Here is the post to which I was referring. In short, the free market isn’t democratic at all. If anything, it’s an-cap.

I will say this – although it may be possible for places to exist without anything formally called a government, it seems to be an absolute guarantee that organizations will naturally arise that will create rules and regulations for their members. The desire to organize and be members of a society is ingrained in us and is unavoidable. It is surprising to note that even in virtual worlds ad hoc organizations will emerge with sometimes draconian rules that begin to resemble government organizations.

So I think the emergence of – lets call them proto-governments – is inevitable. As we’ve seen from socialist any system which attempts to ignore human nature is doomed to failure. So although I sympathize with the anarchist side philosophically, I think it would prove to be impractical. Bottom line – if any area (you can’t really talk about an anarchist nation can you?) were truly anarchist, it wouldn’t be for long.

I think our founding fathers understood this fact very well. Many of them (Thomas Jefferson I know of) were anarchists at heart, but they understood that a true absence of government could just create a void that could very well be filled by something far worse.

So given the choices I’d say I’d prefer limited libertarian government. That can quench the thirst for creation of a society with rules and regulations without greatly impacting liberty.

The real issue however is how to keep the government limited in scope. The founding fathers envisioned a federalist system with separation of powers, which have gone a long way, but I think that we can agree they haven’t gone far enough. Perhaps we need some creative thought on what other mechanisms we can use to limit government.

I have been contemplating limited-government libertarianism, minarchism (a more extreme version) and even straight out anarchism. I find minarchism to have more appealing arguments (especially in the realm of private military) but I find that private law is too ineffective.

I’d love to hear some insight.

Your thought experiment is good and constructive. And you’re right — it is possible for something like you suggest (enough people despising marijuana to effectively make it illegal) to occur.

I think there are a few arguments against this, but none are foolproof. The key one that I can see is this:

It’s easy to state “I want marijuana off the streets and to be impossible to obtain.” A lot of people have this stated preference. What’s harder is to say “I’m willing to spend $100 out of my own pocket every month to pay for the forces that will stop other people from using marijuana.” Revealed preference — especially when costs are direct — are supposed by people like me to be much more libertarian. I.e. a lot of people want to impose their values on others, but how many of those people will pay big money to do so? It is for this reason that I think it unlikely, but possible, that your thought experiment could prove true.

But to step away from the thought experiment, you state:

I don’t understand why it is unacceptable for the government to infringe upon our rights through coercion, but the same behavior is acceptable for private organizations. Perhaps you consider both unacceptable. In that case I still have a hard time believing that we will be any more free in the absence of government.

Either is unacceptable [to me], but yet I do believe we will be more free in the absence of government. Both for the reasons in my above comment to Bret (Voice and Exit), and due to my small rebuttal to your thought experiment above. Government abstracts power and offers the illusion of legitimacy to illiberal policies. Making those concrete and direct is one way that I personally believe to avoid them.

However, I’m not offering utopia. As you point out, absolute liberty suggests that you *can* take away the rights of others. Structures of society are simply ways to try to minimize the occurrence and provide restitution when such things happen. Neither totalitarian government nor anarcho-capitalist society will end murder, theft, etc. The difference between government an an-cap society is largely the extent to which infringement of rights becomes an institutionalized and widespread phenomenon.

There’s one other statement you made that I must address:

A free market seems to have its own form of democratic majority rule. It may be a majority of money, but your small sum may be as ineffective at changing the actions of a business as it is at changing the actions of a government.

I’m going to devote a whole post to this point, as I think it’s a common yet incorrect point. More on that very soon.

Good point. If you study Public Choice Theory, you’ll know the terms Exit and Voice. The discussion of Federalism I suggested was heavily biased to “Voice”, the idea that you can control and change the decisions being made. “Exit” is another key metric, as you bring up.

Much of libertarian thought is essentially looking at ways to increase the relevance of Voice and reduce barriers to Exit. Federalism is one way to do this simply from a geographical perspective. Competitive governance is another, less well-known.

But yes, Exit is just as important as Voice, and federalism eases the former just as much as the latter.

I was trying to understand the forces behind this “thuggery” as you call it. I don’t think this originates with the government – the government is just a convenient tool to use. In the absence of government, busybodies will find another way to impose their values on everyone that they can. I don’t question the anti-government sentiment that is common in libertarianism, but I am very skeptical that the free market will magically fix the ills of society. The free market still gives them opportunities to impose their values, and the semi-democratic nature of the free market (money rather than votes) means that you may be just as powerless to stop this.

I’m not saying that this imposition is right, simply that it seems to be very common, and perhaps an aspect of human nature. This can help us understand why it exists and what to do about it.

On second thought, that’d never work. Once the definition is changed from defending one’s right to live in freedom into a “right” to the output of other citizen’s life’s work, then I guess that organization will just be used for transfers of wealth.

Not *more effective* decisions, but decisions whose consequences are easier to escape. Particularly offensive laws at the city level can be fairly easily escaped, I need only move out of town. I might not even need to leave my social network or find a new job. Escaping federal laws requires me to leave the country, something that 1. isn’t entirely legal, and 2. would require a great deal of money, capital, and opportunity.

A free market seems to have its own form of democratic majority rule. It may be a majority of money, but your small sum may be as ineffective at changing the actions of a business as it is at changing the actions of a government.

A thought experiment – suppose we have a free market anarchy with no government whatsoever. Police services and the like are provided as paid services – those who pay get the services and you influence them. You can choose not to pay, but does that mean that you will not be adversely affected by these “services”? Suppose that the majority of paying customers adamantly despises marijuana, and pays the police service to “clean up the streets”. Your liberties can be infringed upon by the free market as well.

I don’t understand why it is unacceptable for the government to infringe upon our rights through coercion, but the same behavior is acceptable for private organizations. Perhaps you consider both unacceptable. In that case I still have a hard time believing that we will be any more free in the absence of government.

As Sarte said, “Hell is other people.” Absolute liberty means that I have the right to take away the rights of others. If we limit liberty in order to prevent this then we are no longer free. Furthermore those who would gladly take away the rights of others can corrupt the limiting forces to once again limit the rights of others. As long as there are “other people” there will be no liberty.

I would add that facts are known, if at all, with varying degrees of insight, breadth and precision. Life, liberty and the eternal search for truth are never ending-processes, a journey without end, not something that can be flattened and pressed into a closed book, or reduced to statutory dicta and and preserved for eternity.

Keep up your great work.