Folks who are libertarians fundamentally do not believe in natural authority.
If you don't believe in natural authority, then the government CANNOT have any. and therefore, the government is functionally identical to the mafia. Pay up, or else. Full stop.
If you do believe in natural authority, the libertarian position looks insane. Bob, the boss, correctly has authority...and his actions are justified by his natural authority.
Contrarily, if you do not believe in the existence of justified natural authority...then the non-libertarian position looks insane. Some dude Bob has no right tell worker Willy what to do, unless it's a chosen exchange. Doesn't matter if Bob is a conqueror, a technocrat, a capitalist or a union leader. There are exactly two interactions in the world...freely chosen and thug-based. Mafia with guns and trading. Full stop.
I think it explains a lot of the miscommunication between libertarians and others.
Posts
13 comments:
Regarding Bob telling Willy what to do, I have recognized authority based on accountability in the past - i.e. if Bob is the cashier manager, and is thus answering to the store manager regarding the performance of the checkout lanes, customer complaints, etc., then he derives authority to tell cashier Willy what to do and how to do it based on it being Bob's ass on the line if things go badly.
I recognize no "natural" authority, but do, as a functioning libertarian, recognize "ass-on-the-line" authority.
Absolutely. Ass-on-the-line authority is great.
But that's trade-based authority. Willy accepts Bob's orders in exchange for $15/hr of putting up with shit, so long as Bob doesn't get too far out of line.
Suppose we live in your version of Libertopia, but I do not accept the rules of your society. What happens?
It's not consent all the way.
I'm not sure this story matches up with what non-libertarians actually believe.
Maybe you should run this idea past your wife.
I think this is absolutely correct.
That is definitely what I believed when I was a libertarian and I do not agree with that anymore.
More specifically, I now think that it would be incredibly inhumane to subject large portions of humanity to the absence of authority. Similarly, other portions of humanity should be left almost entirely alone.
Also, I now think that the absence of authority is incredibly unnatural. It's impossible for authority to not exist when more than one human is present.
For example, a country full of Aretaes should have little to no authority. Whereas, Haiti suffers from many things, but a lack of accountable authority is not one of them.
If you'd like another example, I grew up in MN and now live in DC. The optimal levels of authority in these two places are very different (much lesser is required in MN).
I find it hard to understand how I could have ever believed that the optimal levels of authority were identical (and precisely equal to 0!) in all societies.
Wait a minute, you are telling me that there are people who believe that other folks should have some sort of authority over them that does not involve some sort of voluntary ecconomic exchange?
That's crazy.
The thing which always gets my funny bone is when these 'natural' authorities lose the ability to punish, they somehow magically lose their 'natural' authority as well, and I stop getting told that following the authority is a moral imperative.
"If you do believe in natural authority, the libertarian position looks insane. Bob, the boss, correctly has authority...and his actions are justified by his natural authority."
I'd say speak for yourself, dude. The only thing required for that to appear incorrect is to acknowledge that Bob is not, in fact, legitimately in authority over the matter in question.
There's a big gap between rejecting the illegitimate authority of specific persons or groups (including USG), and rejecting the underlying concept of legitimate authority entirely.
Voluntary, or involuntary.
Which leads directly to the moral question, do the ends justify the means?
Even good people can fall into the trap of an "end" that is obviously beneficial and can be attained through just a little bit of involuntary contribution, that it seems the "good" outweighs the "bad". Govt roads spring instantly to mind.
This is the great intellectual battle, to overcome that lazy use of coercion, the myriad small evils that are each so easy to justify based upon the supposedly good ends.
Coercion is truly such an easy way to do things that many people refuse to give it up.
Voluntary or Involuntary, that is the question! Whether it is nobler in the mind to deal with the minor inconveniences of persuading your fellows to a project, or to suffer the slings and arrows of coercion to hurry a project along...
Following my own advice, I ran the idea past my wife, and her opinion, (based on vastly more social understanding than I have) is that a vast majority of the population (70% in Australia say, maybe 95% in China) need authority without which they will demand some.
Don't get confused about the trade-based authority, power to punish authority, natural authority red herrings. Any authority needs a basis, whether power to punish (State) power to suspend an economic relationship or just force of personality. If the authority loses it's basis then it loses authority, but that's not the point. The point is that SOME authority is needed, or you get... well you get new authorities springing up as people turn to whoever offers leadership.
Thus you never get pure anarchy, what you get is Somalia. The central authority disappears, and within hours you have every city block or farming clan with its newly arisen local big man, with a handful of henchmen and a constant struggle for power with all the neighbouring groups.
This might be better than what you had before, or it might be far worse. But it's what you get because most people will turn around and follow someone, anyone, rather than no-one.
She mounts a strong argument.
Dr. Pat,
My wife suggests that believe is the wrong word. Without taking sides in the debate...it's a lot closer to God or Economics. Some folks see authority as part of the structure of the world, can't imagine it not being there. Other folks see it as a huge delusion used to oppress other folks.
Her suggestion is that the 90%+ majority have lived under (present) authority for their entire lives...and so their only discussion is over who should wield the authority. Some small number of crazy folks observed the system, called bullshit while very young, and usually got in trouble.
Matt,
Thanks for the point...I overbroadened to all libertarians. I'm talking about a mid-small subset that includes me and Thomas Jefferson.
"I have sworn upon the altar of god, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man."
Curt,
Well said and welcome to Casa Aretae.
Post a Comment