PART 2: MORAL LIMITS ON AGGRESSION
In
the duality model, some aggression (broadly defined) is necessary, and therefore proper. A boundary between proper and improper aggression may be defined based on the difference between offense and defense. This is self-evidently a key principle for objectively distinguishing between acceptable and unacceptable use of force or fraud. Condemning
offensive aggression is at the heart of the non-aggression principle. Without such condemnation, any defense of oneself or others could be deemed morally improper; or conversely, any sort of violence or fraud could be deemed morally acceptable. It can sometimes be difficult to distinguish between offense and defense, but that is a different question.
Another important limiting principle is necessity. Under the principle of necessity, force is improper to the extent that it exceeds what is necessary for defense, under the circumstances. Again, precise line-drawing may be difficult particularly when the defender is enduring an attack, but necessity is nonetheless a useful moral principal. Without it, unnecessary violence and fraud is morally permissible. Necessity does not require that the defender always retreat, because, among other things retreat may entail immediately placing the defender at greater risk of harm. It should, however, prevent a defender from killing or unnecessarily injuring a clearly retreating or neutralized attacker, under almost all circumstances.
Proportionality can be seen as an aspect of necessity. Under proportionality, the degree of force employed should be proportional to the reasonably perceived attack or imminent threat. If, for example, a persistent person keeps tugging at my sleeve despite my warning to stop, escalating immediately to deadly force is not justified if no deadly threat can reasonably be perceived. Pushing the bothersome person away or slapping his hand might be a proportionate use of force, under these circumstance, even if a more peaceful approach would be more diplomatic. That which is disproportionate is unnecessary, and vice-versa.
Thus, two essential principles limiting principles are evident, summed up in the saying that aggression, to be proper, must be necessary for defense.
Under the defensive principle, improper
aggression categorically excludes the use of offensive force. How can defense be distinguished from offense? By whether the action is directed towards preservation, or expansion. Defense cannot
expand the defender or anyone whom the defender intends to benefit: not the defender's influence or access to
resources, not the defender's control over territory or people, not the
defender's money, not anything tending to increase the defender or somebody whom the defender intends to benefit. The
best that defense can do is expend resources and take risks to defend against aggression, or restore what was wrongfully taken by aggression. If the application of force
increases the defender or any of his intended beneficiaries beyond a reasonable point of restoration, it is not defense. It
is offense. It is something that justifies an aggressive defense by the person on whom the force is perpetrated.
When libertarians express the non-aggression principle as forbidding
initiation of force "for political or social goals," they are providing a
more tangible but limited expression of the underlying principle.
Political and social goals are merely limited examples of non-defensive
purposes in the context of state action. They are important examples, nonetheless, because state-sponsored aggression
is so often justified for some supposedly "greater good" of a particular
social outcome, such as more even distribution of wealth or health
care. Such supposed greater goods inevitably involve directing property, political power, or both to some favored person or class of persons, and away from the victims of the state-sponsored aggression. Because such aggression increases some to the detriment of others without any legitimate justification for being merely restorative, it is inherently offensive and therefore condemned by the non-aggression principle.
All defense requires an aggressor against whom the defense is made. By the same principle, aggression against innocent parties is always offensive. This principle limits the use of aggression to recover wrongfully taken property. When aggression is justified for restoration of stolen property, such justification does not extend beyond those who actually stole the property or knowingly received it as such. And the rule of necessity still applies to acts of recovery. The moral right to aggress to recover stolen property does not extend, for example, to the thief's descendants who unknowingly receive stolen property after the thief's estate is dissolved, or to bona-fide innocent acquirers of stolen property. To provide a more concrete example, suppose a car thief steals a car, sells it to a "fence" who after professionally changing the registration numbers and providing a clean title, in turn sells it to an innocent purchaser. The victim's right of restoration is preserved against the thief and the fence, but the victim has no moral right to steal the car back from the innocent purchaser or even to sue the innocent purchaser for restoration, assuming that the innocent purchaser is truly innocent. Such limits are necessary to prevent aggression against innocent people and perpetuation of endless cycles of violence based on claims of ancient wrongdoing. The children cannot be judged for the sins of their parents. That is not to say the children should not sometimes be expected to voluntarily redress the sins of their parents, or that all present claims to property must be respected. It is merely to say that restoration cannot justify aggression against innocent parties.
The one who strikes first should not automatically be considered the offender. It is sometimes claimed that "the best defense is a good offense." Whatever is commonly meant by this saying, if the use of force is necessary for defense, it is by definition not offense, but defense. For example, if a person who has made known his aggressive intention is preparing a weapon for an imminent attack, it may be merely defensive to aggressively neutralize the threat prior to the weapon being used, depending on whether or not it is reasonable for the defender to conclude she is under an imminent threat of attack. A proactive attack may be defensive or offensive, depending on the circumstances. If facing a pointed gun, the defender is not morally required to wait until the bullet is fired.
Great evils can and do come from an inability or unwillingness to draw reasonable distinctions between offense and defense. Such evils often deliberately arise through politically-motivated propaganda directed at a credulous populace. Persons who cannot or will not make reasonable distinctions
between offense and defense are likely to commit an offense against their neighbors, without understanding their own moral depravity. And when their neighbors counter attack in justifiable defense, the original attackers are outraged, and defend passionately. And so they and
their neighbors are at angry war with one another. This is evil, and
unnecessary.
A person's erroneous belief that political constructs such as "defending freedom," or "preserving law and order" justify acts of violence beyond what is necessary for the person's own defense or the defense of the persons on whose behalf he acts, is no less culpable for the error. The soldiers or policemen who violate the non-aggression principle, or the politicians who direct their minions to do so, are not excused by virtue of their agency for the state. On the contrary, any person who claims the moral or legal authority to act as an agent of the exclusive powers claimed by the state should be held to a higher standard, by virtue of their claim to exclusive powers. In reality, due to the morally corrupting nature of power, the likelihood that aggression will be exercised morally is inversely related to the amount of power held by the aggressor. The more power, the less morality. Monopoly claims of state power inherently violate the non-aggression principle, at least by forbidding otherwise justifiable aggression by any agency that is not licensed by the state. The growth of state power inevitably results in massive disregard for any restraining moral precepts such as the non-aggression principle by state actors. Immense and incalculable suffering results.
Sometimes it is difficult for reasonable persons to discern
between defense and offense or the limits of necessity, which may lead to mistaken acts of aggression. For example, unjustified force may be used by someone who is understandably mistaken about the underlying facts. Rational people should be capable of
recognizing mistaken aggression, at some point, and break the cycle
of violence by forgiving errors. Forgiveness should be possible when the original error is understandable under the circumstances. Whether or not the aggression is forgivable, once the aggression is finished, the persons harmed should receive
just compensation, but not a right to
retaliation. Vengeance and retaliation are simply aggression motivated
by anger.
Much aggression is, of course, deliberate and offensive. Sometimes the aggressor aims to increase her interests beyond mere restoration. Such aggression is simply improper offense under the non-aggression principle, and should be condemned in all circumstances. Whatever the intent of the aggressor, the use of violence as a tool for grabbing a greater share of wealth is inherently counter-productive. Where violence is employed, the opportunities for wealth-building cooperation between the parties are forfeited.
Not all deliberate aggression is intended to increase the aggressor. Purely defensive violence, by definition, does not increase the aggressor. If intentional violence harms the person on whom it is inflicted without increasing the aggressor and without being clearly necessary for defense, it may be considered wanton. Wanton aggression is a purer form of evil, because it more
efficiently destroys social order. Not only does it cause unnecessary harm without any intended benefit,
but also provokes more intense outrage that is more likely to cause blow-back and perpetuate a cycle of violence. Carefully distinguishing between what is truly necessary for defense, and what is not, is an important moral duty. Mistakes are likely to provoke justifiable outrage, leading to a cycle of violence.
Under the duality model, unnecessary
suffering is avoided by balancing the polarities of a duality. In Part I of this essay, aggression and property rights are conceived as opposite poles of a duality. Part II argues that under the non-aggression principle, certain limits on aggression are necessary to preserve social order. For example, to avoid perpetuating cycles of aggression and suffering, it is necessary to forbear from all aggression except what is necessary for defense, avoid mistaken acts of aggression by carefully distinguishing between
defense and offense, forbear from restorative aggression against innocent parties, and forgive mistakes once just compensation is paid. These are essential aspects of the non-aggression principle.
Observance of the non-aggression principle, although necessary for lasting social order, is not sufficient. Part III will argue that limits on property rights are of complementary importance to the non-aggression principle for reducing suffering, and suggest some principles for discerning such limits.
Friday, October 4, 2013
Tuesday, September 10, 2013
Open-Source Law: An Introduction
Open source works great for software development, why not also for development of laws? In open source software development, a self-organizing group of volunteer programmers develops an application cooperatively. This may include defining an application program interface through which independent programmers can extend the functionality of the core application by developing plug-in modules. The resulting application and plug-ins are typically distributed for free, or for a nominal fee. As the user base grows, more developers are attracted and extend the functionality of the program further. Although the developers receive little or no fees for their programming services, a large and growing user base creates demand for the developers’ expert services such as, for example, training, consulting, or simply using the software for various purposes. Thus, developers are incentivized to create useful software for free distribution.
A similar model might be used to build a database or “evolutionary canon” of laws for voluntary adoption by individuals. A set of individuals that adopts the same law is defined as a community; no law is considered applicable to a person until voluntarily adopted by her. In this way, dispersed communities of voluntaryists can form around alternative sets of laws published in the evolutionary canon, without any need for formal agreements or other pre-existing relationships between members of the community.
Creating law around which communities subsequently form might be referred to as a “law first” model, as opposed to a traditional “community first” model in which the communities first form and the law develops afterwards. While the “law first” and “community first” models can happily coexist, the “law first” model enjoys the advantage that laws cannot be imposed by an elite group of law makers. By definition, in a law first, open source model, a person may adopt any law that is publicly expressed and not inconsistent with the core ethical principles of voluntarism, and no law that is not personally and voluntarily adopted by the person to whom it is applied is considered valid. An elite can find no advantage in the law first model except what is achievable by non-coercive, honest persuasion.
Persons who cannot find a law to their liking in the evolutionary canon are free to write their own law and add it to the canon. Disputes between persons belonging to the same community are handled by the law of the community. Disputes between persons from different communities are handled by choosing or defining the applicable law according to a predefined “conflict of law” rule. The conflict of law rule may be universally applicable to all communities, or particular to two or more specific communities.
Conflict of law rules are an essential and potentially complex feature of voluntary law, deserving of more detailed treatment than can be provided in this brief introductory essay. A prototype universal conflict of law rule has recently been published at www.vlda.org, with commentary. A system of economically sophisticated voluntary laws, logically connected by conflict of law rules, may support development of complex and economically powerful, interlinked communities of voluntaryists.
Ethical laws are necessarily characterized by compliance with certain essential principles. Each school will ensure that the law it publishes complies with the stated ethical principles of the school. The Voluntary Law Development Association (www.vlda.org) adheres to the principles of non-aggression, equality under the law, and statelessness. “Non-aggression” means that the use of coercion or fraud, except to the extent reasonably necessary to protect one’s person or property, gives rise to an actionable claim. Equality under the law means that the definition of personhood and the outcome of any claim cannot be predicated on arbitrary personal attributes such as, for example, color of skin, sexual preference, gender, or genetic makeup. Statelessness means total independence from any institution that claims or exercises a monopoly over the provision, adjudication, or enforcement of law. Socially transformative and many-branched legal systems may grow out of this single ethical seed.
In a fundamental sense, statelessness is merely a specific aspect of the non-aggression principle. However, in a less fundamental sense statelessness means enforcing a strict separation from statist institutions, even in those instances where the statist rule at issue does not directly offend the non-aggression principle. Under the principle of statelessness, dispute resolution forums applying voluntary law will not hear or consider any claim or defense based on statist laws, any more than statist law courts would apply voluntary laws. Enforcement mechanisms would likewise be strictly separate. This separateness enforces a choice on claimants: enforce your claim against other voluntary law society members using the mechanisms afforded by voluntary law, or bring your claim in a statist court and forfeit your reputation in all voluntary law societies that embrace the stateless ethic.
These core ethical principles cannot be fundamentally contradicted without destroying the voluntary, globally applicable and radically transformative character of the law to be developed. However, reasonable differences of opinion may exist at the margins, for example, over the precise definitions of “person,” “property,” and other foundational concepts. It should be possible to reconcile laws based on variations in the core ethical principles using conflict of law rules. For example, a rule may specify that claims are generally limited to those possible under the law adopted by the defending party. Such a rule may ensure that each person can enforce his morally preferred law against members of the same community, without being subject to claims based on more onerous law held by members of other communities.
Many different “schools” or voluntary law development communities may form and publish systems of voluntary laws. Such schools will find it to their advantage to avoid being isolated from competing schools, and may cooperate to develop universities of alternative legal schools in competition to produce laws of superior elegance and utility, while working out conflict of law solutions for as many scenarios as can be imagined. At a minimum, to avoid isolation and resulting irrelevance, schools will want to harmonize the organization of their own legal offerings with others, so that users may customize their laws by selecting laws from different schools without worrying about the laws being in conflict with one another. Just about the only requirement that should be laid on individuals customizing their own laws, apart from reasonable compliance with core ethical principles, is that whatever law an individual adopts be clearly defined and free of self-contradictory statements. Individuals adopting a system of law that is self-contradictory should be held responsible for any resulting ambiguity.
In the law-first model, common-law notions of judge-made law do not exist. Judge-made law is nothing other than law imposed without consent, and is therefore invalid. That said, legal reasoning used to reach a decision based on a particular set of facts may be considered a persuasive but not controlling factor in subsequent decisions, depending on the reputation of the decision maker. Likewise, published amendments to the law are not effective for, or against, any person who has not specifically and personally adopted the amended law. These qualities suggest that voluntary law is likely to be considerably more stable than statist law, because each amendment splits the community. Voluntary law will not be adopted by large numbers of people until it is sufficiently mature to have developed claims, remedies and defenses at a level of specificity that a large number of users are comfortable with. Put another way, voluntary law may be expected to develop relatively rapidly (given adequate resources) with few adopters until it hits a “sweet spot” of generally-preferred ambiguity and elegance. After that point, the adoptive community swells rapidly and further development of the law may generally be limited to adjusting for seismic shifts in community circumstances or preferences.
The speed at which voluntary law can be developed and the power of the resulting law is entirely dependent on the quality of the human resources committed. Early in the development process, financial needs are trivial and easily met. Less easy to secure are the interest and participation of the greatest minds now working in the area of anarchist or libertarian social philosophy, law, and economics. The author is well aware of his own limited abilities, and is only promoting the VLDA because he could not find anyone else doing something similar. Will some of the notable libertarian social philosophers of our generation contribute any of their energies directly to this effort, or parallel efforts? Signs point to yes, but it is too early to know for sure. Whether or not any of the respected thought leaders will directly participate, the success of voluntary law development will depend mainly on the passion, dedication, and writing abilities of the young. It is their future livelihoods and prosperity that are most at stake. Whatever your age, if you have read this far and share any of the passion and vision expressed in this essay, consider this a call to action. Simply send an email to info@vlda.org with a little information about yourself and how you’d like to contribute, and I’ll be in touch. Or just provide your thoughtful comments at www.vlda.org, send in your own laws for posting there, or post your laws elsewhere and send us a link.
The VLDA and similar efforts needs legal writers (anyone capable of good legal writing, regardless of state certification), commentators, critics, website developers and administrators, promoters, translators, resource managers, and executive board members. The VLDA is not (as of now) actually an association, incorporated or unincorporated, of any kind. It has no income, does not accept monetary contributions, and maintains no roster of membership. The VLDA is not a service provider, and does not aspire to be. The VLDA aspires to be a grassroots, curated community of writers and reviewers, not unlike a wiki. If that can be achieved, greater things may follow.
Among the great things that may follow is the flourishing of various independent voluntary law service providers, servicing the needs of communities that form around voluntary laws. Such services may include, for example, hosts of dispute resolution services, investigators, jurors and judges of various types, record-keeping services and registries, enforcement services, reputation certification services, advocates, counselors, and other service providers not yet imagined. As high quality services are more dependent on expertise, ethics, efficiency and customer service than on great concentrations of tangible capital, small and nimble service providers may out-compete highly capitalized and vertically integrated companies. With luck and perseverance, a rich eco-system of competitive service providers may arise that, free of state restrictions, far surpasses the rather pitiful achievements of statist legal systems in bringing a higher degree of justice to human relations.
If stateless society is ever to triumph over the state, it will be via the development of superior economic power by distributed communities with sophisticated trading relationships and stable alternative legal systems, coupled with the inevitable decline of social institutions based on the coercive power of social elites. The evolutionary canon of voluntary law has the potential to negate social divisions, by accommodating a wide variety of non-sociopathic moral preferences, instead of imposing one moral preference on everyone. The resulting social unity minimizes waste and social disruption caused by political battles over the right to impose one moral preference on others, not to mention squabbling over plunder. Meanwhile, a market-driven level of specificity and sophistication of voluntary law should facilitate complex transactions between diverse communities, enabling high degrees of labor specialization. Coupled with disruptive technologies such as crypto-currency, crypto-identity, and other breakthroughs, networks of voluntary law societies operating under economically efficient principles for allocation of scarce resources should develop superior technologies capable of being secured against violent expropriation by states and their antiquated wealth-destroying institutions. Thus, individuals will be attracted to voluntary law societies to enjoy access to a quality of life, services, and technologies as these things become of increasingly poorer quality for the subjects of state. Once a certain tipping point is reached, the momentum towards statelessness may become unstoppable.
To the skeptics of liberty, such visions are merely impractical dreams of a far distant or unachievable world. Voluntary law development may therefore seem to be merely an academic exercise, albeit one hopefully directed to a practical and socially beneficial goal. Whatever the outcome of this exercise, it is nonetheless worthy of our energies; it is an experiment directed towards demonstrating the venerable truths that the pen is mightier than the sword, and just words can change the world.
A similar model might be used to build a database or “evolutionary canon” of laws for voluntary adoption by individuals. A set of individuals that adopts the same law is defined as a community; no law is considered applicable to a person until voluntarily adopted by her. In this way, dispersed communities of voluntaryists can form around alternative sets of laws published in the evolutionary canon, without any need for formal agreements or other pre-existing relationships between members of the community.
Creating law around which communities subsequently form might be referred to as a “law first” model, as opposed to a traditional “community first” model in which the communities first form and the law develops afterwards. While the “law first” and “community first” models can happily coexist, the “law first” model enjoys the advantage that laws cannot be imposed by an elite group of law makers. By definition, in a law first, open source model, a person may adopt any law that is publicly expressed and not inconsistent with the core ethical principles of voluntarism, and no law that is not personally and voluntarily adopted by the person to whom it is applied is considered valid. An elite can find no advantage in the law first model except what is achievable by non-coercive, honest persuasion.
Persons who cannot find a law to their liking in the evolutionary canon are free to write their own law and add it to the canon. Disputes between persons belonging to the same community are handled by the law of the community. Disputes between persons from different communities are handled by choosing or defining the applicable law according to a predefined “conflict of law” rule. The conflict of law rule may be universally applicable to all communities, or particular to two or more specific communities.
Conflict of law rules are an essential and potentially complex feature of voluntary law, deserving of more detailed treatment than can be provided in this brief introductory essay. A prototype universal conflict of law rule has recently been published at www.vlda.org, with commentary. A system of economically sophisticated voluntary laws, logically connected by conflict of law rules, may support development of complex and economically powerful, interlinked communities of voluntaryists.
Ethical laws are necessarily characterized by compliance with certain essential principles. Each school will ensure that the law it publishes complies with the stated ethical principles of the school. The Voluntary Law Development Association (www.vlda.org) adheres to the principles of non-aggression, equality under the law, and statelessness. “Non-aggression” means that the use of coercion or fraud, except to the extent reasonably necessary to protect one’s person or property, gives rise to an actionable claim. Equality under the law means that the definition of personhood and the outcome of any claim cannot be predicated on arbitrary personal attributes such as, for example, color of skin, sexual preference, gender, or genetic makeup. Statelessness means total independence from any institution that claims or exercises a monopoly over the provision, adjudication, or enforcement of law. Socially transformative and many-branched legal systems may grow out of this single ethical seed.
In a fundamental sense, statelessness is merely a specific aspect of the non-aggression principle. However, in a less fundamental sense statelessness means enforcing a strict separation from statist institutions, even in those instances where the statist rule at issue does not directly offend the non-aggression principle. Under the principle of statelessness, dispute resolution forums applying voluntary law will not hear or consider any claim or defense based on statist laws, any more than statist law courts would apply voluntary laws. Enforcement mechanisms would likewise be strictly separate. This separateness enforces a choice on claimants: enforce your claim against other voluntary law society members using the mechanisms afforded by voluntary law, or bring your claim in a statist court and forfeit your reputation in all voluntary law societies that embrace the stateless ethic.
These core ethical principles cannot be fundamentally contradicted without destroying the voluntary, globally applicable and radically transformative character of the law to be developed. However, reasonable differences of opinion may exist at the margins, for example, over the precise definitions of “person,” “property,” and other foundational concepts. It should be possible to reconcile laws based on variations in the core ethical principles using conflict of law rules. For example, a rule may specify that claims are generally limited to those possible under the law adopted by the defending party. Such a rule may ensure that each person can enforce his morally preferred law against members of the same community, without being subject to claims based on more onerous law held by members of other communities.
Many different “schools” or voluntary law development communities may form and publish systems of voluntary laws. Such schools will find it to their advantage to avoid being isolated from competing schools, and may cooperate to develop universities of alternative legal schools in competition to produce laws of superior elegance and utility, while working out conflict of law solutions for as many scenarios as can be imagined. At a minimum, to avoid isolation and resulting irrelevance, schools will want to harmonize the organization of their own legal offerings with others, so that users may customize their laws by selecting laws from different schools without worrying about the laws being in conflict with one another. Just about the only requirement that should be laid on individuals customizing their own laws, apart from reasonable compliance with core ethical principles, is that whatever law an individual adopts be clearly defined and free of self-contradictory statements. Individuals adopting a system of law that is self-contradictory should be held responsible for any resulting ambiguity.
In the law-first model, common-law notions of judge-made law do not exist. Judge-made law is nothing other than law imposed without consent, and is therefore invalid. That said, legal reasoning used to reach a decision based on a particular set of facts may be considered a persuasive but not controlling factor in subsequent decisions, depending on the reputation of the decision maker. Likewise, published amendments to the law are not effective for, or against, any person who has not specifically and personally adopted the amended law. These qualities suggest that voluntary law is likely to be considerably more stable than statist law, because each amendment splits the community. Voluntary law will not be adopted by large numbers of people until it is sufficiently mature to have developed claims, remedies and defenses at a level of specificity that a large number of users are comfortable with. Put another way, voluntary law may be expected to develop relatively rapidly (given adequate resources) with few adopters until it hits a “sweet spot” of generally-preferred ambiguity and elegance. After that point, the adoptive community swells rapidly and further development of the law may generally be limited to adjusting for seismic shifts in community circumstances or preferences.
The speed at which voluntary law can be developed and the power of the resulting law is entirely dependent on the quality of the human resources committed. Early in the development process, financial needs are trivial and easily met. Less easy to secure are the interest and participation of the greatest minds now working in the area of anarchist or libertarian social philosophy, law, and economics. The author is well aware of his own limited abilities, and is only promoting the VLDA because he could not find anyone else doing something similar. Will some of the notable libertarian social philosophers of our generation contribute any of their energies directly to this effort, or parallel efforts? Signs point to yes, but it is too early to know for sure. Whether or not any of the respected thought leaders will directly participate, the success of voluntary law development will depend mainly on the passion, dedication, and writing abilities of the young. It is their future livelihoods and prosperity that are most at stake. Whatever your age, if you have read this far and share any of the passion and vision expressed in this essay, consider this a call to action. Simply send an email to info@vlda.org with a little information about yourself and how you’d like to contribute, and I’ll be in touch. Or just provide your thoughtful comments at www.vlda.org, send in your own laws for posting there, or post your laws elsewhere and send us a link.
The VLDA and similar efforts needs legal writers (anyone capable of good legal writing, regardless of state certification), commentators, critics, website developers and administrators, promoters, translators, resource managers, and executive board members. The VLDA is not (as of now) actually an association, incorporated or unincorporated, of any kind. It has no income, does not accept monetary contributions, and maintains no roster of membership. The VLDA is not a service provider, and does not aspire to be. The VLDA aspires to be a grassroots, curated community of writers and reviewers, not unlike a wiki. If that can be achieved, greater things may follow.
Among the great things that may follow is the flourishing of various independent voluntary law service providers, servicing the needs of communities that form around voluntary laws. Such services may include, for example, hosts of dispute resolution services, investigators, jurors and judges of various types, record-keeping services and registries, enforcement services, reputation certification services, advocates, counselors, and other service providers not yet imagined. As high quality services are more dependent on expertise, ethics, efficiency and customer service than on great concentrations of tangible capital, small and nimble service providers may out-compete highly capitalized and vertically integrated companies. With luck and perseverance, a rich eco-system of competitive service providers may arise that, free of state restrictions, far surpasses the rather pitiful achievements of statist legal systems in bringing a higher degree of justice to human relations.
If stateless society is ever to triumph over the state, it will be via the development of superior economic power by distributed communities with sophisticated trading relationships and stable alternative legal systems, coupled with the inevitable decline of social institutions based on the coercive power of social elites. The evolutionary canon of voluntary law has the potential to negate social divisions, by accommodating a wide variety of non-sociopathic moral preferences, instead of imposing one moral preference on everyone. The resulting social unity minimizes waste and social disruption caused by political battles over the right to impose one moral preference on others, not to mention squabbling over plunder. Meanwhile, a market-driven level of specificity and sophistication of voluntary law should facilitate complex transactions between diverse communities, enabling high degrees of labor specialization. Coupled with disruptive technologies such as crypto-currency, crypto-identity, and other breakthroughs, networks of voluntary law societies operating under economically efficient principles for allocation of scarce resources should develop superior technologies capable of being secured against violent expropriation by states and their antiquated wealth-destroying institutions. Thus, individuals will be attracted to voluntary law societies to enjoy access to a quality of life, services, and technologies as these things become of increasingly poorer quality for the subjects of state. Once a certain tipping point is reached, the momentum towards statelessness may become unstoppable.
To the skeptics of liberty, such visions are merely impractical dreams of a far distant or unachievable world. Voluntary law development may therefore seem to be merely an academic exercise, albeit one hopefully directed to a practical and socially beneficial goal. Whatever the outcome of this exercise, it is nonetheless worthy of our energies; it is an experiment directed towards demonstrating the venerable truths that the pen is mightier than the sword, and just words can change the world.
Tuesday, July 30, 2013
Part I: The Aggressor-Owner Duality and Restraints On Property
PART 1: THE AGGRESSOR-OWNER DUALITY
The non-aggression principle is pretty well accepted by anarchists/voluntaryists of all stripes, on the right or the left. Let's just assume it's unassailable in certain circles. But there is much disagreement over property rights. To name just a few issues, should a society based on the non-aggression principle recognize public (collectively owned) property? Intangible (e.g., "intellectual") property? Voluntary indentured servitude? What are the limits of private property and how do property rights arise? These are difficult issues, and it's only right that so much controversy exists over them.
Moral precepts underlying the limits and sources of property rights beyond an individual's ownership of her own body suffer from a certain lack of universal acceptance. The homesteading and fruit of your own labor precepts are useful, but lacking in certain ways. For example, the homesteading precept is quite friendly to accrual of monarchies over vast territories, having really nothing to say about monopolization of resources by accumulation. Taken to its logical extreme, an absolute monarchy subverts the non-aggression principle by making everybody else a serf or criminal trespasser of the property rights held by the monarch. In addition, there can be disagreement about what it means to homestead. For its part, the fruit of one's own labor precept runs into difficult problems when the meaning of "fruit" and "labor" are examined closely. In complex societies with division of labor, the extent of the fruits of one's own labor is not so clear, for example. Furthermore, the precept fails when the labor is a form of aggression, or depends on conditions created by exercise of aggression in some way, or when property is not produced by labor.
What additional moral precepts might be applied to the origination, extent and enforcement of property rights without departing from the voluntaryist paradigm? The history of human societies includes cycles of oppression and prosperity arising out of a struggle between aggressors and producers or victims. Perhaps it is not so absurd to conceive of an Aggressor-Owner Duality in society as a sort of Yin-Yang balance, which when out of balance causes suffering. If we seek a society in which less human suffering occurs, perhaps thinking about ways to harmonize proper defensive use of aggression and ownership in a stable balance may provide useful moral insights into property rights.
For the purpose of this essay, aggression is defined as the application of coercion or deceit, without regard to whether the application is morally justified. Coercion includes force or the threat of force, and deceit includes theft or fraud. As used in this essay, property applies to anything about which a claim of ownership is made, regardless of whether the claim is morally justified. These may be broader than conventional definitions, so please pay attention.
There are at least two kinds of duality models, opposite pairs and complementary pairs. In an opposite duality, extinguishing one of the pair causes the other to predominate. The Light-Darkness Duality is an example. Extinguishing light causes darkness to dominate, and vice-versa. When either side of an opposite duality dominates (that is, a prior balance of the elements changes), the utility of the duality suffers. For example, too much light can impair sight just as too much darkness, at least until the instrument of vision adapts to the change. In a complementary duality, extinguishing one of the pair extinguishes the other. The Male-Female Duality is an example. Extinguishing the Female destroys the Male, and vice-versa. The predominance of one complement is by necessity unsustainable, and therefore temporary.
In the Aggressor-Owner duality, neither side of the duality can exist without the other; each motivates the other. The duality is therefore of a complementary type. This duality can exist in two opposite modes, in an enlightened mode and in an unenlightened (unbalanced) mode. In the unbalanced mode, it might be called the Oppressor-Victim duality. In the unbalanced duality, coercion (force and the threat of force), deceit (e.g., theft or fraud), or both are used by oppressors to plunder whatever can be taken from victims. In the enlightened mode, aggression is used only to defend justified property rights, and no unjustified claims of property are made.
The Aggressor-Owner Duality in the unbalanced mode can be regarded as a pathology of society, because it causes avoidable suffering. To cure the pathology, balance the polarities. The Aggressor must renounce and forsake improper aggression: coercion, theft and deceit for any unjustified reason. The Owner must not make any inappropriate claim of ownership. Both restraints are equally necessary for the duality to operate in an enlightened state.
When the unbalanced mode of the duality predominates, society as a whole is weakened, the creation of wealth is diminished, and suffering increases for most members of the society. Nonetheless the continuance of the society depends on the victims producing more than necessary to sustain their own existence, and permitting the oppressors to take the surplus by aggression. Conversely the oppressors must restrain themselves from taking more than what is surplus from the victims, or else suffer a diminution in the productive capacity of the victim class. In the unbalanced mode the victims are owned, for all practical purposes if not openly, as property by the aggressors. As such, owners are making property claims that are unjustified and socially deleterious. Even if the aggressor class restrains itself to stealing the surplus, production of wealth by the society is less than it could be. The aggressors are too busy aggressing to produce anything of value, and the victims are robbed of incentive to produce any surplus, except what must be done to avoid the lash, real or metaphorical.
Let's assume that the greatest good is obtained when a society is operating in an enlightened state. Most owners and most aggressors are better off; only a few may be worse off. A society reaches an enlightened state when a predominate majority of its members recognizes economically effective limits on aggression and on property rights. In Parts II and III of this series, I'll suggest some limits on aggression and property, respectively.
The non-aggression principle is pretty well accepted by anarchists/voluntaryists of all stripes, on the right or the left. Let's just assume it's unassailable in certain circles. But there is much disagreement over property rights. To name just a few issues, should a society based on the non-aggression principle recognize public (collectively owned) property? Intangible (e.g., "intellectual") property? Voluntary indentured servitude? What are the limits of private property and how do property rights arise? These are difficult issues, and it's only right that so much controversy exists over them.
Moral precepts underlying the limits and sources of property rights beyond an individual's ownership of her own body suffer from a certain lack of universal acceptance. The homesteading and fruit of your own labor precepts are useful, but lacking in certain ways. For example, the homesteading precept is quite friendly to accrual of monarchies over vast territories, having really nothing to say about monopolization of resources by accumulation. Taken to its logical extreme, an absolute monarchy subverts the non-aggression principle by making everybody else a serf or criminal trespasser of the property rights held by the monarch. In addition, there can be disagreement about what it means to homestead. For its part, the fruit of one's own labor precept runs into difficult problems when the meaning of "fruit" and "labor" are examined closely. In complex societies with division of labor, the extent of the fruits of one's own labor is not so clear, for example. Furthermore, the precept fails when the labor is a form of aggression, or depends on conditions created by exercise of aggression in some way, or when property is not produced by labor.
What additional moral precepts might be applied to the origination, extent and enforcement of property rights without departing from the voluntaryist paradigm? The history of human societies includes cycles of oppression and prosperity arising out of a struggle between aggressors and producers or victims. Perhaps it is not so absurd to conceive of an Aggressor-Owner Duality in society as a sort of Yin-Yang balance, which when out of balance causes suffering. If we seek a society in which less human suffering occurs, perhaps thinking about ways to harmonize proper defensive use of aggression and ownership in a stable balance may provide useful moral insights into property rights.
For the purpose of this essay, aggression is defined as the application of coercion or deceit, without regard to whether the application is morally justified. Coercion includes force or the threat of force, and deceit includes theft or fraud. As used in this essay, property applies to anything about which a claim of ownership is made, regardless of whether the claim is morally justified. These may be broader than conventional definitions, so please pay attention.
There are at least two kinds of duality models, opposite pairs and complementary pairs. In an opposite duality, extinguishing one of the pair causes the other to predominate. The Light-Darkness Duality is an example. Extinguishing light causes darkness to dominate, and vice-versa. When either side of an opposite duality dominates (that is, a prior balance of the elements changes), the utility of the duality suffers. For example, too much light can impair sight just as too much darkness, at least until the instrument of vision adapts to the change. In a complementary duality, extinguishing one of the pair extinguishes the other. The Male-Female Duality is an example. Extinguishing the Female destroys the Male, and vice-versa. The predominance of one complement is by necessity unsustainable, and therefore temporary.
In the Aggressor-Owner duality, neither side of the duality can exist without the other; each motivates the other. The duality is therefore of a complementary type. This duality can exist in two opposite modes, in an enlightened mode and in an unenlightened (unbalanced) mode. In the unbalanced mode, it might be called the Oppressor-Victim duality. In the unbalanced duality, coercion (force and the threat of force), deceit (e.g., theft or fraud), or both are used by oppressors to plunder whatever can be taken from victims. In the enlightened mode, aggression is used only to defend justified property rights, and no unjustified claims of property are made.
The Aggressor-Owner Duality in the unbalanced mode can be regarded as a pathology of society, because it causes avoidable suffering. To cure the pathology, balance the polarities. The Aggressor must renounce and forsake improper aggression: coercion, theft and deceit for any unjustified reason. The Owner must not make any inappropriate claim of ownership. Both restraints are equally necessary for the duality to operate in an enlightened state.
When the unbalanced mode of the duality predominates, society as a whole is weakened, the creation of wealth is diminished, and suffering increases for most members of the society. Nonetheless the continuance of the society depends on the victims producing more than necessary to sustain their own existence, and permitting the oppressors to take the surplus by aggression. Conversely the oppressors must restrain themselves from taking more than what is surplus from the victims, or else suffer a diminution in the productive capacity of the victim class. In the unbalanced mode the victims are owned, for all practical purposes if not openly, as property by the aggressors. As such, owners are making property claims that are unjustified and socially deleterious. Even if the aggressor class restrains itself to stealing the surplus, production of wealth by the society is less than it could be. The aggressors are too busy aggressing to produce anything of value, and the victims are robbed of incentive to produce any surplus, except what must be done to avoid the lash, real or metaphorical.
Let's assume that the greatest good is obtained when a society is operating in an enlightened state. Most owners and most aggressors are better off; only a few may be worse off. A society reaches an enlightened state when a predominate majority of its members recognizes economically effective limits on aggression and on property rights. In Parts II and III of this series, I'll suggest some limits on aggression and property, respectively.
On The Trial of Adam Kokesh
My sole qualification for this posting is as somebody who has listened to several of Mr. Kokesh's podcasts. Although I don't agree with all of his views on every topic, I agree with him on many things, and find him to be an intelligent and articulate advocate for his anarcho-capitalist views. He does not seem to me like an agent provocateur, based on his past record of civil disobedience and professed views. I am not a criminal lawyer and know nothing specifically about the laws under which he has been charged, or criminal procedure in D.C.
But hey -- this is only a blog! So my lack of qualifications should not prevent me from expressing an opinion -- or several opinions!
To make charges involving a loaded firearm in D.C. stick in the digital video editing age, the prosecution will need a witness to the video being shot in D.C.; or more exactly, to Kokesh's alleged conduct vis-a-vis the alleged illegal weapon within D.C.'s borders. It would therefore not be surprising to discover that the prosecution has gotten to somebody in the Kokesh entourage (e.g., the camera person) by threatening to bring accessory charges of some kind, in exchange for eyewitness testimony of Kokesh in D.C when the video was made and his related actions, assuming the video was actually made there and not in front of a green screen in Virginia.
If such hypothetical witness would refuse to testify it would be very difficult for the prosecution to make any kind of case against Kokesh. Unfortunately, refusing to cooperate with prosecutors threatening lengthy prison sentences and onerous fines takes courage that few people have when it matters.
The obviously politically-motivated prosecution of Kokesh is an outrageous travesty of justice. That said, Kokesh's angry video or imprisonment are unlikely to win many converts to his anarcho-capitalist views, and may well hurt his cause. Check out the comments on a MSM site reporting on this story, if you doubt. About 90% of comments label Kokesh a dangerous nut. Such are the prejudices and warped moral senses of all too many. Civil disobedience involving the right to keep and bear arms unfortunately plays into the stereotype of the dangerous and angry anarchist, with which the masses are imprinted by virtue of government-run indoctrination centers and mainstream media outlets.
No establishment power will tolerate open rebellion so long as it has the power to stop it. No surprise there. Very few or none of the liberty/Ron Paul crowd are interested in open rebellion against D.C.'s unconstitutional gun laws -- so imprisoning Kokesh will frighten no one except those very few if any who would emulate him in civilly disobeying anti-2nd amendment laws particularly. It will, however, keep Kokesh locked away and out of public discourse, if the prosecution succeeds. Not good.
There is of course plenty of open and secret rebellion in this country and elsewhere that the political establishment is essentially powerless to stop. Such chinks in the dragon's armor may be more productive places to expand personal freedoms, instead of charging the dragon head on. Mr. Kokesh is brave to do so, but no one should be surprised if more than his hair is singed.
Those wishing to donate to Adam's defense can do so here.
But hey -- this is only a blog! So my lack of qualifications should not prevent me from expressing an opinion -- or several opinions!
To make charges involving a loaded firearm in D.C. stick in the digital video editing age, the prosecution will need a witness to the video being shot in D.C.; or more exactly, to Kokesh's alleged conduct vis-a-vis the alleged illegal weapon within D.C.'s borders. It would therefore not be surprising to discover that the prosecution has gotten to somebody in the Kokesh entourage (e.g., the camera person) by threatening to bring accessory charges of some kind, in exchange for eyewitness testimony of Kokesh in D.C when the video was made and his related actions, assuming the video was actually made there and not in front of a green screen in Virginia.
If such hypothetical witness would refuse to testify it would be very difficult for the prosecution to make any kind of case against Kokesh. Unfortunately, refusing to cooperate with prosecutors threatening lengthy prison sentences and onerous fines takes courage that few people have when it matters.
The obviously politically-motivated prosecution of Kokesh is an outrageous travesty of justice. That said, Kokesh's angry video or imprisonment are unlikely to win many converts to his anarcho-capitalist views, and may well hurt his cause. Check out the comments on a MSM site reporting on this story, if you doubt. About 90% of comments label Kokesh a dangerous nut. Such are the prejudices and warped moral senses of all too many. Civil disobedience involving the right to keep and bear arms unfortunately plays into the stereotype of the dangerous and angry anarchist, with which the masses are imprinted by virtue of government-run indoctrination centers and mainstream media outlets.
No establishment power will tolerate open rebellion so long as it has the power to stop it. No surprise there. Very few or none of the liberty/Ron Paul crowd are interested in open rebellion against D.C.'s unconstitutional gun laws -- so imprisoning Kokesh will frighten no one except those very few if any who would emulate him in civilly disobeying anti-2nd amendment laws particularly. It will, however, keep Kokesh locked away and out of public discourse, if the prosecution succeeds. Not good.
There is of course plenty of open and secret rebellion in this country and elsewhere that the political establishment is essentially powerless to stop. Such chinks in the dragon's armor may be more productive places to expand personal freedoms, instead of charging the dragon head on. Mr. Kokesh is brave to do so, but no one should be surprised if more than his hair is singed.
Those wishing to donate to Adam's defense can do so here.
Sunday, June 23, 2013
Debunking the Conundrums of the Non-Aggression Principle
At http://www.libertarianism.org/blog/lifes-more-complicated-non-aggression-principle
Bruce Lindsey of the Cato Institute wrote:
Really, Mr. Lindsey? People who call themselves "libertarians" support compulsory vaccination, and government spending to "alleviate poverty" or "promote education"? These labels are getting confusing. I thought people who supported things like violent taxation for wealth distribution and collective, violent control over healthcare called themselves "progressives" or "socialists." So are you advocating that progressives and socialists start calling themselves libertarians? Or are you calling for libertarians to abandon the NAP in favor of "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need?" Or are you just disparaging the NAP as "absurd and repugnant," without any rational analysis?
Sadly Mr. Lindsey rejects the NAP as a foundational principle, and merely advocates for the statist status quo. In view of his statements on compulsory vaccination (violence) and taxation (theft), he favors the initiation of force against others so long as some notion of "collective good" is used to excuse the aggression. In his own words: "NAP fundamentalism is utterly unworkable as a basis for libertarian thought." If justifying theft and violence based on politically determined notions of the collective good is what his brand of "libertarianism" entails, count me out. The NAP remains a very useful and fundamental ethical principle for informing libertarian thought.
So what is the NAP, exactly? The Ludwig von Mises Institute provides a useful and precise definition:
Let's examine this ethical principle in view of the alleged "absurd or repugnant implications" of the NAP listed by Mr. Lindsay.
"In a mere exchange of promises there could be no NAP-consistent remedy in the event of a breach." Even statist courts generally do not enforce mere exchanges of promises if unsupported by consideration or not memorialized in writing. If all mere exchanges of promises were legally enforceable, it's not hard to imagine all sorts of absurd or repugnant outcomes. So let us suppose Mr. Lindsey is referring to commercial contracts, such as those in which one party promises to delivers a product or service by some future date, and the other party promises to pay after receiving the product or service. Assuming the parties have memorialized their exchange of promises in writing, a contract has been formed in which the terms of enforcement are either expressly written out or implied by the legal system under which the contract is made. Such terms of enforcement may (but do not necessarily) include permitting the initiation of force against a party breaching the contract. Thus, if force is properly initiated against a breaching party to a contract, there is no violation of the NAP, because the breaching party has already agreed to the initiation of force by executing the contract. That's the essence of contracts, which are absolutely not forbidden by the NAP. Whether or not the contract is based on an exchange of promises is utterly irrelevant to application of the NAP. Causing someone to execute a contract by coercion or fraud is forbidden by the NAP, but it is not otherwise concerned with how contracts are formed.
"Harboring a fugitive would not be a crime." Helping a murderer or other such criminal evade justice would certainly be actionable without violating the NAP, even if the harboring is done only after the crime is committed. A violent criminal, thief or fraudster owes recompense to his victim for the harm cause and possibly also punitive damages; hence the victim or the victim's delegate have a personal property interest in bringing the criminal to justice. A person knowingly and intentionally interfering with that property interest has initiated an improper act of aggression, and thus may be held liable for the harboring. On the other hand, if there is no victim, there is no crime, and harboring is by definition impossible.
"Neither would blackmail." It depends what is meant by "blackmail" and the circumstances under which it occurs. A threat to reveal a true fact about someone unless some compensation or behavior is forthcoming may, or may not implicate the NAP. If proof of the unsavory fact has been obtained by entrapment (i.e., fraud) or coercion (including the theft of confidential information), then the fraud or coercion is actionable under the NAP. If the unsavory fact is provable merely because a bad actor has been caught in the act, why should it be repugnant for the NAP to fail to protect the bad actor? On the other hand, if a criminal is caught in the act by somebody other than the victim (for example, if Rubie blackmails Bob, who she caught stealing Jose's chickens), then the blackmailer is aggressing on the victim's property interest by offering to cover up the evidence of the crime in exchange for some payment. In such circumstances, it would not violate the NAP to hold both the criminal responsible for his crimes, and the blackmailer responsible for her interference with the victim's property interest.
"Neither would even the most heinous cruelty to animals." Libertarians, when will you stop beating your animals??? All the libertarians I know are compassionate, gentle people who, if they keep animals, are as kind if not kinder to their animals than the general population. And I've never met or heard of a libertarian who embraced the NAP yet advocated for the repeal of all laws against cruelty to animals. The NAP is flexible enough to be expanded beyond the purely human sphere to include things such as animal rights; for example liability for cruelty to animals is perfectly consistent with the NAP when applied in a social context that recognizes animals as something more than unthinking and unfeeling objects. Put another way, while the NAP is concerned with force against persons or property, it does not define what a "person" or "property" is. In a social context where animals have certain rights, animals might enjoy an intermediate sort of protection in which the NAP could not be used as a shield to protect those who violate the recognized rights of animals from the legal consequences of their contemptible cruelties. This has nothing to do with the NAP itself; animal rights arise out of the social context in which the NAP is applied. Similarly, many ethical rules are silent on animal cruelty - for example the Golden Rule ("Do unto others as you would have them do unto you") says nothing about cruelty to animals. Hardly a reason to reject the Golden Rule as a fundamental ethical principle.
"There could be no bankruptcy law that extinguishes debts." This statement assumes that the NAP defines all debts as absolute property rights that cannot be taken away under any circumstance. But as with animal rights, it fails to recognize that the NAP does not define what "property" is. Thus, in a social context that recognizes the virtues and legality of a discharge of debt under certain limited circumstance, it would not violate the NAP to refuse to allow a creditor to enforce a debt when those limited circumstances applied.
"Tort liability for corporations would either be unlimited or nonexistent (in which case only the individual employees responsible would be liable)." If any influential libertarians advocate excusing corporations from tort liability, on the basis of the NAP or otherwise, I have never run across them. Some libertarians believe that limited corporate liability creates economic moral hazard and thus, should not be tolerated. On that basis, many libertarians support extending corporate liability to the persons individually responsible for corporate harms, in limited circumstances or more generally. Mr. Lindsey's statement is just another baseless disparagement of what libertarians supposedly believe, and is entirely unrelated to the NAP besides. The NAP says nothing about corporate tort liability, and certainly would not forbid it.
"There could be no compulsory vaccines during epidemics." After a parade of false horribles, at last we arrive at the first true statement in Mr. Lindsey's list. However, it is neither absurd nor repugnant for the NAP to forbid the compulsory injection of substances into a competent adult who objects to such invasions of her body. Nor is there any reason why this should be a problem. If there ever occurs a deathly epidemic at a time when an effective and risk-free vaccine is widely available, those very few people suffering from irrational fears of all vaccines will suffer the gravest consequences, for which they will be solely and individually responsible. And so be it. Meanwhile, since the vaccine is so effective, those who receive it will be placed at no risk at all by the refusal of the irrational minority. So why is this a problem?
"The NAP proscribes taxation as well as any government spending to alleviate poverty, promote education, or do anything else besides protecting persons and property." The second true statement in Mr. Lindsey's list. Yes, libertarians, after allegedly beating their animals, harboring fugitives, spreading disease, casting debtors in prison, breaking contracts without penalties, shielding evil corporations from tort liability, and blackmailing with glee, believe in limited government. Many even believe that the existence of government -- defined as a monopoly on the initiation of aggression in a defined jurisdiction -- is a moral evil. Long may it ever be so.
The NAP is a fundamental touchstone for libertarian thought, but is not the only principle informing libertarian thinking on sociopolitical matters. Definitions of property, trespass, harm, conditions necessary for voluntary consent or guardianship, what constitutes creation of unreasonable risk of harm and many other principles are also clearly important. The NAP can't work in a vacuum; its essence is a balancing of the freedom of action of the individual against the right of others to enjoy equivalent freedoms. Other principles are needed to define what freedom of action and curtailment of freedom consist of in different circumstances. Libertarians will probably always have some differences amongst themselves about exactly how the NAP should be applied in different circumstances, but those who advocate abandoning the NAP as a fundamental touchstone should be ashamed to call themselves libertarians.
Bruce Lindsey of the Cato Institute wrote:
In other cases, there is no escape hatch of ambiguity to rescue the NAP from absurd or repugnant implications. It seems quite clear that there could no legal enforcement of contracts in the way we are familiar with: restitution could be ordered when actual money has changed hands, but in a mere exchange of promises there could be no NAP-consistent remedy in the event of a breach. Harboring a fugitive would not be a crime. Neither would blackmail. Neither would even the most heinous cruelty to animals. There could be no bankruptcy law that extinguishes debts. Tort liability for corporations would either be unlimited or nonexistent (in which case only the individual employees responsible would be liable). There could be no compulsory vaccines during epidemics. And of course, the NAP proscribes taxation as well as any government spending to alleviate poverty, promote education, or do anything else besides protecting persons and property.
Really, Mr. Lindsey? People who call themselves "libertarians" support compulsory vaccination, and government spending to "alleviate poverty" or "promote education"? These labels are getting confusing. I thought people who supported things like violent taxation for wealth distribution and collective, violent control over healthcare called themselves "progressives" or "socialists." So are you advocating that progressives and socialists start calling themselves libertarians? Or are you calling for libertarians to abandon the NAP in favor of "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need?" Or are you just disparaging the NAP as "absurd and repugnant," without any rational analysis?
Sadly Mr. Lindsey rejects the NAP as a foundational principle, and merely advocates for the statist status quo. In view of his statements on compulsory vaccination (violence) and taxation (theft), he favors the initiation of force against others so long as some notion of "collective good" is used to excuse the aggression. In his own words: "NAP fundamentalism is utterly unworkable as a basis for libertarian thought." If justifying theft and violence based on politically determined notions of the collective good is what his brand of "libertarianism" entails, count me out. The NAP remains a very useful and fundamental ethical principle for informing libertarian thought.
So what is the NAP, exactly? The Ludwig von Mises Institute provides a useful and precise definition:
The non-aggression principle (also called the non-aggression axiom, or the anti-coercion or zero aggression principle or non-initiation of force) is an ethical stance which asserts that "aggression" is inherently illegitimate. "Aggression" is defined as the "initiation" of physical force against persons or property, the threat of such, or fraud upon persons or their property. In contrast to pacifism, the non-aggression principle does not preclude violent self-defense. The principle is a deontological (or rule-based) ethical stance.Http://wiki.mises.org/wiki/Principle_of_non-aggression (June 22, 2013).
Let's examine this ethical principle in view of the alleged "absurd or repugnant implications" of the NAP listed by Mr. Lindsay.
"In a mere exchange of promises there could be no NAP-consistent remedy in the event of a breach." Even statist courts generally do not enforce mere exchanges of promises if unsupported by consideration or not memorialized in writing. If all mere exchanges of promises were legally enforceable, it's not hard to imagine all sorts of absurd or repugnant outcomes. So let us suppose Mr. Lindsey is referring to commercial contracts, such as those in which one party promises to delivers a product or service by some future date, and the other party promises to pay after receiving the product or service. Assuming the parties have memorialized their exchange of promises in writing, a contract has been formed in which the terms of enforcement are either expressly written out or implied by the legal system under which the contract is made. Such terms of enforcement may (but do not necessarily) include permitting the initiation of force against a party breaching the contract. Thus, if force is properly initiated against a breaching party to a contract, there is no violation of the NAP, because the breaching party has already agreed to the initiation of force by executing the contract. That's the essence of contracts, which are absolutely not forbidden by the NAP. Whether or not the contract is based on an exchange of promises is utterly irrelevant to application of the NAP. Causing someone to execute a contract by coercion or fraud is forbidden by the NAP, but it is not otherwise concerned with how contracts are formed.
"Harboring a fugitive would not be a crime." Helping a murderer or other such criminal evade justice would certainly be actionable without violating the NAP, even if the harboring is done only after the crime is committed. A violent criminal, thief or fraudster owes recompense to his victim for the harm cause and possibly also punitive damages; hence the victim or the victim's delegate have a personal property interest in bringing the criminal to justice. A person knowingly and intentionally interfering with that property interest has initiated an improper act of aggression, and thus may be held liable for the harboring. On the other hand, if there is no victim, there is no crime, and harboring is by definition impossible.
"Neither would blackmail." It depends what is meant by "blackmail" and the circumstances under which it occurs. A threat to reveal a true fact about someone unless some compensation or behavior is forthcoming may, or may not implicate the NAP. If proof of the unsavory fact has been obtained by entrapment (i.e., fraud) or coercion (including the theft of confidential information), then the fraud or coercion is actionable under the NAP. If the unsavory fact is provable merely because a bad actor has been caught in the act, why should it be repugnant for the NAP to fail to protect the bad actor? On the other hand, if a criminal is caught in the act by somebody other than the victim (for example, if Rubie blackmails Bob, who she caught stealing Jose's chickens), then the blackmailer is aggressing on the victim's property interest by offering to cover up the evidence of the crime in exchange for some payment. In such circumstances, it would not violate the NAP to hold both the criminal responsible for his crimes, and the blackmailer responsible for her interference with the victim's property interest.
"Neither would even the most heinous cruelty to animals." Libertarians, when will you stop beating your animals??? All the libertarians I know are compassionate, gentle people who, if they keep animals, are as kind if not kinder to their animals than the general population. And I've never met or heard of a libertarian who embraced the NAP yet advocated for the repeal of all laws against cruelty to animals. The NAP is flexible enough to be expanded beyond the purely human sphere to include things such as animal rights; for example liability for cruelty to animals is perfectly consistent with the NAP when applied in a social context that recognizes animals as something more than unthinking and unfeeling objects. Put another way, while the NAP is concerned with force against persons or property, it does not define what a "person" or "property" is. In a social context where animals have certain rights, animals might enjoy an intermediate sort of protection in which the NAP could not be used as a shield to protect those who violate the recognized rights of animals from the legal consequences of their contemptible cruelties. This has nothing to do with the NAP itself; animal rights arise out of the social context in which the NAP is applied. Similarly, many ethical rules are silent on animal cruelty - for example the Golden Rule ("Do unto others as you would have them do unto you") says nothing about cruelty to animals. Hardly a reason to reject the Golden Rule as a fundamental ethical principle.
"There could be no bankruptcy law that extinguishes debts." This statement assumes that the NAP defines all debts as absolute property rights that cannot be taken away under any circumstance. But as with animal rights, it fails to recognize that the NAP does not define what "property" is. Thus, in a social context that recognizes the virtues and legality of a discharge of debt under certain limited circumstance, it would not violate the NAP to refuse to allow a creditor to enforce a debt when those limited circumstances applied.
"Tort liability for corporations would either be unlimited or nonexistent (in which case only the individual employees responsible would be liable)." If any influential libertarians advocate excusing corporations from tort liability, on the basis of the NAP or otherwise, I have never run across them. Some libertarians believe that limited corporate liability creates economic moral hazard and thus, should not be tolerated. On that basis, many libertarians support extending corporate liability to the persons individually responsible for corporate harms, in limited circumstances or more generally. Mr. Lindsey's statement is just another baseless disparagement of what libertarians supposedly believe, and is entirely unrelated to the NAP besides. The NAP says nothing about corporate tort liability, and certainly would not forbid it.
"There could be no compulsory vaccines during epidemics." After a parade of false horribles, at last we arrive at the first true statement in Mr. Lindsey's list. However, it is neither absurd nor repugnant for the NAP to forbid the compulsory injection of substances into a competent adult who objects to such invasions of her body. Nor is there any reason why this should be a problem. If there ever occurs a deathly epidemic at a time when an effective and risk-free vaccine is widely available, those very few people suffering from irrational fears of all vaccines will suffer the gravest consequences, for which they will be solely and individually responsible. And so be it. Meanwhile, since the vaccine is so effective, those who receive it will be placed at no risk at all by the refusal of the irrational minority. So why is this a problem?
"The NAP proscribes taxation as well as any government spending to alleviate poverty, promote education, or do anything else besides protecting persons and property." The second true statement in Mr. Lindsey's list. Yes, libertarians, after allegedly beating their animals, harboring fugitives, spreading disease, casting debtors in prison, breaking contracts without penalties, shielding evil corporations from tort liability, and blackmailing with glee, believe in limited government. Many even believe that the existence of government -- defined as a monopoly on the initiation of aggression in a defined jurisdiction -- is a moral evil. Long may it ever be so.
The NAP is a fundamental touchstone for libertarian thought, but is not the only principle informing libertarian thinking on sociopolitical matters. Definitions of property, trespass, harm, conditions necessary for voluntary consent or guardianship, what constitutes creation of unreasonable risk of harm and many other principles are also clearly important. The NAP can't work in a vacuum; its essence is a balancing of the freedom of action of the individual against the right of others to enjoy equivalent freedoms. Other principles are needed to define what freedom of action and curtailment of freedom consist of in different circumstances. Libertarians will probably always have some differences amongst themselves about exactly how the NAP should be applied in different circumstances, but those who advocate abandoning the NAP as a fundamental touchstone should be ashamed to call themselves libertarians.
Tuesday, May 7, 2013
Essential Legal Principles For A Voluntaryist Society
Does a comprehensive model legal code exist for a voluntaryist society? If not, it is far past time to produce one. Or more perhaps competing model codes could be developed for adoption and use by different general voluntary citizenship organizations. Perhaps this has already been done and I am ignorant or forgetful of such codes. If you are aware of any examples please point them out.
The non-aggression principle works very well as a foundational element for libertarian political philosophies, but has its limitations as a legal principle for organized groups. It simply lacks the necessary details. Legal principles need to operate as axioms for solving complex problems of dispute resolution and deterrence of wrongdoing in constantly evolving societies. Such principles should provide predictability to enable the members of the society to quickly and accurately assess the risks and rewards of different activities, and should generally produce just outcomes. Here are some suggestions:
No Monopoly On Services:
Any person or organization using coercion or fraud to monopolize the provision of any good or service, including the enforcement of law or adjudication, is an aggressor.
Corporations and Agents:
No entity may exercise any right in excess of held by its constituents, or avoid any obligation to which its constituents are subject. No person may escape liability for an action by acting through another entity.
Civil/Criminal: A civil complaint arises out of an action performed without an intent or justification for aggression against another (or reckless disregard). A criminal complaint arises out of an act performed with an intent to aggress against another. The subject of a complaint (defendant) is the person performing the action that gave rise to the complaint.
Just Restitution: For a civil complaint, just restitution is limited to what is needed to reverse or repair the harm caused by the action that is the basis for the complaint, including enforcement costs. Just restitution for a criminal complaint includes civil restitution, plus whatever enforcement is reasonably necessary to prevent future aggression by the actor. If the harm is of an nature that cannot be reversed or repaired, the actor shall be liable for restitution in proportion to the gravity of the harm and the actor's culpability in causing the harm.
Restitution, to whom paid:
All restitution shall be paid first to the victim (or family/dependents) until the harm is fully compensated, less what is reasonably necessary to pay enforcement costs. Excess restitution shall be refunded to the payer.
Who May Bring A Complaint: If there is a victim able to bring a complaint, only the victim, or the victim's assignee, may bring the complaint. If there is no victim able to bring or assign a complaint, a nominee or guardian may bring the complaint on behalf of the person or persons harmed.
Voluntary Resolution:
All complaints may be resolved by agreement between defendant and victim.
Adjudication: all complaints not resolved by agreement may be adjudicated to obtain a judgement of enforcement. Adjudication requires a neutral judge and due process of law, including at least notice and opportunity to confront the complainant, neutral witnesses and a record. Any judgement by a process other than adjudication is unenforceable.
Harm:
Harm is the deprivation of life, health, liberty or property. Harm cannot be suffered, except by a person. A person may suffer harm resulting from actions upon the person's property.
Tort:
Every person shall be liable for harm caused by any action creating an unreasonable risk of harm to another, in proportion to the harm caused. One who initiates an unforced action bears the risks thereof.
Permissible use of force in defense:
No person shall be liable for harm caused to another, or to another's property, for use of force to the extent reasonably necessary to defend against aggression initiated by the other, unless the aggression is reasonably necessary for enforcement of an adjudicated claim (a judgement).
Contracts: A contract is a special form of agreement between two or more persons party to the agreement, which is enforceable by adjudication of a civil complaint. No contract can exist without a clear record of intent to form a contract by all parties to it and an exchange of value.
Enforcement: Enforcement is aggression to collect just restitution for a complaint or reasonably necessary to prevent future aggression by one convicted of a criminal complaint, after adjudication.
Enforcement liability: Enforcers shall be liable for aggression, but only to the extent the aggression is in excess of what is reasonably necessary for enforcement of an adjudicated complaint.
Minority Status: A person has minority status between birth [__ months gestation][conception][heartbeat][mother's womb-independence] and __ years of age. A minor cannot bring a complaint unless joined by the minor's guardian.
This could go on much longer, and looking back at what I've written I already want to make changes. But it's a start and worth putting out there.
Friday, March 22, 2013
Free Banking
Proposals to tax deposits in Cyprus to fund bank bailouts have provoked a rash of articles pointing out that inflation (or more exactly, systematic currency debasement by government-controlled central banks) is essentially the same thing as a deposit tax. That's indisputably true.
But there's much else that is rotten in Cyprus, and in the EU, and in the USA, and perhaps wherever central banks operate under government control. We should not stop short of clearly identifying the main problem: deposit insurance and other coercive, anti-competitive meddling in the financial markets by governments. Without abolishing such progressive/fascist constructs, the perverse and destructive phenomenon of forcing the general public to subsidize and insure the risky investments of wealthy elites through deposit taxes, tax-funded bailouts and massive currency debasement will continue. The gulf between wealthy elites and the poor will continue to widen, the middle class will continue to shrink, and malinvestment will continue to destroy capital, until sustainable growth is no longer possible and systemic decline sets in.
There is a better system: free banking. In a voluntary market banking system, the principle of "depositor beware" would apply: those that chased higher interest rate on their deposits would suffer a greater risk of total loss, instead of forcing those who just want to keep their principle safe to subsidize the risky lending practices of others. Meanwhile, risk-averse savers might keep their savings "in their mattresses" or pay a non-fractional reserve bank for storage, ATM, checking and/or debit card services.
Crowd-lending sites like "lendingclub.com" provide a glimpse of how lending can work for micro-lenders in a voluntary market. Anyone wishing to generate interest on their savings can conveniently diversify their lending by contributing small amounts of capital to fund a portfolio of small loans made to members of the club. Earned interest rates are currently in the range of about 5-11%, depending on the investment grade of micro-loans invested in. Those chasing interest the old-fashioned way in a free system could just buy a CD at their non-fractional reserve bank, which the bank could lend for a term not exceeding that of the CD. The traditional bond market would remain available, and financial services would compete to make it more accessible and useful to small savers and investors.
In a free banking system, central banks would have no reason to exist, and if existing, would be prohibited from buying government, mortgage or other politically favored bonds with newly created money. Nor would governments be permitted or capable of bailing out industries while favoring their cronies over bondholders, as in the auto industry bailouts. Government deposit insurance would not exist. In a free system, fractional reserve banks would not be prohibited, but would have to compete with non-fractional reserve banks, loan aggregators, insurance companies and other financial service companies for deposits. Fractional reserve banking would likely be uncompetitive, in the long run, without the government protection it currently enjoys. It adds little or no value to a lender or micro-lender seeking interest on funds available to lend, merely playing the role of a middle man. It's more efficient for lenders to control their risks by purchasing a selected portfolio of bonds directly. In a free system, such lending would be quite easy and efficient to do even for very small lenders, as crowd funding technology has already demonstrated.
It's hard to see how society transitions to a totally free banking system without first experiencing a total economic collapse followed by severe depressions and massive human suffering. Perhaps such outcomes are inevitable. There may be just too many powerful interests invested in the status quo to permit gradual reforms leading to a freer, more stable banking system. More hopeful visionaries such as Ron Paul have suggested a constructive alternative: enable competitive currencies and more competition in diverse forms of banking -- more freedom to innovate in the financial system. Absent government prohibition, it's likely that alternatives such as Bitcoin, micro lending clubs, mutual aid societies, and many other forms of peaceful and voluntary cooperation in financial transactions would grow from the rich soil of freedom. Many of these free institutions would survive to carry humanity forward when the progressive/fascist social paradigm finally collapses or gradually falls out of favor. Or so one can hope.
If the idea of free banking system seems unworkable to you, you might pick up "The Case Against The Fed" by Murray Rothbard. It's an easy read and arguably still the best introduction to modern central banking out there. It can be read in a weekend, and might transform your thinking on central banking almost that quickly. "A History of Money and Banking in the United States," also by Rothbard, is an excellent follow on. Read them both!
But there's much else that is rotten in Cyprus, and in the EU, and in the USA, and perhaps wherever central banks operate under government control. We should not stop short of clearly identifying the main problem: deposit insurance and other coercive, anti-competitive meddling in the financial markets by governments. Without abolishing such progressive/fascist constructs, the perverse and destructive phenomenon of forcing the general public to subsidize and insure the risky investments of wealthy elites through deposit taxes, tax-funded bailouts and massive currency debasement will continue. The gulf between wealthy elites and the poor will continue to widen, the middle class will continue to shrink, and malinvestment will continue to destroy capital, until sustainable growth is no longer possible and systemic decline sets in.
There is a better system: free banking. In a voluntary market banking system, the principle of "depositor beware" would apply: those that chased higher interest rate on their deposits would suffer a greater risk of total loss, instead of forcing those who just want to keep their principle safe to subsidize the risky lending practices of others. Meanwhile, risk-averse savers might keep their savings "in their mattresses" or pay a non-fractional reserve bank for storage, ATM, checking and/or debit card services.
Crowd-lending sites like "lendingclub.com" provide a glimpse of how lending can work for micro-lenders in a voluntary market. Anyone wishing to generate interest on their savings can conveniently diversify their lending by contributing small amounts of capital to fund a portfolio of small loans made to members of the club. Earned interest rates are currently in the range of about 5-11%, depending on the investment grade of micro-loans invested in. Those chasing interest the old-fashioned way in a free system could just buy a CD at their non-fractional reserve bank, which the bank could lend for a term not exceeding that of the CD. The traditional bond market would remain available, and financial services would compete to make it more accessible and useful to small savers and investors.
In a free banking system, central banks would have no reason to exist, and if existing, would be prohibited from buying government, mortgage or other politically favored bonds with newly created money. Nor would governments be permitted or capable of bailing out industries while favoring their cronies over bondholders, as in the auto industry bailouts. Government deposit insurance would not exist. In a free system, fractional reserve banks would not be prohibited, but would have to compete with non-fractional reserve banks, loan aggregators, insurance companies and other financial service companies for deposits. Fractional reserve banking would likely be uncompetitive, in the long run, without the government protection it currently enjoys. It adds little or no value to a lender or micro-lender seeking interest on funds available to lend, merely playing the role of a middle man. It's more efficient for lenders to control their risks by purchasing a selected portfolio of bonds directly. In a free system, such lending would be quite easy and efficient to do even for very small lenders, as crowd funding technology has already demonstrated.
It's hard to see how society transitions to a totally free banking system without first experiencing a total economic collapse followed by severe depressions and massive human suffering. Perhaps such outcomes are inevitable. There may be just too many powerful interests invested in the status quo to permit gradual reforms leading to a freer, more stable banking system. More hopeful visionaries such as Ron Paul have suggested a constructive alternative: enable competitive currencies and more competition in diverse forms of banking -- more freedom to innovate in the financial system. Absent government prohibition, it's likely that alternatives such as Bitcoin, micro lending clubs, mutual aid societies, and many other forms of peaceful and voluntary cooperation in financial transactions would grow from the rich soil of freedom. Many of these free institutions would survive to carry humanity forward when the progressive/fascist social paradigm finally collapses or gradually falls out of favor. Or so one can hope.
If the idea of free banking system seems unworkable to you, you might pick up "The Case Against The Fed" by Murray Rothbard. It's an easy read and arguably still the best introduction to modern central banking out there. It can be read in a weekend, and might transform your thinking on central banking almost that quickly. "A History of Money and Banking in the United States," also by Rothbard, is an excellent follow on. Read them both!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)