My take is that certain property [...]]]> There was recently a discussion on the Reddit’s Anarchism forum about the nature and origin of property rights. Many people, ironically both Objectivists and the vast majority of anarchists, believe that property rights would not exist in practice in the absence of a state to enforce those rights.

My take is that certain property norms, such as intellectual property, final decision-making authority and exclusive control of a property, would vanish in the absence of a state — and so they should. The first part of my empirical (or fact-based) account for property rights will attempt to substantiate how we can derive prescriptive “ought” statements from descriptive “is” statements, bridging the so-called fact-value dichotomy, and why each individual’s life, morally speaking, is his or her ultimate standard of value. Beforehand, let me define my understanding of a few words.

A value (or goal) is that which one acts to gain or keep. The adjective “objective” means derived from an evaluation of the facts of reality. An objective standard of value would mean that the standard by which the value of an action is determined is based on an evaluation of the facts of reality. Morality prescribe what code (or hierarchy) of values (or goals) one ought to achieve and how those values ought to be achieved. A right is a normative principle defining and sanctioning the proper course of actions for an individual to take in a social context. Property is the ownable means of achieving values.

Deriving ‘Ought’ from ‘Is’

As I said above, morality is concerned with answering rationally and logically which values ought a person pursue and how a person ought to pursue them. The way I would begin answering how to establish the validity of morality is by recognizing that values only have meaning to living beings; dead people cannot act to gain or keep anything. So it stands to reason that for there to be a value, there must be a valuer. The problem is that values are not readily perceptible. What we see when looking around the world are facts. The sky is blue and water is wet. There are no facts labeled “ought” or “should,” so the idea that there are moral principles about how people ought to act seems counter-intuitive. That is, values are not a primary concept. What I hope to demonstrate is that values are different kinds of facts, facts as it relates to the fulfillment or destruction of life. It is not as simple as picking any values (or goal) and identifying the most likely means of achieving that value. The purpose of morality is to identify the proper values to pursue. For morality to be based in reason, moral principles about what one ought to do must be derived from what is — the facts of reality.

A value is a value because it serves some intended end, which might then be used as means to another intended end. This process would go on ad infinitum in the pursuit of higher and higher values unless there were some ultimate value or values to which all other values served as a means. In the absence of an empirically demonstrable ultimate value or values, there can be no empirical basis to judge which values are objectively good and which are objectively bad, as moral judgements would be left to personal discretion. Without an empirical ultimate end, there could be no empirical standard to determine which values are the proper values to pursue, meaning that moral knowledge could not be arrived at objectively. The challenge then is to discover if an empirical ultimate value exists at all.

The most fundamental choice human beings confront (before we can choose which values to achieve and how to achieve them) is the alternative between existing and not existing, between living and dying. To remain alive, one not only has to avoid achieving life-destroying values, one must act to achieve actual life-promoting values. Inaction results in death. There is no neutral alternative because remaining alive is a constant struggle between life and death, with death as the default. Time is a scarce and irretrievable resource. By taking actions that are not life-promoting, one’s life is degraded and is that much closer to death since that misspent energy could have been used in producing life-promoting values instead. For people who do choose to live, it is very possible that they could choose to pursue life-destroying values. After all, people have free will. Moral altruists do that very thing, but they are not able to practice altruism consistently or else they would succumb to death very shortly. For a person who chooses to die, morality and the pursuit of values would be useless because death naturally takes hold relatively quickly if values (such as remaining hydrated) are not achieved. To reiterate, I am not making the case that just because someone is alive, his or her ultimate value is his or her life. After all, a person who chooses to die but is currently alive has no need for a standard of value. I said that if a person chooses to live, his or her ultimate value is his or her own life. It is logically inexplicable to choose to remain alive and have any ultimate value (or goal) other than one’s life. To act contrary to the idea that one’s life is his or her ultimate value is to contradict the choice to remain alive.

For each organism, the principle of life means living as that type of organism. For human beings, just to be clear, the principle of life means living as a volitional, productive and conceptual being — not as a rodent.

To grasp that an entity is a value, one would have to recognize it is a value to something for something. The thing to note is that the concept “value” presupposes, depends on and is derived from the concept “life.” Since the only fundamental choice, which does not presuppose any other choice, is to remain alive or to die, a person’s choice to remain alive logically establishes one’s life as the fundamental value (or goal), directing what one ought to do. To put it another way, all other values I achieve determine what state of life I am in as a human being. But that I am alive determines whether I am in any state of life at all. Life or death is a fundamental alternative; it establishes that all other values are means to it, but life is not means to any higher value. Therefore, the principle of life is an ultimate value, an end in itself.

The principle of life is not only an ultimate value but necessarily an ultimate standard of value too. The corollary conception of value is maginitude-based. In general, a value is judged to be positive or negative by whether it can be used as means to pursue some intended end. It is also the case that evaluations are made, particularly in the social sciences, based on how well a value can be used in the pursuance of an intended end. To evaluate a value’s magnitude, the end intended to be achieved is the standard of value used for evaluation. Since the principle of life is an ultimate value, one’s life is his or her ultimate standard of value as well. That which contributes to one’s life is a life-promoting value and that which hinders one’s life is a life-destroying value. The degree to which these values are impactful are measured by the ultimate standard of value, one’s life.

One common objection to the principle of life as an ultimate value is that there could be multiple ultimate values that are possible, for instance, if the primary ultimate value were not pursuable at a particular time. This objection would fail on two accounts. It is not possible to pause life or take a break from it. Sustaining it requires constant action. The more basic reason that there are not multiple ends in themselves is because life or death is the only fundamental alternative. All other alternatives a person confronts are contingent on the choice to remain alive.

Another objection could be that since human beings have volition, it could be possible to choose another ultimate value (e.g., the welfare of the environment). I do not believe it is possible. In order to answer why the welfare of the environment is a value to that person, he or she would have to appeal to some higher value, which would require an appeal to some higher value, and so on and so forth until he or she concluded with the alternative of life or death. Identifying someone’s ultimate value would require explaining why achieving or not achieving that value makes a difference to that person. To be of value, the use of something must be worthwhile to the valuer. The common denominator in all differences is one’s life. Death means nothing is of value because nothing can make a difference to that person in death. For a person who chooses to remain alive, death is of no value because death cannot be used in the maintenance of one’s life.

(On a side note, this is not so much a rebuttal to any objection but a clarification on a common misunderstanding. Leading a successful life — a life in tune with one’s nature as a human being — does not mean maximizing the number of heartbeats or some such. The genes received from our parents gear our nature to find certain behaviors, such as sex and child rearing, fulfilling. Pursuing important values at the expense of a shorter lifespan would be adding to the value of one’s life. To me, it is reasonable that defending the freedom of one’s family or sparing an innocent person from injustice could be an instance worthy of putting one’s life on the line.)

Not only do we have to be alive to achieve values; we also have to achieve values to remain alive. Put another way, it is not just enough that living entities have values. Values must be pursued and achieved to be of any consequence. Life not only gives rise to the possibility of values; life requires the pursuit of values in a manner consistent with our productive, conceptual and volitional nature as human beings so that those values will be most likely achieved.

For living beings without volition, their values and the means to achieve them are provided innately (or automatically) by their nature. For them, there is no “ought” involved because living entities without volition have no choice in the matter. Humans beings, on the other hand, have to choose which values they ought to pursue and how they ought to pursue them, so for them alone is morality necessary or even possible. An individual has to make the choice to pursue values supportive of one’s nature as a human being if an individual chooses to remain alive. To do otherwise and pursue life-destroying values or no values at all would be reneging on the choice to remain alive.

It is incoherent that a person could consistently as a matter of principle pursue life-destroying values or no values at all and remain alive. It is reasonable to conclude that if a person chooses to live, he or she ought to pursue life-promoting values. People can choose to live and make life-destroying choices or no choices at all (not consistently as a matter of principle though); but if they choose to remain living, what is — Mankind’s requirements for survival as a human being — prescribes what they ought to do to fulfill that choice: pursue life-promoting constituent values and do so in such a way that preserves their lives in accordance with their nature as rational animals.

If it is possible to determine what an individual’s ultimate value (or goal) is (and can only be), he or she can conclude from the ultimate standard of value what ought to be done to achieve that value (or goal). It is not more complicated than that. If a person chooses to remain alive, the reality of Mankind’s nature — what is — prescribes what ought to be done to remain alive. The is-ought false dichotomy is solved this way: if something is of value, one ought to gain or keep it. The science of the study of the values and virtues — the logically consistent and meaningful pursuit of values — required by Mankind’s nature to lead a successful life is called morality.

Empirical Account for the Validity of Rights

Having resolved the fact-value false dichotomy to establish that moral principles guide which actions promote our values on a personal level, likewise we need principles to guide which interactions promote our values on a social level. Those principles are what I call rights. Just as each individual’s life is the fundamental source of values, so an individual’s life is the fundamental source of rights. The fundamental right is the right to life, which originates from the fact that each individual’s life is morally an end in itself, as I explained above. As life exists in individuals and the principle of life is an ultimate value, each individual is his or her own ultimate value, an end in him- or herself. Since this is true of all people, it is neither moral to sacrifice one’s life for another nor sacrifice another’s life for one’s own. Since it is absolute that the principle of life is an ulitimate value, the right to life and all corollary rights are absolute (or inalienable). The right to life means the right to sustain one’s life according to its nature. Since each individual’s life is an end in itself, one person’s rights cannot intrude upon or violate the rights of others to think and act on their own.

According to my understanding, only a being whose life, morally speaking, is his or her own standard of value has a claim to rights (or normative principles sanctioning the actions for an individual to take within society). Since morality only has a bearing on rational forms of life — non-human forms of life are simply amoral beings and subsequently cannot possess rights. (As an aside, that does not mean animals should be cared for recklessly or mistreated. Other animals can provide companionship and be of profound value in other ways.) Although not a cause of its validity, the great majority of people, who believe entities such as a society, a state or a god is the ultimate standard for good and bad, seem to agree with the principle that only ends in themselves have a claim to rights. The well-being of those entities are placed before the interests of the individual, so individual rights are seen more as permissions slips to be revoked and replaced with duties whenever doing so serves the greater entity’s compelling interests.

Returning to how rights originate, a right is a normative principle, which like any principle, is based on certain premises. First being that each individual’s life is morally an end in itself. The other premises are that human beings have the faculty for productive work and have volition for the conceptual faculty to make reasoned judgements, meaning that it is possible for us to live and prosper together without sacrificing one another. (“Productive” in this context means not only being able conform to nature, but also overcoming the need to conform to what is provided by nature.) Taken with what I said before that the principle of rights is contingent on the premise that human beings are capable of productive work, so it would follow that a right to own a value is contingent on having produced the means to achieve that value. As a consequence of each individual’s life being an end in itself, an individual has a valid claim to independence in the exercise of his or her own judgements and is the proper beneficiary of the values he or she achieves. Rights are meant to protect the independent exercise of one’s judgement in the pursuit of values — or what is otherwise known as liberty — the values achieved by those judgments — or what we might call property. Those rights, which are manifested into physical reality through the use of property, are violated through the use of direct or indirect physical force that causally (or deterministically) prevents the achievement (or realization) of those values.

To demonstrate, if I happen upon an unowned apple tree and picked an apple for the purpose of producing a value (satisfying my hunger), I believe I would have a right to the apple for that use (satisfying my hunger) since I, a rational being, have made a physical change to the object and am not interfering with any existing property claim of another volitional being. To reiterate, what makes a value a value is the difference its achievement would have on that person. Those differences are manifested into the physical world, so the interruption of those differences requires the use of physical force.

My right is not to the apple itself, but to the freedom to gain, keep, use or dispose of the apple for the purpose of producing the value (satisfying my hunger) I sought. If someone can use the apple, then or in the future, in a manner that does not interfere with my preexisting right to the use of the apple, that person could make his or her own property right claim for achievement of his or her value. Abandonment of the right would take place when an owner can no longer achieve his or her value with the use of a property and has made no apparent effort to regain that ability.

Accordingly, the logical validity of so-called intellectual property has no merit because the use of non-physical entities, like a concept or a procedure, does not deterministically prevent anyone else’s use of the same non-physical entity in the production of another value. Along those same lines, I think it would be proper to reject the Lockean notions of having final decision-making authority and exclusive usage of a property since others are free to earn rights to use the property in the production of their values so long as no preexisting rights are violated. As a central tenet of a state is its final decision-making authority within its territory, which I have attempted to demonstrate is illegitimate, a state has no moral claim to exist either.

In summation, I have attempted to build a coherent normative secular justification for why morality is necessary and valid, how individual rights (politics) are a logical extension of morality and what those rights entail in the functions of society. A society where those naturally rendered rights were most honored would enjoy the most vibrant forms of social harmony and be of inspiration to others. While a right has never physically stopped someone from being murdered or abused, the ideas behind rights, like all ideas, are what shape our society, to paraphrase the Tannehills in “The Market for Liberty.” That is why they are important and worthy of defending.

I recently saw a video clip of Michael Moore calling other people’s money “a national resource.” I have to agree that in some cases other people’s money is not truly their own. For example, the wealth of Moore and others who benefit from government privileges, in Moore’s case intellectual property laws, would belong [...]]]>

I recently saw a video clip of Michael Moore calling other people’s money “a national resource.” I have to agree that in some cases other people’s money is not truly their own. For example, the wealth of Moore and others who benefit from government privileges, in Moore’s case intellectual property laws, would belong to others had it not been for the enforcement of arbitrary property claims. The executives of Halliburton and other government contractors benefit enormously from their relationships with politicians.

However, most people are not on the positive end of government privilege, and taxing wealth acquired without the use of government aggression (protections or subsidies) would be theft. Calling taxation theft can sometimes offend people. After all, by alleging that taxation is equivalent to the moral crime of theft, libertarians could be thought of as condemning supporters of taxation, many of whom, including Michael Moore, hold their belief out of an honest moral conviction. For them, not supporting taxation is the height of cruelty.

The purpose for making such a charged statement that taxation is theft (besides being true) is that it challenges conventional political beliefs. It is a contest of values, and libertarians who oppose taxation make this point in order to highlight the inconsistencies in political ideologies. They are demanding some explanation as to why people in governments should be held to different principles than others. Supporters of taxation know this, so they have weaved farcical tales for why taxation is voluntary. Some may call it a social (read: imaginary) contract, which conveys that people residing within a certain geographic territory implicitly agreed to support it. As I will explain below, even if such an explicit contract existed, it would give no credence for taxation.

From what I recall, there are at least six explanations as to why taxation is theft (extortion more precisely). These explanations are often fused together in some arrangement or another, and some are simply incompatible with one another. I do not happen to agree with every one, but I wanted to offer a complete array of moral arguments against the support for taxation. Before I begin, I will note that contemporary argument that an individual consents to the social contract or constitution simply by remaining within a territory or accepting services presupposes what it is trying to prove, that the social contract or constitution is legitimate, the very thing in question. It is a circular, invalid argument.

1. Taxation is founded on the belief that the exercise of an inalienable right is a privilege, a self-contradiction. People who refused to remit taxes for performing a particular right (e.g. owning property or earning an income) would no longer be able to exercise that right without coercion being enacted upon them, which would undermine from the outset the stated purpose of forming a government. If an implicit contract or written constitution did exist that permitted taxation, it would be unexecutable and invalid from the beginning since one’s (inalienable) natural rights cannot be suspended, making the contract unexecutable and thus void. In a previous post, I explained why I believe rights are inalienable for the fact that free will, a basis for the formation of rights, is inalienable. One way to think of inalienability is that rights are in effect moral obligations on others to refrain from using force against someone. That moral obligation is not for another to give away, so signing away one’s inalienable rights is a self-contradiction. A contract to give up one’s inalienable rights could at most be seen as a (non-binding) promise, just as a slave contract would be.
2. The central tenet of government, the final decision-making authority to resolve disputes within a territory, is illegitimate, nullifying the legitimacy of government altogether, let alone the power to tax.
3. Taxation is premised on the claim that the item being taxed is the property of the state or society, as Michael Moore believes. The reason someone might reject that idea is because governments or societies have no rights over citizens; legitimate governments act by permission (which can be revoked), not by right, and nor for that matter could voters grant permission to someone else’s property; therefore, government would never be justified in using coercion to extract payment for taxes. Similarly how a power of attorney can sign contracts on behalf of a client, an agent (the government) is under the authority of its principals (the citizens).
4. Without the liberty to refuse to consent, expressing consent is impossible. So by preventing the option of withdraw by means of secession, it is not possible to express consent to delegate any powers to government.
5. Almost all governments in existence came about by exploiting the existing property claims of land owners, and those who did explicitly consent are no longer alive.
6. Anarchists who adopt the occupancy-and-use theory of land tenure reject the enforcement of rents, which would include taxes, against people in possession and use of a property.

In light of all this, many still defended taxation on the basis that a tax is the fee that must be paid for government services. But this is fallacious. Existing ways that services are provided for include borrowing funds and counterfeiting the government-mandated currency. From a libertarian perspective, taxes could be coerced from people who acquired their wealth by ill-gotten means like government aggression, but only if the taxes were paid to victims as direct payments whenever possible or as services otherwise. For as long as a government did exist, it would not have to be limited to raising revenue by issuing taxes. It could just as well sell off assets, charge user fees for performing services customers ordered (assuming there were no monopoly privileges in place) or just ask for donations.

Even if the handful of above objections were overcame, taxes are demanded whether a service is provided or not. It is true that governments do provide services, but they do so out of concern for maintaining popular support, not because there is any legal obligation to do so. In a voluntary transaction, a buyer is entitled to a refund if the service fails to be provided accordingly, which is plainly not the case with government.

In the above post, I gave six explanations as to why taxation might be considered immoral and unworthy of support. I also rebutted the idea that taxes are owed for the performance of government services, which is usually the final objection raised by tax supporters. In many ways, taxation is worse than extortion. When people have wealth taken from them without their consent, that is likely the last time the thief will harass them. But taxation is altogether more insidious. As Lysander Spooner said:

The government does not, indeed, waylay a man in a lonely place, spring upon him from the roadside, and, holding a pistol to his head, proceed to rifle his pockets. But the robbery is none the less a robbery on that account; and it is far more dastardly and shameful.

The highwayman takes solely upon himself the responsibility, danger, and crime of his own act. He does not pretend that he has any rightful claim to your money, or that he intends to use it for your own benefit. He does not pretend to be anything but a robber. He has not acquired impudence enough to profess to be merely a “protector,” and that he takes men’s money against their will, merely to enable him to “protect” those infatuated travellers, who feel perfectly able to protect themselves, or do not appreciate his peculiar system of protection. He is too sensible a man to make such professions as these.

Obama expressed that the “people of Egypt have rights that are universal.” Later, he added, “Violence will not address the grievances of the Egyptian people. And suppressing ideas [...]]]> Concerning the protests against then-Egyptian ruler Hosni Mubarak, Barack Obama released a supportive statement on Jan. 28 addressing the popular revolt that eventually led to Mubarak’s ousting.

Obama expressed that the “people of Egypt have rights that are universal.” Later, he added, “Violence will not address the grievances of the Egyptian people. And suppressing ideas never succeeds in making them go away.” The goal, as he saw it, was to erect an open, democratic government that enabled Egyptians to govern themselves. How he concluded his statement is what interested me. He said that “all governments must maintain power through consent, not coercion.”

In one respect, I understand the point he was making. That is, in the long run, government power relies on the acquiescence of the vast majority. In Egypt, enough people were willing to raise a fuss. An insight made by Etienne de la Boetie in “The Politics of Obedience” is that revolution does not require that anyone “place hands upon the tyrant to topple him over, but simply that you support him no longer.”

My objection to Obama’s statement, and to the general notion of a just government resting on consent, is that one cannot consent to a government. My thinking is two-fold.

First, consent can only be granted if the agent responsible for granting consent had a choice. Some people say that everyone in the United States is free to leave, so anyone remaining within a particular geo-political landmass has consented to the government in place.

Now, I concede that being able to leave is one necessary but not sufficient aspect of choice. Even that, however, is not entirely respected. High-income earners who choose to expatriate are still required to pay taxes for up to 10 years after leaving the United States.

Another method of leaving (or withdrawing) that must be respected is secession. A statist might argue that there has to be some fine or penalty for reneging on a contract. Even so, those would have to spelled out in a written contract to be binding, which a wordless (and therefore thoughtless) implicit social contract cannot be. Lysander Spooner said, “To call such a contract a ‘constitution,’ or by any other high-sounding name, does not alter its character as an absurd and void contract.”

Theorists like John Locke might also argue that the merest participation in a governed society is a performative act of consent. But, again, this fails because there is no free choice to participate or not, just as a person imprisoned at the bottom of a well does not consent to his or her capture by accepting tokens of food.

Seeing how the government would (inferrably based on prior incidents) oppose attempts at individual secession, individual consent is impossible. If individuals cannot consent, a society, which consists only of individuals, cannot consent either.

The second point is an ontological claim that consent to government, as a matter of fact, is impossible. Ontology has to do with the empirical study of the nature of things in existence.

In a recent post, I explained why my understanding of the principle of rights does not naturally allow for the central tenet of government, the coercive enforcement of its ultimate decision-making authority to resolve disputes, to be logically construed. A contract for individuals to grant such a power to government would also be invalid.

It has to do with inalienability of rights. Free will is indivisible — all or nothing — and inalienable. To act on one’s will is the essential feature of the right to life, the fundamental of all corollary rights. Had someone made a contract for a transfer of will, the contract would not be executable and is thus groundless and unenforceable. For the sake of argument, were a contract to transfer one’s will executable, the slave would have no means of discerning when an order to act was given (having no will on which to act) and no obligation to follow those orders. The idea of alienable rights is ridiculous from top to bottom.

Were I even to agree with the statement from the Declaration of Independence that “Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,” it just so happens that as a practical concern and a philosophical one, no consent has or could have been given. The only just powers of government, then, are none at all.

I cannot tell exactly what is meant by the word “capitalism,” since there are so many different definitions for [...]]]> What Julia Riber Pitt, blogging at Free Disesent, is “more than a little sick and tired of are people whose beliefs are nothing but pro-capitalist labeling themselves as ‘anarchists’ only because they oppose the government/State.”

I cannot tell exactly what is meant by the word “capitalism,” since there are so many different definitions for its use. The word is almost completely useless. Does it mean the legally recognized private ownership (control) of the means of production, irrespective of how the content, implementation or enforcement of laws governing ownership came about? Is it an exchange of consensually acquired and maintained property rights? Is it a society organized in such a way that capital ownership is the predominant factor through which human beings conduct their economic affairs. Is it a series of state-managed economic policies meant to favor capital-intensive production? Or does it mean something else?

She did say that anarchists also oppose private property and the state, the latter being pretty self-explanatory. It seems that the basic contention has to do with the Lockean theory of property ownership, which she regards as a precursor to statism.

Now, I agree with her conclusion, but not because “there would be nothing left for the children of those who weren’t able to homestead.” Even with Locke’s proviso in tact that property rights acquisition was contingent on there being “enough, and as good left; and more than the yet unprovided could use,” the Lockean theory has statist attributes.

What states claim to have is ultimate decision-making authority. In any case whatsoever, the state is the final arbiter of disputes, even for those between the state and a resident within the its territory.

From my understanding of property rights, ultimate decision-making authority is an illegitimate claim. A right to a property (something that is ownable) is the right to a use of that property (for the purpose of achieving something of value), not its wholesale segregation from others. For example, I could homestead land for the purpose of growing a garden, the value I am producing. However, I would not have the decision-making authority to prevent a broadcaster from sending radio waves across my garden. Radio waves in no way inhibit the value I am seeking to produce. The same could be said of someone in an airplane taking a picture of my garden.

A property rights violation consists of an individual causing a physical change to a property in such a way that the production of the value being sought is hindered. (I exclude non-physical entities, such as concepts, from being owned since their use cannot be hindered by another’s use.)

It also does not makes sense that a property owner would have the ultimate decision-making authority when it comes to enforcing a right, as that would be begging the question. Any perceived rights violation involves a dispute over exactly who’s right it was that was violated in the first place.

As a supporter of absentee property ownership, I would not be classified as an anarchist by Pitts’ recollection of “one and a half centuries of [anarchism's] thought and application.” She asked what sense would it make to identify as a Christian only to deny the validity of certain books of the Bible or to join a Marxist group and criticize aspects of Marx’s class theory. I am not sure about Marxists groups, but what she described takes place all the time in Christian circles, where certain texts are deemed metaphorical or de-emphasized. Really, how many Christians accept that stoning a child is an acceptable punishment for disobedient behavior?

All that the writings of Joseph-Pierre Proudhon or Peter Kropotkin can tells us is what anarchism meant when they were alive. That anarchist thought ought to be stagnantly fixed to certain premises is in direct opposition to what anarchism stands for.

On anarchism, Amy Parsons wrote,

No barriers whatever to human progression, to thought, or investigation are placed by anarchism; nothing is considered so true or so certain, that future discoveries may not prove it false; therefore, it has but one infallible, unchangeable motto, “Freedom.” Freedom to discover any truth, freedom to develop, to live naturally and fully. Other schools of thought are composed of crystallized ideas — principles that are caught and impaled between the planks of long platforms, and considered too sacred to be disturbed by a close investigation. In all other “issues” there is always a limit; some imaginary boundary line beyond which the searching mind dare not penetrate, lest some pet idea melt into a myth. But anarchism is the usher of science — the master of ceremonies to all forms of truth.

The core dispute has to do with which property norm, in the absence of the state, would be suited for decentralizing economic power. If the possession-and-use theory does, there has to be a more logical explanation than the assertion “You can’t deny this.”

Since government, as popularly constructed, is given the sole discretion of interpreting and enforcing the law, even in conflicts between [...]]]> If authority is the willingness and ability to command obedience to one’s will, authoritarianism would be a belief that someone is superior in some manner (ethically, politically, ect.) because he or she has such authority.

Since government, as popularly constructed, is given the sole discretion of interpreting and enforcing the law, even in conflicts between the government and an individual, a government of limited constitutional powers is still authoritarian by nature.

In many cases, authority is based in aggression. But that is not necessarily always true. Widespread racism and sexism, for example, enforced through rightful private property claims could also constitute instances of authoritarianism. Some forms of indoctrination could manifest non-aggressive means of gaining authority over others as well.

In a society of widespread authoritarianism, liberty would have very little substance. Even if we achieved a libertarian society, it would be short-lived if the prevailing notion about the non-aggressive authority that can be held over others were left unchallenged.

There is one thing that YouTuber franks2732 got right in his video “Bigotry & Libertarians.” Capitalism, which I take him to mean the exchange of privately owned goods, would not prevent discrimination. For good or bad, people discriminate all the time among various choices, of course. If they are wise, people discriminate between [...]]]>

There is one thing that YouTuber franks2732 got right in his video “Bigotry & Libertarians.” Capitalism, which I take him to mean the exchange of privately owned goods, would not prevent discrimination. For good or bad, people discriminate all the time among various choices, of course. If they are wise, people discriminate between those things that are injurious to their health and those things that are beneficial.

Even for the type of racial discrimination addressed in the video, a society of free exchange could not prevent racism. Nor could a free market prevent people from calling others hurtful names or falling in love with losers. For that matter, a free market could not guarantee that people would make good decisions either.

Those are only things that people can do. They have to take responsibility for their actions, and in free societies, individuals bear the responsibility for their deeds.

The YouTuber may not be aware of this, but it simply is not the case that “Laws passed by governments because people want to bring about social change to a society do [prevent discrimination].” Prior to the Civil Rights era, most of the government’s laws “to bring change to society” actively promoted discrimination against women, blacks and other racial and religious minorities.

In Jim Crow America, racial discrimination was de jure the law, including in many parts of the South as early as the Reconstruction Era in the 1870s.

These laws were heavily enforced for the very reason that existing government-privileged markets for labor, transportation and education could not be sustained under even a modicum of honest competition. White racists were not willing to trust that voluntary compliance among other privileged whites would maintain racial segregation. When the law was not enough, Klu Klux Klan terrorism was visited upon businesses not willing to keep blacks “in their place.”

To franks2732′s credit, he is not completely oblivious to this idea, even citing how the legal enshrinement of apartheid provided for systematic racial discrimination in South Africa.

In Montgomery, the bus company had unsuccessfully petitioned the city to repeal segregated riding after a prolonged boycott led by Martin Luther King, Jr, whose later arrest gave prominence to a nationwide civil rights movement. Think how much more beneficial those protesters’ actions were than if they had simply sought a political compromise with the city. The bus company’s motivation was not to bring about greater social solidarity, but simple self-interest. It may not have been the most honorable intention, but it was the right thing to do.

franks2732 completely bypassed the fact that nonviolent civil disobedience rendered a great number of racist laws unenforceable. Through direct action, people were able to achieve a lasting social movement (before ultimately being co-opted). As Charles Johnson noted,

Woolworth’s lunch counters weren’t desegregated by Title II. The sit-in movement did that. From the Montgomery Bus Boycott onward, the Freedom Movement had won victories, town by town, building movements, holding racist institutions socially and economically accountable. The sit-ins proved the real-world power of the strategy: In Greensboro, N.C., nonviolent sit-in protests drove Woolworth’s to abandon its whites-only policy by July 1960. The Nashville Student Movement, through three months of sit-ins and boycotts, convinced merchants to open all downtown lunch counters in May the same year. Creative protests and grassroots pressure campaigns across the South changed local cultures and dismantled private segregation without legal backing.

Another claim in the video is that anti-discrimination laws have rendered racial conditions such that “There are no more discriminations” [sic]. I am puzzled by what he could possible mean. He either meant that racial discrimination no longer exists, which is laughable. Or he meant that racial discrimination is no longer formally legal.

Neither is true. Racial discrimination is still covertly practiced; it is just not as blatant as it had been under Jim Crow. In the private sector, racial discrimination just takes other, legal forms. Meanwhile, governments actively target blacks in the United States through various drug prohibitions, minimum wage laws, licensing regulations and zoning restrictions.

That leaves us with a problem. How then can racism be ended? As a practical concern, we cannot rely on the state to solve the problem. That would just give more incentive for government agents to make the problem worse so that they would accumulate greater authority.

In the past, I have been guilty of just saying that the market’s economic incentives will put an end to racial discrimination, and to a large extent that may still be the case. We have to remember also that we are the market; the market is just a nexus of our decisions. If racism is to end, laws are not going to do it. They may come after the fact to give a social movement the government’s endorsement. But racism and all other forms of authoritarianism will come to an end (or completely be marginalized from society) when people are not longer willing to tolerate it. In a fully libertarian manner, social and economic pressures, such as those employed in the civil rights struggle, returns power back to individuals and not to the state.

With a geographic area of just 1.2 square miles, the city [...]]]> In the minute city of Sansom Park, just outside Fort Worth, the city’s police chief and three other recently resigned officers have had a litany of charges leveled against them by their co-workers on the force, according to a Fort Worth Star-Telegram report.

With a geographic area of just 1.2 square miles, the city employed a total of 11 officers until four abruptly resigned after a letter by five “loyal officers” was sent to the city council in September.

Probably the most disturbing allegation was made against former Sgt. Thomas Milner, who was accused of repeatedly giving known pedophiles the home address of a teenage assault victim as part of a sex sting operation despite being order not to do so. The city’s administrator conceded that no one from the city ordered police to stop the sex sting operations but did complain about “bringing pedophiles into the city.” Milner was also accused of passing around photos of a rape victim, flashing photos of naked juveniles, some of whom were performing sexual acts, and not reading suspects their Miranda rights. In addition to denying other claims, his attorney said that Milner was never ordered to stop the pedophile investigations and that he only gave the address of a vacant house.

Approximately 60 complaints of misconduct were leveled against the department. While former Police Chief Tony White’s performance review as of March of this year gave him good and excellent ratings, about a third of those complaints were made against him. Those include providing insufficient or inoperable equipment to patrol officers, buying breakfast with confiscated money, and permitting the use of racial and sexual slurs during staff meetings.

Some of the allegations the Star-Telegram reported against resigned officer Josh Smith were “padding his time sheets with added overtime and not responding to call” for backup. Former officer Andrew Young was accused of responding to shootings in Fort Worth and eating lunch outside the city limits.

The city’s attorney, Lee Thomas, said an investigation into the matter was dropped because they received the letters of resignation from all four officers, so we will likely never know the merits (or demerits) of these allegations. He is quoted by the Star-Telegram as saying, “It was in the best interest of the city and the officers to go their own way.”

On that point, Thomas is probably right. It probably is in the best interest of the city government for this just to blow over. They have little interest to investigate why a city with a population of just over 4000 people, as of 2000, would need 11 police officers. What isn’t so clear is that the interest of the government of Sansom Park and interest of the residents of Sansom Park are one in the same.

The four unemployed officers are free to depart their separate ways to wiggle into another police department. Even if these allegations are completely baseless, this sends a message to other officers in Sansom Park that they are pretty much untouchable and can do as they please. They can be accused of some pretty sick stuff and just walk away, just move to another from city and learn what to do so as not to get caught in the future.

Accountability is a lost concept for those in a position of authority such as government. The ballot box, it seems, is more a means of making rulership among their nearly identical representatives seem more palatable for the average subject. The nature of the practice of collectivism brings with it the perverse incentives that the interest of the collective, which is really just the interest of the those in charge of the collective, must be put first. Like F.A. Hayek warns, there can be no limit in collectivism to what individuals who comprise the collective must be prepared to do, no conscientious limit to prevent individuals from committing an act that superiors have commanded. The ones who thrive in that atmosphere are the most deprived, the most ruthless. The willingness to perform those evil deeds provides a way to power that is not available in the (free) marketplace. The anointing of leaders thus becomes a question of willingness rather than wisdom.

Even taking that at [...]]]> A supposed justification for a monopoly government is the need for an impartial judiciary to resolve conflict.The idea is that, in a conflict, people will be biased in their own favor, so an independent third party is needed so that a fair hearing can be had to prevent a further escalation.

Even taking that at face value, it is no justification why everyone should submit to the same party, including those conflicts in which that party is engaged. Of course, it is better if a government has checks and balances and divides power into separate branches of the government. But nonetheless, judges at the federal level are appointed, promoted and confirmed by the other branches, paid with the taxes legislated and collected by the other branches, rule on laws written and enforced by the other branches, and are subject to other various social influences.

There is no such property right that entitles someone to be the ultimate arbiter of disputes. People who claim this right for themselves rightly would be called mad, but somehow citizens are able to delegate to government a right they do not have.

What brings this to mind is a Fort Worth Star-Telegram story about federal district judge John McBryde, who has appointed himself to decide the verdict and punishment for an accusation he made against four men who supposedly “raised questions about his impartiality.” After this incident, who could blame them? It could hardly be called a fair fight if their accuser is the judge and jury.

If sanctioned, the men can appeal their punishments, which might possibly entail forfeiture or suspension of their law licenses. The appeal would still be decided by federal judges looking to maintain their professional and social reputations among colleagues for possible appointment to higher courts, among other reasons. The men who stand accused do not have the opportunity to mediate the conflict with a party of their choosing; the ultimate verdict rests with the government-managed court system.

A common alternative proposal to abolishing institutionalized aggression is to reform government in such manner as to account for its deficiencies. Some of the ideas like term limits, campaign finance controls, and government transparency programs are well intentioned for the most part. Those popular proposals, while often rooted in a worthy desire, confuse the approximate causes with the ultimate cause for why democratic governments remain unaccountable to the needs of the people they purport to represent. Some of the approximate (or immediate) causes are a result of an uninformed electorate, voter apathy, rent seeking on behalf of special interests, political corruption, and regulatory obstructions in the electoral process itself.

The ultimate (and for the most part unexamined) cause for government’s destructive nature is its popular legitimacy to aggress against others. So long as it remains viewed as proper among a predominant number of residents to govern over others, the government is irredeemable. If coercion is the answer to social problems, those most willing to coerce others will be elevated to power. Government is collectivist by nature and tends to centralize power, so those who are willing to use the powers of government are going to conflict with an individualistic ethics.

These four men accused of misconduct might be the lucky ones and escape with only a loss of their time and a slap to their reputation. Even if they avoid the judge’s wrath, the institution of government will function as it was designed to do all along — to maintain authority. Those under its boot or riding its coattails exist as ancillary players. Those in power serve themselves. When the government controls education and manipulates the mass media through patriotic ceremonies and propaganda, it is no wonder why so many long for peace and equality from an entity enshrined in coercion and injustice.

In 2006, Sylvester Davis accused his former employer, military contractor Lockheed Martin, of following “unsafe and fraudulent practices in developing flight control software for the F-35 joint strike fighter,” according to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Siding with [...]]]> A recently dismissed whistle-blower lawsuit highlights the double standard of those who derive privileges from government aggression.

In 2006, Sylvester Davis accused his former employer, military contractor Lockheed Martin, of following “unsafe and fraudulent practices in developing flight control software for the F-35 joint strike fighter,” according to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Siding with Lockheed, a U.S. district judge dismissed the suit on grounds that Davis could not provide adequate enough evidence to support his claims.

Under federal law, anyone who reveals knowledge of improperly performed or unfulfilled work done for the government can receive a portion of the money recouped by a judgement or lawsuit settlement.

Regardless of how credible Davis’ claim might be, Lockheed’s stance on the allegations reveals an important point about the nature of government-granted privilege.

Authority is a one-way street. As evidence of this, are Lockheed’s corporate managers so demanding of evidence from and judgemental of F-35 pilots who fire on agrarian Afghani farmers accused of being terrorists? I think not, which goes to the strategy for achieving a libertarian society.

Governments have many forms of intervention into the market, some involving blatant wealth confiscation in the form of subsidies and monopoly protections. Elsewhere the state’s managers direct counterbalancing policy crutches, like welfare, so as to gin up support for existing self-inflicting policies.

The priority of libertarians should be first to knock down structural interventions so that the government’s half-hearted measures to help those in need are no longer in such demand. Kevin Carson described it “as removing the shackles before removing the crutches (e.g., eliminating corporate welfare before welfare to the poor)” in his “Organization Theory: An Individualist Anarchist Perspective”.

In short, no one decides. It can only be discovered. Morality is an imperative and is empirically based in our nature as human beings.

The question [...]]]> Over at SoulPancake, a crowdsourcing site for asking questions about religion and philosophy, someone posed the question of who judges morality in the absence of a divine authority.

In short, no one decides. It can only be discovered. Morality is an imperative and is empirically based in our nature as human beings.

The question you have to ask yourself is why do we need morality at all.

The unique thing about human beings is that we are not born with innate values or goals, so they must be chosen. We have no automatic (perfect) forms of knowledge imparted upon our minds, and it takes knowledge to understand that alternatives exist and which you ought to pursue. The first we learn of this alternative is through our physical senses of pain and pleasure.

Yes, we have reflexes and drives, but they can be overridden by choice. Exactly which values we should pursue and which we should not for the purpose of bettering our life is what we have to figure out. There is more to morality than just effective means but also proper ends.

Without life, the concept of value would have no meaning. It follows that sustaining and bettering one’s life is the purpose of all moral values; it is how they come to be. As life exists only in individuals, each individual’s life is an end in itself and should not be sacrificed or used as a means for others for any reason.

Each individual’s life is the ultimate end by which all other values are gauged against. Secular moral subjectivists and religious believers are revealed to agree far more than they disagree since both deny the empirical existence of morality. They both say that without an absolute divine authority, then morality does not exist.

To quote Craig Biddle from “Loving Life: The Morality of Self-Interest and the Facts that Support it“:

Consider, for instance, food or poison, pleasure or pain, knowledge or ignorance, joy or sorrow, creation or destruction, wealth or poverty, trade or theft, freedom or slavery. What makes these alternatives possible? Life makes them possible. Without life there would be no one to whom anything could be beneficial or harmful.

The next meaningful question to ponder is which values serve as life-sustaining goals worth pursuing.

An important point about anarchism is that no political movement [...]]]> The best reason for calling yourself an anarchist is because you are one. Yet, there are still good reasons to call yourself an anarchist even if you are not quite there yet, as Brian Micklethwait pointed out in a past edition of Libertarian Alliance.

An important point about anarchism is that no political movement seeking power is going to co-opt your name or core ideas as their own. Thanks to the Tea Party bandwagon, shameless opportunists like Glenn Beck and even Sean Hannity are the latest self-proclaimed libertarians, the party by the same name of Murray Rothbard and Harry Browne.

Admittedly, the word “anarchy,” which means no ruler like “monarchy” means one ruler, can be divisive thanks to the aid of government propoganda. Everyone with whom you speak will react differently, so I do not suggest dropping the word in a conversation without putting it in context. For that reason, some prefer calling it “self-government,” or “voluntary society,” or “stateless society,” or “private law,” but they are essentially the same idea and can be somewhat more confusing. “Anarchy” is short, bold, and definitive.

Whatever term you like, anarchists are also likely to get more of what they want than moderates. Radicalism moves the center more than moderation does. Even though the state is not going to vanish overnight, we can still advocate that it should.

It would not be a good thing if the state were destroyed overnight by a violent revolution though. An armed revolution would actually strengthen the government’s hand and present a common enemy to unite against. As Benjamin Tucker said, “Violence is the power of darkness. If the revolution comes by violence … the old struggle will have to be begun anew.” It would leave people confused and frightened and looking for a strongman to lead the way. The state has no permanence except that which we give it in our minds, and it has no power other than the power people tacitly accept it has.

The path of less government, and ultimately anarchy, is through the evolutionary process of convincing people of a revolutionary idea, that a society without a state would be more practical and just. Thanks to peddlers of altruism, so often people are led to believe that practicality and morality are irreconcilable.

The market-based solution is through peace. Where there are free markets, there is voluntary cooperation and mutual benefit. The state is the violent interloper, with politicians and bureaucrats getting their hands on other people’s money and making new laws on a whim or, when it suites them, enforcing imaginary laws. The market tends to smooth out transitions and imbalances, while the state exacerbates frictions and heightens conflicts. With less government, we could expect greater harmony in our day-to-day lives.

Anarchism is in the tradition of past movements for freedom. Whenever there have been movements that support greater freedom, they were at first outnumbered by opponents fearing that one more inch of freedom would send civilization into the oblivion. Anarchism is not inevitable. There is no materialist historical phenomenon that says anarchism must triumph. It is an idea, like any other. It is a true idea, I believe, in that abolishing all political authority will lead to a greater flourishing of humanity. Ideas must be put into practice to realize their full material benefit, and that effort is bettered by attracting others to our cause.

We continue to suffer the consequences of inherited ideas that have locked people in superstitious fear. True ideas, the result of reason, have bettered our lives and soothed our fears. It is a daunting task, no doubt. But there are so many ways we can do it: talking with our family, speaking out at public forums, taking action to better the lives of ourselves and our friends and family, and countering the power of the state with alternative solutions to mostly government-created problems.

So if you have ever been a little anarcho-curious, give it a spin. Once you go black (and gold), you might not go back.

• “Darian Worden on Practical Anarchy“
• “Glenn Beck is a Neocon“