That is universality of the law.
But where does law come from? If law is anything other than agreements between consenting parties then it is aggression. And if voluntary agreements are the definition of law then not everyone will agree to every law, and any imperative to achieve equality under the law will have to be at odds with liberty.
EKL tells an interesting story about democracy in Poland. Every aristocrat was entitled to attend the parliament and vote if he chose to do so. Only those who showed up and voted yes to a new law were considered to be subject to it though as no aristocrat could tell another aristocrat what to do.
On equality - check out Roderick Long here.
He points out that there are three types of equality: socioeconomic, equality before (government) law, and equality of authority.
The first two cannot be true equality, because they require inequality of authority. Thus, the only true equality is that of authority because it doesn’t require inequality of the other forms. Furthermore, equality of authority is the libertarian position - that it is unjust to subordinate one person to another (e.g. taxpayers to politicians).
As Long says: “By this standard Murray Rothbard, in his advocacy of anarcho-capitalism, turns out to have been one of the most consistent and thoroughgoing egalitarian theorists of all time.”
Perhaps Hoppe is a conservative as well ? And perhaps the difference between aristocracy and oligarchy is whether you’re in the government or out of it ? Anyhow I think that Hoppe mischaracterizes history. If the Aristocrats were so good at fair and voluntary government it’s not clear how the monarchists got the upper hand. Not to mention the historical fact that Aristocrats and Monarchs tended to exploit the serfs, merchants and artisans. It’s true that some Aristocrats may have had libertarian leanings, but that’s far from being a general rule.
Ahhh no. I’m probably starting to seem argumentative with this many post on one thread. But I have to disagree with this also. It looks like a null statement to me. I don’t know of any definition of authority that doesn’t explicitly describe an inequality of power. If we say that two people both have equal authority with respect to each other what we are really saying is that neither has authority. So why not just say that and avoid having to make new definitions for the word equality?
And it doesn’t follow that socioeconomic equality and legal equality are not really equality because they involve an inequality of authority. It would make sense to say that they are not consistent with liberty because they involve an inequality of authority though.
As I understand it, socialism means “a rule by the workers” and communism “a classless society of equal power division”. As such, socialism is incompatible with both capitalism and anarchy. Communism is impossible, without standardizing the human brain and body, which is also a bad idea.
I think what people are referring to are the principles of socialism, applied through free contract.
Such principles include:
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An attempt at equal redistribution of wealth
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Collective funding of essential goods and services
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Collective ownership of large-scale capital goods
I believe Mises pointed out the pricing problems of such systems; however, people could contractually obligate themselves to such systems, at their own risk, without imposing force onto other groups. If everyone were to agree to this, you would have something similar to communism - a classless society, or an equal power distribution. Such communal contracts could limit interactions with non-commune members, possibly subjecting such decisions to democratic voting, or outright banning them. Communes could merge or split. Members could join multiple ones, be bound to one, or get out the system completely. It depends upon the contract they enter.
This really isn’t so different from the way the NFL is run…
The pitfall of such systems becomes quite clear: communes that stress equal pay over fair pay will end up having their most productive members bail out after they see less personal gain than they would by working in the general, disorganized marketplace. This is why free syndacalism is rare and never matches the size of any big business or corporation. In fact, the only such arrangements that are common and can get so big are the ones that are state imposed, such as the privileged unions who are legally protected from competition.
And this is why socialists will always come to prefer a statist solution. Through force, they keep productive members of society from seeking greener grass outside the commune. This also takes care of those who would reject such a contract, or start a competitive commune. No signature necessary. Through fear of punishment and disregard for privacy, rather than reward, they seek to establish higher amounts of prodcution.
Socialists, syndacalists, or communists, whatever they call themselves, believe that all people should work inside one commune. We are not so different - we feel everyone should belong to the free market. The difference is that for people to get to communism through the free market, people would have to allow restrictions to be placed upon them. Further, the restrictions apply most to the most productive, while benefitting the least productive. Such a system is prone to resentment, abandonment, and economic collapse. Communes must be allowed to fit into a natural order that determines how much cooperation and competition exists, where it does.
In reality, we apply socialist principles to our daily lives all the time; however, only in small degrees. Marriage is a great example: complete common property ownership. In this case, the state limits this union to 2 people, usually of opposite gender. We loan to poorer friends without expecting to be repaid. We raise money for friends and family when they are in emergencies, such as for an unexpected surgery. We even donate to charities, participate in privately operated insurance firms, and volunteer our labor.
So…as long as socialists fail to understand the cooperative aspect of voluntary exchange/contract within the framework of competitive enterprise, they probably can’t be expected to understand how competition naturally occurs within and between communes. If their expectations are for anarchy to produce one giant commune, do not give them serious thought. If they understand that competition and cooperation balance in ways that efficiently generate wealth without requiring strict restrictions and that communal economies will naturally be small, then by all means make an ally.
I’ve often thought that the biggest problem in arguing against socialism is that it works at the family level where the father makes all the rules and makes all the final judgments about resource allocation (albeit with strong input from the wife and some input from children), but makes constant sacrifices for his family out of love. Since socialists are usually ignorant of economics, our intellectual arguments bounce right off their heads, whereas they definitely believe their own two eyes (when observing families and the working socialist structure of them).
The equality that I believe libertarians care about is the elimination of special rights - such as a right to a living at the expense of others - acquired through birth.
It seems rather blatantly obvious to me that libertarianism supports equality or universality of negative rights. The state is seen as illegitimate in part precisely because its members are effectively exempted from the same fundamental ethical standards as everyone else. The state has the illegitimate authority to engage in actions that are commonly treated as being wrong if the individual or commoner did the same. Libertarianism supports the notion that every single individual possesses the exact same negative rights, I.E. that they are free to exercise their faculties without coercive imposition from others. Not that they are naturally equal in their abilities, not equality in outcome, but equality in terms of rights. This means that even the poor or starving man theoretically has the same rights as the rich “natural elite” man. Individuals have rights, not groups. The very idea of there being a different set of rights for different groups, which statism inherently depends on, fundamentally contradicts libertarianism.
Of course some people are better than others at some things. Of course everyone is inherently diverse. Of course human beings aren’t inherently equal in their capabilities. That’s not the question at hand. Regaurdless of this, they all share the same fundamental features that makes them human, and by virtue of this, possess the same rights. By virtue of being superior in some way, an individual does not therefore have special rights that others do not. They merely have more oppurtunities in the application of their own rights. The existance of superior natural faculties in an individual does not translate into a legitimate exemption from the same principles that would be applied to everyone else or a “right” to rule. Such an elitist notion is precisely what statism is founded upon, I.E. the idea that those in positions of power somehow are naturally more capable and virtuous than everyone else.
How so? Workers rule themselves, as individuals, and their labor products. How is that not the free market?
I tend to more or less agree with this general direction of things
I’m not sure how that articles addresses my point ?
A priori law is derived from a system of rational ethics (which must be non-contradictory to be considered true). The only truly non-contradictory ethic in practice is the non-aggression principle. Law in a libertarian society would be based upon prohibiting violations of the natural rights which are the logical functions of the non-aggression principle. And then it doesn’t matter whether everyone voluntarily agrees to every arrangement, because they are perfectly free not to participate in the arrangements they don’t like and to form different ones.
Who are likely to be acceptable adjudicators?
The section: The Beginnings of Common Law
sort of touches on the placement/rise of rulers and a subject of sort of ‘natural elites’. I think it also displays that Kings and the like are not so neccesarily imposed. I suppose the conversation near the end of the thread here had me going down the road a bit, so to speak… ha.
Ah, I see now. By definition, they will be whoever provides an efficient system of arbitration. But that doesn’t mean much to me. In a free market, who produces computers ? Those who are best at producing computers, right ?..Are they the natural elites of the hardware industry ? Does it makes any sense to use such an expression ? On the other hand, people who think that the old European oligarchies were benevolent natural elites are IMO having some sort of, uh, problem.
Something seems not being taken into account. A free society can exist only when the majority of the people believe in individual rights. In such a society there will be no ‘natural elites’. Some people will devote themselves to ‘security production’ as Molinari puts it, but that’s all.
In traditional socialism, workers rule by gaining control of the state power apparatus and expand its power so that by force laborers have the same economic power or more than private interests. Once private interests are completely abolished and everyone becomes a laborer, then you have a classless society. In this case, there is no free market.
In anacho-socialism, workers rule by willfully collectivizing their economic power to exceed that over private interests. This is a free market approach, however, it does not naturally come to be in the format that the socialists desire. This is because socialism desires one commune, not groups of communes that create innumerable trade restrictions between each other, while maintaining reward systems that do not match productivity. The clear outcome is that the commune with the least restrictive trading and most productive reward system will flourish. The goals of socialism, equal wealth distribution, equal access to complex capital goods, and collective funding of essential goods, will not be accomplished. If there is indeed one “commune” that emerges dominant, it will be the free market capitalism one. Freedom (aka greed) will eventually be blamed for the relentless “competition” in what is supposed to be a cooperative system. Some coercive force will be introduced to society by these “anti-statists”.
Free markets cannot guarantee a rule by workers or by business owners. Neither can rule the other, as both desire each other’s services. The traditional set-back is that labor is unskilled and in greater abundance than business owners. Thus, an even distribution of wealth between these two groups still sees the individual business owner with more wealth than the individual laborer. The means to balance these individuals is free trade, where wealth creation and savings move individuals into business ownership. The restrictive economy that statists on both sides of the aisle preach protects current business owners from future business owners. One such restriction is our money system, which has made low-risk, low-devaluation savings impossible.
Individuals don’t rule themselves under socialism! It’s a system where certain individuals can excert power over others. If you can’t choose how much you can offer to pay another individual, if you can’t choose how much pay you can request from another individual, if you can’t choose whether or not you pay for something at all, etc. you don’t rule yourself; the leftists rule you.
Marxism may be “traditional socialism” by virtue of its having more adherents than non-state socialism, but Prodhoun and others predate Marx. And anyway, you’re still committing a non-sequitur. “Traditional” socialism != all socialism.
You haven’t talked to many anarcho-socialists, apparently. They are communitarians, not geostatists. And they are not anti-market, either. They are anti-capitalist. There’s a difference. Many of them do not even believe in collective ownership of property, other than the means of production.
Free markets cannot guarantee anything at all, to anyone. But in a free market, socially organized communities can and probably will exist, and even flourish on a small scale.
Look, I’m no scholar on anything economics. If I spoke as though I were, I apologize. But now I’m starting to get confused…
Central-planning-style state-imposed socialism, such as the USSR, I’ve heard isn’t even Marxist. I heard Marx more or less wanted society at large to somehow plan the economy, such as through democratic voting. Is this true? If so, wouldn’t that just make Marxism even more inefficient, even if better able to prevent classism (as we saw the central planners rise as the upper class in centralized state socialism)?
I use the term “traditional” but perhaps I should say “successful” (although few of us will say that socialism is ever successful). This is because the most prominent societies known as socialist are socialist states, such as old China, the USSR, Venezuela…
I guess what I fail to see is the exact distinction between socialists and capitalists when there is no state force involved. Perhaps my assumption that socialists generally want some degree of wealth redistribution and collective ownership of the most productive capital goods is incorrect?
Maybe there is no dividing line? For instance, I certainly believe in non-state wealth redistribution to some degree within my family, for the handicapped, and between certain friends. But this doesn’t come from adherence to a contract voluntary entered or a law imposed upon me. It does not differ from charity.
Also, I was not trying to imply that socialists would form small geo-states. I was saying that there would be different communities interspersed throughout society. Also, state force or geographic location wouldn’t bind any individual into any particular commnity. I was saying that individuals could voluntarily choose which community to contract with, as to collectivize his economic power. Depending upon trade restrictions in the contract, we would find incompatible restrictions and the “legal” absence of trade between certain communities.
In this sense, I said that anarcho-socialism is basically a subset of anarcho-capitalism. Anarcho-socialism seems to simply be a contractual obligation under anacho-capitalism. Even without a contract, you can still see the socialistic behavior in small circles arise.
My whole point, however, was that socialism without state force doesn’t exist de facto beyond small groups. Rather, the principles become contradictory or unwarranted the larger the collectivism gets. I believe this is due to socialism being truly inspired not by principle, but by social interactions that place emotional value on our friends, family, and colleagues. Thus, the hard-line, society-wide, single-community socialists will inevitably propose an established authority that monopolizes coercive force “for the greater good”. If you won’t love thy neighbor willingly, we’ll force you too…because we love everyone!