[ExI] Is there a potential libertarianism / democracy tension?

[Adrian Tymes]

On Thu, Sep 29, 2011 at 11:32 AM, Dan <dan_ust at yahoo.com> wrote:
> But this problem, to me, is not one of dismantling or abolishing the state must proceed in a gradual fashion or is really hard to do. I don't think it is. Instead, what's hard is to persuade people that the state is illegitimate and unnecessary. That will take a long time, I guessing -- at least to persuade a significant minority.

Try "impossible".  The state has a much larger propaganda machine to
tell people it is legitimate and necessary.  This can and will completely
counter any major gains you realize, in short order.

Or did you think this was a 1 player game?

You can not defeat a much larger and more powerful opponent by
assuming it will not competently react to any threats that become
significant.

>> It is of note that, arguably, this has in fact happened.  Some
>> libertarian-leaning folk got into Congress and started
>> dismantling parts of government over the past few decades.
>
> I must have missed this. What parts of the state were dismantled "over the past few decades"?

Financial deregulation, for one.  Certain Republicans are all for
letting banks do as they please.  If they could get away with it,
they'd quickly draft and sign legislation saying that no one may
initiate force against banks, for any reason.  They have at least
lowered this - lower capital gains tax rates, less things that
could be cited as legal reasons to initiate force (via police &
court proxies) against them, and so on.

Yes, it's not absolutely freeing them from force - but there is a
major difference between what they have to deal with, and
what the average citizen has to deal with.  Progress that is
not perfect and complete is progress nonetheless.  Sometimes,
it is the only way: people might never accept a sudden
transition, but will accept a slow transition comprised of many
small changes over time, even if both lead to the same end.

Granted, banks haven't been put all the way back where they
were yet.  But for example, the TARP funds were given to
bail out banks - and then handed to executives as large
bonuses.  This practice was then restricted, with quite a bit of
these bonuses taken back (by force), until the banks paid the
funds back.

> See above. But let's say persuasion never works. There are other options, including seceding or migrating else.

People have tried to secede.  That tends to get responded to
with force, before the seceders can gather anywhere near
enough force to stop this.  Indeed, the mere gathering of
force by non-government entities tends to get cracked down
upon, specifically to prevent anyone from being able to
resist government force.

That leaves migration.  Unless you have a way to counter
the government's persuasion, which acts on a similar
scale and with similar objectives as the aforementioned
physical force?  If you don't, and those are your only
options, and you're seriously dedicated to living by your
principles, then you owe it to yourself to leave ASAP.

>> They do what they want, and
>> if that means busting other peoples' heads, they'll do it.  As I
>> posted earlier, it is impossible to effectively deal with these
>> people without abrogating libertarianism.
>
> And I thought Fred pointed out why this was wrong. Libertarianism can deal with retaliation. The rule is no initiation of force. This doesn't mean others won't initiate force. It's merely a view of when force is allowed. Once someone else initiates, libertarianism does not counsel nothing be done.

Right, but how about when you don't know where the force came
from, and thus who to retaliate upon?

Let's say someone in a mask takes your wallet and runs away.  You
later catch up to the person - and there are 5 similar people, any
one of whom could have done the deed.  They all have guns, and
all of them have committed to retaliating to any initiation of force
in their presence with deadly force.  You claim that one of them
initiated force against you - but they ignore any and all evidence
you have, up to and including your wallet being on the ground near
them.  (They claim it's their wallet, and they were discussing which
of them should hold it.)

Only one of them actually initiated force against you.  Attack, and
you have a 4 in 5 chance of being wrong - and a 5 in 5 chance
that they will all retaliate against you.

Bring in a bunch of friends, and - well, they're not giving up that
wallet unless you initiate force against them.  Again, 4 in 5 chance
of getting the wrong person.

If it is legitimate to attack the thief's allies just because they
refuse to admit to the deed and have vowed to defend one another
- well, the allies haven't actually initiated any force themselves,
have they?  You are initiating force against them, no matter how
you try to justify it.

This is just one of the many, many tricks people have developed
over millennia to get around this kind of philosophical binding.

> You might want to read up the market anarchists on how to deal with law enforcement or in general with how to deal with those who initiate force in society. For instance, George H. Smith's "Justice Entrepreneurship in a Free Market" (PDF at http://www.mises.org/journals/jls/3_4/3_4_4.pdf ). Many of the ideas on how this would done without initiating are similar to Common Law notions of what people can and cannot do when trying to defend themselves, recover stolen property, or bring to justice people who have injured them or others. Your view seems akin to: You won't initiate force, so unless you're in a heated gun battle with those who don't care about initiating force, you're stuck to doing nothing. That's definitely not the libertarian view or even the anarchist libertarian view.

Actually, that is what it reduces to, because anything aside from
that - recovering stolen property, bringing people to justice,
anything aside from immediate self-defense - requires that you
commit an action that someone can claim is you initiating force,
at some point.

The government uses this reasoning too.  For example, if you
seriously start to gather enough military power that you have a
credible chance of seceeding - the only reason some
non-government entity could want to collect that power within
a country's borders is with the intent of using it against said
country.  Therefore, the mere gathering of that much power is
itself initiation of force, just as much as picking up a gun and
pointing it at someone is*, and the government replies
accordingly.

* Because, at this point, the person hasn't actually done
anything that causes actual harm - but the intent is obvious,
and the means are present, so defensive measures are
authorized.