Some Objections to Liberty

Here are some objections to a free society, supplied by a reader. His comments are in bold, and my responses follow.

. . . these are relatively extreme views compared to the 'norm'.

True, but at one time slavery and religious persecution were regarded as normal. So were illiteracy, serfdom, usury laws, and judicial torture. For much of history, the notion of rights was alien, and the scientific method was a revolutionary challenge to our conception of the nature of the universe.

I firmly believe that any type of society is possible if people believe they can make it work. Even one portrayed by Tolkien with the elves!

I agree. The problem is that the state prevents people from living in the manner they choose. It is true that some states are more restrictive than others, but they all override our decisions about our own lives.

But to be honest, I do not want the type of anarchy necessary to tear down our current one in order to build a new one from its dust. It's party selfish, but mostly because I have a family and do not wish that type of anguish for them. And I wonder if such a 'drastic' change can be done slowly.

Actually, anarchy means the lack of government, not chaos and disorder. A free society would have order insofar as its opposite, disorder, is rejected as being inimical to peaceful action. To be more precise, order is the absence of disorder, and disorder is the disruption of peace. Peace is essentially equivalent to freedom because both preclude force and intimidation. Thus, peace and order can be thought of as synonyms for freedom. In addition, freedom is inseparable from the recognition and consequent enforcement of property rights. This is because the violation of property rights is a physical invasion which disrupts order, peace, and freedom. Therefore, order, peace, freedom, and property rights are intrinsic facets of each other. Because the state is an institution distinguished uniquely and solely by its program of systematic rights violations, we can infer that the existence of the state introduces disorder and insecurity, undermines freedom, and destroys property rights enforcement. A free society, by contrast, would respect property rights by definition of its being free, and the security of these rights would be strengthened by the lack of a state to violate them. Likewise, people would be able to defend their property against common criminals, unhampered by laws that restrict firearms and impose costs and barriers to private defense.

One might argue that the state provides physical security from invasion, but as I pointed out elsewhere, the state is itself the leading rights violator in terms of the number of violations and in the magnitude of individual violations. An urban resident might be mugged once in his life and an unlucky suburban dweller might have his house broken into once or twice and his bicycle or car stolen, but such losses are much rarer, smaller, and less regular than those imposed by the state's seizure of property—which amounted to 45.9 percent of a small or medium Canadian business's annual profit in 2008 (Doing Business 2009: Country Profile for Canada, p. 33 [PDF]) and is about 44.8 percent of the average Canadian's yearly income according to the Fraser Institute's calculation that Tax Freedom Day fell on June 13 this year. Illegal theft can be mitigated by insurance, but there is no real protection against larceny by the state.

So, the state is not a rug that when pulled away would cause society to crash. The state is a destructive, parasitical imposition on society, not a pillar that supports it. Think of the state as a wet blanket that smothers us or an albatross that weighs us down. If order is the absence of disruption, only the state has the resources, power, and institutional will to disrupt our lives in any significant and systematic way. Removing the state would permit the market to operate more efficiently so that supply could more perfectly match demand—to everyone's benefit. If the market is the economic expression of people's desires, state intervention into the market always and wrongfully thwarts legitimate activity.

There is concern that the transition to a stateless society will be violent as the power elite fights to preserve its status. Indeed, the state has historically reserved the harshest, most brutal, and cruel sanctions for those who threaten its rule, labeling such "criminals" traitors or terrorists. Such a response, which could involve mass arrests, the establishment of concentration camps, and troops in the streets, would openly and unambiguously demonstrate the virulence of the state and the necessity of its demise. Of course, the state would propagandize its actions as the necessary "restoration of order" and the timid would continue to obey orders, but the state would be terminal at that point. On the other hand, the Soviet Union collapsed without mass violence. Libertarians advocate a nonviolent rejection of the state by means of the simultaneous withdrawal of consent by a significant portion of the subject population, a strategy designed to mitigate violent reprisal.

I also believe that democracy (LOL... by accident I just spelt it "democrazy"...) is the best system we have going, I, personally, just don't like the way it is set up, it just seems too complicated without getting a desired result.... however I have not given it enough thought in the last 10 years to suggest a remedy.

One of the problems with democracy, which Hans-Hermann Hoppe defines in his book Democracy: the God that Failed (2001) as publicly-owned government—in contrast to monarchy, which is privately-owned, and natural order, which is the absence of government altogether—is that it operates with a short-term mentality owing to the status of its officials as temporary caretakers. In other words, public officials have little incentive to preserve or enhance the value of the resources available to them during their terms of office, whereas private owners have an interest in maintaining the value of their holdings over the long term. Furthermore, instruments typical of democratic regimes, such as high tax burdens, endless and expansive regulations, central banks, fiat money, cheap credit, and inflationary monetary policy, encourage high time preference behavior (i.e., a tendency towards immediate gratification characteristic of childlike, dependent personalities) and penalize the low time preference behavior necessary for capital formation and investment (inflation gradually wipes out savings).

The theoretical availability of public office to anyone helps cement democracy's legitimacy by appearing to erase historical us-versus-them boundaries between rulers and ruled, creating the impression that the state is coterminous with the citizenry whose collective will it is thought to represent, but this is dangerous because while increased legitimacy deters factional violence and civil war, the other side of the coin is that the democratic state, which, because of its inclusive nature, lacks popular or class-based resistance that in the ancien régime acted as a restraint against governmental excess, inevitably expands in size, scope, and power at the expense of ordinary people, and is more likely to engage in war. Democratic wars, which post-date the French Revolution, tend to be total wars waged between or against entire societies in which mass murder and other atrocities committed against civilians are routine because they are rationalized on ideological grounds and because of the democratic but erroneous conflation of government and citizenry. Democracy has served as a modern religion, a justification for military and police intervention all over the globe. Domestic dissent is accordingly marginalized because it is viewed as an attack on society. It is hardly surprising that democratic states, unhampered by weak internal opposition, tend to extend their control over more and more areas of the lives of their subject populations. This process would seem to culminate in totalitarianism, the total control and regimentation of every aspect of life by means of terror and force, and indeed, the totalitarian regimes of the U.S.S.R., Maoist China, and Nazi Germany, whose literary paragon was Orwell's Oceania in his Nineteen Eighty-Four, were democratic. The United States appears to be well on the way to a totalitarian dictatorship.

For me the fundamental flaw in your last [post] is the statement that "Political candidates want to assume power over our lives. What could be more pathologically arrogant?" In its most basic, yes, an elected politician has power over decisions that make their society run, and therefore, to a degree, our lives. But I do not believe that it is inherent that anyone who wishes elected office, or even decides to do so, is a bad person or has bad ideas and intents, or will become so once in office. From that point we diverge. Regardless of so many people like Bush, who actually believe they are doing a good thing, but are (I don't want to use the word "evil") ... bad, there are others who do things for the right reasons. While he was in office I always thought Trudeau was one of these guys .

No one can build his security upon the nobleness of another person.

—Willa Cather (1873-1947)

There has to be something wrong with a person who thinks he has the right or the duty to use force to counter the decisions ordinary people make about their own lives. Only a degenerate personality would seek a position from which to direct violence against innocent people. It scarcely matters that the candidate/politician thinks he will be doing good, for his motivations, which we cannot truly know anyway, are overshadowed by his actions, and it is actions which harm. Moreover, evil acts are presented by government as necessary and virtuous, so it is a mistake to take a politician's words at face value. And whatever one's intentions, the acquisition of political power is intrinsically malevolent because it entails the anti-human belief that other people are masses of flesh subject to unilateral force rather than personalities with goals and lives of their own who deserve to remain unmolested. Therefore, there are no right reasons for aspiring to political office—unless one intends to dismantle or roll back the state.

As I see it, the only true Libertarian society is one that would be similar to a Native American tribal society of pre-whiteman era. The society would have to be primitive in its material needs and desires. You cannot have a society with complex money-driven companies producing cars, cell phones, games, etc... this is a society based upon a hierarchy of rules, regulations and those who enforce them.

Every product and service we presently enjoy is provided because of the profitability of recognizing and responding to consumer desire. Look around at all the good things in your life—your car, house, computer, home appliances, private-sector employment, iPod™, cellphone, consumer electronics, restaurants, Wal-Mart™, credit cards, travel agencies, Hollywood films, etc.; these are the products of freedom provided by people cooperating and coordinating their efforts to satisfy consumer wants. Competition creates incentives for businesses to improve quality and to reduce prices. In fact, anyone who anticipates and acts on an unfulfilled market demand stands to become very wealthy indeed. Our complex economy is the outcome of market forces that operate despite, not because of, the dead hand of the state. Currency would be stronger and more stable if open to competition; consumers would use those currencies that are sound and reject all others, for who would continue to accept paper dollars?

Libertarians are committed to the belief that individuals, and not states or groups of any other kind, are both ontologically and normatively primary; that individuals have rights against certain kinds of forcible interference on the part of others; that liberty, understood as non-interference, is the only thing that can be legitimately demanded of others as a matter of legal or political right; that robust property rights and the economic liberty that follows from their consistent recognition are of central importance in respecting individual liberty; that social order is not at odds with but develops out of individual liberty; that the only proper use of coercion is defensive or to rectify an error; that governments are bound by essentially the same moral principles as individuals; and that most existing and historical governments have acted improperly insofar as they have utilized coercion for plunder, aggression, redistribution, and other purposes beyond the protection of individual liberty. [Source: Matt Zwolinski, "Libertarianism." Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy]

I understand all this, and agree with it, but I don't see how it can be applied to our society today -- not without the fear that I expressed above, and it comes full circle. For if a change like this is to occur, it will have to do so violently and abruptly. And I cannot see, given human nature-- and despite what I feel about any society working if people desire it so --- that such a society can exist where "only a proper use of coercion" is used to rectify something done wrong... there will always be degrees of interpretation and debate and eventually, to such a 'logical' species as we are, a need to write this down and make it law.

To take the last part of your comment first, the concept of property defense is relatively unambiguous; even animals defend themselves by instinct. Free people make transactions and incur obligations through contracts and property titles, whether explicit or implied. Arbitrators and courts in a free society can adjudicate disputes on the basis of strict liability tort law, contract law, common law, and case law. There need be no legislation or positive law, and hence, no need for legislators or the states that employ them. The fallibility of human nature is a strong reason to reject organizational systems that grant the power of aggressive force over other human beings, for not only is there is no valid rationale for anyone to wield such power but it is harmful and decivilizing.

As described earlier, there is some risk in abolishing the state. Foreign states, perhaps operating under the UN, might dispatch military forces under the guise of "restoring order," but this cannot succeed if the people are determined to hold on to their liberty. The American colonists succeeded in ejecting foreign interlopers. So did the Algerians, the Indians, the Vietnamese, the Afghans, and some other secessionists. Canadians already have a culture of freedom, and with the literature of freedom so readily available, and its ideas spreading rapidly via the Internet, there is nothing inevitable about the re-establishment of government. It is worth the risk. The alternative could be a Soviet-style collapse, and for much the same reasons, because present trends are untenable. The United States seems on the brink of calamity, thanks to the ruinous, criminal policies of its central government. Certainly no one can know what would happen if we ignore the state, but if an idea's time has come, nothing can stop it. The question is, will the time for liberty arrive in our lifetime? It is up to us.

Why Follow Politics?

I avoided last night's candidates' debate because it represents something so monumentally absurd that the mind reels. That mature adults can be taken in by the charade is depressing. Yet there is hope that more and more people will see the farce for what it is and reject it. All it takes is an open mind and a willingness to confront the truth.

Political candidates want to assume power over our lives. What could be more pathologically arrogant? They want to make decisions on your behalf even though your decisions belong to you by definition. And they're not asking for your permission, either: you are only permitted to vote for who is going to join the gang that rules you. This diminishes your freedom, for a political leader is someone whose decisions are backed by force. The essence of politics is force. Force treats its victims as literal physical objects instead of as personalities. This is directly contrary to the core beliefs of all civilized societies and religious and ethical systems. Because force is destructive of everything we value, it follows that nothing good can come of politics.

You might retort that one must vote for the lesser evil. Yet this only highlights the truth that politicians and politics are inherently detrimental and that the system is deeply flawed. Nobody should ever do evil, lesser or otherwise; isn't this the message of Christianity, et al? How can politics not have a deleterious effect on our morality when it teaches that we ought to obtain our objectives by force rather than mutual consent?

There is something terribly wrong when one can only choose that which harms him least. If someone asks whether you prefer to be punched or shot, wouldn't you respond that there is no imperative to inflict injury in the first place? This is obvious, but politics is so deeply entrenched in our way of thinking that it never occurs to most that the real dichotomy is not punching vs. shooting, but whether people ought to be subjected to aggressive violence at all. Defending the system on the basis that things cannot change is counterproductive because it assists in the continuance of politics through the legitimacy thus attributed to it. Thus, the plague of government on mankind is upheld by our aggregated pessimistic inertia. This pessimistic belief in the permanence of the status quo helps to ensure its permanence and thus constitutes the prime obstacle to the removal of legalized aggressive force from our lives. Its very circularity invalidates it as a serious argument against the advent of liberty.

The political issues are phony because government created them. My skeptics might want to ask themselves which decisions they need politicians to make for them, and whether they are derivative of the political landscape or would exist independently of the state. I can't think of a single genuine issue that requires political intervention. If every problem/issue is an artificial creation of government, it would be bizarre to maintain that we need government for any reason. Obviously, the solution is to show the rascals the door so we can live in a society that is not based on force.

We are supposed to vote for politicians who will "fight" on our behalf—yet please consider what this means. To "fight" for constituents is to protect them from the greater damage that other politicians and bureaucrats would inflict. Here we see that politics creates its own demand. Let this sink in for a minute.

Politicians promise to "fight" for constituents because, in reality, politics is largely a battle between interest groups seeking to use government force to get their way at the expense of the rest of us. It is hard for participants to disengage from this process while the system persists, because to abandon lobbying carries with it the danger that one's opponents will prevail and that force will then be used against the retiring party. The logic of the system helps perpetuate it. Yet the underlying dynamic—that force is to be harnessed and directed against other interests who frequently seek to do the same to you—is bankrupt from both a moral and a utilitarian standpoint.

Unless you are a political insider or an historian, fear of the candidates' proposed policies is the only reason to care about debates and elections, just as the fear of a burglary or a fire is the sole reason to install burglar and fire alarms. Political vigilance, then, serves primarily as defensive monitoring of threats emanating from the halls of power.