www.thornwalker.com/ditch/neff_illegitseries1.htm
Ronn Neff's two essays on the legitimacy of the Republic first appeared as the lead articles in TLD 15, December 19, 1996; and TLD 16, April 4, 1997.
Second installment of series.
This government is
illegitimate
... and you don’t have to
be an anarchist to see it
By RONALD N. NEFF
Mr. Neff is senior editor of The Last
Ditch.
THIS IS NOT AN ESSAY on free-market anarchism; however, a brief discussion
of its modern history is in order.
In 1969 the libertarian movement consisted of Objectivists and
their imitators; FEE-type libertarians and conservatives; YAF conservatives;
and the radical libertarians clustered around Murray Rothbard in New York
City (when, as he said, the movement could still fit into his living room)
as well as a remnant of the Alliance of Libertarian Activists in California.
All these components of the movement lived in uneasy alliance with one
another — and occasionally in uneasy ignorance of one another.
Free-market anarchism was eschewed by all but the radical libertarians, and
many of
them rejected the term "free-market anarchism" in favor of the tamer
"anarcho-capitalism."
Into this inherently weak coalition burst Roy Childs's "Open Letter
to Ayn Rand," published by The Rational Individualist in its October 1969
issue. Its powerful arguments that government is inherently illegitimate
caused a stir of letters to editors, articles, attempted refutations, and
the conversion of hundreds — including Nicholas Strakon, later the
editor
of The Last Ditch, and me — from support of the limited, constitutional
state to free-market anarchism. The interest and stir Childs's Letter created
served as the economic base for the publication of Morris and Linda
Tannehill's
The Market for Liberty, an expansion of their booklet "Liberty Via
the Market" showing how judicial, police, and defense services might be
provided in a stateless society. Meanwhile, Morris Tannehill — a
prodigious
letter writer — was circulating Childs's essay, "The Epistemological Basis
of Anarchism," which was
far more important than the Letter to Rand but remained unpublished until
The Last Ditch posted it in 2003.
Efforts to refute Childs's central Letter arguments appeared quickly,
the most important of which (at the time) were privately circulated: Edmund
A. Opitz's "Where We Differ" and a lengthy essay by Charles Jackson Wheeler
that later appeared in The Personalist, a philosophical journal edited
by John Hospers, director of the philosophy department at the University
of Southern California. Hospers pronounced Wheeler's refutation absolute
and final, but very few of us who had been won over by Childs's arguments
agreed. [1]
Perhaps the most promising effort to refute Childs came at a libertarian
convention in early 1971 in New York, when Childs debated Jeffrey St. John.
St. John was known to libertarians outside New York City primarily as the
author of an essay in The Objectivist; he was
therefore thought to be a sort of unofficial spokesman for Objectivist
polity.
The debate was a rout and St. John retreated to conservatism.
[2]
Within a year, David Nolan — who had published a letter in Reason,
vol. 2, no. 9 (circa December 1970) urging an end to the debate —
published
an article in the July-August 1971 Individualist calling for the creation
of a libertarian party (an article which, I blush to report, I typeset).
The following year a political party was in existence with Hospers as its
first presidential candidate. Hospers gleaned the party's first and only
presidential electoral vote, and his running mate, Toni Nathan, received
history's first electoral vote for a woman.
For the next 10 years, new organizations and publications were
popping up all over, and significant money flowed into the movement from
the Koch brothers of Koch Industries. Most important of the new
organizations
was the Cato Institute. The personalities dominating the institute and
the party sometimes overlapped and sometimes were at war. Denunciations
of former associates were almost a regular feature of newsletters and
monthlies.
Important alliances were formed, and important friendships were shattered,
among them — most tragically — the long-standing affection
between Childs and Rothbard.
When the dust settled, still standing were Laissez Faire Books
(alone among the competing book suppliers), the Libertarian Party, Reason
magazine (under new ownership since the January 1971 issue), and the Cato
Institute. All others were lost, doomed, or marginalized. (By far, the
greatest among the marginalized was Rothbard's Libertarian Forum.) By this
time the official Objectivist movement had completely anathematized the
broader libertarian movement, refusing even to recognize
itself as a part
of it.
Both Cato and the party had made the same significant policy decision:
neither would discuss anarchism. In Cato's case, the decision was based
on its desire to become a major think tank that would be taken seriously
by policymakers. In the party's case, the decision was a big-tent effort
to maintain peace among the anarchists and limited statists for the sake
of winning elections.
We see the results today: free-market anarchism itself, which
triumphed in virtually every setting when it first appeared, is now completely
marginalized in the movement. It is supported by no major publication (even
within the relatively small arena of libertarian publications); it has
no spokesman. The two publications lately associated with Rothbard (the
Rothbard-Rockwell Report and The Free Market) are part of a tactical
alliance
with certain conservatives, and, like Cato and the party, their principals
have buried the hatchet of anarchism for the sake of the alliance. And
beginning in the early 1980s while he was still
working at Cato, Childs himself began telling people that he was no longer
an anarchist. [3]
But what other result was possible? The only strength free-market
anarchism ever had against the limited-statists and constitutionalists
was its arguments. They enjoyed the numbers, the money, and the key
positions
in the organizations and publications. Once anarchism stopped wielding
its only weapon (its decisive weapon), it could expect no
other outcome than the marginalization it now enjoys. As Rand warned:
"When
opposite basic principles are clearly and openly defined, it works to the
advantage of the rational side; when they are not clearly defined, but
are hidden or evaded, it works to the advantage of the irrational side."
[4]
Anarchism, "hard" and "soft"
In general, the primary value of anarchism to political theory is that
it serves as a constant reminder that the state does not exist in nature —
it is a thing created by man, and its existence, like any of man's undertakings,
demands justification: why should anyone engage in those activities
that create or sustain it? What justifies the obedience that a man, born
free, is required to give it? In any discussion of political theory, however
casual, there is almost always offered a cursory (and usually not entirely
respectful) acknowledgement that anarchism is, as it were, the "default
setting" of reality, and some reason is offered, usually perfunctorily,
that purports to show that of course "we" need the state. The reasons are
not always coherent, but the point is that political theory is unable to
escape the obligation it senses to anarchism — the obligation of rejecting
it. (It is interesting that hardly any other of man's undertakings labors
under such an obligation. There is no a-numerism that the mathematician
must dispose of before presenting his theorems, no a-dipictionalism that
the art scholar must confront before getting on with his work, no
an-astronomy
to be rebutted before the wonderstruck begin plotting the heavenly
movements.)
But let us suppose that the nonanarchist philosopher has made
his case against the "hard" anarchist, against the claim that government
is inherently illegitimate. Let us suppose, that is, that government can
be justified, that legitimate coercive rule is possible.
It does not follow that any particular government
is legitimate. At any given time, there may be no legitimate government
ruling a particular people. Indeed, at any given time, there may be no
legitimate government on the face of the earth. It would even be possible
for the nonanarchist to be right, but for there never to have actually
been a single legitimate government in the history of the world. I recall
the look of victory in the face of a man when I conceded his point that
if God were so inclined, he could decree that a particular government was
legitimate. He quickly learned the true worth of my concession, however,
when I asked him whether he thought he could demonstrate that any
government
in the Christian era had ever been so favored.
Certainly in the arguments of Wheeler, Opitz, Hospers, Machan,
and Stoddard mentioned above, and those of the ill-fated St. John, there
was never any attempt to counter this "soft" anarchism and to show that
the U.S. government, for example, was a legitimate government. Ayn Rand
— though adamant that monopoly government was necessary —
never argued
for the legitimacy of the U.S. government. She accepted it as a defender
of rights, but she never gave us any argument for supposing that the
particular
governing body performing that function or, a fortiori, that the particular
governing body that prohibited everyone else from performing that function,
did so by right. She never showed that it had come justly by its monopoly
on the use of force. It was merely here, and was, therefore, apparently
legitimate in its claims. Yet she heaped legendary scorn on similar arguments
about the existence of wealth. [5]
Once the "No Treason" arguments of Lysander Spooner became
well-known
in the libertarian movement, it would have taken a hearty soul indeed to
have undertaken to prove that the U.S. government had ever been legitimate.
But let us suppose that even that obstacle could be overcome. Let us suppose
that the U.S. government — whether under the Articles of
Confederation
or under the Constitution — was once legitimate.
It does not follow that it remains legitimate.
Legitimacy, after all, does not nourish itself; it is not some
perpetual motion machine. If a government can be legitimate, it is so because
it possesses certain qualities. If it casts aside the qualities that define
its legitimacy, it redefines itself as newly illegitimate.
It is not enough, then, for someone who believes that the American
state is legitimate to make his case — he must keep making it. With every
new act, a government risks its legitimacy, and a government that acts
as often and through as many agencies as the
United
State has would retain its legitimacy, if at all, against very long odds.
[6]
A declaration of illegitimacy
In this great outpost of Western civilization, anarchism enjoys an even
greater advantage: the rulers of other countries may attempt to circumvent
the challenge of anarchism and claim that their mere existence, their mere
holding of power conveys legitimacy to them. They may even claim that that
power is self-justifying. They may, that is, claim that the very concept
"illegitimate government" is invalid. That tack is not open to the rulers
of this country or their apologists.
This country owes its existence to an act of political rebellion
that logically demands the possibility of a government's being illegitimate.
If existence is sufficient to make rule legitimate, then the heroes of
the Revolutionary War overthrew legitimate rule; their own rule, then,
is illegitimate. But if the U.S. government is legitimate, then British
rule was not. In short, the U.S. government is legitimate if and only if
the concept "illegitimate rule" is a valid concept.
To be sure, American history and traditions are not alone in embodying
the validity of the concept "illegitimate government": what European power
today does not have the blood of a previous governing body or ruling family
on its hands? What makes America's relationship to the concept uniquely
virile is that she did not come into being as a result of one group's
overthrowing
another; the legitimacy of her rulers — if they are legitimate — does
not
rest on their supposedly superior claims to rule or on the basis of conquest.
Rather, America was born from a document — a document that I regard
as
coming about as close to being a sacred document as something of a
non-divine
origin is ever likely to come. In a document that spelled out the reasons
for rebellion against existing rule, the founders of the U.S. government
spelled out conditions under which they themselves might be overthrown.
It is true that, strictly speaking, the Declaration of Independence
has no legal standing. No law and no judicial finding can ever be based
on it. Even so, while it may be true that one who rejects its claim on
our conscience, our polity, and our loyalty does not forfeit his claim
to the legacy of the West, nevertheless, in some sense, he would be an
alien in this outpost of it.
Let us review that document, being careful not to read too quickly
over words that are so familiar to us: "We hold these Truths to be self-evident,
that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator
with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and
the pursuit of Happiness — That to secure these Rights, Governments
are
instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the
Governed...."
That's far enough for now. Note that it does not purport to list
all our rights; it lists three, and it does so in language that can mean
no other than that there are more rights, and that they, too, are self-evident.
It tells us the purpose of government. It is not to protect us from one
another or from criminals. It is not to protect our shores or our boundaries.
It is not to promote peace. It is not to regulate the economy or run schools
or build highways. Yet whenever someone learns that I am an anarchist,
the first objection I almost always hear is, "But how would you do X without
a government?" And X is always some activity of modern government not
even
mentioned in this sacred document.
The only reason the Declaration gives for the existence of governments
— and it has said that this reason is self-evident — is to secure our
rights.
Nothing else. Anyone who gives precedence to any other purpose is preparing
to forfeit his noble heritage as a free man at the outset.
Let us continue. Keep in mind that the signers are still listing
truths they hold to be self-evident: "that whenever any Form of Government
becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter
or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its Foundation
on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them
shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.... [W]hen
a long Train of Abuses and Usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object,
evinces a Design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their Right,
it is their Duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards
for their future Security."
There can be no doubt that the Permanent Regime of the United
State has evinced its design to reduce us under absolute Despotism. Think
of the worst tyranny prior to the 20th century you ever heard of. Insofar
as the minutiae of your life are concerned, the U.S. government exercises
a greater power over you than the one you thought of ever did over its
subjects. And it seeks to acquire even greater power. If the 1996 campaign
season taught us anything at all, it was that if we will just listen, we
will hear the voices of men who wish to exercise tyranny over us. We will
hear them telling us how much more power they want and how much more
they
intend to seek and, obtaining it, to exercise. We heard none of the top
three contenders tell us how much power he would divest himself of.
One need not admire the Declaration of Independence to see that
the Permanent Regime is despotic, that it is a tyranny, that it usurps
its purported role to secure our rights at every turn, and in every branch.
Nor are we compelled to regard the reasons supplied by the Declaration
to be the only ones that establish a regime's despotic character. What
are we to make of the fact that this government, through its schools, may
be the first in the history of man actually to attempt to debauch children?
Children in kindergarten and first grade are taught things that can have
no purpose but to rob them of their innocence. One state school district
promotes homosexuality to kindergartners and first-graders. Another
permitted
coercive genital examinations of little girls without their parents' knowledge;
and the administrators unabashedly insisted that they did nothing
wrong in allowing it, indeed that the laws required the examinations. [7]
Others may detect despotism in the tax burden. It is not so high
as that of the European democracies, but since when have they been our
measure of liberty? And it is not just the amount, though that would be
sufficient, but also that on which it is spent. Thomas Jefferson said,
"To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation
of opinions he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical." But what
do the various agencies of government do other than use the money they
extort from us to propagandize for further expansion of the government?
Cabinet officials testify before Congress to support spending bills that
put more extorted funds and more usurped power at their disposal. The
Regime
uses extorted tax funds to promote its agenda in other ways: for example,
government agencies pay the Ad Council to design ads (some of which
denounce
that part of the population that smokes cigarettes, people who have paid
taxes and have purchased a product whose production the government
subsidized)
and to buy time on television to run those ads.
Some detect despotism in the permitting of abortion — and the
concomitant effort to harvest babies for medical research. Without entering
into the debate concerning abortion and fetal-tissue research, how can
anyone doubt that there is something hateful in the effort to force opponents
to join in paying for what they regard as the slaughter of innocents?
Still others detect despotism in the crime rate — the rate, that
is, of crimes committed by unlicensed criminals. There is no measuring
the crimes committed by those authorized by the government to commit them
— but not authorized by the people from whose consent its just powers
are
said to derive. When it appears that even unlicensed crime cannot be opposed
successfully, the arguments that would establish the legitimacy of a
government
begin to lose the little strength they had. Irreformability
Yes, the United State has behind it a long train of abuses and usurpations
indeed. Not one of them has made us more secure in our liberty. Each of
us may have his own starting place for reciting them: Lincoln, Wilson,
the second Roosevelt. Whatever the starting place, the train of abuses
and usurpations is long.
And there is only one inference the Declaration of Independence
provides for men who are earnest about their liberty. Let us recite it
together: "It is our Right, it is our Duty, to throw off such Government."
It is our right, of course, to attempt to reform such a government;
it is our right, of course, to labor under that despotism, grumbling and
hoping that despots will come to their senses. Or die. Or get religion.
Or something. Indeed, the Declaration tells us that we can expect such
responses: "[A]ll Experience hath shown, that Mankind are more disposed
to suffer, while Evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing
the Forms to which they are accustomed."
But to endure an evil is not to endow it with any moral standing.
Can a despotism, can tyranny be reformed? To suppose that it can be is
the premise on which all partisan politics rests. It is a treasured belief,
that if only the right people can be gotten into office then all will be
well. It is the confidence in the righteousness of the American people,
which some use as evidence that justice will prevail even within a government
that no longer enjoys its citizens' trust or respect.
But those sentiments in fact overlook the vast truth that the
American state is illegitimate. The very belief that it can be reformed
is a belief that it is legitimate.
The fundamental, inescapable fact of tyranny is this: Tyranny
is irreformable.
It can be opposed; it can be overthrown; it can simply decay;
it can be defeated by an outside force. It cannot be reformed. It can only
be replaced. Illegitimate government is irreformable; the reform it most
needs is that to which it is not subject: it needs to become legitimate.
Once a state is illegitimate, it has lost all just claims to loyalty
and to obedience. It cannot regain them through its own efforts. Sovereignty
is in the hands of those whose actions (notionally) create a legitimate
state in the first place. Once a state is illegitimate, it cannot make
itself legitimate; it must be removed and those who create legitimate states
must start over. If the concept "legitimate government" has any meaning,
its meaning must come from outside itself, or else all governments could
be legitimate just in virtue of existing. If a government has lost its
legitimacy, it must go outside itself to the source of legitimacy.
Those who would attempt to, as it were, "carry legitimacy into
the state" by reforming it are presupposing that their own elections or
appointments are legitimate in virtue of being legal. But "legality" is
imparted by the state, and, in this case, by an illegitimate state. Partisan
politics is the home turf of the state, not of free men engaged in writing
a social contract. Moreover, when one engages the state in that arena,
he engages it where it enjoys all the advantages.
There are those who reply that one cannot affect a thing from
the outside; one can guide the terms of the debate and the formulation
of policy only from within. Let us suppose that that is true. I am not
here arguing the prudence or the goodness of any actions. I am not arguing
strategies or tactics. I am arguing that such-and-such is the case. To
reply to any of my arguments that "You can't win that way" is to utterly
miss the point. What I am saying is either true or false. Once that's settled,
we can discuss tactics. But attempting to arrive at tactics without facing
up to the truths of our plight is foolish, dishonest, and, ultimately,
calamitous.
That aside, I agree that one can formulate the policy of a state
only from within. But if a state is illegitimate, what kind of policy will
it be, except an illegitimate one? In a tyranny, even if "the right people"
are elected, and they enact the so-called needed reforms, the state remains
illegitimate. It has lost its claim to rule justly, and it cannot regain
it by its own efforts: a new "social contract" must be written. The only
way that an illegitimate state can promote legitimate rule is to stay out
of the way of those who, according to whatever theory of government they
have concerning legitimacy, are rewriting the social contract that creates
a legitimate state. (I, of course, contend that no such theory is coherent.)
One interesting variant of the argument about affecting social
policy recalls the counsel of Michael Corleone:
"Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer." [8]
While one hesitates to contradict the wisdom of Don Michael, it must be
noted that it is his advice, not the advice of one attempting to undermine
him; it is not the advice, for instance, of the traitor Sal Tessio. Don
Michael well understood that keeping one's enemies close was an advantage
to the stronger of two opponents. It does not appear to have done the weaker
of the two much good. From a position of strength, Don Michael saw with
complete clarity just how effective his enemies could hope to be by staying
close to him; he knew who was the beneficiary of such advice.
At root, then, one simply cannot infiltrate a criminal organization
and trick it into becoming Goodwill Industries or the City on the Hill.
The infiltrator, the double agent, the undercover agent can accomplish
his work only by being of service to the organization he attempts to defeat.
Such tactics may be useful against relatively weak opponents — such as
the Five Families. Against the Permanent Regime they count for absurdly
little.
Anyone with eyes and an honest heart can see that the Regime under
which we suffer is tyrannical. Rulers are not tyrants because of how they
are chosen or because of what their proclaimed
purposes are. Rulers are tyrants because of the power they hold. [9]
And the massive power that is held against Americans is held unjustly.
It is a short step from that understanding to recognizing that the Regime
under which we suffer is therefore illegitimate. Tyranny is illegitimate.
What could be simpler?
Throwing off the state
It has been one of the purposes of The Last Ditch to argue and to show
that this Regime is of such power that it cannot be profitably taken on.
The day may come when it is weakened sufficiently that the case is otherwise.
The day may come when it is weakened or overthrown by some outside
power.
But until that day, it is strong, and we are weak. Pretending to work for
it, hoping thereby to plant the seeds of its destruction in its very heart,
is useless: the one who attempts it must, by the logic of his position,
end up actually performing services for it. The only heart that is in danger
of destruction is the one that beats within the infiltrator. His wealth,
his position, his security all come to depend, at the last, on the ability
of the state to pay him, to employ him, to make use of him. How long can
an honest heart endure that onslaught before fleeing — or sinking into
the corruption he thought to redress?
I have agreed that it is our right to throw off illegitimate government.
It is even our duty to do so. If we are foes of the Permanent Regime, how
can we exercise that right, how satisfy that duty? Revolution, though justified,
is simply not possible — for now. But can one believe that this
government
is illegitimate without waging — still less, calling for — revolution
or
insurrection against it?
There are respects in which we are free to throw off this government,
respects which in no way expose us to the fury of the state or its minions.
Thus, I am not talking about tax rebellion or paramilitary resistance.
To agree that such actions are just and justified is not at all to counsel
them; one does not counsel imprudent action, and risking one's house being
surrounded by federal strike forces ("peace officers"!) is imprudent. No,
it is not necessary to break unjust laws in order to throw off some little
part of the slavery that has been imposed on us.
It is not the state's fury that will oppose us if we begin to
throw off its hold on us; it is our own frailty, weakness, fear, and cowardice.
I do not say these things to insult, and I say them to myself as well as
to anyone else. I say them to draw attention to the enemies we will
face if we dare to contemplate this self-liberation. If we cannot muster
the courage to meet those foes, what hope can we possibly entertain that
co-operation with the state will reform it or that opposition will bring
it down?
Instead of taking the course I shall discuss in a moment, people
are willing to take on less-demanding courses that tie them to the state,
and this precisely because they do not dare to take on the more-demanding
one. They are willing to take on those courses that appear to make it possible
both to oppose the state and to earn a living. They may not be as opulently
successful in this as they would like, but it must be agreed that the prospect
of making a living by attempting to bring down the state is tempting.
The purpose I am discussing, however, is not to bring down the
state; it is to liberate ourselves from it, insofar as we are able. It
is to weaken its hold on us. The mere fact that it is difficult to take
even one of the actions I have in mind is evidence that the state holds
us by means of them and by them holds us tightly.
There can be no doubt that accepting anything from the Regime
chains us to it. He who pays the piper calls the tune, and we have seen
the Regime call the tune against everyone from state highway commissions
to private universities that — refusing to accept federal money —
nevertheless
accepted students receiving federal money. And lately it has taken aim
against even military academies. If most individuals have not yet been
targeted, it is only because the time is not quite right.
But the Regime knows — regimes have always known — that
its gifts
are not free, and neither are their recipients. As long ago as the dawn
of the fourth century B.C., Socrates is reputed to have accepted arguments that
the state's gifts created obligations that outweighed even his right to
flee an unjust sentence of death! [10]
It is true that it is difficult to avoid completely the state's
generosity with the money it has extorted from its populace. But we can
draw our lines, and surely one place to draw those lines is on its checks.
We are each of us free not to cash or deposit another government
check. Ever. We know that the state has no money of its own; it has no
property of its own from which it may pay the unfathomably enormous debts
it has created by its wickedness. It has only what it can freshly extort
from those it rules. The Social Security check, the paycheck, the pension
check, the dividend on a Treasury security, the payment for a fulfilled
contract ... even a judicially mandated settlement in a legal dispute with
the state — none of them belongs in any sense to the person to whom
they
are made payable. That person's money or property is long gone — spent
on who knows what war, what housing project, what NEA grant to urinary
art, or what bar tab from one of Hazel O'Leary's junkets? [Ed. note (2004)
— O'Leary was a Minister of Energy for the Clintonistas.]
The proof that I would offer that the money honest men receive
from the state represents a form of slavery is that recipients so often
find that they cannot give it up. Slaves in the Old Confederacy found it
easier to get to Canada than modern Americans do to give up transfer
payments.
Moreover, one seldom found the slave of the Old Confederacy who
would argue against weakening his bonds:
"I earned this money," says this one. "You received it in exchange
for being the willing assistant to the enslaver of your neighbors," I reply.
"Do not violate the purity of the concept 'earning' by applying it to your
service to a criminal gang."
"These are the returns on prudent investments," another says.
"Your dividends were stolen from your neighbors," I reply.
"This money was stolen from me," protests another.
"I have a right to get back what I can." "Then be a man, and take
it back," I reply. "Don't rely on your extorter to give you
some portion of what he has extorted from another."
"This is my job," still another says. "Get an honest one," I reply.
Yes, these are all harsh words, and they are no easier to say
than they are to hear. I know that to give up this friendship with the
Permanent Regime would mean financial ruin in some cases. I know that it
would mean "mere" hardship in others. And I know that it means fear and
uncertainty for all. But also, it means the beginning of throwing off the
state.
Facts are facts, and no one is the better for blanking them out.
The American state is illegitimate; its activities are in some cases the
cause of its being illegitimate, in others the consequence of it. Those
of its activities that do not actually destroy wealth extort it; it has
no other means at its disposal to acquire wealth. Take its money, and you
take the fruits of extortion — it is not too great an exaggeration to call
it blood money.
So
to one who wishes to free himself from the state, I say that I have shown
him a place to start, one that risks no criminal penalties. He may not
If we cannot bring ourselves to throw off
tyrannical government
when it is safe to do so and if we cannot bring ourselves to show contempt
for the Permanent Regime's attempt to weave us into its web of extortion,
how can we ever hope to be true sons of Liberty? Ω © 1996 by Ronn Neff. All rights
reserved.
Posted in 1999 by WTM
Enterprises.
To Mr. Neff's second article,
To the Ronn Neff contents page.
NOTES 2. The essay was "News in Focus: The Death of a Daily Newspaper," The
Objectivist, June and July 1967. It was fairly clear that many of those
attending the conference were hoping that St. John would once and for all
vindicate Objectivist polity and the so-called limited state. The
disappointment
of many of those attending the conference was almost palpable.
Some of the less-pivotal discussions from the same period were
an essay by Jarret Wollstein defending free-market anarchism, which
appeared
in Reason in 1970, followed by an extensive set of objections from Jim
Stoddard and others to which I replied in Reason's undated (vol. 2, no.
9) issue. Vol. 2, no. 10 (January 1971) contained Tibor Machan's "A Note
on Neff's Anarchism." I countered (in "A Note on Machan's Anarchism," The
Individualist, March 1971, pp. 11-12) that Machan's position rested entirely
on arguments that implied anarchism, not limited statism. [Back]
3. No one seems to know precisely why he made this change. The editor
of a collection of his essays tells us that he made it known in a 1987
book review, but I know that the change dated from much earlier than that,
for he told me of it in 1982 or 1983. He would not give his reasons — he
said he was planning a movement-shaking book that would explain
everything,
and he didn't want to give anything away — but they had something to
do
with events in Lebanon and something to do with Rothbard's own discussions
of what defense markets would look like. [Back]
4. "Anatomy of Compromise," The Objectivist Newsletter, January 1964,
p. 1. [Back]
5. Atlas Shrugged (New York: Signet Books, 1957), p. 968.
[Back]
6. I am borrowing the apposite phrase "United State" from Nicholas
Strakon.
It is a commonplace that before the War of 1861-1865 (which still lacks
an appropriate, generally accepted name) people said, "The United States
are
... " and that afterward they said, "The United States
is
... " Strakon has replied, Very well, let's take them and that
singular verb at their word. And who can disagree? [Back]
7. The first case involves the San Francisco Unified School District.
The second involves the East Stroudsburg (Pennsylvania) Area School
District,
where, this past March [1996], some 58 11-year-old girls were examined for
genital
warts. The children were not allowed to call their parents, and a nurse
blocked the door to prevent their escaping.
In an earlier age, fathers with bullwhips and shotguns might have
done a little educating themselves. In our age, the same agitated fathers
file lawsuits seeking punitive damages — punitive damages which, of
course,
will be paid out of tax revenues taken from themselves and their neighbors.
They seem not to notice the implications for themselves of someone's paying
money for having examined their daughters' genitals. They further seem
not to recognize that by suing at all they acknowledge, even presuppose,
that they are willing to abide by the court's decision. But should any
man accept even the remote possibility of another's deciding that such
violations could be justified? Should any man accept even the remote
possibility
that he should have to abide by such a decision? [Back]
8. An acquaintance who until recently worked for a lobby is particularly
fond of this counsel. [Back]
9. I take this formulation from a speech Dean Russell gave at the
Foundation
for Economic Education (FEE) in 1950. The speech, "Wards of the
Government,"
is reprinted in the January 1997 issue of Freedom Daily, pp. 35-43. The
formulation cited appears on page 41. [Back]
10. Plato, Crito 49B-51A. When the Laws of the City address Socrates
in the imaginary dialogue, they also make clear that once having given
consent to be ruled by them, a man's only avenue of defense against them
is to attempt to convince them that their commands are unjust. That is,
they insist that the proper avenue of reform is to participate in the
policymaking
functions of the City. We know how much good such an effort did Socrates.
It is difficult not to suspect that "the Laws" know very well in advance
what the outcome of such efforts will be, and that that is precisely
why
they promote that avenue of defense. [Back]
be able to keep the state from robbing him every payday. He may not be
able to keep the state from conscripting his children or from kidnapping
them to serve time in one of its so-called schools. He may not be able
to keep the state from corrupting the health care system or from debauching
his own daughter. But he doesn't have to take money for it.
"The
seizure of dissent."
1. Charles Wheeler now goes by "Jack Wheeler," and is best known in
libertarian circles as a writer for Strategic Investment. Hospers's book,
Libertarianism,
published in 1971 in hardback by Nash Publishing, met with an enthusiastic
greeting from all factions. In his attempted refutation of anarchism, Hospers
did not cite the Wheeler piece. An unfortunate consequence of the book's
popularity was that it immediately displaced Jerome Tuccille's earlier
Radical
Libertarianism, which, unlike Hospers's book, had been published
by a major publisher (Bobbs-Merrill in hardback, Harper and Row in
paperback).
[Back]