Freedom Force
Report for June and July 2009
From G. Edward
Griffin
Hello [name].
WHICH IS BEST:
GOVERNMENT, ANARCHY, OR PROTECTORATE?
Statism Is
Dead is a five-part video commentary by Stefan Molyneux that will
challenge your deepest convictions about political reality and the nature of
government. It can be viewed on YouTube here. If you are in a hurry, you can start with
Part Three and get the main message here.
I recommend that everyone
watch this presentation even though I have several fundamental points of
disagreement, which I will get to in a moment. The points of agreement, however,
are numerous, and they relate to certain features that need to be discarded from
our present political environment if we hope to build a better world for future
generations. It is for those insights that I commend this series.
POINTS
OF AGREEMENT
Mr.
Molyneux makes an unassailable case for the inevitable degeneration of
government, any
government, into a totalitarian regime. Based on the widely held belief that
governments should have an unrestricted monopoly on coercion, it is inevitable
that predators will gravitate into government and convert it to a legalized
criminal syndicate. His case is amply supported by history and logic. I will not
elaborate on this theme, because Molyneaux already has done a superb job of that
to which there is little that I could add.
Statism
Is Dead acknowledges
that the American Republic was an exception to this historic pattern but that
it, too, eventually succumbed to the relentless magnetic attraction between
government and the predator element (corrupt politicians, lobbyists, and
enforcers) to the point where, today, the United States federal government and
many state governments have become oppressive.
POINTS
OF DISAGREEMENT
Having shown that all
governments degenerate into tyrannical regimes, Molyneaux concludes that, if we
want to avoid having this pattern repeat in the future, we have no choice but to
build a world without
governments. The preferred alternative, he says, is anarchy, which he describes
more gently as “volunteerism.”
At first, the choice of
anarchy over statism might appear to be inescapably logical inasmuch as no one,
as far as I am aware, has ever theorized an alternative. Which do we choose:
government or anarchy? Given that governments always degenerate into tyranny,
the option of anarchy becomes a serious candidate, because it is assumed we have
no other choice. I contend, however, that there is a third option
and that it is the only option that passes the test of history and logic.
THE
AMERICAN EXPERIMENT
The Founders of the American Republic
were well aware that they were attempting to create something fundamentally
different from what had been done before and even different from what their
constituents expected. They were expected to create a new monarchy to replace
the old. Instead, they set out to create something so different that they often
referred to it as an experiment.
The experiment was that they
created a state with substantial limitations on its power. They built a beta
model, not for a government, but a protectorate.
They wanted their creation to protect the lives, liberty, and property of its
citizens but not to govern them. Unfortunately, they made the mistake – and I
think it was a fatal mistake – of referring to their creation as a government.
They simply borrowed the common word that applied to the monarchies of Europe
and assigned it to their new invention. The purpose of a government, by the very
nature of the word, is to govern. Once
they accepted that word, the experiment was destined to fail.
A protectorate is negative
in its function. It acknowledges the legitimacy of collective force but only for
the protection of life, liberty, and property. A government, by contrast, is
positive in function. It assumes the right to use collective force for any
purpose it wishes, so long as it can claim that it is for some “good” purpose.
Predator politicians can always come up with an appropriate justification for
that.
Had the Republic been
described as a protectorate from the outset, every time Americans speak of it
they would be reminded that its purpose was to protect them, not to govern them,
and this would have gone a long way to perpetuate the Founder’s intent. To be
sure, this by itself would not have been sufficient to prevent the predator
class from infiltrating the protectorate and turning it into a government after
all, but it would have been a great deterrent and could have slowed the process
for another hundred years. It was, after all, a beta model. Like all experiments
and first releases, it inevitably would fall to future users and future
generations to improve upon its design, not scrap it.
WE
NEED A PROTECTORATE, NOT ANARCHY
The next freedom construct must be a
protectorate, not anarchy. It must be an improvement on the first American
Republic. It must include a statement of political philosophy, such as The Creed of
Freedom, that will spell out the philosophy of liberty as well as the
structure and function of the protectorate. It must include a warning against
allowing the new model to be converted back into a government. All of these
things are possible, and it is up to us who have witnessed the decline of the
Republic and who have understood that collectivism is the great destroyer, to
become the architects and builders for new protectorates in every country in the
world.
WHO
WILL WATCH THE WATCHERS?
I am a strong advocate of volunteerism.
In a protectorate, volunteerism will be the driving force of progress. I know it
will work far better than coercion, but I am equally convinced that our social
contract with each other must include the use of community authorized force, if
necessary, for protection.
On this issue, Mr. Molyneaux
asks the question: “Who will watch the watchers?” That is an excellent question.
If we authorize a neighborhood security patrol to carry arms and watch over our
homes or if we authorize a national guard to deploy weapons of mass destruction
to deter a foreign enemy from an attack, how can we prevent the same old pattern
from returning? If some people are authorized in our protectorate to have
weapons to protect us, what is to stop the predator class from moving into those
groups and using that power against us?
There is an answer to that;
but, first, we should ask the same question about how this could be prevented
under anarchy. Under anarchy, there would be no way to stop a well-organized and
funded military force (possibly from a region where an aggressive government was
still in operation) from taking over. The theoretical answer is that
volunteerism would do it. Hundreds of thousands of people would volunteer for
military preparedness and donate enough money to develop and acquire the
necessary weapons.
I think we ought to be a
little skeptical of that answer but, let’s give it the benefit of the doubt and
say that pure volunteerism, without taxation or conscription, would be
sufficient to build a military force in advance of the need capable of deterring
any militaristic enemy on the planet, and this would be accomplished entirely
through voluntary donations of money and personal time. In that event, I would
say that it would work exactly the same way in a protectorate. The primary
difference is that, in a protectorate, the defensive nature of the state would
be formally acknowledged and institutionalized in the social contract called the
Constitution, and it would be organized ahead of the need instead of after.
WE
MUST WATCH THE WATCHERS
Perhaps the most important element is
that, in either a protectorate or under anarchy, there would have to be a
watch-dog committee of enlightened citizens who, acting entirely apart from
every other institution, would be dedicated to keeping the public informed on
issues and events relating to their freedom, for there is no system that will
long endure if the public is not enlightened of its founding principles. Even a
theoretical “peaceful anarchy” would need that kind of support to keep it from
reverting back to tyrannical government. That is the most often overlooked
feature in discussions of this kind. An uninformed public always can be easily
led by tyrants and demagogues. Preventing that is the role to be played by
Freedom Force International.
STATE
CAPITALISM
At a
much lower level of disagreement, I must object to the repeated use of the term
State Capitalism without a clarifying definition. My reason for this is that
these two words are, in a sense, mutually exclusive; and, in another sense,
synonymous with fascism or even communism. Molyneaux uses the term in a
pejorative sense, and I concur with that when it implies government involvement
with capital, but in the more classic sense in which capitalism is perceived as
a constructive opposite of communism or socialism, it deserves to be separated
from the rest. The bottom line is that the word really has no absolute meaning.
As I have stated elsewhere, the only meaningful words in this arena are
collectivism and individualism.
PRODUCTION
DOES NOT CAUSE TAXATION AND TYRANNY
The analogy of governments becoming farms for
humans is compelling, and I think it serves a good purpose in getting people to
think critically about their role in society, but certain ancillary arguments
related to that are, in my opinion, off the mark. For example, Molyneaux states
that freedom leads to production which leads to taxes which leads to tyranny and
collapse. It would be difficult to argue with this chain of events historically,
but my objection is to the implication that each of these steps is the cause of the
following step. Flowers bloom and then crickets appear, but the crickets don’t
appear because the flowers bloom. Both the blooming of the flowers and the
appearance of the crickets are caused by the arrival of spring and the warming
of the season. They are associative phenomena, not causative. It is my view that
increased taxation and tyranny are not caused by freedom or productivity but by
the growth of government to accomplish aggressive (as opposed to defensive)
goals and the influx of predators into positions of power. The criminal element
would be far less attracted to state employment if they were strictly limited to
a defensive mission. In a protectorate, there would be great freedom and
productivity with very low taxation and zero tyranny.
RELIGION
IS ANOTHER TOPIC
Another point of concern with Statism Is
Dead is the needless (in my opinion) slam against religion. The case
for corruption of government is conclusive by itself without including religion.
For many people, the political theme of this presentation is a big pill to
swallow without challenging religious convictions at the same time. Mixing the
two themes may needlessly repel people who otherwise would be receptive to the
message.
IT
IS NOT PARANOIA TO CONTROL IMMIGRATION
As I get to the bottom of my list of
negative points, I am reminded of Molyneaux’s statement that those who are
concerned about illegal immigration are being led to paranoia by their
oppressive leaders. I don’t buy that. To be fair, he didn’t use the word
“illegal.” He said that people were paranoid about immigration, but that line
was delivered over a photograph of illegal aliens crossing the Rio Grande River,
so the meaning is clear.
Under anarchy, of course,
there would be no state boundaries and no limitations on regional population
movements. In theory, this may sound high minded and consistent with freedom,
but in the real world, life, liberty, and property can become endangered by
limitless mass migration. The concepts of life, liberty, and property vary
widely from culture to culture, and it is not paranoia to be aware that one’s
way of life can become endangered by a massive influx of those who may hold
contempt for it. In my view, laws setting conditions and limitations on
immigration are well within the defensive function of the state and would be
appropriate in a protectorate.
NOT
ALL IDEOLOGIES ARE EQUAL
Finally, in Part 3 Molyneaux says: “All
ideologies are variations on human livestock management practices. … The
opposite of ideology is not a different ideology but clear evidence and rational
principles. The opposite of ideology is philosophy.”
OK, it’s definition time
again. The American Heritage
Dictionary defines ideology as “The body of ideas reflecting the
social needs and aspirations of an individual, group, class, or culture.” The Merriam-Webster
On-Line Dictionary says: “A systematic body of concepts especially about
human life or culture; a manner or the content of thinking characteristic of an
individual, group, or culture; the integrated assertions, theories and aims that
constitute a sociopolitical program.”
Based on this, just about
everything Mr. Molyneaux has advocated in his exposition represents an ideology.
I don’t know why he would want to disassociate from this word unless it is
because so many unsavory world views also are ideologies. However, according to
the dictionary definition of the word, the answer to the old, worn out ideology
of statism and collectivism is, indeed, a new ideology called individualism.
Rather than the ideology of anarchy, the ideology of individualism, flourishing
within a protectorate, is the next model of freedom.