Bye Bye Barry by Joel S. Hirschhorn (Centrist Liberal Libertarian)
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Topic: Constitutional Issues
Against Monopoly Government The government we have is not the government we want. We want something better. It is becoming recognized that the government we have is a disaster. But even the better one that many want will not work.by Peter Namtvedt
(Libertarian)
Saturday, November 24, 2007
The government we have cannot keep its promises. The obligations threaten to bankrupt us, with social security and medicare amounts to be paid up running into tens of trillions in the next few decades. The cost of having the current government is staggering, including over 40 percent of our incomes in taxes, plus sales taxes, plus the taxes imposed on farmers, manufacturers and service industries built into what we buy taking another 12 percent. Take another 5 percent or more in the cost of compliance with regulations. Estimate what it costs us to be forced to do useless things and to be prevented from doing other beneficial things. Take some more for the lose we suffer from inflation. This is not working.
But the government we want will not work, either. It might begin as an institution that protects our rights and leaves us alone. But in time, the power it has will be used by it to grow more power. When a foreign power starts war with us or natural disasters strike, it will convince a majority that it needs more power, higher taxes, etc. In a century or two it ends up being as much of a burden and unworkable scheme as our current state.
Can Government Really Be Limited?
The notion of government is nave. If an institution has power to enforce rules of social order, it needs to be limited. It must have limits placed on it so that individual rights are protected. The limits are supposedly imposed by laws. How can government be limited by laws, since it makes the laws? You might say that the constitution should require a super-majority or even unanimous consent to enact any law. But in making it impossible to pass a bad law you make passage of good laws impossible also. If laws cannot limit it, what can?
Furthermore, government is monopolistic to the core. If we hold that monopolies are evil in the economic sphere, why would it make sense to establish one in the political sphere? The reason monopolies are feared is that, if they are permitted or even encouraged, what they provide to us will cost more than if open competition were practiced. Under any monopoly, we shrink or eliminate free choice. What could be voluntary becomes forced.
"A government is an institution that holds the exclusive power to enforce certain rules of social conduct in a given geographic area."
-- Ayn Rand, "The Virtue of Selfishness"
That's a description of a monopoly. It precludes competition. There is no built-in incentive to hold costs down and to provide what it does at the required quality level.
"The only proper purpose of a government is to protect man's rights, which means: to protect him from physical violence. A proper government is only a policeman, acting as an agent of man's self-defense, and, as such, may only resort to force only against those who start the use of force."
-- Ayn Rand, "Atlas Shrugged"
The line between a "proper government" and an "improper government" is thin. It is easy to cross it. The government as policeman is likely to defend itself before it defends us. If we should take action to limit its power it is likely to resort to force against us.
"If physical force is to be barred from social relationships, men need an institution charged with the task of protecting their rights under an objective code of rules. This is the task of a government - of a proper government - its basic task, its only moral justification and the reason why men do need a government. A government is the means of placing the retaliatory use of physical force under objective control - i.e., under objectively defined laws."
-- Ayn Rand, "The Nature of Government." The Virtue of Selfishness.
Creating laws that are objective means all parties are bound by them, with no exceptions. But governments have proven their tendency to exempt themselves from their own laws, to create contradictory rules, to make rules that are hard to understand, to fail to make the rules known to everyone, and to apply the rules equally. And, as was said above, having a monopoly on the use of force will eventually go beyond jusftified retaliation, and this force will be initiated against anyone who opposes what the government is doing.
Government is an evil concept.
Roy A. Childs holds that limited government is a floating abstraction. I quote from his Open Letter to Ayn Rand:
"It is my contention that limited government is a floating abstraction which has never been concretized by anyone; that a limited government must either initiate force or cease being a government; that the very concept of limited government is an unsuccessful attempt to integrate two mutually contradictory elements: statism and voluntarism. Hence, if this can be shown, epistemological clarity and moral consistency demands the rejection of the institution of government totally, resulting in free market anarchism, or a purely voluntary society.
"Why is a limited government a floating abstraction? Because it must either initiate force or stop being a government. Let me present a brief proof of this.
"Although I do not agree with your definition of government and think that it is epistemologically mistaken (i.e., you are not identifying its fundamental, and hence essential, characteristics), I shall accept it for the purpose of this critique. One of the major characteristics of your conception of government is that it holds a monopoly on the use of retalitatory force in a given geographical area. Now, there are only two possible kinds of monopolies: a coercive monopoly, which initiates force to keep its monopoly, or a non-coercive monopoly, which is always open to competition. In an Objectivist society, the government is not open to competition, and hence is a coercive monopoly.
"The quickest way of showing why it must either initiate force or cease being a government is the following: Suppose that I were distraught with the service of a government in an Objectivist society. Suppose that I judged, being as rational as I possibly could, that I could secure the protection of my contracts and the retrieval of stolen goods at a cheaper price and with more efficiency. Suppose I either decide to set up an institution to attain these ends, or patronize one which a friend or a business colleague has established. Now, if he succeeds in setting up the agency, which provides all the services of the Objectivist government, and restricts his more effcient activities to the use of retaliation against aggressors, there are only two alternatives as far as the "government" is concerned: (a) It can use force or the threat of it against the new institution, in order to keep its monopoly status in the given territory, thus initiating the use of threat of physical force against one who has not himself initiated force. Obviously, then, if it should choose this alternative, it would have initiated force. Q.E.D. Or: (b) It can refrain from initiating force, and allow the new institution to carry on its activities without interference. If it did this, then the Objectivist government' would become a truly marketplace institution, and not a government' at all. There would be competing agencies of protection, defense and retaliation---in short, free market anarchism.
"If the former should occur, the result would be statism. It is important to remember in this context that statism exists whenever there is a government which initiates force. The degree of statism, once the government has done so, is all that is in question. Once the principle of the initiation of force has been accepted, we have granted the premise of statists of all breeds, and the rest, as you have said so eloquently, is just a matter of time.
"If the latter case should occur, we would no longer have a government, properly speaking. This is, again, called free market anarchism. Note that what is in question is not whether or not, in fact, any free market agency of protection, defense or retaliation is more efficient than the former government.' The point is that whether it is more efficient or not can only be decided by individuals acting according to their rational self-interest and on the basis of their rational judgment. And if they do not initiate force in this pursuit, then they are within their rights. If the Objectivist government, for whatever reason, moves to threaten or physically prevent these individuals from pursuing their rational self-interest, it is, whether you like it or not, initiating the use of physical force against another peaceful, nonaggressive human being. To advocate such a thing is, as you have said, to evict oneself automatically from the realm of rights, of morality, and of the intellect.' Surely, then, you cannot be guilty of such a thing.
"Now, if the new agency should in fact initiate the use of force, then the former government'-turned-marketplace-agency would of course have the right to retaliate against those individuals who performed the act. But, likewise, so would the new institution be able to use retaliation against the former government' if that should initiate force."
Mr. Childs said it well.
I support the Libertarians, even though many of them favor a single government in a given geographic area. And I support political candidates for office who run on Libertarian principles. It may be the first step towards something better. It increases the chances that more people will think it all through and discover that the problem is not just the sorry state of our current government, but rather government itself.
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2007 Peter Namtvedt, all rights reserved.
Published: Saturday, November 24, 2007
Last modified: Sunday, November 25, 2007
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Posted By: Walt Thiessen
Date: 2007-11-25 06:20:15
Good discussion of an old topic. However, as with other such discussions, it avoids the most important question, the crucial question. How do we get from point A to point B? How do we get from our current monopolistic government to the kind of structure Prof. Childs' envisaged? I'm not looking for generalities here. I'm looking for a practical roadmap. After looking for 12 years (from 1980 to 1992) I finally gave up. There just doesn't seem to be a way to get from point A to point B. There is too much dependence on the current model. Short of a series of events that completely destroy all monopolistic governments (and I'm certain that none of us would want to live through that), I can see no path to follow toward your idealistic goal.
The trouble is, anytime you have two governments (defining government broadly, without the monopoly clause) in the same area, police A will eventually likely go to war with police B. This is bad. It might not be sufficient in itself to establish a total monopoly for one government beforehand, but, once we get the government fixed, we need to at least check the laws any potential competitors wish to operate under. If there is a conflict, the creation of new law for this new government is tantamount to a declaration of war, and so long as that law isn't in retaliation to something the first governent did, we need to allow the original to end the conflict quickly, instead of waiting until the second has time to organize fully.
If a single government does become oppressive, the check is the armed populace forming an ad hoc militia.
Posted By: Peter Namtvedt
Date: 2007-11-25 12:38:53
Thank you Walt.
I do not know that the creation of multiple competing defense agencies in one land is only possible if all other lands do the same.
Let me make my last sentence more explicit. Ron Paul’s run for candidacy can get people to think through all the issues discussed at websites like nolanchart.com, how this country’s government gradually departed from our constitution, and discover that the problem is not poverty, not paying too much in taxes, not the war, etc. They might discover that the single-power principle is wrong.
They might get energized enough to experience revolution, as you yourself suggested in your September 7th article, “The Constitution: Let's Address The ENTIRE Problem.” They might then amend the consitution to allow multiple defense agencies and adjudication agencies, arm themselves to the teeth, and establish a land of peaceful trade, a poly-centric social order Would that require rebellion? I think that’s pretty likely, if there first is real a revolution.
Posted By: Peter Namtvedt
Date: 2007-11-25 12:40:48
Thank you Ragnar.
I believe that if you think it throught again, you would realize that defense agencies would lack the resources to start such wars. As businesses, their budgets would normally be limited. Members would gladly participate in and donate extra resources for defense against military attacks when diplomatic talks and adjudication of disputes fails. But an agency that initiates such attacks would be perceived as acting against the interests of their own members. The members would strongly prefer arbitration. It is in the interest of the agencies as well as the members always to facilitate peaceful trade as the norm.
A war between two agencies would be regarded very negatively by the members, the individuals contracting for their services. Such a war would require both active but voluntary service from the members as well as money. But upon starting a war, those agencies should expect many members to cancel their contracts and stop paying when the next monthly bill arrives, if not before.
People would vote with their dollars against such military action, as well as against enacting laws that might be “tantamount to a declaration of war.” Individuals and businesses would also be likely to boycott their one-time services they might provide on the side, such as extinguishing fires, adjudicating disputes, roads, etc.
The employees of the defense service agencies would strongly prefer to work for employers who did not violate anyone’s rights, who protects rather than destroying property. Unlike government agents, these employees would not be immune to law-suits brought on by violating the rights of others or destroying property.
Since the agencies are businesses, they would tend to maintain good reputations and to act in ways that sends a positive message and attracts new members. Part of what members of the security or defense agencies enjoy is a kind of insurance (or could be insurance). High profit (keeping the cost low) depends on the ability and willingness of agencies to keep the peace.
It is also assumed that the populace would always be well-armed.
If your model were true, the war on terror would be over, because the people fighting against the United States, many of whom were the initiators, were mostly funded voluntarily. Obviously then there are either low-cost ways to wage war, or people can be expected to fund patently irrational "defense agencies." And not much stops one that gets too big from taxing and enforcing a monopoly anyway.
Keep in mind that IF what you say is true about the "defense agencies" (I still prefer the term government, because that is what they are doing, defense agency sounds like Halliburton or some such) not creating the laws that necessitate war, then the governing model I envision in no way prevents your additional governments from existing. I simply doubt most people can be trusted to behave as rationally as you hope, and thus wish the first free government to create the safeguards I spoke of ( a policy of fight-on-contradiction-in-law, rather than fight-on-attack.)
Posted By: Harry Binswanger
Date: 2007-11-25 21:33:57
Years ago, in The Objectivist Forum, I wrote a definitive answer to this "no monopoly" idea. Ayn Rand read it, and, I think, agreed with it: at least she had no objections to it.. I have recently put it up on the web:
Posted By: Peter Namtvedt
Date: 2007-11-26 12:52:46
Thank you, Harry.
I believe I read your article some time ago, and I am familiar with Peter Schwartz' chapter in The Voice of Reason. Libertarians would benefit from re-reading both from time to time.
Yes, there are libertarians who fail to ground their philosophy properly. Starting with an axiom such as the non-aggression principle is not an adequate foundation. Ayn Rand’s Objectivism is by far the most promising foundation.
However, agreeing with Ayn Rand on metaphysics, epistemology, ethics and esthetics does not commit me to agreeing with her derivation of politics from these. For me the seed from which social ordering ought to grow is the trader principle. Peaceful relations based on trading being the principal way of inter-action between men, it is from a mutual interest in maintaining this that laws would spring, and arbitration of disputes.
The market is the logical extension of the Objectivist ethics, not government. The best example of attempting to do it through government is the United States. However the history of this country is proof enough for me that limiting government is not possible. It has to have power. But politicians are motivated to grow that power and to use it for their own benefit rather than for the mission they were assigned to do. Furthermore there is no way to fund government without theft. Government is the absence of market.
The market is the forum where the activity is buying and selling. The activities proper to man inter-acting with man are not governing and being governed. In the market there are institutions that will manage problems that may arise. The loss of one’s reputation is a powerful control against violating other people’s rights. Being black-balled by having misdeeds publicized is a powerful deterrent. Negotiation, arbitration, adjudication of disputes through an agreed-upon mediator can resolve disputes.
Historical examples include a number of legal systems, the most notable of which are those of the Law Merchant and the medieval Icelandic society. Monolithic government in the form of a monopoly on the use of force in a geographic area is not necessary for the production of laws and for having good order. I refer you to the research of Bruce L. Benson, in his The Enterprise of Law.
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2007 Peter Namtvedt, all rights reserved.