Anarcho-Capitalism: A Branden ‘Blast from the Past’

[anthony]

Tony, I am just trying to simplify things wherever possible. A law must be enforced in order to exist, and therefor a wish for just laws is more exactly a wish for just exercises of power. You can either wish for a different government or for the same government to act differently. Which is more realistic? If you were kidnapped would you beg not to be killed or would you try to escape? If someone commits a crime against you, is it any more or less just if they warned you that they were going to do it? The fact that they have the power to do it is not up for debate, but isn't the important issue whether they should have the power, rather than what warnings you have of them abusing it? The minarchist wants unequal power, but equal protection of rights. This is obviously unrealistic. Back to democracy, though: Why is rational self-interest an ideal morality when dealing with individuals but not with groups? Do you assume it is in the best interest of the majority to violate a minority's rights? If it is objectively true that individual rights are what are necessary for civility and progression amongst a society, then the majority will eventually choose individual rights. If the majority chooses individual rights, there's no turning back... as they would not be given a proper social system, they would be making one for themselves. In Atlas Shrugged, the "men of the mind" gave their government an ultimatum. How long do you think the strike would have lasted if the majority had the authority to agree to John Galt's terms?

Trying to identify our -if any - differences here, it seems that while I'm largely 'bottom-up' (from individual to society) your main thrust is 'top-down' - from authority of power, to the people. Please understand, I'm not saying

for a moment that you are not also aware of the big picture. I just have difficulty imagining 'groups'.

No problem, we'll meet in the middle, I'm certain. ;)

Simply, I think there is good power, and bad power. Obviously, even the most limited government needs to have power to be effective. How that power is derived, and how it is used, is all-important ( self-evident, but if only for my

understanding, I need to get back to basics.)

For my slightly infantile picture of how it happens, let's assume we live in a country of 10 million adults, without any laws, whatsoever. But instead it is commonly accepted

that each of us has the fundamental moral right to defend himself, his loved

ones, and his property - up to and including taking an attacker's life. Kind of raw, frontier justice.

Eventually, a large number of us begin thinking this is unworkable, with unequal applications and outcomes.

We get together (!) and formulate a rough plan which involves each citizen giving up a small, but equal, amount of his right to self-defence - to one, single Agency.

The majority of that moral right naturally (and forever) remains with the individual; however, the Agency now possesses an aggregate power borrowed from every one of the 10 million. Not an ounce more, or less.

Now, you're living right across country in Calvinburg, and I'm here in Tonytown. You are the victim of some form of violence or fraud, let's say. The policing and legal system that we have all empowered, goes into action, removes the pereptrator, and dispenses justice. A part of my personal and delegated moral power is employed; so though I don't know you, I have (and am) invested in your well-being. On several levels of self-interest (removal of a criminal, to start with) each of us then, also has a committed interest in the safety and security of all others.

Ultimately, this minarchist government derives its "good" power by implicit consent of all 10 million - its usage of this power is, conversely, 100% explicit and limited.

I'm not definite on this, but it seems that with the competing-agency anarchist system, the social contract with a single Agency - as well as the social compact among all the nation's citizens - can become scattered, interrupted and diluted.

[George H. Smith]

Again, you seem to have forgotten the initial premise that NB laid down in your headline post. NB said:

Branden: This, of course, is their favorite argument and their stock argument. In briefest essentials, I would answer as follows. Let's imagine, to make it very simple, that we--this group in this room tonight-- form a society and agree on the principles to be operative in the society in a political sense. We agree upon a constitution and a government is created for the purpose of carrying out the principles laid down in this constitution

NB deals with the problem of consent by assuming that we have unanimous consent at the time a government is formed. You have never offered any other alternative. So drop the juvenile crap about Platonism and try to focus on the problem at hand.

This strikes me as a red herring, George. Branden was using the people in the room to construct his example, not as an exact microcosm of any society which organizes a government. It was not his intention to imply that there is always unanimous consent when a government is formed. He discussed the pro's and cons of representative government by majority rule in a follow-up question which I also posted.

I understand that NB was using an example for the sake of argument. But since you have given no alternative explanation or example of the role that consent plays in a legitimate government, we have nothing else to work with.

Lastly, I will call attention to the fact that you have failed to give any reasons as to why we should regard the current U.S. government as legitimate. Ghs

To the extent that the current U.S. government is engaged in the violation of individual rights, I would not argue that it is legitimate.

An honest, straightforward answer. Thank you.

But there are some problems. If the U.S. government is illegitimate to the extent that it violates individual rights, then, by implication, it is legitimate to the extent that it protects and enforces individual rights.

Okay, but would you apply the same standard to other governments? Every government in history, no matter how tryannical, has enforced individual rights to some degree, e.g., by prohibiting and punishing murder and theft. People could not murder other people with impunity in Nazi Germany or in Soviet Russia, nor can they do so today in North Korea and Iran -- so to the extent that such governments enforce individual rights, would you call them "legitimate," to that degree? Sharia law prohibits murder and theft, so would you say that a government that enforces Sharia law is somewhat legitimate?

One more thing. If the U.S. government is legitimate to the extent that it protects individual rights, then why not say that a private justice agency is legitimate to the extent that it protects individual rights? If you are willing to concede degrees of legitimacy for governments, then why not concede degrees of legitimacy for private justice agencies?

Or do you wish to say that a private justice agency could never protect individual rights under any circumstances? -- that, for example, it could never apprehend a murderer, or catch a car thief and restore the stolen property to its rightful owner. I hope this is not what you would say, for it is clearly absurd.

Ghs

[George H. Smith]

Libertarian anarchists take a social principle—rights--and elevate it to the status of an axiom, which means they ignore all the philosophical principles that come before that.

This is false, as I have pointed out to you before. With the exception of Walter Block -- an odd duck in a pond of ducks -- no major libertarian anarchist has viewed the non-initiation of force principle as a moral axiom. On the contrary, most of them -- e.g., Roy Childs, Randy Barnett, and myself -- hailed from a Randian background, and we embraced anarchism because we believed that minarchism is inconsistent with Rand's fundamental moral principles. Even Murray Rothbard acknowledged the huge influence that Rand had on his appreciation for a natural law/natural rights foundation for freedom. Consider this excerpt from a fascinating letter (3 Oct., 1957) that Murray wrote to Rand:

At any rate, I want you to know that, even without seeing you, you have had an enormous influence upon me—even before the novel [AS] came out. When I first became interested in ideas, my first principle that I had from the start was a burning love of human freedom, and a hatred for aggressive violence of man upon man. I always liked economics, and was inclined to theory, but found in my graduate economics courses that I felt all the theories offered were dead wrong, but I could not say why. Mises was the next great influence upon me, because I found in it a great rational system of economics, each interconnected logically, each following, as in Aristotelian philosophy, from a basic and certain axiom: the existence of human beings. When I first met you, many years ago, I was a follower of Mises, but unhappy about his antipathy to natural rights, which I felt was true but could not demonstrate. You introduced me to the whole field of natural rights and natural law philosophy, which I did not know existed, and month by month, working on my own as I preferred, I learned and studied the glorious natural rights tradition. I also learned from you about the existence of Aristotelian epistemology, and then I studied that, and came to it wholeheartedly. So that I owe you a great intellectual debt for many years, the least of which is introducing me to a tradition of which four years of college and three years of graduate school, to say nothing of other reading, had kept me in ignorance.

http://mises.org/jou...21_4/21_4_3.pdf

If you read The Ethics of Liberty, you will see that Murray's derivation of rights is very similar to Rand's.

Ghs

[Brant Gaede]

It was Branden Rothbard went nuts over, not so much the other players including Rand.

--Brant

[George H. Smith]

Politics must provide a social structure which enables man to be moral.. If man survives by the use of his mind, and the essence of force is to make the mind inapplicable to life, then force is evil in principle. The principle that defines a man’s right to be free from force is that of rights. Rights are the starting pointing for any discussion of politics and government. Rights are the means of subordinating society to moral law.

Rothbardians agree with all this. Rothbard said essentially the same thing many times.

Applying the principle of rights—of abolishing force from human relationships--requires that full context and hierarchy.

It is not self-evident that force is evil, as the libertarian anarchist seems to assume.

No Rothbardian assumes this or believes this. I am a libertarian anarchist, so are you attributing this position to me? Do you know of any instance where I have said or even implied that it is "self-evident that force is evil"? Can you cite an instance where Murray Rothbard, Roy Childs, or Randy Barnett said anything like this?

If not, then why do you make this stuff up as you go along? May I similarly manufacture a caricature of your position and then criticize that straw man? I just want to know what the rules are in this discussion.

If you want to move beyond guessing what your opponents believe, then, sooner or later, you will need to read what they actually wrote.

Ghs

[George H. Smith]

It is not self-evident that force is evil, as the libertarian anarchist seems to assume. But the above explanation alone is also insufficient by itself. You cannot simply go from an explanation of morality and deduce the conclusion that force is evil. A long process of induction is involved in reaching that apparently simple conclusion. And then it is not a simple matter of deduction to say that every single instance where force is “initiated” is necessarily evil. Again you must examine all the various concrete situations to see how the principle applies while holding the whole context of the prior discussion of morality and the nature of man.

You now maintain (as illustrated by the subsequent examples that I didn't quote) that it is sometimes morally proper to initiate force (and I am not talking about emergency scenarios).. So what is the bottom line here?

The core of the anarchist/minarchist dispute has always been this: Can a monopolistic government, including a limited government, establish and maintain its monopoly without initiating force against innocent people who have violated the rights of no one? Anarchists have answered no to this question. while minarchists have answered yes.

I'm not sure what your point is regarding government, but if you mean to say that your limited government will and must initiate force against innocent people in order to maintain its monopoly, then you have conceded the anarchist argument hook, line, and sinker.

If, in addition, you wish to argue that this initiation of force is justified in the case of your limited government, then you are making a different argument entirely.

So which is it? Do you maintain that your limited government can prohibit private agencies without initiating force against them, and thus do so without violating anyone's rights? Or do you concede that prohibiting such agencies will involve the initiation of force, while maintaining that the initiation of force is justifiable in this case? Or, as a third option, do you wish to argue that it is possible for a government to initiate force without violating anyone's rights? (This last position would shred Rand's foundation for rights, but let's bypass that for now.)

It is absolutely essential that you clarify this matter before we can go any further. I assumed that were arguing the standard O'ist line that a proper government need not ever initiate force. (This was Rand's position.) But if you wish to argue instead that, yes, even a proper government will initiate force but, because of some "context" (determined, presumably, by the government itself), this initiation of force is justified, then you are arguing for a position that differs radically from any O'ist I have ever debated before (and I have debated many).

The examples you give are a mixed brew of poorly thought-out situations. I addressed some of them in my articles on "Justice Entrepreneurship," and other libertarian writers (not only anarchists) have discussed similar problems in detail. Some of them remind me of a favorite example of David Friedman's, one he brought up in at least one of three public debates we had on natural rights versus utilitarianism. In what he calls the "photon trespass case," David wanted to know how a natural-rights philosopher would assess a situation in which someone shines a flashlight on his property. Does this constitute trespass?

Many of your examples do a very unRandian thing: they posit problems that arise in "gray areas," and then argue from those gray areas back to fundamental principles in order to cast doubt on those selfsame principles. Rand detested this sort of sophistry, and so do I.

During the 16 years that I lectured on natural rights at IHS summer seminars for grad students, I usually began my first lecture with comments like this:

I know what some of you are thinking. You are waiting for the Q&A so you can trip me up with hypothetical examples in which my arguments for self ownership and property rights do not seem to apply. Okay, that fine, but keep in mind that Randy and I have been in this business for a long time, and we've come up with much more problematic scenarios than most of you have ever thought about. What about Siamese twins? Does one twin have the right to kill himself if this will cause the death of the other twin? Or what if a person purchases a long strip of land, but only a quarter-mile wide, that cuts a country in half? Can this person prohibit people from crossing his land unless they pay an exorbitant fee? Or what if all the land on earth eventually becomes privately owned, and no one on the entire earth will let you enter his land, much less remain on it? Or what if an invading army straps nuns on the front of their tanks? May we kill the innocent nuns in order to destroy the tanks? (The nuns-on-tanks example is actually David Friedman's.)

It is perfectly legitimate to raise "stress cases" of this sort, but we cannot possibly hope to resolve them unless we first establish and agree upon the general principles that we will use to assess them.

Likewise, the first thing you need to do is clearly formulate your basic principles -- e.g., about what has to occur to qualify as a threat of aggression -- and then apply those general principles to particular cases. You spoke of "induction," but your examples have nothing to do with induction. Rather, you posit possible exceptions to the non-initiation of force principle, but you leave unanswered the crucial question: By what general rule do we identify legitimate exceptions?

It won't do to concoct a bunch of problematic scenarios that you are unable to resolve and then dub them exceptions to the NIOF principle. You repeatedly invoke "context," but the only relevant context here is your failure to analyze your own problems in a systematic manner.

Ghs

[Dglgmut]

Ultimately, this minarchist government derives its "good" power by implicit consent of all 10 million - its usage of this power is, conversely, 100% explicit and limited.

The reason 100% consent is 100% impossible is because if everyone agreed on the role of government, there would be no reason for government in the first place.

There are only two options: majority rule or minority rule. Obviously a minority can be right, and actually have the best interest of each individual at heart, however, that doesn't erase the fact that most people do not give their consent to the minority's version of government.

If that many people are wrong, how do you stop them? How do you force people not to use (immoral) force?

If you can't force them, you can either remove yourself from their dominion or try to persuade them.

Nothing is more persuasive than real, direct consequences of actions.

The reason I'm thinking democracy is possibly a good route to a moral government is that people cannot lie to themselves the same way they can be lied to by another person.

If you touch a stove, and burn yourself, you learn quickly not to touch the stove again. But if the president has authority over your hand, and puts it on the stove, he can come up with an excuse. "Oh, I didn't know it was on. Here I'll turn it off so that won't happen again." Then it happens again, "Oh, you know what. I think there's a short circuit in this stove. I'll get it sorted out."

Then it happens again and again, and a new president comes in and makes some of the same mistakes and he goes, "Oh, sorry. The last guy didn't tell me about the short." And after many presidents have burned your hand to a charred piece of carbon, you've been told about evil stove manufacturers and faulty parts and all anyone wants to hear from presidential candidates is whether or not they think they can solve the mystery of the defective stove.

Meanwhile, a good amount of people are screaming, "Stop putting our fucking hands on the stove!" Yet the majority of the people reply, "Why would he put our hands on the stove intentionally? It's unavoidable. The problem is that the stove's defective, you cooks."

Basically, I just don't understand how you plan to get to 100% consent without even a majority.

[Xray]

To achieve the goal of enabling men to lead a proper human life, our approach to protecting rights must embrace reality—i.e., our theory must reflect the need for a mechanism to enable real human beings to live together in harmony.

I agree, and that's why I am an anarchist. People should be able to delegate their right of self-preservation to an agency of their own choosing, so long as that agency respects objective law and is truly an agency devoted to the defense of its customers.

How is consent to these "objective laws" achieved in an anarchist society?

[rhartford]

". . . It is not self-evident that [initiation of] force is evil"

". . . what general rule do we [use to] identify legitimate exceptions [to the NIOF principle] ?

The above posts by Dennis and George have reached to the fundamental issue of the anarchist/minarchist debate, the status of the “non-initiation of force” (NIOF) principle.

The fundamental principle for identifying political freedoms is “protection of voluntary consent along an individual’s entire politically legitimate valuing chain.”* The non-initiation of force principle handles only one type of violation of voluntary consent.

“. . . non-initiation of force . . . [is an] admirable [goal], [but it tries] to establish a positive—protecting voluntary consent—by negating a negative—prohibiting the violation of voluntary consent [by force]. One might just as well, and just as inappropriately, define existence as the absence of non-existence”*

George asks “what general rule do we [use to] identify legitimate exceptions [to the NIOF principle]?” I would suggest that the “protection of voluntary consent along an individual’s entire politically legitimate valuing chain.”* is that principle. The paper referenced below explains the voluntary consent princple in some detail. One reader said, "It was interesting how you built your case for political freedom on a foundation in some ways even more basic than the non-initiation of force/non-aggression axiom.”

Whether the “protection of voluntary consent” principle requires initiation of force to establish a government mechanism to protect political freedoms is a question worth examining.

(Quotations with a * following are from “A Political Standard for Absolute Political Freedom,” The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies 11, no. 1 (Issue 21, July 2011): 45-62. I have several extra copies of that issue. If you send a request and your snail mail address to apf (just the 3 letter the acronym for Absolute Political Freedom) at carolina.rr.com I will forward a copy while they are available. The pdf of that paper will be released into cyberspace later this summer.)

[George H. Smith]

To achieve the goal of enabling men to lead a proper human life, our approach to protecting rights must embrace reality—i.e., our theory must reflect the need for a mechanism to enable real human beings to live together in harmony.

I agree, and that's why I am an anarchist. People should be able to delegate their right of self-preservation to an agency of their own choosing, so long as that agency respects objective law and is truly an agency devoted to the defense of its customers.

How is consent to these "objective laws" achieved in an anarchist society?

A distinction needs to be made between laws that prohibit actions that are malem in se and those that are malem probibitum.

In the first category are laws that prohibit murder, rape, theft, etc. Such laws, which prohibit actions that are unjust in themselves, do not require consent -- in the sense that the prior consent of a murderer is not required before he can be punished for committing murder.

Laws in the second category, in this context, refer to legal procedures that, though not unjust in themselves, are prohibited by a given legal system. For example, it might be possible to get a fair criminal trial with only 3 jurors instead of 12. Or in the case of 12 jurors it might be just to require that only 9 of 12 jurors vote "guilty" to secure a conviction, instead of requiring a unanimous verdict. Nevertheless, in these and similar examples, a given legal system might declare alternate procedures illegal (within its jurisdiction) in order to maintain consistent procedural standards. These would be examples of malem prohibitum, i.e., things that are illegal in virtue of being prohibited, not because they are wrong (unjust, in this case) in themselves.

But to answer your question more specifically: To the extent that consent is needed in pluralistic legal system, you give it by doing business with the agency of your choice. That is to say, you delegate your right of self-defense to those persons whom you believe will do the best job for the cheapest price. To do business with a rogue agency will do you little or no good, because its verdicts will not command the public respect and cooperation needed for you to secure restitution. This is the major theme of my two articles on "Justice Entrepreneurship."

In short, consent is needed to establish the legitimate jurisdiction of a justice agency, including a government.

Ghs

[Brant Gaede]

Consent or not, legitimate or not, the jurisdiction is already here--extant--and it's legal.

The jurisdiction needs to strive for consent in the context of natural rights and be pushed that way too. We can say it's now illegimate because neither is happening in any appreciable way and it's fair to assume if things aren't changed they'll get even worse in many ways.

--Brant

we've got illegitimacy right now!--that's half the battle!--let's fight!

[Dennis Hardin]

Dennis,

Really excellent.. I think you have highlighted and explained the disconnect

and floating ideal of the libertarian 'non-initiation of force' principle that's always

been bothersome ( for me.) You've given NIOF its legs.

Tony,

Thanks very much for the compliment. If my explanation was clear to you, then hopefully it was equally clear to others as well.

[Dennis Hardin]

It is absolutely essential that you clarify this matter before we can go any further. I assumed that were arguing the standard O'ist line that a proper government need not ever initiate force. (This was Rand's position.) But if you wish to argue instead that, yes, even a proper government will initiate force but, because of some "context" (determined, presumably, by the government itself), this initiation of force is justified, then you are arguing for a position that differs radically from any O'ist I have ever debated before (and I have debated many). The examples you give are a mixed brew of poorly thought-out situations.

I don’t have time right now to answer all the questions you asked, but I will deal with this issue, since it is easy to show that you are factually incorrect. Here are a couple of quotes to show that Ayn Rand’s view of government was significantly more nuanced than you suggest:

Q: What do you think of libel and slander laws?

Rand: They are appropriate laws, because the freedom of ideas does not permit you to lie about a person. Under the older interpretation of the courts, truth was your defense. If you know something defamatory about someone, and it's true, then you have the right to say it. But today, you can practically say anything, so long as you’re supposedly not motivated by malice. There are some standards, but they are unclear and impractical.

This type of law is strictly to protect specific individuals; it has nothing to do with ideas. It's an issue of whether or not you lied about someone, and caused him damage.

Ayn Rand Answers, p. 21

But in the matter of protecting people from physical danger, if certain conditions of employment, let us say, are unsafe and it can be proved that there is a physical risk – I don't say that we have to wait until somebody dies – then the employer who is creating this risk can be sued, and can be severely punished financially. In other words, there can be a law protecting a man from [potential] physical injury by another man. In this case, the employer who puts men into conditions of danger – not accidentally, but intentionally or carelessly – can be penalized, because he is infringing the right of his workers not to be injured physically.

Objectively Speaking, p. 213-214

Rand is clearly saying that a proper government may, in certain circumstances, initiate force against those who defame another's character or create unsafe working conditions. Moreover, as you know, Ayn Rand endorsed the concept of intellectual property. Obviously, the protection of patents and copyrights does not, strictly speaking, involve retaliatory force. Rather, it involves government action to protect an individual's right to the products of his own intellectual effort. This is consistent with the foundation for rights which I explained in my prior post: the structuring of government to enable men to live a moral existence.

You called the examples I presented “sophistry.” LOL. I expected that. They are nothing of the kind. None of the examples I presented – gun control, stalking, bomb threats, gang intimidation – are marginal issues. They are all fairly common examples of indirect force. Fraud is another example of indirect force which I deliberately did not discuss, since I assumed you might well take issue with such laws. I deliberately chose situations which might well arise in any normal social context. I deliberately avoided the issues of fraud and intellectual property because I suspected you would take issue with them as valid examples of the province of government. Needless to say, that is not Rand’s viewpoint.

Your anarcho-capitalist defense agencies, incidentally, are another example of indirect force, because they threaten the very foundation of liberty.

You spoke of "induction," but your examples have nothing to do with induction. Rather, you posit possible exceptions to the non-initiation of force principle, but you leave unanswered the crucial question: By what general rule do we identify legitimate exceptions?

It's interesting to note that you claim that you do not take the non-initiation of force principle as a starting point or axiom. Yet when you argue against my position, you never acknowledge the basic premise of my presentation. You continue to debate the question of whether or not minarchy violates the non-initiation of force principle, and completely ignore the hierarchical foundation of rights: that society must institutionalize the conditions that enable man to live a moral existence.

It won't do to concoct a bunch of problematic scenarios that you are unable to resolve and then dub them exceptions to the NIOF principle. You repeatedly invoke "context," but the only relevant context here is your failure to analyze your own problems in a systematic manner.

Ghs

You didn't bother to read my post very carefully--or make any half-way serious effort to understand it--or you would know that I did resolve each of them--and in an extremely systematic manner.

Government action to protect the individual’s freedom to conduct his or her life can be undertaken in all of the situations described above, and many of these involve (in a technical sense) the initiation of physical force to stop others from interfering with that person’s life. (Or, in the case of abortion, no action will be taken even thought the woman is technically “initiating force”.) Using force against private individuals who want to pre-empt the government’s monopoly on the use of force is simply one more example—similar to those cited above--because their actions destroy the structure of society required for a proper human existence.

[anthony]

Ultimately, this minarchist government derives its "good" power by implicit consent of all 10 million - its usage of this power is, conversely, 100% explicit and limited.

The reason 100% consent is 100% impossible is because if everyone agreed on the role of government, there would be no reason for government in the first place. There are only two options: majority rule or minority rule. Obviously a minority can be right, and actually have the best interest of each individual at heart, however, that doesn't erase the fact that most people do not give their consent to the minority's version of government. If that many people are wrong, how do you stop them? How do you force people not to use (immoral) force? If you can't force them, you can either remove yourself from their dominion or try to persuade them. Nothing is more persuasive than real, direct consequences of actions. The reason I'm thinking democracy is possibly a good route to a moral government is that people cannot lie to themselves the same way they can be lied to by another person. If you touch a stove, and burn yourself, you learn quickly not to touch the stove again. But if the president has authority over your hand, and puts it on the stove, he can come up with an excuse. "Oh, I didn't know it was on. Here I'll turn it off so that won't happen again." Then it happens again, "Oh, you know what. I think there's a short circuit in this stove. I'll get it sorted out." Then it happens again and again, and a new president comes in and makes some of the same mistakes and he goes, "Oh, sorry. The last guy didn't tell me about the short." And after many presidents have burned your hand to a charred piece of carbon, you've been told about evil stove manufacturers and faulty parts and all anyone wants to hear from presidential candidates is whether or not they think they can solve the mystery of the defective stove. Meanwhile, a good amount of people are screaming, "Stop putting our fucking hands on the stove!" Yet the majority of the people reply, "Why would he put our hands on the stove intentionally? It's unavoidable. The problem is that the stove's defective, you cooks." Basically, I just don't understand how you plan to get to 100% consent without even a majority.

Well, I was "bottom-upping" there. It was an exercise in how a minarchist government would begin from scratch.

My fictional country was total anarchy, with each householder his own 'competing agency' (if you like- ha) possessing

the moral right to be his own "force-retaliator."

It would require only a small minority (I believe) to get the ball rolling - rational people who saw the sense in

creating one central Agency which applies objective power and legal retribution, on their behalf. ie, "borrowing" some

of each citizen's right to self-defence - with the blanket protection of all who subscribe to it, as the ends.

Of course it would expand 'organically', as increasing numbers see how they can be freed up to live secure

and proper lives.

So I would assume a majority be reached - but it isn't essential. Apart from these who explicitly support the scheme

("vote with their wallets") there would be some who implicitly support it, and a few who'd dissent.

Just by virtue of living in the country, the two latter groups would benefit to some measure.

That majority rule should be superfluous when it comes to upholding rule of law and individual rights, is my central point.

In its most benign state, Democracy merely allocates temporary executive power to one political party,

or another. At its worst, it is mob rule - rule of law, or rule of man.

[Selene]

This appeared in my Randex e-mail this morning, a 1994 Bidinotto article, The Contradiction in Anarchism:

In short:

Outlawing protection agencies that use only retaliatory force -- and thus, have not violated any rights -- is an act of coercion.

That's a pretty good restatement of the "anarcho-capitalist" argument, which was refined in the late '60s by Objectivist- influenced anarchists, such as Morris and Linda Tannehill, and the late Roy Childs (who later changed his mind). On its surface, it seems seductively simple:

1. The initiation of coercion and force is immoral. (Rand)
   
   
2. Government is an institution which maintains a legal monopoly on the retaliatory use of force in a given geographical area. (Rand)
   
   
3. But to
   maintain
   a legal monopoly on the retaliatory use of force, a government must initiate coercive force to exclude competitors.
   
   
4. Hence, to exist as a legal monopoly on the retaliatory use of force, a government
   must
   employ immoral means.
   
   
5. Government is thus intrinsically immoral and self- contradictory.
   
   
6. Hence, Ayn Rand's pro-government position contradicts her basic ethics (Roy Childs' argument in his early essay, "The Contradiction in Objectivism").
   
   

This argument is a splendid instance of rationalism: it proceeds deductively from a limited set of premises which are presumed to include

all

the relevant considerations. But in fact, they do not. Here is just a sampler of the contextual considerations omitted:

http://mol.redbarn.org/objectivism/writing/RobertBidinotto/ContradictionInAnarchism.html

[Dglgmut]

rule of law, or rule of man.

This idea of "rule of law" is a fallacy, because law cannot rule man.

You can say that man shouldn't be able to vote away another man's life or property. You can also say that man shouldn't be able to initiate force against another. This is wishful thinking.

Why not say: Man shouldn't vote away another man's life or property? Man shouldn't initiate force against another.

If people want to organize and rob and murder, who's going to stop them? Can't we agree that the ideal is a society in which people choose to be moral, rather than being coerced?

[Xray]

Ayn Rand opposed anarchism, and despite the fact she she was almost always precise in her arguments, she didn't leave minarchists with much to go on except some passing thoughts in VOS. So I don't think she considered the position to be credible or worthy of any real serious consideration beyond regarding it as a lunatic fringe of a deluded libertarian movement. I have a feeling that had she examined it more closely, what she might have left behind would have made debates between O'ist minarchists and "anarcho-objectivists" more interesting and informative for both sides.

Do there exist any "anarcho-objectivists"? I have the impression that those who were affiliated with the Objectivist movement but finally rejected minarchism in favor of anarchism no longer call/called themselves Objectivists.

[George H. Smith]

It is absolutely essential that you clarify this matter before we can go any further. I assumed that were arguing the standard O'ist line that a proper government need not ever initiate force. (This was Rand's position.) But if you wish to argue instead that, yes, even a proper government will initiate force but, because of some "context" (determined, presumably, by the government itself), this initiation of force is justified, then you are arguing for a position that differs radically from any O'ist I have ever debated before (and I have debated many). The examples you give are a mixed brew of poorly thought-out situations.

I don’t have time right now to answer all the questions you asked, but I will deal with this issue, since it is easy to show that you are factually incorrect. Here are a couple of quotes to show that Ayn Rand’s view of government was significantly more nuanced than you suggest:

Q: What do you think of libel and slander laws? Rand: They are appropriate laws, because the freedom of ideas does not permit you to lie about a person. Under the older interpretation of the courts, truth was your defense. If you know something defamatory about someone, and it's true, then you have the right to say it. But today, you can practically say anything, so long as you’re supposedly not motivated by malice. There are some standards, but they are unclear and impractical. This type of law is strictly to protect specific individuals; it has nothing to do with ideas. It's an issue of whether or not you lied about someone, and caused him damage. Ayn Rand Answers, p. 21

But in the matter of protecting people from physical danger, if certain conditions of employment, let us say, are unsafe and it can be proved that there is a physical risk – I don't say that we have to wait until somebody dies – then the employer who is creating this risk can be sued, and can be severely punished financially. In other words, there can be a law protecting a man from [potential] physical injury by another man. In this case, the employer who puts men into conditions of danger – not accidentally, but intentionally or carelessly – can be penalized, because he is infringing the right of his workers not to be injured physically. Objectively Speaking, p. 213-214

Rand is clearly saying that a proper government may, in certain circumstances, initiate force against those who defame another's character or create unsafe working conditions.

You have merely illustrated something that we already knew, namely, that Rand sometimes did not apply her own principles consistently. Here are some statements in 'The Nature of Government," in case you have forgotten them. The boldface is mine.

[

Man's rights can be violated only by the use of physical force. It is only by means of physical force that one man can deprive another of his life, or enslave him, or rob him, or prevent him from pursuing his own goals, or compel him to act against his own rational judgment.

...The necessary consequence of man's right to life is his right to self-defense. In a civilized society, force may be used only in retaliation and only against those who initiate its use.

...If physical force is to be barred from social relationships, men need an institution charged with protecting their rights under an objective code of rules.

This is the task of government -- of a proper government -- its basic task, its only moral justification and the reason why men do need a government.

...Under a proper social system, a private individual is legally free to take any action he pleases (so long as he does not violate the rights of others), while a government is bound by law in every official act.

...Since the protection of individual rights is the only proper purpose of a government, it is the only proper subject of legislation....

If these passages are not clear enough for you, here is a quote from "The Objectivist Ethics." Again, the boldface is mine; the italics are in the original.

The basic political principle of the Objectivist ethics is: no man may initiate the use of physical force against others. No man——or group or society or government—has the right to assume the role of a criminal and initiate the use of physical compulsion against any man. Men have the right to use physical force only in retaliation and only against those who initiate its use. The ethical principle involved is simple and clear-cut: it is the difference between murder and self-defense.

In case you still don't understand what Rand was getting at, here is a passage from "Man's Rights":

A civilized society is one in which physical force is banned from human relationships—in which the government, acting as a policeman, may use force only in retaliation and only against those who initiate its use.

Like many classical liberals before her, Rand believed that fraud and breach of contract constitute indirect uses of physical force. (Rothbard developed this approach in greater detail than Rand did). She also incorporated the threat of force into her scheme of rights-violating activities.

Nevertheless, Rand's statement that "the freedom of ideas does not permit you to lie about a person" is clearly inconsistent with with her basic premises. This is not true of her defense of intellectual property, however. Although I disagree with Rand about intellectual property, if you believe in this right then to violate it means essentially the same thing as to violate any other property right. To have a property right in X means that one has the exclusive moral right to say how X shall be used and disposed of. Thus if someone uses X without your permission, they are forcibly preventing you from exercising your exclusive right of use and disposal. Rand would not agree that protecting intellectual property rights involves the initiation of force. Rather, it is a species of retaliatory force.

Again, what you have done is to throw out poorly-digested examples, apparently at random, in an effort to show that Rand would have approved of the initiation of force by a government -- and this in the face of her many explicit statements to the contrary. You do a grave injustice to Rand by gerrymandering her ideas in this manner. Yes, she was sometimes inconsistent. She sometimes failed to apply her own principles properly, but she never wavered on the basic principle that no one, including a government, has the right to initiate force. (A possible exception might be emergency situations, but that is not what we are discussing here.)

Ghs

[Brant Gaede]

We have to note that these Rand's purported and independently unverified statements published after her death are suspect. They lie somewhere between primary and secondary data. (The entire appendix to ITOE has to be considered a fabrication if taken literally.)

--Brant

[George H. Smith]

You called the examples I presented “sophistry.” LOL. I expected that. They are nothing of the kind. None of the examples I presented – gun control, stalking, bomb threats, gang intimidation – are marginal issues. They are all fairly common examples of indirect force. Fraud is another example of indirect force which I deliberately did not discuss, since I assumed you might well take issue with such laws. I deliberately chose situations which might well arise in any normal social context. I deliberately avoided the issues of fraud and intellectual property because I suspected you would take issue with them as valid examples of the province of government. Needless to say, that is not Rand’s viewpoint.

You don't seem to understand what Rand meant by "indirect force." To respond with force to indirect force doesn't qualify as initiating force. It is a species of retaliatory force.

"Indirect force" simply means that the force employed is not inflicted directly on the agent, as is the case when one person punches another. Suppose I purchase a diamond ring from a jeweler for $1000. I hand the jeweler the money but (as I later discover) the diamond is fake. So what is involved in this instance of fraud?

When I gave the jeweler the money, I acquired title -- i.e., a legal claim of ownership -- to a diamond ring. I now own that diamond ring, but the jeweler never gave it to me. Thus if he refuses to give it to me, he is holding my property (my diamond ring) without my consent, i.e., he is forcibly withholding my property from me, and thereby violating my property right to use and dispose of my diamond ring as I like.

This type of analysis is called the "title-transfer theory of contract," and libertarians (e.g., Bill Evers, Murray Rothbard, and Randy Barnett) have written about it a great deal.

This fraud involving a diamond ring is essentially no different that if a thief were to break into your home while you are away and steal your television. The thief has not used force against you directly, since he did not assault your person, but he used force indirectly by forcibly depriving you of control over your own property. And this state of force continues to exist until and unless the the thief returns your television or provides restitution.

Your anarcho-capitalist defense agencies, incidentally, are another example of indirect force, because they threaten the very foundation of liberty.

Sorry, Dennis, but you cannot aribitrarily dub anything you don't like as a threat. You will need a theory of some kind to justify this allegation, a theory that explains what consitutes a threat, and why, and what does not. Your whims will not suffice here.

You spoke of "induction," but your examples have nothing to do with induction. Rather, you posit possible exceptions to the non-initiation of force principle, but you leave unanswered the crucial question: By what general rule do we identify legitimate exceptions?

It's interesting to note that you claim that you do not take the non-initiation of force principle as a starting point or axiom. Yet when you argue against my position, you never acknowledge the basic premise of my presentation. You continue to debate the question of whether or not minarchy violates the non-initiation of force principle, and completely ignore the hierarchical foundation of rights: that society must institutionalize the conditions that enable man to live a moral existence.

I am simply following Rand when she wrote (as I quoted in my last post):

The basic political principle of the Objectivist ethics is: no man may initiate the use of physical force against others. No man——or group or society or government—has the right to assume the role of a criminal and initiate the use of physical compulsion against any man. Men have the right to use physical force only in retaliation and only against those who initiate its use. The ethical principle involved is simple and clear-cut: it is the difference between murder and self-defense.

As with Rand, this is my "basic political principle." This is not a moral axiom, since the NIOF principles requires justification, but it is the foundation of my political theory.

Unlike you, I am unwilling to give priority to some incidental comments by Rand that she may have made on the spot, while providing no substantial justification. I prefer to take her at her word in the many explicit statements she made in her carefully considered essays.

It won't do to concoct a bunch of problematic scenarios that you are unable to resolve and then dub them exceptions to the NIOF principle. You repeatedly invoke "context," but the only relevant context here is your failure to analyze your own problems in a systematic manner.

Ghs

You didn't bother to read my post very carefully--or make any half-way serious effort to understand it--or you would know that I did resolve each of them--and in an extremely systematic manner.

There wasn't a whole lot to read, Dennis, and there was even less in the way of argument. You repeated the same pattern of reasoning over and over, which amounted to this: X (e.g., some kinds of gun ownership) should obviously be prohibited by government. But X cannot be prohibited unless the government initiates force. Therefore, the government is justified in initiating force in such cases.

This manner of argument does not meet my standard of an "extremely systematic" presentation. You may as well argue that people on drugs sometimes harm other people, so a government, in the name of making a moral existence possible for its citizens, may properly prohibit drug use, even though this involves the initiation of force. By jettisoning Rand's NIOF principle, you have thrown overboard any objective standard by which the legitimacy of government actions can be assessed, especially since you leave it to the government to decide when exceptions to the NIOF principle are justified.

I would prefer to follow Rand here, if you don't mind.

Government action to protect the individual’s freedom to conduct his or her life can be undertaken in all of the situations described above, and many of these involve (in a technical sense) the initiation of physical force to stop others from interfering with that person’s life. (Or, in the case of abortion, no action will be taken even thought the woman is technically “initiating force”.) Using force against private individuals who want to pre-empt the government’s monopoly on the use of force is simply one more example—similar to those cited above--because their actions destroy the structure of society required for a proper human existence.

Abortion is a good example of how fuzzy your thinking is. A fetus is part of a woman's body, and a woman, as a self-owner, has a right to do with her body whatever she likes. An abortion is not "technically" initiating force. You can initiate force only against another independent moral agent. If you hit youself in the head, you are not initiating force against yourself, technically or in any other way.

This is one instance of why I said that your examples go all over the map and are poorly thought out.

Ghs

[Brant Gaede]

Rand's stand on indirect initiation of force as in fraud deserving physical retaliation by government seems to be something of a backwards justification of government force. That is, since government is using force in retaliation that needs force to have been initiated, so call it that. But why cannot government simply be excluded here by private contracts secured by bonds by bonding or insurance comanies? I see the need of government in criminal, not tort, law. (Not addressing copyrights and patents.)

--Brant

[rhartford]

You don't seem to understand what Rand meant by "indirect force." To respond with force to indirect force doesn't qualify as initiating force. It is a species of retaliatory force.

"Indirect force" simply means that the force employed is not inflicted directly on the agent, as is the case when one person punches another. Suppose I purchase a diamond ring from a jeweler for $1000. I hand the jeweler the money but (as I later discover) the diamond is fake. So what is involved in this instance of fraud?

When I gave the jeweler the money, I acquired title -- i.e., a legal claim of ownership -- to a diamond ring. I now own that diamond ring, but the jeweler never gave it to me. Thus if he refuses to give it to me, he is holding my property (my diamond ring) without my consent, i.e., he is forcibly withholding my property from me, and thereby violating my property right to use and dispose of my diamond ring as I like.

This type of analysis is called the "title-transfer theory of contract," and libertarians (e.g., Bill Evers, Murray Rothbard, and Randy Barnett) have written about it a great deal.

This fraud involving a diamond ring is essentially no different that if a thief were to break into your home while you are away and steal your television. The thief has not used force against you directly, since he did not assault your person, but he used force indirectly by forcibly depriving you of control over your own property. And this state of force continues to exist until and unless the the thief returns your television or provides restitution.

The above analysis seems somewhat forced to me.

Below is from the paper referenced in post #284 :

"NIOF leads to such oddities as defining fraud as 'indirect use of force,' which is an ad hoc, unsatisfying, and unconvincing attempt to include fraud under the rubric of the NIOF principle.

"Fraud can be handled naturally and easily by adopting the protection of voluntary consent as the political standard. A perpetrator of fraud places an obstacle in another’s valuing chain by obtaining voluntary consent for one action while actually performing a different action. Hence voluntary consent was not in fact given and the victim of fraud has a political right to rectify the violation."

[George H. Smith]

You don't seem to understand what Rand meant by "indirect force." To respond with force to indirect force doesn't qualify as initiating force. It is a species of retaliatory force. "Indirect force" simply means that the force employed is not inflicted directly on the agent, as is the case when one person punches another. Suppose I purchase a diamond ring from a jeweler for $1000. I hand the jeweler the money but (as I later discover) the diamond is fake. So what is involved in this instance of fraud? When I gave the jeweler the money, I acquired title -- i.e., a legal claim of ownership -- to a diamond ring. I now own that diamond ring, but the jeweler never gave it to me. Thus if he refuses to give it to me, he is holding my property (my diamond ring) without my consent, i.e., he is forcibly withholding my property from me, and thereby violating my property right to use and dispose of my diamond ring as I like. This type of analysis is called the "title-transfer theory of contract," and libertarians (e.g., Bill Evers, Murray Rothbard, and Randy Barnett) have written about it a great deal. This fraud involving a diamond ring is essentially no different that if a thief were to break into your home while you are away and steal your television. The thief has not used force against you directly, since he did not assault your person, but he used force indirectly by forcibly depriving you of control over your own property. And this state of force continues to exist until and unless the the thief returns your television or provides restitution.

The above analysis seems somewhat forced to me. Below is from the paper referenced in post #284 : "NIOF leads to such oddities as defining fraud as 'indirect use of force,' which is an ad hoc, unsatisfying, and unconvincing attempt to include fraud under the rubric of the NIOF principle. "Fraud can be handled naturally and easily by adopting the protection of voluntary consent as the political standard. A perpetrator of fraud places an obstacle in another’s valuing chain by obtaining voluntary consent for one action while actually performing a different action. Hence voluntary consent was not in fact given and the victim of fraud has a political right to rectify the violation."

The title-transfer theory of contracts has been around for centuries. It is not some ad hoc attempt to rationalize Rand's NIOF principle. It is far more clear and precise than vague statements about placing "an obstacle in another's value chain."

I will give another example, one that is more concrete, if that will help.

You pay a guy $5000 for his car, and he signs the title over to you. Here you have concrete title -- a piece of paper that says you now own the car -- rather than an abstract title.

After obtaining the title to what is now your car, the original owner refuses to turn it over. He tells you that he has hidden it away somewhere in a locked garage, so you are out of luck. All you have is a piece of paper, and he has the $5000.

So, please tell me -- what essential difference is there between this scenario and a scenario in which the same guy goes over to your place, steals your car, and hides it away?

There is no essential difference. In each case, the guy is forcibly withholding your property from you. He is forcibly preventing you from using and disposing of your own property as you see fit -- and this is what it means to violate someone's property rights.

There is a difference between property, considered as a thing or object that is owned, and the moral/legal claim of ownership, which is commonly called a title. When two people engage in an exchange, they are not merely transferring objects from one person to the other. They are also transferring titles to the properties; i.e., they are transferring legitimate claims of ownership.

Very simple, really.

Ghs

[George H. Smith]

The following is a passage from the 19th-century libertarian Auberon Herbert, a former Member of Parliament who was greatly influenced by Herbert Spencer:

Government has no moral right to compel men for their own good, but only to restrain them from such aggressions upon each other as involve physical force, or such direct fraud as is the equivalent of physical force, from the point of view of consent to transaction of the defrauded person.

Herbert used a title-transfer theory of contract but expressed it in a somewhat different way than I did. Consider once again the case of a guy who pays $1000 for a diamond ring but who gets a fake diamond instead. This guy, according to Herbert, has consented to pay $1000 for a diamond. He has not consented to pay $1000 for a fake diamond, so the jeweler now has possession of $1000 that properly belongs to the defrauded party.

Elsewhere, in his defense of the retaliatory use of force, Herbert wrote:

As long as men...are willing to make use of [force] for their own ends, or to make use of fraud, which is only force in disguise, wearing a mask, and evading our consent, just as force with violence opening disregards it -- so long as we must use force to restrain force. That is the one and only one rightful employment of force...force in the defense of the plain simple rights of property, public or private, in a word, all the rights of self-ownership -- force used defensively against force used aggressively.

Note that Herbert distinguishes between force and violence. This is a crucial distinction -- one with which Rand would have agreed. If a thug points a gun at you and says "Your money or your life," he has not yet used violence against you. He has not yet shot you or even touched you in any manner, as if he were to wrestle you to the ground and take your wallet himself. Rather, he has threatened to use violence against you, and such threats are a species of physical force. The same is true of fraud. Fraud, even though it might not involve violence, is a species of physical force nonetheless. The person who perpetrates a fraud is forcibly withholding something that you own, whether this be what you originally gave him (the $1000 in my example) or what you intended to buy (a diamond ring).

Ghs

[Dglgmut]

What is the moral motivation behind a government forcing out competition? If the competitor is offering the exact same service, enforcing the exact same laws, what makes one more legitimate than the other? Let's say 70% of the people consent to the government, but this new competing agency is fairly new and has 5% of the population consenting to their service.

It seems ironically utilitarian to have an institution with special privileges as a means to enforce justice.

If the government has the power to forcefully stop people from pursuing their own justice, it has the power to do whatever it wants.