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What libertarianism isn’t 2

In summary: It isn’t democracy, with good reason.

In my last post I quoted an anti-libertarian commenter on some Statist blag who thought that libertarians wanted to do whatever they wanted to whomever they wanted whenever they wanted, and that no law or police force should stop them. I’ll remind you of his wording:

All libertarian arguments boil down to the same thing - they do not wish to abide by any rules that they personally don’t like.

In other words, we tailor our “moral” code to provide justification for actions and policies that benefit ourselves at the expense of other people’s well-being and their rights, either because we don’t care that we are immoral or because we are so far removed from reality that we don’t realize our code is immoral.

Astute readers might object that I am being lazy and taking the easy way out by attacking such a primitive, baseless objection to libertarianism, but I’d counter that such objections are so common, on both a conscious and subconscious level, that Statists who are curious and kind enough to read this need to be set straight. Previously I refuted this anti-libertarian sentiment by showing why that statement does not describe libertarian morality and why the libertarian moral code is a just, consistent, and universal moral code; today I’ll explore what is wrong with the Statist’s moral justification for democratic government, which is that democracy is good (Might Makes Right).

If you believe that I am over-simplifying this particular Statist’s opinion of democracy by reducing it to a denigrating slogan, read for yourself why he loves democratic government so much:

[T]hey [libertarians] fail to understand how democracies work. The people select their government and tell it what tasks they want it to perform. Then the will of the majority gets carried out and those who don’t like the limitations just have to take their lumps.

Opting out of those rules you don’t like is not a choice. If you don’t like some law or other you are free to campaign to have it changed or run for office yourself.

I should inform you that we understand how democracies work far, far better than you do.

Many Statists might not have phrased their belief in democracy and opposition to individual freedom that way, but the (only) good thing about this guy is that he got that part exactly right. (The bad part is that he thinks this is a good thing!) The reality is that democracy is not self-government; democratic governments (republics) operate by mob-rule; they elect their representatives, and the representatives force their will on the entire populace, including the people who voted specifically against them and the ones who object to such a monstrous method of determining right and wrong altogether.

Why do we object to majority-rule as monstrous and immoral? I mean, it seems obvious to us, but perhaps we need to state it in more direct and basic terms more often. A bunch of people decide what is legal and illegal, and how certain aspects of our lives should be run even though we are capable of running them ourselves, and they declare themselves to have jurisdiction over a certain plot of land, with a legal monopoly on the use of coercion/aggression/criminal prosecution, and if we say, “No, thank you, I’ll govern my life, my money, and my affairs differently, but I won’t bother you,” then we are arrested, imprisoned, enslaved, and/or murdered by the ruling agents the majority selected for us, whose authority we don’t recognize.

But, we don’t really try to opt out of Statist governance, because, as I said, we know the penalty is death. Always keep that in mind when thinking about why libertarians object to democracy or other types of monopolistic government: we can’t even try to opt out of the taxes, the harmful regulations, the transfer payments, the government-run health care, the inflationary central bank, the drug wars, and the inefficient and corrupt legal systems.

The Statist response involves assertions of a social contract or a need for societal harmony, the reasoning behind which is the following: Left to their own devices, without a single, definitive legal authority and the contract enforcement, private property rights recognition, civil liberties guarantees, crime prevention, and criminal-punishment framework that come along with such an ultimate legal authority, the people on the whole would be unable and/or unwilling to recognize each other’s rights, establish rightful property ownership, enforce contracts, adjudicate disputes, deter and punish criminals, and generally distinguish right from wrong and protect themselves from hedonists and nihilists. In other words, chaos would reign in the streets.

However, we are to believe that, even though the people on the whole can’t accomplish those things via private transactions, entrepreneurship, profit-seeking, individual decision-making, and voluntary cooperation, the people on the whole can accomplish them by voting for politicians who will pass laws, create agencies, extract funds from both the people who voted for them and the people who didn’t, assign tasks to bureaucracies, and make sure no competing bodies arise that challenge the State’s monopoly status.

I have never heard a very good explanation for why these and other governmental (coercive) activities can yield peace and prosperity but businesses, charities, free individuals, and community organizations can’t. Society as a whole acting one way (voluntarily) or society as a whole using other means (voting and State fiat). Perhaps your politicians of choice are needed to govern and nurture us great unwashed because they are spun from a finer clay than the rest of us? Perhaps they (and, of course, the wise voters who delegate power to them) do not suffer from the shortcomings that befall us freedom-seeking individuals who dare to suggest we can govern ourselves?

Think about what would happen if I came to the secretary of the treasury’s house and demanded twenty or thirty thousand dollars from him, assuring him that a lot of people supported my demand and that they all approve of the uses the money will be put to, and then I pulled a gun on him when he refused. Imagine the objections and the outrage we would witness if a gang broke into a police station and confiscated the drugs the police had previously confiscated from innocent potheads and crackheads. What would you say if I kidnapped you and eleven of your neighbors to arbitrate a dispute between me and a company I did business with?

Individuals can’t do those things because they are wrong, but the State can. Why does it matter?! Why does majority support make its actions acceptable? What is the difference? Why is it not an option for me to opt out of your rules, but it is perfectly okay for you to ignore my rules? Why is it that not only can I not force my moral code upon you, I can’t even peacefully abstain from participating in yours and let you go your merry way? What makes you right and me wrong? What is the fundamental difference between your preferences and those of libertarians that makes your type of government the proper one to govern all of our society and makes ours not even appropriate for us, much less all of society (upon whom we would force nothing)?

For that matter, who is to decide when there is a difference and when there isn’t? It can’t be the people, remember, because if they were allowed to decide for themselves, chaos would reign in the streets. The Statists never fail to remind us of that. So an oligarchy? An autocracy? Oh, that’s right, the people can make good decisions when coercion is involved, but not cooperation or private transactions.

Perhaps it is the enforced organization and concentration of power and decision-making unique to Statism that makes the people’s will acceptable when it comes to voting and coercing, whereas the people’s will is not acceptable in a free and differently structured society. I vehemently insist that the exact opposite is true: the divisive, embittering, coercive nature of democratic government brings out the worst in people, programs them to seek coercive instead of cooperative solutions to most problems, and leads them to battle for control of the State to impose their will on the minority, since the State’s fiats are absolute and incontestable throughout its entire jurisdiction.

Furthermore, it becomes clearer and clearer the larger our governments grow, that the State’s monopoly status as crime-prevention/law-enforcement authority makes it a completely unfair judge of its own wrongdoings; and the State’s unique ability to initiate force against every single one of its subjects with impunity makes it a far too dangerous tool to be controlled by people who are attracted to the coercion and subordination of others. (As Friedrich Hayek said, “In government, the scum rises to the top.”)

In short, the entire existence and justification of the State—every action it ever undertakes—embodies the very thing Statists fear would rule the libertarian society: unchecked force by unaccountable criminals.

Do you want to keep the money that you or your business earns and spend it on what you think is best? Do you want to go live and work in a territory where some government has arbitrarily decided you can’t live or work because you weren’t born there? Do you want to create or spend an alternative currency that is backed by gold, or silver? Do you want to take drugs in your home, or someone else’s home, or a club, without harming anyone else? Do you want to out-compete other applicants to your job by offering to work for less money, less than that which some disinterested politicians thousands of miles away declared to be the minimum wage? Do you want to educate your children, and maybe children from the neighborhood, they way you and their parents prefer, without State-approved syllabi and without still paying taxes for schools you don’t patronize and don’t approve of? Do you find the police and court systems woefully corrupt, inefficient, and unjust, and wish to seek the protection of a more-just crime-prevention and adjudication system? Or systems? Do you want to settle a dispute with the State in a court that isn’t part of the State itself?

Then you will be killed for your insubordination. Oh, they won’t start with murder. First you will be warned, then fined. And then fined some more. And then summoned to court for not paying. And then arrested for not appearing in court. And then murdered for resisting arrest.

This is the reality of democratic government, like it or not. Rationalize it, reject it, or embrace it, but don’t deny it. The government will always have guns, and they will always be pointed at anyone who wants to opt out. Not paying taxes is not violent and it does no harm to anyone else. Ingesting taboo substances is not an act of aggression and it does no harm to anyone else. Printing and trading with currency that isn’t insidiously inflated are not immoral and don’t prevent anyone from printing their own money or using whatever currency they want to use. Going to another part of the world to buy or rent a home and work for a mutually agreed-upon wage is not dangerous or subversive. Running your business, running your family, running your life the way you want while letting others do the same are not violent activities and they do no harm to anyone.

But if anyone tries to do any of them, out come the guns of the people who tout social harmony and non-violence. Without the democratically elected, properly checked and balanced State, violent gangs would prowl the streets, people would be mugged and terrorized, no one’s home would be safe from the criminals, giant businesses would fleece their employees and the public, the rich would get richer and the poor would get poorer, and the police and courts would serve only the rich and powerful.

This is exactly what the State does! It breaks into people’s home on the mere suspicion of drug use or even lesser offenses! It robs people of their earnings every day! It robs businesses of their earnings every day! No one’s home is safe from the armed agents of the State! The national and local governments of nearly every country that has ever existed favor the rich and powerful and screw the little guy! The ridiculous regulation, the staggering incompetence, the unfathomable waste, the incalculable opportunity costs of State bureaucracies and legislatures impoverish all of society far more than any private company ever could. And politicians are largely unaccountable, bureaucrats are almost completely unaccountable, and the State never comes close to going away—it doesn’t even shrink.

The State is entirely unaccountable because whatever change you say we can vote for, the State stays basically the same and its basic framework doesn’t go away. All the democracy and all the Congressional investigations and all the legislation and all the actions and intentions of the brightest, most well-meaning, most honest politicians will never disarm the State. The guns still stay pointed at everyone, warning us that we’d better not try to live any part of our lives outside of the State, or it’s the death penalty for us. Show me a government that isn’t pointing its guns at people who want to secede, and I’ll show you something that isn’t a monopolistic government at all.

Based on the fact that keeping your own money, printing your own money, treating your body the way you want, going where you want, settling disputes the way you and your foe want, and making the transactions that you want, in defiance of the State’s decrees, earn you the death penalty, I can make one of two conclusions. Either: (a) Under the Statist moral code, the use of violent, deadly force against someone who has violated no rights, committed no wrongs, and threatened no one is not only justified, it is a necessary component of the implementation of said moral code; or, (b) the simple act of non-participation in the Statist system constitutes an act of aggression, or a threat, or an injury or trespass or violation of some kind against Statists, and therefore non-participation must be prevented and prosecuted by the violent, deadly force of the police power of the State. Option (a) is completely monstrous; option (b) has never been explained to me. Anyone and everyone is free to leave a comment on every post on this website. Comments are, in fact, encouraged. Enlighten me.

While you’re leaving your comments, can you also take a couple sentences to answer this question? How does it make you feel that libertarians wouldn’t so much as raise their voice to you, much less raise a gun to you, if you didn’t want to live your life the way we lived ours, as long as you just left us be while we left you be; but, on the other hand, you don’t afford us the same respect, the same decency? “Live and let live” is such a grave offense that kidnapping, beating, terrorizing, enslaving, and killing is the only suitable line of corrections?

I wanted to bring this long post full-circle, whatever that means, and return to what I said libertarianism isn’t in the first sentence: democratic. Democracy means rule by the people, or government of the people, as the ancient Greeks and modern English-speakers mean it. But individualist anarchism is rule-by-the-people of an entirely different variety: individual self-rule, or rule-of-each-person-by-himself, as contrasted with democracy’s majority-rule. Majority-rule, oligarchy, monarchy, and totalitarian dictatorship are, to varying degrees, very opposed to individual self-rule. Participation in government does not lead to self-governance by any particular person. Participation in the democratic process does not lead to libertarians or any other minority getting a fair shake at what they want. The only thing democratic government give us is mob-rule, “Might Makes Right.” Is that really what you believe in?

Keep thinking about this. Why is the government exempt from the rules that govern the rest of us? Why is a majority vote an acceptable justification for violating people’s rights and preempting the existence of other options? Why is it a violation of the Statist moral code to non-violently abstain from participating in State functions? Why does voting for coercion and arbitrary fiat make the people at large wise and responsible, but voting with their wallets, their feet, and their other voluntary choices make them reckless and dangerous?