“It is unfortunately none too well understood that, just as the State has no money of its own, so it has no power of its own. All the power it has is what society gives it, plus what it confiscates from time to time on one pretext or another; there is no other source from which State power can be drawn.” ~ Albert Jay Nock
My recent post on the GM-loan-gate has, thus far, generated some interesting feedback and at least one or more epic discussions on various social networking sites. Aside from enjoying my joke, several people commented on the paragraphs which highlighted several talking points which have troubled me over the last few years. This one in particular, on immigration, seemed to generate the most feedback:
“Illegal immigration represents a danger to the future of the U.S.” (The U.S. didn’t even have a comprehensive set of regulations on immigration until 1952. The Constitution doesn’t even mention immigration in those terms. Hell, damned-near everyone in the U.S. except for the people who were already here when America was “discovered” is an immigrant or descended from one anyway. Here’s my question: When does an immigrant become a visitor or a guest?)
It might be that since Arizona—and Arizona’s governor is currently in the news—that the issue is particularly hot, which therefore made the discussions far-ranging. Immigration policy generally seems to be a hot-button. Having written several pieces on immigration, I admit that the subject fascinates me, but something about these recent debates, particularly among libertarians, has intrigued me even more.
One is often tempted to attack the objections to open borders directly, as did I and a number of guests on a recent radio show. And certainly many of these objections seem ripe for attacking. By the way, are bumper stickers with “every Mexican who comes to the U.S. illegally is only 15 minutes from welfare” being passed out? I would hate to miss out on my chances to get one. Just as popular, but new to me is this one: “In Los Angeles, 98% of convicted murderers are illegal aliens.” Uh-oh! Better raise the fence! It strikes me that anyone who thinks welfare is an enticement for immigration must have never visited their local department of social services. Take the worst parts of the DMV and add in ample portions of emasculation and denigration and you’re starting to get close, but it’s still worse than that, on good days.
It occurs to me—finally—that one needs to take a step back to even begin to understand this issue. For example, of what value is a border? Specifically, why does the United States have a border and why is it so necessary to maintain it? Hopefully examining this more general issue will yield insight into the specific issue—and current political hot-button—illegal immigration of Mexicans. Let us explore a couple of examples, one simple and one a little more complex.
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Many left-anarchists are fairly civilized. But many others are not. An ex-vegan was going to give an anti-vegetarianism speech at an anarchist book fair in San Francisco, and these criminals threw cayenne-laced pies at her. What completely indefensible behavior. These people might want to bring down state power, but I don’t know that we’d be better off being ruled by them than the current power elite.
One reason “anarchism” — the rejection of the state or, more generally, the rejection of authority—is not enough can be seen in the way left-anarchists often violate private property or even commit acts of personal violence against political enemies. Property rights and the non-aggression axiom are key. Anarchism is best seen as the logical consequence of libertarianism, grounded in property and self-ownership, rather than being an end in itself. All radical libertarians should be anarchists. But not all anarchists are truly libertarians.
Of course, even private criminality would be infinitely more tolerable than the state, and certainly this is the case in a relatively civilized culture that can handle some deviants here and there, as ours can. Indeed, the fact that America is relatively civil despite the state doing everything to undermine civil society—through war, drug prohibition, gun control, welfare, public schools, etc.—demonstrates the workability of anarchy. But culture must come first to maintain any free or even civilized society. And on the question of culture, many left-anarchists are on the wrong side. They would reduce us to tribalism, primitivism and chaos. By the way, I am not talking about the mutualists or pro-market, pro-law left-anarchists. I’m not talking about Tuckerites or followers of Proudhon. These people all have views on social order and economics than differ from mine, but at least they believe in society and tend to oppose violence against the innocent. I am talking about the social anarchists even to the “left” of these folks, who have no love of the market, no respect for property at all, no compunctions about watching the world burn.
Perhaps in a sense they are the true “anarchists”—opposed to all order, hierarchy and law, not just statism—whereas the strictly anti-statist meaning of anarchism is the actual misnomer. But on the other hand, how can one be against order and hierarchy altogether? Even to be philosophically opposed to hierarchy puts hierarchy below disorder, thus bolstering a hierarchy of ideas. The extremist anarchists oppose all social conventions and norms, and even language and technology. You can read about it on their websites. This kind of anarchism is incoherent and contradictory, even if it is more true to the etymology of the word “anarchism.” But anarcho-libertarianism, anchored in private property rights and non-aggression, is far more achievable, humane and civilized, and eschews the type of aggression we often see left-anarchists personally involved in.
