Minarchists accept that education, health care, money, roads, etc. are too important to leave to government, given its inefficiency, perverse incentives, and coercive nature.
Minarchists also accept that justice and security are more important than education or health care.
So it boggles the mind to conclude that government should resolve our disputes and protect our lives. Justice and security are just too important to risk having them provided by a tax-funded monopoly.
OK, I’ll bite: Can’t we just define government as the “binding arbitration” imposed on all people at birth? All but the most chaos-loving of anarchists must agree that just as individuals are endowed with a natural right to liberty, they are endowed with a natural obligation not to infringe the liberty of others. This natural order needs real human institutions to enforce it – i.e., institutions of justice and authority that represent both the individual and collective interest of all men to respect their natural rights. When individuals attain to the age of consent they can agree to other contracts, but they are born into this contract.
So I believe that these natural institutions are both proper, legitimate, and universal.
As to whether they need to be monopolistic: Naturally they would be, since any two properly functioning institutions of human justice would perform identical actions. If an institution becomes corrupt then of course there is room for a more righteous one to destroy and replace it.
As to whether they need to be tax-funded: They have to be funded somehow. Ideally I suppose they would be volunteer, but as a practical matter if there are not enough volunteers then presumably they could impose some sort of fee or tax on the things they safeguard: property and liberty.
Like being born into slavery?
How can one be endowed with a positive obligation?
Sure, this sounds ok so far…
Why would you need to protect collective interest, when you are protecting everyone’s individual interests? By definition, taking care of all individual interests, there can be no collective interest unaccounted for.
The problem with so-called “collective interest” is who determines is? Who is bound to it? Who proposes it? Can it be changed? Reformed?
I asked another poster this. Who is in this collective? If it is less than 100% consent, how can you protect individual rights then?
Like being born into slavery. Who determines the specific nature of this contract people are born into? Other people?
So a monopoly with competition, that can be replaced by competition. Have you thought this through?
How can you impose anything, if you are protecting individual rights?
Let’s just be honest and call a spade a spade. You believe in collective rights, not individual rights, because you are willing to compromise individual rights at any time to fulfill a collective agenda, but not the other way around.
Again, maybe libertarianism just ain’t for you right now. You don’t seem to be interested in it but rather justifying how and why liberty should be compromised.
Rights and obligations go hand in hand. It is logically impossible for all Individuals to be free if all individuals do not respect the right of all individuals to be free.
Libertarians surely understand this. However, from what I’ve seen of this forum it seems that you have spent so much time throwing platitudes at the very un-free real world that you haven’t had to flesh out a practical vision for a free world. And I think the libertarian movement suffers as a result of this.
So if men are born free, and if freedom is to be preserved, then men must also be born with a respect for the freedom of other men. And if an individual lacks that respect then it must be imposed on him – by the collective body of men who believe that freedom is a right worthy of protection in principle. Surely you would rather have a collective conception of natural rights than to have each individual creating his own theories on natural rights. After all, we have seen plenty of individuals and subgroups develop theories of natural rights that are at odds with our own – e.g., ones in which women do not have rights, or ones in which beasts enjoy equal rights with humans, or ones in which only subgroups of humans have natural rights.
Who decides? That’s up to history. Fortunately it appears that the winners of history tend to be those who would grant human rights more broadly than more narrowly. This struggle is done in the collective, however.
No they do not. If one is obligated, they are not free. The two are incompatible, unless the obligation is made 100% voluntarily, in which case, it was free choice, and not external obligation.
It is not logically impossible. Freedom is not a guarantee of justice or safety.
This is a baseless and incorrect assertion. Since most of your positions seem to be built on contradictions, wouldn’t it be logical to conclude that your conclusions are incorrect for having false premises?
Libertarianism existed pre-state. I don’t have to flesh out a practical vision, because what happens in the world from our observation and knowledge of history, should be sufficient to deal with your hypothetical assertions. We, not you, have a practical vision. Your vision has failed, and is irrational.
Again, a non-sequitur. Repeating it doesn’t make it true.
Amazing doublespeak. But you’re trapped in a loop of illogic. One is free, unless he does something other people don’t like, in which case he is not free. It’s totally irrational. Maybe you should work on being able to reconcile this issue. First, figure out if people are free or not. Then figure out, who determines who gets to be free.
If it is as basic as democracy, or right makes might etc. then you are a statist, not someone who supports freedom.
I think you are criticizing libertarianism without knowing what you are criticizing. That’s probably why you’re making irrational arguments. First, understand libertarianism, then criticize it. There are only so many hours in the day to argue against made up scenarios and strawman assertions.
More problems. You didn’t answer the question yet again. Surely you are tired of evasion?
Who is the collective? By what right do they grant or decide anything? Based on your idea, the group can always confiscate rights and property from an individual, based on collective need. Is that correct? Do you believe that 4 poor people have the right to take (rob) from someone with food and money?
“liberty student,” I guess we need to take a step back. Could explain to me:
What does it mean to be free?
How do you justify your answer to #1? What do you say to people who give a different answer?
Why do you say that men are “born free?”
I don’t understand the question. I assume you are asking, “what are the limits of freedom”, but in a collective sense. I can’t answer that. I don’t subscribe to collectivist ideology. If you want to know what it means to be free for me, I could attempt to answer that.
People can do whatever they want (I’m consistent) as long as they do not infringe on my freedom. They can give any answer they want. It’s not relevant to me.
If a single man, is born alone (mother dies in birth), with no other people around, how can one say he is not free? Who has a higher claim on his property or behaviour than he does?
Your position is based on the idea that people are not free if they are born amongst other people, but otherwise free?
The question you need to be asking, is “Why do you believe that men are born unfree?” and “If they are not free, who has a higher claim on their life than they do?”
You’re taking the selfish way out of this debate: “People can do whatever they want as long as they don’t bother me.” Great, but a lot of us social folks are concerned with:
A. What are my legitimate rights? At what point do I infringe other people’s rights? If we can’t agree on an answer then we have a guaranteed conflict: One of us thinks what he is doing is OK and the other person thinks it’s not and that he is therefore justified in taking action against the first for transgressing the second’s rights. It is not helpful to say, “Everyone can go work it out on their own. Here’s my answer and I’m going to enforce it myself whether you consent or are even aware.” These are precisely the questions that must be worked out collectively to avoid or minimize violence. (You might also want to note that the collective answers reached through force typically stray from answers that might be reached through principled persuasion – hence the historical lack of libertarian locales.)
B. If a group of us reaches common ground on legitimate rights, what do we do about new humans who weren’t party to the original debate? Do we renegotiate the social contract with them, or do we impose it on them? Yes, I’ve read Lysander Spooner, but he wasn’t addressing the fundamental question of natural rights, but rather an explicitly oppressive social contract that presumed consent where none was given.
It’s an honest answer. And it is consistent with libertarianism. I am interested in acting in my own self interest. I am only responsible for and to myself. To claim otherwise, would be (1) dishonest and (2) contradict what I have already written.
Yes, I would be interested to know, what are your legitimate, inalienable rights from your perspective. What do you believe is moral, and natural and consistent?
You’re confusing natural rights, with a consensus on rights. They are not the same thing. I would advise you to seek an understanding of what your natural rights are, not the rights that people will try to negotiate.
Hmm, that explicitly oppressive social contract is a lot milder than the contract you have been arguing for.
No, Spooner did understand that rights are negative, not positive. His theory on consent, stemmed from his understanding of rights.
It’s really easy to argue against libertarian minarchists from an anarchist standpoint, because, in the area of defense, they argue utilitarianism, which is completely inconsistent with their other beliefs.
Minarchists love to go straight to the utility of anarchism, skipping over the blatant moral contradiciton.
If I choose not to pay for the police department/justice system that is offered by your minarchist government, what are you going to do? Send men with guns to my house and throw me in a cage? See, it’s the same argument libertarians use against any other government “service”
What you really mean to say, dbooksta, is that, “using the force of government to impose my will on others makes me safer(or at least makes me feel safer), so therefore I want it.” Do the ends justify the means?
Thank you, that sounds like a good description of the fundamental debate here!
So anarchists get to say, “Ha, we’re completely principled and consistent!” But in practice very few individuals would sign on to that contract because they’re putting themselves at the mercy of anyone with a bigger stick and their principles are little consolation when they’re being beaten down by a group with a different conception of rights than theirs.
My new slogan: “A minarchist is an anarchist who has been beaten up by another anarchist.”
I confess I am a minarchist who respects the theories of the American Founding Fathers and the United States Constitution (as originally conceived). I don’t think there is a stark contradiction in minarchy. As I said earlier, in principle there are no rights without obligations. As Madison suggested in Federalist 51, if men were angels we could live in anarchy. But men are not angels, and so we need minarchy to secure our natural rights. Do I violate a man’s rights when I compel him to join a minarchy (with an emphasis on the “min” – i.e., an institution designed only to safeguard individual rights to life, property, and liberty)? I say no because in a society of men he has no right unless he respects the rights of others and others respect his rights, hence his rights exist only as part of a social contract.
Have we ever seen a group of humans life in true anarchy? Without developing minarchist institutions, or without being soon dominated by a more coercive entity?
I think this forum and libertarians in general would be more productive if we agitated for minarchy as the libertarian ideal and worked on pointing out the principled and fundamental differences between a minarchist government/institution and ones that do anything more.
Your error is to assume that a government somehow “guarantees” justice and security. In reality, both government and the market have different incentive structures. Neither one “guarantees” anything; both are just humans acting with different incentives. We must ask what is likely to happen. Accordingly, we must do a comparative analysis of government and market incentive structures, and see which will be more likely to produce justice and security. For more on this, I highly, highly recommend Roderick Long’s article, Market Anarchism as Constitutionalism.
I think that humans have moral rights regardless of whether they are respected or not. You seem to be confusing a descriptive with a normative claim.
History has no bearing on theoretical arguments. I could list off medieval Iceland, Ireland, law merchant, etc., but ultimately this is a question of theory. Even if there has never been “true anarchy”, it doesn’t mean there cannot be true anarchy.
Compromise? Give me a break. Rothbard liked to quote William Lloyd Garrison: “Gradualism in theory is perpetuity in practice.” Or, as Hoppe wrote: “Theoretical compromise or gradualism will only lead to the perpetuation of the falsehood, evils, and lies of statism, and only theoretical purism, radicalism, and intransigence can and will lead first to gradual practical reform and improvement and possibly final victory… In particular, one must never hesitate to strike at the very heart of the legitimacy of the state: its alleged indispensable role as producer of private protection and security.”
Sorry, but government provision of justice and security is just way too morally bankrupt and egregiously destructive to settle for minarchism.
The only thing I have said is “guaranteed” is violence, or at least the trampling of someone’s perceived rights, in the absence of a social contract (i.e., in the absence of any “government”).
Nor did I suggest “compromise.” I am simply suggesting the anarchy is an impractical principle and I have proposed principled minarchy as the lightest shade of libertarianism that can work in the human world. I believe the following statement is principled: “Collective coercion is justified if and only if it is limited to the preservation of individual liberty; all other coercion is illegitimate.” Yes, it’s a little longer than “coercion is never legitimate,” but as far as principles go it has the benefit of actually having been accepted in practice by large numbers of people. From what I have seen thus far anarchists advocate a utopian ideal that is at least as implausible as the socialist utopia: Neither utopia is possible in a world of human beings.
BTW, History would bear on my argument if we could in fact point to a durable society that was truly utopian in one of these respects. We can leave the debate to historians, but are you actually suggesting that medieval Iceland, etc., were lands in which no man was subject to nonconsensual governance?
Let me point out that I am not advocating no justice or security, but rather private justice and security. If you grant minarchism, i.e. that private production is more efficient than government production in roads, education, health care, etc., then the onus is on you to show that private production is not more efficient in producing the economic goods of security and justice. That is, we must do a comparative analysis of government vs. market production of security and justice. Again, I highly recommend reading Long’s article.
If you think anarchy is impractical, I take it you haven’t done too much reading on it? A good introduction is Benson’s “The Enterprise of Law” and Stringham’s “Anarchy and the Law”.
Regarding your statement, how can government “preserve” individual liberty when it necessarily violates liberty, first through taxation and second through violently enforcing a monopoly on the production of security? Next, I do not believe that “coercion is never legitimate”. Self-defense is fine with me. I do believe that “initiatory coercion is never legitimate” is a good starting point.
History does not affect the content of any of my theoretical arguments. And no I’m not suggesting that Iceland was a perfect anarchic society. The point is it was considerably anarchic, and proves that justice and security have been provided by market institutions.
There are no obligations without consenting to them. I do not consent to being forced to pay for something I do not want.
That presumes that justice/defense/police/laws can only come from a government. That is a begged question.
Violence, or at least the trampling of someone’s perceived rights, is even more assured under a minarchist government than under anarchy, as government, by its very existence is violently trampling on someone’s perceived rights. Stick to the utilitarian argument as using a moral argument to support minarchism is just absurd.
“Collective coercion is justified if and only if it is limited to the preservation of individual liberty” is a self refuting idea. Collective coercion cannot protect individual rights because to do so it needs to first violate them. Please point out where your ideal minarchist government has not only existed on earth, but has done so perpetually. The United States started out as an entity that couldn’t even tax its constituents(Articles of Confederation), but look at what that has devolved into. I, therefore, posit that your idea of government is utopian, and is not possible in a world of human beings.
I can’t say I disagree with you. And yet, this is a strawman. At the very least you’re presenting a poor argument on behalf of the minarchists. In reality what you mention in the first point: inefficiency, perverse incentive in particular does not apply to how the minarchist views the state, rather as to how the minarchist (e.g. Ludwig von Mises) views free market provision of security and justice.
Given this, I don’t understand minarchists who claim to justify their beliefs through natural rights and then rule out anarchism on utilitarian grounds. That’s just inconsistant.
As I said, I don’t really disagree with you, I just think you made a weak case for minarchism on a forum populated by anarchist.
Also, I think it’s not very wise to use the term government in this sense, since government needn’t be a monopoly. It’s probably more advisable to use the term the state. Which implies a territorial monopoly, as oppose to merely a provider of defence and security.
This isn’t a question about the mechanism whereby a government provides security and justice. That could indeed be volunteer posses, salaried officers, bounty hunters, for-profit contractors.
The key question to which anarchists have not provided a practical answer is, “What laws and enforcement are legitimate?” If there is no social contract – imposed coercively even on those who disagree with it – then you get some posses that will beat up a man for biting his thumb at another. If one man believes his rights are infringed by a public insult, and another doesn’t, then without a communal mechanism for establishing bona fide rights and also for establishing legitimate means of enforcement anything is possible. Some men believe it is proper to publicly execute a man for fornicating with his wife. Others believe that anyone who eats meat is a just target of violence. I believe that it is legitimate to imprison individuals who stockpile dangerous weapons. You may think that I am not justified in disarming or imprisoning anyone unless they have physically injured me or physically damaged my property.
Without a coercive social contract (i.e., at least minarchic government or “authority of justice”) to address these questions, we truly face the chaos that most people equate with anarchy.
MissPoliteia: I was arguing against minarchism.
dbooksta: As I understand it, the legitimacy of laws and their enforcement would be decided voluntarily by individuals. Remember that in a free society virtually everyone would have contracts with insurance companies and that all property would be private. So if people have conflicts, their insurance companies would have incentives to resolve them peacefully; this might mean each insurance company stipulating a code of law in their contracts, as well as how disputes would be adjudicated. They might also stipulate rules for adjudicating disputes with people who are customers of different companies.
Because all property is private, people might have to sign a contract agreeing to a set of rules and dispute adjudication whenever they enter a mall, park, or road. Homeowners might form a neighborhood association for the same purpose.
For more on this, you need to read Murphy’s Chaos Theory, and Stringham’s Market Chosen Law and (with Caplan) Privatizing the Adjudication of Disputes.
Ah crap. I didn’t even think about that! smacks forehead I guess I’m gonna have to give up this anarchy thing.