The Nature of the State and Why Libertarians Hate It

Anti-Statism, Libertarian Theory, Statism
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Rothbard described Mencken as “The Joyous Libertarian,” a label that could also be applied to Rothbard himself, called by Justin Raimondo “the happy scholar-warrior of liberty.” Yet Rothbard also famously said “hatred is my muse”. By this he meant, I think, hatred of the state and all manifestations of statism. Anti-statism is an essential aspect of libertarianism–anarchists oppose the entire state, root and branch, while minarchists oppose all of the modern state save for a tiny core of vital functions.

One of the most important thinkers on the nature of the state was Franz Oppenheimer, who distinguished between the economic means and the political means, and defined the state as the organization of the political means. As Hans-Hermann Hoppe explains in his superb Anarcho-Capitalism: An Annotated Bibliography:

Franz Oppenheimer is a left-anarchist German sociologist. In The State he distinguishes between the economic (peaceful and productive) and the political (coercive and parasitic) means of wealth acquisition, and explains the state as instrument of domination and exploitation.

As Oppenheimer wrote in his classic work The State:

I mean by [the “State”] that summation of privileges and dominating positions which are brought into being by extra economic power. And in contrast to this, I mean by Society, the totality of concepts of all purely natural relations and institutions between man and man …. [from the Introduction]

There are two fundamentally opposed means whereby man, requiring sustenance, is impelled to obtain the necessary means for satisfying his desires. These are work and robbery, one’s own labor and the forcible appropriation of the labor of others. … I propose … to call one’s own labor and the equivalent exchange of one’s own labor for the labor of others “the economic means” for the satisfaction of needs, while the unrequited appropriation of the labor of others will be called the “political means.” … The state is an organization of the political means. [Ch. 1]

Rothbard was also heavily influenced by Oppenheimer, writing in The Ethics of Liberty:

If the state, then, is a vast engine of institutionalized crime and aggression, the “organization of the political means” to wealth, then this means that the State is a criminal organization. …

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Security, Identification, and the State

Immigration, Libertarian Theory, Police Statism, Private Crime, Private Security & Law, Technology, Victimless Crimes
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The fact that the state is deeply imbedded in the production of security and identification makes clear thinking on these matters difficult.

Some people think that since the use of identification cards is ubiquitous in transactions of almost every stripe (rent a car, borrow a book, borrow money or get a credit card, sign a contract, drive a car, rent videos, etc.) that libertarians are just bonkers to insist that people have a right to withhold tendering ID to a police officer. So, let us draw distinctions that matter.

When you provide ID to a private party, you have a choice NOT to provide ID. Since those parties are subject to competition, they only require ID as a condition of doing business if it’s necessary. That’s why you have to provide ID to get credit, to rent something (unless you provide a deposit of money), or when paying by check; but, you don’t have to give ID when buying groceries, eating out at a restaurant, or going to the movies.

The state proclaims ownership over roads, and sets all policies on those roads. For this reason, it was the state that came to be the issuer of drivers’ licenses, which claim to serve as proof that the driver is competent to drive and that the driver has corrected or uncorrected vision of a certain standard. Since almost every adult in the US has a driver’s license, they have also come to be used by many private companies as definitive proof of identification, and are also used by police for the same purpose.

Technological advances in computing and printing have made counterfeiting of IDs less costly and more successful, especially in the last decade. It is well known that just about any 19 year-old college student can get a fake ID to drink.

When the state requires the presentation of identifying documents (or more broadly, an inquiry into the identification of someone), some purposes are legitimate, but most are illegitimate. This is because some of what the state does is legitimate, but most of what it does is illegitimate.

On the legitimate side of the register, it deploys police to patrol to prevent crime, respond to crimes, and nab the bad guys. In the course of nabbing a bad guy, they “book” him, which is a procedure of identification (taking fingerprints and pictures, finding out where he lives by asking for a driver’s license, etc.). Of course, private security can and does nab bad guys, too. They don’t typically do the “booking” of a bad guy because they are required by law to turn him over to the state.

On the illegitimate side of the register, the state enforces a number of malum prohibitum offenses. Among these are the supposed crime of living and/or working in a country without the state’s permission and possessing contraband. Both of these supposed crimes are difficult to enforce, since they are victimless crimes. Because of this, states have evolved low standards of detention and search of people, including the requirement to show ID to officers.

Nowhere is this farce more ludicrous than in the crackdown on security at airports since the September 11, 2001 attacks. IDs are now checked 2, 3, or 4 times in the course of checking in, entering a screening area, passing through a metal detector, and boarding a plane, all with a government-issued ID — either a driver’s license or a passport. Even people as young as me, now 39, can remember a time (before the TWA flight 800 disaster) when showing ID at an airport was not even done once. This hyper-scrutiny of ID documents assumes that the IDs shown are not fakes, which is not at all a credible assumption.

Likewise, with the recent passage of the unjust law Arizona SB 1070, I expect that the industry of producing fake IDs will boom. Who will benefit? Well, some good guys will benefit, being able to evade the state’s crackdown on the non-crime of illegal immigration. But the burgeoning industry will probably cause the cost of fake IDs to fall, giving lots of bad guys these benefits as well.

So, SB1070 will probably cause an increase in “identity theft” and other acts of fraud.

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Milquetoast: How Bland Titles Let Authors Act Like Kids and Undermine Democracy

Humor, Vulgar Politics
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You’ve seen this story about a thousand times by now. Hard-hitting author pulls no punches in his/her newest book which exposes the elite for the scum they are.

That’s right: ‘ECONned’ blames economists for financial disaster! How bold, how daring!

My favorite part of this piece of ideological tripe is its title, which you have also seen about a thousand times before: ECONned: How Unenlightened Self Interest Damaged Democracy and Corrupted Capitalism. Is anyone in America not sick of this formulation by now? “Catchphrase: How This Thing I Hate is Stupid and Did Some Things I Disapprove Of.” Granted, these authors have absolutely nothing new to say, so it behooves them to give their best effort on the cover of the book.

But seriously, authors, how about we lighten up on how seriously we take our books. Not only will no one care about them in three years, but it’s not like they are even standing out in the market anymore. In less than twenty minutes of searching on Amazon I came up with these titles:

  • God’s Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn’t Get It
  • Bright-sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America
  • The Great Risk Shift: The New Economic Insecurity and the Decline of the American Dream
  • Gusher of Lies: The Dangerous Delusions of “Energy Independence”
  • Seeds of Terror: How Heroin Is Bankrolling the Taliban and al Qaeda
  • One Nation, Underprivileged: Why American Poverty Affects Us All
  • Broken Government: How Republican Rule Destroyed the Legislative, Executive, and Judicial Branches
  • Big Lies : The Right-Wing Propaganda Machine and How It Distorts the Truth
  • The Republican Noise Machine: Right-Wing Media and How It Corrupts Democracy
  • The Eliminationists: How Hate Talk Radicalized the American Right
  • Perfectly Legal: The Covert Campaign to Rig Our Tax System to Benefit the Super Rich–and Cheat Everybody Else
  • What’s the Matter with Kansas?: How Conservatives Won the Heart of America
  • Wingnuts: How the Lunatic Fringe is Hijacking America
  • Guilty: Liberal “Victims” and Their Assault on America
  • Tear Down This Myth: How the Reagan Legacy Has Distorted Our Politics and Haunts Our Future
  • Idiot America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free
  • The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned Into a War on American Ideals
  • The Myth of a Christian Nation: How the Quest for Political Power Is Destroying the Church
  • The New Color Line: How Quotas and Privilege Destroy Democracy
  • Tragedy & Farce: How the American Media Sell Wars, Spin Elections, and Destroy Democracy
  • Common Nonsense: Glenn Beck and the Triumph of Ignorance
  • Tears of a Clown: Glenn Beck and the Tea Bagging of America
  • The Raw Deal: How the Bush Republicans Plan to Destroy Social Security and the Legacy of the New Deal
  • Monsters to Destroy: The Neoconservative War on Terror and Sin
  • Obama Zombies: How the Liberal Machine Brainwashed My Generation
  • Power Grab: How Obama’s Green Policies Will Steal Your Freedom and Bankrupt America
  • Over the Cliff: How Obama’s Election Drove the American Right Insane
  • Obamanomics: How Barack Obama Is Bankrupting You and Enriching His Wall Street Friends, Corporate Lobbyists, and Union Bosses

. . . and I was nowhere near exhausting the supply of titles bearing this meme. I really despise this fad in publishing and writing, as should all true Americans. In fact, you can pretty much live by this rule of thumb: any book containing this kind of trope for its title is not worth reading, period.

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Immigrants: Intruders or Guests?

Immigration
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Since there has been much talk about Arizona’s recent passing of its controversial immigration law, I thought it a perfect time to announce that the latest edition of the Journal of Libertarian Studies features an article that Albert Esplugas and I have written on immigration. The title is “Immigrants: Intruders or Guests? A Reply to Hoppe and Kinsella.”

(Stephan Kinsella’s views appear to have changed since this piece was written a few years ago. Indeed, he is now pro-immigration and pro-open borders.)

The same edition of the JLS (Vol.22 Num.1) contains another article on the issue: “A Pure Libertarian Theory of Immigration” by Jan Krepelka; it appears to be a critique of the major arguments against free immigration.

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Movie Review: Ninja Assassin

Education, Fiction Reviews (Movies), Pop Culture, Statism, The Basics
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First of all, I found the title of the movie to be redundant from the get-go. The action scenes are mostly way over the top. The gore insanely so. Swords and other blades slice through body parts, even cutting men in half at the waist, as if they were hot knives slicing through butter. Ninja stars fly from hands like they are being fired from a machine gun. They even have chemtrails. Blood fountains and splatters by the bucket load. Our ninja hero takes dozens of lethal wounds, losing gallons of blood, and not only lives to tell about it but keeps on fighting. There is a bit of super-speed blurred movement and mind-over-body self-healing, so the movie is something of a fantasy action thriller. We’re treated to the cliché of the hero being down for the count, about to be killed, when someone he cares about is attacked and suddenly he discovers renewed vitality and determination and, inexplicably, an unbelievable (that’s saying a lot for this movie) leap in skill level.

For all that, I found Ninja Assassin to be entertaining. The action scenes are well-done and stylish. And I particularly liked the parkour–inspired sequences. The plot is interesting and tightly executed. The story even has a couple of  elements of interest to libertarians. There are a number of ninja clans that kidnap orphan children and train them to be assassins, indoctrinating them with the belief that the lives of individuals are valueless compared to that of the clan, which is one big family to which they owe unquestioning and unwavering loyalty and obedience. The ninja clans apparently act as secret private contractors for governments around the world, assassinating targets for 100 lbs. of gold. Our ninja hero is one particularly promising pupil of the Ozunu clan. He buys into the propaganda at first, but falls for a pretty young girl, a fellow trainee, who does not. She attempts to escape, and is recaptured and executed in front of all the ninjas-in-training as an example. When he is later faced with killing another girl, whom he is told has similarly betrayed the clan, as the final requirement of becoming a full member of the clan, he refuses and is nearly killed. The bulk of the movie is about his quest for revenge against the Ozunu clan with the help of a female government agent.

Though it is a classic revenge tale, the negative portrayal of coercive and aggressive collectivism is a nice touch. The notion that the individual should be subservient to and acquires his value and ultimate end from The Collective, whatever it be named (the Family, the Clan, the Tribe, the Race, the Nation or State), is an insidious sickness. It that permeates the communitarian classical republicanism of Rome (as I explain in my working paper “Roman Virtue, Liberty, and Imperialism: The Murder-Suicide of Classical Civilization” (pdf)), which, along with classical liberalism, with which it is in tension due to the conflict with the latter’s inherent individualism, was one of the major influences on the so-called Founding Fathers of the United States of America. It is also inherent in nationalism and, of course, the modern collectivist political movements of our age. At the risk of being redundant, a truly libertarian and civilized society exists for each and every individual’s own well-being – not the other way round.

Cross-posted at Is-Ought GAP.

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