Role of Government

[Dglgmut]

Recently I've been considering what the role of government ought to be. I orginally leaned towards anarchism, as I figured that private police forces would emerge and that the most productive and capable would be protected by their value to those who protect them.

However, I've since decided that the one place there is no room for competition is in the physical force market, and that the role of government should be to enforce the human rights of its people.

Then I thought about taxes. I figure the only fair way to tax people for the service of enforcing their rights, is to evaluate how much of that service they have claim to. This would mean dividing the costs of the police force and national defence based on how much property one owns, and, of course, an accross the board rate for protecting the lives and health (from external harm) of the people as well. The amount of tax collected should be equal to the cost of maintaining the necessary services.

With such a staightforward purpose, it would be much easier to judge the ability of an elected government power.

I also thought, though, about companies outsourcing labour, or even just the nature of bulk purchase power... The one thing that's always turned me off of a free market is the capitalist slogan: It takes money to make money. I know, if all the kinks were allowed to work themselves out, it would take effort/competence to make money, as long as those with money were competent themselves and able to invest wisely... but I think one way to help level the playing field would be to make all international purchases available at the same price to any business by having the government purchase on behalf of all the interested businesses in the country.

It can't be denied that cooperation is always exponentially more productive than divided efforts, and there should be some way of incorporating that into a capitalist economic system... What sort of safeguard is there against destructive competition from businesses that have gotten near the point of monopolies?

I've never really been interested in politics until recently, so I'm sorry if this reads as gobbeldygook.

[BaalChatzaf]

I've never really been interested in politics until recently, so I'm sorry if this reads as gobbeldygook.

Politics is gobbeldygook, so there is no need to apologize. Politics, like government, is a necessary evil.

If humans were like the bonobos instead of the chimpanzees, we would need no government and very little politics. But that is not the way we evolved.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[syrakusos]

DGLGMUT - You have a lot going on there and your suppositions take several broad leaps. Part of the problem is that you are theorizing without enough background. It is true that an unpoliticized market is generally more efficient. And it is true that people should pay for what they want. And it is also true that generally, everything on Earth has just one price. Differences in price over time and place are small variations in events that cannot be controlled. Just simple physics says that they have to be reported first; then before any action can happen, they will change to some other state, requiring a new report. It is why central planning must fail. Another factor is transportation cost, also unavoidable, even with matter transmitters - which is what a ship or truck really is.

Just to take one item from the middle: Any police chief will tell you that 80% of your problems come from 20% of your addresses in any neighborhood. Clearly, however, among the people who cannot police themselves and need public service for it are many who cannot afford to pay for it. Crime is complex, but poverty - even when not a cause; which it is - still correlates.

Only in the past couple of generations have we gotten away from the woefully ineffective retributive "justice" of public-choice courts. Your town probably has arbitrators, law offices that specialize in remediation outside of courts. Often they are allied with the courts, being assigned cases that are open to compromise. (Typically, someone or other must go to psychological counseling or marriage counseling or family counseling.)

If you read your credit card contract or your apartment lease or your mortgage, you might find that you agreed to take any dispute to arbitration first.

As for police patrols, the fact is that private guards outnumber police in America 2 to 1; and in California 3 to 1 and have since about 1985 or so. The trend was first noticed about 1970 and reported a few years later. We take a lot of abuse with movies like Mall Cop, Observe and Report, National Security, etc., etc., but that is all governmentalist propaganda, as are the "reality" shows with blazing lights and rough and tumble chases and take-downs.

It is a fact that generally speaking college-educated police (government police) with either bachelor's or associate's degrees do more work with fewer problems than those with only high school educations. Also, women officers have fewer problems and work harder than men.

Just to say, your abstractions about "police" hide a lot of texture and nuance.

The Objectivist theory of government rests on objective law. Ayn Rand was interviewed by her lawyer on this. (30 minutes listen here.)

Realize however, that the specific wording that government must hold a monopoly on force comes directly from the German sociologist Max Weber (Politics as a Calling, 1919). Yes, 1919. The word "police" appears nowhere in the US Constitution because the first police force was not created until 1829 in London. While Boston, Philadelphia, New York, and Chicago all boast the "first" American city police - first founded; first full-time; first continuing; etc. - most American city police only go back to the Post-Civil War era. Yet we had government. Better government, some would say.

The fundamental objective purpose of government is to codify law. It can be, as in most nations so-called "civil law" (not the American meaning of torts) where everything is specified in detail and the court just finds what applies. It can be, as in British nations such as the USA "bench made law" where the legislature passes broad statements which the courts interpret on a case-by-case basis, creating a body of case law against which new cases are considered. Regardless, law is how the government protects rights.

As for government intervention in the global markets, you cannot have read "I Pencil" by Leonard Read, and still think that you can even identify the markets. I have two old coffee cups here with pens and pencils, markers, etc., Where would you begin? The graphite in the "leads" or the clays with which the graphite is mixed?

[Peter]

From the role of government thread, DGLGMUT wrote:

I originally leaned towards anarchism, as I figured that private police forces would emerge and that the most productive and capable would be protected by their value to those who protect them . . . However, I've since decided . . . that the role of government should be to enforce the human rights of its people.

end quote

Thanks for such a thoughtful letter. Your plan to tax by first “paying for services rendered” is right on the mark though as Michael M. noted, many poor people might not be able to afford it. I think a minimally progressive general tax could make up for a shortfall in paying for services rendered. We may not have had city police until the early 1800’s but the *Sheriff of Nottingham and his henchmen* have always been with us, and the local elites paid for them. Because these Sheriffs were paid for by the Duke or the King, the lawmen favored them. Common law ensured some semblance of rights for the poorer citizens but you know how that goes: power corrupts.

D wrote:

The one thing that's always turned me off of a free market is the capitalist slogan: It takes money to make money.

end quote

A truer slogan might be, as you work for a living, save your money, come up with a good idea, implement it, make a profit and grow your company. The Capital in Capitalism is there if you wish to relinquish some control of your profits to grow your company. Around here Pakistani, Indian, and Iranian émigrés own a lot of the convenience stores. From a newspaper’s in-depth piece on them, I know many brought money or gold or jewelry with them and invested that here, but many of them still had to earn a grub stake.

D wrote:

What sort of safeguard is there against destructive competition from businesses that have gotten near the point of monopolies?

end quote

With no government intervention a free economy will rely on competition. Many past American monopolies relied on Government intervention to hold onto their monopolies. That should be illegal. I have heard about Microsoft’s demands that vendors and individuals use JUST their products or you don’t get ANY of their products. There is nothing wrong with that. The market will prevail over them if their products are too expensive or if a better product like Apple Computers comes along. Henry Ford used to have a window breaking goon squad that would break the car windows of any car in his factory parking lot that was not a Ford. Obviously, the perpetrators should be apprehended and imprisoned, even if the perpetrator or instigator is Henry Ford himself.

Michael M wrote:

As for police patrols, the fact is that private guards outnumber police in America 2 to 1; and in California 3 to 1 and have since about 1985 or so.

end quote

A private force protecting individual rights and not initiating force is a completely moral institution. Michael quoted Ayn Rand who said, “The Objectivist theory of government rests on objective law.” Remember, a trespasser on someone else’s property has already initiated force if the trespass was deliberate. Michael Marotta is a noble warrior 8 -)

The cost of prosecuting and warehousing career criminals is a problem, but that is required by our Constitution’s speedy trial clause and prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. A cheaper alternative that is not cruel or unusual might be a “Devil’s Island” scenario. Using Rational Anarchic Theory, the convicted career felons, settled on an isolated island in the Hawaiian archipelago, would be given seeds, cattle, tools, satellite TV (but not cell phones which might be used to run criminal enterprises outside the island or to plan an escape) and housing. Then they would live as sovereign citizens, isolated on that island, guarded by the Coast Guard and technology. Obviously in a free society, as Ron Paul has stressed, there would be no one convicted of drug possession or of selling non-poisonous drugs to adults.

George H. Smith wrote “IN DEFENSE OF RATIONAL ANARCHISM:”

Anarchism is a theory of the good society, in which justice and social order are maintained without the State (or government). Many anarchists in the libertarian movement (including myself) were heavily influenced by the epistemological and moral theories of Ayn Rand. According to these anarchists, Rand's principles, if consistently applied, lead necessarily to a repudiation of government on moral grounds . . . I call this rational anarchism, because it is grounded in the belief that we are fully capable, through reason, of discerning the principles of justice; and that we are capable, through rational persuasion and voluntary agreement, of establishing whatever institutions are necessary for the preservation and enforcement of justice. It is precisely because no government can be established by means of reason and mutual consent that all Objectivists should reject that institution as unjust in both theory and practice.

end quote

I have my doubts about Rational Anarchism which I have frequently voiced, especially my conviction that the “constant consent” of rationally persuasive people would not last. Here is a way to test the theory. After their last conviction, a clearly defined career criminal would have a choice. Serve out your life in a mainland prison or live semi-free on a tropical island. Your main loss of liberty will be the loss of the right of freely move beyond the Island. That initial choice and Rational Anarchism if it is true, will ensure that there is nothing cruel or unusual about the punishment.

I hope George H. Smith will support this idea.

Semper cogitans fidele,

Peter Taylor

[Peter]

I wrote that career criminals could serve out their lives in a mainland prison or live semi-free on a tropical “Devil’s Island.” Their main loss of liberty would be the loss of the right of free movement beyond the Island. The criminal’s initial limited choice united with Rational Anarchism, if it is true, ensures that there is nothing cruel or unusual about the punishment.

My pragmatic test for Rational Anarchism is not stacked against the theory because criminals are used as test subjects. As its most prestigious proponent George H. Smith has clearly stated, “Anarchism is a theory of the good society, in which justice and social order are maintained without the State . . . and we are fully capable, through reason, of discerning the principles of justice; and that we are capable, through rational persuasion and voluntary agreement, of establishing whatever institutions are necessary for the preservation and enforcement of justice.”

George uses the term “we” which means “we humans.” If all those convicted in the United States were *wrongfully convicted* by an immoral government and “Rand's principles, if consistently applied, lead necessarily to a repudiation of government on moral grounds . . .” then using Mr. Smith’s own logic, the good society including anarchists and libertarians can establish a just society by means of reason and mutual consent. No where does Mr. Smith say the good society must be made up of specific humans, only that anarchists, libertarians and Objectivist should agree with him.

No where does Mr. Smith discriminate on the basis of past wrongful criminal convictions, or race, creed, or ethnicity. Therefore the deck is not stacked in this hypothetical scenario. If anything, those wrongfully convicted would have the most incentive to rationally make the most of their reinstated, limited freedoms.

Semper cogitans fidele,

Peter Taylor

[Peter]

I wrote that career criminals could serve out their lives in a mainland prison or live semi-free on a tropical “Devil’s Island.” Of course this voluntary option would be available for male and female convicts. However a dilemma immediately arises: what if a child is born on the Island? Any child born there would be a United States citizen with rights.

The option to allow children born on the island to live on the island is not a good option because their rights would be denied. Parents are normally the legal guardians and speak for the child until a certain age, but because of the circumstances of their incarceration that is not fair to the children, and even an outside court appointed guardian is not a fair rights protecting option.

Another option would be to put women on one island and men on another island, but for the Rational Anarchic experiment to be fair, this could be considered cruel and unusual, even though that is the common practice in our prisons. Or either all the men or all the women would first be sterilized before voluntary admittance to the same Island.

Accidental pregnancy could occur if sterilization is not successful. What then? Would the mother have access to prenatal, obstetric and medical care? Should surveillance cameras be on the island? Could a TV program using these castaways be made and the proceeds going to victims of their crimes or outside relatives of theirs? These and other problems could be worked out.

Semper cogitans fidele,

Peter Taylor

[Peter]

I wrote that career criminals could serve out their lives in a mainland prison or on a tropical “Devil’s Island utilizing the principles of Rational Anarchism. They are free except they cannot leave the island.

A dramatization. You all signed a contract when you chose to come here.

The contract reads:

“I give consent to the rights of others while living in an anarchistic state of nature. I possess the "executive power" to enforce my own rights against the aggressive actions of others. This consent theory, consistently applied, is the contract I freely sign. True sovereignty resides in each individual, who has the right to assess the justice of another’s act. Using an objective system of justice, I will discriminate between the initiation of force and the retaliatory use of force, thereby providing a rational method for assessing any person or voluntary agency on The Island. Furthermore, I agree that a system of objective justice defines and sanctions the use of defensive violence which is the right of resistance and revolution. I repudiate political sovereignty in favor of individual rights and voluntary institutions.”

That is the end of the contract you signed. We trade voluntarily with each other and the outside world with products we mine or manufacture here. You are free to succeed. You are free to fail. But for the first time in your life you are free.

Welcome to anarchy.

Welcome to Terra Nova!

Semper cogitans fidele,

Peter Taylor

[syrakusos]

Peter, you are theorizing without facts. I have not read GHS's works, so it is with caution that I say that his writings on this also seem to be pure rationalism, a Plato's Republic where everything works as described because there are no real people involved.

We have a couple of inter-related problems. First the topic here is the proper role of government. If we just quote Ayn Rand at each other, then the matter is closed, easily. However, if we re-work the problem, as if there were no answer in the back of the book, then it takes more effort.

"The purpose of government is to protect rights, therefore, we must have police..." ignores the facts: we had governments before we had police.

Your rhapsodies on incarceration to Devil's Island ignores the facts: had governments before we had prisons. Prison as we know it is, like policing, an invention of the Enlightenment. The penitentiary was created by Pennsylvania's Quakers to let the penitent come to God. Isolation was supposed to provide time for meditation and reflection. (Historically, prison was only a holding cell before execution. Sometimes, prison was form of kidnapping in which you were held until some fine or debt was paid. Never was it like we know it now until the 18th century. And it evolved through the 19th and 20th. Largely, prisons were run by prisoners -- and they were brutal places to be, as you can imagine. Moreover, the statistical facts seem to be that there was less crime when we had fewer prisons. The growth in prisons preceded the increases in crime rates.

You touched on wrongful convictions. They are more common than you know. First torture to achieve confessions was not unusual. (See Brown v. MIssissippi297 U.S. 278, (1936).) In our own time, the police "clear" cases when a suspect is named. They make it worth your while to confess to many crimes you did not commit, and the prosecutor and judge decide with your lawyer which ones to throw out. Samuel Gross, a University of Michigan law professor, estimates 80,000 wrongful convictions in the past 15 years.

In terms of actual harms and wrongs the facts are that about 85% of victims of violent crimes knew their assailants. Being attacked by a stranger is the rare 1-in-7 case. The only response we have seen historically which seems to work in modern times is not exclusion and ostracism, but rather, re-integration. Re-integrative shaming seems to work best. (See my paper on John Braithwaite's theory here.) This is not some airy philosophical argument, but simply a summation of known facts explained by a consistent hypothesis.

Generally, people who abuse others were abused themselves first. They are only passing along the pain. Punishing them achieves nothing and fixes nothing. Yes, there are "rational criminals" who calculate and plan: white collar criminals. Also, successful drug dealers seem to exhibit the same planful competence required of any business, including hard work, risk-taking, and specialization. But as we know white collar crime, like drug crime, is often a matter of breaking laws that have no objective foundation.

Moreover, for those swindlers, forgers, frauds, and confidence hucksters who do victimize others, often, private sanctions have proved more powerful than state actions.

“In responding to and resolving the criminal behavior of employees, organizations routinely choose options other than criminal prosecution, for example, suspension without pay, transfer, job reassignment, job redesign (eliminating some job duties), civil restitution, and dismissal...

While on the surface, it appears that organizations opt for less severe sanctions than would be imposed by the criminal justice system, in reality, the organizational sanctions may have greater impact... In addition, the private systems of criminal justice are not always subject to principles of exclusionary evidence, fairness, and defendant rights which characterize the public criminal justice systems. The level of position, the amount of power, and socio-economic standing of the employee in the company may greatly influence the formality and type of company sanctions. In general, private justice systems are characterized by informal negotiations and outcomes, and nonuniform standards and procedures among organizations and crime types.”

(Hallcrest Report cited in Introduction to Private Security, Hess and Wrobleski, West Publishing, St.Paul, 1982, 1988. The Hallcrest Report I and II, by William C. Cunningham and Todd H. Taylor, et al., Butterworth-Heinemann, Boston, 1985 and 1990.)

To summarize: (1) We do not have a solid derivation from absolutes through objectivity for the proper role of government. We have, at best, a partial indication. (2) Rationalist prescriptions and utopian predictions cannot stand up to the large body of known facts and reliable statistics.

If you want to establish the proper role of government, you need to start with the facts. From that, you can build a theory to be tested.

[syrakusos]

Peter, you are theorizing without facts. I have not read GHS's works, so it is with caution that I say that his writings on this also seem to be pure rationalism, a Plato's Republic where everything works as described because there are no real people involved.

We have a couple of inter-related problems. First the topic here is the proper role of government. If we just quote Ayn Rand at each other, then the matter is closed, easily. However, if we re-work the problem, as if there were no answer in the back of the book, then it takes more effort.

"The purpose of government is to protect rights, therefore, we must have police..." ignores the facts: we had governments before we had police.

Your rhapsodies on incarceration to Devil's Island ignores the facts: we had governments before we had prisons. Prison as we know it is, like policing, an invention of the Enlightenment. The penitentiary was created by Pennsylvania's Quakers to let the penitent come to God. Isolation was supposed to provide time for meditation and reflection. (Historically, prison was only a holding cell before execution. Sometimes, prison was form of kidnapping in which you were held until some fine or debt was paid. Never was it like we know it now until the 18th century. And it evolved through the 19th and 20th. Largely, prisons were run by prisoners -- and they were brutal places to be, as you can imagine. Moreover, the statistical facts seem to be that there was less crime when we had fewer prisons. The growth in prisons preceded the increases in crime rates.

You touched on wrongful convictions. They are more common than you know. First torture to achieve confessions was not unusual. (See Brown v. MIssissippi297 U.S. 278, (1936).) In our own time, the police "clear" cases when a suspect is named. They make it worth your while to confess to many crimes you did not commit, and the prosecutor and judge decide with your lawyer which ones to throw out. Samuel Gross, a University of Michigan law professor, estimates 80,000 wrongful convictions in the past 15 years.

In terms of actual harms and wrongs the facts are that about 85% of victims of violent crimes knew their assailants. Being attacked by a stranger is the rare 1-in-7 case. The only response we have seen historically which seems to work in modern times is not exclusion and ostracism, but rather, re-integration. Re-integrative shaming seems to work best. (See my paper on John Braithwaite's theory here.) This is not some airy philosophical argument, but simply a summation of known facts explained by a consistent hypothesis.

Generally, people who abuse others were abused themselves first. They are only passing along the pain. Punishing them achieves nothing and fixes nothing. Yes, there are "rational criminals" who calculate and plan: white collar criminals. Also, successful drug dealers seem to exhibit the same planful competence required of any business, including hard work, risk-taking, and specialization. But as we know white collar crime, like drug crime, is often a matter of breaking laws that have no objective foundation.

Moreover, for those swindlers, forgers, frauds, and confidence hucksters who do victimize others, often, private sanctions have proved more powerful than state actions.

“In responding to and resolving the criminal behavior of employees, organizations routinely choose options other than criminal prosecution, for example, suspension without pay, transfer, job reassignment, job redesign (eliminating some job duties), civil restitution, and dismissal...

While on the surface, it appears that organizations opt for less severe sanctions than would be imposed by the criminal justice system, in reality, the organizational sanctions may have greater impact... In addition, the private systems of criminal justice are not always subject to principles of exclusionary evidence, fairness, and defendant rights which characterize the public criminal justice systems. The level of position, the amount of power, and socio-economic standing of the employee in the company may greatly influence the formality and type of company sanctions. In general, private justice systems are characterized by informal negotiations and outcomes, and nonuniform standards and procedures among organizations and crime types.”

(Hallcrest Report cited in Introduction to Private Security, Hess and Wrobleski, West Publishing, St.Paul, 1982, 1988. The Hallcrest Report I and II, by William C. Cunningham and Todd H. Taylor, et al., Butterworth-Heinemann, Boston, 1985 and 1990.)

To summarize: (1) We do not have a solid derivation from absolutes through objectivity for the proper role of government. We have, at best, a partial indication. (2) Rationalist prescriptions and utopian predictions cannot stand up to the large body of known facts and reliable statistics.

If you want to establish the proper role of government, you need to start with the facts. From that, you can build a theory to be tested.

[Peter]

Michael E. Marotta wrote a thoughtful, thorough response but I will just truncate what he said to show what was, and is, on my mind. Michael wrote:

Peter, you are theorizing without facts. I have not read GHS's works, so it is with caution that I say that his writings on this also seem to be pure rationalism, a Plato's Republic where everything works as described because there are no real people involved . . . . If you want to establish the proper role of government, you need to start with the facts. From that, you can build a theory to be tested.

end quote

Precisely. You nailed my primary beef with George H. Smith. His writings are SELECTIVE historical compilations, word proofs or *rationalism.* Bourke wrote about Rationalism, “In more technical terms, it is a method or a theory "in which the criterion of the truth is not sensory but intellectual and deductive."

I wanted to provide him or other Rational Anarchists a platform, for THEIR Plato's Republic, or B.F. Skinner’s “Walden Two,” that does go back to sensory data. His problem is as you stated, “everything works as described because there are no real people involved.” George H. Smith does not even supply a blueprint of how it works. He does postulate that his Rational Anarchist Territory will be just like Ayn Rand’s ideal Objectivist Government EXCEPT without coercive taxation (which is Rand’s ultimate goal) and without the retaliatory use of force in the hands of a Government (which was ludicrous to her.) His Constitution would be a contract that requires the daily consent of the signatories. Or not. Everyone is a Sovereign Citizen.

The idea of a Terra Nova scenario was my contribution to the end of fleshing out their abstractions. And, I have one more brief addition. I hope an Anarchist will take what I have written, make it their own, and build on it. Otherwise, their efforts are flimsy and quickly dismissible.

On the original thread topic, a government is an institution that holds the exclusive power to enforce certain rules of social conduct in a given geographical area. Citizens may only physically retaliate in an emergency situation to protect themselves, others or property.

You wrote, “If you want to establish the proper role of government, you need to start with the facts. From that, you can build a theory to be tested.”

Constitutionalists have the facts. Theirs is a theory that has been tested, and is currently being tested. To work throughout the millennia, a Constitution must be amendable, but ONLY amendable to fix a shortcoming in the original document that allows for power creep in one branch of government, and does not adequately protect the rights of its citizens.

Semper cogitans fidele,

Peter Taylor

Galt’s Speech from For the New Intellectual, 183

The only proper purpose of a government is to protect man’s rights, which means: to protect him from physical violence. A proper government is only a policeman, acting as an agent of man’s self-defense, and, as such, may resort to force only against those who start the use of force. The only proper functions of a government are: the police, to protect you from criminals; the army, to protect you from foreign invaders; and the courts, to protect your property and contracts from breach or fraud by others, to settle disputes by rational rules, according to objective law. But a government that initiates the employment of force against men who had forced no one, the employment of armed compulsion against disarmed victims, is a nightmare infernal machine designed to annihilate morality: such a government reverses its only moral purpose and switches from the role of protector to the role of man’s deadliest enemy, from the role of policeman to the role of a criminal vested with the right to the wielding of violence against victims deprived of the right of self-defense. Such a government substitutes for morality the following rule of social conduct: you may do whatever you please to your neighbor, provided your gang is bigger than his.

end quote

[Peter]

I will just reprint what I have written about a Rational Anarchist’s Terra Nova, with my final addition at the end. If any of my story has validity, take it and do something with it.

The cost of prosecuting and warehousing career criminals is a problem, but that is required by our Constitution’s speedy trial clause and prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. A cheaper alternative that is not cruel or unusual might be a “Devil’s Island” situation. Using Rational Anarchic Theory, the convicted career felons, settle on an isolated island in the Hawaiian archipelago, are given seeds, cattle, tools, satellite TV (but not cell phones which might be used to run criminal enterprises outside the island or to plan an escape) and housing. Then, at a lesser cost to law abiding citizens in the fifty states, they would live as sovereign citizens isolated on that island, guarded by the Coast Guard and technology. Obviously in a free society, as Ron Paul has stressed, there would be no one convicted of drug possession or of selling non-poisonous drugs to adults.

George H. Smith wrote “IN DEFENSE OF RATIONAL ANARCHISM:”

Anarchism is a theory of the good society, in which justice and social order are maintained without the State (or government). Many anarchists in the libertarian movement (including myself) were heavily influenced by the epistemological and moral theories of Ayn Rand. According to these anarchists, Rand's principles, if consistently applied, lead necessarily to a repudiation of government on moral grounds . . .

I call this rational anarchism, because it is grounded in the belief that we are fully capable, through reason, of discerning the principles of justice; and that we are capable, through rational persuasion and voluntary agreement, of establishing whatever institutions are necessary for the preservation and enforcement of justice. It is precisely because no government can be established by means of reason and mutual consent that all Objectivists should reject that institution as unjust in both theory and practice.

end quote

I have my doubts about Rational Anarchism which I have frequently voiced, especially my conviction that the “constant consent” of rationally persuasive people would not last. Here is a way to test the theory. After their last conviction, a clearly defined career criminal would have a choice. Serve out your life in a mainland prison or live semi-free on a tropical island. Your main loss of liberty will be the loss of the right of free movement beyond the Island. That initial choice and Rational Anarchism will ensure that there is nothing cruel or unusual about the punishment.

Continued . . .

My pragmatic test for Rational Anarchism is not stacked against the theory because criminals are used as test subjects. As its most prestigious proponent George H. Smith has clearly stated, “Anarchism is a theory of the good society, in which justice and social order are maintained without the State . . . and we are fully capable, through reason, of discerning the principles of justice; and that we are capable, through rational persuasion and voluntary agreement, of establishing whatever institutions are necessary for the preservation and enforcement of justice.”

George uses the term “we” which means “we humans.” If all those convicted in the United States were *wrongfully convicted* by an immoral government and “Rand's principles, if consistently applied, lead necessarily to a repudiation of government on moral grounds . . .” then using Mr. Smith’s own logic, the good society including anarchists and libertarians can establish a just society by means of reason and mutual consent, even if they are convicted felons. No where does Mr. Smith say the good society must be made up of specific humans, only that anarchists, libertarians and Objectivist should agree with him.

No where does Mr. Smith discriminate on the basis of past wrongful criminal convictions, or race, creed, or ethnicity. Therefore the deck is not stacked in this hypothetical scenario. If anything, those wrongfully convicted would have the most incentive to rationally make the most of their reinstated, limited freedoms.

continued . . .

However a dilemma immediately arises: what if a child is born on the Island? Any child born there would be a United States citizen with rights.

The option to allow children born on the island to live on the island is not a good option because their rights would be denied. Parents are normally the legal guardians and speak for the child until a certain age, but because of the circumstances of their incarceration that is not fair to the children, and even an outside court appointed guardian is not a fair rights protecting option.

Another option would be to put women on one island and men on another island, but for the Rational Anarchic experiment to be fair, this could be considered cruel and unusual, even though that is the common practice in our prisons. Or either all the men or all the women would first be sterilized before voluntary admittance to the same Island.

Accidental pregnancy could occur if sterilization is not successful. What then? Would the mother have access to prenatal, obstetric and medical care? Should surveillance cameras be on the island? Could a TV program using these castaways be made and the proceeds going to victims of their crimes or outside relatives of theirs? These and other problems could be worked out.

continued . . .

A dramatization. Image the grizzled Security Chief from “Terra Nova," saying the following.

You all signed a contract when you chose to come here.

The contract reads:

“I give consent to the rights of others while living in an anarchistic state of nature. I possess the "executive power" to enforce my own rights against the aggressive actions of others. This consent theory, consistently applied, is the contract I freely sign. True sovereignty resides in each individual, who has the right to assess the justice of another’s act. Using an objective system of justice, I will discriminate between the initiation of force and the retaliatory use of force, thereby providing a rational method for assessing any person or voluntary agency on The Island. Furthermore, I agree that a system of objective justice defines and sanctions the use of defensive violence which is the right of resistance and revolution. I repudiate political sovereignty in favor of individual rights and voluntary institutions.”

That is the end of the contract you signed. We trade voluntarily with the outside world with products we mine or manufacture here. You are free to succeed. You are free to fail. But for the first time in your life you are free.

Welcome to anarchy.

Welcome to Terra Nova!

Continued 20 years later . . .

Welcome to your new home. The experiment was a success. Drop your bags here. They will be probed by electronics, sniffed by dogs, and fingered by humans. No cell phones allowed! Twenty years have passed since our founding. You are the first citizen’s of the world to immigrate and sign the contract who were not convicts. No longer will we be a convict only nation. We now have a per capita income equal to that of another nation that began as a convict nation, Australia. You, the first group of completely voluntary Sovereign Citizens consists of scientists, authors, bankers, and anyone who wants to be free. Welcome to Anarchy! Welcome to Terra Nova!

Semper cogitans fidele,

Peter Taylor