To say that the existence of the state is, in the mainstream, uncontroversial would be something of an understatement. While the precise individuals who form the state and the specific acts that they choose to do with state power often attract controversy, the existence and sustenance of the state itself is deemed to be essential for not only a functioning and orderly society (such as that which could be provided by a so-called “night watchman” state) but also to contribute, or even to cause, the economic and cultural progression of that society. This belief has become even more potent since the state, sometime in the twentieth century, became endowed with so-called “democratic legitimacy”, i.e. it is supposed to be run by representatives chosen by the people for the people.
Let us run through some of the uncontroversial and supposedly necessary aspects of the state that are barely questioned by anyone today.
First, the state possesses a territorial monopoly of the legitimised use of the initiation of force and violence. The state alone is permitted to fund itself not through voluntary exchange but through compulsory levy (i.e. taxation); people are required to pay to the state that which the state says they should pay regardless of the “service” that they receive from the state in return. The state, further, is permitted to confiscate the legitimately earned wealth and property of individuals and to hand it to other individuals in order to achieve so-called “social justice” and a reduced inequality of wealth and income. Further, the state may use this legitimised force to ban certain uses of one’s own property that in no way interferes with the person or property of anyone else. It may also use this force to compel individuals to deal with their property in certain ways specified by the state, usually at one’s own expense – a power of the state that is euphemised by the term “regulation”.
Second, the state alone is tasked with maintaining law and order and the protection of the person and property of individuals from criminals. The possession and trade of goods and services to enable individuals to accomplish this themselves – such as personal firearms – is increasingly restricted by the state to the extent that such possession or trade itself becomes a crime, even if the intent is simply to prevent criminal acts against oneself. You are therefore utterly reliant upon the state for your own protection and, moreover, you are defenceless against the state when its employees aggress against you. Nevertheless this does not prevent the state from requiring private organisations to police the populace on its behalf – such as in the collection of taxes from payrolls and the requirements of banks and other financial institutions to report on the transactions of their customers.
Third, should the state fail to maintain law and order and to protect your property from criminals, it is then the state to whom you must turn if you want a redress. For the state also enjoys over its territory the privilege of being the sole provider of the dispensation of justice in conflicts between parties, including in conflicts which involve itself. This takes place not just in state run court houses refereed by state employed judges but also (when the state or some of its members have been seen to cause an incident that results in public outrage) in so-called “independent public enquiries”. These are undertaken by a different employee (or retired employee) of the state and the funding still flows from state coffers so there is no wonder why these are almost always written off by the general public as a whitewash.
Fourth, the state alone is tasked with providing so-called “national defence” and securing the state’s borders. Although the restriction of civil liberties in the face of either a real or imagined threat against the state’s sovereignty by a foreign invader is not uncontroversial, it is hardly new and is, in fact, a hallmark of every war into which the state drags its people. More commonly, however, the state may prevent foreign visitors from entering the territory of the state even if domestic private property owners have invited them. People who wish to come to the state’s territory to create jobs and wealth, or simply those who wish to work, are forcibly restricted by the state, even if a domestic employer is willing to hire them. The state also controls, by force, the flow of trade across its borders and imposes tariffs and other restrictions on the movement of goods, regardless of whether a domestic individual or entity wishes to conduct peaceful trade with a foreigner.
Fifth, the state alone is permitted to print and issue currency in the form of paper money or electronic credits to the extent that it may create this money and use it to buy goods and services for itself without having worked to create any wealth in the first place. Other people who do this are labelled as “counterfeiters” and are subject to the full brunt of the state’s forceful retaliation. Such a power to create money is bound only by the economic consequences of price inflation and credit expansion but it permits the state to fund and grow its activities without resorting to increased taxation, instead robbing the domestic population of the purchasing power of the existing notes that they hold.
Sixth, the state forcibly maintains a monopoly over transportation networks such as roads, highways, railways and airports. If they are not nationalised outright, the state frequently contracts out the provision of other supposedly “essential” industries such as healthcare and the supply of utilities such as gas, electricity and water under the rubric of “privatisation”, yet it maintains a tight control over these industries to the extent that they are little more than a state dominated oligarchy.
Seventh, the state tasks itself with the “education” of the children who are born and/or raised within the state’s territory, mandating, through the threat of punishment, attendance at certain ages dictated by the state, regardless of what children may prefer to be doing or better at doing. The state employs the teachers, sets the curriculum, determines the standards to be achieved through examination (i.e. sets the grades) and is responsible for inspecting its own schools and institutions. Private education is possible but, apart from being monitored closely by the state, is nearly always prohibitively expensive and thus is seen, with some resentment, as being the preserve of the wealthy and privileged. Thus the majority of people have little choice but to turn to the state to provide the education of their children. Furthermore, the state takes it upon itself to interfere in the general upbringing of children, with state run schools often tasked with policing parents and dispensing lessons such as “citizenship” and “personal, social and health” education in order to make up for supposed parental shortfalls.
Finally, the state is supposed to protect us and to provide for us in our hour of need – such as if we lose our job or when we retire. State provided retirement benefits are little more than a giant Ponzi scheme. Funds confiscated by taxation from the earliest “beneficiaries” to provide for their retirement were not saved and invested by the state; rather, they were consumed in current expenditure. Instead, it is the current tax confiscations of younger generations that pay for the pensions of today’s retirees. The state forcibly prevents private individuals and companies from engaging in such a scheme as it ultimately results in collapse and losses for the later investors, and those that do offer such a service are thrown by the state in jail. The state’s own scheme is, as we are beginning to see today, susceptible to such a fate yet the state exempts itself from having to follow its own rules.
No doubt readers can think of many other “uncontroversial” aspects of the state that are held dear among mainstream views. Each of these aspects could be demolished in separate, longer treatments and many libertarian writers have, of course, done just that. What we wish to do here, however, is to ask our fellow citizens who do not counter these “functions” of the state a very simple question: if you accept with gladness or even celebrate these aspects of the state that we have just listed, can you imagine also permitting a private corporation to do the same things that the state does? Can you imagine a private corporation being able to initiate the use of force and violence against other people? Would a private company be allowed to force you to do what it wants with your own property? If you get into a contractual dispute with AT&T should AT&T be allowed to judge the outcome of the conflict? If American Airlines assaults or kills your family should American Airlines sit both in the dock and on the judge’s throne? Should Microsoft be tasked with national defence and arm itself with nuclear weapons? Should McDonalds be able to tell you which foreigners and which goods and services can cross the border even if you want them to come and visit you? Could we imagine a world in which Google or Walmart can print paper money and force people to accept it in return for goods and services? Or a world in which Facebook builds all of the roads and runs all of our utilities? Would it be possible for, say, Apple to be able to force our children to attend its schools? And finally, should we allow Bank of America or J P Morgan Chase to force investors to participate in Ponzi schemes? Most lay persons are likely to recoil in horror at the thought of any private corporation being able to do all of these things. Yet, bizarrely, they either accept or defend the fact that the state should participate in these activities.
One likely retort to this is that the state is supposed to govern for “the people” whereas companies are interested in making profits for their shareholders. Indeed, the state uses its self-proclaimed subservient and altruistic nature to exempt itself from all of the proper behaviour that is required of private citizens, who are supposed to be interested in only their own gain. While it is true that companies are primarily interested in making a return for their shareholders (why else would the shareholders have invested in the business?), it is also true that companies can only achieve these profits by serving the needs of their customers. It is the customers who decide, through their choices to spend or not to spend money with the corporation, whether those profits are made. In any case, however, we might point out that an odious act does not transform into a good one simply on account of for whom it is done. If I steal your money this act is rightly viewed as wrong, regardless of whether I intend to keep the money for myself or whether I intend to give it to someone else who may, in my opinion, “need” it more than you do. Similarly, therefore, if the state confiscates your money through taxation and distributes it via the welfare state the fact that it goes to “the people” makes this act no more moral than if the bureaucrats kept it all themselves (which, of course, they often do – not only are the administrative costs of the welfare state frequently underestimated but most of the money disappears into the hands of the state’s favoured contractors and suppliers rather than directly into the bank accounts of the poor). Moreover, we don’t even have to go so far as to cite strictly moral or immoral acts to illustrate this point. Monopolies, for example, are viewed as being bad because they tend to reduce quality and raise costs over time; this fact does not change simply because it is the state that runs a monopoly over say, healthcare, rather than a private corporation.
Another likely response to our question is that the state is under the supposed “democratic control” of the people and that if the state uses these powers “illegitimately” or irresponsibly then they will be booted out at the ballot box. Apart from the fact that, again, an illicit act does not become moral simply on account of who controls those who are doing it, a citizen has the right of voting between a bare handful of carefully selected and screened candidates only once every four or five years. Moreover, a person cannot choose with any specificity which policies and manifestos to support. Rather, he has to throw what little weight he has behind a single candidate (or party) and all of that candidate’s stances on a wide spectrum of issues, from whether we should continue funding wars in the Middle East down to whether a person may light up a joint in his own home. And once elected the successful candidate can simply abandon whatever promises he made in return for your vote straight after. As if that wasn’t bad enough, what if your preferred candidate does not get elected? You still have to suffer the implementation of the odious policies of an alternative candidate whom you may utterly despise. With a private corporation, however, you can choose to vote or to not vote for them with your wallet every single minute of every single day. You don’t have to wait for a few years if you want to switch from Tesco to Sainsbury. Moreover these choices are very specific. If you change your grocery supplier you are not also changing your telephone provider. If you ditch Ryanair and start flying EasyJet you can still get your clothes from Debenhams. If a corporation takes your vote, i.e. your money, then breaks its promises it made before you handed it over it is called “breach of contract” and for this the company can be sued. And finally, your choice to shop at Sainsbury’s or Tesco is not dependent upon a majority of other people wishing to do so – both are able to trade regardless of whether they are supported by a majority of consumers.
What we can take from all of this is that if a private corporation possessed every single right and function of the state except the power to tax and demand your patronage, then you would have more control over it than you do over the state. The situation we have produced, therefore, is, on the one hand, a society of corporations over whom each individual has a high degree of control yet which are required to abide by all of the laws and at least a basic code of morality, and on the other hand a state which no one can control yet can, for the most part, do whatever it likes. It seems to me that if we are to suffer the illicit and illegitimate powers of the state at all they would be far safer in the hands of a private corporation rather than the state.
Of course our goal is that nobody should have the right to carry on these acts that we outlined in the first part of this essay – that they should be illegal regardless of who does them and in whose name. No one should have the power to tax, to confiscate the income and wealth of other people; no one should be able to print money; nobody should be able to arm themselves with all manner of horrific weaponry while forcibly disarming everyone else; and no one should be able to run a Ponzi scheme. When you take all of these characteristics of the state and ask yourself what life would be like if anyone else was allowed to do them, you rightly begin to shudder with fear. So why should we ennoble the state with the dubious privilege of being able to do them?
Hopefully what we have outlined here is a useful point with which a libertarian can turn a debate with a statist or state-biased lay person, and to cause that person to reconsider either his active or his tacit support for the state and its actions.
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Libertarians Beware?
March 7, 2015
Duncan Whitmore Commentary/Review, Essays, Method and Strategy 3D Printing, Agorism, Bitcoin, Black Market, Education, Entrepreneurship, Government, Internet, Lew Rockwell, Libertarian Movement, Libertarianism, Murray Rothbard, Power, Revolution, Robert Wenzel, Silk Road, War on Drugs Leave a comment
An article concerning the libertarian attitude towards the black market by Robert Wenzel entitled “A Warning to Libertarians: Please Do Not End Up Like Ross Ulbricht” recently appeared on the libertarian site Lewrockwell.com. Wenzel’s basic premise is that libertarians in their capacity as libertarians should not celebrate the black market, let alone get involved in it as budding entrepreneurs:
He then quotes Murray Rothbard’s discussion of Samuel Konkin’s agorism:
Returning to his own commentary, Wenzel continues:
One can agree that this appeal to libertarians to heed a bewaring of the black market makes several important points. First, a libertarian is certainly not necessarily a good entrepreneur and regardless of whether he is he would still need to devote a lot of time to reading, studying, absorbing, understanding and debating libertarianism. One cannot pursue a cause unless one has a thorough understanding of that cause. Second, simply because libertarian theory permits certain activities that are currently illegal (the vending and use of drugs being a pertinent example) does not mean that libertarians promote such activities as a good thing to be encouraged. Such a question concern’s one’s personal morality and not libertarianism as such. The libertarian movement itself seeks to neither promote nor disparage any substantive choice of action whatsoever and there is a genuine risk that libertarians will either be labelled as the “anything goes” crowd or, worse, may be identified with the active encouragement of acts which, while they do not breach the non-aggression principle, are otherwise odious, unpleasant and/or lacking in social acceptance.
However, where the present author parts company with Wenzel is the suggestion that a) operations such as the black market and entrepreneurship in general fundamentally do not matter very much in the fight for liberty and b) that painstaking education of the populace is likely to be far more productive in this regard. There is also the suggestion, exemplified by the Rothbard quotation, that traditional political parties that are organised to promote liberty are the way forward and have worked in the past. However, it is our contention here that these propositions are likely to be untrue and that, in fact, entrepreneurship will have a far more effective role to play in the practical matter of bringing about a world of liberty while education and political parties may, in fact, have a minimal effect.
Many libertarians probably have it in their head that a free world will one day be achieved through a giant revolution where the inspired masses rise up and force the transition from an imperialist-statist regime to one of liberty. But one has to wonder precisely how this is going to happen. Even if a majority of the world’s population became educated enough about the benefits of liberty, a transition to a world of liberty is one from a state of power to one of an absence of power. Revolutions, however, are fundamentally the replacement of the holders of power. In other words, the power vacuum left by the vanquished rulers is filled quickly by the revolutionary leaders – and we all know how potently power corrupts. It did not take altogether too long, for example, for the post-revolutionary United States to begin centralising power and even so ardent an advocate of liberty as Thomas Jefferson left a questionable record once he became President. A libertarian revolution, the end product of which is a fragmentation and scattering of power from central concentration in governments and states down to the individual, is therefore likely to be largely leaderless and lacking any concentration in terms of personalities, places and also times. Rather, different people, in different places at different times will carry out independent acts to move the world one step closer towards freedom. Libertarianism is, therefore, fundamentally about rejecting the world of political parties, political leaders and electioneering – not seeking to emulate them or join in their game.
Underestimated, therefore, is the possibility that rather than government being overthrown the likeliest route for the achievement of liberty is for government to simply dissolve through circumvention. Given this, the importance of black and regular markets starts to become apparent. For even if the population becomes educated enough to be inspired towards liberty, in order to truly achieve such a world through a de-homogenised process lacking in central control and leadership, small, local and independent circumventions of government authority – as exemplified by the black market where scattered, independent entrepreneurs attempt to meet the people’s needs that happen to be contrary to the proscriptions of the government – are likely to be a key route to in bringing this about. In other words, government simply drowns in a sea of non-compliance with its diktats. Indeed one of the reasons why, for example, the underground drugs industry is so difficult for government to even scratch the surface of, let alone conquer, is because there is not one giant overarching drugs lord sitting on his throne dispensing all of the world’s drugs, ready for the government to take out and thus win the war. Rather, it is because there are a multitude of relatively small, independent suppliers, with their own locations, their own partners and stakeholders, their own methods and techniques, and so on. Taking out any one of them does not necessarily stop the rest, and even if it did what is there to stop someone new from springing up and setting up shop? The seizure of a large drugs shipment, usually celebrated as a grand achievement, barely makes a dent in the ability of the black market entrepreneurs to continue to produce and supply these substances.
However, even this path – that of the black, underground and regular markets providing an outlet for an educated public – is probably not going to be the way in which a world of liberty will be achieved and we can suggest a far more likely, praxeologically supported scenario of what will happen. All governments require at least the tacit support of a majority of the population in order to retain their power. But it does not follow that the breaking of this tacit support necessarily requires the people to become educated about the ethics of private property and the moral odiousness of the state (although one can hardly deny that such an education would be a good thing). Whatever regime exists humans will always think and feel as individuals – they have ends as individuals, they act as individuals and they feel gain or loss as individuals. Their support, or tacit acceptance of government, relies not only on the fact that government is seen to be legitimate but also on the fact that it is perceived to accomplish certain ends for the individual. In particular, protection from crime, and the sustenance and stability of a peaceful order are seen by almost everybody to be the primary function of and justification for government. Like any other means to an end, government will cease to be supported when its costs, real or perceived, outweigh its benefits.
In the first place, as bankrupt governments unload increasing privations and annoyances upon the daily lives of their citizens, it is precisely the shrewd entrepreneurs who will find a market of people who seek to overcome these irritations. We can see this already with innovations such as Bitcoin and 3D printing seeking to overcome the government monopoly over the financial services and firearm restrictions respectively. But the march of technological progress does not even require entrepreneurs to be consciously aware that it is curbing government power. The internet, for example, has practically obliterated the government monopoly over information. The very pinnacle of market circumvention of government would be to shatter its very raison d’être – the monopoly of force and the dispensation of justice – without which it would simply not be able to impose its oppressive and parasitic existence upon the citizenry. What if there was some way of not overcoming or overthrowing government’s force but of simply circumventing it and making it a practical non-entity in people’s lives? As the present author stated in a previous piece, “Making Government Irrelevant”,
Therefore, people do not necessarily need to overthrow government or come to understand how evil and immoral it is – it simply needs to made irrelevant in their lives. And it is entrepreneurs, either existing in the black or mainstream markets who are the most likely to be the path through which a world of liberty is achieved. It is submitted that, given the innovations in this regard that have been accomplished so far and the difficult government is having in coping with them, this route will be the most successful in building the road to liberty than any attempts to educate the populace towards revolution. Education will, of course, always be important and every libertarian has a duty to read, learn and debate libertarian theory. And certainly no libertarian has any business engaging in entrepreneurial ventures if he is completely lacking in the required talent. But so too should we be prepared to recognise the fact that entrepreneurial invention and ultimately the market, the very thing itself that we as libertarians champion – individual people seeking to peacefully and voluntarily meet their ends through means – is the most likely thing that will bring about the world that we believe is right.
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