Re: [A-List] On the Role of Gold

["Henry C.K. Liu" <hliu@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I have no intention or authority to chastize Ann or anyone else.  I merely stated
a contrary opinion.
It is useful to recognize that theory is not reality. There are two opposing
functions of theory: one is to improve reality and the other is to legitimize
reality.  Ann's view appears to be the latter.  Those who view the function of
theory as improving reality are revolutionaries. The perfect world is a vision to
be aimed at, not a past to be revived.  Therin lie the greatest fault of
conservative.  There is little in the man-made world worth conservating.
Poverty has not always existed.  It came into being with the use of money and
with the concept of private property.  True libetraians are anarchists who
subscribe to the notion that pirvate property is theft.
Communists are not against private property, they only oppose the private
ownership of the means of productions, not personal property per se.  In a
communist society, a person can legitimately own a car but not a car factory.
The fact that at times government has been co-opted to serve special interest
does not argue against the concept of government itself. It is not convincing to
use the symptoms of diseases to deny the desirability or possibility of good
health.  Libertarians tend to be selective about their definition of liberty.
The strong tend to be libertarian, because they do not need government.  The
strong is itself government. The function of government is to protect the poor
and weak.  The fact that government does not alway perform that function is
argument for stronger, better government, not weaker government.

Gunnar Myrdal (1898-1984), Swedish sociologist-economist, in his 1944 definitive
study: The American Dilemma, for which he received the 1974 Nobel Prize for
Economics, having declared the "Negro" problem in the United States to be
inextricably entwined with the democratic functioning of American society, went
on to produce a 1976 study of Southeast Asia: The Asian Dilemma.  In it he
identified Buddhist acceptance of suffering as the prime cause for economic
underdevelopment in the region.
Myrdal's conclusion would appear valid superficially, given the coincident of
indisputable existence of conditions of poverty in the region at the time of his
study and the pervasive influence of Buddhism in Southeast Asian culture, until
the question is asked as to why, whereas Buddhism has dominated Southeast Asia
for more than a millennium, pervasive poverty in the region would only make its
appearance after the arrival of Western Imperialism in the nineteenth century?
Marxists and nationalists, many of both professing no love for Buddhism, would
suggest that Myrdal had been influenced in his convenient conclusion by his
eagerness to deflect responsibility for the sorry state of affair in the region
from the legacy of Western imperialism.

Chinese political ideology has a history of protracted contest between the vision
of Da'tong (General Harmony) and the pragmatism of Xiao'kang (Individual
Contentment).  In contemporary political terms, it is a struggle between the
noble grandeur of communal socialist vision and the utilitarian efficiency of
individual private enterprise.
Feudalism evolved long before the advent of modern mass communication
technology.  The appearance of newspapers, the first form of mass communication
resulting from the invention of printing, would make public opinion important in
political disputes and eventually win freedom of the press from direct poltical
control of the rulers.  Freedom of speech, amplified by mass circulation in
printed form, would since render popular support an increasingly critical
prerequisite for political power.  Prior to the era of prerequisite popular
support in liberal politics, feudalism has evolved from the logic of power
politics.  Its authority has been imposed from the top down, resting on the local
strongman's ability to maintain law and order necessary for local stability and
his promise of protection against external threat.  The agrarian peasants under
the local lord's rule have needed both for a productive life.
As the agrarian economy expands, the provision of security and order, under the
nomadic tribal rules of primitive kinship loyalty and clannish vendetta, had
gradually been institutionalized by an evolving hierarchical feudal order,
buttressed by agrarian societal values of morality and justice.  Free men no
longer enjoyed the freedom of movement inherent in a nomadic life because their
agrarian livelihood was tied to immobile land.  They then bartered away their own
individual freedom and labor, as well as those of their descendants, often
willingly but at times under coercion, in exchange for protection from their
local lords and the lords' heirs.  The local lords in turn offered loyalty and
obedience to the Emperor and his heirs in return for more powerful imperial
protection against other neighboring local lords.
The Emperor's authority had been derived from it's ready recognition by the
collegiate regional lords and, to a less direct but more fundamental degree, from
peasant expectation of him as a higher authority to whom the peasantry could
appeal for justice against the frequent abuses of the local lords.  The Emperor's
role under feudalism was twofold: to arbitrate the disputes among local lords;
and to protect the peasants from the oppressive aristocrats.  In feudal politics,
a wise Emperor was, by definition, a liberal Emperor. The modern state, retaining
the status of soverign, has the same fundamental function of protect the masses
against special interests.
Economic prosperity naturally resulted from peaceful stability and established
social hierarchy.  Material prosperity in turn provided a pragmatic validation
for feudalism.  Direct popular support through universal suffrage had been
immaterial and impractical before the advent of the age of individual freedom of
speech and mass communication.  But while universal suffrage did not exist, it
did not follow that popular support had been unnecessary as a mandate of
political power under the feudal political system.
Until the 20th century, whenever widespread political unrest should occur in
China, it would generally be against an abusive ruling monarch and sometimes his
morally bankrupt dynastic house, rather than the feudal system itself.
The fall of feudal monarchies over the course of scores of centuries and the
flowering of liberal democracy in the West would usher in a rising expectation
around the modern world on respect for human rights and for the concept of
political equality for all individuals, regardless of social rank and class
affinity.  The consent of the governed as expressed through universal suffrage
would become a modern global prerequisite for a mandate to govern.  Since then,
three competing political systems: socialism, fascism and capitalistic democracy,
would dominate the unfolding of modern history.
Socialism would attract popular support by promising the masses that the welfare
of the people is the responsibility of the state, while fascism would demand
power over the people by asserting that the welfare of the state is the
responsibility of each individual.
Both socialism and fascism would exact from the people total obedience to state
control as the price for fulfilling each of their separate and opposing social
philosophies and political visions.  However, the difference in ideology would
not prevent a similarity in methodology.  Both political systems would be
required by their internal logic to be similarly authoritarian and totalitarian,
as a moral justification and as an operational necessity, though toward opposite
ends.
Both socialism and fascism in their extreme form, in the quest for guaranteed
material welfare for the people, would strip them of their individual will, and
in the process rob them of their creativity and initiative.  Unfortunately,
material welfare, even if absolutely guaranteed, is always a poor compensation
for loss of individuality.
Fascism, because of its contempt for equality as an ideal, would not hesitate to
enslave the masses to create an efficient state that would deliver glory to the
nation and an improved living standard to the dutiful masses.  Socialism, on the
other hand, obsessed by its belief in the myth of equality, would willingly
suffer inefficiency in wealth-creatiing processes, even if it should result in
less income either for use by the state or for distribution among the people.  In
practice, albeit history to date would only permit imperfect models, the history
of radical socialism would be frothed with examples of attempts to achieve
equality by making the rich as poor as the poor.
Capitalistic democracy would base its mandate on the individual's acceptance of
responsibility for his own welfare through the exercise of private property
rights.  Since it would promise only equal opportunity to a good life rather than
a good life itself, its ideology would require neither authoritarian moralization
nor totalitarian control, because individual failures would not imply dysfunction
of the system.  Rather, such failures would be deemed necessary in the selection
process to keep the system healthy, the concept of the survival of the fittest
being the foundation of capitalistic social Darwinism.  Social welfare safety
nets would be tolerated in capitalistic democracies merely as humanitarian
compromises, a decadent liberal concession of the theoretical sanctity of market
efficiency.  For the true believer of capitalism, economic efficiency should
ideally be maintained with social euthanasia of the economically unfit.  Charity
is bad economics, except when charity contributes in the short term to reducing
other high costs of preserving law and order, of preventing crimes of the poor,
social unrest or revolution.  The most efficient method of eliminating poverty is
to let the poor die unnoticed with natural obsolecence.  It is the fear of
poverty that provide the psychological fuel for economic initiative.  Making
poverty sufferable through social welfare programs would erode the vitality of
the economic system.  Capitalism requires poverty as a negative example for the
masses.  That is why capitalists declare that poverty will always exist.  If
poverty disappears from fortunate prosperity, Cpitalism will have to re-invest
it.  Such is the logic the NAIRU, the natural rate of unemployment.
The power of the state in a modern capitalistic democracy would be restricted to
that of maintaining national security, preserving basic human rights as defined
in the liberal tradition of the Enlightenment, which would not include the right
of economic security, of protecting the sacredness of private property rights in
order to insure the efficient functioning of the market mechanism and upholding
the principle of return on capital as the driving force in human society.
Within the rules of market economy, the individual in a capitalist democracy
would enjoy broad freedom as long as the exercise of which is consistent with the
security interest of the state, compatible with the preservation of capitalism
and compliant with the traditional moral standards of its local community.  The
trouble is that truly free markets, like absolute equality, is a myth.  Markets
in a complex global economy in modern time would in reality be shaped by factors
external to national borders and functional industry boundaries.  The so-called
unseen hand of the market would constantly require national governmental policies
and regulations to prevent it from sub-optimization and to protect it from
manipulation by powerful special interests domestically, by policies of other
national governments and by business strategies of transnational, multinational
and international enterprises.
Capitalistic democracy would appear to be materialistically efficient due largely
to its shedding of the costly burden of social responsibilities.  It would
operate with clear purpose, because material gains are stimulated by material
incentives, relatively unencumbered by metaphysical morals.
Capitalism is paradoxically tied to the perpetuation of poverty, because it needs
the fear of poverty as an negative incentive for the invidual to work.  Even if
capitalism should succeed in eliminating material poverty, it would do so only at
the price of a poverty of the spirit.  It is when questions of responsibility to
one's fellow men and the higher purposes of life are asked that the purpose of
economic efficiency in a capitalistic democracy faces it's most serious
challenge.
While an ample supply of bread may prevent political revolutions, it is necessary
to remember, as Christ pointed out: "Man lives not by bread alone."

Culture matters.  For example feudalism in China has aspects of what modern
political science would label as fascist, socialist and democratic.  As a
socio-political system, feudalism is inherently authoritarian and totalitarian.
However, since feudal cultural ideals have always been meticulously nurtured by
Confucianism to be congruent with the political regime, social control, while
pervasive, is seldom consciously felt as oppressive by the public.  Or more
accurately, social oppression, both vertical, such as sovereign to subject, and
horizobntal, such as gender prejudice, is considered natural for lack of an
accepted alternative vision.
Concepts such as equality, individuality, privacy, personal freedom and
democracy, are deemed anti-social, and only longed for by the deranged-of-mind,
such as radical Daoists.  This would be true in large measure up to modern time
when radical Daoists would be replaced by other radical political and cultural
dissidents.
Feudalism in China takes the form of a centralized federalism of autonomous local
lords in which the authority of the sovereign is symbiotically bound to, but
clearly separated from, the authority of the local lords.  Unless the local lords
abuse their local authority, the Emperor's authority over them, while all
inclusive in theory, would not extend beyond federal matters in practice,
particularly if the Emperor's rule is to remain moral within its ritual bounds.
Confucianism (Ru Jia), through the code of rites (li), seeks to govern the
behavior and obligation of each person, each social class and each
socio-political unit in society.  Its purpose is to facilitate the smooth
functioning and the perpetuation of the feudal system.  Therefore, the power of
the Emperor, though politically absolute, is not free from the constraints of
behavior deemed proper by Confucian values for a moral sovereign, just as the
authority of the local lords is similarly constrained.  Issues of
constitutionality in the U.S. political milieu become issues of proper rites and
befitting morality in Chinese dynastic politics.
Confucian values, because they have been designed to preserve the existing feudal
system, unavoidably would run into conflict with contemporary ideas reflective of
new emerging social conditions.
It is in the context of its inherent hostility toward progress and its penchant
for obsolete nostalgia that Confucian values, rather than feudalism itself,
become culturally oppressive and socially damaging.  When Chinese revolutionaries
throughout history, and particularly in the late 18th and early 19th century,
would rebel against the cultural oppression of reactionary Confucianism, they
would simplistically and conveniently link it synonymously with political
feudalism.  These revolutionaries would succeed in dismantling the formal
governmental structure of political feudalism because it is the more visible
target.  Their success is due also to the terminal decadence of the decrepit
governmental machinery of dying dynasties, such as the ruling house of the
3-century-old, dying Qing dynasty (1583-1911).  Unfortunately, these triumphant
revolutionaries would remain largely ineffective in re-molding Confucian
dominance in feudal culture, even among the progressive intelligentsia.
Almost a century after the fall of the feudal Qing dynasty house in 1911, after
countless movements of reform and revolution, ranging from moderate democratic
liberalism to extremist Bolshevik radicalism, China would have yet to find an
workable alternative to the feudal political culture that would be intrinsically
sympathetic to its social traditions.
Chinese revolutions, including the modern revolution that would begin in 1911,
through its various metamorphosis over the span of almost 4 millennia, in
overthrowing successive political regimes of transplanted feudalism, would
repeatedly kill successive infected patients in the form of virulent
governments.  But they would fail repeatedly to sterilize the infectious virus of
Confucianism (Ru Jia) in its feudal political culture.
The modern destruction of political feudalism would produce administrative chaos
and social instability in China until the founding of the People's Republic in
1949.  But Confucianism (Ru Jia) would still appear alive and well as cultural
feudalism, even under Communist rule.  It would continue to instill its victims
with an instinctive hostility towards new ideas, especially if they are of
foreign origin.  Confucianism would adhere to an ideological rigidity that would
amount to blindness to objective problem-solving.  Almost a century of recurring
cycles of modernization movements, either Nationalist or Marxist, would not
manage even a slight dent in the all-controlling precepts of Confucianism in the
Chinese mind.
In fact, in 1928, when the Chinese Communist Party would attempt to introduce a
soviet system of government by elected councils in areas of northern China under
its control, many of the peasants would earnestly think a new "Soviet" dynasty is
being founded by a new Emperor by the name of So Viet.
During the Great Proletariat Cultural Revolution of 1966, the debate between
Confucianism (Ru Jia) and Legalism (Fa Jia) would be resurrected as allegorical
dialogue for contemporary political struggle.  On the eve of the 21st century,
Confucianism would remain alive and well under both governments on Chinese soil
on both sides of the Taiwan Strait, regardless of political ideology.  Modern
China would still be a society in search of an Emperor figure and a country
governed by feudal relationships, but devoid of a compatible political vehicle
that would turn these tenacious, traditional social instincts towards
constructive purposes, instead of allowing them to manifest themselves as
practices of corruption.
General Douglas MacArthur would present post-war Japan, which has been seminally
influenced by Chinese culture for 14 centuries, with the greatest gift a victor
in war has ever presented the vanquished: the retention of her secularized
Emperor, despite the Japanese Emperor's less-than-benign role in planning the war
and in condoning war crimes.  Thus General MacArthur, in preserving a traditional
cultural milieu in which democratic political processes could be adopted without
the danger of a socio-cultural vacuum, would lay the socio-political foundation
for Japan as a post-war economic power.
Of the 3 great revolutions in modern history: the French, the Chinese and the
Russian, each would overthrow feudal monarchial systems to introduce idealized
democratic alternatives that would have difficulty holding the country together
without periods of terror.
The French and Russian Revolutions would both make the fundamental and tragic
error of revolutionary regicide and would suffer decades of social and political
dislocation as a result, with little if any socio-political benefit in return.
In France, it would not even prevent eventual restoration imposed externally by
foreign victors.
The Chinese revolution in 1911 would not be plagued by regicide, but it would
prematurely dismantle political feudalism before it would have a chance to
develop a workable alternative, plunging the country into decades of warlordism.
Worse still, it would leave largely undisturbed a Confucian culture while it
would demolish its political vehicle.  The result would be that 8 decades after
the fall the last dynastic house, the culture-bound nation would still be groping
for an appropriate and workable political system, regardless of ideology.
Mao Zedong would understand this problem and would try to combat it by launching
the Great Proletariat Cultural Revolution in 1966.  But, even after a decade of
enormous social upheaval, tragic personal sufferings, fundamental economic
dislocation and unparalleled diplomatic isolation, the Cultural Revolution would
achieve little except serious damage to the nation's physical and socio-economic
infrastructure, to the prestige of the Party, not to mention the loss of popular
support, and total bankruptcy of revolutionary zeal among even loyal party
cadres.
It would be unrealistic to expect the revival of imperial monarchy in modern
China.  Once a political institution is overthrown, all the king's men cannot put
it together again.
Yet, the modern political system in China, despite its revolutionary clothing and
radical rhetoric, would be still fundamentally feudal, both in the manner in
which power is distributed and in its administrative structure.
When it comes to succession politics, a process more orderly than heriditary
feudal tradition of primogeniture would have yet to be developed in China in
modern time.

Attitude toward money is often more indicative of a person's true worth than the
mere possession of it. The same might be even more true for societies.
This explains why modern societies, whose members would be obsessed with a
single-minded quest for material wealth, would be constantly faced with recurring
crises of value.
The pursuit of maximization of wealth leads inevitably to the betrayal of human
values that would otherwise forbid unconscionable exploitation of and impersonal
disregard for others.
Maximization breeds abuse.  The Confucian doctrine of the Path of the Golden Mean
(Zhongyong zhi Dao), a concept of avoiding extremes, is instructive on this
point.
More is not necessarily better; most is seldom best, and best is the mortal enemy
of good, as Voltaire has insightfully pointed out.  A rich man amid masses of
poverty will not find himself a paradise on earth.  A society that celebrates
only the best will waste the good.  The relentless pursuit of absolute beauty
will result in ugliness, which explains why the art world is often infested with
revolting characters.
The fact that the historical record of socialist politics is littered with
betrayals of the humane ideals of theoretical socialism should not diminish the
valor of those who have placed their hopes on the noble vision, just as the
materialistic efficiency of unregulated capitalism is no testimony on the moral
validity of greed.
It is telling in the manner modern economics treats the trade-off between return
on capital and compensation for labor: an increase in return on capital is viewed
as economic efficiency while a rise in pay for workers is viewed as
non-productive inflation.  What moral rules enable the pampered corporate
executive to receive a generous bonus for firing thousands of workers in a
recession?  Maximization of shareholder value through cost reduction is an
euphemism for robbing the workers to enrich the owners.
It is a very sick society that views as progress the depreciation of human
workers in favor of the appreciation of material assets.
In a money economy, it is a basic truism that those who have money are the only
ones who can pay the bills at the end.  If the poor are to pay their share, ways
must be found for them to earn sufficient money to constructively participate on
a healthy financial level, without permanent subsidy from the economic order to
which they have become burdensome wards.
In a bountiful world, poverty is seldom caused by someone else's having more
money than others; poverty is the result of a zero sum game only when
exploitation is involved in the creation of wealth.  This is particularly true in
a society in which both greed and envy are constrained by moral precepts.  One
does not have to be the world's richest man in order to avoid feeling poor.
Poverty is the result of underdevelopment in relation to the production and
consumption norms in a particular socio-economic order.  It is only when some
singular segment of society fails extensively to receive sufficient economic
opportunity, or sufficient value for its labor to maintain its fair share of
consumption, as normatively prescribed in the socio-economic order, that poverty
is born.
Social cohesion will be threatened when poverty is perceived as the result of
institutionalized mal-distribution of wealth, reflecting unfairness in the
sharing of the fruits of co-operative endeavor among different socio-economic
groups.
Poverty, however, cannot be defined by absolute income levels alone, because
poverty is actually a social problem with an economic dimension.  Only because it
is most conveniently recognizable in a money-based economy by its financial
aspect that poverty is often mistaken as a simple matter of income deficiency.
Poverty is in reality a phenomenon of social despair.  The unemployed, the
unemployable, the underemployed and the working poor in developed countries have
higher absolute incomes than the middle class in other less developed countries,
whose members nevertheless do not consider themselves poor because they have not
lost hope in themselves or self-respect for their lot.
Poverty is a symptom of economic inefficiency and social dislocation in society.
Its existence in an economy hurts the rich as well as the poor, and its
pervasiveness in society alienates its members from one another.  Aside from
being dehumanizing to those suffering from it, it is destructive to the society
tolerating it.
Poverty becomes a political issue when the poor is structurally excluded from
contributing to the economic process at a level that enables its constituents to
support a dignified life in a healthy environment consistent with the cultural
tradition of their society.  While there would always be those who enjoy higher
income than others, there is no socio-economic necessity for the poor to exist.
Life without growth will become a zero sum game in which winners will gain only
from the losers.  In such a game, eventually all would lose because the game is
self-terminating.  Wealth redistribution without growth always leads to social
conflicts, the final phase of which is generally settled with violence, the
organized form of which is war and the unorganized form is revolution.  But
growth cannot be defined simply in quantitative terms.  Quality of life and the
range of available options are often more revealing measures.
Poverty in the form of pathological social despair was not prevalent in man
periods in history.
To be sure, there are chronic hardship and upheavals caused by war, particularly
in the border regions, by policy errors and religious fanaticism, by natural
disasters and even by personal misfortune.  There are also recurring incidents of
governmental abuse and corruption.  There are even periodic regional famines
caused by natural calamities exacerbated by inadequate transportation, despite
government-sponsored relief efforts.
But these events are generally perceived by people as transient anomalies or
force majeure, and not as structural defects of the social system.  In other
words, such calamities are caused by nature or personal failings of the
individuals who run the system rather shortcomings of the social order itself.
People readily accepted periodic disasters, the prevention of which is beyond the
people's expectation of the scope and ability of the political system.  However,
the occurrences of natural disasters are sometimes interpreted as retribution for
the immoral behavior of the ruling sovereign.  This connection between the moral
image of the sovereign and the fortune of the empire requires the ruler to ensure
the well-being of the people.  The flowering of Tang culture, the golden age of
Chinese history, has its roots in the high quality of life enjoyed by all her
citizens, regardless of their social positions and income levels, and the high
standard of the efforts of their labor, manual or intellectual, regardless of
their commercial values.
Since money is only one of the determinants of a good life rather than the all
consuming ingredient, the pleasures of life are not denied to those who do not
aspire to financial wealth, or those who are unable to achieve it because they do
not care to surrender to society's financial rules.
The inner peace preached by Daoist and Buddhist precepts were verifiable by the
individual's direct personal experience in the socio-economic realm of the Tang
era.  The rejection of materialistic concerns does not necessarily reduce one to
abject poverty, nor earned society's scorn.
On the contrary, hermits were respected by society and donations toward their
upkeep are considered as enlightened expressions of the donors' own sagacious
insight rather than ostentatious acts of charity.  Generally, an imbalance exist
between donors and recipients, the number wishing to give frequently exceeding
the number prepared to receive.
Whenever a seng (Buddhist monk) or a dao'shi (Daoist priest) or a wandering free
spirit should show up in a village, his presence would be celebrated by an
spontaneous outpouring of generous giving by the villagers that would resemble an
instant festival.
Even in modern time, sengs in Southeast Asian societies would still receive daily
meals by simply walking through villages, without begging, while the pious lay
population would await their habitual schedule with the finest food in the house
ready to give with eagerness, the way bird-lovers would feed their ornithic
idols.

Henry C.K. Liu

Anne Williamson wrote:

> Henry chastized me over the weekend (in a post I just read) for saying that
> the playing field is never going to be level at any given time.  He first
> equated my statement to the idea that there will always be poor people.
>
> Well, there always have been and I am aware of no society ever that has
> eliminated poverty.  In fact, efforts like the "War on Poverty" are
> dangerous, because to give a coercive power (the state) a vested interest in
> poor people will only guarantee an increasing number of poor people (why do
> you think there were television ads during the Carter administration for
> food stamps?  Bureaucrats must justify their jobs and their agencies'
> funding, and in the case of the War on Poverty that meant govt had a need
> for poor people, and very much in poor people who never stopped being poor).
>
> Henry asserts that "government exists to provide a level playing field."
> Yeah, well maybe in the Henry theory of the state it does, but in real life
> throughout history govt has justified its existence upon the premise of
> defending the life and property of its subjects.  Guaranteeing results (if
> that was Henry's point, and I'm not sure it was) by enforcing a "level
> playing field" only works to establish tyranny.  Guaranteeing equality
> before the law is a useful service, but never realized within a
> state-sponsored judicial system which always favors its own interests, not
> those of the citizen.
>
> Henry then asserts that capitalism is not a game that can be played without
> capital.  Wrong.  Capitalism requires private property and the right of
> contract, money can always be obtained through labor and saving - but
> without private property rights, all the sound money in the world will bring
> nothing to any player.  Poverty is the natural state of mankind; what is
> remarkable is the number of people and nations that have created wealth.
> The formula isn't rocket science:  private property, the right of contract,
> sound money, and limited government. And we are not living in a capitalist
> system; the Western system is a corporate state through institutions founded
> in the New Deal which were inspired by the policies of Benito Mussolini.
> (New Dealers admit this, btw.)
>
> Other assertions with which I can not concur and see no evidence to support
> and for which none was given:
>
> "A police force is infinitely more efficient than a private security force."
> I couldn't disagree more! A police force has no obligation to protect
> citizens, or didn't you know that?  The police exist to protect the
> interests of the state.  Just try suing a police department because you
> suffered some injury due to their neglect or inattention and the nice
> attorneys representing the police force will explain the truth to you.  The
> judge will confirm what the attorneys tell you if you persist in your suit.
>
> "Government produces security, order, fairness and public good." (Where?
> When?  Govt claims to provide such things, but never does.  Security?  I'm
> at risk every moment as a New Yorker thanks to Fedgov's "foreign policy."
> 2700 of us were slaughtered not too long ago, it will be recalled.  Well to
> respond to the above in full would take volumes; the assertion simply isn't
> true or even demonstrable. Reading Henry's assertion, I couldn't help
> recalling what Ghandi said when asked what he thought of Western
> civilization - "I think it's a good idea.")
>
> "Statism is the sign of civilization." No, statism wherever practised is the
> indicator of a lack of civilization and of morals.  How could it be
> otherwise since it is a philosophy that maintains that your life, money, and
> property are not yours and their dispensation is controlled not by you, but
> by the state.  No thanks.  Ted Kennedy can't even govern himself, and he
> certainly should have no power over any other human being on the planet.
> Admittedly, what I said of Ted can be said of any political figure, but not
> all are such an obvious and irrefutable target.
>
> But the state has done one job magnificently, i.e., killing its own
> citizens.  170 MILLION in the 20th century alone!!!
>
> No, libertarians are not like teen-agers "who complain about their parents
> while accepting all the benefit provided by their parents as a given right."
> The state is not a set of parents, firstly, and secondly, all libertarians
> would willingly and immediately give up the alleged "benefits" which are -
> in fact - thefts and distortions.
>
> Private enterprise is so superior to state action that it can hardly be
> argued.  Fed-Ex or the post office?  I do, however, very much agree that the
> state, always eager for funds, does allow certain private enterprises
> (banking especially) to dump unprofitable liabilities onto the public
> sector - I've written an entire book on the subject.  But this is a
> consequence of state intervention on behalf of contributors!
>
> As for property rights and liberty, see below.
>
> Anne
>
> ***********************************************************
>
> Rothbardian Ethics
> by Hans-Hermann Hoppe
>
> The Problem of Social Order
>
> Robinson Crusoe, alone on his island, can do whatever he pleases. For him,
> the question concerning rules of orderly human conduct ¡V social
> cooperation ¡V simply does not arise. Naturally, this question can only
> arise once a second person, Friday, arrives on the island. Yet even then,
> the question remains largely irrelevant so long as no scarcity exists.
> Suppose the island is the Garden of Eden. All external goods are available
> in superabundance. They are "free goods," such as the air that we breathe is
> normally a "free" good. Whatever Crusoe does with these goods, his actions
> have repercussions neither with respect of his own future supply of such
> goods, nor regarding the present or future supply of the same goods for
> Friday (and vice versa). Hence, it is impossible that there could ever be a
> conflict between Crusoe and Friday concerning the use of such goods. A
> conflict becomes possible only if goods are scarce, and only then can there
> arise a problem of formulating rules which make an orderly ¡V
> conflict-free ¡V social cooperation possible.
>
> In the Garden of Eden only two scarce goods exist: the physical body of a
> person and its standing room. Crusoe and Friday each have only one body and
> can stand only at one place at a time. Hence, even in the Garden of Eden
> conflicts between Crusoe and Friday can arise: Crusoe and Friday cannot both
> simultaneously want to occupy the same standing room without coming thereby
> into physical conflict with each other. Accordingly, even in the Garden of
> Eden rules of orderly social conduct must exist ¡V rules regarding the
> proper location and movement of human bodies. And outside the Garden of
> Eden, in the realm of scarcity, there must be rules that regulate not just
> the use of personal bodies but of everything scarce so that all possible
> conflicts can be ruled out. This is the problem of social order.
>
> The Problem Solution: The Idea of Original Appropriation and Private
> Property
>
> In the history of social and political thought many proposals have been
> advanced as an alleged solution to the problem of social order, and this
> variety of mutually inconsistent proposals has contributed to the fact that
> today the search for a single "correct" problem solution is frequently
> deemed illusory. Yet as I will try to demonstrate, there exists a correct
> solution; and hence, there is no reason to succumb to moral relativism. I
> did not discover this solution, nor did Murray Rothbard, for that matter.
> Rather, the solution has been essentially known for hundreds of years if not
> for much longer. Murray Rothbard¡¦s claim to fame is "merely" that he
> rediscovered this old as well as simple solution and formulated it more
> clearly and convincingly than anyone before him.
>
> Let me begin in formulating the solution ¡V first for the special case
> represented by the Garden of Eden and subsequently for the general case
> represented by the "real" world of all-around scarcity ¡V and then proceed
> to the explanation of why this solution, and no other one, is correct.
>
> In the Garden of Eden, the solution is provided by the simple rule
> stipulating that everyone may place or move his own body wherever he
> pleases, provided only that no one else is already standing there and
> occupying the same space. And outside of the Garden of Eden, in the realm of
> all-around scarcity, the solution is provided by this rule: Everyone is the
> proper owner of his own physical body as well as of all places and
> nature-given goods that he occupies and puts to use by means of his body,
> provided only that no one else has already occupied or used the same places
> and goods before him. This ownership of "originally appropriated" places and
> goods by a person implies his right to use and transform these places and
> goods in any way he sees fit, provided only that he does not change thereby
> uninvitedly the physical integrity of places and goods originally
> appropriated by another person. In particular, once a place or good has been
> first appropriated by, in John Locke¡¦s phrase, "mixing one¡¦s labor" with
> it, ownership in such places and goods can be acquired only by means of a
> voluntary ¡V contractual ¡V transfer of its property title from a previous
> to a later owner.
>
> In light of wide-spread moral relativism, it is worth while to point out
> that this idea of original appropriation and private property as a solution
> to the problem of social order is in complete accordance with our moral
> "intuition." Isn¡¦t it simply absurd to claim that a person should not be
> the proper owner of his body and the places and goods that he originally,
> i.e., prior to anyone else, appropriates, uses and/or produces by means of
> his body? For who else, if not he, should be their owner? And isn¡¦t it also
> obvious that the overwhelming majority of people ¡V including children and
> primitives ¡V act in fact according to these rules, and do so
> unquestioningly and as a matter-of-course?
>
> A moral intuition, as important as it is, is not a proof, however. Yet there
> also exists proof of our moral intuition being correct.
>
> The proof can be provided in a twofold manner. On the one hand, in spelling
> out the consequences that follow if one were to deny the validity of the
> institution of original appropriation and private property: If a person A
> were not the owner of his own body and the places and goods originally
> appropriated and/or produced with this body as well as of the goods
> voluntarily (contractually) acquired from another previous owner, then only
> two alternatives exist. Either another person B must be recognized as the
> owner of A¡¦s body as well as the places and goods appropriated, produced or
> acquired by A. Or else all persons, A and B, must be considered equal
> co-owners of all bodies, places and goods.
>
> In the first case, A would be reduced to the rank of B¡¦s slave and object
> of exploitation. B is the owner of A¡¦s body and all places and goods
> appropriated, produced, and acquired by A, but A in turn is not the owner of
> B¡¦s body and the places and goods appropriated, produced and acquired by B.
> Hence, under this ruling two categorically distinct classes of persons are
> constituted ¡V Untermenschen such as A and Ubermenschen such as B ¡V to whom
> different "laws" apply. Accordingly, such ruling must be discarded as a
> human ethic equally applicable to everyone qua human being (rational
> animal). From the very outset, any such ruling can be recognized as not
> universally acceptable and thus cannot claim to represent law. Because for a
> rule to aspire to the rank of a law ¡V a just rule ¡V it is necessary that
> such a rule apply equally and universally to everyone.
>
> Alternatively, in the second case of universal and equal co-ownership the
> requirement of equal law for everyone is fulfilled. However, this
> alternative suffers from another, even more severe deficiency, because if it
> were applied all of mankind would instantly perish. (And since every human
> ethic must permit the survival of mankind, this alternative, then, must be
> rejected, too.) For every action of a person requires the use of some scarce
> means (at least the person¡¦s body and its standing room). But if all goods
> were co-owned by everyone, then no one, at no time and no place, would be
> allowed to do anything unless he had previously secured every other co-owner
> ¡¦s consent to do so; and yet, how can anyone grant such consent if he were
> not the exclusive owner of his own body (including his vocal chords) by
> means of which his consent must be expressed? Indeed, he would first need
> others¡¦ consent in order to be allowed to express his own, but these others
> cannot give their consent without having first his, etc.
>
> This insight into the praxeological impossibility of "universal communism,"
> as Rothbard referred to this proposal, brings me immediately to a second,
> alternative way of demonstrating the idea of original appropriation and
> private property as the only correct solution to the problem of social
> order. Whether or not persons have any rights and, if so, which ones, can
> only be decided in the course of argumentation (propositional exchange).
> Justification ¡V proof, conjecture, refutation ¡V is argumentative
> justification. Anyone who were to deny this proposition would become
> involved in a performative contradiction, because his denial would itself
> constitute an argument. Even an ethical relativist, then, must accept this
> first proposition, which has been accordingly referred to as the a priori of
> argumentation.
>
> >From the undeniable acceptance ¡V the axiomatic status ¡V of this a priori
> of argumentation in turn two equally necessary conclusions follow. First, it
> follows from the a priori of argumentation when there is no rational
> solution to the problem of conflict arising from the existence of scarcity.
> Suppose in my earlier scenario of Crusoe and Friday, that Friday was not the
> name of a man but of a gorilla. Obviously, just as Crusoe can run into
> conflict regarding his body and its standing room with Friday the man, so he
> might do so with Friday the gorilla. The gorilla might want to occupy the
> same space that Crusoe is already occupying. In this case, at least if the
> gorilla is the sort of entity that we know gorillas to be, there is in fact
> no rational solution to their conflict. Either the gorilla wins, and
> devours, crushes, or pushes Crusoe aside ¡V that is the gorilla¡¦s solution
> to the problem ¡V or Crusoe wins, and kills, beats, chases away, or tames
> the gorilla ¡V that is Crusoe¡¦s solution. In this situation, one may indeed
> speak of moral relativism. With Alasdair MacIntyre, a prominent philosopher
> of the relativist persuasion, one may concur asking as the title of one of
> his books, Whose Justice? Which Rationality? ¡V Crusoe¡¦s or the gorilla¡¦s.
> Depending on whose side one chooses, the answer will be different. However,
> it is more appropriate to refer to this situation as one where the question
> of justice and rationality simply does not arise: that is, as an extra-moral
> situation. The existence of Friday the gorilla poses for Crusoe merely a
> technical problem, not a moral one. Crusoe has no other choice but to learn
> how to successfully manage and control the movements of the gorilla just as
> he must learn to manage and control the inanimate objects of his
> environment.
>
> By implication, only if both parties to a conflict are capable of engaging
> in argumentation with one another, can one speak of a moral problem and is
> the question of whether or not there exists a solution meaningful. Only if
> Friday, regardless of his physical appearance (i.e., whether he looks like a
> man or like a gorilla), is capable of argumentation (even if he has shown
> himself to be so capable only once), can he be deemed rational and does the
> question whether or not a correct solution to the problem of social order
> exists make sense. No one can be expected to give an answer ¡V indeed: any
> answer ¡V to someone who has never raised a question or, more to the point,
> who has never stated his own relativistic viewpoint in the form of an
> argument. In that case, this "other" cannot but be regarded and treated like
> an animal or plant, i.e., as an extra-moral entity. Only if this other
> entity can in principle pause in his activity, whatever it might be, step
> back so to speak, and say "yes" or "no" to something one has said, do we owe
> this entity an answer and, accordingly, can we possibly claim that our
> answer is the correct one for both parties involved in a conflict.
>
> Moreover, secondly and positively it follows from the a priori of
> argumentation that everything that must be presupposed in the course of an
> argumentation ¡V as the logical and praxeological precondition of
> argumentation ¡V cannot in turn be argumentatively disputed as regards its
> validity without becoming thereby entangled in an internal (performative)
> contradiction. Now, propositional exchanges are not made up of free-floating
> propositions, but rather constitute a specific human activity. Argumentation
> between Crusoe and Friday requires that both possess, and mutually recognize
> each other as possessing, exclusive control over their respective bodies
> (their brain, vocal chords, etc.) as well as the standing room occupied by
> their bodies. No one could propose anything and expect the other party to
> convince himself of the validity of this proposition or else deny it and
> propose something else, unless his and his opponent¡¦s right to exclusive
> control over their respective bodies and standing rooms were already
> presupposed and assumed as valid. In fact, it is precisely this mutual
> recognition of the proponent¡¦s as well as the opponent¡¦s property in his
> own body and standing room which constitutes the characteristicum specificum
> of all propositional disputes: that while one may not agree regarding the
> validity of some specific proposition one can agree nonetheless on the fact
> that one disagrees.
>
> Moreover, this right to property in one¡¦s own body and its standing room
> must be considered a priori (or indisputably) justified by proponent and
> opponent alike. For anyone who wanted to claim any proposition as valid
> vis-a-vis an opponent would already have to presuppose his and his opponent
> ¡¦s exclusive control over their respective body and standing room simply in
> order to say "I claim such and such to be true, and I challenge you to prove
> me wrong." [So much for John Rawls¡¦ claim, in his celebrated Theory of
> Justice, that we cannot but "acknowledge as the first principle of justice
> one requiring an equal distribution (of all resources)," and his comment
> that "this principle is so obvious that we would expect it to occur to
> anyone immediately." What I have demonstrated here is that any egalitarian
> ethic such as this proposed by Rawls is not only not obvious but must be
> regarded instead as absurd, i.e., as self-contradictory nonsense. For if
> Rawls were right and all resources were indeed equally distributed, then he
> literally would have no leg to stand on and support him in proposing the
> very nonsense that he does pronounce.]
>
> Furthermore, it would be equally impossible to engage in argumentation and
> rely on the propositional force of one¡¦s arguments, if one were not allowed
> to own (exclusively control) other scarce means (besides one¡¦s body and its
> standing room). For if one did not have such a right, then we would all
> immediately perish and the problem of justifying rules ¡V as well as any
> other human problem ¡V simply would not exist. Hence, by virtue of the fact
> of being alive property rights to other things must be presupposed as valid,
> too. No one who is alive could possibly argue otherwise.
>
> And if a person were not permitted to acquire property in these goods and
> spaces by means of an act of original appropriation, i.e., by establishing
> an objective (intersubjectively ascertainable) link between himself and a
> particular good and/or space prior to anyone else, but if, instead, property
> in such goods or spaces were granted to late-comers, then no one would be
> permitted to ever begin using any good unless he had previously secured such
> late-comers consent. Yet how can a late-comer consent to the actions of an
> early-comer? Moreover, every late-comer would in turn need the consent of
> other still later-comers, and so on. That is, neither we, nor our
> forefathers or our progeny would have been or will be able to survive if one
> were to follow this rule. However, in order for any person ¡V past, present,
> or future ¡V to argue anything it must be obviously possible to survive then
> and now; and in order to do just this property rights cannot be conceived of
> as being timeless and unspecific with respect to the number of persons
> concerned.
>
> Rather, property rights must necessarily be conceived of as originating by
> acting at definite points in time and space for definite individuals.
> Otherwise it would be impossible for anyone to ever say anything at a
> definite point in time and space and for someone else to be able to reply.
> Simply saying, then, that the first-user-first-owner rule of the ethics of
> private property can be ignored or is unjustified, implies a performative
> contradiction, as one¡¦s being able to say so must presuppose one¡¦s
> existence as an independent decision-making unit at a given point in time
> and space.
>
> Simple Solution, Radical Conclusions: Anarchy and State
>
> As simple as the solution to the problem of social order is and as much as
> people in their daily lives intuitively recognize and act according to the
> ethics of private property just explained, this simple and undemanding
> solution implies some surprisingly radical conclusions. For, apart from
> ruling out as unjustified all activities such as murder, homicide, rape,
> trespass, robbery, burglary, theft, and fraud, the ethics of private
> property is also incompatible with the existence of a state defined as an
> agency that possesses a compulsory territorial monopoly of ultimate
> decision-making (jurisdiction) and/or the right to tax.
>
> Classical political theory, at least from Hobbes onward, had viewed the
> state as the very institution responsible for the enforcement of the ethics
> of private property. In regarding the state as unjust ¡V indeed, as "a vast
> criminal organization" ¡V and reaching anarchist conclusions instead,
> Rothbard did of course not deny the necessity of enforcing the ethics of
> private property. He did not share the view of those anarchists, ridiculed
> by his teacher and mentor Mises, who believed that all people, if only left
> alone, would be good and peace-loving creatures.
>
> To the contrary, Rothbard wholeheartedly agreed with Mises that there will
> always be murderers, thieves, thugs, con-artists, etc., and that life in
> society would be impossible if they were not punished by physical force.
> Rather, what Rothbard categorically denied, was the claim that it followed
> from the right and need for the protection of person and property that
> protection rightfully should or effectively could be provided by a
> monopolist of jurisdiction and taxation. Classical political theory, in
> making this claim, had to present the state as the result of a contractual
> agreement among private property owners. Yet this, Rothbard argued, was
> false and an impossible undertaking. No state can possibly arise
> contractually, and accordingly it can be demonstrated that no state is
> compatible with the rightful and effective protection of private property.
>
> Private-property ownership, as the result of acts of original appropriation,
> production, or exchange from prior to later owner, implies the owner¡¦s
> right to exclusive jurisdiction regarding his property; and no private
> property owner can possibly surrender his right to ultimate jurisdiction
> over and physical defense of his property to someone else ¡V unless he sold
> or otherwise transferred his property (in which case someone else would have
> exclusive jurisdiction over it). To be sure, every private property owner
> may partake of the advantages of the division of labor and seek more or
> better protection of his property through the cooperation with other owners
> and their property. That is, every property owner may buy from, sell to, or
> otherwise contract with anyone else concerning more or better property
> protection. But every property owner also may at any time unilaterally
> discontinue any such cooperation with others or change his respective
> affiliations. Hence, in order to meet the demand for protection it would be
> rightfully possible and is economically likely that specialized individuals
> and agencies arise which provide protection, insurance, and arbitration
> services for a fee to voluntarily paying clients.
>
> However, while it is easy to conceive of the contractual origin of a system
> of competitive security suppliers, it is inconceivable how private property
> owners could possibly enter a contract that entitled another agent
> irrevocably (once and for all) with the power of ultimate decision-making
> regarding his own person and property and/or the power to tax. That is, it
> is inconceivable how anyone could ever agree to a contract that allowed
> someone else to determine permanently what he may or may not do with his
> property; for in so doing this person would have effectively rendered
> himself defenseless vis-a-vis such an ultimate decision maker. And likewise
> is it inconceivable how anyone could ever agree to a contract that allowed
> one¡¦s protector to determine unilaterally, without consent of the
> protected, the sum that the protected must pay for his protection.
>
> Orthodox, i.e., statist, political theorists, from John Locke to James
> Buchanan and John Rawls, have tried to solve this difficulty through the
> make-shift of "tacit," "implicit," or "conceptual" agreements, contracts, or
> state-constitutions. All of these characteristically tortuous and confused
> attempts, however, have only added to the same unavoidable conclusion drawn
> by Rothbard: That it is impossible to derive a justification for government
> from explicit contracts between private property owners, and hence, that the
> institution of the state must be considered unjust, i.e., the result of
> moral error.
>
> The Consequence of Moral Error: Statism and the Destruction of Liberty and
> Property
>
> All errors are costly. This is most obvious with errors concerning laws of
> nature. If a person errs regarding laws of nature this person will not be
> able to reach his own goals. However, because the failure of doing so must
> be born by each erring individual, there prevails in this realm a universal
> desire to learn and correct one¡¦s errors. Moral errors are costly, too.
> Unlike in the former case, however, their cost must not, at least not
> necessarily so, be paid for by each and every person committing the error.
> In fact, this would be the case only if the error involved were that of
> believing that everyone had the right to tax and ultimate decision-making
> regarding the person and property of everyone else. A society whose members
> believed this would be doomed. The price to be paid for this error would be
> universal death and extinction. However, matters are distinctly different if
> the error involved is that of believing that one agency ¡V the state ¡V only
> has the right to tax and ultimate decision-making (rather than everyone, or
> else, and correctly so, no one). A society whose members believed this ¡V
> that is, that there must be different laws applying unequally to masters and
> serfs, taxers and taxed, legislators and legislated ¡V can in fact exist and
> endure. This error must be paid for, too. But not everyone holding this
> error must pay for it equally. Rather, some people will have to pay for it,
> while others ¡V the agents of the state ¡V actually benefit from the same
> error. Hence, in this case it would be mistaken to assume a universal desire
> to learn and correct one¡¦s errors. To the contrary, in this case it will
> have to be assumed that some people, rather than learning and promoting the
> truth, have a constant motive to lie, i.e., to maintain and promote
> falsehoods even if they themselves recognize them as such.
>
> In any case, then, what are the "mixed" consequences of, and what is the
> unequal price to be paid for, the error and/or lie of believing in the
> justice of the institution of a state?
>
> Once the principle of government ¡V judicial monopoly and the power to
> tax ¡V is incorrectly admitted as just, any notion of restraining government
> power and safeguarding individual liberty and property is illusory. Rather,
> under monopolistic auspices the price of justice and protection will
> continually rise and the quality of justice and protection fall. A
> tax-funded protection agency is a contradiction in terms ¡V an expropriating
> property protector ¡V and will inevitably lead to more taxes and less
> protection. Even if, as some ¡V classical liberal ¡V statists have proposed,
> a government limited its activities exclusively to the protection of
> pre-existing private property rights, the further question of how much
> security to produce would arise. Motivated (like everyone else) by
> self-interest and the disutility of labor, but endowed with the unique power
> to tax, a government agent¡¦s answer will invariably be the same: To
> maximize expenditures on protection ¡V and almost all of a nation¡¦s wealth
> can conceivably be consumed by the cost of protection ¡V and at the same
> time to minimize the production of protection. The more money one can spend
> and the less one must work to produce, the better off one will be.
>
> Moreover, a judicial monopoly will inevitably lead to a steady deterioration
> in the quality of justice and protection. If no one can appeal to justice
> except to government, justice will be perverted in favor of the government,
> constitutions and supreme courts notwithstanding. Constitutions and supreme
> courts are state constitutions and agencies, and whatever limitations to
> state action they might contain or find is invariably decided by agents of
> the very institution under consideration. Predictably, the definition of
> property and protection will continually be altered and the range of
> jurisdiction expanded to the government¡¦s advantage until, ultimately, the
> notion of universal and immutable human rights ¡V and in particular property
> rights ¡V will disappear and be replaced by that of law as government-made
> legislation and rights as government-given grants.
>
> The results, all of them predicted by Rothbard, are before our eyes, for
> everyone to see. The tax load imposed on property owners and producers has
> continually increased, making the economic burden even of slaves and serfs
> seem moderate in comparison. Government debt ¡V and hence, future tax
> obligations ¡V has risen to breathtaking heights. Every detail of private
> life, property, trade, and contract is regulated by ever higher mountains of
> paper laws. Yet the only task that government was ever supposed to assume ¡V
> of protecting our life and property ¡V it does not perform. To the contrary,
> the higher the expenditures on social, public, and national security have
> risen, the more our private property rights have been eroded, the more our
> property has been expropriated, confiscated, destroyed, and depreciated. The
> more paper laws have been produced, the more legal uncertainty and moral
> hazard has been created, and lawlessness has displaced law and order.
> Instead of protecting us from domestic crime and foreign aggression, our
> government, equipped with enormous stockpiles of weapons of mass
> destruction, aggresses against ever new Hitlers and suspected Hitlerite
> sympathizers anywhere and everywhere outside of its "own" territory. In
> short, while we have become ever more helpless, impoverished, threatened,
> and insecure, our state rulers have become increasingly more corrupt,
> arrogant, and dangerously armed.
>
> The Restoration of Morality: On Liberation
>
> What to do, then? Rothbard has not only reconstructed the ethics of liberty
> and explained the current morass as the result of statism, he has also shown
> us the way toward a restoration of morals.
>
> First and foremost he has explained that states, as powerful and invincible
> as they might seem, ultimately owe their existence to ideas and, since ideas
> can in principle change instantaneously, states can be brought down and
> crumble practically over night.
>
> The representatives of the state are always and everywhere only just a small
> minority of the population over which they rule. The reason for this is as
> simple as it is fundamental: one hundred parasites can live comfortable
> lives if they suck out the life blood of thousands of productive hosts, but
> thousands of parasites cannot live comfortably off of a host population of
> just a hundred. Yet if government agents are merely a small minority of the
> population, how can they enforce their will on this population and get away
> with it? The answer given by Rothbard as well as de la Boetie, Hume, and
> Mises before him, is: only by virtue of the voluntary cooperation of the
> majority of the subject population with the state. Yet how can the state
> secure such cooperation? The answer is: only because and insofar as the
> majority of the population believes in the legitimacy of state rule. This is
> not to say that the majority of the population must agree with every single
> state measure. Indeed, it may well believe that many state policies are
> mistaken or even despicable. However, the majority of the population must
> believe in the justice of the institution of the state as such, and hence,
> that even if a particular government goes wrong, these mistakes are merely
> accidents which must be accepted and tolerated in view of some greater good
> provided by the institution of government.
>
> Yet how can the majority of the population be brought to believe this? The
> answer is: with the help of the intellectuals. In the old days that meant
> trying to mold an alliance between the state and the church. In modern times
> and far more effectively, this means through the nationalization
> (socialization) of education: through state-run or state-subsidized schools
> and universities. The market demand for intellectual services, in particular
> in the area of the humanities and social sciences, is not exactly high and
> none too stable and secure. Intellectuals would be at the mercy of the
> values and choices of the masses, and the masses are generally uninterested
> in intellectual-philosophical concerns. The state, on the other hand, notes
> Rothbard, accommodates their typically overinflated egos and "is willing to
> offer the intellectuals a warm, secure, and permanent berth in its
> apparatus, a secure income, and the panoply of prestige." And indeed, the
> modern democratic state in particular, has created a massive oversupply of
> intellectuals.
>
> This accommodation does not guarantee "correct" ¡V statist ¡V thinking, of
> course; and as well and generally overpaid as they are, intellectuals will
> continue to complain how little their oh-so-important work is appreciated by
> the powers that be. But it certainly helps in reaching the "correct"
> conclusions if one realizes that without the state ¡V the institution of
> taxation and legislation ¡V one might be out of work and may have to try one
> ¡¦s hands at the mechanics of gas pump operation instead of concerning
> oneself with such pressing problems as alienation, equity, exploitation, the
> deconstruction of gender and sex roles, or the culture of the Eskimos, the
> Hopis, and the Zulus. And even if one feels underappreciated by this or that
> incumbent government, one still realizes that help can only come from
> another government, and certainly not from an intellectual assault on the
> legitimacy of the institution of government as such. Thus, it is hardly
> surprising that, as a matter of empirical fact, the overwhelming majority of
> contemporary intellectuals are far-out lefties and that even most
> conservative or free market intellectuals such as Friedman or Hayek, for
> instance, are fundamentally and philosophically statists.
>
> >From this insight into the importance of ideas and the role of intellectuals
> as bodyguards of the state and statism, then, it follows that the most
> decisive role in the process of liberation ¡V the restoration of justice and
> morality ¡V must fall on the shoulders of what one might call
> anti-intellectual intellectuals. Yet how can such anti-intellectual
> intellectuals possibly succeed in delegitimating the state in public
> opinion, especially if the overwhelming majority of their colleagues are
> statists and will do everything in their power to isolate and discredit them
> as extremists and crackpots? Time permits me to make only a few brief
> comments on this fundamental question.
>
> First: Because one must reckon with the vicious opposition from one¡¦s
> colleagues, and in order to withstand it, and to shrug it off, it is of
> utmost importance to ground one¡¦s case not in economics and utilitarianism,
> but in ethics and moral arguments. For only moral convictions provide one
> with the courage and strength needed in ideological battle. Few are inspired
> and willing to accept sacrifices if what they are opposed to is mere error
> and waste. More inspiration and courage can be drawn from knowing that one
> is engaged in fighting evil and lies. (I¡¦ll return to this shortly.)
>
> Second: It is important to recognize that one does not need to convert one¡¦
> s colleagues, i.e., to persuade mainstream intellectuals. As Thomas Kuhn has
> shown, this is rare enough even in the natural sciences. In the social
> sciences, conversions among established intellectuals from previously held
> views are almost unheard of. Instead, one should concentrate one¡¦s efforts
> on the not-yet intellectually committed young, whose idealism makes them
> also particularly receptive to moral arguments and moral rigorism. And
> likewise, one should circumvent academia and reach out to the general public
> (i.e., to the educated laymen), which entertains some generally healthy
> anti-intellectual prejudices into which one can easily tap.
>
> Third (returning to the importance of a moral attack on the state): It is
> essential to recognize that there can be no compromise on the level of
> theory. To be sure, one should not refuse to cooperate with people whose
> views are ultimately mistaken and confused, provided that their objectives
> can be classified, clearly and unambiguously, as a step in the right
> direction of the de-statization of society. For instance, one would not want
> to refuse cooperation with people who seek to introduce a flat income tax of
> 10 percent (although we would not want to cooperate with those who would
> want to combine this measure with an increased sales tax in order to achieve
> revenue neutrality, for instance). However, under no circumstances should
> such cooperation lead to or be achieved by compromising one¡¦s own
> principles. Either taxation is just or it isn¡¦t. And once it is admitted as
> just, how is one then to oppose any increase in it? The answer is of course
> that one can¡¦t!
>
> Put differently, compromise on the level of theory, as we find it, for
> instance, among moderate free-marketeers such as Hayek or Friedman or even
> among the so-called minarchists, is not only philosophically flawed but is
> also practically ineffective and indeed counterproductive. Their ideas can
> be ¡V and in fact are ¡V easily co-opted and incorporated by the state
> rulers and statist ideology. Indeed, how often do we hear nowadays from
> statists and in defense of a statist agenda cries such as "even Hayek
> (Friedman) says, or, not even Hayek (Friedman) denies that such and such
> must be done by the state!" Personally, they may not be happy about this,
> but there is no denying that their work lends itself to this purpose, and
> hence, that they, willy-nilly, actually contributed to the continued and
> unabating growth of state power.
>
> In other words: Theoretical compromise or gradualism will only lead to the
> perpetuation of the falsehood, evils, and lies of statism, and only
> theoretical purism, radicalism, and intransigence can and will lead first to
> gradual practical reform and improvement and possibly final victory.
> Accordingly, as an anti-intellectual intellectual in the Rothbardian sense
> one can never be satisfied with criticizing various government follies,
> although one might have to begin with this, but one must always proceed from
> there to a fundamental attack on the institution of the state as a moral
> outrage and its representatives as moral as well as economic frauds, liars,
> and impostors ¡V as emperors without clothes.
>
> In particular, one must never hesitate to strike at the very heart of the
> legitimacy of the state: its alleged indispensable role as producer of
> private protection and security. I have already shown how ridiculous this
> claim is on theoretical grounds: how can an agency that may expropriate
> private property possibly claim to be a protector of private property? But
> hardly less important is it to attack the legitimacy of the state in this
> regard on empirical grounds. That is, to point out and hammer away on the
> subject that, after all, states, which are supposed to protect us, are the
> very institution responsible for an estimated 170 million death in the
> twentieth century alone ¡V more than the victims of private crime in all of
> human history (and this number of victims of private crimes, from which
> government did not protect us, would have been even much lower if
> governments everywhere and at all times had not undertaken constant efforts
> of disarming its own citizens so that the governments in turn would become
> ever more effective killing machines)!
>
> Instead of treating politicians with respect, then, one¡¦s criticism of them
> should be significantly stepped up: almost to a man, they are not only
> thieves but mass murderers. How dare they demand our respect and loyalty.
>
> But will a sharp and distinct ideological radicalization bring the results
> aimed at? I have no doubt. Indeed, only radical ¡V and in fact radically
> simple ¡V ideas can possibly stir the emotions of the dull and indolent
> masses and delegitimate government in their eyes.
>
> Let me quote Hayek to this effect (and in doing so, I hope to indicate also
> that my rather harsh earlier criticism of him should not be misunderstood as
> implying that one cannot learn anything from authors who are fundamentally
> wrong and muddled):
>
> "We must make the building of a free society once more an intellectual
> adventure, a deed of courage. What we lack is a liberal Utopia, a programme
> which seems neither a mere defence of things as they are nor a diluted kind
> of socialism, but a truly liberal radicalism which does not spare the
> susceptibilities of the mighty..., which is not too severely practical and
> which does not confine itself to what appears today as politically possible.
> We need intellectual leaders who are prepared to resist the blandishments of
> power and influence and who are willing to work for an ideal, however small
> may be the prospects of its early realization. They must be men who are
> willing to stick to principles and to fight for their full realization,
> however remote. Free trade and freedom of opportunity are ideas which still
> may arouse the imaginations of large numbers, but a mere ¡¥reasonable
> freedom of trade¡¦ or a mere ¡¥relaxation of controls¡¦ is neither
> intellectually respectable nor likely to inspire any enthusiasm....
>
> "Unless we can make the philosophical foundations of a free society once
> more a living intellectual issue, and its implementation a task which
> challenges the ingenuity and imagination of our liveliest minds, the
> prospects of freedom are indeed dark. But if we can regain that belief in
> the power of ideas which was the mark of liberalism at its best, the battle
> is not lost."
>
> Hayek of course did not heed his own advice and provide us with a consistent
> and inspiring theory. His Utopia, as developed in his Constitution of
> Liberty, is the rather uninspiring vision of the Swedish welfare state.
> Instead, it is Rothbard who has done what Hayek recognized as necessary for
> a renewal of classical liberalism; and if there is anything that can reverse
> the seemingly unstoppable tide of statism and restore justice and liberty,
> it is the personal example set by Murray Rothbard and the spread of
> Rothbardianism.
>
> May 20, 2002
>
> Hans-Hermann Hoppe [send him mail], whom Lew Rockwell calls "an
> international treasure," is senior fellow at the Ludwig von Mises Institute,
> professor of economics at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and editor of
> The Journal of Libertarian Studies. Democracy: The God That Failed is his
> eighth book. Visit his website. This essay is based on Professor Hoppe¡¦s
> Murray N. Rothbard Memorial Lecture at the Mises Institute¡¦s Austrian
> Scholars Conference in 1999.
>
> Copyright 2002 by LewRockwell.com
>
> Hans-Hermann Hoppe Archives
>
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