Re: What to call "Econ-Libertarians"?

Seth David Schoen (schoen@uclink4.Berkeley.EDU)
23 Oct 1997 16:20:17 GMT 

Daniel Burton writes:

: >For example:  Instead of "Income taxation is wrong because it violates
: >individual liberty," try "It would be wrong if you came and took your
: >neighbor's money personally, so why should it suddenly become right if
: >it's done through the government?  Why should government agents be judged
: >on moral terms any differently from anyone else?"

: The standard reply is "Social Contract!" (including the exclamation point).

>That is one of the best responses to my argument, but then you can
>challenge them to prove that anyone ever voluntarily agreed to enter into
>such a contract.  ("I never agreed to the terms of that contract.  Show
>me a copy with my signature on it!")  Pretty soon it will become apparent
>that this "social contract" is dissimilar to all other things called
>"contracts" in that you normally have to agree to them voluntarily in the
>full posession of faculties of reason.

In the "Non-Libertarian FAQ" there is a comment on these things:

http://world.std.com/~mhuben/faq.html#contract

I think it abrogates a lot to governments, but there you are.

This would be a good thing to go up to a lot of people on the street and
ask them, perhaps in a survey.  Does a social contract exist, where did
it come from, what are its terms, is it binding?

In junior high school they told me that there was a social contract, and
I didn't question it for a long time.

>If they actually concede that you might not have agreed to the contract,
>they may still say that then society has no obligations to uphold your
>rights, but you can point out that if you're analogizing "society" to
>another party in voluntary contracts, then it still doesn't necessarily
>have the right to steal your money or imprison you, because no one else
>has the right to do that just out of your failure to sign a contract with
>them.

The Non-Libertarian FAQ says that the government owns or holds in trust
the whole country.

As a bizarre alternative, I get the impression that some people believe in
a "bully" version of the social contract, under which the government is
sort of a cross between a mutual aid society and an organized crime
organization.  This is the "there is no higher law or principle, and this
is what we set up for ourselves that works for us, so there" concept.

>I had great fun arguing about this with an anarcho-capitalist, back before
>I was a libertarian and actually believed in social contracts.  Believe
>me, it's almost impossible for any normal person to prove the existence of
>social contracts on absolute positive grounds.  You'd have to be a
>philosophy major or something to even attempt that.

Unfortunately, many people feel that they don't need to prove it; it's a
widely accepted "working hypothesis" which might be completely baseless
but which is nonetheless assumed and enforced. :-(

I might well enter into a social contract, even one fairly like the ideal
version of the one people assume now, if only someone would ask me.
Since they don't, I get offended.

>Lysander Spooner (one of the good old anarchists of the 1850's) actually
>produced a good refutation of the idea of social contracts.  It's called
>"No Treason: No. VI, The Constitution of No Authority."  (I haven't read
>it yet.  I should when I have time.)

I want to read that too.

-- 
   Seth David Schoen L&S '01 (undeclared) / schoen@uclink4.berkeley.edu
Magna dis immortalibus habenda est atque huic ipsi Iovi Statori, antiquissimo
custodi huius urbis, gratia, quod hanc tam taetram, tam horribilem tamque
infestam rei publicae pestem totiens iam effugimus.  -- Cicero, in Catilinam I