Who Plans Whom? » natural law

In Response to ‘Radical Rules for Radical Libertarians’

Justin Oliver — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 17:00:32 +0000

It is telling that more mainstream opinion writers are picking up on the influence of radical libertarian thought. One such piece is by Lisa Richards on David Horowitz’s “NewsReal Blog.” At first, I could not tell if it was a subversive way of smuggling libertarian thought to conservatives or just a massive misunderstanding of Rothbardian libertarianism. Unfortunately, it was the latter.

Richards opens that “Radical libertarians are equivalent to leftist Saul Alinskyites. Both despise government and the Constitution, seeking to destroy America.” To say something like that reveals she has never given much serious thought to either. Alinsky was a utilitarian, inside-the-system guy. Mr. Libertarian, a deontological private property natural law supporter, denounced the system and was an “Enemy of the State.” Economically, methodologically, historically, and culturally they were polar opposites. It was precisely that Rothbard insisted on practicing his radicalism, where Alinksly used more pragmatic means. Rothbard was not concerned with accumulating power; he wanted to destroy it.

So already we are off to a shaky start. Also, it is not so much that libertarians despise government — which some people connote to mean rule and order — but the state, an organization within a given territory that maintains the monopoly authority to designate the legal use of force. Nor do libertarians conflate America with the government, as Richards seems to do. Quickly, she conveniently deliniates society from government when she said Rothbardians think that society “prevented war, rape, and pillaging” prior to the development of the modern nation-state. In actuality, Rothbardian libertarians see the state as needlessly exacerbating those tragedies.

Laughingly, Richards said, “Society can’t survive and thrive without leadership and checking and balancing leaders.” As if. An organization with sovereign immunity cannot be held accountable, particularly if those checks and balances are maintained within the same organization to be rendered as consequential as costume jewelry. The founding fathers that conservatives so prize had some understanding of this, calling the constitution only for a moral people as John Adams did. It was Thomas Jefferson who said “were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.” John Locke called the state of nature a “state also of equality, wherein all the power and jurisdiction is reciprocal … .” So clearly, these classical liberals thinkers did not believe it was the government that kept order.

Richards states that libertarians do not believe people are evil, only governments. That is an odd insight to make, for who does she think libertarians believe occupy government? Libertarians like Hans-Hermann Hoppe have made the point that the incintive structure of the state lends itself toward accumulating more power and inviting conflict. That is true. More so, they argue that precisely because people are capable of committing evil, then a centralized organization with the popular legitimacy to commit acts of aggression should not stand because evil people will be attracted to that unique source of power.

Even taking at face value the conservative point that all people are to some degree evil, then the existence of a government in no way minimizes that problem. In fact, by regularizing and legitimizing the morally criminal behavior of the state, those evils are compounded because the most evil would have the most to gain from that system. Of course, any social system will work more smoothly if people tend to be more peaceful and honest, yet which of these systems encourage that behavior and punish anti-social affairs? As Rothbard himself said, “[W]hatever the mix of man’s nature may be at any given time, liberty is best.”

Later in the article, Richards again conflates government with society. For the most part, this is also the modern conservative view, which is why so many want to criminalize what they deem to be immoral acts among consenting adults instead of educating others about their mistaken ways. In that sense, they are ideological cousins of liberal authoritarians like former law professor and current Obama regulatory “czar” Cass Sunstein. They see government as the source of all technological advancement and at the root of civil society.

Richards is wrong again on a few more points, as well. While a popular myth, it is not true that war is part of human nature. While it is true that conflict will exist over (limited) resources, we have found ways to minimize those conflicts, such as through the use of property rights and arbitration. Besides, the existence of a state makes war more affordable for the war makers as the costs of building an empire can be defused over the population through taxation. As war makers have become removed from the consequences of their violence, constant war has become costlier than ever before. It is government that is civil war, according to French anarchist Anselme Bellegarrigue. While modern warfare may consume fewer actual lives, the aggregate labor stolen by the war machine is no less wasted. The life of each one of us is drained again and again day after day to fund the most successful criminal enterprise in history.

In another failure, Richards cites a Karl Marx quote from Ralph Raico’s lewrockwell.com article on Marx’s insights into the state, which she takes to mean an acceptance of Marxist political economy even as Raico makes explicit that he is “far from being a Marxist.” The point of Raico’s quote was to reveal Marx’s own dualistic view of the state as first, continuously under the exploitative hand of the capitalist class, and at other times as an organ of exploitation of whatever party in control.

In fact, some of the very few accurate protrayals she offered was calling radical libertrians leftists who believe we can “endure without states and central leadership.”

Looking back, Richards has claimed that Rothbardian libertarians want to “destroy man and his right to Life,” believe “depravity is nonexistent in man’s nature,” are “anti-wealth,” and favor “communal control.” For these points, Richards offers not a single quotation from Rothbard or any other libertarian.

I am drawn to one of my favorite Frederic Bastiat quotes, when he said:

Socialism, like the ancient ideas from which it springs, confuses the distinction between government and society. As a result of this, every time we object to a thing being done by government, the socialists conclude that we object to its being done at all.

We disapprove of state education. Then the socialists say that we are opposed to any education. We object to a state religion. Then the socialists say that we want no religion at all. We object to a state-enforced equality. Then they say that we are against equality. And so on, and so on. It is as if the socialists were to accuse us of not wanting persons to eat because we do not want the state to raise grain.

With some credulity, statists have become conditioned to let others — even words written on paper — have dominion over their lives. When someone offers the radical notion that no one else owns your body, they are called the dangerous ones. When some point out that the state has no resources of its own and can only exist by usurping our rights, with some arrogance, they are told to be the enemies of individual rights.

To Richards, I say trust in yourself and treat your neighbors as an equal. So long as you look to leaders for the change you seek, you can bet to be changing out one set of dogs for another while ignoring the things all of us can do for the betterment of ourselves and those around us.

Image credit: FreedomBin.com, with a Creative Commons license

How Wage Slavery Could be Abolished in a Free Market

Justin Oliver — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 17:00:17 +0000

In a previous post, I discussed why laborers do not receive wages commensurate of their contribution to the bottom line. I argued that the problem was not the fault of the market process. That is, it is not inherent in the market process. I was pointing out how government, through systematic expropriation of ownership rights, puts labor at a disadvantage to management when it comes to contract negotiations.

In honor of Labor Day, I want to talk about how a genuinely free market could eliminate wage slavery and other more general forms of exploitation. The market forces I will talk about are in play now but are obviously hampered by government aggression.

Taking it as a given that wage slavery existed, it easy to see how the free market could do away with wage slavery over the course of several years. If a wealthy land owner had a group of laborers whom he exploited, we could imagine that the laborers made some contract with the owner that bound them to his land for a fixed number of years. Under natural law principles, a promise to work is not an enforceable contract. It only requires that a worker pay back any wages advanced for services not performed and pay the cost for any performance bond lost by the owner. Nevertheless, we can add the burden and assume for the sake of argument that enforceable labor contract were in place in this scenario.

First off, it would make sense that workers would not have much of an incentive to become more productive and would tend to decrease productivity relative to non-wage slaves. Since wage slaves do not derive much of any benefit, if any at all, from increased productivity, it would appear reasonable that their level of work would tend to be closer toward the minimum production required to fulfil their contract and remain employed. Each worker might have a different production quota, but no one would have an incentive to go much beyond that.

So comes along another wealthy owner looking for labor to exploit. After all, labor is the most desired form of capital. Since without it, tools and other forms of capital are useless. The second land owner makes an offer to the first. He offers to rent the workers from the first owner but request that the workers choose among themselves who will take his offer. For meeting a certain production schedule, the second owner will pay a bonus above their normal rate of pay. Some of the workers might even reluctantly agree to give a portion of the bonus to the first owner. In any case, both owners expect to benefit, and workers are receiving higher pay, possibly even a greater percentage of their market value. Over time, workers could save enough money to buy out their labor contracts.

You could then argue that the first land owner would just increase his production quota for all his wage slaves. The problem is that future wage slaves would decide to work somewhere with a lower quota, better working conditions, or whatever it is they value (maybe not being bound to arbitrary labor contracts). As the competition for laborer was bid up, land owners would continue to offer better conditions until the point where they paid the market rate of labor. Without the government intervention I mention below, land and rent costs of capital and credit would fall drastically, enabling newly liberated wage slaves to begin their own enterprises. It would definitely decentralize production and further increase competition for labor.

Someone could also raise the point that exploitation of labor exists today, so the free market either cannot eliminate wage slavery or perpetuates it. The problem is that there is no free market that exists, but to the extent that free market principles have been practiced, working conditions have improved. Some of the ways in which governments have stymied a genuine free market are by giving privileges of immunity from liability, raising the regulatory barrier to entry and exit to the benefit of large corporations, and by subsidizing the transportation of goods.

Under state capitalism, intellectual property laws increase the cost of living, central banking discourages savings and gives an advantage to banks with early access to newly created fiat currency, anti-labor laws discourage collective bargaining, government control of vast tracks of natural resources, and the boom-bust cycle of centralized government planning cause additional insecurities to give some people an upper-hand at the negotiating table. Restrictions on mutual banking, legal tender laws, credit monopoly laws, and government deficit financing cause banks to be able to charge higher premiums for loaning credit.

All this leads me to believe we do not live in a free market.

Another objection to this process might be that justice delayed is justice denied. We should demand an immediate end to exploitation. I completely agree. Where there are communities supportive of ending injustice, I support people seizing property they have a moral right to. Like I said, even in a stateless society with widespread despicable authoritarian tendencies, one which basically enforced slaver labor, the free exchange of ownership rights can make egalitarian solutions more palatable. A cultural shift would be needed, and a free market system could play a part in that solution. We would still have to educate and agitate others into taking actions to correct injustice. This can be sped along by upholding market economics so that more come to recognize the dignity of each individual’s life.

These subsidies and privileges I described above come at the expense of other people’s labor. It is slavery in a very real sense. The way to abolish this slavery is not to give power to the same group of people who orchestrated its enforcement.

Further Resources

“How I Bamboozled Thousands of Conservatives into Thinking Like Anarchists” by Robert P. Murphy
“Property Rights and the Theory of Contract,” “The Ethics of Liberty” by Murray Rothbard
“Wage Slavery is a Symptom of Unfree Markets“
“Wage slavery” on Wikipedia
“Austrian Economics and Wage Slavery” by Brad Spangler
“Economic Development Without the State” by Kevin Carson

Image credit: Arturo de Albornoz, with a Creative Commons license

Resolving the Shire Society Dispute

Justin Oliver — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 00:10:19 +0000

In some respects, I agree with both sides in the heated L. Neil Smith-Shire Society intellectual property dispute. There has been some childish name-calling from each camp, although Smith’s has been far more harsh.

The controversy stems from the creation of the heretofore obscure Shire Society, the several dozen signatories claiming their “commitment to peace, individual sovereignty, and independence.” The signing of the declaration took place in June at the 2010 Porcupine Freedom Festival affectionately known as Porcfest, which is hosted by the Free State Project. (Note: I am a Free State Project participant, but I do have my own reservations about the Shire Society Declaration.)

The drafting of the precise language of the Shire declaration involved about 10 people and took place over several months. The final document borrowed heavily from Smith’s “A New Covenant.” From what I understand, this fact was acknowledged early in the deliberation process, though some were not aware of this at the time of their signing.

Smith’s twofold complaint is that he has not received enough credit for inspiring the society’s declaration and that he could suffer financially if people decide to back the Shire’s document instead of paying Smith two dollars to archive their pledge to his original work. He is also critical of the revisions made by Shire members.

I cannot say this represents all the facts, but they are the most relevant facts I know of. The primary ethical defense for the action of the Shire Society members is that non-tangible objects are fundamentally different from tangible objects insofar as they can be replicated without the destroying the original object. (I agree that much is true.) Consequently, Smith has not been injured by the copying of his original thoughts. Shire defenders lose me when they say restrictions backed by force on the use of non-tangible objects constitute aggression by restricting how users may use their own tangible property in the duplication of existing works.

This last claim is dubious because it tries to state as fact that non-tangible objects cannot be property. [Edit: In the original copy, this paragraph read as if I was expressing that I believe ideas, in and of themselves, can be owned; whereas, I was trying to express that it was someone’s labor that created those ideas.) It should be a simple matter of demonstrating that labor is owned and can be negotiated on what terms a laborer thinks favorable.

All Property is Intellectual Property

Ultimately, I believe the Shire Society should prevail in this case, but the argument against non-tangible property that its defenders put forth is unconvincing.

All wealth is a product of the ideas of the mind. We may use our muscles and bones to move earth or write a play, but our physical body is just a tool of our mind, which propels the use of those tools. As Lysander Spooner said, “There is, therefore, no such thing as the physical labor of men, independently of their intellectual labor.” The motion of our bodies, our labor, is equally non-tangible, yet no one would deny we own our own labor.

The creation of property (wealth that is possessed) is primarily an intellectual exercise by integrating an individual’s abstract and perceptual knowledge of objective reality into concepts to act upon. That is how, counter-intuitively, writers such as Smith can arrange words, which are limitless and therefore valueless in and of themselves, into highly valued books that people find it worth trading their scarce time and labor to read.

The value is found, not in the printed words themselves, but in the usefulness (or entertainment) of the expression of those ideas. The same is true of tangible property. Tangible property is by its nature scarce, but it is not necessarily finite. Wealth is not finite either. It is a product one’s mind, as Ayn Rand said, and endless imagination.

Whether someone’s work is harmed by duplicating it or not is irrelevant to the question of who may use the work.

Property does not exist so much in the physical dimensions of an object as it does in identifying the decision-making interest of the object. It means acquiring “the full services that can be derived from a good,” as Ludwig von Mises said. A property right is the ability to act freely (without the threat of force) and accept the consequences of that action at the exclusion of that same right to others while simultaneously honoring the property rights in relation to other objects.

Resolving Intellectual Property Disputes

The right to free speech is the right to use his or her property to disseminate information, except in cases to coerce others of their property, and the corollary right not to disseminate information. In that respect, the Shire Society has a case for borrowing from Smith’s work.

One possible limit could exist if the information was first acquired conditionally. To illustrate, if I sell a book under a certain explicit condition, such as a restriction on duplication, then I have not sold the full ownership and still retain certain property rights to that particular copy. Of course, the onus is on the original owner to state those restrictions before the transaction. If my customer transferred or lost ownership of the book, the next owner could not morally acquire any greater ownership rights than the previous owner, because I would retain whatever conditions were originally created.

The problem with existing intellectual property law is that the conditions of ownership are set by government law, that is, by force. The involuntary intervention of government enforcement enables intellectual property owners to place far harsher conditions than they could negotiate freely. Effectively, government intellectual property conditions are made under duress and should not be enforced.

In the case before us, Smith set no such additional property conditions on the use of the work on his Web site. And if he did set forth such conditions, the burden of proof would be on him to prove that someone deliberately copied his work and that it was not mere coincidence. The principle is, not that people owns ideas, per se, but they do own the labor that contributed to those ideas. Smith could not claim ownership of a coincidental duplication since he cannot own another’s labor either.

Had Smith clearly stated on his site the terms of use, he would be in the right. Instead, he owes members of the Shire Society an apology for his caustic language. The ambiguities of intellectual property have haunted libertarians for the past 50 years, and they likely will for some time. On the bright side, this is an opportunity for a proof of concept for a dispute resolution organization to resolve.

Image credit: 917press, with a Creative Commons license

Kagan and the Constitution

Justin Oliver — Sat, 10 Jul 2010 03:11:21 +0000

It is frustrating having politicians talk about rights.

Last week, Supreme Court Justice nominee Elena Kagan, the White House’s solicitor general, was being questioned by Sen. Tom Coburn (Okla.) about natural rights.

The day before, he had unsuccessfully tried to get Kagan to concede that the constitution’s Commerce Clause does not give government the power to mandate by force (“Law is force,” Bastiat said) that Americans must consume fruits and vegetables. Kagan, by the way, never answered definitively but seems to say that non-economic activity, which presumably means eating, falls outside the scope of federal powers. Yet, in the case of marijuana, just possessing the substance was considered a commercial activity if the law were part of a larger regulatory (control) framework. So a stand-alone law mandating everyone in America eat their veggies would be unconstitutional, but if it were part of a national health care initiative, it is probably a go.

In his follow-up questions the next day, Coburn asked if self-defense was a natural right pre-existing the constitution. Kagan’s response was revealing. According to a CNN transcript, she said,”Senator Coburn, I believe that the Constitution is an extraordinary document, and I’m not saying I do not believe that there are rights pre-existing the Constitution and the laws. But my job as a justice is to enforce the Constitution and the laws.”

I am not defending the constitution by any means, nor do I expect the government to abide by its own rules and laws. However, it should be pointed out when government people do not live up to their own rules. Kagan is directly in conflict with the ninth amendment of the Bill of Rights, which states that “the people” possess other rights not previously enumerated. Famously, the founders said that we are endowed “with certain unalienable rights …. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men.” For Kagan to say “I don’t have a view of what are natural rights, independent of the Constitution” means she is completely unfit by the government’s own standards to serve on the Supreme Court.

I cannot just fault Kagan. Though widespread, the idea that government should exist to defend our liberty and property is already completely contradictory. Government systematically assaults our liberty and property. From “all men are created equal” to “Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes” signals a complete defiance of inalienable rights and the natural law of equal liberty. Taxation is modeled on the idea of paying royalties for the privilege of engaging in commerce, owning property or earning a living.

I am aware Kagan is all but guaranteed to be confirmed. She will be one of nine people who ultimately interpret what the constitution means. So when it comes down to it, the rule of law is still the rule of men (and three women). But through indoctrination and guilt-laden propaganda, people have come to accept and embrace the authority over them. The whole show — the law, the authority and, ultimately, the government — are just manifestations of bad ideas.

Ideas fuel fear and avarice. You cannot shoot an idea or dynamite a myth. They are invincible to violence, even self-defense. Luckily, ideas also fuel truth and beauty.

Liberty supporters are at a distinct advantage though. Lies require constant supervision and constant maintenance. Lies must be heaped upon lies. Truth and beauty stand on their own. Like scientists, philosophers and intellectuals must transmit their discoveries if their work is to have any value. In business, that is the role of the entrepreneur, to turn concepts into consumables. For truth and beauty to have any power, they too must be communicated and acted upon to be made real. They must be practiced. That is the most admirable role of the liberty activist. That is how we will get our certainty and our freedom now, by living it.

Image credit: Cayusa, with Creative Commons license

Odds and Enders for Feb. 24

Justin Oliver — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 13:23:40 +0000

~ An Anti-Stack Manifesto

George Donnelly makes two contributions today. The first is his rebutal to the grieved Joseph Stack, who published a suicide note online before flying a single-engine plane into an Austin building housing the offices of the Internal Revenue Service on Feb. 18. Stack had claimed he was left no other option, stating that “violence not only is the answer, (sic) it is the only answer.” Donnelly wrote:

Am I powerless? My vote doesn’t count. My voice is not heard in the corridors of power in Washington. My bank account is too small to fund political change. My salary is siphoned off into FICA taxes, income taxes, gas taxes, mortgage payments, credit card payments and inflated grocery bills before I see a dime. At any time I could be assaulted by the cops, fined by meter maids, tasered by the state police, murdered by the ATF, seized by the FBI or left penniless by the IRS. I am a punching bag standing patiently in line for my turn in the wringer. …

When I’m frustrated I remember that none of it matters. It doesn’t matter that the wrong candidate won office. He doesn’t rule me! He only has as much power as I voluntarily grant him. I never agreed to be bound by the laws he passes. I live my own life with integrity and honor by following the natural law: I do not aggress against others and I keep my word. …

As I grow more happiness and independence in my own life, I will help others do the same. I’ll boycott the strategies, agencies, options and involuntary obligations that once led me into vulnerability. I’ll exhort others to do the same. Soon we will be free, happy, at peace and prosperous. I am powerful. I have many options. I can overcome. I can make a better life for myself. I can.

In another post, “We Must Live in Alignment with Our Principles,” Donnelly makes a point I’ve been reconciling in my own mind.

Liberty starts with each of us. If we can’t make the voluntary society happen in our own lives, what hope is there of making it happen on a large scale? Change requires that good people set good examples. If nothing else, your efforts will keep the promise of liberty alive until conditions become more favorable. It’s our best option. No one will make this happen but ourselves. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.

~ Answering the ‘Yes, But the State is Inevitable’ Falsity

For context, Benjamin Tucker defined government as “the subjection of the noninvasive individual to an external will.” BK Marcus answered whether government was inevitable.

And for me, the question “Isn’t some form of State inevitable?” is like saying We will never get rid of rape and robbery, murder and torture, so what sense does it make to take a principled stance against these things? They will always be with us.

It’s sad to me that such a basic thing as the principled opposition to coercion is considered to be extremist, unreasonable, unrealistic. Why do I have to believe in permanent peace to oppose war? How is it utopian to denounce force?

I share your confidence that force and fraud will always be with us, and I will always oppose them. But Statism is more than the prediction of “the subjection of the noninvasive individual to an external will.” Statism is the claim that institutionalized proactive coercion is justified. Anarchism rejects that conclusion” (emphasis in original).

~ The New Normal for Government Services

Wendy McElroy has a post from TechDirt about the new ways that government is servicing you. In California, the city of Tracy is going to charge residents $300 and non-residents $400 when the fire department is called to a medical emergency. I would completely support this but for the fact that residents already have to pay for the fire department with taxes. The reason the city is having to take such measures is to pay back the government-backed labor union that lobbies for excessive compensation and funded the city council member’s election campaigns. The city spends $9 million per year in a city of 80,000 on employee pensions and deposits ¢33 for every dollar the police and fire fighters make in wages.

No charge will be issued when the fire department responds to a car collission or a fire. So the solution is simple enough, according to McElroy: “In short, if you see someone have a heart attack in the street, you should quickly set a trash bin on fire.”

~ Think Small, Change the World

Libertarian persuasion guru Michael Cloud has some advice and motivation for activists.

Because the vital few, the great men and women, the key events were indispensable and necessary to what happened — but they were *not* sufficient to make it happen.

Without the vital, indispensable small actions of many forgotten individuals, the great events would have faltered, fizzled, and failed. …

Think small. Start small. Work small. For liberty. You can change the world.

~ Speaking of Changing Minds

Seth Godin has a post on the importance of extremists. He concludes:

It’s interesting to note that an enormous amount of apparently principled argument goes on about relatively tiny movements in where the line is being drawn. In most cases, to paraphrase an old joke, “we’ve already figured out what sort of girl you are, now we’re just arguing about the price.” It’s not the principle, in fact, it’s just the degree of compromise we’re comfortable with and content to argue over.

And so it’s left to the zealots. The people at either end have little hope of moving the masses all the way to their end of the argument. Instead, what they do is make it feel safer to change the boundaries, safer to recalibrate the compromise. Over time, as the edges feel more palatable, the masses are more likely to be willing to edge their way closer to one edge or another. Successful zealots don’t argue to win. They argue to move the goalposts and to make it appear sane to do so.

Glenn Beck: Anarchists for ‘Total Government’

Justin Oliver — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 19:54:56 +0000

I think Glenn Beck, like Alex Jones, is a great entertainer. But they both take cheap shots at anarchists all the time.

On Beck’s Feb. 17 television program, he said in the clip below that anarchists and progressives “don’t really like America” and are for “total government.” Beck’s and Jones’ definition of “anarchist” might be anyone who wants less government than they might. The fact is anarchism, the way I understand it, advocates for the most limited and smallest possible government, self-government.

It is also a canard that anarchists don’t like America. The federal government is not America. The people who eagerly manage it are “mere bands of robbers, who have associated for purposes of plunder, conquest, and the enslavement of their fellow men, … and the more peaceable division of their spoils,” as Lysander Spooner said in Natural Law, or the Science of Justice.

(via Daily Paul)

How Authoritarian Statists Are Created

Justin Oliver — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 01:32:46 +0000

I admit, the video above cracked me up.

On a serious note, I feel sorry for the young man who posted it. The lessons he is learning now will likely be the foundation for his worldview and affect the relationships he has with others. He no doubt has empathy for others who are being bullied at school and wants more than anything for his harassment to stop. He might recognize that school attendance is made compulsory by government and to some degree by his family, so he sees no reasonable escape from his present circumstances. He even said that he has thought about committing suicide, so he must believe his options are severely constrained.

When he matures, he will very likely, if he has not already, carry the same mistaken notions forward with him into society, that there is no feasible means of avoiding morally corrupt people and that therefore an entity must exist that is powerful enough to defend against abusive people. The most readily available candidate for that power is government, so a strong centralized nanny government is key to safety.

According to Dr. Charles Whitfield’s heirachy of needs, safety is second only to survival. Comparatively, freedom ranks 19th.

That is the root concern liberty activists must address, I believe. We can tell people all about how government is our greatest abuser (and they might agree), but any call to weaken or abolish nanny government — a so-called necessary evil — is interpreted as a greater threat to their safety. The devil that we know is better than the devil we don’t know, as the saying goes. What we have to communicate is that life offers much more opportunity than was available to them as a child. You are not trapped in abusive relationships. You are free of them the moment you want to be. You don’t have to associate with people who have a history of hurting people. Therefore, it is not necessary for a nanny government to watch over us and “keep ‘protecting’ you by commanding you to bow down and serve him; by requiring you to do this, and forbidding you to do that,” as Lysander Spooner said.

They wouldn’t be left abandoned to the biggest bully on the block, which incidentally now is the case. Natural law ensures that those bullies would cut their own throats first. The market demand for security would eliminate the remaining stray bullies, and individual compassion would care for the less fortunate. So I don’t resent statists (those who believe individuals exist to serve the well-being of the state); I offer them my sympathy for their burden: believing evil to be “necessary.”

‘I Will Hang Your Ass’

Justin Oliver — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 23:20:08 +0000

Collectivists hold that individuals are subordinate to a group and have value only so far as they serve the demands of that group. Examples are racism, sexism, nationalism, statism, and altruism — second-hand ideologies of guilt and the gun. Because collectivism runs so contrary to the individual autonomy of human beings, collectivists snarl at sincere ambition and genuine loyalty. They can be more rancid at times, like recently when I was having an e-mail discussion with a constitutional scholar. He knows more about constitutional theory that I could ever hope or care to learn. He has an entire framework for the purported necessity of an institution known as government (or the state), a political entity which maintains an individually nonconsensual territorial monopoly.

His particular justification is the social contract (compact) theory, an ex post facto excuse for a dominant majority to subjugate the will of a minority while simultaneously attempting to evade their own psychological trauma for doing so. There are many versions of the social contract, some larger in scope than others, but his happens to be quite limited. He believes a social contract obliges adults to defend the rights of others in the community and to deliberate in an assembly to make legitimate changes to the government.

We’re going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good. — Hillary Clinton

This is all well and good, but I didn’t understand how a social contract could be established or what happens to those who disagree that a social contract had been established. As it turns out, individuals agreeing to pool their resources to defend against threats to their liberty (or rights) are forming a social contract. In doing so, a society is innately created, and as children become adults, they inherit this social contract and further these obligations of protection and deliberation onto their children, and so on and so on. Already, we can see the circular argument in this theory. Liberty and rights are a function of living in a society; societies cannot be formed for the protection of liberty since the concept of liberty is meaningless and has no value before joining a society. (For someone concerned about protecting liberties, forming a government is doubly confusing since governments are the greatest violators of liberty to have ever existed.) Ludwig von Mises said, “Society is division of labor and combination of labor.” The protection of liberty is not the purpose of society, but it is a fortunate consequence. Instead, the purpose of joining or maintaining a society is to form a division of labor, making the efficient protection from criminals one of the society’s many byproducts. Society is a mental pursuit, first. It is an attempt by individuals to quell some easiness about their existence, to improve the material conditions they experience. Some individuals in a society may make an explicit loyalty oath among themselves to defend each other from criminals, to educate the young, or to share their food in common, but those are not a necessary condition for a society to be created. In theory, a group of self-sufficient families who otherwise never interacted could form a self-defense compact, but they would get none of the benefits of a society. If an obligation of protection were a necessary component of forming a society, then it could equally be stated that there is an obligation to feed, to house, and to care for, and to educate the less fortunate, neccessitating an intrusive government that redistributes income. While I agree that it is moral to lend assistance to those who are deserving, I also agree with Lysander Spooner that those are acts “which each man must be his own judge, in each particular case, as to whether, and how, and how far, he can, or will perform them.”

Another justification, I was told, was that the majority support the social contract, yet the vast majority of people are not legislators. By what right may legislators make laws if they are so greatly outnumbered? Supposedly, these legislators are chosen by the people in the society — who have reached a certain age, have not committed one of the several thousand vague laws or regulations, have filled out paperwork correctly within a certain number of days before the election, have citizenship approval of the government, and have attended the polling station on a certain day within an allotted number of hours every two years. In 2008, only 31 percent of United States citizens chose who would be in control of the government’s thermonuclear warheads, and most polls give Congress a job approval rating of less than 30 percent. Worse still, government regulators — the ones who interpret and enforce the laws to their own liking — never stand for election. Setting aside the immorality of majoritarianism, it is impossible to prove the intent of those supporters. It is possible that the support of anyone who chooses to remain within a territory was contingent on preserving some liberties or being made a slave. If my only options are to live in a neighborhood prone to terrorism or a neighborhood prone to vandalism, I could probably live with some random vandalism. That decision is not an approval of vandalism as much as it is an objection to being killed. In a stateless society, there exists an additional option, to form your own community or not participate, just as individuals can provide their own services, which ensures that the market has the possibility of satisfying the smallest minority of one.

I don’t know of anyone who believes that the majority will should be followed all the time, so there must exist a higher standard. Others believe that the will of the majority may be fallible but nevertheless should be given priority. Can the will of the majority be accurately determined by the political process? Voters are never given the choice of none of the above, so it is impossible to determine if a candidate won an election because he or she was the true favorite or if he or she was the “lesser evil” who actually stood a chance of winning. Determining the will of the majority is preposterous, but perhaps this centralized bureaucracy with no financial incentive to provide timely, efficient service had a crystal ball in its possession that could read the mind of every resident. It would still be necessary to prove that the will of the majority had not been tampered with by bribes or propaganda from the government. Nothing could be less true. Those in the government give one another special favors; they bailout failing companies, stymie competitors, offer discounted credit, and give preferential treatment to politically connected laborers. That is what they do. Government-approved education is compulsory during a child’s most formative years. In 2008, H. Walter Croskey, a California appeals court judge, in essence made homeschooling illegal in the state, saying that “A primary purpose of the educational system is to train school children in good citizenship, patriotism and loyalty to the state and the nation as a means of protecting the public welfare.”

Well, maybe the government’s crystall ball can see past the theft and propoganda of the government. Even still, a social contract, since it is not material, in no way makes clear that the agreement is perpetually binding on everyone except those who intentionally opt out. Implicit contracts are unenforceable because the terms of the agreement are not objective, so any enforcement is capricious. If someone is obliged to defend the rights of others in the society, how many times, to what extent, and by what means? Who knows. For this reason, individuals ought not enforce implicit contracts; and individuals acting in concert under the guise of a government have not moral claim to enforce them either.

If nothing else, the social contract is a self-defeating idea because it violates the premise of its own existence, the protection of liberty, since a coercive majority may impose the social contract on a minority. (There are also the tiny discrepancies that no government has ever been established this way and that United State Supreme Court justices have ruled since 1855 and subsequently that agents of the government do not have an obligation to protect residents from “killers or madmen.”)

When I confronted the scholar with some of these seeming contradictions in the social contract theory, he said that if I knew of a mortal threat to the community, “[Y]ou had better respond and do your part, or I will hang your ass.” At that point, I knew there was no purpose in continuing the discussion. Once a person resolutely accepts evil and proudly brandishes it (at your throat no less), rational discussion ceases.

He continued that the social contract exists to serve “the group” as a whole since it “may not be rational for the individual member.”

How many things that are good for you, that you will benefit from, need to be imposed on you … with force? — Brett Veinotte

Contemplating the risk and reward of negating the peaceful will of another human being for the sake of the collective is moral cannibalism, giving man the same status as a sacrificial animal. Insofar as force is applied, the only tool available for human beings to progress and flourish — his reasoning mind — is lost.

‘Natural Law’ by Lysander Spooner (Part 2 of 2)

Justin Oliver — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 00:39:10 +0000

This is the follow-up to the first post of memorable lines from Lysander Spooner’s “Natural Law or the Science of Justice.” Spooner may be more widely known for his refutation of the legitimacy of the United States constitution or his challenge of the American postal monopoly. However, this may be his more lasting work because it demonstrates a third way, a natural law discoverable by the human intellect, to establish a legal framework that does not rely on past customs or the ad hoc dictates of those in control of the state.

Chapter III – Natural Law Contrasted With Legislation

Section I

Natural law, natural justice, being a principle that is naturally applicable and adequate to the rightful settlement of every possible controversy that can arise among men; being too, the only standard by which any controversy whatever, between man and man, can be rightfully settled; being a principle whose protection every man demands for himself, whether he is willing to accord it to others, or not; being also an immutable principle, one that is always and everywhere the same, in all ages and nations; being self-evidently necessary in all times and places; being so entirely impartial and equitable toward all; so indispensable to the peace of mankind everywhere; so vital to the safety and welfare of every human being; being, too, so easily learned, so generally known, and so easily maintained by such voluntary associations as all honest men can readily and rightully form for that purpose—being such a principle as this, these questions arise, viz.: Why is it that it does not universally, or well nigh universally, prevail? Why is it that it has not, ages ago, been established throughout the world as the one only law that any man, or all men, could rightfully be compelled to obey? Why is it that any human being ever conceived that anything so self-evidently superfluous, false, absurd, and atrocious as all legislation necessarily must be, could be of any use to mankind, or have any place in human affairs?

Section II

The answer is, that through all historic times, wherever any people have advanced beyond the savage state, and have learned to increase their means of sub-sistence by the cultivation of soil, a greater or less number of them have associated and organized themselves as robbers, to plunder and enslave all others, who had either accumulated any property that could be seized, or had shown, by their labor, that they could be made to contribute to the support or pleasure of those who should enslave them.

These bands of robbers, small in number at fist, have increased their power by uniting with each other, inventing warlike weapons, disciplining themselves, and perfecting their organizations as military forces, and dividing their plunder (including their captives) among themselves, either in such proportions as have been previously agreed on, or in such as their leaders (always desirous to increase the number of their followers) should prescribe.

These tyrants, living solely on plunder, and on the labor of their slaves, and applying all their energies to the seizure of still more plunder, and the enslavement of still other defenceless persons; increasing, too, their numbers, perfecting their organizations, and multiplying their weapons of war, they extend their conquests until, in order to hold what they have already got, it becomes necessary for them to act systematically, and cooperate with each other in holding their slaves in subjection.

But all this they can do only by establishing what they call a government, and making what they call laws.

… And their laws, as they have called them, have been only such agreements as they have found it necessary to enter into, in order to maintain their organizations, and act together in plundering and enslaving others, and in securing to each his agreed share of the spoils.

All these laws have had no more real obligation than have the agreements which brigands, bandits, and pirates find it necessary to enter into with each other, for the more successful accomplishment of their crimes, and the more peaceable division of their spoils.

Thus substantially all the legislation of the world has had its origin in the desires of one class—of persons to plunder and enslave others, and hold them as property.

Section III

In process of time, the robber, or slaveholding, class—who had seized all the lands, and held all the means of creating wealth—began to discover that the easiest mode of managing their slaves, and making them profitable, was not for each slaveholder to hold his specified number of slaves, as he had done before, and as he would hold so many cattle, but to give them so much liberty as would throw upon themselves (the slaves) the responsibility of their own subsistence, and yet compel them to sell their labor to the land-hodling class—their former owners—for just what the latter might choose to give them.

Of course, these liberated slaves, as some have erroneously called them, having no lands, or other property, and no means of obtaining an independent subsistence, had no alternative—to save themselves from starvation—but to sell their labor to the landholders, in exchange only for the coarsest necessaries of life; not always for so much even as that.

The purpose and effect of these laws have been to maintain, in the hands of the robber, or slave holding class, a monopoly of all lands, and, as far as possible, of all other means of creating wealth; and thus to keep the great body of laborers in such a state of poverty and dependence, as would compel them to sell their labor to their tyrants for the lowest prices at which life could be sustained.

The result of all this is, that the little wealth there is in the world is all in the hands of a few—that is, in the hands of the law-making, slave-holding class; who are now as much slaveholders in spirit as they ever were, but who accomplish their purposes by means of the laws they make for keeping the laborers in subjection and dependence, instead of each one’s owning his individual slaves as so many chattels.

Thus the whole business of legislation, which has now grown to such gigantic proportions, had its origin in the conspiracies, which have always existed among the few, for the purpose of holding the many in subjection, and extorting from them their labor, and all the profits of their labor.

And the real motives and spirit which lie at the foundation of all legislation—notwithstanding all the pretences and disguises by which they attempt to hide themselves—are the same to-day as they always have been. They whole purpose of this legislation is simply to keep one class of men in subordination and servitude to another.

Section IV

What, then, is legislation? It is an assumption by one man, or body of men, of absolute, irresponsible dominion over all other men whom they call subject to their power. It is the assumption by one man, or body of men, of a right to subject all other men to their will and their service. It is the assumption by one man, or body of men, of a right to abolish outright all the natural rights, all the natural liberty of all other men; to make all other men their slaves; to arbitrarily dictate to all other men what they may, and may not, do; what they may, and may not, have; what they may, and may not, be. It is, in short, the assumption of a right to banish the principle of human rights, the principle of justice itself, from off the earth, and set up their own personal will, pleasure, and interest in its place. All this, and nothing less, is involved in the very idea that there can be any such thing as human legislation that is obligatory upon those upon whom it is imposed.

Natural law is rooted in the fixed nature of human beings. It is universal, constant, discoverable, and tangible. When not implemented, it still offers an unyielding examination of the status quo, of what “ought to be, irrespective of what is,” as Lord Acton might say.

‘Natural Law’ by Lysander Spooner (Part 1 of 2)

Justin Oliver — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 19:47:51 +0000

It is a shame the individualist anarchist and legal scholar Lysander Spooner died before completing his work on natural law. I owe a great debt to Spooner for crystallizing my distinctions between law and legislation, one being the harmonious integration of human nature and the later a usurpation of our rights. Below are my favorite quotes from the first two chapters of his “Natural Law or the Science of Justice.”

Chapter I

Section 1

The science of mine and thine — the science of justice — is the science of all human rights; of all a man’s rights of person and property; of all his rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

It is the science which alone can tell any man what he can, and cannot, do; what he can, and cannot, have; what he can, and cannot, say, without infringing the rights of any other person.

It is the science of peace; and the only science of peace; since it is the science which alone can tell us on what conditions mankind can live in peace, or ought to live in peace, with each other.

Through all time, so far as history informs us, wherever mankind have attempted to live in peace with each other, both the natural instincts, and the collective wisdom of the human race, have acknowledged and prescribed, as an indispensable condition, obedience to this one only universal obligation: viz., that each should live honestly towards every other.

The ancient maxim makes the sum of a man’s legal duty to his fellow men to be simply this: “to live honestly, to hurt no one, to give to every one his due”.

This entire maxim is really expressed in the single words, to live honestly; since to live honestly is to hurt no one, and give to every one his due.

Section II

Man, no doubt, owes many other moral duties to his fellow men; such as to feed the hungry, cloth the naked, shelter the homeless, care for the sick, protect the defenseless, assist the weak, and enlighten the ignorant. But these are simply moral duties, of which each man must be his own judge, in each particular case, as to whether, and how, and how far, he can, or will, perform them. But of his legal duty — that is, of his duty to live honestly towards his fellow men—his fellow men not only may judge, but, for their own protection, must judge. And, if need be, they may rightfully compel him to perform it. They may do this, acting singly, or in concert. They may do it on the instant, as the necessity arises, or deliberately and systematically, if they prefer to do so, and the exigency will admit of it.

Section III

No man can rightfully be coerced into joining one, or supporting one, against his will. His own interest, his own judgement (sic), and his own conscience alone must determine whether he will join this association, or that; or whether he will join any. If he chooses to depend, for the protection of his own rights, solely upon himself, and upon such voluntary assistance as other persons may freely offer to him when the necessity for it arises, he has a perfect right to do so.

Section IV

It would be no extravagance to say that, in most cases, if not in all, mankind at large, young and old, learn this natural law long before they have learned the meanings of the words by which we describe it. In truth, it would be impossible to make them understand the real meanings of the words, if they did not understand the nature of the thing itself. To make them understand the meanings of the words justice and injustice before knowing the nature of the things themselves, would be as impossible as it would be to make them understand the meanings of the words heat and cold, wet and dry, light and darkness, white and black, one and two, before knowing the nature of the things themselves.

Chapter II

Section I

But if justice be a natural principle, then it is necessarily an immutable one; and can no more be changed — by any power inferior to that which established it—than can the law of gravitation, the laws of light, the principles of mathematics, or any other natural law or principle whatever; and all attempts or assumptions, on the part of any man or body of men — whether calling themselves governments, or by any other name — to set up their own commands, wills, pleasure, or discretion, in the place of justice, as a rule of conduct for any human being, are as much an absurdity, an usurpation, and a tyranny, as would be their attempts to set up their own commands, wills, pleasure, or discretion in the place of any and all the physical, mental, and moral laws of the universe.

Section II

If there be any such principle as justice, it is, of necessity, a natural principle; and, as such, it is a matter of science, to be learned and applied like any other science. And to talk of either adding to, or taking from, it, by legislation, is just as false, absurd, and ridiculous as it would be to talk of adding to, or taking from, mathematics, chemistry, or any other science, by legislation.

Section III

If there be in nature such a principle as justice, nothing can be added to, or taken from, its supreme authority by all the legislation of which the entire human race united are capable. And all the attempts of the human race, or of any portion of it, to add to, or take from, the supreme authority of justice, in any case whatever, is of no more obligation upon any single human being than is the idle wind.

Section IV

If there be such a principle as justice, or natural law, it is the principle, or law, that tells us what rights were given to every human being at his birth; what rights are, therefore, inherent in him as a human being, necessarily remain with him during life; and, however capable of being trampled upon, are incapable of being blotted out, extinguished, annihilated, or separated or eliminated from his nature as a human being, or deprived of their inherent authority or obligation.

Section V

If there be such a natural principle as justice, it is necessarily the highest, and consequently the only and universal, law for all those matters to which it is naturally applicable. And, consequently, all human legislation is simply and always an assumption of authority and dominion, where no right of authority or dominion exists. It is, therefore, simply and always an intrusion, an absurdity, an usurpation, and a crime.

In short, if there be no such principle as justice, there can be no such acts as crimes; and all the professions of governments, so called, that they exist, either in whole or in part, for the punishment or prevention of crimes, are professions that they exist for the punishment or prevention of what never existed, nor ever can exist.

Section VII

If there be in nature such a principle as justice, it is necessarily the only political principle there ever was, or ever will be. All the other so-called political principles, which men are in the habit of inventing, are not principles at all. They are either the mere conceits of simpletons, who imagine they have discovered something better than truth, and justice, and universal law; or they are mere devices and pretences (sic), to which selfish and knavish men resort as means to get fame, and power, and money.

Section VIII

If there be in nature such a principle as justice, it is necessarily the only political principle there ever was, or ever will be. All the other so-called political principles, which men are in the habit of inventing, are not principles at all. They are either the mere conceits of simpletons, who imagine they have discovered something better than truth, and justice, and universal law; or they are mere devices and pretences, to which selfish and knavish men resort as means to get fame, and power, and money.

Beginning in Chapter III, Spooners observes the differences between laws — immutable and universal — and the dictates of plunderers and bandits called “legislation.”

Some Questions About a Republic

Justin Oliver — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 23:33:00 +0000

A paraphrase of some questions about the essay “The Moral Case Against a Republic” and my responses are posted below.

Are compulsory participation and taxation inherent components of a republic?

They are not. A republic, by definition, does not have to include forceful compulsion or taxation. I should have made that point clearer when I said, ” … why I believe any state-imposed government is antithetical of liberty and, therefore, illegitimate.” The emphasis is on “state-imposed.” As I said in the essay, I support the idea of competing government-like organizations to provide services within the same territory. It’s just that statist governments throughout history, including the American one as originally conceived, have been compulsory because they used initiated force to form a territorial monopoly.

Competing forms of government most typically results in war, such as the case of the Union and the Confederacy in the United States. Would that be the case when these government-like organizations are competing withing the same geographic space?

I draw the exact opposite conclusion from that war. The Union and Confederacy were the very statist governments that I oppose. They were literally at war because they disputed which side would control this territorial monopoly. Domino’s and Pizza Hut compete peacefully in the same territory, as do millions of other organizations, because neither attempts to use force to establish a territorial monopoly. So everyday, millions of organizations compete on a daily basis, and yet you will never find Domino’s invading a Pizza Hut. It’s when that organization uses force to form a territorial monopoly that arms are used.

What keeps Domino’s and Pizza Hut in peaceful competition?

Look to the American empire. The financial costs of aggression are tremendous, while the costs of defending property (look to the Iraqi insurgency) is far less. These firms are profit driven, so it is not justified, financially or otherwise, to aggress against others in a society of free association.

Capitalistic (or free-market) competition is not a win-loss scenario. It benefits everyone. The profitable shareholders and the customers clearly benefit. Shareholders of a bankrupt or unprofitable company also benefit because they can put their resources to more profitable uses sooner and be better off than they otherwise would have been instead of further cannibalize their assets.

Some companies do rely on the state’s coercion for a competitive advantage, but that coercion is paid by a belief in the state’s legitimacy by the American taxpayer.

What will keep these voluntary governments limited to protecting individual liberties? If they move beyond those bounds, what will keep them from taking further initiations of force?

There are three reasons I believe an aggressive agency would fail: it is too costly, it would have a terrible employee base, and it would not have the means of funding its violent operation.

Imagine for a moment that one of these defense organizations turned to aggression and started attacking innocent people, even by accident. The agency has now become a target of retaliation. Businesses and individuals would recognize that any association with murders is harmful of their own character, because of the stigma of that association, and of their own person, because any disagreement with the aggressing agency could result in their own injury.

Influential business interests like insurance companies that rely on protecting and preserving assets would also shun the acts of the agency because aggression and the inevitable retaliation are an inherently wealth-destructive processes. Without this financial backing to protect its valuables, the aggessing agency has borne an even costlier burden. Even if an insurance company continued its coverage, it would have to raise its premiums drastically to cover the added liability. If insurer tried to pass down these costs to peaceful individuals, those customers would hire cheaper firms, putting the original insurance company in jeopardy. A whole host of services like contract insurance and other business dealings of a modern economy could be lost by the aggressing agency.

From the point of view of the employees, aggression is also a heavy burden. If, or should I say when, government employees commits aggression today, they are shielded from justice by the state by the concept of sovereign immunity. In a society of free association, lines like, “I’m just doing my job,” no longer hold any validity. Private employees have no such immunity and are held accountable for their actions. Knowing this, any honest employee of the aggressing agency would resign or refuse such orders, and the agency’s ability to carry out any violence would also be substantially crippled.

Does that mean only dishonest people would work for such defense agencies? If so, and only dishonest people would employ such services on their behalf, then honest individuals would have no interest in dealing with them. These dishonest individuals would have to rely solely on force to survive, raising the costs of providing their defense dramatically. Such people today make their profit off the black market, but in a free society there is no black market to inflate their profits and subsidize their aggression.

Thus, such dishonest individuals come to power, to the extend that that they do, because of the infringements that the state creates in the first place.

This sounds good in theory, but isn’t it too complicated for the real world?

A noose is also a lot less complicated than court proceedings and the rule of law. The horse and buggy is much less complicated, less deadly, and more environmentally friendly, I understand, than automobiles. But the benefits vastly outweigh their costs. It’s an obvious point, but it deserves to be stated: everything has a cost.

One of these defensive firms could rise to power and form a monopoly of its own to exclude competition and plunder its customers. How can competitive defense agencies prevent that from taking place?

That is a legitimate concern, and the state is the largest monopoly of them all. In a society of free association, there will still be those who prefer aggression to association. The forces of economics and self-interest are much better equipped to prevent such monopolies from granting an organization such a monopoly from the outset and hoping it doesn’t exercise its might.

What is the natural law response to some proposed slight aggression for the public good?

I, for one, see aggression as aggression, whether it is wielded by tyrants with machine guns or by polished politicians who hire gunmen, the police, to instill their will on others. Each requires a unique response, but the lesson is still the same.

Natural law simply tries to establish and maintain an order in which individuals may realize their full potential as rational, sensitive beings. Force is used to negate another’s own judgment and, therefore, limit an individual’s primary means of survival, the mind. Force is thought control.

The initiation of force, even for the most noble purpose, is universally immoral, while self-defense is moral because it attempts to restore the primacy of the mind.

Aggression (force, for the sake of brevity) creates nothing; it leaches off the products of reason for its own destructive ends; and it only does so to the extent that individuals allow it. There can be no compromise with with aggression, no mitigating it. Ayn Rand said, “In any compromise between food and poison, it is only death that can win. In any compromise between good and evil, it is only evil that can profit.”

I believe the primary method of human advancement is reason, not aggression. Humans used reason to build skyscrapers, to fly 400,000-lbs. metal tubes in the sky, to visit the moon, and to split the atom. It is force that is used those to destroy those gains. It will be when reason is fully released, when the mind is freed of this crippling aggression, that human beings will be able to achieve their full potential. That is when free association and free exchange will be fully achieved.

Rand also said, “Anyone who fights for the future, lives in it today.” I take heart in that.

Why is natural law anymore moral than a republican form of government?

Natural law helps individuals achieve their greatest potential because it seeks to be in harmony with their requirements for a full life. A republic, if it holds a territorial monopoly by force, is immoral because it necessarily limits an individual’s life since it initiates force, or the threat thereof, to maintain that monopoly.

Lord Acton said, “The philosophy of natural law defends the rational dignity of the human individual and his right and duty to criticize by word and deed any existent institution or social structure in terms of those universal moral principles which can be apprehended by the individual intellect alone.”

Wouldn’t voluntary arbitration be overly burdensome and require an unlikely near agreement on the role and authority of government in an individual’s life?

That standard is an agreement not to aggress against each other. That authority is their self-interest. Frederic Bastiat said, “All men’s impulses, when motivated by legitimate self-interest, fall into a harmonious social pattern.”

An Illegitimate Republic: The Moral Case Against a Republic

Justin Oliver — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 21:56:00 +0000

I originally intended this as a speech to the Educators of Liberty this weekend.

An Illegitimate Republic: The Moral Case Against a Republic

I have questioned if a republic is the best political form to protect individual rights. Some have stated they are confused by what I mean, so I have asked to speak before the body to clear up the matter. I want to take this opportunity, on the record, to explain why I believe any state-imposed government is antithetical of liberty and, therefore, illegitimate. Now when I said “the state,” I mean any political entity that claims the monopoly on the initiation of force within a geographic area. Or as Frederic Bastiat put it, “The state is the great fictitious entity in which everyone endeavors to live at the expense of everyone else.”

Morally, I oppose any initiation of force or coercion. As Ron Paul said, “The most important element of a free society, where individual rights are held in the highest esteem, is the rejection of the initiation of violence.” That is not such a radical claim, is it, that we should restrain from initiating force against out neighbors and that force should only be used in self-defense against such hostility? Yet, it is self-evident that the state constantly initiates force to impose its will. It is institutionalized violence.

But wait, a republic is different, you say. In its proper form, supposedly, it defends individuals against this abuse. But I disagree. Its most fundamental method of initiating force, the one on which its other powers rest, is the claim to have governing authority over all people within a geographic area regardless of a peaceful individual’s objection to do so. Even competing governmental services (such as for defense, law enforcement, judicial arbitration, and law making) must submit to and comply with these higher authorities or face violent retribution.

Rightly, most people would oppose an individual using force to be the monopoly supplier of a product or service. Yet, too often, most people accept the state’s aggression against every entity that threatens its monopoly. The most common method of initiating this force is taxation, allegedly the price you pay to live in civil society. How can a group of people that enforces its will at the end of gun be called civilized? How can a mob be called civilized?

The abolitionist Lysander Spooner summed it up: The fact is that the government, like a highwayman, says to a man:

“Your money, or your life.” And many, if not most, taxes are paid under the compulsion of that threat. 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. … Furthermore, having taken your money, he leaves you, as you wish him to do. He does not persist in following you on the road, against your will; assuming to be your rightful “sovereign,” on account of the “protection” he affords you. He does not keep “protecting” you, by commanding you to bow down and serve him; by requiring you to do this, and forbidding you to do that; by robbing you of more money as often as he finds it for his interest or pleasure to do so.

As Bastiat pointed out: If every person has the right to defend even by force—his person, his liberty, and his property, then it follows that a group of men have the right to organize and support a common force to protect these rights constantly. … Thus, since an individual cannot lawfully use force against the person, liberty, or property of another individual, then the common force—for the same reason—cannot lawfully be used to destroy the person, liberty, or property of individuals or groups.

Since no individual may justly use force to seize the justly acquired property of others, then no group—for the same reason—may justly use force to seize the justly acquired property of others. The state violates it’s own laws, and therefore, is neither a legitimate lawmaker nor law enforcer. Just and proper laws would be those that impose a “a mere negation. They oblige [an individual] only to abstain from harming others.” As Bastiat said time and again, “Law is force.” He added: But when the law, by means of its necessary agent, force, imposes upon men a regulation of labor, a method or a subject of education, a religious faith or creed—then the law is no longer negative; it acts positively upon people. It substitutes the will of the legislator for their own wills; the initiative of the legislator for their own initiatives. When this happens, the people no longer need to discuss, to compare, to plan ahead; the law does all this for them. Intelligence becomes a useless prop for the people; they cease to be men; they lose their personality, their liberty, their property.

Then I must be some kind of radical for questioning this. Quoting Bastiat again, “If you suggest a doubt as to the morality of these institutions, it is boldly said that ‘You are a dangerous innovator, a utopian, a theorist, a subversive; you would shatter the foundation upon which society rests.’ ” He then continued, “Thus, if there exists a law which sanctions slavery or monopoly, oppression or robbery, in any form whatever, it must not even be mentioned. For how can it be mentioned without damaging the respect which it inspires? Still further, morality and political economy must be taught from the point of view of this law; from the supposition that it must be a just law merely because it is a law.”

Well, I confess. I am a radical. As Barry Goldwater claimed, “Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. … Moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.”

So, if I don’t like the state, why not just leave? After all, am I not granting consent by staying put? Well, no. It is no more consensual than preferring to live in a neighborhood prone to burglary because I don’t want to live in a neighborhood prone to murder. The burglar is still immoral and a criminal. As Bastiat reminded us, “It was the fact that life, liberty and property existed beforehand that caused men to make laws in the first place.” The question pre-supposes that the state and the burglar have some higher claim to my property than I do, but the state and the burglar have only come to power because of their past successful conquest and plunder.

I could more rightly ask, and I do, why doesn’t the state just leave? The state doesn’t own my property. The state doesn’t own my labor. The state doesn’t own my mind. I do. Then if I oppose the state, what am I in favor of and how do we achieve it? My ideal world is one in which human interaction is voluntary. That means individuals should be free to do as they consent so long as they do not violate the rights of another. That includes what competing governments, if any, they choose to be subject to and financially support, what they produce, what they consume, and how they live your life. Bastiat said, “If a nation were founded on this basis, it seems to me that order would prevail among the people … whatever its political form may be” [emphasis mine].

Again from Bastiat, “It is as if the socialists were to accuse us of not wanting persons to eat because we do not want the state to raise grain.” Just because I do not want a state-imposed government, that does not mean I am blind to the value of voluntarily organizing a common defense and consolidating the rule of natural law, such has been the case for common-law judiciaries and the admiralty law at sea. Just because I don’t want the state to provide my education, that does not mean I want to be ignorant.
< br />Luckily, these ideas are not that foreign to us, not yet. Most governmental entities are voluntary, such as in business, non-profit organizations, and activists organizations such as this one. The people who are governed by them have consented voluntarily, and both parties have an opportunity to peacefully dissolve their relationship. And I support using the political process to work within the system, as one of many strategies. Until the time comes when the state’s coercive powers can be peacefully abolished, one of those temporary stepping stones could be a republican form of government, which I consider to be the least worst forms of statism, that is, the belief that sovereignty rests with the state.

But that is not the finish line. Liberty is the ultimate political means and the ultimate political ends. A limited constitutional republic, fundamentally, suffers from the inherent contradictions of violating individual rights in an effort to protect them. As Maximilian Robespierre, the French republican responsible for the “Reign of Terror” in revolutionary France said openly, “The principle of the republican government is virtue, and the means required to establish virtue is terror.” Deep down, we all understand this. If the state provided exactly what each individual wanted from it, as the market does best, there would be no need for its coercion.

Those governmental services would be available in the market because it is dynamic and responsive, while the state is slow and inefficient. It is because the state uses coercion to transfer wealth from one individual to another that slave masters were so receptive to forming its first primitive models. Inevitably, that contradiction of attempting to uphold liberty by initiating force will be exploited, just as every republic in all of history has been. Lest we forget, power corrupts, Lord Acton said.

Thus, a true republican government can only exist for a brief moment in time until its coercive powers are used to expand its reach. I believe an alternative approach that does not employ coercion provides for the greatest possibility of justice and liberty. Bastiat said, “Justice is achieved only when injustice is absent.” So I ask of you, is it not utopian to believe in a hypothetical republican form that has never truly existed, that will not exists because it cannot exist, that is contradictory to its purpose, and that would require a shift in the fundamental nature of human beings? Is that not madness?

Or is it more reasonable to believe that some individuals are good, some aren’t, and we should not entrust our lives and liberty to a structure that has violated them at every moment since its inception? Even still, some wonder if order and society would break down without this sweeping threat of force to keep others submissive. From that rationale, a world government is needed because every nation-state also exists in a state of anarchy with one another. It is easy to understand why some believe there must be a supreme international governing body to keep each national government in check. Paraphrasing Benjamin Tucker, just as it has been said there is no stop between Rome and Reason, so it can be said there is no logically consistent third way between international state socialism and liberty.

Thank you for hearing me out. If anyone has questions for me or would like to discuss what I have said, I will gladly give you my e-mail. The reason I wanted to write this is because I believe our philosophy guides our actions; however, there is no purpose in requiring that each and every person in the liberty movement agree point by point. What is important is that we can defend our means and motives as just. The economic and pragmatic cases for liberty are compelling and need to be told. Too often, though, I fail to acknowledge our most potent and successful principle, the moral case for liberty. I hope this does a little bit to make up for that. In the end, my belief in the perseverance of life convinces me that someday we will truthfully say “with liberty and justice for all.”