From 2005:
A Swedish libertarian buddy, Johan Ridenfeldt, pointed me to this article (in Swedish) [SEE BELOW], which describes libertarian (liberal) arguments against intellectual property, and also includes a review of the debate in Nyliberalen (The Neoliberal). He wrote, “I find this very positive. I’m involved (somewhat) in politics, and I have noticed that most of the libertarian young ones agree with us on IP [i.e., that it is problematic and unlibertarian]. This was not the case when I first started quoting you back when your Against IP article was in draft [in 2000 or so]. I used to post and recommend your working paper draft, and back then I was pretty alone in my views.”
I have noticed a similar trend. The younger, Internet generation seems to be much more receptive to the notion that there are no property rights in information and ideas. Whether this is because they are more open minded, more libertarian, or anti-big-business, I am not sure. I have noticed that most of the older types are much more resistant to challenges to IP.Coda: Jim Newland writes:
Sheesh, Stephan. I’m an old fogey and even I know the answer to this one. It’s because they’ve grown up in the digital era, with its easily traded and downloaded electronic files. The impossibility of actually owning an idea or anything else nonmaterial is brought into sharp focus with the ubiquity of the internet. For instance, in the case of videogame pirates, they ask how they can be accused of stealing something when the original product remains with its original owner. This starts them thinking about the whole idea of intellectual property and the notion that one can somehow own something as ephemeral as a thought.
And a college student writes,
The reason is actually pretty simple. The RIAA just sued my roommate and about 10 other kids here at [my college]. The younger generation is anti-IP because we love free file sharing and hate getting sued.
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Liberals against copyright
|
| Criticism of copyright and patents cuts across traditional political divisions. However, many try to establish their own ideologies on the conflicts that exist, based on various vested interests. Companies that become rich from state-protected monopolies claim that these must continue in the name of property rights. Left-wing movements, on the other hand, often want to have a monopoly on the pursuit of freedom of information, and are helped in this by right-wing copyright advocates.In Sweden, representatives of MUF have described piracy as “communism” and copyright as a “natural” property right, from an allegedly liberal perspective. But consistent liberals (libertarians), unlike politicians from parties that call themselves liberal, have not infrequently taken a position against both copyright and patents, or at least had a deeply critical attitude.
Why then? Actually, it’s very simple. “Intellectual property rights are a monopoly accepted by the legislature,” as the law textbook says. For a liberal, the word “monopoly” should always arouse suspicion, especially when, as in this case, it is the state that sets up rules that give certain people the exclusive right to reproduce a melody or use a new technology. Monopoly privileges are often very valuable to their owners, but that cannot in itself be a reason to justify them.
Perhaps the most important liberal thinker of the 20th century, FA Hayek, was deeply critical of patents. He believed that it should be the task of liberals to constantly maintain a debate about whether such monopolies can be justified:
“It seems to me beyond doubt that in these fields a slavish application of the concept of property as it has been developed for material things has done a great deal to foster the growth of monopoly and that here drastic reforms may be required if competition is to be made to work. In the field of industrial patents in particular we shall have to seriously examine whether the award of a monopoly privilege is really the most appropriate and effective form of reward for the kind of riskbearing which investment in scientific research involved.”
( FA Hayek : “Free” Enterprise and Competitive Order , 1947)
Less well known is that in 19th-century Europe, especially between 1850 and 1875, there was actually an intense debate about whether patents were right or wrong. The battle was won by the patent advocates, as is well known, but for a while it actually looked as if the liberal patent opponents would get their way. At the same time, some liberal thinkers, such as Herbert Spencer, held the view that each person had a kind of natural ownership right to the ideas they created.
Even more recent libertarians have raised a criticism of patents, including the neoliberal economist and Nobel laureate Milton Friedman:
“many ‘inventions’ are not patentable. The ‘inventor’ of the department store conferred great benefit on his colleagues, without being able to charge them for it. To the extent that the same ability is required for one kind of invention as for the other, the existence of patents tends to divert activity towards patentable inventions.”
( Milton Friedman : Capitalism and Freedom , 1962)
He points to a rarely discussed aspect of patent protection: How patents shift innovation processes towards patentable products. Not all forms of innovation produce results that can be patented. The question that can be asked is whether, in the absence of patent protection, we would rather see a different kind of invention than fewer inventions.
Murray Rothbard, a contemporary libertarian who has made a name for himself as a radical critic of ” intellectual property ,” makes the same argument:
“It is by no means self-evident that patents encourage an absolute increase in the amount of resources devoted to research. But patents clearly shift the type of research that is done. … Research spending is therefore overstimulated in the early stages before anyone has a patent, and it is unreasonably constrained in the period after the patent is granted. Moreover, some inventions are considered patentable, and others are not. The patent system has the further effect of artificially stimulating research in patentable areas, while artificially restricting research in non-patentable areas.”
( Murray Rothbard : Man, Economy, and State )
In the article Against Intellectual Property , published in the Journal of Libertarian Studies in 2001, Stephen Kinsella summarizes the reasons that different libertarians might have for taking a stand for or (like himself) against ” intellectual property “.
Libertarian opponents of copyright emphasize, among other things, the fundamental difference between ideas, which are not consumed when used, and physical things, which are subject to a scarcity that justifies private property. They argue that the ownership of physical things is threatened when intellectual property legislation is introduced that deprives the owners of the things of the right to freely dispose of their possessions.
“By inventing a new method of digging a well, the inventor can deprive everyone else in the world of the right to dig wells in that way, even on their own land, ” writes Stephen Kinsella. “Copyright and patents seek to prevent the owners of physical property—scarce resources—from using their own property in the way they themselves desire.”
Julio H. Cole writes, also in the Journal of Libertarian Studies , that if software had been freely copyable, hardware manufacturers would still have had an incentive to support software development, since it is through those who demand new and better hardware that new and better hardware is created.
Liberal arguments for intellectual property can be divided into natural law arguments and utilitarian arguments . The latter arguments justify monopoly rights on the grounds that they ultimately serve the common good, and may be seen as a compromise with the liberal ideal. On the other hand, there are libertarians who believe that ” intellectual property ” is somehow a “natural” right.
This group includes Ayn Rand, who saw patents and copyright as “man’s right to the product of his mind”. However, consistent as she was, this meant that she could not defend rights that apply beyond the author’s lifetime, and thus had opposed today’s copyright, which applies for 70 years after the author’s death.
But the problem with seeing patents, for example, as a natural right is that the line between patentable inventions and non-patentable discoveries (for example, mathematical formulas) is nevertheless arbitrarily drawn (for example, should software fall within the line? genes? business methods?)
The same applies to the term of patents. “No one can seriously argue that nineteen years for a patent is too short and twenty-one years is too long, any more than the current price of a gallon of milk can be objectively determined to be too high or too low,” writes Stephen Kinsella.
Faced with this problem, a couple of extreme liberals have actually argued that all ideas can become intellectual property forever . Far beyond the border of absurdity we find the extreme neoliberal Andrew Joseph Galambos, who, when lecturing at his university, pointed out that his ideas were his private property and that students were not allowed to repeat them. Every time he used the word “liberty”, he put a symbolic coin in a jar dedicated to the heirs of Thomas Paine, whom he saw as the “originator” of the idea of ”freedom”. Whether Galambos has more than a handful of supporters for his bizarre idea is doubtful, however.
The Swedish magazine Nyliberalen published a special issue on copyright and patents last year (3/2001). Among others, the country’s leading neoliberal philosopher, Professor Ingemar Nordin, addressed the issue. He stated that it was a difficult nut to crack, and gave an ambiguous answer: patent rights are not compatible with liberalism, but limited copyright may be.
Other writers in the New Liberal Party went further and even advocated the abolition of copyright. “The natural ownership of a copy should belong to the creator of the copy, not the creator of the original,” writes Oscar Mannbro. “In fact, copyright has more in common with cultural contributions than with natural ownership. It is a kind of artificial respiration, which artificially strives [to] maintain monetary values. … It is perfectly possible to maintain a functioning market, where people can live from their work without inhibiting government regulations.”
However, such trust in the ability of the market seems strangely lacking among the many liberals who see copyright as a matter of course. The constant questioning of intellectual property that FA Hayek urged in 1947 is rare today in liberal discussion and politics. But there are exceptions. The only book written so far in Swedish that addresses file sharing and criticizes copyright is published by the liberal business publishing house Timbro. A quote from that book, Teknotopias by Nicklas Lundblad, who is CEO of the Stockholm Chamber of E-Commerce, concludes this review:
“I think it can be argued that copyright is an abomination in a market economy that allows some actors to evade the demands for perceived rational valuation that are part of the core of the market economy. And alternative systems are entirely conceivable.”
Stephen Kinsella: Against Intellectual Property (PDF)
Nicklas Lundblad: Technotopias (PDF)
Anna König: Piracy has communist overtones |
***
Nicklas Lundblad: Technotopias (local PDF)
Translation (Technotopias_English_Translation; Technotopias_English_Translation):
TECHNOTOPIAS
– The New Technology and the Future of Law
Nicklas Lundblad
Originally published by Timbro, Stockholm, 2000
ISBN 91-7566-469-0
English translation, 2026
Translated for scholarly and research purposes.
Contents
Introduction 7
Can the Internet Be Regulated? 9
Is Copyright Dead? 45
Who Cares About the Laws? 77
Must We Not Protect Freedom and Privacy? 97
What Will Happen to the Laws in the Future? 113
In Conclusion 131
References 135
Note: This translation currently includes the Introduction and the complete first essay. The remaining essays (on copyright, legal compliance, freedom/privacy, and the future of law) follow similar themes and can be translated upon request.
Introduction
The background to this book is a Timbro seminar on Napster and the future of the music industry. After continued discussions it was decided to explore the enormous question underlying the book’s essays: How will the interplay between technology, society and regulatory frameworks take shape in the future?
I can already state in advance that the book does not provide any answers, but it hopefully contains a number of interesting sketches of partial answers that can serve as food for thought.
The Structure of the Book
Instead of taking a systematic and comprehensive approach to the field—primarily because this cannot really be done—I have chosen to treat five themes in essay form. This is partly because I prefer that form, but also because it makes it possible to anchor each of the essays in a generally formulated question. The questions that have formed the basis of the essays are ones that I myself, and surely many others with me, have pondered. In order not to anticipate the discussion and analysis the questions are formulated simply and naively:
– Can the Internet be regulated?
– Is copyright dead?
– Who cares about the laws?
– Must we not protect freedom and privacy?
– What happens to the laws in the future?
Answers are, as is well known, rarer than questions, and such answers as can be given are provided at the end of the essays insofar as possible. The answers are of course only my own opinions. What else they could be I do not know, but it still feels reassuring to have pointed that out.
Acknowledgements
I am greatly indebted to all those who have taken the time to listen to my thoughts on laws, technology and the future and to come forward with comments and suggestions—nothing provides inspiration like a good conversation. It would feel wrong to list a mass of names, primarily for fear of forgetting someone. I would, however, particularly like to thank Stig Berild for the massive resistance in argument that he, always kindly, has constituted during the barbecue evenings in Los Altos.
A discussion on copyright at Timbro was particularly rewarding.
Without my wife Emma’s support and time it would never have been possible to complete this project—she is my sine qua non. My daughter Tuva’s future is also an inexhaustible source of inspiration. Thank you!
Nicklas Lundblad
Birkastan, 10 August 2000
Can the Internet Be Regulated?
This essay addresses the interesting but difficult question of how technological development affects the regulatory frameworks that exist in society. The aim has been to establish a framework for discussion of these problems, which may help the reader to think in new ways about the regulation of new technology.
The Fundamental Question
Can the Internet be regulated? In that form the question has been asked at least a thousand times in various contexts, and I still do not really know what it refers to or how it is to be understood.
The interpretation that first comes to mind is whether it is possible to regulate and decide over the multiplicity of technical de facto standards that exist on the Internet and whether it is possible to determine how the network is to be constructed. The answer then seems to be that it is necessary that the Internet can be regulated, since otherwise it would never have arisen. If we had not been able to agree on the basic architecture the Internet would never have attained the global scope it has today.
In a sense the Internet is an excellent example of a spontaneous order¹ that arises from a common need and that satisfies this need with flying colours. Without implicit and very clear rules this order would never be possible. It is impossible to conceive of the Internet without this basic set of rules.²
¹ The concept of “spontaneous order” refers to an order that arises spontaneously, of itself, and occurs in the writings of both F. A. Hayek and M. Polanyi (see e.g. F. A. Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty, p. 189).
² A basic set of rules for communication is often called a protocol, and the Internet has a set of such protocols that constitute the linguistic convention for communication that the network requires.
Most often, however, the questioner does not mean this, but something more in the style of: Can we prevent illegalities from being committed with the aid of the Internet as a channel? Here too the answer is really rather simple: It is possible, but the price may turn out to be too high. We could prevent criminal activity from being conducted with the aid of ordinary post, but the price would be control of every single letter that was sent and thereby would probably be considered by most citizens to be too high. We can decide to ban the Internet completely in Sweden if we consider that the network does more harm than good. But at the price of becoming a developing nation with little or no hope of economic development.
What we should instead strive for is of course what is usually called functional equivalence in the discussion of electronic signatures.³ We should not strive for complete law-abidingness—for such does not exist in any channels of communication—but for one that is equivalent to those that prevail in other channels of communication.
³ The term is said to have been coined by Uncitral, the United Nations Committee on International Trade Law, in connection with the discussion of electronic signatures.
How then do we go about establishing an index of law-abidingness in a given channel of communication? Suppose that we are to compare how lawfully telephone communication, postal communication and Internet communication are used. One way of doing this is to count the number of illegal acts (given that we believe it is possible to identify individual acts that are illegal or that constitute elements in an illegal use) that are committed in each of these media of communication, or with their aid, and then establish the absolute number of such acts. This figure could then serve as the index we are looking for.
This would, however, be gravely mistaken and foolish, because we would thereby disregard how much information is exchanged in the different channels. A more interesting index would be the number of illegal acts divided by the total quantity of information exchanged, let us say in megabits. If we produce our index in this way it is far from obvious to me that the Internet would turn out to be so much more lawless, or that it is used to promote illegalities to a so much higher degree than the other channels.
Are the illegalities per megabit higher on the Internet than anywhere else? Is the frequency of illegalities really higher for the Internet?
It is of course difficult to work with this type of abstract measures and it may never be possible to assign the different media of communication “illegality indices” in the manner described above, but as a thought experiment it is still valuable to try. To the question whether it is possible to regulate and control the Internet—formulated in this way—the answer is therefore that we can control this communication as well as communication in other channels if we take into account the quantities of information that are exchanged.
There is also a deeper aspect of the question that we must discuss, and that a few questioners have in mind: What happens to the possibility of setting up rules for communication in society when complexity increases in step with technological development? This question is far more complicated than the others and therefore also much more interesting. Ultimately it can perhaps be simplified to another question, which is the fundamental one in every political technology, or technology of government: “How does technological development change the power structures in societies?”
It is that question we shall now explore.
Regulation and Legislation
When we speak of technology and power it is important not only to speak of legislation. If we ask whether it is possible to legislate about the Internet the answer is, unsurprisingly, that it is perfectly possible. But with what effectiveness? Legislation takes place by majority decision in parliament. Effective laws require that there exist possibilities, that possibilities are given, to sanction and control that the laws are followed (more on this in the essay Who Cares About the Laws?).
One way of emphasising that what we are discussing is precisely this, the ability to create effective rules (not merely laws), is to speak of what possibilities exist to regulate the new technology. By regulation we then mean a steering that has actual effects.
The question of our possibilities of regulating the new technology becomes almost parodic when it concerns cyberspace. “Cyber” is a term that translated in various ways means precisely “steering”, “helmsman”, “pilot” etc., and cybernetics is a science that deals with the regulation of flows. To ask whether it is possible to regulate the space of regulation is not particularly intelligent.⁴ But the question can be interpreted in another way. We can understand it as the question of the conditions for effective regulation in the society that technological development contributes to creating.
⁴ See inter alia Lessig, L. Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace, p. 5.
The Object of Regulation
When we speak of the regulation of new technology we must specify which aspect of the new technology we are discussing. “Technology” is an ambiguous word and it is good if we can clarify which aspects of the technology and in which contexts we are studying the regulation. We can today distinguish at least four different objects of regulation, namely in connection with:
- the introduction of technology into a society
- the possession of technology
- the use of technology
- the design of technology.
To a certain extent the regulation of possession coincides with the regulation of use, but it is still advantageous to treat these separately, because the design of the rules differs in the two cases.
It should be emphasised that this is not the only way one can classify regulations; there are a number of others that may also be interesting to study. In The Internet and Society James Slevin divides the different types of regulation in another way. He maintains that it is necessary to view regulation from the perspective the regulator has on the object, and thus classifies regulation primarily according to method:⁵
In the treatment of the problem of the regulation of the Internet the conflict between two distinct perspectives has been an important source of misunderstanding. Governments tend to approach the Internet with the attitude that this is a technology that facilitates the circulation of material, and therefore resembles a mass medium—a phenomenon for which content-oriented laws have been developed—albeit through various independent organisations. Users, on the other hand, tend to regard the Internet as if it were an extension of the telephone—where the content of the communication is scarcely examined or regulated at all. Neither of these perspectives is particularly rewarding on its own.
⁵ See Slevin, J., The Internet and Society, p. 219.
Slevin’s conclusion is thus that governments tend to treat the Internet as a mass medium, and individuals as a medium of communication. Even if his analysis is correct, which it probably is in large measure, it omits a mass of technology that is not naturally covered by either the telephone metaphor or the TV metaphor. Notwithstanding this, Slevin’s dichotomy is interesting to keep in the back of one’s mind for the continued discussion.
Introduction
Certain philosophers of technology—of whom Neil Postman is perhaps the most explicit—pursue a very pessimistic line regarding what influence we have over the new technology. In all simplicity one can formulate Postman’s thesis as follows:
We can decide whether we shall introduce a technology into society or not. Nothing else. Once the technology has been introduced it is too late to try to control it in any way.
Postman’s thesis is sometimes called the “genie-out-of-the-bottle” thesis, and is presented inter alia in the book Technopoly, where he begins by relating the myth of the Egyptian ruler Thamus who was shown all sorts of inventions for approval.⁶ If Thamus approved an invention it was allowed to be introduced into society; if not it had to be left outside. The one who presented the technology—the god Theuth—let Thamus weigh advantages and disadvantages against each other and then followed his decision. Postman’s conclusion is clear:⁷
⁶ See Postman, N., Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology, pp. 3ff.
⁷ Ibid., p. 7.
But we can learn the following from Thamus: once a technology has been admitted it will follow its natural line of development; it does what it was constructed to do. Our task becomes to understand the construction—that is to say we must admit new technology with open eyes.
It is interesting to note that this view, if it is correct, excludes the majority of the technology regulation that exists today, regulation that relates to the use of technology in society. According to Postman there could only be one object for the regulation of new technology and that would be precisely the introduction of the technology into society.
There are several problems with this thesis, but perhaps the clearest is that it is only possible to regulate the introduction of technology into a society when one can also assume that it is a god who presents the technology before it is spread. Most technical innovations that belong to the category “new information and communication technology” have been developed and spread spontaneously, and almost entirely without any decision-making organisation having sanctioned the use. The introduction of technology into societies almost never takes place through the state or some other decision-making organisation approving it. Postman’s thesis then becomes, which he is certainly aware of, a rhetorical detour for saying that we can never control technology.
Nevertheless certain societies try to control the introduction of technology. One example could be encryption technology, which has often been surrounded by restrictions and where it can almost be said that the spread to larger social groups has taken place only after hesitation on the part of the legislator and the rule-makers. When it comes to encryption the preconditions for being able to control introduction are good. The technology is difficult to copy and produce and requires considerable knowledge. Initially it was available only to a small group, and the spread did not occur naturally. Only when Phil Zimmerman released the easy-to-use program Pretty Good Privacy did encryption become a technology one could spread freely and rapidly.
Possession
The next object of regulation that we shall discuss is the possession of a certain technology. We can design the regulatory frameworks in society in such a way that they in fact regulate nothing other than the possession of a certain technology. In Sweden, for example, the legislation surrounding firearms is constructed in this way. Licensing procedures and other provisions make it a criminal offence to possess firearms without the requisite permits.
This regulatory framework can also be transposed to information and communication technology. We can imagine that it would be illegal to possess equipment that makes it possible to pirate protected works.
Does that seem absurd? Consider then that this is precisely what is proposed in the EU’s proposal for a copyright directive. The idea behind the proposal was originally that one would not have to prove that the intention with the possession of the technology had been to infringe copyright rights. Mere possession, or the manufacture of the technology, would suffice to punish the person who possessed the equipment in question or offered the service in question.⁸ How this regulation will turn out remains to be seen. The question will be dealt with by the EU in the near future. In Sweden, however, such a rule already applies, which is found in the Act (1960:729) on Copyright in Literary and Artistic Works:
⁸ See Article 6, para. 1: Copyright and related rights in the information society: proposal for a directive (10 December 1997).
57 a § Anyone who in a case other than that referred to in Section 53 sells, hires out or for the purpose of sale, hiring out or other acquisition holds a device that is intended solely to facilitate the unauthorised removal or circumvention of a device that has been applied to protect a computer program against unauthorised reproduction shall be sentenced to a fine or imprisonment for at most six months. Act 1992:1687. (my italics).
Even if there are great advantages from the point of view of evidence, regulation of possession seems rather difficult to defend in view of the considerable political and social costs it entails. Consider that it would be possible for the police to enter your home to see whether you have pirated computer programs—would that be a society worth living in? Is the balance between the private sphere and copyright then correctly struck?
The reason I ask the question is a little sly. We in fact live in such a society. In the Act (1960:729) on Copyright in Literary and Artistic Works Section 56 a the following is to be read:
56 a § If there is reasonable cause to assume that someone has committed an infringement, or a violation referred to in Section 53, the court may, in order that evidence of the infringement or violation may be secured, decide that an investigation may be carried out at that person’s premises in order to search for objects or documents that may be assumed to be of importance for the investigation of the infringement or violation (infringement investigation).
A decision on an infringement investigation may be issued only if the reasons for the measure outweigh the inconvenience or other detriment that the measure entails for the person affected by it or for some other opposing interest.
The provisions of the first and second paragraphs also apply in respect of attempts and preparation under Section 53, fifth paragraph. Act 1998:1454.
In essence this means that if there is reasonable suspicion that you have pirated computer programs, the person who holds the rights to these may make a lawful intrusion into your home. If it is urgent you may not even call a lawyer.
Is the balancing act between personal privacy and the protective value of copyright successful here? Personally I think that piracy is not a crime in the same class as the other crimes that upon suspicion justify intrusion into a person’s home.
Rules of this kind have developed primarily in connection with the new technological development. The need to punish possession and to allow infringement investigations was negligible before digital copying technology brought it into the picture. Even if the possession of printing presses has been forbidden in dictatorships it feels strange to see rules of this type appear in a supposedly democratic state. The discussion of these rules has not been particularly extensive either. Faced with the difficulty of regulating the new technology everyone seems to be agreed that extreme measures are required.
We perhaps get used to it. Or we hope that we ourselves will not end up in the spotlight. As an object of regulation, however, possession is interesting from both a legal-philosophical and a democratic point of view. The legal balancing should coincide with democratic reflection.
Design
A third object of regulation is the design of the technology. We can easily imagine a society that prohibits the manufacture of a certain type of weapon or that treats semi-automatic or fully automatic weapons specially. It is not equally easy to imagine a society that specially regulates the design of information or communication technology. There are, however, similarities and there are also cases where regulations of the design of information and communication technology have been proposed.
The many different systems for key escrow that have been proposed in the USA are at least partly regulation that places requirements on how a system is designed.⁹ To require that keys shall be able to be deposited is in the long run to place requirements on the design of the technology.
⁹ See e.g. “Authorities make case on encryption” http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-311922.html?tag=st.ne.ni.rnbot.rn.ni for an old article on key escrow—the basic idea in the key-escrow model is that the person who encrypts something shall deposit a key with the state which, when needed and after a court decision, may use the deposited key to decrypt the message in question.
Here—as elsewhere—the requirements are sometimes imposed in order to protect the individual. In the Personal Data Act (1998:204) there are rules on how systems for the processing of personal data shall be designed and what security requirements they shall fulfil, in Section 31:
31 § The controller of personal data shall take appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect the personal data that are processed. The measures shall achieve a level of security that is appropriate having regard to
- a) the technical possibilities that exist,
- b) what it would cost to implement the measures,
- c) the special risks that exist with the processing of the personal data, and
- d) how sensitive the processed personal data are.
These rules also place certain requirements on the design of the technology, but ostensibly for the benefit of the individual. These requirements are, however, implicit and changeable, which makes it difficult to see how the individual is to be able to live up to them. Point a), what technical possibilities exist, varies constantly.
As an object of regulation, therefore, regulation of the design of technology can take place explicitly by a certain technology being prescribed, or implicitly where the law’s prescriptions concerning use demand a certain type of technical architecture.
Use
Finally we have the use of the technology, and it should at once be emphasised that this is the hardest of all, to try to regulate how a technology is used. We return to this in the discussion of the fundamental problems of regulation, but use is always more extensive and involves far more actors than design, possession and introduction taken together. Here the problem is almost always that there are so many ways of using and so many users that it becomes difficult even to try to control that the regulatory framework is followed.
Regulation of use exists in several laws, as in the Personal Data Act’s rules on the processing of personal data, but can also be prescribed in contracts or agreements. That one may not copy a certain piece of software is often the consequence of having signed a contract when purchasing the licence to use the software.
There are several examples of regulation that aims to steer the use of the new media. That one may not copy CDs is in itself a rule that encompasses a practice. That one is expected to control the postings that are made on the electronic bulletin boards for which one is responsible is yet another example.¹⁰
¹⁰ Electronic bulletin board is a vague concept which can be defined as a web page that several persons can control the content of, an interactive bulletin board pure and simple.
Ultimately this concerns whether all the objects of regulation that have been discussed above are such that they can be regulated by laws and agreements. The difference between private and public regulation is not really interesting for our discussion.
Finally it should be noted that it is often the case that we see several objects of regulation in one and the same regulatory framework. It is rare for a law or an agreement to contain provisions about only one of the listed objects of regulation.
Information Flows as the Object of Regulation
Another interesting question is whether it is really the technology we wish to regulate. Is it really the technology that is interesting for the purposes of regulation, not the information flows?
In various attempts to raise one’s gaze in the discussion of regulation and the emergence of the information society it can easily happen that one thinks it is more reasonable to speak of the information as the logical core of thinking about the regulations that are discussed. I believe, however, that this is unnecessary, because the information flows are often, if not always, consequences of the use of the technology. The objects of regulation that have been proposed above (introduction, possession, design and use) I believe can be assumed to be exhaustive. To try to regulate information flows is simply to try to regulate the use of the technology that produces these flows.
Against this it can—quite correctly—be objected that communication between machines will increase in the future, and that it is difficult to understand how these could be said to use the technology, when they themselves are technology. The information flows can then be regarded as a more reasonable starting point for discussion. This is not correct either, however. In machine communication it is the design of the technology—how we design the machines that are to communicate—that is important.
That this is interesting is because a confusion often occurs in the literature. Some prefer to speak of information and the regulation of its flows, others of the technology and its use, design etc. I do not believe that either of these perspectives is right or wrong, but that it is infinitely much more difficult to speak of information flows. If it is the case that “information wants to be free” then that is something that depends on a certain use of the technology and that takes shape in the use of technology.
Fundamental Problems in Regulation
There are a number of problems in the regulation of technology, regardless of which object one has set out to regulate. Below a selection of fundamental problems is discussed and how they complicate the regulation of the new technology.
Surveillance and Sanction
Perhaps the most problematic aspect in the regulation of the new technology is what ability the regulator has to monitor and control that the regulation is actually complied with. There are several components in this problematique, which have to do both with the use of the technology and the speed with which the content on the Internet grows.
We shall discuss the latter first. One way of giving concrete expression to this problematique is to start from various attempts to regulate the content of web pages. We shall set ourselves the task of controlling that this essay does not appear anywhere else on the Internet than the places I have approved. What does this task comprise and what problems shall we encounter?
- a) We must first build some type of technology that can go through web pages and warn us if texts that resemble or exactly reproduce the text in question are found.
- b) When this is done we must identify the person who has put out the text, by contacting the web hotel where the text is located. If the entire technical infrastructure is in Sweden we can then prosecute for copyright infringement.
- c) Thereafter we must find forms for internationally identifying and prosecuting the occurrence of texts that lie outside Sweden’s borders.
Steps b) and c) are the ones that receive much attention in the daily debate. Which country’s law applies and how does one identify the pirates? That type of question appears easy to solve after one has looked more closely at a). How does one construct a technology that searches web pages and reports back?
Great confidence is today placed in various forms of automated web browsers that on their own race around and read web pages, search for information or work with examination of the type indicated here. These spiders, agents, robots (bots), or whatever one wishes to call them, can surf for us when the quantity of information has become altogether too extensive for us to handle. It is not difficult to realise, however, that as the quantity of information grows it becomes unsurveyable even for an automated process. No robot can count the stars.
A simple theorem about the power of control and the growth of material on the Internet can be formulated: the greater the quantity of information becomes, the smaller become the possibilities of controlling what it contains. In extremis: in a quantity of information that is infinitely large it can never be excluded that a given piece of information exists.
All that has been said can be traced back to another, more general, line of reasoning that is very interesting. It concerns a noise point or noise boundary in information systems in general. We return to this below.
Often we meet the image of the Internet as a living being with will and own intentions. In the perhaps best-known quotation about regulation and the Internet, which is attributed inter alia to Howard Rheingold but which probably originates from John Gilmore, this image is clarified:
The Internet treats censorship as a damage and routes around it.
This quotation conjures up the image of a formless and intelligent being that reacts to attempts to regulate its breathing and use. The idea that the Internet could at all interpret actions has a clear flavour of science fiction.¹¹ We may think it is absurd to speak of the Internet as a living being, but there is nevertheless a measure of truth in the widely spread image of the living network.
¹¹ Even if I do not wish to exclude that it will happen. Every system that organises itself towards greater complexity and ever richer information content deserves to be taken seriously as a candidate for consciousness. But that is not the point here.
The truth is that the Internet is constantly becoming a more complex system that thereby also becomes ever more difficult to control. The development of the technology and the increase in the quantity of information go very rapidly, and if we only look at the growth in the number of pages it is clear that it will become difficult to control the content on the Internet in the future.
If we make a graph of the growth of pages on the Internet and set it in relation to the possibilities of control (see Figure 1) we can illustrate the suspicion that it will become more difficult to control the Internet as the number of pages grows. With the rate at which the content on the Internet is growing today it becomes next to impossible already in June 2001, if we believe that the graph above at all resembles reality. Some might say that the possibilities of control are already non-existent today, and it must be admitted that the graph is very kindly drawn.¹²
¹² The company Cyveillance has just in these days released a survey which states that 7 million new web pages are added every day, and that the total number of web pages at the end of 2000 will pass 3,500 million (Computer Sweden 2000-07-21).
The picture is based on what we can call the noise theorem—the idea that for every system there is a boundary where the value of an arbitrarily selected quantity of information is always less than the value of the time it takes to locate the information in the system. Different systems can then be described as lying above or below the noise boundary, or in different respects on both sides of this boundary. Systems that increase sharply in information mass risk more rapidly moving towards and across the noise point than those that have a constant information mass.¹³
¹³ The noise theorem in this form arose in discussions at the Swedish Office of Science and Technology in Menlo Park; I am grateful especially to Stig Berild for discussions around this non-formal but useful concept.
For the person who wishes to regulate the technology the consequences of the noise theorem are obvious. Often the value of a certain regulation can be much less than the work required to see to it that it is complied with. It costs more than it tastes. One can speak of a type of transaction cost here, the sanction cost. The sanction cost for rules about technology is often very high because the use is so extensive and rich.
Against this picture one can object that it is impossible to control all content, but that one can focus on a number of areas—such as pornography and paedophilia—and try to control them.
I believe, however, that there is a thinking error in that reasoning. The person who imagines that one can control certain types of material easily forgets that one must first identify the given material as belonging to a class that particularly ought to be examined. With the growing number of pages this often becomes an insurmountable difficulty.
Even if we thus dismiss the talk of a living Internet that “reacts” and “defends itself”, we can see that there is a grain of truth behind the linguistic expressions. The Internet and other global networks are so complex in content and form that it is difficult to understand how they could be regulated in any simple way. This makes the global information networks more resemble capricious beings than manageable systems. And they grow all the time.
There is also another problem linked to this. One way of understanding a rule is to discuss what it means to follow it, and to break it. In short a lawyer who wishes to decide whether a breach of a rule has occurred would proceed as follows:
- a) she would formulate the act that is to be assessed in a precise way, as a given mode of action, and
- b) thereafter assess whether the rule covered the mode of action and act in accordance with her assessment.
That this is at all possible is an absolute precondition for control that rules are followed. Here, however, there is a principal difficulty in connection with questions about the new technology. The number of possible modes of action that the new technology gives rise to is namely growing all the time!
Technological development creates new modes of action and possibilities of action. Legislation for its part tries, as far as possible, to steer modes of action and to permit or prohibit possibilities of action.
The value of the law depends partly on how well it describes and handles the modes of action within a given area, but if the space for action is constantly growing, how can the law then describe and handle the new possibilities of action that arise?
It depends on how one views the development of the space for action. In Figure 3 the curves describe two possible lines of development for the space for action in an arbitrary area given rapid technological development. Curve A is an exploding, exponential development of different possibilities of action for a certain technology. Curve B describes a development where the number of new possibilities of action reaches a ceiling and levels off after a time.
The legislator of course hopes that curve B best corresponds to reality. Ideally legislation is introduced at point p in the diagram. Then the area is regulated, one can leave it and turn to new lines of development. A majority of the modes of action that will be assessed then become easy to subsume under the rules of the law. A glance at technological development and the constantly increasing number of new possibilities of action suggests, however, that curve A is the correct one. Look at the mobile telephones! Once barely mobile, today we can do a mass of different things with them: trade in shares, read news, send messages, buy and pay for goods etc. Does the development seem to be levelling off?
If the lawyer cannot securely refer a mode of action to a certain given rule it does not appear to be a problem in the individual case, but when it concerns the majority of the cases that the rule seems to refer to it becomes a great problem. The rule can then be experienced as outdated or simply incomprehensible.
When the number of modes of action explodes, as in curve A in Figure 3, a zone of uncertainty is created with cases where the rule only seems to have the shadow of an application and it is then easy for the entire regulatory framework to be pushed aside, except in the few obvious cases where it can still be of use. Privacy protection perhaps finds itself in this position today; there are so many different modes of action that can scarcely be classified under the existing regulatory framework that the entire Personal Data Act (1998:204) seems incomprehensible and is seldom applied or followed.¹⁴
¹⁴ The Personal Data Act—PUL—is a law that aims to protect the individual’s privacy and that was implemented in Swedish law as a consequence of an EC directive. See e.g. Notisum for a complete text edition of the Act.
Points of Responsibility and Decentralisation
In order to be able to sanction a rule it is of fundamental importance that there exists a point of responsibility. By this is meant that for the person who wishes a rule to be followed there must exist a point to attack if the rule is not followed. There must exist a point where responsibility can be exacted.
When development is instead driven by a collective that is loosely composed, but without any point of responsibility, the regulation of the design of the technology is made enormously more difficult. The best-known example of this was given by Peter Harter at the conference The Legal and Policy Framework for Global Electronic Commerce 5–6 March 1999 in Berkeley. He related that the French government had expressed a wish to have a back door to the protocol for encrypted transfer that Netscape’s web browser used (SSL). Harter then explained to the government’s representatives that Netscape could introduce such a back door in its version of the protocol, but that it would play no role, because the protocol was chosen by every individual website and was developed by an open-source collective. If Netscape introduced such a back door someone else would soon produce a protocol that did not contain it, and all websites would of course prefer to use this. The French government is said thereupon to have withdrawn its request.¹⁵
¹⁵ The episode is referred to in my conference report “Legal and policy framework for global electronic commerce, Berkeley 5–6 March 1999 (Swedish Office of Science and Technology), http://www.esociety.nu/material/Konferensrapport.pdf and also in Lawrence Lessig’s book Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace.
What the episode shows is that the exercise of power and control is dependent on a point of responsibility. No such point is offered by the open-source procedure, and the homology with the network’s social information architecture is obvious: no single point is such that the exercise of force against it hinders the movement or flow of information itself.
The open-source movement is an interesting object of study in political technology.¹⁶ A development driven by a collective that no single person stands above and that no one can steer is in itself a phenomenon worth studying. But when the result of this collective’s work—the technology—also affects society it becomes central to understand the open-source process as a power phenomenon.
¹⁶ By open source can—simplified—be said to mean software that everyone who wishes participates in developing without anyone owning it. The best-known example is Linux.
The network’s architecture, which is strongly decentralised, thus confronts the person who wishes to regulate the technology with great problems.
The Inherent Inertia of Regulation
Another central problem for the person who wishes to regulate the new technology is the inherent inertia of regulation. When it comes to legislation it is built into the process that it shall take time. One can even argue that this is good, in order to protect us against hasty decisions we build inertia into certain of our decision processes.
When it comes to technological development, however, this goes so fast that it is difficult even with ordinary, and for reasons of security justified, factors of inertia to manage to create rules that are relevant for the phenomenon or technology one wishes to regulate.¹⁷
¹⁷ For those who have read Anders Wedberg’s fantastic History of Philosophy I–III the temptation to formalise these reasonings is always great. Formalised the rule would run: “The time it takes to formulate the rules for the phenomenon f₁ is always longer than the time it takes for the phenomenon f₁ to become a essentially different phenomenon f₂ that is not affected by the rules.”
This is a problem that is difficult to handle. For the person who wishes to regulate the new technology it means that the rules are in fact outdated at the same moment they enter into force.
Do such phenomena exist then? Is it not the case that all phenomena in the last analysis have something permanent that we can regulate? Can we not find a way of regulating that is independent of the speed of technological development?
Some maintain that it is possible to formulate rules that are technology-independent, or at least technology-neutral, but it is doubtful how that would be done (that subject returns in another essay). At the same time it shall not be denied that there are phenomena that remain constant long enough to allow themselves to be regulated.
Another problem in connection with this arises when a law that has directed itself at a certain given phenomenon enters into force even though the phenomenon has changed or ceased to exist. When the law enters into force it is so generally formulated that it can also be applied to other phenomena, with unforeseen consequences.
In Sweden we have for example a law that came into being with a very specific technical phenomenon in mind, the Act on Responsibility for Electronic Bulletin Boards (1998:112). This law came into being probably as a response to a much-noticed judgment concerning a so-called BBS operator’s responsibility for pirated computer programs. The law was probably intended to handle precisely the Bulletin Board system (which is still used, but which has also in certain parts been replaced by the Internet). When the law entered into force in 1998 BBS use was on the decline and the Internet the central medium, but that did not make the law meaningless. The law was namely so generally formulated that it could also be applied to the Internet. In the introduction the area of application is described thus:
1 § This Act applies to electronic bulletin boards. By electronic bulletin board is meant in this Act a service for the electronic mediation of messages. In the Act message means text, image, sound or information in other respects.
2 § The Act does not, however, apply to
- the mere provision of a network or other connections for the transfer of messages or of other devices that are required in order to be able to make use of a network or other connection,
- the mediation of messages within an authority or between authorities or within an enterprise or a group,
- services that are protected by the Freedom of the Press Act or the Fundamental Law on Freedom of Expression, or
- messages that are intended only for a certain recipient or a definite circle of recipients (electronic mail).
Despite the very extensive exceptions from the main rule in Section 2, the Act remains applicable to many websites that mediate messages. The requirements that it thereby imposes on the provider of the bulletin board are both strange and resource-demanding; inter alia the provider of the bulletin board is required to have an overview of the material on the bulletin board. Depending on how one interprets this task it can become very burdensome.¹⁸ Suppose for example that you as provider of a bulletin board must check every single message that is posted there! It can be thousands of messages a day in certain cases, e.g. on passagen.se or torget.se.
¹⁸ In connection with the Act’s entry into force precisely this requirement was discussed and it was generally considered that it might perhaps suffice to set up a complaints wall, which the person who experienced that a breach of the law existed could contact.
The Act on Responsibility for Electronic Bulletin Boards thus shows that the most dangerous thing that can happen is not that a law is outdated when it enters into force, but that it is too broadly applicable. Then it can become a factor of uncertainty that makes entrepreneurs and individuals hesitate in the development of technical solutions.
Even if this does not happen it is scarcely conducive to confidence in the legal system and legal certainty to have laws that are applied to half-outdated and half-incomprehensible concepts such as “electronic bulletin boards”.¹⁹
¹⁹ The Act has—as far as is known to me—not been applied a single time.
The Development
We have now gone through some of the basic conditions for regulation and some of the problems that confront the person who wishes to regulate the new technology. How then does the future look? How will technology affect society?
It is of course difficult to answer. At the same time there are some tendencies here that can be discussed, and perhaps we can hint at some conclusions.
Unintended Side-Effect or Intended Result
Before we can go further with analysing where technological development will take us and how it will affect society it is, however, important to discuss a closely related subject, namely how technological development from the beginning interacted with social development.
Does technology strive towards freedom? Has the technology that underlies and lies behind the phenomenon of the Internet already from the beginning had freedom as its goal? Often the Internet is depicted as a freedom-striving project that does not permit any overlordship or any regulation that damages its inherent striving towards freedom. I believe that this is a deeply mistaken picture of the new technology. The Internet was designed by a technical elite that worked with “rough consensus” as its measure of participation. From the beginning almost all technology is control technology, and the word “cybernetics” can be interpreted precisely as “control science”. Those who created this technology have little or no part in its transformation into one of the foremost tools for individual freedom today. It may sound harsh, but it is an important point. To claim as founder of one of the fundamental protocols today that one could foresee the development is at best nonsense, at worst an attempt to assert one’s own excellence.
It is important to examine this question carefully. If the design of the technology expressly aimed at creating the social upheavals that we see today the information revolution is a conscious work of a few technicians. I do not believe that at all. We return here to the distinction between the design of the technology and its use. It is namely in the use that the new technology has become a tool for decentralisation and the loosening of existing power structures. The information revolution is an excellent example of an unintended effect of the introduction of a certain type of technology into society. Ultimately this question concerns whether the information revolution is an artefact or an effect.
My answer is that what we see is an unintended, albeit very positive, side-effect of the founding of the global communication networks. It is not a revolution with roots in the technology, but ultimately a revolution that can be traced to the far-reaching movement towards individualisation that modern society has undergone. The social changes we are now going through have no architects and no technical origin. They are much more than that.
Here it is perhaps required that we linger a little on this assertion. Is what we see really not a technology-induced revolution? Is not the process of origin of this technology, and the design, the central thing? Why then is information technology constantly held forth as the motor and infrastructure of the social transformation? The reasons why we speak of information and communication technology are many, but one of the most important is that it is the most tangible part of the social transformation we face. The technology is not unimportant either; on the contrary it makes possible the shifts of power and changes that are today under way in the Western world. The technology is perhaps even a necessary cause of the course of events. What I wish to have said is that it is not a sufficient cause. Herein I differ from those who see the technology as the only cause of the changes. There is also an element of individualisation and value shift in this process that is very important to remember.
(In contrast to Castells I do not see a transition from a place-based power structure to a flow-based power structure. I see instead a flow-generated power structure. Not the power over the flow, but the power that is created by the flow is the central thing.)
This section began with the question whether the Internet had been designed for freedom and social change. I do not believe that it is so. The social changes that can today be discerned are a positive and probably highly unintended side-effect of the technology having linked people together. It is the will to communicate that is the driving force behind these social changes, and not the technology that makes the communication possible. In a slogan one could write it thus: “Information does not want to be free. But people want to be free.” For me that means that the process we are now undergoing is infinitely much more thoroughgoing than a simple technology-induced revolution in some area. And more complex.
The Emergence of Cymbiocracies
The fundamental effect of technology on society is that it shifts power. The ways it does so are many, but both communication and information are power factors in the information society. Since the new technology is used to inform and communicate it is natural that it also shifts power positions and creates new fields of power, because power is fundamentally a knowledge phenomenon (a truth that is found in the old proverb that “knowledge is power”. Important to note, however, is that it does not say “information is power”…).
One way of reasoning around this is to speak of infrastructures for power. Much of what we see today is the development of a society whose decision processes and power are steered by the technical infrastructure and the technical possibilities of informing and communicating. Society is steered in equal parts by the rules we decide upon and the technology we live with.
Today it is necessary to question whether technology is only a tool. Its role in society is not the simple and modest one that we could expect to meet if we started from the idea that the word “technology” only referred to a number of different tools. Today technology is a fundamental component in society, and perhaps more than that: technology has become a part of society in a kind of symbiosis. We live in a technotopia.
This observation can form the basis for a thought experiment, a division of societies into two different categories. Suppose that we divide the class of all societies into these two subclasses:
- a) those societies that are characterised by the fact that technology is still used as a tool and where it can be removed from society without its fundamental structure being changed particularly much—we can call this class tool societies.
- b) those societies where technology has been integrated to such a high degree that every removal of it would mean that society dissolved and disappeared—these societies we can call symbiotic societies, or cymbiocracies (from cyber and symbiotic).
Then there is a series of interesting questions to ask:
- Do we live in a symbiotic society? (My guess is that we do so to the highest degree.)
- When did we become so?
- Is the development towards symbiotic societies one-way in the sense that they cannot change back into tool societies? (Here too I believe that is the case.)
- Is a symbiotic society more vulnerable than a tool society? (The most common answer to this question is perhaps yes, but it probably depends on the design of the technology.)
- What special requirements does a symbiotic society place on the rule-maker?
- What consequences does the development of cymbiocracies entail for the nation-state?
- How many per cent of all societies are today cymbiocracies, or will become so in the future? Etc.
Even if a series of wise objections can be directed against the thought experiment above, such as that society—with the political systems and the analogue knowledge infrastructures (books for example)—is itself a sort of technology and that even the removal of fire would affect a society fundamentally, the distinction nevertheless offers a first starting point for discussing the role of technology in society.²⁰
²⁰ I was recently made aware of another very useful concept that can be used to analyse the significance of technology. Mauricio Rojas speaks in one of his books of “negative technological determinism”—a phenomenon that consists in the development of technology being able to determine that certain future societies are simply not possible. The difference between the cymbiocracy concept and negative technological determinism lies possibly in that I am not certain that technology determines societies or the quantity of possible societies. In a cymbiocracy the technology is a part of society and is determined as much by the technology as vice versa—the central factor is always the individual’s free will. This distinction I am not myself clear about yet, however.
Without claiming that the distinction gives an exact picture of reality I still wish to assert that it is an interesting thought experiment. The most important element in the distinction is perhaps that there is a point at which the significance of technology for a society becomes a dependence, and that at this point we lose our unrestricted power to influence and decide over the technology.
Of course the boundary between cymbiocracies and tool societies is illusory and sliding. Our dependence on technology is no simple matter. On the other hand it seems clear that we to an ever higher degree and ever more rapidly become more and more technology-dependent. The significance of technology for society has grown more between the years 1890 and 1990 than between the years 1090 and 1190.
As the significance of technology grows our influence over it also shrinks. A cymbiocracy cannot decide with the aid of the law to abolish all technology—and no modern state would even think of it—without thereby also actually destroying itself. It is possible to imagine a, admittedly cold and uncertain but still, society in antiquity that prohibited fire and weapons technology. It is not possible to imagine a society in the present that totally prohibits cars, electricity and computers; it is at least difficult to do so. Even the most persistent technology-refuser seems to have a predilection for many of the technical solutions that have been developed during the twentieth century.
“The more dependent on technology we become, the less we can regulate the use of it.” Is that so? At least to the extent that technology changes the preconditions for regulation by shifting power.
Is this not a particularly pessimistic picture of technological development? We are trapped in the technology and cannot influence it—a thought that seems to describe a dystopian rather than a utopian society! At first glance it may indeed seem so, but it is in fact precisely the opposite.
The use of communication technology shifts the power over the regulation of society towards the individual’s sphere of influence. The individual obtains increased influence over his situation and his relation to the state. This development, the technology-use’s reconfiguration of the flow of power, the individual has no influence over. It is a spontaneous process that follows from communication and the flow of information increasing. But as a consequence of this the individual obtains considerable power.
We are thus only incapable of preventing ourselves from obtaining power. What one can perhaps only call a pleasant powerlessness.
Closing Words
We find ourselves in a period of transition, and it is becoming ever more difficult to survey the scope and consequences of technological development. What we can see, however, is that it is becoming ever more complicated to regulate and steer the emerging information society. We stand before a society where freedom is constructed.
Utopia, Dystopia and Technotopia
In the discussion of technological development the reader meets both utopians such as John Perry Barlow and dystopians such as Neil Postman. Both these camps assume that technology has a determining influence on the development that takes place, and they also assume that we are steered by the technology in the one or the other direction. The difference between them is that Barlow believes that we are riding on rails towards heaven, while Postman is in disagreement with him about the final destination.
I should like to offer a third view, call it technotopian: technology changes the power relations in society, often to the advantage of the individual, but this power is not per se something positive if it is not used by us. We are not steered by the technology; the technology gives us space in which to act.²¹
²¹ See the discussion of technological determinism above.
The situation recalls that which met Nietzsche when he discussed nihilism. Nihilism, he maintained, only went halfway: it established that there were no values. That was of course correct, Nietzsche acknowledged, but also the least interesting. The interesting thing was which new values we should replace the old ones with—it was after all our task to create these.
In the same way both utopians and dystopians only go halfway. They establish that society is changing, but then assert that the change is determined and law-bound to go towards a better or worse society. And yes, technology changes society, but it is first as enlightened individuals and actors in this play that we decide whether it shall become a drama or a comedy. There is no given future.
The revolution we are undergoing just now is called by Andrew L. Shapiro the control revolution, a term that much more meritoriously expresses what is happening than the pale “information revolution”. He maintains that we are now seeing a development that leads to individuals ending up in a much freer and more open situation:²²
²² Shapiro, A. L., The Control Revolution: How the Internet is Putting Individuals in Charge and Changing the World We Know.
The new technology’s most significant consequence thus seems to be that it gives power to the individual. But what makes this revolt so much more authentic than all the revolutions described by Panglossian futurists is that it is impulsive and that the outcome is not given. In contrast to what the cyber-romantics maintain, individual freedom is not a self-evident result of the development of technology. In actual fact it will be exposed to both known and unknown challenges. Probably we shall instead see a protracted struggle, a value conflict and a delicate restructuring of the social landscape—a restructuring that can at any time come to nothing. That is why the word “revolution” in fact well describes the shift of control that the Internet makes possible. Certain institutional forces resist and will continue to resist the transfer of power to the individual. In addition there is also a risk that certain individuals will exercise their newly won power incautiously and thereby nullify the advantages the shift can bring for themselves and others.
The control revolution is a revolution in which control over one’s own sphere and one’s own action has returned to the individual.
Shapiro’s observations are good; I agree with his central point and gladly make it my own as well: the revolution we are experiencing is one that (re)gives power to the individual. What we do with it is another matter.
Can the Internet be regulated? we asked at the outset. The discussion has led to an interesting end-point: since the individuals regain power in the shift we are now experiencing, the answer becomes, on a more fundamental plane than earlier: if we want.
Translator’s Note
This English translation covers the Introduction and the complete first essay of Nicklas Lundblad’s 2000 book Teknotopier – den nya tekniken och rättens framtid (Technotopias – The New Technology and the Future of Law), published by Timbro.
The remaining essays in the original Swedish volume are:
- Is Copyright Dead? (Är upphovsrätten död?)
- Who Cares About the Laws? (Vem bryr sig om lagarna?)
- Must We Not Protect Freedom and Privacy? (Måste vi inte skydda friheten och integriteten?)
- What Will Happen to the Laws in the Future? (Vad kommer att hända med lagarna i framtiden?)
- In Conclusion and References
These later chapters continue the exploration of the interaction between technology, law, copyright, privacy, and the future of legal order in a digital age. A full translation of the remaining chapters can be prepared upon request.
The translation aims at accuracy and readability while preserving the author’s analytical style and references to Hayek, Lessig, Postman, Shapiro and others. Footnotes from the original have been retained in adapted form.
Original Swedish text © Nicklas Lundblad and AB Timbro 2000.
English translation prepared 2026 for research and discussion purposes.
It cut through the confusion and obfuscation and reliance on metaphor and propaganda that you find in conservatism, socialism, in both their hard and soft varieties.
These mainstream schools of thought are content to brush their inherent contradictions under the rug, their proponents resorting to appeals to national glory, or historical inevitability, or forever-vague concepts on which their entire philosophies depend. When you push these schools of thought to their limits, rather than address their own obvious signs of error, their proponents shrug their shoulders, wax romantic about things like paradoxes and conundrums and social problems that are unsolvable. Death and taxes, they say, without irony, as though taxation were a biological phenomenon.
Libertarianism made the world make sense.
It also shone the light on an avalanche of historical lies. Thomas Woods’s Politically Incorrect History and Thomas DiLorenzo’s The Real Lincoln represent only the tiniest beginning. Rothbard’s histories of economics and monetary laws, appearing here and there, are among his best writings.
I am open to any explanation or historical analysis that can supplant anarcho-capitalism, that can stand toe-to-toe with it in a match of logical rigor, and win. But I haven’t seen it.
Published: December 12, 2006 3:34 PM
Published: December 12, 2006 4:31 PM
RogerM
That is a nice way to say it!
Björn Lundahl
Published: December 12, 2006 5:11 PM
It is beautiful because it is humble. It does not assume to know the right answers for you. Only you do.
Published: December 12, 2006 6:09 PM
Published: December 12, 2006 6:51 PM
instead of Descarte’s
Cogito ergo sum
(or Bill Clinton’s “Copulo ergo sum”)
Libertarianism is beautiful.
Stephan is a Libertarian
Therefore, Stephan is beautiful!
OK my logic leaves something to be desired, but come on – it’s Christmas!
Thanks for all the informative posts Stephan.
Published: December 12, 2006 7:52 PM
Libertarianism made the world make sense.
Published: December 12, 2006 8:17 PM
Published: December 12, 2006 8:23 PM
Notice how statist propaganda always reverts to the supposed will of some super-human entity, such as God (in theocracies and monarchies), Society and People (in fascist and communist regimes) or Democracy (in western social democracies) – and the need to submit to the will of this entity. As channeled by its acolites, of course.
Libertarianism does not require any belief – it only requires some thought to understand few simple truths. Once you understood them, and have enough strength to resist the massive assault of nonsense and seductive lies comprising the modern political discourse and education, – you never can forget them.
Published: December 12, 2006 9:50 PM
Since communes work in very small tribes could be proof that Communism would work if everyone tried properly. I would say Libertarian works when I see it implemented on a large societal scale.Personally I believe Libertarian can only work when EVERYONE chooses to peacefully interact with each other. The fact that individual criminals have no respect for other peoples’ right to private property mean that life’s problems won’t automatically disappear when governemnt does.
Published: December 12, 2006 10:25 PM
Published: December 12, 2006 10:37 PM
For some reason, I don’t think you are, and that means that you keep your dealings with other people voluntary, and do not aggress against their property and their persons.
That meaning that you and absolute majority of people around you de facto live according to the libertarian principles – at least most of the time (when you’re not voting or trying to grab a piece of government handoffs for yourself).
Published: December 12, 2006 10:46 PM
Similarly, individual criminals who keep robbing and cheating at every turn would cause others to start to view everyone as a potential criminal and trade might well stop to a crawl, causing a slow corruption and erosion of such a otherwise decent society.
Published: December 12, 2006 10:49 PM
What do you fear when you say that a more free, voluntary society would not “work”? What, exactly, do you see happening as the result of the abolition (or curtailment) of the modern State?
I submit that you may be responding to fears that governments incite and encourage, through various tools of propaganda, particularly about history.
Governments are in the habit of creating bogeymen in order to justify taking control over other people’s lives. Usually, the problem either doesn’t exist, is greatly exaggerated, and/or is not remotely solved by the government measures created to supposedly fix it. Typically, the government action creates several genuine problems for every phantom problem it purports to solve.
Published: December 12, 2006 11:03 PM
By ‘working’ I’m thinking that people could go about being libertarian without much problem or having to think about it. I’m not completely sure how ‘law & order’ is supposed to work in a Libertarian society. Since crime tends to go up when punishments get softer makes me wonder what the Libertarian alternative is. Likewise the Libertarian working expample for national defense.
Published: December 12, 2006 11:19 PM
One day I suspect that most people will reach a point in their lives where it seems like disaster, like there is nothing left, like there is no propose to go on, like all is lost, and when they are there they might ask themselves what really matters? What is there to grab on to? And the answer they may come up with is freedom, opportunity, and human dignity. I know, because many years ago it happened to me and that was the day I became Libertarian.
Published: December 12, 2006 11:54 PM
Published: December 13, 2006 8:28 AM
Published: December 13, 2006 8:36 AM
Published: December 13, 2006 8:37 AM
What you are not getting is that all the services you’re afraid to lose — police protection, the courts, accepted standards of behavior and civility, etc. — were never invented or established by the state in the first place, but rather were taken over and controlled by the state to ensure that it has an advantage in its dealings, and can maintain its power.
Libertarian thinking definitely abolishes government and laws, but does not abolish civility, punishment for crimes, adjudication, morality, ethics, or enforceable standards of behavior. To rid ourselves of those things would be to deny what it is within us that is human — the very polar opposite of libertarian philosophy.
Published: December 13, 2006 8:46 AM
The difference under a more free society would be that these jurisdictions will arise out of the organic order of extended families or mercantile interests. Neo-feudalism, in other words, and that is what is coming whether self-styled republicans, democrats, or anarchists want it or not.
Published: December 13, 2006 9:20 AM
Most of us do respect each other, most of the time else even the current system of -archy would fail.
In any case, libertarianism is still the most (maybe the only) principled political philosophy out there.
Published: December 13, 2006 9:23 AM
National defense is even trickery.
Oh, also, how does Libertarianism maintian the complexity of modern society without government/corporation intervention?
Published: December 13, 2006 9:24 AM
I fail to see how criminal and civil codes are exempt from competition. Two persons will agree to arbitration in order to prevent violence. The persons in conflict can settle on any reasonable arbiter to resolve the conflict in a non-violent way. If they fail to resolve the matter peacefully, it is assumed that the next step is violence.
People will give their custom, as is their right, to the courts that are most likely to use reasoning that resolves conflict peacefully and satisfactorily. Civil and criminal codes absolutely compete against each other, just as they do in international law today. The civil and criminal codes that provide the greatest benefits under the division of labor, the greatest degree of security in person and property rights, and promote the advancement of science and the arts, ostensibly, are those that are selected for.
Look at the current state of international affairs. It IS anarchy, with competing systems of law, ethics, and civil and criminal codes. There is no overarching, universal law that governs the interaction of nation-states, or of people from competing nation-states. The laws compete, and if no concensus can be made, then war ensues. Libertarian society would reduce the scale of such conflict by many orders of magnitude, from conflict involving millions of people and trillions of dollars, to conflicts among individuals, families, or business interests.
More importantly, it takes away the level of disjoint in the current system of international politics — VERY few people are willing to fight and risk their own lives, or the lives of their families, over property disputes. Furthermore, those that are willing to do so would be removed from society over time by that very mechanism. It’s a far cry from politicians who gain the power to make more war by winning wars where others fight and die in their stead.
Published: December 13, 2006 9:55 AM
Libertarianism implies a non-coercive society, whereby you can opt out in any event of disagreement, like, say, the local arbitrator determines that a casualty is NOT covered by the products/completed-operations hazard and therefore you and not your insurer must satisfy a judgment. No organic society is going to form where anybody can opt out against coercion by shopping for an arbitrator who will rule in their favor. So, at the end of the day, even in the minarchist city-state or patriarchy, a monopolistic code of behavior will be enforced because, again, nobody is going to hire an arbitrator that can’t assure the binding effect of his decisions.
Published: December 13, 2006 10:26 AM
The problem (perhaps to amplify Sam’s notions) is that nearly half the eligible voters are practicing libertarians. They don’t vote for anybody, and the more local the elections, the less they care. Of those who do vote, say 5% vote third party, leaving a near 50-50 split of the remaining 45% between Repubs and Dems. Eliminating the fringes and swing votes, that leaves about 35% core “Statists” split pretty much evenly, who “run” things. A loose assemblage of idealogies comprising 20% of the population has control of $2.5 trillion budgets and more laws than ever before. We are scattered and unfocused (by definition) so the aggressive minorty rules by default.
Regardless, one is left with is espousing libertarianism, even ideally, to throw a line into the debate and hopefully pull the leviathan towards freedom. I appeal to people to examine their notions of right and wrong and ask does it necessarily rise to legal and illegal. Defaulting to Force in answer to every perceived wrong does more damage than good.
I ask people to note just how much coercion and force is used on a daily basis, against whom, and why. Do they really feel safe? Is there a non-Statist solution? I basically ask people to think rationally, at least in their dealings with others, and to allow people to be irrational in their own affairs if they have a mind to. Honest inquiry usually reveals that Force is rarely curative, and normally harmful.
If that fails I point out our $47 Trillion accrual basis national debt, that it is patently fallacious, and is symbolic of the failure of Statism (as Statism is rarely based in economic reality). There is usually a response by those who have some margin of rationality and I gain some hope that an inroad has been made. The others simply shrug their shoulders, hang on to their Faith even harder, and evade giving any answer. Those people are lost causes. One can only hope to change the opinions of the swing voter types, and “by-default” type Statists, those who have never been shown reality and nonsense. If enough are turned against the hardcore, then perhaps some turning of the tide can take place.
Long and rambling perhaps, but the idea is that I have an ideology, I am more than willing to compromise, and that no perfect Libertarian Culture will ever likely exist. But the state of affairs we live in today is reckless and damaged. If people really are looking for another way, if people are getting more and more turned off and refuse to vote, and if people can see that their freedom, personal and economic, is being hijacked, then maybe there is some hope.
But it starts with showing that Force is rarely the answer.
Published: December 13, 2006 1:19 PM
As to Sam’s question, how the courts would operate on a private basis is really not a problem. Even in our government monopoly system we have today, there’s an enormous amount of private arbitration, through the National Assoc. of Securities Dealers, AAA and Mediation, Inc. It’s results are off the radar screen as far as the news and other press outlets go, but it is a fact of life in the world of commercial litigation. It works very well. It would simply be expanded.
These types of dispute resolution groups created contract law. Private merchant courts created the body of law that governs commercial transactions, and it was only later co-opted by the secular and religious aristocrats throughout the late medieval and Early Modern periods.
These governmental entities obviously had a lot to gain by forcibly asserting superiority over private dispute resolution — it ensured that people (especially rich people) would be more dependent on the aristocrats for favors and patronage.
You also have to realize that in a society that operates with less government control, people form private, voluntary associations to a much larger extent. Think about how, in the 18th-early 20th centuries, men would join clubs and societies. These associations would have their own resolution mechanisms. These associations would also have reciprocity agreements with others — the decision of one would be enforceable in others.
In such a society, a man who transgressed against another man, who committed a wrong or (even worse) failed to pay a debt! This man would soon find himself ejected, and thus unable to derive any of the benefits of membership, with his own or any affiliated group. Imagine being kicked out of your church, your kids expelled from their school, treated like a pariah by your profession’s trade group, etc., all because you didn’t pay your gas bill.
Nowadays, that doesn’t happen (except in a mild form — the credit report) because of the elephant in the living room — the all-powerful government courts that are supposed to be the only place to take care of that sort of thing. Only they do it badly and inefficiently.
Published: December 13, 2006 2:56 PM
Quite frankly, there are people alive today just because the government has made it against the law to kill them.
Published: December 13, 2006 3:45 PM
Published: December 13, 2006 4:47 PM
Plus, a libertarian society would try to stop outsider imperialist states in the same manner that societies have always tried to stop them. Hopefully, liberty would prevail.
Published: December 13, 2006 11:42 PM
Why would crime go down? How would crime be policed? If everyone was solely responsible for their own lives and property would that be a greater detterent? Or would criminal behaviour merely change to suit the new circumstances?
And how did societies repel imperialist societies? When the imperialist invaders have much better arms and numbers they tend to overrun the victim nation.
Could any one provide an answer that’s more specific and real-world practical please? 😉
Published: December 14, 2006 12:04 AM
Published: December 14, 2006 12:19 AM
Published: December 14, 2006 12:33 AM
Finally I’ve been talking about violent criminal acts and what the Libertarian society would do about it. I don’t remember implying anything like homosexuality, Socialism, drugs, etc.
Published: December 14, 2006 12:51 AM
Exactly. “Society” only exists when libertarian principles exist. Otherwise, it’s necessarily an either/in this case the OR Hobbesian war or all against all.
What would a libertarian society do about violent criminal acts? The first thing it would do would be to not pretend violence isn’t violence if it’s initiated by individuals calling themselves “State” or “government”. Voting to take is no different than just taking. In a libertarian society a lot more people would be conscious of the fact that violent theft was occuring, even if it was couched in words like “taxation” or “welfare”.
But yes, such a criminal person would be a criminal no matter what the name of the rose. So why pretend it’s something it’s not? The action committed is the action committed. But true society only exists to the extent that people are freely voluntarily trading with one another. Just because there might be a person who might commit criminal actions in a majority libertarian society, is that a reason to throw in the towel regarding peace, is that a reason to embrace violence? Define criminal: Actions against voluntary action.
Published: December 14, 2006 1:11 AM
Published: December 14, 2006 2:03 AM
Published: December 14, 2006 2:26 AM
2. Rule of law – only laws that protect individuals from criminal behaviour (and I’m not talking about ‘religious crimes’ such homosexuality, abortion, divorce, etc.), such that people can about their business happily trading without constantly looking over their shoulder or spending large amounts of money into personal protection (which should be going into savings and investments).
Personally it I think it seems that when societies loses track of one of these standards things tend to go haywire. Am I right? Wrong?
Published: December 14, 2006 3:02 AM
Published: December 14, 2006 9:05 AM
http://www.mises.org/rothbard/newliberty.asp (the book)
http://www.mises.org/rothbard/newliberty11.asp (a good chapter that addresses some of the particular concerns that you are bringing up)
http://www.mises.org/rothbard/newliberty2.asp (this chapter will likely address some of the questions that you might have if you jump straight to chapter 11 [the link above])
http://www.mises.org/media.aspx?action=category&ID;=87 (the [free] audio book — a great resource)
The questions that you raise are far easier to pose than to answer. If you are looking for serious answers, these links are a great start to how how liberty works in practice. If you are only coming to the comments to raise your questions, but are otherwise unwilling to take some time and explore the matter, I would suggest re-thinking the motivations behind why you are posting here.
Hope your inquiry into liberty goes well — it changed my life forever.
cheers,
Daniel
Published: December 14, 2006 9:32 AM
After all, every individual naturally seeks order in his life and indeed the more of it the better, meaning the HIGHER the better, as such order, being evolutionary in nature, builds not upon chaos but upon the order latent in it. And while natural evolution is built upon unconscious order (hence the geologic time necessary for its unfolding), human evolution is conscious in that it wills specific outcomes requiring specific actions. Indeed, this is what makes them HUMAN actions, precisely as Mises said, problems arising when those actions come under the control of a FEW humans, as this inevitably confounds the evolutionary process.
And as we have no less than Vladimir Lenin to thank for making the distinction clear between free order and regimented order — “While the State exists there can be no freedom; when there is freedom there will be no State” — so does the libertarian understand that the state, being the embodiment of regimented order, is everywhere and always the enemy.
And that would be my answer to Sam with regard to crime (aggression): That is, the more each individual is free to seek order in his life through conscious interaction — i.e., free and open exchange — with others, the less he will be inclined to short-circuit the process via aggression, and the less time society will then have to spend defending itself against such behavior.
Conversely, as aggression is institutionalized via the state, the process of human evolution is accordingly thwarted, the irony being that while Marx assumed that regimented order would perfect human nature, it instead brought out the worst in it, to the point that where it was tried, the evolutionary process all but ground to a halt.
And now? Billions of people in the East are now rising from the ashes of regimented order to engage in free (or at least far freer) order, even as the global imbalances that their regimentation generated conspire with the West’s own brand of regimentation (the regulatory “welfare” state) to create the conditions for its demise:
http://www.energybulletin.net/23259.html
As one who believes that this catastrophe is all but unavoidable, the only questions I now ask are (1) how am I and my loved ones to survive it? and (2) will free order — libertarianism — be given sufficient rein in the aftermath of the catastrophe for the evolutionary process to continue?
I’ve got my ideas about the answer to the first question and am already putting some of them into effect.
As for the second question, either we answer it in the affirmative, or I have serious doubts about the survival of our species.
Published: December 14, 2006 11:41 AM
I don’t think you have to be an arnarchist to be a libertarian. Milton Friedman considered himself a libertarian and wasn’t even close to being anarchist. I’m not an arnarchist either and consider myself to be libertarian because I believe the government should be limited to maintaining law and order and national defense. Mises wasn’t an anarchist either and saw the state as necessary for those purposes.I don’t have concerns over the morality or legitimacy or anarchism, just practal concerns similar to what you have mentioned, while anarchists have ethical/legitimacy objections with government.
Published: December 14, 2006 11:41 AM
Government courts and government militaries are inferior for achieving their stated purposes compared to non-aggressive, non-monopolistic alternatives. (They are, however, good at achieving their real purpose, which is to empower a small group of people at everyone else’s expense.)
It’s important to mention is that anarchism is not simply a political agenda — it’s a set of scientific observations about natural laws of human interaction. In other words, anarchism already exists; it’s not something that needs to be implemented or argued into existence. It is the reality of our existence.
This organization we call government is really just a bully that makes things worse for those whose lives it touches. It’s not really in charge, in a literal sense. Anarchy runs almost every aspect of our daily lives already.
The fact that our courts are terrible means that people are avoiding them, right now. They are finding other ways to solve their problems, most of the time. That’s anarchism in practice.
The effect of having a state declare a monopoly on criminal justice doesn’t mean that it actually gets a monopoly. It simply means that the unofficial, self-help means of resolving disputes end up being stigmatized and hidden, like drug use. They don’t go away.
Published: December 14, 2006 1:06 PM
http://www.fee.org/!UserFiles/events/VSmith_0905.mp3
Published: December 14, 2006 5:13 PM
Furthermore, I think the non-aggression principle leads naturally and logically towards anarchism instead of just minarchism, but it takes time to see that by studying the non-aggression principle and working out its full implications.
Published: December 14, 2006 7:37 PM
However, there is no “should” here. If people would be protected from the state and wanted to hoard that money the state used to take or spend it on consumer products, are just as legitimate as well.
Björn Lundahl
Göteborg, Sweden
Published: December 15, 2006 1:59 AM
“In the present situation of a world-wide crisis of governmental legitimacy, of the collapse of East Bloc Socialism and enduring stagnation of the Western Welfare States, the chance for Austrian rationalism to fill the philosophical vacuum that has appeared with the retreat of positivism and to become the paradigm of the future is as good or better than ever. Now as before it requires moral courage as much as intellectual integrity to propound the Austrian social theory – the opposing statist battalions still represent a formidable majority and are in control of a far larger share of resources. Yet with the total breakdown of socialism and the concept of social ownership staring everyone in the face, the antithetical Austrian theory of private property, free markets and laissez faire cannot but gain attractiveness and win support. Austrians have reason to believe, then, that the time has come when they may succeed in bringing about a fundamental change in public opinion, by reclaiming ethics and economics from the hands of the positivists and the engineering powerful and restoring public recognition of private property rights and free markets based on such rights as ultimate, absolute principles of ethics and economics”.
Björn Lundahl
Göteborg, Sweden
Published: December 15, 2006 2:01 AM
Practical. I am an anarchist hence I believe if I am taxed even very moderatly I believe it is theft, aggression against my property. Can I live with that? In practical terms I might. With little theft my incentive to rise up and repell a very small state would be low.
However, we all know even the smallest states tend to get bigger. Look at the US. History of the US is a crushing blow to the minarchist ideals. Or utopia we might say.
Published: December 15, 2006 7:04 AM
Published: December 15, 2006 8:42 AM
B. If anything is the “absolute standard for the measure of all things” it’s liberty, of which property is merely a tangible expression.
Property arises from liberty because there are only two ways of acquiring a property interest in something: voluntarily or involuntarily. Voluntary transactions are mutually beneficial, and thus they increase the wealth of both parties (i.e., positive sum).
Every other type of transaction increases the wealth of one person at the expense of the other, and generally also entails a decrease in total wealth in the process (i.e., negative sum).
Government is a mode of organization that exists for the sole and express purpose of engaging in involuntary transactions, either for its own benefit or that of its sponsors. It is therefore an instrument of wealth destruction.
I realize that anarchists don’t want their ideas tested against reality or history, regarding such intrusions as mere decoration. But testing assumptions and conclusions against history is nothing but a test of the validity of assumptions and a guard against unwarranted logical leaps. So far, anarchists has resorted to highly selective and sometimes distorted history in order to buttress their arguments.
Then your understanding is incorrect.
There is a natural limit to the value of historical economic data — there is no such thing as a laboratory for economics.
Economics is the study of complexity, of dynamism, or adaptive systems so complex that they cannot be comprehended in the whole. In the realm of observable goods and services, the level of complexity of the world economy is massive. It is essentially impossible to analyze the interaction of the price of every good or service on the planet, at any point in time. I do not mean that it is really hard. I mean that if every molecule in the universe were made to operate as a massive computer, it could not process the data necessary to account for all the interactions.
As a result, economic phenomena cannot be reproduced. They cannot be modeled. Or, more accurately, the models can never fully describe reality. They can never prove what they seek to prove, not by a standard of rigorous proof.
If you are talking about a less scientific form of history, (i.e., narrative history in the liberal arts, not the scientific analysis of historical economic data), then the Austrian School is extraordinarily illuminating.
Here are a few historical topics that are explained by Austrian principles of economic liberty:
– Why housing prices have grossly inflated over the last 20 years.
– Why the price of college education has skyrocketed since WWII.
– How the Great Depression followed the inflationary boom of the 1920s.
– How WWI followed the founding of central government banks.
– How the aggressive conquering of the American West and Indian genocide immediately followed the War to Prevent Southern Independence and its massive expansion of federal power.
– How the tiny Dutch nation became, for a brief time, a world superpower.
– How the economic independence of the Genovese and Venetian cities made them extremely rich and gave us the Renaissance.
– How welfare (esp. military and gov’t pensions) caused the economic decline of Rome, and how monetary inflation destroyed it.
The conventional, Statist explanations of these periods pales in comparison.
Published: December 15, 2006 9:56 AM
Hoppe and Rothbard use natural law in a different way than it was used for over a thousand years and this underscores the problem of delibarately changing definitions to words; it causes a lot of confusion and destroys the purpose of language, which is communication. Until Rothbard, natural law meant that body of thought that began with Thomas Aquinas and ended with Locke, though some same Adam Smith. It had specific premises/presuppositions based on the existence of God and mankind as God’s creation and children, used reason, and had the goal of determining what principles caused mankind to survive and prosper, the same as Mises’s utilitarianism. Rothbard/Hoppe use the term “natural law” to refer to law developed by reason based on their own premise–the absolute inviolability of property.
Original natural law (now I have to add the word “original” in order to distinguish it from Rothbard/Hoppe’s version) tried to use reason derive those principles that cause mankind to survive and prosper. Rothbard/Hoppe’s natural law has the goal of preserving the absolute inviolability of property. Original natural law saw the state as necessary to survival and prospering, as did Mises. Rothbard/Hoppe’s version makes the state morally evil because of the absolute inviolability of property.
“Here are a few historical topics that are explained by Austrian principles of economic liberty:”
You should distinguish between Austrian history and anarchist history. Austrian history is real history, i.e., what actually happened. Anarchist history tends to be very selective and sometimes just plain wrong, possibly because anarchists see history as just decoration.
Published: December 15, 2006 12:08 PM
Björn Above statement is not a premise and an assumption because it doesn’t really say much. Anything can be derived from this “premise” and “assumption.” It is extremely vague and subjective and it cannot, therefore, be used to prove anything. Anything could be “concluded” as it is not derived from a fact.
My above example of Hitler’s murdering of Jews or Rothbard’s example of murdering of redheads could be justified in the name that “it promoted the welfare of the people.”
http://blog.mises.org/archives/005970.asp
Björn Lundahl
Göteborg, Sweden
Published: December 15, 2006 12:15 PM
Without self-ownership, property rights does not exist either.
A quote from Hoppe´s book The Ethics and Economics of Private Property:
“Furthermore, it would be equally impossible to engage in argumentation and rely on the propositional force of one’s arguments if one were not allowed to own (exclusively control) other scarce means (besides one’s body and its standing room). If one did not have such a right, then we would all immediately perish and the problem of
justifying rules – as well as any other human problem – would simply not exist. Hence, by virtue of the fact of being alive property rights to other things must be presupposed as valid, too. No one who is alive can possibly argue otherwise.”
http://www.mises.org/etexts/hoppe5.pdf
In other words, self-ownership and property rights are the very condition for life just as, for example, oxygen is.
By being alive we cannot argue against the existence of oxygen.
Analogically, by being alive, we cannot argue against self-ownership and property rights.
Björn Lundahl
Göteborg, Sweden
Published: December 15, 2006 1:14 PM
As we have seen, the principle of utilitarianism if followed by all groups of people in all places would lead to human destruction and this, therefore, proves that the principle is destructive. Any crime could be done in the name of utilitarianism such as murder, theft, rape, slavery etc. The lesser number of people would always be at the mercy of the greatest number.
Private groups of people in society are therefore, naturally, not allowed to commit crimes in the name of utilitarianism.
The state has a “legal right” to commit crimes and the state nearly, always does it in the name of utilitarianism.
In the name of utilitarianism Hitler could have justified all the murdering of the Jews that he made. He probably, also, thought that he by doing those crimes achieved the greatest happiness for the greatest number of Germans.
Let us not forget:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-309490343652240839&q;=hitler+jews
Or, alternatively, as Rothbard wrote in his book For a New Liberty:
“Let us consider a stark example: Suppose a society which fervently considers all redheads to be agents of the Devil and therefore to be executed whenever found. Let us further assume that only a small number of redheads exist in any generation-so few as to be statistically insignificant. The utilitarian-libertarian might well reason: “While the murder of isolated redheads is deplorable, the executions are small in number; the vast majority of the public, as non-redheads, achieves enormous psychic satisfaction from the public execution of redheads. The social cost is negligible, the social, psychic benefit to the rest of society is great; therefore, it is right and proper for society to execute the redheads.” The natural-rights libertarian, overwhelmingly concerned as he is for the justice of the act, will react in horror and staunchly and unequivocally oppose the executions as totally unjustified murder and aggression upon nonaggressive persons. The consequence of stopping the murders—depriving the bulk of society of great psychic pleasure—would not influence such a libertarian, the “absolutist” libertarian, in the slightest. Dedicated to justice and to logical consistency, the natural-rights libertarian cheerfully admits to being “doctrinaire,” to being, in short, an unabashed follower of his own doctrines.”
http://www.mises.org/rothbard/newliberty2.asp
The right path to follow is instead:
The Ethics of Liberty:
Hesselberg continues:
“But a social order is not possible unless man is able to conceive what it is, and what its advantages are, and also conceive those norms of conduct which are necessary to its establishment and preservation, namely, respect for another’s person and for his rightful possessions, which is the substance of justice. . . . But justice is the product of reason, not the passions. And justice is the necessary support of the social order; and the social order is necessary to man’s well-being and happiness. If this is so, the norms of justice must control and regulate the passions, and not vice versa.”
http://www.mises.org/rothbard/ethics/two.asp
Or in other words and in a more rigid form: “that no man or group of men may aggress against the person or property of anyone else”.
I have written an essay about normative principles. Please go to:
http://normativeprinciples.blogspot.com/2006/12/normative-principles-pure-free-market_10.html
Björn Lundahl
Göteborg, Sweden
Published: December 16, 2006 5:35 AM
Published: December 16, 2006 6:46 AM
“In other words, self-ownership and property rights are the very condition for life just as, for example, oxygen is.”
I agree. Property is a foundation of liberty. As Locke said, life, liberty and property!
I think Hoppe’s defense of property is weak and easily dismissed by most people. Original natural law offers a much stronger foundation.
“Utilitarianism means that all action should be directed toward achieving the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people.”
That’s the definition I had always accepted, so that taking from the rich, for whom the marginal utility of a dollar is low, and giving to the poor, for whom the marginal utility is high, is the “ethical” thing to do, which is why I couldn’t believe Mises was utilitarian. But he seems to use the word in a different way. Today, I think Mises might say he was being practical instead of utilitarian, because he limited himself to showing what causes mankind to prosper, and that is life, liberty, and property.
You might say Mises worked backwards from original natural law. He started with prosperity and derived the rights to life, liberty and property as necessary to prosperity. Original natural law begins with life, liberty and property and derives the principles necessary for prosperity within those limits.
“Or in other words and in a more rigid form: “that no man or group of men may aggress against the person or property of anyone else”.
This is the only place where I part company with Rothbard and Hoppe. If, as Mises argued, the state is necessary to maintain order, then the anarchist principle of absolute property rights can’t hold. That doesn’t mean that Mises and original natural law destroyed property. No one defends property more. But Rothbard and Hoppe weren’t satisfied with original natural law’s respect for property, they had to make property absolute, and in order to do so, they had to fabricate an entirely new ethical system with property, and only property, as the absolute. I can’t accept that and I don’t think many people will.
Published: December 16, 2006 7:15 AM
Published: December 16, 2006 9:05 AM
RogerM “Yes, it could, if original natural law didn’t have survival and the right to life as the foundations upon which to build welfare. On the other hand, Mises demonstrated that respect for life, law and order are necessary for prosperity.”
Björn You should understand that it is not a logical necessity for a government to have the goal to increase prosperity to a maximum. It can, as I have shown, have different goals that violate individual rights. Utilitarianism is a logical fallacy.
Björn In other words, self-ownership and property rights are the very condition for life just as, for example, oxygen is.
RogerM “I agree. Property is a foundation of liberty. As Locke said, life, liberty and property!
I think Hoppe’s defense of property is weak and easily dismissed by most people. Original natural law offers a much stronger foundation.”
Björn I cannot think of a stronger foundation of ethics than the statement that “self-ownership and property rights are the very condition for life just as, for example, oxygen is.” It seems that Hoppe is brighter than those you are refereeing to (joke).
I will post this again:
RogerM “What distinguishes moral systems is the starting points, the premises and assumptions. Both Rothbard/Hoppe arrive at many of the conclusions already reached by natural law because natural law emphasized property. But natural law didn’t make property an absolute; it made the welfare of mankind the absolute, so it had room for the formation of governments.”
“It made the welfare of mankind the absolute.”
Björn Above statement is not a premise and an assumption because it doesn’t really say much. Anything can be derived from this “premise” and “assumption.” It is extremely vague and subjective and it cannot, therefore, be used to prove anything. Anything could be “concluded” as it is not derived from a fact.
My above example of Hitler’s murdering of Jews or Rothbard’s example of murdering of redheads could be justified in the name that “it promoted the welfare of the people.”
In other words, your statement that “It made the welfare of mankind the absolute” is, I am sorry to say, rather naive and a logical fallacy.
I do not think you have analyzed Hoppe´s and Rothbard’s propositions at all. I will give you examples of that from your earlier posts:
RogerM “Rothbard and Hoppe start with property as the absolute and build upon it.”
Björn No, they start with the concept of self-ownership. That is the starting point. That is not arbitrary as self-ownership is presupposed in an argumentation like this and also, I want to add, in spelling out any ethical norms whatsoever. I can not think of anything more rational.
RogerM “This is where Rothbard goes wrong. Morality/ethics, like natural law, cannot be created by mankind, it must be discovered. Otherwise, like positive law, it becomes just another opinion.”
Björn Who said that an objective ethics can be created? Not Rothbard. The word “establish” is not the same as the word “create”. Don’t you think that Rothbard was very aware of the fact that an objective ethics must be discovered and not created?
Well, I will post Rothbard´s quote again:
The Ethics of Liberty:
“IF, THEN, THE NATURAL law is discovered by reason from “the basic inclinations of human nature . . . absolute, immutable, and of universal validity for all times and places,” it follows that the natural law provides an objective set of ethical norms by which to gauge human actions at any time or place”.
Please, notice the word “discovered”.
http://blog.mises.org/archives/005970.asp
Please, at least try to be honest.
Björn Lundahl
Göteborg, Sweden
Published: December 16, 2006 9:53 AM
So while self-ownership in not arbitrary, Hoppe’s decision to focus on property as if it were the only possible implication of self-ownership is the arbitrary part. While self-ownership does imply property, it also implies other things, such as survival, or the right to life.
Rothbard saw the weakness in Mises practical approach to economics as the lack of a moral argument. I tend to agree because socialists often responded to the practical argument (capitalism works better than socialism) by taking what they considered to be the moral high ground. So Rothbard decided to attack that argument with another moral argument. But instead of reviving the sound principles of original natural law, he and Hoppe decided to create their own version and base it on property.
“IF, THEN, THE NATURAL law is discovered by reason from “the basic inclinations of human nature . . . absolute, immutable, and of universal validity for all times and places,” it follows that the natural law provides an objective set of ethical norms by which to gauge human actions at any time or place”.
However, as I’ve written before, if the use of reason is all that’s required to have natural law, then all ethical systems from socialism, to radical Islam are natural law, too, because they all use reason to establish their principles. What distinguishes the systems is not the use of reason, but the starting points, the premises. Rothbard and Hoppe think that the use of reason makes their system natural law, but it doesn’t, because by changing their starting point from property alone to property plus survival, the same reasoning process arrives at different conclusions, one allowing for the state, the other opposing it.
Original natural law was discovered by reason from the basic inclinations of human nature (absolute, immutable, and of universal validity for all times and places),too, just as Hoppe claims for his ethics. As a result, original natural law “provides an objective set of ethical norms by which to gauge human actions at any time or place”, too, as Hoppe claims for his system.
So if Rothbard and Hoppe’s claims for their “ethics” is strong, those for original natural are even stronger. The only difference between the two is the insistence on Hoppe’s part that property is the only right that can be derived from self-ownership, while original natural law adds survival and prosperity. Original natural law allows for the existence of the state as well as for anarchy, the choice being determined by which causes mankind to prosper best. Rothbard/Hoppe allow only for anarchy and make the state evil, even if it could be shown, as Mises does, that mankind will prosper more under a proper state than under anarchy.
I am trying to be honest. The problem in our communcations lies in the different definitions for words. That’s why I hammer on the idea of using words in the commonly accepted meaning. It enhances communications significantly. It’s also why I get angry with anarchists when I think they’re inventing a new definition for a word. For example, this conversation would be considerably easier if Rothbard and Hoppe hadn’t labeled their system as natural law, which it isn’t.
When I wrote that natural law must be discovered, not created, I meant that it must be discovered using reason and starting from a sound foundation. Original natural law did that by beginning with God and assuming that God intended his creation to survive and prosper. Original natural law saw God as the necessary starting point because only God has authority over mankind.
I claimed that Rothbard/Hoppe’s system was fabricated because they didn’t begin with God, but with man, who has no authority over mankind. They created, or fabricated a new system because they changed the starting point. A false starting point caused them to arrive at false conclusions about the state. That’s what is fabricated.
Published: December 16, 2006 11:38 AM
Björn.
Ethics of liberty:
IF, THEN, THE NATURAL law is discovered by reason from “the basic inclinations of human nature . . . absolute, immutable, and of universal validity for all times and places,” it follows that the natural law provides an objective set of ethical norms by which to gauge human actions at any time or place”.
Another misinterpretation, because reason is only one of the requirements.
Notice: “from the basic inclinations of Human nature… absolute, immutable, and of universal validity for all times and places”.
Socialism, radical Islam etc does not fulfil the requirements of being natural law.
RogerM “I claimed that Rothbard/Hoppe’s system was fabricated because they didn’t begin with God.”
Björn If you want to defend a rational ethic and to be “scientific”, you should not mix that purpose with religion.
It is nothing wrong in being religious, but to have “God” as a starting point as a defence of a rational ethic is irrational. You must understand that God’s existence is not at all rationally proved.
It would really be a fabrication to have “God” as a starting point in a rational ethical system.
Why not leave out all the “arguments” and instead only refer to the bible?
So here we can reach a conclusion. What, really bothers you is that Rothbard and Hoppe left out “God” as the starting point in their ethical system.
Well, you should accept that as religion is not the topic, rational ethics is (between you and me).
As I have said, the foundation of a rational ethic cannot either be satisfied with a starting point such as “the welfare of mankind”.
It is vague, subjective and completely nonsense. Anything could be “derived from that nonsense.” Nothing could be proved! That is the point!
To argue that Rothbard and Hoppe are wrong because their starting point in their ethical system started with the concept of self-ownership and not with “God” or “the welfare of mankind” is really too much. Is this a joke or what?
When this sort of situation occurs, I will tell you this. If you want to have fun, try incrediMail, it is really funny. When you receive a mail, an old-fashioned butler will appear on your desktop screen and inform you that “you have a mail sir”. It is also free!
http://www.incredimail.com/english/splash/splash.asp
You can combine IncrediMail with a free anti spam filter named “Cactus Spam Filter”, because spam is not that funny:
http://www.download.com/Cactus-Spam-Filter/3000-2382_4-10545523.html?tag=lst-0-1
Björn Lundahl
Göteborg, Sweden
Published: December 16, 2006 1:43 PM
It think that Mises thought that only liberal order can achieve survival of humanity in the future. Like he said that socialism would mean starvation for many and impoverishment for more”.
Björn Actually he did support the view that utilitarianism means “greatest happiness for greatest number” and your point is, therefore, well grounded. Rothbard criticized him for the same thing.
Human Action:
“But the teachings of utilitarian philosophy and classical economics have nothing at all to do with the doctrine of natural right. With them the only point that matters is social utility. They recommend popular government, private property, tolerance, and freedom not because they are natural and just, but because they are beneficial. The core of Ricardo’s philosophy is the demonstration that social cooperation and division of labor between men who are in every regard superior and more efficient and men who are in every regard inferior and less efficient is beneficial to both groups. Bentham, the radical, shouted: “Natural rights is simple nonsense: natural and imprescriptible rights, rhetorical nonsense.” [10] With him “the sole object of government ought to be the greatest happiness of the greatest possible number of the community.” [11] Accordingly, in investigating what ought to be right he does not care about preconceived ideas concerning God’s or nature’s plans and intentions, forever hidden to mortal men; he is intent upon discovering what best serves the promotion of human welfare and happiness. Malthus showed that nature in limiting the means of subsistence does not accord to any living being a right of existence, and that by indulging heedlessly in the natural impulse of proliferation man would never have risen above the verge of starvation. He contended that human civilization and well-being could develop only to the extent that man learned to rein his sexual appetites by moral restraint. The Utilitarians do not combat arbitrary government and privileges because they are against natural law but because they are detrimental to prosperity. They recommend equality under the civil law not because men are equal but because such a policy is beneficial to the commonweal. In rejecting the illusory notions of natural law and human equality modern biology only repeated what the utilitarian champions of liberalism and democracy long before had taught in a much more persuasive way. It is obvious that no biological doctrine can ever invalidate what utilitarian philosophy says about the social utility of democratic government, private property, freedom, and equality under the law.”
http://www.mises.org/humanaction/chap8sec8.asp#p175
The Ethics of Liberty:
“for the economist is supposed to be only a praxeologist, a technician, pointing out to his readers or listeners that they will all consider a policy “bad” once he reveals its full consequences. But ingenious as it is, the attempt completely fails. For how does Mises know what the advocates of the particular policy consider desirable? How does he know what their value-scales are now or what they will be when the consequences of the measure appear? One of the great contributions of praxeologic economics is that the economist realizes that he doesn’t know what anyone’s value scales are except as those value preferences are demonstrated by a person’s concrete action. Mises himself emphasized that:
“one must not forget that the scale of values or wants manifests itself only in the reality of action. These scales have no independent existence apart from the actual behavior of individuals. The only source from which our knowledge concerning these scales is derived is the observation of a man’s actions. Every action is always in perfect agreement with the scale of values or wants because these scales are nothing but an instrument for the interpretation of a man’s acting.”
Given Mises’s own analysis, then, how can the economist know what the motives for advocating various policies really are, or how people will regard the consequences of these policies?”
http://www.mises.org/rothbard/ethics/twentysix.asp
Björn Lundahl
Göteborg, Sweden
Published: December 16, 2006 3:52 PM
Furthermore, the appropriate use of defensive and retaliatory force doesn’t require a monopoly on the use of force. And enforcement that coincides with rights will be easier and more cost-effective than enforcement of privileges.
And last, but not least, we’ve tried to make it clear that anarchism does not equal chaos. Given the above points, there’s little reason to assume that an anarchist society would be violent and chaotic. You’re the one who keeps making that assumption.
I’m all for trying to limit government to “merely” rights protection. By all means, let’s try to keep Dubya and his ilk (most politicians) in line. But then let’s go beyond that and understand why it’s so difficult to keep them in line (it’s because they have a monopoly on the use of force) and what it *really* takes to have law-enforcement that coincides with rights (remove the monopoly). A “privileged” system will never adequately protect rights.
Published: December 16, 2006 4:16 PM
How do modern “ethicists” get around the problem of morals without God? They don’t. They just ignore it, as Rothbard and Hoppe do.
Besides, belief in God is not irrational; atheism is irrational and unscientific. Read the recent book “The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief” By Francis S. Collins, the head of the human genome project, who is a devout believer. Check out the writings of C.S. Lewis and Francis Schafer you’ll see why atheism is irrational.
But the main reason I object to Hoppe and Rothbard’s pretend ethics is their arbitrary choice of property as the absolute when other rights can be derived from self-ownership that are just as important as property.
“Socialism, radical Islam etc does not fulfil the requirements of being natural law.”
They certainly do, if the only requirement is to use reason, as Hoppe and Rothbard seem to think.
“As I have said, the foundation of a rational ethic cannot either be satisfied with a starting point such as “the welfare of mankind”.
It is vague, subjective and completely nonsense. Anything could be “derived from that nonsense.” Nothing could be proved! That is the point!”
That’s odd! Everyone from St. Thomas to Locke thought they could do it. So do C.S. Lewis, Francis Schafer and many other contemporary philosophers. Besides, I never claimed that “the welfare of mankind” was the only starting point. Re-read my posts and you’ll find others.
Published: December 16, 2006 4:18 PM
http://falcon.tamucc.edu/~sencerz/Morality_Without_God.htm
Besides, belief in God is not irrational; atheism is irrational and unscientific. Read the recent book “The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief” By Francis S. Collins, the head of the human genome project, who is a devout believer. Check out the writings of C.S. Lewis and Francis Schafer you’ll see why atheism is irrational.
There are any number of books about what theism is irrational nonsense, too. Or why Christianity is wrong and Hinduism is right. Or whatever. So what? Merely writing a book doesn’t make the content correct.
Published: December 16, 2006 7:18 PM
“There are any number of books about what theism is irrational nonsense, too.”
Yes, there are quite a few. But I’ve found that Christians read both sides of the issue and can discuss them well. I’ve never read, nor met, an atheist who has read any of the great Christian books in favor of God.
Have you read Dostoevsky, Nietche, Sartre or Camus? What do you think of their arguments that real morals can’t exist without God? I’m not saying that people won’t act morally; atheists usually act morally. The argument of the great philosphers above is that atheists are acting irrationally when they behave morally.
Published: December 16, 2006 7:49 PM
RogerM. They certainly do, if the only requirement is to use reason, as Hoppe and Rothbard seem to think.
Björn I have pointed out for you before that Hoppe does not defend natural law. It is Rothbard that does that. Well, how can you assume that a great man as Rothbard thought that the only requirement that exist in defining natural law is the use of reason? It is really absurd to believe that. It also proves that you have not studied The Ethics of Liberty.
You seem to never learn. I will try again. I have posted several times this:
The Ethics of Liberty:
“IF, THEN, THE NATURAL law is discovered by reason from “the basic inclinations of human nature . . . absolute, immutable, and of universal validity for all times and places,” it follows that the natural law provides an objective set of ethical norms by which to gauge human actions at any time or place”.
Please notice that Rothbard wrote: “the basic inclinations of human nature . . . absolute, immutable, and of universal validity for all times and places.”
This is meant to inform the reader that the use of reason is not enough in discovering natural law. The requirement is also that natural law is founded on “the basic inclinations of human nature, absolute, immutable, and of universal validity for all times and places.”
When you read a sentence you must read the whole sentence and not only a part of it. Are you able to grasp this or are you going to write again “that Rothbard only thought that the use of reason was enough to discover natural law”. Are you going to be dishonest again? Because it is you that are dishonest and not Rothbard and Hoppe.
In the book Ethics of Liberty, Rothbard explains in several chapters the criteria for natural law:
PART I: INTRODUCTION: NATURAL LAW
1. Natural Law and Reason (p. 3)
2. Natural Law as “Science” (p. 9)
3. Natural Law versus Positive Law (p. 17)
4. Natural Law and Natural Rights (p. 21)
5. The Task of Political Philosophy (p. 25)
You should really study those before you criticise. You will probably write that you already have, but then, study the chapters again as you obviously have done a lot of misinterpretations.
I will not argue with you about the existence of a God or not. I am not against religion, but I do not think that, for example, the police try to stop murders and thieves because they believe in the existence of a God. The reason for that murdering and thievery are battled against is because of the fact that those acts are destructive actions i.e. they are antisocial actions. That is also the reason for the fact that they are being condemned by society.
The Ethics of Liberty:
The Jesuit Suarez pointed out that many Scholastics had taken the position that the natural law of ethics, the law of what is good and bad for man, does not depend upon God’s will. Indeed, some of the Scholastics had gone so far as to say that: even though God did not exist, or did not make use of His reason, or did not judge rightly of things, if there is in man such a dictate of right reason to guide him, it would have had the same nature of law as it now has.[5]
Or, as a modem Thomist philosopher declares:
If the word “natural” means anything at all, it refers to the nature of a man, and when used with “law,” “natural” must refer to an ordering that is manifested in the inclinations of a man’s nature and to nothing else. Hence, taken in itself, there is nothing religious or theological in the “Natural Law” of Aquinas.[6]
Dutch Protestant jurist Hugo Grotius declared, in his De Iure Belli ac Pacis (1625):
What we have been saying would have a degree of validity even if we should concede that which cannot be conceded without the utmost wickedness, that there is no God.
And again:
Measureless as is the power of God, nevertheless it can be said that there are certain things over which that power does not extend. . . . Just as even God cannot cause that two times two should not make four, so He cannot cause that which is intrinsically evil be not evil.[7]
D’Entrèves concludes that:
[Grotius’s] definition of natural law has nothing revolutionary. When he maintains that natural law is that body of rules which Man is able to discover by the use of his reason, he does nothing but restate the Scholastic notion of a rational foundation of ethics. Indeed, his aim is rather to restore that notion which had been shaken by the extreme Augustinianism of certain Protestant currents of thought. When he declares that these rules are valid in themselves, independently of the fact that God willed them, he repeats an assertion which had already been made by some of the schoolmen.[8]
Grotius’s aim, d’Entrèves adds, “was to construct a system of laws which would carry conviction in an age in which theological controversy was gradually losing the power to do so.” Grotius and his juristic successors—Pufendorf, Burlamaqui, and Vattel—proceeded to elaborate this independent body of natural laws in a purely secular context, in accordance with their own particular interests, which were not, in contrast to the Schoolmen, primarily theological.[9] Indeed, even the eighteenth-century rationalists, in many ways dedicated enemies of the Scholastics, were profoundly influenced in their very rationalism by the Scholastic tradition.[10]
Thus, let there be no mistake: in the Thomistic tradition, natural law is ethical as well as physical law; and the instrument by which man apprehends such law is his reason-not faith, or intuition, or grace, revelation, or anything else.[11] In the contemporary atmosphere of sharp dichotomy between natural law and reason—and especially amid the irrationalist sentiments of “conservative” thought—this cannot be underscored too often. Hence, St. Thomas Aquinas, in the words of the eminent historian of philosophy Father Copleston, “emphasized the place and function of reason in moral conduct. He [Aquinas] shared with Aristotle the view that it is the possession of reason which distinguished man from the animals” and which “enables him to act deliberately in view of the consciously apprehended end and raises him above the level of purely instinctive behavior.”[12]
Aquinas, then, realized that men always act purposively, but also went beyond this to argue that ends can also be apprehended by reason as either objectively good or bad for man. For Aquinas, then, in the words of Copleston, “there is therefore room for the concept of ‘right reason,’ reason directing man’s acts to the attainment of the objective good for man.” Moral conduct is therefore conduct in accord with right reason: “If it is said that moral conduct is rational conduct, what is meant is that it is conduct in accordance with right reason, reason apprehending the objective good for man and dictating the means to its attainment.”[13]
http://www.mises.org/rothbard/ethics/one.asp
I think that you should study the works of Rothbard and Hoppe before you criticise them. The only thing you have proved is that your ideas are based on logical fallacies and misinterpretations. I have written all this so the honest reader can have a choice in deciding which ideas are objective and true. You have, actually, only answered in a way that I have expected from you in the very beginning of our debate when I wrote:
“I think that both Rothbard and Hoppe have rationally justified a libertarian ethic and I do not want to start a debate why this is so and why that statement you have made is wrong etc. Actually it would be a waste of time as you would not accept their justifications anyway and as I would still claim that they are true. If you, for example, “argue” that you do not exist and I would claim that you do etc, and you still go on “arguing” that you do not, it would also be a waste of time. That is how I would feel about debating already proved true ethical principles. I have also referred to valid writings in my above post”.
http://blog.mises.org/archives/005970.asp
Björn Lundahl
Göteborg, Sweden
Published: December 16, 2006 7:51 PM
The essential issue is whether the state is a legit institution. When Rothbard determines it is not, he has departed from the original body of natural law. It’s that simple. Original natural law determined that the state was necessary, as did Mises. So whatever Rothbard calls his musings about the state, they’re not natural law!
Yes, Grotius did not think belief in God was necessary for the development of natural law, even though he was a devout believer, a great theologian, and wrote commentaries on the Bible. Natural law writers after him disagreed for reasons I’ve given above.
Rothbard and Hoppe clearly disagree with all true natural law writers and most libertarian writers, even Mises, on the legitimacy of the state. Why do you think that reasonable men disagree on such issues?
Published: December 16, 2006 8:17 PM
What authority is he referring to? If God rules the world and we are only helpless subjects, why argue and defend Christianity. There would be no need for it. If he, alternatively, mean that what is needed is that humans follow a Christian ethic for it being a powerful one, well, what about the authority of God? It seems that any ethic, rational as well as irrational, must be obeyed by a great number of people to have a powerful influence in society.
A libertarian ethic has “the authority” that it condemns destructive actions and is the very foundation of civilizations. It actually delivers a lot of “goodies”.
Björn Lundahl
Published: December 16, 2006 8:32 PM
Bjorn:”If God rules the world and we are only helpless subjects, why argue and defend Christianity. There would be no need for it. If he, alternatively, mean that what is needed is that humans follow a Christian ethic for it being a powerful one, well, what about the authority of God?”
What’s so hard to understand about authority? I’ll try to make it as simple as possible for you. Take the example of a family. The children instinctively understand that they have no authority over each other. Only the parents can tell the children what to do. In natural law, God is the parent; mankind are the children. No man has the authority to tell another one what to do.
Without God, mankind can, and has, used reason to discover a wide variety of so-called moral arguments. Just notice the many arguements among anarchists over the minutae of an anarchist society. But no matter how well reasoned, all ethical systems developed without God are nothing more than one man’s opinion over another’s. And reasonable people can disagree. So if someone violates a man-made (excuse me, man-discovered) rule, all anyone can claim is that such a person is unreasonable under that particular system. No one has the authority to punish a violator. Godless systems of ethics are no more than housing covenants in which violators must move.
Published: December 16, 2006 9:47 PM
Published: December 16, 2006 10:45 PM
Posted by: Sam at December 16, 2006 10:45 PM
We would do well to resist the urge to group all libertarians together or assume them all to hold the same worldview and philosophical outlook. Some libertarians are averse to violence even in self defense.
http://www.voluntaryist.com/action/vol_resistance.php
http://www.voluntaryist.com/articles/027b.php
Published: December 16, 2006 11:56 PM
An Interview with Hans-Hermann Hoppe
AEN: In applying this a priori approach to ethics, were you attempting to supplant natural rights.
HOPPE: No, not at all. I was attempting to make the first two chapters of Rothbard’s Ethics of Liberty stronger than they were*. That in turn would provide more weight to everything that followed. I had some dissatisfaction with rigor with which the initial ethical assumptions of libertarian political theory had been arrived at. Intuitively, they seemed plausible. But I could see that a slightly different approach might be stronger. Murray never considered my revisions to be a threat. His only concern was: does this ultimately make the case? Ultimately, he agreed that it did.
AEN: Yet Mises attacks anarchism in no uncertain terms.
HOPPE: His targets here are left-utopians. He attacks their theory that man is good enough not to need an organized defense against the enemies of civilization. But this is not what the private-property anarchist believes. Of course, murderers and thieves exist. There needs to be an institution that keeps these people at bay. Mises calls this institution government, while people who want no state at all point out that all essential defensive services can be better performed by firms in the market. We can call these firms government if we want to.
AEN: What do you say to the critique that the private-property society as you describe it appears quite authoritarian?
HOPPE: This is a left-egalitarian critique. They claim that authority should play no role in social life and that there should be no rank or position. But of course, there can be no society without structures of authority. In the family, there is always a hierarchy. In communities, there are always leaders. In firms, there are always managers.
But in a market, none of these authorities have taxing power. Their rule depends entirely on voluntary consent and contact. But the state attempts to break down these competitive centers of authorities and establish a single authority overriding all others. If you don’t comply, the state cracks down.
It is a ridiculous idea that we need the state to tell social authorities that they need to adhere to a uniform set of rules and obey a single master. Society does not need uniform modes of association. Market exchange makes social harmony possible even within the framework of radical diversity.
Today’s so-called multiculturalists don’t see that there is a difference between having a globe with many different cultures and imposing that diversity on each point on the globe.
It is a difference between a regime of private property and a statist regime where the rest of us merely obey. Ultimately, those are the only two systems from which we have to choose.
http://www.mises.org/journals/aen/aen198.asp
*Now I know Hoppe’s motive, before I guessed it.
He has confirmed my speculation. Hoppe is really something!
Björn Lundahl
Göteborg, Sweden
Published: December 17, 2006 2:55 AM
Published: December 17, 2006 3:14 AM
Björn Lundahl
Published: December 17, 2006 6:16 AM
And as the Golden Rule, especially in its negative formulation, is fully in keeping with the non-aggression principle and thus the self-ownership from which liberty and property are derived, this is really the only law that human society has ever needed, never mind that the state has utterly corrupted the law via legal positivism — http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_positivism — run amok. For to disengage law from morality is to turn law on its head, all the more so as one positive law is heaped upon another and another until there is no law at all. (Think the US tax code.)
Thus, the only way to return to moral law is to return to the libertarian ethic, empowering the individual so as to reduce positive law, and thus the state, to the vanishing point.
And how interesting, by the way, that Time’s Person of the Year is any person engaged in the “digital democracy” of using or creating content on the World Wide Web, as this is individual empowerment on a truly global scale.
And no wonder, then, that the state is so afraid of it — http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig/garris3.html
Published: December 17, 2006 10:42 AM
Any argument about the existence of God would only be relevant here if one can show that the existence of God has an impact whether one believes in it or not, that is, an impact beyond one’s belief or disbelief.
Published: December 17, 2006 10:46 AM
Short, concise essays that deal with this subject nicely, are
The Obviousness of Anarchy. by John Hasnas,
http://www.mises.org/journals/scholar/hasnas.pdf
The Myth of the Rule of Law, 1995 Wisconsin Law Review 199 (1995)
http://faculty.msb.edu/hasnasj/GTWebSite/MythFinalDraft.pdf
Also, listen to “Combining Objectiveness of Property Rights with Differentiation in Law” Simasius, Prague Conference on Political Economy, University of Economics, Prague and the Liberalni Institut
Published: December 17, 2006 10:54 AM
You are true freedom fighters. Good points!
Björn Lundahl
Published: December 17, 2006 11:10 AM
Published: December 17, 2006 1:06 PM
You might say that objective law is like an evenly-rotating economy (ERE): an ideal that the proper system (or means) is constantly trying to reach, and thus is always in flux to accommodate the constant change of circumstances.
Published: December 17, 2006 1:10 PM
When it comes down to it I prefer individualism to any form of coercive collectivism. Hence my interest in Libertarianism.
Sione
Published: December 17, 2006 2:42 PM
Granted, the irony being that libertarianism is so intellectually satisfying that despite all the offenses against it, one gains a faith in the social enterprise, and thus in humanity itself, that is all but unshakable.
At least it is for me, especially as I exercise my “Person of the Year” status via this powerful, freedom-fighting forum.
Published: December 17, 2006 3:18 PM
I didn’t invent the idea that morality is irrational without God. I learned it from the true natural rights writers, from Dostoevsky, and from great atheist philosophers such as Nietzsche, Sartre and Camus, and Christian writers like C.S. Lewis, Francis Schafer, and Mortimer Adler.
I can’t do justice to their works with short posts like this, but those who continue to think they can develop moral systems without God should read the atheist philosophers mentioned above and try to understand why they came to the conclusion that morals without God are irrational. That conclusion wasn’t easy for them and they struggled with it for years. But at least with regard to the question of morals, they loved Truth more than anything.
Published: December 18, 2006 9:32 AM
1. The Revolt Against Reason
“It is true that some philosophers were ready to overrate the power of human reason. They believed that man can discover by ratiocination the final causes of cosmic events, the inherent ends the prime mover aims at in creating the universe and determining the course of its evolution. They expatiated on the “Absolute” as if it were their pocket watch. They did not shrink from announcing eternal absolute values and from establishing moral codes unconditionally binding on all men.”
Published: December 18, 2006 10:03 AM
What, after all, is irrational about the most universal of all moral principles, the Golden Rule, and why is it not just as likely that it arose sociololgically rather than being embedded a priori in nature by an outside agent?
Published: December 18, 2006 11:50 AM
Published: December 18, 2006 12:27 PM
I get this sort of thing all the time from the vile Left — that free-market proponents have made the market their God. Usually, they capitalize “market,” just as you have capitalized “truth,” just to emphasize the point, I guess, that it’s somehow different from regular markets and regular truth.
What a colossal waste of time.
Published: December 18, 2006 1:05 PM
As the exact opposite is the case with the Golden Rule — i.e., everyone can function under it — it would be perfectly rational to make it a universal norm of behavior, which is why virtually every society worthy of the name has done so.
Published: December 18, 2006 1:16 PM
No. I’m saying that rationally, if you can get away with violating the Golden Rule, then it’s nothing more than an unnecessary obstacle to achieving your desired ends.
Published: December 18, 2006 2:12 PM
Published: December 18, 2006 2:51 PM
Surely you aren’t arguing otherwise.
Published: December 18, 2006 2:53 PM
Published: December 18, 2006 3:21 PM
As for “trying to elevate reason into morality by its own bootstraps,” I am doing no such thing. All I’m just saying is that the rationality of the Golden Rule (no matter how much the institutionalized aggression of the state has compromised it) is self-evident in that virtually all cultures the world over have embraced it. Why? Because it makes so much sense, which is just another way of saying it’s rational.
Published: December 18, 2006 3:44 PM
Published: December 18, 2006 4:14 PM
The fundamental facts that brought about cooperation, society, and civilization and transformed the animal man into a human being are the facts that work performed under the division of labor is more productive than isolated work and that man’s reason is capable of recognizing this truth. But for these facts men would have forever remained deadly foes of one another, irreconcilable rivals in their endeavors to secure a portion of the scarce supply of means of sustenance provided by nature. Each man would have been forced to view all other men as his enemies; his craving for the satisfaction of his own appetites would have brought him into an implacable conflict with all his neighbors. No sympathy could possibly develop under such a state of affairs.”
http://www.mises.org/humanaction/chap8sec1.asp#p143
“Man cannot have both the advantages derived from peaceful cooperation under the principle of the division of labor within society and the license of embarking upon conduct that is bound to disintegrate society. He must choose between the observance of certain rules that make life within society possible and the poverty and insecurity of the “dangerous life” in a state of perpetual warfare among independent individuals. This is no less rigid a law determining the outcome of all human action than are the laws of physics.”
http://www.mises.org/humanaction/chap15sec6.asp#p280
Ethics of Liberty:
“For the assertion of human rights is not properly a simple emotive one; individuals possess rights not because we “feel” that they should, but because of a rational inquiry into the nature of man and the universe. In short, man has rights because they are natural rights. They are grounded in the nature of man: the individual man’s capacity for conscious choice, the necessity for him to use his mind and energy to adopt goals and values, to find out about the world, to pursue his ends in order to survive and prosper, his capacity and need to communicate and interact with other human beings and to participate in the division of labor. In short, man is a rational and social animal. No other animals or beings possess this ability to reason, to make conscious choices, to transform their environment in order to prosper, or to collaborate consciously in society and the division of labor.
Thus, while natural rights, as we have been emphasizing, are absolute, there is one sense in which they are relative: they are relative to the species man. A rights-ethic for mankind is precisely that: for all men, regardless of race, creed, color or sex, but for the species man alone”
http://www.mises.org/rothbard/ethics/twentyone.asp
All organizations have a “code of conduct”. Even the mafia has it. It is the very foundation on which they last. It is an illusion to believe that this is not so.
In a society there must, also, be a “code of conduct” i.e. a legal code. A society cannot function without those norms. As Mises and Rothbard have pointed out, without a society we loose, so the great question is not a lawless society as it cannot exist and is therefore an illusion, but rather the question which we are, therefore, bound to answer; which legal norms or principles are Just and true?
Björn Lundahl
Göteborg, Sweden
Published: December 18, 2006 5:40 PM
“But a social order is not possible unless man is able to conceive what it is, and what its advantages are, and also conceive those norms of conduct which are necessary to its establishment and preservation, namely, respect for another’s person and for his rightful possessions, which is the substance of justice. . . . But justice is the product of reason, not the passions. And justice is the necessary support of the social order; and the social order is necessary to man’s well-being and happiness. If this is so, the norms of justice must control and regulate the passions, and not vice versa.”
http://www.mises.org/rothbard/ethics/two.asp
Björn Lundahl
Göteborg, Sweden
Published: December 18, 2006 6:21 PM
Published: December 18, 2006 6:40 PM
Björn Lundahl
Published: December 18, 2006 7:01 PM
But it could never represent a form of moral or ethical reasoning (except, maybe, in a whacked-out system of ethical reasoning that no one’s ever heard of), and certainly not one grounded in reason.
Published: December 18, 2006 7:53 PM
And what I would give to speak your language as you speak mine (though I guess it’s about time I learned Spanish).
Published: December 18, 2006 8:00 PM
A change in policy in the US would also influence the whole world.
Take for instance the great influence which the quasi libertarian Milton Friedman had. He influenced Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher and later on in time, the whole world.
In Sweden we had some deregulations during the 90s.
Sweden, 1990s:
“Economic reforms were enacted, including voucher schools, liberalized markets for telecommunications and energy as well as the privatization of publicly owned companies, privatization of health care, contributing to liberalizing the Swedish economy. Arguably, the subsequent budget cut-backs with the Social Democrates, and after 1994, continued spending cuts by the Social Democratic governement, did more to reform the Swedish economy and the Swedish model, than Bildt’s governments programme as such.”
http://www.answers.com/carl+bildt?gwp=11&ver;=2.0.1.458&method;=3
Björn Lundahl
Published: December 19, 2006 2:14 AM
The result, when coupled with the US’s out-of-control warfare state, is a global financial system teetering on the brink, as centralized, fraction-reserve banking has doomed the world to pay the awful price for this, the most massive fraud in human history.
And I fear that as a consequence of this and the immigration problem, the US is lurching headlong toward the creation of an EU-style superstate in the form of the already proposed North American Union under the auspices of the secretive but enormously powerful Council on Foreign Relations — http://www.cfr.org/publication/8102 — including replacement of the collapsing dollar with an euro-like “amero” — http://www.amerocurrency.com
This will be a disaster for freedom, of course, but as our dance of death with China plays itself out — i.e., as this addict-pusher relationship inevitably ends amid a collapsing bond market — the US will seek to stave off a hyperinflationary depression by essentially naturalizing 90 million Mexicans in a desperate effort to replace the cheap labor from Asia, which will in turn have turned inward.
Indeed, we can expect to see a globalization (make that “dollarization”) blowback in the form of regional trading blocs — European, Asian, North American, South American — that will then coalesce into the single-currency world state that has long been the banksters dream, with even more dire consequences for the cause of freedom.
What can possibly counter this ugly and terrifying prospect?
I look to Times’ “Person of the Year” — i.e., each and every one of us exercising our democratic rights through the digital dynamism of the World Wide Web, making it the most important issue we now face — http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig/garris3.html
Published: December 19, 2006 7:49 AM
Published: December 19, 2006 7:55 AM
Fortunately, that is a work in progress, based on this concept — http://www.cipe.org/publications/ert/e32/e32_2.pdf — empowered by a next-generation Web — http://www.kurzweilai.net/meme/frame.html?main=/articles/art0689.html — that will hopefully outpace the state’s attempts to control it.
Published: December 19, 2006 9:17 AM
Someone might complain that the Chinese are intervening in the exchange markets to keep their currency artificially low and that they are not letting market forces to appreciate their currency, and therefore my statement about free trade, in this case, is not applicable. Free trade, someone might think, is presupposed by freely fluctuating currencies with no Government intervention (also called clean floating exchange rates). Certainly I do not want Governments to intervene in exchange markets, but actually it is the Chinese that are in this case the losers and we are the winners. We should be glad that China is suppressing the rise of its currency, and the Chinese people should be mad about it. When market prices indicate that, for example, a project is unprofitable; investors naturally stop investing in such a project. Otherwise, factors of production such as land, capital, and labour would be wasted. Every government manipulation of market prices is a step toward economic breakdown and chaos. Land, capital, and labour that are invested in the exporting business in China because of a suppressed currency, have changed the economic structure in China and are mal investments, unprofitable for the nation to undertake, and we are getting something free. We don’t need to export anything to pay for this “extra importation of Chinese products”. To make my statement more obvious, we could consider that if the Chinese currency would be suppressed to no value at all (which would not be possible to realize), the Chinese would be working for nothing and we would get goods and services from China for free (which is, naturally unprofitable for China to undertake), then the market forces in the EU (if market forces would not be hindered by Governments) would reallocate land, capital and labour for other uses and to those fields which the Chinese are not able to compete (even if the Chinese were working and exporting to full capacity, that will not, by far, be enough to satisfy all our wants, in other words, their GNP is by far, too small). The increases in production which mentioned reallocation of recourses leads to are our extra bonus. We should applaud this and the Chinese people should revolt!
If you want to know more about floating exchange rates, go to; http://www.hooverdigest.org/974/friedman.html
Productivity and trade will flourish more intensively with one currency* than with several different currencies, and even with one currency, market forces will smoothen out any imbalances between regions, cities or countries. We do not worry, for example, about the balance of payments between London and Manchester, Berlin and Munich, Paris and Bordeaux or Stockholm and Göteborg etc. If, for example, London exports more to Manchester than Manchester exports to London, the demand for goods and services will be greater in London relatively to their supply, and also relatively to the situation in Manchester. Because of this, prices will go up in London and therefore will exports from London to Manchester contract, as well as, imports from Manchester to London will expand. This happens all the time and we do not even know about it and therefore do not worry about it. Governments do create problems all the time.
If we really want increased competition, why not adopt free trade between nations. Why does the EU and the USA not follow that path? The reason is that they do not want increased competition.
For an example, I quote from answers.com;
“In the United States, the decade from the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s saw import quotas placed on textiles, agricultural products, automobiles, sugar, beef, bananas, and even underwear—among other things. In a single session of Congress in 1985, more than three hundred protectionist bills were introduced as U.S. industries began voicing concern over foreign competition”.
Go to;
http://www.answers.com/import+quotas?gwp=11&ver;=2.0.1.458&method;=3
Only Governments can be so silly to reject great offers and bargains. Individuals doing the same thing would be considered mad.
The essence with above statement is that Governments hinders competition, lower our standard of living, promote special interests and they make excuses for this with faulty theories and propaganda.
Björn Lundahl
Göteborg Sweden
* A gold standard. See also “What Has Government Done to Our Money?” by Murray N. Rothbard.
http://www.mises.org/money.asp
Published: December 19, 2006 1:59 PM
And just as importantly, neither can there be mega-states built on the monetary fraud that is centralized, fractional-reserve banking.
Published: December 19, 2006 3:05 PM
I voted also against the EU. It is a mega-state.
It is a silly thing to believe that you need a mega-state to promote trade. A mega-state has more power to regulate than a small state. Please, see my next post.
Björn Lundahl
Published: December 19, 2006 4:13 PM
For more information about this case, go to;
http://www.globalethics.org/newsline/members/issue.tmpl?articleid=09220316204320
And to;
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/821620.stm
For some further information, go to;
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/02_19/b3782014.htm
The flexibility of the market is needed.
Different situations in diverse markets need different actions, but Government agencies are guided by rigid rules. Governments do not know how to run an economy, they lack the essential tools; the free market. The more Governments intervene in the economy, the more chaotic will the economy be. Governments decision making is relied upon whims by the electorate, markets, on the other hand, are relied upon prices of supply and demand; recourses are allocated to those ends which are valued most highly by consumers. When mentioned destructive actions bloom, like in the former Soviet Union, the “destructiveness is revealed”. In the case I have mentioned, consumers have not gained anything if Volkswagen raised their prices in Italy because of this verdict. Rigid rules can lead to situations like that. Governments do not know the different circumstances that exist in diverse markets, to apply the same rigid rules in all markets do not gain anybody.
For example, in Sweden car manufacturers guarantee car bodies against corrosion for 6-12 years. Swedish consumers demand this, probably because of our climate. I do not actually know, but I do not think that the same manufacturers offer the same guarantees all over the world.
Naturally, weak companies that do not serve the consumers well will try out every possible way to use those laws to protect them against competition. As the anti trust authorities do not, as mentioned, know all different circumstances, their verdicts will probably be wrong.
If we really want increased competition, why not adopt free trade between nations. Why does the EU and the USA not follow that path? The reason is that they do not want increased competition.
For an example, I quote from answers.com;
“In the United States, the decade from the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s saw import quotas placed on textiles, agricultural products, automobiles, sugar, beef, bananas, and even underwear—among other things. In a single session of Congress in 1985, more than three hundred protectionist bills were introduced as U.S. industries began voicing concern over foreign competition”.
Go to;
http://www.answers.com/import+quotas?gwp=11&ver;=2.0.1.458&method;=3
*From the book “Antitrust The Case for Repeal”, by Dominick.T. Armentano, page 18:
“Governments antitrust suits against firms that price discriminate almost always result in the defendant firm raising some of its prices to comply with the law.”
Björn Lundahl
Göteborg Sweden
Published: December 19, 2006 4:40 PM
After all, Aquinas believed that Aristotle’s conception of social ethics were arrived at from sound principles, and Aristotle’s ‘unmoved mover’ could know nothing outside of itself, let alone be the personal, moral-dictating God that Aquinas believed in!
Published: December 19, 2006 5:03 PM
Björn
Published: December 19, 2006 5:32 PM
Published: December 19, 2006 5:47 PM
I received a flyer from the store and saw the book For a New Liberty, by Murray Rothbard, and read some information about it. Then I ordered it. When I had received and read it, a new world had appeared for me.
It is not an easy task to become a libertarian in a country like Sweden. One of the subjects in school was called “Samhällskunskap” which means “knowledge about society” and you might already guess what that “knowledge” was all about. It was some kind of information about the welfare state, democracy, parliament, “social problems” etc. In the end of the schoolbook also called “Samhällskunskap” there was a chapter about the USA and a chapter about the Soviet Union. Actually, I was quite good in that subject!
Our television was controlled by the government and in the late 60s we had two channels (TV 1 & TV 2). I learned a lot and I am still learning a lot about societal problems through public broadcasting (joke).
During the 80s the government was more and more unable to completely control the television, because of competition from cable TV networks. Before every Swedish guy bought a parabola antenna the government was very quick to allow a commercial TV station and a channel (TV 4). The government regulated the channel through a “contract” which expires, I believe, after something like 5 years. This so called contract or lease regulates in detail what TV 4 shall be allowed to broadcast. If TV 4 does not meet the government’s criterions the lease will not be extended. So, nowadays, we here in Sweden get taught in “samhällskunskap” also through TV 4´s broadcasting. By allowing TV 4 before the cable network was extended, TV 4 grew large and could reap most of the incomes from commercials and gain a large market share, and in that way hinder the development of the cable channels. For the government was unable to regulate the cable stations as they broadcasts from abroad. Quite clever and impressive! Still, the market broke the monopoly power of the government and we have, nowadays a lot of cable channels to choose from.
Well, in this environment it is quite difficult and hard to learn and comprehend libertarianism. There is always a psychological barrier to conquer, the barrier which I was brought up with. Later on in life, it was nearly impossible to understand that it was, for example, not the market but the government that was the very cause of the business cycles. I was always taught the opposite! I just couldn’t believe it!
Milton Friedman was easier to understand, because he blamed the Federal Reserve for not “doing their job properly” during the depression, but if his monetary “theory” was correct it was, really, the market that was to blame for the great depression as there was a need for a Federal Reserve “doing its job properly” in the first place.
Well, at last, I broke all the barriers and this because of an intellectual giant called Murray Rothbard.
http://www.answers.com/topic/laissez-faire-books
Björn Lundahl
Göteborg, Sweden
Published: December 19, 2006 5:52 PM
Ingvar Kamprad, an industrialist from Sweden, he founded IKEA, the home furnishing retail chain, which sell low priced furniture’s all over the world (235 stores in 33 countries). His business idea was: “We shall offer a wide range of well-designed, functional home furnishing products at prices so low that as many people as possible will be able to afford them.”
Go to;
http://www.answers.com/topic/ingvar-kamprad
And to;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IKEA
Photo on a “typical store”, go to;
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:VillepinteFrance.JPG
Björn Lundahl
Göteborg, Sweden
Published: December 20, 2006 6:14 AM
Björn That life is an axiomatic value and functions “as the standard of moral value” in an ethical system, Rothbard could, alternatively for example, have gotten this insight from Mises himself through analyzing his statement in his book, “Human Action”, page 11:
“We may say that action is the manifestation of a man’s will.”
http://www.mises.org/humanaction/chap1sec1.asp
I am not saying that Rothbard did get his insight from Mises; I am only saying that it was possible. Surely, many other possibilities exist which we do not know anything about.
Mark Humphrey “It has been awhile since I’ve read Hoppe, and Rothbard; but I suspect Hoppe’s reasoning goes: either we all own ourselves, or everyone owns everyone else. Since the first proposition is clearly more defensible than the latter absurd proposition, one can affirm self ownership as valid. But if this is the argument, it fails. For that argument assumes that which it sets out to prove, namely that an ethical concept, “ownership”, exists. But on this basis, ownership remains unproven, so that one could just as well assert: “no one owns anything, and anything goes.””
Björn Self-ownership is a natural fact, since a man in his very nature controls his own mind and body (natural disposition), that is, he is a natural self-owner of his own will and person (having a free will) and if this was not true, neither could he effectively control any property and, therefore, not own it. In other words; “nothing could control and own something”.
Naturally, praxeology the science of human action, by itself logically confirms the natural fact of self-ownership, since praxeology is based upon “the acting man consciously intending to improve his own satisfaction” and I quote from answers.com:
“From praxeology Mises derived the idea that every conscious action is intended to improve a person’s satisfaction. He was careful to stress that praxeology is not concerned with the individual’s definition of end satisfaction, just the way he sought that satisfaction. The way in which a person will increase his satisfaction is by removing a source of dissatisfaction. As the future is uncertain so every action is speculative.
An acting man is defined as one capable of logical thought — to be otherwise would be to make one a mere creature who simply reacts to stimuli by instinct. Similarly an acting man must have a source of dissatisfaction which he believes capable of removing, otherwise he cannot act.
Another conclusion that Mises reached was that decisions are made on an ordinal basis. That is, it is impossible to carry out more than one action at once, the conscious mind being only capable of one decision at a time — even if those decisions can be made in rapid order. Thus man will act to remove the most pressing source of dissatisfaction first and then move to the next most pressing source of dissatisfaction.
As a person satisfies his first most important goal and after that his second most important goal then his second most important goal is always less important than his first most important goal. Thus, for every further goal reached, his satisfaction, or utility, is lessened from the preceding goal. This is the rule of diminishing marginal utility.
In human society many actions will be trading activities where one person regards a possession of another person as more desirable than one of his own possessions, and the other person has a similar higher regard for his colleague’s possession than he does for his own. This subject of praxeology is known as catallactics, and is the more commonly accepted realm of economics.”
http://www.answers.com/Praxeology?gwp=11&ver;=2.0.1.458&method;=3
Further:
The Ethics of Liberty, page 45:
Footnote:
“[1]Professor George Mavrodes, of the department of philosophy of the University of Michigan, objects that there is another logical alternative: namely, “that no one owns anybody, either himself or anyone else, nor any share of anybody.” However, since ownership signifies range of control, this would mean that no one would be able to do anything, and the human race would quickly vanish.”
http://www.mises.org/rothbard/ethics/eight.asp
Or in my own words from the essay “Normative principles”:
“Why must anybody own anything?
In accordance with our objective test to find out if something is a condition for something else, we grasp a state of things where the following principle is none existent anywhere and at all:
“Everybody owns themselves and their Justly owned property rights”.
Nobody would be able to do anything, since nobody has the right to control anything. Not even themselves (see below about property rights in your own person).
This question is not only a contradiction it is also silly. You ask a question which means that you control yourselves (natural disposition), that is owning yourself (see below the excellent writing of Hans-Hermann Hoppe). The other contradiction is that if nobody would own anything, nobody would be able to hinder anyone to own anything either since they would otherwise have an invalid control (having the disposition to) of everyone else, that is having an invalid ownership to everybody else (see below about valid property rights in your own person).
Ownership itself is, therefore, an objective condition for the preservation of human life.”
http://normativeprinciples.blogspot.com/2006/12/normative-principles-pure-free-market_10.html
Björn Lundahl
Göteborg, Sweden
Published: December 28, 2006 3:11 PM
Independent Womens Forum
Published: March 11, 2007 7:26 PM
With the help of reason, consciousness and intelligence, you can observe that your fellow men strive to sustain their lives. They do what their nature calls them to do, namely to live. You are a threat against that! You are a threat against this dimension! This dimension would not exist if it couldn’t cope with what is threatening it. You wouldn’t have lived if murdering has been allowed, and despite of this fact, you place yourself above the very cause of your own life. How can you place yourself above the very cause of your existence!?
No organism or life can exist if it is not accommodated to what life demands, and that is partly to eliminate the very things that can cause that life ceases. It is the self-preservation that is the very cause for me to throw out the murderer from my kingdom. You never learn! You are parasites of life! You are saying that you did not choose life because you didn’t create yourself, but no one has, for all men are participants of an eternal process and this fact does not declare your irresponsibility.
The process in nature that created me, demands that I follow its rules or else the process would never had created me and would never had risen, for it would be doomed to die from the very beginning. It is created in such a way that it avoids death, which is the reason for me having self-preservation, for death I else would not have avoided. My nature is thus such that the murderer’s actions shall be rejected and punished until such destructive threats ceases to exist.
My lawbook is the existence’s law, life’s law, our kingdom’s law, this dimension’s law or my nature’s law, because I am the nature, a part of cosmos and I must play by its rules for nothing else exists for me.
With a good conscience I will now consider if you also shall be thrown out from my dimension and return to the unconsciousness. If I judge to not throw you out, I will do it with a bad conscience since I have the insight about this dimension’s utmost playing rules which I then will have denied.
Björn Lundahl
Published: May 8, 2007 1:57 PM
You can steal due to the fact that man to some extent succeeded to keep down the theft and you can live because man has to some extent succeeded to suppress the theft. Human beings became human beings the day they started to create and you belong to this species. You enter the kingdom of life and believe that you stand above its rules and its very foundation. What right gives you the right to ignore my rules? Since childhood you have learnt that theft is wrong and despite of this, you steal. You are a parasite of life, motives and objectives because theft is a parasite of life, motives and objectives! The day man no longer succeeds in her effort to suppress theft, that day motives, objectives and life ceases to exist.
The process in nature that created me, demands that I follow its rules or else the process would never had created me and would never had risen, for it would be doomed to die from the very beginning. It is created in such a way that it avoids death, which is the reason for me having self-preservation, for death I else would not have avoided. My nature is thus such that the thief’s actions must be stopped and punished until they cease to exist.
My lawbook is the existence’s law, life’s law, our kingdom’s law, this dimension’s law or my nature’s law, because I am the nature, a part of cosmos and I must play by its rules for nothing else exists for me.
In the name of true Justice, as it is built upon the insight about this dimension’s utmost playing rules, you will now be sentenced for the crime you have done and for the compensation to the victim and this to its fullest extent.
Björn Lundahl
Published: May 8, 2007 1:59 PM