Anarchei

Note: An audio version of this article is available.

Stefan Molyneux:

If the twentieth century proved anything, it is that the single greatest danger to human life is the centralised political State, which murdered more than two hundred million souls. Modern States are the last and greatest remaining predators. It is clear that the danger has not abated with the demise of communism and fascism. All Western democracies currently face vast and accelerating escalations of State power and centralised control over economic and civic life. In almost all Western democracies, the State chooses:

• Where children go to school, and how they will be educated.
• The interest rate citizens can borrow at.
• The value of currency.
• How employees can be hired and fired.
• How more than fifty percent of their citizen’s time and money are disposed of.
• Who a citizen may choose as a doctor.
• What kinds of medical procedures can be received – and when.
• When to go to war
• Who can live in the country.
• Just to touch on a few.

Most of these amazing intrusions into personal liberty have occurred over the past ninety years, since the introduction of the income tax. They have been accepted by a population helpless to challenge the expansion of State power – and yet, even though most citizens have received endless pro-State propaganda in government schools, a growing rebellion is brewing. The endless and increasing State predations are now so intrusive that they have effectively arrested the forward momentum of society, which now hangs before a fall. Children are poorly educated, young people are unable to get ahead, couples with children fall ever-further into debt, and the elderly are finding their medical systems collapsing under the weight of their growing needs. And none of this takes into account the ever-growing State debts.

These early years of the twenty-first century are thus the end of an era, a collapse of mythology comparable to the fall of communism, monarchy, or political Christianity. The idea that the State is even capable of solving social problems is now viewed with great scepticism – which foretells the imminent end, since as soon as scepticism is applied to the State, the State falls, since it fails at everything except expansion, and so can only survive on propaganda.

Yet while most people are comfortable with the idea of reducing the size and power of the State, they become distinctly uncomfortable with the idea of getting rid of it completely.

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Note: An audio version of this article is available.

Stefan Molyneux:

The argument from morality is the most powerful tool in any freedom-lovers arsenal – but also the most personally costly, since it draws lines in relationships that can never be erased. The argument from morality can cost you friends, family, community – and so approach it with courage, and understand that, once you decide to use it, your life will never again be the same.

Simply put, the argument from morality is the most powerful approach to changing society because all major social decisions are made on the basis of ethics. If a population believes that a certain program is moral – i.e. war, welfare, social security and so on – then they may grumble, but they will also roll up their sleeves, get to work and support it no matter what their personal cost. Men will go off to war, mothers will turn their kids over to nannies, people will surrender massive portions of their income and freedom with nary a protest – all in the name of what is good.

Redefining “the good” is very, very hard. Throughout their lives, people make thousands of decisions based on certain moral principles – and it if turns out that those principles were wrong, then they will be forced to admit that their whole lives have been spent in the service of falsehood, or corruption, or evil – and that is more than most people can stomach. In order to preserve their illusions of goodness, they will fight any close examination of moral principles almost to the death!

Morality is a fairly complex subject, of course, but it suffices here to say that morality must be based on a universal and logically-consistent set of principles – if it is just a matter of opinion, then no course of action can be “better” than any other course of action – any more than liking blue is “better” than liking red.

Most people believe that their decisions are based on a consistent set of moral principles, but those moral principles – as Socrates discovered millennia ago – crumble within minutes under any rigorous logical examination. I have found that the most effective approach is to be curious and persistent – but not be afraid to call a spade a spade.

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Note: An audio version of this article is available.

Jordan Riak:

Criticism of traditional parenting methods is typically met with suspicion, resistance, and hostility. Were this fundamental conservatism of human nature to express itself in words, it might say something like this:

If the old methods worked well enough for past generations, they’ll surely work for the next. Don’t fix it if it isn’t broken. Don’t mess with success. Sometimes children just need a good smack on the bottom to get their attention. It never did a child any harm. That’s how I was raised, and I turned out okay.

But just how well did we really turn out? Sooner or later we have to admit that perhaps not all family traditions are created equal. Maybe, in some cases, they’ve made our lives more precarious and unhappy than they need to have been. And maybe – just maybe – we haven’t turned out quite as “okay” as we’d like to believe and have others believe.

When we praise our parents’ treatment of us when we were little, are we merely fishing for approval of our own similar behaviors now? Are we trying to reassure ourselves that the way we want to remember things is the way they really were and ought to remain?

Let’s test the I-turned-out-okay argument by examining a few real-life examples from my own childhood. See if they apply to you.

1. There were ashtrays in every room of our house. My parents smoked, as did most adult visitors to our home. The aroma of cigarette, cigar and pipe smoke was always present. Nobody minded. In fact, not one day passed in my early life when I was not exposed to tobacco smoke. I was even exposed in the womb because my mother smoked when she was pregnant with me. And I turned out okay.
2. The first family car I remember was a 1937 Chevrolet sedan. It had no seat belts. When we traveled, I was merely plunked down on the back seat with the expectation that gravity would keep me there. It did. And I turned out okay.
3. All the places in which I lived as a child were painted with lead-based paint. And I turned out okay.
4. I used a bicycle throughout my childhood and teen years, but never wore any kind of protective headgear. And I turned out okay.

Was my family wise or just lucky? Today, we don’t do those things anymore. We don’t take such risks, and we don’t expose our children to such risks – not if we know the facts.

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Note: An audio version of this article is available. This article was preceded by Caging The Beasts.

Stefan Molyneux:

“Caging the Beasts” described the measures that private Dispute Resolution Organizations (DROs) could take against violent criminals – measures many readers found more soul-crushing and repressive than life under the current government!

I am always eager to improve arguments for freedom, and so heartily thank those who took the time to write in – and will do my best to clarify how life in a truly free society will not turn into a repressive web of petty regulations run by fascistic and heavily-armed insurance companies.

For those new to the debate, DROs are private insurance companies whose sole purpose is to mediate disputes between individuals. If you and I sign a contract, we both agree beforehand to submit any disputes we cannot resolve to the arbitration of a particular DRO. Furthermore, we may choose to allow the DRO to take action if either of us fails to abide by that decision, such as property seizure or financial penalties.

So far so good. However, a problem arises if I have no DRO contract, and turn to a life of theft, murder and arson. How can that be dealt with? In “Caging the Beasts,” I suggested that DROs would simply band together to deny goods, services and contracts to violent criminals. DROs could also pay informants to track the whereabouts of such predators, and would hound them out of a social and economic life to whatever degree they could.

This last point is where a good deal of my readers and I parted ways – and I recognize that in my zeal to deal with criminals, I painted a rather horrifying picture of DRO powers. DROs paying informants and threatening to drop contract support from anyone who sheltered or aided murderers – all this gave the impression that a stateless society was one which replaced a single central state with a suffocating net of tyrannical DROs.

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Note: An audio version of this article is available. This article was followed by These Cages Are Only For Beasts

Stefan Molyneux:

How can violent criminals be dealt with in the absence of a centralized government?

This is a challenging question, which can be answered in three parts. The first is to examine how such criminals are dealt with at present; the second is to divide violent crimes into crimes of motive and crimes of passion, and the third is to show how a stateless society would deal with both categories of crime far better than any existing system.

Thus the first question is: how are violent criminals dealt with at present? The honest answer, to any unbiased observer is surely: they are encouraged.

A basic fact of life is that people respond to incentives. The better that crime pays, the more people will become criminals. Certain well-known habits – drugs, gambling, prostitution in particular – are non-violent in nature, but highly desired by certain segments of the population. If these non-violent behaviours are criminalized, the profit gained by providing these services rises. Illegality destroys all stabilizing social forces (contracts, open activity, knowledge sharing and mediation), and so violence becomes the norm for dispute resolution.

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Note: The following article was originally posted on Lost Liberty Cafe however the site is no longer available.

Nathan McKaskle:

Several months prior to the election I met a young lady at a local pub – a tall, attractive and spunky political science major. She was talking to some friends about the upcoming election, offering her opinion on who to vote for. When it comes to political science majors and statists in general, they’re about as predictable as a bowling ball under the pull of gravity. I tried in futility to steer the topic away from the petty political-party bickering about where the state gun should be pointed and by whom it would be best used, and towards the philosophical question of whether it is moral to point it at all.

She asks for whom I plan to vote. I tell her, “I’m voting for myself; I don’t think it is moral to force others to support solutions to social problems at gunpoint.” The reaction is predictable: like the cracking *thunk* a bowling ball makes as it forms a crater in the concrete, I get the following statement with the ol’ thousand-yard stare:

“Yeah, but that would be anarchy…”

As if I’m a halfwit for not having already arrived at that conclusion. Yet when moral propositions such as the non-aggression principle are applied in a logically consistent and universal manner, that is the only conclusion that can be reached – at least that I am aware of.

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Note: The following article was originally posted on Lost Liberty Cafe however the site is no longer available.

Joey Carlisle:

One of the most fascinating, and disturbing, concepts I have come across is the term necessary evil. I would like to demonstrate in this essay that the concept of necessary evil is not what we mean to say in common usage, an oxymoron, but rather a justification for truly evil acts and intentions.

There are two ways in which to define necessary evil, both of which are remarkably different.

1. Questionable Ethics leading to a greater good
2. Something you don’t like but must exist in order to achieve a certain outcome

Arguments for necessary evil

Let’s examine the first definition and make the case for necessary evil to see if we can learn more about it. The first thing to notice about this definition is the term questionable ethics. What does this mean and when are questionable ethics applicable? The classic textbook examples of questionable ethics are lifeboat scenarios.

Wikipedia gives us the following example of a common lifeboat scenario in which a “solution” would be, either way, questionably ethical:

A trolley is running out of control down a track. In its path are 5 people who have been tied to the track. Fortunately, you can flip a switch, which will lead the trolley down a different track to safety. Unfortunately, there is a single person tied to that track. Should you flip the switch? We shall explore questionable ethics in other areas as well.

The second part of our first definition states that practicing such questionable ethics leads to the greater good. The greater good, along with life boat scenarios, are hallmarks of utilitarian ethics. A utilitarian ethicist would likely label the greater good as altruistic, pertaining to society or some other collective group or entity (real or imaginative), and that doing questionable acts for this collective is an important duty; so that others will not have to do it.

In the second definition, we are referring to an act one does not prefer to do. This also entails some kind of preferable end, and there are certain means one must execute or carry out to reach that end. Also apparent in this definition is that your choices may be limited in reaching that end, thus the reason why one would choose to do something that is not preferable in order to get something preferable.

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Note: There is an audio version of this article available.

Roderick T Long:

I want to talk about some of the main objections that have been given to libertarian anarchism and my attempts to answer them. But before I start giving objections and trying to answer them, there is no point in trying to answer objections to a view unless you have given some positive reason to hold the view in the first place. So, I just want to say briefly what I think the positive case is for it before going on to defend it against objections.

The Case For Libertarian Anarchism

Problems with Forced Monopoly

Think about it this way. What’s wrong with a shoe monopoly? Suppose that I and my gang are the only ones that are legally allowed to manufacture and sell shoes — my gang and anyone else that I authorise, but nobody else. What’s wrong with it? Well, first of all, from a moral point of view, the question is: why us? What’s so special about us? Now in this case, because I’ve chosen me, it is more plausible that I ought to have that kind of monopoly, so maybe I should pick a different example! But still, you might wonder, where do I and my gang get off claiming this right to make and sell something that no one else has the right to make and sell, to provide a good or service no one else has the right to provide. At least as far as you know, I’m just another mortal, another human like unto yourselves (more or less). So, from a moral standpoint I have no more right to do it than anyone else.

Then, of course, from a pragmatic, consequentialist standpoint — well, first of all, what is the likely result of my and my gang having a monopoly on shoes? Well, first of all, there are incentive problems. If I’m the only person who has the right to make and sell shoes, you’re probably not going to get the shoes from me very cheaply. I can charge as much as I want, as long as I don’t charge so much that you just can’t afford them at all or you decide you’re happier just not having the shoes. But as long as you’re willing and able, I’ll charge the highest price that I can get out of you — because you’ve got no competition, nowhere else to go. You also probably shouldn’t expect the shoes to be of particularly high quality, because, after all, as long as they’re barely serviceable, and you still prefer them to going barefoot — then you have to buy them from me.

In addition to the likelihood that the shoes are going to be expensive and not very good, there’s also the fact that my ability to be the only person who makes and sells shoes gives me a certain leverage over you. Suppose that I don’t like you. Suppose you’ve offended me in some way. Well, maybe you just don’t get shoes for a while. So, there’s also abuse-of-power issues.

But, it’s just not the incentive problem, because, after all, suppose that I’m a perfect saint and I will make the best shoes I possibly can for you, and I’ll charge the lowest price I possibly can charge, and I won’t abuse my power at all. Suppose I’m utterly trustworthy. I’m a prince among men (not in Machiavelli’s sense). There is still a problem, which is: how do I know exactly that I’m doing the best job I can with these shoes? After all, there’s no competition. I guess I could poll people to try to find out what kind of shoes they seem to want. But there are lots of different ways I could make shoes. Some of them are more expensive ways of making them, and some are less expensive. How do I know, given that there’s no market, and there’s really not much I can do in the way of profit and loss accounting? I just have to make guesses. So even if I’m doing my best, the quantity I make, the quality I make may not be best suited to satisfy people’s preferences, and I have a hard time finding these things out.

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