Just stop

In so many of the currents in the stream of debate, the libertarian must fold his arms and shake his head. It is often difficult to get the pro liberty argument across - at least not where it matters. This is partly because the stock position of the liberty-lover, with regards to what should be done? (by the government?, or, as they euphemise, what should we do about it?), is; do nothing, and what you are doing, stop.

Probably more than ninety percent of the problems we, as a nation or as a body politic, face are either; caused directly by the government or indirectly by the government, or by independent forces, but are nevertheless made worse by government intervention.

Hitchens attacks strawman libertarian, quotes Marx

"... And on another occasion when he uttered some sentiment which was greeted with applause and saw that the whole assembly had accepted his argument, he turned to his friends and asked them, 'Can it be that I have been arguing on the wrong side without knowing it?"

From Plutarch's Life of Phocion (chapter 8)

I don't know why the above came to mind. There is no immediate similarity between Phocion and Peter Hitchens. The former was a great Athenian general who always sought peace and disliked democracy, who was scape-goated and executed by the mob following a military failure, and then, with a change of heart the mob executed his accusers and put up a statue to him. The latter, you know ...

After setting out a worthy critique of democracy, or rather the idealisation of it, he briefly turns attention to one of his pet hates: libertarians, or as he would put it, 'libertarians'. I shall quote it in full, as it is brief.

Next, a word on why I always put ‘libertarian’ in inverted commas. Most thinking humans, in our post-Christian world , yearn for a universal touchstone of goodness which will somehow substitute for the Christian faith. For some it is the market, for some it is ‘liberty’, for others it is equality. It is easily demonstrable that the market sometimes, even often, lays waste valuable things, destroys customs and taboos, tosses aside human feelings. It is obvious to the slowest thinker that ( as Karl Marx pointed out) the freedom of all is impossible, as it will lead to conflicts between groups who wish to be free to do something which tramples on the freedom of another. ‘No man fights freedom’, wrote the sage of Trier, ’He fights at most the freedom of others’. Well, exactly. The trouble with these ideas is that they simply lack the universal power over all humanity of the Sermon on the Mount and the Commandments, and that they are based on a desire for power, rather than on Christianity’s preference for love, and its central suspicion of power and the mob, as so graphically set out in the story of the Passion. And sometimes I think a little light mockery is the best way to make people think. After all, one day they may realise that it is possible they are mistaken.

It seems almost rude to interrupt Hitchens' reverie. He's not really talking about libertarianism, but rather his own faith in God, in comparison to which everything, be it football, French cuisine or political philosophy is but filthy rags. But libertarianism can only by criticised in this manner insofar as it seeks to substitute itself for faith in God, which it does not do, and besides anything else, faith in God is not the end of every dispute concerning the organisation of society, the economy and the size of the state. It certainly provides one with a set of guiding moral principles, but these principles will lead different people to very different conclusions, as they have done throughout the last 2,000 years.

If I accept Hitchens' term 'our post-Christian world', I must object that libertarianism is not an invention of such an era, but rather has its roots very much in the earlier, happier times of universal Christian brotherhood(!) - and the same could be said for communism.

I would not struggle to illustrate this point, but will throw out the names of Locke, Lilburne and Lord Acton and dare him to dispute it. But Hitchens passes over such names and choses for his supporting authority none other than Karl Marx, a man who didn't so much disbelieve as despise our Lord and Saviour! And what wisdom does he glean from this tainted source? That;

"the freedom of all is impossible, as it will lead to conflicts between groups who wish to be free to do something which tramples on the freedom of another."

Does Hitchens imagine that this apparent paradox has been left unexamined? Is his knowledge of libertarianism so cursory that he believes we can be so easily confounded? Thus, Peter, I'll see your Marx, and raise you two Spencers:

"Every man may claim the fullest liberty to exercise his faculties compatible with the possession of like liberties by every other man."

"Each has freedom to do all that he wills provided that he infringes not the equal freedom of any other."

Herbert Spencer; Social Statics

This above is referred to as the 'Law of Equal Liberty', and it can be found in many different forms throughout the libertarian canon, clearly indicating that, for liberty to indeed be a universally-applicable ethic, it cannot involve infringing upon another's freedom. To choose but one other source, and of a more Christian persuasion, here Richard Overton states the same thing:

"For every one, as he is himself, so he has a self-propriety, else could he not be himself; and of this no second may presume to deprive any of without manifest violation and affront to the very principles of nature and of the rules of equity and justice between man and man. Mine and thine cannot be, except this be. No man has power over my rights and liberties, and I over no man's."

This foolish criticism of Hitchens is the only criticism he offers, and sadly it escapes him how these here principles of liberty form the strongest bulwark against the inherent flaws in democracy that he has only just expounded upon, because it is these principles which put a limit on state power, whether the state be governed by democracy or king.

Hitchens calls himself a conservative, but such a term is somewhat vague, as political terms often are. If we consider the key tenets of his philosophy to be a rejection of liberty, a dislike of democracy, and a strident and noisy faith in God, it strikes me that the most apt and fitting label to pin on the man is Cromwellian. Thus, as he ends his piece hoping that we libertarians may see the error of our ways, may I beseech you, Mr Hitchens, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible that you may be mistaken!

Calling the Remnant

Inspiration from Brother Tom, speaking in Oklahoma City, May 11, 2012.

Lew Rockwell nails American conservatism

"The problem with American conservatism is that it hates the left more than the state, loves the past more than liberty, feels a greater attachment to nationalism than to the idea of self-determination, believes brute force is the answer to all social problems, and thinks it is better to impose truth rather than risk losing one soul to heresy. It has never understood the idea of freedom as a self-ordering principle of society. It has never seen the state as the enemy of what conservatives purport to favor. It has always looked to presidential power as the saving grace of what is right and true about America."

Lew Rockwell, quoted in this article by Laurence M. Vance

Hat tip: Infowars

The health of the state

Tom Woods discussing war and what it reveals of the nature of the beast we call the state.

What she said

Here's Julie Borowski, the Token Libertarian Girl tackling a common canard.

Gene Burns: as recommended by Rothbard

I've not come across this fellow before, but I wondered who Rothbard praised as a far better speaker than himself. I've not watched it all as I write, but so far so good:

How to misunderstand Lockean property rights

As noted below, George Monbiot's most recent feeble attack on libertarianism and property rights built its rickety frame upon something written by one Matt Bruenig, so let us turn to Matt Bruenig and see if he has anything that may disturb our settled views on the subject of property. Here are some 'pearls of wisdom' from Bruenig:

"Unfortunately, many — even on the left — will concede that property rights exist, and that the institution of property makes sense... I think this is the wrong move: the issue of property should be attacked head on for the incoherent mess that it is... You cannot justify ownership based on free exchange because ownership necessarily does not originate from free exchange: at some initial point, someone had to just grab some piece of land without exchanging with anybody. This is logically unavoidable."

What Bruenig is pointing out here is hardly revelatory. He seems to think that he's spotted a flaw, but in reality he is merely working his way back to the starting point of Locke's principle of ownership. He is correct that it is logically unavoidable, which may explain why neither Locke nor any other thinker of note avoided it.

"Now, there are all sorts of efforts to explain how that initial appropriation can occur. Philosophers like John Locke, Murray Rothbard, and Robert Nozick give famous accounts, and there is significant amounts of literature explaining just how spectacularly they all fail."

So Bruenig drops the names of Locke, Rothbard and Nozick, but where I might find the 'significant amounts of literature' which disprove such thinkers remains a mystery. I shall charitably presume for the moment that Bruenig has sated himself on such wisdom. Perhaps he will provide the knowledge for his readers?

"But the easiest way to understand how original appropriation cannot be justified within a conservative/libertarian framework is by focusing on the idea of opportunity loss. When an individual declares perpetual ownership of some piece of unowned land, every other human being on earth suffers an opportunity loss: their opportunity to use that land has now disappeared. Opportunity losses are real economic harms.

To be concrete about this, consider an example. The piece of land down by the river is owned by no one; so everyone can use it. Sarah declares — on whatever property theory she prefers — that the piece of land by the river now belongs to her exclusively. But, wait a minute. The previous ability of others to use the land by the river has now vanished! They have been hit with opportunity losses. If one of the dispossessed were to say “this is silly, I do not consent to giving up my pre-existing opportunity to use the land down by the river,” Sarah uses violence (typically state violence) to keep the dispossessed out.

Unless unanimous consent exists, the original grabbing up of property results in violent, non-consensual theft from others. It is really just that simple. What follows from that conclusion is that the conservative/libertarian positions that depend on the sanctity of property rights are totally bogus."

Okay, so now we have Bruenig's argument. Let's start with his conception of 'opportunity loss'.

"When an individual declares perpetual ownership of some piece of unowned land, every other human being on earth suffers an opportunity loss: their opportunity to use that land has now disappeared. Opportunity losses are real economic harms. "

On the face of it, this is a ridiculous statement, which declares that it is wrong for anyone to do anything, because this will harm everyone else. Bruenig is talking about land, but the same principle could be applied to any other property. If I eat an apple, in doing so I deprive everyone else of eating that apple. If we accept this notion, let us not forget that I at least have benefited from eating the apple. Therefore, let Bruenig's cosmic ledger record on one side the benefit I received balanced against the sum of loss to the rest of mankind thus deprived, and suppose that these sums are equal.

Bruenig must realise that one apple cannot be divided between 7 billion people, and that any particular 'opportunity loss' which such an individual action imposes is infinitesimally small to any other individual. He must also accept that if such an action is forbidden due to the 'real economic harm' that it imposes on others, then we must all starve to death. I would suggest that any philosophical principle which leads to the annihilation of humanity should be rejected for that reason alone! Moving on...

"To be concrete about this, consider an example. The piece of land down by the river is owned by no one; so everyone can use it. Sarah declares — on whatever property theory she prefers — that the piece of land by the river now belongs to her exclusively. But, wait a minute. The previous ability of others to use the land by the river has now vanished! "

Here we find how Bruenig has completely misunderstood the Lockean principle. His example does not address the principle at all. He states: "The piece of land down by the river is owned by no one; so everyone can use it." However the Lockean principle deals with land which neither owned nor used by anyone. Indeed it is the use of the land which confers ownership. If the land is already in use, say as common land, then its ownership has been thus established.

What Bruenig is failing to distinguish between is actual use and potential use. Indeed he is dishonestly, it seems, switching between these different states. He then hammers home his crooked nail with this statement:

"If one of the dispossessed were to say “this is silly, I do not consent to giving up my pre-existing opportunity to use the land down by the river,” Sarah uses violence (typically state violence) to keep the dispossessed out."

If he is now describing someone who was a prior actual user, this is a fine example of self-refutation. He uses the term 'dispossessed' - dispossessed of what? A prior property right! In other words, the dispossessed person needs to assert the very principle Bruenig wishes to deny. If however Bruenig is describing not a prior actual user, but merely a potential user now excluded, we are back to the starvation scenario above. Therefore, if only on pragmatic grounds, property rights must be defended if we are to avoid extinction.

Having failed to refute Locke's argument, Bruenig's further deductions are hardly worthy of consideration, and it will be no surprise to learn what he prefers to put in its place, nor the language he uses to obscure the harsh reality of his position. He talks of a "democratic decision-making process about resource use ", which sounds so much nicer than collectivist tyranny.

If I wasn't losing interest at this point, I would start applying Bruenig's fallacious reasoning and dubious word definitions to his own position. If all property resolves to the collective, what about the 'opportunity cost' to the individual? Furthermore, how are we to ensure that the democratic decision-making process will represent everyone? If, in his example, the collective swings into action to prevent Sarah's land enclosure and reasserts the common ownership of that parcel of land, how can we be sure that those acting in the collective interest are properly consulting the 7 billion humans who have, apparently, just as much ownership in the piece of land as anyone else?

In closing I will mention 'the tragedy of the commons'. If Bruenig and his fan George Monbiot are truly concerned with the environment, they would park their ideological inanities for a moment and consider the pragmatic benefits of property rights. They should also bear in mind that if the totalitarian system they espouse were ever put in place, there is no guarantee that the dictators whose boots they dream of licking will share their particular vision of utopia.

Cross-posted at Libertarian Home

Sequoyah: the state that never was

Listening to Lew Rockwell's latest podcast, an interview with historian Charles Burris discussing, amongst other things, the history of third parties in American politics, I learnt of the following:

The State of Sequoyah was a proposed state to be established in the eastern part of present-day Oklahoma. In 1905, faced by proposals to end their tribal governments, Native Americans of the Five Civilized Tribes in Indian Territory proposed such a state as a means to retain some control of their land. Their intention was to have a state under Native American constitution and rule.[1] The proposed state was named in honor of Sequoyah, the Cherokee who created a writing system in 1825 for the Cherokee language.

So much history, so little time. From the blurb at LRC:

Lew Rockwell talks to Charles Burris about political revisionism (and a little Kennedy assassination revisionism, too).

Charles A. Burris: Archives

The CIA and The Media Article by Carl Bernstein

Judge Nap on Reason TV

Reason's Nick Gillespie speaks to the Judge about religion, abortion, Occupy Wall Street and various other matters of import.

In response to Monbiot

Alerted by the venerable Dr Gabb, I discover George Monbiot's catty attack on libertarianism, published (where else?) in the Graun. It begins:

"Freedom: who could object? Yet this word is now used to justify a thousand forms of exploitation ... the word excuses every assault on the lives of the poor, every form of inequality and intrusion to which the 1% subject us. How did libertarianism, once a noble impulse, become synonymous with injustice?"

Libertarianism, he tells us, was once a 'noble impulse'. Not a political philosophy, refined out of the ideas which enlightened Western civilisation from the time of the Greek city states onwards, forged through reflection and debate, but rather, for Monbiot, a knee jerk, albeit a noble one, an altruistic spasm, but now it has become synonymous with injustice and roguery for Monbiot and gang, as dread liberty has always been hated and feared by some. He continues:

"Rightwing libertarianism recognises few legitimate constraints on the power to act, regardless of the impact on the lives of others."

Now Monbiot is refining his attack. Libertarian may be too broad. He must introduce the qualification 'rightwing', to give the target the required designation as 'other', and to allow his readers to relax, safe in the knowledge that he's talking about someone else.

What does he even mean by 'few legitimate constraints'? As any libertarian could have informed him, the very first principle of the creed is non-aggression; live and let live. Liberty means that you have a right to do as you please with your own life, your own self and your own property, COMMA, provided, of course, you don't harm anyone else or their property.

The reason for the part after the comma is to make it that little bit more difficult for the meaning to be misunderstood or misrepresented. It should go without saying that you are not free to harm other people.

On top of this basic principle, libertarians, like most people, understand there are additional constraints of one kind and another, such as those dictated by the laws of physics and economics, moral principle and good sense, but leaving all others aside, and sticking only with the non-aggression axiom set forth above, it represents a considerable constraint.

After name-checking the IEA, ASI and TPA he states:

"Their concept of freedom looks to me like nothing but a justification for greed. So why have we been been so slow to challenge this concept of liberty?"

Ignoring the canard of greed, it is difficult to grasp how Monbiot has arrived at the view that no one have taken the trouble to challenge the concept of liberty, as understood by those groups he mentions. Did he sleep through the 20th Century? If reality were allowed to intrude, the question would read:

how have we failed to extirpate the last remnants of economic liberalism?

Poor Georgie. The statue of Cobden still stands mocking him!

Manchester City Galleries

And on we go into the utter tedium of Isaiah Berlin and his tiresome 'positive and negative liberties'. I will be harsh. I have not read the man. He may have heen a thoroughly good chap, he may have stood his round and lit up a room with his presence, but his 'positive and negative liberty' concept is wrong from the very naming, misleading and unenlightening. We are under no obligation to doff our cap in his direction. The man has furnished intellectual weapons against liberty, whatever his intentions. As Murray Rothbard explains:

Berlin's fundamental flaw was his failure to define negative liberty as the absence of physical interference with an individual's person and property, with his just property rights broadly defined. Failing to hit on this definition, Berlin fell into confusion, and ended by virtually abandoning the very negative liberty he had tried to establish and to fall, willy-nilly, into the "positive liberty" camp.

Back to Monbiot:

"As Berlin noted: "No man's activity is so completely private as never to obstruct the lives of others in any way. 'Freedom for the pike is death for the minnows'."

Pikes? Minnows? We are dealing with human society, not pond life. Freedom means nothing to the pike or the minnow. Libertarians do not claim the right to practice cannibalism. As the PM would say: 'I refer the honorable gentlemen to the statement I gave moments ago', as the non-aggression axiom deals with the matter.

But let us consider the first part of the statement, that we all 'obstruct' the lives of others in our daily lives. Monbiot continues by way of a poem to give an example of the kind of obstruction he means. It concerns a landlord cutting down a tree, that his tenant took pleasure in.

"The landlord was exercising his freedom to cut the tree down. In doing so, he was intruding on [the tenant] Clare's freedom to delight in the tree, whose existence enhanced his life... But rightwing libertarians do not recognise this conflict. They speak, like Clare's landlord, as if the same freedom affects everybody in the same way. They assert their freedom to pollute, exploit, even – among the gun nuts – to kill, as if these were fundamental human rights. "

Certainly libertarians do not recognise any conflict between the freedom of the landlord and that of the tenant in this case, because the tree belongs to the landlord, and this means he can do as he pleases with it. We can recognise that the tenant may be saddened by the loss of the tree, but this is immaterial. The matter is resolved on the basis of property rights, unless the tenant can peacefully persuade the landlord otherwise. But by this stage, Monbiot is losing all sense and coherence, as evidence in his claim that libertarians claim the right to kill. Really, George? I'm aware we call for drugs to be legalised, but manslaughter too?

Argumentum Ad Arborum

Monbiot tells the parable of the tree-loving tenant and the mean old landlord. He talks of the tenant's pleasure in the tree's existence as a freedom, but it cannot be described as such under any definition used thus far.

This story cries out to be counter-couped with absurd parallel situations, of other things the tenant takes pleasure in, such as the landlord's wife sunbathing in a bikini.- who knows? Maybe the tenant was climbing the tree to get a better look!

It's hard to see how far he'd take the argument on principle. Such as, what if the tenant cut down the tree? Would George refute that the landlord had a claim of damages against the tenant? Surely not. What is that claim based on, if not the ownership of the tree? Monbiot's attack here is not against libertarian theory, but simple common law, the means of settling disputes between individuals. His real message is to extoll the modern power of the state to order a man not to cut down his own tree.

Who is Monbiot writing for? Does he really think that libertarians believe we have the freedom to go round raping, looting and destroying with gay abandon? If not, does he instead think that it has never occurred to us to consider, when advocating liberty for all, that some people may wish to do harm to others? Is he really this ignorant of libertarianism, or is it more the case that he is writing for people who themselves are ignorant of libertarianism?

Finally (thank God) comes Monbiot's piece de resistance, the apparent failure of Claire Fox, of the BBC's 'Moral Maze', to furnish a straightforward answer to his straightforward question about whether a factory is 'free to pollute'? I have not heard the dialogue, but clearly the answer is; no, the factory is not free to pollute the property of other people.

But, what good is such an answer to Monbiot, given his seeming contempt for property rights? What good is it to explain to him that it was the state, in the form of the courts during the 19th century which chose to repudiate property rights in cases regarding this very issue of pollution? It was his beloved, godlike state, which cast aside individual liberty and property in the interests of the purported common good.

Rejecting individual liberty, misunderstanding the inherent limitations on action which no libertarian denies, Monbiot throws himself down at the altar of the state, deluding himself that the state will protect him from these wicked creatures, Man.

Who does he think controls, directs and administers this mysterious entity, if not individuals? Do they somehow lose their natural fallibility once brought together, and given power, uniforms and weaponry? Does he believe the Soviet Union to have been free from pollution, given that it was spared the scourge of libertarian individualism?

Monbiot misses. Rather than play to the tribal gallery, he could have challenged these rightwing ogres of his on libertarian grounds. By exposing, if it were possible, the contradiction between their political stance and the principles they claim to hold, he may even have won over a few of them to seeing his point of view. After all, I agree with him about the lead-smelting plant. The rest is very largely nonsense.

Cross-posted at Libertarian Home.

Something for everyone

With a title "Rothbard, Mises, Rand and Me" and Walter Block as well, surely our cup runneth over. This is the speech I linked to just below (the link is audio only). Thanks, as ever, to the Ludwig von Mises Institute.

Jesse for President - Ron Paul for Vice

I've worked it out - the above combination is the solution. Jesse can get fighting, and Ron Paul can slip in as Vice at any time. Jesse's strong suit is not the economy, but he's smart enough to know who to listen to and who to put in charge, and that is Dr Paul.

Given the huge importance of grabbing hold of the American military machine that any sane President would see demands to be done, who would you rather put in charge; Jesse or Ron? It's got to be Jesse, given his background.

With Jesse nominally in charge, able to do the whole global schmooze, while the Doctor runs the back-office, the team would be perfect.

For Jesse, think Jackson; Andrew Jackson. This last gentleman wasn't a perfect theoretician of liberty, but he felt it in his gut. Fortunately he was surrounded by others who were also sound but with the theoretical knowledge to back it up. Jackson favoured sound money, because it was simple horse sense. The Jacksonians did so, because they had grasped the rudiments of monetary wisdom.

Ron Paul in the Nevada GOP Debate

Ron Paul on form in the recent GOP debate in Nevada.

Testing something to destruction

You could take a car and see how long, if you ran it at 100 mph or 120 mph, before something went bang, i.e. the point at which the car ceases to function. This establishes a parameter. Until that point is reached, the car will function. It is the same with a general principle. For example; cannibalism, which is, generally speaking, wholly forbidden. But someone could say; ‘what about if you’re in a plane that crashes in the mountains and there’s no other food etc. etc. – a ‘lifeboat situation’, and we could dwell on this, thinking ‘what would we do?’. What happens to the general principle at the point of ‘breaks down’?

There are two choices; it no longer applies; or it still applies. If we affirm that the general principle holds no matter what, the problem will move to examining equity. The unsucessful defence can be reassessed in case it provides a plea for mitigation i.e. mercy. If it ceases to hold, by contrast, the possibility opens that a claim of defence by necessity or consent may be made. The following is considered on the basis that the former applies, i.e. it holds.

Is there an inalienable right to commit suicide?

No, because such a right, if it existed would have to derive from the right you have over your body. But the act of suicide would destroy the body. The right over the body would perish alongside. To use a derived right to destroy the principle is logically absurd. However, this is a philosophical point. It should not confuse us when considering suicide from a legal point of view.

Firstly if someone commits suicide they are beyond any legal sanction, having ceased to exist. If someone attempts suicide but fails, no one else can claim this as a violation of their property, as they have no property in the person of the would-be suicidee.

If, however, the suicide attempt involved driving a hired car off a cliff, the owners of the car, if not the cliff as well, will most likely have a valid claim of trespass against their own property.

What if Smith assists Jones to commit suicide? What general rules are applicable? Surely, that which prohibits the taking of a life. If any general rules are broken then a crime will have been committed. Let us quickly consider these two examples (A) Smith puts the pistol in Jones’ hand. Jones pulls the trigger; or (B) Smith pulls the trigger on Jones.

In the case of (B) the general rule is against shooting someone to death, unless it’s justified in self-defence. The crime is to take away a life. Smith would be destroying Jones’ inalienable property – a definite trespass.

But in the case of (A) Smith has not done this. I suggest an appeal to the rule of logic. Thus, if we accept the logical absurdity of a right to suicide, then Smith cannot be blamed if Jones acts in an absurd way by shooting himself, as Smith cannot be expected to know that Jones will not act logically.

From this view, assisted suicide must remain invalid as a defence against a charge of manslaughter in the case of (B), although not necessarily in the case of (A).

Suicide is an exceptional event. It is contrary to the general run of things. Notwithstanding its exceptionality, it cannot escape a breach of the general rules, so the only way it can be dealt with is through the principle of equity.

Such a principle is intended to take into account the personal tragedy often involved in such cases of assisted suicide. There is not, I believe, a widespread sentiment to bring the weight of the law down upon the grieving widower of a terminally-ill desirer of death, quite the contrary! The lobbying call is to ‘legalise’ this crime. However this goes too far, I believe. The onus to deliver justice and mercy which rests with the judge and jury cannot be shirked.

Lex Trooperis

I've been arguing over law with the Liberal Conspirators, specifically human rights law versus my conception of natural rights and property rights, which has sent me scurrying around Rothbard's 'Ethics of Liberty', wherein I find this:

But there are certain vital things which, in natural fact and in the nature of man, are inalienable, i.e., they cannot in fact be alienated, even voluntarily. Specifically, a person cannot alienate his will, more particularly his control over his own mind and body. Each man has control over his own mind and body. Each man has control over his own will and person, and he is, if you wish, "stuck" with that inherent and inalienable ownership. Since his will and control over his own person are inalienable, then so also are his rights to control that person and will. That is the ground for the famous position of the Declaration of Independence that man's natural rights are inalienable; that is, they cannot be surrendered, even ifthe person wishes to do so.

Or, as Williamson Evers points out, the philosophical defenses of human rights

are founded upon the natural fact that each human is the proprietor of his own will. To take rights like those of property and contractual freedom that are based on a foundation of the absolute self-ownership of the will and then to use those derived rights to destroy their own foundation is philosophically invalid. (Evers; Law of Contracts p7)

Hence, the unenforceability, in libertarian theory, of voluntary slave contracts.

I also see this, in a chapter titled 'Lifeboat Situations':

It is often contended that the existence of extreme, or "lifeboat," situations disproves any theory of absolute property rights, or indeed of any absolute rights of self-ownership whatsoever. It is claimed that since any theory of individual rights seems to break down or works unsatisfactorily in such fortunately rare situations, therefore there can be no concept of inviolable rights at all. In a typical lifeboat situation, there are, let us say, eight places in a lifeboat putting out from a sinking ship, and there are more than eight people wishing to be saved. Who then is to decide who should be saved and who should die? And what then happens to the right of self-ownership, or, as some people phrase it, the "right to life"? (The "right to life" is fallacious phraseology, since it could imply that A's "right to life" can justly involve an infringement on the life and property of someone else, i.e., on B's "right to life" and its logical extensions. A "right to self-ownership" of both A and B avoids such confusions.)

In the first place, a lifeboat situation is hardly a valid test of a theory of rights, or of any moral theory whatsoever. Problems of a moral theory in such an extreme situation do not invalidate a theory for normal situations. In any sphere of moral theory, we are trying to frame an ethic for man, based on his nature and the nature of the world-and this precisely means for normal nature, for the way life usually is, and not for rare and abnormal situations. It is a wise maxim of the law, for precisely this reason, that "hard cases make bad law." We are trying to frame an ethic for the way men generally live in the world; we are not, after all, interested in framing an ethic that focuses on situations that are rare, extreme, and not generally encountered.

Legitimacy; a definition

Recently I've been catching up with Joseph Stromberg's worthy oeuvre, such as YouTube lectures, and various essays and articles, some of which can be found here and here.

From an article on Iraq, focusing on the British mandate period, I liked this line on state 'legitimacy':

Established states resort to fairly small amounts of internal violence precisely because they already killed, burned, and pillaged enough to make their point one or two centuries ago. This is what is called "legitimacy."

More fiddling with theory

Just because something is immoral, it should not necessarily be unlawful. Equally, just because something is moral, doesn't mean it should be lawful. The measure by which the lawfulness or not of an act should not be its morality, but whether it violates somebody else’s person or or property. Unfortunately, as long as the statute of legislation is polluted by moral interferences and property rights violations, along with the undisputed parts, confusion will build on confusion.

Where the law over-reaches to criminalise mere vice, it should be beaten back, on the basis that vice is not crime, and where no violation has occurred against another person or their property, the law should leave well alone. Elsewhere we find morality conflicting with law, at least for some, with a prime example of controvery being the continued categorisation of assisting suicide as manslaughter - a very series property rights violation (!).

Leaving aside any dispute over the categorisation itself, (I would say it is indisputable in natural law, due to the inalienability of one’s property in oneself), those who seek to change the law do so because they believe assisting suicide is a moral act and believe that because it is moral it should be lawful.

Opponents dispute the moral case, arguing that it can never be moral to assist in suicide. There can be no resolution of the moral argument, due to the subjectivity of morality. My argument for keeping the law as is, would be different. I would leave aside the moral issue. Manslaughter is unlawful, and should remain so. Let the discretion of the jury and the judge bring the necessary measure of equity. This alone can and must suffice to ensure that the iron rule of the law is tempered with mercy.

Expecting the law to concord exactly with morality is a red herring that stinks at both ends. A more extreme example of morality, its subjectivity and its irrelevance with regard to questions of lawfulness is presented by phenomenon of 'honour killing'. Whatever significance we should attach to the evident fact that some people consider it moral to murder their own flesh and blood, the crime stands!

Theory, History & Rhetoric

It’s strange how a belief in self-ownership and not harming other people is seen by some as the height of callousness.

Here’s how it goes: libertarian principles state that it is wrong to take other people’s stuff or harm them. As such, theft is by definition wrong, and this does not change, if the intention of the perpetrator is to do good to someone else, e.g., by dropping off my CD collection at the local charity shop after plundering my home.

This being the case, it therefore follows, according to my adversaries, that I must also be content to see children starve, if the only way to save them involves stealing food.

I do not know how many thefts and robberies have been committed in this country this year, and I wonder how many were committed in order to feed starving children? (Somewhat less than those committed to feed a crack addiction, I’d wager). Nevertheless, what callousness to hold theft to be wrong!

But why do I hold to such a barbaric principle, even though I’d actually rather the starving child survived? I shall look more closely at the meaning of saying a particular category of human action, such as theft, is wrong.

I have written on a couple of occasions recently on the necessity to separate the law from morality, to distinguish between vice and crime, to limit the law to the defense of property rights ,defined, of course, to encompass the physical person, and tempered by a measure of equity(one would hope!).

Lawfulness and moral rectitude are not synonyms. Morality, although subject to a broad agreement of definition in society, is essentially subjective, but a property rights-based system for determining law is based on objective criteria.

Where categories overlap, we see acts that are both lawful and moral, as well as acts that are both unlawful and immoral. Where they part company we see immoral acts that are nonetheless lawful and also unlawful acts that are nonetheless moral, at least arguably moral from some subjective viewpoints.

A moral dilemma asks; what is the most moral path to choose in a given situation. This is a question one can ask oneself. Very different is the question; what does the law say?

Let us consider this example:

Smith has decided to seek food for a starving child. He sees this as a moral duty.

He approaches Jones, who he believes has food, to ask for his assistance. If he asks and Jones agrees, no lines have been crossed from moral and lawful behaviour.

Jones is now presented with a moral issue himself, that which animates Smith (plus an additional question regarding Smith’s trustworthiness!). He may consent or refuse to help. Whatever food he has, he is at liberty to hand over, and this means necessarily that he is at liberty not to hand it over. That is the position with regard to the law.

Now, should Jones refuse to help, Smith is faced with a dilemma: Should he continue his moral quest and force Jones to comply, in other words rob Jones of the food? The law is clear. To force Jones will break the law, and Jones can resist such violence with violence of his own and do so lawfully, if not also morally. The decision rests with Smith, who must be prepared to face any consequences of law for his actions.

Now the reason I have examined this question is because of what strawman versions of the libertarian position allege it to be, ergo: it’s okay to shoot starving children if they press too closely on the barbed wire surrounding your compound.

Also there is the further fear that a libertarian society would collapse into banditry, once the state stopped redistributing. What is being alleged is that such situations are more likely to arise if the state does not take pre-emptive measures to confiscate the food from Jones – and tell Smith to keep out of the matter, for let us remember that the state would not, as a rule, absolve an act of aggression from Smith.

This allegation is based on a belief that voluntary charity would not be enough to prevent the child from starving, that coercive redistribution is necessary to prevent hunger. Certain historical measures, such as the NHS and social security in the USA are cited in defence of the belief, to which I respond with other examples, friendly societies and the hospitals of London, some of which are many hundreds of years old.

But this, in itself, has nothing really to do with the question of morality, law and property rights addressed above. Suddenly we are switching into economics and a claim is being made for broad state plunder powers for the utilitarian ‘general good’.

The libertarian position is well staked out, synonymous with old school, no-buts liberalism, and it refutes the notion that the state is the most efficient means to deliver goods and services. It asserts that rather it is free trade and free markets that bring greater benefits than state management and interference, and that on utilitarian grounds as much as any other, the government should laissez faire laissez passer.

Boycotts, coercion and blogging handbags

Reading over at Longrider's I see he is involved in some handbag action with a blogger called Left Outside, about the legitimacy of boycotting. I may have missed some of the preliminaries, but cannot help concluding that Longrider is incorrect in his equating of pressurising and coercing. It is clear that a boycott of a business is an attempt to bring pressure to bear for a particular aim, but this should not be seen as coercion, at least not in the sense that coercion is used with regard to the libertarian principle of non-aggression. As ever, my first point of call for intellectual back-up is to the Sage Rothbard:

Regarding Boycotts:

A boycott is an attempt to persuade other people to have nothing to do with some particular person or firm — either socially or in agreeing not to purchase the firm's product. Morally a boycott may be used for absurd, reprehensible, laudatory, or neutral goals. It may be used, for example, to attempt to persuade people not to buy non-union grapes or not to buy union grapes. From our point of view, the important thing about the boycott is that it is purely voluntary, an act of attempted persuasion, and therefore that it is a perfectly legal and licit instrument of action.

Again, as in the case of libel, a boycott may well diminish a firm's customers and therefore cut into its property values; but such an act is still a perfectly legitimate exercise of free speech and property rights. Whether we wish any particular boycott well or ill depends on our moral values and on our attitudes toward the concrete goal or activity. But a boycott is legitimate per se. If we feel a given boycott to be morally reprehensible, then it is within the rights of those who feel this way to organize a counter-boycott to persuade the consumers otherwise, or to boycott the boycotters. All this is part of the process of dissemination of information and opinion within the framework of the rights of private property.

...

Any action would be legal in the libertarian society, provided that it does not invade property rights (whether of self-ownership or of material objects), and this would include boycotts against such activities, or counter-boycotts against the boycotters. The point is that coercion is not the only action that can be taken against what some consider to be immoral persons or activities; there are also such voluntary and persuasive actions as the boycott.

It goes without saying, that as soon as violence is threatened, let alone used (against person or property), then a line is crossed and a criminal act has been committed, and there will, as ever, be grey areas, such as with the use of pickets, which can be intimidatory. If the law were to be reformed along libertarian lines, it is likely that boycotting would increase, as a reaction to a host of prohibitions being repealed, such as around 'equality'. Indeed boycotting is a preferable reaction to certain things, rather than what we have now, which is a shrill call for legislative action to ban, control and prohibit.

But what of coercion? Can Rothbard help with this? Why, of course!

In his monumental work The Constitution of Liberty, F.A. Hayek attempts to establish a systematic political philosophy on behalf of individual liberty. He begins very well, by defining freedom as the absence of coercion, thus upholding “negative liberty” more cogently than does Isaiah Berlin. Unfortunately, the fundamental and grievous flaw in Hayek’s system appears when he proceeds to define “coercion.” For instead of defining coercion as is done in the present volume, as the invasive use of physical violence or the threat thereof against someone else’s person or (just) property, Hayek defines coercion far more fuzzily and inchoately: e.g., as “control of the environment or circumstances of a person by another (so) that, in order to avoid greater evil, he is forced to act not according to a coherent plan of his own but to serve the ends of another”; and again: “Coercion occurs when one man’s actions are made to serve another man’s will, not for his own but for the other’s purpose."

For Hayek, “coercion” of course includes the aggressive use of physical violence, but the term unfortunately also includes peaceful and non-aggressive actions as well. Thus, Hayek states that “the threat of force or violence is the most important form of coercion. But they are not synonymous with coercion, for the threat of physical force is not the only way in which coercion can be exercised.”

What, then, are the other, nonviolent “ways” in which Hayek believes coercion can be exercised? One is such purely voluntary ways of interacting as “a morose husband” or “a nagging wife,” who can make someone else’s “life intolerable unless their every mood is obeyed.” Here Hayek concedes that it would be absurd to advocate legal outlawry of sulkiness or nagging; but he does so on the faulty grounds that such outlawry would involve “even greater coercion.” But “coercion” is not really an additive quantity; how can we quantitatively compare different “degrees” of coercion, especially when they involve comparisons among different people? Is there no fundamental qualitative difference, a difference in kind, between a nagging wife and using the apparatus of physical violence to outlaw or restrict such nagging? It seems clear that the fundamental problem is Hayek’s use of “ coercion” as a portmanteau term to include, not only physical violence but also voluntary, nonviolent, and non-invasive actions such as nagging.

It seems that Longrider is making this same mistake, that of abjuring the limited definition of coercion as: The invasive use of physical violence or the threat thereof against someone else’s person or (just) property, and stretching it out, so that a clear line between coercion and non-coercion is not possible. Perhaps Longrider, who passes by this way on occasion, may choose to follow the link, as it may well be that he agrees further with Hayek's position, especially with regard to the examples of employer - employee situations.

All that said, I now must turn the guns round on Left Outside, who ends his/her side of the spat with this attack on libertarians:

The reason these people were protesting (peacefully and without threat of coercion) about the sexist T-Shirt on sale was because it was sexist and they don’t want people telling them what to do, and sexism involves being told how to behave. Their definition of being left alone and to not be told what to do extended beyond merely what is legislated to include what those around say and do – just as Jackart and Longrider’s definition does. They are entirely analogous, much as I’m sure each is repulsed to find such common ground with the other.

I hope you Libertarians can understand what I mean when I call Libertarianism “asymmetric” now. The argument is not that “Libertarians are all selfish white men”, that is obviously false. But when it is women, foreigners, the poor, the helpless who are in need of help actually existing Libertarianism tends to be implacable. Societal pressures are unimportant, only property rights and non-interference matter. There is no room at this inn, get on your bike (and no, I will not lend you mine). Libertarianism is its most pigheaded and most insistent, to the point of calling peaceful protesters totalitarian, when it is the wealthy and privileged who are attacked (even non-violently).

Although, as I've said, I agree with Left Outside about the legitimacy of boycotting, I must take issue with some of this.

Firstly, there is the notion in the first paragraph that a slogan on a teeshirt is, essentially, an act of aggression or coercion against those who dislike the message. LO states; "[the teeshirt boycotters'] definition of being left alone and to not be told what to do extended beyond merely what is legislated to include what those around say and do". This is nonsense. The suggestion here is that if I wear a teeshirt that you don't like I am in some way infringing your liberty to be left alone. Also there is an implicit endorsement of all the legislation to date which limit our property rights with regards to free speech and freedom of association. My attitude is that I would like to see the boycott in place of much of today's legislation, not as a lobby for more of it.

Now, dealing with the second paragraph, I'll leave 'asymmetric', as the metaphor escapes me, but what we certainly find is the common misunderstanding of the libertarian position regarding law and morality and their separate spheres. Usually, the libertarian wants to limit the law to the protection of property rights. This means that a number of acts currently considered crimes would cease to be so. My recent quotation from Lysander Spooner draws attention to the distinction between vice and crime. The distinction is that vice only harms the person and property of the perpetrator. But there is more to morality than the matter of private vice. There are also questions of our moral responsibilities to others. LO riffs on the selfishness of libertarians by stating: "There is no room at this inn, get on your bike (and no, I will not lend you mine)." What this statement indicates is the position vis à vis property rights. Indeed, the inn-keeper has a right to turn someone away, and is under no obligation to lend his bike. However, he may perceive a moral duty over and above the lawful requirement to respect property rights (i.e. to abstain from aggression), a moral duty to help his fellow man. It is only that the libertarian does not believe that such moral duties should be enforced by the coercive power of the state via legislation, and indeed a coerced act of virtue is a contradiction in terms. Doing the right thing only has a meaning when there is a choice.

Charles Cunningham Boycott - the original target