Stateless Prisons

Containing Danger without Enslaving Citizens
By Stefan Molyneux, MA
Host, Freedomain Radio - www.freedomainradio.com

One of the great challenges of anarchistic philosophy is the challenge of prisons, or the physical restraint of violent criminals. I have dealt with this topic once before, but I am still receiving numerous requests for clarifications on how a stateless society might deal with violent criminals. So - let us examine the punitive mechanisms that might exist in the absence of a coercive state system.

Firstly, we can assume that in the absence of a state, private protection agencies (called here DROs, for Dispute Resolution Organizations) will necessarily band together to deny the advantages of a modern economic life to those individuals who egregiously harm their fellow citizens. Such necessities as bank accounts, credit, transportation, lodging, food and so on, can all be withheld from those who have been proven to have committed violent crimes. Also, in a stateless society, since there is no such thing as ‘public’ property, violent criminals would have a tough time getting anywhere, since roads, parks, forests and so on would all be owned privately. Anybody providing aid or comfort to a person convicted of a violent crime would face a withdrawal of services and protections from their own DRO, and so would avoid giving such help.

However, this solution alone has not been sufficient for some people, who still feel that sociopathic and violent criminals need to be physically restrained or imprisoned for society to be safe.

First of all, before tackling this issue, I would like to point out that if the problem of violent sociopaths is very extensive, then surely any moral justifications for the existence of a state become that much more untenable. If society literally swarms with evil people, then those evil people will surely overwhelm the state, the police, and the military, and prey upon legally disarmed citizens to their hearts content. If, however, there are very few evil people, then we surely do not need a state to protect us from such a tiny problem. In other words, if there are a lot of evil people, we cannot have a state - and if there are few evil people, then we do not need a state.

However, let us imagine what happens to a rapist in a stateless society. All general DRO contracts will include ‘rape protection’, since DROs will want to avoid incurring the medical, psychological and income costs of a rape for one of their own customers. Part of ‘rape protection’ will be the provision of significant financial restitution to a rape victim. (Women who can’t afford ‘rape protection’ will be subsidized by charities - or lawyers will represent them pro bono in return for a cut of the restitution.)

If a woman gets raped, she then applies to her DRO for restitution. The DRO then finds her rapist - using the most advanced forensic techniques available - and sends an agent to knock on his door.

“Good morning, sir,” the agent will say. “You have been charged with rape, and I'm here to inform you of your options. We wish to make this process as painless and non-intrusive as possible for you, and so will schedule a trial at the time of your earliest convenience. If you do not attend this trial, or testify falsely, or attempt to flee, we shall apply significant sanctions against you, which are outlined in your existing DRO contract. Our agreement with your bank allows us to freeze your assets - except for basic living and legal expenses - the moment that you are charged with a violent crime. We also have agreements with airlines, road, bus and train companies to prevent you from leaving town until this matter is resolved.

“You can represent yourself in this trial, choose from one of our lawyers, or we will pay for any lawyer you prefer, at standard rates. Also, as per our existing contract, we are to be allowed access to your home for purposes of investigation. You are free to deny us this access, of course, but then we shall assume that you are guilty of the crime, and will apply all the sanctions allowed to us by contract.

“If you are found to be innocent of this crime, we will pay you the sum of twenty thousand dollars, to be funded by the woman who has charged you with rape. We will also offer free psychological counseling for you, in order to help you avoid such accusers in the future.”

The trial will commence, and will return a verdict in due course.

If the man is found guilty, he will receive another visit from his DRO representative.

“Good afternoon, sir,” the agent will say. “You have been found guilty of rape, and I'm here to inform you of your punishment. We have a reciprocal agreement with your bank, which has now closed down your accounts, and transferred the money to us. We will be deducting double the costs of our investigation and trial from your funds, and will also be transferring half a million dollars to the woman you have raped. We also have reciprocal agreements with the companies that provide water and electricity to your house, and those will now be cut off. Furthermore, no gas station will sell you gasoline, and no train station, airline or bus company will sell you a ticket. We have made arrangements with all of the local grocery stores to deny you service, either in person or online. If you set foot on the street outside your house, which is owned privately, you will be physically removed for trespassing.

“Of course, you have the right to appeal this sentence, and if you successfully appeal, we would transfer our costs to the woman who has accused you of rape, and pay you well for the inconvenience we have caused you. If, however, your appeal fails, all additional costs will be added to your debt.

“I can tell you openly that if you choose to stay in your house, you will be unable to survive very long. You will run out food and water very quickly. You can attempt to escape your own house, of course, leaving all of your possessions, and try to make it to some wilderness area. If you do successfully escape, be aware that you are now entered into a central registry, and no reputable DRO will ever represent you. Furthermore, all DROs which have reciprocal agreements with us - which is the vast majority of them - will withdraw services from their own customers if those customers provide you with any goods or services. You will never be able to open a bank account, use centralized currency, carry a credit card, own a car, buy gas, use a road, use any other form of transportation - and gaining food, water and lodging will be a constant nightmare for you. You will spend your entire life running, hiding and begging, and will never find peace, solace or comfort in any place.

“However, there is an option. If you come with me, we will take you to a place of work for a period of five years. During that time, you will be working for us in a capacity which will be determined by your skills. If you do not have any viable skills, we will train you. Your wages will go to us, and we will deduct the costs of your incarceration, as well as any of the costs I outlined above which are not covered by your existing funds. A small amount of your wages will be set aside to help get you started after your release.

“During your stay with us, we will help you, because we do not want to have to go through all of this again with you in the future. You will take courses on ethics. You will take courses on anger management. You will take psychological counseling. You will emerge from your incarceration a far better person. And when you do emerge, all of your full rights will be restored, and you will be able to fully participate once more in the economic and social life of society.

“You have a choice now, and I want you to understand the full ramifications of that choice. If you come with me now, this is the best offer that I can give you. If you decide to stay in your house, and later change your mind, the penalties will be far greater. If you escape, and later change your mind, the penalties will be far greater still. In our experience, 99.99% of people who either run or stay end up changing their minds, and end up that much worse off. The remaining 0.01? Oh, they commit suicide.

“The choice is now yours. Do the right thing. Do the wise thing. Come with me now.”


Can we really imagine that anyone would choose to stay in their own house and die of thirst, unable to even flush their toilet? Can we imagine that anyone would choose a life of perpetual running and hiding and begging? Even if the rapist had no interest in becoming a better person, surely the cost/benefit of the options outlined above would convince him!

There will always be a small number of truly evil or insane people within society. There are far, far better ways of dealing with them than our existing system of dehumanizing, brutal and destructive state gulags, which generally serve only to expand their criminal skills and contacts. Also, it is important to remember that the existing state prisons have barely any evil or insane people in them! The vast majority of those in jail are nonviolent offenders, enslaved and in chains because they used recreational drugs, or gambled, or went to a prostitute, or didn't pay all their taxes, or other such innocuous nonsense – or turned to crime because state ‘vice’ prohibitions made crime so profitable!

Our choice, then, is between a system which removes the tiny minority of evil people from society, rehabilitates them if possible, and makes them work productively to support their own confinement - or a state system which spends most of its time and energies enslaving innocent people, while letting the evil and insane roam free.

A Free Society and the Ethics Of Emergencies

By Stefan Molyneux, MA
Host, Freedomain Radio – www.freedomainradio.com

A free society is by its very nature based on negative rights – i.e., thou shalt not rather than thou shalt. One common opposition to these negative rights is the ‘saving strangers’ scenario often advanced by statists.

In this moral parable, an onlooker sees a man who is drowning, and has to decide whether to dive in and save him or not. If this onlooker calmly watches the man drown, this is generally considered to be a very bad thing, and creates a first instance of a ‘positive right’ which claims that the onlooker is morally obligated to do something to save the drowning man. Behold, sayeth the statist – here we have an example of a positive right!

From this ‘thin edge of the wedge’ are created a plethora of positive rights such as forced taxation, the welfare state, the right to a job and health care, and all of the other convoluted and destructive messes of modern state programs.

Thus it is probably worth spending a few minutes discussing how the ‘Saving Strangers Scenario’ (SSS) would play out in a truly free society – i.e., a society without a centralized and coercive government.

Objection #1: Priorities, priorities, priorities…
Surely, as taxation and regulation climb into the stratosphere, as the brutality of Western foreign policy reaches a new low, and as the national debt (and large parts of the Middle East) explode – surely, there are slightly more important ethical issues to discuss then how we should deal with a theoretical drowning man that we will almost certainly never encounter. I have never run into an SSS in my life – and don’t know anyone who ever has – thus I would like to suggest that we turn our attention to more immediate moral matters. Given the current state of affairs, focusing on this issue is like being trapped in a burning building and worrying about being hit by a meteor. Thus, if people ask us to spend an inordinate amount of time on this issue, we may, I think, politely decline.

Objection #2: General Human Kindness
Whenever I stop my car to ask for directions, I am generally optimistic that people are going to do their best to try and help me, based on the fact that most people are very kind. I often read news reports about strangers helping other strangers out of difficult situations – sometimes even in the face of excessive personal risk. I have never once read a news article describing an easily-preventable death which occurred among a crowd of able onlookers who did nothing to stop it. (I have occasionally read of people deciding against interrupting a mugging, but I find that hard to condemn, since risking injury or death for merely material possessions seems rather unwise!)

Thus, the SSS seems a rather artificial argument, based on the probabilities of occurrence and the kindness of the average person. Certainly as a justification for the existence of a centralized state it seems particularly flimsy!

Objection #3: Show Me The Money!
Obviously, for the SSS to be solvable at all, someone has to be willing to dive in and save the drowning man. Given that in this scenario, the cold and sociopathic onlooker is usually considered to be a real risk, it seems hard to understand exactly what the alternatives would be. If people in general do not care about the dangers that other people are experiencing, then it makes no sense to create a universal monopoly of force which is supposed to ‘take care’ of those in danger – precisely because those ‘cold and sociopathic’ people will run state programs as well!

If people do care, then the only other possible reason that they would not intervene is because they would not gain materially by doing so. In other words, people will act if, like policeman and firemen, they would be well paid to intervene in the SSS scenario.

If payment is the issue, a free society solves it very nicely! Obviously, a company which owns a beach would lose business if its customers kept drowning. Thus this company would doubtless hire lifeguards and string buoys and warn of riptides and restrict swimming during dangerous times and so on. Thus it would be very unlikely that anyone would be allowed to drown without at least some company representative trying to save them! (As far as monetary rewards go, the beach owner would simply pay a bonus to anyone who saved a customer, just as banks pay a bonus to any teller involved in a bank robbery.)

All right, but what about a man hiking in the wilderness who spies a woman drowning and there is no one else around to save her? And what if the only possible incentive he would respond to would be monetary rewards? And what if he (for some strange reason) did not think that the woman would ever pay him any money for saving her life? Would he just then let her drown? Is that why we have a government?

Well, as I have mentioned in my previous articles, in the absence of the state, Dispute Resolution Organizations (DROs) will spring up to mediate altercations between people and to ensure their safety. Just about everybody in a free society would be represented by some form of DRO – including the woman drowning in some remote mountain stream with a cold-blooded man standing by who only will only save her if he is rewarded financially!

Now, if the woman does drown, then her DRO is out a lot of money – death benefits, loss of future customer revenue, and so on. Thus it seems likely that DROs will be more than happy to pay good money to anyone who saves one of their customers from death, injury, or even fraud!

In this way, even the extreme (and frankly ridiculous) situation outlined above will be neatly solved in a free society. Thus there is no practical reason why the SSS should ever be the basis of an argument for positive rights – and thus one more support for the moral justification for government can be gently removed!

The Predatory Escalation of ‘Immigration Policies’

Problems and Solutions

By Stefan Molyneux, MA

Host, Freedomain Radio – www.freedomainradio.com

The current controversy over immigration obscures – as most current controversies do – the depth and scale of the moral problem that is ‘immigration control’.

Even the word ‘immigration’ is specious, since what is merely being described is ‘moving’. Moving from New York to Houston requires no permission from the government – moving from Toronto to Buffalo does. The difference? Artificial boundaries of course – the territory marked out by one gang of predatory politicians versus another.

Can you imagine that, if you wanted to move from NY to Houston, you had to spend months or years on paperwork to wait for some official to give you the arbitrary thumbs-up or thumbs-down? Can you imagine having to spend thousands of dollars on ‘moving lawyers’ and having to completely re-prove your profession credentials and not being allowed to work for the first few months or years in Houston? Wouldn’t that be strange, maddening, ridiculous and wasteful beyond words?

And what gives one man the right to say to another man: thou shalt/shalt not live here? Is this a universal human right? Can I assert it as well? If not, why do politicians claim moral rights that directly oppose my rights? How can that be justified? How can a country composed almost entirely of immigrants dare to claim the moral right to close the gate to newcomers?

Of course, the primary culprit/excuse is the assortment of State programs which illegal immigrants can ‘take advantage’ of; such as welfare, Medicaid, public education and so on. In a free society, people have nothing to fear from immigrants, who must work or rely on private charity to survive, and who bring all the enormous needs inherent in those starting over in life: a house, education, furniture etc. The resultant increase in the demand for goods and services only helps stimulate the economy.

But, since government controls always leads to more government controls, we get immigration fascism nicely bundled with income redistribution programs.

Sadly, none of this is ever mentioned in contemporary debates, which always focus on the degree of immigration laws required, not whether they should exist or not at all. Current proposed legislation on Capitol Hill would instantly turn 12 million ‘undocumented Americans’ (quite a contradiction!) into felons. Also, priests, nuns, health care and social workers would be forbidden to help these poor souls. Being a ‘good Samaritan’ may just become illegal.

Why is all this occurring? In my opinion, for a number of reasons. Governments always need a crisis to expand their powers, and terrorists are proving uncooperative. So what’s next? Well, the ‘immigration crisis’ will enfold just like all other state ‘crises’, with all the same completely predictable results.

Step One: Crisis Creation

This has already been achieved. The Bush administration has kept this pot nicely bubbling on the back burner for years. Now is the time. ‘Seal the borders’ becomes the cry, and the Constitution shrivels just that little bit more, taking one of its final steps in its journey towards becoming an empty historical artifact.

Step Two: The ‘Mercy’ Compromise (aka preparation for escalation)

After sufficient protests, the government will ‘take a step back’ and offer some combination of warning and amnesty. The legislation will give 6-18 months advance warning, and those already here will be offered an amnesty of some sort.

Step Three: Inevitable Escalation

Naturally, as soon as talk of deferment and amnesty starts in earnest, there will be a massive stampede into the US. Just about anyone who has ever even contemplated immigration will be jolted into action, to get into the promised land before the steel door comes crashing down. Not only may they get the offered benefits, but if they get in before the gate comes down, they will face far less competition in the future from others like them. The existing ‘underground network’ of human movement will expand mightily to accommodate the new influx, which will be important later.

Step Four: Inevitable Backlash

As the stampede begins, the ‘immigration problem’ suddenly becomes an acute crisis. Endless footage of the stampede is run on TV. Frightening statistics are trotted out.

Ominous ‘doom music’ plays to shots of squalid immigrant living conditions. Many children and old people will be shown, with endless dire warnings about how their needs will ‘stretch the fabric of the social safety net to breaking point’. Angry and unemployed immigrant youth will be shown loafing around or doing nasty deeds. The police will start raiding immigrant enclaves. There will be some resistance. Cars will be burned. A cop will get injured by some cornered and desperate person. Patience runs out. Calls to action are made! Finally – presto! – fully worked-out legislation magically appears, just as in the Patriot Act – probably called the ‘Welcome Mat Act’ (WMA).

Step Five: Carding

The WMA legislation will require the creation of a massive new bureaucracy – and will set conditions under which the army can be stationed along the border, which will be quickly achieved. National ID cards will come into being – deferred for two or three years, just so no one gets too excited in the moment. All of this will be regretful but sadly necessary, in order to preserve the ‘strength of the Union’.

Step Six: ‘Progress’

As soon as these measures are implemented, there will be a magical ‘reduction’ in the prevalence (read: reporting) of illegal immigration. “You see?” the president will crow. “It’s working beautifully.” It will all be a lie of course. Making a genuinely-desired freedom illegal just drives it further underground, out of sight of the authorities.

Step Seven: Corruption

Ahh, the sweet smell of unmarked bills in small denominations! After the ‘official front gate’ comes down, the ‘side gate of corruption’ opens for business in earnest. Border cops will be bribed, politicians will take campaign donations from minority groups demanding preferential exceptions, the army will be led astray, and a whole complicated and convoluted set of rules (and how to break them) will be created, so that lawyers can take a break from suing corporations and start making money from those who want in.

Step Eight: The ‘Bypass’

The vast expansion of the ‘underground network’ of human movement created in Step 3 really comes into play here. A whole economic class will now exist for the sole purpose of getting people into the US by hook or by crook. (For historical examples of this, see the Mafia and Prohibition, or any modern gang and the ‘war on drugs’.) Honest potential immigrants will hesitate to get involved with such people – but sociopaths and criminals will already know them! The quality of those coming into the country takes just a bit of a nose-dive. Due to biased reporting and government statistics, the reputation of honest immigrants goes down with them.

Step Nine: The Forgeries

National ID cards will be forged as fast as printing presses can run them off. Those who are illegally in the country will just say ‘Oh, I forgot to have my card on me’, and promise to come by the cop shop the next day. Right. Thus the penalties for failing to produce an ID card on demand will escalate. This will hit native citizens hard and continually. The police will get financially addicted to fining citizens, and will pursue missing ID cards far more assiduously than any real criminals. The forged cards will be indistinguishable from the real cards (since corruption will escalate directly into the office of whoever is producing the cards, just as with Canadian passports), and so further identification steps will be required. Cops with retinal scan equipment anyone? This will all escalate into increased bribery and corruption opportunities. The lowered police attention towards violent crime will only escalate it – creating more justification for increased government powers and additional taxation.

Step Ten: The Expansion

At first, police ‘sweeps’ will be focused on particular ethnic groups. However, very quickly the ‘PC vulture’ will swoop down to feast on the rotting common sense of a dying society. Outcries against ‘unfair targeting’ will cause intense political pressure, which will result in senseless sweeps of Chinese and Scottish neighborhoods. Fines and corruption increase. The ‘cat and mouse’ game escalates to deadly levels. As the penalties for non-compliance increase, the desperation of those ‘caught in the net’ will increase. Policemen will start getting attacked, and will both escalate their use of ‘first force’ and also withdraw from dangerous neighborhoods, leaving entire sections of society with neither police ‘protection’ nor legal alternatives.

Sound grim? Well, remember this: it’s only inevitable if we think it is. Just as in opposing slavery, when the solution was not opposing each slave-owner, but the institution of slavery itself, we must oppose not this or that state program, but the very concept of the state itself. (For more information on ways to approach this, please visit my podcast site at www.freedomainradio.com.)

We must start to talk openly about viable alternatives to this ghastly coercive social monopoly called the state – for just as surely it can control immigration, it can exile our own freedom.

[INSERT NAME OF COUNTRY HERE]: LOVE IT OR LEAVE IT!

A commonly-heard response to criticisms of existing state policies – or, heaven forbid, the existence of the state itself! – is the demand that the person criticizing either drop his objection, or leave the country.

(A third option is sometimes given, which is the option of working to reform the existing state system, however, the likelihood of achieving that end is so remote that it is perhaps only a slightly more eloquent way of telling someone to just shut up!)

The idea that the two main options for the political critic is to either accept the rule of the state he lives under, or quit the country, is an old and durable one. Obviously, it is not the most intellectual or sophisticated of arguments, but it has achieved surprising longevity, despite its blatant lack of logic.

Central to the ‘exile alternative’, of course, is the belief that the government somehow ‘owns’ the country, and all the resources within it, much as a landlord owns an apartment building and all the apartments within it. In order to live in a condominium building, you have to respect the condo board and its rules – and so, in order to live in the United States, say, you have to respect the government and its rules.

Now this is a rather startling bit of totalitarian thinking, which even Mussolini would have hesitated to put forward so baldly. (Although Stalin would probably have been quite comfortable with it!) The idea that the government ‘owns’ all property, and sort of ‘leases’ it out to private citizens on the condition of uncritical obedience is astoundingly fascistic. When my wife and I signed the mortgage to purchase our house, we did not notice that George Bush had cosigned, and had ownership rights that superseded our own.

Furthermore, it is hard to imagine how just living in a country creates any form of implicit contract with the government. Implicit contracts are by their very nature unjust –and how do we know this? Because private citizens are not allowed to create and enforce implicit contracts. I can't say to my neighbor that his decision to live in his house automatically requires him to mow my lawn. I can't buy a car, offer to share it with my neighbor and then force him to pay for half of it. Anything which is unjust for private individuals is also unjust for those in the government – since the government is merely composed of individuals, and thus must be subject to the same moral laws as everybody else. Any rights or abilities claimed by those in power which directly oppose the rights or abilities of everybody else are automatically unjust and immoral.

The general answer to these objections is that the government obeys the will of the majority, and so the majority decides which laws and policies the government pursues. Thus obeying the laws of the state is not obeying the laws of any particular politician, but rather the will of the majority. (This, of course, is the form of ‘unlimited majority rule’ that was so instructive to Socrates!)

This is a perfectly valid thesis to put forward, and merely requires proof of the following four propositions in sequence:

1. That the definition of ‘a majority’ can be constrained to mean only those within a particular geographical area called a country.
2. That obeying the will of the majority is a morally good action at all times, in all places, and under all circumstances.
3. That existing political structures accurately reflect the dynamic and constantly changing will of the majority.
4. That the will of the majority has not been interfered with through some outside means such as financial pressure or propaganda.

Let's have a look at these in a little more detail.

Required Proof #1: That the definition off ‘a majority’ can be constrained to mean only those within a particular geographical area called a country who were born there or who have certain government-issued cards, and are over a certain age and so on.

This is a particularly tricky question for the ‘love it or leave it’ crowd to answer. The concept ‘majority’ can mean just about anything, from a majority of redheaded people to a majority of people who think that Jim Morrison is still alive. In order to even start proving the moral validity of obeying the majority within the country, a rational case must be made that only a geographically-defined majority can be considered a moral entity – and no others! So the redheads and diehard Jim Morrison fans are sort of out of luck. If this proposition cannot be proven, then any majority is always more moral than any minority. This might create some problems in stores, for instance, if shoppers want to leave without paying and just happen outnumber the cashiers. Or if I can get the neighbour on my left to agree that we should both take over the house of my neighbour to my right and so on. Also, if the majority always trumps the minority, the existence of the state is always morally wrong, since citizens always outnumber politicians.

If this proposition can be proven – no easy task – then we can move onto the next step.

Required Proof #2: That obeying the will of the majority is a morally good action at all times and in all places, and under all circumstances.

If this proposition is true, then moral rules do not exist in any objective sense whatsoever. The will of the majority is constantly changing, both within a society and throughout history. For instance, in the past, slavery was considered moral; now it is considered immoral. At what point did these moral rules change? If we have a country of 100,000 people, does the nature of morality, humanity or reality change when person number 50,001 changes his mind? What about if he changes it back? Is objective reality and human nature swirling back and forth like a kaleidoscopic whirlpool as he ponders a particular moral question?

Now, if obeying the will of the majority is not a morally good action at all times and in all places and under all circumstances, then some other moral criteria must be more valid than the ‘will of the majority’ when it comes to judging the ethics of particular actions. Since there then must exist a moral rule which is more valid than the will of the majority, it must be to that moral rule that we defer, not to the will of the majority.

Required Proof #3: That existing political structures accurately reflect the dynamic and constantly changing will of the majority.

Now, even if someone manages to prove both of the above assertions – quite a challenge! – he still faces the challenge of proving that governments accurately and continually reflect the dynamic will of the majority. This kind of assertion is far more provable in the free market than in the realm of politics, since voting only occurs every couple of years, even in a democracy. And voters, of course, only get to choose candidates whose considerable campaign expenses have been paid for by special interests looking for post-election favors at the expense of the voters!

Also, just as central command-and-control economies have no methodology for allocating resources in the absence of free-market prices, it is hard to imagine how a government could ever accurately and consistently determine the will of the majority on an ongoing and dynamic basis. After more than two thousand years of political philosophy, the world still awaits any methodology by which this could ever be achieved. (I for one am not holding my breath for a breakthrough on this one!)

Required Proof #4: That the will of the majority has not been interfered with through some outside means such as financial pressure or propaganda.

Even if all of the above have been proven, the challenge of proving ‘free will’ still remains. For instance, if the majority of people are offered $1,000 each to vote for a particular political candidate, then saying that an election somehow reflects the ‘will of the majority’ could be considered somewhat specious. All that it reflects in this case is their desire to receive $1,000!

Now, we all perfectly aware that the vast majority of funding for political candidates comes from individuals, unions, charities, organizations and corporations that all expect to receive political favors in return for their contributions. The employees of large corporations that deal with the Department of Defense just might hesitate before voting for a pacifist candidate whose major platform was a reduction in defense spending! Does their vote somehow represent the will of the majority, or rather just the self-interest of the bribed?

Furthermore, we can generally recognize that a person who was raised in a totalitarian system and was bombarded with propaganda every waking hour might have a certain ideological ‘hangover’ from that level of indoctrination. Similarly, we can generally recognize that here in the West, children from the age of 5 to 18 are subjected to hours of direct state propaganda in public schools every single weekday – not even counting homework! (And, speaking as a writer who attended three universities and battled all the way through to a Master’s degree, the ideological horrors of modern universities are even worse!) This degree and depth of propaganda is rather astounding, and absolutely interferes with the ordinary citizens ability to accurately process and understand the causes and effects of state power.

Thus even if all of the above points are provable, as long as state education continues to indoctrinate children for a dozen or more years, majority opinion can in no way be said to reflect the unbiased opinion of that majority. That would be equivalent to saying that paying a kidnapper to free your child is the same as a voluntary transaction.

Thus, overall, until the above points are all proven in sequence – and the problem of relativistic morality raised by an absolute obedience to the will of the majority is also resolved – we can safely say that any and all ‘love it or leave it’ arguments are entirely false, and morally corrupt. (As a side note, it is both sad and funny that Americans use this argument, which if accepted in Colonial times, would have stopped the Founding Fathers in their tracks and forced them to obey the British government or leave the Colonies!)

Unfettered allegiance to political power in any form is at the root of the moral corruption so evident in the 20th century, when at least 170 million people were murdered by those obeying government edicts. If genocide is something to be opposed, then we must all equally oppose the moral corruption of the ‘love it or leave it’ argument.

Proving Libertarian Morality: Reclaiming the High Ground

One of the central challenges faced by libertarians is the need to prove that libertarian moral theory is universally correct, while statist and collectivistic moral theories are incorrect. Until moral rules can be subjected to the same rigour and logic as any other propositions, we will forever be stymied by subjectivism, political prejudices and the argument from effect.

Why is this approach so important? Why bother with the grueling task of building a logical framework for the examination of moral rules – and the even more grueling task of communicating that framework to others? Well, as I have argued in previous articles, the freedom movement has made remarkably little progress throughout history. Von Mises wrote seminal works disproving the economic efficiency of socialism and communism in the 1920s – now, eighty years later, Western societies are still sliding into the predicted morass of ever-expanding state power, ever-increasing public debts and declining economies. Although free market economic theories have made some progress in academia (and even the popular media!) they have done nothing to even slow down – let alone reverse – the constant expansion of state power.

In my view, the reason for this is simple: libertarians have never won the argument from morality. These days, none of our opponents argue that the government is more efficient than the free market, or that communism will set us free, or that private property is theft. All the old socialistic shibboleths have been laid to rest – and yet still people support government power, because they believe that government power is moral. Most people believe that the government takes care of the poor, old and sick, protects us from enemies both corporate and militaristic, educates the young, builds us roads, blah blah blah – we’ve all heard the same nonsense since the dawn of time. All we say in response is that the government is inefficient at doing these things, and that the free market would be better – none of which touches the central rationale of state power, which is that people believe that it is good.

Our enemies understand the power of the argument from morality far, far better than we do. They constantly harp on the virtue of state power, starting in kindergarten with environmentalism, ‘friendly cops’ and the need for ‘childproofing.’ The world is dangerous, children hear, and capitalists want to kill you with smog, but your friendly government is always eager to serve, help and protect. Children first experience state power as firm, kindly and friendly teachers – so how could they see and appreciate the violence that underpins the government?

How can we oppose this? How can we best work to undo the endless propaganda of pro-state school, media and prejudice?

By learning from history, that’s how. To win a battle, one must first ask: how were similar battles won in the past?

The closest historical analogy to our current situation occurred in the 15^th and 16^th centuries, during the rise of the scientific method. The early pioneers who advocated a rational and empirical approach to knowledge faced all the same prejudices that we face today – all the same irrationality, entrenched power of church and state, mystical and subjective ‘absolutes’ and early educational barriers. Those who advocated the primacy of rationality and empirical observation over mystical ‘insights’ and Biblical fundamentalism faced the determined opposition of those wielding both cross and sword. Many were tortured to death as heretics for their intellectual honesty – we face far less risk, and so should be far braver in advocating what is true over what is believed.

In order to attack the false morality of state power, we must start from the beginning, just as the first scientists did. Francis Bacon did not argue that the scientific method was more ‘efficient’ than prayer, Bible texts or starvation-induced ‘visions.’ He simply said that if we want to understand nature, we must observe nature and theorize logically – and that there is no other route to knowledge.

We must take the same approach with defining and communicating morality. We must begin using the power and legitimacy of the scientific method to prove the existence and universality of moral laws. We must start from the beginning, build logically and reject any irrational or non-empirical substitutes for the truth.

What does this look like in practice? All we have to do is establish the following axioms:

• Morality exists.
• Moral rules must be consistent for all mankind.
• The more consistent a moral theory is, the more valid it is.
• Libertarianism is the most consistent moral theory.
• Therefore, libertarianism is the most valid moral theory!

Sound like a tall order? But give me three thousand or so words, and we can at least take a swing at the first three.

To start from the very beginning… do moral rules – or consistently preferred human behaviour – exist at all?

There are only two possibilities when it comes to moral rules, just as there are in any logical science. Either moral rules exist, or they do not. (In physics, the question is: either physical rules exist, or they do not.)

If moral rules do exist, where do they exist? Certainly not in material reality, which does not contain or obey a single moral rule. Moral rules are different from the rules of physics, just as the scientific method is different from gravity. Matter innately obeys the rule of gravity or the second law of thermodynamics, but ‘thou shalt not kill’ is nowhere inscribed in the nature of things. Physical laws describe the behaviour of matter, but do not contain a single prescription. Science says that matter behaves in a certain manner – never that it should behave in a certain manner. A theory of gravity proves that if you push a man off a cliff, he will fall. It will not tell you whether you should push him or not.

Thus it cannot be said that moral rules exist in material reality, and neither are they automatically obeyed like the laws of physics – which does not mean that moral laws are false or irrelevant. The scientific method does not exist in reality either – and is also optional – but it is neither false nor irrelevant.

Subjecting moral theories to the scientific method will provide the same benefits that subjecting physical theories to the scientific method did. Before the rise of the scientific method, the behaviour of matter resulted from the subjective whim of gods and devils – just as morality is now. Volcanoes erupted because the mountain-god was angry; good harvests resulted from human sacrifice. No absolute physical laws which limited the will of the gods were believed to exist – and so science could never develop. Those who profited from defining physical reality as subjective – mostly priests and kings – fought the subjugation of physical theories to the scientific method, just as those who profit from defining moral reality as subjective – mostly politicians and soldiers – fight the subjugation of moral theories to the scientific method.

The rise of scientific truth resulted from the expansion of the scientific method, which was a methodology for separating accurate from inaccurate theories by subjecting them to two central tests: logical consistency and empirical observation – and by always subjugating logical consistency to empirical observation. If I propose a perfectly consistent and logical theory which says that a rock will float up when thrown off a cliff, any empirical test proves my theory incorrect, since observation always trumps theory.

A further aspect of the scientific method is the belief that, since matter is composed of combinations of atoms with common, stable and predictable properties, the behaviour of matter must also be common, stable and predictable. Thus experiments must be reproducible in different locations and time. I cannot say that my ‘rock floating’ theory is correct for just one particular rock, or on the day I first tested it, or at a single location. My theories must describe the behaviour of matter, which is universal, common, stable and predictable.

Finally, there is a generally-accepted rule – sometimes called Occam’s Razor – which states that, of any two explanations, the simpler is probably the more accurate. Prior to the Copernican revolution, when Earth was considered the center of the universe, the retrograde motion of Mars when Earth passed it in orbit around the sun caused enormous problems to the Ptolemaic system of astronomical calculations. ‘Circles within circles’ multiplied enormously, which were all cleared away by simply placing the sun at the center of the solar system.

Thus any valid scientific theory must be (a) universal, (b) logical, (c) empirically verifiable, (d) reproducible and (e) as simple as possible.

Now the methodology for judging and proving a moral theory is exactly the same as the methodology for judging and proving any other scientific theory.

The first question regarding moral theories is: what are they? Simply put, morals are a set of rules claiming to accurately and consistently identify preferred human behaviours, just as physics is a set of rules claiming to accurately and consistently identify the behaviour of matter.

The second question to be asked is: is there any such thing as ‘preferred behaviour’ at all? If there is, we can begin to explore what such behaviour might be. If not, then our examination must stop here – just as the examination of ‘ether’ ceased after Einstein proved that the speed of light was constant.

The proposition that there is no such thing as preferred behaviour contains an insurmountable number of logical and empirical problems. ‘Preferred behaviour’ must exist, for five main reasons. The first is logical: if I argue against the proposition that preferred behaviour exists, I have already shown my preference for truth over falsehood – as well as a preference for correcting those who speak falsely. Saying that there is no such as thing as preferred behaviour is like shouting in someone’s ear that sound does not exist – it is innately self-contradictory. In other words, if there is no preferred behaviour, then one should oppose anyone who claims that there is preferred behaviour. However, if one ‘should’ do something, then one has just created preferred behaviour. Thus preferred behaviour – or moral rules – must exist.

Syllogistically, this is:

1. The proposition is: preferred behaviour must exist.
2. Anyone who argues against the existence of preferred behaviour is demonstrating preferred behaviour.
3. Therefore no argument against the existence of preferred behaviour can be valid.

How else do we know that moral rules exist? Well, all matter is subject to physical rules – and everything that is organic is in addition subject to certain requirements, and so, if it is alive, has followed preferred behaviours. Everything that lives, for instance, needs fuel and oxygen in order to stay alive – even plants strain for sunlight. Any living mind, of course, is an organic part of the physical world, and so must be subject to both physical laws and has followed preferred behaviours – to argue otherwise would require proof that consciousness is not composed of matter, and is not organic – an impossibility, since it has mass, energy, and life. Arguing that consciousness is subjected to neither physical rules or preferential choices would be like arguing that human beings are not subject to gravity and can flourish without eating. Thus it is impossible that anyone can argue against preferred behaviour, since if he is alive to argue, he has followed preferred behaviours such as breathing, eating and drinking.

Or:

1. All living organisms require preferred behaviour to live.
2. Man is a living organism.
3. Therefore all living men are alive due to the existence and practice of preferred behaviour.
4. Therefore any argument against preferred behaviour requires the existence of preferred behaviour.
5. Therefore no argument against the existence of preferred behaviour can be valid.

Since the scientific method requires empirical corroboration, we must also look to reality to confirm our hypothesis – and here the existence of preferred behaviours is fully supported. Almost every human being believes in moral rules of some kind. There is much disagreement about what constitutes moral rules, but everyone is certain that moral rules are valid – just as scientific theories disagree, but all scientists accept the validity of the scientific method itself. Disproving something that everyone believes in is almost impossible. One can argue that the Earth is round and not flat – which is analogous to changing the definition of morality – but one cannot argue that the earth does not exist at all – which is like arguing that there is no such thing as preferred behaviour.

Or:

1. For a scientific theory to be valid, it must be supported through empirical observation.
2. If preferred behaviour exists, then mankind should believe in preferred behaviour.
3. Almost all men believe in preferred behaviour.
4. Therefore empirical evidence exists to support the existence of preferred behaviour – and the existence of such evidence opposes the proposition that preferred behaviour does not exist.

The fourth argument for the existence of preferred behaviour is also empirical. Since human beings have an almost-infinite number of choices to make in life, to say that there are no principles of preferred behaviour would be to say that all choices are equal. However, all choices are not equal, either logically or through empirical observation. To take one example, if food is available, almost all human beings eat every day. If not themselves subjected to violence, human beings are generally not violent. Almost all parents choose to feed and shelter their children. There are many examples of common choices among humankind, which indicate that preferential behaviour abounds and is part of human nature – and requires that any theory claiming otherwise must explain away this teeming evidence.

Or:

1. Choices are almost infinite.
2. Most human beings make very similar choices.
3. Therefore not all choices can be equal.
4. Therefore preferred choices must exist.

The fifth argument for the existence of preferred behaviour is biological. Since all organic life requires preferential behaviour, we can assume that those organisms which make the most successful choices are the ones most often selected for survival. Since man is the most successful species, and man’s most distinctive organ is his mind, it must be man’s mind that has aided the most in making successful choices. The mind itself, then, has been selected as successful by its very ability to make successful choices. Since the human mind only exists as a result of choosing preferred behaviour, preferred behaviours must exist.

Or:

1. Organisms succeed by acting upon preferred behaviour.
2. Man is the most successful organism.
3. Therefore man must have acted most successfully on the basis of preferred behaviour.
4. Man’s mind is his most distinctive organ.
5. Therefore man’s mind must have acted most successfully on the basis of preferred behaviour.
6. Therefore preferred behaviour must exist.

Due to the above problems, any argument against the existence of preferred behaviour can be dismissed as incorrect.

Since we have proved the existence of preferred behaviour, the question of morality now shifts. Since preferred behaviour does exist, what theories can quantify, classify, explain and predict it?

First of all, we must remember that morality is optional. As we all know, every man is subject to gravity and requires food to live, but no man has to act morally. If I steal or kill, no thunderbolt from the sky strikes me down. Moral rules, like the scientific method or biological classifications, are merely ways of organizing the facts and principles of what exists.

The fact that compliance with moral rules is optional has confused many thinkers into believing that because morality is optional, it is subjective. Nothing could be further from the truth! Living organisms are part of material reality, and material reality is rational and objective. Applying moral theories is optional, but that does not mean that moral theories are subjective. The scientific method is optional, but it is not subjective. Applying biological classifications is optional, but biology is not subjective. Choices are optional; consequences are not. I can choose not to eat, but I cannot choose to live without eating. I can choose to behead someone, but I cannot choose whether or not they can live without a head. Morality is thus optional, but the effects of moral choices are measurable and objective. There is no subjectivity involved whatsoever.

Now, since morality exists, the next question is: to what degree or extent does morality exist? As mentioned above, the first test of any scientific theory is universality. Just as a theory of physics must apply to all matter, a moral theory which claims to describe the preferred actions of mankind must apply to all mankind. No moral theory can be valid if it argues that a certain action is right in Syria, but wrong in San Francisco. It cannot say that Person A must do X, but Person B must never do X. It cannot say that what was wrong yesterday is right today – or vice versa. If it does, it is false and must be refined or discarded.

To be valid, any moral theory must also pass the criteria of logical consistency. Since the behaviour of matter is logical, consistent and predictable, all theories involving matter – either organic or inorganic – must be also be logical, consistent and predictable. The theory of relativity cannot argue that the speed of light is both constant and not constant at the same time, or that it is 186,000 miles per second, five fathoms in depth and also green in colour!

However, since moral theories apply to mankind, and mankind is organic, the degree of consistency required for moral theories is less than that required for inorganic theories. All rocks, for instance, must fall down, but not all horses have to be born with only one head. Biology includes three forms of ‘randomness,’ which are environment, genetic mutation and free will. For example, poodles are generally friendly, but if beaten for years, will likely become aggressive. Horses are defined as having only one head, but occasionally, a two-headed mutant is born. Similarly, human beings generally prefer eating to starving – except anorexics. These exceptions do not bring down the entire science of biology. Thus, since moral theories describe mankind, they cannot be subjected to exactly the same requirements for consistency as theories describing inorganic matter.

The final test that any scientific moral theory must pass is the criteria of empirical observation. Thus for instance, a moral theory must explain the universal prevalence of moral beliefs among mankind, as well as the results of human moral ‘experiments’ such as fascism, communism, socialism or capitalism. It must also explain some basic facts about human society, such as the fact that state power always increases, or that propaganda tends to increase as state power increases. If it fails to explain the past, understand the present and predict the future, then it fails.

How does all this look in practice? Let’s look at how the requirement for universality affects moral theories.

If I say that gravity affects matter, it must affect all matter. If even one speck of matter proves resistant to gravity, my theory is in trouble. If I propose a moral theory which argues that people should not murder, it must be applicable to all people. If certain people (such as soldiers) are exempt from that rule, then I have to either prove that soldiers are not people, or accept that my moral theory is false. There is no other possibility. On the other hand, if I propose a moral theory which argues that all people should murder, then I have saved certain soldiers, but condemned to evil all those not currently murdering someone (including those being murdered!) – which is surely incorrect.

If, to save the virtue of soldiers, I alter my theory to argue that it is moral for people to murder if someone else tells them to (a political leader, say), then I must deal with the problem of universality. If Politician A can order a soldier to murder an Iraqi, then the Iraqi must also be able to order the soldier to murder Politician A, and the soldier can also order Politician A to murder the Iraqi. This problem cannot be solved, and so my theory is proven invalid.

I also cannot logically argue that is wrong for some people to murder, but right for other people to murder. Since all human beings share common physical properties and requirements, having one rule for one person and the opposite rule for another is impossible – it is like proposing a physics theory that says that some rocks fall down, while others fall up. Not only is it illogical, it contradicts the observable facts of reality, which is that human beings as a species share common characteristics, and so cannot be subjected to opposing rules. Biologists have no problems classifying certain organisms as human because they share common and easily-identifiable characteristics – it is only moralists who seem to have this difficulty.

Furthermore, if my moral theory ‘proves’ that the same man should not murder one day, but should murder the next day (say, when he steps out into the Iraqi desert), then my position is even more ludicrous. That would equivalent to arguing that one day a rock falls downward, and the next day it falls upward! To call this any kind of consistent theory is to make madness sanity.

Since scientific theories require logical consistency, a moral theory cannot be valid if it is both true and false at the same time. A moral theory which approves of stealing, for instance, faces an insurmountable logical problem. No moral theory should, if it is universally applied, directly eliminate behaviour it defines as moral while simultaneously creating behaviour it defines as immoral. If everyone should steal, then no one will steal – which means that the moral theory can never be practiced. And why will no one steal? Well, because a man will only steal if he can keep the property he is stealing. He’s not going to bother stealing your wallet if someone else is going to immediately steal that wallet from him. Any moral theory proposing that ‘stealing is good’ is also automatically invalid because it posits that property rights are both valid and invalid at the same time, and so fails the test of logical consistency. If I steal from you, I am saying that your property rights are invalid. However, I want to keep what I am stealing – and therefore I am saying that my property rights are valid. But property rights cannot be both valid and invalid at the same time! Similarly, any moral theory which advocates rape faces a similar contradiction. Rape can never be moral, since any principle which approves it automatically contradicts itself. If rape is justified on the principle that ‘taking pleasure is always good,’ then such a principle immediately fails the test of logical consistency, since the rapist may be ‘taking pleasure,’ but his victim certainly is not. (The same goes, of course, for murder and assault.)

Thus subjecting moral theories to the scientific method produces results which conform to rationality, empirical observations and plain common sense. Murder, theft, arson, rape and assault are all proven immoral. (Universal and positive moral rules can also be proven – i.e. the universal validity of property rights and non-violence – but we shall talk about that another time!)

To aid in swallowing this rather large conceptual pill, here is a table which helps equate theories of physics and biology with scientific theories of preferred (or moral) behaviour:

-	Physics	Biology	Morality
Subject	Matter	Organic Matter	Preferred behaviour for mankind
Instance	A rock	A horse	A man
Sample Rule	Gravity	The desire for survival	Goodness
Sample Theory	Entropy	Evolution	Property rights
Sample Classification	Matter/Energy	Reptile/Mammal	Good/Evil
Example	Matter cannot be created or destroyed, merely converted to energy and back.	If it is alive and warm-blooded, it is a mammal.	Stealing is wrong.
Hypothesis	Atoms share common structures and properties, and so behave in predictable and consistent manners.	Organic matter has rules – or requirements – that are common across classifications.	Human beings share common rules and requirements.
Proof	Logical consistency, empirical verification.	Logical consistency, empirical verification.	Logical consistency, empirical verification.
Negative Proof Example	If mass does not attract mass, theories relying on gravity are incorrect	If organisms do not naturally self-select for survival, the theory of evolution is incorrect.	If communism succeeds, theories based on the universal value of property rights are incorrect.

In conclusion, it is safe to say that (a) moral rules exist, and (b) moral theories must be subjected to the scientific method, just as theories of physics and biology. Furthermore, any moral theory based on non-universal or self-contradictory principles is demonstrably false.

If libertarianism is to succeed, we must examine all moral theories and commandments in this light – otherwise we relinquish moral truth to our enemies, which will only ensure our continued failure.

Saving Children: The Stateless Society and the Protection of the Helpless

All moralists interested in improving society must answer the most essential questions about human motivation, and show how their proposed solutions will create a rational framework of incentives, punishments and rewards that further moral goals generally accepted as good. The 20th century clearly showed that there is no possibility for ideology to invent or create an “ideal man” - and that all such attempts generally create a hell on earth. Utopian thinkers must work with man as he is, and recognize the inevitability of self-interest and the positive response to incentives that characterizes the human soul.

In my recent articles on the stateless society, I have explained how I believe that society can operate in the absence of a centralized government. One question that has repeatedly arisen during the excellent responses to my articles has been this:

In the absence of a centralized state-run police force and law/court system, how can child abuse be prevented, or at least minimized?

My examples of Dispute Resolution Organizations (DROs) have answered most people’s questions regarding how a stateless society encourages positive, moral and honest behavior among adults. I have also tackled the problems of violent crime, to the satisfaction of many.

However, when discussing ethical issues, is essential to deal with what is perhaps the greatest evil within human society: the abuse of children by their parents or primary caregivers. If we can picture a society as existing without a government, can we picture how that society would more beneficially deal with children? For surely if we can create a society that treats children better than they are currently treated, we have created a goal or a destination worthy of the considerable efforts it will take to achieve it!

In this essay, I will attempt to deal with the methodologies and processes by which a stateless society will improve the living conditions of children. I will not talk here about the positive and beneficial effects of private run schools, since I have dealt with that topic at length in my podcast -- rather, I will deal with the positive interventions that a stateless society can bring to bear on the direct relations between children and their parents.

In any post-tribal society, family life generally becomes rather opaque. Great evils can be committed within the family home, in isolation from the general view of society, and children by their very nature can do almost nothing to protect themselves. Excepting grave or obvious physical injuries, governmental agencies rarely get involved -- and even when such agencies do get involved, it is far from clear that their involvement results in a better situation for the victimized child.

As we know from totalitarian regimes, any situation which combines an extreme differentiation in authority with a lack of accountability for those in power tends to increase abuses of power. This does not mean that all parents are abusive, of course, but it does mean that in situations where abusive tendencies do exist, the power differential between parents and children, combined with the fact that few parents face any legal or direct financial consequences for their abuse, tends to prolong and exacerbate child abuse.

Because of this situation, it is hard to say that the existing system works to maximize the protection and security of children. While there is no perfect utopia wherein children will always be loved, nurtured and protected, any society which contains strong positive incentives for good parenting is a vast improvement over the current situation. Since children are by far the most vulnerable members of society, if a stateless society can protect them better than a society with a government, it is perhaps the greatest moral benefit that anarchism can bring to bear on the human condition.

Before discussing how a stateless society can far better protect the interests and security of children than existing societies, let’s first look at how existing societies create problems for children.

• The existence of the welfare state has directly contributed to the rise of single-parent families. Abuse is generally more prevalent in single-parent families.


• The war on drugs has created extremely unstable, volatile and violent social circumstances.


• Government-run housing projects have gathered together unstable single mothers and unstable drug dealers (in fact, housing projects are sometimes called ‘girlfriend farms’ for such men) - thus exposing children to highly dysfunctional role models.


• Public school education often creates violent, unstable and dangerous environments for children, where younger children in particular are easy prey for bullies.


• The rise of taxation has directly contributed to the new requirement for both mothers and fathers to go to work. This has left children vulnerable to abuse by outside caregivers -- and often leads to an excess of unsupervised time alone for children in their early teens.


• Government-run social agencies are no better at protecting children than any other state agencies are at protecting the environment, helping the poor, healing the sick, or any of the other self-appointed “missions” that bureaucrats devise for themselves. Both anecdotal and statistical evidence point to the constant disasters that continue to befall children supposedly being ‘protected’ by state agencies.


• If a child that is badly raised becomes a criminal, parents are not directly liable for the social, medical, legal or property costs incurred by their child.


• If, through their bad parenting, parents end up alienating their children, they face a far fewer financial problems in their old age, due to state-run social security schemes.

It is clear, then, that the existing system has room for improvement.

How, then, can a stateless society better protect children than a society with a government? Well, first of all, in a stateless society, disputes between people are mediated by Dispute Resolution Organizations (DROs), which are private agencies dedicated to preventing conflicts, and resolving them when necessary. (For more on DROs, please see my archives). Is there any way that DROs can profitably intervene in a situation where there are deteriorating relationships between parent and child, or where the child is being directly harmed?

One of the primary reasons for the existence of DROs is to protect citizens against unacceptable levels of risk. In a free society, if a child goes off the rails and begins hurting other people or damaging their property, it seems highly likely that DROs would hold the parents responsible. To take a true disaster scenario, if your child accidentally paralyzes another child, you as a parent will be on the hook for a lifetime of medical bills, rehabilitation and equipment. Given that childhood -- even in the absence of malice -- is a physically dangerous time, few parents would accept the risk of having no protection for any potential injuries their child might commit or experience.

Like any insurance company, DROs would lower insurance rates for children that were less at risk. An insurance company would prefer that your child be active -- or they would face the health problems which would naturally results from inactivity - but not that your child be aggressive, especially towards other children. Children who learned positive negotiation skills -- or lease didn’t hit, throw, punch or push other children -- would be cheaper to insure. This fact is the foundation of the benefits that a stateless society brings to bear on the safety of children. Parents who raise aggressive children will be charged far more in insurance than those who raise more peaceful offspring.

Some forms of child abuse do not generally result in destructive tendencies towards others, but rather towards the self. Anorexia, self-mutilation, excessive piercing and hyper-dangerous activities are all signs that a child has experienced specific forms of abuse - usually sexual in nature. Given that DROs also provide health insurance, it seems likely that DROs would do as much as possible to prevent these kinds of activities, since they scarcely profit from self-destructive behavior.

If you are unfamiliar with the general theories around a stateless society, you will doubtless now be thinking that bad parents would scarcely appeal to a DRO system, since it would be very expensive to insure their children. That is a natural response, but incorrect.

For instance, most parents prefer to have their children educated -- even parents who abuse their children. Most schools would doubtless prefer to educate children who were covered by DRO protections, because ‘unprotected’ children would be more risky to have in the school. Thus, in order to get your children educated, you have to have a DRO contract that protects them. Thus it will be almost impossible to avoid the significant costs imposed upon you if you are a bad parent. (Of course, bad parents may choose to operate “off the grid” and bypass the DRO system completely, but that is equally true of the current society, and so cannot be considered a significant objection to a stateless society. For more information on this, please have a look at my article “Caging the Beasts”.)

When you apply for medical insurance in the United States, you are subjected to a battery of tests all aimed at determining your general level of overall health, and so your future medical costs. Similarly, life insurance costs usually depend on generally-accepted health indicators like smoking, blood pressure and cholesterol levels. Also, generally, the earlier that you buy insurance, the cheaper it is over the long run.

Thus we can imagine that a variety of DROs will approach new parents with a number of different insurance offers all designed to protect the children, both from their own actions, and from the actions of other children.

All these DROs will be eager to offer the lowest possible rates for the parents. How can they achieve that? Well, when a young man applies for his first car insurance, the insurance company usually takes into account any kind of driving training that he has taken. Similarly, DROs will be more likely to offer lower rates to parents who take specific training on how to best raise children to be peaceful and safe members of society. DROs will also work very hard to determine exactly which parenting practices are most likely to produce such peaceful and safe children.

Children need very specific guidelines and parenting skills at different stages in their development. Given that parents are likely to want to keep insurance coverage on their children until they turn 18 - and that DROs are very interested in preventing problems over the long run - it also seems likely that DROs will continue to provide low coverage if parents update their parenting skills periodically (but probably for only the first child!).

There are other significant indicators that parenting is becoming problematic. For instance, substance abuse such as alcoholism or drug addiction virtually guarantees that the children will either be abused, or turn out badly. Thus a DRO will offer far lower rates to parents who have either never shown these tendencies, or if they have, are willing to subject themselves to random testing to prove that they are still clean. (Please note that these tests are in no way intrusive in nature -- parents can always refuse to take such tests, and simply pay for the increased risk involved to the DRO.)

And what about the children? Well, since prevention is by far the better part of cure, their insurance costs will remain the lowest if problems can be identified before they manifest themselves in antisocial behavior. With the young in particular, early intervention is the key. How can DROs best keep the costs low for these children? Well, intermittent psychological testing would be a good start (and remember, we are generally talking about only the first children of ‘at-risk’ families). Naturally, no parents would ever be required to submit their children for testing -- they would just pay for the increased costs if they did not.

This combination of research, financial incentives and constant updating creates two partners in the raising of children -- parents who wish to keep their insurance costs as low as possible, and DROs who wish to prevent problems rather than pay for their remediation.

Parents who were poorly raised themselves often do not understand the best way to raise their own children. Lacking access to objective information and best practices, they often repeat the same mistakes that were inflicted upon them. A stateless society that relied on a private system of cross-insurance would inherently contain a large number of parties with direct and significant financial interests in the well-being of children. Parents currently reluctant to “lift the blinds” on their parenting and familial circumstances would be presented with strong and positive financial motivations for doing so. Parents who refused any kind of DRO coverage for the children -- or who refused reasonable interventions designed to help them improve their parenting -- might face other negative repercussions from the DRO system, which have been discussed at length in my other articles. Thus it seems highly likely that a stateless society would create a wide variety of social interests all focused on improving the parenting of children, and ensuring the children were raised to be as peaceful, happy and productive as possible.

There is an old fable that goes something like this: the Sun and the Wind are having a argument as to which one of them is stronger. The Wind boasts that he is able to uproot trees, tear the roofs off houses and throw down power lines. The Sun looks skeptical. Below them, as they argue, a man is walking along a country road. “Ah”, says the Wind, “I bet I can tear the cloak right off this man’s back!” “Go ahead”, smiles the Sun. And so the Wind goes down and tears around this man, attempting to pry in his cloak off his back. Naturally, the man simply clutches his cloak even tighter, and the Wind can find no purchase. Finally, exhausted, the Wind withdraws. “Let me show you how it’s done”, says the sun. Bursting into full brilliance, the sun generates enormous heat, and the man begins to sweat. After ten minutes or so, the man sighs, wipes his brow -- and slowly takes off his cloak.

This parable contains a powerful message about the difference between a stateless society, and society ruled by centralized government. The government always tries to force people to do things, which only increases their resistance and secrecy with regard to state power. Human society, though, only advances when a multiplicity of competing private agencies create and maintain circumstances which benefit virtue and punish vice. This is an apt description of the free market -- and is also a description of the manner in which a stateless society will continually work to improve safety and happiness of children.

Anarchy, Violence and the State

Does more government equal less violence?

By Stefan Molyneux, MA
www.freedomainradio.com

When the subject of anarchy comes up, the most common objection to a stateless society is that violence will inevitably increase in the absence of a centralized state. This is a very interesting objection, and seems to arise from people who have imbibed a large amount of propaganda about the nature and role of the state. It seems hard to imagine that this conclusion could ever be reached by reasoning from first principles, as we will see below.

There are several circumstances under which the use of violence will either increase, or decrease – and they tend to resemble the basic principles of economics. For instance, people tend to respond to incentives, and tend to be drawn to circumstances under which they can gain the most resources by expending the least effort. Thus in the lottery system, people respond to the incentive of the million dollar payout by expending minimal resources in the purchase of a ticket.

There are several circumstances under which violence will tend to increase, rather than decrease – and interestingly enough, a centralized state creates and exacerbates all such circumstances.

Principle 1: Risk
Economically speaking, risk is the great balancer of rewards. If a horse is less likely to win a race, the gambling payout must be higher in order to induce people to bet on it. By their very nature, speculative investments must produce greater rewards than blue-chip stocks. Similarly, white-collar criminals generally face less physical risk than muggers. A stick-up man may inadvertently run up against a judo expert, and find the tables turned very quickly – while a hacker siphoning off funds electronically faces no such risk. In general, those interested in taking property by force will always gravitate toward situations where the risks of retaliation are lower.

One of the greatest ways of reducing the possibilities of retaliation is through the principle of overwhelming force. If five enormous muggers circle a 98 pound man and demand his wallet, the possibilities of retaliation are far lower than if the 98 pound man approaches five enormous men and demands that they surrender their wallets.

Clearly, the existence of a centralized state creates such an enormous disparity of power that resistance against government predations is, in all practicality, impossible. A man can either stand up to or move away from the Mafia, but can do almost nothing to oppose expansions of state power.

Thus we can see that the existence of a centralized state creates the following problems in regards to violence:

1. The use of violence tends to increase when the risks of using that violence decreases


2. the The risks of using violence tends to decrease as the disparity of power increases


3. there There is no greater disparity of power than that between a citizen and his government


4. therefore there is no better way to increase the use of violence than to create a centralized political state

Principle 2: Proximity
Using violence is a brutal and horrible task for most people. Most people are not physically or mentally equipped to use violence, either due to a lack of physical strength, a lack of martial knowledge, or an absence of sociopathic tendencies. However, the government has enormous, relatively efficient and well-distributed systems in place to initiate the use of force against (usually) disarmed citizens. Thus those who wish to gain the fruits of violence can do so by tapping into the government’s network of enforcers, without ever having to direct thely witness or deploy violence themselves.

It can be generally said that the use of violence tends to increase when the visibility and proximity of violence tends to decrease. In other words, if you can get other people to do your dirty work, more dirty work will tend to get done. If everyone who wished to gain the fruits of state violence had to go on and hold their own guns to everyone's everyone’s heads, almost all of them would end up refraining from such direct brutality.

Thus in the realm of proximity as well, the existence of a centralized state tends to both the distance and hide the effects of violence from those who wish to gain the fruits of violence – thus ensuring that the use of violence will tend to increase.

Principle 3: Externalization of Costs
In a stateless society, it is impossible to “outsource” violence to the police orf the military, since they do not exist. With the government, however, those who wish to gain the fruits of violence – i.e. tax revenues, the regulation of competitors, the blocking of imports and so on – can lobby the government to enforce such beneficial restrictions on the free trade and choices of others. They will have to pay for this lobbying effort, but they will not have to directly fund the police and the military and the court system and the prison system guards in order to force people to obey their whims. This “externalization of costs” is an essential ingredient in the expansion of the use of violence.

For instance, imagine if you are a steel manufacturer who wants to block the imports of steel from other countries – can you imagine how expensive it would be to build your own navy, your own radar system, your own Coast Guard, your own inspectors and so on? And even if you found it economically advantageous to do all that, could you guarantee that none of your competitors would do the same? Would still be economically advantageous if you ended up getting into an arms race with all of your fellow manufacturers? And what if your customers found out that you were using your own private militia to block the imports of steel – might they not take offense at your use of violence and boycott you? No, in the absence of a centralized state that you can offload all the enforcement costs to, it is going to be far cheaper for you to compete openly than develop your own private, overwhelming and universal army.

Thus in any situation where the costs of using violence can be externalized to some centralized agency, the use of that violence will always tend to increase. Offloading the costs of violence to taxpayers will always make violence profitable to specific agencies within society – whether private or public. And so, once again, we can see that the existence of the state will always tend to increase the use of violence.

Principle 4: Deferment
How much do you think you would spend if you knew that you would be long-dead when the bill came due? This is, of course, the basic principle of deficit financing – the deferment of payments to the next generation – which is perhaps the most insidious form of taxation. Forcibly transferring property from those who have not even been born yet is perhaps the greatest “externalization” of costs that can be imagined! Naturally, the risks of retaliation from the unborn are almost nonexistent – and neither is any direct violence performed against them. Thus the principle of “deferment” is perhaps one of the greatest ways in which the existence of a centralized state increases the use of violence.

Principle 5: Propaganda
It is well known in totalitarian regimes that in order to get people to accept the use of violence, that violence must always be reframed in a noble light. Government violence can never be referred to as merely the use of brute force for the material gain of politicians and bureaucrats – it must always represent the manifestation of core social or cultural values, such as caring for the poor, the sick, the old, or the indigent. The violence must always be tucked away from conceptual view, and the effects of violence elevated to sentimental heights of soaring rhetoric. Furthermore, the effects of the withdrawal of violence must always be portrayed as catastrophic and evil. Thus the elimination of the welfare state would cause mass starvation; the elimination of medical subsidies would cause mass death; the elimination of the war on drugs would cause massive addictions and social collapse – and the elimination of the state itself would directly create a post-apocalyptic cyberpunk nightmare world of brutal and endlessly warring gangs.

A pPropaganda is different from advertising in that all that advertising can ever do is get you to try a product for the first time – if the quality of the product does not meet your needs or expectations, then you will simply never buy that product again. Propaganda, on the other hand, is quite different. Advertising appeals to choice and self-interest; propaganda uses rhetoric to morally justify the absence of choice and self-interest. Advertising can only stimulate a one-time demand; propaganda permanently suppresses rationality. Advertising generally uses the argument from effect (you will be better off); propaganda always uses the argument from morality (you are evil for doubting).

The private funding of propaganda is never economically viable, since the amount of time and energy required to instill propaganda within the mind of the average person is far too great to justify its cost. In a voluntary system like the free market, paying for year after year of propaganda (which can only result in a ‘first time’ purchase of a good or service) is never worth it. Propaganda is only “worth it” when it can be used to keep people passive within a coercive system like state taxation or regulation. For instance, here in Canada, socialized medicine is always called a “core Canadian value”, and can be subject to no rational, moral or economic analysis. (Of course, if it really were a “core Canadian value”, then we would scarcely need to state to enforce it!) Because the existing system is so terrible, it takes years of state propaganda – primarily directed at children – to overcome people's people’s actual experiences of the endless disasters of socialized medicine. Propaganda is always required where people would never voluntarily choose the situation that the propaganda is praising. Thus we need endless propaganda extolling the virtues of the welfare state, the war on drugs and socialized medicine, while the virtues of eating chocolate cake are left for us to discover and maintain on our own.

Government propaganda is primarily aimed at children through state schools, and primarily takes the form off an absence of topics. The coercive nature of the state is never mentioned, of course, and neither are the financial benefits which accrue to those who control the state. Children do hear endlessly about how the state protects the environment, feeds the poor and heals the sick. This propaganda blinds people to the true nature of state violence – thus ensuring that state violence can increase with relatively little to no opposition.

Government propaganda is primarily delivered through state schools, which parents are forced to pay for through taxation. Thus a ghastly situation is created wherein the taxpayers are forced to pay for their own indoctrination – and the indoctrination of their children. This “externalization of cost” is perhaps the greatest tool that the government uses to ensure that increasing state violence will be subject to little or no opposition. No corporation or private agency could possibly profit from a 14-year program of indoctrinating children – the state, however, by pushing the costs of indoctrination onto parents, creates a situation where the slaves are forced to pay for their own manacles. And as we all know, when slaves don't don’t resist, owning slaves becomes economically far more viable.

For the above reasons, it is clear that the existence of a centralized state vastly increases both the profit and the prevalence of violence. The fact that the violence is masked by obedience in no way diminishes the brutality of coercion. All moralists interested in one of the greatest topics of ethics – the reduction or elimination of violence – would do well to understand the depth and degree to which the existence of a centralized state promotes, exacerbates and profits from violence. Private violence is a negative but manageable situation – as we can see from countless examples throughout history, public violence always escalates until civil society is utterly destroyed. Because the state so directly. P profits from violence, eliminating the state can in no way increase the use of violence within society. Quite the contrary – since private agencies do not profit from violence, eliminating the state will, to a degree unprecedented in human history, eliminate violence as well.