The utilitarian case for radical market anarchism

Since a lot of people are (often understandably) not convinced by normative arguments based on "rights," I wanted to make the utilitarian case for free market/individualist anarchism...in a single post.

Why should a utilitarian be radically anti-state? The answer is laid out so well in this essay, it’s not even worth trying to rephrase it:

Anarchists oppose the state (defined as an organization with a monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force in a given country) because the state exists for the sole purpose of limiting human freedom and imposing the will of a certain group of people (usually a tiny minority) on the rest of a nation’s citizens. Because of the state, millions of people are incarcerated—mostly for nonviolent and “victimless” offenses—and forced to live in totalitarian conditions in which they have absolutely no control over their own situations. Because of the state, untold multitudes are forced to alter their behavior for fear of enduring punishment and incarceration if they act autonomously. Because of the state, millions of people die in wars and genocides, and millions of others are forced to live under foreign occupation in which their liberty is severely restricted. It is obvious that, so long as the state exists, human beings can never attain maximum freedom or maximum happiness, and so, utilitarians and anarchists should oppose the state.
http://www.anarkismo.net/newswire.php?story_id=4486

It doesn’t get much more succinct than that! Governments killed something like 262 million people in the last century. Governments are the most brutal, unaccountable organizations in the history of mankind. They’ve brought tyranny, oppression, slavery, and poverty wherever they’ve been allowed to exist. They benefit a small but powerful elite at the expense of everyone else. Governments have brought us unspeakable horrors: gas chambers, torture dungeons, gulags, mass executions, human ovens, large-scale starvation, ethnic cleansing, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Newt Gingrich, you name it. And there’s no end in sight! There’s only one remedy: abolish the state immediately, completely, and unapologetically, piss on its ashes, and then put its “leaders” on trial for crimes against humanity.

The utilitarian case for the total free market also simple to make. Market anarchism would allow for unrestrained competition, capital accumulation, and innovation like we’ve never seen before. People would be rewarded, not punished (as they are in the current system) for creating wealth and raising the standard of living. People would be punished, not subsidized (as they are in the current system) for failing to raise the standard of living. The rewards and punishments in both departments would be far, far greater, which is a good thing. The poor would easily benefit the most from all of this. (See George Reisman’s article Anti-Obamanomics for a more extensive discussion of this.)

Money would no longer be diverted to wealthy government bureaucrats and their cronies, nor would it be spent on their trillion-dollar wars or boondoggles. The Federal Reserve would no longer transfer wealth from the poor to the ultra-rich. The countless monopolists, price gougers, illegitimate landholders, and authoritarian employers propped up by the government would be put out of business. The minimum wage would no longer trap people in grinding poverty to make billionaire leftists feel good. Regressive taxes (social security, sales taxes, etc) would no longer exist. People trying to start their own businesses or become self-employed would no longer be stopped or punished by government regulators

Market anarchism would mean complete freedom and autonomy for all individuals. Instead of living as serfs on the land of a feudal government, every single person would have absolute control over their lives and the decisions they make. Everyone would be free to keep every last penny (would pennies even exist?) they make, and free to spend it however they want. Instead of a one-size-fits-all, poorly run government education system, they would be able to choose whatever school they want, with whatever values they want, at whatever price they want. The same goes for health care, garbage collection, firefighters, postal service, and everything else. There would be far more choices than with a government monopoly (or a heavily cartelized economy). And when people are free to choose from a number of options, they are usually more happy than when they are coerced into one.

People could choose for themselves what drugs (including prescription drugs) they want to use, what guns they want to buy, who they want to marry, who they wish to associate with, and which charities they want to donate to, without government idiots interfering. What does that sound like? Freedom!

No more FCC telling us what we can and can’t watch. No more “selective service.” No more Department of Homeland Stupidity with its absurd color warnings. No more restrictions on freedom of speech. No more Rick Santorums using legislation to ram their insane religious beliefs down our throats. No more laughably ineffective government police, who crack down on petty “crimes” while leaving violent wackjobs free to terrorize us. No more military industrial complex, medical industrial complex, or security industrial complex. Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity would likely have to sell themselves into prostitution (which would also be legal). What does all of this add up to? Greatly enhanced autonomy, extreme freedom, and more happiness.

When should we want all of this? Now!! As quickly as possible! Radical abolitionism is the only way we’ll ever get anywhere. Gradual and “pragmatic” reforms will never achieve anything.

So whether you're a Stirnerite egoist looking to promote his own interests, a Kropotkinite do-gooder who wants to help society as a whole, or someone else skeptical of arguments from "rights," you should consider market anarchism.

Hierarchy and usury, once again

As I've stated numerous times, my principal objection to left-libertarianism is not cultural, but economic and scientific. A real-life economy simply could not function on left-libertarian principles. This is because the simplistic rule of "no hierarchy" essentially means "no division of labor."

The entrepreneurs, inventors, innovators, and "men of the mind" (as Rand called them) will always be the leaders, the risk-takers, and the project managers. Everyone else will always be (voluntary) followers, for their own benefit. As Tom Woods put it:

Leaving aside the odd view that only manual laborers engage in “work,” all the brawn in the world could never have produced a steam engine or a Pentium processor. Only when informed by the knowledge of inventors and supplied with the capital saved by capitalists can the average laborer produce the tiniest fraction of what he is today accustomed to producing.

So the left-libertarian desire to "smash hierarchy" amounts to "smash the brains of the operation" and "smash the division of labor." Let the workers democratically replace the mind of the person in charge! (And let's allow hospital janitors to "vote" on the decisions of surgeons while we're at it.)

A comment on Rad Geek's blog also discusses the inescapability of the division of labor:

Well, let’s set this straight: the difference of talents and character will certainly produce labor contracts wherein the capitalist assumes the (entrepreneurial) risk-taking weight and the wage-earners obtain a fixed income where there was none in a self-“employment” setting. This vertical division of labor is far superior (as the horizontal or trade type) to independent laboring. The fact that you find it forming over and over, spontaneously (see Menger-Hayek-Leoni) in small populations, deserted areas and anarchic settings (no black flags or blogs, just the lack of any State presence suffices) must tell you something about its validity as an institution.

When I bring these types of arguments up to left-libertarians, they get angry very quickly and claim (unconvincingly) that they aren't against the division of labor. But it has to be one or the other--either no hierarchy or no division of labor. Take your pick.

Other left-libertarians realize how weak their position is after you explain it to them. Some will gradually concede, "Fine, there has to be some hierarchy and a division of labor. It's the autonomy of teh workers I'm concerned about."

Fine. I'm concerned about that too. Focus on autonomy, then. But I won't be satisfied until all of them confront these problems head-on instead of evading them (before going on to ramble about "hierarchy" again, as if they have some keen insight the rest of us are unaware of).

Another dilemma left-libertarians refuse to confront is that of "usury." Few of them will give a straight answer on whether they think it's ok to make profits off a firm one doesn't work in. IMO, anyone not opposed to that is not a leftist or left-libertarian, but some breed of capitalist.

So ends another post on a subject that's getting tiresome. But I had to get my thoughts out there.

Market anarchism and monetary economics

Since I've been discussing monetary policy with others on the Mises forums lately, I thought this would be a great time to discuss Steve Kangas' widely linked article on the gold standard.

Full disclosure: I am not an economist or economic historian, nor am I an expert on the subject (though I strongly doubt Kangas was either). Nonetheless, his problematic arguments leap off the page. I should also add that I am not necessarily for gold (especially not a state-run gold standard), but an advocate of competing currencies. So let's go through Kangas' smug article and see where he goes astray.

The reason why the far right opposes the current money system is because it allows the government to control the size of the money supply. They argue that an unscrupulous government might pay its bills by printing more money, which would cause inflation...

And we know that's never happened in history before! Obviously a ridiculous idea.

Mainstream economists, however, have a powerful counter-argument.

Uh oh, whenever you see the word "mainstream" you know an appeal to authority or bandwagon fallacy is coming..

(BTW, most "mainstream" economists take stances on free trade, minimum wage, etc, that Kangas and his leftist ilk would never accept. So his appeal to "mainstream"--statist--economists is highly selective.)

Suppose that a village is using gold for money, but unfortunately there is only one gold nugget. Whoever possesses that nugget will be able to buy literally anything in the village -- but only once. After surrendering the nugget for an item, that person will then have to turn around and offer literally anything to get it back. Because the village has numerous people waiting in line to use the nugget for money, economic activity will slow down to a crawl, unemployment will rise, and the result is a recession. This example highlights another principle: money needs to be divisible. The village's economic activity would be doubled just by cutting the gold nugget in half. Of course, dividing money is the same thing as expanding the money supply.

This section is where Steve makes most of the errors that he discusses for the rest of the article.

Steve has a valid point about an economy not being able to function properly with an inadequate money supply. A shame it has already been addressed. In a nutshell, it is the market that decides which currency/currencies will be used. If a certain medium of exchange is far too scarce or abundant (which will send its purchasing power up or down), people will simply switch to something else.

When you really think about it, the money supply (in a market anarchist society) is basically unlimited. Everyone can choose to convert their gold or silver into rocks, plants, precious metals, abundant paper money or anything, and use that as a currency instead. Or a mix of them, or whatever. The difference is that the value is never robbed, as it is under central banking.

Kangas makes a completely fallacious claim: "Of course, dividing money is the same thing as expanding the money supply." Why he starts his sentence with "of course" is a mystery, because his statement is a complete non sequitur. There is a big difference between turning a dollar into ten dimes and printing more dollars. In the first case, I'm simply dividing the value I already have. In the second scenario, I'm creating more of it at the expense of others.

Kangas leaps from these faulty arguments to his conclusion that a secretive Federal Reserve, operated by and for the corporate elite, must constantly manipulate the money supply. Hardly a "progressive" stance, but progressivism has long been a philosophy for the rich and powerful.

LeFevre on Rejecting the "Anarchist" Label

Excerpt:

As I saw it then, and as I still see it, the anarchist philosophy is internally contradictory. It professes a sparkling and shining individualism, at which point I warm to the arguments. Then it advocates some kind of procedure to interfere with the processes of a free market, e.g., elimination of interest and rents; denial of the right of a man to own land, or to own land beyond some stated amount; abolition of profits; placement of management control in the hands of workers through democratic processes conducted within factories, and so on.

I myself went through an extended period of interest in social anarchism at one point. There's no denying the "let's all cooperate together" thing has a sort aesthetic appeal.

The more I looked into it, the more disgusted I became. They believe literally all capitalists and entrepreneurs are pure evil, the greatest evil on the entire planet, and that none of them do anything productive at all. Ever. Every last capitalist and entrepreneur is simply a worthless exploiter parasite who harms the workers. The market is useless too, without a single redeeming quality, and every nook and cranny of it is to be immediately abolished. All businesses are equally evil and exploitative, just by being businesses. In addition, being an employee is far, far worse than being tortured or executed by Mao or Stalin. State-socialism (and perhaps even Naziism) is a lesser evil than commercialism. Social anarchists devote most of their time to these ideas.

In my view, all of these arguments are fanatically dogmatic and one-sided, and there are more than a couple babies being cavalierly thrown out with the bathwater. Needless to say, social anarchists don't have much of an alternative to the market--they're more interested in demonizing anyone who defends it. The best they've come up with so far is some vague "workers' councils will plan the economy through a bunch of meetings" bullshit that has little historical or economic reasoning behind it.

Like it or not, this is anarchism. And it's why I'm now rejecting the label. All this "anti-capitalist" stuff is just too much. Maybe I'm just a moron for not seeing the (apparently self-evident) brilliance in all this simplistic twaddle. Or maybe, just maybe, war, slavery, genocide, nuclear weapons, racism and totalitarianism are slightly worse than Starbucks selling me a Frappucino. I dunno.

Update: I decided to make that last sentence into a motivational poster. Great stuff!

What Are The Best Charities To Donate To?

Definitely add this one to the list. From a LRC article by Bill Butler:

The Minneapolis-based Sharing and Caring Hands is a libertarian’s dream charitable organization. Sharing and Caring Hands serves 240,000 meals a year, houses 500 people every night, pays to provide overnight shelter for another 19,000 people per year, provides eye exams and glasses for children and adults and also provides shoes, clothing and emergency funds to those in need. It does all of this without accepting one dime of state, federal or United Way aid. Sharing and Caring Hands has operated for over 20 years. Its founder and CEO, Mary Jo Copeland, was a libertarian before being a libertarian was cool. In addition to rejecting all state and federal aid, Mary Jo does not accept a salary. Mary Jo has heroically and successfully fended off numerous attacks from Minnesota state authorities who claim to dislike her accounting methods (she gives cash to the needy and does not get receipts) but actually are more concerned about what she really represents – perhaps the world’s greatest threat to the socialist Welfare State.

Sounds like she got the same treatment as Food Not Bombs.

What other charities out there deserve our support? There have to be plenty of them. Remember: the more we build up non-state solutions to people's problems, the closer we get to ending the disease called the State.

Why I'm Suspicious of Social Anarchism

I've already posted on why social anarchism is extremely impractical, in the economic sense. But it's also destined to be authoritarian.

Whenever I hear social anarchists describe their preferred institutions, my blood curdles. I am deeply suspicious of all this talk of "democracy," "libertarian municipalism," "delegates," "federation," and most of all, "voting." I do not have one scintilla of trust in any of this "social democracy" gunk, which always somehow manages to be very state-like in practice..

The social anarchists have done little to reassure us that their system would be truly libertarian. Many of them ally with Leninists or Democratic Socialists, and view scum such as Che Guevara as "comrades." A number of them are lean heavily Marxist. Most of them support far greater state control over the economy than what we have now, endorsing socialized health care, public schools, powerful unions, and other statist institutions.

Rarely, if ever, do they condemn state-socialism. Oh sure, they'll pay lip service to opposing it (at least when the Leninists let them off their leashes). But do they? I don't think they do. They certainly don't ever act like they do. They don't seem to oppose government at all, except in the rare instances that it protects individual rights.

The basic problem is that while the "community" may own the means of production in theory, it always amounts to a small group of elites controlling and planning the economy in practice. The reason for this is that it's ludicrous to think that the individual would actually have a "say" under a system specifically designed for collective mob rule. Rothbard was right when he said:

"But more deep than that is the fact that Karl [Hess] after having been an anarcho-capitalist for some time shifted over to become an anarcho-communist or anarcho-syndicalist. I don't really see any basis for collaboration between the two groups, because even if we are both against the existing state, they would very quickly come up with another state. I don't think you can be an anarcho-communist or an anarcho-syndicalist. You know if the commune runs everything, and decides for everything, whether it is a neighborhood commune or a mass country commune – it really does not matter in this case, somebody's got to make the communal decision. You can't tell me that you'll have participatory democracy and that everybody is going to equally participate. There is obviously going to be a small group, the officiating board or the statistical administrative board or whatever they want to call it, whatever it's going to be, it's going to be the same damn group making decisions for everybody. In other words, it's going to be a coercive decision for the collective property. It will be another state again, as far as I can see. So I really can't see any basis for collaboration. That is really part of a broader analysis of the communist versus the individualist position."

The idea that you could organize any kind of significant economy and give every single individual within it an equal say is 100% impossible. There is no way it can be done. Any system that says otherwise is a fraud.

The Impossibility Of Any Form Of Planned Economy

The statist Left has long supported a planned economy run by a centralized state. As we're all aware, the project has failed miserably and produced massive tyranny everywhere it's ever been tried, without any exceptions.

The anarchist Left supports a planned economy as well, but with a few tweaks. First, they want it to be more decentralized. (How this is going to work with the "confederation of Communes" or whatever they want is anyone's guess.) They also picture it being "voluntary" and more democratic, with everyone having an opportunity to participate. This, they seem to believe, will iron out the wrinkles in the central-planning slacks.

But this is still basically impossible. Why?

Every single day of our lives, we make numerous, spontaneous economic decisions. In a given day we might choose to fill up with gas, buy a Coke at a vending machine, replace a light bulb, whatever. As anyone with experience in marketing research knows, most people cannot come close to accurately predicting the economic decisions they will make (how much they'll spend and on what), even in the very near future.

Think of all the different things you might buy in just a single trip to the grocery store: eggs, hamburger meat, tooth paste, shoe laces, shampoo, deodorant, aspirin, head phones, whatever. Think of all the different, often far-away places each of these items came from, as well as how they were made and distributed. Then think about all the diferent, far-away places the producers had to buy the materials from, just to produce those items (and so on).

Despite the different origins and producers of each item, they are all just sitting there, immediately available for you to consume at this location, at a second's notice. It is hard to realize just how convenient and efficient all of this is, until it's gone.

When you check out of the grocery store, you don't have to argue with every other stranger shopping there over who deserves to get what, or why. You don't have to defend your choices. You don't have to worry about how many groceries other people are buying, or whether they're freeloading. You rarely have to worry about what you need not being available, because supply and demand are taken into account. Again, the ease and convenience of this is taken for granted by most on the left.

And of course, you don't have to directly haggle with the people who produced each individual good you're buying.

Under a planned economy, even a "voluntary" one, all of this goes out the window, and we're left with an unworkable nightmare.

The complicated, rapidly changing and widespread nature of an entire economy simply cannot be planned, especially not through "voting" or "workers' councils." (Sure, there have been small communes, but most of them have been failures and all of them have had to leech off of the capitalist system for survival.) To think otherwise is utopian and downright religious...certainly not scientific in any sense of the word. Capitalistic businesses exist on every corner of practically every country--we know that they work. Anarcho-leftie societies do not exist anywhere, because they can't possibly sustain any large, free, heterogeneous group of people.

What market anarchists understand is that wishing for a certain society doesn't make it possible. While I don't like quoting Ayn Rand, she was right when she said, "facts are facts, independent of man's feelings, wishes, hopes or fears." Socialism and planned economies will always fail miserably, regardless of how many brainy intellectuals, do-gooders, or crackpot theorists wish otherwise. This is a matter of simple science.

The next time you're at the grocery store, be thankful you're not under a planned economy.

Workplace Authoritarianism

Like virtually all individualist anarchists, I oppose workplace authoritarianism and agree with much of what Kevin Carson has said recently on the subject.

However...(I can just hear everyone slapping their palms against their foreheads and groaning ;) this comes with a few caveats.

1) Employment is not inherently authoritarian. For instance: if I'm employed by a company but rarely even see or notice my employer, I think it's pretty hard to argue that the situation is authoritarian. If I'm employed by a company but work at home, how can that possibly be authoritarian? A lot of anarchists seem to conflate all 'employment' with sweatshop jobs and others where there is zero autonomy and employees are de facto serfs. But it just ain't so. Heck, a self-employed person may well be ordered around by his clients more than an employed person.

2) The fact that some people may be making profits off of the firm without working in it has no effect whatsoever on the degree of authoritarianism (if any) going on inside of its walls.

It's unfortunate that most anarchists spend so much time on these misplaced targets when opposing them is not really necessary to oppose actual workplace authoritarianism.

Social "Anarchism": Statist In Both Theory And Practice

An excellent post by Soviet Onion on the LL forum contained a great link. A must-read for all individualist anarchists, regardless of which "sect" you may belong to.

Where I Differ With Anarcho-Mercantilist On The Political Compass

Anarcho-mercantilist has a good post up about how he answered each part of the political compass and why. On most of the questions we answered the exact same, but on a few I answered differently. At times, this was just because I interpreted the question differently. For starters..

If economic globalisation is inevitable, it should primarily serve humanity rather than the interests of trans-national corporations.

I answered "strongly disagree," because it sounded like some stealth "fair trade" bullshit. If the question said "mercantilist globalization," my answer may have been different.

Controlling inflation is more important than controlling unemployment.

I said "strongly agree," because the question seems to imply that the government can "control unemployment" by "creating jobs" or some such nonsense.

Because corporations cannot be trusted to voluntarily protect the environment, they require regulation.

I said "strongly disagree." I think all government regulatory agencies should be abolished, so obviously I don't think businesses should be regulated. Voluntary certification, green capitalism, and free market environmentalism are all fine, of course.

The only social responsibility of a company should be to deliver a profit to its shareholders.

I said "strongly agree." The business has a responsibility not to commit aggression or fraud obviously, but they have no responsibility to give the public "healthy food" (as the lefties demand of McDonald's) or other drivel.

There are no savage and civilised peoples; there are only different cultures.

Sorry, but there are plenty of cultures and traditions I think qualify as inferior or worthless.

What's good for the most successful corporations is always, ultimately, good for all of us.

I said yes. If they weren't doing stuff we liked, we wouldn't be keeping them in business.

On most of the other stuff, I'm with Anarcho-mercantilist.

O'Neill Takes On Chomsky

..in an excellent article.

One of my favorite quotes from it:

are corporations really "about as close to the totalitarian ideal as any [institution] that humans have so far constructed," as Chomsky contends? Is Starbucks as close to the totalitarian ideal as, say, the National Socialist regime of Adolf Hitler? Is Walmart as totalitarian an institution as the Bolshevik state of Vladimir Lenin? Even to ask these questions is to see their patent absurdity.

Yep, you're 100% right, Ben. But it's exactly what these lunatics believe.

What's extraordinary is the amount of time O'Neill devotes to stressing that state intervention gives many businesses dangerous forms of power and authority. The poor dude thought he had covered all his bases in avoiding a hysterical charge of "vulgar libertarianism."

Surprise, surprise! The obnoxious 'left-libertarians' still found plenty to nit-pick (as they always do). This time, the complaint is that he dared to imply that there may be a single business in ancapistan containing a minuscule trace of "hierarchy." Sigh.

Long writes:
..even forms of power that don’t involve or depend on coercion can still be harmful and worth fighting..

Dude. You and your posse can believe whatever the crap you want about hierarchies. The rest of us are just getting annoyed with the way you guys sculpt your predictions to match those beliefs, and then complain when others don't accept them.

I wish more left-libertarians would just admit that they oppose hierarchies per se, regardless of whether or not they could exist or flourish under a free market economy. If hierarchy is what they want to criticize, then they should criticize it.

However, they have a knack for disguising their criticisms of hierarchy as criticisms of state intervention. I believe they do this so other libertarians will be forced take their arguments seriously. Switching the subject from hierarchy (which libertarians don't oppose) to coercion (which libertarians oppose) means libertarians have to play their little game. Y'see? It's a clever trick, and they've become better and better at it. Practice makes perfect, I suppose.

David Z Annihilates The Philosophy Of Statism

Here.

It always makes me laugh when I hear the "love it or leave it!" argument from statists. Why? Because the bastards won't even let you leave!! Just ask Mike Gogulski how easy it is to leave, with all the rules, regulatory crap, and bureaucratic hoops it involves. Hell, you can't even walk near the border without being handcuffed or shot.

Note: Originally I couldn't read this page, so I downloaded a better browser (which I had been meaning to do for some time). Best decision I ever made. I'm amazed I didn't just do it earler.

The Futility Of Trying To Reason With Anarcho-Communists

Last year I left a comment on Per Bylund's blog:

Anarcho-capitalists who criticize big corporations and “existing capitalism” are treated as badly (if not worse) as those who cuddle up to them. That’s why sucking up to the left is a fool’s errand. It’s not the privileges or subsidies they hate, it’s the “voluntary” part.

Some 'left-libertarians' of the Brainpolice stripe are now beginning to figure this out the hard way. The more I read these kinds of debates, the more I want to say: I told you so!

Sneaking Utility Through The Back Door

A post over at Libertarians Against War disputes that utilitarians can be libertarians:

This is why I think that anyone claiming to be ‘liberal’ or ‘libertarian’ should be grounded in natural law only.

As usual with natural law proponents, he doesn’t go into a coherent justification for natural law.

To put it bluntly, I have yet to hear any kind of coherent argument for natural rights that doesn't simply fall back on utility in some way, shape, or form, or attempt to slide it in through the back door. Let’s look at some of Rothbard’s arguments for natural rights.

The natural law, then, elucidates what is best for man — what ends man should pursue that are most harmonious with, and best tend to fulfill, his nature. In a significant sense, then, natural law provides man with a "science of happiness," with the paths which will lead to his real happiness.

To further explain natural law, he quotes Sir William Blackstone:

This is the foundation of what we call ethics, or natural law … demonstrating that this or that action tends to man's real happiness, and therefore very justly concluding that the performance of it is a part of the law of nature; or, on the other hand, that this or that action is destruction of man's real happiness, and therefore that the law of nature forbids it.

Hmm…sounds pretty utilitarian-ish to me, but maybe it’s the shrooms kicking in.

Rothbard tries to deny that he’s sneaking utility through the back door, but fails.

In contrast [to natural law] praxeology or economics as well as the utilitarian philosophy with which this science has been closely allied, treat "happiness" in the purely formal sense as the fulfillment of those ends which people happen — for whatever reason — to place high on their scales of value. Satisfaction of those ends yields to man his "utility" or "satisfaction" or "happiness." Value in the sense of valuation or utility is purely subjective, and decided by each individual. This procedure is perfectly proper for the formal science of praxeology, or economic theory, but not necessarily elsewhere. For in natural-law ethics, ends are demonstrated to be good or bad for man in varying degrees; value here is objective — determined by the natural law of man's being, and here "happiness" for man is considered in the commonsensical, contentual [is this even a word? –Cork] sense.

There you have it, folks. Yes, natural law is still based on utility, but it’s different, y’see, because the happiness it promotes is more “commonsensical” (seriously, this sounds like Boomhauer from King of the Hill). Y’see?

First off, Rothbard seems unfamiliar with the various branches of utilitarianism (what he’s describing here is preference utilitarianism, and what he’s describing in other essays is generally a bastardized form of act utilitarianism). But I digress. While this section is so vague that it barely makes sense, Rothbard seems to be saying that he’s only promoting utility in a “general” sense—in the sense that’s based around man’s natural being. But isn’t any theory of utility for man going to have to acknowledge man’s nature in one way or another?

Now, a thousand people are going to show up in the comments section to kick my ass (god bless 'em). For all I know, maybe they’ll succeed. I don’t claim to be any sort of expert philosopher, and I know there are many natural-rights proponents out there who are extremely intelligent. But still…if were to purge all those who use utility-based rationales for libertarianism, the natural-rights proponents would be purged as well, no?

Leaning Utilitarian

I was a natural rights libertarian for some time, and even gave a defense of the natural-rights position in a previous post on this blog. However, over the last few months I’ve gradually shifted toward a more utilitarian point of view. While I’m still sympathetic to the natural rights approach (and believe that many of its critics use asinine or strawman arguments), I think it ultimately has a lot of problems.

I’ve done quite a few brain exercises with this. For instance, suppose the Marxist exploitation theory, or any other leftist exploitation theory, is in fact true. They aren’t, of course, but let’s pretend that they are. The pure deontological libertarian would then have to support capitalism anyway, even if he conceded it would mean massive exploitation, suffering and evil. This strikes me as crazy. Despite their anti-utilitarian rhetoric, I don’t think even most of the self-proclaimed natural-rights libertarians would remain so if they discovered one of these exploitation theories was true. Ludwig von Mises argued that natural-rights advocates don't really ever fully escape utilitarianism, and I think he’s right.

Consider an argument with a communist.
Communist: “Everyone has a right to have their needs fulfilled, no matter what.”
Sane person: “Even if it leads to hell on Earth and kills millions?”
Communist: “Yes. Everyone has a right to have their basic needs fulfilled.”

Obviously, I'm not claiming natural-rights libertarians are communists, but I think you get my point. So we’re supposed to only think about things in terms of “rights,” and never, ever consider the consequences or practicality of anything? While this will certainly help keep one principled (a huge plus of the natural-rights approach), it seems loaded with pitfalls.

A pure version of the NAP is also very problematic. To take one horrifying example, it would mean allowing private ownership of nukes (a position that even Rothbard rejected, though his rejection is a blatant violation of the NAP). As David Friedman has pointed out, a purist NAP would also mean breathing is immoral, since carbon dioxide is a pollutant and pollution is aggression. The infinite complexities of life can’t be reduced to a simplistic slogan like the NAP. The subjects of morality and rights in general are surprisingly complicated and exceedingly difficult to define and justify, once one really “gets into” them.

Note: While I could have easily made this post quite a lot longer, and given a lot more examples and explanations, I don’t think it’s necessary. I don't think anyone wants to read a long, rambling post anyway.

What Counts As "Left-wing"?

On another blog, I commented on what I consider as being "left-wing." I wanted to re-post it here:

There are two kinds of self-identified left-libertarians: those who support economic (not political) capitalism, and those who oppose it...IMO, if someone is not opposed to economic capitalism, that person is not a left-winger. At least not in my book. That doesn't mean they can't consider themselves left-wingers, or identify with the left, just that I don't really see someone as 'left-wing' unless they oppose economic capitalism. It's just a matter of basic political accuracy. I don't know of a single well-known left-winger who had no problem with capitalist structures.

When asked to define "economic capitalism," I responded:

Economic capitalism = making a profit off of other people's labor via ownership of capital.

This is an issue I've discussed before (see here for a perhaps overly harsh early post on this blog), and my opinion hasn't changed much.

Brutus Buries The State

A great column at Nolan chart.

Where I Stand Or Something

The left-libertarian vs right-libertarian war continues!!!

Where do I stand in all of this? I'm beginning to think I'm more of a 'plumb-line' radical libertarian, like Walter Block.

I agree with left-libertarians on some things and right-libertarians on others.

On the corporate form / limited liability arguments, I tend to agree with right-libertarians.

While I think the size of firms in the free market is irrelevant, I ultimately fall somewhere between right-libs and left-libs on the issue.

On immigration, religious idiocy, and cultural conservatism (blind hated of all minorities), I agree with left-libertarians. To be honest though, I really don’t care as much about these issues as most left-libertarians seem to. I also sometimes get annoyed by the overbearing PC police on their side. (If you think criticizing Lincoln is “racist,” then you’re simply an idiot.)

I identify more with individualist anarchism than the "Old Right" (and am also more influenced by it) so I guess I'm a left-libertarian in that regard.

On corporatism, I'm with the left-libertarians. I think it’s a far bigger problem than most right-libertarians do (though I think the left-libs can sometimes get pretty nit-picky on the issue).

IMHO, the vast majority of anarcho-communists are statist social democrats in disguise, and the left in general is pretty hopeless--except for some of the mutualists! So I'm probably with the right-libertarians on that.

And that's where I sit...er, stand. Just thought I might as well kick these random thoughts out there, because I had to comment on the whole thing sooner or later.

Still Debating (Well, More Like Discussing) Mutualism

Here, here, and here, for whoever's interested.

UPDATE: It turns out that I am officially on Franc's "ignore" list:

"I'm putting you on ignore. I am tired of your attacks and your constant straw men. Even though we keep indulging you, you obviously have ZERO intention of engaging in dialogue beyond your preconceived notions and things you quote on the Internet. I am really fed up with you."

It's the same line I hear at the end of every dinner party.

Debating Mutualism

I've been discussing mutualism all weekend, in this thread and this thread. In the first one, Franc gets pretty pissed at me! Fun stuff all around.