Thursday, July 22, 2010

Libertarian Anarchism is Apodictically Correct

Homesteading is the only logical answer to who has the better claim on a previously unused resource. It answers that the first user does, since the first user is the one who took it from a de facto state of non-ownership to a de facto state of ownership (i.e., in the sense of physical use by a sapient being). All the homesteading principle does is state that how property is in actual reality brought into de facto ownership is also rightful.

All other allocations of rights to ownership are illogical because they violate how resources are actually brought into use. That is, they violate the very nature of mankind's relation to physical reality.

For example, let us consider a socialist allocation of rights. In this case, everyone has an equal rightful share of all property brought into de facto ownership (including the property of everyone's person). But then, nothing could have been rightfully brought into use in the first place, as that would require permission to do so from every other person. Even if we set a 50+% voting rule, no such voting can rightfully take place as it requires standing room and the usage of people's bodies, yet where did rightful permission come to use them? Based upon such an allocation of property rights, it could have never come about.

The other option is a monarchist (or oligarchist) allocation of property rights. In this case, one person (or certain group of people) rightfully own all de facto property (including the property in every person's body). Yet how did such ruler(s) come to have this right which no one else has? If one says via might making right, via voting, via greater intelligence, or via anything else, then one is presupposing a prior, more fundamental allocation of property rights (since in order to exist, people would have had to have been making use of property before this ruling class obtained this position, and if such use wasn't rightful then mankind's very existence isn't rightful).

The above are all the available logical options for allocation of rightful ownership. Any other conceivable schemata will simply be mixtures of two or more of the above three, and hence necessarily suffer from the same logical problems of one or both of the latter two.

Furthermore, regarding rightful self-ownership and the homesteading principle:

1.) One cannot deny the principle of rightful self-ownership without committing a performative contradiction. For one must, at the very least, presuppose one's own rightful self-ownership in order to be able to argue against the principle. As it may well be asked: How can one give such an argument if one does not even believe onself to be the sole rightful owner of one's very own body (and vocal chords)? Thus, it is for this reason that the principle of rightful self-ownership rises to the level of an inescapable axiom--i.e., that which cannot be denied without necessitating its use in the denial. Thus also, it could never be argued that argument is impossible without thereby committing a performative contradiction. As well, this logically means that the principle of rightful self-ownership is only valid as a per se universal human principle. For A cannot coherently argue that only he is a proper natural self-owner whereas others are not. For then B could "steal" A's argument and use it against him--i.e., if it is valid for A then it must be valid for B as well. For as Abraham Lincoln pointed out (if only it had been that Lincoln himself had bothered to follow the logic of his below argument!):

If A. can prove, however conclusively, that he may, of right, enslave B.--why may not B. snatch the same argument, and prove equally, that he may enslave A?--

You say A. is white, and B. is black. It is color, then; the lighter, having the right to enslave the darker? Take care. By this rule, you are to be slave to the first man you meet, with a fairer skin than your own.

You do not mean color exactly? You mean the whites are intellectually the superiors of the blacks, and, therefore have the right to enslave them? Take care again. By this rule, you are to be slave to the first man you meet, with an intellect superior to your own.

But, say you, it is a question of interest; and, if you can make it your interest; you have the right to enslave another. Very well. And if he can make it his interest, he has the right to enslave you.


From Abraham Lincoln, "Fragment on Slavery" (circa 1854), in John G. Nicolay and John Hay (editors), The Complete Works of Abraham Lincoln, Vol. 2 (New York: Francis D. Tandy Company, 1894).

In addition we would not then have a universal ethic for mankind as such, but instead an arbitrary ethic--i.e., we would have to posit an unnecessary and arbitrary additional ethical rationale as to why rightful self-ownership is not universalizable, and would thus be violating Ockham's Razor.

It is for this reason and others that the libertarian concept of self-ownership is apodictically true. Nor, it should be mentioned in passing, does it derive an "ought" from an "is"--rather, it derives an "ought" from an "ought": an "ought" everyone must necessarily presuppose in order to even begin to deny it.

2.) This same logical principle also applies to external property (i.e., external from one's body). Since all virgin land had to be at some point homesteaded by a first user, one cannot coherently argue against the properness of this principle for then the human race could not even exist (and hence the arguer could not even exist). Thus, to argue against the homesteading principle would be to necessarily argue against one's own existence, but the very act of arguing presupposes one's own right to argue and hence right to exist (as one cannot argue without existing). Thus, one arguing against the homsteading principle would be committing a performative contradiction.

It is for this reason and others that the libertarian concept of righful ownership of homesteaded resources is also apodictically true. Nor, it should also be mentioned in passing, does it derive an "ought" from an "is"--rather, it derives an "ought" from an "ought": an "ought" everyone must necessarily presuppose in order to even begin to deny it.

*****


For more on the above, see the following:

Chapter 8: "Interpersonal Relations: Ownership and Aggression", and also pp. xvi and xvii (paragraphs 14-18) of the introduction by Prof. Hans-Hermann Hoppe in the new edition of Prof. Murray N. Rothbard's The Ethics of Liberty (New York, N.Y.: New York University Press, 1998; originally published 1982). http://www.mises.org/rothbard/ethics/ethics.asp

The section entitled "Property Rights" in Chapter 2: "Property and Exchange" of Prof. Rothbard's For a New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto (New York, N.Y.: Collier Books, second edition, 1978; originally published 1973). http://www.mises.org/rothbard/newliberty.asp

See also the below two articles, paying particular attention to the Estoppel in the first article:

N. Stephan Kinsella, "New Rationalist Directions in Libertarian Rights Theory", Journal of Libertarian Studies, Vol. 12, No. 2 (Fall 1996), pp. 313-326. http://www.mises.org/journals/jls/12_2/12_2_5.pdf

N. Stephan Kinsella, "Punishment and Proportionality: the Estoppel Approach", Journal of Libertarian Studies, Vol. 12, No. 1 (Spring 1996), pp. 51-73. http://www.mises.org/journals/jls/12_1/12_1_3.pdf




The Impossibility of a Nonaggressing Government

It is demonstrably provable that government cannot exist without initiating force: for government inherently can only exist by initiating force--a government ceases to exist when it ceases initiating force. Those who support the prohibition on initiation of force, such as libertarians and Objectivists, and yet who also advocate government, put themselves in a position which is self-contradicting and impossible to solve.

As government (i.e., a state), by definition, must involve one or both of the following (historically speaking, almost always both):

1.) A coercive tax levy.

2.) A generally successful coercive regional monopoly over ultimate control of the law (i.e., on the courts and police, etc.). This is a feature of all governments.

Both of which initiate force. And if it does not involve either of those, then quite simply, it is not a government. Thus, those who hold the nonaggression principle (i.e., Objectivists and libertarians) and yet who also advocate government (even "minimal" government) find themselves in an insoluble contradiction.

As far as No. 1, this can be gotten around by simply maintaining that enough people would just give their money to government--unlikely as the possibility of that is.

But No. 2 is insoluble. For example, if a business were to arrange their own defense and court services without initiating force, and government were to use force to stop them, then, by definition, government would be initiating force. Q.E.D. If government does not stop them, then it would cease being a government: for no longer would it have a monopoly over control of the law--but instead, it would just be another private protection agency. There is no way around this: either the government initiates force against the business, thereby maintaining its monopoly over control of the law, and hence its status as government--or the government refrains from initiating force against the business, thereby losing its monopoly over control of the law, and hence losing its status as government, to become instead just another private protection agency.

The above argument shows that there can be no such thing as a government which does not initiate force. And thus also, nonaggression unavoidably results in anarchy.

*****


For more on the above, see the following:

Roy A. Childs, Jr., "Objectivism and the State: An Open Letter to Ayn Rand", July 4, 1969. http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig4/childs1.html




The Anarchism of Jesus Christ

See also my below article on the logically unavoidable anarchism of Jesus Christ's teachings. It is logically complete on this subject, in the sense of its apodixis.

James Redford, "Jesus Is an Anarchist", Social Science Research Network (SSRN), October 17, 2009 (originally published December 19, 2001). http://ssrn.com/abstract=1337761 , http://theophysics.chimehost.net/anarchist-jesus.pdf , http://theophysics.110mb.com/anarchist-jesus.pdf

Below is the abstract to my above article:

ABSTRACT: The teachings and actions of Jesus Christ (Yeshua Ha'Mashiach) and the apostles recorded in the New Testament are analyzed in regard to their ethical and political philosophy, with analysis of context vis-รก-vis the Old Testament (Tanakh, or Hebrew Bible) being given. From this analysis, it is shown that Jesus is a libertarian anarchist, i.e., a consistent voluntaryist. The implications this has for the world are profound, and the ramifications of Jesus's anarchism to Christians' attitudes toward government (the state) and its actions are explicated.