Rothbard on Aristotle’s Doctrine of the Mean Applied to Politics

I was browsing through some old Rothbard articles on LRC, and I came across an old quote that I had been meaning to discuss for a while.  It comes from “The Heresy of Prudence”:

As Mr. Meyer has himself pointed out, the Aristotelian “golden mean” bears no relation to the attempt by hawkers for “moderation” or “prudence” to weaken high principle. Aristotle’s virtues properly apply to cases where more or less of a certain act changes its qualitative merits. Thus, “too little” food and “too much” food are both bad for the individual. But politics is an entirely different matter. For here we are dealing with acts that remain qualitatively identical regardless of number: e.g., the murder of 10 people is the same type of act as the murder of 100. In neither case do we abandon principle. In one, we uphold the rational principle of “optimum food”; in the other, the rational principle of “abstaining from murder.”

I think that, contra Rothbard, the doctrine of the mean can apply to this situation.  Using the Rothbardian defintion of politics, the proper use of force, there can be a deficiency of force: pacifism, by which I mean the lack of any use of force against people or property, even when one is being aggressed agaisnt.  The golden mean would then be self-defense, the use of force in response to aggression (this isn’t to say that abstaining from using force in self-defense is necessarily wrong; it depends on the context).

Of course, Rothbard’s formulation is correct as far as it goes; aggression is bad/wrong, and non-aggression is good/right.  But I think this dialectical reformulation is better for a non-axiomatic conception of the NAP; instead of being a dualism seperated from the rest of ethics, the proper use of force is better reconciled with the other virtues.

Instead of a Blog Post…

“Human Flourishing as the Basis of Thick Libertarianism”, on the Mises forums.  Here’s the OP:

Given the debate occuring in the “The Libertarian Revolution: The Proletariat Revolution?” thread, I thought I would make clear, once and for all, why I think opposing non-aggressive social evils is a necessary part of a truly libertarian politics.

Fundamentally, what I value is eudaimonia, best translated as human flourishing.  It is the actualization of each person’s unique potential, living intelligently, fulfilling one’s natural end as a rational, social, and political animal.  Different goods and habits (virtues) make up one’s eudaimonia, including rationality, pride, productivity, benevolence, etc. (some of the major virtues) and health, wealth, honor, friendship, etc. (some important goods).  The individual weighing of goods and virtues, and what actually constitutes them, is ultimately up to one’s practical reason.

However, one must be in control of their actions for them to be truly good; if you aren’t making decisions for yourself, you aren’t flourishing.  This is because no one can have more knowledge of what constitutes your natural end than yourself; it is dependent on personal attributes that differ from person to person.  Thus, one must be autonomous and in control of one’s actions, just as a precondition (not a guarantee) of flourishing.

This is why aggression is wrong; fundamentally, it is the control of one person over another (you can think of property as being an extension of self in this situation).  By initiating the use of force, or the threat of the use of force, you are imposing yourself on a person and preventing them from flourshing.  What’s more, you yourself are impeding your own flourshing.  As  rational, social, and political animals, humans have the potential to communicate and interact peacefully, and without the use of aggression.  Given that this potential is uniquely human, and a universal part of everyone’s natural end, aggressors, to the extent that they are using aggression, are not flourishing.

However, there is more than just aggression that can comprimise one’s autonomy.  Manifestations of collectivism, such as racism and patriarchy, can also constrain one’s choices in a way that leads one to deviate from one’s natural end, through no fault of their own.  This, of course, cannot be solved through the use of force; that would be aggressive, and acting aggresively, as I stated earlier, is fundamentally not an instance of flourishing.  It can, however, be solved by non-aggressive means, including but not limited to education, economic boycott, and social ostracism.

There are also other related reasons why non-aggressive social evils should be opposed.  For one, they tend to encourage instances of aggression; racist attitudes encourage lynchs, patriarchy encourages rape, and so on.  For utlitiarian reasons, then, one should also oppose such systems.  Also, collectivism (which all social evils are ultimately manifestations of) is fundamentally irrational; by judging people by which arbitrary class they belong to, rather than the quality of their character or what they have to offer you in free association, you are going against your own natural end.

For more, see “A Groundwork for Rights: Man’s Natural End” by Douglas Rasmussen, “Aristotelian Liberalism” by Geoffrey Allan Plauche, and “Libertarianism Through Thick and Thin” by Charles Johnson

New Name

Might as well get right down to it:

I’ve decided to change the name of my blog from “The Examined Life” to “Positive Anarchy”.  I don’t think the old blog title accurately reflects the content of my (rather infrequent) posts; I focus more on social ethics and politics than I had originally intended.  Also, it’s a pretty common title for a blog, and I wanted something that would stand out a little more.

Why “Positive Anarchy”?  Well, I want to focus on what libertarian market anarchism is for, rather than what it is against.  Don’t get me wrong, railing against the state, corporate capitalism, cultural intolerance, and their associated evils is a vital and necessary part of building the new society; I just see a partially-unfilled niche in applying the principles of market anarchism and left-libertarianism to what a free, flourshing society can and should be.

Also, I hope that the name change will spur me to finish some of my draft posts.

An Apology and a Promotion

First of all, I apologize for not posting for a while.  I have several pretty good starts at substantional posts, so I’ll try and get some of those up and ready soon.

Second, due to the recent nastiness involving Bureaucrash and the Competitive Enterprise Institute (here, here, and here for more), a new, post-Bureaucrash social network for liberty activism has been started, spearheaded by the (in)famous stateless agorist Mike Gogulski, FR33 Agents, so join today!  You may also notice that I have removed Bureaucrash from my links, and added FR33 Agents.

Gil Guillory on Private Security

A belated announcement:

Libertarian entrepreneur and Molinari Institute Research Associate Gil Guillory has an excellent podcast on private security start-ups (what he calls subscription patrol and restitution, or SPR) on the Libertarian Christians blog.  It is an excellent example of what could be called white market agorism (although perhaps a redefinition of grey market is in order…).  Required listening!

(more on SPR here)

A Brief Observation

Has anyone else noticed that socially conservative athiests tend to be libertarians?  I think every person who fits that description that I know or know of is a libertarian of some sort or another.  Odd.

In other news, I’m working on a couple of posts on dialectical solutions to various pressing problems, so stay tuned!

Bob Barr On Why You Should Trust The State

Over at Austro-Athenian Empire, Roderick Long writes about a recent article by Bob Barr, in which he bemoans the fact that people are losing faith in the US government.  Yes, you read that correctly.  Yes, he was the “Libertarian” Party candidate for president in ‘08.  If this isn’t clinching evidence that the “L”P (at least the LNC) is now a mouthpiece for “free-market” conservatives, and that libertarian electoral politics is a bad joke at best and counter-revolutionary at worst, I don’t know what is.  Partyarchy for the fail.

A Meta-Defense of Mutualism

Often in ancap circles, one finds criticisms of the specific recommendations of mutualism, especially the idea of occupancy/use as being the basis of property.  However, I think that some of these criticisms somewhat miss the point, and I thought I would do everyone the pleasure of clarifying the debate.  I myself am not a mutualist, although my views are heavily influenced by Tucker and Carson, and I think that the principle of mutuality can be integrated within an Aristotelian liberal approach, as part of the virtue of justice.

A common argument against the occupancy and use standard is a reductio ad absurdum: one often finds the example of a man holding a piano.  He can do anything he wants with it, as long as he doesn’t put it down and leave, because he would have relinquished his claim to it.  I think that this misses the point, for several reasons.

First off, the mutualist approach to property is purely consequentialist; there is nothing inherent to mutualism that demands that occupancy and use is the only standard by with property is to be judged.  By contrast, most ancaps take a partially or completely deontological approach to property, and derive it from first principles (part of the issue also stems from the tendency of some ancaps to take property rights out of their proper context).  Thus, from the ancap’s perspective, it makes sense to use the reductio mentioned above as a condemnation of mutualism as a whole, while the mutualist will think it a strawman.

The actual mutualist position is that rules for property acquisition and abandonment will follow the general social consensus.  Occupancy and use is upheld because it is thought to be the best general standard (whether it is or not is another issue entirely), but the way that it is applied will follow what people think is fair and just.  Thus, a squatter who moves in to your house while you go out for groceries almost certainly won’t be considered the rightful owner; that’s not fair or just, and it wouldn’t have the best consequences for society in general.  (And to anyone concerned about the use of the word “social consensus”, just substitute “common law”.)

Also, the differences between occupancy/use and neo-Lockean property rules are often overblown.  They are differences of degree, not of kind; there are just different standards of what constitutes abandonment and acquisition.  In Anarchotopia, I would expect that different jurisdictions and communities would have different property rules, ranging from mutualist to neo-Lockean to proviso Lockean and geolibertarian, and mixes of them.  Roderick Long’s Land-Locked in the JLS issue on Mutualist Politcal Economy, and Carson’s rejoinders in the same issue, are good further reading.  Also, an old post of mine on the paralells between Douglas B. Rasmussen & Douglas J. Den Uyl and Kevin Carson on the philosophy of property rights.

TANSTAFC!

I just discovered this gem of an image gallery on Flickr, put up by Bureaucrash.  My favorite:

I lol’d.

Localism and Globalism in the Libertarian Left

Rad Geek People’s Daily has been the host of a very interesting conversation (links here, here, and here) about localism and globalism within the libertarian left (hat tip to Roderick Long).  To throw in my belated $0.02, I find myself in agreement with Rad Geek, in that the solution to the problem is dialectical; that is, localist communities can be accommodated within a globalist framework without contradiction.  I think that Carson’s localist view is a pretty good prediction of what society will look like immediately post-state, before large-scale, truly voluntary associations can develop (and, ironically, it would probably provide an equal or higher standard of living than the current state-capitalist system, given how much wealth and productivity the ruling class sucks up).  Ultimately, though, I think that large-scale institutions and organizations will develop (think Proudhon and his “association of associations”), and a more extensive division of labor, either through entrepreneurs figuring out clever, non-statist solutions to the problem of high-tonnage, long-distance transportation, or through technology (nanotech, virtual reality, etc.) making the problem irrelevant (or a combination of both).  As far as the rest goes, I think Rad Geek said it best:

When I have my hoverbike, I’ll use it for a lot of things, and one of the things I hope to be able to do is to fly through uncountable different neighborhoods within the gleaming metropolis. Don’t forget that even New Tokyo will have neighborhoods, or at least I hope it will, because a city with no neighborhoods isn’t worth a damn. The always-ready hyperlocal holographic social networking mapping mash-up that shimmers into existence over my hoverbike dash will help me find landmarks and fascinating holes-in-the-wall and the good old hang-outs and the hot new things, with help from the interwoven knowledge of friends, visitors, and longtime locals. Some of the neighborhoods may be glass and steel; others may be orchards and wheat fields and villages; others campus gothic spires, grassy quads and libraries; others may be permaculture cities of green roofs and hanging gardens. They will speak many different languages; some will be young and others old; some will be slow and stable over time, and others will be frenetic and constantly changing. Some may be stable in structure while constantly changing in population (think of a University campus), and others may be exactly the reverse (think of an indie rock scene). Which ones are the best to visit, or to live in, will depend on the circumstances of life for each of us. (What you want by way of stability or surroundings when you’re 50 may be different from what you want when you’re 19. What I want at 27 may be different from what you want at 27. What I want in the summer may be different from what I want in the fall.) And that’s what’s beautiful about it. It’s the neighborhoods that makes the city glorious. But without the city, and the hoverbikes to fly through it, there wouldn’t be the neighborhoods, either. There would only be warehouses, deserts, and fortresses.  (source)