There is a nuclear war coming. The only way for such a war to be stopped is if the state intervenes by illegitimately collecting taxes from a group of people who otherwise would not pay them and then acting.
Obviously this is completely hypothetical, so lets not add any more side constraints for now.
Is such an act legitimate? And more importantly, does the impact of the state intervening and therefore stopping nuclear war outweigh the impact of robbing some citizens?
Jon, thanks for the response. Do you think you could give me some specific references to where I could find information about each of the points you made?
I know nuclear weapons only exist because of the state, but my question, I guess, is supposing we’re deciding whether it would be just for a single government to act in response to another government would it be justified. That is, if country X develops nukes and threatens to use them, could the government of country Y tax its people (against their will) to stop the threat? And if it can’t do so legitimately, would the impact of the taxation be worse than the devastating impact of a nuclear war?
As far as your point that there’s no way the government can know that there’s a nuclear threat, why not?
Assuming that if the government did tax it would solve the nuclear crisis (through a singular diplomatic act, assume for the purposes of the question that its only going to be one), what is your response?
Is there a theoretical reason that the government can’t protect its people or is it just a practical limitation? i.e. could there hypothetically be a government that protected its people from nuke war? It seems to me that there could be.
Even if its not legitimate, are the consequences of nuclear war more grave than the consequences of taxation? It seems to me that is the case, so why is taxation still illegit?
And how could the market solve nuclear war if what was demanded was some sort of diplomacy or military intervention?
Thanks! I know its alot of questions but I’m in need of some answers.
The main point is that when States fight wars it not doing it on behalf of its citizens, it is doing to increase its own power. Always. It kills its citizens with wars, it doesn’t protect them!
Threaten to use them? Saying that “no options are off the table” is a threat of nuclear war. Would any nation be justified in attacking the USA if George W. Bush said those words? Of course not. Its going to take a lot more than vague language. And even if a world leader said, “Tomorrow at noon, we will nuke New York.” What reason do we have to believe them? If they wanted to use a nuke, they wouldn’t advertise it. I don’t buy into the “threatening to use” propaganda.
What I said is that there is no way to see the future. How does a government know nuclear was is unavoidable? It can not, thus can never act as if it does.
Owning a nuclear weapon is not a crime, no more than is owning a gun.
Both. The Federal Government collects taxes from Americans to prevent terrorism, but 9/11 happened. Stealing is wrong, if people do not feel nuclear war is imminent why should we believe a government can force them to pay for it anyways?
Which brings us to markets.
If people are truly worried about nuclear war, they won’t need a government to steal their money in order to organize a defense. The market, like government, is a system to organize efforts, the only difference is it is voluntary rather than compulsory.
But you have to figure out the best way to protect yourself from nuclear war, and the answer is simple: Stop invading other nations. Don’t need a tax to do that.
I can think of no legimate reason for a person or a State to own a nuclear weapon. It has very little use as a defensive weapon and offensive uses are blatantly immoral to say the least.
A gun on the other hand has many productive uses like going out to hunt down some food or personal defense.
Even if one were to use a nuke in a purely defensive situation the chances of rendering other’s property unusable is almost a certainty through things like nuclear fallout irradiating other’s land. The owner could never have enough insurance to cover the damages caused by the use of such a device so if they were to kill themselves in the process there is no possible way people could be justly compensated for its intended use.
While this would deter most law abiding anarchists there’s always a crackpot out there.
The State has no power that was not delegated to it. We do not believe that private citizens should have the right to force others to defend their well-being, why should we believe that a government somehow magically gains this power that no single person possesses? The government is simply an appointed guardian of rights (supposedly.) The ‘protection’ it is providing in this case would ultimately be the result of its own galavanting around the world.
I agree with Anonymous Coward btw - a nuclear weapon is not something suited for self-defence, unlike a gun.
I believe that such a situation is tautologically impossible.
If the state can prevent the war by gathering resources from its citizens, then the citizens can prevent the war by banding together and pooling their resources.
Of course, you’ve added the constraint that the people will “otherwise not pay them” (the resources). This implies that the people do not believe the benefits of pooling their resources in this case outweigh the benefits of not doing so. In other words, they most likely do not believe there really is a nuclear war coming.
So you’ve got two possibilities:
Somebody has knowledge about the likelihood of war that is not shared by the general public. In this case, the solution is for him to disseminate his knowledge. After doing so, the public will be convinced, and the constraint that they will not act to expend their resources to stop the war will go away, and the hypothesized problem vanishes.
Somebody has knowledge about the likelihood of war that is not agreed on by the general public. In other words, they already know what the implied thinker in your scenario knows, and they are not persuaded that war is certain. In this case, you are hypothesizing a situation where somebody should decree that his judgment is infallible, or else more reliable than millions or perhaps billions of other people. Since he does not even know what he “knows” well enough to prove it to these people, by what basis is his judgment more reliable? He would not only be morally wrong to use his “superior judgment” (as appraised by himself and no other authority) as justification for appointing himself benevolent overlord and committing tyranny to save people from themselves, doing so would be exceedingly risky since by definition lots and lots of other people disagree with his judgment and his competence is therefore in question.
At root, if a situation such as you describe occurred, there could not by definition be any person who could see it. You’re hypothesizing perfect knowledge, outside of the situation. But in the real world nobody has perfect knowledge. We have only our own imperfect judgments. You won’t have somebody from outside the world with perfect knowledge that war is coming who could make the decision you are contemplating. Instead you will have people who either know something the rest of the world does not and should share it, or people who are very wrong and think they are right.
Because protection (security) is a good like any other and goods cannot be efficiently allocated without a free market. The government may err in providing too much protection, or too little. It is very unlikely to select just the right amount. Its selection will most likely result in underallocation for the production of other goods. This might be trivial (we have a shortage of Gillette disposible razors this year as a cost of stopping nuclear war with government) or nontrivial (we stopped the war, but we regulated our economy so much we caused a famine we won’t escape for twenty years). And since value is subjective, so are my “trivial” and “nontrivial” labels. The man who can’t shave his ugly beard and loses the girl of his dreams he was courting and knows we could’ve saved the country without a government and he would’ve gotten his razor may well disagree with my “trivial” label. (Yes, I’m being silly. ) Meanwhile, Hayeks Road to Serfdom shows us how the costs in liberty that we pay for such government protection become permanent and ever-increasing costs. We save the country, but lose our liberty. Since we know that the country could’ve been saved without losing our liberty (by voluntary action), that is not a price we should be willing to pay.
Well, yes. As I said, a government might happen to allocate just the right amount of security production. But it’ll screw up the relative allocation of at least two other goods. The cost of the salvation you’re envisioning is going to involve the government taking over allocation of a lot of different things, and while it might allocate one of them just right (though the chances of that are vanishingly small), the chances of getting all of them, or even two of them, just right are going to be utterly impossible.
What you’re asking is if a government can solve the economic calculation problem for the good of security. Since von Mises demonstrated that single actors can’t solve the economic calculation problem, the answer is “basically, no.”
Now, an institution that provides security on a free (anarchistic) market might be called a government, and this is another scenario where government could protect its people from nuclear war.
Should we ever socialize the production of the service of security?
The answer is, if you really want to ensure you get something, socializing it is not a good idea. If it’s really important, the best way to make sure you get it is to have a free market. Unfortunately, this conclusion is counter-intuitive to most people. So we hear the logic that we cannot take the “risk” of freedom for things that are really important: security, transportation, the money supply, education, health care, food. But they are missing the fact that the risk of the free market is less than the risk of socializing the production of the good or service under question.
All legal issues are essentially morality issues. There is no such thing as ‘laws’ outside of human perception.
It just seems rather odd that owning something with no legitimate use, even to the owner, would be allowable in a free society. Sure someone could turn one into an art-deco coffee table and somewhat justify ownership but there is no way they could be held responsible if they ever decided to use it to its full potential.
All I can see is a situation developing like “buy this magazine or I shoot this dog”…
Most people would agree that allowing a person to starve to death even though you have food to share would be immoral, but it most definately is not illegal.
Legality and morality have nothing to do with each other. Legality is about maintaining the social peace between individuals and groups. Morality is a code of personal conduct.
This is why, for example, although abortion or drug use are immoral, they cannot be made illegal.
I’ve seen Austrians use ‘ethical’ (i.e. what one should have the right to do) for what should be ‘legal’ usually, in contrast with what is ‘moral’ (i.e. what should be done.)
What do you mean? I assume you mean that the state didn’t get power via delegation/consent and the like. In some cases this it is possible for a goverment to gain power by force over another territory and the people living in it. Power gained by conquest. This is not necessarily always the case. Power or a claim to it is often legitimized by tradition, popularity or a mixture of it. In fact in most cases the power of governments and states rests on a mixture of tradition, popularity, consent and of course the fact that they have the most power in a given territory. Quite usually kings, cities, magistrates gained their rights to power via a historical process. That does not mean that they often helped themselves in this process via the use of violence and of course they defended their given position by using it.
… That again depends on the legal order you are dealing with. By law many governments have given themselves these “rights” (conscription). It’s the same as with any other rights. They are constructed principles guiding the claims of people or legal entitites. Some rights have only a better foundation then others, while others are simply absurd.
The usual argument for Nukes is that they are a deterrent to anyone that may dare to attack.
This is supposed to mean that states, like any other institution, may not ethically take any action that may not be ethically taken by those who employ the state as their agents. For example, the state doesn’t magically get the right to take money that doesn’t belong to it, because it’s just an institution formed by individuals, and those individuals don’t have the right to take money that doesn’t belong to them. Of course, it would have the right to require contribution of funds as a condition of membership, and refuse membership to or expel from its ranks those who don’t comply.
I disagree. Abortion, unlike drug use, is an interpersonal act. It can be made illegal.
Legality involves ownership and rights.Morality is an evolved understanding of the practically of actions. It does not need police enforcement, it is laws of nature.
The unborn and the father both have legal rights. But I dont want to hijack the thread with abortion.
The fetus is not a legally emancipated person. It is under the ownership of the mother and father and their respective parties. If both agree to an abortion, there is nothing that can be legally employed against them.
People do not own each other. Parents do not own children.
A parent may “abandon” a child, but they may not murder him. Today we see parents willingly kill a fetus that is mature enough to survive outside the womb.
Obviously, I don’t expect an institution will stamp out the procedure of abortion. But I don’t find it hard to imagine that either charities or businesses will come to the legal defense of the unborn and be granted “guardianship”.
The most important aspect of a free society for defending the unborn would the development of a “baby market.” Imagine if a woman had to pay the legal guardian the price of an infant if she killed the fetus!
I dont claim to be able to predict what free market justice will look like, but theres no reason to believe that just because something is impratical today it will not work in the future.
) Meanwhile, Hayeks