Ludwig von Mises Refutes Anarchy

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Bostwick replied on Tue, Sep 15 2009 8:15 PM

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GilesStratton:

JonBostwick:

The market is a result of social organization, just as government is. Neither of them creates society or the tendency towards cooperation.

The market, as envisioned by Mises, was a process. It involved the voluntary exchange of property rights between consenting individuals. But the market won't function correctly if people have radically different conceptions of property rights and what constitutes voluntary exchange. Moreover, if individuals are wont to disobey the law due to dispersed costs and concentrated benefits the market will run into difficulties.

Government suffers all those same pitfalls.

GilesStratton:

In Mises' view, a government could solve all of these problems.

It can't. If people have different conceptions of the law, there will be no (single) government.

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Live_Free_Or_Die replied on Sat, Nov 14 2009 12:51 AM

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I have a few disagreements with some things asserted in this thread.

It has been suggested wealthy people would have a monopoly on the use of force under anarcho-capitalism but not under mini-archy.  I feel this argument defies the reality of the Federal Reserve system which is the ultimate monopoly on the use of force.  Legally eliminate competition and let the tax payers pay for your police force or private army.

It has been suggested in this thread government monopoly is an economic issue.  I find this argument defies the reality of the federal government which has a monopoly on the interpretation of law which is a much greater evil.

On a personal note, I think any absolute social contract is utopia because it is dependent on the principals of founders to be passed down generation by generation.  Has this ever happened in history?

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thelion replied on Sat, Nov 14 2009 4:56 PM

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I agree with Molinari (although he sometimes changed his opinion on this issue).

1rstly. Mises was talking about no security whatsoever, because no property to secure. Private Security wasn't on his list of objections; he was refuting Proudhon, who argued against property, which would allow dispensing with security (in his mind).

2ndly. Private Security would work as any other company works. In Private Security, as the funds are not unlimited, the operations are restricted to what is necessary, reasonable, and seen in good reputation (as in respecting human rights).

Example 1: Tim Spicer has a large PMC, currently operating in Iraq (which means no need for a draft, to all use Americans). Or Blackwater. There, also, used to be a company called Executive Outcomes. And so on. There a plenty, in fact, since the 90's.

Example 2: Remember: the national socialists quickly killed or imprisoned any private security forces running around Germany (because of the disorder during the depression): private security forces are unreliable, that is, they can and likely will refuse to shoot civilians.

3rdly. As far as 'What is law, or who will define it?' -- de facto law is law of the market; de jure law is law as appears but is not enforced.

If I remember correctly, Cantillon had a bit to say about de facto market law: the passage where Newton refused to lower price of silver coin in terms of gold, despite flood of gold coin, which resulted in silver being taken from the country. De jure, silver is coin of the realm--its conversion rate must be fixed; de facto, its conversion rate will change regardless of what anyone says, for instance, by melting down silver. Its the contrast of appearances and actuality.

4thly. Bastiat envisioned a government run entirely as private enterprise insofar as what people choose to pay in taxes and what government provides. This would give a company, called Government, but very different from anything considered government today. Hence Molinari's ideas.

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Edmund Carlyle replied on Sat, Nov 14 2009 5:54 PM

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Juan:

By the way, everybody knows that Mises was not an anarchist. Maybe Poptech just discovered it ?

The thing is, Mises never managed to refute anarchy. It's ironic that Mises, despite his obvious dislike of socialism, embraced socialism in the production of security.

While I would not consider myself an anarchist (nor a minachist, I'm a libertarian plutarchist), I do have to agree that Mises' 'refutation' of private defence institutions is both insufficient and counter-historical. While disagreeing with the 'anarchist' libertarian view of social order, I do conclude that the production of security and juridical order must be private, and that a nation-state (especially of the Democratic or Communist sort) simply can not be expected to act sanely or equitibly, quite simply because it is not a sane or equitable structure.  The democratic state is inherently sadistic.

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AustereAustrian replied on Tue, Aug 30 2011 5:30 PM

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You didn't answer my question.

1. Who decides the law?

 

 

Your mom does! Just kidding. not really. but seriously...If you've read Mises then surely you've read Rothbard and just possibly even David Friedman. The Rothbardian society would have an agreed upon "libertarian legal code" that all of the private court jurists would pledge themselves to follow. Friedman advocated using market forces to bring about an absolute libertarian code. Is it idealistic? maybe. That's irrelevant however. Government is immoral and contradictory in itself. It can protect you by intimidating you. It can protect your property by stealing half of it first. Get the picture?

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Wheylous replied on Tue, Aug 30 2011 8:33 PM

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I don't know what's up with new people posting in really old threads, but if you

1) Don't have something new to add

2) Don't have a new question about the same topic

then don't bump old threads. Those guys who were arguing are not around any more. And they've certainly dropped the topic.

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Aristophanes replied on Tue, Aug 30 2011 9:38 PM

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It's been awhile since I've read FANL, but doesn't Rothbard say that people would subscribe to different courts.  And that those courtswould have agreements (different in nature and circumstance) with other courts so that law could be decided at a local level and that you had to subscribe, to what he said would end up being an insurance company, making it voluntary adhesion to and protection from the law? 

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Wibee replied on Tue, Aug 30 2011 9:49 PM

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It was a worthwhile bump.  I enjoyed reading!  Guys were like sharks.  Didn't stand a chance. 

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NonAntiAnarchist replied on Tue, Aug 30 2011 10:04 PM

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Poptech is really dense. Other than that, it was a nice read.

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AustereAustrian replied on Fri, Sep 9 2011 8:18 PM

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Do I care? I had something to say so I said it.

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NonAntiAnarchist replied on Fri, Sep 9 2011 10:05 PM

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I didn't mean for you to care. You were just being awfully dense at the time.

Edit: Never mind. I can see your comment (AustereAustrian) wasn't directed at me.

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Anenome replied on Fri, Sep 9 2011 11:45 PM

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garegin:

technicly wasnt prouhdon a market anarchist as he believed that all human services can be provided on the voluntary marketplace

I doubt it, since Proudhon was (foolishly) anti-property.

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edavismail replied on Sat, Sep 10 2011 6:01 AM

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John Locke, in his Second Treatise, Ch. 2, Sec. 13, wrote:

To this strange doctrine, viz. That in the state of nature every one has the executive power of the law of nature, I doubt not but it will be objected, that it is unreasonable for men to be judges in their own cases, that selflove will make men partial to themselves and their friends: and on the other side, that ill nature, passion and revenge will carry them too far in punishing others; and hence nothing but confusion and disorder will follow, and that therefore God hath certainly appointed government to restrain the partiality and violence of men. I easily grant, that civil government is the proper remedy for the inconveniencies of the state of nature, which must certainly be great, where men may be judges in their own case, since it is easy to be imagined, that he who was so unjust as to do his brother an injury, will scarce be so just as to condemn himself for it: but I shall desire those who make this objection, to remember, that absolute monarchs are but men; and if government is to be the remedy of those evils, which necessarily follow from men's being judges in their own cases, and the state of nature is therefore not to be endured, I desire to know what kind of government that is, and how much better it is than the state of nature, where one man, commanding a multitude, has the liberty to be judge in his own case, and may do to all his subjects whatever he pleases, without the least liberty to any one to question or controul those who execute his pleasure and in whatsoever he doth, whether led by reason, mistake or passion, must be submitted to. Much better it is in the state of nature, wherein men are not bound to submit to the unjust will of another. And if he that judges, judges amiss in his own, or any other case, he is answerable for it to the rest of mankind.

As for me, I think that the insights of Mises and Locke suggest that those who seek to live a good and just life must address specific historical conditions and react accordingly, and that there is no a-priori argument for or against government or anarchy.

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Anenome replied on Sun, Sep 11 2011 8:29 PM

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edavismail:

As for me, I think that the insights of Mises and Locke suggest that those who seek to live a good and just life must address specific historical conditions and react accordingly, and that there is no a-priori argument for or against government or anarchy.

No, there are certainly very good a priori arguments for a limited-government society. There are also excellent a posteriori arguments as well. But we who defend freedom and capitalism have been losing the minds of the young by not engaging in a priori philosophical argumentation and relying solely on experiential evidence. Meanwhile, the young read the supposedly idealistic ideas of the left, which sound good but become disastrous in actual fact and whom then refuse to be swayed by the experience of history.

We must craft our own idealism of true freedom in line with the facts of reality and which leads to political conclusions which result in a free society, or else we will never recapture the debate from the statists.

The foundation of that a priori argument must begin with property, specifically self-ownership. This is why the statist begins by attacking property, for if they can make you believe that private ownership is the cause of all the world's problems they can make you agree to be a slave to their centralized statist controls.

We must defend property as a good.

A corollary of the attack on property is the attack on both self-interest and the profit motive, which is the left's bridge to attacking economic freedom.

The idea that centralized control of the economy can ever be more efficient or more fair that a free-market system of private ownership has been shown by Thomas Sowell's "Knowledge and Decisions." In it Sowell explains how incentive structures function to make an economy efficient by using price as an independent organized of economic activity, and how government interference in ownership and thus in the decisions of those owners distorts incentives and inherently makes any economic system less efficient. There's much more that's great about that book as well, recommended, but if you want to know why socialism as an economic system failed, Sowell captures the reason on a cog-wheel level in that book.

Next, we need to look at a society in terms of aggression, and begin popularizing the non-aggression principle. If accepted by the masses, it would go a long way in forcing people to be consistent about government use of aggression and give them an easily understood and communicated ethic for judging government action.

Lastly we need to talk about a theory of value-transfer--there are three fundamental kinds of value-transfer. 

1. Abusive one-way transfer: Where values are coerced from another party, ie: taking. The thug tactic.

2. Mutual-transfer: where both parties receive a higher value from the transfer than what they gave up; ie: trade.

3. Charitable one-way transfer: Where value is given freely to another for any reason, ie: giving freely.

Only type 2 and 3 are allowable within a free society. Law is instigated within society to prevent type 1. An economy is built out of type 2.

Where nanny-state statism goes wrong is trying to use type 1 to achieve the aims of type 3, effecting the good intentions of type 3 with the coercion of type 1. In fact, all redistribution is no more than type 1 with a high-minded excuse tacked on.

While type 1 exchanges are that of the thug and criminal, the redistributionist tactics of the welfare state represents the enshrining into law of thug tactics, of the initiation of aggression, which is the one thing law must never do.

Again, intentions are irrelevant to the NAP. And the opportunity cost of redistributionist type 1 exchanges is less type 2 and 3 exchanges.

Want to create jobs, Obama? Laissez faire.

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Wheylous replied on Sun, Sep 11 2011 9:58 PM

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there are certainly very good a priori arguments for a limited-government society

Certainly, like institutionalized theft and kidnapping.

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Anenome replied on Sun, Sep 11 2011 10:12 PM

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Wheylous:

there are certainly very good a priori arguments for a limited-government society

Certainly, like institutionalized theft and kidnapping.

Except, legalized theft would be an initiation of force, thus something I specifically eliminated from qualifying a government as just and proper. Similarly with kidnapping. There are things government can do to establish justice and these are the things it should be limited to, and if so limited it is not an aggressor government and thus not in violation of the NAP.

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Aristippus replied on Sun, Sep 11 2011 10:43 PM

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It seems to me that, considering his rule-utilitarianism, Mises did not err in supporting limited government on moral grounds.  If we can say that me made an error it was in believing that government can stay limited for any significant period of time.  But considering that he wrote much more on economics than on politics - as well as his support for secession - it is possible that even this is too harsh of an assessment.

As an anarcho-capitalist I think the most important argument against minarchy is that it can't last - regardless of the initial constitution (and here I'm using the classical definition of the word).  If not for this, its defects would be minor.

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Anenome replied on Mon, Sep 12 2011 1:40 AM

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Aristippus:

As an anarcho-capitalist I think the most important argument against minarchy is that it can't last - regardless of the initial constitution (and here I'm using the classical definition of the word).  If not for this, its defects would be minor.

The way to keep a government at minimum is first of all to write a consistent founding legal document with the intention of limited government in mind. The writers of the constitution had no such intention, they were statists explicitly.

When Benjamin Franklin returned from his service as ambassador to France and joined the constitutional convention which was rewriting the articles of confederation, he was received with honor, Washington offered him to chair the proceedings and he found the convention well into adopting the new constitution and asked to view a copy.

After reading it over, he stood and said he'd like to offer his thoughts. He said there are three places in the constitution where unlimited power had been granted: in the executive branch, the legislative branch, and the judiciary(!).

Nonetheless, merely including separation of power, checks and balances, resulted in a free society for some 150 years.

A founding document written by min-archists would be far harder to corrupt.

Beyond this, those advocating freedom and minarchism must win the battle intellectually, to create a society which desires freedom over slave-security.

And probably the best way to ensure that a society will not become statist and aggressive is to make it easy to leave that society a join a new one. Don't start one free society, start three of them. Make leaving and joined easy any of them. They will then compete for citizens.

Feel oppressed / aggressed-upon? Fork the constitution you like and start your own thing. Invite others like-minded to join you.

When the oceans are colonized, and when space is colonized, we'll need legal structures like this, able to capitalize on the vastly larger amounts of space available, and the vastly easier ability to move your property around.

Probably more important than the long-term degradation of minarchism is the actual impossibility of an anarchist society :P One has never existed, and likely never will.

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Aristippus replied on Mon, Sep 12 2011 2:25 AM

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I agree with most of what you say.  Note that I'm not American and I wasn't talking only of the American experience.  Even then it seems to me that the USA had slightly less than 150 years of minarchy overall (110?), with some particularly turbulent periods caused by state actions (Civil War, WWI, 30's and 40's).  Still I would like to see the results of a purposefully minarchist constitution - and how long it takes to be taken over by democracy!

I think that an anarchist society is possible, though I highly doubt that any signficant population will live in this way in our lifetimes.

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Anenome replied on Mon, Sep 12 2011 3:14 AM

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Aristippus:

I agree with most of what you say.  Note that I'm not American and I wasn't talking only of the American experience.  Even then it seems to me that the USA had slightly less than 150 years of minarchy overall (110?), with some particularly turbulent periods caused by state actions (Civil War, WWI, 30's and 40's).  Still I would like to see the results of a purposefully minarchist constitution - and how long it takes to be taken over by democracy!

I think that an anarchist society is possible, though I highly doubt that any signficant population will live in this way in our lifetimes.

If you count the period of pre-revolution America (1492 and beyond), you have something like nearly 500 years of minarchism, though probably only 300 years of that had any significant population. Ironically it was the status as colonies combined with extreme distance and a weak British ruling hand that made this possible, until King George anyway. And the articles of confederation were an attempt to continue a weak fed policy.

I think the only viable future is a succession of minarch societies, constituting birth and death cycles of societies. How long a society lasts isn't as important as keeping alive the concepts of freedom and putting them into practice successively, pitting free societies against controlled ones. If we are right about human nature (and there's every reason to think we are), the free ones will outlast and out-prosper the controlled ones.

That's one thing that always annoyed me about Star Trek, the assumption of global rule on Earth. I think that would be disastrous, unless we already had space colonized significantly such that people had real choice, and a strong tradition of and institutions of governmental non-aggression. Global rule before space colonization is a recipe for tyranny.