RoR: Forum

Joseph said:

"Most Objectivists want a minimal government that doesn't tax. One doesn't need to be an anarchist to be in favor of that."

The problem is, how can a government NOT tax? If it is raising its revenue voluntarily, then at any time, anyone can opt out of the deal. Of course I'm familiar with some possible alternatives - gambling profits, donations or whatever, and I find none of them convincing.

And besides, if "most" Objectivists want a minimal government that "doesn't" tax - how come so many of them are cheerleaders for a war that would be impossible without such taxing powers? :-)

I'd be quite happy to live with minimal government - IF I had the option of not being forced to enter value exchange agreements. Problem is, I cannot see how this is possible under a monopoly government.

Post 41

Friday, April 9, 2004 - 11:34pm

Brendan said:

>But in order to make headway in the political arena, groups have to engage in some form of collectivism. Individuals have to lay aside at least some of their differences and be subject to some form of discipline so that everyone is “singing from the same hymnbook”. Libertarians are understandably loathe to do this.

So that’s the dilemma: success in the existing political arena requires a degree of collectivism, but collectivism undermines the ethos of libertarianism. If that dilemma can be resolved, you can find a way of moving forward.

Brendan

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Not so! Libertarianism is not opposed to 'collectivism' in general, just collectivism that is forced upon people by the law. Under Libertarianism, people are perfectly free to form groups devoted to common goals (coalitions) voluntarily.

Post 42

Saturday, April 10, 2004 - 4:04am

Rowlands,

You want to talk about ethics, but you can't evaluate either position without knowing what those positions involve.

I still disagree with you unfortunately. To create a political theory is not about evaluating different positions. Its not about building up a hierarchy of different alternatives like:

anarchy - 4 points - a bit fluffy for my taste
minarchy - 7 points - some disputes about ethics by Childs

and then draw the conclusion that since minarchy has 3 more points than anarchy I say that the Objectivist politics should be minarchy.
This is evaluation, giving different alternatives different values and then picking the one with the highest value. But this gives the impression that politics should be constructed as a separate thing apart from philosophy just to later when its complete be compared with the ethics of a philosophy to see if it matches or not.
But this is a bad approach, although I don't dispute that it could work, since we have to do a lot more work than is required, and we might be encouraged to stop trying before we have discovered a political theory that matches 100% with our ethics, perhaps the last 5% just seems like an utopia to us because we cant conceive of such an idea as valid politics?

My approach to this is instead that politics is a part of philosophy, and that it therefor should be created like all other parts of philosophy, by derivations. That is politics should be derived from ethics, with the same accuracy as all other parts of philosophy. Politics is the sum of all ethical actions by individuals in a social context. So only by explaining how individuals would organise themselves if they acted 100% ethically, we can explain what the Objectivist politics would be like.

Thus I stay firm on my position on how Objectivist ethics should be interpreted.

Post 43

Saturday, April 10, 2004 - 5:27am

Rowlands,

All of this talk about a "monopoly" just serves to confuse the issue.

I can understand how you feel that the term monopoly describes your position badly, you even said earlier that talking about one government is not correct either since we have "local governments, county government, state governments" and more. But why not even go all the way then, why not say that every person governs himself? that is there exist as many governments as there exist persons.
In a way you're right, however I belive it is a redefinition of the meaning we have used to describe government earlier in this discussion, and that the word anarchism and minarchism would become pretty hard to tell apart.
I don't have a problem with several governments because I have argued that this is allowed all the time, but if a minarchist would argue the same thing, there wouldn't be any disagreement because then our words would mean the same thing.

But the word monopoly doesn't "just serves to confuse the issue", it is the word that must be used to tell anarchism and minarchism apart from each other in a political context.
The word is even explicitly used in VOS - The Nature of Government: "Potentially, a government is the most dangerous threat to man’s rights: it holds a legal monopoly on the use of physical force against legally disarmed victims.", where Rand talks about a legal monopoly, and from this many have drawn the conclusion that she means minarchism since many believes that minarchy means: one minimal government, and that there can't be several.

To best try to illustrate the difference: Imagine that there exist two governments, A and B, they both fully uphold the same Objectivist principles and they haven't initiated force against anyone, simply doing there job that is retaliating. Now if someone would suddenly say that government B has a "legal monopoly", thus saying there can be only one government, then this wouldn't change a thing unless government B decides to realise its *legal* possibility and initiate force against government A to drive it out of business.
But this is an initiation of force no matter how you look at it. There only exist two types of monopolies you can gain:

You provide a better service than all the other providers on the market and thus become the only one remaining, because people choose voluntarily to support you.
Or you become the only provider because all the other providers aren't allowed to provide the same service that you do, that is, someone prevent them by force from doing that.

If one should talk about monopoly as described in the first case, one must allow people to be free to choose their government, that is the society must be anarchistic. So is government B allowed to drive government A out of business?

And finally anarchism is not based on a "fool's version of minarchism", its based on Objectivist ethics, as will be showed in the example with the two governments.

Post 44

Saturday, April 10, 2004 - 7:08am

I'll try to explain the "opt out" now. To "opt out" has become in this discussion the main distinction between anarchy and archy, governments and a monopoly-government. It is fully valid because it is another expression that a government doesn't have a monopoly on what it does. That is if you can "opt out" it also means that you can "opt in" somewhere else. If not with another provider of safety you can always become your own.

It has been asked if you can "opt out" of law, that is if you commit a crime can you "opt out" of the responsibility for that crime? This shouldn't be to hard for an Objectivist to figure out I belive since Objectivist holds that the law is derived from the Nature, that is Natural Law. To think that one can evade responsibility by breaking an agreement with another, that is "opt out", is simply to belive that law is something that is created as an agreement between people.

Later it has been asked if to "opt out" is a right that anarchism (anarcho-capitalism) relies on to function, and if that isn't an utopian idea? This question gives the impression that to "opt out" is an additional right that anarchism relies on a part from libertarianism, this isn't the case and I will try to prove it here:

To opt-out is not a floating right from nowhere, its a result of a person having the right to not be coerced by another. It's a mans right to associate with those he choose to benefit his life. It's his freedom to, by his own individual judgment, decide who he wants to delegate his individual rights to and who he doesn't. An example:

We have a productive man maintaining his own life who feels that his safety could be improved, So he sets out to find people who can help him improve his safety. He finds three persons:

A strong but not to smart person that takes an average fee for his service.
A strong and smart person that takes a higher fee for his service.
A not to strong and experienced, but enthusiastic, person that volunteers his service.

The man who set out to improve his safety thinks that the first person takes a good fee but he believes that the person due to his lack of knowledge isn't to reliable to provide him with the safety he wants. So instead he choose the second person. Although he takes a higher fee our person still finds this to be a low price relative to what he values his life.
The third person wouldn't be a reliable safety, our person believes, but since his services are free of charge he might be of use in some situation.

Thus what happens is that our productive man choose to delegate his rights to the second and the third man, but not the first. This he is entirely free to do.

Of course if he at a later time changes his mind, perhaps he misjudged the providers, he is free to remove his delegation of his individual rights and perhaps delegate them to other providers. That is he is free to opt-out.
And since to opt-out is derived from his right to not be coerced it's not a "floating abstraction" and neither is '"free-market" in government' a "floating abstraction".

So to opt-out is only an utopian idea if freedom is.

Rowlands,

Does that mean every agency has to respect that right? Isn't this utopian? It's funny to see anarchists complain that a minimal state is impossible because it will always try to violate rights, and yet they claim that a hundred or thousand states won't violate rights.

It means that according to the Natural Law they should, because if they don't they violate the individual rights, that is they make it impossible for their consumers to act on their own individual judgment.
Now if you belive that it's utopian that a government will never violates its consumers freedom or not is up to you, but if you come to the conclusion that it is, why are you then putting all the eggs in one basket?

You're welcome to have your own security agencies and courts, but the government still keeps the final say on what is an initiation of force. If they judge you to have initiated force, they'll arrest you. It's simple. And if your PA tries to prevent them, they'll properly judge it as a criminal organization. It would be an accomplice to the crime. And they'll arrest all of the people in it as well.

I'm glad that you approve of their existence and I fully agree with you that if it by Objectivist standards would be clear that the PA has initiated force you are free to take legal actions against it. And if your government has initiated force by the same standards the PA would be free to take legal actions against it, and hopefully the PA would have the final say then.

Post 45

Sunday, April 11, 2004 - 3:38pm

Makemore: “Not so! Libertarianism is not opposed to 'collectivism' in general, just collectivism that is forced upon people by the law. Under Libertarianism, people are perfectly free to form groups devoted to common goals (coalitions) voluntarily.”

I had always thought that libertarians considered collectivism the subordination of the individual to the collective, in which case it would be anathema, voluntary or otherwise. If I’m mistaken, I stand corrected.

Brendan

Post 46

Sunday, April 11, 2004 - 5:06pm

Hello, David.

You wrote: >>I'm not saying what could or would happen - I'm just saying that actual freedom is served better by the market than by politics - my original point.<<

Agreed.

Where I suspect we disagree is that I argue that government is needed as a monopoly on the use of force to clear as large an area of life for the market as possible. Without the government doing this -- i.e., implementing the rule of law -- there would be no place for the free market.

Regards,
Bill a.k.a. Citizen Rat

Post 47

Sunday, April 11, 2004 - 6:09pm

Brendan,

Makemore: “Not so! Libertarianism is not opposed to 'collectivism' in general, just collectivism that is forced upon people by the law. Under Libertarianism, people are perfectly free to form groups devoted to common goals (coalitions) voluntarily.”

It wasn't me saying that =) It was Marc Geddes. But I do agree with him, and its because the collectives are created voluntarily. By being voluntary the final judgment on whatever the collective should be or not is the individuals. Then if the individuals choose to form a collective, that collective will be fundamentally based on individualism and not on collectivism, and then the individual have never been subordinated.

Post 48

Sunday, April 11, 2004 - 7:12pm

David, you can't see how a minarchy could be funded voluntarily, but you earlier said you didn't like questions of imagination, like asking "What about the roads?". Also, if you think government can't be funded voluntarily, it's interesting that you think protection agencies could be. I'm missing the magical argument that makes one government non-fundable, but thousands of governments are suddenly okay. It's starting to sound like a rationalization on your part, since the main arguments you use are so weak.

Makemore, your discussion of using ethics with politics is obviously true. Politics is necessarily tied to ethics. It's your application that I disagree with. You want to discuss minarchy in the context of ethics (which is fine...it'll stand up to it), but you assume that anarchism stands up to it, and this without giving a meaningful explanation of either. You jumped from ethics straight into "monopoly vs. non-monopoly", as if the difference were obvious. And yet by the anarchists view of "monopoly", even the minarchy isn't a monopoly. That kind of approach is just attacking a strawman.

Now onto your monopoly post. I wouldn't say a person "governs himself" because it misses the essential nature of government. Government is about force. If there was no such thing as force, there would be no government. A person doesn't govern himself because he can't force himself. Even retaliatory force. And that's why my original questions dealt with how anarchism is supposed to use force. Anarchists talk about it as if it's perfectly voluntary, but that ignores the most crucial element. It's not just a question of "how would you deal with public roads". The questions I asked were about the very nature of anarchy.

That Rand used the term monopoly means little. The word's regular meaning doesn't apply to governments. At best, it's an analogy. You have to take it in the context of her whole political view, her ethics, etc.

And your two examples don't do it justice. Both only approach it from a funding point of view. But how a government is funded is only a fraction of the issue. The fundamental issues concerning government is how they wield the use of force. Who can they wield it against. When can they wield it. That's where the voluntary nature of the organization breaks down. If you don't want a TV repairman to come fix your TV, you don't hire him. If you don't want a government to arrest you, funding has nothing to do with it. And if a competing TV repairman comes in and offers their services, there's no problem there. If a competing government comes in and says that the first government no longer is able to judge particular uses of force, or punish particular people, etc., then it's not just "friendly competition". Preventing retaliatory force is just another initiation of force. That a government won't let some other group wield force without supervision is radically different from the TV repairman who won't let another TV repairman operate without supervision.

This whole break-down ignores the fact that governments don't deal primarily with the victims, but with the aggressors.

Now, as for your discussion of "opting out", it still means nothing to me. If it's voluntarily funded, it doesn't matter if you opt out. The part nobody can opt out of is the judgment and use of retaliatory force. If you try putting your money into a competing security agency, the first government may permit it under certain circumstances. But if the new guy gets in the way of the first guy, it will be war.

And then there are all of the smaller concerns. Like now a policeman can't arbitrarily search your home or person. They need a court order. That means approval from one branch of the government for another branch to do particular things. If a second PA came around, and issued it's own court orders (or bypassed the mechanism), should the first organization see it as a use of force? Isn't it a violation of their property rights?

There are people who claim that arresting someone is a violation of their rights, especially if the charges are thrown out against them. Should the first government arrest everyone involved in the second government whenever an arrest doesn't end in conviction?

By focusing on who pays for a government, your ignoring the real issues. It doesn't matter how it's funded if it's violating rights. And who judges whether it is? The government.

Post 49

Thursday, April 15, 2004 - 12:48am

>You don't have to argue what is the best of the two, by doing so you are acting more like Utilitarians than Objectivists, that is you are arguing about what is the most practical. But if its practical or not does not have the final say on whatever its ethically legitimate or not.

The desirability of a morality can't be separated from its consequences. Ayn Rand made this clear - a good morality is a morality leading to good consequences. It was Kant and the subjectivists that tried to define morality solely in terms of ‘duty’, with no regard to outcomes. Workable ideas have to be formulated on the basis of observation of the real world, or else you lose contact with reality and slip into empty ideology. Anarchy leads to terrible results: Southern Italy and the mafia and Russia and the mobsters were several modern examples mentioned in this thread. So it's perfectly valid to point to this as evidence that it's morally wrong.

>Also, what are you doing defining Liberty in such an odd way! That sounds like a demand for positive rights, which do not constitute liberty.

Anarchy has a self-contradictory notion of 'liberty'. If all interactions were totally voluntary, there would be nothing stopping people selling themselves into slavery if they were willing or setting up a communist state if everyone agreed. Something which leads to consequences the exact opposite of the ideals it claims to champion is absurd.

As Ayn Rand said about anarchists:

'These people are promoting ideas which are the exact opposite of Objectivism'.

The only way to escape from the anarchist miasma of contradiction is to try to come up with a definition of 'liberty' different from the anarchist one. It's clear that attempting to define liberty as anarchy doesn't work. Here's a better definition: Liberty is the overall maximization of freedom of choice. Then it can be argued that the greatest practical 'overall maximization of freedom of choice' is achieved by having a single protection agency with a monopoly on the use of force, the protection agency acting to protect us from force and fraud. This is the Objectivist/Libertarian position.

Not everyone is good. There will always be bullies and thugs who try to impose force on others. And even if everyone were good, reasonable opinions as to what is a voluntary contract and what is not would still differ. So how would these disputes between individuals be resolved?

Anarchists say that there can be a series of competing 'protection providers'. But how would these competing protection services resolve the meta-disputes which would occur between them? All anarchists can come up with is the notion that competing providers could form 'agreements' with each other. But notice that word 'agreement'. An agreement is a voluntary contract. But what is voluntary and what is an initiation of force? And what happens if some of the protection providers stopped playing fair? As an example, what about the local mafia branch that attempts to become a monopoly and stop people 'opting out'? Who decides and how are the disputes to be resolved? We are back to square one because this is exactly the problem that was supposed to be solved by 'protection providers' in the first place. So the anarchist conception of competing providers has not solved the problem of disputes, just transferred it to a higher level.

Where irreconcilable disagreements occur between competing protection providers, the only way the dispute can be resolved is through the use of force. And the winner will simply be the stronger party. In other words: anarchy is just 'might makes right' - a totally arbitrary conception of morality and the exact opposite of true freedom. Anarchy is only freedom for the strong. Everyone else ends up looking down the barrel of a gun. The anarchists in Russia who complain to their local mafia boss that they are being mistreated are likely to be knee capped for their troubles, and death is the only 'opt out' clause.

>International anarchy is not anarchy.

Small competing 'protection providers' is not stable: weaker parties will simply be gobbled up by stronger parties. That's why the basic political unit in the world today is the big nation state. So I think I'm perfectly justified in saying that at the international level the situation is equivalent to anarchy. It's no use anarchists trying to argue that it's not true anarchy because nation states are 'monopolies'. By whose conception are they 'monopolies'? If competing protection providers are O.K, then there will be competing conceptions of what constitutes a 'monopoly'. The current global situation is the situation which arose over the course of history through competition between competing providers. This is what you got. Every one is free to 'opt out' of their government by attempting to leave the country or use their own black market. If anarchists are complaining that nation states are 'monopolies', they are appealing to their own personal conception about what constitutes a monopoly, a situation which no where exists in the real world.

The Objectivist/Libertarian Minarchy is not totally free of coercion. There has to be sufficient coercion for the Minimal State to maintain its monopoly, and to carry out the task of defining and enforcing property rights for situations which arise. The argument for this would be that a maximization of overall freedom occurs when most (but not all) voluntary interactions are allowed.

Under the Libertarian minimal state a small class of voluntary interactions would still be ruled out - those that actually contradict liberty. Selling oneself into slavery, such as everyone agreeing to form a communist nation, contracts with no time limit such as perpetual copyrights, and contracts which attempt to undermine the Minarchist state itself (the anarchist notion of competing providers) would be illegal.

Post 50

Saturday, April 17, 2004 - 9:28pm

Marc said:

"Anarchy leads to terrible results: Southern Italy and the mafia and Russia and the mobsters were several modern examples mentioned in this thread. So it's perfectly valid to point to this as evidence that it's morally wrong."

I think this topic can go nowhere - because the protagonists on both sides are firmly entrenched.

However, I do take exception to the statement above. I don't define anarchy as "lawlessness", as in the examples given. But even such lawlessness pales into insignificance compared with the historical record - showing government responsibility for the deaths of millions.

Evidence that government is morally wrong?

Which brings me back to my original point - that the very idea of a minimalist government is Utopian.

It will never happen. Even less so, considering the "global government" sentiments expressed here.

Personally, whether one defines the present global political set-up as "anarchy" or not - I prefer it to some sort of world government. At least it is potentially possible to move away from a despotic regime - whereas under any world government such a possibility would be gone.

To those who think a global minimalist government is the answer - I can only say that you've forgotten the lessons of history. As Lord Acton said in 1887, "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely".

History proves his point - and nothing I see in the present world gives me any reason to challenge the veracity of that dictum.

Any advancement of individual freedom must take as a first principle the fact that the only rightful application of power is over one's own life - not the lives of others.

The political process we have at present - cannot, and will not, deliver a mandate for the real down-grading of government power.

I don't know exactly how individual freedom will become a practical reality in the future - but I know it won't come via voting, democracy and politicians.

Post 51

Sunday, April 18, 2004 - 12:02am

David wrote:

>Which brings me back to my original point - that the very idea of a minimalist government is Utopian....To those who think a global minimalist government is the answer - I can only say that you've forgotten the lessons of history. As Lord Acton said in 1887, "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely"

But....it is obviously Utopian to imagine *any* perfect, incorruptible social structure. That's what a Utopia *is*!! So we must take power and corrruption as a fact of life. Bearing in mind Lord Acton then, the obvious answer is: "minimal power will corrupt minimally." The first step in this direction is to ensure power is removable without violence via a democratic system. Others include constitutional restrictions etc.

So the question should be the more difficult but far more useful one of "how do we minimise power (and therefore corruption) in society", rather than the entirely pointless one of "which Utopia would be most Utopian?"

- Daniel

Post 52

Sunday, April 18, 2004 - 1:46am

>However, I do take exception to the statement above. I don't define anarchy as "lawlessness", as in the examples given.

But the point is that that is what anarchy leads to in practice. The mafia and the Russian mob don't regard themselves as thugs. They think they are 'competing protection providers', just like the anarchists. They certainly started out as competing protection providers, in the absence of strong central governments. But then they started misbehaving. And when these competing protection providers stop playing fair, how do anarchists propose to stop them?

>But even such lawlessness pales into insignificance compared with the historical record - showing government responsibility for the deaths of millions. Evidence that government is morally wrong?

No, only evidence that Non-Libertarian government is morally wrong. The best arguments for government were given by Thomas Hobbes and John Locke (who was close to being a Libertarian by the way). It is in our long-term self-interest to have some basic limitations imposed on us (the Minarchist government), because this way there is more overall freedom than there would be absent any limitation. This is the social contract.

>Which brings me back to my original point - that the very idea of a minimalist government is Utopian.

It's a lot less Utopian than the idea of lawful anarchy ;)

>Personally, whether one defines the present global political set-up as "anarchy" or not - I prefer it to some sort of world government.

You prefer regimes like that of Hussein? Mugabe? China? North Korea? Cuba? Millions of people dying and being abused on a daily basis?

>The political process we have at present - cannot, and will not, deliver a mandate for the real down-grading of government power.

Then what will? You contradict yourself. You seem to be hinting that force should be applied to eliminate non-Libertarian government. But this actually implies the Minimal state with it's monoply on the use of force.

>I don't know exactly how individual freedom will become a practical reality in the future - but I know it won't come via voting, democracy and politicians.

I do have an idea exactly how individual freedom is going to become a practical reality. I tell you plainly that it will occur globally some time within the next 30 years, and when it does happen, it will happen with overwhelming speed and force. Chin up my friend - the victory of liberty is much much closer than the people in this forum ever dreamed possible: I tell you this beyond a shadow of a doubt, and I am not a person I make unfounded statements.

You may be correct that it won't come about via voting, democracy etc, but again, this actually implies the Minarchist position. The Non-Libertarian governments (as for instance the Hussein regime in Iraq) were 'rival protection providers' which should not be tolerated. That's why there has to be a single Libertarian government with a monopoly on force ;)

But once a single world Libertarian government comes into existence, I see no reason why from that time on there cannot be global democracy and peaceful conflict resolution. With radically decentralized power, Constitutional checks and balances and absolutely no exceptions to the Libertarian rule that government is only to protect against force and fraud, I saee no reason why this government should ever become corrupt.

Post 53

Sunday, April 18, 2004 - 9:10am

A few questions for the anarchists:

Governments, by definition (having sole monopoly right to the use of retaliatory force), are bound to grow ever more powerful and despotic. There is nothing in history to suggest otherwise.

What about the American Revolution, the Constitution and The Bill of Rights?

I claim that any government, no matter how small it starts out, can only grow ever more powerful and more corrupt.

Why would this not apply to protection agencies?

I don't know exactly how individual freedom will become a practical reality in the future - but I know it won't come via voting, democracy and politicians.

Isn't this a denial of volition, i.e. of people's ability to change their minds?

Does the protection of individual rights -- and everything implied by that concept, including all the details regarding rules of evidence, rights of the accused, due process, contract law, etc. -- necessarily entail the existence of a final authority over the use of force in a given geographical area, an authority to which any individual may appeal to resolve a dispute, but beyond which no appeal is possible? Yes.

Post 54

Monday, April 19, 2004 - 4:52pm

Michael Smith quotes me as saying:

"Governments, by definition (having sole monopoly right to the use of retaliatory force), are bound to grow ever more powerful and despotic. There is nothing in history to suggest otherwise."

Then Michael says:

"What about the American Revolution, the Constitution and The Bill of Rights?"

Exactly - which proves my point entirely!

America started out as a revolutionary project - based on the idea that individuals matter. It had a number of "safeguards" - never seen in history before. In fact, it was the MODEL limited government - build on a philosophy of freedom of the individual.

Now look at it! A huge, corrupt behemoth of a government - complete with lies, propaganda, bureaucracy gone mad, special interests, crony-capitalism, "Arthur or Martha" politics, tentacles all over the world, fascist inclinations - and a bible-thumping fundamentalist President bent on starting World War III.

From little acorns do mighty oak trees grow!

Marc said:

"I do have an idea exactly how individual freedom is going to become a practical reality. I tell you plainly that it will occur globally some time within the next 30 years, and when it does happen, it will happen with overwhelming speed and force."

Well, Marc - I'd love to know how you know :-)

But seriously, I'd be interested in knowing more about your certainty on this matter - and in particular the modus operandi of it. With a bit of luck, and the arrival of innovative life-extension therapies, I may be able to live to see it!

(Edited by David MacGregor on 4/19, 10:49pm)

Post 55

Monday, November 2, 2009 - 10:34pm