Category: Liberty

Could Nuclear Weapons be the Tool of Peace

If anything demonstrates the cowardice of the average politician it’s nuclear weaponry. Politicians have no quarrel sending other people’s sons and daughters off to die in a foreign land. But the second their lives are threatened they sudden have a strong desire to use diplomacy. Nuclear weapons are the tool that can strike directly at politicians, which is why they’re in such a hurry to prevent more countries from getting them. Once a country becomes a nuclear power it can strike directly at the politicians of foreign nations and that takes the option of invasion off of the table.

Based on this I’m beginning to think that the path to world peace involves nuclear weapons. Imagine if every country was armed to the teeth with nuclear weapons. History has demonstrated that nuclear armed countries don’t suffer foreign invasions. Even the United States and the Soviet Union, two of histories most bitter enemies, refrained from direct military engagement.

The most common rebuttal to this idea is that there are political leaders who want to immanentize the eschaton. This is a common concern expressed by those who believe it is necessary to use whatever means necessary to stop Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon. I don’t give such rebuttals much concern. Immanetizing the eschaton requires a willingness to sacrifice one’s own life. I have never seen a politician who is willing to sacrifice themselves. They’re always quick to sacrifice others but when their own skin is on the line they topple like a house of card. Until I see a politician willing to sacrifice themselves for political or religious gain I won’t consider any such concerns seriously.

Perhaps we need to encourage more countries to join the nuclear club. It may be the only thing that makes politicians reconsider declaring war.

We Need a State to Protect Us from a State

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. While discussing anarchism a statist pops in and says “Guys, if we don’t have a state some war lord is going to take over and enslave everybody!” The anarchists look at the statist baffled. One of the anarchists looks to another and asks “Did he just say we need a state to protect us from a state?” The other anarchist slowly nods his head and response “I think he did.”

Claiming that we need a state to protect us from war lords is circular reasoning. Consider what a war lord is. A war lord is nothing more than a man with an army who goes from area to area and uses his army’s capacity for violent to coerce people into obeying him. In other words a war lord is nothing more than an individual who uses coercion in an attempt to acquire a monopoly on the use of force. What is a state? An organization that uses coercion in an attempt to acquire a monopoly on force.

After hearing that reasoning the statist is likely to rebut with the claim that his or her preferred system of government is somehow different. A vast majority of the time the statist will be advocating for a currently or historically existing form of government that has already proven his or her claim false. Fans of constitutional republics will claim that a properly written constitution will protect the people form a tyrannical government. The United States is proving this claim false every day. Even though a large majority of fans of constitutional republics claim the Constitution is a properly written document it has failed to protect us and people abroad from government tyranny. Socialists will often jump in and claim more democracy will fix an problem. But when they say more democracy they almost imply that too much democracy will be detrimental. You see, a society where every person has an equal vote in matters is a form of anarchy and that’s possibly work. But if people are allowed to vote on certain governmental positions and certain laws then tyranny can be avoided. Just ask the former Soviet Union! Then there are the fans of limited socialism. These are the statists that aren’t ballsy enough to jump into the deep end of the socialism pool and too scared to take a dip in the constitutional republic river. In their mind striking the right balance between socialism and republicanism will solve all of the world’s ills. Norway is the commonly cited example of a functioning social democracy. Of course advocates of social democracy often overlook Norway’s foreign engagements. I’m sure things will become even more interesting once Norway’s vast oil supply runs out.

How are war lords supposed to protect us from war lords? I guess one could argue that a slightly less violent war lord is preferable to a more violent war lord. But history has demonstrated that most of those less violent war lords become more violent once they have conquered their competitors. Whenever you hear a statist claim we need a state to protect us from war lords just remember what he or she is really saying: we need a war lord to protect us from war lords. I’m sure there’s some way to use fire to protect one’s self from fire but the outcome seems to be little but ashes either way.

Occupy Wall Street Wipes Out $15 Million of Debt

Remember Rolling Jubilee? It was a project started by Occupy Wall Street to buy up outstanding debt just to forgive it. Back when the project was first started organizers were able to buy up $14,000 of debt for $500. Approximately one year later the organization has successfully purchased and forgiven $15 million of debt:

A group of Occupy Wall Street activists has bought almost $15m of Americans’ personal debt over the last year as part of the Rolling Jubilee project to help people pay off their outstanding credit.

Rolling Jubilee, set up by Occupy’s Strike Debt group following the street protests that swept the world in 2011, launched on 15 November 2012. The group purchases personal debt cheaply from banks before “abolishing” it, freeing individuals from their bills.

By purchasing the debt at knockdown prices the group has managed to free $14,734,569.87 of personal debt, mainly medical debt, spending only $400,000.

Kudos to Occupy’s Strike Debt group are certainly in order. Freeing people from $15 million of debt for a mere $400,00 is impressive. I hope this project continues on and meets with even greater success.

What Laws Do

Linoge over at Walls of the City has an excellent post describing what laws actually do:

Laws, in general, do two things*. First, they define what a government does not like, whether it is killing another person (after all, no government likes having their population of taxpayers reduced), not paying your taxes (see previous comment), or consuming X substance (despite Y substance yielding much the same affect on you, but still being legal). Second, laws give governments the ability to punish people for doing things they do not like (or, alternatively, in the case of Obamacare, not doing something the government does like).

[…]

And before someone trots out the straw man that my argument boils down to, “Well, if there is no point in X law because criminals will break it, then why have laws at all?” allow me to re-introduce you to the notions of malum prohibitum and malum in se. “Safe storage”, “universal background checks”, arbitrary magazine capacity limitations, and all the rest of those are malum prohibitum laws – having a magazine loaded with 30 rounds in New York state harms no one, but it is illegal there because the government has defined it as being illegal. On the other hand, laws prohibiting, and punishing, murder are malum in se laws – these are crimes deserving of punishment because you have detrimentally harmed someone against their will.

The latter is generally necessary for society to exist and get along within itself (though Christopher Burg may disagree).

It may surprise many people to hear that I agree with Linoge’s post. Even us anarchists believe laws are necessary to lay down ground rules for human interaction. Where we disagree is how those laws are created and enforced. As I explained in my post on laws under anarchism, even stateless societies have laws. The difference from societies with states is that laws in stateless societies are almost exclusively malum in se.

Instead of giving some suit-glad guys in marble buildings a monopoly on creating laws, stateless societies put the burden of creating laws on the people themselves. In order for a law to arise in a stateless society enough members must be willing to invest the resources necessary to enforce it. These resources include time, money, and the risk of bodily harm or death. Because of this the laws in a stateless society tend to involve demonstrable harm and enforcement techniques tend to be efficient (in regards to resource usage).

Let’s look at prohibitions for a moment. Consider the rate at which the United States is traveling down the road to complete cigarette prohibition. Many people disapprove of cigarette smoking and have worked to pass laws prohibiting it in public areas. People who oppose cigarette smoking fight for such laws because they are not directly responsible for enforcing them. If we ever reach a point where cigarette smoking is prohibited it will be treated the same as other prohibitions. Consequences will involved costume-clad badge-wearing men kicking down your door in the middle of the night, kidnapping you, and throwing you in a cage (and probably shooting your dog). In a stateless society individuals wanting to prohibit cigarette smoking would have to do the enforcement themselves. Can you imagine the consequences of an individual kicking down a smoker’s door and attempting to kidnap him? Without the general legal barriers to self-defense that societies with states have on the books, the risk of such an act would be very high. The prohibitionist would likely be shot by the home owner or possibly shot by the smoker’s neighbors, who may see the act of enforcing a prohibition as an act of assault.

Meanwhile people have a general disdain for theft, assault, and murder. Statists often ask what motivation individuals in a stateless society would have to defend their fellows. In societies with states we see a tendency for individuals to call the cops when witnessing an act of aggression. The reasons for this attitude are many but it is strongly influenced by the potential risks of intervening (laws that acts as barriers to self-defense) and a general apathy towards the well-being of our fellow individuals (since we’ve grown accustomed to leaving the state to provide for the general welfare). These barriers don’t exist in a stateless society. In fact the opposite is true. When individuals are expected to shoulder the burden of law enforcement the lack of action can lead to social ostracism. If you’re unwilling to put yourself on the line by defending your neighbors then your neighbors are unlikely to put themselves on the line to defend you.

Laws will always exist but the way they’re created is important. Decrees from rulers tend to focus heavily on malum prohibitum whereas laws created by spontaneous order tend to focus heavily on malum in se. The latter are necessary for social interactions because such interactions are impossible if individuals are constantly under the threat of violence. The former is dangerous because they put everybody under the threat of nonretaliatory violence.

You Can’t Own Property, Man

One of the more quaint beliefs people commonly hold in the United States is that individuals can own property. It would be wonderful if we could own property in this country but we can merely rent it form our landlord, the state. At any point the state can choose to evict us with its power of eminent domain. Statists argue that eminent domain powers are critical because it allows the state to reclaim property that would better serve the “public interest” (which is a fancy statist term for the state’s interest). More often than not eminent domain is used for really stupid shit, like this:

SEATTLE — The city is forcing a 103-year-old Spokane woman to sell her parking lot in Seattle to make way for, well, a parking lot.

The Seattle City Council voted Monday to take the lot near the waterfront by eminent domain, using a portion of the $30 million provided by the state to take care of parking issues around the waterfront. Hundreds of public parking spaces will be lost when the state begins dismantling the Alaskan Way Viaduct for the digging of the tunnel. The construction will last until 2020.

The lot is owned by Spokane resident Myrtle Woldson. She doesn’t want to sell, so the City Council voted unanimously to use it’s power of eminent domain to take it after paying Woldson “fair market value.”

My guess is that the Seattle City Council had dollar signs in their eyes when they voted for seize the parking lot. As it currently stands a privately owned parking lot doesn’t add much for the city’s coffers. If the city owns the parking lot it gets to keep all of the parking fees, which can be a very profitable endeavor for a large city.

Eminent domain isn’t only used for stupid shit, it’s also used to line the pockets of the politically well-connected:

The proposed Keystone XL pipeline faces a court challenge in Nebraska, where three property owners contend state lawmakers gave the governor illegal power to take away their land for the project.

The Nebraska Legislature transferred to Governor Dave Heineman and, through him, to Calgary-based pipeline builder TransCanada Corp. (TRP), its authority over eminent domain in violation of the state constitution’s separation of powers, the landowners said in a court filing.

Much of the Keystone XL pipeline has only been made possible through the state’s use of eminent domain. Individuals wanting to keep their property have had it forcefully seized by the state so it could help its corporate buddies build a pipeline. If you have enough money to buy the politicians you can have whatever property you desire seized.

So long as eminent domain powers exist individuals cannot own property. Like serfs we can only live on a piece of land and make use of it for as long as our feudal lords allow.

Where Marx Went Wrong

I know what you’re thinking: this is going to be a very long post. To cover all the ways in which Karl Marx went wrong would take volumes (and volumes have been written on this very subject). But this post is going to cover every what in which Marx went wrong. Instead it’s going to focus on one specific failure: the idea of a vanguard party.

Marxism, and philosophies based on Marxism, advocate for a revolution by the proletariat (working class) to overthrow the bourgeois (holders of capital). After the revolution concludes Marxism argues that a vanguard party, made up entirely of people from the proletariat, must claim dictatorial control and use that control to guide humanity towards the socialist future.

Socialism, by itself, isn’t a terrible idea. Ensuring everybody in a society has the bear necessities of survival is a bit utopian but not an evil idea in of itself. Having a society where everybody enjoys the same rights is a damned good idea. Both of these are two of the primary goals of socialism. Under Marxism these goals are to take the form of laws enforced at gunpoint by a vanguard party.

Marxism falls apart because it attempts to create social equality using social inequality. The vanguard party, by its very nature, has privileges other members in a society lack. It has a monopoly on interpreting the “true” definition of socialism. Every program it puts into place is based on its interpretation. The vanguard party quickly becomes the new ruling class and the proletariat merely becomes the new bourgeois.

History has demonstrated all of this. Think of every Marxist revolution. Russia, China, Cambodia, Vietnam, and North Korea were or are nations where the old ruling party was replaced by a vanguard party based, at least in some amount, on Marxism. Social equality never gained a foothold in any of those nations. They were instead turned into authoritarian states where anybody not liked by the new ruling party were declared bourgeois and eliminated. The dictatorships of the proletariat became no different, and sometimes far worse, than the former rulers in frighteningly short order.

I think the key failure of Marxism is its reliance on coercive hierarchy. One cannot bring equality about by establishing inequality. As soon as one group has coercive hierarchy over another equality is destroyed. Compounding that is the tendency for power to attract vicious individuals. The Soviet Union would almost certainly have been far different is Stain hadn’t succeeded Lenin. But when Lenin died the most ruthless replacement, Stalin, was able to seize power and bring a reign of terror to the fledgeling union. Death wasn’t enough to remove Stalin’s authoritarianism from the Soviet Union. His actions justified more vicious actions by his predecessor. The result of the October Revolution wasn’t social equal, it was a society starkly divide between members of the Communist Party and everybody else.

Anarchy and the Law

When I tell people that I’m an anarchist they often (usually) assume I oppose all laws. This is untrue. In fact anarchists tend to have more respect for law and order than statists.

Anarchy translates into “without rulers”. The philosophy opposes coercive hierarchical rule, which is a fancy way of saying no person or persons receives special privileges. This is the opposite of statism, which involves one group of people (those comprising the state) having special privileges over everybody else. The recent healthcare debate demonstrates one of the privileges of state. While those of us outside of the state are required to purchase health insurance, members of Congress are exempt. Another example involves police officers. A police officer is legally allowed to lie to you but you’re not legally allowed to lie to a police officer.

A classic example of law and order in a state of anarchy would be medieval Iceland. While medieval Iceland didn’t have a state it was notable peaceful, especially when compared to its European neighbors. Laws were a byproduct of spontaneous order, not decrees handed down by a ruling class. When left to spontaneous order, laws tend to address instances of actual harm, which was the case in Iceland. Nobody will normally invest the resources necessary to instate a prohibition against smoking a plant but many people will invest the resources necessary to protect their lives and the lives of those they care about. In fact the defining feature, in my opinion, of law and order developed as a side effect of spontaneous order is a focus on efficiency.

Law and order is necessary for a society to function but it is one of those things nobody wants to sink more resources than necessary into. Violence, in general, is very costly. You must either put yourself at risk of death or pay somebody else enough to convince them to put their life at risk to enforce your desires. As I said, Iceland was notably peaceful. All out war was almost unheard of during its stateless period and what violence did break out tended to be ritualized. Instead of relying on expensive violence most disagreements in medieval Iceland were resolved through less expensive arbitration. When two individuals had a disagreement they would find a gothi, a mediator, whom they both trusted. The gothi would hear both sides of the disagreement and make a decision.

Another example of law and order that arose from spontaneous order is the lex mercatoria, or merchant law. Finding state justice systems too slow, merchants during the medieval period created a series of private courts along popular trading routes. These courts were designed to resolve disagreements quickly, since any time invested in dispute resolution was time not spent trading. When trade disputes would arise the involved parties would seek mediation from a nearby court. The court would hear all sides of the disagreement and deliver a ruling.

Why would people abide by either of the above mentioned legal systems? Isn’t the threat of violence necessary to make people abide by laws? As it turns out, no. Violence is an expensive method of enforcing laws. There is a more efficient method known as social ostracism. Our lives are composed of constant human interactions. Everything we do is effectively the result of interactions with others. When entire swaths of society refuse to associate with us our lives become far more difficult. Specifically, the lack of human interaction leads to a de facto status known as outlawry.

Outlawry means “outside of the law”. When an individual refuses to abide by the socially acceptable practices of a community he usually finds himself in a position where nobody will defend him if needed. Imagine if you murdered somebody. Hoping to resolve the situation the family of your victim attempt to arrange mediation between themselves and you. You decide that you have no interest in attending their little powwow and tell them to sod off. Members of the community, seeing your unwillingness to attend mediation, see you as a threat to the community. Now let’s say somebody, possibly a family member of your victim, decides to murder you. Since you’ve burned bridges nobody is going to come to your defense or prosecute your murderer. By refusing to participate in the community’s legal system you no longer received the protection of the law.

Outlawry tended to be the ultimate punishment in societies developed by spontaneous order. If a person wasn’t going to abide by the law then the community decided that individual didn’t deserve the protection of the law either, meaning anybody in the community could steal from, assault, or even kill that individual without legal consequence.

Under a system of social ostracism individuals had to invest their own time and effort into enforcing laws. Crimes involving actual harm such as theft, rape, assault, and murder were enforced while victimless crimes such as smoking cannabis, political speech, and sedition weren’t enforced. In a state of anarchy crimes require a victim, not a mere decree passed down by a privileged class, because few are going to put themselves at risk to enforce a victimless crime. Even if somebody is determined to enforce a victimless crime they will likely run into trouble as other members of the community will likely view that enforcement as criminal and deal with the zealous enforcer.

Anarchy isn’t a state of lawlessness, it’s a state where no class has special privileges to decide what others can and cannot do. Statism, on the other hand, tends to be far more lawless since members of the privileged class are allowed to violate laws at will. When I say that I’m an anarchist I’m not saying I want lawlessness, I’m saying I want a society where nobody has the privilege to violate the law.

The Beauty of Radical Rebellion

Going back through my blog will show the slow transition I have made over the years from statist libertarianism to anarchism without adjectives. Between those two points exists a number of philosophical changes. From constitutional libertarianism I transitions to anarcho-capitalism and from there I transitioned to market anarchism. Now I don’t really want adjectives. I fully admit that I don’t know what is best for everybody but I want people to free to pursue their desires. Spontaneous order will decide what works and what doesn’t.

This transition has lead to another change. Previously I would oppose rebellious groups based on their end goals. I had very little respect for anarcho-communists because I opposed communism. The Industrial Workers of the World, a radical anarcho-syndicalist union, was and evil organization in my eyes because it supported property destruction and sabotage. Now my point of view is quite a bit different. The mere act of radical rebellion is beautiful to me. While I don’t agree with many groups I find myself caring less about a group’s endgame and more about the simple fact that they’re radicals in an a state of rebellion. In other words I don’t really care what color your flag is so long as it has some black on it.

An example of this is the street artists Banksy. Banksy is a famous street artist who is currently hanging out in New York City. Mayor Bloomberg is pretty upset about this fact and has promised to bring the full psychopathic force against Banksy. What makes Banksy’s situation even more interesting is that his status as a famous street artists actually causes his graffiti to increase the value of a building:

I think it’s pretty clear in libertarian/propertarian terms that graffiti is in fact a crime. And it’s slightly less clear that Banksy’s schtick can be infuriatingly self-satisfied.

Interestingly, according to this lawyer’s website, the severity of the punishment for this sort of vandalism in New York depends on the economic level of damage one has done.

But Banksy-izing your property in fact, in the current art market, increases the value, so who knows how this will all pan out in either law or political philosophy if Gotham’s mayor can catch a guy whose secret identity is better protected than the Batman’s.

Back in my statist libertarianism and anarcho-capitalism days I would have decried Banksy’s actions. Today I don’t really care. Hell, I find Banksy’s art to be great. While I won’t go so far as to give the act of spray painting graffiti my blessing, I also won’t condemn the act. Furthermore, anybody who pisses off Bloomberg has to be doing something right.

With all of this said, I still have my own morals. The non-aggression principle is still something I live by. My ultimate rule in life is: don’t be a dick. I realize that my morals are not your morals and I don’t demand that you seek my blessing. However, if you want to discuss your acts of rebellion I’m more than happy to listen. So long as you’re doing something radical you’re far more interesting than everybody else.

The Beauty of Rebellion

Seeing outright rebellion in the United States is a beautiful thing. The recent government “shutdown” has cause headaches for many vacation goers. The government decided that the best way to punish us for its inability to get along was to shutdown anything that may be used by the average American. As it turns out, the legitimacy of this decision isn’t being recognized by some of those very Americans:

It turns out families on vacation are enjoying America’s national parks even without the government’s blessing. Families are throwing orange cones aside at Mount Rushmore, ignoring barricades at Zion National Park and taking grinning selfies next to signs in the Badlands announcing the National Park Service facility is closed. Twitter and Instagram give testament to determined dads driving straight over traffic cones or throwing them aside to clear the way for the family vacations they’ve been planning long before a government shutdown was announced. Be safe, you pioneers, and give a shout-out to the park rangers, who are one genre of government worker we know must be truly missing their offices this week.

It’s nice to see people giving the state a giant middle finger. There are no legitimate reasons for the state to shutdown these parks. Vacation goers tend to enjoy them without the few services provided by state employees. Looking at Mount Rushmore, for example, requires no work whatsoever on the state’s behalf. Shutting down the monument was nothing more than a spiteful swipe at the American people. I think members of both parties believe that if they beat us long enough we’ll demand the other party cut their shit out and approve a bill.

Private Solutions to State Failures

“Without the government who will [fill in the blank]?” It’s a question anti-statists face frequently. People seem to lack the imagination necessary to come up with any ideas of who would build roads, teach children, or protect people in the absence of government (and I want to know who is building roads, teaching children, and protecting people in the presence of government). As we find more governments collapsing we are getting an opportunity to see who can provide the services that were formerly monopolized by the governments. One many has developed a potential alternative to the state’s first responder services:

What if you could report emergencies anywhere, have faster response times, and strengthen local communities, all without spending thousands of dollars or involving bureaucrats?

We are seeing sluggish emergency response times in many big cities around the United States, and in parts of Detroit and Chicago you’d be lucky if someone came at all, even hours later. This is the problem with having a one-size-fits-all monopoly on emergency services. Sure, the system works pretty well, but when it has problems it can be a matter of life and death. And those problems don’t cause any firm to lose profits when they drop the ball. Tax money still fills the agency’s coffers, rewarding incompetence. (In economics we call this a soft budget constraint.)

Cody Drummond at Peacekeeper is rethinking defense and emergency response with a new app he is developing. His focus? Bring it local and use something you already carry to alert those around you to a problem. In those critical first moments during a crisis, you can alert those closest to you and get the help you need faster.

This system has the potential of replacing lengthy police response times (if they respond at all) with quick response from members of your community. It could also save lives if medical emergencies can be attended to quickly by any medical personnel in your community, as opposed to waiting for an ambulance to arrive from a far away hospital. What makes solutions like this even more appealing is that they don’t stop working just because the government has shutdown. One of the biggest problems with allowing governments to monopolize services is that those services cease being available in the event of a budget cut or shutdown.

Will Mr. Drummond’s solution work? Only time will tell. But we know that state controlled police don’t work (unless you want your dog euthanized) so an alternative must be found. Even if Mr. Drummond’s solution doesn’t work out I will tip my hat to him for trying.