sc94597 said:
I think the issue is how a minarchist (or statist in general) views contracts vs. individualist anarchists. There is a good article on the matter found on mises.org. The author compares the Rothbardian (or anarchist) subjective value theory with Randian (or minarchist) objective ethics and how contracts would be enforced according to the two different philosophies. The basis of their enforcement differs because their definiton of what a contract is differs. Rothbard views a contract as a claim of a future action, while Rand views it as a legally bound obligation. Anarchists don't believe the fixed state is unbiased and consistent, and believe competing law enforcement would be more efficient at dealing with criminals. It is a very complex legal system (as is a statist one) but it is certainly just as logically contained. I make a contract with you to exchange my dog for your hen. I gave you my dog. You now say, "Sorry, I refuse to give you my hen. I love it too much." Clearly, you are morally in the wrong, and a just system of laws would imply just that, when applied to this case. But why are you in the wrong, what are your liabilities, and what is the way to right the wrong? Here Rand and Rothbard would differ. Since neither of them has ever considered in writing this specific example, I allow myself to represent their positions as I understand them. To begin with, Rand would say that you are wrong because you have defaulted on a promise contained in a contract. You owe me a hen, because you have promised to give me one once you possessed my dog. Your debt has been incurred by your promise. This is a matter for a civil court, dealing with restoration of justice damaged by contract violation. Rothbard, however, would say that you are in the wrong for a different reason. You don't owe me a hen. The hen is yours, and remained yours. As for the contract, your default amounts to a cancellation of it. The contract ceases to be valid once one of us refuses to abide by it. But if so, what makes you morally wrong? Simply the fact that you now control a dog that belongs to me makes you a criminal. Once you have, by refusing to fulfill your part of the contract, cancelled the contract, you have thereby cancelled your right to control the dog. If you continue to hold the dog, you are in the same category as a robber, or a thief. You control and use property that belongs to another without his permission, by force. Thus, the correct procedure to right the wrong is for me to sue you at a criminal court. Observe the difference: For a Randist, a promise creates an obligation. You are free to make a promise. Once you have made it, you are not free, morally speaking, to default on it. A later decision cannot cancel the prior decision. Once you have promised to give your hen, when certain conditions have been satisfied, the satisfaction of these conditions transfers automatically the hen to me, from the point of view of the right to own it. If you refuse to deliver the hen, you are trying to detain the transfer of property that is already not yours. But the dog does belong to you. For a Rothbardian, though, a promise does not create an obligation. A promise is a declaration of an intended action, or a declaration of a present decision to do something in the future. It has no moral significance beyond that. The same fundamental freedom of choice that makes it possible for you to promise makes it possible for you, later, to cancel the promise. You cannot be sued for canceling promises.
This is a large difference, and it relates directly to the opposing views concerning minimal government. For Rand, the contract that makes individual rights defensible is a contract with a government. Hence, for her, libertarianism is impossible without a government: it presupposes a government, albeit a minimal government. For Rothbard, individual rights are independent of any contract, they are natural, and the fundamental defense of them is by the individual himself. The marketing of defense services through defense agencies is not in any way a necessary ingredient in the implementation of rights. Rather, it is a special case of the principle of specialization of services on the market, and has nothing to do with the moral validity of individual rights, nor with their implementability. |
That Rothbard sounds like an asshole.
A contract doesn't mean anything? That's really destructive.
All it does is penalize the wrong-doer, without remunerating the other. Sure a thief can be taken to court and put in jail for stealing your car, but who is going to pay the victim for all the car rentals, missed appointments, and general stress of the matter? And what if the thief runs a car stealing business and simply has stand-ins take his place at trial? It seems to me that people who abide by contracts are really the ones who suffer here.
I can't even imagine how fucked trade would become, with corporations needing parts from thousands of sources. A rival could simply pay another company to stop providing an integral part, and then all hell would break loose....and all they would be charged for would be the parts "they stole". That's a fucking frightening scenario.
