Brainpolice : Economics, Competition

Gustave De Molinari and The Production of Security

Brainpolice — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 23:02:00 GMT

Gustave De Molinari was a radical classical liberal associated with Frederic Bastiat and the French liberal school of economics. In his work "The Production of Security", Molinari was the first economist to propose the possibility of free competition for the production of security, which had been an untouched matter by laissez-faire economists up until this point. Frederic Bastiat, who was a fairly radical classical liberal economist for his time, initially was tempted to disagree with Molinari on this point, but when he was on his deathbed not long after the release of "The Production of Security" apparently he aknowledged that Molinari was the continuer of his work.

Molinari did not see any reason why economists should argue for free competition in all sorts of areas or industries, and then suddenly create a gigantic caviat for the production of security and arbitration. If there should be consumer choice and free entry to the provision of all sorts of products and services such as food, clothing, shelter and all sorts of types of industries, then why not security and arbitration? If there should be no legal monopoly on such things, why wouldn't this also apply to security and arbitration? Molinari came to oppose both "monopoly and communism" in any industry. In other words, he opposed both state and absolute communal control of industry, viewing free competition as the alternative.

Many contemporary free market anarchists consider Molinari to at least be a proto-anarchist, since he had technically surpassed the formal concept of "limited government" from an economic perspective. By the very least, what Molinari realized is a necessary component of market anarchism. Laissez-faire economists prior to Molinari simply did not question the state production of security or arbitration itelf. With this being aknowledged, Molinari never formally called himself an anarchist, but he did become associated with the movement known as panarchism, which tends to favor pluralism and legal aterritorialism. The degree to which panarchism is even distinguishable from anarchism without adjectives is debatable.

While he is not the most well-known historical figure, Molinari more or less represents the final conclusion of the French liberal school of economics and the first thinker to formally propose free competition in the production of security. In this regaurd, Molinari does have historical significance as a precursor to free market anarchism. Molinari's work was also circulated in America and partially praised by the individualist anarchist Benjamin Tucker, who favored free competition in the production of security himself. The revival of Molinari as a key figure is partially due to Murray Rothbard highlighting him and writting an editor's preface or foreward to the most recent English edition of "The Production of Security".

To an extent, the significance of Molinari's contribution has alot to do with how early on in time it was that he initially made it. "The Production of Security" was released in 1849, and the idea of free competition for the production of security was largely absent from laissez-faire economists throughout the rest of the century. Even the early leaders of the Austrian school of economics did not really touch the question. In fact, it more or less wasn't until the time of Murray Rothbard that a laissez-faire economist would meaningfully press the issue of free competition in the production of security. With this historical understanding, Molinari was quite radical for his time and he definitely has significance.

Competition and Cooperation

Brainpolice — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 12:34:00 GMT

In the economic sense of the term, competition refers to the incentive to better appease a multiplicity of demands, and cooperation refers to the most efficient and ethical means of meeting such demands. An individual's demands are better met through cooperation and production than through isolation and destruction. Competition does not refer to a war of all against all or atomism, it refers to a process in which decentralized cooperation is employed in the attempt to fulfill a dynamic and variant latticework of demands. Monopoly, on the other hand, refers to the lack of competition, the imposition of a singular or more limited array of options through coercive means. Competition and monopoly are therefore dichotomous in this sense, as competition entails a multiplicity of options pursued freely. Competition is a reflection of there being multiple methods of cooperation and multiple ends that cooperation can be used to pursue, and as such there is no absolute dichotomy between competition and cooperation.

Individualism does not regaurd the individual as if they exist in a vacuum, it merely recognizes the individual's sovereignty as co-existing with interpersonal relations, and that it is a fundamental building block of a society. It is erroneous to present a false dichotomy between uniformity and atomism, when neither of the two reflect the nature of an individual let alone a society. Society qua society is founded on voluntary cooperation, but this does not conflict with individual sovereignty. Voluntary cooperation is merely the net effect of people making use of their individual sovereignty, and competition is merely a reflection of the diversity of wants that people pursue as sovereigns. While interpersonal relations are something to take into account, the individual still retains their independance from the transgressions of others in an equilibrium, which aknowledges the competitive element of society that is responsible for creativity and innovation.

Cooperation and production is not an ethical imperative in and of itself, it is something that one has a greater incentive towards in conditions of equal liberty. However, one ultimately retains their sovereignty to not produce and not participate in a particular organization or interaction that they didn't explicitly consent to. In a voluntary society, the methods in which one cooperates and the extent to which there is a binding obligation to cooperate can only be in a contractual context in which consent is explicitly given prior to the enforcement of the obligation. One does not have an unchosen positive obligation to be a member of a particular organization or to participate in its process of decision-making. The implication of this is not the negation of society as such, but the decentralization of society as a consequence of people entering and exiting from a wide array of contractual agreements.

The coercive imposition of uniformity stifles cooperation. It disincentivizes and erodes at competitive alternatives that otherwise would have been fostered through cooperation, and it violates the individual's sovereignty. Coercion is anti-cooperative by its very nature, as it can only establish a parasitic relationship or a zero sum game, while cooperation is geared towards mutual benefit or reciprical relationships. Centralization and monopoly can only establish the elimination of individual choice in the process of cooperation, and therefore the elimination of competition. Competition is necessary to counteract thea rbitrary imposition of a particular set of preferences, otherwise there is no genuine cooperation to speak of, only subservience. Cooperation is not something that is centrally planned or coercively enforced, it is a process of spontaneous order.

Resolving Anarchist Conflict

Brainpolice — Tue, 06 May 2008 00:57:00 GMT

Conflict between the socialist oriented and market oriented camps within anarchism can get very tedious. Many anarcho-communists and anarcho-syndicalists appear to emphatically claim that market anarchism isn't truly anarchism, that opposition to private property and capitalism is a requirement for one to be an anarchist, conflate currently existing political and economic systems with a free market and sometimes even defend welfare states as if take the edges off of the alleged evils of capitalism. Some anarcho-capitalists appear to get baited into functioning as vulgar libertarians or they generally associate themselves too closely with contemporary conservatism and therefore end up defending currently existing corporatism as if it is the result of a free market, claim that all forms of socialism are statist political systems, defend paleoconservative positions on issues such as immigration and romantisize feudalism and colonial America.

The bulk of the debate between the two sides consists of a language barrier, semantics and quibbling over property. There is a language barrier over terms such as capitalism, socialism, communism, anarchism and libertarianism to the point where any true meaning is rendered obsolete. Each side suspects that the other side are merely authoritarians in disguise, and sometimes the suspicion is entirely justified (with some social anarchists functioning as state-socialists and some anarcho-capitalists functioning as conservatives). The more that each camp acts foolishly intolerant and monopolostic, the more likely they are to be pushed back into the statist paradime due to reactionary sentiments, leading to the use of political means to dominate against their alleged enemies. Sometimes they spend more time critisizing eachother than they do critisizing contemporary statist ideologies.

Capitalism has different connotations to the various camps. Some consider capitalism to be the current system, some consider it to be separation between labor and ownership, some consider it to be private ownership of the means of production or the extensive use of capital and some consider it to be a spontaneous order resulting from the voluntary and mutually beneficial interpersonal relations between people in the absence of a central planner or state through a process of free trade relations and competition. Socialism has different connotations as well. Some consider socialism to be worker ownership of the means of production, some consider it to be state ownership of the means of production and some consider it to be some sort of egalitarian free market. There are nearly endless semantics over the meanings of the terms which avoids a real discussion and debate about the actual principles that people advocate. These semantic conflicts even exist within each respective camp, as some market anarchists have abandoned the term capitalism.

Etymologically, anarchism simply means "no rulers". Anything that is without rulers is therefore anarchic by definition. Any philosophy that is opposed to rulers is an anarchistic philosophy by definition. Whatever additional features they may have is only a matter of flavor. On a fundamental level, all anarchists of any type oppose the institution of the state. Anything else that they may support or oppose beside the state is comparatively inconsequential, although it is of course true that non-state institutions may sometimes qualify as examples of rulership. So it does make some degree of sense to say that anarchism is more than mere consistant/radical anti-statism, even if one wants to quibble that such institutions would qualify as states anyways. One way to put it is that anarchists are opposed to crime or plunder in general as a matter of principle, and more large-scale manifestations are merely the institutionalization of crime or plunder. In either case, there is no reason to ostracize people who truly do oppose rulers from the anarchist movement just because they have perhaps a somewhat different flavor than one's particular camp.

The issue of property is the main area of conflict. The property debate has been going on forever. Some social anarchists seem to think that private property is either a product of the state or inevitably leads to a state. Private property may be thought of as either a legal construct or a form of exploitation that precedes and leads to the formation of states. Of course, one cannot logically hold both positions at once, since that would be like taking both sides of a chicken/egg debate at once. Market anarchists tend to define private property in terms that should actually appeal to a socialist, which is that legitimate private property is the product of labor - a labor theory of property aquisition. How can a socialist oppose labor when that is supposed to be their forte? If consistant to their principles, the market anarchist does not support all legal private property titles, for they have an independant standard of justice in property aquisition that would delegitimize currently existing conditions. In short, they oppose the currently existing legal construct. The vulgar libertarian, however, does fall into the trap of defending all or some illegitimate portion of currently existing private property titles and buisiness arrangements.

On the other hand, complications arise over the value of labor, as social anarchists tend to cling to some kind of labor theory of value. This is problematic because it doesn't adequately take into account the labor of the enterprenuer, the dynamic nature of prices and the factor of time in general. Contemporary market anarchists usually have discarded the labor theory of value for a subjective theory of value and theories of time preferance. However, if one observes individualist anarchists such as Benjamin Tucker who still held to a labor theory of value, it would seem to be that case that the such people thought that a free economy would naturally reflect a labor theory of value. So in this sense classical individualist anarchists are entirely supportive of laissez-faire and only disagree with more contemporary market anarchism in terms of what they think the outcome of a free market would be. More contemporary individualist anarchists have merely modified the position in light of changes and improvements in economic theory. If one takes a 19th century individualist anarchist and merely substitutes the subjective theory of value in place of the labor theory of value, one essentially has a contemporary market anarchist.

Diehard social anarchists oppose what they consider to be private property. They often make a distinction between personal property and private property or between possessions and property. They tend to have a principle loosely based on "use" of property that is supposed to be more limited than the extent of control and amount available to the individual that private property allows for. It would seem that there is a threshold of requirements for property ownership with perpetual use at one end and perpetual ownership in the absence of use on the other. If they are pushed and in a logical state of mind, the social anarchist will not tend to condone a standard of perpetual use and the market anarchist will not tend to condone a standard that allows one to hold a title to blatantly abandoned or unowned property, for each of those standards leads to endless absurdities and may justify clearly wrong and exploitative scenarios.

Perpetual use is an absurd criteria for ownership, for it would imply that as soon as one parks their car somewhere then it is no longer theirs and therefore someone else may expropriate the car for themselves. In short, it would justify theft. On the other hand, there are problems with titles to ownership of property, particularly land, that has blatantly been abandoned or neglected by the person with the title to ownership and while there simultaneously are actually other people who actually actively labor upon it. Intergenerational or perpetual ownership over property that one makes no use of yet others do leads to fuedalism. Surely future generations of people should not be bound to a nullified claim of ownership by someone else, some rich aristocrat who no longer contributes in any real way to the upkeep of the property or makes any use of it at all. In order to resolve the issue, some process of identifying or clarifying whether or not the property in question is abandoned by its original owner would make sense. It should be noted, however, that this does not necessarily justify the claims of the geolibertarians, who erroneously conclude that private land ownership is illegitimate and/or there should be collective land ownership as a universal standard.

When the absurdities resulting from the idea of perpetual use are pointed out, the social anarchist will often proclaim "general use" to be the standard for ownership. But general use is very vague, leaving open a range of possibilities. It would seem to be the case that what constitutes general use would have to be agreed upon or arbitrated, quite possibly varying from organization to organization and/or community to community. If this is conceded, then the only real difference between the two sides is a matter of what type of voluntary precedent one personal prefers. So long as each side remains at least passively tolerant of the fact that perhaps different communities or organizations of people will have somewhat different standards, then there is no reason for conflict. Free association resolves the problem. If a standard objectively ends up being more sucessful and efficient through voluntary interactions, then it will tend to win out in the dynamic and evolutionary process of trial and error that is inherent in free association and competition.

Social anarchists demand worker ownership of the means of production. If consistant to the principles of voluntary interpersonal relations, the market anarchist has no choice but to support the liberty of individuals to voluntarily form worker's collectives and opt out of or secede from other particular organizations. If the social anarchist is likewise consistant, they have no choice but to support the liberty of individuals to voluntary form into employer-employee relationships and opt out of or secede from their worker's collectives. If one is forced into or out of such associations through force or the threat thereof, then they would effectively become slaves. So long as neither side actually forces anyone into their prefered organizational structures, each side can mutually persue their desires without infringement upon others. In a sense, the key question to ask is: can I opt out of your organization/community/society? If not, then it is no different than a state. If so, then there obviously is not going to be absolute uniformity in terms of what particular organizations and types of organizations people choose to participate in, as everyone is not identifical in their preferances, traits and abilities.

An interesting cunundrum to present a social anarchist with is, "I want to be a wage slave, I want to work for a boss, so what do you do if I truly do choose to enter into a contractual relationship with someone for wages in exchange for my labor? Why can't I rent out the products of my labor if I sincerely want to? What if I want to opt out of the worker's collective and look for an employer?". If an individual is truly autonamous, then noone may legitimately force them out of this personal association or force them to remain in a particular association, whether it is a single individual or "the majority" or "community". Likewise, an individual should have the liberty to opt out of an employer-employee relationship and voluntarily organize with others into worker's collectives or other types of organization. One must recognize the liberty of even a single individual to secede from an organization. So long as one does not have any genuine debt or contractual obligations withstanding, they should be able to exit the association and persue other ones. That's precisely how free competition works, as undesired and inefficient modes of organization become obsolete by people's choices not to associate with or participate in them.

Forms of organization that are considered to be socialistic are theoretically possible options in a free market. This is something that some people from both the anarcho-capitalist and social anarchist camps seem to not want to aknowledge, each for different reasons and from different perspectives. The consistant proponent of voluntary interpersonal relations has a certain kind of tolerance that allows for those who disagree with them to opt out of their prefered organizations and voluntarily form alternatives. It's essentially a live and let live perspective: don't force me into your community or organization and I shall do likewise. Call it whatever one wants, the law of equal liberty, the non-aggression principle, decision-making in proportion to the degree that one is effected, etc., it's all essentially the same thing. Within the confines of the general principle, anything additional is only optional or preferential.

Philosophies and ideas in general evolve over time, and this is just as true about anarchism as it is about anything else. The economics and philosophy behind anarchism have evolved, sometimes into territory that is very market oriented. There is a progression and tree of sorts that can be traced from the most original anarchists to currently existing factions, including market anarchism. Mutualism can be seen as progressing to individualist anarchism and eventually into contemporary market anarchism, so claims that market anarchism has no place within anarchist tradition is false and ignores the variance that has always existed within the general movement. To try to cling absolutely to every single aspect of an obsolete theory from centuries ago starts to make one rather conservative, and in this sense some social anarchists have become blind traditionalists who are unwilling to modify their ideas in the face of new information. On the other hand, contemporary market anarchists should have a lot of appriciation for early anarchist tradition and be willing to see what they may have in common with more socialist oriented anarchists. They should understand themselves in historical context and aknowledge that certain segments of their philosophy wouldn't exist without those who came before them, the Proudhons and Bakunins and Tuckers and Spooners.

There is no rational reason for there to be the degree of conflict that currently exists between the different camps of anarchists.

The Case For Free Immigration, The Case Against Borders

Brainpolice — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 13:47:00 GMT

Immigration is a hot topic these days, particularly for those in the southern and south-western states of America. There has been a rising anti-immigration sentiment, directed specifically at immigrating Mexicans. The public cries out, "Secure the borders!" and "They're taking our jobs!". There is nothing new about this phenomenon. It has occured time and time again throughout American and European history. The same sentiment was directed towards the Irish, Catholics and Chinese in the 19th century and the Jews and Italians in the early 20th century. The three main contributing factors to anti-immigration sentiment are undoubtably (1) economic protectionism (2) nationalism and (3) racism.

There are many different types of arguements that are made against both "illegal immigration" and immigration in general. Some confine their claims to economics, and base their anti-immigration sentiment on the notion that immigrants are effectively stealing jobs, lowering wages and being leeches on public services. Others have a more nationalistic and cultural approach in which their complaint about immigration has more to do with keeping a "unified culture" and "tradition". Others are downright racist, basing their complaints about immigration on attacks on the hispanic race itself. Even some libertarians have gotten caught up in the sentiment. All of it relies on a mixture of fallacy and disinformation.

I intend to cover as much ground as possible and address the bulk of the arguements put foreward by proponents of border enforcement and immigration restriction. Particular emphasis will be placed on the debate over immigration internal to libertarian movement. Hold onto your horses, because this is going to be a long ride.

"I'm not anti-immigration, I only oppose illegal immigration"

This is a common claim made by many anti-immigrationists, including libertarian ones. But the legal/illegal distinction is entirely disingeuous. It's no different then making a distinction between legal and illegal drug use, and saying "I'm not against the right of people to use drugs, I'm against people illegally doing drugs". From what I can tell, an illegal immigrant is engaging in an act of civil disobedience no different then someone who wishes to smoke pot despite it being against the law.

To my knowledge, libertarians are not supposed to support the law just because it so happens to be the law. Opposing illegal immigration is to concede, by default, that you favor illegalizing immigration to some extent. It is to support the notion that you need special permission from the government, under the guise of regulations, in order to be allowed to live within the territory. There is no way around this. If you favor enforcing laws that restrict or illegalize immigration, you are anti-immigration to some degree. And in order to enforce such restrictions, you must support a government bereaucracy.

The Leeches and The Legal/Illegal Double Standard

To some immigration restrictionists, surely these people are all disease-ridden, jobless, job-stealing (gotta love opposing claims), welfare-sucking criminal hoodlums who believe in communism.

It is undeniable that the public welfare system, which is meant to mean public services in general, is akin to a massive network of parasitism, where resources are redistributed to leech-like recipients. Many right-wing anti-immigrationists argue that the "illegal" immigrants are recipients, and this justifies "kicking the bums out". But this claim is dubious. Actually, many of the "illegals" pay taxes in some form or another. Furthermore, this claim could equally apply to domestic recipients of government funding, which implies kicking domestic citezens out of the country as well. That's the problem with "public property" and all that comes with it: everyone is a potential parasite. Noone is able to escape using the government's services to some degree or another, such as driving on the public roads.

Furthermore, public schooling has been compulsory for a long time, so following this twisted logic we should kick all of the public school students out of the country as well. Afterall, "they're not paying for it". It would be absurd to argue that the solution is to kick people off of their own property and deport them. A real solution would be to privatize them. Have a problem with masses of people using public services? Privatize the public services then. Don't propose new interventions that require more funding and therefore in actual fact an increase in government funding to public services.

I don't really buy into the common notion that the Mexican immigrants come here with the express purpose of sucking off of the breasts of the welfare state and to vote for socialism. On the contrary, in large part I see them as fleeing socialism and quite rationally persueing better economic conditions and oppurtunities, where they will be paid more than 50 cents an hour. It is not immigrants that are responsible for the welfare state that we already have, the gullable domestic populace already intellectually supports it in large part and they are the majority of the recipients of its bread and circuses.

Either way, all such charges that are thrown at immigrants apply equally if not more so to domestic citezens, who vote for socialism and beg for welfare all the time. Are we therefore justified in kicking domestic citezens out of the country for driving on the public roads and sending their children to public schools? Or should we strike at the root, the welfare state itself, rather than using the welfare state as a rationale for violating people's rights and implementing new or expanded government interventions?

The Post-Ponement Arguement and Interventionism

Some proponents of immigration restriction, including libertarian ones, have advanced an argument that roughly goes as follows: "since we still have a welfare state, until it is done away with, we should support government intervention in the name of stopping the migration of people into the country". In short, since intervention X exists, intervention Y is okay as a solution to the problems created by intervention X. This is interventionism, plain and simple. The only libertarian solution would be to get rid of intervention X, in this case, the welfare state. Anything else just leads to a cycle of interventionism and a distraction from the root cause of problems. In practise, you will end up with a welfare state + more police powers and a larger immigration bereaucracy. That's just how these things work.

This particular closed border position is interventionism, since the arguement is essentially that in order to solve the problems created by intervention X (the welfare state) we must support intervention Y (a police state, quite frankly). And in order to possibly enforce these "borders" and immigration "laws", more taxes and spending are inherently required, more planning at the federal level is required and quite a bit of force will be required in order to go through with deportations and whatnot. At the end of the day, I do not consider immigration quotas to be any better than affirmative action, nor do I consider immigration controls in general to not be a form of central planning.

Immigration Restriction As Pre-Emptive Force

On the topic of war, I recall Walter Block argueing that is not sensible to argue for war that on the grounds of what people might do in the future. His point was that it is not libertarian to advocate initiating aggression against another country on the grounds that the country might initiate force in the future. I see the anti-immigration position as being no different. Initiation of force is being "justified" on the grounds of what immigrants might do (that they might accept welfare or they might vote for social democrats). It's pre-emptive force. Using the forceful power of the state to stop other people from using the forceful power of the state is self-defeating in principle. Increasing the power of the state in the name of preventing future increases in the power of the state will only *drum roll* increase the power of the state.

Furthermore, the position that accepting welfare or voting constitutes an initiation of force against the tax-payer doesn't make much sense. These are rather passive activities. It is the state that is initially stealing from the tax-payers. The state then redistributes the stolen loot to various interest groups, like a robber handing out the booty to gangs or to the peasantry. It is a misplacement of blame to go after the peasantry, the arguably passive recievers of the loot while neglecting the actual robbers. Where is the gun in the room? Most certainly not in the hands of the immigrants. The gun in the room is the state. To blame immigrants is to essentially blame the victim. It misplaces the burden of proof entirely.

The State As Private Property Or A Voluntary Commons?

Some proponents of immigration restriction tend to argue that the state is like a home. Others treat it more as a commons. But treating the nation-state as if it were the legitimate private property of the government, or the people's common property (tragedy of the commons, anyone?), opens up a huge can of worms that could imply some highly questionable things if we consistantly applied it. The private property of the government notion can be used to justify practically anything that the government does, and makes everything (and everyone) within the territory subject to be controlled (in other words, it merely reinforces and falsely justifies the territorial monopoly). The common property notion has communalist implications. The state, in either case, clearly is not private property. The state cannot emulate a free market by its very nature, so it makes no sense to me to use the state's intervention in a particular way on the assumption that this is how private property owners would choose to employ their property. This is an imposition of a personal preferance.

If the state is treated as the private property of the government's members, then it is legitimized. The members of the state itself may henceforth be treated as legitimately controlling the entire territory. All of us who reside in the territory, and all of the individual plots of land and things that we possess, may be treated as the property of the government. You do not own yourself, the state owns you. You do not own your home, the state owns your home. You may not decide how to employ your property; you are not its owner, you are only being allowed to use it by its true owners, the state. It is not your property. The members of the state may freely decide to exclude anyone from the territory as they please, since it is theirs. You may not decide how to employ the individual portion that you are "allowed" to use; the state decides this for you. All hail the total state.

If the state is treated as the common property of the tax-payers, then it is legitimized. We should all henceforth buy into the phrase "we are the government". Of course, a gigantic practical problem arises: the tax-payers cannot act as a single entity with a preference scale of its own. The tax-payers are conflicting over how they wish to use this common property. The tax-payers cannot exercise their quotal ownership in reality. You cannot sell your 1/500000th (or what have you) portion of government land. It is impossible for the "community" as a whole to enforce all of their individual preferences for how to employ such property.

Even granting that it may constitute stolen property, it has been redistributed so many times over and time has passed for so long that it would be impossible to allocate it back to the original just owners. Thus, in practise, we are left enforcing either the members of the state's preferences for how to use it or the preferences of a particular group of people within "the commity" for how to use it in the name of "the community". You may not decide how to employ the individual portion that you think you own; "the community" (I.E. in practise, the state or a special interest group acting through the state) decides this for you. All hail the total state.

The Incentives of Inclusion and Exclusion

While private property owners would indeed be free to exclude Mexicans in a free society, I believe that the incentives in a free market would make racial or cultural separatism suicidal in the long-run for reasons having to do with the economics of discrimination (and what I consider to be the large-scale implications of comparative advantage). At least on the margin, there will be an incentive towards integration; and there will always be willing sellers to some degree. The consequences of free association are a mixed bag and therefore pluralist. This is why I think that free association ultimately pans out in favor of so-called "multiculturalism", moreso as time passes. Separatists would effectively exile and impoverish themselves.

There will always be willing buyers and sellers. Consequentially, in a society in which all property is private, there is nothing that can be done to stop people from immigrating through voluntary exchanges for home and land property and voluntary patronization of transporation services, as well as good and services in general. In short, it is virtually impossible to keep a community completely ethnically "pure" when there are individuals within that community willing to buy and sell things with immigrating people from other ethnicities. In a truly free society, the incentive towards voluntary association would be so strong as to render absolute cultural "isolationism" impossible.

Free Trade and the Law of Association

Ludwig von Mises: "The productivity of social cooperation surpasses in every respect the sum total of the production of isolated individuals." - Epistemological Problems of Economics

For the same reason that blocking trade between people in New Mexico and Arizona would have a hampering effect on production, so too will blocking trade between people in, say, China and America. Economics provides us with the insight that voluntary exchange is mutually beneficial to both parties and has a ripple effect of sorts (I.E. its benefits may extend beyond the two people exchanging down the line). Any kind of protectionism is going to block this mutually beneficial exchange. It always is at the expense of consumer choice and bestows a privilege to one narrow interest at the expense of everyone else, and eventually at the expense of the original "beneficiaries" themselves. And since it stifles competition, it has the obvious effect of artificially keeping prices higher than what the true market level would be.

In essence, it is beneficial even for someone who is productively "superior" to others in multiple areas to exchange with others who are "superior" in none of those areas. Even if country X is superior to country Y in both areas, it is still in its advantage to exchange with country Y. If we accept the principle of the division of labor within a country, we must accept the division of labor within the world.

How does this apply to immigration? Well, there is a labor market for immigrants. It represents competition to non-immigrant labor. The economic law that Mises speaks of applies here as well. The anti-immigration movement wishes to use protectionism against the immigrant labor market. Economically and socially, such separatism is counterproductive even for the people who wish to remain isolated. While people are perfectly within their rights to choose not to associate with people, they undermine their own well-being the more liberally that they isolate themselves.

For example, if a buisiness refuses to sell products to group X, they lose buisiness, indeed, they are restricting their consumer base. It becomes vitally in the best interest of people to associate and engage in social cooperation, otherwise they harm themselves in the long-term by withdrawing from the benefits of society. This applies to immigration as well. To forcably block off immigration is also to aschew the benefits of social cooperation. While there is indeed a right of voluntary disassociation, the person who chooses to freely disassociate often does so at their own risk.

Property Rights and Free Association

Immigration itself is merely the act of moving from place A to place B. This is typically coupled with the act of purchasing a home, and the act itself may involve some form of transportation service. It should be obvious that this is a free trade activity just as much as any other. Yet many anti-immigration advocates, in effect, wish to illegalize selling goods and services to such people, hiring such people or allowing them onto one's own property; charity even. Such measures inevitably violate the property rights of both the immigrant and the citezens that they are associating with. If the government stops me from selling a home to an immigrant, hiring one or associating with them in any way, then my property rights are being violated along with that of the immigrant.

The problem with immigration controls and border enforcement is that it inherently requires dictating what citezens do with their own property: it disallows me from inviting someone onto my property, selling someone my property or hiring a willing worker. A lot of the closed borders advocates accuse open borders of violating free association and allowing people to engage in "tresspass" and "invasion" (and this arguement can only be superficially maintained if we treat political borders or unused land as private property or the common property of the tax-payers, which simply is not the case; there is no discernable just owner of the entire country or borders), but they apparently fail to see how their own position egregiously violates free association (forced disassociation is no better than forced association). It's not just the "illegals" that are effected, it's domestic citezens who wish to associate with them as well.

Libertarians are bound by the non-aggression axoim. This axoim leads one to support free association (and disassociation) between individuals on the basis that no aggression is used to force people to either associate or disassociate. This means that one must oppose both forced integration and forced segregation (forced association and force disassociation). If force is used to stop people from voluntarily associating, then a rights violation has occured. As such, using the law to stop immigrants from associating with citezens (and all that comes with it) is a rights violation on the part of both people in question. But the cultural isolationist essentially is argueing in favor of using the law to enforce forced segregation.

Prohibition Theory

When you prohibit something, in the short-term you might get less of it. But in time it is inevitable that a black market arises despite this limit on supply (example: we have drug and prostitution illegalization, yet we have a black market in these areas). Prohibition theory also applies to employment itself, to jobs. Thus, to overtly prohibit immigration will do nothing to stop people from simply immigrating anyways, just like prohibiting drugs does nothing to stop people from buying, selling and using drugs. If you illegalize the hiring of "illegals", you will simply create a black market for those jobs, and thus those jobs will continue to exist. Simply put, there will always be willing sellers and buyers. The answer to the question, "why do we have an immigration black market?" is "because immigration isn't free enough", "preciously because of the governmental limits on it that already exist".

Therefore, it is absolutely illogical to think that immigration quotas, more cops on the streets, the federalization of the borders, national I.D. cards, or any other such scheme, is going to actually eliminate illegal immigration. It is impossible to eliminate illegal immigration for the same reason that central economic planning fails, is unable to calculate, due to the complexity of information and economic decisions on the market. The fact that we have so many illegal immigrants right now as it is only shows that they can get through despite whatever previous limits existed. Indeed, immigrants are given an incentive to illegally come over by the mere inadequacy of the immigration process, with its red tape and bereaucracy. "Illegal immigration" exists precisely because of the degree to which immigration is prohibited.

Nations and Borders

What is a nation? A nation is nothing but a concept meant to describe a geographic territory. "Nations" do not actually exist other than as a linguistic term. Unfortunately, many people concieve of the nation in an anthropromorphic way, in which it is given a definite character as if it were a single individual, with uniform traits. But obviously, those within the territory that we call a nation all differ widely in their physical and mental traits, in their opinions and in their actions. The concept of nations is inherently collectivist. It presumes uniformity on the part of its atomic parts. And, most dangerously of all, the nation and state are implied as being one and the same. But this is an obfuscation, because the state is made up a minority, an oligarchy, of individuals, while "society" as a whole is an entirely different thing.

What are national or state borders? They are nothing but a line on a map, and do not exist independantly of that line on that map. They do not exist when one actually zooms in on the earth from outerspace. The concept of national borders is a concept of collective property; it presumes that the entire territory of the "nation" is "ours". But this is obviously absurd when one considers the objective criteria for ownership of property. In reality, it is property that the government is claiming ownership of, without necessarily actually using it, homesteading it or exchanging for it. In short, national borders effectively represents a claim of ownership by the government over the entire territory, and as a consequence, everything within it.

The entire concept of national borders depends on government ownership of property, specifically land. If one supports that government do something with respect to that land, including determining who should be allowed in or out of it, then they are accepting the notion that the land is justly the state's. It should be clear from a property rights standpoint that ownership of land requires that the homestead principle be fulfilled, or that a voluntary exchange has taken place for previously owned land. Government does not justly own the land that it claims, because it achieved that land by (1) putting up barriers to entry to unused land for homesteaders (2) confisicating it from its original just owner or (3) buying it with funds that were likewise confiscated from the original just owner.

The homesteading principle implies that it is not legitimate to claim ownership of un-used land, it requires first-use. When government is held up to the homesteading principle, or the principle of voluntary exchange, it becomes apparent that it is impossible to justify government ownership of any property at all, let alone land. Indeed, it becomes apparent that the history of the establishment of governments is the history of invasions and occupations followed by confiscation of land. In short, property precedes government and governments require the confiscation of property, including land property, to form in the first place. But in a purely libertarian world, all land is privatized, and therefore the only "borders" are private property borders. Immigration would be free insofar it would be at the consent of private property owners, and under such a context some kind of voluntary integration would become inevitable, moreso as time passes.

Walls and Fences

Among the more absurd propositions of anti-immigrationists is the idea of building a huge wall on the southern border. These people don't realize that they are playing out the exact same problem that existed in Germany before the Berlin Wall fell. They are supporting the pretext for a police state and for locking the people into their own country. Afterall, what can keep people out can also keep people in. Furthermore, has any such scheme historically worked in the long-run? Did the great wall of China hold out? No. Did the Berlin Wall? No. Some claim that immigration itself is balkanizing the country. On the contrary, fences, walls, increased police powers, and anti-immigration sentiment in general is balkanizing it. The state, and therefore national borders, breeds social conflict.

Artificial barriers do not ease hostility, they create hostility and intensify already existing hostility. In the same way that trade sanctions are a boon to international war, anti-immigration sanctions, artificial walls and the enforcement of imaginary divisions, leads to cultural war. But as Randolf Bourne once stated, "war is the health of the state". It is not just foreign wars that the state thrives on. It thrives on all kinds of domestic wars between interest groups, and wars on inimate objects and ideas such as the war on drugs, war on poverty, war on terrorism, the so-called war on christmas, and now the war on immigration. Anti-immigration sentiment provides a perfect atmosphere for politicians to exploit as to increase their power. And that's what it's leading to: increases in economic and police intervention.

"Isolationism" vs. Non-interventionism Revisited

There are some very compeling reasons for distinguishing between a non-interventionist and isolationist foreign policy. The key differances are over international trade and immigration. In sofar as isolationism applies to economics and the association of individuals, it is a bad thing and constitutes a form of interventionism, not non-interventionism. Economic protectionism is a key tenet of traditional isolationist foreign policy, as is what could be considered cultural protectionism. While the paleo-conservative movement can be considered better than the neo-conservative movement in various ways, unfortunately many paleoconservatives have a tendency to support protectionism.

What does the isolationist foreign policy imply? Painfully high tariffs, import quotas, export bans, immigration quotas, martial law at the borders, walls at the borders, prohibition of lower-end jobs, prohibition of various goods and services. Taken to it's furthest extremes, it implies a ban on all trade and immigration between America and other nations. In either case, it implies a plethora of potential government interventions. This sentiment represents a sub-culture of "buy American products only" and "the immigrants are taking our jobs" people. It has culminated in a "anti-globalization" movement, constituted by people ranging from the far left to the paleo right. This sentiment is riddled with economic fallacy.

The non-interventionist foreign (and domestic) policy, in contrast, would inevitably have to be opposed to such measures. They are, afterall, government interventions in the market. The non-interventionist foreign policy with respect to economic exchange can only lead to one possible conclusion: the unhampered division of labor, voluntary exchange, is the correct policy for both inner-national trade and inter-national trade. This inevitably means that protectionist devices such as tariffs, quotas (which includes immigration quotas, which is nothing but a peculiar form of affirmative action) and prohibitions have to be eliminated. Anti-immigration legislation is nothing but protectionism with respect to the migration, employment arrangements and housing arrangements of people, driven by nationalist emotionalism. Protectionism, nationalism and neo-mercantalism are the bane of a free society.

Conclusion

Immigration in itself is a free market activity and within the realm of free association. The problems associated with immigration are really problems created by the state, wether it be the welfare state or the nature of national borders in general. The solution to the issue does not lie in the state, it does not lie in federal troops at the state's borders, it does not lie in illegalizing jobs, it does not lie in public-funded walls, it does not lie in immigration quotas. It lies in private property. It lies in the privatization of land. State borders don't need to be protected or enforced, they need to be torn down. Governmental borders do not represent legitimate property titles, and possess all of the problems associated with "public property". Immigration should be left to the free market, which resolves such muddled collective/state property disputes by establishing a clear definition of property rights and a clear method of determining who the just owner is of a given property title.

"Vulgar" Libertarianism and Voluntary Socialism

Brainpolice — Sat, 29 Dec 2007 07:37:00 GMT

From what I've been able to gather, "vulgar" libertarianism is a label applied to the tendency of some libertarians, particularly with right-wing sympathies, to defend currently existing property arrangements and corporations as if they came about as a result of a free market process or as if there currently is a free market. That is, vulgar libertarians defend big buisiness in itself regaurdless of any genuine criteria for justice. A vulgar libertarian tends to conflate the difference between property rights and property classes or property titles. In "The Ethics of Liberty", Murray Rothbard made a criticism of utilitarian economists in that they have a tendency to treat currently existing property titles as legitimate without any ethical criteria for justice in property aquisition. Thus, they end up functioning as apologists for the status quo.

Most certainly, the contemporary left makes a conflation of its own between a "free market" and currently existing capitalism. The contemporary left tends to argue that we currently have a "free market", point to bad consequences, and then argue that we need more government intervention. The contemporary right, on the other hand, makes the exact same conflation but uses it for different purposes. The contemporary right tends to argue that we currently have a "free market", deny bad consequences, and defend the status quo on these grounds; at best, justifying current levels of intervention. "Vulgar" libertarians are falling into this same fallacy that the contemporary right ends up engaging in. They are using the theory of a free market to defend the consequences of a non-free market. "Capitalism", as it currently exists, is not a free market. Not a single market anarchist (or "anarcho-capitalist"), insofar as they are consistant, supports "capitalism" as it currently exists.

Libertarians should try to avoid being blind defenders of "the rich" and "the corporations" at all costs. This only feeds the left's mischaracterizations of us as heartless apologists for robber barons. The rich and corporations most certainly do not always achieve their wealth and status as a result of free market means. There is a political apparatus in place that externalizes the costs of corporations, protects them from competition, limits liability and provides a plethora of special privileges. There is a difference between being pro-buisiness as an end in itself and being pro-market. The free market, as a process, may very well be detrimental to some buisinesses, since those who cannot compete lose out. The currently existing corporate structure has skewed incentives and partially restricted competition.

When talking about "the rich" and "the poor", a question behooves us: which rich people and which poor people are we talking about? True, some people get rich by productivity. Others do not. Some get rich by using the state to restrict their competition and give them special privileges at the expense of the tax-payer. True, some people end up poor because of their own bad decisions, such as a lack of saving, excessive consumption, bad spending priorities, and so on. Other people end up poor due to bad circumstances caused by state intervention in the economy. To paint a picture in which all poor people got that way because they are uneducated, unskilled and lazy is unfair. And to paint a picture in which all rich people got that way because they are educated, talented and productive is not accurate by any stretch of the imagination.

As any libertarian who has done the slightest bit of reading on economics surely knows, there are many ways in which state intervention in the economy causes and increases poverty. Inflation devalues our money. Taxation in itself reduces our paychecks and makes us pay higher prices. Protectionism makes us pay higher prices and limits our options as consumers. Welfare, while it might artificially keep some people on their feet, ends up effectively creating stagnation and disincentivizing employment. Corporate welfare does steal from the poor to give to the rich. Minimum wage laws cause unemployment, particularly for teenagers, young adults and entry-level jobs in general. Pointing out how the state's intervention is detrimental to the cause of the poor and average worker can help clear up a lot of confusion and possibly win over some people of left-wing persuasions to libertarian causes.

Another important point to keep in mind is that, in a free market, there is nothing to stop people from voluntarily forming into types of association or organization that could be considered "socialistic". The idea of "libertarian socialism" or "voluntary socialism" initially struck me as nonsensical. While I still do not personally favor it in terms of my preferences for what I'd like to persue in a free market, it has become clear that I cannot oppose it in principle, that I must support the liberty of people to voluntarily organize into unions, co-ops and communes so long as they do not force me into it. Free association and free competition has pluralist implications in that different preferences can be persued voluntarily while peacefully co-existing. No single economic system or mode of organization can be unilaterally and monocentrically imposed.

Socialism can theoretically be compatible with libertarianism to the extent that it is voluntary. Unfortunately, the vast majority of socialists are not voluntarists. They wish to force socialism onto everyone else. Unlike anarchists, who are primarily opposed to the initiation of force and the institution of rulership, socialists are primarily opposed to capital and private ownership. But an anarchist can be a socialist if their socialism is in the context of free association and their socialist system is left to free competition. Indeed, all of the earliest anarchists were socialist types. The socialist movement arguably grew out of the anarchist movement, but went on to merge with the conservatism of the day and become an ideology that supports the state as a means to its ends. But there still are some socialists who are voluntarists.

In reality, it is impossible to actually completely abolish private property. Even in the Soviet Union, private property was still allowed to remain in place to some extent, and it also existed in the arena of black markets. All socialist systems so far have maintained some degree of private property in order to survive at all. Even the system of the socialist anarchists, if put into practise, would maintain private property, even if that private property is commonly held or stolen from its original just owners. While many socialists openly advocate the abolition of private property, the actual substance of what they advocate is no such thing. At best, it is the transferance of private property into different hands. And to the extent that it is transfered from unjust owners to just owners, this is actually perfectly fine. To the extent that it is transfered from just owners to unjust owners, to the extent that it constitutes outright expropriation from legitimate owners, it is a nightmare.

Us anarcho-capitalists (and market anarchists, a term I prefer more) are constantly being cajolled by social anarchists and accused of not really being anarchists. So we have to constantly justify that our philosophy is completely compatible with anarchism and grew out of its tradition. I personally do not like the term anarcho-capitalist because the word capitalist is like a red flag to a bull, especially to traditional anarchists who consider opposition to capitalism to be a core tenet of anarchism. We have to constantly explain that by the term "capitalist" we do not mean "capitalism" as it currently exists or any kind of system of government-buisiness patronage. We are always having to distinguish the difference between a free market and the current system, which people on the left always confuse. We should not err in justifying their claims by actually functioning as apologists for the current system and being shills for currently existing property arrangements and the corporate structure.