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.

Take Sarah Palin. She supports hunting down WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange “with the same urgency we pursue al Qaeda and Taliban leaders” if only other people would [...]]]> Both politicians and assassins agree that aggressive force is an acceptable means of influencing society. They disagree over exactly which tactics are best to accomplish their objectives.

Take Sarah Palin. She supports hunting down WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange “with the same urgency we pursue al Qaeda and Taliban leaders” if only other people would do her dirty work for her. “In short,” Larken Rose said, “democracy is gang warfare for cowards. The voters, being too chicken-poop to do it themselves, desperately try to get ‘government’ to rob and control all of their neighbors (while accepting NO responsibility for having advocated that).”

Pointing out that the violence of government is unacceptable is not divisive rhetoric. Condoning the continued institutionalized pillage, murder and kidnapping of peaceful people is not civil.

Conservatives are getting into a big huff about Washington Post columnist Ezra Klein telling the truth about the United States Constitution. For all the talk about the constitution clearly setting forth limited, enumerated powers for the central government, that is hardly the case.

As some people would like to think the framers of the [...]]]>

Conservatives are getting into a big huff about Washington Post columnist Ezra Klein telling the truth about the United States Constitution. For all the talk about the constitution clearly setting forth limited, enumerated powers for the central government, that is hardly the case.

As some people would like to think the framers of the constitution favored smaller government, their actions say otherwise. Legal tender laws, the granting of patents and infrastructure subsidies were all part of the original deal. After all, the reason for abandoning the Articles of Confederation was because they did not think the government was powerful enough. They were traitors to the Revolution.

Now I do happen to believe that some the Federalists (like John Adams) intended to delegate only select powers, but intent is not good enough. There are all sorts of loopholes, from the Commerce Clause, the General Welfare Clause and even the taxing power. The fact remains that there was never a consistent interpretation even among the Federalists as to what the centrals government’s powers would entail.

It would not have mattered if there was a consensus then or now. Laws and constitutions do not enforce themselves. Once approved, they fall under the domain of those who enforce it, and they are going to enforce laws in a manner that serves their ends. Laws and constitutions also do not interpret themselves, so the same problem ensues.

When it comes down to it, Kevin Carson said, “Law isn’t worth the paper it’s written on.”

A senior corporal in the Dallas Police Department was involved in a road rage incident recently in Allen on her way home from work. The short story is that formal criminal charges against her for allegedly pulling a gun on another motorist will not be pursued, despite potential corroborating witness testimony. The officious [...]]]>

A senior corporal in the Dallas Police Department was involved in a road rage incident recently in Allen on her way home from work. The short story is that formal criminal charges against her for allegedly pulling a gun on another motorist will not be pursued, despite potential corroborating witness testimony. The officious reason for not filing charges is that the victim has decided (probably after being advised of any criminal charges they can drudge up against him from the same incident) to not pursue charges. So police extend some professional courtesy to one of their own. That is nothing new.

What is more revealing was the video recording with police that took place afterword. A third of the way through the 17-minute police dashboard video, an Allen officer said to the off-duty Dallas officer, “What I’d advise you now is to just stop, stop talking unless we got any questions for you, OK?”

That struck me as a strange thing to say for someone conducting an investigation. As far as I understood, police were trained to get suspects to open their lips and reveal contradictions in their story. There was also repeated reference to the fact that their conversation was being recorded. As it were, those are good things for the officer to note. I could certainly be wrong, yet I would think it is highly improbable that such advice would be forthcoming for someone not on the force.

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.

Already the most expensive weapons program in history and years behind schedule, writing of approximately 35 million lines of computer code and other testing could cost an additional $5 billion [...]]]> The tax sinkhole known as the United States military is projecting more development cost overruns in connection with the F-35 joint strike fighter.

Already the most expensive weapons program in history and years behind schedule, writing of approximately 35 million lines of computer code and other testing could cost an additional $5 billion on top of the already projected $50 billion to be spent for development alone, according to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Despite promises to the contrary, the estimated maintenance costs have also soared to some 250 percent than that of the plane the joint strike fighter is designed to replace.

By Justin Raimondo’s account, the plane was designed primarily to knock out Iranian tank forces following an American-endorsed invasion. Depending on your outlook, then it might be considered good news that the time schedule for deployment was recently pushed back an additional year for the Air Force and Navy versions and by as many as three years for the Marine version. Given that Israel will be the first foreign government to acquire this next-generation fighter, Raimondo’s belief has some merit.

In a Star-Telegram article earlier this year, the Defense Department acknowledged that the production estimate of $115.5 million for each plane, even after accounting for price inflation, was nearly twice the original estimate when the program began in 2002.

Chalmers Johnson and Tom Engelhardt call this practice “front loading.”

Front-loading is the practice of appropriating funds for a new weapons project based solely on assurances by its official sponsors about what it can do. This happens long before a prototype has been built or tested, and it invariably involves the quoting of unrealistically low unit costs for a sizable order. Assurances are always given that the system’s technical requirements will be simple or have already been met. Low-balling future costs, an intrinsic aspect of front-loading, is an old Defense Department trick, a governmental version of bait-and-switch.

Military contracts can hype promised results, offer rosy cost estimates, and profit from continuous modifications and repairs that are a consequence of the shortened testing schedule demanded by the military under political pressure to deliver a final product.

In their defense, Lockheed-Martin, the main contractor responsible for building the F-35, has said these estimates are much higher than the company’s own estimates.

Whatever the final price tag comes to be, the true opportunity costs of having to borrow money the government does not have will be exceedingly higher. The government plunders resources from honest people. If it doesn’t tax directly, the inflation tax strikes at the least advantaged among us. Even if we took a simple view and added up the government expenditure and calculated the the subsequent loan payments to finance the program expenses for 30 or more years, the total present-value cost in today’s dollars would likely be double. None of this factors in the higher costs for consumer goods, the higher interest rates for capital investments (and thus lower productivity), the resources and lives lost in conflicts, nor the positive effects of a division of labor with other so-called enemies nations that have a comparative trade advantage.

Ironically, Lockheed’s tagline for this program is “Unconventional. Unprecedented.” No, not at all, and that is part of the problem.

I do not like it any more than anyone else. Most voters will gleefully cast their ballots for politicians openly seeking the legal sanction to aggress [...]]]> On Nov. 2, tens of millions of Americans will exercise their political franchise to play their part in shaping the future of the country, or so the story goes.

I do not like it any more than anyone else. Most voters will gleefully cast their ballots for politicians openly seeking the legal sanction to aggress against others. It is enough that the state is illegitimate even if its sole purpose were to defend individual rights, but politicians across the spectrum make campaign promises to increase the level of state predation.

Indeed, “Law is force,” Frederic Bastiat said. This “legal plunder, organized injustice,” as Bastiat called it, has two sources. “One, as we have just seen, is in human selfishness; the other is in false philanthropy.”

Many libertarians take the stance that electoral activism, in and of itself, is an act of aggression since political power is vested in violence. As understandable as the anti-voting stance is, self-defense is ethically justified if I can support candidates who I believe will aggress less than another credible candidate. Still others say that voting either grants consent to the political system or at least gives the perception of consent. This is also dubious. For how can consent be granted if there is no credible opportunity to withhold consent? It is true that some could perceive voting as consenting, but so could choosing not to vote be viewed as apathy for whatever policy wins out. The solution would be to educate why libertarians participate in electoral politics despite not viewing the government conducting the election as ethical. Another objection is that it is fine to act in self-defense, but it would be unjust to elect a representative who would presume to rule someone else.

Now, I certainly do not think anyone is ethically bound to follow or support legislation simply because it is has received the majority’s support. A point Lysander Spooner makes is that no one in government can represent anyone but him- or herself. He said,

They say they are only our servants, agents, attorneys, and representatives. But this declaration involves an absurdity, a contradiction. No man can be my servant, agent, attorney, or representative, and be, at the same time, uncontrollable by me, and irresponsible to me for his acts. It is of no importance that I appointed him, and put all power in his hands. If I made him uncontrollable by me, and irresponsible to me, he is no longer my servant, agent, attorney, or representative.

If elected officials are personally responsible for their actions, what then are the ethics of holding office? Would it be necessary to only support an immediate abolition of aggression or a phased withdraw of government services?

Roderick Long argues that government aggression “lies in the fact that the services are funded by stolen money (taxation), and that competitors are often prohibited or severely restricted (regulation). Hence a gradual phase-out of government services (as opposed to immediate abolition) involves no violation of libertarian principle, provided some solution can be found to the problems of taxation.”

Except in those cases where private firms have been granted a monopoly on a product (or another artificial advantage in the market), a libertarian acting consistently with the non-aggression principle would have to advocate for a complete dismantling of regulatory controls. In those cases of that firms have been given a market advantage by government aggresion, any barriers to competition should be removed immediately, but pricing or other regulatory controls could be phased out gradually.

In order to raise funds for some of the more redeeming services performed by government, there are a few options that Long favors so long as a government regrettably were still in place.

1. Raise money by selling off government assets
2. Charge user fees for government services
3. Solicit voluntary contributions
4. Use non-coercive measures to get people to pay their taxes
5. Tax the beneficiaries of state privilege
6. Restrict the franchise to taxpayers

As an immediate matter, it most likely will not be possible to implement these methods. It would still never be ethically justified to vote in favor of any level of aggression. There are obvious pitfalls to avoid and cautions to take to prevent libertarian corruption or political backlash.

I do not support electoral politics as the primary method of political change. In fact, it is probably the least important factor compared to educating the population, leading by example, and raising emotionally healthy children. If libertarians have done the work necessary to spread these ideas, getting these policies implemented would be more of a formality.

After looking at the deontological (or rule-based) and the consequentialist basis for [...]]]> Silly question, right? Of course, consequences matter. More precisely, how do consequences affect one’s ethical beliefs? We hear all the time how there is a dichotomy between how one should act and how one must act to satisfy his or her best interests.

After looking at the deontological (or rule-based) and the consequentialist basis for libertarianism, both sides make convincing arguments. In consequentialism’s favor, how bizarre would it be that libertarianism made for such beneficial outcomes but in no way did those consequences validate the case for libertarianism? This is a point Roderick Long makes. From the deontological side, applicable ethics derived from human nature make setting codes of rational conduct more or less uniform. One Misesian point is that a person cannot reliably achieve his ends by disposing of principles whenever there is an occasion where it might benefit to do so. Long points out that when someone is treating principles, regardless of why they are doing so, as ends in themselves, then those principles are ends of their own.

While the source and content of human nature is hotly contested, the fact that all humans have the same nature means that no one has a superior or dominant claim over others. As highly conceptual beings, our minds must be free to create and refine complicated abstract thoughts. I’m not saying this is the most accurate or complete case for libertarianism. From there, the secular and religious strains of deontological libertarianism split ways.

The consequentialist argument is more straightforward. The idea is that no matter what human nature is, a libertarian society would still produce better results than a statist one. Even if human beings were brutes or were highly evolved beings with a collective conscience, an environment without a dominant structure in place to institutionalize violence would still be preferable to a society with such commands and controls. So even if all men were good, no government would be necessary. If all men were evil, then having a government would make things demonstrably worse since those evil men would have a greater number of resources at their disposal to act on their evil. If some men were good and other evil, then evil people would be drawn to that power more so than good people. That is why libertarians, for the most part, support pluralizing political power, if not eliminating it altogether.

But consequentialists share more in common with the deontologists than they usually care to admit. On purely consequentialist grounds, it would be best to have firm codes of conduct in place in order to maximize the happiness or pleasure of society. For people to most effectively plan, they need to know the rules of the game and how they are administered. Since human life can span decades, those norms are manifested in the formation of property rights.

You could not just say that everything goes, and let the chips fall were they may. If people had no adequate reassurance that their property claims were respected by others in society, everyone in society would be geared toward immediate consumption, and the incentive to save and invest in long-term capital projects would be sunk. A consequentialist society would need hard-set rules in place that could not be overturned on a whim. So a consequentialist would have to practice as a deontologist.

As a matter of ethics, consequences do matter. And an Randian theory of rights incorporate consequences.

Ayn Rand said a right is a principle that defines the proper actions for an individual to take within society. By “proper,” she meant that which is necessary to serve an individual’s ultimate end, which is an individual’s own life. The primary necessity is to remain living, obviously. So each individual has a right to his or her life (self-ownership), a right to act in order to preserve that life (or liberty), and a right to the consequences of those actions (or property). It follows that it would be moral to enforce these right to prevent their breach. Those rights extend only so far as to include the force necessary, and nothing more, to protect those rights.

Long points out elsewhere that the right to life (what he called self-ownership) is the most fundamental right of all. He said,

For if there were such additional rights, then there would be claims other than self-ownership that could be legitimately enforced, which would mean that refraining from invading the self-ownership of others would no longer be sufficient to exempt one from liability to coercive interference. But self-ownership, as defined above, just is exemption from liability to coercive interference.

He added that there “cannot be rights in addition to self-ownership, but must instead be specific applications of the self-ownership right itself.”

There is no dichotomy between the ethical and the practical. It is only by surrendering ethics to the arbitrary that such a split forms and some find excuse to rule over others.