A Proof That 'All Men Are Created Equal'

Chapter 10.5: Automatic Authority Isn't Real

Chapter 10.5

• Hereditary Authority: The End of an Error

  • A proof

• Ontological Equality

  ---

A proof

The absence of automatic authority is a basic fact—a truth that is, and ought to be, self-evident. However, using the unavoidable-use formulation discussed in chapter 8, a logical proof can also be offered. (Recall that this formulation, derived from the work of Murray Rothbard, states that a claim rises to the level of an axiom when someone attempting to refute the claim must use it in the attempted refutation.)

The claim here is that no one has automatic authority—that all authority must either be granted or imposed. Anyone who attempts to refute this claim and assert that he (or another) has automatic authority is going to run into the same problem, roughly illustrated in this vignette:

WOULD-BE RULER
I have automatic authority over you, by virtue of my very existence.

WOULD-BE SUBJECT
No you don’t.

WOULD-BE RULER
Yes I do.

WOULD-BE SUBJECT
No you don’t. There is no such thing as automatic authority.

WOULD-BE RULER
Yes there is.

WOULD-BE SUBJECT
No there isn’t. If I am unwilling to grant you authority consensually, then your only choice is to impose it by force.

WOULD-BE RULER
Obey me.

WOULD-BE SUBJECT
No.

WOULD-BE RULER
(draws sword)
Obey me.

Perilously close to a Monty Python skit, perhaps, but it gets the point across.

Anyone can assert that he (or another) has automatic authority until his face turns every color of the rainbow, but that won’t make it true. If even one person is unwilling to play along and pretend that automatic authority exists (and there is always at least one such person), then the only recourse is to impose the authority by force. In doing so, the original claim has been used in the attempted refutation, thus raising the claim to the level of an axiom. No one has automatic, ontological, or birthright authority.

One final way to look at it…