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Minarchism, libertarianism, and negative rights

Jeffrey Tucker’s recent account of his experience in court spawned a quite lively discussion in the Mises blag about private provision of law enforcement in the absence of a State. I made one of the comments towards the end. Many of the minarchist positions and objections are good and well thought-out, which is encouraging because it shows how a lot of different people of many different backgrounds and viewpoints are interested in reading, learning, and arguing about libertarianism. On t’other hand, it is a little disappointing that people can be quite un-civil towards each other when non-libertarians are obviously interested in reading this libertarian website, thinking about the positions put forth by authors and commenters, and discussing their ideas on the libertarians’ home turf, so to speak.

I don’t know if it was the same “anonymous” who posted several times, but a few comments from one anonymous post and those of several others stand out as instructive, because of their good or bad quality. First, a really, really bad one:

The Declaration of Independence, which laid the legal foundation for the Constitution and the American system, says that government “derives its just powers from the consent of the governed.” Ergo, a Constitutional, democratically-elected, limited government is legitimate. If somebody voluntarily refuses to vote, they cannot claim to “not have a voice” be be “oppressed by the master.” The systems allows for you to have influence.

This sounds like it came from a high-schooler who just finished 9th-grade political science. I’ll ask what I asked before: What about the people who, far from “fighting” or “boycotting” the system by not voting, actively and specifically vote against the government you and the rest of the mob inflict upon them? I guess you have a right to force your laws and morals on us, but we have no right to do the same to you, or even to live our lives in peace and leave you alone!

S/he continues: “Why does it occur to nobody that maybe I do understand Austrian principles completely, but choose to reject part of them?” Then why don’t you reject them and leave others to exhibit their moral-political-economic philosophy peacefully and voluntarily, because they will allow you to do the same? Reject it, let other people embrace it, and don’t force your half-baked vision of a “limited, democratic, consensual” State down everyone else’s throat?

Since I’m busy today, I’m pretty tired, and I want to post about this now and not leave it for later, I will just comment on one more reader’s post, one David Van der Klauw, a very well-intentioned but malinformed minarchist who posted several times.

My problem is with people who claim that markets are pure freedom and that a “free market” springs up in the absence of government.

This is completely wrong. Markets are the result of a restriction applied by government and require the force of government in order to work. The government is the most powerful gang. Property rights allow weaker individuals or gangs to control resources. This can only happen with the blessing and support (force) of the most powerful gang. Property rights and markets are hence defined by the most powerful gang. Whatever it says goes.

Well, I see what he’s trying to say, that protection of property requires the use or potential use of retaliatory force (self-defense), but it’s just plain stupid to say free markets don’t spring up without government. We can see in our everyday lives that the less government interferes, the more free exchange happens.

He would argue that he’s not talking about less government, he’s talking about zero government. However, if we think about the nature of “less government”, we become much less optimistic about what it will actually do. By his own admission, “Whatever it says goes,” so based on the nature of human beings and their governments (which he might not fully grasp), his government will not come close to doing a good job of protecting property. He is being completely unreasonable and unrealistic. He is a utopian loon. The entire basis of private property rights is “might makes right” and he expects this to last? He expects constant, universal standards for right and wrong to arise out of this? He expects the controllers of this State to limit themselves to his conception of aggression vs. non-violence, free markets vs. socialism? He expects any type of order, cooperation, industry, property protection, mutual respect, and morality to exist in a world where there’s no such thing as the right to own, control, and protect your own body unless a mob of 51% of the people allow you to? Why does he even subject himself to reading libertarian websites that he wholeheartedly disagrees with and embarrassingly misunderstands?

But wait, there’s more!

Private property is a restriction. eg Under your proposed system, every human must be restricted from controlling other human’s bodies, and every human must be restricted from controlling any natural resources that are “owned” by other humans. This is a huge restriction that must be placed upon every human. It is nonsense to refer to a restriction as a freedom

Yes, it is—if you have an incorrect notion of freedom and rights and you view human rights as positive rights. Rights are said to be negative. We don’t have a right to food; we have a right for no one to forcibly prevent us from getting food or eating it. We don’t have a right to health care; we have a right for no one to stop us from receiving it (from whomever we want). We don’t have a right to a certain type of property; we have a right for no one to forcibly prevent us from acquiring, using, or protecting it—of course, in ways that are equally unintrusive to everyone else.

When he speaks of “restriction”, he is on the right track but misses the punchline entirely. These restrictions are placed on other people against the violation of a given individual’s property rights. Restriction of others is the rights of the one; or, rather, the rights of each restrict the actions of others. Equal restriction of everyone against force from anyone is the very basis of equal property rights among all in a society.

Okay, sorry, I lied, there was one more benighted soul whose ravings I’ll post, just for shits and giggles: “Drugs ruin lives, that is, when they do not take lives. It is the duty of government to keep them away from people. Don’t try to rebut me based on “freedom”; drug users are NOT free.”