[Liberty Bell] A Non-Statist FAQ [Liberty Bell] Critiques of Critiques of Libertarianism by Mark LaRochelle With thanks to Steve French, Rick Fannon, and especially Glen Whitman. Email comments, criticism or questions to me. Additional relevant links, clarifications or corrections gratefully acknowleged. * * * This is not a refutation of Mike Huben's "Non-Libertarian FAQ" (which is not quite as "Non-Libertarian" as Hitler was), but of the most fallacious arguments within it. Part I Contents * Introduction * It's hard to clearly define libertarianism * Libertarians are a small group whose beliefs are unknown to and not accepted by the vast majority * [Libertarians] are utopian * Many Libertarian arguments are like fundamentalist arguments * Are libertarians serving their own class interest only? * Are libertarians reinventing what we already have, only without safeguards? * Looking to the founders for "original intent" is silly * Property is theft * Taxation is part of a social contract * "Men with guns" are the basis of enforcement of any complete social system * Libertaria is a combination of values that just doesn't exist * [G]overnment owns rights to govern its territory * Your property as recognized by the legal system is limited Go to Part II Introduction Mike Huben's "Non-Libertarian FAQ" makes some important points: * "Arguments that government is the best or only way to do something may fail: there are many examples of many government functions being performed privately. Some of them are quite surprising. Arguments based on getting any services free from government will fail: all government services cost money that comes from somewhere. Arguments that we have a free market are patently untrue: there are many ways the market is modified." * "[W]e can't presume that someone making [the arguments cited] doesn't understand their basis or cannot support their argument. And on the other hand, often other libertarians cringe when they hear these." * "Narcotic decriminalization in Holland has been a success. So has legalized prostitution in Nevada and Germany (and probably other places.) Privatization of some municipal services has been successful in some communities." However, this FAQ makes some fatal errors: it starts by failing to define its subject, then proceeds to get lost in diatribes about evangelism, US constitutionalism, and the Libertarian Party. Virtually everything it says about libertarianism is generalized from UseNet postings, the first few pages of a couple of 100-year-old pamphlets and a few 200-year-old quotations from sig files. It displays no familiarity with the libertarian philosophy of Jan Narveson, Loren Lomasky, Robert Nozick, Douglas Rassmussen, Douglas Den Uyl, Tibor Machan or David Kelly, nor with Nobel Prize-winning libertarian economists such as Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman, George Stigler, James Buchanan, Gary Becker or Ronald Coase. It puts forward no counter-ideas, instead parroting tired Statist memes: "class interest," "property is theft," "the social contract" and "might makes right." And it is exercised in bad faith: it purports to be an attempt to purge libertarian propaganda of fallacies, but degenerates into typical Statist apologetics and polemics, itself employing fallacies with appalling frequency. The Arguments The purpose of this FAQ is not to attack libertarianism, but some of the more fallacious arguments within it. Its subtitle ("Part of the [author's] 'Critiques of Libertarianism' Site") suggests the hypothesis that this FAQ might be a critique of libertarianism. But the insinuation that libertarianism has "within it" fallacious arguments is itself the fallacy of amphiboly: if it means that fallacies are essential to libertarianism, it is begging the question; if not, it is argumentum ad logicam. (The implication that an entire FAQ is required to demonstrate that libertarians are mere mortals is surely appeal to flattery.) It is very hard to find any literature about libertarianism that was NOT written by its advocates. It is very hard to find any critique of libertarianism (or classical liberalism) that has NOT been refuted. Each of the memes regurgitated below (from Rousseau, Proudhon, Anatole France, etc.) is old and long debunked -- although this FAQ neglects more influential schemes, including Karl Marx's Das Kapital and Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf. WHAT IS LIBERTARIANISM? It's hard to clearly define libertarianism. It's hard to rebut arguments for a concept one cannot clearly define. It is much easier to define libertarianism than, for example, conservativism or (modern) liberalism: libertarianism is the ideology that aggression is bad. In libertarian argot, "aggression" is defined as the initiation of coercion, and "coercion" is defined as force, fraud or duress; coercion excercised in self-defense or restitution is defined as retaliation, not initiation. self-defense or restitution is defined as retaliation, not initiation. [Libertarian Party Logo] It's a mixture of social philosophy, economic philosophy, a political party, and more. Libertarianism is an international movement; the Libertarian Party is a political party. Conflating the two is analogous to conflating communism with a particular Communist Party. It would be unjust for me to try to characterize libertarianism too exactly: libertarians should be allowed to represent their own positions. At least two FAQs have been created by libertarians to introduce their positions. Here are libertarian FAQs from Advocates for Self-Government, Joseph Knight and Glen Raphael. Also, here is the LP FAQ, plus FAQs by Bryan Caplan on Anarchism, Chris Walker on Objectivism and Houman Shadab on Capitalism, as well as the the Extropy FAQ. But the two major flavors are anarcho-capitalists (who want to eliminate political governments) and minarchists (who want to minimize government.) Minarchism holds Thomas Jefferson's motto that "Who governs best, governs least," while anarchism follows Henry David Thoreau to the conclusion that "Who governs best, governs not at all." There are many more subtle flavorings, such as Austrian and Chicago economic schools, The Austrian and Chicago (as well as Public Choice, Market Process and Rational Expectations) schools of economics differ on minor points of methodology, but tend to agree on libertarian policy prescriptions, e.g., decriminalizing victimless crimes, supplanting command-and-control regulation with privatization of commons and common-law enforcement of liability and contract. liability and contract. [Albert J. Nock] gold-bug, Advocates of the gold standard. (See hard money.) space cadets, Transhumanists? The SSI? The Artemis Society? Island One? Or Futurists? Transhumanists? The SSI? The Artemis Society? Island One? Or Futurists? [Rose Wilder Lane] Old-Right, paleo-libertarians, Early twentieth-century figures such as Rose Wilder Lane, Franz Oppenheimer, Isabel Paterson, Albert J. Nock and Catherine Drinker Bowen. classical liberals, Proto-libertarians such as Algernon Sidney, Trenchard and Gordon and Voltaire. Many of those cited below as libertarian sources (Jefferson, Lysander Spooner, Frederic Bastiat, etc.) were proponents of classical liberalism, a kind of "beta version" of the program of which libertarianism is the latest "release." hard money, This is not so much a flavor of libertarianism as a principle. Hard money is "honest money." As LP founder David Nolan put it in "The Essence of Liberty," it exists: where the currency is backed by something of true value (usually gold or silver). Fiat money -- money with no backing, whose acceptance is mandated by the State -- is simply legalized counterfeiting and is one of the keys to expanding government counterfeiting and is one of the keys to expanding government power. [Ayn Rand] Some libertarians support the gold standard specifically, but most advocate free banking. the Libertarian Party, The LP is here. influences from Ayn Rand, A twentieth-century Russian-American novelist -- best known for Atlas Shrugged, the second most influential book among Americans (after the Bible) according to a 1991 survey by the US Library of Congress -- she created the philosophy of Objectivism. and others. An interesting survey is in chapter 36 of Marshall's "Demanding the Impossible: A History of Anarchism", "The New Right and Anarcho-capitalism." The referenced work is a left-wing polemic containing factual errors so egregious as to reveal that Marshall has not even read the books he denounces. Its use by this FAQ as an authority suggests a hypothesis regarding the particular flavor of Statism at work here: leftism. Right-wingers generally seek to aggress in what they regard as "social" issues: sex, drugs, expression, etc.; while left-wingers generally seek to aggress in what they regard as "economic" issues: trade, contract, entrepreneurship, etc. Now that we have an inkling as to the partisan orientation of this FAQ, we may test this hypothesis by anticipating the orientation of this FAQ, we may test this hypothesis by anticipating the [Lord Acton] usual economic fallacies below. Libertarianism has many sources: Rand started from Aristotelianism, Lord Acton from Christianity, Robert Nozick from Natural Law, Ludwig von Mises from Kantianism, Thoreau from Transcendentalism, David Friedman from Utilitarianism, Herbert Spencer from Lamarckism, H.L. Mencken from Nietzscheanism, Friedrich Hayek from Phenomenalism, etc. Current approaches come from rational expectations theory, systems theory, bionomics, chaos theory, game theory and so on. But all roads lead to Rome: regardless of other differences, all these approaches converge upon the nonaggression ethic. For example, while some are theist (G.K.J. Chesterton), all support the religious freedom of others; while some are pacifist (Robert LeFevre), all support others' right to self-defense; while some are voluntarist-communard (Josiah Warren), all support the property rights of others, and so forth. This diversity of libertarian viewpoints can make it quite difficult to have a coherent discussion with them, because an argument that is valid for or against one type of libertarianism may not apply to other types. That is true. The only argument that is valid against every flavor of libertarianism is an argument for aggression. Any other argument may be valid against other ideas (libertarian or not), but permits those flavors of libertarianism that do not hold those ideas to escape the critique unscathed. This is a cause of much argument in alt.politics.libertarian: Actually, alt.politics.libertarian is for discussion of LP politics, which could explain why ideological debate there may be frustrating. The proper newsgroup for debating libertarian ideology is talk.politics.libertarian. non-libertarians may feel that they have rebutted some libertarian point, but some other flavor libertarian may feel that his "one true libertarianism" doesn't have that flaw. This point begs the question: What "flaw"? The phrase "one true libertarianism" echoes "one true faith," insinuating some similarity between libertarianism and religious intolerance -- the Crusades, pogroms, the Inquisition -- each an example of aggression. This insinuation combines the fallacies of false analogy and poisoning the well. The false analogy is perverse because this FAQ's rationalization of aggression below actually is analogous to religious intolerance. These sorts of arguments can go on forever because both sides think they are winning. Thus, if you want to try to reduce the crosstalk, you're going to have to specify what flavor of libertarianism or which particular point of libertarianism you are arguing against. No matter what one is arguing against, it helps to be precise. Note that this FAQ is not attacking fallacious arguments as promised, but rather giving general debating tips for arguing against libertarianism. For some better advice along these lines, see above. Libertarians are a small group whose beliefs are unknown to and not accepted by the vast majority. David Boaz of the Cato Institute writes that libertarianism is "the oldest political movement in America"; liberalism often still advocates libertarian social reform, while conservativism now occasionally embraces libertarian economic reform. To the extent that people are familiar with the Scottish Enlightenment or the American War of Independence; the 1996 US state referendums decriminalizing medicinal marijuana and repealing mandatory racial preferences; the 1997 US Supreme Court rulings overturning Internet censorship and the Brady Bill; or the current global wave of privatization, people are familiar with libertarian ideas. A 1994 Gallup/USA Today/CNN poll found that about one in five Americans identifies himself as a libertarian, while Generation X and the Internet community (often harbingers of cultural trends) tend to be far more libertarian than society at large: even right-winger Bob Dornan admits that the LP knocked off seven congressional Republicans in 1996. Furthermore, most people already respect the nonaggression ethic; holding public servants accountable to the norms of civilized behavior is hardly an outlandish idea. They are utopian because there has never yet been a libertarian society (though one or two have come close to some libertarian ideas.) No society conforms perfectly to any ethic; if this makes libertarianism "utopian," it makes all ethics utopian. But the idea that ethics is binary is the fallacy of false dilemma: Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia were two of the least libertarian societies in history; the Netherlands and Scandinavia are the most libertarian on social issues, while Switzerland and the Pacific "tigers" are so on economic issues; on the whole, the most libertarian society is the United States. In general, net migration flows from less-libertarian to more-libertarian societies; the result has been a global trend toward libertarian reform, from the abolition of serfdom to the collapse of socialism. A proposal is utopian if it is a priori impossible, internally contradictory, or self-annihilating. For example, it was demonstrated deductively in 1920 (and empirically over the following seven decades) that socialism -- including the version Marxism regarded as "scientific"-- was utopian, because it monopolized capital within a society, destroying capital markets. As a result, the price system was annihilated and economic calculation became impossible: capital consumption, famine and gradual collapse ensued. (Ludwig von Mises, Socialism) This FAQ demonstrates no analogous flaw in libertarianism. These two facts should not keep us from considering libertarian ideas seriously, however they do caution us about accepting them for practical purposes. This conclusion combines non sequitur, argumentum ad hominem and ad ignorantium with appeal to belief, popularity, numbers and common practice, as well as the naturalist fallacy and the propaganda technique of "bandwagon." (Cf. Charles MacKay, Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions) Note that Jews were "a small group whose beliefs [were] unknown to and not accepted by the vast majority" of Germans in 1933-45. Caution that a particular reform should not be accepted "for practical purposes" would follow only from an argument that it is impractical (e.g., utopian), not from its popularity (Abolitionism, female suffrage and religious freedom were all unpopular once), nor from the fact that it has not yet been enacted (a reactionary "Catch-22" rationalizing the status quo.). This FAQ has now concluded the section entitled "What is Libertarianism?" but has yet to offer a definition of libertarianism, although it has already yielded a staggering array of fallacious arguments. Its failure to define libertarianism has enabled this FAQ to evade the defining principle of libertarianism, the nonaggression ethic; but any critique that does not squarely confront the defining characteristic of its object is doomed to fail. STRATEGIES FOR ARGUMENT Many libertarian arguments are like fundamentalist arguments: they depend upon restricting your attention to a very narrow field so that you will not notice that they fail outside of that field. For example, fundamentalists like to restrict the argument to the bible. Libertarians like to restrict the argument to their notions of economics, justice, history, and rights and their misrepresentations of government and contracts. This false analogy of libertarianism to fundamentalist appeal to authority (of the Bible) reinforces the insinuation above of intolerance. Note also the propaganda technique of stereotyping ("Libertarians like to..."), and poisoning the well, again with no substantive examples, merely innuendo, thus begging the question. Widen the scope, and their questionable assumptions leap into view. Autidur et altera pars! This one begs two questions: whether libertarianism in fact derives from assumptions, and if so, whether any of those assumptions are questionable. Note that no assumptions are even cited. Some flavors of libertarianism do indeed infer the nonaggression principle from normative premises, but others assert it as a deontic axiom. Moreover, any denial of the nonaggression ethic implies either that some should be able to aggress with impunity (elitism) or that each should be able to aggress (the rule of the strongest). Are not these assumptions questionable? Why should I accept that "right" as a given? Libertarianism proposes the right to freedom: as David Boaz put it, "the right to live your life as you choose so long as you don't infringe on the equal rights of others." Every right implies a duty, and in the case of libertarianism that is the duty to bear liability for aggressing against others. Historically, those populations that best enforced such liability minimized mortality and maximized life expectancy, resulting in faster growth than other cultures. Faster-growing populations tend to displace slower-growing ones from a given niche, and people tend to migrate from displaced populations to cultures with less mortality and greater life expectancy. Surrounding cultures either adopted this right or became depopulated. (Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene) Abandoning this right today dooms a culture to marginalization, as life expectancy falls and mortality rises (as seen in the former East bloc). Abandoning it globally would cause genocidal mortality, and would require permanent global regimentation to prevent its spontaneous reemergence and cultural-evolutionary triumph. Barring human extinction, such an endeavor would be in the long run futile. (F.A. Hayek, The Fatal Conceit) In the past, Statists advocated class-based or racial violence as alternatives to cultural evolution; today many explicity adopt a normative preference for human speciecide or genocide. Mere facts and logic are poor defense against such preferences: only a change of heart can help. Otherwise, libertarianism has no reply but self-defense. Note that this FAQ posits no alternative scheme of rights. Is that a fact around the world, not just in the US? That would depend upon the fact. For example, in much of the world "liberal" still refers to what Americans now mean by "libertarian." Are there counter examples for that idea? That would depend upon the idea. History is filled with counter-examples of the nonaggression ethic. Hitler, for instance. Because every normative argument involves a value judgment, and no value judgement is unanimous, the notion that mere disagreement could invalidate a value judgment would invalidate all ethics, including any ethic advocated by this FAQ. Are libertarians serving their own class interest only? No. If they were, they would advocate aggression that (apparently) benefits that alleged interest (e.g., immigration restrictions, tariffs, corporate welfare). But any faction's immediate gain from taking another's "piece of the pie" is dwarfed by the aggregate long-term loss from the resulting reduction in growth (a smaller pie). Aggression merely rearranges (and wastes) existing value. Libertarianism's opposition to all aggression would maximize the creation of new value, thus serving the interests not of a faction alone, but of the whole. The only way to raise average real wages is to increase the marginal productivity of labor. That requires increasing the ratio of capital invested per worker, which in turn requires increasing capital formation. The more clearly and consistently contract, liability and property are defined and enforced, the faster capital is formed. (Richard Posner, The Economic Analysis of Law) Libertarianism therefore serves the interest of workers, while aggression in their name actually harms them. Although the greatest marginal benefit of libertarianism accrues to those most vulnerable to aggression, it benefits everyone (including Statists) to some extent, so each libertarian, regardless of his or her class, does indeed advance the interest of the members of that class, albeit not theirs "only." It is irrelevant whether that libertarian is motivated by perceived self-interest, group interest, or altruism. self-interest, group interest, or altruism. [Walter Williams] This FAQ's distraction about motives evades analysis of the unintended consequences of aggression. For example, victimless crimes produce evasion and black markets; taxation reduces the marginal return to labor; occupational licensing, closed-shop and minimum wage laws cause unemployment; farm price controls and tariffs cause hunger; zoning and rent control cause homelessness; etc. Regardless of their intentions, all these aggressions harm the interests of the most vulnerable. (Cf. Walter Williams, The State Against Blacks) The question insinuates a circumstantial ad hominem: if you cannot counter an argument, impugn the motives of the arguer (a fallacy implying that the only valid arguments in the interest of the poor are those made by the rich). Libertarians make a similar error when they insinuate that all advocates of aggression are motivated by greed, envy or power-lust. This interrogative is also a form of begging the question known as the fallacy of the complex question. One presupposition behind this question is the relativist fallacy of "polylogism." Economics irrefutably demonstrates the ultimate compatability of the interests of all people. (Ludwig von Mises, Theory and History) Just as Marxism and Naziism dismissed this demonstration as a bourgeois and a Jewish construct respectively, this FAQ implicitly dismisses it as a libertarian construct. Other presuppositions here include reification of classes (rather than individuals) as having interests, intra-class conformity and inter-class conflict, etc. Such archaic class-war-mongering strengthens the hypothesis that this FAQ's antipathy to liberty is leftist in origin. Is that economic argument complete, or are there other critical factors or strategies which have been omitted? That would depend upon the argument. Omitting critical [Henry Hazlitt] factors or strategies would constitute a fallacy of exclusion. Note that no economic argument, nor any example of critical factors or strategies omitted, is cited. The implication that myopia and tunnel-vision are particular to libertarian economic arguments is backward: every advocacy of intervention stems from the economic fallacy of neglecting opportunity costs, secondary or indirect effects, or externalities (Henry Hazlitt, Economics in One Lesson) -- a form of what Rand called "context-dropping." Neglecting negative feedbacks in particular is the source of the "law of unintended consequences." When they make a historical argument, can we find current real-world counterexamples? Note that no historical argument nor any counterexamples are cited. The current real world is filled with counterexamples of the nonaggression ethic. Burma is a beaut. If we adopt this libertarian policy, there will be benefits: but what will the disadvantages be? Note that no specific policy is cited, nor any benefits or disadvantages. This begs the question of whether the benefits will exceed the disadvantages, or vice-versa. The advantages of nonaggression in general are greater peace, justice and prosperity; the main disadvantage is that one must bear liability for one's aggression. This means renouncing the most obvious and intuitive path to get what one wants, and frustrating the gratification of the aggression instinct. It also means that those who benefit most from aggression may be worse off in the short term -- although in the long run, even they will be better off. For example, Henry VIII had absolute power to rape and murder his subjects; but while Elizabeth II lacks these things, she also has less to fear from rivals, greater equality before the law, longer life expectancy, less infant mortality, safer food, indoor plumbing, antiseptic, the Internet, etc. Further liberalization will accelerate this improvement in the quality of life. Nevertheless, libertarianism constitutes a net disadvantage to those who value aggression more than peace, justice and prosperity. Are libertarians reinventing what we already have, only without safeguards? No. They are inventing one additional safeguard: the safeguard against aggression. There are some common counterarguments for which libertarians have excellent rebuttals. Arguments that government is the best or only way to do something may fail: there are many examples of many government functions being performed privately. Some of them are quite surprising. Arguments based on getting any services free from government will fail: all government services cost money that comes from somewhere. Arguments that we have a free market are patently untrue: there are many ways the market is modified. All indisputably true. There are a number of scientific, economic, political, and philosophical concepts which you may need to understand to debate some particular point. These include free market, public goods, externalities, tragedy of the commons, prisoner's dilemma, adverse selection, market failure, mixed economy, evolution, catastrophe theory, game theory, etc. Please feel free to suggest other concepts for this list. The Tragedy of the Commons is Garrett Hardin's term for the tendency of people to destroy communal property; it is a type of Prisoner's Dilemma. These concepts are useful for investigating the more academic aspects of libertarianism, but they are extraneous to the central point. The basic idea is very simple: aggression is bad. For those interested in some pragmatic reasons why this is so, a good source is Tyler Cowen, ed., Public Goods and Market Failures: A Critical Examination. See also sources on rational-expectations theory. One way to bring about a large volume of argument is to cross-post to another political group with opposing ideas, such as alt.politics.radical-left. Curiously, this FAQ now finds it advisable to retreat to alt.politics.radical-left ("a small group whose beliefs are unknown to and not accepted by the vast majority") in order "to keep us aware that libertarianism is not universally accepted." (italics mine) The idea is that, to evade conceding a point of contention on a specialized UseNet newsgroup, one should cross-post to a clueless group so as to muddle the discussion -- a fallacy of distraction, not to mention poor netiquette. Evading a concession on a non-libertarian group by cross-posting to alt.talk.libertarian would constitute the same fallacy. Note that one's lone dissent is enough to demonstrate that any ideology is not universally accepted -- although the implication that validity is a function of universal acceptance is appeal to popularity. Incidentally, the recommendation of this particular group (rather than, say, "alt.fan.rush-limbaugh") provides a second hint as to the ideological ax this FAQ is grinding. LIBERTARIAN EVANGELISTIC ARGUMENTS The use of "evangelistic" (with its religious connotations) rather than the more political "propagandistic" strengthens the hypothesis that this FAQ seeks to smear libertarianism with guilt by association with Christian fundamentalism. Evangelists (those trying to persuade others to adopt their beliefs) generally have extensively studied which arguments have the greatest effect on the unprepared.... Small wonder many people are not interested in entering "discussions" with evangelists! They're likely to be out-prepared, swamped (or worse convinced) by specious arguments, and possibly used as a cat's paw in the persuasion of listeners. None of the above refers any more to libertarianism than to this FAQ. It appears to have been lifted without amendment from a critique of evangelical Christianity. ("If the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.") The perverse analogy is again unsubstantiated, and now constitutes argumentum ad nauseam. The arguments treated here are not strawman misrepresentations: they are all evangelistic arguments that have actually been made by libertarians. Many of them have been made frequently. Although they are often used evangelistically, we can't presume that someone making them doesn't understand their basis or cannot support their argument. And on the other hand, often other libertarians cringe when they hear these. While many of the assertions below are indeed fallacious, most have nothing to do with libertarianism. Those who made these assertions may have been libertarians, but below, they may as well have been arguing about quantum mechanics or baseball. Such arguments are as relevant to libertarianism as what follows. The founders of the USA were a contentious lot, who hardly agreed on any one thing, let alone libertarian notions. [John Locke] This is a red herring. The signatories of the founding document of the USA (the Declaration of Independence), following John Locke, agreed that "all men" have "inalienable rights," including "liberty" -- although they failed to confront violations like including "liberty" -- although they failed to confront violations like slavery, just as many people today fail to confront current [John Hancock] violations. That they were "a contentious lot" is consistent with the "diversity of libertarian viewpoints" criticized by this FAQ above. It is well documented that the Constitution and Bill of Rights are compromises amongst them: few agreed wholeheartedly with any particular part. Nonaggression itself evolved as a compromise among factions, each of which would have preferred exclusive power to aggress; a real problem was the founders' failure to live up to the libertarian ideals they did agree upon. Thus, looking to the founders for "original intent" is silly: it will vary amongst them. This point begs the question whether libertarianism implies the doctrine of original intent, or even constitutionalism itself. Even in the US, some flavors of minarchism advocate judicial activism (Stephen Macedo, The New Right v. the Constitution), while anarchism ultimately rejects the legitimacy of the Constitution altogether. (Lysander Spooner, No Treason: The Constitution of No Authority) Not to mention that "original intent" (or original understanding) is just as open to interpretation as the Constitution itself because while there is lots of explicit data, it is from many contradictory sources. For example, Judge Bork presents notably non-libertarian versions of original intent. "The true key for the construction of everything doubtful in a law is the intention of the law-makers," wrote Jefferson. "This is most safely gathered from the words, but may be sought also in extraneous circumstances, provided they do not contradict the express words of the law." (Letter to Albert Gallatin, 1808). Where the actions of the founders contradict the Constitution, Bork's (selective) "judicial restraint" often seeks their "intention" in "extraneous circumstances," whereas libertarian constitutionalism gathers it from "the express words of the law." For example, Spooner argued that the "rights retained by the people" in the Ninth Amendment refer to the "unalienable rights" recognized in the Declaration, among which is "liberty"; he concluded that federal enforcement of slavery was unconstitutional -- before the Thirteenth Amendment. Likewise, many libertarians argued that the "privileges and immunities" clause of the Fourteenth Amendment made Georgia's anti-sodomy statute unconstitutional. Bork ruled otherwise, on the grounds that those who ratified that Amendment themselves enacted anti-sodomy statutes. (Bork's reasoning here implies that it is impossible for the founders to have violated the Constitution!) Whether Bork is right or wrong, libertarianism does not derive from any constitution: the notion that a statute that is constitutional is therefore just is the naturalist fallacy. (For example, whether slavery was constitutional before the Thirteenth Amendment is irrelevant to whether it was just.) The nonaggression principle requires that any third party (including a majority or agent of the State) who interferes in a private interaction between consenting adults (including sodomy) be liable. Nevertheless, by substituting their preference for their best estimate of the ratifiers' consensus, libertarians would establish a precedent under which Statists could, for instance, impose a national anti-sodomy statute. I think the best way to interpret the constitution is the way the founders explicitly specified in the Constitution: look to the courts, especially the Supreme Court. The Constitution leaves the method of its interpretation by the court entirely to the court to decide. Note that "The Constitution leaves the method of its interpretation by the court entirely to the court to decide" is an assertion of "original intent." In fact, the Constitution does not delegate this power to the Supreme Court: "Nothing was said about judicial review of acts of Congress." (Grolier Online) What the Constitution delegates to the Supreme Court is "The judicial Power of the United States," extending to "all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under this Constitution, the Laws of the United States, and Treaties made, or which shall be made, under their Authority;--to all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls;--to all Cases of admiralty and maritime Jurisdiction;--to Controversies to which the United States shall be a Party;--to Controversies between two or more States;--between a State and Citizens of another State." (Article III, Sec. 1-2) [Liberty Bell/Declaration] But even accepting judicial review (as many libertarians do) does not imply judicial activism. Indeed, this notion that the Court has "Papal infallibility" over the Constitution implies that the Justices may rule their own impeachment by the Senate unconstitutional, despite Article I, Section 3. Chief Justice John Marshall, who first asserted the power of judicial review, himself denied this, writing in Marbury v. Madison that either the Constitution is "a superior, paramount law" or "written constitutions are absurd attempts on the part of the people to limit a power in its own nature illimitable." Jefferson argued that judicial review itself was an unconstitutional usurpation: "The question whether the judges are invested with exclusive authority to decide on the constitutionality of a law has been heretofore a subject of consideration with me in the exercise of official duties," he wrote. "Certainly there is not a word in the Constitution which has given that power to them more than to the Executive or Legislative branches." (Letter to W. H. Torrance, 1815) Both Andrew Jackson and Abraham Lincoln agreed. This begs the question of how to judge the interpretive philosophies of the possible justices, but libertarians seldom get that far. Again begging the question, as mentioned above. Judicial activism has the same problem with "interpretive philosophy" as strict construction -- in addition to unleashing the Justices' moral and political preferences. Or would the author oppose libertarian reform only if enacted by constitutional means -- but accept it if imposed by an unelected tribunal? "The interpretation of the laws is the proper and peculiar province of the courts.... It therefore belongs to them to ascertain its meaning, as well as the meaning of any particular act proceeding from the legislative body." Federalist No. 78. This argument cites The Federalist No. 78 (by Alexander Hamilton), rather than the Article and Section of the Constitution in which the power of judicial review is allegedly delegated to the Supreme Court. That is because, contrary to the assertion that this delegation is "explicitly specified in the Constitution," the Constitution does not in fact delegate this power to the Court. Even The Federalist argues that the judges have only the responsibility to "ascertain" the meaning of the Constitution, not the right to arbitrarily change that meaning. There is no reason short of worship of the founders to presume that the Supreme Court is less capable than the founders. Another red herring. The issue is not whether the Court is as capable as the founders, but whether it may usurp the powers of the people. Article V specifies the means by which the Constitution may be amended, and those means do not include judicial fiat -- although if the author is correct, the Court may simply "interpret" the document as granting it such power. Indeed, many libertarians from outside the US find the authority of the founders unconvincing. One writes: "As a Canadian, I don't give a _damn_ what the `founders' intended. I hate it when a net.opponent trots out some bit of tired US history as a most holy of holies, not to be questioned." The US Constitution is irrelevant to Canadians; it does not follow that the intent of those who drafted and ratified the Constitution is irrelevant to its construction. The libertarian quoted above (rightly) objects to appeal to authority by a "net.opponent" (presumably of libertarianism). All libertarians, American and otherwise, disagree profoundly with most of the founders, for example, on slavery and women's rights. But whether James Madison is an authority on ethics, his notes are the best available authority on what was said in the Constitutional Convention. Libertarianism, unlike the US Constitution, is not the product of anyone's intentions -- despite this FAQ's conflation of the two. Jefferson himself said this plainly: "Some men look at constitutions with sanctimonious reverence, and deem them like the ark of the Covenant, too sacred to be touched. They ascribe to the men of the preceding age a wisdom more than human, and suppose what they did to be beyond amendment... laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind... as that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, institutions must advance also, to keep pace with the times.... We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain forever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors." This is a another red herring, and inconsistency: Jefferson here contradicts the FAQ's "Catch-22" above. Even Statists may find the authority of a man who was in Paris during the Constitutional Convention (or the citation above of Hamilton) unconvincing. But was Jefferson really so sure that future generations would be morally superior to his own? "The spirit of the times may alter, will alter," he wrote. "Our rulers will become corrupt, our people careless. It cannot be too often repeated that the time for fixing every essential right, on a legal basis, is while our rulers are honest, ourselves united. From the conclusion of this war we shall be going down hill. It will not be necessary to resort every moment to the people for support. They will be forgotten, therefore, and their rights disregarded." (Notes on Virginia, Q.XVII, 1782) [Thomas Jefferson] Moreover, this FAQ misconstrues its own Jefferson quote. He was arguing (before the US Constitution existed) not that courts should alter constitutions at whim, but that the people should amend them by constitutional means -- under the (conveniently excised) qualification that "I am certainly not an advocate for frequent and untried changes in laws and constitutions." (Letter to Samuel Kersheval, 1816). Lest honest men doubt Jefferson's actual philosophy of construction, he addressed the subject explicitly (after the US Constitution existed): "On every question of construction, carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text or invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed."(Letter to William Johnson, 1823) If the majority of the nation (rather than merely a majority of the Court) supports a particular expansion of the powers of the federal government, the people may amend the Constitution to add such a power. The subterfuge of expanding federal power via judicial ukase is a tacit admission of a lack of popular support. As Jefferson put it, "I [think] it important... to set an example against broad construction by appealing for new power to the people." (Letter to Wilson Nicholas, 1803) Whether Jefferson was right or wrong, this FAQ misrepresents his views. (Cf. David N. Mayer, The Constitutional Thought of Thomas Jefferson) None of this has anything to do with libertarianism, which is a normative preference for nonaggression, not bound by any national constitution, nor by constitutionalism itself. The Declaration Of Independence is a rhetorical document, without legal standing in the USA.... If it is purported to reflect the intent of the founders, then we can only conclude that they changed their minds when writing the Articles of Confederation and then the Constitution. Another red herring. Note that The Federalist, which was cited above in support of the doctrine of judicial review, is clearly a "rhetorical document," although a private, partisan (and "evangelical") one, rather than a public, official document like the Declaration of Independence. The Declaration is among the earliest and strongest statements of libertarian principle, recording that the US was founded largely upon libertarian aspirations. The FAQ's assertion that the Declaration is legally void is unsubstantiated. The Declaration established the US; the Articles of Confederation and Constitution established various governments for that Confederation and Constitution established various governments for that Union. The Ninth Amendment's "rights retained [Declaration of Independence] by the people" and the Fourteenth Amendment's "privileges and immunities" were initially understood to refer to the "unalienable rights" recognized in the Declaration. (Charles S. Black, Human Rights, Named and Unnamed) The insinuation that the Articles and the Constitution contradict the Declaration begs the question. Certainly Jefferson, principal author of the Declaration, and James Madison, principal author of the Constitution, thought their work complementary, rather than contradictory. It remains to be demonstrated what any of this has to do with libertarianism. If any libertarian would like to defend it as philosophy, he must rely on sound argument, not reverence for the founders. Anyone, libertarian or Statist, arguing any philosophy, whether that underlying the Declaration or opposing it, should use sound argument, not appeal to authority, whether of the founders or J.K. Galbraith. Again, this has nothing to do with libertarianism, which implies reverence only for liberty. Libertarians frequently try to present themselves as the group to join to defend your freedom and rights. Libertarianism is not "a group to join"; it is an ideology. Libertarianism is indifferent to which organizations people join, as long as they do not advocate or commit aggression. Libertarianism is an end toward which many organizations serve as means. I prefer the ACLU. [Ward Connerly] The ACLU is an American civil libertarian group, particularly on First Amendment issues (although its recent advocacy of mandatory racial preferences betrays the Fourteenth Amendment). Other civil libertarian groups include the Institute for Justice, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (which helped overturn Internet censorship in 1997), the Center for Individual Rights, the Drug Policy Foundation (which helped decriminalize medical marijuana in California and Arizona in 1996), Forfeiture Endangers American Rights, the Fully Informed Jury Association, the Mid-Atlantic Legal Foundation (which won a 1990 case abolishing the forced funding of political groups by students at public institutions), the Free Enterprise Legal Defense Fund, Defenders of Property Rights (which won a landmark 1994 "takings" case), the Mountain States Legal Foundation (which won a landmark 1995 case overturning compulsory racial preferences), the California Civil Rights Initiative (which overturned mandatory racial preferences in that state in 1996) the Second Amendment Foundation, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms and Jews for Preservation of Firearms Ownership (all of which helped overturn the Brady Bill in 1997). It would be foolish to oppose libertarians on such a mom-and-apple-pie issue as freedom and rights: better to point out that there are EFFECTIVE alternatives with a historical track record, something libertarianism lacks. It is instructive that this FAQ argues not that opposing freedom and rights is wrong, but merely "foolish," i.e., a tactical error. It is certainly true that an ideology does not have a track record in the sense that an organization does. But joining an organization like the ACLU does not preclude holding a particular ideology, such as libertarianism. The track record of an ideology lies in the achievements of those individuals, organizations and societies motivated by its ideals. Nor might we need or want to accept the versions of "freedom" and "rights" that libertarians propose. The versions of freedom and rights that libertarians propose are noted above. Note that once again this FAQ elucidates neither a substantive critique of these, nor any alternative. To paraphrase Anatole France: "How noble libertarianism, in its majestic equality, that both rich and poor are equally prohibited from peeing in the privately owned streets (without paying), sleeping under the privately owned bridges (without paying), and coercing bread from its rightful owners!" This is appeal to pity and special pleading. Libertarianism does not "prohibit" trespassing or vandalism; it is up to each property owner to permit them or not. If Mike Huben wants others befouling his doorstep and liberating his lunch-money, he may permit them to do so. In contrast, such things are uniformly prohibited regarding "public" property, and in places where private property is least respected, violators are most severely where private property is least respected, violators are most severely punished. [Thomas Sowell] Aggression is counterproductive to the interests of the poor. As mentioned above, economic intervention generally produces unintended consequences opposite those sought by its advocates. That is why many economists predicted that the ongoing decline in the US poverty rate would come to a sudden halt (as it did) following enactment of the Great Society in the 1960s. (Cf. Thomas Sowell, Race and Culture). In the quote paraphrased above, M. France was ridiculing the rule of law, under which "the law is not a respecter of persons." The only alternative is the rule of men, for which this FAQ is constitutes an apologia. When such rule prevails, it is never the poor who benefit: wherever legislation permits some to aggress with impunity, we invariably find the most powerful coercing bread from those who produce or earn it and can least afford to lose it. For the reason why, see Buchanan and Tullock, The Calculus of Consent (for which work James Buchanan won the 1986 Nobel Prize for Economics). Finally, this paraphrase provides yet a third clue to the particular flavor of anti-libertarianism motivating this FAQ. Taxation is theft. Specifically, it is legislated extortion. Try demanding your neighbors' money at gunpoint yourself, and see how the government reacts. (Note that some flavors of minarchism regard a minimal level of taxation as necessary to deter greater aggression.) The slogan in its entirety is: "War is murder. Conscription is slavery. Taxation is theft." This FAQ does not dispute the first two points. (Two out of three ain't bad!) Its objection to the third point alone suggests a fourth clue to its ideology. Two simple rebuttals to this take widely different approaches. The first is that property is theft. Caveat lector:Count your spoons when this character leaves your table (This is not ad hominem: if property is theft, everything is up for grabs). Without property rights, there can be no restitution. For example, if I injure Mike Huben, I may be required to compensate him, but having done so, I may simply take that compensation back, since he can have no right to it. Moreover, if one may take the product of another's labor, one may take his labor itself and enslave him. And if one may take his means of survival, one may take his life itself (which cannot be his without being theft). Hence, where property rights are least respected, human rights are most violated. (Samuel C. Wheeler III, "Natural Property Rights as Body Rights," Nous 14, 1980) This FAQ thus rationalizes the rule of the strongest. That this canard is unattributed is not surprising: those who feel no compunction about appropriating the property of others need not scruple about stealing their words. The phrase is plagiarized from the French anarchist Proudhon, and is here badly misinterpreted. As American anarchist Benjamin Tucker wrote in 1887: It will probably surprise many who know nothing of Proudhon save his declaration that 'property is robbery' to learn that he was perhaps the most vigorous hater of Communism that ever lived on this planet. But the apparent inconsistency vanishes when you read his book and find that by property he means simply legally privileged wealth or the power of usury, and not at all the possession by the laborer of his products. This misrepresentation piles on a fifth piece of evidence regarding the ideology of this FAQ. The assertion itself is utterly unsubstantiated. The notion behind property is that A declares something to be property, and threatens anybody who still wants to use it. The implication that resource conflict is a consequence of propertarianism is the wrong direction fallacy: in fact propertarianism is a consequence of resource conflict. Claims and threats over resources preceded the concept of property: for example, many nonhuman species are territorial, and conflict over scarce resources is a primary cause of intra-species strife and mortality. (Richard B. McKenzie and Gordon Tullock, The New World of Economics) Property is a resource-conflict resolution strategy. Exclusion of competing uses is only one aspect of property rights: other aspects include the right to use the resource, the right to the value of the resource, and the right to dispose of the resource, all as delimited by common law. Where does A get the right to forcibly stop others from using it? [Julian Simon] Amphiboly. The (historical) origin of rights is an issue of history and cultural anthropology rather than ideology, and thus lies outside the scope of libertarianism. Those populations that adopted a propertarian strategy for internecine resource-conflict resolution acquired an astronomical cultural-evolutionary advantage: by enhancing incentives to produce, they made a quantum leap: from biological competition (for a niche of given carrying capacity fixed by the biosphere) to technological competition -- in the creation of a technosphere of expanding carrying capacity. (Julian Simon, The Ultimate Resource) As people migrated to cultures with less mortality and greater life expectancy, surrounding cultures gradually adopted propertarianism or became extinct. (F.A. Hayek, The Fatal Conceit) Of course explanation is not justification. No one who has observed the interaction of young children can deny the instinctual yearning for a return to the hierarchy and aggression of the tribal order. But however long cultural evolution may be suppressed through violence, populations that abolish several property will inevitably readopt it, or be displaced by any one (however small initially) that does. Moreover, the extended order now sustains a technospheric carrying capacity approaching six billion people. While backlashes on the scale of the Plymouth Plantation cause a couple of years of famine and kill a few score souls, those on the scale of the former East bloc cause decades of famine and kill millions; such a backlash on a global scale would produce famine some orders of magnitude worse than any genocide in history. One need not endorse the libertarian aversion to aggression to endorse the propertarian aversion to starvation, misery and mass death -- although, as shown above, some people advocate these calamities. Arguments about "mixing of labor" with the resource as a basis for ownership boil down to "first-come-first-served". This criticism is even accepted by some libertarians, and is favorably viewed by is even accepted by some libertarians, and is favorably viewed by David Friedman. [Friedrich August Hayek] Appeal to authority. As Friedman writes, "It is easy enough to show reasons why the conversion of common property into private property is a good thing -- why it makes us better off." After experimenting with the alternative -- rule of the strongest -- even children express a pronounced preference for "first-come-first-served," "finders keepers," "no cutting in line," etc. As a resource-conflict resolution strategy, first-come-first-served (the "homesteading" principle in common law) maximizes incentives to discover and produce value, as well as capital formation, the marginal productivity of labor and life expectancy, while minimizing mortality rates. As a result, it is the ineluctable product of the process of cultural evolution, whether we like it or not. Those cultures that adopt evolutionarily less-successful strategies merely doom themselves to marginalization. (F.A. Hayek, The Fatal Conceit) This justifies property taxes or extraction taxes on land or extractable resources if you presume that the government is a holder in trust for natural resources. Why would anyone presume this? How could first-come-first-served justify taxation, when several property preceded the State? Historically, taxation originated in the extortion of tribute by marauders from agrarians. (Alexander Rustow, Freedom and Domination: A Historical Critique of Culture) Note that the premise that "Property is theft" now concludes that the State is essentially owner and landlord of all property under its sovereignty. The FAQ is now bumping up against the fact that civilization means property; even under communism, some central planning committee ultimately decides how resources are used, making it as much the de facto owner as any corporation. But aside from the absolute concentration of power involved, socialist monopolization leads to the consequences outlined above. The second is that taxation is part of a social contract. Here, after lecturing readers that the founders of the US are dead and best forgotten, this FAQ without a hint of irony resurrects the earlier contractarian theory of Thomas Hobbes and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, which led in short order to the Jacobin police State and Napoleon's military dictatorship. This treatment of the "social contract" as an historical reality is another example of reification, begging the question of its existence. Here also is another inconsistency: if property is theft, the "social contract" concerns stolen goods, and is therefore null and void. Social contract theory held that aggression by the State is justified because (1) the State was established consensually, to provide public goods (non-exclusive goods involving non-rivalrous competition), and (2) the provision of public goods requires aggression. But a provider of public goods is by definition a public good itself. Therefore either the State was established by aggression, or public goods can be provided voluntarily. Thus, either (a) the social contract is fictional, (b) the State is superfluous, or (c) both a and b. (Anthony de Jasay, Social Contract, Free Ride) Additionally, hypothesis (2) above is debunked historically (Ronald Coase, "The Lighthouse in Economics") and experimentally (Douglas Davis and Charles Holt, Experimental Economics) If you don't pay your taxes, men with guns will show up at your house, initiate force and put you in jail. Many libertarians make a big deal of "men with guns" enforcing laws, yet try to overlook the fact that "men with guns" are the basis of enforcement of any complete social system. Even if libertarians reduced all law to "don't commit fraud or initiate force", they would still enforce with guns. This is what Rand called a "package deal": using "enforcement" to conflate aggression and defense. Libertarianism does not seek to minimize enforcement or guns, but aggression. If one is suspected of violating the law, men with guns often respond with force, including deadly force. If the law in question concerns, say, rape or murder, then the men with guns are retaliating against aggression; but if it concerns, say, being a Jew, the men with guns are initiating coercion, and are therefore themselves aggressors. There is a difference between murdering someone and defending oneself from attempted murder. Libertarianism seeks to minimize men with guns (including IRS agents) aggressing against (e.g., extorting) innocent people; it does not oppose men with guns defending innocent people from aggressors. Even children know the difference (The most intuitive expression of justice is "He started it!"); conflating the two serves only to rationalize aggression. Libertaria is a combination of values that just doesn't exist: the government equivalent of a really posh residence for very little money. You can find nations which have much lower taxes, etc.: just don't expect them to be first class. On the contrary, It is the author who demands the impossible: Hong Kong prosperity under North Korean rule (Totalitaria?) As mentioned above, people "vote with their feet" against what this FAQ regards as "first class." The fact that the most libertarian existing society happens also to be the most preferred suggests that either (a) the US is the best of all possible societies, or (b) the social optimum may be even more libertarian than the US. To find out which is true, some society must "leapfrog" the US in degree of libertarianism, and note the resulting migration. While permitting Statists to establish consensual arrangements of their own choosing, this process (continued until marginal migration to the most libertarian society levels off) will discover the optimum level of government power, not in theory, but according to the real-life preferences of real people: Libertaria. And the reason these combinations don't exist is probably simple: the free market of government services essentially guarantees that there is no such thing as the free lunch libertarians want. It's not competitive. False analogy. The "market of government services" is extremely unfree, because the "suppliers" bear no liability for their aggression against "customers" -- to enforce territorial monopolies, to artificially raise the cost of "switching brands" (visa and passport restrictions, currency controls, migration barriers, etc.), and to prevent people from opting out of the "market" for government services altogether -- an option we take for granted in freer markets, such as those for computers, software or Internet Service Providers. The FAQ's argument is analogous to a thug's rationale that because all Mafia "families" run "protection" rackets, their victims must want to be extorted. Despite these impediments, it seems that libertarianism is highly competitive -- so much so that consumer preference (capital flight, "brain drain" and the general hemorrhage of labor from less- to more-libertarian societies) is forcing governments toward increasing libertarianism. If any government were liable for its aggression, the market for its "services" would be freer, that is, more competitive (because it would be forced to obtain revenue consensually, like everone else). By evading liability, it is the State that seeks a "free lunch" -- because the market rate of profit is indeed "uncompetitive" with the monopoly profits extorted by politicians and gangsters. The Mafia doesn't own anything to contract about. . . . the US government owns rights to govern its territory. Dicto simpliciter. A "right to govern" would absorb rights to exclusive use, value and disposition, implying State ownership of all property under its sovereignty. In no way do a government's "rights to govern" differ from the "rights" of a Mafia Don to control territory. In each case, the "rights" are actually powers, the just ones deriving from the "consent of the governed." Deals between Dons are even called "treaties"; they obtain territory through such treaties, as well as aggression (see Indian wars, Mexican-American War, Spanish-American War, etc.) There's no such thing as rights to govern territory! You'd have to ignore an awful lot of history to claim this sort of PROPERTY didn't exist. Non sequitur, appeal to tradition, common practice and the naturalist fallacy. The fact that the Cosa Nostra has a history of controlling territory from Sicily to Chicago does not establish property rights, just as its history of murder does not establish a right to murder. Governments have only powers, not rights; only individuals have rights. Note that this FAQ, which above asserted that "property is theft," now argues explicitly that the State's "rights to govern" are "PROPERTY." Therefore the State's "rights" are founded on theft, just like those of the Mafia: one cannot reject property rights for individuals while retaining such rights for the State, a collection of individuals. The US government can demonstrate ownership of such rights through treaty, purchase, bequeathment by the original colonies and some other states, and conquest. The argument conflates political sovereignty and several property. For example, the Dutch West India Company bought land from the Manhattan tribe through consensual contract, the Duke of York extorted New Amsterdam from Peter Stuyvesant, and the colonists declared themselves independent. So who really owns New York City? The UK? The Netherlands? The Manhattan Indians? The answer is: None of the above. New York belongs to private owners, among whom property has passed via consensual transaction in (more or less) uninterrupted continuity throughout changing sovereignty. The US expanded its sovereignty by treaty with other States (such as France), not with property owners -- as well as through aggression. It repeatedly violated treaties with native tribes, expanding sovereignty through breach of contract and fraud. But the US government owns only federal lands and territories, held in trust until they are disposed of to private owners or states. This was the point of the Northwest Ordinance, the Homestead Act, etc. Once the land was disposed through homesteading, sale, or statehood, the US government lost all ownership claim. (If the government already owns such rights, why does the Fifth Amendment require it to pay compensation for "takings"?) The notion that the US government owns nonfederal lands is nowhere supported in history or law. This de facto nationalization through total State control over the disposition of property von Mises called "socialism behind a sham facade of private ownership," the central precept of fascism. absolute ownership of property is fundamental to most flavors of libertarianism. As American revolutionary Sam Adams put it, "What a man has honestly acquired is absolutely his own." But what is fundamental to libertarianism is nonaggression; the institutions of common law, including liability, contract and several property, are -- like language and the price system -- spontaneously-emerging products of the process of cultural evolution. Such propertarianism fuels daydreams of being able to force the rest of the world to swirl around the immovable rock of your property. Rights delimit the boundaries within which an individual has freedom; property is essential to limited government. The concept of the republic (res publica, the "public thing") implies private things outside the reach of the State. The dismissal by the communist and fascist States of the prior claims of several property eroded the sphere of individual liberty, destroying the primary bulwark against the concentration of power, and was the necessary precondition for the emergence of totalitarianism. As Mussolini put it, "Nothing outside the State, nothing against the State." As Hayek replied, "Where there is no property, there is no justice." For example, there were trespass lawsuits filed against airlines for flying over property. Irrelevancy. Common law is an evolutionary process; new technologies raise new issues. Before air travel, the right to airspace 20,000 feet up was a non-issue, just as rights to asteroids is now a non-issue. It was then assumed that a landowner owned the column of space corresponding to his land all the way to the center of the earth and all the way to the heavens ("ad caelum"). When the issue arose, the courts settled it via the homesteading principle: the airlines were the first true homesteaders of airspace, and thus had a right to travel there and to exclude competing uses (unless those uses had been established prior to air travel). What do you hold the deed to? Property as recognized by a government. That is correct: "recognized" by a government, not "granted" by it. Property and deeds, like contracts, liability and other elements of common law, preceded the State. As such, you can address infringement of your rights through the legal system. This FAQ apparently endorses the libertarian principle that the legal system should enforce rights. It often fails to do so when it is an enforced monopoly of the party infringing rights -- even when that party (the State) permits its victims to seek redress. The situation might be more fair if responsible agents of the State faced liability at private arbitration. However your property as recognized by the legal system is limited. Not "limited," but delimited. Borders are necessary to define any right, even personal liberty. For example, my right to swing my fist is delimited by your nose. The notion that property is properly "limited" by government is backwards: it is property that makes limited government possible. This isn't too surprising, since limitations created by private transactions are also common. For example, property is often sold without water rights or timber rights. Property is commonly sold with easements: for example a neighbor may have the right to cross to reach the road. And property may be sold with limitations to its usage: for example, the Adirondack State Park was bequeathed to the people of New York State with the stipulation that it remain forever wild. Dicto simpliciter. Easements are established at common law, not by regulation. They are themselves property rights ("adverse possession") homesteaded by some individuals relative to others, not imposed by the State. Covenants are always consensual, never imposed by a third party, and never imposed ex post facto. Easements, covenants, rights of way, time-delimited and use-delimited property rights, etc., are all perfectly consistent with libertarianism. Consensual interaction permits the widest possible variety of property arrangements. Most government limitations on property are analogous, and you bought property that was already under those limitations. Just as it would be wrong to deny the validity of an easement sold by the previous owner, it is wrong to deny the validity of the current system of limited ownership of property. For example, a clear statement of such an "easement" is in the Fourth Amendment, which essentially says that the government can enter your property with a valid search warrant and not be trespassing. False analogy and dicto simpliciter. The Fourth Amendment is not analogous to "an easement sold by the previous owner," because several property in America predated the Bill of Rights. If taxation, zoning, eminent domain, etc. were analogous to easements, the burden of proof would be on the State to demonstrate homesteading, adverse possession or prescription in each case, just like any other litigant. A statute or regulation evades this requirement. Note that "the Fourth Amendment.... says that the government can enter your property with a valid search warrant and not be trespassing" is an assertion of "original intent." Actually, the Fourth Amendment states: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." This is a limitation not upon property rights, but upon the government's power to violate property rights. Note that even here, the right is acknowledged, as is the government's violation (not "easement") of that right. As mentioned above, the notion that because a violation is constitutional it is just is the naturalist fallacy. There are many existing limitations such as government rights to tax Again, the State has no "rights," only powers. and to zone property, The US Supreme Court routinely ruled that zoning laws violated the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments until the 1920s. (Note that this FAQ's doctrine of "judicial infallibility" implies the contradiction that the Court was correct in both its original construction and its subsequent reversal.) The first successful zoning laws were explicitly racist in intent; most zoning is still racist, at least in effect. (Zoning prohibiting rental units or mandating a minimum lot or house size restricts moderate-income housing, which disproportionately harms minorities.) Anti-industrial zoning is a less-effective substitute for liability, necessitated by the State's refusal to hold industrial polluters liable for harmful emissions and effluents. Libertarianism advocates consistent enforcement of liability. limitations to ownership of navigable waters, Nationalization of navigable waterways in the US has provided a textbook example of Statist aggrandizement. The Federal Water Pollution Control Act of 1972 required a federal permit to discharge fill into "navigable waterways"; in 1975 the Army Corps of Engineers redefined "navigable" waterways to mean all waterways, and in 1977 to include "wetlands"; in 1987 the definition of "wetlands" was expanded to include any land having visible water on it for as little as two weeks per year. Private ownership, as in the UK, is far more effective at protecting water resources. (Terry L. Anderson and Peter J. Hill, editors, Water Marketing: The Next Generation) how far property extends to the water, etc. It is necessary to delimit the extent of property into water -- although a delimitation evolved at common law is generally more efficient than one imposed by legislative or regulatory decree. And sometimes new limitations are specified, such as non-ownership of airspace above property. Defining the boundaries of property does not "limit" it -- indeed, without boundaries, there is no property. Rights-of-way to airspace are property rights, of the airlines that homesteaded them. New limitations on use of property are a taking, and should be compensated. Inconsistency. By denying this proposition, the FAQ contradicts its own doctrine above of judicial supremacy: The Fifth Amendment guarantees that private property shall not be "taken for public use, without just compensation." This constitutional guarantee is more than just a limitation against the physical seizure or invasion of property by the government in the name of the public good. The Fifth Amendment also provides just compensation against governmental regulations which effectively accomplish the same destructive end. (Loveladies Harbor, Inc. v. United States, 15 Cl. Ct. 381, 385 [1988]) As Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. put it, "a strong public desire to improve the public condition is not enough to warrant achieving the desire by a shorter cut than the constitutional way of paying for the change." (Pennsylvania Coal Co. v. Mahon, 260 US 393, 415 [1922]) According to the Supreme Court, the Takings Clause is "designed to bar government from forcing some people alone to bear public burdens which, in government from forcing some people alone to bear public burdens which, in [Richard Epstein] all fairness and justice, should be borne by the public as a whole." (Armstrong v. United States, 364 US 40, 49 [1960]) The cost of environmental regulation in the US now exceeds $150 billion per year. Compensation for takings spreads this cost among all beneficiaries, rather than concentrating it upon a minority who happen to own land in the wrong place at the wrong time. (Richard Epstein, Takings: Private Property and the Right of Eminent Domain) Libertarianism opposes takings, whether compensated or not. (The concept of "just" compensation is derived from the obsolete doctrine of "the just price" and the classical hypothesis of value intrinsicism; the radical value-subjectivism of neoclassical economics concludes that only consensual transaction can establish rational prices.) But uncompensated takings are even more harmful than the compensated variety. Compensation has the practical effect of dispelling the illusion that regulations are "free": it ensures that taxpayers understand that regulations carry costs, so that the public can weigh those costs against the benefits. In contrast, the threat of uncompensated takings has the unintended consequence of causing its potential victims, for example, to destroy protected species and habitat on their land before the government can discover them ("Shoot, shovel, and shut up"). where was ownership of airspace above property ever explicitly granted in our system of property? When the issue arose, it was settled at common law. Where were polluters ever explicitly granted the right to dump wastes into air or water that they do not have a title to? Never explicitly, at least in the US. But implicitly, it happened in the nineteenth century, when the State began refusing to enforce liability for harms caused by coal soot -- a disastrous Hamiltonian and Progressive-era transgression to stimulate industry. (Robert Crandall, "Ackerman and Hassler's Clean Coal/Dirty Air," Bell Journal of Economics 12, Autumn 1981) This amounted to a license to pollute not just air and water, but the bodies of others: a license to kill. The extreme case is socialism, under which State industries bear no liability at all. See for example Chernobyl, the killing of Lake Baikal, the burning of soft coal throughout Eastern Europe and China, etc. Libertarianism would hold polluters liable for harmful emissions and effluents. (Roy E. Cordato, "Market-Based Environmentalism and the Free Market: They're Not the Same," The Independent Review, Winter 1997) Other limitations (such as rezoning to eliminate undesirable business or protecting wetlands from development) might be viewed as control of negative externalities. Note that an "undesirable" business is not defined. If it is undesirable to customers, it will go bankrupt: problem solved. The phrase can refer only to businesses that others find desirable, but the author finds undesirable. Under libertarianism, US environmental groups could use the $3 billion per year they are now forced to waste on lobbying more efficiently, to buy wetlands and enforce their property rights. Negative externalities are caused by poorly defined or enforced property rights, and are internalized via privatization of the commons and liability. (Steven N.S. Cheung, The Myth of Social Cost) Most libertarians would recognize the right of a mall owner to write his leases so that he could terminate them if the renters cause externalities: why shouldn't communities have this right to self-governance as well? False analogy and dicto simpliciter. The "community" is not a landlord (except on State property), and a deed is not a lease. Malls, co-ops, condominiums, etc. are examples of private individuals consensually solving problems previously assumed to require government intervention. Where property rights are clearly defined and enforced (as in a privately-owned mall), negative externalities are internalized via the common-law remedies of negligence, trespass and nuisance. Go to Part II [Image] A Non-Statist FAQ [Image] Part II Contents * If taxes are eliminated, you'll need to purchase services that were formerly provided by government * All property is based on might * Retaliation can be the initiation of force * Libertarians use the big lie technique * The real source of rights is might * Individuals don't have rights to protect their lives * Libertarians want to kill mommy and daddy Back to Part I Think how much wealthier we'd be if we didn't pay taxes. This is a classic example of libertarians not looking at the complete equation for at least two reasons. (1) If taxes are eliminated, you'll need to purchase services that were formerly provided by government. This is not the fallacy of exclusion, because including the excluded factors does not reverse the conclusion that we would be wealthier. Friedman's law suggests that we would pay on average half as much for private services as we do for the State's monopoly "services" (and competition would force a dramatic improvement in the quality of services). Moreover, we would completely stop paying for rent-seeking, wasteful and countervailing programs. So we would be wealthier. The FAQ makes "the best the enemy of the programs. So we would be wealthier. The FAQ makes "the best the enemy of the good": by implying that we should not reduce the cost of [Ludwig von Mises] services unless we can make them free, it rejects improvement merely because it is not utopian. (2) If taxes are eliminated, the economics of wages have changed, and wages will change as well. Yes. Employers now pay a substantial cost per employee to the State, which is deducted from the marginal return to labor. Eliminating this additional cost per employee will increase wages, and more people will be hired. Here's a really ludicrous (but real) example of (1): "With taxation gone, not only will we have twice as much money to spend, but it will go twice as far, since those who produce goods and services won't have to pay taxes, either. In one stroke we'll be effectively four times as rich. Let's figure that deregulation will cut prices, once again, by half. Now our actual purchasing power, already quadrupled by deTAXification, is doubled again. We now have eight times our former wealth!" (L. Neil Smith) Smith does not complete the argument (at least in the quoted excerpt), but merely calling an argument "ludicrous" is appeal to ridicule. If detaxification and deregulation did indeed increase our wealth eightfold, we would certainly spend part of the "peace dividend" on services no longer provided by government, as indicated above -- cheaper, better services. But even assuming that Mike Huben replaced every government "service" (including rent-seeking, wasteful and countervailing programs for which we get no return at all) with a private analogue, Friedman's law suggests that he would still be four times as wealthy as now -- even ignoring the value of improved services and supply-side effects. And here's an example of (2): "I'm self-employed. My pay would absolutely, positively go up 15+% tomorrow if I wasn't paying FICA/Medicare." But only briefly. Standard microeconomic theory applies just as well to someone selling labor as to someone selling widgits. If FICA disappeared, your competitors in the market to sell labor would be attracted to the higher wages and would sell more labor. This increase in supply of labor would drive down your wage from the 15% increase. You'd earn more (per hour). But less than 15% more. (In the US, "FICA/Medicare" refers to some of the taxes deducted from wages.) It is true that unless the supply of labor is perfectly inelastic (vertical), your wage would not go up by fifteen per cent. As Huben admits, "You'd earn more (per hour)": somewhere between zero and fifteen per cent more. That is indeed because "your competitors... would sell more labor" -- meaning that unemployment would go down as well. That the FAQ regards higher wages and lower unemployment as a problem puts its insinuations about "class interest" in a new light. The argument neglects other benefits, such as increasing output and lower prices. We lived in a fairly libertarian society in the US 150 years ago. All the biggies were there except income tax. The equivalent of income tax was property tax (on all possessions) or head tax by many states. There was involuntary conscription, eminent domain, etc. As a matter of fact, things got much better when powers of states were interpreted to be restricted by the US constitution (much later.) Powers such as state religious authority. This obsession with the US is starting to seem chauvinistic. It is true that 150 years ago the US was far from perfect. Consider slavery, unequal rights for women, eminent domain, theocratic state laws, etc. As Jefferson put it, "I think we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious." (Letter to William Ludlow, 1824) Yet today's tax and regulatory burden is vastly worse. For example, when the Sixteenth Amendment was enacted, legalizing the income tax, its proponents swore that the top tax rate would never exceed ten per cent. In fact, government now consumes half of all value produced in the US. The implication that similar conditions prevailed 150 years ago is historical revisionism of Orwellian proportions. (See Murray Rothbard's four-part history of the colonial and revolutionary eras for an episode in which the government of Pennsylvania virtually dissolved itself due to lack of interest.) Also, society was organized quite differently before the industrial revolution spread to the US. Our "nation of shopkeepers" was actually a nation of farmers. "A nation of shopkeepers" was how Napoleon characterized England, not the US. The means of production were controlled primarily by the workers (who were the owners of the farms and shops.) This "workers controlling the means of production" cant (plagiarized from Lassalle) is a dead giveaway, and clue number six to the ideological bias of this FAQ. The majority of workers in precapitalist times were propertyless slaves, serfs, indentured servants, sharecroppers, farm hands, apprentices, journeymen, domestics and "mechanics" (manual laborers). Today, self-employment, 401(K)s, ESOPs and mutual funds are booming: a far greater proportion of American workers now own capital stock than ever before. Government of that era would be as out-of-place today as the tarriffs and scientific knowledge of that era. This is true. By increasing the general level of wealth and driving down the real cost of living (the real price of food and other resources), the industrial revolution and information revolution have made it possible to privatize many former functions of the State. Just as it brought down the Corn Laws in the nineteenth century and Soviet socialism in the twentieth, the global acceleration of scientific, technological and economic competition is making many other government interventions obsolete. Note for example how the Internet forced the US government to surrender attempts to control the exportation of PGP encryption technology -- and the implications this bears for State control of communications and commerce. "Might Makes Right" is the principle behind statism. However, government is not alone in requiring might. All property is based on might as well. Nobody is beholden to your notions of what constitutes your property. Property is just as "involuntary" as the social contract. There is no moral obligation for anyone to respect your property: only a practical one. Note that this FAQ now concedes that the principle behind statism is "Might makes right," that the "social contract" is involuntary, and that voluntarism is preferable to compulsion. A propertarian context is much more voluntary than the alternative: it permits a diversity of models, including permitting collectivists to voluntarily communize their property. In contrast, a collectivist context requires absolute conformity: it cannot permit anyone to privatize any commons. More fundamentally, the use of "property" here is another red herring. Is there a moral obligation for anyone to respect your life or liberty? Is there any "moral obligation" not to rape and murder, or only "a practical one"? This false dilemma of "moral" versus "practical" begs the question: to rationalize the aggression of the State, the FAQ denies not just propertarianism, or even nonaggression, but all ethics. This is the pseudo-Nietzschean argument of Mein Kampf. Recognition that the fundamental nature of property is based on force is essential to recognition that there are costs and benefits to the principle of property. It is not as negative a "right" as libertarians like to portray it. This goes as well for the rights to life or liberty. These too bear costs: one may not kill and enslave others. That the FAQ accounts this significant is intriguing, but that it again begs the question whether the costs outweigh the benefits is more revealing still. "Self government" is libertarian newspeak for "everybody ought to be able to live as if they are the only human in the universe, if be able to live as if they are the only human in the universe, if only they believe in the power of [George Orwell] libertarianism." This is a Straw Man. Self-government means refraining from aggression, and being free from aggression. Libertarianism advocates consensual association, not isolation. The implication that our only options are aggression or solipsism is another false dilemma. That the argument neglects the other option, consensual interaction, is significant. The use of the word "newspeak," above, is an example of poisoning the well by way of implicit false analogy between libertarianism and "IngSoc" (English Socialism, from Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four). Again the analogy is perverse because libertarianism opposes aggression, whereas Orwell's Big Brother, like this FAQ, rationalizes it. It's a utopian ideal like those of some Marxists and born-agains that would essentially require some sort of human perfection to work. [C.S. Lewis] False analogy with Marxism and faith (ad nauseam number four). On the contrary, if man were perfect, we would have nothing to fear from the State, and Marxism or theocracy could work. It is precisely because humans are not perfect that libertarianism seeks to minimize aggression by some imperfect humans against others. As C.S. Lewis put it, "Mankind is so fallen that no man can be trusted with unchecked power over his fellows." Note that the author concedes that at least some Marxists are utopian, albeit leaving open the hope that his "one true Marxism" is not. More explicitly, "self government" is the peculiar notion that other people ought not to be able to regulate your behavior. Another Straw Man. Libertarianism concedes to others the power to "regulate" one's behavior to the extent that they may hold one responsible for one's aggression. Further regulation than this is itself aggression, for which the aggressor should likewise be liable. Note that "regulation" in this sense does not refer to bureaucracy, but to common law (e.g., a "well-regulated Militia"). Much as we would like to be free of such regulation, most people also want to be able to regulate the behavior of others for practical reasons. Appeal to popularity, numbers, bandwagon and naturalist fallacy. Most people seem to have their reasons, but they are hardly practical. The right-winger wants to regulate sexuality, the left-winger to regulate commerce, and so on; but they do not want to be "regulated" by bearing liability for these aggressions. If we want others to stop oppressing us, we must stop oppressing others. Some libertarians claim that they want the first so much, that they will be willing to forgo the second. Guilty. Aggression against others establishes the precedent for aggression by others. Libertarianism calls for a truce: to forgo aggression against others in return for freedom from aggression by others. Most other people feel that both are necessary (and that it would be hypocritical or stupid to want just one.) The mother lode: appeal to popularity, to numbers, bandwagon, double ad hominem (abusive) and another naturalist fallacy: just because "most people" feel something, that doesn't make it right. The tyranny of a lynch mob is no less arbitrary for being that of the majority. Why is nonaggression "hypocritical" or "stupid"? Does this mean that aggression is consistently honest and smart? Why shouldn't we adopt libertarian government now? Because there are no working examples of libertarian cities, states, or nations. Non sequitur, inductive fallacy, argumentum ad ignorantium, naturalist fallacy, "Catch-22" (ad nauseam). there would be less marginal benefit to converting the USA to a libertarian system than most other nations. Let libertarians bear the risk and cost of their own experiment. American chauvinism. The author neglects Oceania, Laissez Faire City, New Utopia, etc. Libertarians are of course actively engaged in such projects, as they have been since at least the Pilgrims. (The statement that "there would be less marginal benefit to converting the USA to a libertarian system than most other nations" concedes both that the US is relatively libertarian, and that further liberalization would generate a net benefit even in the US.) It is ironic that the premise that "property is theft" (argued from a nation in which the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution explicitly protects property) concludes that American libertarians should "Love it or leave it." Tu quoque! Let libertarians point to successful libertarian programs to seek our endorsement. For example, narcotic decriminalization in Holland has been a success. So has legalized prostitution in Nevada and Germany (and probably other places.) Privatization of some municipal services has been successful in some communities. Indisputably true. And this list just scratches the surface, as Glen Raphael demonstrates. But these are extremely small scale compared to the total libertarian agenda, and do not rule out emergent problems and instabilities of a full scale libertarian system. So let Americans adopt the particular reforms that work, and try more small-scale experiments. A likely first step would be radical decentralization along the federalist plan outlined in the US Constitution. Let Americans free the "market of government services" to find the optimum. An event is explained by the issue at hand. This is really a class of argument, "post hoc, ergo propter hoc", that is made all too often by arguers of all stripes. The claims made with this sort of argument by libertarians are innumerable. Counter examples and other issues that plainly had influence are usually extremely easy to find. Here are some real claims actually made in a.p.l. For example: "The automotive recession started in October 1989, which was the start of the requirement that some cars of each manufacturer be fitted with air bags... Perhaps the reason that car sales have gone down is that many consumers are not willing to pay for a car with air bags." The word "perhaps" rather than "therefore" means that this is not actually post hoc, but rather speculation. Note that airbags were offered as an option before being mandated by government; the mandate therefore merely eliminated the option of less-expensive new cars without airbags. The law of demand suggests that, other things being equal, raising the price of the cheapest new cars will reduce demand for new cars to a point lower than it would have been otherwise -- although we cannot know how much lower. (For example, new car sales might have dropped even without the mandated price increase -- although not as much -- just as, other things being equal, the record new car sales in 1997 would have been even greater -- although we cannot know how much greater -- without that higher cost.) That is because higher prices force consumers on the margin to delay new car purchases, instead buying used cars or keeping older cars. Incidentally, US government regulations requiring airbags to deploy at 200 miles per hour (in order to protect those not wearing safety belts) have been a cause of serious injury and even deaths of children. According to the Competitive Enterprise Institute, by 1997 the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration had reduced its 1977 estimate of the risk of fatalities averted by airbags from 44-50 per cent to 11 per cent. It is uncertain whether this exceeds the lives lost through diverting consumers on the margin to older cars, which are less safe in general. For example: "There are as many military reasons why the draft is bad as there are moral ones. Witness our success using a volunteer army versus a conscripted one." At last! Jumping to any conclusion from a single conflict between a volunteer and conscripted force is indeed a fallacy, hasty generalization. Libertarians, take heed: avoid this fallacy. (Okay, non-libertarians, too.) It would be possible to collect libertarian examples of the other classes of fallacies of argument, but this frequent one can serve as the exemplar. After all that buildup, we get only one fallacious argument? Every belief system has its evangelistic writings, designed to help convince or draw in new members. The Campus Crusade for Christ uses "Evidence That Demands A Verdict", Scientology uses "Dianetics", and libertarians use "Libertarianism in One Lesson". False analogy, ad nauseam (fifth time). The insinuation that reference to David Bergland's Libertarianism in One Lesson is appeal to authority begs the question of whether that book's argument is sound. Note that the FAQ does not actually rebut even Bergland's work, much less the scholarship of Narveson, von Mises, Hayek, etc. If I may cite a convert: "Libertarians like me believe in a simple morality-- everyone should be free to do what they like, so long as they don't initiate use of force... If you're not familiar with this morality, I urge you to read "Libertarianism in One Lesson", by David Bergland. I was personally shocked to find that things could be so neatly axiomatized, and what's even more remarkable is that in the empirical world, societies seem to me to be punished in an eye for an eye fashion from their deviation from this simple morality. We are deviating quite a bit and suffering accordingly... in my view this is why economic growth is stagnating, the inner cities are dying..." Poetically oversimplified, but not rebutted. A more rigorous presentation of the case is in Mancur Olson's The Rise and Decline of Nations. The "fundamental theorem of microeconomics" is that every act of aggression diverts the victim from a higher to a lower utility, creating dislocations, disproportionalities and inefficiencies. Inefficiency means waste: waste of value, which means waste of time and labor, which means waste of life. It means waste of resources that would otherwise have employed more people at higher wages -- to feed the hungry, house the homeless and save lives. Aggression casts static into the price system, slowing capital formation and the rise of the marginal productivity of labor, employment and wages. The net result is more poverty, starvation and disease. As Hayek said, "The calculus of cost is a calculus of lives." Intervention is a cure worse than the disease. It always creates greater problems than those it is called upon to solve. The logic of interventionism argues that greater problems call for still greater intervention until at last we arrive at capital consumption, famine and economic collapse. (Ludwig von Mises, A Critique of Interventionism) The fact that every time one pokes a stick into one's eye it hurts may lead one to infer that the poking is the cause of the pain. This is not necessarily post hoc. Some effects really do follow from causes. The failure to draw the obvious conclusion is the fallacy of slothful induction. Any time I read how simple it is to understand the world through system X, I know I'm dealing with a convert from evangelistic writings. They blithely assert that their explanations show the true cause of current problems. And the key to showing them to be wrong, is to show that there's more complexity to the world than is encompassed by their simplistic explanations. Libertarianism is not a system for understanding the world; it is merely a preference for nonaggression. Some libertarians have produced work of sublime elegance for understanding important aspects of the world. The works of Buchanan, Stigler, Coase and Becker are outstanding examples. But a more complex system is not necessarily superior to a simpler one. The scientific-methodological principle of parsimony suggests that, given two theories of equal predictive power, the simpler one (with fewer assumptions) is preferred. Systems theory suggests that the more complex a system is, the more simple its underlying rules must be. Byzantine regulation cannot much harm feudal agrarianism, but a global catallaxy requires simple rules, such as those evolved at common law. (Richard Epstein, Simple Rules for a Complex World) The mounting wave of research by libertarians in the social sciences is a Copernican revolution overthrowing the epicycles and contraptions of ideological orthodoxy. ideological orthodoxy. [Lysander Spooner] Have you read "No Treason: The Constitution of No Authority"? Note that this FAQ turns to an obscure nineteenth-century pamphlet (by American anarchist Lysander Spooner), evading the substantial academic work of twentieth-century libertarians such as those mentioned above. he focuses his attention on the Preamble, and evidently ignores Article VII, which says EXACTLY who contracted for the Constitution: President Lincoln refuted this argument more than a century ago. A contract is a common-law instrument, he observed, binding upon only those individuals who consent to it, and those whose proxies they hold (with their consent). If the Constitution were a contract, Lincoln concluded, ratification by nine states could not have imposed it upon the other four. Those who ratified the Constitution referred to it as a "compact," not a "contract." The rest of his "analysis" is equally shoddy, and consists largely of calling government a collection of thieves and murderers at least 75 times. David Friedman, in "The Machinery of Freedom", says Spooner "attacks the contract theory of government like a lawyer arguing a case": but REAL presentations of cases have to cope with counterarguments, and can't depend so heavily on invalid presumptions which are easily shot full of holes. Appeal to ridicule. Note that this FAQ presents no counterarguments, exposes no presumptions and shoots no holes. Spooner's central argument is: "One essential of a free government is that it rest wholly on voluntary support. And one certain proof that a government is not free, is that it coerces more or less persons to support it, against their will." Although some flavors of minarchism dispute Spooner's premise that the only positive obligations are voluntarily assumed, this FAQ has failed even to engage the argument. Libertarians oppose the initiation of force. Libertarianism opposes the initiation of coercion -- force, fraud or duress; in other words, it opposes aggression. How noble. And I'm sure that in a real libertarian society, everybody would hold to this morality as much as Christians turn the other cheek. In any society, some individuals will aggress against others. But libertarianism would minimize aggression by permitting victims to hold aggressors liable. Incidentally, this sarcasm is an example of a type of ad hominem known as a tu quoque. The fact that some people are immoral is not an argument against morality: if the fact that some people violate an ethic discredits that ethic, this would discredit any ethic, including any ethic advocated by this FAQ. "Initiation of force" is another libertarian newspeak term that does not mean what the uninitiated might think. Libertarians except defense of property and prosecution of fraud, and call them retaliatory force. But retaliation can be the initiation of force: I don't need force to commit theft or fraud. This is another Straw Man, and equivocation. Unlike most other ideologies, which hide behind the ambiguity of language, libertarianism explicitly defines its terms, above. Note that this FAQ's premise that "property is theft" led to the conclusion that "all property is based on might" and "the fundamental nature of property is based on force," even though "I don't need force to commit theft." You cannot have it both ways. The use of "property" here is again a red herring. To be consistent, the FAQ must conclude that it may be wrong to physically bludgeon another, but permissible to murder him by poison. Fraud is an act of coercion, harming another through false pretenses or via breach of contract (i.e., without his consent), and in this case, an initiation of coercion -- aggression. Retaliatory coercion, including necessary force, is therefore justified in obtaining restitution. The repetition of "newspeak" is false analogy ad nauseum. This is a bit of rhetorical sleight of hand that libs like to play so that they can pretend they are different than government. You know: break a law (like not paying your taxes) and MEN WITH GUNS initiate force. Sorry, but you've gotta play fair: it can't be initiation for government and retaliation for you. Equivocation, ad nauseam. The FAQ's slippery use of "force" to stand for coercion in general in one place and physical violence exclusively in another is the only "rhetorical sleight-of-hand" here. Aggression is aggression, whether by private individuals or the State; retaliation is retaliation, whether by private individuals or the State, as demonstrated above. Like most other non-pacifistic belief systems, libertarians want to initiate force for what they identify as their interests and call it righteous retaliation, and use the big lie technique to define everything else as evil "initiation of force". Ad hominem (circumstantial and abusive), presupposition, divide and conquer, ad nauseam. Libertarianism is a preference for nonaggression: some flavors of libertarianism are pacifist; others are not. The argument above begs the question of how the author can divine the perceptions and motives of others. This FAQ above asked the rhetorical question, "Are libertarians serving their own class interest only?" Now, without providing any rationale in the intervening verbiage, it presumes an answer: "libertarians want to initiate force for what they identify as their interests." The reference to the "big lie technique" is again unsubstantiated assertion, false analogy with Nazism, stacking the deck, and poisoning the well. This is another perverse analogy, because Nazism, like this FAQ, rationalized aggression, which libertarianism opposes. The big lie refers to Hitler's dictum that "the magnitude of a lie always contains a certain factor of credibility, since the great masses of the people... more easily fall victim to a big lie than to a little one." Given this FAQ's recurrent recourse to Straw Man and argumentum ad nauseam, it is left to the reader to discern which party is using the big lie technique here. They support the initial force that has already taken place in the formation of the system of property, and wish to continue to use force to perpetuate it and make it more rigid. Note that the premise that "property is theft" has concluded that its establishment involves "initial force" (i.e., aggression), again contradicting the claim above that "I don't need force to commit theft." The author here concedes that theft is indeed aggression, and implicitly that aggression is wrong. Historical aggression did not in fact often advance the evolution of several property, and often was explicitly targeted against it. (F.A. Hayek, Capitalism and the Historians) The assumption otherwise is example seven of partisan prejudice. But whether aggression occurred historically is irrelevant to the question of whether aggression is necessary to the evolution of several property. Economics considers even the special case of what happens in the absence of aggression. Even in this case, societies that consensually adopt several property gradually displace those with commons, simply because of their accelerated capital accumulation, rising marginal utility of labor, increasing life expectancy and declining mortality rates. In the long run, several property can be suppressed only through violence, for which this FAQ is a rationalization. It is true that the existing distribution of property has been affected by repeated acts of aggression, often by anti-propertarian States. But to therefore abolish the existing distribution would constitute a far greater aggression than any in history (as many would lose value they earned or produced), and unprecedented political corruption and violence (as a free-for-all ensued). In addition, eroding property rights would make ownership insecure, destroying value, resulting in increasing poverty and death. The only alternative to permitting several property is enforcing collectivism, which produces the results outlined above. This FAQ's call to destroy several property would thus mean genocide of marginal peoples. In the long run, however, the process of cultural evolution would inevitably return to several property. The National Libertarian Party membership form has "the pledge" on it: "I do not believe in or advocate the initiation of force as a means of achieving political or social goals." Irrelevant. This point does not address libertarianism per se, but the (US) National Libertarian Party. National Libertarian Party. [Minuteman] It's quite amusing to hear how much libertarians disagree over what it means: whether it is or isn't ok to overthrow the US because it has "initiated force" and they would be "retaliating". I must confess that I have not seen libertarians advocating the violent overthrow of the US government (yet). I have seen libertarian discussion of the question, "How much aggression must the State impose before self-defense, resistance, or revolution is justified?" No doubt the author would have found the remarkably similar debates among the Patriots in the period leading up to the American War of Independence even more amusing. Beyond this perceived class interest, libertarian dislike of "initiation of force" isn't much different than anyone else's. It may be humanitarian, defensive, etc. Ad hominem (circumstantial), presupposition, and divide and conquer, ad nauseam (number three). Anachronistic class-war rhetoric aside, the argument has not demonstrated any knowledge of the perceived interests or motives of others. Libertarianism advocates nonaggression, which protects those most vulnerable to aggression; this FAQ rationalizes aggression, which harms those most vulnerable to aggression. Which position is motivated by what interest? Dred Scott and the Fugitive Slave Laws were examples of government enforcement of slavery. No. There's a subtle distinction: they were enforcement of property rights of slaveowners. It was entirely the owners assertion that he was property that the government was acting upon. If the owner had at any time freed him, he would not have been a slave. [Frederick Douglass] "[E]nforcement of the [alleged] property rights of slaveowners" was aggression against the enslaved. As LP founder David Nolan put it in "The Essence of Liberty": First and foremost, libertarians believe in the principle of self-ownership. You own your own body and mind; no external power has the right to force you into the service of "society" or "mankind" or any other individual or group for any purpose, however noble. Slavery is wrong, period. Libertarianism seeks to minimize aggression, whether by private individuals or agents of the State. The attempt to smear libertarianism with slavery is the fallacy of the undistributed middle: libertarianism asserts consistent rights, while slavery-apologists asserted internally contradictory rights. The analogy is again perverse, because the author rationalizes aggression against innocent people, just as slavers did. It is an interesting question whether radical abolitionists like Wilberforce, Spooner, Garrison, Beecher or Frederick Douglass would have more affinity today with libertarianism or some other political ideology. Hugh Downs said on "Politically Incorrect" in 1997 that if Lincoln were around today, "He'd be a Libertarian." The Libertarian Party: America's third largest political party. Wow, third! That sounds impressive until you realize that the Libertarian Party is about 0.1% of the size of the other two. Funny how they don't mention that in their slogan. I guess they should get a new slogan. Let's have a new slogan contest for the Libertarian Party! _A party a lot smaller than the Communists used to be? _The party that can't get as many votes as any one-shot third party? _The party that's elected fewer to national office than the Socialists? Irrelevant, appeal to numbers and bandwagon. The size of an organization is irrelevant to the value of its underlying ideology. The Nazi Party was pretty popular in Germany; that didn't make it right. However small the LP is, one may create equally amusing slogans for all other US third parties, starting with "Now even smaller than the LP!" or "Used to be bigger than the LP!" That is not what makes their ideologies false. LP!" That is not what makes their ideologies false. [Statue of Liberty] _The party whose symbol is a big government statue. The symbol of the LP is Bartholdi's "Liberty Enlightening the World," a monument erected entirely by private, voluntary funding. The symbol of the US government (the obverse of the Great Seal of the United States), on the other hand, is the Great Pyramid of Khufu, built by slave labor. _The party with the oxymoronic name? "Libertarian Party" is not oxymoronic. Libertarianism opposes aggression, not consensual association. _The party of Pat Paulson, uh, I mean Don Imus, uh, I mean Howard Stern! Paulson is a Democrat. Imus is a Republican. Hey, this is fun! "Republicans: The party of Dan Quayle and Ted Bundy!" "Democrats: The party of The Reverend Jim Jones and Lyndon LaRouche!" While you're listing libertarian celebrities, don't forget Penn Jillette, Drew Carey, Bill Maher, Dennis Miller, Clint Eastwood, Kurt Russell, John Laroquette, Dave Barry, Camille Paglia, John Stossel, Robert Anton Wilson, Russell Means, everybody in the band Rush, and of course the late, great Frank Zappa! _America's Third Most Comical Political Party? Wow, third! That sounds impressive until you realize that the Libertarian Party is about 0.1% as comical as the other two. _Preschool for hyperactive Republicans? _Preschool for hyperactive Republicans? [H.L. Mencken] Exhibit eight: the partisan bias of this FAQ is now fully exposed. As H.L. Mencken put it, "In this world of sin and sorrow there is always something to be thankful for. As for me, I am thankful that I am not a Republican." (A Mencken Chrestomathy) Republicans are dominated ideologically by conservatives, who seek to aggress in what they regard as "social" issues, as explained above, while Democrats are dominated ideologically by (revisionist) liberals, who seek to aggress in what they regard as "economic" issues. But is the capitalist provision of whiskey, cigars, pornography or gambling "personal" or "economic"? The distinction is ultimately specious. Just as it is impossible to tell right- from left-wing totalitarianism in practice, so it would be impossible to distinguish left- from right-anarchism in practice. from right-anarchism in practice. [No Republocrats] Conservativism and (revisionist) liberalism disagree about the particular aggression they wish to impose, but each sees its particular morality ("family values", "compassion") as justifying aggression. Libertarianism, in contrast, questions whether any values can justify aggression. Not that libertarianism rejects family, compassion or other values, but it rejects aggression, as counterproductive to advancing morality. That means that libertarianism is a political Rorschach test. Labeling libertarianism "rightist" or "leftist" tells us nothing about libertarianism, but a great deal about the person doing the labeling: if it looks left to you, you are a rightist; if it looks right, you are a leftist. When this FAQ labels the LP a "Preschool for hyperactive Republicans," it merely betrays its own ideological bias: right-wingers invariably refer to the LP as preschool for hyperactive Democrats. You're a Statist! Don't be surprised if you receive some ad-hominem abuse from libertarian evangelists when you don't accept their arguments. It's no different than if a communist called you bourgeois or a Bircher called you a commie lover. Identifying an idolator of the State as a Statist is not ad hominem; insinuating that a proposition is false because it is propounded by a Statist is ad hominem. Sometimes they'll go overboard and even accuse you of mental disease, at which time you can point out to them the fine company they keep: Stalin, Hitler, etc. Alas, some libertarians do indeed accuse certain Statists of "mental disease" (agoraphobia, technophobia, homophobia, etc.) As I told creationists who wondered why I bothered, it's interesting to me to study unusual beliefs for the same reason it's interesting for doctors to study pathologies. You don't have to catch a disease to be able to understand it, fight it, or vaccinate against it. Note that the author does not have a Web Site titled "Critiques of Creationism"; perhaps he has noticed that creationists do not win Nobel Prizes in Biology, while libertarians do so in Economics. This FAQ started by claiming that "The purpose of this FAQ is not to attack libertarianism, but some of the more fallacious arguments within it." Now it lets slip that its real purpose is to "fight" the "unusual beliefs" of libertarianism. It appears that this entire FAQ has been an exercise in deception. To quote this FAQ again: "Sometimes they'll go overboard and even accuse you of mental disease, at which time you can point out to them the fine company they keep: Stalin, Hitler, etc." In the very next paragraph, the FAQ draws an analogy between libertarianism and "pathologies" or a "disease," which it is intended to "vaccinate against." The irony seems to be lost. This FAQ demonstrates no understanding of libertarianism. Perhaps the author fears becoming infected with the libertarian virus were he actually to learn what it is. Whatever it is, it seems to be highly contagious, and those with intellect and integrity seem particularly susceptible. Why would anyone traduce ideas he does not understand, rather than argue for his own views? It seems that some people get more satisfaction from being negative than from making a constructive contribution. It is certainly easier to misrepresent the ideas of others than to put one's own ideas out for public scrutiny. QUOTATIONS POPULAR WITH LIBERTARIAN EVANGELISTS The following section is an extended red herring. The purpose of bumper sticker phrases is not to enlighten: it is to misdirect and channel your thoughts. That's a prime need for evangelism, and thus we see a lot of these from libertarian evangelists. Irrelevant, false analogy (ad nauseam). Salient quotations are often cited to convey a concise credo. If the author infers nefarious purposes, tu quoque. Frederic Bastiat (1801-1850) The FAQ turns once again to an obscure pamphlet (this time by a nineteenth-century French economist), still evading the central arguments of modern libertarianism outlined in such works as Human Action, The Constitution of Liberty or The Libertarian Idea. "Life, liberty, and property do not exist because men have made laws. On the contrary, it was the fact that life, liberty, and property existed beforehand that caused men to make laws in the first place." Try to picture such an unwieldy quote on a bumper sticker! Doesn't have quite the same ring as "Jesus Saves," "Visualize World Peace," or "S**t Happens," does it? Let's start with a simple demonstration of its ambiguity. Did men make laws to support or suppress life, liberty, and property? At first glance, since we like those three glittering generalities, we'd say support. This FAQ's dismissal of life, liberty and property as "glittering generalities" betrays how little study its author has devoted to these things. How modern preferences can retroactively affect the motives of ancient lawmakers is not explained. But if we change the generalities and keep the "logic" the same: "Death, enslavement, and indigence do not exist because men have made laws. On the contrary, it was the fact that death, enslavement, and indigence existed beforehand that caused men to make laws in the first place." Now we'd say suppress. Tautology. Laws that defend life, liberty and property thereby suppress death, enslavement and indigence -- just as the legislated aggression rationalized by this FAQ suppresses life, liberty and property, thereby "supporting" death, enslavement and indigence. The fact is, this ringing statement can be interpreted to praise or damn law supporting or suppressing any generality. Incoherent. Now, Bastiat does get more specific. If you read a few sentences further into "The Law", he presumes natural rights from god, a simple fallacy of reification (pretending an idea is a real thing.) Bastiat's assertion that the spontaneous products of cultural evolution are from God no more debunks common-law rights than Newton's declaration that gravity is an expression of God's love debunks Newtonian mechanics. As Bastiat put it: "I believe that He Who arranged the material world was not to remain foreign to the arrangements of the social world." Strangely, this FAQ neglects a much better-known expression of this sentiment: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." (Curious that this FAQ simply asserted above that the Declaration of Independence is legally void in the US, rather than accusing the founders of reification.) But the real source of rights is might. This FAQ has now stripped away all pretense of civility and is arguing nakedly what has been heretofore its hidden premise. As predicted above, the doctrine that "all property is based on might" reduces to "the real source of [all] rights is might"; in other words, that Might makes right. Again, the argument is too strong: to deny libertarianism, this FAQ has denied all ethics, rationalizing the rule of the strongest. The assertion that rights are only what "might" permits is tantamount to appeal to fear, and was a fundamental premise of Nazism. (Hans Herman Hoppe, "The Praxeological Presupposition of Argumentation") Individuals don't have rights to protect their lives, liberty and property: they have miniscule powers to attempt to create such rights. Finally: "Individuals don't have rights to protect their lives." This FAQ's now-explicit denial of the right of self-defense opens the door to slavery, exposing the hollowness of its attempt to smear libertarianism with that injustice. It is true that any individual's power to defend his rights is finite, but to conclude that he therefore has no rights is the naturalist fallacy. Law is an attempt to benefit those within society by creating rights through conventions that reduce in-society conflict and utilize combined powers efficiently. The process of cultural evolution has selected the demonstrably most efficient conventions for minimizing endogenous conflict and maximizing cooperation: common-law liability for infringing rights to life, liberty and property. Bastiat has the tail wagging the dog: collective rights being justified by individual rights, when in actual society individual rights are produced by collective might. Legal enforcement of rights is produced by collective might, but to sugest that it is justified by it is the naturalist fallacy. Only one set of rights can minimize conflict and maximize efficiency. This set of rights is selected by the process of cultural evolution, not by might. It's hard to accept philosophy like this which starts by preferring imaginary rights to basic observable facts of society. Naturalist fallacy. The basic observable facts of society are that, as Bastiat puts it, "the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime." Note that the only critique of Bastiat in this FAQ involves a superficial misreading of his first few sentences. This FAQ displays no familiarity with the substance of his argument. the substance of his argument. [Benjamin Franklin] But if you want get into a founder quoting contest, Ben Franklin wrote: "Private property ... is a Creature of Society, and is subject to the Calls of that Society, whenever its Necessities shall require it, even to its last Farthing, its contributors therefore to the public Exigencies are not to be considered a Benefit on the Public, entitling the Contributors to the Distinctions of Honor and Power, but as the Return of an Obligation previously received, or as payment for a just Debt." To paraphrase the FAQ: As an American, I find the authority of Franklin (on ethics) unconvincing. I don't give a damn how any founder rationalized extortion, any more than slavery. I hate it when a Statist trots out some tired bit of US history as a most holy of holies, not to be questioned. If any Statist would like to defend taxation philosophically, he must rely on sound argument, not reverence for a founder. sound argument, not reverence for a founder. [Thomas Paine] To the extent that the quote above is accurate, Franklin commits the fallacy of false analogy: if taxation were analogous to a debt, the State would bear the same burden as any other "creditor" of proving that the "debtor" acquired the "debt" through contract or liability. Franklin also conflates "Society" (a group of people interacting within a common culture) with the State (an institution that seeks to impose a monopoly on aggression with impunity over a society). As Thomas Paine put it: Some writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only different, but have different origins.... Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil, in its worst state an intolerable one.... (Common Sense, 1776) The founders are authorities on their understanding of documents they drafted, not on ethics. This bragadoccio insinuating that their intent was generally anti-propertarian is another hasty generalization (and a red herring, to boot). There are far too many individual founder-quotes in defense of property to catalog here; their consensus is revealed in founding documents: All men have... certain inherent rights, namely the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property. (Virginia Declaration of Rights, 1770) Among the natural rights of the colonists are these: First, a right to life; Secondly, to liberty; Thirdly, to property, together with the right to support and defend them in the best manner they can. (Resolutions of the Town of Boston, 1772) All men possess rights, among which are the enjoying and defending life and liberty; acquiring, possessing and protecting property; and, in a word, of seeking and obtaining happiness. (Provisional Constitution of the State of New Hampshire, 1772) [F]or the protection of our property, acquired solely by the honest industry of our fore-fathers and ourselves, against violence actually offered, we have taken up arms. (Declaration of the Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms, July 6, 1775) No person shall be.... deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation. (Constitution of the United States, Bill of Rights, Amendment V, 17