FreeMarket Anarchism Objections and Replies Roderick T Long
Free-Market Anarchism: Objections and Replies Roderick T. Long Auburn University / Molinari Institute
The State An institution that claims, and in large part achieves, a forcible monopoly over the provision of legal services (adjudicating disputes, and securing compliance with the results of adjudication) within a given geographical territory
Free-Market Anarchism “Anarchism. . . may be described as the doctrine that all the affairs of men should be managed by individuals or voluntary associations, and that the State should be abolished. ” – Benjamin Tucker, 1886
Free-Market Anarchism “The anarchist is the enemy of humanity, the enemy of all mankind, and his is a deeper degree of criminality than any other. ” – Theodore Roosevelt, 1901
Free-Market Anarchism “Anarchism is a political philosophy which considers the state undesirable, unnecessary, and harmful, and instead promotes a stateless society, or anarchy. Any information relating to anarchists should be reported to your local police. ” – London Metropolitan Police, 2011
Free-Market Anarchism ▪ differs from minarchism (minimalstate libertarianism) in seeing no role for the monopoly state ▪ differs from social anarchism in the degree to which it sees market mechanisms and private-property institutions as legitimate and major sources of cooperative order
Free-Market Anarchism Comes in both “capitalist” and “socialist” forms, depending on what economic forms are predicted to prevail in a freed market
Free-Market Anarchism: First, the Case For Problems with forcible monopoly: the shoe industry analogy ▪ moral objection: violates moral equality ▪ 1 st economic objection: incentival perversities ▪ 2 nd economic objection: informational perversities
Free-Market Anarchism: First, the Case For All the same problems with a forcible monopoly of legal services: ▪ violates moral equality ▪ incentival perversities ▪ informational perversities
Objection 1: Not a Forcible Monopoly The State is not a forcible monopoly because its subjects have consented Tacit consent: ▪ the restaurant analogy ▪ the houseguest analogy By remaining in territory and accepting state benefits, you consent
Reply to Objection 1 ▪ consent argument is circular: staying within a territory counts as consent to the State only if the State is already assumed to have legitimate jurisdiction over the territory ▪ in any case, a contract needs clear and agreed-upon terms; no such terms here
Reply to Objection 1 ▪ accepting benefits doesn’t count as consent, especially when alternative means of obtaining those benefits are either forbidden or rendered unduly costly by state action ▪ voting doesn’t count as consent because it’s done in self-defense
Objection 2: Necessary for Cooperation Social cooperation requires a background structure of law The state must provide this law because the free market cannot produce its own precondition
Reply to Objection 2 False assumption #1: can’t have social cooperation without law In fact lots of social cooperation proceeds without law
Reply to Objection 2 False assumption #2: can’t have law without violent enforcement In fact many legal systems rely on nonviolent incentives Examples: Law Merchant, 17 th-century Amsterdam
Reply to Objection 2 False assumption #3: can’t have violent law enforcement without the State In fact many stateless legal systems have used violent enforcement more responsibly than comparable states Examples: medieval Iceland, contemporary Somalia
Objection 3: John Locke’s “ 3 Inconveniences” 1. Legislative defect: no known or settled law 2. Executive defect: insufficient power of organised enforcement 3. Judicial defect: people being judges in their own case
Reply to Objection 3 No known or settled law? Markets provide uniformity where it’s needed (e. g. , credit cards). The Law Merchant provided greater legal uniformity than existing state courts.
Reply to Objection 3 Inadequate power of organised enforcement? The alternative to a shoe monopoly is not that each person makes her own shoes
Reply to Objection 3 Judges in their own case? Fallacy of Composition: “Everyone likes at least one tv show” “There’s at least one tv show that everyone likes” “Everybody has a father” “There’s someone who is everybody’s father”
Reply to Objection 3 Likewise fallacious: “Everyone should submit their disputes to a third party” “There needs to be a third party to whom everyone submits their disputes”
Reply to Objection 3 In a 3 -person society: ▪ A and B can submit their disputes to C ▪ A and C can submit their disputes to B ▪ B and C can submit their disputes to A
Reply to Objection 3 Moreover: it is only under anarchy that the no-judges-in-own-case requirement can be satisfied Under a state, any dispute with the state will be adjudicated by the state
Reply to Objection 3 Division of powers an insufficient solution: no one would want a dispute with one branch of a firm to be judged by another branch of the same firm The Rule of Law requires anarchy
Objection 4: Private Protection Agencies Will Battle If providers of security enforcement services compete, they can resolve their disputes only by violent warfare
Reply to Objection 4 Competing firms are less likely than states to resort to warfare War is more expensive than arbitration, but states can socialise the costs because they have a captive customer base
Objection 5: No Final Arbiter Without a final arbiter, disputes can go on forever without resolution
Reply to Objection 5 2 senses of “final arbiter”: ▪ Platonic finality: resolution is absolutely guaranteed ▪ Realistic finality: disputes usually get resolved more or less reliably
Reply to Objection 5 ▪ No legal system, whether state or anarchic, provides Platonic finality ▪ Both state and anarchic legal systems have regularly provided realistic finality
Reply to Objection 5 What guarantees that security forms will resolve their disputes in any particular way? Well, what guarantees that the branches of government will resolve disputes in any particular way? The Constitution doesn’t even say how such disputes should be resolved.
Objection 6: Markets Presuppose Property Law ▪ Functioning markets require secure property rights ▪ Secure property rights require a legal system ▪ Thus markets cannot exist until a legal system exists first, and so cannot provide that system
Reply to Objection 6 ▪ One could equally well argue that states presuppose markets, since you can’t have a state unless there’s a sufficient productive surplus to extract, which presupposes productive prosperity, which presupposes markets ▪ In fact markets and legal systems (whether states or anarchies) grow up together
Reply to Objection 6 People tend to think of a legal system as something independent of the activity it constrains, something that stands outside social cooperation and makes it possible But that’s the metaphysical illusion of a “selfenforcing rule” A legal system’s existence depends on, is a product and instance of, social cooperation
Objection 7: Bad Guys Will Take Over Private security firms already exist: they’re called Mafias They specialise in violence and so will dominate Either that, or foreign states will see a power vacuum and invade
Reply to Objection 7 Organised crime gets its power from the fact that it specialises in services prohibited by states: drugs, prostitution, etc. State prohibition makes these services both unusually costly and unusually risky, thus attracting profit-seekers with high tolerance for risk and violence Mafias are typically parasitic on states
Reply to Objection 7 Also, any society that has managed to overthrow its government has already learned techniques of resistance that can be turned against new aspirants to power, be they Mafias or foreign invaders
Objection 8: The Rich Will Rule If legal services become a marketable good, then justice will be sold to the highest bidder, while the indigent will lack legal defense entirely
Reply to Objection 8 ▪ States magnify the power of the rich: I can bribe a politician $1000 to direct $1000000 to my favoured project, because the politician isn’t spending his own money ▪ A judge who favours millionaires over the poor will favour billionaires over millionaires: reputation matters
Reply to Objection 8 ▪ There would be far less economic inequality in a freed market: competition is a levelling force ▪ Those who can’t afford legal services can sell their right to compensation (as in medieval Iceland, or contingency fees today)
Reply to Objection 8 ▪ The compenstaion rights of indigent, heirless murder victims could be homesteadable property ▪ There exist pro bono legal services now (the ACLU, the Institute for Justice) and these would be still more plentiful in a more prosperous society
Objection 9: Markets for Intolerance Free markets are great at satisfying preferences, but many consumers have intolerant preferences (against homosexuality or drug use or worshipping Cthulhu) and will happily pay for laws banning conduct they find offensive
Reply to Objection 9 The inelasticity of demand for intolerant laws varies from person to person If inelastic demand is widespread, that’s as much a problem for democratic states as for anarchies If most demand is elastic, anarchies will be more tolerant than states
Reply to Objection 9 The cost of paying monthly premiums not only for “basic service” (protection against theft, assault, etc. ) but “premium service” (protection against one’s neighbours having the wrong habits) is much higher than the cost of voting for an intolerant law or politician Democracy allows bigots to socialise costs that anarchy would internalise
Objection 10: Security Networks Will Become a De Facto State If indeed security firms would tend to choose arbitration over warfare, they will evolve into legal networks indistinguishable from states, because: ▪ Customers will prefer firms that belong to the network ▪ Thus the network can put independents out of business by refusing them access ▪ And so: a territorial monopoly
Reply to Objection 10 Free markets tend to undermine cartels, because the collective interest in maintaining them gets defeated by individual interests in breaking them More importantly (because more reliably), cartels create profit opportunities that attract outside competition
Reply to Objection 10 A legal network faces potential competition not just from isolated independents but from rival networks Just as abusive state legal systems have incentivised network alternatives (e. g. , the Law Merchant), abusive stateless legal networks could do the same
Where Do We Go From Here? If free-market anarchy is the goal, how should we work for it? Frequently heard argument: minarchists and anarchists are on the same train, headed in the same direction: minarchists just get off one stop earlier Hence anarchist should focus on assisting minarchist projects until then
Where Do We Go From Here? Problem with this argument: from an anarchist perspective, the part of the State that minarchists want to keep (the monopoly) is the cause of the problems that minarchists and anarchists agree in opposing
Where Do We Go From Here? Thus, rather than joining the minarchists in pruning the branches, anarchists should seek to strike at the root Get rid of the root (the monopoly), and the branches will wither of themselves
Where Do We Go From Here?
Where Do We Go From Here? The ruling powers in society are too far outnumbered by those they rule to be the sources of social order they claim to be Both social order and elite power depend on popular acquiescence
Where Do We Go From Here? Without such acquiescence, our rulers would be like Hitler in the Monty Python sketch, a random weirdo ranting to tiny, puzzled audiences
Where Do We Go From Here? Hence: a) the state is not necessary for maintaining social order; anarchy is a viable end b) petitioning the state, or seizing control of it (whether by electoral or revolutionary methods) is not necessary as a means
Where Do We Go From Here? The path to a free society: ▪ education ▪ direct, bottom-up grassroots action ▪ building alternative institutions to bypass the state
Where Do We Go From Here? We abolish the ruling elite merely by ceasing to support them.
Where to Learn More c 4 ss. org s 4 ss. org
Where to Learn More molinari. co
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