Avoiding points of conflict between anarchists and minarchists means either studied silence or mumbling prevarication on issues that ought to be absolutely central for any anarchist worth her salt — among other things, the right of (state, local, neighborhood, individual) secession, the moral illegitimacy and practical futility of appeals to the Constitution, the arrogance and abusiveness of monopoly police forces, the illegitimacy of any and all forms of taxation [...]Johnson is almost right, except we minarchists will only shoot him if he commits aggression or takes up arms against a sea of minarchist troubles and by opposing tries to end them.
[W]hat will happen on this ride is that once the train pulls into the minarchy station, the minarchists will get off the train — and then they will try to block the tracks and threaten to open fire on the rest of us if we try to take the train any further towards the end of the line. That’s what being a minarchist means: government always comes out of the barrel of a gun, and that’s true whether the government is unlimited or limited, maximal or minimal. If you try to move, in any concrete way, from minarchy towards anarchy, those minarchists you spent so many years working with are still going to try to shoot you. Personally, I have no desire to join any movement whose members will turn around and shoot me in the end.
Starchild adds a comment there counseling libertarian anarchists not to hyphenate themselves and thus implicitly concede that straight anarchism isn't necessarily libertarian. (Starchild claims not to be an anarchist himself, but the only force initiation I've ever gotten him to endorse has to do with forcing alleged aggressors to stand trial.)
6 comments:
So, just so we're clear, since the risk of shooting is involved, I'd like to know what will and will not get me shot in Minarchistan.
Let's say that I live in the territory that your limited government lays claim to, but I don't want anything to do with it. (Maybe I'm dissatisfied with the juridical and defense services that it offers. Or maybe I'm just an ornery cuss who doesn't like governments.) So I henceforth (1) renounce any allegiance to your minimal government. (2) I decline to partake of any of its offered services. (3) I will arrange for my own self-defense, and (4) I'll go to willing third parties, not to government courts, in order to adjudicate any disputes I may have over questions of right. And since I don't intend to pay for things that I'm not using, (5) I'll also refuse to pay any taxes whatsoever to support your minimal government from this point forward. In short, I'm not interested in being part of your minimal government's constituency, and I quit.
If I do all of (1)-(5), do you think that any of them will justify sending the limited-government cops after me in order to make me stop doing them? If so, which, and why?
5). For why, see:
- The Free Rider Problem
- Do Markets Under-Produce Public Goods?
P.S. You forgot to make it clear whether you'll be 6) abstaining from using any of Minarchistan's tax-financed network natural monopolies (i.e. streets, pipes, and wires), and 7) returning to the local community the ground rent created on any land you own by the services it provides.
Concerning (6), yes, as per (2), I decline to make use of any government goods or services whatsoever. If you imagine that your minimal government, rather than market providers, will be laying pipes and building roads and putting up wires, then I won't use any of those, provided that in return the government will not force me to pay for pipes and roads and wires that I'm not using (cf. (5)), and also provided that, when I make arrangements with other people to arrange for my own water, electric, and transportation needs using our own private property, your minimal government will not barge onto my property or theirs in order to force us back into their "natural" monopoly.
Concerning (7), I don't know precisely what you mean. If you're asking whether I intend to pay for services rendered that I requested and agreed to pay for, then of course I will honor my agreements. If you're asking whether I intend to pay for "services" that I never agreed with anyone to pay for, which I never asked anyone for, and which were "rendered" by the free choice of the "service" provider, for her own reasons, whether I wanted them or not, then of course I intend to do no such thing.
Now that that's out of the way, again, just so we're clear, am I correct in saying that your view, as a self-identified minarchist, is that in Minarchistan your limited government cops will have the right to shoot me in order to force me to pay taxes in support of a minimal government whose services I have explicitly declined to make use of?
And if so, given that you said that your limited government cops would only have the right to shoot someone who was engaged in those who commit aggression or engage in revolutionary violence, and given that in my hypothetical I am clearly not engaging in revolutionary violence, am I correct in inferring that your view is that they have the right to shoot me because I am aggressing against one or more identifiable victims by declining to pay in for "public goods" which I never agreed to support, which I never asked anyone to build, which I may not ever make use of, which I may not even want, but which I was never given any option to refuse or veto, and which other people decided to build for their own reasons and for their own benefit?
I ask in the interest of clarity, not for the purposes of debate. If these are indeed your views, then I'm not much interested in arguing over (say) the legitimacy of the Single Tax, or whatever other form of taxation you believe in. I doubt either of us would convince the other. But I would like to know whether or not I've accurately characterized your views about the prerogatives of a minimal State. If you do indeed plan to shoot me someday for not paying my taxes, then I figure it's worthwhile for me to know that ahead of time.
I don't merely "imagine" that the state will be managing these network natural monopolies. (Your scare quotes around "natural" don't change the fact that this is standard terminology in the science of economics.) Rather, I'm not aware that network natural monopolies have ever been successfully provided by free markets in the context of a modern industrialized society outside of the special case of nearly all the land in question having been at one point owned by a single titleholder. (I thought left-libertarians were against concentrations of economic power, but your mileage may vary.) You might claim that you will never use public streets and sidewalks, but the rest of us will likely consider it not unreasonable to assume that you at some point will. The heart of the free-rider problem, of course, is that we know that people systematically under-report their demand for public goods (like uncongested local streets), which is why free markets under-produce them.
) Concerning (7), I don't know precisely what you mean. If you're asking [...] (
No, I'm asking whether you intend to try to profit off of the efforts of surrounding Minarchistanis by claiming the right to transfer a title to your land that allows you and your assigns to exclude everyone else from the location that you have seized (or acquired from someone else who seized it).
This is standard geoism, BTW. It says that if you merely pay rent to a titleholder, or if you don't try to exclude people from the location you've claimed, or if there are other locations freely available that are just as good as yours, then you don't owe the surrounding community anything (provided you don't pollute or congest or consume any nearby commons). So in my EcoLibertarian Minarchistan you can pretty much realize any fantasy you might have to live out in the wilderness like Ted Kaczynski, with zero interference from the dreaded state. We also don't shoot squirrels for not paying taxes, or prosecute fog for trespass.
) am I correct in saying that your view, as a self-identified minarchist, is that in Minarchistan your limited government cops will have the right to shoot me in order to force me to pay taxes in support of a minimal government whose services I have explicitly declined to make use of? (
No, the Minarchistan Revenue Service does not have the right to deploy snipers to double-tap people who miss a tax payment. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Due_process.
Also, it's possible to free-ride even if you don't want to. The benefits of most public goods -- e.g. national defense, prevention of conflagration/contagion/flood, universal access to a justice system that deters crime -- are not only non-excludable, but also unavoidable.
) you said that your limited government cops would only have the right to shoot someone who was engaged in those who commit aggression or engage in revolutionary violence (
I didn't use the word "revolutionary". I merely talked about violent resistance to Minarchistan's enforcement of its laws.
) I ask in the interest of clarity, not for the purposes of debate. (
It's a good thing we're not debating, because it sounds like you haven't heard of -- or at least don't recognize -- some of the arguments I'm making, whereas the converse has yet to prove true. :-)
) I'm not much interested in arguing over (say) the legitimacy of the Single Tax, or whatever other form of taxation you believe in. (
I also believe in pollution taxes. If we were debating, I'd ask you why you apparently believe in the effective right to engage in any amount of aggression which doesn't inflict on any one victim sufficient costs to make it worthwhile for that victim to invest in 1) subscription to a defense service strong enough (and willing) to subdue the aggressor and 2) an actual tort proceeding against said aggressor. But luckily, we're not debating, but instead agreeing that anarchists are irrational to ally with us minarchists in the LP. :-)
) I doubt either of us would convince the other. (
Correct.
) But I would like to know whether or not I've accurately characterized your views about the prerogatives of a minimal State. (
You haven't.
) If you do indeed plan to shoot me someday for not paying my taxes (
I don't, but feel free to fantasize about that, if you need to do so to rationalize your worldview. :-)
In other words, Brian: Do what we tell you to do or we'll force you to do it, and if you try to resist us we'll shoot you. So Charles is correct.
In other words, Anonymous: Brian is not an anarchist. How insightful of you.
Here's a challenge: take a statement of mine, and argue for its grammatical negation. Care to try?
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