This article is so bad that I can’t think of anything witty to say about it. I don’t see how they explained that anarcho-capitalism is Statism, and they seem to rely on failed socialist writers and a dictionary definition of anarchism to back up their case. They even decided to cite Rothbard, and failed:
This is easy to prove. For example, leading “anarcho”-capitalist Murray Rothbard thundered against the evil of the state, stressing that it “arrogates to itself a monopoly of force, of ultimate decision-making power, over a given territorial area.” Then, in the chapter’s endnote, he quietly admitted that “[o]bviously, in a free society, Smith has the ultimate decision-making power over his own just property, Jones over his, etc.”
Opps. How did the editor not pick up that one? But it shows the magical power of the expression “private property” - it can turn the bad ("ultimate decision-making power" over a given area) into the good ("ultimate decision-making power" over a given area). For anarchists, “[t]o demonise state authoritarianism while ignoring identical albeit contract-consecrated subservient arrangements in the large-scale corporations which control the world economy is fetishism at its worst.” It should also be stressed that capitalist authoritarianism is dictatorial in nature, with significantly less freedom than that in a democratic state.
Anarchists, obviously, wonder what the difference actually is. Why is the authority of the state considered anti-anarchist while that of the property owner is not? Rothbard did provide an answer: the state has got its land “unjustly.” Thus the answer lies in whether the state legitimately owns its territory or not. If it did, then “it is proper for it to make rules for everyone who presumes to live in that area . . . So long as the State permits its subjects to leave its territory, then, it can be said to act as does any other owner who sets down rules for people living on his property.” [7]
So if the state were a legitimate landlord or capitalist then its authoritarianism would be fine? Sorry? This is an anarchist analysis? The question is, ultimately, one of liberty. Anarchists simply note that Rothbard himself shows that capitalism and the state are based on the same authority structures and, consequently, neither can be considered as anarchist.
I think this is Francois Tremblay’s claptrap. The same shit he is bewailing here applies to collectivist communes insofar as their own holdings are concerned. This stuff is so blatant in its stupidity I just ignore it.
I liked it, “Anarchists simply note that Rothbard himself shows that capitalism and the state are based on the same authority structures and, consequently, neither can be considered as anarchist.” wonderful.
To be completely anti-authority is moronic, better off dropping the “anarchist” crap.
Right. It also applies to people’s own bodies. Does Francois not claim ownership of his body when he uses it? Or his computer when he types?
Of course just appropriation is not authoritarian.
It appears to me that the real reason that Francois is against appropriation of any kind is that he doesn’t understand it benefits society. This applies particularly to capitalist entrepreneurs. He doesn’t like that there can be people who control more property than he does. Well, you know what, they worked hard and benefited a lot of people in order to control those resources (and still do). They were being productive; which is an utmost socially admirable act.
Actually, it’s a perfectly valid point: if the ancap’s rejection of the state really boils down to nothing more than “it didn’t aquire land properly”, then it creates a new standard for legitimacy under which the same thing can be justified, hence logically binding the ancap to consider it legitimate on the sole condition of aquisition norms. The whole problem is that the issue of the state cannot be reduced solely to an aquisition issue. Even if land is aquired in conjunction with the norms, the kind of authority that a state claims still faces a burden of proof. The issue isn’t about aquisition/appropriation, it’s about authority claims.
Even if we assume that land is “legitimately” aquired and concede to the aquisition norms, it does not necessarily follow that the owner legitimately has the same kind of authority that a state claims. It is concievable for one to roughly be a Lockean as far as aquisition norms go while simultaneously rejecting anarcho-capitalism as far as authority claims derived from ownership goes. Hence, I could say “yes, it’s your land, but no, you don’t legitimately have absolute/unqualified/ultimate decision-making power over other people on your land”. And that’s what anti-authoritarianism really is: a rejection of arbitrary claims to authority over other people, not a total rejection of any and all decision-making.
The moment that an ancap claims their aquisition of property justifies the same kind of authority claim that a state makes, they’ve re-rationalized rulership and provided a basis for statism within their system. What this accomplishes is little more than a transfer of property titles over state powers, with a new ownership class constituting the defacto rulers.
The Rothbardian answer is, roughly, that the right to private property is different because the land was aquired justly. I know, this doesn’t get around the issue of authority claims (it’s just reductionism of the whole issue to aquisition/appropriation norms), hence the point of the article cited.
No need to be sorry. We’re roughly in agreement about this from different angles, your angle being anti-normative and my angle being the subordination of the property question to a higher-order norm of anti-authoritarianism. The main difference is that in your picture, the whole concept of rights is scrapped, while in my picture rights are constrained.
Yeah, that’s the whole point of the Principle of Proportionality: “If I aggress against you, you have the right to coerce me in whatever way is necessary to remove me from your sphere of authority, so long as your coercion is not disproportionate to the seriousness of my aggression*.”*
Tremblay’s arguments simply do not apply to a conception of rights constrained by a proportionality requirement.
The proportionality principle doesn’t address rule-making power, so I find it insufficient. It simply is a rule about retaliation and punishment. But it does not reject the actual rule-making power. In other words, the issue isn’t reducible to physical aggression in the first place - the issue is one of subordination to the will of the owner in general. The views of someone like Gary Chartier are a more robust constraint than proportionality - he puts foreward a value of people not arbitrarily being bossed around, and that’s roughly what I am talking about. It’s not simply that I question capping people on your land and capping bubble-gum thiefs, I question any authority claim by an owner to have “ultimate decision-making power” - the sphere of authority itself is limited.
Where I think Tremblay goes wrong, and this is partially due to his idiosyncratic insistence on a certain set of semantics, is his conclusion that this invalidates the concept of property altogether. My view is that it is a constraint on property rights, but not an elimination of them, and that this boils down strictly to a land property issue (hence, my view is quasi-geoist, although I don’t really use Georgist arguments). The main thrust of my view is really, in my eyes, just a “thick libertarian” case for a more robust conception of freedom than can be expressed in propertarian and Rothbardian terms. A “freedom” that ultimately entails that I am subordinated to the will of whoever owns land seems shallow if not self-dissipating.
I agree that the PoP isn’t sufficient for developing a comprehensive moral theory. But that’s not its purpose. It only applies to justice, i.e. the realm of enforceable moral claims.
Well, I think this issue goes beyond the scope of justice and into the realm of unenforceable moral claims. I think Chartier has done great work in formulating a libertarianism that incorporates the latter (e.g. this and this).
Agreed. The way I see it, thickness means that justice has commitments beyond merely opposing rights-violations.
Economic theory, by Mises’s own methodology, doesn’t explicitly have anything to say about these normative questions. One can do economic analysis all day and it isn’t going to bear on norms for the legitimacy of authority claims.
Perhaps we agree more than initial appearances may indicate. However, I very strongly insist that the consequence of what I’m saying is essentially the conclusion that Rothbard’s system is too “thin” or “closed”. I think that the consequence of applying Rothbard’s system as it is plainly stated, in the absence of the additional considerations that I suggest, is counter-intuitive to the whole point of proposing freedom in the first place in that it can justify iron-clad authority in a way that virtually reduces most people to serfs. On the other hand, I insist that the consequence of taking these additional considerations into account is to no longer propose anarcho-capitalism simpliciter.
Didn’t say the theory itself would, all normative questions are, of course, subjective. However, being able cite Pareto optimality, maximum efficiency, or the ability to calculate is clearly an advantage. As opposed to just labeling something “arbitrary” and rejecting it.
In the natural law tradition property in ones person deductively explains that it is a violation of property rights to initiate physical aggression against an individual even if such an individual is on another person’s land property. The landowner may still ask the person to leave, if they don’t, then it is trespassing. The individual that is not the landowner is an aggressor and justice can be served, ie. self-defense taken by the landowner.
Leaving out - semantically - the definition that property includes in ones own person leaves the interpreter with a gap in their theory and so logically you would maintain the position you have as to what Rothbard and other natural law theorists mean but it is a mistake as it has been explained semantically what property means by your theory of property and NOT Rothbards or other natural law theorists theory of property.
Since it comes down to semantics pigeonholing your own interpretation of property you will lose sight that person A on the land property of another person (B) still retains the property right in his own person that the landowner cannot violate in accordance with natural law theorizing in regards to ethics. When it has been shown semantically in the natural law tradition property in ones own person is significant you’re unfortunately going to strawman Rothbard and others that recognize this fact. Your position is based on your own logic, understanding, and therefore your own theory of property when you leaving that little tid-bit out. It is not Rothbard’s and others position that you maintain.