Responses to Steve Wolfer

Steve,

We may have to make a distinction here between anarchy and anarchism. Your definition of anarchy reflects the more common understanding of the term, which is a state of civil unrest and a general breakdown of law and order.

Anarchism, by contrast, is more appropriately defined by my definition, namely, the absence of a uniform law within the same geographical area. An anarchist, such as Michael Marotta, would presumably define it that way and argue that such a system need not result in civil unrest or warring conflict -- that different legal rules within the same geographical area could be adjudicated without violent conflict by peaceful arbitration.

That may be true, if people were willing to submit to peaceful arbitration, but if they were, then the result would indeed by a uniform law, because the respective parties to the arbitration would then agree to be bound by the decision of the arbitrator, which would then effectively become "the law if the land."

If the parties were not willing to submit to arbitration or refused to abide by the arbitrator's decision, then you would have what is commonly referred to as "anarchy."

- Bill

Post 21

Wednesday, February 3, 2010 - 10:16am

Bill I didn't like the term "Constitutional Moderate" either. But I don't really have a problem with the term "rule" as a Republic is "rule by law" not by men.

Post 22

Wednesday, February 3, 2010 - 10:43am

John,

I agree. The word "rule" by itself is not objectionable. One needs legal rules, obviously. My objection was to the characterization of anarchy as "rule by NO ONE" -- in other words, rule by NO PEOPLE, implying that it is desirable to have some people rule over others.

- Bill

Post 23

Wednesday, February 3, 2010 - 2:02pm

Steve, you are 100% right: if in any place, at any time, anyone resorts to force, the best application of force will win. No doubt about it.

(more later)

Post 24

Wednesday, February 3, 2010 - 3:42pm

Bill,

I said, "Anarchy is a condition where a given geographical area does not have an effectively enforced uniform set of rules. Further, there may or may not be sets of conflicting rules promulgated by multiple organizations which may be using force to establish their rules."

Which is why I'm confused when you say to me, "Your definition of anarchy reflects the more common understanding of the term, which is a state of civil unrest and a general breakdown of law and order. Anarchism, by contrast, is more appropriately defined by my definition, namely, the absence of a uniform law within the same geographical area..."

My position is that anarchy is defined by the absence of a uniform law in a geographical area - I used your words, since I think they are identical in meaning to mine. The fact that this political condition will lead to civil unrest is true, but not my definition of the political state - just a necessary result in anything other than a fantasy.

Post 25

Wednesday, February 3, 2010 - 9:21pm

Steve,

You wrote,

I said, "Anarchy is a condition where a given geographical area does not have an effectively enforced uniform set of rules. Further, there may or may not be sets of conflicting rules promulgated by multiple organizations which may be using force to establish their rules."

Which is why I'm confused when you say to me, "Your definition of anarchy reflects the more common understanding of the term, which is a state of civil unrest and a general breakdown of law and order. Anarchism, by contrast, is more appropriately defined by my definition, namely, the absence of a uniform law within the same geographical area..."

I took "not effectively enforced uniform set of rules" to mean that there was a general breakdown of law and order. In addition, you had said that "there may or may not be sets of conflicting rules . . . ," and if there are not, then while you may have anarchy -- a state in which a uniform set of laws is not being effectively enforced -- you wouldn't have anarchism, which, by definition, is a system involving different sets of laws within the same geographical area.

- Bill

Post 26

Wednesday, February 3, 2010 - 9:43pm

No, the definition is not different "sets of laws" in the same geographical area. That situation has occurred with the Church's canon law, with the slavery law, and with the anti-semitic Nazi Nuremberg laws. Anarchy exists when there is no one uncontested highest authority within a geographical area.

Anarchism is simply the policy of civil war as an end in itself.

Post 27

Wednesday, February 3, 2010 - 9:55pm

Bill,

I see where you are coming from. The "...effectively enforced..." part could be a description of any form of government that becomes chaotic because it isn't strongly implemented. I was thinking about a defacto anarchy, but you are right about that being a poor description and that it mixes up anarchy as chaos versus anarchy as a kind of political system.

I don't agree with anarchism requiring different sets of laws. That would inject some confusion regarding what is meant by laws. Some forms of anarchy try to explaining themselves as competing sets of laws that work - but that proposal isn't a valid definition, much less a possible state of being.

Anarchism only requires the absence of the uniform set of laws - not multiple sets (even though I'd imagine there will always be an evolution in that direction).

Post 28

Thursday, February 4, 2010 - 12:13am

Ted,

I meant enforceable laws -- laws in a political context. Anarchism would permit the enforcement of two mutually exclusive legal systems within the same geographical area.

- Bill

Post 29

Thursday, February 4, 2010 - 12:44am

"Legal systems" aren't metaphysical or even political primaries. They don't enact themselves. You can have two systems using the same or similar legal systems, and have civil war, and you can have one state that switches from one legal system to another without it. The relevant issue is the de facto legitimacy and continuity of the recognized authority. So long as there is one legitimate authority, such as when the US switched from the Articles of Confederation to the Constitution, there was one nation, one highest authority, and no anarchy.

One more reason that anarchism is wrong is because it leaves everything open to infinite revision. There is no final court of appeals. Each man is entitled to his own state, and, like the joke about the opinions of Rabbis, five states for every four people. For the same reason that we have statutes of limitations, because if every past act is open to litigation then no act is ever final or legitimate, there cannot be an infinite regress of authority. Anarchism asks men never to accept a matter as finally settled, and as eternal grounds for civil war.

(Edited by Ted Keer on 2/04, 11:44am)

Post 30

Thursday, February 4, 2010 - 11:47am

Read Ted's post above, and then ask if his discussion anarchism doesn't mirror the tendency of anarchists' calls for infinite revision of arguments and apparent aversion to any final authority of logic. What they want in political reality has always felt to me like what they want in psychology - no rule to which one is held.

There is a reason why I keep feeling like anarchists are performing some sort of dance that goes this way and that but never addresses the hard points head on.

Post 31

Thursday, February 4, 2010 - 12:09pm

Anarchist's want to replace Rule of Law with "Can't we all just get along...?"

A: No.

Post 32

Wednesday, February 10, 2010 - 12:34am

Steve Wolfer wanted to know (in Post 14 above):
You aren't answering my arguments. I see what you are doing as just dancing about the issue. Whether you don't grasp my arguments or are choosing to ignore them... it is the same from my perspective.

You can't have competition between two laws where force is permitted regarding the defense of individual rights. Period. ...

Freedom requires that a single set of laws which define individual rights being enforced within a jurisdiction.

Steve, out of respect for you, I have given this a lot thought this past week. There is no way for me to make the case in any new words. If I offer examples from current events or if I suggest analogies to illuminate points, you call it "dancing around the issue."

Flat out: all that is required for two parties to agree is that they agree. Geographic monopolies of force (or geographic monopolies of fraud) are irrelevant to that agreement.

Post 33

Wednesday, February 10, 2010 - 12:35am

I grant fully that in a culture where force and fraud are common, business will suffer. Capitalism depends on trust. If trust has to be enforced, then it is weak.

If you cannot have freedom without a geographic monopoly on force, why do you not need also a geographic monopoly on fraud? (Or is that what voting is?)

In the "Stossel Conversion" video, John Stossel restates a common example: You go to a foreign country and hand your credit card to a man who does not speak English and he rents you a car for a week and when you get home, the credit card company has carried the transaction to the penny.

My point is that if there had been a problem with the rental, your indemnification would come from the credit card company. You do not need to go back to that other place and demand that their monopoly on force protect your rights. This is how the world works.

And it does not always work well. Ask the people of Ecuador who were looted by Conoco/Philips. Having failed to find justice in their own courts, now they have come to the USA to sue for redress of their grievances. The USA is a constitutional republic based on a clear statement of individual rights. Fat lot of good that will do them.

In another John Stossel video, the one on Atlas Shrugged, BB&T president John A. Allison said that his bank made a policy of not financing any business project that came from an application of eminent domain according to Kelo v. New London. The Supreme Court ruled. The matter is settled according to the theory of a geographic monopoly on force and fraud. But BBT does not have to accept that. They can, in effect, write their own law, by following their own policy not to partipate in such ventures.

Read any of the 200 or 250 constitutions of the world. They all sound great. Only a few places on Earth are tolerable for business. One of them is Hong Kong -- which is not now and never has been a constitutional republic based on individual rights.... except by the culture of business. That basic common acceptance by the people of that place in the importance of trust in commerce made Hong Kong. (See the John Stossel classic, "Is American Number One?")

You don't need a monopoly on force and fraud to do business. You just need trust. When it is violated, you lose. That's the downside of life, unpleasant, and rare, but real.

Thank you for the dance.

(Edited by Michael E. Marotta on 2/10, 12:50am)

Post 34

Wednesday, February 10, 2010 - 1:05am

The advantage to law as we commonly understand it is that (broadly) all of possible terms of all possible agreements are easy to understand and predict. Laws are often arcane and courts can be capricious, of course, and those problems increase the risks and the costs of doing business. Hernando de Soto cogently points out that the poor of the world control (then, 2000) over a trillion dollars in assets, but they cannot capitalise on that because they lack clear title to their lands and their shops.

In those places, however, laws exist, Tanzania and Peru and the rest all enjoy the benefits of geographic monopolies on force and fraud. In The Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else de Soto cogently identifies the problems. The overhead cost of doing business legally is so high, that people do it illegally. They still deal with each other on the basis of trust, but the broader system loses. People steal electricity from the state monopoly because they cannot obtain it legally. The electrical utility loses the opportunity to tally the service as an asset. (Your home address is an asset to the electric company. They borrow millions of dollars against the expectation of future service to you and your neighbors.) The problem is not a lack of law. They have a surfeit of laws. The problem is the culture.

That is why Ayn Rand was 100% correct when she identified the fundamental crisis of our civilization as being not a matter of politics, but of epistemology.

I am not primarily an advocate of capitalism, but of egoism; and I am not primarily an advocate of egoism, but of reason. If one recognizes the supremacy of reason and applies it consistently, all the rest follows.

Post 35

Wednesday, February 10, 2010 - 8:11am

Michael, in post 32 you say, "Flat out: all that is required for two parties to agree is that they agree."

Government, with a single set of laws based upon individual rights, is what protects us all when they don't agree. It would be the most absurd fantasy to imagine that isn't ever going to be needed.

Post 36

Wednesday, February 10, 2010 - 8:36am

Michael, in post 33 you said, "Capitalism depends on trust."

Yes, but the trust is in behaviors of others that arise from the rule of benevolent laws that are based upon the use of force to defend properly defined rights. The people are not trusting some person they've never met. They aren't trusting that all people will respond in an honest fashion out of recognition that it is the more rational thing to do and that it will benefit their self-interest in the long run. They are trusting in an environment that respects property rights which is created out of enforced laws.
----------

You said, "If trust has to be enforced, then it is weak.

Let me rephrase that... If behaviors that are respectful of individual rights can't be counted on [no trust], then expectations of behavior of that kind doesn't abound [trust is weak]. It isn't trust that is enforced. That is a silly concept since it would be attempting to force people to have a trusting attitude. It is the enforcement of protecting individual rights that are called for when that is what is missing.
-----------

You said,

In the "Stossel Conversion" video, John Stossel restates a common example: You go to a foreign country and hand your credit card to a man who does not speak English and he rents you a car for a week and when you get home, the credit card company has carried the transaction to the penny.

My point is that if there had been a problem with the rental, your indemnification would come from the credit card company. You do not need to go back to that other place and demand that their monopoly on force protect your rights. This is how the world works.

If there had been a problem with the credit card charges and the company would not make a fair adjustment, it is the law you would turn to, and there would be jurisdictional considerations (geography being one). And you are unlikely to be in that situation because of how well the laws work in this area. But if you try to use your credit card in Somalia... or if you were to not have any laws attempting to stop organizations like the Russian gangs that traffic in stolen credit card numbers, well, then you would be experiencing anarchy.

Post 37

Wednesday, February 10, 2010 - 8:46am

Michael,

your argument in post 34 is awful. You conflate bad laws that violate rights with laws that defend individual rights as if all laws are bad laws, then you attempt to use Rand to buttress your argument for anarchy by an absurd use of her quote.

She could easily have said, "If one recognizes the supremacy of reason and applies it consistently, all the rest follows... INCLUDING LIMITED GOVERNMENT," if she could ever have imagined her thoughts being so grossly misapplied.

Her meaning was NOT that there is no crisis in politics, but that the crisis has its roots in epistemology. She was disdainful, to an extreme, of anarchy.

Post 38

Thursday, February 11, 2010 - 8:40pm

Steve, you seem to be forgetting that one of the sympathetic characters of "The Fountainhead" was, I seem to recall, implied to be an anarchist. In fact, I find it interesting that Objectivism itself is generally taken to be the real-world application of the principles of "Atlas Shrugged," stretched, however, to make any corporation, for example, regardless of how destructive, an avatar of Hank Rearden.

Forget the populist, anti-establishment strain of "The Fountainhead," with Roark hangin' with the guys from the construction crews. Forget Guy Francon and the whole shmeer of corrupt businessmen who conspired with Ellsworth Toohey to destroy any glimmer of heroism and real ability, to prove that everyone was at heart just as bad as they were. Or, even in AS, the Oren Boyles and Jim Taggart's, who clearly dominate the business scene as portrayed.

How did Objectivism get so far off track? To accept the position that so many "Objectivists" have regarding the anarcho-capitalist position, to wit, that its advocates are morally corrupt and intellectually out to lunch, requires denying the simple fact that many very smart people of apparent rationality and general good will hold this position. That's not a defense of anarchism, which I'm not attempting here. Rather, it is a call for civility and rational discussion. We are not going to move to either a strictly limited state, nor a draconian police state dictatorship, nor an anarcho-capitalist utopia anytime soon.

Thus, it does not make sense to take a position that might be appropriate to a call to arms at the ramparts. And, I am well aware that it was the anarcho-capitalists in many cases who were at least as guilty of stepping completely out of context, generally, I think, out of the need to make their lives more meaningful. We all need to resist the temptation to draw a complex universe with many greys and internal conflicts as a black and white Ditco cartoon, regardless of how much better it feels to just BELIEVE.

One of the problems that Objectivists have in trying to market their philosophy is that all to often, this Manichian fanaticism forms a cultural backdrop to their message, something that is unfortunately inherited from all the "Randroids" who have painted themselves and others by association into that corner. The essense of real Objectivism is its commitment to reason, to the primacy of existence and the possibility of real knowledge about a real, comprehenceable universe. Lets try to put disagreements over particular issues such as anarchy vs. limited governments into a perspective that doesn't make us look like religious nuts.

A few years ago, at one of the public seminars put on by ARI, Yaron was asked by an audience member about anarchy vs limited states, and his response was quite reasonable, paraphrased as "we're not close to either option. When we get down to a .1% state, then we can address the issue."

Post 39

Thursday, February 11, 2010 - 9:25pm