Government gives unnatural power to man over another man. The idea of a limited government protecting our natural rights ( which are universal components of natural law) was a noble one but ultimately flawed. While humans are naturally dispositioned towards the good as a general rule, we are highly vulnerable to temptation when facing an unnatural , or unfair , advantage. In this case, given power by government over another man. Perhaps 8 in ten of us never press the advantage unjustly, the 9th holds out for a time, but the 10th of us fails. While we are still good as a general rule, due to the corruption of one within the machine, eventually the system capitulates to this rot as power spreads like a cancer. Now the system only welcomes its own and the good.. those 8 in ten, must suffer the machinations of the minority. To the point, government enables the very worst of us from the worst parts of us. Limited government wasn't limited enough. In fact, government as we now know it certainly needs to be abolished. Perhaps it should be natural anarchy, with government outlawed. 🤔 (how would this be enforced?) At the least, there are better ways for human society to organize that do not involve violating consent and are more in line with the natural state of the human being. This system is unnatural.
Important to note, the technocrats believe we are in charge of evolving ourselves, to them the natural state is what we decide it to be. Meaning, others get to decide what it means to be human. Man made in his own image. Government is a necessity to steer this world organism.
I am arguing there is a natural order that we did not create and we should probably organize ourselves in a way that reflects it. The inversion of what we are doing now.
I agree for the most part, but I'm not so sure that “humans are naturally dispositioned towards the good”.
I hope ur right, but I feel like we're more naturally dospositioned to go either way.
I think that, by their nature, government positions tend to attract 2 types of people (not always, but often )
One is an egotistical, power hungry, morally superior (in their own minds), easily corruptible type.
The last type that you would want having any power.
The other is the well-meaning, optimistic, good natured type that truly wants to make a positive difference. The type of people you would want in power.
Unfortunately, even within that second group there may be a bunch of problems.
Some may be well intentioned, but just not very competent or effective.
Some may start out with good intentions, but can easily become corrupted once in power. Either by the power and influence by itself or by outside influences and temptations (big money special interests, intimidation, blackmail etc)
In many cases, they may hold true to their original ideals, but may feel compelled to compromise much of what they believe is right, in order to get some of what they want.
Sometimes it takes a while, but it seems that at some point there's a tendency to start slowly down the wrong path only to get worse and worse, like a snowball rolling down-hill. Until it comes to a crashing stop.
(U can probably guess whether I am generally optimistic or pessimistic. )
You make some very good points, clearly this is a very nuanced topic especially when other corruptions set in (big money, intimidation, blackmail et cetera) . In a transparent and (very) limited system, such corruptions would have a hard(er) time taking hold. If the system did not present advantages to man over man, much of this corruption would not be possible. Essentially, the system would need to be a form of a salt of the earth which prevents the growth of corruption by rendering it incapable.
"..I'm not so sure that “humans are naturally dispositioned towards the good”.
I would like to briefly clarify why I said this. While I certainly have my particular belief in a metaphysic that presents that notion, as well as personal political preferences, the gist of my logos on this stems from my understanding of human behavioral modernity. We are, if you will, designed with preset innate behavioral mechanisms that drive humans to be cooperative as a general state. We are a social species like our genetic cousins, geared to lean towards cooperation after discernment of friend or foe. Even other primates with similar but lesser neural architecture present behaviors similar to natural law, including the recognizing of property rights. (and even understanding bartering to a degree) Of course, we can be tribal and those interactions can be violent, but our general settings are geared towards survival and they range from the basic (fight or flight) all the way to the ability to compromise and have empathy, as well as having a general distaste for anti-social behaviors like theft, murder and rape... which are universal in human culture dating deep into antiquity. Not that these things do not happen per se, just that they have never been found to be socially acceptable traits except on cultures well beyond 2 standard deviations away from the norm. (Patterns of Culture by Ruth Benedict covers this decently)
Of course these social behaviors have developed over eons with us living in more of a natural state or organization, including the natural state of interacting with on another. In the past you could not just treat other humans as you wished, there would be instant feedback not inhibited by the state, usually in the form of social shame or a right hook - now we are suppressed. This concept is partially explained in the book "Darwinian Psychiatry" by Mcguire and Troisi. When we cannot behave naturally we develop abnormal mental pathologies, couple that with living in an artificial system we essentially become captives in an open air zoo. We are affected more than we currently realize by our unnatural arrangements, which obscures the fact that natural law has more or less organized humans effectively (and our archaic cousins) for a long time.
Looking around and seeing the anxious, neurotic and violent state of the current modern human, it becomes difficult to believe we are dispositioned to the good and that it is even possible that we could do without government as is... however... to look at it this way is to look at it wrong. The system as we know it is not functioning as a remedy to the natural evils of man, rather, it serves as a poison to the better parts of us, as it draws us further and further away from the natural order of things.
As you said, we are now on a snowball rolling down hill. The problem, there are people who want this to happen and we must resist it. The further we get away from the natural order the less likely we are able to resist it. This is because it changes the way the way that we think and how we evaluate ourselves and the role we play in our natural world. As the snowball rolls further down, man grows dependent on this artificial system to hold together our artificial psychology.
To say it plainly, if it is ever going to get better, and I for one do believe that it will, it must first get very painful. It is like "The Call of the Wild" by London, if you remove all of the structures of modern conveniences that a domesticated dog experiences, it will either fail to hear the call of the wild and will flounder and die, or something ancient will begin stirring deep inside, awakening a vitality that was once lost. Humans need to hear that call again. It would be better to make that transition slowly, but it may only be possible if done quickly to prevent recuperation. Hopefully what I am trying to say here is making sense.
Hugh, I make a bunch of the same points (about why we are slightly inclined to the good) in the middle of my book. Those installments are still months off, but you will like them when they arrive. Hopefully we can compare notes then
I certainly can be wrong, but the evidence seems to point that if we weren't slightly dispositioned into the direction of good (i.e cooperation) our species would already be extinct. However, all of that is nullified by our artificial structures.
What matters overall is that we generally want the same thing and are bothbvery concerned about the current trajectory of things.
So please remind me—do you fall into the camp who believe the United States system protects natural rights, or the camp that believe that all involuntary governance, even if ostensibly limited, violates natural rights?
Very interesting take. To the extent that it promotes life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness the us’s constitution conforms to natural law.
To the extent that it seeks to subvert natural hierarchy - for example in the various civil rights enactments and executive orders - it does not conform to natural law. The subversion of natural hierarchy is baked in though from the confiscation of George iii’s property without compensation and the removal of his heirs’ inheritance rights to property the property of the states.
There is quite a bit of indication that as hunter gatherers - before agricultural civilizations - we were highly interdependent and cooperative with each other.
And that as citizens of agricultural civilizations we became pitted against each other and manipulated by tyrannical leaders (government).
Government (being terrorized by bureaucrats) - and living pitted against each other is neither evolutionary or natural.
Humans are naturally good and fair. There are a lot of tests that back this up. Less than 5% of people would rather steal than help someone.
We can have rules without rulers. We can decentralize government and make it transparent. Instead of debating philosophy, look at the systems already running like this.
" On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron."
There is no short list of thinkers who had little faith in the common man, and for good reason. Our first generations were not common men; the common men stayed in Europe. Now, we are back where we started but there is no where to start over.
Yes, humans have innate goodness; and making us believe that's not so is one of the LONGEST-standing propaganda lies we, in the west especially, have been subjected to [Thanks, Abrahamic "religions!"]
Wonderful article Christopher! I believe the biggest problem behind governments, humanity etc. are the HIGH LEVEL PSYCHOTIC/PREDATOR/PARASITES who are the CONTROLLERS.
Totes. I finally hit a new subscriber milestone this morning, took a screenshot and showed my wife, and then we came back from a day at the lake to find that I had a net loss of two!
But I am reminded of Henry V…
"Rather proclaim it, Westmoreland, through my host,
Great article! Also, the American Revolution was (like all major wars and revolutions) actually planned/fomented/put on, too, by the parasite class. And good people died for it while those dudes you mentioned known as the "founding fathers" came into power.
Thanks for replying. Yes I can, but I'd like to pull together my thoughts and all the info into a post, so it's all adequately substantiated. Will comment again when I finish it. Basically, a lot of the events that sparked the uprisings were phony/exaggerated/planned, and just duped good people on both sides into destroying each other.
I think I saw something suggesting that the American Revolution was really about remaining a slavery nation. Great Britain freed slaves sooner than the US and wax going to make the colonies free slaves too.
There were significant changes in Great Britain's slavery policies around 1776 that had an impact on the start of the American Revolution. In 1772, the British court case of Somerset v. Stewart ruled that chattel slavery was not compatible with English common law, effectively dismissing its legitimacy on the British mainland. This decision was a major blow to the institution of slavery in Britain and its colonies.
Additionally, the British government began to take steps to restrict the slave trade. In 1776, the British Parliament passed the Molasses Act, which prohibited the importation of sugar and molasses from non-British colonies, effectively restricting the slave trade.
These changes in British slavery policies created a sense of moral outrage among American colonists, who saw the British as hypocritical for allowing slavery in their own colonies while banning it in Britain. This sentiment was further fueled by the fact that many British abolitionists were actively working to end the slave trade and slavery in the colonies.
The British government's stance on slavery became a key issue in the American Revolution, with many American Patriots using the term "slavery" as a battle cry to remove themselves from British authority. The British government's perceived hypocrisy on the issue of slavery helped to galvanize support for the American Revolution and contributed to the growing sense of independence among the American colonies.
Context
- www.loc.gov. Overview | The American Revolution, 1763 - 1783 | U.S. History Primary Source Timeline | Classroom Materials at the Library of Congress | Library of Congress
I'm not sure how that bolsters your position. Lincoln found little support for slavery among the Founders. All but two, as I recall, actively wrote against it.
This whole debate (that the Revolution was meant to preserve slavery) is new to me. On the one hand, I am willing to entertain just about anything. On the other, this contention also sounds like it might be the sort of thing that some réchaufée Marxist college professor would cook up.
So, if free stuff is what I want, I should buy my government from a company that will give me the most free stuff for my money or work product. My neighbor wants the right to use his property for a skeet range and his customers keep blowing out my windows. His government allows this because they don’t have laws, which is why he has paid them for the privilege.
Don’t get me wrong. I am intrigued by your theory. Just trying to understand.
Term limits might be a better short term solution. Better to recycle the crooks than to let them grow roots.
president has term limits and it only gets worse with each new one. As for free stuff, if you pay for it, its by definition not free. And your neighbor is committing a crime if your property is being damaged by his or his customers'/guests' actions. Its not a matter of no laws/rules, its a matter of no rulers. Crimes against person or property are always crimes, regardless of a man made law
You're right that in the west, society has been corrupted to the point that the golden rule, if even taught, is neither understood nor practiced. We're instead convinced that seeing fellow humans as the competition, the threat, is what makes us "real men."
That argument popped into my head (aided somewhat by Nozick in "Anarchy, State, and Utopia") back when I was still a minarchist. And it's a decent argument—one that kept me a minarchist for several months longer.
Here are some quick points about it, though.
First, the non-aggression principle is not just some would-be-nice notion which some follow and others blithely ignore. It is foundational—written into the universal moral law. Toddlers understand it. Every human considers it foundational (whether they know it consciously or not) with the exception of psychopaths. Criminals ignore its moral admonition for their own purposes, but they too believe in it.
So, in a condition of market anarchy, large agencies would form to provide people security and justice services. Nearly all of the demand will be for rights-protective services, not rights-violative services. All these agencies, though technically competitive, would also be cooperating with each other the way, say, multinational insurance agencies do today. They will all need good relations and good reputations. They will all need secondary insurance from third parties. They will need to be able to function in the private court system that would arise.
If a rights-violative agency were to arise at all—and I think that is a significant IF—none of the rest of the agencies would do business with them. They would not cooperate with them. The courts would not support them. And because they would be violating the rights of their clients, all of the security agents of all the rights-protective agencies would be clobbering their operatives. If such an agency could even arise, it just would not last. Everyone else would make short work of them.
And in the end we fought a revolution (well, not me) and exchanged one form of government tyranny for another (we were blind to that fact way back then). At the time, it seemed like we were fixing things as so many deaths appeared to buy so much freedom.
Then over the next 248 years, many, many more deaths have bought no freedom and more tyranny. In fact, we never peaked on the freedom scale since all along we have pretended to be free while the yoke of government never did surrender its bonds.
All along we though it was the Russians, Germans, Chinese, Japanese or some other faction that was the enemy. Lo and behold, that enemy we so much feared lived right in the DC Swamp.
And some of the Founders had very different agendas from the others. The revolution temporarily united them, but they were not all the same, and that was revealed in the aftermath.
We can have rules without rulers. We can decentralize government and make it transparent. We have done so with other systems. Leaders are the corruption point in all systems. We don't need them anymore. There is a simple formula needed : https://joshketry.substack.com/p/leaderless-leaders-are-the-weak-link
Market forces are great and all, but emergent optimization does not always work. It is possible for incentives to align in a way such that everyone is doing what is in their immediate best interest, but eventually everyone ends up losing out.
So how would you deal with “strip miners” with power imbalances? Where could individuals petition redress of grievances from, say, Facebook? How could you prevent some cabal (let’s call them Silicone Valley) from capturing market share and suppressing (or absorbing) all rivals?
Before we talk about what might happen in a hypothetical scenario, we have to note that all those bad things that you mention are happening, to one degree or other, now. With government. In some cases, with government HELP. (see here for more on that topic: https://christophercook.substack.com/p/new-logical-fallacy-argument-from-brochure)
"It is possible for incentives to align in a way such that everyone is doing what is in their immediate best interest, but eventually everyone ends up losing out."
—I suppose that is a risk, but it is also a risk now. Government officials aren't some sort of übermenschen who can magically prevent such things. But anyway, it would help to have a concrete example to discuss here.
We should start with the notion that the market-anarchic vision generally involves agencies providing security, justice, law codes, courts, courts of final appeal, contract services, etc. Less ex ante restrictions, but more ex post facto litigation. In other words, you don't have a government attempting to control your actions, but you know that if you do something wrong, you're going to suffer legal consequences after the fact. (How all that works/would work in a market-anarchic scenario requires some explanation, and I am sure you have questions. There is a lot of literature on the subject.)
So, with that in mind…
Strip mining…
There is strip mining (and open-pit mining) now. Yes, some governments place some restrictions, but they do not stop it totally. They also help businesses who do it: corporate personhood, limited liability for officers and shareholders, crony capitalist and corporatist relationship with government, public choice and the iron triangle, regulatory capture, etc. All that would be gone in a market-anarchic scenario. Instead, you would have ex ante litigation (and the threat thereof) for wrongdoing. No government to regulate you, but also none to protect you in the incestuous way that government and business protect each other now.
Facebook…
Oh my goodness, my friend—you are joking, right? You have found a way to petition for redress of grievances with Facebook now? Can you let me in on the secret? 🤣🤣 A while back, the guy who (putatively) was the real inventor of Facebook's code finally got a hearing from Congress. Every single one of those congressmen is very likely indirectly invested in Facebook stock, and some were more directly invested. None of them was ever going to decide anything in favor of that guy. Herr Zückenfuhrer was never in any real danger. That guy's challenge was dead before it got there. In a market-anarchic scenario, you do not have to accept whatever court, advocates, and judges the government throws at you, or the random chance of whichever one happens to be working that day. There is a choice of all of that. You can pick ones with a reputation for probity, impartiality, or any other factors. (How different private law codes and procedures become harmonized into a common law is a fascinating subject—see Hoppe, "Democracy: The God That Failed," Chapter 12.
As to the last one, why are you lobbing me such softballs, Brotato chip? 🤣 Silicon Valley has achieved that situation now, with government. (With government help.) Google controls what share of the search market? 80% 90%. Starting in about 2015, Google began rejiggering their search algorithms to replace accurate results with their narrative. I watched it happening in real time, and it has only gotten more blatant since. Google and Meta run most of the show now.
There is a pretty significant body of scholarship out there on the notion that monopolies can only exist with government's help. (I need to better familiarize myself with this literature.) Yes, government makes some antitrust noise once in a while, but they also make monopolies and corporate personhood possible. (By the way, the Burt Folsom video linked in this piece is really funny and good, kind of on this subject: https://christophercook.substack.com/p/exploding-myth-robber-barons . Also, Ayn Rand's "Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal" hits this topic. There's plenty more.)
And then I guess I would just offer this as a cherry on top:
Without government, rapacious businessmen have no protections, no ability to engage in regulatory capture, and no power vector with which to force us to buy their products. (Note: 200 new pharma billionaires were made with the covid vaccine, which was paid by taxpayer dollars and basically forced on the planet by the planet's governments.)
Thank you so much for your detailed reply my dude! I really appreciate it. I have a very long reading list, so I haven't been able to get to really grokking anarchy yet, but I would love a pointer towards 1-3 book to get a handle on it. I see you already offered a few of them up (The Unknown Ideal, The god that failed), are those good "first tastes" or do you have other suggestions?
My argument is not: "these things are not currently happening and if we enact your proposal they will." My argument is "these things ARE happening, and you are proposing that we remove the protections we put in place to hamper them, regardless of whether those protections work perfectly (which I agree they do not)." I agree that, asymptotically and in a vacuum, complete anarchy would settle out into a good system (although I tend more for autonomous city states than market anarchy). We, however, are not in a vacuum, and the battle lines between rapacious business and government are set (even if there is some amount of collusion). Removing one of those built up forces would allow the other to use the extreme resources that they waste in the fight (sham or otherwise) against each other to wash over those who wish to be free. So my main question is primarily a pragmatic one: how do you propose that we get from point A to point B without breaking societal continuity?
Several of my other questions were answered by the posts you recommended, so thank you. One other question: justice systems work because both parties admit their legitimacy, and they have the authority to force compliance of their rulings. In a world with no monopoly on force, what would stop some rapacious business from putting together their own version of Chevron deference, such that they won't listen to any judgement except that of their bought and paid for arbitrators, or just having so much capital that they can take the hit and move on, then engage in some sort of mass propaganda campaign to smear the victim (and so on. Yes, I am aware this already happens.)
"My argument is "these things ARE happening, and you are proposing that we remove the protections we put in place to hamper them, regardless of whether those protections work perfectly (which I agree they do not)."
—I do not disagree that governments erect some barriers to business wrongdoing. Where we differ, I think, is in our vision of that total nature of that relationship. I get the impression (and forgive me if I am mistaken) that you are seeing business as frequently rapacious and government as primarily an adversary to that rapacity, albiet a somewhat incompetent one.
I see business as having a capacity for rapacity… (Why does "Capacity for Rapacity" seem like it ought to be the title of a Ted Nugent Song or something? Anyway…) I see business as having that capacity, but perhaps not quite to the same degree as the average Marxist (or Charles Dickens) would. And while I get that government provides some obstacles, they also give businesses many advantages that they simply would not have in government's absence.
And since government involves fundamentally morally impermissible violations of the rights and consent of the individual human person—even when it is functioning normally—I cannot countenance its continued existence. And in its absence, I believe that market forces would be at least as good—and likely a damn sight better—at keeping business in check.
"So my main question is primarily a pragmatic one: how do you propose that we get from point A to point B without breaking societal continuity?"
This is largely addressed in the reading materials I mention. Especially Hoppe and also Rothbard. (There is a short Rothbard essay in the reading list that touches on it.) But basically…
Reputation, the need to do business with others, contractual obligations established ahead of time, and other market forces all keep this in check. Any such economy would be highly integrated—even more so, perhaps, than today. A large business needs to do business not only with its customers and workers, but with other businesses. With their insurers, security agents, and myriad third-party vendors. They cannot afford to become market pariahs.
Courts, including courts of final appeal, will (almost invariably) be decided ahead of time through contractual arrangements.
Businesses do that now. No business wants to adjudicate anything in a government court. By the time they even get a hearing, the issue will be over, for better or worse. They use private arbitration. They agree exa ante, in contracts, to certain courts, including courts of final appeal, now. They abide by these rulings because it is in their best interest to do so, now. In a condition of market anarchism, this would only be expanded. And other mechanisms would kick in. Everyone would find out—courts, insurers, judges, advocates, the public—if a company refused to abide by a decision. No one would do business with them.
And the same would be the case with individuals. All sensible people would have private aggression insurers/security and justice providers. And they would have ex ante contractual arrangements with one another as to courts, final appeal, etc. And all the same market forces would impel them in the same positive direction.
It would not be utopia. It would just be better. And it would end the moral crime of government. (Government violates individual consent and initiates coercive force, which are moral crimes. We can do better. We should at least try, rather than just accepting that we are slaves who must have masters.)
You are most welcome. You make persuasive arguments and have interesting ideas, and I see no need for aggression, having been offered none.
I have added your book suggestions to my cart and shall read them as soon as I may. I am certainly sympathetic to your position, although I am hesitant to stake my flag on any position without fully understanding it, nor do I believe that there is any system that can work absent the virtue of its participants.
The thing I am still hung up on is the gap between "this is morally correct to do" (which, in the abstract, I accept) and "this will work at scale." Even the Marxists claim that their system is morally correct to do (and, in the abstract, I accept that too, minus the coercion). It just doesn't work at scale (without coercion). I am happy to engage with arguments that it will, in fact, work, but that just means I need to do the reading. The Maritime Law example is one that is quite persuasive to me though.
As to business and government, I see the problem as managerial bureaucracy in all its forms, whether business or government. Without a bureaucracy, a government cannot enforce its will at scale. With the amplification of a bureaucracy, a corporation can claim powers at a governmental scale, and it would not take long (in societal terms) before it essentially becomes a government. Indeed, I view this as what is already happening. But how, exactly, to stop a bureaucracy is unclear to me.
As a dream, I agree with you. Happy to find a way to bring it into reality, and bring back the honor and fealty networks that held everything together before our "just following policy" managerial bureaucracy (which I see as the real problem, whether you call it business or government).
I am thinking primarily of the medieval world. The emperor (Holy Roman, that one) was in control, but without mutual consent from the kings, he wasn’t. The king in name was in control, but in practice he needed mutual consent from his Lords. The Lords were in control, but needed mutual consent from their knights (and so on down the line, although down at peasant level things got squirrelly). And as a check on the emperor, a completely separate hierarchy (the ecclesial one) existed able to judge the secular sphere, and vice versa. One hierarchy had the imperium (secular power) and the other had the rex (moral power). The thing that brought it down was overreach from the rex leading to the imperium breaking off ties (also known as the Protestant reformation and 100 years war). It was out of the torn shards of that system that totalizing governments developed. That network of fealty is what develops out of mutual consent systems, and it stays together so long as nothing changes, but unfortunately people die and their heirs are not necessarily of the same moral fiber, which is exactly why the system fell apart.
"As to business and government, I see the problem as managerial bureaucracy in all its forms, whether business or government. Without a bureaucracy, a government cannot enforce its will at scale. With the amplification of a bureaucracy, a corporation can claim powers at a governmental scale, and it would not take long (in societal terms) before it essentially becomes a government. Indeed, I view this as what is already happening. But how, exactly, to stop a bureaucracy is unclear to me."
—This was Robert Nozick's concern in "Anarchy, State, and Utopia." That one agency would become dominant and then become a "state-like entity."
But let's unpack that a little further.
Right now, we have a world filled with such monopolies. They are each, in their territory, totally sovereign. They brook no competition. Even the best of them impose upon their subject population an inescapable, nonconsensual "social contract." They tell you you consented, but you didn't actually, and your only escape is to try to go to a similar entity and be subjected to the same arrangement.
And externally, the only thing that keeps them in check is all the other similar monopolies. And if they jostle each other too much, they go to war. And they steal their people's money, and enslave their people's bodies,. in order to wage those wars.
In the market-anarchic scenario, all of that goes away. But then we have the concern that maybe some variant of it may come back to a degree, or in a localized area. Seems more than a fair trade. I am happy to take that risk.
You see what I mean? Did I explain that sufficiently well?
Yes, that is very fair. The process of getting from point A to point B will require care, prudence, and discipline, but that is a matter of policy which will take time. So many have become accustomed to their chains, and fail to see that they can be abandoned.
"The thing I am still hung up on is the gap between "this is morally correct to do" (which, in the abstract, I accept) and "this will work at scale."
—We don't need to answer that question all at once, though. We can evolve into it. One foot in front of the other. Allow special economic zones and ZEDEs. Let small secessions take place. Let private agencies take over some functions of government. Allow people who want to remain under a government to do so, and allow people who want to try new things to do so.
I think that if we had described anything we have now to a person in centuries or millennia past, they would have had a similar concern about them being feasible at scale. Yet here we are.
Fair enough. That I can get behind. My concern was mostly that you were proposing an October Revolution, but for libertarians. That not being the case, I am happy to build in that direction.
Ooh, before I forget, I missed replying to your comment about city states. City states are an excellent way to start. Indeed, some are already underway.
Those might have internal governance, and possibly even the sort of internal governance that an anarchist might not wish to participate in. However, so long as they allow the right to join (by mutual consent) and the right to exit (so long as contractual obligations have been met), then they fit into an overall anarchic/panarchic/inarchic world: https://christophercook.substack.com/p/what-kind-world-you-want
90% of human interactions are anarchist in nature. A (healthy) romantic relationship has no hierarchy. Healthy friendships have no hierarchy. No war has ever happened without hierarchy. Almost without exception, the most harmful human interactions are ones which involve hierarchy or coercion.
Persuasion and coercion are the two top-level human strategies. Persuasion just requires two people to agree, whereas hierarchy generally has to be enforced by coercion. Not always, but certainly often, and definitely if some of those within the hierarchy are unwilling.
The bad that you speak of, they are world wide... why would they ever relinquish their hold?
The good... where? The populace has been dumbed down to an extreme level. Maimed. Poisoned. Scared. A group of these can be organized (setting aside being crushed by the pervasive controllers)?
The Haudenosaunee Confederacy is the oldest living participatory democracy on earth. Also called the Six Nations Confederacy, it's territory stretched from Maine to Michigan and was prosperous and peaceful by all historical accounts. this is all before having a written language or having invented the axle wheel, a good argument against technology as the pinnacle of civilization. Under the Great Law of Peace, clan mothers (wise older women) selected and could depose chiefs who were all men. All decisions required consensus. In other words peace was at the heart of the law and instead of cold hard cash decisions were made by people and in ways that were not motivated by interests other than the health and well-being of the community.
I don't think government itself is the problem, or people. It's how government is run and what it does that matters. A notable feature of many Native American societies is how they strike a healthy balance between individual endeavor and collective well-being. The strength of those communities is also reflected in government programs and in places like Vienna Austria, which has been awarded the title of "most livable city in the world" many times in recent years. Not only does Austria have a form of universal healthcare, but 60% of Viennese in public housing. Public housing is the only thing that guarantees a roof over everyone's head while also keeping market forces in check. Of course, in this way the general public and citizenry also retain ownership of real property in perpetuity rather than allowing land to be sold off to foreigners and venture capital firms. Shared risk pool programs like these makes sense from an efficiency and economic perspective. Currently in the US, our military (maybe the most communistic organization in the world) benefits from this dynamic of taxpayer funded risk pool, but average citizens don't. Another example: the post office always provided a number of services including mail delivery at a much better price and faster than UPS or FedEx. If it weren't for the ludicrous law requiring USPS to pre-fund 75 years of retirement benefits for all of their employees (initiated by lobbyists of course) USPS would still be in the black, on paper. Libertarianism seems to want to destroy anything public in the name of freedom, but that doesn't make much sense, light of all evidence to the contrary.
There is at least one example historically in the US, though of innovative even if accidental successes regarding striking that precious balance. William Penn was a quaker and because of the pacifist policies he instituted within his proprietary colony (Penn's Woods or Pennsylvania), there was no violence between Native American populations and Pennsylvanians, which is an anomaly among the colonies but goes along way to demonstrate that it was plutocratic and government forces that where the cause of violence between the two cultures. Additionally, so many people moved to Pennsylvania so quickly from all walks of life (in only 80 years, between 1680 and 1760 Penn's woods became the hub of the colonies), that Penn had a difficult time collecting taxes, which was also due to the fact that he was forced to defend his charter back in England against Lord Baltimore. Meanwhile, in Pennsylvania apparently things were working so well, people didn't see the need to pay taxes at all so they didn't. So what we have ultimately is the perfect and successful marriage of the left and the right....pacifistic, humanistic values and small government. Although, I still maintain that universal healthcare and similar programs are the most cost-effective and have the best outcomes generally for the people.
I appreciate your perspective, but in large measure, I do not share it. Violence is violence. Taxation is violence. Forcibly imposed, inescapable, involuntary "social contracts" are violence. Universal healthcare is violence. Human beings can accomplish our aims without violence. The ways in which we have done things in the past need not be the way we do things in the future.
Isn't privatization "violence" then? In a world where everything is interconnected, how is individual freedom without responsibility in harmony with the laws of the Universe? We born here through no effort of our own. Life is a gift right? Nothing belongs to us individually. Everything is collective. Scientifically speaking, 95% of the Universe is invisible "dark" energy and matter combined. According to millions of near death experiences (reported to NIH cardiac resuscitation in the 1950s), not the end and on the other side we will experience our lives from the universal consciousness and experience our lives from the perspective of others, those we've helped or hurt. A few reports is anecdotal, but millions becomes data. And no one has proven that the brain produces consciousness because likely our bodies and brains are more like television sets or radios which can pick up a signal but can do nothing on their own. Everything is interconnected and dependent arising, cause-and-effect. I'm sort of going off on a tangent here but I can say that shared risk programs like universal healthcare have been adopted and work pretty well across the rest of the world, certainly more efficiently then privatization like we have in the USA. Why do you think the health insurance industry is so inefficient and parasitic if privatization is so good?
You and I have heard different data re: outcomes in nationalized healthcare systems. But I don't want to get dragged into those weeds. Here's my bottom line:
The nonaggression principle is foundational to all successful and correct moral systems. Taxing people violates the nonaggression principle. Subjecting people to arrangements, transactions, or authority to which they did not explicitly consent violates the nonaggression principle. (And voting is not consent.) People can consent to help others in voluntary cooperation. But having money forcibly extracted from one to be given to another is not charity, it is an attack.
Welfare = violence. National healthcare = violence. Government = violence.
Mutual aid societies, friendly societies, and other voluntary charity = good.
Without dragging us into the weeds, there is a reason every other western industrialized country in the world has adopted some form of universal care. Your points about non-aggression are spot on, and in an ideal world, we could trust that charity would save people from the devastation of unexpected disease or an accident. Given the large costs of healthcare, in much the same way as there is a need for national defense, it just makes sense in many situations. I guess theoretically wouldn't have to pay in but then you wouldn't get the benefits. I think the majority would choose to take advantage of this common sense system. The problem I have with Ayn Rand is that her idealism was born out of experiencing tyranny under Soviet communism (which, let's be honest was just fascism by committee). I know this dynamic well because I'm the son of a Hungarian immigrant who lived under both fascism and communism. I've witnessed firsthand how the sociopolitical past trauma of experiencing state communism can misinform a person's current understanding of socio-political issues.
Actually, I think the reverse: someone who has lived through full-blown totalitarianism has better insight into seeing how easily any society can slide in that direction. Still, I hear you on that.
If you want to create a healthcare system that is fully voluntary—that is funded by customers pooling their resources by choice—by all means! Maybe I'll buy in too, if it looks good.
But all taxation, all forced redistribution, is violence. There will never be peace in this world so long as we continue to build violence into human social infrastructures. Even if we are doing it for nice reasons.
Government gives unnatural power to man over another man. The idea of a limited government protecting our natural rights ( which are universal components of natural law) was a noble one but ultimately flawed. While humans are naturally dispositioned towards the good as a general rule, we are highly vulnerable to temptation when facing an unnatural , or unfair , advantage. In this case, given power by government over another man. Perhaps 8 in ten of us never press the advantage unjustly, the 9th holds out for a time, but the 10th of us fails. While we are still good as a general rule, due to the corruption of one within the machine, eventually the system capitulates to this rot as power spreads like a cancer. Now the system only welcomes its own and the good.. those 8 in ten, must suffer the machinations of the minority. To the point, government enables the very worst of us from the worst parts of us. Limited government wasn't limited enough. In fact, government as we now know it certainly needs to be abolished. Perhaps it should be natural anarchy, with government outlawed. 🤔 (how would this be enforced?) At the least, there are better ways for human society to organize that do not involve violating consent and are more in line with the natural state of the human being. This system is unnatural.
Important to note, the technocrats believe we are in charge of evolving ourselves, to them the natural state is what we decide it to be. Meaning, others get to decide what it means to be human. Man made in his own image. Government is a necessity to steer this world organism.
I am arguing there is a natural order that we did not create and we should probably organize ourselves in a way that reflects it. The inversion of what we are doing now.
I shared this comment. It is excellent.
We must convince people of the truth of what you have said.
I agree for the most part, but I'm not so sure that “humans are naturally dispositioned towards the good”.
I hope ur right, but I feel like we're more naturally dospositioned to go either way.
I think that, by their nature, government positions tend to attract 2 types of people (not always, but often )
One is an egotistical, power hungry, morally superior (in their own minds), easily corruptible type.
The last type that you would want having any power.
The other is the well-meaning, optimistic, good natured type that truly wants to make a positive difference. The type of people you would want in power.
Unfortunately, even within that second group there may be a bunch of problems.
Some may be well intentioned, but just not very competent or effective.
Some may start out with good intentions, but can easily become corrupted once in power. Either by the power and influence by itself or by outside influences and temptations (big money special interests, intimidation, blackmail etc)
In many cases, they may hold true to their original ideals, but may feel compelled to compromise much of what they believe is right, in order to get some of what they want.
Sometimes it takes a while, but it seems that at some point there's a tendency to start slowly down the wrong path only to get worse and worse, like a snowball rolling down-hill. Until it comes to a crashing stop.
(U can probably guess whether I am generally optimistic or pessimistic. )
You make some very good points, clearly this is a very nuanced topic especially when other corruptions set in (big money, intimidation, blackmail et cetera) . In a transparent and (very) limited system, such corruptions would have a hard(er) time taking hold. If the system did not present advantages to man over man, much of this corruption would not be possible. Essentially, the system would need to be a form of a salt of the earth which prevents the growth of corruption by rendering it incapable.
"..I'm not so sure that “humans are naturally dispositioned towards the good”.
I would like to briefly clarify why I said this. While I certainly have my particular belief in a metaphysic that presents that notion, as well as personal political preferences, the gist of my logos on this stems from my understanding of human behavioral modernity. We are, if you will, designed with preset innate behavioral mechanisms that drive humans to be cooperative as a general state. We are a social species like our genetic cousins, geared to lean towards cooperation after discernment of friend or foe. Even other primates with similar but lesser neural architecture present behaviors similar to natural law, including the recognizing of property rights. (and even understanding bartering to a degree) Of course, we can be tribal and those interactions can be violent, but our general settings are geared towards survival and they range from the basic (fight or flight) all the way to the ability to compromise and have empathy, as well as having a general distaste for anti-social behaviors like theft, murder and rape... which are universal in human culture dating deep into antiquity. Not that these things do not happen per se, just that they have never been found to be socially acceptable traits except on cultures well beyond 2 standard deviations away from the norm. (Patterns of Culture by Ruth Benedict covers this decently)
Of course these social behaviors have developed over eons with us living in more of a natural state or organization, including the natural state of interacting with on another. In the past you could not just treat other humans as you wished, there would be instant feedback not inhibited by the state, usually in the form of social shame or a right hook - now we are suppressed. This concept is partially explained in the book "Darwinian Psychiatry" by Mcguire and Troisi. When we cannot behave naturally we develop abnormal mental pathologies, couple that with living in an artificial system we essentially become captives in an open air zoo. We are affected more than we currently realize by our unnatural arrangements, which obscures the fact that natural law has more or less organized humans effectively (and our archaic cousins) for a long time.
Looking around and seeing the anxious, neurotic and violent state of the current modern human, it becomes difficult to believe we are dispositioned to the good and that it is even possible that we could do without government as is... however... to look at it this way is to look at it wrong. The system as we know it is not functioning as a remedy to the natural evils of man, rather, it serves as a poison to the better parts of us, as it draws us further and further away from the natural order of things.
As you said, we are now on a snowball rolling down hill. The problem, there are people who want this to happen and we must resist it. The further we get away from the natural order the less likely we are able to resist it. This is because it changes the way the way that we think and how we evaluate ourselves and the role we play in our natural world. As the snowball rolls further down, man grows dependent on this artificial system to hold together our artificial psychology.
To say it plainly, if it is ever going to get better, and I for one do believe that it will, it must first get very painful. It is like "The Call of the Wild" by London, if you remove all of the structures of modern conveniences that a domesticated dog experiences, it will either fail to hear the call of the wild and will flounder and die, or something ancient will begin stirring deep inside, awakening a vitality that was once lost. Humans need to hear that call again. It would be better to make that transition slowly, but it may only be possible if done quickly to prevent recuperation. Hopefully what I am trying to say here is making sense.
Hugh, I make a bunch of the same points (about why we are slightly inclined to the good) in the middle of my book. Those installments are still months off, but you will like them when they arrive. Hopefully we can compare notes then
I very much look forward to reading it!
It makes some sense
In the end, we seem to pretty much want the same thing and feel the same way about the direction we are currently headed.
Seems like we only differ on whether or not human beings are inherently good or inherently neutral.
I would greatly prefer for you to be right about that, but am not convinced.
I certainly can be wrong, but the evidence seems to point that if we weren't slightly dispositioned into the direction of good (i.e cooperation) our species would already be extinct. However, all of that is nullified by our artificial structures.
What matters overall is that we generally want the same thing and are bothbvery concerned about the current trajectory of things.
Indeed. The starting position for social order must be natural law and any deviation from it must be exceptional and temporary.
So please remind me—do you fall into the camp who believe the United States system protects natural rights, or the camp that believe that all involuntary governance, even if ostensibly limited, violates natural rights?
Very interesting take. To the extent that it promotes life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness the us’s constitution conforms to natural law.
To the extent that it seeks to subvert natural hierarchy - for example in the various civil rights enactments and executive orders - it does not conform to natural law. The subversion of natural hierarchy is baked in though from the confiscation of George iii’s property without compensation and the removal of his heirs’ inheritance rights to property the property of the states.
Ah, I get you.
I myself fall into the latter camp. All involuntary governance violates natural rights.
There is quite a bit of indication that as hunter gatherers - before agricultural civilizations - we were highly interdependent and cooperative with each other.
And that as citizens of agricultural civilizations we became pitted against each other and manipulated by tyrannical leaders (government).
Government (being terrorized by bureaucrats) - and living pitted against each other is neither evolutionary or natural.
Bingo
Humans are naturally good and fair. There are a lot of tests that back this up. Less than 5% of people would rather steal than help someone.
We can have rules without rulers. We can decentralize government and make it transparent. Instead of debating philosophy, look at the systems already running like this.
Leaders are the corruption point in all systems. We don't need them anymore. There is a simple formula needed for a decentralized society: https://joshketry.substack.com/p/leaderless-leaders-are-the-weak-link
Mencken is always apropos these days:
" On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron."
Bing!
Mencken was a savage!
Pretty sure he wasn't an anarchist. Perhaps more of an aristocrat.
But yes, he did have a keen wit and a sharp pen.
Yep.
Though some others are both. Hoppe, for example, might be described as an anarcho-neo-monarchist, perhaps.
There is no short list of thinkers who had little faith in the common man, and for good reason. Our first generations were not common men; the common men stayed in Europe. Now, we are back where we started but there is no where to start over.
Which means we are going to have to carve out new polities and free territories from within existing states. It's gonna take time and work!
Eow!
That day was long ago
We manage to keep one upping ourselves over and over
Yes, humans have innate goodness; and making us believe that's not so is one of the LONGEST-standing propaganda lies we, in the west especially, have been subjected to [Thanks, Abrahamic "religions!"]
To me, it seems clear that we are not fundamentally good or fundamentally evil. We have free will. We can choose.
There are incentives to be evil. But there are even more incentives to be good. And we choose!
It may have been Twain who quipped that original sin was the one doctrine he couldn't disagree with.
Wonderful article Christopher! I believe the biggest problem behind governments, humanity etc. are the HIGH LEVEL PSYCHOTIC/PREDATOR/PARASITES who are the CONTROLLERS.
Few people include the last part of Lord Acton's famous quote:
“Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.”
Great men are almost always bad men.
Another essay among many that is fundamentally changing my mind.
Love it! May I quote you? 🔥❤️🤣💫
Absolutely!
Interesting perspective.
One that caused four people to unsubscribe! Maybe a bit too tell-it-like-it is? 🤣🤣 (Not that I would change a word.)
4 unsubscribed??? 😂🤣 Those were not true red-pilled folks but pansy snowflakes!
Totes. I finally hit a new subscriber milestone this morning, took a screenshot and showed my wife, and then we came back from a day at the lake to find that I had a net loss of two!
But I am reminded of Henry V…
"Rather proclaim it, Westmoreland, through my host,
That he which hath no stomach to this fight,
Let him depart; his passport shall be made,
And crowns for convoy put into his purse;
We would not die in that man's company
That fears his fellowship to die with us."
Amen!!
Great article! Also, the American Revolution was (like all major wars and revolutions) actually planned/fomented/put on, too, by the parasite class. And good people died for it while those dudes you mentioned known as the "founding fathers" came into power.
My eyes open more each day.
Can you elaborate any more on all that? Any specifics re: the American Revolution?
I certainly found the info I recently learned about Hamilton to be quite edifying…
Thanks for replying. Yes I can, but I'd like to pull together my thoughts and all the info into a post, so it's all adequately substantiated. Will comment again when I finish it. Basically, a lot of the events that sparked the uprisings were phony/exaggerated/planned, and just duped good people on both sides into destroying each other.
Groovy. LMK.
If it's long, you could do a series!
Not to mention the freemasonic BS that was pushing things behind the scenes, too.
I think I saw something suggesting that the American Revolution was really about remaining a slavery nation. Great Britain freed slaves sooner than the US and wax going to make the colonies free slaves too.
One of the complaints against the king was his imposition of slavery on the colonies.
Brave AI had what I vaguely remembered:
There were significant changes in Great Britain's slavery policies around 1776 that had an impact on the start of the American Revolution. In 1772, the British court case of Somerset v. Stewart ruled that chattel slavery was not compatible with English common law, effectively dismissing its legitimacy on the British mainland. This decision was a major blow to the institution of slavery in Britain and its colonies.
Additionally, the British government began to take steps to restrict the slave trade. In 1776, the British Parliament passed the Molasses Act, which prohibited the importation of sugar and molasses from non-British colonies, effectively restricting the slave trade.
These changes in British slavery policies created a sense of moral outrage among American colonists, who saw the British as hypocritical for allowing slavery in their own colonies while banning it in Britain. This sentiment was further fueled by the fact that many British abolitionists were actively working to end the slave trade and slavery in the colonies.
The British government's stance on slavery became a key issue in the American Revolution, with many American Patriots using the term "slavery" as a battle cry to remove themselves from British authority. The British government's perceived hypocrisy on the issue of slavery helped to galvanize support for the American Revolution and contributed to the growing sense of independence among the American colonies.
Context
- www.loc.gov. Overview | The American Revolution, 1763 - 1783 | U.S. History Primary Source Timeline | Classroom Materials at the Library of Congress | Library of Congress
https://www.loc.gov/classroom-materials/united-states-history-primary-source-timeline/american-revolution-1763-1783/overview/
- www.battlefields.org, Slavery in the Colonies: The British Position on Slavery in the Era of Revolution | American Battlefield Trust, https://www.battlefields.org/learn/articles/slavery-in-the-colonies,
- www.digitalhistory.uh.edu, Slavery, the American Revolution, and the Constitution, https://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/active_learning/explorations/revolution/revolution_slavery.cfm
- en.wikipedia.org, American Revolution, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Revolution
I'm not sure how that bolsters your position. Lincoln found little support for slavery among the Founders. All but two, as I recall, actively wrote against it.
This whole debate (that the Revolution was meant to preserve slavery) is new to me. On the one hand, I am willing to entertain just about anything. On the other, this contention also sounds like it might be the sort of thing that some réchaufée Marxist college professor would cook up.
It's seeing exposure of long-held false/
mythical beliefs like this that make me say, I doubt that the world is flat; but if it turns out to be, I wouldn't be very surprised at all!
So, if free stuff is what I want, I should buy my government from a company that will give me the most free stuff for my money or work product. My neighbor wants the right to use his property for a skeet range and his customers keep blowing out my windows. His government allows this because they don’t have laws, which is why he has paid them for the privilege.
Don’t get me wrong. I am intrigued by your theory. Just trying to understand.
Term limits might be a better short term solution. Better to recycle the crooks than to let them grow roots.
president has term limits and it only gets worse with each new one. As for free stuff, if you pay for it, its by definition not free. And your neighbor is committing a crime if your property is being damaged by his or his customers'/guests' actions. Its not a matter of no laws/rules, its a matter of no rulers. Crimes against person or property are always crimes, regardless of a man made law
You're right that in the west, society has been corrupted to the point that the golden rule, if even taught, is neither understood nor practiced. We're instead convinced that seeing fellow humans as the competition, the threat, is what makes us "real men."
That argument popped into my head (aided somewhat by Nozick in "Anarchy, State, and Utopia") back when I was still a minarchist. And it's a decent argument—one that kept me a minarchist for several months longer.
Here are some quick points about it, though.
First, the non-aggression principle is not just some would-be-nice notion which some follow and others blithely ignore. It is foundational—written into the universal moral law. Toddlers understand it. Every human considers it foundational (whether they know it consciously or not) with the exception of psychopaths. Criminals ignore its moral admonition for their own purposes, but they too believe in it.
So, in a condition of market anarchy, large agencies would form to provide people security and justice services. Nearly all of the demand will be for rights-protective services, not rights-violative services. All these agencies, though technically competitive, would also be cooperating with each other the way, say, multinational insurance agencies do today. They will all need good relations and good reputations. They will all need secondary insurance from third parties. They will need to be able to function in the private court system that would arise.
If a rights-violative agency were to arise at all—and I think that is a significant IF—none of the rest of the agencies would do business with them. They would not cooperate with them. The courts would not support them. And because they would be violating the rights of their clients, all of the security agents of all the rights-protective agencies would be clobbering their operatives. If such an agency could even arise, it just would not last. Everyone else would make short work of them.
(One good place to look on this subject is Chapter 12 here: https://ia801508.us.archive.org/14/items/911-material/Pdfs/Democracy%20The%20God%20That%20Failed.pdf)
And in the end we fought a revolution (well, not me) and exchanged one form of government tyranny for another (we were blind to that fact way back then). At the time, it seemed like we were fixing things as so many deaths appeared to buy so much freedom.
Then over the next 248 years, many, many more deaths have bought no freedom and more tyranny. In fact, we never peaked on the freedom scale since all along we have pretended to be free while the yoke of government never did surrender its bonds.
All along we though it was the Russians, Germans, Chinese, Japanese or some other faction that was the enemy. Lo and behold, that enemy we so much feared lived right in the DC Swamp.
Well said.
And some of the Founders had very different agendas from the others. The revolution temporarily united them, but they were not all the same, and that was revealed in the aftermath.
God is the Ruler. All who follow His rules will be free.
Free here on Earth?
Free of the fear of death and judgement, among other freedoms. So, yes.
Fabulous.
Thanks!
We can have rules without rulers. We can decentralize government and make it transparent. We have done so with other systems. Leaders are the corruption point in all systems. We don't need them anymore. There is a simple formula needed : https://joshketry.substack.com/p/leaderless-leaders-are-the-weak-link
I will check it out!
Market forces are great and all, but emergent optimization does not always work. It is possible for incentives to align in a way such that everyone is doing what is in their immediate best interest, but eventually everyone ends up losing out.
So how would you deal with “strip miners” with power imbalances? Where could individuals petition redress of grievances from, say, Facebook? How could you prevent some cabal (let’s call them Silicone Valley) from capturing market share and suppressing (or absorbing) all rivals?
Those are all good questions.
Before we talk about what might happen in a hypothetical scenario, we have to note that all those bad things that you mention are happening, to one degree or other, now. With government. In some cases, with government HELP. (see here for more on that topic: https://christophercook.substack.com/p/new-logical-fallacy-argument-from-brochure)
"It is possible for incentives to align in a way such that everyone is doing what is in their immediate best interest, but eventually everyone ends up losing out."
—I suppose that is a risk, but it is also a risk now. Government officials aren't some sort of übermenschen who can magically prevent such things. But anyway, it would help to have a concrete example to discuss here.
We should start with the notion that the market-anarchic vision generally involves agencies providing security, justice, law codes, courts, courts of final appeal, contract services, etc. Less ex ante restrictions, but more ex post facto litigation. In other words, you don't have a government attempting to control your actions, but you know that if you do something wrong, you're going to suffer legal consequences after the fact. (How all that works/would work in a market-anarchic scenario requires some explanation, and I am sure you have questions. There is a lot of literature on the subject.)
So, with that in mind…
Strip mining…
There is strip mining (and open-pit mining) now. Yes, some governments place some restrictions, but they do not stop it totally. They also help businesses who do it: corporate personhood, limited liability for officers and shareholders, crony capitalist and corporatist relationship with government, public choice and the iron triangle, regulatory capture, etc. All that would be gone in a market-anarchic scenario. Instead, you would have ex ante litigation (and the threat thereof) for wrongdoing. No government to regulate you, but also none to protect you in the incestuous way that government and business protect each other now.
Facebook…
Oh my goodness, my friend—you are joking, right? You have found a way to petition for redress of grievances with Facebook now? Can you let me in on the secret? 🤣🤣 A while back, the guy who (putatively) was the real inventor of Facebook's code finally got a hearing from Congress. Every single one of those congressmen is very likely indirectly invested in Facebook stock, and some were more directly invested. None of them was ever going to decide anything in favor of that guy. Herr Zückenfuhrer was never in any real danger. That guy's challenge was dead before it got there. In a market-anarchic scenario, you do not have to accept whatever court, advocates, and judges the government throws at you, or the random chance of whichever one happens to be working that day. There is a choice of all of that. You can pick ones with a reputation for probity, impartiality, or any other factors. (How different private law codes and procedures become harmonized into a common law is a fascinating subject—see Hoppe, "Democracy: The God That Failed," Chapter 12.
As to the last one, why are you lobbing me such softballs, Brotato chip? 🤣 Silicon Valley has achieved that situation now, with government. (With government help.) Google controls what share of the search market? 80% 90%. Starting in about 2015, Google began rejiggering their search algorithms to replace accurate results with their narrative. I watched it happening in real time, and it has only gotten more blatant since. Google and Meta run most of the show now.
There is a pretty significant body of scholarship out there on the notion that monopolies can only exist with government's help. (I need to better familiarize myself with this literature.) Yes, government makes some antitrust noise once in a while, but they also make monopolies and corporate personhood possible. (By the way, the Burt Folsom video linked in this piece is really funny and good, kind of on this subject: https://christophercook.substack.com/p/exploding-myth-robber-barons . Also, Ayn Rand's "Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal" hits this topic. There's plenty more.)
And then I guess I would just offer this as a cherry on top:
Without government, rapacious businessmen have no protections, no ability to engage in regulatory capture, and no power vector with which to force us to buy their products. (Note: 200 new pharma billionaires were made with the covid vaccine, which was paid by taxpayer dollars and basically forced on the planet by the planet's governments.)
So if my choice is to live with
a) rapacious business, or
b) rapacious business AND government
I am choosing A all day!
Does that help at all?
Thank you so much for your detailed reply my dude! I really appreciate it. I have a very long reading list, so I haven't been able to get to really grokking anarchy yet, but I would love a pointer towards 1-3 book to get a handle on it. I see you already offered a few of them up (The Unknown Ideal, The god that failed), are those good "first tastes" or do you have other suggestions?
My argument is not: "these things are not currently happening and if we enact your proposal they will." My argument is "these things ARE happening, and you are proposing that we remove the protections we put in place to hamper them, regardless of whether those protections work perfectly (which I agree they do not)." I agree that, asymptotically and in a vacuum, complete anarchy would settle out into a good system (although I tend more for autonomous city states than market anarchy). We, however, are not in a vacuum, and the battle lines between rapacious business and government are set (even if there is some amount of collusion). Removing one of those built up forces would allow the other to use the extreme resources that they waste in the fight (sham or otherwise) against each other to wash over those who wish to be free. So my main question is primarily a pragmatic one: how do you propose that we get from point A to point B without breaking societal continuity?
Several of my other questions were answered by the posts you recommended, so thank you. One other question: justice systems work because both parties admit their legitimacy, and they have the authority to force compliance of their rulings. In a world with no monopoly on force, what would stop some rapacious business from putting together their own version of Chevron deference, such that they won't listen to any judgement except that of their bought and paid for arbitrators, or just having so much capital that they can take the hit and move on, then engage in some sort of mass propaganda campaign to smear the victim (and so on. Yes, I am aware this already happens.)
Your challenges are truly excellent. And I really appreciate your curiosity and kindness.
The best reading suggestions are at the end of this post: https://christophercook.substack.com/p/no-way-i-can-convince-you-anarchism Definitely Hoppe! But for anarchim, I would take Rand off the table in favor of the Friedman and Tannehills book I list there.
"My argument is "these things ARE happening, and you are proposing that we remove the protections we put in place to hamper them, regardless of whether those protections work perfectly (which I agree they do not)."
—I do not disagree that governments erect some barriers to business wrongdoing. Where we differ, I think, is in our vision of that total nature of that relationship. I get the impression (and forgive me if I am mistaken) that you are seeing business as frequently rapacious and government as primarily an adversary to that rapacity, albiet a somewhat incompetent one.
I see business as having a capacity for rapacity… (Why does "Capacity for Rapacity" seem like it ought to be the title of a Ted Nugent Song or something? Anyway…) I see business as having that capacity, but perhaps not quite to the same degree as the average Marxist (or Charles Dickens) would. And while I get that government provides some obstacles, they also give businesses many advantages that they simply would not have in government's absence.
And since government involves fundamentally morally impermissible violations of the rights and consent of the individual human person—even when it is functioning normally—I cannot countenance its continued existence. And in its absence, I believe that market forces would be at least as good—and likely a damn sight better—at keeping business in check.
"So my main question is primarily a pragmatic one: how do you propose that we get from point A to point B without breaking societal continuity?"
—I believe the process probably needs to be evolutionary, not revolutionary. I wrote about it a little bit here: https://christophercook.substack.com/p/evolution-vs-revolution-underthrow-agorism and will be writing a good deal more in an upcoming book, installments of which I will be releasing here soon.
Re: your last graf…
This is largely addressed in the reading materials I mention. Especially Hoppe and also Rothbard. (There is a short Rothbard essay in the reading list that touches on it.) But basically…
Reputation, the need to do business with others, contractual obligations established ahead of time, and other market forces all keep this in check. Any such economy would be highly integrated—even more so, perhaps, than today. A large business needs to do business not only with its customers and workers, but with other businesses. With their insurers, security agents, and myriad third-party vendors. They cannot afford to become market pariahs.
Courts, including courts of final appeal, will (almost invariably) be decided ahead of time through contractual arrangements.
Businesses do that now. No business wants to adjudicate anything in a government court. By the time they even get a hearing, the issue will be over, for better or worse. They use private arbitration. They agree exa ante, in contracts, to certain courts, including courts of final appeal, now. They abide by these rulings because it is in their best interest to do so, now. In a condition of market anarchism, this would only be expanded. And other mechanisms would kick in. Everyone would find out—courts, insurers, judges, advocates, the public—if a company refused to abide by a decision. No one would do business with them.
This, indeed, already happened with medieval merchant and maritime law. The Hanseatic League is a good example: https://christophercook.substack.com/p/building-island-3-historical-examples-anarchism
And the same would be the case with individuals. All sensible people would have private aggression insurers/security and justice providers. And they would have ex ante contractual arrangements with one another as to courts, final appeal, etc. And all the same market forces would impel them in the same positive direction.
It would not be utopia. It would just be better. And it would end the moral crime of government. (Government violates individual consent and initiates coercive force, which are moral crimes. We can do better. We should at least try, rather than just accepting that we are slaves who must have masters.)
So are you sold? Are you an anarchist now? 🤣🤣🔥😎
You are most welcome. You make persuasive arguments and have interesting ideas, and I see no need for aggression, having been offered none.
I have added your book suggestions to my cart and shall read them as soon as I may. I am certainly sympathetic to your position, although I am hesitant to stake my flag on any position without fully understanding it, nor do I believe that there is any system that can work absent the virtue of its participants.
The thing I am still hung up on is the gap between "this is morally correct to do" (which, in the abstract, I accept) and "this will work at scale." Even the Marxists claim that their system is morally correct to do (and, in the abstract, I accept that too, minus the coercion). It just doesn't work at scale (without coercion). I am happy to engage with arguments that it will, in fact, work, but that just means I need to do the reading. The Maritime Law example is one that is quite persuasive to me though.
As to business and government, I see the problem as managerial bureaucracy in all its forms, whether business or government. Without a bureaucracy, a government cannot enforce its will at scale. With the amplification of a bureaucracy, a corporation can claim powers at a governmental scale, and it would not take long (in societal terms) before it essentially becomes a government. Indeed, I view this as what is already happening. But how, exactly, to stop a bureaucracy is unclear to me.
As a dream, I agree with you. Happy to find a way to bring it into reality, and bring back the honor and fealty networks that held everything together before our "just following policy" managerial bureaucracy (which I see as the real problem, whether you call it business or government).
"And bring back the honor and fealty networks that held everything together before our "just following policy" managerial bureaucracy
—Can you tell me more what you think that would/should look like?
I am thinking primarily of the medieval world. The emperor (Holy Roman, that one) was in control, but without mutual consent from the kings, he wasn’t. The king in name was in control, but in practice he needed mutual consent from his Lords. The Lords were in control, but needed mutual consent from their knights (and so on down the line, although down at peasant level things got squirrelly). And as a check on the emperor, a completely separate hierarchy (the ecclesial one) existed able to judge the secular sphere, and vice versa. One hierarchy had the imperium (secular power) and the other had the rex (moral power). The thing that brought it down was overreach from the rex leading to the imperium breaking off ties (also known as the Protestant reformation and 100 years war). It was out of the torn shards of that system that totalizing governments developed. That network of fealty is what develops out of mutual consent systems, and it stays together so long as nothing changes, but unfortunately people die and their heirs are not necessarily of the same moral fiber, which is exactly why the system fell apart.
"As to business and government, I see the problem as managerial bureaucracy in all its forms, whether business or government. Without a bureaucracy, a government cannot enforce its will at scale. With the amplification of a bureaucracy, a corporation can claim powers at a governmental scale, and it would not take long (in societal terms) before it essentially becomes a government. Indeed, I view this as what is already happening. But how, exactly, to stop a bureaucracy is unclear to me."
—This was Robert Nozick's concern in "Anarchy, State, and Utopia." That one agency would become dominant and then become a "state-like entity."
But let's unpack that a little further.
Right now, we have a world filled with such monopolies. They are each, in their territory, totally sovereign. They brook no competition. Even the best of them impose upon their subject population an inescapable, nonconsensual "social contract." They tell you you consented, but you didn't actually, and your only escape is to try to go to a similar entity and be subjected to the same arrangement.
And externally, the only thing that keeps them in check is all the other similar monopolies. And if they jostle each other too much, they go to war. And they steal their people's money, and enslave their people's bodies,. in order to wage those wars.
In the market-anarchic scenario, all of that goes away. But then we have the concern that maybe some variant of it may come back to a degree, or in a localized area. Seems more than a fair trade. I am happy to take that risk.
You see what I mean? Did I explain that sufficiently well?
Yes, that is very fair. The process of getting from point A to point B will require care, prudence, and discipline, but that is a matter of policy which will take time. So many have become accustomed to their chains, and fail to see that they can be abandoned.
"The thing I am still hung up on is the gap between "this is morally correct to do" (which, in the abstract, I accept) and "this will work at scale."
—We don't need to answer that question all at once, though. We can evolve into it. One foot in front of the other. Allow special economic zones and ZEDEs. Let small secessions take place. Let private agencies take over some functions of government. Allow people who want to remain under a government to do so, and allow people who want to try new things to do so.
I think that if we had described anything we have now to a person in centuries or millennia past, they would have had a similar concern about them being feasible at scale. Yet here we are.
Fair enough. That I can get behind. My concern was mostly that you were proposing an October Revolution, but for libertarians. That not being the case, I am happy to build in that direction.
"nor do I believe that there is any system that can work absent the virtue of its participants."
—100 percent. Libertarianism/anarchism will be far more successful among people with good conservative values.
Ooh, before I forget, I missed replying to your comment about city states. City states are an excellent way to start. Indeed, some are already underway.
Those might have internal governance, and possibly even the sort of internal governance that an anarchist might not wish to participate in. However, so long as they allow the right to join (by mutual consent) and the right to exit (so long as contractual obligations have been met), then they fit into an overall anarchic/panarchic/inarchic world: https://christophercook.substack.com/p/what-kind-world-you-want
Also, I discuss the rights to join/exit/secede/remain etc. in my constitution: https://christophercook.substack.com/p/human-constitution
90% of human interactions are anarchist in nature. A (healthy) romantic relationship has no hierarchy. Healthy friendships have no hierarchy. No war has ever happened without hierarchy. Almost without exception, the most harmful human interactions are ones which involve hierarchy or coercion.
Well said.
Persuasion and coercion are the two top-level human strategies. Persuasion just requires two people to agree, whereas hierarchy generally has to be enforced by coercion. Not always, but certainly often, and definitely if some of those within the hierarchy are unwilling.
This is related, I think.
How would anyone displace those in control?
The bad that you speak of, they are world wide... why would they ever relinquish their hold?
The good... where? The populace has been dumbed down to an extreme level. Maimed. Poisoned. Scared. A group of these can be organized (setting aside being crushed by the pervasive controllers)?
Does this at least partially answer your concern? https://christophercook.substack.com/p/evolution-vs-revolution-underthrow-agorism
It does, but also, I see that I have much, much more to read of your writing. I am not new to this show, and you write with clarity, and Common Sense.
Thank you. Please do read, and also feel free to ask me if I have any writing that might answer a specific inquiry. I am glad you are here!
The Haudenosaunee Confederacy is the oldest living participatory democracy on earth. Also called the Six Nations Confederacy, it's territory stretched from Maine to Michigan and was prosperous and peaceful by all historical accounts. this is all before having a written language or having invented the axle wheel, a good argument against technology as the pinnacle of civilization. Under the Great Law of Peace, clan mothers (wise older women) selected and could depose chiefs who were all men. All decisions required consensus. In other words peace was at the heart of the law and instead of cold hard cash decisions were made by people and in ways that were not motivated by interests other than the health and well-being of the community.
I don't think government itself is the problem, or people. It's how government is run and what it does that matters. A notable feature of many Native American societies is how they strike a healthy balance between individual endeavor and collective well-being. The strength of those communities is also reflected in government programs and in places like Vienna Austria, which has been awarded the title of "most livable city in the world" many times in recent years. Not only does Austria have a form of universal healthcare, but 60% of Viennese in public housing. Public housing is the only thing that guarantees a roof over everyone's head while also keeping market forces in check. Of course, in this way the general public and citizenry also retain ownership of real property in perpetuity rather than allowing land to be sold off to foreigners and venture capital firms. Shared risk pool programs like these makes sense from an efficiency and economic perspective. Currently in the US, our military (maybe the most communistic organization in the world) benefits from this dynamic of taxpayer funded risk pool, but average citizens don't. Another example: the post office always provided a number of services including mail delivery at a much better price and faster than UPS or FedEx. If it weren't for the ludicrous law requiring USPS to pre-fund 75 years of retirement benefits for all of their employees (initiated by lobbyists of course) USPS would still be in the black, on paper. Libertarianism seems to want to destroy anything public in the name of freedom, but that doesn't make much sense, light of all evidence to the contrary.
There is at least one example historically in the US, though of innovative even if accidental successes regarding striking that precious balance. William Penn was a quaker and because of the pacifist policies he instituted within his proprietary colony (Penn's Woods or Pennsylvania), there was no violence between Native American populations and Pennsylvanians, which is an anomaly among the colonies but goes along way to demonstrate that it was plutocratic and government forces that where the cause of violence between the two cultures. Additionally, so many people moved to Pennsylvania so quickly from all walks of life (in only 80 years, between 1680 and 1760 Penn's woods became the hub of the colonies), that Penn had a difficult time collecting taxes, which was also due to the fact that he was forced to defend his charter back in England against Lord Baltimore. Meanwhile, in Pennsylvania apparently things were working so well, people didn't see the need to pay taxes at all so they didn't. So what we have ultimately is the perfect and successful marriage of the left and the right....pacifistic, humanistic values and small government. Although, I still maintain that universal healthcare and similar programs are the most cost-effective and have the best outcomes generally for the people.
I appreciate your perspective, but in large measure, I do not share it. Violence is violence. Taxation is violence. Forcibly imposed, inescapable, involuntary "social contracts" are violence. Universal healthcare is violence. Human beings can accomplish our aims without violence. The ways in which we have done things in the past need not be the way we do things in the future.
Isn't privatization "violence" then? In a world where everything is interconnected, how is individual freedom without responsibility in harmony with the laws of the Universe? We born here through no effort of our own. Life is a gift right? Nothing belongs to us individually. Everything is collective. Scientifically speaking, 95% of the Universe is invisible "dark" energy and matter combined. According to millions of near death experiences (reported to NIH cardiac resuscitation in the 1950s), not the end and on the other side we will experience our lives from the universal consciousness and experience our lives from the perspective of others, those we've helped or hurt. A few reports is anecdotal, but millions becomes data. And no one has proven that the brain produces consciousness because likely our bodies and brains are more like television sets or radios which can pick up a signal but can do nothing on their own. Everything is interconnected and dependent arising, cause-and-effect. I'm sort of going off on a tangent here but I can say that shared risk programs like universal healthcare have been adopted and work pretty well across the rest of the world, certainly more efficiently then privatization like we have in the USA. Why do you think the health insurance industry is so inefficient and parasitic if privatization is so good?
You and I have heard different data re: outcomes in nationalized healthcare systems. But I don't want to get dragged into those weeds. Here's my bottom line:
The nonaggression principle is foundational to all successful and correct moral systems. Taxing people violates the nonaggression principle. Subjecting people to arrangements, transactions, or authority to which they did not explicitly consent violates the nonaggression principle. (And voting is not consent.) People can consent to help others in voluntary cooperation. But having money forcibly extracted from one to be given to another is not charity, it is an attack.
Welfare = violence. National healthcare = violence. Government = violence.
Mutual aid societies, friendly societies, and other voluntary charity = good.
Without dragging us into the weeds, there is a reason every other western industrialized country in the world has adopted some form of universal care. Your points about non-aggression are spot on, and in an ideal world, we could trust that charity would save people from the devastation of unexpected disease or an accident. Given the large costs of healthcare, in much the same way as there is a need for national defense, it just makes sense in many situations. I guess theoretically wouldn't have to pay in but then you wouldn't get the benefits. I think the majority would choose to take advantage of this common sense system. The problem I have with Ayn Rand is that her idealism was born out of experiencing tyranny under Soviet communism (which, let's be honest was just fascism by committee). I know this dynamic well because I'm the son of a Hungarian immigrant who lived under both fascism and communism. I've witnessed firsthand how the sociopolitical past trauma of experiencing state communism can misinform a person's current understanding of socio-political issues.
Actually, I think the reverse: someone who has lived through full-blown totalitarianism has better insight into seeing how easily any society can slide in that direction. Still, I hear you on that.
If you want to create a healthcare system that is fully voluntary—that is funded by customers pooling their resources by choice—by all means! Maybe I'll buy in too, if it looks good.
But all taxation, all forced redistribution, is violence. There will never be peace in this world so long as we continue to build violence into human social infrastructures. Even if we are doing it for nice reasons.