In international law and [international relations]?, a state is a political subdivision possessing sovereignty, i.e. not being subject to any higher politicial subdivision. The problem with this definition is that states are often subject to some extent to higher politicial subdivisions, be they international organizations (the UN, the EU, the WTO) or other dominant and more powerful states. However, although states often are in practice subject in this way, they are much stronger in relation to international organizations or other states than lower (substate) political subdivisions normally are in relation to states. But the trend at the moment is for the power of superstate levels of governance to increase, and there is no sign of this increase being abated. Many (especially those who favour constitutional theories of international law) therefore reject as outdated the idea of soverignity, and view the state as just the chief politicial subdivision of the planet.
The legal criteria statehood are generally accepted as those set out in the Montevideo Convention (article 1) "The state as a person of international law should possess the following qualifications: (a) a permanent population; (b) a defined territory; (c) government; and (d) capacity to enter into relations with the other states." (The Montevideo is a regional American convention; but the principles contained in this article have been generally recognized as an accurate statement of customary international law.) However, some have questioned whether these criteria are sufficent.
A major issue is the difference between the constitutive and declarative theories of recognition of states. According to the constitutive theory, a state exists only insofar as it is recognized by other states. The declarative theory, by contrast, holds that the existence of a state is independent of its recognition by other states. Which theory is correct is a controversial issue in international law.
A further controversy, within Political_philosophy, centers on the question of when the state came into being, and what its basic charisteristics are.
The word state can also refer to the political subdivisions of some states, such as the Australia, India, Nigeria and United States. Other states call these subdivisions provinces (Canada), counties (England), departments (France) or voivodships (Poland).
Law is the set of rules a society adopts to regulate behavior and resolve disputes.
Each jurisdiction has its own laws; but laws are often quite similar, arising from similar values and similar social, economic and political conditions.
There are several distinct legal traditions; these differ less in the substantive content of the law than in their jargon and procedures.
The several different levels of government each produce their own laws (though the extent to which law is centralized varies); thus at any one place there can be laws in force established at the local, state, national or international levels.
GovernmentA government is an organization that attempts to maintain control of a territory, known as a state. "State" may also be used to refer to the government itself. In addition subnational entities may have local governments which do not have the full power of a national government. "Control" involves activities such as collecting taxes, controlling entry and exit to the state, preventing encroachment of territory by neighbouring states and preventing the establishment of alternative governments within the state. Governments use a variety of methods to maintain control, such as military and police forces (particular under despotism, see also [police state]?), making agreements with other states and maintaining support within the state. Typical methods of maintaining support include providing justice and [social welfare]?, claming support of deities, providing benefits to influential groups, holding elections for important posts within the state, limiting the power of the state through laws and constitutions and appealing to nationalism. Various types of government have been implemented or proposed. A government in a developed state is likely to have various sub-organisations known as offices or departments which are headed by politically appointed officials, often called ministers or secretaries. Ministers may in theory act as advisors to the head of state, but in practice have a certain amount of direct power in specific areas. In most modern democracies, the elected legislative assembly has the power to dismiss the government, though the head of state generally has great latitude in appointing a new one. See also politics, Political_philosophy, cabinet?, exectutive?, legislature |
In order to introduce what political philosophy is, I want to start by giving you a definition of the word "government":
A government is an institution, consisting of a group of people and some items at their disposal, which has a monopoly on the legitimate, or at least widely accepted, initiation of force within a given geographical area.
This is a fairly standard sort of definition of the term "government." You might find it a little bit surprising though. When you think of government, you may think of large white buildings, well-groomed people in business suits, and eloquent but vapid speechmaking. What does all that have to do with the initiation of force? I'll tell you -- it has everything to do with the initiation of force. The whole point of having a government around at all, as we will see, is to make the power of individuals to act aggressively toward other individuals legitimate for government alone. The power to initiate force is allegedly, and indeed it can be, safer in the hands of a relatively powerful government, that can control its unruly citizens, than it would be in the hands of each individual person. All the other programs that you see governments enacting are ultimately based on their widely accepted, or legitimate, ability to compel individuals to do things like pay taxes, to appear in court when subpoenaed, to vacate an area when ordered, and so forth.
Consider this. Why don't we call a gang, that makes a certain neighborhood its turf, the government of that neighborhood? Don't just say, "Well, it's obvious that the gang isn't the government." I'm asking you to explain why it's not the government. I know it's obvious that the gang isn't the government; the question is why it's not. Here's my answer: the gang doesn't have a monopoly on the legitimate, or at least widely accepted, initiation of force within the neighborhood. It's the police, and the broader government that the police represent, that have the monopoly on the legitimate use of force. As long as the police have things relatively under control, the gang isn't top dog; it's the city, state, and federal government of that neighborhood.
Now to see this a little more clearly, change the example. Fast forward fifty years in the future. For some reason, maybe due to war, the police will absolutely not go into that neighborhood at all. Neither will government tax collectors, or dog catchers, or any other agent of the city, state, or federal government. Nope, within that neighborhood, the gang members have grown up, their numbers have multiplied, and they have set up walls all around the neighborhood; they control who comes in and who goes out; the leader of the gang is the ultimate judge of all the fights that break out in the neighborhood streets; they decide who gets guns and who doesn't; and so forth.
Now would you say that the gang members are members of a government? For all intents and purposes, they are. And according to the definition I gave you, they are. Maybe not a good government, but a government. The gangsters and their stuff -- weapons, cars, houses, drugs, and so forth -- are "a group of people and some items at their disposal, which has a monopoly on the legitimate, or at least widely accepted, initiation of force within a given geographical area," namely their neighborhood. That group has become the government of the neighborhood.
Now you might want to object and say, "Look, that's not a government. That's just a gang of hoodlums." But if you say this, I think you're forgetting your history. Most governments in the world began with gangs of hoodlums! It's just that eventually, they became respectable. The United States is one of the few nations in the world that didn't begin that way; of course, I suppose that Washington and Jefferson might have looked like hoodlums to the English. And of course, there are even now what we call "rogue nations," that are run, as most of us think, by what amounts to a gang of hoodlums. The fact that they are a gang of hoodlums doesn't mean that they're not the government! Because unfortunately, plainly, they are the government in those localities! And they will be until someone with more sense and morality steps up and takes power away from them. That's the way of the world. Government is a really nasty business. Or at least it can be.
So, if that's what government is, we've got another sort of question to answer: When is a government legitimate? When is it a good government? How can we distinguish the upright and decent governments from the governments of mere "rogue nations"?
Those are a few of the central questions of political philosophy. This is another very complex area, difficult to define, but I'll attempt a definition now anyway:
Political philosophy is the study of the fundamental questions about government: what it is, why it is needed, what makes a government legitimate, what rights and freedoms it should protect and why, what form it should take and why, what the law is, and what duties citizens owe to a legitimate government, if any, and when it may be legitimately overthrown, if ever.
As you can see, just from reading this definition, this area of philosophy is positively enormous. It is probably the area of philosophy that you knew most about already, on account of its being taught to some extent in civics classes. Next we are going to have to focus in on only one of the many questions that make up political philosophy. The question we will focus on is the one that is discussed in our reading: why is government needed at all, and what, if anything, makes any particular government legitimate.
So far we have defined "government" and used that to introduce a definition of "political philosophy" -- since political philosophy concerns, primarily (but not only), philosophical issues about government. It just so happens, as we saw, that political philosophy contains a lot of different issues, and there is no way even so much as to summarize those issues without moving so fast that the chapter would be just useless and very difficult to follow. So we could, but will not, spend a few paragraphs each on the justification of the state, the purpose or function of government, the proper form of government, what the law is, and other basic issues in political philosophy. Instead, we are going to focus on the first issue, which is one of the most important, if not the most important issue. Namely: What is the justification of the state? Or to put it differently: From what source does the legitimate authority of any particular government arise?
Notice I am using the words "state" and "government" interchangeably here. There is a loose sense of the word "state" in which all the citizens of a particular territory are part of the state -- in the sense in which we are all part of the United States. In that sense, "state" means something like "country." But as the term is usually used in philosophy, "state" has a more restricted meaning; it means, basically, the government.
Now let's get clear about what the question at issue is. I very imprecisely put it as: "What is the justification of the state?" But as you should know by now, the first way of asking a philosophical question that comes to mind is bound to be woefully imprecise. If we ask the question and then forge right on ahead to giving an answer, we will end up just wasting a lot of time. So let's see what we mean when we ask, "What is the justification of the state?"
The first thing to observe is that the state, or government, is not some totally monolithic "leviathan" (to use Thomas Hobbes's term), a single entity with a single mind and a single will -- even though words like "the state" and "the government" invite us to think of it that way. No, the state is made up of people (such as the president), some items at their disposal or so-called public property (such as government buildings and weapons), and particular habits or traditions (such as those things that are called "laws"). For any given government, there are not always the same people, public property, and laws; that is of course especially true for any relatively long-lived government, such as the United States government.
Next, recall that what we're talking about is the justification of the state. That word, "justification," has turned out to be rather important in our investigations into philosophy. One kind of justification we encountered was epistemic justification -- that's the sort of justification that some of our beliefs have. But obviously, when we talk about the justification of the state, we're talking about justification in a different sense -- in a moral sense of the word. If a state is "justified" in this moral sense of the word, then it is, as we say, legitimate. It is a legitimate government; and it has a moral right to rule.
But now, we said that the state is made up of people, public property, and a set of traditions such as laws; so what exactly are we talking about when we ask about the moral justification of the state? Are we asking for the moral justification of the existence of particular politicians, or particular government buildings, or particular laws? No -- not any one of these things in particular. So you might say: What we're asking for is the moral justification of the existence of all of these things together.
But it's not everything, taken together, that makes up one particular government that philosophers are interested in showing to be morally justified. The question isn't about any one particular government; it's about an aspect of any government. Which aspect? The monopoly on the legitimate initiation of force. Remember that that's what we said was essential to the state: the legitimate or at least widely accepted ability to initiate force within a given area. So if you want me to single out some items for moral justification, from among the items in government that I listed -- people, property, and practices -- it would be: the people in government engaging in any practice that involves threatening or using force. So then here's the question: "How are the people in government morally justified in engaging in any practice that involves threatening or using force?"
In the United States at present, there are a lot more than just police officers, judges, and soldiers who can legitimately initiate force. There are also zoning commissions, the EPA, the FAA, and all sorts of other regulatory bodies. But the United States is only one example, of course, and you have to remember: the question is, "How are the people in any government morally justified, if and whenever they are morally justified, in engaging in any practice that involves threatening or using force?"
It's really important that you understand why we're asking this question. In order to understand it, you have to understand, and be persuaded, of the rather strange claim that government is essentially legitimized force. Once you've grasped that point, then when we ask, "What is the justification of the state?" you are just one step away from understanding that that question means, briefly put, "What is the moral justification of government people, government agents, using force?" What justifies them in using force? If they couldn't use force, there would be no government; and that's precisely why we're asking what justifies them in using force. It's not like I'm trying to be subversive -- I'm just trying to be philosophical. Anyway, that's the basic question we're asking now.
Next I want us to distinguish two senses of this question. Like this:
(1) What is the moral justification, if any, of government agents using force at all?
(2) What is the justification, if any, of government agents using force to achieve a particular purpose, P?
The difference between these two questions is reflected in the difference between two other questions. First, what is the justification of the very existence of the state? And second, what is the justification of a particular kind of state action? On the one hand, if we can't give any justification for the existence of the state at all, if we can't justify government agents ever using any force at all, then we're stuck with theoretical anarchism. (More on that later.) On the other hand, if we can't justify a particular kind of state action, if we can't justify government agents using force to achieve that action's purpose, then we might still believe that government ought to exist. We would simply be saying that that is one less function that the government ought to be performing. Or to put the contrast even more starkly: it's one thing to say we should get rid of the government entirely; it's quite a different thing to say, simply, that we should get rid of the Social Security system, or certain defense programs.
By the way, if you wonder what the Social Security system has to do with force, just ask yourself something. Suppose an employer did not expect to face heavy fines and possible jail time, if he did not take out money for Social Security tax. Do you think he would then, voluntarily, pay the tax? Very possibly not. It's the threat of force that keeps people paying taxes, and it's taxes that keep the government running at all. So: no tax enforcement, no government. It's easy to forget this, but it's true.
Anyway, the question I want to focus on is (1), not (2). I want to ask why the state should exist at all -- why the power of government agents to initiate force should be thought to to be morally legitimate.
Now, if you'll remember, we already asked this question once. We said that government is necessary in order to keep other people from violating our rights. Some people are hell-bent on taking our stuff and even our lives and purely as a protective measure we are willing to establish governments that protect us. That's at least a "prima facie" reason for the existence of the state. "Prima facie" means "on first glance." So on first glance, the reason that governments are needed to exist at all is to protect our rights, and to preserve justice.
<The following is a portion of Larrys Text, wikification is invited>
But now I want you to consider carefully what, exactly, is being claimed here. The claim is that the reason the state exists is in order to protect our rights. But if the essence of the state is the initation of force, that means that it is the initiation of force that protects our rights. And that of course makes sense: in order to prevent criminals and foreign invaders from harming us, police officers and soldiers are authorized to initiate force against criminals and foreign enemies.
Remember, though, that the state has a monopoly on the initiation of force; we can protect ourselves from criminals in self-defense, but we cannot go out and punish them ourselves. That is left up to governments. Here's another example. We can give money to charity voluntarily; but we cannot go out and force other people to give money to poor people. Only the state is permitted to do that, not individual citizens.
What this means, then, is we have to give up some of the freedom that we would otherwise have, in order to have a government. At the very least, what we cannot do is initiate force against other people, no matter how annoying or immoral we may think they are. That is a liberty, a freedom, that we don't have. And why don't we have it? Because we have given that liberty up to government. If that liberty, the liberty to initiate force, were retained by many ordinary people, that would undermine the government. The state exists, and works, only if it has that monopoly on the initiation of force; if it does not, then there are, in fact, any number of as it were competing governments running around within the same geographical area. In other words, we'd have anarchy in that case.
Larry again: I hope this makes it clearer to say that, in order to get protection of your rights from the state, you must give up your liberty to some extent. And indeed, the more that you want government to do, the more liberty, to do what you like, you have to give up.
Now there are some people who think, first, that government always winds up violating the very rights it is supposed to be protecting; and, second, liberty to do what you want to do is for various reasons extremely important. These two claims are different from each other, but the people who hold one view very often hold the other. As regards the first, they think no government does a good job of protecting rights; they say power corrupts, and so governments are always corrupted eventually, no matter how noble their beginnings are. As regards the second, which is perhaps more important for these people, liberty to do what you want to do is definitely one of the goods in life. Some people have written as though they thought liberty was intrinsically good -- desirable for its own sake. But I think you'll agree with me when I say it seems very odd to say that liberty is something that is desirable for its own sake. Aren't there reasons for which we want liberty? For example, many people think that in order to pursue our own happiness, we must have a great deal of liberty; meaning that we must not be restrained by other people or by government from doing what we choose. If that's right, then liberty would be an instrumentally good thing -- not intrinsically good.
Anyway, however that is, having views like this, there are some people who think there is no moral justification for government. Of course, they say a lot more than the two things I listed, in defending this view; but we don't have time to go into their arguments in any depth. But let's at least name and define the position:
Anarchism is the view that there is no moral justification for the state, i.e., there is no moral justification for government agents initiating force, and any monopoly that a government may have on the power to initiate force is morally illegitimate.
Now, if we're going to answer our question, "What is the justification of the state?" then we had better have some reason to reject anarchism, because anarchism says there is no justification for the state.
But notice what anarchism doesn't say. The way I've defined it, anarchism does not say that a society with no government would certainly be better than a society with some particular kind of government, such as a constitutional, mixed-economy republic like the United States. It just says that there is no moral justification for any state; that's all it says. But you have to admit -- it sounds kind of strange to say that the government could greatly improve the lives of its constituents, and yet have no moral justification. I mean, if it does improve the lives of the people under its authority, isn't that at least the beginnings of a justification? The fact that the government does help everyone out, in various ways -- isn't that what gives government a right to exist? We'll see about that later.
Notice another thing that anarchism doesn't say. As I've defined it, it doesn't say that we ought to go out and overthrow governments. It might be entirely morally wrong to revolt, even though there's no moral justification for the state. As experience has shown repeatedly, it almost always ends up doing far more harm than good, to try to overthrow the government violently. Sometimes, as in the case of the American Revolution, it does some good; but of course, you'll notice that in that case a government was established in the place of the rejected English colonial government. It's not like those American revolutionaries were fighting to establish a situation in which there was no government at all! Indeed, all revolts of any major size have been revolts aiming to change the government -- not to do away with all government entirely. That would just be silly and destructive, I think. I doubt I'm going very far out on a limb in saying that, either!
In saying that a state should do these things, we say that the state should have a monopoly on the legitimate use of force in an area. That means that our liberty to do various things is infringed; the state must exercise authority over us, in order to protect our rights. But liberty is a good thing, something desirable for various reasons. So we should desire to give it up to a state only for excellent reasons. Indeed, this raises the question: What, if anything, justifies any particular government's removal of (some of) our liberties? Because, remember, the people in the government are human beings like the rest of us; and thus they too are also apt to harm our rights, just as might happen if there were no state at all. So it becomes pressing to explain when a state is legitimate, or what makes a particular state legitimate.
Now what anarchism (or, as it is also called, theoretical anarchism) does say, is that there is no way to give a moral justification for the state. Government agents are never morally justified when they create a monopoly on the initiation of force within a given area. That's what anarchism says.
So it's pretty clear how we can refute anarchism, right? What we have to do is to come up with a moral justification for the state. If you look at it like that, you can regard anarchism as a challenge: because it is what you are stuck with if you fail to adequately explain why the existence of government is morally justified. So let's get to work trying to explain that.
I'm going to discuss one first attempt to justify the state only very briefly. We've already mentioned it: it's called the natural law theory. Now (as our text says), just by itself, the natural law theory does not offer any justification of the state. Because all it says is that there is some set of natural laws, which specify rules of conduct that prescribe our natural duties and natural rights. We can say all we like that there is some body of law that is natural or appropriate for humankind. But it requires separate argument, another argument, to show that natural law requires that we establish a government; or to show that natural law can be enforced only if there is a government. I mean, after all, what if something rather unusual should happen -- what if it turned out that the natural law forbade us from establishing any government? What if government agents were never morally justified, by natural law, in initiating force against people? If you think that's just a ridiculous notion, then I just wonder how you're going to argue for it. One thing here at least is clear, and that is that some separate argument is required. The mere assertion that there is a body of natural law doesn't even come close to giving a moral justification of the state.
Now there has been a version of the natural law theory, which did include a justification for the state. It's something you've probably heard about -- the so-called "divine right of kings." According to the doctrine of the divine right of kings, monarchs were justified in holding their power by a sort license from God. Their rule was regarded as a reflection of natural law, which was, in the end, God's law, God's intentions for the political organization of human beings.
If you ever talk about "God-given rights," you are, probably unwittingly, continuing this ancient tradition of regarding natural law as God's law about how we should be organized politically. If you think it's God that gives you the rights to life, liberty, and property, then to that extent at least, you are buying into this notion that God writes the rules in heaven, and our duty is to follow them.
But remember, if you can, what we said about theological ethics back when we were discussing the philosophy of religion. The same point we made then applies again now. We should ask: Why does God want us to establish governments that protect our God-given rights to life, liberty, and property? I might, I suppose, sound impressive to some of you to say that God does want us to establish governments. I won't quarrel with that; if God exists, he probably does want us to establish governments! And if God exists, then his wishes probably are as good as law! The question in any case is why God would want us to establish governments. Surely there's something about human nature, and about the situation we find ourselves in, that would explain why God commands us to establish governments. If there is any reason at all, it is that reason that we can use to justify the existence of the state. And in a way then -- not to be impious -- we can as it were bypass God. We can bypass God in giving our explanation of why the state ought to exist. Because we can say, simply: "Our reason for thinking that the state should exist is just the same as God's reason, which is X." Then we just have to fill in the X!
But of course, that's the whole problem to begin with. We aren't any further along in discovering the justification of the state than when we started. So let's consider some positive theories about why the state is justified.
Let's begin with the social contract theory -- or rather social contract theories, because there are several variations on the same theme. This is going to take a while to explain, so let me introduce a definition of "social contract theory" to give you an idea of what I'm going to introduce:
A social contract theory of the state is any theory which says that the existence of the state is morally justified by some sort of agreement, often called a "social contract," that is said hold among the residents of a particular geographical area over which the state has authority.
Sometimes this theory is called contractarianism. In order to explain what the social contract theory (or contractarianism) says, I'm going to have to explain what this "agreement" among residents of an area is supposed to amount to -- that is, I'm going to have to explain to you what a social contract is supposed to be. But before I do that, it will be useful to explain first why this contract is supposed to be necessary at all.
The 17th-century English philosopher, Thomas Hobbes, is famous for presenting a sort of useful fiction in political philosophy, called the state of nature. The state of nature is, basically, the condition we all would be in if government did not exist. The way it's sometimes presented, it's the condition before the rule of law comes into being. Some have thought, I suppose, that there was a time before any government, any official monopoly on the initiation of the use of force, came into being. I think that what we know about the social behavior of indigenous peoples in undeveloped countries shows that that might be wrong in point of historical fact. It is very rare, indeed, that a group of people lacks anything like a government at all, even if the "government" consists only of tribal elders. That's why I say the state of nature is a "useful fiction."
Hobbes -- and others -- invites us to consider what the state of nature would be like. There are, of course, different views about the matter, but Hobbes? view is perhaps the most famous. He thought that the state of nature, the condition of having no government, would in effect be the war of all against all. We would all be fighting amongst ourselves for scarce resources, grabbing whatever we can. "The life of man," Hobbes said, would be "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short." Sounds pretty miserable.
To make things worse, people in the state of nature, according to Hobbes, could not even correctly appeal to any sort of higher justice. There would be no justice at all, Hobbes thought -- because without law, and an institution to enforce law, there would be no such thing as justice. A mother could murder her child and that would be perfectly just. Why? Because there would be no law forbidding such a thing. So Hobbes thought that, in order to have justice, there be a law. If there is no actual law against murder, then murder is not unjust.
Now, you may disagree with Hobbes about how bad a state of nature might be; but in any case I think we can agree that it wouldn't be a walk in the park. Basically, what we're talking about here is anarchy. I think it's not too clear what life would be like in such a state; but I do think it's pretty clear it wouldn't be very nice. Now to be sure, there are some people -- only some of the people who call themselves "anarchists" -- who think that the state of nature would definitely be better than any situation where there is a government. But the vast majority of people, including most of you I would be willing to predict, would say that the state of nature would be very nasty and brutish indeed, just as Hobbes said.
Think of it like this: What if you couldn't call the police when you're being burglarized or threatened by someone? What if criminals had only you to fear when they came to take your stuff? Then they might simply band together into gangs, a few of them against one of you, and you'd be at their mercy. Yep, that's how I think it would be: the weak constantly at the mercy of roving bands of thugs.
"Now wait just a second," you might say. "If the thugs join forces in order to take my stuff, then what's to say I wouldn't join forces with other peaceful, right-respecting people, to stop them from taking my stuff? We would all agree to protect each other; if one of us is attacked, then the others will defend. All for one and one for all." Well, you might do that. You might form a sort of defensive league. But what if a gang sees this happening and gets more recruits, and consequently totally outnumbers and overpowers your defensive league?
"Well then," you might reply, "in that case, I'd try to get more people for the defensive league. We would all agree to defend each other, or at least to buy guns and supplies for people who will protect us. Perhaps my league would band together with other peaceful, rights-respecting leagues. In the end, surely there are more peaceful, rights-respecting people on earth than there are criminally-minded types. So we'll able to defend ourselves from them."
Now that's kind of interesting, because it's not clear that we're talking the state of nature anymore. If you do indeed successfully recruit enough people for your defensive league, and otherwise band together like-minded people who agree to protect each other from criminals, then your defensive league has become a government. Maybe not the sort complex, enormous government the United States now has, with a budget of over $1 trillion a year, but a government nonetheless.
This line of thinking is at the heart of the social contract theory. The dangers of the state of nature are great; and so we all agree to give up some of our liberty in exchange for the promise of protection by others. That agreement is what makes the government's monopoly on the initiation of force morally legitimate. In other words, it's our agreement that gives government agents the right to reserve certain kinds of power for themselves; they are, ultimately, not just government agents, but our agents. They govern by the consent of the governed. You've heard that before -- well, social contract theory is where that catchphrase comes from.
So what exactly does this "agreement" amount to, anyway? Do social contract theorists actually say that we have, in fact, agreed to give up some of our liberties so that the government can exist? If I did in fact agree to this at some point, as an adult citizen of the United States, then where is my signature, or my oath? I am not aware of ever having made an oath of citizenship. I guess I recited the Pledge of Allegiance many times as a child; but I'm not sure that counts.
What Hobbes said isn't that there is an actual agreement that any of us actually have made. It's a hypothetical agreement. Now what does that mean -- "hypothetical" agreement? As I understand it, a hypothetical agreement to establish a state is an agreement that I would make, if I were living in a state of nature, and someone made an offer to set up a government in that situation. To say that I would agree to the establishment of a government in the state of nature is not to say that I have agreed, at any time, to the establishment of the actual government that actually exists. As far as Hobbes is concerned, in the end, that's irrelevant. What gives the state the right to exist is the fact that I would agree to establish it, and to give up the liberty I would have, in the state of nature, to initiate force. And of course the reason I'd agree to this is that it would be greatly to my advantage. I'd much rather sleep peacefully, thinking that criminals are not easily going to be able to harm me and take my stuff. So, sure -- I'd agree to the establishment of a government. Well if so, then I am party to a hypothetical agreement, which is called a "social contract." I do agree to give up the liberty to initiate force, and in exchange for that I expect to receive protection from the government; and I do have this hypothetical agreement because I would agree to an offer to establish a government, if I found myself in the state of nature. That's basically what Hobbes said.
John Locke, another Englishman who wrote about fifty years after Hobbes, disagreed with Hobbes about the social contract. For one thing, he didn't think the state of nature would be as bad as Hobbes envisioned. That's a point we needn't dwell on though. Locke also didn't think that the social contract was a hypothetical agreement; he thought it was an actual agreement. We actually have agreed to follow the laws of a government if we were born and raised, and come into adulthood in the country over which the government has authority. This is all the more the case if we take any action, such as voting or paying taxes, that requires us to acknowledge that the government is in place. So for Locke, it's an actual social contract that we have; not an ordinary contract of the sort that one signs, of course, but a binding agreement nonetheless. And it is that actual binding agreement, which we show we have when we vote for example, that gives the government its right the monopoly of the initiation of force.
In fact, Socrates, the first major philosopher in Western philosophy, believed in this very principle so strongly that he was willing to die for it. He thought that he had an agreement with the city of Athens to follow its laws; so if the city of Athens sentenced him to death, he thought he had a strict moral obligation to carry out his sentence and die; he thought it was absolutely forbidden that he escape, even though everyone expected him to. And the reason he thought so is that he thought he had that explicit agreement with the city of Athens. And you thought philosophy didn't have any practical applications!
So there is a very brief introduction to the social contract theory. There are other versions too, like those of Rousseau and, within the last thirty years, the American John Rawls. But it's not like the social contract theory doesn't have its problems and challenges. I'm only going to mention two.
First, there's the problem of the people who don't want to make the agreement, or who wouldn't even in the state of nature -- the problem of dissenters, if you will. Say we're in the state of nature and someone comes knocking on my door and says, "We've got this great deal going, all you have to do is sign on the dotted line, promise not to attack anyone, and we will protect you from thieves and other criminals." Well, what if I close the door, saying that I'm not interested? Is Hobbes really saying that everyone would, in the state of nature, sign on to the establishment of a government? I mean, would they? If Hobbes is saying that, he's really quite naïve! Lots of people just don't know what's good for them.
So suppose that I wouldn't agree to the establishment of a government, in the state of nature. "I will take care of myself, thank you very much, and you and your government can go jump off a cliff" -- that's what I'd say when the offer is made. Then here's the problem: Do I have any obligation not to initiate force, according to the social contract theorist? Apparently not. Because the only thing that obligates me to give up my liberty to initiate force is that agreement. If I don't make it, or I wouldn't make it, then it looks like I'm still perfectly free to aggressively assert my will over other people, if I so desire. I have no agreement, so I would not recognize any government as being legitimate. And as far as I'm concerned, any government that tries to control me is, in fact, illegitimate. I never agreed, and never would agree, to give up any of my liberties to it.
Now, how can social contract theorist reply to this? It's a common objection, and it's rather difficult to answer. One thing that makes it particularly difficult is that the social contract theorist has to appeal to something else, in order to explain why dissenters are morally obligated to give up their freedom to initiate force. Surely, if I start a cult and move out to Montana and say I owe no allegiance to the United States, just about everyone here, I think, would say that I do indeed owe allegiance to the United States. No matter what I say. Even if deny that I owe any allegiance -- even if I explicitly deny having any sort of social contract with the United States at all. So, if you do want to say that I owe allegiance to the United States, then it's not a contract, real or imaginary, that's binding on me; it must be something else. The social contract theory, by itself, doesn't say what else.
Here's a second problem for the social contract theory. What if we start a dandy little government, but then it gets out of hand. It grows larger and ever more powerful, and more and more authoritarian, until it is arresting and executing people merely for openly disagreeing with government policies, and becomes an all-out totalitarian state. This has, of course, happened all too many times throughout the course of human history; and it almost certainly will happen again, if not in the United States, then in some other country that we now regard as relatively civilized and moral.
So, naturally, even if we do have, at present, an actual or hypothetical agreement with our country, there may come a time when we will want to dissolve the agreement. So one problem, which is a practical problem, is when we should dissolve the agreement with a government; when we may legitimately declare that we are not morally bound to do what the government says. If the United States government were to become a totally vicious totalitarian dictatorship -- not something that can be expected to happen anytime soon, but it could eventually -- then at what point would you be morally justified in defying the government?
That's one problem but it's not the objection to social contractarianism. After all, philosophers like Locke are very well aware that in some situations we may want to break ties with a government; in fact, Locke's theory on that subject was followed by American revolutionaries in breaking ties with the English government. The problem for social contractarianism, however, comes in attempting to state the justification of breaking ties with a government. Surely, we would be justified in defying some governments that might arise. That seems clearly true. The question now is why we would be so justified -- what would justify us.
All that the social contract theory says is that, if we are party to a social contract, then we're morally bound to give up our liberty to initiate force, and the government that is given that same liberty is legitimate. That's all the social contract theory says; so by itself, it doesn't give us any clear grounds on which to dissolve a social contract.
And for that matter, why don't we ask what sort of grounds justified you in agreeing to the social contract in the first place? Why was that agreement something that, morally, you ought to participate in? Surely you should participate in a social contract under some circumstances -- if you think it's very likely that the government will be to everyone's benefit, for example. If that's the reason, we're getting close to a totally different justification of the state: consequentialist justifications. So let's look at that next.
Suppose I argue as follows. "The social contract theory is just incomplete. It doesn't answer some very crucial questions about the justification of the state. Now, I think I have the answers to those questions. For example, one question is: Why is an irrational, or criminal, dissenter nonetheless obligated to follow the laws of a good government? Answer: because it's to the benefit of everyone, including the dissenter, that everyone else follows the laws of a good government. In other words, it's the good consequences of giving up the liberty to initiate force to a government that makes giving up that liberty the right thing to do.
"Or consider that second question: What justifies us in breaking the social contract? Clearly, if we're trying to escape the rule of a vicious, immoral, totalitarian government, it is our own self-interest, and indeed the interest of everyone in society (with the possible exception of government thugs) that makes revolution morally permissible, and in some cases morally obligatory. So even if we do have a social contract with the state, the morality of that contract itself can be defended only on consequentialist grounds: only on grounds that the contract is beneficial. When the continuation of that contract becomes clearly harmful to us, we have the right and even the duty to break it. And it's the fact that a contract with a vicious government is harmful that gives us the right and duty to break the contract."
I think that, after the chapter about ethics, you can see where this is going. Basically, it is the application of consequentialism to the problem of the justification of government. What is the moral justification, if any, of government agents using force at all? Ultimately, the justification is the simple fact that that has good consequences -- or at least can have good consequences. No one would deny that there are corrupt, bad governments. But giving good governments a monopoly on the initiation of force is morally justified, and not, ultimately, by a social contract, but instead by the clear beneficial consequences of such obediance. So consider a definition:
A consequentialist theory of (the justification of) the state is any theory which says that the existence of some states is morally justified by the comparatively beneficial consequences of giving those states a monopoly on the initiation of force.
The consequentialist can talk about the state of nature just like the social contract theory; it's just that the consequentialist responds to the horror story about the state of nature differently from the social contract theorist. The social contract theorist says, for example: "In the state of nature, we would agree to give up some of our liberties to a government, and that is why the existence of government is (or can be) legitimate." The consequentialist, by contrast, says: "In the state of nature, we would suffer all sorts of inconveniences and harms, and it would be a hard life all around; it would be far better, more beneficial to us individually and collectively, to have at least some manner of government." So the consequentialist just bypasses this talk of social contracts; or else it gives a moral justification of social contracts, just as it gives a moral justification of government itself, on consequentialist grounds. That is, solely based on considerations about the good and bad consequences of entering into a social contract, or establishing a government.
Now, remember that there are different varieties of consequentialism; the three varieties I mentioned are egoism, utilitarianism, and hybrid consequentialism. Very plausible moral justifications can be given for the existence of the state regardless of which kind of consequentialism it is that you choose. Even egoism: I can, as an egoist, very well acknowledge that it is to my own individual benefit to give up merely the liberty to initiate force, and perhaps some tax money, in exchange for protection of his rights from a government that has a monopoly on the initiation of force. And then of course what's good for the goose is good for the gander: it's even easier to argue on utilitarian grounds that government is a necessary institution. (That version could be called "social utilitarianism," which is Halverson's term.)
Now there are some people who are thoroughly dissatisfied with this justification of the state. As Halverson says, this just seems like a mere "practical" or "pragmatic" justification of the existence of the state, rather than a "theoretical" justification. Consequences -- those are mere "practical" considerations. I don't know if you can understand that, but I can't. Honestly, what is the difference between a practical and a theoretical justification? I don't know. I understand a related sort of distinction, when it comes to some problems in mathematics and science. On the one hand, there is theory, the equations, and so forth; and on the other hand, there are particular problems from everyday life that the theory is used solve, and those are practical problems. That's a distinction that makes some sense to me. But what is this distinction between practical and theoretical justifications? When is a justification "practical," and when is it "theoretical"?
Or, suppose you think that the distinction between practical and theoretical justifications is clear enough, and you don't need to explain it. Then I have a couple of other questions for you. First, why isn't a consequentialist justification of the state theoretical? Consequentialism is a theory, isn't it? So then why wouldn't justification that is based on consequentialism be a theoretical justification? Second, even if the consequentialist justification of the state is practical, is a practical justification any less successful for being practical? Isn't a successful practical justification way better than a shaky theoretical justification? I mean, isn't there a case to be made that, everything else being equal, we should prefer the practical to the theoretical? I think there is. But of course, to make that case, we would have to have a clearer distinction between practical and theoretical justifications; and I'm not sure that it can be made any clearer.
Consider next a second objection to the consequentialist justification of the state. Recall what the good old anarchist says: power corrupts, and any government is bound ultimately to abuse its power. So even on consequentialist grounds, we should not say that governments have a right to exist; the anarchist maintains that they have no right to exist at all, and they exist only because they have successfully seized power from individuals.
Here is a way for the consequentialist to reply. Of course, some states are thoroughly corrupt and indeed they have no right to exist; they do abuse their power, infringing those essential rights that it's supposed to be protecting, and so forth. And it might even be true that all governments, over time, are made more and more corrupt by the power they hold; and that it is only revolution that can make a government good again. That might be true, although I kind of doubt it. But even if it is true, there can be periods of decades or even centuries during which a people can thrive under a good government. The fact, if it is a fact, that that good government is going to become corrupt eventually does not mean that the people who thrive under the government today owe no allegiance to it. Indeed, it makes sense to say that they do owe allegiance to that government, so long as the government is not thoroughly corrupt -- so long as it is not so corrupt that people would be warranted in overthrowing it.
So the anarchist argues that because some governments are bad, and because all governments tend to become bad, therefore no government is justified. But that just doesn't follow. I can maintain, perfectly consistently, that some governments are bad, and all governments tend to become bad, but also that some governments are good and perfectly justified in their existence.
What I have yet to do is actually to give you a consequentialist argument that we ought to establish, and support, some governments. All I've done so far is asserted, made the bald assertion without argument, that establishing at least some governments would, on the whole, create more good than bad for those under its authority. But to be honest, I'm not, or not yet, prepared to give you an argument for that assertion. Because in order to argue for it, I'd have start saying what I think a government should do. And that's the next question we're going to consider, although we'll consider it only very briefly.
One of the central questions of political philosophy is what the purpose of government is. It is platitudinous to say that a good state is one that does (well) whatever governments should do, and it does nothing else. But this only makes it more pressing that we try to find out what governments should do--what their proper functions are, and are not--what, in the phrase of Wilhelm von Humboldt, their proper "spheres and duties" are.
We might be tempted to say, as nearly everyone can agree, that the purpose of the state is to protect rights? and to preserve justice. But this raises more questions than it answers. Which and whose rights? What sort of justice? There are, after all, many different conceptions of what rights we have, and what justice consists of.
It is on those questions that one can find the differences between conservatism, liberalism, libertarianism, socialism, and fascism. There are a handful of anarchists (see anarchism) among the socialists (see traditional anarchism) and the anarcho-capitalists (see anarcho-capitalism). But everyone else agrees that the existence of some kind of government is morally justified. What they disagree about is what government should do.
One fairly useful way to conceive of the differences between these different views is as how much they want government to do. For a stark and timely contrast, consider two of these views: libertarianism, which wants the state to do only a few things, and socialism (except for anarchism), which wants the state to do a lot of things (but only as a transition to communism by some definitions of socialism). Libertarianism, in political theory, is the view that the function of the state is only to keep people from harming each other. In other words, an individual should be free to do anything they want, so long as they do not infringe upon the rights of others to do what they want. The government's role is to protect those rights. Socialism, nearly on the other end of a continuum, is the view that the state is responsible for an equitable distribution of wealth and for controlling the means of production and distribution of resources in an economy.
The constitutions of various countries codify practical views as to the purposes of their governments, but they tend to do so in rather vague terms, which particular laws, courts, and actions of politicians subsequently flesh out. For example, the Preamble of the United States Constitution lists the items states that the purpose of the Constitution--which defines the American state--is "to form perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity." The phrase "promote the general welfare" has, since the 1930s, been used to defend the proposition that the United States is tasked with creating a social "[safety net]?," or welfare? system; others, however, have disagreed that the phrase can be properly interpreted that way. But it is in this sort of way that various countries have translated vague talk about the purposes of their governments into particular state laws, bureaucracies, enforcement actions, etc.
Once we have given some justification for the existence of the state at all, we are faced with the question of what governments are morally justified in doing, which is another way of saying what their purposes or functions should be. This turns to be one of the most important questions that can be asked.
Libertarianism is a political philosophy, according to which the state that governs best governs least. Individuals should be free to do anything they want, so long as they do not infringe upon the rights of others. The only legitimate use of force, whether public or private, is to protect those rights. For libertarians, there are no 'positive rights' to food or shelter or health care, only 'negative rights' to not be assaulted, abused, robbed, censored, and the like.
However, there is still confusion, because the french word 'libertaire', the spanish word 'libertario', etc., usually translated into english as 'libertarian', traditionally referred to some kind of socialist anarchism or libertarian communism, whereas (modern US term) libertarians are not socialists at all, and most of them are not anarchists, but minarchists, that is advocates of some minimal state.
Some, particularly in the USA, argue that while Libertarianism has much in common with the earlier tradition of classical liberalism, it must be distinguished for historical reasons, the term classical liberalism being restricted to apply only to thinkers from earlier periods. Others, particularly outside the US, think that just a change in name doesn't mean the tradition is different, all the more since they indifferently use the words "libertarianism" and "classical liberalism" to denote the same tradition.
In any case, whether you equate them or not, Libertarianism shares all the opinions, methods, and approaches of earlier classical liberalism.
Libertarianism has significant differences with both conservatism and liberalism (as those terms are used in the United States): see political spectrum. Libertarians consider that conservatives approve of economic freedoms but not of personal freedoms, whereas liberals approve of personal freedoms and not economic freedoms, and that they libertarians claim all these freedoms.
Libertarians prefer not to be called "right-wing?". Indeed, they reject the two-dimensional left/right dichotomy (see the World's Smallest Political Quiz), and there were times when those with similar views were considered left-wing on the political space (for instance, in the seventeenth century, the Whigs? were revolutionaries, and in 1848, Frederic Bastiat was seating rather on the left side of the Assembly) - indeed, the balance of political opinions has shifted a lot, while the anti-political tradition of libertarianism has not moved, only evolved and grown.
The classic problem in political philosophy of the legitimacy of property is essential to libertarians. Libertarians often justify individual property on the basis of self-ownership: one's right to own one's body; the results of one's own work; what one obtains from the voluntary concession of a former legitimate owner, through trade, gift or inheritance, and so forth. Ownership of disputed natural resources is more problematic and libertarian solutions such as homesteading have been studied from John Locke to Murray Rothbard.
Thus, according to libertarians, taxation and regulation? are at best necessary evils, and where unnecessary are simply evil. Government spending and regulations should be reduced in as much as they replace voluntary private spending with involuntary public spendings, and replace private morality with public coercion. To many libertarians, governments should not establish schools, regulate industry, commerce or agriculture, or run social welfare programs. Nor should government restrict free speech, [[sexual practices]]gambling, drug usage, or any other 'victimless' crimes. For libertarians, government's main imperative should be "Laissez Faire" -- "Let it be".
The minarchists believe that a "minimal" or a "night-watchman" state is necessary to guarantee property rights and civil liberties, and for that purpose only. For them, the proper functions of government might include the maintenance of the courts, the police, the military, and perhaps a few other vital functions.
The anarchists (called anarcho-capitalists, to differentiate them from left-anarchists), believe that even in matters of justice and protection (or particularly in such matters), action by competing private responsible individuals (alone or organized in businesses or cooperatives) is much better than action by monopolist governments.
Minarchists consider that they are realist while anarchists are utopian to believe that State can be done without. Anarchists consider that they are realist and that minarchists are utopian to believe that State can be contained within reasonable limits.
This division is very friendly, and not the source of any deep enmity, despite the sometimes involved theoretic arguments. Libertarians feel much more strongly about their common defense of individual liberty, responsibility and property, than about their possible minarchist vs anarchist differences. Since both minarchists and anarchists believe that existing governments are far, far too intrusive, the two factions seek change in almost exactly the same directions.
Many libertarians don't take position with regards to this division, and don't care about it. Indeed, many libertarians consider that governments exist and will exist in the foreseeable future, so that their efforts are better spent fighting, containing and avoiding the action of governments than trying to figure out what life could or couldn't be without them.
An exposition of utilitarian libertarianism appears in David Friedman's book The Machinery of Freedom, which includes a chapter describing an allegedly highly libertarian culture that existed in Iceland around 800 AD.
For natural law libertarianism, see for instance Robert Nozick.
See also relevant paragraphs about this difference in points of view in the article about Anarcho-capitalism.
For instance, one question that divides libertarians is intellectual property.
Another controversial question is immigration.
Perhaps the most controversial question is abortion. Libertarian positions mirror those of other political views.
While the abortion issue fiercely divides the American mainstream, pro-life and pro-choice libertarians are not so vehemently separated. Like anarchists and minarchists, they have much more in common than they have dividing them.
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In philosophy, libertarianism is an incompatibilist? belief which states that reality is indeterministic?, a free action is one which is not determined, and that humans have [free will]? (that is, that there are free human actions). In a way, this means that a free action is simply a random event.
Socialism is the view that the state is responsible for effecting an even distribution of wealth and for taking control of the means of production and distribution of resources in an economy.
Support for a mixed economy can come from the socialist tradition; but it can also be derived from other points of views, e.g. Keynesianism. This is often not so much as a difference of policy, as a difference of political origins or means used to defend a viewpoint. Increasingly the socialist and liberal (in the American sense) traditions are merging, and so it increasingly makes little sense to distinguish socialist and non-socialist support for a mixed economy.
In addition to the Social Democrats parties of mainland Europe the [Irish Labour Party]?, Britain's Labour Party, and the [Social Democratic and Labour Party]? of Northern Ireland all are (or originated) as democratic socialist parties.
It is questionable whether there are any purely capitalist, as opposed to mixed, economies in the world today. Even the United States, which is often considered the most capitalist of Western economies, has social security, environmental regulation, labor regulation, product safety regulation, progressive taxation and public education, although it is much closer to pure capitalism than most of the world's other mixed economies.
The cornerstone beliefs of communism, which stem from Karl Marx, are based around the notion that a capitalist society is a class society.
These mainstream British and Irish democratic socialists do not consider their beliefs to stem from Karl Marx, instead they promote a mixed economy where capitalist enterprises operate side by side with government enterprises and regulation. The goal of such government activity is to counteract the tendency of pure capitalism to produce income and wealth inequalities.
In America the 20th century the word "socialism" became more widely used to covering not only the revolutionary communist notion of a transitory state, but the more reformist social democratic tradition typified by parties such as the British [Labour party]?. These parties felt that gradual reform within the democratic structures could also provide improvements in the circumstances of the working class. These parties typically support tax-funded services such as public education and infrastructure projects (which may parallel the Keynesian notion that large scale public spending can be used to "restart" an economy in recession), as well as measures such as welfare payments and medical care, which are considered to be controversial in some countries and among some people.
This form of democratic socialism grew during the first part of the 20th century, particularly after the depredations of World War II. It was at the height of its power in Europe in the 1960s. Since this time it has undergone a number of changes. The philosophies of many of the social democratic parties overlap or have become indistinguishable from the American liberal tradition which suggests that social reform and improvement in the conditions of the working class can take place despite, or even helped by, the presence of an active capitalist economy.
See also:
Capitalism refers to a set of practices that were institutionalized in Europe between the 16th and 19th centuries, especially involving the right of individuals and groups of individuals acting as "legal persons" (or corporations) to buy and sell capital goods (including land and labor) in a free (meaning, free from state control) market; a set of theories meant to justify the private ownership of capital, to explain the operation of such markets, and to guide the application or elimination of government regulation of property and markets; and a set of beliefs about the advantages of such practices.
As with many common words, and most particularly ideologically laden words, "capitalism" has many meanings, and there is a lot confusion when using it as to whether it means any particular meaning, or whether it is just a slogan or insult used without particular meaning intend (or worse, with confusion intended).
"Capitalism" as a phenomenon (e.g., the system of the private ownership of capital) is certainly different from "capitalism" as an ideology (the philosophical advocacy of that system--not the same kind of notion at all.
Opponents of capitalism sometimes deny that these represent subtantially different things, or say they go hand-in-hand. Although it is arguable whether or not two meanings of the word "capitalism" of the same kind are somehow "equivalent" under someone's subjective notion of equivalence, for the sake of not making a straw man argument when accusing someone else to be a proponent of capitalism, these different concepts must be clearly distinguished.
Many different and opposite ideologies fight capitalism and argue for collectivism, which
There seem to be four separate and distinct questions about capitalism which have clearly survived the 20th century and remain hotly debated today. Certain thinkers claim or claimed to have simple answers to these questions, but political science generally sees them as scales or shades of grey:
Is capitalism moral? Does it actually encourage traits we find useful or appealing in human beings? Yes: Ayn Rand, [Robin Hanson]? No: [John McMurty]?, Karl Marx
Is capitalism ethical? Can its rules and contracts and enforcement systems be made wholly objective of the people administering them, to a greater degree than other systems? Yes: Buckminster Fuller, [John McMurty]?, Friedrich Hayek No: Karl Marx, Kropotkin?
Is capitalism efficient? Given whatever moral purposes or ethical standards it might serve, can it be said to allocate energy, material resources, or human creativity better than any of the alternatives? Yes: [Paul Hawken]?, Joseph Schumpeter No: Kropotkin?
Is capitalism sustainable? Can it persist as a means of organizing human affairs, under any conceivable set of reforms as per the above? Yes: Buckminster Fuller, [Paul Hawken]? No: Joseph Schumpeter, Karl Marx
Rather like a governing political party that everyone seeks to control, regardless of ideology, the definition of "capitalism" at any given time tends to reflect the current conflicts between interest groups.
The non-obvious combinations demonstrate the complexity of the debate. For instance, Joseph Schumpeter claimed in 1962 that capitalism was more efficient than any alternative, but doomed due to its complex and abstract rationale which the ordinary citizen would not ultimately defend.
Also, the overlapping claims confuse most debaters. Ayn Rand made an original defense of capitalism as a moral code, but her arguments for its efficiency were not original, and selected to support her moral claims. Karl Marx believed capitalism efficient but unfair at the administration of an immoral purpose, and thus ultimately unsustainable. [John McMurty]?, a current commentator within the anti-globalization movement, believes it has become increasingly fair at the administration of this immoral purpose. [Robin Hanson]?, another current commentator, asks if fitness and fairness and morality can ever really be separated by other than electoral political means?
Currently recognized property owners especially corporate shareholders and holders of deeds in land or rights to exploit natural capital, are generally recognized as advocating extremely strong property rights.
However, the definition of capital has broadened in recent years to recognize and include the rationales of other major interest groups: artists or other creators who rely on copyright law, legal patent and trademark holders who improve what they call intellectual capital, workers who are largely trading in their own less creative labor guided by a body of shared and imitative instructional capital - the trades themselves, all have reasons to prefer status quo property law over any given set of proposed reforms.
Even judges, mediators or administrators charged with fair execution of some ethical code and the maintenance of some relationship between human capital and financial capital within a capitalist representative democracy, tend to have strong self-interest reasons to argue for one view or another - typically, that view that assigns them a meaningful role in the capitalist economy.
Karl Marx made the strong claim that this role actually affects their cognition, and leads them inexorably to irreconcilable points of view, i.e. that no agreement about capitalism was possible by "class collaboration", and "class struggle" between these defined it. This view was advocated by many revolutionary movements of the 20th century, but was often abandoned in practice as it seemed to lead to "class war", endless violence between those with irreconcilable points of view.
Today, even those parties traditionally opposed to capitalism, e.g. the Chinese Communist Party of Mao Zedong, see some role for it in the development of their society. Debate focuses on incentive systems, not on the overall moral structure or ethical clarity of "capitalism".
Other doctrines focus narrowly on the application of capitalist means to natural capital ([Paul Hawken]?) or individual capital (Ayn Rand) - assuming a more general moral and legal framework which discourages these same mechanisms when applied to non-living beings coercively, e.g. "creative accounting" combining individual creativity with the complex instructional base of accounting itself.
Aside from the very narrow arguments advancing specific mechanisms, it is quite difficult or pointless to distinguish critiques of capitalism from critiques of Western European civilization, colonialism or imperialism. These arguments often recur interchangeably within the context of the extremely complex anti-globalization movement, which is often (but not universally) described as "anti-capitalist".
Classical liberalism is a term coined by libertarian political theorists in the 20th century to distinguish their ideology from that of 20th-century liberals while implying that libertarianism, not liberalism, is true to historical liberal thought. It follows a tradition of thought from John Locke to Adam Smith to Frederic Bastiat to [Ludwig von Mises]? to Friedrich Hayek to Robert Nozick, of philosophers, economists, and political thinkers, who study and promote individual liberty, notably against the arbitrary power of governments. See libertarianism.
For instance, John Stuart Mill, whose works were notably influenced by his socialist wife, is considered by libertarians as a fringe author in their philosophical tradition, whereas, as member of parliament, he is considered by political liberals as a key person in their tradition. [Lord Acton]?, a classical liberal author, also had some acknowledged influence on Gladstone, a liberal politician. Finally, some renowned economists and politicians in the 1920s and 1930s, at the time when collectivist theories were at their highest influence, renounced to basic principles of classical liberalism while still calling themselves "liberal" in contrast with overtly collectivist economists. That's as far as the relationship goes between these two traditions.
Similarly, some split classical liberalism into a political liberalism and an economic liberalism, so as to be able to consider liberal justifications of democracy independently from liberal justifications of capitalism. But libertarian thinkers themselves claim that this is missing the point, because the classical liberal tradition is neither political nor economical: it is a theory of Law - of what is or isn't legitimate for people to do.
Minarchism, sometimes clumsily called minimal statism, is the view that government should be as small as possible. It continues the tradition of classical liberal philosophy in its original form.
Radical minarchists usually agree that government should be restricted to its "minimal" or "night-watchman" state functions of government (courts, police, prisons, defence forces). Some other minarchists include in the role of government the management of essential common infrastructure (roads, money); some, by what is sometimes reproached to them as a slippery slope, include quite a lot in such essential infrastructure (schools, hospitals, social security). Actually, these minarchists often accept in a conservative rather than principled way as valid some of current government's domain, and consider it more urgent to stop the expansion of government than to reduce its domain to any particular size.
In his book Anarchy, State and Utopia Robert Nozick defines the role of a minimal state as follows:
Prominent minarchists include [Benjamin Constant]?, [Herbert Spencer]?, [Albert Jay Nock]?, [Leonard Read]?, [Ludwig von Mises]?, Friedrich Hayek, James Buchanan, Milton Friedman, Ayn Rand, [John Hospers]? and Robert Nozick.
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Anarcho-capitalism is a radical version of classical liberalism (see libertarianism), that considers all forms of government unnecessary and harmful, including (or especially) in matters of justice and protection.
In economic matters, it advocates capitalism as the most efficient organization, and rejects any kind of government control, taxation or regulation. It considers that protection and justice are services like others, that are much better provided by competing private businesses than by monopolist governments.
Anarcho-capitalism is thus a form of anarchism, but it is radically different from the form of anarchism which may be known as libertarian socialism. Anarcho-capitalists and libertarian socialists think that each other are seriously misled as to the nature of power, and thus as to the nature of anarchism. Neither the former nor the latter have anything to do with 'anarchy', in the sense of chaos and disorder, which is better called anomy.
Anarcho-capitalism has been also called private-property anarchism, free market anarchism and anarcho-liberalism.
As part of classical liberalism, anarcho-capitalism is based on the notions of individual liberty and natural law. Libertarian scholars have been, since the inception, studied society from the dynamic point of view of emerging order, which in recent times has been explicitly associated to cybernetics. Their tradition can be traced back to John Locke and the seventeenth century english Levellers?, as well as to early french and british economists and philosophers; some even count [Lao Tse]? and Aristotle as early classical liberals (though not anarchists).
Anti-statism is an essential part of the classical liberal tradition - maybe its characteristic part -, but either by pessimism with respect to the inevitability of government, or by lack of the proper theoretical economic background, or by fear of governmental repression and censorship, the question of full anarcho-capitalism has not been explicitly and openly discussed until the nineteenth century. All classical liberals believe in 'as little government as possible'; anarchists among them believe governments can and must be done without completely, whereas minarchists believe or accept that some government is necessary or desirable for e.g. enforcing laws. Some classical liberal thinkers, such as Ayn Rand, have vehemently opposed anarcho-capitalism. Probably most classical liberals haven't considered the question of government at all, considering governments as something inevitable, if not in theory, at least in practice, for the foreseeable future - to them, anarchism, good or bad, is but an irrelevant dream.
The earliest classical liberal thinker who has developed a complete theory of anarchism is Gustave de Molinari in 1849, although some classical liberal english and american revolutionaries have claimed anarchy without theorizing it, and some french economists had begun theorizing it without claiming it. There was an anarchist liberal tradition in France and in the US after Molinari, but it would never attract a large audience as such - still can be named Henry David Thoreau, [Auberon Herbert]?, [Emile Faguet]?, [Lysander Spooner]? and Benjamin Tucker.
It was not until the 1950s that anarcho-capitalism flourished, notably with Murray Rothbard, when classical liberal thinkers from Austria, having fled Nazism, found themselves teaching in the USA, and a new generation of thinkers was born from the meeting of the European and American traditions. Beside Rothbard, other prominent anarcho-capitalists include David Friedman, Jan Narveson, [Anthony de Jasay]?, [Gary Greenberg]?, [Walter Block]? and [Hans-Herman Hoppe]?.
The Natural Law approach (see for instance Murray Rothbard and his book [Power and market]?) argues that the existence of the state is immoral, and that unlimited capitalism is the only ethical political system, or rather anti-political system. The Utilitarian approach (see for instance David Friedman) argues that abolition of the state in favour of private businesses is economically more efficent. The Harmonic approach argues both as equivalent statements.
The notion of property rights is a fundamental element of anarcho-capitalism. The Natural Law approach argues for the natural right of humans to own their body and the result of their work, that they can use or refuse to use as they like, as long as they do not attempt to the property of someone else. The Utilitarian approach argues that defining property rights in this manner is the most efficient way to prevent destructive conflicts between individuals and to foster productive efforts. Actually, ownership of one's body together with the respect of earlier claims naturally entails ownership of the results of one's marginal work, since someone who own's one's own body could withhold work if refused the ownership of its results.
Anarcho-capitalism rejects every and all kind of "positive right" (such as the "right to be protected by others", the "right to be fed by others", the "right to receive a minimum salary from others"), and defends every and all kinds of "negative rights" (such as the "right not to be attacked by anyone else", the "right to not have stolen one's food by anyone else", and the "right not to have confiscated any part of one's salary by anyone else"). It differs from minarchist libertarianism only in that it considers that being protected is also a positive right that must be rejected, and that one can't claim protection by government, but must take personal steps or organize with others, so as to enforce the respect of one's property.
To anarcho-capitalists, contracts in general, and employment contracts in particular, are but a particular case of voluntary exchange of property (property of one's time and work, of one's goods and capitals, etc.), that individuals may freely get involved in. Individuals may take any legitimate steps within their property, to protect whatever they gained from such contracts; but they do not deserve particular protection: just because two (or more) individuals agreed something together at some time does not mean everyone else suddenly owes them protection from each other, from third parties, or from the accidents of life.
More generally, anarcho-capitalists refuse to acknowledge to anyone the monopolist authority to declare anything 'official' as opposed to other 'unofficial' things - anyone can declare anything 'official' as far as he's concerned, and is free to choose whether to give value or not to the 'official' status declared by other individuals. Thus 'official' marriage, contracts, employment, etc., deserve no particular legal status for anarcho-capitalists - although of course more common forms of them may have more extensive jurisprudence than less common forms.
A common misunderstanding about libertarianism in general, and anarcho-capitalism in particular, is to consider them as economic or political theories. They are not. They are theories of Law - of what is or isn't legitimate to do. This in particular defeats the gross affirmations according to which today's society or any society is already libertarian, since everyone is ultimately free to obey or disobey and chooses to abide by the rules of the system: indeed, libertarians have a theory of natural law, and as long as positive law doesn't match natural law, the society is not libertarian. In particular, the right of anyone to secede from a government he considers unfit should be respected.
Thus, for instance, considering either moral or utilitarian arguments, libertarians are not opposed to de facto monopolies (companies that happen to currently be the only provider of some service), only to de jure monopolies (companies whose monopoly is guaranteed by law and whose competitors will be prevented and chased by public force). To libertarians, de facto monopolies or quasi-monopolies can exist but transiently, due to some recent technical or organizational innovation that hasn't been copied by competitors yet; they have no power to abuse, because their customers can always stop buying from them and be supplied by a competitor, that will raise from poverty to affluence they day the monopolist starts having 'excessive' claims. "Voting with one's feet and one's dollars" rather than "voting with one's voice and everyone else's dollars" - individual choice rather than collective choice - is the motto of libertarians in general, and of anarcho-capitalists in particular. Applying this reasoning to the protection of individual property rights, anarcho-capitalists do not fear local monopolies or oligopolies in the justice market, as long as the individual right to secede and choose one's own defense agency or start a new one is respected.
Also, misunderstanding about the nature of private (or public) protection and justice systems is often the source of ridiculous claims by opponents to anarcho-capitalisms. For instance, left-anarchists consider all property as government-enforced privilege, but fail to even consider the possibility of armed individuals defending their own property, either alone or cooperating in groups. More generally, when talking about governments, justice systems, etc., they often think in collectivist terms, and are unable to even understand the individualistic stance of anarcho-capitalists and individualist anarchists, who consider any kind of collectivist decision as oppression of the political minority by the political majority.
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Minarchism vs Anarcho-Capitalism:
Libertarian Socialism vs Anarcho-Capitalism: