A Two-Sided Dillema

There is a two-sided dillema that pops up in conflicts over issues of freedom and domination. One side of the dillema is the problem of "involuntary liberation", while the other side of the dillema is the problem of "voluntary authoritarianism". Both of these seem like bald-faced contradictions that throw a monkey wrench into any attempt to coherantly define freedom, but they actually pop up quite frequently in conflicts between various libertarians and anarchists. The begged questions that may clarify how such contradictions arise is "voluntary in what sense?" and "liberation in what sense?".

What do I mean by "voluntary authoritarianism"? I mean a situation that is predicated on something that is voluntary in some sense or aspect, and yet is ultimately authoritarian in nature. For example, let's assume that "homesteading", "exchange", and "inheritance" or "gift" are voluntary modes of aquiring property over a given geographical area. That is, it is "voluntary" in the way that it is obtained. But as a question aside from one of how territory is obtained, those that own the geographical area exersize essentially unlimited power over those that happen to occupy the area that they have voluntarily obtained. Hence, in spite of the fact that the area was aquired "voluntarily", there is an authoritarian relationship at play in which the individual or group that "voluntarily" obtained the territory theoretically make whatever rules they want while the non-owners must obey their rules.

Let's be clear about this: the scenario just described would be a state in the Weberian definition of the term (or at least involve a state-like entity), in spite of the "voluntary" nature of territorial aquisition. It constitutes a defacto "territorial monopoly of ultimate decision-making" relative to the geographical area in question. And yet it initially came about through "voluntary" means, in terms of the way in which the geographical area was obtained. This illustrates an important point: that the qualification or criteria that a given geographical area is aquired through "voluntary" means is insufficient as a condition for freedom. The excersize of "ultimate decision-making power" over a given geographical area does not suddenly cease to threaten people's freedom simply because the area was "homesteaded" or "exchanged for".

There is also a factor of time in situations of "voluntary authoritarianism". While the prior example shows how it possible in some sense for a "state" to arise out of an initially "voluntary" mode of property aquisition, the annoying issue of "voluntary" slavery is similar, except in the latter case it has more to do with contracts than direct modes of property aquisition. It is theoretically possible for someone to sign a contract stating that they will work for and obey the orders of another individual or group, for the rest of their lives even. In terms of the simple act of signing the contract without initially being threatened with aggression, such an act would indeed be "voluntary". But as soon as the person tries to opt out of the relationship and another party proactively threatens violence to make them continue following orders into the future, what started out as a "voluntary contract" has taken on the character of any old authoritarian relationship. The contract itself is irrelevant to what explicitly is "voluntary".

The knee-jerk response at this point is for the defender of "voluntary slavery" to object that "you can't force them to be free", since that would appear to be a contradiction in terms. This is misleading because the person in the scenario actually doesn't want to obey orders anymore or continue to be a part of the relationship. The entire point is that the relationship has explicitly ceased to be "voluntary", and to perpetually enforce the contract would be pure subjection at this point. If I defend a slave that is trying to flee their master, I'm not forcing anyone to be free. It's their master that is trying to force them into not being free. If the "voluntary slavery" notion is taken to its logical conclusion, one would have to defend any sort of authoritarian relationship as long as it is traceable back to a legally binding contract.

It seems like the fundamental error of such "voluntary authoritarianism" is that property and/or contract are treated as ends in themselves that override freedom, or freedom is defined as a derivative of them. As a consequence of this, everything that one would otherwise object to in the abscence of contracts and the proper modes of property aquisition is relegitimized in the framework of property and/or contract. Hence, slavery and the state remain in substance, and differ only in the form that they take in terms of how they initially come about, which may initially be voluntary in nature. This may seem counter-intuitive, but something can start out voluntarily (or at least with its foundational qualities not involving aggression) and become involuntary or authoritarian over time. It also leads to a conclusion that may offend the average market-libertarian ear: if we want to meaningfully favor freedom, we must realize that freedom inherently limits property and contracts.

With all of this being said, there is another side of the coin here. While there are specific problems with viewpoints that end up effectively leading to the contradiction of making people "free to be subjects", there are also certain viewpoints that end up leading to a genuine contradiction of "forcing people to be free". The most explicit example of this in large-scale politics is probably the neoconservative line on foreign policy, in which proactive aggression and nation-buiding is endorsed in the name of freeing people from the control of foreign governments and "keeping the world safe for democracy". The idea is that one is doing a benevolent service to the people living in those areas by stepping in fighting the organizations that more locally control them. There is often a humanitarian veneer to it that gives it a veil of legitimacy.

Upon reflection, it may initially seem like there is an element of sensibility to this if one thinks of it in terms of helping slaves flee their masters. But that isn't really how such policies really work. For one thing, who exactly belongs to "the enemy" to be fought is often unclear, and the general population ends up being either caught in the crossfire or feeling invaded, which leads them to defend themselves. And so, to some extent, one ends up in a conflict with the very people that one is claiming to be liberating. The very nature of large-scale warfare ends up doing damage that is well beyond the limits of explicitly governmental targets. Furthermore, even to the extent that what could be considered oppressors are being fought off, it is under the pretext of imposing a new group of oppressors.

It reaches a point at which one is actually subjugating and killing people in the name of liberating them. The "liberating force" makes a power grab of their own, either directly (in the form of running the government) or indirectly (in the form of establishing a new puppet/satellite regime). Even the mere motive of freeing people comes into question, and it ends up looking like the motive of the "liberating force" is to become masters themselves or impose a new set of authorities onto the people that are supposed to be "liberated". It's analagous to slavemaster A taking out slavemaster B only as a pretext to replacing them and gaining control over the other slavemaster's subjects. The claim to be freeing people, whether it is genuinely intended or not, is illusory in substance.

A similar issue is involved with opposition to standard wage labor. Suppose, for the sake of argument, that an anarcho-communist society was achieved. Noone works for wages under an employer. But let's suppose that, for one reason or another, a particular individual decided that they wanted to work for someone else and another individual was willing to be their employer. One can protest until one is blue in the face that noone would have any reason to do that in a communist society, since there is supposed to be post-scarcity conditions, but let's assume that some people do anyways. What can the anarcho-communist really do about it? Are they really going to try to universally ban all employment contracts, and how would they possibly do this without some degree of aggression at some point down the line?

I think that this scenario bumps into a genuine "force them to be free" dillema. It seems akward and counter-intuitive to try to proactively intervene to stop someone from initially entering into an employment contract, while that person protests the whole way and genuinely wants to enter into it. It seems like the anarcho-communist more or less has no choice but to tolerate it to some extent. To claim to be "liberating" someone while they emphatically don't want you to and while they persistently object doesn't make any sense. While the "voluntary slavery" proponent doesn't take freedom of exit into proper account, anyone that favors explicit "involuntary liberation" in this way seems to not take freedom of entry into proper account. If "freedom of association" is to mean anything at all, both entry and exit must be considered.

Anarcho-Capitalism Is Not A Form Of Libertarian Socialism

Brad Spangler has recently been defending anarcho-capitalism as essentially being the same thing as libertarian socialism (see here and here). While I think that one-dimensional thinking can be misleading and there is an extent to which conflict about such questions can be based on semantics, I believe that Spangler is stretching it here and going too far in his own use of semantics and obfuscating certain distinctions between norms commonly held by the groups in question. The problem, as I see it, partially revolves around how he is defining his terms relative to other people that commonly apply those same terms to themselves.

Spangler holds up Murray Rothbard as a libertarian socialist. A number things must be noted that give this claim a context: Spangler is talking about a "left-rothbardian" interpretation of Rothbard that is not shared by the vast majority of "rothbardians" (particularly those associated with the Ludwig Von Mises Institute), this is only one era in Rothbard's thought that is being refered to (late 60's and early 70's), and Rothbard came to abandon that position. In fact, by the time we get to the 80's, it seems quite clear that Rothbard drifted (back?) "rightward" to a significant extent.

The early formation of agorism was partially based on a split between Rothbard and Konkin. Of course, Konkin viewed himself as "more rothbardian than rothbard", as merely taking Rothbard's premises to a more radical and logical conclusion. But even if one wants to think of it as having its roots in Rothbard's ideas, it still constitutes a deviation relative to the man's own views and the views of many of his adherants. Insofar as agorism is only thought of as a different strategic viewpoint for obtaining anarcho-capitalism, then I suppose there isn't much of a significant distinction. But insofar as it is based on a "left-rothbardian" interpretation of libertarianism, I think it must be admitted that it is a distinct system of thought from the "plumbline" of anarcho-capitalism.

With Rothbard and agorism aside, there are much more important reasons why I don't think it makes sense to pretend that the general paradigm of anarcho-capitalism is indistinguishable from libertarian socialism. Most fundamentally, they are very clearly distinguished in terms of their norms about property, and I don't think that such differences are trivial. Generally, anarcho-capitalism is based on a quite specific conception of property that essentially every libertarian socialist I've ever encountered rejects. Indeed, it is considered authoritarian. Likewise, the vast majority of anarcho-capitalists that I've encountered tend to consider the norms of libertarian socialists to inherently violate liberty.

Now, I'll be the first person to admit that sometimes these conflicts are based on mutual misunderstandings. I most certainly think that simple "pro-property" vs. "anti-property" is an oversimplification. But I do not think that it is entirely semantic in nature. I don't think that we can make such issues go away by playing with language. Libertarian socialists do not believe in non-proviso lockean property. One can come up with theories about how non-proviso lockean property can possibly include socialistic models of economic organization until one's brain explodes, but that would still be based on the overall framework of the property norm, which libertarian socialists reject.

One could say that "we all believe in non-aggression, so the distinctions are moot", but even non-aggression is going to be defined partially based on what property norm one assumes ahead of time. At the practical level, this means that it isn't even the same "non-aggression principle" being adhered to, since whether or not a given act is going to be considered offense or defense will vary. One could say that "we all oppose the state, so the distinctions are moot", but as long as one party considers the other's norms to justify or imply a state anyways, one group's "anti-statism" will be another group's "transition from one state to another" or "the establishment of a situation that is a sufficient condition for a new state forming". And that's exactly what the anarcho-capitalist's norms imply from a libertarian socialist perspective.

There are some people that could be said to occupy an ambiguous space that exists between the general paradigms of anarcho-capitalism and libertarian socialism, such as various elements within the Alliance of the Libertarian Left. But that's just the thing: the Alliance of the Libertarian Left and related tendencies are not representative of the norm in market anarchism. If anything, it has a certain heretical flavor relative to the orthodoxy of both anarcho-capitalism and social anarchism. On one hand, it can be considered reconciliationist or a mixture of ideas from both paradigms. But relative to the "hardline" of both paradigms, it very clearly is deviationist; it defies or breaks the norms.

Some market anarchists (particularly those with left-libertarian inclinations) think that if you get rid of the state, "capitalism" as we know it dissapears. To an extent, this makes sense if we understand "capitalism" to depend on state intervention in terms of property titles and an assortment of legal constructs that have had the function of restricting competition to the dominant "capitalist" models of economic organization. I'm sympathetic to this viewpoint myself. But the analysis could be taken further: if we still hold the same property norms in general(particularly with respect to land), then we haven't avoided the foundation of states. If we view the matter from another conceptual level, the dominant anarcho-capitalist position on land should logically justify if not consequentially lead to states or state-like entities.

This, I believe, cuts much deeper to the heart of what the issue of contention is all about. It isn't merely a matter of rejecting the current distribution of property titles and thinking that in the absence of a state such an arrangement could not sustain itself. It's a matter of how such an arrangement forms in the first place and the relationship between specific property norms and authority. By the very least, as long as anarcho-capitalists continue hold on to certain territorialist notions, they haven't overcome authoritarianism from a libertarian socialist perspective. The problem cannot be completely chalked up to the influence of already-existing states. It's not as if, regaurdless of norms about property, a given state falls and then everything just works itself out into libertopia.

The discussion is not merely about what one thinks the consequences of getting rid of currently existing states are, but what the consequences of various norms about property and liberty are, partially in relation to the question of state formation. It's a different level of analysis altogether. Considerations about this matter is part of why I think that "anti-statism" in the sense of calling for the abolition of currently existing states to be necessary but insufficient by itself to foster a free society. I don't believe that you automatically have a free society simply because a given state falls, I think that a free society will be contingent on a culture of freedom, and precisely what is involved in a culture of freedom (including norms about property) is up for debate.

Part of why I think that Spangler's claims are misleading is that he seems to think that if you think that the state intervenes to uphold an unjust allocation of property and that the consequences of abolishing the state naturally lead to a redistribution of property, this makes you a libertarian socialist, but that's not what libertarian socialism is defined by. It involves fairly specific notions about property at a different conceptual level, and it doesn't entail a reduction of the issue to the pre-existance of a state. This is why his statements confuse some people, both libertarian socialists and anarcho-capitalists, because we're not talking about the same thing here.

A reply to Buchanan's Article praising the Tariff on Chinese Tires.

Here is Buchanan's article that was in the Lawton Constitution's opinion page last week:

http://buchanan.org/blog/globalism-vs-americanism-2192

Patrick Buchanan has come out in support of Obama’s tariff on tires, saying that its a good start. But Buchanan makes several mistakes throughout his column.

He starts off early in his article, blaming the Chinese tire industry for taking away market shares of the Cooper Tire company and causing the South Georgia tire plant to be shut down. But this isn’t at all the fault of the Chinese. It is the fault, if you could call it a fault, of the consumers. The consumers have let their preferences be known and have chosen Chinese tires over Cooper tires. Buchanan I know gives lip service to capitalism. And if it were not the Chinese, but Goodyear tires that were becoming more popular with consumers than Cooper tires, Buchanan wouldn’t bat an eye. He would rightly and logically conclude that Goodyear is producing a higher quality product at a lower price, and that the market has succeeded. But because it is not just the Lawton Goodyear plant that is producing more tires (producing about 2,000 tires a day) but also China producing more tires, Buchanan is crying foul, and throwing the concept of the free market under the bus. 2,100 men and women are out of work in Georgia, would it really help those people pay their mortgage if their job was replaced by men in Oklahoma rather than China?

Buchanan then looks at how the Chinese are able to produce a lower cost product; pointing out that workers are willing to work for much less in China, a result of the lack of labor unions, and government intervention in labor unions, since the plant he mentioned, in fact all tire plants in the United States, with the exception of the Goodyear Tire plant in Lawton, Oklahoma are union plants (though Buchanan fails to go into that), that the Chinese government does not meddle in the market by way of health and safety regulations, civil rights laws, and perhaps most damning, environmental regulations. But the problem here is not China, it is us, or more precisely our governments. To fix this the government should get out of the way and let the market operate, lift the crippling environmental regulations, and stop protecting labor unions.

But another factor is the Chinese Government, they do in fact, as Buchanan mentioned, manipulate their currency to benefit exporters and hurt importers, though this is also an example of government meddling in the market, the solution is not to have more government meddling, but for the United States to eliminate the Federal Reserve. It is quite easy for a government to manipulate its currency in regards to another fiat currency, it would be quite another thing however for China to attempt to manipulate its currency in relation to Gold, it would end in disaster for them, if they were foolish enough to try.

Buchanan goes on to blast Cooper Tires for moving plants to China. But why? does he consider Toyota as a traitor to Japan for building plants in the U.S.? (no one likes a traitor even if the traitor defects to his own side.) No, he doesn’t, It is the nature of men to act in a way that best serves their interests. Instead of spinning my own clothing or growing my own food, I turn to a cheaper alternative, the grocery store, and the mall. Labor is no different, or does Buchanan expect us to not hire the cheapest bid to cut our grass? Why shouldn’t Cooper move to China if they can get a better deal?

“ Welcome to 21st century America, where globalism has replaced patriotism as the civil religion of our corporate elites.”

But this is to confuse patriotism with nationalism. Patriotism is only the desire a man has for his country, his brethren, and himself to be free. Free from taxes, from extortion, crime, and perhaps most accurately, to be left alone. It is nationalism that insists that all consumer goods be made in his home country, that his government be powerful, that his government exert her will over other governments and people far and wide.

Yet even still I don’t know of any religion that our corporate elites hold, I can not even address this point except to say that all men, from the smallest child, to the most powerful corporate elite, act in his own self interest and in a way which, in his judgement will most benefit him.

Buchanan goes on to illustrate a lack of understanding of self sufficiency independence,

“What has this meant to the republic that was once the most self sufficient and independent in all of history?”

Being independent does not mean that I built my own house and car, that I spun my own clothing or created my own electricity for lighting, or even that I cut my own grass. Rather it is a matter of being able to produce something, or give some service in trade so others will be willing to provide those goods and services to me. if I were not self sufficient, I would not be able to supply myself with these goods, either directly or through trade. The same model that I put forward for an individual also applies to the aggregate of American individuals, i.e. to the country.

We are still independent, but Buchanan has confused political independence with economic independence. Under Buchanan’s concept, consider how utterly non self sufficient a brain surgeon must be, Who can not operate perform brain surgery on himself, and since that is his only talent, he can not change the oil on his porsche, pilot his private jet, sew his thousand dollar suits, or cut firewood to heat his 10,000 square foot home!

Addressing the “trade deficit” is the next leg of Buchanan’s article. But again one has to question the premise. What exactly is a trade deficit, perhaps more importantly, what is a trade? A trade, as it should be obvious to any 10 year old boy trading baseball cards, is exchanging what one values less for what one values more. Tom values Jim’s Nolan Ryan card more than he values his own Greg Maddox and Barry Bonds card, while Jim values the Maddox card Barry Bond’s card more than his Nolan Ryan. The two boys agree to a trade. And through my magic of deception, I have made the trade deficit disappear!
But there is no deception. That is what a trade is. Consider another example. your own “trade deficit” with your local grocery store. If you have never sold anything to your grocery store, Buchanan would say you are running a trade deficit in the amount of dollars that you spend annually at the store. But how preposterous is this? Would you really be better off eating a $100 bill each week than trading it for nourishing food? Of course not. There is no trade deficit here. The fact is that the act of trading negates a trade deficit.

As Buchanan raises the question of dependence on China again, think about your own dependence on your grocery store... Are you dependent on your grocery? No, you trade with him, but you are not dependent. If he goes out of business, or stops carrying the type of tea you prefer, you go to another store. Its that simple.


Now Buchanan gains strength towards the end, saying that we should reciprocate, that since they have tariffs on our goods, we should put tariffs on their goods. But this is probably not the way to go.

The fact is that besides hurting producers of another country, it also hurts consumers of the home country. This, more than any other issue is what lead to the war between the states. As the Confederate Constitution was ratified March 11th 1861, creating a virtual free trade zone by article one section eight of the new Constitution, in the north shortly before the Morrill tariff was passed, putting a tax of 47% on goods entering in the remaining United States. Naturally the monied elite could not stand to see a tariff of such magnitude put on them while the south would have a bare 10% tariff on goods entering the newly formed republic, and papers across the North changed their tune and called for blood.

Likewise WWI had at its root trade. and Woodrow Wilson admitted that the war was fought to prevent Germany from gaining economic supremacy.

It is admirable that Buchanan is such an outspoken opponent of unnecessary wars, yet it is sad he doesn’t realize that tariffs, and trade wars, are the leading cause of wars.

It does not help our case for China to remove its trade restrictions when we put our own on them. And the result, if we do so, is that the American consumer is the one who gets hurt.

Lastly I’ll address Buchanan’s view on taxes where he says, “ As they rebate value-added taxes on exports to us, and impose a value-added tax on our exports to them, let us reciprocate. Impose a border tax equal to a VAT on all their goods entering the United States, and use the hundreds of billions to cut corporate taxes on all manufacturing done here in the United States.”

Apparently Buchanan is not for cutting taxes, but transferring taxes from one group to another. He is right that corporate taxes should be cut, because they are passed on to the consumer, but does he fail to realize that taxes on foreign goods are also passed along to the consumer?

Questioning Hoppe's Premises

The last argument presented against Hoppe's argument about democracy takes the form of assuming Hoppe's premises and demonstrating that they still don't necessarily lead to his conclusion, because even if we assume that the monarch does have a low time preference, this still doesn't prove that their treatment of their subjects will necessarily be more reserved or benevolent. A low time preference ruler is still a ruler, and them having a low time preference merely means that they will seek to maximize their inputs that they reap from the productivity of their subjects in the long-term - it's to treat the subject and the state as an investment.

But the problem with Hoppe's argument runs deeper than this, to the core of some of his assumptions. Does it really follow that just because something is an individual's "private" property, they will necessarily treat it better? I understand the typical use of tragedy of the commons by economists to argue for something along these lines by portraying more common ownership as leading to over-use of resources. But there is nothing about "private" ownership that inherently tends towards the opposite, especially if a "private" owner can externalize their costs. Why couldn't an individual owner "use and abuse" to a fault as well? They very well could.

Hoppe seems to assume that contemporary democracies actually are a commons, and in this sense he is buying into the democratic myth in his own attempt to argue against it. But let's be clear about this: even democratic states are, in some sense, still "private" institutions, they just have somewhat of a more inclusive membership than monarchies. They are still "private" oligarchies relative to the general population. Instead of having a single family or individual that owns the state, the state is effectively owned by a number of different families and a small oligarchy, who are more or less allied with and function on the behalf of pockets of "private" investors in "the market". It's almost as if the "democratic" state is a corporation, with a board of managers representing investors.

The historical reality of monarchies also flies in the face of Hoppe's premises. There are endless examples of monarchs being expansionist and using their power in extreme ways without any meaningful checks. Hoppe's unspoken assumption is that the monarch will be knowledgable about economics or a wise investor. But just because there is a "private" owner of the state does not necessitate that they will have a low time preference. This is particularly true considering the factor of inheritance. An inheritor can't even claim to have "earned" what they own in any meaningful sense, and hence in fact do not tend to treat it as if it was something that they worked for. It's theirs to "use and abuse" regardless.

There is a wiff of the "homo economicus" in this notion of monarch-as-wise-investor. People do not function solely on the basis of economic incentives. If someone is determined enough to pursue a given goal, they will try to pursue it regardless of how unwise it might be from a purely economic standpoint. In turn, if a king is determined enough to exercise power, they will excersize power even if it isn't the best course of action from the standpoint of being an investor in the state. Kings are not economic calculation automatons that are always working hard to maximize capital values. Just like any other ruler, the internal institutional incentives are for the perpetuation of the institution itself and the maximization of power.

Hoppe greatly underestimates the particular dangers of unilateral power. He essentially assumes that unilateral power is preferable to multilateral power because the unilateral decision-maker doesn't have to have their alleged economically-minded meanderings distracted from by other agents. But, if anything, this is a peculiar danger in monarchies: that the monarch has little to no multilateral checks on their power, and can therefore excersize it more easily and directly. This is the counter-point or downside to monarchy that isn't taken into account at all by his analysis. While a democracy at least tries (and, of course, fails) to separate powers so that a single individual or party cannot have all of it concentrated in them, monarchy doesn't even function on the pretense of trying.

Monarchy is, in fact, the most centralized form of government in this sense. It is only the most "small" form of government in the sense of its membership, while this exact same "smallness" is precisely where its power lies in terms of being densely concentrated in a certain spot. While democracy attempts to internally mimick decentralization, monarchy most blatantly places "ultimate decision-making power" in the hands of a single individual. It really shouldn't be too hard to see what might be particularly dangerous about a single individual having "ultimate decision-making power", yet Hoppe apparently thinks that it is a "lesser evil" than a system that attempts to place barriers to unilateral decision-making!

Critiqueing Hoppe's Monarchy-As-Lesser-Evil Argument From Another Angle

Most market anarchists have mostly likely heard of Hans Hoppe's argument that monarchy is preferable to democracy because a "private" owner of the state has an incentive to preserve the "capital value" of the state, and will therefore allegedly be more restrained in their oppression of their subjects. Not long ago, Roderick Long brought up an interesting parallel to Hoppe's argument in the context of chattel slavery, and used it as a point against Hoppe's argument. In a nutshell, Hoppe's argument mirrors a paternalistic argument for chattel slavery, I.E. that a "private" slavemaster has an incentive to take care of their slave so that they are productive. All based on the general theory of time preference.

Let's think more deeply about this premise via a parasite metaphor. What is the interest of a parasite? To reap as much from their host as possible. However, the relationship between a parasite and its host has complications: if the parasite kills its host, it no longer has a source and dies if it doesn't find a new one. Hence, it is actually in the interest of the parasite to maintain a certain balance in which they are able to perpetually live off of the host without killing it. It against the long-term interest of the parasite to reap too much too quickly.

I maintain that this is analagous to both the "private slavery" and "private monarchy" questions. In the long-term, a conservative policy in which the subject is kept at a sufficient level of health necessary to continue being able to milk the most productivity from them is the most efficient and sustainable way to rule them. So what Hoppe ends up proving is not necessarily that a monarchy is inherently less exploitative than a democracy, but that a monarchy is actually the most efficient and sustainable form of rulership (which isn't a good thing if you want to oppose rulership). From the standpoint of the subject, they are only "taken care of" as a pretext to them providing productivity that will be seized from them in the future.

Stephan Molyneux, in one of his more interesting positions, once made a similar line of argument about minarchist capitalism (I don't recall exactly which podcast or video it is from). The idea is that the relative non-intervention of small/minarchist governments entails a period of productivity, that is generally a pretext to a later period of growth in government in which that productivity is seized to provide the resources necessary to maintain a large military-industrial-complex and welfare-state (it's interesting to note that in a strange roundabout way, Molyneux is actually fairly closely paralleling Marx here).

The common thread that runs through all of these examples is that a low time preference and conservative approach presents the conditions upon which to sustainably and efficiently milk the most out of the victims. This is actually a "smart" strategy for parasites/slavemasters/rulers, not something to hold up as a pragmatic lesser evil! The subject is only given more lenience earlier on so that it can be steadily taken away from them as time goes by and so that they function as a reliable source of input for the ruling individual or group. It does not prove as an apriori law of praxeology that a "private" and conservative form of domination is inherently more tolerable or less objectionable.

It should be noted that I am accepting Hoppe's own economic assumptions (namely, time preference) to refute the conclusion that he draws from them. Let's concede Hoppe's contention that the "private" owner of the state has an incentive towards a low time preference. The proper response is that what follows, by the very logic of time preference, is that they have a more vested personal interest in preserving the state, precisely because it is their property. And this doesn't really mean the well being of the subjects of the state, but the stability of the state itself. In a sense, Hoppe's theory refutes itself, since it's the "capital value" of the state that the owner is primarily interested in.

The notion that "private" forms of control are inherently a "lesser evil", or even a non-issue entirely, does not logically follow from accepting the general economic theory of time preference. If anything, Hoppe is abusing a valid economic conceptual tool to legitimize an ideological presupposition, out of a zeal to oppose democracy. Even if we grant him the benefit of the doubt and don't claim that he intends to legitimize monarchy (which isn't that much of a stretch given the context of his statements), the function of Hoppe's argument is a misleading pragmatic-propertarian argument in favor of monarchy. But it proves no such thing. If it proves that monarchy is preferable in any sense at all, it proves that it is preferable only from the standpoint of the monarch, who personally reaps the benefits of a thrifty investment strategy in the state.

Why I'm Not A Voluntaryist

(This is commentary of mine taken from Mike Gogulsk's recent post at NoState.com, but also more generally targeted towards his move towards a version of "anarchism without adjectives" and his post on "why I'm not a voluntaryist", which I think completely misses what the problem with "voluntaryism" is).

Part of the problem with the relativist “can’t we all just put aside philophical differences and unite against the state” meme is that it seems to reduce to fake solidarity. It is usually predicated on the ancap’s bargaining power, or to put the matter more directly, on the assumption that it’s the ancap’s property framework in which the “pluralism” towards the socialist is supposed to be manifested.

Another issue is that saying that we should unite against the common enemy may very well be misleading, in that the qualitative analysis of what that common enemy is may very well be quite different. How can people unite against “the state” when they don’t exactly agree on what “the state” is? If I think that your property norms logically entail, by consequence, the sufficient conditions for a “state”, then pluralistic “anti-statism” between us is illusory.

To take the matter even deeper, whether or not anti-statism is fundamental is in question. For those leftists with very “thick” inclinations, it isn’t. The goal being sought isn’t merely negating “the state” (and only in the fairly narrow sense of the modern democratic nation-state to boot), it’s the movement towards a more just social order in general, of which anti-statism is only one conclusion that is part of a bigger picture. Simply because someone nominally opposes the state doesn’t necessarily mean that we ultimately have compatible goals in the long-run; they could be in favor of virtually everything that one objects to. Sacrificing all of one’s values at the altar of anti-statism is a problem with most of libertarianism.

I used to be of an “anarchist without adjectives” mindset (and, keep in mind, the open-ended interpretation of an w/o adj. being promoted is not what was intended by the initial an w/o adj.es), in which I essentially was apathetic towards inter-libertarian conflict and concluded that the conflict was irrelevant. The problem, in retrospect, is that this was a simplistic reaction in which I was valueing conflict resolution for its own sake, and as a sort of rationalization for the intellectual laziness involved in not deeply thinking through the philosophical conflicts inside of libertarianism.

I came to the realization that if you put aside essentially all of your values simply because of a nominally shared opposition to a single institution, and that if you form a completely open-ended broad coalition of self-proclaimed “anti-statists”, what you end up with is an unstable hodge-podge of people with completely different social goals that will inherently fragment as it plays out. Not only that, it conceptually devolves into absurdity, with things like monarchy and nationalism being snuck into anti-authoritarian movements on the grounds of an illusory “pluralism”. This attitude opens itself up to “entryism”.

What this kind of “voluntaryism” ends up doing is stretching the meaning of freedom to the point of absurdity out of its desire to be all-inclusive. Everything about “the state” that one may have initially set out to oppose can be repacked in a new, relativized framework, and libertarianism ends up looking like a shallow and hypocritical doctrine to the extent that it does this. And it often entails a strange line drawn in which anti-statism and non-aggression is treated as an absolute categorical imperative, while beyond this dividing line all questions of value are left to relativity. I’ve never seen a libertarian sensibly rationalize this line.

There are real conceptual and practical tensions involved here that I don’t think can be simply swept under the rug in the name of “pluralism”. Problems aren’t solved by ignoring them. There is a fundamental structural level of analysis that most libertarians, as well as the open-ended interpretation of anarchism without adjectives, does not take into account. If you think that a vague commitment to opposing the modern democratic nation-state is sufficient to produce a free and flourishing society, you’re wrong.

Democracy: Everywhere or Nowhere?

I recently engaged in a discussion in which someone favored the premise that democracy is inescapable, that it is the default of all societies because everyone allegedly "consents" to the social order by virtue of participating in it to any extent whatsoever. My premise (which is part of a paradoxical formula: "democracy is tyranny, democracy is impossible, democracy is liberty") is the exact opposite of this: that democracy is either impossible or illusory, that there has never been such thing as a democracy in the literal sense of the term, because all forms of government in history have been either defacto oligarchies or monarchies.

The only sense in which I can agree that "the people" inherently are reflected in the social order is only in the most superfluous sense: that popular ideas tend to dominate the psyche of the multitude, and most people asquiesce to the power structures. This is all that I get out of Etienne La Boetie's piece on "Voluntary Servitude" - it does *not* mean that the population literally "consents" to all of the decisions that are made, it simply means that they asqueisce precisely because of their situation and options, and that there is an element of ideological legitimacy. It isn't explicitly "voluntary" - no more "voluntary" than having sex with someone under the threat of being evicted is. Yes, rulership isn't maintained by physical force alone - but that doesn't mean that whatever doesn't involve physical force is "voluntary" by default (a problematic assumption of what tends to pass for the "voluntaryist" philosophy these days).

It is quite clear to me that "the people" don't actually have decision-making power over the bulk of what goes on in the society or over how the social order is constituted. This has essentially always been done by a defacto oligarchy, or a multitude of oligarchies. Those that actually make the rules and enforce them constitute a fairly small group of people in comparison to the population as a whole. To imply that everyone "consents" is to essentially stretch the meaning of "consent" to meaninglessness by eliminating the social context in which decisions are made from one's analysis, I.E. the context of people's options being coercively limited and the pre-existing structures into which they are simply born.

Even behind the most inclusive and so-called "democratic" states, I see an oligarchy and a heirarchy. I see a multitude that is almost entirely alienated from the process in which the rules are determined and enforced, with the power to do so delegated to a political elite that acts on the behalf of an economic elite. If anything, it is precisely this notion that "democracy" exists that seems to be an ideological tool of legitimacy, by propogating the illusion that the social order is structured on the basis of the multitude's decisions. To be sure, the multitude do make decisions every day that effect the social order, but these are incredibly marginal decisions (like buying a loaf of bread). When it comes to the decisions that actually have a significant impact on everyone (I.E. the political realm), this power is in the hands of an exclusive elite.

Monarchy and Democracy

There are some theories floating around in libertarian and anarchist circles, both new and not so new, that analize monarchy and democracy while ultimately maintaining that one is inherently superior to the other. For example, Hans Hoppe and the "Hoppeans" that follow in his footsteps argue that monarchy is inherently superior to democracy, while Noam Chomsky and the "Chomskyians" that follow in his footsteps argue that contemporary democracies are inherently more "accountable to the people" than any "private" alternative.

I think that the truth of the matter may be more subtle and complicated than the people in these various camps tend to make it out to be. On one hand, all of the formulations in question can be objected to for the same fundamental reasons, and hence the distinctions begin to break down or lose their relevancy. On the other hand, while one can likely find some legitimate senses in which one has an advantage over the other, one can just as easily find a counterpoint that immediately negates the premise that either of them are inherently superior.

In many ways, these questions and debates are not new; they can be traced back to the greeks, who played a signicant role in formulating the theories of governance in question. In the greeks we find classic democratic sentiments, monarchical sentiments, and various philosophers attempting to find a mean between them in the form of some sort of republic or an enlightened aristocracy. We even find primitive notions of communism. The fundamental debate has simply been elaborated upon as time has passed and experience has accumulated. Let us take a closer look at these theories and formulations of governance.

Democracy

The term democracy is generally understood to mean "rule by the people". In its most direct and literal form ("direct democracy" or "participatory democracy"), this means that everyone in society participates in the process of legislation, adjudication, and enforcement (although it is unclear if all of these branches of governance are supposed to be purely "democratic" rather than just the legislative branch or some combination of two branches while not with one of them). This may more specifically end up meaning "rule by the citizens", while those that are not officially citezens are not allowed to participate.

However, this more literal sense of democracy is not the sole form or manifestation that there is. There is also "representative democracy", which is the form of democracy that the west has come to generally adopt. In "representative democracy", the people or citizens do not directly participate in any of the processes of governance. Instead, there are indirect mechanisms through which they choose "representives" that participate in such processes and wield the governmental powers for them. In terms of the legislative branch, this group of representatives form into senates or "houses" that are constituted by a small portion of the population, and usually a single person in the case of the excecutive branch.

With this definition of democracy in mind, as well as the distinction between direct and representative forms of democracy, the classic questions and debates about democracy should become fairly obvious. Let's first take a look at direct democracy. One of the primary objections to direct democracy is that it seems inherently chaotic and inefficient. With so many people participating in the process, how is a decision ever to be made in the absence of unanimous consensus? Everyone would endlessly debate and nothing would get done; the government would just be frenzied debating society. Since unanimous consensus seems like a very high bar that would practically screech the process to a halt, some threshold of majoritarianism seems like the only way to get it to function.

Consequentially, "rule by the people" devolves into "rule by the majority" and is no longer a "pure" democracy. And majoritarianism, in turn, can be objected to on the grounds that it reduces politics to nothing but an ad populum fallacy that negates what sometimes might be a minority that is actually right. Furthermore, from a rights-based perspective, majoritarianism can override all individual rights as long as enough people agree on it. Hence, democracy appears to be arbitrary in this sense: it has no consistent or restraining principles, no "rule of law". It is simply a value-neutral process of decision-making that sanctions whatever is most popular, and is therefore subject to the problem of "the tyranny of the majority".

What's more, if we take an elitist perspective or simply have a rather pessemistic accessment of "human nature", the multitude tends to be stupid and emotional; the average person doesn't know what's best for themselves let alone anyone else. They have petty desires, are often swept up in fashionable crazes, and are naturally envious of those with more than them (insert Neitzschean or La Bonian talk of "the herd" here). The multitude are fundamentally "unfit to govern"; the art of governance requires one to have specially endowed wisdom or is a profession that one must have proper training and credentials to obtain.

For such reasons, philosophers are often tempted to either jump to the opposite extreme of monarchy or to propose a more limited form of democracy in which something along the lines of "constitutionalism" or a "democratic republic" is adopted. The idea is to preserve a limited sphere of freedom and decision-making power for "the people" while simultaneously restraining them from overstepping their "proper boundaries". Perhaps let them select their rulers, but their rulers must ultimately make the decisions for them from that point onwards. Let there be restrictions with respect to who is able to have political power in order to keep the multitude in check, and let the law be so written as to restrain "the republic" from devolving into a monarchy or encroaching too much upon "the people".

Here we have reached "representative democracy" and "constitutional republicanism". But is this really a solution? Perhaps representative democracy shouldn't even be called democracy, since it restricts political decision-making power to what constitutes a defacto oligarchy. It might not be quite as exclusive as a monarchy, but it ultimately places poliical power in the hands of a small few all the same. If the proponents of such a system wish to maintain the spirit and consent of "the people", such a model clearly fails. To claim that "the people" maintain their sovereignty while, as a matter of fact, an oligarchy rules over them, is surely a sick joke.

And what is to ensure that this oligarchy that rules in the name of "the people" will be constituted by people that are any better than the multitude? The only way to even attempt to solve this problem is to maintain an aristocratic sentiment in which only "philosopher kings" or those that happen to be specially endowed are allowed to hold political power; or at least to hope that such over-men will happen to be the ones that are selected for office. Such was the utopia of Plato: "the republic" will be ruled by brilliant philosophers who exclusively know what true virtue is and are uncorruptable by both military and economic influences.

But if we maintain a generally pessemistic accessment of the multitude in the first place, it makes no sense to suppose that they will choose those who are "best fit to govern", and if we consequentially severely restrict the people's decision-making power to select representatives, then we've essentially removed any last vestige of "democracy" from the system altogether. In effect, we're left with either a monarchy or an aristocratic oligarchy. And even under such a completely non-democratic system, why should we assume that those in power are going to be any better than the dull multitude? Are they not, afterall, human beings too? It seems that whatever generalizations we make about "human nature" must apply to humans vested with political power. Rulers are not deities.

The problem with representative democracy runs even deeper, at the very heart of the notion of "representation". As soon as someone delegates political power to a "representative", they cease to have any meaningful decision-making power from that point onwards. There is no cosmical gaurantee that their "representative" will enforce their wishes. Their "representative" could very well go against their wishes. It seems like saying that an individual, let alone an entire society of people, is "represented" by an individual or group that ultimately makes decisions on their behalf makes no sense. There is a sense in which only an individual can represent themselves, in that they quite literally have their own will that cannot be alienated from them.

The citizen is almost entirely alienated from the process of decision-making in so-called representative democracy. They only get to occasionally vote on who will be their master from an extremely limited scope of options that is predetermined for them. And does nominally selecting a new master mean that someone is really free? Most certainly not. A very obvious concern is that representative democracy reduces to a sort of game of musical chairs in which various members of an oligarchy function as demagogues to the masses as a means to power, only to do what is ultimately their own will or to serve the general purpose of the oligarchy to which they belong once political power is obtained. Once such power is obtained, the members of the oligarchy make decisions regaurdless of consent, and in this way representative democracy only has "the illusion of consent".

Politicians are definitely not "accountable to the people" in representative democracies. They might pander to the people and occasionally throw them some crumbs as an incentive to ideologically support them, but this doesn't mean that the people have any meaningful decision-making power over that which effects their own lives when it comes to the political process. They can occasionally be voted out of office, but this is a rare occurance and there are plenty of institutional barriers to such a thing happening; neither does it undo the damage done during the time that they are in office. Democracy is not a means of "accountability", it is a means of legitimization for political power and as what reduces to a feedback mechanism for an oligarchy.

The last hope for saving representative democracy lies in constitutionalism, I.E. a legal document that is supposed to restrain both the ruling oligarchy and the potential mob rule of the people. But the greatest experiment in constitutionalism, I.E. America, clearly demonstrates the failure of constitutionalism. Constitutions are a dead letter within a generation, if that. The courts that the oligarchy already controls will interpret the constitution to their benefit to the point of effectively nullifying its substance, original intention, and plain language. A piece of paper is not going to bind people with political power. It can be nullified by both democratic uprisings by the people and by the decisions that the oligarchy makes over the course of the political process.

What's more, constitutions do not even qualify as legitimate contracts by the basic standards of a what constitutes a contract. In normal contracts, noone in their right mind would accept the enforcement of a contract onto people that never signed it. The entire society never signed the constitution, only a handfull of men in a room did, men that just so happened to be either part of or closely linked with the ruling class. There is also a problem with the idea of a perpetual or permanent contract. Not only did not everyone that the constitution was enforced upon not sign it, but everyone that did sign it and everyone existing during the time that it was signed is now dead. It makes little sense to suppose that a document that was signed hundreds of years ago applies as absolute law indefinitely into the future.

One way to try to get around this issue is to propose that constitutions be changed or redrafted through constitutional conventions over and over again. But that in itself would seem to reduce right back to direct democracy if everyone involved participated in the process, and there still would be the lingering question of how it is to be enforced onto the entire society in the absence of unanimous consent. If the purpose of a constitution is, at least partially, as a constraint on absolute democracy, then it makes no sense to make the process of developing constitutions democratic; it would cease to meaningfully be a "rule of law" if it can be changed on a whim. And drafting a new form of government over and over again seems rather inefficient. It seems that written constitutions do very little to determine how a government is constituted; how they are constituted will depend on whatever processes occur and whoever happens to be in power.

Democracy appears to be fairly torn to shreds before us. But does it follow from any of this that what is considered to be the opposite of democracy, I.E. monarchy, is a preferable alternative? I most emphatically insist: No, No, No!

Monarchy

The term monarchy quite literally means "rule by one". In this sense, monarchy is the most "private" form of government in the sense of its extreme exclusivity. Ultimate decision-making power is held by a single individual or family, and in this sense monarchy represents the most dense concentration of political power possible. On a small scale, this is essentially what most tribal systems (other than the more egalitarian ones) are - the tribal chief is the defacto monarch of the tribe, and the tribe is more or less an extended family. On larger scales, it is constituted by "kingdoms" in which a single individual (a "king" or "queen") absolutely rules over an entire society. In the most unified form of monarchy, the king can simultaneously be both the political and religious leader of the society.

However, not all monarchies are "pure". One often finds that a king is in alliance with a landed oligarchy or with religious institutions. Sometimes monarchies have even had a smidgen of democracy added to them, such as a constitution or the coexistance of a parlaiment. But all monarchies tend to have the general supremacy of the monarch as a defining characteristic. Generally, monarchies are hereditary institutions in which a particular bloodline is associated with political power. Sometimes these bloodlines are overthrown by rival bloodlines or a particular bloodline is unable to adequately continue itself. Monarchies have a history of mixing bloodlines with foreign nations to continue themselves or maintain an aura of legitimacy.

To the extent that monarchies have traditionally been connected with religious institutions ("the union of church and state"), they have relied on notions such as "the divine right of kings" for their legitimacy. Of course, if one rejects the authority of the church to begin with or if one sees no particular reason why a particular bloodline should be favored by god any more than others, "the divine right of kings" immediately crumbles. In situations in which the union of church and state is so strong that the king is literally considered to be a deity themselves, an empirical investigation into the humanity of the king immediately crumbles their legitimacy. Kings are just flesh and blood human beings like everyone else.

More generally, monarchy tends to be defined by its hereditary aspect. Hereditary monarchy is essentially "rule by inheritance"; political power is simply inherited by being from the bloodline of the previous monarch. This offends democratic sensibilities because the people have no decision-making power in the process of selecting who has political power. But it also rubs up against aristocratic sentiments because an inherited position of power by no means implies a position of power that is held by someone with any particular merit or wisdom. Indeed, such a position of power is gained through sheer luck. The monarch could very well be a sluggard, an unvirtuous man, an unwise man. And their singlular position of power is all the more dangerous in the lack of merit. Why should an individual's mere bloodline constitute a measure of their worth? Let them demonstrate their intellect and worldlyness, then maybe the aristocrat will respect them.

But the monarch can be objected to from a more populist and societarian perspective in addition to considerations about merit. What makes them think that they are so special that only them alone should rule? Can't individuals potentially accomplish much more by forming into associations? Multiple people can potentially do greater things in concert. The monarch is likely to be horrible at making decisions all by themselves - they inherently need the help of professionals that actually have knowledge about various things (here enters the aristocracy). And what does a single individual in an ivory tower know about the world? He lives his life largely in alienation from the people. He doesn't know what their needs are, and he is a singular leech on the whole of society, gobbling up the resources of everyone only for his individual purposes. The commoner has no decision-making power over what affects their lives (here enters the call for democratic uprising).

Vesting so much power in a single person is dangerous, especially when the decisions of that single person can effect everyone else in society. No single individual deserves that much power. While democracy is at least theoretically predicated on the idea that the government should be the servant of the people, monarchy functions under no such pretense - the decree of so-and-so reigns, regaurdless of the input of anyone effected by it (save perhaps a handful of aristocratic advisors to the king). In terms of political power, monarchy is the most centralized and unilateral in the sense that the decision-making power is concentrated in the fewest possible people (theoretically one person or family). There is barely any semblance of a consensual process.

Some propose that monarchy is the best form of government precisely because it doesn't have to water itself down in any collective decision-making process, and in this sense it is "efficient". Yes, it is efficient - at ruling. But if one objects to being ruled in the first place, this hardly seems to be a talking point in favor of monarchy. It is the most sustainable form of government; democracies tend to be fleeting formulations that merely represent the change from one form of government to another, and in this sense democracy isn't even a form of government so much as a process of transition. And again, from an anti-rulership perspective, this isn't a talking point in monarchy's favor. A rigid, unadaptable government that rules with an iron fist isn't exactly a libertarian wet dream.

The largely economic arguments more recently presented by Hans Hoppe trying to make a case against democracy by comparatively touting the alleged virtues of monarchy seems misguided. Even if we largely take his premises for granted, we don't have to embrace the conclusion. Hoppe essentially argues, via time preferance theory, that the monarch has an incentive to preserve the "capital value" of the state precisely because the state is his "private property". But who cares about the "capital value" of the state - why would a libertarian want it to be preserved? This all seems to basically reduce to the notion that a "private" slave will be taken better care of by their master. That's just rank paternalism. There is no logical connection between the state being "privately" held by a single individual and their subjects being treated well. The entire thing is predicated on people being treated as property by virtue of being on the king's land.

There is no praxeological law of nature that makes it so that a king is inherently more lenient than a career politician, or that it is harder for a king to rule their subjects. If anything, it is easier for a king to rule their subjects in the sense that they do not even have to bother with the semblance of a political process, both internal and relational. And it seems like Hoppe is falling back on the fallacy of the homo economicus to sustain his point, I.E. by assuming that people make decisions based on economic incentives alone. But people don't make decisions based on economic incentives alone. A person that is strongly motivated by racism will discriminate regaurdless of the economic incentives against it; and likewise, a king that is strongly motivated to rule will rule regaurdless of the economic incentives against it.

It by no means inherently follows from the fact that the state is "privately" owned that it will be particularly restrained. "Ultimate decision-making power" is ultimate decision-making power, regaurdless of whether or not it's "private" or how many people wield that power. If anything, restricting such power to a single person merely removes multiliteral obstacles to directly excersizing it. Yes, perhaps a monarch is not as likely to develope a large welfare state since they don't even have to pretend to be "democratic", but welfare statism is hardly the be-all-end-all of the political problem. There are plenty of other projects that they can pursue in substitute of a welfare state - such as a nobility system, which is just a different kind of welfare state (an explicitly regressive one).

Ultimately, while kings do not have to pander to the people at large, they often do end up having to ally themselves with a landed oligarchy (and why a landed oligarchy is supposed to inherently be better than a modern welfare state is beyond me). They reinforce eachother - the king grants land titles to the duke of such and such, and the duke of such and such pledges loyalty to the king. This is the same kind of give-and-take that is involved in "democracy", only it is restricted to a smaller group. There is barely a semblance of a middle class other than areas *outside* of the king's reign (the middle classes formed out of independant cities and with the rise of democracies). Otherwise, there is essentially just a peasantry class, a landed oligarchy and the monarch.

As industrialization occurs, monarchies and the landed oligarchies often associated with them begin to crumble. They simple cannot handle the formation of meaningful middle classes, in which the rigid connection to the land is broken up by people's capacity to get their own piece of the pie and have greater access to the means of economically sustaining themselves independantly of any nobility. The intertia of history has clearly made monarchy archiac. They didn't dissapear simply because of some egalitarian conspiracy, or because democracy became popular as an ideology, but because it is a form of government that simply is not adapted for an industrial society with a middle class.

Conclusion

My suggestion is that both monarchy and democracy, defined as state systems, are (1) equally bad for the same fundamental reasons that any anti-statist would level against a state and (2) approximately equally bad in terms of the particular pros and cons of each. Monarchy is bad because its power is unilateral and concentrated in the fewest possible people - it is "limited government" in the conservative sense of political power being limited to the few and excersized over the many. Democracy is bad because it is ultimately an illusion that isn't that far from monarchy in reality - it is merely a process through which political power can be legitimized and transitioned, and even when it begins to come close to living up to its promise it ends up devolving into rank majoritarianism.

Ultimate Decision-making Power

Francios Tremblay links to this article against anarcho-capitalism. I think that the article, while not perfect, makes a crucial point that solidifies something that I've been talking about recently (namely that if we do not object to the principle of absolute decision-making power derived from territorialism in general, then liberty is relativized to whatever a property owner allows and consequentially the "love it or leave it" problem persists). This is *not* a mere "anarcho-semantics" issue, it is a substantive one that strikes at the heart of how liberty and property are concieved of in relation to eachother.

The problem reduces to this: that anarcho-capitalism does not object to the principle of absolute/arbitrary authority over people that live in a given geographical area, it only objects to the means with which ownership over the geographical area is obtained. That is, it opposes the state only in the sense that it did not obtain ownership justly; if the geographical claim were obtained through homesteading or exchange, then the authority claim over those who live in the area would suddenly be treated as "legitimate". In effect, this means that everything about the state that anarcho-capitalists would otherwise object to can theoretically become legitimized using an anarcho-capitalist framework on the condition that the ownership claim is based on what is considered to be the right property norm.

Anarcho-capitalists will normally, and quite correctly, object to the "love it or leave it" argument for the state. But their grounds for objecting to "love it or leave it" is only based on the idea that it isn't the state's just property (and the implication of this is that it if *were* the state's just property, then the "love it or leave it" argument would suddenly be valid). What's more, they tend to neglect the failure of "love it or leave it" in any other context (such as that of an individual proprietor). From my perspective, the problem with "love it or leave it" does not merely reduce to the state not having a rightful claim to ownership, but it is problematic for the even more fundamental reason that arbitrary claims of absolute authority over others derived from territory are not justified in general. The problem with authority cannot simply be reduced to a question of who owns what.

Even if someone "homesteaded" or voluntarily traded for a given plot of land, this doesn't give them legitimate absolute authority to control the lives of whoever happens to occupy the area. This, to me, is the glaring contradiction in anarcho-capitalist political theory: that it objects to the state's absolute authority claim over those that occupy the territory while not objecting to any other claim of absolute authority over those that occupy a given territory. Or, to put the matter more bluntly, it objects to the state while simultaneously rationalizing the exact same thing as the state ("ultimate decision-making power" over others based on territory) on absolutist propertarian grounds. Indeed, one could make a justification for a state using absolutist propertarian arguments (which, applied to larger scales, can go something like this: "city X was voluntarily sold to person Y, therefore person Y has ultimate decision-making power over everyone in the city").

The issue, then, reduces to the pressing question of "ultimate decision-making power" in general, not the question of *who* should have "ultimate decision-making power". In relativizing and subordinating liberty to property, hardline anarcho-capitalism ends up looking like a rather hollow creed in the sense that it does not fundamentally object to authoritarianism. Rather, by implication of its own norms, whether intended or not, it ends up justifying authoritarianism on the grounds that it occurs on so-and-so's property and that it's the proprietor's "ultimate decision-making power". This blurs the line between liberty and authority by making it dependant on ownership - if you don't have ownership, you more or less are stuck submitting to the authority of those with ownership, and if you do have ownership, everyone else's liberty ends where your property lines begin.

If this is what the heart of the social anarchist critique of anarcho-capitalism is, then I must confess: I agree with the social anarchists on this general point (although when things get more specific, some notable disagreements emerge). Granted, some anarcho-capitalists tweak their theories to avoid such an authoritarian implication (and I would therefore want to avoid strawmanning at least to that extent), but this should be the logical implication of absolutist propertarianism and an indication of what happens when one fetishizes property and contracts to the point of absurdity and self-contradiction. And in the context of such an implication, combining absolutist propertarianism with anarchism is indeed a gross contradiction in terms and anarcho-capitalism deserves the derision that it normally gets from traditional anarchists.

On Libertarianism and Anarchism

I'd like expand on some of my thoughts about libertarianism from my last post commenting on Stephan Kinsella's article defining libertarianism, and reiterate my general viewpoint about libertarianism and anarchism.

In terms of the relationship between libertarianism and anarchism, my view is actually rather subtle. I think that there are libertarians that are not anarchists (such as the various varieties of minarchy), anarchists that are not libertarians (such as certain amoral egoists and perhaps certain elements within social anarchism), and libertarian anarchists. This analysis makes sense if we use basic and minimalistic definitions for both libertarianism and anarchism: if by "anarchism" we simply mean any ideology that rejects the legitimacy of the state and by "libertarianism" we refer to a specific conception of justice (or a specific set of conceptions of justice that have a similar root).

Of course, things get even more complicated once we dig deeper into the multiple percieved meanings of both libertarianism and anarchism. Some define anarchism not as merely being a rejection of the state, but in terms of opposition to heirarchy or as a more holistic anti-authoritarianism. And some define libertarianism in a way that is ethically value-neutral, even in terms of conceptions of justice. There are also numerous specific strands of libertarianism that differ over the details of the conception of justice (such as geolibertarianism, paleo-libertarianism, left-libertarianism, libertarian socialism, etc.). While libertarianism may be somewhat less pluralistic than anarchism, it is also fragmented into numerous sub-categories.

Flavors and definitions of anarchism encompass a wide range of social, economic and political positions (anarcho-capitalism, anarcho-communism, anarcho-syndicalism, anarcho-primitivism, mutualism, anarcha-feminism, green anarchism, christian anarchism, anarcho-pacifism, etc.). If we define anarchism in the narrow sense of opposition to the state, then all of these ideologies potentially pass for forms of anarchism with a different emphasis and different social and economic positions. Using a narrow definition of anarchism, these are all secondary or "unessential" characteristics; a mere matter of "personal preferance".

However, if we use a broader definition of anarchism or if we define the state in a specific way, some of them are ruled out as constituting defacto forms of statism or as insufficiently anarchist in spite of their anti-statism. Even if we do define anarchism in terms of anti-statism, there are multiple viewpoints on precisely what the state is and what the preconditions for state formation are. For example, some would rule out anarcho-capitalism on the grounds that it either devolves into a defacto form of statism due to its property norms or it doesn't oppose authoritarianism or heirarchy and is consequentially insufficient to qualify as anarchism. On the other hand, some would rule out the models of social anarchists in the grounds that it reduces to defacto democracies.

On one hand, I think that the conflict among the different schools of self-styled anarchism sometimes involves a semantical wall in which people have more compatible positions than they think they do but are unable to see it due to their word-association tendencies. But, on the other hand, I don't think that the issue can be completely reduced to semantics and "personal preferance" in that certain normative positions are undeniably irreconcilable and some normative positions either devolve into some form of statism (based on a certain understanding of what states are) or are insufficient to qualify as fully supporting freedom given a more holistic anti-authoritarian definition of anarchism, in spite of them being nominally anti-statist.

From a more holistic perspective, it is possible for a society to not have a state in the modern or common sense of a state, while not being free (or maybe even being less free than certain societies that do have "states"). It could be said that political freedom is only one type or definition of freedom, or that "the state" in a modern or common sense is only one blockade to freedom out of many. From this perspective, anti-statism is necessary but not sufficient to produce a free society. This could even possibly be argued from a certain libertarian perspective in which certain ethical norms that apply beyond anti-statism are a necessary condition for a society to be free. Indeed, libertarianism fits into this in the sense that it provides, by the very least, a particular view or set of views on ethics.

I sympathize most with libertarian anarchism for this reason: that it provides at least some sort of context for a stateless society. But I also object to a narrow sense of libertarianism that tends to be neutral towards authoritarianism in a way that I think undermines itself and ultimately could be said to provide a basis for conditions that reduce to a defacto form of statism (which it is supposed to be against in the first place). This is where how libertarianism is defined or concieved of in terms of one's broader social philosophy starts to become particularly important, because it may end up being incoherant if it does not give itself a strong foundation and oppose authoritarianism in a more general sense. If everything that libertarians claim to oppose can be snuck back in under the banner of a certain conception of libertarianism, then some reconceptualization is needed.