Market Anarchist Blogs

Professor David Friedman talks about being raised by Milton Friedman, and how he unschooled his own children (40:47):

Stefan Molyneux runs Freedomain Radio, the largest and most popular philosophy show on the web. His books, podcasts, and videos are available free on the web. Mr. Molyneux accepts donations with the utmost gratitude.

Filed under: Philosophy Tagged: children, Coercion, David Friedman, education, epistemology, Freedomain Radio, libertarian, liberty, Milton Friedman, morality, parenting, Philosophy, Stefan Molyneux, unschooling

One of John Maynard Keynes’ criticisms of the market mechanism was what he called “sticky” wages. He claimed that the market for employment does not work as efficiently as previously thought, because employees are reluctant to accept lower wages. He not only claimed that wages failed to respond to supply and demand but that it was a good thing they were unresponsive.

In his book The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, he said, “It is only in a highly authoritarian society, where sudden, substantial, all-round changes could be decreed that a flexible wage-policy could function with success.” Astoundingly, he thought authoritarian societies were more susceptible to the market process. In an earlier comment, he said that was “because men want the moon. … There is no remedy but to persuade the public that green cheese is practically the same thing and to have a green cheese factory (i.e. a central bank) under public control.” So Keynes thought the role of government was to deceive individuals in the public into making decision they otherwise would not have made. In an authoritarian society, he swooned, there is no need for such pretenses.

Part of Keynes’ confusion was failing to distinguish between the total wage income and the hourly wage rate of an employee. In today’s market, there are all sorts of adjustments that employers can consider when wanting to cut their overall labor costs, such as reducing the number of labor hours and providing fewer health benefits. But those are best achieved in an open, dynamic market process.

Governments, as commonly conceived, are incapable of this downward flexibility because they are anything but open and dynamic. They are a violent assault on reason. Government escalates in a progressively intrusive way, making it what is sticky downward.

For the most part, conservatives, who rightly deplore their stolen tax dollars being redistributed to make welfare recipients more dependent on government handouts, hardly ever talk about reducing government welfare. Not including the automotive and financial industry bailouts, entitlement spending almost doubled under George W. Bush from 2002 to 2009. Instead, conservative politicians look to expand government power in hopes of deterring those who have moved into the country without government permission. They understand how difficult it would be politically to reduce government handouts, even to those without the ability to vote. Their best bet is to advocate for more government power, more police, more laws, more taxes.

Worse still, government is slippery upward. The reason why conservatives do not more vigorously advocate for reducing government welfare is varied. It might be because they do not want to be called racist, or it might be because it would hurt their chances of gaining control of government to impose their own social agenda. It is also not worth much of an individual’s time to lobby congressmen to reduce spending when the extra savings would probably just be spent on some other boondoggle. Violence does not produce positive overall results. It is less than a zero-sum game. In government, you are either stealing or being stolen from. The power of the state is being used immediately for your benefit, or the power of the state is being used against your benefit.

I can understand why conservatives clamor for more laws. On their own, they could not afford to kick out all the foreigners, to hire bounty hunters and deport them. That would be awfully expensive, and people might not look too kindly on using violence against peaceful people, even against those who broke an arbitrary government edict. But somehow, people acquire a different moral nature while wearing a government-issued uniform. If they can lobby for power of their own, they can use the government to achieve something, financially and culturally, not possible otherwise. The government’s monopoly on taxation means they can spend resources they did not have access to beforehand, extinguishing liberty one amber at a time.

We can see why government does not solve problems but only makes them worse. We can also see why reducing government aggression, at least through the conventional electoral process, has been so fruitless.

NBC News had this on April 14, 2010: “The cops raided an Independent Anarchist Media Collective space at 13 Thames Art Space in Brooklyn and arrested two group members Tuesday. According to the “I AM Collective” statement, the NYPD entered the Bushwick based art and performance space without a warrant. “Two plainclothes detectives entered first, followed quickly by [...]

“The soldier does not wish to appear a coward, disloyal, or un-American. The situation has been so defined that he can see himself as patriotic, courageous, and manly only through compliance.” -   Stanley Milgram

“Hitler never abandoned the cloak of legality; he recognized the enormous psychological value of having the law (as well as the church) on his side.  Instead, he turned the law inside out and made illegality legal.” - Historian Alan Bullock

A new South Carolina law has attracted nationwide attention since coming into effect this week. The Subversive Activities Registration Act requires organizations that “directly or indirectly advocate, advise, teach or practice the duty or necessity of controlling, seizing, or overthrowing the government of the United States, the state of South Carolina, or any political division thereof” to register with the secretary of state and pay a $5 fee. The act also requires that any subversive organization must also register every member of the group. Failure to comply with any provision of the law is punishable up to a $25,000 fine and 10 years in prison.

Because the Alliance of the Libertarian Left’s first priority is to be in compliance with every letter of the law, Charles “Rad Geek” Johnson took it upon himself to contact South Carolina Secretary of State Mark Hammond about ALL’s activities.

Secretary of State Mark Hammond
P.O. Box 11350
Columbia, SC 29211

Dear Sir:

I am writing to you today as a member of the Alliance of the Libertarian Left, a subversive organization advocating the duty, the necessity, and the propriety of overthrowing the governments of the United States and of the state of South Carolina by unlawful means — as we advocate the duty, the necessity, and the propriety of overthrowing all forms of government at every level throughout the world. As advocates of the doctrine of Anarchism and the strategy of counter-economics, we specifically reject legalized methods of changing government policy, such as government elections and legislative lobbying, and we advocate the deliberate use of illegal tactics such as civil disobedience, and nonviolent direct action in defiance of unjust laws, as our preferred means of bringing about the dissolution of all government into the economic organism.

Members of the ALL, both anonymous and open, operate in many states, including in South Carolina. We are actively engaged in attempts to influence political action in the state of South Carolina — specifically, by aiming to stop any political action at all from being inflicted upon the people of South Carolina. We reside and transact business within the territorial boundaries claimed by the state of South Carolina; we are in your neighborhoods and we are in your business districts. We may even be in your homes; have you checked under the beds and in the closets?

I believe that our doctrines and activities qualify us as an officially recognized subversive organization, as described in South Carolina Code Title 23 Chapter 29.

Please consider this our notice of subversive activities; I would be honored if you would add our organization to your registry of organizations working for the overthrow of government in South Carolina. All government is, after all, nothing more than an absurdity, a usurpation, and a crime, inflicted on the vast majority of peaceful people, without their consent, by the dictation of a select few men who have neither the wisdom, nor the virtue, nor the right to presume to rule over anyone other than themselves. It has always been the most deadly tool of oppressors and exploiters, as the past victims of South Carolina’s government, from the Stono rebels to Denmark Vesey to the 35 victims of the Orangeburg Massacre have known all to well. When belligerence and inhumanity prevail, the peaceful and the humane must find honor in being categorized as the enemies of the prevailing order. Please keep me updated as to the status of our registration. I look forward to hearing back from you as to our official recognition as enemies of your state and its government.

Sincerely,
Charles Johnson

PS. I am told that there is a processing fee in the amount of $5.00 for the registration of a subversive organization. Our organization is in fact so dastardly that we have refused to remit the fee.

All the great governments of the world – those now existing, as well as those that have passed away – have been of this character. They have been mere bands of robbers, who have associated for purposes of plunder, conquest, and the enslavement of their fellow men. And their laws, as they have called them, have been only such agreements as they have found it necessary to enter into, in order to maintain their organizations, and act together in plundering and enslaving others, and in securing to each his agreed share of the spoils. All these laws have had no more real obligation than have the agreements which brigands, bandits, and pirates find it necessary to enter into with each other, for the more successful accomplishment of their crimes, and the more peaceable division of their spoils. — Mr. Lysander Spooner, Natural Law, or the Science of Justice.

Not only are we all anarchists now, there are abundant examples of anarchism working fabulously well. However, instead of opening anarchic relationships to everyone, governments have worked to abolish them from the private sphere and instead centralize anarchic relationships into the hands of politicians. I know it sounds strange that anarchy exists internally within government. My point here is to demonstrate that anarchic relationships are omnipresent.

Before beginning, I want to note that critics of market (or individualist) anarchism will point out that the market functions best with an impartial judicial system ruling on comprehensible law. I readily agree. Supporters of government also claim there needs to be a final body, such as the Supreme Court, which entails a supreme law that settles disputes once and for all. I don’t think it matters either way, especially since the political system does allow for disputes to continue in the legislative process even after the final court proceedings. I also don’t believe that a monopoly could provide an impartial judicial system or a comprehensible law. However, for the sake this discussion, I will concede all three points.

In Two Treatises on Civil Government John Locke said there are two things wanting in a “state of nature”: “established, settled, known law” and “a known and indifferent judge” (emphasis in original work). To clarify, my understanding is that a government functions as a third party that provides ultimate dispute settlement within a given territory. Again, for the sake of this discussion, I will concede that an “established, settled, known law” exists. So without an “indifferent judge” whose decisions are commanded, by force if necessary, anarchy exists. For the sake of this discussion, I will concede that there is always sufficient force to command a judge’s decision. So really, the question is if there is an “indifferent judge” or not. (I’ve written a little here and here why I believe a market-based legal system is more able to provide equitable justice.)

The first basic anarchic relationship is between government and its citizens. The second is among different governments. The third is between citizens and foreign governments. The fourth basic anarchic relationship is among citizens of different governments. (More elaborate anarchic relationships can be read about here.) With this understanding, it becomes abundantly clear that government cannot eliminate anarchy; it is ever-present. Government can only centralize and transform it, many times with devastating effects.

The first form of an anarchic relationship is between the United States federal government and American citizens, for example. There is no “indifferent judge” when the federal government comes into conflict with individuals or groups of individuals. In those cases, the federal government prohibits a third party from resolving the dispute. It is helpful that a different branch hears the case, but that branch is appointed by and subject to the pressures of another branch of government responsible for enforcing the court’s decisions. Supposedly, that is the purpose of the constitution’s checks and balances — to bind the federal government, yet the federal government is also responsible for interpreting and enforcing its own limitations. Politicians also act in a state of anarchy with each other. There is no external agency that enforces rules among them, and so they exist in a form of “political anarchy” as opposed to natural “market anarchy,” according to Alfred G. Cuzan, who said:

[I]n their relations among each other, they remain largely “lawless.” Nobody external to the group writes and enforces rules governing the relations among them. At most, the rulers are bound by flexible constraints imposed by a “constitution” which they, in any case, interpret and enforce among and upon themselves. … In short, society is always in anarchy. A government only abolishes anarchy among what are called “subjects” or “citizens,” but among those who rule, anarchy prevails.

Since governments get to decide conflicts, they are so inclined to create conflict and then rule in their own favor, expanding their authority.

To give some state governments credit, there have been calls throughout the years to nullify particularly outrageous federal legislation. But those states can only do so much because the federal government controls the currency and can hand out goodies to those states willing accept expansive federal powers. In the United States, the federal government’s dispute authority is not as centralized as, say, North Korea, where the final authority is given to a single person. In effect, Kim Jong-il has abolished anarchy is North Korea for everyone but himself.

In the second form of anarchic relationships, the federal government also exists in a state of anarchy with all other governments around the world. There is no mandatory final arbiter of disputes between Canada and the United States, for example. If the Canadian government is accused of price fixing, the disagreement is settled by the World Trade Organization, per their membership agreement. Both governments had a mutually agreed-upon dispute resolution process. The United Nations is the closest thing to a world government, but even its membership is voluntary. The United States government could even opt out and no longer be responsible to funding it or abide by UN resolutions within its territorial borders so long as the federal government did not threaten to aggress against other UN member governments. National governments voluntarily cooperate by honoring visas and legal documents (like marriage certificates and drivers licenses) and ratifying all sorts of treatises. So empirically, there is no need for a world government for other governments to peacefully coexist. But of course, nations do not always interact so peacefully.

There are a couple of reasons why violence committed by governments have been so devastating. Mainly, it has to do with the imbalance of power between governments and citizens. That is the reason cited by many constitutionalists for their defense of the right to keep and bear arms, as recognized by the Second Amendment. Some of the greatest genocides in history have been perpetrated against an unarmed populace. If the theory holds, it would seem that the greater the imbalance of power the more deaths that have resulted, while greater peace would occur as a result of a more evened balance of power. In fact, the figures seem to say just that. In the past 100 years, 262 million people were killed by their own government. (I am using “own government” very loosely.) Approximately 35 million others were killed in combats with a foreign government. (It was unclear how many were civilians and how many were soldiers.) In a fourth form of anarchic relationships, foreign citizens are in state of anarchy with citizens of other nations. The largest foreign civilian murderer was Osama bin Laden, who allegedly orchestrated the death of 3500 people in part to demonstrate his grievances with the foreign military occupation of the Arabian Peninsula. Interestingly, nuclear-armed nations, which have nearly an equal capability for destruction, have never been in direct conflict. (That may be because the political leaders are in direct harm’s way.)

We can conclude that civilians face the greatest danger from their own government, where the balance of power is so astounding. Equally powerful governments are relatively peaceful toward one another. And civilians face the least danger from other civilians. To be fair, that could be because governments are in place to punish lawbreakers. That affect seems marginal, at best, because most people do not have reasonable access to a functioning judicial system for civil cases, nor do they have much confidence in police apprehending criminals who have victims.

According to the FBI, less than 20 percent of reported burglaries, property crime, theft, car theft, and arson are “cleared.” Keep in mind, that only includes reported crimes, and not all “cleared” cases result in conviction. Police can pin crimes on deceased or incarcerated suspects. Murders are cleared about 60 percent of the time, forcible rape about 40 percent of the time, aggravated assault about 55 percent of the time. Keep in mind, those figures include wrongful convictions based on faulty eye-witness testimony, unimpartial juries, fabricated evidence, and incompetent public defenders.

Citizens have no constitutional right to have their rights protected, which is allegedly the entire purpose of forming a government according to the Declaration of Independence. Thomas Jefferson wrote, “That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed ….” The United States Supreme Court justices have ruled multiple times that federal, state, and local governments have no positive obligation to provide protection from “killers or madmen.” So if police do respond to a 911 call, it is solely out of the good will put upon by social pressures within the community or from commanders conforming to social pressures.

A second reason governments are capable of so much more violence is because those people supporting escalation do not have the full burden of paying for their military adventures, but can channel the benefits of their policies to themselves and their supporters. Basically, the costs can be socialized, and the benefits are privatized — like any other government program.

Successful Anarchism in Practice

The political process is a perfect example of how market anarchism can work even under the most crippling conditions. (I lifted this from Stefan Molyneux’s video “The Proof of Anarchy.”) It is fairly well known that political contributors and lobbyists are some of the biggest recipients of special treatment by the government. Year after year, the government increases in size and power. Pork-barrel spending and corporate bailouts are never ending. Upwards of 80 percent of Americans support greater restrictions on campaign finance contributions, so people have an innate sense that those in power are pretty rotten. Yet — even though politicians and political contributors cannot make written agreements, contributors can never have their agreements enforced by a functioning legal system, no one can be made aware of a politician’s broken agreement, the government will violently punish anyone who can be proven to have made such an agreement, and media reporters are paid good money to uncover such agreements — politicians are repeatedly re-elected about 90 percent of the time and lobbyists receive more and more handouts and exemptions from the law. Under the worst market conditions, lobbyist and politicians continue to work harmoniously. If lobbyists were able to publicize broken quid pro quo agreements or have them enforced by a legal system, then lobbyists would have an even greater effect. As it stands, politicians are not forced into compliance with their lobbyists; the only threat to the politician is that the lobbyist will support his or her opponent in the next election. You have the market process flourishing even in the face of significant obstacles.

Building Towards Liberty

As I’ve tried to demonstrate, government cannot totally eliminate anarchism. Cuzan said:

We have shown that anarchy, like matter, never disappears — it only changes form. Anarchy is either market anarchy or political anarchy. Pluralist, decentralized political anarchy is less violent than hierarchical political anarchy. Hence, we have reason to hypothesize that market anarchy could be less violent than political anarchy. Since market anarchy can be shown to outperform political anarchy in efficiency and equity in all other respects, why should we expect anything different now? Wouldn’t we be justified to expect that market anarchy produces less violence in the enforcement of property rights than political anarchy? After all, the market is the best economizer of all — wouldn’t it also economize on violence better than government does, too?

One method capitalizing on the anarchic relationships formally denied to citizens is the practice of agorism, which emphasizes working within black and gray market industries as a way of building alternatives to government-imposed services. In that way, the government — a so-called necessary evil — will no longer be seen as necessary. In time, it will be seen for what it is, just evil.

(Photo credit: sillydog, with Creative Commons license)

I’m not sure how newsworthy this is for property owners, but Tarrant County has been accused of engaging in “official coercion” for refusing to issue vehicle registration stickers to those with unpaid red light camera municipal citations.

Residents who don’t pay their citation fines will technically be labeled a scofflaw when they try to get their vehicle registered with the county.

County tax collector Betsy Price said the term scofflaw will physically appear on the vehicle registration paperwork.

“Then we tell them you have a scofflaw comment. We can’t register your vehicle until you pay that fine,” she said.

But since the county is not officially responsible for collecting the fine, it’s only a respectful request and friendly suggestion.

“And if they dispute it then we’ll say we prefer that you pay the ticket. But if they continue to dispute it we will issue them their registration. We’ll just take the name and address and we’ll advise the city that we’ve registered the vehicle on a dispute,” Price said.

Last February, Dallas County implemented a stricter policy. County tax assessor John Ames said since then more than 700 people have been prevented from getting their vehicle registered. Thousands more paid their fines first.

Austin and El Paso also have similar policies.

There are legal questions from some. Some attorneys label what the counties are doing as official coercion. Others say it’s just wrong.

“Well it’s wrong. It’s using the system to bully you saying you’re not going to get it. Other stores can’t use that same option,” said resident Joe Brandon.

I think Brandon missed the point. Other stores also cannot hire gunmen to shoot or cage people who do not care to do business with them. Imagine how Brandon is going to react when someone tells him the Tooth Fairy is not real.

A common meme in the liberty movement is that if we can’t achieve liberty by the ballot box, then we’ll get it by the ammo box. I say neither will work since both strategies have failed for more than 200 years. That being the case, let’s examine why violence against the state will never usher in an era of liberty.

Empirically, violence has always bred more government and more taxes. Contrary to the popular notion, Americans actually paid more in taxes after the revolution than they had as British colonists. When the hidden tax of inflation is calculated, Americans were burdened far more greatly by government than they had before. The so-called Civil War is another history of this. The first income tax was imposed to pay for the war, and the federal government’s first fully fiat, non-redeemable currency was issued. In ever conflict since then, government has grown and liberty has waned. This is not something libertarians don’t already know.

Robert Higgs attributes this predictable growth to the “Rachet Effect.” When an emergency or crisis ensues, the government seizes additional powers until the threat is neutralized. After which, only a portion of those new powers are relinquished. It sets a precedent for future, presumably legal, actions that the government can then build on. It’s called the statism jig. Go three steps forward and take one step back. It doesn’t always have to be a war that leads to the ratcheting. Times of severe economic turmoil also provide an excuse for government to expand. It is just as important to remember that not all the expansions can occur simultaneously. Each precedent builds on the past and then justifies the next expansion to correct some new dilemma created by previous government meddling. Again, libertarians already know this.

I understand the sentiment that government is in a constant act of coercion against us, so it would be just to reciprocate in kind. The fault I see is on the exaggerated importance of the self-defense principle. In everyday practice, self-defense is of almost no importance in most people’s lives. If you’ve got someone bearing down on you with the intent to do harm, OK, I see how someone might react to defend him- or herself. When violence is taken against someone who has a perceived sense of legitimacy, that person is going to attract the sympathy of his or her supporters. When terrorists attack the government, no one who believes in the legitimacy of the government is going to side with the attackers, even if their grievance is legitimate. The government can justify garnering more power in order to protect against “the extremists.” Power will increase and liberty folds. For illustration, imagine a scenario where a family is killed by armed intruders. Everyone would recognize that is wrong. Just recall how that feels to hear about a story like that and how justified you think the family would be to act in self-defense. But what I said those who broke into the home were police officers there to enforce a law that violated their rights? I do not think that the vast majority of people would support that family firing back at the police even if the law they were enforcing was unjust. I think that is because the vast majority of the population views the government, and by extension the police, as legitimate. The thought of firing back at the police makes even me uneasy, a regular reader of William N. Grigg’s blog on the abuses of the police state. So if war is the health of the state, then police shootouts are its recommended daily allowance of credibility.

But what if we could smash the state entirely with a swift uprising? That will take leadership and a command structure. Odds are, that leadership would just take command of the existing government infrastructure and enact even tighter controls.

If the revolution comes by violence, and in advance of light, the old struggle will have to be begun again. — Benjamin R. Tucker

Force cannot solve problems. It can delay the inevitable, like another a hit of heroin delays an addiction withdraw. The longer one waits to address the root of the problem, the more costly—and dangerous—it will be to correct course. What it does is entrench opinions and create animosity for future conflicts. This is electoral politics. Ludwig von Mises proved axiomatically of the vital importance of individual liberty in Human Action in 1940. Conventional politics could not deliver when government was 20 percent this size. Inadvertently, electoral politics spreads the state. It corrupts its supporters and softens their impact because their ends and means are in conflict.

If Voting and Violence Have Failed, What Are We Left?

We have to be willing to make the hard choices to live in liberty—today. That begins by correcting the mentality that made authoritarianism possible. Then we will begin to see those changes in philosophy reflected in those currently hegemonic institutions. That is the hard work before us, removing the veneer of legitimacy. It does not offer quick gains like a revolution. We have to evolve past the cycle of violence of regurgitating inadequate solutions.

I recall a story from Brian Doherty’s Radicals for Capitalism, which I deeply recommend reading. I think it was William F. Buckley who would criticize libertarians for sitting around discussing the deontological conclusions of libertarianism, like why sanitation disposal should be marketized. He asked what good their philosophizing did in a time when the nation is staring down the Soviet Union in the Cold War, which he compared to a close combat gun battle. Someone responded, I don’t recall who, that you can’t make mistake after mistake and avoid negative consequences by just making one correct decision by following your principles. But nevertheless, it is important to know why sanitation disposal should be marketized so that everyone else in the future doesn’t make those same mistakes. That’s how I remember the story, anyways.

Libertarians are already considered “out there” for believing in the silly idea of individual autonomy. Don’t make it easier to marginalize us. Uphold your agreements, honor your peaceful neighbor’s choices, and provide restitution for any damages you inflict.

Here is an excerpt from Mary J. Ruwart’s Healing Our World, to reinforce the point.

Like our country’s founders, we don’t need to choose between the ideal and the practical. Since the means used dictate the ends attained, only non-aggression can give us a peaceful and prosperous world. Since aggression results in poverty and strife, it is neither ideal nor practical. Non-aggression will eventually become the norm because thankfully it is both ideal and practical.

This unsigned Star-Telegram editorial caught my attention for its negation of basic principles. The paper criticized Fort Worth school board member Carlos Vasquez for his rhetorical flare in condemning  a “lost revenue [taxing] opportunity.” The school board members were debating which firm should be contracted to collect back taxes from residents.

Vasquez was critical of the fees these collection agencies charged and the rate for seizure. Speaking of uncollected taxes, he said, “This is money that we’re stealing from the students.”

Instead of working from principles to question the morality of coercive taxation (actual theft), the Star-Telegram is quick to point out that Fort Worth is more efficient at practicing coercion than other major cities. Instead of showcasing “the gun in the room,” the paper wraps it in a scarf, puts it in a hat, and calls it a bunny rabbit.