Granted even if you leave one country you’d still have to be accepted by some other country where you end up paying some taxes.… buuuut and this is why I hate this argument so much.… that’s because citizens have ‘collective’ private property ownership over the sovereign nation they are a part of. The libertarian argument against taxation reduces to abolition of private property!
I think you may be giving short shrift to the actual philosophical arguments made by libertarians. Michael Huemer responds to your argument that “the state owns the land you are on” in section 2.5.1 in The Problem of Political Authority. I’ll quote some of his reply here,
Even if we granted that the state owns its territory, it is debatable whether it may expel people who reject the social contract (compare the following: if anyone who leaves my party before it is over is doomed to die, then, one might think, I lose the right to kick people out of my party). But we need not resolve that issue here; we may instead focus on whether the state in fact owns all the territory over which it claims jurisdiction. If it does not, then it lacks the right to set conditions on the use of that land, including the condition that occupants should obey the state’s laws.
For illustration, consider the case of the United States. In this case, the state’s control over ‘its’ territory derives from (1) the earlier expropriation of that land by European colonists from the people who originally occupied it and (2) the state’s present coercive power over the individual landowners who received title to portions of that territory, handed down through the generations from the original expropriators. This does not seem to give rise to a legitimate property right on the part of the U.S. government.
Now one may conclude, as you do, that this argument leads to a more general “abolition of private property.” After all, many property claims in the world are either the result of conquest and expropriation, or the result of the inheritance of such expropriation. However, this response would ignore two facts.
First, the vast majority of property in the world can’t actually be traced back to expropriation, except indirectly. For example, the high market market price of a smartphone is driven almost entirely from the actual engineering and construction of its components, rather than the value of the raw materials that make it up. While the raw materials might be stolen property, the labor used to make it arguably isn’t (though Marxists famously disagree).
Second, it is perfectly consistent to argue for property rights in the abstract while holding that most actual claims to property in the real world are illegitimate. Libertarian Robert Nozick defended what he called the “Lockean proviso” in Anarchy, State, and Utopia, under which property right claims are only valid under a specific set of circumstances. Otherwise, we must forfeit them. One article summarizes some radical implications of this view,
One of the most controversial ideas contained in this work is Nozick’s defense of the “Lockean proviso,” which requires the “rectification” of outcomes that result from the unjust appropriation of property. Reparations redressing the effects of slavery, however, may just be the tip of the iceberg should we accept this robust conception of the Lockean proviso. Going back into the past in search of wrongs could lead to the discovery of innumerable injustices that conceivably demand contemporary rectification by their perpetrators’ descendants. It could also serve as the rationale for radically altering (and even abolishing) the global capitalist system altogether. For this reason, the proviso has been far more popular on the Left than the Right.
Nozick usually comes across as a rather traditional libertarian, arguing that “principles of justice” regarding the acquisition and transfer of property exclude theft, fraud, and enslavement. A just appropriation of property must be the result of voluntary and informed consent that both parties to the exchange of property freely exercise. However, he also emphasizes the importance of understanding the “original” or “historical” manner in which the ownership of property came about. If “past injustices” (including theft, fraud, and enslavement) enabled this ownership, then “rectification” of these crimes must take place. Nozick consistently argues that parties that have been made “worse off” by actions like these deserve compensation.
I need to read that Huemer book, it sounds very interesting from what you’ve quoted in this and the other thread here.
You’re right, I am being unfair to the actual philosophy. I have a negative emotional reaction to the political movement that uses the name. I have quite a lot of … sympathy(?) for the actual philosophical movements’ conclusions, however I still think it collapses to being a bunch of heuristics on top of utilitarian arguments in the end. Also I think objectivism(libertarianisms’ radical grandkid(?)) is … evil? Not utilitarian compatible, at least.
I feel like you side stepped the core issue in the party analogy: if I/we/the state can’t restrict access to our property because someone might die without it … that kinda means we can’t restrict access to our property almost at all. Is anyone dying in the world of a preventable disease? Clearly the state isn’t providing enough healthcare access or private healthcare providers are immorally restricting access to care.
The actual criticism then goes back to: States do not have legitimate claims for their property. I realize you address this in:
Second, it is perfectly consistent to argue for property rights in the abstract while holding that most actual claims to property in the real world are illegitimate.
But there’s no legitimate property if analyzed on a long enough time horizon. At some point some primitive human bashed some other human in the head and every one of us is the infinitesimal beneficiary of that crime. Hence Christian redemption and baptism, actual legal code statutes of limitations, moral principles that only active purposeful harm is morally bad and all sorts of other coping mechanisms civilizations have developed over the ages. The alternative is literally eternal blood feuds or wars that can only end in complete annihilation of one of the factions.
The question then becomes why don’t these coping mechanisms apply to states, but apply to every other human organisation? What makes state ownership illegitimate, but corporate ownership built on top of government contracts legitimate? At what degree of indirection does the sin wash off? What about children of employees of companies that sold goods to slavers?
Yes, it’s consistent to argue for property rights while recognizing the illegitimacy of current property allocation… but the only moral remedy for that(if taken as a serious axiomatic moral principle) is some sort of tabula rasa society, which would obviously be crazy utility destroying and nobody supports. Ok, Bakunin et al, but come on.
I don’t think libertarian principles have something unique and practical to say about where to draw the line when it comes to ‘tainted’ ownership rights. Even in that Nozick quote: why are we stopping with the USA? What about even more ancient history in Europe, or indeed North America. Obviously an absurd rabbit hole. We stop when there are still living descendants that are angry about this issue… well if you start providing a monetary incentive for grievance you’re going to find a lot of historical grievance. Hell, looking outside the US bubble there’s plenty of historical grievance globally right now everywhere.
Hopeless attempt at clarity
Trying to clarify my criticism for myself as well: libertarianism seems to present axiomatic moral principles, commandments that if unbroken will produce a just society. In practice, even philosophers treat the axioms more like heuristics layered on top of utilitarianism: “You mustn’t violate private property rights … unless you have good reason for it. Property should be justly acquired but if enough time has passed we gotta move on and get things done.” Well, ok, so what does this actually produce for us?
Government should do useful things with tax money. Unironically revolutionary idea in Locke’s time, but this stuff is in the water like flouride in the modern era. And going full circle, actual political movements that use the label seem built around objectivists, in that they’re willing to say: the principle is more important than the utilitarian outcome of its application. Taxation is bad even if it helps people. Except, of course, modern political movements are awful and don’t say that in public, that’s just for the inner circle. In public they just lie(in my opinion) and claim that all government activity is net utility desroying.
I need to read that Huemer book, it sounds very interesting from what you’ve quoted in this and the other thread here.
Awesome. I should say that I don’t agree with all of the book’s conclusions.
I have quite a lot of … sympathy(?) for the actual philosophical movements’ conclusions, however I still think it collapses to being a bunch of heuristics on top of utilitarian arguments in the end. Also I think objectivism(libertarianisms’ radical grandkid(?)) is … evil? Not utilitarian compatible, at least.
I think I’m pretty much in the same spot here. I think the utilitarian arguments for libertarianism are the strongest, but in the end, I think utilitarians have given good arguments that cast a ton of doubt on the libertarian project. I’m getting a bit off-topic from the post I wrote, but I’ll briefly summarize my views below.
In my opinion, the strongest argument for libertarianism is that it leads to higher medium-run economic growth. My views here are closely aligned with Tyler Cowen’s in his book Stubborn Attachments. Straightforwardly, living standards have gone way up in the last 200 years primarily due to technological progress, and the economic liberalization that has enabled it. Libertarian governance lowers regulatory burden, reduces deadweight loss associated with taxation, and provides businesses more financial capital available for investment. These effects arguably raise economic growth more than the downsides of libertarian governance might lower it.
However, while economic growth is important on medium timescales, existential risk is far more important in the long-run. Bostrom outlined the fundamental reason why about 20 years ago. His vunerable world paper provides a direct argument for centralized government.
Since I don’t actually agree with deontological libertarianism, I can’t fundamentally defend it against some of the objections you’ve raised. I could play Devil’s advocate for a while, but I don’t feel like I know enough about the topic to go much further.
And going full circle, actual political movements that use the label seem built around objectivists, in that they’re willing to say: the principle is more important than the utilitarian outcome of its application. Taxation is bad even if it helps people. Except, of course, modern political movements are awful and don’t say that in public, that’s just for the inner circle. In public they just lie(in my opinion) and claim that all government activity is net utility desroying.
Your critique of the actual political movement seems valid to me. FWIW I think it’s usually a cheapshot to argue against the median activist for a given cause. In large political movements, it’s typical for >90% of the people who identify with the movement to have very bad arguments for their position. That’s why I think we should actually look at what the most well-known and respected philosophers are saying about the issue.
In this case, I would recommend David Friedman’s essay “Market Failure: An Argument for and Against Government”. His central argument against government is not at all deontological. Instead, it’s based on the conjunction of three basic points,
The reason why market solutions are not always best is because of a large class of market failures.
If we look at the source of market failures, we find that they’re generally due to markets failing to internalize the cost and benefits of market interactions.
However, in a democracy, the costs and benefits of political interactions are even less internalized than in market interactions.
Therefore, democracy is not a solution to market failure. I think this is quite different than the claim that “all government activity is net utility destroying” and its one I would be quite happy to see a solid counterargument to.
I think you may be giving short shrift to the actual philosophical arguments made by libertarians. Michael Huemer responds to your argument that “the state owns the land you are on” in section 2.5.1 in The Problem of Political Authority. I’ll quote some of his reply here,
Now one may conclude, as you do, that this argument leads to a more general “abolition of private property.” After all, many property claims in the world are either the result of conquest and expropriation, or the result of the inheritance of such expropriation. However, this response would ignore two facts.
First, the vast majority of property in the world can’t actually be traced back to expropriation, except indirectly. For example, the high market market price of a smartphone is driven almost entirely from the actual engineering and construction of its components, rather than the value of the raw materials that make it up. While the raw materials might be stolen property, the labor used to make it arguably isn’t (though Marxists famously disagree).
Second, it is perfectly consistent to argue for property rights in the abstract while holding that most actual claims to property in the real world are illegitimate. Libertarian Robert Nozick defended what he called the “Lockean proviso” in Anarchy, State, and Utopia, under which property right claims are only valid under a specific set of circumstances. Otherwise, we must forfeit them. One article summarizes some radical implications of this view,
I need to read that Huemer book, it sounds very interesting from what you’ve quoted in this and the other thread here.
You’re right, I am being unfair to the actual philosophy. I have a negative emotional reaction to the political movement that uses the name. I have quite a lot of … sympathy(?) for the actual philosophical movements’ conclusions, however I still think it collapses to being a bunch of heuristics on top of utilitarian arguments in the end. Also I think objectivism(libertarianisms’ radical grandkid(?)) is … evil? Not utilitarian compatible, at least.
I feel like you side stepped the core issue in the party analogy: if I/we/the state can’t restrict access to our property because someone might die without it … that kinda means we can’t restrict access to our property almost at all. Is anyone dying in the world of a preventable disease? Clearly the state isn’t providing enough healthcare access or private healthcare providers are immorally restricting access to care.
The actual criticism then goes back to: States do not have legitimate claims for their property. I realize you address this in:
But there’s no legitimate property if analyzed on a long enough time horizon. At some point some primitive human bashed some other human in the head and every one of us is the infinitesimal beneficiary of that crime. Hence Christian redemption and baptism, actual legal code statutes of limitations, moral principles that only active purposeful harm is morally bad and all sorts of other coping mechanisms civilizations have developed over the ages. The alternative is literally eternal blood feuds or wars that can only end in complete annihilation of one of the factions.
The question then becomes why don’t these coping mechanisms apply to states, but apply to every other human organisation? What makes state ownership illegitimate, but corporate ownership built on top of government contracts legitimate? At what degree of indirection does the sin wash off? What about children of employees of companies that sold goods to slavers?
Yes, it’s consistent to argue for property rights while recognizing the illegitimacy of current property allocation… but the only moral remedy for that(if taken as a serious axiomatic moral principle) is some sort of tabula rasa society, which would obviously be crazy utility destroying and nobody supports. Ok, Bakunin et al, but come on.
I don’t think libertarian principles have something unique and practical to say about where to draw the line when it comes to ‘tainted’ ownership rights. Even in that Nozick quote: why are we stopping with the USA? What about even more ancient history in Europe, or indeed North America. Obviously an absurd rabbit hole. We stop when there are still living descendants that are angry about this issue… well if you start providing a monetary incentive for grievance you’re going to find a lot of historical grievance. Hell, looking outside the US bubble there’s plenty of historical grievance globally right now everywhere.
Hopeless attempt at clarity
Trying to clarify my criticism for myself as well: libertarianism seems to present axiomatic moral principles, commandments that if unbroken will produce a just society. In practice, even philosophers treat the axioms more like heuristics layered on top of utilitarianism: “You mustn’t violate private property rights … unless you have good reason for it. Property should be justly acquired but if enough time has passed we gotta move on and get things done.” Well, ok, so what does this actually produce for us?
Government should do useful things with tax money. Unironically revolutionary idea in Locke’s time, but this stuff is in the water like flouride in the modern era. And going full circle, actual political movements that use the label seem built around objectivists, in that they’re willing to say: the principle is more important than the utilitarian outcome of its application. Taxation is bad even if it helps people. Except, of course, modern political movements are awful and don’t say that in public, that’s just for the inner circle. In public they just lie(in my opinion) and claim that all government activity is net utility desroying.
Awesome. I should say that I don’t agree with all of the book’s conclusions.
I think I’m pretty much in the same spot here. I think the utilitarian arguments for libertarianism are the strongest, but in the end, I think utilitarians have given good arguments that cast a ton of doubt on the libertarian project. I’m getting a bit off-topic from the post I wrote, but I’ll briefly summarize my views below.
In my opinion, the strongest argument for libertarianism is that it leads to higher medium-run economic growth. My views here are closely aligned with Tyler Cowen’s in his book Stubborn Attachments. Straightforwardly, living standards have gone way up in the last 200 years primarily due to technological progress, and the economic liberalization that has enabled it. Libertarian governance lowers regulatory burden, reduces deadweight loss associated with taxation, and provides businesses more financial capital available for investment. These effects arguably raise economic growth more than the downsides of libertarian governance might lower it.
However, while economic growth is important on medium timescales, existential risk is far more important in the long-run. Bostrom outlined the fundamental reason why about 20 years ago. His vunerable world paper provides a direct argument for centralized government.
Since I don’t actually agree with deontological libertarianism, I can’t fundamentally defend it against some of the objections you’ve raised. I could play Devil’s advocate for a while, but I don’t feel like I know enough about the topic to go much further.
Your critique of the actual political movement seems valid to me. FWIW I think it’s usually a cheapshot to argue against the median activist for a given cause. In large political movements, it’s typical for >90% of the people who identify with the movement to have very bad arguments for their position. That’s why I think we should actually look at what the most well-known and respected philosophers are saying about the issue.
In this case, I would recommend David Friedman’s essay “Market Failure: An Argument for and Against Government”. His central argument against government is not at all deontological. Instead, it’s based on the conjunction of three basic points,
The reason why market solutions are not always best is because of a large class of market failures.
If we look at the source of market failures, we find that they’re generally due to markets failing to internalize the cost and benefits of market interactions.
However, in a democracy, the costs and benefits of political interactions are even less internalized than in market interactions.
Therefore, democracy is not a solution to market failure. I think this is quite different than the claim that “all government activity is net utility destroying” and its one I would be quite happy to see a solid counterargument to.