Thursday 16 September 2010

The Means versus The Ends

I don't particularly like calling myself an anarchist. It just sounds bad (connotations can really ruin a good word). I prefer to argue for an extreme (i.e. logical through-and-through) form of Monarchy - a system I call Private Property Rule or Private Law. According to me this form of state (or non-state for that matter) would correlate closely with the structure of medieval European cities. A serious objection that is always raised against this system, however, is its lack of safeguards for the rights of the poor, weak, and unlucky. This is not entirely true; Hans-Hermann Hoppe wrote a marvellous defense of the practical aspects of living in the state of nature in his Democracy: The God that Failed. However, let's just assume this criticism to be correct and then refute it. The main question this argument comes down to is as follows:
Is it right to break people's rights (by enforcing a involuntary social contract which legitimizes the state) in order to protect their rights?
I think the answer is 'no'. No matter how unpractical this system may be (which it is not, but even if it was) it is the only right system which people with the correct morality may support. The system of Statism which is prevalent today is a system in which "Exitus acta probat", as Ovid wrote, "The result justifies the deed". This is a collectivist morality implemented largely by such regimes as Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. However, if we examine it closely we see that the very acceptance of such a thing as a implicit contract between an adult and an abstract entity (in this case the government) is in the exact same mode of thinking. Forcing a contract upon this man is for his own good - it protects his inalienable rights and the inalienable rights of other people in society. But it also breaks his rights by existing in the first place!
This paradox is therefore unacceptable for people like me - people who define their lives largely by the use of reason. For me, it is the other way around - the means justify the ends. Therefore if doing the right thing has some bad side-effects we cannot blame ourselves for not implementing a more 'just' system and forcing it on other people. We can only blame the ones who cause the harm. Also, in terms of practicality, this system would entirely rid the world of the class of 'bums'. Bums seem to rule the Western world - they live by voting for people who will confiscate other people's property and give it to the bums. And by 'bums' I don't only mean drunks on street corners or single mothers with welfare babies. I also mean people with influence in today's Corporatist state such as CEOs of companies which receive constant bail-outs from the government ('corporate welfare'). In a world more attuned to Social Darwinism the lazy bums would likely starve or be forced to work. No one would give them handouts; there would be no reason for anyone to do so. A big motto of the Private Law system should be: "charity for the unfortunate, not for the bums!"

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