19 posts tagged “liberty”

“Intellectual Property” is not Property

I am against so-called "intellectual property" (e.g., patents and copyrights) because it results in the theft or the coercive control over the scarce and physical properties we have legitimately homesteaded or acquired via voluntary trade (e.g., our papers, computers, audio recordings, video recordings, even our physical bodies and brains, etc.).

Things that are scarce, physically controllable, and discernible we treat as private property because otherwise there would be---chaotic and irresoluble---conflict, and quite possibly violence and bloodshed, over who controls what: Do I own this computer or do you? Who has legitimate control over it?

But ideas are not scarce. They are infinite. I can sing a song, for example, again and again without disallowing anyone else from singing the same song. There is no chaotic conflict. To say that I "own" the song says that I can control you and your property. However a song is not property because rules of exclusivity do not need to exist and if they are present they are entirely, artificially imposed from the outside by the backing of the government. If I am the first man to say "hello," it makes no sense to say that I own it and that you need to get my permission to say the word.

Ideas (e.g., songs) are by their very nature nonphysical but with "intellectual property" are artificially treated as if they were indeed physical. Though ideas can of course be applied to property----and they always are----they are still per se detached from property. A man can transform via production the property he acquired through homesteading or exchange (e.g., clay) into what he perceives as a better state (e.g., pot). This transformation of his property, nonetheless, does not alter the nature of his ownership. The physical components are the same, what has changed is the arrangement of those owned components. In addition, because ideas are always applied to property, from a practical point of view it would be impossible to consistently and non-arbitrarily enforce such idea "ownership." The whole concept of this "property" is consequently spurious.

With the introduction of "intellectual property" the logical detachment between ideas and their relationship with the scarce, physical world is ignored, and involuntarily and unilaterally the private properties we have acquired are violently delimited in their use.

Private Property brings Order

The whole notion of exchange and contract between specific individuals work because acquiring property from nature happens at specific points in space and time by specific individuals.* Socialistic-nationalistic notions of property can only be artificially and aggressively imposed after the fact. Before a trade can take place between two men, there obviously must be something to trade. They, or specific men before them, must therefore have acquired something from nature beforehand in a non-socialistic way. And only then can a trade take place where the specific property of a specific man can be exchanged for the specific property of another specific man.

To have any real concept whatsoever of liberty, liberty must have an exclusive as opposed to an inclusive nature for men. Or else there would be no domain for man to have liberty to actually do something and control something, and to do so without running into conflict with another man and his abilities to control things and do things with these things. Here we find the only way for men to have---to possess---liberty. (In our day of course the focus of "liberty" is not exclusivity but inclusiveness. This idea is internally filled with contradictions and thus cannot be upheld consistently. [My blog post "Paradoxes of Liberalism" partly displays this erroneous view.]) Without exclusivity, liberty does not exist and is hence illusory: I have no liberty if my physical body did not exist as my private property. I have no liberty if I cannot own the fruits of my labor's homesteading and exchanging of property. Hence, the fountainhead of liberty is private property.

Restricting a man, for instance, from using a super-atomic bomb to kill every man on the planet is clearly not restricting his liberty. A man's liberty is to his private property, i.e., his physical body and the property he acquired through homesteading or through voluntary exchange from a previous (non-thief) owner. This implies that private property delineates borders between specific properties belonging to specific men. Man A's exclusive control over his private property prevents man B from taking it for himself and at the same time prevents man A from using his own property in a way that trespasses upon the private property borders of man B's. In addition, conflicts are eradicated from the get-go in the creation of property borders. The property borders of man C's land are created when he homesteads this land. Because he does this before any other man, there is no conflict and the borders that were created prevent conflict in the future. Insofar as man recognizes the borders of private property, conflict can be prevented and order can be pervasive across society.

Saint Thomas Aquinas was one scholar to recognize some of the basic principles spelled out here. Not only do men take care of what is theirs better, any kind of "common" ownership leads to confusion and tension (ST, II-II, q.66, a.2). The dominion of the earth was given to man by God (Genesis 1:28). To control and own private property is in our nature.

*(Hans-Hermann Hoppe's argumentation ethics presents the case that because property must be acquired in such a manner, it is impossible to argumentatively justify any ethical norm that contradicts such facts. "Otherwise," he writes, "it would be impossible for anyone to ever say anything at a definite point in time and space and for someone else to be able to reply. Simply saying, then, that the first-user-first-owner rule of the ethics of private property can be ignored or is unjustified, implies a performative contradiction, as one's being able to say so must presuppose one's existence as an independent decision-making unit at a given point in time and space." As those familiar with his work can see, my analysis here has been heavily influenced by Dr. Hoppe. On the other hand, one of the main differences here is my analysis does not use argumentation ethics as a starting point. While I am endlessly fascinated by it, I personally think it is somewhat a shaky and incomplete idea. But I do think his analysis is more powerful, especially in terms of highlighting prior-later distinctions, than Rothbard's analysis of disproving the alternatives to private ownership (e.g., collective ownership and master-slave ownership.)

“But no man can own land!”

OK. So, you don't mind if your neighbor dumps some garbage into "your" lawn?

Also, why stop at land? If man's homesteading of land does not make him the (legal and just) owner of it, why not say that his homesteading of any "external" thing does not make him the owner of it?

In such a case, man would only be a possessor. But then the only thing that would matter about property is who the possessor is. It would not matter who was the prior or later possessor. Theft would be non-existent, etc.

That would be a world of conflict and chaotic anarchy.

If land is to be used at all----and it must be if mankind is to survive----and if we are to avoid chaotic and irresoluble conflict, we must say that one can control land and therefore own land. The distinction of who the first possessor is in comparison to later possessors, who either have become possessors compatibly or not with the prior man's possessing ownership (which allows man to homestead and later trade without conflict), cannot be gotten rid of. And, to iterate, how can man own the fruits of his labor on land (and fruits which are derived from land) if he cannot own land? "Georgism" (Geoism) is incoherent.

Respecting Man’s Liberty = Peace, Prosperity, & Civility

For it is in the nature of things that when I eat my apple that I exclude all others to it. Any "common" ownership is impossible once these consumer goods are employed or used. To say that this is untrue is to talk nonsense. It is in the nature of all things to be privately owned. The original appropriation of property to be used as a consumer good or capital good is always and by necessity acquired in a private (Lockean-like) manner. Our physical bodies, too, are naturally, individually our own. We are the first and only user to (directly versus indirectly) control our physical body. Furthermore, just as man must have property prior to exchange, man must produce before he can consume. This logical chain cannot be broken. All that can happen is that it is artificially diverted afterwards into destructive and parasitical ends that are incongruent with this logical chain.

The appropriation or homesteading of a specific location of virgin land, before any other man, into a specific man's control and hence property ownership is beneficial, ex ante, to him and at the same time does not infringe upon, or trespass upon, the property of any other man. The voluntary trading of specific goods by specific men, correspondingly, are by their very nature, in the ex ante sense, mutually beneficial for all parties involved and at the same time do not violate any man's property.

Here we find the road, as Murray N. Rothbard wrote, to "multiply ... resources enormously in peaceful and harmonious production and exchange." Instead of fighting over the existence of scarcity, men cooperate with each other and recognize private ownership rights. They homestead, produce, and exchange private properties. Trading leads men, who are naturally different and unequal vis-à-vis each other, to specialize in the division of labor. To expand wealth upward and upward, men develop technologies so as to produce round-about methods of production. Profit and loss continuously moves the production of goods and services from those who produce less well to those who produce better. Men start to save, i.e., not to consume present consumer goods, and invest in capital goods with the aim of enlarging the amount of consumer goods in the future. Salaries begin to reflect this and, with salaries on the rise, young children and mothers can exit the labor market. Capitalism as a result becomes geared to stronger families. And so on.

Peace between men, and hence respect for private property, requires us to think about how we can better serve our neighbors, since a man must use the goals of others as economic means to achieve his own goals. It is therefore untrue, as many dullards claim, that the free market promotes egotistical selfishness. The diminution of the division of labor would help to accomplish that. The very rich man, in a free market, gets rich by making the masses rich. As men learn to gain wealth at no one's expense, hostility, violence, and war between men diminish and mutual respect, sympathy, and tranquility between men increase. Thus men become more invested in the rule of law. Moreover, private property makes men more interdependent, and hence reduces perverse forms of "radical individualism." This interdependency requires men to have trust, faith, confidence, and loyalty in others. Otherwise, no one would do business with another. And since socio-economic mobility is flexible, these positive values and feelings between men are promoted to all. On top of this, as wealth increases, there is more time for the arts, community, charity, spiritual development, etc. More material wealth produces a tendency for men to invest in non-material wealth. The latter's marginal utility increases and the former's decreases.

Practical wisdoms and common sense, what is more, spread. With more dependency, mobility, competition, and interactions, such things as politeness and punctuality increase (as far as humanly possible). Punctuality, for instance, makes interactions stronger and results in greater wealth (materially and non-materially). Similarly, education spreads. And very destructive practices and traditions that diminish civilization and men's interactions will tend to diminish in the common ethos. Virtues like charity increase. Without private property, after all, men could not practice it and there would hence be less cultivation of this virtue. (It is only through liberty that a man can individually cultivate virtues!) Thrift, prudence, fortitude, and conservative discipline increase as they are rewarded on the free market. Long-term thinking and planning (both linked to familial management as well) become more common as they are necessary in capital production.

Society becomes somewhat hierarchical. Entrepreneurs, inventors, scientists, natural authority figures, saints, etc. build society upward as they rise above the common man. Not everyone can be a manager or a captain of industry, for example. This further becomes reflected in family and community relationships. No man is a social or economic atom. Private property (which is inegalitarian, hierarchical, exclusive, undemocratic, etc.), outside of our physical body, is not a "given" to us as we are born into the world. We must earn it and therefore must work within the framework of families and authorities in civil society. Most interactions in civil society are communal or institutional and therefore "pure" autonomy, so to speak, of the individual is absent in this regards. Likewise, the shaping of ideas and cultural attitudes are social phenomena. Civilized society knows of no isolated, detached man. With greater peace, the union, the cooperation, between men is stronger.

Not Respecting Man’s Liberty = Violence, Poverty, & Incivility

Peaceful coexistence between men means accepting the principles of liberty. It depends on knowing that aggressing against your neighbors' properties destroys peace. Given that civilization and its advancement depend on the existence of the division of labor and the private ownership of the means of production, it thus depends on the recognition of self-ownership and the homesteading principle.

Society is not an end to itself; it is a means. Men come together to do things together. Peace must be in the heart and mind of men. True fraternity---brotherly love---is something that can only develop when peaceful cooperation is established. It is the fruit of peaceful cooperation. It is based on peace, not war. Peace, as Ludwig von Mises would say (contra Heraclitus), is the father of all things. War, theft, rape can never develop fraternity. Men under such an arrangement would see all other men as enemies. No feelings of friendship could develop under this arrangement, said Mises. Wealth and therefore prosperity can only come from peace, and peace can only come from respecting property.

But the State is institutionally configured to be a war making institution. "[I]f we look at the State naked, as it were," wrote Rothbard, "we see that it is universally allowed, and even encouraged, to commit all the acts which even non-libertarians concede are reprehensible crimes." It is a monopoly of violence that exploits and expropriates life and property. Without the consent of a specific property owner, the State can seize property from this specific owner in full or in part.

The State is not a real producer. It obtains its revenues parasitically from those who actually produce wealth and improve society. Private property is logically prior to government. Government is a parasite. And, given a legitimate owner can do what he wants with his property (because it is his) as long as he does not aggress against another's (because such property isn't his), any contract he makes with another is only a contract if it is voluntary. But, recall what has been said in these mini-essays, the government makes no legitimate contracts with anyone. Contracts are entered into by specific men and their specific property. Government is thus a criminal organization that (ironically) has monopolistic power to define what "criminal" is and is not. In addition it becomes a legalized channel for crimes, i.e., it institutionalizes crime, and is therefore the most dangerous institution and is hence more dangerous than any other criminal person, group, or institution. Historically, this is statistically confirmed. States have murdered the greatest number of men.

With the introduction of "political means" to obtain wealth, which is based on looting and exploiting men's private properties, men are ever less required to think about improving the well-being of their fellow men. Civility and respect become less important in life. Dependence on the "economic means" to obtain wealth, through peacefully respecting the private properties of others and by non-parasitically producing wealth, for men lowers and fraternity diminishes. Social interdependence is depressed and the costs of incivility and atomistic-individualistic action is socialized and therefore increased. Cultural degeneration is the result, and it snowballs when the political means become increasingly more attainable for men. As this happens a tragedy of the commons is produced and a "war of all against all" occurs.

The State that does X activity necessarily does it at the expense of other things. It is absolutely impossible to judge if alternative Y or Z or A or B, or a combination of them, is more or less wanted and needed by the public----a public that is heterogeneous. There is no way to tell if the resources that go into X activity turns those resources into something that is better than not doing so. The only way to tell, however, is if there is a profit, but this would require that X be done through peaceful, voluntary activity which respects private property. Being cost-efficient is hence impossible. Waste and loss is hence implied in all statist activity. Neither can a proper conservation of resources happen. Nor is a State directly dependent on changing consumer demands, since it can easily expropriate property. States, for these reasons, do not have to directly serve their constituents well in the things that they supposedly need to provide. In fact, even if they wanted to, they can't.

Officials in the State naturally have a basic interest in expanding their wealth like any other man, but they can expand their wealth by not serving voluntary consumers directly in the free market, which would prove that their services are serving them well versus competitive alternatives, but by expropriation and exploitation, which proves that State officials are in fact obstructing consumers by destroying their "sovereignty" and thereby destroying competitive alternatives.

The less private property is respected, the more poverty and incivility. Homesteading, producing, and exchanging decline. The structure of round-about capital production is temporally shortened. Thriftiness, self-restraint, prudence, and other conservative values decline. Men become atomistic and detached. And as they shift into becoming political animals to greater degrees, they become more antagonistic toward each other. In the context of this discussion, it should now be clear, peace (market) and violence (power) are the two fundamental poles that advance and hinder the division of labor, the overall wealth in society, and civilized life in general.

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And if theft is wrong, then it is wrong. Taxation and the like doesn't make it right in some cases. Any kind of relative ethics destroys the very foundation of ethics. Relativistic notions destroy man's reason----and cannot be defended because these notions self-contradictorily intend that they per se are true in a non-relative sense. Even the use of violence to stop a man from doing something that is immoral is unethical and illegitimate if this man is not invading another's property. The ends don't justify the means and two wrongs don't make a right. Clearly, we cannot make all immoral personal acts illegal by State fiat. This is a recipe for tyranny.

There is a reason, by the way, why democratic-republican governments are not filled with hundreds of Ron Pauls. An institutional bias is present against a Ron Paul being able to govern in a high office. Now it is true that public opinion can theoretically make a democratic government be filled with hundreds of Ron Pauls, but this utopian scenario is institutionally unstable and would unlikely last for long. Democracy favors anti-Ron Pauls for the simple reason that it pays to be one. Those men who use the democratic apparatus to its fullest extent possible get further ahead than those who do not. Once the political means to obtain wealth exist, the incentive is to develop the characteristics that define a typical politician of today. No reforms are possible; those who value peace must "strike at the root."

Democracy is a powerful ideology. It cloaks slavery. "Republicanism permits," wrote Albert J. Nock, "the individual to persuade himself that the State is his creation, that State action is his action, that when it expresses itself it expresses him, and when it is glorified he is glorified." The masses play a Ping-Pong game in electoral democracy. This helps to furnish the obfuscatory idea that the masses rule themselves and gives the illusion that there is always an "opposition" party standing by. When things go wrong, there is always a particular party to blame and a particular party to take over. But the statist establishment itself is left intact, instead of it being looked at as the true villain.

“But without a State, we would have anarchy!”

In one sense, there will always be "anarchy." At the present there is international anarchy between the various nation-governments because there is no world government. More fundamentally, all nation-governments are in "internal" anarchy because there is no outside government making it anarchy free within itself. Obviously, such a task would be impossible to truly fulfill (unless, theoretically speaking, there is a dictator). Notwithstanding this internal anarchy present in the government, it is able to maintain law and order within itself. If anarchy were per se unstable, this would be impossible; hence, anarchy is feasible in terms of producing law and order.

And if one claims that peace cannot be had under anarchy, Murray Rothbard would point out that it seems to follow that it cannot be had with different nation-governments. So, if someone thinks there must be government, he must think there must be a world government. Accepting the idea that smaller governments could form and thereby break off from a world government, while additionally proclaiming this process would uphold moderately stable peace under such increasingly anarchistic international relationships, has no logical end point in terms of these new and smaller governments being similarly broken up, leading to the obliteration of all governments. Moreover, Hans Hoppe, echoing Rothbard, points out that the anarchistic relationships between governments holds for the anarchistic relationships between men of different governments. Not surprisingly, the latter anarchistic relationships are more peaceful, historically speaking, than the former.

(Plus the idea of a world government is the most dangerous of ideas! Briefly: The larger the territorial government, the more it can afford, and get away with, imposing lots of intrusive and anti-capitalist laws on its subjects without too much adverse consequences to it, itself, directly. Conversely, ceteris paribus, the smaller a government is territorially, the less this is true. When you think about this more and more, it should become more and more clear that greater anarchy, ceteris paribus, produces better conditions. Now put this in the context of the above paragraph.)

When disputes do happen between two men of different governments, these cases are generally resolved even though there is no world government. A sovereign is not required and this is why the free market can provide judicial functions. In addition, international trade is yet another example of anarchistic relationships. There are several examples of anarchistic trading partners using non-governmental means (e.g., privately created law and arbitration) to keep the trade as honest as possible.

Other questions come to mind: Who will protect us from our "protectors"? Who will protect the "protectors"? The next reasonable question is this: Why is there not "a war of all against all" between the "protectors" and the "protected"!? It seems to follow that if the theory is true about the need for a sovereign government to prevent chaos between men, the relationship here between these two "classes" would nevertheless be chaotic. Accordingly, anarchistic chaos does not exist not because of the State but despite it.

Some Blog Entries that Expand on These Topics: “You Want Justice? Don't Make Me Laugh;” “Debunking Deterrence and Rehabilitation Justice Theories;” “Reparations and Private Property;” “Some Analysis on the Logic of Private Property;” “Don’t Give the State Consent;” “Are ---We--- the Government?;” “Does Freedom Come From The State?;” “Power Destroys Civil Society;” “The Market for Liberty --- Privatize Everything;” “Aggression, Defense, and State.”

Quite a few essays that have been written by prominent libertarian thinkers can be recommended here, not only to acknowledge my very, very large intellectual debts, but perhaps more importantly to have those interested explore. But because most of the above blog posts have such links, I will not do so here.

My advice is to simply read the works of Spooner, Nock, Rothbard, Hoppe, Block, Kinsella, and others.

Dr. Thomas E. Woods, Jr., one of the most prolific writers, created a guide for those of us who want to learn about liberty.

See "Learning for Liberty."

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Is Freedom of Speech "Democratic" and an "Absolute"?

"Freedom of speech" is not necessarily "democratic," in spite of claims to the contrary. It is amusing, for me anyways, how often the phrase "democratic rights" is used inaccurately. When freedom of speech is properly understood as just one of the infinite subsets of man's right to his person and property, we can call it a "liberal" right in the classical (correct) sense of that term. On the other hand, it is not a right derived from being inherently democratic. Democracy, indeed, can vote to end liberal freedoms. It is therefore fully compatible----as opposed to classical liberalism----with hating free speech.

No doubt the explanation for this is that men in this day and age consider democracy a "good." Because freedom of speech is "good," it is presumed that it must therefore be "democratic." Such is the sad present state of ideas.

Another common error, which I have typed about on this blog before, is how many men view "freedom of speech" as fundamentally existing in an "absolute" sense. This is not the case. If you are a visitor in my house and you then call me rude names, it would be in my right to kick you out. Doing that would not diminish your freedom whatsoever. Again, freedom of speech is derived from being a subset of man's right to his person and property. It does not exist on its own, detached from private property. Therefore, no additional laws need to be made to enforce or, at times, restrict freedom of speech.

(And, as I will indirectly show below, with the help of Hans-Hermann Hoppe's work, it is impossible to conceive of it as existing apart from private property. Ethical discussions are present because of scarcity and the possibility of conflicts developing over such scarcity.)

Blackmail and libel are two other subjects that cause great confusion with many people: See my review of Defending the Undefendable by Walter Block. And see Dr. Block's "Toward a Libertarian Theory of Blackmail" [PDF].

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Coercion without Violence?

A earnest caller on a talk radio program was attempting to argue that "coercion" not only applies when man B forces man A to give him his wallet, but that it applies just as much to when man A, owner of a store, refuses to hire B as an employee. But this cannot possibly qualify as an ethical theory. B aggressively forcing A to hire him would be coercion. No coercion is involved if A simply refuses to hire B. In the latter case, there is no (uninvited, non-voluntary) physical invasion or force (or any substitution thereof) involved against either A's or B's private property. The former case does.

Man C, under this caller's theory, can claim that A hiring B would be "coercive" vis-à-vis him because he then could not get the job position. And, taking this theory at face value, C could thus force A to hire him rather than B. Since this is the case, this theory cannot rationally solve who would be "in the right." (B can claim the same thing C does.) This theory would result in unsolvable conflict and, for this reason, cannot qualify as a theory of ethics.

Similarly, imagine man A builds a house, X, in the forest. B comes along and says he wants to buy X for a dollar. A, naturally, denies this transaction. B could then, under this theory, say that A is being "coercive." If this is so, law enforcement can steal X to give to B. But then A can come along and then do exactly what B did to him, and on and on to infinity.

Obviously this would result in ethical chaos.

(To note in passing, in following this line of reasoning, we can disprove the whole notion of what is often called "positive liberty." It is a self-destructive and illogical theory in comparison to what is called "negative liberty." So-called "negative liberty" is internally consistent.)

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What Determines Just-Ownership?

The goal of ethics----political philosophy and law more specifically----is ultimately to resolve conflicts, and hence to avoid chaos. Actual, physical conflict can only develop, with a number of men greater than one, over the usage (control) of one scarce, discernible, controllable, and "tangible" good, X. The question, then, is of asking who owns X.

The answer, I think, is perfectly clear: It is the first person in its appropriation. Avoiding conflict accordingly means that property be privately owned by the first user-controller.

X not only can be a good, it can refer to a specific spatial location that is homesteadable, e.g., land. (Down below I will try to cover ownership of man's physical body. While, I reason, you can generally say the same exact principle applies in regards to self-ownership, one has to be more precise of what just ownership means in terms of who the first user-controller truly is in a direct sense versus indirect sense.)

Only original appropriation, covered above, can determine just property rights. I don't think you can say otherwise.

A second person who, in a manner of speaking, later arrives cannot be said to be the just owner of X. This would imply that the first person was not the just owner of X and that ownership comes about from the second person, i.e., a late-comer who comes after the first. Now if this is the case, then how did the first person get to his position? What right did he have to homestead and control X if it is not his? He would have no right. (Otherwise we would be back to the problems in the above section of this blog entry. We would have ethical chaos.) Saying that the second person is the owner implies that it must be considered un-just if the first person did not get approval from the second-comer qua just-owner. But how can one determine who the late-comer is before the fact? And what about another late-comer's claim to just-ownership relative to the second-comer, i.e., a third man relative to the first? Logically one must ask this question for the third, fourth, fifth, ... nth person. Society would die out and ethics would not exist.

Man cannot determine the answers to these questions ex ante. Getting the consent of late-comers is impracticable. No man could act from the beginning on with an ethic that goes against original appropriation. Man cannot conceivably wait for late-comers in acting and living. Likewise, man cannot physically jump into the air a second time without jumping a first time prior to the second. (This is logically true a priori.) Homesteading and the principle of original appropriation therefore cannot be, as Hans-Hermann Hoppe says, "timeless." (In addition, it is praxeologically implied that man understands the temporal order of things because he is an actor who acts towards goals in the future.) In fact, the whole notion of exchange and contract works because acquiring property happens at specific points in time. This is demonstrated in that man must first acquire property from a state of nature prior to any possible voluntary exchange or contract of property.

Furthermore, and implied above, conflict would be created (not destroyed, which is the goal of ethics) if we were to say that the late-comers get partial control over X. This would be equivalent to saying that more than one person can stand at the exact same spatial location without conflict being (potentially) created.

Neither can it be rationally argued that everyone owns everything as a collective. Conflict would not be taken off the table. Thus, this theory fails too. Conflict would increase manyfold. And, even more deadly, when we consider applying this ethic to our individual physical bodies, it would demand that an individual person get permission just to walk across the room. But even to make the request would, at the very least, require the use of one's own vocal cords. So this must ultimately be ruled out as preposterous as well.

Even solely applying this principle to alienable property, while hence ignoring ownership over inalienable physical bodies, makes no logical sense. Conflict could still technically occur over a man's standing room----and this infers that moving around would still require collective permission----and would doom civilization. Man cannot wait for collective approval to use property "outside" of his body. Man must, for example, eat. And he must be able to move around. He cannot wait. This principle would not allow man to act from the beginning on. It would be impossible to implement this collective idea (including or not including physical bodies) without consent already being there to do so a priori. That is, it must assume a "collective-mind" existing from the start to direct activity. Since it does not exist, this whole idea must be rejected as nonsense on stilts.

(Other ideas must be rejected as mixtures of these false ideas.)

In regards to the more specific issue of self-ownership, every man has a natural and logical right to his person. There is a direct biological or physiological connection to a man's consciousness and his body. Who has a right to a given man's physical body but him? Another man can try to control this body, but he can only do so indirectly with the usage of his own body which he controls directly. Ownership is consequently established through direct use. Denying this is self-defeating because the denial itself would implicitly admit this principle true. One would be engaging in a "performative contradiction." (By the way, if you disagree with me, then why are you arguing with the usage of your own physical body? I thought you said you do not have self-ownership. Further, it is interesting that when you argue with me you implicitly admit that a principle of "non-aggression" is correct.)

From the very beginning of mankind on, man has had to directly own himself to act; thus, to assign property rights that go against self-ownership makes very little sense.

Read the Following Hans-Hermann Hoppe Material (References):

(My attempt to prove original appropriation, while substantially helped along by Dr. Hoppe's work [to say the least], does not, unless I am mistaken, require argumentation ethics. I only applied "AE" when it comes to self-ownership.)

• His book, The Economics and Ethics of Private Property. (Here is an excellent review of it. It is available at Amazon.)
  
• "The Ethics and Economics of Private Property."
  
• "Does the State Resolve or Create Conflict?."
• "From the Economics of Laissez Faire to The Ethics of Libertarianism."
• "Four Critical Replies."

Some Side-Notes:

It's important to keep in mind that man can only own the physical integrity of private property; it is not possible to own its "value." Ex ante, we have control over our actions in terms of aggressing or not aggressing against the physical integrity of another man's property. We don't have control, though, if our actions affect the value or price of another's property. Values are dependent on what others think in their head. It would be impossible to know ex ante if our actions would change values. In order to act man would need the permission of everyone. This, just like the idea that first-comers need the permission of late-comers, would doom mankind and must be rejected. Besides the links already provided, see "On Property and Exploitation" by Block and Hoppe.

What about conflict over property with a non-human entity? Dr. Hoppe would reply, correctly I think, it's only possible to say such an entity is "equal" to man if it is a rational agent that can engage in argumentation. The reason we all are talking about this subject is because we are all rational agents who are engaging in argumentation; hence, the answer. Ethical theory does not come from fish. It comes from man using his rational abilities to argue ethical theories. It is this----the engagement of argumentation---that displays our (mankind's) rationality. Murray Rothbard wrote: "There is, in fact, rough justice in the common quip that 'we will recognize the rights of animals whenever they petition for them.' The fact that animals can obviously not petition for their 'rights' is part of their nature, and part of the reason why they are clearly not equivalent to, and do not posses the rights of, human beings."

The question of air or noise pollution goes back to homesteading and original appropriation. Once we focus our philosophical lenses on this we will arrive at the answer. Someone, for instance, that builds a factory in the middle of nowhere, before anyone else, and emits air pollutants gets an easement. Read Rothbard's "Law, Property Rights, and Air Pollution."

On the topic of "intellectual property," read "Against Intellectual Property" by N. Stephan Kinsella. I read this about a month ago and found it brilliant.

***
Is Government Compatible with Private Property?

The late-comers, typed about above, are actually the equivalent of men of State. That is, they fit such classification. They claim to be the "real" owners of all property as indicated by their claim to tax persons without their individual consent, despite the logical impossibility of them being the just-owners.

They thus have no natural authority or legitimacy. All States are illegitimate and unacceptable. Private property is supreme. All forms of government are incompatible with it. "[T]he State," wrote Murray Rothbard, "is nothing more nor less than a bandit gang writ large." They are in a position that magically grants them so-called "rights" to do things that you and I could never do or get away with. Imagine if the persons of the State were forced to behave in the way we all behave!

To quote Albert Jay Nock:

“[The State] forbids private murder, but itself organizes murder on a colossal scale. It punishes private theft, but itself lays unscrupulous hands on anything it wants, whether the property of citizen or of alien.”

The State cannot even be close to being called a "private club." A man that joins a chess club does so voluntarily. It does not grab him, enslave him in the club, and then force him to pay monthly dues. A man that joins a chess club does so voluntarily. The chess club recognizes man's right to his private property. Unlike the State, it behaves (or can behave) in a way that is fully compatible with original appropriation.

The State can neither be called a "private firm." One solitary man or a group of men can boycott a private firm at any time and for whatever reason. A man can cut off his relationship with a firm. The State, on the other hand, can violently lock such a nonviolent man in a cage for his State boycott. A man can defend himself against a mugger on the street. The State, on the other hand, can attack such a man on the street and lock him up if he tries to defend himself and his property from its attacks. A private firm cannot enslave a man to do its biddings. The State, on the other hand, can enslave a man to do its biddings.

Once the State is rid of its cloak, all that is left to be seen is an organization that is based on violence. It primarily engages in violence against the non-violent. As a criminal organization it lives in direct contradiction to private property.

(Take a look at "Anarchism and Minarchism; No Rapprochement Possible" [pdf] by Walter Block.)

Joseph Sobran has thus asked: "[W]hy pretend such an evil is a positive good?" Even if the State is "inevitable," man should not pretend that the State is something that it is not.

Nonetheless, as Rothbard would say, the existence of the State does not prove it is essential to society or that it is "inevitable." Just because the State does Y activity does not mean that only the State can do Y or that civil society has necessarily failed in Y.

Perhaps the biggest claim is that the State is needed in the development of law. But here is what Rothbard had to say in his Ethics of Liberty book:

“For most law, but especially the most libertarian parts of the law, emerged not from the state, but out of non-state institutions: tribal, custom, common-law judges and courts, the law merchant in mercantile courts, or admiralty law in tribunals set up by shippers themselves...”

Many traditional conservatives look to the Middle Ages because, among other reasons, it was not based on atom-like individuals, as we have today. Many anti-state libertarians also look to specific periods of the Middle Ages because it was a time when there was no State, at least nothing touching what we have now in terms of sovereignty in Leviathan form. In the place of a sovereign State was a polycentric order of law and judicial services.

Persons that instinctively reject a private property society without a State should do some research on the matter. There are (literally) hundreds of reasons---both historical and theoretical----why one should not automatically castoff this idea. There is an amazingly large amount of literature on the subject, waiting for you to explore.

(Leaving aside my personal pessimistic feelings and reasonings on the prospects of a stateless society [for the upcoming generations], I do not believe that my view is "utopian." Instead, I think those who believe the State can be used as a force for good are the real utopians.)

Wilhelm Röpke:

“In a sound society, responsibility, and exemplary defense of the society's guiding norms and values must be the exalted duty and unchallengeable right of a minority that forms and is willingly and respectfully recognized as the apex of a social pyramid hierarchically structured by performance. Mass society ... must be counteracted by individual leadership----not on the part of original geniuses or eccentrics of will-o'-the wisp intellectuals, but, on the contrary, on the part of people with courage to reject eccentric novelty for the sake of the ‘old truths’ which Goethe admonishes us to hold on to and for the sake of historically proved, indestructible, and simple human values. In other words, we need the leadership of ... 'ascetics of civilization,' secularized saints as it were, who in our age occupy a place which must not for long remain vacant at any time and in any society. That is what those have in mind who say that the 'revolt of the masses' must be countered by another revolt, the 'revolt of the elite.' ... What we need is true nobilitas naturalis. No era can do without it, least of ours, when so much is shaking and crumbling away. We need a natural nobility whose authority is, fortunately, readily accepted by all men, an elite deriving its title solely from supreme performance and peerless moral example and invested with the moral dignity of such a life. Only a few from every stratum of society can ascend into this thin layer of natural nobility. The way to it is an exemplary and slowly maturing life of dedicated endeavor on behalf of all, unimpeachable integrity, constant restraint of our common greed, proved soundness of judgment, a spotless private life, indomitable courage in standing up for truth and law, and generally the highest example. This is how the few, carried upward by the trust of the people, gradually attain to a position above classes, interests, passions, wickedness, and foolishness of men and finally become the nation's conscience. To belong to this group of moral aristocrats should be the highest and most desirable aim, next to which all the other triumphs of life are pale and insipid. ... No free society, least of all ours, which threatens to degenerate into mass society, can subsist without such a class of censors. The continued existence of our free world will ultimately depend on whether our age can produce a sufficient number of such aristocrats of public spirit.”

From A Humane Economy: The Social Framework of the Free Market.

See: Biography of Wilhelm Röpke at the Mises Institute,"Röpke Rescued," and some Online Literature of his.

Even though he was not an "anarchist" or a philosophical libertarian, the great Robert Nisbet's central insight is that Civil Society, made up of the so-called intermediate institutions which persons are naturally born into and are a part of (viz., family, locality, church, etc.), and the State are inversely related to each other in terms of strength and the role they play in society.

It is consequently when the state is small and weak that social authority is vibrant. The more functions and roles the state takes on, the less civil society has to take on. A powerful managerial state always results in imposing a top-down, monolithic-coercive control, breaking down pluralistic authorities, autonomies, communities, institutions, traditional norms, and ultimately thereby isolating and detaching the individual from civil society. All that is left after this process is Leviathan and atomistic, detached, and "loose" individuals. Once this has happened the state has what it wants, i.e., control over isolated and weak individuals.

Extending and furthering this analysis, we can understand how increased democratization and centralization of state power directs man's activities increasingly at using this apparatus. This not only must be done at the expense of civil society, since the state's relationship with civil society is parasitic, but also cause conflict between those trying to use power, which is monopolistic, for their own purposes. These men will be constantly fighting to control this coercive power for their own ends and at the expense of other men. Politicalization in increased areas of life will only result in a greater amount of people joining in this infighting (with the upshot of man investing and producing less in civil society). It actually becomes a necessity, if only as a means of (pseudo) "self-defense." All of this further feeds the growth of politics. And the distinction between civil society and state will fade away. In addition, they will blend together as many former civil society institutions attach themselves or ally themselves with statism. States ultimately consume civil society.

(This will even have a major change on the culture regarding the individual character development of men. The character characteristics that man will develop will tend to be those that define a politician rather than a gentleman.)

Indeed, today every nook and cranny Leviathan has its hand in. No wonder, as Robert Nisbet says, we have moved "from a highly traditionalist, hierarchical, decentralized, and inegalitarian society to one that in our time approaches the diametrical opposite of these qualities." [Quote from The Present Age.]

Now the objective of this Paleo Blog entry is to attempt to show, using insights from Nisbet, Murray Rothbard, Russell Kirk and Robert Murphy and also going through some economic analysis (which has been greatly influenced by Hans-Hermann Hoppe), how power destroys civil society. The topics covered may be loosely organized and assumes the reader has some knowledge about the possibility and logic of a private law society, but it is my hope that it provides some insights into this important subject.

Authority versus Power

"[L]ibertarians," writes Murray N. Rothbard in Egalitarianism as a Revolt Against Nature (p 152, n 1),

accept the authority of sound values, civilization, and especially reason; it is those who refuse to accept such authority who turn instead to outside coercion and violence. On the confusion between authority and power, see the brilliant article by Robert A. Nisbet, "The Nemesis of Authority," The Intercollegiate Review (Winter-Spring, 1972): 3-13.

Happily the 1972 article is available online here [pdf].

In the article Robert Nisbet removes, as Rothbard explained, the common misperception between authority and power. Power, not authority, amounts to the usage (or threat) of physical force or coercion. It is civil society, he goes on to say, that you find a multiplicity of authorities:

Civil society, in whatever degree it may be said to exist at all, is a tissue of authorities, however loosely knit these may be in times of stress. Authority, unlike power or coercion, is not rooted in force, or threat of force. It is built into the very fabric of human association. Authority exists in the very roles and statuses of the social order. It is no more than an aspect, though a vital aspect, of the social order. . . . Freedom, in any positive, creative sense, is inseparable from a structure of authority ---- of rules, norms, roles, and statues ---- which can alone give the stamp of character to the free mind. No mistake could be greater than that of counterpoising freedom and authority. Freedom and power, freedom and coercion, yes. But not freedom and authority.

(There will be more on this specific article later.)

Children and the Family

Out of all the intermediate institutions, obviously the most essential and basic building block in society is the family institution. Individuals do not exist apart from family, which, by the way, includes even Robinson Crusoe. The atomistic individual is just a myth. And, incidentally, the reason for Rothbard's footnote was to defend parental authority, as long as it does not contravene the foundation of self-ownership and private property rights, over those who say it is (somehow) "un-libertarian."  After all, a child is under the private household rules of the father, who is the owner of the household and accordingly has patriarchal authority and control over it. Private property (which is inegalitarian, hierarchical, exclusive, undemocratic, etc.), outside of our physical body, is not a "given" to us as we are born into the world. We must earn it and therefore must work within the framework of families and authorities in civil society.

This framework is essential to society as a whole. The family, that is. As Robert Nisbet says:

[A] well-attested fact [is] that whenever there is private property there will be a strong family system. After all, the origins of private property lie in clan and kindred; and even after the conjugal family, the household, became the chief element of kinship, its relationship to property remained very close. As Joseph Schumpeter noted in his Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy*, it was not the isolated individual . . . but the household that was the main engine of modern capitalist development. Not economic man but, quite literally, the head of the household working for the present and future of the members of his family, and hence saving and investment. [Twilight of Authority.]

Traditional family households hence promote a low time preference. Their success and longevity depends on this fact. It brings stability to society and capital growth, which advances the capitalistic process. This is what makes genuine capitalism and family mutually reinforcing. It was what, in the past, allowed only the father to enter the job market.

However, it becomes almost unavoidable, in modern society, that both father and mother have to enter the workforce due to the taxation, regulations, and inflation that eats away at persons' wealth. Procurement of wealth has been made comparatively more costly because income used in production has been made less, as it is expropriated by way of taxation, and the opportunity cost for non-production has been lowered. The destruction and blockage of contractual relationships between parties, due to thousands of pages of regulations, lowers market transactions, and thus investments and wealth. And inflation, in particular, is a direct assault against the family institution because, by continually lowering the value of the dollar, savings and long-term planning is discouraged. Consumption, leisure, short-term thinking and planning are encouraged. All of which are to the damage of capitalism and family.

Soon a major social and cultural transformation took place with the increased socialization in society. The belief and value in the father working towards a family wage to provide for the family vanished. Home mothers became stigmatized by ideological feminism, the sexual revolution, and Cultural Marxism. The ideas in the minds of men changed and the course of history assimilated those new values. Entering the workforce became more important than becoming a wife and mother. Womens' investment in the latter areas declined. Job advertisements took on a shift as this transformation took place, and was given additional thrust by today's sacrosanctity of civil "rights"** laws. Old advertisements, with an ethos of strong family values, labeled "Men Wanted" and "Women Wanted" was deemed illegal because it was discriminatory.

Statism has alleviated, to a high degree, father and mother their function and role to raise, care for, and teach their own children. In replace of these functions and roles, that naturally reside in the family institution, has come the state. Put in another way, these functions and roles have become socialized. Children are thrown into the statist education system, where they are fed anti-family, anti-market ideas. Parents can no longer raise their children in a manner they want to and instead must accept school teachers and social workers as the ultimate judge and authority. There is thus less parental investment in children, the family structure, and the next generation and their development. Under statist conditions the internally weak family is promoted and encouraged vis-à-vis the strong family for the reason that investment is made more costly. Natural authority is zapped-away and parental irresponsibility, neglect, and abuse is encouraged because it is made less costly. The natural bond and attachment between parents and children falls. A decline and degeneration must follow.

The externalized value and cost of children also decreases the attachment and bond between mother and father. This encourages an increase in divorce rates. At the same time, divorce courts have become one-size-fits-all and "no-fault." Marriage contract and covenant has been taken away and placed into the control of the state. Mothers, moreover, have a court that is biased to them and, by default, negative to fathers. Added with numerous interventionisms into civil society, there is subsidization of single mothers at the expense of non-single mothers. This is nothing but the collective reinforcement of such lifestyles, illegitimacy, irresponsibility, divorce, and so on.

By socializing the costs of children, the incentive to act with sexual restraint declines. Continuing this socialization will push man to an animal looking to fulfill his appetite through his next "free love" conquest. The animal side and sensationalist side of man replaces the rational side.

Children, in the governmental schools, lose attachment to family, their heritage, and family values. These schools elevate and promote collectivism, uniformity, egalitarianism, "political correctness," and anti-moral values. Schools, in their raised position relative to the family, create dependency between children and the state. Permissiveness is promoted from the diminishment of parental authority. Children, who are under a collectivistic rule, are set "free" and an increase in crime, drug use, and all-around juvenility occurs. They become a lone grown-up drone in the masses attached and dependent on the government, in view of the fact that their early development was deformed (to some degree) to the state's image and its wants.

In addition, as children are forced into the educational system, child labor laws further decrease children's attachment to civil society. Their value to the family household is lowered, as they cannot contribute to it financially. Because their prospects of entering the workforce at a young age has decreased, they will be less likely to develop good work ethics, the skills of being independent or responsible, or have a respect for (non-statist) authority.

Far from being any kind of supporter and up-lifting institution, the State is the enemy of the family. A weaker family is one less bulwark the state has to confront in its desire to enlarge its power vis-à-vis the individual. It is those who want to give the state more power, for whatever reason (even in the name of "saving" or "protecting" the family), that are ultimately empowering an institution that is the enemy of the family.

Sub-Notes:

*Schumpeter believes that, paradoxically, while the family is a backbone to capitalism, capitalism will ultimately hurt this backbone leading to an anti-capitalist mentality. With the analysis in this blog entry, this seems to be un-true. As Jeffrey Tucker says: "Where Schumpeter went wrong was in believing that advanced capitalism itself contributed to undermining the family (thus his pessimism regarding the future of free economies). In fact, if we look at the case of the United States, it is easy to see that it is not the market, but government policy that penalizes marriages by directly and indirectly discouraging their formation."

**Statist and managerial elite, by programs such as affirmative action, have managed to push this process via social engineering. Collective women rights were deemed to exist in which the central state has to enforce and impose on all, contra to private persons and their properties. And those critical of this are labeled as mentally ill and persons of "hate," needing therapeutic help from the establishment. Helping along feminism, of course, has been the neoconservative right; claming that it is only the new "radical" feminism that has corrupted this ideology. (This is no different than their view on civil rights. Paul Gottfried has thus said that "On almost all social issues, starting with Third World immigration, feminism, and civil rights, neoconservatives are far closer to the Left than they are to the Old Right.")

War, Culture, and Community

Centralization is always the stamping out of community and locality. Returning to Nisbet, he saw that the reason modern man has become preoccupied with community is for the very fact that community has waned. Unfortunately, this desire to restore community has not resulted in man endeavoring to reestablish genuine community, which has nothing to do with political power, but the seeking of community by the use of the central state. Yet all this has done is further the erosion of community. According to Nisbet, there is nothing more fraudulent or dangerous than a "phrase as 'national community.'"

This "quest for community" can be seen in times of war. There is probably nothing greater than war that brings out the mass mobs in modern democracy, especially today's Limbaugh-type conservatives or kiddy-con conservatives, with their nationalistic and patriotic spirit banging on the drums and labeling war skeptics as "unpatriotic" (or worse).

Ironically, this patriotic or nationalistic spirit, having everything to do with glorifying Leviathan than anything else, is in all probability the result from the loss of any genuine conservative community. This is why states like a community void. Man has become increasingly detached and atomized from others. This makes, at least at first, the masses gung-ho about war. Just remember back to the first days of the Iraq War. War for a moment brings a sense of community and connection. Certainly those in actual combat feel a sense of community with their fellow soldiers. Those at home feel a bit of that as well. A little later, nonetheless, it dries up because it is a shallow and false collectivist and statist community.

In response to those that judge military life as beneficial to the development of a young man, conservative Russell Kirk said that "there is no tyranny more onerous than that of military life." Military life does not build character, strength, or independence of mind. It does not make a man "a real one." That kind of life, due to its socialistic nature, is antagonistic towards these characters. It is "military discipline," says Kirk, that is "crushing to self-reliance."

"In military life, distant from home and most of the forces of social opinion, there is every inducement for an average young man to sink into indolence and indulgence and every reason for him to rely increasingly upon the state for very existence."

So life in the military does not resemble community at all. Not only does it distort the development of young men, life in war and military tears families apart. It discourages old taboos on morality, including sexual relationships. War encourages promiscuity. And this has been multiplied many times over by unnaturally allowing women in combat.

"War and the military are," writes Robert Nisbet,

without question, among the very worst of the earth's afflictions, responsible for the majority of the torments, oppressions, tyrannies, and suffocations of thought the West has for long been exposed to. In military or war society anything resembling true freedom of thought, true individual initiative in the intellectual and cultural and economic areas, is made impossible---not only cut off when they threaten to appear but, worse, extinguished more or less at root. ... Nothing has proved more destructive of kinship, religion, and local patriotisms than has war and the accompanying military mind. [Twilight of Authority.]

And it is in times of war, Nisbet says, that the welfare state proliferates. Around "75 percent of all national programs which have been instituted in Western countries during the past two centuries to equalize income, property, education, working conditions, and other aspects of life have been in the first instance adjuncts of the war state and of the war economy." [Twilight of Authority.] War, socialism, and "progressive" movements are bound at the hip.

The Natural Community

Natural authority is not only found in the family and its extended outgrowths. It is found in businesses, churches, firms, associations, schools, and other places. In communities you generally find natural leaders (or, if you will, aristocrats). These are families who are good at organizing community functions and resolving quarrels. The majority of the town respects their position and abilities. In community you find differentiation and distinction between individual persons who possess different levels of authority and who play different roles (occupations) in the community.

One aspect in the development of community or neighborhood is the stabilizing effect that businessmen (working within the community) have on it. For instance, Robert Murphy's The Politically Incorrect Guide to Capitalism points to how

public safety is best ensured when people voluntarily look after their own streets, and where stores, bars, and restaurants (open night and day) and public spaces are all jostled together, because it gives residents, business owners, and customers a mutual interest in ensuring safety, a complex interaction of unexpected "neighborhood watch" mutual support.

What takes this away, Dr. Murphy says, is forced and top-down planning by the government. It "breaks up this mutual support." All of this has led to is increased crime rates and the annihilation of natural community development. It cuts off the bonds between men in community.

Again, this is exactly what the state wants. Any private functions and roles communities takes on, power in the state is less. Any kind of private authority is a threat to the state. Thus to gain power, the state must crush community development. Community functions and roles the state must take over. And when this happens man increasingly turns to the state for the answers to all problems. (The more centralized this state, the worse.) It becomes the center of society and existence. Instead of seeking private solutions, state solutions are almost always sought. This unties the structure of civil society. The atomization of individuals from all cultural and social restraints takes place. Hierarchical outgrowths of pressures and competing authorities atrophy. There has been hence the development of the ferine and democratically "equal" mass of individuals with "equal" authority in relation to each other. And hence the increase in immoral, "alternative," and destructive lifestyles.

Socializing personal morality and conduct to the state can only result in a decrease in the importance of civil society's role to "regulate" these matters. It is then that the family loses authority. Churches, in the realm of personal or individual morality and conduct, get hurt as a source of authority in society. Social pressures lose their value. So it is the socialization that lowers investment of civil society's institutional and associational presence in these matters. As a consequence, statism will actually tend to increase destructive behavior all-around on net. What is defined as "good" and "bad" will be state defined. Man will increasingly depend on the state for the guide to what morality means. Morality will enter in a state of flux, ever changing, and ever relative.

Under a free society, on the other hand, and implied in the above analysis, social and cultural restraints would be restored. Families, in both the nuclear and extended sense, would regain their natural authority. Churches can gain functions and roles in communities. Without a central power, communities can be restored in vigor. A person's membership in various intermediate institutions would be reestablished (or created anew) to his natural position in its hierarchical structure. A pluralistic society would develop. There would not be any collective, systematic subsidization of harmful lifestyles or activities with the welfare state gone. Property owners would regain the right to discriminate, and implied in that would produce an increase in civil behavior by the joining increase of the ability to discriminate against uncivil behavior. And so on.

Moreover, instead of public laws there would be private laws. Laws that would arrive out of civil society; not the state.

Murray Rothbard writes that "Under total privatization, many local conflicts and 'externality' problems ... would be neatly settled.

With every locale and neighborhood owned by private firms, corporations, or contractual communities, true diversity would reign, in accordance with the preferences of each community. Some neighborhoods would be ethnically or economically diverse, while others would be ethnically or economically homogeneous. Some localities would permit pornography or prostitution or drugs or abortion, others would prohibit any or all of them. The prohibitions would not be state imposed, but would simply be requirements for residence or use of some person's or community's land area. ["Nations By Consent: Decomposing the Nation-State"]

"In a country, or a world, or totally private property,

including streets, and private contractual neighborhoods consisting of property-owners, these owners can make any sort of neighborhood-contracts they wish. In practice, then, the country would be a truly "gorgeous mosaic," ... ranging from rowdy Greenwich Village-type contractual neighborhoods, to socially conservative homogeneous WASP neighborhoods. Remember that all deeds and covenants would once again be totally legal and enforceable, with no meddling government restrictions upon them. So that considering the drug question, if a proprietary neighborhood contracted that no one would use drugs, and Jones violated the contract and used them, he fellow community-contractors could simply enforce the contract and kick him out. Or, since no advance contract can allow for all conceivable circumstances, suppose that Smith became so personally obnoxious that his fellow neighborhood-owners wanted him ejected. They would then have to buy him out----probably on terms set contractually in advance in accordance with some "obnoxious" clause. ["The 'New Fusionism': A Movement For Our Time"]

Sub-Notes:
 
1. A free libertarian society would therefore not only consist of a horizontal "convivial order" made up of natural law. Vertically on top of this would be the development of the "social order's" voluntary positive law. For more on the difference between the "convivial order" and the "social order," see these notes from the PFS.

2. The communities that would develop would be diverse and this would allow people to live by those of like-values. Interventionists, as Rothbard said, would have no place in a libertarian society however. This would remove a major source of conflict in society. If communists want to a have voluntary communist community, then it does no harm to me (but only them).

3. Nonetheless, communities would tend to develop homogeneously. Today, even in a statist world, neighborhoods and towns that are wealthier and that have a stronger level of trust between neighbors are homogeneous versus heterogeneous. A free society would amplify that tendency. In particular, argues the great libertarian Hans-Hermann Hoppe, insurance companies would encourage this development:

"Heterogeneous" risks either cannot be insured or must be insured separately (in different pools, jointly with other homogeneous risks, and at different prices). Ethno-cultural homogeneity of neighborhoods, then, is simply a device for making insurance against external threats and interferences possible and thus lowering the cost of residential property protection. Homogeneity facilitates mutual property insurance. Capital-based insurers will charge lower premiums for clusters of homogeneous territories (while at the same time revealing the different ranks in cultural development of various ethno-cultures, as reflected in the price-spread of the premium charged at different locations.)

The process to a free society via secession, says Hoppe, "Rather than promoting a downward leveling of culture as under forced integration, ... stimulates a cooperative process of cultural selection and advancement."

The Authority of Culture, Language, and Reason

To loop back, in the first article linked-to above, the "authority of language," especially, is shown to be of great concern to Robert Nisbet, for it is language that is the most basic social and cultural bond between men. This is not only limited to verbal language but also the "silent language" of physical expressions. Language as well, as a means of communication, expresses itself in mathematics, music, paintings, et cetera. It is the essential foundation to any civilization, and therefore encompasses "nearly the whole of experience and reality."

With that in mind, there is a direct correlation, Nisbet believes, between the loss of authority in language and the increase of power and the decline of culture. Specifically, he points to George Orwell's work. Orwell said that in politics you locate "phrases tackled together" made up of meaningless abstractions and generic terms. In political discussion, for example, you find interminable phraseology that is vacuous: "human rights," "democracy," "social justice,"* "civil rights," "diversity," and so on. (With pro-empire Sen. Obama we can add the word "change," which is a political word that is as empty and lifeless as them come--------no wonder he is so liked.)

*(On "social justice," Irving Babbitt wrote: "Every form of social justice ... tends toward confiscation, and confiscation, when practiced on a large scale, undermines moral standards, and, in so far, substitutes for real justice the law of cunning and the law of force.")

"A generation," writes Nisbet, "that has formed itself linguistically around the primitivism of 'like,' 'cool,' 'man,' 'feel,' and, above all, 'you know' will not be a difficult generation to enslave politically, socially, and culturally." As a matter of fact, in the article he points to a study that reports the average Englishman and American recycles on a daily basis only "thirty-four basic words."

One author Nisbet finds loathsome is Richard Poirier and his book The Performing Self. Poirier disapproves of the "waste" of language and believes it must be personalized to the "performing self." All constraints and authority must be removed. Nisbet replies that this is not how genuine culture works. It is not how the genius develops or how the genius flourishes.

Creativity in high culture

is never the consequence of nihilistic rejection of the forms and structures which the creative mind finds around him. It is invariably a working from, and generally through, these to new forms and structures: forms and structures that may be so original indeed as to make their relation to past seem highly tenuous. That creative minds do indeed reveal capacity for liberating themselves in some degree from accepted modes of intellectual order, as a means of quickening the search for other modes, in no ways means that passion for disorder for "waste" is overriding. Least of all does it mean passion for "self-watching."

"The basis of any culture," says Nisbet, "is the presence of values which have external force in the individual's life, which reflect a power greater than anything that lies in the [single] individual alone." [Emphasis mine. This, separate quote, from Twilight of Authority. The above one, of course, is from Nisbet's essay on authority.]

Robust culture in literature rides the tides from the point of the Greeks. That is, of their techniques, forms, styles, and structures. Developing culture is the outgrowth from them. Not only is today's language untidiness caused by the denunciation of authority, the authority of reason has been waning.

In the West man finds the "acceptance of objectivity as at least a worthy goal." Our philosophical literature, says Nisbet, has looked for the objective in the order of existence, rather than the subjective or the "cult of individuality" of one's feelings. And it is this objective search that "declare[s] something of superlative nobility."

Without the authority of reason comes irrationality. It has thus been at the university where you find "feeling, through sensitivity and encounter sessions, ... exalted, in those wide spheres of the arts ... where preoccupation with self, with display or exhibition of self, takes the almost invariable form of display of the least rational, the least reason-oriented..."

In regards to the decline of the arts, for example, Murray Rothbard agreed. Rothbard saw nihilism forming in the arts:

The art-for-art's sake scam that permeates the modern liberal world-view, was launched by nineteenth-century aesthetes as a camouflage of their own morbid, nihilistic, pessimistic, and violently anti-traditional outlook: the French poets Baudelaire and Rimbaud, the Impressionists, Dadaists, and later the Bloomsbury Set and the literary and art critic Roger Fry. Since they could not get anywhere at the time by openly advocating their nihilistic values and epistemology, or their "alternative life-styles," they pushed – unfortunately with great success – the "art has its own reasons" rationale.

First, the left-liberals preached l' art pour l' art in aesthetics, and as a corollary, in ethics, trumpeted the new view that there is no such thing as revealed or objective ethics, that all ethics are "subjective," that all of life's choices are only personal, emotive "preferences." ["KULTURKAMPF!"]

This, according to Robert Nisbet, makes our age a "critical" one. Saint-Simon said that there are two types of ages: "organic" and "critical." It is in organic ages that the authority of culture, reason, and language is dominant. The age of our time is critical because these intellectual and abstract authorities are weak. We are in a "twilight of authority." And it is no quirk that with this comes the rise of Power.

Edmund Burke

“We were confident that the first feeling, if not the very prospect, of anarchy [in Massachusetts] would instantly enforce a complete submission. The experiment was tried. A new, strange, unexpected face of things appeared. Anarchy is found tolerable. A vast province has now subsisted, and subsisted in a considerable degree of health and vigor, for near a twelvemonth, without governor, without public council, without judges, without executive magistrates. . . ”

--- Edmund Burke, 1775 Conciliation With the Colonies speech

A young 27 year old Edmund Burke anonymously authored a book called A Vindication of Natural Society in 1756. Since then it has become a topic of dispute as to its original purpose.

As Burke was about to enter political life, and it was found out by the public that he was the author of this book, he claimed that it was nothing more than a work of satire. Most mainstream scholars have agreed. But Murray Rothbard thought otherwise. To him, it looked like a "very sober" and an "earnest treatise."

Why not, if it was indeed a satire, announce it in its original publication? And if it was not originally a satire, it would seem only appropriate that he would say that it was one because he was about to enter political life.

Why is that? The book argues for nothing more than private property anarchism: Society by itself is natural and good, but not "political society." Political society imposes, to young Burke, positive law, which is unnatural and hurts man, versus natural law, which is to be discovered by reason and not by law that has just been past down by tradition. Young Burke saw that the history of the relationship between States was a history of war and violence, and that violence was the foundation of all States, whether aristocratic, democratic or despotic. Conquest and coercion on a mass scale is what States are about.

As Rothbard describes the book, Burke goes through the bloody history of statism and reasons that over 36 million people have been killed by States from ancient times to his own. "For reasons of State" is enough justification for political rulers, but no private individuals could ever do what these rulers do and call it ethical or moral. Burke, who uncharacteristic of a older aged Burke used reason to build a defense of his words in Vindication, however, attacked those rationalists who thought that they could plan, run, and manage society from the top as a neutral scientist.

Was it really satire when first written, Rothbard asks?

Historians have stressed that the Vindication was written in imitation of the style of the recently dead Bolingbroke, and have taken this as proof of its satire bent. Yet these same biographers of Burke admit that, in his later writings, he continued to write in a similar style! . . .

Where, Rothbard also wondered, was the reduction ad absurdums of Bolingbroke in the book, if that was the point of the work?

Because I am not qualified to make an honest judgment one way or another, I have linked to some articles (yes, they may have some bias), including Rothbard's, below. One includes an article by Dr. Stromberg who, in his article, expands on the controversy and adds more reason to suspect that young Burke's work was more than mere satire. In Dr. Long's blog entry he says that young Burke was conflicted. He was "both resentful of and awed by the English establishment." And Mr. Sobran gives his own view.

But is it not interesting that there appears to be reason to suspect that, for a time, a young Edmund Burke flirted with the notion of a stateless society? That the grandfather of conservatism, a hero of Russell Kirk (who was typically a nemesis of ideology, rationalism, classical liberalism, and libertarianism), probably had these sentiments, to one degree or another?

It is my personal view that the best of traditional conservatism is a frame of mind and personal temperament. (This makes this kind of conservatism not a requirement or necessity to be "anti-anti-statist" in outlook.) That conservatism is a view of an ordered and structured setting of things, and a belief in a natural order. That there is a social order in society made up of various societal institutions, most fundamentally the family unit.* And that life is more than purely political, "ideological," or based on mere utility or utilitarianism. That there is a "spiritual struggle" for man and mankind, displayed, in part, in what Burke called the "moral imagination." A continuity is found in history. As the great Richard Weaver said, conservatism and libertarianism is based on realism. This is an understanding that "there is a structure of reality independent" of one's "own will and desire." One cornerstone to this, said Weaver, is praxeology [pdf].

Beyond this, and of which I would consider myself generally a traditional conservative in social and cultural topics (outside of politics), it is my more "radical" view that good conservatism, properly understood, should have nothing to do with the State. It is then that good conservatism (the very little that exists) falters and transforms into something ugly.

Articles to Read:

• “Edmund Burke, Anarchist” by Murray Rothbard
• “Rothbard and Burke vs. the Cold War Burkeans” by Joseph R. Stromberg
• “Burke’s Semi-serious Anarchism” by Roderick T. Long
• “Burke's Transformation” by Joseph Sobran

• “Anarchism, Reason, and History” by Joseph Sobran
• “Burke on Liberty” by Gary Galles (Quotes)
• “The Place of Laissez-Faire Economics in Edmund Burke’s Politics of Order” by Joseph Pappin III

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*[Lurking around the net' I have found a few left-libertarians attack "paleo" leaning libertarians, like me, for "worshiping," whatever that means in this context (I am not sure), the family. I quote "worship" the family place as a social institution in society no more or less than the market place. Private property, free markets, and capitalism are the foundation to society; to existence, actually. Without being able to own some property mankind would be long dead. (Not even States could exist without some environment of capitalism because all States live parasitical on it.) Are certain left-libertarians saying that this is not the case for family? Dissolve the family, then say goodbye to civilization. It is only foolishness that ignores the importance of the institution of family (or other intermediate institutions, for that matter) in society, including what its relationship would be to a free society. The breakdown of the family, much----probably the majority----of it due to various interventionisms, has lead to a host of unintended consequences. Children in fatherless homes, for example, increase the likelihood of drug use, crime, poverty, juvenility, etc. I hardly call that good for the future, or even for the market place. But, I guess, this is an area libertarians should not think about, or comment about. Nonetheless, instead of constraining myself to the problems of today's socialist economic market place, I will look at the other tangent problems too for a relatively more complete picture and awareness of a world that is greater than the economic dollar-sign-man who is lost in a fantasy of no relationships but that. Thankfully, great libertarians, like Murray Rothbard, fully understood that.]

There is a time and place for more scholarly and rigorous books, for example, Hoppe's A Theory of Socialism and Capitalism and Mises's Socialism, but there is also a time and place for more popular works.

The Economics of Liberty edited by Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr. is one of those books, filled with little treasures.

Mr. Rockwell in this 1990 book collected essays from a variety of authors, including essays authored himself. (His articles are a little more "punchy" than the normal article Rockwell writes today.) The essays range from "the truth about economic forecasting," "the source of the business cycle," "government garbage," to ending "the war on drugs." And for only $5 at the Mises Institute's online store it is a bargain.

Below are a few topics from the book, with an emphasis on the importance of why markets and its price system must exist. (The reason I did not review or summarize any of Rothbard’s essays is because I read them before. I decided to review/summarize "new" material.)

Free-Rider
[“The Free-Rider Confusion” by Tom Bethell, pp 35-41.]

A common attack on free markets is the alleged "free-rider" problem. The irony is, however, when the issue is looked at wholly it clearly is a government problem dealing with collective, public ownership and areas of the market where undefined or ambiguous private property rights exist.

Certain goods, it is said, on the market produce "positive externality" because their benefit is difficult to restrict to those directly paying for them. They therefore produce free-rider problems, and State or collective ownership is claimed to be the solution.

What is never looked at or talked about in statist textbooks, argues Bethell, is how this condition applies in spades to collectivism, not capitalism. A community that is communally owned allows men to benefit from those communally owned goods while not contributing to production. They can "free-ride" at the expense of everyone else. This kind of community will make laziness less expensive and those inclined to be lazy will increase. Why work, if you can get the good for free?

In contrast, environmentalists complain that the overutilization of fishing lakes is a free-rider problem in the free market. But it is precisely that they are owned collectively that causes these kinds of problems. No one suffers capital loss if fish disappear. The only ownership of the fish is the fish one person or company takes right now. Someone that does not take as many fish as they can get now might not have the opportunity in the future. Thus, overutilization.

Solution? Privatize----"internalize the externalities." A private owner would then not just own the value he can derive from the lake in the present but also in the future. The incentive would then be to derive present income without destroying the capital (future) stock. It is only private ownership and private calculation that makes this possible.

Commercial radio gets along just fine in the market place, even though it would be classified as producing "positive externality." Lighthouses have historically been private, despite the misleading propaganda.

So instead of statist textbooks talking about market failure, why not government failure? Even, hypothetically, if it is a large problem in society, it seems the State can only compound the problem by doing what States do, i.e., collectivizing. Moreover, these textbooks often claim "market failures" using examples which are government failures: e.g., overutilization of fishing lakes---a clear government failure!

Road Socialism
[“What To Do about Traffic Congestion” by Walter Block, pp 207-211.]

Walter Block, no coward he of the free market, is the libertarian authority on privatizing the highways and streets. An entire book, by the way, on the subject is coming out from the Mises Institute this year by Block.

In Rockwell's book, Block argues that congestion "is not unique" to traffic. On the market we are dealing with different forms of congestion at different places all the time. When we go to a restaurant, bowling alley, movie theater, etc. we are dealing with congestion. So are the owners of these private establishments, who have to pander to consumer demand.

We have to choose between private establishments which offer low costs but high congestion of people to ones that offer low congestion but high costs. Most of them have "peak-load congestion." Meaning there are certain times of the day or days of the week where they are busiest. Bowling alleys, Block says, cut prices "during the less busy hours" to solve this. "The fast-food restaurant," he writes, "with long lines hires additional workers." A movie theater charges according to peak-loads. And if that is not enough to meet all of the consumer demand, the owner seeks additional profits by expanding it. There is always a drive to meet the needs, and then reap the awards, of consumers.

Thus for the free market, unlike governmentally run operations, "'congestion' is a golden opportunity for expansion of output, sales, and profits." The trouble with State roads is that they do not have to meet the demands of the consumers. There is no way that they can register those demands because there are no market prices or competition. Without this, it is impossible. There cannot be a real market test to see if there are some consumers that are willing to pay more for less congestion and see if some would be willing to save money by paying less for more congestion. And there is no way to see if running roads one way is more efficient (more profitable) than other ways.

Drug War
[“End the War on Drugs” by Joseph Sobran, “Drugs and Adultery” by Llewellyn H. Rockwell, “Would Legalization Increase Drug Use?” by Lawrence W. Reed, pp 221-234.]

There was a time, a freer time, when hard painkillers and other drugs were readily assessable to the public on the open (legal) market, and there was no discussion of any major national problem or crisis.

"Informal social sanctions, as always," writes Sobran, "did most of the work of governing society." Then the so-called "war on drugs" became a priority for the State. Like the war on poverty, it is only a "war" in an abstract sense. This gives it the benefit of eluding a definition of "victory." (Sound familiar?)

But now there is talk of a national crisis. And, despite trying, society is not a fairy tail where drugs can be waved away by the State or any other institution. "The choice," as Rockwell writes, "is not between a society that is drug-free or drug-ridden." A drug-ridden society is what we already have.

Instead of eliminating them, all the State has done is surged the price of these drugs making drug dealing artificially more lucrative. Even within prisons, the pure essence of socialism in action, the drug war has failed. A conservative or liberal seeking evidence of the futility of this war should look no further.

And the State will always fail, because its attack is on the supply side, to lessen drug usage because it is a demand problem. Because it is a demand problem attacking the supply side will only worsen the issue.

Prohibition did not evaporate the supply of alcohol, but instead pushed it into the black market, much to the delight of Al Capone and other friendly characters. Lawrence Reed, in the book, reports that in Rochester, NY the number of licensed saloons numbered 500 and during Prohibition the number of underground speakeasies was twice that. In Detroit, he says, "drunkenness arrests increased steadily."

Liquor was made "much more potent (as with drugs today)." "Alcohol-induced deaths," in addition, "increased." And, naturally, crime rates went up.

More or less it has been the same with today's Prohibition.

If the drug war were to be ended, then, in a free market, the prices of these newly legalized drugs would fall to their market price and move out of the black market's criminal aspect. That means away from the hands of gangs and thugs, and would restore a healthy hierarchy of wealth. Addicts would be less likely to enter the criminal world to get their "fix" with lower prices. (Wealthy drug users, Rush Limbaugh for example, generally do not enter criminal activity to pay for their drugs and are able to live productive lives.) This would also give them a greater chance to seek help.

Cutting crime down alone should justify ending this needless and evil war. Also note that the usage of such narcotic drugs generates less violence from individual users than alcohol. Narcotics lower these tendencies and alcohol raises them.

As for children, tobacco and alcohol often is more difficult for the young to get than hard illegal drugs. Reintroducing these drugs to the free market would likely bring the same (relative) result because the price would plummet making the risk of public backlash too high.

Finally, we must all understand that there is a difference between morality and legality. It may be immoral to waste one's life away using drugs (and it is), but this is true for other things as well which are considered legal. We cannot make all immoral acts illegal. This is a recipe for tyranny.

Enforcing morality, says Rockwell, should be "the job of families and churches" and not the State. The importance of their authority and responsibility should be restored. (Collectivizing it, I say, only leads to increased immorality, the "freeing" of the individual from these institutions into unnatural atomism, increased hedonism, and increased all-around social decay.)

(One question I have asked myself is if drug usage would increase. While I believe the answer, if history on the Prohibition, the market incentives against high time preference lifestyles and the increased role of intermediate institutions under less statism are to be any judge, is a definite no in the long-run; it is also true that there probably would be some initial "blowback" if the war were to be ended tomorrow. So short-term usage might indeed increase, but that is what happens when the State gets into this business in the first place.)

Civil Rights
[“Civil Rights and the Politics of Theft” by Sobran, pp 182-187.]

Civil Rights and its logical consequence, affirmative action, introduce a new type of discrimination. This makes voluntary discrimination the only kind of discrimination the left (and neoconservatism) hates. They are thus all for discrimination, as long as it is based on State compulsion.

Now granting some of the premises of the left, the left becomes all wet on the idea that somehow affirmative action can "correct a wrong." Something, for instance, that is truly evil----i.e., violence against man's person and property----is to be outlawed, period. Slavery, of course, was one of those things. It was a grand deficit in our originally classically liberal society. But the point is that we must end and not redirect evil.

Accordingly, when murder happens the murderer is gone after. We do not try to "correct a wrong" by redirecting evil to allow descendants of the victim to create a "balance" by murdering a descendant of the murderer.

Here we see the folly of the left's view. Their goal is not to "end" discrimination or something of this nature, but seek, what Sobran calls, "tribal revenge." Moreover, their attempt at redirecting what they consider evil is not even analogous to the murder example. Instead they wish this tribal revenge to be enforced collectively on those who do not all fit the permanents of this redirected revenge attack. And obviously trying to "correct" the truly evil history of slavery today could only be done on people who were born far after slavery.

Anti-Human Environmentalism
[“Government Garbage” by Rockwell, “The Environmentalist Threat” by Rockwell, pp 197-201 & 289-312.]

Recycling, to its most basic level, is a question of economics, which is the social science of human action and his allocation of finite resources. To separate or not to separate is a question of economics, nothing more. For the question to be answered there must be in place the pricing system to allocate resources in efficient ways. But, as you guessed, the only way this can be done is to privatize the whole operation first. So if it is best to allocate paper (or anything else) away from landfills and into recycling, then there will be a market price that shows it. It will show the costs involved---that is what is needed.

This is lost on environmentalists because their philosophy is socialist at heart.

The history of environmentalism and politics started with Teddy Roosevelt, according to Rockwell, with the help of special interest groups. "[T]imber and railroad interests associated with J. P. Morgan, Roosevelt's mentor," he writes, "cheered on establishing national parks because this, neighboring the lands of these interest groups, artificially increased their values."

Like all areas of life politics gets its hand into, this was not enough political involvement, and another Republican administration opened the door wider. This was Richard Nixon. By executive order he (unconstitutionally) created the Environmental Protection Agency. "Not surprisingly," says Rockwell, "the EPA's budge has been dominated by sewage-treatment and other construction contracts for well-connected big businessmen."

Different governmental programs, for example, the Clean Water Act, puts Mother Nature, the goddess Gaia, ahead of humans. Wetlands have been made sacrosanct by it, as an immigrant from Hungary found out. By buying some old junkyard land and putting topsoil on it, he "face[d] three years in prison and $200,000 in fines" because it has been "classified as wetlands under" this act.

The much talked about topic of conservation of resources is also an economic issue. Free markets act like traffic signals with their prices. Something that become scarcer, i.e., the supply lowers, results in higher prices signaling consumers to conserve. If oil (one of the most heavily regulated and statist areas of the economy, btw) is about to run out, then, without any statist interventionism, prices will go up and force consumers to be more fiscally wise and give businessmen an incentive signal to look for substitutions. That is to say, the market will direct people out of oil, if needed.

And no matter what the merit of, for example, acid rain as a subject, its primary causes, and its impact the issue of this and cases like this have to be dealt as private property issues. It was government and big business alliances that took pollution off the table as being an issue of property and trespassing. But government is the place that these environmentalists want to turn to?!

(Say, for example, that a stream of water runs through my property. Later a factory moves into town and then dumps waste in this stream. Now if this waste enters my property then the issue is one of trespassing. Likewise, if I am a farmer and then a factory moves into town and its pollution destroys my property [some of my crops], the issue comes back to being a property issue. But these natural property laws were deliberately changed by the State---the supposed solution to environmental issues.)

There is, however, one good thing about environmentalists, says Rockwell:

The environmentalists are forever telling us to be poorer and use less water, less gasoline, less toilet paper, etc. But if they reduce their consumption, it lowers the price for the rest of us, and we can use more. (P.S.: don't pass this on to the environmentalists; it's the one favor they do the rest of us.)

America First!
[“A New Nationalism” by Patrick J. Buchanan, “Time for An American Perestroika” by Robert Higgs, pp 363-368 & 211-216.]

Buchanan says that today we have an "extra-national" agenda from left-liberals and neoconservatives that extends our national interests into other nations and their internal affairs. It uses "our Republic as a means to some larger end." Instead, he says, we must return to a nationalism of the founding fathers.

The advice from George Washington, Ben Franklin, and John Quincy Adams was basically taken until the Philippines. Making the world safe for democracy led the U.S. to join the ranks of empire. The world wars came and went. Demands from the public called for the return to an America First position. Next the Cold War came.

That too ended and the justification of American troops in Europe diminished. Likewise in Korea---the South, FYI, "has twice the population, five times the economic might of North Korea." But troops are still there.

Economic resources continually bleed for empire, spending that includes bases in economically wealthy nations. Propping up dictators here and there also continues---a recipe for "endless conflict." Nonetheless, empire is still excused. A chief reason being the "democratist temptation."

"Like all idolatries," writes Buchanan, "democratism substitutes a false god for the real, a love of process for a love of country."

Even with the Cold War ended (which was when this book was published) empire was still pushed by special interests dependent on the war machine. Cutting back military spending, for them, would put them out of a job.

The "military-industrial congressional complex" (MICC), which includes congressmen, contracting firms that sell weapons and the military, could not have that, as Robert Higgs writes. . . . There must be a bogyman to justify the MICC!

The MICC is a statist operation. After all, it's fully dependent on the government and, hence, has nothing to do with the free market or capitalism. They give millions to the campaigns of politicians and do other special favors to those in power in their symbiosis relationship.

This has pushed defense spending out of genuine national security. No one, though, can say exactly to what extent or degree. Some money has been squandered into weapons that are not needed. There is money that goes directly into defense and other that just benefits the MICC. The result being a poorer society with rich and powerful special interest groups.

Obstacles to Liberty and the Path to It
[“Back to First Principles” by Sobran, “Why Government Grows” by Rockwell, “Breaking Up the Opinion Cartel” by Rockwell, “Mises’s Blueprint for the Free Society” by Sheldon L. Richman, pp 159-174 & 280-284 & 359-362.]

Ronald Reagan has been presented in public discourse, by both conservatives and liberals, as a revolutionary president who turned the tide of big government and its growth. Yet during his administration "Federal spending," Sobran writes, "had doubled across the board." There was not the hint, in action, of anti-statism. (Reagan was not an improvement from Carter, but deterioration.)

Nevertheless presenting Reagan as a "radical" was beneficial for the powers that be in two ways. First, it was beneficial for Reagan himself. He got the glory of being a radical who accomplished something. Reagan could also continue to lull the public with his pseudo rhetoric of limited government. Second, it was beneficial for the establishment of statists because now they had a "bogeyman." Someone that they could point to and say "additional" cutting (or deregulation) of any program would go too far and that there needs to be a cooling down period from the "radical" Reagan administration.

As a whole anti-statist ideology has become complacent with left-liberal philosophy, reasons Sobran. Supply-side economics is a perfect example. It presents the goal of lower taxation and increase government revenue. In this way anti-statist conservatism and libertarianism presents its ideology as a "superior methods for achieving collectivist goals."

Today a liberal program is matched by a conservative one. For this reason the goals of leftism are not challenged principally, and consequently conservatism has helped spread left-wing ideology and the growth of government. Instead what is needed is "an independent rival principle to collectivism."

(For those that want that, look no further than the tradition to be found in the libertarianism of Lew Rockwell and company.)

A number of other things have insulated the growth of statism, you will read in the book.

Earning wealth can happen in two basic ways: voluntarily in the free market or coercively through politics.

Special interest groups have chosen the second method so they can use the government to fund their own interests at the expense of everyone else. They will fight tooth and nail if their funding is to be cut.

Indeed, 8% of the money in politics goes to the poor directly and the rest goes to the politically well-connected and the bureaucrats in on the deal. (Power is a rich man's game, despite left-wing fantasies of a pure egalitarian State.) And that which does go to the poor, and (mainly) the bureaucrat managers, has created a dependent class, and, Rockwell writes, "[t]hanks to [this] welfare state, there is virtually no social mobility from the bottom."

Those filling the seats of bureaucracy want to increase their position, wealth, and power authority. But by not operating in a free market they do not need to respond to profit and loss. Overspending is not penalized. In fact, it is encouraged. So what is the expected result from that? Bureaucracy increasing in size!

States have also grown in power "thanks" to times of crisis.

Politicians can claim that they need more money and power from society and the public, looking for answers, is easier to be lulled in. Opposition is crushed, since power and money is on the side of the State and its friends. (Interestingly enough if it is an economic crisis, when people have less money on hand, the government demands more money! And when government fails to protect "its" citizens the government then demands a bonus of more money. Imagine if private enterprise worked that way.)

Obviously the media franchise, a pro-establishment franchise, is another contributor to the increasing power of the State, since they generally work hand-in-hand. Talking points and press releases they are dependent on. Government officials patronize the media outlets that give soft-ball interviews and who propagate statism.

Through the process of increased statization come distortions in the pricing system and a host of unintended consequences. Politicians then use this to call for more interventions. One intervention is followed by another.

And finally the trends of growth are shaped by the government in the education system. They are the masters of opinion making----education and State should then be viewed as a dangerous thing.

What must be done to fight for liberty?

Rockwell writes, that we (1) must relentlessly show all government crimes and abuses; (2) understand that compromise and moderation doesn't defeat evil, instead abolishment of government programs must be fought for; (3) support alternative news sources and not the mainstream media; (4) get free market thought in higher education.

The only way to beat today's "opinion cartel," displayed in the media, is to spread ideas around it.

It then might be possible to move to a truly (classically) liberal society.

What would that look like? For Ludwig von Mises, writes Sheldon Richman, this means an understanding that private property is the foundation to society.

As Mises wrote, "the program of liberalism . . . if condensed into a single world, would have to be property, that is, private ownership of the means of production. . . . All the other demands of liberalism result from this fundamental demand."

This means, as a necessary result, the freedom for man to interact with others in a voluntary setting.

In addition, a liberal society means the backdrop of peace and impartiality of law.  It is only under peace that a division of labor is possible. Tolerance must be a cultural trait. And for tyranny, from the left and right, to be limited a liberal society thrives at applying justice and law to all men equally.

Governance that goes beyond protection of property will let loose oppression, wrote Mises:

We see that as soon as we surrender the principle that the state should not interfere in any questions touching on the individual's mode of life, we end by regulating and restricting the latter down to the smallest detail.

Methodological Individualism and Intermediate Institutions

Man is obviously not an island all alone to himself. This is a fact that is a given in libertarianism or "paleolibertarianism," properly understood. No man or men could live in that kind of state, unless their wish is starvation, death, and extinction.

For man to fulfill his natural instincts of preservation, contractual and covenant marriage comes about. As the Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises reasoned, the division of labor for sex under capitalism brings about "traditional" marriage and fosters it.

Man wanting to enlarge his family's wealth, for that of his wife and children and their future, and not to live a minimum and brute life cannot happen without voluntary cooperation with other men under an economic division of labor. This cooperation under the division of labor represents the source of civil life. It brings a natural social order of free market activity and capitalism.

Building up material wealth also allows man time to fulfill his religious and spiritual needs. (State fiat requiring man to work from dawn to dust leaves little time for religion, family, or such things! In the same manner, involuntarily forcing both parents into the workforce lessens the family structure.) Man's "quest for community," too, is fulfilled in this cooperative, non-political atmosphere. Intermediate institutions, or social intermediate institutions, absent monopolistic statist power and dictates, fill the necessary need for social, cultural, and economic authority and "regulation." They provide a framework to a world of uncertainty and scarcity.

This brings us to the first article. In the Mises.org Daily Article “What We Mean by Individualism” by Adam Martin, the author explicates why supporting subsidiary institutions requires the understanding that the building blocks to all institutions is that they are always and by necessity composed of individuals. For intermediate institutions to be present, they cannot be divorced from the actions of individuals, nor could they possibly be formed without individuals.

This is why a methodologically individualist stance must be taken, both metaphysically and morally. Once this is grasped, then the idea that there is a battle between intermediate institutions, community and individuals (if the terms are properly defined), as Mr. Martin writes, is theoretical nonsense. To organize and form institutions is only natural to man. They make an atomistic individual with no attachments nonexistent. Because of this, attacks against libertarian individualism, by such gentlemen as Russell Kirk, are falsely premised.

This understanding also amplifies important insights from the great Robert Nisbet. The State is not just at war with the lone individual and his liberty and property. This is to miss the full picture, perhaps most interestingly the most important aspect of the full picture. The State is also at war with all societal institutions and associations that men----individuals----form. One individual is alone and weak. But institutions---be they a business enterprise, a church, or family---are not. This proper frame of reference allows us to understand how to strengthen these institutions and associations (and, at least in purely economic terms as it relates to some of these institutions, why they exist in our scarce world).

A Layered Society: Individual, Nuclear Family, Extended Family, Clan, Nation

Roland Watson's LRC article “State vs. Community” makes a conceptual framework to understand community and its relationship to separate, unique individuals by that of a layered onion.

At the very center of this onion there is the individual. It is what makes you, you and me, me. It expresses our individualism and the "something" that makes us truly human.

Family is the nearest layer to this center. It is nearest to us. It provides the nearest support for the individual. This natural attachment and its impact on our development, too, make us truly human. Without it, we would be gone. In this layer there is an internal authority vis-à-vis the individual. Most importantly to any society, it is the institution that supplies and supports the development of children into adults. Its role in this process is to provide love and guidance. It supplies, among other things, economic and emotional support, education, the teaching of moral and religious values, work ethics and guidance for children to learn individual responsibility. It is thus the most important layer to nourish the individual core, the center, of the onion.

To continue to apply Mr. Watson's framework, let us say that the extended family is the next layer. It adds another layer of support to the individual, and to the nuclear family. Another layer would be the local community, which is filled with neighboring family households, friends, church and church leaders, community leaders, businesses and business leaders, and so on. Moving even further we enter into the very outer layers which include that of the region or nation. Those outer layers can be defined by the bond of language, ethnicity, and a discernible culture.

Community vs. State

“Let’s Gut the Political Community” by P. Andrew Sandlin contends that during the past three hundred years the political community has reigned supreme; whereas before, to differing degrees, governing was more left to non-coercive forms of management and governorship, such as kinship and religion. Along with kinship and religion communities, today, if we got rid of the State, we could introduce the "economic community."

Mr. Sandlin writes:

When left unhindered [e.g., "strong families, churches, and businesses"], they tend to assume most of the legitimate responsibilities in human society: nurture, education, bread winning, communication, health, transportation, wealth creation, and so forth. Just remember: in principle, what these communities do, the state doesn’t get to do. And what the state does, these communities don’t get to do. Why should we want the family, church, business, and other non-political communities to assume these responsibilities? Because these other communities are voluntary and non-coercive. You can ... walk away from a family. You can walk away from a church. You can walk away from a job. But in today’s Western world, try walking away from the state. Because these communities are voluntary, and non-coercive, they also do a better job of fulfilling their responsibilities in human society than the state does.

He continues that "It is a strong, non-coercive institution that binds a society together." For this reason they are "bulwarks against tyranny." And, unlike some critics from the "paleoconservative" side, we "need more small, family businesses" just as much as "we need big businesses." "'Big Business,' like 'Big Family' and 'Big Church,' is a great check on 'Big Brother.'"

The very last thing to do, as a result, to strengthen social intermediate institutions, like that of family, is to replace them or lessen them for statism and the political circus. Combining them with politics will always be damned to failure.

Authority, Private Communities, Law, and Peace

Jonathan Liem writes in “The Voluntary Community”:

Every removal of subsidiarity from the regulation of the community, by the ever-expanding state, displaces the human being from that which grounded them in wholesome relationships. This loss of wholesome relationships has unleashed the atomistic-individualism of libertinism. Thus, the state is responsible for the degeneracy of today’s community. The state has neutered the role that the voluntary community plays in the natural authority that regulates human action, and replaced it with the unnatural authority of the omnipotent state, its political shenanigans and relativistic moral center based upon pride, envy, gluttony, lust, anger, greed and sloth. The irony of the entire experience is that in working towards the virtuous community through the mechanism of the state, the conservatives have in actuality, ensured the supremacy of libertinism.

Now I am not certain if what I am about to say is "politically incorrect" or not. These days it is hard to tell. (It might be to the Reason crowd.) Authority and social structure is essential to any society, even one that is purely libertarian.

But authority and power are two different things. According to Brad Lowell Stone in his book on Robert Nisbet, here is how Nisbet saw these two terms:

Power, by contrast [to authority], is external and based on force. It entails an effort to exact obedience or compliance of others to the will of one or more person in a way not derived from the roles or statues of the aggregate. Thus, power tends to be monistic and indiscriminate, with uniform effects, whereas authority by its nature is pluralistic, with multiform effects. Power arises, Nisbet says, only when authority breaks down.

It does not take much to see that without authority society would parish. Mankind has an inegalitarian nature. All men, for instance, cannot be business owners. Some just do not have the ability. Under the free market, contra statism and its political hierarchy of the usage of power, it produces a hierarchy that awards excellence in servicing others. Something of which is mutually beneficial and reinforcing to all individuals, of all talents and intelligence levels, in a society. To get "on top," so to speak, one must serve his fellow man. Hence there exists in free firms hierarchical authority. There has to be. In the free market at large there is a general hierarchy.

Capitalism and the free market, more specifically, is all about an institutional setting. Once this is seen and understood it becomes clear that the atomistic individual and egalitarian individual is an absent and mythical individual. They do not exist in relation to any internal market institution in an atomistic sense or an egalitarian sense having equal authority vis-à-vis others. There is not the hint of democratic values. It may be heresy to say this, but focusing too much on pure individualism and nothing else is destructive. Something too many libertarians fall into.

Children, living with their parents and under their private property, could never develop into mature adults without good parental authority. Therefore in the same regards there is a hierarchy in family*. (Children cannot be said to be equal to their parents in authority!)

*[As Robert Nisbet wrote, today's "disorganization of the modern family," and the loss of much of its private authority, is the result from the "absorption of its functions ... chiefly (by) the state." And, as he said, the family is the most important molecule to society.]

In communities, large and small, there are leaders who are better at organizing functions and resolving disputes than others. Schools have teacher authority figures. In religion, there are also leaders and authority figures. There are thus layers of authority hierarchically structured. But these men, in a free market, do not have the ability to tax or coerce anyone. In addition, many of these authority figures are in constant competition with each other.

A look into private property also shows that such property has an "internal law." It is also something, by its very nature, inegalitarian. Its ownership is inegalitarian. Furthermore, private property does not form a vacuum, or a chaotic free-for-all of open access in terms of accessibility and/or rules of usage, like that of public property nor become detached from bourgeoisie moral and social values. It does not create a drone of detached zombie-like individuals walking about.

It is also important to understand that a free society, as I am describing, allows a harmony between different people, with different beliefs and values. Men do not need a uniform one-size-fits-all set of rules or dictates. They do not need it with purchasing goods and services on the market today. They would not need it if law were to be private. Allowing family households to associate with who they wish to associate with or apply to themselves this or that law (e.g., pure libertarian natural law, Catholic law, Jewish, a secular form of law, etc.) would remove conflict between people. There would no longer be conflict, for instance, between secular versus religion in State monopoly law (or on public property, for that matter).

The replacement of such a society is one where authority, and a unique "authority" development of power or coercive violence, is placed into the managerial, all centralized, State. In not abandoning State monopoly law for private, the result will just be the increasing diminishment of all societal institutions and private authority into central hands to be molded and deformed. It is the destruction of any and all community. By doing this, it is also sets into motion the atomized individual. To use a term from Brad Lowell Stone, even though the words are not exactly to my liking, a "communitarian traditionalist" has no place in a statist society.

For example, one crushing defeat to community, and private property rights in general, were State laws getting rid of covenants. They are a perfect illustration and example of a form of competitive and private law. For this reason it is understandable why the State would outlaw them. They are, at least indirectly, a form of competition to the State institution itself! It makes them, essentially, incompatible with statism and the managerial state.

This topic brings us to the last articles. Yet another strength to freedom is that it will eliminate any problems of forced integration and forced exclusion. See  “Community by Force” by Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr. They would disappear because all property would be privately owned. There would be no such thing as an immigration problem because all people would be invited into their communities. (Trespassing being against property norms.) At the same time, though, there would be the tendency to promote an all-inclusive complex division of labor to bring people together in the market place. Free trade between all would exist.

To understand where communities typically spring from and how the market's spontaneous order of movement would generally tend to work out, you can see  “Diversity Is Strength! It’s Also…Oh, Wait, Make That ‘Weakness’” by Steve Sailer.

One more mention worthy article would be Mr. Rockwell's “Capitalism and Culture.” It is a bit off-topic from this, but interesting nonetheless.

Um. How shall I say this?

I might as well repeat: "Down with Democracy."

Mr. John Zmirak is right:

Well, then. Now we know. It’s nice to know what percentage of my fellow citizens of New Hampshire actually value peace and freedom: Around 10%.  That may be the same ratio as prevails across the nation. Not terribly encouraging. It will make me a little more careful leaving my laundry in the dryer in Nashua.

It reminds me of the utter futility of “democracy” which trumpets one’s right to “participate” in a system that confiscates 30-50% of the individual’s wealth, so that 51% (duly led by the likes of Nurse Ratched and the Manchurian Candidate) can squander it. Hans Hermann Hoppe’s title, ”Democracy: The God that Failed” sounds more apt by the day.

Thank heavens we were “freed” from systems which enshrined a hereditary monarch--however inbred, who only had claim to 2% of one’s wealth, and would never dream of imposing conscription. We are so much freer, and more virtuous now.

My grandfather left Austria-Hungary in 1917 rather than fight for the Kaiser.  Thanks a lot, Grandpa.

Never was I naïve enough to believe that Dr. Ron Paul, the great man and hero that he is, would get the nomination of the Republican Party, but, I must say, I am still disappointed that he did not do a bit better number-wise and rank-wise. I would be lying if I said otherwise.

Yes, I know it is not over. The primary still goes on. There is the chance, even if small, that he might place comparatively higher in the upcoming states.

In the overall picture of things, nonetheless, it is difficult to say that "Freedom is Popular." Make that not so popular. The mass of the public might enjoy a man with good, (somewhat) highbrow rhetoric on the virtues of individual freedom, free markets and capitalism, and some mysterious thing called "limited government." The trouble is, is this is where it ends with them. As long as it is equivalent to the fake and empty talk and promises of a Reagan-like character men like it. If it goes beyond that backed-up with actual devotion to such rhetoric, then we are speaking of something different.

Hogs on a farm come to mind. The farmer rattles the bucket a little. The hogs run to the trough for a dinner of slop. Something not fit for human consumption, but they love it and eat it like you wouldn't believe. Day after day they get their slop. All happy and fat. Rolling in the mud. Thinking they were in hog heaven. Then, one day, all happy and fat and unaware, they are to be taken to get slaughtered. To make bacon, ham, pork chops, and so forth.

Besides, let us all be honest, the Republican Party (and their supposed "opposition" party in D.C.) will never be reformed away from corruption and ideological bankruptcy. Not even Ron Paul and the Revolution movement can change this (meaning directly----more on this later). It has always been rotten to the core. Any exceptions are just anomalies. That is all. So has the federal---actually, make that national (it is not "federal," as it was designed to be)---government. It too has been rotten.

Make that from day one. Congress use to be viewed, as John Adams put it, as a "meeting place of ambassadors" for the independent, sovereign states. The so-called Federalists (actually, due to the ever changing nature of words in the political world they would be best described as anti-Federalists) wanted a centralized state. Alexander Hamilton and James Madison this was particularly true. The early stages of the Philadelphia Convention were heavily tilted in the nationalist direction. The Virginia Plan was trying to push a national government, and according to the notes of James Madison, "consisting of a supreme judicial, legislative, and executive." The meaning of "supreme" meant that the federal government would have say if a conflict arose between a state and the national government. Naturally this is something that would not sell-well with the public, thus the convention was done in secret.

As we know, this group failed. A national government was not implemented. Instead what was implemented was a limited, federal government with a Bill of Rights designed to protect the rights of the independent states and people. However, as we can see, the push for this centralized government was not white and pure as the snow. There were far more sinister forces at work than most people realize. In fact, most people do not even realize or know that there was a time without a Constitution. On Independence Day people act as if it is a day in celebration of a nation-state. On the contrary, the Treaty of Paris was not directed to a nation-State----it did not exist----but to the 13 separate states. You might as well say 13 nation-states.

While compromise happened, i.e., the dreams of a national government were put on hold, a coup d'état still happened. It didn't take too long for this centralization of governmental power to increase on the momentum. (And, hey, why want a Constitution when the Articles of Confederation were better?) Time travel back to today and it can be easily seen that what exists is a national government, and one that would even pass (by far) the dreams of the nationalists at the Philadelphia Convention. It would probably (hopefully) scare them. (It would scare the Jeffersonians!)

The impetus driving power for the Washington political parties and the entire national government (or state governments, for that matter) to just turn 180 degrees and move in the other direction is too strong, nor possible given the structure and incentives of statism. There is too much power and special interest groups invested in the status quo. Too much dependence on the current system to be changed internally.

Thinking that it will change in such a way is like saying that the laws of gravity will inverse tomorrow.

Voting has never made anyone free. Thinking that voting will someday make us all free is a sign of a man who is not paying attention and who is only kidding himself. I fully agree with the following statement: If voting really made a difference, then it would be illegal. As far as I am concerned, voting "rights" only show us how un-free we really all are.

But back to the Ron Paul Revolution... Am I completely disappointed, or something of this effect? No, not at all. This Paleo Blog entry should not suggest that. Overall it has been triumph! Because of the spreading of ideas.

I am still amazed and thrilled at the grassroots. God bless them all, and God bless Dr. Paul. (I am not sure how this man does it. He is a saint.) The Revolution has won in spreading some good ideas. Hopefully they have made, and will continue to make, some dent in the fabric of public opinion. That is why I support him and why everyone should. Dr. Paul is a natural (non-establishment) aristocrat.

Plus I am relatively more hopeful long-term than before because of the Revolution.

So what I mean when I said that "not even Ron Paul and the Revolution movement can change" the nature of statism and the political system, I mean that in a direct way. Indirectly it can and (I very much hope) it is. Enough people that realize the nature of statism can end it. Without public support it would just blow away. And every system----stateless, monarchical, democratic, dictatorial, etc.----depends on public support, even if it is just passive support.

All empires crumble in the long-run. As long as there are people, like Dr. Paul, out there, it is possible that the masses will realize why and what direction to take. A major economic crisis (even catastrophic ones) can result in, at least temporarily, a more despotic government emerging, as the ignorant and power-seeking erroneously fault the free market for the dilemma. Then again, if the voices of gentlemen like Dr. Paul are heard, the public might wise-up and move in a more liberty direction. Ideas are vital.

The great paleolibertarian Dr. Hans-Hermann Hoppe's first English book, A Theory of Socialism and Capitalism, is back in print, thanks to the Ludwig von Mises Institute. Needless to say, for those familiar with Hoppe's work, this is a must have. So click away and buy.

Hoppe's other English works include The Economics and Ethics of Private Property, Economic Science and the Austrian Method, Democracy - The God That Failed, and (as editor) The Myth of National Defense. I highly recommend them all----particularly the first listed and the Democracy book. As Dr. David Gordon says "they are packed with matter." These books of great erudition will give you tremendous insight into the world and change the way you look at it.

Some Links:

• HansHoppe.com
• An Interview with Hoppe (1998)
• Another Interview (2004)
• "The Economics of Taxation" by Hoppe
• "The Sociology of Taxation"
• Hoppe on LRC