The official demonization of “anarchists” by State propagandizers continues on apace, in this instance by an agent of an “agency”-without-principals which intends to violently evict Occupy protesters from Portland parks this weekend. Meanwhile, a real-life “anarch” (leader of leaderlessness), Wendy McElroy, explores, at the Daily Anarchist, what an anarchist system of justice might look like, and in reply to a comment on her post writes:

At some point, you have to do a comparative assessment and choose the system that does it best rather than does it ‘right’…because there is no right. That’s the horror of violence. It sets the natural order so viciously out of whack that it may not be possible to ever return it to ‘right’. My ideal “just system” is 90% prevention so that you don’t have to deal with raped women, traumatized children, men killed for $10 in their wallets. Imagine a free market law enforcement industry that actually existed to prevent violence, that drew its customer salary from the efficiency with which it managed to prevent violence. What a revolution that would be! Oh Brave New World in which I wish to live.

I contributed the following comments (slightly edited) to the discussion in the comments section on Wendy’s post:

I’ve recently been thinking that anarchic justice should depend on “consensus” rather than “consent,” manifested in a common-law, customary-law kind of system. As John Hasnas has argued, such a system properly understood is free market law. Law is rarely based on consent. The thief caught shoplifting or committing more serious crimes presumably will only rarely “consent” to the consequences imposed by society. It should take a consensus of society to impose any restriction on liberty. Punishments, whether of the restitution or retribution / deterrence / incapacitation variety (and I think the limitations of a restitution-only paradigm are seen in the hypothetical murder of a homeless man with no family or friends to whom restitution for his “wrongful death” might be paid), should likewise be no harsher than a consensus of society approves. Consensus is the social embodiment of the Presumption of Innocence, which is fundamental to a free society. Consensus is only practical in small groups, which points the way to a society of Thomas Jefferson’s “ward republics” and to confederation along the lines of the Great Law of Peace of the Iroquois Confederacy, which operated by consensus.

. . .

It all depends on what the conventions are. Right now the conventions that prevail in society are very unlibertarian. Specifically, these conventions hold the text of a Constitution put together by men long dead for less than noble purposes 200 years ago to be binding on the living, and vulgarly and arbitrarily equate democracy with the will of the majority (even a bare majority of 51%). It seems the goal of libertarianism is precisely to change those conventions. Apparently in contrast to many posters here, I think the so-called Rule of Lenity is a convention at the heart of liberty. So is the Presumption of Innocence. So is the notion that “government” derives its just powers from the “consent of the governed,” but instead of speaking of the “consent of the governed” I’d speak of the “consensus of the self-governing.” If 95%+ of the people in a community agree that it is just to use force to prevent or punish murder that’s a pretty good indication that force is in fact justified to prevent or punish murder, and it’s pretty clear that in any event murder isn’t going to be tolerated by that community. On the other hand, if only 75% agree that it is just to use force to prevent or punish eating magic mushrooms that’s a pretty good indication that force is not justified to prevent or punish eating magic mushrooms, and a society which values consensus and applies societally the same presumption against violence that decent people generally apply as individuals will not use force to prevent or punish eating magic mushrooms, even if, hypothetically, 75% think such force would be justified and 95% think eating magic mushrooms is “immoral.”

. . .

Ideally, the so-called traditional common law, which John Hasnas illuminates as depoliticized law, reflects reason and natural law, and its evolution is likewise guided by reason and natural law. Each case is to be decided on the basis of Justice, informed by how such cases have been decided before.

. . .

I urge all anarchists to give Henry George a second look. Georgism represents a principle by which such claims [to land] may rest not only on force but on justice. I’m of the opinion that in an anarchic society “national defense” (i.e., defense not of a nation but defense from nations) will still be necessary, that such defense will necessarily be defense of a territory by those in the territory, and that Georgism would provide the natural means of funding such defense.

Our Enemy, the State, by Albert Jay Nock, whom I personally regard as my number one libertarian muse, is shot through with Georgism.

. . .

The Hasnas article on “The Depoliticization of Law” is also directly on point: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=987829

. . .

Consensus, as I conceive it, is close to or identical with the very essence of anarchism, and of the “libertarian framework.” In the realm of collective action it whittles the use of force down to what Nietzsche called the “song of the necessary,” in the same diatribe in which he called the State the “coldest of all cold monsters.” Unless “we” all agree violence is necessary and justified, “we” don’t use violence.

. . .

I think Justice is most appropriately defined not positively but negatively, as “the absence of crime.” All the things we do to try to fight or deter or somehow provide “satisfaction” for crime are then seen to be “justice” only in a secondary and derivative sense. The criminal defense attorney serves Justice more directly than the prosecutor.

A comment by Ryan from Absurd Results on this post about the Georgist “Single Tax” and Thomas Jefferson’s “Ward System” gave me the opportunity to once again formulate, summarize, and clarify my political wish list. Ryan wrote:

As for Georgism, I have to admit, I find it intriguing—even more so when combined with Jefferson’s ward system. Actually, I think the ward system (which sounds a lot like Michael Rozeff’s panarchy) would be essential for a single tax regime, for it would more likely keep closed the door to statism by making the wards compete for citizens.

Still, the ward system worries me a little because the political class—that is, those that have the power to tax, taken collectively—has a knack for finding ways to expand its jurisdiction. It’s for this reason that I’m partial to Hans Hoppe’s notion of a private law society. Under his conception, security is provided on a subscription basis instead of on a jurisdictional basis. This takes a so-called “public good” like security and moves it into the private sphere, thereby eliminating the need for taxation. I have to think that by taking away the two hallmarks of Statism—taxation and jurisdiction—freedom would flourish.

I replied [links added]:

I’m not sure that even under conditions of “anarchy,” or a state of nature, that we could get away from the need for territorial defense, security, and “government.” A single landlord, or landholder, is in a sense a “government,” claiming jurisdiction over a particular territory, and having the need to secure his claim. By what right would he maintain his claim? I’d suggest that Georgism might form the conditions for establishing the justice of his claim vis-a-vis other landholders and would-be landholders in the immediate area, as well as the fund by which the people in that area might defend their claims relative to each other and relative to external threats. The need for so-called “national defense” is to my mind the strongest objection to anarchism (though I’d clarify it’s not so much the need to defend the “nation” as it is to defend a would-be anarchic territory from existing nations). The anarchic impulse, and the impulse of the ward system, is to devolve the authority and responsibility for such defense to smaller and smaller areas, ultimately vesting it in the individual landholders themselves, who would likely find it advisable to confederate with others for their mutual defense, keeping their confederacies as small as is consistent with the needs of territorial defense (recognizing that the larger the confederacy and the more concentrated its power the larger the threat to the freedoms of its constituents). As I see it, these base-line confederacies formed strictly for territorial defense could co-exist with the kinds of associations and private law systems envisioned by Rozeff’s panarchy.

I have to credit “Our Enemy, the State,” by Albert Jay Nock, who considered himself an anarchist, for selling me on both Georgism and Jefferson’s “ward system.”

How might we ever get from here to there? First and foremost, by puncturing the pretensions of the State. And I can think of no better authority to quote on this score than Martin Luther King, Jr., for whom a federal holiday is named for Christ’s sake:

You express a great deal of anxiety over our willingness to break laws. This is certainly a legitimate concern. Since we so diligently urge people to obey the Supreme Court’s decision of 1954 outlawing segregation in the public schools, at first glance it may seem rather paradoxical for us consciously to break laws. One may well ask: “How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?” The answer lies in the fact that there are two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that “an unjust law is no law at all.”

H/T LVTFan, who contrasted Cain with George here. And I made the same contrast here. It’s good to see that George hasn’t been entirely forgotten.

There has never been a saner and simpler proposal for tax reform than the “single tax” on the unimproved value of land proposed by Henry George. The honest progressive and the honest capitalist alike would find in it, if they looked, a facilitator of their respective instincts. Most importantly, in stark contrast to the abomination that is “our” politician-created tax “code,” the “single tax” has its sure foundation in Justice, as illuminated by, among others, Thomas Paine.

Combine the “single tax” with Thomas Jefferson’s “ward system” and you have my political philosophy in a nutshell.

I also take liberty to be of far more importance than equality. All other things being equal, however, “equality” of wealth and power is a value, and is conducive to liberty. The checks inherent in power balances is conducive to liberty. I’ve put it this way before: I don’t want the State to steal from the rich to give to the poor, but so long as it insists on stealing, I’d rather it steal from the rich instead of the poor. This is largely a vain hope, however, because it is the very nature of the State to steal from the poor to give to the rich. The deleterious effects of its long history of doing so is why we should have a “preferential option for the poor.” We can even recognize that if the State against its nature started stealing from the rich instead of the poor this might go some distance towards repairing some of the inequalities the State itself has created. (I’d suggest, though, that if the State persisted long in thus acting against its nature this would likely eventually spell its happy demise.) I happen to subscribe to the Georgism of Steiner et al., but I think the term “left libertarianism” encompasses not only them but others who are biased towards equality. Indeed, I take a righteous bias in favor of equality to be the very essence of the “left,” as defined, for example, by Karl Hess. And aren’t BHLs also defined by that bias? Who is your heart bleeding for? The poor, and the suffering which typically attends poverty? That strikes me as a bias in favor of equality. Granted, BHLs can define themselves any way they want, and I’m not completely clear on the definition yet. Note that a bias in favor of equality doesn’t equate to a belief that actual equality of wealth and power is a practical or desirable goal. Part of the attraction of Georgism is that it approximates an actual equality in the use of natural resources, to which every person born into the world has an equal right. Such a recognition of the natural and equal right to natural resources would tend towards equality of wealth and power, while still leaving individuals free to earn and accumulate wealth unequally according to their disparate and unequal talents and drives.

Then there’s this, from the local news story on the “Wall Street” protesters:

Katie Robbins and Michael Obregon went to the protest with their two daughters, ages 1 and 4.

“I want to be able to take care of my family,” said Robbins, 27. “We don’t even want the American dream. We just want a safe home, affordable health care.”

But the old recipe of hard work and playing by the rules isn’t working, she said.

The family is surviving on about $35,000 in annual income, they estimated. Obregon, 39, works full-time at a distribution center and is also a full-time student studying business at Indiana University South Bend. Sometimes they must choose between paying the electric bill or going to the grocery store.

Robbins said people just tell them to work harder.

The counter-point to that is this post titled “How I live on $7,000 per year” at the Early Retirement Extreme blog by a guy named Jacob, who writes:

Okay, that does it. I’m getting tired of the pervasive media articles that detail how people are “surviving” or “barely managing” on what qualifies as average or definitely median household incomes. This is like writing a articles about 5’10″ guys who are “struggling” with their height issues complete with tips and tricks on how to cope with the shortage. Ha!. For the record, 5’10″ is the average height of a US male. Fun fact: This is also the median, since there are few 12′ tall guys to skew the distribution.

The waterfall that finally crushed the camel was this yahoo article which discusses how a single person “survives” on $20,000/year, but that’s just one out of many. In particular, it followed an initial article on how a family survives on $40,000/year. This is pretty close to the median household income in the US! It means that about half of everybody, that’s 150+ million people, is currently living on LESS than those amounts. Surely, that’s no secret, and surely that’s not very remarkable either.

From Chapter 2 (“Chicago”):

George Schilling was a prominent trade unionist when he encountered Darrow at a gathering of freethinkers. The other speakers had gone too far in mocking the ministry of Jesus Christ, and Darrow “jumped in, and with a ten-minute speech defended the carpenter’s son of Judea with such a sympathetic, persuasive voice that I fell in love with him,” Schilling recalled. “We became fast friends.”

Though Darrow admired Christ’s teachings, he doubted his divinity, and was a regular with Schilling at the Secular Union. . . .

Here, Darrow expressed the deterministic philosophy that would guide him all his life. “The worst of all cruel creeds and of all the bloody wrongs inflicted by the past can be found in the barbarous belief that man is a free moral agent,” he said.

. . .

In August 1887, he wrote a letter to his friends at the Democratic Standard in Ashtabula, recounting a visit with the anarchists in jail.

“They are a good looking intelligent lot of men. At first they were not inclined to talk, but after assuring them that I was something of a crank myself . . . they entered freely into conversation,” Darrow reported. “They imagine that wealth is so strong that it controls legislation and elections and that we can only abolish present evils by wiping out capital and starting over new.

“It is very hard for one who, like me, believes that the injustice of the world can only be remedied through law, and order and system, to understand how intelligent men can believe that the repeal of all laws can better the world; but this is their doctrine.”

. . . “I hope you will not conclude that I am an Anarchist,” he wrote. “I think their doctrines are wild if their eyes are not.”

At the time, Darrow was a member of a single-tax group inspired by author Henry George, who had initially supported the Haymarket defendants but now was running for political office in New York, and modulating his beliefs. He infuriated Darrow and the others by declining to publish the club’s resolution asking for clemency in his organization’s newspaper. Darrow wrote a stinging letter to The Solidarity, a labor publication in New York, accusing George of cowardice.

From Chapter 4 (“Populist”):

Darrow had been shaken by the state’s relentless insistence on killing Prendergast. Now he watched its army and its judges, deployed at the behest of corporations, quell the collective action of American workingmen. The experience left him angry and alienated. The idealist who had said, when he arrived in Chicago, that the “injustice of the world can only be remedied through law, and order and system” began to reconsider.

What is it that I find admirable and worthy of emulation in the Great Law of Peace of the Iroquois Confederacy? Pretty much the same things I find admirable and worthy of emulation in Aldous Huxley’s vision of a just society:

If I were now to rewrite the book [Brave New World], I would offer the Savage a third alternative. Between the Utopian and primitive horns of his dilemma would lie the possibility of sanity… In this community economics would be decentralist and Henry-Georgian, politics Kropotkinesque and co-operative. Science and technology would be used as though, like the Sabbath, they had been made for man, not (as at present and still more so in the Brave New World) as though man were to be adapted and enslaved to them. Religion would be the conscious and intelligent pursuit of man’s Final End, the unitive knowledge of the immanent Tao or Logos, the transcendent Godhead or Brahman. And the prevailing philosophy of life would be a kind of Higher Utilitarianism, in which the Greatest Happiness principle would be secondary to the Final End principle – the first question to be asked and answered in every contingency of life being: “How will this thought or action contribute to, or interfere with, the achievement, by me and the greatest possible number of other individuals, of man’s Final End?”

See also the following letters written by Thomas Jefferson:

The Earth Belongs to the Living (1789)

“A Real Christian” (1816)

The Ward System (1816)

The Test of Republicanism (1816)

Reform of the Virginia Constitution (1816)

“I Too Am An Epicurean” (1819)

The first Leftists were a group of newly elected representatives to the National Constituent Assembly at the beginning of the French Revolution in 1789. They were labeled “Leftists” merely because they happened to sit on the left side in the French Assembly.

The legislators who sat on the right side were referred to as the Party of the Right, or Rightists. The Rightists or “reactionaries” stood for a highly centralized national government, special laws and privileges for unions and various other groups and classes, government economic monopolies in various necessities of life, and a continuation of government controls over prices, production, and distribution.

. . .

The majority of the original Party of the Left had been opposed to concentrated power regardless of who exercised it. But the violent revolutionists in their midst, led by Robespierre, Danton, and Marat, were opposed to concentrated power only so long as someone else exercised it. Robespierre, who represented himself as spokesman for the people, first said that the division of the powers of government was a good thing when it diminished the authority of the king. But when Robespierre himself became the leader, he claimed that the division of the powers of government would be a bad thing now that the power belonged “to the people.”

. . .

Most of the original Leftists protested. So they too were soon repudiated in the general terror that was called liberty. But since the name Leftist had become identified with the struggle of the individual against the tyranny of government, the new tyrants continued to use that good name for their own purposes. This was a complete perversion of its former meaning.

I revere Leo Tolstoy as a great and exemplary man not only for his principled anarchism and non-dogmatic Christianity, but also for his enthusiastic endorsement later in life of the “Single Tax” advocated by Henry George, as described by Tolstoy’s personal friend and secretary Victor Lebrun:

In giving his extreme and sympathetic attention to other thinkers and writers, the great Tolstoy differed essentially from his colleagues — the geniuses of all countries and all centuries. But nothing shows the complete honesty and surprising liberty of his spirit more than his attitude towards Henry George.

It was at the beginning of 1885 that he happened to lay his hands on the books of the great American sociologist. By then the moral and social doctrine of the thinker had been solidly and definitely established. Man’s supreme and unique duty was to perfect himself morally and not to co-operate with the wrong. Thus the social problem would be automatically solved when the majority has understood the true meaning of pure Christianity and when it has learned to abstain from all crimes which are frequently and commonly committed. All reasoning about the precise nature of the citizens’ rights, about laws, about the organisation of governmental compulsion for their protection is anathema to the great thinker.

But … hardly had Tolstoy had a glance at “Social Problems” and “Progress and Poverty” and he was completely captivated by George’s outstanding exposition.

. . .

And the thinker does not hesitate any longer. From this encounter on he resolutely and enthusiastically takes George’s side, and to his last breath for a quarter of a century, he makes every effort without relaxation to make his discovery known.

Georgetown professor John Hasnas wrote in The Obviousness of Anarchy a couple things I’ve tried to say on this blog:

Anarchy refers to a society without a central political authority. But it is also
used to refer to disorder or chaos. This constitutes a textbook example of Orwellian
newspeak in which assigning the same name to two different concepts effectively
narrows the range of thought. For if lack of government is identified with the lack of
order, no one will ask whether lack of government actually results in a lack of order.
And this uninquisitive mental attitude is absolutely essential to the case for the state.
For if people were ever to seriously question whether government is really productive
of order, popular support for government would almost instantly collapse.

. . .

No one believes that we can transition from a world of states to
anarchy instantaneously. No reasonable anarchist advocates the total dissolution of
government tomorrow. Once we turn our attention to the question of how to move
incrementally from government to anarchy, it becomes apparent that national defense
would be one of the last governmental functions to be de-politicised. If my argument
for anarchy is flawed and anarchy is not a viable method of social organisation, this
will undoubtedly be revealed long before doing away with national defense becomes
an issue. On the other hand, to the extent that the gradual transition from government
to anarchy is successful, the need for national defense continually lessens.

David Gross at The Picket Line links to a good meditation on the dangers of lifestyle purity perfectionism by Claire Wolfe, who writes:

Kitty Antonik Wakfer whacks all of us who say we support WikiLeaks and Bradley Manning, but who haven’t cancelled our Amazon and PayPal accounts or cut up our MasterCards and Visas.

. . .

Now, I don’t know Kitty Antonik Wakfer. She may be a terrific human being. I hope she is. Her heart’s in the right place.

But I would ask all the “more pure than thou” freedomistas of the world: Have you walked a few years in my shoes?

. . .

For 15 years, I increasingly lived according to my principles. I did those hard things. Went without numbers and ID. Became an exile in my own land. Got by with a little help from my friends (and sometimes a lot of help from them). And every one of those friends was less “pure” than I; but they should kick my ass if I ever have enough nerve to damn them for their lack of purity.

. . .

I no longer live like that. Got tired. Went broke. Became weary of being an outcast — weary of knowing I’d have to fight through every little tiny thing that others take for granted. I’m older and ready for a little calm and comfort. I don’t regret one minute of trying to live free. I’m glad I did it. But it didn’t make the world freer. And for me, that time is done.

. . .

Thing is, even in my most hardcore days, I wasn’t as “pure” as some folks. Go to the Mental Militia forums and look up the postings of suijurisfreeman if you really want to see hardcore. And I defy anybody to find me one, single freedomista on this earth who never violates a principle — never pays a sales tax for a purchase, lives on property which is neither taxed nor subsidized, totally ignores the existence of the state and all its works, drives boldly down the highway sans license and registration and doesn’t bother to stop when the red light flashes in the rear window because to stop would be to obey the unjust state. Show me the person who goes through life without a single compromise of principle. Show me.

. . .

And unless you are that perfectly pure person whose life is the epitome of principle every moment of every day, then don’t go around condemning others for failing to take a step that you consider proper and necessary — but that also doesn’t cause you any huge inconvenience.

“Tom,” she said.  “What you aimin’ to do?”
He was quiet for a long time.  “I been thinkin’ how it was in that gov’ment camp, how our folks took care a theirselves, an’ if they was a fight they fixed it thirself; an’ they wasn’t no cops wagglin’ their guns, but they was better order than them cops ever give. I been a-wonderin’ why we can’t do that all over.  Throw out the cops that ain’t our people.  All work together for our own thing–all farm our own lan’.”
“Tom,” Ma repeated, “what you gonna do?”
“What Casy done,” he said.
“But they killed him.”
“Yeah,” said Tom. “He didn’ duck quick enough.  He wasn’ doing nothin’ against the law, Ma. I been thinkin’ a hell of a lot, thinkin’ about our people livin’ like pigs, an’ the good rich lan’ layin’ fallow, or maybe one fella with a million acres, while a hunderd thousan’ good farmers is starvin’. An I been wonderin’ if all our folks got together an’ yelled, like them fellas yelled, only a few of ’em at the Hooper ranch —-”
Ma said, “Tom, they’ll drive you, an’ cut you down like they done to young Floyd.”
“They gonna drive me anyways.  They drivin’ all our people.”
“You don’t aim to kill nobody, Tom?”
“No. I been thinkin’, long as I’m a outlaw anyways, maybe I could — Hell, I ain’t thought it out clear, Ma.  Don’ worry me now.  Don’ worry me.”
They sad silent in the coal-black cave of vines.  Ma said, “How’m I gonna know ’bout you? They might kill ya an’ I wouldn’ know.  They might hurt ya. How’m I gonna know?”
Tom laughed uneasily, “Well, maybe like Casy says, a fella ain’t got a soul of his own, but on’y a piece of a big one — an’ then —-”
“Then what, Tom?”
“Then it don’ matter.  Then I’ll be all aroun’ in the dark.  I’ll be ever’where — wherever you look.  Wherever they’sa fight so hungry people can eat, I’ll be there.  Wherever they’s a cop beating up a guy, I’ll be there.  If Casy knowed, why, I’ll be in the way guys yell when they’re mad an’ — I’ll be in the way kids laugh when they’re hungry an’ they know supper’s ready. An’ when our folks eat the stuff they raise an’ live in the houses they build — why, I’ll be there.  See? God, I’m talkin’ like Casy.  Comes of thinkin’ about thim so much.  Seems like I can see him sometimes.”
“I don’ un’erstan’.” Ma said.  “I don’ really know.”

“Me neither,” said Tom.  “It’s jus’ stuff I been thinkin’ about.”

How to Abolish Unfair Taxation (1913)

The Land Belongs to the People (1916)