Is Hiring a Hitman a Crime?

Economics Political Theory
41

I understand the extension of you argument and i’m not trying to cop-out or call upon some polylogism when i say that with the chain of government it becomes problematic. Yet, even though I hate the bastards in command I don’t know if saying they are innocent is that far removed from what I believe to be true. It is simply an extension of the incite-argument that Rothbards argues. At the very minimum I would hold the individual who pulls the trigger to a higher degree than the individual who gives the order to shoot.

Again, I don’t mean to break from libertarian ethics about something I know to be wrong, I just haven’t been able to systematically arrange threat and aggression in a way that is consistent throughout applications and I am too skeptical to subscribe to the default position that is exposed in this thread.

42

I would argue that your problem is caused by ignoring the praxeological contribution: actions aren’t mechanistic cause and effect: actions have meanings. People act because they want to achieve ends. If the ends are unjustifiable, i.e. killing someone, then pursuing this plan in a meaningful way is injustice. I’m not talking about standing in a bar and saying ‘I’m gonna kill him!’; I’m talking about meaningful trying to achieve the goal of killing someone, in this case: by using an hitman.

You are correct in saying that determining this could be difficult in certain situations; but that shouldn’t be a rebuttal of the theoretical argument for it.

Justice and injustice isn’t about objective movements; it’s about actions that people perform. Actions have meanings, i.e. we can ‘verstehen’ their meaning. That’s why Obama and Bush are as much criminals as the IRS. That’s why the janitor probably isn’t.

Similarly: when there is an accident, people could be liable when they weren’t careful enough, i.e. they didn’t consider other peoples legitimate claims in their actions.

On the incite-argument: Rothbard is wrong in the way he approaches it: incitement could and should be considered a crime, if there is a causal connection - with reference to the actors and their meaningful actions - between the actions of the inciter and the actions of the crowd, just as their is a meaningful causal connection between the mafiabos and his minions. This doesn’t mean that all inciters should be prosecuted, but it does mean that inciters don’t go off the hook a priori. Rothbard was wrong in thinking that he had to mix a theoretical framework - ‘what judges should use in their guidance of the decisions’ - with practical applications - ‘what judges should decide’. Those are 2 different ball games and Rothbard confused those two.

43

I would also add to anyone who wants to hear it:

If you are engaging into (political) philosophy, you have to understand that Rothbard’s ‘The Ethics of Liberty’ relates to libertarian philosophy as ‘Economics in One Lesson’ (or ‘Economics for Real People’) relate to Philosophy. Rothbard was a brilliant economist (especially and foremost in MES), a sort of mediocre philosopher and a very ideological commited historian. (But that’s just my personal opinion; if you don’t like it, I’m fine with that.)

If you want to seriously engage in economics (and be relevant now a days); you have to get acquainted with everyone from Hulsmann and Garrison to Boettke and Leesson within the Austrian School and outside the Austrian school with people like Coase, Buchanan, Ostrom, Williamson and all the others; depending on the subject you seriously want to engage in. Don’t think that just because you read the daily articles and MES; that you know the Austrian school.

If you want to seriously engage in (political) philosophy; it’s relevant to know what people like Nozick, De Jasay, Hoppe, Narveson, Lomansky, Schmitdz, Otteson, Long, Rasmussen & Den Uyl within the libertarian philosophy and people like Hart, Sen, Rawls and the others wrote outside it. (I would, however, argue that it’s not that important to know ‘the non-libertarians’ if you want to engage in defining your libertarian views in general.)

Rothbard did a lot; but he isn’t the alpha, nor the omega; but sure as hell was his own letter in libertarian history.

44

The inciter is obviously too far removed from the actual crime to be considered guilty of the crime he incited: murder. Yet, I would also assume that the actual desire for murder is far from criminal. By that I mean there is no thought crime involved with such desire. As you have alluded to, the mere mention of such desire (like that of the bar patron) is also removed from such crime. Therefore, it would come into question as to when such inciting does in fact become criminal (obviously such a decision would be outsourced to an arbitrator) but you see how such skepticism could be built.

Such a threat is much more apparent if, for example, you found a bomb on a plane. Here would be an obvious breach or property. Yet, I’m not sure about a scenario where a bomb was found on your plane the same way I’m not sure about a scenario where you incite someone from your property to commit a crime upon someone else’s property.

The point is simply that I’m not sure if a threat is anything but an arbitrary value judgment, it is an action in that it is purposeful behavior but it is not a definitive act.

45

‘Desire’, in the praxeological sense of the word, is irrelevant. What is relevant for praexeology, for economics and philosophy is actions. Actions have meanings - people act because they have ends, employ means and they act because they see a causal connection in the world; one they want to ‘create’ to see the ends they had in mind achieved.

The problem you see - ‘when’ - is, actually, completely irrelevant for the philosopher and the reason is really clear: there are always margins and some people have to decide on the margin. What (political) philosophy does is explaining which principles have to be used to decide on the margin what the right decision is. Disembodying actions and meanings from another - and just look at mechanistic connections cannot be a theory of acting moral/human beings who’s actions have meanings. We don’t blame the bullet, because someone shot the bullet. Similarly: we not only blame the hitman, because someone hired him to do so. There is a definitive causal connection there. Yes, the hitman is responsible for his actions, but so is the person who hired him.

The problem you see with the threat is that uttering the words ‘I’m going to kill you’ could or could not be a joke. This is true. But similarly: shooting someone could or could not be injustice. If he was aiming a gun at you, it was self defense; even if might be proven otherwise that the gun had no bullets and the person who held the gun knew that. The only way to solve this puzzle is to refer to meaning and understanding of actions and reactions based on the knowledge and expectations people had. It’s true that just words aren’t an easy case; but that doesn’t mean that it’s a priori right that you should have the right to utter whatever the hell you want.

46

To continue Jeremiah’s point, try to see it in a perfectly practical matter: what would be the surest way to, say, stop British mercenaries form burning house sin some Ancap region (say, modern )? You could kill the Prime Minister of the , and this would serve nothing at all. Political terrorism has a long, long history of clusterf*ck errors and stupidity, and has single-handedly caused more revolution, genocide and wars than anything else.

Or you could hold the mercenaries themselves personally responsible for their actions and shoot them. The PM could be willing to hire other mercenaries, but who, in his right mind, would come forward knowing that now consequences accrues to him alone, and not to the misty Prime Mister?

So yes, Obama and Bush are totally guilt-free. It is the police and SWAT guy who needs to be shot in the head (not to say that I wouldn’t enjoy seeing Obama starve to death by people refusing to sell him anything). I have no doubt at all that this would come to be standard reasoning in an Ancap society.

47

HAHA. So, if I hire 50 contractors to kill 50 people I am innocent?!

If only I could be a capitalist in your glorious revolution, I am sure there’s a few people on this forum I disagree with…

How is this even being debated?

48

HAHA. So, if I hire 50 contractors to kill 50 people I am innocent?!

If you do so, do come to my insurance company and we’ll arbitrate in your favor. Don’t’ expect a renewal of coverage though.

How is this even being debated?

What about writing a book when you ask for people to kill some other guy? Would that be censored? Is it worth even debating that? What if you held a Nazi speech, would you e thrown in jail? What if you, jokingly, asked me to kill your competitor and I did it, would you be thrown to rot in jail? Is it worth debating? What if I just hung a huge swastika in my front yard? Am I inciting murder?

Where, exactly does one draw the line to stop such an allegedly ‘free society’ form becoming a full-blown dictatorship? How can that lien be anything but arbitrary?

People are not things, they have a will of their own, and act accordingly. Only by assuming that people are objects, you can hold me culpable for what some other guy did (be it on my request), as I would hold you of killing someone ‘though’ you handgun.

49

we’ll arbitrate in your favor

Why would I need your laughable insurance? I have just killed off all my economic rivals. I will insure myself, in cash, tyvm.

You can say all you want, it is when you hand the money over that you have acted a plan to set in motion the death of an innocent person. What if you and I set-up a plan to kill someone, we both shoot, yours hits, mine misses…? There are any number of hypotheticals that could come up and threaten the law. This is heatlhy and good, it speaks to human experience. And it is exactly why we developed court systems as humans.

And how is hate speech, conspiracy to commit murder… there’s another point, you are saying in your hypothetical there is no law for conspiracy? Only the “trigger man” can be punished?

I don’t want this to come out insulting, it may and I apologize, but how does that even make sense in your brain?

50

Why would I need your laughable insurance? I have just killed off all my economic rivals. I will insure myself, in cash, tyvm.

First page, New York times: “ CEO murders 50 people!”

First page, New York Times, a months later: “[insert you company’s name here] Stock prices crash. Workers leave employment!”

Plus, if you have no insurance, I can just bomb your house and no one would say anything at all to me. If you feel like taking the risk, be my guest.

You can say all you want, it is when you hand the money over that you have acted a plan to set in motion the death of an innocent person.

If I just convince you with no payment? Am I liable? What if I blackmail you (kill X, or I’ll tell everyone you did YYYY)? What if I promise to marry tour daughter (which she desperately wants) if you murder X? What if my wife withholds…you got the idea, if I do not kill some guy? Is she liable? I’m genuinely interested in your opinion on such cases.

What if you and I set-up a plan to kill someone, we both shoot, yours hits, mine misses…?

Let each guy assume his own responsibility. X shot me, so he is liable (how is an other issue). Y shot but missed so I would have been right in killing him right there in self-defense. Now I can no longer kill him. He had his chance, I had mine, we both missed, we’re square.

Of course there will be cases in which you just will not be able to tell who among your 5 attackers shot you and who didn’t. In such cases I myself would assume all of them to be liable. So, if you partake in a group of attackers, you are not a priori liable (though you can be killed on the spot and you daddy is just going to have to swallow that), but the burden of proof fall on you to prove otherwise.

And how is hate speech, conspiracy to commit murder

I write a book convincing dummies that docilocephalic guys are inferior and pollute us brachicephalic superior races. I write detailed chapters on how to purchase guns, how to make a homemade silencer, and how to hide your traces in a perfect manner. Murders of docilocephalic people jump and murder are indeed untracable. Am I liable?

you are saying in your hypothetical there is no law for conspiracy?

Bingo!

Only the “trigger man” can be punished?

Only he violates the NAP. I care not a bit why he didi it, just that he did it.

I don’t want this to come out insulting, it may and I apologize, but how does that even make sense in your brain?

Indeed it does sound insulting, but I’ll pass.

Well, I see how a statsist used to letting criminals off the hook because they ‘stole out of need’, or ‘are mentally unstable’ can put other considerations before the mere action. But I myself see only that, the fact, and the human action behind it. I refrain from judging personal value scales, such as the ones that led the criminal to commit a crime. I care not about them, nor could I measure or otherwise take them into account if I wanted to. Praxeological insights let one loose such bad vices as judging.

So, as long as you did it, I care not why. Perhaps you where paid, perhaps you felt like it, perhaps you where drunk. Punishing some other guy would just treat humans as objects, incapable of saying ‘no’. And it sound a lot like collectivism to me.

51

Maybe we can try a different angle, let’s see if this simplifies something:

Hiring a hitman constitutes a contract (and we can argue whether it is legitimate or not, but there it is). Doesn’t this act also mean the hitman and the employer share the responsibility for the deed? Sort of “share the fame, share the blame”?

Yes, contracts can also include clauses that absolve one side of the blame for what the other side does (say, shareholders vs. the executive board), but would such a clause be valid if both sides explicitly agree on commiting a crime?

(This is independent from the definition of a crime; showing whether there is a contract is also another problem.)

52

Maybe we can try a different angle, let’s see if this simplifies something:

Hiring a hitman constitutes a contract (and we can argue whether it is legitimate or not, but there it is). Doesn’t this act also mean the hitman and the employer share the responsibility for the deed? Sort of “share the fame, share the blame”?

Yes, contracts can also include clauses that absolve one side of the blame for what the other side does (say, shareholders vs. the executive board), but would such a clause be valid if both sides explicitly agree on commiting a crime?

(This is independent from the definition of a crime; showing whether there is a contract is also another problem.)

That is indeed a question o vicarious liability. I’m afraid this will open an other side-thread, but I myself go with Rothbard in seeing vicarious liability as unjust and stupid. Its just designed to get to the deeper pockets around. Thus, I cannot follow this route.

53

I admit to not knowing a bit about vicarious liability, but the definitions I came across speak about negligence (1)(2) and at least hint(3)(4) the employer/supervisor did not know about the actions of his employee or made some steps to prevent them - one really distinguishes direct responsibility (“Parents, for example, sometimes face criminal liability for allowing their minor children to use guns or automobiles…” 5). Does this concept apply even if the employee was specifically ordered/hired to do the deed?

(If this goes too far outside of the topic, let’s make another thread.)

54

A lot of people need to read Kinsellas;

Causation and Aggression

55

As far as I know, Common Law countries hold the employer liable if the employee did some damage as a result of duties he was ordered or expected to carry out as normal in his employment. So, vicariously hiring a hitman would certainly be a crime.

Now that I think of it, not only is this not off-topic but is a wellcome generalization: what we’re discussing here indeed is vicariously liability itself, and hiring a himten is just a subset of that. Well thought!

56

I get ‘address not valid’. Under which’s title can I find this in ‘literature’?

57

Search and you shall receive: Causation and Aggression

58

What about writing a book when you ask for people to kill some other guy? Would that be censored? Is it worth even debating that? What if you held a Nazi speech, would you e thrown in jail? What if you, jokingly, asked me to kill your competitor and I did it, would you be thrown to rot in jail? Is it worth debating? What if I just hung a huge swastika in my front yard? Am I inciting murder?

Where, exactly does one draw the line to stop such an allegedly ‘free society’ form becoming a full-blown dictatorship? How can that lien be anything but arbitrary?

What I don’t get is the fact that just because you call ‘there will be an arbitrary line’, you think you have made a valid argument against the concept itself. Libertarian philosophy is full of concepts that are just principles that have to be applied in real life to arbitrary lines; the concept of childeren and responsibility being one of them. The concept of legal responsibility in accidents being another. The concept of the proportinal punishment for a crime is a third. These aren’t minor issues; it means that we argue for a certain principle that has to be applied in a certain context. The reason why this wouldn’t turn into a full blown dictatorship is that given the interpretation to it; anarchy outperforms statism, i.e. decentralized non-monopolistic organizations who make decisions on justice out perform monopolistic agencies. Sure: if everyone thinks that writing in a book somewhere is ‘exciting’ murder; that would cause many more convictions of participating in murder then in a case where there is not such a general feeling. But that’s hardly an argument: libertarian society can turn into a ‘full blown dictatorship’ for a lot of reasons because of these issues on the margin; any one of the 3 I mentioned above could turn out to be one. What if nearly everyone thinks one should be shot if one just bums into some one else? This obviously is a physical invasion of someone else, and the proportional punishment is obviously death!

Given examples on the margin - ‘what if x, what if y, what if z’! - is pretty much irrelevant for the concept itself. You’re proving that decisions will have to be made on the margin in a certain context. But that’s really not all that big of a discovery.

Again: what this line of reasoning amounts to, is that you have no basis for criticizing taxes: most taxes are paid without using violence; just the threat thereof. And it isn’t really the same people; so we can’t even hold the people accountable who make the threat. I can just walk up to you and say ‘if you don’t pay, you will be shot’ and be oke with it - even if I mean it. A generalized practice like that is imaginable in a mafiatown; where everybody pays, but nobody ever undergoes violence.

What Merlin is confusing is praxeology with history: yes, we can’t say something when we practice praxeology about someone else value judgment. That is why we have economic history; but that is also why legal matters are subject to the concept of understanding actions as meaninfull behavior. Stephan Kinsella’s paper is totally right in this regard.

59

What I don’t get is the fact that just because you call ‘there will be an arbitrary line’, you think you have made a valid argument against the concept itself. Libertarian philosophy is full of concepts that are just principles that have to be applied in real life to arbitrary lines; the concept of childeren and responsibility being one of them. The concept of legal responsibility in accidents being another. The concept of the proportinal punishment for a crime is a third. These aren’t minor issues; it means that we argue for a certain principle that has to be applied in a certain context. The reason why this wouldn’t turn into a full blown dictatorship is that given the interpretation to it; anarchy outperforms statism, i.e. decentralized non-monopolistic organizations who make decisions on justice out perform monopolistic agencies. Sure: if everyone thinks that writing in a book somewhere is ‘exciting’ murder; that would cause many more convictions of participating in murder then in a case where there is not such a general feeling. But that’s hardly an argument: libertarian society can turn into a ‘full blown dictatorship’ for a lot of reasons because of these issues on the margin; any one of the 3 I mentioned above could turn out to be one. What if nearly everyone thinks one should be shot if one just bums into some one else? This obviously is a physical invasion of someone else, and the proportional punishment is obviously death!

Given examples on the margin - ‘what if x, what if y, what if z’! - is pretty much irrelevant for the concept itself. You’re proving that decisions will have to be made on the margin in a certain context. But that’s really not all that big of a discovery.

Again: what this line of reasoning amounts to, is that you have no basis for criticizing taxes: most taxes are paid without using violence; just the threat thereof. And it isn’t really the same people; so we can’t even hold the people accountable who make the threat. I can just walk up to you and say ‘if you don’t pay, you will be shot’ and be oke with it - even if I mean it. A generalized practice like that is imaginable in a mafiatown; where everybody pays, but nobody ever undergoes violence.

What Merlin is confusing is praxeology with history: yes, we can’t say something when we practice praxeology about someone else value judgment. That is why we have economic history; but that is also why legal matters are subject to the concept of understanding actions as meaninfull behavior. Stephan Kinsella’s paper is totally right in this regard.

You do indeed make valid points. Just saying that the application of some concept will be arbitrary, be it partially so, is indeed a poor argument in itself. But what I wanted to show is not that we should reject this idea, since its arbitrary, but simply that it is. That it will get murky and complicated, while just punishing whoever pulls trigger will not (or less so).

Thus, between two rules, one of which leaves much more leeway to the arbiter while the other doesn’t, I thing the latter will be advantaged in a free market. There will certainly be other considerations.

Again, I’m not trying to ‘prove’ that the hitman should be solely responsible, that is for the free market in legal arbitration to decide. I’m simply disusing the demerits of the opposite rule (ex. convince you as investors to invest in my company, which follows this rule).

And, speaking of the Kinsella piece…

60

I got to half of it before remembering that I had actually read it a year ago (some time ago there was a thread based on the hilarious midget-in-the-tank scenario). Still it was refreshing to revisit (though it didn’t change my mind a bit)

Now, something in particular stroke me in Kinsela’s argument.

Let’s cite two of his examples: the terrorist sending bombs through mail and a guy bribing an other to kill someone.

Now, Kinsella holds that in both cases the ‘middleman’ was used as a mean, and disregards the importance of the fact that this ‘mean’ had free will, and was not bound by causality as a handgun is.

So, he says that as long as the instigator in both cases had intent to harm and used means to successfully reach his intent, he should be punished.

What I find interesting is his (missing) discussion of the middleman’s fault. I’m sure that in the postman’s case, Kinsella would find him innocent, while in the hitman’s case, he would find him guilty.

But why so? Aren’t both of them just means? Didn’t he just disregard the fact that both of them are humans with wills of their own? On what basis, than, does he discriminate between the two? More importability: how can Kinsella discriminate between the middleman, while still finding both instigators at fault?

Either the middleman is to be seen as a mean devoid (for our purposes) of will, and thus ‘retreocesing’ the fault back to the instigator, or else the middleman is a human being with full will, and will be held at fault when willingly and knowingly harming an other (which absolves the postman). But why assume away such things as ’will’ and ‘knowledge’ of a free human mind in one instance, while holding these as proofs that decides guilt or innocence in the every same case?!

I’m at a loss.