Not only are we all anarchists now, there are abundant examples of anarchism working fabulously well. However, instead of opening anarchic relationships to everyone, governments have worked to abolish them from the private sphere and instead centralize anarchic relationships into the hands of politicians. I know it sounds strange that anarchy exists internally within government. My point here is to demonstrate that anarchic relationships are omnipresent.

Before beginning, I want to note that critics of market (or individualist) anarchism will point out that the market functions best with an impartial judicial system ruling on comprehensible law. I readily agree. Supporters of government also claim there needs to be a final body, such as the Supreme Court, which entails a supreme law that settles disputes once and for all. I don’t think it matters either way, especially since the political system does allow for disputes to continue in the legislative process even after the final court proceedings. I also don’t believe that a monopoly could provide an impartial judicial system or a comprehensible law. However, for the sake this discussion, I will concede all three points.

In Two Treatises on Civil Government John Locke said there are two things wanting in a “state of nature”: “established, settled, known law” and “a known and indifferent judge” (emphasis in original work). To clarify, my understanding is that a government functions as a third party that provides ultimate dispute settlement within a given territory. Again, for the sake of this discussion, I will concede that an “established, settled, known law” exists. So without an “indifferent judge” whose decisions are commanded, by force if necessary, anarchy exists. For the sake of this discussion, I will concede that there is always sufficient force to command a judge’s decision. So really, the question is if there is an “indifferent judge” or not. (I’ve written a little here and here why I believe a market-based legal system is more able to provide equitable justice.)

The first basic anarchic relationship is between government and its citizens. The second is among different governments. The third is between citizens and foreign governments. The fourth basic anarchic relationship is among citizens of different governments. (More elaborate anarchic relationships can be read about here.) With this understanding, it becomes abundantly clear that government cannot eliminate anarchy; it is ever-present. Government can only centralize and transform it, many times with devastating effects.

The first form of an anarchic relationship is between the United States federal government and American citizens, for example. There is no “indifferent judge” when the federal government comes into conflict with individuals or groups of individuals. In those cases, the federal government prohibits a third party from resolving the dispute. It is helpful that a different branch hears the case, but that branch is appointed by and subject to the pressures of another branch of government responsible for enforcing the court’s decisions. Supposedly, that is the purpose of the constitution’s checks and balances — to bind the federal government, yet the federal government is also responsible for interpreting and enforcing its own limitations. Politicians also act in a state of anarchy with each other. There is no external agency that enforces rules among them, and so they exist in a form of “political anarchy” as opposed to natural “market anarchy,” according to Alfred G. Cuzan, who said:

[I]n their relations among each other, they remain largely “lawless.” Nobody external to the group writes and enforces rules governing the relations among them. At most, the rulers are bound by flexible constraints imposed by a “constitution” which they, in any case, interpret and enforce among and upon themselves. … In short, society is always in anarchy. A government only abolishes anarchy among what are called “subjects” or “citizens,” but among those who rule, anarchy prevails.

Since governments get to decide conflicts, they are so inclined to create conflict and then rule in their own favor, expanding their authority.

To give some state governments credit, there have been calls throughout the years to nullify particularly outrageous federal legislation. But those states can only do so much because the federal government controls the currency and can hand out goodies to those states willing accept expansive federal powers. In the United States, the federal government’s dispute authority is not as centralized as, say, North Korea, where the final authority is given to a single person. In effect, Kim Jong-il has abolished anarchy is North Korea for everyone but himself.

In the second form of anarchic relationships, the federal government also exists in a state of anarchy with all other governments around the world. There is no mandatory final arbiter of disputes between Canada and the United States, for example. If the Canadian government is accused of price fixing, the disagreement is settled by the World Trade Organization, per their membership agreement. Both governments had a mutually agreed-upon dispute resolution process. The United Nations is the closest thing to a world government, but even its membership is voluntary. The United States government could even opt out and no longer be responsible to funding it or abide by UN resolutions within its territorial borders so long as the federal government did not threaten to aggress against other UN member governments. National governments voluntarily cooperate by honoring visas and legal documents (like marriage certificates and drivers licenses) and ratifying all sorts of treatises. So empirically, there is no need for a world government for other governments to peacefully coexist. But of course, nations do not always interact so peacefully.

There are a couple of reasons why violence committed by governments have been so devastating. Mainly, it has to do with the imbalance of power between governments and citizens. That is the reason cited by many constitutionalists for their defense of the right to keep and bear arms, as recognized by the Second Amendment. Some of the greatest genocides in history have been perpetrated against an unarmed populace. If the theory holds, it would seem that the greater the imbalance of power the more deaths that have resulted, while greater peace would occur as a result of a more evened balance of power. In fact, the figures seem to say just that. In the past 100 years, 262 million people were killed by their own government. (I am using “own government” very loosely.) Approximately 35 million others were killed in combats with a foreign government. (It was unclear how many were civilians and how many were soldiers.) In a fourth form of anarchic relationships, foreign citizens are in state of anarchy with citizens of other nations. The largest foreign civilian murderer was Osama bin Laden, who allegedly orchestrated the death of 3500 people in part to demonstrate his grievances with the foreign military occupation of the Arabian Peninsula. Interestingly, nuclear-armed nations, which have nearly an equal capability for destruction, have never been in direct conflict. (That may be because the political leaders are in direct harm’s way.)

We can conclude that civilians face the greatest danger from their own government, where the balance of power is so astounding. Equally powerful governments are relatively peaceful toward one another. And civilians face the least danger from other civilians. To be fair, that could be because governments are in place to punish lawbreakers. That affect seems marginal, at best, because most people do not have reasonable access to a functioning judicial system for civil cases, nor do they have much confidence in police apprehending criminals who have victims.

According to the FBI, less than 20 percent of reported burglaries, property crime, theft, car theft, and arson are “cleared.” Keep in mind, that only includes reported crimes, and not all “cleared” cases result in conviction. Police can pin crimes on deceased or incarcerated suspects. Murders are cleared about 60 percent of the time, forcible rape about 40 percent of the time, aggravated assault about 55 percent of the time. Keep in mind, those figures include wrongful convictions based on faulty eye-witness testimony, unimpartial juries, fabricated evidence, and incompetent public defenders.

Citizens have no constitutional right to have their rights protected, which is allegedly the entire purpose of forming a government according to the Declaration of Independence. Thomas Jefferson wrote, “That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed ….” The United States Supreme Court justices have ruled multiple times that federal, state, and local governments have no positive obligation to provide protection from “killers or madmen.” So if police do respond to a 911 call, it is solely out of the good will put upon by social pressures within the community or from commanders conforming to social pressures.

A second reason governments are capable of so much more violence is because those people supporting escalation do not have the full burden of paying for their military adventures, but can channel the benefits of their policies to themselves and their supporters. Basically, the costs can be socialized, and the benefits are privatized — like any other government program.

Successful Anarchism in Practice

The political process is a perfect example of how market anarchism can work even under the most crippling conditions. (I lifted this from Stefan Molyneux’s video “The Proof of Anarchy.”) It is fairly well known that political contributors and lobbyists are some of the biggest recipients of special treatment by the government. Year after year, the government increases in size and power. Pork-barrel spending and corporate bailouts are never ending. Upwards of 80 percent of Americans support greater restrictions on campaign finance contributions, so people have an innate sense that those in power are pretty rotten. Yet — even though politicians and political contributors cannot make written agreements, contributors can never have their agreements enforced by a functioning legal system, no one can be made aware of a politician’s broken agreement, the government will violently punish anyone who can be proven to have made such an agreement, and media reporters are paid good money to uncover such agreements — politicians are repeatedly re-elected about 90 percent of the time and lobbyists receive more and more handouts and exemptions from the law. Under the worst market conditions, lobbyist and politicians continue to work harmoniously. If lobbyists were able to publicize broken quid pro quo agreements or have them enforced by a legal system, then lobbyists would have an even greater effect. As it stands, politicians are not forced into compliance with their lobbyists; the only threat to the politician is that the lobbyist will support his or her opponent in the next election. You have the market process flourishing even in the face of significant obstacles.

Building Towards Liberty

As I’ve tried to demonstrate, government cannot totally eliminate anarchism. Cuzan said:

We have shown that anarchy, like matter, never disappears — it only changes form. Anarchy is either market anarchy or political anarchy. Pluralist, decentralized political anarchy is less violent than hierarchical political anarchy. Hence, we have reason to hypothesize that market anarchy could be less violent than political anarchy. Since market anarchy can be shown to outperform political anarchy in efficiency and equity in all other respects, why should we expect anything different now? Wouldn’t we be justified to expect that market anarchy produces less violence in the enforcement of property rights than political anarchy? After all, the market is the best economizer of all — wouldn’t it also economize on violence better than government does, too?

One method capitalizing on the anarchic relationships formally denied to citizens is the practice of agorism, which emphasizes working within black and gray market industries as a way of building alternatives to government-imposed services. In that way, the government — a so-called necessary evil — will no longer be seen as necessary. In time, it will be seen for what it is, just evil.

(Image credit: Joe Gratz, with Creative Commons license)

A common meme in the liberty movement is that if we can’t achieve liberty by the ballot box, then we’ll get it by the ammo box. I say neither will work since both strategies have failed for more than 200 years. That being the case, let’s examine why violence against the state will never usher in an era of liberty.

Empirically, violence has always bred more government and more taxes. Contrary to the popular notion, Americans actually paid more in taxes after the revolution than they had as British colonists. When the hidden tax of inflation is calculated, Americans were burdened far more greatly by government than they had before. The so-called Civil War is another history of this. The first income tax was imposed to pay for the war, and the federal government’s first fully fiat, non-redeemable currency was issued. In ever conflict since then, government has grown and liberty has waned. This is not something libertarians don’t already know.

Robert Higgs attributes this predictable growth to the “Rachet Effect.” When an emergency or crisis ensues, the government seizes additional powers until the threat is neutralized. After which, only a portion of those new powers are relinquished. It sets a precedent for future, presumably legal, actions that the government can then build on. It’s called the statism jig. Go three steps forward and take one step back. It doesn’t always have to be a war that leads to the ratcheting. Times of severe economic turmoil also provide an excuse for government to expand. It is just as important to remember that not all the expansions can occur simultaneously. Each precedent builds on the past and then justifies the next expansion to correct some new dilemma created by previous government meddling. Again, libertarians already know this.

I understand the sentiment that government is in a constant act of coercion against us, so it would be just to reciprocate in kind. The fault I see is on the exaggerated importance of the self-defense principle. In everyday practice, self-defense is of almost no importance in most people’s lives. If you’ve got someone bearing down on you with the intent to do harm, OK, I see how someone might react to defend him- or herself. When violence is taken against someone who has a perceived sense of legitimacy, that person is going to attract the sympathy of his or her supporters. When terrorists attack the government, no one who believes in the legitimacy of the government is going to side with the attackers, even if their grievance is legitimate. The government can justify garnering more power in order to protect against “the extremists.” Power will increase and liberty folds. For illustration, imagine a scenario where a family is killed by armed intruders. Everyone would recognize that is wrong. Just recall how that feels to hear about a story like that and how justified you think the family would be to act in self-defense. But what if I said those who broke into the home were police officers there to enforce a law that violated their rights? I do not think that the vast majority of people would support that family firing back at the police even if the law they were enforcing was unjust. I think that is because the vast majority of the population views the government, and by extension the police, as legitimate. The thought of firing back at the police makes even me uneasy, a regular reader of William N. Grigg’s blog on the abuses of the police state. So if war is the health of the state, then police shootouts are its recommended daily allowance of credibility.

But what if we could smash the state entirely with a swift uprising? That will take leadership and a command structure. Odds are, that leadership would just take command of the existing government infrastructure and enact even tighter controls.

If the revolution comes by violence, and in advance of light, the old struggle will have to be begun again. — Benjamin R. Tucker

Force cannot solve problems. It can delay the inevitable, like another hit of heroin delays an addiction withdraw. The longer one waits to address the root of the problem, the more costly — and dangerous — it will be to correct course. What it does is entrench opinions and create animosity for future conflicts. This is electoral politics. Ludwig von Mises proved axiomatically of the vital importance of individual liberty in Human Action in 1940. Conventional politics could not deliver when government was 20 percent this size. Inadvertently, electoral politics spreads the state. It corrupts its supporters and softens their impact because their ends and means are in conflict.

If Voting and Violence Have Failed, What Are We Left?

We have to be willing to make the hard choices to live in liberty — today. That begins by correcting the mentality that made authoritarianism possible. Then we will begin to see those changes in philosophy reflected in those currently hegemonic institutions. That is the hard work before us, removing the veneer of legitimacy. It does not offer quick gains like a revolution. We have to evolve past the cycle of violence of regurgitating inadequate solutions.

I recall a story from Brian Doherty’s Radicals for Capitalism, which I deeply recommend reading. I think it was William F. Buckley who would criticize libertarians for sitting around discussing the deontological conclusions of libertarianism, like why sanitation disposal should be marketized. He asked what good their philosophizing did in a time when the nation is staring down the Soviet Union in the Cold War, which he compared to a close combat gun battle. Someone responded, I don’t recall who, that you can’t make mistake after mistake and avoid negative consequences by just making one correct decision by following your principles. But nevertheless, it is important to know why sanitation disposal should be marketized so that everyone else in the future doesn’t make those same mistakes. That’s how I remember the story, anyway.

Libertarians are already considered “out there” for believing in the silly idea of individual autonomy. Don’t make it easier to marginalize us. Uphold your agreements, honor your peaceful neighbor’s choices, and provide restitution for any damages you inflict.

Here is an excerpt from Mary J. Ruwart’s Healing Our World, to reinforce the point.

Like our country’s founders, we don’t need to choose between the ideal and the practical. Since the means used dictate the ends attained, only non-aggression can give us a peaceful and prosperous world. Since aggression results in poverty and strife, it is neither ideal nor practical. Non-aggression will eventually become the norm because thankfully it is both ideal and practical.

Without it, the superhuman state, individuals would have probably never conceived of the means to create and to manage transportation systems, to help the poor, to clean the environment, and to defend against coercion, without a supra-agent present to oversee interpersonal relationships within a defined geographic area. Oh, wait!

The impression that only government can solve large public challenges, called “public goods” in economics lingo, is one of the reasons people will continue to believe an intrusive government is necessary, until libertarians break down people’s reflexive attitude of yielding to authority, that is. The assumption behind this support is that only government can provide these so-called public goods, which some people believe could not otherwise be provided, and thus society would be worse off if government didn’t forcefully compel financial support.

The problem is that people in government don’t really come up with workable, affordable solutions to things like transportation and security. How could they? To quote Frederic Bastiat, “Do not the legislators and their appointed agents also belong to the human race? Or do they believe that they themselves are made of a finer clay than the rest of mankind?” They have no incentive to solve any problems. Empirically, they have quite the opposite personal incentives, in fact. The government can’t provide lasting solutions because it has no solutions, only force. Force cannot inspire or innovate; it stagnates. When the government steps in to solve a problem, when it applies force, any progress halts and new problems arise. In the late 1800s, the advent of mass government education, teachers wrote with chalk on blackboards in front of classrooms of students who sat in neat little lines. Sound familiar today, one hundred years later? Force is a distraction from real solutions. If the government can’t provide answers to these legitimate questions, then the true purpose in forwarding statism is simply to obscure the question.

By trying to solve the question of public goods with government, greater public goods are created, including the public goods of a well-informed electorate and just laws. Taking the time to become informed on the issues, studying the economic and social impact for each of the differing policies, and investigating candidates’ records, just to know which candidates to support can be very consuming. Yet an individual’s vote makes an insignificant difference in the outcome of the overwhelming majority of races. Cost-benefit wise, it just doesn’t make sense to put that much effort into it. Many times, votes are cast based on some superficial trait or because the candidate confirms a voter’s bias. Even then, voters are inclined to support only someone with a good chance of winning. The second public good of government is the creation of just laws. For argument’s sake, let’s imagine that trustworthy candidates who have the best interest of all their constituents at heart, not just their supporters, are elected. Those lawmakers are beholden to the narrow interest of their distinct constituents. Lobbyists have a much greater incentive to push for special interests that are at the expense of everyone else or future taxpayers. Together, these public goods create a third public good of limiting the power and abuses of government. Of course it would be in everyone’s best interest for government to be restrained to certain powers, but meanwhile private interests are at work to see that government is not limited for long. It becomes socially acceptable to use coercion of government, which subsidizes the use of violence (via legislation and regulation) against competitors.

Maybe business could be convinced that special interests legislation is actually bad for them in the long run. You never know. Maybe voters could be made aware of the benefits of lower taxes and free trade. But the people who have no interest in seeing the government shrink are the government bureaucrats, their families and friends. Including benefits, the average federal worker makes more than twice the compensation as a private-sector employee. They have a big stake in expanding government, all 2.7 million of them.

Some Alternatives

I also think there is a case that so-called public goods would be significantly less important in an stateless society, where I believe workers would have much greater influence over their working conditions and wages than in limited-liability corporations. Different enterprises would have different aims, not only the maximization of its monetary wealth. It would also be true that in a stateless society individuals would become much more wealthy than they are today and would be more inclined to support environmental preservation. Private property rights would also become better defined because government regulation has often been used by well-connected special interests to lobby for protection from liability where common law tort cases were used to recoup damages. In other cases, governments have simply granted license to polluters.

Most everybody likes to hang their hats on national security. To be considered a credible candidate, even “Internet Constitution Jesus” Ron Paul had to say he supported a strong defense. The fact is that the only security people in government provide is for themselves. They’ve got all the big guns, mind you. There was a case just a few weeks ago of a Northwest Airlines crew that lost contact with ground control for over an hour. No military jets were scrabbled to intercept the plane. We’re talking post-9/11. Nothing. They were luck they were not headed toward Washington, D.C., or New York—else they might have been shot out of the air. To some degree, I understand why people in government would react that way. To conquer a nation, you have to control its capitol. That is the seat of the government, where the main bureaucrats operate, and you can bet the tax records are going to be pretty nearby. Because when nations are at war, they are fighting over who controls the tax livestock in the country. That is one of the advantages of a stateless society; there is no central headquarter on which to lay siege, no infrastructure in place to seize property and taxes.

Besides, if we are to believe that we could cultivate this total activist population, which valued liberty vigorously and made personal sacrifices to secure that liberty for its posterity against an entrenched government, then why would they roll over when an organization a fraction of the size of government with no perceived legitimacy tried to usurp those liberties? It seems to me that if there were such an organization that tried to aggress against others, it takes a lot less effort to prevent. You literally wouldn’t have to lift a finger. You just stop doing business with them.

A Faded Hope

What limited-government activists offer is an uninspiring vision for society, a limited slavery, one in which the best they can hope for is a constant struggle to halt the expansion of the state. It should be self-evident why the “eternal vigilance” struggle is a losing battle. A radical limited-government mindset is neither consistent philosophically nor convenient politically. It does not distinguish itself in principle, as it sanctions the use of violence to solve social problems, and is outside the mainstream of political reality. What are its chances of sustaining a groundswell of support if it is fundamentally no different than other political beliefs yet it hampers the political viability of its supporters? I don’t believe the chances are positive.

Bless those in the battle for limited government. I’ll be cheering for them, no doubt. I’ll be with them 90 out of 100 times. But if I got bribed well enough, I might even starting pitching socialized healthcare when in office. Until then, I don’t feel like idolizing a theoretical government that never existed in practice.

As I understand the most common justification for the state, there exists scarcity in the world and conflict ensues as individuals compete for scarce resources. (See Thomas Hobbes’ state of nature.) Therefore, we need  an organization that holds a monopoly within a territory on ultimate decision making to resolve conflicts. The decision maker, what I call “the state,” shall also have the power to enforce such decisions and to legislate a set of ground rules on which the decisions will be made.

Two glaring complications arise from this justification. First, the state causes artificial scarcity by limiting competing services in the fields of defense and conflict resolution. Secondly, if the ultimate decision maker is in conflict with another party, then the state has a conflict of interests as it is both decision maker and participant in the dispute. As such an institution is able to create conflicts and then rule in its own favor, individual liberty rests on a whim, its whim. Additionally, individuals acting through the state are more inclined to support violence behavior, to tax other people’s wealth or regulate others, for example, because they can do so without any liability. So, it seems that governments would be much more inclined to create conflict than would individuals acting on their own, further marginalizing the liberty the state was designed to protect.

Even the idea that a government is necessary to protect rights better makes that case that rights do not actually exist, because there would need to be government watchdogs to ensure that the government was effectively protecting rights. But then, there would need to be watchdog watchdogs to ensure the watchdogs did their jobs. It breaks down into an infinite regression, and a blank check, until the only way you are free is unless the government taxes every dime you have in order to pay all those watchdogs.

A more contemporary justification is to correct negative externalities, which individuals could address through more defined contractual relationships. In fact, the state encourages negative externalities by increasing regulations and improperly defining property rights. Modern liberals and conservatives have further justifications, meanwhile, such as to impose their own cultural or religious preferences.

Minarchists (those who support a minimal state that enforces agreements, ensures for a common defense, and perhaps provides minimal infrastructure) generally recognize the inefficiencies of the state and support personal independence in relation to political authority. Rightly, they fear illegal theft, yet they insist on legalizing it and calling it “taxation.” They fear a coercive organization taking control of individual autonomy, yet they create their own and call it “government.” Don’t believe me? Here are few questions for illumination.

1. Does a group of individuals have any right that an individual does not?
2. Does government have any right that an individual would not have to stop acts of coercion (such as force or fraud)?
3. Can an individual delegate a right to the government he or she does not have?
4. Are the ethical judgments of the behavior of government different from non-government behavior?
5. If it is legitimate for one group of individuals to secede from a government, is it also legitimate for a an individual to secede from a government. If not, why not?
6. Is it legitimate for the government to force an individual to fund services he or she does not wish to use?
7. Is it legitimate for the government to hold a territorial monopoly or somehow mandate, by the threat of force, that competitors receive permission before offering competing defense or conflict resolutions services?
8. If a government is needed to enforce agreements and providing conflict resolution among individuals, is another such organization designed to enforce agreements and providing conflict resolution among governments also needed. If not, why not?
9. Does an individual have the right to use force against someone who has the capability to initiate force first but who has not threatened do so?

Anarchists and minarchists would agree that the answer is “no” on the first four questions. These are straightforward questions that libertarians have long dealt with.

The split begins on Question 5. Anarchists and a subset of minarchists called MINOs, or minarchists in name only, would say that an individual does have the right of secession. MINOs insist they support an organization called government that shares none of the fundamental characteristics of a government as it is not territorially monopolistic nor individually non-consensual. It would be like calling people thieves who prevent others from stealing your property; it just creates confusion. The most prominent MINO is Michael Badnarik, who said in a debate with Stefan Molyneux that he does support individual secession. However, minarchists would object to individual secession, yet they have already stated groups do not have additional rights than individuals in Question 1.

For questions six and seven, minarchists support the use of force, albeit regrettably, to compel funding of a service and submission to the state. Else, it would be de facto anarchy. Anarchists and MINOs disagree, believing that forced taxation and forced submission to the state contradict individual liberty. Minarchists agree that protection and dispute resolution should be provided by the state, but hardly address how many resources should be spent on these services, something the market can answer based on supply and demand.

On Question 8, minarchists would have to support a type of government’s government to enforce agreements with other governments. Otherwise, governments would exists in a state of anarchy with every other government, a point minarchists already conceded is not acceptable for individuals.

Question 9 is the syncher. Reluctantly again, I think that minarchists have displayed support for using force on the mere possibility of others using force against them. It is the most epic self-fulfilling prophecy, an endless preemptive war on individuals. In and of itself, the state’s claim of territorial monopoly is not a violation of rights had property owners consented without duress. Property is similarly a monopoly claim, but its lineage of ownership, if valid, has been consensual.

In practice, the justification for the state is the subjugation of the politically weak to the politically connected, from what Samuel Edward Konkin III called the economic class to the political class. It is blunt force. Minarchists serves as the wedge of that force, but they will never wield the hammer.

Update I

A reader had this comment.

While anarchy may be viewed as a Utopian state, so long as a single individual wishes to undermine the rights of their (sic) neighbor, the response will always be a de facto government. As soon as you have de facto government, you will have those that will advocate that the role of that government extends out into providing services that are viewed to be not efficiently achieved individually.

Total liberty as a function of society is therefore not achievable and the degree of liberty achievable is reliant on the morality of those that control government’s decisions.

“… it was the fact that life, liberty, and property existed beforehand that caused men to make laws in the first place.”

To advance a state of anarchy is to advance that man has another alternative for the protection of life, liberty and property. Time and time again, man has come to the conclusion that only laws will protect and therefore has rightfully rejected anarchy.

What follows is an e-mail discussion stemming from a quote I posted on my Facebook profile. The exchange serves as a proxy for the merits of participating in a system, namely governing others by force, that you fundamentally oppose. I was reading some Rothbard, as I am apt to do, and I came across this Frank H. Knight quote.

The probability of the people in power being individuals who would dislike the possession and exercise of power is on a level with the probability that an extremely tender-hearted person would get the job of whipping master in a slave plantation.

Challenging the premise that one who opposes torture should not practice it, Tarrant County political activist and adviser Chris Howe responded.

How does this quote square with this advice?

That while the probability of a tender-hearted person getting the job of whipping master is low, that should the job be offered, the tender-hearted person should reject the job of whipping master? Instead they should gather around with other tender-hearted people and from a distance complain among themselves: “Oh that new whipping master, he shouldn’t be beating and shackling those men with inalienable rights. It would be far more economical to offer to pay those men a wage and let them come and go from the plantation as they saw fit. The plantation owner would then realize that they wouldn’t need a whipping master to ensure the work got done. Think of the savings”?

I completely understand the limitations on personal resources argument. There is only so much leisure time and only so much of that time to expend toward liberty causes. I know this well as I’ve stretched myself thin. But to leave the bounty of a field that you have sown to rot in the sun strains reason.

If there are other fertile fields available that your skills are better suited, certainly pursue those instead. Just make sure there is someone qualified to offer your arguments on that board. [Note: I made a few punctuation edits to each of Chris' original e-mail to conform to the style on this site. The board referenced in his last sentence is a committee a resident had the opportunity to serve on in a local city.]

I can certainly see Chris’ point about the desire to minimize the immediate harm inflicted. It should also not surprise us, especially Bastiat readers, especially when the means conflict with the ends, that short-term benefits may have unintended consequences. TANSTAFL! [Interestingly, the hypothetical has present-day implications as many libertarians view the current social construction as a form of enhanced slavery.]

I responded.

I think the quote is addressing the corrupting nature of power as much as anything. That is, for a person to become a master whipper, he or she must have taken several steps to be awarded that position, like practicing as an apprentice and proving him- or herself as an effective torturer. So that, even if that young apprentice was at one point a kind and gentle person, all that has been sapped from him or her by leading this contradictory life that on one hand sanctions violence and on the other feels mercy. In the pursuit of greater power, the master whipper most likely would have rationalized in favor of the slave master’s opinion that slavery is proper, and or necessary, to rule others by force.

In a sense, I agree that it would be silly and dumbfounding to just complain amongst ourselves about the violent nature of government. I believe that the most powerful forces in the world are ideas, but they must be expressed to have any effect. Yet those who find value in controlling others are more concerned about votes, money, and staying in power to care about such esoteric concepts.

What I would suggest is that rather than playing damage control, we should go on the offensive, presenting and practicing consistently the ideas of complete liberty, reason, and objective morality (and probably join the Free State Project) to demonstrate to others the practical benefits of our ideas by working together to thwart the arbitrary controls others seek over us.

From The Market for Liberty:

We can bring about a laissez-faire society, but only through the tremendous, invisible power of ideas. Ideas are the motive power of human progress, the force which shapes the world. Ideas are more powerful than armies, because it was ideas which caused the armies to be raised in the first place, and it is ideas which keep them fighting (if this weren’t true, political leaders wouldn’t have to bother with their tremendous propaganda machinery). When an idea gains popular support, all the guns in the world cannot kill it.

In addition, I feel reluctant to compel political independence upon others. If it reassures some to be ordered about and commanded on high, then that is their wish. A great source of antagonism people have with libertarians is they feel they are being “forced” into this mysterious new world without a safety net. Fortunately for them, I am certain that there will be no shortage of people willing to tell others what to do. That I am certain of. And the safety net of the state will not be necessary as we will live in greater peace and abundance.

Chris then responded.

You’re conflating.  The quote is referencing a whipping master, not a master whipper.  It’s a position, not a skill set.  He even mentions “get the job.” He’s referencing that it is an anomaly for an individual who does not like power to seek a position of power.

While the economics of that is true, it’s not the result of a moral people who are capable of governing themselves.

I feel it is a semantic difference. In any case, I think that these various forms of institutionalized oppression are the products of people’s misunderstanding of the necessary conditions for human flourishment. We can probably agree that statism is the most apparent form of oppression, but it is by no means the only one. Even if solid libertarians were to somehow capture control of the government apparatus and sabotage its controls, people would just transition their ideals of how society should function to another vehicle. Meanwhile, our efforts are diverted and principles abandoned (by making political payoffs) to maintain that hold on government. The state is only the current means. It is only the most convenient vehicle for delivering oppression because others grant its legitimacy on some fragile hinges called national security or free riders. Statism is the pretext, an excuse for controlling others.  So long as the notion prevails that one person’s benefit is another person’s loss that pretext will exist. I’m afraid that by confining this individualism philosophy to one aspect of human interaction, in politics, we have diminish the explosive impact of what a society or the bounds of human nature could achieve.

An approach I’ve been trying to develop in my own mind is something of an inside-out approach that focuses on personal development and self-improvement for ourselves and those around us. I think we can realize the benefits of these concepts (emotionally and materially) in a real concrete way. I also think this is more consistent with the principles of individualism because it focuses on changing individuals’ opinions primarily and institutions secondarily, if at all. A certain type of individual will flock to the message of liberty because our message is clear, consistent, and conforms to their own experiences and understandings. If you ask me how this will play out, I can’t say. I agree with Nathaniel Branden that now is the time to showcase the dignity of our volitional nature and exemplify the heroic nature of our accomplishments. I don’t think either is possible with a whip in your hand.

This discussion has been a benefit for myself, because I have been thinking of how to reconcile practicality and principles. Ayn Rand spoke to this better than I could. Those insights continue to bloom in my own mind. I guess I should stress that I don’t think participating in government, through electoral politics for example, is unprincipled. I’ll save what I think those standards to engage the government should be for another post. Also, I want to thank Chris, whom I consider as righteous and politically aware as anyone I know, for letting me share his comments on the site.

The Alliance of the Libertarian Left is an aggregate of Rothbardians, mutualists, voluntaryists, anarchists, agorists, extreme minarchists, and others united in opposition to statism and existing forms of coercive and irrational institutions. The newest group of ALLies has formed here in the Metroplex.

In a sense, ALL is an effort to draw a distinction between the two aspirations of those who support the non-aggression principle. As many have said, a voluntary society may well be a more closed society, where discrimination and petty hierarchical social structures are more prevalent. Left libertarians oppose the use of institutionalized power over others by encouraging an open, rational society.

The use of the word “left” is necessary to make a connection to historic nature of classical liberalism and to reject the libertarian merge with modern conservatism. (That is not to say that the modern left is any less authoritarian.) Unfortunately, the need for “libertarianism” with an adjective is the result of past compromises of principles. A recognition of left-libertarianism makes the use of certain political tools more profitable than others and makes other strategies, like electoral politics, muted by comparison.

The ALL Web site has some good resources as well. To learn more about DFW ALL, go to the About Us page.