[SolarCross]

Most modern political ideologies have a universal presumption, "our way is how it should be and when we get power everyone must follow that way or else", but this is a contradictory presumption for libertarians who favour personal sovereignty and liberty; what can we say to an individual who when presented with a libertarian argument such as, for example, "it is wrong for the state to impose taxes on people" then replies "I am not competent enough to decide how to spend my money, I want the state to decide for me"? To deny such an individual the right to be a slave of a state, if that is what he wants, is contradictory for us. This is not a disadvantage and actually may make achieving real world libertarianism easier to do than say a universalistic ideology like fascism or socialism even with a state very much present, since we can liberate ourselves from the obligation of liberating everyone and concentrate only on those that actually want to be liberated and we are taking nothing from those that want to do things differently. Socialists can have their socialism, fascists can have their fascism, democrats can have their democracy just as long as they leave us out of their crazy schemes and "Don't tread on us!". How can this be so in practice?

All modern states seem to operate on a presumption that they are the boss of everyone who is within their area of dominance and / or a member of their club by citizenship so when they make up a rule (usually a convoluted demand for money) they presume that rule applies to everyone whether they consent to it or not. Surely then anarchist libertarianism cannot co-exist with the state in practice since the agents of the state can not see that we have any right to govern ourselves. I think it is possible. There are actually many examples where states make special agreements usually with other states which allow the states rules to be considered inapplicable for some people, for example diplomatic immunity. What (anarchist) libertarians might do to put themselves outside that presumption of authority by the state and have that state actually respect that position is to make a treaty with that state, as one sovereign polity to another, that commits that state to respect our independence from them. It isn't practical for each sovereign anarchist libertarian to make their own treaty with the state nor is it necessary since we all broadly want the same things. So what I suggest is we form a "League of Freemen" through which we can collectively bargain treaties with states.

Some questions I invite the interested to consider:

What might we want in such a treaty?

Why would the state agree (or be made to agree) to enter into the treaty?

If a treaty is achieved how will agents of the state be able to distinguish between anarchist libertarians over whom they have no authority and their regular cattle-people with whom they can do as they please?

[DeadPresidents]

In the United States states don't even have the right to separate from the Union.

Where will you live?

How are you going to create infrastructure?

What are you going to use for money?

Are you gonna create an army?

What about laws? Each country has their own laws and you are subject to them.

Certain formalities such as birth certificate, name and nationality pretty much makes you a human being with actual legal rights. Now you renounce your nationality and don't get another one, you are pretty much SSOL.

What you would have to do, is pretty much negotiate with every country on the planet, find a country that would allow you to be an anarcho capitalist with your organization and buy their land and develop it as you see fit

[Eran]

taxizen is obviously correct. All adherents of alternative ideologies, from communist to fascist to constitutional democrats could set up like-minded communities within which life will proceed along their preferred route. The only limitation is that they won't be able to impose their ideologies on others. Unfortunately, all non-libertarian ideologies demand the ability to impose themselves on unwilling others. That is precisely what makes them non-libertarian.

Your idea of treaty with the state is theoretically interesting. You could see people opting out of the social security, socialised medicine, product safety regulations, labour regulations and police protection aspects of the modern state. Even the logistics wouldn't be too difficult. What makes the proposition unfortunately impossible is that allowing some people to opt out will quickly expose the fraud that is the modern state.

As things stand, politicians can pretend that the services they provide are, on a net basis, beneficial. But that illusion depends on the absence of any direct comparison, the absence of choice. As soon as choice is made available, people might choose to do without the benevolent services of those politicians.

Where will you live?

How are you going to create infrastructure?

What are you going to use for money?

Are you gonna create an army?

What about laws? Each country has their own laws and you are subject to them.

Certain formalities such as birth certificate, name and nationality pretty much makes you a human being with actual legal rights. Now you renounce your nationality and don't get another one, you are pretty much SSOL.

What you would have to do, is pretty much negotiate with every country on the planet, find a country that would allow you to be an anarcho capitalist with your organization and buy their land and develop it as you see fit

All those problems are easily surmountable, subject only to having some land area (or, in the case of seasteading, not even that) made available and free from government interference.

Infrastructure will be privately financed. Money can easily be privately created (as it had been historically). Gold-backed money or bitcoins could do. An army isn't necessary. A budding anarchy could never defend itself against a frontal assault of a major state. It would have to rely (much as all minor states do today) on the implicit protection of the international order.

Common law and property-owner-conditions-of-use would substitute for legislated law. Presumably, private agencies will provide birth certificates and the illusion of nationality (e.g. passport) to allow international travel.

The only real problem is your last point - finding a country that would allow a tiny fraction of its territory (even for financial consideration) to be used for such an experiment.

[Technology]

I like the sentiment, but I don't think it would work, because government owns all the land that isn't already privately owned, and I don't think they'd willingly give it up. I'm also not sure that making secessionist agreement with the state is the best thing to do. I think the best thing to do is to act like the state doesn't exist (exposing the psychological exceptionalism in its conception) and engage in practices most people will consider morally right, or at least be conflicted on, but which are illegal. A sort of NAP propaganda of the deed, or a moralistic variant on illegalism.

Personally, I intend to attempt to homestead public land at some point next year (I'm starting with growing my own food now), using the statist argument that its "public" nature is worthless if it can't create a home for people. I will probably be beaten to death by police.

[SolarCross]

I am not yet thinking of a territorial concession, that would be a really big deal and desirable at some point but one has to walk before one can run. No I am thinking initially we make some agreement where we can opt out of governance without having to leave the country or make a new one. In medieval times this proposition would be readily understood but sadly now it seems hard to grasp due to the really totalitarian development of the state. It won't be easy, for sure, but it may be possible all the same. In the early part of the last century some people, women and the working men, managed to get the right to vote from a reluctant government, unions managed to pressure for legislation that they thought suited them such as the minimum wage, so I don't think it is inconceivable that some people now could not get emancipation from subservience to legislation. We are just another special interest group, really, only we are looking to get out rather than get further in.

Since we are looking to slip the chains of state it would do well to examine the nature of those chains. By my thinking there are, in general, five distinct possible chains of bondage to the state. They are, in order of legitimacy:

1. Contractual obligation through membership of an association.
2. Property rights through the state's ownership of the land on which the citizen lives.
3. Property rights over the citizen's legal "name".
4. Property rights over the citizen's biological property (his or her body)
5. Criminal rights (or right of might).

Before I expand on these chains and propose remedies for each one, I should make it clear that a given state does not necessarily use all five, simple states may use only one (usually the last one) while sophisticated states use in some measure all five. Moreover it is rare for a state to be explicit on the exact nature of their presumed authority, they like to hide in intellectual fog and plausible denial to disguise the nature of their authority in order to make it harder to see and thus harder to escape. They also are prone to shifting from one chain to another when challenged. So they might like you to think that your relationship with the state is all nice and contractual but then when you withhold consent they will start tugging on another lower chain.

1. Contractual obligation through membership of an association

The state is a kind of company or association, you agreed to be member explicitly or by default and by doing so you have agreed to the terms of membership which includes following the orders of those in charge. This is the most legitimate chain of authority but it is also the weakest and easiest to slip. You just stop being a member of the club, same as you might cancel your subscription to farmers weekly. In a democracy this can be done by taking yourself off of the electoral register. If this was the only chain of authority then being free would be easy.

2. Property rights through the state's ownership of the land on which the citizen lives

I think most, if not all, state's make some claim to be a kind of super-owner of a given territory. Private owners of land don't really own their patch but merely have permission to hold it free from rent to the state as in "freehold". It is pretty legitimate for a land owner to make rules for those on his land and it is on first sight pretty hard to challenge as a chain of authority the right of the state to decide how you should behave on their land. On obvious solution to this bond is to remove oneself from their land (emigrate or "sea-steading"), or take some portion of it in armed conflict, or even buy or negotiate a transfer of sovereignty over some patch. However there may be another way. Ownership doesn't happen by magic, legitimate ownership must come from claiming a previously unowned or abandoned thing or through the voluntary transfer from a legitimate owner. The state's claim to be a super-owner of huge tracts of land is in fact rather spurious even fraudulent.

3. Property rights over the citizen's legal "name"

This one is pretty obscure and speculative but probably worth some examination. When our parents sign a birth certificate it may be that the state quietly takes that as a transfer of ownership of the child's legal name to the state. To the extent that the child answers to that name that the state owns the state by extension has ownership over the child. It is like the name "Coca-Cola" is the property of the Coca-Cola corporation, if you were to go around saying "I am Coca-Cola" then that corporation could presumably have every right to bottle you and sell you as you are claiming to be something that they own. I have heard some sketchy anecdotal evidence that indicates that the UK state does use this device on occasion. It is of course wildly fraudulent for the first reason that no parent understands that by signing a birth certificate they transfering ownership of that name to the state, they universally believe that the state is merely acting as a witness, so this trick literally a fraud. If it is true that the state uses this device then slipping this chain is fairly easy, simply stop answering for that name on the birth certificate, give yourself a new one. Also challenging the obvious fraud of it.

4. Property rights over the subject's biological property - slavery

It is rare now for state's to explicitly claim direct ownership of your biological property which literally means chattel slavery. Practically no one thinks that is in anyway legitimate so I don't think there is much to say about that. If any of chains above failed they may resort to it though, but of course by doing so they are really falling back on the last chain as follows.

5. Criminal rights - the right of might

All state's will fall back on this one if all of the above chains fail. Criminal rights are the right of might, the right to take and to damage because of superior force only. The only apparent remedy to this one is a forceful one, to be at least as capable of retaliatory force as the state is capable of offensive force. A peaceful remedy requires as a minimum mass civil disobedience. Most states don't like to use this one too nakedly as it is obviously illegitimate and can provoke revolution.

[Technology]

No I am thinking initially we make some agreement where we can opt out of governance without having to leave the country or make a new one.

The problem is that the state is entrenched in its power as an institution and scared of change. They don't want to open a small valve which could become a floodgate, so while stuff like this might be worth a try, I'm inclined to think they'll laugh in our faces.

Then there's a bigger issue, which is that the state is not just an institution made up of working bureaucrats and politicians, but a moral exceptionalism perpetrated by the populace at large. Of course, the further away you get from the actual officiated positions of power, the more likely people are to question the state's authority. This is why I believe it is the people who must be convinced they do not need the state, and not the state which must be convinced they do not need the people.

I think the first step in this is getting people to realize the nonsense inherent in the state's claim as a custodian of public property.

[SolarCross]

The problem is that the state is entrenched in its power as an institution and scared of change. They don't want to open a small valve which could become a floodgate, so while stuff like this might be worth a try, I'm inclined to think they'll laugh in our faces.

Indeed they will not want such a valve opened, but then similar characters in the past did not want to abolish serfdom, allow women the vote, abolish slavery or recognise the independence of colonies, yet grudgingly and reluctantly those characters did just that. If they laugh then we would be making progress.. "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win..".

Then there's a bigger issue, which is that the state is not just an institution made up of working bureaucrats and politicians, but a moral exceptionalism perpetrated by the populace at large. Of course, the further away you get from the actual officiated positions of power, the more likely people are to question the state's authority. This is why I believe it is the people who must be convinced they do not need the state, and not the state which must be convinced they do not need the people.

You are right about this, but many people already are convinced they do not need the state and the rest will not be convinced until they see those people succeed. We do not all need to throw off the state at the same time and if we all have to do it then it will never happen. If we must travel to statelessness dragging along every fanatic statist kicking and screaming all the way we shall never make it. Better to proceed swiftly with only the willing aboard.

[Fasces]

The only form of legitimacy of any relevance, importance, or moral authority is found in the age old adage - might makes right.

I hope the state squashes every manifestation of the sovereign individual movement, and uses its full arsenal of coercive measures to do so. There is absolutely no reason for the state to tolerate the creation of a "league of freemen".

Until such a time that a movement of sovereignty can force its will through bayonets and blood, the state should not capitulate.

[SolarCross]

Bearing in mind the, above mentioned, chains of state what a League of Freemen could do is one by one starting from the top unpick the locks of those chains, until the beast is unmasked and there is only the last chain left. At that point a treaty with the state will be desirable to head off any crazed violence on the part of the beast of state. Failing that in its unmasked condition any violence on its part will look decidedly criminal in the eyes of all and its end will be not far away for no state can last for long relying solely on terrorism for authority.

[Technology]

Failing that in its unmasked condition any violence on its part will look decidedly criminal in the eyes of all and its end will be not far away for no state can last for long relying solely on terrorism for authority.

After all, the state is made up of the desire of the most influential in the populace and the rest willing to go along to HAVE a state, so if you undo a state's reasonability, you can undo its legitimacy, and people's willingness to be the gears that make the machine move. Over the top reactions by the state are often what start revolutions, of course, revolutions usually involve putting in place another highly statist philosophy to correct the failures of the last state...

[Rich]

An army isn't necessary. A budding anarchy could never defend itself against a frontal assault of a major state. It would have to rely (much as all minor states do today) on the implicit protection of the international order.

Freeloading you mean. Personally I don't believe states like Monaco should be able to freeload off the responsible states. In world war II it was Britain's willingness to tax, ration, conscript and impose numerous other impositions on its subjects that allowed western Europe to be liberated and Poland and Czechoslovakia to be partially liberated. Switzerland is a great example of a free-loader state in WWII. If Britain and the Soviet union had been defeated then Switzerland would have been over run. A similar if much lower burden was born by NATO countries in the cold war.

One is not born free. One is born with a debt of obligations to people alive and dead who have paid a heavy cost to allow us to be born in to relative prosperity and security. Obviously that debt can not be repaid to those that are dead but it can be paid to their descendants. Libertarians are thieving parasites in that they seek to escape their debts.

[Eran]

Strange hearing about "freeloading" from a statist. Isn't freeloading a central tenant of your system? Isn't every welfare recipient, socialised medicine consumer, public-school attending child and welfare-consuming corporation "freeloading"?

[AFAIK]

Extend the concept of universal suffrage to taxation. 1 person, 1 vote. 1 person, 1 tax. Now you have a simple way of opting out of the system. You should also replace permits and licenses with insurance. The state could pass a law requiring people purchase one or the other when performing various activities.

[Rich]

Strange hearing about "freeloading" from a statist. Isn't freeloading a central tenant of your system? Isn't every welfare recipient, socialised medicine consumer, public-school attending child and welfare-consuming corporation "freeloading"?

Its funny because you say you don't believe in absolute morality, but you seem to believe in absolute free-loading. Every person freeloads off the society into which they are born. The freedoms that we have in modern societies are not rights and they didn't come for free. they had to be paid for by previous and current generations. High levels of wealth inequality corrupt society and inevitably lead towards tyranny. We see this in all the ancient societies, and we see thiis in recent times in South America and Africa. Lots fo very poor people can easily be bought by a rich person and then used to infringe the rights of other rich people. Even the rich have a material interest in some level of wealth redistribution, implemented under the rule of law. Otherwise like in Russia you just end up with wealth redistribution outside of the rule of law.

Of course no society is perfectly just. Every society will have free riders, people who take much and give little. Rich people gain most form society. The freedom of having one's person and property protected is worth more to a rich person, even if that property and self ownership is not absolute.

It should also be noted that copyright which I support but not the extensions and patent law which I don't ,are both justified on the grounds of freeloading, stopping people from stealing other peoples ideas.

Extend the concept of universal suffrage to taxation. 1 person, 1 vote. 1 person, 1 tax. Now you have a simple way of opting out of the system. You should also replace permits and licenses with insurance. The state could pass a law requiring people purchase one or the other when performing various activities.

Ah good to remember that it was Libertarians who were the original source of Obama's health mandate. This is something that I'm totally opposed to.

[AFAIK]

Its funny because you say you don't believe in absolute morality, but you seem to believe in absolute free-loading. Every person freeloads off the society into which they are born. The freedoms that we have in modern societies are not rights and they didn't come for free. they had to be paid for by previous and current generations. High levels of wealth inequality corrupt society and inevitably lead towards tyranny. We see this in all the ancient societies, and we see thiis in recent times in South America and Africa. Lots fo very poor people can easily be bought by a rich person and then used to infringe the rights of other rich people. Even the rich have a material interest in some level of wealth redistribution, implemented under the rule of law. Otherwise like in Russia you just end up with wealth redistribution outside of the rule of law.

The freedoms that you allude to were won as a result of popular struggle and granted by the state with great reluctance. There wouldn't be a nedd for wealth redistribution if there was little inequality to begin with.

Of course no society is perfectly just. Every society will have free riders, people who take much and give little. Rich people gain most form society. The freedom of having one's person and property protected is worth more to a rich person, even if that property and self ownership is not absolute.

It should also be noted that copyright which I support but not the extensions and patent law which I don't ,are both justified on the grounds of freeloading, stopping people from stealing other peoples ideas.

Libertarians consider intellectual property rights to be positive rights that grant artificial monopolies to capitalists.

Ah good to remember that it was Libertarians who were the original source of Obama's health mandate. This is something that I'm totally opposed to.

Didn't Obama copy Mitt Romney's policy?

[Someone5]

Most modern political ideologies have a universal presumption, "our way is how it should be and when we get power everyone must follow that way or else", but this is a contradictory presumption for libertarians who favour personal sovereignty and liberty

You're actually presuming the same thing in this case--you wish for everyone to respect your personal sovereignty and liberty. You would counter by saying "well, people are free to choose to live under any system they want under my system," which is true to a point... except for the indisputable fact that you would only allow them to do so if they did so on your terms (that they would not attempt to impose their beliefs on others).

what can we say to an individual who when presented with a libertarian argument such as, for example, "it is wrong for the state to impose taxes on people" then replies "I am not competent enough to decide how to spend my money, I want the state to decide for me"? To deny such an individual the right to be a slave of a state, if that is what he wants, is contradictory for us.

Yet it is not contradictory to tell him that he can be a slave if he wants only so long as he does not try to make a slave out of others--which is, in fact, a universal system of the sort you were questioning in the first sentence. It is your way or the highway, because a libertarian society could not accept a choice by its members to attempt to control others by force, thereby requiring you to ban it.

This is not a disadvantage and actually may make achieving real world libertarianism easier to do than say a universalistic ideology like fascism or socialism even with a state very much present, since we can liberate ourselves from the obligation of liberating everyone and concentrate only on those that actually want to be liberated and we are taking nothing from those that want to do things differently.

A) How do you "liberate" a few people if you don't convince everyone else to allow them to be "liberated"?
B) You are taking something from everyone else--the right to control the "liberated." You are, in fact, stealing from the labor pool.

All modern states seem to operate on a presumption that they are the boss of everyone who is within their area of dominance and / or a member of their club by citizenship so when they make up a rule (usually a convoluted demand for money) they presume that rule applies to everyone whether they consent to it or not. Surely then anarchist libertarianism cannot co-exist with the state in practice since the agents of the state can not see that we have any right to govern ourselves.

Exactly, and the only way to deal with that is to bring everyone (or at least mostly everyone) around to your point of view (that everyone ought to have personal sovereignty, even if they choose to be slaves).

I think it is possible. There are actually many examples where states make special agreements usually with other states which allow the states rules to be considered inapplicable for some people, for example diplomatic immunity.

Diplomatic immunity is actually kind of an unusual thing. It's under a very specific condition, and not really the free lunch that people normally think. It's not like the state has no recourse against those with diplomatic immunity.

What (anarchist) libertarians might do to put themselves outside that presumption of authority by the state and have that state actually respect that position is to make a treaty with that state, as one sovereign polity to another,

You wouldn't be a "sovereign polity" by any stretch of the term.

that commits that state to respect our independence from them. It isn't practical for each sovereign anarchist libertarian to make their own treaty with the state nor is it necessary since we all broadly want the same things. So what I suggest is we form a "League of Freemen" through which we can collectively bargain treaties with states.

What state would capitulate? It would be signing their own death sentence.

[mum]

S5 are you saying that people should have the right to control others ?

[Rich]

OK I own my little bit of land. Hopefully everyone agrees that its mine. I hear a plane. A clear, unequivocal act of aggression an indisputable initiation of force. The noise from the plane infringes on my property rights. I take my surface to air missile launcher and blow the plane out of the air

Everything OK in Libertarian la, la land?

[lucky]

What (anarchist) libertarians might do to put themselves outside that presumption of authority by the state and have that state actually respect that position is to make a treaty with that state, as one sovereign polity to another, that commits that state to respect our independence from them.

What do you offer in exchange?

I don't think it is inconceivable that some people now could not get emancipation from subservience to legislation

The definition of the law, as opposed to voluntary programs, is that it's not optional. So yes, it is quite inconceivable that you get to simply opt out of following the law.

[SolarCross]

Someone5 - I see what you are getting at, but I don't think what you are suggesting is quite right and here is why. You say that I, "wish for everyone to respect [my] personal sovereignty and liberty." true enough but "wishing" is not the same as imposing. Okay you will counter by saying something like "but if I or someone else disregards your personal sovereignty and forces you to defend yourself, you are then imposing your belief in your sovereignty by force". But no that does not work, defending is not equivalent to imposing or aggressing. I would not have to defend myself if I were not attacked, see? Culpability lies with the aggressor not the defender. So I, as a Libertarian, voice my belief that I am a sovereign in my own right and ask the world to respect that, if the world or some part of it does not respect that and performs some aggression against me then of course I will defend myself as best I can.
On the forceful enslavement of others. I would, in common with other libertarians, consider it an aggression and therefore criminal behaviour, that much is an opinion not an imposition or a ban. I would then be of the opinion that the victim would have every right to defend themselves and to seek the voluntary aid of others but again that is an opinion not a ban or imposition. It is a subtle point perhaps.

Exactly, and the only way to deal with that is to bring everyone (or at least mostly everyone) around to your point of view (that everyone ought to have personal sovereignty, even if they choose to be slaves).

Well, if we did get everyone or almost everyone to believe that everyone ought to have personal sovereignty then things would certainly get easier but I think you can go a long way without getting the whole world on board. You know what you need to get a treaty signed with a state? The signature of the current President or Prime Minister and that is it. Not saying that is a easy thing to get but Presidents and Prime Ministers presume to speak and decide for almost everyone in their gang but still they are just a single individual not "everyone".

Diplomatic immunity is actually kind of an unusual thing. It's under a very specific condition, and not really the free lunch that people normally think. It's not like the state has no recourse against those with diplomatic immunity.

Diplomatic immunity is an agreement. And yeah sure agents of the state can break that agreement any time they find it convenient or useful. They are gangsters after all and there is no honour between thieves. Still it is better to have an agreement that is sometimes broken than no agreement at all.

As to why would a state make such an agreement, well that depends on the circumstances and the state in question, however if a state did make such an agreement it would not necessarily mean the state will disappear in a puff of smoke. Think of the Magna Carta, signing that did not spell the end of the English Monarchy (at least not for another 300 years). Not everyone will want to be free from subservience to their governors and the rule of governors would be somewhat legitimised if it is an option rather than an imposition.

Lucky - What could we offer in exchange? Well for one thing as we will no longer be their subjects they won't need to trouble themselves with our protection, welfare, education or anything else. We will no longer be a burden on them...

Law - the word as many definitions, look it up. Sure the laws of nature: gravity, motion and so on are not optional but when it comes to the laws of politicians that is something entirely different. They are, if they have any legitimacy at all, just rules that act as law for those in that association. Moreover they are almost invariably, in practice, just scams to get easy money. Moral law is something else, maybe something closer to laws of nature, such as the biblical injuction "Thou shalt not kill" and so on. Libertarians are interested in moral law and in trying to discover what they may be. You have heard of the NAP? Well what else is that but a discovered moral law?