This post is my response to Harry Binswanger's Forbes article, which can be found here
In this article, Binswanger argues that to maintain a peaceful society, government is required. Unfortunately, Binswanger neglects to define exactly what he means by "government," which I think is a seed of our disagreement. Without a philosophically consistent definition of government, we're left with emotional definitions based on no objective standards. An organization is considered to be "government" if it generally looks and acts like one to the reader. Unfortunately, this leaves us with no consensus on whether a particular organization is government or not, and makes it impossible to discuss whether government is required.
So to set the board straight: my anarcho-capitalist definition of "government" is Any individual or organization which claims ex nihilo rights (in particular, the right to initiate violence) which other individuals or organizations do not possess. This includes all contemporary governments and, furthermore, it also includes organized extortion rackets, and a mugger on the street. In all of these cases, in a particular time and place, one person assumes the right to govern (coerce) another, but cannot philosophically argue why he is rightfully the master and the other is rightfully the slave.
Note that whether the reader agrees with this definition of the word is not relevant to the points being made. I do not hold this to be the only appropriate use of the word, and I welcome suggestions to refine the definition. I merely assert that when I use the word, this is what I mean by it.
The beginning of this article is excellent, and makes several good points which are clearly laid out and are, indeed, consistent with anarcho-capitalist philosophy. For example:
[P]roducing and exchanging values is the opposite of physical force.
[...]
Force properly employed is used only in retaliation, but even when retaliatory, force merely eliminates a negative, it cannot create value. The threat of force is used to make someone obey, to thwart his will. The only moral use of force is in self-defense, to protect one’s rights.
Congratulations, Mr. Binswanger! If you consistently hold to this principle, you are an anarcho-capitalist! But in your article, you do not consistently hold to this principle, thus I advise you to work the inconsistencies out of your philosophy. In turn, if I have overlooked any inconsistencies in my philosophy, I request that they be brought to my attention as well.
Further developing his argument, Binswanger makes the following point:
The wielding of force is not a business function. In fact, force is outside the realm of economics. Economics concerns production and trade, not destruction and seizure.
Once again, I am left uncertain what exactly Binswanger means with a word, in this case, "economics." Anarcho-capitalists hold that all human action is economic in nature because the only reason a human acts is to create an outcome he finds more valuable (or desirable) than the situation which presently exists. If I attempt to rob another, this is indeed an economic transaction; namely, one which states that I view a world in which I possess what another has as more valuable than the world in which I currently exist. If I attempt to defend another against being robbed, I demonstrate that I view a world in which one's person and the product of his labor are protected against violent expropriation as more valuable than one in which they are not. These are value calculations, even if we do not bother to analyze them as such in the heat of the moment.
Note that this does not discount the possibility of irrational violence. Perhaps an emotionally unstable driver gets cut off by another motorist in a Ferrari, so he rams his vehicle into the offender's car. This is indeed a pointless act of destruction, but it is still the result of a value calculation (albeit an irrational one), namely that the driver believes he will feel better, somehow vindicated, for having destroyed the motorist's expensive car.
I encourage Binswanger to describe how he uses the term "economics" differently when he argues against the anarcho-capitalist position, so that we can determine whether there is any philosophical disagreement, or merely disagreement in how we each use certain words. I suspect, however, that Binswanger makes this point about economics because his philosophy depends on force not being the result of a value calculation:
Ask yourself what it means to have a “competition” in governmental services. It’s a “competition” in wielding force, a “competition” in subjugating others, a “competition” in making people obey commands. That’s not “competition,” it’s violent conflict. On a large scale, it’s war.
Only if we assume indiscriminate or emotional violence. In the ideal case, the competition of force is never used to determine who can use the most force (excepting certain voluntary competitions, i.e. boxing); rather, it is to determine who can use the least force to achieve the desired outcome. Competition to provide security against criminals cannot result in an escalation of conflict, as the only way to one-up the competition is to achieve the same result (security) with less violence! It's only when the conflict becomes irrational that the competition devolves into wanton destruction, because it has come unbound from the original value judgment: security is more valuable than insecurity.
The question then becomes, how can we ensure that the competition remains in pursuit of the stated goal: the protection of security? By introducing economics! If firms are created to protect security, it is because security is perceived as valuable. Thus any revenue the firms generate will be a function of how effectively and efficiently they protect security. Any force the firms employ will be a function of their revenue, as will their profits. Thus the instant a firm begins to deviate from actions which protect security with the least possible violence (which necessarily will result in a comparative loss of security, an observation the firm's competitors will trumpet from the rooftops), its revenues will suffer loss, and so too shall its capacity for force and its profits. Businesses tend to be rather fond of their profits, thus the aberrant behavior will soon be quelled. Even if the firm has abandoned all sanity and persists in its destructive path, its loss of revenue will soon starve out its capacity for violence.
In contrast, governments (in the anarcho-capitalist sense), even governments consisting of well-meaning people who want nothing more than to provide security, are extremely susceptible to losing their bearings and pursuing an irrational path of destruction rather than maximizing the economic good (security) they aim to protect. And because governments assume that they are rightfully the only producers of that good (and thus, they reason, it is their privilege and duty to compel the people to pay them for that good, via taxation), their profits are a function of their capacity for greater violence, through collecting higher taxes and punishing those who do not or cannot pay, which is the destruction of security.
Ironically, the government's tendency to destroy the security they sought to protect is the inevitable result of the attempt to divorce the concepts of force and economics. Furthermore, a government, no matter how well-intentioned, is unable to perceive their actions as counterproductive because they have lost their signal that they are acting irrationally (profit loss), as well as their kill-switch (revenue loss), and so they march ever onward believing if they can only do what they are now doing a little better, the problems will cease.
Throughout the remainder of his article, Binswanger makes a number of false conclusions which can be directly traced back to missing this point: one must not attempt to divorce the use of force from economics.
The second fatal flaw in Binswanger's calculus is that he assumes government is capable of existing as a separate entity from all other human endeavors, and is not subject to the same flaws:
A proper government functions according to objective, philosophically validated procedures, as embodied in its entire legal framework, from its constitution down to its narrowest rules and ordinances. Once such a government, or anything approaching it, has been established, there is no such thing as a “right” to “compete” with the government–i.e., to act as judge, jury, and executioner. Nor does one gain such a “right” by joining with others to go into the “business” of wielding force.
[...]
Economic competition presupposes a free market. A free market cannot exist until after force has been barred. That means objective law, backed up by a government. To say it can be backed up by “competing” force-wielders is circular. There is no competition until there is a free market, and some agency has to protect its condition as a free market by the use of retaliatory force.
Actually, a free market is the default state of human existence. It is the case when only one human exists. It is the case when many humans exist, but no human acts. It is the case when humans act without interacting, and it is the case when humans interact under the assumption that they are fundamentally equal: no party to the interaction is a master and no party is a slave.
It is only when one initiates force that the freedom is lost. Any government which presumes to exist arises out of the free market, and in the process, destroys it by asserting an ex nihilo right to violence which no others possess: the rightful status of master over all others, the rightful slaves. Those who seek to extinguish that violence seek to restore the free market by returning humanity to its default state of freedom and equality.
The proposition that any person or group or government can rightfully, or inevitably, hold a monopoly on force necessarily implies that those who hold that monopoly are cut from a finer cloth than the rest of us; that they exist as objectively wise and benevolent gods while we, the soiled masses, have naught but to give tribute out of our gratitude that they have deigned to oversee our activities and facilitate our peaceful production. But this does not hold true to reality: governments are composed of people. People with their foibles and flaws, their subjective tendencies and emotional miscalculations.
Governments cannot do anything objectively any more than corporations can, because they are simply people. Given that this is the case, the worst thing we could possibly do is arbitrarily select some and voluntarily submit to them as rulers.
Now, there is a time and a place for having the humility to submit to a leader, one recognized as the best suited for a certain task, or the most familiar with the complexities at hand. I don't tell my auto mechanic which type of tubing is best to carry a particular fluid, and he doesn't tell me which programming language is best suited to a certain problem. And yes, there is certainly room for delegating responsibility even with respect to the use of force. But to grant a monopoly and violently suppress any attempt to do better is unwise and immoral and counterproductive.
It is my opinion that most if not all of the inconsistencies and false conclusions derived by Binswanger in his article stem from these two crucial errors: the assertion that force exists outside of economic calculations, and the assertion that any human organization can exist as an objective, philosophically consistent entity.
If I have made any errors in my analysis, I welcome corrections.
Closing Note
As a follower of @sterlinluxan's work, I feel that I should acknowledge that in this article, I may seem to disregard emotion as harmful. That is not my intent. I have some thoughts on the value of emotion in human thought and behavior, and if the readers are interested in hearing these, I encourage them to let me know in the comments. I do assert, however, that when an individual allows emotion to rule their behavior, unchecked by the cold rational analysis of objectives and means of reaching them, they may act in ways deleterious to obtaining their stated goals. Perhaps the role of emotion is to choose worthy goals, and the role of cold analysis is to determine how obtain them?
Great response, brother. I also appreciate the mention at the end. I really liked how you systematically debunked every aspect of the article. I will be following you from here forward. Thanks for keeping track of my work as well. Cheers.
@modprobe, wow, excellent post. Your response is very well written and I think you hit the nail on the head about Binswanger's separation of force from economic activity.
What exactly do you mean by "ex nihilo" in your definition of government? Binswanger may think that the rights of the government come from an agreement of some kind of majority of people with each other, not out of nothing. You may largely be disagreeing on words and definitions, as you suggest is possible.
Also, would he agree that he is making
I do think this assumption often lurks in the background of statists' minds, but it's more complicated than that! He mentions the "genius of the American system" - checks and balances, so does he think it's possible to create a system that is forever correcting itself so that corruption never subsumes honest governing?
For me the word "value" is crucial. It encompasses outcomes and situations that people find desirable, and security is one very common (nearly universal) value that individuals hold. Anarcho-capitalism is an attempt to allow value to flow freely. If the organizations that spring up are really incentivized to preserve security, then the competition for less violence that you mentioned ensues. Regular government sets up a conceptual system of fixed values that (however many) people hold, hopefully at least puts in place a mechanism for change and growth of the value system, and tasks some people with enforcing it.
Thanks for making me think about politics today!
Ex nihilo means "out of nothing," and in particular I am using it to refer to an assumption of superior, asymmetrical rights (rights I have over you that you don't have in kind) that come from absolutely nowhere. If I claim ex nihilo rights, I'm just claiming they exist, but I can't explain why or how I got them in any philosophically consistent manner. The point here is exactly that there isn't some contract or consent from which they arise.
I think he must necessarily be assuming that an organization called government can, for some nonzero period of time, be completely objective. He talks a lot about "objective laws," but that's silly: fiat laws (laws created by humans) cannot be objective, by definition: an inherently limited and subjective creature created them. Objective laws do exist (those that govern physics, cause and effect, math and logic, etc) but humans don't create or influence them.
I believe you can think about two views on government's origin, shallow and deep.
So you have shallow ex nihilo, which would mean "we rule, because we rule, we don't need to tell you why". But there are many states that claim their origin comes from things like "will of God" (medieval kings), "will of people" (modern democracies), etc. Many people don't consider them ex nihilo then, especially if they support the system. I find them as 'ex nihilo' as any other on deeper level. There are no things like "will of people", "will of nation", we don't know of any god who approved someone's reign.
The bottom line is that each government's "rights" to govern are made up, one way or another.
Very nice analysis on a very interesting topic! I agree that humans do NOT have to have a government to rule over them. If you think about, you could let a child grow up away from society and it wouldn't behave badly at all. People only get influenced by the media, government, and everything we see and hear. Even money is not a natural thing. So if a human being's nature is just to be peaceful, without jealousy or any negative feelings that we have today.. wouldn't that be an ideal world where no government is needed? The human being is its own worst enemy, we're managing to destroy our own race and the planet we live in more and more.
So if everyone would influence their friends, everyone surrounding them positively, couldn't we make this world a better place? Of course there will always be psychopaths, but those are only 0.001% of the population. If everyone of us truly tried to change themselves, their views upon the world and their behaviour, I do believe we could change the outcome of this planet and we wouldn't need a ruler at all.
Indeed, a child growing up away from the modern western culture would not adopt many of the negatives of our culture. Humans are programmable, especially in their formative years. After that, we're no less programmable, but it requires intentionality to program us, and each of us has the right of first refusal over what we allow ourselves to be programmed with (though unfortunately, most of us do not exercise that right because we never learned how). I'm sure @hypno has plenty of comments on that. :)
You're exactly right: money is not a natural thing. It is a technology (albeit a very old one) and a tool (an extremely powerful one), and it is useful, but we have let it be subverted to do great harm even while serving its useful purpose. We must take back control of the money and only use moneys which follow rules which we can inspect and understand. Federal Reserve dollars follow rules the fed makes up on a whim and does not allow us to inspect or veto. This is one of the great potentials of Steem: making a cryptocurrency that everyone can understand and use, with publicly auditable, open source rules.
Exactly! Criticize by creating. Be the change you want to see in the world. Creative destruction. :) All in the pursuit of human flourishing. This is exactly the point of the Voice and Exit conference; it's worth checking out if you're not familiar with it.
wise words my friend - I can see that you know a lot about these topics and how everything ties together with rothschild, rockefeller etc and how money is being controlled so that humans don't even get a chance to really understand the concept of money. everybody is just lured into a trap, and only people who teach themselves and question everything get to the point where you are.
Awesome, I'm looking forward to your future posts because you sir know what you're talking about.
Didn't know about V&E, thanks for mentioning it.
Loving the Passio reference! :)
https://steemit.com/steem/@fabriciolima/understand-corruption-at-petrobras
great text, well presentes.
i prickled at, Congratulations, Mr. Binswanger! If you consistently hold to this principle, you are an anarcho-capitalist! But in your article, you do not consistently hold to this principle, thus I advise you to work the inconsistencies out of your philosophy. In turn, if I have overlooked any inconsistencies in my philosophy, I request that they be brought to my attention as well.
Having spent a lifetime debating legacy dogma I am over sensitized to condescending turns of phrase.
Thanks for replying.
On rereading your thought line I have ended up with appreciation of your caliber.
Hope we stay linked.
ATB. T. :)
Perhaps that bit was poor form, but I did want to make the point that he advocates anarcho-capitalist principles in his article, but neglects to hold to them.
I love the theory.
Unfortunately, governments tend to form like stars and galaxies and superclusters.
Pick feudal Europe after the black plague. No governments anywhere.
But one village elects a sheriff to protect them from the village down the road which teams up with a third village to gain advantage over the first in a never ending process of alliance forming and conquest until eventually countries and empires and planetary governments are formed.
Occasionally a plague, EMP pulse, world war, or catastrophic Pittsburgh Steeler loss will tear it all down, but that merely resets the alliance forming process and it all begins again.
We don't actually know where governments arose from. The concept is as old as recorded history. We also know the timespan you mention with remarkably little detail or accuracy, as I understand it, so it's really quite difficult to say how we got to where we are. I have my theories, but that's a much bigger discussion for another time.
In any event, the possibility that someone will create a government is no reason not to abolish government. That's logically equivalent (not merely analogous) to saying "Someone might someday force someone else into slavery again, so we might as well not try to end slavery."
"We don't actually know where governments arose from."
I think its pretty safe to say government arose from the agricultural revolution. No known non-agricultural societies have any sort of government structure. It stems from the division of labor and the need to allocate resources, something that was not an issue in band / hunter gatherer society. #notananarchoprimitivistbutheymakesomegoodpoints
hi Stan,
great to find your post.
check Joe Atwill, Caesar's Messiah, for Flavio Constantine's feudalism,302 ad.
the renaissance has to have something to rebirth from. it lasted 1000 years
preventing rebellion from real shit till the black death 1348.
catchya soon.
ATB T:)
A free market is a market free from force. If you want to trade force on the market it's not free. A government is there to extract force from the market. If funded voluntarily there is no force involved. A government is a necessary good. Harry Binswanger is spot on.
If you define government that way (the ideal rather than the realization), you're exactly right. Unfortunately, that definition does not describe any contemporary government I know of, and all too few historical ones. I think the Irish Brehon Law system did match that, though. That was a fine example of anarchist governance.
Harry Binswanger's mistake is the assertion that a government must be granted carte-blanche to use force, and never be forcefully challenged or competed with. That system is guaranteed to degenerate.
The argument that any force makes a market less free is bogus. The idea that we can have no force at all is, of course, a pipe dream. Appropriate retaliatory force in response to things like fraud or theft makes a market freer by discouraging other uses of force.
"Initiatory" force is implied here, but you're right, that could've been more clear.
If mughat meant initiatory force, then his argument falls apart. Nobody is arguing that there should be a market for initiatory force.
Of course, given that humans are imperfect, there will be a market for initiatory force no matter what we do. We all want that market to be as small as possible so that the market overall can be as free as possible. The question is what's the best way to destroy any market for initiatory force. The disagreement is over whether the answer to that is government or a market for retaliatory force.
I'll let mughat clarify what he means for himself. :)
> The disagreement is over whether the answer to that is government or a market for retaliatory force.
By definition, government cannot remove force from the market because government is defined to be initiatory force.
Libertarianism is a fabulous concept, but I'll readily admit it's not realistic. It would be if all humans and corporations were benevolent, but that is simply not the case. In a utopia, maybe, but not on this planet Earth. Someone needs to keep things in control.
So I agree, whatever the form of society and politics, there's always need for a government.
"If all humans were benevolent, no government would be necessary. If all humans are not benevolent, no government should dare be tried." This is a paraphrase of a famous quote but I can't remember who said it.
If the premise for the need of government is that humans are not perfect. I wonder who or what will inhabit the station of government that is free from the imperfections of humans.
If you accept that the initiation of non-consensual violent force against an individual is wrong, then no government is even logically possible. Government implies involuntary forced compliance to some dictate. If it were voluntary you wouldn't call it governance, you'd call it co-operation.
You are both spot on - I intentionally shied away from defining "government" because it is a whole different can of worms. Let me gather thoughts - I'll try to post something tomorrow.
James Madison said this phrase - "If all humans were benevolent, no government would be necessary. If all humans are not benevolent, no government should dare be tried." @xeldal
If a large majority of us learned how to meet our needs sustainably and directly, the corporations would either shape up or go away due to not being needed. Once the governments and corporations went away, so would most of the useless subhumans that are dependent upon them, along with most of the psychopaths because cheating man made systems is how they've risen to the top.
You're right that most humans these days need government but those humans and their lifestyles are going to kill everything if something doesn't stop them. I think it's time for those that don't have the intelligence or empathy to find ways to exist ethically to go. Crashing the slavery systems they're dependent upon will cause quite a bit of them to self eliminate. If humanity wants to survive, the civi slaves must go.
https://steemit.com/anarchism/@apocaloptimisto/how-and-why-government-exists
We know from extensive experience that not all governments are benevolent. That we can reliably create governments that act better than individuals do is unsupported. There are also some good reasons to think that this is because of properties that are inherent to governments.
Did you read my post? It does not appear that you understood it. At the very least, define what you mean exactly by government. :)
I think anyone within a group of people with the solution to a problem inherently becomes the leader, which , isn't that governance? If a person grows vegetables or raises cattle and no one else in the community provides or produces these things, this person wields a lot of power, especially come super time.
People are bad so we need a government made up of people are bad so we need a government made up of people are bad so we need a government made up of people are bad so we need a government made up of people are bad so we need a government made up of people are bad so we need a government made up of people are bad so we need a government made up of people are bad so we need a government made up of people are bad so we need a ...
The majority of libertarians are not anarchists and believe in limited government.
Great post! +1 from me.
As it clearly states in his Bio, Binswanger is an Objectivist using Ayn Rand's epistemology and her definition of government, rights, force, values, economics etc. There is a long tradition of disagreement between Objectivists and Anarchists which revolve around how Libertarians carelessly throw around words and deduce castles from premises that start in the clouds. There is a lot of that in your post.
http://www.checkyourpremises.org/2016/03/09/whats-wrong-with-the-concept-libertarian/
Are you accusing me of carelessly throwing around words, or are you simply trying to imply that without actually stating it? Why don't you try and justify the premise that I am careless with my words? I'm not going to hold my breath.
To respond to your link, since your post carefully avoids making any arguments to support its claims, this is a standard issue debate over the best definition of words. I do not care what words you assign to what cognitive categories; I only care that when we communicate, we understand what cognitive categories the other references with certain words, which is why I defined my terms at the very beginning.
Either respond to my argument when commenting on my post, or go make your own post.
You claim that government can't do anything objectively because it's made of people. I would reverse it and say people can be objective and that is why government also can be objective. It just requires rational ideas and people.
By my definition, such an organization would not be a government. But yes, you're spot on.
Ironically, this upvote will be my first without concern for the "economics" of it. I simply like catching what you're throwin down.
Wow I am shocked this made it to the front page! It's well reasoned articulate and completely devoid of either boobs or travel. You aren't complaining about steemit, nor cheering it on. I never saw this post coming.
Did steemit grow up while I was asleep?
@modprobe I disagree with you on so many levels here, but it will take time for me to reason out deserving arguments. While I'm not the subject of your posting (and I hold views different from him as well). I am curious to know if you would take the time to debate the topic with me in a day or two; which is how much time it's going to take me to do justice to this posting.
I imagine we could do a series of back and forth on this and encourage the reader to make up their own mind? This is a vital topic and people should be shown how to use constructive reasoning and arguments to assess the nature of the beast we all live in the belly of, lest we be eaten alive.
Thank you for this topic. You deserve every penny you have earned, but I think your premise is wrong. :)
Sure, bring it on. :) I look forward to a calm, reasoned debate.
Ehh calm and reasoned debate? Let's just settle for reasoned debate :D
2 out of 3 ain't bad!
well said. this subject is central to everything else.
great to find quality here. i will stay tuned.
Larkin Rose anybody?
Kevin Cole with Richard Grove.
Stefan Molyneux.
Yep. Well argued. I'm Glad someone else has made that clear. Had a debate with a fellow steemer on this topic, if you want to check out the chain here's one link.
Actually, if you read the steemit's white paper. https://steemit.com/steemit/@izzy/why-steem-is-the-real-libertarian-platform
I can hear the marching of the young white millennials already. Ranting as they go. Be careful they may throw non-GMO tomatoes!
Good read, thanks for posting.
Getting the correct definition of the state is important, and using "government" and "state" is very important as well.
Stephan Kinsella in a recent FB post explains it,
"Libertarians! Be careful about using the term "government" as a synonym for "the state." The state is an agency that has either taxing power or the power to outlaw competition (and in practice, both; and either power implies the other [update: the reason is: if you can tax, then you can subsidize your services and outcompete other agencies--think of public schools now and why private schools are a minority; and if you can outlaw competitors, you can charge monopoly prices, i.e. a tax; think the US postal service or the military and its $700 toilet seats]).
But if you cede the word "government" to them, and equate it with state--our statist opponents will engage in equivocation (a most nasty habit). "Don't you believe in law and order, sir?" they ask faux-innocently. "Government, that is?" Then you say .. "... yes.... law ... order... defense .... goood....?" and then later, they pounce, "Aha! but you are against the state, yet you said against government. Which is it??" (Here, they have equated government with state; earlier, they left the definitions separete. Classic equivocation.)
Consider: mind and brain are different concepts. So are self and body. I can change my mind; can I change my brain? My brain has a weight; does my mind? A dead person has a brain but no mind. I am myself and I own my body; but my self is not my body. Etc. Likewise in a free, private-law society, there is "government"--the governing institutions, such as law and justice. That does not mean there is a state. A state is an agency having a geographical monopoly on law. Governance means something different. Even a go-kart has a governor, but no state.
Consider:
"Just minutes after being invited by the Queen to form a Government, "
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/07/13/david-cameron-resigns-theresa-may-queen-prime-minister-live/
Surely there is no implication here that there is a stateless society right now in the UK. That a state is going to be formed. No. "Government" is a distinct concept from the state.
Lesson done for now.
Next lesson: why coercion != aggression. [ http://www.stephankinsella.com/2009/08/the-problem-with-coercion/ ]
Update:
In the US we refer to the "Obama administration". "Administration" is basically what is meant by "government" in the UK, it seems to me. The state exists underneath and independent of the current administration/"government".
For a definition of the state see Hoppe
"Let me begin with the definition of a state. What must an agent be able to do to qualify as a state? This agent must be able to insist that all conflicts among the inhabitants of a given territory be brought to him for ultimate decision-making or be subject to his final review. In particular, this agent must be able to insist that all conflicts involving himself be adjudicated by him or his agent. And implied in the power to exclude all others from acting as ultimate judge, as the second defining characteristic of a state, is the agent’s power to tax: to unilaterally determine the price that justice seekers must pay for his services.
"Based on this definition of a state, it is easy to understand why a desire to control a state might exist. For whoever is a monopolist of final arbitration within a given territory can make laws. And he who can legislate can also tax. Surely, this is an enviable position."
And:
"Conventionally, the state is defined as an agency with two unique characteristics. First, it is a compulsory territorial monopolist of ultimate decision-making (jurisdiction). That is, it is the ultimate arbiter in every case of conflict, including conflicts involving itself. Second, the state is a territorial monopolist of taxation. That is, it is an agency that unilaterally fixes the price citizens must pay for its provision of law and order.
"Predictably, if one can only appeal to the state for justice, justice will be perverted in favor of the state. Instead of resolving conflict, a monopolist of ultimate decision-making will provoke conflict in order to settle it to his own advantage. Worse, while the quality of justice will fall under monopolistic auspices, its price will rise. Motivated like everyone else by self-interest but equipped with the power to tax, the state agents’ goal is always the same: to maximize income and minimize productive effort."
http://www.stephankinsella.com/2010/05/the-nature-of-the-state-and-why-libertarians-hate-it/ "
https://www.facebook.com/nskinsella/posts/10153770219658181
While I disagree with Kinsella's use of the word government to not imply initiatory force, I think we may benefit from changing how we say things since the vast majority of people seem to be unable to think rationally when the word "government" is involved. Perhaps "state" has less emotional baggage with people?
Government breaks down etymologically into "govern" and "ment." "Govern" comes from the latin gubernare which means to control. There's some controversy on the "ment" part, with many arguing that it derives from the latin mente or mens meaning "the mind," and others arguing that it's from the latin mentum meaning "the result of." So government either means "to control the mind" or "the result of control"; either way, it involves external control, not cooperation, so it is fundamentally and necessarily aggressive, by definition.
Even so, I agree that we may be well served to abandon that word to the sophists and use "the state" instead to mean governments, even though "state" simply derives from the latin status which means "the way things are."
@modprobe I appreciate what you are doing here!
To critique: you claim all modern day governments "contemporary governments" create there rights out of nothing "ex nihilo rights".
Would you define the original United States Of America as a government? I believe the original members of the organization explained where their rights came from in the declaration of independence.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed
Lysander Spooner did argue that men can't create organizations that outlive them. Curious if that is an explanation of how contemporary American Government is ex nihilo
The Declaration of Independence did not form a government, nor did it claim or attempt to. It was a declaration of independence from an existing government. :) It is a fine document, and I don't think I find any faults in it. It did not create "The United States of America."
The history of government in North America is quite esoteric, though, and I'm only so familiar with it. It's much more complex than what is taught in schools (which is, for the most part, simply false), and had several markedly different phases (each more centralized and tyrannical than the previous) which had fundamentally different structures. Currently, as I understand it, the United States of America (properly, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA) is a British corporation whose bylaws (The UNITED STATES CODE) are regarded as law for that corporation's franchises (UNITED STATES citizens). Obviously, that's all a bunch of esoteric nonsense, but it is the legal framework they've constructed.
All this is to say, you'll have to be more specific if I'm to answer your question. :) What I will say is that the current institution asserts rights which I can prove it does not have: it asserts the right to kidnap and cage people for carrying a certain kind of flower. It does not have that right, and cannot acquire that right (unless the people in question grant it, which they don't) so it's provably illegitimate.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA is an organization (corporation) established under a common law system mirroring British Common Law. At the time of settlement the American Revolution the wealthy landowners sought to govern themselves and declare themselves sovereign. Ultimately they drafted and agreed on a set of rules for themselves.
The big objection raised by Lysander Spooner in "No Treason" -> http://praxeology.net/LS-NT-6.htm was that that the constitution was not binding on those who did not sign.
I've also heard the argument that the act of "voting" is how you give consent.
My understanding is that UNITED STATES OF AMERICA is much younger than that, but I could be wrong. I have not closely studied the esoteric history of American government.
> I've also heard the argument that the act of "voting" is how you give consent.
I'm familiar with the argument, and it bears some weight since in order to vote one must sign a contract (called a voter registration form) essentially selling himself into slavery for some ostensible influence over the slave master, but most people who sign that contract do not understand those terms, and under contract theory, that contract is then not binding (no meeting of minds). It is, however, the responsibility of the disillusioned party to declare his lack of consent; if he fails to do so, legal proceedings continue and are binding as though he has consented.
What esoteric history have you studied?
I'm interested in the esoteric history of power.
Particularly when it comes to the relationship of Force and Faith.
Greetings to you all if you will forgive my introduction self please vote : https://steemit.com/introduceyourself/@erickvand/hello-steemit-i-am-science-teacher
I love this point:
Thanks for bringing great #anarchy content to Steemit. :)
Indeed, that one seems to be popular. :) Thanks @lukestokes and @kilrathi
But there is no historical evidence of human activity that resembles a market prior to the rise of states. There is no reason to believe this "default state" ever existed outside of the imagination of modern libertarians.
To me, that's not a solid argument because we could go back further to primates and say, "Look, see, that's the natural, default state!" Where do we draw the line in the process of human evolution to have a meaningful discussion?
The "rise of states", to me, gets confused with the rise of agriculture which brought about a more pressing need for property rights which in turn created market forces. To argue all that away with hand-waving is somewhat luddite thinking to me. If you prefer, we could say Given our current state of technological advancement as a species, a free market is the default state of human existence as it exists right now. If anything even closely resembling a post scarcity society can exist (and I have my doubts), then I think things will change and evolve again to something new as the default state of human existence.
The point I was trying to make was not that we can look back into history and find some kind of default state. Any claim that there is or ever was such a "default state" is without basis. It's certainly not one that we can find at any point in history, and at present we are all products of a very complex society.
We are presently conditioned to engage in market behavior, but that's due to the environment in which we developed... to assume that it's essential human nature to behave that way contradicts all historical and anthropological evidence.
I'm also not aware of any free market that actually exists. Though I would be interested in hearing about one.
We're not going to come to an agreement on property rights here, but I'll try to explain my thinking anyway:
Given that property rights exist, the moral (that's a better word to me than "natural") state of human existence in today's technological world lends itself to voluntary exchange (if you prefer that over "free market"). Given the choice, with the number of people we have now who are high up Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, people today choose win/win scenarios over win/lose scenarios. This certainly isn't true everywhere, especially with impoverished peoples or where government coercion and corruption is at its worst.
I make the connection between "moral" and "natural" because of recently reading Steven Pinker's the Better Angles of Our Nature which talks about how humanity is more peaceful now than it has ever been. He's also a big fan of the Leviathan state (which I am not), but I'm not a fan of some of his reasoning or his comparisons of "anarchist" societies and their level of violence to state-controlled societies. Others critique his work by pointing out how all of the "anarchist" societies actually had rulers and weren't anarchistic at all.
I've had enough of these discussions to know they don't really go anywhere. Yes, there are problems with land ownership when it comes to property rights. Yes, if everyone had abundance we may not need money or exchange the way we think about it today and yes, gift/sharing economies that humanity used prior to agriculture were pretty awesome in many ways. Could we still have the technological advancements we currently enjoy (such as Steemit) without a profit motive? Currently, I think, we can not. The default state as of this moment in human history, I believe, is voluntary exchange. It takes coercion, military boot camp training, psychosis, or extreme need/poverty for things to be out of alignment with that default state.
That's my opinion at the moment, anyway. :)
"If firms are created to protect security, it is because security is perceived as valuable. Thus any revenue the firms generate will be a function of how effectively and efficiently they protect security. Any force the firms employ will be a function of their revenue, as will their profits."
Unfortunately a firm's revenue might also be a function of how efficiently they apply violence to issues other than security. An extreme case would be the production of slaves to be sold. A less extreme case would be "ex nihilo" property rights.
Would you pay for that?
I know people who would.
Yes, but you wouldn't. Why was I willing to bet that you wouldn't when we both know there are those who would?
@leprechaun Some enterprising young entrepreneur kills them in their sleep and then markets himself as an accomplished security professional. :P (Note that I personally do not support this solution, but it would be effective, and it will be used if the problem persists)
Alternatively, in the information age, that all happens, and that's fine and good until someone blogs about it, it goes viral, and the thieves can't buy food anymore because no one will sell it to them.
My point was that the number of people who will pay for violence is vastly, vastly outnumbered by the number of people who won't. Thus it was a safe bet that you wouldn't be one of them.
Now at present, we have a nasty system of oppression fueled by fraud-based currency, and until we can do away with that currency, we probably won't see much improvement (hence projects like Steem!)
But if we can do away with the economic fantasy land, violence is too damn expensive to survive in the long run, especially in the information age. That and the fact that defense is inherently cheaper than offense.
The people that would pay is those who want violence carried out against other people.
Imagine some of the people who would pay for violence, they do and then use that violence to steal silver. The silver is used to pay back the violence. These people's business can have a positive net income until they run out of people to prey on and then start attacking each other. That's basically the gist of ancient Roman history.
How can an economy without government prevent an despotism or oligarchy from emerging from within or from attacking from outside? I ponder this.
I'm not sure I see your point. The fact that neither you nor I wouldn't, doesn't detract from the long history of sustained exploitation carried out by those with the means to organise violence.
The problem of government is an interesting problem, but privatisation of violence doesn't solve the problem. It just rearranges it so that instead of an oppressive state you end up with oppressive landlords.
I believe your argument is not based on the fundamental issues at play and you're getting into a bunch of subjective stuff. The entire anarchy vs statism argument can be distilled down to a much simpler point that I posted here:
https://steemit.com/anarchism/@r0achtheunsavory/anarchy-doesn-t-exist-it-s-the-equivalent-of-a-simpsons-parody
I'm familiar with this argument. If you learn economics, you'll see where the flaws are. I recommend listening to Tom Woods podcast, and reading some materials on Austrian economics (free market economics).
A classic human bias is undervaluing information you don't yet understand. If one doesn't understand economics, he cannot possibly understand how the world works or why we don't need slavery.
I understand economics perfectly. You're describing idealistic stuff that doesn't exist in the real world. The real world is ruled by whoever has the most gold and biggest guns, and a large concentration of both happens in anarchism or statism - and those are your rulers. You will always be ruled over. It's all semantics about what you want to call it or obfuscate it.
Economics is mostly the study of pump and dumps and rent seeking behavior where the optimal path of this rent seeking behavior tends to be becoming a slumlord. That's what the government is, a slumlord. If the government doesn't take that place, other rent seekers are more than happy to monopolize it and take that position.
I am subscribing now to this podcast.
thank you for your interesting content: look at my article https://steemit.com/steemit/@kental/steemit-is-not-for-the-lazy-steemit-for-active
You claim that he does not define government in his article. Harry Binswanger is an objectivist. You can see his definition here:
http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/government.html
"A government is an institution that holds the exclusive power to enforce certain rules of social conduct in a given geographical area."
whatever use is embedded here is a priori ad hominem.
genuine generic debate is disinterested in scoring browny points.
the original text has aroused the ankle snapper in modprobe.
doesnt ring my bell. but i'll read the original post a few times with appreciation. is modprobe sophist?
Hahahahahaha, that's funny. :D
Out of morbid curiosity, what brownie points am I trying to score? I'm honestly clueless.
I believe the main issue people have with government is that it is not aligned with their interests. The abolishment of government altogether doesn't seem very practical. Most people turn to anarchophilosophies due to their disgust with how current government operates, out of sync with the people's interests.
Governments have gone rogue, through the control or subversion from specific politicoeconomic factions. These factions know that the governed are unlikely to overthrow the government as long as there is a facade of representation. And, of course, they exploit this "vulnerability" of the masses.
It depends on what you mean by government. Note that what you're thinking of when you think of "government" probably isn't what I'm thinking of. I'm thinking of violence and the elimination of free will. That's all I want to abolish. All of the good things that governments do (which, I argue, are tangential to what governments are) will obviously be done anyways, just without violence and domination (which, as it happens, will almost certainly result in them being done better, but that's not the main reason to abolish the institutionalization of violence).
Some certainly do, no doubt, but I don't know about most. And I don't think that keeps them there. That's a reactionary mindset, and I don't know many anarchists (at least, anarcho-capitalists) who are anarchists out of a reactionary mindset. They are anarchists because they have put long, serious thought into exactly what the problem is that keeps us devolving back to tyranny, and they have found that it is the institutionalization of violence.
Yes our definitions of government are different. I mean the whole system of governance, not just the "bad" susbet.
There is some reactionary logic in throwing the baby along with the water, in other words being disgusted in the entire government structure for the negative things it does. Obviously there is also the group who isn't so reactionary but tries to pinpoint issues specifically in order to solve them.
The issue of free will and forcing society to submit is a complex one. From one perspective one could argue that the citizens have voluntarily (of their own free will) surrendered some of their freedoms in favor of an "organized society" which also includes use of force. From another perspective one could argue that without force and making people submit to it, there would be no way for the government to properly function. This is probably the perspective used by the governments to enforce an ever-decreasing degree of liberties, for our own "good".
Government (as an executive or judiciary branch) is in theory neutral unless the lawmakers shape it into certain directions. The lawmakers -who are generally corrupt- need to be balanced by citizens so that we can return government to a more neutral position. That's the most realistic thing that we can expect over the next 5-10 years (positive scenario - probably unlikely). Negative scenario is a worsening of the current trend.
Would you agree that without emotions or some fixed rules we have, our life would not be the way it is?
Trying to pursue you a bit in taking more advantages of emotions and not seeing them as a trap for our lifes.
Well, if I understand your question, the answer is obviously yes. Without emotions, our lives would be quite different, and probably entirely pointless.
And hes buying things from himself? I think you might need 2 people to make a market. great post tho.
Thanks a lot for your insights! Write more posts! Subscribe to you) welcome to my blog) I need your opinion))view please! good luck to you!
Hi, and thank you for your kind words. :) Is there any post in particular you would like my opinion on?
I think this discussion about no governments is actually silly. I mean, I am not a person that takes a view and keeps holding on to it because I am too proud to admit I am wrong. I am constantly changing my mind.
Concerning governments I have been open for both a society with a government, as for one without. And I gave it a good thought. My conclusion is that what libertarians are asking for is foolish. You can't have a society where everybody does what he wants.
Imagine you are a big construction company building a big building in New York city. You have 1000s of people working together. How the hell are you going to do that if everyone just does what he wants ? You need some kind of structure and organization. And this doesn't come by itself. There is needed some kind of governance. A governance to steer the project into the right direction.
The problem things are being messed up by governments is that most of them are corrupt. They serve the elite. Sometimes because they are corrupt, sometimes because they have no other choice because the elite controls the money. That's what is really the problem.
In a free world without governments, you will still have the same problems because there will still be people that will try to abuse the freedom they have in favour of themselves and against the rest of the people.
As I always say, governments are not the problem. Bad governments are. If a government consists of good people that are there to help society and not steal from them in their own advantage, than governments are a blessing.
The problem is not whether your system is socialism, capitalism, communism, dictatorship, ... The true problem is the people. No matter what system you are in, the selfishness of certain people that want to abuse the system in their favour ... thats the real problem.
Did you read my post? ;) One of the major themes was "What do you mean when you say government?" When I say we don't need governments, I define exactly what I mean so that it's very clear. Your response uses the word "government" to mean something else, and claims that I said we don't need that. That's a strawman fallacy. We need organization; just not slavery.
When I say we don't need government, I mean we don't need slaves and masters. You can build a building without slaves, Pharaoh. :)
Other than that, I would say you're falling victim to Binswanger's first great fallacy: separating force from economics. Economic law is immutable, and it restricts all human action. If you cannot get the resources to do X, you cannot do X. This is not up for debate, and it is not subject to change. If you have no copper, you can't make copper wire.
A classic human bias is to undervalue information you do not yet understand. Learn economics (real economics like Austrian economics, not fantasy-land Keynesian economics which depend on fraud-based currency), and you'll understand why markets work.
So imagine we are in a completely free market. And I manage to be so smart that I am so rich that I can buy all the copper in the world. How are you gonna make copper wire if I refuse to sell it to you ?
Absurd hypothetical is absurd. But if you want a serious answer, I'm not. I'll just upgrade to fiber.
I couldn't reply on your last post so I reply here. Well, if you are no seeing that in the current world things like oil, food, finances, electricity ... are controlled by a small group of people, you are clearly living in fantasy land. Small banks, electricity companies have been destroyed, which has led to giant too big too fail banks and electricity companies. They do whatever they want. They destroy any form of competition. Saudi Arabia is doing the same with oil. So the US invented fracking ? No problem, they use their influence to lower oil prices temporarily and all the fracking industry is destroyed. So now they have a monopoly and everyone else is going to think twice before trying to enter.
I read part of your post. I stopped when I got the feeling that once again it was going to be some libertarian talk about how bad governments are. I think most libertarians don't even have a clue why they don't want a government. But maybe you are different. So I will read the remainder ;-)
I was willing to grant you all the copper, as absurd as that is (something which could never be accomplished in reality unless everyone had already deemed copper worthless), but you definitely can't do that with water. There's too much; you would not be able to maintain control of it. If you cannot maintain it, you cannot own it (homesteading principle).
It is not absurd hypothetical. A group of 5 people could team up and own all the copper in the world. They could agree to not compete but cooperate in their advantage. This is called an oligopolie. You should know because you are the economic genius.
So if I manage to control the water supply than you are gonna drink coca cola ?
Oh, I'm very aware of those problems in this world. I also understand, at a fundamental level, how we got here, and what the solution is to fix it and make sure it doesn't happen again. I wrote a post about it, maybe you've read it? ;)
Anarcho-capitalism is an oxymoron. Capitalists need more crap than they can personally defend and transport to trade, and private property to store it all on. Governments or private government like organizations must be in place to protect this property. These organizations require hierarchy. Anarchy means no archy and capitalism creates/needs hierarchy. I could write a lot more about this but if you're not a minimalist nomad, you're just not an anarchist so please stop shitting in the pool by calling yourself one.
Steemit is proving to be free market social media sight. This is explained at Area 51.
https://steemit.com/area/@steve-mcclair/area-51-steemit-has-arrived#comments
Totally agree with your vision, thank you for share
Well written, well thought out. Thank you for posting this.
meep
I don't see any attempt to deal with market failures such as public goods or negative externalities.... That is where the need for govt. has historically been grounded. You can argue that many of the services performed by a specific govt. do not fall under market failures (e.g. education, healthcare etc.) but I don't see how in your security example you deal with free riders without coercion.
Fine. Narrow down legitimate government to that which is voluntary and we have a deal. Only allow government services that people are willing to pay for without coercion or force. We will buy the services from government that we want.
Because the article I was responding to was. Perhaps I should be lighter next time? :)