Not So Crazy Libertarian Ideals – Page 14

Borders

Should the United States government open its border wider, close them tighter, or continue its current policies? You might be surprised that many anarchists have very strong opinions on the matter. This argument is especially decisive amongst libertarian anarchists. And that is the problem.

Anarchists debating what border policy a government should pursue is akin to Christians debating which of Satan’s proposals are better. In the end it doesn’t matter because Satan wins. Likewise, it doesn’t matter what border policies a government pursues because the State will win.

Instead of debating what the government should do, anarchists should be pointing out why the government shouldn’t be involved in borders or anything else.

When Seconds Count

When seconds count your neighbor is closer than the police. In Oklahoma a man attempted to drown his two babies in a bathtub while holding their mother at knife point. Another child in the household ran to get their neighbor who arrived and resolved the situation:

A heroic man shot dead his neighbour in Ada, Oklahoma, after he tried to drown his three-month-old twins on Friday (2 June).

Cash Freeman fired twice at Leland Michael Foster as the former tried to submerge his baby twins in a bathtub, while holding their mother at bay with a knife.

Foster’s 12-year-old granddaughter told Freeman what was happening and he rushed to the premises with his gun at around 12.30pm (5.30pm BST).

As I said before, when response time truly matters the police are seldom a valid option. Police are fairly centralized, which means their response time is going to be measured in minutes. In a situation where somebody is trying to drown two babies minutes are too long. Neighbors, on the other hand, can respond almost immediately since they are next door.

Choosing the Easy Battles

As an outside observer, when both the alt-right and antifa tout their magnificent triumphs on the battlefield of Berkeley you realize something. Both groups have pursued easy fights instead of hard fights. In this article an individual who considers themselves a leftist performs a bit of introspection and notes that his team has a tendency of choosing battles that can be easily won over the hard battles that need to be won:

Incidents like the black bloc protests at Berkeley or the punching of Richard Spencer grant people license to overestimate the current potential of violent resistance. Hey, Spencer got punched; never mind that the Trump administration reinstituted the global gag rule on abortion the next day. Hey, Milo’s talk got canceled; never mind that the relentless effort to deport thousands, a bipartisan effort for which the Obama administration deserves considerable blame, went on without a hitch. Better to make yet another meme out of Spencer getting hit than to attempt to confront the full horror of our current predicament.

[…]

But consider the claim that he was going to out an undocumented student during his visit to campus. Who really threatened that student? Yiannopoulos, or the uniformed authorities who would have actually carried out the actual violent application of state force? (It is entirely unclear to me why Yiannopoulos would not have simply shared that information with ICE after his appearance was shut down anyway. Does Milo not own a cellphone?) Again, the same dynamic: Yiannopoulos’s followers seem punchable, subject to the application of a level of force that we imagine we can bring to bear. ICE doesn’t. The forces of state violence, I assure you, are perfectly capable of rolling right over the most passionate antifas. It turns out you can’t punch an MRAP or a Predator drone.

[…]

It’s become a cliché, at this point, but it’s still a powerful image: the man who searches for his keys at night not where he lost them but next to a lamp post, because that’s where he has light to look. That’s what I think about when I see the left fixating on these things, a political movement that is so desperate for good news that it’s willing to lie to itself to find it.

The author’s criticism is equally applicable to libertarians as it is to his fellow leftists. Wars have been fought over lesser tyrannies than we suffer today but most libertarians can’t even bring themselves to perform a little unlawful commerce to withhold their resources from the parasite known as government. And I understand why. Talking to people about ending the Federal Reserve is easy. There are few consequences for doing so. Likewise, voting for politicians who promise to audit the federal reserve has few consequences. Performing a little unlawful commerce for the express purpose of avoiding taxes? That can have real consequences. And when those consequences befall a libertarian they’re unlikely to win their court case. Talking about evil is an easy battle, taking action against evil is a difficult battle.

Much like the leftists though, if libertarians continue favoring the easy fights over the hard fights they will have an abundance of pats on the back but nothing real to show for their efforts.

Create Wealth, Not Jobs

Expanding on my previous post, many people have fallen into the trap of believing that the solution to unemployment is to create more jobs. On paper is seems to make sense. If people don’t have jobs then the solution is to create jobs. However, unemployment is a symptom of a problem, not the actual problem itself:

But employment is not an end in and of itself. Rather, it is a means to an end: namely the increased standard of living that the worker obtains by trading his labor for wages.

In a free market, employment is a value creation process — with jobs stemming from the wants and needs of consumers as conveyed through the price system.

It is this productive nature of free-market jobs that make them desirable and capable of increasing a worker’s standard of living.

Wages spring directly from, and are proportional to, the degree in which a job creates wealth by helping to satisfy an unmet need. As is the case for all mutually-agreeable trades in a free market, both sides gain and wealth is created: the worker receives wages that he values more than his labor and the consumer receives a product or service he values more than its price.

In other words, a worker’s wages are reflective of the additional wealth he helped create, which enables his newly improved standard of living.

Because government-created jobs are devoid of this wealth creation process, they are merely a transfer of wealth from taxpayers to the program’s beneficiaries.

Unemployment stems from a lack of wealth. Most often the lack of wealth is caused by government. Through their burdensome regulations governments place roadblocks in front of entrepreneurs that prevents them from creating new wealth. Through their burdensome taxes governments siphon wealth from practically everybody under their rule. Government regulations also force currently existing wealth to be misallocated.

Solving unemployment by having the government create jobs actually exacerbates the problem. Since governments needs to siphon more wealth from the economy to create jobs there is less wealth in the hands of producers and consumers, which means consumers aren’t able to buy as much so producers respond by producing less. Eventually the drop in production forces producers to lay off employees, which increases the amount of unemployment. You can see where this vicious cycle ends up.

The solution to unemployment is to reduce the amount of wealth being siphoned by governments. With more wealth in hand entrepreneurs can create more wealth, which will actually allow the unemployment issue to be solved.

The Result of Relying on Coercion Instead of Market Forces

Minimum wage laws are seen by many as a mechanism to uplift the poor by ensuring every employee receives a “living wage.” For the economically ignorant that fairytale makes sense. For those with even a slight understanding of economics it’s a recipe for disaster.

The problem with minimum wage laws is the same problem with any government writ, they’re based on coercion instead of market forces. Market forces are based on wealth creation. When more wealth is created employees can be paid. Government writ doesn’t create new wealth so minimum wage laws rely on the current amount of wealth. Since the employers don’t have more wealth to draw from they’re forced to increase their prices to compensate, which often makes their product unaffordable to those who could previously afford it:

The U.S. restaurant industry is in a funk. Blame it on lunch.

Americans made 433 million fewer trips to restaurants at lunchtime last year, resulting in roughly $3.2 billion in lost business for restaurants, according to market-research firm NPD Group Inc. It was the lowest level of lunch traffic in at least four decades.

[…]

Cost is another factor working against eating out for lunch. While restaurants have raised their tabs over the past few years to cope with rising labor costs, the price of food at supermarkets has continued to drop, widening the cost gap between bringing in lunch and eating out.

Statists often scoff at the idea that minimum wage laws hurt the poor. How could laws that are advertised as helping the poor possibly hurt the poor? By forcing employers to increase their prices and thus make their product that was previous affordable to poorer individuals unaffordable.

The best way to help uplift the poor is to create more wealth. Creating more wealth requires fulfilling the wants and needs of consumers. Commands from governments cannot accomplish that no matter how many people vote in favor of them.

Intellectual Property Dealt a Hard Blow

I pull no punches when it comes to my views on intellectual property. While I want intellectual property abolished entirely, I do admit that some uses are more egregious than others. One of the most egregious uses is restricting what consumers can do with a product after they’ve purchased it. John Deere made headlines by using intellectual property laws to prevent farmers from repairing their own equipment. Printer manufacturers have also been using intellectual property laws to restrict consumer access to third-party ink. The Supreme Court’s most recent ruling dealt a hard blow to those printer manufacturers:

The US Supreme Court voted 7-1 to place more limits on the rights of patent-holders, striking down a decision by the nation’s top patent court for the second time in two weeks.

[…]

Lexmark sued Impression, alleging two different kinds of violations of patent law. First, Impression was accused of buying Return Program cartridges, altering their chips, re-filling them, and re-selling them in the US. Second, Impression bought some Lexmark cartridges abroad and imported them into the US. Lexmark said all the cartridges in that second group infringed its patents, whether they were Return Program cartridges or Regular. The Federal Circuit held that in both cases, Lexmark could go ahead and sue, in part because Impression had full knowledge of exactly the restrictions that were placed on the cartridges.

The Supreme Court reversed on both counts. As to the US sales of Return Program cartridges, “Lexmark exhausted its patent rights in these cartridges the moment it sold them,” wrote Chief Justice John Roberts for the majority. “A patentee is free to set the price and negotiate contracts with his purchasers, but may not, ‘by virtue of his patent, control the use or disposition’ of the product after ownership passes to the purchaser.” [Emphasis in original.]

Once I’ve purchased a product it should be mine to do with as I please. If I want to send my spent ink cartridge to a company that specializes in bypassing measures designed to prevent me from refilling the cartridge then I should have every right to do so. Being able to do whatever you want with your property (so long as it doesn’t harm another person or their property) is the very definition of ownership.

In recent decades companies have been abusing intellectual property laws to restrict what consumers can legally do with their property. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) was one of the worst instances of consumer restriction because it actually made the act of bypassing any form of manufacturer restriction implemented to guard copyrighted material outright illegal. This combined with software copyright laws created an environment of consumer feudalism where consumers were effectively serfs who licensed products and could only use them in manners expressly permitted by the manufacturer lords. Fortunately, the current Supreme Court appears to be reversing this trend.

What Happens When You Look at Groups Instead of Individuals

As humans we like to categorize things. Categorization is useful for many things. Categorizing books by subject and author makes them easier to find in a library or to search for online. Categorizing lumber by tree species makes it easier for consumers to find wood that fits their needs. But categorizing people presents some significant problems.

Each individual is unique. That uniqueness doesn’t stop when they become a member of a group. Two Democrats can have wildly different views about gun ownership, two Catholics can have wildly different views about same-sex marriage, and two Muslims can have wildly different views on women’s rights:

Akram’s work, al-Muhaddithat: The Women Scholars in Islam, stands as a riposte to the notion, peddled from Kabul to Mecca, that Islamic knowledge is men’s work and always has been. “I do not know of another religious tradition in which women were so central, so present, so active in its formative history,” Akram wrote.

Women scholars taught judges and imams, issued fatwas, and traveled to distant cities. Some made lecture tours across the Middle East.

[…]

If there was ever proof that a pious Muslim woman need not be a submissive wife and mother, it is the life of Aisha, the third of the Prophet’s eleven wives. She has divided opinions ever since the seventh century, among both Muslims and non-Muslims.

A top Islamic scholar, an inspiration to champions of women’s rights, a military commander riding on camelback, and a fatwa-issuing jurist, Aisha’s intellectual standing and religious authority were astonishing, by the standards of both our own time and hers.

Aisha is not the only wife of Muhammad whose life explodes notions of what constitutes a “traditional” Muslim woman. Khadija ran a caravan business in Mecca. A wealthy and successful trader, she was also a twice-widowed single mother, fifteen years Muhammad’s senior, and his boss.

Her marriage proposal to the future Prophet was forthright: “I like you because of our relationship, your high reputation among your people, your trustworthiness, your good character and truthfulness.”

I’m not sharing this article to start an argument about how Islam views women, I’m sharing it to show that there is disagreement within Islam about the religion’s views on women.

I hear too many people say, “Muslims believe killing infidels is acceptable,” or “Muslims believe that women shouldn’t have any rights.” Truth be told, there are approximately 1.5 billion Muslims in the world. It’s difficult enough to get three coworkers to agree on where to go for lunch so getting 1.5 billion people to agree on what a holy book says about anything is impossible.

Treating groups of individuals as a single entity is foolish. Each member of that group is likely to be quite different from the other members. They might have a single idea that holds them together but even their views on that idea are likely to differ.

No Combatant is Innocent in War

Expanding on my previous post, here is an example of what happens when people refuse to see evil when it’s perpetrated by people they view as human.

After every terrorist attack there is usually a great deal of outrage at the fact that the attacker(s) targeted and killed civilians and rightfully so. However, when terrorist attacks against civilians are perpetrated by “their” side they’re willing to either justify the action at necessary or unavoidable or they throw the entire incident down a memory hole:

Air strikes carried out by the US and its coalition partners in Syria have killed the highest number of civilians on record since the bombing campaign began, a war monitor has said.

A total of 225 civilians, including 36 women and 44 children, were killed in the period between 23 April to 23 May, the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

No combatant is innocent in war.

Middle East attackers have killed a lot of civilians in the United States and Europe and the United States and its European allies have killed a lot of civilians in the the Middle East. Unfortunately, people living in the United States and Europe have a tendency to look the other way when their militaries kill civilians. I’m sure that a lot of people in the Middle East also have a tendency to look the other way when their militaries kill civilians. Justifying or ignoring the crimes of your tribe while condemning the same crimes of another tribe is common human behavior, which is also why we can’t have nice things.

Without Government Who Will Provide Services to Those in Need

Without government who will provide services to those in need? Anarchists:

ATHENS — It may seem paradoxical, but Greece’s anarchists are organizing like never before.

Seven years of austerity policies and a more recent refugee crisis have left the government with fewer and fewer resources, offering citizens less and less. Many have lost faith. Some who never had faith in the first place are taking matters into their own hands, to the chagrin of the authorities.

[…]

Whatever the means, since 2008 scores of “self-managing social centers” have mushroomed across Greece, financed by private donations and the proceeds from regularly scheduled concerts, exhibitions and on-site bars, most of which are open to the public. There are now around 250 nationwide.

Some activists have focused on food and medicine handouts as poverty has deepened and public services have collapsed.

In recent months, anarchists and leftist groups have trained special energy on housing refugees who flooded into Greece in 2015 and who have been bottled up in the country since the European Union and Balkan nations tightened their borders. Some 3,000 of these refugees now live in 15 abandoned buildings that have been taken over by anarchists in the capital.

Without government who will build the roads? Who will care for the homeless? Who will care for the elderly? These are questions statists ask because they believe they shut down the conversation. They think that providing those goods and services is so complex that only a government can do them and therefore any arguments against government can be dismissed with a wave of the hand. However, every good and service that is provided by government was previously provided by nongovernmental entities. When governments collapse those goods and services are again handled by nongovernmental entities. Why? Because people see a need for those goods and services and therefore find a way to provide them.

Is It OK to Disassociate with a Nazi

Voluntary association is a touchy subject here in the United States. Most people seem to believe that an individual has the right to associate with or disassociate from whoever they please… until they start a business. Once they start a business they can only disassociate from approved individuals. What makes this phenomenon more fascinating is how a lot of people will cheer such restriction when the people being disassociated with subscribe to ideologies they hate and then decry the very same restrictions when the people being disassociated with subscribe to ideologies they like.

When a Christian bakers wishes to disassociate with a gay couple who want to buy a wedding cake a lot of people scream bloody murder. But when a national socialist is booted from a gym the very same people cheer:

An Alexandria gym terminated the membership of white nationalist Richard Spencer last week after he was confronted by a Georgetown University professor who recognized him and lambasted him over his alt-right views.

Is it OK to disassociate with a Nazi? I believe it is. The only way you can truly be considered the owner of yourself is if you are allowed to choose who you associate and disassociate with. If you, for example, want to disassociate with somebody but a government steps in and says you have to associate with that individual can you really say that you own yourself or are you the property of the government?