Philosophy

[ad]I have never been an advocate of violent action or destruction. As a matter of fact, I consider my anarchist philosophy to be most fundamentally based on the libertarian non-aggression principle and I am personally disgusted by violence. To me, the pen is beyond any doubt more powerful than the sword; actually, I would hesitate to use “the sword” even if it were in direct self-defense. I am a champion of peace and voluntaryism.

This is essentially where my refusal to accept government comes from: government is in every sense violent force and aggression, and as such I can never accept nor tolerate it. But my morality forbids me to take violent action as part of my resistance to being ruled. I believe Gandhi set a great example – peaceful disobedience, not violent action.

The way I would like to see a society without the state is a society based on respect and tolerance, where all actions and associations are strictly voluntary and physical force is never a solution. But I realize this might very well be a utopian dream on a national level, even though I think it is a fully attainable ideal in radically decentralized communities. In local, prosperous societies there is simply no need to resort to violence, as violence does not achieve anything or offer a solution. There is simply no reason anyone would do him- or herself the disservice of violently aggress on someone else.

In a free society the incentives for violent action are none and thus the violent actions taken in such a society would be at an absolute minimum, if not zero – unless one counts mining, wood felling or smithery as “violent.”

My principle for anarchism can thus be summed up as: do no harm. The reason I do not get out on nightly missions to destroy the illegitimate property of those who continuously aggress on me (read: government) is simply that such missions would cause harm – to both innocent and semi-innocent people. I am not violent by nature and I do not generally enjoy destruction; there is no reason for it and I don’t understand it. Which makes my insistence on the necessity for a free, stateless society even stronger and more deep-rooted.

This said, let me clarify: I am certainly not saying I accept government’s illegitimate rule of me or anybody else. And I would desperately like to see government wither away, be undermined, or even be torn down. But I do not engage in destructive measures directed at people or property; I do not find destruction fun, inspiring, or even necessary.

In this sense I would certainly call myself anarcho-pacifist. But I do not think non-violence is a principle that must always be honored, paying for it with my life. I do believe in my right to defend myself, my loved ones, and my property. I do not think it my duty to be a passive bystander and observer of all evils going on. If I see grave injustice being done I am likely to act; it is just that I would probably not act with force unless it is absolutely necessary – and then only as the very last way out.

I do, in a way, believe in self-defense and I would not have a problem to get a gun. As society degenerates around us it is becoming increasingly urgent for all of us to learn how to use firearms and get a gun for protection. As anarchist there is no reason whatever to expect that government “protect” works and that the monopolized police force will actually come to my rescue if I were to face real danger.

In the long term, future (some say imminent) economic crises may bring about a social stress that could fire antagonisms and outright street fighting between a government run amok (in the mainstream sense) and a people brought to arms in utter desperation. If this were to happen there is no reason not to have a gun.

So perhaps I could call myself a “pacifist with a gun.” Well, if I had had one.

But let’s return to of self-defense, it is a quite interesting concept that is not not at all as simple as most people tend to make it. Those who advocate “natural” rights, for instance, generally conclude that a violation of right is a violation of right, which causes a situation of measuring the weight of rights.

For instance, a person owning property has the right to defend that right. But to what extent? Would it be okay to kill a murderer? A rapist? A blackmailer? A trespasser? Why? Why not? In each of these situations there is the right of the violated rights bearer against the right of the violator. Does the right of a violator carry less weight? Says who? It does not follow from the “natural” rights how such problems should be solved (which is why some conclude there is a need for government), so some add e.g. a theory of proportionality to regulate these shortcomings of the original rights theory.

I think “do no harm” is a sufficient principle of justice. When you act violently in self-defense it might be justified by the situation, but that still does not give you the right to do harm. You might have to in order to save your life, but it is still wrong to do harm. Your being assaulted does not give you the right to assault the assaulter.

This might seem like a difficult principle to implement, but I think it is very intuitive and the practical solution to conflicts arising from “violence and counter violence” is fairly simple: apply any market solution of your choice. Imagine a person trespassing on your property and thereby doing harm on your exclusive right to this property. You tell him or her that s/he is trespassing and need to leave immediately. If the person refuses you can simply remove him or her from your property – if s/he thinks this action was uncalled for you might face a trial hearing held by a private arbitrator you accept.

What this means is simply that if the parties disagree on whether the outcome of the situation was just, each of their violent actions can be measured by a “third” party to which they agree. The third party can then estimate damages to set things right.

This is a rather obvious market solution to a problem of two or more parties disagreeing on a situation: let a neutral party, to which the parties agree, decide who acted “most” in error and who therefore owes the other party/parties damages. Such a system would never face the philosophical problem of proportionality, since doing harm is always a bad thing and fault can always be established and estimated by a neutral party of choice – even though “harm” is always subjectively assessed.

That is the way I see self-defense. You have the right to act, but not to harm. If you wish or need to use violent actions in order to achieve some end you are responsible for your actions and should be held accountable for wrongdoing. This applies even though you might already have been violated by the other party. If someone trespasses on your grounds to pick berries and you shoot that person the both of you have done harm – but to different degrees. You should be tried for murder and convicted, however with your fault reduced with the fault of trespassing and berry-stealing.

This way all violations and conflicts can “easily” be settled by the market as in any situation where you destroy someone’s property or are guilty of breach of contract. And there is no need for a constitution or bill of rights – you do not have the right to do harm to anyone, and that goes for everyone and everything.

If I am assaulted I will, according to this principle, use violent action to resist and possibly escape the aggressor, but I will be very reluctant to use force. And if I use force I believe I am at fault to the degree of force applied and should be held responsible for that action – just as you, as my aggressor, should be held responsible for all your actions.

This principle is equally applicable on the thugs working for government – if they attack me they should be held accountable on a market for justice. (If I violently and forcefully resist, I am at fault to that degree even if I find it necessary.) When the state is finally abolished I believe representatives for government will face charges of forceful aggression and theft filed by millions of oppressed people.

The problem with government is however that it is not a person, even though it pretends to be a “legal entity,” and thus each of its representatives can hide behind an abstraction that can not be held accountable. But the way I see it each individual is responsible for his or her actions – it does not matter if these actions were taken following orders from someone higher up in the chain of command; a taken action is your choice and thus responsibility. So on the first day of freedom the thugs, goons, and imbeciles in government will be held accountable for their actions.

This is as far as my anarcho-pacifism goes. It does state a philosophical principle that nobody has a right to do harm, but it also provides a framework for assessing violations of this principle and how to regain a peaceful equilibrium. Force is never a solution, and aggressive such is even worse. But my believing in peace and non-violence does not mean I will accept your enslavement or your rule. It means I will resist to my greatest ability and practice disobedience as much as possible, and that I will take full responsibility for my actions.

And I demand that you do the same if you want my respect as a human being.

[ad]In a previous post (How About Some Honesty?) I touched on a subject of immense importance: honesty when arguing a political point of view. But honesty is a much more important concept than I maintained in that previous post. Actually, when arguing for a certain state of things, i.e., a normative, there is no reason to assume someone else will do the work. If you really want something to change in a certain direction with a specific end goal, then why would you not invest time, labor, and money into making it happen?

Normatives usually include how to organize society, how people should act, morals, ethics, the meaning of liberty. They almost always involve people and how people act or in what ways they are allowed to act. When this is the case, would you say it is consistent, that the person arguing a normative is believable, to not act the way explicitly preferred or even prescribed?

In the previous post I argued many so-called “pro war libertarians” are inconsistent because they do not in any way act or take part in the war they advocate. They don’t join the army. Many of them don’t even pay the taxes that finances the war. (I do pay such taxes, I’m afraid.)

This might seem as a dishonest argument, but I don’t think it is. When arguing for normatives, for how people should act, then the least one could expect is for the person supporting and arguing for a certain point of view acts that way. Why do you argue you know what others must choose while not making the same choice for yourself? Actions speak louder than words.

This is not to say there aren’t circumstances that could make it impossible to act the way one would prefer. It might also be too costly. In such cases it might not make sense. But to argue for a normative without even trying – or consider trying – to act that way yourself? That is hypocrisy.

Advocating killings without yourself killing (or trying to kill) is hypocrisy.

Advocating rape without yourself raping (or trying to rape) is hypocrisy.

Advocating theft without yourself stealing (or trying to steal) is hypocrisy.

This type of behavior can be summed up as politics. Politics is about making others act a certain way without oneself taking the lead; politics uses force and coercion to make people act according to someone’s preferences without demanding that that someone acts the same way. We see this all the time: politicians prohibiting or wanting to prohibit private health care or health care insurance while making sure to have the most expensive insurance themselves; politicians raising taxes while not paying them themselves; politicians advocating torture while they would never use such methods themselves (or subject themselves to such horrible treatment); politicians advocating war while never themselves ever risking a bullet (or killing someone).

Hypocrisy.

The reasoning above shows clearly the beauty with the anarchist position, which does not have the intrinsic contradictions of most statist positions advocating “liberty,” and the methodology of direct action – do it yourself. This position, at least in theory, is non-hypocritical: it does not include contradictory statements (it includes only your right to do with your life as you please as long as you do not restrict others’ doing what they wish with their lives) and it ultimately requires that you act yourself rather than make others act on your behalf. This is the only moral position (at least for as long as it does not include force/violence/coercion).

This is, however, a theoretical view of the anarchist position. There are plenty of anarchists who do not “do as they preach” or that even act in a way directly opposite to their expressed ideals. In such cases the anarchist is a hypocrite.

Nevertheless, anarchists tend to be less hypocritical than others. For two reasons:
1) Anarchists don’t support a coercive system thought “necessary” for liberty; and
2) Anarchists don’t believe in political means.

Let us take a look at these two specific points.

Liberty and the State. Liberty is the absence of restrictions, the absence of force, coercion, fraud and involuntary hierarchy. How can one combine such a concept with the concept of a state, which is ultimately defined as a “monopoly of [the use of] violence”? Imagine a society in which people only act voluntarily, add a structure with monopoly power – what do you have? It is difficult to imagine the result is more liberty. The result is necessarily less liberty.

This is, very simply summarized, the reason most political movements are developing dogmatic terminology and their own definition of words, struggling with trying to limit language in such a way that the fundamental lie will never be exposed. Liberty under a state is always, and can only be, liberty at the mercy of power. Liberty under the state is limited to actions accepted by its rule(s).

Political means. I have previously discussed the implications of engaging in the political process, i.e., using politics as a means, on many occasions. Political means, in the sense of using the state to achieve certain goals, always means using power to force people to act in a certain way. Be it removing a certain restriction or regulation or enacting another law to outlaw available alternatives.

Politics is a methodology of hate – it makes people rulers on all levels, and teaches people to obey those higher in hierarchy. It makes people develop brown noses and hard feet – in order to “succeed” or accomplish anything you need to brown-nose your superiors and keep inferiors in line (by force, if necessary). Even in local chapters of political organizations people “secretly” band together in factions and fight each other for “influence” or power.

Anarchism, and generally also anarchists, do not condone the state nor political means. This should always be the case for those advocating and championing universal liberty. But it is not.

As has already been mentioned, some anarchists have no problem with engaging in party politics. Also, there are a lot of so-called libertarians – “minarchists” – supporting both a state and political means as necessary for liberty. What about this position?

It should be fairly obvious by now that the minarchist position is strictly hypocritical. The so-called minarchists claim to be champions of liberty while advocating a centralized power with the monopoly to use force; they claim people have “a right” to do whatever they wish “as long as they don’t hurt anyone” but use political means (effectively striving to acquire the power to “legitimately” force others) to accomplish their goals.

If one were to construct a way to calculate the “level of hypocrisy” for a political or philosophical position, I have no doubt minarchists would end up with a “high score.” As a matter of fact, the level of hypocrisy should be lower the more “open” and undisguised the advocacy for power is. Nazism and fascism, for instance, would score low – being less hypocritical – simply because they advocate force openly and use forceful means to acquire the power to use it. Republicans and democrats are, in this respect, more hypocritical than nazis and fascists.

Having said this it is not difficult to realize why it is so uncommon to “do it yourself.” The ideologies and political programs themselves are fundamentally hypocritical. What you wish to achieve is usually an end goal for society where others act as you want. You want the power to make it happen, i.e., the power to force others to act the way you want. I despise nazism in every possible way, but at least they are not hypocritical – they want power to use it, they are explicit about it, and they attack, abuse, coerce and kill to get it.

The way I see it, anarchism and anarchists (in general, there are exceptions – especially when engaging in violent action against people and/or possessions) are superior morally and philosophically. Not only because of their belief in themselves, in man, and in freedom – but because they advocate freedom and they take it on themselves to achieve it. Collectivist anarchists generally do it in clubs (not seldom with internal structures of hierarchy) whereas individualist anarchists do it individually or organized in networks. In either case, they want freedom and they do what it takes to get it – and they do it themselves.

It is my personal opinion that the late Samuel Edward Konkin III – SEK3 – had the best theory on how to achieve a free society. But no matter what you believe of his theory, he was not hypocritical: he advocated freedom through counter-economics (SEK3 on counter-economics here) – where market anarchists take it on themselves to act on the market out of reach of the state’s oppressive apparatus.

SEK3 also recognized that it might not be possible to advocate liberty, in the purest sense, and act 100% freely. There are costs of acting in an oppressive state society. Such costs can make it practically impossible to act the way one would like to. Konkin recognized this impossibility and simply stated that it is every market anarchist’s moral obligation to act as much as possible without the realm of politics.

Each and every one of us is to some extent acting hypocritical – this is a necessary condition in a society so totally entrenched with state control and state power. What separates the hypocrites from the non-hypocrites is whether the advocate for liberty makes sure to act as little as possible in the political realm or not. If you take it on yourself to change the world, not just talk about it, you are not a hypocrite – even if you are “forced” to accept some oppressive measures. If you talk of changing the world and strive for the power to force that change on others rather than acting yourself, then you are indeed a hypocrite.

Discussions on the environment and environmentalism are often assuming a “man vs. nature” point of view. According to this view, man is a “threat” to nature and whatever man is doing causes harm to nature and, in the long run, to man.

But the exact view of what is man and what is nature is very seldom communicated. It should however be reasonable to assume there are at least three ways we can discuss man and nature. The most extreme view should be that man and nature are different in any way – that nature is whatever man is not and vice versa. If this view is adopted, we will end up with what is sometimes called Ecofascism, a view that essentially describes man as the threat to nature. Some ecofascists claim the “best” thing for the world is simply to wipe out humankind, or at least a big part of the world population.

The opposite extreme would be the claim that man is a part of nature and that everything man does is therefore also a part of nature. This view makes more sense historically, since man, following the theory of evolution, is a product of nature and is always acting in and with respect to nature. This should not, however, be interpreted as a view that is basically apologetic to everything man does to his environment. On the contrary, since man is part of nature and fundamentally dependent on “nature” he destroys the basis for his own existence if harming “nature.”

A third view would be to adopt a view somewhere between these two extremes, which would mean man is both part of nature and could be seen as a distinct part of it that might be acting in a way threatening nature (and also his own existence). Most people, I believe, would adhere to this “middle” position, even though the rhetoric used is often borrowed from a somewhat ecofascist view.

The question we ask is, Is man a threat to nature? The answer needs not be discussed at length, since most people would agree (whether correct or not) that this is so. We are often described as non-reflecting, non-understanding profit-seeking machines that care not for nature or the well-being of the next generation of our species.

This view of man being very focused on short-term profits and generally neglects or ignores long-term costs is often confessed to in discussions on environmental issues. Even in the “balanced” middle between the two extremes discussed above, man is seen as a parasite on nature and the main reason for the imbalances in the ecological system.Examples often used are the mining for natural resources and the drilling for oil, or the overcutting of the rain forests (the “world’s lungs”) . In the former case, our quest for riches devastates large areas of land just so that we can “be richer,” even though it is at the expense of our own well-being long term. Or we, as humans, exploit the treasures of nature in order to make use of the energy stored in the depths of the earth (or the sea) just so that we can produce more goods and products. And the rain forests are devastated and essentially threatened by our shallow quest for materials and comfort.

In this view, it seems man is identified as a special condition in nature. Man is a product of nature, but a product that does not honor the contract – man does not contribute to the harmony of nature and is in most ways a threat to life on earth per se.

Locusts and Elephants

This view is however too simplistic and narrow. If man is really defined as an absurdity, a creation of nature that is responsible for the imbalances in nature, then nature is the balance and man is that which causes the imbalance. This, essentially, is the view of the ecofascists – man is a threat to nature.

But even if this view is accepted as the definition of man vs. nature, there are obvious problems we must deal with. Man as a short-term profit-seeking animal put aside, there are other species in nature that definitely fit the characterization of man.

Elephants are well-known to be a migrating species. The reason they migrate is simply that they eat everything that can be eaten in an area, and are forced to move when they run out of food. When elephants arrive to a green and naturally “prosperous” part of the savanna it is only a matter of time until all the green “riches” are devoured. Are elephants a threat to nature?

The same story can be told of locusts. Big swarms of locusts, as described in many historical documents as well as in the Bible, devour everything and leave when there is nothing more to feed off. This may be a problem to farmers, but it should also be a problem to other animals living in the area taken hostage by a swarm of locusts. Are locusts a threat to nature?

The Role of Technology

The answer to this question is always “no.” Even though both elephants and locusts fit the description of man, in the sense that they are short-term profit-seeking animals that fundamentally upset the balance in nature, they are not thought of as a threat to nature. Rather, they are – as being non-human – often seen as parts of the ecological system. Furthermore, they are seen as a necessary part of the system, making room for new plants, insects, and mammals through their devastation of status quo. Then how and in what way is man different?

The difference between man and elephants or locusts is often said to be technology. The reason man is a threat to nature when causing imbalance in the system, while other animals having the same effect on their environment are not, is that man uses technology. Man’s not being limited to the state in which he was brought to the world means he has overstepped the “authority” he has been given by nature; man has, through adopting technology, not honored the natural contract.

The essence of this argument is that development and progress is seen as a bad thing. This is an argument for primitivism, an argument saying any kind of creation that isn’t directly the effect of “nature” is a perversion. But this argument too doesn’t supply good reason to condemn man as an anti-nature creature.

If the use of tools and the creation of shelter and community are threats to nature, which is essentially what this argument says, then all species making use of such things should be condemned. What about beavers making dams through establishing shelter? What about chimpanzees using tools to find food? What about birds making nests in the crowns of trees? What about animals digging holes to provide shelter?

These animals aren’t condemned as humans are, even though they are obviously making use of technology. Rather, their technologies are deemed “natural” and “part of nature” (even though they are created by these animals just like a hammer is created by humans).

The argument is thus not about technology per se, the argument is against human technology.

There may be many reasons for singling out human technology as a threat to nature whereas other kinds of technology are not. For instance, it is rather obvious that the level of complexity and efficiency of human technology is (at least for the latter centuries) much higher than other animals’, which means human technology could – at least theoretically – be a graver danger to life. (Talking of, for instance, the atom bomb this should be an obvious conclusion.)

But if technology in itself is not the problem, which is obviously the case, and thus that only certain types of technology is – then what is the reason for condemning a whole species? Shouldn’t it be much more legitimate and honest to condemn that kind of technology? Or even better: shouldn’t the argument rather supply a legitimate basis to condemn certain uses of certain types of technology that pose an obvious threat to our environment?

The argument and the conclusions drawn from it don’t go well together. It seems the argument could, if restructured in such a way that it becomes a legitimate argument, supply a good basis for identifying high risk technologies and thus take the necessary precautions so as to minimize risk or at least limit damages of its use. It should also allow us to identify which technologies can be adopted in order to protect or even strengthen nature’s natural balances.

But these are not conclusions championed by the proponents of the argument – the “environmentalists” wish to abolish technology. One might wonder what is their real goal. As has been shown above, man cannot be singled out as the only short-term profit-seeking animal (if that is an established truth) and it also cannot be established that technology per se is a threat to “nature.” It is not even true that all human technology is a threat, but the conclusion is still that it should be abolished.

What is the real goal? Perhaps the real goal of this argument, the agenda of the environmentalists adhering to this view, is something other than finding a way to establish harmony between “nature” and “man.” The agenda, it seems, is to establish that man is basically unnatural and thus not a part of nature, which makes the argument fundamentally circular. One might wonder, if the purpose is to identify man as something external to nature, something not part of or created by nature, then what is the ultimate goal?

What are the conclusions to be drawn from identifying man as literally unnatural?

Have you ever made a request only to be bluntly turned down with the comment “sorry, but those are the rules”? Part of this phenomenon has already been covered in my comment on the Nuremberg Trials. In this post, however, I wish to discuss rules from another point of view: why do people wish to blindly accept and carry out orders?

I have consciously chosen the somewhat provoking title Rules for the Weak, but it is actually straight to the point. Thinking of business, some would say rules are there only to protect Capital and make sure the labor worker is exploited – breaking the abundance of rules leaves the worker totally in the hands of the manager or owner of the firm.

I don’t believe this view or “exploitation theory” is totally wrong, there are surely both managers and owners making up rules simply to make the lives of people working for them miserable. This does not, however, explain why people choose to work where there are rules – and especially not why quite many people choose to rely on the rules to escape personal responsibility.

Of course, the latter point can be interpreted as a choice made under the systematic threat of state capitalism where most sound alternatives have effectively been precluded from the market. Also, the fear of punishment might very well make people “blindly” adopt whatever rules available to protect themselves from possible harm.

These are all good points, and in the contemporary economic system – whether you call it a “free market,” “state capitalism,””state socialism,” or whatever – I would say they are valid arguments. But even though they are valid, I don’t think they explain the magnitude of the phenomenon.

The opposite view offers another explanation to why people “hide” behind rules: the rules of businesses are simply there to protect the working men and women from taking on responsibility for decisions they do not have mandate to make. The strict following of “procedure” is thus protects the worker – management indirectly takes responsibility through formulating rules that employees have to follow, and thereby alleviate workers of responsibility they don’t want and cannot take on.

I would personally think this is how many managers think – they make rules in order to control what is going on in their organizations. They may not always do it to protect the workers (rather, they might do it to control their actions), but the chain of actions isn’t hard to believe. It probably explains, at least in part, why there are rules for workers and employees to follow – and perhaps even why employees refer to the rules rather than try to find the best solution in the particular situation.

However, there is reason to believe the adoption of rules isn’t one-sided and one-way. It is not only the case that people are forced or lured to “blame” the rules. The rules aren’t used in everyday business only to control or protect them. It is also the case that people choose to abide by rules and regulations and readily refer to rules as a way to avoid taking personal responsibility. This is not only the case in business while carrying out one’s work, but also in private interaction.

People like to hide behind rules and regulations. They find satisfaction in evading personal responsibility – especially if they at the same time can can make someone else worse off.

This is not a general rule for “everybody,” but there are quite a few people gladly taking on positions where they get the “power” to make decisions that affect other people but don’t have to take responsibility for the effect of these decisions.

It should now be clear that I am not talking only about a phenomenon among workers and people in “weak” positions. Rather, I am talking about a human phenomenon that has nothing to do with the person’s situation or social status. A wide variety of people are part of the same phenomenon; they gladly make decisions that they know they will never be held accountable for. This is especially common in politics – politicians is the only group of people I can think of in which almost every member acts this way.

Back to the title of this post: the word “weak” does not refer to the direct situation in economic or social terms. I do not mean weakness as in absence of power or absence of influence. It does also not mean weak in the sense “not strong” or “not intelligent.” Weakness, rather, is here meant as a state of mind and feeling of confidence. As I have written elsewhere:

Only people not able to grow tall from their own efforts and achievements seek to subdue their fellow man; only people not being able to find comfort in their own mind seek to silence others; those who are unable to produce their own wealth aim to confiscate the wealth of others.

The same kind of people find strength in making other people weak, they enjoy making other people miserable – at least if they themselves can avoid personal responsibility. This is a state of frailty in body and mind, a lack of self-confidence, a weakness.

This is where the previous post on the Nuremberg Trials comes in. In the Trials each and every individual was held accountable for his or her actions – no matter if they were ordered or if they were threatened to carry out their actions. Acting means gaining responsibility for you action, and the converse is equally true: not acting makes you responsible for you inaction. This was the morality that was guiding principle in the Nuremberg Trials (it was at least the principle used by the victors of the war to legitimize continued killings of the losers).

Whether this was the common view on morality in the 1940s or not, this view has no doubt been diluted since then – not many would acknowledge this morality or principle steadfastly. The number of “weak” people, in the sense discussed above, is increasing and the number of principled proponents of individual responsibility is decreasing fast.

I personally hold the state responsible for this undermining of private morality. The state feeds off disconnecting action and responsibility. Where action does not cause responsibility the state claims power to “correct” disequilibrium. And the state continuously asks the citizenry to increase its powers so that it can take responsibility for people’s actions. The state ardently asks to be of service – to alleviate people of their responsibility.

But responsibility, even though it often is made to sound like a curse, is synonymous to liberty. Where there is no responsibility there can be no liberty – where no one takes responsibility for their actions, no one can experience the liberty to make choices. If no individual is held accountable and responsible for his actions, every individual’s range of possible actions is necessarily restricted.

It should thus not be surprising that the number of people “hiding” behind rules rather than standing tall and taking responsibility is increasing. The numbers are most likely increasing at the rate our liberties are restricted. And the state is growing at the same speed, always asking for more.

And it is a slippery slope: as soon as an individual is relieved of his or her responsibility, situations arise where someone else has to pick up the bill. This unfairness and injustice is used as a catalyst for the state – as soon as such injustice arises and becomes known the people will face the following:

1) someone will call for the state to “help them out,” and
2) the state will ask for powers to “make sure” such injustice will not arise in the future

Many will, of course, agree that such injustice is unfair and awful and must be avoided. Most will sympathize with the former and see the latter as a “solution.” The result? A society in a position even further from the liberty–responsibility equilibrium; a society facing more frequent and more severe injustice; a society with a larger state.

The trend is very clear and society has moved in only one direction throughout the 20th century: towards limited responsibility and restricted liberty. I have called this century of world wars The Endarkening, an era of anti-reason, anti-rationality, and anti-liberty. This era has no doubt continued in the 21st century.

The number of people “hiding” behind rules, regulation, and procedure is increasing – and it will continue to increase. The number of times you face someone totally unable to understand you or your situation, while blankly and bluntly referring to “the rules,” will also increase. They may be weak, but they are in a position of power and they intend to use it, it is the only way they can feel strong – through subduing you and making you subjected to their “good will.”

This is not a phenomenon that is limited to a few – it is everywhere and growing: The person “unable” to help you out because they were supposed to have closed “a minute ago;” the twenty-something guy in the convenient store refusing to sell a six pack of beers to a 77-year-old who refuses to show ID; the construction company not taking responsibility for substandard “death trap” buildings because the followed “the law;” the food producing corporation selling poisonous food but following FDA regulations; politicians getting rich from screwing the taxpayers while following the “moral code.”

The actions and situations are different, but the principle is the same. These are weak minds at work, finding ways to elevate themselves at others’ expense. They find pleasure and fulfillment in seeing others suffer while avoiding responsibility through blaming faceless “rules.”

The rules are for the weak, but not in the sense it is usually understood. The rules are not established to protect people in need of help and support. No, the rules are there for the weak-minded to avoid having to take responsibility for their actions – the rules are there for them to elevate themselves at our expense. They need to rules to feel superior, to me “super-human.”

Why? They cannot stand the thought of being one of us, the same as everybody else. And they are prepared to do whatever it takes to get the high of a sense of power, to be taller through pushing others down, to replace the feeling of discomfort with an artificial sense of being needed. Even if it kills the rest of us.

Discussing how to solve conflict people generally tend to search for a “third party” that can approach the issue causing the conflict from without, an external “power” that does not have anything to do with the involved parties. The logic is essentially correct if the aim is to minimize corruption. In a dispute between A and B, anyone working directly or indirectly for B cannot be a neutral arbiter. And the same goes for anyone with ties to A. Only someone who doesn’t personally, directly or indirectly, have a relation to A or B, and who doesn’t personally gain from the outcome of or a solution to the conflict, can be trusted to settle the dispute.

The logic is equally applicable when there is a conflict between a person and an organization, as is the case when a person is involved in a contractual conflict with for instance the government. Only someone, a person or institution, without ties to the person or the government can be trusted to provide a solution that is truly neutral, a solution that thus doesn’t give one of the parties benefits at the cost of the other. This makes true justice a difficult task in most state societies, since government not only upholds a monopoly of the use of force – but also claims the monopoly of setting rules for justice as well as defining what is justice in government courts.

This problem has been well-known to theorists and politicians alike for centuries, which is why we expect to find some sort of safeguard in most political and state systems. For instance, the United States government has the monopoly to settle disputes in the court system – but the courts are a power in the government that is essentially “separate” from other powers (the executive and legislative). Of course, such a system cannot truly provide neutral arbitration, especially not when government is one of the parties in the conflict, but most people tend to agree it is “close enough.”

This “close enough,” which is often falsely described as a guarantee, is sometimes taken as an argument for the state. In essence, it is not so much an argument for the state but against the market’s possibility of supplying such goods and services. This is a false argument, even if we accept the assumption that the “close enough” solution to the arbitration problem is, as advertised, a guarantee.

The reason it is false is that it is based on system thinking. The market, it is claimed, cannot supply neutral arbitration simply because there are interests in the market that have interests in the conflict and how it is settled. The fallacy, of course, is to see the market as a system. Were it a system, then it would certainly have interests in the conflict, the parties, as well as the solution to the conflict.

On the other hand, were the conflict really a problem in the market, accepting for a moment the assumption that the market is a system, then there is no reason to assume the market cannot internally find a solution to the problem. After all, the reasoning is based on the assumption that both parties are “parts” of the market and that the market, therefore, is not neutral to the case. If this were true, then the market should be able to settle any dispute between two of “its” actors. An “internally” settled dispute must be better than any dispute involving external parties, especially when the case is that both parties in the conflict are parts of the same “system.”

Not many would agree that this is a real response to the critique, however, even though it does essentially follow the line of thinking of most – if not all – of the criticism of market arbitration.

A couple of truths following this statement of market as a system and arbitration should be noted. If accepted, a solution is not very difficult to imagine. Actually, an “internal” solution is likely to occur and the problem would, in most cases, simply vanish. If rejected, we must also reject the notion of the market as a system. The only reason an “internal” solution, as mentioned above, can be rejected in the case when it is obvious that the parties in conflict are “parts” of the market is to state the parties are not parts of the same system. Thus: they are not actors in the market or the market is not a system.

A premise for the problem discussed is usually that the parties involved in conflict of some kind are actors in the marketplace. After all, if the argument is used as an argument against anarchism (which is, by definition, the alternative to the state) the parties cannot be anything but actors in the market. Hence, the market cannot be “a system.”

This conclusion does however not prove that the alternative to state arbitration must have an interest in one of the parties or one of the possible outcomes of the conflict. It proves only that the market is not a system, and thus that the parties in the conflict are actors that are acting in the market but not as parts of a market system. The parties are thus not parts of a homogeneous whole and must therefore be essentially independent.

There is nothing in this statement saying another actor in the market cannot also be independent of other actors, and there is also nothing saying a third party – an actor in the marketplace – cannot be equally independent with respect to both parties in the conflict. Such a party, even though it is an actor in the market, perhaps even the same niche market as the parties in the conflict, must theoretically be able to take a position between the conflicting parties and arbitrate!

Yes, there might be problems with such a third party’s independence, but such problems do not arise because there is no one in the market that can be independent of both parties – they arise because it is difficult, perhaps very costly, to find someone who is truly independent (or: equally dependent) of both parties. Nevertheless, this rules out the criticism that “the market” cannot supply arbitration in conflicts “in the market” without necessarily being unfair and unjust. “It” certainly can supply such services, the argument against this is invalid.

Looking back at the alternative, that the State – an actor that no doubt has interest in the outcome of conflicts (even if “only” to enforce its own laws) – has a monopoly of arbitration between parties in conflict, it should be obvious which alternative is superior. The state system offers the monopoly product arbitration and can only supply “close” to just solutions to conflicts. The market can supply such services that are essentially, if not fully, neutral enjoying the fruits of competition in supplying the best services for arbitration.

The latter may be costly, but the cost should be nothing compared to the coercive system of a state monopoly. The problem of arbitration in effect boils down to whether one believes products, in this case justice, are best supplied by a monopoly or by a market with multiple actors supplying a variety of products.

In a recent blog post I elaborated a little on the fundamental philosophical difference between minarchism and anarchism. I also claimed the two philosophies, even though they often go together as distinct parts of the same movement, are really not two different expressions of the same fundamental conviction – they are parts of different philosophical and political paradigms.

The interesting thing about paradigms is that there really is no way of being part of both – the existence of paradigms is generally a situation of mutual exclusivity. Simply put, paradigms are “either–or” – not both. So you cannot really be part of both ways of thinking, you have to belong to one of them, and that will make you quite unable to understand the other point of view.

Another interesting thing about paradigms when applied on statism vs. anarchism is the fact that statism is very obviously normality. No one, at least in the western world, is born anarchist – we are all born in statist societies with statist people having nothing but statist agendas. So movement between the two paradigms, which might be called “individual paradigm shifts” (or rather: cross-paradigm travel), is necessarily from one to the other – not the other direction.

Of course, we shall not claim there is no one who is now minarchist but used to be anarchist. Those people do exist, and they might for all I know be many (it is just that I haven’t met very many), but following the fact that they were born in a statist society, presumably by statist parents, they must have traveled from statist to anarchist first. Traveling back isn’t half as difficult as taking the first step, at least I don’t think it is.

What this really means in the minarchist vs. anarchist debate is that there really are no minarchists who can fully understand the anarchist position, while every anarchist presumably has been a minarchist!

This should not be interpreted to mean that I claim minarchists cannot possibly fully understand the anarchist position (even though it is unlikely), and it also doesn’t mean that all anarchists understand the minarchist position. It is however less unlikely that any random anarchist libertarian would fail to understand the minarchist position in such a way that this failure exceeds the failure of any random minarchist to understand the anarchist position.

We need thus assume that it is more likely that any random anarchist would understand the minarchist position better than any random minarchist would understand the anarchist position, than the opposite. This is a very interesting conclusion – especially if we use it as a tool for analyzing a political-philosophical discussion between an anarchist and a minarchist. What do we get?

Well, the first conclusion we must come to is that the frequent misinterpretations, misunderstandings, and misconceptions between a minarchist and an anarchist should be mainly the result of minarchist ignorance. It is highly unlikely that the anarchist in such a discussion would be totally misunderstanding the minarchist position – the probability of the anarchist failing utterly to understand the minarchist’s use of terms and concepts must, judging from the arguments supplied above, be much, much less than the probability of the minarchist doing the same. Thus, most misconceptions and misunderstandings are likely the product of the minarchist not being able to understand the anarchist position.

What does this teach us? Except for the many deep problems of paradigmatic differences in philosophy, it doesn’t really tell us much. We cannot claim the anarchist is automatically right and the minarchist automatically wrong, but we can safely assume that the misunderstandings that are so common in anarchism vs. minarchism debates are mostly the result of the minarchist being unable to change mindset from the statism into which he (or she) was born rather than the inability of the anarchist to understand his own former position.

What you should learn from this is not for me to tell you, but one should be able to draw quite a few conclusion based on this preliminary analysis. I believe it should be somewhat comforting for the libertarian anarchist, while the minarchist might want to consider a more humble approach.