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 has 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

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.

The role of politics is to decide who controls the figurative pencil or another resource at any particular time and for what ends. The same could be said of government. Two individuals might have diametrically opposed reasons for supporting a government, but they both support the existence of government. For example, Thomas Jefferson stated that government should be established to secure our individual inalienable rights. In comparison, Benito Mussolini said, “Fascism conceives of the State as an absolute, in comparison with which all individuals or groups are relative, only to be conceived in their relation to the State.”

These two ideas cannot both be true at the same time. Nevertheless, there is an ideal form of government that could conceivably achieve both Jefferson’s and Mussolini’s ends, though not at the same time, of course.

What Is Meant by ‘Government’

As the argument goes, men are not angels, so government is necessary to resolve disputes that arise. But what is a government? John Locke put much thought into this and decided that a functioning government needed to satisfy three “inconveniences” that would arise when living in a society that lacked a government. Locke believed there needed to be a known, settled law by which all disputes are ruled against. Second, he believed there must be a sufficient threat of force behind those ruling so they are followed. Third, a government would need to function as an independent judge of disputes.

Why a Worldwide Dictatorship

The only way to remotely satisfy all three “inconveniences” is to establish a world government. Governments exist now in a state of anarchy with one another as there exists no supra-government that lives up to Locke’s standards to enforce international laws and agreements. Because of their ability to offset the costs of aggression with taxes, governments pose a far graver danger to peace and security than do regular criminals, so a world government is imperative if local or national governments exist. Citizens of other countries also exist in a state of anarchy with citizens of other countries, although this seems to be less of a problem than government-on-government coercion. The United Nations is the closest thing that resembles a world government, yet it does not have the power to coercively impose taxes on citizens of its member nations. Member nations voluntarily fund the UN, and it does not possess the enforcement power to make its resolutions binding.

Even if a world government capable of enforcing its rulings were established, members of the world government would still exist in a state of anarchy because no one external to the government enforces rules upon lawmakers. The one way to reduce conflicts within the government is to reduce the number of government officials. Conceivably, the least populated government would rest power in a single person to avoid incidences of anarchic relationships. Now, admittedly, even this would not entirely end the existence of anarchy since the dictator would also exist in a state of anarchy with everyone else on the planet. Yet, a worldwide dictatorship would be the most ideal government, should one exist, to eliminate anarchic relationships.

For Jeffersonians, world government would be a nightmarish thought at first blush. Many Jeffersonians also believe that government is inevitable, that some form of government will always exist. That is certainly a theory and all the more reason to support immediately establishing a world dictatorship of limited powers before a world government of expansive powers is possibly created by a Chinese-Indian coalition.

For the Mussolini crowd, a worldwide dictatorship would soon enough make “the State as an absolute” a reality.

Why Not a Worldwide Dictatorship

I am being facetious in advocating a worldwide dictatorship. But a world government is where support for any government inevitably leads its supporters. In fact, a worldwide dictatorship of limited powers would quickly dissolve into complete tyranny. (Hint: Hierarchical power structures are not responsive to demands for accountability.)

What we see is the more that power is disproportionately divided among people, the more violence tends to erupt and corruption festers. Government is so dangerous precisely because it can externalize the costs of its violence onto captive taxpayers. The more that power is dispersed and divided, the greater that rights are respected and peace prevails. The profit and loss mechanism and competition, not the impossibility of constant vigilance, provide a natural check on the size of business enterprises and the power they can aggregate to themselves.

In truth, the ideal form of government is none at all since its purpose, from a rights-respecting perspective, is impossible. That does not mean a lack of governance or rule-making in society. A society without the ability to bring order would quickly be no society at all. The absence of monopoly government does not mean everyone will be of a pure heart and display empathy for his fellow man. Precisely because we are not angels, rules and rules enforcement should not be centrally commanded and controlled.

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.

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.”

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.”

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

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.”