Vulgar Libertarians: Left Edition

I was just recently listening to a Thinking Liberty interview with the infamous Kevin Carson. Having never heard him speak, while having read several of his pieces at C4SS, I found the interview pretty interesting. For one, the calibre of questions provided by the hosts and the listeners seemed to be quite high given the subjects. It was a nice departure from my frequent audio stomping ground, Free Talk Live.

Part of what I found particularly fascinating were his critiques of right-leaning libertarians; a group he more broadly has termed as "vulgar libertarians." His claim is that the supposed "vulgar libertarian" defense of free-markets tends to give way to an ipso facto defense of the business structure that has been established in our current not-so-free-market. I actually agree with a good deal of this proposition as far as it goes. But I think it ironically, and conversely, describes another form of vulgar libertarianism that forms on the left portion of that spectrum.

It's worth noting that there are plenty of people both on the right and also within the libertarian ranks who simply do not realize how many corporations operate at an advantage, in some aspects, because of the absence of a free market. Of course, on the other hand, they operate at a disadvantage under the current regime in other respects, but that may be a discussion for a different day. In any case, Carson is right to call such people out. And he is right that many libertarians are too quick to defend the corporate beneficiaries of the state while attacking beneficiaries among the lower classes (I won't delve into the class-analysis here). But I would like to say something in defense of ANCAPS, propertarians, thin libertarians, and even some paleo-conservatives out there...

I think, perhaps, that the left-leaning libertarian belief that a freer state of affairs will result in a more equitable state of affairs has led them, paradoxically, to engage in a similar kind of vulgarism when they defend lower-class privilege (at the behest of the state) from right-leaning critics. Of course, a lot of this does depend on who you believe is benefiting from the state and who is not, and it's even more tenuous when you break advantage down to an individual level (on net) instead of an aggregate at the class level - a lazy analysis which I believe is woefully inappropriate. I think this creates a mutual distrust and misunderstanding between the two groups more generally. Left-libertarians often end up defending various forms of welfare, or at least its recipients, public employees, state-regulated unions, and other privileged groups within the lower class in precisely the same way their detractors often unwittingly defend the upper classes.

My basic thought on this is that those on the left have a political thrust centered primarily in at least a somewhat consequentialist social-egalitarianism. There are plenty of exceptions, but many believe that free markets are good precisely because their results are more equitable. Those on the right (within the libertarian spectrum) have a thrust grounded in a deontological view of property rights and justice. The right-leaning side sees massive expropriation born out of redistributive social programs to help the lower class. They sympathize with the perceived victims of expropriation. The left-leaning side sees a class of people they sympathize with at the start (because of their egalitarian beliefs) and consequentially (that is important to note) they believe in a system that will help those who need it. The difference between this group and normal leftists seems to be largely that they see free markets as a vehicle to move in that direction while their political brethren don't.

So while it is certainly true that many "vulgar libertarians" do not consider the many advantages higher classes receive at the hand of government, I think many left-libertarians are so wrapped up in their consequential egalitarianism that they fail to see the many rights-violations that the more "Randian" among us so vociferously object to. It's not even, necessarily, that those on the left are wrong - I'm sure there are countless instances where they are right. However, if their support for various political advantages enabled by the lower class is simply that the upper classes, on net, take far more from the poor than the poor take from them, then they must engage in an effort far more empirical (sorting through all effective taxes and subsidies of all natures) and on an individual level in order to make wildly general claims about the relative feast or famine of entire classes of people. It's the least I would expect from anyone wanting to call themselves a "libertarian."

Many other people have certainly tried to sort through this confusion among left and right with regards to free markets (Roderick long denotes something he calls conflationism). I have a feeling there's much more to story - and I'm not really aware of too many people taking what I would consider a neutral look at the problem (on both sides). But I think a good start would be for those more oriented on the right side of the spectrum to question their wayward support of specific corporations should an argument move in that direction. But I also call upon those on the left to recognize the deontological arguments at hand and to question the line of thought that leads them to believe that every low man on the totem pole is worse off than he'd be in a truly free society - my guess is that it's often not the case.

The Tale of the Slave(s)

Alex Tabarrok has seemingly stirred up a hornets' nest over at Marginal Revolution by leveling a blow at bloggers on the left for their use of the following data which seem to indicate that people who consume tax credit/sheltering don't believe they're the beneficiaries of government subsidies:

Alex's contention? Well, they aren't subsidies.

It's an interesting question that highlights some of the opposing biases between the left and the right, generally speaking. I have many sympathies that fall in line with those of Alex it would seem. If we start from the general proposition that taxes represent previously owned wealth, at least nominally, I think it's a hard conclusion to escape. If someone walks up to you and your friends in the middle of the street and demands your wallets, but tells you (and just you) to keep $20 of what's in your wallet, does that $20 represent a subsidy?

My inclination is to say, "No, of course not." After all, if you had $100 in your wallet then you've net -$80 from the "transaction." The net beneficiary of interaction at the individual level is the thief. On the other hand, and more broadly speaking, if we use subsidy to loosely describe comparative advantage, well now we have something for the left to rally around. So, much to our shared chagrin I'm sure, we're back to a perspective of inequity on an individual basis vs. inequity more relatively speaking. In a sense, maybe both sides are right to the extent that they use their own definitions for "subsidy."

Ironically, it's debates like this that have mellowed me a bit while still holding fairly radical political conclusions. To figure out if someone is a beneficiary of government "subsidy", in any form, I think it depends on a number of factors. We have to look at all the direct cuts and subsidies against all the direct forms of taxation. Then we need to weigh that against any indirect subsidies or protections an individual might receive and also any indirect taxation they might be shouldering. Once we've gotten to that point, we'd have to figure out how many tax dollars, through public programs and services, they actually consume. Then, and only then, could you safely declare that the next/last X dollars credited to that individual would qualify as a subsidy - on net. I think that basic test would apply to all individuals, rich or poor, regardless of the subsidy in question. Seeing as how difficult in practice it might be to even determine if any individual is a tax-feeder or tax-eater, you can imagine my lack of enthusiasm for even attempting to make the same assessment regarding entire groups or classes of people. I don't think the analysis is quite as useful as the proponents on all sides think it is.

Nevertheless, I found something quite disturbing about a good deal of the comments following the post in question. Almost all of the objections had a tinge of one or both of the following assessments:

1. Taxation is not slavery - someone has to pay for the programs.

2. If we have to pay, then withholding your pay is stealing from others.

The first objection, I believe, is probably the most blatant (and common) form of cognitive dissonance I see in the political realm. To call it a non sequitur would be a bit of an understatement. Whether something be necessary or not has little to do with if it is, in fact, slavery. If you believe the expropriation of labor or its product is needed, then that only grants you that slavery is needed, not that it isn't slavery.

The first objection also keenly reminded me of Nozick's Tale of the Slave - which continues to throw a lot of progressives into a tizzy. Nozick's classic setup is a better refutation of the first objection than my own, but it doesn't really handle the second objection directly. However, it made me wonder, in that framework, if we had postulated at any step that the slave-owner should let a slave work an hour less, would those on the left call that refunded labor/time a subsidy to that slave? Would they collectively decry the slave as a net beneficiary of the slave-master? Would we think him silly to not consider his singular hour a freedom a subsidy? If you you would, then you don't understand Alex's point.

Callahan Finds His Inner Singer, Part II

Over at Crash Landing, and coincidentally enough while I was on vacation, Gene Callahan deconstructed one of my previous posts concerning his piece about obligations.

Before I respond, let me first be a little candid. I have no academic background in political theory or philosophy more generally. My knowledge extends only as far as my personal interest and passion takes me - and that will not begin to touch the lot of knowledge that Dr. Callahan has at his disposal. So, even though I disagree with him fairly often, I want to note that I have nothing but respect for him, as he affords his readers a privilege that too few of the dissenters of the liberty movement do; arguing from first principles.

All of that being said, although we'll ultimately still disagree to a large degree, I'd like to clarify a couple of the points that Callahan finds contentious.

Ryan begins by accusing me of misunderstanding the scope of libertarianism: "Libertarianism, in the strictly political sense, is concerned with justice and the (property) rights that govern it."

Ryan here is stating the very problem I was noting as though it were something I had overlooked! The problem with libertarianism, I was suggesting, is precisely that it thinks justice is only about property rights. They are a part of justice, but just a part.

For me, I think this most clearly elucidates the ideological division in question. And I think, from an argumentative point, he's right to press on this as I do believe that this is actually the crux of the conversation that should be had. If you believe in positive liberty then, of course, such positive obligations are a matter of "justice". Of course, by the same token, if that sense of positive rights, say, extends to the ownership of other individuals for example (chattel slavery) then detaining and returning runaway slaves is also a matter of "justice." My guess is that Dr. Callahan would not defend it as such. In my view, the very real "injustice" of that situation does and must spring from the right of self-ownership exclusively. The relevant exclusivity of the matter may become more apparent after addressing his next point.

"While I'll offer that, in order to claim ANY rights outside of property rights you must dismantle property rights altogether..."

Well, what can one say to this other than, "You're political ideology has made you somewhat mad"? (Ryan, I don't doubt you're as sane as most -- and saner than me! -- when it comes to not seeing purple elephants, holding down a job, etc. This is a very specific madness.) If we say someone has a legal obligation to help someone in mortal danger when the person is right in front of them, there is no one better positioned to help, and there is no risk to the rescuer, then... That's it? That person no longer owns their home or their car?

Not to be snarky here, but my honest answer is, "No, absolutely not." Or at least not in the sense that he may claim a "right" to it any longer - and this is precisely the problem. At least from my conceptual viewpoint, saying that you have a "right" to something is saying that you have a de-coupled, autonomous, exclusive, and authoritative power over something; control and ownership that is absolute, as such, specifically because it emanates from self-ownership and more generally the concept of homesteading (which I won't go at lengths to defend here for brevity). If I say that I have a right to a home or a car then I am, in a classic liberal fashion, likely referring to negative rights - saying that I have a right for no one else to cede authority over such property away from me. When and if that "right" to the car or house is conditional, and particularly when that conditional nature falls outside of the boundaries of consent (on behalf of myself or others whose negative rights I may have violated) then there is a very real sense in which it's not a right at all - but rather a privilege. To put it more simply, if I have acquired the right to object X and, because of some condition that I may have no control over, you are allowed to "justly" confiscate object X, then what real "right" did I ever have to it? If we're going to dilute the conception of "rights" down to conditional default-level possession of some sort, then it would seem we should drop the pretense of "rights" altogether - as that seems to be what would delineate a right from a privilege in the first place.

Again, we have madness posing as thought. ALL rights anywhere ever have had stipulations and conditions on them, as they always must.

This is true if you view rights in one of two ways (which libertarians, apparently, do not):

1. Rights are defined by positive law.

2. Rights refer to something other that property rights or the "negative rights" framework that follows from property rights.

Barring those important (and reciprocally idiosyncratic) stipulations, rights are not conditional.

The right to free speech famously does not extend to the right to shout "Fire!" in a crowded theater. But to Ryan, that condition "throws that right out the window": not being able to start a stampede that might kill people is exactly the same as the total censorship that existed in the USSR.

Here I must remind Dr. Callahan that if he's going to pigeon-hole me and others for our supposedly idiosyncratic views of justice then he could probably extend a similar courtesy by not assuming away certain rights based on what has or has not been incorporated into positive law. That such legislation exists certainly does not settle, at least in the context of this conversation, whether such a right does or does not exist and more explicitly whether such legislation should exist. To invoke a previously used example, and in the vein of this particular point, the right of self-ownership famously did not extend (for a time) to certain human beings in this country. Even federal legislation, such as the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, would seem to indicate that no such right (as an absolute) existed at all. But I would be surprised to hear Dr. Callahan argue that such a right, nevertheless, did not or does not exist.

But, more explicitly, as far as absolute rights are concerned (ie: to the extent that they aren't privileges) then yes - you have every "right" to yell "fire". Whether you have a right to yell it in a movie theater is a different question altogether. I think the way the question is being framed is actually indicative of the problem I'm trying to point out. The premise actually tries to bind a right (free speech) with a non-right (using someone else's property). You have a right to speak freely anywhere at anytime (after all, we still agree that we own our physical bodies, do we not?). You don't, however, have a right to use the property of others. I think this causes a lot of confusion - and admittedly I think it's particularly confusing among libertarians.

Libertarians often seem to act like you simply concede all your rights once you are on someone else's property. This is a particularly common contention for non-libertarians and I think libertarians are often simply incorrect regarding this proposition. Take for instance a dinner at your house to which you have invited several neighbors to attend. At the door you tell them that there will be no talking, whatsoever, once in the house. Do the guests still have the right to speak? Many libertarians would say that they don't. I disagree. What is actually taking place, from a rights perspective, is that the owner of said property is laying out conditions for which he will revoke user-privileges regarding his property; this is the sole extent of his power over the guests.

In this context, movie-goers at a theater have no "right" to be in the theater at all. However they have a very real right to speak (in any and every context). The owner of the theater, however, retains the right to remove them if they speak (in any and every context) if they make such a stipulation. In that way, I have no problem with the private prohibition of speech upon one's own property - no one's rights have been violated at all. Contrast this with a third party who tries exert authority over the property rights of business owners or patrons and we have a different matter altogether. Of course, the practical answer to the worry of the ever impending threat of theater-stampede is to simply patron the theaters which have stricter private policies concerning such instigating behavior - but Dr. Callahan, being familiar with libertarian ideas, is quite aware of this.

I'd like to also note that that one need not be completely oblivious to the spectrum of difference in consequence to note that principles don't simply evaporate in the face of such consequence. Matter has a gravitational property whether in the context of a feather falling to earth or a plane filled with passengers. Preventing people from yelling "fire" in a theater is clearly not the same as censorship in the Soviet Union. However, claiming it's different in principle is another story altogether.

"then extrapolate the drowning child analogy into its intended application through the polity."

Intended by whom? By the strawman builder, that's whom.

If the drowning child analogy is not meant to apply a particular ethical or political view to political theory more generally (or reality as it may be) then what is the point of invoking it in a political context? Are we not talking about justifications for and exceptions to rights? Are we, perhaps then, only exclusively actually talking only about drowning people with no particular political implications? I would guess not. I'm building no "strawman" here.

"It seems like such a principle would call us to give as long as one needs. But the world isn't a pond with a single drowning child. The world is a pond with hundreds of millions of "drowning children" and we are billions of passersby. As I type this, thousands upon thousands of people are dying from starvation and disease. I could be using this time, marginally, to save them. Am I guilty of injustice? Should I be punished? Should I be locked away in a cage?

"And this is where things stop making sense..."

Well, all-or-nothing thinking makes it very hard to make sense of much of the real world, I grant you. For instance, it can make you believe nutty things like having a very limited obligation to help very specific people in very specific circumstances is exactly the same as having an unlimited obligation to help all people in all circumstances.

I'm not contending that they are the same - in the same way that I'm not contending that stopping someone from yelling "fire" in a crowded theater is the same as censorship in the Soviet Union; and in the same way that I'm not contending that a feather falling to the ground is the same as a plane falling to the ground. I'm asking you to deconstruct gravity. I'm asking you how principles, as such, are circumvented, delineated, navigated and ultimately contradicted without being broken altogether. Poking an unsuspecting woman with a pencil doesn't make you a rapist. But the same principle that leads you to determine that rape is wrong also leads you to believe that poking her with the pencil is wrong. Pointing out the difference in severity of the two situations or merely trying to wave the matter away with the ambiguities of "prudence" doesn't make the principle of the matter disappear. And that is largely my point.

I think it's perfectly consistent to have a world with positive rights or negative rights, but not both. The concepts conflict in almost the most diametrically opposing sense. A claim as a right in one sense NECESSARILY detracts from a right in the other sense; so that in at least one of the two senses, it cannot truly be a "right" at all. That is the primary contention - that, logically, you cannot have a party with a positive "right" to X and another party with a negative "right" to X. The extent to which one party has a right in one fashion is exactly the extent to which the adjacent party does not have a right in the other fashion. And without that exclusivity of authority (ownership) then, again, it is no "right" at all - merely a privilege.

Rand, the Myth, the Legend

The following is a response to an article posted on FaceBook:

Alright, firstly, I'm not an Objectivist, but I feel like I know a good amount about Rand and her philosophy - or at least I feel confident enough to say I know more than the author of the article. That being said, there are plenty of things I disagree with her on both politically and philosophically. I think she was a worthy intellectual, but she said and did a lot of things, particularly later in her life, that I don't agree with to be certain.

All that being said, my biggest problems with the piece revolve around a combination of question-begging and appeals to fear. Many times people try to deflect discussion by rhetorically employing what Rand called "anti-concepts" - where you infuse antagonistic or confusing properties into a given idea or person to make its invocation unpalatable. In that way it's easy to put a wedge between what a person really means and what another person might interpret them to mean. It's not unlike what conservatives have effectively done with terms like "Marxist", "communist", and "socialist." They are not mutually inclusive terms, but there is a conflationary usage of them as such.

Take, for example, a word like "capitalism". There's a contentious and conflationary usage of that word too. When I use the word "capitalism" I mean it in the classical way in which Marx coined it; a system where capital is allowed to be privately owned. When many people today use that word, they usually either mean a system of "profits over all" or more generally "corporatism." It's certainly true that Marx believed capitalism would invite the former (and subsequently the latter), but it's not precisely what is meant, economically, by the term. In any case, what happens is that we end up with somewhat antithetical ideas being rolled up into the same term, and that creates stigma and confusion along with killing honest debate.

Some people now use capitalism to describe an ideal free-market that they strive for, and others use it to describe the corporatist system they see today. They essentially start talking past each other. Supporters of free markets end up defending corporate interests and attacking egalitarian ideology. Supporters of egalitarianism end up defending the state and attacking free-market ideology (Roderick Long writes a good deal on this). I think this is part of what's happening with this article regarding Rand's ideas.

Take the first sentence:

"Some say that maybe it is a bad idea to base a political party's ideology on a belief that altruism, democracy and Christianity are "evil.""

Let's put aside the fact that, in all honesty, the Republican party, however more Randian they are than Democrats, are about as Objectivist as Paul Krugman. She was economically to the "right" by most peoples' conception, no doubt. But being an avant-garde feminist, atheist, pro-abortion, anti-war, anti-war-on-drugs swinger, as well as a habitual kicker-to-the-curb of conservative heroes (Reagan, Goldwater, etc.), there's just as much for most conservatives to not like about her. Contrast that description with the people you might see at a Republican rally and I think that assertion becomes questionable. In fact, my guess is that most Republicans who claim to admire her simply haven't read any of her works, or have only been exposed to snippets of it.

But the last part of the comment is what I really take issue with, and that's where I believe "anti-concepts" come into play for at least one of the terms; leading to misunderstandings, I think, of her subsequent positions.

Altruism.

Simply put, what she meant by altruism is not what most people who condemn her mean by it - and thus they usually fail to understand her point. Altruism was a word she employed as a concept roughly antonymous to psychological egoism - which would be closely associated to her conception of self-interest or "selfishness." When she claimed, as she did, that altruism was "evil" she meant purely, in an ethical sense, selfless acts - acting upon the values of others and not your own. Conversely, by self-interest she meant acting upon your own values. She also had an "Objective" system to help determine those values (which is something I largely reject).

So, in the way she employs these terms, giving your life for your children is not a selfless act in the strict sense - because you are appealing to self-interest in abiding by personal values. Feeding and clothing those in need whom you wish to help is also, in that way, not selfless as you are acting upon your own values. This, along with Objectivist parameters for determining said values (which, again, I personally reject), is how she comes to regard "selfishness" as a virtue in itself (rhetorically speaking, she would have been better off sticking to "self-interest"). By this (her) measure, doing things that conflict with your values, or doing things merely because you are being forced or asked to, is what is truly selfless. To her, this is not virtuous. This is what she believes is the underlying current of "altruism" as the Western World knows it.

This plays largely into why she finds Christianity to be "evil." For one, it, at least in dogma, endorses altruism - as such she sees Christianity as an abrogation of personal values as opposed to an augmentation of it (I think she might have a point scripturally but not as most Christians practice it). It's that abrogation of personal values and the embrace of "accepted" values which leads her to believe Christianity is dangerous. She believed that calls for the embrace of Christian values turned into demands backed by force and violence, which she spurned as an anathema to reason. Not only does that call to violently enforce Christian ideals conflict with the morality of the ideals themselves, ironically, but she felt that, even on the most individual basis, self-proclaimed Christian altruists were not altruists by any means - as many if not most don't share a completely selfless relationship with their actions. Rather they are often motivated, even subconsciously, by self-adulation, pride, righteousness, and ultimately the promise of reward or punishment in the afterlife. It would be easy to understand why people are so confused about Rand's position. She pulls a lot of her ideas and terminology from Greek philosophers. In fact, Aristotle explored the exact same idea (the contradictions of selflessness) in his own deliberations on virtue.

I think that it's worth noting that I differ from Rand in finding irredeemable qualities in Christianity. I think that sacrifice on behalf of total strangers, for instance, can fit more cleanly into a consistent system of personal values than she seemed to think. On the other hand, I think that Rand's criticisms of Christianity can, quite consistently, be used by Christians on the Right to point out the moral difference between helping those in need, being forced to help those in need, and forcing others to help those in need; the last two of which are arguably not virtuous nor Christian-like respectively.

All of this plays into the third accusation of her contempt for democracy. It needs to first be said that she was attacking, more clearly, unbridled democracy - the general concept of "majority rules." And she was generally attacking it for all the classically liberal reasons that most people on the Left (if they are not completely detached from their political heritage) should be able to identify with. She felt it a lesser evil than other forms of government, but a system that should be extremely over-checked and burdened so that it carries out only its purpose in protecting us from one another. So, she was in favor of democracy but only in the context of negative justice. Probably, more precisely, she would have been labeled a constitutionalist if anything. She admired the American system and infamously proposed that the Bill of Rights be extended with additional amendments to limit government power. But it was precisely the largely Christian populace's preoccupation with moralization and enforcing their "selfless" values which infused her with a great distrust of democracy in general. She felt that people had rights that weren't subject to popular approval, and that part of the polity had been employed, at least since the late 19th century, in undermining some of those rights under the banner of "democracy."

You can see how these basic misconceptions are laden with already-accepted premises that are designed to lead you to the authors conclusion(s) without even knowing what she really thought at all. That's bad enough. And then you see a phrase like:

"while saying people with tons of cash are "producers" who should govern."

That's just disconcerting altogether. It's true that Rand was partial to capitalists and conceptual producers (and with fairly good reason in the context of her beliefs), but saying that she believed that "producers" with tons of cash should govern isn't just laughable - it's dishonest. Firstly her core political predisposition is against force, coercion, dishonesty, etc. As such, she's quite opposed to pretty much anyone "governing" anyone in that respect...be they rich or poor. Secondly, the larger part of her magnum opus, Atlas Shrugged, sets out vilifying MOST "producers" as incompetent if not malicious beneficiaries of government favor! In a conceptual argument between labor at capital, she falls towards capital every time. But in the context of the system we have, or the approximation of it in the case of her novels, she rails as hard as anyone against crony capitalism and corporatism. Most of the antagonists in Atlas Shrugged are greedy businessmen!

There's plenty more to dissect in the rest of the article, but I'll spare you that. It's one thing to be critical of Ayn Rand's ideas. Hell, I don't think much of her stories as far as stories go. But it irks me that those critiquing her have either clearly not read (not to mention understood) almost anything she's put forth or are they are being intentionally misleading in order to lead other people who are ignorant of her and her ideas to pre-packaged conclusions.

Callahan Finds His Inner Singer

...Peter Singer, that is.

If there were ever an instructive argument that outlined the foundation of positive rights, Peter Singer has what is probably the best approximation with his "drowning child" hypothetical. Over at Crash Landing, Gene Callahan alludes to this popular question, and contrasts what he feels should be done with what would/should happen under libertarianism to prove the silliness of the latter:

Let's say you are walking along the road on a cold winter night, on your way to an opera you very much want to see. Halfway there, you hear a cry. You look down, and there is a baby lying there, shivering in the cold. Otherwise, the road is deserted.

The baby needs medical care. The problem is that the hospital is in the opposite direction from the opera house. If you take the baby there, you will miss your opera and your ticket will be worthless.

Do you have an obligation to take the baby to the hospital?

There are two problems with this attack on libertarianism (from my point of view) - one is merely a partial issue, while the other I would consider a flagship rebuttal from the Rothbardian viewpoint.

The first issue is that I feel this is either a categorical mistake on the one hand, or begging the question on the other. The scope of the systems or constructs he's trying to compare are intrinsically different. Libertarianism, in the strictly political sense, is concerned with justice and the (property) rights that govern it. Therefore, much like a priest having nothing contextually important important to say regarding high-level theoretical mathematical axioms, so does libertarianism, in itself, have little to say outside of the realm of justice.

Of course, the clear way to refute such a claim is to say that libertarians are begging the question by assuming that being saved isn't a right. This brings me to my second issue. While I'll offer that, in order to claim ANY rights outside of property rights you must dismantle property rights altogether, I would probably do well to simply remind my detractor that he too, although appealing to cultural and moral sympathies, is begging the question. As long as we accept a clear difference between vice and harm, under the rubric of justice - legitimate force, then the line being drawn in categorization is precisely what's in question.

In any case, it's still seemingly true that property rights (the basis for negative liberty) and positive rights cannot, without contradiction, co-exist.

Let's take the "drowning child" problem for instance. The libertarian response is that, although in other spheres of human interaction we have every right to deride or disassociate with such a person who would let the child drown, we have no inherent "right"to either force him to save the child or to punish him for not doing so. Clearly we'd look upon such a person as immoral, amoral, or more generally just a "bad" person. After all, the point of the example is to bring emotion and moral sentiment to bear upon what might otherwise be a weak case for the establishment of arbitrary positive obligations. Nevertheless, of all the spheres within which an individual might persue his animus towards such a person, the libertarian keeps the blade of justice sheathed.

It does, indeed, sound quite grim.

But let's take a look at what we can draw from the opposite conclusion. Let's say that we all have a positive right to be saved. Well, we can go ahead and throw self-ownership and property rights in general out the window at that point - as clearly if there are stipulations and conditions to such rights, then they are not truly rights at all in any real sense, but rather individual privileges bestowed upon us by some exogenous authority.

If the prospect of single-handedly dispensing of any coherent sense of property rights with the introduction of positive rights doesn't give you pause, then extrapolate the drowning child analogy into its intended application through the polity. Analogies like these lead us to believe, in principle, that violations of property rights are justified in order to help those in need. Let's put aside the obvious consistency issues laid out and move into the practical. Where is the line?

If need is the genesis of rights and positive rights (as "rights" imply) are socially binding then when do we stop being guilty of injustice? It seems like such a principle would call us to give as long as one needs. But the world isn't a pond with a single drowning child. The world is a pond with hundreds of millions of "drowning children" and we are billions of passersby. As I type this, thousands upon thousands of people are dying from starvation and disease. I could be using this time, marginally, to save them. Am I guilty of injustice? Should I be punished? Should I be locked away in a cage?

And this is where things stop making sense.....

Faced with the insurmountable task of saving these countless children, and conceding my obligations nonetheless, how much of my wealth and assets must go to help said children? What of my time, my labor? This is precisely the problem with the "drowning child" argument - it has no constraining values. And, in fact, it would seem any such constraining values (in the realm of justice) would prove quickly inconsistent with this utilitarian sense of positive obligation.

While being hypocritical of one's beliefs certainly does not prove one's beliefs to be wrong, I can't help but observe the action (or inaction) of the proponents of positive rights as a social litmus test for the weakness of such a principle. Little to none live 18 hours a day, 7 days a week, in absolute poverty for the sake of their fellow man, yet they would compel the rest of the populace to live by their piecemeal attempts to legislate those very ideals. The world entailed by such a principle is apparently one which they feel is unfit for living in.

Everything - the Unknown Ideal

In mulling over some recent commentary in the blogosphere it's never been so apparent to me that such a large source of contention or disagreement is illusory - or at least that we're often not arguing over what we believe we're arguing over when we engage others.

Take the word "theft" for instance; what does it mean? What does it imply? How is it used? How is it properly used? People like Gene Callahan contend that when libertarians say that taxation is "theft" it's justified only via some form of circular argument in which we have to already assume the premise that it is theft. In other words, he believe that if what taxation takes is rightfully owned by others, then it's not theft - and certainly not wrong in the criminal sense. He also points to what he sees as a somewhat lacking consideration of how we use the terms "force" and "violence" when we allow for those things as a matter of justice.

This brings up an interesting point - one that I'm agreeing with more and more over time - but one that certainly doesn't overturn the libertarian argument. When libertarians use "theft," "force," and "violence" they mean something very specific - the wrongful violation of one's property rights. So more specifically we should talk in terms of property rights if we'd like to make the conversation(s) less confusing or contestable.

That being said, I think it's perfectly OK for libertarians to use such terms (particularly "theft" and "aggression" among others) because I believe that, properly understood, these terms approximate the meanings libertarians give them even in much of their everyday usage. In other words, if you break the terms down into their more literal implications, it turns out the libertarian usage is the common use - with a few exceptions (taxation being one of them). The implication of theft is a violation of property rights. A violation of property rights presupposes property rights. To talk of theft, in any capacity, is to refer to a system of property rights. Therefore, in order to justifiably, and forcibly, take something from someone you must establish that you already own it somehow.

Now, some like Callahan might contend that you could have such a view about taxation - that government really does own the quite literal property rights to the product of your labor and trade. But, without getting into the philosophical framework of property itself, I'd contend that most people don't see it that way. I think that people wholeheartedly believe in positive obligations of all sorts, but I think very few of them view the first X hours of your labor as actual property of government per se - rather they feel you have a positive obligation to sacrifice some of your property to the greater good.

Again, I think the conversation might be even further confused in the conflated usage of terms like "rights" to begin with, but I think it's interesting that so many of our deepest quarrels seem to be over semantics in some real way. I think that's my queue to start diving into philosophers that focus on linguistics. I'm thinking Wittgenstein isn't a bad start...

On Being Objectively Wrong

Over at Free Advice, one "RS" links to:

the best rebuttal of Rothbardian anarchy that I have read thus far…

Needless to say, it doesn't look impressive - even at first glance. Before I pick it apart, I'd like to disclose that I obviously admire Rand a great deal. I've defended her and her ideas on numerous occasions on this very forum (and others). As far as 20th century philosophers go, you're not going to get much better than Rand in my opinion (except, of course, for Rothbard). So I don't want to make this seem as if it's a slam-fest against Rand per se. In any case, her views, and the subsequent views of her acolytes, regarding "anarchy" are disturbingly off-base. It appears that Harry Binswanger is giving us the opportunity to see precisely why:

A proper government is restricted to the protection of individual rights against violation by force or the threat of force.

And right off the bat we see a pitch hopelessly flung in the dirt. I don't think any anarchist would disagree that this is the purpose of government (or at least this is the case in the U.S. to some degree). However if my stated purpose is to protect everything in your house and I do so by filling your house with protective foam, against your wishes no less, there is a very real sense in which you're not protecting everything in my house. In fact, you're damaging the items in my house in a very real way.

If government's role is restricted to the protection of individual rights, and it must do so by explicitly violating them, then there is a sense in which government, by definition, does not protect rights - but rather it only protects some rights in exchange for the violation of other rights. I don't think it's out of the question to entertain frameworks under which ALL rights are both protected and respected by those providing services nominally designed to do so.

A proper government functions according to objective, philosophically validated procedures, as embodied in its entire legal framework, from its constitution down to its narrowest rules and ordinances.

In theory, this is certainly how government is at least supposed to function. However, it clearly is not functioning that way. For whatever good the Constitution has been conceptually, it has abysmally lacked force in practice. And even then, the use of such a contract, also, demands consent as a matter of individual liberty. As Lysander Spooner so clearly decried:

Inasmuch as the Constitution was never signed, nor agreed to, by anybody, as a contract, and therefore never bound anybody, and is now binding upon nobody; and is, moreover, such an one as no people can ever hereafter be expected to consent to, except as they may be forced to do so at the point of the bayonet, it is perhaps of no importance what its true legal meaning, as a contract, is. Nevertheless, the writer thinks it proper to say that, in his opinion, the Constitution is no such instrument as it has generally been assumed to be; but that by false interpretations, and naked usurpations, the government has been made in practice a very widely, and almost wholly, different thing from what the Constitution itself purports to authorize. He has heretofore written much, and could write much more, to prove that such is the truth. But whether the Constitution really be one thing, or another, this much is certain — that it has either authorized such a government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it. In either case, it is unfit to exist.

What's worse is that, by the establishment of a monopoly on said force, parties not adjoined to the majority have no refuge from its inherently oppressive misuse and/or dismissal of such a contract. I'm reminded of David Friedman who popularly points out what poor shape we'd be in if we picked cars in the way we pick government officials - that every so many years the majority chooses a car which we now all must drive. We certainly wouldn't expect the best cars to be made under such a system, but somehow the Randians miss this point entirely.

Once such a government, or anything approaching it, has been established, there is no such thing as a "right" to "compete" with the government—i.e., to act as judge, jury, and executioner.

This may constitute one of the most disturbing sentiments of the whole piece. If we're talking about rights, even in the purely Lockean sense, they don't simply vanish under special circumstances - ever. In fact, even if it's conceded that rights may be violated with good cause, I believe it's fairly clear that such rights still exist. This contention causes me to wonder precisely what rights Objectivists think exist, and what their origins are.

Interestingly enough, even by his own definition, the writer leaves himself vulnerable to pleas for anarchy. Apparently such rights (self-ownership?) don't apply under a specific circumstance; when such a functioning Utopian government is in place - ie: when autonomy is no longer needed regarding deliberative justice. But even according to Rand and her followers, clearly such a system is not in place, or at least not functionally. And so, even if motivated by her guiding sentiment, it would seem we have a very real right to not only compete with but to contest the current government under such conditions.

Nor does one gain such a "right" by joining with others to go into the "business" of wielding force.

And yet clearly this is precisely what constitutes the system we have now - is it not? If the "Objective" right to govern is not constituted through some democratic wielding of force, then how can one EVER support the current regime - regardless of whether it's properly functioning to provide justice or not? Even if such a group were to achieve the ideal system of justice, it isn't clear what principle would tautologically demand that they could claim some kind of monopoly on such services. We know all the perfectly good reasons why the first person to make the "perfect" boot shouldn't be allowed to shoot and cage other boot-makers for making boots - but suddenly we expect such actions to reap beneficial consequences when applied to the political realm?

To carry out its function of protecting individual rights, the government must forcibly bar others from using force in ways that threaten the citizens' rights.

Why? This seems like a non-sequitur...a blind assertion. We're not given any reasoning why this should be so. The boot-maker could just as easily make the same claim if we're not going to ask for specific justifications.

Private force is force not authorized by the government, not validated by its procedural safeguards, and not subject to its supervision.

And neither are the products or services of rival boot-makers.

The government has to regard such private force as a threat—i.e., as a potential violation of individual rights. In barring such private force, the government is retaliating against that threat.

Of course - and rival private law bodies may see a single body's monopoly status as a threat - and not only a potential threat but an actual violation of individual rights (as a constitutive matter of their very functioning - through taxation, regulation, etc.). If anything, this should be the very reason against allowing ANY organization to have a forcible monopoly on anything. By definition it leaves little recourse to escape such violations of rights, and in the case of social democracies it leaves precisely no recourse for violated minorities.

Note that a proper government does not prohibit a man from using force to defend himself in an emergency, when recourse to the government is not available; but it does, properly, require him to prove objectively, at a trial, that he was acting in emergency self-defense. Similarly, the government does not ban private guards; but it does, properly, bring private guards under its supervision by licensing them, and does not grant them any special rights or immunities: they remain subject to the government's authority and legal procedures.

And what then, exactly, keeps this "proper" government in check that could not or would not keep rival "governments" also in check? As the famous saying goes, "Who's watching the watchmen?" In order to support the night-watchman state we have to presuppose some way to keep the night-watchman in his proper role, and it's not clear why giving him exclusive monopolistic powers would be preferable (in that context) to allowing for competition. Generally speaking, we don't believe that giving G.E., CitiBank, or Goldman Sachs a straight-up-monopoly is a good way of keeping them in line. It would be instructive for Objectivists/Randians to explain how such a phenomenon shares no inimical attributes in the realm of politics.

Picture a band of strangers marching down Main Street, submachine guns at the ready. When confronted by the police, the leader of the band announces: "Me and the boys are only here to see that justice is done, so you have no right to interfere with us."

Wouldn't this not, even by Objectivist standards, apply only if such police are enforcing some true sense of justice? Replace the word "police" with "mafia" and you'll have a less-than-subtle reveal of the anarchist viewpoint. Yes, it would be bad to have a group violate true defenders of justice - but that's begging the question. You have to assume who is who. What if that particular group of people are defending the rights of individuals that are being violated by the supposed "defenders" of justice? What recourse would the myopically monopolistic system of justice truly offer us? And why couldn't multiple layers of arbitration and enforcement insulate organic systems from an escalation of violence? Does anyone understand how car insurance companies interact? Could we not imagine that even better systems could arise if given the opportunity?

According to the "libertarian" anarchists, in such a confrontation the police are morally bound to withdraw, on pain of betraying the rights of self-defense and free trade.

I'm pretty sure, although I can't speak for other anarchists, that the only groups we would say were morally bound to withdraw are those that are violating individual liberties. In this scenario, tellingly, it's not indicated who is violating the liberties of others and who is not. Ironically perhaps, our gripe with Randians is that they're apparently not looking at the rights themselves - they're merely defending some mystically divine sanction of the state to be the arbiters of justice; of right and wrong.

In fact, of course, there is no conflict between individual rights and outlawing private force: there is no right to the arbitrary use of force

Libertarians (anarchist or not) do not support a right to arbitrary use of force. In fact, that's precisely what makes us libertarian. The primary difference is in what separates "rightful" from "arbitrary" use. The ONLY rightful use of force for the libertarian is in defense of liberty - in restoring and protecting rights. Governments of all stripes have in the past, and still continue to, use force which is not precluded by such "rightful" motivations. As such, government is largely one of the prime users and defenders of force which we would define as "arbitrary." This is precisely why giving them a monopoly on that force is foolish.

No political or moral principle could require the police to stand by helplessly while others use force arbitrarily—i.e., according to whatever private notions of justice they happen to hold.

And, likewise, no political or moral principle would require individuals to stand by helplessly while others (including the police or, more generally, the government) use force arbitrarily - according to whatever public (aggregated private) notions of justice they hold.

The basic questions that the anti-philosophical "libertarians" ignore or evade are: what is the nature and source of individual rights, and how are these rights to be implemented? Only by answering these questions can one proceed to consider what is or is not proper self-defense in concrete cases

If there's anything hardcore libertarians are not (whether right or wrong) it is "anti-philosophical." In forming deontologically a priori ethical norms, their mindset is largely dominated and justified by purely philosophical arguments. To disregard that seems either ignorant or disingenuous. I would never accuse Randians of such sophistry - but perhaps that's because I've read a good deal of Rand's work(s). But for any Randian who has not actually engaged the anarcho-libertarian framework (and is not simply happy to leave it at ad hominem) I'd suggest the two following short works by Rothbard:

The Ethics of Liberty

For a New Liberty

And if you'd like the consequentialist arguments, packed closely with practical applications of anarchy, try this by David Friedman:

The Machinery of Freedom

The "libertarians" take a short-cut: they plagiarize Ayn Rand's principle that no man may initiate the use of physical force, and treat it as a mystically revealed, out-of-context absolute.

As confident and egotistical as Rand herself was, I don't think she'd approve of her followers claiming that she invented the non-aggression principle. Locke has her most popularly beat out on the idea by a few centuries if you want to cut off history at the Enlightenment. If you're not satisfied with that, we can take it back to Greek philosophers. In any case, the anarcho-libertarian foundation is probably the least "mystically" revealed justification of the NAP out of all of them - including Rand's drawn-out justification(s). The Rothbardian norms for non-aggression are born very simply out of property rights - which he fleshes out through simple deductive reasoning. For anyone who is interested, read the Rothbard pieces above for a good primer. I'd also recommended (even more concisely) the following lecture by Roderick Long:

Property, Land, Contract

This one principle, deprived of its philosophical base, is expected to replace jurisprudence, constitutions, legislatures, and courts. Then they imagine that the rest of us are obligated to accept, on faith, any gang's promise that their use of force will be "retaliatory."

Actually, we are not expecting to "replace" any of those things any more than we'd be asking for burger joints to be replaced by asking that McDonald's allow a Burger King to be built across the street. We simply don't want a single group keeping other providers of such services from providing said services. It's really as simple as that. Ironically, it is the Randians who imagine that the rest of us are obligated to accept, on faith, THEIR gang's promise that their use of force will be retaliatory. Anarcho-libertarians want to give you an actual choice in the matter.

Bear in mind that, in fact, those who would be granted the right to enforce their own notions of just retaliation include leftists who consider government intervention in the economy to be retaliation against business activities that the leftists view as "economic force."

Of course, the flaw with this line of justification is that it applies equally, if not more-so, to the monopolistic system the author is attempting to defend. The only difference is that, under the author's system, once these frightening leftists assume democratic control there is literally no political refuge for detractors. Our only real (legal) option is ultimately submission and possibly, should it hold up, our right to convince those in control to spare us.

The issue, then is: how are political and legal disputes to be settled: by might or by right—by street fighting or by the application of objective, philosophically validated procedures?

The ironies are starting to pile up at this point. We're being asked to consider the ill-fated nature of might-makes-right when we (anarcho-libertarians) are the ones trying to undo the monopoly on force the state has granted to itself. They already operate solely on might, regardless of whether they or right or not. So again we are presented with a clear case of question-begging; wherein the author already assumes, as a matter of fact, the "right"-ness of the state when clearly that's precisely what is often in question.

The most twisted evasion of the "libertarian" anarchists in this context is their view that disputes concerning rights could be settled by "competition" among private force-wielders on the "free market." This claim represents a staggering stolen concept: there is no free market until after force has been excluded.

I think it would be difficult for anyone to conclude that, for both market and law, that either one chronologically preceded the other. While it is true that law (although not necessarily positive law) is needed for a market to function, so too is an established market generally required for law to function - unless the enforcers of justice (public or private) are eating their hair and fingernails to stay alive. It seems fairly clear to me that both arise organically together. I don't imagine that there was a point in time where we all sat around doing precisely nothing until we all agreed upon some uniform system of law or regulation. To put forth otherwise exposes an oddly naive picture of historical evolution.

"Competition" is an economic, not a political, concept; it refers to the voluntary exchange of values, not to the exchange of gunfire.

Yes, if you ignore the nature of classically social-democratic forms of government altogether, "competition" is not a political concept. Obviously this piece was written in between relevant election cycles and far, far away from the lobbied halls of Congress. Anyone who seriously proclaims that politics is divorced from competition must, by necessity, be mistaken in thinking that we all partake from a single stream of normative thought. There may be only one "right" way, if there is a right way at all - but we all quite vehemently disagree about what that way is. The subsequent jockeying of ideas into positions of political power is, in fact, quite the competition.

Behind the puerile fantasies of "market solutions" to political and legal disputes lies the collectivist notion that the ideas of the individual are determined by social institutions, so that once the "proper" social institutions have been established, "the people" will automatically agree on political and legal issues, and government will no longer be necessary.

Once again, I don't know any libertarians who believe this. If anything, many libertarians (particularly minarchists) believe that it might actually be better to stick with what we have now until those "stateless" ideas have been fully cultivated, socially. But, in a broader sense, the notion (contention) being put forth makes little sense in our current democratic society - where much our our legal and political direction is already formed by the majority through the election process. In other words, if the Randians are worried about the collective political thought of individuals (straying from Objectivist norms) then that would just be another among many reasons why they shouldn't support the monopolistic state we have today.

But it does not occur to the anarchists that when one of their private "defense agencies" uses force, it is acting as a "monopolist" over whomever it coerces.

This simply illustrates a lack of curiosity, motivation, and, in some ways, honesty on behalf of those who question anarchism, quite frankly. Let's say that you have your arbitration/protection agency and I have mine. We have a dispute. What is the most likely thing to happen? Well, we could have something similar to arbitration between insurance companies today, where most organizations have voluntary rules of arbitration between the two bodies that are already set up should there be a conflict. But even if that's not the case, why couldn't the arbiters find a third party to arbitrate between the arbiters themselves? That doesn't seem unrealistic.

But even if you don't find that non-"monopolistic" (as his definition of monopoly seems to be ultimate use of force at all), it is still far less monopolistic than the system he so clearly advocates and defends. True enough, should I get a burger at McDonald's or Burger King, I'm still getting a burger at the end of the day. But, at the very least, it seems much less egregious in almost every capacity to have a choice then to be told I must each eat at McDonald's - no matter how terrible their food is.

The real target of the anarchist's attack is objectivity. Objectivity requires one to prove that one is acting within one's rights; they do not want to be held accountable to anyone for anything—not even regarding their use of physical force.

Again, I couldn't imagine anything further from the truth. If the Objectivist requires that individuals (whether endogenous or exogenous to legal bodies) are "acting within one's rights", then they are snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Anarcho-libertarians want to hold everyone to this supposed standard of individual rights - a standard which Objectivists seem to be happy to exclude government itself from. Ironically they are being merely partially "Objective" by their own measure; applying standardized scrutiny to all individuals except those who set the standard itself. In their hap-hazard and inconsistent application of basic principle(s) they end up pushing a non-universalizable, and therefore "non-objective," political philosophy. They unwittingly bear testament to the conceptual vestiges of the "divine right of kings."

In the philosophical battle for a free society, the one crucial connection to be upheld is that between capitalism and reason. The religious conservatives are seeking to tie capitalism to mysticism; the "libertarians" are tying capitalism to the whim-worshipping subjectivism and chaos of anarchy.

To cooperate with either group is to betray capitalism, reason, and one's own future.

If "libertarians" believed in ultimately subjective ends in all contexts we would have no attachment to or preference for non-aggression at all; and yet we support those ideals far more consistently and radically than the Objectivists. So, once again, we have a remark that is either ignorant or disingenuous. In this case, I'm inclined to believe the latter. The weight of such claims, from my experience, almost seems to be born out of an almost guilt-like sentiment; a failed acknowledgment of intellectual inconsistency and lack of adherence to fundamental principles. On the road of basic property concepts, Objectivists seemingly walked off the beaten path and ended up being caught in an ideological briar-patch. But that is perhaps a psychological observation that is best left for another discussion altogether.

What Objectivists ultimately have to contend with, at the end of the day, is the inconsistency of their principles. If the non-aggression principle is an inalienable principle, then they must oppose the state, as it is literally today and generally in concept, a chief violator of that principle. In order to establish a philosophically consistent vision of justice, they must either arrive at the conclusion that we do not have equal rights (that some have greater authority than others) or they must concede that equality in authority stems from the right of self-ownership; and that given such equal rights, we cannot rightfully call for the revocation of those equal rights through some unique claim on the administration of justice - nor can we betray such equal authority by violating (through taxation, forced monopoly, etc.) the very rights that constitute its foundation.