“The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.”

I think a voluntary society is possible and preferable. What I worry is the conflicts that must be overcome, perhaps by one generation that shuts down a prison war society premised on institutionalized state violence may devolve eventually by generations of people that do not understand the importance of structures in place. Perhaps some level of minimum guaranteed financing for sufficient incentives for specific deterrence creating and enforcing a private voluntary culture of non aggression would be preferable to some devolution. Now financing such collective good as specific deterrence against aggression does not have to be financed by taxation, perhaps taxation is an effective means toward overcoming free rider problems, but whether it is necessary I do not think has been proven. And if we want to competitively price it, if we had all the mass surveillance apparatuses deployed toward deterring actual crimes that have victims, then we might be able to significantly cut back existing structures that manage the criminal “justice” system.

For me the best two arguments for state intervention are 1. overcoming free rider problems for some “minarchic” level of state regulation, 2. internalization of externalities. Until we can quantify pollution on a micro level and make it so those who pollute directly must pay sufficient prices to neighbors to consent to pollution, or only do such industry in an area where they own all the land in which the pollution would reside, I think there is some merit to intervention, until we have an ideal system where people can only do stuff where they either own all the property altered by the conduct or they pay voluntary pries to all property that’s value is modified by their conduct.

Recently, I have been engaging more with some of my friends who are socialists many who like Dennis Kucinich running for Democratic nomination for governor of Ohio. I perceive many of these people’s main objection to Libertarian minimum/to none level of government is that they believe such a system would quickly resolve into a facist system of with a corporate ruling class—which somehow is not what we currently have. I think a big misunderstanding that libertarianism does not adequately address in the marketplace of ideas currently with statists is that just because we do not want wealth redistribution, or want private roads, or we do not want public schools does not mean we are for poverty, leaving in a primitive society with little decent infrastructure, or want large groups of uneducated people. Instead, a counter that doesn’t seem to penetrate the market place of ideas is that we just do not want institutionalized state violence exacting tribute from people for any reason instead we want a society in which people choose where their dollar goes to. Many may think that education that the parent, but more importantly the child values, is what is important, not supporting armies of bueaurcracy. In the internet age do we really need people getting paid high salaries managing our kids for 8 hours a day? If people can really learn so much how are American high schools not printing out lawyers and doctors after 18 years of 8 hour days 30 some weeks a year? How possibly can people get GED’s without devoting years of their lives to studying this stuff? I’m not saying it’s not worth it to have kids get daily lectures from intellectuals about important stuff, but can they really absorb such a high pay rate of input for 8 hours, or could costs be shrunk and have it be 30min or a little longer of an important lecture, then the rest of the time doing online courses they are interested in or getting excersize or doing art or music when they choose?

It is not that we do not want roads, but we want to have choices. We do not want to be forced to subsidize roads with our taxes we want full control of the infrastructure we use and its quality, we believe the market will provide better options that the market craves.

Now a little background about my philosophical bent. Now not every libertarian necessarily wants to end poverty. But none of them want a system where those who do want to end poverty are not permitted to. Myself I would ideally like a global guaranteed minimum income for all humans worldwide. Ideally such system would be financed voluntarily. But until we have a voluntary society, I think replacing the entire federal government, or perhaps all parts not part of a “night watchmen” role such as perhaps, fbi, courts, military, maybe even a little epa—but no fda nonsense with a $10k guaranteed annual income. The 2014 US budget seemed like it was around $3.2 trillion with another hundred billion or so in deficit spending as well as the budgets of state and local governments not inclusive. For 330 million residents my vision would cost $3.3 trillion. Now I don’t know about you, but I’d prefer another $10k in my pocket and ever other US resident and no drug war and no war on drugs.

For me, Robert Nozick’s “Anarchy, State and Utopia” brought me toward minarchism and anarchy. I think it is an exceptional read about how Libertarinism is Utilitarianism but Utilitarianism is not Libertarianism. Another book that really changed my perspective when I was a big statist, was Jeremy Rifkin’s end of work. Previously I used to be concerned about money in politics, inequality, climate change and unemployment. Now I am concerned about poverty, institutionalized state violence, mass surveillance and biodiversity.

We live with the most humans living at the highest standard of living of all time in recorded history to my knowledge. If population had not continue to explode over the twentieth century, I wonder if there would still be poverty. Previously I was convinced the best solution to our society run amok was that we needed to organize on the production end of the market process and force companies and others to fund the structures and goods I thought should exist. And to some extent in the pre internet age, this system may very well be the only efficient system, especially if the interests that desire intervention lack the organizational costs to organize on the consumptive end of the market process. Now thanks to the mass diffusion of internetworkred computers, the costs of social organization particularly for 1.computation, 2. coordination, 3. communication as observed in “Here Comes Everybody” by Clay Shirky. Even without internet we already were witnessing such interventions of people doing businesses that constructed the realities they wanted to live in such as the successes of Mondragon Corporation in the Basque region of spain that is a very large worker owned cooperative that has tens of thousands of employees and multi billion in revenue.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation

I am convinced now that we need not deploy government for all things or perhaps anything. I think the blockchain provides the framework that could create a guaranteed minimum income to help end poverty and facilitate free trade and peace among the people’s of the world. I think blockchain can provide the incentives necessary for major projects to protect biodiversity perhaps we should start building lochs to save the Maldives if it will be destroyed by rising sea levels. Perhaps we can change and improve our whole society tomorrow and no longer need government if we can just convince everyone that action underlined by violence, which all state action is predicated on violence is not necessary. Maybe we cannot convince them for their own lives, but perhaps we can convince those we disagree with to let us live free on our own land.

I have no problem and support letting people create their own private cities with or without guns, with or without abortion, with or without drugs, so long as people are free to leave anytime and as long as they do not initiate violence against anyone not voluntarily choosing to be subject to their jurisprudence. I have a vision of a world that embraces Duncan Timms “urban mosaic” where all the subcultures of the world can be free to live non violently how they wish. Now if we want to go in depth, perhaps there can be some overriding laws, perhaps there could be a universal enforcement against slavery and/or pedophilia or other concerns people may raise. Hopefully we will be free someday.

I conclude these words with the question for the utilitarian readers who might assert they are for maximizing aggregate utility but are convinced institutionalized state violence, and massive interventions into wage rates and regulations and state licensing are the tools toward a better world. What if libertarian minimum/non intervention actually maximizes utility? What if not having the ability to force people at the barrel of a gun to engage in decades long wars for ambiguous goals, to not have to fund incarcerating nearly 1% of US citizens behind bars, many for nonviolent crimes? What if instead of having open corruption that is embraced where municipalities bend over backwards to compete to give large firms like amazon incentives for location in their jurisdiction, where politicks embrace paying higher than market rates because arbitrarily the workers live in their area or their nation state instead of following their duty of cost minimization to the taxpayer, the one law of the market takes over that you make the best quality good at the lowest cost? What if instead of having 6,000 classified patents under the National Invention Secrecy Act of 52’ that directly inhibits technological advance, and instead of having most of human information hidden behind university and corporate paywalls via patents and copyrights—even the goddamned law in merica is mostly hidden behind Bloomberg, Weslaw and Lexis paywall, despite the clearly false pretense of the law being for and by the people. That instead of talking about condemning people to pointless jobs a machine can do so the bureaucrats can manage the poor we utilize automation to liberate all human labor and enable everyone who wants to learn anything to do so, we would probably have a start trek enterprise by now and most diseases cured if we quit letting central planners design inefficiencies and instead prevent current interventions designed to create a breakaway civilization of those at the top and those without the licensing.

I think it very well may be the case protecting the right to self ownership and the non aggression principle provide an important framework that if finally respected combined with the inherently neutral/positive sum game of the enlightened self interest of voluntary exchange would realize actual aggregate utility maximization. And sure one might cite Barrington Moore for some reason that “No bourgouis, No Democracy,” but why must we force people into collectives and force them to share their fates with people who will only subtract from an individual’s utility? I have not been convined that inequality is inherently bad, if the lowest lot lived as Kings and the highest lot lived as gods is that so bad, or is even that level of inequality bad? If the alternate is poverty and endless pointless war, than I am even less convinced.

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Federalist No 62

“The internal effects of a mutable policy are still more calamitous. It poisons the blessing of liberty itself. It will be of little avail to the people, that the laws are made by men of their own choice, if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood; if they be repealed or revised before they are promulgated, or undergo such incessant changes that no man, who knows what the law is to-day, can guess what it will be to-morrow. Law is defined to be a rule of action; but how can that be a rule, which is little known, and less fixed? Another effect of public instability is the unreasonable advantage it gives to the sagacious, the enterprising, and the moneyed few over the industrious and uniformed mass of the people. Every new regulation concerning commerce or revenue, or in any way affecting the value of the different species of property, presents a new harvest to those who watch the change, and can trace its consequences; a harvest, reared not by themselves, but by the toils and cares of the great body of their fellow-citizens. This is a state of things in which it may be said with some truth that laws are made for the FEW, not for the MANY.”