I’ll take a stab at this and I think that a libertarian expansion would be justifiable but practically difficult. I say that it is justifiable because the whole world would be dominated by socialism or the pillaging of one man by another. But if libertarians kill off paul who is robbing peter, then the worst we can be accused of is vigilantism. Yet a libertarian state cannot be established and it is positively necessary that anarchy be the mode of social organization prevailing in the conquered territory. Indeed if libertarians created a libertarian state it under even these conditions it would negate the NAP. For instance if a steals from b it is alright to kill a assuming a was stealing at gun point. But if c steals from a to aggrandize himself, then this would be unjust and would really be a double theft away from b who should properly have his property restored to him. So if a robs from b then clearly c can justly force a to return property to b. But what if b had in some past time robbed from a? Given our socialist world this is a likely scenario. How would a libertarian state solve this problem? Would the libertarian state then take it upon itself to kill upwards of 90% of the population for supporting statism? At first the answer seems to be yes but when we consider that in a true libertarian society, both the defense of man and the proscription of law, is left in private hands and in the victim’s disposal one gets a different answer. The answer is that the victim may, if he chooses, impose the death penalty on the aggressor but this outcome is by no means necessary. So it is quite likely that the libertarian society, absent the libertarian state, will be less than a total blood-bath. Also one must remember that a libertarian state must needs have some tax system which is self-evidently wrong.
To comment on the spanish -clearly even if a forces b to give him funds to fight c who is stealing from d a is in the wrong. No matter what level of tyranny the aztecs lived under it still doesn’t justify the pillaging of spaniards to defeat aztecs.
I’m seeing a lot of misconceptions in this thread.
First of all, you don’t have to go “conquer a country” in order to establish your libertarian paradise. Just go find a place where the state is weak, buy property, and be productive! This is the moral and ethical way to establish what you are wanting to establish. Now, if anyone aggresses against you in doing that, you would be justified in using force to repel them. Only in proportion to the aggression against you.
Don’t go conquering people. Don’t go liberating people. If you are their neighbor and you are moral and ethical and productive, you will be able to do more toward liberating them than you ever could with force.
To the person who said initiation of force is permissible against people who have no law: you are dead wrong. Force is only permissible against people who have initiated force against you. Initiation of force is never permissible.
To the person who said initiation of force is permissible in self-defense: you are misunderstanding the terms. Self-defense is not initiation of force. In self-defense, the victim is not initiating force; he is using force against the initiator. Initiating force means you are the guy who started it! If it’s self-defense, you didn’t start it, by definition.
To the person who said “Didn’t Mises always say that it ought to be the ends, not the means, that are examined?” I have no idea if Mises ever said that or not, but the very idea is morally repugnant. The ends justifying the means is nothing more than the very definition of fascism!!
Do not assume that just anybody can acquire the level of mentation and the ethical sensibilities of a middle class American college student who studies Austrian economics. There are many people out there who are incapable of self-rule.
I’m pretty sure I said “go find a place where the state is weak.” If the state is strong enough to successfully communally own all the land, then that’s not the kind of place I was talking about.
The answer to that question is self-evident to any libertarian - but you reject libertarianism as based on fairy tale morals no ?
The Spanish were a bunch of ignorant barbarians hardly better than the Aztecs. The Spanish should have tried to educate themselves before playing the empire game. Oh wait, the Spanish state was definitely not a bunch of superstitious criminals since they had orders from the true catholic god…and the inquisition. The golden rule : either convert the heathens or else kill them.
Yes, that’s precisely what he’s defending, and it’s irreconcilable with libertarianism. He’s essentially using cultural norms as a requirement for the non-aggresion principle to apply to you. “Heathens” who don’t have the right philosophy or culture are fair game to have force initiated against them. Nevermind that this is a blatant inconsistancy in the application of rights.
There isn’t an only way to defeat socialism, there are multiple hundreds of ways to defeat socialism. Any activity that acts in accordance to the non-aggression axiom, especially those activities that are resistant to violent acts of government, can and will aid in the absolute defeat of socialism or any form of tyranny against the individual and lead ultimately to the victory of Libertarianism.
See, you are not understanding the situation of primitive lands. There doesn’t need to be a state for land to be communally owned. Communal ownership came before states.
Yes, keep believing that. We’ll have people off sign waving like Ron Paulers, yet those same people won’t have registered (R) to vote for Paul in a primary.
Look, is there more than one way? Sure. But we’re less than 1% of the world’s population, and a good many of us just want drug legalization and the state to stay out of our bedrooms. Not exactly pitchfork and torch, storm the town type folks.
We’re going to need to recruit, and to make the case against the state, over and over, individual by individual. When we’re 5%or 10%, then we will be able to begin to push back against the state. Right now, we could all be rounded up, dumped in a gulag, and the world would keep on turning. I’m hoping one day, the entrepreneurial class will lead the revolution. But they will need their suppliers, customers and employees/shareholders to be on board.
Now if you know another method, or have another idea, please share. But just saying there are a lot of ways, indicates to me that you (like the many who will read your post) are unsure which is the best one to work on. And time costs liberty, we don’t have infinite time to burn.
You seem to be worth nothing more than expressing your paranoid delusions about other people’s intents by wildly misrepresenting their claims, towards no productive end that I can imagine.
Let me remind you that if the Founding Fathers abhorred violence we’d still be under British rule (not that it would matter much in the 21st century, but you know what I mean).
There is a thing called government by consent. Now Sultan may have been a tyrant and therefore his rule was illegitimate, but two wrongs do not make a right. It is entirely irrelevant how good or benevolent you perceive that government as an outsider. As long as the ruled themselves never consented to being ruled by it, it is immoral.
And I`m sure the people of North Borneo were never too crazy about the British.
Some were and some weren’t. You can’t generalize about it.
There would be nothing wrong with a group of Austrians muscling out a weak state and providing security in exchange for money, so long as it didn’t try to wipe out potential competitors. That is the difference between colonialism and imperialism.
They were crazy enough to fly a Union Jack (and a Star Spangled Banner) during their revolt against the Japanese. I have never met somebody there who was critical of the British regime, yet everywhere you go you see opposition party flags against the Government. There was never any talk of independence during the British era. Now there is significant talk of secession. There is even evidence to show that polls that showed the majority of people wanted independence were rigged.
Incidentally North Borneo was run as a corporation until 1945 by the North Borneo Chartered Company. It did not receive an official colonial Government until 1945-1963.
Is it so impossible for Austrians to believe that colonialism was actually favoured by the people who lived under it in some areas of the world? The Government that tolerates the most liberty to the people is going to be the most favoured Government, regardless of the colour of the skin of its leaders. A Government that tolerates more liberty is more moral than the Government that doesn’t; this is not a black and white issue, there are shades involved. No Government can ever truly be moral - but really, how many of Austrian School’s key writers promoted Anarcho Capitalism and how many promoted Classical Liberalism? I think there is a healthy balance.
Asian Austrian, you need to understand there are natural rights. But the rights are arranged in hierarcy. Some are more basic, more fundamental than others.
Conquering a people in order to impose a more perfect application of property rights, or free speech rights, or freedom of assembly rights on them is immoral. It is immoral because it is a violation of the rights of the conquered that are even more basic that the rights of free speech, assembly and property. The right of self-determination and self-ownership.
Actually there’s nothing wrong with anyone overthrowing any government because there’s no such thing as rule by consent. The idea that the government of, say, a banana republic shouldn’t be overthrown by a group of libertarians because doing so would be morally wrong is a false idea.
I’m not sure what you mean by ‘self-determination’ ? If you’re referring to individual self-determination then it’s certainly true that conquering people is not libertarian. But if by self-determination you mean for instance that only the chinese(…or american…or) oligarchy has the ‘right’ to rule the chinese(…or american…or) ‘people’, then you’re wrong.