December 8, 2010 – 11:51 pm by John

In any discussion of libertarian anarchism or even basic free-market economics with someone who is not very libertarian, a libertarian is likely to encounter a response to the effect of, “Well, I see your point about individual freedom and government power, but I believe that everything should have its limits and extremism of any kind is harmful, etc.” That sounds reasonable, though not very inspired or principled, and it indicates that at least your interlocutor is approaching the discussion with a respectful attitude. However reasonable it sounds on the surface, an examination of what non-libertarians must do to prevent individual liberty from “running rampant” reveals how truly offensive and disrespectful their policies are and, in the process, how a moral system based on the essential principles of self-ownership and non-aggression is the only type of just or fair system.

The above objection to a Stateless libertarian society implies that society as a whole should use means it considers reasonable to enforce rules and restrictions it considers reasonable on each individual member of the society. Note that libertarian philosophies posit exactly the same thing, to a certain extent: our freedom of association, with which we can shun or ostracize unacceptable members of a group, and our economic freedom, with which we can contribute to the profit and loss of individuals and businesses, would result in a population tending to create for itself the world that it wants, with individual regions or groups deviating from the norm in whatever ways are practical and desirable. However, the crucial difference is in the granting of a monopoly on violence to a privileged group: the State. Because the State, by definition, is not subject to the same set of rules that everyone else in society must abide by, it exists outside of society, enforcing rules on society as it sees fit. And because the State, by definition, enjoys a legal monopoly on the initiation of force, it cannot be expected to be constrained by the society it rules over. The extent to which and the ways in which the State is influenced by its subjects are only according to the desires of the majority and other large, politically organized, powerful lobbies, and not according to the desires of individuals or minority groups outside of those politically influential blocs. In contrast to a free society in which everyone would be free to march to his own drummer, weak/minority groups become marginalized and constrained by powerful/larger lobbies in a Statist society. Even the majority of voters in a given region at a given time often don’t get what they want (e.g., Obama’s foreign-policy and civil-liberties record). Anthony de Jasay’s masterpiece The State is purported to contain the best exposition of this power struggle.

Importantly, a government at any level of geographic jurisdiction (local, state, national, etc.) must enact and enforce laws that are one-size-fits-all, and as most people in Western society have seen from the crony-corporatism and the bailouts of the last few years, most exceptions to the universal laws are made in favor of the (large) companies that help out the politicians the most. Very few people anywhere approve of this, but obviously our only recourse, voting, does no good or else it would be outlawed. As Étienne de La Boétie would remind us, a state continues to exist in the form in which it exists because society at large generally approves of it, but the most important unit of any group, the individual, is persecuted and disenfranchised by the Statist system to the extent that he wants to live his life in peaceful abstinence from the State apparatus and in peaceful disregard of its restraints.

Therefore, however close a state comes to enforcing the mores or demands of the entire populace (in effect, the majority), the libertarian is repulsed by it because no one is permitted the freedom to peacefully abstain from any demand made by that state.

What are some of those demands, made by the State (the majority) on individual subjects, for the purpose of serving the greater good? Paying taxes of all kinds to fund government agencies of all kinds; helping out the less fortunate and otherwise indigent; bailing out business that are “too big to fail”; educating children only in ways that are approved of by local, state, and national school boards; paying for every child’s schooling to promote an educated citizenry; being conscripted into jury service to protect your fellow citizens from unfair prosecution; abstaining from ingesting substances that the State declares taboo and harmful to society; using only State-approved notes as currency; paying for the military’s defense of the citizens and their land; possibly being conscripted into the military; protecting the environment and natural resources; paying for other people’s medical care; protecting the intellectual property of innovators so as to promote more innovation; not harming others in their person or property; and not peacefully (or otherwise) seceding from the State’s geographic jurisdiction over all legal affairs.

As good and noble as many of those causes are, there is no cause so noble as to justify violating anyone’s rights in order to accomplish it. The rights of the one outweigh the needs of the many, and anything else, for that matter. If that is not true, who are you to say which rights of mine shall be ignored and which I shall have the privilege of maintaining? Why must libertarians always defend our person and property against you and not the other way around? Why am I not permitted to demand that you pay for my food, housing, health care, or bank bailout, that you operate your business according to the (lack of) regulations that I want, and that you be subject to the court system that I desire? Because the State says so? The majority voted on it? There’s a social contract? No. That is not acceptable or defensible under any system of logic or morality. Might does not make right, the majority should not rule, and there is no such thing as a social contract.

It is a general truism that ends that are achieved by means of violating anyone’s individual liberty cannot result in a net good. And it is a socio-psychological certainty that the type of people who desire the power to manage the affairs of others will violate individual rights in proportion to the greatness they aspire to. I do not support the means that the State uses to accomplish any ends, irrespective of the desirability of the ends themselves, and therefore I do not want to be a party to any of its activities. I am under no moral obligation to obey any of its demands or respect any of its methods, goals, or agents; I only do so out of concern for my own safety and well-being and because I think we can all accomplish more outside of prison than inside of it.

No person, or group of people, or society, or government has the right to demand anything of me other than that I not demand anything of them. No one has the right to demand that I pay anyone anything that I have not previously, willingly, implicitly or explicitly agreed to pay in return for a specific good or service. No one has the right to tell me how to educate my children, run my business, use my land, or redistribute “intellectual property”, as long as those actions don’t affect anyone else’s equal liberty to do the same. No one has the right to tell me what can and can’t be used as currency, what I can and can’t ingest, or what actions I can partake in with other consenting adults. No one has the right to conscript me into jury duty or military service any more than they have the right to force me into slave labor. The only right we have is for nobody to violate our person, liberty, or property—in other words, to remain in equal moral standing with every other human, such that no one is in a position of power to commit any involuntary action upon another person. From this moral egalitarianism are derived our rights to be free of aggression, fraud, and breach of contract.

These rights are not subject to any terms whatsoever—no modification, no specification, no exception, no infringement, no abrogation, no higher considerations, and certainly not a vote. They are absolute and infinite. I do not demand anything of anyone else, and no one may demand anything of me without my permission and a prior agreement of some kind. Why not? Because I say so. Why don’t I have any moral obligation to pay taxes, serve in the military, serve on a jury, ingest only authorized substances, donate money to a certain cause or group, or obey any of the other myriad restrictions the State places on my person, property, and liberty? Because I don’t want to. They are my body, property, liberty, and rights to manage as I please, within the identical boundaries that simultaneously constrain and protect every other human being; what other reason could I need for claiming my rights?; who are you to say which of my rights is to be violated and to what extent?; who are you to say that what you want for me supersedes what I want for myself?

No one is fit to govern me but myself. What I freely do with my body and property is not subject to debate or vote. What you want for society is irrelevant, and how you want me to behave is irrelevant. The only reasons the mob’s vote has any bearing on our practical world are that the State has the guns and the mob currently chooses not to start with first principles and examine what is right before deciding what is desirable. But it won’t be so forever. Because might does not make right, and the majority should not rule. The majority should not rule any more than one person should. The entirety of the human race save one is no more justified in violating the rights of the one than the one would be in oppressing all of humanity.

When Statists say they agree with our assertion of individual rights to some extent, or that this or that limitation should be imposed by the State, or that not even individual liberty should be absolute, what they are really saying is that they have the right to use the violent, deadly police power of the State to restrict what we do with our minds, bodies, and property, and that not only do we not have a reciprocal right to treat them the same way, we don’t even have the right to make those decisions for our own minds, bodies, and property. It is simply incoherent to assert such dominion over the liberty, property, and even the body of another. The falseness and invalidity of such a claim is self-evident. This is as certain as Descartes’ Cogito ergo sum. Our right to completely control our own bodies is virtually axiomatic (though extensive proofs exist), and all other rights against encroachment follow from it. No claim to a higher good has any bearing on them, and no moral system denying these absolute truths can ever be fair or just.

Posted in Philosophy, Property rights