On Amoralist Anarchism

Thursday, January 22, 2009

I've been a part of numerous online social networks or general social groups online that contains some amoralist anarchists, who either are former libertarian anarchists who have come to reject libertarianism or they are anarchists who rejected libertarianism from the get-go and reached the conclusion of anarchism from a completely different conceptual framework.

On the most personal level, the youtuber D4Shawn and the persona formerly known as Stodles (who now runs this website) are the two amoralist anarchists that I've interacted with most. D4Shawn used to be a libertarian anarchist, and made a separate channel one day trying to approach anarchism from a more utilitarian or relativistic perspective, which has recently devolved into an ethical nihilism. Stodles never was a libertarian, he jumped straight from white nationalism to anarchism, which created some confusion about his position along the way.

Both Stodles and D4Shawn philosophically reject libertarianism while still prefering anarchism. D4Shawn effectively claims that ethics is completely useless metaphysical mumbo-jumbo, and thinks that we should be speaking in purely preferential terms. Stodles even appears to go so far as to imply that any conception of ethics inherently leads to rulership. On the other hand, both of them practically take positions that may very well tend towards libertarian anarchism, but it is functionally a mere statement of preferance from their perspective. This starts to hint at the complications that leads me to see this approach as silly.

While these amoralists may philosophicaly reject libertarianism, they essentially practically support it and they cannot completely avoid value-laden terminology. So while they may loudly proclaim their opposition to ethical principles and rights-concepts until they are blue in the face, they ultimately would like to live their lives in a way consistant with certain ethical principles and rights-concepts. While, unlike Stefan Molyneux, I am not argueing that this by itself proves those ethical principles and rights-concepts, it certainly gives reason for pause when comparing one's behavior to one's philosophy and may hint at a need to reanalyze the moral-practical dichotomy.

Anarchism is indistinguishable from anomie if there is an ethical vacuum. There is no such thing as a society in an ethical vacuum. Even if one concedes to the existance of some kind of subjectivity, I don't think it logically follows that ethics is completely useless and irrelevant. An anarchist society either cannot conceptually be an anarchist society to begin with or will not last as an anarchist society for long if its philosophical and cultural norms deliberately undermine it. So it doesn't make sense to act like anarchism is compatible with any set of values or to act as if all values are equal.

Various ethical principles can undermine anarchism, help foster it and widen its scope. Furthermore, merely having an ethical principle, wether it's sensible or not, doesn't necessarily lead to the use of violence to enforce it. Questions of the use of violence inherently are ethical questions themselves, and the behavior of an individual doesn't always align with their philosophy. There really is no such thing as a person who has no ethical considerations, and this includes self-proclaimed ethical nihilists and various post-modernists. Noone can really divorce themselves from goals, reasons for goals and means towards goals.

Such things almost always have a reason. It makes no sense to proclaim that you favor a society in which rulership is normatively shunned, and then say you have no real reason for it other than preferance. To borrow Molyneuxian terminology, that reduces it to the level of "I like ice cream". Surely, a cause such as anarchism is not at the level of "I like ice cream". If one is putting foreward anarchism as a goal, surely one must explain why it is your goal beyond a mere appeal to the fact that your do favor the goal. It makes no sense to have a goal, and then proclaim neutrality as soon as the question of its foundation and application comes up.

So, by the very least, this ethical nihilism is highly impractical. If taken to its extremes, one is simply advocating anomie. If one is more practical about it, one is nonetheless sort of advocating both anarchy and anomie at once. On one hand, I think there's a sense in which this ethical nihilism is harmless, since the ethical nihilist may practically take a libertarian type of position anyways and most people aren't going to practically take ethical nihilism seriously. Sometimes they even bring up some interesting points. On the other hand, it poses a threat to libertarian anarchism to the extent that it encourages people to either think that anarchism is a pandora's box compatible with any set of values or to ultimately reject libertarian values in the name of putting on a facade of neutrality.

Posted by Brainpolice at 6:12 PM

Does Freedom have a Social Context?

May 24, 2010

Is it really the case that freedom is a separable factor from the kind of social atmosphere in which people exist? I think not. The particular conditions within a society is linked with people's capacity to independently make decisions about their own lives. This includes the possibility of mobility and the structural landscape of power. A social context in which there is a significant disparity of power, including the kind of power that comes with ownership and wealth, functions as a limit on freedom in that it is more susceptible to certain consequences.

A social hierarchy is what occurs when disparities of power are institutionalized and used to limit the freedom of certain people. What this entails, in effect, is that those in positions of power have the most freedom, while those who are in a subordinate or dependant position relative to such power structures have the least freedom. While freedom might not be something that is quantifiable in the sense of mathematical exactitude, it is relative to the particular circumstances that would allow an individual to exercise their faculties and live without appeal to a command structure. When power is centralized or densely concentrated, a breeding ground for authoritarianism is in place.

When the alternative to subordination to authority requires a mobile maneuver and a sacrifice of well-being, to the point where there really is no viable alternative at all or the only alternatives are just subordination to another authority, people aren't really free in the social context. They are systematically prevented from being free by the circumstances of the environment. The possibility of full consent is precluded. At best, they acquiesce for practical reasons. And it is most definitely not simply "nature", some sort of inherent necessity at the level of a law of physics, that causes them to be unfree. The kind of environment in question is a social one having to do with the particular distribution of power.

It is true that a position of power is not absolutely or inherently authoritarian, in the sense that someone can refrain from exercising it or using it to impose an institutional monopoly. But it is also true that the circumstance opens up the possibility of this and that authoritarian consequences are ultimately more likely to occur when power is concentrated. For example, a society in which the economic structure of power is plutocratic or one in which the distribution of land is feudal, is logically compatiblewith and an apt atmosphere for authoritarianism. The people who exclusively hold such massive amounts of power are in a better-suited position to control other people.

This is part of why I really don't understand certain proclamations that some people make to the effect of saying that particular socio-economic and cultural circumstances are effectively irrelevant "so long as everyone is free", or worse, "so long as I'm free". This has also been expressed in the form of a "consequences be damned" mentality. But the problem is that this presumes the two to be absolutely separable. To be sure, perhaps it is possible for a society to at least nominally be free and yet have a sick culture or be stricken with poverty. But aside from the fact that there would still be a reason for opposing a sick culture and mass-poverty in and of themselves, the idea that such an atmosphere can last without internal tensions causing it to be unfree strikes me as ridiculous.

I would say that this kind of "freedom" doesn't amount to much if it ultimately just means that most people live in a horrible socio-economic atmosphere or that society ghettoizes itself into fiefdoms. Such conditions are undesirable regardless of any nominal "freedom" that comes along with them. To have no real concern about the actual condition of people's lives in the name of "freedom" seems to turn freedom into a fairly useless abstraction, while reflecting what could frankly be called psychological bankruptcy and a low moral character. I would question the character of anyone that just said "screw society, as long as I'm left alone" and meant that plainly. It seems like more of an anti-social streak than a well thought out philosophy of freedom.

Healthy social atmospheres are desirable both for their own sake and in the sense that they integrate with freedom. It could be said that freedom is a prerequisite for a healthy social atmosphere and it could also be said that a healthy social atmosphere is a prerequisite for freedom. They are not mutually exclusive. Rather, they are robbed of substance without each other. This is a more holistic view. It is also a more society-based view, because I'm insisting on freedom and society as being reconcilable and mutually dependant. A philosophy that openly (although sometimes not-so-openly) says "down with society" in its one-eyed zeal to respect some narrow set of principles such as property rights is doomed from the start.

Posted by Brainpolice at 7:57 AM

The Usefulness of a Left/Right Distinction

Monday, May 17, 2010

I'd like to defend the proposition that a left/right distinction is useful even for libertarians, although the proposition does have some qualifications.

There is a sense in which it may make sense to say that libertarians transcend the left/right dichotomy at least in the more mainstream and common way that it is presented, in terms of the over simplistic choice between contemporary liberalism and conservatism. Libertarians do not fall neatly into such boxes. Libertarianism could be presented as either synthesizing elements that are typically associated with both or as falling outside of the paradigm because it represents two sides of the same statist coin that libertarians oppose. When the dichotomy is presented in such terms, then perhaps libertarians can claim to be unique.

But it may also be the case that reducing everything to a new dichotomy of statist vs. non-statist or anti-statist can obfuscate the details of political ideologies. One reason for this is that precisely what counts as statist and non-statist may be defined in a way that is contingent on certain norms that are in dispute. Precisely what norms are sufficient for a stateless society to arise and sustainably function is debatable at least on consequentialist grounds. Libertarians sometimes draw different conclusions about what common principles imply. Simply saying that it's about aggression, while doing this in a way that presumes ones own particular take on things, doesn't seem to take the multitude of positions at play into account.

It also isn't clear by any means that all libertarians have completely done away with baggage that can be traced back to the more common left/right dichotomy. People come into libertarianism from different angles, and this may influence what libertarianism means to them. Libertarians do not exist in a vacuum with respect to historical context and contemporary political ideologies. There are distinctions as to how various libertarians align themselves relative to other political groups and what they distinguish as being compatible and incompatible with the core philosophy. This alone is part of precisely why there is inter-libertarian factionalism.

Once one digs into the meat of political philosophy at a broader level, a vast multitude of particular positions on multiple spectrums can emerge. This includes views on social authority, property, the distribution of resources, organizational structure, cultural norms, and so on. In light of more detailed questions such as this, the simple and perhaps vague reduction of political philosophy to "aggression" and "government" doesn't seem to tell us very much by itself, especially when one takes into account the ways in which these different spectrums may overlap or be integrated by people. I suspect that a "plumbline", in the sense of a political philosophy that is genuinely consistently "thin", simply doesn't exist.

A left/right distinction, although things obviously get much more specific than these two terms, is useful insofar as the integrated social philosophies of particular libertarians are inevitably colored by different values or norms in a way that forms distinct views that simply cannot be reduced to a vaguely defined opposition to aggression or the state. Once one begins to disambiguate that, "thickness" of some sort is already at least implicitly entering the picture. The moment that one forms a libertarian philosophy that excludes certain norms from compatibility or defines freedom in specific terms, the alleged "neutrality" of libertarianism begins to dissolve. No libertarian sincerely maintains a neutral standpoint in practise. At best, this is a self-deception.

What a left/right distinction in a libertarian context may signify are varieties of gradiation in terms of how things like more general social views, property norms, and economic goals interlock in an overall ideological system. On a property spectrum, for example, hardcore propertarians are on the far right and communists are on the far left. On an economics spectrum, people who explicitly favor hierarchical and oligarchic structures are to the right of people who put an emphasis on a more equitable distribution of resources and flatter organizational structures. On a social spectrum, people who strongly question traditional social authority could be said to be to the left of those that are indifferent or supportive of it. These are real tendencies, and "left" and "right" are the most convenient and most-likely-to-be-understood terms for them.

The claim that these views are irrelevant seems to obfuscate the way in which "libertarianism" is effected by them. It is necessary to take such things into account if one wants to accurately consider the various ideas that float in and out of "libertarian" circles. While the desire for libertarianism to be unique is understandable at a certain level, it is not unique in a sense that is completely detached from relations with "other" ideas. Once such ideas are considered, this is the context in which a left/right distinction understandably continues to be a question for libertarians, even if some people want to avoid the terminology.

Posted by Brainpolice at 11:48 PM

Labels: Libertarianism

Positive and Negative Liberty

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.

A Two-Sided Dillema

Saturday, October 24, 2009

There is a two-sided dillema that pops up in conflicts over issues of freedom and domination. One side of the dillema is the problem of "involuntary liberation", while the other side of the dillema is the problem of "voluntary authoritarianism". Both of these seem like bald-faced contradictions that throw a monkey wrench into any attempt to coherantly define freedom, but they actually pop up quite frequently in conflicts between various libertarians and anarchists. The begged questions that may clarify how such contradictions arise is "voluntary in what sense?" and "liberation in what sense?".

What do I mean by "voluntary authoritarianism"? I mean a situation that is predicated on something that is voluntary in some sense or aspect, and yet is ultimately authoritarian in nature. For example, let's assume that "homesteading", "exchange", and "inheritance" or "gift" are voluntary modes of aquiring property over a given geographical area. That is, it is "voluntary" in the way that it is obtained. But as a question aside from one of how territory is obtained, those that own the geographical area exersize essentially unlimited power over those that happen to occupy the area that they have voluntarily obtained. Hence, in spite of the fact that the area was aquired "voluntarily", there is an authoritarian relationship at play in which the individual or group that "voluntarily" obtained the territory theoretically make whatever rules they want while the non-owners must obey their rules.

Let's be clear about this: the scenario just described would be a state in the Weberian definition of the term (or at least involve a state-like entity), in spite of the "voluntary" nature of territorial aquisition. It constitutes a defacto "territorial monopoly of ultimate decision-making" relative to the geographical area in question. And yet it initially came about through "voluntary" means, in terms of the way in which the geographical area was obtained. This illustrates an important point: that the qualification or criteria that a given geographical area is aquired through "voluntary" means is insufficient as a condition for freedom. The excersize of "ultimate decision-making power" over a given geographical area does not suddenly cease to threaten people's freedom simply because the area was "homesteaded" or "exchanged for".

There is also a factor of time in situations of "voluntary authoritarianism". While the prior example shows how it possible in some sense for a "state" to arise out of an initially "voluntary" mode of property aquisition, the annoying issue of "voluntary" slavery is similar, except in the latter case it has more to do with contracts than direct modes of property aquisition. It is theoretically possible for someone to sign a contract stating that they will work for and obey the orders of another individual or group, for the rest of their lives even. In terms of the simple act of signing the contract without initially being threatened with aggression, such an act would indeed be "voluntary". But as soon as the person tries to opt out of the relationship and another party proactively threatens violence to make them continue following orders into the future, what started out as a "voluntary contract" has taken on the character of any old authoritarian relationship. The contract itself is irrelevant to what explicitly is "voluntary".

The knee-jerk response at this point is for the defender of "voluntary slavery" to object that "you can't force them to be free", since that would appear to be a contradiction in terms. This is misleading because the person in the scenario actually doesn't want to obey orders anymore or continue to be a part of the relationship. The entire point is that the relationship has explicitly ceased to be "voluntary", and to perpetually enforce the contract would be pure subjection at this point. If I defend a slave that is trying to flee their master, I'm not forcing anyone to be free. It's their master that is trying to force them into not being free. If the "voluntary slavery" notion is taken to its logical conclusion, one would have to defend any sort of authoritarian relationship as long as it is traceable back to a legally binding contract.

It seems like the fundamental error of such "voluntary authoritarianism" is that property and/or contract are treated as ends in themselves that override freedom, or freedom is defined as a derivative of them. As a consequence of this, everything that one would otherwise object to in the abscence of contracts and the proper modes of property aquisition is relegitimized in the framework of property and/or contract. Hence, slavery and the state remain in substance, and differ only in the form that they take in terms of how they initially come about, which may initially be voluntary in nature. This may seem counter-intuitive, but something can start out voluntarily (or at least with its foundational qualities not involving aggression) and become involuntary or authoritarian over time. It also leads to a conclusion that may offend the average market-libertarian ear: if we want to meaningfully favor freedom, we must realize that freedom inherently limits property and contracts.

With all of this being said, there is another side of the coin here. While there are specific problems with viewpoints that end up effectively leading to the contradiction of making people "free to be subjects", there are also certain viewpoints that end up leading to a genuine contradiction of "forcing people to be free". The most explicit example of this in large-scale politics is probably the neoconservative line on foreign policy, in which proactive aggression and nation-buiding is endorsed in the name of freeing people from the control of foreign governments and "keeping the world safe for democracy". The idea is that one is doing a benevolent service to the people living in those areas by stepping in fighting the organizations that more locally control them. There is often a humanitarian veneer to it that gives it a veil of legitimacy.

Upon reflection, it may initially seem like there is an element of sensibility to this if one thinks of it in terms of helping slaves flee their masters. But that isn't really how such policies really work. For one thing, who exactly belongs to "the enemy" to be fought is often unclear, and the general population ends up being either caught in the crossfire or feeling invaded, which leads them to defend themselves. And so, to some extent, one ends up in a conflict with the very people that one is claiming to be liberating. The very nature of large-scale warfare ends up doing damage that is well beyond the limits of explicitly governmental targets. Furthermore, even to the extent that what could be considered oppressors are being fought off, it is under the pretext of imposing a new group of oppressors.

It reaches a point at which one is actually subjugating and killing people in the name of liberating them. The "liberating force" makes a power grab of their own, either directly (in the form of running the government) or indirectly (in the form of establishing a new puppet/satellite regime). Even the mere motive of freeing people comes into question, and it ends up looking like the motive of the "liberating force" is to become masters themselves or impose a new set of authorities onto the people that are supposed to be "liberated". It's analagous to slavemaster A taking out slavemaster B only as a pretext to replacing them and gaining control over the other slavemaster's subjects. The claim to be freeing people, whether it is genuinely intended or not, is illusory in substance.

A similar issue is involved with opposition to standard wage labor. Suppose, for the sake of argument, that an anarcho-communist society was achieved. Noone works for wages under an employer. But let's suppose that, for one reason or another, a particular individual decided that they wanted to work for someone else and another individual was willing to be their employer. One can protest until one is blue in the face that noone would have any reason to do that in a communist society, since there is supposed to be post-scarcity conditions, but let's assume that some people do anyways. What can the anarcho-communist really do about it? Are they really going to try to universally ban all employment contracts, and how would they possibly do this without some degree of aggression at some point down the line?

I think that this scenario bumps into a genuine "force them to be free" dillema. It seems akward and counter-intuitive to try to proactively intervene to stop someone from initially entering into an employment contract, while that person protests the whole way and genuinely wants to enter into it. It seems like the anarcho-communist more or less has no choice but to tolerate it to some extent. To claim to be "liberating" someone while they emphatically don't want you to and while they persistently object doesn't make any sense. While the "voluntary slavery" proponent doesn't take freedom of exit into proper account, anyone that favors explicit "involuntary liberation" in this way seems to not take freedom of entry into proper account. If "freedom of association" is to mean anything at all, both entry and exit must be considered.

Thursday, October 15, 2009

Anarcho-Capitalism Is Not A Form Of Libertarian Socialism

Brad Spangler has recently been defending anarcho-capitalism as essentially being the same thing as libertarian socialism (seehere and here). While I think that one-dimensional thinking can be misleading and there is an extent to which conflict about such questions can be based on semantics, I believe that Spangler is stretching it here and going too far in his own use of semantics and obfuscating certain distinctions between norms commonly held by the groups in question. The problem, as I see it, partially revolves around how he is defining his terms relative to other people that commonly apply those same terms to themselves.

Spangler holds up Murray Rothbard as a libertarian socialist. A number things must be noted that give this claim a context: Spangler is talking about a "left-rothbardian" interpretation of Rothbard that is not shared by the vast majority of "rothbardians" (particularly those associated with the Ludwig Von Mises Institute), this is only one era in Rothbard's thought that is being refered to (late 60's and early 70's), and Rothbard came to abandon that position. In fact, by the time we get to the 80's, it seems quite clear that Rothbard drifted (back?) "rightward" to a significant extent.

The early formation of agorism was partially based on a split between Rothbard and Konkin. Of course, Konkin viewed himself as "more rothbardian than rothbard", as merely taking Rothbard's premises to a more radical and logical conclusion. But even if one wants to think of it as having its roots in Rothbard's ideas, it still constitutes a deviation relative to the man's own views and the views of many of his adherants. Insofar as agorism is only thought of as a different strategic viewpoint for obtaining anarcho-capitalism, then I suppose there isn't much of a significant distinction. But insofar as it is based on a "left-rothbardian" interpretation of libertarianism, I think it must be admitted that it is a distinct system of thought from the "plumbline" of anarcho-capitalism.

With Rothbard and agorism aside, there are much more important reasons why I don't think it makes sense to pretend that the general paradigm of anarcho-capitalism is indistinguishable from libertarian socialism. Most fundamentally, they are very clearly distinguished in terms of their norms about property, and I don't think that such differences are trivial. Generally, anarcho-capitalism is based on a quite specific conception of property that essentially every libertarian socialist I've ever encountered rejects. Indeed, it is considered authoritarian. Likewise, the vast majority of anarcho-capitalists that I've encountered tend to consider the norms of libertarian socialists to inherently violate liberty.

Now, I'll be the first person to admit that sometimes these conflicts are based on mutual misunderstandings. I most certainly think that simple "pro-property" vs. "anti-property" is an oversimplification. But I do not think that it is entirely semantic in nature. I don't think that we can make such issues go away by playing with language. Libertarian socialists do not believe in non-proviso lockean property. One can come up with theories about how non-proviso lockean property can possibly include socialistic models of economic organization until one's brain explodes, but that would still be based on the overall framework of the property norm, which libertarian socialists reject.

One could say that "we all believe in non-aggression, so the distinctions are moot", but even non-aggression is going to be defined partially based on what property norm one assumes ahead of time. At the practical level, this means that it isn't even the same "non-aggression principle" being adhered to, since whether or not a given act is going to be considered offense or defense will vary. One could say that "we all oppose the state, so the distinctions are moot", but as long as one party considers the other's norms to justify or imply a state anyways, one group's "anti-statism" will be another group's "transition from one state to another" or "the establishment of a situation that is a sufficient condition for a new state forming". And that's exactly what the anarcho-capitalist's norms imply from a libertarian socialist perspective.

There are some people that could be said to occupy an ambiguous space that exists between the general paradigms of anarcho-capitalism and libertarian socialism, such as various elements within the Alliance of the Libertarian Left. But that's just the thing: the Alliance of the Libertarian Left and related tendencies are not representative of the norm in market anarchism. If anything, it has a certain heretical flavor relative to the orthodoxy of both anarcho-capitalism and social anarchism. On one hand, it can be considered reconciliationist or a mixture of ideas from both paradigms. But relative to the "hardline" of both paradigms, it very clearly is deviationist; it defies or breaks the norms.

Some market anarchists (particularly those with left-libertarian inclinations) think that if you get rid of the state, "capitalism" as we know it dissapears. To an extent, this makes sense if we understand "capitalism" to depend on state intervention in terms of property titles and an assortment of legal constructs that have had the function of restricting competition to the dominant "capitalist" models of economic organization. I'm sympathetic to this viewpoint myself. But the analysis could be taken further: if we still hold the same property norms in general(particularly with respect to land), then we haven't avoided the foundation of states. If we view the matter from another conceptual level, the dominant anarcho-capitalist position on land should logically justify if not consequentially lead to states or state-like entities.

This, I believe, cuts much deeper to the heart of what the issue of contention is all about. It isn't merely a matter of rejecting the current distribution of property titles and thinking that in the absence of a state such an arrangement could not sustain itself. It's a matter of how such an arrangement forms in the first place and the relationship between specific property norms and authority. By the very least, as long as anarcho-capitalists continue hold on to certain territorialist notions, they haven't overcome authoritarianism from a libertarian socialist perspective. The problem cannot be completely chalked up to the influence of already-existing states. It's not as if, regaurdless of norms about property, a given state falls and then everything just works itself out into libertopia.

The discussion is not merely about what one thinks the consequences of getting rid of currently existing states are, but what the consequences of various norms about property and liberty are, partially in relation to the question of state formation. It's a different level of analysis altogether. Considerations about this matter is part of why I think that "anti-statism" in the sense of calling for the abolition of currently existing states to be necessary but insufficient by itself to foster a free society. I don't believe that you automatically have a free society simply because a given state falls, I think that a free society will be contingent on a culture of freedom, and precisely what is involved in a culture of freedom (including norms about property) is up for debate.

Part of why I think that Spangler's claims are misleading is that he seems to think that if you think that the state intervenes to uphold an unjust allocation of property and that the consequences of abolishing the state naturally lead to a redistribution of property, this makes you a libertarian socialist, but that's not what libertarian socialism is defined by. It involves fairly specific notions about property at a different conceptual level, and it doesn't entail a reduction of the issue to the pre-existance of a state. This is why his statements confuse some people, both libertarian socialists and anarcho-capitalists, because we're not talking about the same thing here.

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

A reply to Buchanan's Article praising the Tariff on Chinese Tires.

Here is Buchanan's article that was in the Lawton Constitution's opinion page last week:

http://buchanan.org/blog/globalism-vs-americanism-2192

Patrick Buchanan has come out in support of Obama’s tariff on tires, saying that its a good start. But Buchanan makes several mistakes throughout his column.

He starts off early in his article, blaming the Chinese tire industry for taking away market shares of the Cooper Tire company and causing the South Georgia tire plant to be shut down. But this isn’t at all the fault of the Chinese. It is the fault, if you could call it a fault, of the consumers. The consumers have let their preferences be known and have chosen Chinese tires over Cooper tires. Buchanan I know gives lip service to capitalism. And if it were not the Chinese, but Goodyear tires that were becoming more popular with consumers than Cooper tires, Buchanan wouldn’t bat an eye. He would rightly and logically conclude that Goodyear is producing a higher quality product at a lower price, and that the market has succeeded. But because it is not just the Lawton Goodyear plant that is producing more tires (producing about 2,000 tires a day) but also China producing more tires, Buchanan is crying foul, and throwing the concept of the free market under the bus. 2,100 men and women are out of work in Georgia, would it really help those people pay their mortgage if their job was replaced by men in Oklahoma rather than China?

Buchanan then looks at how the Chinese are able to produce a lower cost product; pointing out that workers are willing to work for much less in China, a result of the lack of labor unions, and government intervention in labor unions, since the plant he mentioned, in fact all tire plants in the United States, with the exception of the Goodyear Tire plant in Lawton, Oklahoma are union plants (though Buchanan fails to go into that), that the Chinese government does not meddle in the market by way of health and safety regulations, civil rights laws, and perhaps most damning, environmental regulations. But the problem here is not China, it is us, or more precisely our governments. To fix this the government should get out of the way and let the market operate, lift the crippling environmental regulations, and stop protecting labor unions.

But another factor is the Chinese Government, they do in fact, as Buchanan mentioned, manipulate their currency to benefit exporters and hurt importers, though this is also an example of government meddling in the market, the solution is not to have more government meddling, but for the United States to eliminate the Federal Reserve. It is quite easy for a government to manipulate its currency in regards to another fiat currency, it would be quite another thing however for China to attempt to manipulate its currency in relation to Gold, it would end in disaster for them, if they were foolish enough to try.

Buchanan goes on to blast Cooper Tires for moving plants to China. But why? does he consider Toyota as a traitor to Japan for building plants in the U.S.? (no one likes a traitor even if the traitor defects to his own side.) No, he doesn’t, It is the nature of men to act in a way that best serves their interests. Instead of spinning my own clothing or growing my own food, I turn to a cheaper alternative, the grocery store, and the mall. Labor is no different, or does Buchanan expect us to not hire the cheapest bid to cut our grass? Why shouldn’t Cooper move to China if they can get a better deal?

“ Welcome to 21st century America, where globalism has replaced patriotism as the civil religion of our corporate elites.”

But this is to confuse patriotism with nationalism. Patriotism is only the desire a man has for his country, his brethren, and himself to be free. Free from taxes, from extortion, crime, and perhaps most accurately, to be left alone. It is nationalism that insists that all consumer goods be made in his home country, that his government be powerful, that his government exert her will over other governments and people far and wide.

Yet even still I don’t know of any religion that our corporate elites hold, I can not even address this point except to say that all men, from the smallest child, to the most powerful corporate elite, act in his own self interest and in a way which, in his judgement will most benefit him.

Buchanan goes on to illustrate a lack of understanding of self sufficiency independence,

“What has this meant to the republic that was once the most self sufficient and independent in all of history?”

Being independent does not mean that I built my own house and car, that I spun my own clothing or created my own electricity for lighting, or even that I cut my own grass. Rather it is a matter of being able to produce something, or give some service in trade so others will be willing to provide those goods and services to me. if I were not self sufficient, I would not be able to supply myself with these goods, either directly or through trade. The same model that I put forward for an individual also applies to the aggregate of American individuals, i.e. to the country.

We are still independent, but Buchanan has confused political independence with economic independence. Under Buchanan’s concept, consider how utterly non self sufficient a brain surgeon must be, Who can not operate perform brain surgery on himself, and since that is his only talent, he can not change the oil on his porsche, pilot his private jet, sew his thousand dollar suits, or cut firewood to heat his 10,000 square foot home!

Addressing the “trade deficit” is the next leg of Buchanan’s article. But again one has to question the premise. What exactly is a trade deficit, perhaps more importantly, what is a trade? A trade, as it should be obvious to any 10 year old boy trading baseball cards, is exchanging what one values less for what one values more. Tom values Jim’s Nolan Ryan card more than he values his own Greg Maddox and Barry Bonds card, while Jim values the Maddox card Barry Bond’s card more than his Nolan Ryan. The two boys agree to a trade. And through my magic of deception, I have made the trade deficit disappear!
But there is no deception. That is what a trade is. Consider another example. your own “trade deficit” with your local grocery store. If you have never sold anything to your grocery store, Buchanan would say you are running a trade deficit in the amount of dollars that you spend annually at the store. But how preposterous is this? Would you really be better off eating a $100 bill each week than trading it for nourishing food? Of course not. There is no trade deficit here. The fact is that the act of trading negates a trade deficit.

As Buchanan raises the question of dependence on China again, think about your own dependence on your grocery store... Are you dependent on your grocery? No, you trade with him, but you are not dependent. If he goes out of business, or stops carrying the type of tea you prefer, you go to another store. Its that simple.


Now Buchanan gains strength towards the end, saying that we should reciprocate, that since they have tariffs on our goods, we should put tariffs on their goods. But this is probably not the way to go.

The fact is that besides hurting producers of another country, it also hurts consumers of the home country. This, more than any other issue is what lead to the war between the states. As the Confederate Constitution was ratified March 11th 1861, creating a virtual free trade zone by article one section eight of the new Constitution, in the north shortly before the Morrill tariff was passed, putting a tax of 47% on goods entering in the remaining United States. Naturally the monied elite could not stand to see a tariff of such magnitude put on them while the south would have a bare 10% tariff on goods entering the newly formed republic, and papers across the North changed their tune and called for blood.

Likewise WWI had at its root trade. and Woodrow Wilson admitted that the war was fought to prevent Germany from gaining economic supremacy.

It is admirable that Buchanan is such an outspoken opponent of unnecessary wars, yet it is sad he doesn’t realize that tariffs, and trade wars, are the leading cause of wars.

It does not help our case for China to remove its trade restrictions when we put our own on them. And the result, if we do so, is that the American consumer is the one who gets hurt.

Lastly I’ll address Buchanan’s view on taxes where he says, “ As they rebate value-added taxes on exports to us, and impose a value-added tax on our exports to them, let us reciprocate. Impose a border tax equal to a VAT on all their goods entering the United States, and use the hundreds of billions to cut corporate taxes on all manufacturing done here in the United States.”

Apparently Buchanan is not for cutting taxes, but transferring taxes from one group to another. He is right that corporate taxes should be cut, because they are passed on to the consumer, but does he fail to realize that taxes on foreign goods are also passed along to the consumer?

Friday, October 2, 2009

Questioning Hoppe's Premises

The last argument presented against Hoppe's argument about democracy takes the form of assuming Hoppe's premises and demonstrating that they still don't necessarily lead to his conclusion, because even if we assume that the monarch does have a low time preference, this still doesn't prove that their treatment of their subjects will necessarily be more reserved or benevolent. A low time preference ruler is still a ruler, and them having a low time preference merely means that they will seek to maximize their inputs that they reap from the productivity of their subjects in the long-term - it's to treat the subject and the state as an investment.

But the problem with Hoppe's argument runs deeper than this, to the core of some of his assumptions. Does it really follow that just because something is an individual's "private" property, they will necessarily treat it better? I understand the typical use of tragedy of the commons by economists to argue for something along these lines by portraying more common ownership as leading to over-use of resources. But there is nothing about "private" ownership that inherently tends towards the opposite, especially if a "private" owner can externalize their costs. Why couldn't an individual owner "use and abuse" to a fault as well? They very well could.

Hoppe seems to assume that contemporary democracies actually are a commons, and in this sense he is buying into the democratic myth in his own attempt to argue against it. But let's be clear about this: even democratic states are, in some sense, still "private" institutions, they just have somewhat of a more inclusive membership than monarchies. They are still "private" oligarchies relative to the general population. Instead of having a single family or individual that owns the state, the state is effectively owned by a number of different families and a small oligarchy, who are more or less allied with and function on the behalf of pockets of "private" investors in "the market". It's almost as if the "democratic" state is a corporation, with a board of managers representing investors.

The historical reality of monarchies also flies in the face of Hoppe's premises. There are endless examples of monarchs being expansionist and using their power in extreme ways without any meaningful checks. Hoppe's unspoken assumption is that the monarch will be knowledgable about economics or a wise investor. But just because there is a "private" owner of the state does not necessitate that they will have a low time preference. This is particularly true considering the factor of inheritance. An inheritor can't even claim to have "earned" what they own in any meaningful sense, and hence in fact do not tend to treat it as if it was something that they worked for. It's theirs to "use and abuse" regardless.

There is a wiff of the "homo economicus" in this notion of monarch-as-wise-investor. People do not function solely on the basis of economic incentives. If someone is determined enough to pursue a given goal, they will try to pursue it regardless of how unwise it might be from a purely economic standpoint. In turn, if a king is determined enough to exercise power, they will excersize power even if it isn't the best course of action from the standpoint of being an investor in the state. Kings are not economic calculation automatons that are always working hard to maximize capital values. Just like any other ruler, the internal institutional incentives are for the perpetuation of the institution itself and the maximization of power.

Hoppe greatly underestimates the particular dangers of unilateral power. He essentially assumes that unilateral power is preferable to multilateral power because the unilateral decision-maker doesn't have to have their alleged economically-minded meanderings distracted from by other agents. But, if anything, this is a peculiar danger in monarchies: that the monarch has little to no multilateral checks on their power, and can therefore excersize it more easily and directly. This is the counter-point or downside to monarchy that isn't taken into account at all by his analysis. While a democracy at least tries (and, of course, fails) to separate powers so that a single individual or party cannot have all of it concentrated in them, monarchy doesn't even function on the pretense of trying.

Monarchy is, in fact, the most centralized form of government in this sense. It is only the most "small" form of government in the sense of its membership, while this exact same "smallness" is precisely where its power lies in terms of being densely concentrated in a certain spot. While democracy attempts to internally mimick decentralization, monarchy most blatantly places "ultimate decision-making power" in the hands of a single individual. It really shouldn't be too hard to see what might be particularly dangerous about a single individual having "ultimate decision-making power", yet Hoppe apparently thinks that it is a "lesser evil" than a system that attempts to place barriers to unilateral decision-making!

Thursday, October 1, 2009

Critiqueing Hoppe's Monarchy-As-Lesser-Evil Argument From Another Angle

Most market anarchists have mostly likely heard of Hans Hoppe's argument that monarchy is preferable to democracy because a "private" owner of the state has an incentive to preserve the "capital value" of the state, and will therefore allegedly be more restrained in their oppression of their subjects. Not long ago, Roderick Long brought up an interesting parallel to Hoppe's argument in the context of chattel slavery, and used it as a point against Hoppe's argument. In a nutshell, Hoppe's argument mirrors a paternalistic argument for chattel slavery, I.E. that a "private" slavemaster has an incentive to take care of their slave so that they are productive. All based on the general theory of time preference.

Let's think more deeply about this premise via a parasite metaphor. What is the interest of a parasite? To reap as much from their host as possible. However, the relationship between a parasite and its host has complications: if the parasite kills its host, it no longer has a source and dies if it doesn't find a new one. Hence, it is actually in the interest of the parasite to maintain a certain balance in which they are able to perpetually live off of the host without killing it. It against the long-term interest of the parasite to reap too much too quickly.

I maintain that this is analagous to both the "private slavery" and "private monarchy" questions. In the long-term, a conservative policy in which the subject is kept at a sufficient level of health necessary to continue being able to milk the most productivity from them is the most efficient and sustainable way to rule them. So what Hoppe ends up proving is not necessarily that a monarchy is inherently less exploitative than a democracy, but that a monarchy is actually the most efficient and sustainable form of rulership (which isn't a good thing if you want to oppose rulership). From the standpoint of the subject, they are only "taken care of" as a pretext to them providing productivity that will be seized from them in the future.

Stephan Molyneux, in one of his more interesting positions, once made a similar line of argument about minarchist capitalism (I don't recall exactly which podcast or video it is from). The idea is that the relative non-intervention of small/minarchist governments entails a period of productivity, that is generally a pretext to a later period of growth in government in which that productivity is seized to provide the resources necessary to maintain a large military-industrial-complex and welfare-state (it's interesting to note that in a strange roundabout way, Molyneux is actually fairly closely paralleling Marx here).

The common thread that runs through all of these examples is that a low time preference and conservative approach presents the conditions upon which to sustainably and efficiently milk the most out of the victims. This is actually a "smart" strategy for parasites/slavemasters/rulers, not something to hold up as a pragmatic lesser evil! The subject is only given more lenience earlier on so that it can be steadily taken away from them as time goes by and so that they function as a reliable source of input for the ruling individual or group. It does not prove as an apriori law of praxeology that a "private" and conservative form of domination is inherently more tolerable or less objectionable.

It should be noted that I am accepting Hoppe's own economic assumptions (namely, time preference) to refute the conclusion that he draws from them. Let's concede Hoppe's contention that the "private" owner of the state has an incentive towards a low time preference. The proper response is that what follows, by the very logic of time preference, is that they have a more vested personal interest in preserving the state, precisely because it is their property. And this doesn't really mean the well being of the subjects of the state, but the stability of the state itself. In a sense, Hoppe's theory refutes itself, since it's the "capital value" of the state that the owner is primarily interested in.

The notion that "private" forms of control are inherently a "lesser evil", or even a non-issue entirely, does not logically follow from accepting the general economic theory of time preference. If anything, Hoppe is abusing a valid economic conceptual tool to legitimize an ideological presupposition, out of a zeal to oppose democracy. Even if we grant him the benefit of the doubt and don't claim that he intends to legitimize monarchy (which isn't that much of a stretch given the context of his statements), the function of Hoppe's argument is a misleading pragmatic-propertarian argument in favor of monarchy. But it proves no such thing. If it proves that monarchy is preferable in any sense at all, it proves that it is preferable only from the standpoint of the monarch, who personally reaps the benefits of a thrifty investment strategy in the state.