Brainpolice : Natural Rights

Do slaves have "self-ownership"?

Brainpolice — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 20:31:00 GMT

I'd like to extend on my criticism of Hoppe's argumentation ethics by concretizing the point about the difference between "self-ownership" as it is used ontologically and "self-ownership" as it is used ethically. I realize that this point has been made in one way or another by others before me, but I am putting it in my own words and using my own conceptual framework to express it.

If all one really means by "self-ownership" is the capacity to purposefully act (and this capacity, at best, is all that "argumentation ethics" proves), then slaves must be said to have "self-ownership", since even though they are slaves their basic nature as human beings has not changed and therefore they retain the capacity to purposefully act despite being a slave. Liberty does not merely mean that someone has the capacity to purposefully act, it more specifically entails that their sphere of action is not infringed upon. A slave has the capacity to purposefully act, but their sphere of action is significantly limited by their master.

This is the problem with trying to prove "self-ownership" by treating it as an ontological given upon the act of argumentation. A slave completely retains the basic capacity to argue and act in general. Presumably, their state of slavery does not eliminate their will. And yet it would be absurd to proclaim that a slave proves that they have rights by engaging in argumentation. They could argue until they are blue in the face, but their rights would still be restricted by their master. In this sense, people are not "inherently free", otherwise there would be absolutely no point in proclaiming that people should be free in the first place.

The slave argues not because they have rights (and by "have rights" I mean their actualization, not "having rights" in the more basic sense of an ought), but because either their master gives them the permission to argue or they manage to argue in spite of their master's control. In terms of the actualization of rights, the slave does not have rights, or at least not completely. And in terms of rights purely as a prescription, the fact that the slave argues by itself does not does not "prove" the validity of rights as a prescription. But if argumentation ethics is to be taken seriously and applied consistent, we would have to say that the slave is "free" and implicitly proves that they have rights by arguing. Surely this is nonsensical if not outrageous.

Clearly, the fact that people engage in argumentation is not sufficient in and of itself to prove that people have rights. For in all times and all places, people who do not completely have rights have engaged in argumentation! Upon them engaging in argumentation, it is not implicitly proven that they have a certain set of rights that is consistent with a specifically libertarian social theory. To treat rights as some sort of inherent ontological fact in this way is to confuse what the meaning and purpose of rights is to begin with. The purpose of a theory of rights is not to prove some sort of ontological characteristic that people inherently have, for rights are ethical norms and not merely descriptive traits. At best, they can only sensibly be treated descriptively upon their realization as ethical norms or as a description of such ethical norms as such.

What's strange about Hoppe's argumentation ethics is that it appears to be attempting to make an "ontological proof" of libertarianism. Unfortunately, there is no such ontological proof, because libertarianism is not an ontological fact. "Liberty", strictly speaking, is not some sort of "natural state" that we cannot possibly escape any more than "tyranny" is such a "natural state". Argumentation ethics seems like a naturalistic fallacy because it treats liberty as if it an intrinsic quality of all humans. Perhaps all people have the capacity for liberty, but the realization of liberty as such is not intrinsic.

Furthermore, the attempt to derive a specific notion of rights and the general premise that people should have liberty from such an assumption of intrinsic ontology inherently is fallacious and bumps into the most obvious sense of the is-ought dichotomy. If liberty is some sort of intrinsic quality in this way, then there is no rational reason to argue that we should have liberty. An "ethics of liberty" would henceforth be completely pointless. On the other hand, if liberty is some sort of capacity that has not yet been fully realized, if liberty is prescriptive in nature and hence constitutes an ethical norm, then it makes no sense whatsoever to appeal to liberty as an intrinsic ontological fact, for in this context it is a goal that has not yet been realized (and hence in this sense it simply is not a "fact").

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.

Lysander Spooner: Libertarian Hero

Brainpolice — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 06:26:00 GMT

The American individualist anarchist Lysander Spooner was one of the last natural law philosophers of the 19th century, and his crowning achievement is arguably the total demolition of the myth of the social contract. Spooner applied a libertarian theory of natural law to the United States Constitution that lead him to reject the authority of the constitution, leading to his radical work "No Treason: Constitution of No Authority", in which he applied common sense standards of justice and contract law to political institutions that delegitimized them. Spooner proved beyond the shadow of a doubt that the state is not genuinely based on consent, that the standard social contract and democratic arguments for the sovereignty of the state is a fraud.

Spooner was also a slavery abolitionist and a strong supporter of the principle of individual secession, which goes hand in hand. While maintaining a radical opposition to slavery, he simultaneously opposed the concept of "the union" and opposed the civil war. He more or less accused the northern states of only reforming and expanding slavery, although he wasn't necessarily completely sympathetic to the confederacy either. Furthermore, he tried to outcompete the government in mail delivery and got shut down by the government. Another notable feature of Spooner is that he explicitly took the position that vices are not crimes, coinciding with the standard libertarian opposition to prohibition laws and authoritarian forms of social planning. While Spooner may have a legalistic aura, his legalism was not statist in nature and he more fundamentally was working with ethics when it comes down to it.

Spooner was loosely associated with the individualist anarchist Benjamin Tucker and the periodical "Liberty". While in the grand scheme of things Spooner's political philosophy was similar to that of other individualist anarchists, it could be said that his approach to property appears to have a distinctively neo-lockean element to it, although Spooner is actually claimed to be a libertarian socialist by some. In either case, some genuine dividing lines did emerge as Benjamin Tucker adopted an egoist position under the influence of the work of Max Stirner, which philosophically clashes with Spooner's natural law position. Spooner was a strong advocate of "natural rights", while a Stirnerite egoism rejects the very concept of "right". So in a certain sense, from that point onward individualist anarchism can be seen as splitting between natural rights proponents and egoists, with Spooner remaining on the natural rights side.

Spooner could be viewed as the first political theorist to take natural law philosophy to the conclusion of anarchism. While Proudhon had of course already come to the conclusion of anarchism, his approach wasn't necessarily a strict natural law philosophy. The earliest natural law philosophies actually justified political absolutism. It wasn't until guys like Locke and Jefferson that it began to meaningfully take a more liberal character, justifying limits on political institutions. But all of these natural law approaches prior to that of Spooner ultimately justified state sovereignty on the grounds of some kind of social contract concept. Spooner took natural law philosophy to its logical conclusion by demonstrating that it is impossible for any state to genuinely be contractual as a state qua state, that all currently existing states must be illegitimate by the standards of natural law. Even Locke invoked the concept of the social contract being undoable, but he didn't take this far enough.

In a sense, Spooner can be seen as merely continueing the Jeffersonian project. The views of some of the later natural law philosophers and classical liberals such as Jefferson and Paine was arguably proto-anarchist in nature. "Philosophical anarchism" was common among the more radical American liberals and heavy emphasis was placed on decentralization. But they always ultimately maintained a pragmatic support for a minimal level of government. Spooner was the first natural law philosopher to overcome this limit, arguably representing the culmination of natural law philosophy. The developement of natural law philosophy in America more or less ends with Spooner, until Murray Rothbard picked it up around a century later and drew heavily on Spooner as a referance.

Spooner has a unique place in the history of anarchism and is worthy of it.

On Amoralist Anarchism

Brainpolice — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 00:18:00 GMT

I've been a part of numerous online social networks or general social groups online that contains some amoralist anarchists, who either are former libertarian anarchists who have come to reject libertarianism or they are anarchists who rejected libertarianism from the get-go and reached the conclusion of anarchism from a completely different conceptual framework.

On the most personal level, the youtuber D4Shawn and the persona formerly known as Stodles (who now runs this website) are the two amoralist anarchists that I've interacted with most. D4Shawn used to be a libertarian anarchist, and made a separate channel one day trying to approach anarchism from a more utilitarian or relativistic perspective, which has recently devolved into an ethical nihilism. Stodles never was a libertarian, he jumped straight from white nationalism to anarchism, which created some confusion about his position along the way.

Both Stodles and D4Shawn philosophically reject libertarianism while still prefering anarchism. D4Shawn effectively claims that ethics is completely useless metaphysical mumbo-jumbo, and thinks that we should be speaking in purely preferential terms. Stodles even appears to go so far as to imply that any conception of ethics inherently leads to rulership. On the other hand, both of them practically take positions that may very well tend towards libertarian anarchism, but it is functionally a mere statement of preferance from their perspective. This starts to hint at the complications that leads me to see this approach as silly.

While these amoralists may philosophicaly reject libertarianism, they essentially practically support it and they cannot completely avoid value-laden terminology. So while they may loudly proclaim their opposition to ethical principles and rights-concepts until they are blue in the face, they ultimately would like to live their lives in a way consistant with certain ethical principles and rights-concepts. While, unlike Stefan Molyneux, I am not argueing that this by itself proves those ethical principles and rights-concepts, it certainly gives reason for pause when comparing one's behavior to one's philosophy and may hint at a need to reanalyze the moral-practical dichotomy.

Anarchism is indistinguishable from anomie if there is an ethical vacuum. There is no such thing as a society in an ethical vacuum. Even if one concedes to the existance of some kind of subjectivity, I don't think it logically follows that ethics is completely useless and irrelevant. An anarchist society either cannot conceptually be an anarchist society to begin with or will not last as an anarchist society for long if its philosophical and cultural norms deliberately undermine it. So it doesn't make sense to act like anarchism is compatible with any set of values or to act as if all values are equal.

Various ethical principles can undermine anarchism, help foster it and widen its scope. Furthermore, merely having an ethical principle, wether it's sensible or not, doesn't necessarily lead to the use of violence to enforce it. Questions of the use of violence inherently are ethical questions themselves, and the behavior of an individual doesn't always align with their philosophy. There really is no such thing as a person who has no ethical considerations, and this includes self-proclaimed ethical nihilists and various post-modernists. Noone can really divorce themselves from goals, reasons for goals and means towards goals.

Such things almost always have a reason. It makes no sense to proclaim that you favor a society in which rulership is normatively shunned, and then say you have no real reason for it other than preferance. To borrow Molyneuxian terminology, that reduces it to the level of "I like ice cream". Surely, a cause such as anarchism is not at the level of "I like ice cream". If one is putting foreward anarchism as a goal, surely one must explain why it is your goal beyond a mere appeal to the fact that your do favor the goal. It makes no sense to have a goal, and then proclaim neutrality as soon as the question of its foundation and application comes up.

So, by the very least, this ethical nihilism is highly impractical. If taken to its extremes, one is simply advocating anomie. If one is more practical about it, one is nonetheless sort of advocating both anarchy and anomie at once. On one hand, I think there's a sense in which this ethical nihilism is harmless, since the ethical nihilist may practically take a libertarian type of position anyways and most people aren't going to practically take ethical nihilism seriously. On the other hand, it poses a threat to libertarian anarchism to the extent that it encourages people to either think that anarchism is a pandora's box compatible with any set of values or to ultimately reject libertarian values in the name of putting on a facade of neutrality.

Is self-ownership a misnomer?

Brainpolice — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 15:47:00 GMT

If something is owned, then by definition there is something external to it that is doing the owning. Likewise, something that is owned is by definition something external to the agent that owns it. Taking this very basic point into account, does it really make that much sense to think in terms of "self-ownership"? For if the self is something that is owned, then it is being owned by something or someone else. So then what is this entity that owns us and yet is us at the same time? Surely if it owns us then it is not us, or if we own the thing in question then it is not us?

In short, we run into the problem of creating a metaphysical duality in which the self is split into an essential and unessential self or a dominant and passive self in which the body is merely something that is inhabited by a "soul" or "spirit". One way of trying to get out of this problem would be to sever this duality into two separate entities, although the problem of explaining the existance and nature of this immaterial "soul" or "spirit" would remain. Another way of getting out of this problem would be to disregaurd the "soul" or "spirit" as a floating abstraction and to consequentially recognize the actual self as a coherant whole, devoid of any dominating metaphysical entity.

The idea of an external metaphysical entity that owns oneself renders the individual into nothing more than the slave of an abstraction, for their actual material being is placed into a submissive position in relation to this metaphysical entity or this particular manifestation of it. Individual autonomy and self-realization can actually be said to come under threat as a result of such a concept. In reality, this abstract metaphysical self functions as a false identity and implies some sort of internal struggle. Such an internal struggle can only be avoided by casting out or denying such a metaphysical duality to begin with, at which point the actual self can be meaningfully recognized and rights can be meaningfully derived.

None of this is being said to belittle the importance of individual sovereignty, but rather it is being said to save it from internal disintegration, while avoiding the problem of solipsism at the same time. This is a rather simple matter of recognizing the distinction between one's actual self and that which is either external to oneself or non-existant to begin with. If such a distinction is not made, then there will forevermore be a confusing haze with respect to discussions about rights and their derivation.

The Myth of the Social Contract

Brainpolice — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 13:20:00 GMT

One of the most erroneous political ideas is the notion of the social contract. The idea is that the legitimacy of a government is based on a social contract between the people and the government. In America, the constitution is supposed to be our social contract. But since no such "social contract" has ever been an actual voluntary contract among "the people", it cannot be said to have any genuine authority under any common sense standards of justice. None of us ever signed the document (and even when it was drafted, it was only signed by a tiny aristocracy of people). Rather, we are assumed to have implicitly "consented" to it merely for being born within the territory. This strikes me as incredibly unjust. A true contract requires explicit consent. However, the standard view of the social contract is that everyone implicitly agrees to it by simply living under a given government.

The idea of a contract that I never signed that binds me to the authority of the state from birth, is akin to slavery from birth. I never signed no stinking contract. How is it that I am binded by this document for merely being born within the territory? How is it that I am obligated to serve a particular band of men for merely being born within the territory? How can a document be self-enforcing? It cannot, it must be created and enforced by flesh and blood individual men. How can the law rule all on its own? It cannot. The rule of law is a concept meant to, or that at least functions to even without such intent, disguise what is really the rule of men. The state can not be contractual. If such an institution truly is contractual, it ceases to be a state in any rational definition of the word.

The Lockean view of sovereignty essentially boils down to the idea that as soon as the constitutional contract is broken by the government, it is no longer binding and the government therefore no longer has sovereignty. In fact, without realizing it, Locke throws a huge bone to anarchists, because no government in the history of mankind fits the criteria necessary for his social contract. He was indeed denounced by his detractors as being an anarchist, for they quite correctly realized that the implications of his theory of sovereignty would completely delegitimize all existing states. Under common sense standards of jurisprudence, and Lockean principles, the constitution literally is not a binding contract. Furthermore, even if we treat it as having once been binding, the government has long since reniged on its contractual obligations. Therefore, under the classical liberal theory of sovereignty, it (and the government that it spawned) has no legitimate authority.

What about the idea that the constitution gives us our rights? It does no such thing. Rights are natural. You have them regaurdless of wether or not the law recognizes them. If the 2nd amendment was not in the bill of rights, you would still have a right of self-defense. It would not be legally recognized, but you will still have that right. This is the Lockean-style view of natural rights. You have them by virtue of being a human being. Constitutions do not give you your rights, they can only legally recognize them. Rights do not come from governments or laws, they come from human nature itself. All the government can do at best is abstain from violating your rights. In the Lockean view, governments and laws may be instituted in the name of securing these rights, but they are not where they derive from.

Thomas Jefferson said it best: "A free people claim their rights as derived from the laws of nature, and not as the gift of their chief magistrate." -- Thomas Jefferson

From a practical standpoint, the constitution already has been shown to not work. It was defied almost from day one and the post-civil-war federal government, and especially the post WWI federal government, essentially has little to no resemblance to the document_ The constitution already has failed, so I don't see the logic in trying the exact same thing again. Clearly, the document can either be interpreted in a manner that implies the opposite of its original intent or meaning, or outright defied anyways. The document was flawed in the first place (not to mention that it was expansive in comparison to the document that preceded it, namely the AOC).

What about the content of the constitution? While it has been argued ad nauseum that it's "original intent" (or, to take a somewhat more strong stance, the "original meaning" of the words in themselves) was to limit the government's powers, the document itself contains plenty of "loopholes" and vague language that can easily be construed (and have been so construed) to grant expansive powers not intended or apparent within the plain language. The "general welfare" clausecomes to mind most of all. It has been used to justify practically anything the government does, for "general welfare" is a loaded, subjective and arbitrary term. Who's welfare, and what exactly is welfare? Who will define this for us? "The supreme court", you answer? What kind of limit on government is this, that it may define its own powers arbitrarily and at whim?

Not only can the constitution not work and has been empirically shown to not have worked, but it cannot be ethically justified to begin with.