In the eighteenth century thirteen North American colonies of the British Empire claimed for themselves sovereign statehood and overthrew their dependence upon the English king. They formed among themselves a federation of states, and populating these equal states were (theoretically) equal persons, identified for example by a lack of titles of nobility.

Sprouting up from among the equal persons have come politicians; they have burgeoned to such a degree they constitute an entirely political class of persons distinct from those they rule. Some politicians hold office for fifty or more years, and a few names—Bush and Kennedy come immediately to mind—are, if not de iure, de facto nobles. Even those who hold office for a short time continue to draw out of the fiscal coffers for the rest of their lives in the form of pensions and healthcare costs.

Before bleeding us taxpayers dry, they would do well to remember Aesop’s fable, The Goose That Laid the Golden Eggs:

“A Man and his Wife had the good fortune to possess a Goose which laid a Golden Egg every day. Lucky though they were, they soon began to think they were not getting rich fast enough, and, imagining the bird must be made of gold inside, they decided to kill it in order to secure the whole store of precious metal at once. But when they cut it open they found it was just like any other goose. Thus, they neither got rich all at once, as they had hoped, nor enjoyed any longer the daily addition to their wealth.

“Much wants more and loses all.”

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I do not overstate myself here: you love anarchy. It does not matter your profession, your state in life, your political philosophy, your religious belief, or anything else: you love anarchy. What follows is not a proof of your love of anarchy but an example to elucidate my point so you can come to recognize the truth in what I write.

For a bit of background, anarchy is the theory that answers, “Never,” to the question, “When is the initiation of force against another person or the threat thereof justified?” Other theories answer differently and with varying degrees.

Let us use for our example the realm of your own romantic relationships. Here above most realms, you love anarchy. The decision about whom to befriend, date, marry, and how those relationships should progress is so dear to you and personal that you would resist the initiation of force in this realm. You value your choice to date a woman or a man or both or neither. This is anarchy; the opposite is someone threatening you with violence if you do not, say, date men exclusively. You value your choice about when to hold hands, kiss, massage the feet, or whatever other signs of affection you might want to offer. This is anarchy; the opposite is someone threatening you with violence if you do not, say, wait until the fourth date to kiss, and then only do so with your eyes open while holding a wet dishcloth. You value your choice about how many people to date at once and what those relationships will be called. At present I know gay couples, without any state sanction, nonetheless call themselves married; there are even television shows about women, again without any state sanction, who are married to the same man (and each knows about the other); I know people who have lived together for a long time but choose not to call themselves married; I know people who have never had romantic relationships ever; the opposite of this anarchy is someone threatening you with violence if you do not, say, have one wife and a boyfriend on the side. You even value your choice to seek an arranged marriage. This is anarchy; the opposite is someone threatening you with violence if you do not, say, find a dating or marriage partner on your own without third-party help and advice.

Now that I have demonstrated your love for anarchy in the realm of romantic relationships, it should be an easier task to recognize it in other realms. Consider food: you choose to eat chicken, beef, blood pudding, lentils, or foregoing supper altogether; yes, there are physical conditions that might prohibit you from obtaining, say, beef, but you do not want someone to threaten you with violence for seeking to eat beef. Consider your wallet: you choose how to spend the money in your wallet, and you do not want someone to threaten you with violence for spending it in a way he or she would have you spend it.

You love anarchy. Embrace it!

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Many people in recent centuries have used the label “liberal” in some sense or other. During the Enlightenment in European politics, one who disagreed with the divine origin or necessity of the king or queen or the state itself was called a “liberal.” Following in their intellectual footsteps, in the New World, Thomas Paine, Samuel Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and their ilk are called “classical liberals” today. In the modern political system in the USA, there are “liberals” and “libertarians.” Today’s post will focus on the divergence of liberals from libertarians with the onset of the Progressive movement.

The word “liberal” comes from the Latin liber, which means “free” and was most often used as a substantive adjective to describe whatever was suitable for a “free man,” i.e., not a slave. Out of this sense it also referred to what a Medieval gentleman ought to learn, hence a “liberal arts” education. It has continued to hold the connotation of a cultured, free person.

A little more than a century ago, “liberals” were much closer to what we know as “classical liberals.” There are a good number of similarities between the ends, or goals, of liberals and libertarians. For example, both seek to end “the exploitation of man by man,” as Karl Marx phrased it, and both seek an harmonious relationship among different groups of people, be they defined by race, sex, religious practice, or any other identifier.

Throughout the nineteenth century the “social gospel” was gaining adherents and momentum. The thrust of this movement was to use the coercive power of the state to the betterment of all of its citizens. For example, if alcohol were responsible for some ills in societal interactions, its abolition would thus improve society on the whole. Beginning in the early twentieth century, many liberals became increasingly impatient with the progress of society to leave behind racial, sexual, religious, and other differences, so they utilized the idea of the social gospel adherents: improve society by the coercive power of the state. Because these efforts were undertaken with the goal of societal progress, this became known as the Progressive movement.

Early Progressive presidents of the USA tried to improve society in different ways. Theodore Roosevelt sought to bring certain lands that had unusually beautiful features under state control, and thus the national parks were born. Woodrow Wilson sought to make Europe and the Western world safe for democracy and every people’s self-determination in government, so he led troops in favor of the liberal side of the Great War, later known as World War I. (So sure was Wilson’s vision, in fact, the Great War was often called “the War to end all Wars.”) Later Progressives have attempted to use the coercive power of the state to force racial harmony, force greater equality of wealth both within the USA and among all countries, and force a trade balance among countries.

Because the Progressives initially held by and large the same goals as classical liberals, many of them continued to refer to themselves as “liberal.” This nomenclature is retained today when people call themselves, for example, “liberal Democrats.”

Those liberals who continue to eschew the coercive power of the state to achieve liberal ends are today known as “libertarian.” To complicate the matter, some libertarians seek to reclaim and clean the tarnish from the word “liberal” and claim it for themselves, as I have done on occasion. They do so for a variety of reasons: some see the unexpected consequences of state intervention as too great a risk to intervene; for this view, see The Nihilist also on No-Consent. Others project the likely outcomes of intervention—based on past and knowable experience—as opposite to liberal ends; for this view, see The Cooperator or The Dissenter also on No-Consent. This blogger does so out of a philosophical position that the initiation or threat of initiation of violence is wrong always in interactions among people. I do not mean to imply these reasons are exclusive; certainly, I share the views linked in the other three bloggers’ posts but to a lesser degree.

I hope this brief and simplified explanation has edified you.

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A common objection I receive to my anarchistic ideas boils down to the absence of responsibility, i.e., “But then the [companies/rich/powerful] would run roughshod over all of us!” I sympathize with this objection because my passion for anarchism is driven by a sense of justice: Nobody may initiate force or threaten the initiation of force against anyone else.

The error with the objection above is hard to spot for most people. This objection comes out of the current worldview of most people, who place the onus of responsibility on the shoulders of government, from the county health inspector to the national currency issuers. The objection, taken one step back, might be voiced thus: “We live under a government that inspects all restaurants, and any profits beyond the cost of passing inspections are kept by the owner. Without this safeguard, every restaurant owner would pocket the cost of passing inspections, endangering everyone.”

In a free society, rights and responsibilities would coexist. Nobody could exercise a right without incurring the consequences, good or bad. If the same restaurant owner, in a free society, were to serve good, healthy food, he or she would turn a profit, which is a good consequence; were he or she to make customers ill, the consequences would be much worse: loss of customers and payment of damages. Returning again to our current society, the same restaurant owner is protected against loss if the inspections are passed. Someone who is made ill by food from an inspected restaurant has no recourse. This separates the exercise of rights (serving food) from the related responsibility (damages for illness).

People who raise this “roughshod” objection do not share the vision I am trying to put forth: a society in which all action is voluntary and none coerced, every person taking responsibility for the exercise of his or her rights. I need to do a better job to explain this when sharing my views. Ecrasez l’etat!

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It snowed here this week, which is another beautiful, little reminder of politicians’ solution for everything: foist the burden onto the citizens. Without so much as a how-do-you-do, government-owned plows were out in droves, angling waves of snow into private citizens’ lawns, parking lots, and sidewalks, all the while pitching salt pell-mell. Then the politicians have the gall to threaten with fines and gaol anyone who would dare do the reverse.

It serves as an apt metaphor for every governmental act: Medicare is championed by politicians who tax everyone to pay for it; schooling is championed by politicians who threaten parents to utilize it and tax everyone to pay for it; zoning regulations are championed by politicians who threaten the property owners into compliance and tax everyone to enforce them; and on and on…

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Or: The Grinch at the Christmas Table

This is one in an occasional series about how government agents cause or heighten animosity among people in society. See the previous parts.

A common complaint I hear from every sector of society concerns the lack of caring and charity among people in general. Whether complaining about the fundamental selfishness of people, the lack of philanthropic outreach, or the disparity of income, the complaint usually boils down to people being greedy and selfish.

This year in Billings, Montana, a generous fellow used his own resources to gather a team of volunteers to prepare and deliver dinner to the homebound on Christmas Day. [Enter government bureaucrats stage left.] Predictably, the county government shut down this charitable outreach, citing health concerns.

Leaving aside the obvious disincentive for all parties involved to prepare and eat tainted food, I would like to focus on how the government bureaucrats incentivized selfishness. They shut down a small, one-time, charitable initiative from achieving its goal. Other people read and hear about this, learning the underlying message: do not be charitable yourself, focusing on the needs you perceive in your own community. If you want to be charitable, do so in a nameless, faceless way; perhaps donate $10 to the mega-corporation Red Cross by texting five numbers. (But, then, how are the Occupiers to be charitable? They cannot support big corporations like Amnesty International.)

It seems the county governments in the USA have issued a warning to all people: Do Not Eat That! How do you know it is not poisoned? Can you be sure the hot foods were kept warm enough to ward off bacterial growth and the cold foods were kept cool enough to ward off decay? That forkful of food could be disgusting at best and poisonous at worst. We are the only line of defense between you and death. Now, put down grandma’s turkey, back away from the table, and go eat at the nearest drive-thru, fast-food joint (we recommend the deep fried chicken sandwich for the health-conscious). After all, we took your tax money last January to perform a one-time inspection, and at that time they had adequate ovens, tables, cutting utensils, and freezers to call their food edible. Happy Holidays, Mayor McCheese!

Let us take away the funding and power of every involuntary government to dictate the condition, location, and preparation of every morsel of food that might one day pass our mouths. Ecrasez l’etat!

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Every law, when followed, has consequences. Everyone is familiar with the consequences for failing to follow a law—e.g., pay a fine for driving too quickly—but this post is about the perverse incentives that come about as a result of striving to comply with laws. For purpose of illustration, let us imagine Hank wants to go out on a Friday night to watch an hockey game at a sports bar with a few buddies.

Hank’s Friday night starts out like many others: he drives to the sports bar and parks his car. He notices a sign indicating it would be illegal to park there overnight, specifically between 2:00 and 6:00 A.M. Checking the time, he notes it is a few minutes before 10:00 P.M.; even if the hockey game were to go into overtime and end in a shootout, it will be over before 1:30, which is plenty of time to get his car out of the lot and drive off before it might be towed. He goes in to the sports bar to meet his buddies.

Over the course of the hockey game—about three hours—one of Hank’s buddies had several beers; he did not have so much alcohol as to be a danger to himself or others, but he would clearly be over the legal limit were he pulled over. Even waiting in the sports bar until 2:00 would not sober him up enough to drive legally. Mulling over his buddies’ options, Hank considered the two courses of action his buddy could take: drive or not. Were he to drive, he would be doing so illegally; hitting another car or a person would carry very stiff penalties, including monetary compensation and time in prison. Were he to hail a cab, he would be parking his car overnight, which would be illegal.

I would like to interject to point out some longer-range consequences at this point. The laws about parking and alcohol are found in contradiction here: Hank’s buddy can neither drive nor not drive without running afoul of the law. This leaves each patron with the choice between (1) buying alcohol at the sports bar, keeping that small business afloat, and (2) not buying alcohol at the sports bar, allowing it to close down.

In the end, Hank realized they have a third course of action: he could drive his buddy’s car a few blocks to a residential neighborhood where it is legal to park overnight (not always an option, especially in large cities and many suburban communities) and come back to pick up his buddy. They could return the next day to retrieve his buddy’s car.

Picking up his buddy, Hank proposes they continue to hang out for a while longer at his apartment. After all, neither of them has to be anywhere on Saturday morning. They decide to stop by the supermarket to pick up some beers to drink back at Hank’s apartment before they will call it a night. Perusing the selection of beers at the supermarket, Hank notices a sign indicating it is illegal to sell alcoholic beverages after midnight. Since it is quarter to 2:00 by this time, they are well past that cutoff. Mulling over their options, Hank considered the two courses of action he and his buddy could take: go to another bar or go home. Were Hank and his buddy to go to another bar for some beers, Hank himself would risk running afoul of the legal alcohol limit, presenting the same dilemma he had encountered a few minutes earlier. Were Hank and his buddy to go home, they would have to forego having a few beers, a pleasurable and legal activity. In the end, they decided to go back to Hank’s apartment without any alcohol because they deem the pleasure of beers at another bar to be of less value to them than a possible ticket for driving with alcohol in their bodies.

From all these dilemmas, it seems a course of action is for everybody to stockpile alcohol and stay home to drink. Unfortunately, drinking alone leads to alcoholism, and a person’s friends cannot intervene in what they do not know. Were everybody to stay home in general, this would lead to a breakdown of the social order.

Assuming a fellow would like a drink while watching a game, all of the options above are examples of dangerous or unpleasant behavior: driving under the influence of alcohol, parking in an illegal space, drinking alone, and living without alcohol. When politicians get involved and set laws for whole populations, dilemmas ensue that might not otherwise be encountered. Indeed, even the time and mental power spent to solve these dilemmas is caused by these politicians.

It is long past time to overturn the rule of man; we should live as free persons! Remove the source of politicians’ power! Ecrascez l’etat!

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