Rideau v. Stolyarov: A Debate of Anarchy versus Limited Government

François-René Rideau and G. Stolyarov II

A Journal for Western Man-- Issue XXVIII-- December 9, 2004

The following exchange was triggered by Mr. Rideau's response via e-mail to Mr. Stolyarov's Review of Hans-Hermann Hoppe's book, Democracy: The God that Failed, in which Mr. Stolyarov concurred with the majority of Dr. Hoppe's stances, but questioned Hoppe's case for an anarcho-capitalist system where law enforcement is to be conducted by insurance companies as opposed to a limited government. The review has been published on Le Quebecois Libre on November 15, 2004, and can be found at  http://www.quebecoislibre.org/04/041115-5.htm.

Mr. François-René Rideau, to Mr. Stolyarov:

November 17, 2004:

In your article, you say:

"By what standard are insurance companies to determine punishment for offenders and the nature of crime per se? What is to happen if different insurance companies disagree with respect to this, or if the perceived offender recognizes the jurisdiction of no insurance company? Moreover, though most businesses are honest and productive, some are led by inept and incompetent administrations. What if an insurance company were to default on its contractual promise to protect a customer? What recourse would a single customer have against a vast multinational corporation that commits fraud? (Any such just recourse would inevitably require some means of the customer's compensation.)"

Duh. And how is that question specific to anarcho-capitalism? That's a double-standard, if there was any. Democracy, as well as any form of political power, will only make things worse, by keeping the monopoly law enforcer unaccountable. Insurance companies are accountable to their customers. Be stupid, wage unnecessary costly wars, your customers will dump you. And that's what keeps in check private law enforcers: the feedback of responsibility between actions and further funding. The ONLY possible, conceivable, way, in which things may be organized that preserves responsibility IS respect of individual property rights, which entails the anarcho-capitalist model for law enforcement.

Cheers from a fellow QL contributor.

[ François-René ÐVB Rideau | Reflection&Cybernethics | 
http://fare.tunes.org ]
There are just two rules of governance in a free society:
Mind your own business. Keep your hands to yourself. -- P. J. O'Rourke

Mr. G. Stolyarov II:

November 24, 2004:

Mr. François-René Rideau:

November 24, 2004:

Dear Mr. Stolyarov,

Thanks a lot for your reply.

"... my point [...] refers to potential abuses leveled against individual 

consumers by insurance companies. A single such abuse does not necessitate 

that the company provide poor services to the remainder of its customers 

or lose a substantial customer base."

The possibility of such cases is true of EVERY system, and cannot
possibly be used against a system in particular, or else it's a double
standard.

Now. The thing is, in that case, free market enforcement as compared
to monopoly enforcement entails that:

* The victim can turn to a rival of whoever harmed him, whereas under
a monopoly he'd have no recourse.

* The costs hit the bottom line of the insurer, whereas under a
monopoly the bottom line is getting elected/eliminating opponents/etc.

* Rivals are glad to leverage the tiniest flaw in competition so as to
attract customership; and with freedom of ENTRY, not just established
rivals, but also potential rivals. A monopoly on the contrary has
interest to hush these things. In France, speaking against a decision
of court WILL lead you to jail.

"...but there must always be an impartial arbiter to whom all sides in a
conflict must resort if no other means of resolving said conflict is 
available."

From which magic hat will you pull off this impartial arbiter? From
the thigh of Jupiter? Monopolists are no gods from heaven. If they are,
let them show their titles. And what if the conflict is with the
"impartial" arbiter itself? What if the "impartial" arbiter sides with
one party? Impartiality cannot exist independently from the considered
people. You can't impose an arbiter, and expect him to be impartial.
The only guarantee of impartiality is that the parties should freely
choose their arbiter.

"Otherwise, the imposition of force by an insurance company would
be as arbitrary as that by the worst tyrant or mob."

You've completely REVERSING the logic! Imposition by force of an
arbiter is what YOU are proposing. Free market enforcement on the
contrary makes unilateral imposition of force impossible. Because if
one enforcer would enforce what everyone else considers wrong, he'll
soon be not just out of business, but dead.

"A strictly limited government..."

Cannot exist. Who limits it, since it's its own arbiter? If it isn't
how is it a government? Wherever you nominally put government
initially, power will soon slide toward whoever IS the arbiter in your
system (or are). And once the few who arbitrate finally get to know
each other, there's no limit.

"otherwise, somebody's quarrel with you and somebody's access to 

the power of an insurance company will be warrant enough for them 

to assail you, expropriate you, or kill you without you having any say 

whatsoever on that matter."

Only if the insurance company has interest in defending his behaviour,
i.e. only if this one customer's fees is worse all the combined loss
of other customer's fees should it defend this guy when he does wrong.
In case of blatantly criminal behaviour as you suggest, this sums up
as saying that the guy alone funds the "company". In other words, that
he's the sole owner of a criminal corporation. Guess how fast other
companies will reap him out and collect all his confiscated property.

 "There are several things that can limit the government arbiter from 
himself exercising arbitrary power:

1) a strict delineation of powers by a Constitution, which is inherently 

structured so as to prevent loose constructionism,"

That's Cabal kind of mysticism: belief in the transubstantiation of
words into facts. Words are words. No structure of words can possibly
contain the government that is the arbiter on the interpretation of
said words.

"2) a recognition of the right of the people to rebel or replace the 

government if the Constitution is breached..."

And who can rebel against a government that has the monopoly of force,
and is the one to warrant that the constitution isn't breached? And
why have so much blood spilt nationwide, when it's easier to just have
a market, where no one has the monopoly, and everyone is kept in check
by the others. Should one fail, no blood spilled, because no one will
fight for this sure loser. Even a "Constitution" doesn't require a
monopoly government.

"3) a voluntary system of government financing so that a government violating 
individual rights could be rendered financially impotent..."

And while the government is impotent, who protects you, since it has
monopolized the means of protecting you? This cannot possibly work.
Most people prefer financing the government than letting criminals
reign -- especially when the government has disarmed law-abiding
citizens, whereas criminals don't respect arms restriction laws (DUH).
Or make that country-wide with foreign armies and terrorists
threatening to kill you and your only defense left is the government.

And even in simple cases, what if some think that this endeavour
should be financed (e.g. disarming passengers in planes), whereas
another one thinks that that other endeavour should be financed (e.g.
murdering dictators)? If there's a monopoly government, I can't choose
a different formula than the government imposes. No one is responsible
by being free of paying for what he wants and then by being liable by
getting it.

"For more on my ideas of a functional government, see 'The 
Fundamentals of Laissez-Faire Meritocracy:'
 http://www.oocities.org/rationalargumentator/meritocracy.html"

I fully agree with meritocracy. But when you don't have a free market,
what you get isn't a meritocracy, it's an Establishment. Re-read
Rand's "Establishing an Establishment" in PWNI -- the same mechanisms
of self-selection of self-serving bandits will happen wherever there's
a monopoly.

Also, you assume that government should be delegated. How is there any
DELEGATION if there is no choice? The only possible system in which
there is delegation of power is free market government. Monopoly
government can only caricature delegation.

As for limitations, see above: when the government is the only
guardian, who guards the guardian? Limitations are pointless. A
establishment will grow that will undermine any possible limitations
by clever reinterpretation. It might take time. But Lincoln's
dictatorship was less than one century after the founding of the USA.

You think someone must impose the free market. On the contrary. The
free market is, and people who impose anything are the antithesis of
free market. Anything they do by definition is an encroachment to the
free market, and there is no encroachment to the free market but what
such people do.

As to your Veto or Protector things, in France we have this saying:
"la liberté ne s'use que si l'on ne s'en sert pas" -- "liberty only
wears out when kept unused". If you veto too much, you become the
governor, without a veto over you. If you don't veto enough, governors
build their own legitimacy, and by the time you veto them, it's too
late. Things might not be so clear cut, but there is no possible
equilibrium, and in case of conflict, it ends up one way or the other,
whereas in case of non-conflict, there builds up a new establishment.
And what mechanisms ensure the protector is meritant, especially if he
underuses his power? Just end that monopoly. Everyone may choose one's
own protector -- or be it!

"and "Post-Veto Authority:"
 http://www.oocities.org/rational_argumentator/postveto.html. I hope 
to have time to write and publish more on this subject sometime in the coming 
years."
 
PS: I mean this as a compliment, but you remind me of my mother, 

except that you're more rational and could discover Rand and other authors 

not available in French.

Regards,

[ François-René ÐVB Rideau | Reflection&Cybernethics | 
http://fare.tunes.org ]
Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to 
live at the expense of everybody else. -- F. Bastiat, "Government".

Mr. Stolyarov: November 27, 2004:

Dear Mr. Rideau, 

Before I begin my point-by-point responses to your most recent arguments, I would like to bring to your attention the fact that thinkers going back to the father of individual rights himself, John Locke, found problems with the enforcement of rights under anarchy, which Locke referred to as the “state of nature,” where formal institutions of government were not present. Locke’s general estimation of the “state of nature” was more favorable than not, and he, as I, preferred it immeasurably to a state of absolute monarchy or institutionalized collectivism of any sort. Nevertheless, he, too, saw some critical flaws in it.  

From the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, “John Locke,” http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/locke/.  

"Thus, as Locke conceives it, there are problems with life in the state of nature. The law of nature, like civil laws can be violated. There are no police, prosecutors or judges in the state of nature as these are all representatives of a government with full political power. The victims, then, must enforce the law of nature in the state of nature. In addition to our other rights in the state of nature, we have the rights to enforce the law and to judge on our own behalf. We may, Locke tells us, help one another. We may intervene in cases where our own interests are not directly under threat to help enforce the law of nature. Still, the person who is most likely to enforce the law under these circumstances is the person who has been wronged. The basic principle of justice is that the punishment should be proportionate to the crime. But when the victims are judging the seriousness of the crime, they are more likely to judge it of greater severity than might an impartial judge. As a result, there will be regular miscarriages of justice. This is perhaps the most important problem with the state of nature." 

This “helping one another” is indeed what is facilitated under contractual agreements between individuals and insurance companies in the anarcho-capitalist scenario you and Hoppe envision. Nevertheless, we have no guarantee that punishment will be proportional (see my example with regard to giving the death penalty for spitting). You write with regard to this, “The possibility of such cases is true of EVERY system, and cannot possibly be used against a system in particular, or else it's a double standard.”

Yet I never contended that this criticism is one I have leveled against only anarcho-capitalism! As a matter of fact, I could write for pages about how grievous travesties of justice could occur under the modern American judicial system, as evidenced in the recent Scott Peterson murder trial, where a man whose guilt was questionable was convicted on the basis of emotional appeals, public pressure, and circumstantial evidence. My job as a thinker is to discern and advocate that political system which does not have the potential of such abuse, or has very minimal potential thereof in comparison to others. It may well be that not a single political system to date has met this stringent requirement, but then our task as theorists and rational individuals is to formulate one that does! I do not yet have all the answers, but am reasonably certain that this proper system requires a movement away from liberal democracy and toward some of the concepts of anarcho-capitalism, without embracing them in entirety.

Now, to respond to your claims of the advantages of free market enforcement:

“*The victim can turn to a rival of whoever harmed him, whereas under a monopoly he'd have no recourse.”

Yes, there is nothing barring him from consulting a rival insurance company for his protection. But, likewise, there is nothing barring the insurance company of the victimizer (or of even a plaintiff who has a rightful grievance, but an exaggerated demand for punishment) from taking immediate action against the victim, before he can resort to the services of another insurer. After all, there is no law banning such action, and no authority to automatically protect individuals from it!

“*The costs hit the bottom line of the insurer, whereas under a monopoly the bottom line is getting elected/eliminating opponents/etc.”

Costs are an important consideration, I agree, and might prevent some acts of wanton aggression. I also concur that the election/political power motivation of politicians in a modern welfare state is undesirable. However, the cost consideration could be bypassed if the insurance company thinks that the property to be gained from an innocent victim outweighs the costs of pursuing him. Once again, no law exists to prevent the company from doing so, and there is no guarantee of retaliatory action to be taken against it.

I offer a decent solution to the costs issue in “The Fundamentals of Laissez-Faire Meritocracy,” where I write of allowing politicians to have a profit motive in the private market as individual entrepreneurs, distinct from their roles as public officeholders. They will not be allowed to use government powers to intervene in the economy, and it will even be in their personal interests to prevent such intervention, since they would be some of the beneficiaries of the prosperity to be brought about by the free market. At the same time, they will be interested in using the mechanisms of government to punish the initiation of force and the violation of property rights, since they will be, by this method, protecting their own property as well. To illustrate, what would happen if Bill Gates were simultaneously the head of Microsoft and the chief executive of the United States? I think that would spell the end for invasive antitrust legislation while also ensuring that government efficiently addressed cases of corporate fraud and clearly dishonest plaintiffs in malpractice suits without imposing undue preventive regulations.

“* Rivals are glad to leverage the tiniest flaw in competition so as to attract customership; and with freedom of ENTRY, not just established rivals, but also potential rivals. A monopoly on the contrary has interest to hush these things. In France, speaking against a decision of court WILL lead you to jail.”

But here we must also consider the question of material resources at the disposal of any given insurance company. A large insurance company with numerous agents and weapons will be able to crush a smaller one that spreads information of the large company’s malpractice, and there will be no higher force capable of stopping such abuse. Moreover, no matter how many such companies exist, one of them (or a conglomerate) will be the largest and capable of leveraging the most power. While this may be a benevolent power, there is no guarantee in the anarcho-capitalist model that it will be. Contrast this with my idea of the Protectorate, which does give instructions not only the structure of power in a government, but also the purpose with which it may and may not be used, thus placing more limitations on the use of force than anarchy places on the insurance companies.

Montesquieu, in his essays of checks and balances, stressed that no enforcement agency should ever be left solely to its own devices, that each governmental entity ought to be liable to some other, which, in turn, would be liable to another still. There is a danger with any entity being at the top of a political hierarchy, be it an absolute monarch, or a popular majority, but if the hierarchy is made into a cyclical relationship (of representatives being checked by the executive, both being checked by the courts and the voters, all of the above being checked by the non-majoritarian Protectorate, which is in turn checked by the representatives, who are the only entities able to pass any positive legislation), no party can claim the monopoly power you rightly condemn. In a system of checks and balances (that works without loopholes, unlike the American system, which has the fatal loophole of all three branches being ultimately accountable to majority rule) the non-monopolistic nature of government is even firmer than that in an anarcho-capitalist system, since, while the latter has power originating randomly and any balance thereof being only a matter of chance, the former is designed to be intra-competitive, with each player having pre-formulated roles from which he may not stray and within the bounds of which he must perform his task.

You write, “From which magic hat will you pull off this impartial arbiter?”

Please see, once again, my suggested criteria for the selection of a Protector:

“1) Philosophical enlightenment in the principles behind the nation’s founding and legal system, as well as in the philosophies of Rand, Aristotle, and the Enlightenment thinkers.

2) A substantial enough amount of wealth to demand no increase of the treasury’s volume to pay for the expenses of the Protectorate Branch. This wealth should be especially significant if earned under free-market conditions, as that will be demonstrable of the future Protector’s ingenuity, diligence, and organization, which are essential to his task.

3) A record of political advocacy for economic liberalization and ideological defense of the producers of the free market.

4) Training in the military arts, especially in the atypical realms of urban, guerilla, and commando warfare.

5) Personal physical health and proper fitness habits that would demonstrate the Protector’s ability to remain free of any peril that would swiftly and unexpectedly curtail his activity.”

The key to selecting the first Protector is to find an individual of such integrity that he would be unable to conceivably violate the rights of others. Afterward, he will be responsible for perpetuating the Protectorate and designating his heirs and subordinates, who will be subject to his demanding scrutiny, and are likewise expected to be men of integrity. The powers of the Protectorate will be clearly delineated in a Constitution comprehensible to the common man, so that, if some Protector should overstep his bounds, this will be clearly evident as a Constitutional violation, and the people will have the right to revolt and replace the Protector. Thus, though he is checked at all times by the people and the Constitution, he is not subordinate to the electorate and can veto whatever popular laws he pleases, so long as he does not violate the Constitution. Thus, his judgment can be said to be separate from any of the majority-based branches of government and therefore most capable of impartiality with regard to public opinion or political special interest.

You write, “You've completely REVERSING the logic! Imposition by force of an arbiter is what YOU are proposing. Free market enforcement on the contrary makes unilateral imposition of force impossible. Because if one enforcer would enforce what everyone else considers wrong, he'll soon be not just out of business, but dead.”

I am indeed proposing an arbiter, but not an arbitrary one, as this arbiter will be bound by a firm understanding of objective moral, economic, and political principles, and restricted by the statutes of the Constitution, which he cannot alter or repeal. On the contrary, under anarcho-capitalism, you admit that “everyone else” has the power to kill someone who enforces what he considers to be wrong. But if they have such a power, without any restrictions on it, can they also kill with impunity someone who thinks in a way that “everyone else” (i.e. a vast majority of people) considers to be wrong? In anarcho-capitalism, there is still no check on the power of the majority, which is the most dangerous power of them all.

On Limited Government, you write:

“Cannot exist. Who limits it, since it's its own arbiter? If it isn't how is it a government? Wherever you nominally put government initially, power will soon slide toward whoever IS the arbiter in your system (or are). And once the few who arbitrate finally get to know each other, there's no limit.”

Power cannot slide if it is delineated so strictly that even a slight shift in the balance will be deemed unconstitutional. Moreover, I propose a system where, instead of a monolithic “government,” we have intra-governmental competition, as voters, representatives, justices, executives, and the Protectorate each have their own jurisdiction, limitations, and subordination to one of the other entities. This government is based on neither majority rule nor minority rule, as different branches of it rest on different foundations. It can neither participate in the economy nor impede it, since its members are at the same time private entrepreneurs and guardians of public order.

Moreover, I have made some very limited deliberations over another means of checking government, through the abolition of all taxes and the creation of a voluntary system of financing, an “Investmentocracy.” My most detailed comments on this come from a tangent to my debate with Manfred Schieder on the abortion issue: http://www.oocities.org/rational_argumentator/Schieder_v_Stolyarov2.html

As for those who do not contribute to a voluntarily funded government, I also plan to address this in a future essay. My plan essentially involves an “Investmentocracy”-type voting structure, in which the government allocates votes like shares in a corporation, in proportion to those who invest in it. Thus, the people who have contributed the most to the government will have the greatest say over the selection of its officials and certain policy decisions. Those who do not contribute may either have no right to vote, or have only one vote, the “basic vote” that does not depend on contributions to the government. (Others who contribute would, however, be able to purchase thousands of votes, so as to easily overrule the non-contributing individual!)

This adds to my model of government the existence of cost as a bottom line and the cost-efficiency of government as a purpose of the investors who contribute to it and the officeholders who run it. Thus, not only is such a government checked politically, it is also checked economically, providing a dual security to individuals and their rights.

You write, “Only if the insurance company has interest in defending his behaviour, i.e. only if this one customer's fees is worse all the combined loss of other customer's fees should it defend this guy when he does wrong. In case of blatantly criminal behaviour as you suggest, this sums up as saying that the guy alone funds the "company". In other words, that he's the sole owner of a criminal corporation. Guess how fast other companies will reap him out and collect all his confiscated property.”

This is not necessarily so. This man needs only convince a sufficiently morally corrupt insurer that the gains from looting an innocent victim outweigh the financial costs, and that the operation can be executed quickly and secretly enough to prevent others from interfering or even noticing. If this is so, there is no entity nor statute that would brand the action as criminal, and nothing would happen to the perpetrator. Let us pretend that a bunch of drug-addicted rappers were to form an insurance company and use only drug-addicted rappers as its customers. None of them would have any quarrel with looting an innocent victim, and thus would not withdraw funds from the company should it do so. Your argument presumes that all customers are equally conscientious and rational, but in fact the differences among men are greater than those between men and the animals. In a market of any commodity but force, irrationality and immorality will affect only those who exhibit them, and thus ought not be legally restrained. In the realm of force, their legal restraint is utterly necessary, because force, by definition, affects parties other than the initiator.

On Constitutionalism: You write, “That's Cabal kind of mysticism: belief in the transubstantiation of words into facts. Words are words. No structure of words can possibly contain the government that is the arbiter on the interpretation of said words.”

In fact, a political institution cannot be translated into fact unless it is explicitly expressed in words. Ayn Rand wrote eloquently on the fact that, unless one is able to clearly formulate an idea using language, one does not precisely know what one means to express. Since we know that certain knowledge is indeed possible, it must follow that language has to have the potential of expressing such certain knowledge through its verbal constructs. Thus, words can delineate a government structure not open to interpretation, but having the same meaning for everyone who reads them, thus depriving present officials of the interpretative power and rather making them subordinate to every word in the Constitution as an absolute and incontrovertible dictum.

On Rebellion: You write, “And who can rebel against a government that has the monopoly of force, and is the one to warrant that the constitution isn't breached? And why have so much blood spilt nationwide, when it's easier to just have a market, where no one has the monopoly, and everyone is kept in check by the others.”

An Investmentocracy guarantees that, if a government violates rights, the people can engage in a peaceful (and even legal) rebellion by withdrawing funds and demanding change in government policy and/or composition. Moreover, every individual should have the Constitutional right to bear arms and use them in personal defense. If the government violates the Constitution (which, remember, is clearly accessible to the layman and above any interpretation), this is a violation of individual liberty, and thus a cause to use firearms in self-defense against those responsible. A monopoly on the legal use of force is this extended to include the use of firearms by private individuals in cases of certain government transgressions. This is one reason why the American Revolution, an uprising of the people to overthrow a monopoly government, was a success, one that your argument would presume to be impossible.

On Financing: You write, “And while the government is impotent, who protects you, since it has monopolized the means of protecting you? This cannot possibly work. Most people prefer financing the government than letting criminals reign –-“

Your right to bear arms means you will be able to protect yourself during the transition period. Moreover, due to the presence of such multiple and varied checks on government power, the transition period will be as brief as possible, as the unbalance of power will quickly be brought under control by the multiple forces aimed toward righting it. If the problem was large enough to warrant rebellion (armed uprising or coordinated withdrawal of funds), the response to abusive government is already coordinated enough to temporarily deal with crime and aggression in its own capacity. Recall, for example, that, during the American Revolution, the colonists were perfectly able to defend themselves against incursions by Amerindians into their territory while simultaneously rebelling against the British government.

You write, “If you veto too much, you become the governor, without a veto over you.”

Except, by vetoing, you inflict no positive harm on anyone; you just prevent potential violations of rights. Since you cannot create positive laws, you can never become a governor in your own right. This is especially true if you must finance your own operations and thus can never coercively extract funds from the people.

As you can see, this response has already become quite extensive. I would be interested in publishing this exchange (and its continuation) on my online magazine, The Rational Argumentator, with your permission, since it has already obtained the caliber of an extensive public debate.

I am

G. Stolyarov II

Editor-in-Chief, The Rational Argumentator

Proprietor, The Rational Argumentator Online Store

Author, Eden against the Colossus

Chief Administrator, Chicago Methuselah Foundation Fund 

François-René Rideau is an anarcho-capitalist thinker and writer for Le Quebecois Libre (http://www.quebecoislibre.org). You can visit his website at http://fare.tunes.org.

G. Stolyarov II is a science fiction novelist, independent filosofical essayist, poet, amateur mathematician and composer, contributor to organizations such as Le Quebecois Libre, Enter Stage Right, the Autonomist, and Objective Medicine. Mr. Stolyarov is the Editor-in-Chief of The Rational Argumentator. He can be contacted at gennadystolyarovii@yahoo.com.

Order Mr. Stolyarov's newest science fiction novel, Eden against the Colossus, in eBook form, here. You only pay $10.00, with no shipping and handling fees.

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