1 reply to this topic

[Darkademic]

There has been a great debate on YouTube recently between defenders of Minarchism and defenders of Anarcho-Capitalism. Arguably the best contributions have been from XOmniverse and qtronman. I'm going to post the videos here, roughly in chronological order.

[Darkademic]

This is a response to a PM sent by XOmniverse.

I definitely have given this thought. Believe me, knowing that I was essentially leaving behind me the label of "Objectivist" after wearing it for a decade was emotionally difficult for me.

I've only considered myself an Objectivist for a couple of years now, so it's not too hard for me to be critical of the philosophy; at least the parts which aren't at its base (politics and aesthetics).

Why would there be a law based on Objectivist principles / individual rights under a state, given that the majority of people are nowhere near Objectivist? This problem exists with or without a state. Furthermore, if everyone WAS near Objectivist, why would we need a state to begin with?

That's not really what I'm getting at. An Objectivist state would be an Objectivist state. Market-anarchy on the other hand wouldn't be anything in particular, laws would be whatever people wanted them to be. An Objectivist state would presumably be guided by, and formed to follow, Objectivist principles - it would be purposefully created to uphold individual rights (minus the right(?) to choose an alternative governmental agency). Market-Anarchy, by its nature, won't be "for" any particular set of laws - there would be no law as such.

This is just another version of the classic "people are too evil/stupid to govern themselves" argument. Obviously if they are, then they are too evil/stupid to govern others, right? And if they are NOT too evil/stupid to govern themselves, we don't need a state.

It's a slightly different argument. Some people are fit to govern themselves, others aren't, to varying degrees. An Objectivist state would place those that aren't under Objectivist derived law. Market-anarchy would allow them to define their own laws and they'd be no more legitimate than any others.

You mention that law cannot be both "objective and democratic", so what do you propose then? A dictatorship? What guarantee is there that the dictator will be objective?

This is the problem; there is no reason to believe that the existence of a state will ensure that laws are truly objectively correct.

The converse is also true though: What guarantee is there that society and/or the agencies of law enforcement will be objective?

It would be a "dictatorship", but the dictator would be reality, not people. There's no "guarantee" that those who make up the government would be objectively correct as humans are fallible; but an Objectivist government would be made up of Objectivists - so it would arguably be more objective than if you let the market (everyone) determine law through market demand. A government is susceptible to corruption, but how are governments-for-hire any less susceptible?

Really, what it comes down to is that, as easy as it is to forget, people really are basically good by nature (after all, egoism derives from survival, which we basically evolved to do) and on some implicit level understand human rights. This is evidenced by the fact that, in pretty much every society, some form of a free market, of voluntary exchange, naturally occurred.

I don't agree here. Human nature, in the way I think you mean it here, doesn't exist. Human beings have to learn what is good and what is evil. If you mean that everyone must practice egoism to some extent (since altruism cannot be practiced consistently) then you are correct, as altruism equals death - this is a practical issue though, not a moral one. People that are alive implicitly follow egoism to some degree, but this does not mean they understand egoism or human rights.

Natural rights are just that; natural. Without a state to force the situation otherwise, I believe that protection of these rights would, for the most part, occur naturally.

They are natural, but as I noted above, that doesn't mean they are automatic knowledge (instincs).

In fact, after "officially" embracing anarchism, I've come to realize something even more profound; since natural rights occur naturally, the only reason to ever create a state (a monopolistic organization that controls the use of force) is to force a universal (but not objectively correct) standard onto a given population by removing the natural check and balances that would occur with market-driven protection.

Well yes, the defense of objective individual rights would be enforced, as it should be. There's no reason to assume that a government can never be objectively correct - if an individual person can be, then a government can be. If a government is objectively correct, then opposing it necessarily opposes individual rights. If a government is not objectively correct, then it loses its legitimacy.

I don't think this is the goal of Objectivists. I think they (used to be we, heh) are simply mistaken on a number of assertions regarding their social ethics (or politics, as a non-anarchist [archist?] would call them). There is a contradiction in the philosophy that must be resolved. Fortunately, the answer is out there, and it is market anarchism.

Hmm, I'm not convinced yet. As far as I can tell, you think objective laws will just "come naturally", and therefore don't need to be enforced. I disagree. I think it takes a great deal of complex thought to arrive at an objective code of ethics and to derive laws from that code.