0) You presupposes no externalities for the island? It is a world unto itself, with no outside authority or higher recourse? I am willing to accept the premise for the sake of discussion, but it ought to be made explicit.

If so;

1) You, Fred and I constitute a government prior to you and Fred deciding to call your joint agreement a government. Ignoring that seems silly. We make up the totality of the society of our island, and as such, all rights, responsibilities and laws flow from us.

2) You provide no basis for comparison between the ad hoc agreements between the three of us that constituted that ‘government’, or ‘compact’ if you prefer. Thus it is impossible for anyone to know in what way the new You/Fred agreement is in opposition to the existing social order.

3) You spectacularly betray your bias with the phrase “…government, which can be defined as ‘that institution through which everyone attempts to live at the expense of everyone else’.” That does not however, change the fundamental question;

4) You ask if you and Fred are within your “rights”, which presupposes some mythical set of “rights” that exist on our island somehow without you, Fred or I being there to exercise them. As Jeremy Bentham said, this concept of “natural rights” is “…nonsense upon stilts”.

5) None of this changes the basic choices I have in that situation:

a) Tolerate and accept the social contract
b) Try to amend it or change it
c) Leave it by emigrating
d) Violate it
e) Revolt against it

My decision will no doubt be based on quite a few factors, including my perception of the intention of You and Fred, my willingness to work with or for you as the case may be, the value I place on you and Fred as the totality of my society, relative levels of coercive potential (who is better armed or better able to make use of those arms), and my prospects for a similar or better lifestyle by emigrating.

The right wing, in general, permits economic freedom, but does not permit individuals to make personal lifestyle choices.
The left wing, in general, permits no economic freedom, but does permit individuals to make personal lifestyle choices.
Libertarianism, in general, permits economic freedom, and does permit individuals to make personal lifestyle choices.

Thus I continue to assert that Libertarianism (capitalized to emphasize that it is Libertarianism as defined by the Libertarian Party) is, indeed, a centrist system. This matters to me because once upon a time, when Adam Smith, J.S.Mill, Lord Acton, and others were beginning to define Libertarianism, they called it Liberalism. This word continued to imply capitalism (a.k.a economic freedom) as well as religious tolerance until the 20th century, when the Socialists decided that the first thing they would redistribute would be the label “Liberal”, which they redistributed to themselves. Once they redistributed our word, we had no label, and eventually settled on Libertarianism as a replacement. Some Libertarians, for example Milton Freedman, continued to use the word Liberal, but modified it to “Classic Liberal”. This is an acceptable substitute. The problem with “Right Libertarian” is that a “Right Libertarian” would be one who believed in complete economic freedom, but limited personal freedom: too much personal freedom to be called a conservative, but too little to be in the center of the Libertarian camp.

I have a couple of problems with that response. The first being that Mr. Paul knows exactly what I am saying when I say \u2018right libertarianism\u2019. He does the same thing in his article The Corporation when he writes \u201cThe Corporation, by Joel Bakan, is a left liberal rant with some interesting substance beneath it.\u201d In taking pains to say \u201cleft liberal\u201d, he is asserting that there is a liberal tradition other than that of Joel Bakan, and that it is not identified with the same characteristics that make Bakan\u2019s \u201cleft\u201d.

When I use the term “left liberal”, it is to differentiate it from “classical liberals” like Milton Freedman, Adam Smith, J.S.Mill, and others. This is a very different Liberal tradition. As a matter of fact, it is Libertarianism.

Given that anarchists are generally comfortable describing themselves as \u201cthe left wing of all socialisms\u201d, and are explicitly anti-capitalist, I think that it is fair t, if there are two competing viewpoints both under the \u2018flag\u2019 of libertarianism, to call them the \u2018left libertarians\u2019 and for the sake of symmetry to call the other group \u2018right libertarians\u2019. Further basis for anarchists/libertarian socialists to be given the moniker \u2018left libertarian\u2019 is their critique of Marxism. They claim to be \u201cleft\u201d of both the State and capitalism, so using the logic of the coiners of the term, any proponent of capitalism must be to the \u201cright\u201d of their position. The very recent, and geographically limited, use of the term \u2018libertarian\u2019 to connote a set of political/economic beliefs that embrace capitalism seems only to be confusing the issue.

All of the anarchists I know are opposed to all government. Socialism requires that the state redistribute wealth from those who have earned it to those who have not. Since there would be no state to do this in an anarchist society, I’m not sure how it is possible to have anarchy which was somehow socialist at the same time. In the absence of all government, the result would be capitalism: that is, you own what you create. The main difference is that you would have to enforce your own property rights, so you had better be well armed if you want to create anything without having it stolen. Anarcho-capitalists are really just consistent anarchists.

Libertarians, particularly those who are involved in the Libertarian Party,
are fond of a quiz called the Nolan Test or the World\u2019s Smallest
Political Quiz. This quiz is incredibly simplistic, attempting to map all
possible politics onto two axes. It is exceedingly obvious to anyone who has
ever seen the quiz that it is an evangelistic tool, nothing more. It is an
ideological litmus test; answer \u201cyes to every question on it, and you
become a macho \u201cself governor\u201d and are allowed to sneer disdainfully
at anyone who would answer differently.

It is, indeed simplistic. It only has two axes. Simplistic, however, is a
relative term. It is surely more sophistacated then the one axis system
in common use, which causes leftists to conclude that Libertarians are
right-wing because we are not Socialists, and rightists to conclude that
Liberatarians are left-wing because we are neither Theocrats nor Imperialists.
As for sneering, I have noticed that non-Libertarians on both the left and
right are no less disdainful of us as we are of them, and with less reason:
we would not impose anything upon them, we would just remove from them the
“right” to manage our lives. And though they may have a legal right to do so,
they can never have a moral right to do so, any more then the laws of Germany
gave Hitler the “right” to kill Jews.

To have a link on your website to the most simplistic, two-dimensional
political quiz going and then accuse someone else of being confused by their
overly simplistic political world-view seems almost more comical than
hypocritical.

Again, two axes are more simplistic than any other possibility. Except one
axis, that is. Do you know of a three (or more) dimentional scale which would
be an even more sophisticated measure? I’m all for it.

more descriptive, hence nuanced, terms. In broadest terms, we are, in this
exchange between Mr. Paul and myself, discussing the differences between
anarchist and propertarian schools of thought.

I would not accept the assumption that no anarchists accept the legitimacy of
private property. Even if they did, who exactly would be responsible for
confiscating your cloths, books, and baby pictures in an anarchist society?
The government?

I stand by my appropriation of Galbraith\u2019s quote based on the main thrust
of Galbraith\u2019s work, which was that as societies become relatively more
affluent, private business tends to eclipse the public sector, and due to a
need of private business to create or manufacture consumer wants to sustain
themselves, the public sector becomes neglected. His argument that in a system
of free markets alone, private goods will be over provided and and public
goods will be under provided, makes the application of his quote to anyone who
argues for the primacy of free markets appropriate.

I do not know the context, only the quote. Perhaps he *meant* all people who
perfer a free market economy to a command and control economy.

Then I will address it directly, though many of my arguments previously can be
seen through an ethical lens as well. The morality of libertarianism is, in
the words of Murray Rothbard, applying a universal human ethic to government.
That sounds fantastic doesn\u2019t it? Of course, treating a governmental
system as if it were a human being is odd, sort of like the legal fiction of a
corporation being a legal entity. Anthropomorphizing government doesn\u2019t
constitute a moral stance.

It is not a matter of anthropomorphizing government. The statist school of
thought believes that when a group of people declare themselves to be ‘a
government’, they magically obtain new and extensive rights as a group which
none of them ever had as individuals. I, on the other hand, would argue that
the rights of a group are exactly the sum of the rights of it’s members. If
none of the individuals in the group have a right to rob me, then how can it
be said that the group as a whole has a right to tax me?

This position ignores a fundamental aspect of government; that it is us.
Government is the expression of the collective ethos of a society, perhaps
excepting totalitarian systems imposed against a resisting populace. As Robert
Nozick pointed out in The Examined Life, \u201cthe libertarian view looked
solely at the purpose of government, not at its meaning; hence, it took an
unduly narrow view of purpose, too\u201d (italics his).

Except that I am not one of the us which it is. Good god, I’ve never even
voted for a winning candidate! So what we’re down to is that it’s ok for two
wolves and a lamb to vote for what to have for dinner, so long as they say to
the lamb “don’t feel bad, you’re one of us!”

A government is a way for a people to jointly and severally express and
affirming their values. To remove every internal moral consideration from
government and look only at, or restrict the functioning of it to, strictly
utilitarian projects does keep the dissenter from being made an accomplice in
some morally questionable activity, but denies the majority the option of
affirming their position on the subject. This creates not a tyranny of the
majority, as the libertarian canard goes, but a tyranny of the individual.

Except that the majority is nothing but a group of individuals. If each one
of them wants to put up a sign that “affirms” their feeling on an issue, then
I suppose I’ll have to look at the signs. Their property, their issue. But I
am also free to ignore their affirmation, if I do not share their values.

In a society with a minarchist government, particularly in the utopian
versions of a privately run minarchy, there is no room for expressing ties of
solidarity and mutual concern through any channel but privately owned ones,
and who, owning such a channel, is going to allow it to be used in expressing
views or positions contra his/her own?

Well, for one, you are doing that right now. You own the “channel” of your
blog. I am expressing views or positions that are contrary to yours. I
expect that you will leave this reply in place. If you choose not to,
however, I can go back to my blog, which is my privately owned channel, and
post it there. It is little problem that these channels are privately owned,
since anybody can have one. It is governments that create things like the FCC
to limit expression to that which is “politically acceptable”. Nobody else
has the power.

Like the market, the state is an activity, not an entity. It is not somehow
independent of the way of life that it forms a part of. That way of life, that
society, revolves around work with all of its attendant structures of control
and hierarchy.

John Hospers, elder statesman of the Libertarian Party in the US, sought to
justify wage-labor, factory discipline and hierarchic management by noting
that they\u2019re imposed in Leninist regimes as well as under capitalism. He
sees nothing demeaning in taking orders from bosses, for

\u201chow else could a large scale factory be organized?\u201d

Frederick Engels agrees:

\u201cwanting to abolish authority in large-scale industry is tantamount
to wanting to abolish industry itself.\u201d

Some people giving orders and others obeying them: this is the essence of
servitude. Of course, as Hospers smugly observes, \u201cone can at least
change jobs,\u201d but you can\u2019t avoid having a job \u2014 just as under
statism one can at least change nationalities but you can\u2019t avoid
subjection to one nation-state or another. But freedom means more than the
right to change masters.

The difference between the “orders” you get from your employer (if you have
one) and those you get from government is the difference between a carrot and
a stick. Your employer cannot harm you for refusing an “order”. The
government regularly harms people that refuse it’s orders. Because of this,
an employer must “make it worth your while” to follow his orders by paying
you. The government does not need to do so, it can just torture, kill, or
imprison you if you ignore it’s orders.

There is also no requirement that everyone have an employer. Of course you
need to gather resources to meet your needs, but there are many ways to do
that without having a job. Anyone who can provide anything of value to anyone
can “be his own boss” just by selling his service directly to those who need
it. If even that is too “hierarchic” for you, since in order to be paid you
would need to provide something which people actually value, you can always go
off and hunt, gather, or farm to meet your needs. It is not guaranteed that
you will make a good living this way, and many people will take jobs because
they find that they can provide themselves with a better lifestyle that way,
but there is no requirement that you take a job.

I disagree with Hospers that there is no other way to organize an industry
then through a top-down management approach. If people want to form co-ops
and run a business “democraticly”, they have every right to do so. It may or
may not be efficient, but if that is what they want, nobody in a Libertarian
society would have any right to stop them. Their success would be limited
only by the laws of nature, which Libertarians, unlike Statists, are not
trying to repeal.

Let us assume that you are living on an ungoverned island. I live on one side of you, and Fred lives on the other. We three form the entire population of the Island. One day, Fred and I are attempting to figure out a way to live without working. We decide to form a government, which can be defined as “that institution through which everyone attempts to live at the expense of everyone else”. We knock on your door, and inform you that we have been so kind as to form a government to “help” you decide how to live. We are having an election now, and we two have agreed that I should be President and he should be Vice-President. However, it is good form to let you, our fellow citizen, vote as well. The outcome is assured. Your choices, we say, are to agree to be taxed in order to support us, or to swim for it.

Are Fred and I within our rights? If not, by what theory have we coerced you, since you do retain the right to flee?

Any further comments that do not follow this advice will be summarily deleted.

In referring once again to the “social contract” you say that one can “opt out” at any time by leaving the territory of the contract. I see two problems here, both of which I am sure you will think is indicative of an overly restrictive concept of “contract”.

By claiming that one can “opt out” of the social contract, here you seem to be assuming the very point you are trying to establish. it is difficult to concieve of a way to opt out of something you never “opted into” in the first place.

My second observation concerns your peculiar phrase “the territory of the contract”. Contracts pertain primarily to individuals, not geography. If, A, B, C, E and F form an association for the mutual use of their land and property, it is the property of these individuals, and the fact that they have established an agreement amongst themselves, that sets the parameters, or “jurisdiction”, if you will, of the contract. Now, consider “D”, who is not part of this pact and who is a sovereign individual? What would it mean for A, B, C, E and F to inform this hapless fellow that he is within the “territory of their contract”?

Finally, you write that you cannot see how enforcement of property rights is any different than the requirement to pay taxes. I trust you are not really suggesting that the policeman and the armed robber are on the same team.

Tim

His rejoinder to my list was almost entirely either non-responsive to the issues I raised or minimally responsive while attempting to change the subject back to the narrow focus necessary for right-libertarian rhetoric to make even a modicum of sense.

To bring the second set of your questions back to the topic at hand, my intention is to show that in the actually existing United States, you cannot conflate tax paying with illegal torture of dissidents, and any attempt to do so is well and truly a case of intellectual dishonesty. Tax paying in the US is a function of social contract, one which you as an individual are welcome to opt out of at any time by vacating the territory of the contract.

My question to you, and to libertarianism in general, is; if you can consider demands for tax-paying to be morally no different than detention and torture, how can you except rent-seeking or contract enforcement from this moral category? Any demand for tax-paying is based on a concept of property and sovereignty over that property. I fail to see how enforcement of contracts or enforcement of personal property rights in any way differs from demands for tax-paying.

The only logically consistent position that I can see is that personal property can only be singly owned, but not severally, allowing an individual to enforce rules or seek rents but not a corporate body such as a government to do so.

The comment about the torture of dissidents was simply intended as a demonstration of the fact that “popular acceptance” is insufficient justification for aggression by the state. Similarly, popular acceptance by itself if immaterial as a basis for ascribing legitimacy to the state itself. On what basis would you label torture (involuntary) a crime but the payment of taxes a function of the “social contract”? If a “social contract/compact” is to be an effective criteria, it would be helpful to know:

1. Who are the individuals who allegedly comprise this “compact”?
2. How do they obtain rights that are denied to other, dissenting individuals?
3. If members of the compact can impose their will on those living within their “territory”, why not (since there is no strict “property” or “ownership”) on those outside; ie: a compact that imposes taxes to be paid by every person over 6 feet tall, regardless of location? Is territorial sovereignty a moral principle or a pragmatic compromise?

Secondly, what I said was that it does not necessarily follow that all forms of land control imply disposal rights. Only Sovereignty demands the right of disposal. Modern views of ownership usually signify a bundle of “property rights” but do not necessarily demand them. It is relatively common to write a real estate contract with a member of ones family that restricts the right to dispose of the property to a specific individual or class (other family members). If you take an ultra-strict view of ownership, then the person in possession of that deed does not own that property. Perhaps I should have simply rephrased that to read “it does not necessarily follow that all forms of land control imply absolute rights to that property.”

As to your second point, I believe that popular acceptance of something like torture of dissidents, within a country which has no barriers to emigration, does indeed point towards collective voluntary consent, if not individual voluntary consent in all those who do not actively oppose it. Mere private disapproval does not constitute dissent.

Additionally, it is intellectually dishonest in the extreme to attempt to conflate the torture of political dissidents with any sort of demand for someone to uphold the terms of a social contract, such as tax-paying.

On the distinction between individual voluntary consent and popular acceptance, the former provides an (allegedly) moral justification for the state, the latter offers a sociological observation. Physical torture of political dissidents may be supported by popular acceptance, but it can hardly be reconciled with individual voluntary consent, in that the subjects of this torture are not “consenting”.

Tim