Voting anarchist dilemma

[Brainpolice]

@Dynamix

There are a few principles I’d like to mention with respect to the ethical side of electoral voting.

The first is that you are not voting for a candidate per se. You are voting for a “Promised Action Package” (or PAP), which is what the candidate represents. All candidates offer to change (or maintain) the status quo, and it is that change (or maintenance, as the case may be) that is the lure to get the public to vote for them. All those who seek an office must act as part of their job responsibility, and it is their description of the various ways that they promise to act in that role that is their PAP. To make it clear that it is the PAP specifically that you’re voting for–and not the candidate himself–try to imagine supporting a candidate for office who didn’t have a PAP. How could you? The guy could turn out to be a Stalin; there’s just no way to know. A candidate without a PAP is just a body with a name, nothing more. Yet you can imagine the converse: supporting a PAP without a candidate. People do it all the time when they support a party (which is essentially a collectively agreed upon PAP) for office without knowing exactly who it is that’s going to be nominated for them. Nor do many of them care so long as the nominee fulfills the party’s PAP as expected.

Now that we know that it’s the various PAPs that get people agreeing or disagreeing, supporting or vehemently opposing, and not the candidates per se, we see next what exactly a vote is.

A vote is an appointment of the thing being voted for, chosen by the one granted authority (whether legal, “natural,” or whatever) to cast said vote. It can be extrapolated that only those PAPs which are appointed (by majority, unanimity, or whatever) are those that are brought to fruition. Those PAPs which are not appointed are not brought to fruition, and, ex post improvisation aside, if no PAP is appointed, no PAP is brought to fruition. It must be understood that when one says, for example, “I’m voting for McCain” what he actually means (whether he knows it or not) is, “I’m appointing the PAP represented by the man named John McCain.” The word “vote” does not, in my opinion, adequately express the authoritative implications of the appointment that is the purpose of the vote. Without the authoritative aspect of the vote, the appointment is lost, and the “vote” is reduced to nothing but a voiced opinion (like being 17 all over again!), and as such is no longer fit to be called a vote.

Next, we need to recognize that all those actions included in the PAP (a $1.40 cigarette tax, a $3.00 tariff on lug nuts, or whatever), are just that–actions. As Mises has pointed out, action, by definition, includes the inextricably-linked concepts of means and ends. We find, consequently, that in appointing a PAP we are appointing all the means and ends wrapped up in it. In fact, we are handcuffed to them. If Candidate X promises the ends of a $3.00 tariff on lug nuts, we must choose to go along with his means as well if we wish to see that tariff through.

This brings us to the principle of vicarious responsibility for the appointed PAP. I expect this might be the only major point of contention among us. Personally, I adhere to it. For those who don’t know, vicarious responsibility holds that those who intentionally “bring about” an effect without actually being that effect’s proximate cause, are, nevertheless, at least partially responsible for it. A cliched example might be, “Yes, the Nazi generals who appointed the deaths of so many millions of people are morally guilty. Perhaps not of murder per se, as they may not have taken anyone’s life with their own hands, but in appointing others to murder on their behalf they were nevertheless in the wrong. They were patrons of genocide.” The appointer, thus, is vicariously responsible (i.e., morally culpable), partially, for the action–or PAP–that was appointed (assuming accurate knowledge of the action’s or PAP’s contents).

Now we need to look at the contents of the various PAPs at our political buffet bar and see what we might wish to appoint. The principle that will be useful here (with respect to vicarious responsibility) is the distinction between the Categorical (what all the candidates have in common) and the Quantitative (what all the candidates seem to disagree on). What do virtually all candidates agree on? Taxes, at the very least. There must be taxes. The choice made in the conflict between “taxes!” and “no taxes!” is that categorical aspect which unites all our candidates. The issue of how much taxation, by contrast, is the quantitative issue, and very few candidates seem to agree here. Given that the application of ethical judgment is primarily directed at the categorical (i.e., “Should you steal his wallet or not?”) and not the quantitative (i.e., “How many dollars should you steal?”), we see immediately that we can, in a very real sense, lump all of these candidates together–Obama and McCain, Nader and, yes, even Paul. The foundational difference between them is not a categorical one (their advocacy of the “limited privilege”–particularly for themselves–of the right to initiate force as a means to an end unites them), but rather a quantitative one (i.e., “How broad in scope should the force be?”).

A common mistake regarding the understanding of various legislative proposals, such as the Libertarian favorite “lower taxes,” should also be set straight. It is commonly thought that we are offered opportunities to appoint “lower taxes,” “reduced regulation,” or other such measures. Strictly speaking, this is mistaken. The promise of “lower cigarette taxes,” for instance, cannot be a part of a PAP simply because “lower cigarette taxes” is a description of merely the effect of an action. It does not describe the action itself (or the action as such). (And it might be noted here that most successful politicians–Obama is a great example–use rhetorical flourishes to describe the glorious effects of their PAPs without so much as hinting at that PAP’s actual contents, which, of course, would have the undesirable effect of subjecting their claims to criticism.) As effects of actions cannot be coherently appointed without also appointing the corresponding actions themselves (they are handcuffed), we can see that in our considerations of appointment we must be looking to the action which brings about the reduction of the cigarette tax if we’re to have accurate ethical bearings on our PAP.

In keeping with our example of “lower cigarette taxes,” we see that in appointing such a proposal we are not appointing “lower cigarette taxes” as such, but rather appointing a cigarette tax of, say, $1.40 instead of a cigarette tax of, say, $1.50. The collection of a $1.40 tax on the sale of a carton of cigarettes is the appointed action itself, while the notion that we now have “lower cigarette taxes” is a description of the appointed action’s effect. To return to our distinction between the Categorical and the Quantitative, we see that we are appointing the category of taxation at the quantity of $1.40. More bluntly for our ethical considerations, we are appointing the category of taxation (whatever the quantity) as a means to our ends. If we consider taxation to be coercion (and few deny this), it isn’t more than a step or two to see that, through the lens of vicarious responsibility, appointing others to coerce on our behalf has unequivocally made us patrons of coercion. And it is certainly “on our behalf”–if we deny that we can morally coerce people, we certainly cannot logically appoint others to do that very same thing. The fact that it is the tax collector doing the job and not you describes nothing but the current logistics of expediency.

I deny that this is acceptable. Those who disagree may imagine themselves at the familiar location of Crusoe’s island, where the only other inhabitants unanimously appoint a death sentence for you because your hair didn’t look that great this morning. In addition to your executioner, there are the twenty-four other individuals who appointed your murder.

If those twenty-four others are not as guilty as the executioner, well, please continue voting. (And please excuse the proverbial Nazi war generals.)

Interesting take. I largely agree with you and I like your separation between the categorical or qualative and quantative. It seems to me that the political process does not allow for what you call the categorical to be seriously dealt with. For the process in and of it itself requires the application of the categorical/qualative means that the libertarian is supposed to be opposed to in the first place. Political libertarianism is still approaching the matter from the standpoint of state policy. Consequentially, one is inherently accepting and supporting the qualative means of state policy itself to begin with. And one is placing trust in state agents to bring about liberty through state policy and be generally representative of their alleged constituents. To me, this basically concedes the whole ball game to the state.

[Bank_Run]

Anyone have any more pictures of this wonderfull individual?

LeFevre believed voting itself was an act of aggression and opposed participation in electoral politics~source wikipedia

I agree, if the actor participating has a foul motive. Is a Mother Teresa that votes commiting an act of aggression though?

Again, I vote because I want to work at whatever possible avenue in order to effect a peacefull change. I vote economicly true. I like to tell folks, ‘if y’all voted like I, than you wouldn’t gripe about the tyranny.’

Then again I’m not an anarchist anymore. I am now an autarchist.

Sweet I was looking to buy

The Nature of Man and His Government

thanks!

please pretty please can I get a link or a download to his radio goo? gobble slurp hmmm.

[majevska]

I don’t think voting is immoral but it isn’t very effective. In fact, it’s usually counterproductive. Campaigns however, can be effective as an educational tool. I think the Ron Paul campaign has really helped get libertarian ideas “out there” in the MSM. Though I don’t think its a good idea to have any hope in liberty minded candidates being elected or even being able to make real change if they did, we should cheer on RP type people when they do get coverage but not dwindle away too much resources. The idea of taking over the Republican party is absurd. However, a campaign with no intention of actually winning, may in some cases be a good educational tool but only in special circumstances.

[Stephen_Forde]

@Attackdonkey

Many anarchist libertairians claim it immoral to vote or to engage in political action-the argument being that by participating in this way in state activity, the libertarian places his moral imprimatur upon the state apparatus itself. But a moral decision must be a free decision and the state has placed individuals in society in an unfree enviorment, in a general matric of coercion. The State -unfortunately- exists, and people must necessarily begin with this matrix to try to remedy their condition. As Lysander Spooner pointed out, in an enviorment of State coercion, voting does not imply voluntary consent. Indeed, if the State allows us a periodic choice of rulers, limited though that choice may be, it surely cannot be considered immoral to make use of that limited choice to try to reduce or get rid of State power.

• Murray Rothbard The Ethics of Liberty ch 24. p. 186-87

And Hoppe has some good ideas as to how this may be accomplished (http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig/hermann-hoppe2.html). He argues that since the number of parasites must be small in proportion to the rest of the population, and given the intuitive appeal of the following idea, it can be argued that letting net tax-recipients have the right to vote is adding insult to injury. By stripping them of the right to vote support of many state programs would vanish. And of course he adds in that there’s no reason one group couldn’t vote to succeed.

[Brainpolice]

In that case, his position is blatantly hypocritical, for he advocates voting in the name of stopping other people from voting.

[meambobbo]

@Brainpolice

In that case, his position is blatantly hypocritical, for he advocates voting in the name of stopping other people from voting.

I don’t think so. He is not advocating using voting to get rid of voting. He is advocating one group of people voting to prevent another group of people from voting. This is as hypocritical as men voting to allow women to vote. Or landowners allowing all citizens to vote, whites allowing blacks…just in reverse. As such it may seem violent and hegemonic, as voting is now regarded as a right. But I think it’s a less violent and hegemonic means of preserving the right of self-ownership than kidnapping, harassing, and killing net tax recipients to prevent them from enabling the state to violate the right of self-ownership.

And if libertarians had a clear 10% - 20% of the vote, we probably wouldn’t be having this argument, because we’d all vote, because it’d actually result in a more restrained government, even if by forcing the major parties to cede some power to woo us. With 1-10%, they don’t care.

The whole ‘don’t vote’ argument is silly to me. I can understand refraining from campaigning, etc. as that takes significant money and time, but voting takes less than 20 minutes. The whole movement to not vote I believe is either being directed by statists or by those who have given in to complete despair. Maybe they are violent revolutionaries, who do not seek peace in our struggle.

I don’t think voting is the complete solution. But I do think voting at least has some effect upon the state which advances our struggle.

[Stephen_Forde]

@Brainpolice

In that case, his position is blatantly hypocritical, for he advocates voting in the name of stopping other people from voting.

I disagree. Your position is similar to that of pacifist libertarians on the use of defensive violence. They claim that the non-aggression applies to everyone and that there is no qualitative difference between aggressive and defensive violence.

The same thing goes for voting. There is a difference between a defensive use of the vote and an aggressive one. Voting yourself the property of others is aggressive, disenfranchising those who vote themselves the property of others is defensive.

And I think it’s a brilliant idea. He’s advocating turning democracy against itself to reduce theft by vote, and to increase political decentralization.

[Brainpolice]

I disagree. Your position is similar to that of pacifist libertarians on the use of defensive violence. They claim that the non-aggression applies to everyone and that there is no qualitative difference between aggressive and defensive violence.

I’m not a pacifist. But I do see the blatant hypocrisy in people with an agenda of stopping other people from voting then turning around and voting in the name of achieving the agenda.

The same thing goes for voting. There is a difference between a defensive use of the vote and an aggressive one. Voting yourself the property of others is aggressive, disenfranchising those who vote themselves the property of others is defensive.

I’ve been through this before. Voting is not an efficient means of defense.

He’s advocating turning democracy against itself to reduce theft by vote, and to increase political decentralization.

Democracy doesn’t turn against itself. Hoppe’s other arguments make a brilliant case against democracy, showing why it doesn’t work and why it has bad incentives. It makes no sense whatsoever for him to then conclude from his rather anti-democracy analysis that democracy can be used for good and makes sense as a strategy.

[Brainpolice]

I don’t think so. He is not advocating using voting to get rid of voting. He is advocating one group of people voting to prevent another group of people from voting.

Right, which is hypocritical or inconsistant. Either people can vote or they cannot. It is inconsistant to assert that group X has an alleged “right to vote” yet group Y does not.

And if libertarians had a clear 10% - 20% of the vote, we probably wouldn’t be having this argument, because we’d all vote, because it’d actually result in a more restrained government, even if by forcing the major parties to cede some power to woo us. With 1-10%, they don’t care.

I find this assumed premise that what amounts to a minority of libertarians voting can actually meaningfully restrain the government ridiculous. I’ve been through why ad nauseum. Just because libertarians vote for something doesn’t gaurantee or necessarily mean that the government follows through with libertarian goals. That’s simply not how representative democracy works.

The whole ‘don’t vote’ argument is silly to me. I can understand refraining from campaigning, etc. as that takes significant money and time, but voting takes less than 20 minutes. The whole movement to not vote I believe is either being directed by statists or by those who have given in to complete despair. Maybe they are violent revolutionaries, who do not seek peace in our struggle.

I reject the premise that non-voters are apathetic per se or that the only alternative to voting is violent revolution. In fact, I see the libertarian voters as being the ones driven by despair, as they seem desperate to find a short-term solution and take the edge off of current ills facing society.

[Bank_Run]

In the United States, the general democratic
tendency to crowd competent and self-respecting
men out of the public service is exaggerated by
a curious constitutional rule, unknown in any
other country. This is the rule, embodied in
Article I, Sections 2 and 3, of the Constitution
and carried over into most of the State constitutions,
that a legislator must be an actual
resident of the district he represents. Its obvious
aim is to preserve for every electoral unit
a direct and continuous voice in the government;
its actual effect is to fill all the legislative bodies
of the land with puerile local politicians, many
of them so stupid that they are quite unable to
grasp the problems with which government has
to deal.~Notes on Democracy

I wish there weren’t laws prohibiting free speech at the voting booth. I bring a book, but still feel urged to talk smack. The virtual keyboard on the damned to hell machine, was nice.

I think it’s vital that we change more minds into understanding that governments are opposed to freedom. The best system of rule, is self rule.

I hear all the time the whole ‘ignorance is no excuse’ deal. Which is alright for the common law, the law everybody understands. For positive law this can only be a subjugators aproach. Legislative bodies love making rules, especially ones that don’t apply to them.

I know write in’s can work. They can at least jab at the status quo.

[Stephen_Forde]

@Brainpolice

I’m not a pacifist.

I never said, implied, nor do I think you are one. I was using an analogy to show that hypocrisy only arises when there is no qualitative difference between what one advocates and the actions one takes. The pacifist sees an aggressor use violence aggainst his vicitm, and sees the victim use violence to defend himself. He concludes that they are both acting unethically because for him there is no distinction between a defensive use and an aggressive use. This is the result of failing to recognize a qualitative difference.

But it is not the use of violence that is wrong. It is the initiation of it.

It’s not the use of the vote that is unethical. It is the redistribution of property titles. There is no hypocracy in using the vote to prevent the redistribution of property titles, just as there is no hypocracy in using force to defend against another’s aggression.

@Brainpolice

I’ve been through this before. Voting is not an efficient means of defense.

Maybe not. But it is a means of defense, and there is no ethical reason why one should not use it.

@Brainpolice

Democracy doesn’t turn against itself. Hoppe’s other arguments make a brilliant case against democracy, showing why it doesn’t work and why it has bad incentives. It makes no sense whatsoever for him to then conclude from his rather anti-democracy analysis that democracy can be used for good and makes sense as a strategy.

Part of Hoppe’s case is that the continually increasing franchise leads to greater redistribution. Disenfranchisement would reverse this trend.

[banned]

@Stephen Forde

I never said, implied, nor do I think you are one. I was using an analogy to show that hypocrisy only arises when there is no qualitative difference between what one advocates and the actions one takes. The pacifist sees an aggressor use violence aggainst his vicitm, and sees the victim use violence to defend himself. He concludes that they are both acting unethically because for him there is no distinction between a defensive use and an aggressive use. This is the result of failing to recognize a qualitative difference.

Is it acceptable to defend yourself against a theif using a cannon which will most likely not only damage the theif but those around the theif as well? To put it in context: the mere fact that an anarchist who is unwilling to vote exists means that any agression against those who vote voluntarily, by electing a candidate who supports a MORE PREFFERABLE SITUATION TO YOURSELF, must be an agressive act against the individual who will not vote.

[Stephen_Forde]

@banned

Is it acceptable to defend yourself against a theif using a cannon which will most likely not only damage the theif but those around the theif as well?

No, obviously this would be aggression against those standing around the theif.

@banned

To put it in context: the mere fact that an anarchist who is unwilling to vote exists means that any agression against those who vote voluntarily, by electing a candidate who supports a MORE PREFFERABLE SITUATION TO YOURSELF, must be an agressive act against the individual who will not vote.

I’m not sure what you are trying to get at.

[Brainpolice]

I believe what he’s getting at is that your vote effects innocent bystanders or 3rd parties of people, defensive or not.

In voting for a politician, even in the name of defense, you are exercising some degree of decision-making with respect to not only who will be your ruler but who will be everyone else’s ruler (including the non-voter). While you may not be an aggressor yourself in the scenario, you most certainly are participating in the process of selecting who will be the aggressor. I fail to see how asquiescing to a process of choosing among rulers is really defense even for your own sake, let alone for the sake of those who didn’t choose that particular ruler or any ruler at all. From the perspective of the non-voter, you are nonetheless somewhat complicit in deciding who will rule over them.

[scineram]

But a ruler will be elected regardless of wether you vote or not. A non voter will be ruled anyway, so it does not make a difference for him.

[Brainpolice]

But a ruler will be elected regardless of wether you vote or not.

Which, if anything, is a good reason for anarchists not to vote, since the entire point is to have “no rulers”. The democratic process does nothing at all to lead to the end of “no rulers”, so it makes no sense at all as an anarchist strategy.

[scineram]

But can lead to less rule, where no rule is an anarchist end.

[Brainpolice]

@scineram

But can lead to less rule, where no rule is an anarchist end.

The democratic process can only lead to a change in rulers or bureaucracies, not the elimination of the institutional problem itself. That’s why it makes no sense from an anarchist perspective. Anarchists don’t desire a more benevolent ruler, they desire the elimination of rulership. I’ve been through this ad nauseum. Begging your masters for some lenience or changing who is your master or becoming a master yourself is not a strategy for radical change or abolitionism.

[scineram]

Why is gradualism wrong when not conflicting with radical abolitionism?

[Brainpolice]

@scineram

Why is gradualism wrong when not conflicting with radical abolitionism?

When does it NOT conflict with it? And the issue isn’t so much with gradualism but pragmatism and what amounts to counterproductivity with respect to the ultimate end.