More Libertarian than Anarchy?

in anarchism •  7 years ago  (edited)

“A just society is one where people’s natural rights are respected, and for this reason it requires the consent of those who are subject to any laws that go beyond enforcing protections for people’s natural rights. Without people’s consent, a law or political order is unjust.”—Jessica Flanagan (Politics and Anarchist Ideals)

I have been following, although not closely, the C4SS debates on anarchism and democracy. Although I am sympathetic to the anarchist critique of democracy and understand their objections, I really disagree with their conclusion. The reality is that the conclusion you reach will depend on two things. First, it will depend on your hierarchy of values. Second, it will depend upon your understanding of facts and definitions.

Anarchists tend to place negative liberty towards the top of their hierarchy of values. At the same time, they tend to exclude positive liberty to some extent. I do not mean to suggest that anarchists don't care about positive liberty. They certainly do, but they tend to place it on a lower rung of the ladder of values. Thus, according to anarchists, law ought to be restricted to the protection of natural rights unless the person against whom the positive law will be imposed has explicitly consented.

Furthermore, the concept of “natural rights” is understood by anarchists primarily as entailing non-invasion, non-aggression, and non-coercion. Negative liberty, then, appears to anarchists to be the core of natural rights. Imposition of force, or coercion, is the primary evil. There may be exceptions, but they are not the norm.

A deeper look at the concept of “natural rights” and relevant facts related thereto makes it less clear that the concept actually implies a rigid veneration of negative liberty. There must be a more nuanced balance of positive and negative liberty.

Negative liberty is freedom from external coercion. Positive liberty is the freedom to act. After the abolition of slavery, the freed slave theoretically acquired negative liberty, but that liberty was entirely useless without positive liberty as its corollary. If you free a slave, but the former slave-owner owns all the land and food, then the slave is basically coerced by external forces (although not directly coerced by the former slave-owner), because matters beyond his control will force him to continue to work for the former slave-owner.

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As a former anarchist myself, and someone who still identifies as a dialectical libertarian, as all genuine anarchists do (although they might not be familiar with the term), I recognize that anarchists are quite familiar with these concepts. However, I think that a dialectical approach will lead to some sort of “anarchism” that is virtually another variety of democratic socialism. In fact, certain “anarchists, ” like Murray Bookchin, Noam Chomsky, and David Graeber, occupy a grey area between democratic socialism and anarchism.

What are natural rights? I would say that the rights to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” are a decent start. Since I have dealt with this topic elsewhere, I will skip over some of the nuance and analysis of the significance of this phrase just to make a few brief observations. Firstly, life is of greater importance than liberty, insofar as liberty is rendered null by its absence. And, further, I would argue that rights are natural only insofar as they are determined by a certain set of values that is natural to humans as members of the species with a shared human nature. We value, first and foremost, well-being. We value this greater than anything else. If we are deprived of well-being and are forced to live a life of constant suffering, we may turn to suicide in order to escape. This shows that life itself is not necessarily the highest value. If we cannot have well-being, some sort of comfort and happiness, then life itself lacks value. We are also willing to sacrifice some degree of liberty for things that ensure our well-being. For instance, I may submit to the will of an employer, sacrificing my liberty somewhat, in order to gain wages that provide me with food, shelter, and some amount of leisure. These things that increase my well-being, then, are valued greater than absolute negative liberty. While the wage labor arrangement limits my negative liberty, it increases my positive liberty, so that I end up being more free than I would be without wages. This is, by the way, no defense of wage slavery. A wage slave is more free than a beggar or a pauper without food and shelter. That does not mean that the arrangement is the best possible arrangement; it merely means that it is not the worst possible situation.

I can also conceive of circumstances in which a violation of consent would be the preferred course of action. If someone is about to be hit by a bus and doesn't realize it, I may forcefully push them out of the way without their consent. This violation of their negative liberty is perfectly acceptable. And the reason why this is acceptable is because negative liberty is only one value among many in a hierarchy of competing values. If a certain act that violates the principle of consent increases that non-consenting person's chances of living a better life, then it may be acceptable to coerce them. This is so much the case that we would generally not refer to such instances of coercion as “coercion” at all.

All of this seems to suggest that perhaps a governmental arrangement wherein everyone is provided with a basic income, health insurance, and protection from and insurance against crime might actually be preferable to a stateless society based on perfect negative liberty and absolute consent. At the same time, negative liberty and consent are still among the values in our hierarchy of values, even though they are not at the top, so our ideal social order ought to be libertarian and democratic as much as it possibly can be without reducing the satisfaction of higher order values like well-being and security.

Whenever a person can be allowed to act freely without that freedom entailing an infringement on another person’s liberty or a significant social reduction of the satisfaction of higher order values, then they ought to be free to do what they want. This means that we ought to have a much freer society. At the same time, rules should be determined in a way that approaches consensus or the consent of the governed as much as possible. Democracy is the only means available for doing that. If we attempt to go the anarchist route of pure consensus and/or free association, then we would have to sacrifice all of the positive liberty entailed in welfare measures like universal basic income, universal health insurance, and such. Thus, an anarchist social order might conceivably be less libertarian than some types of social democracy or democratic socialism.

Furthermore, taxation and redistribution of wealth, insofar as they can increase social well-being (by which I mean the well-being of the individuals within society) are not necessarily unjust. The injustice is in the current way that taxation and redistribution are done. If progressive taxation is used to fund a universal basic income, universal health insurance, along with other things that ultimately increase the well-being of everyone, then perhaps something like a State can be justified. I think a just social order would be very different from the existing one, and it would also be more like an anarchist society than it would be like any existing form of government, but it would still have certain characteristics of the State that would make it less than a pure anarchist society. The ideal social order that we ought to strive for would be a libertarian social democracy.

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Amazing piece. You have taught me a lot @ekklesiagora

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nice post @ekklesiagora
very awesome

  ·  7 years ago (edited)

That look is a bit deeper than just a look at the concept of natural rights.
It's only left to implement understanding into people minds somehow heh)

I didn't think to write about that before. good post @ekklesiagora

I addressed it in more detail in my posts on Ethics, I believe: https://steemit.com/ethics/@ekklesiagora/ethics-3-part-series-summary-anthology

oh oke @ekklesiagora visit now :)

In the example of the bus, I cannot see the violation of consent, since by saving someone you haven't hurt them in the process, on the contrary.

When you talk about the elimination of the positive rights, I know where you are coming from, but you still have to convince me that human well-being is desirable. And again, same thing when it comes to taxation and redistribution of justly earned wealth.

"Consent" does not mean "not hurting." People can consent to engaging in activities that hurt one another. (E.g. BDSM or sports fighting like MMA) Suppose that the person in front of the bus is deaf and realizes that I'm trying to push them, and tells me to stop and resists, but I can't explain why I'm pushing them because they're deaf. Clearly, I don't have their consent. Or, perhaps someone took a drug that induces psychosis and wants to die, so they are trying to get hit by the bus. They don't consent to me saving them. Have I done something wrong in violating their consent to save them? I don't think so. Yes, it is okay to push them because I am not hurting them but helping them. That was my point. But it is technically an infringement upon their negative liberty.

As for "taxation and redistribution of justly earned wealth,"... I would say that I only want taxation and redistribution of UNEARNED wealth (and only part of that)...and that UNEARNED wealth is the bulk of corporate profit and capitalist/landlord wealth.

This is one of the most enlightening texts I've read on the subject of freedom in the social sense. I wasn't aware of the term "dialectical libertarian" but, if understood correctly what it entails, I'm inclined to say that I too identity myself as such. Your reflection about hierarchical sets of values and the balance between positive and negative forms of freedom seems very reasonable and provides a sensible point around which this discussion might revolve. Well done!

"Dialectical libertarianism" is the notion that freedom should be evaluated in terms of the whole system. A dialectical libertarian approach might conclude that a government granted monopoly with government price setting is more libertarian than that monopoly without that price setting. A limitation set on a special privilege may make the system more libertarian overall than the same system without that limitation. This is not, however, to say that the initial injustice (granting of a monopoly) is okay though. And formal recognition of the right to negative liberty without actually providing some degree of positive liberty makes society less libertarian overall.

Perhaps you should explore options that don't account for things in terms of dollars and cents.

https://steemit.com/books/@freebornsociety/and-then-there-were-none-by-eric-russell
https://steemit.com/books/@freebornangel/looking-backwards-by-ed-bellamy

As long as money exists the haves will rule the have nots by enforcing poverty upon them.

I'm quite familiar with communism, but you already know that. I just don't think it is a perfect solution either. Every communist society (and Russia, Cuba, et al. were NOT communist), has had hierarchy. I'm thinking about primitive communism, Madagascar when the gov't withdrew, etc. All of those communist societies had hierarchies, which basically were functionally isomorphic to disparities of wealth. The shaman and the chief end up with better standards of living than the average person, even when money does not enter the equation. I've worked in anarchistic groups, with consensus and free association, and hierarchy develops there too, even when there is no money and no formal hierarchy. A charismatic or popular person ends up becoming an informal leader and gets the privileges that come along with popularity. William Gillis talks alot about this phenomenon.

Also, I specifically advocate alternative monetary systems in which disparities of wealth are impossible. For instance, I propose a crypto-currency monetary system integrated with a land registry on the blockchain, where wealth will be automatically be taxed, to prohibit accumulation, and redistributed out as a basic income. If there is progressive taxation, land value tax, and corporate tax, within a socialist society in which the community has partial ownership of all land and industry, and all people are provided with a universal basic income....then there won't be any distinction between "haves" and "have nots".

Yep, I don't know how to keep folks from following leaders with it's associated problems.

Ending rule by force is the main thing, then we can experiment.

I do like the new slant on things coming from you.

I was thinking about a similar concept - a cryptocurrency system where ICO proceeds are used to buy land. Then land owned by Foundation can be rented out while currency tokens will be subject to demurrage. The rent and demurrage fee should be used to pay basic income to all participants.

Interesting idea. I'd like to hear more. You should do a post on the subject.

Thanks. I have drafted a chart of how this system may be designed. I will do a post once I will have it finalized.

Here's the problem with the ideologies of Anarchism and Libertarianism...they're both ideologies. EVERY ideology is EXACTLY the same as EVERY other ideology, and ALL ideologies are inherently malignant, ALL to the same degree. How are Liberalism or Anarchism or Social-Karate'ism or Libertarianism et al ultimately any different from one another when ALL share the EXACT SAME ends: the ideology (aka Party) is greater than the Individual, the benefit of the individual is always secondary to the benefit of the ideology (aka Party), the ideology (aka Party) must eventually become the ONLY legal Party...err ideology I mean..., the ideology (aka Party) must be THE identity of the individual.

It's all just groupthink, and it's all exactly the same. It's the ultimate death for the individual, despite always being promoted as the opposite. EVERY ideology is replete with inherent philosophical and logical contradictions, which is why no one can ever explain exactly what their specific ideology is in spite of their professing belief in it and its value. It's EXACTLY. like a religion, only without any Mystery (spoiler: this is done ON PURPOSE). It should be self-evident that ALL ideologies are inherently and inextricably necrotic when you realize that every definition of EVERY ideology is completely incoherent. I have never understood why anyone would EVER want to adopt ANY ideology, its like voluntary mind-control (which should at least satisfy some tenet of Anarchism, Libertariansim). Its pathetic.

I'm not sure I agree with that assessment. For the most part, it is valid... But I don't think it applies to anarchism. Anarchism doesn't really have "group think" or a "party".

Of course you don't, if you agreed then you wouldn't have adopted whatever the ideology is you presently identify with; almost like a proof of concept.

'Party' is just another word for ideology, it doesn't have or need to specifically refer to a registered or unregistered or affiliated or non-affiliated actual political or organizational entity. You could just easily use the word 'Cult' as a synonym for Party or Ideology: it is absolutely just as accurate.

There is no doubt that Anarchism has just as much group think as any other ideology (aka Party, aka Cult). The fundamental tenet of EVERY ideology is that the ideology is superior to any other ideology; it's 'answers' are more correct than any other ideology's. If another ideology had answers which were 'more correct' then why wouldn't you adopt that ideology instead? This fundamental tenet is foundational in Every Ideology, whether expressly stated or not. If it is a requirement of an ideology to believe that the ideology is 'correct' this alone is groupthink. And this is a requirement of EVERY ideology.

Ideologies are inherently collectivist, and anything inherently collectivist necessarily means that the individual is subordinate to the ideology (aka Party, aka Cult). Even if the foundation of the ideology is that 'everyone is, and should be, free to choose for themselves whatever they want to believe' it is groupthink. After all, if I were truly free then why am I not free to think that everyone should NOT be free to choose for themselves whatever they want to believe? When the foundation of the ideology is demonstrably false or self-contradicting then what real value is the ideology itself? Then what's even the point of adopting and perpetuating it? Every ideology is exactly the same when it comes down to it.

I think your ideology is bullshit. And yes, you are advocating an ideology. An opposition to all ideologies is itself an ideology, but also just committing oneself to intellectual dishonesty and ignorance insofar as you are committed to rejecting the truth if it happens to be an "ideology."

And anarchism has no party or group think, except a few cliques. As an anarchist, I never met a single person that really substantially agreed with me on much of anything. Anarchism is more of a guiding set or ethical principles, but people take those in radically different directions.

Also, my views are my own and no one else that I know of shares them. So I don't see how the personal opinions of a single person that are not shared by any group or other individuals constitutes an ideology.

Your anti-ideology ideology is fine, if that's what you choose to identify with.

Excellent post! I've been musing on my own reconstructions after a lifetime of deconstructions​. Although ​not identical to your musings, I do think they are aimed in the same direction...http://andrewmarkmusic.com/?p=1423
A large part of my solution oriented theorizing is premised on ecological sustainability; that is to say, ​we should act intelligently now instead​ of waiting for forced reactionary solutions brought on by calamity caused by our own hubris and ignorance......

You should look into social ecology... It's an interesting approach.