Working Paper on Anarchism
The Obviousness of Anarchy, by John Hasnas (Georgetown University)
Anarchy refers to a society without a central political authority. But it is also used to refer to disorder or chaos. This constitutes a textbook example of Orwellian newspeak in which assigning the same name to two different concepts effectively narrows the range of thought. For if lack of government is identified with the lack of order, no one will ask whether lack of government actually results in a lack of order. And this uninquisitive mental attitude is absolutely essential to the case for the state. For if people were ever to seriously question whether government actions are really productive of order, popular support for government would almost instantly collapse. The identification of anarchy with disorder is not a trivial matter. The power of our conceptions to blind us to the facts of the world around us cannot be gainsaid.
Comments (58)
iceberg
Very interesting, yet there need be one correction (so far):
On page 12 he writes:
I believe he means Saturday, not Sunday.
Published: December 4, 2006 8:20 PM
Hascat
Perhaps he was referring to Sunday business closures driven by Christians enforced in non-Christian communities.
Published: December 4, 2006 8:37 PM
Happyfoot
The logic is all well and good, but reality proves otherwise. Somalia is a "wonderful" example of anarchy as described by the author.
Published: December 4, 2006 9:11 PM
los
If anarchy is tested and shows an outcome of chaos then anarchy = chaos, but if no test has been shown then their should be no reasoning to associate anarchy with chaos, only for a guess of what will happen. If anarchy is enstilled then chaos will prevail. If anarchy is enacted then natural order will occur.
Published: December 4, 2006 10:09 PM
tarran
Couple of comments,
The lot of Somalis improved with the collapse of the last officially recognized government to wield significant power. See this study Better Off Stateless: Somalia Before and After Government Collapse by Peter T. Leeson, Department of Economics West Virginia University.
Secondly, there have been several market anarchies in history. Medieval Iceland, Medieval Ireland and Colonial Pennsylvania all come to mind. I'm not sure why Ireland fell under the domain of some Scandinavian king, but Ireland and Pennsylvania were overwhelmed by state aggression. Ireland was invaded by England, and The Pennsylvania anarchy was a victim of the French and English wars of the first half of the 18th century.
Market anarchies tend to fail only due to invasion by a state. This hardly condemns them; most states also meet their ends at the hand of another state.
Published: December 4, 2006 11:14 PM
Happyfoot
The Somalian refugees with whom I have spoken at length (and there have been quite a few due to my job) have emphatically and consistently stated that life there is beyond unbearable with no government (hence their status as refugees). These opinions come from many areas of Somalian society, ranging from Bantu tribesman from the south who had never seen toilets and can barely speak Somali to well-educated men from Mogadishu who had studied in various countries prior to the collapse of the government. Was it perfect? Far from it. However, one could absolutely walk down the street with one's children. Certainly, the borders in Africa are a state-sponsored problem stemming from the division of the continent by the European powers. However, for a man educated in universities in the United States to sit in an office, punch some numbers into a formula and ponderously proclaim that life is better in Somalia when they can't even get rice now...I find it difficult to swallow. The lot of Somalis has in fact gotten worse according the very people who have lived there for over fifty years. Theory and statistics absolutely have great value in society, but they unfortunately often neglect human value and cannot refelect every conceivable reality with a variable or number or dot on a graph. That is perhaps what bothers me about the article more than the concept of anarchy itself. Wonderful concept, much like communism. (Although some here would probably cringe at communism even sounding good in theory, but that's neither here nor there! ) In reality, there will always be some good people, some bad people, a lot of basically decent but not amazing people, and a few evil sons of bitches beyond description who can ruin an entire society when combined with a pack of people too terrified to try and stop them. Sound simplistic? Probably is, but it's not untrue either. Also, Renato from Brasil made an excellent point in a previous post regarding anarchic areas of Latin America. I lived in Rio for a time and the poor areas were absolutely anarchic. They were less well developed, etc. And that is in comparison to areas run by the nightmarish inefficient Brazilian government. (Like the US, Brazil is a country in which the government absolutely does not reflect the people-they are wonderful people and warm hosts-any Brazilians reading this who may have inferred otherwise from that comment should not take offense-I meant none)
Published: December 4, 2006 11:56 PM
Vince Daliessio
Happyfeet said;
"The Somalian refugees with whom I have spoken at length...have emphatically and consistently stated that life there is beyond unbearable with no government (hence their status as refugees)...prior to the collapse of the government(.)(w)as it perfect? Far from it. However, one could absolutely walk down the street with one's children."
Forgive my presumptiousness, but while the plight of these people is sad, the case you describe in no way tells us anything about government versus anarchy, but rather a central government versus a "local government" (the warlords). And as others have pointed out, much of the current strife is due at least in part to one group of brigands struggling against another to establish themselves as the in-country confederates of whatever government is eventually imposed on the country.
Anarchy, I submit, is still best observed in the unwatched, unregulated behavior of peaceful people, a state that is unfortunately shrinking all the time.
Published: December 5, 2006 12:19 AM
raj4encoders
Although theoritically the logic is well sounded and descent but practically it doesn't seem so.The author has given a good example of " Somalia" as an anarchy.
raj
encoders
http://www.encoders.co.in
Published: December 5, 2006 1:47 AM
Björn Lundahl
In a society where libertarian ethics is generally supported with the same intensity as the state is today, libertarian ethics will have a mechanism against every individual, groups, organizations etc and this is that they are constrained by force to respect each other i.e. the law and libertarian ethics. They would be as powerless to violate the law as they are powerless today in violating paper laws made by the state.
It is the support that is the very essence.
I do not think Somalia fulfils that criterion. If Somalia is an example of failure of anarchy it is also an example of failure of the state and government, hence both systems needs support to function properly. I do however always see the state as a failure as it is always violating people’s rights.
Björn Lundahl
Göteborg, Sweden
Published: December 5, 2006 1:54 AM
RogerM
The author's main argument boils down to this: the state doesn't do a perfect job of law enforcement, so let's get rid of the state. However, he doesn't spend much time showing that anarchy would produce better results.
Also, he's guilty of fighting a straw man. Douglass North in his books on the economic history of the West offers more powerful arguments for the state. Essentially, before the rise of the nation state in Western Europe, a form of anarchy reigned. Nobility had private armies to protect their properties and raid those of their neighbors. Merchants had to hire private protection services. The nobility and merchants gave up some of their rights to a state in exchange for the state providing such protection, which lowered their cost of property protection and expanded trade geographically.
Also, there is no historical evidence that an anarchy can protect itself against an invading state. Until most of the world is ruled by anarchy, it will be dangerous to unilaterally adopt it.
Published: December 5, 2006 9:02 AM
Yancey Ward
From RogerM: "Nobility had private armies to protect their properties and raid those of their neighbors. Merchants had to hire private protection services. The nobility and merchants gave up some of their rights to a state in exchange for the state providing such protection, which lowered their cost of property protection and expanded trade geographically"
Roger, the above description still isn't anarchy, in my opinioon. The nobility and their armies are mini-states. These mini-states eventually grew to the geographical boundaries of the megastates of today. Looking through history, I just don't see anarchy at all, not even in Somalia of today-just multiple mini-states vying for control of the whole. I still hold that humans aggregate themselves into groups for self-defense, and that these groups are states themselves.
Published: December 5, 2006 9:56 AM
Eduardo
RogerM,
"Essentially, before the rise of the nation state in Western Europe, a form of anarchy reigned. Nobility ..."
I don´t think so, before the nation state each noblemen was in full control of his territory, he was its master, its only government. They decided to join together in order to avoid been vanquished by a group of a few others. But they were each a small state, ruled either by a prince, count, duke, etc. It was not anarchy by any means. Just think what the serfs might have felt or do about it.
That was another case of smaller states joining to form a bigger one.
Published: December 5, 2006 10:04 AM
RogerM
Yancey and Eduardo,
Technically, you guys are right, but since historical examples of anarchy are so rare, they're difficult to study. However, I think the pre-nation society of Europe has a lot in common with anarchy, because in anarchy you won't have a utopia; you'll have crime and private companies trying to enforce common law. In pre-modern Europe, you had nobility with private armies and merchants with private security forces, very similar to what would exist in anarchy.
Published: December 5, 2006 11:41 AM
adi
AnCapper's sometimes claim that medieval Iceland somehow represents how market anarchism could work out in practise. We remember from our history lessons that commonwealth of Iceland didn't have kings and it had parliament which gathered in plains east of Reykjavik.
But in reality common people didn't have much chance with the legal order of this sort since great land owning families or clans dominated society. At one time it was crime to have children outside of marriage and you could marry only if you had enought money (desperate situation during 16th century contributed to making this kind of laws).
Considerations from the point of view of small merchants and people, it would probably be best to have strong central government which could undermine the regional rule of local potentates. So crown and small people could have some common interest.
RogerM:s comments seem to be most sensible and it would be unwise not to consider them seriously.
Published: December 5, 2006 12:12 PM
Matt
Imagine a world of anarchy. Now imagine the benefits of developing a state in this world. Just because the state has gone beyond it's intent does not mean the concept of state is flawed. In a world of anarchy, unless you have a higher power that enforces anarchy (an obvious contradiction), individuals will gravitate into ad hoc groups with state-like qualities- thus ending the anarchy.
Do you consider international relations to be anarchy, since there is no central authority?
Published: December 5, 2006 12:25 PM
Björn Lundahl
The power of ideas.
” . . . the ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back. I am sure that the power of vested interests is vastly exaggerated compared with the gradual encroachment of ideas. Not, indeed, immediately, but after a certain interval; for in the field of economic and political philosophy there are not many who are influenced by new theories after they are twenty-five or thirty years of age, so that the ideas which civil servants and politicians and even agitators apply to current events are not likely to be the newest. But, soon or late, it is ideas, not vested interests, which are dangerous for good or evil.”
The last half of the last paragraph in John Maynard Keynes’s book General Theory of Employment Interest and Money.
That ideas rules the world is one of the very few correct ideas that John Maynard Keynes probably ever had.
Human Action:
“The nineteenth-century success of free trade ideas was effected by the theories of classical economics. The prestige of these ideas was so great that those whose selfish class interests they hurt could not hinder their endorsements by public opinion and their realization by legislative measures. It is ideas that make history, and not history that makes ideas.”
Ludwig von Mises
http://mises.org/humanaction/chap3sec3.asp#p84
“Human history is in essence a history of ideas.” (H.G. Wells)
“In every great time there is some one idea at work which is more powerful than any other, and which shapes the events of the time and determines their ultimate issues.” - Francis Bacon
Because of the power of ideas, the following can be concluded:
If an amount of people that supports the state is great enough, the state will be powerful.
If an amount of people that supports the democratic principle is great enough, the democratic principle will be powerful.
If an enough amount of people that supports communism is great enough, communism will be powerful.
If an enough amount of people that supports religion is great enough, religion will be powerful.
If an enough amount of people that supports libertarian ethics is great enough, libertarian ethics will be powerful
Björn Lundahl
Göteborg, Sweden
Published: December 5, 2006 3:59 PM
Björn Lundahl
The power of ideas.
I hereby quote from the book “The Ethics of Liberty”, by Murray Rothbard:
“Ideology has always been vital to the continued existence of the State, as attested by the systematic use of ideology since the ancient Oriental empires. The specific content of the ideology has, of course, changed over time, in accordance with changing conditions and cultures. In the Oriental despotisms, the Emperor was often held by the Church to be himself divine; in our more secular age, the argument runs more to “the public good” and the “general welfare.” But the purpose is always the same: to convince the public that what the State does is not, as one might think, crime on a gigantic scale, but something necessary and vital that must be supported and obeyed. The reason that ideology is so vital to the State is that it always rests, in essence, on the support of the majority of the public. This support obtains whether the State is a “democracy,” a dictatorship, or an absolute monarchy. For the support rests in the willingness of the majority (not, to repeat, of every individual) to go along with the system: to pay the taxes, to go without much complaint to fight the State’s wars, to obey the State’s rules and decrees. This support need not be active enthusiasm to be effective; it can just as well be passive resignation. But support there must be. For if the bulk of the public were really convinced of the illegitimacy of the State, if it were convinced that the State is nothing more nor less than a bandit gang writ large, then the State would soon collapse to take on no more status or breadth of existence than another Mafia gang. Hence the necessity of the State’s employment of ideologists; and hence the necessity of the State’s age-old alliance with the Court Intellectuals who weave the apologia for State rule”.
http://mises.org/rothbard/ethics/twentytwo.asp
Björn Lundahl
Göteborg, Sweden
Published: December 5, 2006 4:32 PM
happyfoot
Vince-
I would embrace anarchy wholeheartedly if we were in fact able to find a society of peaceful people. Unfortunately,history has shown that we have never and will never lack for people who are anything BUT peaceful. I have been displeased in most ways with every government under which I have lived, but I have never feared walking out of the house or starving to death with bags of food within walking distance. Government would not have survived as long as it has nor slowly improved as it has if it did not perform some essential function. Human nature has not and will not change and most humans do not live by a purely rational, logical code of conduct. If that were the case, religion would have died long ago. (This is not in any way to impune anyone's religious beliefs-I personally find the idea of a purely rational, logical world boring, and furthermore, rational does not always imply correct. Some truths run deeper than logic. That however is a totally different topic.)
Published: December 5, 2006 9:59 PM
Vanmind
Happyfoot, I think you're still confusing anarchy with the chaotic war-lord socialism going on in Somalia. Over a century ago, socialists started a campaign of deception to equate the term "anarchy" with "chaos." To this day that lie still bamboozles many.
The liberalism movement of the nineteenth century demonstrated that humans indeed are evolving toward peaceful cooperative civilization. That was why the socialists back then tried their hardest to spread outright lies that undermine liberalism. Since then, of course, the world has suffered hundreds of millions of socialism-related deaths. Not so sweet.
Published: December 5, 2006 11:02 PM
Björn Lundahl
“Human nature has not and will not change and most humans do not live by a purely rational, logical code of conduct”.
I do believe that most people around the world do not steal and do not aggress against other people. It is the very foundation for life and civilization. “The common man” does live by this purely rational, logical code of conduct.
Björn Lundahl
Published: December 6, 2006 1:43 AM
Björn Lundahl
Quotes about logic from the book “Human Action”, by Ludwig von Mises.
“Thinking and acting are the specific human features of man. They are peculiar to all human beings. They are, beyond membership in the zoological species homo sapiens, the characteristic mark of man as man. It is not the scope of praxeology to investigate the relation of thinking and acting. For praxeology it is enough to establish the fact that there is only one logic that is intelligible to the human mind, and that there is only one mode of action which is human and comprehensible to the human mind. Whether there are or can be somewhere other beings--superhuman or subhuman--who think and act in a different way, is beyond the reach of the human mind. We must restrict our endeavors to the study of human action.
This human action which is inextricably linked with human thought is conditioned by logical necessity. It is impossible for the human mind to conceive logical relations at variance with the logical structure of our mind. It is impossible for the human mind to conceive a mode of action whose categories would differ from the categories which determine our own actions.
There are for man only two principles available for a mental grasp of reality, namely, those of teleology and causality. What cannot be brought under either of these categories is absolutely hidden to the human mind. An event not open to an interpretation by one of these two principles is for man inconceivable and mysterious. Change can be conceived as the outcome either of the operation of mechanistic causality or of purposeful behavior; for the human mind there is no third way available [9]. It is true, as has already been mentioned, that teleology can be viewed as a variety of causality. But the establishment of this fact does not annul the essential differences between the two categories.”
http://mises.org/humanaction/chap1sec6.asp
“But the problem of the a priori is of a different character. It does not deal with the problem of how consciousness and reason have emerged. It refers to the essential and necessary character of the logical structure of the human mind.
The fundamental logical relations are not subject to proof or disproof. Every attempt to prove them must presuppose their validity. It is impossible to explain them to a being who would not possess them on his own account. Efforts to define them according to the rules of definition must fail. They are primary propositions antecedent to any nominal or real definition. They are ultimate unanalyzable categories. The human mind is utterly incapable of imagining logical categories at variance with them. No matter how they may appear to superhuman beings, they are for man inescapable and absolutely necessary. They are the indispensable prerequisite of perception, apperception, and experience.”
“Everybody in his daily behavior again and again bears witness to the immutability and universality of the categories of thought and action. He who addresses fellow men, who wants to inform and convince them, who asks questions and answers other people's questions, can proceed in this way only because he can appeal to something common to all men--namely, the logical structure of human reason. The idea that A could at the same time be non-A or that to prefer A to B could at the same time be to prefer B to A is simply inconceivable and absurd to a human mind. We are not in the position to comprehend any kind of prelogical or metalogical thinking. We cannot think of a world without causality and teleogy.”
“It is a general fallacy to believe that the writings of Lucien Levy-Bruhl give support to the doctrine that the logical structure of mind of primitive man was and is categorially different from that of civilized man. On the contrary, what Levy-Bruhl, on the basis of a careful scrutiny of the entire ethnological material available, reports about the mental functions of primitive man proves clearly that the fundamental logical relations and the categories of thought and action play in the intellectual activities of savages the same role they play in our own life. The content of primitive man's thoughts differs from the content of our thoughts, but the formal and logical structure is common to both.”
http://mises.org/humanaction/chap2sec2.asp#p33
“We may refer to what has been said in the preceding chapters about the fundamental issues of the logical structure of mind and the categorial principles of thought and action. Some additional observations will suffice to give the finishing stroke to racial polylogism and to any other brand of polylogism.
The categories of human thought and action are neither arbitrary products of the human mind nor conventions. They are not outside of the universe and of the course of cosmic events. They are biological facts and have a definite function in life and reality. They are instruments in man's struggle for existence and in his endeavors to adjust himself as much as possible to the real state of the universe and to remove uneasiness as much as it is in his power to do so. They are [p. 86] therefore appropriate to the structure of the external world and reflect properties of the world and of reality. They work, and are in this sense true and valid.
It is consequently incorrect to assert that aprioristic insight and pure reasoning do not convey any information about reality and the structure of the universe. The fundamental logical relations and the categories of thought and action are the ultimate source of all human knowledge. They are adequate to the structure of reality, they reveal this structure to the human mind and, in this sense, they are for man basic ontological facts.[14] We do not know what a superhuman intellect may think and comprehend. For man every cognition is conditioned by the logical structure of his mind and implied in this structure. It is precisely the satisfactory results of the empirical sciences and their practical application that evidence this truth. Within the orbit in which human action is able to attain ends aimed at there is no room left for agnosticism.
If there had been races which had developed a different logical structure of the mind, they would have failed in the use of reason as an aid in the struggle for existence. The only means for survival that could have protected them against extermination would have been their instinctive reactions. Natural selection would have eliminated those specimens of such races that tried to employ reasoning for the direction of their behavior. Those individuals alone would have survived that relied upon instincts only. This means that only those would have had a chance to survive that did not rise above the mental level of animals.
The scholars of the West have amassed an enormous amount of material concerning the high civilizations of China and India and the primitive civilizations of the Asiatic, American, Australian, and African aborigines. It is safe to say that all that is worth knowing about the ideas of these races is known. But never has any supporter of polylogism tried to use these data for a description of the allegedly different logic of these peoples and civilizations.”
http://mises.org/humanaction/chap3sec4.asp#p86
Björn Lundahl
Göteborg, Sweden
Published: December 6, 2006 1:52 AM
Björn Lundahl
The power of ideas:
I have just found, on the internet, a proposition that Hans-Hermann Hoppe has made:
"States, as powerful and invincible as they might seem, ultimately owe their existence to ideas and, since ideas can in principle change instantaneously, states can be brought down and crumble practically overnight."
http://www.freelythinking.com/quotes.htm
Björn Lundahl
Göteborg, Sweden
Published: December 6, 2006 4:27 AM
RogerM
Bjorn:"I do believe that most people around the world do not steal and do not aggress against other people. It is the very foundation for life and civilization. “The common man” does live by this purely rational, logical code of conduct."
You're right about that. So why does chaos exist in Iraq? The number of Iraqis who are murdering other Iraqis is probably less than 0.1% of the population. The the vast majority of Iraqis are decent, law-abiding people. A very small number of criminals can destroy society. The same could be said of Bosnia/Serbia, Kosovo/Serbia, Somalia and most of Africa. The real question is how to control the very few people who would destroy society and civilization. Libertarians argue that private security companies could do the job, but they rely primarily on apriori reasoning and pointing out the failures of the state. The rest of us want some historical evidence that private security companies can maintain order.
I have mixed feelings about attacking anarchism because I believe that the main problem with the US today is an idolatrous worship of the state. I think the state should be cut back to providing law enforcement and national defense, so I would like to move toward anarchy. Once the state is limited, I would like to try anarchy. But so far, the arguments for anarchy are pretty sloppy. If people really want to promote anarchy, the best way to do it would be to provide historical evidence that it can work.
Published: December 6, 2006 9:05 AM
Reactionary
RogerM,
Following up on your comments, I've always found anarchism to be something of a moving target. Suppose Lew and Hans are driving down the road in their respective cars in the Auburn Anarchist Republic. They have a wreck and both are injured, so they march off to their arbitrator to decide the matter. Both say they had the green light. The arbitrator decides in favor of Lew and sends the bagmen over to Hans's house to collect the judgment, notwithstanding Hans's insistence that it was HE, not Lew, that had the green light. This is minarchy, not anarchy.
In the pure anarchist world, Hans could avoid this coercion against him by declaring his secession from Auburn. Or, Hans could go hire a bigger and badder protection agency to pay a visit to the arbitrator and convince him to "reconsider" his verdict. But why would anyone pay tribute to a private arbitrator/militia in the first place if the other subscribers could just opt out of a judgment by seceding or by hiring a competing arbitrator/militia? Thus, the private arbitrator/militia, in order to offer anything of value, has to deliver an effective territorial monopoly for its services. So we're back to minarchy. There is simply no model of human organization where every individual is a sovereign. If everyone could come up with their very own contract that governed all their dealings with the rest of the world, we would see this form of interaction duplicated in corporations, families, churches, country clubs, mutual insurers, etc. It isn't because it's impossible other than in a collection of autarchic hermits.
Published: December 6, 2006 9:50 AM
Dan Coleman
Reactionary, while the situations and scenarios that you lay out could happen in a anarcho-capitalist society, your ultimate conclusions are things that are highly unlikely to happen. It is akin to saying that, since half of the population could quit their jobs tomorrow and leave the nation wrecked, there ought to be laws that help prevent that massive 'quit' epidemic from happening.
With your specific claim, it seems clear to me that the anarcho-capitalist has far more reasonable answers to your question than you gave credit for.
In the first place, I notice that you assume an anarchy where the roads are still publicly owned, giving us the intial problem of the "tragedy of the commons." Why is it that an arbiter must be consulted to find who is at fault for the original accident? Where is the property owner in this, and why do they not already have in place rules for the use of their roads? Why is it that they do not have contractual obligations for those using their roads that all rules will be settled by the property owner? This is a great leap in your argument that began before you could type "so they march off. . ."
Secondly, the arbitration and appeals process is something that Murray Rothbard deals with to a great degree in "For a New Liberty." If Hoppe doesn't like an immediate decision by a court, there are plenty of ways to appeal the decision without resorting to deserting the society around him. Further, the kinds of societal checks that are (and would be) in place would most likely keep Hoppe from trying the escapist route. After all, how many Americans fly to Switzerland or Iceland nowadays to prevent being punished for a crime?
Third, it is entirely unlikely that these protection companies would function in the way that you suggest. There are too many incentives and complexities involved to have reduced the issue in the way that you do. It reminds me of the claim that "too much capitalism means that monopolies will take over and oppress the poor!" On the surface, this is a difficult claim to answer, but even a modest critical look at the accusation results in it falling apart.
Your claim that an anarchist society isn't possible other than in a collection of autarchic hermits--whatever this may mean--falls in precisely that category.
Published: December 6, 2006 10:50 AM
Reactionary
Dan,
Then substitute "common way owner" for arbitrator. Whatever. You're tripping over mouse poop. The point is that the anarchists' theoretical world of arbitrators (and now, a new term, the all-wise, all-knowing "owner"), private bailiffs, appellate panels (and what if the appellate panel affirms the original decision in Lew v. Hans?) etc. ends up mirroring the present reality, because they have nothing of value that anybody will purchase unless they can deliver an effective territorial monopoly for their services. Why would you pay tribute to the local mercenary commander when anybody who doesn't accept his verdicts can exercise veto power? This is why you don't see the anarchist's theoretical model followed in any real world examples of voluntary human organizations. This is also what makes argument with anarchists like wrestling jello since for every example in reality, they can always come up with another hypothetical. What they cannot do is point to a real world model that is actual anarchy as opposed to minarchy.
Published: December 6, 2006 11:23 AM
Dan Coleman
Reactionary,
I fear that you are dismissing my first point all too lightly. The present debate began with your selected example of a car crash in a libertarian society. The example may be helpful in seeing an underlying principle, but it is important to understand that a refutation of the example may point to a problem with the underlying principle itself.
Now, suppose that you go to a sporting event, and punch a rival fan in the stands. When the security comes and asks you to leave, it is impossible to remain without aggression. Likewise, in the road example, Hoppe and Lew would have agreed to rules prior to their use of the roads. By refusing to comply with a ruling (and even in this instance appeals could be worked out, depending on the preferences of consumers), Hoppe or Lew would be committing fraud. If, then, it can be shown that fraud is containable in a libertarian society, both your example and the principle behind it will not hold.
What's left is the crux of your claim: namely, that an anarchy cannot exist so long as protection companies do not have coercive monopolies over territory. In other words, aggression in some form or another is needed to prevent aggression.
As for examples: it is difficult to point to any society in which liberty is fully functioning, including protection against aggression. However, there are many instances of liberty in action, both in history and all around us, that would suffice if you were willing to look for them.
On a societal scale, both Ireland and Iceland existed for about 1,000 years (respectively) without a grand centralized state to manage their lives--including security. Private arbitration and societal checks against rogues kept peace and order. Their example cannot be ignored.
Likewise, the United States has shown in different stages of its development how the absence of the State proved no problem for citizens acting in their own self-interest. Why is it that there are currently private protection companies if the government is supposedly our protector? Why is private arbitration a popular way to resolve conflicts even now--while the monopoly is in place?
If won't take long to find many examples on Mises.org if you do some searching. The charge that liberty taken to its logical conclusion is nowhere to be found in reality does not hold. After all, what is so special about arbitration in matters of conflict, or resolution from theft, or a car accident that makes these things all that different from cold-hearted business moves, evil literature, drugs, the poor going hungry, or any other number of ills that--though governments may try to fix--can only be truly kept in check by a peaceful society?
Published: December 6, 2006 11:50 AM
Björn Lundahl
RogerM
The main point is that if people supports libertarian ethics as they today supports the state there will be real law and order. The laws will be powerful and the aggressors weak because they belong to a small minority. I think this argument is extremely strong.
The Iraqi people are not even aware of a libertarian ethic. There must be a widespread awareness and a support for it. Otherwise it will not work.
I am a libertarian so I am a living example of the fact that a libertarian ethic can be supported.
We should not look back in history for guidance in all bad things we have done, we should instead look forward and change our institutions in the way we want.
You are a democrat and once upon a time this also was a new idea.
Björn Lundahl
Published: December 6, 2006 2:33 PM
Reactionary
Dan,
The theoretical and real societies you describe were not purely voluntary. There was a social order enforced by threat of violence. At best, the anarchists can say that conflicts in the social order would be minimized without the externalities imposed by the state. But conflict is a reality of human existence and in that event we need a process of conflict resolution unless you're content with the law of the jungle. It needn't be large since, as has been pointed out, most people prefer to get along with their neighbors. But if there's a casualty then we need to determine who's going to pay for it and enforce that determination if people refuse to pay. So, the anarchist proceeds to trot out his private arbitrators et al. who, as pointed out, must necessarily have a monopoly on the effectiveness of their rulings. Otherwise I have no reason to pay them any tribute. So what we have is minarchy, not anarchy.
The examples you cite of private security and alternate dispute resolution do not compete with the government's services in the manner you are thinking. Private security guards are bound by government laws and ADR doesn't entitle the prevailing party to self help. If the losing party refuses to pay the arbitrator's award, the prevailing party has to go to the courthouse, get the award reduced to judgment, and then go to the sheriff for execution on the judgment.
Published: December 6, 2006 2:57 PM
Björn Lundahl
States are inherently aggressive since states do not bear the costs themselves of the aggressions they always make. That is, for instance, one reason for all the wars which states causes. Individuals in a society are not allowed to aggress against each other and if they do and get caught they will have to, at least, bear some of the cost themselves. In a libertarian society they would have to fully bear the costs for the crimes which they have made.
For a New Liberty, by Murray Rothbard:
“Every consumer, every buyer of police protection, would wish above all for protection that is efficient and quiet, with no conflicts or disturbances. Every police agency would be fully aware of this vital fact. To assume that police would continually clash and battle with each other is absurd, for it ignores the devastating effect that this chaotic "anarchy" would have on the business of all the police companies. To put it bluntly, such wars and conflicts would be bad—very bad—for business. Therefore, on the free market, the police agencies would all see to it that there would be no clashes between them, and that all conflicts of opinion would be ironed out in private courts, decided by private judges or arbitrators”.
http://mises.org/rothbard/newliberty11.asp
Hans-Hermann Hoppe has argued that insurance companies, would play a prominent role as providers of security and protection in a natural order (a pure free market).
Democracy, The God That Failed, by Hans-Hermann Hoppe:
“Furthermore, the relationship between insurer and client is contractual. The rules of the game are mutually accepted and fixed. An insurer cannot "legislate," or unilaterally change the terms of the contract. In particular, if an insurer wants to attract a voluntarily paying clientele, it must provide for the foreseeable contingency of conflict in its contracts, not only between its own clients but especially with clients of other insurers. The only provision satisfactorily covering the latter contingency is for an insurer to bind itself contractually to independent third-party arbitration. However, not just any arbitration will do. The conflicting insurers must agree on the arbitrator or arbitration agency, and in order to be agreeable to insurers, an arbitrator must produce a product (of legal procedure and substantive judgment) that embodies the widest possible moral consensus among insurers and clients alike. Thus, contrary to statist conditions, a natural order is characterized by stable and predictable law and increased legal harmony”.
http://www.lewrockwell.com/hoppe/hoppe4.html
Björn Lundahl
Göteborg, Sweden
Published: December 6, 2006 3:30 PM
RogerM
Bjorn:"The main point is that if people supports libertarian ethics as they today supports the state there will be real law and order."
I agree completely! If everyone followed the libertarian code of conduct, there would be no need for police, jails and courts. However, you'll never have a society in which everyone follows libertarian codes. Criminals will always exist. But the fact that criminals would be a small minority doesn't mean they would be weak. They're a small minority now in most of the world, except for France (just kidding!). But they create a lot of damage in the US. They're a small minority in Iraq, but look at the destruction they cause.
What anarchy must show is that it can do a better job of controlling the criminal elements than can a state.
As for democracy, the idea had been evolving since the ancient Greeks for thousands of years before anyone in the West tried it. Still, the founders of the US called the new government a radical experiment and many predicted its failure. I would be willing to try anarchy, but when the reasoning behind anarchy is so weak, and historical examples are so rare, it's hard to make the case. Still, I don't think anarchy is ethically superior to a state, as Hoppe insists. I certainly applaud anarchist efforts at weakening the state. I'll join with them in trying to cut the state down to size.
Published: December 6, 2006 3:56 PM
RogerM
Bjorn:"States are inherently aggressive since states do not bear the costs themselves of the aggressions they always make."
This isn't the case in a republic. (I won't defend democracies, since I consider them dictatorships by the majority.) The voters are the state and the elected leadership and bureaucrats are the hired help.
"To assume that police would continually clash and battle with each other is absurd..."
I agree completely, although I think both Rothbard and Hoppe are overly optimistic about how well anarchy will work. But I'm not concerned about the law-abiding private police forces. I'm worried about the criminals. Could a private police force make the streets safer than they are and stand against quasi-military criminal organizations like drug cartels, mafia, and Al Qaeda?
I've read that the KKK started out as a private law enforcement group in the chaos after the civil war. It quickly turned into a criminal organization. Rothbard and Hoppe assume that private police companies will always act in the best financial interests of the company, and that's probably true. But the management of Enron did the same thing and look at the crimes they committed! Businessmen are some of the greatest enemies of freedom, as Adam Smith recognized. Free market competition can keep the evil that businessmen would do at a minimum, but it can't eliminate it.
Published: December 6, 2006 4:13 PM
Björn Lundahl
RogerM
I am not saying that it is a necessity that everyone follows a libertarian ethic for it being a powerful force in society. No one is assuming that. I am not, either, saying that everyone in society must be a statist for the state to be a powerful force in society. I am just saying that if the public supports libertarian principles as the public today support the state, libertarian principles will be very powerful indeed, as powerful as the state is in today’s society.
In the political circus among politicians the French seems to have an inferior complex against Americans and the US (not a joke).
There was a time before the ancient Greeks.
I do not share your view that the reasoning behind libertarian anarchy is weak, I think it is very realistic and strong.
In the centre of Göteborg we have a shopping centre named Nordstan. The streets in Nordstan are public streets.
In a suburb to Göteborg (Västra Frölunda) we have a shopping centre named Frölunda Torg. Nowadays, it is privately owned and it is much more secure to walk around in Frölunda Torg.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nordstan
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Nordstan_%C3%96st.JPG
http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/5883/1181/1600/frolundatorg_gbg4-763535.jpg
Sorry, this last link will lead you to a photo on Frölunda Torg which is an old one from 1970. Still it will give you some clue about the place.
I think that the public, big and small businesses and competitive law enforcement agencies (as, for example, insurance companies) would be superior to those criminal organizations which your mention.
The market works always smoothly. If we just let it.
Björn Lundahl
Published: December 6, 2006 5:38 PM
Björn Lundahl
National defence is a so called private good and not a so called public good.
Why would individuals, in a pure free market, want to spend money on national defence?
As people in a free market would want to protect themselves (life and property) against aggression (physical violence and theft), for example, through insurers (or other protection agencies), risks against warfare would, also, be included in the insurance premium.
Warfare is only aggression or physical violence of a greater magnitude, but is still the implementation of physical violence.
Aggressors prefer to aggress against people in densely populated and market valuable areas than unpopulated and worthless areas.
The more heavily populated an area is, the more valuable properties are and the more threatened people are in a certain area, the more incentive they will have to protect themselves against aggressions and therefore, also, the more recourses would they allocate to fulfil that need.
As named areas are risky places, property values are therefore also lower than what they would be if those risks did not exist. People have an incentive to invest and live in other, less risky areas.
Insurers and protection agencies have incentives to cooperate against the intruder and pinpoint retaliation against them. That would reduce risks and increase property values, wages and prosperity.
The government apparatus is clumsy machinery against free market institutions. Producing consumer goods and services by government owned organizations and through taxation, does not stand a chance in their effectiveness of the utilization of resources and in their quality of output compared to free market institutions.
Thanks to Hans-Hermann Hoppe, a so called public good has been transformed to be a so called private good.
As teachers of economics in our universities are objective and true, this will be common knowledge among economists in a few years time. Honesty and truthfulness are their lodestar (joke).
A more difficult question to analyze and to answer would instead be: Didn’t their mammies teach them to be honest and truthful, so why aren’t they?
Björn Lundahl
Göteborg, Sweden
Published: December 6, 2006 5:43 PM
quincunx
"What anarchy must show is that it can do a better job of controlling the criminal elements than can a state."
But the state is an organization of criminals. Therefore it fails immediately.
Published: December 6, 2006 5:43 PM
Björn Lundahl
quincunx
Very true! Well said!
Björn lundahl
Published: December 6, 2006 5:45 PM
Björn Lundahl
I want to add to my post “National defence is a so called private good and not a so called public good”:
To occupy unpopulated and worthless land would be aggressions against people wanting, in the future, to visit or to make use of those areas.
Björn Lundahl
Published: December 8, 2006 6:38 AM
RogerM
Bjorn:"I think that the public, big and small businesses and competitive law enforcement agencies (as, for example, insurance companies) would be superior to those criminal organizations which your mention."
You may be right. The problem is that I can't tell whether you're right or not. I don't think anarchists have done a good job showing that they can handle criminal organizations or foreign threats, not through their logical reasoning nor through historical examples. Anarchist logic relies too much upon private definitions of words, those definitions being necessary to the success of their argument, false assumptions (such as Hoppe's assumption that monarchs act with economic rationalism), and selective, distorted histories.
Being freedom loving and libertarian on most issues, my heart longs for anarchism to be true, but my head rebels. The sloppy reasoning and dishonest rhetorical devices borrowed from Marxism are a real turn off.
Published: December 8, 2006 8:33 AM
Björn Lundahl
One of the reasons for me being a libertarian is that libertarianism is reality, because, it is based upon true ethical and economical principles. I do not know of any other ideology which can deliver that. Other ideologies are based upon whims.
Or as Hans-Hermann Hoppe puts it in his book “The Economics and Ethics of Private Property”, page 234 and 235:
“In the present situation of a world-wide crisis of governmental legitimacy, of the collapse of East Bloc Socialism and enduring stagnation of the Western Welfare States, the chance for Austrian rationalism to fill the philosophical vacuum that has appeared with the retreat of positivism and to become the paradigm of the future is as good or better than ever. Now as before it requires moral courage as much as intellectual integrity to propound the Austrian social theory – the opposing statist battalions still represent a formidable majority and are in control of a far larger share of resources. Yet with the total breakdown of socialism and the concept of social ownership staring everyone in the face, the antithetical Austrian theory of private property, free markets and laissez faire cannot but gain attractiveness and win support. Austrians have reason to believe, then, that the time has come when they may succeed in bringing about a fundamental change in public opinion, by reclaiming ethics and economics from the hands of the positivists and the engineering powerful and restoring public recognition of private property rights and free markets based on such rights as ultimate, absolute principles of ethics and economics”.
Björn Lundahl
Göteborg, Sweden
Published: December 8, 2006 4:13 PM
Björn Lundahl
RogerM
Insight.
I do not see the state as a realistic alternative at all.
Do you need, for example, a third world war (notice, a third world war), to reach some insights? Well, then it might be too late!
The state is just an insane system.
Björn Lundahl
Published: December 8, 2006 4:47 PM
RogerM
Bjorn,
The quote from Hoppe is very interesting. However, there is a difference between Austrian economics and Rothbard/Hoppe's "ethical system" which denies the legitimacy of the state. Mises and Hayek, two fathers of Austrian economics, saw the state as legit and necessary. I'm a confirmed Austrian in the tradition of Mises and Hayek. I think we should limit government as much as possible in the same way that the writers of the US Constitution did.
Rothbard and Hoppe are great when they stick to economics. Their attempts at fabricating an artificial code of ethics has distracted libertarians from the main task of economic education and limiting government. Anarchism is purely theoretical; it might work but it might not. But it has become all consuming for many libertarians and a major distraction.
Published: December 8, 2006 5:05 PM
Björn Lundahl
RogerM
“Mises and Hayek, two fathers of Austrian economics”.
Rothbard and Hoppe are as much “fathers” of Austrian economics as Mises and Hayek and you know that.
http://www.answers.com/topic/austrian-school
“I think we should limit government as much as possible in the same way that the writers of the US Constitution did”.
Well, it did not work, did it? Why not learn from this fact alone?
“Rothbard and Hoppe are great when they stick to economics. Their attempts at fabricating an artificial code of ethics has distracted libertarians from the main task of economic education and limiting government. Anarchism is purely theoretical; it might work but it might not. But it has become all consuming for many libertarians and a major distraction”.
Artificial code of ethics!? So you think that people should be allowed to steal and aggress against each other? Well, you do that and you might find out that not only Rothbard and Hoppe believe that it is wrong to aggress against people. Actually, it is common knowledge around the world that aggressions against people are wrongdoings and crimes. If that is artificial, the whole universe is artificial too.
Who are you to tell what libertarians should study and be interested in?
There are followers and there are pioneers. Mises, Rothbard and Hoppe are certainly, the pioneers.
Björn Lundahl
Published: December 8, 2006 8:23 PM
RogerM
Bjorn,
As I said, Rothbard and Hoppe are great when they stick to economics. But there's no logical connection between Austrian economics and anarchism, which is based on the Rothbard/Hoppe system of ethics. Mises considered the state to be good and necessary for maintaining order. Mises also stayed away from ethics as much as possible. Hayek seems to have done the same. Mises and Hayek appear to have followed the ethical system of natural law, which I follow.
Hoppe's system is artificial because he builds it upon property, making property an absolute. Natural law had much more solid foundations. Only by making property an absolute is it possible for Hoppe to conclude that taxation is theft and war is murder. That single flawed premise, the absolute nature of property, leads him into all kinds of errors. But to make his argument work, he has to redefine many words. Look at his definition of monarchy. His definition excludes all that convention considers monarchs except for a small handful of monarchs in the 17th and 18th centuries in Western Europe. But his definition of democracy can include anyone in history, from Hitler to Mao to Khomeini.
"Well, it did not work, did it? Why not learn from this fact alone?"
It did work for a while. We need to learn why it quit working and fix it. Hoppe argues, based on his fabricated code of conduct (it's not an ethical system for reasons I've explained elsewhere) that all government is inherently evil and so will always act in an evil way, democracies being the most evil.
What Hoppe calls "ethics" is nothing more than a homeowner's property covenant. It has almost no relevance to economics whasoever.
"So you think that people should be allowed to steal and aggress against each other?"
Real ethics/morals can only be found in the natural law tradtion, which represents the best thinking of Western civilization over centuries and which Hoppe dismisses without much consideration.
Published: December 9, 2006 9:28 AM
Björn Lundahl
RogerM
RogerM “As I said, Rothbard and Hoppe are great when they stick to economics. But there's no logical connection between Austrian economics and anarchism, which is based on the Rothbard/Hoppe system of ethics. Mises considered the state to be good and necessary for maintaining order. Mises also stayed away from ethics as much as possible. Hayek seems to have done the same. Mises and Hayek appear to have followed the ethical system of natural law, which I follow”.
Björn Naturally, economics is not ethics and ethics is not economics. They are different subjects. Rothbard´s economics book Man, Economy & State is an economic study of an ethical system such as the one that is illustrated in Rothbard´s book The Ethics of Liberty. Obviously, there is a logical connection as the systems are the same, only different aspects of the same system i.e. an economics aspect and an ethical aspect.
It is true that Mises did consider the state to be good and necessary for maintaining law and order. My answer to this is: Rothbard and Hoppe have developed Mises ideas further. For even Mises was not perfect. Neither are, naturally, Rothbard and Hoppe. In nature, perfection does not, of course, exist.
Mises did not believe in natural law, Human Action:
“The Utilitarians do not combat arbitrary government and privileges because they are against natural law but because they are detrimental to prosperity. They recommend equality under the civil law not because men are equal but because such a policy is beneficial to the commonweal. In rejecting the illusory notions of natural law and human equality modern biology only repeated what the utilitarian champions of liberalism and democracy long before had taught in a much more persuasive way. It is obvious that no biological doctrine can ever invalidate what utilitarian philosophy says about the social utility of democratic government, private property, freedom, and equality under the law.”
http://mises.org/humanaction/chap8sec8.asp#p175
Above text shows also that Mises made ethical judgement. He proposed utilitarianism. From the book Ethics of Liberty:
“But he (Mises) is not willing to simply assert an ad hoc value judgment; presumably he feels that a valuing intellectual must present some sort of ethical system to justify such value judgments. But, as a utilitarian, Mises’s system is a curiously bloodless one; even as a valuing laissez-faire liberal, he is only willing to make the one value judgment that he joins the majority of the people in favoring their common peace, prosperity, and abundance. In this way as an opponent of objective ethics, and uncomfortable as he must be with making any value judgments even as a citizen, he makes the minimal possible degree of such judgments. True to his utilitarian position, his value judgment is the desirability of fulfilling the subjectively desired goals of the bulk of the populace.”
http://mises.org/rothbard/ethics/twentysix.asp
So Mises was trapped in being not able to exclude value judgements.
So the great question is, as we can not avoid it, which ethical system is objective and true?
Mises gave us a hint, Human Action:
“The notion of justice makes sense only when referring to a definite system of norms which in itself is assumed to be uncontested and safe against any criticism.”
http://mises.org/humanaction/chap27sec3.asp#p720
The Ethics of Liberty together with Hans-Hermann Hoppe´s theory will give you the answer.
http://mises.org/etexts/hoppe5.pdf
RogerM “Mises also stayed away from ethics as much as possible. Hayek seems to have done the same. Mises and Hayek appear to have followed the ethical system of natural law.”
Björn: How can Hayek stay away from ethics as much as possible and at the same time follow the ethical system of natural law? That is a contradiction in terms.
Hayek did not propose a system of natural law. But he did propose some kind of vague ethical system. For a New Liberty:
http://mises.org/rothbard/ethics/twentyeight.asp
From Answers.com:
“While known more as an economist ( Hayek) than a philosopher, in the latter half of his career Hayek made a number of contributions to social philosophy and political philosophy, derived largely from his views on the limits of human knowledge[2], and the role played by his spontaneous order in social institutions”:
http://www.answers.com/topic/friedrich-hayek
RogerM “Hoppe's system is artificial because he builds it upon property, making property an absolute. Natural law had much more solid foundations”.
Björn First of all, Rothbard´s book The Ethics of Liberty is based on natural law:
“IF, THEN, THE NATURAL law is discovered by reason from “the basic inclinations of human nature . . . absolute, immutable, and of universal validity for all times and places,” it follows that the natural law provides an objective set of ethical norms by which to gauge human actions at any time or place”.
http://mises.org/rothbard/ethics/three.asp
Those ethical norms that Rothbard was referring to, and which are based on natural law, are derived from the concept that property is absolute.
Hoppe and natural law
In his book The Economics and Ethics of Private Property, page 179, he wrote:
“Agreeing with Rothbard on the possibility of a rational ethic and, more specifically, on the fact that only a libertarian ethic can indeed be morally justified, I want to propose here a different, non-natural-rights approach to establishing these two related claims. It has been a common quarrel with the natural rights position, even on the part of sympathetic readers, that the concept of human nature is far “too diffuse and varied to provide a determinate set of contents of natural law.” Furthermore, its description of rationality is equally ambiguous in that it does not seem to distinguish between the role of reason in establishing empirical laws of nature on the one hand and normative laws of human conduct on the other. Avoiding such difficulties from the outset, I claim the following approach to be once more straightforward and more rigorous as regards its starting point as well as its methods of deriving its conclusions. Moreover, as I will indicate later, my approach also seems to be more in line with what Rothbard actually does when it comes to justifying the specific norms of libertarianism that the rather vague methodological prescriptions of he natural rights theorists.”
Hoppe is not against the concept of natural law when it is spelled out in a “Rothbardian way.”
Björn Lundahl
Göteborg, Sweden
Published: December 9, 2006 1:57 PM
RogerM
Bjorn:"Rothbard and Hoppe have developed Mises ideas further. For even Mises was not perfect."
I haven't found any fault in Mises, so far. I don't think Rothbard and Hopped advanced Mises ideas at all. I think they took off on an unrelated tangent that has been very harmful for libertarianism. What I meant when I said Mises stayed away from moral arguments was that he didn't propose economic principles based on moral arguments, as socialists do or the Catholic Church does, for example. Mises wanted to show people how to achieve prosperity. He was utilitarian in that he had this practical goal in mind. He said someplace that whatever goal people chose to pursue, he wanted to be able to show them that they could reach it or not based on reason and humans act. He never attempted to create a new moral/ethical system as Rothbard and Hoppe have done.
"Those ethical norms that Rothbard was referring to, and which are based on natural law, are derived from the concept that property is absolute."
No, because if Rothbard followed natural law, he wouldn't have made property absolute. Rothbard may begin with natural law, but by making property absolute, he either abandons or distorts it.
"Hoppe is not against the concept of natural law when it is spelled out in a “Rothbardian way.”
Exactly, when it's the "Rothbardian way." I think Rothbard and Hoppe have a distorted idea of what natural law is. It's not just ethics based on reasoning; every system of ethics is based on reason; even Marxism and Islamic fascism are based on reason. The differences between the systems depend on the starting assumptions. True natural law started with the assumption of the existence of God as creator. From that, it derived the principle of the necessity of mankind's survival. Natural law thinkers saw a shortcut to morals in the Bible, but also believed that they could arrive at many of the moral principles in the Bible through reason. Their absolute was the survival and flourishing of mankind. Based on these, they derived property and government as necessities for both.
Rothbard and Hoppe start with property as the absolute and build upon it. Thus, they have strayed significantly from natural law. They seem to have thought that natural law didn't provide a sound enough base for property; if so, they were wrong. It was very sound. The problem was that most people had abandoned natural law for positive law.
Rothbard/Hoppe's choice of property as an absolute was totally arbitrary. What was their basis for choosing it? If anyone can choose the absolute they prefer and build an ethical system upon it, then why not choose the environment, as many have done? It makes just as much sense to make the natural environment your absolute as it does to make it property.
Published: December 9, 2006 3:26 PM
Björn Lundahl
RogerM
Björn Mises still made an ethical conclusion as he was a utilitarian. Mises did not want to make any value judgement, but he actually did as his ideas were based on utilitarianism. That was my point and, please, read my above post.
Mises also rejected natural law which you do not seem to do. Why do you not criticise that?
RogerM “Rothbard and Hoppe start with property as the absolute and build upon it.”
Björn No, they start with the concept of self ownership. That is the starting point. That is not arbitrary as self-ownership is presupposed in an argumentation like this and also, I want to add, in spelling out any ethical norms whatsoever. I can not think of anything more rational.
I think that both Rothbard and Hoppe have rationally justified a libertarian ethic and I do not want to start a debate why this is so and why that statement you have made is wrong etc. Actually it would be a waste of time as you would not accept their justifications anyway and as I would still claim that they are true. If you, for example, “argue” that you do not exist and I would claim that you do etc, and you still go on “arguing” that you do not, it would also be a waste of time. That is how I would feel about debating already proved true ethical principles. I have also referred to valid writings in my above post.
We are libertarians but at least to some extent, because of different convictions.
My regards
Björn Lundahl
Published: December 9, 2006 5:50 PM
Björn Lundahl
Ethics of Liberty:
Ludwig von Mises and “Value-Free” Laissez Faire
“Let us now turn to the position of Ludwig von Mises on the entire matter of praxeology, value-judgments, and the advocacy of public policy. The case of Mises is particularly interesting, for he was, of all the economists in the twentieth century, at one and the same time the most uncompromising and passionate adherent of laissez faire and the most rigorous and uncompromising advocate of value-free economics and opponent of any sort of objective ethics.”
Further:
“For Mises must concede that no one can decide upon any policy whatever unless he makes an ultimate ethical or value judgment. But since this is so, and since according to Mises all ultimate value judgments or ethical standards are arbitrary, how then can he denounce these particular ethical judgments as “arbitrary”? Furthermore, it is hardly correct for Mises to dismiss these judgments as “emotional,” since for him as a utilitarian, reason cannot establish ultimate ethical principles; which can therefore only be established by subjective emotions. It is pointless for Mises to call for his critics to use “discursive reasoning,” since he himself denies that discursive reasoning can ever be used to establish ultimate ethical values. Furthermore, the man whose ultimate ethical principles would lead him to support the free market should also be dismissed by Mises as equally “arbitrary” and “emotional,” even if he has taken the laws of praxeology into account before making his ultimately ethical decision. And we have seen above that the majority of the public very often has other goals which they hold, at least to a certain extent, higher than their own material well-being.
Thus, while praxeological economic theory is extremely useful for providing data and knowledge for framing economic policy, it cannot be sufficient by itself to enable the economist to make any value pronouncements or to advocate any public policy whatsoever. More specifically, Ludwig von Mises to the contrary notwithstanding, neither praxeological economics nor Mises’s utilitarian liberalism is sufficient to make the case for laissez faire and the free-market economy. To make such a case, one must go beyond economics and utilitarianism to establish an objective ethics which affirms the overriding value of liberty, and morally condemns all forms of statism, from egalitarianism to “the murder of redheads,” as well as such goals as the lust for power and the satisfaction of envy. To make the full case for liberty, one cannot be a methodological slave to every goal that the majority of the public might happen to cherish.”
http://mises.org/rothbard/ethics/twentysix.asp
Björn Lundahl
Published: December 9, 2006 7:21 PM
Michael A. Clem
I think the commenters are overlooking the intent of Hasnas' paper. He merely intended to show the viability of anarchism (instead of chaos) based upon former and current existing models, not to make a comprehensive argument for libertarian-oriented anarcho-capitalism in particular.
For example, it's quite clear from history that much of our legal code was indeed adopted from common law, which itself evolved over a long period of time. The competitive legal systems Hasnas mentioned are historical fact, not imaginary or logical constructs.
One might find fault that the common law system didn't prevent the government from taking over the law, but since common or customary law is only one aspect that anarchism would incorporate, and not anarchism itself, it's remarkable that the common law worked as well and as long as it did with the confines of existing governments.
And more importantly, given the continuing failure of governments to do what they are allegedly supposed to do, we may well go back to a hybrid system (if we haven't already) of private security, mediation, and arbitration out of sheer necessity, instead of any ideological considerations.
Nonetheless, as has been well-pointed out, ideas are important. Understanding how anarchism could work and how existing government works (and doesn't work), a significant number of anarchist-oriented people could indeed make a difference in our society.
Published: December 10, 2006 5:49 PM
Björn Lundahl
Normative principles
A pure free market is based upon the axiomatic principle "that no man or group of men may aggress against the person or property of anyone else".
This is the very principle which the courts and the legal system should follow.
How do we know that this principle is an axiomatic principle?
I quote from the book “For a New Liberty”, written by Murray Rothbard, page 45:
“THE CENTRAL THRUST of libertarian thought, then, is to oppose any and all aggression against the property rights of individuals in their own persons and in the material objects they have voluntarily acquired. While individual and gangs of criminals are of course opposed, there is nothing unique here to the libertarian creed, since almost all persons and schools of thought oppose the exercise of random violence against persons and property”.
http://mises.org/rothbard/newliberty3.asp
So, generally, all persons and schools of thought oppose the exercise of random violence against persons and property.
Above statement is an answer why the principle is an axiomatic one. But this is not the only reason. There are rational ones as well.
Life as a value is an axiomatic value that no one in a debate logically can deny as this value is the very condition for the debate and the participators existence.
I quote from the book “The Ethics of Liberty”, written by Murray Rothbard, page 29:
“It may well be asked why life should be an objective ultimate value, why man should opt for life (in duration and quality). In reply; we may note that a proposition rises to the status of an axiom when he who denies it may be shown to be using it in the very course of the supposed refutation. Now, any person participating in any sort of discussion, including one on values, is, by virtue of so participating, alive and affirming life. For if he were really opposed to life, he would have no business in such a discussion, indeed he would have no business continuing to be alive. Hence, the supposed opponent of life is really affirming it in the very process of his discussion, and hence the preservation and furtherance of one’s life takes on the stature of an incontestable axiom”.
http://mises.org/rothbard/ethics/six.asp
This is also confirmed with Ludwig von Mises statement in his book, “Human Action”, page 11:
“We may say that action is the manifestation of a man's will.”
http://mises.org/humanaction/chap1sec1.asp
Which principles are an objective condition for preserving the human race and human life?
To objective examine if something is a condition for something else, we have to mentally grasp a state of things, where the supposed condition doesn’t exist anywhere and at all.
For example, if we suppose that the existence of oxygen is a condition for the preservation of the human race, we grasp a state of things, where oxygen doesn’t exist anywhere on earth. If we would let some oxygen exist somewhere on earth, then we couldn’t make a valid conclusion. We wouldn’t know if oxygen were a condition for preserving human life. To make a valid conclusion we have to grasp where oxygen doesn’t exist anywhere and at all. Under this condition we can, naturally, conclude that no human life would exist. We can, because of this reason conclude that oxygen is a condition for the preservation of the human race. We can also conclude that when we objectively examined as we just did, if oxygen was a condition for preserving human life, we would be bound to take under consideration the whole reality and not only some parts of it. We wouldn’t let oxygen exist somewhere on earth, because if we had done so, we wouldn’t have grasped the effects, under consideration, to the whole situation (the whole reality), and our conclusion would therefore have been invalid.
We can only make one choice, either we take under consideration some parts of reality or we take under consideration the whole reality. Reason and logic tell us that if we take under consideration the whole reality, this will reflect the truth, because we can’t consider anything more absolute and perfect. This procedure is an axiomatic procedure.
Is “the principle of physical violence” a condition for the preservation of the human race?
To examine this principle under consideration of what has already been said about the procedure of finding out conditions, we have to grasp a state of things where the principle of none physical violence doesn’t exist anywhere and at all. If we let some people live by the principle of none violence, a procedure which we have just discarded, then we wouldn’t make a valid conclusion. Logically we are bound to let all people live by the principle of physical violence. Because of this fact the human race and life would immediately exterminate.
We can therefore conclude “that the principle of physical violence” is a condition for the preservation of human extermination and that “the principle of none physical violence” is the condition for human preservation.
We can also conclude, that human life wouldn’t exist, if the principle of “not to have the right to use threat of physical violence” didn’t exist.
If we grasp a state of things where this principle doesn’t exist, anywhere and at all, everyone would be threatening everyone else. Nobody would be able to live and fulfil their needs and dreams. Action to preserve ones life would be an impossible mission.
Not anybody would dare to act because if this anybody did, someone would always be threatening this anybody. A perfect static situation would occur and the human race would immediately exterminate.
Our conclusion will therefore be that “the principle of threat of physical violence” is a condition for the human extermination, and “the principle of none threat of physical violence”, is a condition for the preservation of human life.
As life is an axiomatic value which we want to preserve, it is also logically true that we axiomatically want to preserve the principle which is a condition for life, namely “the principle of none physical violence (including not to have the right to use threat of physical violence)”.
Let us now examine if “the right to steal” is a condition of the preservation of human life.
If we want to define what objective theft is, we will have to define property rights, based on an axiomatic Justice.
If we consider what has already been said in this document, we can also understand that an axiomatic Justice is those principles which are a condition for the preservation of the human race. Unjust are those principles which are a condition for the preservation of the human extermination.
Just property rights are, therefore, those property rights which are conditions for the preservation human life. Unjust are those property rights which are conditions for the preservation of human extermination.
In order to survive, man cannot live alone in an environment which is free from physical violence. To survive and prosper man has to use his reason and energy to transform nature into useful things. Man lives and prospers because he is a creative animal.
We can therefore conclude that creation in itself is a condition for the preservation of the human race.
We can therefore conclude that Just property rights are those rights which preserve man’s creative efforts.
In order to define these property rights we will have to grasp a state of things when man, for the first time, enters this world of ours. This because we want to define original property rights based on Justice. In order to define property rights based on Justice, we don’t want either to be deluded by existing potential unjust property rights. Only, in a state of things where no man, yet, has owned anything, we don’t take the risk of being deluded.
When the first man, for example, broke a branch and made himself a bow, the title of property of this creation was also his. Why does the title of the property (the bow) belong to this man? Because man is a purposeful agent and if man doesn’t own his original creation and the results of his actions, he won’t act.
Let us examine if the last statement is objective and true.
We examine and grasp a state of things, in accordance with the mentioned procedure to examine objectively if something is a condition for something else, through not letting the examined principle be existent anywhere at all.
We grasp a state of things where the following principle is none existent anywhere at all: “the originators right to the objects which he through action, has created”. Everyone would be stealing anyone’s creation and the human race would immediately exterminate.
This proves that man is a purposeful agent and when his motivation exterminates, he stops acting at once.
This is also the objective reason why theft is a condition for the preservation of human extermination, and that the principle of none theft, the originators creation in accordance with the above reasoning, is the condition for the preservation of human life.
Let us now define Justly owned property rights to land.
Man doesn’t create land but he acts and creates on, in and out of land.
Also here we examine a state of things when man for the first time, enters this world. When, then, the first man enters the untouched land, and creates by action on or in or out of land, then this part of the land which he has now touched, belongs to him. Why the first man? If the first man doesn’t have the property right to this part of the land, nor does individual number two, three, four, five etc have the right to the land, and while they are waiting for the last man who hasn’t yet entered this world, man will quickly perish.
If we grasp a state of things, where the following principle is none existent anywhere and at all (this objective test is, of course, in line with our reasoning about such a procedure for finding out a condition for something else):
“When someone creates by action on or out of land, then this part which he has now touched belongs to him”.
This would mean that everyone would be stealing anyone’s Justly owned land, that is as soon as someone starts creating by action on or in or out of land, someone else would have the right to the land in question and the human race would immediately exterminate.
We can conclude that the condition for the extermination of the human race is to preserve the principle “the right to steal the land which the first man has touched and created on or in or out”. Our conclusion will also therefore only be that the condition for the preservation of the human race is that no man ever should have such a right.
Why must anybody own anything?
In accordance with our objective test to find out if something is a condition for something else, we grasp a state of things where the following principle is none existent anywhere and at all:
“Everybody owns themselves and their Justly owned property rights”.
Nobody would be able to do anything, since nobody has the right to control anything. Not even themselves (see below about property rights in your own person).
This question is not only a contradiction it is also silly. You ask a question which means that you control yourselves (natural disposition), that is owning yourself (see below the excellent writing of Hans-Hermann Hoppe). The other contradiction is that if nobody would own anything, nobody would be able to hinder anyone to own anything either since they would otherwise have an invalid control (having the disposition to) of everyone else, that is having an invalid ownership to everybody else (see below about valid property rights in your own person).
Ownership itself is, therefore, an objective condition for the preservation of human life.
Now, then, we haven’t ended our definition of Justly owned property rights until we have analyzed the right to make contracts. We will have to examine the right to make contracts, because, sooner or later the owners of Justly owned property will trade with each other. Sooner or later disputes will occur among the trading partners and then, we will have to know, the rights the trading partners have to the property and which the dispute among them is all about.
Some economist argues that the Justification for the right to make contracts is that the right promotes economic prosperity.
It is true that most of us want economic prosperity, but this is not an axiomatic Justification for the right o make contracts. “Economic prosperity” is not an axiomatic value. As we want to be objective, this argument is not good enough.
Some individuals argue that trading partners have an “agreement” and this is the reason why contracts should be legally binding. Why should such an agreement be legally binding if one of the partners wants to change his mind? Why shouldn’t we respect such a change of man’s will? Why should an earlier manifestation of a man’s will be considered proper and Just and a later manifestation of a changed will be regarded as improper and unjust? Where is the objective Justification? Where is the logical point of view? To argue that the trading partners “knew what they got into and that is why “agreements” should be legally binding”, is, of course, nonsense. It only proves that agreements are artificial constructions which haven’t anything to do with axiomatic principles founded in the nature of things.
The Justification for binding contracts is not that they are “agreements or for that reason are contracts”, but for the reason that we can derive, because of them, Justly owned property titles. “The right to make contracts” is not a right in itself which can objectively be defended as such, but is an expression which symbolizes the interpretations to derive Justly owned property rights and if theft has been done or not.
This is the title transfer theory of contracts, see also Murray Rothbard´s excellent book “The Ethics of Liberty”, chapter 19:
http://mises.org/rothbard/ethics/nineteen.asp
On what base can this interpretation be related to contracts and Justly owned property titles? This we can conclude because of the reason that contracts only confirm exchange of original Just titles to property (in accordance with above definitions of original Just titles to property), that is the transferring of Just property titles between the trading partners.
The reason that a property title will be transferred from one person to another is that the original property owner has renounced his Justly owned property title to be transferred to another person, and we can only, because of this, make the interpretation that the property title has been transferred. In other words, it is the renunciation of the Justly owned property title in itself, which is the very cause to the ending of the original property owner’s title to the property and the transferring of the title to the new owner, which the original property owner has renounced his property title to.
Logic and reason tells us what has been renounced and transferred, in fact, also is renounced and transferred. For what has been done cannot be undone.
Logically a man cannot renounce his right to self-ownership, since a man in his very nature controls his own mind and body (natural disposition), that is, he is a natural self-owner of his own will and person (having a free will) and he will still be so even if he has “tried” o renounce his natural self-ownership to another person. He cannot renounce something which is a biological and physical fact of his very own life and which will never, as long as he lives, leave him.
In other words, we cannot interpret with the help of reason that the supposed slave’s natural self-ownership has been transferred to another person which the supposed slave has tried to renounce his self-ownership to.
We can therefore conclude that this fact of natural self-ownership, always, logically, neutralizes every attempt to renounce it.
Another logical confirmation of this fact is that when we in this document concluded that none physical violence and none theft preserves human life, we wouldn’t make such a conclusion if we didn’t control our minds and bodies. We wouldn’t be able to make such a conclusion, since we wouldn’t control ourselves and either would life exist, in a state of things, when everyone had the legal right to fully use his self-ownership, that is, in other words, in a state of things where physical violence and theft is none existent at all.
In regard to what has now been said we can conclude that it is objectively true that every man is a Just property owner in his own right. Because of this, slave contracts should not be legally binding, as their existence is only a” legalization” of physical violence. If we would neglect this fact, we would violate the principle of self-ownership and be using physical violence and also, because of this, violating the condition for the preservation of human life.
It is true that the possibility to make contracts and to trade is the very foundation for specialization and spurs creative processes which accounts for a very large part of man’s creative efforts. To “legally” hinder the enforcement of contracts and therefore also trade, would not only mean extreme poverty, but also death to most individuals on earth.
The enforcement of contracts, in accordance with our definition, we can conclude, is the condition for preserving these creative processes among individuals. Other definitions of contracts, which are only some sorts of agreements, (really, only different grades of slave contracts) should not, as have been pointed out, be legally binding. These illegitimate contracts include only those destructive seeds that violates the condition for the preservation of the human race, namely the “principle of none physical violence and none theft”, and because of this fact alone, they don’t include those productive processes which account for a very large part of man’s creative efforts.
We have now ended our definition of Justly owned property rights.
We have established that human life is preserved by the condition “that no man shall have the right to use physical violence and theft”.
Our conclusion will therefore be that the principle “that no man shall have the right to use physical violence and theft” is synonymous with our definition “that no man shall have the right to violate the rightful ownership in person and property”.
We can establish that the absolute and perfect condition for the human extermination is the none existence of the principle “that no man shall have the right to violate the rightful ownership in person and property”, and we can also conclude that the absolute and perfect condition to preserve the human race is the none existence of any violations.
Isolated violations of the principle are therefore absolutely perfect, destructive actions which undermine the condition and the preservation of the human race, since the very existence of these destructive actions deviate from the absolutely perfect condition for the preservation of the human race.
As life is an axiomatic value which we want to preserve, it is also logically true that we axiomatically want to preserve the principle which is a condition for life, namely “that no man shall have the right to use physical violence and theft” or in other words,” that no man shall have the right to violate the rightful ownership in person and property”.
If we take under consideration what has been concluded in this document, we can also conclude that another meaning of the principle of none violations, is that the principle also brings an absolutely perfect opportunity for the survival of human life. This means that the principle brings a totally perfect opportunity for the survival of all human beings.
As it is true that the principle is a totally perfect condition and a totally perfect preservation of human life, it also logically follows that the principle brings a totally perfect opportunity for the survival of all human beings.
This can also be proved by the fact that everyone’s violation of the principle (total physical violence and theft) brings an absolutely perfect impossibility for the survival of any human beings.
In the “philosophical debate” Liberty, as all values, is seen as a subjective value. This opinion may seem as a confirmation of the reality. There are vast political values. Liberty seems to be only one of these subjective values. But it is a superficial believes.
The reason for this is that we have established that everyone’s violation of the principle brings an absolutely perfect impossibility for the survival of any human beings. This means that we all would be, by objective means coerced to die that is objectively coerced to not “value and wanting to preserve our own lives”.
Isolated violations of the principle are totally destructive because they totally undermine by objective coercion our possibilities and opportunities to “value and wanting to preserve our own lives”.
Ethical conclusions in this document, I believe, are in agreement with some ethical conclusions that the giant Hans-Hermann Hoppe has done.
Please read some of his excellent writing from the book “The Ethics and Economics of Private Property”:
http://mises.org/etexts/hoppe5.pdf
And to:
http://www.hanshoppe.com/publications/econ-ethics-10.pdf
Björn Lundahl
Göteborg, Sweden
Published: December 10, 2006 5:52 PM
RogerM
Bjorn:"Mises did not want to make any value judgement, but he actually did as his ideas were based on utilitarianism."
I don't think the quote you provided above shows that Mises was trying to create a moral system. He plainly wants to avoid moral questions and address the practical question of whether certain economic plans will achieve their goals or not. I don't see that Mises rejected natural law, but that he avoided getting bogged down in the quagmire of moral debates.
"No, they start with the concept of self ownership. That is the starting point."
You're right. They start with self-ownership, which suggests the right to property. But it also suggests many other thing, such as the right to survival, the right/need for sociability, things that natural law considers and Hoppe/Rothbard don't. The choice to limit the discussion just to property and make property the absolute was an arbitrary one.
"To make such a case, one must go beyond economics and utilitarianism to establish an objective ethics which affirms the overriding value of liberty, and morally condemns all forms of statism, from egalitarianism to “the murder of redheads,” as well as such goals as the lust for power and the satisfaction of envy."
This is where Rothbard goes wrong. Morality/ethics, like natural law, cannot be created by mankind, it must be discovered. Otherwise, like positive law, it becomes just another opinion.
The history of philosophy has been the history of the attempt by mankind to invent morality without God. In the 20th century, the best philosophers gave up and admitted it wasn't possible because no man enjoys authority over another in moral matters. As in a family where only the parents have the right to set rules for the children and children have no authority over each other unless given to them by the parent, so in morality only God the Father has authority in moral matters of His children. If God doesn't exist, then we have no parent and no authority exists.
Rothbard and Hoppe completely ignored this millenia-long struggle and honest conclusion. But then so did many other philosophers, because mankind cannot live without morals; it's part of our nature. So they continue to try to establish moral principles without God. Most of what they achieve parallels what natural law has already accomplished. But without the sound reasoning of natural law, they arrive at silly conclusions, like Rothbard/Hoppe's idea that the state is illegit, taxation is theft and war is murder.
Published: December 11, 2006 8:54 AM
billwald
Agree with RogerM. 3,000 years ago Socrates "proved" logically that moral people were happier than immoral people. Why, then, do people act immorally? Socrates answers, "Because people are insane." This is also the one observable fact of Christian doctrine - our sin natiure. There has been no improvement in human nature in all of history. We only mrder more efficiently.
Democratic republics and libertarian economics are the most efficient systems because they best compensate for our sin nature as does Protestant Christianity.
Published: December 11, 2006 12:08 PM
Björn Lundahl
RogerM
RogerM” I don't think the quote you provided above shows that Mises was trying to create a moral system. He plainly wants to avoid moral questions and address the practical question of whether certain economic plans will achieve their goals or not. I don't see that Mises rejected natural law, but that he avoided getting bogged down in the quagmire of moral debates”.
Björn “It is very obvious that Mises was not trying to create a moral system. He was a supporter of “value-free economics”, but at the same time his “value-free economics” was based on utilitarianism and that is not a value free notion. That is a contradiction in terms.
Mises and Natural Law
I will quote Mises again:
Human Action:
“But the teachings of utilitarian philosophy and classical economics have nothing at all to do with the doctrine of natural right. With them the only point that matters is social utility. They recommend popular government, private property, tolerance, and freedom not because they are natural and just, but because they are beneficial. The core of Ricardo's philosophy is the demonstration that social cooperation and division of labor between men who are in every regard superior and more efficient and men who are in every regard inferior and less efficient is beneficial to both groups. Bentham, the radical, shouted: "Natural rights is simple nonsense: natural and imprescriptible rights, rhetorical nonsense." [10] With him "the sole object of government ought to be the greatest happiness of the greatest possible number of the community." [11] Accordingly, in investigating what ought to be right he does not care about preconceived ideas concerning God's or nature's plans and intentions, forever hidden to mortal men; he is intent upon discovering what best serves the promotion of human welfare and happiness. Malthus showed that nature in limiting the means of subsistence does not accord to any living being a right of existence, and that by indulging heedlessly in the natural impulse of proliferation man would never have risen above the verge of starvation. He contended that human civilization and well-being could develop only to the extent that man learned to rein his sexual appetites by moral restraint. The Utilitarians do not combat arbitrary government and privileges because they are against natural law but because they are detrimental to prosperity. They recommend equality under the civil law not because men are equal but because such a policy is beneficial to the commonweal. In rejecting the illusory notions of natural law and human equality modern biology only repeated what the utilitarian champions of liberalism and democracy long before had taught in a much more persuasive way. It is obvious that no biological doctrine can ever invalidate what utilitarian philosophy says about the social utility of democratic government, private property, freedom, and equality under the law.”
http://mises.org/humanaction/chap8sec8.asp#p175
For example, please notice: “In rejecting the illusory notions of natural law.”
Further:
“Eighteenth-century liberalism and likewise present-day egalitarianism start from the "self-evident truth" that "all men are created equal, and that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights." However, say the advocates of a biological philosophy of society, natural science has demonstrated in an irrefutable way that men are different. There is no room left in the framework of an experimental observation of natural phenomena for such a concept as natural rights. Nature is unfeeling and insensible with regard to any being's life and happiness. Nature is iron necessity and regularity. It is metaphysical nonsense to link together the "slippery" and vague notion of liberty and the unchangeable absolute laws of cosmic order. Thus the fundamental idea of liberalism is unmasked as a fallacy.”
http://mises.org/humanaction/chap8sec8.asp#p174
RogerM “You're right. They start with self-ownership, which suggests the right to property. But it also suggests many other thing, such as the right to survival, the right/need for sociability, things that natural law considers and Hoppe/Rothbard don't. The choice to limit the discussion just to property and make property the absolute was an arbitrary one.”
Björn All those good things that you mention presupposes self-ownership. Without self-ownership man cannot achieve anything. Not even the possibility to debate and this fact alone is enough to make it an objective starting point. From this rational axiom, Hoppe defines objective property rights. Without mentioned property rights, self-ownership cannot be sustained, or in other words, the objective starting point can not be sustained. This is not some sort of “suggestion”, but a derived fact. That is why the whole concept is an objective ethic.
Rothbard “To make such a case, one must go beyond economics and utilitarianism to establish an objective ethics which affirms the overriding value of liberty, and morally condemns all forms of statism, from egalitarianism to “the murder of redheads,” as well as such goals as the lust for power and the satisfaction of envy."
RogerM “This is where Rothbard goes wrong. Morality/ethics, like natural law, cannot be created by mankind, it must be discovered. Otherwise, like positive law, it becomes just another opinion.”
Björn Who said that an objective ethics can be created? Not Rothbard. The word “establish” is not the same as the word “create”. Don’t you think that Rothbard was very aware of the fact that an objective ethics must be discovered and not created?
Well, I will post Rothbard´s quote again:
The Ethics of Liberty:
“IF, THEN, THE NATURAL law is discovered by reason from “the basic inclinations of human nature . . . absolute, immutable, and of universal validity for all times and places,” it follows that the natural law provides an objective set of ethical norms by which to gauge human actions at any time or place”.
Please, notice the word “discovered”.
Further:
“In fact, the legal principles of any society can be established in three alternate ways: (a) by following the traditional custom of the tribe or community; (b) by obeying the arbitrary, ad hoc will of those who rule the State apparatus; or (c) by the use of man’s reason in discovering the natural law—in short, by slavish conformity to custom, by arbitrary whim, or by use of man’s reason. These are essentially the only possible ways for establishing positive law. Here we may simply affirm that the latter method is at once the most appropriate for man at his most nobly and fully human, and the most potentially “revolutionary” vis-à-vis any given status quo.”
http://mises.org/rothbard/ethics/three.asp
Björn Lundahl
Göteborg, Sweden
Published: December 11, 2006 2:09 PM
Björn Lundahl
Utilitarianism means that all action should be directed toward achieving the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people. Intellectually the principle lets the door stand wide open for the use of physical violence and theft against people which happens to belong to the lesser number. If we grasp a state of things where the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people exists in using physical violence and theft everywhere and in all human situations and places (i.e. in the classroom, shop, street, airport, forest etc) against all those people that happened to belong to the lesser numbers, the human race would quickly perish.
Very good principle, indeed. Not at all destructive.
Björn Lundahl
Göteborg, Sweden
Published: December 11, 2006 2:34 PM
RogerM
All right, you've convinced me that Mises was utilitarian and didn't agree with natural law. But this statement is interesting:
"Accordingly, in investigating what ought to be right he does not care about preconceived ideas concerning God's or nature's plans and intentions, forever hidden to mortal men; he is intent upon discovering what best serves the promotion of human welfare and happiness."
The goal of Mises' utilitarianism and natural law are the same--what best serves the promotion of human welfare and happiness. I think the difference between the two may be that natural law tried to explain why some things contribute to human welfare, whereas utilitarians didn't care why; they were focused on what and how. That may be why I thought Mises followed natural law.
But that doesn't make me respect Rothbard and Hoppe more, just respect Mises less.
"This is not some sort of “suggestion”, but a derived fact. That is why the whole concept is an objective ethic."
No, it's not a derived fact. Hoppe states that self-ownership "implies" the right to property. I've always thought it a very weak foundation for the most important institution in Western civilization.
Rothbard uses the term "natural law" in a sense that is very different from what people traditionally have meant by it, and what I mean by it. Historically, natural law referred to that body of work beginning with Thomas Aquinas and extending as as late as Adam Smith, some claim. Traditional natural law began with God and had as its goal the welfare of mankind. Because it began with God, it carried authority and very specific assumptions on which to build. Rothbard uses the term to refer to nothing more than the process of reasoning about ethics. As I wrote before, using reason is not the key; every ethical system uses reason; even the Mongols used reason. Reason is an attribute of all mankind.
What distinguishes moral systems is the starting points, the premises and assumptions. Both Rothbard/Hoppe arrive at many of the conclusions already reached by natural law because natural law emphasized property. But natural law didn't make property an absolute; it made the welfare of mankind the absolute, so it had room for the formation of governments.
Rothbard/Hoppe can only arrive at their conclusions about the illegitimacy of the state by making property absolute inviolate. But that is an arbitrary absolute and a choice that Rothbard and Hoppe have no right or authority to make.
"Intellectually the principle lets the door stand wide open for the use of physical violence and theft against people which happens to belong to the lesser number."
Remember the goal of utilitarianism--human welfare. Mises shows that physical violence and theft work toward the opposite of human welfare, so utilitarianism could never reach that conclusion. However, one problem with utilitarianism, and there are many, is the question "Why care about human welfare?" Why not care just about my personal welfare? In a way, utilitarianism erects an aritrary absolute as its idol in the same way the Rothbard/Hoppe do. Only traditional natural law provides an answer.
Published: December 11, 2006 5:26 PM
Björn Lundahl
RogerM
RogerM “The goal of Mises' utilitarianism and natural law are the same--what best serves the promotion of human welfare and happiness. I think the difference between the two may be that natural law tried to explain why some things contribute to human welfare, whereas utilitarians didn't care why; they were focused on what and how. That may be why I thought Mises followed natural law.”
Björn The goal of Rothbard and Hoppe too is human happiness and prosperity. They believe that it will be accomplished if man is free.
The Ethics of Liberty:
Hesselberg continues:
“But a social order is not possible unless man is able to conceive what it is, and what its advantages are, and also conceive those norms of conduct which are necessary to its establishment and preservation, namely, respect for another's person and for his rightful possessions, which is the substance of justice. . . . But justice is the product of reason, not the passions. And justice is the necessary support of the social order; and the social order is necessary to man's well-being and happiness. If this is so, the norms of justice must control and regulate the passions, and not vice versa.”
http://mises.org/rothbard/ethics/two.asp
Björn This is not some sort of “suggestion”, but a derived fact. That is why the whole concept is an objective ethic.
RogerM “No, it's not a derived fact. Hoppe states that self-ownership "implies" the right to property. I've always thought it a very weak foundation for the most important institution in Western civilization.”
Björn It is possible to arrive at the conclusion that a libertarian ethic is absolute by using different styles and words. But the essential proof is a pure logical one. Hoppe has concentrated his effort and focus on the strict logical evidence.
Without self-ownership, no debate could be made as you would not own yourself and would not have the right to debate. But you are debating and this presupposes self-ownership. I want to add, that man and human life would not exist without any self-ownership; since any action would not be possible.
Without self-ownership, property rights does not exist either.
A quote from Hoppe´s book The Ethics and Economics of Private Property:
“Furthermore, it would be equally impossible to engage in argumentation and rely on the propositional force of one’s arguments if one were not allowed to own (exclusively control) other scarce means (besides one’s body and its standing room). If one did not have such a right, then we would all immediately perish and the problem of
justifying rules - as well as any other human problem - would simply not exist. Hence, by
virtue of the fact of being alive property rights to other things must be presupposed as valid, too. No one who is alive can possibly argue otherwise.”
http://mises.org/etexts/hoppe5.pdf
Please, study Hoppe´s conclusions on property rights. Don’t tell me that you have which is not true. You didn’t even know that his starting point was self-ownership!
Björn Intellectually the principle lets the door stand wide open for the use of physical violence and theft against people which happens to belong to the lesser number.
RogerM “Remember the goal of utilitarianism--human welfare. Mises shows that physical violence and theft work toward the opposite of human welfare, so utilitarianism could never reach that conclusion. However, one problem with utilitarianism, and there are many, is the question "Why care about human welfare?" Why not care just about my personal welfare? In a way, utilitarianism erects an aritrary absolute as its idol in the same way the Rothbard/Hoppe do. Only traditional natural law provides an answer.”
Björn In the name of utilitarianism Hitler could have justified all the murdering of the Jews that he made. He probably, also, thought that he by doing those crimes achieved the greatest happiness for the greatest number of Germans.
Or as Rothbard puts it, For a New Liberty:
“Let us consider a stark example: Suppose a society which fervently considers all redheads to be agents of the Devil and therefore to be executed whenever found. Let us further assume that only a small number of redheads exist in any generation-so few as to be statistically insignificant. The utilitarian-libertarian might well reason: "While the murder of isolated redheads is deplorable, the executions are small in number; the vast majority of the public, as non-redheads, achieves enormous psychic satisfaction from the public execution of redheads. The social cost is negligible, the social, psychic benefit to the rest of society is great; therefore, it is right and proper for society to execute the redheads." The natural-rights libertarian, overwhelmingly concerned as he is for the justice of the act, will react in horror and staunchly and unequivocally oppose the executions as totally unjustified murder and aggression upon nonaggressive persons. The consequence of stopping the murders—depriving the bulk of society of great psychic pleasure—would not influence such a libertarian, the "absolutist" libertarian, in the slightest. Dedicated to justice and to logical consistency, the natural-rights libertarian cheerfully admits to being "doctrinaire," to being, in short, an unabashed follower of his own doctrines.”
http://mises.org/rothbard/newliberty2.asp
I respect deeply Mises, Rothbard and Hoppe because of their knowledge and all that they have done for liberty.
I do not believe in the existence of a god. As you keep bringing up the existence of a god, I just want to mention it.
Björn Lundahl
Göteborg, Sweden
Published: December 12, 2006 12:05 PM
Björn Lundahl
RogerM
RogerM “What distinguishes moral systems is the starting points, the premises and assumptions. Both Rothbard/Hoppe arrive at many of the conclusions already reached by natural law because natural law emphasized property. But natural law didn't make property an absolute; it made the welfare of mankind the absolute, so it had room for the formation of governments.”
“It made the welfare of mankind the absolute, so it had room for the formation of governments.”
Björn Above statement is not a premise and an assumption because it doesn’t really say much. Anything can be derived from this “premise” and “assumption.” It is extremely vague and subjective and it cannot, therefore, be used to prove anything. Anything could be “concluded” as it is not derived from a fact.
My above example of Hitler’s murdering of Jews or Rothbard’s example of murdering of redheads could be justified in the name that “it promoted the welfare of the people.”
Björn Lundahl
Göteborg, Sweden
Published: December 12, 2006 4:51 PM
Björn Lundahl
Mark Humphrey
Mark Humphrey “I don't want to precipitate trench warfare with devoted Rothbardians, but I strongly suspect that Rothbard owed his insight about "life as the standard of moral value" to Ayn Rand. I can't prove this, of course. Sadly, in "The Ethics of Liberty", (published in the early Eighties) Rothbard chose to, in a sense, blacklist Rand by claiming that NO ONE, other than himself, in the libertarian movement was working to develope a system of rationally defensible ethics. (Maybe Rothbard meant "at the moment I am writing this statement".)”
Björn That life is an axiomatic value and functions “as the standard of moral value” in an ethical system, Rothbard could, alternatively for example, have gotten this insight from Mises himself through analyzing his statement in his book, “Human Action”, page 11:
“We may say that action is the manifestation of a man's will.”
http://mises.org/humanaction/chap1sec1.asp
I am not saying that Rothbard did get his insight from Mises; I am only saying that it was possible. Surely, many other possibilities exist which we do not know anything about.
Mark Humphrey “It has been awhile since I've read Hoppe, and Rothbard; but I suspect Hoppe's reasoning goes: either we all own ourselves, or everyone owns everyone else. Since the first proposition is clearly more defensible than the latter absurd proposition, one can affirm self ownership as valid. But if this is the argument, it fails. For that argument assumes that which it sets out to prove, namely that an ethical concept, "ownership", exists. But on this basis, ownership remains unproven, so that one could just as well assert: "no one owns anything, and anything goes."”
Björn Self-ownership is a natural fact, since a man in his very nature controls his own mind and body (natural disposition), that is, he is a natural self-owner of his own will and person (having a free will) and if this was not true, neither could he effectively control any property and, therefore, not own it. In other words; “nothing could control and own something”.
Naturally, praxeology the science of human action, by itself logically confirms the natural fact of self-ownership, since praxeology is based upon “the acting man consciously intending to improve his own satisfaction” and I quote from answers.com:
“From praxeology Mises derived the idea that every conscious action is intended to improve a person's satisfaction. He was careful to stress that praxeology is not concerned with the individual's definition of end satisfaction, just the way he sought that satisfaction. The way in which a person will increase his satisfaction is by removing a source of dissatisfaction. As the future is uncertain so every action is speculative.
An acting man is defined as one capable of logical thought — to be otherwise would be to make one a mere creature who simply reacts to stimuli by instinct. Similarly an acting man must have a source of dissatisfaction which he believes capable of removing, otherwise he cannot act.
Another conclusion that Mises reached was that decisions are made on an ordinal basis. That is, it is impossible to carry out more than one action at once, the conscious mind being only capable of one decision at a time — even if those decisions can be made in rapid order. Thus man will act to remove the most pressing source of dissatisfaction first and then move to the next most pressing source of dissatisfaction.
As a person satisfies his first most important goal and after that his second most important goal then his second most important goal is always less important than his first most important goal. Thus, for every further goal reached, his satisfaction, or utility, is lessened from the preceding goal. This is the rule of diminishing marginal utility.
In human society many actions will be trading activities where one person regards a possession of another person as more desirable than one of his own possessions, and the other person has a similar higher regard for his colleague's possession than he does for his own. This subject of praxeology is known as catallactics, and is the more commonly accepted realm of economics.”
http://www.answers.com/Praxeology?gwp=11&ver=2.0.1.458&method=3
Further:
The Ethics of Liberty, page 45:
Footnote:
“[1]Professor George Mavrodes, of the department of philosophy of the University of Michigan, objects that there is another logical alternative: namely, “that no one owns anybody, either himself or anyone else, nor any share of anybody.” However, since ownership signifies range of control, this would mean that no one would be able to do anything, and the human race would quickly vanish.”
http://mises.org/rothbard/ethics/eight.asp
Or in my own words from the essay “Normative principles”:
“Why must anybody own anything?
In accordance with our objective test to find out if something is a condition for something else, we grasp a state of things where the following principle is none existent anywhere and at all:
“Everybody owns themselves and their Justly owned property rights”.
Nobody would be able to do anything, since nobody has the right to control anything. Not even themselves (see below about property rights in your own person).
This question is not only a contradiction it is also silly. You ask a question which means that you control yourselves (natural disposition), that is owning yourself (see below the excellent writing of Hans-Hermann Hoppe). The other contradiction is that if nobody would own anything, nobody would be able to hinder anyone to own anything either since they would otherwise have an invalid control (having the disposition to) of everyone else, that is having an invalid ownership to everybody else (see below about valid property rights in your own person).
Ownership itself is, therefore, an objective condition for the preservation of human life.”
http://normativeprinciples.blogspot.com/2006/12/normative-principles-pure-free-market_10.html
Björn Lundahl
Göteborg, Sweden
Published: December 29, 2006 4:57 PM
Björn Lundahl
I will post this again since I do believe that my comment regarding none existence of any property rights is here presented more clearly and logically than in my above post.
Life and self-ownership
Mark Humphrey “I don't want to precipitate trench warfare with devoted Rothbardians, but I strongly suspect that Rothbard owed his insight about "life as the standard of moral value" to Ayn Rand. I can't prove this, of course. Sadly, in "The Ethics of Liberty", (published in the early Eighties) Rothbard chose to, in a sense, blacklist Rand by claiming that NO ONE, other than himself, in the libertarian movement was working to develope a system of rationally defensible ethics. (Maybe Rothbard meant "at the moment I am writing this statement".)”
Björn That life is an axiomatic value and functions “as the standard of moral value” in an ethical system, Rothbard could, alternatively for example, have gotten this insight from Mises himself through analyzing his statement in his book, “Human Action”, page 11:
“We may say that action is the manifestation of a man's will.”
http://mises.org/humanaction/chap1sec1.asp
I am not saying that Rothbard did get his insight from Mises; I am only saying that it was possible. Surely, many other possibilities exist which we do not know anything about.
Mark Humphrey “It has been awhile since I've read Hoppe, and Rothbard; but I suspect Hoppe's reasoning goes: either we all own ourselves, or everyone owns everyone else. Since the first proposition is clearly more defensible than the latter absurd proposition, one can affirm self ownership as valid. But if this is the argument, it fails. For that argument assumes that which it sets out to prove, namely that an ethical concept, "ownership", exists. But on this basis, ownership remains unproven, so that one could just as well assert: "no one owns anything, and anything goes."”
Björn Self-ownership is a natural fact, since a man in his very nature controls his own mind and body (natural disposition), that is, he is a natural self-owner of his own will and person (having a free will) and if this was not true, neither could he effectively control any property and, therefore, not own it. In other words; “nothing could control and own something”.
Naturally, praxeology the science of human action, by itself logically confirms the natural fact of self-ownership, since praxeology is based upon “the acting man consciously intending to improve his own satisfaction” and I quote from answers.com:
“From praxeology Mises derived the idea that every conscious action is intended to improve a person's satisfaction. He was careful to stress that praxeology is not concerned with the individual's definition of end satisfaction, just the way he sought that satisfaction. The way in which a person will increase his satisfaction is by removing a source of dissatisfaction. As the future is uncertain so every action is speculative.
An acting man is defined as one capable of logical thought — to be otherwise would be to make one a mere creature who simply reacts to stimuli by instinct. Similarly an acting man must have a source of dissatisfaction which he believes capable of removing, otherwise he cannot act.
Another conclusion that Mises reached was that decisions are made on an ordinal basis. That is, it is impossible to carry out more than one action at once, the conscious mind being only capable of one decision at a time — even if those decisions can be made in rapid order. Thus man will act to remove the most pressing source of dissatisfaction first and then move to the next most pressing source of dissatisfaction.
As a person satisfies his first most important goal and after that his second most important goal then his second most important goal is always less important than his first most important goal. Thus, for every further goal reached, his satisfaction, or utility, is lessened from the preceding goal. This is the rule of diminishing marginal utility.
In human society many actions will be trading activities where one person regards a possession of another person as more desirable than one of his own possessions, and the other person has a similar higher regard for his colleague's possession than he does for his own. This subject of praxeology is known as catallactics, and is the more commonly accepted realm of economics.”
http://www.answers.com/Praxeology?gwp=11&ver=2.0.1.458&method=3
Further:
The Ethics of Liberty, page 45:
Footnote:
“[1]Professor George Mavrodes, of the department of philosophy of the University of Michigan, objects that there is another logical alternative: namely, “that no one owns anybody, either himself or anyone else, nor any share of anybody.” However, since ownership signifies range of control, this would mean that no one would be able to do anything, and the human race would quickly vanish.”
http://mises.org/rothbard/ethics/eight.asp
Or in my own words:
Why must anybody own anything?
In accordance with our objective test to find out if something is a condition for something else, we grasp a state of things where the following principle is none existent anywhere and at all:
“The existence of property rights”:
In a world without any property rights nobody would be able to do anything, since nobody has the right to control anything. Not even themselves (see below about property rights in your own person).
This question is not only a contradiction it is also silly. You ask a question which means that you control yourselves (natural disposition), that is owning yourself (see below the excellent writing of Hans-Hermann Hoppe). The other contradiction is that if nobody would own anything, nobody would be able to hinder anyone to own anything either since they would otherwise have an invalid control (having the disposition to) of everyone else, that is having an invalid ownership to everybody else (see below about valid property rights in your own person).
Ownership itself is, therefore, an objective condition for the preservation of human life.
Please read some of Hans-Hermann Hoppe´s excellent writing from the book “The Ethics and Economics of Private Property”:
http://mises.org/etexts/hoppe5.pdf
And to:
ON THE ULTIMATE JUSTIFICATION OF THE ETHICS OF PRIVATE PROPERTY:
http://www.hanshoppe.com/publications/econ-ethics-10.pdf
Björn Lundahl
Published: March 15, 2007 3:31 PM