“Orders” and “demands” are two words which are often used interchangeably but lets distinguish between the two for the sake of establishing which actions you find tolerable or intolerable. Orders are very much a common action used in day to day life. Every trade which you initiate with a merchant is an order. An order is backed up with a promise to pay. A demand, on the other hand is backed up with a threat of using force in order to achieve what is being demanded.
So when is making a demand a justifiable action? There are two instances,
The first instance is when the demand is regarding your own property. This could be regarding any property but as an example, lets say that you are a restaurant owner and I walk in to your restaurant but you decide that you do not want me there. It may be polite to offer me a reason for why you do not wish me to be there, such as you would like to close early or perhaps I am not dressed appropriately, but you are not obliged to provide me with a reason as you get to set the rules and change them as per your own whims when it comes to managing your own property. In this instance it is justifiable for you to demand that I leave with the threat of using physical force to remove me if I refuse to leave.
The other instance is when the demand is regarding an agreement where the terms have been broken. If we keep the restaurant as our example but this time we imagine that I am welcomed in to your restaurant and presented with a menu, I see a list of what you have to offer me and what price you are willing to accept in exchange for receiving your service. At this point I place my order implying that I accept your offer and an agreement has been formed to receive your offer in exchange for the listed price. You then serve me and I consume the dish and then you present me with the bill. At this stage I decide that I am not going to pay. In this instance you are justified in demanding that I do pay and to use force in order to ensure that I uphold my end of the bargain.
I started thinking about this because I recently bought a bookcase for £120. The Value Added Tax enforced by the state in this part of the world is 20% All taxes are demands for payment backed up with threats of force but lets focus our attention on VAT which is the equivalent of Goods and Services Tax in some other countries. The state's website dictates that merchants “must charge VAT on their goods or services”, and this is demanded to be passed from the merchant to the state once it has been collected. The consequences for not complying begin with further demands for even higher sums and then a variety of threats are made ranging from taking the money from the merchant by force, closing down the merchants business likely making him destitute or taking the merchant to court where it may be decided that he will be held captive in an environment that he does not wish to be for a lengthy period of time, commonly referred to as prison. Unless this demand is justified these credible threats of violence are highly uncivilised.
The merchant who I bought my bookcase from advertised it to me for £120, because if he had advertised it to me for the £100 price that he was happy to accept, then he faced a credible threat to his own life, liberty or property from an interfering third party (the state). The threat is placed upon the merchant but the demand for payment is placed upon me the consumer, and it is done so via proxy. The state uses the merchant as a conduit to collect the payment she demands from me and from you when you choose to trade with merchants.
If the state owned me or the merchant's body and soul as its own property than this demand would be justified but there is no such thing which can legitimately own another human being and the state has no higher claim to owning the merchant's shop, where the purchase took place, than the merchant does himself. So the state has no legitimate right to interfere. This demand is unjustified.
An organisation which is well known for making unjustified demands is the mafia. Hollywood provides us with some entertaining and dramatic examples of how the mafia operated and in the 1987 movie, “The Untouchables”, we see a scene where a gangster is trying to extort a bar owner to buy his alcohol during the years of prohibition in America. This is a good example in contrast to how a respectable merchant does business. Both the merchant and the mafia seek to make a profit but only one relies on credible threats of violence in order to gain that profit. The distinction is as clear as day. The mafia are criminals who carry out acts of injustice which the world would be better off without and respectable merchants make the world a more pleasant and convenient place to live. When you face an unjustified demand what are your options in choosing a way to respond? Just like the bar owner, you have three choices.
You can anticipate the threat and try to defend yourself. Whilst you are completely justified to use defensive force you are out muscled and unlikely to achieve success given the circumstances.
You can pay the demand. In the example of the bar owner it is the objective of the mafia to take payment. It will also likely result in the bar owner going physically unharmed if he pays the demand, however the product which the gangster is selling is not the bar owners preference and he would not purchase from the gangster if it were not for the credible threat of violence which he faces. Choosing this option would be financially detrimental to the bar owner and it is the act of submitting to extortion. The man who continually submits to extortion with no attempts to reverse this injustice is a pathetic coward unless he is ignorant, in which case he is just pathetic.
You can call, pay or beg for help. If tolerating constant injustice is not satisfactory to the bar owner as indeed it should not be and he correctly determines that he is not capable of successfully defending himself alone then the only remaining logical option is to ask for help or to join defensive forces.
Coming back to my trade when I bought my bookcase you can observe that the state operates a mafia model when making her demand to receive £20 from me. She offers nothing, she merely divvy's up the funds which she takes. Such crowdfunding ideas are not necessarily unethical until you accept the fact that she does not allow people to opt out and the violent threats which she makes to those who do not submit are credible, just as with the mafia. Truth and logic define her as an extorter.
When I was deciding to buy my bookcase, I did so with full knowledge of the unjustified £20 demand which was 'built in' to the price. When I chose to pay the full amount of £120 I was doing two things.
- I was responding to the merchants offer by ordering the trade of my £100 for his bookcase.
- I was submitting to the demand of the state to pay her £20.
It is not satisfying for me to submit to her demands. It displeases me when I do this and I continue to do this because I want to do what is inherently human and trade what I own with what other human beings have to offer. I do recognise that in submitting to extortion demands that I am behaving pathetically. Voluntary trade is a beautiful activity that our species uses to thrive. However, there is this constantly interfering third party who's demands come with virtually every trade that we wish to make. Remember that demands are supposed to be the exception but for the state it is the way in which she initiates her interactions with us. She does not behave appropriately and she is most certainly not my cup of tea and in contrast to all the other people in my life who I don't particularly care for, the state is the only girl who constantly demands that we continue to interact.
Unlike the bar owner's position in dealing with the injustice of the mafia, my position in responding to the extortion demands of the state is not as straight forward as asking for help because when it comes to the state the vast majority of people available to call upon believe that the state has a legitimate claim to be making these demands when in fact if you take the time to think about it, logic and reason shows that she does not.
In a way this is good thing because it leads us to the root of the problem, which is religion and religion will be defeated with logic and reason, not violence. Not the promise of life after death type of religion, but the belief of a superhuman controlling power who is exempt from the usual rules of morality. After all, who else can initiate contact with you with a demand that you pay them money backed up with a credible threat that you will be killed if you resist and have that demand seem like a noble act? I thought exactly that once upon a time but I now think that those thoughts are moronic.
There are moments within the English language where these definitions I have set out seem backwards. For example the common phrase “supply and demand”, should be, “supply and orders”, but this sounds nowhere near sexy enough to warrant a change. So I trust much like when you were a child learning to spell the word “was”, W A S and pronounce it W O Z that you are able to accept the imperfections of the English language.
How will you choose to respond to your next extortion demand? As I mentioned earlier, there are only three ways in which you can respond. It is worth remembering that this religion of statism will fade away only when the ignorant are no longer oblivious.