Philosophical Anarchism — Government as Necessary Evil

 Posted by at 7:32 pm  6 Responses »
Nov 172011
 

Government is force. Anyone who disagrees is invited to try peaceful noncompliance with government. Try not paying taxes, smoking cannabis, working for less than minimum wage, or do anything peaceful that’s against the government’s rules. If they find out and you continue to peacefully refuse to comply, they will eventually assault you and put you in a cage (euphemistically called arrest and imprisonment). If you go one step further and use self defense with a gun (the only realistic way to defend yourself against police), you’ll probably end up getting shot.

Government does things that would be considered criminal if done by ordinary people. It repeatedly takes your money with the threat of force (arrest, or death if you resist that) and calls it taxation. It forbids acts between consenting adults for their own good (any black market activity, any regulated activity). It murders people and calls it war. It prevents the free association of its subjects with other people in the name of restricting immigration. Practically everything it does would be considered criminal if done by an ordinary person.

Even the most minimal night-watchman state, funded by voluntary donations, would still be coercive. At the very least, it would have to prohibit any competing protection services. Otherwise it would risk being competed out of existence.

That government is evil shouldn’t be a controversial point. Economists justify government on the grounds that public goods cannot be produced voluntarily and hence coercive government measures are justified.

Philosophical anarchism is the position that government is a necessary evil, to be done away with if there were a viable alternative. This should be the default position on government, held by any decent person with an intact moral sense. (I go further and advocate market anarchism as a viable alternative.)

Government is force, and force should be used sparingly if it must be used at all. It seems to me that most people have forgotten this; they would prefer profligate use of government over sparing use. Thus, people need constant reminding that government rules are backed by coercive police power (and that markets are voluntary). In most cases, markets can solve whatever problems government is supposedly solving, and much more efficiently to boot. As such, we ought to be doubly reluctant to use government: for both moral and economic reasons.

 The State  Tagged with: , ,

Monarchy vs. Democracy and The Decline of Civilization

 Posted by at 6:00 pm  49 Responses »
Jun 202009
 

Social decayDespite incredible advances in knowledge and technology over the past few decades, living standards have actually declined (also see here and here). [edit Aug 2010: In retrospect this statement was too strong, living standards are certainly higher today. It would be more accurate to say that the rate of increase has fallen.] Taken alone, this makes no sense—comparable advances in the past, such as the industrial revolution, have sparked enormous increases in prosperity. On top of falling living standards, civilization is crumbling: war, poverty, crime, debt, disease, social dysfunction, family breakdown, hedonism, etc. Why are so many things going wrong, despite unparalleled advances in knowledge and technology? This is the great unanswered question of our time. Keep reading...

 Books, Economics, Libertarian Theory, Market Anarchy, The State  Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,

Constitutionalism is Socialism

 Posted by at 10:50 pm  30 Responses »
Mar 122009
 

A constitutionally limited government provides the services of security and justice. To accomplish this, it establishes a system of national defense, police and courts—these are the means of production of security and justice. By definition then, limited government is socialist (i.e., state ownership of the means of production.) It’s also socialist in the sense that the provision of security and justice is socialized: the costs and benefits are collectively shared. Furthermore, these services are funded through involuntary taxation and private citizens are coercively prohibited from competing in their provision. Government is inherently a coercive socialist monopoly. Therefore, constitutionalists are socialists, as they support limited government. (To be precise, constitutionalists are coercive socialists—I have nothing against voluntary socialism, which is perfectly legitimate.)

The thing is, they also consider the principles of liberty to be important. Constitutionalists believe that markets are better than central planning, but that government is necessary to protect liberty—that government is a necessary evil. This contradictory position mainly exists because they lack the understanding of the logical conclusion of the principles of liberty: the stateless society. But rather than just rejecting them as statists, we should reach out to them as potential libertarians in the spirit of gain orientation. Fortunately, an open mind and a little education are all that’s needed to arrive at a consistent pro-liberty position. Keep reading...

 Market Anarchy, The State  Tagged with: , , , ,

Fallacies of the Button-Pushing Question

 Posted by at 9:36 pm  2 Responses »
Jan 262009
 

“The true test, then, of the radical spirit, is the button-pushing test: if we could push the button for instantaneous abolition of unjust invasions of liberty, would we do it? If we would not do it, we could scarcely call ourselves libertarians, and most of us would only do it if primarily guided by a passion for justice. The genuine libertarian, then, is, in all senses of the word, an “abolitionist”; he would, if he could, abolish instantaneously all invasions of liberty, whether it be, in the original coining of the term, slavery, or whether it be the manifold other instances of State oppression. He would, in the words of another libertarian in a similar connection, ‘blister my thumb pushing that button!’” – Murray N. Rothbard, “Why Be Libertarian?“

The button-pushing question is the test of radicalism and consistency. Being an abolitionist is what it means to be a libertarian. As libertarians we must advocate the instantaneous abolition of injustice, because any form of gradualism in theory means legitimizing the continuation of injustice.

But some have objected that pushing the button would be a mistake. If people still believe government is necessary, they argue, then another government will simply take over, and the resulting chaos will negate any possible gains. Keep reading...

 Market Anarchy, Strategy, The State  Tagged with: , ,

Against Democracy

 Posted by at 5:13 pm  37 Responses »
Dec 142008
 

Introduction

Democracy is universally held up as the sacred political ideal. In fact, it is no exaggeration to say that democracy is a secular religion. Observe: We fight wars for it (“Making the world safe for democracy”). We are implored to blindly participate in it (“It doesn’t matter who you vote for, just vote”). And most tellingly, it is taboo to question it. Anyone who claims that democracy is bad is likely to be labeled a Nazi. (Even though Hitler was democratically elected and much of Nazism was promoted with democratic rhetoric.)

Nevertheless, I will attempt to prove that democracy is one of the worst political ideologies, on par with dictatorship and communism. My argument is three pronged. First, democracy is founded on initiatory violence. It is thus no more acceptable than murder or rape. Second, it can be refuted by a reductio ad absurdum; namely, that while we accept democracy for government, we would never accept it applied consistently in our lives. Third, democracy is unnecessary. What is there to vote on? All essential functions of society can be provided voluntarily and competitively on the market. Programs like the minimum wage and rent control are actually counter-productive, and can be eliminated altogether. There are many other problems with democracy: its ineffectiveness, its corruption, its total war, and its decivilization effect; but I will not address these here (see Hoppe). Last, I will address two strategies to undermine and weaken democracy: not voting and secession. Keep reading...

 Economics, Market Anarchy, Non-voting, Secession, Strategy, The State  Tagged with: , , , ,

Working paper posted on Mises!

 Posted by at 10:29 pm  No Responses »
Dec 012008
 

My paper “A Rothbardian critique of Cuzán and Ostrowski and a Typology of Anarchy”, has been posted in the Mises Institute Working Papers. Here’s the abstract:

With his 1979 article “Do we really ever get out of anarchy?” Alfred Cuzán provides us with a wonderful insight: “Anarchy, like matter, never disappears – it only changes form.” Cuzán argues that anarchy, defined as the absence of a third party territorial monopolist of ultimate jurisdiction, is omnipresent: Regardless of what political system we live under, there will always be anarchic relationships, namely those between the actual members of government. James Ostrowski, in his article “The Myth of Democratic Peace”, extends this argument to show that there are four more anarchic relationships in current society. The omnipresence of anarchy is undeniable. However, there are problems with this analysis. It is not compatible with the root word definition of anarchy as “no rulers”, nor does it incorporate such governmental (non-anarchic) relationships as taxation and regulation. Happily, the analysis can be repaired by applying Murray Rothbard’s “typology of intervention” and creating a corresponding “typology of anarchy”.

My plan is to have this published in the Journal of Libertarian Studies. Academia, here I come!

 Libertarian Theory, Market Anarchy, The State  Tagged with: ,

Government Against the Poor

 Posted by at 6:35 pm  15 Responses »
Nov 292008
 

Whenever I am arguing with someone over the merits and morality of anarchism versus the horrible tragedy of statism, I am almost always confronted with the inevitable question: “What about the poor?” These ignorant statists (I’ve yet to find one aware of economics) are operating under the assumption that the government helps the poor, and so a stateless society would therefore leave the poor worse off. This assumption is false.

First off, let’s be generous and assume that the government actually has the intention to help the poor. That is, the government is genuinely working to reduce poverty and not just padding the bank accounts of state-allied business (note that most politicians are also businessmen). However, we all know a certain road that is paved with good intentions. They key is to look at the effects of government programs, not just the intentions. Do they really help the poor? Keep reading...

 Libertarian Theory, Market Anarchy, The State  Tagged with: , , , , , ,

Wage Slavery and Wage Injustice

 Posted by at 4:37 pm  No Responses »
Nov 212008
 

Among the libertarian movement, it is a given that the Marxist idea of wage slavery is a sophism. In a truly free society, individuals would only enter into wage employment because they perceive benefit from it. That is, the employee and the employer only exchange if, ex ante, they expect to gain. Otherwise the exchange would simply not occur. So, all voluntary exchanges in a free (stateless) society are mutually beneficial.

However, in 2008 we do not live in a free society. There are governments that murder, steal, and enslave innocent people. They prevent voluntary interaction and impose coercive relationships. Suffice to say, the present conditions are not at all close to those of a free society. Then, given that we live in an unfree society, are employees the victims of wage slavery? Keep reading...

 Market Anarchy, The State  Tagged with: , , ,