My second point was thus:
2.Non-Initiation of Force: Libertarians claim to believe that “No person should initiate the use of force against another person.” Fine and dandy, except that what they really mean is “No person should do something improper according to Libertarian ideology”. For instance, government collecting taxes is “initiation of force”, governments enforcing contracts is not…
Mr Paul responds:
This is an important distinction. The difference is the point of initiation:
- I have not agreed to pay taxes. Therefore, in the tax game, the first move goes to the government. They attempt to force me to pay them, and I resist. The first use of force is by the government.
- On the other hand, if I enter into a contract, and receive something of value, that item of value is owned by me contingent on my complying with the contract. If I am later unable or unwilling to comply with it, I no longer own the property. Were I to attempt to forcibly prevent the other party from reclaiming his property, that would be an initiation of force. Were the government to respond, it would not be an initiation of force. It has previously been initiated.
There is another case in violation of contract, which is the one where the parties to the contract disagree as to it’s meaning, but this case can be resolved by mediation by a non-governmental (or governmental) individual or body which attempts to make a determination fair to all. In this case, there is no use of force.
- In the US, taxes are but one part of a multilateral contract between several parties; the three branches of the government, the individual states, and citizens. The whole body of laws in a nation constitute the contract.
- You have agreed to continue to reside within the bounds of the nation, even though you are free to stop doing so at any time. Therefore, you have given tacit assent to the contract.
- While within the bounds of the nation, you have voluntarily partaken of the services offered in exchange for taxes (among other things); roads, municipal services, common defense, etc. These voluntary takings further point to assent to the contract and could be taken as placing a requirement on you to uphold your part of the contract i.e. to jointly pay for the provision and upkeep of these services. The example of the Amish communities who are no longer asked to pay Social Security taxes due to a long history of voluntary non-use of those particular services is somewhat instructive in this regard.
To couch the entire thing within the rhetoric of voluntary contracts, the negotiaton commenced upon your reaching the age of majority or suffrage and went something like this:
- Several parties (your fellow citizens) approached you and through the aegis of the government, representing their several will, asked you if you would assent to a contract in which you would receive the full use and freedom of the various services and goods provided by the canon of the laws of that Nation, including but not limited to; common defense, networks of roads and other means of transport, provision or guarantee of access to sanitary and power services, etc…
- They then enumerated a number of responsibilities and duties that would constitute your portion of this contract; registering for selective service, paying taxes on your income and other activities, sitting on juries to judge your peers, etc…
- Further, they enumerated several ways in which the contract can, within the terms of the thing itself, be modified: through voting for candidates and platforms to best represent you, amendments to the laws and constitutions of the nation and its constituent parts, etc…
- These same parties presented to you an option, that could be exercised either then, or at any later time of your choosing, to exit that contract at any time by leaving the territory of the nation, and erected no barriers to such leavings.
- You, through your continued presence in, and use of the services of, the nation, have agreed to the contract. You are free, at any time, to opt-out of that contract and enter into another contract somewhere else.
Only if emigration is disallowed, such as in the case of Cuba, can an individual be said to be coerced into such a social contract. See my response to Tim Hopkins comment for a further elaboration of the potential responses one has when, after assenting to such a contract for a period, decides to no longer honor it.
Is it possible that the real issue here is one of initiation of force, but whether or not one believes that property can be owned, be severally owned, and be severally owned under the name of ‘government’?
Table of contents for Thirteen Things That Are Wrong With Libertarianism
- Thirteen Things That Are Wrong With Libertarianism
- Libertarianism Discussion: Introduction
- Libertarianism Discussion: Axiomatics
- Libertarianism Discussion: Initiation of Force
A very effective rejoinder. I wanted to write about it, but found—as usual—that when I start to reflect on the “logic” of the “simple system” I get instantly confused by the sleight of hand required to boil down the complexity of life in society to a few propositions (none of which are true).
In reality, to speak of “freedom”, a nominalization, is another level of abstraction removed from sentences such as “Man was born to be free…” which is, according to me, an incomplete sentence. Arguments about “freedom” always turn on the assumption that there is some agreed-upon meaning for “freedom” and that the persons arguing agree on the definition. But even a definition is too abstract for me—I want people to tell me what being free means to them in pragmatic terms tied to a specific action or a specific context. “Free to own property or to acquire property” isn’t that high on my own list of priorities, nor would I necessarily concede that a Roman slave at the mercy of a patrician owner is by definition less free than the owner. According to my definition of freedom, owning property automatically makes you less free in one sense and more free in others. It depends on what you’re looking at.
The difference between me and the average libertarian is that I would never take the position that my arguments are based on logic or even that being based on logic is a test of truthfulness or validity (except for logical validity).
I get very frustrated with systems that seem to assume a match between language and concepts that does not exist in reality. In reality, “freedom” does not in fact exist and property only exists because somewhere along the line natural selection favored the primates who were good at marking out and defending their territory. But it’s not only primates. My hamster, for example, firmly believes that anything she marks is “hers” and is upset for days when I clean out her cage (and her hoard). If she were larger, or could bite harder, perhaps she might succeed in making this true. I’ve always thought that the social contract is basically a contract of adhesion.
Anyway, a very good response. Libertarians are procrustean thinkers, I think, though perhaps that doesn’t distinguish them much from the rest of us…. I really wanted to comment on your comments, and maybe sometime I will, but I can’t get my head around libertarianism in the first place.
Your argument might work reasonably well if all births occurred outside the country in question, and all immigrants were required to agree to the contract as a condition of entry. It breaks down if people are born in the country which wishes to govern them, unless you subscribe to the odd belief that parents can bind their children to a contract. As far as I know, ‘genetic contracts’ are not enforcible anywhere in the world.
As for the ‘love it or leave it’ argument, believe me, if there were somewhere we could go, we would already be gone. One of the major problems in society today is the fact that every square inch of the earth is claimed by one tyrannous government or another (and some are claimed by more than one). This was not true as recently as 200 years ago, when there actually was someplace where people like me could go and be free. For that matter, when the United States was abiding by the constitution (up until about the civil war) it was reasonably free, and I would have had little problem staying here.
Alternatively, if I was able to buy a piece of real estate somewhere on a national border, and then leave your “contract” and take that piece of land with me, I probably would not worry if the arrangement was “fair” or not … I would arrange with some like minded people to buy some land on the border somewhere, and we could secede from the Union together, and form a free community. That would be fine with me.
But now, flight is not an option. The only thing we can do is fight. Our chances may be slim, but there is something which Lincoln said which may be germane: “When you see the rabbit pursued by the fox, it is well to bear in mind that while the fox is running for his supper, the rabbit is running for his life.”
Freedom, to my way of thinking, is the absence of coercion. It is that state I would be in, were I to have no person doing violence against me, or threatening violence against me, for doing anything which did not infringe on their rights.
The things which even a free person would not be able to do without inviting violence would be:
(1) To physically harm or threaten harm to another person, except in self-defense.
(2) To trespass onto the property of another person.
(3) To steal the property of another person.
(4) To defraud another person.
(5) To damage the property of another person (e.g. pollution of a stream which flows off my property)
(6) To violate a contract with another.
Of course these short phrases are not full legal definitions. For example, for number 6, there would have to be some ground rules for what contracts the government was willing to enforce. The people might well decide that a contract between two manufacturers which stipulated that each would limit production in order to raise the price of their product should be unenforcible. Surely the contract by which one person sold himself into slavery to another would be unenforcible in any sane society.
As for the accusation of procrustean thinking, statism strikes me as a better example of that vice: for example, if some guy in a fine hat (say a policemen’s cap) decides that I am producing too much, he takes from me and gives to somebody he thinks is producing too little. How very nice of him, to assure us that my production will not be “too tall” for his tastes, and that another person’s production will not be “too short”.
You are ignoring the coercion inherent in the very idea of property. As Robert L. Hale said:
It is a sleight of hand to attempt to replace the freedom to use, in the case of common property, with the freedom to dispose or exclude in the case of private property.
This rhetoric of freedom and government interference is not neutral, and should never be treated as such. It presupposes that those who own property are entitled to their holdings. If I question that presupposition, which I do, attempts to defend it on a basis of “freedom” are practically begging the question.
There are roughly 200 nations to which you could emigrate. They are the product of an anarcho-capitalist free market: there is no over-government dictating to those sovereign nations. Indeed, the only difference between the anarchy of nations and libertopia is that anarcho-capitalists are wishing for a smaller granularity. These nations have found that it is most cost-efficient to defend themselves territorially.
If any other market provided 200 choices, libertarians would declare that the sacred workings of the market blessed whatever choices were offered. The point is that choices do exist: it’s up to libertarians to show that there is something wrong with the market of nations in a way they would accept being applied to markets within nations.
Libertarianism is a combination of values that just doesn’t exist: the government equivalent of a really posh residence for very little money. You can find nations which have much lower taxes, etc.: just don’t expect them to be first class.
And the reason these combinations don’t exist is probably simple: the free market of government services essentially guarantees that there is no such thing as the free lunch libertarians want. It’s not competitive.
Interesting thinking. When you speak of property in this sense, are you speaking only of land, or do you believe that I have the right to come and take from you the cake you just baked or the digging stick you just sharpened? If it’s the latter, send me all your property or I will come and kill you. If it’s the former, just sign over the deed to your house.
Interesting market. One in which those who choose not to buy are killed or imprisoned. Yes, 200 market choices is generally a good sign. 200 advancing enemies is generally not.
Do you have any idea how childish, and non-responsive that sounds?
I am not positing any particular type of property. I am questioning the validity of the right-libertarian definition of property. It seems to be an entirely negative view of freedom and ignores an awful lot of history of communal property on a basis that has never been adequately explained to me.
Please explain how the ‘right’ to use, dispose or exclude; any property ‘right’ really, exists except by common consent of those on and near the territory in question.
It all comes down to one simple question for anyone who espouses any sort of propertarian philosophy – on what authority do you derive property rights?
Perhaps the failure of that perfect market (by right-libertarian standards) to produce anything resembling the utopia that right-libertarians seem to believe is the only true or just society is a failure of the market, making it a fallible market. On the other hand, perhaps the solution you seek is simply not competitive in the real world.