A Couple Quick Questions, Ed. 3
Posted on December 3, 2010 at 11.15 am
Q. What is the connection between Austrian economics and Libertarianism? In a nutshell? — Katie, from Frederick, MD.
A. Libertarianism is a system of political thought which covers a lot of subjects — economics, social policy, the nature of human rights, foreign policy and war, and the correct nature of government, to name a few. There is, as well, a reasonable amount of diversity within libertarian thought — though all concerned with limited government and individual rights, libertarians may have different ideas on exactly how limited the government should be or what sort of policies and practices will best protect freedom.
Austrian economics, on the other hand, is a specific school of economic thought well-known for its theory of the business cycle and associated with economists like Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich Hayek, and Murray Rothbard. So many — if not most or all — adherents to Austrian economics might fall into the broad tent of libertarianism, but not all libertarians would consider themselves Austrians.
Q. I haven’t been following you long enough to be able to ask you a question through Tumblr. However, I thought you’d really enjoy this one. Actually, “enjoy” is probably the wrong word. — Tonya, from tumblr.
A. Ugh, I read about this. The list of abuses seems to keep growing daily, and it is maddening, to say the least, that more people don’t object. As I wrote for Young Americans for Liberty’s anti-TSA activism guide, having the TSA virtual strip search you or perform an open-handed pat-down on the most private regions of your body is incredibly invasive. It’s also unconstitutional. The Fourth Amendment guarantees our right to security in our “persons” – and it doesn’t have an “unless you want to travel by air” clause:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
The most ridiculous part is that it’s not even remotely worth it — the TSA has never stopped a single terrorist attack. Its methods are grossly ineffective. In fact, security experts say we would be equally safe if we returned to pre-9/11 security levels.
Q. I don’t understand how you can support secession but not anarchy. Doesn’t secession logically lead to the possibility of statelessness? If a state can secede from a nation, why not a county from a state, a city from a county, a neighborhood from a city, or an individual from a neighborhood? At what point are you comfortable with using coercion to force people to stay in a political union against their will? — Dan, from the internet.
A. The short answer is social contract theory. As a minarchist, I think that government should be minimal and limited to defending persons and property though a legal system and an (actually defensive) national defense. If the government has superseded these boundaries and thus breaks the social contract, the people are no longer restrained by the contract and can secede to form a new contract and a new government.
As for the chain of secession you described, I think it may be a bit of a slippery slope fallacy, but I don’t really have any problem with it. Other than practicality in terms of defense against larger aggressors (one of the reasons our States decided unite in the first place), I don’t see any reason why a single city, for instance, shouldn’t have an autonomous government if that’s what the people there prefer. No one could argue, for instance, that New York City is less fit for independence than say, Wyoming, because of its geographical size. Indeed, it might be better fit because of its population — I don’t know.
At the bottom of the slope, however, you get to individuals seceding and ask whether I would want to use coercion to keep this from happening. Like Locke, I primarily think this would be a non-issue. I have a couple other (very) belated questions which I’m hoping to answer on this blog this weekend that will probably address this at greater length, but in 99.99% of the time, I highly doubt individuals — or even any group much smaller than a decent sized city — would wish to secede on their own.
I mean, look at the current — absolutely awful — state of our government. Look how many people hate it. Even look at the growing number of people who accept secession as legitimate. Aaaand then look at how many people are seceding on their own. Even Key West, which had a pretty legitimate reason to secede (invasive government roadblocks to check for drugs and illegal immigrants on the only road in and out of town) and an ideal location for doing so only pretended to as a tourism stunt. My point is that the vast majority of people have neither the personal resources nor the inclination to decide that personally being free of any and all government (being an outlaw, if you will) is a very attractive prospect.
So no, I don’t think secession would lead to statelessness — far from it. If it did lead to a large portion of the population wishing to live outside of the state, I tend to think that Nozick is right, and it would fairly quickly evolve into minarchism. As I mentioned before, I’m with Locke in that I believe people would voluntarily want to form a government of their choosing, even if they’d just seceded from one they didn’t like — and that, like Nozick says, even if they initially thought they didn’t want government, it would grow into existence anyway. Finally, if for some reason that didn’t happen…I don’t know. Obviously, as a libertarian, I’m not fond of coercion, and this is still something I’m deciding in my own mind. At this point, as I’ve explained, I think it would likely be a moot point, but beyond that I haven’t yet determined.
[...] A. Probably, but I doubt it would matter. Here’s what I’ve written on the subject before. [...]