@ Esuric All men are volitional—they have free will. That means all of the actions of those in the populace who establish a government as well as those they install to manage it choose their actions. No government by any system will ever be better than the validity of those choices in respect to the proper way to enable men to fulfill the potential of their fundamental nature. ------------- Yes, in an Objectivist style capitalist government no values of anyone may be taken, withheld, or destroyed by physical force or threat thereof. That excludes any form of taxation whatsoever. If men prove incapable of financing a moral government without coercion, they will not have one. Be careful while you are writing on a worldwide system of instant communication that costs next to nothing for the poorest men on earth not to underestimate the capacity of free men. -------------- Yes, a society of men requires the use of defensive force to counteract aggressive force. If that degenerates into tyranny, then that society did not establish their government and implement their protection from aggressive force consistent with philosophical principles that identified the nature of man and the condition of freedom from force it imposes on them. -------------- This can be avoided by the actions we are engaging in at this very moment. By taking the unique contributions of Rand and hashing them out, tearing them apart and reassembling them to discern what about them is true or false and what, if anything, can we add to them. One of Rand's most important lessons was to remind us that history is driven by ideas. It is the philosophers who teach the intellectuals who teach the teachers who teach the students who teach their peers who teach the masses who ... That is to say, that you avoid it by first overthrowing the philosophical explanations that lead to and support coercion and replace them with those that lead to and support liberty for all.
@ Justin Spahr-Summers, Rand's views on how to finance a government were suggested in an age that could not forsee the digital revolution that has revolutionized the concept of democratic rule far beyond the ballot box. Similarly it has revolutionized the concept of voluntarily financing the cost of services progressively from free tv for watching some ads to the all but unfathomable complex we experience through the web. My personal expectation is that individual contributions per se to financing government would not be necessary. Corporations would be way larger and way wealthier with way more to protect than anyone else, and since no power could be gained or sustained without the voluntary complicity of the almighty customer, they would compete with each other to be known as the ones who was paying for the protection of their rights. In the long-run, however, it doesn't matter how government is financed as long as it does not involve a threat of force.
@ James, "Some libertarians use pragmatic arguments, but that's not to say there isn't an ethical basis to it." The moral question that arises on the choice of men to live and interact together in a society is that given the fact that men have different moral codes that might treat drug use or taxation or whatever differently, what is the moral basis for a system that will inevitably deal with the actions of men per their different moral convictions, i.e. what is the moral basis for socio-economic interrelationships of all kinds? Rand, like a gardener planting a tree and identifying what is good or bad for that tree by identifying what the tree's particular nature is as opposed to all other species, derived her moral code from that which our nature as human beings necessitates. Primary in the present context is that it necessitates individual autonomy—to be free from interference by other fallible men. And since that can only be effected by physical force or the threat thereof, it means that man's most fundamental socio-economic alternative is freedom v. force. The only government ever proposed that recognizes that fact and seeks to enforce it with defensive force is Rand's laissez-faire capitalism that guarantees that all human interrelationships shall be voluntary. Libertarians cannot get from the nature of man to that point without the chain of logic that is Rand's ethics. The ethical considerations you bring up regarding drugs are necessarily applications of ethics within the context of a free society that is moral per the above explanation. Since the freedom capitalism imposes protects the moral autonomy of every man, you may implement any moral principle you want to regarding drug use, so long as you do not use force to interfere with anyone else's. ------------- The moral principle that a man has an absolute right to the product of his own reason/effort is not predicated in any way on scarcity. The hierarchy is ethics > politics > economics. Scarcity is an economic concept. -------------- "The axiom at work is that human action is purposeful, conscious adjustment to the state of a given human's environment, as he perceives it. If you have a problem with that axiom, we would all love to hear it." Purpose is a primary value, but not the ultimate value, which is one's life. purpose is, like reason, are values that are the means of achieving the ultimate value. In that, reason is the source of the values in service to one's life that purpose determines the hierarchy of their pursuit by one's productivity. Thus man survives and thrives by applying reason to action in production and trade in accordance with the hierarchy of values determined by his purpose. That is what purposeful human action is. The moral relationship to an application of purposeful reason/action in production and trade is thereby established long before (hierarchically) scarcity becomes a consideration. -------------- The human body, including the mind it generates, is physical matter and energy external to the metaphysical "self". Consciousness does not consist of physical matter. It is an attribute of your physical matter, and self is implicit in and inseparable from your consciousness. Ownership is the moral justification of the possession of something that is distinct from you—that you alternatively do or do not possess. It is pointless to raise an issue of ownership for something that is implicit in and inseparable from your very being. ------------- Me: "Furthermore, the choice to form a society with a third party institution to manage the use of force to enable liberty logically precedes the necessity of an objective standard such as ownership to justify the possession of values that is property. You: I don't think that's logically possible. The recognition of objective ethical values must surely precede the establishment of institutions acting to enforce such a system. If there is no morality, then you can't form an institution to enforce something that doesn't exist." Your statement is not mistaken, but rather I think not applicable to possession outside of the politics of a society in the same way that it is applicable within one. And the latter is the present context. -------------- "Anarchists maintain that it is illegitimate to hold a monopoly on force, no matter what you intend to do with it." Legitimate means complying with the laws of a system of justice. The monopoly on force that objectifies the use of defensive force to that end is a means to enforce those laws. It cannot possibly be illegitimate. If you do not like the monopoly on force, you need to define another system of justice that will objectify the use of defensive force that does not necessitate that monopoly on force. In that system, then it might be labeled "illegitimate". No form of anarchy can be that, however, because anarchy inherently enables th arbitrary (not objectified) use of defensive force that in reference to the liberty of the populace is indistinguishable from initiated force. ---------------- "What are you going to write in your constitution?" Whatever is necessary to restrict the government to the guarantee that no person may initiate the use of physical force or the threat thereof to take, withhold, damage, or destroy any tangible or intangible value of another person who either created it or acquired it in a voluntary exchange. ------------------ "It is inherent to the definition of "self-defence" that one is exercising force that is, under the circumstances, necessary to protect against a real initiated threat of force, and no more excessively than that." Yes.
@ I. Ryan, Anyone who violates a right forfeits in that act their own claim to it. It is a self-contradiction to violate a right and then attempt to claim the same right for yourself. So those who coerce involuntary action have no right to demand that anyone else's interaction with them wait for their voluntary consent.
Michael M: Anyone who violates a right forfeits in that act their own claim to it. It is a self-contradiction to violate a right and then attempt to claim the same right for yourself. So those who coerce involuntary action have no right to demand that anyone else's interaction with them wait for their voluntary consent.
Anyone who violates a right forfeits in that act their own claim to it. It is a self-contradiction to violate a right and then attempt to claim the same right for yourself.
So those who coerce involuntary action have no right to demand that anyone else's interaction with them wait for their voluntary consent.
Okay, let's talk specifics.
First, try to envision this scene:
Somebody encounters you on a public street, and attacks you with a knife. Fortunately for you, somebody else comes to your assistance, and together you and him manage to fight him off: He disappears into the woods. Your defender is unscathed, but you're wounded and bleeding heavily from the abdomen. With your defender looking into the distance, you sit down onto your knees, and then lie onto the ground. A few seconds later, looking up at him, who's standing over you and saying something that you can't quite make out, you slip into unconsciousness. Your vision begins to fade, and then nothing. Unconsciousness.
But later you wake up in a hospital. You don't remember anything about the event but what I already alluded to. You look around, and you don't see anybody. You try to call for somebody, but it's no use: You're absolutely exhausted; too weak. So you start thinking about your rights. They were violated. That bastard came out of nowhere and violated your rights. What the hell was he thinking? Why did he target you, rather than somebody else? I mean, you don't have any enemies, right? Nobody would want to assassinate you or something. You're just an ordinary person walking down the street. Your rights. He violated them for no reason. Or at least no reason that you can think of, or wrap your head around. You start wondering whether where your assailant is, and whether the authorities have caught him yet. Or whether they ever will. But what would they do to him if they managed to catch him? What would be just? He violated your rights, so he forfeited his right to his own rights, or at least the analogous ones. He used a knife, and attacked you with it. So what did he forfeit? Did he forfeit his right for you to not attack him with a knife? Or did he forfeit his right to not be attacked at all? Or maybe his right to not have physical force initiated against him? Who the hell knows? I mean, he engaged in a particular attack, so how do we know how to generalize that? If we attack him with a knife in a different city, that would be different than what he did to you. Well, if you attack him at all, that's different. Of course he attacked you; not the other way around. So I guess that we're generalizing it as far as possible: Make your interaction with me involuntary, and now I "can" make my interaction with you involuntary. You use force against me; and I get to use force against you. Or at least we should condone that. Or something. I guess.
But enough of that: Let's try to get back to the point.
What's a "self-contradiction" in that situation? What if the authorities found the assailant, but he fought them off? Where would the self-contradiction be? Maybe he would tell you that he thought that he had "the right" to attack you, but that the authorities didn't have "the right" to attack him. Maybe he's under the impression that you deserve to get stabbed, but that he deserves to be left alone after the fact. What then? Where's the contradiction? He thinks that he should be able to attack you, but somebody else shouldn't be able to attack him. Again, where's the contradiction? Or maybe he thinks that "rights" are nonsense to begin with: People have desires, and when they conflict, they fight each other. And then it's just down to whoever wins. No contradictions: Just people pursuing their ends, which sometimes suggest trying to knife somebody on a public street. And so on.
I turned this situation on every side, yet I've failed to see anything that we could call a "contradiction". Maybe you could point to what you call a "contradiction", and then point to where it occurs in this situation.
If I wrote it more than a few weeks ago, I probably hate it by now.
Michael M:2) Such an institution can defend rights if those who establish it and define the rules by which it must operate enable it to perform only one single function: to guarantee that all human interactions in its jurisdiction shall be voluntary.
What a shame it would be then to restrict such a marvelous institution that can actually guarantee such a condition.
I mean as long as it's in the business of guarantees, might as well put its power to guarantee to use for a few other more modest necessities like healthcare, social security, education, .... Go ahead and unleash it!
"My personal expectation is that individual contributions per se to financing government would not be necessary. Corporations would be way larger and way wealthier with way more to protect than anyone else, and since no power could be gained or sustained without the voluntary complicity of the almighty customer, they would compete with each other to be known as the ones who was paying for the protection of their rights. "
You're assuming that they are competing to fund the same protector of rights. If funding is voluntary, people/companies can choose who they want to protect them. Just as with any other good or service, this means that people are free to compete for the dollar of the consumer (those who desire protection), and the most efficient of these will have the greatest market share. But the fact of the matter is that natural monopolies are extremely rare - why would it be any different for security? By this point you have already arrived at anarcho-capitalism.
Michael M:Yes, a society of men requires the use of defensive force to counteract aggressive force. If that degenerates into tyranny, then that society did not establish their government and implement their protection from aggressive force consistent with philosophical principles that identified the nature of man and the condition of freedom from force it imposes on them.
There is no such thing as a society. It's an abstraction.
All such systems emerge from tyranny, not consent or voluntary action. Again, it's like talking to a Marxist about communism. The problem is always the people, not the idea.
Michael M:My personal expectation is that individual contributions per se to financing government would not be necessary. Corporations would be way larger and way wealthier with way more to protect than anyone else, and since no power could be gained or sustained without the voluntary complicity of the almighty customer, they would compete with each other to be known as the ones who was paying for the protection of their rights.
Corporations are legal fictions. They do not emerge from the market, they emerge from the state.
Michael M:"What are you going to write in your constitution?" Whatever is necessary to restrict the government to the guarantee that no person may initiate the use of physical force or the threat thereof to take, withhold, damage, or destroy any tangible or intangible value of another person who either created it or acquired it in a voluntary exchange.
If the government is the arbiter of its own limits, then how will whatever you write ever be enough? Do you possess magic words that can bind a government in chains? Has any government ever observed words as meaningful limits?
You're for creating an all powerful central authority over rights, and by instituting such an entity, surrender the capacity to control it. After all, what will you do when your government starts taxing you? Point to your Constitution? Wave your fist at it? Crash your airplane into the side of a mountain and hope to be rescued by an anarcho-capitalist commune with no government of any sort?
Capitalism is embodied in the market, not in the government.
Michael M:If you do not like the monopoly on force, you need to define another system of justice that will objectify the use of defensive force that does not necessitate that monopoly on force.
You should define monopoly and justice. Also necessity scoffs at the law.
I. Ryan, "So I guess that we're generalizing it as far as possible: Make your interaction with me involuntary, and now I 'can' make my interaction with you involuntary. You use force against me; and I get to use force against you. Or at least we should condone that. Or something. I guess." You got it! (with the nitpick that it is not "can," but "may." It is not about ability, but about justification.) ----------- "What's a "self-contradiction" in that situation?" The government is charged with protecting the moral claim of men to their autonomy. They may retaliate against those who violate that claim, because there is not nor could there be any claim to the contrary, because to make such a claim would inherently be a contradiction. The contradiction is implicit. It is in virtually all cases safe to assume that a perpetrator still holds that others have no right to take values from them. But even in the case of someone who blows up a building full of people in protest and turns himself in to die as a martyr (making no claim), the government may execute him whether or not the contradiction is concretized by him or his lawyers into the form of a claim, because it is inherently impossible for a claim to be made that would not constitute a contradiction. Ultimately the contradiction is inherent in the act of taking, withholding, damaging or destroying a value of another person involuntarily.
@ DD5 Me: "2) Such an institution can defend rights if those who establish it and define the rules by which it must operate enable it to perform only one single function: to guarantee that all human interactions in its jurisdiction shall be voluntary." You:" What a shame it would be then to restrict such a marvelous institution that can actually guarantee such a condition. I mean as long as it's in the business of guarantees, might as well put its power to guarantee to use for a few other more modest necessities like healthcare, social security, education, .... Go ahead and unleash it!" No can do. The former inherently precludes the latter.
Aristippus, "You're assuming that they are competing to fund the same protector of rights." Yes. ----------- "If funding is voluntary, people/companies can choose who they want to protect them." No. The purpose of forming a government in the first place is to remove arbitrary choice from the use of physical force. It is a prerequisite of liberty that force may only be exercised per objectified principles and procedures that are known or knowable by all subject to them in advance. Opening up the use of force to arbitrary force would preclude liberty. ---------- "Just as with any other good or service, this means that people are free to compete for the dollar of the consumer (those who desire protection), and the most efficient of these will have the greatest market share. But the fact of the matter is that natural monopolies are extremely rare - why would it be any different for security? By this point you have already arrived at anarcho-capitalism." The most common fallacy held by anarcho-capitalists is the idea of a "free market in force." That idea depends on a stolen concept. A free market is a venue of voluntary exchanges of values wherein the use of FORCE HAS BEEN AND IS EXCLUDED. Consequently, in a free market, you may exchange any value you wish except force. The market in which force is exchanged cannot be said to be free.
Michael M:A free market is a venue of voluntary exchanges of values wherein the use of FORCE HAS BEEN AND IS EXCLUDED. Consequently, in a free market, you may exchange any value you wish except force. The market in which force is exchanged cannot be said to be free.
Well done.
Z.
"A free market is a venue of voluntary exchanges of values wherein the use of FORCE HAS BEEN AND IS EXCLUDED. Consequently, in a free market, you may exchange any value you wish except force. The market in which force is exchanged cannot be said to be free."
My Blog: http://www.anarchico.net/
Production is 'anarchistic' - Ludwig von Mises
Michael M:No can do. The former inherently precludes the latter.
How does it establish its "jurisdiction" without violating its own "mandate"? Do you envision a unanimous consent among all individuals always and everywhere? Can you resolve this logical contradiction, which has been pointed out to you already several times here, without resorting to endless assertions and circular arguments? I have yet to see a single response from you that even attempts to do this.
Michael M:The government is charged with protecting the moral claim of men to their autonomy.
Charged by whom?
Michael M: The most common fallacy held by anarcho-capitalists is the idea of a "free market in force." That idea depends on a stolen concept. A free market is a venue of voluntary exchanges of values wherein the use of FORCE HAS BEEN AND IS EXCLUDED. Consequently, in a free market, you may exchange any value you wish except force. The market in which force is exchanged cannot be said to be free.
The most common fallacy held by anarcho-capitalists is the idea of a "free market in force." That idea depends on a stolen concept. A free market is a venue of voluntary exchanges of values wherein the use of FORCE HAS BEEN AND IS EXCLUDED. Consequently, in a free market, you may exchange any value you wish except force. The market in which force is exchanged cannot be said to be free.
Sure, it's a fallacy (a misuse of words) to illustrate the imaginary construction that we usually call the "free market", but then turn around and talk about a "free market in force", because it's absolutely contradictory (a change of mind in how we're using the words) to talk about force being in any way a part of the free market. The imaginary construction of the free market doesn't include the possibility of force. Nobody uses force against anybody else. Every exchange benefits both parties. And so on. Saying the words "a free market in force" is an equivocation to the absolute highest of degrees. Nothing that we could call "force" could be in any way connected with what we call the "free market". They preclude each other.
But that isn't anything but an imaginary construction until we point out who uses the words that way. Sure, if that's what they mean (whatever we're talking about here), it's a contradiction, an equivocation, a misuse of words, and so on. In fact, there wouldn't be anything to believe in, because there wouldn't be anything to imagine. It would just be a string of words. Nothing else. But that's not what they mean. Or at least it's not what I've seen anybody mean. So let's take a few steps back and say, "A free market in force, what could these seemingly contradictory words refer to? How could we place the most charitable interpretation to these words?" Sure, the words seem superficially contradictory, but are you positive that's what they really mean?
Well, let's see what they mean. In a free market, every exchange benefits both parties. Let's just stick to that criterion for now. Let's think about the PDAs, and how their activity could be in any way connected with exchanges profitable for both sides. Well, what are the "sides", and what is the exchange? Of course it's them and their clients! If I go to a PDA to get their service (protection), neither of us use force against each other. If we make a trade (my money for their protection), both parties (both me and them) benefit from the transaction. That's a free market not in force (that is unless we misleadingly define "free market in force" to refer to that situation!), but in selling the use of force. I don't employ force against them, and they don't employ force against me. We make a contractual arrangement, and both sides benefit. But their side of it includes being willing to use force against a 3rd party. Well, their relationship with me might be of a free market; but of course their relationship with the 3rd party wouldn't be a free market.
But it's the opposite with governments (or what most people here call "governments"). I don't choose whether to deal with the government that I'm under, so it's not a free market. It forces me to pay them for their "services", and then it forces me to accept them. I can't do anything as long as I still fit their criteria for being a part of their clientele (whether I live in their territory). I must submit to paying them and accepting their services at the barrel of a gun. It's not a positive-sum exchange. They coerce me into this relationship. It's as far as possible from being a free market in selling protection. This is the difference. As long as I remain in their territory, I'm neither free to pay somebody else for these kinds of services, to refuse their services, or to start my own agency. I'm not at liberty to do any of that. It's a monopoly. It's compulsory. And it's territorial. That's the complete opposite of what the anarcho-capitalists often (misleadingly) refer to as a "free market in force".
Isaac, Me: "A free market is a venue of voluntary exchanges of values wherein the use of FORCE HAS BEEN AND IS EXCLUDED. Consequently, in a free market, you may exchange any value you wish except force. The market in which force is exchanged cannot be said to be free." You: "If Company A, a private defense company, sells it services to B, an individual, and B accepts voluntarily, then the trade is legitimate... Now if Company A points a gun to B and and forces B to sign a contract, then that isn't legitimate... this trade in force is very legitimate because it is not force upon the people that are exchanging the services... That is why 'forceful' companies are legitimate, even in todays society. (ie. private security, body guards, the hunting industry, the gun industry, etc...)" This is true, but the context is not the same. What you describe is not what anarchists mean by a free market in force. In your case the entire exchange occurs within the context of an existing government. The exchange is for a service that will perform the function of the government (like a sub-contractor) and must be performed in accordance with government established standards, not by standards that those two parties may arbitrarily establish. Because it is force that they are dealing with, it must be objectified by specified laws and procedures known or knowable to all in advance. The latter requirement is not understood to obtain in the anarchist conception of a market in force.
Michael M: I. Ryan: So I guess that we're generalizing it as far as possible: Make your interaction with me involuntary, and now I 'can' make my interaction with you involuntary. You use force against me; and I get to use force against you. Or at least we should condone that. Or something. I guess. You got it!
I. Ryan: So I guess that we're generalizing it as far as possible: Make your interaction with me involuntary, and now I 'can' make my interaction with you involuntary. You use force against me; and I get to use force against you. Or at least we should condone that. Or something. I guess.
So I guess that we're generalizing it as far as possible: Make your interaction with me involuntary, and now I 'can' make my interaction with you involuntary. You use force against me; and I get to use force against you. Or at least we should condone that. Or something. I guess.
You got it!
But certainly we must put them into some more specific categories! If I push you down for fun (making my interaction with you involuntary), surely we shouldn't condone for you to retaliate by attacking we with a hunting knife (making your interaction with me involuntary!). Of course we need to say what a "reasonable" response would be, and we wouldn't be prepared to do with if we don't see anything but that you may make your interaction with me involuntary if I make my interaction with you involuntary first. Unquestionably we have to be more particular than that! Otherwise we would see absolute atrocities (like killing a 12 year old boy because he tripped you for fun), and find them as totally "justified".
Michael M: The government is charged with protecting the moral claim of men to their autonomy. They may retaliate against those who violate that claim, because there is not nor could there be any claim to the contrary, because to make such a claim would inherently be a contradiction.
The government is charged with protecting the moral claim of men to their autonomy. They may retaliate against those who violate that claim, because there is not nor could there be any claim to the contrary, because to make such a claim would inherently be a contradiction.
Okay, let's see why.
Michael M: The contradiction is implicit.
The contradiction is implicit.
Alright, let's see where it's hiding.
Michael M: It is in virtually all cases safe to assume that a perpetrator still holds that others have no right to take values from them.
It is in virtually all cases safe to assume that a perpetrator still holds that others have no right to take values from them.
So it's irrelevant, and we should look for the contradiction elsewhere.
Michael M: But even in the case of someone who blows up a building full of people in protest and turns himself in to die as a martyr (making no claim), the government may execute him whether or not the contradiction is concretized by him or his lawyers into the form of a claim
But even in the case of someone who blows up a building full of people in protest and turns himself in to die as a martyr (making no claim), the government may execute him whether or not the contradiction is concretized by him or his lawyers into the form of a claim
So the claim itself is irrelevant, and we again should look for the contradiction somewhere else.
Michael M: because it is inherently impossible for a claim to be made that would not constitute a contradiction.
because it is inherently impossible for a claim to be made that would not constitute a contradiction.
Okay, but that's just a re-statement of your thesis, so I'm still awaiting the answer.
Michael M: Ultimately the contradiction is inherent in the act of taking, withholding, damaging or destroying a value of another person involuntarily.
Ultimately the contradiction is inherent in the act of taking, withholding, damaging or destroying a value of another person involuntarily.
But that's just another re-statement of your thesis.
Why not get back to the specific example that I gave? Where's the contradiction in him defending himself from the police?
DD5, "How does it establish its "jurisdiction" without violating its own "mandate"? Do you envision a unanimous consent among all individuals always and everywhere? Can you resolve this logical contradiction, ..." What contradiction? The government's mandate is to exclusively use physical force to guarantee that all interrelationships be voluntary. Any group of people who are capable may impose that upon the occupants off anyplace in the universe they can manage to impose and sustain it. It is never a violation of anyone's rights to use force against them to stop their interference by physical force or the threat thereof whether they consent to it or not. The concept "consent of the governed" does not and never has referred to any action that required unanimity. It only refers to the fact that a government must obey the will of the populace that established it as defined by the usual democratic procedures that are never necessarily unanimous. You cannot establish an individual political right by consent. Rights are relationships necessitated by the nature of human beings. You can take a stab at institutionalizing such rights by consent. But if consent is given to misidentifications of those rights, that will be wrong with or without consent, and if they are correctly identified and implemented, that will be right with or without consent. ----------- "he government is charged with protecting the moral claim of men to their autonomy." By whatever group establishes and sustains the government.
i do not agree there michael
" Okay, let's see why. Michael M: The contradiction is implicit. Alright, let's see where it's hiding. Michael M: It is in virtually all cases safe to assume that a perpetrator still holds that others have no right to take values from them. So it's irrelevant, and we should look for the contradiction elsewhere." No. Holding they have no right IS the contradiction. --------------- Michael M: " But even in the case of someone who blows up a building full of people in protest and turns himself in to die as a martyr (making no claim), the government may execute him whether or not the contradiction is concretized by him or his lawyers into the form of a claim So the claim itself is irrelevant, and we again should look for the contradiction somewhere else." No, the contradiction is there in principle implicitly. It is merely not concretized. --------------- Michael M: " because it is inherently impossible for a claim to be made that would not constitute a contradiction. Alright, that's just a re-statement of your thesis, so I'm still awaiting the answer. No. It is conclusion after showing you that all of the above involve the same contradiction, as would any other such instance. It is a statement that the contradiction is unavoidable." --------------- Michael M: " Ultimately the contradiction is inherent in the act of taking, withholding, damaging or destroying a value of another person involuntarily. But that's just another re-statement of your thesis." No. I am merely pointing out here that all of the potential variations on the contradiction are already implicit in this act.
Michael M:What contradiction?
This one
Michael M:The concept "consent of the governed" does not and never has referred to any action that required unanimity. It only refers to the fact that a government must obey the will of the populace that established it as defined by the usual democratic procedures that are never necessarily unanimous.
That tyranny of the majority is not compatible with your own individual political rights doctrine.
Michael,
What exactly does the word "contradiction" refer to in this situation?
And can we just go back to the specific example?
Where is the specific contradiction in the example that I gave a while ago?
DD5, For there to be a tyranny of the majority, the majority has to violate the rights of those that are governed by the government they sustain. That does not apply to an Objectivist capitalist government because the majority may only protect individual rights and not violate them. That is to say the only thing an Objectivist government may impose on the people is to refrain from using force against their fellow man. That imposition does not qualify to be tyranny.
I. Ryan,
The word "contradiction" in our discussion refers to the assertion of a right, explicitly or implicitly, in one action, while denying it in another.
Michael M: The word "contradiction" in our discussion refers to the assertion of a right, explicitly or implicitly, in one action, while denying it in another.
Okay, but where would that happen in the scenario that I outlined?
No we cannot go back to that example. It was so overladen with non-essentials that I lost my way and all incentive to look for it half way through. You may formulate another much more compact one and I will reply to it, contrary to my better judgment that says hypotheticals are a horrible way to try to understand principles, since there are always a wealth of unmentioned unknowns. And if they are mentioned, they take way more time to decipher than they are worth. If you come up with a good, efficient example, I will make an exception.
Michael M: It was so overladen with non-essentials that I lost my way and all incentive to look for it half way through.
It was so overladen with non-essentials that I lost my way and all incentive to look for it half way through.
How could I avoid making it overladen with non-essentials, considering I still have no idea what you're talking about?
Michael M: If you come up with a good, efficient example, I will make an exception.
If you come up with a good, efficient example, I will make an exception.
How about you just come up with a good, efficient example, instead of relying on me, considering I'm still completely confused about what you're talking about?
Michael M:That does not apply to an Objectivist capitalist government because the majority may only protect individual rights and not violate them.
But the majority does violate them.
Leaving aside the problem of government finance for the moment, you have still established a territorial monopoly on services such as police and arbitration of disputes. How do you deprive me from seeking protection from an alternative police department or defense agency without resorting to coercion? How do you deprive me and my business partner from seeking the services of a private arbitration agency in the case that a dispute arises between us, without using coercion to maintain your monopoly?
The US postal service is still a coercive monopoly even if you choose not to ever use its services because the last person that attempted to compete with it ended up in jail. Do you agree?
Yes, that is the point, if one cannot open up shop in competition with some Objectivist Government by the law of that government, you have it be a rights violator; if one can compete, you have described PDA's under Anarcho-capitalism.
Where there is no property there is no justice; a proposition as certain as any demonstration in Euclid
Fools! not to see that what they madly desire would be a calamity to them as no hands but their own could bring
I. Ryan: Michael M: The most common fallacy held by anarcho-capitalists is the idea of a "free market in force." That idea depends on a stolen concept. A free market is a venue of voluntary exchanges of values wherein the use of FORCE HAS BEEN AND IS EXCLUDED. Consequently, in a free market, you may exchange any value you wish except force. The market in which force is exchanged cannot be said to be free. Sure, it's a fallacy (a misuse of words) to illustrate the imaginary construction that we usually call the "free market", but then turn around and talk about a "free market in force", because it's absolutely contradictory (a change of mind in how we're using the words) to talk about force being in any way a part of the free market. The imaginary construction of the free market doesn't include the possibility of force. Nobody uses force against anybody else. Every exchange benefits both parties. And so on. Saying the words "a free market in force" is an equivocation to the absolute highest of degrees. Nothing that we could call "force" could be in any way connected with what we call the "free market". They preclude each other. But that isn't anything but an imaginary construction until we point out who uses the words that way. Sure, if that's what they mean (whatever we're talking about here), it's a contradiction, an equivocation, a misuse of words, and so on. In fact, there wouldn't be anything to believe in, because there wouldn't be anything to imagine. It would just be a string of words. Nothing else. But that's not what they mean. Or at least it's not what I've seen anybody mean. So let's take a few steps back and say, "A free market in force, what could these seemingly contradictory words refer to? How could we place the most charitable interpretation to these words?" Sure, the words seem superficially contradictory, but are you positive that's what they really mean? Well, let's see what they mean. In a free market, every exchange benefits both parties. Let's just stick to that criterion for now. Let's think about the PDAs, and how their activity could be in any way connected with exchanges profitable for both sides. Well, what are the "sides", and what is the exchange? Of course it's them and their clients! If I go to a PDA to get their service (protection), neither of us use force against each other. If we make a trade (my money for their protection), both parties (both me and them) benefit from the transaction. That's a free market not in force (that is unless we misleadingly define "free market in force" to refer to that situation!), but in selling the use of force. I don't employ force against them, and they don't employ force against me. We make a contractual arrangement, and both sides benefit. But their side of it includes being willing to use force against a 3rd party. Well, their relationship with me might be of a free market; but of course their relationship with the 3rd party wouldn't be a free market. But it's the opposite with governments (or what most people here call "governments"). I don't choose whether to deal with the government that I'm under, so it's not a free market. It forces me to pay them for their "services", and then it forces me to accept them. I can't do anything as long as I still fit their criteria for being a part of their clientele (whether I live in their territory). I must submit to paying them and accepting their services at the barrel of a gun. It's not a positive-sum exchange. They coerce me into this relationship. It's as far as possible from being a free market in selling protection. This is the difference. As long as I remain in their territory, I'm neither free to pay somebody else for these kinds of services, to refuse their services, or to start my own agency. I'm not at liberty to do any of that. It's a monopoly. It's compulsory. And it's territorial. That's the complete opposite of what the anarcho-capitalists often (misleadingly) refer to as a "free market in force".
Ancaps aren't talking about a "free market in force", they are talking about a free market in defence (i.e. the means of restitution) . As others have said, either I can choose who defends me or I am forced under the threat of violence to have only one option of my 'defender'. The former can exist in a free market (since there is no coercion), while the latter cannot, as it relies on the use of coercion. To support this latter use of coercion is to do away with the free market.
DD5,
You must have come into this thread without reading the preceding posts—not a good idea!
An Objectivist government does not do anything but guarantee that force will not be exercised arbitrarily. It only protects individual rights, which means that it protects all voluntary human actions. If you had applied this principle that has been stated umpteen times already in this thread, you would not have conjured up the false assumption that arbitration agencies would be prohibited. That is a contractual arrangement in its every instance, and the government would guarantee that the outcome would be complied with.
As to private police forces, even today, every major corporation has one. I am also all for subcontracting government services, and for the government not being allowed to own anything—everything must be contractually leased. Those all contribute to the checks and balances on government.
Governments may not perform any other service other than guaranteeing that all interrelationships be voluntary. No postal service, no education, no healthcare, no taxation, no anything.
The territorial monopoly the government must have is only over the objectification of the principles, laws, and procedures of enforcement so that they will be known or knowable to all subject to them in advance, in order to preclude the arbitrary exercise of force. No anarchy can provide that service.
nirgrahamUK,
Thanks. When I explained the inherent contradiction of the anarcho's market in force, I forgot to warn you that "competition" for the services of exercising defensive force are equally absurd. Competition is a term that only applies to the FREE exchange of goods. Without an institution having already removed force from the market, there can be no free exchange and hence no competition. Yet another stolen concept.
Aristippus:As others have said, either I can choose who defends me or I am forced under the threat of violence to have only one option of my 'defender'.
And what makes you believe that it would be in the best interest of any supplier of force to allow you to freely make that choice?
Conflict, Competition, and Cooperation in Anarchy
Aristippus,
"Ancaps aren't talking about a "free market in force", they are talking about a free market in defence (i.e. the means of restitution)"
There is no such thing as defense without force. But if you can figure out how to defend yourself without exercising force, no Objectivist government is going to prohibit it.
The only force the Objectivist government would interfere with is arbitrary force.
[I am fairly sure that this was extensively dealt with in previous posts. Please go back and find them (or correct me ... I have been on a marathon this week working three threads also containing this subject off and on and as big as this one simultaneously]