The confusion lies in failing to distinguish between two senses of subjectivism, meta-ethical (or explanatory) and normative. Explanatory subjectivism is pretty sensible. Accordingly, if you want to explain why people acted the way they did, you have to look to the beliefs they held at the time of their action. It does not make much sense to interpret why someone acted the way they did by looking through values he or she did not believe.

Subjectivist economists subscribe to this view. And in that sense, subjectivist economics has no implied values other than those values inherent in science, e.g., regards for truth and whatnot. You can consider it value-neutral, but not value-free.

The more controversial (and I think mistaken) view is in normative subjectivism. It is a belief that a value (or end) has no more or no less merit than any other value. It would be perfectly suitable to argue about how to achieve a certain value, but not whether the value is worth pursuing. The case for normative subjectivism is that since everyone is capable of having an opinion, it stands that everyone’s opinion of a desired end is equally valid and equally arbitrary.

Normative and explanatory subjectivism are making two entirely different claims, and you can believe one without believing the other.

Some subjectivist economists, like Ludwig von Mises, held both views.

In “Human Action,” Mises declared, “The teachings of utilitarian philosophy and classical economics have nothing at all to do with the doctrine of natural right. … They recommend popular government, private property, tolerance, and freedom not because they are natural and just, but because they are beneficial.”

Meanwhile, Murray Rothbard, a natural rights proponent and an early Mises protege, accepted only explanatory subjectivism and demanded an objectivist defense for individual rights, which he presented in “The Ethics of Liberty.” (Whether he presented a valid defense is for another time.) The two very much parted ways on this, with Rothbard calling it Mises’ “greatest defect.” Yet they both agreed, at a minimum, that economics can be used to determine if particular means are conducive to achieving particular ends.

Rothbard takes this further in “Power and Market.” He talks about how certain ends can be dismissed because they are unachievable or contradictory to one’s means.

Mises supported a free market purely for consequentialist reasons because he supported the peace and prosperity that result from a free market, which gives a foundation for the greatest possible opportunity for people to act on their judgements. He also believed that the vast majority of people value peace and prosperity. When informed of the benefits of freedom, Mises was convinced that people would choose it overwhelmingly. I think he misread the importance that ethics has on people’s minds.

Part of Mises’ fear was that if he gave ground to ethical objectivists, it would give reason to use physical force again those who did not support the “objective truth,” as presumably approved by a tyrannical majority. Mises also adopted a utilitarian form of consquentialism because he thought it would be better to have a single value (the common good) rather than a number of competing values.

However, although they very well could, I am not so sure that values do have to compete against one another. They could very well complement one another in a non-contradictory hierarchy. The content of a value would have to fit in context with other values to form a a cohesive unit. The consequences of an action have an impact on the worth of that action, but another factor that plays into it is how congruent it is with your other means of action. If you are able to demonstrate the principles necessary to achieve your ends, it is possible to identify the objective causal facts that bring those ends into effect. It would become possible to understand the most beneficial ends of human beings by identifying relevant facts about the nature of human beings. It is possible to understand why human freedom leads to maximizing human welfare. Coupled with the idea that each individual is not capable of achieving values if he or she were not alive, we can say that each individual’s own life is an objective end in itself as a matter of fact.

Since no one’s life could morally be sacrificed for another’s, this would have given Mises an objective basis for individual rights.

While I can rightly dismiss ethical subjectivism, economic subjectivism becomes the basis for understanding economic phenomenon when you appreciate that economic values are a matter of individual judgement and not intrinsic in the product itself.

• “Economics and Its Ethical Assumptions” by Roderick T. Long
• “Acting Man: Human Action as an Ultimate Given,” Human Action by Ludwig von Mises
• “Economic subjectivism“
• “Subjective theory of value” on Wikipedia

But the anti-market conception of freedom is only recognizing the “yoke of external nature,” as anarcho-communist Mikhail Bakunin called it. Or like Wesley Bertrand on a recent “Complete Liberty” podcast said, “Life is the freedom to starve.” This yoke cannot be removed so long as we are alive. It is the everlasting condition underlying every action we make: to live or die, to improve our material condition or suffer. To say that a starving man is not free is to reverse cause and effect. Consumption only becomes possible after production. It is only through production that an individual can provide for his well-being. A starving man has fewer opportunities to take advantage of his freedom, but also at no other time is his freedom of more value. Without it, his mind would be paralyzed to think, ensuring his destruction.

The root conflict between my understanding of liberty and someone like Bakunin, for example, is I believe that indirect and direct physical force are the only means of violating someone’s rights. All libertarians committed to non-aggression would agree that if a starving man is prevented by physical force from engaging in productive action, then he is not free. Bakunin is correct that the right to liberty is only of significance in the realm of interpersonal relationships, but I contend that that the only way of impeding someone’s rights is by force. We can be victims of our neighbor’s irrationality or bigotry. But so long as that injustice is not manifested in the unauthorized use or abuse of another’s rightly controlled property or person, the damage is psychological and not physical. We remain free to use our minds and the products of our mind as we see fit. We remain free to use the property in question to inform others of the injustice we received.

For those of political power, freedom is an outright threat to the existence of their power. That is because its origin is vested in violence and sought through favoritism, so the static quantity of its influence must increasingly become cartelized into fewer and fewer hands. That system can distribute wealth, but it cannot create it. Their power extents only so far as they can project authority over others or convince others they too can benefit from that power. For those of economic power, they are insulated from the harsh realities of tyrannical governments and can position themselves to profit from partnering with the state. So it is natural for the two to protect each of their interests. One has a legal monopoly on coercion, but not the ability to create wealth of its own. The other has wealth, but not supposed the authority to initiate the use of physical force.

It is important not to forget that political and economic interests acquire power from fundamentally different sources. The former confiscates wealth and subjugates individuals as a matter of course, while the latter serves to disperse power through mutually beneficial exchange (to the degree it does not cling to political power). Economic power, when not acquired by physical force, is a product of the limitless creative process, consensual regulation, market competition, and organized labor.

Confusing the two as one in the same leads to the support for less liberty and less opportunity. An example of this is the famed anarchist Noam Chomsky, who actively supports the expansion of state control. While justly viewing the state as a tool of domination and privilege, he looks to the state for protection from the same interests he believes are manipulating it in their favor.

In an interview, he said:

I’m not in favour of people being in cages. On the other hand I think people ought to be in cages if there’s a sabre-toothed tiger wandering around outside and if they go out of the cage the sabre-toothed tiger will kill them. … And there is a cage, namely the state, which to some extent is under popular control. The cage is protecting people from predatory tyrannies so there is a temporary need to maintain the cage, and even to extend the cage.

Under a banner of protecting people from the infringement of political privilege, Chomsky has become a tool of entrenched political interests. It is also not lost on me that economic power disparities can be seized upon and manipulated in favor of one side of an exchange more than another. No political model can guarantee that people will act justly. But one can minimize the consequences of injustice and promote the occurrence of mutually positive interactions. To do this, a just society would need a widespread recognition for private property rights, but that is not sufficient to ensure that freedom would have much meaning. Here, I agree with Bakunin that individuals are only capable of achieving emancipation once they have recognized their same humanity in others. As Mary Ruwart said in “Healing Our World,” when we seek to control others, we find ourself the one controlled.

As a practical matter, a lasting libertarian society would more likely come about by a widespread cultural shift of accepting the choices of others, treating others equally as individuals, and becoming less obedient to oppressors. Most people do not become libertarians out of a duty to the non-aggression principle. They are attracted to the sense of justice and fairness inherent in equal liberty.

A free market would be a more abundant society and would radically expand the scope of economic opportunity. It would also be more efficient at helping the disabled and poor, who are often the most devastated victims of political favoritism. Without the expense of tax collection and tax compliance, together which gobble up two-thirds of welfare revenue received, those in need would experience dramatic increases in charity. It should go without saying that when I am talking about the free market, I am not apologizing for economic conditions as they exists now in America or elsewhere. I am working analytically to explain the economic consequences of an unhampered market process. To the extent that an unhampered market existed, one could expect these consequences to follow.

A practiced and still principled way of promoting a libertarian society is by addressing people’s legitimate concerns of what would happen to the less fortunate in a free society. Direct action, like mutual aid, social ostracism, and counter-economics, should be potent models to demonstrate the validity of equal liberty while also challenging the status quo. The downside of charity is that it tends to be a short-lived solution, so I do believe mutual aid would be a better way of promoting social harmony and overcoming the root cause of despair — if we are going to be free, not by vote, but as a matter of virtue.

I understand the definition of “faith” to be the means of acquiring a belief in a concept that lacks emperical evidence of its existence or, better yet, a belief in something in spite of the available evidence. By this, making a judgement on the best available emperical evidence, even if incomplete, would not be acting on faith. I do not mean faith in the colloquial sense either, like remaining faithful.

For clarity’s sake, I understand virtues to mean the consistent actions by which one achieves moral values.

But everyone has faith in something, some might argue. Even if true (and I am not conceding it is) that would not mean people ought to have faith. “If all your friends jumped off a bridge ….” You get my point. No doubt, some benefit from their faith and achieve things they might have never dreamed possible.  In the coming paragraphs, I hope to prove that faith is not something that can be practiced consistently in order to achieve moral values.

For sure, we accept ideas everyday without a complete understanding of the facts, but we can still deduce (or infer) beliefs from previous evidence we believe is true. In order to do so, we use logic to decide what evidence is relevant, what evidence is lacking, and how important is each in order to make a decision or withhold from making a decision. When I am driving down the street, how do I know that the driver coming in the opposite direction is not going to steer into my lane and cause a head-on collision?  Since everyone has a free will, I can never know absolutely.  Based on the preponderance of the emperical evidence, I have no reason to believe the typical driver will cause a collision. My judgement could be mistaken, but the only way of knowing that is by studying the consequences of the empirical evidence.

The distinction between human beings and the lower animals is our ability to form concepts and choose values. We are not especially superior in any physical sense to other animals, who can see better at night, travel faster, carry proportionally more weight, and adapt to the environment more quickly. But we sit atop the food chain. The greatest advantage we have is our ability to conceptualize.

Yet, we are also at another disadvantage. We do not not inherit knowledge from birth. We are a blank slate. Since values — those things which one wishes to gain or keep — are not given through instincts, they must be discovered with the only tool available to us for integrating perceptions of (objective) reality. We have the choice to make our character what we want it to be. We can choose good or evil. If we want a happy life, we have to discover and uphold rational, life-promoting principles (virtues) that make it possible. They are the actions that further and sustain one’s life when practiced consistently.

The extent to which people neglect or reject their their greatest tool of survival is the extent that they retard their life. The extent to which people believe something in the absence of evidence or in spite of it is the extent to which people believe something because they want to. They believe because they feel like it, meaning faith is a form of subjectivism. Unwittingly, they build their support for absolute truth on the soft sands of subjectivism.

Yet, many people of faith defend their religious belief because God gives authority to the purpose of morality. If God did not exist, anything goes, they might say. But without realizing it, supporters of faith concede that reality is not objectively knowable, that reason is a handicap to be subordinated to revelation, dogma and mysticism, and that support for morality rests on a whim.

I am not disparaging feelings or emotions. They are important factors, as are our cognitive powers. Emotions are the automatic responses to value judgments produced by the premises we hold. Conflict between reason and emotions only arises when the premises of our emotions are in conflict with reality.

Subjectivism as Sacrifice

The invariable contradictions that arise from such a mindset lead to incredible frustration and self-doubt. As people reject the crippling effects of faith, which they increasingly are, many cling to their subjectivist preconceptions of morality. They have heard all their life that without God, anything goes. So with their newfound disbelief, the truth is what you feel it is.

Morality becomes the domain of society. The “common good,” “the public interest,” and “majority will” become the dominant motives of morality. “If individuals have to be sacrificed to satisfy morality, then so be it.” Evil becomes “necessary.” The good is not longer tied to the individual but to the collective.

Life as the End

Meanwhile, the true paradigm is that without an objective reality, then morality does not exist. But reality does exist; therefore I am. Faith is not necessary to believe in morality. The law of identity, the law of causality, and the corollary law of non-contradiction are not debatable. They are the axiomatic metaphysical givens that underlie every action we take. The very attempt of dispoving them demonstrates their validity. They are absolute, self-evident and unchanging.

Individuals are all there are. The “common good” is a meaningless concept because the collective is only a metaphor. Try and point to a collective without pointing to the individuals or the consequences of their actions. We as humans are given a choice: to live or not to live. If we choose life, and there are objective reasons to live and prosper, the process of achieving that value (our life) is called morality. The concept of a value presupposes the existence of a valuer. Without life, values would be a meaningless concept. This means that sustaining one’s life is the purpose of all moral values; it is how they come to be. As life exists only in individuals, each individual’s life is an end in itself and should not be sacrificed to others or to metaphorical collectives.

That is why faith is so dangerous. It gives people an easy excuse to believe what they want, which others are sure to disagree with for their own subjective reasons. The only way to settle this dispute is by majority vote if we are lucky and by force of arms if we aren’t so lucky. In either case, the rule is might means right. The victory goes to the most underhanded, the most violent, and the most deceitful.

Typically, when I argued against the state (traditionally a territorially monopolistic and individually non-consensual political organization), I stressed that the property claims of governments were not just. That would be about the extent of my criticism, implying I would support such an organization with the same powers had only its territory been justly acquired. It was a bit of toe dancing on my part. I was not nearly as opposed to the state for the way in which it had initially claimed its authority as I was to the power, per se, the state claimed for itself.

The power that was so destructive, and the one that made all of the state’s other abuses possible, was its claim to have a final monopoly power to sanction the proper use of force. That is the distinguishing mark, in my mind, from any other political organization.

To quote Ayn Rand at length:

The difference between political power and any other kind of social “power,” between a government and any private organization, is the fact that a government holds a legal monopoly on the use of physical force. This distinction is so important and so seldom recognized today that I must urge you to keep it in mind. Let me repeat it: a government holds a legal monopoly on the use of physical force (emphasis in original work).

No individual or private group or private organization has the legal power to initiate the use of physical force against other individuals or groups and to compel them to act against their own voluntary choice. Only a government holds that power. The nature of governmental action is: coercive action. The nature of political power is: the power to force obedience under threat of physical injury—the threat of property expropriation, imprisonment, or death.

Now, Rand supported an individual’s right to self-defense. She just believed a government must have a legal monopoly to determine when the use of physical force is appropriate, placing coercion under objective law. Without the power to enforce those decisions, government would be impotent to defend rights, according to Rand.

Government is Aggression

With this understanding of what a government is, it is important to recognize that government necessarily goes beyond the bounds of just being coercive; its very existence is an act of initiating coercion and, consequently, committing aggression.

For the sake of argument, had a government acquired and maintained its property claim by voluntary consent and without any hint of duress, government would still be an aggressor. In effect, what the people in government are stating by claiming their unique power is that they intend to use force against anyone who defends the life or property of citizens whose agreement with the government had been broken by the government. So even if the government officials violate the terms of the constitution or any other law and other officials in the government refuse to enforce that violation, private citizens who decide to enforce that agreement themselves, after being turned away by the government, may have force used against them by the very people who violated the constitution or any other law.

A property owner too claims a monopoly on the use of his or her property, but claiming by force that his or her violation of a contract is not reviewable constitutes, at least, an imminent threat of aggression. Why else would someone find it necessary to make such a claim if they were not intent on acting upon it? It would also not be valid to give a party to a contract the ultimate decision-making power to enforce or interpret the agreement themself without an independent party to whom an appeal can be placed. That itself would be a form of voluntary slavery, again making it invalid.

Is This Altogether Unprecedented?

The idea that there are natural limits to property is not unheard of. Most people do not accept John Locke’s monolithic property claim that any infringement of property rights can be used to justify any scope of retaliation the property owner wishes. The Rothbardian view of proportionality has trumped Locke in regards to ethical theory, in general, and justice, in particular.

For the same reason that voluntary slavery is a contradiction in terms, voluntary citizenship under a political government is incompatible with the free will nature of human beings and is, thus, void on its face.

I still have the same support for open immigration today but for different reasons, of course. What I mean to say is that support for open immigration is not exclusive to anarchists, though I do believe they have a deeper understanding of why immigration should be unregulated. Support for open immigration is not universally adopted by anarchists. One example would be Hans Hermann Hoppe, who claims that open immigration is equivalent to “forced integration.” I believe Sheldon Richman has sufficiently eviscerated that argument though.

Another libertarian unfortunately caught in the current immigration scare is Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX). He has called it “an invasion.” Constitutionally, congress has no expressly delegated power to regulate who may immigrate to or emigrate from the country, only how to become a citizen. The framers of the constitution had intended that states would be responsible for their own immigration policy but never envisioned such a welfare state either. In the interim, until government welfare is no longer subsidizing immigration, Paul and other constitutionalists dumbfoundingly insist that government needs additional powers to alleviate the consequences of the immigration problem it created.

Using Paul’s own premise of the necessity of political government, I believe it is self-evident that the only practical and ethical immigration policy is to open the borders. I do not happen to share Paul’s premise that government is necessary or proper, but I think I understand his stance after being a minarchist for several years myself.

Through Minarchist Glasses

Accepting for a moment that the state, as commonly understood, is necessary for the protection of individual rights, an open immigration policy would be a necessity. With that said, open immigration does not mean letting anyone into the country for any old reason whatsoever. A minarchist government could still require immigrants to register and pass a screening check to ensure they are neither perennial aggressors nor intent on committing aggression in the future. Additionally, a government could establish its own guidelines for becoming a citizen.

The argument against open immigration, as I understand it, is that government has the final say who can enter its territory. For this to be true, two conditions must both be true, that the government’s territory is legitimately controlled and that government can properly be assigned powers outside the scope of the defensive protection of individual rights.

First, I have said before that a stipulation on whether property is legitimately controlled is the means by which it was acquired. Government property, presently, is commonly acquired under coercion and with stolen money. Mandatory taxation is one form of theft, even to minarchists like Rand and Andrew Napolitano, who support the idea of a voluntary taxation paid in exchange for government services. Presently, no state in the history of civilization has met this fist condition, so no state in the history of civilization has the legitimate power to exclude peaceful, honest immigrants.

So far, I have made the gross assumption that government is necessary for the protection of individual rights. Simply looking at it as a thought experiment, I’m going to imagine that a government had aquired its territory by just means. The second hurdle a government would have to prove is that it can properly be assigned powers that are outside the scope of its legitimate function of defending individual rights. But this is objectively impossible. In the ontological sense, an individual or a group of individuals may not transfer power to a government other than those which are used expressly for the defense of individual rights. Government by its nature is coercive. That coercion may be used defensively or aggressively. Any government action that does not involve the defensive protection of individual rights must necessarily be used in aggression, even if everyone in the society agrees beforehand to grant government additional powers. To say that somone has the right to violate my inalienable rights is contradictory, so government can have no proper powers beyond the scope of the defensive protection of individual rights.

Rand said, “To take rights like those of property and contractual freedom that are based on a foundation of the absolute self-ownership of the will and then to use those derived rights to destroy their own foundation is philosophically invalid.”

Transferring additional rights other than those necessary for the defense of individual rights would require being able to transfer one’s free will, which is impossible, of course.

In the same way, a group of people could not form a government wherein someone becomes a voluntary slave. Free will is not transferable, in whole or in part, so a voluntary slave can never exchange his free will. The notion that property like roads and parks, neither of which are necessary for the protection of rights, can properly be granted to government would still require a transfer of free will but only to a lesser scale and in a slightly augmented way. At worst, a voluntary slave could be looked upon as a making a promise. A slave who breaks that promise could be ostracized, but it would not be legitimate to use force against him.

Basically, just as someone cannot be held liable for agreeing to voluntary slavery, one cannot properly assign rights or powers to a government other than those which make forming a government a necessary function of society. This is important because a government that goes beyond its proper function could no longer operate as an objective referee who enforces objective rules. A government is given this exception of having a legal monopoly to determine the proper use of force, according to minarchists like Rand, because free will could not function in any practical sense without the existence of a limited government to defend rights and enforce lawful agreements.

Further Implications as a Minarchist

Property that is currently under the unjust control of government does have an owner. It just so happens that proper claims are made so murky that it would be practically impossible to determine who deserves restitution and to what degree, making property under unjust government control de facto unowned.

Sentimentally, I agree that someone with long-standing ties to the community or the original owner has a higher moral claim to that property than a recent mover. But when left with the alternative of leaving it in the hands of an oppressor or liberating that stolen property, the emphasis should be to reduce the harm being inflicted as soon as possible.

If government property is being used to violate individual rights, that property should revert [Edit May 6, after some reconsideration] to whoever is being aggressed against. If someone were to destroy that property or liberate it, then the government responsible for violating rights would be morally responsible for providing restitution to the willing legitimate owner.

Back in Reality Mode

My thoughts are that citizenship under political government is just an embellished form of voluntary slavery, making it void and in contradiction with human nature.

The questionable land acquisition of nearly every government in existence is an obvious point in favor of anarchism. But that debate usually breaks down into how consent of the governed can be achieved. My deeper concern is whether granting final decision-making authority to a single organization could result in a just social order. Often, we can see how relationships based on power are exploitative without either party resorting to aggression. After all, the state minimizes its naked aggression because it can rely on the inertia of majority will, propaganda, or its overwhelming military presence to command obedience. Many libertarians or so-called anarcho-capitalists I read do not seem to object fundamentally to these power structures, which is disappointing, because they do overly focus on the low-hanging fruit of the state’s land acquisition process. So, I associate a pro-liberty mindset with more just anti-statism but with a more robust expression of opposition to collectivist authoritarianism in general.

It is still an on-going process in my own mind to understand, and I am open to criticism (including the ones I mentioned above). If anyone would like to discuss this off-site, let me know.

[Note: This post was compiled from an e-mail discussion.]

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.

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.”

But how can that be? If the people that this government is guarding me against are inherently evil or crazy, such an argument would have no sway. What good is a government, let along a government that maintains its monopoly protection by force, going to do to cause irrational people to act rationally? Simple, it creates a police state. Waiting until someone acts is too late, the geographic area of protection is too large, and the means of acting can be too unidentifiable, especially with the existence of modern communication over the Web and by cell phone.

We are at heart so profoundly anarchistic that the only form of state we can imagine living in is Utopian; and so cynical that the only Utopia we can believe in is authoritarian. — Lionel Trilling

A totalitarian government that monitors and criminalizes thought really is the only solution. Of course, this government would be quite expensive to pay for the legions of regulators, police and jails. Individuals in this powerful government would hardly be accountable for any mistakes or mischievous acts. That really is the heart of it, isn’t it? In all likelihood, the very people it is claimed are necessary for protection from will head the government. Liberty-minded folks who respect other people’s decisions how to live their lives do not find value in regulating others and bossing them around. But for someone who does find value in that, whatever the pretext may be (to protect the environment, the children, you name it), of course they would seek out positions in the only organization with the legitimized power to govern others by force.

There’s even a term for it called regulatory capture — when the regulated become the regulators. Those busybodies will seek to expand their control by looking to precedent, reinterpreting past constitutional or legal restraints, and finally passing new laws if the other techniques haven’t worked.

For small government types, the utopian belief in violence via government to solve problems should be obvious if it hasn’t been already. This utopianism, an “impractical, idealistic scheme for social and political reform,” really hampers the intellectual progress necessary for actual reform. It would be like refusing to escape torturers after freeing yourself from their leg shackles. I say run free and open your stride.

For big government types, the utopian belief in violence via government rests further on the imaginary belief in the ability to change human nature. That will have to be tackled at another time.

She said, “Forcing me to get a license on my property is like using the aggression of the law to take what is rightfully mine.” Quoting from Bastiat’sThe Law , she said, “When a portion of wealth is transferred from the person who owns it — without his consent and without compensation, and whether by force or by fraud — to anyone who does not own it, then I say that property is violated; that an act of plunder is committed.”

Mayor Bill Lanford then responded to Katy. In one exchange he said, “I want to rebut the idea that your property is yours and we have to leave it all alone. That’s not true; that’s not true. It never has been true.” The mayor also admitted they were committing an act of violence by using force against residents, saying “We forcibly take your tax money; we make you pay taxes.” Calling liberty a “half-truth,” he said aggressive force is necessary to create a sense fear, or what he deemed “responsibility.”

Katy responded, “I do fundamentally disagree because before there were laws, we had rights. Our rights are derived from property; our rights are derived from God. When we keep putting registration on people, when we keep asking people to pay taxes on things they have worked so hard to own, then we are violating people’s rights.”

During a break in the meeting, I interviewed assistant city manager Chuck Barnett. I asked what should happen to someone who refuses to obey or pay the fine. He said it was acceptable to imprison someone who does “challenge the system.”

We’ll try to better organize opposition to the proposal next time. The council did not set a hard date for reintroduction, so we don’t know when it will be heard again. The most frustrating thing for me was to hear little principled opposition, like debating with a pirate how deep the sword should go. That’s election politics. I can only hope that the council members ask themselves what is it about their psychology that they are willing to use force against peaceful people.

I forgive them, of course, for their transgressions, but it is still wrong.

1. The Constitution is in no way binding in any legal way on anyone but the men who wrote it.
2. Therefore, the government it created has no authority over anyone but the men who wrote the constitution.
3. Everyone who wrote the constitution is dead, so no one is legally bound to follow the constitution or any entity that it created.
4. A person cannot prove he or she took any oath to the constitution under his or her own free because no one may legally administer the oath.
5. Voting in elections does not bind one to the constitution, as the ballots cast are secret and no one can prove whom he or she supported.
6. Paying taxes is not a mode of consent because they are paid under the penalty of force.
7. Actions taken taken under duress or not intentional are not legally binding.
8. Therefore, government officials are nothing more than impostors and thieves.
9. Their laws are just the pretend scribbles of the pretend government.
10. The same facts apply to every other nation that has ever existed.
11. Government officials, in reality, are the pawns of industrialists and bankers.
12. Therefore, the world is ruled by bands of money lenders, tyrants, murderers.

Whether you accept Spooner’s reasoning or not, this much of what he said about the constitution is true: “That it has either authorized such a government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it.”

Let me state for the record that I, too, want to live in a clean, safe neighborhood, a neighborhood that is welcoming to all people, and a neighborhood that is safe from violent individuals. After all, that’s why you and I are all here tonight. Although my primary objection is to the means used to collect this money, I do believe that the rates are already too high as well. However, seeing that the discussion tonight is about the tax rates, I will limit my remarks to just that.

If we kept the government to its proper functions, then the city government could be run on a fraction of its current budget.

As the French philosopher and pamphleteer explained, the role of government is the protection of life, liberty and property. And when the government violates those bounds, then individuals must bear the unintended consequences that inevitably follow from that decision. It’s what he called the seen and the unseen. The unseen consequences may be less obvious but none the less relevant. He offered a tremendous insight into why this must be so. For the sake of time, I won’t go into those now.

Take the case before us. I grant you that increasing taxes will generate more revenue, which will provide for more city services. Now, let’s investigate for just one minute what could be the unseen consequences of increasing taxes.

Individuals would have spent that money how they saw fit to improve the lives of their children and their families. We have all dealt firsthand with the increasing burden of consumer prices for gasoline and groceries as the Federal Reserve continues to devalue the dollar with its inflationary policies. Families could have used that money to buy school supplies, to save for the future, or to invest in their business or themselves. Someone may decide to start a new business because the city is seen as more tax friendly, and then new jobs are created. By allowing everyone in the city to improve their lives ever so much, hasn’t the general welfare of the people also improved? They may not have used the money how I saw fit, but the point is that I can never use that money to best improve their lives as they could themselves. Allowing free people to live freely, that is how we have come to enjoy the greatest abundance that the world has ever known. It’s what makes this discussion over how much wealth to take even possible.

I would even go so far to challenge the idea that the quantity of government services is a measure of community’s values. I believe that a government should not be measured by the services it provides, but by the rights it protects.

With freedom comes the responsibility for how we use that freedom. Once we have the courage to accept that, we automatically become part of the solution by honoring our peaceful neighbor’s choices and no longer trying to control them. When you think about it, that really is the good neighbor policy. Thank you.

Two other residents gave testimony opposing a tax increase after me, but they were also commenting on their desire to increase the quality and quantity of various city projects. One individual told me that he appreciated my comments, and we had a quick discussion about Debra Medina’s proposal to end property taxes and the Texas Liberty Campaign. The next meeting is Monday, Aug. 31, when the vote will likely occur.