The schedule for next month’s Alabama Philosophical Society in Pensacola (which looks to be our biggest yet) is now online. Abstracts will be added later.
Auburn University
(I had planned to present a paper on the extent to which the Problem of Good, i.e. of reconciling the existence of goodness with the universe’s having been created by an all-powerful malevolent being, is symmetrical with the traditional Problem of Evil, but then I discovered that more work had been done in this area than I’d realised, and that what I had to add wasn’t sufficiently original, so at the last minute I recycled my piece on Godwin instead.)
Also online is a pair of talks that Kelly Jolley and I gave back in 2002 at an Auburn Philosophical Society roundtable on the subject of The Idea of the University.
Guest Blogs by Brad Spangler and Kevin Carson PLAN B: Okay, It’s Time to Panic by Brad Spangler Dear Supporters of the Center for a Stateless Society, I blame myself. When we launched the month-plus long fundraising drive for combined July and August expenses two weeks ago, I tried to convey that because it was [...]
“In what way or ways would it be most difficult for insurance companies to function successfully as sources of justice and defense against aggression?”
I don’t think insurance companies can function as sources of justice and defense. At most they can offer people pooled risk services. They can insure contracts, pay out instant restitution and collect damage payments from the insurance companies of losers in arbitration.
The source of justice in a stateless market anarchist society might be arbitration agencies, and I expect these would be independent entities separate from the insurance companies and defense agencies. In order for the arbitration agencies to retain credibility, they would need to maintain distance from the insurance companies, lest people think they were biased in favor of one or another.
The source of defense in a stateless society might be police, or defense, agencies. These would also need to observe a careful distance from the insurance and arbitration companies for the same reason.
Thus, perhaps the answer is that insurance companies would need to studiously avoid proximity to defense agencies and arbitration services in order to maintain maximum credibility and avoid the appearance of favoritism or conflict of interest. Integrity and impartiality are the most critical elements of free market justice and defense, since first force can not be used to compel submission. Only voluntary relations will stand.
Next, a blast from my statist past: “Financing the Non-Coercive State,” an essay I wrote in (though not for) grad school, in which I decisively refute free-market anarchism!
Over at C4SS’ Stateless U in ATP 102, I watched and critiqued Roderick Long’s talk “Foundations of Libertarian Ethics.” [See above.]
In “Foundations of Libertarian Ethics,” Roderick Long deftly refutes Lockean and Randian critiques of anarchy, using these same critiques against themselves in support of market anarchy. Long also evaluates strategies for achieving the stateless society, convincingly arguing the Spoonerite position that voting and running for office are not immoral. He also makes a convincing case that voting is not irrational.
Long first takes on Locke’s argument that without a central government, people will subscribe to different interpretations of justice. But Long points out that people have different interpretations of justice under government too. In fact, one can expect more legal uniformity under anarchy, not less, Long says. He cites the example of European merchant law that arose when state commercial law became outdated. Each national government had different laws, and they wouldn’t enforce each others’ decisions. So merchants formulated their own laws and applied them in a highly uniform way across the globe. The merchants enforced their law without the state via word of mouth, boycott, credit reports and ostracism.
While Long’s analysis wins outs, I don’t think legal uniformity across jurisdictions is particularly important. As long as individual property owners or legal jurisdictions post their laws and keep them understandable, there should be no problem.
Long next examines Locke’s claim that a generally known standard of law is required, and that anarchy would not produce this. But government produces too many laws, Long argues, since it is not restrained by market demand. And this is the same thing as there not being a generally known law code, because people simply can not know all the laws that congress and other law-making bodies churn out.
Long makes an insightful argument here, but Lockeans may see it as as a pyrrhic victory against a strawman. Locke didn’t argue for a large state such as the ones primarily in existence today. His ideal smaller state might not produce as much confusion in the realm of law.
Another defect of anarchy, Locke posits, is that individuals would be judges in their own cases, since everyone in a state of anarchy has the right to judge the law. They would be biased for themselves. Long argues that Locke is mistaken. There can be a third party judge under anarchy, it simply doesn’t have to be the same individual or institution for every single dispute. People can take turns being judges for others. Only anarchy allows this. Contrast this with the state: what if you have a dispute with them? Then the state gets to judge itself! What about if you sue the supreme court, Long asks. Who will be the final arbiter then?
Long’s argument doesn’t strike any vital organs. Inside the state there are many different individuals reigning as judges. When one of these judges is faced with a conflict of interest, he can recuse himself, and is often obligated to do so. Arguing that the state judges disputes that involve the state is a collectivization where Locke speaks of individuals. That’s a double standard. His argument about who will reign as judge if the supreme court is sued does stick, since the supreme court is the fixed final arbiter of disputes. Eventually the case could make its way to be heard in front of the supreme court. Given its unique position, it could theoretically hear a case against itself.
Locke’s final objection to anarchy is that everyone could be his own police officer. Long argues that Locke simply thinks that if there are organized threats under anarchy, a lone individual will be at a disadvantage. An organized defense, in other words, is necessary. But, Long argues that an organized defense doesn’t necessarily presuppose or require state involvement. He is convincing here. His killer critique of Locke on this point is that if you are worried about organized threats being hard to defend against, you don’t actually want to go and create one in the form of government!
A Randian objection Long addresses is the claim that no market is possible without a government legal order. But the opposite is also true, argues Long. How can a government come to exist without some kind of trade to finance its creation? It is indeed difficult to imagine a government preceding the marketplace. Governments produce nothing, they only consume. Thus there must be something to consume in the first place. A legal order, on the other hand, can arise spontaneously as individuals need it and by mutual agreement in a primitive analogue to what Murphy describes in chapter one of “Chaos Theory.”
Long also critiques the Randian idea that under anarchy, there would be no final arbiter, and therefore no legal finality. Long questions the claim that government actually provides any legal finality. For example, government has made many guarantees of help to the poor, but people remain in poverty. Also, government legal decisions don’t always result in restitution, Long notes. It’s not a question of a guarantees, he argues, but that certain incentives are more reliable. Government, being a monopoly, it is insulated from feedback and thus the right incentives are not in place
Finally, Long considers how to achieve a stateless society. There are two strategies, he says, the takeover strategy and the bypass strategy. Like Spooner, he thinks there is nothing really wrong with voting or running for office. It shouldn’t be the primary focus of one’s activism, he thinks, but neither should one abstain entirely. If, by voting, libertarians could change the outcome of a state’s actions from horrible to merely bad, wouldn’t it be worth it?
Long’s analysis is measured and strong. He is absolutely right. At some point, agorists and other libertarian (r)evolutionaries will be toe-to-toe with the state. Wouldn’t the outcome be more favorable if some of our own were on the inside and able to moderate the government response? This is a compelling argument.
Is voting irrational because it will most likely have little or no effect, Long asks. What about writing a libertarian blog post? Is that irrational, since it may have little to no effect as well? Long makes a striking point here. I must say that I feel my 250+ blog posts here have been considerably more effective than my two votes for Ross Perot in the 90’s. I get enormous personal satisfaction from the brain work required to research and write these posts. And the reactions I get are highly rewarding as well. That said, I think voting in state elections has its place. If we have even a slight hope of moderating the state’s evil, it may be worth it to vote (and run for office).
In this talk, Roderick Long persuasively rebuts both Lockean and Randian arguments against anarchy while navigating a shrewd path through the voluntaryist-partyarch debate minefield. His analysis is insightful and refreshing, if sometimes less than entirely pertinent.
Hazle Township, Pennsylvania supervisors have declared war on yard sales. They say too many local residents are holding too many yard sales too often. So they’ve rolled out new limits for budding entrepreneurs who use their own property to freely associate and trade with their fellow human beings.
Those wishing to hold a yard sale must get a government permit. They may not hold a yard sale for more than three consecutive days and never more than twice per month from April thru October. Local government officials promise the theft of $150 or a kidnapping of up to 30 days in prison for anyone who flouts their rules.
But these government gang members are flouting the rules of property and free association. Yard saler Ray Starrick just wants to offer a better product than the big box stores at a better price because “nowadays everything is expensive.” In a stateless society, no one but Ray would make the rules for him and his property. If he could legitimately undercut the competition, his services would be valued, not punished.
“If you have a yard sale every week, we don’t feel like you’re cleaning out your attic. You may be going somewhere else and getting merchandise and bringing it home and selling it at your yard sale. And you’re doing that for profit,” announced an anonymous state functionary. But there is nothing wrong with acting for profit. State functionaries limit others’ freedom in search of greater power. Which is more dangerous, profit or power?
As Ray Starrick points out, these government busybodies are interfering with his private life. They’re subverting his right to use his property as he sees fit and they’re interfering with his ability to associate freely with others. It’s time for the war on yard sales to end, especially as the government economic crisis worsens. Individuals must be allowed to use their property in legitimate ways to sustain their own lives.
The following letter appeared in today’s Opelika-Auburn News:
To the Editor:
Elizabeth Rutland writes that the debate over gambling needs to focus on the moral issues (Sunday, “Bingo issue is a matter of morality, not legality”).
I agree, but I think she misses the major moral issue: Is it moral to ban gambling? Do we have a moral right to interfere with the possibly mistaken personal choices of other people, using the violence of government to subordinate their judgment to our own?
The answer is no. Other people are not our property. It’s a sin to treat them as though they were.
In the words of Jesus: “Ye know that the princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion over them, and they that are great exercise authority upon them; but it shall not be so among you.”
Roderick T. Long
(The tone of Ms. Rutland’s letter led me to believe that Jesus was an authority she might think highly of.)
This reminds me that my second reply to Carol Robicheaux, sent on June 4th, was never published. Here it is:
To the Editor:
I thank Carol Robicheaux for her polite response (May 31) to my letter.
At the time of the American Revolution, its supporters were challenged to name any recent successful examples of representative democracy. They couldn’t; nearly every developed country was a monarchy.
Contrary to what the challengers were implying, though, this wasn’t because representative democracy is unworkable; it’s because until 1776, monarchists had forcibly suppressed every attempt to establish such a system.
Robicheaux likewise challenges me to name a successful modern large-scale anarchist society. Obviously there hasn’t yet been one, for the same reason.
However, there are many modern examples of people living under governments while autonomously organizing every public service from roads to security to healthcare, without government involvement, and indeed despite government’s actively hostile attempts to suppress such efforts.
“How, and with what resources,” Robicheaux asks, could people could do this? I answer: how and with what resources does government do it? Government has no resources of its own; it simply redistributes other people’s resources, mainly from poorer to richer.
Am I out to abolish “rules and structure,” as she says? No, anarchy is the abolition of rulers, not of rules. We’re not against institutions, we’re just against giving any institution a force-backed monopoly.
Robicheaux thinks most people are well-intentioned and capable, but worries about those who aren’t. So do I. That’s one of the reasons I’m opposed to giving some people power over other people – because people who aren’t well-intentioned or aren’t capable can cause a lot more trouble when they wield political power.
She doesn’t explain what she thinks is “problematic” about working within the existing system while working toward a better one, so I’ll have to leave that point unaddressed.
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