Anarchist Philosopher Does Not Consent to be Governed!: Crispin Sartwell discusses Against the State: An introduction to anarchist political theory
December 30, 2008, 4:30pm
"Growing up in D.C. will turn you into an anarchist," jokes Against the State: An introduction To Anarchist Political Theory author Crispin Sartwell. "I'm expecting the revolution to emerge from Wheaton (Maryland), high schoolers in the D.C. area who are embroiled in the bureaucracy of the American state." This five-and-a-half-minute-long interview was conducted by Nick Gillespie and shot and edited by Dan Hayes.
Widely published in both popular outlets and academic journals, Sartwell teaches at Dickinson College. For more information on him, go to his website.
To embed this interview at your website, go here.
For an audio podcast, go here.
And check out his October 30, 2008 appearance on the Reason.tv Talk Show, where he discussed anarchy, Darfur, and hip hop with the journalist Eli Lake and hosts Michael C. Moynihan and Nick Gillespie.
Robbie | December 31, 2008, 7:26pm | #
After reading the paper on polycentric law Jesse linked there are still a few issues floating around in my head regarding law enforcement in an Stateless system.
While the author argues that laws will be agreed upon by various jurisdictions similar to the way free banking would work, I'm not wholly convinced since the process is not sufficiently explained. I cannot quite see how any specific rule set would be agreed upon, or why any specific enforcer would be compelled to enforce it. I admit I am no scholar in the area, so instead of berating my comments for ignorance, perhaps one of the knowledgeable anarchist thinkers who posted earlier in the thread could answer this, or at least link information that could.
If such a system of enforcement of a certain common set of laws could be derived, and it seems that it may be possible, there is also the question of where the laws come from and how they can be changed. Who would decide new laws to be added or old ones to be changed or removed?
Finally, the only way I can see of a stateless system remaining stateless is to only use a form of financial or social ostracism as means of law enforcement. Any other proactive force, financial, social, or physical, would ultimately have to be backed by physical force. This physical force would require an enforcer, and these enforcers would seem to naturally grow in power and eventually become the state. In Jesse's linked article, this is exactly what seems to happen in England with the Kings.
All interesting conversation, and the anarchist arguments are hardly falling on deaf ears with me. I am a minarchist because I believe that the market and people can attain nearly all their wants, needs, and desires without the use of government. The litmus test for the role of government should be "Is there any other way to do this better without government?" Anarchists would always say "yes". I'm not quite convinced that the answer is always "yes" yet, but I feel it could be. So for us less learned in the subject, how about less frustration and maybe giving some information?
Less Antman | January 1, 2009, 11:36am | #
@ Robbie
Some quick and dirty responses to questions of yours in lieu of your reading ANARCHY AND THE LAW, edited by Edward Stringham, and THE ENTERPRISE OF LAW, by Bruce Bension, which offer very detailed discussion of these topics:
Non-government law typically was the result of custom, prior dealings, and reasonable person standards, with an emphasis on restitution for harm to lives and property. There really WASN'T much legislation, nor prescribed damages, since that was determined by the juries and depended on the harm done. Still, there is nothing to prevent scholars and experts from preparing legal codes with specific rules and specified damages, and insurers choosing to adopt them and require them as conditions of insurance. Where useful, the market is certain to provide them, and without monopoly power, the codes will be reasonable and practical to encourage their adoption.
As for enforcement, while I'm not a pacifist, I don't think the power of ostracism should be underestimated: a person denied access to the goods and services of society is suffering a tremendous, possible fatal, loss. Jurisdiction results from agreement between the parties (in practice, agreement between their insurers, whether insurance companies or mutual aid groups).
What about violent criminals who refuse to submit to arbitration or to accept decisions that involve their confinement? They become outlaws (having literally chosen to be outside the protection of the law), with nobody obliged to protect THEIR life or property, and with modern communication making their chance of survival slim. They are the only ones stuck in a Hobbesian jungle facing a life that is nasty, brutish, and short.
BG | January 1, 2009, 5:00pm | #
This idea that "state power is growing", and that it can be measured primarily by how much the government spends, is problematic. As far as individual freedom and human prosperity are concerned;
what stuff the state does is a more important issue that
how much stuff the state does.
For example, suppose a state repeals a law against consenting-adult sodomy, and spends the money they would have used to enforce it on building roads instead of cutting taxes. This would still be a gain for freedom and prosperity. In fact, it would be a gain for freedom and justice even if they spent the money on something obviously useless, like digging holes and filling them again.
So a few hundred years ago, were humans in general, and Americans in particular more or less free than today? I would say that we are clearly more free today - both in terms of the coercion we are subject to and the options we have available to us.
In the early US there were fewer annoying, minor, nit-picking-type regulations, and several outrageous injustices (slavery, unequal treatment of women, mandated racial segregation, gratuitous and irrational restrictions on sexual freedom, state-level restrictions on free speech, etc.) that have since been eliminated. The worst restriction on individual freedom that I can think of that has been added is probably the War on Drugs and the things that accompany it. Clearly this is less bad than the forms of tyranny that have been abolished.
Also,
some of the new government regulations that have been added over the past few hundred years are justified. For example, you can't dispose of waste material in a manner that is likely to cause an epidemic. On this point, I'm not eager to return to the policies that were in place prior to the Germ Theory of Disease.
Less Antman | January 1, 2009, 8:54pm | #
@ Robbie
A reasonable point, but unanimity isn't necessary for an outlaw to bear very heavy costs: just being denied credit and debit cards and checking accounts is quite a burden financially. Nonetheless, I did say I'm not a pacifist, nor are most market anarchists, and the classification of someone as a violent outlaw is bound to involve some forms of private enforcement more vigorous than ostracism. Reciprocity is critical here: people are given the protection of law only if they agree to its usage, and the person who rejects it has voluntarily placed himself outside the protection of law. That is why people consented in the handful of past anarchist societies for which decent evidence exists, and the outlaw problem was minimal.
Can we guarantee it? No, but neither does our current system always punish murderers (unless they're dumb enough to participate in the theft of memorabilia in Las Vegas a few years later). We need to put the problem of violent outlaws in context. In the 20th century, there were between 8 and 9 million homicides worldwide. In that same period, there were 44 million soldiers killed, and 262 million noncombatants killed by governments. Professor Rummel of the University of Hawaii has done the most work on 20th century killings, and much data is summarized at http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/20TH.HTM. So more than 97% of killings were in the name of government.
The first step in dealing with violent psychopaths is to stop electing them. We fear the power of private individuals to do violence while we put people we've never met into positions that give them a legitimized monopoly on the use of aggressive violence and hand them WMDs. Then we wonder why we can't stop them from invading other countries, torturing people, strangling us with taxes and regulations, and gathering dossiers on everyone.
Getting rid of the institutional arrangement that killed 306 million ought to be a higher priority than getting rid of those who killed 9 million. Anarchists believe that markets will better address the 9 million as well, but the case for anarchism doesn't have to rest on that point, merely on the benefit of eliminating the much greater danger resulting from centralized monopolies of violence.
It's a fascinating topic, and I might suggest starting with the Stringham book, since it is a compendium of writings from various sources (including Benson), and a good starting point for deciding in which direction you want to go in reading (or if one book is all you can stand on the subject). You can also skip chapters you find tedious without it causing a difficulty in studying others.
My case? Minarchy is the theory that free market capitalism is best protected by a socialist monopoly. Anarchy is the theory that free markets are best protected by free markets.
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