I
have written the following as both an explanation of the above poster
regarding the Non-Aggression Principle (N.A.P.), and as a response to
a question about contract enforcement in a so-called
“Anarcho-Capitalist” (or market-anarchist) voluntary society.
A
Facebook user posted to a libertarian discussion group the following
question:
“Honest
question here for libcaps. [that is, “libertarian capitalists”] Are you
okay with authoritarian force, so long as it's committed by a private
party?
For
example, let's say a private company loans an individual $1,000. The
individual makes the payments on time for a while, but then begins to
miss payments.
Would
you advocate the company hiring a private police force to show up to
the individual's house, and physically extract the amount owed from
the debtor, or seize the debtor's property?”
Another
Facebook user responded that anarcho-capitalist libertarians' favored
alternative to state police forces, is to allow companies to hire
private police forces to do just that; show up at people's houses to
collect the debt in person, or else seize assets whose value would
cover the amount owed.
Before
I post my response to the original question, I would like to ask
something about the question. First off, what is meant by a “private”
company or “private” party? If this is a purely libertarian,
anarcho-capitalist, voluntary society, then, presumably, a
private company or party would be totally unaffiliated with
the state or the government. That means the company wouldn't be
regulated by the government, nor taxed by it, nor would they have to
abide by requirements to obtain licenses.
Shouldn't
this beg the question, “Why would a company choose to use
government-issued money – one thousand U.S. Dollars – to account
for what its debtors owe to it?” Isn't a voluntary, libertarian
society supposed to have competing currencies and competing moneys?
If we had the choice of any money or currency in the world,
with no government on Earth banning any of them, why would
anyone choose to use the U.S. Dollar over a more sound
currency?
The
only practical way for the U.S. Dollar, much less any
currency, to become a worldwide reserve currency, is through force,
imperialism, and conquest. Sure, a voluntary currency could be
adopted worldwide, but when the U.S. Dollar has asserted its
dominance on the worldwide stage, especially in the guise of the
Petrodollar, the dollar's dominance has not, for the most part, been
adopted on voluntary terms.
Wouldn't
a voluntary, libertarian society – one of consistent anti-statism –
consist of basically a total boycott of the state and all
state-affiliated institutions? If it would, then where can I find an
enterprise to work with, or work for, which does not accept U.S.
dollars, does not pay taxes, is neither regulated nor licensed, nor
receives any utilities nor privileges nor protections from the state,
nor even registers its property ownership with the state!?
What
kind of stateless society do we have, if all properties are to be
registered with the state? Registration does not confirm ownership;
it reduces the owner to a mere occupant. That has nothing to do with
real private property, and it sure as Hell has nothing to do with
either real anarcho-”capitalism”, nor a market-anarchist
society, nor a voluntary nor libertarian society, nor a stateless
society.
My
response to the original question begins:
“I'm
not a former ancap [“Anarcho-Capitalist”], but rather someone who
has given up talking about how AnCapistan [a generic term for a
hypothetical anarcho-capitalist society] could succeed, out of
frustration with fellow ancaps”
I
began my comment in this manner because around 2011 or 2012, I began
to notice that many libertarians were more enthusiastic about the
idea that capitalism would be the dominant economic system in a
voluntary society, while I was more excited about the possibility of
choosing from among many different economic systems.
Many
or most libertarians evidently feel that capitalism – or free
markets (which they regard as the same thing) – is the only
fully voluntary economic system. Anyone who has read my work from the
last 6 or 7 years will know that I disagree.
This
disagreement has led to countless arguments between left-leaning and
right-leaning libertarians about how “socialism is fascism”,
“socialism leads to fascism”, “the Nazis were socialist”,
“socialism killed hundreds of millions”, and “all
non-individualist-capitalist ideologies are collectivist and
therefore fascist”, against myself, who has been arguing that
lumping all of these things together as if they were the same thing,
will only make them harder to understand, and, if necessary,
defeat.
But
it is not necessary to “defeat” collectively-managed,
non-state-affiliated, not-for-profit – that is, fully private -
contract enforcement agents, nor security guards. Not as long as the
person whom is having “authoritarian force” (as the original
question asked) applied against them - in order to exact the debt and
recoup what's owed – freely volunteers to be physically
restrained or arrested, or have force used against them if they
resist, as a potential consequence of failing to live up to something
he contractually promised.
And,
of course, there should be a contract spelling this out in the first
place. Any contract of surety, contract of trust, financial contract,
or contract wherein physical harm or death could result as a
consequence, should detail the circumstances in which a person must
surrender themselves into custody for non-payment. But that doesn't
mean he'd surrender himself to the police, it means he'd
surrender himself to a non-state-affiliated debt collection agency,
with its own professional recovery team, trained in non-violent means
of apprehension, and knowledge of de-escalation tactics, and the
ability to explain clearly that the person agreed in their contract
to submit to custody if he does not pay his debts.
But
this idea should not be taken to mean that each person must
choose a debt collection agency. Nor does it mean that people could
be pressured to choose one. At least not in any way that satisfies
the Non-Aggression Principle, being that aggression includes
coercion, which presumably includes veiled threats, intimidation,
harassment, psychological torture, stalking, or even pressure.
Hopefully
this makes sense to the reader. Unfortunately, many self-described
“anarcho-capitalists” do not see it this way. This is partially
due to their incorrect assumption that when I say that the N.A.P.
should be construed to prohibit those forms of covert
aggression (really, passive-aggression) in addition to
more overt, direct forms of aggression, that makes me a “statist”
because I supposedly mean that the government should do
something about covert aggression.
I
am not saying that in the least. I am simply saying that – in
addition to people not hitting, murdering, stealing from, and
defrauding people – we must also not pressure people into
“volunteering” for things that they do not genuinely want to do,
and feel comfortable doing, without another person nagging them, and
taking away perfectly viable alternatives for no good reason.
That
is as clear as I can possibly make it. I hope that my response to the
original question asked by the Facebook user, will help elucidate my
vision of a stateless, market-anarchist, voluntary libertarian
society further:
“I
would answer 'yes [that is, I would advocate the company hire a
private police force to recover their debt from the debtor in
person], but only:
1)
if the person getting arrested, agrees to be arrested, as
part of the terms of his contract. He should not be pressured
into accepting violent arrest in any way, he should actively and
enthusiastically want that [arrest] to be one of the potential
consequences of defaulting on the loan, and it should be specifically
stipulated in the contract.”
By “he should actively and enthusiastically want that [arrest] to be one of the potential consequences”, I do not mean to encourage people to choose to be arrested, nor do I mean that a person should be obligated to submit to the possibility of arrest; quite the opposite.
I mean to say that if a
person would not agree to be arrested as a consequence of not paying
his debt, then he should not sign a contract agreeing to be arrested
in such circumstances. Only if he really insists that
he should be arrested; say, since he's a man of convictions, or very
confident about his ability to pay his debt back, or both, or
whatever reason.
But
my point is that a person should not sign an agreement to be
physically subdued for failing to abide by a contract, unless they
are in no way pressured, nor coerced, into assenting to arrest
(for example, because there is social pressure to use police violence
or violence in general as a response to all problems, or because
there are supposedly no non-violent methods of debt exaction, etc.).
Assent is not consent.
I
continued:
“Also,
2) the 'private' agency must not be sponsored by, nor affiliated
with, nor protected nor subsidized by, any government, in any way.
And
3) the private collection or arresting agency must not be required to
operate on a for-profit basis. And
4)
the agency, preferably, would not accept any currency issued by a
government.
Additionally,
I would urge people not to borrow money in the first place.
Also, I would urge people to join into communities and voluntary
associations which voluntarily choose [i.e., unanimously]
to oppose usury and pernicious lending.
That
way, people who want to make their living from manipulating money,
and pressuring people to go into debt, could not be lumped-into any
political association, nor economic trust with others without their
express consent.
I
don't endorse any bordered, nor geographically bounded, political
arrangements, though, except for bioregionalism.
I
hope that I have clearly explained what firms would be like in a
totally stateless, voluntary, libertarian society:
non-state-affiliated, untaxed, not regulated by the state, not
required to get a license nor a permit in order to operate, not
required to register its property to the government, not obligated to
operate on a for-profit basis, and not required to use
government-issued currency.
It
would be hard to justify banning something in a voluntary society,
but really, how can you call a society fully anarchist and stateless,
if large numbers of people are going around using currencies issued
by governments that no longer exist?
Maybe
another post I wrote will explain it concisely. Here's something I
wrote to explain how interpreting the Non-Aggression Principle as
meaning to prohibit a broader range of coercive activities than
previously thought, is not necessarily a call for larger government,
nor for any government at all:
When
I say "Usury, exploitation, pressure, harassment, and
manipulation are all examples of coercion - a soft form of
aggression, and a veiled threat - and are therefore unacceptable",
I'm
not saying "The state should be large and powerful enough to ban
these things (in addition to performing the essential functions of
providing a military, a treasury and common currency, and designating
roads)",
Nor
am I saying "The Non-Aggression Principle is too narrow to
encompass these less obvious forms of coercion and soft aggression".
I'm
saying "These things are wrong, and the state - being based on
the monopolistic hoarding of the legal right to commit acts of
violence in order to do something about it - can only make things
worse, and increase abuses, and increase violations of the N.A.P.,
and that's why the idea that the state could handle military,
treasury, or roads, was flawed from the start".
I'm
not calling for more enforcement, nor am I calling for more state
violence, nor for expanding the size and scope of the federal
government, nor of any
government.
Non-for-profit,
non-state-affiliated firms can enforce people's wishes to ban these
practices, if people insist that they be physically stopped from
doing things they agreed not to do. No state necessary.
All
I'm calling for is for people
to notice when they're coercing or pressuring others, and to stop
themselves. And to know that assent
is not enough. Enthusiastic
and
informed
consent
- as well as mutual benefit - must be our standards for judging
whether an interaction or transaction is voluntary.
The previous sentence should help explain why I included prohibitions on
“one-sided deals” in the poster. This is not to say that gifts
should be prohibited – because one could argue that only the
receiver benefits from a gift – gifts are not
one-sided deals, as long as the gift is not given with the intent of
manipulating nor shaming the recipient, nor with the intent of
pressuring the recipient into reciprocating with another gift.
But,
of course, there's nothing wrong with reciprocation,
either; in fact, mutual benefit and voluntary participation are
equally
valuable components of a transaction which is voluntary on the part
of all people involved. It's just that people shouldn't pressure
others into reciprocating, because that defeats the point, and the
spirit, of giving gifts. A gift should be given out of the genuine
kindness of one's heart; not to manipulate people.
And
manipulation is one of the kinds of coercive behaviors which I feel
should be prohibited by the Non-Aggression Principle (because
coercion is a soft form of aggression).
I
do not intend to imply that it would be possible, nor even that it
should necessarily be our specific goal, to eliminate all
pressure
from the world. Indeed, it would, no doubt, require some degree of
pressure
to convince people that coercion is bad, when they refuse to believe
in it.
But
I mention this argument only to disprove it. The above argument
willfully blurs the distinction between peaceful, rhetorical
argumentation, and coercive, veiled threats. Any student of
Hans-Hermann Hoppe or Stefan Molyneux – and their
anarcho-capitalist-beloved “argumentation ethics” and the
“against me” argument – will know that the first person in a
debate who resorts to issuing veiled threats against the other
person, loses the debate.
Molyneux
explained that, the way he understands argumentation ethics, to call
for any
form of violence – even
state action and state enforcement
– is to lose the debate, and concede defeat, because it is to admit
that you can't win the argument without calling on the state to force
your debate opponent to submit to the idea that you're proposing or
defending.
I,
for one, agree with Molyneux's assessment, that that idea is part of
morality, and part of the Non-Aggression Principle. The lesson of
this is that we must all
refrain from issuing veiled threats when we try to convince others of
our ideas. To do otherwise is to admit that the only argument in your
arsenal is “because I said so”. I hope that that will help
enlighten the reader as to why I included issuing ultimatums in the
list of prohibited activities under the N.A.P..
Post-Script:
For those interested in the details of how voluntary contract enforcement would work in a stateless society, I recommend reading any political theory written by Samuel E. Konkin III, Robert P. Murphy, or Roderick T. Long. I would especially recommend reading those articles which concern dispute-resolution organizations (D.R.O.s), how D.R.O.s would interact with one another, how people and companies would choose who defends them both physically and contractually, and how private law and private security could replace state law and state security.
For those interested in topics related to the non-violent apprehension of criminals and debts, I recommend reading anarchist literature concerning the abolition of prisons, studying claims that the gulag system had humane aspects, watching the prison reform scenes in Michael Moore's 2015 film Where to Invade Next, studying non-violent resistance, and following the advice in the Lord's Prayer that we be forgiven our debts "as we forgive our debtors".
Image Created on December 20th, 2018
Image Originally Published on December 20th, 2018
Image Edited and Re-Published on January 11th, 2019
Explanation Written and Added on December 27th, 2018
Post-Script Added on December 27th, 2018
Post-Script Edited and Expanded on January 11th, 2019
Poster Edited on August 26th, 2019
