Arguments found on Facebook, Government License.

I have a friend on Facebook (who shall remain anonymous) that occasionally posts articles which cast some topics that I have a fondness for in a negative light. In this case it was an article about How Ayn Rand ruined my childhood. I happen to sympathize with the authors opinion, for her father sounds like an ideological jerk who could might benefit from learning how to empathize with others. But I don't extend the blame all the way to Rand's philosophy of objectivism. The role of that philosophy as an enabler for poor behavior certainly forms an argument against its use as justification. But then, so do the crusades and inquisition form an argument about how the christian belief can be used to justify violence. These uses call into question the acceptability of these beliefs as part the fabric of social interaction, but should not be confused with the logical framework of religion or objectivism as a belief system. For that task, we need logical arguments that point out internal inconsistency in doctrine, not mere associations with the poor behavior of the followers.

Well, already I've said more about the article than I meant to. Let me refocus on the ensuing Facebook conversation which motivates this post.

As you may predict, I all too often take my friends bait. He posts an article critical of my political ideology, and I rise to defend it. His friends (many of them believers in democracy) also feel a need to be heard, or to hurl insults at my selfish, asinine, childlike, undeveloped, un-workable viewpoint. I might add that the insults are much to my amusement, and those who hurl them can be readily disarmed with simple questions:

I sense strong emotional hostility against libertarianism. Can you explain what you feel about libertarians? The insults you've hurled might be motivated by fear. Do libertarians threaten you?

In this case, I was met with yet more insults rather than answers, and that particular person got deleted from the thread. On the one hand, I'm consistently left with amazement at the level of hostility, and on the other I lament that these folk don't take the time to understand the Non-Aggression Principle,  for I would expect that we might have a common ground in our desires to have a society that abstains from institutionalizing theft, violence, or coercion.

Of course, I'm motivated to partake in these discussion, not just because I want to defend my position, but primarily because I find great amusement and entertainment in the arguments themselves. Those that believe in government (or the necessity of government) make some rather odd arguments:

It's so funny how that NAP of your never quite makes it to how you injure people indirectly with economics. Despite the fact that there is no inalienable right to business and since it is a LICENSED privilege, the Government is well within its right to regulate your business and your private slice of the economy any way they see fit. The economy belongs to EVERYONE, not just you. Despite how much more you may have than anyone else.

A similar viewpoint was made by Rousseau in The Social[ist] Contract regarding denial of the right to suicide and the state's claim to conscription:

Furthermore, the citizen is no longer the judge of the dangers to which the law-desires him to expose himself; and when the prince says to him: "It is expedient for the State that you should die," he ought to die, because it is only on that condition that he has been living in security up to the present, and because his life is no longer a mere bounty of nature, but a gift made conditionally by the State.

It remains completely obvious to me that if I own my life then I alone have the right to take it. Obvious to Rousseau, too, for he takes great pain to assemble an argument that I do not have exclusive rights over my person, the state has a partial claim. Rather than detail his argument here, I'll handily dismiss it by pointing out that, though my life as I currently lead it depends on interaction with others (the economy, friends, family), I do not owe any of that to a government.

History and logic adequately demonstrate that humans and society existed before government, so it is certainly not government to which I owe my well-being. To believe the state's claim over my person because my labor is needed to fight in the war to end all wars, would be to believe a slave-master's claim of ownership over the slave because "somebody's gotta pick the cotton!"

The slave-master and government share another similarity in their means. In order for the master to direct the labor of the slaves he necessarily meets non-cooperation with violence in the form of lashings and hot-boxes. The government also meets non-cooperation of its citizen through violence. If I don't pay my taxes, then I will be given an extended time-out in jail. Nevermind that I didn't hurt anyone by neglecting to file, I'll certainly be raped in prison.

Now, let's get back to the economic misunderstanding in the quote from debate opponent on Facebook.

It's so funny how that NAP of your never quite makes it to how you injure people indirectly with economics.

I'm really not sure, based on the definitions, how the Non-Aggression Principle could possibly cause economic injury, directly or indirectly. If any particular act did cause injury, then it would be classified as a form of violence. The initiator of such violence is guilty of aggression, and therefore in violation of the NAP. Clearly, we have some misunderstanding of terms, but that's typical in any debate.

Despite the fact that there is no inalienable right to business and since it is a LICENSED privilege, the Government is well within its right to regulate your business and your private slice of the economy any way they see fit.

Well, technically, I can't claim the right to business is inalienable, because Government has demonstrated its ability to interfere, prevent, squash, regulate, and even license business. All actions that indeed infringe on my right to do business. But, I do strongly object to the claim that business only exists as a result of government license. Everyone has traded items in the schoolyard with friends. It may only be a small barter exchange, but it happened without government approval. That's unlicensed business!

To claim that the transactions, which form the foundation of business everywhere, only happen under government license is sheer folly. It's an empty claim that flies in the face of voluntary transactions everywhere. I see no reason to believe that the wide-spread practice of people voluntarily entering into transactions with each other, exchanging goods and services, would stop if government neglected its role of issuing licenses. Indeed even authors of fiction recognize this fact. In all the post-apocalyptic fiction I've encountered, people still conducted business. They did so before government began issuing license and continue to do so when government collapses.

The economy belongs to EVERYONE, not just you. Despite how much more you may have than anyone else.

One folly in logic births another. Again, I'm met with a clear misunderstanding of the economy and property rights. Even if I accepted the false premise that the economy belonged to everyone, that isn't enough to argue that the government is the only institution qualified to issue rights of participation (a.k.a. licenses) in the economy. What right has government to claim this monopoly on the economy? Do I have to point out that there exists a global economy wholly unregulated by any one government? International trade is responsible for 1/4th of World GDP and yet no government claims ownership over that economy.

Rather than belonging to everyone, the economy doesn't belong to anyone! It's the aggregate result of individual transactions, an emergent property of social interaction. The amount of stuff I have, and my access to credit, determine the transactions I'm able to participate in. Even the largest player in the market (up to 73 billion in a lifetime) are dwarfed by the economy as a whole (up to 70 trillion dollars exchanged per year). Everyone can certainly participate in the economy as a player, but nobody and no institution singularly determines the game.