AnarchObjectivism

[JamesShrugged]

https://anarchobjectivist.wordpress.com/

"An AnarchObjectivist is one who accepts the fundamental principles of Ayn Rands philosophy, but rejects her advocacy of minarchism as inconsistent with those basic positions in metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics."

[Dglgmut]

Cheers for that.

I still think the simplest way to see the contradiction is that for an individual to have rights, he must have the sanction of retaliation according to proportional punishment.

[syrakusos]

I still think the simplest way to see the contradiction is that for an individual to have rights, he must have the sanction of retaliation according to proportional punishment.

"If a government holds a legal monopoly on the retaliatory use of force, it initiates the use of force against those whom would seek to start businesses ..."

Who, not whom. That little grammatical slip is a buoy's warning against easy answers. On my own blog, I point out that "limited government" is potentially as unlimited as the government wants it to be. If the government has the right to operate police forces, does it have the right to operate police academies? If the legislature, needs a library, what can limit The Library of Congress which needs its own maintenance workers, guild training for them, mines and farms to provide raw materials, etc. We certainly do want the legislature to publish its minutes. Therefore, the government needs a website, and a television station, and a newspaper, printing press, delivery trucks, drivers, mechanics, fuel stations...

That said, the so-called anarcho-objectivist claims are a swiss cheese of logical holes. Suppose that the government consisted entirely of a legislature that made laws. Or suppose that the government consisted entirely of a judiciary that created laws from cases.

Suppose that I claim that your alleged "retaliation" to my (putative) "aggression" is disproportianate? To whom do I take the matter? To your agency or to mine?

As a private security professional, with a university degree in criminology, and a lifelong Objectivist, I assure you that the problem is far more complex than you imagine. Aristotle said that tradition is stronger than law. How do you create a tradition?

[Dglgmut]

So, Michael, in your example I have retaliated on my own rather than going to my agency? That would mean I've risked breaking the law by being hasty in exacting punishment...

To be clear about proportional punishment, it would be that I could take away your rights to the extent that you took mine away. In the case of theft it is simple, because in a libertarian society everyone would have proof of what they own in the form of receipts or contracts simply because it would make theft cases incredibly simple... just check if the thief has proof that it's his...

The thing about tradition is obviously true, but we're just talking about what ought to be, not what people will allow to be.

How do you change morality? There's three types of people that I can see when discussing politics: those that want to take from others, those that want to give to others (as longs as everyone is forced to), and those that want to do their own thing.

The takers, as Rand illustrated so well in AS, only exist because of the givers. The people who want to (or feel pressured by society to) give indiscriminately are the ones with the potential to learn morality. How does a parasite learn morality anyway? He can't as long as their are givers to feed off. There are people who legitimately need help out there, but if they are voluntarily and deliberately helped, then obviously they have something to offer in return for the help, where the money that government wastes doesn't make anyone feel any better.

There is something to gain in a philosophical change for those who allow themselves to be fed on. Rand was trying to do it, and succeeded to a degree, but she only helped guide (and misguide) those who already shared a lot of ideas with her. But there are still a lot of ambitious people out there with the potential for morality.

[Brant Gaede]

There "ought to be" a different government in Syria. They might finally get one. Look at the bloody carnage going on. The anarchist "ought to be" has no transition. It's either move to more and more freedom miniarching it all the way or bloody conflict: civil war, destruction and millions dying all to get to the impossible to get to "City On a Hill." Am I the only person in denatured Objectivism-libertarian theoretical-land who has actually been in combat in a stupid war? REAL LIFE! Ayn Rand had the same theoretical hubris for the sake of her absolutist political presentation as any libertarian anarchist or anarcho-Objectivist. The difference between her and the libertarian doesn't extend to the ethics wherein the libertarian pretty much stays in the politics, but she made the same essential mistake--not short and medium term for she needed the power of her presentation to blow away or blow through the statists of the 1950s and 1960s, but long term and now it is the long term--with her ethics: the basic ethic-political-economic principles are A-okay, but the details crawl all over them.

--Brant

[Dglgmut]

And that's why it's much different to discuss a form of anarchism than a form of government. The whole point of anarchism is to criminalize all initiation of force (not limited to physical force), ipso facto such a society could not be established by any other means than voluntary consent.

That is why it simply "ought to be" and does not come with an action plan.

[syrakusos]

One way to look at theories is as filters of fact. Facts that fit the theory get though and thus the theory has facts to prove it. Another mode is to accept theories as frameworks of understanding. I am not an anarchist. However, I can take the anarcho-capitalist framework and apply it to the world about me and see that people do, indeed, choose jurisdictions of law based on commercial competition. Read the contract that comes with your credit cards or with your mortgage or car loan. You agree to arbitrate. You agree to interpret the contract according to the laws of some place you don't live. In Florida, for instance, you can break a rule (not a law) on a property patrolled by Wackenhut, be hauled before a civil magistrate, and be sentenced to a prison operated by Wackenhut (now owned by G4S of the UK). What is that but the actual realworld operation of anarcho-capitalism.

Not the utopia you imagined? Whose fault is that?

[syrakusos]

The whole point of anarchism is to criminalize all initiation of force (not limited to physical force), ipso facto such a society could not be established by any other means than voluntary consent.

Julius Caesar would have a lot to say about the fact that he held all of Gaul with fewer men than are on the Paris police force today. I am sure that the people of 1620 would have been hard-pressed to understand our world in which neither Protestants nor Catholics finally rule. I think that Newton would be amazed and pleased that you can now teach at Cambridge without swearing to the existence of the Trinity. Erasmus, Boyle, Bacon (either one), even Darwin and Edison would be astounded at how far we have come... and yet, not come very far at all...

Ultimately, I think that a clear trend exists - and has existed - for a rational world, a society of justice, peace, and prosperity... but it is not for everyone. We still have people hunting monkeys with blowguns in the Amazon and targeting each other with rocket-propelled grenades in the Middle East, and raping each other over religion in the Sudan... and some of that may never be remedied.

[Brant Gaede]

. In Florida, for instance, you can break a rule (not a law) on a property patrolled by Wackenhut, be hauled before a civil magistrate, and be sentenced to a prison operated by Wackenhut (now owned by G4S of the UK). What is that but the actual realworld operation of anarcho-capitalism.

You need to flesh this out because there is no sense to be made out of a civil magistrate--who is this?--sending someone to prison for for breaking a rule. I mean, what does "hauled" mean and by who? What kind of prison--whose prison?--aside from "operated by"? Whose "property" is being patrolled? If the "rule" is not a law, where is the law behind the rule? In other words, just what are you actually talking about? Private security at the government owned and run space center in Florida? Dunno.

--Brant

[Dglgmut]

Not all contracts would be enforceable under libertarian law, only those contracts dealing with transfer of property.

A promise is a moral obligation, but should not be a legal one.

Just because you had it in writing that you could imprison someone for breaking a rule, that would not mean you could legally do so.

[Brant Gaede]

Not all contracts would be enforceable under libertarian law, only those contracts dealing with transfer of property.

A promise is a moral obligation, but should not be a legal one.

Just because you had it in writing that you could imprison someone for breaking a rule, that would not mean you could legally do so.

These are interesting asseverations, but not arguments.

-Brant

[syrakusos]

. In Florida, for instance, you can break a rule (not a law) on a property patrolled by Wackenhut ...

You need to flesh this out because there is no sense to be made ...

Brant, the Trevon Martin/George Zimmerman tragedy makes googling a quagmire. Many of my materials from 2005-2010 are boxed up. So, you have take some of this prima facie. I went into private security for many reasons and from there chose to complete my bachelor's in criminology rather than history or philosophy, again for several reasons. I read The Market for Liberty in 1971 and I have two copies, one of them autographed by Morris G. Tannehill, a personal gift. I am a strong advocate for the efficacy of the private sector in defense and adjudication, so much so that some Objectivists have accused me of being an anarchist. I am not an anarchist. I have my own theories about government, but theories of government they are, indeed. Easily, I am a republican and a democrat and just as easily I can appreciate the case for monarchy made by Robert Heinlein in Double Star. Largely, no special form of government will protect us from ourselves, though the US Constitution is perhaps single best attempt to fashion a self-correcting mechanism. In my last days at university, with my understanding of private security, and private law ("the fourth book of law" or "the conflict of laws" as private international law is known), it occurred to me that perhaps the best form of minimal government would not be police, courts, and army, but economic welfare. As long as the "taxes" are voluntary, I see no problem with ensuring that everyone has a basic guarantee of health.

Alll of that said, I still warn my anarchist comrades, as above, that no special social arrangement can prevent us from harming others, given our capacity to do so. "Private policing" (so-called) is problematic on many levels.

Department of Corrections

South Bay Correctional Facility

County: Palm Beach

Historical Information: This facility was established in 1997 to house adult male inmates. It is operated by The GEO Group, Inc. (formerly Wackenhut Corrections Corporation) under contract with the Department of Management Services.

http://www.dc.state.fl.us/facilities/region4/405.html

G4S protects gated Florida community

Created: June 21, 2012

Company plays an intrinsic role at Addison Reserve

In addition to G4S CPO personnel, two types of specialized officers work at Addison Reserve. The G4S Special Response Teams (SRT) patrol using off-road vehicles around the community's perimeter and golf courses. The SRTs also join alarm responders as an additional roving security force. G4S Advanced Life Support (ALS) officers are state and county EMS-licensed. They drive a special response vehicle outfitted with an automated external defibrillator (AED) and equipped with primary first aid equipment for life threatening health emergencies. While they do not transport patients to the hospital, they are often first on the scene to address serious medical issues.

http://www.securityinfowatch.com/press_release/10732674/g4s-protects-gated-florida-community?page=2

Edwin J. Latalladi

Director Ed Latalladi has 21 years of combined law enforcement and private sector security experience. He was a Police Sergeant in New York where he served for 10 years. During that time he became a Certified Police Instructor and was the agency’s Training Coordinator. He also served in the department’s Special Operations Unit, Marine Unit, and attended Federal “HIDTA” narcotics training. From 9/11/01, Ed worked at “Ground Zero” of the World Trade Center for eight months where he was in charge of a contingent of Officers tasked with rescue, recovery, and clean-up efforts. At the end of the assignment he was chosen for Counter Terrorism Training by the New York State Governor’s Office and became a Counter Terrorism Instructor for the Agency. He vested his retirement after 10 years of service and in 2004 moved to Wellington, FL., seeking a new way of life for his family. Since then Ed has been involved in the private security sector specializing in gated community security. He is a member of the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office B-PAT Homeland Security Council and chairman of the ASIS gated community security committee. While in Florida Ed has become and NRA Law Enforcement Firearms Instructor, a Certified Glock Armorer, and has attained Florida Division Law Enforcement Police Certification.

http://www.securitydirectors.net/t,webpage_design/p,Edwin_Latalladi

Florida's problematic gated communities By Bonita Burton, Special to CNN

updated 9:59 AM EDT, Wed March 28, 2012

Fenced in against their own insecurity, residents living within the perimeter revere active vigilance. Those who want to play border patrol and muscle outsiders around can easily do so unchecked.

"When you discourage drive-through traffic and pedestrians, it becomes abnormal to see someone walking. And now you've created a situation where two people alone are hazardous to each other because there's no one else around, no cars driving by, no eyes on the street, " Harris added.

http://www.cnn.com/2012/03/28/opinion/burton-florida-gates/index.html

Arresting Developments

DECEMBER 19, 2001

When Police Power Goes Private

On January 2, 1998, Miguel Valdes, a private security guard working for a Florida bank, shot a customer for double parking. Nobody would disagree that Valdes went way over the line. In contrast to public police, private police enjoy only a clearly circumscribed set of powers to enforce public laws. They have the power of citizen's arrest and the capacity to eject trespassers from private property. But beyond this, private police may not use physical force, pursue, detain, search, or seize. Overzealousness may be a constant temptation for what some people derisively call "cop wannabes," but we usually know overstepping when we see it. But now reverse the private-public arrow, and consider another problem: public police enforcing private rules. Put away the image of a liveried private security guard brandishing a gun at you for double parking, and imagine instead a uniformed police officer coming to your door and telling you to mow your lawn. This actually happens.

But policing remains a special case: it engages laws or rules, which are social constructions, and force and space, which are physical entities. Each can be either public or private; but here blurring of the lines is not so easily done, and the social consequences are potentially far greater. It is not physically possible for a police officer to wear two kinds of uniform—public and private—at the same time, even if she is enforcing two different sets of laws. Nor is it possible for two different sets of laws to govern the same physical space, even if both a public government and a private government have jurisdiction over it.

http://prospect.org/article/arresting-developments-0

[Brant Gaede]

That helps, sort of. If I could explain this "sort of" there wouldn't be any "sort of." The closest I can come is you paved over most of my questions with information that may answer them to some extent if I root around in it for a while extrapolating as I go. At least that's more than I could do before. For that reason I'll be re-reading tonight what you posted just above.

--Brant

the deductive meets the inductive--and it ain't pretty

oink

[blackhorse]

Rationally, "anarcho" and Objectivist do not, and cannot, be equated with each other. That would be an oxymoron.

[Dglgmut]

Rationally, "anarcho" and Objectivist do not, and cannot, be equated with each other. That would be an oxymoron.

And yet those calling themselves AnarchObjectivists would argue the exact opposite.

[syrakusos]

To take the easy one first...

The Tannehill's Market for Liberty (1971) was an example of "anarcho-Objectivism." They were explicit Objectivists, who based their political theories on the ethics of Ayn Rand.

So-called "Christian Objectivists" and "Agnostic Objectivists" are known to have offered their opinions.Politics and religion being what they are, people argue those with more intensity than the assertions by some Objectivists that Beethoven, Mozart, and rock music are good for your soul. Ayn Rand said otherwise. Some here argue that Ayn Rand was wrong about gun control and whether a woman should be President of the United States. How you define Objectivism determines where you place Ayn Rand's opinions on it. Remember that small-o objectivism is rational-empiricism, a philosophy described in any general survey text, along with rationalism, empiricism, logical positivism, existentialism, etc., etc. So, what a Capital Letter achieves is the point here.

So, Michael, in your example I have retaliated on my own rather than going to my agency? That would mean I've risked breaking the law ...

You have not addressed the problem of where "law" comes from. What makes a practice "unlawful" or even "illegal" in an anarchist society? The Uniform Commercial Code was created whole by self-appointed jurists and it was so good that many American states adopted it whole or in part. But you can specify the UCC in a contract independent of geography. Multinational corporations specify the applicable laws in their contracts, of course, but read your own credit card or automobile loan or mortage. So, there are some hints on how law can be made without government. But you have not done that; you just assert claims. Is anarcho-unlawful the same as anarcho-illegal? What if - like self-insurance - I have self-legality? I don't need an agency, just as I don't need an insurer. Self-insurance is well-known, what about self-legality? Where is your anarcho-breaking-the-law-without-an-agency then?

... I could take away your rights to the extent that you took mine away.

First you have to prove your case. You cannot just run down the street yelling, "He took my rights away!" If we have a fender bender at an intersection and Traffic Cops, Inc. tell Traffic Court, Inc., that I ran the light, then I might have to pay for your damages and court costs, easily enough - if I subscribe to that court, or if my insurer is contracted to their arbitrator. But on what basis do you haul me before the mediator of your choice by running around yelling about your violated rights?

What if I assert that you failed to provide an adequate set of hyperlinks with the user interface of the software you wrote for me? Does your "anarcho-court" or my "anarcho-arbitrator" have the power to say that "proportionally," you lose a finger? You have not thought this through very well.

In the case of theft it is simple, because in a libertarian society everyone would have proof of what they own in the form of receipts or contracts simply because it would make theft cases incredibly simple... just check if the thief has proof that it's his...

We have that now. In fact, in many places, the cash register has a sign saying that the goods are free to me if the cashier does not give me a receipt. It is company policy. So, your anarcho-utopia is just what we have today. Also, of course, no one really keeps receipts for little purchases. It is a known shakedown by crooked cops to pull over a Black youth and take whatever they have in their car as "evidence" because they have no receipt. In an anarcho-future, you might have all transactions recorded on your iPod, as we do now. But here and now, telling a cop that the receipt is on the iPod will just let him take the iPod as well for lack of a receipt. How can you anarchically protect yourself against crooked cops? (I have given some thought to this over the last 40 years; and I am now a security guard with a bachelor of science degree in criminology administration. I am not making any claims, though. You are. Prove your case.)

The thing about tradition is obviously true, but we're just talking about what ought to be, not what people will allow to be.

This invalidates your claim to anarcho-Objectivism. Objectivism is rational-empiricism. If an assertion is True, then no dichotomy exists between Fact and Value, Reason and Experience, Logic and Perception, Hypothesis and Experiment, Analysis and Synthesis.

That last is the language of Chemistry. Chemists know theoretically that certain formulas "should" exist. Making them wins awards and honors. Sociology and politics may or may be sciences depending on your standards. Chemical theory is accepted. Political theory is not. California's Utopian Communities by Robert V. Hine is a classic study of about 50 ways to fail.

You say "... not what people will allow..." What people? You offer the fallacy of the unnamed collective. If your anarcho-suggestions were workable, they would be profitable. (I believe that some are: private security; arbitration, mediation, and adjudication; respect for rights as the foundation of social interaction. That points to many real world applications going on here and now, while you claim to be offering an impossible dream. Do you want to succeed? Or just complain?)

How do you change morality? .... Rand was trying to do it, and succeeded to a degree, but she only helped guide (and misguide) those who already shared a lot of ideas with her. But there are still a lot of ambitious people out there with the potential for morality.

You mean, how do you change a common culture? Why do some ideas find agreement right away and others take centuries? How prevalent do ideas have to be before they are dominant? This is another Grand Challenge related, different from the topic here. Your fuzzy statements reflect the depths of the problem.

Am I the only person in denatured Objectivism-libertarian theoretical-land who has actually been in combat in a stupid war? REAL LIFE! Ayn Rand had the same theoretical hubris ... ... to blow away or blow through the statists of the 1950s and 1960s, but long term ...

Many veterans are Objectivists. You are not alone. (I am not one.) Ayn Rand opposed anarchism specifically because she lived through a civil war. She wanted one authority to put an end to the fighting. But I remind you of what you know: Atlas Shrugged is not a political novel. Objectivism is not a political philosophy. Politics is but an element in a larger presentation of philosophy. Of the branches of philosophy, I believe that Aesthetics is central to Objectivism, with epistemolgy, ethics, and politics, as spokes to the rim of metaphysics.

The whole point of anarchism is to criminalize all initiation of force (not limited to physical force), ipso facto such a society could not be established by any other means than voluntary consent.

The oldest counter-argument known is: "What do you do with the person who does not consent?" In the science fiction stories of Vernor Vinge, competing police forces have no choice but to allow an irrascible old man the right to keep his nuclear bomb on his property. I, as a customer of Dog Leg Mutt Security, insist that you protect me from the potential of deadly fallout. Now what?

In the anarcho-future, all property is owned. Traditionally, real estate law defined your property as a cone from the center of the Earth infinitely out in space. I want to fly an airplane, or put a base on the Moon. You complain that I am violating your air rights. Where do such property rights begin and end in your anarcho-world?

Not all contracts would be enforceable under libertarian law, only those contracts dealing with transfer of property. Just because you had it in writing that you could imprison someone for breaking a rule, that would not mean you could legally do so.

What does "legal" mean in a world without government? Is "legal" the same as "lawful"?

In my community, we have rules against noise. We have rules limiting actions to certain times of day. We are prohibited by contract from major repairs and renovations to our domiciles. We are limited in the size of number of our pets. Ultimately, these alll come down to property rights.

Also, imprisonment is itself by definition a disproportionate response. You have no idea what prison is, why they exist. In the past, people were held before execution of sentence (hanging, flogging, etc.). If the authorities chose to dally and dither, you could spend your life in prison. However, the actual sentencing of people to terms of imprisonment is a modern invention, based, first, on the Quaker theory that you need time alone to get right with God. The first prisons as we understand them today were invented in Pennsylvania. You really need to read more about criminology before you theorize about anarcho-legality. I assert that no Objectivist society (anarcho or other) would have prisons. Prisons are another horror perpetrated by mystics.

Finally, as a Postscript, I recommend highly the science fiction stories of L, Neil Smith and Vernor Vinge.

Smith's "Probability Broach" series begins with the American Revolution and extends into outer space. In our time, a detective finds a gateway into a universe where the Articles of Confederaton worked because Alexander Hamilton was exiled to Prussia. The story line goes up to and perhaps beyond "His Majesty's Bucketeers" about three-legged fuzzy pirates in space ships and the human traders they meet.

Smith also wrote a Lando Calrissian story in the Star Wars universe. He wrote Pallas a novel set in the asteroid belt, perhaps his best work, devoid of light humor (no bucketeers or gorillas with smart headsets as president of the CSA). It extols the virtues of individualism as you might hope they actually do play out as we extend civilization to the solar system.

Vinge's "Peacer War" series takes place in our time and extends into an anarcho-libertarian future of competing police forces and all that.

These are not rigorous tracts. They are entertainment. But in all cases, the authors have invested productive thought in the consequences of ideas.

Here on OL was a regular poster, Wolf DeVoon. DeVoon is a European and a lawyer, and the author of a science fiction novella, The Good Walk Alone, set in a Costa Rican anarcho-future where the viewpoint characters are impossibly good-looking female cops. (In point of fact, we know from statistics that women make better officers than men.)

[Brant Gaede]

Michael, "Atlas Shrugged" is an ethical-political-economic novel and the case can be made for the rest of her philosophy being in there too. The biggie, though, was the ethics she was propounding, just like in the subsequent Objectivist philosophy as propounded by NBI in the 1960s.

Wolf DeVoon was a made up man who junked that persona and went back completely to his real life CEO-persona. I know his real name and I know he is okay. He figured all his writing was worthless as for accomplishing anything in this culture.

--Brant

[Theodore]

Three words Free State Project.