Topic: Abolition of Statism
Childs's argument for anarchism Roy Childs repudiated, but never refuted, his argument that Objectivism requires abolishing government. Is it irrefutable?by George Dance
(libertarian)
Friday, June 12, 2009
Political theorist Roy A. Childs Jr.'s career was bracketed by the question of anarchy. As a young man he shot to prominence in the nascent Libertarian movement with two essays -- "The Contradiction in Objectivism," followed by "An Open Letter to Ayn Rand" (1) -- in which he made his famous argument that Rand's philosophy of Objectivism mandates a stateless society. Later in life he repudiated anarchism, and planned to write an essay refuting his earlier argument; however, that essay remained unfinished at his death.
Is the argument irrefutable? Rand never dealt with it; the only Objectivist response to Childs's open letter was cancellation of his subscription to her magazine (though there is no historical evidence that Rand made that decision, or even saw his letter). As significantly, no libertarian minarchists (advocates of 'minarchy,' or a limited state) have produced any direct refutation of which I am aware.
Meanwhile, anarcho-libertarians continue to rely on the argument; a case in point being Peter Namtvedt's 2007 Nolan Chart article, "Against Monopoly Government," which finds it necessary only to repeat it verbatim. (2)
Yet not being refuted does not mean irrefutable. It behooves minarchist libertarians to examine whether it is irrefutable or not; for if it is true, then their political ideal, of a truly limited state, simply cannot be achieved. If it is true, then limited government is nothing more than what Childs calls it, "a floating abstraction;" then it is true "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." (3)
To show that, Childs asks the reader to assume that minarchy has won politically, and that its desideraturm -- a strictly limited constitutional government, in line with Objectivist political principles -- has been achieved. That is an important point which requires emphasis, as Childs glosses over it rather abruptly:
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 efficient 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.
And that is the argument. A minarchist government, faced with such a scenario, has 'only two alternatives:' (a) aggression, by which it ceases to be minarchist; or (b) non-intervention, by which it ceases to be a government. By its own commitment to proper government, it must be committed to letting any private agency "carry on its activities without interference." For it to interfere with the private agency is for it to commit state aggression. Is that really the case? Is there no third alternative?
Childs himself acknowledges a third alternative, later in his essay, for what by then he is calling a 'former "government"': "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." (stress in original). However, he tries to remove it as quickly, by arguing that "likewise, so would the new institution be able to use retaliation against the former "government" if that should initiate force." IOW, the government would have no moral rights not also possessed by the private institutions.
However, whether the private agencies have the same right is beside the point. If the 'former "government"' has a right to a third alternative, besides aggression or non-intervention, then it had a right to that third alternative back when it was a government, including during the scenario employed in Childs's argument.
Childs's argument fails, as an example of False Alternative (or False Dilemma). (4) The government has a third option -- whereby it can interfere, even forcibly, with the private agency while avoiding aggression -- in all cases in which the private agency is an aggressor -- and therefore possibly has this option in all cases in which the private agency is a possible aggressor.
(The minarchist can in passing agree with Childs's point about moral symmetry, while pointing out that moral symmetry does not mean symmetry in practice: In Childs's scenario, the government is the only agency with the ability to retaliate, although that need not always be the case.)
How likely is a private agency to aggress? Note first of all that it would be using force against others -- searching, arresting, and incarcerating -- on a routine basis; that's what it would do. No doubt its subscribers' contracts would have copious fine print allowing it to do such things to, thereby avoiding the possibility of aggression against, them. However, it is likely that this first defense agency would be using force against those who were not its subscribers -- against those who had never consented to it in any way. In all such cases, the security agency would be a possible aggressor, and the government would not be limited to the false dilemma of aggression or non-intervention.
In the same way, the government is always a possible aggressor; it can at any time arrest, search, and incarcerate complete innocents. A constitutionalist government acknowledges that, and strives to minimize cases of actual aggression, by constitutionalizing (in addition to natural rights) a set of procedural rights designed to ensure, as far as possible, that its force is used only against the guilty.
Similarly, a government can insist that private agencies also minimize actual aggression by adhering to the same procedural rights. As I noted in my article in Nolan Chart last year, "Government or Anarchy?":
Here is where the proper-government libertarian draws the line.... If private companies wish to compete with their own police and courts, government has no right to stop them. If they do so by the government's own standard, it should grant them the same legal permissions it grants its own enforcers. But, by the same token, it can and should hold them to that standard: it can, and should, declare that private companies have the same obligations as its agents: to enforce the same laws, follow the same due process, hold the same fair and appealable trials (appealable to the government's own courts, if the convicted party consents to that), and enforce the same punishments. If they violate that standard, it should use force against them. Anything else would violate rights. (5)
If, at the time any private agency used force against some X, it were known to the government that X was an aggressor, and that the agency's use of force were strictly retaliatory, the government's only legitimate option would be (b) non-intervention; retaliation would not be an option. If it were known that X was an innocent, or that the agency's use of force against X were itself aggressive, the government's only legitimate option would be (c) retaliation; non-intervention would not be an option.
However, in most such cases at most such times, neither of these is known: all the government knows is that X is a suspect, and that therefore it must take one of two mutually exclusive courses of action (and must not take the other). It has to take the right action, and only that action. In order to do that, it has to determine whether (1) X was aggressor, and whether (2) the agency's use of force against X was itself aggressive. Therefore it has to determine (1) and (2); and therefore it may determine (1) and (2). Which gives it a fourth option in these cases, (d) review.
"Review" simply means that the government would monitor private defense agencies to ensure that their actions were compatible with the same procedural rights the government itself had to obey, and that all those punished as guilty would have been punished as guilty had the government been the punisher instead.
If a private agency imprisoned anyone, the government could file a writ of habeus corpus against it, and force the private egency to show cause for the imprisonment. If a private agency fined anyone, the government could investigate it for theft, granting the defense agancy only the same procedural rights as any other person or corporation. If the private agancy routinely searched homes, on its own warrants, the government could investigate such cases as break-and-enters; and so on.
Contrary to what Childs implies, retaliation (and hence review) may be exercised against the agency itself, not just its individual personnel. If the personnel of a private agency were found to engage in systematic rights violations simply as a result of following the agency's own rules and guidelines, then the government could shut that agency down. Similarly, if a private agency refused to co-operate with the review process, preferring to keep its trial details secret, or refused to free its own convicts after a government court ruled them released, the government again could shut them down.
A proper, minarchist government could do all the above while avoiding the option of aggression.
An anarcho-libertarian may respond that this is no different from anarcho-capitalism, provided all private agencies have the same rights in theory (which they do), and that the minarchist gets his touchdown here by moving the goal posts. However, that is to misunderstand the minarchist position. A proper-government libertarian has no objection to private, competing police, courts, prisons, and the rest. The only monopoly he is interested in protecting is the monopoly of law: one law for everyone, no matter which police and courts he deals with, everywhere within the government's jurisdiction. Minarchists have been stressing that since John Hospers, who stated as far back as 1971:
I agree that most police forces aren't very efficient now, and that there's nothing like competition to put and keep hired service groups on their toes. But the point on which I insist is that there has to be a rule of law -- one law for the entire land -- and not a decentralized system of defense agencies, each with its own law. (6)
However, if it is true that this picture of minarchy is fully compatible with the anarcho-libertarian's ideal, then a new possibility emerges. For that means, as Moshe Kroy put it in a 1977 article, that Childs's argument
proves something totally different from what Childs intends it to prove. It proves that once you achieve a truly limited government ... anarcho-capitalism would emerge naturally. Thus, you don't have to try to achieve anarcho-capitalism. If you achieve, politically, a truly limited government, the market forces will do all the rest. (7)
Add to that the fact that anarcho-capitalism would never emerge, by peaceful operation of market forces, under any other type of government -- since any such would not be concerned with avoiding all aggression -- and Kroy's conclusion is inescapable:
Thus, the only politically legitimate purpose for an anarcho-capitalist, the only purpose he can try to achieve by political action, is a limited government. (7)
----------
Sources
(1) "Roy A. Childs Jr. - Libertarian," Advocates for Self-Government. http://www.theadvocates.org/celebrities/roy-childs.html
(3)All quotations in italics are from: Roy A. Childs Jr., "Objectivism and the State: An Open Letter to Ayn Rand," The Memory Hole. http://tmh.floonet.net/articles/racolar.html
(4) "False Dilemma," Wikipedia (accessed June 12, 2009). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dilemma
(5) George Dance, "Government or Anarchy?", Nolan Chart, June 29, 2008. http://www.nolanchart.com/article4140.html
(6) John Hospers, Libertarianism. Nash 1971, 445-446. http://www.johnhospers.com/
The views expressed in this
article are those of George Dance only and do not represent
the views of Nolan Chart, LLC or its affiliates. George Dance is
solely responsible for the contents of this article and is not an
employee or otherwise affiliated with Nolan Chart, LLC in his/her role as a columnist.
Posted By: Walt Thiessen
Date: 2009-06-12 11:29:36
I have to disagree with your analysis. Childs did not use the word "review" at all, and the "wiggle room" you refer to is one where the government merely reacts to initiated force. So how do you conclude that this creates a "review" function that becomes the basis for preemptive intervention by the government? I don't see that at all in Childs' analysis. I think you want government to have such a power, so you assume that Childs' argument gives you the permission to do so, when in fact it doesn't.
By the way, I met Roy Childs many years ago at the Cato summer conference in NH in July 1981. I even played bridge with him and Ralph Raico one evening (I don't remember who the fourth player was, and I don't think we even completed a rubber). Childs and Raico were both guest lecturers at the conference. I never got the sense that Childs thought of himself as an anarcho-capitalist, even when he wrote that article. His conversational rhetoric told me that he was on the fence on that issue. In fact, while his famous article did say he wanted to try to convert Rand to anarchism, he confirms his ambivalence on the subject by writing, "I do not intend to undertake a full 'model' of a free market anarchist society, since I, like yourself, truly cannot discuss things that way. I am not a social planner and again, like yourself, do not spend my time inventing Utopias."
"A proper-government libertarian has no objection to private, competing police, courts, prisons, and the rest. The only monopoly he is interested in protecting is the monopoly of law: one law for everyone, no matter which police and courts he deals with, everywhere within the government's jurisdiction."
Implicit is that no matter how many or what kind of "defense agencies" would for whatever reason exist, they may never be more than sub-contractors of THE government. The overlooked prerequisite of liberty is its on-the-street-in-every-aspect-of-one's-life expectation. To avoid being itself tantamount to an act of aggression, defensive force must be objectified and at every stage of its exercise from definition down to the most minor instances of law enforcement.
Any agency that would claim a right to exercise defensive force independent of "review" (prior and post) by THE government would sabotage the prerequisite objectification of force and any force used against that agency to stop or prevent that may not be labeled an initiation of force or aggression. It is an act of defense against a subjective use of force.
Subjective force is the distinguishing characteristic of terrorism. It is no mere coincidence that throughout history anarchy and terrorism have been allied. The attempt of allegedly libertarian anarchists to extricate anarchy from that association is a product of their evasion of the philosophical implications that leaves them unable to grasp the significance of whether defensive force is objectively or subjectively applied in a given society.
I have to disagree with your analysis. Childs did not use the word "review" at all, and the "wiggle room" you refer to is one where the government merely reacts to initiated force.So how do you conclude that this creates a "review" function that becomes the basis for preemptive intervention by the government? I don't see that at all in Childs' analysis.
At no point do I say that Childs allowed the government a review function. In his argument, he limits the government to only two alternatives -- aggression or non-intervention -- as I said. Later in his essay he admits a third alternative: retaliation.
I think you want government to have such a power, so you assume that Childs' argument gives you the permission to do so, when in fact it doesn't.
I argued for the review function myself; there's no assumption, and no implication, and therefore no assumption, that Childs ever did.
By the way, I met Roy Childs many years ago at the Cato summer conference in NH in July 1981. I even played bridge with him and Ralph Raico one evening (I don't remember who the fourth player was, and I don't think we even completed a rubber). Childs and Raico were both guest lecturers at the conference. I never got the sense that Childs thought of himself as an anarcho-capitalist, even when he wrote that article. His conversational rhetoric told me that he was on the fence on that issue. I
Childs may well have been ambivalent on the issue in 1981; I've read that he privately repudiated anarcho-capitalism as early as 1982. It certainly looks as if he changed his position between 1969 and 1982.
In fact, while his famous article did say he wanted to try to convert Rand to anarchism, he confirms his ambivalence on the subject by writing, "I do not intend to undertake a full 'model' of a free market anarchist society, since I, like yourself, truly cannot discuss things that way. I am not a social planner and again, like yourself, do not spend my time inventing Utopias."
I don't think it's valid to conclude, from the fact Childs disliked social planning and inventing Utopias, that he was amibvalent on the anarchy/minarchy question. As he points out in the passage you quote, Rand also disliked social planning and inventing Utopias; and she was anything but ambivalent on that question.
I met Roy Childs many years ago at the Cato summer conference in NH in July 1981...I never got the sense that Childs thought of himself as an anarcho-capitalist, even when he wrote that article.
Walt,
Since you met Roy in 1981, you are probably correct. I first met him in 1970, shortly after the "Open Letter" was published in Individualist, and had frequent contact with him for the next four years, and then occasional contact until 1976 or 1977, after which I don't recall seeing him again. When I knew him, he was not at all ambivalent about "free market anarchism" (he never called it "anarcho-capitalism"), and would argue vigorously for that position with anyone who challenged him. I later heard that he changed his mind as a result of the hostage crisis at the U. S. embassy in Tehran, November 1979 - January 1981, but he never got around to expressing his changed views in writing. Also, by 1981 he had had a falling out with Murray Rothbard, but I don't know whether that had an effect on his views.
...no libertarian minarchists (advocates of 'minarchy,' or a limited state) have produced any direct refutation of which I am aware.
George,
You are right about that. But that was mainly because most of us younger libertarians in those days were still under the influence of Ayn Rand, even though we had pretty much broken with her movement. Rand tried to argue for limited government on the basis of her ethics of rational self-interest. Roy argued for free market anarchism on the same basis and, frankly, made the better case. He certainly convinced me.
In 1974, Robert Nozick, a Harvard philosophy professor, published Anarchy, State and Utopia, which, in the tradition of the social contract literature, derived a minimal state through an "invisible hand" process from an original position of anarchy. This argument did not depend at all on rational self-interest. Roy tried to refute Nozick with his own essay, "The Invisible Hand Strikes Back", which was published in the first issue of the Journal of Liberrtarian Studies. In my opinion, Roy lost this one. The article was somehwat embarrassing, both for Roy and the Journal, because he tried to argue authoritatively that the concept of an indifference curve is invalid, when it was clear he didn't know what an indifference curve was. Since the article was published in what was supposed to be a refereed journal, it reflected poorly not only on Roy, the Journal, and Cato Institute, but on libertarian scholarship in general.
The problem is that rational self-interest cannot serve as the basis for code of social ethics. I don't have the time or space to explain why in detail, but the argument can be summed up fairly succinctly:
It is in my rational self-interest that others do not steal from me. It is NOT in my rational self-interest to refrain from stealing from others -- if I can get away with it.
The only way rational self-interest can be used to derive a code of social ethics is if, in some original position of anarchy, everyone agrees (unanimously) on a code of ethics that will be binding on them in an unknown future. The problem is, those not yet born will be bound by this code, too, it will likely NOT be in their rational self-interest to submit to it.
It is in my rational self-interest that others do not steal from me. It is NOT in my rational self-interest to refrain from stealing from others -- if I can get away with it.
This is the dream of every petty thief, whether stealing hubcaps or attempting to steal validity for an inane idea — to have your cake and eat it too. If refraining from stealing actually is in your self interest, then by definition, you cannot ever "get away with it." How does one escape the consequences of acting contrary to one's own long-range self interest?
Wouldn't "law" itself simply be an agreement on the use of force?
The problem to me is that the use of force always needs to be greater than the individual. because of this, the use of force always tends to the collective. When the collective possesses enough force to suppress those that they were employed or instituted to protect, the law and the clients or citizens are at their mercy.
Walt: After pondering on your criticism a while, I went back and rewrote the "wiggle room" paragraphs (and ended up getting rid of that phrase entirely in the process), to more clearly distinguish between when I was discussing Childs's argument, and when I was making my own. I hope that makes it a bit clearer.
Posted By: Jahfre Fire Eater
Date: 2009-06-14 08:55:37
Hi George,
I always get a chuckle out of this debate. I feel like I'm watching from a totally different frame of reference. I see behavior that is deliberate and exacting but seemingly pointless and irrelevant to any goals or outcomes. As long as Objectivism is treated as a theory of governance and societal organization the absurdity will continue. Objectivism is an intellectual tool. Suggesting it mandates ANYTHING is the core fallacy that defines the Randian/Libertarian/Objectivist political movement. Mistaking Objectivism as something other than a tool for evaluating and navigating reality is the necessary condition to enter this debate.
Any philosophy is a framework for evaluating the real world that provides guidance for an individual's behavior. It doesn't DICTATE that behavior. This debate sounds to me like folks trying to prove that the yellow lines on the road mandate cars never cross them. It is simply ridiculous in my view.
If Objectivism mandates abolition of government or not is irrelevant. Government exists. Political tools deal with that reality while intellectual tools deal with what might be..."if every one would just...."
Well they won't. Objectivism is not a political tool, it is an intellectual tool. Intellectual tools shape individuals. Political parties are political tools; they shape society.
The important distinction is that, philosophically, an individual could conceiveably be "all in" whereas a community or a society is not likely to exhibit that homogeneity; only force can compensate for the fact that some individuals are "all out" with respect to any given philosophy.
Trying to use the wrong tool for the job is the simplest explanation for the LP/libertarian movement's lack of traction and progress since...well, forever. When the vast majority of libertarians come to understand the difference between intellectual tools that work for them and political tools that work for a community, they would be a force to be reckoned with. I won't hold my breath. I don't see any glimmer of hope that this will happen.
I have to agree with Jahfre. The disconnect between Libertarians and reality is unfathomable.
I find this most obvious when discussing any tax issue. Most are only interested in removing any tax, no matter the consequence of the remaining tax on whoever bears what is left. Taxes aren't fair to start with, so the concept of trying to limit or adjust taxes to get closer to that point, is not worth the effort to most Libertarians. They would rather get rid of any tax and continue to drive on public roads, use public electricity, drink public water and you know in public sewer pipes.
Then the anarchist lives with a wonderful theoretical framework where somehow six billion people can live happily on earth, each with there own private little army! Yet, they really live in less radical way than your grandma!
Freedom as a true political tool, would certainly be a force to be reckoned with, but it will never occur as long as Libertarians will not allow others the freedom of a view that might differ by a few degrees from theirs.
gene: I think I'm going to need to write another article to reply to Jahfre; so I appreciate your agreement with him, as it gives me a chance to make a quick reply here as well.
I agree that many Libertarians have only an ideological, as opposed to a philosophical, understanding of, say, taxes; as do many of their opponents. (For example, you seem unaware that water, electricity, sewage, and even roads can be financed by fees for usage, and believe they require taxes instead.) But I don't think the solution to that is the one Jahfre recomments: to put political philosophy on the back burner and concentrate on practical politics instead.
It's profitable to contrast the LP's "progress" (or lack thereof) in achieving a free society over the past 15-20 years with that of Jahfre's preferred vehicle, the Republican Party. The RP ignore political philosophy to concentrate on winning elections, as Jahfre recommends, and admittedly had more electoral success: in the process: they controlled Congress for 14 years, and the presidency for 8.
Did that achieve a free society? Did it bring us closer to one, or further away from one? I'd argue the latter; that the U.S. is substantially less free now than it was in 1994. As I see it, all the time and money advocates of freedom spent to elect the Gingrich Congress and the Bush Presidency was pure waste; I'd go so far as to say those freedom advocates were conned out of their time and money. And I can't help suspecting those urging a new generation of freedom advocates to do the exact same thing all over again as being either conscious or unconscious supporters of that same old con game.
I couldn't agree with you more! Bush is on the same team as Hitler in my book, his batting average is obviously a bit lower, but same ballclub. And I thoroughly enjoyed your article.
I am very interested in the idealogical and philosophical aspects. I just wish we could make the concepts more "real", bring more to fruition. I look forward to your article.
I missed one thing in your comment, I am aware of "user" fees, in fact, that is all I support, including the single tax. I am opposed to any "income" or product tax. My point was many libertarians won't even go there, to the tax issue. you might give the link below a look. keep up the good work.
Thanks for the replies, Gene. I was misunderstanding where you were coming from, and I appreciate your clearing that up without rancor. I appreciate the tax link, too, because that's something else I have vague plans to write about.
Objectivism is a philosophy. Politics is a branch of philosophy. You appear to be trying to fabricate a dichotomy between the two that does not exist — to what end I do not yet see. First you say,
"Mistaking Objectivism as something other than a tool for evaluating and navigating reality is the necessary condition to enter this debate."
which means, contrary to your assertion, that it is an aid in evaluating and navigating the issues of governance and societal organization, because they are components of "reality".
Then you also say,
"Objectivism is not a political tool, it is an intellectual tool. Intellectual tools shape individuals. Political parties are political tools; they shape society."
but individuals have free will and cannot be "shaped" by anything other than their own free choices. Societies cannot be shaped by anything other than that either, because there is no such entity as "society" to be shaped. A society is never more than a collection of individuals. The "shape" of a society is merely a measurement of the various proportions in which those individuals hold or act on any given idea(s) or view(s) or whatever(s).
Ethics is the branch of philosophy devoted to defining the principles by which individuals should act as individual human beings in the pursuit of life. Politics is the branch of philosophy devoted to defining the principles by which individuals should act as individuals interacting in long term interrelationships with other individuals in a socio-economic context in the pursuit of life per their ethics. Politics is, therefore, the extension of ethics in the context of the individual into the social context.
Objectivism is the personal philosophy of one single individual, Ayn Rand, that has a lot to say about both ethics and politics. But nothing she did not write or approve during her lifetime can be asserted to be part of Objectivism. So one should neither make it out to be something it isn't nor fail to recognize it for everything it actually is.
Michael, you are right in that society is "never more than a collection of individuals". That is a given by nature. But, that doesn't eliminate the fact that societies cannot be studied or observed as a whole.
It is both the soldier and the army that goes to war. Certainly, each soldier is what constitutes the army, but the defection of one soldier will not significantly impact the action of an army of 1000 soldiers.
I agree we all make individual decisions and this is the cruz of the matter, but denying the obvious, the whole, is an oversight and just as "unnatural".
I did not deny that one can observe and discuss societies "as a whole". I merely warned that everything you conclude from such studies is implicitly about the proportions of the constituent individuals that are or are not in line with the conclusion.
If you ever once separate that implication from the word "society" you will be guilty of reifying an abstraction into an entity that does not exist. It is most dangerous when thoughts or values are imputed to a society as in:
"We must increase the funding of public education for the good of society."
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