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I will continue this discussion with you Zip, and any reasonable man here. However, this is apparently not the proper place for this topic. I am disturbing those that are shaken by a differing, but still logical and ethical, view than Ms. Rand's. It is not my wish to force anything upon anybody (that is the whole point). You know where to find me.

Jake, Fair enough. This did begin as a discussion of differences between libertarians and Objectivists and I think progress has been made, since I have a better understanding of Objectivist philosophy. There are several differences that we are probably not going to resolve at this time, but I do appreciate the time everyone spent in this forum educating me about Objectivism. I have enjoyed the writing of Ayn Rand and am reading "Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand" now. Adam Monopoly On Reason

Pokarrin, I am in agreement about the nature of freedom and in my view, it is simply freedom from coercion. However, in practical terms, I definitely think that the entity that creates the rules and enforces them is the greatest threat to safety. Though you and I probably agree that freedom is the correct course, that is by no means a generally accepted principle. Though our debate on this board seems to be between Objectivism and Anarchy, in fact, it sounds very much like they are much closer in principle than either one is to what has become mainstream thought. I think in basic ideas, we are arguing semantics because I think private organizations can fulfill areas like policing, defense and dispute resolution and the Objectivists are putting forth a need for government, but the government described in the posts above resembles my "private security" more than my definition of government. If the government proposed by Objectivists consists of outsourcing services for voluntary fees, I don't really see the dispute. The only point of contention seems to be whether this agency should be monopolistic and whether individuals have the ability to opt out. I sense I may get more opposition to the suggestion that our ideas are closely related than opposition to particular ideas.

DavidOdden, I do not claim to know the final form of the arrangement, but in my example, two people engaged in a business transaction have some motive to determine that kind of thing beforehand. If the situation turned out to be more like insurance for dispute resolution, it is likely that part of the draw of some dispute resolution organizations would be to negotiate agreements between the different DROs. Even in the case that each party is covered by different insurance or one is covered and one is not, arrangements have been determined as part of the service. However, I don't see the necessity to force people to predetermine how to handle every potential unexpected situation. That is for individuals and therefore the market to determine. If I stay in a hotel, they might ask to see my DRO card before renting a room to me and they might post theirs as well. This sort of thing is done to verify insurance for renting vehicles. Currently, it is already done through credit cards and it is hard to rent a room without a credit card. If I destroy the hotel room or leave without paying, they would have some way to resolve the problem. If two people choose to transact business without that kind of thing in place, they are taking a risk, but it would not be for me (or anyone) to dictate a requirement that they do so. I suppose it is possible that the dispute will be resolved through violent confrontation, but that is already true under government.

If costs are not externalized, expansion for territory is not nearly as profitable. Private security agencies have to get and keep customers to raise capital. It is unlikely that the possibility you mention will be overlooked and therefore the market will demand that security forces give some assurance, either through periodic inspections of both books and property, or by posting large rewards as bond against this behavior. Only the current type of government (not the one suggested by any of us above) can raise that level of funding and apply it to that purpose. It would be difficult to do this in secret anyway, since it would require individuals to be employed for this purpose over and above that required for normal protection. On a practical note, even if your scenario occurred, the worst case scenario is what we have now in the form of a single monopolistic agency of force consisting of individuals that originated from the exact same pool of people. If that scenario occurred, it would seem like resistance were justified -- the only question I have is why that does not apply to the current situation?

There are certainly agreements that can be reached that fall between individual self defense and a monopolistic central authority. If we are talking past each other because of a misunderstanding of definitions, allow me clear it up. I define "a monopolistic central single organization in the region to which every individual is subject" to be a government. If the entity you describe indeed has not been granted additional powers and cannot compel all individuals to subjugate themselves to it, what then defines it as the one true government and not just another private security agency? If multiple instances cropped up, by what right is one anointed the "real" government? If instead, we are discussing the exact same scenario with different terms - that a private security force will be employed to protect individuals according to those that voluntary pay dues, then are you just hoping for the particular outcome of a single entity? It seems that either you have predetermined the outcome and are willing to coerce to reach it or you cannot know in advance what type of free market private security agencies will be created. As far as government coercion, I am not referring to a paid security agent helping to protect a customer from harm, as I agree that is the right of anyone to do the same. However, I would not grant immunity for bad acts to private security personnel or label anything acceptable when they do it and unacceptable for anyone else. What I am saying is that anything I would term a government, namely extracting involuntary funding or subjugating individuals that do not participate, is coercion and I still do not see, in principle, how that is different from two out of three people in a room voting that the third should pay for unsolicited services, even if the two genuinely believe it is in the third's best interests. I am certainly not against groups of citizens pooling their risk and resources for social or defense issues any more than I am against that arrangement for business transactions. The difference comes when it is suggested that multiple groups cannot exist or that membership is not optional. I assume that we agree, otherwise, it seems that the most logical next step for your premises is that nations should not exist because you would be safer under an even larger one world government. We have collective voluntary action right now in the form of insurance companies or banks. They pool the risk of large groups of individuals and resolve conflicts between agencies. Individuals can freely join and leave these groups at will. The free market determines which survive and which do not. It might be more efficient if there was only one insurance company, but centralizing power in that way will not likely yield the best result. Banks handle accounts from individuals all of the time. Individuals can open and close accounts. When one bank customer writes a bad check to another, the banks have agreements in place to handle the situation. I would classify neither of these as government, although they are certainly a hired authority in certain areas. I see no reason that security or dispute resolution must be handled by a central authority. There is no reason to assume that rejection of monopoly on force leads to a "free for all" with each but the last person in existence eventually being gunned down. At the point that it is declared that all in a region are subject to the single central authority, the line has been crossed into coercion (and has also become what I would call "government"). What will stop them, even if we accept your premise about "proper functions" of government? Do we have another government whose only mission is to keep the first government to proper functions?" Where does that end? When I replied to Zip that I choose moral principle over specifics, I meant that if an act is correct in principle, it does not matter if the outcome is worse by some arbitrary measurement. An example is gun control. The NRA argues that guns owned by citizens make people safer in terms of gun deaths per capita. Perhaps that is true - I tend to believe it is, but it is a weak argument. I assert that the right to own guns is simply that there is not an entity with the legitimate standing to say that I cannot. Even if it were proven that gun deaths per capita increased in areas where individuals owned guns, the basic facts have not changed. I do not agree with arguing from efficiency or utility over principles. Many of your arguments are basically (I think flawed) assessments of how terrible life would be without government. I find that somewhat irrelevant to the issue at hand. The principles of individual liberty and not initiating force demand that individuals not be coerced, even if there is some utilitarian belief that they are better off in some arbitrary measurement. I am not suggesting that there are no courts or conditions on behavior. I am suggesting instead that those functions will be handled as well by private concerns through the same free market mechanisms that you support in other areas without coercion. I am suggesting that submitting to private courts will likely be a ticket to society and it will be difficult to function without that standing. I am suggesting that instead of coercing individuals to adhere to positive ideals, the market is more than capable of making it the easiest way to live. Right now, if somebody owes me money and does not pay, while suing them is technically an option, the fact of the matter is that having government does not guarantee recovery. If the deadbeat lives in another state or has no assets, the degree to which I can recover is further limited. In a more capitalistic society, the faulty mechanisms for dispute resolution will likely be replaced by free market alternatives, perhaps similar in this case to credit ratings. Even with government, if someone stops paying the mortgage, the mortgage company probably does not even recover, other than repossessing the house. That person has probably gotten away with it, but they have greatly lowered the opportunities to get into that situation again. The reality is that retaliation and revenge is not always the goal. The actual outcome is probably that people will be more careful with whom they transact business and begin with smaller transactions, as most businesses already do today.

Thomas, I have some answers to the specific question of how else difficult situations that have traditionally been left to government can be handled, but that will take some time to articulate. I will do that in the next few days. Keep in mind, that they are merely plausible alternative scenarios. The collective genius of the free market will do a better job than any one individual. Jake, From what right does this governmental police force derive that makes it more legitimate than any other gang that declares dominion over an area? I fail to see much difference between this form of government, made up of flawed individuals that wield power and extract funding from all citizens, and an organized crime syndicate that infiltrate a region, forcefully charge "protection" money and mete out "justice" in a similar manner. Government must be funded. If it is funded by voluntary contributions, we generally refer to it as a private security force. The term government generally means funded through involuntary contributions from all, which is coercion ("to compel to an act or choice"). Even when government is funded by tariffs on non-citizens, as was done before direct income taxation, that still represents the seizure of property in the form of skimming off the top of what free trade prices would naturally accrue to the producer. Government also creates rules and part of your definition is "to restrain or dominate by force" which is exactly what the policeman do. In order to maintain "proper functions" such as policing, I believe you are granting those particular individuals power that is not "proper" and that in turn removes any protection you have against government of this sort growing into the kind of leviathan we have now in the U.S. I also do not understand the faith in the idea that people are irrational and seek power and gain at the expense of others, but those same people become benevolent when offered even more power when sanctioned as a government. Casting government as an impartial entity makes little sense to me. It seems that most of the justification for this is the practical idea that you are not sure how to accomplish some level of civility and safety without it. Since I do not believe that "the ends justify the means," I disagree that not knowing the answer means this easy coercive path has now become acceptable. That is actually the same argument made by some of the very poor that justify theft because they know no other way to survive. As I mentioned above in response to Thomas, I do have some possible answers to the difficult situations traditionally handled by government, but it will take a little time to articulate (I'll start with this week's MOR blogs). I think the concern over gang violence is misplaced. We already have it in the form of government. If you grant one gang the power of sanction, does that turn them into moral individuals? In your example, the employer might keep employees by force. The government military is the only job I know that one cannot quit. What if the employer fires employees and they refuse to leave? Currently, the government often forces employers to rescind firing decisions for arbitrary reasons or penalizes an employer for simple situations where employer and employee were in agreement. We already have the coercive, violent gang we all would like to avoid and it is indeed government. In the history of civilization, the sum total of all individual crime pales in comparison to the death, theft and other ill effects of government. Zip, Certainly, specifics are used to determine what is the moral thing to do. However, the same acts are moral whether the specific act is socially acceptable by popular opinion at the time. If taking from all citizens is wrong for social programs, it is just as wrong for police or military or courts. The fact that you see more value in one than the other seems arbitrary. Both derive from the taxman coming around and forcefully collecting funds with no explanation or guarantee of how they will be spent. They both derive from a smaller group that unilaterally decides what is right and wrong, important and frivolous, or, in a more cynical view, beneficial to that small group of people or not. I do not consider the same act under the same circumstances to be morally different because one is labeled a cop and one is labeled a thief. Cops perpetrate plenty of bad acts, most of them sanctioned. Even a professional thief can choose to save an innocent from a mugging. The labels bestowed upon them is not what determines the morality.

Zip, I began typing here in the forum directly, but I could not manage to distill my thoughts on this down to a couple of sentences, so I put it in a post here. Adam, "TheTruth" Monopoly On Reason

I tend to agree that it is a very extreme statement; and, I have read the essays of Rand and Peikoff on the topic of government; but, please, remind me, where does the line get drawn then between what Libertarians, Objectivists, and free market capitalists think the proper functions of the government should be? May they all concede that the government will always exist but should be strictly limited as much as possible? Can Adam at least not dream (unrealistically in my opinion) that the free market may justly, efficiently, ethically, and effectively take over all the functions of the government that libertarians believe it should have? I apologize deeply if this is at all seems confrontational. I really do value all of your opinions on this topic. I would like to proudly call myself an Objectivist, first and foremost, ahead of any political party or affiliation. Help me to understand the antagonism and suspicion of these posts to Adam's very similar views?

Thank you for your comments on the post. I'll make sure Adam replies, as he has done with the others you wrote on that chain. But, I'm confused . Wasn't it Ayn Rand herself that said Objectivism is not a political party but a philosophy...and that it was not associated with any political party? Furthermore, isn't the idea of a political party itself more-or-less against some of the non-collectivist ideals of Objectivism? Do you see anything on the site that would lead you to believe that we are not very big proponents of Objectivism? We are reasonable, moral individuals and dislike the term "anarchist," which has gained several negative connotations such as "disorder" If you want to lump us into a stereotype, that is not the one we prefer. In fact, we have a post in the queue that will address that word and its unfortunate implications. MOR represents Free-Market Capitalism as best as we can-- we are all capitalists that happen to be embrace the metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics of Objectivism more closely than any other life philosophy. In fact, it is the awesome power of this philosophy that makes me respect every different opinion and comment on this chain with a specific awe and pride that we all may have individual thoughts that we wish to express--all of which can be reasoned clearly and reverently in the realm of Objectivism.

One of our contributors wrote a post on the "principle" of note voting: http://monopolyonreason.com/blog/?p=153 Its a topic that I personally debate with the author about a lot...but he always seems to win Personally, I'll vote "no" on any tax issues, write in "Free Market" for president, and probably feel a dooming sense of immorality the whole time. -Wes