I was listening to introduction to anarchy by Murphy which is an hour long podcast. I thought that it was okay but he relies to much upon god. I’m an atheist so all arguments that use god i automatically dismiss. I’m not trying to be anti-religious but im just not convinced by religious arguments. So he was saying how that the socialist anarchists, who were smart not the skinny white moronic kid throwing bombs, had an argument that made him question his beliefs, which is okay b/c it is very important to question everything even what you believe but he starts to question his belief in property which is okay, but what is not okay in my opinion is his only rebuttal to the non-propertarian anarchists is that the ten commandments say don’t steal. Now this may work from him but how does this look to other anarchists who are mainly atheist in nature. This argument that one line in the bible justifies your position is a just something i can’t except b/c there are so many other bible verses that totally trash anarchism. I used to be an anarcho-communist and now an ancap and i see the ownership of property as a fundamental right. The private ownership of property is the only way that man can be a separate individual not dependent on the collective or the majority. Just my opinion, see if you can come up for a defense that is moral but not just dependent on god.
Please be more descriptive with the title. Perhaps, “Robert P. Murphy’s main problem with anarchy.” Or something of that sort.
Where is this podcast?
Check out this too:
http://consultingbyrpm.com/blog/2010/02/a-snapshot-of-my-conversion.html
..where things can be true by simply wishing it (which totally undermines his criticism of state financial intervention)
The root problem is that Rothbardians hold that the study of human action is not value-free. They think this is OK since they believe they have a “rigorous” derivation of ethics from axiomatic reasoning, namely, the Hoppean Argumentation Ethic or Rothbard’s ill-thought-out theory of an object’s nature as normative.
I think that property is connected to ethics but trying to jump there via a presuppositional argument as Hoppe does fails. Leaving aside the logical problems with the argument, any presuppositional argument is inherently collectivist* which should make anyone who follows methodological individualism raise an eyebrow. Rothbard’s derivation of ought from is is even worse… he essentially argues that for something to act against its nature is immoral, in Ethics of Liberty he argues that knowingly eating a poisonous mushroom would be an incorrect and, what is the same, immoral choice. It is easy to see that this line of reasoning quickly leads to un-libertarian conclusions. For example, any non-reproductive copulation would be immoral since the obvious function of copulation is reproduction. Not only would homosexuality be immoral but all the other kinds of sexual union that the most puerile prudes condemn.
Any descriptive/predictive/inductive behavior - science - must necessarily be value-free. We can differentiate between good science and poor science and it can be argued that this is a value-laden assessment. But science proper is always value-free because our subjective state of mind (ethical disposition) regarding a certain description or theory of the real world is independent of that description. That is, it is possible to feel very positively or very negatively about the theory of evolution, nevertheless, the theory remains what it is.
I’m currently working on my own ethical theory of property (and law). It may be another six months or so before I have something to publish but once I get it to rough draft form, I plan to publish it on these forums.
Clayton -
*Any presuppositional argument essentially attempts to impose rationality on a collective rather than eliciting rationality from an individual’s own desires. “You MUST assume X in order to have any discussion at all, therefore X” but what if I choose to verbally express myself and reject X? Rational or not, consistent or not, this is a valid choice.
what if I choose to verbally express myself and reject X?
so… you choose to verbally express yourself… so what?
…and you ‘reject X’ ? is this 1) you mouth the words of rejecting X, like saying ‘i do not exist’? or 2) do you truly ‘reject x’ like you don’t actually exist…
If you and myself are arguing about whether we are having an argument and I get frustrated and say to you, ‘well lets find something to agree on,…at least you must agree that you exist!’ is that to be rejected as presuppositional (which it is) and in someway ‘collectivist’ (which it isnt)?
I found the podcast on itunes on the mises institute page under individual lectures.
What i am saying is that we can not just chalk everything up to a god. If the only reason he believes in propertarian anarchism and not social anarchism is b/c the bible says do not steal then i cannot truly listen to him. He can be totally correct on everything like the incentive problem and such but when you stop thinking about an issue and instead just chalk it up to god you are just doing what early scientists did, they would prove something then they would stop and equate the rest to god then the next would come prove that god didn’t have anything to do with it but when he reached the limit he would equate everything to god. We must not stop thinking and allow this mythical force to arrogate our knowledge, but instead he should try to morally prove property not just chalk it up to god.
I think Robert Murphy is a brilliant economist. I am always interested in his opinion. He is a religious man apparently, what can I say.. just look the other way when he starts talking religion. That’s what i do.
In case you’re interested, they’re a whole section in Mises’ “Socialism” about Christianity and Socialism. Most likely, a complete opposite view.
I know of one area in the Bible that is against anarchism, and that is Romans 13. Is that the one?
I think we must remember that Romans 13 was still in the context of times when the ruler was expected to be a Christian. Absolutist thought in Europe changed that, and the ruler was no longer expected to be Christian. The state was to be secular.
In that context, any Christian man has an easy opposition to a ruler who orders drone attacks that kill hundreds and hundreds of Pakistani people on a regular basis, a ruler who bullies poor nations into impoverishment by forcing sanctions onto them, and so on. Murphy is consistent - there is nothing Christian about the modern state.
Between us non-religious people, let’s reframe that original statement. Romans 13 was in the context of times when the ruler was expected to be a moral person. Secularism and absolutist thought removed the need of the ruler to be a moral person. The fundamental opposition to the state is a moral one. It is always a moral question.
When does Hoppe claim to do this? That is, when does he ever say that people do, in fact, desire to be rational? All that Hoppe says is that “If you want to have a rational discussion, then you must have norms X, Y, Z…” This is the best we can ask for from any ethical argument, but you seem to be suggesting that it’s deficient because it doesn’t take the additional step of proving that people do in fact have certain preferences (which is impossible to prove a priori, since it is a statement about the physical world).
Wasn’t Christianity very much non-mainstream at the time?
In any case, you could probably use the Bible to support any position whatsoever. I get the feeling that the only reason why libertarians appeal to it is because they would rather have their morality dictated by some long-dead crazies than by the living crazies with guns on their doorstep.
I love this note (Hoppe’s AFAIK) written in the margin of page 8 of this collection of criticism of his argumentation ethics:
But most critiques contended the argument doesn’t work, with which I agree.