A problem that many people have with Ron Paul is that he believes
that "charity" and "private enterprises" would provide people with
health care (and other services) if government didn't.
What many of his critics may not understand is that:
1) by "charity" he doesn't mean "charity as it currently exists", but
rather all voluntary giving which would exist after bureaucrats and
politicians were to stop raiding the public funds they're supposed to
protect, and compulsory taxation were to be abolished;
2) by "private", he doesn't necessarily mean businesses and properties
the owners of which expect the government to defend on their behalf;
3)
by "enterprises", he does not mean to exclude those firms which
organize themselves in egalitarian manners (like syndicates and
co-operatives); and
4) he believes that communities would be free to practice socialism in a libertarian society.
Understanding most or all of these things, many of those influenced by
Ron Paul began to study paleoconservatism, classical liberalism,
Austrian economics, and Objectivism. Some went further, towards
Rothbardianism and left-Rothbardianism, Agorism, market anarchism,
individualist anarchism, and egoist anarchism.
Many adherents of these ideologies - especially when debating with
anarcho-collectivists, anarcho-communalists, libertarian socialists,
anarcho-syndicalists, geolibertarians, and Mutualists - frequently make
concessions along the lines of the four points enumerated above. Many
also believe - as Rousseau and Benjamin Franklin believed - that private
property rights are conditional; they are only legitimate if negotiated
with the remainder of society.
I contend that
all of these groups deserve a seat at the negotiation
table, along the lines of Synthesis Anarchism / Anarchism without
Adjectives. Effectually, non-hierarchical businesses, mutuals, co-ops,
communities, and unions (insofar as they are willing to evolve into
syndicates) would compete against existing governments and hierarchical
firms - to provide individuals with any and all varieties and
combinations of goods and services - unless and until governments give
them seats at the table.
Were it to be resolved among anarchists that negotiation with the State
were useless and / or inexcusable, we would have to employ
non-State-assisted tactics in order to out-compete the State to provide
people with the means of subsistence and production; we would use
counter-economics, direct action, mutual aid, and (quoting
left-Rothbardian Gary Chartier) the "elimination of privilege [,...]
freeing the market [,...] acts of solidarity [,...] radical
rectification [of State theft, and...] radical homesteading".
Were it to be resolved among anarchists that being conciliatory to the
State's way of doing things were imperative for the stability and
cohesiveness of society - and that the State may actually be interested
in diminishing the power of itself and its beneficiaries - we would have
to change things through party politics.
We could:
1) gradually convert Democrats and Republicans to anarchism,
2) grow and empower third-party and independent politics,
3) diminish the role of party dominance in the congressional
ideological caucuses (of which there are four in the Democratic Party,
and five in the Republican party) with or without turning them into
parties in their own right, and / or
4) build
(a) a general Labor, Syndicalist, and / or Co-Operativist party, to balance the
interests of individual workers, fledgling unions, and egalitarian labor-managed firms against the
interests of the National Labor Relations Board, and against government
collusion with capital and Big Labor to exploit workers through profit,
taxes, and union dues;
(b) a Communalist and /
or collectivist party, to balance the interests of the peoples and
economies of neighborhoods, communities, counties, and
small regional governments against the interests of large regional
governments and centralized governments;
(c) a Mutualist party, to balance the interests of lending institutions
operating on the credit union model - and their customers - against the
interests of usurious banks, corrupt treasury departments, fraudulent
currency traders, pernicious lenders, stock brokers and speculators who
trade with other people's money, and the insurance and securities
industries; and
(d) an Agorist party, to balance the interests of
individually-run enterprises and non-hierarchically-managed firms (those
which regulate and protect themselves efficiently and effectively)
against the interests of those who support a State monopoly on the
coercion of business and property owners, and against those who support
State-monopoly licensing of the police and "private" security guards
employed to protect person and property.
Ron
Paul has played a significant role in popularizing the terms "Statism"
and "Statist" in the American political lexicon. According to
sociologist Max Weber, the State "upholds the claim to the monopoly of
the legitimate use of physical force in the enforcement of its order."
President Obama adopted this definition when speaking about mercenaries
while serving in the U.S. Senate.
The components of
this definition of Statism are 1) monopoly and oligopoly, 2) territorial
integrity, and 3) perceived legitimacy of initiatory force. Panarchy
turns Statism on its head by supporting 1) polyopoly (diversity in
competition), 2) open "borders", and 3) non-initiation of unwelcome
intervention into people's disputes and affairs.
Although
Ron Paul has made statements on immigration reform which have been
characterized as anti-immigrant, Paul repeatedly voted against measures
which would allow the military to assist in the protection of the
U.S.-Mexico border, and measures which would provide for increased
fencing and other infrastructure at the border. Furthermore, he has said
that "[i]n the ideal libertarian world, borders would be blurred and
open". These actions have drawn the ire of conservative commentators,
some of whom have even gone so far as to characterize Paul as an "open
borders politician, and an [']anti-racist['] cultural Marxist
egalitarian".
Ron Paul has been influential in
popularizing the 10th Amendment (the "states' rights" amendment) to the
Constitution. Although often characterized as "racist" due to its having
been cited to justify the secession of the southern states in the Civil
War, the right of people and states to choose whether to delegate
certain powers to the federal government was also invoked in
Wisconsin
to oppose the Fugitive Slave Act (thus assisting escaped slaves to
evade capture). Furthermore - despite what Barack Obama may have claimed
to believe about the following issues - the potential assertion of
federal power against governors supporting the 10th Amendment is a major
threat to the American people gaining the freedom to responsibly use
marijuana and to enter into legal marriage with their domestic partners
irrespective of their sexual orientation.
The
10th Amendment embodies the
principle of decentralized government. So too does the
"municipal home rule" of Wisconsin's Robert M. LaFollette. The
market-anarchist and
panarchist principle of a "free market in governance" contends that the
individual should have the ability to choose who resolves his disputes
and provides him with security, regardless of where he lives and
travels. It supports the geographical decentralization of
decision-making
to the community (in Marxist and democratic-federalist formulations of
the idea); and supports subsidiarism, the notion that decision-making
and
administration should be carried out at the smallest or lowest level of
government capable and competent enough to do so. When these principles
are applied, individuals and local governments become the "competitors"
of centralized governments, competing with them to provide people with
governance and other services.
Being that Ron Paul supports "de-regulation" only of those laws which
suspend, prohibit, and nullify self-regulation of markets and
regulations by states, communities, and consumers, we see that he would
view the Interstate Commerce Clause as justifying federal "regulation"
of markets within states only if states cause irregularities,
interruptions, distortions, and barriers to trade, i.e.; barriers to the adjustment of
individuals and economies to one-another's needs, in a
mutually-beneficial, voluntarily-cooperative manner.
When we see that modern governments exercise monopolies over their
territories - and can compel people to come to them exclusively to be
provided with certain ostensibly essential services - and when we learn that not
only does the government give businesses "corporate personhood", but
also that the U.S. Code defines the federal government
as "a
federal corporation", we understand that national and state boundaries
(especially when they take the form of physical borders),
are intrinsic interruptions to voluntary cooperation and trade; when not
de-facto interruptions, they are
potential interruptions.
If we are resolved to gradually alter the State, I suggest that we
invoke antitrust laws to empower the federal government to abolish not
only business monopolies, but also oligopolies (control by the few) and hierarchies within them; as well as
government monopolies, oligopolies, and hierarchy within government. This should be done with the intention of keeping the
potential for commercial provision of governance (and other services)
across state and national lines open and "regular" (i.e.,
well-"regulated" and uninhibited by aggressive, admittedly violent agencies with totalitarian motives).
This is how Obamacare was supposed to lower health insurance costs; by
legalizing the sale and purchase of health care across state lines, and
by providing a "public option" as an alternative to private health
insurance. Well, guess what happened instead:
1) Health insurance and care costs are still going up,
2) it's still illegal to buy health insurance across state lines,
3) the public "option"
compels us to buy from "private" health insurance agencies,
4) the law is being implemented at the
most highly centralized level of government possible, and5) the law gives employers a way to avoid having to insure their
employees, the effects of which threaten to establish a 28-hour
work-week as the new national standard of the lower working class.
“Regulations" don't result in
production; people produce. "Regulations"
don't work; people do.
The most secure people with the most secure
property in our society are not the ones producing security for us; we are the ones who produce security
for them, and for their unjustly-acquired
possessions.
While our most cherished possessions – our
property, our homes, and our families - are within meters of us, their most cherished possessions – our
mortgages; the deeds to our property and homes and everything in and on them –
are thousands of miles away behind bank vault doors.
The
idea that a market in the provision of
security is untenable is false, as those who have the most to lose will
relinquish the most in order to keep the remainder. We must cease
performing the charitable act of allowing their privileges to go
unchecked, which placates them and only serves to increase the
efficiency of their parasitism.
Every man ought to play a role in choosing
who protects and secures him, and who resolves his disputes, and no man ought
to intervene in the affairs of others without their consent, unless there
exists clear and present danger of direct harm.
Panarchy is governance by all people. No
man is a ruler, but every man is a king.
Peacefully defy boundaries, respect diversity
in the spirit of friendly competition, and be not so callous as to pretend that
your aggression is The Law.
