this may be where i get confused on how the media uses the term free market, but do you think there can be a free market and government at the same time? if the government was even something such as a nightwatchman government, could that be free market with decisions really reflecting a free market? i figure people also have definitions for government that makes the government a coercive monopoly over geography, which does not sound free market at all. a free market seems like it would allow competition for any service that could be provided, and that would include any service a nightwatchman state would provide.
In the literal sense, no you can’t have a free market when there is an overarching entity that has a monopoly on legal force which it uses to extort wealth from people.
But most minarchists and people who allegedly advocate “free markets” simply don’t really see how a truly free society would function without that entity there inflicting its coercion and violence. They will tell you “to have freedom you need to have your rights protected, so you need government.” As non sequitur as this might be, that’s the common line of thinking.
For a nice write up on this, see here.
Strictly speaking, no.
Practically speaking, probably not.
Theoretically and loosely speaking, prettymuch.
That is to say that the state, so long as it has ANY powers of taxation distorts the market from its truly “free” form, but if govt spending was .01 percent of GDP and there are no regulations on the market, only a very certain kind of person is going to argue that teh free market would be functionally different than that.
interesting article jj
one of the things i’m thinking about is defence contracts and other contracts with government. it looks like in either case, government will contract with private organization to supply equipment for defence, or private business will contract with other private business to do the same. right now it does not seem like government’s method of deciding who gets a contract would represent a free market in the same way that private enterprises would compete. it seem’s like government contracts go more towards croynyism than private to private contracts. seems people will argue that the government should not give science grants because it could not determine by market forces the most effective people to give grants to, so it makes me question how the government could decide which companies will provide research and supplies for state actions such as defence. a bad investment in private to private will be beating by the competition, so a bad investment in by a government would mean disaster for the people subject to the governments decision. if there is a call for a monopoly on the use of force, i’m not sure how supply and demand can work and who will make the decisions about how the government will defend the citzens. even it’s the voluntarily paid nightwatchmen state it seems some like ayn rand advocate for, at the least it seems the payers would get power over nonpayers and the highest payers would have the most power in the monopoly on the use of force and which private companies win the contracts to supply the government forces.
Bingo. Plus it’s not like there’s a way for a legitimate price mechanism to work when you’re dealing with an entity that has bottomless pockets and endless levels of bureaucracy. You get things like this.
But I talked about the contracting aspect a bit with respect to this very topic of defense here.
Thomas Sowell talks about this here.
…Or how the citizens might legally defend themselves, should their government overstep the bounds they placed around it. This was the purpose of the 2nd Amendment to the US Constitution.
Which is basically what we have now.
For more on free society, see here.
Well no.
But I think the terminology is somewhat confusing.
The term “free market” in common statist parlance seems to be conceptualizing freedom/oppression on a set of different spectrums or bandwidths with “free” or “restricted” falling in different places between the two poles. Opposing bands of statists try to assert that their placement on the assorted spectrums is better or more widely shared than the others.
It seems that when libertarians conceptualize “free” or “restricted” they go for a far more literal interpretation. Things either are or are not free.
For my part as a statist I’ve become more inclined to skip the “free market” jargon altogether and just think of the state in terms of varying degrees of restrictedness or oppression.
We agree on something.
interesting articles and videos
one part of the second amendment video , at about 14 minutes, about the regulated militia confused me. it seemed to say that men were mandated to have guns and report to a miliatia commander, and this was supposedly separate from a government? it says people had to report 4-5 times a year and if they did not have a gun, the militia would buy a gun for the man. what makes a citizen miltia different from a government if people are mandated to have guns and report? it says people had the duty to own firearms and the duty to report to a appointed captain, that seems a bit statelike to me. it uses, the word duty, but to me that does not seem different in intention to a mandate. saying someone has a duty to be armed, trained, and report to superiar officers does not seem like a right to arms, but a requirement. how is this citizen militia even supposed to be run, if not by a government or effective government of some institution people in the community are mandated to join?
reading the wiki on militias, it said after the civil war there were state militias composed almost entirely of blacks, rifle clubs and paramilitary groups composed entirely of whites, and the two would attack each other. while this does not show a state mandated militia, it shows problems of a state having a militia as well as privite militials starting agression against one another.
I am always confused when minarchists try to say, “look, we need the state for protection of rights; but hey, anarchists, the taxes could be voluntary.”
Sure they can, but then it wouldn’t be a state anymore. If the taxes of the rights-protecting state are voluntary, then the it’s really just another company competing for business, isn’t it?
I have never understood the case for voluntary taxes…these are called charges for service. Every company has them.
^^^^^yes but then the state that has voluntary taxes can still pass laws and coerce you. even if theyre not going after your wallet.
for being a objectivist, rand never did write out objective laws for how government ought to try cases objectivly, so i am confused with it as well. even if contracts were awarded based on some objective criteria, i don’t think that would be free market, since the free market has preferences and is not simply robotic as to who offers in a blind bid to provide the lowest price or other objective criteria. i don’t even know how quality is be measured objectivly. we have all sorts of companies say they make the best gun, i don’t know how a real free market decision could be made to call one the best that all government ought to buy by objective criteria. in todays government, we get all sorts of contracts and equipment bought for the military that the military does not even want to does not even keep track of it’s delivery.
John James : But most minarchists and people who allegedly advocate “free markets” simply don’t really see how a truly free society would function without that entity there inflicting its coercion and violence. They will tell you “to have freedom you need to have your rights protected, so you need government.” As non sequitur as this might be, that’s the common line of thinking.
The problem here is in how coercion, rights, and in particular property are defined.
Note here that I’m not arguing for the existence of state. I’m going to argue that simply saying man has the right to own property and to engage in voluntary exchange isn’t a sufficiently explanatory standard such that all men implicitly know what the rules are that define whether or not a behavior is coercion, theft, or any of the other traditional crimes which a use of force combats, and thus is deemed legitimate.
I can construct thought experiments that demonstrate the edge conditions for any of the definitions. However, the point of the exercise, is to realize that rights are a socially constructed phenomena.
There are metaphysical facts of reality which explain the reasons for the social concept of rights and property. However, the devil is in the details about how a social group comes up with norms and laws about what constitutes ownership and what constitutes property.
In the article you referenced, there is a particular phrase which is glossed over as if it’s implicitly understood and defined :
“This difference is the principle of force and power – the principle of government. It is our very core belief as anarchists that force and power are wrong; that any involuntary subjection is always comparable to the end of the world.”
Force and power are implicitly evil or never acceptable means to any end in this context. But as soon as presented with an idea of self-defense, in the case of bodily harm, we immediately say, well that’s a legitimate use of force. While I agree, it’s also force.
Property ownership in particular of land, is not just a right of use, but a denial of legitimate use by others. The only possible means by which to enforce such a claim, is through force. Now if one defines an illegitimate use of property as a use of force, you end up with an awareness/knowledge issue. The issue is in social communication and definition of the boundary conditions that create an owner/property relationship, and in particular a means for establishing when it occurs and how to be aware of it.
The devil is in the details. So, when a purely ideological anarchist, or anarcho-capitalist (like I want to be, but am struggling with) says things like “any involuntary subjection is always comparable to the end of the world.” I’m stuck trying to understand how and who will interpret and arbitrate the inevitable confusions and conflicts that must arise because it’s just not that simple to see the property->owner relationship.
I can see your connection with your body. I can’t see or interact with you except through it. But anything not attached to a human body, becomes slightly more difficult to be as sure and clear about. Common Law, Natural Property Rights, which seem to me to be very closely related are a specific well-ordered solution to the property problem. I can accept that private dispute resolution organizations can in fact arise to provide services to address these eventualities, but acting like states aren’t one type of solution to that problem is ridiculous.
The only issue I have with states, is the implicit non-compete clause they claim exists.* Someone’s going to stake a claim to be a legitimate user of force. If you want stolen property back, you either suck it up like Gandhi (not a bad idea necessarily), or you or an agent operating on your behalf has to go and get it back.
*This isn’t actually my only issue with states, but any other complaint I have can be traced back to this original issue. I do agree that it’s actions are harmful, but not being able to seek redress or abolish or break free form it’s edicts and punishments, traces back to the monopoly on force, not to the use of force itself within a social context.
can be a free market and government
No, the State is by definition aggressive, and a free market is by definition a market absent aggression.
Separate from the Federal Government, for sure. The Constitution is what instituted the Federal Government in the first place, so obviously any “requirements” prior to that came from some smaller source. Notice right before the statement you’re talking about, the narrator states “colonial militias had been in existence for over 150 years…”
Militias are generally considered a local thing, until they are called upon to band together for a larger threat.
Notice, at 8:50, the narrator states “…the founders opposed anything but a small national military.”
If you look at the history, there doesn’t seem to be any large scale legislation on the subject until after the Constitution. Note:
“[George Washington] experienced all the evils of insubordination among the troups, perverseness in the militia, inactivity in the officers, disregard of orders, and reluctance in the civil authorities to render a proper support. And what added to his mortification was, that the laws gave him no power to correct these evils, either by enforcing discipline, or compelling the indolent and refractory to their duty” … “The militia system was suited for only to times of peace. It provided for calling out men to repel invasion; but the powers granted for effecting it were so limited, as to be almost inoperative.”
Nothing. But that’s irrelevant because no one is trying to differentiate them. The video is making the case for the 2nd Amendment and the meaning of the words at the time they were written. (Which is the only meaning that matters). Remember, the Constitution is a minarchist creation…which itself created the Federal Government. So none of the founders were trying to make an argument for a truly (i.e. literally) free society like what we’re talking about here.
Notice I only linked the video in supplement to your point about “if there is a call for a monopoly on the use of force”. That is a hypothetical that obviously assumes a not-free society, at least in the absolute terms you’re seeing people speak of here.
Define aggressive.
This is why many anarcho-capitalists are more careful with their terms. If you have a problem with Per’s use of the word “force”, just play your definition game that you talked about in the first part of the post and pretend he said “aggression” (as understood as “the initiation of force”).
You’ll notice Adam Kokesh is quite eloquent and precise when he speaks on this subject. Here’s a great example.
Give some examples of where this relationship is not (or cannot be made to be) easily seen (or at least easily enough), and these conflicts that “must” arise.
I don’t see them being many, or that significant.
K. Acting like shooting you in the face isn’t a solution for you looking at me funny is ridiculous.
I mean, it solves the problem, does it not?
I would definitely recomment checking out the relevant links at The Ultimate Beginner meta-thread, in particular,
Courts/Law, Security/Defense (Free Society reading list & threads)
And overall,
Careful. I get the sense the minarchist doesn’t like anyone asking for definitions.
Maybe the Senate Majority Leader can clear things up…
Define aggressive.
A violation of property rights. If you want more information about my views on property rights, see my post at the bottom of the page linked below.
https://forum.freecapitalists.org/t/formulation-of-non-aggression-principle/23875
i think the monopoly comment came from ayn rand’s minarchy where she says a government having a monopoly on the use of force. i’m not sure if she would or would not include the 2nd amendment. perhaps it’s that there would be limits to self defence of self defence and relaliation would come from the state and not individuals with her philosophy/ although she does not seem to write it out well. the most i can find is rand saying ideas, not guns, are required to protect people ultimatly.
http://www.noblesoul.com/orc/essays/guns.html
i think if there is a government, it’s use of force would have to have separate catagories from what is allowed for private force and the government would be able to do things that a citizen could not. people could own the same weapons state or nonstate, but the authorization of use would be different.
right now i would consider government a not-free society, so trying to see if there was a way it could be free market was the challange.