Brainpolice : Economics, Libertarianism

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.

Benjamin Tucker: American Anarchist

Brainpolice — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 04:17:00 GMT

Benjamin Tucker was arguably the leading figure of individualist anarchism in America in the 19th century. He was the editor and chief of the classic anarchist periodical "Liberty", which involved many key figures in early individualist anarchism such as Lysander Spooner, Stephen Pearl Andrews, Auberon Herbert, Joshua Ingalls and Victor Yarros. Tucker once half-jokingly said that anarchists are just unterrified Jeffersonian Democrats. Tucker's influences ranged from Proudhon to Max Stirner. In fact, he was the first person to have translated Max Stirner's "The Ego And His Own" and Proudhon's "What Is Property?" in America. He also was an early American translator of Friedrich Neitzsche's works prior to H.L. Mencken.

Tucker highlighted and opposed what he called "the four monopolies": the land monopoly, the money monopoly, the patent monopoly and the tariff monopoly. Hence, Tucker opposed institutional absentee landlordism, central banking, intellectual property law and international protectionism. He thought that various state interventions created and sustained monopolies and artifically concentrated capital. Tucker did not normatively oppose wage labor, but he thought that genuine free competition would improve the wage system and make the difference between wages and the alternatives start to become nullified or indistinguishable. He thought that large-scale institutional landlordism is dependant on state interventions. While he held some geoist or quasi-geoist views on land, he did not propose any kind of land value tax like the Goergists do.

Tucker also explicitly advocated voluntary defense institutions as an alternative to the state. Like Proudhon, while Tucker is classified as a socialist, he contextually supported private or individual property. While Tucker supported voluntary labor organization, he also opposed labor legislation. He was opposed to state-backed union bureaucracries and in favor of more organic worker organization. In Tucker's view, the labor legislation was only a reactionary and ultimately reformist measure added on top of the initial pro-capital legislation. The solution was to eliminate the initial pro-capital legislation and industrial welfare or to counteract it through voluntary social organization, not to favor or use the power of the state in misguided although perhaps well-intended attempts at philanthropy. Tucker rejected communism and even many of the popular trends in the more general movement of socialism, of which Tucker was a part for a while.

Tucker's earlier anarchism made use of natural rights philosophy, but eventually he came to adopt an egoist position influenced by Max Stirner, which does away with any formal concept of rights and ethics and justice. This change of Tucker's could be seen as a transition into what some today may classify as "post-left" anarchism. Tucker's egoist variant of individualist anarchism is in some ways a philosophical drifting away from classical liberalism and socialism. In either case, individualist anarchism split from that point onwards between natural rights proponents and egoists. This egoism was also partially picked up by other anarchist factions, even some anarcho-communists. In either case, Tucker's egoism lead him to take some positions that horrified some of his fellow natural rights proponents, and it could be argued that this is a factor responsible for the initial individualist anarchist movement fragmenting.

Tucker's influence on the history of anarchism and libertarian thought is notable. Murray Rothbard was a fan of Tucker's, despite some mild criticism of Tucker's enonomics in an article he wrote from the 1970's. In fact, the only significant thing that separates Tucker's classic individualist anarchism from Murray Rothbard's initial "anarcho-capitalism" is that Tucker favored a labor theory of value, while Rothbard integrated individualist anarchism with austrian economics. During the 60's and early 70's, arguably Rothbard classified as a classic individualist anarchist in some ways and was considered to be an individualist anarchist, only he was effectively trying to revive individualist anarchism in a different historical and cultural context. Tucker's legacy is also carried on by modern mutualists and individualist anarchists such as Kevin Carson. In either case, it is clear that modern market anarchism is dependant on the pre-existing history of individualist anarchism, which sets up its foundation, and the significance of Tucker's role as a leader of individualist anarchism in the 19th century is clear.

Transcending Anarcho-Semantics

Brainpolice — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 15:49:00 GMT

There is a reoccuring problem that occurs within internal libertarian and anarchist discourse that I like to call the anarcho-semantics problem. The anarcho-semantics problem most often occurs in discussions and debates between socialist oriented anarchists and free market libertarians, in which there is a massive communication barrier and consequentially endless misunderstandings. The meanings attached to terms such as capitalism, socialism, libertarianism and anarchism vary significantly, and consequentially discourse often devolves into confused flame wars between partisan camps. Both similiarities and distinctions between various partisan camps are blurred, and confused multi-identity complexes may emerge. Each respective camp has its own esoteric language and specific choice of associations.

Those who identify as socialist or collectivist tend to think that laissez-faire economics is merely apologetics for rich or privileged elites, and thus they tend to close their minds to it from the start. As they understand it, capitalism is an inherently authoritarian system that creates negative conditions for workers and people of meager means. Thus, anyone identifying as capitalist is assumed to be defending such negative conditions and various groups of rich or privileged elites. As a consequence, they may tend to bait those who identify as capitalist or individualist into defending such things. Furthermore, any attempt to create a link between laissez-faire economics and anarchism is viewed as a contradiction in terms, and thus those who do flirt with such a combination are demonized.

In response to such attacks, those who identify as capitalist or individualist tend to function in a number of ways. Some of them truly are apologists for the conditions and privileges in question, and thus they don't even need to be baited into playing such a role. This role is known as vulgar libertarianism. Others do not have such intentions but allow themselves to be baited on and off into playing such a role. This is vulgar libertarianism in a less overt sense in that the person is being baited. And still yet others have no such intentions and have no choice but to repeatedly attempt to clarify what their position actually is and that they actually do not favor or defend the conditions and privileges in question.

The fine tuned individualist quite likely actually opposes the very same privileges and negative conditions that the collectivist or socialist does, only they approach it from a different angle and use different terminology. However, the general tendency in political discourse is for even these people to be attacked as if they defend such things, consequentially erecting a gigantic straw man of their position. They have no choice but to continually clarify that a genuinely free market, as they define and understand it, should not be conflated with the status quo. But the naive socialist or collectivist types continue to mistakenly act as if laissez-faire is the status quo, and hence continues to point the finger at all laissez-faire advocates to blame them for the status quo, which becomes a propaganda tool.

Those who identify as capitalist or individualist tend to think that socialism is an inherently authoritarian system that creatives negative conditions and special privileges. From their perspective, socialists merely engage in apologetics for government controls on people's private lives. Socialism and government control are essentially the same thing in their worldview. Thus, anyone identifying as socialist is assumed to be defending such government controls. As a consequence, they may tend to bait those who identify as socialist or collectivist into defending such things, including the dictatorships and violent actions that have been perpetuated in the name of socialism or collectivism. Furthermore, any attempt to create a link between socialism and libertarianism is viewed as a contradiction in terms, and thus those who do flirt with such a combination are demonized.

In response to such attacks, those who identify as socialist or collectivist tend to function in a number of ways. Some of them truly are apologists for virtual absolute government control and historical acts of overt violence perpetuated in the name of socialism, and thus they don't even need to be baited into playing such a role. Others do not necessarily have such intentions but nonetheless allow themselves to be baited on and off into playing such a role. And still yet others have no such intentions and have no choice but to repeatedly attempt to clarify what their position actually is and that they actually do not favor government control or any kind of overt violence.

The fine tuned collectivist quite likely actually opposes the very same government control and overt violence that the capitalist or individualist does, only they approach it from a different angle and use different terminology. However, the general tendency in political discourse is for even these people to be attacked as if they defend such things, consequentially erecting a gigantic straw man of their position. They have no choice but to continually clarify that a genuinely socialistic society, as they define and understand it, should not be conflated with the status quo or much of anything that most people would call socialism in name. But the partisan capitalist and vulgar libertarian types continues to point the finger at all socialists or collectivists to blame them for the status quo and accuse them advocating a return to the same methods that the Soviet Union used, which becomes a propaganda tool.

What one finds interesting upon a nuanced analysis is that the most honest and honorable people from both of the capitalistic and socialistic camps tend to overlap in their desired ends. They actually share many goals, such as the improvement of living standards for the masses, general prosperity, peace and cooperation. But the warped nature of the contemporary political spectrum has skewed and polarized their associations and alliances, pitting them against eachother while pushing them into alliances with groups that theoretically are their political enemies. Thus we free market libertarians allying with conservatives and libertarian socialists allying with marxists and leninists. And we see libertarian socialists spending more time on propaganda campaigns against market anarchists than they spend critisizing authoritarian socialists and actual conservatives.

When the semantic ambiguities and partisan misunderstandings are whittled away, what one is left with is mostly a diverse group of people with commonly good intentons who happen to use entirely different terminology and conceptual angles to describe, support and oppose what is practically the exact same set of things, and beyond this it boils down to little more than a matter of personal preferance. They're all opposed to the status quo and the negative conditions and special privileges that are associated with it. The concepts and systems that they use to describe what they support and oppose varies, but the essential content of the matter is surpisingly similar. This is not necessarily to say that they are completely identical, but by the very least they are nowhere near as far apart as the semantics and contemporary politics involved would suggest.

The Headroom Between Mutualism and Anarcho-capitalism

Brainpolice — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 09:53:00 GMT

I find it inaccurate to use either the terms "anarcho-capitalism" or "mutualism" to describe my own viewpoint. Being a pluralist as well as a person with a fairly complex and subtle heirarchy of preferances that may situationally change, I don't accept either of the two as a singular system that everyone is expected to be a part of. In some ways it could be said that I feel somewhere in between the two.

In the sense that I endorse it, I define private property in an ethical sense as the natural product of labor and voluntary exchange or gift. Anything being called "private property" beyond this I see as a fraud. I do not accept "private property" in a purely legalistic sense, as in whatever the state happens to call "private", thus I draw clear distinction between the status quo of property titles and property rights or a legitimate claim to property. Neither do I necessarily accept "private property" if the term is used to refer to any property that happens to be exclusively controlled, as stolen property and state property can be and is exclusively controlled.

I think that there is a lot of stupid semantics over private property and that those who claim to oppose private property most often actually support some limited or particular form of it but they call it by some other name such as "personal property" or "possessions". I think that in particular situations there can be some kind of private commons or private property that has a policy that effectively makes it "public" in a meaningful sense (see Roderick Long for an exposition on this concept).

I interpret Proudhon subtley. On one hand, I think that it is a misconception to interpret "property is theft" as an absolute statement either pro or con (indeed, taken at face value such a statement is logically incoherant, since the concept of theft relies on the concept of legitimate ownership in order to make any sense), as it has two corrolaries: "property is impossible" and "property is liberty". Each statement refers to a particular context. Socialists who grab onto "property is theft" as an absolute statement against private property are misreading Proudhon, as it refers more to property in the context of an arbitrary legal privilege that can be traced back to thefts than anything else, and they are ignoring the contexts in which Proudhon quite blatantly endorses private property as the only meaningful counterweight to the state.

This position is, in theory, consistant with both mutualism and what's called "anarcho-capitalism", hence making mutualism and "anarcho-capitalism" not as far off as some may like to think. In terms of the labor theory of property (as opposed to value), the two are in total agreement and only disagree in terms of terminology. Wherein they meaningfully differ is in the accessement of what the outcome of freedom of association with respect to property allocation would tend to be. I honestly find myself somewhere in the middle of the two accessments.

On one hand, I do not see anarcho-capitalism as a uniform model, I do not think that a free market would be dominated by a small number of centralized and vertically integrated incorporated firms, I see a possible role for voluntary labor unions as a simple form of collective bargaining, I see the possibility of more individual propietorship and the expansion of enterprenuership, and I see some co-ops as a possibility. On the other hand, I don't see mutualism as a uniform model either, I think that some of the mutualist questioning of the division of labor is misguided or silly and I reject the labor theory of value.

Overall, I do think that the natural of an outcome of a free market would result in an increase in prosperity across the board that could be construed as somewhat egalitarian (in comparison to the status quo at least). Of course, I don't think that it would lead to absolute equality of wealth or ownership in any absolute or consistant sense (nor would I find such a scenario desirable at all), but I do think that workers and consumers would be greatly benefited and in some ways labor would gain much more bargaining power relative to capital. I do not think that wealth being concentrated in the hands of a small few while the majority of people are just above the substinance level is the natural outcome of a free economy, nor do I find such a scenario desirable.

In short, I don't take a doctrinaire approach to either of these ideologies. I value them both enough to synthesize attributes of both of them into my worldview.

Left-Libertarianism

Brainpolice — Mon, 26 May 2008 18:39:00 GMT

I consider myself a left-libertarian. To avoid any confusion over what this may imply, I fully support private property, voluntary exchange, money, rent, employment, and so on (or more strictly speaking, I don't advocate their abolition). And I completely oppose the state. I advocate a free market in everything, from clothing and shelter to defense and arbitration. I have a dislike for people like Noam Chomsky, who I feel is largely economically illiterate and confused. I'm not a marxist or a communist or a syndicalist. Some may therefore be thinking, "so what's so 'left' about it? what differentiates you from 'right' libertarians? you sound like any other anarcho-capitalist to me!". I'd like to explain myself in order to make it clear that there is a very real distinction to be made.

Firstly, it is worth exploring how one views power in general. All libertarians, particularly market anarchists, oppose the power of the state. A lot of emphasis is placed on the power of the state and how it effects society. However, in my understanding, while the left-libertarian joins their comrades in opposing the state, they oppose the concentration of power and centralization in general. This includes the concentration or centralization of so-called "private power". While cookie-cutter anarcho-capitalists make brilliant arguments against state power, they tend to specialize so much in doing so that they may neglect the problems with the concentration of "private" power. Their libertarianism is "thin" in the sense that it is restricted to anti-statism.

The cookie-cutter anarcho-capitalist often seems to act as if whatever is "private" is legitimate in all respects. It's almost as if the principles somehow magically don't apply when we are dealing with non-state organizations. But to use a simple example, a gang or mafia may be "private" but it certainly is not legitimate. The left-libertarian views matters more broadly, that is, they apply libertarian principles not only to delegitimize the state but also to any other group of "private" people who violate rights. The left-libertarian's libertarianism is "thick" in the sense that it is more than just a matter of anti-statism, it is more broadly a matter of anti-authoritarianism and anti-centralization. The left-libertarian may additionally oppose corporations, extremely large buisinesses and possibly even organized religion. The left-libertarian sees no good reason why buisinesses should be centralized.

Karl Hess once described "the right" as supporting the concentration of power into the fewest hands possible, while in contrast "the left" stands for spreading it about as much as possible in an equilibrium. "The left" implies "equality of authority" in which everyone's freedom is limited by the like freedom of everyone else - a mere restatement of the non-aggression principle. Using this analysis, right-libertarians are to "the left" to the extent that they oppose the concentration of power in the hands of the state, but they nonetheless are still to "the right" to the extent that they still support private concentrations of power. While the right-libertarian may be consistantly anti-state, they are not consistantly opposed to the concentration of power. They may even fully endorse "private" concentrations of power and portray such organizations as victims of the state.

In short, the right-libertarian or cookie-cutter anarcho-capitalist, while they are likely fully aware and informed of the fact that we don't currently live in a free market or free society, functions as a "vulgar libertarian". What this means is that they function as apologists for big buisiness, corporations and currently existing conditions or property titles. They use free market theories or analysis to legitimize conditions and organizations that came about in a non-free market. They tend to cling to a worldview in which "big buisiness is America's most persecuted minority", as Ayn Rand once stated. They still tend to think of state intervention as somehow being inherently anti-buisiness, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. The right-libertarian is essentially pro-buisiness more or less across the board without proper consideration for context. The left-libertarian calls them out on this.

Another difference between the left-libertarian and the right-libertarian is over what they think society will be like in the absence of the state. Cookie-cutter anarcho-capitalists essentially envision a society more or less identifical to currently existing society but without the state. But the left-libertarian sees much more broad implications that would seem to radically alter the organizational structure of a society. The left-libertarian does not think that the results of a free market would mirror current economic conditions by any stretch of the imagination. Left-libertarians may tend to think that free competition would function as a check on the general size of economic organizations, and therefore draconian large buisinesses simply couldn't survive or exist. They may also be tolerant of or more open to possible "socialistic" experiments within a free market, or advocate a signficant increase in self-employment over standard wage-employment.

The difference between the two sides can also be thought of in terms of how one's position relates to the traditions of the anti-authoritarian left, or how one views their own position in relation to it. It's partially a matter of historical context and the political spectrum. Right-libertarians buy into the cliche that socialism is inherently a statist/political system, while left-libertarians aknowledge the existance and possibility of voluntary or anarchistic socialism (in short, all they're really doing is taking an anarchist without adjectives approach). To the right-libertarian, all socialist forms of organization are inherently violent or political systems - all socialism is state-socialism. To the left-libertarian, there is a distinction to be made between state-socialism and genuinely libertarian socialism. The left-libertarian has a much greater degree of tolerance for "socialistic" forms of organization so long as they are voluntary, while the right-libertarian considers all "socialistic" forms of organization to be inherently involuntary.

There's a major difference in terms of where one finds their roots. To the right-libertarian, their philosophy derives from and grew out of the "old right" and the founding fathers of America. To the left-libertarian, their philosophy derives from and grew out of the old libertarian left (the mutualists, the individualist anarchists, the voluntaryists, etc.) and wouldn't exist without them. The left-libertarian sees market anarchism as having grown out of old non-state socialist traditions and is likely to see ideas such as mutualism as not really being that far off from their own position in the grand scheme of things. In contrast, the right-libertarian is largely out of touch with such roots and probably considers mutualists and other more voluntaristic socialists to be enemies. They see little to no connection between these ideas and contemporary market anarchism, where the left-libertarian does.

Another major difference is over strategy and where one thinks their true alliances lie. The left-libertarian is much more likely to be opposed to the political process and consequentially they may not vote, argue against running for office and regularly denounce the libertarian party and reformism. The left-libertarian is a radical and a revolutionary. In contrast, the right-libertarian essentially functions as a minarchist in practise as they regularly participate in the political process, encourage people to participate in it, run for office themselves and advocate reformist strategies. Comparatively, the right-libertarian is a gradualist and even counter-revolutionary. The right-libertarian more or less takes the exact same strategy that a minarchist would, and consequentially falls prey to political oppurtunism and get-liberty-quick schemes.

The difference over where one thinks their alliances are is also significant. Right-libertarians regularly ally with conservatives, particularly paleoconservatives. To the right-libertarian, conservatism is the closest thing to libertarianism on the political spectrum and conservatives inherently are less statist then "the left". They may even views themselves as an extension of the conservative movement. The left-libertarian, in contrast, wants nothing to do with conservatism and sees no reason why it should be regaurded as somehow less statist than "the left". The left-libertarian sees conservatives as hijacking the libertarian movement and employing quasi-libertarian rhetoric to get people to associate their own positions with liberty and free markets. To the left-libertarian, conservatism in the original sense of the term is the polar opposite of liberty, as it stands for the status quo, the romantisization of the past and an endless sea of authoritarian tendencies.

From the perspective of the left-libertarian, sometimes the right-libertarian takes positions on current issues that in fact are conservative rather than libertarian. One of the most common cases of this is over the issue of immigration, in which right-libertarians essentially support restricting people from crossing political borders. To the left-libertarian, this merely grants legitimacy to the state and treats it as if it were a legitimate private property owner. The same is true of many so-called "privatization" schemes in which the state sells "its" property off to a single economic organization, essentially transfering from a state held monopoly to a private monopoly. The left-libertarian is much more skeptical of so-called "free market" reforms than the right-libertarian is, being much more likely to consider them manifestations of mercantalism or corporatism.

Another difference between the two may simply be a matter of cultural traits or preferances. Right-libertarians may often be strict "cultural conservatives" and therefore have traits such as opposition to multiculturalism, feminism and secularism. They may openly praise "the family", "the church" and "the nation". In contrast, the left-libertarian is much more likely to see these things such as multiculturalism and secularism as being good and support voluntaryist versions of them. The left-libertarian may add things such as anti-racism and anti-patriarchy to their agenda, and such things need not be imposed by the state but a result of voluntary efforts. And while many right-libertarians may tend to praise "the family", the left-libertarian may very well be skeptical about the organizational structure of many families and view them as abusive. And perhaps most importantly, the left-libertarian is not a nationalist.

It should be clear at this point what the left-libertarian is not: they are not vulgar libertarians, conservatives, in bed with conservatives, anti-immigrationists, reformists, extreme gradualists, and so on. It is likely (although not necessarily mandatory) that they are not racists, organized religion supporters, nationalists, chauvenists, and so on. The left-libertarian is not an apologist for "private" concentrations of power and corporations. The left-libertarian may very well oppose corporations. In short, the left-libertarian has distanced themselves from conservative traits as much as possible and view themselves as supporting liberty in a much more broad sense than your cookie-cutter anarcho-capitalist does. It is in the context of this much more broad perspective that they are to "the left" of their comrades.

The Nail in the Coffin of "The Right"

Brainpolice — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 20:54:00 GMT

It is common for many libertarians, especially those in America, to assume that they have a natural alliance with "the right". This is based on certain assumptions, such as the notion that contemporary libertarianism grew out of the old American conservative movement and that "the right" is generally supportive of less government and more free markets in comparison to "the left". In short, the libertarian who makes such assumptions is at least partially buying into the way in which the political spectrum is typically framed in contemporary public discourse, with "the right" standing for less and less government control and "the left" standing for more and more government control, with "the left" standing for collectivism and communism and "the right" standing for individualism and capitalism. One would think that the libertarian should know better than to buy into this false dichotomy. It eradicates all nuances.

I find such assumptions to be mistaken for a number of reasons. In historical terms, libertarianism predates the existance of contemporary American conservatism altogether and the term "libertarian" itself actually derives from certain socialists from the 19th century. And, the term libertarian itself aside, the bulk of those who are considered to be the forefathers of libertarian ideas were originally considered to be on "the left", including free market proponents. Furthermore, it seems to me to be the case that the bulk of self-identified "rightists" do not actually support a free market or any consistant philosophy of individualism. I see no serious compelling reason to assume that "the right" necessarily supports state power any less than "the left". Conservative devotion to individualism and free markets is largely rhetorical, not substantive. These are campaign slogans, not seriously or consistantly held philosophical positions.

If viewed in terms of the original meaning of the left-right political spectrum, the meaning that it had centuries ago, libertarians are actually on the "far left" while the conservatives are on "the far right". For the left originally was supposed to represent anti-authoritarianism, anti-statism and revolution, while the right was supposed to represent the status quo, the oligarchy and reactionaries. Taken in its original context, conservatism has always been the polar opposite of libertarianism or liberalism. Libertarians are often mislead by the modern assumption that "the left" is necessarily in favor of statism and opposed to free economic interaction. Since this is assumed about "the left", the libertarian may make the mistake of then concluding that "the right" is therefore their natural home on the political spectrum.

But what does "the right" of today really stand for? Not to make too hasty of a generalization, as a "rightist" may not necessarily support all of these things, but here's what immediately comes to mind: corporatism, protectionism, monarchy, theocracy, traditionalism, militarism, nationalism and racism. It is important to note that all of these things were strongly opposed by historical libertarians and classical liberals to varying degrees. Classical liberals tended to be cosmopolitans in their worldview, and therefore nationalism does not jibe very well with such a philosophy. They also respresented a radical divergence from past political traditions, which implies an opposition to monarchy and theocracy. And there was always a strong opposition to war and imperialism within the old libertarian "left". Furthermore, obviously any sensible understanding of free market economics would lead one to oppose protectionism and corporatism.

Why do I identify "the right" with these traits? Because as far as I can tell such traits are implicit in their own rhetoric and in the substantive content of their policy positions. Obviously I do not mean to lump all "rightists" together into one arbitrary camp, as there are different factions within the contemporary conservative movement. But each faction represents some selection among the listed traits. Neoconservatives tend to support corporatism and militarism. Paleoconservatives tend to support protectionism, nationalism and traditionalism. The Christian right tends to support theocracy. Furthermore, despite quibbles among different factions of conservatives, they all are united by an irrationalist opposition to anything that is considered to be part of "the left". When it comes down to it, many conservatives are willing to set aside their differences to function as reactionaries to what they commonly oppose. Therefore anti-communism, anti-Islam, anti-multiculturalism and anti-secular sentiments prevail.

The problem is that in the name of opposing such things, the conservative tends to enter into a desperate state in which they will support just about any means in the name of defeating their common enemies. Thus, whatever disposition they may have had towards restraint in political affairs is at least temporarily set aside. The communists, radical Islam, the secularists and multiculturalists must be defeated at all costs first - then, only when the enemies have been defeated, we can worry about restraining the government, freeing up the economy and adhering to a non-interventionist foreign policy. But even when one boogeyman is defeated, it usually is replaced with another one. Thus, when the Soviet Union fell and left a void of rationales for foreign policy interventions, radical Islam was then used as the new rationale.

Even if the conservative is somewhat or even entirely correct in opposing something, such as a communism, they may tend to make the mistake of going on to form or join equally dangerous reactionary movements and end up supporting other things that should merit opposition as well. In short, they fall into the trap of thinking that "the enemy of my enemy is my friend". But it does not logically follow that since one opposes communism, one must join forces with the fascists. It does not logically follow that since one opposes social democracy, one must join forces with the monarchists. It does not logically follow that since one opposes the state's discrimination laws, one must join forces with white nationalists. It does not logically follow that since one opposes government ownership of the means of production, one must indiscriminately support corporations.

The economic views of contemporary conservatism are also very warped. For the modern conservative does not support laissez-faire, but some form of a mixed economy or corporate state. Sure, the conservative's rhetoric is often devoted to laissez-faire, but their support for "capitalism" is more often than not merely a knee-jerk apologia for current economic conditions, corporations and the rich, irrespective of wether or not it has anything to do with laissez-faire. In short, the contemporary conservative often ends up using the term "free market" to describe and legitimize what we currently have. But we do not currently have a free market. The average conservative has not read Ludwig Von Mises or Frederic Bastiat. Their support for "capitalism" is more or less merely cultural, not an informed and substantive position. All they know is that they oppose "socialism" and "communism", and "capitalism" is the opposite of those things, therefore they must support whatever "capitalism" is. But their "capitalism" happens to be either the status quo (or elements of it at least) or some romantisized past utopia.

Since the conservative tends to conflate laissez-faire with corporatism or the effects of a mixed corporatist economy with "the free market", actual consistant proponents of laissez-faire may actually be demonized and brushed aside as being "socialists", since a consistant adherance to laissez-faire would naturally lead one to oppose corporatism. The conservative loves to see red where it does not really exist, therefore going on red-baiting witch hunts. The conservative may see red in positions that don't necessarily have anything to do with being a communist, such as opposition to political borders and support for multiculturalism. They accept an absurd false dichotomy: either you support the conservative agenda or you are a "far leftist". A "far leftist" is defined quite simply as anyone who disagrees with the conservative to any significant extent.

While there certainly are conservative intellectuals, the average conservative does not derive their position from any serious study of philosophy, economics or history. They derive their position from the media, their parents and cultural cliches. They are brought up to believe that whatever the conservative establishment happens to be supporting equates to small government, free markets and individualism - and that everyone and everything else is more or less a representation of big bad communism and "big government". In contemporary politics, conservatism has more to do with one's cultural preferances than any half-seriously thought out political philosophy. Dimwitted talkings heads such as Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter determines the conservative's views rather than anything remotely resembling a rational thought process.

What does the libertarian truly have in common with the contemporary right? In my estimation, very little. What they have in common is a matter of rhetoric and to some limited degree over what they are opposed to. But the libertarian ultimately has no compelling reason to support what the contemporary right does. For the contemporary right is largely a reactionary statist movement. Figures such as Ronald Reagen and Pat Buchannan are not particularly libertarian, despite any correct positions they may hold to on certain individual issues. Contemporary conservatism is just another brand of statism.

Definitions

Brainpolice — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 05:08:00 GMT

So I put together some relatively witty definitions of my terms. If you're not offended by at least one of these, then you are awesome!

Constitutionalism - The belief that a piece of paper drafted and signed by a tiny aristocracy of men is a legitimate perpetual contract that makes the government voluntary on the part of those within a society that did not sign the document and limits the powers of governmental agents for all of eternity.

Minarchism - The belief that there can be a government limited to the protection of rights without violating rights in and of itself; the belief that all goods and services should be provided by the free market yet somehow the principle magically doesn't apply to the defense and arbitration industry.

Democracy - The belief that the government is controled by the people simply because every few years they get to punch a hole in a piece of paper with the names of a few rich and powerful men on it.

Nationalism - The belief that imaginary lines on a map constitute real and meaningful property boundaries; the belief that territories have human traits or personalities of their own; the belief that immigration is the spawn of satan.

Objectivism - The belief that the initation of force is wrong yet somehow it is permissible to arbitrarily invade Iran and Venezuela because "we" have oil interests there; the belief that only romanticism is real art; the belief that you can eliminate taxation and still have a "government".

Political Libertarianism - The belief that the state is inefficient and immoral yet for some strange reason the state is the only viable means by which we can bring about liberty; the belief that democracy is tyrannical yet we must use it to our advantage.

Paleoconservatism - The belief that conservatism was hijacked by leftists and communists and that the "true conservatives" are those who support protectionism and white nationalism; the belief that you're more conservative than those creepy neocons yet somehow you support just about as powerful of a government as they do.

Christianity - The belief that the path to salvation lies with devotion of one's life to a Jewish zombie hippie who is his own father.

Satanism (Laveyan) - The belief in the writtings of a former carnie con artist who haphazardly threw together the ideas of Ayn Rand and Aleister Crowley, incoherant ramblings on the Enochian key and rhetoric to drawn in rebelious teenagers.

Zionism - The belief that because your people were nearly liquidated once, you have an inherent right to liquidate others and forcibly remove them from their own territory.

Religion - The belief that fairy tales from centuries or millenia ago passed down through shaky oral tradition and written down by fallable men are actually absolutely true and codes to live one's life by.

Collectivism - The strange belief that groups have a mind of their own yet their component parts don't.

Altruism - The belief that self-destructive servitude for the sake of others is the greatest virtue; the belief that everyone should mutually be slaves to eachother.

Epistemological Subjectivism - The belief that all truth claims can be reduced to mere personal opinion or preferance, yet somehow this view isn't a mere opinion in and of itself.

Epistemological Nihilism - The belief that there is no such thing as truth, yet somehow it is true that there is no such thing as truth.

Statism - The belief that it is not only moral but necessary for a particular group of individuals to do that which is openly aknowledged as being immoral and not necessary for everyone else to do; moral hypocrisy at the institutional level.

Primitivism - The strange belief that living in a cave or mud-brick hut or as a hermit in the woods is preferable to modern industrial society; the romantisization of long gone tribal and hunter-gatherer societies (in which life was nasty, brutish and short) as peaceful and prosperous utopias.

Welfarism - The belief that the poor can be helped by giving them back a tiny chunk of what was originally stolen from them and keeping them in a state of dependancy on the government; the bribery of the lower classes.

Inflationism - The belief that all problems can be solved by simply printing up more money, despite overwhelming evidence that the arbitrary creation of new money creates problems in and of itself.

Monetarism - The belief held by a bunch of Chicago School economists who think that they are free market proponents but really are quasi-Keynsians.

Anarcho-Syndicalism - The belief that corporations are evil yet somehow corporate dominated, government chartered and cartelized unions are the path towards a free and stateless society.

Hobbesianism - The belief that a highly pessemistic view of human nature that entails war of all against all justifies absolute control by the state, despite the fact that the state is made up of *gasp* human beings.

Radical Environmentalism - The belief that the planet itself has intrinsic value and that human beings are inherently evil parasites on the face of the planet; the modern religion of nature-worshop.

Globalism - The strange belief that large-scale conflict and war would end if only we put all political power in the hands of a singular oligarchal institution with control over everyone in the entire world.

Animal Rights - The belief that non-human entities deserve human rights; the belief that chickens and bumble bees should be equal before the law; the attempt to liberate the unliberatable.

Marxism - The belief that some crazy rich German guy has predicted an inevitable egalitarian future and has mapped out the path towards the liberation of all poor and working people through the work of a benevolent dictatorship.

Racism - The strange belief that a particular roll of the genetic dice entitles and requires one to completely separate themselves from others with another particular roll of the genetic dice; the collectivism of bubble-headed bigots.

The Anarcho-Statists

Brainpolice — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 17:46:00 GMT

For quite some time now, Kevin Carson has critisized what he calls "vulgar libertarianism". Vulgar libertarian is a tendency of some libertarians, particularly those with an affinity for "the right", to function as apologists for currently existing economic conditions and corporations as if they came about as the result of "the free market" and even outright advocate statist policies in the name of "the free market". In short, they defend the effects of corporatism in the name of "the free market". For the most part, I find Carson's criticisms in this regaurd to be fairly spot on. Vulgar libertarianism is indeed a considerable problem.

However, there is another tendency displayed by some of the libertarian "left" that sort of runs in the other direction. If the vulgar libertarian could be said to concentrate on anti-statism and anti-socialism while ignoring the problems of corporatism and non-governmental forms of exploitation (or making apologetics for the results of the corporatist economy), a significant portion of social anarchists would appear to display the opposite problem: they concentrate so much on anti-capitalism that they start to neglect the problem of statism and function as a apologists for state-socialism. In short, they underemphasize and seem blind to the degree of power that the state has and how it effects matters.

While the vulgar libertarian functions as an apologist for gigantic corporations, the virtuently anti-capitalist libertarian functions as an apologist for state bereaucracies and coercive labor unions. Indeed, much of the valid complaints that the libertarian left makes about the modern chartered corporation applies just as much so to modern chartered unions. For the most part, modern unions are by no means free associations. They are cartels with government privileges and they function much like corporations (even with mergers). This is a problem that particularly applies to anarcho-syndicalists, who envision unions as their main strategic means to bringing about a free society.

But the problem cuts much deeper than coercive unions. For while the virulent social anarchist opposes what they see as being "private tyrannies", a temptation arises to view the state as a more benevolent alternative. The prospect that the state's intervention itself brought about such "private tyrannies" to begin with seems dim or unfathomable to some social anarchists. Instead, they tend to see it as an inevitable result of the market itself. Consequentially, it would appear that they can only turn to the state to crack down on the allegedly private sector created problems. The state appears to be a balancing force that can potentially help alleviate "private tyranny". To these people, government provided goods and services is seen as preferable in comparison to private or corporate provision.

Due to this confusion, some social anarchists are actually functioning as state-socialists in disguise. I have seen this myself first-hand. They will defend blatantly statist ideas and policies such as national healthcare, the minimum wage, anti-trust and personal welfare. They are essentially duped by the populist rhetoric behind such policies that panders to sentiments of empathy towards the poor and needy (and derision towards the wealthy and powerful). They fail to see how, if anything, these policies are substantively more corporatist than not. And they fail to see how such interventions would blatantly contradict anarchism. Such policies are supported in the name of alleviating conditions that are thought of as being the inevitable result of private property and the market economy.

If all of the problems in society are blamed entirely on private property and the profit motive, it is easy to see why one would tend to view state intervention (backed up by egalitarian rhetoric) as a solution or "lesser evil". But an informed social anarchist should know better than to overlook the institutional role of the state in such problems, let alone see the state as a solution. They should not accept the false choice between state tyranny and private tyranny, or between state-socialism and corporatism. Opposition to corporatism should not blind one to the evils of the state apparatus itself.

In order to have a more sound view of matters, the social anarchist should temper or modify their position in certain ways. For one thing, they should aschew the Marxist class analysis, which largely neglects the role of the state in class conflict (as well as the role of the enterprenuer in an economy). Furthermore, they should have a better understanding of how modern welfare states formed on the behalf of big buisiness with the purpose of cartelizing economies. They need to understand how government intervention in an economy creates the conditions they abhor and benefits the private groups that they despise. Otherwise, there will be an overwhelming tendency to drift towards state-socialism.

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.

I hate conservatism

Brainpolice — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 06:29:00 GMT

In the most classical definition of the word, conservatism has always stood for a defense of the status quo. In the 18th and 19th centuries, the so-called "liberal" parties were more or less interested in revolutionary change into the future and opposition to political power, while the so-called "conservative" parties were a reactionary movement that was interested in maintaining the privileges of the existing political classes and elites of the times. In those days, this meant a defense of things such as monarchy, land privileges and the union of church and state. Hardly an admirable political position. The thing to be conserved by conservatives in those days was political power and the privileges that came with it to particular private individuals.

As a historical view, conservatism has a tendency to romantisize the past. In particular, anything from colonial America to fuedal Europe to the 1950's is painted in as positive light as possible to the level of absurdity. Conservatives tend to paint colonial America as a haven of freedom. Yet, not to sound cliche, but this is only remotely true if you were rich, white and male. If you were a native American, a slave or the average worker your conditions were fairly horrid. This is of course not an indictment against freedom, because freedom was denied to such people in the first place. In either case, the conservative idea of "turning back the clock" represents a desire to do something that is impossible. While the starry-eyed progressive and social darwinist notions of perpetual or gradual progress into the future may be silly, the idea of returning to a past utopia is equally absurd.

In modern times, conservatism is in many ways the most hypocritical contemporary political position. At least the so-called "liberals" are consistant in that the objective content of their political positions more accurately matches their rhetoric, as they tend to openly advocate a nanny state. But conservatives have been preaching rhetoric in favor of limiting the government's powers for decades, yet the objective content of their political positions is in sum total pretty much no less statist than that of the contemporary left, and in practise they have expanded the power of the state every time that they have gained the helm of political power.

For years, conservatives have promised to gut taxes, spending and federal departments. But it seems that this has been little more than rhetoric. While making such promises and claims, they have proposed and fully supported the establishment of new departments such as the department of homeland security, and have been more than happy to expand funding to the military and intelligence bereaucracies. They have proposed and rubber stamped massive spending increases on both domestic and foreign policy. The neoconservative's foreign policy of aggression and empire inherently requires considerable government intervention in the economy and a drain on the resources of the people.

So-called "fiscal conservatism" is clearly a myth. While it is true that Republicans may sometimes cut taxes, these tax cuts are rather miniscule and they never have the courage to actually advocate any abolitions of certain taxes. At best, tbey propose "tax reform", which is a shell game that merely shifts from one type of taxation to another or one tax bracket to another. Furthermore, conservatives have a long history of simply using monetary inflation to fund the government in order to make up for the initial loss of revenue from the tax cuts. Republicans simply rely more on borrowing from overseas and printing money to fund their expansions of the state. This creates a situation that leads to tax increases in the future anyways.

While conservatives tend to rhetorically support "the free market", they fall into a false paradime shared by the contemporary left in assuming that we currently have one and in practise they tend to support existing property classes rather than property rights. There is a huge difference between being pro-market and pro-buisiness. Conservatives are generally pro-buisiness, which is to say that they favor government intervention in the economy in order to favor buisiness interests. A free market, on the other hand, by definition requires the lack of government intervention in the economy. The type of system that they favor more closely resembles economic fascism than a free market. Economic fascism is a mixed economy in which the government and big buisiness collude through mechanisms of patronage and protectionism.

While many conservatives rhetorically support a restrained domestic policy, they often paradoxically do not apply the same principles to foreign policy. The idea of cutting back the government at home and expanding it abroad is an oxymoron. It is impossible to have both a limited government at home and a highly active one abroad. A highly active and aggressive foreign policy always coincides with an increase in government intervention domestically. In either case, most American conservatives have almost never met an American war that they did not support. They have a clear history of being war-mongers. And their wars are the most expensive endeavors that a government could possibly engage in.

Some may object to my harsh treatment of conservatives by making a sharp distinction between neoconservatives and paleoconservatives, claiming that the paleoconservatives are true to the limited government rhetoric. The paleoconservatives claim to be the true conservatives, and accuse the neoconservatives of being leftists who hijacked their movement. But while there are indeed some signicant differences between these two schools of conservatism, I do not find too much of a significant difference in the some total of state power that both ideologies tend to support. When it all is tallied up, the paleoconservatives aren't much better than the neoconservatives, and on some issues they may very well be worse than them.

It is true that paleoconservatives may tend to be less interventionist when it comes to foreign policy, yet their so-called "isolationism" is a very different thing than non-interventionism. "Isolationism" is a nationalist policy of government intervention in the name of isolating the people within geographic territories from eachother socially and economically. In place of foreign adventurism, paleoconservatives have a tendency to simply reconcentrate the military power domestically into a police state, just pointing the guns a bit closer to home. They are willing to expand the powers of the government in all kinds of ways in the name of fighting immigration. And they have a history of being virulently protectionist when it comes to foreign economics. To make matters worse, they are permeated by social conservatism and therefore may very well tend to support government legislation of religious and traditionalist morality. Paleoconservatism has much in common with national socialism and tends to attract white nationalists.

While it is theoretically possible for someone to hold socially conservative views and confine them to a voluntary context, most social conservatives support enforcing those views onto everyone through the mechanisms of the state. Inevitably, this implies some kind of coerced uniformity in opposition to free association. Social conservatives may have a tendency to use the state as a mechanism to promote their personal cultural preferances for the purpose of oppressing groups that they do not like such as homosexuals, seculars and certain ethnic or religious groups. While people are perfectly free to have whatever cultural views they please, the desire to create a monolithic culture is in contradiction to reality and trying to use the government towards this end is incredibly dangerous.

I find the assumed alliance between libertarians and conservatives in America to be mostly ill founded. While the so-called "old right" of the 1930's and 40's contained libertarian elements with in it, such elements were never the mainstream of the movement and their remnants have long since been scattered into oblivion. The "old right" has clearly been overly romanticized in either case. Mysteriously, many libertarians continue to this day to have faith in traditionalist conservatives to magically "restore the republic". Libertarians have had an unfortunately tendency to vote for Republicans time and time again, under the illusion that the right is somehow more restrained than the left. This tendency has in turn allowed the libertarian movement itself to be infiltrated by conservative elements that water it down.

Indeed, back in the 70's there were libertarians scrambling to support none other than Richard Nixon. And in the 80's the same was true of Ronald Reagen. Yet the state expanded by leaps and bounds under both adminstrations, despite the fact that both of them predictably ran on a platform of limiting the government down to a smaller scope. And it would be disingenous to blame such an expansion of the state solely on the Democrats, as conservatives tend to do. These Republicans are responsible for proposing and rubber stamping plenty of expansions of the state in themselves. What's most puzzling of all is how libertarians could be fooled into supporting or admiring such people in the first place. What will it take to get libertarians to wake up from their slumber and realize that such political means are not conductive to the ends of liberty?

"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.