Note: This blog post has been retracted, since I no longer think of it as a good representation of how I think about its topic. I may, or may not, have written a better post about the same topic since; check the full list of posts.
Broadly, I am in favor of private property and free markets. For example, I think that it is probable that the extinction of most regulations, of central banking, and of state monopolies of services would be good for mankind. Broadly, I am also in favor of, or at least sympathetic to, restrictive government measures in the personal sphere. For example, I might favor the prohibition of some recreational drugs, censorship of some points of view, and restrictions upon some sexual practices, such as prostitution.
This can seem strange, for it can seem that you ought to be either in favor of intervention or non-intervention, broadly. So I wrote this post to clarify.
0. Contents
1. The state is coercion
2. There are two ends: social utility and moral duty
3. Coercion cannot be a help towards social utility
4. Coercion can be a help towards moral duty
5. Measures
6. Speech
1. The state is coercion
What we call the state or the government works primarily through the use of coercion. This section is merely to be clear on the use of that term – I am using “the state” and “the government” interchangeably, and to refer, not to the constitution of society broadly, nor to any agency that might give order to it on any level, but the organization which Hoppe characterized in these words:
The state, according to the standard definition, is not a regular, specialized firm. Rather, it is defined as an agency characterized by two unique, logically connected features. First, the state is an agency that exercises a territorial monopoly of ultimate decision making. That is, the state is the ultimate arbiter in every case of conflict, including conflicts involving itself. It allows no appeal above and beyond itself. Second, the state is an agency that exercises a territorial monopoly of taxation. That is, it is an agency that unilaterally fixes the price that private citizens must pay for the state's service as ultimate judge and enforcer of law and order.
The way that this organization uses and maintains this monopoly is by using force against those who might challenge it. The way that its law is enforced is by threats of violence – threats which are, generally, not empty.
I will note here that I am mostly in favor of the existence of the state, for reasons which will be clear shortly; and that I believe that it has authority, given by God, to make use of coercion to achieve its ends. I believe that, ideally, these ends ought to be the same ends as the ends of society, which I will lay out next. When speaking of the ends of society at the same time, I may refer to them by the name of “the general good”, or “the common good” – these are ends which society, taken as a whole, ought to achieve.
I also believe that, despite the amazing moral privilege that authority is, which allows the government to take from people without it being theft, nevertheless there are some things which it is immoral for the state to do. The fact that the state ought not to act immorally is a negative restriction upon its activity, while the ends of society are the positive ends of its activity.
2. There are two ends: social utility and moral duty
Society has two ends to achieve, in my opinion.
One is social utility, which means that the lives of men in general should be more pleasant and less painful, according to their own opinion of what this would mean. Reducing pain and suffering, as some liberals are very ready to tell us, is primary; but increasing pleasure is also a public end. It is an end of society to achieve such things as the founding of a new library, when it might be pleasant that it be achieved; putting aside, of course, whether it is good that the state undertake such a founding.
Utility here is made to include the higher pleasures and pains as well as the lower ones, but it is not meant in the “comprehensive” sense from my previous blog post. Comprehensive concerns are divided, in this doctrine, into the other end.
The other end is moral duty. It is an end of society “that every man will do his duty”; society ought to increase virtue and decrease vice, to create more saints and fewer sinners, to “avoid evil and do good”. This end is the primary one, and should always prevail when in conflict with the other; society must, actually, only maximize utility insofar as it does not create vice.
Since I am not a utilitarian, I do not believe that these ends must coincide; and, in fact, I believe that they won’t. Therefore, it is necessary to destroy pleasure and create pain in order to achieve a greater measure of virtue; men must suffer that they may be good.
These are the ends, and no more; equality, order, and anything else which you might find nice, are things that I only value, politically, as means to the achievement of these ends of society. That these be the only ends is in accordance with sound metaphysics, for politics aims at the good of man, and man is body and soul. Utility is the end of flesh, and duty is the end of spirit.
3. Coercion cannot be a help towards social utility
This is something which I believe on the basis of the teachings of the Austrian school of economics, taken broadly, and of Murray Rothbard in particular.
Any exchange on the free market, indeed any action in the free society, occurs because it is expected to benefit each party concerned. If we may use the term “society” to depict the pattern, the array, of all individual exchanges, then we may say that the free market maximizes social utility, since everyone gains in utility from his free actions.
Coercive intervention, on the other hand, signifies per se that the individual or individuals coerced would not have voluntarily done what they are now being forced to do by the intervener. The person who is coerced into saying or not saying something or into making or not making an exchange with the intervener or with a third party is having his actions changed by a threat of violence. The man being coerced, therefore, always loses in utility as a result of the intervention, for his action has been forcibly changed by its impact.[...]
Since all State actions rest on the fundamental binary intervention of taxation, it follows that no State action can increase social utility, i.e., can increase the utility of all affected individuals.
I cannot claim to have the best understanding of economics, but I think his reasoning is sound, insofar as I have investigated it. I am certainly convinced, broadly, of the supremacy of the Austrian school of economics in method; mathematical modelling of empirical data, as used by the mainstream economists, is a ruse which can be used to prove anything, especially through a few common fallacies.
There is no need to make concessions to inferior economic theory to further legitimize the existence of the state. The state functions purely to increase the pain and suffering of mankind, and decrease its pleasure – very well. As I was saying before, sometimes pain and suffering must be increased.
4. Coercion can be a help towards moral duty
Of course it can. If a man will not keep himself from sinning – especially because some sins, such as usury, only increase social utility – he can be made to do so through coercion.
Here it is that liberals and libertarians, from J.S. Mill to Rothbard himself, have always made the same argument – that there is no reduction in immorality to be had in compelling the inhibition of sin. It is my opinion that they err:
[Frank] Meyer’s reasoning was fatally flawed. In a 1962 column for National Review, he claimed that traditionalism’s cardinal sin – the fundamental error that necessitated its co-mingling with libertarianism – was that “the simulacrum of virtuous acts brought about by the coercion of superior power, is not virtue, the meaning of which resides in the free choice of good over evil.” In layman’s terms: virtuous acts must be those undertaken freely, not under state coercion.
L. Brent Bozell Jr., in his rejoinder, observed (correctly) that, because Meyer was making a theological claim – that is, about the relationship between free will and virtue – it has to be answered in theological terms. And every school of orthodox theology would accept that an act is virtuous regardless of whether it was made freely or not. “We can agree that the freer the choice – i.e., the more difficult it is – the greater the merit,” he writes; but, “by definition, the virtuous act is one that conforms with man’s nature, with the divine patterns of order.”
Simply put, the tradition of philosophy and theology is in agreement against the liberal – a man is, indeed, made more vicious through actually committing a sinful act than he would through merely willing it, and being compelled not to. So there is no reason, in principle, to be against the compulsion of moral behavior, which is a great good if achieved, though always at the expense of utility.
5. Measures
Given these opinions, what actual political measures do I support? I do not have a fully developed doctrine, but my opinion on any point is easily derived from these principles.
I am generally against policies which attempt to use coercion to increase social utility, such as the minimum wage, and labor laws more generally, as usually defended. Even in cases where they do not increase unemployment, the decrease in worker suffering is, and must be, balanced by an increase in suffering elsewhere in society. There is no free lunch.
I am generally in favor of policies which attempt to use coercion to decrease social utility for moral reasons, such as prohibition of drugs or of certain sexual practices. People do not need state coercion to be kept away from “unhealthy” uses of products and be restricted to “healthy” ones – they are perfectly able, in time, to take control of their lives so as to maximize their overall utility. But sometimes it takes force to keep them from sin, especially when sin will cause them pleasure and not pain.
I may be convinced to favor purely tyrannical uses of economic policy, supposing that the state is ruled by wise men. For instance, it is ridiculous for the central bank to issue currency in order to achieve “expansion”, since this will only cause a later recession. But in inflating the currency, it is able to tax its citizens much more than it ever could at gunpoint. This could increase government revenue to be used for moral ends – we just need to be clear that these are really the ends that the government has.
Also, I tend to be against anarcho-capitalism. While a private law society would achieve the best protection at the smallest cost, there would not be unity of laws – there would be nothing, in particular, to force atheists to live under Christian laws. This is a problem which is solved through the existence of the traditional coercive state.
6. Speech
This section is about how I might speak about my opinions later on, so that you may follow along.
I delight in how unintuitive my opinions are. As such, I may sometimes speak in ways that are baffling and shocking, just for fun. For instance:
“The fundamental purpose of the state is to increase the pain and suffering of mankind to optimal levels, whereas without it they would tend to decrease to beneath those levels.”
This is trivially true given my political opinions – the state is a purely utility-reducing entity, and its purpose is to increase virtue and decrease vice through reduction in utility, which is nothing but increase in pain and decrease in pleasure. If society could be more virtuous while suffering more pain, then it is beneath its optimal level of pain and suffering.
It is also, of course, a very funny way to put it. Given my acceptance of Austrian economic opinions and of Catholic moral opinions, I have once been able to make the following, similarly hilarious, statement:
“Usury has a perfectly reasonable function in the economy, increases the well-being of mankind with no material downsides, is evil, and ought to be eradicated.”
It has, of course, spiritual downsides, just not material ones. And it is reasonable, just not from my own premises – I can be ecumenical like that.
Sometimes, I might say that some measure is bad because it reduces oppression, and increases freedom – I am fine with using the language of my enemies here. Yes, freedom must be curtailed, and the people must be oppressed. This is all for the greater good.
I might sometimes call by the name of “counter-utilitarian”, or “contra-utilitarian”, the measures which are meant to be utility-reducing – the ones which I said that I generally favor. The opposite, I suppose, would be “pro-utilitarian”.
If I come up with some other wordings with which to speak of my opinions, I plan to update this section.
