The Compatibility of Rothbardian and Friedmanite Anarchism

nirgrahamUK · January 11, 2010, 5:10pm

In my mind this is merely a (re)statement of Praetyre’s Question.

If I was correct in my restatement , Praetyte’s question is not an investigation into values, but into the characteristics/features of defence agencies.

How can Rurray Von Mothbard say that automobile producers would all create products that are capable of transport? answer:producers of objects that are always incapable of providing transport services are all never auto-manufacturers.

liberty_student · January 11, 2010, 5:14pm

Nir, I have a headache, so maybe I just can’t understand because my brain is fuzzy but I am somewhat certain you have not addressed any of my criticisms.

Praetyre’s question seemed simple enough. How did Rothbard propose establishing this standard of good? I think my answer was sufficient.

I don’t know if you are making a joke or being sarcastic, but this reads like nonsense to me. Maybe it is the headache.

Sage · January 11, 2010, 5:14pm

Well, laws are the product of legal systems, so competition in legal systems entails indirectly competition in laws.

It’s true Rothbard called for a single legal code. But he didn’t advocate monopoly as a means to achieving this goal. Rather, his means were market competition and converting others to libertarianism.

So would a polycentric society resist the creation of Nazi societies?

Long’s project is explicitly praxeological: The Praxeological Foundations of Libertarian Ethics.

Yes, this does seem to be the root issue. So if we accept the premise that objective ethics is correct, do you still have any disagreements with my analysis in the OP?

ClaytonB · January 11, 2010, 5:21pm

Sage:

A political program has two tasks:

Developing a theory of normative rights. That is, determining the content of justice.

Creating an institutional structure to ensure that society fulfills the requirements of normative rights. In other words, structuring society so that people act in a manner consistent with justice.

The distinction between normative, legal, and de facto rights is helpful in understanding these tasks:

Normative rights: the claims that ought to be respected and protected.

Legal rights: the claims that a given legal institution officially announces it will respect and protect.

De facto rights: the claims that actually receive respect and protection in a given society.

Step (1) remains the same. We can understand Step (2) as the task of transforming normative rights into legal rights, and legal rights into de facto rights. Put differently, Step (1) is the end, and Step (2) is the means.

Now, libertarianism is a theory of justice holding that all human relationships should be voluntary (corresponding to Step [1]). The task facing the libertarian, then, is Step (2): How can a libertarian society be achieved?

One method is converting everyone to libertarianism; moral convictions will lead people to act in accordance with the principles of justice. But in its extreme form this is equivalent to assuming a New Libertarian Man, i.e. an unrealistic change in human nature.

A more promising method is creating an institutional structure that will give people incentives to act justly. Libertarian anarchists hold that anarchism (the absence of a monopoly legal system) is the best institutional structure for bringing about and maintaining a libertarian society.

(Incidentally, minarchists almost always fail to fully address Step (2). They propose a theory of normative rights, and hold that writing these into a paper document will transform them into legal rights. But they provide no account of how legal rights become de facto rights. Merely writing them down isn’t enough; what is needed is an institutional structure that gives people incentives to act justly. After all, the Soviet Constitution guaranteed all sorts of nice-sounding rights for its citizens, but since it was enforced by a totalitarian state, it turned out to be completely worthless. My own view is that minarchists cannot accomplish this task: given the nature of government as a monopolistic legal system, there cannot be any institutional constraints on its power. All the minarchist can rely on to keep government limited is ideology and public vigilance.)

It is important to recognize that anarchism and libertarianism are not the same thing. Anarchism is an institutional structure, whereas libertarianism is a theory of justice. The former is purely descriptive, whereas the latter is normative. Moreover, there is no necessary reason why anarchism must be libertarian. An anarchist society could conceivably be a Hobbesian jungle where private crime runs rampant and libertarian rights are constantly violated. On the other hand, I would argue that libertarianism must be anarchist, because only anarchism is consistent with libertarian rights.

With these remarks in mind, I want to investigate the compatibility of Murray Rothbard’s and David Friedman’s versions of anarchism. Both thinkers viewed their brand of anarchism as very different from the other’s. For example, Rothbard wrote that he was opposed to

a kind of David Friedmanite anarchism, where there is no law, only people engaging in exchange and buying people out. If you have a group that wants to kill redheads, the redheads will have to buy them off if they value their hair. I think this is monstrous, the kind of anarchism would indeed be chaos. Just because there is a demand for something doesn’t mean it should be fulfilled.

And as Friedman commented about his Machinery of Freedom:

As my friend Jeff Hummel pointed out, my model of anarchy was very different from the pre-existing competing model of anarcho-capitalism [i.e. Rothbard’s], in which there was a single, consensus legal system. In mine legal systems are competing … so you have a sort of market pressure toward generating optimal legal rules.

(Although, Friedman has also said that he’s “not sure we ever did clash on … how the legal code of an anarcho-capitalist society gets produced.”)

Ed Stringham has also distinguished between Rothbardian and Friedmanite anarchism. In the Introduction to his Anarchy and the Law, he writes:

Where Rothbard argues for anarchism based on rights, Friedman argues for anarchism based on efficiency. Friedman’s vision differs from that of Rothbard because Friedman believes that anarchist laws need not be libertarian. Under a market for law people would be free to choose any rules they wish and the resulting outcome would be determined by net willingness to pay. (p.3)

Now, I of course agree that Rothbard was a natural rights theorist, whereas Friedman is a consequentialist. But I think Rothbard, Friedman, and Stringham are overstating the differences between Rothbardian and Friedmanite anarchism.

To begin with, Rothbard objects to an anarchism “where there is no law, only people engaging in exchange and buying people out.” Presumably by “law” Rothbard is referring to rights; but is he talking about normative, legal, or de facto rights? Not normative rights, since these exist regardless of how society is organized. Rothbard’s worry seems to be that Friedman is not adequately addressing Step 2, i.e. ensuring that normative rights are also legal and de facto rights.

So Rothbard’s problem is that Friedman’s anarchism might not be libertarian. Friedman, however, has explicitly acknowledged this point:

I have described how a private system of courts and police might function, but not the laws it would produce and enforce; I have discussed institutions, not results. … Whether these institutions will produce a libertarian society—a society in which each person is free to do as he likes with himself and his property as long as he does not use either to initiate force against others—remains to be proven. (Machinery of Freedom, p.172)

As discussed above, libertarianism is a theory of justice. But normative rights cannot become de facto rights on their own. A libertarian society can be achieved primarily by two methods: creating an ideological movement (i.e. converting everyone to libertarianism), or creating an institutional structure that will give people incentives to be libertarian. Friedman is explicitly using this second method, and he concludes that “the laws of an anarcho-capitalist society should be heavily biased toward freedom.” (p.173)

Rothbard, however, is not content to rely only on an institutional structure to achieve libertarianism. He also calls for an ideological movement, in the form of a Libertarian Law Code:

a legal code which would be generally accepted, and which the courts would pledge themselves to follow. The legal code, simply, would insist on the libertarian principle of no aggression against person or property, define property rights in accordance with libertarian principle, set up rules of evidence (such as currently apply) in deciding who are the wrongdoers in any dispute, and set up a code of maximum punishment for any particular crime. (For a New Liberty, p.282)

Rothbard wants libertarianism to be widely accepted as an ideology. Although he accepts that the institutional structure of market competition will keep outlaw (unlibertarian) courts in check (p.291-93), Rothbard believes that people need to be ideologically driven if society is to remain libertarian. Roderick Long has a similar analysis:

anarcho-capitalist theory can be seen as a form of constitutional design. In framing a constitution, it is not enough simply to decree that the government shall do this and shall not do that; one must specify a political structure (division of powers, checks and balances, etc.) that gives individual participants an incentive to act as the constitution specifies. … Yet, the importance of structure is not a reason for refusing to articulate any general principles or guidelines; articulated principles and incentive structures supplement each other, jointly rendering the success of the system more probable than either could do in isolation. (Hence, for example, the U.S. Constitution contains both structural provisions and a Bill of Rights.) Rothbard can be seen as doing the same thing: he regards a competitive legal system as more likely to provide incentives to maintain freedom than would a monopolistic one, but he also seeks to supplement that incentive structure with a Libertarian Law Code. (“Benefits and Hazards of Dialectical Libertarianism” p. 435-436)

Hence Rothbard’s and Friedman’s versions of anarchism turn out to be fundamentally identical. Both agree that the institutional structure of market competition will create incentives for a libertarian society, but Rothbard goes further in calling for a supplemental ideological movement. Rothbard’s objection that Friedmanite anarchism has no law thus turns out to be hyperbole rather than substantive disagreement.

Friedman and Stringham also exaggerate the differences between Rothbardian and Friedmanite anarchism. Friedman writes that Rothbardian anarchism has “a single, consensus legal system. In mine legal systems are competing”. If we define “legal system” as a set of institutions that provides dispute resolution, then clearly Rothbardian anarchism also has competing legal systems. What Friedman means is that Rothbardian anarchism has a single universal legal code, whereas Friedmanite anarchism has different, competing legal codes. But as we’ve seen, both think market competition will produce libertarian laws; the only difference is that Rothbard calls for an ideological movement to ensure the laws actually are libertarian.

Stringham writes that “Friedman’s vision differs from that of Rothbard because Friedman believes that anarchist laws need not be libertarian. Under a market for law people would be free to choose any rules they wish and the resulting outcome would be determined by net willingness to pay.” Stringham here is confusing normative and de facto rights. First, Rothbard also believes that anarchist laws need not be libertarian: his whole discussion of outlaw protectors (FaNL p.291-295) is an analysis of courts passing unlibertarian laws. What Rothbard believes is that anarchist laws should be libertarian. Second, under Rothbardian anarchism it would also be possible for people to choose any rules they wish. Rothbard believes that market competition and ideological persuasion will lead people to choose libertarian rules.

Pete Leeson has also commented that Rothbardian anarchism “is not polycentric… it’s a weird kind of anarchy.” But again, Rothbardian anarchism is just as polycentric as Friedmanite anarchism: both accept the institutional structure of market competition. Rothbardian anarchism is different only in that it specifies an ideological movement.

Thus, the supposed differences suggested by Rothbard, Friedman, and Stringham rest for the most part on a confusion of normative and de facto rights. In the end, Rothbardian and Friedmanite anarchism are fundamentally compatible.

Great post! I have an article I’m working on that sort of “harmonizes” the Rothbardian and Friedmanite approaches to law. I will publish it here as soon as I get it to first-draft level.

Clayton -

liberty_student · January 11, 2010, 5:26pm

Right. A single legal code. Which means the end of competition. Rothbard presumed that once we got to his vision of what was just law, law no longer needed to evolve. That’s my issue. It’s basically Objectivism.

If it is polycentric, a Nazi society could emerge, and alternatives to that Nazi society could emerge as well. Then they would compete.

I don’t care for Long or his ideas. If he has a relevant point, post it.

I think that follows. The issue is, I don’t believe objective ethics are correct, and afaik, no one has proven otherwise. Plenty of assertion though!

I’m pretty sure Misesians are not invited to utopia.

nirgrahamUK · January 11, 2010, 5:28pm

I guess I read him as ‘Why’ did Rothbard believe that Defence Agencies would be Libertarian. whereas you read the question as being ‘How did Rothbard propose establishing this standard of good’. quite different questions. you are correct that your interpretation involves values and normative concepts. I guess I won’t write more about it until Praetyre explains what he was interested in.

awww. now you made me feel responsible for your headache.

liberty_student · January 11, 2010, 5:29pm

No. Offline issue.

wilderness · January 11, 2010, 5:36pm

Rothbard states what he advocates would only happen within the free market. Name another law code other than one based on property rights.

wilderness · January 11, 2010, 5:45pm

good. somebody linked it

Conza · January 11, 2010, 7:44pm

He called for a basic legal code (NAP). Completely different.

Someone please back up their claims and quote him precisely calling for a “single legal code” thanks. I want to see those words exactly, not your or anyone elses interpretation of what you think he means, because then you’re not quoting him.

“Furthermore, law and the State are both conceptually and historically separable, and law would develop in an anarchistic market society without any form of State. Specifically, the concrete form of anarchist legal institutions- judges, arbitrators, procedural methods for resolving disputes, etc.-would indeed grow by a market invisible-hand process, while the basic Law Code (requiring that no one invade any one else’s person and property) would have to be agreed upon by all the judicial agencies, just as all the competing judges once agreed to apply and extend the basic principles of the customary or common law.13 But the latter, again, would imply no unified legal system or dominant protective agency. Any agencies that transgressed the basic libertarian code would be open outlaws and aggressors, and Nozick himself concedes that, lacking legitimacy, such outlaw agencies would probably not do very well in an anarchist society.14” - MNR

For those that want to deny the NAP, I am interested to know when would the initiation of physical aggression be justifiable?

liberty_student · January 11, 2010, 9:58pm

I don’t believe anyone claimed to deny the NAP. I said that I don’t buy into natural rights. I’m quite content with the NAP as a foundation for an ethical system. For now.

Zavoi · January 12, 2010, 3:16am

If someone says “I advocate having no monopoly on force in this territory,” then aren’t they by implication “advocating” for all people in the territory the de facto right to set up a competing force-using-agency?

Would a polycentric legal system resist the creation of a non-polycentric legal system?

Do you mean that, say, a voluntary hippie commune is incompatible with the “Rothbardian system”? Because I don’t think that Rothbard’s anarchism is opposed to people voluntarily adopting any legal rules that they choose (vis-à-vis each other). However, such voluntarily-interacting individuals cannot (without contradiction) voluntarily adopt any legal rules contrary to the overarching notion that “all voluntary interaction is moral,” unless they claim that the moral force of their own legal rules derives from something other than the fact that they were voluntarily adopted (which would also entail the existence of universally-applicable legal rules).

Now, as far as institutions versus ideology is concerned: As Long points out,

"[Roderick:

(http://praxeology.net/Anarconst2.pdf)"]As for the desideratum of an “established, settled, known law,” markets seem likelier than government to converge on a relatively uniform set of laws for the same reason that they tend to converge on a single currency: consumer demand. Consider: why are there no triangular credit cards? Government regulation is not the reason; rather, if someone started offering cards that wouldn’t fit in the standard machines, nobody would accept them (unless forced to do so by law). Similar reasons explain why the market no longer carries both VHS and Betamax video cartridges, but only VHS; the market creates uniformity when customers need it, and diversity when they need that instead. Diversity in movie titles available is a benefit to consumers; diversity in shape and size of video cassettes is not. Hence the market tends to provide the former and suppress the latter.

competing DROs will have a tendency to converge on a single legal standard for all people to the extent that they interact with each other, since any dispute that cannot be resolved legally will have to be resolved violently, which is, all else being equal, costlier for both parties. However, that does not mean that they will converge on libertarian norms - it’s entirely possible that some non-libertarian norm could become so entrenched that any individual dissenting DRO at the margin is faced with huge costs. For example, if you live in a 99% Klingon-speaking village, then it’s a lot easier (and cheaper) to learn Klingon than to convince everyone else to learn a language that’s easier on the throat. Similarly, if most of the DROs accept trial-by-ordeal as a valid method of deciding cases, then any DROs that don’t will find themselves dealing with costly, irresolvable conflicts with the other DROs. Without ideological advocacy, the common legal standard becomes up for grabs; an at least non-fringe acceptance of libertarianism is necessary to be at all confident that the anarchy will be libertarian, as opposed to something else.

Conza · January 12, 2010, 3:29am

Zavoi:

liberty student:

Friedmanite anarchism is market anarchism. Rothbardian anarchism is political anarchism. The latter is post-Objectivist absolutist moral stuff that is incompatible with voluntarism and market anarchy. Like socialism, yes we could have people be voluntarily Rothbardian in a market, but a market which is only Rothbardian, cannot tolerate other orders.

Do you mean that, say, a voluntary hippie commune is incompatible with the “Rothbardian system”? Because I don’t think that Rothbard’s anarchism is opposed to people voluntarily adopting any legal rules that they choose (vis-à-vis each other). However, such voluntarily-interacting individuals cannot (without contradiction) voluntarily adopt any legal rules contrary to the overarching notion that “all voluntary interaction is moral,” unless they claim that the moral force of their own legal rules derives from something other than the fact that they were voluntarily adopted (which would also entail the existence of universally-applicable legal rules).

Rothbardian anarchism contains axiomatic-deductive objective ethics in terms of political philosophy and Austrianism as economics.

"Under total privatization [..] With every locale and neighborhood owned by private firms, corporations, or contractual communities, true diversity would reign, in accordance with the preferences of each community. Some neighborhoods would be ethnically or economically diverse, while others would be ethnically or economically homogeneous. Some localities would permit pornography or prostitution or drugs or abortions, others would prohibit any or all of them. The prohibitions would not be state imposed, but would simply be requirements for residence or use of some person’s or community’s land area.

While statists who have the itch to impose their values on everyone else would be disappointed, every group or interest would at least have the satisfaction of living in neighborhoods of people who share its values and preferences. While neighborhood ownership would not provide Utopia or a panacea for all conflicts, it would at least provide a “second best” solution that most people might be willing to live with."

M. N. ROTHBARD, Nations by Consent: Decomposing the Nation State, in <>, vol. 11, n.1, Fall 1994, p. 7

Amanojack · January 12, 2010, 6:05am

A private court could only do that if it had a monopoly in that territory.

That’s the other way around the mountain, but convincing people not to support a monopoly on force seems far easier and more expedient.

Still just expression of moral opinion or legal advice. That’s not to say that will have no role (that’s why I said “essentially”), but to point out that this isn’t minarchy we’re talking about: there is no mechanism other than persuasion and the market processes for advancing moral ideas once there are no more monopolies on force.

Sage:

AJ:

Although Austrians may realize that anarchy is not going to lead to anarcho-communism, why not leave them to that fantasy? Why bother arguing? There is no need to. All who would support the elimination of monopolies on force can be allies. Allies with vastly different expectations about how things will work out, but allies all the same.

Well, what anarchy leads to is not independent of how people act. Sure, if people follow their self-interest, anarchy will lead to libertarianism. But people are not homo economicus; they are affected by ideology. If everyone wants anarcho-communism, then anarchy will not lead to libertarianism.

Why bother arguing? Because I want anarchy to be libertarian. I’m not content to rely solely on incentives; there are other unlibertarian ideologies out there, and if we want a libertarian society, these ideologies need to be combated. Hence we need our own ideological movement to ensure that society is in fact libertarian.

Well, for what value of X would you choose B over A?

A. No monopolies on force ever again

B. X% of the world’s population shares your ethical positions

5%? 10%? 20%?

Amanojack · January 12, 2010, 6:17am

To advocate for the elimination of the current monopolies on force doesn’t entail advocacy of any de facto rights. However, once there are no monopolies on force, then to advocate that no monopolies should ever be allowed to form again is to advocate for a de facto right, yes, but then it would of course be nothing more than opinion or recommendation.

Marko · January 12, 2010, 6:21am

Hadn’t you styled yourself a ‘Rockwellian’ last year? Changed your mind since, or?

JackCuyler · January 12, 2010, 6:55pm

Sounds like the current situation all over the world. The state is nothing but a NAP-ignoring firm that competes with other firms.

wilderness · January 12, 2010, 7:31pm

indeed. this is why i think governments are simply rogue PDA’s or what have you. They raid the current free market which is the only market that exists. The degree of violence coerced into the market can be also an explanation of the kinds of economic systems being applied, which most are centrally applied currently.

North Korea, heavy coercion upon the market. Iran with their gold-backed, non-fiat money (?) reserves thereby a little lighter impact on the market. Black markets are still impacted by governments currently but maybe only by fear, an increased fear differing from an unsophisticated, common criminal. Maybe Somalia has as near a market uncoerced by governments as it currently gets, though governments, including the U.S., are presently there applying their physical aggression.

HtutAlexander · January 12, 2010, 9:50pm

I think Rothbard somewhat confuses substantive and procedural justice. Procedural justice, which defines the exact bounds and norms for dispute arbitration and actually carries them into effect, is not something that can be rationally defined beyond a few general principles (presumption of innocence, property, etc.) and these principles we find in almost any body of customary law.

I am not a Rothbardian in a normative sense, largely because I think the bounds of aggression and particular legal institutions are largely procedural features that can no more be rationally ‘laid down’ than can the procedures for producing shoes. This is a matter for entrepreneurs and concerned individuals to work out in the actual practice of contract, agreement and custom; for an economist or philosopher to attempt to define procedural elements as an actual ‘justice for everyone’, as though there even needs to be ‘universal law’, is a fundamental mistake. I believe in natural law in the same sense that I believe in natural economies and polycentric order; while there are side-constraints as to what is the bare minimum for civilized life and human respect there ‘law’ is produced in the same way as any other goods and will be as diverse as the circumstances it is developed for and the needs it aims to serve.

I would recommend reading Lon L. Fuller.

Zavoi · January 13, 2010, 12:29am

What is “the elimination of the current monopolies on force,” if not the bringing about of a state of affairs where people are able to compete without hindrance? And isn’t this ability just what we mean by a “de facto right to compete”?

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The Compatibility of Rothbardian and Friedmanite Anarchism

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