An Unsolicited Plug for Jacob Spinney

Jacob Spinney is a magician who makes videos on youtube about libertarianism and animal rights. He's an anarcho-capitalist, a bit of an animal rights activist, a vegetarian (though not a vegan...yet), and almost as "pro-life" as me. He might be called a "right-wing" anarchist, because he opposes most abortion and because he calls himself a capitalist; though like every good market anarchist he opposes IP - he even opposes contractual copyright, which is further left than where I stand. I'd say he fits into that very tight niche of pro-life animal rights market anarchist, which as far as I know includes 2 people - him and me. Indulge yourself at his blog.

Marketable Aggression

I'm making a rambling and (I hope) constructive critique of market anarchism. Right now it's two little videos where I argue that free markets depend on "religious" presumptions of individual freedom. On my last entry, a youtube user left a comment asking how I think people in a market anarchist society would be able to respond to violent invasion if "we exclude the possibility of selective market-based violation of individual autonomy". I responded that I do believe that some violent retaliation can be legitimate (and thus shouldn't be called a "violation"), but that that retaliation must be proportional and discriminate, and that non-discriminate or non-proportional retaliation is illegitimate regardless of the market demand for it. I thought it was a fairly tight response. But maybe it was too focused.

I didn't have to concentrate on proportionality. I could have just mentioned what a lot of people today think should count as crimes. Most people I know think pedophiles should be thrown behind bars - even the non-violent pedophiles. Most people I know think the producers, sellers, and users of heavy drugs should be thrown in prison. Most people I know think the practice of keeping more than one spouse at a time is an affront to the natural order of things, and that it is within the "public interest" to legally forbid such abominations.

The policies mentioned above are all violent actions that many people would willingly demand in order to get what they believe would be a more secure environment. And all these marketable uses of violence are initiations of violence, which should go against any libertarian's code.

Then there's other kinds of marketable violence. Most people I know think it's okay to force kids to go to school - that is, to confine a non-aggressing child in a particular place regardless of his or her saying "no". Most people I know think it's okay to give kids shots against their will. Most people I know aren't disturbed in the least bit by infant genitle mutilation. Most people I know think spanking is as good and right as little league baseball.

It's easy to imagine that, if we were to get competition in governance today, our legal systems would not be libertarian (it might be better in some regards than the statist system we have now, but it wouldn't be libertarian). A market "anarchist" society without widely-shared and firmly-held beliefs about the sovereignty of the individual, and without widely-shared and firmly-held condemnations of encroachment onto the individual, would be little more than a bundle of all the worst things about democracy tightly wrapped together with all the worst things about capitalism. The political rules of a society are deeply intertwined with the prevailing sentiments of it. If we wish to ever see a world where we are free to choose otherwise, then the freedom to choose has to be something like a dogma.

Consent of the Governed

When my brother called me this morning and said "Happy Secession Day, I'm expecting a blog post from you," I had no choice but to accept my writing assignment with joy. And it wasn't as if I could pretend that I didn't know what he wanted me to write about. Today is that day when we all celebrate a secession without calling it a secession. Believe it or not, the signing of the Declaration of Independence was an act by which some people seceded from a Union.

Yes, it was a secession in every respect. A bunch of radical liberals decided that the taxes imposed on them were so burdensome and that the government over them was so despotic, that neither the taxes nor the government that inflicted them were binding. "Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed," they reasoned, and since the Crown's intrusions lacked their consent, the Crown and its intrusions had no right over them. But had our forbears more principle, and had they drunk a few more pints of that American spirit, they would have demanded a little more (or, shall we say, a lot less) than "Free and Independent States".

Now is that all-American holiday when we celebrate the "birth of a nation," and in the spirit of this season we're supposed to observe everything American, including the beers and burgers which we selected from among a variety of beers and burgers for best fulfilling our needs and desires, and which we bought from a store that we selected from among a variety of stores for best fulfilling our needs and desires. We all know that to be free is to be free to choose. And deep down inside we all know that this includes the freedom to shop at Whole Foods if you don't like Safeway, and to shop at Kohl's if you can't afford or simply don't like the selections at Gap, and also to not shop at all when you simply don't want to shop.

Freedom, as it's best understood, is being allowed to choose one and not another, or none at all. This kind of freedom is the highest expression of Western values, and the extent to which we honor it is the degree of America's beauty. This freedom to choose something else protects us from the stagnant and mundane.

In my freshman year of college I became concerned about the treatment of animals, and about the environmental effects of factory farming, and I started to reduce the amount of meat that I eat. Today I am a vegan -- I don't eat any food derived from an animal, not even milk, cheese, or eggs. Thanks to the freedom to choose one and not another, I am able to choose meat substitutes instead of meat. Thanks to freedom of conscience, I can mold my life according to my own chosen values, so long as I allow others the same freedom. Thanks to supply and demand, suppliers have recognized the convictions I choose to live by, and now produce and distribute goods that accord with the values I embrace. Aren't freedom of conscience and capitalism such lovely things?

But I'm not free to live entirely by my own values. Money is taken by force from people who share my convictions, and given to factory farmers, animal experimenters, abortionists, and war profiteers. If I were truly free, I would be free to not fund any of those things. Not only that -- if I were truly free, I would be free to choose which government, if any, to pay taxes to and obey. If we believe in a free market in clothing and food -- if we believe we should be free to shop in one store and not another, without having to move -- then why don't we also believe in a free market in government? If I were free in the truest sense of the word, as I should be, then I would be free to buy protection from one goverment and not another, without being forced out of my home. If consent of the governed is such a big deal, then why do the California and U.S. governments lay claim to my body and my pocketbook without my consent?