07 Jun 2014

Is the State More Like a Gym or an Army?

Gene Callahan, Voluntaryism 210 Comments

Not surprisingly, Gene Callahan did not care for my novel analysis of General Zod’s (brief) domination of planet Earth. Yet in his attempt to show how much I was misconstruing the average person’s support for the State, Gene seems to give away the whole game. Here’s Gene:

Bob Murphy claims “Thus, the average person defends the existence of the State not for principled reasons but instead as the lesser of two evils.”

This is true only by equivocating on the meaning of “the lesser of two evils.”

In one sense, we use the phrase all the time for things we don’t really think are evil, but that, if reality were different, and they became unnecessary, we would not engage in just for the heck of it. So, one might say “working out is the lesser of two evils” (when compared to getting fat and out of shape), or “paying those hospital bills is the lesser of two evils” (compared to dying of a heart attack). In cases like these, the person using the phrase “the lesser of two evils” does not actually think that exercising or paying for medical treatments are evil at all….They just are not pleasant things.

The other sense of the phrase indicates that one is stuck with two possibilities, both of which one considers to be actually evil: for instance, one believes one is faced with the choice of bombing the site of a nuclear weapon, killing innocent people nearby in the process, or allowing a nuclear launch from that site to destroy in major city, killing far more people.

If the average person says government is “the lesser of two evils,” they clearly mean it in the first sense: if they magically could have civil peace without having to pay taxes, they would prefer that to civil peace plus taxes. But not being in the thrall of an ideology, the average person is sensible enough to recognize that without a government, there is no civil peace. Given the nature of reality, government is not a “lesser evil,” it is a positive good.

I agree that there are two senses in which people often use the phrase “lesser of two evils.” I agree with Gene that picking something like exercising to lose weight is a good example of one sense of the term (where “evil” is just rhetorical), and I agree with Gene that killing innocent people because that seems to be the only technological method of preventing an even greater number of innocent deaths is a good example of the other sense (where “evil” is meant quite literally).

Where Gene and I disagree, is in classifying the State as something akin to working out, and not as an institution that inflicts very real injustices on innocent people. For one thing, in the real world, States kill innocent people all the time in order (their officials claim) to prevent greater deaths. So it’s weird that Gene’s very example shows that the State is a necessary evil in the second sense he lays out.

Now I suppose Gene will come back and say, “Oh come on, we’re talking about the State per se, not any particular State that happens to exist.” OK, and the State per se takes money from people who don’t support its activities; if it were truly voluntary, it would be a club, not a State. Taking money from people against their will is not akin to getting on the treadmill; it is akin to killing people against their will. It is an evil, that at best could be justified because it is necessary to avoid even greater evil.

210 Responses to “Is the State More Like a Gym or an Army?”

  1. rob says:

    ““Thus, the average person defends the existence of the State not for principled reasons but instead as the lesser of two evils”

    Gene is attributing to you (based on this statement) the view that you believe the average person literally thinks the state is evil but supports it anyway.

    Can you confirm that this is indeed your view ?

    (I don’t see anything in either this or your earlier article that explicitly states this, though I do think it is probably implied in this one).

    • Bob Murphy says:

      I think that if pressed, most Americans view the existence of the State (with its system of taxation in particular) in the same moral category as the atomic bombing of Hiroshima: They might not (but many might) say it’s “evil” but they would definitely agree, “It would be super evil if not for the fact that it was necessary.”

      • rob says:

        Gene statements of what Bob means: “Because he clearly means that people ACTUALLY acknowledge that government is evil,”

        Bob’s statements of what Bob means: “They might not (but many might) say it’s “evil”.

        Surely at least a minor discrepancy here ?

        • Bob Murphy says:

          Well the problem (on this minor point, not the bigger debate) is that I think the average person would utter contradictory things. If you said out of nowhere, “Is your government evil by its very nature?” probably most would say, “No.” But if you defined what you meant by the term “a necessary evil” or “the lesser of two evils,” got them to admit that (say) going to the gym was NOT such a thing, while bombing children was, and then said, “What about taking money from someone against his will, in order to fund stuff he doesn’t want to fund,” I think most would say it was the lesser of two evils.

          • Keshav Srinivasan says:

            Bob, what do you think people would say if you DID define what the term necessary evil means, but you didn’t characterize government in the libertarian language of “taking money from someone against his will”?

          • Grane Peer says:

            Mr. Murphy, Is think this might be dead end or perhaps the alley behind a porno theater. Average person is a made up construct. I have never met average person only people who I consider to be average person or some idea in my head of who average person is. I am loathe to accept a study on average person as being scientific. I believe Gene is deserving of insults and ridicule, nothing more nothing less and they can be substantiated a priori. But you may do as you wish, you’re the boss applesauce.

      • Philippe says:

        “I think that if pressed, most Americans view the existence of the State (with its system of taxation in particular) in the same moral category as the atomic bombing of Hiroshima”

        That’s completely nuts.

        The founding document of the State which you think most Americans believe would be super evil if it wasn’t necessary, starts with the following sentence:

        “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

        Most Americans do not consider that to be in the same moral category as the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.

        • Tel says:

          There you go with Constitutional stuff again.

          I keep telling you, no one believes in that any more. I mean, if Obama doesn’t follow it, why should anyone else?

          • Philippe says:

            “There you go with Constitutional stuff again”

            Given that it is the constitution of the State, it is relevant.

        • Ben B says:

          Most Americans would first need to know what is in the US constitution before they can place it in a moral category.

        • andrew' says:

          Philippe, necessary evil. That’s all.

        • Reece says:

          “…provide for the common defence…”

          Most people think the atomic bombing of Hiroshima falls into that, which is why the federal government had the “right” to do it.

          Your quote provides evidence toward Bob’s point, not the other way around. People support the Constitution because of what it supposedly provides (promote the general welfare, defense, secure our freedoms, etc.). It says right there that is why they established the Constitution. If people did not think that was the case, they would not support jailing someone if they didn’t pay their taxes. The taxation laws themselves then are a “necessary evil.”

          Imagine if the Constitution said more ridiculous things instead, like “In order to enjoy more football games, promote awesome music, and secure the blessings of trading card collections for our posterity.” Do you honestly think people would support caging someone if they didn’t pay toward that? The Constitution lists off things that people see as necessary, and much less available without the state – I really fail to see how this detracts from Bob’s point at all.

          • Philippe says:

            “…establish Justice”

            do you think that establishing Justice is a necessary evil, or a positive good?

            (same question for all the other statements in the Preamble)

            • Reece says:

              All of them are positive goods. Nobody is arguing that as far as I am aware. The means to get them may be a necessary evil if they cannot be gotten in any other way. When people say the state is a necessary evil, they don’t mean that protection or the general welfare is a necessary evil. They mean that using the state to get these is the necessary evil.

              • Philippe says:

                establishing Justice means establishing Justice, not establishing evil.

              • Reece says:

                Again, nobody is saying that the justice itself is evil. They are saying the establishing of it is done through evil means. You said “establishing justice,” but justice isn’t just established out of thin air. How was this justice established?

                How about this: If I catch a murderer, this would be considered by many “establishing justice.” Now, suppose in order to catch the murderer I need to hurt an innocent person (say, break his arm). Would you agree that breaking someone’s arm is wrong in of itself? (Note you can still be for doing this if you think catching the murderer is that important.) If so, can you see how someone would say that the state caging people for not paying taxes is wrong in of itself but still think that the establishment of justice is important enough that the taxation is a “necessary evil”?

    • Philippe says:

      “the State per se takes money from people who don’t support its activities; if it were truly voluntary, it would be a club, not a State”

      You don’t usually get to use a club’s facilities or wander around in its grounds if you don’t pay your membership dues.

      According to you that must mean that a club is involuntary and takes money from people against their will.

      • Ben B says:

        Clubs don’t usually take money from people against their will to initially purchase or build their facilities.

        • Philippe says:

          Sure they do, according to Bob. If I’m a member of a club, and the club votes to charge a membership fee to pay for a club house, then if I don’t want to pay the fee I have to leave the club. So it’s involuntary according to Bob.

          • Ben B says:

            Sorry, let me be more clear.

            Club aren’t usually formed (which includes the initial purchase or production of their facilities) by taking money from people against their will.

            • Josiah says:

              In the case of the United States, (at least some of) the colonies started out as joint stock companies. No one was forced aboard the Mayflower at gunpoint.

              • Ben B says:

                The crew of the Mayflower wrote the US Constitution?

              • Ben B says:

                Right, so like I said, “clubs aren’t usually formed by taking money from people against their will.”

                Sure, Clubs can become States as soon as they start taking money from people against their will while also claiming ultimate decision-making within an area in which all property hadn’t been homesteaded or voluntarily acquired by the club.

              • Keshav Srinivasan says:

                Ben B, I think a lot of rejection of anarchism is due to the fact that a lot of people simply don’t believe in the absolute validity of the homesteading principle.

              • Keshav Srinivasan says:

                And I should add that here I’m talking about the reason for the rejection of anarchism by people who’ve given it some thought, not motivation for the views of the average person.

              • Ben B says:

                Well, maybe, but if you described the act of homesteading without using any kind of libertarian language, and then you asked the person whether or not after the act if they were the rightful owner, then I would imagine many people would say yes.

                I think the rejection of anarchism is more about ignorance.

              • Ben B says:

                I just read your last statement after I had posted.

              • Philippe says:

                “Club aren’t usually formed (which includes the initial purchase or production of their facilities) by taking money from people against their will.”

                Say a group of people want to build a tennis club on a piece of land. I want to use that piece of land to play tennis, but I don’t want to pay to join the club. If I can’t stop them from building the club on that land, I will either have to pay to join, or go elsewhere. So it’s involuntary.

              • Ben B says:

                If you rightfully owned that land, and you weren’t able to stop them from building on it, then yes, it would be involuntary.

                But based on your hypothetical, the land was unowned, and so your exclusion from its use is not involuntary.

              • Philippe says:

                “the land was unowned, and so your exclusion from its use is not involuntary”

                If you unilaterally decide to claim a piece of land as your own, and do some work on it (homesteading theory) to justify your claim, that doesn’t mean I consent to you claiming, using and ‘owning’ the land.

                You argue that you have a right to ignore my lack of consent, and to use force to make me comply with your claim. But that doesn’t mean that it is voluntary from my perspective.

              • Philippe says:

                “rightfully owned”

                According to Locke, land can only be justly or rightfully owned by an individual if there is enough equally good land left for everyone else to claim as their own. That complicates matters significantly.

              • Ben B says:

                Of course, you don’t have to acknowledge my claim. But I would like to know what your reasoning is as to why you have a more valid claim to the land than I do.

                Why are you able to use violence against me in order to prevent me from owning a price of land, in perpetuity?

              • Philippe says:

                “I would like to know what your reasoning is as to why you have a more valid claim to the land than I do”

                your homesteading theory doesn’t explain why you have a valid claim to own the land itself in perpetuity, as you didn’t create the land.

                Because things made by humans combine things they ‘created themselves’ with things they clearly didn’t, the theory is quite problematic.

              • Major-Freedom says:

                Philippe:

                The land does not remain the way it is when humans homestead it. You are assuming that land remains unchanged.

                Homesteading is an action, not merely a thought.

                Your anti-homesteading theory does not adequately explain why non-homesteaders should have any claim over land homesteaded by others.

      • Bob Murphy says:

        Phillipe wrote:

        You don’t usually get to use a club’s facilities or wander around in its grounds if you don’t pay your membership dues.
        According to you that must mean that a club is involuntary and takes money from people against their will.

        And according to you, the US government owns every last bit of tangible property within its borders, including the human beings who live there. Is that really where you want to push your argument?

        • Philippe says:

          “according to you, the US government owns every last bit of tangible property within its borders, including the human beings who live there”

          No, I don’t think that. I’m not sure why you think I would think that.

          • Bala says:

            OMG! What a troll!!

            • Philippe says:

              ?

              • Major-Freedom says:

                He means you are contradicting yourself so badly, that you not even realizing it, suggests very strongly that you don’t care about consistency or logic, but rather just to rile people up in various ways.

          • Major-Freedom says:

            He means by analogizing from the case of an OWNER of a private building or area of land, in which case if you want to enter such building or area of land, then you must seek the permission of the owner, it means you are identifying the owner of a person’s house to be the state when you claim that people owe the state deference/payment.

            • Philippe says:

              “it means you are identifying the owner of a person’s house to be the state”

              people don’t just live in their houses, in a vacuum, without going anywhere else or using facilities that don’t belong to them exclusively or to other individuals exclusively.

              • Major-Freedom says:

                “people don’t just live in their houses, in a vacuum, without going anywhere else or using facilities that don’t belong to them exclusively or to other individuals exclusively.”

                They would be taxed even if they did (property taxes).

                Even if an individual did not want to pay for or use “public roads”, they would still be forced to do so by “law”.

                You won’t be able to wiggle out of the argument the way you are going. It’s been tried many times. Never works. There are always flaws.

              • Philippe says:

                “They would be taxed even if they did”

                name one person.

                “Even if an individual did not want to pay for or use “public roads”, they would still be forced to do so by “law””

                They would have to because those roads don’t belong to them exclusively or to others exclusively. They are an obvious example of the commons.

              • Major-Freedom says:

                Name one person?

                I could name anyone who the state considers a “taxpayer”.

                Me for example.

                Could pick any “taxpayer”.

                “They would have to because those roads don’t belong to them exclusively or to others exclusively. They are an obvious example of the commons.”

                That makes no sense. I don’t exclusively own Disneyland either, but Disney Company does not force me to pay them if I do not step foot into Disneyland or do not want to take possession of Disney goods. If I don’t want to deal with Disney, then I don’t have to, and I won’t be forced to pay them regardless.

                With the state on the other hand, I AM forced to pay taxes even if I do not want to utilize any public services. I am forced to pay regardless.

                The constant analogizing with the private sector that you engage in, is based on totally false premises.

        • Josiah says:

          And according to you, the US government owns every last bit of tangible property within its borders, including the human beings who live there.

          Uh, Bob, do you think that a club owns its members?

        • Bob Murphy says:

          Philippe, do you agree that every American citizen right now has the moral right to revolution, because of the monstrous practice of forced jury duty? I didn’t ask, but I was assuming you *don’t* think that, and that you would use your club membership analogy.

          So, for that to work, it’s not just that the US government (or subsidiary governments) owns Interstate 75, it also owns all of our bodies.

          If you think that’s a stretch, there’s military conscription, and there are also things where even if US citizens want to leave, the US government follows them around the planet because it’s not done with them yet. (I won’t even bring up blowing them and their kids up with flying killer robots, since I understand you could say, “If people tried to attack a club, and then ran across the street, the employees of the club might go kill them and you libertarians would be happy with that.” I’m talking about peaceful US citizens having the US gov’t do all sorts of stuff to them and their bodies against their will.)

          • Josiah says:

            Bob,

            I used to live in co-op housing during college. Part of the requirements of living at the co-op was that you had to do a certain number of hours of “labor” a week on behalf of the co-op (eg cooking, cleaning, etc). The specifics of your labor requirement were set by the co-op leadership, though they tried to be accommodating.

            Do you think I was a slave to the co-op? Did I have the right to violently overthrow the co-op board?

            • guest says:

              So, you owned it (“co-op”), but other people had authority to tell you what to do, while you had no authority to tell THEM to do it, instead?

              Yeah, you were a slave to the individuals bossing everyone else around.

              Now, if one particular person owned the housing, and he hired a couple of people to help him make decisions, then no, you weren’t a slave; You had a trade agreement with the owner.

              But then this wouldn’t be a co-op.

              • Josiah says:

                Guest,

                Let me see if I understand you.

                If the individuals who made up the co-op board had owned the property outright, then they could’ve required us to do labor in order to live their and that would’ve been perfectly fine. But since we elected them, it was slavery?

                Surely this is not your view as well, Bob?

              • Philippe says:

                “So, you owned it (“co-op”), but other people had authority to tell you what to do, while you had no authority to tell THEM to do it, instead?”

                A co-op is owned by its members, so as a member you have a share of ownership in the co-op rather than sole ownership.

                As there are multiple owners, they have to find a way to decide how to manage the co-op. Usually this means voting, as in a company owned by shareholders.

              • guest says:

                If the individuals who made up the co-op board had owned the property outright …

                A single individual has to own the property.

                If that individual hires others to help him make decisions, it’s still solely his property.

              • guest says:

                As there are multiple owners, they have to find a way to decide how to manage the co-op.

                Being a so-called “co-owner”, any governing structure that arises can only be the result of acting out roles, with no one really having authority over any other, since, presumably, you have the requisite authority to do otherwise.

                If you own something, you get to decide what is done with it.

                (This is why there can’t be multiple owners.)

              • Philippe says:

                “A single individual has to own the property”.

                Reality to guest. Shared ownership exists everywhere. Buy a share in a company and find out for yourself.

                “if you own something, you get to decide what is done with it”.

                Only if your are the sole proprietor. If you are a shareholder then you usually only have part-ownership of the thing, and don’t have absolute control over it.

                I don’t understand why you so ardently want to deny reality.

                Have you ever bought shares?

              • guest says:

                Reality to guest. Shared ownership exists everywhere. Buy a share in a company and find out for yourself.

                People claim authority all the time; That doesn’t mean that authority exists in reality.

                Shares are not ownership. The individual owner grants individual share-holders contractual privileges.

                I don’t share ownership in someone’s property just because I contract to work on it.

              • Philippe says:

                “Shares are not ownership”

                Perhaps this is true in an alternative universe.

                In this universe, ownership can be shared, and owning a share of a company means that you own part of the company.

              • guest says:

                Perhaps this is true in an alternative universe.

                In this universe, ownership can be shared …

                Being logically incoherent, no it cannot.

                You have to own something in order to delegate authority over it to someone else, such that it can even remotely be considered “shared ownership”.

                From where (or whom) does each individual member of a supposed “joint ownership” arrangement get the authority to delegate authority to the other individual members, and *not* have the authority to also deny authority to the other members?

              • Philippe says:

                “Being logically incoherent, no it cannot”

                Yes it can. Say there are two kids in a Rio favela who want to play football but neither of them has enough money to buy a football on their own. What they do is they agree to each pay half of the price to buy a ball, and they each own 50% of the ball.

                It’s not that complicated really.

              • guest says:

                What they do is they agree to each pay half of the price to buy a ball, and they each own 50% of the ball.

                It’s not that complicated really.

                It’s not a complicated thing to ignore the question.

                They can agree to contribute half the money all they want, but until one of them owns the ball, they can’t delegate authority to anyone else.

          • Philippe says:

            “do you agree that every American citizen right now has the moral right to revolution, because of the monstrous practice of forced jury duty?”

            Jury duty is one of the obligations that comes with being an American citizen. Members of clubs also have certain obligations that come with membership.

            I don’t consider jury duty to be a monstrous practice.

            “for that to work, it’s not just that the US government (or subsidiary governments) owns Interstate 75, it also owns all of our bodies”

            I don’t see how that follows.

            “there’s military conscription”

            In an ancap world it’s possible that to live in a certain area you would be required to sign a contract agreeing to obligatory military conscription in case of war, right?

            I don’t see how military conscription entails that the State owns your body. You could say you are forced to do something you don’t really want to do, but that doesn’t mean the State owns your body.

            “the US government follows them around the planet because it’s not done with them yet”

            Because they owe something to the US?

            The State is defined as “a nation or territory considered as an organized political community under one government”. By this definition any group of people or community living in a particular area with its own o0rganized system of law could be described as a State.

            • Major-Freedom says:

              “Jury duty is one of the obligations that comes with being an American citizen. Members of clubs also have certain obligations that come with membership.”

              But you don’t have to be a member of a club, and you don’t have to pay any dues or follow the rules in the club, and you won’t be forced by that club to leave YOUR house.

              By comparing the club with the government, you are insinuating that the government owns all the land.

          • Philippe says:

            “I won’t even bring up blowing them and their kids up with flying killer robots”

            Although I think the existence of the United States is justifiable, that doesn’t mean I think that everything the United States (or its military) does or has done is justified.

            • Major-Freedom says:

              What is the state if not what people do in the name of it?

              • Keshav Srinivasan says:

                “What is the state if not what people do in the name of it?” Major_Freedom, couldn’t you just as well say “What is liberty if not what people do in the name of it?”

              • Philippe says:

                The State is defined as “a nation or territory considered as an organized political community under one government”. So that encompasses all the citizens, the area in which they live, their system of law, the institutions created by them in accordance with that law, and the people who occupy positions within those institutions. The United States is not just a bunch of people in Washington and an army.

              • Major-Freedom says:

                Philippe:

                “The State is defined as “a nation or territory considered as an organized political community under one government”.”

                So the state is defined as the state.

                Right.

              • Major-Freedom says:

                Keshav:

                “Major_Freedom, couldn’t you just as well say “What is liberty if not what people do in the name of it?”

                Liberty isn’t an action. It is a state of being.

                Statism is an action. It is not a state of being.

                I know what you are getting at though. Someone could do really anything “in the name” of something else, thus rendering it moot.

                My point is that the state refers to, IMO, a particular set of actions that people are doing. Without those actions, (and other actions taking their place), then the state would not exist.

              • Philippe says:

                MF,

                “So the state is defined as the state”

                My point is that it’s misleading to talk about the state as some ‘thing’ which exists independently of the people, as Bob and other ancaps are wont to do.

                The ‘United States of America’ is a State. But the United States is not just a bunch of guys sitting in a big building in Washington who happen to have a big army at their disposal.

                The United States – the State – is the citizens, the area or ‘territory’ in which they live, their system of law, the institutions created by them in accordance with that law, etc..

              • Major-Freedom says:

                Philippe:

                Clearly your point was to respond to my question about what the state is if not what people do in the name of it.

                “The United States – the State – is the citizens”

                The state is not the citizenry. I am a citizen, and I am not a member of the state.

                States are territorial monopolies on protection/security and arbitration in contract resolution.

              • Major-Freedom says:

                “My point is that it’s misleading to talk about the state as some ‘thing’ which exists independently of the people, as Bob and other ancaps are wont to do.”

                Except they aren’t saying that because they actually think the state is a thing. They are saying that because they are talking with those who do that, and it is to more quickly facilitate conversation rather than having to point out the fact that the state must refer to specific individuals doing specific things, which is based on methodological individualism, which ancaps are “wont to do.”

                You have it backwards.

              • Major-Freedom says:

                “But the United States is not just a bunch of guys sitting in a big building in Washington who happen to have a big army at their disposal.”

                The state refers to specific actions that specific people take.

                I do not act as a state, therefore I am not a statesman.

              • Philippe says:

                “it is to more quickly facilitate conversation rather than having to point out the fact that the state must refer to specific individuals doing specific things”

                So you don’t mean it literally when you say that, for example, “the State kills people”?

                What you actually mean is that certain people kill other people?

              • Philippe says:

                “The state is not the citizenry. I am a citizen, and I am not a member of the state.”

                Yes you are, because the definition of a citizen is a member of a state.

                “I do not act as a state, therefore I am not a statesman.”

                No one acts as a state, because a state is an organization, not an individual person.

              • Major-Freedom says:

                Philippe:

                “Yes you are,”

                No, I am not.

                “because the definition of a citizen is a member of a state.”

                No, the definition of a citizen is to NOT be a member of the state.

                It’s why we have a word “citizen” that we don’t use for every individual.

                “No one acts as a state, because a state is an organization, not an individual person.”

                I never said an individual person is a whole state.

                The state is a group of specific individuals engaging in specific actions against other specific individuals.

              • Philippe says:

                “No, the definition of a citizen is to NOT be a member of the state.”

                If you are a citizen of The United States of America, you are a member of the organisation referred to as The United States of America, which is a State.

                “The state is a group of specific individuals engaging in specific actions against other specific individuals.”

                The United States (the State) is an organized community living within a given area with its own system of law.

                The people that hold positions within the institutions created by that community are not ‘the State’.

              • Major-Freedom says:

                Philippe:

                “If you are a citizen of The United States of America, you are a member of the organisation referred to as The United States of America, which is a State.”

                No, if you are a citizen you are by commonly accepted definition NOT a member of a state.

                If you want to define citizen differently than that, then that is fine, but then according to YOUR definition of citizen, I am NOT a member. I choose not to be a member of the state. If you insist I am anyway, then you would be denying me my own choice. It would be like me saying you’re a member of the Major-Freedom Club, regardless of what you say about it.

                “The state is a group of specific individuals engaging in specific actions against other specific individuals.”

                “The United States (the State) is an organized community”

                No, the United States is a specific group of specific individuals doing specific things. I am not one of those people, becauss I do not act as a US statesman.

            • Major-Freedom says:

              “Although I think the existence of the United States is justifiable”

              Why?

          • Samson Corwell says:

            …because of the monstrous practice of [redundancy snipped] jury duty?

            *Facepalm.*

            “Monstrous”? Next you’re going to be saying search warrants and collecting evidence are unjustifiable acts of tyranny.

  2. Ruben says:

    Gene concludes:

    “Given the nature of reality, government is not a “lesser evil,” it is a positive good.”

    I don’t quite get it. Moral categories aside: If I can achieve my ends without the state (or any middle-man for that matter) and the state (or the middle-man) comes with costs, I want to get rid of it.

    The hypothetical necessity of the state does not make it morally good.
    Neither does the fact that things would work as well or even without the state, hypothetically, make it morally evil, per se. (This is unless someone really wants to go all the way down utilitarianism …)

    Now, some people appreciate the existence of the state and view things like taxes as minor inconveniences (lesser evils in the first sense). But to follow from that that the state is a “positive good” is a non-sequitur.

    Well … unless, of course, Gene Callahan just is the average person, in which case he disproves your statement. But does he provide principled reasoning on *why* the state is a good thing? This would really disprove your statement.

  3. Keshav Srinivasan says:

    Bob, you say “OK, and the State per se takes money from people who don’t support its activities; if it were truly voluntary, it would be a club, not a State. Taking money from people against their will is not akin to getting on the treadmill; it is akin to killing people against their will. It is an evil, that at best could be justified because it is necessary to avoid even greater evil.” That is certainly what you believe, but it is not at all how the average person views the State.

    I asked you this in the previous post as well, but how do you think that most libertarians view private security at Disneyworld? Don’t you think they’d prefer if Disney didn’t have to use security, and don’t you think that preference would be much stronger and more emotional than their wish that going to the gym wasn’t necessary? That is how I think the average person thinks of the State.

    • Bob Murphy says:

      Don’t you think they’d prefer if Disney didn’t have to use security, and don’t you think that preference would be much stronger and more emotional than their wish that going to the gym wasn’t necessary?

      Yes, I agree with you on these points. And, don’t you think they would view the State sending “security” to people’s houses who don’t even want anything to do with it, to be on even shakier ground? After all, Disney doesn’t take money from people and force them to ride Space Mountain “for their own good.”

      • Keshav Srinivasan says:

        Bob, I wasn’t trying to say that the same group of people morally equate Disney private security and the State. I was making an analogy between how libertarians view Disney private security and how the average person views the State: libertarians think that Disney private security is fully justified within their value system, yet they’d prefer that there was no need to employ them, because they inflict undesirable harms on people, like escorting them off the premises and the like. That is how the average person views the State: they think it’s a perfectly moral institution (when it’s doing its job), but they’d prefer it didn’t exist because they inflict undesirable burdens like taxes. Now you may view the State as an institution that acts without people’s consent and the like, but that is simply not what most people think of when they think of government.

        You may think that if people came to understand the fundamental nature of the state, then they would view it as a necessary evil. But that’s different from saying that that’s how they already view it.

        • guest says:

          … libertarians think that Disney private security is fully justified within their value system, yet they’d prefer that there was no need to employ them, because they inflict undesirable harms on people, like escorting them off the premises and the like.

          We don’t recognize private security as causing harm, necessarily.

          Rather, we see them as holding delegated authority from the individual owner:

          The Law, by Frederic Bastiat

          If every person has the right to defend—even by force—his person, his liberty, and his property, then it follows that a group of men have the right to organize and support a common force to protect these rights constantly. Thus the principle of collective right—its reason for existing, its lawfulness—is based on individual right. And the common force that protects this collective right cannot logically have any other purpose or any other mission than that for which it acts as a substitute. Thus, since an individual cannot lawfully use force against the person, liberty, or property of another individual, then the common force—for the same reason—cannot lawfully be used to destroy the person, liberty, or property of individuals or groups.

          Force has been given to us to defend our own individual rights. Who will dare to say that force has been given to us to destroy the equal rights of our brothers? Since no individual acting separately can lawfully use force to destroy the rights of others, does it not logically follow that the same principle also applies to the common force that is nothing more than the organized combination of the individual forces?

          Private security only causes harm when they overstep the limits of the authority that can rightfully be delegated by the employer.

          • Keshav Srinivasan says:

            I don’t mean causing harm on net, I just mean causing gross harm. The people escorted off the premises would presumably not like being escorted off the premises. So presumably you’d prefer if Disney could avoid escorting people off the premises.

      • Samson Corwell says:

        And, don’t you think they would view the State sending “security” to people’s houses who don’t even want anything to do with it, to be on even shakier ground?

        I can think of many cases where they would not think this at all.

        • Ben B says:

          Now transition those thoughts of many cases into written words describing those cases.

  4. John says:

    I think Keshav is right, only because I think I’m an average person and I see it sort of that way, although I think there are some assumptions about the world in this debate that run contrary to my experience. For example, there seems to be an assumption that if there were no government to take my money, I could keep it and use it the way I see fit, whereas I’m a little concerned that if there were no government to protect my property rights, I would very quickly not have any money or property or possibly life. People would just come along and take whatever I had, and likely kill me in the process, for the fun of it, do things to my girlfriend I won’t describe, etc. The money the government forces me to give it seems to me to in part secure my ability to live safely and securely, to contract for compensation in my work, etc. I recognize that Bob and others have a notion of private law enforcing contracts effectively. I am not able to adequately express my skepticism that any such system is remotely workable given the current moral and ethical development of homo sapien. (I agree with Hamilton that if men were angels, we would have no need of government, but men are manifestly not angels.). Having seen first hand how many businesses and people regard their contractual obligations even where the government has power to enforce them, I think it is a fantasy to imagine that private enforcement could provide sufficient certainty of contract to allow a capitalist economy to operate. But government can. I can easily understand how government may be seen as evil and undoubtedly it does many many evil things. I just think right now the average person remains unconvinced that no government at all wouldn’t be a whole lot more evil. Count me in that group for the time being. But I’m open to being persuaded to the contrary.

    • GeePonder says:

      They violate your property rights in order to save your property rights.

    • guest says:

      I found this to be helpful:

      Applying Economics to American History | Thomas E. Woods, Jr.

      There’s more, if you want.

    • Ben B says:

      “I agree with Hamilton that if men were angels, we would have no need of government, but men are manifestly not angels.”

      If men are not angels, then surely the men of government are not angels either. Try saying, “I agree with Ben B that if men were angels, we would have no need for protection services, but men are manifestly not angels.” But Ben B does not reject protection services; Ben B rejects coercive protection service monopolists.

      • Ben B says:

        John,

        How is ANY (including government) “such system remotely workable given the current moral and ethical development of homo sapien”?

        All legal systems are for the most part a reflection of the moral and ethical development of homo sapien; so the goal is to redirect the moral and ethical development so that the legal system can then align with it.

    • Dan says:

      “I can easily understand how government may be seen as evil and undoubtedly it does many many evil things. I just think right now the average person remains unconvinced that no government at all wouldn’t be a whole lot more evil. Count me in that group for the time being. But I’m open to being persuaded to the contrary.”

      Wait, how is this not exactly what Dr. Murphy was saying?

    • Bob Murphy says:

      John wrote:

      I can easily understand how government may be seen as evil and undoubtedly it does many many evil things. I just think right now the average person remains unconvinced that no government at all wouldn’t be a whole lot more evil.

      Right, so on this narrow point, you agree with me and think Gene is wrong.

      • Grane Peer says:

        I think the broad point is Gene’s general wrongness and I will leave it at that because it would seem we have differing views on dinner table etiquette.

  5. Gamble says:

    I think the average person has been dumbed down so much by public schools, they cannot even fathom society absent government or society with limited government. They just assume there is no other way.

    Most people say, hey when it comes to government, we take the good with the bad. They don’t realize we could do away with most the bad and let the private market do the good.

    Government is not the lesser of 2 evils, government is the largest purveyor and perpetuator of evil. Government is an evil magnet. Government is an evil catalyst. Government is an evil stronghold…

  6. LK says:

    “For one thing, in the real world, States kill innocent people all the time in order (their officials claim) to prevent greater deaths”

    No, Murphy, most Western nations have abolished the death penalty and are not engaged in foreign wars.

    The statement “States kill innocent people all the time in order” is ignorant and false. Since when has the Swiss state killed anyone?

    • skylien says:

      Is it only bad to kill people, but to threaten them with imprisonment and death in case they resist ok?

    • Bob Murphy says:

      LK wrote:

      The statement “States kill innocent people all the time in order” is ignorant and false.

      What about the statement, “Bees sting people all the time.” Is that ignorant and false?

      • Grane Peer says:

        Bees don’t sting people all the time

        • Major-Freedom says:

          There is bee stinging all the time.

          Why is it wrong to say bees sting people all the time?

          • Grane Peer says:

            If the statement ” Bees sting people all the time” were true then they would never have time to pollinate

            • Bob Murphy says:

              This thread is the bee’s knees.

            • Major-Freedom says:

              But who is “they”? If there is bee stinging all the time, that doesn’t mean every bee is engaging in stinging all the time.

              It is not wrong to say bees sting people all the time, if you understand ” bees” to mean any number of bees at a time, not necessarily the same individual bees all the time.

      • LK says:

        Except you are relying on a fallacy of equivocation.

        “States kill innocent people all the time” could have two meanings:

        (1) “**all** states kill innocent people all the time”

        (2) “**some** states kill innocent people all the time”

        If your statement was meant to be (1), it is plainly wrong, and a piece of absurd rhetoric.

        If (2), it is true, but does not support you, for there are also many states that do not kill people, or only rarely kill people, and when they do the people in government or who did the killing as agents of the state are held to account.

        • Philippe says:

          I have read comments by ancaps elsewhere saying that things such as states don’t actually exist – there are only individuals. How is that view compatible with the statement that “states kill people”?

          • guest says:

            We use the term “state” in a metonymical sense, in such cases; That is, the individuals which comprise what is thought of as a “collective authority”, in their typical attempt to exercise such authority, which, by the collective nature of that presumed authority, necessarily violates individual rights.

            • Philippe says:

              “the individuals which comprise what is thought of as a “collective authority”

              So you are referring to the current administration, or the current crop of people in positions of authority, rather than ‘the State’ itself, as ‘the State’ can’t kill people because it is not a person.

              • Philippe says:

                “We use the term “state” in a metonymical sense”

                So whenever an ancap says something like “the State kills people”, or “the State is too dangerous to tolerate”, people should be aware that they don’t mean that literally.

              • Major-Freedom says:

                They are likely referring to individual action.

              • guest says:

                So you are referring to the current administration …

                No.

              • guest says:

                Not wishing to repeat myself, perhaps you could explain how a particular phrase I have already used fails to make sense?

                That way I can understand how you understand what I’ve said.

            • Philippe says:

              guest,

              “We use the term “state” in a metonymical sense, in such cases; That is, the individuals which comprise what is thought of as a “collective authority”

              Who are the individuals that you are referring to, if not the current batch of people who are in positions of authority within the various institutions of the state?

        • Bob Murphy says:

          But wait LK–as Grane showed above, it is physically impossible that States could be killing innocent people all the time. If they did, we’d run out of people. Unless they tortured them to death reaaaaaaaally sloooooooowly.

          So you yourself were relying on a “fallacy of equivocation.” But since we all knew what you were talking about, no one bit your head off.

    • Major-Freedom says:

      “The statement “States kill innocent people all the time in order” is ignorant and false.”

      It is not ignorant and false. States do indeed kill people all the time, if by “all the time”, we mean daily. Every day a policeman for example kills someone in the US.

      “Since when has the Swiss state killed anyone?”

      Since when did cherry picking constitute counter-evidence? It would be like saying “Since when did THIS particular mafia [who hasn’t killed anyone…yet] ever kill anyone? That means it is false to say mafias kill people.”

  7. skylien says:

    FWIW: Before I even knew AE and thought anarchism is something only lefties would argue for, and had my own pet ideas of what the state should do ideally, I definetely thought the state is a real lesser evil, not a gym at all. Of course you can argue that I was no true average joe…

  8. andrew' says:

    I don’t have faith that most people believe as I do. There is a lot of endowment effect, my country right or wrong, and they equate government, with country for example. For a lot of people, though, it is the devil they know versus the devil they don’t know.

    • Grane Peer says:

      Is that a deeply considered stance by others or is their view more akin to the mad as hell speech from Network, steel belted radials and such?

  9. Josiah says:

    I think we are all missing the real issue here, namely: what did General Zod want to conquer Earth for anyway? In the movie all he seems to want is for various people to knell before him. That’s something he could easily accomplish with or without the apparatus of the state.

    • Grane Peer says:

      Judging by Zod’s outfit, When he demands people kneel before him, I think is more to do with his alternative lifestyle than a deep desire for world domination.

  10. Keshav Srinivasan says:

    Gene makes an interesting point in the comments section of his blog:
    http://gene-callahan.blogspot.com/2014/06/against-their-will-we-were-taxing.html?showComment=1402214404904&m=0#c195108620608543885
    He’s says, if consent were the essential criterion for the justice of an institution, then would private property rights be illegitimate since left-libertarians don’t consent to restrictions on where they are and aren’t allowed to roam?

    • Ben B says:

      Consent isn’t a meaningful critierion if you don’t first have an underlying theory of property rights.

      What is the left-libertarian theory of property rights?

      • Keshav Srinivasan says:

        Well, left-libertarians and anarcho-communist believe that “property is theft” – they think it’s illegitimate for humans to lay claims to land and prohibit others from going on it.

        • Ben B says:

          So would it be illegitimate for a left-libertarian to deny me entrance into his home? Would he be able to deny me the consumption of his food? Well, I guess it wouldn’t be his home or his food. I’m confused.

          Technically, the act of existing and taking up space is prohibiting others from using that space.

          • Keshav Srinivasan says:

            “Technically, the act of existing and taking up space is prohibiting others from using that space.” That’s not what I meant by prohibiting. Left-libertarians and anarcho-communists believe that the use of force to prohibit people from going onto a piece of land is illegitimate.

            • Ben B says:

              Ok, so a left-libertarian could trample my tomato garden and I wouldn’t have any recourse?

              • Keshav Srinivasan says:

                Well, a left-libertarian would certainly argue that there’s no sense in which the garden is yours, so he would say that he’d be free in trampling any tomato gardens.

              • Ben B says:

                Let’s see how well he sticks to this theory when I trample his tomato garden… I mean when I trample a tomato garden that he has invested his time and resources in.

              • Major-Freedom says:

                What if the tomato garden planter is a left-libertarian, and another left libertarian smashed the tomato garden?

              • Keshav Srinivasan says:

                “Let’s see how well he sticks to this theory when I trample his tomato garden… I mean when I trample a tomato garden that he has invested his time and resources in.” Well, let me put it this way: suppose there’s a beach that’s owned by some private individual, and he charges admission to kids to play in it, and put no rules on what they’re allowed to do. If one kid builds up a sand-castle and then another kids demolishes it, the kid who built the sand-castle might feel upset that it got demolished, but presumably (in your worldview) that wouldn’t mean that he’s allowed to use violence to stop others from destroying his sand-castle. That is analogous to how a left-libertarian would feel about a tomato garden that he put effort into creating: he might feel upset that it’s destroyed, but he wouldn’t believe that he has the right to use violence to stop you from trampling on it.

              • Major-Freedom says:

                Keshav:

                You didn’t address Ben B’s point about a left libertarian having his tomato garden trampled by someone who is doing so in the name of left-libertarian ethics.

              • Philippe says:

                “[the left libertarian] might feel upset that it’s destroyed, but he wouldn’t believe that he has the right to use violence to stop you from trampling on it”

                I guess you’re not a ‘left-libertarian’, Keshav.

                I’m not one either, but here’s my understanding of what a ‘left-libertarian’ might make of that situation:

                If you wandered into some left-libertarian hippy commune sort of situation, and started destroying their tomato crops, they would ask to to stop, then they would force you to stop, then they would try to make you pay or make amends in some way for the damage.

                I don’t think any of this would contradict their basic beliefs, which are completely antithetical to right-wing libertarianism.

              • K.P. says:

                “I don’t think any of this would contradict their basic beliefs, which are completely antithetical to right-wing libertarianism.”

                If they have gardens and will stop people from trampling on them then their beliefs aren’t so antithetical to the right. (They seem quite similar, actually)

              • Major-Freedom says:

                Philippe:

                In your scenario, wouldn’t the tomato farm owners be acting contrary to left libertarian ethics, i.e. “denying” the other left libertarians from continued “use” of that tomato farm, i.e. stomping on it?

        • Ben B says:

          It just doesn’t seem like left-libertarians have a theory of property rights. So how can they use consent as a criterion for justice?

          • Keshav Srinivasan says:

            Why can’t they simply say “I didn’t agree to any restrictions on where I can roam, so you have no right to use violence to stop me from going anywhere.”?

            • Dan says:

              What if they both want to occupy the same space at the same time?

              • Philippe says:

                “What if they both want to occupy the same space at the same time?”

                they pray to God, then kill all the people who oppose them, as in the Bible.

              • Keshav Srinivasan says:

                That’s not really a problem for left-libertarians: they believe that anyone is allowed to go to any location, as long as going to the location doesn’t involve engaging in violence against another person’s body (like using force to push someone out of the way for instance).

              • Dan says:

                What do you mean? If I want to occupy spot X and you want to occupy spot X at the same time, then how do we determine who gets to occupy it?

              • Philippe says:

                “If I want to occupy spot X and you want to occupy spot X at the same time, then how do we determine who gets to occupy it?”

                You tell them that you were there first. Then they hit you with a club.

              • Major-Freedom says:

                Keshav:

                “That’s not really a problem for left-libertarians: they believe that anyone is allowed to go to any location, as long as going to the location doesn’t involve engaging in violence against another person’s body (like using force to push someone out of the way for instance.”

                So anywhere there is not a person already taking up that space?

              • Keshav Srinivasan says:

                “What do you mean? If I want to occupy spot X and you want to occupy spot X at the same time, then how do we determine who gets to occupy it?” Whoever gets to spot X first gets to occupy spot X for as long as they wish, and if they leave spot X someone else can occupy it.

              • Keshav Srinivasan says:

                “So anywhere there is not a person already taking up that space?” Yes.

              • Dan says:

                And if we each reach spot x at the same time? What if you and I both grab the same slice of pizza at the same exact time, who gets to eat it?

              • Keshav Srinivasan says:

                “And if we each reach spot x at the same time.” I assume by spot you meant point, and wouldn’t it be impossible for two objects to reach the same point in space at the same time, since only one object can occupy a given point in space at a time.

                “What if you and I both grab the same slice of pizza at the same exact time, who gets to eat it?” Well, I don’t think that’s a problem unique to left-libertarianism. Suppose you were at an all-you-can-eat buffet, and both you and another person grab a slice of pizza at the same time. Assuming the restaurant has imposed no rules, how would you resolve this as a right-libertarian? Presumably your answer would be the same answer as the left-libertarian’s answer to your question: “Resolve it in any way you want to as long as it doesn’t involve violence.”

              • Dan says:

                “Assuming the restaurant has imposed no rules, how would you resolve this as a right-libertarian? Presumably your answer would be the same answer as the left-libertarian’s answer to your question: “Resolve it in any way you want to as long as it doesn’t involve violence.”’

                My answer would be that the person who could eat the slice of pizza in your scenario would be arbitrated by the owner of the restaurant if it came to that. I think property owners get to make the rules in their establishment. Presumably, a person who says that there is no such thing as property rights would not be able to turn to a property owner to resolve the situation. So, if neither person is willing to budge in my scenario, and both want to eat the slice of pizza, how does a person who doesn’t believe in property rights solve this conundrum? And, again, I solve it by determining who the rightful owner is, an option not available to them.

              • Dan says:

                Here’s another scenario. Two people are on a plane going down in flames. There is one parachute on the plane but both people grab it at the same time. I would argue that if one of them could establish that he was the rightful owner of that parachute, then he could use violence to physically take it from the other person. And I would also say that if the other person were to violently take it then that would be murder.

                What would someone who is a libertarian but doesn’t believe in property rights do in this scenario? If he took it by force he’d automatically be a murderer. It seems that the only way they could avoid being guilty of murder – as long as both refuse to let go of the parachute – would be to go down with the plane and die together. Is there some other way they could solve this problem – considering neither man will budge – without committing a crime or dying?

          • Philippe says:

            Your homesteading theory doesn’t explain how doing work on a piece of land, such as growing tomatoes, necessarily entitles you to own the land itself, in perpetuity.

            “justification through mixing of labor rests upon the assumption that land, something uncreated (as in not created by any human being), can be rightly owned by way of a non sequitur in which mixing labor with land somehow makes the uncreated land equivalent to the created products of the labor.”

            http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_theory_of_property

            • Ben B says:

              What is the theory that explains why I can’t own a piece of land that I homesteaded, in perpetuity?

              Or, what theory explains why you can claim a piece of land that I have homesteaded and also determine the amount of time that I can spend using it?

            • Major-Freedom says:

              Keshav:

              “Your homesteading theory doesn’t explain how doing work on a piece of land, such as growing tomatoes, necessarily entitles you to own the land itself, in perpetuity.”

              Your anti-homesteading theory doesn’t explain how doing work on a piece of land, such as growing tomatoes, necessarily entitles others to prevent homesteader ownership of the land itself, in perpetuity.

              • Philippe says:

                “what theory explains why you can claim a piece of land that I have homesteaded and also determine the amount of time that I can spend using it?”

                The point is that ‘ownership’ of things is not determined by a universal absolute law. The homesteading theory attempts to provide such a law, but it is unfounded.

              • Philippe says:

                the homesteading theory you rely on is not the same as that described by Locke, who recognized the ethical problem of an individual forcefully excluding others from things they had not themselves created, but simply appropriated.

                This is what led him to the ‘proviso’ – that land could only be justly owned by an individual if there was enough equally good land left over for everyone else – the proviso which ancaps simply ignore.

              • Major-Freedom says:

                Philippe:

                “The point is that ‘ownership’ of things is not determined by a universal absolute law.”

                That is just your personal ethic of what you believe should be the case when it comes to material scarcity.

                You want people to behave in ways contrary to the homesteading principle.

                I am not claiming anyone is forced by some mystical law to follow the homesteading principle. I am just saying it is the most just and most consistent with who we are as actors.

                “The homesteading theory attempts to provide such a law, but it is unfounded.”

                Your anti-homesteading principle is unfounded.

                “the homesteading theory you rely on is not the same as that described by Locke”

                No, it isn’t. Locke was not as extreme.

                “who recognized the ethical problem of an individual forcefully excluding others from things they had not themselves created, but simply appropriated.”

                It is force against the homesteader to use his property without his consent. The homesteader protecting his property is not initiating aggression. He is defending against it.

                “This is what led him to the ‘proviso’ – that land could only be justly owned by an individual if there was enough equally good land left over for everyone else – the proviso which ancaps simply ignore.”

                It’s not ignore. It’s outright rejection.

              • Philippe says:

                “I am not claiming anyone is forced by some mystical law to follow the homesteading principle. I am just saying it is the most just and most consistent with who we are as actors.”

                And you want to enforce your political ideology on others, whilst pretending that your ideology is apolitical.

                We’ve seen this many times before, so there’s no need to pretend (everyone knows what you’re really all about, so what’s the point of pretending?).

                “Your anti-homesteading principle is unfounded”

                I don’t have an “anti-homesteading principle”.

                “It is force against the homesteader to use his property without his consent”

                The theoretical ‘homesteader’ unilaterally declares a piece of land to be his, and uses force to exclude others from that piece of land. There is no real moral justification for this, it is simply the use of force to appropriate something without consent.

                “It’s not ignore. It’s outright rejection”.

                for what reason exactly?

              • Major-Freedom says:

                Philippe:

                “And you want to enforce your political ideology on others, whilst pretending that your ideology is apolitical.”

                No, you are just confused on what constitutes “forcing one’s ideology on others.”

                You want to believe that A wanting to secede and disassociate from B, such that A defends his person and property from B’s aggression and/or theft, to be A “imposing his ideology on B”, because according to you, B has some mystical right NOT to be limited by other human beings and who should be able to do whatever he wants to other people’s means of life. You falsely believe that destroying or taking or using another’s property is not aggresaion, because they are not physically touching the individual’s body. But human bodies REQUIRE scarce material means in order to live, so there is no difference, in terms of rights violation, between shooting someone dead, or stealing their produced and/or traded food causing them to starve to death.

                Thus, if A wants to disassociate from B, and you say A should be able to do so, then by the nature of human life, A requires the unharassed right to carve out a portion of scarce material wealth for himself, that is, his land, produced/traded goods.

                If you then turn around and say that A protecting his wealth is aggression againat B, and “forcing his ideology” on B, then what you are really saying is that in your ethics, it is illegal for any individual to secede from other people’s rules, no matter what those rules are.

                In other words, in your ethic, the individual must have other people’s ideology imposed on them, so that the individual is never in a position of being able to decide for themselves to secede and have exclusive control over any private property to sustain themselves.

                In other words still, you want to impose your ideology on others, and you identify them protecting themselves against your aggression, to somehow be them imposing their ideology on you.

                If you believe that individuals should be able to secede, then you can’t also deny them exclusive control over means of life, lest you contradict the nature of human life.

                “We’ve seen this many times before, so there’s no need to pretend (everyone knows what you’re really all about, so what’s the point of pretending?).”

                Pretend what? To take your violence advocating ethic seriously? To believe in the lie that you want me to believe in, that protecting my person and property from theft is itself imposing my ethic on others and their property? You have got to be kidding.

                “Your anti-homesteading principle is unfounded”

                “I don’t have an “anti-homesteading principle”.”

                Yes, you do, or else you would not be criticizing the homesteading principle all the time. If you are against the homesteading ethic, which is the case, then by logic you are for an anti-homesteading ethic.

                You can’t be advocating neither homesteading nor anti-homesteading ethic. That covers all possibilities.

                “It is force against the homesteader to use his property without his consent””

                “The theoretical ‘homesteader’ unilaterally declares a piece of land to be his, and uses force to exclude others from that piece of land.”

                Of course it is unilateral! Individual freedom means you don’t need to ask anyone for permission before engaging in non-violent activity of homesteading.

                “There is no real moral justification for this, it is simply the use of force to appropriate something without consent.”

                There is no real moral justification for you to violate the homesteader’s property rights.

                You have no real moral justification for trespassing and/or theft.

                You have no real moral justification for your anti-homesteading ethic.

                “It’s not ignore. It’s outright rejection”.

                “for what reason exactly?”

                Reasons? You want reasons for something you want force to be initiated against anyway?

                OK, to humor you: It is because it is the most logical. It makes no logical sense to say someone is owner of X, if that someone does not have final say over what happens to or with X. Final judgment is made by SOMEONE. The question is who. I say the homesteader. You say someone else, without precisely defining who, or the precise criteria that moves us from just property ownership, to absentee unjust ownership.

            • guest says:

              … justification through mixing of labor rests upon the assumption that land, something uncreated (as in not created by any human being), can be rightly owned …

              *All* products are 100% comprised of uncreated material.

              We *transform* materials to turn them into products.

              The fact that more seeds come from a seed you plant is irrelevant. Both the seed and the seeds that come from the plant they grew from were not created by us.

              • Philippe says:

                “*All* products are 100% comprised of uncreated material”

                hmm, interesting point. I’m not sure if it is totally correct though.

                “We *transform* materials to turn them into products”

                that’s true. But the fact that you transform materials into products doesn’t mean that you necessarily have an absolute right of ownership over the materials themselves – which you simply have appropriated.

              • guest says:

                But the fact that you transform materials into products doesn’t mean that you necessarily have an absolute right of ownership …

                This is my point, exactly; It would apply to crops as well as land.

                I’m not making a positive argument here, of course.

              • guest says:

                The positive argument is that no one has a right to conscript me for his own purposes (make me a slave).

                Therefore, the thing someone transforms becomes owned by the one who mixed his labor with it.

                Land being transformed for the purpose of growing crops becomes property for this reason – but only the land required for the purpose for which it was transformed.

              • Philippe says:

                “The positive argument is that no one has a right to conscript me for his own purposes (make me a slave). Therefore, the thing someone transforms becomes owned by the one who mixed his labor with it.”

                That doesn’t follow logically.

                You said yourself previously that if I work for someone, and I transform something which belongs to them into something else, then that is not slavery. That contradicts your assertion above that “the thing someone transforms becomes owned by the one who mixed his labor with it”.

                In fact it has nothing to do with ‘transformation’ or ‘mixing labor’ – it has to do with prior ownership, according to you.

                If land is something that you can not and do not create, how can you claim to own it?

                ‘Transformation’ or ‘mixing labor’ is not a good enough explanation, as you have argued yourself that you can transform something or ‘mix your labor’ with something and still not own it.

              • Anonymous says:

                Philippe:

                Land doesn’t remain the same pre and post homesteading.

                I believe you are being misled from being taught that land is a “fixed” accounting concept. Actually not even fixed assets are really fixed.

              • Major-Freedom says:

                Philippe:

                Land doesn’t remain the same pre and post homesteading.

                I believe you are being misled from being taught that land is a “fixed” accounting concept. Actually not even fixed assets are really fixed.

        • K.P. says:

          Keshav, is there a particular branch of left-libertarians you are referring to with this characterization?

          I’m speaking as a former Mutualist, most, at least in my small circle, believe land can be held – and defended legitimately – as long as it’s being used.

          The slogan “property is theft” of course wasn’t meant in an absolutist sense (as the same fellow also said “property is freedom”) but that, essentially, that there is valid and invalid property, or exclusive possession.

  11. John says:

    I think the question of what sort of lesser of two evils government is may implicate the issue of what kind of good or evil is no government at all. The choice to have no government is an affirmative moral choice, like the choice to have a government. I don’t think anyone would deny that choice (to have anarcho-capitalism) may well result in cetrain evils — including an increase in murders, other various depredations, an inability to defend the nation from other countries with governments and therefore a capacity for greater collective action, including more powerful, sophisticated armies. Likewise, although I recognize that on this site there is a great deal of confidence in the free market to regulate the economy itself, it looks to me like there is at least a possibility that without goverrnment businesses will be significantly more uncontrolled in their desires for profits than they are now – by that I mean, for example, that coal mines, factories, etc, may start to take certain dangerous actions that could result in serious harm to their employees or the environment. (I note that that is not really uncommon NOW, where the government has power to discipline them, and was much more common before active govnment regulation.) I realize one can argue like crazy about how much of this there would really be in an ac world. Someone with my perspective might be worried that the chief feature of anarchism would be what we tend to see when anarchic-type conditions exist in the world, a descent into a dangerous disorder. I realize that also might not happen, but certainly where human beings are involved, there are going to be significant issues and problems. So when we say government is the lesser of two evils, I think you can argue that while we don’t like it, it is better, even from a moral perspective, than the alternative. I don’t know how different this is from arguing that we don’t like working out, but it’s sure better than the alternative. Because government does the affirmatively good thing of maintaining a state of relative equality of rights and security, while also building a national highway system, phone service for everyone, rural electrification, a powerful army, etc. Some of us might include forcing the South to desegregate their schools or attempting to protect the environment through regulation into that mix, but it know a lot of us wouldn’t, so let’s leave that one out. And I realize there’s an argument all these good things might have happened, including desegregation and enovironmental protection, might have happened without the government intervening, but personally I haven’t been persuaded by the evidence in that regard.

    Now, like anything with power, the government does a lot of evil things, no doubt. But I don’t think it’s really realistic to say it does no good things. I mean, no one was more aware of the tyrannical potential of government than the Framers. They created a government that is hamstrung by the very nature of its structure. That is still operating today in the inability of Obama to do really anything significant in the face of the opposition of the House. But it never occurred to them have NO government, and they clearly intended federal law to be supreme over state law, because that’s what the Supremacy Clause says. Now just because smart guys in the 18th century thought something, that doesn’t make it true; I’m just saying they were keenly aware of the evils of government, and thought the good outweighed the bad, or to put it differently, that govnment was, after close analysis, sufficiently moral to be implemented. It certainly is not absolutely moral (like, for instance, God). But if that’s the standard, then I don’t think you can call ac moral either.

    • Philippe says:

      “it never occurred to them have NO government”

      Power exists in one form or another. There is no such thing as a human society without power – the only question is what form it will take. They sought to answer that question by creating a system of law based on their ideals.

      • Major-Freedom says:

        “Power exists in one form or another.”

        Poppycock.

        Power is a product of ideas.

        It is changing ideas that bring about an increase or decrease in power. Power is not some mystical force of nature whereby if there is some absence of power in your place of residence for example, that this mystical force manifests itself as a particular individual in that household, even if their ideas totally contradict what your theory implies, will suddenly start to assert dominance over the other household members as if they’re possessed by that force of nature.

        Power need not be a product of ideas consistent with a state.

        Power can be a product of ideas contrary to the state.

        The fact that statistically speaking, it would not be unreasonable to predict that at least one human will initiate force against another, that this means we must have a state.

        • Major-Freedom says:

          Typo. Meant to say:

          “The fact that statistically speaking, it would not be unreasonable to predict that at least one human will initiate force against another, does not mean we must have a state.”

        • Philippe says:

          “Power is a product of ideas”

          I think it’s more accurate to say that the form ‘power’ takes in human societies is a product of ideas to a large extent, given the ability of humans to think about things. Power obviously exists within ‘nature’, without animals having any ‘ideas’ about what power is.

          “Power need not be a product of ideas consistent with a state”

          Power can indeed manifest itself in forms other than the social forms usually referred to as states.

          “The fact that statistically speaking, it would not be unreasonable to predict that at least one human will initiate force against another, that this means we must have a state”

          That’s true, but that is not the only reason why humans organize themselves into communities we call states.

          • Major-Freedom says:

            Philippe:

            “I think it’s more accurate to say that the form ‘power’ takes in human societies is a product of ideas to a large extent, given the ability of humans to think about things.”

            No, my way is more accurate.

            This is because power isn’t some given, “out there”, only to be changed in form, but not in extent.

            Power is a product of ideas, period.

            Both form and extent.

            “Power obviously exists within ‘nature’, without animals having any ‘ideas’ about what power is.”

            Humans are not those lower animals. False comparison.

            “Power need not be a product of ideas consistent with a state”

            “Power can indeed manifest itself in forms other than the social forms usually referred to as states.”

            Power does not “manifest itself” in human affairs. Power in human affairs is a product of human action. Of ideas, values, and goals. If I do not introduce power over you, and you do not introduce power over me, or if I introduce power over you, or you me, then this is not power manifesting itself. This is you, this is me, choosing to act in those ways. If there is power, it does not mean there is a peace vacuum. If there is peace, it does not mean there is a power vacuum.

            “The fact that statistically speaking, it would not be unreasonable to predict that at least one human will initiate force against another, that this means we must have a state”

            “That’s true, but that is not the only reason why humans organize themselves into communities we call states.”

            States don’t organize themselves. States are formed when some people violate other people’s property rights. States arise when some introduce aggression by choice against innocent people, and for whatever reason, the victims either can’t fight back, won’t fight back, or worse, become brainwashed into believing states are not coercive.

            • Philippe says:

              “Power is a product of ideas, period”

              If we stick to a definition of power as “the ability or capacity to do something or act in a particular way” then your statement makes no sense at all.

              It is quite possible to have no ‘ideas’ about anything and yet still have the ability to make something happen in a particular, desired way.

              A lion has the power to kill and eat an antelope, for example, whereas an antelope generally doesn’t have the power to do the same to a lion.

              “Humans are not those lower animals. False comparison.”

              Humans are essentially highly evolved animals. We were ‘just animals’ once.

              A physically strong person can still overpower a physically weak person. This is an example of power ‘manifesting’.

              “States don’t organize themselves”.

              I didn’t say that they do. I said that “humans organize themselves into communities we call states”.

              “States are formed when some people violate other people’s property rights”

              When humans organize themselves into a community, when they create laws, create institutions, and appoint people to positions of authority within those institutions, they create “states”.

              Those states could be set up to establish and enforce the sort of political agenda you believe in, or they could be set up to establish and enforce other types of political agendas.

              The main fallacy in your argument is you pretend that your political beliefs are not political.

              You believe that your values are ‘absolute’.

              You are an absolutist, which is what most dictators happen to be too.

            • Major-Freedom says:

              Philippe:

              “If we stick to a definition of power as “the ability or capacity to do something or act in a particular way” then your statement makes no sense at all.”

              Sure it does, because “doing something” and “acting” in a particular way is guided by ideas. If a person acts in a specific way, then it is necessarily true that they have particular ideas and not others, that is, they have ideas guiding them to act in those ways, and no other ways.

              All actions have ideas associated with them.

              “It is quite possible to have no ‘ideas’ about anything and yet still have the ability to make something happen in a particular, desired way.”

              That is impossible. It is impossible for a person to act in a particular way, without them having ideas guiding that action.

              Ideas are not just daydreaming, Philippe. They are not just abstract thought in academic halls. Ideas are also present when a brute points a gun at another and exerts power over them.

              “A lion…”

              …is not a human.

              You won’t be able to understand what you are solely by finding similarities with the lower animals. You have to also find differences. You have to think about what makes you unique. Self-reflection is required for that. You can’t find out who you are by looking only outward. You also have to look inward. That will increase the range of discovering possible similarities you share with other humans.

              “Humans are not those lower animals. False comparison.”

              “Humans are essentially…”

              ….NOT lower animals!

              “A physically strong person can still overpower a physically weak person. This is an example of power ‘manifesting’.”

              No, it is one individual’s ideas guiding them to exert power over another. That is not power coming from nowhere. It is coming from that individual, and that individual MUST have had ideas that guided them to act in that way, and not another.

              “States don’t organize themselves”.

              “I didn’t say that they do. I said that “humans organize themselves into communities we call states”.”

              Humans do not organize themselves into states. Someone organizing themselves in relation to others presupposes they had a choice to join or not join. But with states, they form whrn some individual private property owners initiate force against other private property owners, via property rights violation.

              A master and slave did not “orgsnize themselves” into such a relationship. The master IMPOSED himself on the slave against their will.

              Same process of coercion is how states are formed. If a group of people call themselves a state, then either they are really just a private property commune, or they intend to impose force on other people and their property. Virtually every case of states throughout history has been formed via the latter. In fact, I don’t know a single case to the contrary. Not even the US founders did so the first way. They declared their rule over everyone in the country regardless of consent.

              “States are formed when some people violate other people’s property rights”

              “When humans organize themselves”

              No, states are not formed that way. There has never been 100% consent from every individual that you believe is a “member”.

              “The main fallacy in your argument is you pretend that your political beliefs are not political.”

              I never claimed my political beliefs are not political, if by political you mean rights, laws, ethics, and enforcement.

              “You believe that your values are ‘absolute’.”

              You believe your anti-homesteading ethics are absolute, precisely because you reject homesteading ethics as absolute.

              “ou are an absolutist, which is what most dictators happen to be too.”

              Hahaha

              You are an absolutist, because you are abaolutely against homesteading ethics, which implies you are absolutely in favor of the converse.

              If you are absolutely against anything, you are necessarily absolutely in favor of the converse. That is basic logic. No, you can’t say that you are not absolutist because you are for neither homesteading nor anti-homesteading. That would be a contradiction, because to be against homesteading IS anti-homesteading by definition, and I don’t have to attribute to you any specific positive ethic per se.

              • Kermit the Frog says:

                Sure it does, because “doing something” and “acting” in a particular way is guided by ideas.

                Eating and drinking are guided by hunger and thirst, which are not ideas, either in humans or animals.

                “If a person acts in a specific way, then it is necessarily true that they have particular ideas and not others, that is, they have ideas guiding them to act in those ways, and no other ways.”

                Many actions require no prior ideas whatever, as already explained. This is even true is exclusively human activities, like sports.

                “All actions have ideas associated with them.”

                Repeating the same ideological drivel doesn’t make it true.

                “You won’t be able to understand what you are solely by finding similarities with the lower animals. You have to also find differences. You have to think about what makes you unique. Self-reflection is required for that. You can’t find out who you are by looking only outward. You also have to look inward. That will increase the range of discovering possible similarities you share with other humans.”

                Hehe. You sound like the writer of a self-help book. And a piss-poor one at that!

                “Humans do not organize themselves into states. Someone organizing themselves in relation to others presupposes they had a choice to join or not join. But with states, they form whrn some individual private property owners initiate force against other private property owners, via property rights violation.”

                Unsubstantiated dogma.. States can form in many different ways. The state of East Timor came into existences after a UN-supervised referendum.

                “A master and slave did not “orgsnize themselves” into such a relationship. The master IMPOSED himself on the slave against their will.”

                Kindergarten analogy. Do you really need someone to list all the differences between a master/slave relationship and the relationship a democratic state has to its citizens? Do slaves have the right to vote for a new master?.

                “Virtually every case of states throughout history has been formed via the latter. In fact, I don’t know a single case to the contrary. Not even the US founders did so the first way. They declared their rule over everyone in the country regardless of consent.”

                You have given zero evidence of anything beyond the most nugatory knowledge of history. What you call “history” is simply your own unsubstantiated ideological suppositions.

              • Major-Freedom says:

                Kermit the Frog:

                “Sure it does, because “doing something” and “acting” in a particular way is guided by ideas.”

                “Eating and drinking are guided by hunger and thirst, which are not ideas, either in humans or animals.”

                False. For humans, you must have the idea to eat. You don’t eat automatically. If you don’t think of picking the fruit, or harvesting the crops, you won’t eat.

                Someone who just sits around and dies of starvation does so because of their ideas.

                People don’t eat automatically.

                “If a person acts in a specific way, then it is necessarily true that they have particular ideas and not others, that is, they have ideas guiding them to act in those ways, and no other ways.”

                “Many actions require no prior ideas whatever, as already explained.”

                What you have “already explained” is flat wrong.

                There are no actions that are not guided by ideas.

                Any activity that does not require thinking, such as heart beating, and other biological processes, are not the category of phenomena I am referring to.

                “This is even true is exclusively human activities, like sports.”

                It is especially false in sports. Ideas are paramount in sports.

                “All actions have ideas associated with them.”

                “Repeating the same ideological drivel doesn’t make it true.”

                Repeatedly denying it and positing your drivel won’t make your drivel true. You’re wrong.

                “Hehe. You sound like the writer of a self-help book. And a piss-poor one at that!”

                You sound like an anti-intellectual.

                “Humans do not organize themselves into states. Someone organizing themselves in relation to others presupposes they had a choice to join or not join. But with states, they form whrn some individual private property owners initiate force against other private property owners, via property rights violation.”

                “Unsubstantiated dogma.”

                Substanceless yammering.

                “States can form in many different ways.”

                They are all based on coercion.

                “The state of East Timor came into existences after a UN-supervised referendum.”

                Which was a coercive action against existing private property owners.

                “A master and slave did not “orgsnize themselves” into such a relationship. The master IMPOSED himself on the slave against their will.”

                “Kindergarten analogy.”

                Accurate analogy.

                “Do you really need someone to list all the differences between a master/slave relationship and the relationship a democratic state has to its citizens?”

                Do you really need someone to show you that “relationships” based on initiations of force, are not examples of people “organizing THEMSELVES”?

                “Do slaves have the right to vote for a new master?”

                If slaves have a right to speak, then they have the same rights as voters in that particular sense.

                “Virtually every case of states throughout history has been formed via the latter. In fact, I don’t know a single case to the contrary. Not even the US founders did so the first way. They declared their rule over everyone in the country regardless of consent.”

                “You have given zero evidence of anything beyond the most nugatory knowledge of history.”

                You have given zero evidence of anything beyond the most nugatory knowledge of history.

                “What you call “history” is simply your own unsubstantiated ideological suppositions.”

                What you call unsubstantiated claims, is history.

              • Harold says:

                MF. You may have moved on from here, but this exchange gets to the heart of where I do not understand where you are coming from.
                “For humans, you must have the idea to eat. You don’t eat automatically. If you don’t think of picking the fruit, or harvesting the crops, you won’t eat.”

                You have said clearly that humans are not the same as animals. but in this regard alone, do you think animals also must have the idea to eat? Does it matter how similar to humans they are?

  12. Bob Murphy says:

    All right kids, we’re getting bogged down in punch/counterpunch. Can we all agree that the only way to legitimize a State’s actions in terms of everyday morality, is to claim that the State is the actual owner of every piece of real estate within its boundaries? For example, that all Americans are tenants and the US federal government is the landlord?

    And, if we agree on that, now answer me this: If you polled Americans, and said, “How much of the total US landmass does the federal government own?

    (A) 0%
    (B) Between 0% and 25%
    (C) Between 25% and 75%
    (D) 100%”

    then are you telling me a majority of Americans would pick (D) as the answer?

    • Keshav Srinivasan says:

      Bob, I think the problem is that libertarians have a much stricter definition of what ownership means than the average American. The average American would say that just because you own a piece of land doesn’t mean that no government has any authority to place restrictions on what you can do with it. Now it may be the case that under your definition of “own”, Americans don’t act believe that they own their houses, but that doesn’t mean they don’t think they own their houses the way *they* use the word.

      • Keshav Srinivasan says:

        don’t actually believe*

      • Bob Murphy says:

        Keshav wrote:

        Bob, I think the problem is that libertarians have a much stricter definition of what ownership means than the average American.

        That is probably true, but that’s not what’s going on here.

        I said that the average American believes the State needs to and should exist, but that it is a necessary evil. That the State does things that would in fact be evil, if–gosh darn it–these things weren’t necessary to avoid even greater evils.

        Then you, Josiah, et al. came back and kept trying to show that my arguments wouldn’t go through, if we were talking about outsiders entering somebody else’s property and having to abide by his rules.

        So then I said, “OK, so if your objection to my original framing is to work, it must be that the average American thinks the US government is the legal owner of every square inch of American soil, and we are all tenants.”

        I take it from your response that you don’t in fact believe that.

        So now we’ve come full circle to my original statement: Americans in general arent’ anarchists, of course not. But they at least recognize that the State does stuff that would be evil if it weren’t necessary.

        • Keshav Srinivasan says:

          So then I said, “OK, so if your objection to my original framing is to work, it must be that the average American thinks the US government is the legal owner of every square inch of American soil, and we are all tenants.”

          Bob, what I’ve been trying to say is that attitude that libertarians have to life in a territory owned by someone else is the same as (or similar to) the attitude that the average American has to life in America. That statement does not imply that Americans have the same view of live in America as they do of life in a territory owned by someone else. Now you may think that my statement implies that the average American *ought* to think that they live in a territory owned by someone else and that they’re like tenants, but that’s different from saying that they *do* think that.

          • Dan says:

            “Now you may think that my statement implies that the average American *ought* to think that they live in a territory owned by someone else and that they’re like tenants, but that’s different from saying that they *do* think that.”

            No, he’s saying that your objection doesn’t work unless the average person believes they are simply tenants of the State. So, since it seems that you don’t believe the average person thinks they are tenants of the State, then you would need to come up with another objection to his position if you still disagree because what you’ve said so far doesn’t work for the reasons stated above.

            • Keshav Srinivasan says:

              “No, he’s saying that your objection doesn’t work unless the average person believes they are simply tenants of the State.” But my only claim is that the average person views their condition under the State in a way analogous to how libertarians would view the condition of being tenants. And that claim does not depend on any assumption that the average person views their condition under the State as being a tenant of the State.

              • Dan says:

                And that doesn’t work. If I, a libertarian, am the tenant of a piece of property then I would believe that the landlord was the property owner and I’d have to abide by the rules I agreed to based on the contract I signed. So, if the average person doesn’t believe the State is their landlord then the analogy doesn’t work.

              • Keshav Srinivasan says:

                Dan, I’m making an analogy between a libertarian’s attitude to condition X and the average person’s attitude to condition Y. I am not making an analogy between the reasons the two people have for the attitudes that they adopt.

              • Keshav Srinivasan says:

                To put it another way, I’m saying that the average person has the same attitude to condition Y that the libertarian has to condition X, but the reason for that is *not* that the average person believes that condition Y = condition X.

              • Dan says:

                Well, if your just saying that libertarians attitude toward being a tenant is one of acceptance and they feel it is justified, and that the average person’s attitude toward the State is the same, then I’m not sure what your analogy adds to the discussion. That is the whole debate. Murphy disagrees that people believe the State is justified in what they do. Now it just seems like the point of your analogy was to restate what is being argued.

              • Keshav Srinivasan says:

                Dan, I apologize for the misunderstanding. Let me try to explain what the purpose of my analogy is. Bob argued that contrary to what Gene said in his post, the average citizen’s feelings towards activities of the State like taxation are considerably more ambivalent than their attitude toward things like having to go to the gym, and thus their belief is indeed that the State is a “necessary evil”. My response to that is that you can have the same kind of ambivalent feelings towards something without considering it a “necessary evil”.

                And that’s where my analogy comes in. Consider what a libertarian thinks of private security at Disneyworld: they think it’s fully morally justified, but they still would prefer that Disney didn’t have to employ private security, because private security has undesirable consequences like people being escorted off the premises. And that is how I think the average person views government: they don’t view it as a necessary evil, but rather as something which is absolutely morally justified, but which they’d prefer didn’t exist if it could be avoided, because it has undesirable consequences like people having to pay taxes and obey laws.

              • Dan says:

                1. I don’t think your analogy shows that people believe the State is a good thing. I’m not sure what your argument is for making that case. Although, I haven’t read all the comments, so maybe I’ve just missed it.

                2. I don’t think libertarians think private security has negative effects like kicking people off the premises. I’m a fan of that feature. If I go to a movie theatre, and there is some idiot making a ruckus, then I want the owner to remove him. What does private security do that would be the equivalent to dropping bombs on terrorists and killing children in the collateral damage, and then suffering absolutely no consequences for it?

                Do you honestly believe that if we polled the average American that they would think all the children killed from the States bombs were a good thing? I can see people saying it was a necessary evil to fight terrorism or some crap like that, but I can’t see many people saying that the State’s actions were good.

              • Keshav Srinivasan says:

                “I don’t think your analogy shows that people believe the State is a good thing.” That wasn’t the point of my analogy. The point of my analogy was simply to show that the sorts of ambivalent feelings that people have toward the State doesn’t necessarily imply that people view the State as a necessary evil. I’m just raising an objection to Bob’s argument, not making myself. The way to really settle this as far as I’m concerned would be to conduct a poll where you carefully spell out and explain some definition of “necessary evil”, e.g. in terms of an action which would be immoral if it weren’t necessary, and then just ask them point blank whether government is an example of this. I suspect the overwhelming majority would say no.

                “I don’t think libertarians think private security has negative effects like kicking people off the premises. I’m a fan of that feature. If I go to a movie theatre, and there is some idiot making a ruckus, then I want the owner to remove him.” But presumably you’d like it even better if the guy didn’t make a ruckus in the first place, so that there was no need to remove him. You may view the removal of the guy as good on net, of course, but that’s a separate matter.

                “Do you honestly believe that if we polled the average American that they would think all the children killed from the States bombs were a good thing?” But that’s a separate issue. We’re talking about whether the average American thinks that the existence of any State at all is good, not whether the particular State we happen to have is good or whether all it’s actions are good.

              • Dan says:

                “But presumably you’d like it even better if the guy didn’t make a ruckus in the first place, so that there was no need to remove him. You may view the removal of the guy as good on net, of course, but that’s a separate matter.”

                OK, but everybody would rather have utopia, but they accept something else as the next best solution. Nobody would dispute that. But none of that adds anything because it doesn’t touch on the question of whether the average person thinks the government is a morally justified good, albeit a second best solution.

                “But that’s a separate issue. We’re talking about whether the average American thinks that the existence of any State at all is good, not whether the particular State we happen to have is good or whether all it’s actions are good.”

                OK, fine, but would you then at least concede that the average American would say the US State is a necessary evil, and not a necessary good considering all the evil I can point out that they do?

  13. Yancey Ward says:

    Gene Callahan, ruler of Australia…..

    • Bob Murphy says:

      Gene Callahan, ruler of Australia…..

      With that one comment, Yancey has made this entire debate with Philippe and Keshav worth it.

    • Tel says:

      It’s funny you should say that. In Australia the government quite clearly does lay claim to all of the country, and does NOT ever sell land. Instead it offers “Torrens Title” which is more like a long term lease.

      There are some small number of exceptions, very old land (back when the King of England offered title) was fee simple, and some of this still exists. You could make a half-exception for native title claims which are handled differently again, and in many ways the native title business is even more heavy handed by government.

  14. Bob Roddis says:

    Mr. Callahan’s main objection to AnCap seems to be nothing more than a generalized hostility to the idea of private property while claiming that defensive acts to protect private property are really a form of offensive acts with the same moral standing as genuine violations of the NAP. Further, neither he nor any other anti-Ancap types seem to appreciate that there can be an endless list of non-violent sanctions that could be applied against recalcitrant owners of private property. Recall what Mr. Callahan said when I stated:

    There is an endless list of non-violent sanctions that might be applied against people with bad attitudes. Like everyone refusing the sell them any water or food. Or encircling them. Libertarianism does not concern those possible sanctions which is another subject altogether.

    http://consultingbyrpm.com/blog/2014/05/libertarian-battles.html#comment-488156

  15. John says:

    I don’t think I agree on the “every day morality requires the government to own everything” point, for the reasons Keshav stated. I don’t think there’s anything particularly contrary to normal standards of morality to say that a person owns land and has extraordinary amounts of authority to do what he likes with it, but if he starts manufacturing hydrochloric acid and dumping in a local stream on his property, a “government” has authority to intervene.

    On Bob Roddis’s point (and I think Major Freedom is making the same point) I agree in the abstract. There’s no question that it might be possible certain non-violent sanctions, collectively arrived at and implemented, might well discourage many forms of, for want of a better term, anti-social behavior, like stopping the acid dumper. Indeed, in a perfect world that might be the answer, and to coin a phrase, the state would wither away. What concerns me about Libertarian thinking is that we don’t seem to live in anything approaching a utopian world, and any one who has experience with neighbors would probably agree that getting a group of them to agree on anything is essentially impossible. In other words, the ideas I’ve read here on contractual enforcement mechanisms, private law, and police power enforcement seem like something that might be possible some day when human beings and human moral conduct has changed dramatically from what they are today–but not any time in the near (or perhaps even distant) future.

    • guest says:

      In other words, the ideas I’ve read here on contractual enforcement mechanisms, private law, and police power enforcement seem like something that might be possible some day when human beings and human moral conduct has changed dramatically from what they are today …

      It’s already happened, in the Wild West:

      [Time stamped]
      Applying Economics to American History | Thomas E. Woods, Jr.
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-LJ3wZjD4I#t=23m59s

    • Dan says:

      “I don’t think there’s anything particularly contrary to normal standards of morality to say that a person owns land and has extraordinary amounts of authority to do what he likes with it, but if he starts manufacturing hydrochloric acid and dumping in a local stream on his property, a “government” has authority to intervene.”

      What if the guy doesn’t do anything wrong at all, and the State comes and says, “Hey, we’re going to take your land against your will – don’t worry we’ll come up with what we deem is a fair price – because we want to do something else with this land.” “Oh, and if you refuse to leave, and resist sufficiently, we’ll kill you.”

      • Philippe says:

        When you acquired the land, was it exempt from laws such as ’eminent domain’?

        • Major-Freedom says:

          Whose laws?

        • Dan says:

          Phillipe, you’ve responded way too much with BS like the comment you left me in response to my question to Keshav above. So, I just wanted to let you know that the reason I won’t be responding to anything you have to say from this point on is because you’ve lowered my opinion of you so low that I no longer see any value in trying to discuss anything with you.

          • Philippe says:

            OK, thanks for the heads up Dan.

            I’ve yet to see any comments from you which expressed any sort of independence of thought, beyond a simple copying and pasting of stuff written by Stephan Kinsella, So I don’t expect you to have anything particularly interesting or novel to say.

            But thanks for letting me know about your “opinion” anyway!

        • guest says:

          You do realize that, followed to its logical conclusion, your views about the state can justify genocide?

          I mean, if it’s “for the common good”, who is any individual to object?

          (I’m not making a positive argument, here, I realize.)

          • Keshav Srinivasan says:

            Well, it depends on what your theory of the good is. There are theories of the good which forbid genocide for reasons other than the notion that genocide violates property rights.

          • Tel says:

            That’s exactly how those states that did commit genocide went about justifying their actions.

            Killing Jews was never just for the fun of it, oh no. There was a “Jewish Problem” which the state was forced to deal with. They needed to find a solution to this problem.

            • Philippe says:

              “There are theories of the good which forbid genocide..”

              “That’s exactly how those states that did commit genocide went about justifying their actions”

              What, they used theories of the good which ‘forbid genocide’ to justify their genocidal actions?

              • Keshav Srinivasan says:

                I think Tel was responding to guest, not me.

  16. Josiah says:

    Bob,

    I don’t think most Americans do view the state as being a necessary evil. Most people are not political philosophers; they don’t have some well worked out theory about why state authority is legitimate, anymore than they have a well worked out theory about why parental authority is legitimate. They just take it for granted.

    You’re reasoning is similar to someone who thinks “Parenting is slavery, and yet most people accept it, so they must think that it is a justified form of slavery.” In reality, people don’t thinking that parenting is justified slavery; they don’t think that parenting is slavery at all, and are apt to think that someone who says parenting is slavery is a crazy person.

    Ditto for people who claim taxation is theft, they state is a mass kidnapper, etc.

  17. Eduardo Bellani says:

    “The theory which construes taxes on the analogy of club dues or of the purchase of the services of, say, a doctor only proves how far removed this part of the social sciences is from scientific habits of mind.” – Joseph Schumpeter

  18. Yancey Ward says:

    I don’t really see how anyone can truly believe Murphy is wrong here, unless one really doesn’t believe imprisoning people and going to war with foreigners and killing them are evil actions within themselves. Doesn’t pretty much everyone justify those things as being less evil than allowing the imprisoned and the foreigners to perpetrate their evil upon us?

  19. Harold says:

    It is not clear to me that there are actually two different types of evil. It may be a continuum. What is the criterion that separates the two? Gene says ” things we don’t really think are evil, but that, if reality were different, and they became unnecessary, we would not engage in just for the heck of it.” as type 1. Going to the gym, cleaning teeth, going to work. The distinction is that the activity is not “evil” but “unpleasant.” But what is the difference between “evil” and “unpleasant”?

    Type 2 where both choices are “evil” – bombing a nuclear site to prevent bombing a city, both of which will result in death. Each choice is evil, whereas one is more so. However, if reality were different, we would not engage in bombing the nuclear plant just for the heck of it. So “things that we would not do if reality were different and it was not necessary” is not a criterion.

    Look at the “greater” choice in type one. Tooth decay, pain, heart attacks, premature death. These are surely evil. Is the “lesser” choice in type 1 not evil at all? Surely the requirement to clean teeth is evil. Just a small evil. It enslaves one to 6 minutes of otherwise pointless activity every day. Over ones life that is 7 weeks. If I were to prevent you doing any activity for 7 weeks on pain of losing your teeth, that would be evil. It is just a small evil, not a big one. Work takes up 1/2 of our waking lives. If this is “unpleasant” then surely this is an evil.

    We are left with one criterion that separates type one examples from the type two example given – consent. type two example is inflicted on others, type one are chosen by the “victim”. If we use this as a criterion, we are just building in the conclusion that non-consensual things are evil.

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