That some people wish to initiate force means we need an institition which initiates force? Sorry, but that’s a non sequitur. And again: a government which does not intitiate force ceases to be a government.
“But you’re saying that consent is not necessary. This implies that people who do not consent to your model, then they will be coerced. You dodged answering what I wrote. It seems to me, you are saying that coercive monopoly government is a suitable replacement for coercive monopoly government. In other words, you want to change the focus of government, but not the fact it is a monopoly, and can only be a monopoly through force.”
Consent in what form, tho?
People who consent will refrain from using coercion (initiating force) to get what they want. They find people to work with and be with whom they have convinced with reason, not with force.
People who do not consent would have to initiate force against someone to be charged with a crime. There is no way to know that someone doesn’t consent until and unless they actually commit a rationally defined crime (i.e., do something that qualifies as an initiation of force.) How else do you imagine the issue of consent would be addressed?
Having a Law of the Land does not preclude having private organizations with one’s own rules & regulations. If people don’t like your rules, they are free to avoid dealing with you. In that sense, we would all be free to govern ourselves.
The only Law that would apply to everyone in a given geographical area would be that no-one has the right to initiate the use of force. The only thing such a law asks of you is to refrain from initiating force.
Do you wish to be able to initiate the use of force?
We have for too many centuries put up with coercive government. Why this is so I’m not 100% sure but I have some theories. However, it’s no surprise that few people can conceive of a voluntarily funded government. While voluntary tax is a contradiction in terms, voluntary government is not, in my view.
“That some people wish to initiate force means we need an institition which initiates force? Sorry, but that’s a non sequitur.”
And that is not what I said. I said we need an institution that has the legal right to use force in retaliation against those who initiate the use of force.
“And again: a government which does not intitiate force ceases to be a government.”
I disagree. I do not accept that government must have the right to initiate the use of force in order to qualify as a government.
A voluntarily funded government would be the first of its kind, heralding a new Age, it’s true, but a proper government is simply something we’ve never had yet on Earth. It’s something that can happen and ought to happen if Individuals are to finally and fully secure their rights and their freedom.
Maybe they don’t like the cost of the government service. Maybe they don’t agree with the enforcement tactics.
Maybe they want to defend their own rights instead of paying for and/or relying on a central state.
They are not required to justify their free choices to you.
You are comparing your sense of law to a physical absolute?
Then why consent to a government? They already agree to co-exist without a need for an enforcement agency.
So they would be subject to the jurisdiction of a governing force they do not recognize? You’re skipping an entire step here. And the free market.
No. But I do not wish to rely on you or others to define force, or to protect me from it.
Voluntary government cannot operate on a Law of the Land. You already admit that your model is not based on consent and those who do not consent will still be subject to the law of this government regardless.
Yes, it is. That’s what governments ARE!
We all have that right. What you want is one with a monopoly and that initiates force against others in order to obtain payment for its services. A “voluntarily paid for” government is, as Roy Childs explained in his letter to Rand, a floating abstraction and contradiction in terms.
That’s what they are: coercive expropriating territorial monopolies (as what you’re talking about is a state).
Entirely non-analogous;
You can only work out a “law” of gravity, from using observation and the ises of the world.
You can not work out ethical law and oughts from the ises in the world as this would break the is/ought [fact/value] dichotomy.
The initiation of coercion and force is immoral since it violates man’s rights and render man’s mind useless. A government is an institution which maintains a monopoly on the use of force in a geographical area.
And to maintain a monopoly on the use of force a government must initiate coercive force to exclude competitors. Hence, to exist as a monopoly on the use of force, a government must employ immoral means (if it didn’t it would cease to be a government since it would no longer be a monopoly). Government is thus immoral and cannot be supported by advocates of individual rights (and reason). To do otherwise would be to contradict one’s own view on ethics and rights.
following this thread i see a confusion in terminology.
state governments are evil for all the obvious stated reasons.
most of the time when we say the word government, this is what we mean.
voluntary government is still government, even though it stands in stark contrast to involuntary government( a monopoly on legitimate use of force)
hence government may be moral or immoral, this is determined by other facts than that some people are ‘governing’. if they dont breach any rights then the government arent rights violators.
so perhaps ‘state’ is a good word to swap in for ‘government’ when the involuntary kind is meant.
and ‘anarchy’ might be a choice for ‘voluntary government’
of course, it wouldnt hurt to consistently prefix government with vol or invol to remove amibigouty, particular in threads like this where the context does not make it trivially clear what kind of government the poster is referring to
And maybe you are putting the cart before the horse. “Government” that exists divorced from underlying principles of law is disastrous. Witness the history of govenrment for the past few thousand years.
Just because it’s been done wrong doesn’t mean there isn’t a right way to do it.
The point is that in order to govern, we need laws. Or rather, to be specific, a law. And yes - I do mean to compare my sense of law to a physical absolute. I submit that it be considered an absolute that peace will tend to result when the law is that no-one has the right to initiate the use of force. I call it the Law of Human Interaction.
In order to be able to trade with each other, people need to be able to approach each other with their products & services. People also need to be able to say “No thanks” and to have their decision respected. What we have right now is people being forced BY law to participate in all kinds of things with which they disagree or for some reason they would not support or participate in given the choice.
Paying for government services = paying for protection, paying for dispute resolution, paying for defense of the nation. Individual choices on these matters must be left in the hands of the individuals. It is not for government to tell people how much they have to pay or whom they have to employ. The market will prevail.
What all the participants in the market need, however, is a law by which to judge right and wrong. At its core, “wrong” boils down to “who initiated force?” THAT is the standard by which to judge all disputes and allegations of wrongdoing.
so your an anarchist after all. great.
The reason why government has been disasterous, as stated by myself and others upthread, is that government is inherently disasterous.
I agree. However a monopoly government with an implicit social contract is anti-liberty, so the notion of a government with real or strict rules as you envision it, is an oxymoron.
I don’t think anyone needs to govern.
Or peace can just exist when people choose not to initiate force because it is unprofitable.
Right, all coercive payments to a monopoly provider who in your circumstance is the one with the biggest gun. Also, the notion of a nation state is an anachronism. Nations are unnecessary for peace or justice.
How do you determine need for everyone? That’s up to each individual. Which law, how they enforce it, etc. That’s what a free market requires. True laissez-faire is laissez-faire. LET IT BE. You can’t establish a massive pre-condition, and attendant bureaucracy, and then claim to be for laissez-faire.
The minarchist state is inherently irrational. Liberty is an absolute. It pre-exists any law you think should be an absolute. Rationally, no law can precede free will, and free will, rationally eliminates coercion as a consequence of free will. An irrational consequence, yes. A rational consequence, no.
So the entire notion of creating a law to reinforce A = A ,seems redundant and circular to me.
We’re just talking past each other, so unless you have something new to introduce, or you care to reply to the many thoughful responses (and sources) I think we’ve hit the end of the discussion.
Wow. A female. Us libertarians might actually have a chance of reproducing now.
Why do you think this is? I am willing to bet human nature, inability to allocate economic wealth, and the problems of corruption/being incorruptable is a contributor.
However, keep in mind that its establishment may or may not be anti-liberty, depending on the past government.
I don’t think anyone needs to do stupid cosmetics. But what if people want that? Keep in mind the difference between voluntary governence and coercive, former is ok, the latter is a crime.
But don’t people in governments profit from initiating force?
Government is by definition coercive, and coercion is irrational.
I judge action, not intent.
You missed the gist. She was speaking of the need for government as an absolute. I was challenging her position that government is a need, or that anyone “needs” government. Sure some people want government. I have no problem with free choice to make lousy choices. But monopoly government is not a need.
Do you consider it a profit when you steal? Does that conform to a praxeological view of trade?
“Or peace can just exist when people choose not to initiate force because it is unprofitable.”
Yes. There’s a lovely idea. How do we get from here to there?
The recognition that some people will view the initiation of force as being “profitable” is what prompts rational people to want a means of self-defense against such people. Even if there were no crime as we now know & define it, it is still possible for two people to have a misunderstanding or a failure to live up to their voluntarily assumed obligations, and a mechanism is needed to settle these kinds of disputes.
How do you propose to resolve such disputes?
Right, all coercive payments to a monopoly provider who in your circumstance is the one with the biggest gun.
Oh really? How are there coercive payments involved here? There is no coercion to enter into a contract. You do so of your own free will, or elect not to do so again of your own free will. However, once you do enter into a contractual relationship with someone, you now have to follow through. Where is coercion involved here? Let’s say you wish to have a bodyguard service to patrol the grounds of your factory. You and a service provider agree to terms and sign a contract, all the terms of which you have both agreed to. Now, both of you have to hold up your respective ends of the bargain. If one party reneges, that is an example of an initiation of force. You were not coerced to enter the contract. The obligation to fulfil the bargain cannot be characterized as coercion - it is fulfilment of a chosen contractual arrangement. It is one you have voluntarily accepted but you can’t behave as if no action were required on your part. If you are the buyer, you have to pay for the service. If you are the seller, you have to provide the service as agreed in the contract.
And so I ask you - if one of you reneges, how do you imagine the issues can be resolved?
How do you determine need for everyone? That’s up to each individual. Which law, how they enforce it, etc. That’s what a free market requires. True laissez-faire is laissez-faire. LET IT BE. You can’t establish a massive pre-condition, and attendant bureaucracy, and then claim to be for laissez-faire.
The basic need of ALL human beings is freedom from coercion. What other laws are you talking abot here? Using the word “which” to qualify the word “law” indicates you think there need to be all kinds of laws, when in fact there only needs to be one basic law - a law that prohibits coercion.
The prohibition of coercion in human interaction is ALL that is needed to secure an environment in which laissez-faire capitalism can thrive. It is not about laying down rules for everyone, or trying to address everyone’s individualized choices needs desires and wants. I see no contradiction between requiring that everyone refrain from using coercion and the free market. You seem to me to want to have the right to initiate force, hence your refusal to accept that you cannot have that right. And all this hoo-haa about total freedom is how you are trying to fool either yourself or other people.
The law operates by being understood and abided by. A negative right - i.e., a right you don’t have - doesn’t need a giant bureaucracy to enforce it. It doesn’t work that way. The enforcement of the law prohibiting coercion can only be enforced when someone complains about being coerced or about someone reneging on a contract (which is a kind of initiation of force.) If you take someone’s money and don’t provide the good or service they contracted for, you have taken their money by force.
The contracts you enter are up to you. You choose the trading partner, you both choose the terms of your agreement. If one of your reneges, you can still try to come to an agreement on how to repair the default (such terms may even form part of your contract.)
How do you leap to the conclusion that I advocate bureaucracy as we presently have it? Unless people come to the courts and file a lawsuit, there is nobody in government who is going to come and knock on anyone’s door inquiring if all is well.
The minarchist state is inherently irrational. Liberty is an absolute. It pre-exists any law you think should be an absolute. Rationally, no law can precede free will, and free will, rationally eliminates coercion as a consequence of free will. An irrational consequence, yes. A rational consequence, no.
This isn’t a fairytale. Given free will, people can and as we know, do choose to initiate force. They have done for centuries. How are you going to deal with that? Simply declaring that everyone is free and declaring coercion to be eliminated, without codifying that notion, will result in chaos, and the biggest gun wins over the best logic. Hello? System already in place? A billion coercive laws have the same result as no laws whatsoever. Chaos.
To achieve a situation in which everyone voluntarily refrains from initiating force, there has to be a consequence for the initiation of force. My position is that this is the purpose of government - to stand ready to provide that consequence. The problem today is that government is legally permitted to initiate force. Hence, its value as the defense against the initiation of force is compromised. Complete corruption of the system is the logical result, and that is where we are today.
No one is promoting a fairytale, except the position that government is necessary or can be reformed.
Coercion is not a consequence of free will. Check your premises.
This is a strawman. I have proposed nothing like what you have stated.
Sure. The market. It is unprofitable to initiate force.
I can do it on my own. Don’t need government. You haven’t shown why government is absolutely required, you have just stated and re-stated it.
No. The government is not legally permitted to do what it does. But it does it anyway. Which is why there must be a free market in law and justice, so that no monopoly government can become corrupt, when it is the only agency which can interpret it’s own limits.
Complete corruption is the result of any monopoly free from competition.
stephanie has done remarkably well to remain ambigious about what kind of government she advocates, i.e voluntary/involuntary, anarchy/minarchy.
And how are you going to deal with that ? The possible options are rather limited. Either monopolistic government (which doesn’t work) or free competition in the production of security…which implies that people will naturally respect individual rights because if they (we) don’t then we’re back to monopolistic governments.
Interesting. Unless people fear the official police, or some other ‘private’ version of the police, people will not refrain from initiating force ? Is that you’re saying ?
And you couldn’t be more wrong. I cannot have a right to initiate force, because I believe my free will is self-evident, and the right to free will contradicts any right to coerce. I am the one who is rational because I do not believe initiating force is a right at all. You seem to believe it is, and we need a law against such a non-existent right.
Interesting how you twisted this.
So we’re back to the beginning again.
Please answer the 3 following questions.
- Do you believe that government should have a monopoly on the definition of law (interpretation) and justice (enforcement) or not?
- If so, are all citizens required to pay for it?
- Are all citizens subject to that government, whether they recognize it or not?