Question for Anarchists
Whojgalt
Some quotes from Friedman's "Machinery
of Freedom" second edition, pages 127-128:
"If *almost* everyone believes
strongly that heroin addiction is so horrible that it
should not be permitted anywhere under any
circumstances, then anarcho-capitalist institutions
will produce laws against heroin" (emphasis added)
"If the maximum return comes from having heroin illegal in
some places and legal in others, then that is what
will happen"
"I predict that [...] heroin would be legal in New York and
illegal in most other places"
First, this seems to speak of jurisdictions that are
comprised of not individuals--one agency for me, one
agency for my next door neighbor--but of geographical
jurisdictions. Of laws being decided for an entire area,
not on an individual basis.
Furthermore, these quotes, and the entirety of the first
two pages of the chapter, strongly imply that heroin
would be made illegal not only for the customers
contracted by a particular agency, but for non-contracted
third parties within a geographical area.
If this interpretation is not correct, please correct me
and accept my "never mind" for the rest of this post.
If it is correct, is not the contract made between
an individual and his agency to forcibly prevent
heroin use by third parties not a threat of force?
Am I not morally justified in acting, with *retaliatory*
force against this threat? And by extension would
that not be true of *any* contract that sought
to enforce non-objective "law" against third
parties.
Furthermore, wouldn't it be in my interests
to set up a defense agency that is devoted
to responding to these threats, wherever
they may occur? And couldn't that agency
be headquartered in, say Washington DC?
Or am I just using aggression to enforce my
"monopoly" law rather than responding to a
threat?
--Kyle Bennett
Eric Knauer
Whojgalt wrote in message <19981010191819...@ngol02.aol.com>...
>
>Some quotes from Friedman's "Machinery
>of Freedom" second edition, pages 127-128:>
>First, this seems to speak of jurisdictions that are
>comprised of not individuals--one agency for me, one
>agency for my next door neighbor--but of geographical
>jurisdictions. Of laws being decided for an entire area,
>not on an individual basis.
This is one of the limitations and weaknesses of Friedman's book. He seems
to want to live in a libertarian society that respects the non-initiation
and consent principles but he never attempts to make strong normative
arguments for a free society. Instead, he thinks that free-market economic
principles will lead to lead to generally positive results. So I think it's
correct to assume that these geographical jurisdictions might produce some
very unlibertarian results without a proper moral foundation. This is the
reason I prefer Barnett and Rothbard's approach.
>
>Furthermore, these quotes, and the entirety of the first
>two pages of the chapter, strongly imply that heroin
>would be made illegal not only for the customers
>contracted by a particular agency, but for non-contracted
>third parties within a geographical area.
This would depend on who owns the geographical area or community. Many
communities would have specific rules on such things such as standard
cosmetics for homes, especially in suburban areas. Or you could be a single
owner with sole authority in rural areas. Hoppe comments on the principle
of exclusion:
"The market's speciality is producing things that people want, and
that is certainly true of conditions like community and order. A main means
of achieving them is the right of exclusion, which, in a market economy,
property owners can always exercise. This allows owners to keep up the value
of their property and to encourage civilized behavior.
Part of the terrible trend in modern government has been to trample on the
right of exclusion. That is essentially what civil rights law does.
Employers cannot hire and fire as they see fit. Teachers cannot kick
students out of school. Businesses must accommodate customers who are
detrimental to the long-term interest of the firm. In light of this,
cultural decay and rotten behavior are to be expected. Even the right of
parents to be the ultimate judge in their own household is under attack.
The covenant is a crucial market institution that affirms the right to
exclude. Groups of people, usually with one founder, lay down all sorts of
rules to which all people who are part of the group are required to adhere.
The ultimate owner determines the rules based on consent. And there are
competitive markets for covenantal property arrangements themselves,
offering varying degrees of strictness."
>
>If this interpretation is not correct, please correct me
>and accept my "never mind" for the rest of this post.
>
>If it is correct, is not the contract made between
>an individual and his agency to forcibly prevent
>heroin use by third parties not a threat of force?
>Am I not morally justified in acting, with *retaliatory*
>force against this threat? And by extension would
>that not be true of *any* contract that sought
>to enforce non-objective "law" against third
>parties.
Depends where you live and what conditions you have contracted to. Is the
owner of an apartment complex violating your right when you consent to abide
by noise constraints or cleanliness standards? I would imagine that many
communities would have arbitration agencies that you would consent to use if
any problems occurred with neighbors. If you agree to live in a
neighborhood which outlaws heroin use, then you've voluntarily consented to
this rule by the owner. But I doubt victimless crimes would be outlawed
because of enforcement costs. And who would voluntarily live in a private
community which claims the right to search your home looking for narcotics?
But it all depends on whether society generally accepts objectivist or
"libertarian" moral standards.
>
>Furthermore, wouldn't it be in my interests
>to set up a defense agency that is devoted
>to responding to these threats, wherever
>they may occur? And couldn't that agency
>be headquartered in, say Washington DC?
>
>Or am I just using aggression to enforce my
>"monopoly" law rather than responding to a
>threat?
>
If you've contracted to live in a private community which prohibits heroin,
you have no right to use heroin. If a third party tries to intrude on your
rights, then you should hire an agency to who will protect them.
-Eric
alex...@my-dejanews.com
Whojgalt <whoj...@aol.com> wrote:
>
> Some quotes from Friedman's "Machinery
> of Freedom" second edition, pages 127-128:
>
> strongly that heroin addiction is so horrible that it
> should not be permitted anywhere under any
> circumstances, then anarcho-capitalist institutions
> will produce laws against heroin" (emphasis added)
That's just stating the obvious.
> "If the maximum return comes from having heroin illegal in
> some places and legal in others, then that is what
> will happen"
>
> "I predict that [...] heroin would be legal in New York and
> illegal in most other places"
I predict that when people have a choise in how much they're going to spend
on their own defense they'll care a lot less about those who aren't doing
them harm. The only reason people might hate heroin users now is because our
pressent government has so demonized them for its own perposes.
> First, this seems to speak of jurisdictions that are
> comprised of not individuals--one agency for me, one
> agency for my next door neighbor--but of geographical
> jurisdictions. Of laws being decided for an entire area,
> not on an individual basis.
I don't know that Friedman implied that. He's saying if almost everyone
wanted the same law then each individual could seperately hire agencies for
that perpose and those agencies acting in concert could then inforce it
within a given area.
> Furthermore, these quotes, and the entirety of the first
> two pages of the chapter, strongly imply that heroin
> would be made illegal not only for the customers
> contracted by a particular agency, but for non-contracted
> third parties within a geographical area.
Yes. But he's simply stating the obvious. He's simply saying "if almost
everyone in a given society want a particular law then that law will exist."
This holds true under any type of social system. I would simply point out to
you something called "incentive" that make such obnoxious laws less likely
under A-C: when people have to provide and pay for their own defense it's
unlikely they're going to care about what other people do when it's not
harming them. Thus I would say people won't want that law--or rather, aren't
willing to pay for it out of their own pocket.
> If this interpretation is not correct, please correct me
> and accept my "never mind" for the rest of this post.
How far have you gotten in the book? I think he might address this in a
latter chapter.
> If it is correct, is not the contract made between
> an individual and his agency to forcibly prevent
> heroin use by third parties not a threat of force?
A threat to initiate force? Only if it was made overt that it would enforce
that contract.
> Am I not morally justified in acting, with *retaliatory*
> force against this threat?
You are if they make clear that they intend to enforce that contract which
would initiate force.
>And by extension would
> that not be true of *any* contract that sought
> to enforce non-objective "law" against third
> parties.
It's not the "contract" itself, it's the making of an overt threat that one
intends to initiate force--the contract itself per se is irrelevant to that.
If you and I were sitting around drinking beer and making up silly
"contracts" with each other to initiate force on a third party this would not
be an initiation of force unless these "contracts" were made overt to other
parties and they showed that we have intent to carry them out. In other
words, it's the use of threats as a substitue for initiatory force that makes
them illegitimate.
> Furthermore, wouldn't it be in my interests
> to set up a defense agency that is devoted
> to responding to these threats, wherever
> they may occur? And couldn't that agency
> be headquartered in, say Washington DC?
> Or am I just using aggression to enforce my
> "monopoly" law rather than responding to a
> threat?
Many questions you have about the ethics of these matters are addressed in
Murray N. Rothbard's "The Ethics of Liberty." You can get it cheapest at
http://www.barnsandnoble.com . It will serve you well.
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alex...@my-dejanews.com
Jim Klein
>I predict that when people have a choise in how much they're going to
>spend on their own defense they'll care a lot less about those who
>aren't doing them harm.
You know, of all I've read on every which side of the governance topic,
this sentence comes about as close to an "obvious fact" as any I've
ever read. I can't speak to what conclusions it imples, but it seems
to be more plainly true than perhaps any other political claim. And
since Objectivism deals with identification as prior to everything else
philosophically, this ought to be a useful premise to throw into the
argument. I wonder why I've so rarely seen it, among Objectivists.
Nice job.
jk
Greg Swann
>"I predict that [...] heroin would be legal in New York and
>illegal in most other places"
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
Most of the people who claim to be anarchists are in fact
advocates of a privatized statism. As you've discovered.
Greg Swann
Whojgalt
>>
>> "If *almost* everyone believes
>> strongly that heroin addiction is so horrible that it
>> should not be permitted anywhere under any
>> circumstances, then anarcho-capitalist institutions
>> will produce laws against heroin" (emphasis added)
>
>That's just stating the obvious.
Obvious, but a building block of the point I'm making.
>
>I predict that when people have a choise in how much they're going to spend
>on their own defense they'll care a lot less about those who aren't doing
>them harm. The only reason people might hate heroin users now is because our
>pressent government has so demonized them for its own perposes.
I'll second Jim Klein's assessment of this statement. I agree with it. But
that is
not to say that a moralistic crusade, backed by the force of a "protection"
agency against drug use will never happen. The question is: What will be
done about it when it does?
>> First, this seems to speak of jurisdictions that are
>> comprised of not individuals--one agency for me, one
>> agency for my next door neighbor--but of geographical
>> jurisdictions. Of laws being decided for an entire area,
>> not on an individual basis.
>
>I don't know that Friedman implied that.
Read the first quote: "...not permitted *anywhwere*..."
>He's saying if almost everyone
>wanted the same law then each individual could seperately hire agencies for
>that perpose and those agencies acting in concert could then inforce it
>within a given area.
But would they enforce it against non-contracted parties? Some probably
would try. I am asking what is the proper course of action for those of
us interested in preventing the initiation of force.
>. I would simply point out to
>you something called "incentive" that make such obnoxious laws less likely
>under A-C:
Thats fine, I understand it and will not argue against it at this point. My
point centers around the proper response to those possibly
very rare occurences by us objectivists/libertarians.
>> If this interpretation is not correct, please correct me
>> and accept my "never mind" for the rest of this post.
>
>How far have you gotten in the book? I think he might address this in a
>latter chapter.
About two chapters past the one I quoted. He's going off in another
direction now, perhaps he'll circle back to it in a bit.
>> If it is correct, is not the contract made between
>> an individual and his agency to forcibly prevent
>> heroin use by third parties not a threat of force?
>
>A threat to initiate force? Only if it was made overt that it would enforce
>that contract.
Oh, come on! An agency who's primary reason for being is to use
force on behalf of its customers, a contract requiring this agency to
use initiatory force, a payment for that service tendered and
accepted... How much more intent do you want?
>> Am I not morally justified in acting, with *retaliatory*
>> force against this threat?
>
>You are if they make clear that they intend to enforce that contract which
>would initiate force.
So as I said, I am now morally justified in acting against the parties
to that contract. Lets disregard for now any action against the
customer and focus on the agency. I am justified in doing whatever
is necessary to prevent the contract from being carried out, right?
>>And by extension would
>> that not be true of *any* contract that sought
>> to enforce non-objective "law" against third
>> parties.
>
>It's not the "contract" itself, it's the making of an overt threat that one
>intends to initiate force--the contract itself per se is irrelevant to that.
Not at all. The contract is the direct and explicit expression of that
intent. It is conclusive evidence of a threat. This threat is perhaps still in
search of an object, but it is intent nonetheless. I could very quickly
find an object for that intent, if that is what you think is necessary.
>If you and I were sitting around drinking beer and making up silly
>"contracts" with each other to initiate force on a third party this would not
>be an initiation of force unless these "contracts" were made overt to other
>parties and they showed that we have intent to carry them out. In other
>words, it's the use of threats as a substitue for initiatory force that makes
>them illegitimate.
This is ridiculous. Protection agencies are not drunken braggarts. They
are in the business of using force. And as part of that business, in
my hypothetical, they have expressed an intent to make that force
initiatory, and have acted on that intent in accepting payment.
Do you further require that they use the threat itself in some way?
Must they announce publicly that heroin use in the homes of
non-contracted third parties will no longer be tolerated as a ploy
to get people to stop? Why is this necesary? Is it not still a
threat if they plan to without prior notice storm in on an
unsuspecting junkie and arrest him?
>> Furthermore, wouldn't it be in my interests
>> to set up a defense agency that is devoted
>> to responding to these threats, wherever
>> they may occur? And couldn't that agency
>> be headquartered in, say Washington DC?
>> Or am I just using aggression to enforce my
>> "monopoly" law rather than responding to a
>> threat?
>
>Many questions you have about the ethics of these matters are addressed in
>Murray N. Rothbard's "The Ethics of Liberty." You can get it cheapest at
>http://www.barnsandnoble.com . It will serve you well.
Can't YOU answer them? I've already said I will read that book, but I will
not do so prior to your next response. (Unless you choose to wait
several weeks) I am asking if I am justified in setting up an agency
to scour the world for such contracts as are in fact explicit threats
of initiatory force, and to act to prevent that initiation.
--Kyle Bennett
Whojgalt
In article <6vp8ue$p...@bgtnsc02.worldnet.att.net>, Eric Knauer
<ekn...@worldnet.att.net> writes:
>Whojgalt wrote in message <19981010191819...@ngol02.aol.com>...
>>
>>Furthermore, these quotes, and the entirety of the first
>>two pages of the chapter, strongly imply that heroin
>>would be made illegal not only for the customers
>>contracted by a particular agency, but for non-contracted
>>third parties within a geographical area.
>
>This would depend on who owns the geographical area or community. Many
>communities would have specific rules on such things such as standard
>cosmetics for homes, especially in suburban areas.
This is all beside my point. I am specifically postulating a non-contracted
third party. Someone who contractually enters a community and agrees
in that contract to certain rules is not such a party.
>
>Part of the terrible trend in modern government has been to trample on the
>right of exclusion.
I couldn't agree with this more. the effect this has is to render all public
pressure mechanisms, such as ostracism, impotent. In a free society,
I would think that these would be far more effective than law. OJ would sure
as hell not have gotten away with it to nearly the extent that he has. .
>>Am I not morally justified in acting, with *retaliatory*
>>force against this threat? And by extension would
>>that not be true of *any* contract that sought
>>to enforce non-objective "law" against third
>>parties.
>
>Depends where you live and what conditions you have contracted to. [...]
You've missed my point again. Assuming a
non-contracted--in any way--party that
finds himself subject to such laws, am I justified
in stopping the initiatory force contract by force
on his behalf?
>
>If you've contracted to live in a private community which prohibits heroin,
>you have no right to use heroin. If a third party tries to intrude on your
>rights, then you should hire an agency to who will protect them.
OK. the last part of this is more to my point. Is a contract to use
initiatory force against heroin users a threat to me, even if the
parties to the contract do not yet know that I am a potential
object of their threat? Say I don't actually use heroin, but
still wish to assert my right to try it someday should the
fancy strike me. Is a clear expression of intent, the agency's
contract with its customer (see my response to Alex in
this thread), enough for me to act on?
Now lets extend this to the possibility that I (along with some
like minded associates) create an agency
to quash such contracts by whatever means necessary,
in any place they arise. I do this to protect myself, since
I could find myself the victim of any of these contracts
now or in the future, and just the threat of these contracts
being enforced against me could limit my behavior.
Am I not now, through my agency, unilaterally enforcing
objective law throughout whatever geographical region I choose
to or am able to, completely within an Anarcho-Capitalist
framework? Am I not in effect a licensing
agency for all other agencies? How far is that really from a
Minarchy divested of most of its monopoly power save
the right to approve contracts?
I'm not saying they're the same (my agency only acts
against other agencies only after they've acted improperly, and
a Minarchy presumably acts beforehand) but I'm getting a
hunch that they are starting to converge when subjected
to an objectivist and/or libertarian ethical framework. .
--Kyle Bennett
Whojgalt
In article <gswann-1010...@ip-32-175.phx.primenet.com>, Greg Swann
<gsw...@primenet.com> writes:
>Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
>
>Most of the people who claim to be anarchists are in fact
>advocates of a privatized statism. As you've discovered.
You may be right, but that does not in itself invalidate
the theory.
--Kyle Bennett
gsol...@virginia.edu
> First, this seems to speak of jurisdictions that are
> comprised of not individuals--one agency for me, one
> agency for my next door neighbor--but of geographical
> jurisdictions. Of laws being decided for an entire area,
> not on an individual basis.
>
I think it implies that there can be some correlation between geography and
the law that applies. There is no requirement that you and your neighbor
must choose different protection agencies, and, even if you do, it may well
be the case that both agencies have decided to use the same adjudication
agency.
> If it is correct, is not the contract made between
> an individual and his agency to forcibly prevent
> heroin use by third parties not a threat of force?
Sure, why not? Friedman's system is /not/ based upon the idea that you may
never initiate force. It is (and I'm sure he'll come back to life here if I
get this wrong) based on the idea that a group (like a protection agency or
state) can not legitimately claim any moral rights that individuals can not
claim. This does not translate into each person getting exactly the law they
want (how could it?), but rather getting the law that his protection agency
can negotiate for him.
> Am I not morally justified in acting, with *retaliatory*
> force against this threat? And by extension would
> that not be true of *any* contract that sought
> to enforce non-objective "law" against third
> parties.
>
Are you not morally justified in acting against /any/ "non-objective" law -
if you can, without some greater moral wrong - regardless of its source? If
"yes", then your point counts against any method that might generate non-
objective law (including democratic legislatures or courts supported by
voluntary subscription); if "no", then you need to explain where the
obligation to follow non-objective law comes from.
> Furthermore, wouldn't it be in my interests
> to set up a defense agency that is devoted
> to responding to these threats, wherever
> they may occur? And couldn't that agency
> be headquartered in, say Washington DC?
>
Try it and see how many clients you get.
--
Gordon Sollars
gsol...@virginia.edu
Greg Swann
Invalidate _what_ theory? The theory that people have
the "right" to dominate each other? That one's dealt
with. The theory that a black swan is in some way
_fundamentally_ distinct from a white one? That's a
canard, to mix fowl if not metaphors.
Anarcho-statism is a form of statism. All of the
foregoing arguments apply except the one about
coercive monopolies. Substitute instead the
argument against coercive oligopolies and proceed
as before.
--GSS
alex...@my-dejanews.com
>
>In article <6vpc0u$d7u$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>, alex...@my-dejanews.com writes:
>
>>>
>>> "If *almost* everyone believes
>>> strongly that heroin addiction is so horrible that it
>>> should not be permitted anywhere under any
>>> circumstances, then anarcho-capitalist institutions
>>> will produce laws against heroin" (emphasis added)
>>
>>That's just stating the obvious.
>
>Obvious, but a building block of the point I'm making.
>
>>
>>I predict that when people have a choise in how much they're going to spend
>>on their own defense they'll care a lot less about those who aren't doing
>>them harm. The only reason people might hate heroin users now is because our
>>pressent government has so demonized them for its own perposes.
>
>I'll second Jim Klein's assessment of this statement. I agree with it. But
>that is
>not to say that a moralistic crusade, backed by the force of a "protection"
>agency against drug use will never happen. The question is: What will be
>done about it when it does?
Use retaliatory force against it.
>>> First, this seems to speak of jurisdictions that are
>>> comprised of not individuals--one agency for me, one
>>> agency for my next door neighbor--but of geographical
>>> jurisdictions. Of laws being decided for an entire area,
>>> not on an individual basis.
>>
>>I don't know that Friedman implied that.
>
>Read the first quote: "...not permitted *anywhwere*..."
I think it's clear he means within a given geographic area--unless people are
going to hire these agencies to enforce these laws halve-way arround the
world, which seem prohibitively expensive to say the least.
>>He's saying if almost everyone
>>wanted the same law then each individual could seperately hire agencies for
>>that perpose and those agencies acting in concert could then inforce it
>>within a given area.
>
>But would they enforce it against non-contracted parties?
I think that's the whole point--unless the heroin users are going to hire
private protection agencies themself to prohibit their own use of heroin.
>Some probably
>would try. I am asking what is the proper course of action for those of
>us interested in preventing the initiation of force.
Individuals (and agencies acting on their behalf) have the right to use
relaliatory force against such aggressors.
>>. I would simply point out to
>>you something called "incentive" that make such obnoxious laws less likely
>>under A-C:
>
>Thats fine, I understand it and will not argue against it at this point. My
>point centers around the proper response to those possibly
>very rare occurences by us objectivists/libertarians.
>
>>> If this interpretation is not correct, please correct me
>>> and accept my "never mind" for the rest of this post.
>>
>>How far have you gotten in the book? I think he might address this in a
>>latter chapter.
>
>About two chapters past the one I quoted. He's going off in another
>direction now, perhaps he'll circle back to it in a bit.
>
>>> If it is correct, is not the contract made between
>>> an individual and his agency to forcibly prevent
>>> heroin use by third parties not a threat of force?
>>
>>A threat to initiate force? Only if it was made overt that it would enforce
>>that contract.
>
>Oh, come on! An agency who's primary reason for being is to use
>force on behalf of its customers, a contract requiring this agency to
>use initiatory force, a payment for that service tendered and
>accepted... How much more intent do you want?
And just why would such an agency or their customers make their contracts
public? If they did make those contracts public then it would seem like a
threat to carry them out--would it not? So I answered your question to begin
with.
>>> Am I not morally justified in acting, with *retaliatory*
>>> force against this threat?
>>
>>You are if they make clear that they intend to enforce that contract which
>>would initiate force.
>
>So as I said, I am now morally justified in acting against the parties
>to that contract. Lets disregard for now any action against the
>customer and focus on the agency. I am justified in doing whatever
>is necessary to prevent the contract from being carried out, right?
Only if those contract make a threat to initiate force against you, or an
agency is acting as the agent of someone who has such a threat made against
him.
>>>And by extension would
>>> that not be true of *any* contract that sought
>>> to enforce non-objective "law" against third
>>> parties.
>>
>>It's not the "contract" itself, it's the making of an overt threat that one
>>intends to initiate force--the contract itself per se is irrelevant to that.
>
>Not at all.
It is irrelevant per se. It is the threat itself that matters, the contract
would simply be evidence of that threat. You seem to be hung-up on contracts,
the threat could come in any overt form which shows intent.
>The contract is the direct and explicit expression of that
>intent. It is conclusive evidence of a threat. This threat is perhaps sti
>ll in >search of an object, but it is intent nonetheless. I could very qu
>ickly
>find an object for that intent, if that is what you think is necessary.
>
>>If you and I were sitting around drinking beer and making up silly
>>"contracts" with each other to initiate force on a third party this would not
>>be an initiation of force unless these "contracts" were made overt to other
>>parties and they showed that we have intent to carry them out. In other
>>words, it's the use of threats as a substitue for initiatory force that makes
>>them illegitimate.
>
>This is ridiculous. Protection agencies are not drunken braggarts.
Then it makes my point that a "conract to initiate force" is irrelevant per
se to whether it is a threat to initiate the use of force. Because in my
example the "contracts" were not made overt to other parties and thus could
not have been a threat used as a substitute for initiatory force (in order to
control another person's actions, for example).
>They
>are in the business of using force. And as part of that business, in
>my hypothetical, they have expressed an intent to make that force
>initiatory, and have acted on that intent in accepting payment.
Then you seem to be making the point that said agency's contracts would be
overt [to other parties] and show intent.
>Do you further require that they use the threat itself in some way?
>Must they announce publicly that heroin use in the homes of
>non-contracted third parties will no longer be tolerated as a ploy
>to get people to stop? Why is this necesary? Is it not still a
>threat if they plan to without prior notice storm in on an
>unsuspecting junkie and arrest him?
>
>>> Furthermore, wouldn't it be in my interests
>>> to set up a defense agency that is devoted
>>> to responding to these threats, wherever
>>> they may occur? And couldn't that agency
>>> be headquartered in, say Washington DC?
>>> Or am I just using aggression to enforce my
>>> "monopoly" law rather than responding to a
>>> threat?
>>
>>Many questions you have about the ethics of these matters are addressed in
>>Murray N. Rothbard's "The Ethics of Liberty." You can get it cheapest at
>>http://www.barnsandnoble.com . It will serve you well.
>
>Can't YOU answer them?
No, because I didn't understand them. I can't answer if that is in your
interest. And what does Washington DC have to do with anything? And what the
Hell does this mean?: "Or am I just using aggression to enforce my 'monopoly'
law rather than responding to a threat?" Where did that come from?
>I've already said I will read that book, but I will
>not do so prior to your next response. (Unless you choose to wait
>several weeks) I am asking if I am justified in setting up an agency
>to scour the world for such contracts as are in fact explicit threats
>of initiatory force, and to act to prevent that initiation.
I am glad you will read the book, I just didn't see before where you said you
are going to do that. To anwer your question, only if those contracts make a
threat to initiate force against you, or your agency is acting as the agent
of someone who has such a threat made against him.
alex...@my-dejanews.com
>Whojgalt <whoj...@aol.com> wrote, quoting David Friedman:
>
>>"I predict that [...] heroin would be legal in New York and
>>illegal in most other places"
>
>Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
From my reading of the book awhile ago I seem to remember he makes an
ecomomic argument about incentives and why such things are far more likely to
exist under government. Remember, it was government that started the whole
drug-war thing to begin with.
>Most of the people who claim to be anarchists are in fact
>advocates of a privatized statism. As you've discovered.
Be careful how you throw about terms such as "state." Words have meaning. It
wouldn't be "statism" because there would be no state.
alex...@my-dejanews.com
>Whojgalt <whoj...@aol.com> wrote:
>
>>In article <gswann-1010...@ip-32-175.phx.primenet.com>, Greg Swann
>><gsw...@primenet.com> writes:
>>
>>>Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
>>>
>>>Most of the people who claim to be anarchists are in fact
>>>advocates of a privatized statism. As you've discovered.
>>
>>You may be right, but that does not in itself invalidate
>>the theory.
>
>Invalidate _what_ theory? The theory that people have
>the "right" to dominate each other?
And what anarchist here has advocated that?
>That one's dealt
>with. The theory that a black swan is in some way
>_fundamentally_ distinct from a white one? That's a
>canard, to mix fowl if not metaphors.
"I honestly think you ought to sit down calmly--take a stress pill and think
things over"--HAL to Dave, 2001
>Anarcho-statism is a form of statism.
It's also oxymoronic and nonsensical.
>All of the
>foregoing arguments apply except the one about
>coercive monopolies. Substitute instead the
>argument against coercive oligopolies and proceed
>as before.
The law institutions free market anarchists prepose would only exist for
defense and to use retaliatory force against aggressors. And they wouldn't be
"coercive oligopolies" because they wouldn't control entrey into that field.
And a "coercive oligopolies" would still be a monopoly if they weren't at war
with each other--as they would be acting in concert to force other's out of
their field.
gsol...@virginia.edu
Whojgalt <whoj...@aol.com> wrote:
> I'll second Jim Klein's assessment of this statement. I agree with it. But
> that is
> not to say that a moralistic crusade, backed by the force of a "protection"
> agency against drug use will never happen. The question is: What will be
> done about it when it does?
What can be done about any moralistic crusade? There is simply no guaranteed
connection between ultimate authority and objective law. If enough people
vote for a moralistic crusade, you will have one. If enough people provide
sufficient revenue to a protection agency in support of a moralistic
crusade, you will have one. If enough people voluntarily contribute funds
to a government for a moralistic crusade, then you will have one.
I think the popular phrase is "shit happens". Do you have a system in mind
that is immune to this problem?
>Thats fine, I understand it and will not argue against it at this point.
>My
>point centers around the proper response to those possibly
>very rare occurences by us objectivists/libertarians.
Organize other protection agencies in opposition; civil disobedience; open
conflict. The usual responses.
--
Gordon Sollars
gsol...@virginia.edu
Eric Knauer
Whojgalt wrote in message <19981011091642...@ngol01.aol.com>...
>
>
>You've missed my point again. Assuming a
>non-contracted--in any way--party that
>finds himself subject to such laws, am I justified
>in stopping the initiatory force contract by force
>on his behalf?
Of course. That's the incentive for subscribing to an agency. Unless you
think you can defend yourself individually.
>>
>>If you've contracted to live in a private community which prohibits
heroin,
>>you have no right to use heroin. If a third party tries to intrude on
your
>>rights, then you should hire an agency to who will protect them.
>
>OK. the last part of this is more to my point. Is a contract to use
>initiatory force against heroin users a threat to me, even if the
>parties to the contract do not yet know that I am a potential
>object of their threat? Say I don't actually use heroin, but
>still wish to assert my right to try it someday should the
>fancy strike me. Is a clear expression of intent, the agency's
>contract with its customer (see my response to Alex in
>this thread), enough for me to act on?
I'm not sure I follow. If you want to use heroin in a private neighborhood
that outlaws heroin, then you'd have to move. And I would imagine that one
of the stipulations in the contract of the private neighborhood is to use
their arbitration.
>
>Now lets extend this to the possibility that I (along with some
>like minded associates) create an agency
>to quash such contracts by whatever means necessary,
>in any place they arise. I do this to protect myself, since
>I could find myself the victim of any of these contracts
>now or in the future, and just the threat of these contracts
>being enforced against me could limit my behavior.
You could try to overturn the contract you've signed but I would doubt a
court would rule on your behalf. And I doubt the agency who you hire to
void the contract would be in business very long. How are you a victim of
the contract you sign anyway? Would you really be foolish enough to sign a
life-long non-negotiable contract?
>
>Am I not now, through my agency, unilaterally enforcing
>objective law throughout whatever geographical region I choose
>to or am able to, completely within an Anarcho-Capitalist
>framework? Am I not in effect a licensing
>agency for all other agencies? How far is that really from a
>Minarchy divested of most of its monopoly power save
>the right to approve contracts?
>
>I'm not saying they're the same (my agency only acts
>against other agencies only after they've acted improperly, and
>a Minarchy presumably acts beforehand) but I'm getting a
>hunch that they are starting to converge when subjected
>to an objectivist and/or libertarian ethical framework. .
>
I don't follow the first paragraph. And you haven't mentioned the role or
existence of courts in any of this. Maybe you could use another example.
-Eric
Greg Swann
>>Most of the people who claim to be anarchists are in fact
>>advocates of a privatized statism. As you've discovered.
>
>Be careful how you throw about terms such as "state." Words have meaning. It
>wouldn't be "statism" because there would be no state.
Thank you so much for correcting me. Please learn how to use
the 'reply' function of your newsreader.
Greg Swann
alex...@my-dejanews.com
>Thank you so much for correcting me. Please learn how to use
>the 'reply' function of your newsreader.
I already know quite well how to use the reply function of my newsreader.
It's a problem with my crapy news-server which isn't accepting posts. And
what do you care how I reply?
BTW, I take offense at your notion that I don't know how to use my newsreader.
Matt Ruff / Lisa Gold
>
> Is the
> owner of an apartment complex violating your right when you consent to abide
> by noise constraints or cleanliness standards? I would imagine that many
> communities would have arbitration agencies that you would consent to use if
> any problems occurred with neighbors. If you agree to live in a
> neighborhood which outlaws heroin use, then you've voluntarily consented to
> this rule by the owner. But I doubt victimless crimes would be outlawed
> because of enforcement costs.
But we outlaw them now, despite high enforcement costs and the fact that
the laws don't really work very well. I imagine many of the same people
who support prohibition of drugs and prostitution in this society would,
in an anarchist society, pay a premium to live in a
drug-and-prostitution free neighborhood -- after all, not everyone
thinks these crimes are "victimless."
> And who would voluntarily live in a private
> community which claims the right to search your home looking for narcotics?
People who care more about living in a drug-free neighborhood than about
absolute privacy -- i.e., lots of people.
-- M. Ruff
Matt Ruff / Lisa Gold
>
> In article <19981010191819...@ngol02.aol.com>,
> Whojgalt <whoj...@aol.com> wrote:
> >
> > "I predict that [...] heroin would be legal in New York and
> > illegal in most other places"
>
> on their own defense they'll care a lot less about those who aren't doing
> them harm.
Yes, but not everyone agrees that heroin users fall into this category.
People with children, for instance, might regard the presence of a drug
addict in their neighborhood as a threat.
> The only reason people might hate heroin users now is because our
> pressent government has so demonized them for its own perposes.
Government propaganda plays a role in shaping public attitudes toward
drug abusers, but it's not the only factor. There are plenty of other
reasons why someone might not want to live next door to a heroin addict.
-- M. Ruff
Matt Ruff / Lisa Gold
>
> In article <6vp8ue$p...@bgtnsc02.worldnet.att.net>, Eric Knauer
> <ekn...@worldnet.att.net> writes:
>
> >Whojgalt wrote in message <19981010191819...@ngol02.aol.com>...
> >>
> >>Furthermore, these quotes, and the entirety of the first
> >>two pages of the chapter, strongly imply that heroin
> >>would be made illegal not only for the customers
> >>contracted by a particular agency, but for non-contracted
> >>third parties within a geographical area.
> >
> >This would depend on who owns the geographical area or community. Many
> >communities would have specific rules on such things such as standard
> >cosmetics for homes, especially in suburban areas.
>
> This is all beside my point. I am specifically postulating a non-contracted
> third party.
How does the non-contracted third party come to find himself in the
anti-drug community? If he's just visiting, then the owners of the
property on which he is a guest can place conditions on his admittance
-- either he agrees not to use or sell drugs while he's there, or they
don't let him in.
On the other hand, maybe you're thinking of a guy who actually owns
property in a neighborhood when the neighbors decide they want to
institute a community-wide drug ban. They need the contractual agreement
of the property owners to do this, of course, and most in fact do agree,
but this guy refuses. His neighbors now have several options, none of
which involve the initiation of force:
1. They can settle for having a community that is 99% drug free. Let the
holdout shoot heroin on his property if he wants to.
2. They can pool their resources and make an offer to purchase the
holdout's property from him.
3. They can ostracize the holdout, refusing to speak to him or do
business with him, in hopes that he will decide to move to a
"friendlier" location.
4. If options 2 and 3 don't work, and option 1 just isn't good enough,
the *neighbors* can move, founding a new, drug-free community elsewhere.
-- M. Ruff
Greg Swann
>what do you care how I reply?
You senselessly propagate threads. It makes you harder to ignore.
Should I filter you?
>BTW, I take offense at your notion that I don't know how to use my newsreader.
I'm not all that delighted that you don't know how to use your
mind. Particularly since you senselessly propagate threads.
Greg Swann
http://www.primenet.com/~gswann/
alex...@my-dejanews.com
>alex...@my-dejanews.com wrote:
>
>>what do you care how I reply?
>
>You senselessly propagate threads.
"Senselessly propagate"? I'm sorry Swann, but if you're going to criticize,
you should at least use terms that have meaning.
>It makes you harder to ignore.
So now it's my fault that you can't read "alexopex?"
>Should I filter you?
No, because then we wouldn't be able to have discussions with each other.
>>BTW, I take offense at your notion that I don't know how to use my newsre
>>ader.
>
>I'm not all that delighted that you don't know how to use your
>mind.
No, Swann, that's _newsreader_. You see, you said I didn't know how to use my
_newsreader_. I corrected your mistake by informing you that I did indeed
know how to use my _newsreader_. It wasn't _mind_, Swann, but _newsreader_.
N-E-W-S-R-E-A-D-E-R
Being able to follow a discussion is a very important first step if you wish
to take part in it, Swann.
>Particularly since you senselessly propagate threads.
Again Swann, if you want people to understand you it is not only imperative
that you be able to follow a discussion, but you must also use terms that
actually mean something.
Greg Swann
>Again Swann, if you want people to understand you it is not only imperative
>that you be able to follow a discussion, but you must also use terms that
>actually mean something.
Done. Gone. Good riddance.
--GSS
alex...@my-dejanews.com
Oh troubled soul, how little I knew thee.
Lance Neustaeter
> In article <6vpc0u$d7u$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>, alex...@my-dejanews.com wr
> ites:
>>I predict that when people have a choise in how much they're going to spend
>>on their own defense they'll care a lot less about those who aren't doing
>>them harm. The only reason people might hate heroin users now is because our
>>pressent government has so demonized them for its own perposes.
> I'll second Jim Klein's assessment of this statement. I agree with it. But
> that is
> not to say that a moralistic crusade, backed by the force of a "protection"
> agency against drug use will never happen. The question is: What will be
> done about it when it does?
Since it is obvious that the hypothesized society is already somewhat
irrational, "what will be done" is this: a minarchy will be
established which will gradually increase it's sphere of influence and
create manifold incentives encouraging further statism, and
irrationality & dependence in the population until its on the
practical verge of full blown statism. Just like happened the last
time.
(My theory has a happy side, though: that same positive feedback
effect works in the opposite direction, too. We just have to get over
that "hump" between the free society and statism, so that the majority
of spontaneously generated incentives are pointing toward freedom,
rationality and independence)
Lance <http://members.home.net/sharp/hel8.jpg>
--
Anarchy may not be the best form of government, but it's better than
no government at all.
Lance Neustaeter
> In <6vpc0u$d7u$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com> alex...@my-dejanews.com writes:
>>I predict that when people have a choise in how much they're going to
>>spend on their own defense they'll care a lot less about those who
>>aren't doing them harm.
> You know, of all I've read on every which side of the governance topic,
> this sentence comes about as close to an "obvious fact" as any I've
> ever read. I can't speak to what conclusions it imples, but it seems
> to be more plainly true than perhaps any other political claim. And
> since Objectivism deals with identification as prior to everything else
> philosophically, this ought to be a useful premise to throw into the
> argument. I wonder why I've so rarely seen it, among Objectivists.
Because it is a public choice identification which implies and
supports anarchy. Objectivists who are wedded to the notion that
Rand's political science was actually a fundamental part of her
philosophy and who are determined to remain true "Objectivists" must
evade said identification.
Lance <http://members.home.net/sharp/hel8.jpg>
--
A diplomat is someone who can tell you to go to hell in such a way
that you will look forward to the trip.
Lance Neustaeter
> Whojgalt <whoj...@aol.com> wrote, quoting David Friedman:
>>"I predict that [...] heroin would be legal in New York and
>>illegal in most other places"
> Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
> Most of the people who claim to be anarchists are in fact
> advocates of a privatized statism. As you've discovered.
Greg, you're playing pretty fast and loose with those
generalizations...
I am on record as disagreeing with the above sorts of predictions by
Dr. Friedman, given a predominantly rational society. I've also
criticized (or at least noted the oddity) of his apparant "top down"
approach--very odd coming from an anarchist.
But those are about the *only* two (small) disagreements I have with
him.
Lance <http://members.home.net/sharp/hel8.jpg>
--
The right to be let alone is indeed the beginning of all freedom.
-- Justice Douglas
Lance Neustaeter
> alex...@my-dejanews.com wrote:
>> The only reason people might hate heroin users now is because our
>> pressent government has so demonized them for its own perposes.
> Government propaganda plays a role in shaping public attitudes toward
> drug abusers, but it's not the only factor. There are plenty of other
> reasons why someone might not want to live next door to a heroin addict.
But the point is this:
Under an anarchy it is *far* cheaper for such people to move away from
the addicts (or buy homes in developments that limit drug use as part
of the purchase contracts in the first place) than it would be for
them to arm themselves (or their proxy, if they can find one) and try
to kill or chase the peaceful addicts off of their rightful property.
Such attitudes would be very counter-productive and eventually removed
from the meme-pool by natural selection.
Under a state, the opposite is true: "We have the loot. To what
moral crusade should we devote it?" Under a state, enforcing a
morality is not only relatively cheap, it is practically mandatory, in
order to avoid becoming one of its victims. The state polarizes
society into sheep and wolves (when we know it does not *have* to be
that way: it is due to the nature of gov't, not the nature of man)
Lance <http://members.home.net/sharp/hel8.jpg>
--
Eschew Obfuscation!
Steve Davis
You raised some good points but consider this:
> Some quotes from Friedman's "Machinery
> of Freedom" second edition, pages 127-128:
> "If *almost* everyone believes
> strongly that heroin addiction is so horrible that it
> should not be permitted anywhere under any
> circumstances, then anarcho-capitalist institutions
> will produce laws against heroin" (emphasis added)
"If almost everyone believes strongly that jews are so horrible that
they should not be permitted anywhere under any circumstances, then
anarcho-capitalist institutions will produce laws against jews."
The phrase "Machinery of Freedom" is an oxymoron.
Greg Swann
>But those are about the *only* two (small) disagreements I have with
>him.
And it's the other issue--your shared advocacy of forcible
after-the-fact responses to injury--that unites you with
the other statists. By contenancing crimes against people
who cannot have caused an injury, Dr.Friedman is once worse
than simply advocating crimes against people who have or
may have injured, but crime is still crime. FWIW, I find
your theories the least loathsome of those proffered here.
--GSS
alex...@my-dejanews.com
>"If almost everyone believes strongly that jews are so horrible that
>they should not be permitted anywhere under any circumstances, then
>anarcho-capitalist institutions will produce laws against jews."
>
>The phrase "Machinery of Freedom" is an oxymoron.
And what would you rather him do, lie? He's simply stating the obvious, which
is true in any social system. Later on in the book I believe he makes an
agument about incentives and why those things are far more likely to occer
under government. The incentive under A-C is to worry about yourself. Whereas
governments have always found the need to have scape-goats to demonize and
use in their goal of achieving ever more power.
To analogize a unique governmental phenomenon to A-C ignores what it is about
government which causes this.
Eric Knauer
Matt Ruff / Lisa Gold wrote in message <3621EE...@worldnet.att.net>...
>Eric Knauer wrote:
>>
>> Is the
>> owner of an apartment complex violating your right when you consent to
abide
>> by noise constraints or cleanliness standards? I would imagine that many
>> communities would have arbitration agencies that you would consent to use
if
>> any problems occurred with neighbors. If you agree to live in a
>> neighborhood which outlaws heroin use, then you've voluntarily consented
to
>> this rule by the owner. But I doubt victimless crimes would be outlawed
>> because of enforcement costs.
>
>But we outlaw them now, despite high enforcement costs and the fact that
>the laws don't really work very well. I imagine many of the same people
>who support prohibition of drugs and prostitution in this society would,
>in an anarchist society, pay a premium to live in a
>drug-and-prostitution free neighborhood -- after all, not everyone
>thinks these crimes are "victimless."
Nobody can make an accurate prediction to how many private communities would
pay for prohibiting the use of drug use. If society has an overall respect
for individual rights supported by Rothbard and Barnett then the legal use
of drugs would be recognized. But if a private neighborhood wants to
exclude drug users, then great, afterall you have the right to prohibit drug
users in you home. But under the current non-price legal system, you can
expect victimless crimes to be prosecuted at a much higher rate compared to
if customers had the choice though make their own decisions concerning
drugs, gambling, prostitution, ect.
>
>> And who would voluntarily live in a private
>> community which claims the right to search your home looking for
narcotics?
>
>People who care more about living in a drug-free neighborhood than about
>absolute privacy -- i.e., lots of people.
>
Under the current system, about 30-50% of crime resources go to activities
where no person or property has been violated. I can't imagine it getting
much worse than that, but if our culture has deteriorated so much as to
blatantly invade privacy so I don't have the right to drink or use drugs in
my own home, then we've got bigger problems to worry about. But again,
property owners dictate exclusionary standards, not the politicians.
-Eric
Steve Davis
> And what would you rather him do, lie?
What I would expect him (David Friedman), or any other so-called
Anarchist Capitalist to do is to check their premises. All Libertarians
harp on their one unifying principle of non initiation of force, yet
advocate a "system" which is totally powerless to prevent the initiation
of force or to protect people from it.
Now, I will certainly grant that in a limited government such as the one
Rand advocated, there would be the potential for human fallibility or
epistemological error to lead to accidental harm. However, I consider
this inevitability to be a thousand times more acceptable than a system
in which any mob of people can band together and violate my rights
simply on the basis of whim.
> He's simply stating the obvious, which is true in any social system.
This is blatantly false. First of all, let us re-examine Friedman's
scenario of "Freedom" in action. If "almost everyone believes" that
something is bad, then they will act to enforce laws against that
thing. But there are no principles or rules or governing body to decide
what types of things are within the purview of law and what things are
not. Thus, any group of people could arbitrarily decide to violate the
rights of any other group.
This is NOT true in any social system. It is specifically not true in
the United States today, and would not be true under a limited
government system such as the one that Rand advocated.
Let us take Friedman's scenario to its logical conclusion. If there are
laws against heroin users, then why not laws against Judaism, or
homosexuality, or black skin, or white skin? If Friedman's A-C utopia
would allow the non initiation principle to be violated in the case of
heroin users, then why not in the other cases? The fact is that it
would not, and COULD not. The result of anarchism is mob rule and
perpetual violent clashes between people who "believe strongly," as
Friedman put it.
In a limited government system such as the one Ayn Rand advocated, the
PURPOSE of government would be to protect individual rights. Thus,
initiation of force against heroin users, jews, homosexuals, blacks, and
whites or any other group of peaceful citizens would be prohibited. The
principle of non initiation of force would be ENFORCED through an
objective legal system.
> The incentive under A-C is to worry about yourself.
This, sir, is not freedom. It is slavery; Slavery to the whims of
those with bigger guns and fatter wallets than me; Slavery to the fear
that some slight (or perceived slight) might result in "retaliatory"
force taken against me.
> To analogize a unique governmental phenomenon to A-C ignores what it is about
> government which causes this.
Governments have an awful history. Because of this, it is very easy
easy for someone to make government, as an abstract principle, into a
bogeyman. But the type of government I advocate and wish for has sound
and principled means of overcoming its inevitable flaws.
Anarchism, on the other hand, rejects these safeguards. Anarchism
requires the abandonment of fundamental principles, including -- in
fact, BEGINNING WITH-- the principle of non initiation of force.
alex...@my-dejanews.com
>alex...@my-dejanews.com wrote:
>> He's simply stating the obvious, which is true in any social system.
>
>This is blatantly false.
Again, he is simply stating the obvious. If almost all people in a given
society want to enforce the same law then they will have the power to do so.
Government is made up of people, you know. What is it about that concept that
you connot understand?
>This is NOT true in any social system. It is specifically not true in
>the United States today, and would not be true under a limited
>government system such as the one that Rand advocated.
And what, pray tell, is going to run an "Objectivist" government? People?
>Let us take Friedman's scenario to its logical conclusion. If there are
>laws against heroin users, then why not laws against Judaism, or
>homosexuality, or black skin, or white skin?
Of course. But you still have not explained how if almost all people in a
given society want those laws why it is those laws won't exist. Laws are made
by people, you know.
>> To analogize a unique governmental phenomenon to A-C ignores what it is
>> about
>> government which causes this.
>
>Governments have an awful history.
And it has an awful history for a reason. You hypothesize possible
obnoxiousness which could occur under anarchy while all too conveniently
ignoring that it is government where you get your inspiration for those
hypotheticals. The reason is government per se.
>Anarchism, on the other hand, rejects these safeguards.
Free market anarchism is the only system in which safeguards can exist.
Whereas statists want to put all the legal power in the hands of one
institution--and then wonder why it is this institution is the cause of of so
many horrors, holocausts, wars and tragedies.
>Anarchism
>requires the abandonment of fundamental principles, including -- in
>fact, BEGINNING WITH-- the principle of non initiation of force.
Actually, nonaggression unaviodably results in anarchy.
cath...@my-dejanews.com
> What I would expect him (David Friedman), or any other so-called
> Anarchist Capitalist to do is to check their premises. All Libertarians
> harp on their one unifying principle of non initiation of force, yet
> advocate a "system" which is totally powerless to prevent the initiation
> of force or to protect people from it.
If the "system" you're referring to is the "free market protection agencies"
envisioned by some like Friedman, it is not the case that all libertarians
advocate this system. (I for one do not, but it's been quite a while since I
devoted serious thought to this subject to see whether the arguments persuade
me or not.)
david friedman
apparently never made it, so I am rewriting and posting via Email instead
of my newsreader. In the meantime, Gordon Sollars and Alexopex have done a
reasonably accurate job of explaining my position.]
In article <19981010191819...@ngol02.aol.com>, Whojgalt
<whoj...@aol.com> wrote:
>Some quotes from Friedman's "Machinery
>of Freedom" second edition, pages 127-128:
>
>"If *almost* everyone believes
>strongly that heroin addiction is so horrible that it
>should not be permitted anywhere under any
>circumstances, then anarcho-capitalist institutions
>will produce laws against heroin" (emphasis added)
>
>"If the maximum return comes from having heroin illegal in
>some places and legal in others, then that is what
>will happen"
>
>"I predict that [...] heroin would be legal in New York and
>illegal in most other places"
>
>First, this seems to speak of jurisdictions that are
>comprised of not individuals--one agency for me, one
>agency for my next door neighbor--but of geographical
>jurisdictions. Of laws being decided for an entire area,
>not on an individual basis.
Then I was unclear. I was assuming that enforcement agencies would to some
extent be geographically specialized, not that they would have territorial
monopolies. The laws applicable to a particular conflict are determined by
the prior agreement of the agencies of the parties to the conflict. Under
some circumstances, it will turn out that all of the agencies operating in
a particular geographical area use courts that agree on a particular legal
issue. For example, I expect that all agencies will use courts that agree
that murder is illegal. My point was that in the particular situation I
described, there would be similar agreement in many areas with regard to
heroin use.
>Furthermore, these quotes, and the entirety of the first
>two pages of the chapter, strongly imply that heroin
>would be made illegal not only for the customers
>contracted by a particular agency, but for non-contracted
>third parties within a geographical area.
>
>If this interpretation is not correct, please correct me
>and accept my "never mind" for the rest of this post.
We have two different cases:
1. A heroin user who is a customer of a rights enforcement agency.
His use will be illegal because his agency has agreed to use courts that
regard heroin use as illegal. He subscribes to that agency because he was
unable to find one that would defend his right to use heroin at a price he
was willing to pay.
2. An armadillo (Vinge's term)--someone who is the customer of no agency.
He is out of law with the rest of the society--i.e. in the same situation
as if there were no legal institutions. That means that he, and people he
has conflicts with, will each act as they think right, and what actually
happens depends on which side is better able to enforce its beliefs. In the
situation described, the people who want to ban heroin have much more force
at their disposal than the heroin addict, so he will almost certainly lose.
>If it is correct, is not the contract made between
>an individual and his agency to forcibly prevent
>heroin use by third parties not a threat of force?
Of course. And the contract made between the heroin addict and his agency
was made under threat of force--not force by his agency, but force by other
agencies that he wants to be defended against.
>Am I not morally justified in acting, with *retaliatory*
>force against this threat?
Of course. You are morally justified in doing so, but under the assumed
circumstances trying to act on that right is imprudent, since you will
almost certainly lose the resulting conflict.
>And by extension would
>that not be true of *any* contract that sought
>to enforce non-objective "law" against third
>parties.
Of course.
>Furthermore, wouldn't it be in my interests
>to set up a defense agency that is devoted
>to responding to these threats, wherever
>they may occur?
No. It would not be in your interest to try to set up an agency to defend
your rights against 99% of the rest of the population, because you do not
have enough resources to do so successfully. As you may have noticed, the
organization actually headquartered in Washington D.C. devotes quite a lot
of energy to violating the rights of heroin addicts.
What you seem to be missing in this whole discussion is the context of the
quote you started with. The point I was making was that anarcho-capitalism
describes a set of institutions, not the laws they produce, so it is
logically possible for anarcho-capitalist institutions to produce
unlibertarian laws--laws that violate individual rights. The connection
between anarcho-capitalism and libertarianism is not assumed in the
definition but something it is up to me to demonstrate--which is what I do.
My claim is that anarcho-capitalist institutions will predictably produce
more libertarian law (and law that is better in other respects) than
alternative institutions--but not that there are no circumstances in which
they produce laws that violate rights.
Steve Davis rights (responding to Kyle):
>You raised some good points but consider this:
>
>> Some quotes from Friedman's "Machinery
>> of Freedom" second edition, pages 127-128:
>
>> "If *almost* everyone believes
>> strongly that heroin addiction is so horrible that it
>> should not be permitted anywhere under any
>> circumstances, then anarcho-capitalist institutions
>> will produce laws against heroin" (emphasis added)
>
>"If almost everyone believes strongly that jews are so horrible that
>they should not be permitted anywhere under any circumstances, then
>anarcho-capitalist institutions will produce laws against jews."
Obviously true. So will an Objectivist limited government. What is going to
stop it--the ghost of Ayn Rand? You can, of course, announce that when your
limited government starts killing Jews it is no longer Objectivist--but
that announcement won't save the lives of the Jews in question. The
relevant issue is what outcomes institutions will produce--and you cannot
answer it by defining your institutions as producing certain outcomes.
>The phrase "Machinery of Freedom" is an oxymoron.
If you are curious as to what the phrase means, read the beginning of the
book, where I explain it.
Lance writes:
>I am on record as disagreeing with the above sorts of predictions by
>Dr. Friedman, given a predominantly rational society
If the society is sufficiently rational, people won't almost all believe
that the use of heroin is a terrible thing and ought to be banned, which is
the assumption under which I made that prediction--so I don't see how you
are disagreeing with me. It is as if I had written:
"Under an anarcho-capitalist society, people who are outside without
umbrellas when it is raining will still get wet"
and you replied that you disagree with such predictions, given that it
isn't raining.
>I've also
>criticized (or at least noted the oddity) of his apparant "top down"
>approach--very odd coming from an anarchist.
I'm not sure in what sense I have a top down approach. Do you regard a free
market for producing food as "top down"--given that the actual product
design is done by the producing firms (in response to market demands) not
by the customers?
Greg Swann writes:
>By contenancing crimes against people
>who cannot have caused an injury, Dr.Friedman is ...
Where am I countenancing crimes? I didn't say that heroin ought to be
illegal, I said it would be.
Do you believe that if the sun goes nova tomorrow it will kill off all our
species? If your answer is "yes," can I now properly start my next post "by
countenancing the annihilation of the human race, Greg Swann ... "?
Eric writes:
>This is one of the limitations and weaknesses of Friedman's book. He seems
>to want to live in a libertarian society that respects the non-initiation
>and consent principles but he never attempts to make strong normative
>arguments for a free society. Instead, he thinks that free-market economic
>principles will lead to lead to generally positive results. So I think it's
>correct to assume that these geographical jurisdictions might produce some
>very unlibertarian results without a proper moral foundation. This is the
>reason I prefer Barnett and Rothbard's approach.
I am not sure I understand your point. I have no objection to other people
trying to persuade the population that respecting rights is morally correct
and, at least usually, in their interest--I even do it myself occasionally.
My project, however, in that part of that book, was a positive one, not a
normative one--to try to work out what the implications of a particular set
of institutions would be. One of the implications is that under some
imaginable circumstances those institutions will produce unjust result. Is
pointing that out a weakness?
For the more general issue of how to defend libertarianism, what you want
to argue with are the first three chapters of part IV of the book, not any
of part III.
Eric goes on to discuss the issue in the context of properietary
communities. That is a possible structure under anarcho-capitalism, but it
is not the one I was discussing in the quoted passage.
Kyle suggests that something like a government would arise as people band
together to make sure their rights are not violated. But rights enforcement
agencies in my system already exist for that purpose. If most people agree
with you about what rights are, then a network of such agencies will end up
producing something reasonably close to just law. If they don't, then when
you set up your super agency you will soon find it enforcing unjust law on
everyone, yourself included.
Of course your agency (or you, or anyone else) has the right to use force
to prevent initiation of force, by agencies or others.But in a world where
people disagree, you have the problem of setting up institutions that
actually produce the results you want--you aren't Superman, and don't have
the option of going around forcing everyone to act according to your view
of rights.
David Friedman
Professor of Law
Santa Clara University
dd...@best.com
http://www.best.com/~ddfr/
Greg Swann
>Greg Swann writes:
>
>>By contenancing crimes against people
>>who cannot have caused an injury, Dr.Friedman is ...
>
>Where am I countenancing crimes? I didn't say that heroin ought to be
>illegal, I said it would be.
>
>Do you believe that if the sun goes nova tomorrow it will kill off all our
>species? If your answer is "yes," can I now properly start my next post "by
>countenancing the annihilation of the human race, Greg Swann ... "?
Specious analogy: equates man-made results with physical
results.
Moreover, you proffer as a theory of governance
a system of endemic crime in the form of forcible
social contact that is not mutually voluntary.
That this theory also would not disallow commiting
similar crimes "against people who cannot have
caused an injury" is icing on the cake.
The reintroduction of everything that is wrong
with government _except_ monopolization is not
much of an improvement.
Greg Swann
Lance Neustaeter
>>But those are about the *only* two (small) disagreements I have with
>>him.
> And it's the other issue--your shared advocacy of forcible
> after-the-fact responses to injury--that unites you with
> the other statists.
Quite untrue. The essential aspect of "statist" is a belief in the
propriety of a state--not *any* old ideology which doesn't happen to
be pacifist (ie: "any condoning of violence" is *not* the essential
characteristic of "statism"). By your criteria, you are "united" with
the statists just as much as I am, since you are not a full-blown
pacifist (just an inconsistent one <dig>).
> By contenancing crimes against people
> who cannot have caused an injury, Dr.Friedman is once worse
> than simply advocating crimes against people who have or
> may have injured, but crime is still crime.
But again, that's begging the question.
Lance <http://members.home.net/sharp/hel8.jpg>
--
I regret to say that we...are powerless to act in cases of oral-genital
intimacy, unless it has...obstructed interstate commerce. --J.Edgar Hoover
Greg Swann
>Quite untrue. The essential aspect of "statist" is a belief in the
>propriety of a state
I disagree. The essential rationale behind statism is the same
one deployed by you and by Friedman, that there can be such a
thing as justified dominance of one person by another. Statism
and whateveryouwantocallyourdoctrinism are forms of the same
thing--allegedly "sanctioned" crime. To call your doctrine
and Friedman's anarchism (no-arch-ism) is an error; you act
in the guise of the monarch every time you commit or countenance
an allegedly "sanctioned" crime.
>By your criteria, you are "united" with
>the statists just as much as I am, since you are not a full-blown
>pacifist (just an inconsistent one <dig>).
I am not a pacifist at all, as you well know.
>> By contenancing crimes against people
>> who cannot have caused an injury, Dr.Friedman is once worse
>> than simply advocating crimes against people who have or
>> may have injured, but crime is still crime.
>
>But again, that's begging the question.
_What_ question, Lance? You are as far as you are along the
line from criminality to justice because I challenged your
premises. You express these still-semi-erroneous tenets in your
own language, as you should, but the fact remains that you
were much closer to Fridman's position before I started
razing your castles in the sky. You can call me "pacifist"
all day; I certainly don't care. It remains that uniquely
among the people who post here, I do not advocate crime.
Greg Swann
Whojgalt
In article <3622B6D5...@pa.dec.com>, Steve Davis <sda...@pa.dec.com>
writes:
> All Libertarians
>harp on their one unifying principle of non initiation of force,
Agreed, I do see this as the philosophical primary in
Libertarian thought. A mistake, in my opinion.
> yet
>advocate a "system" which is totally powerless to prevent the initiation
>of force or to protect people from it.
I disagree with this. Having read up on the AC system, I think it is
clear that it is not totally powerless to prevent such things. Its
power to do so is of a different nature than that of government,
and in my mind at least the jury is still out on whether that power
is superior of inferior to a minarchy's power to do so.
What I have seen from many objectivists, though, is that
they have summarily dismissed the jury.
>Now, I will certainly grant that in a limited government such as the one
>Rand advocated, there would be the potential for human fallibility or
>epistemological error to lead to accidental harm.
There is also a great potential for *systematic* harm. Much less so
in a POG, of course, but what it boils down to is how much ability we
have to *keep* it a POG for any length of time.
> However, I consider
>this inevitability to be a thousand times more acceptable than a system
>in which any mob of people can band together and violate my rights
>simply on the basis of whim.
You are referring to Democracy?
> But there are no principles or rules or governing body to decide
>what types of things are within the purview of law and what things are
>not.
Again, you are missing a fundamental point. The AC position is
that these principles and rules are the same economic
principles and rules that we are all so happy to trust in other
areas of human interaction. The question is not one of having
or not having safeguards, but which safeguards have the
better ability to produce the desired result.
Now if you want to criticize the AC postion for having a
different desired result, I'll agree with you. My desired
result is a libertarian (small-l) and objective society.
AC seems to make no judgment as to what is desired
beyond simple "efficiency".
> Thus, any group of people could arbitrarily decide to violate the
>rights of any other group.
Again, it is not so clear that this is automaticaly a result of the
AC system.
>This is NOT true in any social system. It is specifically not true in
>the United States today,
You must live in a different United States than the one I grew up in.
>and would not be true under a limited
>government system such as the one that Rand advocated.
It would be less true under a POG, but again, there is
serious doubt about wheter it could ever be prevented
entirely.
>Let us take Friedman's scenario to its logical conclusion. If there are
>laws against heroin users, then why not laws against Judaism, or
>homosexuality, or black skin, or white skin?
Yes, it could. And I have a big problem with that.
> If Friedman's A-C utopia
>would allow the non initiation principle to be violated in the case of
>heroin users, then why not in the other cases? The fact is that it
>would not, and COULD not. The result of anarchism is mob rule and
>perpetual violent clashes between people who "believe strongly," as
>Friedman put it.
It is not at all clear that that would be the result. My recent tack is
that anarchism leads not to chaos, but to government.
>In a limited government system such as the one Ayn Rand advocated, the
>PURPOSE of government would be to protect individual rights. Thus,
>initiation of force against heroin users, jews, homosexuals, blacks, and
>whites or any other group of peaceful citizens would be prohibited. The
>principle of non initiation of force would be ENFORCED through an
>objective legal system.
And said objective legal system would be maintained and controlled
by what force exactly? Its one thing to postulate a perfect government,
its another thing entirely to actually bring it about and to keep it that
way for generations. It just may turn out that the road to minarchy
makes whistle-stop in AC land.
>> The incentive under A-C is to worry about yourself.
>
>This, sir, is not freedom. It is slavery; Slavery to the whims of
>those with bigger guns and fatter wallets than me;
I've heard this argument somewhere before.... lemme think, yes, thats it,
it was very influential around 1917, October I believe it was.
> Slavery to the fear
>that some slight (or perceived slight) might result in "retaliatory"
>force taken against me.
That is a valid question. So what mechanism best works against this,
a government run by a small group of people to whom your interests
are only a vague secondary factor in their decisions, or an agency
who has keeping their customers alive as cheaply as possible as their
primary interest? Don't tell me that the POG relies
on its members always selflessy acting in their constituent's interests.
>> To analogize a unique governmental phenomenon to A-C ignores what it is
>about
>> government which causes this.
>
>Governments have an awful history. Because of this, it is very easy
>easy for someone to make government, as an abstract principle, into a
>bogeyman.
But we can generalize to some extent from the empirical evidence
we have so far. It is very possible that the inherent flaw in
government arises inevitably out of the divorcing of the right
and power to use force from the people who have to face the
consequences of that force.
> But the type of government I advocate and wish for has sound
>and principled means of overcoming its inevitable flaws.
I think that is probably right, but it is by no means self-evident.
>Anarchism, on the other hand, rejects these safeguards.
Anarchism, at least anarcho-capitalism, proposes
*different* safeguards. Are so many objectivists unable to
deal with it on those grounds, without reverting to the
shrill squeals of "chaos!"
> Anarchism
>requires the abandonment of fundamental principles, including -- in
>fact, BEGINNING WITH-- the principle of non initiation of force.
You're right. No philosophical base is inherent to this
anarchist system. But then no philosophical base is
inherent to capitalism either, in the sense that it has
asfeguards against people doing unsound things, yet
it produces the desired result.
I am examining as objectively as possible whether this
translates favorably to the question of the use of
force or not.
--Kyle Bennett
Whojgalt
In article <1302.589T2...@portal.ca>, Lance Neustaeter
<la...@portal.ca> writes:
>Jim Klein <rum...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>> In <6vpc0u$d7u$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com> alex...@my-dejanews.com writes:
>
>>>I predict that when people have a choise in how much they're going to
>>>spend on their own defense they'll care a lot less about those who
>>>aren't doing them harm.
>
>> You know, of all I've read on every which side of the governance topic,
>> this sentence comes about as close to an "obvious fact" as any I've
>> ever read. I can't speak to what conclusions it imples, but it seems
>> to be more plainly true than perhaps any other political claim. And
>> since Objectivism deals with identification as prior to everything else
>> philosophically, this ought to be a useful premise to throw into the
>> argument. I wonder why I've so rarely seen it, among Objectivists.
>
>Because it is a public choice identification which implies and
>supports anarchy. Objectivists who are wedded to the notion that
>Rand's political science was actually a fundamental part of her
>philosophy and who are determined to remain true "Objectivists" must
>evade said identification.
Rand's political science *is* a fundamental part of her philosophy,
and I believe it to be a valid part. What I question is her
*conclusion* that a monopoly government is an absolute must.
My purpose is to evaluate AC as a means of acheiving an
objectivist/libertarian society and the requisite politcal
mechanisms.
--Kyle Bennett
Whojgalt
In article <362202...@worldnet.att.net>, Matt Ruff / Lisa Gold
<Storyt...@worldnet.att.net> writes:
>Whojgalt wrote:
>> This is all beside my point. I am specifically postulating a
>non-contracted
>> third party.
>
>How does the non-contracted third party come to find himself in the
>anti-drug community? If he's just visiting, then the owners of the
>property on which he is a guest can place conditions on his admittance
>-- either he agrees not to use or sell drugs while he's there, or they
>don't let him in.
>
>On the other hand, maybe you're thinking of a guy who actually owns
>property in a neighborhood when the neighbors decide they want to
>institute a community-wide drug ban.
That is EXACTLY what I am getting at... Thank, you, somebody finally
gets the point. I think this will be the most common situation, and
even more so in a transition from what we have now to any AC system.
Most property is now privately owned. If I own the house at 123 Main
street, I most likely have no contractual relationship with the guy at 125 Main
street, nor with anyone else in my town.
Only with newly built subdivisions, or existing apartment, condo,
and neighborhood associations, will private owners have a contractual
relationship with their neighbors.
>They need the contractual agreement
>of the property owners to do this, of course, and most in fact do agree,
>but this guy refuses. His neighbors now have several options, none of
>which involve the initiation of force:
But the AC system has no inherent limitation that acceptable
actions do not involve initiating of force. If the neighbors want
to initiate force, they will do so. The only check on that is
my protection agency. There's no law against it, this is
anarchy, remember?
Your four possibilities are all fine and dandy if the neighbors wish to
limit thier actions to non agressive ones. If they do not, my agency will
need to stop them.
--Kyle Bennett
Whojgalt
In article <6vrcgs$f...@bgtnsc02.worldnet.att.net>, Eric Knauer
<ekn...@worldnet.att.net> writes:
>Whojgalt wrote in message <19981011091642...@ngol01.aol.com>...
>>
>>
>>You've missed my point again. Assuming a
>>non-contracted--in any way--party that
>>finds himself subject to such laws, am I justified
>>in stopping the initiatory force contract by force
>>on his behalf?
>
>
>Of course. That's the incentive for subscribing to an agency. Unless you
>think you can defend yourself individually.
Then you are agreeing that the existence of the *contract* is
sufficient threat to justify my actions? That is what I am getting
at.
>I'm not sure I follow. If you want to use heroin in a private neighborhood
>that outlaws heroin, then you'd have to move. And I would imagine that one
>of the stipulations in the contract of the private neighborhood is to use
>their arbitration.
Forget "private" neighborhoods". I'm talking neighborhoods where
the individual property owners had no contractual relationship prior to the
mad scramble to sign up with various protection agencies. Most people
buy property without agreeing to be bound by anyone's rules except the
existing government's. And presuming we have anarchy, that government is
history, so those agreements are irrelevant.
Freidman's writing clearly suggests that a group of property owners in
a geographical region could attempt to force other owners, with whom there
is no agreement to behave a certain way, to not use drugs.
>
>You could try to overturn the contract you've signed but I would doubt a
>court would rule on your behalf. And I doubt the agency who you hire to
>void the contract would be in business very long. How are you a victim of
>the contract you sign anyway? Would you really be foolish enough to sign a
>life-long non-negotiable contract?
I never signed a contract. I woke up one morning to find the government gone
and Anarchy the rule of the day. I sign up with Freedom Inc. for my
protection, and forget about it, until one day I see a notice posted that my
neighborhood is a drug-free zone, and that Moral Majority Inc. will enforce
that "law" against me. Haven't I know been threatened with an *initiation* of
force? If I respond forcibly to that threat, I have only used retaliatory
force,
correct?
>>Am I not now, through my agency, unilaterally enforcing
>>objective law throughout whatever geographical region I choose
>>to or am able to, completely within an Anarcho-Capitalist
>>framework? Am I not in effect a licensing
>>agency for all other agencies? How far is that really from a
>>Minarchy divested of most of its monopoly power save
>>the right to approve contracts?
>>
>>I'm not saying they're the same (my agency only acts
>>against other agencies only after they've acted improperly, and
>>a Minarchy presumably acts beforehand) but I'm getting a
>>hunch that they are starting to converge when subjected
>>to an objectivist and/or libertarian ethical framework. .
>>
>
>
>
>I don't follow the first paragraph. And you haven't mentioned the role or
>existence of courts in any of this. Maybe you could use another example.
>
Well, no I can't use another example, as I was generalizing. Take the
situation of the neighbors attempting to forcibly prevent whichever
non-forcible
action they deem undesireable. And to do this, through the initiation of
force, for all people in whatever geographical region they decide upon,
regardless
of the fact that many people in this region had no contractual relationship
with them.
Is it agreed that the existence of *their* contract, with *their* protection
agency
to act against *me* is sufficent moral justification for me to act with force
to quash the
contract by whatever means will accomplish that, and that doing so is not an
initiation of force on my part?
If so, imagine that I create an agency to do so all around the country, or the
world,
or whatever, to act as soon as any such contract arises and to crush the
offending
agency. I act on behalf of individuals who are threatened, or even on my own
initiative. Wherever a contract to initiate force arises, and I find out about
it, I stop
it with force.
Are you with me so far?
--Kyle Bennett
Whojgalt
In article <6vqubi$9d9$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>, alex...@my-dejanews.com writes:
>On 11 Oct 1998 05:56:19 GMT, Greg Swann <gsw...@primenet.com> wrote:
>
>Be careful how you throw about terms such as "state." Words have meaning. It
>wouldn't be "statism" because there would be no state.
Its starting to look to me like many anarcho-capitalist institutions may
indeed walk like a government and talk like a government, despite
their different genesis.
--Kyle Bennett
Whojgalt
In article <gswann-1110...@ip-26-209.phx.primenet.com>, Greg Swann
<gsw...@primenet.com> writes:
>Whojgalt <whoj...@aol.com> wrote:
>>You may be right, but that does not in itself invalidate
>>the theory.
>
>Invalidate _what_ theory?
The theory that purely private institutions and individuals
acting in their own best interests could, without initiating
force, and acting through free-market contractual means,
produce a libertarian society. If it would not, then I have
no interest in it. If it would, isn't that a good thing?
>The theory that people have
>the "right" to dominate each other?
I don't see where you get that from.
>Anarcho-statism is a form of statism.
No, anarcho-capitalism is an economic idea devoid of
moral judgement, in exactly the same way that
price theory is devoid of moral judgement. It may
lead to statism, it may not. If you believe that it
necessarily will, please feel free to explain how and why.
--Kyle Bennett
Whojgalt
In article <362254D2...@pa.dec.com>, Steve Davis <sda...@pa.dec.com>
writes:
>Kyle,
>
>You raised some good points but consider this:
>"If almost everyone believes strongly that jews are so horrible that
>they should not be permitted anywhere under any circumstances, then
>anarcho-capitalist institutions will produce laws against jews."
This was exactly my interpretation of the quotes. What I have
been attmepting to do is to investigate a possible AC mechanism
to counter such forces, whether they be directed agaisnt drugs or
against races, and to evaluate that mechanism's effectiveness
compared to the effectiviness of minarchist mechanisms.
--Kyle Bennett
Whojgalt
>In article <19981010191819...@ngol02.aol.com>,
> Whojgalt <whoj...@aol.com> wrote:
>> If it is correct, is not the contract made between
>> an individual and his agency to forcibly prevent
>> heroin use by third parties not a threat of force?
>
>Sure, why not? Friedman's system is /not/ based upon the idea that you
may
>never initiate force.
That's right. It relies on individuals acting in their own interests to
prevent
initiation of force. I am asking whether or not my actions against the
parties to this contract, whether said contract is made into an overt threat or
remains
a secret agreement to act, is an initiation of force.
> It is (and I'm sure he'll come back to life here if I
>get this wrong) based on the idea that a group (like a protection agency or
>state) can not legitimately claim any moral rights that individuals can not
>claim.
I don't think it is based on that. It seems to be mostly an economic
and efficiency argument, with moral considerations an afterthought.
>> Am I not morally justified in acting, with *retaliatory*
>> force against this threat? And by extension would
>> that not be true of *any* contract that sought
>> to enforce non-objective "law" against third
>> parties.
>
>Are you not morally justified in acting against /any/ "non-objective" law -
>if you can, without some greater moral wrong - regardless of its source? If
>"yes", then your point counts against any method that might generate non-
>objective law (including democratic legislatures or courts supported by
>voluntary subscription); if "no", then you need to explain where the
>obligation to follow non-objective law comes from.
I think yes, and it does count against any system that intitates force. I am
not using this point to directly invalidate AC theory, or to show it inferior
to
minarchy, I am using it to see whether there are AC mechanisms to
successfully counter it, and the one I came up with is starting to look
suspiciously like a minarchy.
>> Furthermore, wouldn't it be in my interests
>> to set up a defense agency that is devoted
>> to responding to these threats, wherever
>> they may occur? And couldn't that agency
>> be headquartered in, say Washington DC?
>>
>Try it and see how many clients you get.
I think I'd get a lot. Wouldn't you sign up for an agency,
to prevent institutionalized initiation of force? It could
very well be in your own interests to do so, even if there is
no imminent threat directly against yourself.. If you now
contribute to the Libertarian Party, or to any other
freedom activist group, it basically amounts to the
same thing. They are just agencies trying to
protect you from government.
--Kyle Bennett
Whojgalt
In article <6vqtcf$8h4$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>, alex...@my-dejanews.com writes:
>On 11 Oct 1998 13:17:20 GMT, Whojgalt <whoj...@aol.com> wrote:
>
>>
>>In article <6vpc0u$d7u$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>, alex...@my-dejanews.com
>> But
>>that is
>>not to say that a moralistic crusade, backed by the force of a "protection"
>>agency against drug use will never happen. The question is: What will be
>>done about it when it does?
>
>Use retaliatory force against it.
Good, we're on the same page so far. Now let us examine in some detail
the form that retaliation will take, and the consequences thereof.
>>>> First, this seems to speak of jurisdictions that are
>>>> comprised of not individuals--one agency for me, one
>>>> agency for my next door neighbor--but of geographical
>>>> jurisdictions. Of laws being decided for an entire area,
>>>> not on an individual basis.
>>>
>>>I don't know that Friedman implied that.
>>
>>Read the first quote: "...not permitted *anywhwere*..."
>
>I think it's clear he means within a given geographic area--unless people are
>going to hire these agencies to enforce these laws halve-way arround the
>world, which seem prohibitively expensive to say the least.
It could be any geographic area that can be suitably covered by the
resources of that agency. My point is that within this geographic
area are people who have no contract whatsoever with the agency
proclaiming its rule over this area.
>>>He's saying if almost everyone
>>>wanted the same law then each individual could seperately hire agencies for
>>>that perpose and those agencies acting in concert could then inforce it
>>>within a given area.
>>
>>But would they enforce it against non-contracted parties?
>
>I think that's the whole point--unless the heroin users are going to hire
>private protection agencies themself to prohibit their own use of heroin.
OK, good, we agree so far. And what I am proposing is that
both the heroin users, and the non-heroin users who see such
action as a greater threat, will start or hire a protection agency to
counter this.
>>Some probably
>>would try. I am asking what is the proper course of action for those of
>>us interested in preventing the initiation of force.
>
>Individuals (and agencies acting on their behalf) have the right to use
>relaliatory force against such aggressors.
OK, we're still on the same page.
>>>> If it is correct, is not the contract made between
>>>> an individual and his agency to forcibly prevent
>>>> heroin use by third parties not a threat of force?
>>>
>>>A threat to initiate force? Only if it was made overt that it would enforce
>>>that contract.
>>
>>Oh, come on! An agency who's primary reason for being is to use
>>force on behalf of its customers, a contract requiring this agency to
>>use initiatory force, a payment for that service tendered and
>>accepted... How much more intent do you want?
>
>And just why would such an agency or their customers make their contracts
>public? If they did make those contracts public then it would seem like a
>threat to carry them out--would it not? So I answered your question to begin
>with.
They might make it public in an effort to scare people into not using drugs
without having to actually incur the expense of using force. This is the
"overt"
threat you spoke of, and it seems we agree this is justification for
retaliatory
force.
But on the other hand, they may decide to keep it secret, to simply without
any prior warning, start kicking in doors and rounding up drug users. In
either
case there is an initiation of force, and in either case the existence of the
contract to do so is in itself evidence and expression of intent. I am
asserting that
even a "secret" contract, if I were to somehow find out about it, is in itself
justification for purely retaliatiory force. Do you agree?
>Only if those contract make a threat to initiate force against you, or an
>agency is acting as the agent of someone who has such a threat made against
>him.
Does this mean that the "secret" contract above is not a threat to me?
That knowing about this contract, I have to wait for them to act before I
can retaliate?
>
>It is irrelevant per se. It is the threat itself that matters, the contract
>would simply be evidence of that threat. You seem to be hung-up on contracts,
>the threat could come in any overt form which shows intent.
I am focusing on contracts both because they are explicit
expressions of intent. And they are asserted under the AC system to
be the primary mechanism for getting such things done. Is intent enough
to act on, or does an actual stated threat have to be made? What is
the difference? If someone plans to one day surprise me by kicking
in my door, and I can prove that he intends it even if he has made no
statement to that effect, can I act against him pre-emptively without
that being an initiation of force?
>Then it makes my point that a "conract to initiate force" is irrelevant per
>se to whether it is a threat to initiate the use of force. Because in my
>example the "contracts" were not made overt to other parties and thus could
>not have been a threat used as a substitute for initiatory force (in order to
>control another person's actions, for example).
So the offending parties have to state publicly that they intend to carry
out this contract, and to use the threat itself to influence my behavior?
But clear evidence of a conspiracy to do so without telling me about it
is not actionable?
>>>Many questions you have about the ethics of these matters are addressed in
>>>Murray N. Rothbard's "The Ethics of Liberty." You can get it cheapest at
>>>http://www.barnsandnoble.com . It will serve you well.
>>
>>Can't YOU answer them?
>
>No, because I didn't understand them. I can't answer if that is in your
>interest.
Funny, I'm discussing Anarcho-Capitalism mechanisms here, which
I had assumed you are familiar with, and whether or not something is
or is not an initaition of force.
>And what does Washington DC have to do with anything? And what the
>Hell does this mean?: "Or am I just using aggression to enforce my 'monopoly'
>law rather than responding to a threat?" Where did that come from?
I am implying that an agency who's purpose is to act pre-emptively
against threats of force starts in some ways to resemble a government.
I am asking whether or not in doing so, you believe I am initiating
force and trying to monopolze that use of force, or that I acting
properly and not initiating force.
>
>I am glad you will read the book, I just didn't see before where you said you
>are going to do that. To anwer your question, only if those contracts make a
>threat to initiate force against you, or your agency is acting as the agent
>of someone who has such a threat made against him.
OK, we still have to hash out what does or does not constitute
a threat in your eyes.
--Kyle Bennett
Whojgalt
In article <1541.589T1...@portal.ca>, Lance Neustaeter
<la...@portal.ca> writes:
>Whojgalt <whoj...@aol.com> wrote:
>> The question is: What will be
>> done about it when it does?
>
>Since it is obvious that the hypothesized society is already somewhat
>irrational, "what will be done" is this: a minarchy will be
>established [...] Just like happened the last
>time.
That's pretty much what I've been getting at.
--Kyle Bennett
Robert Keith Elias
Hi david friedman <dd...@best.com>;
This is a public reply to your message posted:
From group: humanities.philosophy.objectivism; on 13 Oct 1998 18:29:29 GMT
Concerning "Re: Question for Anarchists";
~ > 2. An armadillo (Vinge's term)--someone who is the customer of no agency.
~ >
~ > He is out of law with the rest of the society--i.e. in the
~ > same situation as if there were no legal institutions. That
~ > means that he, and people he has conflicts with, will each
~ > act as they think right, and what actually happens depends
~ > on which side is better able to enforce its beliefs. In the
~ > situation described, the people who want to ban heroin have
~ > much more force at their disposal than the heroin addict, so
~ > he will almost certainly lose.
This last statement does not ring true for me. Obviously an
Armadillo would lose, but drug syndicates from countries
like Afghanistan and Columbia export a lot more drugs (in $ value)
than Middle East countries do in oil.
Would similar cartels organize themselves in North America
so that they could defeat any individual group attempting to
limit their freedom to do commerce? The Hell's Angels
already have a good infrastructure.
I also have two other (not terribly original) problems that I
have not seen addressed by the other posters:
1) The community upstream dumping its raw sewage into the
water the people downstream want to drink. Do the
downstream people need to pay for the treatment facilities
upstream, or for an army?
2) More complex situations where victims are never seen by the
groups who benefit from an activity. For example
governments are now wrestling with the problem of
antibiotic resistant bacteria. This problem is primarily
caused by tremendous overuse of antibiotics by industrial
farmers (pig farmers being the best example). It cuts
production costs by more than half.
How could you force farming groups who have a very strong
interest in overusing antibiotics from causing millions of
people to die from antibiotic resistant bacteria?
Broccolists
Have no problems.
--
Friar Broccoli
Robert Keith Elias (Quebec, Qc, Canada) Address: kel...@CLIC.NET
Best programmer's & all purpose text editor: http://www.semware.com
--------- I consider ALL arguments in support of my views ---------
Robert Keith Elias
Hi Kyle Bennett (Whojgalt<whoj...@aol.com>);
This is a public reply to your message posted:
From group: humanities.philosophy.objectivism; on 11 Oct 1998 13:17:23 GMT
Concerning "Re: Question for Anarchists";
~ > ... the effect this has is to render all public pressure
~ > mechanisms, such as ostracism, impotent. In a free society,
~ > I would think that these would be far more effective than
~ > law. OJ would sure as hell not have gotten away with it to
~ > nearly the extent that he has.
I wonder if this is true. Wouldn't OJ be accepted
and protected by a large subset of the black community?
~ > I'm not saying they're the same (my agency only acts
~ > against other agencies only after they've acted improperly, and
~ > a Minarchy presumably acts beforehand) but I'm getting a
~ > hunch that they are starting to converge when subjected
~ > to an objectivist and/or libertarian ethical framework.
Wouldn't an Anarcho-Capitalist system cause fracturing along
ethnic/religious/regional lines and greatly increase
conflict in the society, like warring Greek city states?
One people united under
The Great Broccoli
Greg Swann
>Its starting to look to me like many anarcho-capitalist institutions may
>indeed walk like a government and talk like a government, despite
>their different genesis.
On what basis do you conclude a different genesis? The kinds
of state-like agencies that Friedman or Rothbard talk about
are distinguished from the prior condition by the change of
one detail, the presence or absence of market-entry restriction.
In the same kind of a way, the modern nation-state is
distinguished from a monarchy by having an imaginary instead
of a real monarch. Expecting radically different results
from remarkably similar institutions may lead to disappointment.
It is worth noting that people on our side of the river
generally presume significant outcomes from insignificant
changes in input. A neighbor error is failing to recognize
the changes that _must_ occur subsequent to changes in
input. An example of this is the presumption throughout
this and other debates that large heterogenous communities
would persist after the devolution of the state and its
"subsidizing" mechanisms like forced association and
"free" rights of way.
The anarchostatists ask, "What if we changed this one
thing?" It's not possible to change merely that one thing,
and, if it were, we'd end up right back here, if not
someplace worse.
Greg Swann
Steve Reed
>You [Lance Neustaeter] can call me "pacifist" all day; I certainly
>don't care. It remains that uniquely among the people who post here,
>I do not advocate crime.
Self-Referential Rule of the 'Net No. 463: Avoid making sweeping universal
pronouncements that can be disproved by a single negative case.
Quite apart from omitting to include your particular construction of "crime,"
Greg, you simply don't know that this "unique" state is true. You only
know what we have posted. (Or, in the case of the Objectivist civil wars, have
described about the participants.)
And many efforts to have you flesh out your constructions have run in circles.
I know that you never answered for me, apropos "pacifism," whether your
Janioism would morally allow for one's resisting force -at the moment of
someone's initiation of it against oneself.-
I would have proceeded by now to enlightening you about Rule No. 464 (Don't
remove the entire universe of prospective respondents by insulting them all at
once), but first things first. <rueful grin>
Stand up to "official Objectivist" idiocy!
* Objectivist-Libertarian Defense Fund
Opposing Peikoff * http://oldfop.org
"To stay young requires unceasing cultivation
of the ability to unlearn old falsehoods."
-- Robert Heinlein
Jim Klein
<whoj...@aol.com> writes:
>Rand's political science *is* a fundamental part of her philosophy,
>and I believe it to be a valid part.
A part cannot both be fundamental and derivative. While I can see
calling the ethics of egoism fundamental (derivative of identification
perhaps, but fundamental of ethics), I think her conclusions about the
politics that follows from that are derivative (of egoist ethics).
>What I question is her *conclusion* that a monopoly government is an
>absolute must.
More precisely, she held that for a society to be free, governance of
the monopoly sort was the only consistent type. While I don't think
that's an absurd conclusion, it's far from certain.
Firstly, there's the fact that she considered it in opposition to only
a very limited set of alternative choices, both because of the limits
of our experience as humans, and also because of her innate obstinance
on the topic. Even alternatives which _were_ available for her
consideration, she obviously didn't consider seriously, as demonstrated
by her infantile rebuttal to the competing governments argument.
Far more important IMO is the misstatement of her derivation, by almost
all Objectivists. She very, very clearly set out the fact that her
conclusion was based on the identification that man is a volitional
being; that he himself is sovereign over his actions; that consent is
the cornerstone of _any_ conceivably free society. She then took
_this_ identification and concluded that monopoly government would be
the only rational choice of rational men.
Well, maybe it would be and maybe it wouldn't be. What's important
though, is the role of _consent_ in the process, and she made this
abundantly clear. The argument doesn't go..."There will be monopoly
government, and then men will be free," even though this is the essence
of the argument offered by almost all modern Objectivists. No...her
argument was much more along the lines of, "Free men will opt for
monopoly government, if they wish to remain free."
This is why her arguments for monopoly government and David Friedman's
arguments for competing governments are not necessarily exclusive of
each other. As David has pointed out, if monopoly government is the
most rational method of governance, it's the one which will eventually
evolve under AC (if I understand him correctly). David discusses the
means; Rand discusses the ends.
>My purpose is to evaluate AC as a means of acheiving an
>objectivist/libertarian society and the requisite politcal
>mechanisms.
I think maybe I'll never be an anarchist _nor_ a monopolist. I read
your sentence and think it's not so crazy; I guess I know what you
mean. But deep inside, I just can't conceive of that to which such
statements refer. I'm hopelessly stuck on viewing _every_ bit of human
action as originating within an individual. In the end, I really don't
know exactly what all these "systems" and "mechanisms" are. I mean, I
know they're descriptions of the summation of various human activities;
but beyond that I just don't see what they _are_, as existents.
I'm inclined to think they're just an elaborate means by which we fool
ourselves---thinking that what we do is really done by something else.
jk
Eric Knauer
Whojgalt wrote in message <19981013200218...@ngol02.aol.com>...
>Forget "private" neighborhoods". I'm talking neighborhoods where
>the individual property owners had no contractual relationship prior to the
>mad scramble to sign up with various protection agencies. Most people
>buy property without agreeing to be bound by anyone's rules except the
>existing government's. And presuming we have anarchy, that government is
>history, so those agreements are irrelevant.
A precondition for anarcho-capitalism to work is a general appreciation and
understanding of libertarian/objectivist principles especially the concept
of negative rights, so this "mad scramble" would be more of an evolutionary
process, not a violent revolution. I hope I haven't been giving the
impression that anarcho-capitalism will operate efficiently in a moral
vacuum.
>Freidman's writing clearly suggests that a group of property owners in
>a geographical region could attempt to force other owners, with whom there
>is no agreement to behave a certain way, to not use drugs.
This is certainly possible but my guess is it would be highly unlikely in a
society that respects individual rights.
>>You could try to overturn the contract you've signed but I would doubt a
>>court would rule on your behalf. And I doubt the agency who you hire to
>>void the contract would be in business very long. How are you a victim of
>>the contract you sign anyway? Would you really be foolish enough to sign
a
>>life-long non-negotiable contract?
>
>I never signed a contract. I woke up one morning to find the government
gone
>and Anarchy the rule of the day. I sign up with Freedom Inc. for my
>protection, and forget about it, until one day I see a notice posted that
my
>neighborhood is a drug-free zone, and that Moral Majority Inc. will enforce
>that "law" against me. Haven't I know been threatened with an *initiation*
of
>force? If I respond forcibly to that threat, I have only used retaliatory
>force,
>correct?
Definitely.
>>I don't follow the first paragraph. And you haven't mentioned the role or
>>existence of courts in any of this. Maybe you could use another example.
>>
>Well, no I can't use another example, as I was generalizing. Take the
>situation of the neighbors attempting to forcibly prevent whichever
>non-forcible
>action they deem undesireable. And to do this, through the initiation of
>force, for all people in whatever geographical region they decide upon,
>regardless
>of the fact that many people in this region had no contractual relationship
>with them.
>
>Is it agreed that the existence of *their* contract, with *their*
protection
>agency
>to act against *me* is sufficent moral justification for me to act with
force
>to quash the
>contract by whatever means will accomplish that, and that doing so is not
an
>initiation of force on my part?
Your action would be retaliatory and moral if you have not violated anyone
else's rights.
>
>If so, imagine that I create an agency to do so all around the country, or
the
>world,
>or whatever, to act as soon as any such contract arises and to crush the
>offending
>agency. I act on behalf of individuals who are threatened, or even on my
own
>initiative. Wherever a contract to initiate force arises, and I find out
about
>it, I stop
>it with force.
>
>Are you with me so far?
>
I follow you. But I think the sort of violent behavior that you seem to
predict would be non-existent in a libertarian/objectivist society.
Peaceful arbitration would be the norm although it wouldn't be a flawless
system.
-Eric
Greg Swann
>Self-Referential Rule of the 'Net No. 463: Avoid making sweeping universal
>pronouncements that can be disproved by a single negative case.
Name one.
>Quite apart from omitting to include your particular construction of "crime,"
>Greg, you simply don't know that this "unique" state is true. You only
>know what we have posted.
Are you saying there is a cowardly Janioist among us? I
should think I would have heard from that person by email.
>And many efforts to have you flesh out your constructions have run in circ
>les.
In what way? My political philosophy has existed in book form for
more than ten years. It's been available in full on the web for
nearly five years, even longer on CIS.
>I know that you never answered for me, apropos "pacifism," whether your
>Janioism would morally allow for one's resisting force -at the moment of
>someone's initiation of it against oneself.-
I have addressed this issue again and again, both here and on my
web page. Whether I have done this for you I don't know.
>I would have proceeded by now to enlightening you about Rule No. 464 (Don't
>remove the entire universe of prospective respondents by insulting them al
>l at
>once), but first things first. <rueful grin>
I'm not looking for responses. It's fair to say that I get
frustrated that nothing seems to move here. I keep not writing
about Monkeytalk (Heinlein's word), in part because I don't
relish the Monkeytalk rages I'll incite, but that's what
this whole rotten debate is about. Why are you "sanctioned"
and "justified" in doing back to me what you say it was
wrong, wrong, wrong for me to have done to you? What _in
reality_ has changed? Nothing. What has changed is your
entirely inside your mind, your mood or your anger or
your desire to impose an arbitrary order on the universe.
If it's wrong, wrong, wrong for me to try to dominate you,
it's wrong, wrong, wrong for your to try to dominate me.
The opposite of Monkey
Greg Swann
Name one.
about monkeytalk (Heinlein's word), in part because I don't
relish the monkeytalk rages I'll incite, but that's what
this whole rotten debate is about. Why are you "sanctioned"
and "justified" in doing back to me what you say it was
wrong, wrong, wrong for me to have done to you? What _in
reality_ has changed? Nothing. What has changed is
entirely inside your mind, your mood or your anger or
your desire to impose an arbitrary order on the universe.
If it's wrong, wrong, wrong for me to try to dominate you,
it's wrong, wrong, wrong for you to try to dominate me.
So much of this is so interesting to me--like the
monkeytalk raging against free source software a few
months ago. It's sad that the debate can't progress to
the interetsing parts.
Sorry if I've offended. Apologies, also, if I posted
a truncated version of this.
Greg
David Friedman
<whoj...@aol.com> wrote:
>In article <6vqubi$9d9$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>, alex...@my-dejanews.com writes:
>
>>On 11 Oct 1998 05:56:19 GMT, Greg Swann <gsw...@primenet.com> wrote:
>>
>
>>Be careful how you throw about terms such as "state." Words have meaning. It
>>wouldn't be "statism" because there would be no state.
>
>Its starting to look to me like many anarcho-capitalist institutions may
>indeed walk like a government and talk like a government, despite
>their different genesis.
Is the same thing true of an individual in a stateless society who uses
force to defend what he believes his rights to be? That is a closer
analogy to anarcho-capitalism. Anarcho-capitalism has the same relation to
such primitive anarchy as real economies have to the simple economy (all
barter, no intermediaries, no corporations, everyone producing on his own
and trading) at the beginning of a price theory book.
--
David Friedman
DD...@Best.com
http://www.best.com/~ddfr/
David Friedman
<kel...@clic.net> wrote:
>~ > In the
>~ > situation described, the people who want to ban heroin have
>~ > much more force at their disposal than the heroin addict, so
>~ > he will almost certainly lose.
>
> This last statement does not ring true for me. Obviously an
> Armadillo would lose, but drug syndicates from countries
> like Afghanistan and Columbia export a lot more drugs (in $ value)
> than Middle East countries do in oil.
But I was assuming a situation where most of the U.S. population was
strongly opposed to permitting people to use heroin. The total value of
all drugs imported ino the U.S. is tiny compared to the total income of
all the inhabitants of the U.S.
> 1) The community upstream dumping its raw sewage into the
> water the people downstream want to drink. Do the
> downstream people need to pay for the treatment facilities
> upstream, or for an army?
That depends on what the relevant legal rules turn out to be in
equilibrium. I can't give a short explanation of the economics of the
problem.
> 2) More complex situations where victims are never seen by the
> groups who benefit from an activity. For example
> governments are now wrestling with the problem of
> antibiotic resistant bacteria. This problem is primarily
> caused by tremendous overuse of antibiotics by industrial
> farmers (pig farmers being the best example). It cuts
> production costs by more than half.
>
> How could you force farming groups who have a very strong
> interest in overusing antibiotics from causing millions of
> people to die from antibiotic resistant bacteria?
In two places ("Law as a Private Good" and my economics of anarchy chapter
from _For and Against the State_, both on my web page) I explain and
discuss a form of market failure that I would expect to observe on the
market for legal assent. One of its consequences is that we will have less
than the efficient level of prevention of this sort of problem. Of course,
we also have less than the efficient level of protection at present. As I
hope I have made clear, I am not a utopian--I don't expect my institutions
to work perfectly, just better than the alternatives.
David Friedman
Swann <gsw...@primenet.com> wrote:
>david friedman <dd...@best.com> wrote:
>
>>Greg Swann writes:
>>
>>>By contenancing crimes against people
>>>who cannot have caused an injury, Dr.Friedman is ...
>>
>>Where am I countenancing crimes? I didn't say that heroin ought to be
>>illegal, I said it would be.
>>
>>Do you believe that if the sun goes nova tomorrow it will kill off all our
>>species? If your answer is "yes," can I now properly start my next post "by
>>countenancing the annihilation of the human race, Greg Swann ... "?
>
>Specious analogy: equates man-made results with physical
>results.
Irrelevant difference. If you prefer, substitute for the nova a mad
scientist who figures out how to blow up the earth and decides it would be
fun to do it. Now its man made.
>Moreover, you proffer as a theory of governance
>a system of endemic crime in the form of forcible
>social contact that is not mutually voluntary.
>That this theory also would not disallow commiting
>similar crimes "against people who cannot have
>caused an injury" is icing on the cake.
I don't understand what "this theory also would not disallow" is supposed
to mean, and I'm not sure you do.
I offer an economic analysis of how a set of institutions could be
expected to work. I conclude that they would produce more attractive
results than alternative institutions, but that in some circumstances the
results might still be unattractive--specificially, might include
institutionalized violations of rights.
What would it mean for the theory to "disallow" that result? Theories
don't allow or disallow things--if anarcho-capitalism is ever established,
I'm not going to be sitting up on a cloud with a veto over the legal rules
and the power to enforce it.
David Friedman
<whoj...@aol.com> wrote:
>Freidman's writing clearly suggests that a group of property owners in
>a geographical region could attempt to force other owners, with whom there
>is no agreement to behave a certain way, to not use drugs.
Just as they can attempt to force other owners to behave in a certain way,
to not commit murder. The difference is that in one case their action is
based on a false moral belief, in one a true moral belief. I have no way
of building into my institutions a guarantee that people will only act on
true beliefs--nor does anyone else. I can, however, offer reasons why
actions based on false beliefs will be less common under my institutions.
>I never signed a contract. I woke up one morning to find the government gone
>and Anarchy the rule of the day. I sign up with Freedom Inc. for my
>protection, and forget about it, until one day I see a notice posted that my
>neighborhood is a drug-free zone, and that Moral Majority Inc. will enforce
>that "law" against me. Haven't I know been threatened with an *initiation
>* of
>force? If I respond forcibly to that threat, I have only used retaliatory
>force,
>correct?
Correct. You left out the stage where Freedom Inc., in the summary of
their arbitration agreements that they keep (in updated form) on their web
page for the information of their customers, mentioned that it had decided
to accept Puritan Justice Inc. for arbitrating disputes with Moral
Majority Inc., and offered any customers unhappy with that legal change
the option of getting a refund for the remaining portion of their
contracts.
>>>Am I not now, through my agency, unilaterally enforcing
>>>objective law throughout whatever geographical region I choose
>>>to or am able to, completely within an Anarcho-Capitalist
>>>framework?
Only if you are Superman. Otherwise, you are trying and failing to do so.
Remember that the context for this situation was one where your (correct)
moral beliefs were shared by only a small minority.
Am I not in effect a licensing
>>>agency for all other agencies?
No more than you are now a licensing agency for all governments. If a
government violates your rights, for example by banning heroin, you have
the right to use force against them. You don't, however, have sufficient
force to use, so you are not a licensing agency. In either case.
David Friedman
>david friedman <dd...@best.com> wrote:
>
>>Greg Swann writes:
>>
>>>By contenancing crimes against people
>>>who cannot have caused an injury, Dr.Friedman is ...
>>
>>Where am I countenancing crimes? I didn't say that heroin ought to be
>>illegal, I said it would be.
>>
>>Do you believe that if the sun goes nova tomorrow it will kill off all our
>>species? If your answer is "yes," can I now properly start my next post "by
>>countenancing the annihilation of the human race, Greg Swann ... "?
>
>Specious analogy: equates man-made results with physical
>results.
Irrelevant. Substitute for the nova a mad scientist who has figured out
how to blow up the earth and thinks it would be fun to do so. Now the
result is man made.
>Moreover, you proffer as a theory of governance
>a system of endemic crime in the form of forcible
>social contact that is not mutually voluntary.
>That this theory also would not disallow commiting
>similar crimes "against people who cannot have
>caused an injury" is icing on the cake.
What is "this theory also would not disallow" supposed to mean? I don't
know, and I doubt that you do.
What I am proferring is an economic analysis of how certain institutions
would work, from which I conclude that they would produce more attractive
results than alternative institutions, but under some circumstances would
still end up with institutionalized rights violations. I don't make up the
conclusions, I derive them from the assumptions, so I don't have the
option of "disallowing" conclusions I don't like. If anarcho-capitalism
ever gets established, I'm not going to be sitting up in a cloud with a
veto over the laws that get agreed on and the power to enforce it.
david friedman
>david friedman <dd...@best.com> wrote:
>
>>Greg Swann writes:
>>
>>>By contenancing crimes against people
>>>who cannot have caused an injury, Dr.Friedman is ...
>>
>>Where am I countenancing crimes? I didn't say that heroin ought to be
>>illegal, I said it would be.
>>
>>Do you believe that if the sun goes nova tomorrow it will kill off all our
>>species? If your answer is "yes," can I now properly start my next post "by
>>countenancing the annihilation of the human race, Greg Swann ... "?
>
>Specious analogy: equates man-made results with physical
>results.
Irrelevant. Substitute for the nova a mad scientist who has figured out how
to blow up the earth and thinks it would be fun to do it. Now we have a man
made result. Repeat the argument as above.
>Moreover, you proffer as a theory of governance
>a system of endemic crime in the form of forcible
>social contact that is not mutually voluntary.
>That this theory also would not disallow commiting
>similar crimes "against people who cannot have
>caused an injury" is icing on the cake.
I don't know what "this theory also would not disallow" means, and I doubt
you do. I am using economics to try to predict the outcome of a particular
set of institutions. I don't have the option of "disallowing" conclusions
that I don't like. If anarcho-capitalism is ever established, I'm not going
to be sitting up on a cloud with a veto over laws I disapprove of and the
power to enforce it.
Kyle writes:
>Freidman's writing clearly suggests that a group of property owners in
>a geographical region could attempt to force other owners, with whom there
>is no agreement to behave a certain way, to not use drugs.
Just as a group of property owners could attempt to force others, with whom
there is no agreement, to not commit murder. In each case, the owners are
trying to enforce their views of rights--it's just that in one case they
happen to be wrong.
>I never signed a contract. I woke up one morning to find the government gone
>and Anarchy the rule of the day. I sign up with Freedom Inc. for my
>protection, and forget about it, until one day I see a notice posted that my
>neighborhood is a drug-free zone, and that Moral Majority Inc. will enforce
>that "law" against me.
Correct, except that you omit one step--your observing, on the web page
that Freedom Inc. uses to keep its customers up to date on its policies, an
announcement that they have agreed to use Puritan Courts Inc to arbitrate
disputes with Moral Majority Inc., and that any customers unhappy with the
new policy are welcome to a refund of the remaining portion of their
subscription.
>Haven't I know been threatened with an *initiation* of
>force? If I respond forcibly to that threat, I have only used retaliatory
>force,
>correct?
Correct.
>>>Am I not now, through my agency, unilaterally enforcing
>>>objective law throughout whatever geographical region I choose
>>>to or am able to, completely within an Anarcho-Capitalist
>>>framework?
Yes. But unless you are Superman, the region in question is null, since by
assumption this is a society where the vast majority of the population
strongly approves of the forcible suppression of heroin use.
>>> Am I not in effect a licensing
>>>agency for all other agencies?
No more than, today, you are a licensing agency for all governments. You
have the right to use force to stop them from violating rights, but you
don't have the power to doit.
Steve Davis wrote (if I have correctly untangled the attributions)
> If Friedman's A-C utopia
>would allow the non initiation principle to be violated in the case of
>heroin users, then why not in the other cases?
Except that I am not describing a utopia--that is part of the point of the
example.
Steve Davis's Objectivist Utopia would allow the non initiation principle
to be violated in any case where almost everyone in the society mistakenly
believed that the action in question didn't violate it. There isn't a way
of building a set of institutions that will never allow unjust outcomes.
The best we can do is to design institutions that minimize the risk of such
outcomes--which is what I am doing.
Gordon wrote:
> It is (and I'm sure he'll come back to life here if I
>get this wrong) based on the idea that a group (like a protection agency or
>state) can not legitimately claim any moral rights that individuals can not
>claim.
Kyle replied:
"I don't think it is based on that. It seems to be mostly an economic
and efficiency argument, with moral considerations an afterthought. "
1. My definition of government (and, by implication, of anarchy) is based
on what Gordon said, minus the "legitimately" part. The defining
characteristic of a government is that it does things that would be
considered rights violations if done by a private actor, and other people
in the society don't react as they normally react to rights violations.
That is what I define as "legitimized coercion".
2. I then sketch out a set of institutions that do not involve a government
in that sense, and use economics to try to predict the outcomes those
institutions will produce.
3. I conclude that they will tend to produce efficient legal rules, and ...
4. That there is a close but not perfect correlation between efficient
legal rules and libertarian legal rules, so the institutions will tend to
produce libertarian law, but ...
5. The tendency is not perfect. Under some circumstances (the ones referred
to in the quote that started this thread), the institutions will produce
rights violations.
Kyle writes:
"Your four possibilities are all fine and dandy if the neighbors wish to
limit thier actions to non agressive ones. If they do not, my agency will
need to stop them. "
This describes the role of any of the enforcement agencies in the system.
The problem is that if people disagree about just what their rights
are--and they do--there is a potential for violent conflict. That problem
is solved by agreements between agencies specifying courts. There is no
guarantee that the people who have the correct moral theory will always win
out in all such disputes--under AC or minarchy. I argue in MoF, however,
that there are reasons why AC will tend to produce the right law--but not
perfectly.
David Friedman
Whojgalt
In article <7019vr$4...@bgtnsc02.worldnet.att.net>, Eric Knauer
<ekn...@worldnet.att.net> writes:
>A precondition for anarcho-capitalism to work is a general appreciation and
>understanding of libertarian/objectivist principles especially the concept
>of negative rights, so this "mad scramble" would be more of an evolutionary
>process, not a violent revolution.
At least in a transitional period, it would be chaotic and ocasionally
violent. I'm not using that as a criticism of AC in particular, just
observing a likely result of any transitional period when such
a major re-organization is underway.
> I hope I haven't been giving the
>impression that anarcho-capitalism will operate efficiently in a moral
>vacuum.
You may not have, Freidman most definitely does.
>>Freidman's writing clearly suggests that a group of property owners in
>>a geographical region could attempt to force other owners, with whom there
>>is no agreement to behave a certain way, to not use drugs.
>
>This is certainly possible but my guess is it would be highly unlikely in a
>society that respects individual rights.
That is David's assertion as well. I understand the mechanism you cite
as evidence for this, and to some extent agree. However positing a
"society that respects rights" is making the same utopian error that
is used to criticize the possibility of a minarchy working. And besides,
it is a bit of group-think. Any society would likely be comprised of
both individuals who respect rights and those who don't, at varying
levels of representation.
>>I never signed a contract. I woke up one morning to find the government
>>gone and Anarchy the rule of the day. I sign up with Freedom Inc. for my
>>protection, and forget about it, until one day I see a notice posted that
>>my neighborhood is a drug-free zone, and that Moral Majority Inc. will
enforce
>>that "law" against me. Haven't I know been threatened with an *initiation*
>>of force? If I respond forcibly to that threat, I have only used retaliatory
>>force, correct?
>
>Definitely.
OK, and to bring this in line with my concurrent argument with Alex, do you
agree that it is not iniatiory for me to act on this contract regardless of
whether the threat is publicly stated or kept secret prior to acting (but I
somehow found out, through spies or whatever).
>>>I don't follow the first paragraph. And you haven't mentioned the role or
>>>existence of courts in any of this. Maybe you could use another example.
>>Is it agreed that the existence of *their* contract, with *their*
>>protection agency to act against *me* is sufficent moral
>>justification for me to act with force to quash the
>>contract by whatever means will accomplish that, and that doing so is not
>>an initiation of force on my part?
>
>Your action would be retaliatory and moral if you have not violated anyone
>else's rights.
Alright, then I think that with you at least I have established that
my agency, call it "Universal Statist Adversaries Agency (USAA) <G>" is
acting within a non-initiatiory AC framework from here on.
>>If so, imagine that I create an agency to do so all around the country, or
>>the world, or whatever, to act as soon as any such contract arises and to
crush the
>>offending agency. I act on behalf of individuals who are threatened, or
even on my
>>own initiative. Wherever a contract to initiate force arises, and I find out
>about it, I stop it with force.
>>
>>Are you with me so far?
>>
>
>I follow you. But I think the sort of violent behavior that you seem to
>predict would be non-existent in a libertarian/objectivist society.
>Peaceful arbitration would be the norm although it wouldn't be a flawless
>system.
No it would not be a flawless system, and these types of things would
occasionaly arise because at no time will *everybody* be libertarian
or objecivist. That is one of Davis' main points is that ulike a minarchy,
AC does not require a nation of saints to operate properly.
So my agency, USAA is there to stop such contracts when they
pop up. If you are correct that it is very rare, USAA could provide
the requisite resources for a low fee. If it is more common, the fees
might be higher, but then more people would see such actions as
a serious threat and be willing to pay those fees.
So my agency, headquartered in say Albuquerque NM, since the
climate is better than Washington, sits around basically doing nothing.
It monitors the activities of various protection agencies in the North American
continent, but for the most part does not act because all of the contracts
it is privy to are non-initiatory.
But one day, an agency in Boston (Moral Majority Inc) enters into a
contract with its individual subscribers to bar heroin use within the
ancient (but now largely obsolete) city limits of Boston. USAA springs
into action, perhaps on behalf of some heroin user it found in Boston,
whom it does not really care abut, but who is willing to act as the threatened
"client" for USAA. And he really is threatened, but had never before had
any protection agency. USAA is happy to provide him with a pre-paid
protection contract to suit their own purposes.
USAA then does what is necessary to disable MMI's ability to
carry out its evil contract. Perhaps this results in putting
MMI entirely out of business. So maybe USAA takes over
the protection clients of MMI, agreeing to honor all of its
existing contracts except for the evil one that prompted this
action in the first place. And its only punitive action against
the signers of that contract is to enforce their payment of
it, keeping the money to help defray the costs of this action.
This happens in occasional places around the continent, and
USAA slowly builds its customer base, which in part is now
comprised of people who are opposed to one of its primary
principles. These people could and probably would find
other agencies to get out from under USAA's grip, but
these agencies would face the same choice as MMI did,
be rights respecting, don't be rights respecting and get
crushed, or don't be rights respecting and also be
powerful enough to stand up to the good ole' USAA.
Can you see where this is leading? I'll try to flesh it out
later, but I will likley not be able to devote much if any
time to it until after the weekend, by which time I will have
finished Freidman's book.
--Kyle Bennett
Whojgalt
Whojgalt
In article <gswann-1310...@ip-32-165.phx.primenet.com>, Greg Swann
<gsw...@primenet.com> writes:
>>Its starting to look to me like many anarcho-capitalist institutions may
>>indeed walk like a government and talk like a government, despite
>>their different genesis.
>
>On what basis do you conclude a different genesis?
Rand's government would be instituted by changing the existing
political apparatus, by whatever means. The government-like
institutions I see arising out of AC evolve from a vacuum of
existing political institutions.
>The kinds
>of state-like agencies that Friedman or Rothbard talk about
>are distinguished from the prior condition by the change of
>one detail, the presence or absence of market-entry restriction.
>In the same kind of a way, the modern nation-state is
>distinguished from a monarchy by having an imaginary instead
>of a real monarch. Expecting radically different results
>from remarkably similar institutions may lead to disappointment.
I don't follow this, I'm sorry. Could you try again? If I'm just
being dense and everyone else gets it, feel free to email me.
>It is worth noting that people on our side of the river
>generally presume significant outcomes from insignificant
>changes in input. A neighbor error is failing to recognize
>the changes that _must_ occur subsequent to changes in
>input. An example of this is the presumption throughout
>this and other debates that large heterogenous communities
>would persist after the devolution of the state and its
>"subsidizing" mechanisms like forced association and
>"free" rights of way.
I have thought about these necessary changes, but for the
moment and to keep this argument from becoming epic
in length and scope, I have chosen to ignore them for
the moment, or to just assume these conditions would
not exist. But the changes that would have to come
*before* AC intitutions even think about starting is
somethign that does need discussing.
>The anarchostatists ask, "What if we changed this one
>thing?" It's not possible to change merely that one thing,
>and, if it were, we'd end up right back here, if not
>someplace worse.
Even changing a lot ot things could put us right back
where we started. But don't the minarchists make
a similar error when asking "What if we changed
this one little thing... Make our government
rights-respecting."? A lot has to change, starting
with the attitudes of a whole lot of people about
the responsibility they have for their own lives, and
about their ability to force change in other people,
before we can have a libertarian society by any
means.
--Kyle Bennett
Whojgalt
In article <F89I2krq...@clic.net>, Robert Keith Elias <kel...@clic.net>
writes:
>~ > ostracism,[...]. In a free society,
>~ > I would think that these would be far more effective than
>~ > law. OJ would sure as hell not have gotten away with it to
>~ > nearly the extent that he has.
>
> I wonder if this is true. Wouldn't OJ be accepted
> and protected by a large subset of the black community?
A large segment perhaps, but his choices of who to associate
with and to trade with to provide both his necessities for life and
his luxuries would be limited to these people. I know that if I owned
a business in LA there would be a big sign on my door saying
something along the lines of: "OJ not welcome here, trespassers
will be shot"
--Kyle Bennett
Whojgalt
In article <7014o5$q...@dfw-ixnews5.ix.netcom.com>, Jim Klein
<rum...@ix.netcom.com> writes:
>>Rand's political science *is* a fundamental part of her philosophy,
>>and I believe it to be a valid part.
>
>A part cannot both be fundamental and derivative.
Then aren't the axioms the only "fundamental" part?
>While I can see
>calling the ethics of egoism fundamental (derivative of identification
>perhaps, but fundamental of ethics), I think her conclusions about the
>politics that follows from that are derivative (of egoist ethics).
Derivitave of ethics, but fundamental of politics. I think we are
splitting hairs. My main point follows, and you seem to
mirror my thoughts on it.
>>What I question is her *conclusion* that a monopoly government is an
>>absolute must.
>
>More precisely, she held that for a society to be free, governance of
>the monopoly sort was the only consistent type. While I don't think
>that's an absurd conclusion, it's far from certain.
>
>Firstly, there's the fact that she considered it in opposition to only
>a very limited set of alternative choices, both because of the limits
>of our experience as humans, and also because of her innate obstinance
>on the topic.
She was obstinate? ;-) Gee, I never knew that about her! You make
a good point about the limited alternatives she was able to imagine.
>Well, maybe it would be and maybe it wouldn't be. What's important
>though, is the role of _consent_ in the process, and she made this
>abundantly clear. The argument doesn't go..."There will be monopoly
>government, and then men will be free," even though this is the essence
>of the argument offered by almost all modern Objectivists. No...her
>argument was much more along the lines of, "Free men will opt for
>monopoly government, if they wish to remain free."
That is a very good point, which I hadn't explicitly considered. But
as it turns out, my preliminary examinations of AC institutions
seems to be leading to at least one mechanism whereby men
will make that choice.
>This is why her arguments for monopoly government and David Friedman's
>arguments for competing governments are not necessarily exclusive of
>each other.
Bingo!
> As David has pointed out, if monopoly government is the
>most rational method of governance, it's the one which will eventually
>evolve under AC (if I understand him correctly). David discusses the
>means; Rand discusses the ends,
Then perhaps all my sound and fury is merly anticipatory of the
latter portion of David's book, which I have yet to read. I will probably
have done so by the time you wake up and read this. Its 2am, and I
gotta go get donuts first though. <G>
>>My purpose is to evaluate AC as a means of acheiving an
>>objectivist/libertarian society and the requisite politcal
>>mechanisms.
>
>I think maybe I'll never be an anarchist _nor_ a monopolist. I read
>your sentence and think it's not so crazy; I guess I know what you
>mean. But deep inside, I just can't conceive of that to which such
>statements refer. I'm hopelessly stuck on viewing _every_ bit of human
>action as originating within an individual. In the end, I really don't
>know exactly what all these "systems" and "mechanisms" are. I mean, I
>know they're descriptions of the summation of various human activities;
>but beyond that I just don't see what they _are_, as existents.
What they are is tenuous structures, the building blocks of which
is individual volitional choices. They are no more or less real
than whatever the referent for the term "government" really is.
>I'm inclined to think they're just an elaborate means by which we fool
>ourselves---thinking that what we do is really done by something else.
To some extent that may be true. At least many people use
them that way. I have had arguments with flaming statists
who very clearly do just that, and I have pointed it out to them.
But like any abstraction, they are useful when grounded,
dangerous or useless when floating.
--Kyle Bennett
Jim Klein
<whoj...@aol.com> writes:
>>I think maybe I'll never be an anarchist _nor_ a monopolist. I read
>>your sentence and think it's not so crazy; I guess I know what you
>>mean. But deep inside, I just can't conceive of that to which such
>>statements refer. I'm hopelessly stuck on viewing _every_ bit of
>>human action as originating within an individual. In the end, I
>>really don't know exactly what all these "systems" and "mechanisms"
>>are. I mean, I know they're descriptions of the summation of various
>>human activities; but beyond that I just don't see what they _are_,
>>as existents.
>
>What they are is tenuous structures,
That's misleading IMO; "structures" is ambiguous. A building (or a
car, or a tree) is a "sturcture" in that it's comprised of components;
but still it's an existential thing, distinct from all existents which
it's not.
A government OTOH is a "structure" like the atomic model is a
structure; it is something describing--and comprised of--only
conceptual components. A government is not composed of people the way
a building is composed of bricks. Technically, the word refers to a
conceptual organization of certain actions of a group of people.
You can have a building without bricks, but you can't have a government
without people. More relevantly, you can't have a government without
those people doing certain things; like "mind," government refers to a
group of actions, not a group of existents.
>the building blocks of which is individual volitional choices. They
>are no more or less real than whatever the referent for the term
>"government" really is.
True enough, and that's my point really. The government is the series
of actions which culminates in DEA thugs busting down doors (sometimes
the "right" one, sometimes not), or Lon Horiuchi putting a bullet into
Vicki Weaver (accidentally or not), or more commonly those actions
which result in 100s of millions of people filling out forms and
mailing off a hefty chunk of their earnings.
What it _isn't_, is some existent which is doing all of these things
itself, in the way a building stretches ten stories even though bricks
don't. Least of all is it Prescott's imagined "objective authority,"
while all the people aren't.
I recognize this may seem petty and trite, but I think it's important.
We imagine that we may combine our actions and produce something beyond
them, like the way we take bricks and make a building. But that's just
false--you can put bricks together and end up with something besides
bricks; you can't put human action together and end up with something
besides human action.
That's the rub--it's as if we're trying to build a building, with
bricks but no mortar. It simply can't be done.
All we can do is polish the bricks.
jk
Matt Ruff / Lisa Gold
>
> But the point is this:
>
> Under an anarchy it is *far* cheaper for such people to move away from
> the addicts (or buy homes in developments that limit drug use as part
> of the purchase contracts in the first place) than it would be for
> them to arm themselves (or their proxy, if they can find one) and try
> to kill or chase the peaceful addicts off of their rightful property.
Sure. I'm not disagreeing with that, only with the notion that under
anarchy, there would be no market for "drug-free" housing.
-- M. Ruff
Matt Ruff / Lisa Gold
>
> But the AC system has no inherent limitation that acceptable
> actions do not involve initiating of force. If the neighbors want
> to initiate force, they will do so. The only check on that is
> my protection agency. There's no law against it, this is
> anarchy, remember?
Whoops, sorry, you're right, my response applies to a libertarian
society, not necessarily to AC. Maybe I'd better just refer you to Dave
Friedman, now that he's found his way back onto hpo...
-- M. Ruff
Matt Ruff / Lisa Gold
>
> Just as they can attempt to force other owners to behave in a certain way,
> to not commit murder. The difference is that in one case their action is
> based on a false moral belief, in one a true moral belief. I have no way
> of building into my institutions a guarantee that people will only act on
> true beliefs--nor does anyone else. I can, however, offer reasons why
> actions based on false beliefs will be less common under my institutions.
Quick question from the postmodern peanut gallery: when you speak of
true and false moral beliefs, what standard of truth are you using? And
how would it affect your predictions about the efficacy of A-C if the
distinction made by the standard turned out to be spurious?
-- M. Ruff
log...@my-dejanews.com
Steve Davis <sda...@pa.dec.com> wrote:
> > And what would you rather him do, lie?
>
> What I would expect him (David Friedman), or any other so-called
> Anarchist Capitalist to do is to check their premises. All Libertarians
> harp on their one unifying principle of non initiation of force, yet
> advocate a "system" which is totally powerless to prevent the initiation
> of force or to protect people from it.
>
> Now, I will certainly grant that in a limited government such as the one
> Rand advocated, there would be the potential for human fallibility or
> epistemological error to lead to accidental harm. However, I consider
> this inevitability to be a thousand times more acceptable than a system
> in which any mob of people can band together and violate my rights
> simply on the basis of whim.
>
This is -- how shall I put it? -- not quite true.
If what you're looking for is a guarantee that legal institutions won't
violate rights or systematically initiate force, then anarcho-capitalist
institutions can't provide that. Neither, however, can minarchist
institutions.
Now, you can *make* it true that the minarchist institutions you favor won't
violate rights by retreating into the World of Definitions. Just say that a
Proper Objectivist Government is rights-respecting and does not systematically
initiate force, and anything that is not rights-respecting or systematically
initiates force doesn't count as a Proper Objectivist Government -- and
therefore not as something you're in favor of.
However, that's a game that more than one can play. I just say that Proper
Anarchist Institutions are rights-respecting and do not systematically
initiate force -- and any institutions that are not rights-respecting or that
systematically initiate force don't count as Proper Anarchist Institutions --
and therefore are not something I'm in favor of.
You have your guarantee and I have mine. As far as providing a basis for
comparison goes, this is a stand-off. In the World of Definitions, we can each
have whatever we like by building it into our definitions.
If, however, we want to decide between real options, we have to think about
how institutions work or are likely to work in the real world when staffed by
flesh- and-blood human beings: We need to compare Real Limited Governments
(RLGs) with Real Anarchist Institutions (RAIs).
With that in mind, return to the case of a heroin-hating populace in which
the vast majority not only disapprove of heroin use, but are willing to
enforce non- use on others.
Suppose that we are talking about RAIs and 99% of the adult population are
willing to have heroin use prohibited. They will subscribe to protection
agencies that undertake to prohibit it and the protection agencies will try to
refuse to deal with any other agencies that won't sign on to the Heroin-
Prohibition Convention as part of the body of law on which their actions are
predicated.
Does that mean that heroin will be effectively prohibited? Not necessarily.
It depends not just on what the majority wants but also on how much they want
it and how much the minority cares about and is willing to pay in order to
get protection from the majority. Since defense and protection are typically
cheaper than offense and prevention (especially when the prevention has to be
carried out on other people's property), it's reasonable to expect that the
minority will be able to defend itself at a lower total cost than that at
which the majority will be able to get its way. If the minority care enough
about protection compared to how much the majority are willing to pay for
prohibition, then they will be able to effectively escape the majority
consensus. No doubt, however, if the majority care enough, they will be able
to enforce their will.
Why does this matter? First, most people who are "against drugs" have given
little thought to the question how much effective prohibition is worth to
them. Moreover, they have usually given little thought to the fact that
prohibition is not an all-or-nothing matter. Making sure that there is no
(say) heroin use anywhere is considerably more costly than public posturing
and occasional arrests of users. At least, the way the question would get
posed under RAIs would force the majority to face the question in that form.
They will get their way only if they are willing to pay enough to counter-act
however much the users are willing to pay for protection against them. And a
quite small minority (suppose it were 10% instead of 1%) may be able to raise
the stakes sufficiently high that the majority can't get the law they want at
a price they're willing to pay.
By way of contrast, consider what is likely to happen under an RLG. If it is
approximately democratic, then it's a foregone conclusion that a law will be
passed prohibiting drug use. If anything like 99% (or 90% or 80%) are heroin-
haters, they will manage to get their opinions enacted into law. It's not that
the costs of the prohibition will be any lower. In fact, they're likely to be
higher. But the citizenry won't be faced with the question in that form. They
will just be asked whether they are for or against. (And, once the law is in
place, and the unanticipated costs start showing up, there will be plenty of
official propagandists to blame the extra costs on the victimized users.)
But this, the RLGer will say, misses the point. The kind of RLG he favors
isn't a pure democracy. There are constitutional restrictions on what the
government may do.
True enough -- in theory. But there are two problems. The first is that
constitutions can be amended. In the US, for example, a super-majority is
required for constitutional amendment (and not a super-majority of the
population, either, but a super-majority of the states -- it's technically
possible for a constitutional amendment to be passed that the majority of the
citizens are opposed to). Under an RLG, if there were anything like 99%
support for drug prohibition, it would surely not be hard to amend a
constitution to allow it. Second and more important, constitutional
provisions do not interpret or enforce themselves. That has to be done,
insofar as it is, by human beings subject to various political and other
pressures. (If you really think that constitutional provisions can provide a
secure bulwark against governmental violation of people's rights, consider
the way the Supreme Court has read "Congress shall make no law restricting
freedom of speech" to mean "Congress shall make no law restricting freedom of
speech unless it is commercial speech or pornographic or slanderous or ...."
Consider also the 13th amendment prohibition of involuntary servitude which
the Court has never interpreted as posing any problems for military
conscription. Even the clearest constitutional provisions can be given
perverse readings.)
I think the RLGer can make two kinds of replies. One is the
checks-and-balances gambit. The restrictions on the government's power will
not just be constitutional but structural. The different branches and organs
of the government will jealously protect their own turf and stand in the way
of other branches over-stepping their limits. The answer, in the first place,
is that this has been tried and found wanting. That's the theory behind the
US system. What actually happens is that this may slow down the growth of
government, but it doesn't prevent it in the long term. All the branches and
organs of government, after all, collect their paychecks from the same source
and, sooner or later, find a common interest in collaborating with each other
against the citizenry rather than with the citizenry against each other.
Second, under RAIs, there are even better checks and balances. There, the
different protective agencies and adjudication services really do get their
paychecks from different places -- clients who can withhold payment if they
are not satisfied with the service they get.
The RLGer's second reply is that the only safeguard in the end is for a
substantial portion of the citizenry to be willing and able to engage in
armed resistance to their government when and if it goes wrong (though he may
hope that the threat alone will be enough). He also needs to assume that they
are willing and able to resist for "the right reasons" so that the government
will actually stay in line. (It wouldn't be quite what was wanted if much of
the populace were willing to engage in armed resistance in order to get drug
prohibitions!) This might conceivably work, but note that it switches the
assumptions we started with. If a good-sized chunk of the population is
willing to fight if necessary to keep the government in rights-respecting
line, then it *won't* be the case that the "vast majority" are in favor of
drug prohibition. To be fair, to compare apples with apples, we need to
switch the assumptions on the other side, too. If there's not a a vast
majority in favor of drug prohibition under RAIs -- to say nothing of direct
armed resistance -- there won't be drug prohibitions there, either. The main
difference is that it will take *less* opposition -- because the
pro-prohibition side will be more sensitive to the costs of getting their way
-- to stop it under RAIs.
Whichever way you turn it, it's not true that under RAIs "any mob of people
can band together and violate my rights simply on the basis of whim" -- it
depends on how large the mob is, how much they're willing to pay for the
privilege and how much you and your allies are willing to pay to stop them --
nor is it true that the kinds of institutions that anarchists favor are
"totally powerless to prevent the initiation of force or to protect people
from it" -- in fact, though they protect people in different ways than
limited governments, there are strong reasons for thinking that they will do
a better job (not a perfect job -- that's not one of the options) than
governments.
SQ
P.S. Consider this thought-experiment:
Suppose you're part of a significant majority who hates my peaceful, non-
invasive activity, A. Suppose further that I am a member of a significant
majority that hates your peaceful, non-invasive activity, B.
Under a real-world government, most likely we will get laws against both A and
B.
Under real-world anarchist institutions, further questions have to be asked.
Suppose we're each willing to pay up to 100 dollars per annum to have the
detestable A or the odious B prohibited to everyone. That is the subjectuve
cost to each of us of knowing that such awful things are going on or allowed.
But presumably we wouldn't be doing A or B unless refraining also had a
subjective cost. And since it has a subjective cost, we'd be willing to pay
up to that amount in order to have our rights to do A or B protected. Let's
assume that we also value doing A or B at the same amount -- say, 80 dollars
-- and that that (combined with what other people with our tastes are willing
to pay for the same protection by patronizing congenial protective agencies)
is enough to buy us effective protection against the prohibiters.
Plainly, there's an opportunity for gains from trade here. As long as we
stick to our A-hating or B-hating tastes, the hundred dollar subjective cost
remains -- whether we pay it out to an agency or not. But if the A-haters and
B-haters can negotiate a trade in which neither A nor B are prohibited, then
we each will gain to the tune of 80 dollars that no longer has to be invested
in protecting our A or B practices. We can both gain by being tolerant of
peaceful non-invasive behavior.
RAIs that respect rights may be the first choice of very few. The problem is
that, since people want to prohibit different things, almost nobody can have
his first choice in a world of RAIs. However, they may be the second choice
of almost everybody because of the kinds of gains from trade I pointed to.
Under RAIs, we get a good approximation to libertarianism through the back
door, even if most people are not themselves libertarians. Of course, if
large numbers are libertarian, it's even easier.
-----------== Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ==----------
http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Discuss, or Start Your Own
Pupship
"Suppose Mr. Smith, a customer of Government A, suspects that his next-door
neighbor, Mr. Jones, a customer of Government B, has robbed him; a squad of
Police A proceeds to Mr. Jones' house and is met at the door by a squad of
Police B, who declare that they do not accept the validity of Mr. Smith's
complaint and do not recognize the authority of Government A. What happens
then? You take it from there."
Pup...@aol.com
Steve Reed
>Kyle Bennett wrote:
>>[...] My purpose is to evaluate AC as a means of achieving
>>an objectivist/libertarian society and the requisite political
>>mechanisms.
>I think maybe I'll never be an anarchist _nor_ a monopolist. I read
>your sentence and think it's not so crazy; I guess I know what you
>mean. But deep inside, I just can't conceive of that to which such
>statements refer.
Part of the problem, in this instance, is that "society" is being treated as a
particular entity that can be "achieved," as if it's the end product of a
series of rational interactions. I'm not harping on Kyle -- it's simply that
this pattern of thought is endemic in the culture, and he's picked up on it.
One of the notable failures of individualists of all types has been in not
picking up on Hayek's insights about "spontaneous order": how particular
institutions or usages, often quite complex, may end up being created by the
coordination of many discrete decisions and acts of thought, yet without an
overall design. Languages, daily courtesies, clothing standards, even (some)
monies are all created, in Hayek's famous phrase, "by human action but without
human design."
This set of broader interactions, what Mises termed a "catallaxy," creates
institutions and activities that can be "conceived of," in Jim's sense above
-- but they are not amenable to being "achieved," in any sense that Kyle is
using, as a product of discrete, rational steps.
The last and closest exception, perhaps, was the burst of constitution-making
that occurred on this continent in the wake of the American Revolution. Yet
even this was a -reflection- of the mercantile and freeholding-agrarian
society that had been created over the 300 years of the colonial period --
itself almost wholly through spontaneous orderings. It reflected and served to
protect what individuals had created. It didn't make such creations possible.
(Herein lies part of Rand's own particular historical fallacy, a misperception
of hers that I've called, elsewhere, "the Immaculate Conception of the U.S.
Constitution." She admired it as a product of rational design. As has been
exhaustively shown by many scholars, including those as diverse as Charles
Beard and Bernard Bailyn, it was anything but that in practice, the actions of
the Convention of 1787 notwithstanding. Franklin was wrong, in his famous
comment, in implying that the framers had "created" a republic. They attempted
to secure the one that already existed.)
>I'm hopelessly stuck on viewing _every_ bit of human
>action as originating within an individual. In the end, I really don't
>know exactly what all these "systems" and "mechanisms" are. I mean, I
>know they're descriptions of the summation of various human activities;
>but beyond that I just don't see what they _are_, as existents.
They aren't existents -- you're very perceptive. Neither do "societies,"
"cultures," or "movements" qualify as existents. One can classify and
integrate particular actions, or the philosophic acts that motivate them, but
that doesn't create a new entity.
We can reify all we wish, for whatever motive -- usually bad ones. But all
that remains is Rand's pair of insights: That concepts are a particular mental
regard of existents (or other concepts). And that the individual human beings
who thus use their minds are all that exist to -act.-
>I'm inclined to think they're just an elaborate means by which we fool
>ourselves---thinking that what we do is really done by something else.
Or, to borrow Isabel Paterson's pithy phrase, we make them into "gods in the
machine." Except that we easily forget that the machines don't exist, outside
of our own minds.
Steve Reed
>Steve Reed wrote:
>>Self-Referential Rule of the 'Net No. 463: Avoid making sweeping universal
>>pronouncements that can be disproved by a single negative case.
>Name one.
Not the point, amigo. At least, it's not -my- point.
It's that you're running the risk of elevating yourself from approachable
interlocutor to arbitrary oracle. That comes from having your professed theory
-- that no one agrees with your take on these issues -- outrace the facts that
you have gathered about others' reasoning. Or, given the fuzzy quality of
Usenet interaction, the facts that you -can- gather.
Nonetheless, I'd nominate myself for the "one," as well as some others, if I
were convinced that you were interested primarily in fleshing out your
philosophy -- rather than having a spasm of feeling self-righteous about
defining anyone else out of genuinely adhering to it. That's not a criticism,
it's an observation.
You have every logical and moral right to see yourself as being righteous, by
your own standards or any others. You also don't have any logical reason to be
perturbed about others leaving you alone in your moral solipsism. If you are.
Moral standards that end up excluding all but the one who creates them begin
to sound like Christianity, not like anything rational. If that's not true for
your own work, try -demonstrating- it, not oracle-izing.
>>Quite apart from omitting to include your particular construction of "cri
>>me,"
>>Greg, you simply don't know that this "unique" state is true. You only
>>know what we have posted.
>Are you saying there is a cowardly Janioist among us? I should think I
>would have heard from that person by email.
What would have given such a person any indication that you particularly
welcome such direct interaction? You disclaim (below) any such interest.
You also assume, here, that anyone who doesn't choose to be fully revealing of
their inner moral reasoning, and who may agree with you, is being "cowardly."
I don't see any reason for assuming that.
I know that I have a host of intricate interests and lines of thought that I
don't choose to throw into an arena such as this to be pawed. The whole
subject of sexuality comes to mind.
To cite one that I -have- mentioned: It rarely does me much good to be
"uncowardly" enough to hit Streisand fans, over in that "alt" newsgroup, with
my being an Objectivist and libertarian. Even when Barbra makes one of her
absurd musings on public servants' morality, as she has recently. And why
should I automatically throw such admiration into -this- lions' den to be
chewed up? (Though I admit that it's done better than I expected, when I
-have- done so.)
>>And many efforts to have you flesh out your constructions have
>>run in circles.
>In what way? My political philosophy has existed in book form for
>more than ten years. It's been available in full on the web for
>nearly five years, even longer on CIS.
"Janio at a Point" has existed for over ten years. That isn't the same thing.
It's entertaining, amusing, intricately jeweled, often inspiring, and as one
of the few people here who read it in printed manuscript, I highly recommend
it. But that isn't the same as agreeing with you that it at all genuinely
presents your political philosophy. It uses provocative ideas, most of them
injected into a stream-of-consciousness narrative. That is not the same as
argument or a line of reasoning.
>>I know that you never answered for me, apropos "pacifism," whether your
>>Janioism would morally allow for one's resisting force -at the moment of
>>someone's initiation of it against oneself.-
>I have addressed this issue again and again, both here and on my
>web page. Whether I have done this for you I don't know.
Please, then, be specific, since you didn't want to do this "for me" when
discussions came up about this a year ago. Your URLs?
>>I would have proceeded by now to enlightening you about Rule No. 464
>>(Don't remove the entire universe of prospective respondents by insulting
>>them all at once), but first things first. <rueful grin>
>I'm not looking for responses. It's fair to say that I get frustrated that
>nothing seems to move here.
That appears to be a contradiction in terms. If you aren't looking to respond,
but are just -looking,- why are we hearing from you? This is an interactive
medium. I have to wonder -- on your terms -- why you're wasting your time.
>I keep not writing about monkeytalk (Heinlein's word), in part
>because I don't relish the monkeytalk rages I'll incite, but that's
>what this whole rotten debate is about.
Do you -relish- solipsism? Why are you proffering such insults? Are you
determined not only to refrain from "looking for responses," but to nip any of
them in the bud if they should happen to arise?
>So much of this is so interesting to me -- like the monkeytalk raging
>against free source software a few months ago. It's sad that the
>debate can't progress to the interesting parts.
What are you -doing about it- that gives you the moral and logical right to be
sad about it? When did Mount Olympus move to Phoenix?
To shift metaphors: If you want the satisfaction of hitting 70 dingers out of
the park, you have to fit the context, and start -playing the game.-
Whojgalt
In article <19981014101103...@ng07.aol.com>, Pupship
<pup...@aol.com> writes:
>"... What happens
>then? You take it from there."
With all due respect, Miss Rand should have "taken
it from there" her own self. She might have learned
something. At the very least, her dismissal
of free-market government-like institutions would
have been more credible.
--Kyle Bennett
gsol...@virginia.edu
Whojgalt <whoj...@aol.com> wrote:
>
> In article <6vqcr2$is5$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>, gsol...@virginia.edu writes:
>
> > It is (and I'm sure he'll come back to life here if I
> >get this wrong) based on the idea that a group (like a protection agency or
> >state) can not legitimately claim any moral rights that individuals can not
> >claim.
>
> and efficiency argument, with moral considerations an afterthought.
>
Your use of "afterthought" may be a bit pejorative, but I agree that his
argument is mostly economic. Nevertheless, to the extent that there is a
moral "core" to his argument (beyond consequentialist considerations), I
believe it is where I pointed.
> >Try it and see how many clients you get.
>
> I think I'd get a lot. Wouldn't you sign up for an agency,
> to prevent institutionalized initiation of force?
Sadly, I do not think the "initiation of force" idea provides more than a
somewhat useful summary of what is right. Any protection agency could be
viewed as institutionalized force. Whether it "initiates" such force or not
is a complex question that must be adjudicated among the very agencies
themselves, e.g., both sides of a case may claim that "force" has been
initiated. Your argument seems to assume that "we" will know who "really"
initiated force - how, by some sort of introspection?
--
Gordon Sollars
gsol...@virginia.edu
David Friedman
<Storyt...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
I am arguing (mostly) with Objectivists, who believe there are true and
false moral beliefs (as do I, although for different reasons).
What the theory implies is that the system will tend to generate efficient
legal rules. Efficient legal rules are legal rules that maximize the net
gain to all affected (in a particular sense--for details see the relevant
chapter of my _Price Theory_, webbed). That is close enough to "the rules
that serve mans life qua man" so that Objectivists should expect efficient
legal rules to be close to what they regard as just legal rules. It is
closer in a society where most people are Objectivists, and thus have
moral objections to unjust rules (in addition to having practical
objections to their consequences--although many Objectivists wouldn't
approve of my putting the distinction that way).
alex...@my-dejanews.com
>Your argument seems to assume that "we" will know who "really"
>initiated force - how, by some sort of introspection?
Of course not. By historical inquiry, of course.
David Friedman
>From "The Nature Of Government"
>
>"Suppose Mr. Smith, a customer of Government A, suspects that his next-door
>neighbor, Mr. Jones, a customer of Government B, has robbed him; a squad of
>Police A proceeds to Mr. Jones' house and is met at the door by a squad of
>Police B, who declare that they do not accept the validity of Mr. Smith's
>complaint and do not recognize the authority of Government A. What happens
>then? You take it from there."
I did--that argument appears, credited to Rand, and is answered, near the
beginning of the relevant section of _Machinery of Freedom_.
David Friedman
<whoj...@aol.com> wrote:
>In article <7019vr$4...@bgtnsc02.worldnet.att.net>, Eric Knauer
><ekn...@worldnet.att.net> writes:
>> I hope I haven't been giving the
>>impression that anarcho-capitalism will operate efficiently in a moral
>>vacuum.
>
>You may not have, Freidman most definitely does.
Not quite. There are no moral vacuums--people have moral beliefs and those
beliefs influence their actions. My claim is that its functioning does not
depend on people having what I regard as the correct moral beliefs, and
that, for reasons I try to explain, the laws it generates will tend
towards the sorts of laws I want even if the population is not
libertarian.
If you think that claim is implausible, consider the analogous claim with
regard to building cars. The design principles of cars are based on
engineering, and ultimately on physics. Almost none of the people buying
cars are familiar with those principles. Nonetheless, they tend to buy
cars designed according to correct theories of physics--because they
observe that those cars work.
Under anarcho-capitalism, the consumer of legal rules is buying a private
good. He receives the benefit of living under the legal rules he has
chosen--and pays the price those rules impose on others, through the
market transactions that determine the rules/price bundles he is offered.
He chooses the rules that maximize his net gain, giving that. So the legal
system tends towards efficient legal rules, just as the market for cars
tends towards efficient cars.
Obviously the process is imperfect in a variety of ways, as are other
markets. But it doesn't depend on the consumers themselves understanding
the arguments that underly the analysis of what the laws ought to be.
>>This is certainly possible but my guess is it would be highly unlikely in a
>>society that respects individual rights.
>
>That is David's assertion as well. I understand the mechanism you cite
>as evidence for this, and to some extent agree. However positing a
>"society that respects rights" is making the same utopian error that
>is used to criticize the possibility of a minarchy working.
Correct. Precisely my point in both cases. That the society respects
rights (in its actions) is a conclusion of the analysis, not an assumption
(in the AC case).
> And besides,
>it is a bit of group-think. Any society would likely be comprised of
>both individuals who respect rights and those who don't, at varying
>levels of representation.
Correct.
>OK, and to bring this in line with my concurrent argument with Alex, do you
>agree that it is not iniatiory for me to act on this contract regardless of
>whether the threat is publicly stated or kept secret prior to acting (but I
>somehow found out, through spies or whatever).
Again, take a simpler case. You live in a society, without government, in
which people have a variety of beliefs about other people's rights. If
your beliefs happen to be correct, it is not initiatory if, every time
someone does something that you regard as violating rights, you stop him.
But it isn't going to work unless you are Superman, and you aren't.
So in practice, what you do is to try to work out with your neighbors some
workable compromise between your beliefs and theirs. If both of you are
sensible, that includes agreement on third party arbitrators whom both of
you respect and therefore both of you expect to (usually) produce just
verdicts. Now build up from that to a much larger and more organized
society, with professional intermediaries instead of everyone producing
his own rights enforcement and negotiating his own arbitration agreements.
>Alright, then I think that with you at least I have established that
>my agency, call it "Universal Statist Adversaries Agency (USAA) <G>" is
>acting within a non-initiatiory AC framework from here on.
How does it differ from any other agency? Each agency is doing its best to
prevent the rights of its customers from being violated. Is the special
characteristic of yours that it has chosen the exhorbitantly expensive
strategy of going around trying to suppress every other agency that it
thinks might some day violate a right of one of its customers?
>But one day, an agency in Boston (Moral Majority Inc) enters into a
>contract with its individual subscribers to bar heroin use within the
>ancient (but now largely obsolete) city limits of Boston. USAA springs
>into action, perhaps on behalf of some heroin user it found in Boston,
>whom it does not really care abut, but who is willing to act as the threat
>ened
>"client" for USAA. And he really is threatened, but had never before had
>any protection agency. USAA is happy to provide him with a pre-paid
>protection contract to suit their own purposes.
Note that if your agency is trying to prevent agencies with coercive
beliefs from ever arising, it faces a public good problem--I, a
libertarian not a customer of it, get the same benefit from its activities
as you, a libertarian who pays it dues. Note also that it what it is doing
is cheap only if the society is already so libertarian that agencies
trying to enforce coercive laws almost never arise--and in that situation,
it is unnecessary, since ordinary agencies will successfully protect their
customers against such laws. You seem to be simultaneously assuming a very
unlibertarian society, in which people who badly want to coerce their
neighbors are so numerous that they can get away with doing so, and a
libertarian society, in which such people are so rare that it is cheap to
stop them.
Part of the reason A-C works is that it is providing rights protection as
a private good--by an agency to the customers whose rights are being
protected.
David Friedman
> As David has pointed out, if monopoly government is the
>most rational method of governance, it's the one which will eventually
>evolve under AC (if I understand him correctly).
I don't think you do. I point out that if there are very large economies
of scale in the law enforcement business, anarcho-capitalism is likely to
collapse back into government--but I regard that as an unattractive
outcome, since there is then no reason to expect that governmnent to
respect rights.
From a public choice standpoint, I think we are faced with two possibilities:
1. The relevant technologies (of rights enforcement etc.) are such
(optimal size of firm not too big, adequate although imperfect solutions
to the public good problem of defending against foreign states) that AC
works, in which case it will, for economic reasons, tend to generate just
law. One result of that (which I do not discuss in the book) is a feedback
by which people become more libertarian, simply because most people are
conservative wrt moral rules and tend to take for granted the justice of
the laws they see around them.
2. The relevant technologies are such that AC is not stable, in which case
I know of no institutions that can be expected to generate just law.
In either case, persuading people to be more libertarian is desirable, but
it is more important in the second case, since public opinion is then the
only thing preventing bad law--and it is working against the perverse
incentives of the institutions.
Steve Davis
> >All Libertarians harp on their one unifying principle of non
> >initiation of force,
> Agreed, I do see this as the philosophical primary in
> Libertarian thought. A mistake, in my opinion.
Yes, it is the only unifying principle of "Libertarianism." They reject
all other principles, and even this one when it comes down to brass
tacks.
> >Now, I will certainly grant that in a limited government such
> >as the one Rand advocated, there would be the potential for
> >human fallibility or epistemological error to lead to accidental
> >harm.
> There is also a great potential for *systematic* harm. Much less so
> in a POG, of course, but what it boils down to is how much ability we
> have to *keep* it a POG for any length of time.
Well, my point was that a POG would be specifically designed to not
cause "systematic" harm. There is always the possibility that the
government would cease to be a POG.
> >However, I consider this inevitability to be a thousand
> >times more acceptable than a system in which any mob of people
> >can band together and violate my rights simply on the basis of whim.
> You are referring to Democracy?
Of course I am. And Anarchy as well. They're both rooted in the
rejection of principles.
> The AC position is that these principles and rules are the same
> economic principles and rules that we are all so happy to trust
> in other areas of human interaction.
If this is true, they're wrong.
> AC seems to make no judgment as to what is desired
> beyond simple "efficiency".
Precisely. AC is more concerned that the trains are running on time on
privately owned tracks free from government interference than whether
they're carrying human beings to death camps run by "protection
agencies."
> >Thus, any group of people could arbitrarily decide to violate the
> >rights of any other group.
> Again, it is not so clear that this is automaticaly a result of the
> AC system.
As history shows, it is automatically the result of any system that does
not recognize and act to protect individual rights.
> >This is NOT true in any social system. It is specifically not true in
> >the United States today,
> You must live in a different United States than the one I grew up in.
There is a considerable amount of rights violation in the United States
today. However, it is _NOT_ true that "any group of people could
arbitrarily decide to violate the rights of any other group." Even our
seriously flawed existing system does a better job of respecting rights
than the one proposed by ACs.
> >Let us take Friedman's scenario to its logical conclusion. If there are
> >laws against heroin users, then why not laws against Judaism, or
> >homosexuality, or black skin, or white skin?
> Yes, it could. And I have a big problem with that.
Now, ask this question: If a system would allow injustice on such a
massive scale, and in all probability WOULD do so, what kind of morality
would one have to accept before one could advocate such a system? What
kind of morality would PREVAIL under such a system?
> >The result of anarchism is mob rule and
> >perpetual violent clashes between people who "believe strongly," as
> >Friedman put it.
> It is not at all clear that that would be the result. My recent tack is
> that anarchism leads not to chaos, but to government.
Inevitably, this is true. The mobs would eventually organize and become
effective governments. And they'd be the worst kind.
> And said objective legal system would be maintained and controlled
> by what force exactly? Its one thing to postulate a perfect government,
> its another thing entirely to actually bring it about and to keep it that
> way for generations.
Compared to all historical examples, our founding fathers did an
excellent job in this regard. Of course, the United States was never
perfect-- and no system ever could be. But it was better than what
existed before or what has existed since. A hypothetical Objectivist
government would be very similar. It would be founded on a set of moral
principles, have a constitution which strictly limits government's
powers, have checks and balances between the branches, etc. etc.
> It just may turn out that the road to minarchy makes whistle-stop
> in AC land.
This statement makes no sense whatsoever.
> > Slavery to the fear
> >that some slight (or perceived slight) might result in "retaliatory"
> >force taken against me.
> That is a valid question. So what mechanism best works against this,
> a government run by a small group of people to whom your interests
> are only a vague secondary factor in their decisions, or an agency
> who has keeping their customers alive as cheaply as possible as their
> primary interest?
Neither. What works best is a system of objective law, enforced by an
entity with the moral sanction and physical power to do so.
> >Anarchism requires the abandonment of fundamental principles,
> >including -- in fact, BEGINNING WITH-- the principle of non
> >initiation of force.
> You're right. No philosophical base is inherent to this
> anarchist system. But then no philosophical base is
> inherent to capitalism either, in the sense that it has
> asfeguards against people doing unsound things, yet
> it produces the desired result.
(I assume you mean that it has NO safeguards.)
Two points. First, capitalism IS based on a philosophical premise-- the
premise of individual rights. Second, because of this, capitalism
depends on a social system which respects and protects those individual
rights. It is the social system which provides the safeguards necessary
to make capitalism function.
Pupship
>"... What happens
>then? You take it from there."
With all due respect, Miss Rand should have "taken
it from there" her own self. She might have learned
something. At the very least, her dismissal
of free-market government-like institutions would
have been more credible. >>>>
Okay, why don't YOU "take it from there," and let us know what happens then?
Pup...@aol.com
Pupship
I did--that argument appears, credited to Rand, and is answered, near the
beginning of the relevant section of _Machinery of Freedom_.>>>
This is your book? What's the answer, or would you rather I go read it myself?
Pup...@aol.com
Lance Neustaeter
> In article <1302.589T2...@portal.ca>, Lance Neustaeter
> <la...@portal.ca> writes:
>>Because it is a public choice identification which implies and
>>supports anarchy. Objectivists who are wedded to the notion that
>>Rand's political science was actually a fundamental part of her
>>philosophy and who are determined to remain true "Objectivists" must
>>evade said identification.
> Rand's political science *is* a fundamental part of her philosophy,
> and I believe it to be a valid part.
Rand's political science was her political *science*, not her
political philosophy. Fundamental to Rand's (and my) political
philosophy, is the concept of individual rights.
Lance <http://members.home.net/sharp/hel8.jpg>
--
Be a better psychiatrist and the world will beat a psychopath to your door.
Lance Neustaeter
> In article <1541.589T1...@portal.ca>, Lance Neustaeter
> <la...@portal.ca> writes:
>>> The question is: What will be done about it when it does?
>>Since it is obvious that the hypothesized society is already somewhat
>>irrational, "what will be done" is this: a minarchy will be
>>established [...] Just like happened the last
>>time.
> That's pretty much what I've been getting at.
What? That justice will not be produced in large quantities in a
predominantly irrational society? I agree, but it doesn't help at all
in the minarchy vs. anarchy arguments. *Neither* a minarchy nor an
anarchy will survive in an irrational society (this is where I
disagree with Freidman, who seems to believe that the institutions
will be completely self-sustaining no matter what the culture).
Lance <http://members.home.net/sharp/hel8.jpg>
--
Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish. -- Euripides
Lance Neustaeter
> Lance Neustaeter <la...@portal.ca> wrote:
>>Quite untrue. The essential aspect of "statist" is a belief in the
>>propriety of a state
> I disagree. The essential rationale behind statism is the same
> one deployed by you and by Friedman, that there can be such a
> thing as justified dominance of one person by another.
The fact that you can find a statist that will agree with the
statement "some force is justifiable", does not make that essential to
the definition of Statist.
> Statism and whateveryouwantocallyourdoctrinism are forms of the same
> thing--allegedly "sanctioned" crime.
You're begging the question again--by defining "retaliatory force" as
a crime (rights violation). You're implying that criminals have the
right to steal, rape, mame and kill.
>>> By contenancing crimes against people
>>> who cannot have caused an injury, Dr.Friedman is once worse
>>> than simply advocating crimes against people who have or
>>> may have injured, but crime is still crime.
>>But again, that's begging the question.
> _What_ question, Lance?
See above.
> You are as far as you are along the
> line from criminality to justice because I challenged your
> premises.
Er, no comment....
> You express these still-semi-erroneous tenets in your
> own language, as you should, but the fact remains that you
> were much closer to Fridman's position before I started
> razing your castles in the sky. You can call me "pacifist"
> all day; I certainly don't care. It remains that uniquely
> among the people who post here, I do not advocate crime.
Neither do I. I do advocate the propriety of reasonable retaliatory
force, but that's not a crime. It's the relational opposite of crime.
Lance <http://members.home.net/sharp/hel8.jpg>
--
It was long after midnight
When we got to unconditional love
She said sure, my heart is boundless
But don't push my limits too far
--Cold Fire, Rush
David Friedman
<pup...@aol.com> wrote:
>I did--that argument appears, credited to Rand, and is answered, near the
>beginning of the relevant section of _Machinery of Freedom_.>>>
>
>This is your book?
Yes. One of them.
>What's the answer, or would you rather I go read it myself?
Yes. Part of the point of writing a book is so as not to have to have the
same argument a hundred times with a hundred different people.
The chapter that responds to Rand's argument is webbed at:
http://www.best.com/~ddfr/Libertarian/Machinery_of_Freedom/MofF_Chapter_29.html
For the full argument, you will have to get the whole book--my publisher
wouldn't let me web all of it.
David Friedman
wrote:
>Yes, it is the only unifying principle of "Libertarianism." They reject
>all other principles, and even this one when it comes down to brass
>tacks.
This confuses two very different claims:
1. Libertarians do not include other principles in their definition of
libertarianism.
2. Libertarians reject other principles.
>> AC seems to make no judgment as to what is desired
>> beyond simple "efficiency".
>
>Precisely. AC is more concerned that the trains are running on time on
>privately owned tracks free from government interference than whether
>they're carrying human beings to death camps run by "protection
>agencies."
"Efficiency," as used by economists (of which I am one), has a technical
meaning--it seems clear from what you write above that you have no idea
what it is. Killing people cheaply is inefficient, since human lives are
valuable.
Jim Klein
<DD...@best.com> writes:
>>As David has pointed out, if monopoly government is the
>>most rational method of governance, it's the one which will
>>eventually evolve under AC (if I understand him correctly).
>
>I don't think you do.
I still think I do.
>I point out that if there are very large economies of scale in the law
>enforcement business, anarcho-capitalism is likely to collapse back
>into government--but I regard that as an unattractive outcome, since
>there is then no reason to expect that governmnent to respect rights.
I agree. The relevant word in my quote is "if;" I hardly meant to
imply it is (the most rational method of governance). Still, it
_could_ be that Rand reached the right conclusion, unlikely though it
seems from our perspective.
My only point was that with individual liberty, rationality wins out
eventually...period. Of course, I also don't think there's such an
event as a market failure, strictly speaking. Same question.
>From a public choice standpoint, I think we are faced with two
possibilities:
>
>1. The relevant technologies (of rights enforcement etc.) are such
>(optimal size of firm not too big, adequate although imperfect
>solutions to the public good problem of defending against foreign
>states) that AC works, in which case it will, for economic reasons,
>tend to generate just law. One result of that (which I do not discuss
>in the book) is a feedback by which people become more libertarian,
>simply because most people are conservative wrt moral rules and tend
>to take for granted the justice of the laws they see around them.
>
>2. The relevant technologies are such that AC is not stable, in which
>case I know of no institutions that can be expected to generate just
>law.
>
>In either case, persuading people to be more libertarian is desirable,
>but it is more important in the second case, since public opinion is
>then the only thing preventing bad law--and it is working against the
>perverse incentives of the institutions.
I understand that you're hopelessly an economist, and so view all human
action in terms of efficiencies and likely outcomes and such. I'm not
saying anything's wrong with that, but I just happen to think it's sort
of limiting.
The premise you're overlooking IMO, is that neither you nor anyone else
has the least idea of how modern men would act, given the choice to
freely act. We are constrained by having to imagine what folks like
us--not free to choose--would do if we were.
Well...the fact is that being free to choose would be sufficiently
dissimilar to our present situation, that making guesses about what
would happen is silly. At least _I_ think it's silly; that's why any
appeal your AC position may have--to a fellow like me, say--is based
upon the principles it represents, not the likely outcomes. This is
also why I consider Rand's rebuttal to competing governments as
"infantile." She didn't address the principles at all; she just
pointed out how ludicrous one situation she imagined would be.
If I were forced to guess, I think I'd guess...that allowed to be free
most people wouldn't give a hoot what others did, and the subject of
personal protection (both individually and collectively) would rapidly
become trivial, and eventually nonexistent.
That's merely a guess of course; it could be that people are just so
inherently evil that peace would never be possible. I just don't think
that's the case, that's all. That's why I'm called a "starry-eyed
idealist" and I suppose I'd have to plead guilty. But frankly, I don't
see why that charge doesn't also apply to everyone else who's making
obviously idealized versions of equally unlikely scenarios.
I certainly agree that people in the state of mind which is pervasive
today (and for the last several thousand years) are very, very unlikely
to be brave enough to find out what life might be like if they were
free. And I even understand that you're most interested in the actual
mechanisms for "getting from here to there;" that in itself I find a
highly honorable motivation.
It's just that all that stuff is much too heady for me. I figure that
about all I can do is to take care of myself.
When someone shows me he can do more than that, then I'll listen to his
theories.
jk
Jim Klein
writes:
[to Greg Swann]
>You're begging the question again--by defining "retaliatory force" as
>a crime (rights violation).
And you're begging the question by defining retaliatory force in
response to a crime, as not a crime. So obviously, the only place to
look is...exactly what is a crime? Or...what's a right?
>You're implying that criminals have the right to steal, rape, mame and
>kill.
I see no such implication. What he's implying, I think, is that the
retaliator has no right to mame that the original criminal didn't.
That's a lot to swallow, I admit. But the burden is on you to show it
incorrect, IMO. This is because Greg gets to start with the offering,
"If maming is wrong, then maming is wrong."
That's a pretty strong start. Now, you've got to show why another
person's (the criminal's) action changes the action of the retaliator
from wrong to right.
That doesn't seem an easy task at all. Really, I don't think I've ever
seen a response based on anything other than "likely outcomes," which
seems wholly inadequate for a principle like this.
Go for it, if you've got something else in mind. But IMO, the more
words it takes to do it, the more likely it is that it's false. After
all, it's not a very intricate topic.
jk
log...@my-dejanews.com
The fact is that the argument Rand gave is weak and has been shown to be weak
numerous times -- by some posters on h.p.o., by posters on the old a.p.o.,
and several times in print, including by David Friedman. As it happens, the
chapter in which he shows it is available on his web-site at
http://www.best.com/~ddfr/Libertarian/Machinery_of_Freedom/MofF_Chapter_29.ht
ml.
That's not to say that that chapter deals with all possible issues, but it
would be a good starting point. Reading the whole book would be even better.
(BTW, Friedman's book has been available for 20+ years and therefore is
hardly something you shouldn't have heard of if you were interested in the
issues under discussion.) Doing a little search for other discussions that
bear on the issue wouldn't be a bad idea either. (Offhand, I'd recommend, in
addition to Friedman's book, Randy Barnett's *The Structure of Liberty,*
Bruce Benson's *The Enterprise of Law,* and Robert Ellickson's *Order without
Law.*)
If you're seriously interested in the issue, there's plenty of material
available. Raising Rand's weak argument as though you thought it settled the
issue or as if no one had ever addressed it isn't very impressive.
SQ
Greg Swann
>Greg Swann wrote:
>>Steve Reed wrote:
>>>I know that you never answered for me, apropos "pacifism," whether your
>>>Janioism would morally allow for one's resisting force -at the moment of
>>>someone's initiation of it against oneself.-
>
>>I have addressed this issue again and again, both here and on my
>>web page. Whether I have done this for you I don't know.
>
>Please, then, be specific, since you didn't want to do this "for me" when
>discussions came up about this a year ago. Your URLs?
It's easier just to cover the ground again. You can do DejaNews
around early August for the most recent stuff if you want; I
don't. So:
"[W]hether Janioism would morally allow for resisting force" in
response to injury in real-time.
This is too many questions. They unpack to:
1. Is real-time forceful resistance morally justifiable?
2. Should real-time forceful resistance be treated as a
politically actionable crime after the fact?
Neither question has an intuitively obvious answer, but the first
is easier for me to deal with. Thus:
The moral philosophy of Janioism is egoism, on-going
self-adoration and sustaining the worthiness to on-going
self-adoration. This implies, first, always acting in such a way
as to promote present and future self-adoration, and, second,
never acting in ways that would result in present and future
self-loathing or self-neglect or self-abnegation. Janio speaks
analogically of the ego as a kind of doll, and righteous moral
action consists solely of improving on and perfecting the ego, and
never of acting to its destruction.
Janio defines moral righteousness as epistemological validity,
practical utility and ethical rectitude. The use of force _away_
from an emergency situation that could result in an injury is thus
clearly _always_ unrighteous. It depends from a willful
misidentification of the entity to be acted upon (that is,
affecting to believe contrary to fact that human beings can be
controlled--motivated to act--from the outside), it increases
rather than reduces the peril to one's own life, and it requires
actions by the ego that the ego must either denounce or strive to
deny or ignore--literal self-renunciation. Away from the emergency
situation, the resort to force necessarily results in a greater
loss to the ego than can be compensated for by any perceived
pecuniary or bodily gain. Crime does not pay. Q.E.D., and finis to
the Prudent Predator and all of the other monkeytalk arguments
that float out of the gaseous, disconnected ephemera.
The above paragraph provides a lens for examining any particular
emergency situation that could result in an injury: Your body or
your property or your future enjoyment of one or both is about to
be damaged, and the moral choice _in that instant_ is this: Is
that damage likely to be greater than the unavoidable damage to
your ego that will ensue from responding forcefully?
This is a hideous question for most people, because they want so
desperately to shout down reason with monkeytalk. Neglecting a
friend is ego-destructive. Answering scorn with scorn is
ego-destructive. Even unintentionally hurting a pet or a child or
a relative is ego-destructive. In our idle moments and in our
dreams, in such of those times when we are not celebrating our
remembrances of virtue, we are tormenting ourselves with memories of
our shortcomings--our lies, our wounds, our crimes, our humiliations.
The is true of everyone, and the only way for it _not_ to be true
is to succeed so well at self-renunciation as to have no reliable
memories. It is absurd to claim--as the three-testicled
monkeytalkers without doubt will--that insulting grandma's cooking
is permanently consequential to the ego (as evidenced by the
inability to forget that slight) but killing a human being is not.
Janio argues that one's life is not one's life _right now_ but
rather the real-time experience of life, one's memories of past
events and actions, and one's anticipation of future events and
actions. Your only options in an emergency situation that could
result in an injury are acts of destruction of one form or
another, and the calculus to be applied is therefore solely a
calculus of loss. If you determine that responding forcefully is
morally preferable to sustaining what on balance seems to portend
to be a worse injury, that option is nevertheless a
self-destructive--and therefore immoral--choice. The lesser of two
evils is still evil.
Thus the answer to the first question is this: A forceful response
to a crime _while it is happening_ is morally justifiable only
insofar as failure to act would result in an even greater injury.
Even in that _extremely_ limited set of circumstances, acting
forcefully upon another human being will have permanent,
inescapable destructive consequences upon the ego of the actor.
Irrespective of what he says. Irrespective of how brazenly he
beats his chest. Irrespective of how many testicles he claims to
have. Using force on other human beings--in initiation, in
after-the-fact retaliation, in real-time bodily defense--is ego
destructive and therefore immoral. It can be less immoral than the
alternative in a _very_ small number of circumstances, but it is
still immoral.
(And I despise this topic because it arises _always_ as the nose
of the camel for the monkeytalk rationalization of after-the-fact
retaliation. Emergency self-defense can be less destructive than
the contrary, but using force in any other circumstance is always
and necessarily completely immoral. The one does not justify the
other, and the domination of one person by another cannot ever be
justified in reason.)
The second question is a lot more complicated, by my lights. My
general answer is that I would not normally find against you for
using what you thought was necessary force in emergency defense of
your person or property, but I would take careful account of the
particulars. If this had happened to you more than once, I might
suppose you look for trouble, and I might find against you. If
your response greatly exceeded like-for-like (which is what
"retaliation" means), I might surmise you are a sadist and find
against you. I would almost certainly find against you for any
injuries you caused to third parties, since you ought not be
absolved of responsibility for avoidable crimes (although I might
be flexible about the meaning of "avoidable"). I would almost
certainly find against you if your presumption of peril turned out
to be mistaken.
The point is this: To the extent that we volunteer to live
together in a Janioist community, our mutual interest is to avoid
preventable injuries caused by others, and to be compensated by
those others in the amount of our losses for the injuries they
cause. If I determine as a judge that your response to an
emergency situation that could result in an injury resulted in
losses greater than you would have sustained by forbearing to
act, and if I conclude that you could have foreseen this outcome
from within the emergency situation, I'm going to find against
you. Your attacker may present a peril to you, to me and to the
community, but you present a greater peril, and I will assess you
for the losses you caused in excess of a scrupulous like-for-like.
If instead I determine that your action, even if it exceeded what
_had_ been done to you to that point, avoided an even greater
loss, then I would find for you. In both cases, the ideal is to
assess the loss against the person whose actions caused it--and
could have prevented it.
Yet again this should occasion much monkeytalk screeching, since
the second-favorite rationalization of the imaginarily
bloodthirsty is that willful miscreants are free prey with no bag
limits. This is false, but every bit of every defense of forceful
dispute resolution is false. Monkeytalk exists to shout down
reason. If fails in debate, obviously, but it can never fail so
badly as it does when it dominates a culture.
>I have to wonder -- on your terms -- why you're wasting your time.
I say the same things over and over, but sometimes I say them
better, more completely. Today is an example. I rejoice because I
think I've finally settled a question that arose between the only
two actual Janioists I know of, Ken Hooper and myself. I'm
frustrated because I know that most of the people who read this
will not understand that the answer to the first question is a
proof; if you accept the premises you cannot deny the
conclusions. And I despair because I know that some few people
who read this will use it as an excuse for public displays of
ego-destruction--yet another way of apprehending monkeytalk. I'm
raining down loaves and fishes in the land of the anorectics
and the bulimics. You may call me names for making that metaphor
if you like. In any case I trust I have done as you require.
Respectfully,
Greg Swann
Rod Nibbe
>In <1961.591T7...@portal.ca> Lance Neustaeter <la...@portal.ca>
>writes:
>
>[to Greg Swann]
>
>>You're begging the question again--by defining "retaliatory force" as
>>a crime (rights violation).
>
>And you're begging the question by defining retaliatory force in
>response to a crime, as not a crime. So obviously, the only place to
>look is...exactly what is a crime? Or...what's a right?
>
>>You're implying that criminals have the right to steal, rape, mame and
>>kill.
>
>I see no such implication. What he's implying, I think, is that the
>retaliator has no right to mame that the original criminal didn't.
>
>That's a lot to swallow, I admit. But the burden is on you to show it
>incorrect, IMO. This is because Greg gets to start with the offering,
>"If maming is wrong, then maming is wrong."
>
>That's a pretty strong start. Now, you've got to show why another
>person's (the criminal's) action changes the action of the retaliator
>from wrong to right.
I suppose some will do the contextual two-step and assert that "A is
A" is a contextual axiom.
Still, I would use force to stop the man who'd lunge to snuff my life.
I'd loathe having to do it. I have no idea how I'd defend the action in
reason, how I'd reconcile it with the fact that all men are sovreign; but I'd
do it.
-RKN
(rni...@alaska.net)
Rod Nibbe
>Not quite. There are no moral vacuums--people have moral beliefs and those
>beliefs influence their actions. My claim is that its functioning does not
>depend on people having what I regard as the correct moral beliefs, and
>that, for reasons I try to explain, the laws it generates will tend
>towards the sorts of laws I want even if the population is not
>libertarian.
This is to ignore the place that deontology holds in human affairs. I
mean how is it that the intellectual product of these agencies can be divorced
(as I think you claim here they might) from the underlying morality and ethics
of those employed at them? Maybe you'll argue that they're simply servicing
the customers demand for law, law which is not a product of their moral and
ethical underpinnings but rather those of their customers, but certainly you
would cede that AC law is the consequence of someone's ethical and moral
foundation.
Below you analogize the creation of law to engineering a car; cars you
say aren't generally engineered by drivers, yet they turn out to suit the
driver's needs. Market efficacy you say. Following the analogy back then, the
law professionals (auto engineers) require alot of specialized knowledge to
create law that their customers find useful, at least something they're
willing to pay for anyway. The auto engineer requires math, physics,
chemistry, etc. to produce an efficient and useful automobile. What then does
the AC legislator require to produce "marketable" law? I'm not buying that the
ethics and morality of the legislators wouldn't drive the production of AC
law(s).
Actually, I don't buy much of the market argument for law. I have a
very different and radical view on dispute resolution, one that doesn't seek
to institutionalize it. But then I argue from principal down, not from market
efficiency up as you do.
>If you think that claim is implausible, consider the analogous claim with
>regard to building cars. The design principles of cars are based on
>engineering, and ultimately on physics. Almost none of the people buying
>cars are familiar with those principles. Nonetheless, they tend to buy
>cars designed according to correct theories of physics--because they
>observe that those cars work.
>
>Under anarcho-capitalism, the consumer of legal rules is buying a private
>good. He receives the benefit of living under the legal rules he has
>chosen--and pays the price those rules impose on others, through the
>market transactions that determine the rules/price bundles he is offered.
>He chooses the rules that maximize his net gain, giving that. So the legal
>system tends towards efficient legal rules, just as the market for cars
>tends towards efficient cars.
>
>Obviously the process is imperfect in a variety of ways, as are other
>markets. But it doesn't depend on the consumers themselves understanding
>the arguments that underly the analysis of what the laws ought to be.
Here's where you lost me, David. What's the magic knowledge the
consumer lacks to arrive at the law himself? Unlike a car which most people
could never hope to build regardless if they had the physical resources or not
- they simply don't have the specialized engineering knowledge - what
specialized knowledge prevents the rational man from arriving at right and
wrong in matters of law?
This is where my ethics always begin: I'm capable of rational and
objective determination. I've worked very hard at it. That it should suddenly
disappear in the context of a dipsute is factually wrong for me and I suspect
many rational men.
>Correct. Precisely my point in both cases. That the society respects
>rights (in its actions) is a conclusion of the analysis, not an assumption
>(in the AC case).
This would argue that men's ethics derive from the law, that their
lives are lived asymptotic to it. Do you believe that this is the case today,
generally speaking, for most men? I know it's not for me.
>Again, take a simpler case. You live in a society, without government, in
>which people have a variety of beliefs about other people's rights. If
>your beliefs happen to be correct,
By correct do you mean that the "beliefs" do not contradict reality,
or something else?
>it is not initiatory if, every time
>someone does something that you regard as violating rights, you stop him.
>But it isn't going to work unless you are Superman, and you aren't.
Why would Superman bother if *his* *values* were not at stake? Why do
you suppose so many here - in an Objectivist NG no less - insist on
insinuating their government or agency into the affairs of strangers? Indeed,
into *my* affairs. In Prescott's case, and for those of like mind, I
understand it is denominated on a fear-based collectivist psychology that
violence will erupt in the US in the absence of monopoly law, and men of every
stripe will suddenly be set on edge and begin bashing the heads of the first
person who snaps a twig. But what of everyone else? I digress.
Rational dispute resolution will only arise when the men involved in
it become rational. That's tautological. Short of that, any attempt at
institutionalizing it with the hope that it will become objective and rational
through legislative consensus or market mechanisms, is futile in my mind.
There is surfeit evidence in America today that rational law does arise from
legislative consensus. When sufficient men become so rational,
institutionalized dispute resolution, be it AC or monopolistic, becomes an
anachronism. Until that happens, until men use reason instead of the gun,
there isn't a chance in the world that they can create institutions that will
perform any better.
I don't see that instantiating your ideas, though somewhat novel, will
reduce the threat of force in my life. That's where my interests lie, not in
market efficacy.
>So in practice, what you do is to try to work out with your neighbors some
>workable compromise between your beliefs and theirs. If both of you are
>sensible, that includes agreement on third party arbitrators whom both of
>you respect and therefore both of you expect to (usually) produce just
>verdicts. Now build up from that to a much larger and more organized
>society, with professional intermediaries instead of everyone producing
>his own rights enforcement and negotiating his own arbitration agreements.
Fine, but this doesn't require A-C agencies or a monopoly government,
it only requires that men in the dispute be rational, or at least those
mediating the dispute be so rational. For me that is just not so damn
difficult to imagine. Dispute resolution doesn't require lawful precedent to
mediate and solve. One can assess the particular circumstances of the dispute
and mediate it rationally. It's not that precedent wouldn't be considered, but
pounds of lawyers pouring over case law is hardly in the interest of most
disputants.
>Part of the reason A-C works is that it is providing rights protection as
>a private good--by an agency to the customers whose rights are being
>protected.
Funny, because rights, metaphysically speaking, are about the only
public good I can think of other than air -- everybody has them. To stop
breathing is a contradiction of what man's nature requires of him to live. If
men can't come to understand that rights - the rights all men have - are
similar, and essential to the happy pursuit of life as men, then no
institution, AC or other, can provide it. You can't force the good out of
people; you can't institutionalize reason, it begins one mind at a time.
-RKN
(rni...@alaska.net)
David Friedman
<rni...@alaska.net> wrote:
>In article <DDFr-14109...@ddfr.vip.best.com>, David Friedman wrote:...
>
>>Not quite. There are no moral vacuums--people have moral beliefs and those
>>beliefs influence their actions. My claim is that its functioning does not
>>depend on people having what I regard as the correct moral beliefs, and
>>that, for reasons I try to explain, the laws it generates will tend
>>towards the sorts of laws I want even if the population is not
>>libertarian.
>
> This is to ignore the place that deontology holds in human affairs. I
>mean how is it that the intellectual product of these agencies can be divo
>rced
>(as I think you claim here they might) from the underlying morality and et
>hics
>of those employed at them? Maybe you'll argue that they're simply servicing
>the customers demand for law, law which is not a product of their moral and
>ethical underpinnings but rather those of their customers, but certainly you
>would cede that AC law is the consequence of someone's ethical and moral
>foundation.
Think of the disagreement on law between an Objectivist and a random
American as involving two different issues: what outcomes each wants, and
what outcomes each believes that alternative sets of legal rules will
produce. Your point is correct with regard to the first disagreement,
incorrect with regard to the second. I think the second disagreement is
primarily, although not entirely, responsible for the difference in
desired legal rules.
> Below you analogize the creation of law to engineering a car; cars
> you
>say aren't generally engineered by drivers, yet they turn out to suit the
>driver's needs. Market efficacy you say. Following the analogy back then, the
>law professionals (auto engineers) require alot of specialized knowledge to
>create law that their customers find useful, at least something they're
>willing to pay for anyway. The auto engineer requires math, physics,
>chemistry, etc. to produce an efficient and useful automobile. What then does
>the AC legislator require to produce "marketable" law?
Roughly speaking, he requires what I teach--economic analysis of law. In
practice, he may get the equivalent by trial and error, observation,
etc.--just as some products are designed by people who don't know much
physics but have experience with the properties of the relevant materials.
The question the legislator has to ask is "how much will my customers like
living under these rules, and how much will I end up paying (or what
potential payments will I forego) in order to get other agencies to agree
to them?" (This oversimplifies a bit--for more details see my book). He is
looking for the legal rules which will be most attractive, given the price
the customers will end up having to pay. Figuring them out a priori is
part of what the economic analysis of law is about (for much more on that,
see the draft of _Why Is Law_, my current book project, on my web site).
Unlike a modern legislator, he is observing a diverse legal landscape, a
set of market prices for legal agreement to various laws, etc., so he may
well figure out about the right rules without the full theory.
>I'm not buying that the
>ethics and morality of the legislators wouldn't drive the production of AC
>law(s).
The legislators are trying to make money in a competitive market--they can
no more afford to embody their own preferences in the laws they produce
than an environmentalist auto engineer can afford to design cars with good
mileage that perform so badly that nobody wants to buy them. Of course, to
the extent that some legislators have false beliefs about the consequences
of alternative legal rules, they will (initially) design bad laws as a
result--but they will also lose money to those legislators with more
nearly true beliefs, and alter their behavior accordingly. Think of it as
a discovery process.
> Here's where you lost me, David. What's the magic knowledge the
>consumer lacks to arrive at the law himself? Unlike a car which most people
>could never hope to build regardless if they had the physical resources or
> not
>- they simply don't have the specialized engineering knowledge - what
>specialized knowledge prevents the rational man from arriving at right and
>wrong in matters of law?
If it is really that easy, then everyone will choose agencies using the
"right" courts, and we are home free--but in that case, why isn't it
sufficiently obvious now to make Congress pass just laws?
A longer answer would require an examination of (many) hard problems in
what the law ought to be.
>>Correct. Precisely my point in both cases. That the society respects
>>rights (in its actions) is a conclusion of the analysis, not an assumption
>>(in the AC case).
>
> This would argue that men's ethics derive from the law, that their
>lives are lived asymptotic to it. Do you believe that this is the case today,
>generally speaking, for most men? I know it's not for me.
I was not saying there that ethics derive from law, although I do think
that people's ethical beliefs have a significant tendency to conform to
the rules they see in force in their society.My point was rather that the
system tended to generate efficient law, and that just law is, for a
variety of reasons, very close to efficient law.
>There is surfeit evidence in America today that rational law does arise from
>legislative consensus.
Nor do well designed cars.
> I don't see that instantiating your ideas, though somewhat novel,
> will
>reduce the threat of force in my life. That's where my interests lie, not in
>market efficacy.
Except that reducing the threat of force in your life is one of the
results of more efficient law.
>>Part of the reason A-C works is that it is providing rights protection as
>>a private good--by an agency to the customers whose rights are being
>>protected.
>
> Funny, because rights, metaphysically speaking, are about the only
>public good I can think of other than air -- everybody has them.
Rights may be as you say, but rights protection is a private good--it is
possible to protect the rights of A without automatically protecting the
rights of B. I do it every time I lock my door.
Whojgalt
>Whojgalt wrote:
>> The AC position is that these principles and rules are the same
>> economic principles and rules that we are all so happy to trust
>> in other areas of human interaction.
>
>If this is true, they're wrong.
They could very well be wrong. I hope to find out, but I'm not going to
simply take your, or Ayn Rand's, or David Freidman's word for it.
>> AC seems to make no judgment as to what is desired
>> beyond simple "efficiency".
>
>Precisely. AC is more concerned that the trains are running on time on
>privately owned tracks free from government interference than whether
>they're carrying human beings to death camps run by "protection
>agencies."
Just as a free market in goods is more concerned with profit than
with feeding the masses, yet the masses get fed--and very well.
This may not be a valid analogy, or it may. I hope to find out.
>> >Thus, any group of people could arbitrarily decide to violate the
>> >rights of any other group.
>
>> Again, it is not so clear that this is automaticaly a result of the
>> AC system.
>
>As history shows, it is automatically the result of any system that does
>not recognize and act to protect individual rights.
History has not yet tried AC, any more than it has ever tried
pure capitalism. There is evidence in history, but imperfect and
incomplete evidence.
>> >Let us take Friedman's scenario to its logical conclusion. If there are
>> >laws against heroin users, then why not laws against Judaism, or
>> >homosexuality, or black skin, or white skin?
>
>> Yes, it could. And I have a big problem with that.
>
>Now, ask this question: If a system would allow injustice
Premise A
> on such a
>massive scale,
Premise B
>and in all probability WOULD do so,
Premise C
I agree with A, have serious doubts about B and C.
> what kind of morality
>would one have to accept before one could advocate such a system? What
>kind of morality would PREVAIL under such a system?
The conclusion you imply is indeed a horrifying and unacceptable one,
IF all the premises are true.
>Inevitably, this is true. The mobs would eventually organize and become
>effective governments.
I think so.
>And they'd be the worst kind.
Again, a very possible conclusion, but one worth further investigation.
>> It just may turn out that the road to minarchy makes whistle-stop
>> in AC land.
>
>This statement makes no sense whatsoever.
I'll explain. It may be that a POG, or something so closely
resembling it so as to be acceptable to objectivists, can
evolve out of AC institutions. Jim Klein's interpretation
of Rand's inistence on monopoly minarchy, if accurate
would seemingly allow for this possibility.
>> > Slavery to the fear
>> >that some slight (or perceived slight) might result in "retaliatory"
>> >force taken against me.
>
>> That is a valid question. So what mechanism best works against this,
>> a government run by a small group of people to whom your interests
>> are only a vague secondary factor in their decisions, or an agency
>> who has keeping their customers alive as cheaply as possible as their
>> primary interest?
>
>Neither. What works best is a system of objective law, enforced by an
>entity with the moral sanction and physical power to do so.
How does this "entity" act? Through its individual members. Are you
assuming that all such government officials will act in *our* best interests?
>> >Anarchism requires the abandonment of fundamental principles,
>> >including -- in fact, BEGINNING WITH-- the principle of non
>> >initiation of force.
>
>> You're right. No philosophical base is inherent to this
>> anarchist system. But then no philosophical base is
>> inherent to capitalism either, in the sense that it has
>> asfeguards against people doing unsound things, yet
>> it produces the desired result.
>
>(I assume you mean that it has NO safeguards.)
I do not. Freidman makes the propositions that economic
forces would provide safeguards as effective or more effective
than government dictates. That general concept is not
unprecedented in objectivists thought, and is very prevalent
in non-anarchist libertarian thought.
>Two points. First, capitalism IS based on a philosophical premise-- the
>premise of individual rights. Second, because of this, capitalism
>depends on a social system which respects and protects those individual
>rights. It is the social system which provides the safeguards necessary
>to make capitalism function.
That could be right, this may not be a good analogy. But one criticism
often heard of capitalism is that it "allows the poor to starve without
being helped" yet we all agree that the poor are much better off
and well fed under this institution that has no safeguards built
into it whatsoever against the poor starving. It is only the inherent
economic forces that naturally, without concious direction, feeds
those very poor better than any other system we know of.
Doesn't the minarchist argument parallel this criticism in some ways?
--Kyle Bennett