One is whether rights are better conceived as natural or positive. You believe natural, but you ought to at least look at the case for treating rights as positive. — Srap Tasmaner

That doesn't seem correct to me. I am assuming people have moral rights. But I am not assuming that they are natural (not that I am quite sure what that means) or that they are negative (I take it that the opposite of a positve right is a negative right, not a natural right, and the opposite of a natural right is a non-natural right).

I take the very notion of a right to have the justification of violence built into it. If I have a right to something, then that just means that violence can be used, if necessary, to provide me with it or, if it is a negative right, to prevent someone else from depriving me of what i have a right to.

My (or rather, Huemer's) case for anarchism doesn't depend on how many positive versus negative rights we have, for it is sufficient for the case to go through that we do not have a right to extract payment with menaces for deciding to police the rights or others. So long as it's clear - and I think it is - that a mafiosi is wrong in demanding protection money with menaces, then the case goes through, I think. For if we accept this, then it should be clear that the state is not entitled to claim for itself a monopoly on protecting our rights (some or any of them) and is not entitled to bill us for then doing so.

And here too, you might consider looking at arguments for the state. There's obviously lots of writing there, but two I can recommend that I find interesting because they're not just theory are Timothy Snyder (whom I quoted on the Holocaust) and Acemoglu and Robinson, Why Nations Fail. — Srap Tasmaner

Well, haha, I suppose my point in presenting what I take to be a powerful case for anarchism is to extract from others arguments for the state that can overcome the one I presented.

Because Huemer's anarchist conclusion follows from his premises, then by hypothesis his case refutes all other cases. Someone who thinks there's a good case for the state would need to show how it challenges the assumptions that Huemer's argument makes.

I am familiar-ish with the sorts of case people make for the state. And to date I have been unimpressed by all of them.

For example, appeals to beneficial consequences have already been dealt with. A) such appeals are misguided given that rights operate to place constraints on the extent to which violence can be used against people to secure good consequences. Can violence be used against me to make me eat more healthily? No. I eat unhealthily. If you used violence against me to make me eat more greens, you'd definitely improve my health. That's irrelevant, though, isn't it? For I have a right to eat what I want and you have no right to prevent me, even for my own good. So those who appeal to beneficial or harmful consequences are missing the point. Their empirical claims are false - the state is terrible at everything (again, the police are absolutely rubbish - and rubbish the world over - at solving crimes). But it wouldn't matter if they were true, for again, rights constrain what can be done to an individual in the name of securing good consequences.

Others - Hobbes and Locke and Rousseau - appeal to the notion of a hypothetical contract. They point out, on different grounds, that we - or our ideal selves - 'would' have agreed to commission the state to do as it does, and so because of this that somehow justifies it in actually doing it.

That's a terrible argument though. Imagine your car has an engine problem. I decide to fix it for you (you did not ask me). Then I bill you. And my bill is low. So low, in fact, that you would have hired me to do it for that price. Ok - well, do I have a right to extract payment from you with violence if necessary? No. Perhaps you ought to pay me, but I don't have a right to the money for you didn't commission me. The fact you would have done so had I asked is neither here nor there.

I think that serves to undermine all those cases for the state that appeal to hypothetical contracts. It's actual contracts that count, at least when it comes to being entitled to extract payment with menaces for a job done.

What were your political views before you encountered Michael Huemer? Were you already interested in politics?

I was some kind of Rawlsian.

I've never read Rawls myself ― was never very interested in political theory.

So I suppose Rawls made certain arguments that you found persuasive until you read Michael Huemer ― is that right? And I expect Huemer addresses Rawls's arguments directly.

Could you give an example of something Rawls says ― especially if it's an argument you used to find persuasive ― that you believe Huemer presents a strong counter-argument to? Like I said, not a field I know much about, so I'm curious.

Rawls argues that we gain insight into what rules it would be fair to make us live by, by imagining what rules-of-the-game we'd agree to prior to knowing our fate in the natural lottery. The rules we'd agree to under those conditions of ignorance are the ones it is then fair to make us live by once our hand has been dealt. For though it is by luck that some of us have marketable talents and others not, the rules are - by hypothesis - ones we'd all have agreed to prior to knowing such matters. So, just as it is fair to hold us to the rules of a game if we all agreed to those rules prior to knowing what hand of cards we'd be dealt, likeewise it is fair to regulate our lives by rules that we'd have all agreed to prior to knowing what hand of talents and disadvantages nature would deal to us.

The problem is that this is a hypothetical contract and hypothetical contracts are worthless and do not justify treating others in the hypothetically agreed-to ways. You would have commissioned me to fix your car, but you didn't. The hypothetical contract you'd have entered into with me does nothing at all to justify me demanding payment with menaces. And with that, Rawls's view goes down the toilet, I think. It may provide us with a useful thought experiment to gain insight into what's fair, but it does nothing to justify the state.

Does Rawls call this a "hypothetical contract"? How does he describe it? And how does he use this thought experiment to justify the formation of the state?

oes Rawls call this a "hypothetical contract"? How does he describe it? And how does he use this thought experiment to justify the formation of the state? — Srap Tasmaner

Yes, he doesn't suppose us actually to have signed such a contract. It's just a thought experiment called 'the original position'. It's designed to provide us with insight into what fairness requires. And I think it does. But it doesn't do anything to show the state to be justified. The fact we 'would have' agreed to certain rules doesn't a) mean we have, b) entitle others to treat us as if we have agreed to them.

So, as a thought experiment designed to give us insight into fairness, it has something to be said for it. As an attempt at justifying the state, it's rubbish

But it doesn't do anything to show the state to be justified. — Clearbury

Does he claim that it does show the state is justified?

The problem is that this is a hypothetical contract and hypothetical contracts are worthless and do not justify treating others in the hypothetically agreed-to ways. — Clearbury

You seem to be quite adept at ignoring all the aspects of reality which are not consistent with your argument.

A person does not choose to be born into the situation they are born into. That there is a (hypothetical) contract over your head when you are born, is just a brute fact, just like there is a sun over your head. The contract is signed at the time of birth, by the baby's parents and the doctor, it's called a birth certificate. The person is just a baby, so the parents need to make all the required signatures for the baby. Once the documents are signed, you cannot escape this reality, that the contract is signed, and the paper trail is created. You may run and hide though, perhaps in a different country or something like that.

You can argue against the right that your parents have to sign these documents which make you identifiable to the powers that be, as a legal subject just like you can argue against the right that your parents have to even provide you with a place in this cruel world, in the first place, but what's the point? It's already too late for that, just like it's already too late to preach anarchy as a means of getting out of the contract your parents signed for you. In reality, you have no right to live at any particular location on this earth, unless you have that signed document, because you have no right to any real estate.

Yes, I think so. But it doesn't really matter for my purposes here, for if he never intended it to operate as a justification for the state, then it presents no challenge to my view, and if he did intend it to be a justificaiton for a state, then it is a rubbish one.

It's actual contracts that count, at least when it comes to being entitled to extract payment with menaces for a job done. — Clearbury

Engage with the arguments I make and not strawmen.

I am familiar-ish with the sorts of case people make for the state. And to date I have been unimpressed by all of them. — Clearbury

The fundamental problem is where you start thinking of anarchism: you start from the individual, yet go for macrolevel solutions that effect communities and societies. Individual rights is a good starting point for a legal system, because the laws should be universal and equal. Yet in your example an individual interacts with another individual and that's your basis for anarchism. This is simply thinking that someone in an Ivory Tower purely thinking at a theoretical level can make.

First of all, people don't roam the land as individuals like siberian tigers or other large predators do. Humans live in groups and form families, groups, clans, societies. You can be all hyped up about the rights of the individual, think yourself as an individual, but you simply don't live alone and act alone. But this is just the start of the problems that this individualism has.

Think for a while of reality, of historical events on how people behave when there is de facto, no government or the government collapses.

When governments collapse, and there are dozens and dozens of examples of this, what is common in those situations?

What is common that then people immediately form groups that basically carry out the role of the government. The first thing is that they understand there's no police to call, then they protect themselves, their families and their property. They can be neighborhood watchgroups, vigilante groups or simply gangs. And they every time face the problem of who pays for the costs if crisis isn't very short. Because simply a few volunteers armed with baseball bats looking out for thieves won't cut it. The "few volunteers" have to have weapons and training, and all that adds to the costs of maintaining this service. And then you're back to square one: the "anarchistic" system has to demand some payment for the costs, hence taxes, and then comes all the issues of who just has power then in the system, and so on.

It's something quite universal:

or indirectly unjust in that it pays for what it is justly doing by unjust means: by taxation. — Clearbury

Here's my problem: are you willing to pay anything for services provided by others? If you need an electrician, is it OK for the electrician to ask for fee that basically feeds himself and his family? Or is that also unjust.

If you answered yes, you would pay for the electrician for his services, then where is the line where this payment becomes "injust", as the government does provide valuable institutions and services and the taxes go to the salaries of those that make them possible. It's again the problem above, something like "security" isn't cheap, it's far more costly especially when there isn't a large organization taking care of it... like a government.

Engage with the arguments I make and not strawmen. — Clearbury

The problem is that your arguments are based in premises which are far removed from reality, i.e. false. Therefore it is necessary to demonstrate the falsity of your premises, rather than engage with the logic of your arguments, in order to demonstrate that your arguments are unsound.

If replacing your false premises for true premises constitutes making a strawman, to you, then so be it. You can continue to live in your "hypothetical" world of "hypothetical" contracts, and ignore the abundance of signed documents which are all around you, (birth certificates, other forms of identification, title deeds, bank accounts, insurance, etc..) indicating that said contracts are very real, and not merely "hypothetical", if that is what you wish. But what is the point to ignoring reality, just because it is inconsistent with the premises of your favoured argument? Don't you see how such behaviour only misleads you?

Think for a while of reality... — ssu

Careful what you ask for. Clearbury is prone to designating anyone who asks for such as irrational, and then proceeding to ignore that person for engaging with the reality of the situation, rather than Clearbury's hypothetical situation.

if he did intend it to be a justificaiton for a state, then it is a rubbish one. — Clearbury

Well, I haven't read him, so I can't fill in the argument, if there is one.

I suppose, though, if you're going to talk about rules at all, then the natural question is whether and how those rules are enforced.

Careful what you ask for. Clearbury is prone to designating anyone who asks for such as irrational, and then proceeding to ignore that person for engaging with the reality of the situation, rather than Clearbury's hypothetical situation. — Metaphysician Undercover

Thanks for the "warning", but I'll see if Clearbury responds.

I think this is very typical for those that want to talk especially about anarchism. Anarchism sounds so interesting and refreshingly different from what they are used to in their own society. It's a wonderful blend of freedom and criticism of the societies of the present. However, even if daydreaming might be refreshing, any political ideology has to be rooted in actual reality and judged by what it's implementation really results in. Having premises like "actually we have to have a totally new kind of human being" should ring alarm bells for everyone.

That is unjust. It'd be unjust if I tried to do that in respect of others, and so it is unjust of teh government to try and do it. — Clearbury

What makes it unjust, specifically? What's the moral philosophy and what's the argument?

It seems like a perfectly fine policy to limit the ability of everyone to do violence to each other and hand it to some professional and accountable institution.

After all according to your own argument, violence ought to be something tightly restricted.

The other thing governments do - and that seems partly definitive of them - is extract payment for its services with menaces, regardless of whether anyone to whom the services are being provided has contracted them.

On its injustice: I take it that we can all agree that if the local mafia turn up at a business and say to the business owner "we are going to provide you with protection and you must pay us 30% of your profits or we'll smash your business up and imprison you" then this would be unjust behaviour on the mafia's part. — Clearbury

Us agreeing is all fine, but that doesn't replace an argument. The thing about extortion rackets is that they don't provide protection. That is what they say, but that's not actually what is happening. So this situation is actually not at all analogous to taxes or other dues.

if there is no relevant difference between a government and a mafia except in terms of how effective they have been at monopolizing the use of violence, — Clearbury

But of course, this is not the case for many governments.

You're taxed to pay for the police whether you wish to be or not. And if you refuse to pay your taxes, the government will eventually imprison you. — Clearbury

And being taxed is not the same as paying for the individual operation. As I pointed out, your relation with the government is not (only) contractual. Same as your relations with your friends and family.

Not all obligations need to be contractual.

Here's my problem: are you willing to pay anything for services provided by others? If you need an electrician, is it OK for the electrician to ask for fee that basically feeds himself and his family? Or is that also unjust. — ssu

Yes. I 'hire' electricians. If an electrician just decides to change a lightbulb - without asking me - and then bills me and threatens me with violence if I do not pay, then that's UNJUST. This isn't hard, you just have to read what I argued and not replace it with something silly.

If I say that it is wrong to kick to death a dog, don't respond "so, you think it is wrong to treat a dog well?!"

It seems like a perfectly fine policy to limit the ability of everyone to do violence to each other and hand it to some professional and accountable institution. — Echarmion

Does this site have anyone on it who can actually read what someone says rather than attack strawmen of their own invention?

I think all the anarchist conclusion really requires is that it is wrong to extract payment with menaces for deciding - without being commissioned to do so - to protect another's rights.

It's not in dispute that we have rights and not dispute that we're entitled to use violence if necessary to protect them.

But the defender of the justice of any government needs to argue that, somehow, those in power are entitled not just to defend our rights (which isn't in dispute - they are entitled to do that, for we as individuals are entitled to do that and those in power are just individuals), but to extract payment with menaces for having decided to do so.

The point can be made another way: are the mafia in the wrong when they threaten others with violence in order to extract protection money? I think the answer is clear to all reasonable people: yes.

Well, a government is no different from them apart from being more successful at it. So, if the mafia are wrong in behaving in taht way, then so too are those in government.

Ironically most of those who think governments are not unjust think this because they think without them they'll be in the hands of mafias. So they confusedly think that the best way to protect against the injustice of being subject to mafias, is to have a mega-mafia!

The solution: let's say we agree that all governments are fundamentally unjust as they are all composed of people who've decided they are entitled to protect our rights for a fee (or worse, to go beyond that and impose their conception of the good life on the rest of us) and extract it with menaces - so they're all mafias - then what's the way out?

Well, the solution lies with individuals recognizing that government is not needed - recognizing that government is unjust and unjustified - and withdrawing their support from it. That could be achieved overnight if just everyone had this realization all at once, for then no one would pay their taxes or see any special reason to obey the state or enforce the state's policies - and in one fell swoop all governments would just disappear, as they have no magical source of power beyond individuals deciding to obey them.

That's not going to happen all at once though. So the alternative is that it happens gradually as libertarian-esque governments pare back what the government is involved in and everyone starts to see that where government involvement stops, things improve.

For instance, food production and distribution is almost entirely conducted by the private sector, at least in first world countries (and that's partly what makes them first world). And everyone in countries where that is the case, recognizes - one hopes - that the diversity, quality and cheapness of food, and its efficient distribution, would all be considerably worse if the government decided to take over those matters. Nobody here who lives in a 'free' country surely thinks government should own all the supermarkets and produce all the food - you'd recognize that the instant it did that, the food quality and range would reduce and costs would go up.

All it requires is for people to recognize that exactly the same would happen in every other area. For all one is doing is removing an obstacle to efficiency: bossy do-gooding individuals who think they know better how to distribute things than individuals.

Privatizing the police and army would be the last step....

So the solution is to elect libertarian anti-regulation governments in the hope that the more that is taken out of the public sector and shown to improve in every way when subject more directly to the will of individuals improves exponentially. And the more that happens, the more it will dawn on people that the dwindling government is doing nothing - or nothing but issuing threats. It'll die a natural death

Privatizing the police and army would be the last step.... — Clearbury

The reliance upon privatization sort of undermines this as an anarchist project -- private property requires rights to be enforced. Once you "privatize" the army the warlords move in and take what is theirs and enforce what they want thereby reinventing the state.

This is what I think of as one of the fundamental philosophical problems for anarchy: the problem of warlords is such that no matter what path to abolishing the state that you take the "bad" kind of anarchy will arise. It's not like gangs and cartels are going to vanish when all the citizens decide to stop supporting the government. And when the army can be bought then we're pretty much back to having warlords fighting over resources because they can pay troops to enforce their will.

The warlord in this scenario may be named "Chrysler", but it's not fundamentally different -- and it basically just recreates the state, but now there aren't many civic institutions to direct the necessity of violence.

But since privatizing the army does not remove coercion this plan will simply reinvent the state in the process of trying to dismantle it, and for the worse.

I think all the anarchist conclusion really requires is that it is wrong to extract payment with menaces for deciding - without being commissioned to do so - to protect another's rights. — Clearbury

So this is the motivation for your anarchism, you dislike taxation?

Well, the solution lies with individuals recognizing that government is not needed — Clearbury

Who is going to maintain the roads and all the infrastructure?

For instance, food production distribution is almost entirely conducted by the private sector, at least in first world countries (and that's partly what makes them first world). — Clearbury

But of course, distribution is done through the use of roads maintained by the government. Sure, you might claim that the private sector could build roads, but who is going to collect funds for this, and what force will they use to collect money from those who do not wish to pay, claiming that they will not use the roads? And who will be in charge of expropriating the required land for such infrastructure?

Speaking of land, without the government and its keeping of official records like title deeds, how are we going to know who owns what land? I guess we just fight it out? Oh no, no one would ever resort to violence over a property dispute, that would be irrational.

This is what I think of as one of the fundamental philosophical problems for anarchy: the problem of warlords is such that no matter what path to abolishing the state that you take the "bad" kind of anarchy will arise — Moliere

Clearbury seems to have no grasp of the concept of land ownership.

nce you "privatize" the army the warlords move in and take what is theirs and enforce what they want thereby reinventing the state. — Moliere

So having one mega-warlord is better than lots?

Food's really important. We die without it. There are loads and loads of food providers. Would it be better if there was just one mega food provider? No, that'd be terrible.

Private security companies would be a much better job - and do do a much better job - than the state. Try and steal something in a supermarket and see who stops you first - a private security guard or the police.

Private security companies would be a much better job - and do do a much better job - than the state. Try and steal something in a supermarket and see who stops you first - a private security guard or the police. — Clearbury

How would the private security companies operate given your notions of government here?:

I think all forms of government are unjust. Governments claim a monopoly on certain uses of violence and threats. I take that to be definitive. Government policies are backed by the threat of prison. — Clearbury

How would the private security companies' policies be backed? Would they not imprison people?

Whatever malevolent forces you think are at play in private companies are amplified - not reduced - at the level of the state.

The logic is very simple. If it's bad on a small scale, it's worse at a large scale. Note, there's no starry-eyed idealism at work here. There's just common sense and a keen sense of justice. It's not healthy or right to concentrate power in one individual or some tiny group.

You don't solve the problem of mafias by having one mega mafia. That's like solving the fact you've got a cold by giving yourself cancer.

Incidentally, you know how mafias really survive? State corruption. The most successful mafia in the world is THE MAFIA. And how are they so successful? (They're the most successful organisation in Italy accounting for 7% of GDP) Corrupt government officials.

Whatever malevolent forces you think are at play in private companies are amplified - not reduced - at the level of the state.

The logic is very simple. If it's bad on a small scale, it's worse at a large scale. Note, there's no starry-eyed idealism at work here. There's just common sense and a keen sense of justice. It's not healthy or right to concentrate power in one individual or some tiny group.

You don't solve the problem of mafias by having one mega mafia. That's like solving the fact you've got a cold by giving yourself cancer.

Incidentally, you know how mafias really survive? State corruption. The most successful mafia in the world is THE MAFIA. And how are they so successful? (They're the most successful organisation in Italy accounting for 7% of GDP) Corrupt government officials. — Clearbury

I don't think that private companies and the state are easily separable. I'm more or less saying that as soon as you abolish the state someone will re-invent the state. That's sort of the whole revolutionary thing.

Further, it seems your programme must reinvent the state because military and police details will be contractable through private firms, themselves needing firms to enforce their contracts. How would they do that unless they send people to prison?

In which case:

I think all forms of government are unjust. Governments claim a monopoly on certain uses of violence and threats. I take that to be definitive. Government policies are backed by the threat of prison. — Clearbury

Your own definition of government would apply.

How would the private security companies' policies be backed? Would they not imprison people? — Moliere

If one privatized the police, then the police would simply become a private company bidding for business.

Let's say I am a private security firm and my people are rubbish - they're all weak and meek. Well, I'd go out of business in no time for someone else would do a better job and they'd get my business.

If I didn't have to worry about that - if I had a state mandate to be hte exclusive provider of security in a region - then I could continue being rubbish and taking payment for doing so, as no one has any other option and are not even invited to pay.

What if, as a private security company in an anarchy, I decide to extract payment with menaces? That is, I operate like a mafia? Well, those whom I threaten would hire another security company to protect them - to protect them from such menaces.

Consider, supermarkets do not force people into them to buy their food. And no supermarket boss thinks that'd be a good idea. If someone set up a supermarket that operated like that, everyone would avoid going near it and would go to the ones where force is not involved. And the supermarkets that do not use force would employ people to protect their customers from the agents of the other supermarkets. And so on.

It'd all sort itself out in no time.

I don't think that private companies and the state are easily separable. I'm more or less saying that as soon as you abolish the state someone will re-invent the state — Moliere

Nobody is lobbying for there to be one mega supermarket that has a monopoly on selling us food.

The state's power rests in the hands of individuals and in the misguided idea that we 'need' it. To overcome that, people need to see that the government is a) unjust by its nature and b) does an appalling job at everything.

The state's power rests in the hands of individuals and in the misguided idea that we 'need' it. To overcome that, people need to see that the government is a) unjust by its nature and b) does an appalling job at everything. — Clearbury

Let's suppose we're all in agreement here.

What then?