Feb
20
Using the political means in order to establish that the political means is inhumane and negates nature and individual sovereignty. You do not kill an innocent person to show a murderer that killing is wrong; you do not steal a persons’ property to convey to a thief that theft is a transgression.
Our means must be as worthy and beautiful as our ends. Different movements have tried to usurp governmental powers for centuries tried to “get the right people in,” or get the right legislation passed. As liberty-lovers, it is time for us to realize not only that this has never worked for movements in the past and that it is in the nature of the state to create conflict instead of harmony. As long as anything besides the economic means is available to someone, as long as they have to play in the game of realpolitik - their intentions and motivations can be as conducive to freedom as yours and mine are - but with coercion behind it, their actions will degrade their moral standing; but that to use compulsion and extortion to meet our ends will undermine our message and our movement.
We hear it said over and over again that you have to work from within the system, although there are no examples when this unquestioned mantra and no-need-to-be-proven system of dismantling the state is affirmed. If we look at any major political or apolitical revolution which has taken place in the United States, or over countries or throughout time, been done through the machine? We did not get civil rights, or women’s suffrage through becoming cogs; we did not abolished slavery, claim our independence or repeal prohibition by becoming part of the very thing that we are said to hate.
Not only is it ethically wrong to take hand in institutionalized force in order to deinstitutionalize aggression, it is also historically inaccurate to believe that this is the means through which we get back or take back what is rightfully ours - our right to own ourselves.
Anything that brings about dynamism and growth takes place within individuals, not through the regulatory state who binds us with their rules. It is time to take the message “to the people,” and talk with our fellows about why it is not only the most sustainable and viable economic system, but also that capitalism is the only system that allows for the personal and spiritual growth that we all crave. We continue to preach efficiency of the market but forget to mention what gets people at the gut: every system that isn’t individualism is morally bankrupt. I may argue and answer each detailed question on what it is that affects my life when I rail against the government, I may provide empirical evidence to show that things that are now traditionally prescribed to the states can be taken over by private individuals just fine like security, arbitration, trash collection, etc, but that is an awful approach. Let me explain why.
After starting with self-ownerships as the basic preference(I believe very few people would say that they do not own themselves) it isn’t very hard to show how any state action, especially those that suppress economic exchanges or personal freedoms, is a repression of themselves and their fellow men. As much as people want to believe that their preferences are objectively good, we need to make them realize that they cannot be. Between the billions or people on Earth and their innumerable different preferences, it is the height of hubris to believe that your choices should be imposed on every else. People believe in democracy because they believe that there can be an objectively good preference, and if enough people get to vote on it, that preference shall be chosen, but would anyone else like it if their own bodies, and their properties were conscripted in the name of a “moral good” that they couldn’t grasp and didn’t agree with?
Change occurs only within individuals. The innumerable benefits that modern man enjoys did not sprout from the collective will of some masses. Our luxuries exist because one man or woman was free to move and think outside of their preconceived notions of the world, and were able to feel safe in doing so.
This is not the philosopher kings. Humankind does not get a trickle down of their capacity for creativity through other people’s ingenuity. Each and every one of us has different characteristics and impetus to develop what we have into something that has a value to someone. Each of us has a different set of skills and because “Equality is what does not exist among equals” [e.e. cummings, “Jottings”] but this anarchy of abilities goes hand and hand with the chaos of preferences that we find among us. What is an artistic pastime to one person can be an adorning of my house which I am willing to pay for. While the steelworker who made a statue possible has benefited the artist by his productivity, that same steelworker can leave work at night, unaware and uninterested in the fact that a new sculpture now exists on a lawn of a person who gets the most value out of the day by surrounding herself with beauty, donates money to Doctors Without Borders, thus providing a doctor with the funds he needs to help people. A child that will now survive can go on to do anything, now with the ability to attain whatever value he holds the highest and even if it is a base desire such as becoming a porn star, which the lady with a new statue on her lawn finds despicable, yet has helped him through all of this. This goes on and on like this through out the whole economy.
This is not to say that we should not fight against the state, this is to say that there are better, economical means. Even though they do not live by the same means that individual citizens to, there is still one thing that they count on: the governed to give credence to them and endorse their validity. It is not the market, but there is something we can do about it. Prescribe only to voluntary relationships. Although tax protesting is more than many people are willing to sacrifice, there are other ways to do it.
The Black Panthers originally started as a group that watched the police who persecuted blacks by following them around in cars because they felt that the police were the biggest threat to liberty (although principally, the groups’ premises are easy to disagree.) There have also been many neighborhood associations that hirer and/or gather volunteers to watch communities for crime prevention which has been quite effective. If you can get such an organization going in your neighborhood for, depending on its size, $10 or so a month, you will eradicate the need for public protection.
As stated in my last article[1], there are many instances of private arbitration. There are many examples of this even in popular culture, especially in commercial disputes. Although the political establishment has done what it could to stop the growth in the criminal persecution sector, it has crept its way in. If there is a possible way to settle your disputes without coercive courts through one of the many third party arbitration agencies, such as the nations largest, the American Arbitration Association[2], who deals with “disputes involving, but not limited to, employment, intellectual property, consumer, technology, health care, financial services, construction, and international trade conflicts.”, opt for those. For those who are environmentalists, a very successful group has decided to purchase land from private entities in order to preserve it [3].
A lot of people are scared of anarchy, and are scared that without the state there will be some indiscernible chaos through the world. Many people learn only through demonstration, many people are hands-on learners. If we make it irrelevant through our actions, it will become so.
On top of convincing people that the coercion is unnecessary, immoral, and against the very principle that they are trying to protect, if we can show them that such practices can be dealt through voluntary relationships, only then we can win the war against the State. Footnotes:
- Why a public judicial system creates corrupt incentives? Author: Amelia Vreeland, RFL [↩]
- http://www.adr.org/ [↩]
- The Nature Conservancy Conservation Easement [↩]
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178 views3 Responses to “Can liberty be achieved through politics?”
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Steven Vasquez Says:
February 22nd, 2010 at 7:14 amThe premise is sound that we are fighting against a system that zig-zags between bigger statism and liberty, but ultimately it goes downhill. There are groups who did achieve what they wanted “within the system,” and they were the socialists and statists who were inspired to organize and be politically active in the last century plus and move towards their goals. But if our goals are to eliminate the state and its aggression upon the people, how can we accept using the political system, which is a system of violence, as a means to achieve it?
Well the reality is that those who advocate taking control of the system from within, is doing so as a self-defense mechanism. As was mentioned in the article, you do not kill someone to show that murder is bad, but you do defend yourself when you are attacked. For all of the violence and aggression that our government has committed over the centuries, it is still a bastion of the most free large scale system that has existed. While any system of violence will ultimately fail when the people stand up to these transgressions, the fall ultimately only initiates when the crisis is at its apex and the consequences usually lead to even more violence through rebellion.
The real problem lies both in apathy and knowledge. To achieve your peaceful method of changing the system from outside, you can only lead by example and initiating the concepts from which can lead to the understanding of property rights and the alternatives to a monopoly system that the masses were taught is the only way to achieve stability and security.
But even the attempt to start moving towards an independent, individual self-regulating system will be met with aggression and resistance from the state. That is where I come in along with the liberty movement, to fight the system with the same aggression that it fights against us, within the political system as a self defense mechanism. The battle itself will ultimately be lost, but just as King Leonidas and his Spartans held off the overwhelming hordes at the gates, so we will fight long enough to get you through to give you a chance to build a better system through freedom and markets, before we get crushed. Our fight within the political system is to motivate others to show there is an alternative called liberty, and that they can achieve it on their own. While we know we will fall when the state falls, maybe we can hold back the hordes long enough for the revolution to occur peacefully lead by example by the actions you are doing versus the current cyclical path of mankind of violent revolution.
Renegade Division Says:
February 22nd, 2010 at 5:12 pm@Steven
I have a slight clarification/elaboration, not all defenses against an aggressors result the same.
Yes you do defend yourself with aggression when attacked, but what Amelia here is talking about is the institutionalized aggression of the state. There is a big difference between a common thief who steals $1000 from you and an IRS agent who takes $1000 worth of taxes from you.
The former knows what he is doing is wrong(well in most cases), its shown by the fact that he runs and hides after he steals from you, but latter doesn’t know or think that he is doing anything wrong, he isn’t even really taking the money for himself, he deposits it in the state treasury, he goes back to his house and continues living his life, in fact if other members of the state aggress against him, he readily abides by them(a thief doesn’t like to be stolen from him).
The thief and the murderer Amelia is talking about above are the people who don’t really think that they are doing anything wrong, so telling them that they are doing wrong, by committing the same aggression against the others, is just wrong and futile in itself.
This is the same reason why Joe Stack failed in achieving what he really wanted to achieve(he killed one person but he would have been much more powerful if he hadn’t killed anyone, or even better not committed any violence at all). You cannot commit violence to expose the violence of your enemy(esp. not when you want to change them). Take a look at Al Queda, whether they really want to expose America as an empire or not, they have failed massively and only fed American empire by committing 9/11 attacks.
Similarly American govt fails in establishing democracies and peace in all the countries(at least not without having decades long occupations) by supporting dictators like Saudi King, and installing puppet regimes in various countries.
Can you ever be a President who manages to show freedom to the people? Can you be a Rapist who manages to teach people virtues of consensual sex(you could be a reformed rapist, but you cannot continue to rape to teach people against rape)?
Even though you could change the system somehow with a violent rebellion, you just sow the seeds of more violence.
The problem isn’t whether or not the battle is won or lost, but more about how much of a long term seeds can you sow.
The Bolsheviks of Soviet Russia realized something, they can violently overthrow the Czar, and establish a system they would like to see, and everybody would be really excited to work upon it, but soon the next generation comes along which hasn’t seen the fight and the trouble to which Bolsheviks went to, so they tend to be very disenchanted about Socialism, and soon there is a need of another revolution to overthrow the new corrupt regime. So they came up with the idea that(or was it Mao I don’t know, but he adopted it) that Socialism is all about perpetual revolution.
The problem is no matter how small of a size you bring down the state to, as long as state would exist, it will have a major pressure on it to grow in size. This pressure or tendency exists for a reason. The reason why state always wants to grow because a state which does not grow becomes ineffective. Lets say you think that the only job of state is to provide milk to the people(and absolutely no other job), and that’s what a small state should do, you don’t really want the state to act like any other milk corporation(making profits etc) you want milk to be equally provided to everyone, now how will the state do its job without ceasing property from other individuals. If it tries to provide milk on profit and loss then we don’t really need the state. If it tries to provide milk to everyone it will be soon out of money, so it needs to take taxes.
Now what will state do when taxes being charged aren’t sufficient to cover the cost(which will happen sooner or later as the population increases). You have to either:
a) Raise Taxes and supply everyone with milk
b) Don’t raise taxes and let people go without milk.
How long would people tolerate a small ineffective state if it continues to not provide milk to many of its people?
Replace milk here with justice, roads, and defense, contrary to what most American minarchists would like to believe, America will always need more money to spend on its protection(as a small govt nation or as a free colony) because of its prosperity.
If the crime in the society increases because the people who pay less taxes, get involved in more risky behavior, in a free society they will have to bear more and more cost of their defense, but in a small limited government society the burden will be bore by the rest of the people. Without increasing the size of the govt you will be unable to provide security to every individual.
And that is the reason why we got income taxes, civil war, New Deal, and every government program since then, because people can only so long choose a smaller ineffective government over the lure of a larger (temporarily)effective govt.
I am trying to revise Gandhian philosophy, and the conclusion I am coming to is that Gandhi really mastered the art of fighting an enemy which stands on the cloud of righteousness(like the government).
Was Gandhi a Libertarian
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