*sigh - 100 million people flouting the State's dictates in minor ways is flouting the State's dictates in a major way!
100 million people secretly running redlights is just 100 million people secretly running redlights. It's not eliminating income tax, it's not ending central banking, its not ending the wars, its not protecting people from the police state. Now, if those 100 million voted, they might change something. Or if they refused to comply in some meaningful way, but as it is, this is just some kind of national joke.
To refine my point into a general formula:
It requires a majority of public opinion of all adults to get away with openly flouting the law. It only takes a majority (or less if the system favors minorities, as ours does) of the electorate to succeed politically. A majority of the electorate is always smaller than a majority of the total adult population, usually much smaller, and so it takes fewer people to succeed politically than it does to succeed through civil disobedience. Since the cost of voting is less than the cost of civil disobedience, it is also easier to gather a given number of folks to vote for a cause than to gather than same number of folks to refuse compliance with some law.
Running stop signs is an illustration of the point - time is money, by saving yourself time on the basis of prudential violation of State dictates, you are saving yourself money. Not paying taxes on cash transactions is an obvious one. Engaging in more cash transactions (i.e. buying/selling used goods on Craigslist or through other channels) is another. Taking steps to protect your wealth, such as investing in commodities during times of high inflation, is another. Educating your neighbors on the same, is another.
What you are neglecting is that the State's power is the cumulation of a million tiny violations of individual rights. Inflation is just a few percent per year. But a few percent of a $15 trillion economy is hundreds of billions of dollars - you can wage a lot of war and impose a lot of tyranny with that kind of cash.
But that blade cuts both directions. If even a significant minority of the public starts engaging in more cash transactions, starts protecting their wealth from the Fed, and so on, the pinch will be felt in DC. In fact, this is why they're bitching so much about the hedge funds because they've done precisely this - they've enabled upper middle class people who were supposed to "eat it" with the rest of the public to escape a lot of the inflationary devaluation and even turn some spectacular profits by predicting the predictable bullshit coming out of DC and Wall Street.
In the same way that the hedge funds have gotten the attention of the Establishment, a significant minority of the public engaging in whatever form of non-compliance they judge to be in their interest will also get the Establishment's attention. But, unlike hedge funds, they won't have a single target to go after and make an example of, such as poor Raj Rajaratnam.
Also, once people start the ball rolling, the market for non-compliance will grow. Following Say's law, black market suppliers create demand for black market goods and services. In this way, a distributed, leaderless (and, thus, targetless) "revolution" can grow from small roots of non-compliance to a ballooning monstrosity of black economy that escapes the reach of the authorities. The key is to free people's consciences from the false idol of the State and open them to the freedom to disobey whenever they judge that it suits their purposes.
The State fears this eventuality more than anything else. This is why they deploy disinfo agents into Internet debate forums to spew random crap or fanatical extremism or even occasionally attempts at rational counter-arguments to the truth. This is the Poison Pill approach to disinfo.
The fact that this is what the State fears the most is evidence that it is what we should desire most. And reason agrees on this account. The Revolution - if it comes - will be leaderless, distributed and based on a reformation of the public conscience regarding the legitimacy of the State. I hope that Ron Paul is our generation's Martin Luther.
Clayton -
The State has a way of trying to close escape routes, like cash transactions and precious metals. As the power of the State grows, more and more of those legal escape routes are either closed (e.g. by the State cooperating with the cartel banks and corporations to push a cashless economy) or made illegal (e.g. with outright prohibition on the sale of precious metals). Eventually you will have to choose between violating the law in ways that aren't so risk-free and obeying them.
Also, once people start the ball rolling, the market for non-compliance will grow. Following Say's law, black market suppliers create demand for black market goods and services.
That's right. However, my idea of liberty is not conducting illicit transactions in back alleys. That doesn't strike me as victory. That strikes me as making the best of the bad situation - I'd prefer to change the situation so I don't have to deal in a black market.
Minarchist:It is an empirical observation.
No, it isn't, because you made a gnomic statement, which transcends empirical observations. In order to be intellectually honest here, you'll need to either edit the statement to match its empirical meaning, or back down from the claim that it represents an empirical observation and instead claim that it's either a statement of belief or an assertion of general truth.
Minarchist:Ok, I am.
I'm very sorry to hear that.
The keyboard is mightier than the gun.
Non parit potestas ipsius auctoritatem.
Voluntaryism Forum
I said:
the masses of voters will never understand the ideas [of libertarianism]
This could be interpreted literally as a gnomic statement, or considering everything else I've said, perhaps it would make more sense to interpret it as a prediction based on empirical observation: the observation being that the masses have never in the past understood any political ideology (from which one might infer that they never shall in the future). I'll leave it to you to figure out which interpretation makes more sense...
my idea of liberty is not conducting illicit transactions in back alleys
So don't. You were asking about strategy - how do we get from here to there? Obviously, we can't just click our heels and leave the Land of Oz. There will be some kind of process or change that will take time. Perhaps a short amount of time but if history is any guide, it will be a long time coming.
I am not opposed to political action. Feel free to join Cato, join the Mont Pelerin Society, join the John Birch Society, or start your own or even run for office. I just don't think it's going to work for the simple reason pointed out above: the State is a Mafia... how do you "change the Mafia from within"? It doesn't make any sense. But feel free to try. I even hope I'm wrong and your approach works!
But if you want my view on strategy: start small, start building a foundation in the hearts and minds of the people, a foundation of truth and virtue discovered by right reason and sound science. This foundation may take a generation or two to build but once its laid, the superstructure of liberty can be quickly raised on it. Yes, I care about a generation or two from now because I want my children and grandchildren to grow up in a freer, happier, more prosperous world than we have today.
If you're too impatient, well, too bad. Move to Singapore. Move to Zurich. Move to Argentina. Open a bank account in Andorra. I really don't see a lot of hope in the short-term except for Ron Paul's spectacular successes that have still not been spectacular enough for him to win a single popular vote in the Republican primary.
Nevertheless, I think that the unofficial toleration of prostitution plays a crucial role in the "balance of power" between the sexes in the marital union. The woman holds all the power in the bedroom and, as ugly as the reality of it is, the ever-present threat of defection to a lover or a prostitute is the necessary check on the abuse of that power. In the absence of that check, the woman's power in the monogamous relationship becomes overwhelming.
I'd have to completely disagree with this idea of the woman holding all the power in the bedroom. Sorry to side-track the thread by replying to your side-track. But it didn't make much sense to me.
Minarchist: This is an important point. If your goal is for more people to not pay tax, or pay less tax, then widespread tax evasion will achieve that to some extent: of course, you still have to convince people to do this and take the risk (which I say is harder than convincing people to vote).
This is an important point. If your goal is for more people to not pay tax, or pay less tax, then widespread tax evasion will achieve that to some extent: of course, you still have to convince people to do this and take the risk (which I say is harder than convincing people to vote).
Lots of people already take the risk, and they are not necessarily libertarians: anybody who hires an illegel alien, a teenager to mow the lawn, conducts in illicit drug exchange (or any illicit activity), teaches piano lessons on the side, etc. People who do this are not necessarily libertarians, and I'd wager that most aren't. Other ways people can "cheat" on their taxes is by putting down more write-offs than they are supposed to (or any other kind of loophole). They don't have to necessarily under report their income in order to evade taxes.
So I don't really see why I have to run around convincing people to do this when they already are.
Minarchist: However, my goal re taxes is not just for folks to get away with tax evasion, but to eliminate the taxes: I don't want to just not go to prison because I didn't get caught, I want to not go to prison because what I'm doing is not considered a crime.
However, my goal re taxes is not just for folks to get away with tax evasion, but to eliminate the taxes: I don't want to just not go to prison because I didn't get caught, I want to not go to prison because what I'm doing is not considered a crime.
This is my goal too.
Minarchist: And if you want to eliminate the tax, you need political action.
And if you want to eliminate the tax, you need political action.
As demonstrated by the Amish, this is not true. Political action coupled with civil disobedience would be far more effective than simply relying on either political action or civil disobedience. But political action is not necessary.
Minarchist: If lots of people evade taxes, the government is not going to just give up on taxation.
If lots of people evade taxes, the government is not going to just give up on taxation.
This is true. There needs to be more than just lots of people evading taxes. The way to get past just a lot of people evading taxes is through education. The more people who disobey, the weaker the state becomes. The weaker the state becomes, the easier it is to disobey. Entire laws have gone into the dustbin just because so many people stopped obeying them, and so the police stopped enforcing them.
Minarchist: Look at Greece and Italy, their tax collection is incredibly ineffective because of a widespread culture of evasion - but that doesn't stop the government from trying! And people do still go to prison for evasion. That will never change unless enough Greeks and Italians elect politicians who will repeal the taxes in question.
Look at Greece and Italy, their tax collection is incredibly ineffective because of a widespread culture of evasion - but that doesn't stop the government from trying! And people do still go to prison for evasion. That will never change unless enough Greeks and Italians elect politicians who will repeal the taxes in question.
These taxes will be on the books until people don't tolerate them any longer. The sign that people are not tolerating them is when people stop obeying them. Voting them out would be helpful, but this doesn't happen very often.
If you would like an example that doesn't have to do with taxes, just look at alcohol prohibition. The government banned it outright, yet people still drank alcohol! They risked fines and imprisonment over their right to drink alcohol! So many people disobeyed the law that the government just gave up. Sure, the government "repealed" the law. They repealed it because of civil disobedience. If everyone just followed the law and tried to get it repealed through political action, we'd have a dry America today. Thank God that people back then didn't take your advice and not risk imprisonment!
I am not opposed to political action. Feel free to join Cato, join the Mont Pelerin Society, join the John Birch Society, or start your own or even run for office. I just don't think it's going to work for the simple reason pointed out above: the State is a Mafia... how do you "change the Mafia from within"? It doesn't make any sense.
The State is not the mafia. The mafia does not hold elections, the State does. You can change the State from within by winning elections, you cannot do so with respect to the mafia.
But if you want my view on strategy: start small, start building a foundation in the hearts and minds of the people, a foundation of truth and virtue discovered by right reason and sound science.
And what does that actually mean?
This foundation may take a generation or two to build but once its laid, the superstructure of liberty can be quickly raised on it.
Raised how? And what superstructure?
I'm for freedom sooner rather than later, yes, and why not? Is there some special virtue in waiting? I don't follow. Seems to me that time is running out. Once the State reaches a certain degree of control (e.g. control over breeding and childhood development) the game's over. We lose, forever. Tick tock.
As for Ron Paul, I'd say he's done more to advance the ideas of libertarianism (which seems to be your entire strategy) than any one other person in history. He has done this through political action. But it's not just educational. We are winning delegates. We are taking over local and state party organizations. We are building a political machine that will win elections in the not-so-distant future. Meanwhile, those who reject political action are doing...I have no idea, because I never hear anything about them. Hmmm.
Theoretically, you are supposed to have the ability to fix things through elections. But whoever is in charge will still be operating a mafia-styled organization. They still claim the authority to come for your money and steal it and throw you in a cage if you resist. Sounds awfully like an extortion racket no matter who is in charge. At any rate, you don't honestly believe you have much of a choice no matter how many people you convince, do you? The people that will infiltrate any sort of anti-establishment movement will turn the moment you elect them. Power corrupts and all that jazz. The whole thing is a charade really. Paul is getting shafted at the local level in vote counting (I'm usually anti-conspiracy, but this stuff seems pretty realistic) so he can't gain any momentum.
The government is limited in what it can get away with, but this hearkens back to Clayton's point: The government only gets away with what it can due to the attitudes of the people. Ideology is the key factor. If they were to break a revolutionary threshold, people would revolt. The government doesn't want that on their plate, so they aren't completely unrestrained. But they can fool the population pretty easily to get what they want and it'll be like that for a long time.
Once the State reaches a certain degree of control (e.g. control over breeding and childhood development) the game's over. We lose, forever. Tick tock.
Um, that's an appalling lack of historical perspective. For expressing the kinds of "Fuck the State!" opinions that I regularly express on this site, 500 years ago, the State might have had something like this waiting for me:
So, while I don't believe in progress per se, I think that it's not true that the State is a ratchet. It wants to be a ratchet. But the State doesn't always get what it wants. And that's exactly what I want to see more of: the State not getting what it wants.
@Clayton
Well, I would say it's an appalling lack of historical perspective to not understand that the State today is fundamentally different from the State at any time in the past. "Scientific dictatorship" is not an empty phrase. The art of rulership has become a science. Never in the history of the world has so much thought and wealth gone into developing and implementing that science - and never has such technology been at the disposal of the State. Most importantly, the State has never been consciously directing its own evolution (as opposed to just reacting to events) as it has for the last, let's call it 150 years. As a consequence, the State has never been stronger. Sure, the State has become less overtly violent: but that is not a sign of weakness, that is a sign of increased strength. Read Nietzsche, the greater the power of the ruler the more generous and less brutal he can afford to be. The State is less violent because people are more obedient. The best State (from the perspective of the rulers) is not an Orwellian/Stalinist world where dissent is brutally crushed, it's a Brave New World where the masses are bred and conditioned so as to never even be capable of conceiving of dissent in the first place. This is why eugenics is so important to the ruling class. It's not mindless racism, it's about taming humanity: creating perfect slaves who cannot rebel. I personally believe that we are approaching a point where the State will have such control that resistance will become impossible, primarily because it will become unthinkable, literally. Consider that we are only ever a few generations away from permanent tyranny, because, once the entire existing population is tamed, and once the State has control of breeding and "education," where exactly is resistance going to come from? Better hope for some libertarian aliens!
...Hence I say time is running out. Call this melodramatic if you please, and I hope you're right.
I don't think I follow your point. The people are too stupid to pick honest politicians, but the solution is to educate these same stupid people? Huh?
@Minarchist: Well, there's a lot we disagree on. I read history exactly backwards from what you're saying. In my view, the State has always been "consciously directing its own evolution". It has long been predicted that humanity would split into two distinct groups, elites and subhumans (cf Verne's Time Machine). Human breeding has always been going on, just look at slave breeding in the South prior to the war.
It is the State that is fighting gravity, not free society. Free society is what happens unless somebody moves heaven and earth to keep it from happening. And while the State has expanded its tentacles into every part of life, I think that the plight of the average individual today is much better than any time before about 200 years ago. I have argued that the State's insertion into every part of our lives is actually evidence of the breakdown in the moral case for the State, which is really a precursor to the State's loss of power.
I'm happy to debate any of these particular issues because I'm sure I have plenty to learn but, as it stands, we just don't see eye-to-eye on a lot of things.
Well, there's a lot we disagree on. I read history exactly backwards from what you're saying. In my view, the State has always been "consciously directing its own evolution".
I agree that the State has always been self-conscious to some extent, but something very dramatically changed during the 19th century. By way of analogy, it's like a farmer who has been unintentionally breeding better plants for years when he suddenly discovers the science of plant breeding and starts applying it deliberately. Read Auguste Comte, the introduction to "The Positive Philosophy of August Comte" (1853) for an archetypical example of the new concept of rulership that arose at that time.
It has long been predicted that humanity would split into two distinct groups, elites and subhumans (cf Verne's Time Machine). Human breeding has always been going on, just look at slave breeding in the South prior to the war.
Yes, it is an old dream, but only recently has the technology emerged to realize it. The eugenics of the early 20th century and before was bunkum or took an impractically long time. Now they can actually do it with genetics - it's just a question of bringing the public along to accepting it.
Incidentally, the dream lives:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/6057734.stm
It is the State that is fighting gravity, not free society.
Yes, but it's winning that fight.
...Anyway, this is perhaps not the place to get into this long discussion - another time though, as it is very interesting.
Minarchist:This could be interpreted literally as a gnomic statement, or considering everything else I've said, perhaps it would make more sense to interpret it as a prediction based on empirical observation: the observation being that the masses have never in the past understood any political ideology (from which one might infer that they never shall in the future). I'll leave it to you to figure out which interpretation makes more sense...
To me, the only interpretations that make sense given the context are 1) it expresses a gnomic statement, and 2) it expresses a statement of belief. I will continue to stand by that.
That said, how much empirical observation have you personally made here? You certainly haven't been around for all time. So I also challenge your assertion that "the masses" have never understood any political ideology in the past.
This conversation is interesting to me because you guys talk about "the state" like it's some amorphous blob or something. Like a monster lurking out there sending people bills for building roads. You talk about "the state" like it has a single consciousness, a single will.
But what is "the state" in reality?
What comprises "the state?"
Am I "the state?"
I think so. Or at least part of it. Because the state is just made up of people. Lots of people who all accept similar ideas. We work together to achieve common ends.
You're right, of course, that the state isn't some mystical non-human or extra-human entity. The state is an idea. That means it exists only within people's minds. But on an operative level, the state is also an organization.
Do I think I'm part of the state. No. Do I think you're part of the state? Unless you work for some government agency, no. I'm not sure why you think otherwise.
autolykos:But on an operative level, the state is also an organization.
"The state" is an organization of people. There are buildings and committees and so on and so forth but they are all filled with human beings.
autolykos:Do I think you're part of the state? Unless you work for some government agency, no. I'm not sure why you think otherwise.
Well this is just another semantic issue. The label really doesn't matter, what matters is that I support the ideas.
EDIT: I would be willing to work for the government if I could but I'm probably horribly underqualified. I also don't need the money right now.
bloomj31:"The state" is an organization of people. There are buildings and committees and so on and so forth but they are all filled with human beings.
Yes, that's what I meant. Sorry if I wasn't clear.
bloomj31:Well this is just another semantic issue. The label really doesn't matter, what matters is that I support the ideas.
Of course it's another semantics issue. Semantics is incredibly important, if you ask me.
At the risk of going further off-topic, why do you support the ideas?
That's a question for another thread.
The reason I even posted what I posted is because I was asking myself "what makes a statist: ideas or actions?"
Imo, If we talk about "the state" in a way that diminishes the role or presence of human involvement in its operation, we make the discussion meaningless in the context of this thread.
We are, after all, asking what it means to be a libertarian and buildings cannot be libertarians (at least I don't think they can be.)
Fair enough.
So do you fall more on the side of ideas or more on the side of actions?
I have a long list of things to read before August Comte.
I think the reports of its successes are vastly exaggerated. Even at its deadliest, the State has only managed to murder a miniscule percentage of the population. Enough to strike terror into the hearts of the rest of the population (the true purpose of war) but not enough to really regiment society. The Soviet Union is definitely the closest the Elites have ever come to achieving their wet dream of a SimCity society.
As for eugenics, this is also overstated. I have no doubt they'd like to breed a more compliant citizenry. The problem never was the technology because they've had the technology all along (selective breeding). The trouble is that the State simply can't do a lot of what people - in particular, the State itself - imagine that it can do. In at least 5,000 years of existence, the State has not yet managed to create its own separate breed apart from the rest of us. They can dream on, that's the last of my worries.
@Minarchist
Are you an anarchist?
what makes a statist: ideas or actions?]
Ideas. Specifically, the idea that the government has a legitimate claim on our property, and legitimately monopolizes law, security and everything else that it touches.
Clayton:Specifically, the idea that the government has a legitimate claim on our property, and legitimately monopolizes law, security and everything else that it touches.
By "legitimate" you mean logically justifiable right?
This conversation is interesting to me because you guys talk about "the state" like it's some amorphous blob or something. Like a monster lurking out there sending people bills for building roads. You talk about "the state" like it has a single consciousness, a single will. But what is "the state" in reality? What comprises "the state?" Am I "the state?" I think so. Or at least part of it. Because the state is just made up of people. Lots of people who all accept similar ideas. We work together to achieve common ends.
The State is the group of individuals who control or serve the institutions of legalized coercion in society. The rulers are those who control these institutions, and have only peers, no superiors. All the rest are servants. To some extent, I suppose, we are all servants, more or less willing - and so in that sense, we are all part of the State. But usually, when someone is inveighing against the State, I assume they're referring only to the rulers, or at least only to the rulers and the higher-level (willing) servants.
@PeaceRequiresAnarchy
I'm for a stateless society, but I don't much care for the word anarchist.
No, I haven't, but I have read history: i.e. second-hand (or third or fourth...) empirical observation. Can I claim with certainty that there has never existed a society where the masses were ideological? No, of course not - even if I knew all existing history (which I don't), history is always incomplete. Who knows what may have existed of which no records have been preserved. However, I can say with confidence that to my knowledge there neither is nor ever was any society where the masses were ideological. And anyway, I think it's just common sense that most people don't think that deeply. Look around. This is not really such a controversial claim, is it? Now maybe you want to argue that the masses are not lacking in intelligence, but only education, and so it's possible for them to become ideological if they were ever to receive the proper education. That's plausible - I don't happen to agree, but it's a reasonable argument.
Not to interrupt, but this article is relevant to the conversation at hand. In the section "A Practical Strategy", I think Gary North lays out a nice framework. Libertarianism definitely starts with ideas, but we must then translate those ideas into action. We must work with what we have (democracy/republic). Voting and activism at the local level is a must. Attempts at change through the federal level are futile, unless you support certain policy groups. As much as I hate lobbying (bribery), without the NRA and its generous supporters, we'd have nowhere near the gun freedoms we have today. I think Ron Paul uses his bully pulpit very effeciently in spreading the message of liberty, free markets, etc. From there, people must take that knowledge and apply it at a local level, where things are more accountable, and will actually get done. Not paying your taxes, smoking pot in front of a police station and dodging a draft are all valiant actions of freedom, but without working within the system we have, eventually something like SOPA or PIPA will be passed. I'm definitely an anarchist, and hope for a stateless society in my lifetime, but I also find it silly not to use the system you're given to try to improve your conditions in the mean time.