Response: Sorry Libertarian Anarchists, Capitalism Requires Government

in #anarchy8 years ago (edited)

This post is my response to Harry Binswanger's Forbes article, which can be found here


In this article, Binswanger argues that to maintain a peaceful society, government is required. Unfortunately, Binswanger neglects to define exactly what he means by "government," which I think is a seed of our disagreement. Without a philosophically consistent definition of government, we're left with emotional definitions based on no objective standards. An organization is considered to be "government" if it generally looks and acts like one to the reader. Unfortunately, this leaves us with no consensus on whether a particular organization is government or not, and makes it impossible to discuss whether government is required.

So to set the board straight: my anarcho-capitalist definition of "government" is Any individual or organization which claims ex nihilo rights (in particular, the right to initiate violence) which other individuals or organizations do not possess. This includes all contemporary governments and, furthermore, it also includes organized extortion rackets, and a mugger on the street. In all of these cases, in a particular time and place, one person assumes the right to govern (coerce) another, but cannot philosophically argue why he is rightfully the master and the other is rightfully the slave.

Note that whether the reader agrees with this definition of the word is not relevant to the points being made. I do not hold this to be the only appropriate use of the word, and I welcome suggestions to refine the definition. I merely assert that when I use the word, this is what I mean by it.

The beginning of this article is excellent, and makes several good points which are clearly laid out and are, indeed, consistent with anarcho-capitalist philosophy. For example:

[P]roducing and exchanging values is the opposite of physical force.
[...]
Force properly employed is used only in retaliation, but even when retaliatory, force merely eliminates a negative, it cannot create value. The threat of force is used to make someone obey, to thwart his will. The only moral use of force is in self-defense, to protect one’s rights.

Congratulations, Mr. Binswanger! If you consistently hold to this principle, you are an anarcho-capitalist! But in your article, you do not consistently hold to this principle, thus I advise you to work the inconsistencies out of your philosophy. In turn, if I have overlooked any inconsistencies in my philosophy, I request that they be brought to my attention as well.

Further developing his argument, Binswanger makes the following point:

The wielding of force is not a business function. In fact, force is outside the realm of economics. Economics concerns production and trade, not destruction and seizure.

Once again, I am left uncertain what exactly Binswanger means with a word, in this case, "economics." Anarcho-capitalists hold that all human action is economic in nature because the only reason a human acts is to create an outcome he finds more valuable (or desirable) than the situation which presently exists. If I attempt to rob another, this is indeed an economic transaction; namely, one which states that I view a world in which I possess what another has as more valuable than the world in which I currently exist. If I attempt to defend another against being robbed, I demonstrate that I view a world in which one's person and the product of his labor are protected against violent expropriation as more valuable than one in which they are not. These are value calculations, even if we do not bother to analyze them as such in the heat of the moment.

Note that this does not discount the possibility of irrational violence. Perhaps an emotionally unstable driver gets cut off by another motorist in a Ferrari, so he rams his vehicle into the offender's car. This is indeed a pointless act of destruction, but it is still the result of a value calculation (albeit an irrational one), namely that the driver believes he will feel better, somehow vindicated, for having destroyed the motorist's expensive car.

I encourage Binswanger to describe how he uses the term "economics" differently when he argues against the anarcho-capitalist position, so that we can determine whether there is any philosophical disagreement, or merely disagreement in how we each use certain words. I suspect, however, that Binswanger makes this point about economics because his philosophy depends on force not being the result of a value calculation:

Ask yourself what it means to have a “competition” in governmental services. It’s a “competition” in wielding force, a “competition” in subjugating others, a “competition” in making people obey commands. That’s not “competition,” it’s violent conflict. On a large scale, it’s war.

Only if we assume indiscriminate or emotional violence. In the ideal case, the competition of force is never used to determine who can use the most force (excepting certain voluntary competitions, i.e. boxing); rather, it is to determine who can use the least force to achieve the desired outcome. Competition to provide security against criminals cannot result in an escalation of conflict, as the only way to one-up the competition is to achieve the same result (security) with less violence! It's only when the conflict becomes irrational that the competition devolves into wanton destruction, because it has come unbound from the original value judgment: security is more valuable than insecurity.

The question then becomes, how can we ensure that the competition remains in pursuit of the stated goal: the protection of security? By introducing economics! If firms are created to protect security, it is because security is perceived as valuable. Thus any revenue the firms generate will be a function of how effectively and efficiently they protect security. Any force the firms employ will be a function of their revenue, as will their profits. Thus the instant a firm begins to deviate from actions which protect security with the least possible violence (which necessarily will result in a comparative loss of security, an observation the firm's competitors will trumpet from the rooftops), its revenues will suffer loss, and so too shall its capacity for force and its profits. Businesses tend to be rather fond of their profits, thus the aberrant behavior will soon be quelled. Even if the firm has abandoned all sanity and persists in its destructive path, its loss of revenue will soon starve out its capacity for violence.

In contrast, governments (in the anarcho-capitalist sense), even governments consisting of well-meaning people who want nothing more than to provide security, are extremely susceptible to losing their bearings and pursuing an irrational path of destruction rather than maximizing the economic good (security) they aim to protect. And because governments assume that they are rightfully the only producers of that good (and thus, they reason, it is their privilege and duty to compel the people to pay them for that good, via taxation), their profits are a function of their capacity for greater violence, through collecting higher taxes and punishing those who do not or cannot pay, which is the destruction of security.

Ironically, the government's tendency to destroy the security they sought to protect is the inevitable result of the attempt to divorce the concepts of force and economics. Furthermore, a government, no matter how well-intentioned, is unable to perceive their actions as counterproductive because they have lost their signal that they are acting irrationally (profit loss), as well as their kill-switch (revenue loss), and so they march ever onward believing if they can only do what they are now doing a little better, the problems will cease.

Throughout the remainder of his article, Binswanger makes a number of false conclusions which can be directly traced back to missing this point: one must not attempt to divorce the use of force from economics.

The second fatal flaw in Binswanger's calculus is that he assumes government is capable of existing as a separate entity from all other human endeavors, and is not subject to the same flaws:

A proper government functions according to objective, philosophically validated procedures, as embodied in its entire legal framework, from its constitution down to its narrowest rules and ordinances. Once such a government, or anything approaching it, has been established, there is no such thing as a “right” to “compete” with the government–i.e., to act as judge, jury, and executioner. Nor does one gain such a “right” by joining with others to go into the “business” of wielding force.
[...]
Economic competition presupposes a free market. A free market cannot exist until after force has been barred. That means objective law, backed up by a government. To say it can be backed up by “competing” force-wielders is circular. There is no competition until there is a free market, and some agency has to protect its condition as a free market by the use of retaliatory force.

Actually, a free market is the default state of human existence. It is the case when only one human exists. It is the case when many humans exist, but no human acts. It is the case when humans act without interacting, and it is the case when humans interact under the assumption that they are fundamentally equal: no party to the interaction is a master and no party is a slave.

It is only when one initiates force that the freedom is lost. Any government which presumes to exist arises out of the free market, and in the process, destroys it by asserting an ex nihilo right to violence which no others possess: the rightful status of master over all others, the rightful slaves. Those who seek to extinguish that violence seek to restore the free market by returning humanity to its default state of freedom and equality.

The proposition that any person or group or government can rightfully, or inevitably, hold a monopoly on force necessarily implies that those who hold that monopoly are cut from a finer cloth than the rest of us; that they exist as objectively wise and benevolent gods while we, the soiled masses, have naught but to give tribute out of our gratitude that they have deigned to oversee our activities and facilitate our peaceful production. But this does not hold true to reality: governments are composed of people. People with their foibles and flaws, their subjective tendencies and emotional miscalculations.

Governments cannot do anything objectively any more than corporations can, because they are simply people. Given that this is the case, the worst thing we could possibly do is arbitrarily select some and voluntarily submit to them as rulers.

Now, there is a time and a place for having the humility to submit to a leader, one recognized as the best suited for a certain task, or the most familiar with the complexities at hand. I don't tell my auto mechanic which type of tubing is best to carry a particular fluid, and he doesn't tell me which programming language is best suited to a certain problem. And yes, there is certainly room for delegating responsibility even with respect to the use of force. But to grant a monopoly and violently suppress any attempt to do better is unwise and immoral and counterproductive.

It is my opinion that most if not all of the inconsistencies and false conclusions derived by Binswanger in his article stem from these two crucial errors: the assertion that force exists outside of economic calculations, and the assertion that any human organization can exist as an objective, philosophically consistent entity.

If I have made any errors in my analysis, I welcome corrections.


Closing Note

As a follower of @sterlinluxan's work, I feel that I should acknowledge that in this article, I may seem to disregard emotion as harmful. That is not my intent. I have some thoughts on the value of emotion in human thought and behavior, and if the readers are interested in hearing these, I encourage them to let me know in the comments. I do assert, however, that when an individual allows emotion to rule their behavior, unchecked by the cold rational analysis of objectives and means of reaching them, they may act in ways deleterious to obtaining their stated goals. Perhaps the role of emotion is to choose worthy goals, and the role of cold analysis is to determine how obtain them?

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Great response, brother. I also appreciate the mention at the end. I really liked how you systematically debunked every aspect of the article. I will be following you from here forward. Thanks for keeping track of my work as well. Cheers.

@modprobe, wow, excellent post. Your response is very well written and I think you hit the nail on the head about Binswanger's separation of force from economic activity.

What exactly do you mean by "ex nihilo" in your definition of government? Binswanger may think that the rights of the government come from an agreement of some kind of majority of people with each other, not out of nothing. You may largely be disagreeing on words and definitions, as you suggest is possible.

Also, would he agree that he is making

the assertion that any human organization can exist as an objective, philosophically consistent entity?

I do think this assumption often lurks in the background of statists' minds, but it's more complicated than that! He mentions the "genius of the American system" - checks and balances, so does he think it's possible to create a system that is forever correcting itself so that corruption never subsumes honest governing?

For me the word "value" is crucial. It encompasses outcomes and situations that people find desirable, and security is one very common (nearly universal) value that individuals hold. Anarcho-capitalism is an attempt to allow value to flow freely. If the organizations that spring up are really incentivized to preserve security, then the competition for less violence that you mentioned ensues. Regular government sets up a conceptual system of fixed values that (however many) people hold, hopefully at least puts in place a mechanism for change and growth of the value system, and tasks some people with enforcing it.

Thanks for making me think about politics today!

Ex nihilo means "out of nothing," and in particular I am using it to refer to an assumption of superior, asymmetrical rights (rights I have over you that you don't have in kind) that come from absolutely nowhere. If I claim ex nihilo rights, I'm just claiming they exist, but I can't explain why or how I got them in any philosophically consistent manner. The point here is exactly that there isn't some contract or consent from which they arise.

I think he must necessarily be assuming that an organization called government can, for some nonzero period of time, be completely objective. He talks a lot about "objective laws," but that's silly: fiat laws (laws created by humans) cannot be objective, by definition: an inherently limited and subjective creature created them. Objective laws do exist (those that govern physics, cause and effect, math and logic, etc) but humans don't create or influence them.

I believe you can think about two views on government's origin, shallow and deep.
So you have shallow ex nihilo, which would mean "we rule, because we rule, we don't need to tell you why". But there are many states that claim their origin comes from things like "will of God" (medieval kings), "will of people" (modern democracies), etc. Many people don't consider them ex nihilo then, especially if they support the system. I find them as 'ex nihilo' as any other on deeper level. There are no things like "will of people", "will of nation", we don't know of any god who approved someone's reign.
The bottom line is that each government's "rights" to govern are made up, one way or another.

Very nice analysis on a very interesting topic! I agree that humans do NOT have to have a government to rule over them. If you think about, you could let a child grow up away from society and it wouldn't behave badly at all. People only get influenced by the media, government, and everything we see and hear. Even money is not a natural thing. So if a human being's nature is just to be peaceful, without jealousy or any negative feelings that we have today.. wouldn't that be an ideal world where no government is needed? The human being is its own worst enemy, we're managing to destroy our own race and the planet we live in more and more.
So if everyone would influence their friends, everyone surrounding them positively, couldn't we make this world a better place? Of course there will always be psychopaths, but those are only 0.001% of the population. If everyone of us truly tried to change themselves, their views upon the world and their behaviour, I do believe we could change the outcome of this planet and we wouldn't need a ruler at all.

Indeed, a child growing up away from the modern western culture would not adopt many of the negatives of our culture. Humans are programmable, especially in their formative years. After that, we're no less programmable, but it requires intentionality to program us, and each of us has the right of first refusal over what we allow ourselves to be programmed with (though unfortunately, most of us do not exercise that right because we never learned how). I'm sure @hypno has plenty of comments on that. :)

You're exactly right: money is not a natural thing. It is a technology (albeit a very old one) and a tool (an extremely powerful one), and it is useful, but we have let it be subverted to do great harm even while serving its useful purpose. We must take back control of the money and only use moneys which follow rules which we can inspect and understand. Federal Reserve dollars follow rules the fed makes up on a whim and does not allow us to inspect or veto. This is one of the great potentials of Steem: making a cryptocurrency that everyone can understand and use, with publicly auditable, open source rules.

So if everyone would influence their friends, everyone surrounding them positively, couldn't we make this world a better place?

Exactly! Criticize by creating. Be the change you want to see in the world. Creative destruction. :) All in the pursuit of human flourishing. This is exactly the point of the Voice and Exit conference; it's worth checking out if you're not familiar with it.

wise words my friend - I can see that you know a lot about these topics and how everything ties together with rothschild, rockefeller etc and how money is being controlled so that humans don't even get a chance to really understand the concept of money. everybody is just lured into a trap, and only people who teach themselves and question everything get to the point where you are.
Awesome, I'm looking forward to your future posts because you sir know what you're talking about.

Didn't know about V&E, thanks for mentioning it.

great text, well presentes.
i prickled at, Congratulations, Mr. Binswanger! If you consistently hold to this principle, you are an anarcho-capitalist! But in your article, you do not consistently hold to this principle, thus I advise you to work the inconsistencies out of your philosophy. In turn, if I have overlooked any inconsistencies in my philosophy, I request that they be brought to my attention as well.

Having spent a lifetime debating legacy dogma I am over sensitized to condescending turns of phrase.
Thanks for replying.
On rereading your thought line I have ended up with appreciation of your caliber.
Hope we stay linked.

ATB. T. :)

Perhaps that bit was poor form, but I did want to make the point that he advocates anarcho-capitalist principles in his article, but neglects to hold to them.

I love the theory.
Unfortunately, governments tend to form like stars and galaxies and superclusters.
Pick feudal Europe after the black plague. No governments anywhere.
But one village elects a sheriff to protect them from the village down the road which teams up with a third village to gain advantage over the first in a never ending process of alliance forming and conquest until eventually countries and empires and planetary governments are formed.
Occasionally a plague, EMP pulse, world war, or catastrophic Pittsburgh Steeler loss will tear it all down, but that merely resets the alliance forming process and it all begins again.

We don't actually know where governments arose from. The concept is as old as recorded history. We also know the timespan you mention with remarkably little detail or accuracy, as I understand it, so it's really quite difficult to say how we got to where we are. I have my theories, but that's a much bigger discussion for another time.

In any event, the possibility that someone will create a government is no reason not to abolish government. That's logically equivalent (not merely analogous) to saying "Someone might someday force someone else into slavery again, so we might as well not try to end slavery."

"We don't actually know where governments arose from."

I think its pretty safe to say government arose from the agricultural revolution. No known non-agricultural societies have any sort of government structure. It stems from the division of labor and the need to allocate resources, something that was not an issue in band / hunter gatherer society. #notananarchoprimitivistbutheymakesomegoodpoints

hi Stan,
great to find your post.
check Joe Atwill, Caesar's Messiah, for Flavio Constantine's feudalism,302 ad.
the renaissance has to have something to rebirth from. it lasted 1000 years
preventing rebellion from real shit till the black death 1348.
catchya soon.
ATB T:)

A free market is a market free from force. If you want to trade force on the market it's not free. A government is there to extract force from the market. If funded voluntarily there is no force involved. A government is a necessary good. Harry Binswanger is spot on.

A government is there to extract force from the market. [...] A government is a necessary good.

If you define government that way (the ideal rather than the realization), you're exactly right. Unfortunately, that definition does not describe any contemporary government I know of, and all too few historical ones. I think the Irish Brehon Law system did match that, though. That was a fine example of anarchist governance.

Harry Binswanger's mistake is the assertion that a government must be granted carte-blanche to use force, and never be forcefully challenged or competed with. That system is guaranteed to degenerate.

The argument that any force makes a market less free is bogus. The idea that we can have no force at all is, of course, a pipe dream. Appropriate retaliatory force in response to things like fraud or theft makes a market freer by discouraging other uses of force.

"Initiatory" force is implied here, but you're right, that could've been more clear.

If mughat meant initiatory force, then his argument falls apart. Nobody is arguing that there should be a market for initiatory force.

Of course, given that humans are imperfect, there will be a market for initiatory force no matter what we do. We all want that market to be as small as possible so that the market overall can be as free as possible. The question is what's the best way to destroy any market for initiatory force. The disagreement is over whether the answer to that is government or a market for retaliatory force.

I'll let mughat clarify what he means for himself. :)

> The disagreement is over whether the answer to that is government or a market for retaliatory force.

By definition, government cannot remove force from the market because government is defined to be initiatory force.

Libertarianism is a fabulous concept, but I'll readily admit it's not realistic. It would be if all humans and corporations were benevolent, but that is simply not the case. In a utopia, maybe, but not on this planet Earth. Someone needs to keep things in control.

So I agree, whatever the form of society and politics, there's always need for a government.

"If all humans were benevolent, no government would be necessary. If all humans are not benevolent, no government should dare be tried." This is a paraphrase of a famous quote but I can't remember who said it.

If the premise for the need of government is that humans are not perfect. I wonder who or what will inhabit the station of government that is free from the imperfections of humans.

If you accept that the initiation of non-consensual violent force against an individual is wrong, then no government is even logically possible. Government implies involuntary forced compliance to some dictate. If it were voluntary you wouldn't call it governance, you'd call it co-operation.

You are both spot on - I intentionally shied away from defining "government" because it is a whole different can of worms. Let me gather thoughts - I'll try to post something tomorrow.

James Madison said this phrase - "If all humans were benevolent, no government would be necessary. If all humans are not benevolent, no government should dare be tried." @xeldal

If a large majority of us learned how to meet our needs sustainably and directly, the corporations would either shape up or go away due to not being needed. Once the governments and corporations went away, so would most of the useless subhumans that are dependent upon them, along with most of the psychopaths because cheating man made systems is how they've risen to the top.

You're right that most humans these days need government but those humans and their lifestyles are going to kill everything if something doesn't stop them. I think it's time for those that don't have the intelligence or empathy to find ways to exist ethically to go. Crashing the slavery systems they're dependent upon will cause quite a bit of them to self eliminate. If humanity wants to survive, the civi slaves must go.

https://steemit.com/anarchism/@apocaloptimisto/how-and-why-government-exists

We know from extensive experience that not all governments are benevolent. That we can reliably create governments that act better than individuals do is unsupported. There are also some good reasons to think that this is because of properties that are inherent to governments.

Did you read my post? It does not appear that you understood it. At the very least, define what you mean exactly by government. :)

I think anyone within a group of people with the solution to a problem inherently becomes the leader, which , isn't that governance? If a person grows vegetables or raises cattle and no one else in the community provides or produces these things, this person wields a lot of power, especially come super time.

People are bad so we need a government made up of people are bad so we need a government made up of people are bad so we need a government made up of people are bad so we need a government made up of people are bad so we need a government made up of people are bad so we need a government made up of people are bad so we need a government made up of people are bad so we need a government made up of people are bad so we need a ...

The majority of libertarians are not anarchists and believe in limited government.

Great post! +1 from me.

As it clearly states in his Bio, Binswanger is an Objectivist using Ayn Rand's epistemology and her definition of government, rights, force, values, economics etc. There is a long tradition of disagreement between Objectivists and Anarchists which revolve around how Libertarians carelessly throw around words and deduce castles from premises that start in the clouds. There is a lot of that in your post.

http://www.checkyourpremises.org/2016/03/09/whats-wrong-with-the-concept-libertarian/

Are you accusing me of carelessly throwing around words, or are you simply trying to imply that without actually stating it? Why don't you try and justify the premise that I am careless with my words? I'm not going to hold my breath.

To respond to your link, since your post carefully avoids making any arguments to support its claims, this is a standard issue debate over the best definition of words. I do not care what words you assign to what cognitive categories; I only care that when we communicate, we understand what cognitive categories the other references with certain words, which is why I defined my terms at the very beginning.

Either respond to my argument when commenting on my post, or go make your own post.

You claim that government can't do anything objectively because it's made of people. I would reverse it and say people can be objective and that is why government also can be objective. It just requires rational ideas and people.

By my definition, such an organization would not be a government. But yes, you're spot on.