Friday, January 16, 2009
There are numerous different takes on positive liberty. The 1st take is that it's an unchosen positive obligation, otherwise generally known as "positive rights" (which may as well be substituted with the term "positive benefits for the masses"), which inherently violates a consistantly applied negative liberty. But in this view, everyone is inherently entitled to (insert arbitrary positive benefit here). All libertarians have to reject this position by default because no contract can coercively be enforced onto 3rd parties of people who did not consent and are logistically incapable of consenting to the particular contract (this is part of why both state social contracts and corporate status are illegitimate). This usually devolves into libertarians championing negative rights vs. left-statists championing positive rights.
However, the 2nd take is that the context of negative liberty, I.E. the freedom from imposition and aggression by others, inherently grants the freedom to pursue positive benefits, mutual aid or mutual self-interest in that context. This freedom to pursue positive benefits for yourself and others given condition of consistant negative liberty, in turn, is what sets up a contractual basis for "positive liberty". So liberty is both positive and negative in a sense. It prohibits decision-making power over you by others and justifies your own decision-making power over yourself. In this context, a libertarian can consistantly advocate concepts such as mutual aid and cooperative management. This usually devolves into vulgar and thin libertarians denying the reconciliation vs. neo-artistotileans and left-libertarians defending such a reconciliation.
The three main points of the reconciliation are that (1) negative liberty, by itself, does not absolutely gaurantee survival, happiness or flourishing and (2) yet without negative liberty, one cannot freely or adequately pursue survival, happiness or flourishing and (3) hence, positive liberty, insofar as it is restricted to the context of negative liberty, is the basis out of which we can establish methods of cooperation to better foster survival, happiness or flourishing. However, I'm not entirely satisfied by the invokation of the concept of happiness when something more along the lines of "self-actualization" or "personal growth or progression" is what is really meant, and I find Rand's emphasis on survival as the justification for ethics to be distasteful. That being said, one cannot reasonably divorce ethics from the context of goals.
However, the 2nd take is that the context of negative liberty, I.E. the freedom from imposition and aggression by others, inherently grants the freedom to pursue positive benefits, mutual aid or mutual self-interest in that context. This freedom to pursue positive benefits for yourself and others given condition of consistant negative liberty, in turn, is what sets up a contractual basis for "positive liberty". So liberty is both positive and negative in a sense. It prohibits decision-making power over you by others and justifies your own decision-making power over yourself. In this context, a libertarian can consistantly advocate concepts such as mutual aid and cooperative management. This usually devolves into vulgar and thin libertarians denying the reconciliation vs. neo-artistotileans and left-libertarians defending such a reconciliation.
The three main points of the reconciliation are that (1) negative liberty, by itself, does not absolutely gaurantee survival, happiness or flourishing and (2) yet without negative liberty, one cannot freely or adequately pursue survival, happiness or flourishing and (3) hence, positive liberty, insofar as it is restricted to the context of negative liberty, is the basis out of which we can establish methods of cooperation to better foster survival, happiness or flourishing. However, I'm not entirely satisfied by the invokation of the concept of happiness when something more along the lines of "self-actualization" or "personal growth or progression" is what is really meant, and I find Rand's emphasis on survival as the justification for ethics to be distasteful. That being said, one cannot reasonably divorce ethics from the context of goals.
Saturday, January 10, 2009
Why I Object To Private Cities
On numerous occasions I have come across various anarcho-capitalists who propose individual ownership of an entire city as a viable model for a free society. I always object to this because I fail to see how it isn't a defacto monarchy, since it grants this individual arbitrary decision-making power over the people who live in the city. There are also endless complications with regaurd to how one would even attempt to transfer ownership to this individual and justify it on libertarian grounds. A city's state merely selling itself to the highest bidder would transfer from one monopoly to another, and there is no way that all of the current occupants of the city would unanimously consent to either sell or give up their portion of the city to this individual. To simply disregaurd the property rights of the current occupants of the city is ridiculous.
The problem with this type of proposal for a private city is actually that it is not decentralized enough. An entire city is not something that is owned by any specific individual, a city is the cumulative product of a whole slew of different instances of ownership. By default, a genuinely voluntary city is broken up into different segments and held together by coexistance and cooperation. Different portions of the city are owned by different people. An individual might own their own home or buisiness, for example, but that's just their own small portion of the city. So a voluntary city is neither owned as a whole by everyone (communism) or owned as a whole by an individual (monarchy). Something like a city is an entirely different ballgame than a mere home or farm, so making such an analogy simply doesn't work.
In essence, my vision of a "private city" is not a city that is owned privately by one person or a small group (a defacto state), it is "private" in the sense that the whole that is the city is emergent from a pluralistic latticework of individual cases of ownership, possibily with certain specific areas within the city functioning as a voluntary commons. It's stuff like this that makes me question the tenability of anarcho-capitalism, when some of its proponents appear to merely want to make the state private as opposed to actually eliminating it, to just make a private version of the exact same thing - a large territory in which an individual or oligarchy excersizes arbitrary decision-making power over the rest of those who live within it. But a genuinely free society simply does not allow for that and the level of strict standardization that comes along with it.
The problem with this type of proposal for a private city is actually that it is not decentralized enough. An entire city is not something that is owned by any specific individual, a city is the cumulative product of a whole slew of different instances of ownership. By default, a genuinely voluntary city is broken up into different segments and held together by coexistance and cooperation. Different portions of the city are owned by different people. An individual might own their own home or buisiness, for example, but that's just their own small portion of the city. So a voluntary city is neither owned as a whole by everyone (communism) or owned as a whole by an individual (monarchy). Something like a city is an entirely different ballgame than a mere home or farm, so making such an analogy simply doesn't work.
In essence, my vision of a "private city" is not a city that is owned privately by one person or a small group (a defacto state), it is "private" in the sense that the whole that is the city is emergent from a pluralistic latticework of individual cases of ownership, possibily with certain specific areas within the city functioning as a voluntary commons. It's stuff like this that makes me question the tenability of anarcho-capitalism, when some of its proponents appear to merely want to make the state private as opposed to actually eliminating it, to just make a private version of the exact same thing - a large territory in which an individual or oligarchy excersizes arbitrary decision-making power over the rest of those who live within it. But a genuinely free society simply does not allow for that and the level of strict standardization that comes along with it.
Friday, January 9, 2009
Consent and The State
Charles Johnson had a great article yesterday on the question of "can anybody ever consent to the state?". I'd like to put foreward some of my own thoughts on why I ultimately side with those who claim that it is conceptually impossible for any individual outside of the state to consent to the state, taken as a whole at least. I think I have some pretty good reasons to make this claim.
To begin with, the state's decision-making power precedes anyone's capability to consent to it and the individual is essentially completely isolated from the decision-making process internal to the state. Furthermore, one does not have the option to opt out, and hence one is affected by these decisions regaurdless, which means that the possibility of consenting is ruled out. Noone outside of the political class actually directly consents to the decision-making process itself because they have no genuine capability to participate in it beyond a few minor indirect votes from time to time.
And even then, the argument from voting doesn't really make sense when one considers the way in which political democracy actually works. The decision-making process is not based on an unbroken chain of consent, one's "choices" are presented after-the-fact, and as such one's "choices" are predicated on what the people in or more closely in patronage with the state have chosen to begin with. Elections are one-size-fits-all package deals regaurdless of wether or not you participate or which selection you make. If a consumer/plebecite analogy is used, essentially it is logically impossible for a state qua state to accurately represent demand. So long as one's options are heirarchically dictated beforehand by the state, it cannot be fully consensual.
Even presuming that an individual voted for someone who makes it to office, it does not follow that they consent to literally whatever they go on to do once they have power. Once that individual gains power, their decision-making power is arbitrary, and will affect everyone in the society before they are even capable of expressing consent to it. Hence, modern representative democracy is really a sham. Even people who enthusiastically cheer on and support the state in certain contexts or over a specific issue do not actually consent to literally anything that the state does and they do not consent to the specifics of the decision-making process even for a specific issue that they support.
At best, the notion of the state as a voluntary institution can only make sense as a description of membership and positions internal to the institution. Members of the state may voluntarily cooperate with eachother and engage in patronage with private elites for the purposes of enforcing arbitrary decision-making power over the rest of society, but obviously this does not mean that anyone else in society voluntarily cooperates, let alone has any significant or specific say over such matters that affect them. To put things in context, in a given instance the "consent" is squarely between members of the state and small special interest groups. Everyone else who is affected is unable to consent to the matter to begin with, they just have to put up with it.
I think part of the issue boils down to how one defines consent. The way I define consent, it has to be explicit, so I reject the very notion of "implicit consent". Just because I am on your claimed property, justly or unjustly, this does not mean that I consent to whatever you specifically do. I also think that there is a clear distinction between consent and asquiscance to coercion. Noone actually consents to the state, at best what people tend to do is resign themselves to duress or not violently resist, which is not the same thing as an explicit case of consent. It does not follow that if I give up my money and possessions to a robber with a gun to my head, I have consented to it. It means that I have submitted to duress. To use the term consent to describe submission is to grossly twist the meaning of the word.
We are simply born into the jurisdiction of states, and hence we do not initially choose them or consent to them. Noone consents to an inherited power structure. And once we are born and grow up, we still do not consent to the state because it continues to function independantly of our participation and input. At best, we have the illusion of consent that is represented by political democracy.
To begin with, the state's decision-making power precedes anyone's capability to consent to it and the individual is essentially completely isolated from the decision-making process internal to the state. Furthermore, one does not have the option to opt out, and hence one is affected by these decisions regaurdless, which means that the possibility of consenting is ruled out. Noone outside of the political class actually directly consents to the decision-making process itself because they have no genuine capability to participate in it beyond a few minor indirect votes from time to time.
And even then, the argument from voting doesn't really make sense when one considers the way in which political democracy actually works. The decision-making process is not based on an unbroken chain of consent, one's "choices" are presented after-the-fact, and as such one's "choices" are predicated on what the people in or more closely in patronage with the state have chosen to begin with. Elections are one-size-fits-all package deals regaurdless of wether or not you participate or which selection you make. If a consumer/plebecite analogy is used, essentially it is logically impossible for a state qua state to accurately represent demand. So long as one's options are heirarchically dictated beforehand by the state, it cannot be fully consensual.
Even presuming that an individual voted for someone who makes it to office, it does not follow that they consent to literally whatever they go on to do once they have power. Once that individual gains power, their decision-making power is arbitrary, and will affect everyone in the society before they are even capable of expressing consent to it. Hence, modern representative democracy is really a sham. Even people who enthusiastically cheer on and support the state in certain contexts or over a specific issue do not actually consent to literally anything that the state does and they do not consent to the specifics of the decision-making process even for a specific issue that they support.
At best, the notion of the state as a voluntary institution can only make sense as a description of membership and positions internal to the institution. Members of the state may voluntarily cooperate with eachother and engage in patronage with private elites for the purposes of enforcing arbitrary decision-making power over the rest of society, but obviously this does not mean that anyone else in society voluntarily cooperates, let alone has any significant or specific say over such matters that affect them. To put things in context, in a given instance the "consent" is squarely between members of the state and small special interest groups. Everyone else who is affected is unable to consent to the matter to begin with, they just have to put up with it.
I think part of the issue boils down to how one defines consent. The way I define consent, it has to be explicit, so I reject the very notion of "implicit consent". Just because I am on your claimed property, justly or unjustly, this does not mean that I consent to whatever you specifically do. I also think that there is a clear distinction between consent and asquiscance to coercion. Noone actually consents to the state, at best what people tend to do is resign themselves to duress or not violently resist, which is not the same thing as an explicit case of consent. It does not follow that if I give up my money and possessions to a robber with a gun to my head, I have consented to it. It means that I have submitted to duress. To use the term consent to describe submission is to grossly twist the meaning of the word.
We are simply born into the jurisdiction of states, and hence we do not initially choose them or consent to them. Noone consents to an inherited power structure. And once we are born and grow up, we still do not consent to the state because it continues to function independantly of our participation and input. At best, we have the illusion of consent that is represented by political democracy.
Thursday, January 8, 2009
Revising Self-ownership
In various articles in the past I have made a monist objection to a dualistic concept of self-ownership due to the problems that an absolute mind/body dichotomy leads to. To summarize the problem: who exactly is it that is doing the owning? If I own it, then it is not me. If I am owned, than I am not the owner. One cannot be both the owned and the owner at the same time. Using the analogy that the mind owns the body doesn't really work because the mind is also part of the body. There is a coherant whole in reality, the mind and body are not metaphysically detached to the point where we can treat them as completely independant entities.
Hence, the way in which libertarians commonly put foreward the concept of self-ownership is flawed and must be revised to what is really meant by the concept, I.E. individual sovereignty, which is an ethical concept rather than a descriptive one. The problem is that when libertarians argue for self-ownership, they tend to treat it as if it was descriptive. So they will put foreward an argument along the lines of what Hans Hoppe's argumentation ethics and Stefan Molyneux's UPB would put foreward: that by virtue of you argueing and generally purposefully acting, you implicitly aknowledge self-ownership. But this is to totally confuse an is with an ought, or descriptive ethics and normative ethics.
It goes so far as to completely conflate categories of philosophy and definitions, as this reduces to an attempt to make a metaphysical argument for self-ownership. "Individual sovereignty" is really what is usually meant by the term self-ownership, but it is also often used as a sort of mix of different concepts like conciousness, free will and individual sovereignty. This is the sense in which I think the self-contradiction argument starts to fall apart, because conciousness or free will by themselves, while they are a necessary condition for personal sovereignty, are not the same thing as the ethical right of personal sovereignty. So the argument may apply to those who deny conciousness and free will, but it is ultimately erroneous to characterize arguements against self-ownership and property rights as necessarily being in denial of conciousness or free will. In this way, I think that self-ownership has a danger of being used as a package deal concept.
What's in dispute is not necessarily conciousness or free will, I.E. the capacity to have individual sovereignty as opposed to the substance of having individual sovereignty itself, what's in dispute is a specific ethical theory or principle. Therefore it does not make any sense to put foreward purely descriptive arguments as if they justify a particular ethical premise by themselves. Proving that someone has conciosness and free will is simply not a sufficient proof by itself for the ethical right of individual sovereignty, and neither is the mere fact that individual sovereignty is internally consistant as a concept (although half the problem here is that libertarians themselves aren't always internally consistant in their definition or use of the concept).
Hence, the way in which libertarians commonly put foreward the concept of self-ownership is flawed and must be revised to what is really meant by the concept, I.E. individual sovereignty, which is an ethical concept rather than a descriptive one. The problem is that when libertarians argue for self-ownership, they tend to treat it as if it was descriptive. So they will put foreward an argument along the lines of what Hans Hoppe's argumentation ethics and Stefan Molyneux's UPB would put foreward: that by virtue of you argueing and generally purposefully acting, you implicitly aknowledge self-ownership. But this is to totally confuse an is with an ought, or descriptive ethics and normative ethics.
It goes so far as to completely conflate categories of philosophy and definitions, as this reduces to an attempt to make a metaphysical argument for self-ownership. "Individual sovereignty" is really what is usually meant by the term self-ownership, but it is also often used as a sort of mix of different concepts like conciousness, free will and individual sovereignty. This is the sense in which I think the self-contradiction argument starts to fall apart, because conciousness or free will by themselves, while they are a necessary condition for personal sovereignty, are not the same thing as the ethical right of personal sovereignty. So the argument may apply to those who deny conciousness and free will, but it is ultimately erroneous to characterize arguements against self-ownership and property rights as necessarily being in denial of conciousness or free will. In this way, I think that self-ownership has a danger of being used as a package deal concept.
What's in dispute is not necessarily conciousness or free will, I.E. the capacity to have individual sovereignty as opposed to the substance of having individual sovereignty itself, what's in dispute is a specific ethical theory or principle. Therefore it does not make any sense to put foreward purely descriptive arguments as if they justify a particular ethical premise by themselves. Proving that someone has conciosness and free will is simply not a sufficient proof by itself for the ethical right of individual sovereignty, and neither is the mere fact that individual sovereignty is internally consistant as a concept (although half the problem here is that libertarians themselves aren't always internally consistant in their definition or use of the concept).
Friday, January 2, 2009
Limited Liability and The Social Contract
Throughout the debates that have taken place among libertarians over the validity of corporate limited liability, it occured to me that limited liability suffers from some of the exact same problems that social contract theory does. In particular, the concept of the social contract is problematic because it implies that the terms of a contract can be enforced onto 3rd parties of people who never explicitly agreed to it. Corporate limited liability as a state legal construct functions in the exact same way as this, as the limited liability is uniformly applied to everyone within the society rather than being restricted to those who explicitly agreed to the contract.
In a libertarian society, it is of course true that people are indeed free to form social contracts and limited liability contracts, but these contracts only apply to those who explicitly formed and agreed to them to begin with. A particular group of people can make a contractual agreement, but it is in no way binding on anyone else. An organization could require that one sign a contract limiting liability in order to join or patronize the organization, but it isn't a given that people will sign such a contract and the contract would not apply to those who are affected by the organization and yet never explicitly agreed to the contract.
So not only is the idea that people implicitly consent to a social contract by merely living in society a nonsensical line of reasoning, but any attempt to likewise justify a uniformly applied limited liability would be nonsensical for the exact same reasons. Parties privy to a contract can choose to limit liability toward eachother but they cannot limit liability towards anyone else in society. It would be equally ridiculous to assert that everyone in society implicitly consents to the limited liability of a given organization. If an organization engages in behavior that affects them and they never explicitly agreed to any contract with that organization, an assertion of limited liability simply doesn't apply.
So while many right-libertarians are tempted to defend limited liability on the grounds that it can be contractual in theory, such contractual limited liability would inevitably be limited to those who enter into such agreements, and there is no reason to presume that everyone would uniformly agree to limit liability. Indeed, I would generally view a contractual attempt by an organization to shield itself from liability for any damages that is caused to be an attempt to avoid common sense responsibility for one's actions, and hence I'd be skeptical about such a contract to begin with. So for me a question is begged: who in their right mind would agree to any significant limits on liability? If something bad happens to me as an effect of decisions made by an organization, wouldn't I want the people who made or enforced those decisions to be held responsible at least for some kind of restitution?
Furthermore, this theoretical contractual limited liability is not the same thing as limited liability as it currently exists, which is uniformly applied as a matter of state law and affectively constitutes immunity from torts. Neither is this theoretical contractually limited liability representative of how the corporate form actually came about in history, which is overwhelmingly a matter of state privilege. It could be said that there were early joint partnerships that contractually limited liability, but this isn't really the same thing as a corporation. The legal status of a corporation is specifically based on a uniformly applied law or social contract onto the entire society which shields the organization from responsibility. To claim that the matter is purely contractual is highly misleading.
So essentially the defenses that people give of corporations are in some ways identical to the defenses that people give of the state in that many of the same assumptions are held. Both of them are based on a misapplication or distortion of contract theory. Both of them are based on a concept of an organization that exists independantly of its members and has exclusive privileges that allow them to externalize the affects their decisions without being held responsible. In the same way that the social contract implies the enslavement of uninvolved 3rd parties, the corporate form implies applying the terms of a contract to uninvolved 3rd parties as well. The specific purposes of the contract are what differs, but the essential nature of the contract as something binding on everyone regaurdless of genuine consent is the same.
In a libertarian society, it is of course true that people are indeed free to form social contracts and limited liability contracts, but these contracts only apply to those who explicitly formed and agreed to them to begin with. A particular group of people can make a contractual agreement, but it is in no way binding on anyone else. An organization could require that one sign a contract limiting liability in order to join or patronize the organization, but it isn't a given that people will sign such a contract and the contract would not apply to those who are affected by the organization and yet never explicitly agreed to the contract.
So not only is the idea that people implicitly consent to a social contract by merely living in society a nonsensical line of reasoning, but any attempt to likewise justify a uniformly applied limited liability would be nonsensical for the exact same reasons. Parties privy to a contract can choose to limit liability toward eachother but they cannot limit liability towards anyone else in society. It would be equally ridiculous to assert that everyone in society implicitly consents to the limited liability of a given organization. If an organization engages in behavior that affects them and they never explicitly agreed to any contract with that organization, an assertion of limited liability simply doesn't apply.
So while many right-libertarians are tempted to defend limited liability on the grounds that it can be contractual in theory, such contractual limited liability would inevitably be limited to those who enter into such agreements, and there is no reason to presume that everyone would uniformly agree to limit liability. Indeed, I would generally view a contractual attempt by an organization to shield itself from liability for any damages that is caused to be an attempt to avoid common sense responsibility for one's actions, and hence I'd be skeptical about such a contract to begin with. So for me a question is begged: who in their right mind would agree to any significant limits on liability? If something bad happens to me as an effect of decisions made by an organization, wouldn't I want the people who made or enforced those decisions to be held responsible at least for some kind of restitution?
Furthermore, this theoretical contractual limited liability is not the same thing as limited liability as it currently exists, which is uniformly applied as a matter of state law and affectively constitutes immunity from torts. Neither is this theoretical contractually limited liability representative of how the corporate form actually came about in history, which is overwhelmingly a matter of state privilege. It could be said that there were early joint partnerships that contractually limited liability, but this isn't really the same thing as a corporation. The legal status of a corporation is specifically based on a uniformly applied law or social contract onto the entire society which shields the organization from responsibility. To claim that the matter is purely contractual is highly misleading.
So essentially the defenses that people give of corporations are in some ways identical to the defenses that people give of the state in that many of the same assumptions are held. Both of them are based on a misapplication or distortion of contract theory. Both of them are based on a concept of an organization that exists independantly of its members and has exclusive privileges that allow them to externalize the affects their decisions without being held responsible. In the same way that the social contract implies the enslavement of uninvolved 3rd parties, the corporate form implies applying the terms of a contract to uninvolved 3rd parties as well. The specific purposes of the contract are what differs, but the essential nature of the contract as something binding on everyone regaurdless of genuine consent is the same.
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