Annexation

[Hello]

I'm just curious. Let's say America is an Objectivist-modeled political system (i.e. laissez-faire capitalism with a government to protect rights). What happens if some region doesn't want to be apart of it anymore? What if a big group of people pool resources together and start their own anarchist-socialist type of community, and they all decided on a legal system different than that of Objectivism. Assuming they haven't initiated force against anyone, is there any problem with them doing this?

[khaight]

Yes.

An "anarchist/socialist type of community" would involve violating the rights of the people who lived underneath its jurisdiction. Because there is no such thing as the right to violate people's rights, an attempt to secede from a rights-respecting polity to establish a rights-violating one is never legitimate.

Edited August 7, 2005 by softwareNerd

[Hello]

So they're all violating their own rights?

Edited August 7, 2005 by softwareNerd

[khaight]

If they aren't violating rights, they would have no need to remove themselves from the right-respecting polity. There's nothing about capitalism that says you can't form a voluntary commune; you just can't use force to prop it up when it inevitably fails.

If you want, I'll put the point a different way. It is never legitimate to secede from a rights-respecting polity for purposes of establishing a polity that does not respect rights. That's the principle. I am of the opinion that an "anarchist/socialist" polity would be based on principles incompatible with respecting individual rights. Even if none of the people living under those principles when the polity was established objected, it would still be the case that their polity was based on principles that contradicted rights.

Edited August 7, 2005 by softwareNerd

[Hello]

But don't Objectivists believe in freedom of contract? If they all voluntarily start this community can't they set their own laws and rules, and all agree to abide by them? I don't understand how an Objectivist government would even be a government if it couldn't initiate force. It seems like it could easily become something like panarchy.

(Edit note: since this has been a two-person exchange, I removed the quoting of each person's previous post. I also capitalized "Objectivist" while I was about it. - softwareNerd)

Edited August 7, 2005 by softwareNerd

[softwareNerd]

If they all voluntarily start this community can't they set their own laws and rules, and all agree to abide by them?

Khaight's previous post already has his reply.

There's nothing about capitalism that says you can't form a voluntary commune; you just can't use force to prop it up when it inevitably fails.

If you're asking: can people willingly sign themselves into perpetual servitude, this thread (link) has a little discussion about it.

When you ask the following:

I don't understand how an Objectivist government would even be a government if it couldn't initiate force.

... what do you mean by "initiate"? A government has to use force to retaliate against a criminal who has initiated force or could reasonably be expected to initiate it.

[DavidOdden]

What if a big group of people pool resources together and start their own anarchist-socialist type of community, and they all decided on a legal system different than that of Objectivism.  Assuming they haven't initiated force against anyone, is there any problem with them doing this?

You can't "assume" that they have not initiated force -- they have. They have necessarily deprived the residents of the protections of rights under the law which are protected under an objective system of law. A rights-respecting socialist government is a contradiction in terms. In such a society, there is no right of individual ownership, which means I do not have the right to sell 2 acres of my farm to my brother, who lives outside of this socialist gulag. And therefore he has no right to move into the gulag, to open his own business on his newly purchased land. When you introduce an outsider -- which includes any children who survive the horrors of this socialist concentration camp -- the fact that all people may have at one time agreed to enslave themselves does not impose such an agreement on the outsider. It then becomes a matter of majority-rules slavery, not true consent.

If you want to establish a contractually-based socialist gulag, the proper way to do it is within the framework of an existing Objectivist government. The contract has to be enforced by an objective party, and there is a blatant conflict of interest if the adjudicator is one of the litigating parties (in this socialist hell, the parties are The People and the adjudicators are also The People, so there is always an intractable conflict of interest). This is why judges are required to recuse themselves in civil cases where they have a conflict of interest. I don't know what concrete proposals you have in mind, in terms of the rights that you would want people to surrender to the collective. An obvious one would be a rule that no person may own a tool used in manufacturing or agriculture (instead, the means of production is communally owned by all comrades, each with an equal vote where the use of the tool is to be determined by a simple majority vote of The People). Another obvious one would be that no person can own land, and again, you simply have permission from the collective to use some allotted piece of land. Since we're presuming a gulag that lives by the rule of law, let us assume one simple principle of law that these hippies want to adhere to, namely that any permission granted by vote of the people to use the communal resources is binding for at least 6 months. Then if I obtain permission from The People to use a patch of land, a mule, and a plow to plant 5 acres of corn so that I can survive, under the law I have the right to the land and tools of production. But another man can come along and make a competing claim, demanding the same land and tools, and because he is a liar and influence peddler, he persuades The People to grant him a conflicting right of use. Objectively speaking, I have the right to the land and tools, but legally speaking, he has been given that 'right' and my right has been negated, by act of The People. Of course The People's Court will convene and reaffirm their most recent decision, so my appeals to the 'justice' system are to no avail.

However, if you operate this socialist concentration camp within the framework of an existing Objectivist government and legal system, then that legal system will recognise my right to use of the land and tools. The problem arose because the hippies wanted to create their own legal system, rather than working within the context of a system that respects rights.