really a "balance of power" so much as a conglomeration of power. Merging different power elites together doesn't create a balance. A true "balance of power" would be a social order in accordance with the law of equal freedom - an equilbruim literally between individuals. Such a social order is only possible in the conditions reflected in anarchism. Archism of any sort inherently negates "equality of authority", as Roderick Long describes it. So long as institutions such as the state exist, a true balance of power and equilibrium of liberty is not possible because the very nature of such institutions is that of oligarchy and hence there is an extreme imbalance and inconsistancy in how principles are applied to human beings. Therefore the solution can only be found in anarchism, properly understood.
Friday, June 6, 2008
Philosophy And Libertarianism
Originally posted on RationalAnimal.net
Back when I was still pretty much a straight line Objectivist, I had heard several criticisms of libertarianism. Libertarians are inconsistent, they said. They view liberty as axiomatic, some of them are altruists and collectivists, and some of them (gasp!) are even anarchists!
Of course now, being an anarchist, I find myself more sympathetic to the libertarian movement and interacting with those involved with it on a fairly regular basis. However, the criticism that many libertarians view liberty as axiomatic is still valid.
Libertarianism, like any assertion beyond the most fundamental metaphysical claims, is not an idea that is true simply in and of itself. It is up to libertarians to demonstrate the validity of libertarianism through logical argument, which means that libertarians need a philosophy underlying their ideas about liberty to demonstrate that liberty is the valid approach to human interaction.
While I really enjoy the works of Murray Rothbard, he is particularly guilty of divorcing libertarianism from the underlying philosophical disciplines of ethics, epistemology, and metaphysics. In The Ethics of Liberty, he provides a somewhat convincing, though very short and undetailed, argument in favor of individual self-ownership.
His argument is essentially this; there are three possible ways to deal with the ownership of people. Self-ownership (e.g. individualism), collective ownership (e.g. collectivism), and class ownership (e.g. aristocracy). He starts with the premise that there must be a universal moral code to determine which of these viewpoints is correct.
Aristocracy is eliminated pretty much immediately, since one class of people owning another is inherently non-universal. Collective ownership would require that some group of people handle distributing resources, since it is impossible for everyone to own exactly an equal share of everyone else without some governing body to organize it. This essentially creates class ownership again and this is eliminated.
This leaves self-ownership as the only universalizable approach to the ownership of people. It is from here that Rothbard proceeds to justify property rights, the non-aggression principle, and the libertarian outlook.
The problem with this approach is that it leaves a lot of unanswered questions. For example, it never adequately demonstrates that there even is a universal moral code that should govern the ownership of people. It never explains what ownership consists of. It never explains why one should follow this univeral moral code.
I am not saying that I believe there is no universal morality or that I agree with the is-ought dichotomy. I am simply saying that Rothbard did not adequately address these questions with his approach to libertarianism.
More recently, Stefan Molyneux of Freedomainradio.com has self-published a book on his ethical system, which he calls universally preferable behavior. It's a relatively short read, and his argument is basically a more fleshed out version of Rothbard's argument.
The central idea behind universally preferable behavior is that, for an ethical premise or theory to be true, it must be possible to practice it consistently. For example, "rape is good" can't be true because then people being raped would be bad to resist rape (since rape is good), and if they don't resist then rape is no longer occurring (which is also bad since this is also stopping rape), which means that the ethical theory "rape is good" is literally impossible to actually practice universally and consistently.
While it is true that an ethical theory that is impossible in practice can't possible be valid, Molyneux fails to provide a solid justification for the premise that universal ethics even exist. He provides several arguments for it in the book, but if you read his arguments and think about it, you'll find that these arguments only succeed in demonstrating that, perhaps between two individuals, a mutual (not necessarily universal) ethic exists.
Another interesting thing about Molyneux's ethical theory is that he actually accepts the is-ought dichotomy. While he will say that he can demonstrate, logically, that "rape is bad" is a universalizable ethical theory, he will not say that one ought to not rape people. To me, this kind of removes the whole point of having an ethical theory. What about his ethical theory is true, if its not making any claims on how people should act? What aspect of reality is he even describing?
Now that we've briefly discussed Rothbard's and Molyneux's ideas behind the justification of libertarianism, I want you to note that there is a word that is conspicuously absent in both cases. That word is happiness.
At no point do either Rothbard or Molyneux assert, at least with their ethical theories, that libertarianism will make you happier. Or that you ought to pursue a libertarian society because it best promotes your values. Or that your life will be better if we can achieve a libertarian society.
This separation of libertarianism from values and happiness, I think, is the rotten core holding libertarianism back. This idea that somehow liberty and freedom are good for their own sakes or for scientific reasons, completely independent of whether they help you live a happier life.
Indeed, imagine if I walked up to you and said I could logically demonstrate that it is moral to punch yourself in the face right now. I'm certain that no matter how logical my argument might sound, you would scarcely be convinced. The reason for that is that punching yourself in the face is painful, and detracts from your happiness.
While Ayn Rand made her mistakes, her defense of libertarian ideas as a necessary precondition to achieving happiness is absolutely vital to the success of libertarianism, and harkens back to the days of classical liberalism. It seems many libertarians have forgotten that the words "the pursuit of happiness" were not placed in the Declaration of Independence just because they sound nice.
There is a small movement of libertarians who also see this problem and who, like Rand, derive their inspiration from the works of Aristotle and other various Ancient Greek philosophers. In particular, Roderick T. Long has been doing great work along these lines, and I encourage everyone to listen to his material on mises.org.
Another potentially important work is being written by Geoffrey Allan Plauche for his Ph.D. dissertation. Entitled Aristotelian Liberalism: An Inquiry into the Foundations of a Free and Flourishing Society, it appears that Plauche is following in Rand's footsteps by attempting to provide a complete philosophy to support libertarian ideas that is largely inspired by Aristotle. You can read some incomplete portions of it on his website.
It is important that we have a valid justification for libertarianism that is rooted in the desire to live a happy life. Few people are going to be convinced to do something if it is antithetical to their own happiness, and frankly it would be irrational to request that they do. Fans of Rothbard and Molyneux, I highly encourage you to read some of the material written by Ayn Rand, as well as the gentlemen I mention above.
Back when I was still pretty much a straight line Objectivist, I had heard several criticisms of libertarianism. Libertarians are inconsistent, they said. They view liberty as axiomatic, some of them are altruists and collectivists, and some of them (gasp!) are even anarchists!
Of course now, being an anarchist, I find myself more sympathetic to the libertarian movement and interacting with those involved with it on a fairly regular basis. However, the criticism that many libertarians view liberty as axiomatic is still valid.
Libertarianism, like any assertion beyond the most fundamental metaphysical claims, is not an idea that is true simply in and of itself. It is up to libertarians to demonstrate the validity of libertarianism through logical argument, which means that libertarians need a philosophy underlying their ideas about liberty to demonstrate that liberty is the valid approach to human interaction.
While I really enjoy the works of Murray Rothbard, he is particularly guilty of divorcing libertarianism from the underlying philosophical disciplines of ethics, epistemology, and metaphysics. In The Ethics of Liberty, he provides a somewhat convincing, though very short and undetailed, argument in favor of individual self-ownership.
His argument is essentially this; there are three possible ways to deal with the ownership of people. Self-ownership (e.g. individualism), collective ownership (e.g. collectivism), and class ownership (e.g. aristocracy). He starts with the premise that there must be a universal moral code to determine which of these viewpoints is correct.
Aristocracy is eliminated pretty much immediately, since one class of people owning another is inherently non-universal. Collective ownership would require that some group of people handle distributing resources, since it is impossible for everyone to own exactly an equal share of everyone else without some governing body to organize it. This essentially creates class ownership again and this is eliminated.
This leaves self-ownership as the only universalizable approach to the ownership of people. It is from here that Rothbard proceeds to justify property rights, the non-aggression principle, and the libertarian outlook.
The problem with this approach is that it leaves a lot of unanswered questions. For example, it never adequately demonstrates that there even is a universal moral code that should govern the ownership of people. It never explains what ownership consists of. It never explains why one should follow this univeral moral code.
I am not saying that I believe there is no universal morality or that I agree with the is-ought dichotomy. I am simply saying that Rothbard did not adequately address these questions with his approach to libertarianism.
More recently, Stefan Molyneux of Freedomainradio.com has self-published a book on his ethical system, which he calls universally preferable behavior. It's a relatively short read, and his argument is basically a more fleshed out version of Rothbard's argument.
The central idea behind universally preferable behavior is that, for an ethical premise or theory to be true, it must be possible to practice it consistently. For example, "rape is good" can't be true because then people being raped would be bad to resist rape (since rape is good), and if they don't resist then rape is no longer occurring (which is also bad since this is also stopping rape), which means that the ethical theory "rape is good" is literally impossible to actually practice universally and consistently.
While it is true that an ethical theory that is impossible in practice can't possible be valid, Molyneux fails to provide a solid justification for the premise that universal ethics even exist. He provides several arguments for it in the book, but if you read his arguments and think about it, you'll find that these arguments only succeed in demonstrating that, perhaps between two individuals, a mutual (not necessarily universal) ethic exists.
Another interesting thing about Molyneux's ethical theory is that he actually accepts the is-ought dichotomy. While he will say that he can demonstrate, logically, that "rape is bad" is a universalizable ethical theory, he will not say that one ought to not rape people. To me, this kind of removes the whole point of having an ethical theory. What about his ethical theory is true, if its not making any claims on how people should act? What aspect of reality is he even describing?
Now that we've briefly discussed Rothbard's and Molyneux's ideas behind the justification of libertarianism, I want you to note that there is a word that is conspicuously absent in both cases. That word is happiness.
At no point do either Rothbard or Molyneux assert, at least with their ethical theories, that libertarianism will make you happier. Or that you ought to pursue a libertarian society because it best promotes your values. Or that your life will be better if we can achieve a libertarian society.
This separation of libertarianism from values and happiness, I think, is the rotten core holding libertarianism back. This idea that somehow liberty and freedom are good for their own sakes or for scientific reasons, completely independent of whether they help you live a happier life.
Indeed, imagine if I walked up to you and said I could logically demonstrate that it is moral to punch yourself in the face right now. I'm certain that no matter how logical my argument might sound, you would scarcely be convinced. The reason for that is that punching yourself in the face is painful, and detracts from your happiness.
While Ayn Rand made her mistakes, her defense of libertarian ideas as a necessary precondition to achieving happiness is absolutely vital to the success of libertarianism, and harkens back to the days of classical liberalism. It seems many libertarians have forgotten that the words "the pursuit of happiness" were not placed in the Declaration of Independence just because they sound nice.
There is a small movement of libertarians who also see this problem and who, like Rand, derive their inspiration from the works of Aristotle and other various Ancient Greek philosophers. In particular, Roderick T. Long has been doing great work along these lines, and I encourage everyone to listen to his material on mises.org.
Another potentially important work is being written by Geoffrey Allan Plauche for his Ph.D. dissertation. Entitled Aristotelian Liberalism: An Inquiry into the Foundations of a Free and Flourishing Society, it appears that Plauche is following in Rand's footsteps by attempting to provide a complete philosophy to support libertarian ideas that is largely inspired by Aristotle. You can read some incomplete portions of it on his website.
It is important that we have a valid justification for libertarianism that is rooted in the desire to live a happy life. Few people are going to be convinced to do something if it is antithetical to their own happiness, and frankly it would be irrational to request that they do. Fans of Rothbard and Molyneux, I highly encourage you to read some of the material written by Ayn Rand, as well as the gentlemen I mention above.
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
The Danger of Political Centrism
[cross-posted at Brainpolice at The Mises Community]
It is often assumed that centrists are good because they are not "extreme". Centrists are generally viewed as being preferable to the so-called "far left" and "far right". However, it is my contention that centrists are the most dangerous type of politician and that the nature of politics tends towards centrism. For while elements on the political left and right may have erroneous views in various ways, centrists merely combine the erroneous views of both sides into a consensus.
Furthermore, the centrist is highly adaptable to a variety of positions and hence oppurtunistically changes their position in the name of expediency. There is no fixity or certainty to their position. Centrists are the most expedient type of politicians, and in the name of expediency they will aschew any genuine principles. Centrism is the most pragmatic way to gain and hold onto power by appealing to as many different groups as possible without necessarily believing in any particular principle espoused by each group. A so-called fringe group by itself is usually fairly harmless in comparison because there is no way for them to gain populist support.
The fact of the matter is that the political establishment depends in large part on a bipartisan consensus. Everything from the patriot act to the decision to go to war in Iraq was passed by a large bipartisan consensus. Centrism is the most efficient means at maintaining the status quo. Politicians generally play to the center to gain support anyways, moreso as the democratic process goes on. Before any disagreements take place between politicians, there is a general underlying consensus on certain fundamental elements of the status quo and the internal processes or rules of the institution itself. What they mostly disagree on is not fundamentals so much as particulars and implementation.
Politics becomes a purely pragmatic process in which only what is considered to be "politically viable" tends to occur. The centrist is the master at playing this game. Whatever is the most popular at the moment or whatever is appealing to the widest range of people is what they will tend to support, regaurdless of any principle. Precisely what "the center" is changes depending on expediency. And this is why political centrism is dangerous, as it has no real meaning and is merely an indispensible mechanism for sustaining political power.
It is often assumed that centrists are good because they are not "extreme". Centrists are generally viewed as being preferable to the so-called "far left" and "far right". However, it is my contention that centrists are the most dangerous type of politician and that the nature of politics tends towards centrism. For while elements on the political left and right may have erroneous views in various ways, centrists merely combine the erroneous views of both sides into a consensus.
Furthermore, the centrist is highly adaptable to a variety of positions and hence oppurtunistically changes their position in the name of expediency. There is no fixity or certainty to their position. Centrists are the most expedient type of politicians, and in the name of expediency they will aschew any genuine principles. Centrism is the most pragmatic way to gain and hold onto power by appealing to as many different groups as possible without necessarily believing in any particular principle espoused by each group. A so-called fringe group by itself is usually fairly harmless in comparison because there is no way for them to gain populist support.
The fact of the matter is that the political establishment depends in large part on a bipartisan consensus. Everything from the patriot act to the decision to go to war in Iraq was passed by a large bipartisan consensus. Centrism is the most efficient means at maintaining the status quo. Politicians generally play to the center to gain support anyways, moreso as the democratic process goes on. Before any disagreements take place between politicians, there is a general underlying consensus on certain fundamental elements of the status quo and the internal processes or rules of the institution itself. What they mostly disagree on is not fundamentals so much as particulars and implementation.
Politics becomes a purely pragmatic process in which only what is considered to be "politically viable" tends to occur. The centrist is the master at playing this game. Whatever is the most popular at the moment or whatever is appealing to the widest range of people is what they will tend to support, regaurdless of any principle. Precisely what "the center" is changes depending on expediency. And this is why political centrism is dangerous, as it has no real meaning and is merely an indispensible mechanism for sustaining political power.
The Radical-Reformist Spectrum: And the Grey In Between
[Cross Posted at The Kingdom of God is Within You]
Anon: So, who do you like for the Presidency?
Me: What? Do you mean who is my favorite politician?
Anon: Yes, I suppose.
Me: Well, a better question would be, what makes the best kind of politician?
Anon: OK... Well, given the tone I imagine you have something to say, so shoot.
Me: The best kind of politician is the only good kind – a dead one.
Anon: Well, what about Ron Paul? I hear he’s pretty libertarian.
Me: Need I repeat what I said?
Me: What? Do you mean who is my favorite politician?
Anon: Yes, I suppose.
Me: Well, a better question would be, what makes the best kind of politician?
Anon: OK... Well, given the tone I imagine you have something to say, so shoot.
Me: The best kind of politician is the only good kind – a dead one.
Anon: Well, what about Ron Paul? I hear he’s pretty libertarian.
Me: Need I repeat what I said?
So goes the same sardonic conversation of a radical Anarchist explaining the virtues of Agorism to a minion of the apologists for the political class. Expected from the tiresome agony of conversations with the innocently ignorant or the fully indoctrinated, however, the saddest part of this conversation comes from the closeness to which Anonymous actually comes to calling herself an Anarchist and ditching the political scene in favor of pursuing her principles of anti-drug war, anti-US intervention, anti-government, anti-corporations, anti-public schools, anti-America, and anti-police in the market place with like minded comrades all itching to overthrow the state. Yes, unfortunately Anonymous falls into the very same disease of reformism that so many comrades in the libertarian movement tend to linger clumsily towards like the mumbling drunk on the city hall steps. Supporting such parlor revolutionaries as Ron Paul, Murray Sabrin, Jim Forsythe, or whatever other conservative in drag the desperate and the weak wish to tromp out for their get-liberty-quick schemes, the reformists, though possibly well intentioned, tend to undermine the libertarian revolution – a revolution they even go so far as to usurp as the “Ron Paul revolution.” Circling around holding each other before the climax, the group of reformists serves only to confuse, contradict, and compromise any true libertarian progress – forgeable only through the one, right tool, market activism.
With an introduction then, as true radicals and revolutionaries it certainly is quite important that comrades of the Agorist movement understand that though the reformist may believe in a type of libertarianism, he is not yet a libertarian, at least not of the radical sorts that a libertarian army requires, and until he becomes one, until we can finally convert him, he must be regarded with suspicion at best and mannered hostility at worst. To truly advance the Agorist agenda, not only must every comrade join in saying the only good politician is a dead politician, but he must also understand that the only good parlor revolutionary is one that exists no longer; the only good parlor revolutionary is a freshly converted Agorist and a newly found anti-reformist.
Think of it in the terms provided by the first movie of the Matrix trilogy where Morpheus explains to Neo the parameters of their involvement with the unenlightened.
The Matrix is a system, Neo. That system is our enemy. But when you're inside, you look around, what do you see? Businessmen, teachers, lawyers, carpenters. The very minds of the people we are trying to save. But until we do, these people are still a part of that system and that makes them our enemy. You have to understand, most of these people are not ready to be unplugged. And many of them are so inured, so hopelessly dependent on the system, that they will fight to protect it.
Though seemingly more applicable to the general populous that still silently stalls sadly suspended until they can graduate to partial enlightenment towards the spectrum of a library libertarian – one that espouses libertarianism in theory and books only – the difference between a drone of the populous apathetically enamored by the smooth words and sleek style of a fast talking Richard Nixon, or his speech writer, Benjamin Stein, and the libertarian still enthusiastic about electing his guy to control the beast with the ring like a Frodo Baggins after a power trip exists only in degrees.
Still, however, it of course qualifies as a ludicrous position to turn away even the most radical aspects of the Ron Paul movement or any other members of a political affinity group working towards defeating the government in the final days like a prophesized third revelation. So what should an Agorist do? To illustrate, here the author admits that he occasionally, in fits of rage, goes off the reservation, so to speak, of the traditional stance supported by SEK3 – being one of tactical alliances.
Yes, in spite of the harshest of words slung at the reformists, something must be said for their most radical members. In the instance of Ron Paul, though not all seem to understand what his campaign proves in terms of the futile compromise of political pseudo-action, many of his past supporters can be seen defecting from the conservatives dressed in libertarian drag and siding with their newly wedded Agorist brethren. So says Thomas M. of Beloit, Wisconsin,
The lessons I have learned from my experiences as a Ron Paul supporter are many, but I must say the single most important is that compromise for political success is little more than a waste of precious time. Though I don’t regret all of my experiences with the Ron Paul movement, after all it at least turned me onto the ideas of libertarianism where I was once a typical, anti-war, limousine liberal, I do regret some of the unintended consequences that we unconsciously made in our efforts to support him. Where money and effort could have been substituted into better activities bringing about more solid results, it was wasted on trying to convince people that Ron Paul was a saving grace for a Republic that has no business being saved in the first place.
Absolutely, if nothing else Ron Paul does seem to have had an effect on many of the previously uninformed, coupling this with their natural polarization to radicalism, the Ron Paul movement cannot be said to be a total failure or waste of time. This being the case, however, with a bulk of previously compromised libertarians jumping ship to the cause of principle and direct action, what can be said for those still waning in the grey spots of the radical-reform spectrum – sans those still holding on to the hope of an old lion defeating a beating elephant?
For those Left-Libertarians and Radical Agorists looking for the answer to this confusing question of tactical approach, it seems best to remember this simple word, beware. Beware of your allies teetering between reform and revolution and always look for their strengths as well as their weaknesses. Remember and never forget, though he that waits in the grey may be useful, he does not wear the pure colours of Anarchist black for a reason – he, though on his way, is not an Agorist yet. As growing Agorists are vital to the movement, matured Agorists must be sure to nurture the Agorist tendencies of their immature comrades with care and encouragement while watching their reformist tendencies with the most careful of eyes so as to prepare to show strength in the interests of outcompeting the reformists and to discourage the fetal Agorists from ever returning to the land of lost hopes – the land of politic. The best way to describe this strategy for the conscious Agorists in relation to the wandering semi-radicals may then be summed up as an operation of supportive promotion and active discouragement – promotion reserved for the Agorist tendencies and discouragement for the reformist ones. With this in mind, the Agorists that insert themselves into the mixture of revolutionary vs. parlor revolutionary will do well to convert as many of the latter to the side of the former.
Given the radical-reformist spectrum, the divide between those devoted to SEK3 and those allying with Ron Paul possesses a great grey spot, but if the left side can overcome the side of the right within the spectrum of libertarianism, then perhaps we libertarians will see a day where Anarchists unite against the true enemy – the state. Until this, however, the libertarian cause will never be fermented; as long as comrades waste in the waning waters of the willfully withering games of politics, the seed of potential will waste right along with them.
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
Politics Is The Opiate Of The Masses
[cross-posted at Brainpolice at The Mises Community]
Theism is not the only kind of mysticism. Collectivist and political ideologies are also forms of mysticism. The nature of politics involves blind faith in a "highest essence". The abstractions of these "highest essences" function as arbitrary authorities to appeal to. The most common of these arbitrary and rhetorical authorities are "society", "nation", "state", "humanity", "race", "class" and "gender". In political ideology, these concepts function precisely in the same way as a deity. As a consequence of faith in these abstractions, individual human beings and/or certain collections of human beings are given the status of a deity. These concepts also all have one thing in common: they obscure the individual and turn the individual into a sacrificial peon to collective abstractions. In all cases, belief in something that doesn't exist (at least in the way concieved) functions as a mechanism to provide a plastic sense of meaning or identity.
While theism assigns a non-existant entity with rights not possessed by human beings, statism assigns certain human beings with rights not possessed by everyone else. While religious ideologies conflict over who rules the universe and how they do it, political ideologies conflict over who rules over other human beings and how they do it. In electoral politics, certain human beings are deified and people conflict over which deifed human being should rule over everyone else. For many people, the election rallies and political holidays are just as much of a "spiritual experience" as any religious ceremony at a fundamentalist christian church. People literally have faith in politicians, bureaucrats, nations, and states and they use that which is attributed to them as a way to legitimize their personal biases and their actions. The health of political power relies in large part on the exploitation of the religious impulse in the broadest sense through the use of rituals, symbolism, illusions, grandios promises, bread and circuses.
Many political assumptions are essentially forcibly inherented from parents and cultural norms, just like in theism. While religions tend to promise a utopia after death, political ideologies tend to promise a utopia during life. Both make use of fear and guilt and exploit the pessemism within people to elicit obedience. The morality of politics is based on arbitrary authority rather than reason. "The law" has the same functionality as a deity's alleged words or religious texts. The individual must submit in spite of their rational evaluation. Furthermore, politics provides a mechanism by which people can enforce their personal preferances and their incorrect conceptions of morality onto innocent bystanders. Politics is more dangerous than religion is by itself, since it is only through the mechanisms of politics that religion can be tyrannical on a large scale. Politics is the opiate of the masses.
Theism is not the only kind of mysticism. Collectivist and political ideologies are also forms of mysticism. The nature of politics involves blind faith in a "highest essence". The abstractions of these "highest essences" function as arbitrary authorities to appeal to. The most common of these arbitrary and rhetorical authorities are "society", "nation", "state", "humanity", "race", "class" and "gender". In political ideology, these concepts function precisely in the same way as a deity. As a consequence of faith in these abstractions, individual human beings and/or certain collections of human beings are given the status of a deity. These concepts also all have one thing in common: they obscure the individual and turn the individual into a sacrificial peon to collective abstractions. In all cases, belief in something that doesn't exist (at least in the way concieved) functions as a mechanism to provide a plastic sense of meaning or identity.
While theism assigns a non-existant entity with rights not possessed by human beings, statism assigns certain human beings with rights not possessed by everyone else. While religious ideologies conflict over who rules the universe and how they do it, political ideologies conflict over who rules over other human beings and how they do it. In electoral politics, certain human beings are deified and people conflict over which deifed human being should rule over everyone else. For many people, the election rallies and political holidays are just as much of a "spiritual experience" as any religious ceremony at a fundamentalist christian church. People literally have faith in politicians, bureaucrats, nations, and states and they use that which is attributed to them as a way to legitimize their personal biases and their actions. The health of political power relies in large part on the exploitation of the religious impulse in the broadest sense through the use of rituals, symbolism, illusions, grandios promises, bread and circuses.
Many political assumptions are essentially forcibly inherented from parents and cultural norms, just like in theism. While religions tend to promise a utopia after death, political ideologies tend to promise a utopia during life. Both make use of fear and guilt and exploit the pessemism within people to elicit obedience. The morality of politics is based on arbitrary authority rather than reason. "The law" has the same functionality as a deity's alleged words or religious texts. The individual must submit in spite of their rational evaluation. Furthermore, politics provides a mechanism by which people can enforce their personal preferances and their incorrect conceptions of morality onto innocent bystanders. Politics is more dangerous than religion is by itself, since it is only through the mechanisms of politics that religion can be tyrannical on a large scale. Politics is the opiate of the masses.
Monday, July 28, 2008
The Pluralism of Liberty
[cross-posted at Brainpolice at The Mises Community]
The concept of individual liberty, consistantly applied, would seem to have pluralistic implications. For it leaves room for anyone to act as they please within the context of voluntary interpersonal relations, and by its very nature a society consists of a plurality of different types of people with a plurality of traits and preferances. Individualism, when applied to an entire society of people, recognizes the high degree of diversity among individuals, that each individual is fundamentally different from the other in some way. On the other hand, collectivism and the fallacy of holism that is often present in sociological analysis views a society as if it were a singular autonamous individual or as if it is unanimous, hence failing to recognize the the inherently plural nature of human interpersonal relations. The abstractions of group identities obscures the individual and the diversity within a given group and creates false dichotomies that pits each respective group against the other.
While all human beings share some fundamental features that define them as human beings, when one looks beyond these fundamental features one finds extreme complexity and variation. Noone's traits, preferances and desires are entirely identical to anyone else's. This is especially true with respect to aesthetic experience and taste. What type of food tastes the best, what kind of music or art is the most pleasing to the eye or ear, which fiction books are the most interesting, which person is the most attractive? These are all questions that each individual may very well have a completely different answer to. There is no real "objective" answer to such questions, and by "objective" I mean universally true irrespective of time or place or context or perspective. Such preferances are inherently not universal and they always change over time. Neither do I think that there is any moral imperative to choose one such preferance over any other. Noone has an obligation to choose Bach over Debussy or Robert Heinline over Isaac Assimov.
Considering the extreme diversity among the personal preferances of human beings, some important questions arise. Does this imply that everyone must inherently conflict with eachother? The short answer is no. The fact that Joe prefers X and Jack prefers Y does not inherently imply that either Joe must enforce their preferance on Jack or vice versa. It is perfectly possible for both Joe and Jack to each get what they want for themselves, especially if each of them has to can produce or obtain what the other wants and make a voluntary exchange of values. Or each of them can individually persue and obtain what they want. The only way in which this can occur, of course, is in the context of voluntary interpersonal relations. One must recognize the liberty of the individual to pursue their own personally preferances and happiness without infringement by others and without infringing on the like liberty of anyone else to do the same. Equality of liberty. Once this basic principle is established, everything else has total free reign, and the outcome will inherently be highly pluralistic in light of the vast diversity between human beings.
What kind of system makes the most sense in consideration of the conflicts of personal preferance between people? A properly formed answer to this question must question one of it's premises in the first place, I.E. the alleged "need" for a singular or universal system. No singular system or central plan can take such a diversity into account. The only thing that can take such diversity into account is a process by which people can voluntarily choose or not choose systems. So the answer does not lie in a particular system but within the broader context of an overall framework in which systems can be experimented with. In short, the answer to the question is: the free market and anarchism, which are essentially the same thing in a certain context. "The free market" and "anarchism" is not a system but a process and framework by which systems are chosen. The idea is that each individual may voluntarily choose what type of associations and organizations they wish to participate in and patronize. Noone may legitimately force their particular prefered kind of association or organization onto anyone else. The moment that one proposes a singular system or plan for an entire society or the entire world, equality of liberty has been breached and the plural nature of humanity isn't properly being taken into account.
If a particular preferance truly is superior, it will prove itself to be superior, not by force but as consequence of competiting on the basis of its own merits. The use of force in such matters to universally coerce an entire society into a given system is the choice of cowards who are not willing to genuinely put their own ideas and preferances to the test. If someone genuinely thinks that their prefered system is optimal, then they should feel no need to resort to coercion to implement their system. The fact that someone wishes to coercively enforce their system onto others would seem to indicate some degree of uncertainty on their own part, a lack of genuine confidence and a reversion to childish means of getting what they want. It also demonstrates a lack of tolerance for the fact that there are other people who disagree, who have different preferances. Those who think that the only option is either coercively imposing their preferances onto others or having other people do the same to them have set up a false dichotomy that ignores the option to simply "live and let live", to allow each individual the liberty to pursue their personal preferances and possibly mutually obtain them. There is no reason why all parties cannot win.
Unless everyone magically became entirely identical or unanimous, which blatantly goes against how individuals actually are and/or work, individual liberty is inherently pluralistic in its implications. Competition and monopoly are opposed in principle. One cannot survive without the elimination of the other. Perhaps what really scares people about individual liberty is the fact that in a free society they indeed would have to be tolerant of the co-existance of people with different preferances and who participate in different kinds of associations and different forms of organization. "Capitalists" are uncomfortable with the prospect of people forming cooperatives or communes, "communists" are uncomfortable with the prospect of people working for wages or engaging in trade for profit, "racists" are uncomfortable with the prospect of people from different races interacting and mixing, and so on and so forth. The true proponent of liberty is perfectly fine with all of it so long as it is within the context of voluntary choice, with equality of liberty. If they are truly are confident in the inefficiency of a particular preferance or mode of organization, they won't think it can possibly survive the competition in the long run anyways.
Subcategories of anarchism such as "anarcho-capitalism", "anarcho-syndicalism", "anarcho-primitivism", and so on, are only genuinely anarchic if the adjectives placed after the "anarcho" are viewed as personal preferances, perhaps that the individual thinks are ultimately the most efficient and sustainable, that they will survive the competition. But the moment that any such adjectives are proposed as universal systems or central plans, the moment that one advocates them as something that everyone must choose or live under, it ceases to be anarchism and reduces to the proposal for a new state. This is why I consider pluralism to be such an important principle with respect to anarchism. The truly consistant proponent of liberty is a pluralist in that they have no problem with the peaceful co-existance of people with different preferances, the co-existance of various associations and organizations or organizational forms. They are keenly aware of the diversity among human beings and have no desire to force them all into a single mold. They support the ability of everyone to foster their own individuality without coercive restraints. In short, they are aware of the pluralism of liberty.
The concept of individual liberty, consistantly applied, would seem to have pluralistic implications. For it leaves room for anyone to act as they please within the context of voluntary interpersonal relations, and by its very nature a society consists of a plurality of different types of people with a plurality of traits and preferances. Individualism, when applied to an entire society of people, recognizes the high degree of diversity among individuals, that each individual is fundamentally different from the other in some way. On the other hand, collectivism and the fallacy of holism that is often present in sociological analysis views a society as if it were a singular autonamous individual or as if it is unanimous, hence failing to recognize the the inherently plural nature of human interpersonal relations. The abstractions of group identities obscures the individual and the diversity within a given group and creates false dichotomies that pits each respective group against the other.
While all human beings share some fundamental features that define them as human beings, when one looks beyond these fundamental features one finds extreme complexity and variation. Noone's traits, preferances and desires are entirely identical to anyone else's. This is especially true with respect to aesthetic experience and taste. What type of food tastes the best, what kind of music or art is the most pleasing to the eye or ear, which fiction books are the most interesting, which person is the most attractive? These are all questions that each individual may very well have a completely different answer to. There is no real "objective" answer to such questions, and by "objective" I mean universally true irrespective of time or place or context or perspective. Such preferances are inherently not universal and they always change over time. Neither do I think that there is any moral imperative to choose one such preferance over any other. Noone has an obligation to choose Bach over Debussy or Robert Heinline over Isaac Assimov.
Considering the extreme diversity among the personal preferances of human beings, some important questions arise. Does this imply that everyone must inherently conflict with eachother? The short answer is no. The fact that Joe prefers X and Jack prefers Y does not inherently imply that either Joe must enforce their preferance on Jack or vice versa. It is perfectly possible for both Joe and Jack to each get what they want for themselves, especially if each of them has to can produce or obtain what the other wants and make a voluntary exchange of values. Or each of them can individually persue and obtain what they want. The only way in which this can occur, of course, is in the context of voluntary interpersonal relations. One must recognize the liberty of the individual to pursue their own personally preferances and happiness without infringement by others and without infringing on the like liberty of anyone else to do the same. Equality of liberty. Once this basic principle is established, everything else has total free reign, and the outcome will inherently be highly pluralistic in light of the vast diversity between human beings.
What kind of system makes the most sense in consideration of the conflicts of personal preferance between people? A properly formed answer to this question must question one of it's premises in the first place, I.E. the alleged "need" for a singular or universal system. No singular system or central plan can take such a diversity into account. The only thing that can take such diversity into account is a process by which people can voluntarily choose or not choose systems. So the answer does not lie in a particular system but within the broader context of an overall framework in which systems can be experimented with. In short, the answer to the question is: the free market and anarchism, which are essentially the same thing in a certain context. "The free market" and "anarchism" is not a system but a process and framework by which systems are chosen. The idea is that each individual may voluntarily choose what type of associations and organizations they wish to participate in and patronize. Noone may legitimately force their particular prefered kind of association or organization onto anyone else. The moment that one proposes a singular system or plan for an entire society or the entire world, equality of liberty has been breached and the plural nature of humanity isn't properly being taken into account.
If a particular preferance truly is superior, it will prove itself to be superior, not by force but as consequence of competiting on the basis of its own merits. The use of force in such matters to universally coerce an entire society into a given system is the choice of cowards who are not willing to genuinely put their own ideas and preferances to the test. If someone genuinely thinks that their prefered system is optimal, then they should feel no need to resort to coercion to implement their system. The fact that someone wishes to coercively enforce their system onto others would seem to indicate some degree of uncertainty on their own part, a lack of genuine confidence and a reversion to childish means of getting what they want. It also demonstrates a lack of tolerance for the fact that there are other people who disagree, who have different preferances. Those who think that the only option is either coercively imposing their preferances onto others or having other people do the same to them have set up a false dichotomy that ignores the option to simply "live and let live", to allow each individual the liberty to pursue their personal preferances and possibly mutually obtain them. There is no reason why all parties cannot win.
Unless everyone magically became entirely identical or unanimous, which blatantly goes against how individuals actually are and/or work, individual liberty is inherently pluralistic in its implications. Competition and monopoly are opposed in principle. One cannot survive without the elimination of the other. Perhaps what really scares people about individual liberty is the fact that in a free society they indeed would have to be tolerant of the co-existance of people with different preferances and who participate in different kinds of associations and different forms of organization. "Capitalists" are uncomfortable with the prospect of people forming cooperatives or communes, "communists" are uncomfortable with the prospect of people working for wages or engaging in trade for profit, "racists" are uncomfortable with the prospect of people from different races interacting and mixing, and so on and so forth. The true proponent of liberty is perfectly fine with all of it so long as it is within the context of voluntary choice, with equality of liberty. If they are truly are confident in the inefficiency of a particular preferance or mode of organization, they won't think it can possibly survive the competition in the long run anyways.
Subcategories of anarchism such as "anarcho-capitalism", "anarcho-syndicalism", "anarcho-primitivism", and so on, are only genuinely anarchic if the adjectives placed after the "anarcho" are viewed as personal preferances, perhaps that the individual thinks are ultimately the most efficient and sustainable, that they will survive the competition. But the moment that any such adjectives are proposed as universal systems or central plans, the moment that one advocates them as something that everyone must choose or live under, it ceases to be anarchism and reduces to the proposal for a new state. This is why I consider pluralism to be such an important principle with respect to anarchism. The truly consistant proponent of liberty is a pluralist in that they have no problem with the peaceful co-existance of people with different preferances, the co-existance of various associations and organizations or organizational forms. They are keenly aware of the diversity among human beings and have no desire to force them all into a single mold. They support the ability of everyone to foster their own individuality without coercive restraints. In short, they are aware of the pluralism of liberty.
Saturday, July 26, 2008
Directions for Research on Decentralization
From a conversation elsewhere:
I think it's absolutely relevant to explore the ways in which social problems can be solved without a centralized decisionmaker. Ultimately, so-called "market-anarchists" are rejecting the state model for social organization, and are suggesting that it be replaced with a model which relies on decentralized decision-making. Accordingly, it seems worthwhile to discuss some of the ways in which that model can be expected to function, if only to educate the market actors who are being expected to make the system work. After all, keep in mind that anarchy can only function in an ideological atmosphere where people don't want a state. If they do want a state, or don't know how to make things work without one, then they will have a state: you can bet on that.
So as philosophers, economists, etc., it's our job to show why centralized decisionmaking entities like our national governments provide inferior mechanisms for social organization. There are several parts of this argument which need to work in concert in order to truly convince people that decentralized decisionmaking is a truly better alternative. Relying on only one, and leaving out the others, will leave many people unsatisfied, as we're clearly seeing here. As I see it, those in favor of decentralization need to show the following:
1) The model of social organization which holds that everyone needs to get together and find the right answer, and then apply the right answer in the right way, is flawed. There is no "right answer" to social problems which can be discovered, even if we get the smartest, most creative, most honest people together to work on them, and even if there were, there would be no "right way" to implement it that could be instituted by coercing individuals to play their "part" in the solution. As David Schmidtz wrote in his book Elements of Justice, "In effect, there are two ways to agree: We agree on what is correct, or on who has jurisdiction - who gets to decide. Freedom of religion took the latter form; we learned to be liberals in matters of religion, reaching consensus not on what to believe but on who gets to decide. So too with freedom of speech. Isn't it odd that our greatest successes in learning how to live together stem not from agreeing on what is correct but from agreeing to let people decide for themselves?" (6). The advocate of decentralization takes this idea to its extreme, and needs to justify that position. Was John Rawls correct when, in his book Justice as Fairness, he suggested that there are "...profound and irreconcilable differences in citizens' reasonable comprehensive religious and philosophical conceptions of the world, and in their views of the moral and aesthetic values to be sought in human life" (3)? And if so, why is decentralization the proper response?
2) Decentralized solutions can effectively solve social problems, or perform comparably well compared to centralized solutions, or have benefits which make them more desirable than centralized solutions, in spite of their comparative weaknesses. Most people believe that a system of social organization should be judged, at least in part, by its capacity to bring about desirable social outcomes. Economics teaches us that in the absence of cooperation, markets can fail: free riders, externalities, collective action problems, tragedies of the commons, and prisoners' dilemmas can lead individuals acting separately to undesirable outcomes by the standards of all involved (see on this James Buchanan's essay, "Positive Economics, Welfare Economics, and Political Economy"). Advocates of decentralization need not only satisfy the alleged "statists" and "collectivists", who see government as a perfect substitute for a necessarily imperfect market, but also more reasonable objectors who see centralized solutions as having at least some potential for bringing about solutions in instances of prohibitive transaction costs. For example, in his essay, "Market-Based Environmentalism and the Free Market: Substitutes or Complements?," Peter J. Hill writes:
Advocates of decentralization need to show that actually, we should automatically rule out the kinds of solutions that can be produced through government intervention, or that decentralized solutions are capable of effectively emulating government intervention, so we don't lose tools from our policymaking toolkit when we move towards decentralization, or that decentralized solutions can actually produce solutions which work somewhat like government interventions, but are either inherently or more likely to be better suited to solving the problems with which they are charged.
3) Disputes can be resolved effectively and without violence in the absence of centralization of authority. In many ways, international law, corporate and industry dispute resolution, private arbitration, and private security companies set the stage for this conversation. But on the other hand, state imperialism, genocide, human rights violations, and the ineffectiveness of the UN (which lacks sovereignty) bring up questions which demand answers. Advocates of decentralization need to explain how a system without a central authority could bring about the settlement of disputes between individuals and groups effectively and predictably. And further, they need to show that such a system would be adequately resistant to things like bribing, corruption, and caprice, as well as being capable of enforcing rulings effectively. Failing this, decentralists would need to present the case that a decentralized system is more desirable for reasons which are not generally appreciated, perhaps because it would better preserve freedom of choice, it would recognize a lack of objective standards of justice (particularly procedural justice), or it would be better on balance than a centralized solution because of some flaw in the latter.
4) A decentralized system would be beneficial for those members of society who are less advantaged. Any "solution" which explicitly consigns people to death by starvation, exposure, or lack of routine medical care will simply be unacceptable to many people, and for good reason. Advocates of decentralization need to show how disadvantaged groups would benefit or at least not be made worse off by decentralization. And it will not do to demonstrate that those in need can be expected to be generally better off than they would be in other systems. Decentralists must show that there is no reason to worry about the fate of the disadvantaged in a decentralized society, at least any more than we worry in our current society. Alternatively, a case needs to be presented in substantially more convincing fashion that concern about the fate of those in need is misplaced.
5) There is historical precedent for effective decentralized decision-making. This one seems pretty self-explanatory, but ultimately it will not be the advocates of decentralization who actually go out and create the decentralized order which they are promoting. As the saying goes, there is no plan for freedom. Accordingly, it will be important to show that individuals who were not philosophers or "anarchists" have been able to successfully make decentralized decision-making mechanisms work for them, ideally without even realizing that they were doing it. Perhaps more importantly, it will be desirable to demonstrate why the failures of certain ventures in decentralized decision-making do not demonstrate a failure in the general idea.
And personally, I don't think that's such an unreasonable research program. I actually think there's something in there for almost everyone. And luckily, there's a lot already out there to start from. I've actually been toying around with the idea of putting together some sort of association of people working on these issues, and would love to hear from anyone who's interested in joining the effort.
I recognize that something like this already exists in Polycentric Order. But I had in mind a slightly more formal venture, which would be built around articles and papers, and which would also be concerned with cataloging and disseminating existing work on various areas of scholarship relating to decentralization, as well as spreading awareness about decentralization in both the public sphere and in academia. Anyway, drop me a line if you're interested.
I think it's absolutely relevant to explore the ways in which social problems can be solved without a centralized decisionmaker. Ultimately, so-called "market-anarchists" are rejecting the state model for social organization, and are suggesting that it be replaced with a model which relies on decentralized decision-making. Accordingly, it seems worthwhile to discuss some of the ways in which that model can be expected to function, if only to educate the market actors who are being expected to make the system work. After all, keep in mind that anarchy can only function in an ideological atmosphere where people don't want a state. If they do want a state, or don't know how to make things work without one, then they will have a state: you can bet on that.
So as philosophers, economists, etc., it's our job to show why centralized decisionmaking entities like our national governments provide inferior mechanisms for social organization. There are several parts of this argument which need to work in concert in order to truly convince people that decentralized decisionmaking is a truly better alternative. Relying on only one, and leaving out the others, will leave many people unsatisfied, as we're clearly seeing here. As I see it, those in favor of decentralization need to show the following:
1) The model of social organization which holds that everyone needs to get together and find the right answer, and then apply the right answer in the right way, is flawed. There is no "right answer" to social problems which can be discovered, even if we get the smartest, most creative, most honest people together to work on them, and even if there were, there would be no "right way" to implement it that could be instituted by coercing individuals to play their "part" in the solution. As David Schmidtz wrote in his book Elements of Justice, "In effect, there are two ways to agree: We agree on what is correct, or on who has jurisdiction - who gets to decide. Freedom of religion took the latter form; we learned to be liberals in matters of religion, reaching consensus not on what to believe but on who gets to decide. So too with freedom of speech. Isn't it odd that our greatest successes in learning how to live together stem not from agreeing on what is correct but from agreeing to let people decide for themselves?" (6). The advocate of decentralization takes this idea to its extreme, and needs to justify that position. Was John Rawls correct when, in his book Justice as Fairness, he suggested that there are "...profound and irreconcilable differences in citizens' reasonable comprehensive religious and philosophical conceptions of the world, and in their views of the moral and aesthetic values to be sought in human life" (3)? And if so, why is decentralization the proper response?
2) Decentralized solutions can effectively solve social problems, or perform comparably well compared to centralized solutions, or have benefits which make them more desirable than centralized solutions, in spite of their comparative weaknesses. Most people believe that a system of social organization should be judged, at least in part, by its capacity to bring about desirable social outcomes. Economics teaches us that in the absence of cooperation, markets can fail: free riders, externalities, collective action problems, tragedies of the commons, and prisoners' dilemmas can lead individuals acting separately to undesirable outcomes by the standards of all involved (see on this James Buchanan's essay, "Positive Economics, Welfare Economics, and Political Economy"). Advocates of decentralization need not only satisfy the alleged "statists" and "collectivists", who see government as a perfect substitute for a necessarily imperfect market, but also more reasonable objectors who see centralized solutions as having at least some potential for bringing about solutions in instances of prohibitive transaction costs. For example, in his essay, "Market-Based Environmentalism and the Free Market: Substitutes or Complements?," Peter J. Hill writes:
Market solutions are superior to coercive ones because voluntary exchange offers the assurance that social interactions are mutually advantageous. However, transaction costs prevent some potentially profitable voluntary exchanges from taking place. Through the use of appropriate rules, government can provide feasible alternatives. In the standard examples of roads and national defense, the transaction costs of individual exchange are high and the free-rider problem is substantial. Thus, there is at least some potential for using tax-financed provision of these public goods as a corrective mechanism. Of course, government provision of public goods is fraught with numerous problems, and one ought not to be overly optimistic that government will get it right. However, we should not automatically rule out all government intervention (389).
3) Disputes can be resolved effectively and without violence in the absence of centralization of authority. In many ways, international law, corporate and industry dispute resolution, private arbitration, and private security companies set the stage for this conversation. But on the other hand, state imperialism, genocide, human rights violations, and the ineffectiveness of the UN (which lacks sovereignty) bring up questions which demand answers. Advocates of decentralization need to explain how a system without a central authority could bring about the settlement of disputes between individuals and groups effectively and predictably. And further, they need to show that such a system would be adequately resistant to things like bribing, corruption, and caprice, as well as being capable of enforcing rulings effectively. Failing this, decentralists would need to present the case that a decentralized system is more desirable for reasons which are not generally appreciated, perhaps because it would better preserve freedom of choice, it would recognize a lack of objective standards of justice (particularly procedural justice), or it would be better on balance than a centralized solution because of some flaw in the latter.
4) A decentralized system would be beneficial for those members of society who are less advantaged. Any "solution" which explicitly consigns people to death by starvation, exposure, or lack of routine medical care will simply be unacceptable to many people, and for good reason. Advocates of decentralization need to show how disadvantaged groups would benefit or at least not be made worse off by decentralization. And it will not do to demonstrate that those in need can be expected to be generally better off than they would be in other systems. Decentralists must show that there is no reason to worry about the fate of the disadvantaged in a decentralized society, at least any more than we worry in our current society. Alternatively, a case needs to be presented in substantially more convincing fashion that concern about the fate of those in need is misplaced.
5) There is historical precedent for effective decentralized decision-making. This one seems pretty self-explanatory, but ultimately it will not be the advocates of decentralization who actually go out and create the decentralized order which they are promoting. As the saying goes, there is no plan for freedom. Accordingly, it will be important to show that individuals who were not philosophers or "anarchists" have been able to successfully make decentralized decision-making mechanisms work for them, ideally without even realizing that they were doing it. Perhaps more importantly, it will be desirable to demonstrate why the failures of certain ventures in decentralized decision-making do not demonstrate a failure in the general idea.
And personally, I don't think that's such an unreasonable research program. I actually think there's something in there for almost everyone. And luckily, there's a lot already out there to start from. I've actually been toying around with the idea of putting together some sort of association of people working on these issues, and would love to hear from anyone who's interested in joining the effort.
I recognize that something like this already exists in Polycentric Order. But I had in mind a slightly more formal venture, which would be built around articles and papers, and which would also be concerned with cataloging and disseminating existing work on various areas of scholarship relating to decentralization, as well as spreading awareness about decentralization in both the public sphere and in academia. Anyway, drop me a line if you're interested.
Thursday, July 17, 2008
Objects Are Morally Neutral
[cross-posted at Brainpolice at The Mises Community]
I've always been a stickler for the notion that objects are morally neutral. This notion usually comes to play in debates about gun prohibition, to counter people essentially claiming that guns are causal determinant for violence in and of themselves, but of course they truly aren't causal determinants, only instrumental means. A gun can be used to murder someone or to defend someone from an attempted murderer. In either case, the moral neutrality of objects has implications more far reaching than the issue of gun control. For example, there is the idea among some people that money is the root of all evil, but money is only a means and object that one can use for a plethora of purposes, both good and bad.
In the case of both the gun prohibitionist and the "anti-monetarist", an object is claimed to be intrinsically and absolutely evil merely because sometimes certain people may use them towards negative ends, and the abolition of the object is proposed as a solution. The problem is that no such intrinsic value exists in such objects, and morality judges actions, not tools. There is nothing about such tools in and of themselves that can be rationally assigned with moral properties. What matters from the perspective of morality are the actions that people engage in while using such objects. While the nature of an object may certainly be to facilitate a particular end, it is only the end in question and the way in which the object is used that can be morally judged, not the object itself.
Some may nitpick and try to find acceptions to the rule by pointing to something such as nuclear weaponry, which can function for nothing but mass destruction. But once again it would not be the mere existance of the object itself that can constitute immorality, it would be the decision of an individual to make offensive use of them. Isolated from any decision on the part of people and interaction between people and the object, the object has no moral significance whatsoever. Personally, in an ideal world I'd like all nuclear weapons to be jettison into the sun. Of course, I don't except that to happen. But all the same my own weariness about nuclear weapons does not stem from a moral condemnation of the object itself, but an awareness of the general danger of the object itself when used by human beings.
The moral condemnation of objects would seem to naturally lead towards primitivism the more consistantly that one applies it. What is contemporary industrial civilization but the extensive use of objects for the purposes of mass-production to appease human needs and wants? Instead of opposing power or institutional frameworks or bad ideas, the neo-luddite puts all of their energy into opposing objects, tools, instruments. They misplace blame entirely, effectively ignoring the role of individual action. They only emphasize the negative possibilities for how objects can be used while acting as if they have no positive use.
It should be fairly obvious why objects cannot be assigned with moral properties. Objects are not moral agents, they do not have conciousness or willpower, they do not think or act. A rock cannot be blamed for anything, it makes no sense to assign responsibilities to it. A rock can only be an instrumental tool for something that one can blame a human being for. It is possible for a rock to be thrown at someone to harm them, and it just as possible that a rock can be turned into a statue or carving or used to build a building. Indeed, treating objects as moral agents leads to absurdity, as such objects would have to be regaurded as if they were human beings. Surely one doesn't want to end up at the reductio ad absurdum of arresting objects for disturbing the peace.
I've always been a stickler for the notion that objects are morally neutral. This notion usually comes to play in debates about gun prohibition, to counter people essentially claiming that guns are causal determinant for violence in and of themselves, but of course they truly aren't causal determinants, only instrumental means. A gun can be used to murder someone or to defend someone from an attempted murderer. In either case, the moral neutrality of objects has implications more far reaching than the issue of gun control. For example, there is the idea among some people that money is the root of all evil, but money is only a means and object that one can use for a plethora of purposes, both good and bad.
In the case of both the gun prohibitionist and the "anti-monetarist", an object is claimed to be intrinsically and absolutely evil merely because sometimes certain people may use them towards negative ends, and the abolition of the object is proposed as a solution. The problem is that no such intrinsic value exists in such objects, and morality judges actions, not tools. There is nothing about such tools in and of themselves that can be rationally assigned with moral properties. What matters from the perspective of morality are the actions that people engage in while using such objects. While the nature of an object may certainly be to facilitate a particular end, it is only the end in question and the way in which the object is used that can be morally judged, not the object itself.
Some may nitpick and try to find acceptions to the rule by pointing to something such as nuclear weaponry, which can function for nothing but mass destruction. But once again it would not be the mere existance of the object itself that can constitute immorality, it would be the decision of an individual to make offensive use of them. Isolated from any decision on the part of people and interaction between people and the object, the object has no moral significance whatsoever. Personally, in an ideal world I'd like all nuclear weapons to be jettison into the sun. Of course, I don't except that to happen. But all the same my own weariness about nuclear weapons does not stem from a moral condemnation of the object itself, but an awareness of the general danger of the object itself when used by human beings.
The moral condemnation of objects would seem to naturally lead towards primitivism the more consistantly that one applies it. What is contemporary industrial civilization but the extensive use of objects for the purposes of mass-production to appease human needs and wants? Instead of opposing power or institutional frameworks or bad ideas, the neo-luddite puts all of their energy into opposing objects, tools, instruments. They misplace blame entirely, effectively ignoring the role of individual action. They only emphasize the negative possibilities for how objects can be used while acting as if they have no positive use.
It should be fairly obvious why objects cannot be assigned with moral properties. Objects are not moral agents, they do not have conciousness or willpower, they do not think or act. A rock cannot be blamed for anything, it makes no sense to assign responsibilities to it. A rock can only be an instrumental tool for something that one can blame a human being for. It is possible for a rock to be thrown at someone to harm them, and it just as possible that a rock can be turned into a statue or carving or used to build a building. Indeed, treating objects as moral agents leads to absurdity, as such objects would have to be regaurded as if they were human beings. Surely one doesn't want to end up at the reductio ad absurdum of arresting objects for disturbing the peace.
Saturday, July 12, 2008
Environmental Protection
Crossposted from Anarchy Is Not Chaos
(rubbing hands together) How deep down the rabbit hole shall I go?
Short form. The Government's proper role in protecting the environment is no role at all. In fact, the Government's proper role is a bookshelf, as a part of a really DETAILED encyclopedia of long term folly. It is my firm belief that if humanity survives, it will be with the abolition of central government. It's concept damned for all eternity, and regularly discussed lest people forget.
Nobody likes to shit where they eat. NOBODY. Corporate and Government pollution are relics, maintained because they are AFRAID to change, AND get massive kickbacks and opportunities to loot BECAUSE of the enforced and archaic regulations.
Regulate in the old sense, in particular to set standards AS A REFERENCE, makes perfect sense. Organizations that did this would have to be sensitive to changes in technology and scales of economy. Yet the trend, even prior to pollution laws, was always to find ways to clean up manufacturing processes. It was not uniform nor regular. It is usually more efficient to produce less waste in ANY process. But humans don't design that way. We figure out the crude way to do something. We establish the possible. THEN we improve it!
There is a vast, largely untapped market out there for effective control of pollution. I'm part of it. I love the outdoors. And I'd no sooner regulate industry and pollution by force then I would deliberately shoot off my pecker.
Most people I've met feel the way I do. If we thought it would do a damn thing for the problem, we'd go out of our way to buy recycled goods, even though more expensive at present, we'd try to find new ways of production that are less polluting and more efficient, and we would outcompete those who failed to keep up.
Yet it's not happening like that. The old ways, especially in the East where I currently live, are kept alive artificially by both regulations that make impossible demands and exemptions for existing facilities. Both hamper the improvement of the environment DIRECTLY.
Where these regulations don't exist or are much less, factories and mines tend to VOLUNTARILY be built and improved to exacting standards, often the state of the art in pollution control. Even where it's required by force, new factories in areas that are not traditionally given to heavy industry are built BETTER than the regulation requires. But because of the lobbying going on, along with often stupidly obvious scams disguised loosely as "environmental regulations" that stipulate EQUIPMENT instead of results, a great deal of time, money, and resources are wasted and polluted instead of allowing industry to figure it out on their own. The issue has been raised, the cry has been heard, and if you give an engineer a problem to solve, he will. If you give him a problem to solve with SPECIFIC EQUIPMENT with no or little variation involved, you likely increase the problems.
I'll give you a specific example. I can't recall who invented the thing, but in 1974 a law was passed requiring EGR systems on all new vehicles manufactured in the United States and imported from certain countries. (others were exempt do to various treaties and agreements. Even in this, the law utterly failed to be uniform). Problem was, it didn't work very well. It did, as advertised, reduce the specific emissions BY RATIO in the exhaust gasses of the vehicles so equipped. Sounds ok so far, right?
WRONG. EGR systems severely reduced the efficiency of the engine. So while the RATIO was smaller, given how much more fuel the car consumed, the actual AMOUNT Of pollution was DIRECTLY increased by this idiotic law.
To the credit of the engineers in the automotive industry, they did eventually make EGR systems work. But it required the invention of the engine manangement system, to whit computers, to even START to get the kinks out. The technology to make it work was simply not available at the time the law was passed. They would have been better off funding research on the damn things as ONE possible avenue to emissions reduction. It's hardly the only way. In 1999, a Honda Civic model met the ULEVIII standard in exhaust emissions and fuel efficiency, yet was initially denied entry into the united states. Yet that standard is JUST NOW a legal mandate. It was denied on the basis of not having a standard EGR system. They did it radically different and reduced the horsepower and efficiency losses tremendously, while emitting both less by volume AND ratio of the specific gasses that the EGR system is supposed to contain.
But the equipment was not "approved" by our government EVEN THOUGH IT DEMONSTRABLY WORKED. In one of the rare instances of Justice prevailing over Law, Honda et al. won that lawsuit and were able to import the car. Their innovation is now standard on most cars. Think how far we'd get if EVERY engineer with balls, brains, and a budget were set to working on the problem WITHOUT constraint! Why specify EGR, when you can merely specify the desired outcome? Brilliant people have brilliant ideas. It's what they do. Restricting them with stupid regulations makes for stupid outcomes. Even when well intentioned. Most of the political environmental movement doesn't have good intentions. They are in fact traitors to the human race, and openly so. Almost all of the "mainstream" environmental agitators and absolutely all of the fringe ones favor the vast reduction of the human race and curtailment of reproduction. In short, they think we haven't the right to exist.
I am deeply concerned about the environment. I don't think we can truly harm the earth, in the long term, but we can harm ourselves a great deal. Using government, the largest enabler of pollution that has ever existed, to combat the problem makes about as much sense as putting your dick in a meat grinder.
But Free Men are concerned about the issue. A whole lot of us are. Should we gain the freedom to act, WE WILL SOLVE IT! And we'll create new problems. And we'll solve them, too. It's what we do.
The only reason I do not favor a violent, armed revolution is that too many good people would be killed, and another fucking government would probably come out the other end. This is why I'm an agorist. Subversion, competition, and open contempt are better weapons than the arms that we still need for Mr. Justin Case.
(rubbing hands together) How deep down the rabbit hole shall I go?
Short form. The Government's proper role in protecting the environment is no role at all. In fact, the Government's proper role is a bookshelf, as a part of a really DETAILED encyclopedia of long term folly. It is my firm belief that if humanity survives, it will be with the abolition of central government. It's concept damned for all eternity, and regularly discussed lest people forget.
Nobody likes to shit where they eat. NOBODY. Corporate and Government pollution are relics, maintained because they are AFRAID to change, AND get massive kickbacks and opportunities to loot BECAUSE of the enforced and archaic regulations.
Regulate in the old sense, in particular to set standards AS A REFERENCE, makes perfect sense. Organizations that did this would have to be sensitive to changes in technology and scales of economy. Yet the trend, even prior to pollution laws, was always to find ways to clean up manufacturing processes. It was not uniform nor regular. It is usually more efficient to produce less waste in ANY process. But humans don't design that way. We figure out the crude way to do something. We establish the possible. THEN we improve it!
There is a vast, largely untapped market out there for effective control of pollution. I'm part of it. I love the outdoors. And I'd no sooner regulate industry and pollution by force then I would deliberately shoot off my pecker.
Most people I've met feel the way I do. If we thought it would do a damn thing for the problem, we'd go out of our way to buy recycled goods, even though more expensive at present, we'd try to find new ways of production that are less polluting and more efficient, and we would outcompete those who failed to keep up.
Yet it's not happening like that. The old ways, especially in the East where I currently live, are kept alive artificially by both regulations that make impossible demands and exemptions for existing facilities. Both hamper the improvement of the environment DIRECTLY.
Where these regulations don't exist or are much less, factories and mines tend to VOLUNTARILY be built and improved to exacting standards, often the state of the art in pollution control. Even where it's required by force, new factories in areas that are not traditionally given to heavy industry are built BETTER than the regulation requires. But because of the lobbying going on, along with often stupidly obvious scams disguised loosely as "environmental regulations" that stipulate EQUIPMENT instead of results, a great deal of time, money, and resources are wasted and polluted instead of allowing industry to figure it out on their own. The issue has been raised, the cry has been heard, and if you give an engineer a problem to solve, he will. If you give him a problem to solve with SPECIFIC EQUIPMENT with no or little variation involved, you likely increase the problems.
I'll give you a specific example. I can't recall who invented the thing, but in 1974 a law was passed requiring EGR systems on all new vehicles manufactured in the United States and imported from certain countries. (others were exempt do to various treaties and agreements. Even in this, the law utterly failed to be uniform). Problem was, it didn't work very well. It did, as advertised, reduce the specific emissions BY RATIO in the exhaust gasses of the vehicles so equipped. Sounds ok so far, right?
WRONG. EGR systems severely reduced the efficiency of the engine. So while the RATIO was smaller, given how much more fuel the car consumed, the actual AMOUNT Of pollution was DIRECTLY increased by this idiotic law.
To the credit of the engineers in the automotive industry, they did eventually make EGR systems work. But it required the invention of the engine manangement system, to whit computers, to even START to get the kinks out. The technology to make it work was simply not available at the time the law was passed. They would have been better off funding research on the damn things as ONE possible avenue to emissions reduction. It's hardly the only way. In 1999, a Honda Civic model met the ULEVIII standard in exhaust emissions and fuel efficiency, yet was initially denied entry into the united states. Yet that standard is JUST NOW a legal mandate. It was denied on the basis of not having a standard EGR system. They did it radically different and reduced the horsepower and efficiency losses tremendously, while emitting both less by volume AND ratio of the specific gasses that the EGR system is supposed to contain.
But the equipment was not "approved" by our government EVEN THOUGH IT DEMONSTRABLY WORKED. In one of the rare instances of Justice prevailing over Law, Honda et al. won that lawsuit and were able to import the car. Their innovation is now standard on most cars. Think how far we'd get if EVERY engineer with balls, brains, and a budget were set to working on the problem WITHOUT constraint! Why specify EGR, when you can merely specify the desired outcome? Brilliant people have brilliant ideas. It's what they do. Restricting them with stupid regulations makes for stupid outcomes. Even when well intentioned. Most of the political environmental movement doesn't have good intentions. They are in fact traitors to the human race, and openly so. Almost all of the "mainstream" environmental agitators and absolutely all of the fringe ones favor the vast reduction of the human race and curtailment of reproduction. In short, they think we haven't the right to exist.
I am deeply concerned about the environment. I don't think we can truly harm the earth, in the long term, but we can harm ourselves a great deal. Using government, the largest enabler of pollution that has ever existed, to combat the problem makes about as much sense as putting your dick in a meat grinder.
But Free Men are concerned about the issue. A whole lot of us are. Should we gain the freedom to act, WE WILL SOLVE IT! And we'll create new problems. And we'll solve them, too. It's what we do.
The only reason I do not favor a violent, armed revolution is that too many good people would be killed, and another fucking government would probably come out the other end. This is why I'm an agorist. Subversion, competition, and open contempt are better weapons than the arms that we still need for Mr. Justin Case.
Monday, July 7, 2008
Social Policymaking and the Libertarian Party
[It occurs to me that the beginning of this post is very poorly written, and does not convey the idea that I was trying to get across. I apologize. Feel free to read it anyway, but feel even freer to skip down a little until the next bracketed comment.]
I take it that most libertarians acknowledge that society does need certain institutions and rules in order to operate, and that these rules would require individuals to abide by agreements which might end up with outcomes that they don't particularly like, but have to abide by because of the agreements. For example, if I voluntarily enter into a living arrangement in an incorporated city which is governed by a set of laws, then I must abide by those laws so long as I continue to live in the city. Going further, it seems reasonable to believe that in such a living arrangement, part of my agreement would include a mechanism for deciding on new rules which could be enforced. For example, if the members of my community wanted to employ a lawn mowing service, perhaps we could somehow get together and decide to be bound to contribute to the lawn mowing fund.
Now, what I've just described is a public policy. This public policy would be one that I could advocate for some reason like "I think we can all agree that it would be nice to have mowed lawns in our town, so we should have lawn mowing," or "It seems to me that people aren't motivated to mow their lawns, but would be glad to pay the price of mowing their lawn if for that price they knew they would get their lawn mowed and also get to live in a town of beautifully manicured laws." And given that I would be living in a community where all the members had agreed to abide by the rules turned out by some rule-making procedure, it seems like such a policy would be perfectly consistent with the ideals of anarcho-capitalism.
Hearing this, it might occur to some members of our current social order to suggest something like the following: What's the point of being an anarcho-capitalist if that's what you're going to end up with? If you have a vision of what society should be like, you should try to convince enough people that you're right, and then you can direct the political process towards implementing that vision. That's how democracy is supposed to work, and you just need to get out there and let your voice be heard!
It is this sort of thinking, as far as I can tell, that leads to the idea that a Libertarian Party can be successful. The idea, then, is that if Libertarians get their message out, they can make the government give us back our freedom and stay out of our lives. Society, under such a government, would then be able to decide whether to disband the State entirely or to attempt to maintain a smaller, more limited State. And perhaps both. After all, what's most important is that we start working towards a point where such a conversation could even be possible on a national level.
But notice an interesting feature about what I've said so far about taking a position on social issues. First, I talked about anarcho-capitalism as a starting point, and then talked about public policies that I would personally advocate for implementation in my own society, which I had voluntarily entered, and where the other members could only be bound by rules produced by a procedure that they had directly agreed to. By contrast, the capital-L Libertarians, it appears to me, leave out the first step. Their objective is to determine what rules they would want to govern their society, and then to attempt to have those rules implemented (this manifests itself in some sort of private property regime where there are very few socially enforced rules besides respect for property).
[If you just read the above, see what I mean about me not talking sense? Yea...sorry about that, I wrote the beginning of this post at 2AM last night, and didn't notice how bad it was when I resumed writing today. What follows is the main idea of this post, and hopefully makes sense on its own.]
This difference is not insignificant. To illustrate why, imagine that there is a fraternity, Alpha Beta (AB), which throws a huge party every year with a sorority, Chi Upsilon Zeta (XYZ). Let's say that a member of Alpha Beta, Chad, decides that he doesn't like the XYZ parties and no longer wants to contribute to them, but the other members of AB are willing to use force if necessary to get the money from Chad if he refuses to pay and doesn't leave the fraternity. Chad first considers leaving AB to go live elsewhere, but unfortunately, all the housing with access to his college's campus belongs to the Greek system, and all the other fraternities on campus do things that Chad finds equally lame, but would be forced to contribute to. His situation, I take it, is somewhat analogous to the one in which libertarians find themselves today (though of course Chad could transfer or drop out, but whatever).
Now, if Chad were to pursue the sort of plan I outlined in the beginning of this post, what would he need to do? Essentially, he would have several options. He could attempt to convince the other AB's (or the members of another fraternity) to allow him to build a shed on part of their lawn to sleep in. While in his part of the yard, the fraternity's rules would not apply to him, including the one which forced him to help pay for the party with the XYZ's. Second, he could purchase a patch of yard from the AB's (or another fraternity) which would belong exclusively to him, where he could make rules for himself, and would not need to contribute to any kind of fraternity organization. Third, Chad could claim a patch of lawn for himself and defend it with force of his own if anyone tried to make him contribute to any fraternity programs. There are probably a bunch of other things Chad could do instead. But the common theme here is that what Chad is doing is entering a non-affiliated state of affairs.
I should note that Chad would be an idiot to do this alone, especially if doing this would prevent him from any sort of social cooperation with anyone in the fraternity system. I don't think any reasonable anarcho-capitalist would contend that non-affiliated status would "work" if it meant that people would be out on their own. Being on your own is awful--worse, I think, than being subject to unreasonable and involuntary rule. But this is besides the point of this post.
Now let's contrast the above strategy to the kind of thing that Libertarian Party libertarians are trying to do. Imagine if instead of looking for a way out of the fraternity system, Chad thought to himself, "Well, I don't like the parties with the XYZ's. So what I should do is get AB to stop throwing the parties; if people really want to throw the parties, they can get together and organize the party voluntarily. The AB fraternity shouldn't be involved in the party; the members who want the party should be the ones to organize it." Chad would then try to popularize this idea, and get enough people in AB to agree to stop funding the party to bring about a change in the fraternity's rules. If Chad were like the Libertarian Party, he would go about this goal by trying to convince the youngest and most impressionable members of the fraternity about why the party wasn't so great, and why it would be really great if everyone who wanted the party just got together and had it without involving any of the people who didn't want to have it. Eventually, if Chad were successful, enough of AB would be filled with this new generation of Libertarian AB's, and the fraternity government would be withdrawn from involvement in throwing the party.
See how that's a very different way of getting things done? Consider, for a moment, the consequences for the AB member who is perfectly happy with the XYZ parties, and is glad to pay the dues to fund them. In the first scenario, where Chad goes out of his way to leave in a way that does not disturb the AB system of governance, the members of AB who are happy with their fraternity government still get to have their party, and without any perceptible change except for the one we want them to feel, which is that now Chad no longer has to pay for something that he doesn't want, and they have to deal with the consequences of that. If the party was only worth it to them because they could make Chad help pay for it, then perhaps they would stop having the party, and that's a good thing. But otherwise, the remaining members of AB would get to continue living the way that they were living, and it would be on Chad to figure out a way to make his new life work outside of AB.
By contrast, in the second scenario the mechanism by which the XYZ party was formerly thrown has now been denied to the AB members who have always depended upon it in the past, and if they want to have their party, it will now be contingent on them to get together and negotiate a new deal. If AB were an extremely large fraternity, and the members did not have a very good way of communicating and negotiating with each other, this might be incredibly difficult for the AB's to organize. Certainly they would have an incentive to figure it out. But that doesn't mean that they would figure it out, and figuring it out would certainly involve opportunity costs that could be very significant to them.
The difference can be summed up like this: In the scenario I've advanced, where Chad separates himself from what he takes to be an oppressive system and strikes out to pursue his own goals, what Chad does is to remove himself, but to leave the existing system intact for those who want it to remain that way. He changes nothing for anyone except so far as others were depending on him to help further their own ends (using him as a means). In the scenario in which Chad embodies the Libertarian Party, on the other hand, the entire system of government by which the other AB's are used to coordinating their activities is disabled, and they must take it upon themselves to coordinate the party in its stead. As I've suggested, this might not be particularly easy for them to do, especially if the fraternity is extremely large and communication is difficult, and lots of coordination is required to get the XYZ party off the ground.
As I see it, the former strategy is the one most consistent with the ideal of just wanting to be left alone. The latter, it seems to me, effectively stops the other AB's from imposing things on Chad by creating a coordination vacuum, which could have seriously unpleasant consequences for the AB's. It's stopping an imposition on Chad by essentially imposing something else on the AB's: the responsibility to throw a party for which they had gladly delegated the responsibility away to their fraternity government.
Essentially, this is what I think that the Libertarian Party is trying to do. It's trying to take a government entity that many people rely on and that many people believe must be involved in certain areas of their lives, and destroying its ability to fulfill the tasks that these people are looking for it to fulfill. Sure, it's probably true that these people will be able to adapt to their new circumstances and perhaps be better off than before. But the point is, people who are not libertarians don't want to live in a society that reflects libertarian ideals. They would gladly submit to a coercive government if the alternative were trying to make all the decisions necessary to decide on what kind of life they want to live. To paralyze their government, I take it, would be to do these people a profound disservice. And because I like these people, I will advocate nothing of the sort.
Rather, I will advocate what I consider to be the high road. I would gladly endure greater oppression under the state, and gladly make greater sacrifices in order to bring about a world in which secession from our statist friends is a feasible solution for libertarians who no longer want to live under the state system, rather than advocate the destruction of the state system to serve my ends, at the great expense of those who very much want the state system to remain in place, and who have no interest in giving anarchy a shot.
I want to qualify that by saying that I'm finding it hard not to want to see McCain run this country into the ground in a spectacular fashion so that Americans will have reason to critically reexamine the ideas on which they base their social order. But I think that's sort of different from wanting to force people to act like libertarians: I want them to see how stupid their system is and change their minds, as opposed to wanting them to have to act as though their minds were changed when they really hadn't been.
I take it that most libertarians acknowledge that society does need certain institutions and rules in order to operate, and that these rules would require individuals to abide by agreements which might end up with outcomes that they don't particularly like, but have to abide by because of the agreements. For example, if I voluntarily enter into a living arrangement in an incorporated city which is governed by a set of laws, then I must abide by those laws so long as I continue to live in the city. Going further, it seems reasonable to believe that in such a living arrangement, part of my agreement would include a mechanism for deciding on new rules which could be enforced. For example, if the members of my community wanted to employ a lawn mowing service, perhaps we could somehow get together and decide to be bound to contribute to the lawn mowing fund.
Now, what I've just described is a public policy. This public policy would be one that I could advocate for some reason like "I think we can all agree that it would be nice to have mowed lawns in our town, so we should have lawn mowing," or "It seems to me that people aren't motivated to mow their lawns, but would be glad to pay the price of mowing their lawn if for that price they knew they would get their lawn mowed and also get to live in a town of beautifully manicured laws." And given that I would be living in a community where all the members had agreed to abide by the rules turned out by some rule-making procedure, it seems like such a policy would be perfectly consistent with the ideals of anarcho-capitalism.
Hearing this, it might occur to some members of our current social order to suggest something like the following: What's the point of being an anarcho-capitalist if that's what you're going to end up with? If you have a vision of what society should be like, you should try to convince enough people that you're right, and then you can direct the political process towards implementing that vision. That's how democracy is supposed to work, and you just need to get out there and let your voice be heard!
It is this sort of thinking, as far as I can tell, that leads to the idea that a Libertarian Party can be successful. The idea, then, is that if Libertarians get their message out, they can make the government give us back our freedom and stay out of our lives. Society, under such a government, would then be able to decide whether to disband the State entirely or to attempt to maintain a smaller, more limited State. And perhaps both. After all, what's most important is that we start working towards a point where such a conversation could even be possible on a national level.
But notice an interesting feature about what I've said so far about taking a position on social issues. First, I talked about anarcho-capitalism as a starting point, and then talked about public policies that I would personally advocate for implementation in my own society, which I had voluntarily entered, and where the other members could only be bound by rules produced by a procedure that they had directly agreed to. By contrast, the capital-L Libertarians, it appears to me, leave out the first step. Their objective is to determine what rules they would want to govern their society, and then to attempt to have those rules implemented (this manifests itself in some sort of private property regime where there are very few socially enforced rules besides respect for property).
[If you just read the above, see what I mean about me not talking sense? Yea...sorry about that, I wrote the beginning of this post at 2AM last night, and didn't notice how bad it was when I resumed writing today. What follows is the main idea of this post, and hopefully makes sense on its own.]
This difference is not insignificant. To illustrate why, imagine that there is a fraternity, Alpha Beta (AB), which throws a huge party every year with a sorority, Chi Upsilon Zeta (XYZ). Let's say that a member of Alpha Beta, Chad, decides that he doesn't like the XYZ parties and no longer wants to contribute to them, but the other members of AB are willing to use force if necessary to get the money from Chad if he refuses to pay and doesn't leave the fraternity. Chad first considers leaving AB to go live elsewhere, but unfortunately, all the housing with access to his college's campus belongs to the Greek system, and all the other fraternities on campus do things that Chad finds equally lame, but would be forced to contribute to. His situation, I take it, is somewhat analogous to the one in which libertarians find themselves today (though of course Chad could transfer or drop out, but whatever).
Now, if Chad were to pursue the sort of plan I outlined in the beginning of this post, what would he need to do? Essentially, he would have several options. He could attempt to convince the other AB's (or the members of another fraternity) to allow him to build a shed on part of their lawn to sleep in. While in his part of the yard, the fraternity's rules would not apply to him, including the one which forced him to help pay for the party with the XYZ's. Second, he could purchase a patch of yard from the AB's (or another fraternity) which would belong exclusively to him, where he could make rules for himself, and would not need to contribute to any kind of fraternity organization. Third, Chad could claim a patch of lawn for himself and defend it with force of his own if anyone tried to make him contribute to any fraternity programs. There are probably a bunch of other things Chad could do instead. But the common theme here is that what Chad is doing is entering a non-affiliated state of affairs.
I should note that Chad would be an idiot to do this alone, especially if doing this would prevent him from any sort of social cooperation with anyone in the fraternity system. I don't think any reasonable anarcho-capitalist would contend that non-affiliated status would "work" if it meant that people would be out on their own. Being on your own is awful--worse, I think, than being subject to unreasonable and involuntary rule. But this is besides the point of this post.
Now let's contrast the above strategy to the kind of thing that Libertarian Party libertarians are trying to do. Imagine if instead of looking for a way out of the fraternity system, Chad thought to himself, "Well, I don't like the parties with the XYZ's. So what I should do is get AB to stop throwing the parties; if people really want to throw the parties, they can get together and organize the party voluntarily. The AB fraternity shouldn't be involved in the party; the members who want the party should be the ones to organize it." Chad would then try to popularize this idea, and get enough people in AB to agree to stop funding the party to bring about a change in the fraternity's rules. If Chad were like the Libertarian Party, he would go about this goal by trying to convince the youngest and most impressionable members of the fraternity about why the party wasn't so great, and why it would be really great if everyone who wanted the party just got together and had it without involving any of the people who didn't want to have it. Eventually, if Chad were successful, enough of AB would be filled with this new generation of Libertarian AB's, and the fraternity government would be withdrawn from involvement in throwing the party.
See how that's a very different way of getting things done? Consider, for a moment, the consequences for the AB member who is perfectly happy with the XYZ parties, and is glad to pay the dues to fund them. In the first scenario, where Chad goes out of his way to leave in a way that does not disturb the AB system of governance, the members of AB who are happy with their fraternity government still get to have their party, and without any perceptible change except for the one we want them to feel, which is that now Chad no longer has to pay for something that he doesn't want, and they have to deal with the consequences of that. If the party was only worth it to them because they could make Chad help pay for it, then perhaps they would stop having the party, and that's a good thing. But otherwise, the remaining members of AB would get to continue living the way that they were living, and it would be on Chad to figure out a way to make his new life work outside of AB.
By contrast, in the second scenario the mechanism by which the XYZ party was formerly thrown has now been denied to the AB members who have always depended upon it in the past, and if they want to have their party, it will now be contingent on them to get together and negotiate a new deal. If AB were an extremely large fraternity, and the members did not have a very good way of communicating and negotiating with each other, this might be incredibly difficult for the AB's to organize. Certainly they would have an incentive to figure it out. But that doesn't mean that they would figure it out, and figuring it out would certainly involve opportunity costs that could be very significant to them.
The difference can be summed up like this: In the scenario I've advanced, where Chad separates himself from what he takes to be an oppressive system and strikes out to pursue his own goals, what Chad does is to remove himself, but to leave the existing system intact for those who want it to remain that way. He changes nothing for anyone except so far as others were depending on him to help further their own ends (using him as a means). In the scenario in which Chad embodies the Libertarian Party, on the other hand, the entire system of government by which the other AB's are used to coordinating their activities is disabled, and they must take it upon themselves to coordinate the party in its stead. As I've suggested, this might not be particularly easy for them to do, especially if the fraternity is extremely large and communication is difficult, and lots of coordination is required to get the XYZ party off the ground.
As I see it, the former strategy is the one most consistent with the ideal of just wanting to be left alone. The latter, it seems to me, effectively stops the other AB's from imposing things on Chad by creating a coordination vacuum, which could have seriously unpleasant consequences for the AB's. It's stopping an imposition on Chad by essentially imposing something else on the AB's: the responsibility to throw a party for which they had gladly delegated the responsibility away to their fraternity government.
Essentially, this is what I think that the Libertarian Party is trying to do. It's trying to take a government entity that many people rely on and that many people believe must be involved in certain areas of their lives, and destroying its ability to fulfill the tasks that these people are looking for it to fulfill. Sure, it's probably true that these people will be able to adapt to their new circumstances and perhaps be better off than before. But the point is, people who are not libertarians don't want to live in a society that reflects libertarian ideals. They would gladly submit to a coercive government if the alternative were trying to make all the decisions necessary to decide on what kind of life they want to live. To paralyze their government, I take it, would be to do these people a profound disservice. And because I like these people, I will advocate nothing of the sort.
Rather, I will advocate what I consider to be the high road. I would gladly endure greater oppression under the state, and gladly make greater sacrifices in order to bring about a world in which secession from our statist friends is a feasible solution for libertarians who no longer want to live under the state system, rather than advocate the destruction of the state system to serve my ends, at the great expense of those who very much want the state system to remain in place, and who have no interest in giving anarchy a shot.
I want to qualify that by saying that I'm finding it hard not to want to see McCain run this country into the ground in a spectacular fashion so that Americans will have reason to critically reexamine the ideas on which they base their social order. But I think that's sort of different from wanting to force people to act like libertarians: I want them to see how stupid their system is and change their minds, as opposed to wanting them to have to act as though their minds were changed when they really hadn't been.
Friday, August 29, 2008
Evil Humans
(Originally posted at LessGovernment.com.)
Anyone of a libertarian mind-set has probably had a conversation similar to this:
Of course, the inevitable response to this is the catch-all solution: democracy! We keep the undesirables out of office by simply not voting them in. Power to the people . . . right?
Oh, wait. People. Stupid, evil, chaos-loving, warmongering people --- who will almost certainly elect stupid, evil, chaos-loving, warmongering politicians. It seems that democracy does not solve or even manage the problem.
There are other forms of government to consider, however. Some form of technocratic oligarchy is an option, an enlightened elite exerting control through any variety of means. There's also the possibility of dictatorship or monarchy. Still, this presents the question of why one group or class of humans is fundamentally different from all others. Further, even if these enlightened elites succeed in securing a given society in the name of reason and peace, there's nothing to stop the stupid, evil majority from undoing any hypothetical progress in a relatively short period of time. Because, remember, the military and police and entrenched bureaucrats are likely not from the elite class, and even if they are, they will be outnumbered to a staggering and possibly unmanageable degree. Additionally, due to the aforementioned conditions, the likelihood of any given elite or group of elites successfully imposing their will upon a stupid, evil populace is quite small. Oligarchies, dictatorships and monarchies do not solve or even manage the problem.
The irony here is that, as the implications of an inherently stupid and evil human race are considered, the level of authoritarianism required in order to compensate for and combat it is essentially limitless. This leads, of course, to the very chaos and gang warfare that is so often cited as the reason we must have a government in the first place.
Anyone of a libertarian mind-set has probably had a conversation similar to this:
Another common variant is the more succinct:You: Government sucks.Bob: Yes, but it's necessary. People are stupid and evil, and life without government would degenerate into a chaotic dictatorship of corporate mobs and gang warfare.
The obvious problem with this line of reasoning is a heaping dose of self-defeat. If people are, as a rule, stupid, evil and predisposed to chaos and gang-based war, then the most irrational action one might take in pursuit of minimizing these consequences is the deliberate formation of such a gang. After all, those who would serve in government are members of the same human race as the rest of us. It cannot be declared that government is necessary because people are evil, while simultaneously exempting the people in government from this inherent evil.Bob: Humanity can't be trusted with that much freedom.
Of course, the inevitable response to this is the catch-all solution: democracy! We keep the undesirables out of office by simply not voting them in. Power to the people . . . right?
Oh, wait. People. Stupid, evil, chaos-loving, warmongering people --- who will almost certainly elect stupid, evil, chaos-loving, warmongering politicians. It seems that democracy does not solve or even manage the problem.
There are other forms of government to consider, however. Some form of technocratic oligarchy is an option, an enlightened elite exerting control through any variety of means. There's also the possibility of dictatorship or monarchy. Still, this presents the question of why one group or class of humans is fundamentally different from all others. Further, even if these enlightened elites succeed in securing a given society in the name of reason and peace, there's nothing to stop the stupid, evil majority from undoing any hypothetical progress in a relatively short period of time. Because, remember, the military and police and entrenched bureaucrats are likely not from the elite class, and even if they are, they will be outnumbered to a staggering and possibly unmanageable degree. Additionally, due to the aforementioned conditions, the likelihood of any given elite or group of elites successfully imposing their will upon a stupid, evil populace is quite small. Oligarchies, dictatorships and monarchies do not solve or even manage the problem.
The irony here is that, as the implications of an inherently stupid and evil human race are considered, the level of authoritarianism required in order to compensate for and combat it is essentially limitless. This leads, of course, to the very chaos and gang warfare that is so often cited as the reason we must have a government in the first place.
Anarchism As Skepticism
[cross-posted at Brainpolice at The Mises Community]
"The government is necessary. The government is legitimate. Democracy is representative of the people. Democracy is the best form of government. Majority rule is legitimate. Checks and balances actually function. Voting is meaningful or even an obligation. We have a meaningful choice between political parties and canidates. Governments form as a result of the social contract. The good of society. The rule of law. Law provides order. Only the government can provide certain services. Society must be modeled or planned. Without a pre-existing design, there cannot be a society."
What do all of these things have in common? They are political myths, incoherant abstractions and apologetic devices. Before a political discussion even takes place, generally most of this is simply assumed. But why do we have to assume legitimacy in order to have a discussion or debate in the realm of politics? Are these not assumptions that must be proven to begin with? A claim of authority isn't something that is legitimate before any arguementation takes place, it must be proven like any other positive claim. Unfortunately in the bulk of political discourse such positive claims are simply assumed and calling them into question is like sticking monkey wrench into the conversation. Why is it taboo to question these assumptions and concepts?
Technically one need not make any positive assertions at all in order to come to an anarchistic conclusion. All that is necessary is that one retains skepticism towards the positive assertions that are common in political discourse, and to consequentially deconstruct the language and the assumptions of politics. Once one has consistantly engaged in such a deconstruction, one eventually is left with the conclusion that political authority as such simply has no legitimate foundation. The alleged legitimate foundations are reduced to something that holds no more weight than the concept of a deity, which is to say none at all.
The anarchist rejects the idea that there is a particular political model that works for a society as such. It is erroneous to think of anarchism as if it is a political model. The function of the anarchist is the deconstruction of political models. The archist or statist is someone who maintains faith in a particular political model or process, or one who maintains faith in a particular person or group in a position of political authority. The function of the archist or statist is to justify these political models or authority figures. In this context, the anarchist is the skeptic and the archist is the one who is maintaining faith. From a skeptical anarchist perspective, particularly the perspective of an atheist anarchist, the archist's faith is analogous to the theist's faith, the main difference being that the archist merely uses political authority in the same way that the theist uses the concept of a deity.
In the same way that a creationist thinks that a deity must have created or planned the universe and all that follows from it, the archist seems to think that a political model and authority must have planned society in order for it to either exist or function in the first place. In both cases, it is inconcievable to the advocate in question that order of any kind can arise without a central planner or designer. And just as the theist maintains faith in the ability of the deity to maintain the order of the universe once it has been created, the archist maintains faith in the ability of the political authority in question to maintain the order of the society that has allegedly been created. The archist must maintain faith in the ability of law generation and law enforcement to lead to the desired ends and sustain them. The archist must maintain faith in the ability of political authority to counteract the elements of dynamism within a society. The anarchist is merely a skeptic with regaurd to such beliefs.
The historical connection between religion and politics is very interesting. The earliest justifications for political authority tended to be religious in nature. In some primitive cases, the legitimization was simply that the political authority literally was the religious authority or deity. This was watered down one step further with the notion that the political authority has the sanction of the deity or at least the religious organization that represents such a deity, which in the context of European history is known as divine right. Before any notion of the social contract was formally put forth, the justification for political authority was overwhelmingly and blatantly religious.
But with the fall of religious absolutism, such purely religious justifications began to be worn threadbare, and political philosophers began making comprehensive attempts at justifying political authority without a direct appeal to the divine. Instead, all they really did was anthropromorphicize certain human beings or social groups in order to create a trasncendental relationship in which "society" or at least certain segments therin are treated as if they were divine. In a strange roundabout way, the divine justification has merely been secularized, and the human all to human has been divinized. In short, the traditional concept of a divine right that was formly used to justify political authority has merely been shifted elsewhere. It has not been eliminated. Instead, abstractions such as "society" or "the people" or "natural elites" serve the same function.
Instead of allowing their skepticism to end when religious absolutism starts to diminish, the anarchist calls such justifications into question and sees them as no more reasonable than previous justifications.
"The government is necessary. The government is legitimate. Democracy is representative of the people. Democracy is the best form of government. Majority rule is legitimate. Checks and balances actually function. Voting is meaningful or even an obligation. We have a meaningful choice between political parties and canidates. Governments form as a result of the social contract. The good of society. The rule of law. Law provides order. Only the government can provide certain services. Society must be modeled or planned. Without a pre-existing design, there cannot be a society."
What do all of these things have in common? They are political myths, incoherant abstractions and apologetic devices. Before a political discussion even takes place, generally most of this is simply assumed. But why do we have to assume legitimacy in order to have a discussion or debate in the realm of politics? Are these not assumptions that must be proven to begin with? A claim of authority isn't something that is legitimate before any arguementation takes place, it must be proven like any other positive claim. Unfortunately in the bulk of political discourse such positive claims are simply assumed and calling them into question is like sticking monkey wrench into the conversation. Why is it taboo to question these assumptions and concepts?
Technically one need not make any positive assertions at all in order to come to an anarchistic conclusion. All that is necessary is that one retains skepticism towards the positive assertions that are common in political discourse, and to consequentially deconstruct the language and the assumptions of politics. Once one has consistantly engaged in such a deconstruction, one eventually is left with the conclusion that political authority as such simply has no legitimate foundation. The alleged legitimate foundations are reduced to something that holds no more weight than the concept of a deity, which is to say none at all.
The anarchist rejects the idea that there is a particular political model that works for a society as such. It is erroneous to think of anarchism as if it is a political model. The function of the anarchist is the deconstruction of political models. The archist or statist is someone who maintains faith in a particular political model or process, or one who maintains faith in a particular person or group in a position of political authority. The function of the archist or statist is to justify these political models or authority figures. In this context, the anarchist is the skeptic and the archist is the one who is maintaining faith. From a skeptical anarchist perspective, particularly the perspective of an atheist anarchist, the archist's faith is analogous to the theist's faith, the main difference being that the archist merely uses political authority in the same way that the theist uses the concept of a deity.
In the same way that a creationist thinks that a deity must have created or planned the universe and all that follows from it, the archist seems to think that a political model and authority must have planned society in order for it to either exist or function in the first place. In both cases, it is inconcievable to the advocate in question that order of any kind can arise without a central planner or designer. And just as the theist maintains faith in the ability of the deity to maintain the order of the universe once it has been created, the archist maintains faith in the ability of the political authority in question to maintain the order of the society that has allegedly been created. The archist must maintain faith in the ability of law generation and law enforcement to lead to the desired ends and sustain them. The archist must maintain faith in the ability of political authority to counteract the elements of dynamism within a society. The anarchist is merely a skeptic with regaurd to such beliefs.
The historical connection between religion and politics is very interesting. The earliest justifications for political authority tended to be religious in nature. In some primitive cases, the legitimization was simply that the political authority literally was the religious authority or deity. This was watered down one step further with the notion that the political authority has the sanction of the deity or at least the religious organization that represents such a deity, which in the context of European history is known as divine right. Before any notion of the social contract was formally put forth, the justification for political authority was overwhelmingly and blatantly religious.
But with the fall of religious absolutism, such purely religious justifications began to be worn threadbare, and political philosophers began making comprehensive attempts at justifying political authority without a direct appeal to the divine. Instead, all they really did was anthropromorphicize certain human beings or social groups in order to create a trasncendental relationship in which "society" or at least certain segments therin are treated as if they were divine. In a strange roundabout way, the divine justification has merely been secularized, and the human all to human has been divinized. In short, the traditional concept of a divine right that was formly used to justify political authority has merely been shifted elsewhere. It has not been eliminated. Instead, abstractions such as "society" or "the people" or "natural elites" serve the same function.
Instead of allowing their skepticism to end when religious absolutism starts to diminish, the anarchist calls such justifications into question and sees them as no more reasonable than previous justifications.
Monday, August 25, 2008
Sunday, August 24, 2008
The Headroom Between Mutualism and Anarcho-capitalism
[cross-posted at Brainpolice at The Mises Community]
I find it inaccurate to use either the terms "anarcho-capitalism" or "mutualism" to describe my own viewpoint. Being a pluralist as well as a person with a fairly complex and subtle heirarchy of preferances that may situationally change, I don't accept either of the two as a singular system that everyone is expected to be a part of. In some ways it could be said that I feel somewhere in between the two.
In the sense that I endorse it, I define private property in an ethical sense as the natural product of labor and voluntary exchange or gift. Anything being called "private property" beyond this I see as a fraud. I do not accept "private property" in a purely legalistic sense, as in whatever the state happens to call "private", thus I draw clear distinction between the status quo of property titles and property rights or a legitimate claim to property. Neither do I necessarily accept "private property" if the term is used to refer to any property that happens to be exclusively controlled, as stolen property and state property can be and is exclusively controlled.
I think that there is a lot of stupid semantics over private property and that those who claim to oppose private property most often actually support some limited or particular form of it but they call it by some other name such as "personal property" or "possessions". I think that in particular situations there can be some kind of private commons or private property that has a policy that effectively makes it "public" in a meaningful sense (see Roderick Long for an exposition on this concept).
I interpret Proudhon subtley. On one hand, I think that it is a misconception to interpret "property is theft" as an absolute statement either pro or con (indeed, taken at face value such a statement is logically incoherant, since the concept of theft relies on the concept of legitimate ownership in order to make any sense), as it has two corrolaries: "property is impossible" and "property is liberty". Each statement refers to a particular context. Socialists who grab onto "property is theft" as an absolute statement against private property are misreading Proudhon, as it refers more to property in the context of an arbitrary legal privilege that can be traced back to thefts than anything else, and they are ignoring the contexts in which Proudhon quite blatantly endorses private property as the only meaningful counterweight to the state.
This position is, in theory, consistant with both mutualism and what's called "anarcho-capitalism", hence making mutualism and "anarcho-capitalism" not as far off as some may like to think. In terms of the labor theory of property (as opposed to value), the two are in total agreement and only disagree in terms of terminology. Wherein they meaningfully differ is in the accessement of what the outcome of freedom of association with respect to property allocation would tend to be. I honestly find myself somewhere in the middle of the two accessments.
On one hand, I do not see anarcho-capitalism as a uniform model, I do not think that a free market would be dominated by a small number of centralized and vertically integrated incorporated firms, I see a possible role for voluntary labor unions as a simple form of collective bargaining, I see the possibility of more individual propietorship and the expansion of enterprenuership, and I see some co-ops as a possibility. On the other hand, I don't see mutualism as a uniform model either, I think that some of the mutualist questioning of the division of labor is misguided or silly and I reject the labor theory of value.
Overall, I do think that the natural of an outcome of a free market would result in an increase in prosperity across the board that could be construed as somewhat egalitarian (in comparison to the status quo at least). Of course, I don't think that it would lead to absolute equality of wealth or ownership in any absolute or consistant sense (nor would I find such a scenario desirable at all), but I do think that workers and consumers would be greatly benefited and in some ways labor would gain much more bargaining power relative to capital. I do not think that wealth being concentrated in the hands of a small few while the majority of people are just above the substinance level is the natural outcome of a free economy, nor do I find such a scenario desirable.
In short, I don't take a doctrinaire approach to either of these ideologies. I value them both enough to synthesize attributes of both of them into my worldview.
I find it inaccurate to use either the terms "anarcho-capitalism" or "mutualism" to describe my own viewpoint. Being a pluralist as well as a person with a fairly complex and subtle heirarchy of preferances that may situationally change, I don't accept either of the two as a singular system that everyone is expected to be a part of. In some ways it could be said that I feel somewhere in between the two.
In the sense that I endorse it, I define private property in an ethical sense as the natural product of labor and voluntary exchange or gift. Anything being called "private property" beyond this I see as a fraud. I do not accept "private property" in a purely legalistic sense, as in whatever the state happens to call "private", thus I draw clear distinction between the status quo of property titles and property rights or a legitimate claim to property. Neither do I necessarily accept "private property" if the term is used to refer to any property that happens to be exclusively controlled, as stolen property and state property can be and is exclusively controlled.
I think that there is a lot of stupid semantics over private property and that those who claim to oppose private property most often actually support some limited or particular form of it but they call it by some other name such as "personal property" or "possessions". I think that in particular situations there can be some kind of private commons or private property that has a policy that effectively makes it "public" in a meaningful sense (see Roderick Long for an exposition on this concept).
I interpret Proudhon subtley. On one hand, I think that it is a misconception to interpret "property is theft" as an absolute statement either pro or con (indeed, taken at face value such a statement is logically incoherant, since the concept of theft relies on the concept of legitimate ownership in order to make any sense), as it has two corrolaries: "property is impossible" and "property is liberty". Each statement refers to a particular context. Socialists who grab onto "property is theft" as an absolute statement against private property are misreading Proudhon, as it refers more to property in the context of an arbitrary legal privilege that can be traced back to thefts than anything else, and they are ignoring the contexts in which Proudhon quite blatantly endorses private property as the only meaningful counterweight to the state.
This position is, in theory, consistant with both mutualism and what's called "anarcho-capitalism", hence making mutualism and "anarcho-capitalism" not as far off as some may like to think. In terms of the labor theory of property (as opposed to value), the two are in total agreement and only disagree in terms of terminology. Wherein they meaningfully differ is in the accessement of what the outcome of freedom of association with respect to property allocation would tend to be. I honestly find myself somewhere in the middle of the two accessments.
On one hand, I do not see anarcho-capitalism as a uniform model, I do not think that a free market would be dominated by a small number of centralized and vertically integrated incorporated firms, I see a possible role for voluntary labor unions as a simple form of collective bargaining, I see the possibility of more individual propietorship and the expansion of enterprenuership, and I see some co-ops as a possibility. On the other hand, I don't see mutualism as a uniform model either, I think that some of the mutualist questioning of the division of labor is misguided or silly and I reject the labor theory of value.
Overall, I do think that the natural of an outcome of a free market would result in an increase in prosperity across the board that could be construed as somewhat egalitarian (in comparison to the status quo at least). Of course, I don't think that it would lead to absolute equality of wealth or ownership in any absolute or consistant sense (nor would I find such a scenario desirable at all), but I do think that workers and consumers would be greatly benefited and in some ways labor would gain much more bargaining power relative to capital. I do not think that wealth being concentrated in the hands of a small few while the majority of people are just above the substinance level is the natural outcome of a free economy, nor do I find such a scenario desirable.
In short, I don't take a doctrinaire approach to either of these ideologies. I value them both enough to synthesize attributes of both of them into my worldview.
Thursday, August 21, 2008
Debate The State
My new video in which I frame a debate between a curious individual and someone speaking on behalf of the state.
Sunday, August 10, 2008
Against Hoppe
I think at this point I am essentially opposed to the anarcho-capitalist thinker and writter Hans Herman Hoppe, despite the fact that I do agree with some degree of the things that he has written and said. The two main areas of tension between my own viewpoint and Hoppe's viewpoint are the matters of monarchy and immigration. Some may say that such quibbles are petty or largely insignificant, but I think that they are quite serious in their implications.
While Hoppe usually prefaces his statements by saying that in principle he is opposed to both monarchy and democracy, he nonetheless claims that monarchy is vastly preferable and I think that he is far too soft on monarchy. He appears to paint what I consider to be a romantisized picture of monarchy. Furthermore, he basically openly says that if it came down to a choice between monarchy and democracy, he pragmatically would endorse monarchy. Some of Hoppe's rhetoric would seem to imply that he is sympathetic to monarchy and the currently existing scattered remnants of past monarchal families. He openly calls for a "natural order" of "natural elites" to lead us to liberty.
It seems quite clear to me that Hoppe's view in this regaurd is a conservative view of history, and he seems to specialize so much in being anti-democracy that the more blatantly or openly oligarchal and unilateral forms of rulership seems to be overlooked or given what amounts to a free pass. While Hoppe's arguments may or may not be intended to be apologetics for monarchy, they nonetheless function in such a way. In particular, Hoppe's arguements blatantly function as a private property argument in favor of monarchy, legitimizing it on the basis of the premise that it is essentially a "private government". Of course, this overlooks the fact that such "private" ownership of the government was never consistant with any voluntaristic principle.
Even if my suspicions that Hoppe reduces to a closet monarchist are unfair or inaccurate, it still would seem to be the case that all the same his arguments have attracted closet monarchists to the libertarian and anarcho-capitalist movements. Hence I have encountered self-described anarcho-capitalists, who cite Hoppe as their primary influence, making claims such as "the state is a very modern institution invented in France in the early renaissance", implying that earlier monarchal, fuedal and various non-democratically run societies were somehow libertarian or anarchic societies. In short, Hoppe's work is constantly being used asapologetics for fuedal Europe. He has never really made any manuevers to counter this as a misinterpretation, instead he has only reinforced this perception.
The matter is similar with respect to Hoppe's views on immigration. Hoppe heavily links the issue of immigration with the issue of democracy, viewing democracy as inherently incentivizing mass migration. Just like he does with respect to monarchy, he seems to take a pragmatic view: that because or so long as democracy and welfare states currently exist, immigration is bad and it is a lesser evil or sensible thing to restrict immigration in the present. He proceeds to try to make a private property argument in favor of immigration restriction, which may hypothetically apply to legitimate owners in a free society but doesn't actually apply to the state. In a sense, this could be seen as a manifestation of vulgar libertarianism. Just like he does with respect to monarchy, on the immigration issue he treats the state as if it were a legitimate private owner of property. Of course, it isn't, which makes his entire argument collapse in on itself.
Even assuming that Hoppe truly doesn't favor immigration restriction by the state in the present (although such a position should logically follow from his statements), he seems to have an image of an anarchic society in which immigration is heavily restricted and people mostly associate into homogenous communities. He seems to think that the natural outcome of free association is generally favorable towards ethnic segregation. I think that one has to vastly overlook or underestimate the incentives towards cooperation that exist in a free society to hold such a view, and I think that one who holds such a view quite likely has a vested interest or preconcieved preferance for ethnic separation to begin with. Based on my understanding of economic incentives, it is impossible to voluntarily sustain a purely homogenous community because inclusivity is generally more economically beneficial to everyone.
Hoppe speaks of community "covenants" as a way to restrict immigration in a free society, but I fail to see how such "covenants" can uniformly apply to an entire community or large territory in the absence of the unanimous consent of every single individual owner involved. Surely, one's neighbor does not have the legitimate authority to decide for someone else that they cannot be inclusive with their own property. People can make all the "covenants" they want with respect to their own property, but it doesn't extend to anyone else's property without explicit consent. I fear that such "covenants" will tend to reduce to arbitrary and coercive laws that everyone must abide by regaurdless of prior consent.
I strongly disagree with Walter Block's stance that immigration isn't serious enough of an issue, that it is okay for libertarians to take different positions on it (at least with regaurd to state policy). Walter Block has correctly emphasized that a libertarian cannot favor state warfare because it blatantly violates the non-aggression principle. I don't see how immigration restriction is any different, as it also blatantly violates the non-aggression principle. While war may certainly be more serious of an issue in some ways because it does more directly involve mass deaths, both immigration and war are relevant to the non-aggression principle. If the state is initiating or threatening force to stop people from entering a territory that it doesn't justly own in the first place, to stop people already existing within the territory from being inclusive towards migrating people, to stop people from voluntarily buying and selling dwellings and various goods and services, and so on, then this blatantly violates the non-aggression principle.
Once again, even if I may be misconstrueing Hoppe's position, all the same this is the kind of interpretation that has been favorably recieved by certain people who now have entered the libertarian movement with the impression that nationalism and immigration restriction policies by the state are compatible with libertarianism. Sometimes it becomes hard to distinguish the libertarians from the paleoconservatives when it comes to this issue, as half the so-called libertarians are making the same arguments as the paleoconservatives. From my perspective, it's absurd that libertarians are having any internal debate about this issue whatsoever. Many classical liberals and 19th century laissez-faire economists settled the issue long ago. Freedom of migration is inherently linked to freedom of trade. Yet Hoppe insists that you can have laissez-faire and heavy immigration restriction at the same time, rejecting the objection that you can't have free trade without "open borders".
My disagreements with Hoppe are far more serious than I had initially thought, and I truly do not want to be associated with such ideas.
While Hoppe usually prefaces his statements by saying that in principle he is opposed to both monarchy and democracy, he nonetheless claims that monarchy is vastly preferable and I think that he is far too soft on monarchy. He appears to paint what I consider to be a romantisized picture of monarchy. Furthermore, he basically openly says that if it came down to a choice between monarchy and democracy, he pragmatically would endorse monarchy. Some of Hoppe's rhetoric would seem to imply that he is sympathetic to monarchy and the currently existing scattered remnants of past monarchal families. He openly calls for a "natural order" of "natural elites" to lead us to liberty.
It seems quite clear to me that Hoppe's view in this regaurd is a conservative view of history, and he seems to specialize so much in being anti-democracy that the more blatantly or openly oligarchal and unilateral forms of rulership seems to be overlooked or given what amounts to a free pass. While Hoppe's arguments may or may not be intended to be apologetics for monarchy, they nonetheless function in such a way. In particular, Hoppe's arguements blatantly function as a private property argument in favor of monarchy, legitimizing it on the basis of the premise that it is essentially a "private government". Of course, this overlooks the fact that such "private" ownership of the government was never consistant with any voluntaristic principle.
Even if my suspicions that Hoppe reduces to a closet monarchist are unfair or inaccurate, it still would seem to be the case that all the same his arguments have attracted closet monarchists to the libertarian and anarcho-capitalist movements. Hence I have encountered self-described anarcho-capitalists, who cite Hoppe as their primary influence, making claims such as "the state is a very modern institution invented in France in the early renaissance", implying that earlier monarchal, fuedal and various non-democratically run societies were somehow libertarian or anarchic societies. In short, Hoppe's work is constantly being used asapologetics for fuedal Europe. He has never really made any manuevers to counter this as a misinterpretation, instead he has only reinforced this perception.
The matter is similar with respect to Hoppe's views on immigration. Hoppe heavily links the issue of immigration with the issue of democracy, viewing democracy as inherently incentivizing mass migration. Just like he does with respect to monarchy, he seems to take a pragmatic view: that because or so long as democracy and welfare states currently exist, immigration is bad and it is a lesser evil or sensible thing to restrict immigration in the present. He proceeds to try to make a private property argument in favor of immigration restriction, which may hypothetically apply to legitimate owners in a free society but doesn't actually apply to the state. In a sense, this could be seen as a manifestation of vulgar libertarianism. Just like he does with respect to monarchy, on the immigration issue he treats the state as if it were a legitimate private owner of property. Of course, it isn't, which makes his entire argument collapse in on itself.
Even assuming that Hoppe truly doesn't favor immigration restriction by the state in the present (although such a position should logically follow from his statements), he seems to have an image of an anarchic society in which immigration is heavily restricted and people mostly associate into homogenous communities. He seems to think that the natural outcome of free association is generally favorable towards ethnic segregation. I think that one has to vastly overlook or underestimate the incentives towards cooperation that exist in a free society to hold such a view, and I think that one who holds such a view quite likely has a vested interest or preconcieved preferance for ethnic separation to begin with. Based on my understanding of economic incentives, it is impossible to voluntarily sustain a purely homogenous community because inclusivity is generally more economically beneficial to everyone.
Hoppe speaks of community "covenants" as a way to restrict immigration in a free society, but I fail to see how such "covenants" can uniformly apply to an entire community or large territory in the absence of the unanimous consent of every single individual owner involved. Surely, one's neighbor does not have the legitimate authority to decide for someone else that they cannot be inclusive with their own property. People can make all the "covenants" they want with respect to their own property, but it doesn't extend to anyone else's property without explicit consent. I fear that such "covenants" will tend to reduce to arbitrary and coercive laws that everyone must abide by regaurdless of prior consent.
I strongly disagree with Walter Block's stance that immigration isn't serious enough of an issue, that it is okay for libertarians to take different positions on it (at least with regaurd to state policy). Walter Block has correctly emphasized that a libertarian cannot favor state warfare because it blatantly violates the non-aggression principle. I don't see how immigration restriction is any different, as it also blatantly violates the non-aggression principle. While war may certainly be more serious of an issue in some ways because it does more directly involve mass deaths, both immigration and war are relevant to the non-aggression principle. If the state is initiating or threatening force to stop people from entering a territory that it doesn't justly own in the first place, to stop people already existing within the territory from being inclusive towards migrating people, to stop people from voluntarily buying and selling dwellings and various goods and services, and so on, then this blatantly violates the non-aggression principle.
Once again, even if I may be misconstrueing Hoppe's position, all the same this is the kind of interpretation that has been favorably recieved by certain people who now have entered the libertarian movement with the impression that nationalism and immigration restriction policies by the state are compatible with libertarianism. Sometimes it becomes hard to distinguish the libertarians from the paleoconservatives when it comes to this issue, as half the so-called libertarians are making the same arguments as the paleoconservatives. From my perspective, it's absurd that libertarians are having any internal debate about this issue whatsoever. Many classical liberals and 19th century laissez-faire economists settled the issue long ago. Freedom of migration is inherently linked to freedom of trade. Yet Hoppe insists that you can have laissez-faire and heavy immigration restriction at the same time, rejecting the objection that you can't have free trade without "open borders".
My disagreements with Hoppe are far more serious than I had initially thought, and I truly do not want to be associated with such ideas.
Saturday, September 27, 2008
The Greatest Trick The Devil Ever Pulled
(Reposted from my Mises blog)
One of my all time favorite movies is, “The Usual Suspects.” There is a line in the movie were Kevin Spacey says, “The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was to convince the world that he didn’t exist.” I started thinking about this line after a discussion on government regulations.
The state has pulled off some equally remarkable feats when it comes to convincing the public that they are needed. I guess it shouldn’t be surprising that they have been able to do it so well. From the time you are born you are put into the system, without your consent. You are inundated with government propaganda through all your formative years. And then you are told that all of that was done because YOU run the government.
Into the Matrix
The first thing you get when you are born is a state issued birth certificate. It shows that you are a person now and that you are a legal citizen of the state. Then you are given your income tracking card, some people call it a social security card. That plugs you into the government taxation system, even though it will be many years before you earn any income. Once upon a time you could wait to get your government number until you got ready to earn income, but now you have to get it earlier, just in case I guess.
Indoctrination
Certain collectivist types are pushing for earlier childhood education. In other words, they want your kids sooner. When the government says that children are “our” greatest resource, they mean “our” as in the governments, not the families, not the communities, not the parents, but the governments. From an early age the children are taught more about how to act and interact within the framework of government institutions than they are taught critical thinking. The time spent teaching math, science, language, and other needed skills to survive in the real work take a back seat to being taught to be obedient citizens who will go along with the program. I don’t think anyone would disagree that government education is all about social engineering.
In the late 1800’s, William T. Harris, commissioner of Education, summed up government schooling. “ Our schools have been scientifically designed to prevent over-education from happening. The average American [should be] content with their humble role in life...” I think that sums it up pretty well.
Acceptance
Even some people that claim they would like to see nothing more than the end of government have no problem accepting the authority of the government and even participate in government institutions and programs. This is from that early indoctrination. Somewhere deep in their being they can’t get over the programming that says government can be used for a force of good, despite all the evidence to the contrary.
Mention abolishing government programs like the FDA, FCC, Department of Education, USDA, etc. and prepare to watch peoples heads explode. They can’t envision a society without those things. Heaven forbid that people should be responsible for what they put into their bodies, or for educating their children themselves. “YOU NEED SOMEONE MAKING SURE BUSINESSES DON’T FEED US POISON!!!”
The idea that we could buy our food from people we know, and do business with businesses we can actually trust, is a foreign concept. Personal, individual responsibility is such a scary prospect to them that the mere thought of taking any for themselves strikes fear in their hearts. George Bernard Shaw said it well, “Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it.”
Even the minarchists fall into this trap. They can’t see how things like justice and defense could be handled by the free market. Even though on some issues they have no problem pointing out numerous examples of government over reaching their bounds into the pockets and liberties of the citizens, they can’t give up that early indoctrination that says there are certain things that only the government can provide. For whatever reason, they can’t see that their arguments for a limited government are the exact same arguments for a huge government.
It is like any other protection racket though. “We will make sure that your liberty is protected, just gonna cost you this much.” But it never costs that much and eventually you have to go along with whatever they demand.
I think the idea of providing a limited government that cares for certain things is a wonderful idea. Finding a way to keep that government limited seems to be a harder prospect. There are some great people in the limited government movement, but none of them will ever have the power or opportunity that the founding fathers had, not while they are trying to work within the current framework of politics. But along with buying into the concept that there are certain things that the government can handle more efficiently than the market, they have bought into the other false concept, that the people control the government.
“And like that, POOF, he was gone”
I have full faith that the market can supply me with the pair of shoes I want. I have no less faith that the market can supply me with the justice and defense I want too. The difference is that on the market, they will actually be the ones I want, whereas under the current structure, I can only have the justice and security that the government is willing to provide. Not the best that the market can provide, but the overpriced crap that always comes from that type of monopoly on power.
At the end of “The Usual Suspects”, the head investigator finds out that everything he thought he knew about the case was a lie. By then of course, it was too late. The bad guy got away.
One of my all time favorite movies is, “The Usual Suspects.” There is a line in the movie were Kevin Spacey says, “The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was to convince the world that he didn’t exist.” I started thinking about this line after a discussion on government regulations.
The state has pulled off some equally remarkable feats when it comes to convincing the public that they are needed. I guess it shouldn’t be surprising that they have been able to do it so well. From the time you are born you are put into the system, without your consent. You are inundated with government propaganda through all your formative years. And then you are told that all of that was done because YOU run the government.
Into the Matrix
The first thing you get when you are born is a state issued birth certificate. It shows that you are a person now and that you are a legal citizen of the state. Then you are given your income tracking card, some people call it a social security card. That plugs you into the government taxation system, even though it will be many years before you earn any income. Once upon a time you could wait to get your government number until you got ready to earn income, but now you have to get it earlier, just in case I guess.
Indoctrination
Certain collectivist types are pushing for earlier childhood education. In other words, they want your kids sooner. When the government says that children are “our” greatest resource, they mean “our” as in the governments, not the families, not the communities, not the parents, but the governments. From an early age the children are taught more about how to act and interact within the framework of government institutions than they are taught critical thinking. The time spent teaching math, science, language, and other needed skills to survive in the real work take a back seat to being taught to be obedient citizens who will go along with the program. I don’t think anyone would disagree that government education is all about social engineering.
In the late 1800’s, William T. Harris, commissioner of Education, summed up government schooling. “ Our schools have been scientifically designed to prevent over-education from happening. The average American [should be] content with their humble role in life...” I think that sums it up pretty well.
Acceptance
Even some people that claim they would like to see nothing more than the end of government have no problem accepting the authority of the government and even participate in government institutions and programs. This is from that early indoctrination. Somewhere deep in their being they can’t get over the programming that says government can be used for a force of good, despite all the evidence to the contrary.
Mention abolishing government programs like the FDA, FCC, Department of Education, USDA, etc. and prepare to watch peoples heads explode. They can’t envision a society without those things. Heaven forbid that people should be responsible for what they put into their bodies, or for educating their children themselves. “YOU NEED SOMEONE MAKING SURE BUSINESSES DON’T FEED US POISON!!!”
The idea that we could buy our food from people we know, and do business with businesses we can actually trust, is a foreign concept. Personal, individual responsibility is such a scary prospect to them that the mere thought of taking any for themselves strikes fear in their hearts. George Bernard Shaw said it well, “Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it.”
Even the minarchists fall into this trap. They can’t see how things like justice and defense could be handled by the free market. Even though on some issues they have no problem pointing out numerous examples of government over reaching their bounds into the pockets and liberties of the citizens, they can’t give up that early indoctrination that says there are certain things that only the government can provide. For whatever reason, they can’t see that their arguments for a limited government are the exact same arguments for a huge government.
It is like any other protection racket though. “We will make sure that your liberty is protected, just gonna cost you this much.” But it never costs that much and eventually you have to go along with whatever they demand.
I think the idea of providing a limited government that cares for certain things is a wonderful idea. Finding a way to keep that government limited seems to be a harder prospect. There are some great people in the limited government movement, but none of them will ever have the power or opportunity that the founding fathers had, not while they are trying to work within the current framework of politics. But along with buying into the concept that there are certain things that the government can handle more efficiently than the market, they have bought into the other false concept, that the people control the government.
“And like that, POOF, he was gone”
I have full faith that the market can supply me with the pair of shoes I want. I have no less faith that the market can supply me with the justice and defense I want too. The difference is that on the market, they will actually be the ones I want, whereas under the current structure, I can only have the justice and security that the government is willing to provide. Not the best that the market can provide, but the overpriced crap that always comes from that type of monopoly on power.
At the end of “The Usual Suspects”, the head investigator finds out that everything he thought he knew about the case was a lie. By then of course, it was too late. The bad guy got away.
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Round Peg, Square Hole
(Cross posted from TheBlackShamrock)
I know that the saying is about trying to fit a square peg in a round hole, but hopefully by the end of this you'll figure out why I titled it the way I did.
There are always people that like to engage the anarchist by telling us that an anarchist society can't exist for (insert reason here). Most times this is done from a complete lack of understanding about what anarchism really is. Sometimes it is done in the form of a strawman based on that misunderstanding. And the knee jerk reaction of so many anarchists doesn't improve the situation at all. What the person performing the attack is looking for is an example of a NATION based on a political model of anarchism and what the knee jerk anarchist does is provide them with theories of what such a society might look like. Depending on the focus of the anarchist, this vision might take on many different forms. But the entire argument is based on a false assumption that it is possible to apply a political system to anarchism, which it is not.
Anarchism is about freedom from those very political systems that the statist is trying to get us to apply anarchy too. Anarchy is about having no rulers, this is something that both camps seem to agree on. But it isn't about any type of political relationship. Anarchy is about personal, individual relationships. There is no "system" of anarchy that can or would be setup to run a nation (including libertarianism). We are talking about "no rulers" and specifically no government control in personal social relationships. There will probably always be governments, but wheter they exist or not has absoluetly to bearing on an anarchist "society". It would be much easier to develop these personal relationships that escape being interfered with a third party if that third party didn't exist, but it isn't neccesary that the third party not exist for an anarchist society to thrive.
The statist is unable to grasp the concept of society outside of the political arena. More often than not their definition of society will include some politically powered government inside of artificial borders created by that same government. But a society is, not just for the purpose of anarchy, any group of people that interact with a specific purpose in mind. There are fraternal societies, religious societies, military societies, secret societies, etc., all existing within those political borders now. They all operate with their own sets of rules, their own membership reqiurements, their own guiding principles. And while the statist is perfectly willing to accept these societies, even when they don't understand them, for some reason an anarchist society is held to a different standard.
To me the reason for this is pretty simple. The nature of anarchism is a society "without rulers" and since the statist is unable to truly understand this concept, they feel that an anarchist society is a pipe dream. Consider this, most people are unaware of how to provide for their basic neccesities without the states involvement. Ask them where their last meal came from. The proud "libertarian" may say that they purchased the food for that meal with their own money, that they earned themselves, from the local grocery store. But every part of that statement is dependant on the government. There is no such thing as "their own money" since the currency they used is actually property of the government they serve. In order to work, they are required to have government issued identification that says who they are and tracks the wages that they earn. Their local grocery store purchased those groceries from a supplier that is regulated by government controls. The food is delievered to the store over roads that are owned by the government. And at last, when they give the government vouchers to the cashier, they give another portion of their wages to the government in the form of taxes. So it is no wonder that the typical statist has a hard time understanding how an anarchist society can exist with all that government interference in even the "simple" process of meeting their basic human needs.
But, as I have already stated, an anarchist society is about personal, individual relationships. It isn't about providing another version of that same process, even though what they want when they get us into these "debates" is an example of that exact same thing, minus the government. The bad news is that there is no way to mimic that system without an all encompassing third party, that no matter what political tweaks you make to the system will continue to be government. Anarchism doesn't wish to mimic that system, and anarchists couldn't mimic that system even if we wanted too. Not while still remaining true to our principles. Of course, this is the same reason we will not see a "minarchist" style government either. As long as "we the people" make up the government, the only option is for government to expand at a faster rate than "we the people". The people who advocate a smaller government are really the ones with the pipedream. The nature of government is to never give up ground. The nature of a government run by "we the people" is to constantly expand to meet the wants and desires of the people who make it up.
But anarchist societies can and do exist within this "nation". The entire idea is to build social relationships outside of "government rule". Relationships that provide those basic neccesities, like food,clothing and shelter, without an outside "ruler" dictating the forms those relationships can take. When asked about a strategy for anarchy, that SHOULD be our answer. Developing social relationships based on the ideals of anarchism. Fostering new alliances that meet our needs and keeping them free of as much government influence as possible, until the time comes when the can directly and openly compete with Leviathan.
So if you want examples of anarchistic societies, just look around. They are there. We seem them in practice everyday. Its just that the statist is usually unable to see any further than their own misery and enslavement. Freedom and liberty take real actions by the individual. Some (maybe most) people aren't willing to put in the work it takes to be an anarchist. They can't even figure out how to feed themselves without the government.
I know that the saying is about trying to fit a square peg in a round hole, but hopefully by the end of this you'll figure out why I titled it the way I did.
There are always people that like to engage the anarchist by telling us that an anarchist society can't exist for (insert reason here). Most times this is done from a complete lack of understanding about what anarchism really is. Sometimes it is done in the form of a strawman based on that misunderstanding. And the knee jerk reaction of so many anarchists doesn't improve the situation at all. What the person performing the attack is looking for is an example of a NATION based on a political model of anarchism and what the knee jerk anarchist does is provide them with theories of what such a society might look like. Depending on the focus of the anarchist, this vision might take on many different forms. But the entire argument is based on a false assumption that it is possible to apply a political system to anarchism, which it is not.
Anarchism is about freedom from those very political systems that the statist is trying to get us to apply anarchy too. Anarchy is about having no rulers, this is something that both camps seem to agree on. But it isn't about any type of political relationship. Anarchy is about personal, individual relationships. There is no "system" of anarchy that can or would be setup to run a nation (including libertarianism). We are talking about "no rulers" and specifically no government control in personal social relationships. There will probably always be governments, but wheter they exist or not has absoluetly to bearing on an anarchist "society". It would be much easier to develop these personal relationships that escape being interfered with a third party if that third party didn't exist, but it isn't neccesary that the third party not exist for an anarchist society to thrive.
The statist is unable to grasp the concept of society outside of the political arena. More often than not their definition of society will include some politically powered government inside of artificial borders created by that same government. But a society is, not just for the purpose of anarchy, any group of people that interact with a specific purpose in mind. There are fraternal societies, religious societies, military societies, secret societies, etc., all existing within those political borders now. They all operate with their own sets of rules, their own membership reqiurements, their own guiding principles. And while the statist is perfectly willing to accept these societies, even when they don't understand them, for some reason an anarchist society is held to a different standard.
To me the reason for this is pretty simple. The nature of anarchism is a society "without rulers" and since the statist is unable to truly understand this concept, they feel that an anarchist society is a pipe dream. Consider this, most people are unaware of how to provide for their basic neccesities without the states involvement. Ask them where their last meal came from. The proud "libertarian" may say that they purchased the food for that meal with their own money, that they earned themselves, from the local grocery store. But every part of that statement is dependant on the government. There is no such thing as "their own money" since the currency they used is actually property of the government they serve. In order to work, they are required to have government issued identification that says who they are and tracks the wages that they earn. Their local grocery store purchased those groceries from a supplier that is regulated by government controls. The food is delievered to the store over roads that are owned by the government. And at last, when they give the government vouchers to the cashier, they give another portion of their wages to the government in the form of taxes. So it is no wonder that the typical statist has a hard time understanding how an anarchist society can exist with all that government interference in even the "simple" process of meeting their basic human needs.
But, as I have already stated, an anarchist society is about personal, individual relationships. It isn't about providing another version of that same process, even though what they want when they get us into these "debates" is an example of that exact same thing, minus the government. The bad news is that there is no way to mimic that system without an all encompassing third party, that no matter what political tweaks you make to the system will continue to be government. Anarchism doesn't wish to mimic that system, and anarchists couldn't mimic that system even if we wanted too. Not while still remaining true to our principles. Of course, this is the same reason we will not see a "minarchist" style government either. As long as "we the people" make up the government, the only option is for government to expand at a faster rate than "we the people". The people who advocate a smaller government are really the ones with the pipedream. The nature of government is to never give up ground. The nature of a government run by "we the people" is to constantly expand to meet the wants and desires of the people who make it up.
But anarchist societies can and do exist within this "nation". The entire idea is to build social relationships outside of "government rule". Relationships that provide those basic neccesities, like food,clothing and shelter, without an outside "ruler" dictating the forms those relationships can take. When asked about a strategy for anarchy, that SHOULD be our answer. Developing social relationships based on the ideals of anarchism. Fostering new alliances that meet our needs and keeping them free of as much government influence as possible, until the time comes when the can directly and openly compete with Leviathan.
So if you want examples of anarchistic societies, just look around. They are there. We seem them in practice everyday. Its just that the statist is usually unable to see any further than their own misery and enslavement. Freedom and liberty take real actions by the individual. Some (maybe most) people aren't willing to put in the work it takes to be an anarchist. They can't even figure out how to feed themselves without the government.
Monday, September 22, 2008
A Man and his Window
Stephan Kinsella, of the paleoconservative Lewrockwell.com, has gone on a real tirade recently. Beginning with the breaking of a few shards of glass in a Macy's store front by some Anarchists justifiably disillusioned and infuriated with the corporate-capitalist structure of the world, left and right he's been swinging his Murray Rothbard stick, shaming libertarians for not adhering to the son of God himself - especially in his most valiant years under the Ku Klux... I mean, conservative banner. All the while making up words along the way, Kinsella still doesn't really seem to get it. Perhaps going into some of the better insights of the "holiest one" during one of his saner periods will help.
Anyways, if it will make Kinsella feel any better, I'll come out and admit it. I broke the windows. It was me. Now, begin to direct your tomatoes.
By the way, I find it rather humorous that Kinsella only moans about the breaking of glass, when real people faced much worse forms of "breaking" at the demonstrations. It shows us where his priorities are, at least.
Anyways, if it will make Kinsella feel any better, I'll come out and admit it. I broke the windows. It was me. Now, begin to direct your tomatoes.
By the way, I find it rather humorous that Kinsella only moans about the breaking of glass, when real people faced much worse forms of "breaking" at the demonstrations. It shows us where his priorities are, at least.
Against Capitalism
There's a sense in which I have no problem with saying that I'm against capitalism. Capitalism, even as Ludwig Von Mises defines it, is a political system in which the state's primary role is to protect private property. Of course, there is an inherent inconsistancy about this in that the state must violate the private property of some in order to exist as a state and even attempt to protect it.
In either case, this is problematic because the state becomes an institutional mechanism by which plutocrats can secure illegitimate property claims and redistribute ownership in their favor. In short, the state does not protect legitimate property per se, it institutionalizes private property into a legal construct that generally benefits a small elite at everyone else's expense. This centralized institutional mechanism for the protection of property is a seed for corruption that inherently involves some kind of collusive relationship between the state and special interest groups. This state protection of property is by definition an extension beyond that which can be held and sustained voluntarily.
While minarchists and traditional capitalists often vigorously hold that the state's role should not be extended beyond this, its mere establishment as a state even for such a limited purpose inherently invites and leads to an extension beyond this. But even if a state theoretically was limited to such a role, such a state would hardly be a benevolent one, for it would ultimately reduce to an oligarchy established to protect an elite of property owners through centralized and coercive mechanisms.
In either case, this is problematic because the state becomes an institutional mechanism by which plutocrats can secure illegitimate property claims and redistribute ownership in their favor. In short, the state does not protect legitimate property per se, it institutionalizes private property into a legal construct that generally benefits a small elite at everyone else's expense. This centralized institutional mechanism for the protection of property is a seed for corruption that inherently involves some kind of collusive relationship between the state and special interest groups. This state protection of property is by definition an extension beyond that which can be held and sustained voluntarily.
While minarchists and traditional capitalists often vigorously hold that the state's role should not be extended beyond this, its mere establishment as a state even for such a limited purpose inherently invites and leads to an extension beyond this. But even if a state theoretically was limited to such a role, such a state would hardly be a benevolent one, for it would ultimately reduce to an oligarchy established to protect an elite of property owners through centralized and coercive mechanisms.
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Immigration and the Paleoconservative Infiltration
Sometimes I can't help but find myself flabbergasted with regaurd to the libertarian debates about immigration and borders, especially since I don't think there's any reason to have such a debate. In certain environments, such as The Mises Institute, apparently the libertarian anti-borders position is a minority position. As far as I know, Walter Block and Roderick Long are the only two prominent people associated with the institute who explicitly take an "open borders" position.
The majority of those associated with the institute cite Hans Hoppe and the later works of Murray Rothbard to try to reconcile an anti-immigration/border-control and generally conservative worldview with libertarianism. Dissent to this is reacted to by essentially acting as if "the other side" are just a bunch of "liberal multiculturalists" who oppose freedom of association. Somehow freedom of association is selectively used in the context of exclusivity rather than inclusivity. Of course, anti-immigration as such does not logically follow from freedom of association.
Freedom of association and propertarian arguments (albeit out of context) is not all that is presented though. Some have a clear vested interest in obtaining a high degree of cultural homogeneity to begin with, and seem to be using libertarianism as a tool to justify their personal preferances in this regaurd. They use libertarian arguments to basically project their preferances onto libertarianism, implying that their preferances will inherently be a norm in a libertarian society. The vision is essentially of a "libertarian" society that is made up practically entirely of people who favor restrictionism and a high degree of homogeneity.
While such people are free to have such preferances and may believe whatever they wish with regaurd to the cultural outcome of a free society, they seem to be going further then this. While they may use the rhetoric of property rights and freedom of association, some of them are misusing these concepts out of context to justify an authoritarian approach to the matter in the present and some are essentially claiming to predict a rather uniform outcome based on their personal preferances. They switch conveniently back and forth between the contexts of property rights in a theoretical future society and the reality of state-controlled territories in the present. This makes it hard to tell wether they are trying to justify state border control in the present or legitimate owners being restrictive in a future libertarian society.
It also is hard to tell wether or not this vision of a libertarian society really is a libertarian society. Is it a free society that just so happens to be highly homogeneous and restrictive, or is this really a rosy or misleading way of envisioning a highly protectionist state? The more I ponder it, the more this vision looks like paleoconservatism or something. I can't help but start to suspect that some of the people I am dealing with are using libertarianism as a cover or sugar-coating for their ultra-conservative politics. I'm not exactly sure how to handle this when I encounter it.
The majority of those associated with the institute cite Hans Hoppe and the later works of Murray Rothbard to try to reconcile an anti-immigration/border-control and generally conservative worldview with libertarianism. Dissent to this is reacted to by essentially acting as if "the other side" are just a bunch of "liberal multiculturalists" who oppose freedom of association. Somehow freedom of association is selectively used in the context of exclusivity rather than inclusivity. Of course, anti-immigration as such does not logically follow from freedom of association.
Freedom of association and propertarian arguments (albeit out of context) is not all that is presented though. Some have a clear vested interest in obtaining a high degree of cultural homogeneity to begin with, and seem to be using libertarianism as a tool to justify their personal preferances in this regaurd. They use libertarian arguments to basically project their preferances onto libertarianism, implying that their preferances will inherently be a norm in a libertarian society. The vision is essentially of a "libertarian" society that is made up practically entirely of people who favor restrictionism and a high degree of homogeneity.
While such people are free to have such preferances and may believe whatever they wish with regaurd to the cultural outcome of a free society, they seem to be going further then this. While they may use the rhetoric of property rights and freedom of association, some of them are misusing these concepts out of context to justify an authoritarian approach to the matter in the present and some are essentially claiming to predict a rather uniform outcome based on their personal preferances. They switch conveniently back and forth between the contexts of property rights in a theoretical future society and the reality of state-controlled territories in the present. This makes it hard to tell wether they are trying to justify state border control in the present or legitimate owners being restrictive in a future libertarian society.
It also is hard to tell wether or not this vision of a libertarian society really is a libertarian society. Is it a free society that just so happens to be highly homogeneous and restrictive, or is this really a rosy or misleading way of envisioning a highly protectionist state? The more I ponder it, the more this vision looks like paleoconservatism or something. I can't help but start to suspect that some of the people I am dealing with are using libertarianism as a cover or sugar-coating for their ultra-conservative politics. I'm not exactly sure how to handle this when I encounter it.
Friday, September 19, 2008
You've Got To Be Kidding...
Having spent many years trying reconcile my personal beliefs with the political activities of the Libertarian Party, I have gotten used to disgruntled Republicans that sought refuge there from the GOP. And I spent a fair amount of time explaining to the few disgruntled Democrats that found their way to the party, the difference between a true free market and the bastardized version of a free market championed by the right. That was a part of being a member of the party. Very few people who joined the party were actual Libertarians. Many that joined, if they didn't have a prior party affiliation, could have been considered Libertarians. They had the right attitude, even though they were lacking the fundamentals.
Of course those days are long gone. The LP was once more of an activist group than an actual political party. As more and more Republicans opened their eyes to the hypocrisy of the GOP, they started to nest in the LP. Instead of the message of personal freedom and responsibility, of freedom from government control, the message began to center around the "conservative" ideas of the GOP, with a slight twist here and there. I started calling a lot of the members the "republican lite" caucus. And eventually the LP became what it is today. Yes, there are still a few Libertarians in the party, you can find them in the Radical Caucus for the most part. But they seem to be going the way of the Goldwater Republicans. Just as the Goldwater conservatives were replaced by the Reagan Neo-Communists and mislabeled as Neo-Conservatives, the smaller government Republicans have infested the LP and are mislabeled as Libertarians. That is the reason that, not only have I given up on the LP as a vehicle for promoting true freedom and liberty, I have given up on trying to rescue the label of Libertarian from the Republicans. Today, if someone tells me they are a Libertarian, I automatically assume they mean they are "Republican Lite", or as Brainpolice would call them, Vulgar Libertarians.
Libertarianism is not a right wing philosophy. It is not a left wing philosophy. It isn't a part of the turkey at all. So I am not surprised by what comes out of the mouth of "Libertarians" or press releases by the LP anymore. But what does surprise me comes out of the mouths and from the blogs of many "anarchists" today. Especially, it seems, many Market Anarchists.
It should be crystal clear that the right is no more fiscally responsible than the left. All you have to do is look at the numbers. It should be crystal clear that the right has no more interest or ability to reduce the size of the government than the left does. Again, just look at the numbers. All the parasites that make up the government have nothing but self preservation on their minds. They will say anything to keep or get their hands on the power needed to steal the fruits of the labor of the people. They all pander to the people that finance their power grabs. They all depend on mindless sheep to advance their careers, always in the name of "the people". They perpetuate the idea that their cause is "just", because the slaves got to participate in the process and put them in office. Even they they can't muster 25% approval ratings (always because the other party is keeping them from getting anything done) they still wrap their actions in the mantle of a "mandate from the people" like it was a cloak of invisibilty that keeps us from seeing what they are really about.
Anarchists can now and for centuries have been able to see through this bull and have dedicated themselves to exposing these myths. That is why I have lately been dumfounded to seeing these "anarchists" endorsing one candidate over another. Many market anarchists seem especially eager to blow the trumpets for McCain/Palin. They are trying to sell us the same bag of fertilizer that says there is actually a lesser degree of evil that we should embrace. They talk of border control, fighting terrorism, "free markets", and on and on with the rpublican lite/vulgar libertarianism that already has its own political party and has absolutely nothing to do with anarchism in any of its forms.
And it isn't limited to support for McCain/Palin by any means. Forgetting the disgusting displays put on for Ron Paul for a minute, there are plent of "left-wing anarchists" that are waving the Obama flag. But I am telling you, the ONLY flag the anarchists wave is black. If any of this applies to you, you should seriously reconsider if the label anarchist in anyway, shape or form truly applies to you. Anarchism only applies to social relationships, not political ones.
Of course those days are long gone. The LP was once more of an activist group than an actual political party. As more and more Republicans opened their eyes to the hypocrisy of the GOP, they started to nest in the LP. Instead of the message of personal freedom and responsibility, of freedom from government control, the message began to center around the "conservative" ideas of the GOP, with a slight twist here and there. I started calling a lot of the members the "republican lite" caucus. And eventually the LP became what it is today. Yes, there are still a few Libertarians in the party, you can find them in the Radical Caucus for the most part. But they seem to be going the way of the Goldwater Republicans. Just as the Goldwater conservatives were replaced by the Reagan Neo-Communists and mislabeled as Neo-Conservatives, the smaller government Republicans have infested the LP and are mislabeled as Libertarians. That is the reason that, not only have I given up on the LP as a vehicle for promoting true freedom and liberty, I have given up on trying to rescue the label of Libertarian from the Republicans. Today, if someone tells me they are a Libertarian, I automatically assume they mean they are "Republican Lite", or as Brainpolice would call them, Vulgar Libertarians.
Libertarianism is not a right wing philosophy. It is not a left wing philosophy. It isn't a part of the turkey at all. So I am not surprised by what comes out of the mouth of "Libertarians" or press releases by the LP anymore. But what does surprise me comes out of the mouths and from the blogs of many "anarchists" today. Especially, it seems, many Market Anarchists.
It should be crystal clear that the right is no more fiscally responsible than the left. All you have to do is look at the numbers. It should be crystal clear that the right has no more interest or ability to reduce the size of the government than the left does. Again, just look at the numbers. All the parasites that make up the government have nothing but self preservation on their minds. They will say anything to keep or get their hands on the power needed to steal the fruits of the labor of the people. They all pander to the people that finance their power grabs. They all depend on mindless sheep to advance their careers, always in the name of "the people". They perpetuate the idea that their cause is "just", because the slaves got to participate in the process and put them in office. Even they they can't muster 25% approval ratings (always because the other party is keeping them from getting anything done) they still wrap their actions in the mantle of a "mandate from the people" like it was a cloak of invisibilty that keeps us from seeing what they are really about.
Anarchists can now and for centuries have been able to see through this bull and have dedicated themselves to exposing these myths. That is why I have lately been dumfounded to seeing these "anarchists" endorsing one candidate over another. Many market anarchists seem especially eager to blow the trumpets for McCain/Palin. They are trying to sell us the same bag of fertilizer that says there is actually a lesser degree of evil that we should embrace. They talk of border control, fighting terrorism, "free markets", and on and on with the rpublican lite/vulgar libertarianism that already has its own political party and has absolutely nothing to do with anarchism in any of its forms.
And it isn't limited to support for McCain/Palin by any means. Forgetting the disgusting displays put on for Ron Paul for a minute, there are plent of "left-wing anarchists" that are waving the Obama flag. But I am telling you, the ONLY flag the anarchists wave is black. If any of this applies to you, you should seriously reconsider if the label anarchist in anyway, shape or form truly applies to you. Anarchism only applies to social relationships, not political ones.
How Short-Selling Reduces Volatility
[Originally posted on the Irish Liberty Forum]
Bank shares in Dublin have shot up today after the Financial Regulator introduced a ban on shorting them. The obvious interpretation is that short-sellers are now unwinding their positions and that traditional investors believe it is safer to return to the market.
While this price action is easily explicable, in the medium and long term the ban is unlikely to help the banks. Why? Because short-selling actually reduces market volatility. Let me explain how.
Suppose shares in Bank A are trading at €10 each. Suppose I take a look at their loan book and figure that the share price would be much closer to zero if it was being valued properly. So, for a small fee, I borrow some Bank A shares and sell them. This puts marginal downward pressure on the stock. If enough people do it with me and we run down the price, it might even upset some of the bank's executives, long-term shareholders, employees and customers.
What happens next? I wait to see if my view of the correct share price (<€10) becomes more widespread. If this happens then I get to buy back shares at some reduced price, say €1 each, and then return them to the lender. I gain €9 per share minus the cost of borrowing the shares and transaction costs.
If the share price rises, however, then I get drowned and face an unlimited loss.
The key fact here is that when I eventually buy back the shares I put upward pressure on the stock price. Just as my original selling of the shares dragged it downwards, my later action pushed it upwards. My profit is proportional to the intertemporal mispricing which I help to correct, and the social function I provide is to supply shares when demand for them is high, and a buyer when demand for them is low.
It might help to consider what would have happened if I had not acted. There would have been fewer sellers when Bank A was at €10 so the price would stay higher for longer. Assuming that sentiment eventually does turn against the bank, then when it reaches €1 there is one fewer buyer to lift it back up, so it falls even harder. Without me, the swing is from €10 to €1 is actually more wild.
This explains how short-sellers contribute to market efficiency by smoothing out stock price movements and thus removing volatility from the system.
There is an argument sometimes made that short-sellers can act in packs to collectively drive down stock prices. It is alleged that false rumours are spread which also help to intimidate normal shareholders. A downward trend is manipulated into existence, after which the short-sellers then cover their positions and take their unfair profits.
While this practice is theoretically possible, it would be extremely difficult for short-sellers to coordinate such activity. Also, the profits could not very be great unless a significant number of ordinary shareholders were scared away from their holdings. But in any case it is true that investors surrender to short-term trends and the rumour mill both when stocks rise and fall, so these issues, to the extent that they exist, are not unique to the shorts.
In terms of what is happening right now, it seems most likely that the bans on short selling the Irish, UK and US financials have been precipitated by a combination of political factors. These include the need for some to assign blame for recent disastrous share price declines, and the general trend for increased regulations and restrictions on trading activities.
The bans are understood to be temporary so it is to be hoped that they can be reversed as quickly as possible to restore one of the increasingly few forces for order in the financial markets.
Bank shares in Dublin have shot up today after the Financial Regulator introduced a ban on shorting them. The obvious interpretation is that short-sellers are now unwinding their positions and that traditional investors believe it is safer to return to the market.
While this price action is easily explicable, in the medium and long term the ban is unlikely to help the banks. Why? Because short-selling actually reduces market volatility. Let me explain how.
Suppose shares in Bank A are trading at €10 each. Suppose I take a look at their loan book and figure that the share price would be much closer to zero if it was being valued properly. So, for a small fee, I borrow some Bank A shares and sell them. This puts marginal downward pressure on the stock. If enough people do it with me and we run down the price, it might even upset some of the bank's executives, long-term shareholders, employees and customers.
What happens next? I wait to see if my view of the correct share price (<€10) becomes more widespread. If this happens then I get to buy back shares at some reduced price, say €1 each, and then return them to the lender. I gain €9 per share minus the cost of borrowing the shares and transaction costs.
If the share price rises, however, then I get drowned and face an unlimited loss.
The key fact here is that when I eventually buy back the shares I put upward pressure on the stock price. Just as my original selling of the shares dragged it downwards, my later action pushed it upwards. My profit is proportional to the intertemporal mispricing which I help to correct, and the social function I provide is to supply shares when demand for them is high, and a buyer when demand for them is low.
It might help to consider what would have happened if I had not acted. There would have been fewer sellers when Bank A was at €10 so the price would stay higher for longer. Assuming that sentiment eventually does turn against the bank, then when it reaches €1 there is one fewer buyer to lift it back up, so it falls even harder. Without me, the swing is from €10 to €1 is actually more wild.
This explains how short-sellers contribute to market efficiency by smoothing out stock price movements and thus removing volatility from the system.
There is an argument sometimes made that short-sellers can act in packs to collectively drive down stock prices. It is alleged that false rumours are spread which also help to intimidate normal shareholders. A downward trend is manipulated into existence, after which the short-sellers then cover their positions and take their unfair profits.
While this practice is theoretically possible, it would be extremely difficult for short-sellers to coordinate such activity. Also, the profits could not very be great unless a significant number of ordinary shareholders were scared away from their holdings. But in any case it is true that investors surrender to short-term trends and the rumour mill both when stocks rise and fall, so these issues, to the extent that they exist, are not unique to the shorts.
In terms of what is happening right now, it seems most likely that the bans on short selling the Irish, UK and US financials have been precipitated by a combination of political factors. These include the need for some to assign blame for recent disastrous share price declines, and the general trend for increased regulations and restrictions on trading activities.
The bans are understood to be temporary so it is to be hoped that they can be reversed as quickly as possible to restore one of the increasingly few forces for order in the financial markets.
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Is self-ownership a misnomer?
[cross-posted at Brainpolice at The Mises Community]
If something is owned, then by definition there is something external to it that is doing the owning. Likewise, something that is owned is by definition something external to the agent that owns it. Taking this very basic point into account, does it really make that much sense to think in terms of "self-ownership"? For if the self is something that is owned, then it is being owned by something or someone else. So then what is this entity that owns us and yet is us at the same time? Surely if it owns us then it is not us, or if we own the thing in question then it is not us?
In short, we run into the problem of creating a metaphysical duality in which the self is split into an essential and unessential self or a dominant and passive self in which the body is merely something that is inhabited by a "soul" or "spirit". One way of trying to get out of this problem would be to sever this duality into two separate entities, although the problem of explaining the existance and nature of this immaterial "soul" or "spirit" would remain. Another way of getting out of this problem would be to disregaurd the "soul" or "spirit" as a floating abstraction and to consequentially recognize the actual self as a coherant whole, devoid of any dominating metaphysical entity.
The idea of an external metaphysical entity that owns oneself renders the individual into nothing more than the slave of an abstraction, for their actual material being is placed into a submissive position in relation to this metaphysical entity or this particular manifestation of it. Individual autonomy and self-realization can actually be said to come under threat as a result of such a concept. In reality, this abstract metaphysical self functions as a false identity and implies some sort of internal struggle. Such an internal struggle can only be avoided by casting out or denying such a metaphysical duality to begin with, at which point the actual self can be meaningfully recognized and rights can be meaningfully derived.
None of this is being said to belittle the importance of individual sovereignty, but rather it is being said to save it from internal disintegration, while avoiding the problem of solipsism at the same time. This is a rather simple matter of recognizing the distinction between one's actual self and that which is either external to oneself or non-existant to begin with. If such a distinction is not made, then there will forevermore be a confusing haze with respect to discussions about rights and their derivation.
If something is owned, then by definition there is something external to it that is doing the owning. Likewise, something that is owned is by definition something external to the agent that owns it. Taking this very basic point into account, does it really make that much sense to think in terms of "self-ownership"? For if the self is something that is owned, then it is being owned by something or someone else. So then what is this entity that owns us and yet is us at the same time? Surely if it owns us then it is not us, or if we own the thing in question then it is not us?
In short, we run into the problem of creating a metaphysical duality in which the self is split into an essential and unessential self or a dominant and passive self in which the body is merely something that is inhabited by a "soul" or "spirit". One way of trying to get out of this problem would be to sever this duality into two separate entities, although the problem of explaining the existance and nature of this immaterial "soul" or "spirit" would remain. Another way of getting out of this problem would be to disregaurd the "soul" or "spirit" as a floating abstraction and to consequentially recognize the actual self as a coherant whole, devoid of any dominating metaphysical entity.
The idea of an external metaphysical entity that owns oneself renders the individual into nothing more than the slave of an abstraction, for their actual material being is placed into a submissive position in relation to this metaphysical entity or this particular manifestation of it. Individual autonomy and self-realization can actually be said to come under threat as a result of such a concept. In reality, this abstract metaphysical self functions as a false identity and implies some sort of internal struggle. Such an internal struggle can only be avoided by casting out or denying such a metaphysical duality to begin with, at which point the actual self can be meaningfully recognized and rights can be meaningfully derived.
None of this is being said to belittle the importance of individual sovereignty, but rather it is being said to save it from internal disintegration, while avoiding the problem of solipsism at the same time. This is a rather simple matter of recognizing the distinction between one's actual self and that which is either external to oneself or non-existant to begin with. If such a distinction is not made, then there will forevermore be a confusing haze with respect to discussions about rights and their derivation.
Friday, September 12, 2008
The Violence of Rural America
I am not one to complain about the values of rural parts of America. In fact, I grew up in a very rural town in North Carolina. There comes a point, however, when I must face the fact that my fellow residents of small-town America support violence. This may come as a shock to those who think small-town dwellers are the kindest people to walk the Earth. It is true: they are kind. But it is equally as true that they tend to support the initiation of force against innocent people.
Let me give some context. If you visit many rural places in America, you will likely discover that the old prohibition of alcohol debate rages on there, as if you had entered some sort of time warp. It rages on because the “moral” values of small-town America see the use of alcohol as one of the great evils thriving on this doomed world, being promoted by Satan himself. Town, city, and county officials continue to debate the pros and cons of allowing alcohol to be sold within whatever geographic area those officials happen to control.
When you talk with these people, you will often discover that they believe they are the last vestige of what is right and proper. Longtime churchgoers are interviewed by the evening news and proudly proclaim that they are out to keep their community from being ravaged by all the problems associated with alcohol: drunk driving, alcoholism, abusive parents, clogged courts, etc. For this reason, they claim to hold the moral high ground. (I am using “they” for the people who support alcohol prohibition in rural areas, being that in many rural places they make up a majority).
They could not be more wrong.
The wrongness of their position arises from how they frame the debate. For one thing, alcohol, an inanimate substance, is given life-like form. For another, and this is the big one, they completely ignore initiatory violence. It should be noted at this point that I am leaving aside the horrendous economics upon which this prohibition philosophy rests.
Why do I say that this small town position is violent? Well, it stems from the nature of government itself and how government goes about stopping people from buying or even consuming alcohol. Government, at its core, is a violent institution. The essential difference between private people and government is government can legally initiate violence against innocent people. For instance, if I deem that alcohol is bad and proceed to go prevent people from buying and consuming it by pointing a gun at them and threatening them, I would be breaking the law. However, if government – getting its support from a majority of voters – decides that alcohol is bad, it can go and use physical violence, or the threat thereof, to stop people from buying or consuming alcohol, and the government would not be breaking the law, at least not its own.
Some might object and say, “Wait a minute here! Government doesn’t point a gun at your head to stop you from using alcohol. It simply fines you or throws you in jail.” While this objection may be true on practical grounds, the use of violence is just the same. Whether the government uses fines or throws alcohol users in jail makes little difference. Anyone who challenges this assertion should think about what would happen should you refuse to pay the fine or refuse to be thrown in jail: the government would, with each phase of your resistance to its violent demands, increase the intensity of its physical violence to force you to cooperate. If the wielding of initiatory violence is wrong, it makes no difference what form it takes, be it fines or prison time.
It is also not a valid objection to claim that alcohol users have done some wrong and are not innocent as a result. The use of alcohol is not bad per se; it is only bad when bad decisions follow from that use. To put it quite simply, the mere fact the possibility exists for someone to consume or buy alcohol and do no wrong makes banning alcohol a violent position, since violence and force would be used against someone innocent. In fact, this is not just a possibility: it is a reality. People consume and buy alcohol without harming anyone every day.
So, individuals who support banning the consumption or sale of alcohol are supporting violence against innocent people. Indeed, how ironic is it that regular churchgoer Betty Sue in Small Town, America may be working in a soup kitchen helping the needy one day and casting a vote to use violence against innocent people the next? Perhaps ole Betty Sue fails to recognize her flawed and ironic position because the democratic process acts as a buffer between the violence government uses and Betty’s own position. After all, how much easier is it to advocate a violent position when all you have to do is push a button or darken a circle in a ballot box?
My plea to all the small town people is to give up the fight against alcohol. If you refuse to stop the fight, the least you can do is stop touting the prohibition of alcohol at the local level as some sort of morally superior position: it is just the opposite. Actually, it is quite deplorable.
Let me give some context. If you visit many rural places in America, you will likely discover that the old prohibition of alcohol debate rages on there, as if you had entered some sort of time warp. It rages on because the “moral” values of small-town America see the use of alcohol as one of the great evils thriving on this doomed world, being promoted by Satan himself. Town, city, and county officials continue to debate the pros and cons of allowing alcohol to be sold within whatever geographic area those officials happen to control.
When you talk with these people, you will often discover that they believe they are the last vestige of what is right and proper. Longtime churchgoers are interviewed by the evening news and proudly proclaim that they are out to keep their community from being ravaged by all the problems associated with alcohol: drunk driving, alcoholism, abusive parents, clogged courts, etc. For this reason, they claim to hold the moral high ground. (I am using “they” for the people who support alcohol prohibition in rural areas, being that in many rural places they make up a majority).
They could not be more wrong.
The wrongness of their position arises from how they frame the debate. For one thing, alcohol, an inanimate substance, is given life-like form. For another, and this is the big one, they completely ignore initiatory violence. It should be noted at this point that I am leaving aside the horrendous economics upon which this prohibition philosophy rests.
Why do I say that this small town position is violent? Well, it stems from the nature of government itself and how government goes about stopping people from buying or even consuming alcohol. Government, at its core, is a violent institution. The essential difference between private people and government is government can legally initiate violence against innocent people. For instance, if I deem that alcohol is bad and proceed to go prevent people from buying and consuming it by pointing a gun at them and threatening them, I would be breaking the law. However, if government – getting its support from a majority of voters – decides that alcohol is bad, it can go and use physical violence, or the threat thereof, to stop people from buying or consuming alcohol, and the government would not be breaking the law, at least not its own.
Some might object and say, “Wait a minute here! Government doesn’t point a gun at your head to stop you from using alcohol. It simply fines you or throws you in jail.” While this objection may be true on practical grounds, the use of violence is just the same. Whether the government uses fines or throws alcohol users in jail makes little difference. Anyone who challenges this assertion should think about what would happen should you refuse to pay the fine or refuse to be thrown in jail: the government would, with each phase of your resistance to its violent demands, increase the intensity of its physical violence to force you to cooperate. If the wielding of initiatory violence is wrong, it makes no difference what form it takes, be it fines or prison time.
It is also not a valid objection to claim that alcohol users have done some wrong and are not innocent as a result. The use of alcohol is not bad per se; it is only bad when bad decisions follow from that use. To put it quite simply, the mere fact the possibility exists for someone to consume or buy alcohol and do no wrong makes banning alcohol a violent position, since violence and force would be used against someone innocent. In fact, this is not just a possibility: it is a reality. People consume and buy alcohol without harming anyone every day.
So, individuals who support banning the consumption or sale of alcohol are supporting violence against innocent people. Indeed, how ironic is it that regular churchgoer Betty Sue in Small Town, America may be working in a soup kitchen helping the needy one day and casting a vote to use violence against innocent people the next? Perhaps ole Betty Sue fails to recognize her flawed and ironic position because the democratic process acts as a buffer between the violence government uses and Betty’s own position. After all, how much easier is it to advocate a violent position when all you have to do is push a button or darken a circle in a ballot box?
My plea to all the small town people is to give up the fight against alcohol. If you refuse to stop the fight, the least you can do is stop touting the prohibition of alcohol at the local level as some sort of morally superior position: it is just the opposite. Actually, it is quite deplorable.
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Just a follow up
I've been given a lot of grief over my attitude in regards to the recent Lewrockwell.com article by Walter Block, and I have to say, though some of it is warranted, a large part of it is merely partisan - take for example, Jeffrey Tucker's shameful banningof opposing views to his and his Dear Leader's on the Mises forums.
To be quite clear, I wish to make clear a few things.
1. I still feel that Block is a conservative shill, but I think it is important to contrast that with what he once was - an honorable scholar who defended what he once sympathetically christened, "the undefendable." Compare this to his recent views, includinghomophobia, and I think calling him a conservative is a rather nice way to put it.
2. Though Block was the first one mentioned in the previous edition on the blog, the entry was not really directed at him. Instead, it was directed at the whole of the Buchanan supporting, counter-culture hating, xenophobic, reformist Lewrockwell.com.
3. Specifically, I think that is what pushed little, Jeffrey over the top. Revealing, among other things, Llewellyn Rockwell's support for the LAPD after beating a black man within an inch of his life - for no other reason than that he was black - it seemed inevitable that the paleo-conservative clan at Lewrockwell would get their way. Have to keep the truth under wraps, right JT!
4. I apologize whole heartedly to the sex-workers I may have offended by comparing them to Sarah Palin. I merely wish to impress upon you, however, that the word whore, in this context, was not a reference to Palin's gender, but rather it was a reference to the fact that she would sell her decency to kiss the ring of the establishment. The word whore, as with many English words, possesses multiple meanings and not all are sexually implicit or vulgar.
That being said, however, there exists a new article by that fellow Block defending his position. Far from adding reason, though, Block merely serves to express exactly why his stance is so flawed. The caricature that he is, Block again defers to Chairman Paul, committing to Palin as an effect of the very small compliment she gave him on an MTV interview, saying no more than that she respected him "rocking-the-boat."
Closing off with a call to arms - er... through mesely pieces of paper called ballots - Block again perverts his image, throwing support behind McCain-Palin. Instead of seeing the flaws in his own plan (reform and voting), Block merely berates other libertarians for not pounding a square peg into a round hole.
Pathetic!
To be quite clear, I wish to make clear a few things.
1. I still feel that Block is a conservative shill, but I think it is important to contrast that with what he once was - an honorable scholar who defended what he once sympathetically christened, "the undefendable." Compare this to his recent views, includinghomophobia, and I think calling him a conservative is a rather nice way to put it.
2. Though Block was the first one mentioned in the previous edition on the blog, the entry was not really directed at him. Instead, it was directed at the whole of the Buchanan supporting, counter-culture hating, xenophobic, reformist Lewrockwell.com.
3. Specifically, I think that is what pushed little, Jeffrey over the top. Revealing, among other things, Llewellyn Rockwell's support for the LAPD after beating a black man within an inch of his life - for no other reason than that he was black - it seemed inevitable that the paleo-conservative clan at Lewrockwell would get their way. Have to keep the truth under wraps, right JT!
4. I apologize whole heartedly to the sex-workers I may have offended by comparing them to Sarah Palin. I merely wish to impress upon you, however, that the word whore, in this context, was not a reference to Palin's gender, but rather it was a reference to the fact that she would sell her decency to kiss the ring of the establishment. The word whore, as with many English words, possesses multiple meanings and not all are sexually implicit or vulgar.
That being said, however, there exists a new article by that fellow Block defending his position. Far from adding reason, though, Block merely serves to express exactly why his stance is so flawed. The caricature that he is, Block again defers to Chairman Paul, committing to Palin as an effect of the very small compliment she gave him on an MTV interview, saying no more than that she respected him "rocking-the-boat."
Closing off with a call to arms - er... through mesely pieces of paper called ballots - Block again perverts his image, throwing support behind McCain-Palin. Instead of seeing the flaws in his own plan (reform and voting), Block merely berates other libertarians for not pounding a square peg into a round hole.
Pathetic!
Monday, September 8, 2008
LewRockwell.com and Walter Block
I have to disagree with the previous blogger: I don't think LewRockwell.com or Dr. Walter Block can be classified as paleo-conservative.
LewRockwell.com has a lot of writers, and some of them are clearly not anarchists. However, some of them clearly are. Dr. Block being one I would put in the clearly an anarchist category.
I say this partially from the tone and context of his own writing, but also from personal experience. Dr. Block converted me to market anarchy at the Mises Institute back in August of 2007, so, needless to say, I have a certain affinity for the guy.
I think if you read Dr. Block's latest article on LewRockwell.com in full, you get the context in which he was writing it:
The above quotation shows how Dr. Block is merely comparing Palin to the other politicians we have to choose from. He even admits that there isn't much of a choice. The key point is that he is judging her relative to those that McCain could have chosen for Vice President: he isn't making a de novo declaration.
Also, I got a good laugh at parts of the article because a lot of it is clearly done in jest. Take this for an example:
Dr. Block, even if you've only heard his lectures online, is very fond of jokes and enjoys being witty, or at least trying to be (Some of his jokes aren't all that funny. Sorry, Dr. Block, but we give you credit for trying.). His latest article was a mixture of relative political analysis and jest, which taken in the right context was quite humorous and interesting. It by no means shows that Dr. Block supports her and will vote for McCain-Palin, nor does it show LewRockwell.com is a paleo-conservative site. If you go back and read his open letter to Obama (wherein he gives his moral support to Obama, i.e. he's with him "in spirit."), he does a lot of the same analysis, with a lot of the same tone.
I, too, disagree with a lot of the writers on LewRockwell.com, but, at the same time, there are a lot of them I agree with. The point is the site has a lot of columnists and with those numbers comes a variety of opinions, not all of which are based in market anarchy.
LewRockwell.com has a lot of writers, and some of them are clearly not anarchists. However, some of them clearly are. Dr. Block being one I would put in the clearly an anarchist category.
I say this partially from the tone and context of his own writing, but also from personal experience. Dr. Block converted me to market anarchy at the Mises Institute back in August of 2007, so, needless to say, I have a certain affinity for the guy.
I think if you read Dr. Block's latest article on LewRockwell.com in full, you get the context in which he was writing it:
Yes, yes, she is no libertarian, certainly not of the purist variety. She is no Ron Paul. But, a little context here, please. Compared to McCain, Obama and Biden, she is a veritable Murray N. Rothbard. What about matching her up against all the other 49 governors? Well, Bobby Jindal of Louisiana is not all bad as far as these things go, and there might be another half dozen of this breed, mainly in the poorly populated states west of the Mississippi, but surely Sarah Palin fits comfortably into this category. According to this source, tax freedom day arrives earliest in Alaska, of all 50 states. Not too shabby, at least in this context. She favors drilling in the ANWR, and that alone is worth the price of admission.
The above quotation shows how Dr. Block is merely comparing Palin to the other politicians we have to choose from. He even admits that there isn't much of a choice. The key point is that he is judging her relative to those that McCain could have chosen for Vice President: he isn't making a de novo declaration.
Also, I got a good laugh at parts of the article because a lot of it is clearly done in jest. Take this for an example:
The McCain (ugh!) – Palin (whoop-di-do) ticket is elected in November. The duffer kicks the bucket after a heart attack in early 2009, and our girl is now President of these here United States. Who does she choose as Vice President? Why, a certain Congressman from Texas.
Dr. Block, even if you've only heard his lectures online, is very fond of jokes and enjoys being witty, or at least trying to be (Some of his jokes aren't all that funny. Sorry, Dr. Block, but we give you credit for trying.). His latest article was a mixture of relative political analysis and jest, which taken in the right context was quite humorous and interesting. It by no means shows that Dr. Block supports her and will vote for McCain-Palin, nor does it show LewRockwell.com is a paleo-conservative site. If you go back and read his open letter to Obama (wherein he gives his moral support to Obama, i.e. he's with him "in spirit."), he does a lot of the same analysis, with a lot of the same tone.
I, too, disagree with a lot of the writers on LewRockwell.com, but, at the same time, there are a lot of them I agree with. The point is the site has a lot of columnists and with those numbers comes a variety of opinions, not all of which are based in market anarchy.
As if Lewrockwell.com couldn't get any worse
In the most recent article on Lewrockwell.com, the ever conservative shill Walter Block authors yet another piece on the paleo-conservative website giving cunnilingus to that whore Sarah Palin.
If calling a woman that wants to institute a "Loyalty Day," about as Orwellian as one gets, "our girl" isn't enough to show Anarchists that people like Block and Llewellyn Rockwell are paleo-conservatives and treasonous hacks of the most disgusting variety, then what is?
Would Rockwell need to defend a racist and a xenophobe, perhaps being one himself, to finally convince everyone of his true mentality? Oh wait...
Really people, I love markets as much as the next guy - hell, I think I love them more - but not enough to align with thesebigots.
To summarize on Lew Rockwell and his clan,
Ew...
Now, I think I need to take a shower after mentioning the name.
If calling a woman that wants to institute a "Loyalty Day," about as Orwellian as one gets, "our girl" isn't enough to show Anarchists that people like Block and Llewellyn Rockwell are paleo-conservatives and treasonous hacks of the most disgusting variety, then what is?
Would Rockwell need to defend a racist and a xenophobe, perhaps being one himself, to finally convince everyone of his true mentality? Oh wait...
Really people, I love markets as much as the next guy - hell, I think I love them more - but not enough to align with thesebigots.
To summarize on Lew Rockwell and his clan,
Ew...
Now, I think I need to take a shower after mentioning the name.
Saturday, September 6, 2008
Transcending Anarcho-semantics
[cross-posted at Brainpolice at The Mises Community]
There is a reoccuring problem that occurs within internal libertarian and anarchist discourse that I like to call the anarcho-semantics problem. The anarcho-semantics problem most often occurs in discussions and debates between socialist oriented anarchists and free market libertarians, in which there is a massive communication barrier and consequentially endless misunderstandings. The meanings attached to terms such as capitalism, socialism, libertarianism and anarchism vary significantly, and consequentially discourse often devolves into confused flame wars between partisan camps. Both similiarities and distinctions between various partisan camps are blurred, and confused multi-identity complexes may emerge. Each respective camp has its own esoteric language and specific choice of associations.
Those who identify as socialist or collectivist tend to think that laissez-faire economics is merely apologetics for rich or privileged elites, and thus they tend to close their minds to it from the start. As they understand it, capitalism is an inherently authoritarian system that creates negative conditions for workers and people of meager means. Thus, anyone identifying as capitalist is assumed to be defending such negative conditions and various groups of rich or privileged elites. As a consequence, they may tend to bait those who identify as capitalist or individualist into defending such things. Furthermore, any attempt to create a link between laissez-faire economics and anarchism is viewed as a contradiction in terms, and thus those who do flirt with such a combination are demonized.
In response to such attacks, those who identify as capitalist or individualist tend to function in a number of ways. Some of them truly are apologists for the conditions and privileges in question, and thus they don't even need to be baited into playing such a role. This role is known as vulgar libertarianism. Others do not have such intentions but allow themselves to be baited on and off into playing such a role. This is vulgar libertarianism in a less overt sense in that the person is being baited. And still yet others have no such intentions and have no choice but to repeatedly attempt to clarify what their position actually is and that they actually do not favor or defend the conditions and privileges in question.
The fine tuned individualist quite likely actually opposes the very same privileges and negative conditions that the collectivist or socialist does, only they approach it from a different angle and use different terminology. However, the general tendency in political discourse is for even these people to be attacked as if they defend such things, consequentially erecting a gigantic straw man of their position. They have no choice but to continually clarify that a genuinely free market, as they define and understand it, should not be conflated with the status quo. But the naive socialist or collectivist types continue to mistakenly act as if laissez-faire is the status quo, and hence continues to point the finger at all laissez-faire advocates to blame them for the status quo, which becomes a propaganda tool.
Those who identify as capitalist or individualist tend to think that socialism is an inherently authoritarian system that creatives negative conditions and special privileges. From their perspective, socialists merely engage in apologetics for government controls on people's private lives. Socialism and government control are essentially the same thing in their worldview. Thus, anyone identifying as socialist is assumed to be defending such government controls. As a consequence, they may tend to bait those who identify as socialist or collectivist into defending such things, including the dictatorships and violent actions that have been perpetuated in the name of socialism or collectivism. Furthermore, any attempt to create a link between socialism and libertarianism is viewed as a contradiction in terms, and thus those who do flirt with such a combination are demonized.
In response to such attacks, those who identify as socialist or collectivist tend to function in a number of ways. Some of them truly are apologists for virtual absolute government control and historical acts of overt violence perpetuated in the name of socialism, and thus they don't even need to be baited into playing such a role. Others do not necessarily have such intentions but nonetheless allow themselves to be baited on and off into playing such a role. And still yet others have no such intentions and have no choice but to repeatedly attempt to clarify what their position actually is and that they actually do not favor government control or any kind of overt violence.
The fine tuned collectivist quite likely actually opposes the very same government control and overt violence that the capitalist or individualist does, only they approach it from a different angle and use different terminology. However, the general tendency in political discourse is for even these people to be attacked as if they defend such things, consequentially erecting a gigantic straw man of their position. They have no choice but to continually clarify that a genuinely socialistic society, as they define and understand it, should not be conflated with the status quo or much of anything that most people would call socialism in name. But the partisan capitalist and vulgar libertarian types continues to point the finger at all socialists or collectivists to blame them for the status quo and accuse them advocating a return to the same methods that the Soviet Union used, which becomes a propaganda tool.
What one finds interesting upon a nuanced analysis is that the most honest and honorable people from both of the capitalistic and socialistic camps tend to overlap in their desired ends. They actually share many goals, such as the improvement of living standards for the masses, general prosperity, peace and cooperation. But the warped nature of the contemporary political spectrum has skewed and polarized their associations and alliances, pitting them against eachother while pushing them into alliances with groups that theoretically are their political enemies. Thus we free market libertarians allying with conservatives and libertarian socialists allying with marxists and leninists. And we see libertarian socialists spending more time on propaganda campaigns against market anarchists than they spend critisizing authoritarian socialists and actual conservatives.
When the semantic ambiguities and partisan misunderstandings are whittled away, what one is left with is mostly a diverse group of people with commonly good intentons who happen to use entirely different terminology and conceptual angles to describe, support and oppose what is practically the exact same set of things, and beyond this it boils down to little more than a matter of personal preferance. They're all opposed to the status quo and the negative conditions and special privileges that are associated with it. The concepts and systems that they use to describe what they support and oppose varies, but the essential content of the matter is surpisingly similar. This is not necessarily to say that they are completely identical, but by the very least they are nowhere near as far apart as the semantics and contemporary politics involved would suggest.
There is a reoccuring problem that occurs within internal libertarian and anarchist discourse that I like to call the anarcho-semantics problem. The anarcho-semantics problem most often occurs in discussions and debates between socialist oriented anarchists and free market libertarians, in which there is a massive communication barrier and consequentially endless misunderstandings. The meanings attached to terms such as capitalism, socialism, libertarianism and anarchism vary significantly, and consequentially discourse often devolves into confused flame wars between partisan camps. Both similiarities and distinctions between various partisan camps are blurred, and confused multi-identity complexes may emerge. Each respective camp has its own esoteric language and specific choice of associations.
Those who identify as socialist or collectivist tend to think that laissez-faire economics is merely apologetics for rich or privileged elites, and thus they tend to close their minds to it from the start. As they understand it, capitalism is an inherently authoritarian system that creates negative conditions for workers and people of meager means. Thus, anyone identifying as capitalist is assumed to be defending such negative conditions and various groups of rich or privileged elites. As a consequence, they may tend to bait those who identify as capitalist or individualist into defending such things. Furthermore, any attempt to create a link between laissez-faire economics and anarchism is viewed as a contradiction in terms, and thus those who do flirt with such a combination are demonized.
In response to such attacks, those who identify as capitalist or individualist tend to function in a number of ways. Some of them truly are apologists for the conditions and privileges in question, and thus they don't even need to be baited into playing such a role. This role is known as vulgar libertarianism. Others do not have such intentions but allow themselves to be baited on and off into playing such a role. This is vulgar libertarianism in a less overt sense in that the person is being baited. And still yet others have no such intentions and have no choice but to repeatedly attempt to clarify what their position actually is and that they actually do not favor or defend the conditions and privileges in question.
The fine tuned individualist quite likely actually opposes the very same privileges and negative conditions that the collectivist or socialist does, only they approach it from a different angle and use different terminology. However, the general tendency in political discourse is for even these people to be attacked as if they defend such things, consequentially erecting a gigantic straw man of their position. They have no choice but to continually clarify that a genuinely free market, as they define and understand it, should not be conflated with the status quo. But the naive socialist or collectivist types continue to mistakenly act as if laissez-faire is the status quo, and hence continues to point the finger at all laissez-faire advocates to blame them for the status quo, which becomes a propaganda tool.
Those who identify as capitalist or individualist tend to think that socialism is an inherently authoritarian system that creatives negative conditions and special privileges. From their perspective, socialists merely engage in apologetics for government controls on people's private lives. Socialism and government control are essentially the same thing in their worldview. Thus, anyone identifying as socialist is assumed to be defending such government controls. As a consequence, they may tend to bait those who identify as socialist or collectivist into defending such things, including the dictatorships and violent actions that have been perpetuated in the name of socialism or collectivism. Furthermore, any attempt to create a link between socialism and libertarianism is viewed as a contradiction in terms, and thus those who do flirt with such a combination are demonized.
In response to such attacks, those who identify as socialist or collectivist tend to function in a number of ways. Some of them truly are apologists for virtual absolute government control and historical acts of overt violence perpetuated in the name of socialism, and thus they don't even need to be baited into playing such a role. Others do not necessarily have such intentions but nonetheless allow themselves to be baited on and off into playing such a role. And still yet others have no such intentions and have no choice but to repeatedly attempt to clarify what their position actually is and that they actually do not favor government control or any kind of overt violence.
The fine tuned collectivist quite likely actually opposes the very same government control and overt violence that the capitalist or individualist does, only they approach it from a different angle and use different terminology. However, the general tendency in political discourse is for even these people to be attacked as if they defend such things, consequentially erecting a gigantic straw man of their position. They have no choice but to continually clarify that a genuinely socialistic society, as they define and understand it, should not be conflated with the status quo or much of anything that most people would call socialism in name. But the partisan capitalist and vulgar libertarian types continues to point the finger at all socialists or collectivists to blame them for the status quo and accuse them advocating a return to the same methods that the Soviet Union used, which becomes a propaganda tool.
What one finds interesting upon a nuanced analysis is that the most honest and honorable people from both of the capitalistic and socialistic camps tend to overlap in their desired ends. They actually share many goals, such as the improvement of living standards for the masses, general prosperity, peace and cooperation. But the warped nature of the contemporary political spectrum has skewed and polarized their associations and alliances, pitting them against eachother while pushing them into alliances with groups that theoretically are their political enemies. Thus we free market libertarians allying with conservatives and libertarian socialists allying with marxists and leninists. And we see libertarian socialists spending more time on propaganda campaigns against market anarchists than they spend critisizing authoritarian socialists and actual conservatives.
When the semantic ambiguities and partisan misunderstandings are whittled away, what one is left with is mostly a diverse group of people with commonly good intentons who happen to use entirely different terminology and conceptual angles to describe, support and oppose what is practically the exact same set of things, and beyond this it boils down to little more than a matter of personal preferance. They're all opposed to the status quo and the negative conditions and special privileges that are associated with it. The concepts and systems that they use to describe what they support and oppose varies, but the essential content of the matter is surpisingly similar. This is not necessarily to say that they are completely identical, but by the very least they are nowhere near as far apart as the semantics and contemporary politics involved would suggest.
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Income tax (theft) insanity
(originally posted at thequestforreason.blogspot.com)
Any market anarchist hates the income tax. We hate it because the government assumes it owns every penny of our income and allows us keep a certain portion once it's through eating away at our hard-earned cash.
Looking at it from the government's perspective, though, the income tax makes sense. It is a useful tool to raise revenue (expropriate funds) from its citizens. However, one would think that the government's own laws regarding raising its own revenue would make sense. Interestingly, that isn't the case at all. The tax code is insanely complicated.
Let me give an example of this abusrdity:
To put it simply as possible, tax law has two different methods of calculating gain (income) for individuals who receive gifts or bequests. One method is used if there is actually a gain and another is used if there is a loss. Now, the crazy part is that there are instances, according to the tax codes own rules, where the gain calculation can come out with a loss, and the loss calculation can come out with a gain.
This is good news to those who don't like to pay taxes, because this anomaly doesn't have to be reported: tax law simply assumes it never existed.
My point is that if the government can't even figure out how to calculate it's own theft properly, how can a reasonable person expect it to do any better in areas where its own interests are far less accentuated?
It is as if a massive network of thieves, possessing an unmatched ability to coerce and intimidate, had no one in their ranks with the ability to count the loot. Perhaps the innumerate villains are the most dangerous ones?
Any market anarchist hates the income tax. We hate it because the government assumes it owns every penny of our income and allows us keep a certain portion once it's through eating away at our hard-earned cash.
Looking at it from the government's perspective, though, the income tax makes sense. It is a useful tool to raise revenue (expropriate funds) from its citizens. However, one would think that the government's own laws regarding raising its own revenue would make sense. Interestingly, that isn't the case at all. The tax code is insanely complicated.
Let me give an example of this abusrdity:
To put it simply as possible, tax law has two different methods of calculating gain (income) for individuals who receive gifts or bequests. One method is used if there is actually a gain and another is used if there is a loss. Now, the crazy part is that there are instances, according to the tax codes own rules, where the gain calculation can come out with a loss, and the loss calculation can come out with a gain.
This is good news to those who don't like to pay taxes, because this anomaly doesn't have to be reported: tax law simply assumes it never existed.
My point is that if the government can't even figure out how to calculate it's own theft properly, how can a reasonable person expect it to do any better in areas where its own interests are far less accentuated?
It is as if a massive network of thieves, possessing an unmatched ability to coerce and intimidate, had no one in their ranks with the ability to count the loot. Perhaps the innumerate villains are the most dangerous ones?
Friday, October 17, 2008
The all-powerful god contradiction
I've explained, or tried to, in other formats my reasoning for why I believe those that advocate an all-powerful god are engaging in a performative contradiction. This is my attempt to explain it using the written word.
Let's start with a simple example that I got from one of Roderick T. Long's lectures.
If someone makes the claim "all statements are false," they are engaging in a performative contradiction. For if that statement is true, all statements - including that original claim - are false, so it can't possibly be true. If the statement is false, it simply falls for that reason alone. The truth of that claim attacks the ability of the maker of it to communicate it in discourse, because if all statements are false, the advocate of that position has no means by which to communicate his position: statements.
Likewise, if someone claims that "logic is false," they are engaging in a performative contradiction as well. In order for any statement to be true, it must also be logical. Statements must be both true and logical to be accepted as anything other than nonsense. If the above claim is true, logic has unwoven and the very means by which the advocate must communicate his argument falls from beneath him. In brief, the very statement itself cannot be accepted to the extent that it is true, since logic and truth go hand-in-hand.
The reason logic as a whole is unwoven is due to the nature of logic itself. Logic is a seamless tapestry, and multiple logics do not exist. There is no one logic for redheads and another, different logic for brunetts. Ludwig von Mises called the belief that multiple logics exist and that each is valid the fallacy of polylogism.
What implications does this have for the notion of an all-powerful god? Well, those that claim "god is all powerful" make an implicit subclaim that "god is not bound by logic." Some may dispute this, perhaps if they hold the position of Saint Thomas Aquinas. However, most Christians, and religious people in general, believe that their god can do whatever he wishes. He can make a square circle, or he can both exist and not exist at the same time. In effect, they advocate a different logic for their god than they themselves are bound by. I would say they are committing some variant of the fallacy of polylogism.
Those that make such a claim as "god is not bound by logic" are also engaging in a performative contradiction. On the one hand, the advocate of that claim would have the hearers of his argument believe that the claim itself is logical, i.e. it is both true and logical. Why believe it otherwise? On the other hand, the advocate would have the hearers believe in the claims illogical conclusion, i.e. god can break the rules of logic.
The truth of the advocate's claim, however, comes back to haunt him. If the claim "god is not bound by logic" is true, then the advocate has unwoven logic itself. And like I mentioned before, if logic falls in one area, it falls everywhere. Thus, if the claim is true, the advocate is undoing his own ability to make the claim itself. He is, in effect, eliminating logical discourse, since it is not possible to advocate a logic for humans and a separate logic for god.
Some may object and say the maker of that claim is not saying god is illogical, but that god is simply bound by another, more supreme logic. This, again, would be some variant of the polylogism fallacy. For if our human logic can be used to prove that this supreme, god logic exists, then they must be related. Not only are they related, but god's logic would necessarily have to subsume human logic, since god's logic would have to apply not only to god reality but to human reality, too. We see quicky, however, that god logic would be just as limiting on god as human logic. If god logic subsumes human logic, then god could also not break human logic, since it is a part of god logic, e.g. god could not make a square circle in either logic. Thus, we see that god logic and human logic are the same, since god logic does not provide for any expansions in god's power.
This is all quite silly in some sense, because the notion of god is inherently one of superstition and irrationality. I did think it was worth explaining, though.
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Who cares what they say?
Obama and McCain are irrelevant. Watching them debate is irrelevant. Their (central) plans for America are irrelevant.
My question is... why do so many Americans still care?
I continue to be amazed at how many people are getting so excited about the upcoming presidential election, especially supporters of Obama. I guess this is true of all elections, but Obama's supporters act as if everything is going to be fine and dandy, just so long as their man is elected to dictator-in-chief.
Both of the candidates supported the bailout, and McCain even proposed a more massive plan than has already been implemented. The bailout will be a total failure. It is a failure morally because it is stealing from some to prop up the bad decision of others. But it is also a failure economically.
Obama called healthcare a right. That means he is placing a positive obligation on some other, unknown people to provide that health care. Thus, if those unknowns are not coerced and people go without healthcare, rights have been violated. This is a ridiculous position.
McCain still supports the war, and Obama is not much better. McCain refuses to end the war in Iraq until American troops can come home "with honor." This is a nice rhetorical way to escape having to be seen as supporting the failed effort there, while at the same time seeming very patriotic. It is pathetic either way.
Obama used to call for ending the war back when he was running for his party's nomination. If my memory serves me correctly, he used to call for all troops to be home within six months. He is not saying that now. Instead, he now says all "combat troops" will be out of Iraq within 16 months of him taking office. This clearly indicates he will keep non-combat troops in Iraq for the foreseeable future, whatever and how ever many that may be.
Not only are these candidates totally irrelevant, but they are very unexciting. I am still amazed that Obama is some sort of celebrity. Why? His speeches are not motivating, enlightening, or even inspirational. I admit that Reagan and Clinton were at least inspirational speakers, even though I disagreed with their substance. Reagan was good with free market rhetoric, and he had a way of wording things to make you like him and his ideas. That is not the case with Obama or McCain. McCain can barely get through a speech without stumbling; it reminds me of Bush. Obama has awkward pauses, and his oratory style lacks whatever made Reagan and Clinton sound smooth and interesting.
Reagan and Clinton were like having a new quarter with one side scuffed up: their substance side of the quarter. With one side scuffed, you can at least flip it over and concentrate on the pretty part. Obama and McCain, however, are new quarters with both sides scuffed. Their substance is horrid, and their ability to give a decent speech is equally abismal, leaving aside those that think Obama is some master orator (delusional at best).
I guess what I am saying is... we are screwed. But is that really news to us? Not really.
My question is... why do so many Americans still care?
I continue to be amazed at how many people are getting so excited about the upcoming presidential election, especially supporters of Obama. I guess this is true of all elections, but Obama's supporters act as if everything is going to be fine and dandy, just so long as their man is elected to dictator-in-chief.
Both of the candidates supported the bailout, and McCain even proposed a more massive plan than has already been implemented. The bailout will be a total failure. It is a failure morally because it is stealing from some to prop up the bad decision of others. But it is also a failure economically.
Obama called healthcare a right. That means he is placing a positive obligation on some other, unknown people to provide that health care. Thus, if those unknowns are not coerced and people go without healthcare, rights have been violated. This is a ridiculous position.
McCain still supports the war, and Obama is not much better. McCain refuses to end the war in Iraq until American troops can come home "with honor." This is a nice rhetorical way to escape having to be seen as supporting the failed effort there, while at the same time seeming very patriotic. It is pathetic either way.
Obama used to call for ending the war back when he was running for his party's nomination. If my memory serves me correctly, he used to call for all troops to be home within six months. He is not saying that now. Instead, he now says all "combat troops" will be out of Iraq within 16 months of him taking office. This clearly indicates he will keep non-combat troops in Iraq for the foreseeable future, whatever and how ever many that may be.
Not only are these candidates totally irrelevant, but they are very unexciting. I am still amazed that Obama is some sort of celebrity. Why? His speeches are not motivating, enlightening, or even inspirational. I admit that Reagan and Clinton were at least inspirational speakers, even though I disagreed with their substance. Reagan was good with free market rhetoric, and he had a way of wording things to make you like him and his ideas. That is not the case with Obama or McCain. McCain can barely get through a speech without stumbling; it reminds me of Bush. Obama has awkward pauses, and his oratory style lacks whatever made Reagan and Clinton sound smooth and interesting.
Reagan and Clinton were like having a new quarter with one side scuffed up: their substance side of the quarter. With one side scuffed, you can at least flip it over and concentrate on the pretty part. Obama and McCain, however, are new quarters with both sides scuffed. Their substance is horrid, and their ability to give a decent speech is equally abismal, leaving aside those that think Obama is some master orator (delusional at best).
I guess what I am saying is... we are screwed. But is that really news to us? Not really.
Saturday, October 11, 2008
Rejecting The Natural/Synthetic Dichotomy
[cross-posted at Brainpolice at The Mises Community]
I reject the natural/synthetic dichotomy. The natural/synthetic dichotomy is manifested in two fundamental ways: (1) the assumption that humans and/or human constructs are separate from nature and (2) the assumption that certain human constructs are "natural" while others are not. The problem with this dichotomy is that humans and their constructs are a part and product of nature; it is impossible for humans to step outside of the context of nature. Unless one wishes to posit a supernatural, all that exists or occurs is natural by default. Something that is not natural would be something that simply does not exist or occur at all. Hence, it makes no sense to speak of existing things or phenomenon as if they are not natural, or to defend or support a given thing or phenomenon by appealing to it being natural.
Everything is natural, regaurdless of how common or rare it is, when it occurs or doesn't occur, wether its beneficial or detrimental, good or bad, and so on. That which is natural, which is simply to say something that occurs or exists, cannot be construed as being good or bad by mere virtue of being natural. Nature is morally neutral in this sense, because the mere existance of a thing or phenomenon in of itself does not signify value. In other words, nature does not have intrinsic value. Understood broadly, it simply is what it is. This is not to say that there is no purpose or merit to assigning value to certain phenomenon, but that its mere occurance is not what gives it value. For if that which is natural is inherently good or bad, then literally everything must be assumed to be inherently good or bad, and that is absurd.
It's also important to note that just because something is natural does not necessarily mean that it is universal, inevitable or permanent. Nature is not static, it is dynamic, which is to say that it is in a constant state of flux. That which is common in the present may very well be rendered obsolete and archiac in the future. It can be quite fallacious to appeal to phenomenon from the past as if it is representative of an inevitable future or to regaurd current phenomenon as if they represent a permanent state of affairs. What once was natural can be rendered non-existant over time, and what once was little more than a pipe dream can become "the natural order". Appealing to the past as "natural" is simply a weak argument. The present and future is no less "natural" and the "naturalness" of things is really irrelevant.
One way in which the natural/synthetic dichotomy is manifested is in the arguementation of primitivists, anti-civilizationists and radical environmentalists. The contemporary technology and extended division of labor produced by humans is demonized as "unnatural" while more primitive and "self-sufficient" ways of living are romantisized as "natural". Human civilization is characterized as being inherently antagonistic with nature, and nature is assumed to have intrinsic value. Radically egalitarian philosophy makes use of the dichotomy as well, with egalitarianism being construed as "natural" while heirarchy is considered to be "unnatural". Interestingly, primitive societies are often pointed to as examples of egalitarianism, even though a non-biased look at such societies likely reveals quite a bit of heirarchy.
The natural/synthetic dichotomy is also manifested in conservative philosophy. Rigid class heirarchy, religious authority, familial authority, racism, nationalism, have been charactered as "the natural order" (with strong use of naturalistic language used to defend them), as if they are inevitable laws of nature and intrinsic authorities, and deviations from them are construed as synthetic attempts to produce a "new man" in antagonism with nature. Conservative philosophy strongly appeals to tradition as being "natural", and deviations from tradition such as homosexuality, secularism and multiculturalism are construed as "unnatural". All of this could be said to stem from a pessemistic and archiac accessment of nature that lies at the heart of conservatism.
Social contract theory and traditional statist apologetics is riddled with the natural/synthetic dichotomy because it tends to construe centralized political organization as if it involves man exiting "the state of nature", while at the same time there is a very strong temptation to characterize the rise of centralizd political organization as a "natural" phenomenon in the sense that is inevitable. Statism is construed as "the natural order" that inevitably arises from social organization. And statist politics is riddled with debate over precisely what kind of centralized political organization is the most "natural" or what the "natural progression" will lead to. Traditionally, anarchy is either brushed off as "unnatural" or is conflated with primitivism.
While these various types of social phenomenon and organization most certainly can be evaluated, wether or not they are "natural" is really irrelevant to such an evaluation, because they are all "natural" to the extent that they occur or exist at all. The natural/synthetic dichotomy is a misnomer that sidetracks from the real substantive debates that could take place.
I reject the natural/synthetic dichotomy. The natural/synthetic dichotomy is manifested in two fundamental ways: (1) the assumption that humans and/or human constructs are separate from nature and (2) the assumption that certain human constructs are "natural" while others are not. The problem with this dichotomy is that humans and their constructs are a part and product of nature; it is impossible for humans to step outside of the context of nature. Unless one wishes to posit a supernatural, all that exists or occurs is natural by default. Something that is not natural would be something that simply does not exist or occur at all. Hence, it makes no sense to speak of existing things or phenomenon as if they are not natural, or to defend or support a given thing or phenomenon by appealing to it being natural.
Everything is natural, regaurdless of how common or rare it is, when it occurs or doesn't occur, wether its beneficial or detrimental, good or bad, and so on. That which is natural, which is simply to say something that occurs or exists, cannot be construed as being good or bad by mere virtue of being natural. Nature is morally neutral in this sense, because the mere existance of a thing or phenomenon in of itself does not signify value. In other words, nature does not have intrinsic value. Understood broadly, it simply is what it is. This is not to say that there is no purpose or merit to assigning value to certain phenomenon, but that its mere occurance is not what gives it value. For if that which is natural is inherently good or bad, then literally everything must be assumed to be inherently good or bad, and that is absurd.
It's also important to note that just because something is natural does not necessarily mean that it is universal, inevitable or permanent. Nature is not static, it is dynamic, which is to say that it is in a constant state of flux. That which is common in the present may very well be rendered obsolete and archiac in the future. It can be quite fallacious to appeal to phenomenon from the past as if it is representative of an inevitable future or to regaurd current phenomenon as if they represent a permanent state of affairs. What once was natural can be rendered non-existant over time, and what once was little more than a pipe dream can become "the natural order". Appealing to the past as "natural" is simply a weak argument. The present and future is no less "natural" and the "naturalness" of things is really irrelevant.
One way in which the natural/synthetic dichotomy is manifested is in the arguementation of primitivists, anti-civilizationists and radical environmentalists. The contemporary technology and extended division of labor produced by humans is demonized as "unnatural" while more primitive and "self-sufficient" ways of living are romantisized as "natural". Human civilization is characterized as being inherently antagonistic with nature, and nature is assumed to have intrinsic value. Radically egalitarian philosophy makes use of the dichotomy as well, with egalitarianism being construed as "natural" while heirarchy is considered to be "unnatural". Interestingly, primitive societies are often pointed to as examples of egalitarianism, even though a non-biased look at such societies likely reveals quite a bit of heirarchy.
The natural/synthetic dichotomy is also manifested in conservative philosophy. Rigid class heirarchy, religious authority, familial authority, racism, nationalism, have been charactered as "the natural order" (with strong use of naturalistic language used to defend them), as if they are inevitable laws of nature and intrinsic authorities, and deviations from them are construed as synthetic attempts to produce a "new man" in antagonism with nature. Conservative philosophy strongly appeals to tradition as being "natural", and deviations from tradition such as homosexuality, secularism and multiculturalism are construed as "unnatural". All of this could be said to stem from a pessemistic and archiac accessment of nature that lies at the heart of conservatism.
Social contract theory and traditional statist apologetics is riddled with the natural/synthetic dichotomy because it tends to construe centralized political organization as if it involves man exiting "the state of nature", while at the same time there is a very strong temptation to characterize the rise of centralizd political organization as a "natural" phenomenon in the sense that is inevitable. Statism is construed as "the natural order" that inevitably arises from social organization. And statist politics is riddled with debate over precisely what kind of centralized political organization is the most "natural" or what the "natural progression" will lead to. Traditionally, anarchy is either brushed off as "unnatural" or is conflated with primitivism.
While these various types of social phenomenon and organization most certainly can be evaluated, wether or not they are "natural" is really irrelevant to such an evaluation, because they are all "natural" to the extent that they occur or exist at all. The natural/synthetic dichotomy is a misnomer that sidetracks from the real substantive debates that could take place.
Thursday, October 9, 2008
Avoiding The Argument From History and Normality
[cross-posted at Brainpolice at The Mises Community]
Often times in political debates, market anarchists may find themselves pressured to produce historical examples of stateless market-based societies. Typically, the market anarchist responds to this by refering to particular periods of medieval iceland or ireland, certain aspects of fuedal Europe and the wild (or not so wild) west. And, no doubt, there are interesting case studies with regaurd these societies or historical periods demonstrating the effectiveness of a decentralized and polycentric legal system.
That being said, these are not examples of pure anarchy, they are close approximations at best, and it is dangerous for market anarchists to fall into the trap of defending these societies, many of which had a rather despicable cultural framework and questionable content to their customary laws. There is a danger of the market anarchist lapsing into a sort of primitivism or a general romanticization of the past. It begins to appear as if the market anarchist simply wants to return to some older form of social organization, and this leaves them open to be misunderstood and misaracterized horribly.
I think it's important to reject the premise upon which the argument from history is based, which is the assumption that something must have existed or functioned in the past in order for it to exist or function in the present or future. This isn't to completely deny the value of empirical examples, but to avoid the fallacy of ruling things out simply because they have never been done yet. All progress throughout history inherently has involved deviation from the norm, and expecting people to appeal to the norm in order to prove the possibility or viability of something that is a relatively new idea and blatantly outside of the norm is simply nonsensical.
For example, if such an attitude was taken in the 18th or 19th centuries, one could just appeal to the historical normalcy of slavery to argue that its abolition is impossible and slavery is simply the inevitable "natural order". And precisely this same attitude is commonly taken with respect to anarchy. The more reasonable response is not to sift through history for obscure examples of quasi-anarchic societies, but to point out the problem with the argument from history to begin with.
Beyond the fundamental problems with the argument from history, there are questionable elements and incoherancies to the historical examples that market anarchists often find themselves giving. For one thing, these are mostly pre-industrial societies, and market anarchism in the present or future is in the context of an industrial or post-industrial society. This isn't necessarily to say that market anarchism cannot contain some agrarian elements to it, but nonetheless it makes no sense to act as if the economic framework of these societies is remotely resemblant of what the framework of a modern market anarchy may look like.
Another problem is that, by and large, many of the cultural attitudes and customs of these societies were very unlibertarian, or by the very least simply archiac. It could hardly be said that the bulk of the people that existing in these societies were particularly a bunch of "rugged individualists" who valued non-aggression. And the content of some of their customs would make just about any modern man, libertarian or not, very weary.
I do not mean to deny that case studies into these historical examples can be insightful in some ways, but they should not be held up as solid examples of a libertarian anarchism, because they simply aren't. I'm not necessarily pleading that libertarians give up these historical examples altogether, but perhaps they should be more careful and selective in their use of them and be weary of opening themselves up to be strawmanned horribly.
Often times in political debates, market anarchists may find themselves pressured to produce historical examples of stateless market-based societies. Typically, the market anarchist responds to this by refering to particular periods of medieval iceland or ireland, certain aspects of fuedal Europe and the wild (or not so wild) west. And, no doubt, there are interesting case studies with regaurd these societies or historical periods demonstrating the effectiveness of a decentralized and polycentric legal system.
That being said, these are not examples of pure anarchy, they are close approximations at best, and it is dangerous for market anarchists to fall into the trap of defending these societies, many of which had a rather despicable cultural framework and questionable content to their customary laws. There is a danger of the market anarchist lapsing into a sort of primitivism or a general romanticization of the past. It begins to appear as if the market anarchist simply wants to return to some older form of social organization, and this leaves them open to be misunderstood and misaracterized horribly.
I think it's important to reject the premise upon which the argument from history is based, which is the assumption that something must have existed or functioned in the past in order for it to exist or function in the present or future. This isn't to completely deny the value of empirical examples, but to avoid the fallacy of ruling things out simply because they have never been done yet. All progress throughout history inherently has involved deviation from the norm, and expecting people to appeal to the norm in order to prove the possibility or viability of something that is a relatively new idea and blatantly outside of the norm is simply nonsensical.
For example, if such an attitude was taken in the 18th or 19th centuries, one could just appeal to the historical normalcy of slavery to argue that its abolition is impossible and slavery is simply the inevitable "natural order". And precisely this same attitude is commonly taken with respect to anarchy. The more reasonable response is not to sift through history for obscure examples of quasi-anarchic societies, but to point out the problem with the argument from history to begin with.
Beyond the fundamental problems with the argument from history, there are questionable elements and incoherancies to the historical examples that market anarchists often find themselves giving. For one thing, these are mostly pre-industrial societies, and market anarchism in the present or future is in the context of an industrial or post-industrial society. This isn't necessarily to say that market anarchism cannot contain some agrarian elements to it, but nonetheless it makes no sense to act as if the economic framework of these societies is remotely resemblant of what the framework of a modern market anarchy may look like.
Another problem is that, by and large, many of the cultural attitudes and customs of these societies were very unlibertarian, or by the very least simply archiac. It could hardly be said that the bulk of the people that existing in these societies were particularly a bunch of "rugged individualists" who valued non-aggression. And the content of some of their customs would make just about any modern man, libertarian or not, very weary.
I do not mean to deny that case studies into these historical examples can be insightful in some ways, but they should not be held up as solid examples of a libertarian anarchism, because they simply aren't. I'm not necessarily pleading that libertarians give up these historical examples altogether, but perhaps they should be more careful and selective in their use of them and be weary of opening themselves up to be strawmanned horribly.
Friday, October 3, 2008
Thoughts On Punishment
I think I reject the traditional concept of punishment (this is not to say that I'm opposed to measures that compensate victims though, because that isn't really punishment in the way I'm thinking of it, since the emphasis is on the victim's rights rather than simply harming the aggressor). I have trouble seeing how punishment is anything other than revenge, and I don't think that revenge and justice are the same thing by any stretch of the imagination.
The traditional view, however, is essentially that punishment is a moral remedy for a breach of morality. But I don't see how this can be the case when by definition punishment takes place after a crime has already been commited, I.E. it is ex-post-facto revenge. It has no productive value whatsoever, it merely increases destruction to appease people's desire for revenge. It does not actually correct the wrong at all; if anything, it's "two wrongs make a right".
For example, putting someone to death in and of itself does nothing to remedy any crime that person may have commited. To be sure, it may ensure that the person doesn't commit any more crimes, since they aren't alive anymore to do so, but this does absolutely nothing to address the issue of why people commit crimes in the first place (and here I'm using the word crime in the narrowest libertarian sense of the term, I.E. a negative rights violation such as theft or assault or murder). All that's really gone on is that another person has been killed.
While there may be an extent to which the fear of punishment makes some people less likely to commit a crime, the fear of punishment in and of itself is obviously hardly enough to stop someone who's determined to commit such an act to begin with, since criminals by definition are people who engage in such acts anyways regaurdless of the law or any possible punishments they may face. If anything, the ability of people to defend themselves, combined with social pressure or custom, deters crime far more than the mere fear of punishment could possibly do.
It also may sometimes be the case that punishment has the oppose effect of detering crime. In particular, the current prison system essentially puts all of the criminals together (although of course a good deal of the people in there are there for victimless crimes) in a place where they can train as criminals and form criminal alliances. The vast majority of people who go to prison and make it out end up repeating the same behaviors or going on to engage in worse activities than before. Indeed, people who were otherwise peaceful citezens before can be made into criminals by their prison experience. There is a vicious cycle at play.
It is of course true that the fact that someone is in prison ensures that they can't commit crimes with regaurd to people in society, since they are isolated from society. Of course, the reductio ad absurdum this thinking leads to is locking everyone up in cells for their entire lives on the grounds that they might commit crimes in the future. In either case, the amount of actually serious criminals who are in lockdown for life in prison as compared to the amount of actually serious criminals who are running free is quite small, and it would be practically impossible to keep track of all of them. The fact that a handful of murderers are in prison hardly even begins to crack the problem.
The amount of people in society who are serious criminals (such as murderers) is likely fairly small to begin with. Outside of the criminally insane, there are very few people who would ever actually engage in an act as extreme as murder. It hardly seems to be the case that in the absence of draconian punative laws everyone would go around murdering eachother; a ridiculous argument from doomsday if I've ever heard one. The person who says that in the absence of such laws or the punishments that go along with breaking them they would have no problem engaging in theft and murder either has a very low moral barometer or they are simply deluding themselves.
The traditional view, however, is essentially that punishment is a moral remedy for a breach of morality. But I don't see how this can be the case when by definition punishment takes place after a crime has already been commited, I.E. it is ex-post-facto revenge. It has no productive value whatsoever, it merely increases destruction to appease people's desire for revenge. It does not actually correct the wrong at all; if anything, it's "two wrongs make a right".
For example, putting someone to death in and of itself does nothing to remedy any crime that person may have commited. To be sure, it may ensure that the person doesn't commit any more crimes, since they aren't alive anymore to do so, but this does absolutely nothing to address the issue of why people commit crimes in the first place (and here I'm using the word crime in the narrowest libertarian sense of the term, I.E. a negative rights violation such as theft or assault or murder). All that's really gone on is that another person has been killed.
While there may be an extent to which the fear of punishment makes some people less likely to commit a crime, the fear of punishment in and of itself is obviously hardly enough to stop someone who's determined to commit such an act to begin with, since criminals by definition are people who engage in such acts anyways regaurdless of the law or any possible punishments they may face. If anything, the ability of people to defend themselves, combined with social pressure or custom, deters crime far more than the mere fear of punishment could possibly do.
It also may sometimes be the case that punishment has the oppose effect of detering crime. In particular, the current prison system essentially puts all of the criminals together (although of course a good deal of the people in there are there for victimless crimes) in a place where they can train as criminals and form criminal alliances. The vast majority of people who go to prison and make it out end up repeating the same behaviors or going on to engage in worse activities than before. Indeed, people who were otherwise peaceful citezens before can be made into criminals by their prison experience. There is a vicious cycle at play.
It is of course true that the fact that someone is in prison ensures that they can't commit crimes with regaurd to people in society, since they are isolated from society. Of course, the reductio ad absurdum this thinking leads to is locking everyone up in cells for their entire lives on the grounds that they might commit crimes in the future. In either case, the amount of actually serious criminals who are in lockdown for life in prison as compared to the amount of actually serious criminals who are running free is quite small, and it would be practically impossible to keep track of all of them. The fact that a handful of murderers are in prison hardly even begins to crack the problem.
The amount of people in society who are serious criminals (such as murderers) is likely fairly small to begin with. Outside of the criminally insane, there are very few people who would ever actually engage in an act as extreme as murder. It hardly seems to be the case that in the absence of draconian punative laws everyone would go around murdering eachother; a ridiculous argument from doomsday if I've ever heard one. The person who says that in the absence of such laws or the punishments that go along with breaking them they would have no problem engaging in theft and murder either has a very low moral barometer or they are simply deluding themselves.
Saturday, November 29, 2008
First figure out their objection for them, then demolish it.
A major problem with anarchism as I see it is similar to the problem high school wrestling programs have when recruiting new athletes.
During my senior year we had a very young team, and as a matter of necessity the coach would delegate coaching duties to me and a few of the other guys. I had always known it was hard to coach wrestling, but it wasn't until I became a de facto assistant coach that I appreciated just how much they had to start from nothing. I told him, "it's like trying to teach them, 'okay, this is a ball. And when the ball goes through the hoop, you score. There's only one ball, and both teams fight for it...'"
Same with anarchism. Now the metaphor is not perfect as wrestling is complex and anarchism is fairly simple. But in the process of deconstructing statism you have to say, "Okay, this is a market. A market is what we call the interaction of people. There is no such thing as a market anymore than there is a forest or a herd. If you take all of the trees out of a forest, you won't have a forest just standing there. Likewise, if you take all of the people out of a market, you won't have people still standing there. And so a free market is simply people freely interacting. A state is a group of people who interfere with the free interaction of people, and justify this interference by bringing up all sorts of problems that come with people interacting."
As if that's not bad enough, the anarchist is also faced with people who cannot verbalize their objections. They can think of a problem in a stateless society, but can't enunciate it, and so the anarchist first must enunciate the statist's argument for him, then demolish it, and do so without hurting the statist's ego too much because the statist can always just walk away into the bosom of raw numbers.
The difficulty of this task is compounded again by the fact that anyone who advocates a law is a murderer, but they react negatively to being called a murderer.
So I think a way to be a more effective advocate of anarchism is to identify and verbalize the unspoken objections.
In this vein I want to deal with the incorrect mental image of how competition can be destructive. The first step is to verbalize and systematize the objection, pull it out of the bog where it can be analyzed.
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A monopoly can charge higher prices for it's services. This will lead to greater profits, which can lead to either faster expansion of the monopoly company and/or more reserve cash, aka slack in the system.
So for example a power company monopoly will charge higher rates, but they can expand faster and if something bad happens they'll have cash on hand to weather some storm. However, a monopoly can also be abusive, and so you have to strike some sort of balance. Either with monopolistic competition or through granting a monopoly and then regulating it.
Competitive industries have the disadvantage of being over-optimized. By competing, they earn less profits, and so can't expand as fast as the monopolistic firm. They also have less (or more likely no) reserve cash and thus are brittle in the face of the unpredictable calamity.
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Okay that was the argument, here's the deconstruction. First off, calling to "strike a balance" is a very dickish and assumptive thing to do. This is the argument from moderation, it implies that moderation is sacrosanct.
Second of all, this objection ignores that all of this stuff is not going on in a vacuum. A monopoly firm will indeed charge more, and thus people will have to spend more on electricity and so are less able to spend on other things.
Perhaps this inefficiency is okay because electricity is a special good that needs protection? Well the idea that a monopolistic firm would be less likely to go under in response to some disaster is incorrect. Lets take a natural disaster that destroys a bunch of power lines.
True, a monopolistic firm is more likely to be able to rebuild power lines with reserve cash, whereas competitive firms would not. The competitive firms would raise rates. The monopoly firm, in response to a disaster, would use the profits from the higher prices everyone had to pay before the disaster, whereas the competitive firms would use the rate hikes after the disaster to pay for it.
And because they are competitive, they will not raise rates above what needs to be done to repair the infrastructure TO THE EXTENT that they are indeed competitive.
And so in this light, a monopolistic firm will not respond any faster to a natural disaster than competitive firms. In fact, it may respond slower because there is no time pressure from other firms.
The reason for this is that in competition, electricity will be provided to the extent that people demand it and are willing to pay for it. If we move away from money and just think in terms of a mass of people, it is rather silly to think of there being a natural or political disaster that destroys the electricity infrastructure, and then the population just languishes in the dark. No, if a disaster did happen, they would provide additional resources to the beleagured power companies to get it back on line. This is done by paying the power companies more money, which the power companies themselves use to buy the means to rebuild the grid from the population.
As for monopoly abuse, even if one firm gets 100% market share, it cannot charge monopoly prices because anyone can enter the industry. If a firm finds itself a monopoly and starts reaping killer profits, well then someone will contact a lending institution, perhaps another company like a restaurant chain, and propose to get into the electricity business, and will do so to the extent that the free market monopoly is doing so. And so in this way, a free market monopoly cannot charge monopoly prices for any extended period of time. If it does so, it will be broken. However, a single company can gain 100% market share and maintain it forever if it maintains competitive prices. This is what the so-called robbar baron standard oil did, though he never got up to 100%.
The antitrust regulation was enacted on the grounds that standard oil was big, despite the fact that standard oil was consistently cheaper than it's competitors and was losing market share at the time the legislation was enacted.
So that's that. Difficult.
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
What is left-libertarianism?
In a sense, left-libertarianism is a historical revision that identifies a tradition of association between libertarianism and what can be deemed to be the "left" end of the political spectrum. The term left-libertarian does not use the term "left" in the context of mainstream politics, but in the historical context of classical liberalism and anarchism, I.E. it is a referance to the tendency of opposition to authority. It could be said that left-libertarianism is therefore a redundancy. But the usefulness of the term is as a reclaimation of political alignment in light of the distortion that has occured over the years in terms of how the political spectrum is viewed.
Particularly in America, libertarianism was largely associated with the "the left" until around the time of FDR, at which point a libertarian-conservative fusionism took place as an opposition movement to the New Deal. Ever since then, libertarians have generally assumed themselves to be in alliance with the political right or a part of it themselves. The political right has proceeded to partially co-opt libertarian rhetoric as a means for obtaining and expanding their power, and purging or ignoring the libertarians when it is most relevant. In turn, some libertarians have become more conservative in their views. Left-libertarianism represents a movement away from this tendency, a clear distinction being made between libertarianism and conservatism, with the diagnosis that conservatism is more concerned with maintaining plutocratic interests and traditionalist communitarianism than preserving or expanding individual liberty.
This is not to say that what's considered to be the contemporary political left is something to support either, however. A left-libertarian analysis of the contemporary political left reveals their methods to be largely right-of-center in orientation, which is to say that they support authoritarian means in the pursuit of goals that may very well be laudable. Part of the point of left-libertarian reconciliation is to get the contemporary left to move away from such authoritarian tendencies and support voluntary and cooperative means towards pursueing such goals. Before the rise of state-socialism, the left was much more in line with libertarianism. Unfortunately, the old libertarian left was nearly obliterated by the conservative turn that the socialist movement took towards the end of the 19th century. Ever since then, the goals of socialism, which were originally much more inconjunction with libertarian means, have become largely associated with authoritarianism.
The split between authoritarian socialism and social anarchism is well illustrated by the disagreements that took place between Marx and both Bakunin and Proudhon, with Marx being representative of authoritarianism, and Bakunin and Proudhon being representative of anarchism and libertarian socialism. While many contemporary libertarians may be tempted to act as if socialism is synanymous with authoritarianism, the fact of the matter is that socialism was a fairly libertarian movement in its origins, or by the very least it always had both an authoritarian and libertarian wing. Furthermore, the ideas of the early socialist anarchists such as Proudhon were not in principle opposed to the idea of free markets. Hence, there is a reconcilation that can be made between certain demands or goals that may be deemed "socialistic" and the context of individual liberty.
The tradition of American individualist anarchism is also instructive in this regaurd, for here we have a group of people who extended upon the framework that Proudhon provided in an even more individualistic direction. We have figures such as Benjamin Tucker to look to as a sort of crossroads between contemporary free market libertarianism and the traditional left. One can see a clear philosophical progression take place upon reflection of the matter. Left-libertarianism is an awareness of this rich history, that libertarianism did not begin in the 1930's and isn't some kind of conservative-lite movement in which we put all libertarian goals aside until the communists are liquidated. Left-libertarianism is not a deviation, it is the correction of a deviation and would not be as necessary if such a deviation did not occur to begin with.
Left-libertarianism is not just a historical perspective, however. It is a synthesis between certain goals that may be associated with "the left" and libertarian ideas, it involves ways of using libertarian ideas to derive conclusions that may be considered to be "leftish". In particular, left-libertarianism involves a tendency to use free market economics to demonstrate how state intervention negatively affects interests that may be concerns of "the left", by demonstrating how the state harms workers, reduces living standards, causes prices to rise, enables environmental damage, concentrates private power and backs up monopolies. Left-libertarianism can be used to demonstrate how the likely outcome of a genuinely free economy is comparatively egalitarian in light of currently existing economic structures, and how it is possible for things such as voluntary unions and cooperatives to exist in a genuinely free market.
Left-libertarianism observes that far too often what is celebrated as "capitalism" (even by some libertarians) is more like a plutocracy or a neo-mercantile society, and that many private elites crucially rely on state power to sustain their own power. Left-libertarianism reflects a tendency to be critical of both state and corporate power, and a keen awareness of the degree to which the two are synergetic. The function of liberty is not to privatize power but to uphold a consistant rejection of arbitrary authority, and while the state is certainly the most fundamental institution of arbitary authority, it is not necessarily the only one. Hence, additional concerns about power relations between various groups within society aren't necessarily irrelevant, it's just that one must understand the role the state plays in such power relations and the way in which such power relations truly work in general. In either case, left-libertarianism is "thick" in this sense, as there is more to it than anti-statism.
Favor for more participatory decision-making or direct action as a method for bringing about one's goals is also an aspect of left-libertarianism, best reflected by the theory of agorism. A central point is that organization must be from the bottom up and that activism is a matter of directly making a change on a personal level or on a small scale rather then participating in the illusory and bankrupt system of representative democracy or remaining in a state of dependancy on currently dominant structures. This can be seen as involving a principle of personal responsibility and an awareness of the need for competitive mechanisms in order to counter current power structures. Hence, the general tendency is towards a rejection of reformism and party politics.
Left-libertarianism also functions as an alliance or umbrella in which a multitude of various libertarian-oriented schools of thought co-exist, and therefore can be seen as a manifestation of anarchism without adjectives. In particular, mutualists and left-rothbardians (those who draw influence from Rothbard's more "leftish" years) represent a nice middle ground that can unite people associated with both free market libertarianism and social anarchism. There is no rational reason for there to be an absolute wall between the two worlds, and as semantic differences are weeded out a degree of compatability becomes evident.
While much more could be said, I think this summarizes left-libertarianism well enough.
Particularly in America, libertarianism was largely associated with the "the left" until around the time of FDR, at which point a libertarian-conservative fusionism took place as an opposition movement to the New Deal. Ever since then, libertarians have generally assumed themselves to be in alliance with the political right or a part of it themselves. The political right has proceeded to partially co-opt libertarian rhetoric as a means for obtaining and expanding their power, and purging or ignoring the libertarians when it is most relevant. In turn, some libertarians have become more conservative in their views. Left-libertarianism represents a movement away from this tendency, a clear distinction being made between libertarianism and conservatism, with the diagnosis that conservatism is more concerned with maintaining plutocratic interests and traditionalist communitarianism than preserving or expanding individual liberty.
This is not to say that what's considered to be the contemporary political left is something to support either, however. A left-libertarian analysis of the contemporary political left reveals their methods to be largely right-of-center in orientation, which is to say that they support authoritarian means in the pursuit of goals that may very well be laudable. Part of the point of left-libertarian reconciliation is to get the contemporary left to move away from such authoritarian tendencies and support voluntary and cooperative means towards pursueing such goals. Before the rise of state-socialism, the left was much more in line with libertarianism. Unfortunately, the old libertarian left was nearly obliterated by the conservative turn that the socialist movement took towards the end of the 19th century. Ever since then, the goals of socialism, which were originally much more inconjunction with libertarian means, have become largely associated with authoritarianism.
The split between authoritarian socialism and social anarchism is well illustrated by the disagreements that took place between Marx and both Bakunin and Proudhon, with Marx being representative of authoritarianism, and Bakunin and Proudhon being representative of anarchism and libertarian socialism. While many contemporary libertarians may be tempted to act as if socialism is synanymous with authoritarianism, the fact of the matter is that socialism was a fairly libertarian movement in its origins, or by the very least it always had both an authoritarian and libertarian wing. Furthermore, the ideas of the early socialist anarchists such as Proudhon were not in principle opposed to the idea of free markets. Hence, there is a reconcilation that can be made between certain demands or goals that may be deemed "socialistic" and the context of individual liberty.
The tradition of American individualist anarchism is also instructive in this regaurd, for here we have a group of people who extended upon the framework that Proudhon provided in an even more individualistic direction. We have figures such as Benjamin Tucker to look to as a sort of crossroads between contemporary free market libertarianism and the traditional left. One can see a clear philosophical progression take place upon reflection of the matter. Left-libertarianism is an awareness of this rich history, that libertarianism did not begin in the 1930's and isn't some kind of conservative-lite movement in which we put all libertarian goals aside until the communists are liquidated. Left-libertarianism is not a deviation, it is the correction of a deviation and would not be as necessary if such a deviation did not occur to begin with.
Left-libertarianism is not just a historical perspective, however. It is a synthesis between certain goals that may be associated with "the left" and libertarian ideas, it involves ways of using libertarian ideas to derive conclusions that may be considered to be "leftish". In particular, left-libertarianism involves a tendency to use free market economics to demonstrate how state intervention negatively affects interests that may be concerns of "the left", by demonstrating how the state harms workers, reduces living standards, causes prices to rise, enables environmental damage, concentrates private power and backs up monopolies. Left-libertarianism can be used to demonstrate how the likely outcome of a genuinely free economy is comparatively egalitarian in light of currently existing economic structures, and how it is possible for things such as voluntary unions and cooperatives to exist in a genuinely free market.
Left-libertarianism observes that far too often what is celebrated as "capitalism" (even by some libertarians) is more like a plutocracy or a neo-mercantile society, and that many private elites crucially rely on state power to sustain their own power. Left-libertarianism reflects a tendency to be critical of both state and corporate power, and a keen awareness of the degree to which the two are synergetic. The function of liberty is not to privatize power but to uphold a consistant rejection of arbitrary authority, and while the state is certainly the most fundamental institution of arbitary authority, it is not necessarily the only one. Hence, additional concerns about power relations between various groups within society aren't necessarily irrelevant, it's just that one must understand the role the state plays in such power relations and the way in which such power relations truly work in general. In either case, left-libertarianism is "thick" in this sense, as there is more to it than anti-statism.
Favor for more participatory decision-making or direct action as a method for bringing about one's goals is also an aspect of left-libertarianism, best reflected by the theory of agorism. A central point is that organization must be from the bottom up and that activism is a matter of directly making a change on a personal level or on a small scale rather then participating in the illusory and bankrupt system of representative democracy or remaining in a state of dependancy on currently dominant structures. This can be seen as involving a principle of personal responsibility and an awareness of the need for competitive mechanisms in order to counter current power structures. Hence, the general tendency is towards a rejection of reformism and party politics.
Left-libertarianism also functions as an alliance or umbrella in which a multitude of various libertarian-oriented schools of thought co-exist, and therefore can be seen as a manifestation of anarchism without adjectives. In particular, mutualists and left-rothbardians (those who draw influence from Rothbard's more "leftish" years) represent a nice middle ground that can unite people associated with both free market libertarianism and social anarchism. There is no rational reason for there to be an absolute wall between the two worlds, and as semantic differences are weeded out a degree of compatability becomes evident.
While much more could be said, I think this summarizes left-libertarianism well enough.
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Competition and Cooperation
In the economic sense of the term, competition refers to the incentive to better appease a multiplicity of demands, and cooperation refers to the most efficient and ethical means of meeting such demands. An individual's demands are better met through cooperation and production than through isolation and destruction. Competition does not refer to a war of all against all or atomism, it refers to a process in which decentralized cooperation is employed in the attempt to fulfill a dynamic and variant latticework of demands. Monopoly, on the other hand, refers to the lack of competition, the imposition of a singular or more limited array of options through coercive means. Competition and monopoly are therefore dichotomous in this sense, as competition entails a multiplicity of options pursued freely. Competition is a reflection of there being multiple methods of cooperation and multiple ends that cooperation can be used to pursue, and as such there is no absolute dichotomy between competition and cooperation.
Individualism does not regaurd the individual as if they exist in a vacuum, it merely recognizes the individual's sovereignty as co-existing with interpersonal relations, and that it is a fundamental building block of a society. It is erroneous to present a false dichotomy between uniformity and atomism, when neither of the two reflect the nature of an individual let alone a society. Society qua society is founded on voluntary cooperation, but this does not conflict with individual sovereignty. Voluntary cooperation is merely the net effect of people making use of their individual sovereignty, and competition is merely a reflection of the diversity of wants that people pursue as sovereigns. While interpersonal relations are something to take into account, the individual still retains their independance from the transgressions of others in an equilibrium, which aknowledgesthe competitive element of society that is responsible for creativity and innovation.
Cooperation and production is not an ethical imperative in and of itself, it is something that one has a greater incentive towards in conditions of equal liberty. However, one ultimately retains their sovereignty to not produce and not participate in a particular organization or interaction that they didn't explicitly consent to. In a voluntary society, the methods in which one cooperates and the extent to which there is a binding obligation to cooperate can only be in a contractual context in which consent is explicitly given prior to the enforcement of the obligation. One does not have an unchosen positive obligation to be a member of a particular organization or to participate in its processof decision-making. The implication of this is not the negation of society as such, but the decentralization of society as a consequence of people entering and exiting from a wide array of contractual agreements.
The coercive imposition of uniformity stifles cooperation. It disincentivizes and erodes at competitive alternatives that otherwise would have been fostered through cooperation and violates the individual's sovereignty. Coercion is anti-cooperative by its very nature, as it can only establish a parasitic relationship or a zero sum game, while cooperationis geared towards mutual benefit or reciprical relationships. Centralization and monopoly can only establish the elimination of individual choice in the process of cooperation, and therefore the elimination of competition. Competition is necessary to counteract the arbitrary imposition of a particular set of preferences, otherwise there is no genuine cooperation to speak of, only subservience. Cooperation is not something that is centrally planned or coercively enforced, it is a process of spontaneous order.
Individualism does not regaurd the individual as if they exist in a vacuum, it merely recognizes the individual's sovereignty as co-existing with interpersonal relations, and that it is a fundamental building block of a society. It is erroneous to present a false dichotomy between uniformity and atomism, when neither of the two reflect the nature of an individual let alone a society. Society qua society is founded on voluntary cooperation, but this does not conflict with individual sovereignty. Voluntary cooperation is merely the net effect of people making use of their individual sovereignty, and competition is merely a reflection of the diversity of wants that people pursue as sovereigns. While interpersonal relations are something to take into account, the individual still retains their independance from the transgressions of others in an equilibrium, which aknowledgesthe competitive element of society that is responsible for creativity and innovation.
Cooperation and production is not an ethical imperative in and of itself, it is something that one has a greater incentive towards in conditions of equal liberty. However, one ultimately retains their sovereignty to not produce and not participate in a particular organization or interaction that they didn't explicitly consent to. In a voluntary society, the methods in which one cooperates and the extent to which there is a binding obligation to cooperate can only be in a contractual context in which consent is explicitly given prior to the enforcement of the obligation. One does not have an unchosen positive obligation to be a member of a particular organization or to participate in its processof decision-making. The implication of this is not the negation of society as such, but the decentralization of society as a consequence of people entering and exiting from a wide array of contractual agreements.
The coercive imposition of uniformity stifles cooperation. It disincentivizes and erodes at competitive alternatives that otherwise would have been fostered through cooperation and violates the individual's sovereignty. Coercion is anti-cooperative by its very nature, as it can only establish a parasitic relationship or a zero sum game, while cooperationis geared towards mutual benefit or reciprical relationships. Centralization and monopoly can only establish the elimination of individual choice in the process of cooperation, and therefore the elimination of competition. Competition is necessary to counteract the arbitrary imposition of a particular set of preferences, otherwise there is no genuine cooperation to speak of, only subservience. Cooperation is not something that is centrally planned or coercively enforced, it is a process of spontaneous order.
Monday, November 17, 2008
Don't make a mistake typing the address...
I found this hilarious. Don't swap the "p" and "s" when typing the address for this blog.
Here is what you'll find if you do: http://polycentricorder.blogpsot.com/
Here is what you'll find if you do: http://polycentricorder.blogpsot.com/
Monday, November 10, 2008
Is preventing same-sex marriage violent?
Living in the epicenter of fundamentalist Christian America provides much debate on things that Christians consider immoral, defining immorality by pointing to their sacred text, of course. Once California and other states banned gay marriage by placing amendments in their respective constitutions, Christians I know began saying things like "God is still in control," or "God is working through the people," or "God just sent the sodomites a message."
When you press these Christians on their arguments, they try feverishly to come up with more rational arguments besides "the Bible told me so." In a debate with such a Christian friend, I posited that preventing gay marriage was violent, violence being something Christians don't like to be associated with, unless of course God tells them to slay someone (See the story of Isaac in the Bible). This raised eyebrows to be sure, and led him to counter that marriage was not just a contract, but a legal status, and if the government simply refuses to acknowledge gay marriage it is not violent.
This is true in some sense, as far as current marriage is concerned, but it obscures the point. For example, if I lived in small town and a few of my buddies and me got together and decided to enter the food production industry and forcefully prevented anyone else from entering the industry, it is a violent act. Period. If I put the proverbial gun to someones head and say, "If you try to enter this industry, I will kill you," it is violence.
The marriage industry is not exactly the same, but it's a distinction without a difference. If a gay couple goes and tries to get married and is refused, it is violent. The reason is the couple has no other place in which to turn. The state has given itself a monopoly on the enforcement of contracts and on the determination of anyone's legal status. Try to compete with the state in this area and see what it brings you. I can assure you that you won't like it. Thus, everyone is forced to beg at the grand table for the generosity of the state, like a stray dog seeking some spare scraps.
So, I was rooting for Proposition 8 to go down in flames and the other proposed amendments like it. I abore the state's monopoly of marriage, but at the same time I want the administration of its monopoly to allow consensual exchanges between people to occur. It would be no different if the government proposed to ban the selling of chewing gum. Does my desire to keep the sale of chewing gum open mean I endorse the state's monopoly on contracts? No. I simply want as much freedom as possible, albeit working within the constraints of the state itself.
The fundies won. They can rejoice in their victory just as a group of thugs could rejoice in slaying members of their gang who dared to have compassion for outsiders begging at the trough. They got to impose their wishes on others by force. I will be resigned to lean back in my chair in disgust at the spectacle that is democracy.
When you press these Christians on their arguments, they try feverishly to come up with more rational arguments besides "the Bible told me so." In a debate with such a Christian friend, I posited that preventing gay marriage was violent, violence being something Christians don't like to be associated with, unless of course God tells them to slay someone (See the story of Isaac in the Bible). This raised eyebrows to be sure, and led him to counter that marriage was not just a contract, but a legal status, and if the government simply refuses to acknowledge gay marriage it is not violent.
This is true in some sense, as far as current marriage is concerned, but it obscures the point. For example, if I lived in small town and a few of my buddies and me got together and decided to enter the food production industry and forcefully prevented anyone else from entering the industry, it is a violent act. Period. If I put the proverbial gun to someones head and say, "If you try to enter this industry, I will kill you," it is violence.
The marriage industry is not exactly the same, but it's a distinction without a difference. If a gay couple goes and tries to get married and is refused, it is violent. The reason is the couple has no other place in which to turn. The state has given itself a monopoly on the enforcement of contracts and on the determination of anyone's legal status. Try to compete with the state in this area and see what it brings you. I can assure you that you won't like it. Thus, everyone is forced to beg at the grand table for the generosity of the state, like a stray dog seeking some spare scraps.
So, I was rooting for Proposition 8 to go down in flames and the other proposed amendments like it. I abore the state's monopoly of marriage, but at the same time I want the administration of its monopoly to allow consensual exchanges between people to occur. It would be no different if the government proposed to ban the selling of chewing gum. Does my desire to keep the sale of chewing gum open mean I endorse the state's monopoly on contracts? No. I simply want as much freedom as possible, albeit working within the constraints of the state itself.
The fundies won. They can rejoice in their victory just as a group of thugs could rejoice in slaying members of their gang who dared to have compassion for outsiders begging at the trough. They got to impose their wishes on others by force. I will be resigned to lean back in my chair in disgust at the spectacle that is democracy.
Friday, November 7, 2008
Schelling Points
The fact that the resistance of stateless armies has proven very effective against statist armies throughout history is an argument that simultaneously bolsters the apparent feasibility of a stateless society, yet also apparently smashes the moral argument against a state.
I don't expect some poor sap with an IQ of 100 to figure this out, so I really cannot raise much venom against he who was conned by a bunch of neocons, whose ethnicity is not irrelevant to their advocating the US invasion of countries which threaten Israel
De facto anarchy was able to reign for 14 years in Pennsylvania Pennsylvania eventually
While existing in functional anarchy, Pennsylvania had no systematic justification for their this "system" of anarchy, and so relapse was inevitable. And because the western territories weren't an explicitly anarchistic society, a state was still in the trade space, the Schelling point, despite anarchy being the "system" that prevailed for quite some time.
In Iraq
That is why the US Government can govern the US but not Iraq
That said, governance itself is a moral catastrophe and the justifications for taxation are the most puerile internally inconsistent nonsense. I am simply attempting to explain what is, not what ought to be.
And governments as a practical matter are horrible at everything from education to environmental protection to defense to law and police to property rights to welfare, every "public good" that is supposedly hampered by the "free rider problem" has been provided to people of all socioeconomic statuses more cheaply and efficiently than a state can because a state isn't accountable to you in the way a company is, it is only accountable to the occasional election or revolution. And much of the bureaucracy is immune to even that.
In order for a stateless society to be maintained, the state must be pushed out of the Schelling point. Not only must anarchy occur, but the members of the stateless society must recognize the state as an UNnecessary evil in order to prevent a relapse, a relapse that can only occur with consent, and consent that can only occur if the population doesn't have a systematic anarchist philosophy, or at the very least understand the horrible nature of states.
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