I was reading Norman Finkelstein’s article on Wikipedia and he said something interesting: "On being called an anti-Zionist Finkelstein has said: “It’s a superficial term. I am opposed to any state with an ethnic character, not only to Israel.”
Not focusing specifically on Israel but can a libertarian support an homo-ethnic or a single religion state like Saudi Arabia? My personal view is that it will contradict basic tenets of Libertarianism.
In theory, if the land was rightfully acquired, a group of genetically similar individuals could create their own state and live there with minimal contact with genetically disparate populations, without violating NAP.
It would have to depend upon the exact nature of the state. For instance, if we had religion X, which was incorporated with nation X advocated a minimalistic government is something that a libertarian could certainly get behind. With this being said most things that are brought about by such “homogeneous” states because of their “homogeneity” are simply more anti-individualistic discrimination which libertarians oppose.
So in short the only way that a libertarian could get behind it is if that aspect of the state concurred with his beliefs that made him a libertarian.
So what does it mean for a state to have an “ethnic character” in practice?
I think it is a politically correct way of saying “racist state”.
I recently went to Qatar and I would describe that country has ethnically racist.
non arabs are not allowed to own land.
non arabs are not allowed to run a business, you have to have an arab partner.
Some might argue that these are laws based in nationalist ideals and not necessarily rooted in racism. What about laws that restrict certain products and activities and force specific gender based divisions. These could be classified as laws that are rooted in cultural or religious ideals and not necessarily racist.
On fist look however i was quick to label the country and its Emir as racist scoundrels. On further investigation i came to the conclusion that in some ways the country is a bit more anarchist than western countries. There is no income taxation or sales taxation. There are less regulations involving roads and planning and similar. If it was not for the religious brainwashing of the region, which in my opinion is a big detriment to its development, it would be a good place to live.
The point being that the state of isreal is no different, they don’t allow christians to own land etc.
At most, a libertarian could argue that 1) ethnically mixed countries result in totalitarianism and probably civil unrest if not al-out civil war and that 2) an ethnically homogenous state is, all else being equal, supposed to be smaller territorially since even within large ‘ethnicities’ local variation exist and can be large enough o undermine peaceful coexistence (heck, I can even find a very significant divide in my smallish nation). Hence, a truly ethnically homogenous state must be small, and that too is good.
Of course in principle, to repeat what other have already pointed out, nothing flies unless property is acquired properly, and everything flies if it is.
This might be a bit off-topic, but I think the earliest states were ethnically homogeneous, because they were based on kinship. Such a state can also be described as an area of land that’s jointly owned by the members* of the kinship group in question. I’ve thus reached the interesting conclusion that the state originated from a form of private property.
However, this doesn’t mean that the people of these earliest states held to the libertarian notion of self-ownership. History is replete with examples of how they did not. So I think self-ownership (and, by extension, non-aggression) is more fundamental to libertarianism than private property.
There has never been much ‘kinship’ between similiar people.
Can you expand on that please?
Europe before 1950. Arabs fought among eachother. India was divided into various kingdoms who regulary fought with eachother. East Asia was divided into dynasties. And lets not forget that Japan commited brutal war crimes in All of East asia. I don’t know much about Africa so that is that but I really doubt if they didn’t have a violent history among themselves.
Keep in mind that I’m talking about thousands of years ago - around the dawn of agriculture, if not earlier.
I really doubt if we have any history of that period. But same ethnicity has never led to a peaceful coexistance so it would be an exception if they actually lived peacefully.
By “kinship” I mean literal familial relations - either existing or in the past. I’m not talking about the modern notion of “ethnicity”.
I would not consider that a form of private property. The kin could not sell the land, nor could any member sell his share. They were “stuck” with it. Also I’d not consider anything that has existed prior to the XVII as a ’state’. But I tend to agree with you main idea there.
Ok. But my point still stands. Heirs regularly fought among eachother.
I’d say that no single kinsman being allowed to sell all/part of the land isn’t a problem for it being considered private property. There’s no reason why a group of people jointly owning a piece of land couldn’t decide to require some level of common agreement (unanimity, majority, plurality) before the land could be sold. To me, such joint ownership is still a form of private ownership, because people who aren’t members of the group are excluded from the land.
Only when there were specific, designated heirs. Under joint ownership of land, all the descendants would be heirs, and they would all own the land together. There wouldn’t necessarily be pieces of the land that are allotted to group members, either permanently or temporarily.
Fair enough. Still I cannot say that those tribes where really respectful of private property, be it even because they saw inter-tribal war as a fair way to acquire property.
agree here. Still, it’s highly unlikely.
Can a libertarian support an [insert adjective here] state? Question first is a yes/no answer to whether a libertarian can support a state to begin with, from there carry on.