Suppose I accept that government must be limited because it is inherently coercive. Private enterprises and voluntary contracts are always to be preferred to the involuntary force of government.
Now I look at my local neighborhood and wonder: Are homeowner associations OK? A homeowner assocation typically does things that outrage all opponents of "big government:" It compels owners or residents to do things they don't want (e.g., maintain certain appearances), forbids them from doing things they do want with their own property, it assesses taxes for non-essential purposes, and it uses the force of law to coerce its members into compliance.
But wouldn't any libertarian say that homeowner associations are acceptable? After all, they are private contracts entered into voluntarily. If somebody doesn't want to participate in an association they simply don't buy property there or sign its contract.
Now, if "big government" homeowner associations are acceptable, aren't municipalities just big homeowner associations? So don't they also have the same justification in maintaining "big government" levels of intrusiveness on individual rights and property? And so on up counties, states, federations?
Presumably at some point a government loses its right to be "big." For example, we don't have the ability to opt out of a world government -- we can't choose to leave the planet. So world government must be limited.
At what level does "big government" become unjustifiable, and why?
The answer relies on voluntarism. You can choose to belong to a homeowner association or not.
You cannot do the same with government. Government rules you with or without your consent.
The problem isn't big government per se. There is no specific too big size we are talking about.
One must be able to choose self-government. If they cannot, and have to resort to changing municipalities and countries, that isn't the same as opting out and choosing self-government (or starting your own government).
Let's look more closely at the homeowner association. Typically it encompasses an entire neighborhood. You simply can't live in that neighborhood without signing onto the homeowner association. If you want to choose to not belong you have to live someplace else.
The assocation can look a lot like a small municipality: It can levy annual fees, provide services and security, pass rules, impose fines. Is there some obvious line delineating "association" from "municipal government?" I don't think so. Isn't a municipal government is just a large and burdensome homeowner association?
Big municipalities have powers that HOAs do not have, such as the power to raise taxes or to expropriate. As well big municipalities are not private property - you cannot buy and sell them on the market like you can with a HOA. That means that big municipalities are a government monopoly like the Post Office or school system.
The fallacies of intellectual communism, a compilation - On the nature of power
dbooksta: Let's look more closely at the homeowner association. Typically it encompasses an entire neighborhood. You simply can't live in that neighborhood without signing onto the homeowner association. If you want to choose to not belong you have to live someplace else. The assocation can look a lot like a small municipality: It can levy annual fees, provide services and security, pass rules, impose fines. Is there some obvious line delineating "association" from "municipal government?" I don't think so. Isn't a municipal government is just a large and burdensome homeowner association?
Who owns a municipal government?
HOAs can raise taxes ("fees") to cover services, including new services, in accordance with their by-laws. They can file liens against properties to recover unpaid fees.
Nobody "owns" an HOA -- it's a contract agreed to by owners of property within the association, and perpetuated upon future owners also by contract. You can no more buy or sell an HOA than you can a municipality. (Presumably if you were to buy ALL of the property in the HOA or municipality you could eject any tenants and control it.)
So I still see no difference between property associations and government.
dbooksta: So I still see no difference between property associations and government.
Can you voluntarily withdraw from government? Can you voluntarily withdraw from a HOA?
It's as simple as consent. Please go read some Lysander Spooner.
The only way to withdraw from an HOA is to abandon or sell your property and move someplace else. Which I guess only goes to show that libertarians should be as opposed to HOAs and other community contracts as they are to government. But that strikes me as somewhat odd....
liberty student:Can you voluntarily withdraw from government?
Yes, you can, just leave the country.
Therefore, if government does not prevent you from leaving, you can leave the country. By staying in the country, you have implicitly consented.
Sorry for my statist rhetoric, but this is a good counterargument to what you just said. I would ask if the government legitimately owns the properity, and if this isn't so, if all of the owners of the properity allow the government, voluntary, to control various aspects of the properity. It is not as simple as consent.
Schools are labour camps.
dbooksta: The only way to withdraw from an HOA is to abandon or sell your property and move someplace else. Which I guess only goes to show that libertarians should be as opposed to HOAs and other community contracts as they are to government. But that strikes me as somewhat odd....
I just want to ask, how is it criminal to withdraw from that contract? Does the HOA somehow have ownership over your properity?
CONSENT. You aren't born into a HOA. You have to buy in. There is no buy-in with government.
eliotn: liberty student:Can you voluntarily withdraw from government? Yes, you can, just leave the country.
No you cannot. You are still a citizen, you are still subject to taxation, and they will not allow you take all of your property if they do not want you to.
Until you can gain citizenship somewhere else, the country of your birth OWNS YOU.
eliotn:Sorry for my statist rhetoric, but this is a good counterargument to what you just said. I would ask if the government legitimately owns the properity, and if this isn't so, if all of the owners of the properity allow the government, voluntary, to control various aspects of the properity. It is not as simple as consent.
It's a weak counterargument that doesn't account for all of the facts.
It is always as simple as consent. No consent, no legitimacy.
I'm not from USA so I don't know what exactly HOA is. Nevertheless basic difference between any voluntary agreement and any government is legitimacy of the agreement. There is no legitimate government in the world which got its power by voluntary agreement between all of the people, over whom government uses its power. Any government is just a group of people which got its power over the rest of people in a particular area by force.
liberty student:No you cannot. You are still a citizen, you are still subject to taxation, and they will not allow you take all of your property if they do not want you to.
Ok, I guess that implodes the love it or leave it argument, in part. But what if you could immediately renounce your citezenship, anytime?
liberty student: CONSENT. You aren't born into a HOA. You have to buy in. There is no buy-in with government.
You aren't born with property either.
It's a tad melodramatic to say that "the country of your birth owns you." Let us suppose (as is actually the case) that most democracies would be happy to have you leave, take whatever property you have accumulated and go anywhere else you're welcome. (U.S. is exceptional in that it would like to follow you with its tax collectors, but if you don't care to come back that's not an issue.)
Now the problem is: where can you go?
Suppose that you are born into a libertarian state but that for some reason every square foot of land in your state is covered by a Homeowner Association (HOA). There's nothing illegal or even implausible in that: It simply means that at some point in the past the owner of every single parcel of land decided that it was worth joining an HOA. Maybe they got tired of people not mowing their lawn, or playing music too loudly, or they just wanted the roads uniformly paved. It does, however, mean that you can't put a roof over your head in the state without submitting to an HOA contract -- which, as was previously argued, is tantamount to voluntarily submitting to arbitrary government (i.e., potentially "big government").
So in this case you're born free, but in practice all you can do is choose between different flavors of big government (i.e., different HOAs, which might as well be different municipalities or different states).
Hence my original question: If voluntary contracts are not proscribed, how does a libertarian propose to create a world in which one is free to choose limited government? Either you have to say, "Yes, people can legitimately choose big government, and they don't have to leave room for small government people to hide -- tough luck, libertarians," or else you have to somehow argue, "People can choose big government, but only at a small level, or only if they leave ample pockets for libertarians."
eliotn: Ok, I guess that implodes the love it or leave it argument, in part. But what if you could immediately renounce your citezenship, anytime?
I'm a big fan of renouncing citizenship. Unfortunately, my country tries to make it almost impossible.
But yes, I agree, if you could renounce, knew that, and did not, then you would be consenting. Although I hesitate to legitimize "opt out" systems. The initial "opt-in" consent should be there in a moral and ethical system.
eliotn:Does the HOA somehow have ownership over your properity?
Yes, usually it does.
Home owners association covenants are typically implemented as deed restrictions. They literally own the right to enforce the association covenants. My own HOA also maintains a lean against everyone's property in addition to deed restrictions.
FYI: HOA covenants were the preferred way to maintain whites only neighborhoods back when it was legal to do so. During her nomination process, former Supreme Court justice Sandra Day O'Connor had to answer some questions along those lines about a house she had once owned.
dbooksta: You aren't born with property either.
Yes you are. Self-ownership. Unless you believe someone else owns us.
dbooksta:It's a tad melodramatic to say that "the country of your birth owns you."
I also cry during some movies.
dbooksta:Let us suppose (as is actually the case) that most democracies would be happy to have you leave, take whatever property you have accumulated and go anywhere else you're welcome. (U.S. is exceptional in that it would like to follow you with its tax collectors, but if you don't care to come back that's not an issue.)
Well that is very magnanimous of you to allow reality to be injected into this conversation. Cheers.
dbooksta:Suppose that you are born into a libertarian state but that for some reason every square foot of land in your state is covered by a Homeowner Association (HOA).
Well, I don't own the property under HOA control, so I'm on someone else's property. If I don't like it, I can leave. Or the HOA or property owner might ask me to leave anyway.
dbooksta:So in this case you're born free, but in practice all you can do is choose between different flavors of big government (i.e., different HOAs, which might as well be different municipalities or different states).
In this case? Sounds a lot like what we are living under now. We want to change that.
dbooksta:Hence my original question: If voluntary contracts are not proscribed, how does a libertarian propose to create a world in which one is free to choose limited government?
Who wants limited government? Most of us want no government.
dbooksta:Either you have to say, "Yes, people can legitimately choose big government, and they don't have to leave room for small government people to hide -- tough luck, libertarians," or else you have to somehow argue, "People can choose big government, but only at a small level, or only if they leave ample pockets for libertarians."
Government is just a monopoly on force and justice. We propose removing the monopoly status of government through opting out, and we justify it based upon the notion of consent.
You seem to be assuming that government is (1) legitimate, (2) desirable and (3) inevitable. I don't agree with any of those 3 points.
liberty student: You seem to be assuming that government is (1) legitimate, (2) desirable and (3) inevitable. I don't agree with any of those 3 points.
Almost: I am reasoning that government is both legitimate and inevitable.
Is government legitimate? Well, are HOAs legitimate? If yes, then I have argued that HOAs are indistinguishable from government, QED. If no, then I have argued that you are in effect saying that voluntary contracts can be illegitimate, which sounds surprising coming from a libertarian. So, if no, then what qualifications are reasonable and sufficient to ensure that voluntary contracts stay legitimate?
Is government inevitable? Well, if all it takes is every piece of land at some time to have its owner voluntarily opt in to a perpetual contract -- HOA or government -- then in the limit presumably all land will be under government. If you can't find land that is free from government, and you require land for subsistence, then isn't government inevitable? Or, again, you must maintain that voluntary contracts can be abrogated under certain circumstances in order to maintain certain natural rights. What are those circumstances and how are they justified?
dbooksta:Is government legitimate? Well, are HOAs legitimate? If yes, then I have argued that HOAs are indistinguishable from government, QED
Already proven false. The difference is that you have to opt in to a HOA, you are assumed to have opted into government.
dbooksta: If no, then I have argued that you are in effect saying that voluntary contracts can be illegitimate, which sounds surprising coming from a libertarian.
No, you are confusing voluntary contracts, with involuntary (coercive) contracts.
dbooksta:Is government inevitable? Well, if all it takes is every piece of land at some time to have its owner voluntarily opt in to a perpetual contract -- HOA or government -- then in the limit presumably all land will be under government. If you can't find land that is free from government, and you require land for subsistence, then isn't government inevitable? Or, again, you must maintain that voluntary contracts can be abrogated under certain circumstances in order to maintain certain natural rights. What are those circumstances and how are they justified?
I'm not an expert on covenants. Jon will be by later. I think he understands this from a legal and contractual perspective better than either of us, although I would question if a person can be bound to a covenant through their property. Or simply, can a contract be willed on another.
dbooksta: HOAs can raise taxes ("fees") to cover services, including new services, in accordance with their by-laws. They can file liens against properties to recover unpaid fees. Nobody "owns" an HOA -- it's a contract agreed to by owners of property within the association, and perpetuated upon future owners also by contract. You can no more buy or sell an HOA than you can a municipality. (Presumably if you were to buy ALL of the property in the HOA or municipality you could eject any tenants and control it.) So I still see no difference between property associations and government.
Because a HOA is created by contract, it can also be eliminated by contract. You can go to the co-proprietors of the HOA and buy out their right of participation. If you have a house in the neighborhood and want to get rid of the HOA you don't have to leave the neighborhood, you can simply offer your neighbors a new contractual arrangement and then pay them in exchange for signing it.
There is no such arrangement with regards to cities because they are government monopolies. If someone could buy the votes to control the city then it would be like a HOA.
Government is legitimate if it is consented to. The right to govern is given by the consent of the governed. If you choose to be under the rule of someone else(whether it be a "government" or an HOA), then libertarians have no problem with it. Libertarian's have problem's with government's that are compulsory and those that you are forced to participate in.
"Love it or leave it" arguments are perfectly acceptable arguments...for private property. In the case of the government, they don't have any legitimate rule over your property if you never gave consent and therefore, "love it or leave it" doesn't apply.
Stranger: Because a HOA is created by contract, it can also be eliminated by contract. You can go to the co-proprietors of the HOA and buy out their right of participation. If you have a house in the neighborhood and want to get rid of the HOA you don't have to leave the neighborhood, you can simply offer your neighbors a new contractual arrangement and then pay them in exchange for signing it. There is no such arrangement with regards to cities because they are government monopolies. If someone could buy the votes to control the city then it would be like a HOA.
Interesting. It is possible to recontract an HOA, but only if the other HOA members agree. (They could choose to refuse to modify the contract and then you're SOL.)
And isn't it possible to do the same with government? I could, for example, try to buy a change to a government by paying the electorate to support my view. E.g., I could post a bond and say, "If this state adopts this new constitution I have drafted, I will pay every registered voter in the state $1000." So just as you can try to buy changes to HOA contracts, you can try to buy changes to government. Does that make such a democratic government legitimate (even though it has a coercive monopoly)?
dbooksta: And isn't it possible to do the same with government? I could, for example, try to buy a change to a government by paying the electorate to support my view. E.g., I could post a bond and say, "If this state adopts this new constitution I have drafted, I will pay every registered voter in the state $1000." So just as you can try to buy changes to HOA contracts, you can try to buy changes to government. Does that make such a democratic government legitimate (even though it has a coercive monopoly)?
I can assure you that it is super-duper illegal to buy votes.
Even if it was possible, city charters are defined by higher-level instances of government. The cities themselves can't do anything about it.
This debate over HOA's is pretty ridiculous, imo. Most HOA's are implimented by the government in the first place. Second of all, they are much smaller in scope than any state is, as such there are plenty of places to move to without an HOA. There is pretty much nowhere to go where there is not a ruler that is livable. Lastly, they have far fewer powers than a state does. HOA's are hardly similar to states.
At most, I think only 5% of the adult population would need to stop cooperating to have real change.
Dbooksta, i do not think it would be plausible that every bit of land would be part of a HOA.
As soon as some land starts to confrom, the "free" land will be more and more expensive, and some people will hold out no matter what the price
However, let us imagine that this did happen. There would not be one HOA becuase people would only join one if they agreed to most of the rules. Therefore, just like any free market there would be competition between these HOA's to attract people to live in theirs and not the others.
This is unlike government becuase it does not compete for you, unless alot of states opened all their borders for mass immigration
Back to the point, even if all the land was controlled (again i dont see happening), isnt it better to at least have a choce of HOA rather then no choice at all?
Absolutely -- runner up to "small government is beautiful" would be "local government is beautiful." The less power the federal governments have, the more potential variety and competition we get at the state/municipal level.
You address my question on the inevitability of government -- it would stand to reason that "free" land would command a premium, yet at some point every state in the union decided that they would rather join the federal government. So I'm left thinking that in principle government isn't inevitable, but that large groups of voters apparently can't resist government in practice!
My other purpose in the discussion is more to get a coherent delineation between "bad" involuntary government and "good" voluntary contracts. I am still not convinced that HOAs are fundamentally different from government; only that we reserve the word "government" for perpetual associations that are too big to buy out or too inconvenient to move away from. Which leaves me, as I suggested earlier, unable to argue that government is in principle any less legitimate than any voluntary contract.
I must disagree because you have missed the point. Small government is not the same as local government. Local government can have powers as tyrannical, and sometimes more so, than national government. This is what is missing from your reasoning - power. HOAs are limited in what they can do by a market, but local governments are protected from the market by coercion. That is what grants them their power and makes them so destructive.
Hi guys, writing from Spain.
You are right about the difference between local and national government, but I think there is a link between them, depending on how centralized or decentralized is the country.
I think that to answer to the question of this forum we should introduce the variable of time (short term and long term). We all agree that the ultimate goal towards freedom would be the disappearance of Government, so in the long term "Big Government" is not acceptable.
In the short term, we could accept different sizes of the Government temporarily, fighting night and day against it, moving in the direction of liberty. Breaking all the barriers slowly but steadily, like little ants. We could think of small steps taken with one target in our minds, in other words, having a small and peacefull revolution everyday.
Here's a suggestion: use the word "state" for "bad government". Government in general is a neutral word that has multiple meanings. State has a very precise meaning.
Freedom of markets is positively correlated with the degree of evolution in any society...
Stranger is precisely correct - HOA's do not constitute a state, because their power is limited by the voluntary nature of the contracts. Because states are involuntary, they tend to create laws that not everyone would voluntarily consent to. Yet these laws are enforced on those who have not consented! By definition, voluntary membership organizations don't do this.
Even if every square inch of a territory was controlled by an HOA, you could still choose whether to enter a given one. You could also choose to leave the territory. If your private property is part of the territory in question, then it is so because you consented for it to be so. Or the previous owner consented for it to be so, and you bought it knowing this was the case. If you want to get out of the HOA and there is no exit clause in the contract - well then you should have read the contract better when you bought the property... and on and on...
Consider another market case - food. You HAVE to eat (or die). This does not make food selection involuntary or coercive. Same with any other product - even HOA's.
Government is legitimate if it is consented to.
"You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows"
Bob Dylan
The whole notion of a perpetual contract seems anti-libertarian to me. Didn't Rothbard draw a distinction between contracts in which property titles were transferred, and mere promises?
So, one could voluntarily enter into an HOA agreement, gaining the benefits thereof in exchange for whatever fees and restrictions it places upon him, but it could not bind him in perpetuity. If it attempts to enforce such a perpetual "contract," I think that does qualify as assuming state-like powers unto itself.
If the HOA actually owned the property, and leased or rented it to tenants, that's one matter, but for it to assume authority over property whose title is owned by somebody else would be exercising tyrannical power.
waywardwayfarer: If the HOA actually owned the property, and leased or rented it to tenants, that's one matter, but for it to assume authority over property whose title is owned by somebody else would be exercising tyrannical power.
The covenant is a property, owned by the HOA.
Stranger: waywardwayfarer: If the HOA actually owned the property, and leased or rented it to tenants, that's one matter, but for it to assume authority over property whose title is owned by somebody else would be exercising tyrannical power. The covenant is a property, owned by the HOA.
I was under the impression that the covenant is the agreement which is entered into, not a property in and of itself. Do HOAs employ some other definition of the term than is found in a standard dictionary?
Who holds the title to the actual physical property, i.e. the land and house?
waywardwayfarer: I was under the impression that the covenant is the agreement which is entered into, not a property in and of itself. Do HOAs employ some other definition of the term than is found in a standard dictionary? Who holds the title to the actual physical property, i.e. the land and house?
Who holds the title to a condominium tower?
Stranger: waywardwayfarer: I was under the impression that the covenant is the agreement which is entered into, not a property in and of itself. Do HOAs employ some other definition of the term than is found in a standard dictionary? Who holds the title to the actual physical property, i.e. the land and house? Who holds the title to a condominium tower?
So, are you suggesting that the HOA owns the land but not the house on it? That seems to be the clearest analogy to condos, where the owners of the individual living units are not the owners of the structure.
The owners of the individual living units are also the owners of the structure, however they are group owners instead of individual owners.
Whether or not the HOA owns "land" is irrelevant. They control the neighborhood and what gets done in it.
By what right do "they" control something that "they" may not actually own?
My understanding of libertarian theory is that whoever justly owns the physical property has the natural right to control it.
waywardwayfarer: By what right do "they" control something that "they" may not actually own? My understanding of libertarian theory is that whoever justly owns the physical property has the natural right to control it.
They do own it.