Learning From Those Who Came Before

The feature article in Issue 25 has quite a long title, “Thinkers and Groups of Individuals Who Have Contributed Significant Ideas or Major Written Materials To the Radical Libertarian Tradition.”

This list, prepared by Carl is about, well, the title says what it’s about so I won’t repeat it. :)

I have of course heard of many of these individuals by now, but some of the people mentioned were new to me. And although the names of a few were not new, Carl included information about their contribution that I was unaware of before.

For example, I had heard of Bartolome De Las Casas. I could have told you he lived around the time of Columbus but that’s it. But Carl mentions that he and a fellow I don’t remember every hearing of at all, Francisco De Vitoria “elucidated a proprietary theory of justice by which they denounced the violent invasion and conquest of the New World and supported the rights of the native inhabitants.”

Gee, I don't remember hearing anything about this particular rights argument while I was in a United States government school.

Another person mentioned in Carl’s list was a John Lilburne (1614-1657). In Carl’s remarks, I noticed he was known as “Freeborn John” and this caught my eye because I had just recently come across that same name in a recent article I saw online that was written by Wendy McElroy. I’m glad people like Wendy are out there referring to people from the past who did hard work and/or went through truly trying personal times and helped grow libertarian ideas and philosophy.

Then in a paragraph about John Locke, who I know of already of course, there is the name of William Molyneux. The reason that caught my eye is simply because the last name is the same as that of Stefan Molyneux, a moral philosopher who currently resides in Canada and has been literally pouring out podcasts, videos, books, etc. on his site Freedomain Radio and in my view is one person I would say is currently contributing significantly to the “radical libertarian tradition.” I wonder if they are related. I guess they are.

The reason Carl mentions William Molyneux is because he was a friend of Locke and “insisted on a literal interpretation of Locke’s ideas on consent of the governed and proprietary justice.”

Carl quotes Molyneux, “To tax me without consent, is little better, if at all, than downright robbing me.” Whether they are related or not, I can say that Stefan and William both agree that taxation is theft!

Gustave de Molinari (1819-1912) is a fellow whose name I’ve heard before but I didn’t know prior to reading this article that he was “the first economist (1849) to suggest that all legitimate services provided by the monopolistic State could be performed by competitive protection agencies on the free market.”

I was surprised it’s been that long ago that someone actually started thinking about competitive protection agencies. But then again, I’ve been surprised that a lot of ideas I’ve run into since embarking on my libertarian educational path are actually ideas that have been presented to society a long time ago.

I think we can learn from the past and from those who came before us. But we have to actually be informed that these thinkers, writers and interesting people in the past even existed.

So spread the word.

If You Want Rules You Can Have Rules

Many people have a hard time imagining the idea of a voluntary society because they worry that it means there would be a lack of rules which would lead to a lack of order, or chaos. They think that rules would not exist if coercive governments did not exist.

Yet we already constantly live by rules in our daily voluntary interactions. These rules work because people who do not want to abide by those rules are free to opt out.

In Issue 24 this point is made is an article by Joseph Dejan titled “Open Systems vs. Closed Systems,” discussing the differences between voluntary and coercive entities. Open systems are voluntary in nature and closes systems are coercive.

The author divides open systems into three categories:

“Three natural open systems exist that derive from man's nature, not requiring coercion or force. They are based on biological, economical and aesthetic necessities. They are: the family, business and voluntary associations (clubs, fraternities, etc.). Man by nature needs a mate to reproduce. The result of this system is a family relationship. Laws need not to be passed to compel people to organize business, anymore than for the creation of families. Voluntary associations are also open systems to organize human energy based on sharing human values. They depend on voluntary choice to join and freedom to withdraw.”

He then makes the point that within each of these categories you can find various types and degrees of rules whose purpose is to create order. Different groups will have different rules generally guided by the people in the group and if someone decides they no longer want to accept the rules, they can opt out.

Then he takes it one step further:

“It is interesting to underscore that any open system is not only characterized by its voluntary nature, but by the limitation to the application of the rules. A family does not pass rules for other families in their neighborhood. One business does not seek to force another business to follow the rules established for itself. The charter and by-laws of the Science-Fiction Club are not binding on the members of the Chess Club. The rules in all open systems follow the lines of property-ownership and control.”

So if you want rules you can have them. Just don’t push them on to those in other groups.

Individuals Pay Taxes, Not Corporations

I have one more item I want to mention from Issue 23. It’s called “Voluntary Musings: A Column of Iconoclasms” written by Charles Curley. One reason I wanted to mention this piece is that I just really got a kick out of the tone of the article. Curley writes in a sarcastic manner and inserts cutting humor which I found to be entertaining.

This column reports on a mix of items of interest to Charles in 1986 such as not showing “proper” respect to the flag, The Meese Report, The Challenge Disaster and what he refers to as Bonzonomics, a reference to President Reagan’s tax policies.

As Curley explains Reagan’s manipulation of the income tax, and a corresponding increase in the corporation tax, he notes that the lowering of individual tax rates will certainly get people all excited because they can “see” their tax bill go down.

But Curley points out that a tax on corporations is merely a way to hide the taxes individuals pay. Corporations are not some entity separated by individuals. Corporations are made up of individuals and he explains how this will only shift the tax in ways not easily seen:

“The taxes won't be paid in the form of money shelled out directly by the individual. Instead, the shareholder will see smaller dividends than otherwise, or a lower capital value on his or her assets. The employees may see a lower pay, but this is not likely.
Far more likely is that the employee won't see profits invested in new products to sell later on, profits invested in new capital equipment to make the employee more productive or profits invested in new company infrastructure to make the venture as a whole more productive.

No, the employee and shareholder won't see any of this. And what one doesn’t see taken away one doesn’t miss. Just as the purpose of income tax withholding was to make the payment of income taxes less painful, so also the real "reform" of this tax bill is to shift the tax burden of the federal government to make it less apparent, and so less painful. And once again the American people are engaged in an anatomical feat as they swallow this nonsense hook, line and form 1040.

But you'll be happy to know that Parliament has recently repealed the tea tax on the North American colonies.”

What I hate most about manipulation of tax policy is how politicians use it to put people into groups and classes which creates and “us” and “them” and enemy imagery among neighbors. There are “evil” corporations who don’t pay enough, there are “evil rich” people (anyone who makes more money than you do) who don’t pay their “fair share,” etc.

One other point Curley makes in his column that never occurred to me was about the economic effect of the income tax. He says at the time the income tax was being proposed, the very wealthy really just faked their resistance because an income tax isn’t really about the rich paying more because if you already have wealth, it’s not income. It’s real effect is on those less fortunate who work hard to accumulate new wealth.

I wondered if Mr. Curley was still around writing so I did a google search and found him. Gotta love the internet. He occasionally writes for a freedom-minded organization in Wyoming, The Wyoming Liberty Group.

Paper Is Not Gold

I hit a jackpot of sorts as I prepared this blog post for the article in Issue 23 titled “Hard Money” in the Voluntaryist Tradition because my related research led me to a couple of future issues of The Voluntaryist.

This article discusses the history of coined money as a medium of exchange in the United States. Carl explains how entrepreneurs came in to supply the market for coinage just as they do for any other product or service that is in demand.

Of course gold was the main metal used to create the coins and I learned that private gold coinage began during a gold rush in Georgia and North Carolina in 1828. (I didn’t even know there was a gold rush in those states, did you?)

Then the story moves to California after gold was discovered there in 1849. The use of coins there is quite a story. Since California wasn’t a state yet, there was no settled government which meant it was even more of an opportunity for someone to fill the market demand for a medium of exchange so people could conduct business.

California seemed to be doing just fine with this until the Civil War. The U. S. government issued paper money and California had to now figure out how to deal with this new situation. These new “greenbacks” had no gold backing so it makes sense that Californians would have little use for them. A lot of people had no interest in “greenbacks,” they liked their gold.

As a matter of fact, the tax collector of San Francisco even refused to accept them as payment!

In addition, many people did not want to be in a situation where they had contractual relationships built on payment in gold and end up receiving paper money, so the state passed the Specific Contract Law which basically said payment had to be made in the form stated in the contract.

I know I always recommend reading the articles for yourself but this one is of particular importance to Carl as he concludes the piece:

“Given the demise of both private and government gold coinage, it is difficult to imagine how commodity money will once again assert its dominance in market exchanges. Yet there is a natural law at work which assures us that paper is not gold, despite all the statist protestations to the contrary. Both voluntaryists and "hard money” advocates need to be aware of the monetary history related in this article, not only is the moral case for private coinage laid out, but its very existence just over a century ago proves that such a system was functional and practical.”

Now, to get back to what I said at the beginning about hitting the jackpot, as soon as I started reading this article, I immediately thought of the Liberty Dollar. I knew practically nothing about it specifically, only that people in libertarian circles were upset at how the government came in and shut them down and I also was aware that their offices were in Evansville Indiana, a mere two hours from where I currently live.

So as I was reading a bit on the Liberty Dollar, I discovered that Carl was never very enthused about it. He wrote about his concerns in Issue 110, one being that they used the term dollar, which Carl says is a statist term, “a government unit of accounting.”

This then led me to Issue 65 where Carl wrote about a bad experience with another private coinage firm, Gold Standard Corporation, which was accepted as payment for The Voluntaryist subscriptions up to that point.

Carl’s remarks on both the Liberty Dollar and Gold Standard Corporation reference the questionable character and actions of people inside those businesses. Carl warns us that “free market rogues can defraud you just as bad as government ones” so you should always be careful and skeptical.

This is true of course but if they were indeed fraudulent in some way, at least both of those businesses do not exist anymore. The Federal Reserve, government minting and printing however, still remains.

One last point I need to bring up on this topic is bitcoin. I have looked into bitcoin. I have watched videos on bitcoin. I have read articles on bitcoin. But I don’t get it.

Since my husband is in computers, when I saw people working with bitcoin at Porcfest, I had someone explain it to him in the hopes I can understand it better. He seemed to understand it better, but I still don’t. I am completely confused about it.

I have noticed a lot of excitement in libertarian/anarchist circles around bitcoin and I have seen several skeptical views about it as well. I don’t know what you think but I guess the smartest thing for me to do, since I don’t get it is to just stand back and see what happens.

So Says Thomas Szasz

Voluntaryist Issue 22 contains an article called, “The Psychiatric Will,” that introduces fascinating theories and ideas about mental illness that I have never heard previously.

I had heard of Thomas Szasz before in passing, but did not really know much about him at all. Just reading the Wikipedia entry about his views gives me many new things to think about in regards to society’s views on mental illness as a “disease.”

Szasz does not believe in mental “disease,” and he says it is a myth and a metaphor which has (and I presume still does) caused a lot of damage in the past. As I understand it, he says the disease concept developed at least partly because of a desire to control the behavior of others that some found to be undesirable or uncomfortable.

Two historical examples that helped me understand what he means are “hysteria” as a mental problem for women who were not behaving in the way men wanted them to and homosexuality, again as a mental disease for not behaving in the way some in society wanted people to behave.

I’m not sure how I feel about mental “illness’ and “disease” but I do wonder how our continuing efforts to learn about the brain will affect Szasz’ theories.

Szasz has written many books and articles so you can access plenty of information if you want dig deeper into his views but let’s discuss the purpose of this particular article. In this piece Szasz is proposing an idea intended to address the conflict that results from involuntary hospitalization and treatment due to a diagnosis of mental disease.

He wants to respect both the “psychiatric protectionists,” individuals who believe mental illness exists and fear consequences and problems as a result of psychosis and the “psychiatric voluntarists,” who don’t necessarily agree with current psychiatric premises and practices and do not want to see forced hospitalization and compulsory treatment.

Here’s how Szasz describes the two opposing viewpoints:

Psychiatric protectionists

“Many people (and virtually all psychiatrists and other mental health experts) fear the danger of a "nervous breakdown or psychotic illness." These persons believe that mental illness exists, that it is like any other illness, " that it is amenable to modern psychiatric treatment, and that the effectiveness and legitimacy of such treatment are independent of the patient's consent to it. Accordingly, such persons seek protection from life-threatening mental illness and support the use of involuntary psychiatric interventions."

Psychiatric voluntarists:

“On the other hand, some people (including a few psychiatrists and other mental health experts) fear the literal danger of psychiatry more than the metaphoric danger of psychosis. Some of these persons also believe that mental illness does not exist and that psychiatric coercions are tortures rather than treatments. Accordingly, such persons seek protection from the powers of psychiatry and advocate the abolition of involuntary psychiatric interventions.”

Szasz’ solution to this conflict is the creation of a Psychiatric Will, similar to traditional wills and living wills. So to protect the desires of the individual who wishes to prepare for a possible future inability to state his or her desires concerning the possibility of psychiatric problems, the competent individual can state their wishes and desires in writing, which would avoid conflict and indecision of those left to deal with the situation.

Szasz believes individuals have the right to determine their possible future treatment of “mental disease,” just as they do for physical disease and should not be coerced into any treatment.

Of course we can see that individuals wouldn’t necessarily even consider such a possibility. I certainly didn’t before reading this article. So Szasz takes this one step further by saying that society should accept that any individual who does not specifically say he or she WANTS psychiatric coercion in the case of mental problems, would automatically be assumed to prefer liberty over psychiatric coercion.

I really like how Szasz worked to develop an idea that respects everyone, no matter where they stand on the issue of mental illness:

“The use of psychiatric wills might thus put an end to the dispute about involuntary psychiatric interventions. Earnestly applied, such a policy should satisfy the demands of both psychiatric protectionists and psychiatric voluntarists. Surely, the psychiatric protectionist could not, in good faith, object to being frustrated in their therapeutic efforts by persons competent to make binding decisions about their future —specifically, decisions to prohibit personally authorized psychiatric assistance. Nor could the psychiatric abolitionists object, in good faith, to being frustrated in their libertarian efforts by persons competent to make binding decisions about their future—specifically, to authorize, under certain circumstances, their own temporary (or not-so-temporary) psychiatric enslavement.”

As usual, the article itself goes into much more depth that I do here, so if you are interested, read the entire piece.

I think it just might blow your mind, but in a good way.

How Would (Insert Issue Here) Work in the Free Market?

The last item I want to mention from Issue 20 is a short piece titled "Meeting Practical Objections to the Free Market." Everyone who wants to move away from government coercion eventually gets asked questions about how ___________ (name your issue) would work in a free society. This article by Carl points out how helpful it is to respond by asking the person how he or she thinks it could work.

I can think of many reasons why this is a good idea, one big one being that asking questions gets me to just shut up and listen.

But I really like this because it puts both people in the conversation on the same team, working together instead of trying to refute the other person's points.

What could likely end up as another dead-end argument now has the potential to turn around into a discussion where both parties end up brainstorming together on possible ideas. And society is not going to change until we start working together to formulate possible alternatives to using government coercion.

Robert LeFevre: Truth-Seeker

(Holy Moly, it's been almost a month since I've written a post for this blog. I've been busy with various other projects and I've also been traveling. My husband and I went to New Hampshire, partly to attend the Porcfest Freedom Festival. We really didn't do the Porcfest thing right though, we stayed at Rogers Campground Motel for one night and though we did get to attend a few activities, we did not really "feel" the experience. The setup is more tailored to campers. Also the weather was horrible during the time we were there. I was glad to meet a few people I had only interacted with online, so that was cool. Anyway I'm back and will be posting more often.)

In Issue 20, dated July 1986, we learn that Robert LeFevre died in May. I've written about him several times already as I've moved through the issues because had a big influence on the libertarian movement. (Here's one I wrote last September.)

Interestingly, LeFevre died while on a return trip home after attending Carl's wedding to his wife Julie.

Carl considered him one of his closest friends and LeFevre even asked Carl to write his biography. He gave Carl a 2000 page manuscript which Carl pared down. LeFevre was able to comment on the first 3 drafts of the project before he passed away. Carl did end up publishing the biography which is titled Truth Is Not A Halfway Place: The Story of a Freedom Philosopher.

I found a review of the book on FEE website. It's not particularly flattering but it is interesting and the reviewer also knew LeFevre personally, though mostly as a student of his from what I can gather. One interesting tidbit I discovered when reading this review was that LeFevre ran for Congress and lost in the Republican Primary to Richard Nixon! What might be different today had he beaten Nixon in that race?

Carl shares highlights of LeFevre's life in this issue and both the review mentioned above and Carl's article mention LeFevre's deep involvement in a religious movement known as "I AM" which is described in both writings as a cult. I found this news somewhat disturbing and yet I know that it is often the total result of all of our life experiences that make us who we are in the end. Carl notes that there was a good message from this group: the understanding that each individual controls himself.

In his article, Carl also shares two paragraphs that he read at a memorial service, which includes the following:

"Bob was a truth-seeker, one of those rare people one meets, oerhaps a few in a lifetime. Part of his greatness was his ability to stand alone intellectually; another was his consistency. He insisted on thinking ideas through to their conclusions. If there was a choice between being popular and holding to the truth, he always chose the truth. He knew that truth is not a half-way place."

July 14, 2011 update: I received this additional information from a reader:
"Dear Debbie,

Perhaps you were not aware that Bob also published an autobiography of his life. I have a copy. It is much more extensive and detailed than Carl's version, and for that reason I found it more interesting. It is called "A Way To Be Free" and consists of two volumes. He also published a summary of his philosophy called "The Fundamentals of Liberty" and left behind a set of video tapes of his last presentation of the lectures he delivered at the Freedom School in Colorado. Bob had worked for a traveling company of actors during his youth and had obtained training as an actor, and I think this helped make him a good speaker. He also was involved with real estate in San Francisco for a time. He had quite a colorful life.

Lewis S. Coleman"