I don't think it would be hypocritical - the idea that there's no principled objection to confiscation doesn't mean that there isn't one at all.
I didn't mean to say that you couldn't object at all, just that you couldn't consistently respond with force to resist the removal of a privilege, unlike the infringement of a right. If it really is a privilege then it can be revoked one way or another, even if certain procedures must be followed—if nothing else, those procedures are always subject to revision.
I think society does make decisions and can be said to act as if it has a mind, for legal purposes.
That's an interesting perspective. I've never known "society" to be the defendant in a lawsuit, and when "society" acts it always seems to be some group of individuals who actually do the acting—often against other members of society, no less. I would be willing to recognize the possibility of collective decision-making, but only between voluntarily cooperating individuals, not society as a whole. I still reject the idea that society can "compromise", since the idea of getting true consensus from every member of society is laughable, but that's mostly a matter of semantics. My main point was simply that a decision accepted by a majority, but not by all those affected, is not voluntary in the manner which "compromise" would imply.
The analogy between members of society and cells in one's body is interesting, but there is an important difference: the cells, unlike people, are not capable of independent existence, thought, or action. Together they form a single, indivisible entity. Society, on the other hand, is divisible even to the level of the individual, for a time, or the family group over the long term. Above that level cooperation is optional, though generally beneficial.
I think that if we're to fairly compare free market libertarian-autonomy societies with their alternatives, we should be willing to knock off points in any comparison for activities permitted by libertarian-autonomy societies that would be forbidden in others.
Not all such activities, I hope—there are some pretty restrictive societies out there. I assume you were referring to activities with negative externalities (but see below).
If regulation... would make a private abuse impossible or less likely, then not having that regulation is a potential demerit...
Agreed—but how do you define "abuse"? The whole idea of libertarianism is that property rights are strictly enforced; no negative externalities are permitted. So the only persistent negative externalities that would exist in a libertarian society are the ones which could not be prevented by private security, and were not repaid with full restitution after the fact. I acknowledge that such situations could exist, but the same can be said of other societies. Would the expected decrease in uncompensated crime be enough to offset the uncompensated aggression required to bring that about? I'm skeptical.
Intellectual property rights
My view is that property rights are defined at the right to use the property in question in the manner in which it was previously homesteaded, subject to the property rights of others. Exclusivity, if it exists, is just a side-effect of scarcity; others cannot also use the property without inhibiting your use. Given that definition, there is no point in claiming property rights in anything which is not scarce, since such rights could never be infringed upon short of physical assault or the like. Others making use of ideas/patterns/content/processes/etc. you created/invented does not in any way prevent you from using them.
privacy rights
Similar to the question of IP rights above. I do not believe in a "right to privacy" per se, although one nat
... it doesn't really matter whether you would characterise it as "you are violating my rights" or I would as "you are deciding I am not worth keeping alive" - the philosophical framing we'd put on it wouldn't save either of us.
It matters in terms of whether that decision could be fought without hypocrisy. If property (and life) are viewed as rights then it is reasonable—or at least not inconsistent—to defend them against violation, but if they are seen as mere privileges then it would be hypocritical to cling to them contrary to "society's" wishes.
Society is an abstraction, but so are rights, and so are humans for that matter. So what? Calling something an abstraction doesn't make it any less real...
Society is real. It does not, however, make decisions, or compromise, or take any other kind of action, any more than your cells do. Only people can do these things. When members of a group act together it is convenient to ascribe such actions to the group, rather than to the individual members, but when the members are not homogeneous it is misleading to speak of some members as if they represented the entire group. To talk of "society" compromising makes it seem as though all the members of that society are participating in the compromise, but that is not the case. Compromise requires consensus; a "compromise" where the majority overrule the minority is nothing of the sort. That is just an exercise in "might makes right", where the might takes the form of numbers rather than individual brute strength.
... if you can imagine a large number of people consistently voting against libertarians in politics and thus sanctioning what you would call state coercion, is that diplomacy or sanction of force?
I would say that knowingly voting in favor of the use of force, or more force rather than less, where the vote will be taken as authorization to use said force, is politics rather than diplomacy. However, from the perspective of objective responsibility, I would reserve the label "aggressor" for those who directly carry out the coercion; merely expressing support for aggression is not aggression per se, although it may be considered a threat (which is relevant mainly in regard to contracts).
Morally I view voting either for political office or in favor of aggressive policies to be wrong, but I am willing to give others the benefit of the doubt provided they do not directly support aggressive actions. There are good arguments that voting for "the lesser evil" can be considered a form of defense.
The question about contracts is: should this private agreement be enforced with the power of the state?
That is a reasonable question, but it's not really relevant to me. I don't think anything should be enforced with the power of the state, contracts included. As an libertarian/anarcho-capitalist/agorist I don't think the state should exist in the first place. What is of interest to me is whether enforcing the contract would be an act of aggression, and my answer is that I do not believe that to be the case, apart from the two contract-voiding conditions I mentioned.
In the absence of government and its local legal monopoly on force, you're basically at the mercy of the first armed mob that shows up in your neighborhood and imposes their will on you.
And this is worse than accepting a much larger and more invasive armed mob imposing their will on you how, exactly? It's not like you don't have wars (bigger ones, even!) and gang violence with governments. It sounds like you're saying the problem with doing away with government is that someone may try to start one, but even if they succeed you're still no worse off than you were before.
... it's a little difficult to get a murderer to "voluntarily" respect any laws or society, so we should probably have an organization in place that "coerces" murderers into surrendering their rights so they'll stop murdering people.
This is a straw-man. We're anarchists, not pacifists. There is a difference between employing aggression—coercion against non-aggressors—and using proportional defensive force against someone who has already shown themselves to be an aggressor. The key is reciprocation; those who murder forfeit their self-ownership, those who steal forfeit their alienable property, etc. Proportional punishment is not aggression, and can be carried out without any "local legal monopoly on force".
Well I think what we mean by "libertarian" is not very well defined and this is why it is commonly confused (at least I think that is the appropriate word) with anarchism.
Personally, I think it's the other way around: the non-anarchistic forms of "libertarianism" are contradictory and confused. The defining characteristic of libertarianism (classical liberalism), whatever differences there may be between various factions, is adherence to the Non-Aggression Principle (NAP). Government, by its very nature, cannot adhere to the NAP. Ergo, government and libertarianism are incompatible. Various individuals who were/are otherwise libertarian have shied away from openly advocating anarchism, but only at the expense of inviting self-contradiction.
Many of us don't see absolute liberty as an ideal.... To me, property is a privilege, one which is indeed granted by society.
That's understandable; just don't be surprised when others see your aggression as criminal behavior and respond accordingly. If you do not respect the liberty of others then they will have no reason to respect any claim to liberty you might make. Moreover, understand that if property is a privilege then your life is also a privilege—as you require the use of property to sustain your existence—and privileges can be revoked at any time. If you truly see property as a privilege then you have no cause for complaint should "society" decide that you are not worth keeping alive.
We're willing to comprimise as a society between various ideals because we know that insistence on maximising one won't serve the others well.
You can't "compromise as a society" for the reasons I already noted: "society" is an abstraction, and does nothing of itself. Individuals compromise with other individuals when everyone involved agrees to a partial solution. What you are describing isn't a compromise; it isn't accepted by all those involved (just a majority). The dissenting minority aren't part of the compromise; they are your victims.
I don't accept libertarian decision-makers, or at least I don't privilege them...
Neither do I, if by "decision-maker" you mean someone empowered to make decisions affecting the property rights of others. There can be no "libertarian decision-makers" in that sense; it would be a contradiction.
... in politics we all try to get what we want by voting, by arguing, and possibly other means as the opportunity arises...
In politics people try to get what they want by force. The rest—debate, persuasion and consensus—is more accurately known as diplomacy.
Maybe absolute liberty without anarchy is a contradiction, but that presumes that you have a society absent of people that would impinge whatever notion of liberty you have (presumably a society that is culturally deeply... anarchocapitalist).
Well, naturally. That's why absolute liberty is an ideal, something to strive for, rather than something we already have. Assuming that one holds with this ideal, however, the least one can do is avoid contributing to the problem, e.g. by endorsing the use of aggression. There is a world of difference between a handful of maladjusted social outcasts and a major organization explicitly charged with employing force to achieve political goals under a veil of popular legitimacy.
I'd rather people either balance whatever structured and predictable coercion they're likely to get from the state against whatever they think they're going to get from society, or more ideally decide that some amount of coercion that's mostly predictable and generally for good reasons is an inevitable part of getting other things they value more than absence of coercion.... I'm not bothered much by taxes... because I think that by and large the taxes I pay go to good purposes.
If people choose to be coerced then it isn't really coercion, is it? Such individuals are willing participants. The problem is the ones who disagree with you—the ones that you are coercing. "Try to see it as a good thing" doesn't really address that issue, since they obviously don't see it that way.
Maybe they'd come even closer to my view and consider the things people buy with money as privileges that are granted by society in return for presumably serving society through work, with the understanding that excessive amounts of privilege will be scaled back should others have more pressing needs.
Who decides which needs are "more pressing"? Obviously people disagree on the matter, or the problem wouldn't arise in the first place. To resolve such a dispute you must arbitrarily divide society into decision-makers and their involuntary subjects. How do you justify that?
Self-ownership, and by extension ownership of alienable property, are rights, not privileges. They are not "granted by society", whatever that means—"society" is merely an abstraction, and doesn't "grant" anything. Individuals can choose to recognize these rights or not; if they do not recognize the property rights of others then they cannot reasonably claim ownership themselves. That is their choice, of course, but there is little benefit to be had in nullifying all property rights, including your own.
Libertarian viewpoint which places liberty as the highest value is completely incompatible with the anarchistic viewpoint because liberty cannot exist in an anarchy...
On the contrary, liberty cannot exist except in anarchy. Simply put, government is legitimized aggression; that is the only trait which distinguishes it from other private organizations, such as co-ops. Liberty is the absence of aggression. The libertarian viewpoint is that aggression (initiation of force against a non-aggressor) is never legitimate. The libertarian society can only be anarchistic; if it had a government then it would be endorsing aggression, and thus not libertarian.
A fully libertarian society may turn out to be impractical (although I obviously don't think so), but liberty without anarchy is a contradiction.
I already responded to all of this in the GP comment:
Somewhere along the line the idea came about that because someone really wants something, it is somehow coercive to place conditions on giving it to them (even though you aren't required to give it to them at all). I obviously reject this notion; coercion is force, and only force.
"Really want" includes things you think you need for survival: food, shelter, work. No one is obligated to provide you with any of that; if they choose to offer it to you they have an absolute right to impose whatever conditions they want. Of course you are free to reject their conditions, but they are equally free to keep their property.
Tempering that somewhat, note that I consider contracts to only include transfers of alienable property. In other words, the contract can specify a performance bond, but the choice to act or not remains yours; your will is inalienable. In your store example, customers could agree to pay an arbitrarily high fee if they shop elsewhere, but would not be prohibited by law from actually shopping at other stores. The practical difference is small, but it does exist.
Many of us support the use of force to serve the public good, and feel that the public good is in fact the whole point of government and society.
I would not really disagree with either of those statements. However, in my considered opinion the initiation of force against non-aggressors never serves the public good. The purpose of government may indeed be to serve the public good, but I feel its fundamental nature as a legitimized aggressor can only serve to undermine that purpose.
I am not a utilitarian; I do not believe that it is possible to weight the benefits to some against involuntary costs imposed on others. The obvious corellary is that the only situation where the public good can be known to increase (ex ante, of course) is the one where all interaction is voluntary; the presence of any externalized cost whatsoever has the potential to completely nullify all possible benefit.
I recognize that modern contract law has (incorrectly and unjustly, IMHO) rendered certain kinds of contractual terms void. However, even if such terms were fully enforceable they would still be nothing like the "freedom to punch someone" referred to in the Gregory Maxwell quote.
I don't know about serving "the public good"—that isn't really the purpose of contracts, at least not directly—but no mere contractual term is ever truly coercive per se. Somewhere along the line the idea came about that because someone really wants something, it is somehow coercive to place conditions on giving it to them (even though you aren't required to give it to them at all). I obviously reject this notion; coercion is force, and only force. I recognize only two legitimate conditions on contracts: both (all) parties must understand and voluntarily[1] agree to the terms to which they will be bound, and neither (no) party may actively deceive the other(s) to obtain their agreement (i.e. commit fraud). Everything else goes.
[1] voluntarily: of their own free will; the precise opposite of being threatened by the other party with force: violation of any of their property rights, including self-ownership.
That would be a good description of copyright, and thus copyright licenses, but not contracts in general. The terms of a contract are merely conditions which you require to be met before you will voluntarily give the other party some of your property, which you are in no way obligated to do. No matter what the terms may be, they impose no expense on others; one is always free to ignore the offer should one find the terms unpalatable. Licenses are similar, but the copyrights which give licenses their power are artificial social-engineering constructs which only exist at the expense of others.
You are describing a co-op, not a government. Governments are distinguished by the fact that they employ force against non-aggressors, people who didn't choose to join. Give up that claim to "legitimate" aggression and I promise we will have no further objection to any kind of mutual defense or common-interest work you may choose to pursue with other like-minded, voluntary participants.
P.S. Those third-world countries you mention have governments, typically ones which are corrupt, highly authoritarian, and often based on unworkable and unjust principles; that's generally the main source of their poverty. (That includes places like Somalia; their government is highly decentralized, distributed among their tribal elders, but it definitely exists. The unstable proto-governments set up by Western nations from time to time also contribute to the problem.) Little or no government can work out just fine, but intrusive and disruptive governments are killers.
Websites already pay to upload data to their users, so that really isn't much of a change. Their part of the cost would be higher, perhaps—right now costs are split arbitrarily between sender and recipient—but there are already mechanisms in place to deal with publisher-side transit costs. A micropayment system would be ideal, as recipients could then fund their requests directly, but while they work on getting the transaction-cost issues worked out there are always donations, advertising, pay-walls, etc.
Also, websites wouldn't be billed by every ISP, just their own. Their ISP would, in turn, pay their upstream provider to upload to the next link in the chain, and so on, until the data finally got to the end-user. This is really much like how it works now; you need only deal with your direct peers or transit providers.
Software still needs to be transferred from the physical medium, it doesn't magically appear on your hard drive.
The fact remains that when you purchase software for delivery over a telecommunications service the software is not purchased in combination with any physical medium. The seller may have the software stored on some medium, but they are not selling that medium to you. The medium on which you install the software is something you already possessed. You take delivery only of the information itself, and not any physical goods.
And FYI the physical medium is irrelevant to the software, it is used strictly as a means of conveyance.
Sure, but the fact is that you did buy the physical medium, and thus can make certain claims regarding its nature as a good which would not apply to the information content alone. Those claims shouldn't extend to the operation of the software—only the media itself is a good.
To illustrate, let's say you bought a do-it-yourself instruction book. Let's further say that you could win a suit against the retailer or publisher over physical defects in the book. That's all fine; but should you win a similar suit over defects in the instructions themselves? I would say no. The book itself is a good; the instructions within the book are not. Software is much like these instructions, whereas the physical delivery medium is analogous to the book.
The phrase "over the counter" was perhaps somewhat unfortunate; as I understand the ruling, you could buy software online with the same legal protections, provided it was delivered to you on a physical medium and not simply downloaded.
Last time I checked, electrons do have a mass, and are therefore "physical" products.
Yes, they are. However, you're not receiving any of the specific electrons (or photons) handled by the sender. At most those electrons/photons came from your ISP, or, in the case of electrons, the wire itself. Only the abstract pattern—the information—is communicated all the way from the sender to the recipient.
You might have a case for considering bulk electricity a physical good, however.
Software is information—a set of instructions and related data. If pure information is not considered a good in other contexts then it makes sense that software delivered without any physical medium would not be considered a good either. Software purchased "over the counter" is not pure information, however, since you're buying the physical packaging as well as the information content.
Further, paying metered access for a resource where basically anyone in the whole world can run your meter is a profoundly bad idea.
Indeed, if we did move to metered Internet access then you should only pay for what you upload, as with regular mail and long-distance telephone service. The transit cost of anything sent to you, including any unwanted data such as advertising, must be paid by the other party. Currently the transit costs are split between the sender and recipient, which isn't really fair most of the time; as you pointed out, the recipient doesn't have any control over how much is sent to them.
Utilities charge flat fees, too, to cover fixed overhead costs. If you look at your power bill you'll most likely see that there is a flat fee for the line itself, based on its rated peak capacity, plus a per-kWh charge based on how much you've used.
What the bill should look like is this:
One WAN connection rated for 5Mbps peak throughput: $9.99
20 GB of public Internet transit @ $0.25/GB: $5.00
Total Bill: $14.99
For a sole proprietorship, that person would effectively be the CEO.... For private companies, you can substitute "owners" or "investors" for "shareholders".
That's how I read it as well. Even so, smaller for-profit companies don't necessarily have a board of directors or a bonus system—and non-profit/not-for-profit organizations may have a CEO (with or without bonuses) and shareholders. Someone must hold title to the organizations assets, which would effectively make them a shareholder even if they don't expect to profit financially from that status.
Perhaps a simpler rule-of-thumb might be that not-for-profits (incl. non-profits) don't pay dividends or prioritize maximizing the market value of the organization. Under that rule the USPS would certainly be considered a not-for-profit organization.
We *are* mishandling yours worse than the others! Sorry! We'll instruct our employees not to treat packages differently!
It's not quite that simple. The packaging is different as well, which could easily contribute to the problem. The handling may reasonably differ due to the packaging, or the damage rates may be different despite equal handling.
If the answer is no, then they are, by definition, not a "for-profit company".
So your definition of "for-profit company" excludes non-publicly-traded organizations, such as sole proprietorships and private partnerships? How interesting. Here I was thinking that "for-profit company" meant any company not formally classified as a non-profit organization. Or, more generally, any organization formed for the purpose of obtaining an economic profit through commerce.
The real question seems to be whether the USPS would qualify as a non-profit organization. As to that, I have no idea. Perhaps they would. Most of the proceeds do seem to be re-invested into the operation of the postal service, rather than simply accumulated or distributed back to the nominal owner (the federal government). On that score they would be considered a non-profit, to be best of my understanding, but there are other considerations with which I am not familiar.
I didn't see anything about enforcement being a privilege granted for the copyright holder. There is mention of legal remedies, but as far as I know the enforcement of law remains the responsibility of the government, not the copyright holder or their delegates. By what method would a rights holder (say Disney) enforce the law?
Enforcement is split into two aspects. There is the rare case of criminal copyright infringement, which is handled directly by the government (with the occasional tip-off from the private sector), and then there is civil copyright infringement, where copyright holders are responsible for tracking down the infringers and making their case for the government in civil court in exchange for legal compensation. Both kinds of enforcement may apply to the same action. It is the first part of the civil enforcement, the detective work, which I referred to earlier; the actual enforcement of the ruling is still up to the government. However, the ruling in this case is not based on any natural right, but rather a privilege of exclusivity which the government has granted the copyright holder. There are no actual damages which could justify a response in kind under common law. As such, any response to copyright infringement is limited by what the copyright holder could do privately and what the government is permitted to do under the Constitution—which explicitly excludes such things as abridging free speech.
That said, I think the defendant's argument is unfounded; there is a right to anonymous speech, in that no one can make you say who you are, but if someone can find out who you are anyway I see no just cause to prohibit this form of discovery. I would be more inclined to argue that the allegations themselves have no merit, as they do not involve the violation of anyone's natural rights, and that whatever the allegations the court does not have the right to force anyone else to reveal the defendant's identify. (I understand that these positions are considered somewhat radical. Nonetheless, they are my true feelings on the matter.)
That's a bit of a reach... I could make the argument that the Government granting such rights is covered as part of the commerce clause.
You could, and there are justices on the SCOTUS who would believe that—but justifying anything by "the commerce clause", rather than the specific powers listed under that heading, is rather more of a stretch than saying that the government cannot pass laws granting others powers it is explicitly forbidden from exercising itself, including infringement of free speech.
Isn't it the responsibility of the copyright holder (or their designated representative) to defend his copyright?
No. You're thinking of trademarks.
The government in this case isn't delegating a privilege to the RIAA. The companies are granted copyrights.
That's what copyright is, though: a delegated privilege. The government grants copyright holders the privilege of exclusive distribution of specific works—or rather, prohibits everyone else from distributing said work on their behalf. Enforcement is the government's responsibility; the Constitution doesn't grant that privilege to anyone else.
The government, in turn, is Constitutionally limited in regard to how it may enforce copyrights; if it chooses to delegate its enforcement powers to private parties, via civil law or otherwise, it cannot grant these private parties powers which the government does not have itself.
However, whichever point of view you take, the question of constitutional rights doesn't apply to this case, because Government isn't party.
On the contrary, the government is a party to this case, indirectly. The RIAA is basing its complaint on the privilege of copyright which was granted it by the government. If the government doesn't have the Constitutional authority to infringe on free speech, and enforcement of copyright in this manner would infringe on free speech, then the government cannot delegate the privilege of enforcing copyright in this manner to the RIAA.
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I don't think it would be hypocritical - the idea that there's no principled objection to confiscation doesn't mean that there isn't one at all.
I didn't mean to say that you couldn't object at all, just that you couldn't consistently respond with force to resist the removal of a privilege, unlike the infringement of a right. If it really is a privilege then it can be revoked one way or another, even if certain procedures must be followed—if nothing else, those procedures are always subject to revision.
I think society does make decisions and can be said to act as if it has a mind, for legal purposes.
That's an interesting perspective. I've never known "society" to be the defendant in a lawsuit, and when "society" acts it always seems to be some group of individuals who actually do the acting—often against other members of society, no less. I would be willing to recognize the possibility of collective decision-making, but only between voluntarily cooperating individuals, not society as a whole. I still reject the idea that society can "compromise", since the idea of getting true consensus from every member of society is laughable, but that's mostly a matter of semantics. My main point was simply that a decision accepted by a majority, but not by all those affected, is not voluntary in the manner which "compromise" would imply.
The analogy between members of society and cells in one's body is interesting, but there is an important difference: the cells, unlike people, are not capable of independent existence, thought, or action. Together they form a single, indivisible entity. Society, on the other hand, is divisible even to the level of the individual, for a time, or the family group over the long term. Above that level cooperation is optional, though generally beneficial.
I think that if we're to fairly compare free market libertarian-autonomy societies with their alternatives, we should be willing to knock off points in any comparison for activities permitted by libertarian-autonomy societies that would be forbidden in others.
Not all such activities, I hope—there are some pretty restrictive societies out there. I assume you were referring to activities with negative externalities (but see below).
If regulation ... would make a private abuse impossible or less likely, then not having that regulation is a potential demerit ...
Agreed—but how do you define "abuse"? The whole idea of libertarianism is that property rights are strictly enforced; no negative externalities are permitted. So the only persistent negative externalities that would exist in a libertarian society are the ones which could not be prevented by private security, and were not repaid with full restitution after the fact. I acknowledge that such situations could exist, but the same can be said of other societies. Would the expected decrease in uncompensated crime be enough to offset the uncompensated aggression required to bring that about? I'm skeptical.
Intellectual property rights
My view is that property rights are defined at the right to use the property in question in the manner in which it was previously homesteaded, subject to the property rights of others. Exclusivity, if it exists, is just a side-effect of scarcity; others cannot also use the property without inhibiting your use. Given that definition, there is no point in claiming property rights in anything which is not scarce, since such rights could never be infringed upon short of physical assault or the like. Others making use of ideas/patterns/content/processes/etc. you created/invented does not in any way prevent you from using them.
privacy rights
Similar to the question of IP rights above. I do not believe in a "right to privacy" per se, although one nat
... it doesn't really matter whether you would characterise it as "you are violating my rights" or I would as "you are deciding I am not worth keeping alive" - the philosophical framing we'd put on it wouldn't save either of us.
It matters in terms of whether that decision could be fought without hypocrisy. If property (and life) are viewed as rights then it is reasonable—or at least not inconsistent—to defend them against violation, but if they are seen as mere privileges then it would be hypocritical to cling to them contrary to "society's" wishes.
Society is an abstraction, but so are rights, and so are humans for that matter. So what? Calling something an abstraction doesn't make it any less real ...
Society is real. It does not, however, make decisions, or compromise, or take any other kind of action, any more than your cells do. Only people can do these things. When members of a group act together it is convenient to ascribe such actions to the group, rather than to the individual members, but when the members are not homogeneous it is misleading to speak of some members as if they represented the entire group. To talk of "society" compromising makes it seem as though all the members of that society are participating in the compromise, but that is not the case. Compromise requires consensus; a "compromise" where the majority overrule the minority is nothing of the sort. That is just an exercise in "might makes right", where the might takes the form of numbers rather than individual brute strength.
... if you can imagine a large number of people consistently voting against libertarians in politics and thus sanctioning what you would call state coercion, is that diplomacy or sanction of force?
I would say that knowingly voting in favor of the use of force, or more force rather than less, where the vote will be taken as authorization to use said force, is politics rather than diplomacy. However, from the perspective of objective responsibility, I would reserve the label "aggressor" for those who directly carry out the coercion; merely expressing support for aggression is not aggression per se, although it may be considered a threat (which is relevant mainly in regard to contracts).
Morally I view voting either for political office or in favor of aggressive policies to be wrong, but I am willing to give others the benefit of the doubt provided they do not directly support aggressive actions. There are good arguments that voting for "the lesser evil" can be considered a form of defense.
The question about contracts is: should this private agreement be enforced with the power of the state?
That is a reasonable question, but it's not really relevant to me. I don't think anything should be enforced with the power of the state, contracts included. As an libertarian/anarcho-capitalist/agorist I don't think the state should exist in the first place. What is of interest to me is whether enforcing the contract would be an act of aggression, and my answer is that I do not believe that to be the case, apart from the two contract-voiding conditions I mentioned.
In the absence of government and its local legal monopoly on force, you're basically at the mercy of the first armed mob that shows up in your neighborhood and imposes their will on you.
And this is worse than accepting a much larger and more invasive armed mob imposing their will on you how, exactly? It's not like you don't have wars (bigger ones, even!) and gang violence with governments. It sounds like you're saying the problem with doing away with government is that someone may try to start one, but even if they succeed you're still no worse off than you were before.
... it's a little difficult to get a murderer to "voluntarily" respect any laws or society, so we should probably have an organization in place that "coerces" murderers into surrendering their rights so they'll stop murdering people.
This is a straw-man. We're anarchists, not pacifists. There is a difference between employing aggression—coercion against non-aggressors—and using proportional defensive force against someone who has already shown themselves to be an aggressor. The key is reciprocation; those who murder forfeit their self-ownership, those who steal forfeit their alienable property, etc. Proportional punishment is not aggression, and can be carried out without any "local legal monopoly on force".
Well I think what we mean by "libertarian" is not very well defined and this is why it is commonly confused (at least I think that is the appropriate word) with anarchism.
Personally, I think it's the other way around: the non-anarchistic forms of "libertarianism" are contradictory and confused. The defining characteristic of libertarianism (classical liberalism), whatever differences there may be between various factions, is adherence to the Non-Aggression Principle (NAP). Government, by its very nature, cannot adhere to the NAP. Ergo, government and libertarianism are incompatible. Various individuals who were/are otherwise libertarian have shied away from openly advocating anarchism, but only at the expense of inviting self-contradiction.
Many of us don't see absolute liberty as an ideal. ... To me, property is a privilege, one which is indeed granted by society.
That's understandable; just don't be surprised when others see your aggression as criminal behavior and respond accordingly. If you do not respect the liberty of others then they will have no reason to respect any claim to liberty you might make. Moreover, understand that if property is a privilege then your life is also a privilege—as you require the use of property to sustain your existence—and privileges can be revoked at any time. If you truly see property as a privilege then you have no cause for complaint should "society" decide that you are not worth keeping alive.
We're willing to comprimise as a society between various ideals because we know that insistence on maximising one won't serve the others well.
You can't "compromise as a society" for the reasons I already noted: "society" is an abstraction, and does nothing of itself. Individuals compromise with other individuals when everyone involved agrees to a partial solution. What you are describing isn't a compromise; it isn't accepted by all those involved (just a majority). The dissenting minority aren't part of the compromise; they are your victims.
I don't accept libertarian decision-makers, or at least I don't privilege them ...
Neither do I, if by "decision-maker" you mean someone empowered to make decisions affecting the property rights of others. There can be no "libertarian decision-makers" in that sense; it would be a contradiction.
... in politics we all try to get what we want by voting, by arguing, and possibly other means as the opportunity arises ...
In politics people try to get what they want by force. The rest—debate, persuasion and consensus—is more accurately known as diplomacy.
Maybe absolute liberty without anarchy is a contradiction, but that presumes that you have a society absent of people that would impinge whatever notion of liberty you have (presumably a society that is culturally deeply ... anarchocapitalist).
Well, naturally. That's why absolute liberty is an ideal, something to strive for, rather than something we already have. Assuming that one holds with this ideal, however, the least one can do is avoid contributing to the problem, e.g. by endorsing the use of aggression. There is a world of difference between a handful of maladjusted social outcasts and a major organization explicitly charged with employing force to achieve political goals under a veil of popular legitimacy.
I'd rather people either balance whatever structured and predictable coercion they're likely to get from the state against whatever they think they're going to get from society, or more ideally decide that some amount of coercion that's mostly predictable and generally for good reasons is an inevitable part of getting other things they value more than absence of coercion. ... I'm not bothered much by taxes ... because I think that by and large the taxes I pay go to good purposes.
If people choose to be coerced then it isn't really coercion, is it? Such individuals are willing participants. The problem is the ones who disagree with you—the ones that you are coercing. "Try to see it as a good thing" doesn't really address that issue, since they obviously don't see it that way.
Maybe they'd come even closer to my view and consider the things people buy with money as privileges that are granted by society in return for presumably serving society through work, with the understanding that excessive amounts of privilege will be scaled back should others have more pressing needs.
Who decides which needs are "more pressing"? Obviously people disagree on the matter, or the problem wouldn't arise in the first place. To resolve such a dispute you must arbitrarily divide society into decision-makers and their involuntary subjects. How do you justify that?
Self-ownership, and by extension ownership of alienable property, are rights, not privileges. They are not "granted by society", whatever that means—"society" is merely an abstraction, and doesn't "grant" anything. Individuals can choose to recognize these rights or not; if they do not recognize the property rights of others then they cannot reasonably claim ownership themselves. That is their choice, of course, but there is little benefit to be had in nullifying all property rights, including your own.
Libertarian viewpoint which places liberty as the highest value is completely incompatible with the anarchistic viewpoint because liberty cannot exist in an anarchy ...
On the contrary, liberty cannot exist except in anarchy. Simply put, government is legitimized aggression; that is the only trait which distinguishes it from other private organizations, such as co-ops. Liberty is the absence of aggression. The libertarian viewpoint is that aggression (initiation of force against a non-aggressor) is never legitimate. The libertarian society can only be anarchistic; if it had a government then it would be endorsing aggression, and thus not libertarian.
A fully libertarian society may turn out to be impractical (although I obviously don't think so), but liberty without anarchy is a contradiction.
I already responded to all of this in the GP comment:
Somewhere along the line the idea came about that because someone really wants something, it is somehow coercive to place conditions on giving it to them (even though you aren't required to give it to them at all). I obviously reject this notion; coercion is force, and only force.
"Really want" includes things you think you need for survival: food, shelter, work. No one is obligated to provide you with any of that; if they choose to offer it to you they have an absolute right to impose whatever conditions they want. Of course you are free to reject their conditions, but they are equally free to keep their property.
Tempering that somewhat, note that I consider contracts to only include transfers of alienable property. In other words, the contract can specify a performance bond, but the choice to act or not remains yours; your will is inalienable. In your store example, customers could agree to pay an arbitrarily high fee if they shop elsewhere, but would not be prohibited by law from actually shopping at other stores. The practical difference is small, but it does exist.
Many of us support the use of force to serve the public good, and feel that the public good is in fact the whole point of government and society.
I would not really disagree with either of those statements. However, in my considered opinion the initiation of force against non-aggressors never serves the public good. The purpose of government may indeed be to serve the public good, but I feel its fundamental nature as a legitimized aggressor can only serve to undermine that purpose.
I am not a utilitarian; I do not believe that it is possible to weight the benefits to some against involuntary costs imposed on others. The obvious corellary is that the only situation where the public good can be known to increase (ex ante, of course) is the one where all interaction is voluntary; the presence of any externalized cost whatsoever has the potential to completely nullify all possible benefit.
I recognize that modern contract law has (incorrectly and unjustly, IMHO) rendered certain kinds of contractual terms void. However, even if such terms were fully enforceable they would still be nothing like the "freedom to punch someone" referred to in the Gregory Maxwell quote.
I don't know about serving "the public good"—that isn't really the purpose of contracts, at least not directly—but no mere contractual term is ever truly coercive per se. Somewhere along the line the idea came about that because someone really wants something, it is somehow coercive to place conditions on giving it to them (even though you aren't required to give it to them at all). I obviously reject this notion; coercion is force, and only force. I recognize only two legitimate conditions on contracts: both (all) parties must understand and voluntarily[1] agree to the terms to which they will be bound, and neither (no) party may actively deceive the other(s) to obtain their agreement (i.e. commit fraud). Everything else goes.
[1] voluntarily: of their own free will; the precise opposite of being threatened by the other party with force: violation of any of their property rights, including self-ownership.
That would be a good description of copyright, and thus copyright licenses, but not contracts in general. The terms of a contract are merely conditions which you require to be met before you will voluntarily give the other party some of your property, which you are in no way obligated to do. No matter what the terms may be, they impose no expense on others; one is always free to ignore the offer should one find the terms unpalatable. Licenses are similar, but the copyrights which give licenses their power are artificial social-engineering constructs which only exist at the expense of others.
You are describing a co-op, not a government. Governments are distinguished by the fact that they employ force against non-aggressors, people who didn't choose to join. Give up that claim to "legitimate" aggression and I promise we will have no further objection to any kind of mutual defense or common-interest work you may choose to pursue with other like-minded, voluntary participants.
P.S. Those third-world countries you mention have governments, typically ones which are corrupt, highly authoritarian, and often based on unworkable and unjust principles; that's generally the main source of their poverty. (That includes places like Somalia; their government is highly decentralized, distributed among their tribal elders, but it definitely exists. The unstable proto-governments set up by Western nations from time to time also contribute to the problem.) Little or no government can work out just fine, but intrusive and disruptive governments are killers.
Websites already pay to upload data to their users, so that really isn't much of a change. Their part of the cost would be higher, perhaps—right now costs are split arbitrarily between sender and recipient—but there are already mechanisms in place to deal with publisher-side transit costs. A micropayment system would be ideal, as recipients could then fund their requests directly, but while they work on getting the transaction-cost issues worked out there are always donations, advertising, pay-walls, etc.
Also, websites wouldn't be billed by every ISP, just their own. Their ISP would, in turn, pay their upstream provider to upload to the next link in the chain, and so on, until the data finally got to the end-user. This is really much like how it works now; you need only deal with your direct peers or transit providers.
Software still needs to be transferred from the physical medium, it doesn't magically appear on your hard drive.
The fact remains that when you purchase software for delivery over a telecommunications service the software is not purchased in combination with any physical medium. The seller may have the software stored on some medium, but they are not selling that medium to you. The medium on which you install the software is something you already possessed. You take delivery only of the information itself, and not any physical goods.
And FYI the physical medium is irrelevant to the software, it is used strictly as a means of conveyance.
Sure, but the fact is that you did buy the physical medium, and thus can make certain claims regarding its nature as a good which would not apply to the information content alone. Those claims shouldn't extend to the operation of the software—only the media itself is a good.
To illustrate, let's say you bought a do-it-yourself instruction book. Let's further say that you could win a suit against the retailer or publisher over physical defects in the book. That's all fine; but should you win a similar suit over defects in the instructions themselves? I would say no. The book itself is a good; the instructions within the book are not. Software is much like these instructions, whereas the physical delivery medium is analogous to the book.
The phrase "over the counter" was perhaps somewhat unfortunate; as I understand the ruling, you could buy software online with the same legal protections, provided it was delivered to you on a physical medium and not simply downloaded.
Last time I checked, electrons do have a mass, and are therefore "physical" products.
Yes, they are. However, you're not receiving any of the specific electrons (or photons) handled by the sender. At most those electrons/photons came from your ISP, or, in the case of electrons, the wire itself. Only the abstract pattern—the information—is communicated all the way from the sender to the recipient.
You might have a case for considering bulk electricity a physical good, however.
Software is information—a set of instructions and related data. If pure information is not considered a good in other contexts then it makes sense that software delivered without any physical medium would not be considered a good either. Software purchased "over the counter" is not pure information, however, since you're buying the physical packaging as well as the information content.
Further, paying metered access for a resource where basically anyone in the whole world can run your meter is a profoundly bad idea.
Indeed, if we did move to metered Internet access then you should only pay for what you upload, as with regular mail and long-distance telephone service. The transit cost of anything sent to you, including any unwanted data such as advertising, must be paid by the other party. Currently the transit costs are split between the sender and recipient, which isn't really fair most of the time; as you pointed out, the recipient doesn't have any control over how much is sent to them.
Utilities charge flat fees, too, to cover fixed overhead costs. If you look at your power bill you'll most likely see that there is a flat fee for the line itself, based on its rated peak capacity, plus a per-kWh charge based on how much you've used.
What the bill should look like is this:
One WAN connection rated for 5Mbps peak throughput: $9.99
20 GB of public Internet transit @ $0.25/GB: $5.00
Total Bill: $14.99
For a sole proprietorship, that person would effectively be the CEO. ... For private companies, you can substitute "owners" or "investors" for "shareholders".
That's how I read it as well. Even so, smaller for-profit companies don't necessarily have a board of directors or a bonus system—and non-profit/not-for-profit organizations may have a CEO (with or without bonuses) and shareholders. Someone must hold title to the organizations assets, which would effectively make them a shareholder even if they don't expect to profit financially from that status.
Perhaps a simpler rule-of-thumb might be that not-for-profits (incl. non-profits) don't pay dividends or prioritize maximizing the market value of the organization. Under that rule the USPS would certainly be considered a not-for-profit organization.
We *are* mishandling yours worse than the others! Sorry! We'll instruct our employees not to treat packages differently!
It's not quite that simple. The packaging is different as well, which could easily contribute to the problem. The handling may reasonably differ due to the packaging, or the damage rates may be different despite equal handling.
If the answer is no, then they are, by definition, not a "for-profit company".
So your definition of "for-profit company" excludes non-publicly-traded organizations, such as sole proprietorships and private partnerships? How interesting. Here I was thinking that "for-profit company" meant any company not formally classified as a non-profit organization. Or, more generally, any organization formed for the purpose of obtaining an economic profit through commerce.
The real question seems to be whether the USPS would qualify as a non-profit organization. As to that, I have no idea. Perhaps they would. Most of the proceeds do seem to be re-invested into the operation of the postal service, rather than simply accumulated or distributed back to the nominal owner (the federal government). On that score they would be considered a non-profit, to be best of my understanding, but there are other considerations with which I am not familiar.
I didn't see anything about enforcement being a privilege granted for the copyright holder. There is mention of legal remedies, but as far as I know the enforcement of law remains the responsibility of the government, not the copyright holder or their delegates. By what method would a rights holder (say Disney) enforce the law?
Enforcement is split into two aspects. There is the rare case of criminal copyright infringement, which is handled directly by the government (with the occasional tip-off from the private sector), and then there is civil copyright infringement, where copyright holders are responsible for tracking down the infringers and making their case for the government in civil court in exchange for legal compensation. Both kinds of enforcement may apply to the same action. It is the first part of the civil enforcement, the detective work, which I referred to earlier; the actual enforcement of the ruling is still up to the government. However, the ruling in this case is not based on any natural right, but rather a privilege of exclusivity which the government has granted the copyright holder. There are no actual damages which could justify a response in kind under common law. As such, any response to copyright infringement is limited by what the copyright holder could do privately and what the government is permitted to do under the Constitution—which explicitly excludes such things as abridging free speech.
That said, I think the defendant's argument is unfounded; there is a right to anonymous speech, in that no one can make you say who you are, but if someone can find out who you are anyway I see no just cause to prohibit this form of discovery. I would be more inclined to argue that the allegations themselves have no merit, as they do not involve the violation of anyone's natural rights, and that whatever the allegations the court does not have the right to force anyone else to reveal the defendant's identify. (I understand that these positions are considered somewhat radical. Nonetheless, they are my true feelings on the matter.)
That's a bit of a reach ... I could make the argument that the Government granting such rights is covered as part of the commerce clause.
You could, and there are justices on the SCOTUS who would believe that—but justifying anything by "the commerce clause", rather than the specific powers listed under that heading, is rather more of a stretch than saying that the government cannot pass laws granting others powers it is explicitly forbidden from exercising itself, including infringement of free speech.
Isn't it the responsibility of the copyright holder (or their designated representative) to defend his copyright?
No. You're thinking of trademarks.
The government in this case isn't delegating a privilege to the RIAA. The companies are granted copyrights.
That's what copyright is, though: a delegated privilege. The government grants copyright holders the privilege of exclusive distribution of specific works—or rather, prohibits everyone else from distributing said work on their behalf. Enforcement is the government's responsibility; the Constitution doesn't grant that privilege to anyone else.
The government, in turn, is Constitutionally limited in regard to how it may enforce copyrights; if it chooses to delegate its enforcement powers to private parties, via civil law or otherwise, it cannot grant these private parties powers which the government does not have itself.
However, whichever point of view you take, the question of constitutional rights doesn't apply to this case, because Government isn't party.
On the contrary, the government is a party to this case, indirectly. The RIAA is basing its complaint on the privilege of copyright which was granted it by the government. If the government doesn't have the Constitutional authority to infringe on free speech, and enforcement of copyright in this manner would infringe on free speech, then the government cannot delegate the privilege of enforcing copyright in this manner to the RIAA.