1]. Can't there be government without coercion?
Not if by "government" we mean the state. It is this meaning George Washington had in mind when he said that "Government is not reason, nor eloquence, it is force. And like fire it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master." But there are other kinds of government.
I, for example, govern myself. I don't need laws to tell me not to steal from my neighbors and not to assault the person nor property of others, and I don't need a court system to make me repay whatever damage I do when I wrong someone. I do these things because I believe them to be right and necessary. I even wear my seat belt in places where it is not mandatory. I do so because I think it is the right thing to do; the laws regarding it are irrelevant to me. As I said, I am self-governed.
Disneyland is very well governed, voluntarily. The whole place is private property. People agree to abide by Disneyland rules when they go in, or they don't go in. Inside, there is peace and order. It's one of the safest places to be in, in either California or Florida. The only force ever exercised is retaliatory!
The state, on the other hand, is coercive by definition. It claims sole jurisdiction over lands and peoples it does not own, and cannot own. It initiates the use of force against anyone who objects. In the name of service, it uses force to accomplish all its ends. Force, indeed, is the defining characteristic of the state.
2]. Don't we need a central authority to prevent chaos?
The idea that society must have some ultimate authority, some place where the buck stops, or it all degenerates into chaos and mayhem, is the main reason why good, intelligent people spend so much time trying to make the state work. It is also the root of why most people think that anarchy means chaos and the rule of brute force.
The irony is that it is the state that is aggressive by nature; it backs all of its actions, ultimately, with brute force. It is my view that the very existence of this sanctioned use of force increases chaos in society, as different factions struggle for control of it. Such vast concentrations of power excite the slothful and mean-spirited. In a society where the state didn't exist, there would be no reason to organize into gangs to try to obtain control of power.
To insist that there needs to be one single authority which all must obey guarantees injustice, because there will always be some people who do not consent. To exist at all, the single authority must impose itself upon everyone, no exceptions. The moment people are "allowed" to choose which authorities they will voluntarily cooperate with, the single authority disappears.
It is a necessary consequence of the single authority (the state) that individuals who harm no one, but want to do things their own ways, are declared criminals if they exercise their freedom. In my view, this is immoral, and no alleged inefficiency of multiple and dispersed voluntary authorities can justify the state.
There are many good books [coming soon] that illustrate how dispersed and voluntary authorities might work, so I won't go into that here. Let me just say again that it is not necessary for anyone to agree with me on this. If you just wish to see individuals have greater freedom and control over their lives, LRT projects will probably interest you.
3]. Won't people let the poor starve if they don't have to help them?
Summary: I'd like to live in a kind and open-hearted society where people help each out in their time of need. Trying to make them do so eliminates this possibility. [coming soon]
People "have" to help the destitute now, through state programs, and some people still manage to starve or freeze to death on the streets of these United States, one of the wealthiest societies in the world. Obviously, then, making charity compulsory has not solved the problem.
In my view, the abject failure of Lyndon B. Johnson's "Great Society" and the "War on Poverty" demonstrate beyond any reasonable doubt that trying to force people to be benevolent is a terrible idea. When people are forced to be "charitable" they often feel resentful and unwilling to give any more (they've already done their "fair share"), so, when the mandatory charity fails to suffice, there is no good will left to help those who are still in need. This is the situation in the u.s., where the major product of the welfare state has been an artificial division of society into "haves" and "have-nots" and the ensuing groupthink-inspired class warfare and bigotry.
Even in places where the state has been powerful enough to provide for all the needs of its poor (socialist countries that seemed to 'work', like Sweden and New Zealand), the burden on the economy has always been such a drain that the system eventually runs out of money and bankrupts the society.
I would argue that there would be fewer needy people if the welfare state didn't ravage the economy so, and those few who just couldn't get it together--for whatever reason--would find it easier to get help in a non-coercive environment where they were not regarded as parasites.
4]. What about People Who do Bad Things?
Summary: I would like to live in an environment that is safe for my children and everyone I love, safe from the predations of evil. But total security is an impossibility, and the creation of large coercive social mechanisms only delivers more powerful weapons into the hands of evil.
The advent of the nation-state has certainly not eliminated hurtfulness from human action! In my view, by substituting force for voluntary association, the state has exacerbated the "Might Makes Right" error. The very existence of the state proclaims the rightness and need for "Might". When then should we be surprised that some individuals follow suit?
Rather than wishing that people were angels, we should just come to grips with the fact that sometimes, some people will do Bad Things to one another (if they do it to themselves, it's not so much Bad as it is Stupid).
The American founders knew this very well. This is the explicit reason they gave for putting so many restrictions and limitations upon the government they created (limitations and restrictions that have been all but destroyed in the 200+ years since). They knew that there are people who cannot be trusted, and that many (if not most) of them would be attracted, like flies to manure, to the power they were giving to their creation. Why do you think politicians are held in lower esteem than ordinary lawyers and even used car salespeople? A "Bad" person can hurt those around him or her, but, if such a person gets hold of the machinery of the state, his or her ability to hurt becomes multiplied by all the millions over whom the state has influence.
The existence of "Badness" in people is, if anything, an argument for the abolition of the state. Let me put it this way: a twisted person can massacre school children in California, but it takes a government to wage war. It is the existence of the machinery of the state, waiting for the likes of Adolph Hitler to take hold of it, that makes genocidal world wars possible.
And that's the bottom line, really. We must come to grips with the fact that some people will do some hurtful things. If creating vast and powerful systems of force for them to seize is a bad idea, what is better? Well, I'd suggest individual responsibility, for starters.
Personally, I favor self-defense. What if the teacher, or a passerby at the Stockton Massacre had been carrying a concealed handgun? She might have been able to stop the killing with far fewer dead, maybe even no innocent dead, if she were quick enough on the draw.
The police almost never actually stop crimes from happening. The best they can do is try to catch the perpetrator after someone has been hurt, and then try (if they can get a conviction) to punish the criminal enough to impress others; they call this "deterrence". I'll tell you what real deterrence is: the possibility kicking around in the criminal's mind that the intended victim is armed and willing to strike back.
Ultimately, if you want to stop "Bad Things" like this from happening to you, you must be willing to stop them yourself.
You may not like guns, or may not think you're able to be ferocious enough to fend off an attacker (though you'd be surprised at what a little adrenalin can do for the mildest person!). Well, there are other options. Hire someone else to do it. Watch "Home Alone". I don't know what might fit your style, but you can think of something (anything is better than meekly accepting victimhood!). Creating powerful systems of sanctioned violence is definitely not the way to go; the unscrupulous will get hold of them every time!
5]. What about drugs, prostitution, and other "social ills"?
Summary: I want my children to grow up in a clean, healthy environment, and I don't care to be bombarded with sights I find repulsive at every street corner, just like most folks I know. However, I believe that using force is not the way to achieve this.
The arguments against criminalizing "vices" are many and compelling. [coming soon] Let me just summarize by saying that in any civilized society, there must be a victim in order for there to have been a crime. Only the most extraordinary mental gymnastics enable anyone to imagine that a lonely man paying for some intimate company, or a harmless women growing some marijuana plants in her window box, creates a victim.
As to the gangland warfare surrounding parts of the drug trade, the diaseases alleged to be spread by prostitutes, and other real problems associated with outlawed "vices"... Well, these are not the products of the "vices", but of the fact that they are illegal. Prohibition and its repeal taught us some very important lessons, if we would look at them. We know that decriminalization of victimless behaviors people want to engage in (no matter how stupid or self-destructive we may think they are) makes all the associated real crime (violence, theft, gang warfare) and even the dangerously shoddy products go away.
Personally, I don't like mind-altering chemicals, habit-forming substances, or many of the other "vices" that are illegal in the U.S. I find it insulting when I hear pious pundits proclaiming that everyone would engage in such behaviors if they were legalized (they say they wouldn't, so what supreme arrogance allows them to imagine that they are so much better than the poor benighted little people?). I also find it hypocritical beyond belief when some would-be ruler swills his whiskey sour and scoffs at another whose favorite amusement happens to be an occasional joint.
For me, the basic thing is this: I'm not saying that anyone should condone "vices" they don't like or think are sinful. But they should recognize that making them illegal only creates worse problems. Escalating "wars" on this or that vice only drives the prices up and ensures more entry into the (now more lucrative) market than normal demand would have created. These wars also have casualties. Real people--even completely innocent people--are dying. There was that minister in Massachusetts, for example. The vice squad burst into his apartment, handcuffed him to the radiator, and demolished everything in his home, only to discover they had the wrong apartment. The minister had a heart attack and died.
Even the most totalitarian regimes have been unable to stop these activities. The futile effort to do so only increases the death rates and the state's power... Neither of these things is good.
6]. What about guns?
Summary: I don't want to be dodging bullets on my way to work, nor do I want my children to be ducking them on their way to school. But these are not things that happen when gun ownership is common; rather, they are things that happen when crime is common, and that's a very different thing.
The arguments for and against gun rights are worked out in detail in many places. I will just summarize my position here, and urge the questioning mind to study the issue with an open mind.
For me, while I am glad that the framers tried to protect those rights with the second amendment to the u.s. constitution, that piece of law is not fundamental. Gun rights are really just a special case of the broader human right to self-defense. Reliance upon the law to guarantee such "rights" makes it sound more as though we were discussing a privilege. It is obviously in the interest of those in control of the machinery of the state to encourage people to think of self-defense and specific self-defense technologies as privileges; that way they can try to remove them and thereby consolidate their hold on power.
I believe that, whatever those who partake of state mythology might fantasize, the right to self-defense is an integral part of the human condition [coming soon]. It cannot be revoked or suspended. I further believe that there is no authority that could be trusted to "supervise" this right; it must be up to each individual to decide for him- or herself what means are appropriate to ensure their safety. For me, this involves a .44 magnum target pistol and my own brand of bushido.
I respect each person's right to decide what they want to do about this issue for themselves, but I oppose anyone's attempts to limit what means are available to me for the assurance of my family's security (or anyone else's!).
7]. What about the environment?
Summary: I love to camp and hike and hope my children will be able to enjoy some of the pristine wonders of nature that I have. And yet, I do not think these desires justify violence, such as the coercion that is taxation; there are better--voluntary--ways!
I am NOT anti-environment. I am anti-aggression, and even legitimate environmental concerns do not justify violence as a solution. And I am not referring to the two eco-extremists who kidnapped and killed that Exxon CEO; I recognize that that was an aberration. I mean that systematic violence we call taxation, and the seizure of private lands without any thought at all to the costs to the humans harmed.
You see, humans are my favorite animals, and I don't want to see our species sacrificed for the sake of others. When tax money is used to fund nice things like new trails in national parks, among those from whom the money is taken are struggling young couples in Harlem and East LA, people who would rather make an honest living and feed their children without going on the dole. Some folks have invested their retirement money in scenic land, only to discover that, while it is completely dry 360 days out of the year, it happens to have a low spot that fills with water on the remaining 5 days. When this land is declared a "wetland" by the army corps of engineers, the owners are no longer allowed to build their retirement home on it; nor can they sell it because nobody will buy land that can't be used.
State force also hurts the animals it is supposed to protect. For example, some land owners will immediately exterminate some critters they find on their land, because they are afraid of what will happen to the value of their property if an endangered species is discovered on it.
There is a totally unfortunate amount of hysteria being propagated on environmental issues by people and organizations with questionable agendas. A lot of what we hear about the environment is fear-mongering at its worst. If we take an objective look at the science, we find that global warming is not about to cook us, solid waste is not about to bury the world, and there is absolutely no substantiation to the claim that power lines cause cancer. This is just the tip of the iceberg. Whole books have been written about the problems with current environmental strategy; Eco-Sanity and The True State of the Planet are two that come to mind.
So, what are better ways? Well, if the state didn't set allegedly "safe" levels of emissions, I could sue polluters when I detect their emissions on my property. In england where some rivers are private property, there are tons of fish in these rivers because the owners can make money charging people who want to fish in them. If McDonald's owned the Grand Canyon, there'd be enough parking, cheaper food, and cleaner bathrooms. I think it was in Australia where they took an almost-extinct bird and started promoting how tasty their eggs are; now there are lots of these birds, because they are a profitable commodity. Ever wonder why no one worries about cows and chickens becoming extinct? Maybe the best thing we could do for an endangered species is to develop a taste for eating it! Personally, I rather like those organizations that go around buying natural wonders so that they can keep them pristine. They will probably be better stewards than the state, and this action is moral.
These ideas are but tips of other icebergs. Study the issue with an open mind, and you will start to see options too.
8]. What about children and schools?
Summary: I have three sons [at the time this was written] and there is nothing in life more important to me than they. Schooling and children's issues are too important to me to entrust them to the kind of system that can't even deliver the mail reliably.
On schools, there are grave dangers in allowing the state to influence the minds of the young. But, even assuming this can be mitigated, the same arguments apply against state-supported education as apply to the state's entry into any other business. Through the power to tax, they create near-monopolies, ensuring mediocre results where competition would drive quality up. Those same taxes make it harder for people to afford to send their children to better schools, even if they can find one that can stay in business so near a "free" school.
Other children's issues are too many and too complex to deal with here in any satisfactory way. Let me just say that there is a knowledge problem. No bureaucracy, no matter how dedicated and well-intentioned the employees, can ever come to know and understand the internal nature of a family. The family itself is the best place for children's problems to be worked out. When this fails, friends and the extended family have more ability to understand and take appropriate action than the state. Even churches and other voluntary organizations can better support families than coercive state agencies.
Everyone has opinions on these matters, and I don't expect the above words to be very persuasive to those not already in some degree of agreement. There are many excellent books on these subject and I urge you to look into them. How we raise our children may very well be the most important set of decisions we ever make. [coming soon] It may be too late for many in our generations to embrace freedom, but we can make it better in just one generation by enabling our children to remain as they are born--the kind of individuals who can embrace and thrive on freedom.
9]. What about the things the free market won't provide?
This concept, the idea of important things we all need and want, but that nobody will provide because they don't see any profit in it, is called "market failure".
One frequent explanation for certain kinds of alleged "market failure" is called the "free rider" problem. Lighthouses were once used as examples of this problem. Once built, any ship could use a lighthouse, so why would a ship owner pay to have one built, when he could just wait for the others to do it? This alleged breakdown justifies the state's intervention; they must use taxes to make people pay for the building of lighthouses, or we won't have any. Then someone researched this and discovered that early lighthouses in england were built privately. Moral of the story: if something is really needed, someone will find a way to satisfy the need, at a profit to her- or himself.
Another alleged market failure is called the "tragedy of the commons" problem. In this scenario, some value, like a clean and safe city park, is not provided because, since it is not owned by any one person, no one takes proper care of it. This is a real phenomenon. People who would never throw trash on their carpet do it on the sidewalks regularly. But not that there are things like clean safe parks: Discovery Zone makes a fortune selling clean, secure, indoor playground time, and Disneyland provides park services on a much larger scale. It's not that the market can't provide the service, it's that the market is excluded from "public property" and not allowed to work. The solution to the "tragedy of the commons" is to get rid of the "commons" (public property) and go with private property. Philanthropists who want poor people to have free access to parks could even lease parks from their owners and let people in for free.
The more general term for a thing the public needs or wants, but the market won't provide, is a "public good". When Adam Smith wrote The Wealth of Nations over 200 years ago and started the social science we call economics, he explained how individuals acting in the economy produce the greatest benefits for all, "as though guided by an invisible hand". The exceptions were certain "public goods" such as bridges (but we've already been over the "free rider" problem). Today, most people, when hard pressed, fall back on the core "services" of the state as being "public goods": police services; courts; and national defense. But all of these things have been provided privately one or many times at different places throughout history. Two of them are available (security services and arbitration) privately in the U.S. today. Even national defense has been conducted for profit, as it was in Renaissance Italy.
The bottom line for me on all of this is that I am simply not concerned about so-called "market failures". If the market doesn't provide certain services, it's always because people don't actually want it, or because the state is interfering with the provision of the service. If it ever happened that there were some desperately important service that the market just wasn't providing, well, things would get bad for a while, and a need would be created... and whenever a need is created, so is the incentive for someone to find a way to provide the service at a profit.
Don L. Tiggre
"There is only one cure for evils which new-acquired freedom produces, and that cure is freedom. When a prisoner first leaves his cell, he cannot bear the light of day, he is unable to discriminate colors, or recognize faces. The remedy is, to accustom him to the rays of the sun.
"The blaze of truth and liberty may at first dazzle and bewilder nations which have become half blind in the house of bondage. But let them gaze on, and they will soon be able to bear it.
"Many politicians of our time are in the habit of laying it down as a self-evident proposition, that no people ought to be free till they are fit to use their freedom. The maxim is worthy of the fool in the old story, who resolved not to go into the water until he had learned to swim. If men are to wait for liberty till they become wise and good in slavery, they may indeed wait forever."-- Thomas Macaulay
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