The Quest for Reason

Just Say No to Banning Pornography

2010-02-15T02:11:00.006-06:00

There is a YouTube user who goes by the name Nuclearnight. I would do a video response to her myself on this one issue simply because her argument is particularly annoying, but I have decided to take an indefinite leave from making YouTube videos. Thus, I must put my response in written form.

Nuclearnight is a marxist-feminist. By this she obviously advocates the normal feminist positions, with a certain communist twist. I had no idea who this user was until a few people I'm subscribed to started doing video responses to her. The theme of most of her videos, from what I gather, is that pornography is bad, and people who support or patronize it are morally depraved slime balls. She commonly refers to women in porn as "masturbation accessories," which is clearly meant to sound demeaning to those who would even consider using them as such. She hates porn, mainly the heterosexual variety I assume, because the women in it are exploited and some of them even get hurt in the process of making pornographic material.

I should say from the outset that I'm all for people making their fellow human beings aware of the dangers of certain industries. If people are concerned about the harm one could face while tending corn fields in Iowa (you could get run over by a combine, you see), the more power to them in their crusade to spread the word about such dangers. The same goes for the porn industry. If you are concerned about the dangers of it, by all means tell others not to engage in it; tell them not to use it as well.

The problem comes when someone wants to ban porn, either in the form of placing restrictions on watching it or keeping people from entering the industry. This is what Nuclearnight seems to advocate. She is really worried that women in the industry are being harmed, once coerced into the adult entertainment business to begin with. My point is: so what.

In order to be consistent with this viewpoint, Nuclearnight needs to examine every industry that has the potential to harm its employees, along with the possibility of said employees being economically pressured into the enterprise. Take, for instance, coal miners. Many of the people who work in coal mines grow up in towns where that's just what you do when you grow up: you mine coal. Along with being pressured into the industry, many of them are actually harmed. Coal mines can collapse and a lot of miners get black lung. If you don't like that example, look at the steel industry, where the same thing occurs, along with the autos, farming, electricians, plumbers, garbage disposal workers, window cleaners, etc. The list could go on and on.

There is a certain amount of economic pressure that goes along with any industry a person goes into. People are limited by the geographic distribution of natural resources, the tastes of the people in the geographic location, the creativity of the entrepreneurs in the past and present, etc. Along with that, every industry possess risk: that's just life and there's no way to escape it. In life people get hurt. Yes, we should all strive to minimize it, but advocating the ban of entire industries with "risk of harm" as a crucial factor is a leap in logical reasoning.

I know Nuclearnight would object to much of this as the coercion of the capitalist system itself. But my claim is that the argument I just put forth about risk and economic pressure would be true in any society man could realistically conceive, even communism. Communism would not erase the desires of men; it would only try to arrange the system of production in a fashion that is more "fair" to certain people. The need to produce would still be there, along with the need for people to produce it. Those people would still live in areas that were more relatively conducive to the production of certain commodities and services than others. The limits of geography and scarcity do not disappear with the waving of the communist magic wand: hands still have to get dirty, machine wheels still have to turn, unless, of course, one wants to see humankind return to primitivism. In short, communist paradise would not eliminate the injustice that Nuclearnight so vigorously decries.

Further, true volunteerism (true anarchism for that matter) is manifested in a society that lets people decide to make bad choices. The analogy, which is perhaps overused, of Murder Park, is relevant here. Should people be able to decide to visit Murder Park, toting a gun, expecting to kill or be killed? Of course they should! So long as all parties are aware of what they are about to engage in and voluntarily enter. This is no different than allowing people decide to commit suicide. Those of us who are more rational and concerned with our own physical safety, would not dream of going in such a park. In fact, we would all probably counsel others against stepping inside its gates as well. But counsel and force are two different things. To forcefully stop someone from making an idiotic decision is evil, no matter how much we disagree with that choice. It is force without consent, pure and simple.

The logical result of Nuclearnights anti-porn meanderings is a total breakdown in the division of labor and the economic ruin of society as a whole. If she fails to advocate applying her misgivings about porn to other industries in general, she is simply guilty of special pleading, and no one should take her seriously in the first place.

How to Argue for Libertarianism

2009-12-08T15:56:00.004-06:00

I have long pondered on how best to defend and advocate for liberty, to persuade my fellow human beings that they, too, should hold it and advocate on behalf of it. In Murray Rothbard's book "For a New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto," he identifies three philosophical foundations upon which the libertarian creed has been based: emotive, utilitarian, and natural rights.

I used to call myself a natural-rightist. However, I slowly moved towards the position that such a foundation was weak, simply due to scientific facts. The natural-rightist, says Rothbard, is one who advocates libertarianism on the basis of the self-ownership axiom: a person owns his or her physical body, just as one might own other tangible, material things in reality. The problem I have with this is it ignores the now obvious fact that the notion of "self" is brought about by the inter-working processes of the physical brain. Modern neuroscience has shown that human emotion is controlled by a set of brain structures called collectively the lymbic system, which is itself controlled (or regulated) by the more logic, future-projecting area of the brain: the frontal lobes. The sense of "self" has even been shown to originate predominately from a certain structure or region in the brain.

If the sense of "self" comes about by the physiological processes in the brain, how can one be said to own it in any true sense? What is owning what? Does the "self" come to own the physiological processes that bring it about as soon as it arises? This does not make sense on a fundamental level, but I won't go into the specific reasons for that here. Let me also note that I remain open to persuasion on this issue.

The main issue I have with Rothbard in his "For a New Liberty" is when he says the following:

The emotivists assert that they take liberty or nonaggression as their premise purely on subjective, emotional grounds. While their own intense emotion might seem a valid basis for their own political philosophy, this can scarcely convince anyone else. By taking themselves outside the realm of rational discourse, the emotivists thereby insure the lack of general success of their own cherished doctrine.

I think Rothbard overstates his own case against the emotivist's ability to convince anyone else of his doctrine. What I am fairly sure of is that morality is subjective. It is an opinion, a value. However, evolutionary psychology shows that the brain is equipped with some basic hardware that predisposes it to act morally towards certain people in a social context. In a sense, even chimpanzees are moral: they are documented to punish stealing, murder, etc., within their own social groups. The problem comes in when someone is viewed as an outsider, i.e. outside the social group one acts morally towards. This is true for humans and chimpanzees.

As an empirical matter, certain tenants of moral conduct (don't steal, don't murder, etc.) have been found present, in some form or another, in virtually every human culture on Earth. This moral predisposition is tempered, again, by the fact that it only extends so far: inside a given social group. And it may be cluttered with other unrealistic, culturally-based beliefs, like sacrificing infants to the gods to bring rain.

Given this and assuming morality is subjective, I still have an objective basis to appeal to within other members of my species: a basic moral sense that certain actions are bad within a social group. You can then argue for the expansion of the social group; that is, including more people (or even animals) within the realm of one's moral actions. You will find very few people willing to concede that they endorse aggression against innocent people without their consent. Instead, it's almost always maintained that it can't be avoided, or the people really do give some type of consent. Then the matter becomes one of showing how it can be avoided (leaving aside the notion of fiat justitia ruat caelum), or how it is not truly consent.

In short, I think emotivists do have an objective basis to appeal to in advocating liberty, and they could be very successful by appealing to peoples' basic moral intuitions alone, since such intuitions have a neurobiological basis. If large swaths of people intuitively hold the value that you should not hurt innocent people without their consent (even if it's only within the narrow range of a social group and even though it may be muddled by other predispositions), it seems very plausible that argumentation would be successful. If people want to hold a certain value, the task becomes showing how to be logically consistent; that is, how to truly hold it as a value.

Anti-Darwinian Societies

2009-12-02T12:43:00.013-06:00

Anyone who keeps up with Richard Dawkins will have heard him mention that he thinks a society based on Darwinian principles would be vicious and contemptable. He goes further to state that Darwinian princples at the level of society would be an unhampered free market. He thinks society should be organized around anti-Darwinian principles, giving those who are destitute and impoverished a safety net in which to fall. I think this view is problematic.

The central fallacy in Dawkin's reasoning is his conflation of the free market with Darwinian principles. On this, I offer one large objection.

The law of association (also known as comparative advantage) makes clear that free trade is beneficial. It is beneficial because both parties gain during the exchange. That is, each party to the exchange values what he receives over and above what he gives up. The law of association also shows how the specialization and division of labor, with free trade as a backdrop, increases total productivity. Not only does it increase total productivity, but it even benefits the weaker party in terms of productivity. A simple example will illustrate this:

Imagine a world with two commodities: butter and bread. Amanda is best at producing bread, while David is best at producing butter. However, Amanda is absolutely better than David in producing bread and butter. In a day, Amanda can produce 20 loafs of bread if she concentrates solely on bread production, and she can produce 15 pounds of butter if she concentrates solely on butter production. David, on the other hand, can produce 15 pounds of butter if he concentrates solely on butter production, and he can produce 10 loafs of bread if he concentrates solely on bread production. On the other hand, if Amanda splits her time between bread and butter production, she can produce 10 loafs of bread and 7.5 pounds of butter, while David can produce 7.5 pounds of butter and 5 loafs of bread.

If Amanda produces that in which she is comparatively the best (bread) and David produces what he is comparatively the least disadvantaged (butter), overall production is higher than if each split their time between bread and butter. [Total production of 35 units versus 30 units.] The surplus can then be traded between the parties and each is better off. Expand this economic law across entire societies, with all of the goods and services produced therein, and the benefits of it become even more obvious.

I said all of that to point out the problem in Dawkins analysis of free markets: free markets do not impoverish the poor and inferior. As was shown, even if a person is superior in every way (at least when it comes to production), he will still be better off economically to trade with someone who is inferior in every way. In this way, the free market helps the poor and even those who may be genetically less gifted.

Thus, Dawkins contention that free markets are ruthless and have no regard for the poor is mistaken. You can be for the free market and be a champion of the least of those among us.

Hindsight Hypothetical Voting

2009-10-06T12:21:00.005-05:00

Before the Election of 2008, I was asked by many of my friends who I would hypothetically vote for. That is, who would I vote for if someone had a gun to my head and threatened to pull the trigger unless I chose McCain or Obama.

When asked this question before the election, I said I would probably choose Obama, mainly for foreign policy reasons. He had nice rhetoric about the Iraq War, and I assumed that he wouldn't be too much worse than McCain when it came to domestic spending. After all, the last eight years of George W. Bush have been anything but fiscally restrained. In other words, I expected McCain, if elected, to spend like Bush, in which case I could not fathom how Obama could be much worse. Also, McCain had a hawkish foreign policy like Bush, which was a major negative. I thought about it and figured if I totted up the pros and cons, Obama would barely edge out McCain.

In hindsight, I think I was wrong in that estimation.

I can't say with certainty, but I now feel McCain would not have spent as much as Obama. In fact, I can't imagine how anyone, even Bush in a drunken stupor, could spend more than Obama. Obama has spent a mind-boggling amount of money over the last several months, and as a result, the deficit has swollen to terrifying proportions. What's more, Obama has not followed through on most of his anti-war rhetoric that was present during his campaign. He keeps doing more of the same in Iraq, while paying lip service to his promises. Namely, he claims to be drawing down troops in Iraq, but what's truly happening is they're being replaced with contractors. Not only that, he is increasing operations in Afghanistan.

I admit that it is possible for McCain, were he in office right now, to be considering invading Iran at this very moment. I don't doubt that Obama is less of a hawk on foreign policy. But now when I consider the totting up of the various pros and cons, the balance might shift in McCain's favor, if I had it to do all over again.

That aside, both candidates are horrendous, and I'm glad to say I didn't vote for either. *Dusts off hands*

Separate from Society?

2009-09-01T00:22:00.004-05:00

Every so often I hear some uninformed individual say that libertarianism (or free markets) is a philosophy that doesn't take human nature into account. That is, it is alleged that human beings cannot live independently from society. The problem with this claim is it only demonstrates the arguer's lack of understanding about what libertarianism or the free market is.

Free markets don't create a society where we are all living alone in the wilderness, plowing our fields in complete autonomy. No. It actually relies on the nature of humans as social animals. The classical economists long ago exposed the failure of the arguments against free trade. Adam Smith famously stated that it is not from the benevolence of the baker that he bakes bread, but for his regard for his own self-interest. What these economists might not have realized is that those arguments can be applied, logically, all the way down to individual human beings.

The old argument against free exchange says that if we engage in free trade, foreigners will get the jobs that domestic citizens could have otherwise had, as domestic businesses will go for the cheaper labor overseas. Despite the fact that this argument fails to acknowledge that the exported labor actually raises the standard of living of foreigners, it fails to be logically consistent.

If free trade causes jobs to go to foreigners, interstate trade within nation-states causes jobs to go to other states. For example, if Texas and North Carolina allow free trade among the citizens of each state, Texas will lose jobs to North Carolina that it could have otherwise produced within its borders (textiles, perhaps?), and North Carolina will lose jobs to Texas that it could have otherwise had (cotton?). In short, Texas loses textile jobs and North Carolina loses cotton-producing jobs. Specifically, the jobs that each state would lose would be those in which the comparative advantage of the other state is greater. Thus, if Texas is better at producing cotton (given certain features of geography present in Texas), North Carolina will stop producing cotton and produce those goods in which it has a comparative advantage. This shows how free trade brings efficiency gains, as it allows certain areas and people to specialize in the production of what it is comparatively better at producing, with the excess being traded. But the real point is if trade with foreigners is objectionable, why is this interstate trade within nation-states tolerable?

To go further, if New York City allows free trade with Detroit, New York will likely lose automobile-producing jobs to Detroit, while Detroit loses clothes-producing jobs to New York. After all, following the anti-free trade logic, this is the conclusion one must draw.

To go as far as possible with this flawed argument, one must reduce it to the individual. If Bob and Tom engage in free trade with one another (the uninhibited exchange of goods and services), Bob will lose work for himself for each exchange he makes with Tom, and the same is true in the reverse for Tom. For instance, if Bob is good at growing tomatoes and Tom is good at purifying water, Bob would lose water-purifying work for each exchange of a tomato for purified water; the same in reverse for Tom, assuming a barter economy for simplicity of course.

In sum, this anti-free trade philosophy logically leads to primitivism, a break down in the division of labor and the productivity that comes with it, and brings about complete self-sufficiency. It is actually the free market that fully complements human beings as social animals.

Response to a Christian

2009-08-23T02:48:00.004-05:00

I was in an argument (sort of) with a Christian about god. The following is one of my replies. Enjoy!
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I can address some of what you said without even invoking biology. The following is the fallacy of division, plain and simple.

"MATTER IS NOT CONSCIOUS, NOR CAN IT BECOME CONSCIOUS"

Aside from that, which should cause me not to give a second thought to this argument, it's simply wrong. Evolution explains how matter can become conscious and intelligent. If you were knowledgeable about it at all, you would know that. RNA has been created in the laboratory from the combination of various elements under certain conditions, and since it is a fundamental building block of life which replicates itself, science has gone a long way in showing how life can spawn from non-life.

There is not one shred of evidence that humans have some immaterial spirit. You are your brain. If your brain is damaged, a part of you dies with it. If your brain is completely destroyed, "you" perish with it as well. Neuroscience is a new study, so there's a great deal left to learn. However, what we can be confident in saying is that the human brain evolved on Earth just like every other living thing and that we are our brains. Our brains are EXTREMELY complex (100 billion neurons and up to 100 trillion synapses), which is why human beings are so intelligent and have this thing called consciousness. We are nowhere close to having the technological ability to design a computer (or robot) that is as complex or as sophisticated as the human brain.

That being said, I do think it's theoretically possible if human beings live long enough. At that point, robots could then have software advanced enough which allows them to feel pain, love, happiness, and be aware of their own existence. In fact, modern neuroscience speaks of different parts of the brain as computer software (this is known as the computational theory of the mind). Certain areas of the brain are devoted to controlling certain bodily activities. The frontal lobes, for example, contain software dedicated to planning and giving humans the ability to predict the consequences of actions. It is also this region that inhibits (puts the brakes on) the limbic system, which is where our emotions come from and are processed.

The simple fact is that I'm on far better ground, even with so much left to learn about the human brain, when it comes to reasonable propositions. You accept materialism. We all do. You have to because you are in a material world and have a material body. There is no objective, scientific evidence of some immaterial spirit that is controlling our material bodies. All the evidence says we are our material brains.

It doesn't even make sense to say we have an immaterial spirit guiding our material bodies, as immaterial is basically another word for non-existence. It doesn't explain one thing and isn't the slightest bit interesting.

A Talking Donkey

2009-08-10T14:44:00.005-05:00

I never cease to be amazed at the credulity of the religious. A while back, I commented on a talking donkey in the Bible. It's in Numbers 22:28-30. Back when I did this, I had several people claim that I had no idea what I was talking about, because I was taking it as literal truth. Some said I obviously had not read anything about the Bible and was uneducated because of the way I presented the scripture and made fun of it.

My obvious response was that I wasn't talking to the metaphorical Christians. I was talking to the ones that take every word in the Bible as literal fact. For someone to get upset at me and treat me as if I don't know what I'm talking about, well, it only speak to that person's ignorance of his fellow believers. Do not attack me when I'm actually addressing views a great deal of people hold. That is, some Christians don't say that the story of Balaam and the donkey is allegorical. Instead, they say an actual donkey talked to an angel on planet Earth. That it was as real as anything else in reality.

I've posed this question to fundamentalists (those who take the Bible entirely literally) to gauge their reactions. The vast majority of these fundies have no problem accepting a talking donkey. They say that in the past talking animals were actually very common, after all Eve talked to a snake in the Garden of Eden.

One can only sit back and laugh at such credulity. I used the talking donkey story in an effort to show fundies how ridiculous it is to take the Bible literally, but that doesn't discourage them in the least. They are willing to accept blindly whatever the Bible says. And this fact is precisely why they are so dangerous. There is not one drop of evidence for a talking donkey or snake, ever. The Bible is the perfect word of their perfect god, so whatever it says MUST be true, right? Give me a break.

Did I say I sit back and laugh at them? Well, truth is that I'm just as likely to shed a tear over this sad fact about members of my species.

Knee-Jerk Responses to Privatization

2009-08-06T02:46:00.011-05:00

If any of you follow the website LewRockwell.com, you may have noticed that Dr. Walter Block had an article a few days ago in which he defended privatizing bodies of water and the notion of voluntary slavery contracts. I stumbled upon a Canadian website that published Dr. Block's article exactly as it appeared on LewRockwell.com. I encourage you to go view it.

The particularly interesting thing is the Canadian website allowed comments to the article to be posted. In fact, the main reason I encourage you to visit the site is to read those comments. I skimmed through about 2/3rds of them before stopping from annoyance. Block is called names ranging from fascist to corporatist to neo-conservative, labels which obviously do not apply to him if one thinks even briefly on his positions and arguments.

Leaving the idea of voluntary slavery contracts aside, I was astounded at the number of people in the comments who took issue with the classic idea of the Tragedy of the Commons. This idea says that when a resource is public (or held in common), it tends to be depleted and to be the target of capital consumption, i.e. people try to get as much as they can now for fear of someone else taking their portion in the near future. The solution to this classic problem is privatizing resources. All resources.

Dr. Block's "radical" proposal was the privatization of lakes, rivers, and streams. This is simply a logical extension of the basic idea of the Tragedy of the Commons. The main objection raised to this proposal by commentors was that there are people who exist who treat their private property poorly. Obviously this is not a seriously-thought-out objection. The argument never was that NO ONE would treat his or her private property poorly. Rather, the argument was that there is a tendency for resources in general to be treated better than they otherwise would.

Does this mean that bodies of water will not be polluted? No. It means pollution will be rationally allocated by the market to suit the demands of consumers. Some bodies of water will be clean, and some will be polluted. The point is that market forces can optimize this allocation for the betterment of society as a whole. The property owners have an interest in the preservation of future income streams, which is an interest that doesn't exist when resources are held publicly.

After all, if civilization is to continue at all, rational allocation of pollution on some level is going to exist.

There are many other knee-jerk reactions to Dr. Block's privatization proposal, but I won't go into them. Have a look for yourself.

Political Tests

2009-08-05T03:06:00.006-05:00

I recently took an online political quiz. Here are the results:

Nathan is a far-right social libertarian. He is also a non-interventionist and culturally liberal. Nathan's scores (from 0 to 10):

Economic issues:+10 right

Social issues:+9.78 libertarian

Foreign policy:+7.38 non-interventionist

Cultural identification:+6.55 liberal

Most political quizzes are a waste of time. I was referred to the one above by a friend who said it was much better than most he'd encountered, so I did it. The results were pretty accurate. The only problem I have is the meter at the bottom where you rate the intensity of each answer you give. There were also a few of the questions I had a problem clearly answering.

For example, the quiz states in question #8, "Sċhool science classes should teach intelligent design." It then asks for you to strongly disagree, disagree, neutral, agree, strongly agree, with the statement. The problem is if the state is running schools, I don't want "intelligent" design taught in a biology classroom. However, if schooling was left totally up to the market, I don't care what the curriculum for any particular school is. I simply answered the question assuming it related to public schools and chose "strongly disagree." It's questions like these that make most political quizzes garbage. But I must admit that this one was not as bad as most, like my friend told me.

To take the quiz yourself, go here.

The Darwinian Free Market?

2009-08-03T13:49:00.005-05:00

I watched an interview hosted by Richard Dawkins with a lady named Wendy Wright. Mrs. Wright promotes "teaching the controversy" in the classroom regarding evolution. I encourage you to watch the interview to see just how deluded this woman is. Dawkins is much more respectful than I think even I could have been, and I consider myself a very nice and respectful person.

The reason I mention this is Dawkins says something in this interview that I find puzzling and wrong. Keep in mind that I admire Dawkins a lot, and I've learned a lot from his books on the topic of evolution and god. However, in this interview he tells the interviewee that a human society based on Darwinian principles would be a vicious, evil society that tramples on the poor, and he says it's a society he has no desire to live in. He claims that one has to recognize Darwinism in order to build a society that is truly good, since Darwinism must be rejected as a tenat of social foundation. He goes on to claim that a Darwinian society would be one based on an unhampered free market.

This statement goes directly against anyone who understands basic, free-market economics, and it also falsely equates Darwinism with radical free markets. One of the reasons I promote an unhampered free market is because it provides more for everyone, not just the rich. I assume Dawkins thinks a "just" society is one that has laws like the minimum wage, unemployment benefits, universal health insurance, etc., which he views as helping the least among us. In every area where this "just" society is supposed to help the poor, it can be shown to do the exact opposite. The clearest case is the minimum wage: it hurts the very people it's intended to help by unemploying marginal workers. The same can be said of each of the other provisions of this just society that Dawkins desires.

I want an unhampered free market because the poor will be better off, along with everyone else. If Dawkins properly understood free-market economics he wouldn't go around promoting disabling the saving grace of the free market. In short, he wouldn't oppose the best form of social organization.

Join the Army!

2009-07-30T21:22:00.006-05:00

I was in a situation today where I was in the same room with an Army Recruiter for some period of time. I've long thought that the military brainwashes its members. How else can you train someone to be a killing machine? There has to be some form of desensitization going on.

Not surprisingly, I heard this Army Recruiter make several jokes to passing inquirers that involved brainwashing. If my memory serves me correctly, in one instance he said, "We don't brainwash you... at first!" He thought this was quite funny. I actually laughed at it myself, because while it was a joke, it was also a blunt truth.

That being said, I don't think the desensitization argument against the military is a very good one. I mean, is desensitization always bad? Not in and of itself, as the context is very important. I imagine that a free market in defense would result in training techniques for company operatives in a similar way. Psychopathy does exist, after all, and the free market must (and will) provide a service to go after those social aberrations, along with other crimes.

If I'm hiding under a bed from someone intent on killing me and have called my defense agency to come to the rescue, I wouldn't mind in the slightest that the company agents may have gone through a desensitizing program. The emergency situation calls for an actual living, breathing person to take on a high level of risk to life and limb. If desensitizing training has any use at all, it would certainly be in those situations.

Joining the Army is bad for other reasons. It's bad because the members take orders from the state, which is not a voluntary institution. Given this context, the desensitization training makes something bad even worse. It is, indeed, bad enough we have a violent institution like the state, but the loss of basic human emotion and empathy in those that carry out the state's decrees makes efforts to disarm the state intellectually even more difficult. It thus becomes virtually necessary to raise arms against the state to dethrone it, since those of us who find ourselves in opposition to state violence lose our ability to make effective emotional pleas. Instead, we are looked at through eyes that have been trained to see opposition as less than human. It should not be surprising to discover that reason loses its power in this subhuman realm.

Morality?

2009-07-29T14:08:00.003-05:00

Despite my initial ravings about morality, I've finally come to the conclusion that morality is entirely subjective. I haven't posted on my blog in a while, so this may seem like news to those who read this. However, I've held this position, at least tacitly, for a long while now.

Morality is nothing more than the subjective preferences that individuals have about interpersonal human actions. At bottom, you can't convince someone who thinks murder is okay that it's not. Even if you take the Rothbardian approach and tout the axiom of self-ownership, it only goes so far. I will also say the self-ownership argument is the most convincing I've encountered of these moral, axiomatic arguments. The problem is it makes the assumpion that "you" own "yourself." Does "yourself" include all the matter and energy that composes "your" body?

Modern neuroscience has shown that there is no "you" in the conventional sense. It has even shown there's evidence that the experience of self originates from the operation of certain regions of the brain. There's no objective "you" that exists outside your own physical body that can make decisions. The self-ownership axiom is, thus, entirely self-referencing. How can "you" own the physical processes in the brain that bring about the actual experience of "you?"

I hold the non-aggression principle as a subjective preference, and I think others should hold it too, if they want to be logically consistent with basic norms of peaceful human interaction. I've concluded this approach works the best.

The Maximization of Profit as Morality

2009-03-26T15:07:00.000-05:00

This is a working paper. Comments and feedback are appreciated.
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There exist two schools of thought in the world of ethics and morality. One school of thought says ethics and morality are only subjective preferences, and the other school deems ethics and morality to be objective. The former is the ethical nihilist point of view, and the latter is what can be called the ethical objectivist position. Before rushing to explain my own point of view on this matter, some clarification of the two viewpoints just mentioned is in order.

The ethical nihilists deny the existence of any kind of moral code that should be obeyed. The reason for such denial goes back to a sticky problem that David Hume discovered when discussing how people ought to act: the is-ought problem. When a human looks around at the world in which he finds himself, he sees what “is.” For example, he picks up a rock on a mountain hillside and is able to discern through his senses that the rock exists in reality; the rock simply “is.” This is the “is” side of the is-ought problem.

On the other hand, the human sees the world around him and the other humans that exist in it, and a question quickly presents itself: how should this human act toward the world around him and the other humans he finds himself in contact with? This is the “ought” side of the is-ought problem.

The reason for the problem is the huge gulf that exists between what is and what ought. That is, the human looks around and can see what exists in reality, but he cannot derive any objective standard of how he ought to behave from the knowledge of what is in reality. This quandary has led to the ethical nihilist position: each person must subjectively determine for himself how he ought to act, since there is no objective standard that must govern his actions. How one ought to behave is a personal decision, or so the argument goes.

I fully accept the is-ought distinction, and I am not claiming, like so many ethical objectivists have in the past, to have found a way around it. Instead, I only attempt to hint that I may have bridged the gap in a narrow way, but it's up to you to decide on the merit of it.

Human beings always seek to profit. Always. There are no exceptions. Every action you take is done in the desire to profit, properly understood of course. How can this be? Well, let us imagine a hypothetical person. We will call him, say, David. David gets up early one morning to head to work and goes to a local store to purchase a small cup of coffee. At the register, David hands the cashier $2 in exchange for the coffee. The cashier takes the $2 possessed by David and gives David the coffee possessed by the store. Now, the store is in the possession of the $2, and David is in possession of the coffee. This exchange has been profitable for both David and the store. The reason is David now possesses something (the coffee) he valued more than that which he gave up in the exchange (the $2). That is, David profited to the extent that he valued the coffee he gained over and above the $2 he gave up. We can know for certain that David did profit, given the assumption the exchange was voluntary, because if David did not value his state of affairs post-exchange more than his state of affairs pre-exchange, he would have never made the exchange in the first place.

The hypothetical presented above can be extended to cover every conceivable human action, which means that every human action is a profitable action from the point of view of the actor. For instance, David even profits when he picks up a book on the floor. This can be seen by applying the same analysis as explained above. David made a personal or autarkic exchange when acting to pick up the book. That is, David clearly valued the state of affairs post-exchange (book off the floor) over and above the state of affairs pre-exchange (book on the floor). Applying this analysis even further, we can see that David profits from merely scratching his nose, washing his hands, eating, running, wiggling his fingers, etc. It is, in fact, impossible to conceive of an action that is not profitable at the time the action is taken.

It is important to realize that David may regret any number of his many exchanges; he may regret buying the coffee, picking the book up off the floor, wiggling his fingers, etc., but that regret only exists in the ex post sense. We are talking about profitable actions in the ex ante sense; that is, at the time the action is taken.

Seeing that every action is profitable, it seems there is something innate in humans that causes us to seek profit in our actions. It is as if we are wired to act profitably. What’s more, an unprofitable action cannot even be comprehended (again, in the ex ante sense). Is this a biological fact which is rooted in the evolutionary history of life? Perhaps, but I do not seek to make any claims about biology. It is enough to say that humans seem to be hardwired to profit in everything that we do.

What can I extrapolate from this and claim about ethics or morality? I claim that it is ethical and moral to profit. That, in fact, there is no other way for a human being to act. At first glance it may seem as if I am claiming humans are always moral, since all acts are, by their very nature, profitable. However, with a deeper examination, I am not claiming that at all, as there exists a glaring notion that can make actions relatively less profitable: non-consent.

Underpinning the profitability of any action is the assumption that the action is based on the consent of the actor. Going back to the David hypothetical, if a gunman had threatened David with violence if David didn’t purchase the gunman a coffee, it should be evident that the nature of the exchange has changed dramatically. It is as if the gunman has hijacked the subjective values of David and replaced them with the gunman’s own values. It should also be clear that David is faced with an alternative. If David values his safety and security, he will likely comply with the gunman’s demand. However, since the violent demand of the gunman is not consented to by David, David would prefer not to be presented with this exchange, and this will be evident in a moment.

Can it be said that you profit from an exchange that you are violently forced to make? Yes, but less so than would have occurred without the violence. There is an opportunity cost connected to non-consented actions. Removing consent causes relative profit to fall. Since we know every action is a profitable action, it can be said that the most profitable actions are those that are based on consent, since no one prefers actions not based on consent, for even the masochist consents to his pleasure from pain.

Imagine the two possibilities to profit from actions as arranged on a value scale:
1) Profit from consented action
2) Profit from non-consented action

Whenever non-consented action is forced on an actor, it must necessarily -- since it takes place through space and time -- take the place of a consented action. This causes a fall in relative profit for the actor involved. If left to his own consensual devices, humans will always maximize profit by taking those actions that are subjectively preferred over others, and this is an unavoidable natural condition of how humans act.

To say it another way, humans will be relatively less profitable to the extent that non-consented action replaces consented action.

It is almost as if our human instincts recognize this relative fall in profit or opportunity cost. Is it not the case that when you are personally the victim of a violent, non-consented action, you feel a sense of revulsion deep within you? Perhaps our emotions and basic human instincts are more in tune with the realization of this opportunity cost than we recognize.

What if it is proposed that the gunman may get more profit from imposing his violent act on David than David loses in being imposed upon? The idea that the gunman profits more than the relative loss to David is not knowable since one cannot compare subjective profit among actors, but if one acts always by maximizing profit without vitiating the consent of others, one can know that everyone is achieving the maximization of profit, which is innate.

To answer a potential counter argument, the gunman forgoing coercing David does not cause the gunman to have a dip in relative profit if the gunman decides voluntarily to abandon his violent plans. This is so because we know that all consented actions coincide with the maximization of profit. So, we can say that the gunman abandoning his use of force against David would be moral, since the gunman’s own voluntary act to forgo his violent plan maximizes his profit, and it allows David to maximize profit from his own consensual acts. Thus, if we have a moral proposition that says “maximize profit in all cases” we would, in effect, be telling the gunman to abandon his violent plans and that this abandonment would result in the maximization of profit. The gunman may be frustrated as he abandons his violent plans, but if this moral code of “maximize profit at all times” is obeyed consistently, the gunman would have to abandon his violent plans: David would thereby maximize his profit and the potential gunman would maximize his as well.

Why should the gunman value the maximization of profit in all cases, even the cases of his fellow human beings? Well, it can be objectively proven that in every act the gunman takes, he is seeking to maximize his profit. The gunman cannot argue that he does not prefer this, since he cannot escape his human condition. If the gunman examines his own human state, he is drawn to the conclusion that he himself values consented action more than non-consented action. By imposing non-consented action on David and causing a fall in David’s relative profit, the gunman is being inconsistent with his own nature as a human being.

I claim, then, that morality exists in humans maximizing profit consistently. David could, in fact, say to the gunman as he is being coerced that the gunman is not acting in conformity with his own subjective preference for profit maximization through consented action, and that the gunman is rebelling against human nature by forcing other human beings into non-consented action. The gunman knows he prefers consented action and he can also know that David prefers consented action. What is the problem here? If the gunman knows he values maximizing profit via consented action and that David values the same thing, why does he choose to coerce David? Why does he choose to cause David’s relative profit to fall and to act out of conformity with human nature? The gunman is forcing David into non-consented profit maximization, which the gunman does not himself prefer. The gunman can act outside of the maxim “maximize profit in all cases,” but he does so by abandoning the natural state of his own human condition.

What happens if the gunman decides to obey the moral code of profit maximization and to apply it across the board to others? Well, it results in a net rise in profit for all human actors, and it does not diminish the profit of the gunman. If the gunman consents to follow this human moral code, he is still maximizing his profit, since the choice to follow this morality was based on consent.

This morality is. It is how every single person voluntarily chooses to behave in every act: maximization of profit based on consent. There is no way to avoid it. What can happen, however, is humans can choose to rebel against this morality by forcing others into a state of affairs that they themselves do not objectively prefer. It is the job of this essay to make this objective preference of every human known and to request that you come into conformity with it by applying the morality that you objectively follow and prefer to everyone else in society.

Does this bridge the is-ought gap? In a way, it does. It demonstrates that how one ought to act is in fact the way one must act and the way one does act by nature of being human. The ought and is converge into one, at least in this sense. However, it only goes so far. This only meshes is-ought in the case of how other people ought to treat you, not how you ought to treat others. That is, it says that you act in order to maximize profit. Always. It says, in essence, you do not prefer to have someone aggress against you and force you to do non-consented acts. In a sense, it evidences a “don’t tread on me” preference that is universal among all human beings. The problem arises when one considers whether he should tread on someone else. Obviously, as has been stated repeatedly in different ways, all people prefer not to be treaded upon, but is it not the case that some might prefer to tread on others, even though they themselves do not prefer to have someone else tread on them?

What I would claim in this regard is every human being ought to defend the universal human preference of “don’t tread on me.” It might be the case that someone would want to coerce you, but your natural preference is to dissent from this coercion and to act in conformity with the universal human preference to maximize profit.

This moral philosophy merges the theory of natural rights with utilitarianism. It is a natural condition of man to maximize profit, and utilitarianism seeks the highest possible utility from actions, which we have simply labeled as profit in this discussion. It should also be noticed that maximizing profit in the universal sense could be called the ideal morality. That is, everyone profiting from consensual actions. Thus, maximizing utility and natural rights theory merge into one under this analysis.

Thus, we arrive at a moral philosophy, when obeyed consistently, which brings each human into conformity with what is naturally unavoidable and an innate human condition: maximization of profit.

Dear Ole Fred the Lunatic

2009-02-28T04:40:00.008-06:00

I just watched a documentary on YouTube about Westboro Baptist Church. It's that cult of a church in Topeka, Kansas which is headed by that ghastly pastor of theirs, Fred Phelps. I have always been amazed at dear ole Fred. Perhaps stunned is a better word, as in stunned in disbelief. My mind is made numb with the dribble this disgusting, wretch of a human being spouts on a daily basis. Just search YouTube for an interview with him, and you'll see a sad, pitiful old man, an old man who doesn't have enough sense to know that he doesn't have any sense.

There are those who feel sorry for dear ole Fred. The reason for their sympathy comes from the obvious fact that dear ole Fred's engine is not firing on all cylinders. It doesn't take too much inspection to discover this fact, since dear ole Fred is nothing more than a raving lunatic who claims divine revelation from a celestial, supernatural being. This celestial being tells dear ole Fred the world is soon coming to an end, and it's dear ole Fred's job to go tell all the homosexuals they're going to hell and to protest the funerals of those homosexuals and various other people. We are not privy to the conversations dear ole Fred has with this celestial being, but said being evidently thinks it is most appropriate for dear ole Fred to put tacky signs on sticks and march around chanting mindless, idiotic phrases. This, of course, is all done in the honor and glory of the celestial being.

I, however, don't feel sorry for the lunatic in the slightest. I actually get quite a lot of satisfaction from imagining to beat the complete shit out of dear ole Fred. I get an odd sense of joy from envisioning the look on dear ole Fred's face as my fist connects with his left temple and he staggers and finally collapses to the floor. I see this in somewhat Darwinian terms. I, as a homo sapien, have a natural instinct to protect myself from harm. The lunatic espouses views about how he wants to see people die, and about how he enjoys the thought of people screaming in a place of eternal torment. These beliefs are harmful and draconian, and every emotional fiber in my body recoils at the thought of them. Thus, it is perfectly understandable why anyone would want to bring violence upon this man and his ilk.

However, my philosophy of non-aggression reigns in my natural Darwinian instincts. I have to exert quite a lot of effort to put my emotions at bay in this situation. Believe me, I hate it quite a lot. Yes, even dear ole Fred has the right to be a lunatic, so long as he isn't aggressing against others while on his lunatic Safari.

The beliefs and desires of dear ole Fred are the ravings of a madman, of a psychopath. As Christopher Hitchens has said, such a man should not be in a position of authority over anyone. Instead, he should be out on the streets with a cardboard sign and selling pencils from a plastic cup. So far, dear ole Fred's got the sign part under control; we just need find him a plastic cup and some pencils.

The Disposition of Property Under Market Anarchy

2009-01-31T00:02:00.003-06:00

I have heard a lot of opining about how property is to be handled under market anarchy. Most of this discussion centers on how one acquires property legitimately in a free society, how to protect such property, how intrusions on ones property should be addressed, etc. Scarcely have I heard, dare I say never, any mention of how property should be conveyed at death. That is, when a property owner dies, what should happen to his property?

The most straightforward answer is that, well, clearly, the decedent (dead property owner) should convey all of his assets through testamentary disposition, e.g. a will. This answer is crystal clear, but the issue gets somewhat foggy if one asks a very obvious question: what if the decedent is intestate, i.e. he has no will?

At common law, the emphasis has always been placed on the biological relations of people when conveying property at death. It was a legal philosophy obsessed with blood: it wanted a decedent's property to end up in the hands of his blood relatives. Love it or hate it, this clear line of distinction about where your property went resolved a lot of problems. The state simply declared that upon your death all of your assets would be conveyed to your sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, etc. If the state could not find anyone to give your property to within your bloodline, the state would grant itself your property.

Today, most, if not all, states in the United States still have such a system in place. If you die intestate, your property passes through your state's law of intestacy, which generally means it goes to your spouse and your blood relatives. If the state has trouble finding the decedents heirs, it will go up the ancestral line, and locate a consanguineous heir. If all else fails, the state does what it does best: it claims the property for itself.

The problem facing market anarchists concerns how property should pass in the absence of a will. Simply, if a man dies with property and has devised no document dealing with its disposition at his death, what is to be done with said property? Surely the answer is not to adopt the government's current practice and convey it to blood relatives. After all, what makes blood relatives so bloody (excuse the pun) special under property rights properly understood? Well, nothing. There is no reason to assert that property rights demand the conveyance of ones assets to blood relatives at death.

There are a few possibilities to remedy this situation in the absence of the state.

It could be that each business would form a contractual relationship with its customers, especially in the purchase of large products like a car or refrigerator, wherein each particular product would have its own method of conveyance if the decedent is intestate. The forces of economic law would engage to serve consumers as well. If consumers desired for their property to be conveyed a certain way, they could very well alter their purchasing decisions to reflect their preference for a certain method of property disposition. Thus, if Company A is competing against Company B and their products are similar in every way except the method in which property is conveyed at death, the company with the more preferred method would tend to draw consumers away from its competitor and to it. The result being that either the rival company adopts a different method (perhaps the same one as the other company) or the rival company eventually goes out of business.

Another method under a truly free market could be through the use of insurance. In the insurance contract, the insurance company could have a clause that says how property is conveyed at death if the insured dies intestate. The contract could be narrow and cover only the property which is directly insured, or it could be broad and cover much more than that. For example, if you have insurance on land, the insurance policy could have a broad clause that conveys all property on that land should the insured die intestate.

If all else fails, there is also the possibility that entrepreneurs will spring forth in the free market to resolve the unforeseen. At worst, the decedent's property could be treated as unused and unowned, opening an opportunity for it to be homesteaded once more. At first glance, this may seem chaotic, as it could encourage a run on the decedent's property: first come, first serve. However, businesses specializing in the disposition of a decedent's assets could arise to make the process much more smooth. If Tom dies intestate and has land, a house, a car, and other personal items, the Intestate Disposition Firm, for example, could handle the allocation of those assets to buyers by hosting an auction.

What if these firms fight over who gets to auction off the property? Well, consumers would tend not to reward such activity. If firms fight over the now unhomesteaded property, it could damage the property (destroying value) and scare away potential buyers. The firms that want to maximize their profit will have an incentive to auction off the property peacefully, as those who do so violently would be at a comparative disadvantage: the violent firm would get less for damaged property in a sale and would perhaps even need to discount further to entice frightened consumers into purchasing from them. So, in the aggregate, the peaceful firms will tend to push the violent firms out of business as consumers patronize them more relative to the violent firms, and the violent firms will tend to destroy value in the process of aggressing against one another. It could also be assumed that the peaceful firms would set up some customary business arrangement that helps determine which firm proceeds with the auction. The case may be that the geographic location of the decedent's property helps in this instance.

One final issue worth mentioning is conflicting conveyance schemes. For instance, if Tom has an insurance policy that conveys the same piece of property that another, independent contract also conveys, how is it resolved? Well, the method that is flexible enough to cover the strangest situations is to allow dispute resolution authorities to resolve it and formulate a solution for each individual case. If there are conflicting claims to the property, an arbitrator would have to be called in to resolve the dispute. The conflicting claims would have to be analyzed, and the arbitrator would operate in much the same fashion as he would resolving more ordinary disputes between people on the free market.

In sum, freedom works, like always, in resolving even the most mindbogglingly complicated situations.

Praxeological ethics?

2008-10-20T08:49:00.004-05:00

I recently read an essay by Adam Knott about how praxeology makes a judgment that coercion is bad. I enjoyed the essay, but was left with the feeling that his argument was not very solid, despite being very creative.

Essentially, his argument is that praxeology says that happiness occurs when something "striven for" becomes "attained." That is, when means are used to reach an end and the end is attained, that is happiness in the praxeological sense. Conversely, unhappiness occurs when something that is previously attained becomes striven for. For if attaining something is happiness in the praxeological sense, then moving from a state of attainment to striven for must represent unhappiness.

Mr. Knott then goes on to conclude that coercion means to strive for unhappiness. He says this because of the nature of coercion. For instance, when Smith points a gun at Tom and demands his money, Smith is forcing Tom to move from attained to striven for. Namely, Tom thought he had attained his own personal safety and security, but the coercion of Smith causes Tom to now strive for the previously attained safety and security by agreeing to Smith's demands for money. Thus, Tom moves from a state of happiness to a state of unhappiness.

The implication for Smith, the coercer, is that he is striving after something that is subjective in nature, i.e. the unhappiness of Tom, the coercee. Mr. Knott concludes that the prototypical coercive exchange is one where the coercer is striving after a subjective want change in the coercee. In contrast, he says, the prototypical voluntary exchange is objective and verifiable, because most voluntary exchanges occur without regard to the happiness or unhappiness of another actor. For instance, voluntary exchanges in a supermarket on behalf of the buyer occur without regard to the subjective happiness or unhappiness of the seller; the buyer simply takes the cost of the items as a given.

Thus, we are to conclude, says Mr. Knott, that praxeology determines that coercion is bad, since the prototypical example of it is one where the coercer cannot objectively determine if he has attained what he is striving for. Whereas in the prototypical example of voluntary exchange, the actor can objectively determine if he has attained what he has striven for.

I was excited to read this essay because it sought for objective ethics. Unfortunately, it comes up short. The reason is that the prototypical case of coercion is as objective as voluntary exchange. It is true that a buyer may take the cost of an item at a supermarket as an objective cost without regard to the seller. However, why must one think the coercer is taking the unhappiness of the coercee into account? It is true that subjective unhappiness occurs in coercion, but it is also true that subjective happiness occurs on the part of the seller of the item at the supermarket, regardless of whether or not the buyer considers it during the exchange.

The coercer is striving after something subjective in nature, but is it true that he cannot really know if he's attained it? No. For if the coercee agrees to the coercers demands, this action is an objective demonstration that the change in the coercee's want status has occurred. Namely, the coercer would have an objective measure of changes in want status by the actions of the coercee.

I'm not sure how this attemped reasoning through praxeology sets up any sort of ethic. If it does, it doesn't really tell me why I should follow it. I will be interested to read Mr. Knott's forthcoming book which is supposed to elaborate more on this theory.

See the essay here: http://www.praxeology.com/files/A%20Praxeology%20of%20Coercion,%20First%20Edition.pdf

The all-powerful god contradiction

2008-10-17T09:08:00.004-05:00

I've explained, or tried to, in other formats my reasoning for why I believe those that advocate an all-powerful god are engaging in a performative contradiction. This is my attempt to explain it using the written word.

Let's start with a simple example that I got from one of Roderick T. Long's lectures.

If someone makes the claim "all statements are false," they are engaging in a performative contradiction. For if that statement is true, all statements - including that original claim - are false, so it can't possibly be true. If the statement is false, it simply falls for that reason alone. The truth of that claim attacks the ability of the maker of it to communicate it in discourse, because if all statements are false, the advocate of that position has no means by which to communicate his position: statements.

Likewise, if someone claims that "logic is false," they are engaging in a performative contradiction as well. In order for any statement to be true, it must also be logical. Statements must be both true and logical to be accepted as anything other than nonsense. If the above claim is true, logic has unwoven and the very means by which the advocate must communicate his argument falls from beneath him. In brief, the very statement itself cannot be accepted to the extent that it is true, since logic and truth go hand-in-hand.

The reason logic as a whole is unwoven is due to the nature of logic itself. Logic is a seamless tapestry, and multiple logics do not exist. There is no one logic for redheads and another, different logic for brunetts. Ludwig von Mises called the belief that multiple logics exist and that each is valid the fallacy of polylogism.

What implications does this have for the notion of an all-powerful god? Well, those that claim "god is all powerful" make an implicit subclaim that "god is not bound by logic." Some may dispute this, perhaps if they hold the position of Saint Thomas Aquinas. However, most Christians, and religious people in general, believe that their god can do whatever he wishes. He can make a square circle, or he can both exist and not exist at the same time. In effect, they advocate a different logic for their god than they themselves are bound by. I would say they are committing some variant of the fallacy of polylogism.

Those that make such a claim as "god is not bound by logic" are also engaging in a performative contradiction. On the one hand, the advocate of that claim would have the hearers of his argument believe that the claim itself is logical, i.e. it is both true and logical. Why believe it otherwise? On the other hand, the advocate would have the hearers believe in the claims illogical conclusion, i.e. god can break the rules of logic.

The truth of the advocate's claim, however, comes back to haunt him. If the claim "god is not bound by logic" is true, then the advocate has unwoven logic itself. And like I mentioned before, if logic falls in one area, it falls everywhere. Thus, if the claim is true, the advocate is undoing his own ability to make the claim itself. He is, in effect, eliminating logical discourse, since it is not possible to advocate a logic for humans and a separate logic for god.

Some may object and say the maker of that claim is not saying god is illogical, but that god is simply bound by another, more supreme logic. This, again, would be some variant of the polylogism fallacy. For if our human logic can be used to prove that this supreme, god logic exists, then they must be related. Not only are they related, but god's logic would necessarily have to subsume human logic, since god's logic would have to apply not only to god reality but to human reality, too. We see quicky, however, that god logic would be just as limiting on god as human logic. If god logic subsumes human logic, then god could also not break human logic, since it is a part of god logic, e.g. god could not make a square circle in either logic. Thus, we see that god logic and human logic are the same, since god logic does not provide for any expansions in god's power.

This is all quite silly in some sense, because the notion of god is inherently one of superstition and irrationality. I did think it was worth explaining, though.

It doesn't matter what they say

2008-10-15T09:20:00.005-05:00

Obama and McCain are irrelevant. Watching them debate is irrelevant. Their (central) plans for America are irrelevant.

My question is... why do so many Americans still care?

I continue to be amazed at how many people are getting so excited about the upcoming presidential election, especially supporters of Obama. I guess this is true of all elections, but Obama's supporters act as if everything is going to be fine and dandy, just so long as their man is elected to dictator-in-chief.

Both of the candidates supported the bailout, and McCain even proposed a more massive plan than has already been implemented. The bailout will be a total failure. It is a failure morally because it is stealing from some to prop up the bad decision of others. But it is also a failure economically.

Obama called healthcare a right. That means he is placing a positive obligation on some other, unknown people to provide that health care. Thus, if those unknowns are not coerced and people go without healthcare, rights have been violated. This is a ridiculous position.

McCain still supports the war, and Obama is not much better. McCain refuses to end the war in Iraq until American troops can come home "with honor." This is a nice rhetorical way to escape having to be seen as supporting the failed effort there, while at the same time seeming very patriotic. It is pathetic either way.

Obama used to call for ending the war back when he was running for his party's nomination. If my memory serves me correctly, he used to call for all troops to be home within six months. He is not saying that now. Instead, he now says all "combat troops" will be out of Iraq within 16 months of him taking office. This clearly indicates he will keep non-combat troops in Iraq for the foreseeable future, whatever and how ever many that may be.

Not only are these candidates totally irrelevant, but they are very unexciting. I am still amazed that Obama is some sort of celebrity. Why? His speeches are not motivating, enlightening, or even inspirational. I admit that Reagan and Clinton were at least inspirational speakers, even though I disagreed with their substance. Reagan was good with free market rhetoric, and he had a way of wording things to make you like him and his ideas. That is not the case with Obama or McCain. McCain can barely get through a speech without stumbling; it reminds me of Bush. Obama has awkward pauses, and his oratory style lacks whatever made Reagan and Clinton sound smooth and interesting.

Reagan and Clinton were like having a new quarter with one side scuffed up: their substance side of the quarter. With one side scuffed, you can at least flip it over and concentrate on the pretty part. Obama and McCain, however, are new quarters with both sides scuffed. Their substance is horrid, and their ability to give a decent speech is equally abismal, leaving aside those that think Obama is some master orator (delusional at best).

I guess what I am saying is... we are screwed. But is that really news to us? Not really.

Income tax insanity

2008-09-03T18:01:00.003-05:00

Any market anarchist hates the income tax. We hate it because the government assumes it owns every penny of our income and allows us keep a certain portion once it's through eating away at our hard-earned cash.

Looking at it from the government's perspective, the income tax makes sense. It is a useful tool to raise revenue (expropriate funds) from its citizens. However, one would think that the government's own laws regarding raising its own revenue would make sense. Interestingly, that isn't the case at all. The tax code is insanely complicated.

Let me give an example of this abusrdity:

To put it simply as possible, tax law has two different methods of calculating gain (income) for individuals who receive gifts or bequests. One method is used if there is actually a gain and another is used if there is a loss. Now, the crazy part is that there are instances, according to the tax codes own rules, where the gain calculation can come out with a loss, and the loss calculation can come out with a gain.

This is good news to those who don't like to pay taxes, because this anomoly doesn't have to be reported: tax law simply assumes it never existed.

My point is that if the government can't even figure out how to calculate it's own theft properly, how can an reasonable person expect it to do any better in areas where its own interets are far less accentuated?

Answering 10 Questions for Anarchists

2008-07-24T09:42:00.004-05:00

1. How would you prevent someone from driving drunk/high?

This is an issue of contracts. The individual road owners would set their own policies in regard to highway safety. However, it can be presumed that the road owners that provide for the safest roads, i.e. roads with the least fatalities, wrecks, injuries, etc., would be able to out compete relatively less safe roads.

2. How would you prevent someone from using a car that is unsafe? (No brakes?)

The answer to this question is similar to the one above. This would be an issue of contracts. For instance, the road owner might contract with a widely known car inspection agency, say it is called Vehicle Safety Company, to have all the cars that drive on his road meet certain standards for safety and upkeep.

Further, some market anarchists believe a body of negligence law would arise, where Bob could sue Tom for taking actions which ended up hurting Bob in the end. For instance, if Tom owned a store and the steps were rotten and he neglected to replace them even though it was foreseeable that his customers could get injured, the injured customer would have a valid negligence claim against Tom for the injury of falling on the steps.

3. How to prevent someone from stealing in one town and running to another?

Well, you would simply resort to the forces of law and order. Say that Tom steals my television in City A and runs off with it to City B. What can I do? First, while Tom is in the process of stealing my TV, I can use legitimate self defense to prevent him from doing so. But say that Tom scares me and I don’t want to fight him myself, so I run away. In that situation, I could (a) call the defense agency I am contracted with and pay premiums to and get them to come stop Tom, or (b) call a defense agency that provides on-the-spot services for a certain fee, which require no contractual agreement beforehand.

Now, if my defense agency catches Tom in the act and prevents him or stops him from stealing my TV, this is simply self defense, except a group of people, the defense agency, are assisting me in this self defense. But suppose that Tom steals my TV while I am on vacation and runs away to City B. In that situation, I hire a defense or investigation agency to track down my TV, and, eventually, they believe that Tom has stolen it. However, Tom disputes my claim and says the TV is his. These circumstances would pull free market courts or dispute resolution agencies into the mix to solve this problem and determine who is the legitimate owner and whether or not Tom will be held responsible.

4. Who would own the military, nuclear arsenal, etc?

No one would own the military, since the state would be dissolved. In dissolving the state, its hired protectors are officially out of a job. Private defense agencies would fill the void left for defense of person and property. As far as a nuclear arsenal, nuclear bombs are pretty much per se invalid in a libertarian or market anarchist society because they are only used for aggression, not defense. Nuclear bombs do not discriminate between innocent and guilty individuals, and, thus, the user of such a weapon would (leaving aside some truly rare scenario) become a criminal aggressor by killing the innocent along with the guilty.

5. What will prevent other military powers from monopolizing resources?

Well, all states need to be abolished so this problem doesn’t arise, which is not likely to happen. However, resources under market anarchy would be privately owned, and the owners of those resources would have to resort to the forces of law and order to prevent aggression against their justly acquired property.

The larger the resource, the more defense that could presumably be purchased. For instance, say that Sam owns a huge oil field in Texas and makes a lot of money from serving consumers with that resource. What Sam can do is purchase, first, a primary defense policy from Defense Agency A. But suppose that Sam feels his resource is threatened severely by a anachronistic government that still exists and its army. So, Sam purchases a secondary defense policy from Defense Agency B, or perhaps a third from Defense Agency C. This pooling of defense resources is a possibility. Also notice that Sam gets to decide how much protection he wants for his resource, just as each individual gets to make the same decision over protection of person and property. There is no need for some public good of defense provided by a monopoly state, since questions of defense are a matter for individuals to decide.

Also, the defense agencies would likely act like insurance providers; that is, they would insure the resource against aggression. Namely, they would protect the resource in such a way as to make it economically inefficient and costly to invade and aggress against it, as to avoid having to pay out under the policy.

6. Who is going to own and pay for roads, dams, traffic lights, etc?

Public utilities would be provided by private entrepreneurs on the market. Whether it is a lighthouse, a road, a dam, a park, etc., private actors in the market would provide such things.

7. How will you maintain standards for justice?

Justice would be determined by a body of common law that would arise based off of the decisions of wise arbitrators in free market courts. In effect, the consumers would be implementing the law by which courts and decisions they patronize. However, this differs from government because someone must pay the cost of enforcing such decisions. This alone will reduce the amount of law drastically, and would likely keep it within the realm of simply protecting person and property from aggression.

8. Who will own the prison systems?

Prisons are debatable among market anarchists. They may or may not exist. However, it could be assumed that profits would be obtained by forcing the prisoners to do certain labor during their incarceration. Or, perhaps, the prisoners' assets would be liquidated to provide for their stay. This, again, is a debatable issue.

9. Who will pay for the treatment and care for insane and elderly?

The elderly would have to either (a) rely on their will to provide for their care if they become incoherent or (b) rely on their family or some other charitable organization. The insane would not have to be housed somewhere per se. The problem would only arise if such an insane person invaded the property rights of someone else, like trespassing or attacking, etc. In that case, they would be treated like criminals. Or, perhaps, the parents or next of kin or a charity for the insane would provide for their housing.

10. What would prevent the rich from engaging in monopolistic practices? (Microsoft launching viruses, etc?)

First, Microsoft launching a virus is not what I consider a monopolistic practice: it is an invasion of the property or contractual rights of the people it affects and the affected people could file a claim against Microsoft for such an activity. A monopoly is a legal decree enacted by a government or state that prevents free entry by competitors into the market. If there is free competition, there is no monopoly by definition.

Rights and slave contracts

2008-07-09T02:48:00.007-05:00

The topic of slave contracts has been under debate among market anarchists recently, mostly due to me. However, I still feel there is a lot of confusion, and this post is my attempt to resolve that confusion.

Let us start with the notion of self-defense.

Suppose that Bob attacks Pat by punching him in the face, and Bob continues to try to punch Pat in the face, one swing after another. What can Pat do in this situation? There are a few options available to him. First, Pat can let Bob batter him and do nothing. Second, Pat can run away. Third, Pat can defend himself.

The first two options presented don't involve Pat doing anything to Bob: Pat simply sits and gets battered or flees. However, the third option does involve Pat doing something to Bob. Namely, it involves Pat preventing Bob from continuing to punch him the face.

This brings us to the notion of the proportional forfeiture of rights. That is, Pat can legitimately defend himself against Bob with force, because Bob has forfeited, or given up, his rights to the extent that he has invaded the rights of Pat.

Why is Pat's use of force legitimate? Well, once Pat starts defending himself against Bob, Bob cannot then claim to dispute Pat's use of force. In brief, argumentation presupposes consistency by those engaged in it. For if those engaged in argumentation are not consistent, something false is happening, and the purpose of argumentation is finding truth. Thus, inconsistency invalidates the purpose of argumentation. In short, it isn't truthful. So, if Bob says to Pat "I object at your use of force," he is being inconsistent with his own prior actions: he used force against Pat.

Another reason that forfeiture is important is due to what I call criminalizing victims. Suppose that Bob does not forfeit his rights when he aggresses against Pat. That is, Bob initiates aggression against Pat and still retains his rights in full, regardless of what he inflicts on Pat. Pat then proceeds to defend himself by using force against Bob. However, since Bob retained his rights in full, Pat has now also aggressed against the rights of Bob. In short, both Bob and Pat are now criminals and are guilty of rights violations.

It is true that it isn't always clear where the line of proportional defense is located. Specifically, how much force can Pat use against Bob to stop Bob's aggression? But that should not prevent the use of reason to discern where the line is to the greatest possible degree. For example, if Bob was simply throwing small rocks at Pat, rocks which posed no serious bodily harm, it would be impermissible for Pat to pull out a shotgun and blow Bob's head off. I doubt anyone would dispute that. So, clearly, the lines exist; they just have to be discerned in more complicated contexts.

I said all of that to say this about slavery contracts: if you can forfeit your rights when you aggress against another person, why can't you also voluntarily alienate/sell those rights to the same possible extent? Selling and forfeiture both fall under alienation. Now, selling and forfeiture are not the same form of alienation, but they both fall under it. Here is a graphic similar to the one Walter Block used to describe it:

To me, those who argue that the will is inalienable, so voluntary alienation of rights is impermissble would have to also conclude that self-defense is impermissible or any punishment whatsoever. In both cases, the will is being alienated: one voluntarily and the other not.

Further, when dealing with the will, the difference between what is logically possible and what is practically possible needs to be clarified. It is logically impossible to contract to sell a square circle. If two parties contracted for such an item it would be illegitimate, because it doesn't and cannot logically exist. On the other hand, it is not logically impossible to sell a star in another galaxy. This feat is practically impossible, but not logically so. We merely don't possess the technical knowledge to sell such a distant star at the present moment.

The will is the same. It is not logically impossible to sell the will; it may be pracitically impossible at the current time (leaving a frontal lobotomy aside for the moment). But, again, this is simply a matter of technical or medical knowhow, not logic.

The whole idea of selling the will is a distraction in my view, anyway. The question of slave contracts does not center around whether or not the will is alienable: it centers around the body and the rights of others, and, to me, selling/alienating such things is clearly possible.

anarcho-syndicalism

2008-06-30T03:56:00.009-05:00

The more I hear about this philosophy the more I want to laugh. Evidently, these individuals consider wages to be slavery when earned under a boss. Their favorite catch phrase in support of their philosophy is that man is faced with the decision of "work for a boss or starve."

There are numerous problems with this position.

First, there is a false dichotomy involved. They claim that we are faced with the concrete choice in a free market of "work for a boss or starve," and that this is wage slavery. However, they clearly overlook the possibility of being self employed or self sufficient. Simply put, they're advocating a false choice since the possibility of escaping what they consider as Satan's snare is clearly possible.

Second, why does working for a boss only create wage slavery? Presumably, if I am not faced with the question of "work for a boss or starve" but with "work for myself or starve" this is not wage slavery. Yet, there is still a person with whose demands I must ultimately comply in order to survive: namely, myself. If I don't obey my own wishes for sustenance, I won't long walk this earth. In brief, I am forced to submit to my own basic needs or I will face starvation. I fail to see how this state of affairs escapes the anarcho-syndicalist's scorn, yet replace "self" with "boss" and they show their fangs.

Third, the notion is inherently coercive. For instance, what if I want to work for a boss? The anarcho-syndicalist says you are out of luck, for only the community can provide you with your needs. The lowly man wishing to be a wage slave must submit his wishes to that of the community that "knows better" for him. What happened to hating hierarchy?

Fourth, scarcity still exists. The scarce amount of goods and services present in reality will turn this precious anarcho-syndicalist community into nothing more than a nightmare. Person A wants blue shoes with green shoe laces, Person B wants green shoes with white shoe laces, Person C wants red shoes with orange shoe laces, etc., and so on out into absurdity.

Community A, after much bickering about what type of shoes to provide to their mindless minions, decide to utilize their scarce resources to produce blue shoes with green shoe laces. This decision, mind you, is much to the disappointment of those desiring another arrangement. In effect, this system turns into a zero-sum game, like the halls of politics: you win while someone else loses.

But suppose that Community B decides that it should produce green shoes with white shoe laces, given that there is enough of a desire for it from those not satisfied with Community A's decision. In effect, this will place Community B in competition with Community A. Ironically, this is the "dog-eat-dog" mentality of the free market that the anarcho-syndicalists are trying so hard to avoid. For if consumers are allowed free choice, the community that produces the best products will end up attracting more consumers, pulling more scarce resources away from competing communities engaging in that same activity. Woah the inequality of communities vying with one another for scarce resources!

Fifth, who takes out the garbage? In a free market system, wage rates are higher for those activities seen as degrading or nasty, in order to entice workers into that field. If money is eliminated, which it seems it will be under anarcho-syndicalism, what entices people to do such tasks? No one wants to work in the filth of others. Specifically, everyone would vie for those activities dished out by the various communities that were pleasant, and everyone would hope to god that they didn't get stuck with sewer cleaning or trash pick-up. If everyone is going to be provided for, why wouldn't a reasonable person just sit on his hands until the community gave him another task?

Sixth, it merely replaces the decried bosses of the free market with communities. Someone has to be the ultimate decision-maker. Now, the community may allow each person to have a vote in the matter in proportion to the amount it affects them, but in the end the ruling of the community is going to be imposed on the rest of society. How could it not be? It's replacement of a boss by majoritarian rule. In short, a group of people are making decisions about tasks instead of entrepreneurs in a free market.

Finally, all of the above criticisms don't even touch the calculation problems that would exist. If money were eliminated, these communities would not be able to allocate anything beyond very basic resources for basic needs. In effect, a vote would have to be taken on what kind and how much toilet paper to produce, the color of cars, the type and quality of rocking chairs, the percentage of cotton shirts should be made out of, and on and on into obscurity. It seems these anarcho-syndicalists would scarcely have time to do their mundane tasks or much less eat, for all of their scarce time would be absorbed in what the community should do.

Take, for example, the simple good of cotton. How would those producing cotton in the fields for the various communities know how much to produce? Cotton for blankets, shirts, shoes, pillows, pants, carpet, socks, etc., would all claw for the scarce cotton producers' goods. Should he produce more or produce less? How fast do the goods of these community people wear out, how much are they allocated each year, month, day, etc.? But, then again, the communities would have to make decisions about how much cotton to produce in the first place. What happens when the decision of the community for cotton production diverge from community decisions about cotton consumption or allocation? Would the producers of the cotton in the field submit to the community allocations in lockstep or would this divergence be allowed if the communities are voting on cotton field production too? The scary part is this predicament arises for all goods and services, be it capital goods or consumer goods!

The more I hear about this philosophy, the more it sounds like Marx's New Socialist Man, because the only way a system like this could ever work would be for such a new man to arise, aka for fairy tales to come true.

Democracy or dictatorship, both are tyrannical

2008-06-28T02:22:00.005-05:00

In the present day, democracy is the new fad. Politicians, especially in America, can hardly contain themselves from praising democracy as the last best hope for the world as we know it. You would think democracy was a grand thing, miles apart from its dictatorial rivals: it's not. In fact, it sucks quite a bit and is only better by a degree.

I say this not because I hate where I live and would rather live in a dictatorship. To the contrary, I value America because of the relative amount of freedom she has, though that may be disappearing by the day. I say this because the political salivating over democracy is highly overdone or unwarranted to begin with.

What is a dictatorship? Princeton's Online Dictionary tells us this about dictatorships:

a form of government in which the ruler is an absolute dictator (not restricted by a constitution or laws or opposition etc.)

So, it seems that the proper distinction, according to this definition anyway, is that a dictatorship vests its power in one absolute ruler, and the absolute ruler's power is not restrained by any constitution or laws.

What is a democracy according to this same dictionary?

a political system in which the supreme power lies in a body of citizens who can elect people to represent them

Looking at this, a democracy seems to vest power in the general body of the citizens, as opposed to a single dictator, and we can assume that such a democracy, like America, restrains this general body through laws like a constitution.

My problem is that both of these definitions leave out a vital detail that actually meshes the two together, making them less distinguishable from one another: consent. Consent is necessarily lacking in both of these systems. In a dictatorship, consent is clearly not present since the very definition of the term implies its absence.

In a democracy, however, this consent issue seems to cause problems for some people. It isn't as easy to see as in the case of the dictatorship. Instead, democracy, at least in America, tries to build upon some flimsy notion of "the consent of the governed." But what does that really mean?

In actuality, it means next to nothing. A democracy is at its core based on majority rule. It substitutes the rule of one for the rule of many. This democratic rule is just as dictatorial, for the whims of the majority of the populace are imposed on everyone in society, instead of the mere whims of the dictator.

And before someone objects that America is a republic and not a democracy and my critique doesn't apply, let me say this: a republic is also based on majority rule.

Let's step in a time machine that takes us back to the very beginning of America. What was happening when this representative government was being formed?

Well, a few people got together and crafted a document called the constitution. Those few people went around the country enlisting others to aid them in promoting this document. In effect, they gathered people together to convince the majority of Americans (they didn't call themselves that back then but we leave that aside) that this document called the constitution was good for them and should receive their support. These people were successful, for the most part, in convincing the majority of Americans to impose this constitution on everyone in the society. In short, the whims of the majority were imposed on everyone and so it has been for hundreds of years.

Thus, dictatorships and democracy have a lot in common. Namely, they are both based on a lack of consent, only differing in the degree.

I hate finals

2008-06-23T02:41:00.002-05:00

I hate final exams, because I always, and I mean always, put off everything until the last minute. Right now I have approximately three days to study for my exam in my legal ethics class. That's enough time, but focusing on studying for the next two days will be a task in and of itself.

I tend to despise studying and concentrating on things I'm not very interested in, and I put the class this exam is on in that category.

I mean, lawyers evidently need a book of rules telling them they can't steal from clients and other such "fuzzy" moral issues.

Laws do not keep people from murdering

2008-06-22T17:04:00.005-05:00

There are many different theories of punishment: restitution, retribution, deterrence, rehabilitation.

To me, only the first two should be used. What restitution does is compensate the victim of a crime (or rights violation) in order to put that victim back in the position he would have been in had the crime not occurred. Also, retribution follows the basic principle of self-defense: a rights violator loses his rights to the extent that he deprives the victim of his.

But, really, that is sort of off topic, for the true point of this post is to say that laws do not keep people from murdering. For if you believe that laws keep people from murdering, you have allied yourself with the deterrence theory of punishment. However, deterrence is a slightly odd method of punishment. Let Rothbard explain why:

Deterrence was the principle put forth by utilitarianism, as part of its aggressive dismissal of principles of justice and natural law, and the replacement of these allegedly metaphysical principles by hard practicality. The practical goal of punishments was then supposed to be to deter further crime, either by the criminal himself or by other members of society. But this criterion of deterrence implies schemas of punishment which almost everyone would consider grossly unjust. For example, if there were no punishment for crime at all, a great number of people would commit petty theft, such as stealing fruit from a fruit-stand. On the other hand, most people have a far greater built-in inner objection to themselves committing murder than they have to petty shoplifting, and would be far less apt to commit the grosser crime. Therefore, if the object of punishment is to deter from crime, then a far greater punishment would be required for preventing shoplifting than for preventing murder, a system that goes against most people’s ethical standards. As a result, with deterrence as the criterion there would have to be stringent capital punishment for petty thievery—for the theft of bubble gum—while murderers might only incur the penalty of a few months in jail.[16] - The Ethics of Liberty (par. 27)

So, to be in lockstep with the concept of deterrence for punishment, one must accept the nonsensical position that crimes committed as a result of overcoming small inhibitions should receive the greatest punishment, while crimes committed that entail overcoming large inhibitions should receive the least punishment.

Laws do not keep people from doing this or doing that. If Law X could logically prevent Action Y from occurring, that would be another matter. Yet, Law X can do no such thing, at least not logically. Thus, deterrence is really not a good theory for punishment of crimes. In brief, in order to employ it accurately small crimes get large punishments, and it really has no power to logically prevent any action from occurring.

The real point of punishment must be focused on the victim, by compensating the victim to the extent of his loss of rights and by imposing on the criminal the same loss of rights he originally imposed on the victim. In this way, Law X is employed not because of some mystical notion that it can prevent Action Y, but because restitution and retribution are the result of Action Y.

Libertarian law is not something that says what you should do; it is something that says what will happen to you should you violate the rights of others. Whether or not you choose to do Action Y is up to you.

What makes nature valuable?

2008-06-20T11:43:00.005-05:00

I was recently in a discussion with a friend, who shall remain nameless, about nature. This particular person was upset about how mankind was destroying the habitats of various animals. After all, he said, we are just as much a part of nature as any other animal, and we have a responsibility to it.

Now, I am a big lover of nature. There's nothing more beautiful than a nice mountain scene or a nice, pristine lake surrounded by greenery and trees. But the question is why do I value it? Well, I value it because I subjectively like those things. Likewise, my friend values those things he views as being destroyed more than what is replacing them.

This goes back to the old debate about intrinsic value. That is, do the things in our natural world inherently posses value in the absence of human beings? Quite simply, they do not. Those things in our natural world only have value in which the human mind attaches to them.

This brings us to the discovery by earlier economists of the Subjective Theory of Value:

Value is not intrinsic, it is not in things. It is within us; it is the way in which man reacts to the conditions of his environment. Neither is value in words and doctrines, it is reflected in human conduct. It is not what a man or groups of men say about value that counts, but how they act. - Ludwig von Mises

The prices that we see every day in the market for goods and services are formed by the aggregate subjective values of the people acting in those markets. In this way, taking relative scarcity into account, higher prices reflect higher values among acting people. If there is a wooded area that gets bulldozed (excluding government coercion and forced sales which are so often present) to put up a housing community, the housing community is more valuable than the wooded area in its natural state. For if the natural wooded area were more valuable, acting people would have prevented its alteration from occurring.

We can ask another question: why are goods and services traded to begin with? Well, the answer is subjective value. Imagine I have a coat and you have book. Now, if the two of us trade these items it is demonstrating our subjective, reverse valuations for those items. That is, I valued the book more than my coat, and you valued my coat more than your book. If this were not so, the exchange would not have taken place.

So, if no coercion by government or people is involved and a natural habitat is torn down for something urban, it is clear that the urban something is more valuable than the thing it replaced. It's exchanging one state of affairs for a better state of affairs by the actors involved.

To the observer, witnessing something you think is beautiful being destroyed is unfortunate for him personally. The problem, like Mises said, is that value is only demonstrated through action. All the silent well-wishers for nature in the world have no impact on the value of things unless they demonstrate it through action.

The well-wisher for nature has only one option open to him: government coercion. Being that people don't value the state of nature as he does, government coercion and force can only be resorted to. What this does is impose the whims of the observer who happens to convince government to intervene for the actual values of acting people in voluntary transactions. It would be no different than the observer desiring government to intervene in the exchange of the coat and the book, for perhaps the observer thinks the "natural," unaltered possession of the coat by me is more valuable than the "unnatural," altered possession of the coat by you.

One last point. Anyone who says that human beings are a virus on the Earth is engaging in a performative contradiction of sorts. The reason is that this person has the ability to reduce this human virus by one. In short, the very existence of the advocate of humans as a virus contracdicts the advocate's own views. For if he truly believed humans were a virus, he wouldn't allow himself to exist and spread such a disease.

Should libertarians be so hostile to religion?

2008-06-19T16:00:00.001-05:00

Walter Block makes the case that religion and libertarianism (or free-market anarchism) are compatible, despite what the followers of Ayn Rand might say. Read it here.

My own thoughts about religion are somewhat hazy at the moment, but I won't go into that right now. Regardless, it seems absurd to say that religion and libertarianism are at odds per se. This is particularly true in the light of modern Christianity. In recent years (or maybe not so recent), the Christian community has developed a branch that believes in being compassionate to all people, no matter if they declare themselves as Christian or not. It is, in fact, motivated by a common desire to better all people, even if that desire springs from religious purposes.

So, yes, yes, evils have been and are done in the name of some Christians and some religious people, but that is hardly a reason to condemn all Christians and all religious people.

Excerpt:

So, which institution is the greatest enemy of human liberty? There can be only one answer: the state in general, and, in particular, the totalitarian version thereof. Perhaps there is no greater example of such a government than the USSR, and its chief dictators, Lenin and Stalin (although primacy of place in terms of sheer numbers of innocents murdered might belong to Mao’s China). We thus ask, which institutions did these two Russian worthies single out for opprobrium? There can be only one answer: primarily, religion, and, secondarily, the family. It was no accident that the Soviets passed laws rewarding children for turning in their parents for anti-communistic activities. There is surely no better way to break up the family than this diabolical policy. And, how did they treat religion? To ask this is to answer it. Religion was made into public enemy number one, and its practitioners viciously hunted down.

Why pick on religion and the family? Because these are the two great competitors – against the state – for allegiance on the part of the people. The Communists were quite right, from their own evil perspective, to focus on these two institutions. All enemies of the overweening state, then, would do well to embrace religion and the family as their friends, whether they are themselves atheists or not, parents or not.

The rights of children

2008-06-19T11:40:00.000-05:00

The debate over the rights of children is a particularly interesting one. There are two sides to this issue under libertarian theory, at least that I have read, and I would like to provide these two clashing opinions here.

First, there is the view of Murray N. Rothbard in The Ethics of Liberty:

Applying our theory to parents and children, this means that a parent does not have the right to aggress against his children, but also that the parent should not have a legal obligation to feed, clothe, or educate his children, since such obligations would entail positive acts coerced upon the parent and depriving the parent of his rights. The parent therefore may not murder or mutilate his child, and the law properly outlaws a parent from doing so. But the parent should have the legal right not to feed the child, i.e., to allow it to die. The law, therefore, may not properly compel the parent to feed a child or to keep it alive. (Again, whether or not a parent has a moral rather than a legally enforceable obligation to keep his child alive is a completely separate question.)

The Ethics of Liberty (par. 4)

Now, I completely understand the logic Rothbard is using, because I, too, think positive obligations amount to slavery. There should be no requirement for me to do some positive act for someone else. However, this view doesn't seem to be directly applicable to children. The reason is children are a special kind of "property." Rothbard agrees that children aren't exactly true self-owners: they are potentional self-owners. What implications does this have for the theory of property rights as it applies to children? Does it change it at all? Well, I think it does.

This leads us to Walter Block's counter to Rothbard's position:

Suppose, now, that the mother, or both parents, wish to abandon their baby[l4]. Several options are open to them, consistent with libertarian theory[l5]. For one thing, they can give their child up for adoption. They can do so for no financial compensation, or for pecuniary gain (Landes and Posner, 1978). But since they cannot give up more with regard to the baby than they did in fact own, it would be illegitimate for the new parents to mistreat the baby; had the original parents done so, they would have lost the rights to continue parenting it. For the only way to attain homestead rights to the child after giving birth to it is to bring it up in a reasonable manner. Were the parents to instead abuse their child, this would not at all be compatible with homesteading it. If so, they would lose all rights to continue to keep the child.

[...]

For another thing, they could abandon the baby without choosing adoptive parents. That is, as long as they notify all and sundry of their intention to give up their rights to the baby, and do not prevent anyone else from homesteading the child, they have no positive obligation to keep it, or even to ensure that the baby is taken up by others.

Would it ever be possible, under libertarian law, for a baby to be abandoned by its parents, for there to be no other adult willing to care and feed it, and the baby be relegated to death? Yes. However, this could occur only under the condition where the entire world in effect was notified of this homesteading opportunity, no roadblocks were placed against new adoptive parents taking over, but not a single solitary adult stepped forward to take on this responsibility[l6]. Since there are no positive obligations in the libertarian lexicon[l7], it is logically possible for such a sad state of events to take place[l8].

Block, Walter. Libertarianism, positive obligations and property abandonment: children's rights. (pp. 280-81).

I view this as a much more reasonable position. Granted, my willingness to accept this view might be swayed by the fact that Rothbard's logic leads to the ability of parents to starve their children. For instance, imagine a couple that decides to have as many children as they are capable of having, yet they have no intention of caring for those children. Instead, the parents just pump out baby after baby and don't feed or clothe or provide for them in any fashion. Under Rothbard's view, the parents have not violated any libertarian law whatsoever. After all, according to Rothbard, there are no positive obligations, and, thus, the parents don't have to provide for the children.

But it seems to me that Block has accurately realized that children are different. They are helpless or potential self-owners. Being that the parents can't actually homestead children in the way they can homestead land - that is, they can't truly own a child the way they can own land - children must be analyzed in a different manner.

Block argues that libertarian legal theory is opposed to unowned property, just as space is "opposed" to a vacuum. That is, no one has the right to homestead land in a donut fasion, leaving the center unowned and preventing others from homesteading it. In the same way, parents cannot homestead children and abandon their homestead right (here I mean their right to raise the child reasonably) in the child while preventing others who would desire to homestead the child from doing so. In fact, Block contends that parents who abandon their children, without notifying others who desire to homestead them of the abandonment, is not abandonment at all: the parents would still be the de facto, absentee owners (owners again meaning the right to hometead and raise the child).

What about notification? Must the man who wishes to abandon the interior portion of his land notify others of his act? Yes. And this follows not from any positive obligation whatsoever, but rather from the logical implication of what it means to abandon something. You cannot (logically) abandon something if you do not notify others of its availability for their own ownership. At most, if you do not undertake any notification, you have not abandoned it, but rather are simply the absentee owner over it.

(Block, p. 279)

Block makes the (rather compelling in my view) argument that it is logically impossible to abandon something without notifying others of their ability to own it. For, as said above, if notification is not given, the property owners wishing to abandon the property have actually done no such thing: they are actually, now, absentee owners. Applying this to children, parents who attempt to abandon their children without notifying all others wishing to care for them (if such people exist) would not be abandoning the children at all: they would still be the owners, just in absentee form. Thus, parents who abandon children without notifying others wishing to homestead those children (that is, they refuse to feed or care for the children) would be violating the rights of those children.

This argument is, perhaps, not ironclad, but it goes a long way at ironing out the postive obligation problem associated with parents neglecting their children by refusing to feed and care for them.

In the beginning...

2008-06-18T22:06:00.000-05:00

Well, this is the first post in what will be my first blog. Allow me to set out what my goals are for you:

First, I hope to provide insight into areas of law, economics, and philosophy that may both inspire and trouble you. After all, is it not those things which leave us uneasy that we mull over in our minds again and again in the attempt to resolve our befuddlement? I readily admit I'm no expert in these areas, but I'm also not a novice, either.

Second, I may opine about personal happenings in my life as I see fit. If I'm perturbed by something on a particular day, don't be surprised to see a post about it. If I find something interesting in the news, I may make you aware of it.

Third, I hope to convince you. The ideas that I will present (probably in a piecemeal fashion) are very important to me. In fact, I view them as the last best hope for civilization as we know it. Now, I may not convince you and that's fine. Let me know you disagree in the comments; we can get a good discussion going that way.

Let me also introduce myself. For the purposes of this blog, I will go by the alias "Austrolibertarian." You can call me "Austro" for short or "AL." I am a free-market anarchist. That is, I claim that the free market can provide everything the government does in better quality, more efficiently, and certainly more morally. I am intellectually indebted to the late economists Ludwig von Mises and Murray N. Rothbard for the ideas that I hold and defend. Walter Block is also a current economist and legal philosopher with whose ideas I highly concur.

Free-market anarchism is not what you think. Most people think anarchism is chaos and instability. They believe it represents what is vile in man's nature, as Thomas Hobbes believed, the pitting of man against man if you will. In actual fact, free-market anarchism is nothing of the sort. It simply replaces coerced (government) law and order with voluntary law and order. In short, anarchism as I advocate it is not the absence of law; it is the provision of law in a more just fashion.

Unfortunately, this is only an introduction to these ideas. I hope to dive into the specifics more as time goes on. For now, this will have to satisfy your appetite.