RoR: Forum

Professor Machan,

Excellent article! It is so on-target to focus on property rights as including the rights to the control of one's labor.

To often people mistake material things for property - instead of seeing that our "property" is a set of actions we can take relative to the material thing (including our body).

My only quibble would be with the last part of the first paragraph, where you wrote, "This [advocating a rule of law that does more than, or other than, protecting individual rights] includes monarchists, fascists, communists (with some peculiarities though), welfare statists, modern liberals, many conservatives and so on. Only classical liberals and libertarians are exceptions. They either adhere to a very limited role for the government--they are, in short, minarchists; or they may even embrace a kind of anarchism." [bracketed text mine, emphasis mine]

The heart of the relationship between the government and the people is in the law and its application. Only with a set of laws that have a monopoly over a given geographic region, that are objective and that are based upon individual rights can a government serve it's only proper function. Any other exercise of government will, necessarily be a violation of individual rights.

If that is true, then anarchists must be categorized along with the others who do not believe in a set of objective laws based upon individual rights that are enforced in a given geographic area. Anarchist need to be tossed in the same category as communists, fascists, monarchists, welfare statists, etc.

Post 1

Thursday, June 2, 2011 - 1:01pm

Why don’t Mr. Obama and his supporters admit outright that they want a socialist health care system and maybe even a socialist political economy in America?

Because they are acolytes of the vampire religion; Socialism. Social Scientology. The religion based on forced association not free association. The religion that dare not speak its name in the light of day.

At least, in a nation that still clings to the idea that it is free.

We are not quite yet that new full blown theocracy, we are only well on our 'transitional' way there.

"S"ociety is God, the state is its proper church, and from each according to his ability, to each according to his need is Gods will. So say the church elders in the new American theocracy.

Post 2

Thursday, June 2, 2011 - 3:41pm

I had my full say about anarcho-libertarianism in the volume Rod Long and I edited for Ashgate in 2006, Anarchism/Minarchism: Is Government Part of a Free County? In my view, very briefly, so called libertarian anarchists are minarchists who believe that government can operate like a pizza delivery shop versus a stationary pizzeria. This could only work if one could travel across others' private property without needing permission (e.g., using Star Trek like transporting). But that is for now pure science fiction. Also, I think minarchism does not require any kind of coercive monopoly, only a unified region of citizens' private property over which the government gains the consent of the citizenry to administer the law.

Post 3

Thursday, June 2, 2011 - 4:38pm

I don't agree with the idea that a person must consent to be governed by a government IF the minarchy is based upon objectively written laws exclusively based upon the principles of individual rights.

And it is atomic - that is, there is no consent needed for a particular law - no matter what the government - where the particular law is completely in accord with the principles of individual rights.

I have the right to defend my life, and my property, including to delegate those rights even if the offender of my rights hasn't consented. And if I have violated the individual rights of someone else it doesn't matter if either of us are consenting members, because I've "given up" a portion of my rights when and if I violated his - meaning that anyone can defend that person's rights against me.

In this fashion, all acts of governments that stay inside of the protection of rights becomes morally defensible. This is true even if the entire government in question is a monarchy, republic, socialist, or mixed political system.

At this level of analysis, the mechanism for enforcing laws could be enacted by defense agencies, individuals, competing governments, a monoply government, etc. EXCEPT, that the code of law must be uniform across the geographic area. It is this last requirement, that forces the requirement for a monoply government over a given area and rules out all of the anarchist inspired schemes of competing governments, defense agencies, etc.

(I went to Amazon.com, and looked at "Anarchism/Minarchism..." It looks like a book I'd enjoy, but my budget isn't going to stretch to that purchase price right now.)

Post 4

Thursday, June 2, 2011 - 5:06pm

Steve I agree with you. It doesn't make any sense actually to say morally someone ought to consent to having a just law apply to them. Either retaliatory force is just or it is not. I'm actually surprised to hear a minarchist try to argue this, because the argument would effectively rule out applying the law to a criminal since why on Earth would such a criminal ever consent to have the law enforced against him?
(Edited by John Armaos on 6/02, 5:09pm)

Post 5

Friday, June 3, 2011 - 10:05am

The consent is not to the law but to its enforcers. Otherwise all you have is every citizen defending him or herself which of course may be perfectly moral but useless. It is government to which one needs to consent, not laws. Just as the Declaration of Independence has it.

Post 6

Friday, June 3, 2011 - 12:18pm

I agree that each and every citizen attempting to defend themselves as individuals would be useless. And even if the citizens gathered together forming defense agencies (consenting to an agency), but the agencies weren't required to work under a common set of laws, it would still be useless. Consent may go to the enforcer, but it has to be in the context of laws enforced.

If any consent were required, I think it would have to be to both the government and the law as a unified whole to which consent were given. It wouldn't, in this context, make sense to separate them. For example, "I consent to being governed by this government, but I want a different set of laws" or "I consent to this set of laws, but I want a different government." In an important sense, there is no government without the laws that define it.

To make any sense in this context it has to be a very general form of consent - such as, "I consent to be governed by this government whose laws are based upon my individual rights, understanding all the while that it will not be perfect."

The heart of the concept of "consent" is the individual human choice to affirm a voluntary arrangement. I can't consent for someone else. It can't be called consent if it were made without someones knowledge or against their will.

There might be one way in which everyone can be said to have consented to be governed by a government instituited for the sole purpose of protecting individual rights by means of enforcing objective law over a given geographic area.... It is the same as my moral agreement to not violate the rights of someone who arrives at my desert island. Before they arrived there was no context in which individual rights applied. But the minute they stepped ashore the context does exist. Physically, I could violate their rights, but I can't do that and still have a claim to my rights. If I claim to have any rights - UNIVERSAL rights - the claim is a statement that others have the same right. I have, in effect, "consented" to acknowledge the existence of such rights. And, logically, I can't thereafter object to their protection - to the enforcement - hence the enforcer. If I take the other position and say that there are no such things, then I can't make any moral complaints no matter how I'm treated. But that is still a feeble and ambiguous use of the word "consent." There is explicit consent, there is implied consent derived from behavior, but this would be what? "Assumed consent"?

Another sense of the word "consent" might be that if the people don't up and overthrow the government then the government can say, "The people haven't removed us; they continue to use us; they accept our benefits, and that stands as our implied consent." But that doesn't work because of the real threat of force against any attempt to overthrow the government. Consent achieved at gun point isn't consent.

Is there another sense of the word "consent" that I'm missing?

Post 7

Friday, June 3, 2011 - 11:19pm

I thought the argument of the anarchists was that unless you consented to a law, the law had no authority over you. If valid, the same argument would apply to a government. Unless you consent to a government, the government has no authority over you. Of course, neither argument is valid. It's no more valid to say that you must consent to a government in order to be subject to it than it is to say that you must consent to a law in order to be subject to it.

(Edited by William Dwyer on 6/03, 11:20pm)

Post 8

Saturday, June 4, 2011 - 1:04pm

Good points all around.

I think part of the problem here stems from equivocation between the concepts of authority and force, or of authority and power.

You consent to give enforcers power, or you otherwise condone their use of force -- but authority is not something that even requires consent. Authority isn't something that is "granted" (to a government enforcer) by a Gallup poll or a majority vote. Governments have the power to do a lot of terrible things, but they don't have the authority to do so. Authority stems from natural law -- it comes from the way things are (it's metaphysical).

Authority is discovered, not invented, consented to, or granted.

Ed

(Edited by Ed Thompson on 6/04, 1:05pm)

Post 9

Saturday, June 4, 2011 - 5:15pm

The Floaters and the Grounders

********************
The Grounder family was working in the field one day and looked up and saw a bunch of people hovering overhead in mid-air ...

"What are you doing up there?" asked papa Grounder.

"We are floating." said papa Floater.

"How can you be able to do that?" papa Grounder asked in bewilderment.

"Well," started papa Floater, "we are anarcho-libertarians and, for us, the only thing granting any authority to any law is our prior consent -- and we haven't willfully consented to the law of gravity. So, basically, the law of gravity has no authority over us."

"So," continued the now-amazed papa Grounder, "so it's as easy as that? I mean, you can just become an anarcho-libertarian and then you get immediate dispensation from laws, such as the law of identity and that of causality?"

"Yep," answered papa Floater, "it's that easy. You just have to have strong feelings about laws not applying to you until you give your consent. Then you get to be free from them.
********************

Ed

Post 10

Sunday, June 5, 2011 - 6:25am

Ed, Joking? That was to conflate law of physics with law of government.

Post 11

Sunday, June 5, 2011 - 9:55am

Dean,

Ed, Joking? That was to conflate law of physics with law of government.

You missed my point about authority and power.

To be fair, the analogy between anarchy and floating isn't the strongest analogy that I've ever come up with, but I maintain that it is not guilt of the weak analogy fallacy (as you claim). The primary question is whether consent and mutual consent -- things appropriately foundational to free market dynamics -- are also appropriately foundational to "law of government" as you put it. A proper politics derives from a proper ethics, and all improper politics themselves rest on some version or other of improper ethics. I wrote about this back in 2008:

http://rebirthofreason.com/Spirit/Blogs/28.shtml

Ed

Post 12

Sunday, June 5, 2011 - 6:46pm

Bill: "I thought the argument of the anarchists was that unless you consented to a law, the law had no authority over you. If valid, the same argument would apply to a government."

Most anarchists would argue that it is a meaningless statement to say people can "consent" to a group asserting a monopoly of coercive violence over a specified geographic region, since to consent means you had the right to choose whether to accept or decline, and you chose to accept. It doesn't make any sense to say someone consents to be coerced.

If they offer people the choice whether to accept their rule, the group quits being a government and becomes a service provider. If you offer people the choice whether or not to comply with a law, it quits being a law and becomes a suggestion or a recommendation.

Booting people out of the geographic region if they do not agree to this monopoly of violent coercion isn't consent in any meaningful sense, in particular if the government just assumes your submission as the default and never formally requests you submit to their rule or leave, and even more so if they assume you must first obtain their permission before leaving, via getting a passport granted or via having the machine guns guarding the no-mans-land being ordered to not fire as you pass through, such as occurred in East Berlin and as is the case now at the North Korean border.

Bill: "Unless you consent to a government, the government has no authority over you."

Government doesn't / can't ask for consent, and their authority derives from having superior firepower should you resist. The phrase, "the consent of the governed", is an oxymoron. The IRS never asked me for my consent for what they steal from me, they never gave me a list of services and asked me if I would like to purchase any of those services for the price listed. Their authority derives from their willingness to send armed officers to my house and put me in a cage if I resist, or maybe shoot me if I put up enough of a fuss about being caged.

Bill: "Of course, neither argument is valid. It's no more valid to say that you must consent to a government in order to be subject to it than it is to say that you must consent to a law in order to be subject to it."

I totally agree with you about this, although for different reasons than you do, as noted above.

Post 13

Sunday, June 5, 2011 - 7:31pm

Jim

Most anarchists would argue that it is a meaningless statement to say people can "consent" to a group asserting a monopoly of coercive violence over a specified geographic region

You're being unnecessarily concrete bound. It's meaningless to say people can consent to any kind of coercion, regardless of who wields it, a coervice government monopoly or ACME Anarcho-Capitalist police agency. That's what coercion means, without consent.

Post 14

Sunday, June 5, 2011 - 9:46pm

John, I completely agree with your generalization that one can't consent to coercion, whatever the source. I was using a subset of that general case because I was responding to the statement Bill made in post 7 which asserted anarcho-libertarians hold a POV that I doubt many A/Ls actually hold.

Post 15

Sunday, June 5, 2011 - 9:57pm

Jim I thought they did. Otherwise I don't understand how they come up with the idea of competing laws if someone wasn't able to come up with their own law and reject someone else's, thereby, requiring consent to be subject to a law. That's why you often see Objectivists on this site argue that anarcho-capitalism is an unintelligible position for that very reason.

Post 16

Monday, June 6, 2011 - 9:35am

If the positive (written) law is based on natural law--or objective (social) ethics--consent to it is unnecessary. But consent would be require to authorize certain persons to enforce/administer the law. One's body guard is defending one's rights to life, etc., which exist independently of that defense but the fact that this body guard will do the defending needs one's authorization (delegation of one's authority). Otherwise any Tom, Dick and Harry may butt in and take up the task (just as in international relations some consider it proper for uninvited nations to provide defense).

Post 17

Monday, June 6, 2011 - 1:35pm

Professor Machan,

I certainly agree where you wrote: "If the positive (written) law is based on natural law--or objective (social) ethics--consent to it is unnecessary."

And, your example of the bodyguard being a relationship that arises out of consent is also true - where he defends a natural right - no consent is needed regarding the right or a law that it is based upon that right. But his status as a bodyguard does rest upon, and require, consent.

But what constitutes the act of consent that would be performed by each citizen to a minarchy? Is is implied or explicit? What would be the fate or result for those who don't consent?

What consent exists now for our current government?

Post 18

Monday, June 6, 2011 - 4:11pm

My Individuals and Their Rights (Open Court, 1989) addresses all these matters. Not able to do it here.

Post 19

Monday, June 6, 2011 - 4:58pm