[othervoice]

Rothbadian - You want all the benefits of living in a society with none of the responsibility or commitment to others. The fact is we are more free together under a democratic government operating under certain constitutional limits than if we all lived solitary lives. I am not confused I have history on my side. Show me a libertarian anarchist society that has worked.

[Rothbardian]

Rothbadian - You want all the benefits of living in a society with none of the responsibility or commitment to others. The fact is we are more free together under a democratic government operating under certain constitutional limits than if we all lived solitary lives. I am not confused I have history on my side. Show me a libertarian anarchist society that has worked.

You certainly are confused.

There have been many examples of successful anarchic societies, but that is irrelevant to the points I have made. You have chosen to make (incorrect) assumptions about what I want rather than to respond to them, so I will just assume that you cannot.

[Eran]

Indeed Rothbardian (and other libertarian anarchists) fully accept the responsibilities and commitments to others associated with living in society, those required for the benefits of social existence to manifest themselves.

Foremost amongst those is the commitment not to initiate force against other people or their peaceful projects (or justly-acquired property).

In addition, any voluntarily-accepted obligations (e.g. contractual obligations) as well as a thick web of non-enforceable ethical obligations make up a functioning society.

The world would be a poorer place indeed if only government-enforced obligations bound people in their relations to each other.

The fact is we are more free together under a democratic government operating under certain constitutional limits than if we all lived solitary lives.

Indeed. But nobody is suggesting "solitary lives" as the alternative to democratic government. We are suggesting a society built on mutual respect, equality of authority, and rich cooperation and mutual assistance.

The only thing we reject is the initiation of force (i.e. aggression). Most people reject aggression in general, but make one huge exception for government actors. We reject aggression consistently, without making such exceptions.

[Rich]

OK, I'm a hard working, job creating liberty loving Libertarian, but I'm concerned that the neighbours in my community are starting to show signs of incipient authoritarianism. I want to build a nuclear power station in my back garden. I also want to build a biological agent lab to genetically play around with small pox and other infectious deceases. If my, interfering, busybody, go get a life, neighbours start to object can I secede?

Give me a small proto state of a hundred thousand people a virile totalitarian ideology and I'll take over a Libertarian planet in no time.

As I understand it according to the non aggression principle one mustn't initiate aggression, but I can use aggression to resist aggression or right the injustices of past aggressions. We have the usual questions about foetuses embryo's, unferlilsed human eggs, the mentally ill, the mentally retarded. But what about animals? When animal liberationists consider themselves entitled to use violence against those that harm animals, they are applying the non aggression principle themselves. Does the non aggression principle apply to Blacks? Washington and Jefferson, which liberty lovers are so fond of quoting didn't think so.

[Eran]

You are raising some good points.

One point is regarding the circumstances under which force may be used to preempt a likely violation of rights, whether intentional or accidental. The broad answer is that force may be used in such pre-emption once the probability of right violation becomes high enough.

Your activities building a nuclear reactor and bio-agent lab in your back-yard fall into that category. As you would expect, it is impossible to answer the question in the abstract. You would probably first be asked politely to restrain yourself from creating a risk for a major accident to your neighbours. If you refuse, the issue will be taken to an arbitrator who will determine whether you may be physically-restrained under the specific circumstances.

You can use force to resist aggression. Such use wouldn't itself count as aggression, as "aggression" is defined as the initiation of force, i.e. the unprovoked use of force. In an orderly society, the use of force would normally only come pursuant an opinion of a credible third party (akin to a court-order today).

You are also correctly pointing a finger on internal disputes within the libertarian camp as to the exact scope of protection afforded by the NAP. I have my opinion (currently and potentially-competent human beings, as well as the estates of the recently-deceased and recently-permanently-incapacitated). Others would include some animals and/or permanently-incompetent humans.

Libertarian society would settle those, and many other questions organically, through decisions made by reputable, trusted courts.


The key to the stability of a libertarian anarchy is the very broad acceptance of the principle of using peaceful means to resolve disputes. Once that acceptance is in place, institutions to facilitate dispute resolution would emerge and function. Giving anything but the broadest outline of what such institutions might look like is futile.

[Joe Liberty]

Rothbadian - You want all the benefits of living in a society with none of the responsibility or commitment to others.

Rothbardian has not once said that he feels no commitment to others, nor has he expressed a desire to eschew responsibility. In fact his proposed anarchy holds people more accountable for their actions than a paternalistic government does (if for no other reason than you can't force your neighbors to bail you out when you make a mistake).

I'm also certain that whatever commitments Rothbardian has made to others, he will keep them. What commitments are you talking about, exactly? Are you talking about (so-called) commitments that are forced upon you by others? Those aren't actually commitments. Seems to me a commitment is much like a contract in that it requires voluntary agreement.

Why is it that critics of libertarianism/anarchy conflate cooperation with coercion? Just because I don't think you should be forced to help your neighbor, that doesn't mean I don't think you should help him at all. It just means I'm treating you like an adult human being, not an unruly child.

[othervoice]

I thought about replying with a reference to commitments of citizenship like voting, jury duty, and millitary service. Social commitments realized through welfare for needy or civil rights to advance the liberty of others. However these things premise acceptance of the state which libertarian anarchists oppose.

Libertarian Anarchism gets rid of government in the sense of legislatures, executives, courts, and bureaucracy yet it preserves governance through free associations. However coercion would become an issue when people decide they no longer agree with or will submit to rules they previously helped negotiate. Other people will cheat. Thats human nature. Furthermore how could the Free Association be timely and effective if its not based on majority rule. The association still makes rules and enforces them so why get rid of representative democratic government in order to protect individual liberty ?

[Eran]

Libertarian Anarchism gets rid of government in the sense of legislatures, executives, courts, and bureaucracy yet it preserves governance through free associations.

Exactly.

However coercion would become an issue when people decide they no longer agree with or will submit to rules they previously helped negotiate. Other people will cheat. That's human nature.

I may have lost you. Any system of governance is based on rules, and some people may try to violate those rules for their own benefit. In a libertarian anarchy, people who violate private property-related rules (ie. those who initiate force against other people's property, etc.) would be considered criminals (just as people who violate legislated law are considered criminals today).

Those against whose property those criminals initiated force will be entitled to use force (probably through professional intermediaries) to restore their property rights. They would have a stronger personal interest in prosecuting those criminals (compared with government prosecutors whose incentive to prosecute varies greatly), and the freedom to choose the most effective (legal) means to restore their property.

Through competition between organisations dedicated to the various stages of the property-protection service (passive protection, active deterrence, victim insurance, identification of criminals, prosecution of criminals, extraction of restitution from convicted criminals, sharing information regarding criminality risk, etc.) will cause the quality of services to continue to increase, and their price to decline.

Thus over time we would expect the effectiveness of institutions dedicated to property right protection (i.e. to preservation of enforceable rules of a libertarian anarchy) to continue to increase.

Crime will never go away, but we can expect it to me less and less material.

Furthermore how could the Free Association be timely and effective if its not based on majority rule.

There are other mechanisms for ensuring effective service. For example, many of the services currently provided by government could be provided by insurance companies collecting premiums. Competition between such companies will cause the quality of their service to go up. Those who provide poor service will quickly go out of business.

The association still makes rules and enforces them so why get rid of representative democratic government in order to protect individual liberty ?

Because representative democracy isn't voluntary. It uses force to subject even those who oppose it, feel it doesn't service their interests, and wishing to find alternatives.

[Rothbardian]

I thought about replying with a reference to commitments of citizenship like voting, jury duty, and millitary service. Social commitments realized through welfare for needy or civil rights to advance the liberty of others. However these things premise acceptance of the state which libertarian anarchists oppose.

Libertarian Anarchism gets rid of government in the sense of legislatures, executives, courts, and bureaucracy yet it preserves governance through free associations. However coercion would become an issue when people decide they no longer agree with or will submit to rules they previously helped negotiate. Other people will cheat. Thats human nature. Furthermore how could the Free Association be timely and effective if its not based on majority rule. The association still makes rules and enforces them so why get rid of representative democratic government in order to protect individual liberty ?

If you want to voluntarily join a system that has courts, juries, military, etc, all run by a bureaucrat who you've voluntarily given the right to take as much of your property as he feels he needs to run as he sees fit, then by all means, I wouldn't stand in your way.

All I ask is to be extended the same courtesy.