Home Forums Miscellaneous Topics Second Amendment Is the Libertarian View Valid?

It's not fair because you wrote of "each side hiring his own private judge," when you knew that the scenario under consideration was joint hiring of a (see above) "mutually agreed upon judge."

What's to stop it, of course, is that any judge who values his reputation wouldn't dream of selling his services to just one person. If he is to attract business, he has to be fair, and there's no way he can claim to be fair when he's being paid by only one party. The pronouncement of a judge who consented to such a thing would mean nothing to anyone.

And also, there's always the threat of the "state of nature" hovering just outside the door for somebody who acts in a way that can be credibly portrayed by his opponent as an initiation of force.


No. Self-interested people will avoid that course of action not because it's illegal, but because it's wasteful and stupid. Hire your own pet judge to reverse a respected decision against you, and you'll hear nothing but contemptuous jeers. Insane people might try it, but it wouldn't get them anywhere.


If he could find a band of mercenaries who were willing to take money to attack somebody they didn't know, based on hearing only one side of the story, then yes, he could do that. (Of course, you can do that today, too, if you have the money and the connections.)

But it might well be difficult to find such mercenaries. I certainly wouldn't ever think of doing that for a living. I could very easily find myself in a "state of nature" with the family and friends of one of my victims if it turned out that my client had lied to me about the behavior of his opponent. Combat may be exciting and all, but it's very costly too: if you don't have anyone paying you extortion money to assure a steady supply of weapons, ammunition, and equipment, it can be difficult to be confident of maintaining tactical superiority for very long...and if you're not confident of tactical superiority you're not going to go pushing folks around too much, especially not in a libertarian society: it's just not safe.


Not if there's any way it can possibly be helped. (And, of course, if it can't possibly be helped, then it can't be helped no matter what sort of government you have.)

The state of nature, as you point out, is very dangerous and has the potential to be extremely expensive and destructive. Almost everybody will choose, for his own self-preservation, to shun it wherever possible, even if that means compromising with his enemies. Of the few who embrace it, any who aren't hermits will quickly be killed off.

This is not a new idea. Keep in mind that it is mind-numbingly standard for states to convince their subjects to give up their liberties by threatening them with what is essentially the state of nature. "If you don't give us these powers, then terrorists will kill you / gunmen will rob you / old folks will starve / children will die in the streets / etc."


Greater force will win out whether it's government or not. But in a libertarian society, unless something huge and endemic is wrong (the Earth is being invaded by aliens, or in the grip of a global epidemic, or disappearing into the ocean at the rate of a continent a year) the greater force will always be on the side of the folks who want to avoid the state of nature. Not because they're basically good, or because they're nice guys, or because their digestion is agreeable today--but because they're liable to get dead if they don't.


No. It's the force of the many applied to the few, or the force of the strong applied to the weak, or the force of the poor applied to the rich, or the force of the indolent applied to the productive. I challenge you to show me a single national government that consists purely of force agreed upon by all. (It should be obvious that it's a contradiction in terms: if force is required, then it follows that the object of that force must not agree with its use.)


Well, nobody really convinced me of it either. People I respected planted doubts in my mind, and then I went and researched it myself (motivated by certain outside forces) and became convinced on my own.


Careful. I'm not equipped to counter your claim to the term "authentic American conservative," but I do know a thing or two about libertarianism, and your appropriation of the term "real libertarianism" is unacceptable. Libertarianism is about individual liberty and responsibility, not about government or forms of government. There are a number of different kinds of libertarian. At the beginning of this thread, I was a minarchist; now I seem pretty much to have become an anarcho-capitalist. There are also anarcho-socialists, although I don't really understand them. And there are other splinter groups and subcategories within subcategories. But they're all real libertarians, because they all place chief emphasis on individual liberty.


I think it's workable--and (potentially) insanely bountiful--under certain conditions (isolation and steady state among them). I may eventually convince myself that it's workable under a larger number of conditions as well. (How, for example, would a prosperous but small libertarian society defend itself against a surprise military attack from a poor but massive socialist neighbor desperate to take by force what it cannot produce or afford to buy? I can see some of the answers, but I haven't yet managed to retire all the questions.)

Really? Nowhere? I can name a few people in history who got quite far without respecting the rights of others or playing by the rules. Genghis Khan comes to mind.



Genghis Khan and his cronies faired pretty well.



Really? Could you provide me with an example from history?



I refer you once again to the above passage (see post #181986) from Locke's Second Treatise on Government. I cannot improve on that.



Fine, but when I think libertarian, I think classical liberal, and they were not anarchists. I don't own the word, however, so use it as you will, although you seem to differ with every dictionary I have, including ones specific to political concepts, all of which describe the characteristics of government promoted by libertarians.



You seem to be admitting that it is unworkable, considering the state of reality, so why waste time advocating it?



P.S. You continually use the phrase in quotes "authentic American conservatism" as if to insinuate that it is something of my creation, unique to me. First of all, I rarely used that combination of words. Secondly, when I did, it was 1) to identify the specific American variety (as I live there), and 2) to distinguish it from a falsification of conservatism that you had proffered. Just plain conservative is all that is required in ordinary conversation, thank you.

You're not asserting that Genghis Khan overthrew mature steady-state libertarian societies, are you?



Sure, no problem. Look around you. Look at yourself, for crying out loud. You're afraid of the state of nature, right? Most people reject libertarianism because they have been trained to connect it with anarchy, and anarchy frightens them because they think it's the same as the state of nature. As long as the forces of the state can maintain that fear in the majority of the people, it can convince them to keep it in power.


Which side are you arguing? The passage you quoted claims that complete agreement is fleeting if not impossible, right? Isn't that my point, not yours?


You're pretty quick on the trigger, eh? I'm still a baby libertarian: I'm not even five years old yet. If I didn't have any questions about libertarianism, it'd be a mark of gross immaturity.
But the cool thing about anarcho-capitalism is that it's distributed and free-market; that means you don't have any head boss guy or group that has to figure everything out ahead of time. If something needs to be figured out, it'll be spontaneously figured out by the sort of person who's the best at figuring out that particular kind of thing, as soon as he notices that there's a need for it to be figured out, so that he can start making money on his solution as soon as possible.

Not the point. The point is that there are people who thrive in the state of nature at everyone else's expense, i.e., they do not fear it, and don't mind violating the rules to achieve power, after which they are not necessarily killed by all the good guys, as you naively suggest is inevitable in an anarcho-capitalist society.



Also, would you be so kind as to provide an example from history of a mature steady-state anarcho-capitalist society." That is, after all, what you have been recently advocating, is it not? Not libertarianism, as every definition of libertarianism I have been able to find refers to the characteristics of government that libertarians favor, and this seems, on its face, entirely incompatible with any form of anarchy.



So it's all a conspiracy?



Locke correctly asserted that the consent of the majority, in any given political unit, is rightly (i.e., "in reason") received as the act of the whole, and therefore concludes every individual. Otherwise, he goes on to say, nothing but the consent of every individual can make anything to be the act of the whole, and any government formed under that requirement would be short lived, quickly reverting to the state of nature. I believe that you insist on the latter formula for consent, while I (along with Locke) accept the former.



Where government is decentralized, actual universal consent is most closely approximated, without the dire consequence of a quick dissolution of government and society, i.e., without a quick return to the state of nature that your formula for consent, says Locke, necessitates.

I'm not sure I understand your point, then. Are you saying that if the Far and Middle East had been populated by "authentic American conservatives," Genghis Khan and the Mongol Horde would have been less successful, or would have failed?

And anyway, I'm not particularly interested in discussing military operations in a thread on libertarian politics. The fact that a small sedan can't carry forty tons of cargo doesn't make it useless or irrelevant--especially if what you need is cheap transportation of one or two people.


I can't.


What's all a conspiracy? Hopefully this isn't a new or unfamiliar idea to you. At least for the last hundred years or so, governments have commonly justified their power by claiming that they need it to preserve their subjects from the state of nature. As a matter of fact, I can't think of any substantively different justification for government power that I've ever heard. (Many governments, of course, have simply not bothered trying to come up with a justification for their power.) That's the justification for government power that you use, right?


Rightly? Rightly? You feel morally justified in trampling my beliefs and preferences simply because I'm in the minority and it would be too much trouble to bother respecting them?

No--that's not morality, or even reason; it's simple pragmatism.

Locke is saying that since the burden of preserving liberty for all is too heavy for him to carry to his objective, he'll simply drop it, shrug, and claim that he's chosen "rightly," because any other choice would be inconvenient.

I say preserving liberty for all is more important than reaching his objective, which I can't really see any use for in the first place.


Universal consent is irrelevant, except as a rhetorical device, and internally self-defeating. Its only conceivable purpose for existence is to justify coercive force, yet the very presence of coercive force demonstrates the absence of universal consent. Striving for it is a complete waste of time, because A) it's unachievable in the first place, and B) it's unnecessary in the second place.

Furthermore, there is a qualitative, not quantitative, difference between universal consent and almost universal consent, just as there's a qualitative difference between pregnant and almost pregnant. Almost universal consent is oppression and enslavement of the few by the many. Do you cease to be a slaveholder when you get down to just a few slaves? I suppose you do if you're John Locke: you just "rightly" define yourself that way because getting rid of those last couple of slaves is just too much trouble.

Sheesh.

It was meant as a more general example of the principle that there are those, contrary to your assertion, who do not fear, and in fact prosper in, the state of nature. I suspect, however, your failure to grasp the principle is more than a little disingenuous, so I will not further elaborate.



Negative. That's the function of governments, i.e., it is why we establish and perpetuate them. To say it is a justification implies that the premise is a mere pretext. It is not.



The problem is that your notion of "liberty for all" amounts to a childish demand for anarchy. If this is your goal, should I sit back and do nothing to oppose you?



I will allow your words to speak for themselves, as I could not any better shed light on the defects of your position than merely to highlight your essential defense of it.

Two points here.

First, there are very few who do not fear to face it alone, unless they can achieve significant isolation from all others. When you have your Mongol Hordes behind you, you're not really in the state of nature.

Libertarianism is a tool for addressing relationships between individuals. Relationships between groups are a different kind of animal.

Second, prosperity in the state of nature is nigh on impossible. Invading armies (as well as other government services) do not create prosperity, they merely steal the results of others' prosperity. When no more pre-created prosperity remains to steal, they have to get real jobs or starve.


Okay, use whatever word you like. You're persnicketier about such things than I am. At any rate, you agree with me that governments claim to be necessary to avoid the state of nature...right?


No, it amounts to a childish demand for liberty. It appears that I have recently become an anarchist, but I'm still a libertarian. That means that I can't go around making demands on people (for anarchy or anything else) and expect to get anything but contempt. As long as people leave me alone, I have to leave them alone in return, or else I'm a hypocrite. In addition, even if it were logically consistent, demanding anarchy wouldn't work.

Say I'm a Yankees fan, and I hate the Braves. So I throw a deer rifle in the back of my truck and drive to Atlanta, and pot seven or eight of the Braves' top players. Does that mean the Yankees will now win every game they play with the Braves? Of course not. It means I'll go to prison, and the Braves will hire new players--maybe better ones--and the Yankees won't benefit at all.

Things have to be accomplished in the right way if they're going to last.


No! Sit forward and write something--something better than this:


I've come to expect this sort of thing from jmartin, but I was under the impression that you were made of sterner stuff.

This is becoming a hobby in itself, it seems.



Well, that's sort of the point. There are two ways to raise yourself from the state of nature. One is government and the other is to gather a gang of like-minded fellows around one's self and impose one's will on the rest, making a general parasite of one's self. The latter is called the state, in Nock's terminology. Since you eliminate the former alternative, that leaves only the latter.



Since this bears no relationship to anything I've ever advocated, I will not comment



That statement is too imprecise. I assert, rather, that governments ARE necessary to avoid the state of nature apart from tyranny. Society (the opposite of the state of nature) is completely dependant on the existance of government (or, its alternative, tyranny). Too much of a good thing, however, is not the solution either. This is why conservatives advocate strictly limited government, and decentralization.



Why do you still insist on the label libertarian? How about anarchist-libertine?



Who would jail you, and by what right? Has the community agreed on an authority with the power to judge and jail? If so, they've agreed to be governed, no?



I take it you are upset at what I've said.

Thanks to all for a most interesting thread.



This remark on Hitler is so rarely made that I had never heard it from sombebody else. Yet it is quite obvious that Hitler and all people with a similar project were either former socialists like Mussolini, former communists like Mosley Adams, Doriot, ... and all had a clearly hard left program.



The only substantial difference between Hitler and Stalin was on their economic views : Hitler had understood that it was much better to leave the property of production tools to individuals. Stalin had inherited a system that had nationalized and bureaucratised the production tools.



It is no accident that both had signed an alliance that was latter broken by Hitler.



In Europe, after the war, there has been a conspiracy of the leftist intelligentia to brand Hitler "rightist". It worked for a long time and, as far as I can see, it still works. It allowed the left to monopolize the moral high ground, while easily silencing all disenters.



Thanks again for a very interesting exchange.



deersmeller

Deer Smeller, thanks. Not only that, however, but National Socialism (i.e, Nazism) was, well, national, while International Communism was international. That is to say, Hitler wanted the "benefits" of socialism exclusively for Germanac peoples, while all other peoples would be reduced to the status of slaves in the service of the "superior" Germanic races. Stalin, though the worst kind of monster, didn't much care what race you were. He wouldn't think twice about murdering you, but he didn't care about your race.

Barak, I've been reading Hayek, and I think he provides an excellent answer to your question. I will just go ahead and provide the quote, since I don't know if you have access to the book.

Since you objected to my choice not substantively to respond to this, I will do so now. You are not a slave or oppressed if you are in the minority here, because you may 1) vote for a candidate/policy of your choice, 2) run for office yourself, 3) attempt to persuade others to your positions, 4), and/or if all else fails, you can move to the next town over, or the next county over, or the next state over. Why, you can even move to a different country if you like. There is no Berlin Wall here.



The more limited in scope is the central government, and the more decentralized is government in general, however, the less likely it is that you will feel compelled to move far to find a form of government that you can live with and/or have influence on. This is why conservatives are opposed to central government consolidation of local governmental functions. The more this occurs, the less a significant minority has the option of simply moving to the next town or state, and the more likely a significant minority will begin to feel oppressed and enslaved, and the more likely they are to choose revolutionary and/or terrorist tactics rather than democratic.

Given that dichotomy, I suppose you could say that what I'm advocating is government--but self-government of the consensual sort (consensual meaning "I agree with you in a limited area" rather than "everybody agrees with everybody else or we toss them in the clink"), instead of government of the coercive sort by a ruling class.


But you also think you're part of the government, right? Government of the people by the people, and all that rot. So if you're saying it, then (at least in part, from your perspective) the government's saying it...so we can both be right.


You're a little too gentlemanly. When you asked me to give you a historical example, and I said "I can't," I was really hoping you'd jump on that. Since you didn't, I have to apply the answer I had ready here, where it doesn't fit nearly as well.

Your way has been tried already, and it has failed. Government doesn't stay limited or decentralized. Limitation and decentralization perhaps slows it down and keeps it from getting a running start; but you eventually get a mighty oak tree whether you start with a sapling, a seedling, or an acorn.


You worry about what to call conservatives, and I'll worry about what to call libertarians. You know, separation of powers and all.


I was speaking in the context of present-day America.

As I've said before, I can't be sure what the free market would come up with in Libertopia, but one possibility is that the investigative divisions of the dead players' insurance companies would use the latest forensic techniques to identify me from crime-scene evidence, and then their contract-enforcement divisions would track me down. (People have come up with procedures for private criminal-court proceedings as well, but since we both know I did it, I'll leave those out for now to save space.) Since I initiated force, there's no restriction against them using retaliatory force against me, even to the point of lethal force; but more likely they'd capture me if possible, and the players' insurance companies would consult with my insurance company to see what provisions I had agreed to should I ever commit a murder. Since I don't want to be in the state of nature any more than the next guy, there'd probably be something in there with which I had tried to bribe victims or victims' families away from the state of nature; for example, I might well have agreed to be worked at hard labor to generate at least partial income replacement for the families. Maybe I'm rich, and I'm willing to give them huge sums of money to stay alive. Whatever it is, it had better be good, because if the victims decide not to accept it in lieu of retaliatory force, I'm probably screwed. I have to make sure I'm worth more to them alive than dead.

In any case, what would happen in Libertopia would have nothing to do with what the community had agreed to; it would have to do with what I and my victims had agreed to, and the folks we had hired for various purposes.


Upset? No. Somewhat surprised and disappointed. I have a lot of respect for you; it's not a tactic I expected.

Well, I'm talking about self-government too, but we apparently have different definitions of that. Self-government is when all presumptively agree to abide by the decisions of the majority, within the framework of a constitution which limits the scope of government so as not to intrude on those spheres of society not properly belonging to government. By presumptively, I mean that their choice to remain, rather than move, allows the majority to legitimately presume consent to (if not agreement with) the majority's decisions, within the scope of limited and decentralized government.



Well, thanks (and likewise), but I think the statement was so outrageous on its face (and obviously in error) as not to require a substantive response. It sort of spoke for itself. Since you took offense, I did, however, eventually respond substantively to it.

Change "coercion" to "force," and I'll sign it. "Coercion," at least to me, suggests initiated force; if that's what he means, then I disagree.


Okay. This is one thing to try. It's not the only thing to try, it's not the freest thing to try, and it hasn't worked particularly well. But yes, I agree that it has been tried.

As to the implication that whatever coercive force the government decides to apply is fine as long as it's consistent, I expect that by now you can predict what my reaction to that is: it's not fine, and it won't be consistent. I'll elaborate on either or both if you want me to, but you probably don't need it.

Thank you.





We have somebody in the majority explaining to somebody in the minority why he's not oppressed?





I haven't explained myself sufficiently, apparently. These are things that somebody in the majority does to force people in the minority to do whatever he has on his program. First of all, I'm not in the majority; second of all, I don't have a program to enforce on anybody. I simply want people to leave me the heck alone and let me do what I think is best for me without hurting anybody else.





"Love it or leave it," and you don't see that as oppression of dissidents?





Soap, ballot, jury, then cartridge; you're right. You could look at anarchism as decentralization of government all the way.

Yup.


And from my viewpoint, it's my property. I bought it, I built on it, I take care of it and maintain it. When somebody comes onto that property without being invited and informs me that I'm going to be overpowered and carted away because I have broken a mala prohibita rule that was made by somebody else for political reasons without any consultation or agreement from me, then I think that is blatantly unjust. (And it sure doesn't feel like "self-government" to me.)

People are taught to go to the government when faced with injustice; but what do they do when the injustice comes from the government itself?

On your land, in a nation that recognized property rights (ours only partially does anymore), you would not be able to commit a malum prohibitum offense. You can, however, build roads on your land, and you're free to drive through all the red lights you like on your land (assuming you went to the trouble of installing any), and so long as it did not constitute a malum in se (e.g., You saw that a private plane had crashed on your land, and just as the pilot crawled out of his cockpit, covered in blood, you accelerated your vehicle, disregarding your private traffic light,<img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />, in order to run him down for trespassing), you'd be ok.

Nope, coercion can also mean the threat of force designed to prevent unwanted conduct. If the government has a law that says you cannot coerce anyone, or else we will punish you, then this is a case of government exercising coercion to prevent coercion.

Well, it has indeed worked. It is its corruption that has failed. You cannot blame something for failing after it has been abandoned in its true form. Liberal government, in the classical sense of the word, has worked quite well. In fact, it is the only thing that has worked. Show me a case where anarchy has worked, and we'll talk.

Hayek is referring to the rule of law here. That is to say, government cannot act in a post hoc manner to bring about the outcome it would like to have seen. This is why our constitution prohibits ex post facto laws.