Tibor Machan in Essay on “Government” v. “State” distinguishes between state and government, and says:

Labeling an allegedly “near pure” libertarian opponent a “supporter of the state” or “a statist” does carry a painful sting. One would hope, however, that just this temptation is resisted by serious scholars.

Now, sure, if you distinguish government from state, it’s unfair to call an advocate of government a statist, just as it’s unfair to call anarchist pro-chaos. However, anarchism is anti-state, not anti-government–if we are keeping these distinctions in mind. So if you carefully distinguish government from state, so that you are advocating only government but not advocating the state, it seems to me this makes you an anarchist. That is, unless you are advocating government and the state, in which case the charge of “statism” is more accurate.

So are anarchists in favor of “government,” as distinct from the state? well, I suppose it comes down to a question of what you mean by “government”. If we all agree that libertarians should be against “the state,” and we all agree that even anarchists favor some institutions regarding justice, defense, law, then the question now is: is the government you advocate a state, or merely a private institution?

And I think we can answer this not by engaging in continually nuanced semantics but in looking at the fundamentals of libertarianism: the anarchists oppose the state because they oppose aggression (see my What It Means to be an Anarcho-Capitalist and What Libertarianism Is). If there is an agency that commits institutionalized aggression then they (we) oppose it because it commits aggression. And they have to give a name to this “agency that commits institutionalized aggression”: we call it “state”. Hoppe, in my mind, accurately defines “state” as follows:

Let me begin with the definition of a state. What must an agent be able to do to qualify as a state? This agent must be able to insist that all conflicts among the inhabitants of a given territory be brought to him for ultimate decision-making or be subject to his final review. In particular, this agent must be able to insist that all conflicts involving himself be adjudicated by him or his agent. And implied in the power to exclude all others from acting as ultimate judge, as the second defining characteristic of a state, is the agent’s power to tax: to unilaterally determine the price that justice seekers must pay for his services.

Based on this definition of a state, it is easy to understand why a desire to control a state might exist. For whoever is a monopolist of final arbitration within a given territory can make laws. And he who can legislate can also tax. Surely, this is an enviable position. [See Hoppe, Reflections on the Origin and the Stability of the State.]

So when you talk about government, the question is not how we classify it or what the best words are for state, government, etc., semantically: but rather: the question is: does the “government” that “minarchists” (?) favor engage in institutionalized aggression, or not? If not, it’s not a state, and it’s not unlibertarian. If it does, it’s merely a type of state.

Now the anarchists believe you can have private institutions provide law, justice, defense, without necessarily engaging in systematic and institutionalized aggression–that is, without being a state. Whether you want to call such institutions “government” or not seems to me to be purely semantic, esp. if we grant there is a distinction between state and government. The remaining question is simply what type of government the “minarchists” (?) favor: do they favor a government that has the authority to commit institutionalized aggression, or not? If they do, then they are pro-state, since such a government is a state. If they do not, they are anarchists, it seems to me, since private, non-state, non-aggressive institutions of law, justice, and defense is exactly what we anarchists favor.

[Mises crosspost]

Early in Atlas Shrugged there is a scene of Dagny Taggart on a train, dozing; she hears some guy whistling a tune she knows must be from the composer Halley; she asks him what it is, he says it’s Halley’s 5th Concerto. “But he didn’t write one,” she says; the boy realizes he’s let the cat out the bag and clams up. Later on she finds herself whistling or humming the tune too.

Now this is a perfect example of IP theft. It’s a derivative work or public performance–stealing the guy’s pattern without his permission! Yet Rand portrays the young guy and Dagny as good, virtuous. Therefore, she sees no problem with this IP theft.

Who to side with on this issue: left-libertarians, who advance the confused hypothesis that “left” is better than “right”; or the great Henry Hazlitt? Here is what he wrote in the preface to his wonderful novel, Time Will Run Back: “as ‘capitalism’ is merely a name for freedom in the economic sphere, the theme of my novel might be stated more broadly: the will to freedom can never be permanently stamped out.”

Ortega y Gasset, writing in 1937:

“Ser de la izquierda es, como ser de la derecha, una de las infinitas maneras que el hombre puede elegir para ser un imbécil: ambas, en efecto, son formas de la hemiplejia moral.”

(“To be of the Left is, as to be of the Right, one of the infinte number of ways available to people for choose how to become an idiot; both are, actually, forms of moral hemiplegia”).”

Leonard Read: “Neither Left Nor Right: There is No Simplified Term to Distinguish Libertarians,” The Freeman, 1956.

Walter Block: “Libertarianism is unique; it belongs neither to the right nor the left: a critique of the views of Long, Holcombe, and Baden on the left, Hoppe, Feser and Paul on the right,” Journal of Libertarian Studies (Forthcoming, 2010)

“Political Correctness”

Re: In Case You Were Wondering

Uh oh!

From Shenandoah with Jimmy Stewart (see also Grigg’s great piece The Draft-Nappers Are Stirring):

Stewart plays Anderson, a Virginian farmer with six sons, whose land is surrounded on all sides by Union armies.  He refuses to participate in the war, at least at he beginning of the movie.  Johnson, a Confederate soldier comes to him to recruit Anderson’s sons.

Johnson: There’s a Yankee army breathing down your neck, Mr. Anderson. I don’t think you realize —
Anderson: You’re town-bred aren’t you?
Johnson: I don’t see what that has to do with —
Anderson: I’ve got five hundred acres of good, rich dirt here.  As long as the rains come and the sun shines it’ll grow grow anything I have a mind to plant.  And we pulled every stump.  We’ve cleared every field.  We’ve done it ourselves without the sweat of one slave.
Johnson: So?
Anderson: So?!  So, can you give me one good reason why I should send my family that took me a lifetime to raise down that road like a bunch of damn fools to do somebody else’s fighting?
Johnson: Virginia needs all of her sons, Mr. Anderson.
Anderson: That might be so, Johnson, but these are my sons!  They don’t belong to the state.  When they were babies I never saw the state coming around with a spare tit.  We never asked anything of the state and never expected anything.  We do our own living — and thanks to no man for the right.

***

The Patron Saint of the “Leave Us the Hell Alone” Caucus: Charlie Anderson (James Stewart), the Individualist hero of the film Shenandoah.

In The Unidirectionality of Conversions, I noted that most political conversions regarding libertarianism are toward it, and rarely away from it–an indication that it’s a basically sound, correct doctrine. Of course, there are exceptions that prove the rule, especially among libertarians who fall prey to leftism and nihilism. Left-libertarians have done some good work in pointing out the perils of corporatism (which standard libertarians are already aware of, of course), but ultra-leftist ideas about egalitarianism, labor, alienation, class battles, workers and capitalists, land, property, and associated kooky economics can lead to error and confusion. Case in point is a leftist, former libertarian (if he ever was one) who thinks he’s scoring points by … accusing me of believing in self-ownership. Uh, guilty as charged. I … confess. He writes:

“Self-ownership” is nonsense, but let us be clear on the goal of such a concept. Self-ownership is a capitalist attempt to justify individual freedom in a world where property reigns.

Self-ownership is not nonsense at all. It means that you have the right to control your body, not someone else. What else could be more simple, intuitively obvious, or libertarian?

What is striking here is that we have a former libertarian, taken in by leftist delusions and confusions, proclaiming that only capitalists believe in self-ownership. In arguing that only capitalists believe in self-ownership, he’s making a damn good case for why people should be capitalist! I dunno. Maybe he’s a capitalist double agent. More likely he’s just confused.

Then he accuses me of favoring self-ownership so that I “can promote the repulsive and unjust doctrine of parental privilege? What utter nonsense from Kinsella, the king of the Misesian dunces.” Let me get this straight: I argue for the right of people to own their bodies, to be sovereigns; and for children to become adults and own themselves … in order to justify the “repulsive and unjust doctrine of parental privilege”? Say what? I have to say it’s a bit embarrassing to have such pathetic critics.

From Stefan Molyneux’s post on the Mises forum:

The Freedomain Radio Book Club had a great discussion with Stephan about intellectual property which I thought you might enjoy…

FDR1616 Stephan Kinsella on Intellectual Property from Freedomain Radio

Play Now

We did this yesterday, Mar. 20, 2010. It was about an hour and was a nice, intelligent discussion of IP and related libertarian issues. (Local MP3 file — 59MB)

[Mises; AM]

Update: This originally appeared on The Voluntary Life, Author Interview: Stephan Kinsella on Against Intellectual Property (March 20, 2010; see also their interesting episode Against Intellectual Property: A Follow Up Discussion). The Voluntary Life version has an added introduction by the host.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (56.1MB)

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When I lived as a student in London 1991-92, one day I decided to visit the Bank of England to see what they would do if I presented a 5-pound note for redemption of the promise to pay the bearer “five pounds” on demand. The tale was told in a guest reflection in Liberty in 1994.

The guest reflection:

Funny money — There’s some funny language on the money in England. The five-pound note contains the statement, “Bank of England: I promise to pay the bearer on demand the sum of five pounds.” Five pounds of what? If you ask anybody on the street, the note is five pounds, and they obviously aren’t talking about units of weight—so what could that statement possibly mean? I decided to visit the Bank of England in downtown London to make them make good their promise. What would they do—hand me back another five-pound note in exchange for the one I offered?

I was stopped at the door by a security guard. I explained that my note said that the Bank would give me five pounds upon demand for it, and that I was hereby demanding they fulfill their obligation. He explained I couldn’t get past the front desk without wearing a three-piece suit and having “official business.” The man behind the front desk had little patience, telling me that perhaps I’d find some information if I went to the Bank of England Museum around the corner.

So I left and went to the museum, which is quite nice, actually. I explained to a curator what had happened, and that I was interested in finding out what exactly the language could mean. It obviously didn’t function as a promise to pay me five pounds—the bank wouldn’t even let me through the door! She disappeared into a back room and, finally, dug up an old photocopy from God-alone-knows-where, which attempts to explain the meaning and evolution of the “I promise to pay the bearer” language. I took the pages home and tried to understand them [note: these pages are included in the attached PDF file]. Apparently, the Bank is now contending that the language only means, and only ever meant, that it has an obligation to replace old, out-of-circulation pound notes with new, in-circulation ones.

Right. That’s what “I promise to pay the bearer on demand the sum of five pounds” means.
—guest reflection by N. Stephan Kinsella

[Mises]

Update:

I just received (Jan 24, 2015) an interesting bit of correspondence about this:

Dear Mr Kinsella,
I was just reading an excellent Economist article [1] that pointed me to your own article [2]:
[1] www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2015/01/switzerlands-monetary-policy — 21Jan15, by Simon Cox
[2] https://stephankinsella.com/2010/03/the-bank-of-england-and-me — 21Mar10, by you

In Sep10, I wrote to Andrew Bailey, (BoE Chief Cashier at the time), along the same lines:

“… On every banknote, you make a promise to “pay the bearer on demand the sum of… pounds”. Which begs the question: how could I take you up on this promise??
If I walked into the Bank of England (well I don’t suppose I would get through security, but let’s ignore that practical detail for a moment) with a tenner say, and asked to call in that particular promise, the what would you do? Hand me another tenner in exchange for mine I suppose?”

Remarkably, Mr Bailey took the time and trouble to reply. In case you are interested, I have appended our correspondence below.
Yours sincerely, [A.]
…

——– 27 Sep 10 ——–
Subject: How could I take you up on your promise??
Mon, 27 Sep 2010 14:40 From: [A.]  To: Andrew Bailey

Dear Mr Bailey,

I just enjoyed your short interview “The man who signs your banknotes” on BBC News (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7883393.stm). I am very glad to hear you would like to see more fivers in circulation:-)

Anyway, there is a conundrum that probably has no sensible answer, but if anyone has one it surely must be you… On every banknote, you make a promise to “pay the bearer on demand the sum of… pounds”. Which begs the question: how could I take you up on this promise??
If I walked into the Bank of England (well I don’t suppose I would get through security, but let’s ignore that practical detail for a moment) with a tenner say, and asked to call in that particular promise, the what would you do? Hand me another tenner in exchange for mine I suppose? It all seems rather circular and pointless.

Yes I know a little about the gold standard.

It just tickles me that the most(?) widely published promise is, actually, meaningless (unless I am missing something).

Regards, [A.]

——– 30 Sep 10 ——–
Thu, 30 Sep 2010 07:34  From: Andrew  Bailey
Dear [A.]

Thanks for getting in touch. There is a point to the “Promise to Pay” but it isn’t quite the purpose that my forebears had in mind. You are correct that in the past, the Promise was a commitment to convert into gold. Convertibility came to an end around eighty years ago, and hence the Promise is today a commitment to exchange one banknote for another.

There is however one area where the Promise has real meaning. A Bank of England note can always be exchanged at the Bank’s counter. From time to time we withdraw a note design from circulation and issue a new more secure design. After a period of co-circulation while the changeover takes place, we withdraw legal tender status from the old design. A fairly small proportion of the old notes are not returned before legal tender status is withdrawn. However, all Bank of England notes, however old, will always be honoured and exchanged by the Bank. In this sense the Promise is a commitment to exchange at all times for a current note.

I hope this helps

Andrew

11:47 From: [A.]

Dear Andrew,

Thank you very much for taking the time to reply, which I read with much interest.

It certainly does help, and I must say I am very happy to hear that it isn’t actually meaningless!

Regards, [A.]

***

Further comments from the same correspondent:

They probably get asked a few times. After all, when you print something a billion times, that’s somewhat meaningless, it isn’t really surprising. And there’s no really good answer to the question: fiat money is based on trust, belief and credibility. Hence the imposing (physical) architecture of the BoE’s premises.

And another from one of his cc’s:

About a dozen years ago, I remember reading about a student art project called the “monetary inquiry association” by Simon Goldin. The student asked the BoE to make good on its promise of ten pounds. The results were amusing. He also wrote to a bunch of experts asking them to define money. Most provided boring textbook answers. One economist however explained that money was memory. Anthony Horsley of LSE also gave a thoughtful reply if I recall correctly.

You’ve just prompted me to look it up on the interweb. It’s still there. Here’s the link:

http://library.uniteddiversity.coop/Money_and_Economics/MIA_Progress_Report.pdf

Update: See art project: what is money?:

[3/18/2004]

Shedding some light on the darkness surrounding money is (or apparently was) the aim of the Monetary Inquiry Association (MIA), founded by British artist Simon Goldin. The MIA claims to have endeavored to become a leading authority on the questioning of money.

As a first activity, Simon Goldin sent a 10-pound note to the Bank of England and asked the bank to give him the ten pounds, as promised on the note to the holder in such a case. This was to implicitly question what those ten pounds are all about. A letter of the same name was also sent to 45 experts from the London School of Economics and to the heads of the nine largest banks in Great Britain asking them to provide their definition of money.

Goldin’s request to the Bank of England led to a curious exchange of letters, which you can see below.

More detailed information, including answers from the experts, was previously available on the MIA’s apparently discontinued website at www.monetaryinquiryassociation.org. The report (pdf) is still available: MIA_Progress_Report.pdf .

I also found the following blog entry from 2010 on www.stephankinsella.com: The Bank of England and Me .

 

 

***