The
non-aggression principle (also called the
non-aggression axiom,
anti-coercion principle, or
zero aggression principle) is a deontological ethical stance associated with the
Anarcho-capitalistAnarcho-capitalism is an individualist anarchist political philosophy that advocates the elimination of the state and the elevation of the sovereign individual in a free market...
school of
LibertarianismLibertarianism is a term adopted by a broad spectrum of political philosophies which advocate the maximization of individual liberty and the minimization or even abolition of the state...
(
consequentialist libertariansConsequentialist libertarianism refers to the view that liberty leads to favorable consequences, such as prosperity or efficiency, and for that reason should be supported, advocated, and maximized...
do not base their libertarianism on it). It is an
axiomIn traditional logic, an axiom or postulate is a proposition that is not proved or demonstrated but considered to be either self-evident, or subject to necessary decision...
of some forms of
anarchismAnarchism is a political philosophy encompassing theories and attitudes which consider the state, as compulsory government, to be unnecessary, harmful, and/or undesirable, and favors the absence of the state ....
, and also held by many political
conservativesConservatism is the diverse political and social philosophy that supports tradition and the status quo, or that calls for a return to the values and society of an earlier age, the status quo ante. However, the term has been used by politicians and political commentators with a variety of meanings...
,
traditionalistsThe word tradition comes from the Latin traditionem, acc. of traditio which means "handing over, passing on", and is used in a number of ways in the English language:...
and natural law theory. The principle of non-aggression exists in various forms in the faith traditions of
JudaismJudaism is a set of beliefs and practices originating in the Hebrew Bible , as later further explored and explained in the Talmud and other texts...
,
ChristianityChristianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as presented by the revelations in the New Testament....
, and
IslamIslam Islam Islam ( al-’islām,
[There are ten pronunciations of Islam in English, differing in whether the first or second syllable has the stress, whether the s is or , and whether the a is pronounced as in father, as in cat, or (when the stress is on the i) as in the a of sofa...]
as well as Eastern philosophies such as
ConfucianismConfucianism is a Chinese ethical and philosophical system developed from the teachings of the Chinese philosopher Confucius . It is a complex system of moral, social, political, philosophical, and quasi-religious thought that has had tremendous influence on the culture and history of East Asia...
. It holds that "aggression", which is defined as the
initiation of physical force, the threat of such, or fraud upon persons or their property, is inherently illegitimate. In contrast to
pacifismPacifism is the opposition to war or violence as a means of settling disputes or gaining advantage. Pacifism covers a spectrum of views ranging from the belief that international disputes can and should be peacefully resolved; to calls for the abolition of the institutions of the military and war;...
, the non-aggression principle does not preclude defense.
Right wing-libertarians typically believe that the non-aggression principle includes
propertyProperty is any physical or intangible entity that is owned by a person or jointly by a group of persons. Depending on the nature of the property, an owner of property has the right to consume, sell, rent, mortgage, transfer, exchange or destroy his or her property, and/or to exclude others from...
as a part of the owner; to aggress against someone's property is to aggress against the individual. Thus, the principle leads to the rejection of
theftIn criminal law, theft is the illegal taking of another person's property without that person's freely-given consent. The word is also used as an informal shorthand term for some crimes against property, such as burglary, embezzlement, larceny, looting, robbery, shoplifting, fraud and sometimes...
,
vandalismVandalism is the behaviour attributed to the Vandals, by the Romans, in respect of culture: ruthless destruction or spoiling of anything beautiful or venerable...
,
murderMurder, as defined in common law countries, is the unlawful killing of another human being with intent , and generally this state of mind distinguishes murder from other forms of unlawful homicide...
and
fraudIn the broadest sense, a fraud is an intentional deception made for personal gain or to damage another individual. The specific legal definition varies by legal jurisdiction. Fraud is a crime, and is also a civil law violation....
. When applied to governments, it has been taken to prohibit many policies including taxation, the military draft, and individual participation in non-defensive state wars. When taken to the logical conclusion,
anarchists argue that it calls for abolition of the state itself and protecting individuals from aggression through voluntary payments rather than taxation.
The United States Libertarian Party and others view it as an essential tenet of all
libertarianLibertarianism is a term adopted by a broad spectrum of political philosophies which advocate the maximization of individual liberty and the minimization or even abolition of the state...
thought. The principle has been derived by various philosophical approaches, including
natural lawNatural law or the law of nature is a theory that posits the existence of a law whose content is set by nature and that therefore has validity everywhere. The phrase natural law is opposed to the positive law of a given political community, society, or nation-state, and thus can function as a...
, contractarianism, and
ObjectivismObjectivism is the philosophy developed by the Russian-American philosopher and novelist, Ayn Rand. Objectivism holds that reality exists independent of consciousness; that individual persons are in direct contact with this reality through sensory perception; that human beings can gain objective...
.
Murray RothbardMurray Newton Rothbard was an American intellectual, individualist anarchist, author, and economist of the Austrian School who helped define modern libertarianism and popularized a form of free-market anarchism he termed "anarcho-capitalism"...
derived the principle from
self-ownershipSelf-ownership is the concept of property in one's own person, expressed as the moral or natural right of a person to be the exclusive controller of his or her own body and life. According to G...
.
Ayn RandAyn Rand , was a Russian-American novelist, philosopher, playwright, and screenwriter. She is known for her best-selling novels and for developing a philosophical system she called Objectivism....
derived it from the
right to lifeRight to life is a phrase that describes the belief that a human being has an essential right to live, particularly that a human being has the right not to be killed by another human being...
.
Stefan MolyneuxStefan Molyneux is a blogger, essayist, author, and host of the Freedomain Radio series of podcasts, living in Mississauga, Canada...
validated it through the application of his
Universally preferable behaviour of rational morality. However, some espouse the principle as a simple matter of personal preference.
Historical background
A form of the non-aggression principle can be traced back to
EpicurusEpicurus was an ancient Greek philosopher and the founder of the school of philosophy called Epicureanism.Only a few fragments and letters remain of Epicurus's 300 written works...
, who wrote, "The justice of nature is a pledge of reciprocal usefulness, neither to harm one another nor be harmed."
Historically, the non-aggression principle supersedes an earlier formulation by
Herbert SpencerHerbert Spencer was an English philosopher, prominent classical liberal political theorist, and sociological theorist of the Victorian era....
, called the law of equal freedom: "Every man is free to do that which he wills, provided he infringes not the equal freedom of any other man." This notion of equal freedom goes back to earlier liberal thought. For example,
Mary WollstonecraftMary Wollstonecraft was an eighteenth-century British writer, philosopher, and feminist. During her brief career, she wrote novels, treatises, a travel narrative, a history of the French Revolution, a conduct book, and a children's book...
, in "Vindication of the Rights of Men" (1790), wrote, "The birthright of man ... is such a degree of liberty, civil and religious, as is compatible with the liberty of every other individual with whom he is united in a social compact, and the continued existence of that compact."
http://oll.libertyfund.org/Home3/Book.php?recordID=0532
Nevertheless, there are precursors of the NAP. In
On the Duty of Man and Citizen (1682)
Samuel von Pufendorf-In 1670 Pufendorf was called to the University of Lund. His sojourn there was fruitful. In 1672 appeared the De jure naturae et gentium libri octo, and in 1675 a résumé of it under the title of De officio hominis et civis , which, among other topics, gave his analysis of just war theory.In the De...
wrote, "Among the absolute duties, i.e., of anybody to anybody, the first place belongs to this one: let no one injure another. For this is the broadest of all duties, embracing all men as such."
http://www.constitution.org/puf/puf-dut_106.htm. The Islamic theologians
Abu Mansur Al MaturidiMuhammad Abu Mansur al-Maturidi was a Persian Muslim theologian, and a scholar of Islamic jurisprudence and Qur'anic exegesis. Al Maturidi is one of the pioneers of Islamic Jurisprudence scholars and his two works are considered to be authoritative on the subject...
, Ibn Qayyim Al-Jawziyya and the philosopher
AverroesAbū 'l-Walīd Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn Rushd , better known just as Ibn Rushd , and in European literature as Averroes , was an Andalusian Muslim polymath of Moroccan origins; a master of Islamic philosophy, Islamic theology, Maliki law and jurisprudence, logic, psychology, politics, Arabic music...
wrote that man could rationally know that man had a right to life and property. Natural law theorist
Murray RothbardMurray Newton Rothbard was an American intellectual, individualist anarchist, author, and economist of the Austrian School who helped define modern libertarianism and popularized a form of free-market anarchism he termed "anarcho-capitalism"...
traces the non-aggression principle to natural law theorist St. Thomas Aquinas and the early Thomist scholastics of the Salamanca school
http://www.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/rothbard135.html. In
Second Treatise on Government John Locke is the most well known Enlightenment classical liberal to exposit the non-aggression principle. Locke, according to some modern scholars, was influenced by Islamic philosopher Ibn Tufayl who in Hayy ibn Yaqzan discussed the life story of a baby living alone without prior knowledge who discovered natural law, and natural rights, which obliged man not to coerce against another's life or property. Ibn Tufayl influenced Locke's notion of
Tabula RasaTabula rasa refers to the epistemological thesis that individuals are born without built-in mental content and that their knowledge comes from experience and perception....
. Locke wrote, "Being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions."
http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl302/texts/locke/locke2/locke2nd-a.html#Sect.%206. Thomas JeffersonThomas Jefferson was the third President of the United States , the principal author of the Declaration of Independence , and one of the most influential Founding Fathers for his promotion of the ideals of republicanism in the United States...
wrote, "Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add ‘within the limits of the law’, because law is often but the tyrant’s will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual." and "No man has a natural right to commit aggression on the equal rights of another, and this is all from which the laws ought to restrain him." Another formulation pertaining to government (as opposed to individual conduct) was
John Stuart MillJohn Stuart Mill , English philosopher, political theorist, political economist, civil servant and Member of Parliament, was an influential liberal thinker of the 19th century whose works on liberty justified freedom of the individual in opposition to unlimited state control...
's
harm principleThe harm principle is articulated most clearly in John Stuart Mill'sOn Liberty, though it is also articulated in John Locke's Second Treatise of Government and in the work of Wilhelm von Humboldt, to whom Mill is obliged and discusses at length...
, which states that "the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others".
Early formulations that use terms such as "harm" or "injury," such as those of Epicurus and Mill above, are today generally considered imprecise. "Harm" and "injury" are too subjective; one man's harm may be another man's benefit. For example, a squatter may make "improvements" that the owner considers detrimental. Modern formulations avoid such subjectivity by formulating the NAP in terms of
individual rightsIndividual rights refer to the rights of individuals, in contrast with group rights. An individual right is the sanction of independent action. Both natural and legal conceptions or rights may distinguish between individual and group rights, although natural rights theories often limit themselves...
or observable conduct (
initiation of force/violence).
Formulations
Probably the earliest formulation of the NAP was made by
Ayn RandAyn Rand , was a Russian-American novelist, philosopher, playwright, and screenwriter. She is known for her best-selling novels and for developing a philosophical system she called Objectivism....
. In an essay called "Man's Rights" in the book "The Virtue of Selfishness" (1961) she wrote, "The precondition of a civilized society is the barring of physical force from social relationships. ... In a civilized society, force may be used only in retaliation and only against those who initiate its use."
http://www.ccsindia.org/ccsindia/lssreader/2lssreader.pdf Note that she stipulated the context - civilized society. Later,
Murray RothbardMurray Newton Rothbard was an American intellectual, individualist anarchist, author, and economist of the Austrian School who helped define modern libertarianism and popularized a form of free-market anarchism he termed "anarcho-capitalism"...
echoed, "No one may threaten or commit violence ('aggress') against another man's person or property. Violence may be employed only against the man who commits such violence; that is, only defensively against the aggressive violence of another. In short, no violence may be employed against a nonaggressor. Here is the fundamental rule from which can be deduced the entire corpus of libertarian theory."
L. Neil SmithL. Neil Smith , also known to readers and fans as El Neil, is a Libertarian science fiction author and political activist. He was born on May 12 1946 in Denver...
, the libertarian science fiction writer, claims, "No one has the right, under any circumstances, to initiate force against another human being, nor to delegate its initiation." This is considered an imprecise formulation, since it explicitly ignores context. Walter Block phrases it in legal terms, saying, "It shall be legal for anyone to do anything he wants, provided only that he not initiate (or threaten) violence against the person or legitimately owned property of another."
http://www.lewrockwell.com/block/block26.html
Criticism
The non-aggression principle faces three kinds of criticism: the first holds that the principle is immoral, the second argues that it is impossible to apply consistently in practice, while the third holds that the interpretation of the principle is too ambiguous to be useful; respectively, the consequentialist criticism, the inconsistency criticism, and the ambiguity criticism.
Consequentialist criticism
This moral criticism is based on
consequentialistConsequentialism refers to those moral theories which hold that the consequences of a particular action form the basis for any valid moral judgment about that action . Thus, from a consequentialist standpoint, a morally right action is one that produces a good outcome, or consequence...
ethicsEthics is a branch of philosophy which seeks to address questions about morality, such as what the fundamental semantic, ontological, and epistemic nature of ethics or morality is , how moral values should be determined , how a moral outcome can be achieved in specific situations , how moral...
, usually
utilitarianismUtilitarianism is the idea that the moral worth of an action is determined solely by its contribution to overall utility: that is, its contribution to happiness or pleasure as summed among all people...
. It holds that the non-aggression principle is unethical because it opposes the initiation of force even when the results of such initiation would be better than the results of any other course of action. Suppose, for instance, that you could save a million lives by killing one innocent man. The non-aggression principle holds that you should not kill that man. But this leads to a million deaths. Such extreme situations are unlikely, but opponents of the non-aggression principle argue that milder forms of the same dilemma (for example the choice between taking away part of a wealthy man's property or allowing a poor person to starve) are very common. Of course, many formulations, such as Rothbard's and Block's, avoid this objection by either specifying that the NAP only applies to a civilized context (and not 'lifeboat situations') or that it applies only to legal rights (as opposed to general morality.) Thus a starving man may, in consonance with general morality, break into a hunting cabin and steal food, but nevertheless he is aggressing, i.e. violating the NAP, and (by most rectification theories) should pay compensation.
Some consequentialist libertarians promote the non-aggression principle by basing its advocacy on forms of consequentialism such as
rule utilitarianismRule utilitarianism is a form of utilitarianism which states that moral actions are those which conform to the rules which lead to the greatest good, or that "the rightness or wrongness of a particular action is a function of the correctness of the rule of which it is an instance." For rule...
and
rule egoismRule egoism is the doctrine under which an individual evaluates the optimal set of rules according to whether conformity to those rules bring the most benefit to himself....
. These utilitarians do not believe that it is immoral to engage in aggression, but because they believe situations where aggression would lead to the best consequences are rare, they promote the non-aggression principle with the justification that if others accept it as a rule it would lead to better consequences than if they did not accept it as a rule. They believe the consequences of advocating the rule are superior to advocating that other individuals attempt to calculate each of their own actions to determine whether aggression or non-aggression would lead to better consequences. Other consequentialist libertarians do not promote the non-aggression principle at all; they simply believe that allowing a very large scope of political and economic liberty results in the maximum well-being or efficiency for a society, even if securing this liberty involves some governmental actions that would be considered violations of the non-aggression principle. It just so happens that these actions are limited in the free society they envision. This type of libertarianism is associated with
Milton FriedmanMilton Friedman was an American economist, statistician and public intellectual, and a recipient of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics...
,
Ludwig von MisesLudwig Heinrich Edler von Mises was an Austrian aristocrat, economist, philosopher, author and classical liberal who had a major influence on the modern libertarian movement and the Austrian School.-Early life:...
, and
Friedrich HayekFriedrich August von Hayek CH , was an Austrian and British economist and philosopher known for his defense of classical liberalism and free-market capitalism against socialist and collectivist thought. He is considered by some to be one of the most important economists and political philosophers...
.
Inconsistency criticism
The second type of criticism focuses on the difficulty of determining who exactly
initiated force in many real-life conflicts. As a general rule, each side in a conflict claims that the other "started it". Sometimes it is plainly clear who initiated force - for example, when a thief steals a person's wallet. Other times, however, the situation is more complicated. For example, one side may have been the first to
threaten force and the other side may have been the first to actually
use force, or the conflict began such a long time in the past that no one remembers who started it.
WarWar is a reciprocated, armed conflict, between two or more non-congruous entities, aimed at reorganising a subjectively designed, geo-politically desired result...
s are a particularly difficult case, because very few of them begin with a country openly declaring that it wants to initiate force on another. The
2003 invasion of IraqThe 2003 invasion of Iraq, was led by the United States, backed by British forces and smaller contingents from Australia, Denmark, Poland and Spain. Four countries participated with troops during the initial invasion phase, which lasted from March 20 to May 1...
is a useful example. Some claim that the US government initiated force on Iraq, while others claim that the US government merely retaliated against a dictator who violated the terms of a peace agreement established at the end of the
Gulf WarThe Persian Gulf War , known also as the Gulf War, the First Gulf War,or often as the Second Gulf War and by Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein as The Mother of all Battles, or commonly as Desert Storm, for the military response...
, and initiated force on his people.
Libertarians usually respond by stating that such pragmatic issues are well dealt with already in today's legal systems. For instance, an example of a dissipative game is a situation where a person starts insulting another in a bar, the other person responds by shoving, the other throws a punch, and the situation dissipates into a fight. In such cases, both parties are simply guilty of aggression toward the other because the aggression clearly went beyond self defense.
A version of this second criticism is often upheld by
libertarian socialistsLibertarian socialism is a group of political philosophies that aspire to create a society without political, economic, or social hierarchies, i.e...
and others, who claim that almost every patch of land on Earth was stolen (i.e. obtained through initiation of force) at some point in its history. The stolen land was later inherited or sold until it reached its present owners. Thus, property over land and natural resources is based on the initiation of force. Among those who make this argument, some (such as followers of
Henry GeorgeHenry George was an American writer, politician and political economist, who was the most influential proponent of the land value tax, also known as the "Single Tax" on land...
) claim that private property over natural resources is unique in being based on the initiation of force, while others hold that, by extension, private property over
all goods derives from violence, because natural resources are required in the production of all goods.
Libertarians often reply to the "who started it?" problem by contending that the difficulty in determining who is the transgressor should not dissuade us from engaging in that process.
Furthermore, libertarians often reply to either variant of this last point with the "water under the bridge" argument: that transgressions of the past cannot all be rectified, and that an act of theft which happened very long ago can reasonably be ignored - since it is irrelevant to people living today. This, however, can generate more charges of inconsistency, because it implies that peaceful possession of property in the present legitimizes theft and/or trespass in the past the principle known in some contexts as "squatters' rights" and in other contexts as "the right of
adverse possessionAdverse possession is a concept in law which concerns title of a real property.In common law, adverse possession is the process by which title to another's real property is acquired without compensation, by holding the property in a manner that conflicts with the true owner's rights for a specified...
". This requires a "cutoff" point: a point in time when illegitimate property becomes legitimate property. Opponents argue that any such point is arbitrary.
One prominent
anarcho-capitalistAnarcho-capitalism is an individualist anarchist political philosophy that advocates the elimination of the state and the elevation of the sovereign individual in a free market...
theorist,
Murray RothbardMurray Newton Rothbard was an American intellectual, individualist anarchist, author, and economist of the Austrian School who helped define modern libertarianism and popularized a form of free-market anarchism he termed "anarcho-capitalism"...
, argued that much private property in the U.S. southwest ought to be taken from its present private owners, and given to the lawful heirs of those who had claim to it under Mexican law before the
Mexican–American WarThe Mexican–American War was an armed conflict between the United States and Mexico from 1846 to 1848 in the wake of the 1845 U.S. annexation of Texas. Mexico claimed ownership of Texas as a breakaway province and refused to recognize the secession and subsequent military victory by Texas in...
, although he also regarded this case as historically unique.
Another reply can be made on the basis of the existence of proof of possession and individuality of owners. That is: if current heirs of long dead property owners can identify the property that has been stolen and
prove that the owner has passed down to him or her his initial right of property - then those persons must be recognized as the rightful owners. This is similar to the "innocent until proven guilty" proposition of modern law, that owners should be regarded as legitimate until proven differently.
Ambiguity criticism
In addition to the above two kinds of criticism, there is also a debate around the manner in which libertarians typically
interpret the non-aggression principle. Specifically, libertarians see
taxTo tax is to impose a financial charge or other levy upon a taxpayer by a state or the functional equivalent of a state such that failure to pay is punishable by law.Taxes are also imposed by many subnational entities...
es as a form of government aggression. However, unless their libertarianism is of such an absolute degree that it opposes any kind of state, some consider taxation as a "necessary evil." They may argue that because of the free-rider problem, enough funds would not be obtainable by voluntary means to protect individuals from aggression of a greater severity. Hence, they will accept taxation as long as no more is levied than is necessary to
optimise protection of individuals against aggression (from other individuals and from government itself). On the other hand, many libertarian anarchists, as strict adherents to the non-aggression principle, argue that security should be maintained by voluntary payment to
private defense forcesA private defense agency is a conceptualized agency that provides personal protection and military defense services voluntarily through the free market. A PDA is not a private contractor of the state and is not subsidised in any way through taxation or immunities, nor does it rely on conscription...
, rather than taxation. Both anarchists and opponents of libertarianism in general have made the argument that the non-aggression principle, if embraced in a pure or absolute sense, forbids the existence of states. Anarchists use this argument in their attempts to convert other libertarians to their views, while opponents of libertarianism use it to support the claim that consistent application of libertarian principles would result in the complete abolition of the state - which, in their view, is an extremist and absurd position to hold.
Some radical libertarians argue that
minarchismIn civics, minarchism refers to a political ideology which maintains that the state's only legitimate function is the protection of individuals from aggression...
stemming from the non-aggression principle is logically inconsistent, and consider anarchism to be the natural-rights doctrine applied in full. Others feel that minarchism from a consequentialist libertarian perspective is more cogent and a better alternative to rights-libertarian minarchism.
Social contract
There are many who oppose the libertarian idea that taxation is a form of aggression on
social contractSocial contract describes a broad class of theories that try to explain the ways in which people form states and/or maintain social order. The notion of the social contract implies that the people give up some rights to a government or other authority in order to receive or maintain social order...
grounds. Specifically, advocates of most social contract theories see taxes as analogous to contract fees, and tax-collecting governments as agents of an (implicit) agreement among the members of a society to share certain common burdens. However,
Herbert SpencerHerbert Spencer was an English philosopher, prominent classical liberal political theorist, and sociological theorist of the Victorian era....
argues that: "If every man has freedom to do all that he wills, provided he infringes not the equal freedom of any other man, then he is free to drop connection with the state - to relinquish its protection and to refuse paying toward its support. It is self-evident that in so behaving he in no way trenches upon the liberty of others, for his position is a passive one, and while passive he cannot become an aggressor. It is equally self-evident that he cannot be compelled to continue one of a political corporation without a breach of the moral law, seeing that citizenship involves payment of taxes; and the taking away of a man's property against his will is an infringement of his rights"
http://www.panarchy.org/spencer/ignore.state.1851.html. Some social contract supporters argue that a person is obliged to adhere to the "social contract" by staying within the confines of a state. Rebuttals to this view often turn on whether there is a genuine choice, whether there is a possibility to "opt out." One possible obstacle is that leaving a country can be difficult and require sacrifice, especially in the case of state-controlled borders (e.g. through the use of border guards, dogs, and walls). Another take on the issue might be that a contract implies willful adherence. Laws of the state are, by their definition, imposed. A state can be compared to the
MafiaThe Mafia is a Sicilian criminal society which is believed to have emerged in late 19th century Sicily, and the first such society to be referred to as a mafia . It is a loose association of criminal groups that share a common organizational structure and code of conduct...
, from this perspective; meaning that people are 'free' to pay protection tax, but they are still coerced. Other libertarians point out that, as long as all the land on Earth is administered by states, a person may not exit a state without entering another state and, hence, opting out of a social contract would be impossible unless one decides to live in the ocean. Supporters of social contract theories, on the other hand, argue that opting out of many contracts that libertarians do not oppose is also difficult. For example, if a private corporation owned the water supply in a region
(see "MonopolyIn economics, a monopoly exists when a specific individual or an enterprise has sufficient control over a particular product or service to determine significantly the terms on which other individuals shall have access to it...
"), and disgruntled residents of the region found it impossible to establish a new entrant in that market, then the revocation of one's contract with that corporation would mean that one would have to move out of the region. Thus, the argument goes, one's contract with the water corporation is very similar to a social contract.
Inspired by such considerations, some minarchists have suggested establishing social contracts (and taxes or "fees") only at local or regional levels, the smaller the better, since leaving a neighborhood, for example, is less burdensome and is much better at preserving freedom of choice, than having to leave an entire country. Such a system also introduces an element of competition among the various taxing entities to which a monopolistic central government does not have to answer. On the other hand, this system also makes it difficult to undertake any sort of large-scale public project, since an agreement between different regional governments would be needed. The additional challenges would limit the implementation of large-scale public projects to only those with widespread support, perhaps consolidated through an umbrella organization of smaller governments (e.g., the
United NationsThe United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and the achieving of world peace...
,
European UnionThe European Union is an economic and political union of 27 Member States, located primarily in Europe. Committed to regional integration, the EU was established by the Treaty of Maastricht on 1 November 1993 upon the foundations of the pre-existing European Economic Community...
,
North American Free Trade Agreement
,
North Atlantic Treaty OrganizationThe North Atlantic Treaty Organization ); ), also called "the Atlantic Alliance", is an intergovernmental military alliance based on the North Atlantic Treaty which was signed on April 4, 1949...
). Furthermore, lacking a centralized point of taxation control, this system also allows for the creation of "tax havens": if a certain region has little or no local taxes, many of the rich people from neighboring regions may move to it, thus depriving their original home regions of tax revenue. Whether this is good or bad depends on one's political views.
Of course, the existence of a social contract, much like the non-aggression principle, is itself a matter of dispute among the advocates of different political ideologies and views. Many libertarians argue that no contract can exist without conscious and voluntary assent by all participants. American individualist anarchist
Lysander SpoonerLysander Spooner was an American individualist anarchist, entrepreneur, political philosopher, abolitionist, supporter of the labor movement, and legal theorist of the nineteenth century. He is also known for competing with the U.S. Post Office with his American Letter Mail Company, which was...
is a noted proponent of this view, while espousing the non-aggression principle as
natural lawNatural law or the law of nature is a theory that posits the existence of a law whose content is set by nature and that therefore has validity everywhere. The phrase natural law is opposed to the positive law of a given political community, society, or nation-state, and thus can function as a...
. Spooner holds that the fact that governments hold the threat of force over the heads of those who would not pay taxes, any supposed social contract to pay taxes would not be legitimate since legitimate contracts can only be made in the absence of coercion (i.e., they must be voluntary).
Others argue that a social contract can indeed exist, but that it is an implicit contract between individuals to adhere to the non-aggression principle; these argue that taxation is therefore a violation of the social contract. For example, anarchist
Pierre-Joseph ProudhonPierre-Joseph Proudhon was a French politician, mutualist philosopher and socialist. He was a member of the French Parliament, and he was the first to call himself an anarchist. He is considered among the most influential of anarchist writers and organisers. After the events of 1848 he began to...
maintains that rather than being a contract between man and government, the "social contract is an agreement of man with man; an agreement from which must result what we call society" to "abdicate all pretension to govern each other."
See also
- Self ownership
- law of equal liberty
The law of equal liberty , or equal liberty, is a doctrine first named, though not first conceived, by Herbert Spencer which says "…that every man may claim the fullest liberty to exercise his faculties compatible with the possession of like liberty to every other man." Or, stated another way by...
- Nonviolence
Nonviolence is a philosophy and strategy for social change that rejects the use of violence. As such, nonviolence is an alternative to passive acceptance of oppression and armed struggle against it...
- Simple living
Simple living is a lifestyle characterized by minimizing the "more is better" pursuit of wealth and consumption...
- Taxation as theft
The identification of taxation as theft is a common anarchist viewpoint. It suggests that government is transgressing property rights by enforcing compulsory tax collection. This turns the issue into not just an issue of practicality but morality. Individualist anarchists, objectivists, and social...
- Victimless crime, public order crime
In criminology public order crime is defined by Siegel as "...crime which involves acts that interfere with the operations of society and the ability of people to function efficiently", i.e. it is behaviour that has been labelled criminal because it is contrary to shared norms, social values, and...
External links
- The Ethics of Liberty e-book by Murray Rothbard
Murray Newton Rothbard was an American intellectual, individualist anarchist, author, and economist of the Austrian School who helped define modern libertarianism and popularized a form of free-market anarchism he termed "anarcho-capitalism"...
, Mises.org
- A Theory of Socialism and Capitalism e-book by Hans-Hermann Hoppe
Hans-Hermann Hoppe is an Austrian school economist of the anarcho-capitalist tradition, and a former economics professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.-Academic career:...
, Mises.org
- The Non-Aggression Axiom of Libertarianism by Walter Block
Walter Edward Block is a free market economist and anarcho-capitalist associated with the Austrian School.-Personal history and education:...
, LewRockwell.com
- Against Utilitarianism; or, Why Not Violate Rights if it’d Do Good by Tibor Machan, Mises.org
- Economics and Its Ethical Assumptions by Roderick Long
Roderick Tracy Long is a professor of philosophy at Auburn University and an anarcho-capitalist blogger. He received a B.A. in philosophy from Harvard University and his Ph.D. from Cornell University. He has edited the book Anarchism/Minarchism: Is a Government Part of a Free Country?. His work...
, Mises.org
- New Rationalist Directions in Libertarian Rights Theory by N. Stephan Kinsella, Mises.org
- The Philosophy of Liberty, an animated production, derives a libertarian
Libertarianism is a term adopted by a broad spectrum of political philosophies which advocate the maximization of individual liberty and the minimization or even abolition of the state...
philosophy from the principle of self-ownership. Central to this is the non-aggression principle.