A Minarchist Challenge To Anarcho-Capitalists

Economics Political Theory
1

First off, hello! I’m new around here, and hope I will enjoy having discussions with you. I’ll admit, I’m a minarchist as opposed to an anarchist, but I’m also a mature, thoughtful person so I hope we can avoid flamewars. :wink:

As my introductory post, I thought I’d post a challenge to anarcho-capitalism that I have been thinking on recently. It seems many of the thought experiments make a few simplifying assumptions, and one that is of particular interest here is that many don’t seem to consider the guardianship of those incapable of doing it themselves - children, for example.

Now, the idea of a Private Defense Agency gives credence to the idea that it is perfectly acceptable under the non-aggression principle to initiate force against someone else who has initiated force. IE, if Person A is trying to harm Person B, Person C is justified in using force to stop Person A. Person B may have paid Person C to do so, but the money is an incentive, not a transfer of the right of defense. If there is no contract between B and C, but C simply happens to want to help B, C is not in the wrong.

Now, let’s throw in a powder keg - the abortion issue. A pro-life person sees an abortion as the murder of a baby, a pro-choice person does not. Now, the drama unfolds. For ease of typing, I’ll abbreviate to PL and PC.

Let us look at this first from a PL position. A PL man (Person A) sees a woman (Person B) trying to murder her baby (Person C). Moral outrage ensues, and he takes measures to prevent her from doing so. In his view, A is not violating the non-aggression principle - Person B initiated force and he is simply acting on behalf of C because C cannot defend itself.

Now, from the PC position. B is pregnant with a fetus, and she doesn’t want to be. So, it being her body, she goes to a family planning clinic to get the little parasite out. Suddenly, A comes along and tries to prevent her from doing so. Since A initiated force, she feels perfectly justified in defending herself.

Now, under a state, they could both appeal their position, trying to influence decision makers to write legislation in their favor. But under anarchy, there is no such release. Instead, there is only A trying to save C from the infanticidal B, and B trying to defend herself from the unreasonably tyrannous A. Unless one of them capitulates to the other’s point of view, this can only end in violence. If they both call on friends, gang warfare could even result.

So, how can you resolve this without either violence, or legislation? It does no good to presuppose one side is right - whether true or not, each side perceives themselves as right, and are acting without violation of the non-aggression principle. Further, neither side has reason to agree to arbitration; A is fighting for C’s life and B is fighting for her freedom - why should either risk loss?

2

Simply put, the PL guy is in the wrong, and violence would be justified in stopping him. For further reading on the subject, please consult this chapter in the ethics of liberty. Also, any state which sided with the PL guy would also be wrong, and consequently, there would be even more injustice and initiation of force against more people. It’s better that injustice be individualized instead of institutionalized.

3

Easy: what Person A thinks doesn’t matter one whit. He is violating the non-aggression principle, regardless of how he attempts to justify it. It can be resolved by the PDA or PDAs in question. They can arbitrate, despite your flagrantly blatant assertion that there’s no reason to do so, or any number of other possibilities. Your silly desire for there to be an Ultimate Decision Maker has no basis in reality.

4

Legislation is just a subset of violence.

5

Welcome.

Yours is one more example of the difficulty in implementing NAP as a viable concept. I tried making a similar argument in this thread**:**

“When a vicious feedback cycle like this develops, the damage done by repeated waves of “justified” aggression in response to equally “justified” aggression outshadows whatever minor factors contributed to the initiation of the whirlwind. With every new wave, the damage, thus the stakes, get higher making stronger aggression in response even more justified than the wave before. This makes NAP’s implementation in reality extremely difficult (if not impossible), even in groups of sentient agents perfectly aware of the benefits of peace vs war. This “sensitivity to initial conditions” (from Complexity Theory) is what makes absolute freedom (liberty) under NAP utopian.”

Z.

6

There is no such thing as justified aggression in response to justified aggression. That in and of itself is a contradiction. And the NAP can be seen in game theory in the prisoners dilemma, which mathematically shows the NAP as the best solution. This very reason is why we have it baked into our genetics in our sense of justice.

7

An interesting link, Sam, but to me Rothbard seems to be begging the question. He asserts that the fetus has no right to the mother’s body, therefore the mother is justified in the abortion. But a PL position would say it isn’t that clear, that while a born human would not have the right to parasitically feed off another, the inability of the fetus to exist in any other way muddies the situation. Rothbard claims that a preborn baby has no right of self ownership; a PL Libertarian would disagree.

In short, Rothbard assumes the PC position in Libertarian philosophy, and then shows the natural outcome is, amazingly, PC. If we don’t assume that is the case, however, then we can’t simply say that PL man is wrong, violence possibly shouldn’t be used against him, and and law (whether through government or arbitration companies) that supported him would not be wrong. A PL person would say that everyone has the right to not have their life be taken from them, and this supercedes a person’s right to use their own body. I have the freedom to swing an axe - I don’t have the freedom to swing it into someone else’s head.

Knight, you may call it silly, but that is essentially the question between minarchy and anarchy. Can the market spontaneously order everything, or are there some things it cannot? If there are some things a market cannot order, can those things be ordered by a heirarchy?

Stranger, I disagree. Legislation is the threat of violence, not violence itself. Consequently, IF there can be shown to be a case where violence would ensue if the threat did not exist, then it may be better for the threat to exist than to have actual violence.

I will say, the link did give me this to think about, which nobody has mentioned yet (or at least, not since I began typing this) - person A could offer B money to bear the child, then take care of it himself when it is born. The value would be whatever B places on the hardships of pregnancy that she is trying to avoid now. One could suppose PL groups would voluntarily set up funds to do just this. (I didn’t read that directly from Rothbard, but his mention of a baby market gave me the idea.)

8

Yes, this kind of rounds things out, as best we can, for the adamant irrationalist “pro-life” aggressor. Their in the same boat as the radical anti-human environmentalists, that they need to put their money where their mouth is.

Our position is not one of supporting murder of embryos but of the primacy of individual negative rights over positive fictions. Please read

9

One could suppose PL groups would voluntarily set up funds to do just this.

It occured moments after posting that this would then create a problem of women going out and getting pregnant just for the money.

10

If Friends of Babies has too many babies, they might consider cutting their offering price.

11

However, the NAP, as promulgated by Rothbard is unsound. See Edward Feser’s eviceration of it, and Rothbard as a philosophy:

Rothbard as a Philosopher

Rothbard Revisited

Is Self-Ownership Axiomatic?

Furthermore, there is absolutely no basis in the claim that the law as enforced by PDAs would be based upon the NAP in anarcho-capitalism. For all we know, the PDAs might become tyrants-for-hire.

Violence will also be used in an anarcho-capitalist society to solve such problems. Is the violence used in an anarcho-capitalist society to enforce the decisions of the PDAs more moral than when it is used by governments to enforce their decisions? In both scenarios the violence will be utilized to coerce, so the appeal to a “completely voluntary society” is fallacious here because no society is voluntary, those protecting society will always have to use force against those who do not desire to live according to the laws of the land.

The prisoners’ dilemma is a rather specific scenario defined in such a fashion that the participants have full knowledge of what would occur; however, such a metric is absolutely unreasonable in a world in which individuals act in a state of ignorance, only having imperfect knowledge as to what their action’s consequences will be. It is absurd to assert that the prisoners’ dilemma can be used as a basis of justice.

12

True, but while this would decrease the “greed pregnancy” problem it would also undermine their efforts. After all, they aren’t trying to accumulate babies, they are just trying to make sure the little rugrats aren’t killed. If they lower the price, then mothers who genuinely had accidents/gotten raped/whatever would be more likely to go ahead with the abortion.

13

Stranger meant the justified use of violence. You like to point fingers and play word games yet at the same time have no such ground to stand on as you demand from your enemies. [|-)]

14

Why not? Methinks they may be profitable.

The victim of rape or young, single mother who can’t afford to raise a child is also not trying to accumulate babies. Your problem is twofold:

  • forcing economic suffering (including establishing the right to punish women who have abortions) on women, vs poor Friends of Babies having to pay women who just have babies to get money.

  • preaching a coherent set of laws while mothers give up the right to their body.

15

And yet so often a line of attack such as that is utilized against legislation (i.e. claiming that it is nothing but violence, and therefore wrong). So while I did misinterpret Stranger, my point is, nevertheless, sound.

And yet all you could do to my entire post is point out that I might have misinterpreted Stranger. In light of that fact, I think my ground is quite sturdy - feel free to prove otherwise, though.

16

double-post

17

There is nothing the state can do that the market cannot, except use violence.

The division of a labour is a market hierarchy. There is no reason a market cannot create a voluntary hierarchy, as we see at firms with multiple levels of management or wide divisions of activity, all coordinating without violence.

18

Violence will be commonplace in order to even out the outcomes and disincentivize aggression and rights violation, bringing about an equilibrium of peaceful relations. The violence of legislation, on the other hand, brings about a disequilibrium towards more violence, as does aggression against women.

19

Who makes legislation? What can these folks achieve without initiating violence? No, no, I know the answer already. It is nothing.

Feser is an embarrassment. That you are a um… here.. um I am shutting up now.

20

I read his tripe; wasn’t impressed. Nor am I impressed by your repeated assertions.