Back to the Drawing Board : Liberty

Three Different Ways of Using Force

Donny with an A — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 18:43:00 GMT

So here's the idea: there are at least three different ways that libertarians generally think of coercive force, and I think they've been harmed by treating them as if they were essentially the same sort of thing. The first kind of coercive "force" is the use of someone else's property without their permission, or in direct defiance of their wishes. The second kind is the initiation of physical force upon a person, again without permission or in violation of their explicit desires. The third kind is the threat of physical force directed at coercing a person into doing something against their will. I don't deny that there might be more "kinds," but these three came to mind first, so they're the one's I'll address here.

It seems to me that when many libertarians decry "coercion" or "aggressive force," they do so by means of certain kinds of arguments. These arguments sometimes take the form of identifying the "true nature" of certain kinds of coercive actions, and extending that characterization to other kinds of coercive actions which may or may not fall into different categories of force as expounded above. This, I think, can lead to mistakes.

For example, "Taxation is slavery because the product of your labor doesn't belong to you." The idea here is that the government "steals" some of your income from you (which depends on the rejection of the idea that you voluntarily live on the government's land by living in a country), and this money is the product of your own labor. But you know what you call a system in which you work, but someone else gets the product of that work? Yea, slavery. Blammo, take that government! *high fives from the libertarians*

Except here's the thing. There is exactly one sense in which taxation is like slavery, and it's not the sense that these people are talking about. The way that taxation is like slavery is that the government demands that you, or your employer, or someone not actually on their own staff, actually sends them the money. That is, if you don't put the check in the envelope, stamp it, and send it, you get punished. That's the third kind of force discussed above, where the threat of violence is used to coerce a person into doing something against their will. And that's exactly like slavery.

However, the reason that taxation is like slavery has nothing to do with the fact that the government gets the product of your work. That kind of thinking is not only sloppy, but in many ways anti-libertarian and Marxist. We live in a country where we are told that we will be taxed if we decide to work. In a slave society, slaves are told that they will be taxed and they will work, whether they like it or not. The government does not use the threat of force to make us produce income. That would be like the third kind of force, which is the kind that can be associated legitimately with slavery. We choose to work, and can choose not to do so without any government-enforced consequences.

The idea that the product of our labor should belong to us, even when we are explicitly a part of an arrangement in which it will be taken from us, is an idea that can be traced back to Marx and the labor theory of value. The very same idea is used to explain why capitalists exploit their workers: the workers produce, and the corporation gets the product of that labor. It's like wage-slavery! *high fives from the socialists*

The difference between a voluntary agreement to work and government taxation is not that corporations let you keep the product of your labor and the government doesn't. Rather, the difference is that you don't agree to the arrangement the government enforces upon you (well, under certain conceptions of voluntarity), and you do agree to the arrangement the corporation enforces upon you. In a corporate agreement, you are "paying" your employers with the product of your labor in exchange for them paying you with money that you want more than the product of your labor. In a government agreement, you are paying the government with the product of your labor so that they won't use the first kind of force (the use of your property against your will) or the second kind (the use of physical force against your person).

The slavery part of that bargain is the part where they actually make you pay the tax with the threat of those other kinds of force. If they just went to your bank and took the money from you, the slavery component would be gone. But ostensibly, nobody's complaining because we have to put a check in an envelope and mail it, or fill out a form every once in a while. I mean, that's a pain in the ass, but I really don't think that's the problem. The problem is not that taxation is like slavery, but rather that taxation is like theft.

But if you accept the view that we voluntarily live on the government's land, and part of our contract is that we pay taxes to the government, then even this characterization doesn't apply. The first kind of force (using property without the owner's permission) doesn't apply to situations where the alleged "owner" is party to an agreement through which she surrendered the title to that property, just like it's not the first kind of force when my employer takes the product of my labor without my consent. And the second kind of force (physical force against someone's person) doesn't seem to apply when the person is doing something that they have a perfect right to be doing, and are resisted against forcefully. In a sense, it would almost be self-defense for the government to collect its "rent", just like my employer would have every right to use some reasonable amount of force if I suddenly refused to give up the products of my labor in the middle of the work day (well, more accurately, he would have the right to demand that I appear in court or something similar, and if I were found to be in breach of my contract, some force would be legitimate in enforcing that contract; I'm no opponent of procedural justice).

So we see that "Taxation is slavery" collapses into "Taxation is theft, and they even make me give it to them at gunpoint", which then collapses into "The government doesn't have any legitimate claim to my property." It seems to me that all that would be perfectly clear to anyone willing to think about it for a moment if they would only separate the different kinds of force and consider each in its own light.

The Pitch (a First Draft...)

Donny with an A — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 05:08:00 GMT

On a fundamental level, political philosophy exists to pursue a better understanding of how society ought to be organized. So it is rather unsurprising that students of the subject tend to view themselves as proponents of a certain kind of social order: socialists, social democrats, minarchists, anarcho-capitalists, etc. And to some degree, within communities of political philosophers and those who seek to emulate them, it makes sense to adopt these comprehensive positions and to debate their merits with those who advocate opposing views.

But in a world where most people do not think in terms of any coherent and complete political paradigm, this kind of approach to advancing one’s ideas makes less sense. It is, in a sense, like trying to get a person to buy into a particular diet as the objectively correct diet for human beings. Even if there were such a thing, most individuals would not even know how to begin to evaluate the idea being presented to them. They would immediately search for flaws, and cling to any lack of clarity or certainty as reason to reject the diet completely. And tellingly, we might expect this from someone whose existing diet is in all likelihood a really bad diet by any reasonable standard!

In advancing the cause of liberty, we have all experienced exactly this sort of thing. People don’t understand certain features of our standpoint, and accordingly reject the whole thing. I submit that this is not because of some flaw in our argument, or a persistent indoctrinated stubbornness on their part. Rather, it is simply a normal part of dealing with people who are not, and do not want to be, political philosophers.

Up to this point, I think that libertarians have largely focused on the idea that central governments should not be involved in various parts of our lives. The justification for these positions generally takes two forms, often advanced simultaneously in the same argument. First, there is a moral position that argues that there is something unjust about using the State mechanism to bring about a desired solution, and that people must realize this fact and respond accordingly. The second is a pragmatic position which points out that central governments are inherently ill-suited for dealing with the kinds of tasks with which they are entrusted, and accordingly, we should be not rely on them in the capacity under consideration.

It occurs to me that by making these two positions part of the same argument, libertarians have created a major hurdle for themselves. This is because the moral position they have been advancing is one which requires one to put herself into the role of political philosopher, and ask what sorts of principles ought to govern our social relationships. Most people are inherently ill suited for this kind of thing, and will too often either become recalcitrant or brainwashed.

Ultimately, neither is desirable. But by making the moral position a part of the core of their viewpoint, libertarians have created a set of circumstances where practically the only lay-people who acknowledge the other part of the core – the practical position – are the people who are on board with the moral argument. Those who reject the moral argument overwhelmingly seem to be ignoring or rejecting the practical argument.

There are a number of reasons why this is a regrettable state of affairs. Perhaps most significant of these is the fact that the practical part of the core is completely consistent with almost every other viewpoint. It is uncontroversial even among socialists that we cannot always know the best policy solutions to social problems, and that there are problems with entrusting centralized governments with the reigns of society. It is therefore perfectly in line with everyone’s viewpoint to consider the possibility that decentralized action might be the best way to deal with social issues, by their own standards. And if libertarians are right about the idea that decentralized solutions are more effective than centralized ones, this will appeal to everyone.

This leads to another critically important reason why the current state of debate is unfortunate. In a world where people understood that decentralized decision-making is often superior to central planning, we could reasonably expect people to be substantially more open to the possibility that freedom to determine one’s own course of action is a good thing. The person that says, “There’s no objective solution to this problem, so let’s try and work something out together,” is going to be someone who can easily be shown that imposing solutions on other people is a problematic way to deal with social problems. Essentially, what I am saying is that coming to terms with the practical part of libertarianism is actually a really effective way to get people to see the virtue of the moral part.

So what I’m proposing is that we organize ourselves to study how decentralized solutions can be found for social problems, and how government action is not necessarily the best way to deal with things. This seems like something that can appeal to people way outside of the libertarian circle, and I think we should take full advantage of that fact to bring the discussion into the mainstream arena. What I have in mind, essentially, is something like an Institute for the Study of Decentralization.

The appeal here, again, is twofold. First, it would serve the cause of liberty by helping to foster a mindset which seems likely to bring people closer to being open to the philosophy of freedom as a moral position. And second, it could help to bring a core part of the libertarian agenda – getting central governments out of their roles in social decision-making – into the mainstream policy arena, where it could form a basis for consensus between libertarians and even their most bitter opponents.

To be perfectly clear, I’m not saying that we could do this as a sneaky way to get people to be more vulnerable to being converted. My point is that we can legitimately argue that even if we’re wrong in our moral positions, our practical ideas are important and deserving of consideration. And further, we can say without controversy that once people come to appreciate our practical ideas, they’ll probably be able to see why we take the moral positions that we do.

Social Policymaking and the Libertarian Party

Donny with an A — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 05:43:00 GMT

[It occurs to me that the beginning of this post is very poorly written, and does not convey the idea that I was trying to get across. I apologize. Feel free to read it anyway, but feel even freer to skip down a little until the next bracketed comment.]

I take it that most libertarians acknowledge that society does need certain institutions and rules in order to operate, and that these rules would require individuals to abide by agreements which might end up with outcomes that they don't particularly like, but have to abide by because of the agreements. For example, if I voluntarily enter into a living arrangement in an incorporated city which is governed by a set of laws, then I must abide by those laws so long as I continue to live in the city. Going further, it seems reasonable to believe that in such a living arrangement, part of my agreement would include a mechanism for deciding on new rules which could be enforced. For example, if the members of my community wanted to employ a lawn mowing service, perhaps we could somehow get together and decide to be bound to contribute to the lawn mowing fund.

Now, what I've just described is a public policy. This public policy would be one that I could advocate for some reason like "I think we can all agree that it would be nice to have mowed lawns in our town, so we should have lawn mowing," or "It seems to me that people aren't motivated to mow their lawns, but would be glad to pay the price of mowing their lawn if for that price they knew they would get their lawn mowed and also get to live in a town of beautifully manicured laws." And given that I would be living in a community where all the members had agreed to abide by the rules turned out by some rule-making procedure, it seems like such a policy would be perfectly consistent with the ideals of anarcho-capitalism.

Hearing this, it might occur to some members of our current social order to suggest something like the following: What's the point of being an anarcho-capitalist if that's what you're going to end up with? If you have a vision of what society should be like, you should try to convince enough people that you're right, and then you can direct the political process towards implementing that vision. That's how democracy is supposed to work, and you just need to get out there and let your voice be heard!

It is this sort of thinking, as far as I can tell, that leads to the idea that a Libertarian Party can be successful. The idea, then, is that if Libertarians get their message out, they can make the government give us back our freedom and stay out of our lives. Society, under such a government, would then be able to decide whether to disband the State entirely or to attempt to maintain a smaller, more limited State. And perhaps both. After all, what's most important is that we start working towards a point where such a conversation could even be possible on a national level.

But notice an interesting feature about what I've said so far about taking a position on social issues. First, I talked about anarcho-capitalism as a starting point, and then talked about public policies that I would personally advocate for implementation in my own society, which I had voluntarily entered, and where the other members could only be bound by rules produced by a procedure that they had directly agreed to. By contrast, the capital-L Libertarians, it appears to me, leave out the first step. Their objective is to determine what rules they would want to govern their society, and then to attempt to have those rules implemented (this manifests itself in some sort of private property regime where there are very few socially enforced rules besides respect for property).

[If you just read the above, see what I mean about me not talking sense? Yea...sorry about that, I wrote the beginning of this post at 2AM last night, and didn't notice how bad it was when I resumed writing today. What follows is the main idea of this post, and hopefully makes sense on its own.]

This difference is not insignificant. To illustrate why, imagine that there is a fraternity, Alpha Beta (AB), which throws a huge party every year with a sorority, Chi Upsilon Zeta (XYZ). Let's say that a member of Alpha Beta, Chad, decides that he doesn't like the XYZ parties and no longer wants to contribute to them, but the other members of AB are willing to use force if necessary to get the money from Chad if he refuses to pay and doesn't leave the fraternity. Chad first considers leaving AB to go live elsewhere, but unfortunately, all the housing with access to his college's campus belongs to the Greek system, and all the other fraternities on campus do things that Chad finds equally lame, but would be forced to contribute to. His situation, I take it, is somewhat analogous to the one in which libertarians find themselves today (though of course Chad could transfer or drop out, but whatever).

Now, if Chad were to pursue the sort of plan I outlined in the beginning of this post, what would he need to do? Essentially, he would have several options. He could attempt to convince the other AB's (or the members of another fraternity) to allow him to build a shed on part of their lawn to sleep in. While in his part of the yard, the fraternity's rules would not apply to him, including the one which forced him to help pay for the party with the XYZ's. Second, he could purchase a patch of yard from the AB's (or another fraternity) which would belong exclusively to him, where he could make rules for himself, and would not need to contribute to any kind of fraternity organization. Third, Chad could claim a patch of lawn for himself and defend it with force of his own if anyone tried to make him contribute to any fraternity programs. There are probably a bunch of other things Chad could do instead. But the common theme here is that what Chad is doing is entering a non-affiliated state of affairs.

I should note that Chad would be an idiot to do this alone, especially if doing this would prevent him from any sort of social cooperation with anyone in the fraternity system. I don't think any reasonable anarcho-capitalist would contend that non-affiliated status would "work" if it meant that people would be out on their own. Being on your own is awful--worse, I think, than being subject to unreasonable and involuntary rule. But this is besides the point of this post.

Now let's contrast the above strategy to the kind of thing that Libertarian Party libertarians are trying to do. Imagine if instead of looking for a way out of the fraternity system, Chad thought to himself, "Well, I don't like the parties with the XYZ's. So what I should do is get AB to stop throwing the parties; if people really want to throw the parties, they can get together and organize the party voluntarily. The AB fraternity shouldn't be involved in the party; the members who want the party should be the ones to organize it." Chad would then try to popularize this idea, and get enough people in AB to agree to stop funding the party to bring about a change in the fraternity's rules. If Chad were like the Libertarian Party, he would go about this goal by trying to convince the youngest and most impressionable members of the fraternity about why the party wasn't so great, and why it would be really great if everyone who wanted the party just got together and had it without involving any of the people who didn't want to have it. Eventually, if Chad were successful, enough of AB would be filled with this new generation of Libertarian AB's, and the fraternity government would be withdrawn from involvement in throwing the party.

See how that's a very different way of getting things done? Consider, for a moment, the consequences for the AB member who is perfectly happy with the XYZ parties, and is glad to pay the dues to fund them. In the first scenario, where Chad goes out of his way to leave in a way that does not disturb the AB system of governance, the members of AB who are happy with their fraternity government still get to have their party, and without any perceptible change except for the one we want them to feel, which is that now Chad no longer has to pay for something that he doesn't want, and they have to deal with the consequences of that. If the party was only worth it to them because they could make Chad help pay for it, then perhaps they would stop having the party, and that's a good thing. But otherwise, the remaining members of AB would get to continue living the way that they were living, and it would be on Chad to figure out a way to make his new life work outside of AB.

By contrast, in the second scenario the mechanism by which the XYZ party was formerly thrown has now been denied to the AB members who have always depended upon it in the past, and if they want to have their party, it will now be contingent on them to get together and negotiate a new deal. If AB were an extremely large fraternity, and the members did not have a very good way of communicating and negotiating with each other, this might be incredibly difficult for the AB's to organize. Certainly they would have an incentive to figure it out. But that doesn't mean that they would figure it out, and figuring it out would certainly involve opportunity costs that could be very significant to them.

The difference can be summed up like this: In the scenario I've advanced, where Chad separates himself from what he takes to be an oppressive system and strikes out to pursue his own goals, what Chad does is to remove himself, but to leave the existing system intact for those who want it to remain that way. He changes nothing for anyone except so far as others were depending on him to help further their own ends (using him as a means). In the scenario in which Chad embodies the Libertarian Party, on the other hand, the entire system of government by which the other AB's are used to coordinating their activities is disabled, and they must take it upon themselves to coordinate the party in its stead. As I've suggested, this might not be particularly easy for them to do, especially if the fraternity is extremely large and communication is difficult, and lots of coordination is required to get the XYZ party off the ground.

As I see it, the former strategy is the one most consistent with the ideal of just wanting to be left alone. The latter, it seems to me, effectively stops the other AB's from imposing things on Chad by creating a coordination vacuum, which could have seriously unpleasant consequences for the AB's. It's stopping an imposition on Chad by essentially imposing something else on the AB's: the responsibility to throw a party for which they had gladly delegated the responsibility away to their fraternity government.

Essentially, this is what I think that the Libertarian Party is trying to do. It's trying to take a government entity that many people rely on and that many people believe must be involved in certain areas of their lives, and destroying its ability to fulfill the tasks that these people are looking for it to fulfill. Sure, it's probably true that these people will be able to adapt to their new circumstances and perhaps be better off than before. But the point is, people who are not libertarians don't want to live in a society that reflects libertarian ideals. They would gladly submit to a coercive government if the alternative were trying to make all the decisions necessary to decide on what kind of life they want to live. To paralyze their government, I take it, would be to do these people a profound disservice. And because I like these people, I will advocate nothing of the sort.

Rather, I will advocate what I consider to be the high road. I would gladly endure greater oppression under the state, and gladly make greater sacrifices in order to bring about a world in which secession from our statist friends is a feasible solution for libertarians who no longer want to live under the state system, rather than advocate the destruction of the state system to serve my ends, at the great expense of those who very much want the state system to remain in place, and who have no interest in giving anarchy a shot.

I want to qualify that by saying that I'm finding it hard not to want to see McCain run this country into the ground in a spectacular fashion so that Americans will have reason to critically reexamine the ideas on which they base their social order. But I think that's sort of different from wanting to force people to act like libertarians: I want them to see how stupid their system is and change their minds, as opposed to wanting them to have to act as though their minds were changed when they really hadn't been.

Another Double Standard Between Governments and Individuals?

Donny with an A — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 22:07:00 GMT

[Cross-posted...a while ago...on the parent blog]

So today was my first day at the Foundation for Economic Education, where I'll be interning over the summer, and I've already had some excellent debates; this is going to be a fantastic experience. Everyone seems really passionate and interesting, and I'm sure I'm going to learn a lot from everyone. I wanted to put one of the more controversial debate topics on my blog as a record, and to get the idea out to a wider audience. I've been toying around with the idea for a few days; I'm really curious to hear what other people think.

The idea is this: If we recognize private entities' claims to property titles as legitimate, even when they have a known history of violence and illegitimacy, then it's difficult to argue that currently existing governments are illegitimate for property rights-based reasons. Governments claim that we live in their territory, and their claims have roots that go back many generations. To claim that a government is not justified in enforcing rules in its territory is, effectively, to claim that the government is not the legitimate owner of that territory. But saying that, it seems to me, makes it very difficult to consistently argue that many (most, if not all) private property titles are legitimately held.

We had a bit of fun with this one at dinner, and I'm not completely sure what I think of it. Of course, everyone else at the table was not too comfortable with the idea, and it made for some lively debate. But nevertheless, I figured I'd post it here. Feel free to leave any comments; I'll be interested to hear what people think about this.