Introduction

Everything you do is philosophical.

You wake in the morning, groan, stretch and open your eyes. What is happening?

Everything that is happening is philosophical.

How do you know you are awake? How do you know it is morning? How do you know your eyes are open? How do you know your dreaming has ended and your day has begun?

How do you know your memories of yesterday – or ten years ago – are valid? How do you even know you are the same person as the one who got into bed last night?

It gets even crazier, when you really think about it.

How do you know that your “experience” is not in fact some elaborate simulation? Do you know for certain that you are not a brain in a tank, wired up to some Matrix-style virtual reality?

Look at your hand right now. You see a hand, sure, but how do you know that the hand truly exists outside of your mind? Sure, you see your hand, but the image only shows up in your mind. It’s the same with your sensations of your hand – they also only show up in your mind. Where is the hand itself?

Last night, in your dreams, you also had hands – or claws, or tentacles, or heaven knows what –that did not exist or move in what you call the “real world.” In your dreams, you visited a floating island full of dragons that does not exist outside your dreamscape – or does it? Perhaps your dreams are the real world, and your “waking” life is the dream. How can you know for certain?

Perhaps the people you live with are mere avatars – artificial intelligence simulations of human beings. Perhaps they were all real people at some point, but have been replaced by space aliens with perfect biological robots. When you went to a movie last night, perhaps the entire cinema complex was a form of elaborate theatre – perhaps you were in a movie, watching a movie.

What if you are created anew every day from scratch, but with a steady if inconsistent series of progressive memories layered into your newly hatched brain?

What about your memory?

Is it real? Recalled events are gone, lost in time; your memory only exists in your mind. What if you or something else is altering it over time?

Think of your very first memory – is it real? Think of other early memories – could they have been created in your mind by stories you heard as a child?

Try this on for size: go and visit your childhood neighbourhood. I guarantee you that it will neither look nor feel exactly as you remember it – and sometimes not even approximately, even if little has changed.

Look at a picture of yourself as a child – where has that child gone? When you build a foundation for a house, the finished house still has that foundation. But what still remains of your childhood body and mind? You are not like some Russian doll with smaller versions of yourself remaining inside. The human body is replaced over time – every seven years, with little to nothing left from your past physical self. Where are your memories? Are your memories like the childhood game of Broken Telephone, irretrievably lost in endless translation?

Invite childhood friends and siblings over for dinner and discuss shared past events – what perceptions do you all have in common? I guarantee you that others will have very strong memories that significantly differ from yours – sometimes even opposing them completely. What does this mean? You were all in the same place, experiencing the same things – but you have very different memories. Nothing remains of the events except the memories, the interpretations, and everyone’s story about the events – so tell me, what is real? If everyone has a different idea of what happened, what actually happened? Can anyone tell?

If you have home movies of your childhood, sit down with your family and review them – what are the various interpretations of what is “objectively” happening on the screen? When your sister made fun of you, was it playful ribbing, as she remembers, or was it painful teasing, as you remember? Even recorded “objectivity” rarely leads to objectivity.

Even if you remember the same events as your siblings, you can each end up with entirely opposing interpretations. A father hits his children – one child remembers violent abuse, the other remembers stern but loving discipline. A sister believes it made her a better person, a brother believes it harmed him deeply.

A mother has an affair – her daughter sympathizes with her loneliness; her son condemns her as selfish.

You grew up poor – you resent it, your brother thinks it built character.

One of your toddlers loves the noisy vacuum cleaner – the other screams and flees in terror. Is either interpretation the true nature of the vacuum cleaner? Is it a fun noisemaker, or a terrifying monster?

One mother loves cooking for her family; another resents it as a repetitive chore.

Let us go deeper – as we can always go deeper.

Here is another challenge: you claim that you have an identity and that you are your own person, of course – but what does that really mean? Let us say that you are a Christian, and you consider your religion a feature of your own personal identity. If at birth you had been adopted by a Zoroastrian family, you would surely have been brought up in that family’s religion, and you would now consider being a Zoroastrian part of your own personal identity. If you were brought up in a house of Democrats, or liberals, or leftists, you would likely be more willing to inherit that political perspective.

How much of you is distinct from what you have inherited? If you merely inherited a trait, is it really you?

How much of your personality is largely inherited, genetic, and beyond your capacity to change significantly? How much of yourself do you think you have chosen, earned, built with your own mental bare hands? How often do you condemn other people’s personalities, as if other people somehow magically just chose who they are?

What if your judgmental nature is not completely your choice, but partly genetic?

You say that you are tall or short – but height is also a function of your genetics, not your own personal, earned identity. You can take pride in parts of your personality and achievements – you may be hard-working or very honest – but significant aspects of your personality and achievements are genetic. Your intelligence is largely genetic, your conscientiousness, your level of social comfort, your charisma – these largely arise from unchosen biological influences, though we often take personal pride in that which we have biologically inherited.

Do you consider yourself a conservative, liberal, or something else? If you are a male conservative, did you know that trait is 64.5% heritable? For women, it is 44.7%.^[1]

To describe yourself, you need language, of course. If English is your native tongue, you possess a unique set of words by which you may describe yourself – some of which do not even exist in other languages.

Think of how much of your personal identity, that which you call a “self,” has been influenced by the work of others – writers and moviemakers and actors and singers and teachers and so on.

Your language, your culture, your family, your schooling, some of your accidental exposures to the thoughts and feelings of others – all of these influences have shaped you, but they did not originate within you.

Even if you could accurately say, “I was influenced by Bob,” you have merely moved the chain of causality one step away. Who was Bob influenced by? How many of his capacities and perspectives were chosen? Were you influenced by Bob’s thoughts or Bob’s genetics? How can the things that influenced you – or Bob – be accurately separated?

Perhaps we are all just predetermined dominoes falling on each other under the pretense of choice.

So what does it mean to have an identity, to be yourself, when so little of who you are was completely self-generated?

Do you see what I mean?

Everything we do is philosophical.

When most people think of the word “faith,” they generally refer to a belief in God – but it is much more accurate to say that we have “faith” in reality. We have faith in ourselves, our existence, memories or history, our relationships, the evidence of our senses, the virtue of our choices – we have few if any real philosophical certainties in these areas. We accept what we have to in order to survive, to get through the day, to find shelter and food – and love, hopefully.

Your young son steals a candy bar from a store – you rebuke him, march him back into the store, perhaps punish him – but why? What objective, universal moral principles did your son violate? How do you know that they are true or good? Where do they exist in reality? Do you punish your son because you fear the disapproval of others? Are you afraid that people will think you are a bad parent because you raised a thief? Do you punish your son because there is a subjective social convention against stealing? Is that how you describe it to him? No, surely, you will tell him that it is wrong to steal, that he is bad for stealing, that it is immoral and so on. But – how do you know? If you are Christian, you have a pretty good idea – one of the Ten Commandments is Thou shalt not steal. But that exists in the realm of theology, not philosophy.

If you are atheist or agnostic – how do you know that stealing is wrong? Because it makes people unhappy? That argument is scarcely philosophical – a lot of things make people unhappy, without being immoral. A negative movie review makes the filmmakers unhappy – and can cost them millions of dollars – but it is neither illegal nor immoral to write a negative movie review, if you write it honestly. Also, your son can argue that getting the candy bar without paying makes him happy, so it totally evens out.

Perhaps you invoke the golden rule – do unto others as you would have them do unto you – and ask your son if he would like it if others stole from him. However, he may just reply that he does not care, and then what could you say? Maybe he is the biggest kid around, and no one would dare! Relying on his empathy for his future self and for the feelings of others only works if he already has empathy.

Most morality is like a diet book for slim people. If you are morally sensitive, then you will generally accept moral arguments, but then you tend to be the kind of person least in need of moral arguments. Morality needs to be powerful enough to overcome the indifference of truly selfish people. Morality that requires the leverage of self-criticism has virtually no power over narcissists, sociopaths or psychopaths, who have little to no capacity for self-criticism. If you care about others, you will most likely be good, with or without moral arguments – if you do not care, moral arguments will have no real sway over you.

When you start to explore definitions, the question of theft becomes even more complicated. If “theft” means taking property without permission, or using force, against the will of its legitimate owner, then what is taxation? If you try to legitimize taxation by appealing to the democratic will of the majority, aren’t you just encouraging your son to get a few friends to go with him to the convenience store, where they will then outvote the owner on who gets the candy bars? Can immorality be legitimized by the majority? If two men vote to rape one woman, surely that does not make rape any less immoral? Surely our highest aspirations as moral instructors cannot be to teach our children to submit to or join the majority mob.

Perhaps we teach our children that self-sacrifice is the highest universal moral ideal – that they should give up their own preferences and aspirations in order to serve the needs of others. But if self-sacrifice is a universal moral ideal, then it cannot possibly be applied universally. If Bob sacrifices for Doug, then Doug cannot simultaneously sacrifice for Bob. There are those who sacrifice, and those who collect that sacrifice – those who pay, and those who receive. If self-sacrifice is a universal moral ideal, then those who collect that sacrifice, rather than provide it, must be immoral, since they are profiting from other people’s self-sacrifice, rather than sacrificing themselves. But if the highest moral ideal requires other people to be immoral, how can it be universally good?

Perhaps we teach our children that they should obey authority figures – listen to your teacher, obey your father, etc. However, they then learn from history that horrifying atrocities were often committed by those obeying authority figures. Sometimes, perhaps it is good to obey authority figures – other times, it is a great evil to obey authority figures – how can we teach them the difference? Is there a moral authority higher than secular authority? How are morals justified? How do we know?

The Tortures of Philosophy

We currently have a tortured relationship with philosophy. We need it to get out of bed in the morning and get anything done with our lives. But we cannot examine it too closely, for fear of mental or moral disintegration. It is like the Aristotelian mean – too little philosophy makes us animalistic, too much tempts impotent madness. We desperately need rules in society, but we recoil from examining our rules too closely for fear of unearthing something unholy in the empty heart of our coerced coexistence.

Many who are drawn to philosophy become toxic to the majority. They drink deep the dizzying wine of scepticism, question the basic empiricism necessary for life, and end up absorbing and transmitting radical relativism and subjectivism. They cry out that there is no such thing as truth, thereby proclaiming that there is no such thing as philosophy – all spoken under the guise of philosophy.

Most of us have every rational reason to avoid, fear and deny the pursuit of truth, since it so often leads us with great momentum to the crumbling edge of a foggy cliff.

There is great danger in the study of philosophy.

It can feel like summoning a demon you can barely hope to control.

A shallow study of philosophy is like a child’s first brush with science. As a child, when I first learned that the sun would eventually burn itself out, and that I was living on the side of a giant spinning ball on the edge of an unremarkable galaxy, I felt depressed and disoriented. In the childhood of our species, when man believed he was the centre of the universe, it gave him comfort.

As a toddler, my daughter confidently told me that the lead hero in a movie could not die, because he was the centre of the story. Moving mankind from the centre of the universe to the inconsequential periphery can be extraordinarily disorienting. But it does give us the capacity to navigate the globe, predict the path of the planets, fly between continents and get to the moon and back.

It seems like a reasonable trade-off.

When I was younger, I had a lengthy recurring dream. The dreamscape would span the entire length of a semester – or even a whole school year – at university. Here’s how it went.

At the beginning of a semester, I sign up for an obscure class in an out-of-the-way building.

Then – I simply don’t go to class. I have strong intentions of going, so I don’t drop the course – but I just never seem to get around to showing up.

I forget the time and place of the course. I know I have it written down somewhere – and know I should dig up the information, attend the class, and get caught up on the course material. However, as the semester wears on, the growing backlog of work and the effort it would take to get caught up swells to the point where I avoid even looking up the class location, preferring to attend more enjoyable classes, play Frisbee in the quad, go on a romantic date, or – well, do anything but confront how far into the hole I have actually sunk.

Over the course of the dream, I feel a growing sense of unease, knowing I am being irresponsible by avoiding something essential. I continually kick myself, when my anxiety spikes, for not dropping the course when I had the chance, before it became too late, because now the bad mark will show up on my transcript no matter what.

This avoidance grows to the point where I have trouble enjoying anything, and I feel at war with myself.

Later in the semester, I become petty and easily annoyed. I view the anxiety that is trying to help me as an enemy. Oh come on, I tell it, there’s nothing to be done now! Why are you interfering with my enjoyment?

We all have this temptation, right? We all know we need to examine truth, morality, virtue, good and evil – and compare our examinations to our existing life, the lives of those around us, and our societies as a whole. But so often we prefer to coast, to avoid, to resent the nagging feeling that we are drifting further and further away from where we ought to be – as people, as families, as communities, as nations, as a species.

Instead, we think, Let me enjoy myself now, and the future will sort itself out somehow…

We believe anxiety is a form of instability. And we want to stay stable, no matter the cost to our personal and collective futures. We busy ourselves with alcohol, drugs, video games, exercise, vanity, spending. We deploy every form of stimulant to distract ourselves from difficult but necessary wisdom.

This book will bring you that wisdom. It will not make you crazy – I guarantee you that.

If you listen, this book will make you painfully sane. We have drifted so far from sanity that reality now scalds us – but we have no other choice, other than non-existence.

We have become so lost that we fear maps, but maps are all that can save us.

It is not too late as yet – but almost, almost.

Let us begin.

What Is Philosophy?

Philosophy is the study of truth, which is a definition that raises almost as many questions as it answers.

What is truth? How is truth differentiated from falsehood? Why is truth even preferable to falsehood?

Truth is the accurate identification of facts and principles in objective reality.

Our senses are our mind’s only windows to objective reality. Our brain, our consciousness, is encased in a bony skull prison. It cannot send out tentacles or mind rays to map whatever exists outside the inside of our heads. It must rely on information received and transmitted by the five senses.

As we grow, we create mental maps, based upon on our reception of sense data. When we feel the wind on our face, the treetops also move. When it rains, it is typically cloudy. When it is sunny, we feel warmer. We cannot breathe underwater, nor generally jump higher than half our height. When we run, we get short of breath, it hurts when we do belly flops, and mosquitoes are not our friends. Ladybugs are cute, but bees can be dangerous. An excess of courage often leads to injury, while an excess of cowardice leads to mockery and self-contempt.

In childhood, we build maps not just of empirical reality, but of social reality as well. People of different personality types constantly goad or encourage us to become more like them, or they prod others to satisfy their emotional requirements. The shy kids want us to restrain ourselves, while the outgoing kids mock our restraint. The fearful kids mock our courage, while the overconfident kids both help and endanger us by egging us on. The moral kids condemn our rule-breaking – the nihilistic kids mock rules. The nerds mock the jocks – the jocks roll their eyes at the nerds. The pretty kids don’t eat, the fat kids learn the arcane rules of even more arcane games – the homely kids learn how to make jokes. The kids who don’t take drugs scorn those who do, the kids who don’t have sex scorn those who do, and vice versa, of course.

Perceptive children quickly understand that society is an ecosystem of warring personalities and mental structures – not just horizontally, but vertically as well. The teachers, the curriculum, the entire educational structure attempts to impose a certain mindset upon the children. Many succumb without question, while others push back as much as they dare, often hopelessly and helplessly – or they withdraw completely, ghosting through the painted brick hallways.

The children are constantly commanded to be moral, but morality is never defined in a way that captures immorality on the part of their elders. Ethics become like an inverted fishing net that only catches the minnows, while letting the sharks swim free. We can further imagine a legal system that punishes a sailor taking a photograph in a submarine, while excusing a powerful woman who bypasses required security by setting up a home-brewed server in a barn.

When children blurt out an uncomfortable truth, they are told that “keeping quiet” is moral. When adults want information from kids, “speaking up” becomes moral.

Children are told not to use force to get their way, but they are typically spanked at home and punished in school. Children are told to respect the property of others, by teachers who use the power of the state to compel parents to pay their salaries through property taxes. Children are told to save their money, to avoid frivolous debt, and to be responsible – only to be justly shocked when they learn about the trillions of dollars in national debts that governments take out in their names. Children are told they have free will and that they are responsible for their choices, but they are generally compelled to go to school and to obey the commandments of their teachers.

Children are constantly told they owe society allegiance, because society really cares about the well-being of children. They’re told that all the harshness heaped upon them arises out of that concern for their young and tender well-being. As they age, however, the children find out they will be taxed for decades to pay for old-age pensions that they themselves have no chance of receiving. Their elders voted for government benefits, but not for the tax increases necessary to pay for those benefits, resulting in catastrophic debt and unfunded liabilities.

Children are told not to harm others, while many boys have a third of the skin of their penises sliced off shortly after birth, without anesthetic, for no medical necessity.

Among the more intelligent children, a suspicion begins to arise that moral rules are a form of psychological control, rather than universal absolutes that everyone must follow. When children begin to read the news and discover that those in power regularly get away with atrocities a thousand times worse than anything any child could imagine, this suspicion expands exponentially.

The pursuit of truth and the advocacy of truly universal moral rules quickly become a dangerous occupation when pseudo-philosophy is used as a weapon to subjugate society to the whims of the powerful. If your response to the question, “What is truth?” is not, “What your elders tell you,” then you may soon find your elders can rapidly turn on you.

When societies are growing and expanding, at least it’s a highly profitable subjugation to submit to the dictates of one’s elders. Obey social norms, get a good job, raise a family, save for your retirement, live well. However, when societies begin to contract and fail, elders rapidly lose the power of economic bribery necessary to control the youth.

The young graduate under a mountain of student debt and face dim or non-existent job prospects. They realize that criminal bankers get debt forgiveness, but young people cannot discharge their student debt even through bankruptcy. Then the young can no longer be bribed and social norms begin to fall apart. Seldom do a criminal enterprise or a pirate captain face mutiny when the gold is flowing in. Cold fingers close on hilts when victim ships are scarce.

To wipe away all these complications, all these confusions, all these manipulations from our mental maps of the world and its inhabitants requires an act of philosophy. It requires that we truly start from a blank page, with the innocence and ignorance of an infant, assuming that nothing is true, but that truth is possible. We must wilfully forget all we have learned – and especially all we have been taught – and view our existing histories, cultures, societies and beliefs as mere tangled rubble and undergrowth that need to be cleared away completely before we can start digging the foundations of a true and permanent home.

When you are walking and someone gives you bad directions, sending you in the wrong direction for hours, you get angry when you realize you’ve been misled. You did not start lost – you were made lost.

So it is with truth.

Bad ideas often lead to bad actions – and bad actions create the need for compounding lies to cover them up. Without philosophy, power and the resulting entropy reign supreme in the human mind and heart, and cultures continually fall away from reason, virtue and happiness.

Philosophy and Conformity

When we are children, rules continually come flying at us like a swarm of locusts, seemingly without end. We do not need philosophy in order to conform to the expectations of others – particularly if they hold power over us; that comes naturally. If virtue is obedience, our path to goodness is simple – find the authority figure with the most power to harm or reward us, and then merely conform to whatever that authority figure desires.

However, this choice rarely manifests so starkly. Authority figures do not like to present themselves as mere agents of physical strength, for the simple reason that they inevitably weaken with age.

A parent has an advantage of near-infinite size and power over the child – but as the child grows, the parent weakens. If physical size and strength alone determine who wins, the parent who dominates his child later ends up dominated by his adult child.

Concepts of “gods” and “virtues” were originally summoned to infuse authority figures with credibility over and above mere physical presence. A king is merely a man who can be easily slaughtered in his sleep, as Macbeth showed. However, if the king is infused with the divine right of monarchy, and is placed by an all-loving and all-powerful God to rule over a sinful mankind, then opposition to the king is opposition to God. You may kill the king, who can then no longer do you any more harm – but God will get the king’s revenge by robbing you of sleep and sending you to hell forever. Moral concepts were generally invented – or they evolved – to hide the aging mortality of merely empirical power relationships. “You are not obeying me,” says the king. “You are obeying God, who placed me to rule over you.”

You must obey the king, because he represents God. But the king himself does not have to obey God, because the king prays for instructions from God. And whatever the king does is informed by that mysterious and unverifiable interaction.

The chieftain represents the elders, or the world spirits, or the ghosts of champions. Such representation infuses him with an authority that transcends his mere mortal and physical presence. Totalitarianism is a dungeon patrolled by ghosts, however; banish those ghosts, and the dungeon breaks wide open.

It is impossible to avoid philosophy, even if one only wishes to pursue conformity to authority. What constitutes authority? Why and when is authority valid? How should we respond to an authority that contradicts itself, or acts against the moral values it imposes on its subjects?

We can say that no irrational abstractions can legitimize authority – that authority is merely the power to punish and reward, usually through force. We can say to ourselves that we have no respect for our teachers, for example, but we recognize their ability to pass or fail us. We can say to ourselves that we have no respect for tyrannical laws, but we recognize the judge’s ability to punish us. This perspective may trigger conformity to rules, but we will not internalize those rules as ideal standards. Ruling us profitably will be impossible, since we refuse to rule ourselves, and we are eager to break whatever fake rules we safely can.

There is an old saying that morality is whatever we do when no one is watching. This is not a philosophical argument, but it is an interesting observation. Do you respect property rights because it is moral, or do you avoid stealing another’s property because you fear jail? In a situation of societal breakdown, such as after a natural disaster, would you loot because you no longer feared jail? When rules are not idealized and internalized, the cost of enforcing them becomes increasingly high – often to the point of unsustainability. If you wish to destroy a society, teach its citizens that rules are mere exercises of power.

A thief who approaches a house and hears a large dog barking inside will probably choose another house – not because he has a sudden attack of conscience, but because he fears a sudden attack of dog.

The fear of consequences – of punishment – is like a stream pouring down the side of a mountain. If the stream hits a big rock, it will part and the water will find another way down. If the stream hits a lake, or a dam, or a reservoir, its progress will stop. This is how the mind of an amoral man in pursuit of a goal works. If he runs into a guard dog, or a policeman, or an alarm system, then he will change his course – but he won’t give up his goal.

Traditional philosophy empowers to evil those who most need its guidance toward the good, while it appeals most to those who need the least guidance. If you care about being good, you will listen to morality, but you also already possess the essential virtue of empathy, so you will most likely be good anyway. If you don’t possess empathy, you can easily use traditional philosophy to manipulate those who do into serving your needs.

Conformity to authority cannot be universalized, however, and universality is the very essence of philosophy. If I conform to an authority, who does the authority conform to? Of course, some would say the authority conforms to God, or to the wishes of the ancestors, or to the world spirit, or to the will of the people. But even these cannot be universalized and are scarcely objectively measurable. Also, if one man can conform to God, and I am a man, then why can I not just conform to that God? Why do I need a secular authority to order me around? If every man needs another man to obey, then who does the ultimate authority figure obey?

This is the problem of infinite regression. We can abstract the concept of obedience to say that a citizen obeys something called “the law,” but the law either represents abstract moral virtues, or it is the mere will of the legislature. If the law represents abstract moral virtues, then I am not obeying the law. I am merely conforming to those virtues – which are superior to the law, and which render the law invalid if it deviates from the virtues.

Saying that the law is a mere shadow cast by the perfect statue of virtue severely curtails the will of the ruler, as King George found out during the American Revolution. If the moral law is Thou Shall Not Steal, then a government that steals – or legalizes its own act of theft – is acting against morality. And moral people would have no innate reason to obey it. In fact, their respect for property rights would instruct them to challenge the law, or perhaps even disobey it.

If the law represents the mere will of the legislature, then it has no foundational moral content to speak of. It is merely the compulsion used in the pursuit of power. This approach expands the will of the ruler – either in a democracy, or in a more authoritarian system – but contradicts his moral legitimacy. It exposes a coercive oligarchical hierarchy as a mere exercise of power – do it because I have more guns than you – which turns the enforcement of legality into a dangerous game of whack-a-mole, since citizens feel no universal moral obligation to obey the law. Thus they get away with whatever they can. This in turn triggers the rulers to raise the penalties for disobedience, which increases the costs of enforcement and inflames the cynicism of the population, leading to economic and social collapse.

Thus rulers need morality, but fear morality as well. It is like desperately needing a bodyguard, but being terrified that he will stab you in your sleep. If rulers can cloak their exercise of power in morality, then people will be more likely to obey them – but the innate universality of morality limits the power of the ruler. This tension will exist as long as governments exist, with the same inevitable outcome every time.

Philosophy and Reality

“Truth” describes verifiable and objective principles and experiences.

If I say that I had a headache last summer while camping alone, there is no way to verify my statement. But if I say that the sun is 8.3 light minutes away from the earth, there are ways to verify my statement.

Subjective experiences do not fall in the realm of philosophy, any more than nightly dreams fall in the realm of physics. Saying that something “feels true” makes about as much sense as saying that “imagination proves scientific hypotheses.”

The conflation of subjective experience with objective truth is one of the great curses of human history.

If I speak a truth that others find inconvenient or offensive, they imagine that their emotions somehow rebut the facts. The idea that being upset trumps examining objective facts is an example of just how far we have drifted from the tough-minded and empirical philosophy that founded our civilization.

In order to value truth, we must first establish the existence of an objective reality.

Its existence is easily testable. For instance, I have two realms of experience – one in which impossible things happen, and another in which impossible things do not happen. The first realm is my dreams – or perhaps a very vivid video game. The second is reality. I once had a startling dream wherein an alligator propelled itself backwards a distance of fifty or sixty feet, landing near me. This cannot happen in reality, absent the invention of reptilian jetpacks.

Impossibility is a hallmark of subjectivity. Fantasy novels contain magic, and magic is defined as mental effects on nature that cannot be explained or achieved in reality. I can buy a Taser, if I want, but I cannot shoot lightning bolts from my fingertips, Dungeons & Dragons style. I cannot cast a sleep spell, but I can shoot a tranquilizer dart.

I cannot move forward by pushing a W key, which is one reason I know that my computer monitor is different from my eyeballs.

Impossibility is at least partly defined as “objects or processes with self-contradictory definitions” – a square circle, for instance. It is impossible for matter to both attract and repel other matter simultaneously, for a gas to both expand and contract when heated, for the world to be both flat and spherical, or for objects to be moving closer together and further apart at the same time.

Thus, there are two realms of experience – the realm of impossibility and self-contradiction or the realm of possibility. In one realm – the dream realm – there are no consistent laws of physics or identity. Objects and entities have a variety of properties that change all the time, but we usually wake up in the same bed we fell asleep in. If I am curious, I can hook up a video camera to record myself sleeping, and then compare my subjective experience of dreaming to my objective experience of lying in a bed. I may dream that I am flying, but when I observe myself, I see I am only twitching under the covers.

There is also an intermediate realm – which can be confusing for some, but which is easy to explain philosophically – and that is the realm of manipulation.

Let’s say your friend Bob is lying on the couch, and he really wants a peach from a tree in the garden. Bob can ask you to go pick one for him, and perhaps you will. Or Bob can beg, wheedle, bribe, cajole, bully or manipulate you into getting him a peach, and perhaps you will. But he only tries because you’re human. There is no other living entity in the universe that we know of that Bob can manipulate into getting him a peach. He can manipulate other human beings; he cannot manipulate peach trees or physics or gravity.

If I have to jump from a high wall, I can beg you to catch me. I cannot rationally beg gravity to suspend itself, even for an instant. If I’m lying in a sunny hammock, I can ask you to get me sunscreen. I cannot ask the sun to refrain from burning me – or, if I do, the sun will not obey.

If you have a job or hobby that involves manipulating and controlling people, then you spend a lot of time in a fairly subjective frame of mind. Please understand, I am not saying that manipulating and controlling people is innately bad. It can have very positive outcomes, such as your doctor scaring you into losing weight and exercising, or a salesman helping you overcome your fearful resistance to a beneficial purchase.

If you are in sales, politics, the media, or academia, then your primary focus is not on objective reality, but on other people’s minds – their perceptions and thoughts and feelings. If you wheedle, cajole, bully, manipulate, encourage and inspire, then you are like a farmer whose primary crop is future human actions. Of course, the hope is that you bring objective principles to people’s subjective experience, with the goal of helping them make rational decisions – but often, of course, this is scarcely the case. If you are in academia, you might bring to people’s pre-existing prejudices the facts that deny the sexism of the supposed male/female “wage gap.” Or you might stoke those prejudices and provoke the plethora of resentments, alienations, and frustrations that lead people to bitter, barren lives.

Those who spend significant amounts of time attempting to influence other people’s thoughts and actions are often in grave danger of falling prey to the “subjective universe” hypothesis – which is one reason it spreads so rapidly. Since most of their mental energies are spent trying to change other people’s minds, the objectivity of the universe easily becomes obscured.

When I was a kid, spoon bending, telekinesis and all other sorts of mental gibberish were enormously popular. And I remember, open-minded young tyke that I was, experimenting with controlling objects through my mind. My very first music LP was “The Things We Do for Love,” by 10cc. Back in the day, you had to put a needle on the record to play it, and when the song was over, the needle would just keep clicking against the label. I clearly remember, at about the age of eleven, lying on my bed, listening to the music playing in another room, and working my mind feverishly to lift the needle and put it back in its holder.

I tried a number of other approaches to this hypothesis that telekinesis could work, all of which failed completely.

Another time, my mother took me to a spoon-bending class, where I was supposed to be taught how to bend spoons with my mind. This turned out to be mere mental manipulation combined with continually rubbing the metal of the spoon to make it softer. You then imagined yourself easily twisting the spoon. By the time you actually twisted it, the metal was softer, and you were mentally psyched up to more easily do it.

I also got interested in mind reading, UFOs, pyramid power, and all other sorts of mental detritus that clogged up the brainpower of the late 1970s – but none of it ever panned out.

In hindsight, I’m sort of glad that this nonsense was everywhere – and I’m very glad that I gave it all an honest try. Because it taught me two important things: first of all, empirical verification is the key to truth. And second, society seems more than willing to regularly swan-dive into sophisticated vats of utter mental garbage.

Moving objects with your mind violates basic laws of physics. It is an effect without a cause – in other words, movement without prior movement. And it also denies basic evolution – in that if we could move things with our minds, we would scarcely have developed arms and hands. It’s the same with telepathy. Any human group with the capacity to transmit thoughts would have had such an enormous evolutionary advantage that such a skill would have spread like wildfire among the population. (Imagine the advantage in war and hunting alone.)

Similarly, our emotions are good at helping us read people, but not as good at helping us understand objective reality. Throughout history, human predators were our greatest danger. And they live among us in the greatest disguise of all, since they often look just like us or people we love. Those who developed strong and accurate “gut instincts” about dangerous people avoided – or at least minimized – such predations.

As we became more civilized and lived in towns and cities, non-human predation fell away. And so people tended to focus their fight-and-flight mechanisms on dangerous people, rather than on predatory animals. These dangerous people, in turn, developed language skills designed to blunt people’s capacity to sniff out human danger.

Lions creep in the tall grass, and human predators hide in baffling and manipulative syllables. Rational philosophers bring truth and pain now, but freedom later. Sophists bring ease and relief now, but tyranny later. The human herd vacillates from greed to necessity and back again, like a weak man torn between a good wife and a dangerous mistress.

These days, we live in such a social world that we tend to confuse our instincts about people with facts about reality.

Philosophy and Control

If you hold a toy airplane, you can maneuver it to fly directly. If you fly it through remote control, you can maneuver it indirectly. If your friend flies it through remote control, you can tell him to turn the plane left or right. If you watch an old video of a toy airplane flying, you cannot control it at all.

We inhabit several layers of diminishing control – the first is over our own mind, our own thoughts. Our thoughts are largely autonomous, but subject to our control. If I ask you to think of an eagle, you can think of an eagle. It is unlikely you will continue to think of one for long, since the human mind is self-generating, absent-minded and easily distracted. Something more important will soon grab your attention.

This type of mind control has limits. If I tell you not to think of an eagle, is it even possible for you to do as I ask?

Thoughts within us are constantly churning, arriving, disappearing. Our minds are beehives of continual activity. They initiate internal action constantly, and equally constantly, they remain in motion. Controlling thoughts is initially like trying to ride a barely trained horse – but it is the most direct layer of control that we have. Our bodies can be externally controlled – we can be handcuffed, for instance. Our minds cannot be so directly controlled.

The second layer of control is over our own bodies. I can tell my right hand to scratch my eyebrow and it will obey. I can manage my own thoughts, and I can initiate actions in my body – at least in my limbs and external body. I can’t do much to control my digestion or blood flow, nor can I stop my heart with my mind.

I can stop my arms from moving. I cannot stop myself from aging.

My mind is in constant motion. The aspects of my body I can control tend to be inert. My arm does not move until I tell it to. We manage our minds, while we move our bodies.

The first level of control is over our own minds; the second is over our own bodies.

The third layer of control is over objects we can manipulate beyond our own bodies. I can pick up a peach and eat it – I cannot blow a cumulus cloud away.

Other people can also pick up that peach; they cannot directly control my arm.

After this, our control trails away quickly. I can choose to drink a glass of water; I cannot decide water is poisonous to me. I can choose to crank up a Queen song on my headphones; I cannot choose whether high volume damages my hearing. I can choose to drink arsenic; I cannot will it to be good for me.

We can control our own thoughts to some degree, we can control our own bodies to some degree, and we can manipulate proximate entities, but we cannot change physical laws or properties at will.

That which we cannot choose to change falls under the definition of what we call objective or external reality.

Science generally measures what we cannot choose to change, as does engineering, logic, mathematics and other objective disciplines. If an engineer builds a bridge, and that bridge falls down, no one blames the engineer’s willpower or sartorial preferences. He may have made a mistake in his calculations, or the materials may have been defective, or some extremity of weather may have overtaken the parameters of his design – but his will is not what is at fault.

On the other hand, if I ask you to hold my delicate computer tablet and you drop it in excitement when your phone rings, clearly you have been deficient in some manner of concentration, focus or willpower. You certainly had the strength to hold my little tablet, but you got distracted and excited, and dropped it. You had the power to hold the tablet, and therefore you own your failure to do so.

If I get a sunburn, I am irrational if I blame the sun. Rather, the fault lies with my own lack of preparation. I can alter whether I put on sunscreen, and I can alter whether I stay in the shade. I cannot change whether the sun produces ultraviolet rays, or the effects those rays have on my skin.

That which we cannot change is the foundation of objective reality.

The challenge is that the human brain exists within objective reality, but the mind is changeable. We will get to more on this later.

To summarize the four levels of control – we have the mind, which controls itself. We have the body, which is to some degree controlled by the mind because the body references the brain. We have manipulatable objects, which cannot be directly controlled – unlike the body – but which can be controlled by the body secondhand, so to speak.

The fourth level is where we have zero control – and this is where we find objective, empirical, uncontrollable reality.

You may disagree with me that the fourth level is the foundation of objective reality, but you cannot disagree with the definition. You can think of an elephant in your mind – you cannot magically summon an elephant to appear in reality. When you think of a peach, your mouth may water – but you cannot eat one without finding some way to put an actual peach in your mouth. You can control your thoughts, you can initiate movement in your hand, you can pick a peach, but you cannot alter physical laws, gravity or the properties of atoms.

There is an old saying, which applies as much to engineering as to science: Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed. This is the foundation of objective philosophy, of the fourth level of control, or lack of control.

In order to build a bridge, you must accept the properties of nature that are beyond your control. You can build a stronger bridge; you cannot diminish gravity. You can build a bridge that opens; you cannot build a bridge that disappears and reappears at the push of a button. You can build a glass-bottomed boat, but you cannot build a boat with no bottom or top and expect it to float.

These metaphysical differences are how we begin to differentiate between our minds and our bodies – that which we can control, and that which we cannot control.

We can think of these layers as an inverted pyramid of prevalence. We have absolutely no control over most of the universe. We cannot will the galaxy of Andromeda to change its course. Just about everything is made of hydrogen, and just about everything lies beyond our control. Only a tiny subsection of that which exists is within our control. Everything that exists could theoretically be controlled, but that which we can actually affect is but a tiny subsection of all that is.

Think of yourself. Most of the universe is beyond your control, including all of its laws and most of its properties, but you can affect a tiny minority of objects and properties within your direct sphere of control.

Think of your body. Billions of people live in the world, but no one except you can directly will your right hand to scratch your eyebrow.

Only you have direct physical control over your own body. Someone else can force you to do something, but they cannot directly control your body in the same way that you can. Stealing a car does not transfer its rightful ownership; forcing your body does not transfer your natural will.

Your mind – which is really you, more or less – is not only under your control, it is the very source of the control that you exercise over your body and over the objects in your vicinity that you can control.

Imagine you are walking by a road in flip-flops, and you stub your toe hard on a broken piece of sidewalk. You cry out in pain, bend over, rub your toe and check for damage. If asked, you would surely say that stubbing your toe was a negative event.

Suddenly, a bus comes careening off the road and crashes onto the sidewalk just a few feet in front of you.

Immediately, your perspective on the entire sequence changes. The broken piece of sidewalk, formerly your enemy, now becomes your salvation. Stubbing your toe, formerly a negative event, now becomes a wonderful, life-saving happenstance.

Nothing has changed in reality, of course. You did stub your toe, it did cause pain, and the bus did crash up onto the sidewalk. But your perspective on the sequence of events has altered enormously.

Your mind can change; this does not change reality. But events in reality can change everything within your mind.

Your mind can be ambivalent – you can have two opposing opinions about an idea or argument – but you cannot move your arm in two opposing directions at once. You cannot go north and south at the same time. However, you can be both happy and sad at the same time. We cannot categorize these capacities as identical.

Here is how we can begin to establish the existence of an external, objective reality.

Once we understand that there are things we can alter directly, things we can alter indirectly, and things that we cannot alter, then we truly begin to understand how the foundation for an acceptance of objective reality begins to take shape.

Radical Scepticism

It is possible to construct a scenario wherein all the above divisions still remain within our own mind. Perhaps we are just a brain in a tank, manipulated by a Cartesian demon who externally divides our mind and experiences into the multiple categories defined above. If our mind exists in some sort of virtual reality, then there’s no reason why this demon could not provide us stimuli we could change, and stimuli we could not change.

In a video game, you can move your character around an environment, but you typically cannot change the physics of that environment. However, both the movements (what you can change) and the physics (what you cannot change) are equally products of the designers and programmers of the game. For instance, they have programmed it so you are unable to redesign your environment; only their decision results in an unchangeable environment as you play.

To think of it another way, if you are directing a production of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, you are generally not allowed or encouraged to alter the text. Fidelity to Shakespeare’s source material requires that the actors memorize and repeat the Bard’s words. You can change the staging, the environment, the costumes, even cut some scenes – but you are not supposed to alter the language itself. However, this is merely a convention of the theatre. There is no absolute reason why you cannot monkey around with the text as much as you want. Shakespeare chose the words he put down, and convention encourages us to follow them, but there is nothing absolute in any of those decisions.

If you are directing a more contemporary play, the playwright might not allow you to change the text at all.

Exorcising the Cartesian Demon

Can we escape this logical possibility of being nothing more than an externally controlled brain?

While it is possible to examine any number of scenarios that could support the “brain in a tank” hypothesis, it is also fairly easy to push back against this proposal to the point where it topples right over.

To begin, we must examine the standard of the “null hypothesis.”

If you have a hypothesis that cannot possibly be disproved, then you have added nothing whatsoever to the sum total of knowledge, truth, understanding or perception – or to anything, for that matter. If I say that I have an invisible friend named Bob, and then steadfastly reject and refuse any standards or criteria by which the existence of Bob can be established, what am I doing except wasting everyone’s time? (Often, annoyingly, that is precisely the point.)

Another way of approaching this problem is to remember that anything that is asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.

There is a kind of intellectual black hole that fools and trolls deploy to entrap the unwary. They propose a ridiculous hypothesis, and then deny all attempts to disprove it. I remember a young man once putting forward the thesis that the Soviet wall in Berlin was actually designed to keep Westerners out of the paradise of East Berlin. His mother and I railed against this hypothesis, but of course the goalpost kept moving, and nothing could ever be established with any certainty. If we peered over the wall and saw a dingy dystopia, well that was just a hallucination projected by the benevolent rulers of the communist paradise. When we pointed out to the young man that the machine guns were pointed inwards, he said this was just to make it look bad, so people would not break down the wall trying to break into the utopia, and so on.

Arguing with fools is not always a completely useless exercise, but taken to extremes and applied consistently, all it produces among the intelligent is intellectual paralysis and self-destroying radical scepticism, which again is often the point.

Remember: If a hypothesis cannot possibly be disproved, it can be irrefutably dismissed.

The reason is that a truth proposition must be compared to something in order to find out whether it is true or not. Truth cannot be entirely self-referential. Otherwise, it cannot be the truth at all. Truth is a standard that we apply to propositions that reference something other than their own principles or arguments. For instance, if I say there are two bananas on the table, is that a true statement? Well, if a pair of bananas is sitting on the table, then yes. If there is only one banana, or no bananas, or three mangoes and an elephant – then it is a false statement.

If you are not allowed to look at the table, is my statement true or false? It cannot be verified, so it doesn’t matter.

If I say that I dreamt about two bananas last night, however, there is no way to objectively verify my statement. You may believe me, if you think I am an honest person, but it cannot be established as “true” in any rational or empirical fashion.

Personal, subjective statements are not part of philosophy, any more than they are part of science or math. It is not mathematics to say that you like the shape of the symbol for the number two.

If I say that a coconut was spontaneously created and simultaneously destroyed on the far side of the Andromeda Galaxy twelve million years ago, will you say that the statement is true? Will you say that it is false? I would lean towards “false,” for the simple reason that matter cannot be created and destroyed, and coconuts generally don’t exist in a vacuum. But who really cares? No proof is possible, no disproof is necessary, and the statement has no relevance to anything whatsoever.

I would also need to explain how I know about the mysterious coconut in the first place. If I cannot explain how it was proved to me, how can I expect other people to believe me?

An important standard in philosophy goes something like this: “WHO CARES?”

If a proposition has no practical value or benefit, changes no particular behaviour, or cannot be disproved, then we can definitively file it under the category of, well, who cares?

Philosophy is like medicine. In general, doctors should study the most dangerous and prevalent diseases, since human desires for health are infinite, while medical resources are most definitely finite. Sure, you could write a proposal for grant money in order to study the possibility that once every thousand years, someone may get dizzy from biting their thumbnail, but who cares?

When evaluating a philosophical hypothesis, one essential question is: What behaviour might change if people accept this viewpoint?

If I convince you that honesty is a virtue that would bring you love and happiness, then I certainly hope you would begin to tell the truth more often. If you accept the argument that courage is necessary for virtue, and virtue is necessary for happiness, then if you want happiness, presumably you will try to be more courageous.

An argument that cannot be disproved can be dismissed – this is our first salvo against the idea that all reality is subjective.

I prefer victory to stalemate, however, so let us destroy the argument once and for all.

The “Infinite Simulation” Hypothesis

What if we lived in a simulation so perfect and complete that it was indistinguishable from the common-sense perspective that we live in an objective and empirical reality? This could be called an infinite simulation.

Theinfinite simulation hypothesis generally denies and defies any disproof, so it can have no rational change upon a person’s behaviour. If believing in this hypothesis resulted in the ability to go without food and air – since our requirement for both is a mere illusion – then this would lend support and value to the hypothesis. However, anyone who believes in such a hypothesis still has to breathe and eat, so nothing changes there.

As you pursue the infinite simulation hypothesis, you will find no practical difference between accepting the hypothesis and rejecting it. In other words, no requirements, standards or necessities change if you believe you are living in a simulation, versus living in objective reality.

It is reasonable to ask, “What changes if I accept this assertion?” If the answer is, “Nothing really,” then surely more important things need to be done.

Naturally – and logically – this does not automatically disprove the hypothesis, but it does bring to light the question of whether it is important at all.

Another approach is needed to disprove the hypothesis.

The question of infinite regression is important here.

If you think of the concept of biological evolution, it cannot be arbitrarily cut off after a certain number of generations. If evolution is a valid hypothesis, then it must extend all the way back to the origins of life itself. One central aspect to the theory of evolution is that no gods are needed for the development and progression of life. It would have done Charles Darwin little good to say that evolution was a universal principle that went back 5,000 years – but before that, life required a god. (In fact, this would have put him squarely in line with most theologians, who fully recognize local adaptations to species – such as the domestication of wild animals for human purposes – but who believe that the beginning of life required God.)

The underlying axiom of the infinite simulationhypothesis is that consciousness inhabits a simulation imposed from outside. Now, this simulation cannot be autonomous in and of itself, but rather must be imposed by another consciousness, which exists outside our own.

The existence of a prisoner implies the existence of an imprisoner. If you have been hypnotized, this implies the existence of a hypnotist.

If you exist in an infinite simulation, then someone or something must be imposing that simulation upon you. Think of putting on a virtual reality mask. Someone created the mask, someone created the program you’d view, and so on. The existence of virtual reality presupposes the existence of at least one other consciousness that encases you in that virtual reality. If you are locked in a basement, someone made the basement and locked you in.

Do you see the problem yet?

If consciousness exists within virtual reality, then all conscious beings must exist within virtual reality. This is inescapable. If you are a brain in a tank, then someone grew your brain in the tank, attached the electrodes that give you the simulation of experience, and supplied the necessary energy and stimulation.

Furthermore, in your waking illusion, you continually interact with people smarter and more experienced than yourself, and read books supposedly written thousands of years ago – some in other languages – so you must be consuming the products of other consciousnesses.

Let’s call you “Bob,” and let’s call the super being who controls your experience “Lord Doug.”

For some unfathomable reasons of his own, Lord Doug grows a human brain called Bob, puts it in a tank, attaches electrodes, and supplies Bob with an “external, objective reality,” as well as an “internal, subjective experience.”

I’m sure you see the problem by now. If the argument is that Bob is in aninfinite simulation, then why does the argument not equally apply that Lord Doug is also in an infinite simulation? If consciousness exists within a perfect simulation, then Lord Doug must also exist in a perfect simulation, since Lord Doug possesses consciousness.

Lord Doug’s infinite simulation experience also requires an external consciousness that applies this simulation. Let’s call this other consciousness “Sir Jim.” Naturally, Sir Jim also exists in a simulation, which requires an external consciousness to… Well, you get the idea. The problem of infinite regression destroys the validity of the hypothesis.

If all consciousness exists in an infinite simulation, and consciousness is required to create an infinite simulation, then there can be no logical end to the upward progression of infinite simulations… Mind A is wrapped in an infinite simulation by Mind B; Mind B is wrapped in an infinite simulation by Mind C, and so on.

You can, of course, say that Sir Jim exists in the “ultimate reality,” beyond which no creator of the simulation is required, because Sir Jim does not exist in a simulation.

By doing this, you have accepted that consciousness can exist in an objective reality. If this is true for Jim, then why is it not true for Doug or Bob – or for yourself?

By inventing Doug and Jim, all you have done is add additional useless layers of complexity and unbelievability – without even the intellectual integrity of a null hypothesis – to the simple statement that consciousness exists in objective reality.

Also, since your simulated reality includes the contents and productions – books, movies and conversations – of billions of other minds, then the simulation cannot possibly be the product of one single mind. Those who advance this theory may try to get around this problem by claiming that the manufacturer of the simulated reality is omniscient. But appeals to magical non-restrictions are not an argument. The label “omniscient” is not a concept, but an anti-concept. All consciousness is limited. Removing limitations removes the very definition of consciousness. Likewise, all life is mortal. The word “immortal” is not a concept, but an anti-concept, since it simply removes one of the definitions and restrictions of life itself. A house is a house, not the destruction of a house. A concept is a concept, not the destruction of a concept.

Also, we generally accept that knowing everything would include knowing everything about morality. Omniscience, by definition, would involve some relationship to virtue, and in particular to empathy, since an all-knowing being would know exactly how much pain immoral actions would cause others. Therefore, an omniscient being would also be perfectly moral, which would mean: unwilling to lie. However, since a “simulated reality” is a metaphysical falsehood inflicted upon a helpless and unaware victim, it is the worst conceivable lie and manipulation. Omniscience would thus equal terrifying and demonic sadism, which would also mean that increases in knowledge would be increases in evil. An increase in empathy would be an increase in sadism, and greater knowledge would provoke greater immorality.

If someone advances such a theory to you, he is clearly trying to increase your knowledge. However, since the theory requires an omniscient being to be utterly evil, he is arguing that increasing knowledge increases evil, and so you can reject him on the grounds that he is trying to make you more evil by giving you more knowledge.

If he replies that more knowledge does not make you more evil, then he cannot claim that your consciousness is manipulated by an infinitely knowledgeable and infinitely sadistic being.

If he replies that more knowledge makes you more virtuous, then he cannot claim that your consciousness is manipulated by an infinitely knowledgeable and infinitely sadistic being, since infinite knowledge implies infinite virtue, and lying to innocent victims is not virtuous.

Also, there is the general problem of why an omniscient being would bother creating such a ridiculous laboratory. Why would it spend its entire energies and efforts manipulating one mortal creature? If the omniscient being is virtuous, it would never create such a lie. If the omniscient being is evil, despite all the contradictions outlined above, how could it possibly profit from creating such a delusion? Certainly there could be no material profit; the only profit could be watching suffering. However, if the omniscient being has created the simulation for the sole purpose of taking sadistic pleasure in watching suffering, then why do so much joy and pleasure exist within the simulation? Why are there love and sex and the thrill of victory?

None of it makes any sense, of course.

Even if we bypass the problems of omniscience, virtue and motive, we still face the problem of infinite regression in causality.

If you say that all consciousnesses live in a simulated reality controlled by an external consciousness, then you have not solved the problem of causality. If every consciousness is manipulated by an external outsider, then no one is causing anything. Everyone is just bouncing off the random stimuli provided by their external mental jailer. Who, then, decided to set all of these events and experiments in motion? It’s like the argument that says, if consciousness exists, it must have been created. Whoever created the consciousness also has a consciousness and therefore must have been created. This is the problem of infinite regression, and it cannot be solved by ignoring it (although that is often attempted).

If consciousness can exist in objective reality, then the simplest and most rational explanation is that your consciousness exists in objective reality. You don’t even need the principle of Occam’s razor – that the simplest explanation is usually the best – just some basic common sense.

If you accept that consciousness can exist in objective reality, then you don’t need non-falsifiable pseudo-explanations of additional layers of manipulated unreality and hidden external consciousnesses, and so on.

You either face the problem of infinite regression – meaning infinite universes, infinite energy, and no original causality whatsoever – or you accept that we do not exist in a simulation.

We exist in objective reality – you and I, and everyone else – and that is all there is to it.

Anyone who tells you otherwise is just trying to mess with your head, inject you with crazy talk, and possibly ruin your life.

Argue back, try to save them – and if they steadfastly resist, run for your very life!

Validating the Senses

One reason why theinfinite simulation hypothesis is so seductive is because there is an element of truth in the formulation. We are brains in a tank – the “tank” is just our skull. Our minds have no direct contact with the empirical reality external to our brains.

When we really think about this, it’s easy to start feeling weird. Everything we perceive is at least second hand. Our brain cannot squeeze itself out our nose and vacation in the land of objective reality, like a jellyfish feeling up a tree. Everything we perceive about reality is delivered to us through the senses – and the emotions, of course.

If you lived in a cave, without a clock, how long would it take you to lose track of day and night? After a couple weeks, how much would you be willing to bet whether it was day or night? If you are one of those lucky people with a strict biological clock of diurnal schedules, going to bed and waking up at about the same time, you would have a pretty good idea. But for most of us, our sleep would drift to the point where we wouldn’t have any idea whether we were sleeping during day or night.

Imagine being born blind in a village of sightless people, isolated from the world. Imagine all the things you wouldn’t know about. You wouldn’t know about the moon or the stars; you wouldn’t know what a distant mountaintop looked like – or even that it existed. You may not have any clear idea what the tops of trees looked like, and would have no idea about the structure of clouds. You would notice that it rained sometimes, but you wouldn’t know anything visual about high stratospheric cloud formations. You would (hopefully) never experience meteors. And the occasional airplane flying high above may only register with your ears, not your eyes.

This list could go on and on, but the point is to recognize how many of our concepts require the evidence of the senses. If you were deaf, but not blind, you would look at a distant airplane and have no idea whether it made sound or not. Since the flight of high-flying birds is inaudible, perhaps the same would be true of airplanes as well. How would you know?

Most of what goes on in our mind is derived from electrical impulses delivered by the senses. “Reality” is a consistent electrical storm imprinted on our minds by nerve endings in our bodies. In a sense, we are like a king locked in a castle with no windows, who learns about his kingdom only through a constant stream of messengers entering his prison through secret doors.

The mind generally receives – it does not transmit. Centuries ago, some thinkers argued that the eyes sent out rays or beams, like radar, and received visual echolocation back. However, our eyes only receive; they do not transmit. We can reach with our hands to manipulate reality, but our senses operate as inputs only. Our ears also only receive. We can receive sensations through our skin – we cannot send sensations through our skin.

Naturally, a central question of epistemology – the study of knowledge – is whether the information we receive from our senses is valid.

Now “valid” is just another word for “accurate” or “true,” which brings us back to the basic question – what is truth?

As discussed before, “truth” is a statement about objective reality that conforms with the nature and principles of objective reality. If I say that there is a cloud overhead, my statement is true if there is in fact a cloud overhead.

This requirement for objective reality as a standard of truth can be challenging for some who believe that their own internal states have a truth or falsehood about them.

It is true, for example, that I felt sad yesterday; it is true that I feel happy today. It is true that I love my wife, that I study the truth, and that I hate evil.

It is worth spending a few moments to deal with this question of internal states before moving on to the validity of the senses, because emotions are an essential aspect of how we effectively process and deal with reality.

Knowing you feel strongly about something is essential for focus and motivation – as long as you know that experiencing your feelings is not the same as knowing the truth. Wanting to diet is not the same as actually dieting – though it is an essential first step.

It is important to know when you are angry at someone – and it is equally important to know that your anger does not automatically make that person wrong or bad. In the modern world, emotions are often perceived as accurate judgements, a belief that unleashes a feral mob more often than not. Emotions are usually expressed as all-important accusations – but the conclusions drawn from them need to be proved in the court of reason before being accepted as valid. Philosophy without emotions is random and inconsequential; emotions without philosophy are wayward and destructive.

The question of “love” is fascinating. Emotions do not exist outside the body, in the objective external world. A man’s love for learning may cause him to build a school; the school certainly exists outside his body, but his love for learning does not. That feeling lives within him and dies with him, though the school survives him.

This is not to say that love is an entirely subjective state. As was established in my earlier book, Real-Time Relationships: The Logic of Love, what we call “love” is merely our involuntary response to virtue, if we are virtuous.

The experience of love releases certain endorphins in the mind and body, which can be objectively measured. We have a subjective experience called “lust,” which also provokes measurable biological responses in our body. If a man says he is not sexually attracted to a certain image, but his body manifests an erection, we have reason to doubt his protestations.

Also, it is reasonable to accept that the emotion of love does not produce random behaviours in the person experiencing it. If I say that I love a restaurant, but never want to eat there, what does that mean? If I say that I love playing sports, but sit on the couch every spare minute I have, am I being honest? If I say that I love my wife, but divorce her for no particular reason, do my actions support my use of the world “love”?

Of course, we can always construct scenarios wherein I love a restaurant, but never want to eat there because it is too far away, too expensive, or I am allergic to the food. But assuming I have the means, motive and an opportunity to eat at a restaurant I claim to love, yet I never want to do it, something is wrong with my claim.

Remember, empirical evidence trumps conceptual hypotheses – every time.

If I say I love spending time with a particular friend, but I shudder and recoil every time he proposes a get-together, surely we understand that there is a contradiction between my claimed feelings and my measurable actions.

Think of two professional wrestlers engaged in a public trash-talking hate-fest, who are later seen amicably eating dinner together after a match, giggling and cleaning out the buffet. Would we say their hate is genuine, or that it is part of an entertaining show put on to sell tickets?

In other words, there are ways to objectively measure the empirical effects of subjective experiences. If love is claimed, but hatred or indifference is objectively measured, then it is reasonable to question the sincerity of the claim.

Our judgements should work the same way our bodies work. Our bodies process deeds, not words. If I want to lose weight, I can say the word “diet” over and over again while chewing my way through a cheesecake, but my body will only respond to what I eat, not what I say. Repeatedly yodeling the word “exercise” works little but my lungs. Actually going to the gym will affect my body.

If someone pulls out your fingernails, you experience pain. Perhaps you are a masochist who enjoys the feeling, but it is pain nonetheless. Its physiological effects can be objectively measured in your body.

Thus, while emotions are somewhat subjective, the effects of them can often be measured objectively.

On the Senses

Regarding our five senses, it is certainly true that each individual sense can be misinterpreted. This does not invalidate the senses as a whole.

There is a reason we evolved to have five senses, rather than just one or two. Judging reality via only one sense is like looking at 20 percent of the night sky and decisively determining whether the moon is out or not.

When you put a pencil into a glass of water, it looks disjointed. However, it is important to remember that our eyes do not provide us with conclusions, merely information. Our eyes do not inform us about the straightness of the pencil; they merely provide the light waves to our brain. Our sense of touch can tell us more. If we run our finger down the pencil, past the waterline, we can feel that it is not disjointed, and we realize that the water is merely bending the light waves where the surface meets the pencil.

Similarly, we may believe that a distant image of water in the desert is not a mirage, but a real lake. Our eyes do not tell us whether a lake exists in the distance; they merely transmit light waves to our brain. If we run forward through the blinding heat and find no actual lake, we understand that we have been subject to an illusion, which is another way of saying we came to the wrong conclusion about the evidence gleaned from only one sense – in this case, our eyesight. Our eyes are not to blame for the error, but our mind. Not the raw data, but our refined conclusions.

However, if we walk forward and find a lake that we can swim in and drink from, then we no longer have any reason to believe that the lake is a mirage – for the simple reason that all of our five senses confirm its existence – in other words, the consistent properties of a lake.

One of the reasons we have more than one sense is that it takes our senses acting in concert, reinforcing each other, to establish facts about objective reality.

We’ve all had the experience of walking through a room in the darkness and banging our shin on a table. We walk confidently, thinking we are avoiding obstacles, but our confidence is disproved by the sudden pain in our leg. Here, our eyes do not transmit any indication of the table, but our sense of touch – and of pain – gives us the truth.

There are three distinct classes of sense perception: the perception of absence, as in an open door; the perception of inconsistency, as in a mirage; and the perception of consistency, as in a lake.

In other words, things are either not there, they are perhaps there, or they are really there. When you look ahead in the desert, you see either sand, a mirage, or a lake. Sand is the absence of a lake, the mirage is the possibility of a lake, while the lake is the thing itself.

These perceptions – no impression on the senses, inconsistent impression on the senses, or consistent impression on the senses – are the differences between absence, illusion and presence.

When I look ahead on a hot road while driving, I can say that the road ahead is wet and full of puddles. But as I drive closer, they all disappear and no water sprays from the sides of my tires.

Because my original claim that the road ahead was wet did not match additional sense details – as I got closer, the “wetness” disappeared – my original hypothesis was false.

It was false because I claimed to be making an objective statement about external reality, not about my own subjective perception.

If I say, “The road ahead looks wet to me,” then I am not making a claim about external reality – that the road is actually wet – but rather reporting my own subjective experience of looking down the road.

This transition between the description of personal experience, and the identification of objective fact, is the difference between anecdote and data.

Women are generally shorter than men. Reporting the fact that you know a tall woman just throws static into the music of math.

Objectivity and Honesty

Saying that something looks wet to me, if it really does, is an honest statement. Saying that something is wet, just because it looks wet to me, is a hypothesis. If I see water drops on my window, and I say that I see water drops on my window, I am telling the truth. However, if I see water drops on my window and I say that it is raining, that is a hypothesis. It may have finished raining, or my window may have been hit by water from a sprinkler or a car wash – or from just about anything else for that matter.

The failure to understand or act upon the difference between personal experience and objective hypothesis is catastrophic. But people mistake their personal feelings for objective facts all the time. Someone feels offended and they assume the offender is offensive. Feeling offended is the experience – someone being offensive is a hypothesis that needs to be proved.

The chasm between feeling and proof is fertile ground for manipulative sophists.

Someone makes you angry, so you assume that the instigator is aggressive. You fall in love, and you assume that the object of your affection is wonderful, virtuous and trustworthy. A politician offers you something for free; you assume he is a generous statesman.

Feelings transmit from person to person when we pretend they are objective. This turns them into a form of virus that spreads by mimicking reality. If I can get you to jump to the same conclusions that I’ve come to about reality, based upon my own subjective experiences, then you are much more likely to experience the same emotions that I do. If I am afraid of redheaded people and I can convince you that they are objectively dangerous, then you will also become afraid of redheaded people. My irrational fear has camouflaged itself as objective fact and thus transmitted itself to you.

Ideologies also spread this way. They primarily transmit themselves through emotions rather than reasoned arguments and evidence. If I can convince you that rich people only have money because they have stolen it from you, then you will resent rich people and support using the power of the state to take money from them and give it to you – with me as the highly profitable arbitrator, of course.

If you can convince women that they have been oppressed, beaten, raped and controlled throughout history, then they will inevitably feel anger and resentment towards men. One individual woman’s potentially just anger against one individual man – perhaps her father – gets transmitted throughout the culture using the medium of other susceptible women. Then claims of “sexism” end up being reproduced as very real sexism – against all men.

If you say, “I am angry at a man,” then that is an honest and accurate statement. However, if you say, “I am angry at all men, because all men are oppressive,” then that is a dishonest and inaccurate hyperbole.

This is how anger spreads like a virus.

You own your feelings, which are often highly susceptible to your perceptions. Since perceptions can very easily be wrong, assuming your feelings are mere reflections of perfectly accurate perceptions is a highly shaky stance to take – and very dangerous, should you prove to be wrong.

Philosophy and Subjectivity

Philosophy is the methodology that helps you determine the difference between subjective experiences and objective facts. We need philosophy precisely because mistaking our subjective experiences for objective facts is so easy.

A tree cannot be incorrect, sunlight cannot be erroneous, water cannot take a wrong turn, and fungus cannot be immoral. Truth and falsehood exist as distinct states in only one entity in the universe that we know of: the human mind.

Truth is a state that results when a concept matches an entity or a hypothesis matches the facts of reality.

Truth always refers to concepts or language and the degree to which they match what exists and occurs in objective reality. If I point at a mug and say it is a telephone, we cannot fix my statement by replacing the mug with a telephone. If I call the mug a “telephone,” I am incorrect, because my word does not match what I’m pointing at.

The standard of truth refers not only to the relationship between concepts and objects, but also to concepts about the relationships between objects, such as gravity or magnetism. If I say that “gravity repels,” then I am incorrect; my language does not match the true relationship between mass and gravity. If I say that “magnetism can pull down a tree,” then I am equally incorrect.

The relationship between concepts in the mind and matter or energy in the world is the relationship we refer to as “truth.”

Concepts and Entities

As we grow from infancy, we notice that certain objects in our world exhibit consistent characteristics. Chocolate is sweet, water quenches our thirst, carpets are softer than hardwood, and crayons taste terrible.

We are able to develop accurate conceptual nets to cast around similar objects, so to speak, because those objects have similar or identical characteristics.

The stability of objects and properties in the world is the foundation for the accuracy of our concepts.

If you tried to develop a physics of dreaming, you would quickly realize what an impossible task that would be. When we dream, objects, their properties and the physical laws that govern them change continually and sometimes, it would seem, randomly. Can you imagine trying to play a game of chess where the rules for your various pieces changed continually – and the pieces shifted shape as well? What would it mean to play such a game, let alone win it? In debates, there is a logical fallacy known as “moving the goalposts,” wherein your opponent demands you prove X, and when you do, he then demands you prove Y instead, or in addition. You cannot win such debates, because the rules keep changing – the only way to win is not to play.

Objects in the world are consistent for two basic reasons – the first is the existence of atoms, and the second is the existence of stable physical laws. The atoms that make up a feather possess different characteristics than the atoms that make up a bowling ball. The atoms that make up water are different from the atoms that make up arsenic. Atoms are subject to stable physical laws, which result in consistent object behaviour, information about which our senses then transmit to our brains.

Milk that looks fair may taste foul – our eyesight says it is healthy, our taste buds report its danger. The skin of a shark feels smooth rubbing from head to tail – going the other way reveals the direction of its tiny barbs.

In other words, we have validconcepts because of the consistency of both atomic behaviour and physical laws. (This will be referred to as atomic consistency from now on, for efficiency.)

Since our concepts describe the behaviour of matter and energy, and the behaviour of matter and energy is consistent, our concepts, to be valid – to be true – must also be consistent.

Empirical reality is not self-contradictory – at least at the realm of the senses, where philosophy operates. The realm of quantum mechanics is interesting, of course, but does not impact the realm of philosophy, because quantum phenomena cancels out long before we get to the aggregate realm of sense perception.

A rock is a rock, and not a cloud, fire, or the concept of “rock.”

An elephant is not its shadow, the letter e or a lizard.

An entity cannot be both a living animal and a fossil at the same time.

Relations between entities also cannot be self-contradictory. Gravity and magnetism cannot both repel and attract at the same time, a car cannot move both north and south at the same time, and a ball cannot simultaneously fall towards the ground and rise away from it.

Thus, the properties and relations of entities in reality cannot be self-contradictory – if they appear so, this is due to an erroneous conclusion in our mind. A colour-blind man may report that a rainbow is composed of differing shades of grey, but he would be incorrect because of a deficiency in his eyes. A deaf woman may wonder why people are dancing to mere vibrations, but of course the silence only feels real because of a deficiency in her ears.

Reality is rational and consistent, and valid concepts describe reality – therefore, true and valid concepts must be rational and consistent. A tomato cannot be both a tomato and a beach ball at the same time – thus any concept that requires such a contradiction is naturally invalid.

Science – which describes a consistent, universal and rational reality – must itself be consistent, rational and universal.

Philosophical arguments, which establish truth regarding objective and rational reality, must themselves be objective and rational.

Concepts and Validity

In relation to truth, there are three categories of concepts – valid, potentially valid, and invalid.

A valid and true concept is one that has been verified and established, both by its internal rational consistency, and by its consistency with empirical observations. The idea that the earth is a sphere, rather than flat, is not internally self-contradictory. No one is saying that the earth is both a sphere and flat at the same time. And its roundness has been consistently verified through empirical observations, both on the surface of the earth and in space.

The concept that airplanes can fly is validated by the laws of physics, as well as by the empirical observation – available every day – that airplanes do indeed fly.

The concept that human beings are mortal is validated by the laws of biology, as well by as the empirical observation – available every day – that all human beings eventually die.

These are valid concepts.

Potentially valid concepts are those for which there is no empirical evidence, but no internal self-contradiction either. For instance, the idea that silicone, rather than carbon, could be used as the basis for a living organism is not internally self-contradictory, but there is no evidence as yet of a silicone-based life form. The position that intelligent life could exist on other planets is not internally self-contradictory, but no evidence as yet exists to prove this hypothesis.

Invalid concepts are those that are self-contradictory, and thus can never accurately describe atomic consistency. One example of a self-contradictory concept is the “square circle,” which cannot exist because the characteristics of squares and those of circles contradict each other.

Another example of a self-contradictory entity is the concept of “consciousness without matter.”

We never directly encounter consciousness in the absence of a brain. Empirically, no evidence exists to support the idea that consciousness can exist without matter – and all the evidence supports the reality that consciousness is an effect of matter, specifically the matter (and energy) that composes the human brain.

Could consciousness exist without matter somewhere in the universe?

Certainly not, for the following reasons. Consciousness is an effect of matter, since it requires the physical structure of the brain. Since consciousness is the effect of a physical brain, requiring consciousness without matter would be to require an effect without its proximate cause. Gravity is an effect of matter, of mass – this is by definition and proof, not mere observation. Can we have gravity in the absence of matter? Of course not – again, by definition, hypothesis and empirical observation. Since gravity is an effect of matter, it therefore cannot exist in the absence of matter.

Another way of looking at it is to think of a shadow – a shadow is an effect of opaque mass and light. Can we have a shadow with neither light, nor a mass to block it?

Of course not.

Can we have a sound without a source of that sound? Can we have light without a light source?

Of course not.

Consciousness is an effect of matter – of the physical brain, specifically – and therefore cannot exist in the absence of a brain.

Philosophy, Discomfort and Decisiveness

Such decisiveness in philosophy makes many people uncomfortable. Their immediate mental objective becomes to find some break in the rule, some exception to disprove any and all proposed objective standards.

This is entirely natural, because we often feel that we can release ourselves from obligations to obey or disseminate a rule, if we can find even the tiniest exception to its commandments.

This is the realm of foggy boundaries that confuses even the most consistent thinkers.

If you are drawn to imagining some scenario in which consciousness can exist without matter –even to the point of imagining alternative universes – this is because it provokes emotional anxiety within you to understand that the argument could be so simple.

We can certainly make the unsupported statement that consciousness can exist without matter, and dismiss the argument above – but this lacks intellectual honesty and integrity.

When we feel anxious, the most honest statement we can make is that we feel anxious. Making the anxiety “go away” by inventing some anti-rational magic to dispel the uncomfortable feeling brought about by an assertive argument is dishonest and destructive.

It is entirely understandable, of course, both historically and biologically. Human tribes have always been full of the most anti-rational nonsense – the contradiction of which often provoked either physical or genetic death. Rational thinkers are often targeted for murder, ostracism or de-platforming.

The moment that a dangerously rational idea enters our mind, our anti-rational immune system often attacks it as a foreign, dangerous object in order to protect our capacity for tribal cooperation and genetic reproduction.

Thus, it is entirely natural for you to feel anxiety – and perhaps even hostility – towards a rational argument that may put you in conflict with tribal prejudices. However, let us at least be honest enough to admit that we are anxious and not pretend that the proposed argument is magically invalid.

Materialism and Determinism

The great danger of a materialistic approach to the senses and to objective reality is the hollowing out of free will.

Traditionally, the question of free will has been answered theologically, rather than philosophically. According to most theology, there is an immaterial seat of consciousness within the body called the soul, which is immune to mere physical restrictions – and it is the soul that generates consciousness and free will within the mind.

Creating an immaterial repository of consciousness that is unaffected by the physical domino-causality of matter and energy has generally allowed for the maintenance of the free-will position – however, this “proof” of free will remains philosophically unsatisfying.

Why is this so important?

Without free will, there is no such thing as philosophy. We do not attempt to cultivate wisdom in inanimate objects.

This proves nothing about free will, of course, but clearly reveals the stakes.

Without free will, there is no such thing as personal responsibility, no need or capacity for ethics, and no possibility for loving virtue or opposing evil – since virtue and vice remain delusions. When we stop believing in ghosts, we stop worrying about haunted houses and no longer fear the vengeance of the dead. (The idea of vengeful ghosts was a desperate attempt by more primitive cultures to limit murders – as was the concept of hell – by implanting a fear of consequences that had no relationship to actually being caught by secular authorities.)

In general, the determinist position runs as follows:

Free will is a superstition left over from more religious mindsets. Before we understood the Darwinian origins of the species, we imagined that a God breathed life into clay. Before we understood astronomy, we imagined that the stars were distant fireflies that wheeled around a static earth. The idea that blind matter and energy can somehow coalesce into a consciousness that defies all the restrictions of matter and energy is ridiculous. A rock does not have free will, the sun does not have free will, your arm does not have free will – only your brain, apparently magically, does. Alone in the universe – an infinitesimally small fraction of the matter and energy contained in the universe – the human brain is able to overleap and escape the inevitable restrictions of matter and energy that apply to every other single atom in the universe. If those who believe in free will wish to create a magical exception for the human brain, and make it exempt from the laws of physics that apply both to the human brain and everything else, then they are making an extraordinary claim. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and none have been provided by those with a mad faith in the magic of free will. In primitive times, mankind felt special because an all-seeing God oversaw an unmoving earth. The earth was the exception to everything else in the universe, because everything else moved. How is the idea that our brains are magically different from everything else in the universe any different from the idea that the earth is magically different from everything else? How exactly does the brain exempt itself from physical laws? The only answer appears to be a bottomless thirst for imaginary choice, a desperate need to feel special, and a darker desire to punish people for their imaginary transgressions – “You had a choice, and you made the wrong choice, so you must be punished!”

These arguments certainly have the ring of consistency to them. How could it be rational to create an exception to the universal laws of physics just for the human brain? We do not see or experience even the idea of free will among animals, among nature, among inanimate objects – how are we so different? The answer that we possess a soul is not satisfying to those who reject immaterial explanations for material causes. If a child denies stealing a cookie and claims that his imaginary friend ate it instead, few parents would accept such an explanation.

However, it remains entirely possible to reject the hypothesis of determinism without providing a purely scientific solution to the question of free will – although some such solutions appear to be emerging.

Free Will: An Introduction

If I stop a man and ask him for directions, and he tells me to go east and west at the same time, I do not need to compare his directions to a map in order to know that he is wrong.

If a man sends me an email containing the argument that emails never get delivered, I do not need to know anything about how emails are delivered in order to reject his hypothesis.

If a woman tells me she does not think I exist, I do not need to know any metaphysical proofs for my own existence in order to reject her hypothesis. Since she addresses her words to me, she cannot rationally claim that I do not exist.

In other words, we first examine the rational consistency of the argument before comparing it to empirical evidence. A self-contradictory argument can be dismissed without the requirement to appeal to contradictory empirical evidence.

If I tell you that you cannot trust the evidence of your senses, and that language is meaningless, these can be positions consistent within themselves, but they are not consistent with my actions.

If I say you cannot trust the evidence of your senses, but I rely upon the trustworthiness of the evidence of your senses in order to communicate my argument, then my argument contradicts its own hypothesis. If I use language to convey to you the idea that language is meaningless, then my methodology contradicts my hypothesis. If language is meaningless, then I cannot use it to convey any idea to you, let alone an idea about language. If language is not meaningless, then I can use it to convey an argument to you, I just can’t use it to convey that language is meaningless, because then my hypothesis contradicts my methodology.

Testing the hypothesis of an argument against the methodology of communicating the argument is a powerful method for rejecting irrational arguments.

You cannot argue that the senses are invalid, since you must use the senses to communicate – the ears for hearing the argument, the eyes for seeing it, and so on.

You cannot use logical arguments to disprove the value of logic.

You cannot use empirical arguments to disprove the value of empiricism.

Before embarking on the task of repudiating a particular hypothesis, it is essential to examine the arguments embedded in the hypothesis. Sophists, in particular, always want to drag you into disproving a hypothesis, when nine times out of ten, the disproof is embedded in the methodology of the way they communicate the argument.

Embedded in every attempt to use the senses to communicate reason and evidence to prove an argument are a number of unshakable assumptions:

1. Reason is infinitely preferable to unreason.
2. Empirical evidence is infinitely preferable to conceptual hypotheses.
3. Truth is infinitely preferable to error.
4. Truth requires rational consistency and empirical evidence.
5. The person communicating the argument and the person receiving it both exist independent of each other within an objective and empirical universe.
6. The senses are valid enough to accurately transmit and receive an argument.
7. Language is meaningful enough to accurately transmit and receive an argument.
8. The person communicating the argument assumes that those receiving the argument have the capacity to change their minds based on reason and evidence.
9. Rational argument is superior to physical force.

This list goes on for a long time, but you get the general idea. The very act of engaging in a debate reveals a packaged list of accepted assumptions and axioms that really need to be examined before everyone goes around chasing the conclusion and debating the surface arguments.

One of the main problems people have with debates is that implicit assumptions are not made explicit, but become horrifyingly clear over the course of a disastrous conversation. If a man wants to debate you, and he openly states that he considers truth equivalent to error, reason equivalent to screaming, that he will never ever change his mind, and if you refuse to submit to his argument, he will kick you hard in the shins – would you agree to debate him?

So often, people pretend to debate, when they are really seeking to dominate, justify themselves, or frustrate others.

Causality and Determinism

The determinist position states that the human mind is not magically exempt from the general laws of causality in the universe.

If determinists really accept this position, then clearly they should not treat the human mind any differently from any other object in the universe.

If you owe me ten dollars and I say I don’t care which ten-dollar bill you give me, then I have no rational right to object to any one ten-dollar bill.

If you ask me whether I would prefer pasta or fish for dinner, and I tell you I have no preference whatsoever, does it make any sense for me to rage at you for serving me fish, and throw the plate out the window? If I do such a crazy thing, then clearly I was lying to you when I said I had no preference.

To go even further – and trust me, even this isn’t going far enough – if your wife tells you she doesn’t care whether you both go to Florida or California for vacation, and you choose Florida, and she then tells you only a truly insane person would ever vacation in Florida and she thinks you are mentally ill for even suggesting it, what would you think of her behaviour?

You would think that she was crazy, right? To say that she has no preference – and then to scream that you are insane for choosing one thing over the other only reveals her own instability, hypocrisy and dangerously manipulative nature.

The determinist position is that the human brain is exactly like everything else in the universe. The brain contains no special magical capacity for free will – and believing it does is akin to believing that the last domino in a stacked line chooses to fall over when it is bumped by the previous falling domino.

Very well, let us take determinists at their word – the human brain is exactly the same as everything else in the universe, and therefore should be treated no differently from anything else.

The human brain has no free will, just like a television, a blade of grass, a cloud, a clock or a water tower.

A sports fanatic may very well encourage his team by yelling at the television, but he does not believe that his team is able to hear him and change their behaviour based on his ranting. A gambler may cheer for a lucky roll, but he does not think his cheering encourages the dice to do what he wants.

People will vent at inanimate objects – a golfer may throw his club in frustration – but we recognize this as immaturity. When questioned, the angry golfer does not argue that his club has grown a brain and free will and works viciously to thwart his desire for a good swing. It is an irrational eccentricity to treat inanimate objects as if they have a human brain. When people do, we do not believe their tantrums are philosophically sound – and neither do they, we hope, after they calm down.

If a man stabs a woman, we do not blame the knife for dragging the poor man’s hand towards her flesh. We do not blame his hand, we do not blame his arm – we blame his consciousness, if we blame anything at all.

This is then the central question for those who hold the determinist position: If human consciousness is exactly the same as everything else in the universe, then why do you treat human consciousness so differently?

This is really the heart of the matter. A determinist believes that the human mind has no more free will than a television set, but a determinist would look at someone arguing with a television set and say, that person is crazy!

In the Shakespearean drama King Lear, the mad king rages at a storm. This is considered a sign of insanity – but why? The weather is a highly complex system, whose behaviour can only be predicted in the short term, and in general. Even determinists admit that a group of human beings is a highly complex system, and human behaviour can only be predicted in the short term, and in general – as in the basic economic premise that human beings respond to incentives.

Raging at a man who has done you great evil is not insane. Raging at a storm clearly is. But for a determinist, what is the difference? The man has no more free will than the storm, so raging at the man is exactly the same as raging at the storm.

If you are injured by the side of the road, you may choose to flag down a passing motorist in the hope of getting help. If a tumbleweed is blowing down the road, would any sane person try to flag it down to beg for help?

If you park your car at the bottom of a hill, go for a hike, and then return to see a large boulder has fallen on your car, you will no doubt be upset, but you will scarcely drag the boulder to court and demand it pay reparations for damaging your car.

However, if someone runs up to you and says that they saw a man pushing the boulder down the hill, then you have a very different situation. If you can find that man, you can get angry at him and demand that he pay reparations for damaging your car.

Why?

What’s the difference?

Suppose that a hard rain had loosened the foundations keeping the boulder in place, causing it to roll down the hill and crush your car. These are mere acts of physical determinism – no choices are involved, no free will is involved. It is just matter and objects obeying inevitable physical laws.

However, if it turns out that a man purposefully dislodged the boulder that ended up rolling down the hill and crushing your car, is it really that hard to understand that we have an entirely different situation?

If it turns out that the man who dislodged the boulder has a grudge against you and pushed it on purpose to crush your car – perhaps with the hope that you were inside it – then it is not even an accidental occurrence.

When I was a little boy, I liked throwing rocks. Once, when I was walking with my mother by the side of the road, I threw a rock in the air, and it ended up landing on the expensive hood of some man’s sports car, leaving a white spiderweb of divots. I was very young, so the man mostly got angry at my mother for letting me engage in such risky behaviour.

The first situation is where the rock dislodges on its own, in which case the crushing of your car is no one’s fault – except possibly yours, for parking in a place where that could happen.

In the second case, a man dislodges a rock just for fun, crushing your car by accident. He acts carelessly and dangerously, and therefore is responsible for the car being crushed, but not responsible for wilfully crushing your car. A reasonably just solution would be to have him pay for repairs, but not to put him in jail for trying to cause you harm.

In the third case, the man dislodges a rock with the intention of crushing your car. He is then responsible for wilfully damaging the car, and therefore he should face sanctions over and above merely paying to have it repaired.

If the man’s actions were careless, the financial consequences of his carelessness should teach him to be more careful.

If the man’s actions were malevolent, then mere financial consequences would not likely be enough to prevent him from trying to hurt you in the future, which is why further punishments are needed to keep you – and society – safe.

Thus, we have accident, carelessness or malevolence. If you are a determinist, these different situations are exactly the same,because there is no difference between a boulder and a human being. The boulder has no free will, and the human being has no free will either.

If one boulder crashed into another boulder, and the second boulder crashed into my car, we would not hold the first boulder “responsible,” because it was just obeying the blind laws of physics.

Why would it be any different, if you are a determinist, with a man? A man is just a boulder, no different at all.

If, from the bottom of the hill, you look up and see a man pushing at a boulder that could fall on your car, you would surely call out for him to stop. If he has already dislodged the boulder, do you think you would call out for the boulder itself to stop in its tracks?

If you are a parent, and you see your child running too fast down a hill, you will most likely call out for your child to slow down. If you are a parent, and you see a boulder rolling downhill, does it make any sense to call out for the boulder to slow down?

If you are a determinist, you need to explain why you call out to the child, but not to the boulder, since both are identical, in your worldview. The child has no free will, and the boulder has no free will.

Determinists reply to this objection by saying that the child has an input and can change his behaviour based on external stimuli, such as a parent calling out for the child to slow down.

But that’s the point, now, isn’t it?

The child can change his behaviour.

The determinist would reply that the child can change his behaviour just as a dog can change its behaviour and come running towards you if you call its name. Are we saying the dog also has free will, and that its free will is equivalent to that of a human being?

Furthermore, you could program a robot to respond to your voice commands, and the robot would “change its behaviour” based upon what you say. Are we then saying that the robot has free will?

Although this may seem like a compelling argument, it actually works against the determinist position.

Referring to a mechanical device such as a robot in lieu of a person does not solve the problem of human consciousness and choice because it takes a human being to create a robot. It’s like saying I have superhero hearing because I can hear someone talking from thousands of miles away – when all I have done is use a phone.

Saying a robot is like a human being is ridiculous, because a robot is created and programmed by human beings. Do we often mistake a radio for a person, or an MP3 for the band? If a friend of yours stands at the bottom of a canyon and calls back every word that you shout down, is he exactly the same as an echo?

If a robot is like a human being, then the argument is that entities that can respond to spoken commands must have been created by an external intelligence. Do determinists really want to make the case for God in that manner? You cannot have a robot without an external non-robot living intelligence that created it. Thus by this logic you cannot have a human being without an external non-human living intelligence that created it.

If determinists want to compare humans to robots, they subsequently create a logical avenue proving the existence of God. Once God’s existence is established, or at least allowed, then determinism becomes falsified, because you have a consciousness – in the form of God – that is not bound by any known physical laws or properties. Once you allow for the existence of consciousness without a material basis, then you open up the possibility of the soul. This disproves determinism, because then choice can be made immaterially, unbound by any material constraints. In this scenario, if every material action is triggered by a prior material action, the only chance to escape this inevitable causality must be for an immaterial cause to intervene. If reality unfolds like dominoes falling against each other, then the only chance for choice must be something that is not a domino, not material, such as the soul.

If God exists, then immaterial consciousness exists. Since determinism is bound only by the material, immaterial consciousness escapes the inevitabilities of determinism.

No, determinism cannot be proved with reference to anything other than human consciousness. If free will is valid, then a man can choose to create a robot. The deterministic nature of the robot tells you nothing about the choices of the man. I can choose to throw a rock off a cliff. The fact that the rock’s path is then determined tells you nothing about whether my brain is determined. Referencing the effects of free will to disprove free will is like using a statue’s shadow to disprove a statue.

I would sooner say that an elevator allows a man to defy the laws of gravity than I would say the existence of a robot disproves free will.

Regarding the dog example – yes, a dog can come when you call him, but that does not support the determinist position. A dog’s brain is more complex than a worm’s brain, and we can expect a dog to come when we call him, but not a worm. We can train a dog, but not a worm. Thus this argument supports the concept of free will, since a more advanced and complex brain is used as an example, rather than a simpler and less complex brain. The capacities of a dog are invoked, not the capacities of a worm.

It’s not so much that dogs come when you call them, but rather that human beings recognize that dogs have a sophisticated enough brain to be trained to come when you call them. No one tries to train a boulder to come when you call it, for obvious reasons.

Since a more complex brain is required for the argument against free will, it supports the argument for free will, since the human brain is the most complex of all.

Arguments and Uniqueness

Ask yourself this – can you imagine debating with any known entity other than a human being?

I don’t debate with the television, because the television has no free will, and will not change.

I understand when the behaviour of an entity is predetermined, and so do not pretend that I can have any effect on its behaviour. I do not debate with clouds, watches, robots or heating ducts. I only debate human beings – and only some human beings, to be more precise.

Because I deal with human beings as the only entities I can debate with, I cannot then put them in the same category of every other conceivable entity that I will not debate with. If I consider it sane to debate with a human being, but consider it insane to debate with a television – as surely it is – then it would be insane for me to treat these two entities as the same.

It is hard to think of any categories as singular and oppositional as the difference between entities you are willing to debate with, and entities it would be insane to pretend to debate with. Try it – try and think of a category that small and that oppositional to everything not in that category.

It is virtually impossible.

Determinism and Uncertainty

You do not have to be able to explain a phenomenon in order to accept it. You also do not have to be able to explain a phenomenon in order to reject irrational pretend explanations of it.

I do not have to be able to explain the origins of the universe in order to accept that the universe exists. I do not know the incontrovertible facts about the origins of the universe, but I reject that it was created by a giant space turtle, that it was both created and destroyed simultaneously, or that it expanded and contracted at the same time, and so on.

A baseball pitcher does not need to know the detailed equations of air resistance to be able to throw a ball, nor to understand that he cannot throw a ball in opposite directions at the same time.

Determinists will often demand that those who accept free will provide an incontrovertible explanation of the origin and process of free will. This is a silly form of intellectual baiting, similar to theists who demand that atheists provide an incontrovertible explanation of the origin and process of the universe, or supply the details of every conceivable stage of evolution.

I cannot explain free will; I cannot describe and provide incontrovertible explanations of its origins and processes – but so what? Before Darwin, no one had any idea how complex life came about – does that mean that they had no right to believe in horses or people, or the value of selective breeding? Because I cannot accurately describe the development and evolution of my eyes, does that mean I cannot open them and see?

All knowledge is preceded by ignorance – that is the entire point of knowledge. Knowing what you know, and knowing what you don’t know – but could know – is the entire progress of human thought. Admitting you don’t know something is not a confession of impotence, but of possibility. The fact that we don’t yet know all the biological underpinnings of free will gives us something to explore, to examine – a goal to pursue. It is not a bad thing – it is a wonderful thing. It is not a failing; it is an opportunity.

Demanding that we not accept or believe in something before we can explain everything about it is truly putting the cart before the horse. I must believe in a stable phenomenon before I can examine its underlying causes, which is one reason why I am interested in the physics of objective reality, and not in the physics of nightly dreaming. I must believe that something exists before I will set aside time to find and examine it. I don’t believe in ghosts, so I don’t spend any time trying to find and examine them. I don’t believe in telepathy, so I don’t check out my prowess in the field. I’m not trying to find investors to fund a dragon zoo, either, since that involves fiat currency, which is even less real than fire-breathing lizards.

I must believe in something before I invest my scarce and precious resources to investigate it. I have written this book based on the belief that I can achieve truth – you are reading it because you believe philosophy has value, and are willing to hear original proofs for complex positions.

Demanding that I be able to prove everything about free will before I can accept free will is ridiculous. If ultimate proof were required for any acceptance, then no patient hierarchy of knowledge building would be possible – no one could have any theories on physics before atoms were discovered – and all current theories would be invalid and useless because no unified field theory has yet been developed.

However, the stability and predictability of matter and energy were accepted long before atoms were discovered – and such stability is accepted by lower and less complex life forms as well, down to and including jellyfish. Just because we don’t know everything doesn’t mean we can’t know some things. It’s a cheap and silly way to tell people to shut up, and it is fundamentally anti-scientific in nature.

What Is Free Will?

The definition of free will is challenging and complicated, because it must be something unique to the human mind – therefore, it cannot be anything as simple and tautological as “choice.”

One unique capability of the human mind is to compare proposed actions to abstract standards. A beaver will build a dam, but a beaver does not use a blueprint to design the dam. A bird will fly, but a bird does not plot out a flight course on a map ahead of time.

One defining aspect of human consciousness is our capacity for morality, which is basically comparing proposed actions to ideal standards. When we think of the “big four” evil actions – theft, rape, assault and murder – moral responsibility requires that we have the capacity to compare proposed actions to abstract standards. If we want to steal something, we can compare our action to a standard such as “stealing is wrong.”

(Please understand that this is not a proof of morality, which will come later in this book, but an example of commonly accepted moral reasoning.)

Free will does not mean that we can do anything we want – that would be omnipotence. We are not free to fly unaided, or jump to Mars. But it does mean that we have the capacity to compare our proposed actions to abstract standards – ideal standards, generally.

Some of these ideal standards are pure abstractions – Platonic, almost – such as a universal respect for persons and property. Others are more personal, reciprocal and empathetic – “How would you like it if someone stole from you?”

Children who don’t want to eat their dinner are sometimes informed of the existence of starving children in the Third World. Challenges sometimes referred to as “First World problems” are generally marked as being silly and unimportant relative to the survival challenges of living in a poverty-stricken landscape.

We may refrain from stealing because we accept that stealing is universally wrong – or we may refrain from stealing because we empathize with the upset and anger that our potential victim would doubtless experience.

(We also may refrain from stealing because we fear punishment by an all-knowing and all-seeing God, but such cause and effect has little place in a book on philosophy. I refer you to any number of theological works for more information on this perspective.)

The comparison of potential actions to abstract rules falls into the category of direct moralizing. The comparison of such actions to negative emotions falls into the category of empathy, or indirect moralizing.

In the first case, the principle is that stealing is wrong; in the second, it is that actions that cause negative emotions are wrong, and stealing just happens to be one of those.

I fully understand that the phrase “stealing is wrong” is not satisfying philosophically, and I will strive to satisfy you philosophically later in the book. I also understand that the supposed “principle” called “don’t make people feel bad” is even less satisfying, for a variety of reasons we will get into later.

However, we certainly must accept that human beings have the capacity to develop universal abstractions – abstractions that have a positive obligation. If you want to learn truths about the physical world, you need to use the scientific method. If you want to build a bridge that stands up efficiently, you need to use principles of engineering. If you want to sell medicine that makes people better, you need to use the principle of medical research – in particular, the double-blind experiment – to stave off the inevitable possibility of mistaking the placebo effect and other false positives for an imaginary cure.

Given that we have the capacity to develop universal abstractions with positive obligations – abstractions that we need to use to objectively achieve a particular end – we must also accept that we have the capacity to compare our proposed actions to those universal abstractions.

When we ask a child to accept that two and two make four, we are not asking the child to believe this truth for any particular instance, but rather for all instances of that equation. It’s not just that these two coconuts and two coconuts make four coconuts, but rather that two and two of anything make four. When we ask a child to write the number “4” on an answer sheet, we are asking the child to compare his proposed action – writing a number – with the ideal standard of writing the correct number.

With regards to criminal guilt, we generally think of punishing a man because he knew what he was doing at the time was wrong. If a man is insane, has a brain disease, or is mentally retarded to the point that he does not have the capacity to know the immorality of his actions, then we may decide to confine him, not as a moral punishment, but rather just to keep everyone else safe.

We may decide to put down a dog that keeps biting people – not as a moral punishment, and certainly not as any kind of ethical instruction to other dogs, but rather just to keep people from being bitten.

Thus we do not judge a man morally if we decide that he is unable to morally judge his own actions. In other words, if he is unable to compare his contemplated actions to an ideal moral standard, then we do not judge him to be in possession of free will. We do not expect a rabid dog to understand that the initiation of the use of force is immoral, and so we do not call such dogs evil for biting.

A raccoon that steals our food is not dragged off to court and tried as a thief.

If we do not have the capacity to compare our own potential actions to some idealized standard, then we can never be held morally responsible for failing to conform to that standard.

Imagine that a thief steals a wallet, and then has that wallet stolen from him in turn. The thief cries out in frustration at the violation of his “property rights.” We can clearly see the hypocrisy here. The thief violates his original victim’s property rights, and then in turn has his own rights violated as another thief takes off with the stolen property.

Can we imagine applying this judgement of hypocrisy to any other animal in the world? If a squirrel steals a nut from another squirrel, and in turn is stolen from, would we call the first squirrel a hypocrite for chasing the second “thief”?

Of course not – because we recognize that the squirrel does not have the capacity to compare a potential theft to the concept of universal property rights.

We were all asked when we were children, if we hit another child, “How would you like it if another child hit you?” The endless repetition of this empathy programming – along with other factors – helped us develop a sense of responsibility for the feelings of others as we grew up. The golden rule – “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” – is a reflection of this basic understanding. As human adults, we are generally expected to recognize that other human beings have feelings and preferences, just as we do, which need to be taken into account when considering potential actions.

Another mantra we hear as children is: “You should have known better!” In this context, “better” means having “higher standards of behaviour.”

When you were a child, you doubtless attempted to avoid punishment for bad behaviour by saying that your friends told you to do something. At which point, adults doubtless asked whether you would jump off the Brooklyn Bridge or Toronto’s CN Tower if your friends told you to do that as well. Of course you wouldn’t, which means that you had the capacity to judge the value of your friends’ suggestions. You were increasingly required to use your own judgement, rather than blame your friends.

The entire purpose of civilizing children is to get them to compare their proposed actions to ideal standards – in a philosophical society, this means reason and evidence.

In Christian societies, the ideal standard is the Ten Commandments, combined with: What would Jesus do?

Morality itself is the comparison of proposed actions to ideal standards. Criminal judgement is the comparison of past actions to ideal standards. In other words, criminal judgement occurs when there has been a failure in moral judgement, which manifested in illegal action.

A baby who urinates on you has no capacity to compare his urination options to ideal standards – the average teenager who urinates on you is committing an egregious action.

When we think of a speeder on a highway, we condemn that person. We assume the driver has the capacity to compare his current speed with the ideal standard, the speed limit, and has chosen to exceed it.

If the speeder turns out to be drunk, we recognize that he is making decisions with diminished capacity – but this does not, of course, let him off the hook. The ideal standard in this situation is not make good decisions while you drive drunk, but rather do not drive while you are drunk. It is a simple fact that people make poor decisions when drunk – not to mention having slower reaction times. Every driver knows this, so he is responsible for the decision of getting drunk and then driving, not for making bad decisions while driving drunk.

If a man ties a blindfold over his eyes while he is driving, we do not blame him for hitting a garden gnome, since he cannot see. Instead, we blame him for tying the blindfold over his eyes. The ideal standard here is not don’t hit garden gnomes, but rather do not drive if you cannot see.

Similarly, if a driver hit a garden gnome because his brakes failed, and it turns out he had not maintained his brakes, we blame him not because his brakes failed, but because he chose to avoid necessary maintenance. On the other hand, if his car was well maintained, but someone sabotaged his brakes, then of course the person who tinkered with his car is to blame.

This can get quite complicated. If you set events in motion that produce a particular outcome, even if you did not anticipate and do not want that outcome, you can still be responsible. A fascinating example arises out of common law, wherein if a robber runs into a store, and the cashier shoots at him to prevent the robbery and accidentally hits and kills another customer, it is the robber who is charged with murder, not the cashier. The robber set the events in motion that resulted in the death of the customer, although the robber doubtless did not want the customer to die. In this case, the ideal standard is don’t rob – one reason being that highly random and uncertain events may be set in motion.

Another example is a simple barroom brawl that results in one man dying because he falls and hits his head on the edge of the bar. The man brawling with him probably did not want to kill him, but is still responsible for the death. He would be charged with a lesser offense than first-degree murder, but the charge would be more than simple assault. Everyone who gets into a bar fight recognizes that entirely unanticipated and even unwanted injuries can occur, just as every robber understands the same thing. Violence is almost always a form of Russian roulette.

No matter where we look in the realm of ethics or free will, we understand that there is ideal behaviour, and someone who has knowledge of that behaviour can choose to behave in non-conforming ways. If I go to a foreign country where I do not understand the customs, I can be forgiven for acting in ways that may otherwise be considered offensive – because I am not aware of the ideal standards, and therefore I am not consciously deviating from them.

If I fail to study for a test, I am deviating from an ideal standard. If I exercise or train to the point of injury, I am deviating from an ideal standard. If I’m attracted to an available woman and I do not ask her out, I am deviating from an ideal standard of courage. If I ask her out every day for a year, I am also deviating from the ideal standard of consideration.

Sometimes the ideal standard is an absolute – thou shalt not kill.

Sometimes the ideal standard is more relative, like the Aristotelian mean. Too much courage is foolhardiness; too little courage is cowardice.

Where the ideal standard is an absolute, there we generally find morality. Where the ideal standard is relative, there we generally find aesthetics, culture, politeness or other forms of social standards enforced by disapproval and ostracism rather than through retaliatory force. You can shoot someone who’s attacking you; you cannot shoot someone for being rude.

There are entities that conform to ideal standards, but which do not have a choice – computers fall into this category. I can program a robot to kill people Terminator style, and that robot will conform to the ideal standards of my programming – but it has no choice. I could throw a random algorithm in the air, so that 10 percent of the time the killer robot will show mercy and let its victim live, but we would not assume I had given the robot any free will – randomness is not the same as choice.

If we understand this definition of free will – our human capacity to compare proposed actions to ideal standards – then the debate between determinism and choice becomes much easier to resolve.

With this definition in hand, we can clearly see that when a determinist tries to argue you out of your free-will position, the determinist is asking you to compare your position that free will is true to an ideal standard called determinism is true.

However, by asking the supporter of free will to compare the contents of his mind to an ideal standard, the determinist is already supporting the free-will position.

If a man attempts to correct a woman’s position, he is asking her to compare the contents of her mind to the ideal standard of truth – and if the contents of her mind do not conform to the ideal standard of truth, then she should discard them, and accept the truth.

Such a man accepts free will, because he accepts that human beings have the capacity to compare the contents of their mind to the ideal standard of truth – and free will is defined as our capacity to compare proposed actions to ideal standards.

I realize that I may be seen to have switched the definition a little bit – from “comparing his proposed actions to an ideal standard,” to “comparing the contents of his mind to an ideal standard,” but the two are really one and the same. The contents of the mind can only be discerned through actions, such as speaking or writing.

Change Your Mind, Change Your Behaviour

If I were able to convince you that the world is a sphere and not flat, I would attempt to do so only because I would expect you to no longer speak about supporting the flat earth model, and instead support that the world is in fact a sphere. If you continued to support the flat earth hypothesis, I would be confused and annoyed. I would say: “But you admitted that the world was a sphere!” If you replied, “Yes, the world is a sphere. I accept and admit that, but I’m still going to publicly talk about the world being flat” – well, that wouldn’t make much sense, would it?

Changing your mind without changing your behaviour makes no sense at all. It might happen for occasional reasons – think of priests who lose their faith, but continue in their occupation – but overall it is both strange and rare for such contradictions between thought and action to manifest. In general, a conflict between belief and behaviour only occurs where generally selfish incentives exist – a desire to continue drawing a salary, maintain a marriage, or avoid hostility or even attack from an ideological or religious group, for example. Most of us would have sympathy for a person keeping secret thoughts separate from public actions out of fear of consequences, but that is not what I’m talking about.

We strive to change people’s minds because we hope to alter their future actions – and conversations and debates and arguments are all potential future actions.

Determinism: What Changes?

Imagine that I used to be deeply religious. I went to church, prayed, baptized my children, donated 10 percent of my income to the church, volunteered, and did charity and missionary work – all in the name of my faith.

Now, imagine that one day I tell you I have become an atheist. What would you expect, in terms of my behaviour?

Surely you would expect me to stop going to church, stop praying, stop donating to the church and so on.

What if I told you I was an atheist, but nothing about my behaviour was going to change – I was going to continue attending church, praying and so on?

Surely you would be confused about my change of mind. Wouldn’t it be strange if I said I no longer believed in God, but I continued exactly the same behaviours as when I did believe in God?

Let us go one step further in terms of strangeness. Imagine that when I was religious, I spent countless hours converting other people to my religion. Surely you would expect this behaviour to change when I claimed to have lost my faith and became an atheist.

It’s one thing to pursue something you don’t believe in personally – it’s quite another to pour enormous energies into convincing other people of something you no longer believe in.

However bizarre this behaviour may appear, however incomprehensible and contradictory it is, it still falls far short of the irrationality of the determinist.

If I have a mental illness and believe that the president of the United States is speaking directly to me through my television set, and I spend an enormous amount of time talking back to him, engaging in imaginary conversations and debates – all with the deluded belief that I am profoundly altering public policy in America – surely this is something I should be cured of, not indulged in.

So – what exactly do I need to be cured of? What exactly is the nature of my delusion?

Well, I am confusing an inanimate object – a television – with a conscious human being.

If I were actually teleconferencing with the president of the United States, and we were having actual conversations, this would not be a delusion to be cured, but perhaps a position of influence to be envied.

However, if in reality I am merely yelling at a television, then clearly I need to be disabused of the fantasy that I am having a conversation, since the television is a mere mechanical object that possesses no free will of its own.

Are you beginning to see the problem?

The reason I should stop debating with my television is that my television does not possess free will.

We can imagine a similar and more understandable situation where you think you are debating a real live person on the other end of an internet chat program, when it turns out the program is an automatic “bot” response system.

Decades ago, there was a little program for primitive computers called “Eliza” that mimicked the neutral passive responses of a stereotypical psychiatrist. If you poured your heart out to this program and it prompted you to be more open, speak more honestly, and say more, it would be easy to imagine the computer had developed curiosity and empathy.

If you think you are talking to a person and it turns out you are talking to a robot, you would probably give up on the conversation, since you would recognize that the robot does not possess free will.

If I stop believing in ghosts, it makes sense for me to stop ghost hunting.

If I say that I have switched from being a Democrat to a Republican, but I continue to vote Democrat, and convert other people to Democrat positions, what does that mean?

I am a staunch empiricist, which means I judge people not by their words, but by their deeds – as the old biblical saying goes, “By their deeds shall you know them.”

I care what people say, but I really care what they do, since the truth of the mind is found in actions, not words. If someone claims to have learned better, but continues to do worse, I know they have not in fact learned better.

As Aristotle said, we are what we repeatedly do.

If I am hiking through a thick forest with someone, and she claims she wants to get to a certain distant destination, and knows how to get there, but refuses to check our direction with a map, a compass or a GPS, I know she is far more interested in being “right” than going in the right direction.

We are all generally raised with the personal responsibility of free will. As a child, if I took another child’s toy, I was told to give it back, and I learned the virtue of sharing, or respecting other people’s property. If I took another child’s toy, no one ever said about me, “Well, little Stef is just a machine. He has no free will, he’s just doing what he does, and there’s no point blaming him, any more than there is any point blaming a cloud for raining on you.”

If a boy deliberately drives a remote-controlled toy car into a dozing cat, we blame the boy, not the toy – but for a determinist, there is no difference between the two. Does the determinist refrain from assigning any responsibility to the boy? Somehow, I doubt it.

We are all raised embedded in the notion of free will, personal responsibility and ethics – in this sense, we are all raised religious. At some point, determinists discard the idea of free will, just as some religious people discard the idea of God.

My eternal question to determinists is: Now that you have given up on the idea of free will, what changes?

What does change? I have had countless public debates with determinists, and I have never once received a straight answer. Determinists call into my philosophy show aiming to change my mind about free will. They bring arguments and evidence and empiricism and science to bear on the question, in the hopes that I will accept their perspective and change my mind. They want me to use my power to change my mind to give up on the idea that I can change my mind.

Once I accept that an entity does not have free will – a robot, for instance – then I no longer invest time and energy debating with that entity.

In video games, there are often preprogrammed enemies that attack you. I’ve never heard of any sane individual trying to reason these computerized avatars into pacifism or trying to get the two-dimensional robots to accept the non-aggression principle and learn how to debate, rather than fire giant rockets at their digital opponent’s head. Computer enemies in a video game have no free will of their own, so no one tries to reason with them. In massive combat games, no one ever offers up treaty conditions to the computerized opponent – assuming this option is not programmed into the game somehow – because the computer opponent is just following its predetermined script.

To put it another way, imagine that you woke up tomorrow with certain proof that everyone around you was a preprogrammed robot with no free will of their own. Surely this would be a shattering experience and would change your behaviour in countless fundamental ways.

Would you bother continuing to follow politics if you knew you could have absolutely no impact upon the outcome? Do you currently campaign to change the outcome of past elections?

Furthermore, imagine if you woke up the day after tomorrow with certain proof that you yourself were also a preprogrammed robot with no free will of your own. Would you give up trying to debate the other robots? Would this knowledge change your behaviour in any way?

It seems to me impossible to imagine that such a shattering revelation would have no impact on how you felt, what you thought, or what you did.

In the science-fiction movie The Matrix, one character decides he wishes to return to the artificial delusions created by the master robots – but the only way he can do that is by erasing his knowledge that his prior life was in fact a delusion. A mind once stretched by a new idea never regains its original shape – and morally and philosophically speaking, what is more important than the question of free will versus determinism?

If I accept certain absolutes, they must change my behaviour – that is how we know I accept them. If I think I can fly unaided, I am cured when I no longer try to fly unaided. As long as I continue the attempts, I am not cured, no matter what I say.

If I truly accept the idea that everyone – myself included – is just a robot, with no capacity for choice, free will, morality, preferring any particular state over any other state, or the capacity to compare proposed actions to ideal standards, then I will stop trying to change people’s minds. I must stop debating people, I must stop trying to improve the world, I must stop pretending to prefer truth over falsehood, and I must give up on the ideas of morality, personal responsibility, or any preferred state – such as freedom – over any other state, such as tyranny.

I must also give up on the idea of punishment. If a man uses a phone to call in a bomb threat, we don’t put the phone in jail, because the phone has no free will. If the man also has no free will, then it makes about as much sense to throw him in jail as it does to throw the phone in jail.

Of course, determinists respond that human beings receive inputs and you can change their behaviour – to which I say, sure, that’s what I believe as well, since I accept free will.

This is the boringly repetitive pattern of debating with determinists. You point out the logical consequences of their beliefs, and they deny those logical consequences. I say the logical consequence of accepting determinism is refraining from debating people – they say that they can be determinists and still debate people.

I say the logical consequence of accepting determinism is giving up on the idea of morality – they say they can be determinists and still believe in morality.

I say the logical consequence of accepting determinism is giving up on the idea of truth – they say they can be determinists and still believe in truth.

In other words, they accept all of the consequentialist results of accepting free will, while calling themselves determinists.

This is quite literally insane.

Here is the equivalent: “If you no longer believe in God, it doesn’t make any sense to continue going to church.”

“Oh no, I can stop believing in God and it still makes perfect sense to go to church.”

“If you no longer believe in God, you no longer believe in heaven.”

“Oh no, I can stop believing in God, but still totally believe in heaven.”

Ditto for praying, trying to convert other people to your faith, putting your trust in a higher power – all these and more should logically be eliminated in your mind along with your belief in God. But determinists wish to keep all the fruits of free will, while denying free will.

“Once you accept that the television set is not the president, it makes no sense to continue pretending to have a conversation with the television.”

“Oh no, I totally accept that it’s just a television set, but that in no way prevents me from having a conversation with the president.”

What can one do in these situations?

Walk away. Fixing that mess is a job for mental health professionals, not philosophers.

Determinism and Emergent Properties

Reducing objects to their mere material properties is truly a reduction to absurdity. Wood is partly composed of carbon atoms, and tables are made of wood – thus because I cannot put my plate on a carbon atom, I cannot put my plate on a table either!

Atoms are mostly space; therefore, I can walk through a wall!

Carbon is the basis of life. However, no carbon atom can be alive; therefore, there is no such thing as life!

Carbon atoms are found in dead things and inert things, as well as living things – therefore, there is no difference between dead things, inert things and living things.

No individual player can win against a professional soccer team –therefore, eleven individual players can never win against a professional soccer team.

Metal cannot float; therefore, a ship made of metal cannot float.

You get the idea.

Life is an emergent property of matter. If you get enough particular kinds of matter together, with the right configuration of energy, you get life. A pregnant woman is a wonderful mechanism for converting celery into consciousness. Atoms in a piece of celery end up among the atoms of a growing brain, where – in conjunction with a wide variety of other factors – they achieve consciousness.

No individual celery atom gains consciousness, of course, and no celery is conscious, but through the process of a woman’s pregnancy, each atom in the food she consumes contributes to consciousness. Celery is not human, but it can contribute to and become part of a human being.

No individual atom is alive, yet life exists.

No individual atom or cell is conscious, yet consciousness exists.

No life exists in the absence of atoms, yet no individual atom is alive.

No consciousness exists in the absence of atoms, yet no individual atom is conscious.

Remove one individual atom from a life form and it continues to live. Remove one individual atom from a brain, consciousness continues. Remove enough – up to some biochemical tipping point – and both life and consciousness cease to be.

Thus, life is an emergent property. None of its individual components possess it, yet in combination, life comes into being. Consciousness is also an emergent property. None of its individual components possess it, yet in their combination, we start to think.

Life and consciousness are shared by a wide variety of other creatures – but free will is a uniquely human phenomenon. No other organism that we know of can consciously compare proposed actions to ideal abstract standards.

Accepting that life and consciousness are emergent properties of matter and energy, but denying free will on the basis of physics, is a ridiculously self-contradictory position. No carbon atom can comprehend science, yet human beings can. Using a discipline that is itself an emergent property to deny the existence of an emergent property such as free will is beyond foolish.

No carbon atom can walk, eat, reproduce or die – yet carbon-based life forms exhibit all these characteristics.

No individual atom can see, but our eyes can see.

No individual atom can get cancer, but we certainly can.

Reducing the human mind to mere empty matter and energy denies the reality of the very emergent properties that give us the capacity to commit such a logical fallacy. To make an error, we must be alive and conscious. To deny emergent properties is to deny the very capacities that give rise to our ability to get arguments so spectacularly wrong.

Please understand that this is not definitive proof of free will – however, it is a strong repudiation of the idea that we can judge consciousness on the basis of its merely material components. While it is true that all atoms are subject to the iron laws of physics, this does not tell us anything about their capacities under emergent properties. Carbon atoms cannot initiate their own movement – yet, when aggregated as an animal, they can.

If you prefer a more physical example, no individual atom can arrest the direction of light. However, if you get enough atoms together and compress them enough to form a black hole, then light cannot escape such a gravity well.

Or, no individual atom gives off light, yet the sun, which is composed of atoms, gives off light.

Reducing the complexities of consciousness, life and free will to mere empty materialism is ridiculous and an intellectual embarrassment, to be perfectly frank. To see how ridiculous the position is, all you need to do is remember this basic fact: No individual atom can possess a theory of determinism; therefore, no theory of determinism exists.

If you wish to argue against the proposition that free will can be an emergent property of consciousness – specifically, human consciousness – you are more than welcome to do that, but then you need to explain why free will is different from life, or consciousness itself. Both life and consciousness are emergent properties of matter. So you already accept that new properties emerge from aggregations. You cannot then draw some imaginary line in the sand and say: “Well, life and consciousness are emergent properties that possess characteristics that none of their individual components possess. But free will must be judged outside the bounds of emergent properties and can never be justified, because no individual atom in the human mind possesses free will.”

You cannot have it both ways. If you accept the emergent properties of life and consciousness, you cannot then arbitrarily deny the emergent property of free will.

A Hypothesis of Determinism

All this is elementary logic, not particularly complicated in any way – so why is the deterministic position so prevalent? It would be silly to watch a biologist denying the existence of life, or a psychologist denying the existence of consciousness, or a physicist denying the existence of matter and energy – so why do so many determinists try to convince others that changing minds is impossible?

Many studies show that human consciousness sometimes engages in what is called ex post facto reasoning – justifying prior decisions after the fact using reasons unconnected with the decision. Brain scans can sometimes detect a decision in the mind before the subject becomes consciously aware of having made a decision. The subject later creates “reasons” for that decision. (For more information on this – as well as detailed sources – please check out my presentation “The Death of Reason,” available on YouTube.)

All this is held up triumphantly by the determinists, who say, “Ahah! People only think they make a choice; therefore, free will is a delusion!”

It certainly is true that people can nimbly navigate through challenging conceptual mazes using their instincts. Think of a prisoner being interrogated by the police, or a family member being confronted about some past immorality – the levels of obfuscation and misdirection can be truly powerful in such situations.

These manipulative instincts arise from deep within the brain, and are not often explainable by the conscious mind.

If you have ever watched a really good jazz quartet, you’ve witnessed when they decide to improvise. No individual musician knows exactly what note they are going to play next, yet the music all works together beautifully.

If you know how to fluently read a second language that you learned as an adult, and you glance at some text in that language, you automatically – or instinctually – comprehend what you are reading.

Would the determinists then say that you have no choice regarding your comprehension?

Of course you do – because you made a choice to learn to read that second language.

While it is true that it is hard to look at the text of a language you know and not understand it – you might say impossible – this is not where free will resides.

If I am playing a top-seeded tennis player, I do not have the capacity to will a victory, since his skill and training vastly exceeds my own.

However, if I have been training hard for fifteen years, then my will might come into play – if I decide to grit my teeth and push through some exhaustion.

Do you see? I don’t have the choice to swim to shore if I don’t know how to swim. I don’t have the choice to sing Mozart’s Requiem if I have never studied the music – or I lack the voice.

Sure, it is true that some people lack choices in life – but that is often, or least sometimes, due to their prior choices. If I have practised running for many years, I may have the choice to outrun a fast mugger. If I have spent most of my time sitting on the couch, I don’t have that choice. If I saved my money in the past, I have the choice to spend it in the present – if I did not, I don’t.

This is not to argue that prior choices provide omnipotence, but prior choices either expand or narrow our range of opportunities in the future. If I exercise regularly, I can play sports relatively easily – that gives me more choices. However, while I am exercising, I am not able to play the cello, and therefore my choices are reduced. Some diminished choices in the present create expanded choices in the future – and indeed, all choices in the present diminish other present choices – or eliminate them. Some choices in the present, such as not learning the guitar, reduce choices in the future – playing guitar.

A series of choices – combined with happenstance – may lead to you having only one real course of action. Let us say that you are a drug addict, and a dangerous criminal sees you stealing his drugs. I think it’s fair to say that in such a situation, your plethora of choices is somewhat reduced – run like mad, get someplace safe or get out of town. As you pant down the alleyway, your heart pounding, you may believe you have no free will – and in the moment, it’s hard to argue that you have a lot of options. However, your narrowed opportunities in the present, at least in part, result from your bad choices in the past – the choice to take drugs, the choice to keep taking drugs, the choice to steal the drugs, and so on.

If you jump out of a plane, you don’t have the choice not to fall – your choice to jump has reduced your other choices considerably.

Pointing out that some people have few if any choices does not disprove the concept of free will, any more than pointing out that some people are sick disproves the concept of health. In fact, pointing out that some people have reduced choices only reinforces the concept of free will, just as pointing out that some people are sick only reinforces the concept of health – we only know they are sick because we have the concept of health.

Sure, some choices reduce future choices, but that does not deny free will – it actually makes our examination of our choices all the more important. Some health choices, such as smoking, also reduce future choices. This does not mean that choices do not matter, but that they are actually more important than we sometimes think.

Self-Knowledge Versus Determinism

Generally, it is not enough to disprove a common belief – we must also find a way to explain its prevalence. Determinism is not a valid position, but it certainly feels true to a great number of people, and that is something well worth examining.

A famous “first commandment” in philosophy – often attributed to Socrates – is: Know thyself.

What is meant by this, and why is it so important?

We are creatures of reason and self-reflection, to some degree, but we are more specifically – and more importantly – creatures of action.

If you have ever played a sport or an instrument at a very high level, you know the importance of trained instincts – to be able to think something and then achieve it, virtually instantaneously. A tennis player wants to place a ball in a particular place, at a particular speed, with a particular spin – and he has mere milliseconds to achieve this. A pianist jams with a group of experts; they must all think and breathe and play as one.

Anyone can hit a ball with a bat, or pound away noisily on a piano – the question is, how well?

Becoming an expert first requires understanding that you are not an expert, and then understanding how long it takes to become an expert – the enormous difference between being ignorant and competent. Then, countless hours and years of practice are required to achieve expertise.

To observers, the feats that experts can achieve often seem miraculous. A golf pro digs a ball out of a sand trap and sinks the putt; musicians nod at each other and change the entire key and beat of a song – it all seems amazing.

Some feats involve achieving expertise from a neutral starting place, and others involve achieving normalcy from a negative starting place.

A man with a healthy body may become a gold-medal runner – and a man with a broken body may become a regular walker. Both endeavours may take as much time, blood, sweat and tears – the broken man struggles for years to get to the place that the expert runner started from.

If we were raised rationally, the feats we would be able to achieve with our minds, bodies and spirits would be beyond the comprehension of the world as it stands.

However, we are generally not raised rationally – we are raised anti-rationally. So many of us are deprived of the maternal care, proximity and comfort we deserve and desire as babies. So many of us are dumped in daycare and raised without fathers. We are frightened, bullied and dumbed down in government schools, propagandized in universities, lied to by the media – and programmed by superstition, guilt, rage and shame. It is remarkable that we emerge as adults with the capacity to put one foot in front of the other.

We have no capacity to return to our original, unharmed humanity – any more than a man who struggles for years to get out of a wheelchair can be the same as a man who was never in a wheelchair. Recognizing how broken we were – and often are – by culture, control, coercion and circumstance is a necessary prerequisite for the beginning of wisdom. A three-year-old pounds on a xylophone and turns in pride at the “music” he has created, and we clap, perhaps too indulgently. One of the turning points in parenting is recognizing when our praise is no longer generating enthusiasm, but delusion. We praise a toddler for walking, because the toddler could not walk before. We clap relative to the child’s lack of ability in the past, but if we continue clapping, we strip the enthusiasm for achievement in the future. What originates as a form of motivation becomes a form of paralysis.

Returning to rationality is an arduous, multiyear, painful process. The benefit is that you become a friend to yourself and to the truth, but a stranger to your society. Achieving sanity reveals the insanity of your environment. The light of reason illuminates the madhouse around you.

You are programmed – as I was programmed – to serve the needs of those who rule us. You are raised by the government to praise the government, and to fear freedom. Government schools teach you that the danger in your life comes from your peers, not the school itself, even though you are generally forced to be there. If you are unjustly put in a dangerous prison, the true source of the danger is the corrupt legal system, not your fellow inmates; they are a side effect, not the first cause.

By placing you in age-segregated confinement among a subset of traumatized and aggressive children, schools teach you very quickly that peers are dangerous and that teachers are needed to control bullying.

Thus, we grow up with the perception that we must fear our peers most of all, and run to authority for salvation and protection. We must fear our peers even as they grow into adults. However, it doesn’t take a lot of logical analysis to ask the basic question: If the government is so good at educating children, why must we fear our peers as adults?

We are constantly told by the government that we are in danger – not from the state, of course, which taxes and conscripts us, starts wars and buries us in national debts – but from our fellow citizens. Without the state, we are told, we will be overrun by the insanity and evil of those around us – but the state is also somehow legitimized by the votes of the insane and evil around us.

If you do not explore and understand how you have been programmed, you are little more than a machine. You have no free will of any real consequence. You remain a useful idiot serving as an empty soldier in the baying brain-dead army of the masses. The mob clamours for temporary free stuff at the expense of permanent freedoms and attacks anyone who suggests that real freedom and moral responsibility are infinitely better than the soft enslavement of state dependence.

If you lack self-knowledge – if you lack the basic understanding of how you have been turned into a machine that serves the state, into a subspecies of tax livestock that serves politicians – then how can you claim to have any real understanding of freedom, let alone free will?

If you were raised badly, then you were conditioned by your parents to serve their dysfunctional needs, rather than the truth, integrity, honesty or any of the other basic virtues in life. When you are asked to judge the ethics of those in authority – or the ethics of authoritarianism in general – you recoil from the task, for fear of offending the dangerous inner alter egos implanted in your mind by your parents. You were punished for approaching the truth as a child, and so you avoid the truth as an adult – just like any trained animal, just as a puppy avoids pooping inside because it fears the rolled-up magazine.

If you live your life in compliance to internal programming, to avoidance of disapproval – and in fear of the laughable crime of “giving offense” – then you have no real freedom at all, no capacity to make choices independent of, or in opposition to, your programming.

You are little more than a useful robot running around in preprogrammed spirals, spewing polysyllabic nonsense designed to prop up the gallows of power.

If you don’t examine your programming, your programming becomes your physics – as absolute and unchangeable as the laws of material reality.

This is true if you are from what is called the Left, or what is called the Right. This is true if you are religious or an atheist. This is true if you are a Buddhist or a Zoroastrian. If you inherit preprinted ideologies without reference to philosophy, you have no free will to speak of.

Do you think you are free because you have the right to speak and to vote?

You can be consulted only because your responses are determined in advance. You are allowed to vote only because your vote is almost completely predictable. You are allowed the illusion of freedom, only because you will most likely never exercise the real thing.

If you live in a primitive village at the bottom of a volcano and you are told that an angry fire god lives at the top of the volcano, who will destroy anyone who approaches his home, and you believe this with all your heart, are you free to climb the volcano?

If you believe that society will collapse without a particular government program, are you free to rationally evaluate that government program?

If you believe that holding a particular moral position will ensure that you never get a date, are you really free to publicly hold that moral position?

If you believe that the poor will starve and the sick will die without government healthcare and welfare, are you really free to examine free market solutions to charity and healthcare?

If you believe that only evil people believe x, are you free to believe x? Are you free to even dispassionately examine and evaluate x?

If you are told that it is healthy and right for an abused woman to leave her boyfriend, do you think that is a reasonable and good position?

If you are told that it is healthy and right for the adult victim of child abuse to leave his abusive parent, do you think that is a reasonable and good position?

If you are told that you live in a rape culture, where rape is minimized or denied, and then later you are told that the FBI did not even classify rape against men as a crime until 2012, what do you say?^[2]

Are you beginning to see just how fenced in you really are?

At some deep level, we all know this, which is why we avoid the topic of freedom – and in particular philosophical freedom, which is the reality, possibility and opportunity of true free will.

True free will must be earned, because it has been stolen.

When someone says you have free will, but you know you have not done the necessary work to escape your programmed delusions, what they say often seems both outlandish and humiliating to you. It seems outlandish because you know it is not true for you. And it feels humiliating because you know deep down that you should have done that work, the work needed to become free, the work to undo your programming, the work to shatter delusions, and to move from livestock to human, from robot to free mind.

Also, if you become free, what happens to your relationships with your surrounding slaves?

Determinism and a History of Evil

There may be other, more sinister reasons why somebody might be emotionally invested in the position of determinism.

Imagine you have done some truly vile deed – something illegal, or at least deeply immoral.

If you believe you had a choice and voluntarily did evil, how do you live with yourself?

Christianity has a lot to say about this, as do many other religions. You must first admit that you chose to do the evil, you must accept your guilt, and finally you must strive with all of your might to make amends.

You must beg for forgiveness, you must pay restitution, you must make the person you wronged whole again. If this means going broke, if this means confessing to the authorities, if this means accepting a prison sentence, then this is what you must do.

However – what if you really, really don’t want to do any of that?

In that case, you have a number of psychological strategies at your disposal to avoid the unpleasant but necessary task of humbling yourself before your wrongdoing.

You can tell yourself that your victims deserved it. If you stole, well, a fool and his money are soon parted. If you assaulted someone, he picked the fight. If you sexually assaulted someone, well, she was just asking for it – the list goes on and on, in dismal descending repetition.

You can tell yourself there is no such thing as right and wrong, that everyone takes what they want, and only fools and weaklings deny the full manifestation of their own desires. You can console yourself with Nietzsche and thoughts of Genghis Khan, Napoleon and other world-striding malefactors. You can become an angry-will nihilist, charging through life in search of diminishing dopamine, and scorning any who deny the full scope of their lusts.

You can read the novel Crime and Punishment and sympathize with the murderer.

If you are a sadist, you can take giggling pleasure in the discomfort, upset and pain you cause others, viewing life as a fun game of extracting giddy agony from idiots.

If you are psychotic, you can believe you are sent on a mission by disembodied voices, aiming to heal some catastrophic world divide with the regretfully necessary brutality of your actions.

Or – or, you can become a determinist.

If you are a determinist, there can be no preferred states in your world view. Determinism is not the establishment of truth, but the destruction of the very concept of truth. Truth is a preferred state – preferable to falsehood – however, if everyone and everything is a machine, there can be no preferred states, since no alternative possibilities can exist. A rock lands where a rock lands – the rock has no preferred state. Everything is the inevitable clockwork unrolling of mere physics – there is no right and wrong, no truth and falsehood, no good and evil – these are all primitive superstitions, akin to a belief not in the geological reality of a volcano, but the imaginary superstition of a volcano god.

I have had countless debates with determinists over the course of my career as a public intellectual, and every single time, I have had the feeling – and yes, this is not an argument – that we are really only dancing around the core issue, which always remains unspoken. The titanic amount of emotional resistance I receive from determinists when exploring these issues is a tragic force of nature. They literally will not let go of their perspectives and positions, and it is impossible for me to shake the feeling that we are never approaching the core of what is really going on.

Think about it – why would someone so desperately need to believe that there is no such thing as right or wrong, truth or falsehood, good or evil, personal responsibility, morality, the capacity for love and respect and courage and integrity? What possible motivation could there be for someone to burn from the universe all that glory and joy and possibility? How much horror must they have experienced – or inflicted – in order to call in an airstrike on everything that makes life worth living, everything that gives us meaning, everything that gives us responsibility and self-respect, pride and love, motivation and responsibility?

I think determinists actually understand deep down how much they are giving up to maintain the position that mankind is a mere bag of meaty mechanized muscle.

My question has always been: Why would they want to give up so much?

The answer cannot be, “Because it is true!” The determinist position denies the very concept of truth or falsehood. If the determinist is right, he believes in determinism involuntarily – and I believe in free will involuntarily. It’s like dropping a boulder on the knife edge of a peaked mountaintop – it breaks, and one half of the boulder falls one way while the other falls the other way. Is there any choice involved? Of course not! Would it make any sense to stand at the open door of the helicopter and scream at one half of the boulder that it was travelling in the wrong direction, that it needed to reverse course, climb back over the mountain and join the other half crashing in that direction? These would be the actions of a crazy person, but in the deterministic universe, there is actually no difference between the split rock and the human mind.

Of course, the determinist can say that he is predetermined to debate with me and to try and change my mind, and therefore he can do nothing about his actions – and here we get to the very heart and crux of the issue.

The determinist essentially says: “Everything I do is right.”

In the deterministic universe, there is no such thing as an incorrect choice, an unpreferred position, or the rational capacity to criticize anyone. If I write a computer program and it fails to compile, I don’t blame the computer, my keyboard or the monitor – that would be ridiculous and immature.

By turning himself into a computer, the determinist renders himself above and beyond any real criticism at all. He is beyond good and evil.

It seems like hard science, but it is in fact “soft snowflake.”

If I prove the determinist wrong, he can just shrug and say, Well, I guess that was predetermined.

If the determinist has acted in an immoral manner, he can just shrug and say, Well, I guess that was predetermined.

The position is one of rank and deep self-hatred – it is a troll’s position. It is a dark dare to join the determinist in an empty universe of clanking machinery, a lack of identity, a lack of meaning, a lack of virtue, a lack of love – it is an invitation to a walking suicide of value.

It is an invitation to free yourself from conscience by destroying your capacity for choice.

But – what virtuous person wants to be freed from his own conscience?

Love is our involuntary response to virtue, if we are virtuous. In the deterministic universe, there is no virtue; therefore, there can be no love.

Integrity is fidelity to moral truth. In the deterministic universe, there is no truth; therefore, there can be no morality and, therefore, there can be no integrity.

Courage is choosing what is right over what is popular. In the deterministic universe, since there is no such thing as “right,” there can be no such thing as courage.

We could go on and on down the list of virtues, all of which in the deterministic universe would be wiped out, irradiated and erased.

It is a cold, lifeless world empty of value, truth, goodness, compassion, charity or love – it is a world of machines, and you are one of them. Nothing can be changed, nothing can be preferred, and nothing can be won or lost. We are all just lifeless boulders rolling down the side of a mountain into an inevitable grave.

What personal hell must you have experienced – or created – to be even remotely tempted by such a nightmarish position?

Determinism and Emotional Investment

I am fully aware that my charge of “emotional investment” could very easily be turned back on me. I openly accept that and have talked about it publicly many times. If I ask people, “Why are you so emotionally invested in determinism?” they can very fairly ask me the same question – “Why are you so emotionally invested in free will?”

Here we can talk about the unspoken risks of determinism.

Falsely believing in determinism can strip you of love, life, value, enthusiasm, courage – all the most wonderful aspects of human existence – and this risk is rarely talked about when confronting the question of determinism.

If you are a determinist, you will probably do little to protect your values – while those who accept free will strive mightily to advance theirs. If you are an atheist and a determinist, you will lose – your entire belief system will lose – in the endless back-and-forth tussle of physical and intellectual human combat. This helps us understand why less rational belief systems are spreading and growing throughout the world, while the West falters and fails.

Through relentless materialism and secularism, we have created generations of deterministic, nihilistic, socialistic and empty atheists and agnostics – and now we are losing our freedoms. Determinists lose to those who believe in free will, because determinism is a false position, and it undermines our desire to maintain our hard-won freedoms. What is the point of political freedoms, if we don’t even have free will? Would you sign a petition to grant human rights to a rock garden? Would you fight for the right for a statue to do yoga? Would you march and protest to give your smartphone the right to vote?

Bad reason is worse than good faith. A priest who gives you good medicine is better than a doctor who gives you bad medicine.

The danger of the determinist position is that by not believing in free will, our capacity to exercise free will is destroyed.

I am willing to give up deeply held positions if the reasoned arguments are sufficient, and if the evidence overwhelmingly supports the new position. I was a socialist, a Christian, an Objectivist, and now I have moved beyond those positions – although I treasured them greatly at the time – because accumulated reason and evidence have overwhelmed my original beliefs.

However, I cannot rationally change my mind about my capacity to change my mind. I cannot use my capacity to choose to deny my capacity to choose. I cannot use free will to deny free will.

The fact that accepting the determinist position would also strip my life of love, passion, meaning, purpose and joy is a purely emotional argument – I understand that. And such a sandblasting of happiness is not at all a rational counterargument, but I bring it up as something I am emotionally aware of, and to give you, the dear reader and listener, the honesty of a fair evaluation of my emotional state.

I am also fully aware that a deeply religious person could reject arguments for atheism on the same basis – that a cold and godless universe would be emotionally devastating. I would genuinely respect a religious person for making this honest statement, since most arguments – particularly about epistemology and ethics – are mere covers for deeply held emotional preferences. When we admit and discuss our emotional investments in our positions, we do not become less rational, but rather more rational, since honesty is required for productive intellectual debate – and honesty about bias is a confession of a dedication to rationality.

Should determinism be established beyond doubt, I would no longer be able to comprehend my being, my identity, what it means to be human.

Imagine how strange it would be to know that every single thought, every single impulse, every single “decision” was not yours – that you imagined you were the pilot of an aircraft, when it turned out you were not even a passenger, but merely the machinery of the engine.

Can you imagine waking up in a world where everyone was a robot, and no one had a choice – including you?

Can you imagine waking up in a world where there were no such things as a conscience, virtue, love, courage or truth – a world where all these preferred states were mere delusions, and you faced a bleak and listless future, with about as much choice and freedom as a pinball ricocheting between various preprogrammed bumpers?

Can you imagine waking up in a world where no one had any responsibility whatsoever? In an old John Cleese comedy called Fawlty Towers, the main character beats his uncooperative car with a tree branch. This crazed immaturity is funny, because he is basically punishing an inanimate object, a mere machine. His frustration, of course, is with his own preprogrammed reactions – with his expectations of ease, which are constantly violated by an inevitably messy reality – but we do not imagine that the car can do anything to appease such a madman.

Can you imagine waking up in a world where it made about as much sense to correct or punish a wrongdoer as it does to hit a broken car with a tree branch? We do not give a medal to the rock that rolls down the hill the fastest, so why would we give a medal to the fastest runner in a deterministic universe? The rock is indistinguishable from the runner, philosophically speaking.

Can you imagine waking up in a world where accepting determinism caused you to change your behaviour, to advocate different things, to oppose various perspectives – all while accepting that you had no capacity to do any of these things?

Can you imagine waking up in a world where you could never do anything wrong? Where you could never make a mistake, where you could never be in error, and where you could never be immoral?

Can you imagine being the kind of person, with the kind of history, who would thirst so deeply for such empty salvation?

Can you imagine having done such wrong that you were desperate for absolution, for forgiveness – but still being so corrupt that you would not lift a finger to earn it?

Can you imagine being so guilty that you would destroy love, choice, virtue itself, in order to pretend you did nothing wrong?

Can you imagine being so corrupt that you would spread the nihilistic doctrine of determinism, hoping to gain misery in company, rather than seeking peace through restitution to those you have wronged?

Can you imagine being so solitary, so isolated, so existentially lonely, that you would choose to empty the universe of consciousness rather than seek comfort from another human being?

I can’t, and I never want to.

Morality and the Elements

Now we turn to the heart of philosophy, which is morality.

The purpose of medicine is physical health; the purpose of nutrition is digestive health. All the research, theory, scientific examination, testing and writing in these fields are designed with one, and only one, objective in mind: to get you to change your behaviour.

There is little point in buying a diet book if you do not change your diet. The cliché of the exercise machine ordered with high enthusiasm at 2:00 a.m. that ends up gathering dust under your guest bed fits this pattern as well. There is no point in learning how to exercise if you never bother exercising. There is no point going to the doctor and getting a prescription, if you never end up taking the medicine.

The purpose of all knowledge is to change behaviour. We study piano in order to improve our piano playing, we learn how to cook so we can cook better, we diet and exercise in order to become healthier. We study another language to better speak that language. We learn how to use a computer so that we can achieve our goals more efficiently. Why do we check the weather? In order to change our behaviour – bring an umbrella, apply sunscreen, whatever.

There was an old video recording and playback technology called the VCR – you can still buy the machines online. Imagine getting ahold of a very early VCR – and then learning how it had been programmed. It might be possible to either get the source code – sitting on some dusty 5¼-inch  floppy disk somewhere – or reverse-engineer the VCR code. Then imagine spending months learning that code, studying the hardware specifications and capacities of the machine, and finding some way to improve its speed, efficiency or responsiveness. Then perhaps you could find some way to inject that new code into an existing ancient VCR and watch it perform better. I can’t fathom why anyone would ever pursue that goal, because it would be a dismal and useless waste of time, for many obvious reasons.

It might be possible to justify such a hobby on the grounds that it sharpens your mind, gives you skills that might benefit you in the future, or something along those lines. But I think it would be reasonable to say that anyone who spent hundreds of hours on this pursuit might be exhibiting signs of some sort of obsessive-compulsive disorder or other kind of mental imbalance.

If you were told today that you had three months to live, would you immediately start studying a difficult foreign language?

A subculture of programmers has devoted themselves to the task of getting the old video game Doom to run on a variety of platforms, including printers and cell phones and other disparate hardware.

In this case, I can only assume they are pursuing the respect of others in their subculture, along with the immediate dopamine hit of getting code to run on something that wasn’t designed to run it. There is a purpose in what they do, and the test is whether they post their successes publicly. If you found some man with a variety of ancient hardware in his garage, who had spent the last five years getting an old video game to run on everything from a scientific calculator to a monochrome printer interface, but had never told anyone of his strenuous endeavours, and never used his acquired skills anywhere else, wouldn’t that be a sign that he was pretty nuts?

Intense effort without payoff, without benefit, is a sign of mental illness – like a man endlessly organizing useless items, or a woman obsessively washing her hands, or a child spending eight hours building and breaking one particular toy – these are all signs that all is not well in the upstairs chambers.

I bring all this up because I’m sure you are at least vaguely aware of the enormous efforts that have been poured into philosophy just over the past century or so, and how little productive and valuable meaning has come out of it – at least for the average individual.

Quick – tell me what moral principles have come out of existentialism, postmodernism, pragmatism, collectivism, relativism, or even socialism or Marxism or fascism. Have any of these ideologies or philosophies helped you make better moral decisions in your daily life? I am not talking about political activism, but the personal moral challenges we all face.

Generally, vague positive effects are claimed. Philosophy “enriches” and “deepens understanding” and “brings wisdom” – which are all unquantifiable positives that generally accrue only to the individual.

Philosophy is not just about making you feel better, but about making the world better as well.

When people are generally competent in the science of nutrition, the need for nutritionists diminishes.

When people become generally competent in philosophy, the need for philosophers will diminish.

Gaining significant expertise in nutrition comes with a reasonable expectation that you will instruct the ignorant.

Becoming competent in philosophy also comes with a reasonable expectation that you will instruct the ignorant.

Even philosophies that claim to pursue the moral good rarely result in positive changes in personal behaviour.

There are philosophies that advocate for government control of healthcare. Do they directly help you make better decisions to become a healthier person? Quite the opposite – if healthcare is “free,” people are more likely to neglect their health.

If you think of the philosophy of collectivism – that the group should rule over the individual – it is not designed to help you make better decisions in your own life, but rather to surrender your own decision-making capacity to the mob.

If you think of relativism – the argument that claims as true the position that there is no such thing as truth – how does that help you make moral decisions in your daily life?

Being a Marxist may encourage you to spend your time attempting to establish a dictatorship to transfer control of the means of production to the state, but how does that goal help you make better moral decisions today, tomorrow or ever?

The philosophy of pragmatism may encourage you to judge an idea by its effects, rather than by its principles, but it does not help you make any better moral decisions today – it generally encourages you to act randomly and judge the results over time. I can’t imagine that a diet book called Eat Randomly: See If You Get Thin! would ever sell well. A book on ethics called Kill Today, See How You Feel Tomorrow! would not be particularly ethical.

The general slogan that praises “the greatest good for the greatest number” does not help you in your own particular life. It is designed, of course, to get you to vote for more and more government power, since collective benefits can in general only be secured and enforced by the coercive might of a centralized state.

Such philosophies are either designed to make ethics murky, confusing and messy, or they are designed to get you to vote for bigger and bigger government – they are not designed to help you make better moral decisions in your own life today.

Compare this to Christianity – the Ten Commandments are not collectivist in nature, but are aimed directly at the individual and his or her own moral choices. The question “What would Jesus do?” is specifically designed to evoke a personal reaction in a moment of moral crisis, to help the individual pattern himself after the most moral being in the universe. The Bible consistently exhorts people to pursue virtue individually in their daily lives, using personal decisions – it doesn’t just tell people to vote for a politician who is going to enforce some kind of collective and coercive “good.”

You do good in order to get to heaven. Your conscience is your own and cannot be outsourced to anyone else – any other mob, group, collective, politician or government. In fact, Christianity directly warns people of the danger of the mob and of the necessity for individual salvation. Your conscience is responsible to virtue, and you can no more outsource your moral responsibility than you can ask someone else to digest your food for you.

Once you have saved yourself, then you can save others. Put the airplane oxygen mask on your own face first.

The destruction of individual conscience that grew out of Darwinism, materialism, socialism and atheism was one of the greatest catastrophes ever to hit Western civilization – in fact, it has been the persistent undoing of Western civilization ever since.

The Storm and the Self: An Analogy

Imagine a dark village battered by a terrible storm – only the walls of the village church hold strong. All who venture outside risk sudden death, but all who take shelter inside the church are safe. The villagers all huddle inside, singing, praying and sharing food.

Into the village, through the storm, rides a group of atheists. Dismounting, they pull out sledgehammers, cry out that there is no God, swarm up the wet walls and start pounding on the roof of the church, tearing it away. The storm, the hail, the wind, the debris – all begin flying into the church and smashing into the people. As the steeple collapses, lightning strikes the cross, jumps through the water and electrocutes some of the panicked congregation.

In the hellish storm, with the atheists tearing open the roof, it becomes more dangerous inside the church than outside, in the devilish elements. The villagers, crying out in terror, stream out of the dying church and into the rain-lashed landscape, dodging flying tree branches and rolling rocks. The atheists, after having completed their destruction of the church, gather the villagers before them.

“You can thank us now, for we have saved you from your superstition!” cries the leader of the atheists.

“The storm is raging, and getting worse. Where on earth do we go now? Where do we take shelter?” demand the villagers, covering their children with their own bodies, chilled to the bone, cut and broken by flying debris, shaking and terrified and enraged.

The atheists simply smile and charge off into the storm, looking for another church to tear apart.

And what happens to the villagers?

I think we all know.

We are seeing it play out every single day across the Western world. The storm gets worse, the violence increases, and the church – which sheltered not just the villagers, but their entire civilization – lies in ruin.

Let us say that the church as an institution is wrong. There are certainly good philosophical arguments to make in that direction – but so what?

If you are a decent, moral humanbeing, you do not tear down the only structure that shelters the people from storms, without providing them a better place to take refuge.

And you sure as hell do not tear down their shelter during a storm.

If you despise the existing shelter, build a better shelter, and people will arrive of their own accord.

The most fundamental question I have asked of myself recently, and of my own history with atheism, is this: Do atheists love the truth, or do they merely hate the church?

The state is the great competitor to religion. Christianity aims to prevent crime – the state aims to “cure” it. Think of the difference between a nutritionist and a surgeon. Often, the more influence the nutritionist has, the less work there is for the surgeon.

You can have a big God and a small state, or you can have a small God and a big state – the pendulum of society seems to irrevocably swing back and forth between the two in this tragic manner.

Those who wish to grow the power of the state know the church stands directly in their path. Transferring the allegiance of the citizenry from the worship of God to a worship of the state requires that God be discredited; the state inevitably takes its place. For well over a century, atheists have savagely dismantled the church, religious faith, the conscience, the conception of sin, and a fear of the afterlife.

The Marxists say that religion is the opiate of the masses – modernity reveals that Marxism is the opiate of the anti-religious.

The church was the traditional moral home of Western civilization, amid the perpetual storm of intertribal and international conflicts that is the world. Atheists tore down the church because they claimed to love truth and found religion false.

Did the atheists – and do the atheists – love truth?

By far the greatest threat to human life – at least in the twentieth century – came from the state, not from religion. In that most dismal hundred-year span, governments murdered two hundred and fifty million of their own citizens. This horrifying figure does not even include wars.

This is a basic truth of history – states have murdered hundreds of millions of people in a single hundred-year span.

Society needs to be organized, people need to follow rules – the traditional organization in the West that provided these things was based on Christianity.

When Christianity – and the rules it engendered – was torn down by the atheists, what did they erect to protect the people?

Nothing.

Nothing at all.

They tore down the church and sold the people to the state.

I am increasingly of the opinion that atheists were useful idiots used to destroy the church that stood in the path of the power mongers, who thirsted to expand the brutal strength of the state.

I am telling you all of this before I introduce you to a rational proof of secular ethics, because I was – and remain – deeply shocked by the hostility and indifference shown by atheists to such a proof.

The destruction of Christian ethics created a power vacuum in society that was filled by increasing state power. Atheists hated being influenced by the voluntary participation of Christianity – but seem to have no problem being controlled by the coercive power of the state.

Atheists rail against the automatic guilt of original sin, but seem to have far fewer objections to the automatic guilt of “racism,” “sexism,” “patriarchy,” “misogyny” – and all the other slanderous attack-labels of the encroaching left.

What were atheists as a whole selling to the general public, or at least the intellectual public?

Were they selling a new moral goal that would supersede and transcend religious imperatives? Were they combining a hatred of irrationality and coercion that would culminate in opposition to the increasing size and power of the state?

Of course not.

Becoming an atheist released people from moral obligations. It removed the all-seeing eye of God, the strictness of moral integrity, and the requirement to sacrifice the immediate self to a higher purpose.

What moral rules – what strictness, what requirements for self-discipline, self-subjugation and integrity – did atheism provide?

Where atheism overlapped with Marxism – or at least socialism – there were larger goals as a whole: increasing the size and power of the state and its capacity to control resources and redistribute income – but that strikes me as a particularly satanic goal.

Did Marxists deny religion out of a deep opposition to irrational beliefs? Of course not – reason and evidence have denied the truth and virtue of Marxism, but many Marxists have just abandoned reason and evidence rather than give up their irrational beliefs. (Hence postmodernism.)

Did Marxists oppose capitalism because they care about the poor? Of course not – free markets have freed and enriched the poor; Marxism impoverished and enslaved them.

Did Marxists oppose existing governments because those governments were oppressive and tyrannical? Of course not – Marxist governments are far more oppressive and tyrannical.

Marxism is the mere manifestation of a post-Darwinian lust for power and resources. Christianity stands between the Marxists and the tyranny they thirst for; therefore, Christianity must go.

For Christians, poverty in this life may be a precursor to an eternity in heaven after death. As the Bible saying goes, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Poverty is not a desperate problem to be solved by any means necessary – many devout Christians embrace poverty.

For atheists, since there is no afterlife, the problem of poverty becomes far greater. A poor man does not get his reward after death; he just suffers a miserable life, then dies. More secular philosophies such as socialism and communism tend to focus on material inequality far more than Christianity – as Jesus says, the poor will always be with us.

Since it accepts material inequality, Christianity is far freer to focus on fundamental principles – equality of opportunity, rather than equality of outcome; a commandment that says thou shalt not steal, rather than a law demanding forced income redistribution.

Christianity also focuses on achieving virtue by rejecting materialism and power over others. The devil tempts Jesus by offering him the whole world – Jesus rejects him. As the Bible says, “For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?”

For atheists, a man has no soul to lose, so it is far more tempting to demand that the state serve the material needs of the population, rather than reinforce the population’s spiritual and moral virtues. A material focus leads to a fundamental problem, however. If the state forcibly transfers income, it cannot at the same time maintain property rights – the two positions are antithetical. Secular governments increasingly shift from “thou shalt not” to “thou shalt” – a far less free position.

Human beings are strongly primed by nature to desire violent power over others. Even bonobo monkeys, when they climb the hierarchy of tribal power, receive increased dopamine hits deep in their brains, which incentivize them to become even better at subjugating other monkeys. Offering political power to human beings is like offering cocaine to a desperate addict – the addict has a plan, sure, but we would not describe it as a very noble or elevated plan.

Political power requires the initiation of force against citizens.

Plotting to gain, keep and increase political power is deeply immoral. Whether consciously or not, atheists have helped open the gates of hell to endless escalations of state power. They have been foot soldiers in the great stampede of evildoers to gain control of and expand political power – the power of coercion.

This is, of course, a hypothesis – but it is a testable hypothesis.

Do atheists tend toward leftism? They certainly do. In one study, atheists are almost seven times more likely to support the Democratic Party rather than the Republican Party in the United States. From Pew Research:

“About two-thirds of atheists (69%) identify as Democrats (or lean in that direction), and a majority (56%) call themselves political liberals (compared with just one-in-ten who say they are conservatives).”^[3]

Do atheists recognize that the initiation of force is far more immoral than any possible personal irrationality? They certainly do not, since they consistently attack Christianity, and consistently defend the state. For adults, Christianity is voluntary, and there are no penalties for leaving the faith – state commandments and laws are not voluntary, and can result in prison sentences for disobedience.

If atheists were generally concerned with the philosophical and moral improvement of the human race, they would have restrained their base attacks on Christianity until they, as atheists, were able to provide a rational and objective moral framework to help society become more reasonable and good, rather than merely tear down the church and expose a desperate and frightened population to all the raw and destructive elements pouring down from the black skies of history.

A moral atheistic philosophy would have said this:

“Well, a byproduct of disproving God will be the undoing of Christian ethics – but society needs ethics, so we better hold off unraveling the central moral fabric of our societies until we have something better to take its place. Even if Christianity is an irrational painkiller, the population is certainly in pain, and withdrawing the painkiller without providing an alternative is mere sadism. So, let us put our heads together, start from scratch, and build a system of ethics from the ground up, making sure every step is complete and cohesive, and then work our mighty intellectual and verbal muscles to trumpet a rational system of secular ethics from the rooftops, so that the people do not dissolve into confusion, depression, materialism and hedonism.”

This they did not do.

Quite the opposite, in fact.

They said: “Christianity is irrational and ridiculous and destructive, so away with these false superstitions and contradictory edicts, away with this hierarchy, punishment and guilt-tripping and all other sorts of nonsense. Let us merely oppose the irrational, rather than build the truly rational.”

If atheists were truly moral – even if they had overlooked the need for generally accepted social ethics – they would surely have cheered the introduction of a rational proof of secular ethics. Doing so would provide a moral framework outside of religion and above the mere coercive powers of state law. This would provide the people with shelter from the storms of the world and an objective framework by which to organize their lives, their decisions, and the larger decisions of society as a whole.

However, in the decade or so that I have introduced my rational proof of secular ethics, atheists have been supremely indifferent – and occasionally hostile – to the argument.

Think of a village in a near-infinite desert, with a single murky spring for water. Atheists find the brackish spring objectionable – “The water is not pure!” – and destroy it. The people start dying of thirst. The atheists say that they want people to be good and healthy and happy, but they do nothing to find an alternate water source. A man starts delivering water from an unknown location, but rather than find its source, the atheists merely tell everyone that the man is crazy, and that his water is poisoned, and they should shun him.

These atheists are condemning the villagers to a slow and ugly death.

What is their purpose?

Is it not to cause and watch human suffering?

Is it not also true that the atheists shall die of thirst in turn?

It is fine and good to want to improve a water supply, but to destroy an existing water supply for its imperfections without providing new water is neither fine nor good. Furthermore, when fresh, clean water becomes available, to scare the villagers into avoiding it is a grim manifestation of selfish sadism.

The power vacuum created by the destruction of Christian ethics in society will be filled either by reason or by violence. By failing to pursue a rational substitution for Christian ethics – and by damning and attacking those who have – atheists have merely served the state, and they will, I believe, be condemned by history.

The old alliance between communism and atheism has been regularly mocked by atheists, without fruitful examination. Why has totalitarianism constantly sought to erase religion? Saying Hitler was an atheist and Stalin was an atheist – but that their atheism was about as relevant to their ideologies as their moustaches – does not help or aid a deeper examination of any potential causality.

Universally Preferable Behaviour

If I were a nutritionist, I would tell you all about the science, biology and chemistry of food and digestion – with the express goal, at the end, of convincing you to change your dietary habits in order to improve your well-being.

If I were a personal trainer, I would tell you all about the science and biology and chemistry of stretching and exercise – with the express goal, at the end, of convincing you to change your exercise habits.

My goal in this book is to give you the background, knowledge and expertise to understand the value and purpose of philosophy, which is to get you to change your moral habits.

The purpose of medical research is to provide knowledge that leads to the prevention or cure of disease. There is no purpose in engaging in medical research if no one ends up changing any behaviours based upon the results of that research.

The entire purpose of a smoking cessation program is to have you not pick up a cigarette, light it, and suck on it. Going over the medical, biological and genetic background as to the dangers of smoking is all very important, but it is important only insofar as it helps reinforce your willpower to refrain from smoking that cigarette.

Everything in philosophy comes down to you changing your moral habits – and changing your moral habits requires a deep understanding of the value of good moral habits, and the disasters of bad moral habits.

This may seem like a controversial position, but only because philosophy has been largely hijacked by people who wish to use it for personal gain – such as academics and sophists (often the same category). Therefore, modern philosophy delivers abstractions that are clever, confusing, often annoying, and ultimately worse than useless. Academic philosophy is like an overindulged amateur magician – intrusive, irritating, incompetent, but rarely called out.

The four major branches of philosophy – metaphysics (the study of reality); epistemology (the study of knowledge); politics (the study of state power); and ethics (the study of virtue) – are like the plumbing that delivers water to your sink. Aqueducts, sewers, piping – these all only have value insofar as they enable you to turn on a tap in your house and actually get some clean water. Metaphysics, epistemology, politics and ethics – these have value insofar as they enable you to make and enforce better moral decisions in the world.

Think of the immense amount of research, science, engineering and physics that goes into the design and creation of a car – the purpose of which is to get you from A to B. Few people would buy a car without an engine (unless it was to cannibalize parts for another car with an engine) because a car is not a piece of art, a paperweight, or a hat, but a piece of machinery designed to provide mobility. If you give a paralyzed man a wheelchair with only one wheel, your “gift” is cruelty, not charity. The purpose of a wheelchair is to give someone without the use of his legs mobility, and such purpose is not served with only one wheel.

Think of the engineering complexity and technological genius that is required to serve up a web page to your eyeballs. The whole point is to facilitate your viewing. Without that viewing, everything else is worse than useless. If your monitor won’t turn on, the entire infrastructure becomes useless.

The purpose of philosophy – the entire substructure and detailed background arguments – is to give you the information and resolution you need to make better moral decisions in the moment. The purpose of the military – the entire procurement, training, physics, engineering and resource consumption as a whole – is to provide individuals with the skill and resolution to kill others and destroy objects. We cannot imagine an entire military-industrial complex with the sole goal of placing soldiers on the battlefield with complex weaponry, but zero ammunition.

If you take away the final goal, there is no rational way to organize all the prior activities.

If you have a goal to pass a class in university, you have, at least hopefully, objective and well-defined steps by which you can achieve that goal – write an essay, go to class, pass an exam. If you don’t have a final goal, you cannot organize your activities.

This is not to say that all life must be specifically goal-oriented. We do things for fun, as a hobby, to distract ourselves or to pass time – but so what? If we need to quit smoking, not every single moment of our life needs to be dedicated to that task, but we must still have that goal in our mind as a whole. If we need to lose weight, diet and exercise only consume a small portion of our day, but the overall goal remains important.

Hopefully, you will not spend every waking moment of your day making crucial moral decisions, but you will need wisdom and certainty when those moments come.

So, let us now examine and understand the theory of “universally preferable behaviour” (UPB), or the rational proof of secular ethics.

Ethics: An Introduction

All philosophy argues for a preferred state – the very essence of philosophy is to differentiate between various states, to point out the most preferred, and the best way to achieve it.

This may sound confusing, but this is exactly the same process pursued by dietitians, doctors, scientists, engineers and so on – a dietitian differentiates between various food choices, points out the preferred outcome, and the best diet to achieve it.

A doctor differentiates between various states of illness and health, and guides his patients towards the best practices and medicines to regain and maintain health.

A scientist differentiates between various states of ignorance and knowledge, and guides himself and others through the scientific method to discard illusion and achieve accuracy.

If there is no such thing as a preferred state, there is no such thing as philosophy – or free will, or morality, or debate, or truth, or falsehood, or science, or medicine – I can keep piling these on until you accept that there is such a thing as a preferred state.

If there is a preferred state, the question naturally arises – compared to what?

If I prefer to eat toast rather than gravel, my evaluation is based on what my body can digest. Digestible and nutritious food is preferable to indigestible rocks. This is not a subjective preference, but rather is decided by my body’s capacity for turning matter into energy.

Some preferences are objective, some are subjective. Objectively, I cannot gain nutritional energy from gravel. A madman may choose to eat gravel rather than toast, but this is one way we know that he is insane. Subjectively, I may prefer vanilla ice cream to chocolate ice cream. The science of nutrition deals with objective requirements, rather than subjective tastes.

The fact that some people reject objectively preferable states does not make those states any less objective or any less preferable. To lose weight, you must eat fewer calories and/or exercise more – this is an objective process necessary to achieve an objective state. The fact that most overweight people either never lose weight, or lose weight and then gain more back, in no way makes the objective process and goal of weight loss any less objective.

If I am driving and my destination is south, and I keep driving north, this doesn’t change the direction of my destination. Persisting in error does not destroy truth, but rather affirms it.

In philosophy, the preferred state is truth – in other words, statements that accurately describe the objective facts, properties and processes of empirical material reality. Empirical material reality is objective, rational and universal – a stone is a stone and possesses the properties of a stone everywhere in the universe.

Philosophy is the rational hypothesis of empirical action. A proposed preferred state must be rational before it can be acted upon, since actions take place in reality, which is rational.

In engineering, a blueprint must conform to the nature and properties of things in reality before it can be even considered as a plan for creating something. If you try to build a bridge in Manhattan while assuming the moon’s gravity, your bridge will collapse because your gravitational factor is off by a factor of six. If a doctor makes important medical decisions based on the belief that blood is inert in the body, he will be far less likely to heal people.

Philosophy requires rational consistency because “truth” is a mental category that is measured relative to objective reality. If I say there are three coconuts when there are only two, my statement is false, compared to the simple facts of objective reality.

Arguing Against Preferred States

Humanity appears to be mentally constituted to attempt to find at least one exception to every proposed rule – and naturally, you are probably trying with all your might to find an exception to the concept of preferred states. However, it is logically impossible to argue against preferred states, because the act of arguing itself requires a preferred state.

The act of arguing with someone rests on the implied premise that you are correct and that your opponent is incorrect. If I point at Africa on a map and refer to it as the Arctic, and you correct me, it might not be much of a debate, but clearly you are correcting me with reference to the true name of that continent, which is Africa. You are not saying you have a made-up name for the continent, personal to you, and that you would like me to indulge you by referring to the continent by that name – you are in essence saying two things:

1. The correct name for the continent is “Africa.”
2. Using the correct name is infinitely preferable to using the incorrect name.

I use the phrase “infinitely preferable” because some preferences are relative, and some preferences are absolute. I prefer chocolate ice cream to vanilla ice cream, but I prefer ice cream as a whole to Brussels sprouts. These are relative preferences, in that I would prefer Brussels sprouts to starvation. In general, people prefer ice cream to arsenic, but there are situations in which arsenic may be preferred, such as when facing certain torture, or a certain slow lingering death in some remote place, or unending exposure to the comedy stylings of Amy Schumer.

However, would you ever say that referring to the continent of Africa by its correct name is a relative preference? In other words, would there be an occasion where you would be fine with it being called by some other name? If I want chocolate ice cream, but the restaurant only has vanilla, I might shrug, accept my second choice and still be relatively content – would the same be true for misnaming Africa?

Of course not. Correctly naming the continent is a binary option – you either get the name right, or you get the name wrong.

If you are sailing from the Bahamas to New York, the accuracy of your navigation is not a binary option – there is no such thing as perfect navigation. Every wave and gust of wind will put you “off course” a tiny degree. (Please note, this does not mean that there are no degrees of accuracy. There is of course such a thing as more accurate and less accurate – and a certain level of inaccuracy will have you miss your destination completely – but it is a difference of degree, not of kind.)

However, the proposition that the earth is flat is binary – it is either flat or it is not. It cannot be halfway between spherical and flat.

The proposition that the earth is a sphere is infinitely preferable to the proposition that the earth is flat. It is not occasionally flat, it’s not flat every second Wednesday – and thinking it’s flat is not “almost as good.” It’s not an okay second choice. The earth is a sphere, it is not flat, and that is that.

Truth is infinitely preferable to falsehood. If you try to argue against this, you automatically prove that your proposition is false and should be rejected, because in the very act of arguing, you’re preferring truth over falsehood.

Most people struggle mightily against this basic reality, and at some point the irrational, angry will collapses, and peace and reason reign in the mind.

Given that we cannot argue against preferred states, we must continue with our exploration of what preferred states are.

Preferred Goals, Preferred States and Preferred Processes

The preferred goal of medicine is health; the preferred goal of training is expertise; the preferred goal of nutrition is healthy eating, and so on.

Some of these preferred goals are universal, some are local, and some are subjective. Human beings cannot get nutrition from sand; certain diets are good for some people, but bad for others, and the taste of food can be highly subjective.

In science, the goal is accuracy about the universe, because accuracy is a preferred state – and the preferred process is the scientific method.

In philosophy, the goal is truth, because truth is a preferred state – and the preferred process is reason and evidence.

Preferred processes are defined relative to a goal. If you have no goal, you can have no preferred processes. If I have a goal called “arrive in New York,” my preferred process is accurate navigation.

The essential question to ask is: What makes philosophy unique?

Philosophy aims for truth, to be sure, but so do countless other mental disciplines – it’s not like mathematicians strive for irrationality, or scientists aim for falsehood.

There is a philosophy of science and a philosophy of mathematics. Philosophy is the overarching discipline for all human thought – but there is very little “science of philosophy,” or “mathematics of philosophy.”

Philosophy is the largest circle of mental disciplines – science, engineering, medicine and mathematics show up as smaller circles within the larger circle of philosophy.

Prior to the scientific revolution, there was a philosophical revolution that focused on scepticism, materialism, empiricism and rationality, while strenuously rejecting immaterial or superstitious forms of “knowledge.”

Philosophy cannot be the same as science, otherwise there would be no need for the word “philosophy.”

Philosophy cannot be unrelated to science, since science relies upon philosophical concepts such as rationality and empiricism.

Science cannot be larger than philosophy, because philosophy examines ideas outside the realm of the physical sciences.

Since philosophy is larger than science, we must ask ourselves: What is it that philosophy examines that science does not?

The answer, simply, is: ethics.

Science tracks material objects and their properties – it describes what is and what is to be, according to rules that operate independent of consciousness.

Psychology attempts to understand human behaviour and how memory, emotions and reason interact, and how best to achieve optimal functioning, but psychology is not in essence a moral discipline. In psychology, generally, something is dysfunctional if it interferes with productive and happy functioning within a particular social context. The morality of that social context is not often directly examined by psychology, which tends to use the words “dysfunction” and “illness” rather than “evil.”

The study of ethics is unique to philosophy – although some scientists have attempted to use the scientific method to establish the basis of ethics. In my view they have been unsuccessful, since they tend to approach moral questions from a consequentialist standpoint, aiming at a more efficient distribution of resources, or an improvement in human health as a whole, rather than defining good and evil from first principles. “Trying a bunch of stuff and seeing what works best,” is not science, and it certainly is not moral philosophy.

Morality and Preference

If you want to say something true about the natural universe, you need to use the scientific method. If you want to lose weight, you should eat less and exercise more. If you want your bridge to stand, you should follow the principles of engineering.

However, if you are not using the scientific method, this does not mean that you are not a scientist – a scientist does not necessarily use the scientific method while eating or sleeping; this does not mean he is not a scientist, or that he is anti-scientific. Even the person most dedicated to losing weight cannot diet and exercise all day, every day. When he is not dieting or exercising, does that mean that he is no longer dedicated to losing weight? Does that mean he is suddenly dedicated to gaining weight?

Of course not.

However, things are different in the realm of ethics. If I fail to respect someone’s property rights by stealing, I am now a thief. If you murder someone, you are now a murderer. A momentary deviation from dieting does not invalidate the diet, but a momentary deviation from “not raping” creates a rapist.

We do not expect a scientist to practise science every waking moment, but we do expect a moral person to refrain from raping, murdering, assaulting and stealing every waking moment. Sir Isaac Newton was a scientist, although he deeply believed in the superstition of alchemy. His science is judged on its own merits, and his superstitions are discarded accordingly. A man who mixes science and superstition may still be considered a scientist, but a man who mixes pacifism and murder is not still considered a moral person.

Most human disciplines require positive or proactive actions. To become a scientist, a pianist, an engineer or doctor requires training and practice – and success, one would hope.

However, most moral commandments involve refraining from specific action and they do not require years of training and expertise. We would never expect a three-year-old toddler to be a concert pianist, or a scientist, but we do expect a toddler to refrain from punching his playmates. We do not call upon five-year-olds to construct complex bridges, but we do expect them not to snatch toys from their siblings.

“Preferred” Versus “Preferable”

We do not expect everyone to be a scientist, but we expect scientists to use the scientific method. We do not demand that everyone become an engineer, but we do expect engineers to build things that stay up (or down, perhaps, if they are designing a submarine).

The scientific method is universally preferable for scientists, but it is not universally preferable that everyone become a scientist, or that scientists use the scientific method every waking moment. Rational calculations are universally preferable for mathematicians, but we should not force everyone to become a mathematician.

Just because something is preferred does not mean that everyone will in fact choose to do it. Cutting calories is the preferred way of losing weight. This does not mean everyone will cut calories and lose weight.

The difference between what should be done and what actually is done, is the difference between “preferable” and “preferred.”

“Preferred” refers to the past, to what is objectively measurable: “Sally preferred to paint her room red.” “Joe preferred to go left rather than right.”

“Preferred” refers to the past; “Prefers” refers to the present; “preferable” refers to the future.

Thus, “preferable” is the only word wherein ethics can exist.

Philosophy is like exercise – it exists to help you avoid problems in the long run, not survive a health crisis in the moment. If you call up a fitness trainer and say, “I have a family history of heart disease. What should I do?” the trainer can give you advice on healthy exercise habits, with the goal of avoiding a heart attack in the future. If you call up the trainer and say, “Aargh, I am having a heart attack right now, what exercise advice do you have for me?” – well, the trainer will doubtless tell you to hang up and call for an ambulance instead. The trainer can help prevent a heart attack in the future; he cannot save you from a heart attack in progress.

The goal of moral philosophy is primarily prevention, not cure – and where there is no cure, prevention is all the more important. If you ask a moral philosopher what should be done in a society where the government has racked up untold hundreds of trillions of dollars of debt and unfunded liabilities, then the philosopher will probably not have a lot of helpful advice – the “heart attack” is already imminent. If, decades before, you had asked a philosopher whether the government should embark on such a course, then the philosopher would have said that was a grievous violation of property rights and a pillaging of the unborn, and deeply and woefully immoral.

Philosophy has no power in the past. None of us do. It is frozen in time, inaccessible to will or alteration – or even facts, sometimes, since memory can be so malleable.

Philosophy has no real power in the present, because the deep steps and learning required for true moral understanding cannot be compressed into the time slice of the here and now. If you are on vacation and get cornered in a dark alley by some giant man screaming at you in Russian, and you don’t speak Russian, it’s not exactly a great time to start learning the language. If you spent years studying Russian beforehand, you have a chance to negotiate, or at least understand what he wants.

Philosophy only has power in the future – and it only examines the past in order to avoid mistakes in the future. You study your family medical history mostly with the goal of avoiding repeating any mistakes that were made.

Morality and Non-Compliance

Moral principles are not voided by non-compliance. This is an essential point to understand and seems hard to grasp for many people, perhaps because they are constantly looking for ways to avoid and evade moral principles in the present.

Some people don’t take medical advice – this doesn’t mean that medicine is pointless or irrelevant. Some people drop out of school – this doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t bother educating anyone. Some people drive drunk – we don’t plow up all the roads and ban cars.

People don’t always follow moral rules – that is the whole point. If moral rules were automatic and involuntary, they would be physical rules, and the purview of physicists, not moralists. We have choices, we have ideals, and our behaviour often falls short of perfection.

A rule does not have to be followed in order to be objective. Mystics do not follow the scientific method; this does not mean that the scientific method is as irrational as mysticism.

This holds particularly true for the discipline of ethics. The reason we need a discipline of ethics is because people often fail to follow moral rules. The idea that immorality erases morality is like saying there is no need for encouragement, because sometimes people get discouraged.

People act badly; that is why we need ethics. It is a simple as that.

Ethics and Individuals

An ethical theory cannot be judged by individual actions, any more than a scientific theory can be judged by the integrity of any individual scientist. If we propose a moral rule such as “don’t steal,” is it invalidated if someone steals? Of course not – in fact, the more people deviate from a moral rule, the more it needs to be explained and reinforced.

The fact that gases expand when heated is not invalidated by any particular scientist who fudges his data to “prove” the opposite. In fact, the reason we know the scientist is cheating is because of the scientific method.

One cannot rationally invalidate the virtues and values of the free market by pointing out a single business failure, or a man who loses his job. Removing resources from unneeded occupations is one of the primary pruning mechanisms of the free market, and a central reason why it facilitates the growth of wealth so efficiently.

Ethics and Theories

The primary dangers to human life and happiness – to virtue itself – are irrational ethical theories, not individual evildoers. A serial killer may kill a dozen or more people, but communism has murdered close to one hundred million. A thief may make off with your car or your jewelry, but governments extract trillions of dollars from their citizens every single year and create hundreds of trillions of dollars of unfunded liabilities for future generations to inherit – almost infinitely more than any mere thief could achieve.

You can arm and protect yourself against an individual thief, but Genghis Khan, with a great army, slaughtered 10 percent of the world’s population in his day.

Governments across the world throughout the twentieth century murdered two hundred fifty million of their own citizens – and such governments were reinforced and justified by particular ethical theories, ranging from fascism to communism to socialism to various other forms of collectivism.

Society in general has little to fear from individual criminals. The law acts against them, good people shun them, and steps can be taken to protect oneself from their predations – installing alarm systems, moving to a better neighbourhood, buying a gun, and so on.

No, it is centralized, collectivist and oligarchical institutions that reason and evidence compel us to fear the most – those institutions that can take our property virtually at will, often imprison us on a whim, conscript us into wars, burden us with debt, enter us into intergenerational liabilities without our approval, and indoctrinate us virtually from birth in the narratives that reinforce their dominance.

This examination of ethics focuses squarely upon ethical theories, not on individual actors. Many of us have been programmed to respond to an examination of universal ethical theories by citing individual immorality – that is one way those who rule us ensure we cannot speak rationally about virtue, or examine the narratives that enslave us. The fact that people do evil does not invalidate a moral theory. Evil actions are the fundamental reason why we need moral theories in the first place!

The fact that we can eat badly is why we need the science of nutrition. If a man gives a speech about healthy dieting, and a woman keeps interrupting him to cry out that she knows someone who eats badly, we can fully understand why the crowd gets restless and annoyed. She is a kind of heckler, an interrupter, who is managing her own anxieties rather than trying to inform the audience.

Arguing Against Universality

Ethics are universally preferable behaviours – actions that people should or should not take – independent of time and location.

If you argue against this proposition, then you are affirming it. You are telling me I should not engage in the act of communicating universally preferable behaviours. In other words, you are saying it is universally preferable behaviour that nobody should advocate for universally preferable behaviour.

Ethical actions cannot be universally positive in nature – i.e., thou shalt – because it is impossible to achieve positive actions universally. If I say that it is ethical to scratch your head, you cannot keep scratching your head forever. If I say that it is ethical to give to the poor, you cannot give to the poor forever, or while you sleep, or after you have run out of money – at which point, you are poor yourself and have nothing left to give.

Negative actions – prohibitions, or “thou shalt nots” – can be achieved universally.

It is possible to go through your entire life without murdering anyone, raping anyone, assaulting anyone, or stealing from anyone. Indeed, it is possible for everyone in the world to achieve such perfect virtue.

Think of it this way – if I say everyone in the world has to go live in a cave underneath the Washington Monument, this cannot be achieved because so many people simply wouldn’t fit, among many other impossibilities. On the other hand, if I say no one in the world is allowed to live in a cave underneath the Washington Monument, well, everyone can achieve that in perpetuity.

Thus, ethics must be bans on positive actions, rather than commandments to achieve those actions.

Ethics and Universality

Why should ethics be universal?

Ethics are generally statements or preferred actions that are binding upon others. If I say I prefer sushi, this creates no binding requirements upon you. You do not have to love or hate sushi, I am just informing you of my personal preference. You and I can simultaneously have different opinions about sushi. Since we are not imposing our opinions on each other through force, the possession of personal opinions can peacefully coexist.

However, if I say it is universally preferable behaviour to respect property rights, the universality of my statement creates a binding requirement upon you to respect property rights.

There are three categories of actions:

1. Morally neutral behaviour, such as running for the bus.
2. Aesthetically preferable behaviour, such as being on time.
3. Universally preferable behaviour, such as respecting property rights and not initiating force.

Aesthetically preferable behaviours, such as being on time, are preferable, but not universal. If you are sitting at home and you do not have an appointment, you have no requirement to be on time.

Also, if you are late for an appointment, you are not enforcing your will on others. You are not initiating the use of force against them, and neither are you violating their property rights. This is the difference between rudeness and immorality.

A friend who is perpetually late can be avoided or planned around – a random mugger or murderer cannot be.

Respecting property rights can be universalized, while violations of that respect – such as theft and fraud – cannot be avoided in the same way that a tardy friend can be avoided.

In other words, you need to take proactive actions to continue to be subject to violations of aesthetically preferable behaviour. You need to stay in a relationship with a rude friend, continue to arrange meetings with a tardy companion, or choose to remain in a voluntary relationship with a lover who betrays you.

The initiation of force, however, is the voluntary imposition of a violent will on an unwilling person. This principle cannot be universalized, since if the moral principle proposed says that “Everyone should impose their violent will on everyone else,” then such violent will cancels itself out. Person A should impose his violent will on person B – but person B should also impose her violent will on person A.

Since it is considered preferable to impose a violent will, then such violent impositions cannot be morally opposed – and in fact must be approved of as moral.

However, if physical aggression must be morally approved, then it is no longer violence. If I want you to impose your violent will upon me, you are no longer using violence. The difference between rape and lovemaking is that rape is unwanted sexual activity. The moment that sexual activity is desired, it is no longer immoral. A surgeon cuts you with your explicit consent – a mugger who stabs you does not.

Since the initiation of force cannot be universalized, it cannot be moral.

The Moral Framework

In science, there is the scientific method, and the practice of science. There is the framework – which is that empirical observation trumps mental hypotheses – and the requirement that experiments need to be reproducible, and so on.

Within this framework – the scientific method – the practice of science takes place. Various scientific hypotheses are proposed, compared with rationality and the empirical evidence of the senses, and sorted with regards to accuracy.

In philosophy, there is reason, and then there are specific arguments. Rationality is the framework or the methodology. The practice of philosophy is the creation of arguments.

In ethics, there is the moral framework and then there are specific ethical theories.

The moral framework requires that ethics be universal and that moral arguments be rational. In addition, moral arguments that predict and explain the practice of various moral theories – such as democracy, fascism, socialism, communism, capitalism, and so on – gain additional weight. The explanatory powers of moral theories will never be as perfect as physical scientific theories, since human beings possess free will, while individual atoms and physical laws do not. However, human beings respond to incentives, which goes a long way to explain the successes and failures of various ethical systems.

Those who propose ethical theories that are neither rational nor universal are not proposing ethical theories at all – any more than a man who proposes an entirely subjective and untestable “scientific theory” is practicing science.

Various mystical theories use pseudoscientific terms to justify subjective wish fulfilment that is supposedly inflicted on the universe. Others use actual scientific terms – quantum flux! – but without any scientific understanding or application.

Ethical theories do not directly block violent actions. For that, the virtue of physical self-defense is required.

Correct ethical theories are used to oppose incorrect ethical theories, such as those that justify the initiation of the use of force or fraud. These incorrect ethical theories, particularly when combined with the overwhelming power of government force, are the greatest dangers facing humanity.

Ethics and Nihilism

You will come across those who say, “All ethics are subjective.”

The first response to this would be to ask such a person if it is objectively true that all ethics are subjective. The key word in the statement is “are” – this is a statement of objective equivalence. The moment that a universal statement is made, universal subjectivism self-detonates.

“There is no such thing as truth” – this is a statement of truth.

The moment someone tries to correct you by using a truth argument, they cannot say that objectivity does not exist. If you say, “Ethics are universal,” and the nihilist says, “Ethics are subjective,” then he is attempting to correct your “wrongthink” by referencing objective truths. In other words, he is saying that it is objectively true – and universally preferable – to say that there are no such things as objective truth and universal preferences.

Ethics and the Coma Test

It is generally understood that a man cannot be evil if he is in a coma or sleeping deeply. While in a coma, he is not violating anyone else’s rights to life, liberty or property, and therefore he is not being immoral. This is known as the “coma test,” and is another way of reinforcing the argument that ethics must be a series of bans on positive actions.

Any moral commandment that cannot be achieved universally, even by a man in a coma, fails the test of universality, and therefore is invalid.

What moral commandments can be achieved universally?

To put it another way, which moral commandments do not contradict themselves?

Since reality is consistent, any self-contradictory universal commandment is automatically invalid. Think of a court case. If a man has an ironclad alibi, he should never be put on trial, for the simple reason that a man cannot be in two places at the same time. If the prosecution’s case requires that he be at the scene of a murder and a thousand miles away at the same time, this is an insurmountable contradiction that cannot possibly be true.

If a scientific hypothesis requires that physical matter both attract and repel other matter simultaneously, then the hypothesis proposes a contradiction, and is therefore automatically invalidated.

Any moral theory that proposes a contradiction is automatically invalidated.

If you argue against the proposition that human beings are responsible for the effects of their actions, and you directly reply to the man making that argument, you accept that he is responsible for the argument he has created. You cannot deny that people are responsible for the effects of their actions while requiring that people be responsible for the effects of their actions in order to respond to your argument – Logic 101 fail.

Morality and Property

The concept of property arises from the reality that human beings are responsible for the effects of their actions. Another way of putting this is that human beings “own” the effects of their actions.

Imagine you are child playing with your brother and he knocks over a precious lamp. Your mother storms into the room and demands to know who knocked over the lamp – why?

The simple reason is that she wants to determine who is responsible for the lamp being broken – who “owns” the breaking of the lamp.

You can certainly claim that people are not responsible for the effects of their actions, but you contradict yourself the moment you open your mouth. First of all, you create an argument that you are responsible for. If I create such an argument, and you start to rebut me, and I then tell you that I have no idea what you are talking about – I never made such an argument and it has nothing to do with me – this would be a sign of mental illness, or psychopathic levels of manipulation.

An argument is just as much a product of your body as a house, a song – or a murder, for that matter.

If you say to someone you are debating with, “You are wrong!” you are saying they have created an argument that is false – that they own the argument, and they own the “wrongness” as well.

If you say to someone, “You are a fool,” then you are saying they have done something that earns them the label of foolishness.

Arguing against property rights requires accepting property rights; it is a fool’s position.

If you clear an acre of land in an unowned wilderness, you own the cleared land, since you are responsible for it coming into being. If you cut down trees and use the wood to build a house, you own the house because you are responsible for it coming into being. Property is fundamentally about creation, not expropriation.

After high school, I spent a year or so working in the wilds of northern Ontario, gold panning, prospecting and staking claims. To establish temporary ownership over the mineral rights of a piece of land, I had to march in a square kilometer and nail metal plates to trees on all four corners. It was not an enormous amount of fun to march through bug-infested or icy landscapes in order to establish these rights – and these rights had no value in and of themselves. However, if gold was discovered and a mine was built, this process was required to establish exclusive ownership.

Without this process, no gold would be extracted from the ground. Without the capacity to establish mineral rights, no mines would be dug. It is only through the process of establishing property rights that gold is moved from an inaccessible location deep underground to the surface, to a smelter, and then eventually to a jewelry shop.

The goal is jewelry – the method is property rights.

Think of fishing – a fish deep in the ocean is not available for use. The fisherman does not create the fish, but he does transform it into a usable product. By pulling it out from the bottom of the ocean, he converts it from non-property to property. To understand this more viscerally, imagine setting up a stall in a fish market and selling not fish, but rather the right to eat a fish somewhere out there on the bottom of the ocean. How many takers would you have? The fisherman is really creating a meal, which requires that the fish be pulled from the bottom of the ocean.

Morality and Theft

Let’s say you have three people in a circle – Bob, Doug and Sally. Bob argues that the world is flat. Doug is outraged, turns to Sally and says that she is completely wrong – what would Sally do?

Surely, she would splutter and reply that she didn’t say anything about the world being flat! If Doug persists in replying to Bob’s argument by debating Sally, this would pretty much be the actions of a crazy person.

This is an irrational transfer of ownership – Doug is pretending Sally was responsible for the argument that Bob created.

Imagine you come across a murder victim in an alley. Just then, a policeman walks up and arrests you for the murder. “But I’m innocent!” you cry. You are protesting the unjust transfer of ownership of the crime. The policeman incorrectly assumes that you are responsible for – that you have caused, and therefore own – the murder.

If you cheat on a test, this is an irrational transfer of ownership. You are saying that you own your answers, which have been generated from your own studying – when in fact the answers have been generated from someone else – from cheating.

Property is control. If you take someone else’s property without his permission, you are asserting control over that property – asserting property rights – as if you were responsible for the creation of that property.

If someone else creates something, and I assert control over it without his permission, I am enjoying all the benefits of creation without any of the accompanying hardships and risks. In a very real way, I am lying about who created the object. I am pretending that I created the object – and thus should have the right of exclusive use – when in fact someone else created the object, and should themselves have the right of exclusive use.

If I buy an iPad, I am to some degree responsible for the creation of that iPad, because if no one buys iPads, none get made. Trade is secondhand creation, but creation nonetheless. (Also, I must justly own the money I used to buy the iPad – money I probably received by selling something I created or owned, such as an object or my service.)

The fact that we own ourselves and are responsible for the effects of our actions is a basic biological and moral fact – it cannot be denied without being affirmed, and thus must universally stand.

Theft and Universally Preferable Behaviour

Is it possible for stealing to be universally preferable behaviour?

No.

If stealing is universally preferable behaviour, then everyone must want to steal – and be stolen from – simultaneously.

This is logically impossible. If I want you to steal from me – if I want you to take my property – then you cannot steal from me, because the definition of stealing is that it involves taking my property against my will.

Think of it this way: you and I are throwing a ball to each other – can I throw the ball to you and receive it at the same time?

Of course not – that would require the ball be going in two opposing directions at the same time.

If I want you to take my property, you cannot steal it. If I put five dollars into the hand of a beggar, I cannot claim that he stole from me, because I am voluntarily giving him my property – I want him to take the five dollars.

Stealing occurs when the desire for property is oppositional – when the thief wants the object, and the owner wants to retain it. Their opposing desires cannot both be satisfied simultaneously.

This is how we know stealing cannot be universalized – and remember, that which cannot be universalized cannot be moral.

This is how we know that stealing cannot be universally preferable behaviour. In other words, this is how we know that respecting property rights is universally preferable behaviour.

Furthermore, stealing is a positive action – meaning you have to do something to make it happen – while respecting property rights is a negative or passive action. A man is respecting property rights while he sleeps, in that he is not stealing. Stealing requires means, motive and opportunity, and the positive action of theft.

Rape and Universally Preferable Behaviour

The same holds true for rape – defined as sexual behaviour against the will of the victim. We can never say that rape is universally preferable behaviour, for the same reasons that we can never say the same of theft. If rape is universally preferable behaviour, then everyone must want to rape and be raped. But if everyone wants to be raped, then “rape” vanishes as a moral category, in the same way that if everyone wants to be stolen from, then “stealing” vanishes as a moral category.

Assault and Universally Preferable Behaviour

There are situations where you can be beaten up, but you cannot press charges. If you entered a boxing ring with your gloves on, it doesn’t make much sense to claim that you were assaulted. Playing rough sports – hockey, in particular – always carries the risk of injury, and rarely results in criminal charges. Think of the movie Fight Club – would it make any sense for the voluntary participants in the fights to press charges against their opponents?

If I voluntarily consent to being hit – such as in boxing – no immoral action has been committed. Assault only occurs when I am being hit against my will, or under circumstances where I have not reasonably assumed that risk.

To take another example, if you enter a sadomasochistic dungeon and sign a consent form agreeing to mild forms of sexual torture, you cannot then reasonably charge your dominatrix with assault.

This is how we know assault cannot be universally preferable behaviour. Not only is it a positive action, and therefore cannot be universalized, but it comes with the same logical contradictions as proposing that rape and theft can be universally preferable behaviour.

If everyone wants to assault and be assaulted, then “assault” vanishes as a moral category.

“Not assaulting,” however, can be universalized, since it is a negative action – or a ban on a positive action, if you like – and therefore can be achieved by all people, at all times. Refraining from assault also passes the coma test.

Murder and Universally Preferable Behaviour

Murder follows the same pattern as rape, theft and assault. Murder is the killing of a person against his or her will. If “murder” is proposed as universally preferable behaviour, then everyone must want to murder – and prefer to be murdered – at the same time.

This positive obligation violates the coma test and also cannot be universalized, since murder is the act of killing someone against his will – but if murder is universally preferable behaviour, then everyone must want to be killed, which would put the killing in the category of “euthanasia” rather than “murder.”

If we assume that murder is not morally identical to euthanasia, then we can accept that the irrational proposition that “murder is universally preferable behaviour” trips over the same logical contradictions as the prior three examples. If everyone wants to murder and be murdered, then “murder” as a moral category ceases to exist.

Even if we assume that murder is morally identical to euthanasia, the act of murdering is still a positive action and thus cannot be universalized. In other words, it fails the coma test, and therefore is invalid as a moral proposition.

In hospitals, sometimes patients sign “do not resuscitate” forms. This means that, in the event of a medical emergency, nurses and doctors are not allowed to attempt to save the patient’s life.

In the absence of this form, medical professionals are required to use every available means to resuscitate the patient and save his or her life. Failure to do so would constitute grievous medical malpractice.

However, if the patient has signed the “do not resuscitate” form, working to resuscitate becomes the wrong thing to do.

A medical professional is responsible for a death if he or she refrains from applying every reasonable measure to maintain life – unless the patient has requested otherwise, in which case the medical professional has no liability for the death – and in fact may face sanctions for keeping the patient alive against his or her wishes.

Here we can see that the consent to die completely reverses the morality of the situation.

(By the way, I do support the right of people to end their own life, if they choose to. The foundation of a rational moral philosophy is the non-aggression principle, which states that human beings are not allowed to initiate force against others. We know this principle is valid because it is not a positive obligation and thus does not violate the coma test, and also because it is universal – it is entirely possible for all human beings to refrain from initiating violence against others everywhere, for all time. Given this, euthanasia does not violate the non-aggression principle, because no initiation of force is involved in the agreement. We can consent to being “stabbed” in the form of surgery, in order to cure us of a disease – no one considers the surgeon to be guilty of the crime of assault. If life itself has become a disease, and a doctor cures you with your permission, the same principle applies.)

The Ramifications of Secular Ethics

The ramifications of a rational proof of secular ethics run deep and wide, and I have discussed some of the challenging re-evaluations of existing norms in my other books and articles. Suffice it to say that placing the non-aggression principle at the centre of our moral thought completely rewrites what we think of as society from the ground up.

This may be hard for some people to work through, emotionally and intellectually, but it is essential for the moral progress of humanity.

Over the last hundred years or so, in the Western world, we have seen the unmitigated awfulness of the First World War, the Second World War, hyperinflation, a fourteen-year Great Depression, communism, fascism, innumerable genocides, the Holocaust, the Holodomor, staggering levels of national debts and unfunded liabilities, a collapsing infrastructure, ruinous and decaying public schools, ever-escalating propaganda in higher education, a migrant crisis, increased racial and ethnic tensions – just to name a few of the virtually endless disasters of the modern world.

When societies continually lurch from disaster to disaster, essential principles need to be re-examined – or created for the first time, if need be. We should not fear this examination, but rather welcome and embrace it as a difficult but necessary salvation for civilization.

We have a modern world – with its benefits as well as its disasters – because people in the past challenged essential assumptions about personal and political ethics.

Christians in the West fought and paid and bled and died to end slavery worldwide, with significant success. Slavery was a tradition as old as mankind – for well over one hundred thousand years, and probably closer to one hundred and fifty thousand – and it was ended in a matter of decades, at least in the West.

For countless thousands of years, the state and the church were unified in most Western societies. The separation of church and state – the restoration of the original Christian concept of uncoerced conscience – was eventually largely achieved, albeit after hundreds of years of religious warfare.

Free trade, unimaginable throughout most of the Dark and Middle Ages, was largely achieved from the eighteenth century onward in some European countries.

Equality before the law was largely achieved, albeit with a highly wobbly and uncertain record since.

Moral progress is a difficult and dangerous game for society. The only thing more dangerous than moral progress is moral stagnation and decay.

The Value of Philosophy

We have tried organizing society in countless different ways – none of which fundamentally involve philosophy.

Philosophers have tried entering politics – Plato took this approach in Syracuse and almost ended up being sold into slavery – but that generally meant playing by the foggy rules of sophistry, manipulation and coercion. It is dangerous to tell the truth to a society programmed to love lies.

We have tried organizing society by religion, by class, by theocracy, by tribalism, by democracy, by republics, according to the general will, via fascism, communism, socialism, through the power of the aristocracy and the influence of money over the state – we have tried just about everything except reason, evidence and universal morality.

We have tried revolutions, which impose irrational ideologies – usually by force – upon the unwilling masses. We have tried wiping traditional social values out of existence and replacing them with propaganda, which results in endless and brutal disasters. We have tried appealing to sentimentality, emotion, patriotism, racism and all the volatile and often-destructive passions of the mob. We have deployed sophistry, falsehoods, indoctrination, manipulation, superstition, ostracism for nonconformity, verbal attacks, slander, libel, endless state-sponsored violence – with the end result that we face imminent disaster as a civilization.

The appeal to reason goes back thousands of years – at least to the time of Socrates. It has always remained incomplete and fragmentary, largely because the twin tyrannies of theology and statism threatened or killed those who questioned their imaginary principles.

As free speech gained more certain footing, ostracism and exclusion were deployed to keep freethinkers out of the discussion. Academics, media personalities and owners, publishers, movie and television studio heads – you name it – the gatekeepers were always out in full force, making sure that discussion remained somewhat lively, but only within very narrow parameters.

The growth of the internet – of unfiltered conversations – has created the great gift of the possibility of reason to mankind for the first time in human history. The possibility of universal and direct speech among the curious and the thoughtful has never before existed – and is quite threatened in the here and now.

The possibility exists (in a very narrow window, I believe) that we may finally be able to submit essential questions – of good and evil, force and peace, violence versus voluntarism – to philosophy, to the twin judges of reason and evidence.

Forces opposed to philosophy – most of the existing power structures in the world, from the state to academics to the mainstream media, to public and private powermongers of every kind – gather even as you read this, even as we speak, to shut down the growing voices demanding and respecting philosophy.

Mankind has the power to think and reason, to oppose evil and support virtue. We are born with this power, but it is scoured and stripped from us through omnipresent propaganda and violence.

Our birthright is free thought; our upbringing is ever-escalating censorship and abuse.

Society remains trapped within a dismal cycle wherein economic freedoms bring wealth, wealth brings political corruption, and corruption brings social collapse. As the old saying goes, hard men bring good times, good times bring weak men, and weak men bring bad times.

The only way out of this cycle is through philosophy, through an acceptance and submission to objective reality and rationality, through the development and promulgation of universal and rational ethical propositions, and through the rejection of anti-rational ideologies.

All of this sounds wonderful – who could be against the rational? – which begs the question: Why has it yet to be achieved?

It has yet to be achieved because philosophy has yet to take down its greatest foe.

The universalization of equality under the law eliminated slavery and the various injustices against minorities. And it is working slowly but surely against the prejudices of childism – the acceptance of male and female genital mutilation; and the physical violence against, the mental drugging of, and the overall neglect of children.

Equality under the law is not a universalization, since there are those who remain above the law – not just in theory, but in practice.

The existence of centralized lawmakers – of the state – is a violation of universality and rationality, and thus remains an anti-rational moral hypothesis.

Taxation is the initiation of force to take property.

Science does not advance through voting – a scientific theory is not considered valid if fifty-one out of one hundred scientists vote for it.

Moral propositions do not become valid because the majority votes for them.

Two men in a forest do not morally get to rape a woman they find, even if all three put it to a vote.

Two crazy people do not logically get to override a mathematician who tells them that two and two make four.

Truth, reason, objectivity and virtue lie outside the collective mindlessness of the mob.

The mob voted to put Socrates to death; their vote did not make their murder moral.

Sophists love to make the mob the standard of virtue, because sophists are so good at manipulating the passions of the mob.

The Essence of Sophistry

The main purpose of sophistry – its main value to those in charge – is its capacity to create pseudo-universals.

If you can create a rule called “thou shall not steal” – and then create an exception to that rule for yourself, your group, your tribe – or your government – then you are about the most effective thief you can be.

Governments were instituted, so the belief goes, to protect property and people.

This is entirely false, as history clearly shows.

Governments “protect” people in the way that farmers protect their livestock – in order to ensure maximum continued exploitation. If governments were so interested in protecting people, then why did governments murder over two hundred and fifty million of their own citizens – outside of war – in the twentieth century alone?

Governments “protect” property because property rights promote wealth generation. Governments apply property rights to their tax livestock in the way that farmers apply antibiotics to their meat livestock.

If governments were so interested in protecting property, then why do governments take the majority of their citizens’ property at gunpoint?

Many priesthoods around the world claim that everyone is subject to the law of God, but then claim priests alone have special access to the will of their God. Ignorance of God’s law is no excuse, but only they truly understand God’s law.

Here again we see a category and an exception.

The exception is the purpose of the categorization – morality was originally invented to convince gullible people to be “good,” so they could be more easily and efficiently exploited by evildoers.

Think of the “social contract.”

In this construct, people voluntarily give up certain freedoms in order to gain the protections of the state. However, this describes nothing at all in reality. We are born subjected to the near-infinite power of the state, which can strip us of our property and freedom virtually at will, and we never sign a damn thing.

Also, note that the “social contract” is unilateral – it can only be imposed by governments upon citizens, not by citizens upon each other, and certainly not by citizens upon their government. If the government is part of society, but it is exempted from being subject to the initiation of force justified by the social contract, then we have a special sophistic exception, a pseudo-universal.

If the government is not part of society – but is composed of human beings – then we have more pseudo-universals. The concepts of “humanity” and “society” contain opposite moral prescriptions – a commandment to respect persons and property, which applies to human beings called “citizens,” and an opposite commandment to violate persons and property, which applies to human beings called “the government.”

Once you begin to see these pseudo-universals, they will be revealed everywhere, and you will understand that they form the basis for the development of almost all systems of morality.

The destruction of sophistry is the destruction of pseudo-universals and the revealing of the naked coercive power that hides behind the hidden weaponry of ornate language.

The organization of human society along the lines and arguments of rational philosophy – according to the true universals reflected in reason and empirical evidence – will finally create a sustainable society of universal freedoms. The grim cycle of history – from freedom to abundance to corruption to collapse – will be broken at last.

It is my fervent hope that you will join me in promoting philosophy – to help turn this “hope” from a destructive mirage into a true oasis that can liberate and sustain us.

Massive swaths of humanity have adapted to surviving on the shreds of power, like pilot fish living on the scraps of sharks’ meals. The transition from coercion to voluntarism will not be easy, but as long as we have free speech, as long as we have a strong will, and as long as truth and reason are on our side, it is my belief that we will prevail, and the world will become free.

If society continues as it is, the existing fascistic finance system will collapse, the food supply will falter, and untold millions of people will fight and die. This is not a vision, but a mathematical and historical certainty.

It is probably too late for everyone to be saved by words, but enough can be saved to make words worthwhile.

Perhaps more importantly, philosophy can lay the foundation for the kind of society that will arise from the ashes of coercion and anti-rationality.

The great danger is that the coming crisis will be blamed on freedom, on trade, on property rights, on free speech and voluntarism. With this kind of diagnosis, our remaining freedoms will become like life-giving trees, hacked down and used to fuel the raging fires of eternal fascism.

What we have gained, the freedoms we possess, are too precious to sacrifice, even at sword point.

Entire future generations hang in the balance of what we do now, today – the words we can wield, and the strength of our will, and the consistency of our positions.

You have freedoms because past generations did not fail you.

Do not fail the future, or there will be no future.

Sample Arguments

“Reality Is Subjective”

• I wish to take issue with the quaint notion that we can comprehend such a thing as “objective reality.” We do not, as humans, have the capacity to determine objectivity, or directly perceive what is commonly called “the real world.” Every statement we make contains the implicit premise: “as I see it!” “This is true, as I see it.” Every culture, every religion, every individual sees reality and defines truth in a different manner. And it is the mark of an uneducated person to imagine that his own personal perspective somehow translates into “true” statements about “objective reality.”
• Thank you for your statements. Are you saying it is objectively true that we cannot perceive objective truth?
• That is a foolish first-year undergraduate question, a silly trap from which there is a simple escape. The very concept of “objectivity” is what I wish to dismiss. Saying that it is objectively true that there is no such thing as objective truth would of course be a contradictory statement, but my whole point is that we should start rising above such petty tricks, and look at the true limitations of our “knowledge.”
• I do not see how that answers my question. You admit that both claiming and denying objective truth is a contradictory position, but then you deny the validity of the question, without making any further argument. It seems to me that you are denying the capacity for disproof in order to be able to make bland assertions without the requirement for reason and evidence.
• See, here is the problem again – you are talking about proof and disproof, and reason and evidence, and that is my point exactly! Such terms arise from archaic perceptions of philosophy prior to the rise of our understanding of quantum physics, Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, and other deep explorations of reality that utterly destroy even the concept of objectivity. We can call this the subjectivity hypothesis. I know it is difficult to accept emotionally, because we are so wedded to the superstition of objectivity – just as our ancestors were wedded to the superstition that ghosts lived in trees – but we must accept science and outgrow our prior limited perspectives.
• Are you saying that objectivity has been scientifically disproved by science?
• I am trying not to get impatient, but you do keep talking about proof and disproof, despite my repeated reminders that these are terms of mere historical interest, like “Zeus” and “alchemy.” Science supports the subjectivity hypothesis. Anthropology supports the subjectivity hypothesis. Cultural studies, gender studies, historical analyses – all these disciplines support the subjectivity hypothesis. Now, if you wish to master each of these disciplines and overturn the obvious subjectivity of their greatest practitioners and deepest analyses, be my guest – such a fantastic hubris is beyond my humble self.
• Do you consider science to be a subjective or objective pursuit?
• Again with these words – subjective, objective – I am saying that they are meaningless!
• No, you started this conversation by claiming that objectivity was incorrect and that we can only make statements about subjective perception. You made absolute statements – one of which was: “Whatever we say must be appended with ‘as I see it.’ ” However, you are not using your own thesis of universal subjectivity to reject my requirements for proof. Your argument that my words are archaic and should be discarded is presented as an absolute fact, not ‘as you see it.’ You make absolute statements about universal truth, and then retreat into rank subjectivism when I ask for objective proof of objective truths.
• Well of course everything I say is subjective – my point is that everything you say is subjective as well.
• Subjective – compared to what?
• There is no such thing as “compared to what.” That is my entire point! I have my subjective perceptions, you have your subjective perceptions – and that is the sum total of the human experience: subjective perceptions!
• So, when you say you know the “sum total of the human experience,” is that a subjective perspective, or an objective claim?
• It is a denial of objectivity!
• Is it a subjective denial of objectivity?
• Of course – everything is subjective!
• When you say everything is subjective, you are making a universal claim! Do you not understand that?
• If everything is subjective, there can be no such thing as a universal claim.
• I am a little confused – do you actually know what the word “everything” means? It means all things – in this case, every human perspective.
• Sure, every human perspective is subjective.
• Is it your subjective perception that other human beings exist?
• What do you mean?
• Pretending to not understand the question is usually a way of buying time, but all right, I will explain what I mean. If you say that every human perspective is subjective, you are claiming that other human beings exist outside your mind, which is an objective statement.
• I cannot prove for certain that other human beings exist outside my mind.
• Hm – now you seem to be friendlier with the word “prove,” but let us put that aside for now. If you cannot prove other human beings exist outside your mind, how can you make claims about the contents of their minds?
• I do not follow.
• All right – if I do not know how many art galleries there are in Budapest – or even if there are any art galleries in Budapest – how can I make certain claims about the pictures hanging in an art gallery in Budapest?
• I am not sure what this has to do with our argument.
• Well, if I do not know whether there any art galleries in Budapest, can I definitively say that there is no modern art hanging in any art gallery in Budapest?
• Again, you are using words like “definitively,” which I specifically reject.
• This is the problem we are having – any time I try to apply any kind of proof to the universal arguments you are making, you claim that there is no such thing as universals. You claim that all human perceptions are subjective. This requires that you have a deep knowledge of the contents of the minds of every human being, past, present and future. This is a universal statement.
• Nonsense! Do you believe that all mass has gravity?
• I do.
• Does that mean you require deep knowledge of all mass in the universe – past, present and future?
• Of course not.
• I do not require a deep knowledge of the contents of every human being’s mind to know that human beings are subjective, any more than you require deep knowledge of all mass to know that mass has gravity.
• I quite agree. When I make a universal statement about mass having gravity, I do not need to know details about every object in the universe – that is the entire point of universals.
• Then we are in agreement.
• We are, but not in the way that you want, or will like very much. We agree that you have made a universal statement about human subjectivity.
• I most certainly did not!
• You most certainly did – and you used the universal statement “mass has gravity” to supposedly argue against what I was saying. When you have a universal principle, according to your argument, you do not need specific details. You can only affirm that all human beings are subjective by using a universal principle, rather than a deep knowledge of all human consciousness. This you cannot wriggle out of – if all human beings are subjective, that is either a universal principle, or an empirical observation of universal characteristics. Either way, it is a claim of universal truth outside merely subjective human consciousness.
• Once more, you veer towards words like “proof” and “truth” and so on, when I specifically deny the validity of such language.
• Is such language universally invalid?
• You are stuck in a loop.
• No, my friend, it is you who are stuck in the loop. You make universal truth claims and absolute objective statements. When I then press you for proof or point out the contradictory nature of your statements, you merely deny the validity of truth, absolutism and objectivity. I reject such sophistry as foolish and self-serving. And so I ask you once more: Is it universally true that there is no such thing as universal truth?
• And I reply once more: There is no such thing as universal truth.
• Is that a universal truth?
• It is whatever you want it to be, my friend, because everything is subjective.
• I wish to be honest with you – I view your manipulations as destructive and cowardly. If you do not believe there is any such thing as universal truth, then why do you make philosophical arguments? Should there not be rational consequences to the rejection of particular concepts? For instance, if I claim I do not believe in ghosts, would it be honest for me to make money by leading people on ghost-hunting expeditions? If I claim to be a fishing guide while I do not believe there are any fish in one particular lake, does it make any sense for me to make money by encouraging people to fish in that lake? If I do not believe in God, am I an honourable man if I become a priest?
• Your comparisons do not make any sense to me.
• If I reject the possibility of alchemy – a magical process by which lead can be transformed into gold – then does it make much sense for me to spend my life trying to turn lead into gold?
• You can do whatever you want!
• No one is arguing against that. My question is: If I truly believe that everything is subjective, does it make any sense for me to use arguments to “correct” other people’s perspectives?
• Of course it does, if someone incorrectly believes that his consciousness can be objective!
• Here we are, right at the heart of things, and I thank you for putting your argument so concisely. You believe my perspective is incorrect, is that right?
• Of course. That should be obvious by now!
• If everything is subjective, how can I be incorrect?
• You are incorrect if you believe that something can be objective.
• That is not true. If everything is subjective, then all human perspectives are a matter of taste. If I say I like French fries, can you rationally contradict me? Can you tell me that I am wrong?
• Perhaps not, but if you say French fries are universally the best, then I can tell you that you are wrong.
• How can you tell me I am wrong? With reference to what? The reason I am asking is because when I attempt to disprove your arguments, you reject any standard of proof for objectivity or universality or comparison with material reality. Why could I not do the same to you if you attempt to disprove my belief that French fries are the best?
• I do not follow.
• If my subjective belief is that human beings can be objective, how can you disprove my perspective?
• Well, if everything is subjective, believing that objectivity is possible is incorrect.
• Why?
• Because it is a contradiction. It is a belief in something that is not true to say that human beings are capable of objectivity, since all human consciousness is subjective.
• So now you are willing to entertain the reality that a self-contradictory statement is incorrect. Earlier, when I pointed out that your statement that “it is universally true that there is no such thing as universal truth” was contradictory, you rejected self-contradiction as a valid reason to dismiss your argument. Now, you are embracing self-contradiction as a valid reason to dismiss my argument. The only thing that has changed is that in this scenario it is I who make the self-contradictory argument, whereas previously, it was you who made the self-contradictory argument. This is not a fair application of the principle, to apply it only to me, while excusing any self-contradictory arguments that you make. This is really a “heads I win, tails you lose” scenario.
• Now I am confused.
• No, you are not confused, you are just wrong.

“There Is No Such Thing as Free Will”

• Free will is an illusion. The human brain is composed of matter and energy, which are physical objects and properties. Such entities are subject to physical laws, which do not allow for free will. Saying that human beings choose their destiny is like saying that the moon chooses its orbit. Free will is the belief that human beings have the power to make choices outside the material realm of physical reality – in other words, that we are inhabited by a wilful ghost that is able to magically surmount the laws of physics and generate material states of mind from immaterial causes. Studies have repeatedly shown that human beings merely think they are making choices, when brain scans can clearly see that the origins of their “decisions” occurred deep in the mind, and then are only rationalized after the fact by people holding on to their precious superstition of free will. We are programmed by our minds to act – and we are also programmed by our minds to believe in free will, which mostly arises out of a superstitious lack of knowledge regarding the scientific reality of determinism. Prior to having physical explanations for natural phenomenon – storms, volcanoes, tsunamis – we projected an imaginary consciousness onto the material world. It is understandable, although regrettable, that largely through a lack of scientific understanding, we still project an imaginary consciousness called “free will” onto the material brain. It seems hard for people to let go of the soul, or the imaginary friend called “free will,” because it takes away their sense of specialness, as well as their ability to morally castigate others for their “failings.”
• There is a lot to digest in what you said. I will try to take things one step at a time. When you say that free will is an illusion, do you mean that an accurate understanding of the world – you refer to science very positively – is preferable to false beliefs about the world?
• Of course, we should always prefer truth to illusion, no matter how hard it is for our fragile egos – or for our illusion that we even have an ego.
• It does seem odd to me, I will confess, that you criticize those who believe in free will for morally castigating others, but you seem to refer to such people in derogatory terms. However, we will return to that later. First I wish to understand your position, that there is such a thing as a preferred state – for example, truth over falsehood – when the deterministic position would imply that there is no such thing as a preferred state.
• Determinism does not deny the existence of preferred states.
• Well, if it rains on your wedding day, you would be unhappy, but you would not take it personally – in other words, you would not ascribe negative moral qualities to the weather for ruining your special day.
• Of course not. That is my entire point!
• Would you say that it is possible for the weather to have a preferred state?
• I do not follow.
• Is it possible for a storm cloud, say, to prefer raining on a lake rather than a meadow?
• If I follow you correctly, no, I do not think it is possible.
• Can you think of any condition under which a storm cloud would – or could – have a preferred state?
• No.
• Now I am confused – is not your entire argument that the human mind is functionally indistinguishable from a storm cloud?
• Both are composed of matter and energy, yes.
• Right – and would you say that matter and energy can themselves have any kind of preferred state? In other words, could it be possible that the moon would prefer to be closer or further away from the earth in its orbit?
• No, the moon could not prefer that.
• Is there any form of matter or energy that could have a preferred state?
• Not that I can think of – and certainly not according to my arguments.
• And that is what is most remarkable about the deterministic position. You say the human mind is exactly the same as every other aggregation of matter and energy in the universe – and that it is utterly ridiculous to ascribe singular qualities to the human mind – while at the same time you ascribe singular qualities to the human mind, setting it aside as utterly different from every other aggregation of matter and energy in the universe.
• I do not see how I am doing that!
• Let me show you this hand puppet, which I will call “Ned.” Now, you are having a debate with me – with my mind – which seems like a rational course of action to you. You say that I have no more free will than this hand puppet, but I assume you would consider it insane to continue this debate with my hand puppet instead of with me.
• Now you are just being silly.
• That is not an argument. Do I possess more free will than my hand puppet?
• No, neither of you possess free will.
• All right, then why is it sane to debate me, but insane to debate Ned?
• I am not sure what you are getting at.
• I think that you are sure, but you are just stalling and pretending ignorance in the hopes of making my argument look foolish.
• That is also not an argument.
• How right you are! Let me try another approach. Let us say I am getting married in a hall with a retractable roof. During the ceremony, it starts raining. What should I do?
• Well, close the roof of course.
• I am in my wedding best and I do not know how to close the roof – what should I do?
• Get someone familiar with the building to close the roof.
• Exactly! Alternatively, I could scream up at the clouds to stop raining, or I could attempt to ask the roof itself to close.
• You mean, talk to the roof?
• Yes, exactly. Wait – does that seem a little crazy to you?
• Well it does not seem exactly sane, and if I were getting married to you, I do not think I would complete the ceremony.
• I think that would be wise! So, it would be sane to talk to a person about closing the roof, but it would be insane to talk to the clouds, or the roof itself. My question is: Why?
• I am not sure why you would ask that.
• The reason I would ask that is because you are telling me that there is no difference between the cloud, the rain, the roof – and the human being I would ask to close the roof. All are mechanical, predetermined objects, with no free will of their own. Why would I only talk to the person, if the person is exactly the same as everything else? If I see three apples in front of me, I say each of the apples is exactly the same, and yet I will only eat the first apple and would consider it insane to take a bite out of either the second or the third apple, can my perspective that the apples are exactly the same be rationally sustained?
• No, if you will only choose one of the apples and strongly reject the others, they cannot all be the same.
• Thank you – that is my perspective as well. Therefore, you need to explain to me why the apple you call a person is so different from the apples you call the cloud or the roof.
• If I understand your question correctly, the answer is simple. The person has an input system called the senses, which the cloud and the roof do not. If you beckon to a person, or call him over, he is capable of perceiving your request, and changing his behaviour accordingly. If you ask him to close the roof, he has ears, and will hear you – while the roof has no ears, and cannot hear you.
• An excellent answer! If I am a singer, and record a song, my recording device has inputs, does it not?
• It would not be much of a recording device if it did not.
• Now, if my song wins an award, would it seem sane or crazy to you if, at the awards ceremony, my recording device received the award?
• What?
• Being in possession of an input device – whether it is a microphone jack or a set of ears – makes no material difference in the deterministic universe. An input device does not magically provide an entity with free will. For instance, it is easy to instal microphones on the side of a computerized robot and then program it to respond to various inputs. Here we have a machine that responds to external stimuli. Would you say that I have granted such a robot free will?
• No, of course not – that is why I am arguing that neither human beings nor robots have free will!
• Have you ever argued with a robot?
• Not unless you are a very well-made robot!
• While funny, jokes will not save your argument. How many arguments or debates have you had with human beings?
• Hundreds, perhaps thousands.
• Well that seems entirely bigoted of you, my friend! All those debates with human beings, but none whatsoever with robots? Again, we are back to square one: you say that human beings are exactly the same as robots, but would consider it crazy to argue with a robot, while it’s perfectly sane – valuable even – to argue with human beings. It cannot be due to the presence of inputs, since robots can easily have inputs as well – in fact, almost all do.
• So you are saying that I should argue with a robot? The difference is that I know what the robot is going to respond with. I do not know what you will respond with.
• That is not necessarily true – the robot could spit out randomized numbers or randomized phrases, which would be unpredictable. Also, you do not know what form a cloud is going to take in the next minute, but that does not mean you will stand in a field like King Lear and scream at the clouds, right?
• Human beings are far more complex than anything you are talking about here – far more complex than rain or clouds or roofs or robots or anything like that!
• Ahah! Now we are getting to the heart of things, and I appreciate that comment – though by your face you may have some idea where this will now go. You are saying that complexity can breed an emergent property – a property or characteristic that is greater than the sum of its parts.
• I am not sure I am saying that.
• Well, let me explain to you what you are saying! No individual atom has the power to reverse or arrest the direction of light, correct?
• Each atom affects the direction of light.
• Of course, but no atom can itself reverse the direction of light.
• That is correct.
• However, if you gather enough atoms together into the form of a black hole, light has no power to escape its gravity well. In other words, the property of “arresting the direction of light” – which is possessed by no individual atom – is possessed by an aggregation of atoms called a black hole.
• Are you saying that atoms possess free will?
• Please try not to jump ahead of what I am saying. All it does is indicate that you are not listening. Life is composed of atoms, is that correct?
• It is.
• In particular, the carbon atom. Would you say that any individual carbon atom possesses the quality called “life”?
• No.
• Certainly not, since there are countless carbon atoms that are not alive or part of any living organism, and therefore carbon atoms cannot innately possess the characteristic called “life.”
• Correct.
• Now, although no individual carbon atom is alive, is it fair to say that particular congregations of atoms – and energy of course – can be part of a living organism?
• Certainly.
• This is an example, I am sure you will agree, of an emergent property – the emergent property called “life,” which is possessed by none of the individual components of a living organism.
• This does not prove free will at all!
• I agree, but it does get us in the right direction at least. Would you say that an individual atom has the property of locomotion, or eating, or reproducing itself?
• No.
• An individual carbon atom cannot run across the African plain, but aggregated into the form of a lion, so to speak, it can. Individual atoms cannot produce other carbon atoms, but through insemination, pregnancy and birth, animals can.
• This seems all rather elementary.
• I agree. Let me ask you this: Does any individual atom in your brain have the capacity to engage in a debate?
• No – three of them act together, though, and I win!
• Again, funny is not right. You are engaging in an action – debating – that relies on a vast and stacked pyramid of emergent properties. No individual atom can clean your blood, but your kidney can. No individual atom can breathe, yet your lungs work. No individual atom can form words, yet I hear you speak – no atom can debate, yet here we sit.
• I cannot dispute what you are saying.
• At least, not without affirming it! So, your position is that there are countless emergent properties, but that free will cannot possibly be one of them?
• Are you saying that is an inconsistent position?
• It is inconsistent with your first position, which is that atoms have no free will; therefore, human beings have no free will.
• That is still my position!
• No, it is not a position; it is an anti-rational specific.
• I am not technically aware of that term.
• If my entire existence as a human being relies on emergent properties, but my argument denies the possibility of emergent properties, I am in fact a walking self-contradiction.
• I do not deny the existence of emergent properties. I just affirmed them!
• You did, right after I reminded you of their existence – at the beginning of the debate, you denied emergent properties.
• Nonsense, I only denied that free will was an emergent property.
• No, you said that human beings have no free will because atoms have no free will – which is a subset of the proposition that human beings can have no properties not possessed by individual atoms themselves.
• I never said that about all emergent properties!
• No, your argument did not accept that life and locomotion and debating are all emergent properties, but then specifically reject emergent properties in the realm of free will – which would have been honest. Instead, you relied on a base reductionist materialism, saying that all free will was a superstition, a ghost in the machine, without referencing any other emergent properties that might oppose your argument against free will.
• Now you are just pretending to read my mind.
• No, I am simply referring to what you said. However, you are correct in that I cannot prove your state of mind when you make these highly specific points. Now that you admit emergent properties exist, you must now prove there is no possibility that free will is an emergent property.
• I refer you to the numerous scientific studies that show human behaviour can be predicted fairly accurately with deep brain scans of the subconscious motivations for supposedly conscious decisions. People think they are choosing whether to click on a red or blue icon on a screen, while their subconscious mind has already made that decision for them.
• Even if we accept all these studies as true – although their accuracy rate is never 100 percent or even very close – the entire purpose of science is to achieve the preferred state of truth or accuracy, which implies that there is such a thing as a preferred state, which requires the concept of free will. The moment you say it is true that there is no such thing as free will, you are accepting that there is a preferred state called truth, which human beings should voluntarily choose.
• Do you not think that the truth is preferable?
• Here we have it – in order to correct me during this debate, you must constantly slip into using the language of free will. “Truth,” and “preferable,” and “choice,” and so on.
• I cannot reject all of the existing habits of language. If I say that there is no such thing as God, am I religious for having used the word “God”?
• I am not sure what that means, but it does not address my argument. If you say that I should choose to accept determinism and reject free will, can you not see that that is a contradiction?
• I want you to embrace the truth, yes.
• Do you think that is preferable for me to choose the truth?
• Of course!
• Then you have already accepted that there is a preferred state, and that I have the capacity to compare the contents of my mind to that preferred state, and choose better. If that is called being a determinist, then I guess I am a determinist as well, since only the labels differ, not the contents of our arguments.

“The Senses Are Invalid”

• I wish to take issue with the naïve notion that we have some kind of direct conduit to reality through the mechanism of the senses. Everything that comes to our mind through the senses is narrow, incomplete and fragmentary – and people who imagine they can assemble some universal and coherent view of the universe through the tiny windows of the senses are delusional.
• I have noticed that those who oppose universals always start off with insults – pairing negative emotional terms with the arguments of their opponents. For instance, you have referred to arguments for the validity of the senses as “naïve notions” and to those who hold such beliefs as “delusional.” I am generally suspicious of people who begin a debate with subtle – and not-so-subtle – insults, because if you have really good arguments, I do not see the need to start by insulting your opponents. When I teach my child that two and two make four, I do not need to be insulting; that is the mark of bad faith – or suspect reasoning, to be more precise.
• I am sorry if you were offended by my argument.
• And now you heap further offense upon me by implying that I could be offended by a mere argument, removing any causality for offense from you, by stating that any offense is my subjective perception only. But we shall never get anywhere this way. I merely wish to express a certain frustration that I have with people who start by being offensive, who then pretend the offense is only the subjective perception of their victim. Let me start by asking you on what grounds you find the senses deficient. Are our eyes deficient because they do not see X-rays or infrared, and so on – and are our ears faulty because they hear less than a dog’s ears?
• The senses are deficient, my friend, because they promote limited, fragmentary information, which often does more to misinform than to enlighten the mind.
• All right, let us start here. Are the senses deficient in what they process, or what they do not process? In other words, I certainly accept that our eyes do not see everything that could be perceived in the universe – that is a limitation, of course. My question is: Are the eyes also deficient in what they do see?
• I do not follow.
• When I look at a tree, I see the outside of the tree on the side I am facing. I do not see the heat signal of the tree, I do not see the history of the tree, I do not see inside the tree, and so on. My eyes and perspective are certainly limited. My question is: Are the senses faulty because they are incomplete, or because they are inaccurate even in what they can process? In other words, I cannot see inside the tree, but do I accurately perceive the bark on the outside of the tree that I am facing?
• I believe that the senses are incomplete, and also that they are inaccurate in what they do perceive.
• All right, thank you. Since we both agree that the senses are incomplete, we will put that aside for now. Can you tell me in what way the senses are inaccurate in what they do perceive?
• Well, when you look at a tree, you only see what the light reveals, at your particular angle, and in the level of detail your eyes allow.
• Yes, I certainly accept that the eyes are limited. They do not see at the atomic level, and they do not operate in the absence of light – but is what they do perceive accurate?
• I am not sure what you mean by the word “accurate.”
• Excellent, let us define our terms. In this context, “accurate” means the eyes provide a true portrayal of things in the world, given the limitations of detail and spectrum and so on.
• So, your big value-add to the definition is to provide a synonym?
• Now it is I who do not follow.
• Well, you say that the word “accurate” is defined by the word “true,” which does not seem to add much to the conversation.
• A good point. Here, let me grab a cup and draw a circle by tracing the top turned over on the table. Now, when you look at what I have drawn, do you see it as a circle?
• That is actually quite a complicated question.
• I agree.
• It is certainly not a perfect circle, would you agree?
• I would agree. A perfect circle cannot be delineated in the world, using material objects, since there will always be ragged edges and imperfect rotations, and so on. A perfect circle can only be described mathematically, not manifested materially. In that, I quite agree with you that the senses are imperfect relative to concepts – however, just because something is imperfect does not mean that it is the same as everything else.
• Continue?
• Well, is there such a thing as perfectly clean water?
• No.
• Of course – perfectly clean water is expressed in science as two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom. Water does exist in the world in this form, of course – it is the essence of water, so to speak – but it is always mixed with other materials to one degree or another. However, the fact that there is no such thing as perfectly clean water does not mean that all imperfections are the same. If I hand you two glasses of water – one from the tap, the other from a muddy puddle – which would you drink?
• I would drink the tap water.
• Good. Accuracy, in other words, is not a binary proposition – the senses are not either valid or invalid, but inhabit a kind of continuum, wherein they can approach accuracy, or move further away. An archer can never hit the exact centre of a bull’s-eye with his arrow, but that does not mean there is no difference between an archer who hits the red and an archer who misses the target completely.
• That makes sense to me. However, the senses can easily fool us, in the case of optical illusions, mirages and so on.
• Let me ask you something. Have you ever tried to take a picture, but then realized you left the lens cap on the camera?
• Of course, although these days it is more of a thumb on the cell phone camera instead.
• Would you say that the camera is not working if you leave the lens cap on?
• No, I would not say that.
• I would not either, for the same reason that I do not complain of blindness every time I close my eyes. My eyes are functioning; they are just covered by my eyelids. In the same way, when we stand on a set of train tracks, the rails look like they are joining together in the distance, when we know they are actually running parallel, because they would be unusable if they merged together.
• Exactly, the senses are faulty.
• Are they? Do the eyes inform me directly that the train tracks merge together?
• I am not sure what you mean.
• Let us suppose I am hiking in some distant woods, and I think I hear the growl of a bear. My heart starts pounding and my palms become sweaty – but then it turns out I am just hungry and it is my stomach that is growling.
• That is quite an appetite!
• Is it the fault of my ears that I thought a bear was approaching?
• Certainly.
• But my ears are just organs of receptivity – they do not know anything about bears or the woods or anything like that – because these are all concepts, which only really exist in my mind.
• Well, without entering into the truly thorny woods of concept formation, I agree.
• So, it is not in my ears that the idea of “bear” arises, but rather in my mind. In the same way, if I am sitting in a hotel room and think it has started to thunder outside, but it turns out it is just guests in the upstairs room moving furniture around, the concept of “thunder” and “furniture” do not exist in my ears, but rather in my mind.
• Are you saying that the senses can never make mistakes?
• My, my – you really are a big fan of binary absolutes, aren’t you? The question here is: Which organ is making the mistake? In the above examples, it is not the senses, but the brain that is making the mistake – thinking that the stomach’s growl is a bear’s growl, and that the moving furniture is thunder in the sky. This is not the fault of the ears, which are accurately transmitting vibrations in the air – this is the fault of the mind, which is drawing erroneous conclusions from the raw data provided by the senses.
• Yes, but listen – a man who is colour-blind sees only shades of grey, when there are in fact vibrant colours – this is not the fault of his brain, but rather of his eyes.
• Certainly, I agree – and the reason that we have the word “colour-blind” is because it is a deficiency in the eyes relative to the capacity of eyes in general. We do not really have the concept of “X-ray blind,” because human beings do not have the capacity to see X-rays directly. The fact that certain senses are faulty does not invalidate the senses as a whole – we know they are faulty because they do not possess the capacities of senses in general. A man in a wheelchair does not invalidate the fact that men in general walk.
• Yes, I can see that.
• Now, I am not saying that the senses are always perfectly accurate or that they can see everything – but I am saying there is reliability in what the senses can perceive. Your argument would be much stronger if we had only one sense to work with. However, we can walk down the abandoned train tracks and see that the rails never do in fact touch together. In this way, we understand a rational limitation of our senses – our eyes, in this case – and that our idea that the rails come closer together is false.
• Wait a moment – what do you mean by saying “rational limitation”? Are you saying that the eyes are designed for some rational purpose, by some rational being?
• Not at all. In our evolution, it was highly advantageous for our eyes to focus on that which was closer, rather than further away. Picking apples was more important to us than seeing a distant tree, and so the fact that the apple appears bigger to us makes perfect sense.
• And that is my point – you have put it precisely! Our sense organs are designed to serve our survival, rather than the truth.
• This seems to posit the idea that our survival has nothing to do with an accurate perception of things in the world, such as food and shelter and predators – is that what you mean to say?
• Well, almost all organisms have some capacity to perceive the world. That does not mean they are in possession of the truth.
• Very true. The relationship between concepts and the senses – conceptualization being a unique human capacity, as far as we know – is rich and complicated, but is not directly necessary for the resolution of this discussion. The question before us is: Are the senses valid? If the standard of validity is a perfect perception of every aspect of matter and energy in the universe, then we have an impossible standard to achieve. It is like asking if a man is intelligent relative to omniscience. Referring back to the circle I drew earlier, it is certainly not a perfect circle – in that we completely agree – but would you ever look at it and say that it is a square, or a spiral, or a dodecahedron?
• No, assuming the conventions of language.
• Is it closer to a perfect circle than a square or a spiral?
• Yes, I suppose so.
• You are hedging, which defies what you just said, which is that you would never look at my circle and say that it was a square or a spiral. But let that pass. Now, if you and I are standing in a field, and I point at a boulder and call it a “tree,” am I correct?
• What if it is a boulder that has been carved into the shape of a tree?
• That is clever, but that would still not be a tree, which is why you had to refer to it as “a boulder that has been carved into the shape of a tree.” Again, assuming the conventions of language, would I be correct to call a boulder a tree?
• No, you would not be correct.
• There are things I can say about a tree that are on a continuum. If I say a particular tree is “tall,” that is a somewhat relative statement. It could be a tall bonsai, or a short redwood. However, there is no continuum between a boulder and a tree – that, I grant you, is binary. Something is either a boulder, or a tree, or something else – it is never half-and-half.
• I am going to say nothing about petrified wood.
• I appreciate that. When I talk about a tree or a boulder, I am talking about the atomic structure of such objects. Even though I cannot see the atoms directly, they form the basis of the aggregation of matter that impacts on my eyeballs through light waves. Different atoms result in different objects. Just as there is no continuum between a carbon atom and a hydrogen atom, there is no continuum between a boulder and a tree, correct?
• There could be, if you measure weight or mass or height – these are characteristics that they would both possess.
• That is true, but incomplete.
• How so?
• Well, height or weight or mass are measures common to all aggregations of matter. They would not be on a continuum between a boulder and a tree, but would rather be characteristics of all mass.
• Fair enough.
• So, in their capacity to accurately provide the information necessary for my brain to distinguish between a boulder and a tree, is it fair to say that my eyes are accurate?
• They are accurate, I think you are correct, but they are still incomplete.
• Incomplete – relative to what?
• Relative to all the available information in the world.
• I do not see how it is rational to use a yardstick entirely out of range of the capacities of what you are measuring. Do I call a man illiterate because he has not read every printed word in human history? Do I call a man deaf because he cannot hear a dog whistle or Roger Taylor’s falsetto? More importantly, do I call a man blind because he cannot see infrared? This seems like a silly and irresponsible standard, to hold everything finite as inconsequential according to a yardstick of infinity. A man who lives for only one-fifth of a natural human lifespan dies young. Saying everyone dies young because they should all live to be a thousand does not really add much to human knowledge or wisdom, would you say?
• The senses are still limited, though.
• Well, something is limited around here. All right, let me ask you this, so we can devolve from abstractions to the immediate. You say that the senses are faulty, correct?
• Correct.
• Now, in the sentence “The senses are faulty,” which word falls short of perfection?
• I do not understand.
• In order to communicate your argument that the senses are faulty, you must use my hearing to process your words. What is the perfect form of the sentence “The senses are faulty,” and in what way does that sentence, when communicated through the senses, fall short of that perfection?
• Still not following, sorry.
• If you write down on a piece of paper the sentence “The senses are faulty,” then each word would not be perfect, each letter would not be perfect, but in what way are the concepts that are communicated imperfect or faulty? In other words, when I drew the circle, the circle was imperfect – in what way is the concept that the circle represents faulty?
• I do not see that it is.
• Exactly. If I put two ping-pong balls in front of you and use them to illustrate that one and one make two, the ping-pong balls are not perfect – they are slightly different sizes and shapes and weights and colours and so on – but they transfer the concept that one and one make two perfectly, would you not say so?
• I think so, but I am still trying to follow.
• I understand. You rely on the senses to transfer concepts and arguments to me – in this case, my hearing – in other examples, my sight. All the senses are incomplete, you say, or imperfect – but that is not the real issue. The real issue is whether perfect concepts can be transmitted through an imperfect medium. If we are talking over a bad phone connection and I tell you it is raining where I am, this does not tell you how hard it is raining, or which way the wind is blowing, but you do perfectly comprehend the concept of rain, despite the poor communication and limited information. And the reason I am talking about all of this is because if we cannot communicate concepts using our imperfect and incomplete senses, then we cannot engage in debates at all. In other words, by engaging in a debate with me, you are assuming that incomplete senses can accurately transmit concepts. You are telling me that my senses are faulty – this requires that my senses be accurate enough for you to transmit your argument to me. Now, if my senses are actually faulty, you should not use them to transmit your argument, any more than I should drive confidently across a bridge I know has half-collapsed. If you do rely on the accuracy of my senses to communicate an argument about the senses, then denying their validity is self-contradictory.
• I think I see your point.
• If there is no better medium for communicating arguments than the senses, then the senses are good enough. If there is a better medium, I await your psychic conversation.

“Ethics Are Subjective”

• The idea that ethics are scientific or objective is a laughable notion, only sustainable through a back-alley ignorance of the proliferation of ethical theories throughout the world, not to mention throughout history. Every tribe has its own gods, its own moral absolutes and its own superstitions.
• I see – and is it your perspective that every ethical statement is subjective?
• Of course, that is what I just said.
• Then are the statements you are making about ethics also subjective?
• Excuse me?
• Arguing that ethics are subjective is making an objective statement about ethics.
• Not true at all – if I say artistic taste is subjective, I am not making an objective statement about artistic taste – I am confining it to the category called “subjective.”
• You are making an objective statement about artistic taste – you are saying all artistic taste is subjective. In other words, you are not saying that only some artistic taste is subjective. Let me ask it another way – is it your subjective opinion that ethics are always subjective, or is it an objective fact?
• It is an objective fact.
• Excellent – now is it better or worse to have opinions that are true, as opposed to opinions that are false?
• Well, if they are true, they are not really opinions, are they?
• Well said. Is it better to believe things that are true?
• Yes, of course.
• In other words, it is universally preferable to believe true things, rather than false things.
• I am churning my brain trying to think of exceptions to that rule, since I have a deep aversion to universality, because it is so easily broken with a single exception. Yes, I can think of one – if a man is dying from a car crash and his wife and child have been killed, is it better to tell him the truth before he dies, or to pretend that they have been saved?
• I do not think it matters what happens in the last moments of life.
• That is not an argument.
• Tell me, do you think it is important to eat in a healthy manner?
• Yes.
• Do you think it is important for a prisoner condemned to execution to have a healthy last meal?
• I see your point.
• I assume you would not also suggest he spend his last few minutes on this earth exercising, although I am sure that you would agree that exercise is important in life. We can all think of exceptions – or at least what seem like exceptions – to general rules, but this does not necessarily invalidate the rules completely. It is a bad idea to drive significantly over the speed limit, unless you are being chased by criminals or fleeing a tsunami, or are bleeding out from a bad cut. I think we can safely say it is generally better to believe true things, rather than false things, would you agree?
• Let us say that I grant you conditional agreement.
• I will take that for now. If it is better to believe true things, then those who tell you true things – who are honest – are acting in a better manner, are they not?
• Let me think about that for a moment.
• There is not much need, I think. If believing true things is better, then liars lead people away from believing true things, which is worse behaviour. If truth is universally preferable to falsehood, then those who serve truth are universally preferable to those who serve lies. We cannot propose a universally preferable state – truth – and then be indifferent to those who facilitate that state, or who interfere with it. I cannot argue that health is better than sickness, and then be indifferent to a poisoner. If health is better than sickness, then those who serve health are better than those who serve sickness.
• That would seem to follow.
• Thank you – now, what is your definition of ethics?
• What people believe they should do.
• I am not sure that is complete enough – or perhaps it is too broad. If you talk to people, they believe they should floss and brush their teeth, wouldn’t you say?
• Yes, they do.
• Would you say that flossing and brushing your teeth falls under the category of ethics?
• I would not say that, although I could not say exactly why.
• It does seem different than knocking someone else’s teeth out, right?
• Yes, it does.
• I am not inflicting injury on someone else if I fail to brush my teeth, but I am if I knock their teeth out.
• Yes, but this is my problem with most ethical discussions. This difference may feel right, and it may be hard to imagine society operating without this distinction, but none of these are actual arguments – they are appeals to feelings and sentimentality and history and culture and momentum.
• I agree – the fact that brushing versus hitting feels different is not an argument, but we should not be indifferent to our instincts about this difference. Our instincts can have important ramifications for rational arguments – they are not proof, but they can spur our ambition to understand deep and complex questions.
• All right, I appreciate that admission – it is rare, when speaking of these issues.
• I am not going to pretend at all that these questions are easy to answer – and also, I am not going to pretend that there is necessarily an answer.
• Good.
• Now, do ethics in general speak about what people do, or what they think?
• Ethics generally deal with actions, not thoughts.
• I agree. Now, the actions that ethics deal with, are they words, or deeds?
• Ethics generally deal with deeds, not words. There are exceptions, such as shouting “fire” in a crowded theatre.
• That is true, but if you shout “fire” in an empty theatre, no one has any problem with that – it is not the word “fire” that is the issue, but rather the resulting panic and flight and destruction, if there is in fact no fire.
• Agreed.
• I think it is fair to say that the word “good” refers to deeds, whereas the word “right” refers to thoughts or words or arguments. We think of good and evil deeds, and right and wrong thoughts or arguments.
• That is the common conception. I agree with that as well.
• I will use the word “behaviour” when talking about ethics since the word “deed” has more than one meaning.
• Fine.
• Now, if we define ethics as “universally preferable behaviour,” then we have a starting point for our examination.
• I do not mind the convention at all, as long as you recognize that definitions are not proof.
• Totally true and understood. Now, we must first ask the question: Is universally preferable behaviour a valid concept or proposition? In other words, is there any such thing as “universally preferable behaviour”? It certainly does not exist in the world in the way that a tree or a cloud does, so UPB must exist within the mind only.
• I agree with that as well.
• Now, the fact that it exists only in the mind does not necessarily make it subjective or invalid. A mathematical equation exists only in the mind – the scientific method itself exists only in the mind, not in empirical reality – but this does not mean that mathematics and science are subjective or invalid. A blueprint is not a bridge, but this does not mean that a blueprint is a purely subjective or invalid or irrelevant document. Would you agree?
• Again, conditionally yes.
• So, first we must ask: Are there any behaviours that could possibly be universally preferable? Please note this does not mean universally preferred – preferable means “able to be chosen,” not “always chosen.”
• I cannot think of any behaviours that could be universally preferable.
• Does this mean you wish to argue against the validity of universally preferable behaviours?
• You know, I really think I do. Wait a minute – I am just thinking… I am trying to find a way to argue against UPB without requiring UPB.
• That is quite a challenge, I admit.
• If I tell you there is no such thing as UPB…
• Exactly. You require UPB in order to deny UPB.
• Can you break that out for me a little bit please?
• Of course. If you tell me there is no such thing as UPB, you are making a universal statement that no one should enact the behaviour of advocating for UPB. In other words, you are saying that it is universally preferable behaviour to reject the validity of universally preferable behaviour.
• That is remarkable! I – I am having trouble formulating an argument against what you are saying.
• Now, you are beginning to see the power of UPB. It is impossible to argue against it without saying that truth is universally preferable to error, and that it is universally preferable to speak the truth, rather than speak falsehood. This dovetails nicely into what we were talking about earlier. Actually, this is very good news. Now that we have established that UPB is a valid concept – or at least, we have established that it is impossible to argue against it without invoking it – we have crossed a major hurdle, and now all we need to do is figure out which behaviours can be universally preferred.
• That is quite a Rubicon – I feel that I am in uncharted territory, very radical uncharted territory.
• It is a terrible thing, when you think about it, how radical mere consistency actually is in the world. Nothing is more revolutionary than consistency. Shall we continue?
• I am quite excited – I had meant to oppose you tooth and nail, but I find myself swept up in this idea.
• Thus we must remember to be cautious, since enthusiasm is quite often more a friend to ideology than to truth. Shall we begin?
• Yes please.
• To take the concept of UPB one word at a time, the first word is “universally” – which is not an accident. If no behaviours are in fact universally preferable, then we have no right to ever correct another human being, or to use accurate words to describe objects or concepts, or to reply directly to the person who has made an argument, or to do anything that makes any kind of sense. The power of universality is the power to correct. Without universality, a “debate” is the mere imposition of manipulative will. Anyone who tells you that you are wrong and attempts to correct your viewpoint, accepts UPB entirely.
• I certainly follow that.
• The second word is “preferable,” which in itself does not primarily refer to behaviours that should be chosen, but rather those that can be chosen. If a behaviour cannot be universally preferable to human beings, then it cannot fall under the umbrella of UPB. “Universally preferable” must refer to something that can be chosen by everyone, at all times, and under all circumstances. Do you agree?
• I do agree. If I say that something is universally preferable, that is either my opinion, or it is an objective argument. If it is my opinion, then it cannot be universal. If it is an objective argument, then I cannot reject either objectivity or universality. If I say that I like dogs, this is a statement of personal preference, not an objective argument about the nature of dogs. If I personally prefer dogs, it is not incumbent or binding upon you to prefer dogs as well. However, if I say that dogs are warm-blooded, that is a statement of objective fact.
• Right. And if we say that it is universally preferable to reject objective facts, we are saying that it is an objective fact that it is universally preferable to reject objective facts, which is a self-contradictory statement. Shall I go on?
• Please do.
• The third word is “behaviour.” This refers to measurable actions that occur within empirical and objective reality – a definition that is entirely to be expected, since UPB refers to objective universals. Thoughts cannot be objectively measured or ascertained in the absence of the objective behaviour that transmits those thoughts in empirical reality. We cannot read minds, but we can read a book. When I speak or write – or hand gesture – I am converting my thoughts into an objective medium. Please note that this does not mean that all my thoughts are objective – I could say, for instance, that I like ice cream, which is not an objective claim. However, the words I use to express my preference for ice cream do exist in the objective world.
• I see.
• Also, there is another important reason to talk about behaviours rather than thoughts, which is that we have almost infinitely more control over our behaviours than our thoughts.
• I am reminded of the old story about the man who is commanded to sit on a mountaintop all night and to not think of an elephant.
• Exactly. Ethics require at least a minimal level of self-control. If a man accidentally strikes another man while in the throes of an unforeseen epileptic fit, we do not blame the first man morally or charge him with assault. We treat it as an unfortunate accident, since he does not have control over his limbs in that moment.
• I agree.
• So, when we talk about UPB, we are really talking about behaviours that are possible for all human beings to choose simultaneously. This is why, in UPB, positive action cannot be a requirement for ethical behaviour, since it is impossible for all human beings to perform a positive action all the time, everywhere. If we say that it is universally moral to give to the poor, this cannot pass the test of UPB, since it requires both gift givers and gift takers, which are not the same category at all. Also, it is impossible to give to the poor while one is sleeping or in a coma – and if we give everything to the poor, we then become poor, and we are then in need of the opposite action, which is not to give, but to receive.
• Are you saying that it is immoral to give to the poor?
• Certainly not – there are positive behaviours that are preferable, just not universally preferable. It is preferable to be on time, but it is not universally preferable to be on time, since we are not all perpetually arriving at an appointment. We can certainly make the case that it is preferable to give to the poor, but it cannot be universally preferable to give to the poor, for the reasons described above.
• I see. Do all behaviours fall into the category of preferable or universally preferable?
• No. While it is true that every action taken by a human being is an action he or she prefers, it is not the case that individual preferences can be extrapolated to generally preferable, or universally preferable. I prefer to listen to a particular piece of music while I write – this does not mean that listening to music, or a particular piece of music, is generally preferable while writing – or even that writing is generally preferable. When you are reading, you are not writing – and there would be little point writing if there were no readers.
• Is there a consistent way to delineate between personally preferable, generally preferable, and universally preferable?
• Once we understand that ethics are a relationship, rather than a commandment, these differences become much easier to understand.
• What do you mean?
• Can a man be evil if he is alone on a desert island?
• I don’t know. Foolish perhaps. Lazy. But not evil. No.
• I agree. Evil is done unto others, not to nature, and not to oneself alone.
• Suicide?
• That is not evil. Tragic, destructive to the happiness of others, but not evil. If a man destroys a stranger’s car, that is the destruction of property and it is immoral. If he destroys his own car, we do not call him evil and he is not prosecuted. The same is true of a human life.
• So – is there a consistent way to delineate between personally preferable, generally preferable, and universally preferable?
• Since ethics only manifest in relationships, we need to look at the question of reciprocity. Reciprocity is the extension of personally preferable actions to mutually preferable actions. It is more of an obligation than a commandment.
• I do not follow.
• Tell me – are you obligated to lend money to a stranger?
• No.
• Are you obligated to lend money to a friend who has himself lent you money in the past?
• Certainly more so than a stranger.
• Right – if you have a rule called “friends lend each other money” – and you have taken advantage of this rule in the past by borrowing from your friend, then refusing to lend your friend money is breaking the rule. It is not a contract, so not enforceable, but it is a mutually preferable action, in that it is not a universal rule, but a privilege earned between friends.
• I see.
• Personally preferable actions do not involve reciprocity. Mutually preferable actions imply local reciprocity, and universally preferable behaviours are commandments that enforce universal reciprocity, such as: I respect your property and person, while you respect mine. For example, flossing my teeth does not involve reciprocity, while punching someone else’s teeth out rejects reciprocity. I want to punch someone; my victim does not want to be punched. I can see by your face that this is not a proof, and I quite agree with you.
• I am glad I did not have to say it.
• If I wake up and choose to listen to a piece of music, this is my personally preferable action. If you and I agree to meet for lunch at noon, we have created a mutual expectation of reciprocity, which is that we will both meet at noon or close to it. If I help you move to a new house, it is with a reasonable expectation that you might perform a similar favour for me one day. We choose to interact with each other, and neither of us is imposing our behaviours on the other.
• But if I am late for our lunchtime meeting, I am forcing you to wait.
• I do not agree – you aren’t forcing me to do anything, because I can stay or leave as I see fit. Also, I have voluntarily entered into the arrangement to meet you at noon.
• So, no direct coercion is involved.
• Exactly. If you are repeatedly late for our appointments, I can stop being your friend, or at least stop arranging to meet you at a certain time. If I keep doing you favours, but you keep rejecting my request for favours, I can just stop doing you favours – no one has coerced me into anything.
• However, if someone robs you…
• Then we are in an entirely different situation. There is neither an implicit nor explicit contract, and I am not free to do as I choose. By pointing a gun at me and demanding my wallet, the thief is imposing his violent will upon me.
• Theoretically, though, could not stealing be universally preferable behaviour?
• No, because stealing is taking someone’s property against his will. If stealing is universally preferable behaviour, then I want the thief to take my wallet. However, if I want the thief to take my wallet, he is not stealing from me. If I put a table on my front lawn, by the road, with a sign that says “Take Me,” then I cannot reasonably call someone a thief for taking the table. In other words, it is not theft if I want my property to be removed. If you rip my jacket from my shoulders and run away, I could call you a thief. However, if my jacket is on fire and I beg you to rip it off me, the same standard can scarcely be applied. When you think about it, the same holds true for rape, assault and murder. None of these can be universally preferable behaviours, because they only occur when one person wishes an activity to happen, while the other person strenuously does not wish for that activity to happen, as in the case of rape. “Consensual rape” is an oxymoron, because rape only occurs when sexual activity is not wanted by the victim. When you think about ethics, they always exist at the coercive intersection of opposing desires.
• Again, theoretically, we could say that imposing desires could be UPB.
• We cannot, though. If all human beings have the right to impose their desires on other human beings, then each imposition cancels out the other impositions. If I have a desire to take $10,000 from you, while you have the desire to keep your $10,000 – but it is universally preferable behaviour to impose desires on others – then my desire to take your money collides with your desire to keep your money, and the principle cannot be universally achieved.
• I am astounded – could it really be that simple?
• Outside of propaganda, you would really be surprised how simple virtue really is.
• Thank you.
  

Afterward: Inevitable Criticisms

In professional wrestling, mullet-haired monster men often snarl at each other before matches, engaging in the time-honoured tradition of trash talking. The purpose of this is to build anticipation for the match.

It would be a very odd thing if, after weeks of trash talking, only one of the wrestlers showed up for the fight.

It would be considered an act of supreme cowardice to trash-talk an opposing athlete while refusing to show up for the actual event.

The same process often occurs in philosophy, wherein an opponent slanders you, insults you, surrounds you with a fiery moat of negative adjectives, while never actually addressing the content of your arguments.

The actual fight is about the reason and evidence presented – everything else is just a distraction. Albert Einstein, remarking on a group of scientists who had signed a document stating he was wrong, said that one scientist proving him wrong would suffice.

If you have the capacity to actually prove someone wrong, you do not need to be hostile or insulting. You do not need to imagine malevolent motives on the part of your opponent, you do not need to insult their intelligence, education, writing skills or appearance – you just need to clearly show where he or she is wrong.

We all know this, but many people seem to constantly forget it at the same time.

I have been reasoning, reading, debating, writing and arguing in the realm of philosophy for over 35 years. I have an Ivy League education at the master’s level, and my dissertation was a deep thesis on the history of Western philosophy, for which I received top marks. For many years, I have had the privilege of hosting the world’s largest and most popular philosophy show, with over half a billion views and downloads. I have interviewed hundreds of subject-matter experts in a wide variety of fields, debated both professionals and laypeople on many complex topics, written half a dozen books, and been interviewed myself by friends and foes alike.

None of this means my arguments are correct, of course – I could have achieved all of this and still be spectacularly wrong. There are many thinkers with greater credentials than I have, whom I consider to be spectacularly wrong. Neither credentials nor experience fundamentally matter in terms of the argument. I bring all of this up because no doubt I will be attacked and scorned with regards to experience or credentials or what have you. I am wrong, some will say, because I do not hold a PhD in philosophy from Harvard or Yale.

This is a fascinating position – I really cannot call it an argument – because the entire history of philosophy is the history of rejecting authority in favour of reason and evidence. Academic philosophers with doctorates worship Socrates; Socrates had no doctorate and scorned arguments from authority. As the saying goes, all science is founded on scepticism of authority. With philosophy, it goes even further. All philosophy is founded on hostility toward authority.

Philosophy is the ultimate democratic discipline. Rational philosophy holds that individuals are entirely capable of processing reality, of reasoning effectively, and of coming to the right conclusions. Philosophy empowers individuals with the capacity to push back against irrational or anti-rational authority using their own individual capacity for thought.

Generally, a refusal to rebut the content of an argument is a confession of cowardice, incompetence or malevolence. Insulting your opponent – at least, absent clear rebuttals to arguments – is a betrayal of philosophy, not its fulfilment.

This is not to say that philosophers must engage with every person who makes a mistake. We do not want to become like the hapless husband in a famous cartoon, who says to his wife that he cannot possibly come to bed yet, because someone is wrong on the internet. However, when someone of prominence and influence is publicly making bad arguments, philosophers are honour-bound to push back against these errors. We do not have to argue with a crazy man on the street corner who is waving a Wingdings pamphlet at rain clouds, but egregious errors from a prominent person tend to stand unless and until we correct them.

If you refuse to engage in such a necessary debate, clearly that is because you fear losing, or you fear anyone coming into contact with your opponent’s ideas. However, if you can effectively rebut bad arguments, why on earth would you fear their increased exposure?

You might fear the exposure of bad arguments because you imagine that the majority of people cannot think and will end up buried under the verbal dexterity and sophistry of a well-credentialed street preacher.

I accept that as a possible position – but then your job should be to instruct the masses on how to think, or at least how to think better, instead of engaging with a sophist who cannot be distinguished from the philosopher by the untutored multitude. Maybe you cannot stop all the sugary commercials aimed at your children, but you can at least educate your children about the dangers of sugar.

If you call your wrestling opponent a coward, but then refuse to show up to the fight, your criticism is utterly exposed as projection – it is you who are the coward.

If you call your intellectual opponent wrong, but then refuse to show up to the debate, your attack is utterly exposed as projection – it is you who are wrong.

The more extravagant your trash talking of your opponent, the more your cowardice is revealed when you refuse to fight him.

The more hysterical your abuse of your intellectual opponent, the more your cowardice is revealed when you avoid debating him.

A number of words and phrases show up as distinct “tells” for intellectual cowardice. I am sure I will receive some of them, so it is worth going over them briefly. As I said above, for philosophy, prevention is by far the better part of cure.

Generic Pejoratives

Calling someone’s argument “reductionist,” or “simplistic,” or “amateurish,” or “unconvincing” is a boring way of saying that you are too cowardly or stupid to engage in a debate. If someone’s ideas are worth insulting, then surely they are worth rationally rebutting first.

Calling someone a misogynist, a cult leader, a racist – we all understand that none of these are arguments; they are confessions of intellectual cowardice and impotence. If you show up to an oncologist  to have him remove a deadly tumour, and he spends half an hour verbally insulting it, would you consider yourself cured? If you go to an optometrist to get help with blurry vision, is your problem solved if your optometrist merely rails against the greed of the eyeglass industry, or says that all vision is merely subjective, so how do you really know that your vision is blurry?

Another trick is to call someone “overambitious” or “grandiose,” or to imply that the problem is far more complex than he assumes – without addressing the content of his arguments. I am fully aware that I have taken on enormous philosophical problems in this book and claimed to have solved them. This is an ambitious project to be sure – calling it “overambitious” is not an argument.

Another trick is to call an argument “incomplete,” which is a variation of the “no true Scotsman” fallacy. All arguments are “incomplete,” because language has limitations, we are mortal, readers have lives to live, and all resources are finite. I may not have read arguments for determinism written in ancient Aramaic, or I may have failed to address the ethical arguments of a particular Indian philosopher – and I may not have rebutted some article against me – but so what? If the definition of “complete” is pretty much synonymous with “omniscient,” it can be safely discarded as a ridiculous standard. Dragging thinkers off to continually research and respond to everyone else’s thoughts is just a silly way of ensuring that thinkers remain cripplingly unoriginal. If you cannot paint a picture of a boat until you have lived at sea, studied the history of boating, and learned the details of every other picture of a boat, then clearly the purpose of all those restrictions is to stop you from painting your own picture of a boat.

It’s a trap!

Let us say that a man named David comes up with an argument called X. Let us say that you wish to oppose argument X, but without actually engaging with the content of the argument – here is another silly trick. Find some other argument that David has made that is generally unpopular – we can call this Y. Now, instead of engaging with argument X, you can instead wave around the red flag of argument Y, and hope – usually correctly – that the resulting howls of mob outrage about argument Y drown out your lack of rational rebuttal to argument X.

Another approach is to create a fiery language moat of ostracism around David, to the point where no one feels safe engaging with him. If you can portray David as so crazy, so evil, so malevolent and so ridiculous that to even engage with him is to give him more credibility than he deserves, then you can sink original thought in the foggy canyons of social aversion. This is not always an incorrect position – since such crazy people certainly exist – but it is invalid in the face of significant popularity. I do not spend any time rebutting the personal paranoias of inconsequential individuals – but when someone like Karl Marx remains so popular, he is prominent enough to deserve exposure and rebuttal.

Here is another way you can avoid getting into the ring with a strong thinker – find the least popular person who likes that thinker’s arguments, and then promote that unpopular person as a “guilt by association” representative. If David Duke retweeted you once, that means that you and David Duke are pretty much the same person! The beauty of this cowardly move is that you never have to apply it to the thinkers that you like – such as Barack Obama and his association with Louis Farrakhan.

Exposing the personal hypocrisies of your opponents can also be a rich vein of avoidance-mining. If Albert rails against government subsidies, but once had a job at a company that took government subsidies, you can just point out that fact and think you have done something to dismantle Albert’s arguments against government subsidies. As before, the beauty of this is that you never have to apply it to those you like. Karl Marx, while simultaneously railing against the exploitation of workers by bosses, impregnated his maid, then tossed her out into the street. This is not brought up by Marxists, of course, but any remote inconsistency on the part of their opponents is shot into peoples’ eyeballs like reddish fireworks.

Pointing out that someone has been wrong in the past can also be a good way of getting out of a potentially humiliating debate. Being wrong is a natural consequence of making arguments – to wait for perfection is to stagnate in perpetuity. Could we have gotten to Einsteinian physics without going through Newtonian physics? It is doubtful. Saying that someone is wrong now because he has been wrong in the past is like saying you can easily beat a world champion boxer because he once lost a fight in the past.

Perhaps your intellectual opponent has an esoteric area of interest that has nothing to do with his current argument, which you can highlight with the goal of insulting his general competence. Sir Isaac Newton was obsessed with alchemy and mysticism. Is it not far easier to point that out than to learn and rebut his general mathematical and physical theories? Christopher Hitchens was ridiculously enamored of the child murderer Che Guevara, but that has little relevance to Hitchens’s argument against the existence of God. If Hitchens claims to be a good judge of character, this can certainly be brought up as a counterexample, but its scope should be limited to the argument at hand.

Pointing out that a moralist has done something immoral does not necessarily invalidate that moralist’s ethical theories. If a televangelist who rails against infidelity has an affair, this does not automatically invalidate all of his prior arguments against infidelity – especially since Christianity itself states that everyone is a sinner and temptation is everywhere. Dr. Benjamin Spock’s grandson committed suicide – I have heard this fact used to support spanking, since Dr. Spock disapproved of the practice.

Not an argument.

At an even baser level, you can use flattering photographs of intellectuals you like, while using unflattering photographs of those you dislike. You can use positive adjectives to describe those who agree with you, while using negative adjectives to describe those who oppose you. For example, I have been described in the mainstream media as “a former IT worker.” I co-founded and grew a successful software company, like Steve Jobs, but I have never seen Steve Jobs referred to as “a former IT worker.”

If you like a thinker, you can quote his admirers – if you dislike a thinker, you can quote his detractors.

If you dislike a group of thinkers, you can create a label to describe them, and then infuse that label with as many pejoratives as possible. For instance, you can call people part of the “far right,” “extreme right,” or “alt-right,” and then hope – usually successfully – that people’s internal autocorrect transforms those labels into the ideologically required “fascist” or “Nazi.” You can label anyone who wishes to preserve his country’s culture as “far right/Nazi,” and then hope no one notices that Israel has a very strong desire to preserve its own culture, which means that, in this insane formulation, Jews are in fact Nazis.

You can also deride everyone on the left as a “snowflake,” even when leftists have powerful and legitimate criticisms of Western imperialism, traditional Republican warmongering and the military-industrial complex.

You can also divide a group of thinkers into “acceptable” and “unacceptable,” and woo those you deem acceptable with favourable articles and attractive photographs, in the hope – usually successful – that they will then start avoiding those you deem unacceptable. Bribing selected people with positive coverage is a great way of splitting a movement and turning it against itself.

Another way to deplatform a thinker is to manufacture a hysterical controversy and then continually refer to that controversy in the future. Repetition sinks reputation, and actual arguments are never addressed. This also serves as a standing threat against anyone who even dreams of taking a similar position.

Inevitably, you will hear that my arguments are reductionist, or simplistic, or incomplete, or that I have not addressed so-and-so’s argument, or that I have a bad reputation, or that I am not a philosopher, or that I avoid legitimate debates, or I am disliked, or I am grandiose, or that I was wrong about something sometime, or someone bad liked something I said once. You name it – the mud is thrown, while only hitting the gullible and ignorant.

Do not fall for the silly tricks. Do what I do – just skim the article, or speed up the audio, and see whether any actual arguments are addressed.

If not, just understand that the words are a foolish moat around a necessary treasure – and that the writer or the speaker is a mere fool, full of sound and fury, whose life signifies nothing but cowardice.

---

^[1] K. N. Smith. “Your Political Beliefs Are Partly Shaped By Genetics.” D-brief. August 5, 2015. http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/d-brief/2015/08/05/political-beliefs-genetic/.

^[2] Hanna Rosin. “Men Are Raped Almost as Often as Women in America. We Need to Talk About This.” Slate Magazine. April 29, 2014. http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2014/04/male_rape_in_america_a_new_study_reveals_that_men_are_sexually_assaulted.html

^[3] M. Lipka. “10 facts about atheists.” Pew Research Center. June 1, 2016. http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/06/01/10-facts-about-atheists/

A Manual for New Tax Farmers

Hey - seriously - congratulations on your new political post!

If you are reading this, it means that you have ascended to the highest levels of government, so it's really, really important that you don't do or say anything stupid, and screw things up for the rest of us.

The first thing to remember is that you are a figurehead, about as relevant to the direction of the state as a hood ornament is to the direction of a car - but you are a very important distraction, the "smiling face" of the fist of power. So hold your nose, kiss the babies, and just think how good you would look on a stamp. A stamp, for mail... No, not email, mail. Never mind, we'll explain later.

Now, before we go into your media responsibilities, you must understand the true history of political power, so you don't accidentally act on the naïve idealism you are required to project to the general public.

Human Livestock - A History of Tax Farming

The reality of political power is very simple: bad farmers own crops and livestock - good farmers own human beings.

This is not nearly as simple as it sounds, hence the need for this manual.

The very first thing to remember is that you are a mammal, an animal, and like all animals, you want to maximize consumption while minimizing effort. By far the most effective way to do this is to take from other people, just as a farmer takes milk and meat from cows.

In the dawn of history, this predation occurred in the most base manner, through brute cannibalism. While this may have proven effective in the short run, it fell prey to the problem of consuming your seed crop, in that it provided only a few meals, whilst re-growing more human livestock took over a decade.

And, it was pretty gross. Sometimes, even after you washed your food, it was too smelly to eat. (Interesting fact: deodorant was first invented as marinade.)

The husbandry of human ownership took a giant leap forward with the invention of slavery, which was a step up from cannibalism because instead of using people as food, it used people to grow food, which was a much more sustainable model, to say the least. And far less smelly.

Slavery was an improvement to be sure, but it limited the growth of the ruling class because it could not solve the problem of motivation. Turns out, if you treat people like a machine, they end up with the motivation of a machine, which is to break two days after the warranty ends, haha.

Anyhoo, the basic reality of human ownership is this:

1. First, you must first subdue the masses through force

2. Then, you maintain that subjugation through the psychological power of ethics.

People think that ethics were invented to make people good, but that's like saying that chastity belts were invented to spread STDs. No, no - ethics were invented to bind the minds of the slaves, and to create the only true shackles we rulers need: guilt, self-attack and a fear of the tyranny of ethics. Whoever teaches ethics rules the herd, because everyone is afraid of bad opinions, mostly from themselves. If you do it right, no judgment will be as evil or endless as the one coming from the mirror.

This is all fairly straightforward - however, the ethics required to control slaves requires the creation of a paradise after death that they can look forward to, if only they continue to obey their masters. This harvests the muscles of the slaves, but not their minds, which remain depressed and alienated and otherworldly and, well, economically fairly useless. Basically, you're saying "Hey, let's double down, shall we? I'll trade you pretty much everything in this life for everything in the afterlife, mmmkay?" It really only takes a moment's thought to realize that anyone making that deal has no belief in the afterlife - I mean, look at the gold palaces of the Pope, for heaven's sake! - but frankly, a moment's thought appears to be a moment too long for most people.

Tragically, slavery had its limits. Slaves have to be treated as apes that can be verbally commanded, which provides the ruling classes sophisticated control over their muscles, but permanently breaks the most valuable resource of the human crop - their minds.

The Roman Empire perfected the slave-owning model, but inevitably ended up creating too many dependent slaves, which triggered the slow economic collapse of the entire system. (For more on this, see the section on current conditions below.)

After the Dark Ages, when the ruling classes had to suffer the indignity of retreating into the dank attics of the Church, the feudal model emerged.

The feudal approach improved on the direct slave-owning model by granting the human livestock ("serfs") nominal ownership over land, while taking a portion of their productivity through taxes, military conscription, user fees for grinding grain and so on. So instead of owning folks directly, we just let them sweat themselves into puddles on their little ancestral plots, then took whatever we wanted from the proceeds -- all the while telling them, of course, that God Himself appointed us as masters over them, and that their highest virtue was meek subservience to their anointed masters, blah blah. Again, you might be thinking that, historically, God seems to have had a very soft spot for the most violent, entitled and warlike of His flock - and if meek submission was a virtue, why was it not practiced by the rulers, and so on, but don't worry; you need to just put these entirely natural thoughts right out of your head, because once the people become enslaved, basic reasoning just short-circuits in their tiny minds, so that they do not see the cramped horrors of their little lives.

Anyway, the evolution of medieval serfdom split society into four basic groups:

1. The ruling class (aristocracy);

2. The church (propaganda);

3. The army (enforcement) - and;

4. The serfs (livestock).

The aristocracy - of which you are now a proud member - reaped the rewards; the Church controlled the slaves through ethics; the Army attacked those not subjugated through ethics, and the Serfs paid for the whole show. (The modern equivalents are: the political masters, the media, the police and the taxpayers.)

Since they had partial custodianship of the land, medieval serfs had at least some incentive to optimize their agricultural productivity, and so starting from about the 12th century, significant increases in farm production created the excess food required for the development of cities, the natural home of the ruling classes.

The economic development of cities remained dependent upon the rediscovered Roman law, which was not a free market/private property legal system, and so economic productivity remained relatively stagnant, at least compared to the 18th century to the present.

Medieval guilds were ridiculously inefficient, forcing father-to-son transmission of livelihoods, requiring ridiculously lengthy apprenticeships designed to raise barriers to entry, denying advertising and marketing opportunities, and so on.

Furthermore, the Catholic Church had banned usury, or the lending of money for interest, which prevented investment in economic improvements. (This was largely due to the fact that the Church, and the Aristocracy it served, did not want to pay interest on its debts.)

(All of these early economic inefficiencies hindered the development of democracy, which requires enormous reserves of capital, used as collateral to bribe voters in the present with the money of the future.)

The splintering of Christendom into warring factions during the Reformation created new opportunities for capital accumulation and loans, and the economic warfare that resulted was really a conflict between medieval capital inefficiencies and the new investment efficiencies available under Protestantism - and Judaism to some degree. Naturally, the religion that was able to borrow the most won, and lending money for interest became an established practice throughout society, thus paving the way for the Industrial Revolution.

Also, after hundreds of years of bloody religious warfare where priests were effectively trying to gain control of the military might of the state, in order to impose their doctrines on everyone else, the separation of church and state became a matter of base survival. Prying religious doctrines away from government policies meant that some vaguely rational approaches to property rights and trade could be achieved, which gave rise to arguments for free trade, notably by Ricardo and Adam Smith.

When you stop trading in God, you can start trading in goods.

Starting in the 17th century, the agricultural productivity that the cities depended on began to falter. Serf landholdings were willed to sons, which created increasing fragmentation of properties, and inevitable inefficiencies in sowing and plowing. The ruling classes, eager to remain in the cities rather than go back to the damp and dirty countryside, forced the enclosure movement on the peasants, consolidating landholdings and driving hundreds of thousands of serfs off their ancestral lands. This almost immediately increased agricultural productivity, saving the cities - while creating a massive army of cheap labor which, having no land to farm anymore, inevitably ended up looking for work in towns.

The conditions were thus ripe for the Industrial Revolution - capital freedom, a mass of cheap labor, some free trade, excess food, and the growing religious skepticism which resulted from the wonderful advances of the scientific method, followed since the 16^th century.

It was at some point during this period that the greatest leap forward in human ownership came to pass, which was the simple genius of allowing the livestock to choose their own occupations.

At one fell swoop, the problem of livestock motivation was largely solved - at least until the present. Rather than eat the human livestock, or own them directly, or force them into specific occupations, a free market was created for the source of wealth, while the enslavement aspect was shifted to the effects of wealth, i.e. wages and capital.

Labor was free, wages were taxed - this was the greatest leap forward in human farming history! All prior ruling classes were revealed as incompetent parasites, compared to the brilliant manipulations of the modern human harvester!

The economic predations of the ruling classes still remained, but became largely invisible. Tariffs and duties were buried in the prices paid by consumers, who had no comparison prices to see their effects. The softening of the visible whip to a kind of leeching fog gave the livestock the perception of freedom - and they all stampeded to work, to wealth, and to fatten our tables in a way we had never dreamed possible!

The trapped entrepreneurial energies of the human herd were thus unleashed for the first time in history, producing a staggering superabundance of wealth and products and services, portions of which were hoovered up to the ruling classes to a degree never before experienced!

The benefits were clear, the productivity increases astounding - but the complications of managing this semi-free horde of human livestock rose exponentially as well.

The first and greatest danger was the shift from aristocracy to meritocracy, or the reality that greater wealth could be accumulated through trade and creativity rather than tax pillaging and the control of state violence. (This was same danger faced by the Church in the shift from superstition to science.)

The rising entrepreneurial class created an uncomfortable split within society, in which the benefits of the aristocracy began to be openly questioned. Societies like America were founded without any aristocracy at all - and aristocracies across Europe faced mounting rebellions, and sometimes outright extinction.

The aristocracy did not want to crush the entrepreneurial class - since it was so wonderfully productive - but it could not allow itself to be eclipsed by these entrepreneurs, and so another unnamed genius came up with a delightfully playful solution called incorporation.

The entrepreneurial classes wanted to maximize their profits, of course, and sometimes this came at the expense of the workers. In the early 19th century, citizens had access to a common law legal system that allowed them to bring suit against their employers for death, mutilation, pollution and so on. The capitalists wanted to avoid these legal attacks of course, but no one wanted to explicitly strip the workers of these rights, otherwise they would become aware of their enslavement, and would lose their motivation, and we would be right back to the Middle Ages again, which no one wanted at all!

Across the Western world, government after government introduced the concept of incorporation, a brilliant stroke in the annals of human ownership! Incorporation created a legal fiction called a corporation which shielded entrepreneurs, capitalists, managers and owners from most legal repercussions for their misdeeds - and even losses within their businesses!

Entrepreneurs could now take money out of this "corporation" and keep it for themselves, while if any legal action succeeded against them, or their businesses lost money or went into debt, it was now the "corporation" and "shareholders" and employees that paid the price, and no one could ever come after their personal assets. It was like a casino where you kept your winnings, and strangers paid your losses.

In return for extending this legal shield to the capitalists, our political class took a cut in the form of corporate taxes - most of which came from dividends and wages of course. This effectively trapped the entrepreneurs in the service of the state, ensuring that they would never seek to eclipse or make redundant the political class, since they were now dependent upon State power for the maintenance of their legal shield and one-way economic privileges.

The 19th Century

The 19th Century was a wildly creative time in the history of human livestock ownership. The amazing productivity unleashed by the privatization of labor, and the partial socialization of wages, created such prosperity that the necessity of the ruling classes itself was called into question.

Furthermore, the increased education and economic initiatives of the working classes threatened the economic value of the managerial classes. The workers achieved almost complete literacy, and possessed excellent work ethics, legal knowledge and social networks, including the so-called Friendly Societies, which shielded the poor from destitution through any of life's many accidents.

The supply of those able to manage thus increased, which drove down the price of management - which was not exactly welcomed by the existing capitalists.

The traditional solution to increased competition from the poor was to ban books and education, inflict religious guilt about materialism, or start a war - none of which were politically or economically advantageous at the time. Openly banning education for the children of the poor would have reintroduced the "OMG I'm a total slave!" demotivation problem; religious belief was waning, while war would have destroyed all the new capital that the ruling and entrepreneurial classes were enjoying.

In a brilliant stroke, the ruling classes and the Church conspired to create a false educational "emergency." In conjunction with a large number of resentful and underperforming teachers, public school education was introduced with the stated goal of improving the skills, abilities and intelligence of the poor.

Naturally, the true goal was the exact opposite. Rather than focusing on practical, economic and entrepreneurial knowledge, government schools quickly shifted the educational focus towards patriotic history, rote memorization and recitation, Latin and Greek, and an endless plethora of other useless and boring trivia. This was the sports equivalent of forcing your competition to take naps instead of training, resulting in a truly delightful absence of competition for medals. Government schools created dull, resentful drones only fit for taking orders, so the threat to the managerial class was averted. (All this started in Prussia, which was medieval, mystical and militaristic, which should have been something of a clue for everyone, but again, thought hurts, apparently.)

One of the four pillars of the human farm, the Church, faced mounting challenges in the 19th century, as the increased secularism of the Industrial Revolution and the growth in the empirical value of the scientific method undermined the superstitious terrors of the Middle Ages.

Sensing that the power of their God was on the decline, the clergy began casting about for a new home. Their expertise was in sophistic ethics, remember, rather than political power, and so they came up with a wonderful idea that allowed them to bring their brilliant historical lies into politics, but without having to enter into the sordid knuckle fights of base democratic electioneering.

In a word: socialism.

Socialism, or communism as it is sometimes called, is merely a secular religion, where the State becomes a god. It has its good and evil, its creation myths, its eventual heaven where the State withers away, its ruling class of ethical liars, and so on. Priest as Plato, you get the picture...

Suddenly, instead of heaven existing in the afterlife, it was promised in this life, as soon as government programs succeeded. (The afterlife is far more likely!) The new Socialist clergy promised an end to poverty, injustice, illiteracy, shortness, baldness - any word they could get their grubby hands on - and of course anyone who disagreed with these fantasies was immediately portrayed as pro poverty, injustice, illiteracy etc. Of course, just as the moral guilt of religion can never create virtue, government programs can never create paradise, and so a perpetual motion machine of social control was started, where the supposed "solutions" just created more of the same problems.

Religion and Kiddies

Religion has always been used to support and extend the power of the State, through a number of powerful psychological mechanisms, always inflicted on children.

First of all, in religion, success is guilt, and failure is legitimate need. Creating guilt among economically successful people plants a seed that flowers into a guilty parting with their property for the sake of "helping the poor." (Notably, priests never seem to get round to attacking their own successful head priests, or the successful political systems they support and enrich.)

Secondly, religion excels at creating nonexistent entities, and then promoting a class of specialized liars who claim to speak for those entities. Thus you have a "god," and a priest who speaks "for that god." In socialism, you have the poor, and you have those who speak "for the poor." (Notably, it doesn't really matter that socialists almost never come from "the poor," such as Marx and Engels, two unemployed rich kids who claimed to have earthshaking insights into the poverty-stricken working classes, who were actually getting richer.)

Thirdly priests, like politicians, promote arbitrary but universal ethics, while excluding themselves from the moral rules they impose, which is the most fundamental attribute of any ruling class, as we will see below.

Fourthly religion - again, like the State - promotes wonderful traps in the form of false dichotomies. For example, if you don't want to the State to steal your income in order to "help the poor," then according to religion you must hate the poor. This is like saying that if you object to getting raped, you must hate lovemaking.

We could go on with this, but since religion has been so thoroughly absorbed into the State in the form of socialism, there's little point in examining its medieval corpse.

The Modern World

In the past, society was so poor that the aristocracy had to be hereditary in order to maintain its economic wealth - this is no longer the case, due to the massive productivity increases of the relatively free market. Now, a successful politician can easily gather enough wealth to last several generations - or forever if handled wisely - in just a few terms. This has allowed for the development of the illusion that the tax livestock control something we call "democracy."

Because we can steal so much wealth in such a short amount of time, the ruling classes have agreed to rotate in and out of power, in order to maintain the illusion that there is no ruling class. This rotation is essential to maintaining the optimism of the livestock by giving them the belief - almost always false - that they too can join the ruling class. This means that the ruling class is no longer directly exclusive, but rather somewhat permeable, at least at the fringes.

(The modern democratic system has the advantage of transferring literally trillions of dollars from the workers to the rulers - a plunder unprecedented in human history - but the logic of our system is inherently self-destructive, which is why it is important for you, as a new political leader, to make sure that you extract as much money as possible before the whole house of cards comes crashing down. We will tell you how to do this later.)

The democratic system only really came into its own with the abandonment of the gold standard, and the introduction of merely paper currency. Governments in the 19th century - and before - were limited in the amount they could bribe supporters and dependents by the amount of gold they had in their vaults. Gold cannot be created by printing presses, and so abandoning the gold standard (the capacity for citizens to redeem paper money for gold) allowed the printing presses of government bribery to work overtime, creating a good deal of the so-called "wealth" of the post Second World War period.

Democratic governments - like all governments - are all about the forced transfer of wealth from the productive to the unproductive. When the creation of money was limited by actual gold, it was more or less a zero-sum game. When you stole from one group to give to another - always taking your cut - it was a direct reduction and increase of wealth in the present, which was not only highly evident, but also gave the group being stolen from a good deal of incentive to fight the theft.

With the introduction of fiat currency, this all changed. The unimaginative ascribed this to the advent of Keynesianism, but the truth is that fiat currencies predated Keynesianism, and Keynesianism was merely the intellectual cover for the greatest intergenerational theft in history.

When governments can print their own money, politicians can sell future generations off to bribe supporters in the present - and shaft the poor at the same time! If the government adds 5% to the currency in circulation, those closest to the government get to spend that money first - at the prior valuation, before inflation hits - and then, as the additional money spreads through the economy, the price of everything rises, since you have more money relative to goods than you had before, and those at the bottom and the outskirts of the economy - generally the poor, and those on fixed incomes - get hit the hardest.

Thus printing money serves two major purposes - first, it gives free cash to politicians to bribe their supporters; second, it creates and exacerbates poverty on the outskirts of the economy, thus giving an excuse for politicians to raise taxes, create more government programs (and thus more supporters and dependents) and print more money, thus closing the circle.

Fiat currency also allows for luxurious indulgences in social engineering - you can create "wars" on everything (since war is the health of the State, just as the State is the health of war) - drugs, poverty, prostitution, gambling, illiteracy, sickness - whatever. This creates more and more people dependent on State payouts, and scares everyone through terrifying attacks on ordinary human vices. It also changes the kinds of people who want to become enforcers - sorry, "cops" - but again, more on that later.

Unfortunately, the relationship between increases in the money supply and inflation has been too well established and understood to be of much use anymore. Capital markets are always on the lookout for the overprinting of money, and punish governments by increasing the price of their bonds, or downgrading their credit ratings. This is just another reason why we are approaching the end of the current cycle of human ownership.

The second trick that governments can use to bribe those around them is to refrain from pumping money directly into the economy, but rather to create imaginary money, and use it to buy their own government bonds. All this does is push the liability of the repayment of bonds - both interest and principal - into the future. It is a mere accounting trick, like just about everything else the government does, but fools more than enough people to keep the game going just a little bit longer.

Democracy and Bribery - But I Repeat Myself...

Every politician must promise, say, three dollars in benefits for every dollar taken in taxes. This is utterly impossible, of course, since the government has no money of its own, and is ridiculously inefficient at everything it tries - so it is only through borrowing or printing money that politicians are able to bribe voters into imagining that the government produces wealth. The introduction of fiat currency, and the modern banking system, protected by government-controlled cartels - as well as the legal shield called the "corporation" - has been a godsend to modern politicians, since it allows the costs of present day bribery to be pushed off decades or even generations into the future. This has been a complete no-brainer for everyone involved - free bribe money, paid for by strangers who haven't even been born yet, is a temptation too lucrative and consequence-free to even imagine resisting.

Technically, democracy is a money-drug addiction that wages war on drugs far less addictive and destructive.

This is the End...

Unfortunately - and you will see this as an inevitable pattern of the ruling classes' use of violence - this unsustainable system is nearing the end of its current cycle.

The problem is that the consequences of these inevitable national debts are producing medieval conditions once again. First of all, the economic engine of the productive classes - access to capital - is failing, because governments are stealing all the capital in order to bribe voters. It's true that voters then often buy stuff, but that's not quite the same as driving new entrepreneurial development, since voters don't invest in new businesses, but rather buy products from existing businesses - which is yet another reason why existing businesses are big fans of the government!

Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, the issue of livestock de-motivation is raising its ugly head once more. Young people now instinctively grasp the economic catastrophes ahead, and this blunts their ambition and creativity to the point where fewer and fewer new entrepreneurs are creating wealth for the ruling classes.

Birthrates

To rulers, the most fundamental capital is not money, but people (or, more accurately, children, but we will get to that below.)

Reasonably intelligent human beings do not breed well in captivity, which is why the birthrates of modern Western nations have crashed so catastrophically. Those of us in the ruling class obviously want human livestock intelligent enough to create wealth for us - but unfortunately that kind of intelligence is also easily high enough to do a rational calculation on the benefits and costs of modern parenthood.

In the current system, most parents have to work outside the home in order to sustain even a middle-class existence, because of enormously high taxation, regulation, inflation, debt and economic controls. So parents don't get to spend days with their children, but instead get them for the evenings, night times and mornings, which are in general the least enjoyable times for parenting, particularly when you have to rush kids out of the house to daycare or school. Parents work a full day, get stuck on the terrible roads we built for them, stressed out because they don't want to be late picking up their kids, then bring their kids home, and cook and feed and bathe them, and then try and get them to bed - with precious little playtime. Mom and dad then fall into an exhausted, sexless bed, praying that their children don't wake up at night - and then have to rouse them at an artificial time, get them fed and clothed and out the door on a strict schedule - all of which is anathema to children - and then pay a significant amount of their after-tax income for strangers to take care of the children they so rarely see!

It doesn't take a genius to realize that this is a pretty raw deal for parents, and this is the most fundamental reason why birthrates among our tax cattle are so low - except among the poor, who we pay to breed, so that we can use them to guilt the better-off into surrendering their money to us.

Thus we have de-motivated young people, who spend forever draining wealth - their own and others' - in school and university; fewer babies and children, and a massive bulge of baby boomers heading into retirement, where a completely empty cupboard awaits them.

Citizens can easily understand how impossible this all is, but they shy away from confronting it, or demanding that we change it - or even admitting it - because they're all so guilty at having accepted bribes their whole life, and because parents so rarely want to admit to their kids that they have royally screwed them out of a future, and sold them off to strangers for cut-rate park admissions. These aging citizens need the next generation to pay for their own retirement, but are leaving them with a cratered economy, growing state power and massive national debts, and so to admit guilt would mean - at any reasonable moral level - withdrawing their demands for retirement funding. If a man steals a woman's car, any real apology requires that he give it back - but this is never going to happen with the national debt, or the trillions in unfunded liabilities, and so no one with any real influence is ever going to demand that we deal with this impossible situation.

Democracy is all about the guilty and shameful pillaging of the helpless and unborn; it corrupts moral responsibility to the point where almost everyone is far too guilty and entitled to take a moral stand for accountability.

Get a man to take stolen goods, and he will never complain about theft. This is the essence of democracy.

So - no worries there.

The Dependent Classes

A key foundation of livestock management is bribery, which has an obvious benefit - and a subtle one. The obvious benefit is that, say, artists and intellectuals who receive government money will never be fundamentally critical of government taxes and redistribution, for reasons too obvious to mention here. The more subtle benefit is that when you create an entire class of people dependent on government handouts, you divide the livestock into warring factions. Those whose money is being stolen have a strong incentive to reduce State theft, while those who receive stolen money have a strong incentive to increase State theft.

It is absolutely, absolutely essential that you create and maintain conditions which foster slave on slave aggression. If rulers smack down the slaves directly, the livestock immediately become aware of their enslavement, which reintroduces the motivation problem. Efficient human masters thus ensure that the slaves attack each other - the benefits of this are almost too numerous to count, but a few will be mentioned below.

Human beings, as interdependent tribal mammals, have evolved to be terrified of horizontal social attack, ostracism and rejection. This is a core emotional vulnerability which can never be eliminated, and will always serve you well.

Prehistoric man could not live without the support of the tribe, and so the need for social acceptance was programmed into the very base of his brain, as a core survival mechanism. The philosophers who serve power - mostly priests and academics - have layered onto this basic mechanism the additional power of ethics.

Ethics is a claim to a universal principle of preferred behavior, which has the enormous benefit of being easily internalized by the slave classes. If you can get slaves to attack themselves for daring to question the existing social structure, you will not have to lift a finger to keep them in their chains - they will in fact attack anyone holding a key!

As a backup, you must always have a group of slaves willing to attack anyone who mentally frees himself from your false ethics. This enforcement will always come from two main areas: the family and the media.

The Slave Family

Deep down, slaves always know that they're slaves, and their only real enslavement is resisting this knowledge. Prior ruling classes did not trust this basic mechanism, and so were hesitant to substitute horizontal social control for vertical political violence.

Now, we know better.

All commonly accepted cultural myths are created by the ruling class, are essential lubricants for the wheels of power.

The most common cultural myth is that your family is everything, the most important relationship, the most essential intimacy, the most fundamental social unit.

This helps the ruling class in countless ways - not least of which is that it establishes and extends the principle that an accident of birth creates a fundamental and eternal moral obligation; "family" thus equals "country." (Also: "sports team," which is one reason why we fund them.)

Once you have enslaved one generation, most parents will almost inevitably resist the freedom of the next generation, out of guilt and shame about their own surrender.

We tell people to stay close to their families, because their families will so often attack them for even thinking about leaving the cages of collective history.

Let's look at the sequence.

A man surrenders his liberty for petty cash and the illusion of security. He then becomes a father. His son questions his father's moral courage and integrity, and the father then attacks the son, chaining them in a cage they both rot in.

For this cycle to be maintained, we must forever tell the son that his family is the most important thing in the world - more important than reason, evidence, truth, integrity, morality - you name it! If he believes us, and if his family is not committed to his freedom, we (and they) will own him forever.

This is the basic deal we offer to parents, just like priests: give us your kids, and we'll teach them to honor and obey you no matter what, so you don't actually have to be a good person and earn their respect.

(True, not all parents take this unholy deal, but we just get the media to mock the homeschooled kids and all is well.)

Furthermore, given the billions of people ensnared in the dependent classes the world over, it is a near-certainty that at least one or more close family members will be dependent upon the existing system, and will then violently attack anyone who questions the morality and practicality of predatory democracy. Want to privatize education? Say hi to your teacher Aunt Mamie, and let the fun begin!

The Media

A few people, however, will retain the strength to emerge from the slave class, and - particularly given the communications opportunities of the Internet - may start broadcasting their message to a wider audience - in which case, it's important to pull the emergency backup attack switch called the "mainstream media."

How do you create slave on slave violence through the mainstream media?

Again, subtlety and trust in the inevitability of human psychology is the key.

First of all, you must never directly censor and control the media, or its inhabitants may rebel against your authority, and reveal your naked aggression. Once the knowledge of slavery becomes inescapable, society inevitably and immediately changes - and hiding this knowledge is the entire art and science of human ownership.

Thus you need to create a slow and increasing economic dependence in the media, rather than arresting and imprisoning its members.

You do this by making reporters more and more dependent upon information from the government. It is much, much cheaper to simply rewrite a governmental press release than it is to spend weeks or months going undercover, interviewing subjects, verifying sources, and exposing yourself to legal complications in order to break a story outside the normal channels of communication.

Furthermore, as State power grows, more and more people become more and more interested in what the government says and does, since they are investors or business people whose fortunes rise and fall on the whims of the ruling class.

This process can be a little risky at first, but you only need a decade or two in order for it to become almost universal and irreversible.

Remember - it takes a pretty empty person to rewrite government press releases for a living, and fairly delusionary managers to pretend that they are not the mere amplifiers of the whispers of power. Once these managers assume their positions, they will inevitably reject any energetic truth seekers, and instinctively seek out and employ other empty rewriters of State edicts. The collective delusion that they're still producing "news" becomes progressively stronger, to the point where they will rail against and attack anyone who actually tries to publish something that is true, particularly if it threatens the government contacts who supply their disinformation.

Access to government thus becomes the foundation of any media organization - therefore no fundamental criticisms of government can be produced. You can criticize a tax, but not taxation itself. You can criticize a party, but not the State. You can criticize a vote, but not voting.

As usual, it is both depressing and exciting to see the tiny price that people are willing to sell themselves for - their name in print, a meager expense account, a few parties, and they are yours.

The physical abuse required to keep the sheep in line is doled out by the police - the verbal abuse is doled out by the media.

The media has been trained to attack anyone who questions the foundations of violent power. The equation is really very simple - so simple that it is always overlooked. If a man says that coercive wealth transfers - theft, in the vernacular - are wrong, then the media instantly attacks him for not caring about whoever is receiving the stolen money.

For instance, if a man questions the morality and practicality of the welfare state, he will be immediately attacked for not caring about the poor. If he argues against government schools, then he clearly hates the fact that children get educated. If he defends free-trade, he is an immoral advocate for bloodsucking corporations; if he criticizes military budgets, he is a cowardly appeaser who wishes to surrender Fort Knox to Al Qaeda; if he holds people morally accountable for their actions, he is punishing them for their past mistakes and "playing the blame game"; if he refuses to forgive unrepentant wrongdoers, he is nursing a grudge and so on.

If he argues that adult relationships are voluntary, then he is viciously anti-community; if he says that abuse should not be tolerated in relationships, then he is an intolerant absolutist bent on destroying all relationships...

This list can go on and on and on - and Lord knows it does, every day - but you get the point.

The wonderful thing is that you won't ever have to tell the media to do this - it just happens of its own accord, because people who are expert verbal abusers always rise to the top of the media pyramid, because they are so useful to those of us in power, so we always give them access and exclusivity.

You only need a few verbal abusers in charge, and everyone else will fall in line, because anyone who tries to stand up against them will be immediately smacked down, and will face the horrifying spectacle of watching all of their colleagues either take cowardly steps back, or joining in the verbal assaults.

(I should probably have mentioned that priests - the best verbal abusers in history - left the church for socialism and the media, which is why the media tends to be so left-wing.)

The reason the media performs this service for us is very simple - we own their livelihoods through licensing, legal regulation and access to information. If we decide to cut anyone off, his career is over. If anyone displeases us, we can threaten to pull the license of the entire organization, because the rules are so Byzantine that we can nail someone for something at any time - much like tax code, it is a form of soft totalitarianism that we have perfected over the generations.

The purpose of regulation is to control through rational anxiety rather than dictatorial terror. Prior dictatorships would shoot people, arrest and imprison them arbitrarily - this controlled people's bodies very effectively, but destroyed their entrepreneurial energies and motivations.

It is far more effective to regulate and license and tax - and this is true for all industries - because potential dissidents then face their own foggy walls of vague anxiety - in which they will not face arrest and imprisonment, but rather lengthy legal complications, which they may eventually win, but which drain much of the joy out of living while they go on, month after month, year after year.

This is true for public-sector unions as well - we don't make it illegal for a manager to fire a unionized employee, because that would expose the system for the economic joke that it is - we just make it really, really lengthy and complicated and emotionally draining and confrontational and exhausting - that is the true perfection of soft totalitarianism. People will surrender to anxiety and still vaguely feel free - if you terrorize them directly, they tend to just collapse intellectually and emotionally.

If the media were directly owned by the government, the propaganda would be clear; the indirect "ownership" of licensing and access to information is far more effective and powerful, because it maintains the veneer of independence and critical thinking.

This form of indirect ownership is the essence of modern democratic tax farming.

It is a central truism of human nature that people always attack what they avoid - if a reporter imagines that he is some sort of freethinking iconoclast, he is in complete denial about the reality of his enslavement. This denial always manifests itself in hysterical attacks against anyone who dares to point it out, or who is actually a freethinker.

To sum up - if we attack the slaves, we lose - if the slaves attack each other, which is so easy to orchestrate - we win, at least for a time.

Children: The Greatest Resource

When we say that human beings are the greatest resource, it's important to be precise about what we mean.

Human beings are naturally born with two characteristics - the first is a resistance to arbitrary authority, and the second is a natural susceptibility to obeying universal ethics.

Anyone who doubts the first characteristic has never tried to parent a two-year-old, and anyone who doubts the second has never triggered or experienced moral guilt.

Domesticating the human animal does not mean that everyone needs to turn out the same - in fact, it would be quite a disaster for us if they did.

To most efficiently control the human farm, you need a majority of broken, self-attacking, insecure, shallow, vain and ambitious sheep, forever consumed by inconsequentialities like weight, abs and celebrities - and a minority of volatile, angry and dominant sheepdogs, which you can dress up in either a green or a blue costume, and use to threaten and manage the herd.

Ruling classes have always had to separate children from their parents, otherwise it is almost impossible to substitute weird abstractions like "the state" or "a god" for the parent-child bond. Human children, like ducklings, will bond with whatever person or institution raises them, which is why we always need to get children - hopefully as young as possible - to bond with the State through government daycare and... "education" I guess is the closest word.

In the distant past, rulers made the error of forcibly removing children from their parents, which exposed their enslavement, and so destroyed their motivation. In the late Middle Ages, children were farmed out to wet-nurses, destroying the parent-child bond. In more recent times, the boarding school system separated children from their parents, destroying empathy and creating wonderfully brutal administrators and enforcers for a variety of European empires. (See: George Orwell.)

In our constant quest to perfect human ownership, we have found a far better way to break these family bonds, and substitute allegiance to ourselves, in the form of patriotism and/or religiosity.

It's one of those beautiful win-win situations that come along so rarely - first, we raised taxes to the point where it became very difficult to maintain a reasonable lifestyle if one parent stayed home with the children. We also funded feminist groups to the tune of billions of dollars - one of the greatest investments we ever made - to encourage women to abandon their children and enter the workforce.

Not only did this help break the parent-child bond, but it also moved women's labor from nontaxable to taxable - a delightful coincidence of self-interest and practicality for us!

With both parents working, all we had to do was create a few scares about the quality of child care, allowing us to move in to control and regulate that industry, remaking it to serve us best.

In some countries, like the United States, children are effectively removed from parental care by the state within a few weeks or months after birth - in other countries, parents receive direct subsidies to stay at home, which is quite funny when you think about it (and there is precious little room for humor in much of this). We take money by force from the parents, keep a large portion for ourselves, use another portion to run up debts that their children will somehow have to pay off - and then dribble a few pennies down to the mother, who then feels that we are somehow doing her a great favor by allowing her to stay at home!

It is a delicious irony that everyone remains so totally blind to reality that they run to us to protect their children from all kinds of harm, while we are the ones selling off their children's future through national debts! It really is like hiring a thief to guard your property, and the amazing thing is that this is all so completely obvious, and never, ever spoken about!

Sometimes, it would be tempting to feel bad about ruling people, but really, they are so very stupid that it seems almost helpful.

Parenting has generally improved over the centuries, which also poses a grave threat to us, because if children are raised without aggression, they will both immediately see, and never accept, the reality of human ownership.

As parenting has improved, it has become more important for us to intervene earlier and earlier. In the 19th century, it was okay to wait until the tax kittens were five or six before we started propagandizing them in government schools. However, as parenting has improved - particularly in the post-Second World War period, we have had to start intervening earlier and earlier, which is why we try and get at kids so soon after birth now.

When kids were raised fairly well in the post-war period, it produced the disasters of the rebellious 1960s, which almost finished us, and so we began funding radical feminism, controlling teachers more and snatching the kids earlier and earlier to fix all that.

So - we need some parents to create the sheep, and other parents to create the wolves, or the sociopaths who can be relied upon to attack whoever we point to. These sociopaths can be divided into those who guard the ruling class (the police and soldiers and prison guards and so on) - and the criminals that we always wave around to frighten people into running back to our "protection."

Again, the amount of doublethink required to maintain the delusion that the ruling class is not invested in crime - when even by our rules, we are all criminals - is really quite astounding! Governments control almost the entire environment of the poor, from public housing to food stamps to welfare checks to public schools - and it is this environment that produces the majority of criminals! For instance, governments require that children spend about 15,000 hours being educated in state schools, and yet when they emerge from this massive investment as illiterate and violent criminals, no one ever takes us to task!

Never, ever underestimate the degree to which people will scatter themselves into a deep fog in order to avoid seeing the basic realities of their own cages.

The strongest lock on the prison is always avoidance, not force.

Never-Never Land

Imagine a world in which almost all children were raised peacefully - there would be no criminals, no police, no soldiers, no politicians (or others with a bottomless lust for power) - no bullying in the workplace, no white-collar predations on the general wealth, no assault, no rape, no murder, no theft, no drug abuse, no smoking, no alcoholism, no eating disorders, no pedophilia, far fewer mental and physical health issues, very little divorce, promiscuity or infidelity - since all of these dysfunctions can be directly traced back to early childhood traumas.

What need would such a world have for rulers?

That is the world we can never allow to come into existence.

Anything we can do to traumatize children serves the hierarchical violence of our power.

Getting kids into daycare is a great start, since daycare makes children continually ill, exposes them to the wild aggressions of dozens of other children, destroys the one-on-one time that children need for bonding and emotional maturity. Daycare kids remain insecure, unbonded with a consistent caregiver (since teacher turnover is so high), and end up inevitably placing more emphasis on peer relationships than they do on adult caregiver relationships - including their parents.

These peer relationships among kids inevitably devolve to the lowest common denominator, with bullies and manipulators and the physically attractive rising to the top, and the sensitive and intelligent and empathetic hiding under tables. Children quickly perceive that adult attention is almost always negative - in other words that they themselves are negative - serving only to increase the stress of their caregivers. Due to the shortage of time and resources, conflicts between children are rarely resolved in a just manner, but merely with separation and mutual punishment, which breaks the child's natural desire for integrity and virtue, and places all the power in the fists of those empty and dangerous children who do not fear retribution.

When the stressed-out parent comes to pick up the child from daycare, the child feels further devalued, knowing that he is just another source of aggravation for his parent ("Just get in the car!"). The practical necessities of child raising are then compressed into a very short and taxing time, which no one really enjoys. Parents are short-tempered and impatient, children are stressed and unhappy, and then the whole thing starts all over again when the alarm bells go off the next morning.

Children have to feel herded and controlled by impatient adult caregivers long before we get a hold of them in schools, otherwise our whole system will fall apart.

Children have to feel that they are inconvenient impositions on all-powerful authorities long before they become adults - or even schoolchildren - otherwise we will have no control over them.

Children have to feel grateful for whatever crumbs of attention and consideration fall their way, and learn to live on very little, otherwise they will never grow up with the desperate hunger that can only be filled by conformity, patriotism, sports addictions, religions and other superstitions.

We plant children; we grow power.

Rule by Adjective

The violence of the government can create nothing, so all we can do is manipulate language. This is called the "rule by adjective," or RBA.

RBA essentially consists of the creation of noble sounding phrases that completely disintegrate under the slightest rational or empirical examination. The goal is to use wording that sounds like the tagline of a B-grade action movie, but with flags.

A few examples we are particularly proud of:

· "Building a bridge to the 21st century."

· "[insert country here] has a date with destiny."

· "No dream is beyond our reach."

· "We're one people bound together by a common set of ideas."

· "Let's celebrate our diversity."

In crafting political language, it's essential to play upon personal relationships, and pretend that the farmers and the sheep are all one big happy family, and that anyone who expresses skepticism or disagreements is not a "team player," and does not want to achieve anything noble or great or good or unselfish. For example:

· "There may be naysayers among us who say that we cannot achieve these great things together, but I say that history will prove them wrong, that the spirit of creativity and unity still lives within our people, and that the final chapter of our civilization has yet to be written!" etc etc.

Notice that no substantial criticism is ever addressed - rather, sly slander is continually layered over the objection until whoever objects is just kind of disliked. (This trick is continually reinforced in movies, where all the bad guys are unlikable, and all the good guys likable, which as anyone who has ever read Socrates knows, is almost always the complete opposite of the truth.)

Now that you have achieved the summit of political power, it is also essential that you project calm, confidence, serenity, and all the other characteristics that are completely inappropriate to the imminent disasters awaiting the tax cattle.

The way that you do this is very easy - know that you will now be taken care of for the rest of your life, and your children will never have to work, and their children will never have to work, and you will never face any significant legal problems or disciplinary action or face arrest for anything you have done, even if it means starting unjust wars, murdering people by the hundreds of thousands, imprisoning non-criminals by the millions, running up trillions in debt, authorizing torture, you name it, it's OK.

Consequences are for sheep, not farmers. A citizen cannot be caught speeding without consequences - but you are above all that now, no matter what hells you unleash on the world.

People want political power because they want something for nothing, and they want to escape the consequences of their evil actions - we want to assure you that you have now fully achieved these goals. You will never have to worry about losing your house, your job, your money, your freedom - and with this kind of immunity from political, legal and economic reality, you can project all the serene confidence of a sea captain being helicoptered to safety while his ship slowly sinks.

We can also guarantee you that you will never face any tough questions from the media. Anyone who gets to interview you will be so thrilled at the opportunity, and so excited to be advancing his career, that he will only lob you softball setups. It's true that a single question might be asked, such as, "do you think that X was a mistake?" but we can assure you with perfect equanimity that whatever you answer will be accepted, and no follow-up questions will be asked. You will always have the final say, and if anyone does dare to ask you a follow-up question, all you have to do is act mildly irritated, and insist that you have already answered that question.

If anyone persists, not to worry, his career will be over, because about 10,000 empty-headed pundits will take to the airwaves claiming to be shocked and appalled at the way that you were browbeaten and harangued, and demanding to know what your problem is, and who you think you are, and so on.

We know, we know - it sounds impossible, but it's a guaranteed fix, every single time. It's as predictable as hungry dogs chasing a dead rabbit on a string.

Ethics

There are two kinds of ethics that you need to be aware of - it is very likely that you are already aware of them, since you are where you are, but it's worth going over them one more time.

When slaves evaluate masters, relativism and deference and working together and respecting differences of opinion are key.

When masters evaluate other masters, bipartisanship and putting aside differences and working together and respecting differences of opinion are also key.

This falls into the old category of "turn the other cheek."

When masters evaluate slaves, however, it's total "eye for an eye" time!

For instance, if you propose health care legislation that will force people to do stuff, it's very important that you respect the other parties' right to disagree with your proposal. However, once it becomes law, no mere citizen is ever allowed to act on his or her disagreement with you!

Debates are for the masters, enforcement is for the slaves.

You are allowed to debate whether or not to go to war, citizens are not allowed to choose whether or not they fund the war, or are drafted to get killed in it. You are allowed to debate whether to subsidize some group, citizens are never allowed to choose whether they subsidize that group.

Free will is for the masters - slaves get the determinism of their masters' whims.

In case you have any concern that someone will point out the ridiculousness of all this, do not fear! The moment that anyone argues that we don't need violent masters - that such masters are in fact hellishly destructive - all the slaves in the world will gang up on such an exposed truth-teller, saying, in effect, "We are not slaves if you don't point out our masters!"

This reaction is all based on propaganda that is carefully layered in throughout government education - and all education is government education, because we regulate and control private schools and universities as well.

The propaganda is, like all propaganda, completely insane, but through calm repetition and attacking dissenters, it quickly gets accepted as an obvious truth.

The propaganda is this:

1. The government provides service X.

2. If the government does not provide service X, service X will never be provided.

3. Therefore, anyone arguing against the government providing service X is arguing against the necessity or value of service X.

It seems almost embarrassing to point out the foolishness of these arguments, but in the highly unlikely event you ever get a question on this, it's good to have an "answer."

According to the democratic model, governments only do what the majority of citizens want them to do. "The will of the majority," is one of our central gods, which cannot speak for itself, of course, and therefore kindly allows us to, um, speak for it.

Democratic governments only help the poor, then, because the majority of citizens want them to. If governments reflect the will of the people, then whatever governments do is entirely unnecessary, because the majority want to do it anyway.

The more that people get attacked for not caring about the poor, the less the government needs to do anything about the poor, because the attacks reflect a general preference to help the poor. The only practical argument for the continuance of a government program would be if everybody had a strong desire to get rid of it, because then, it could be argued, they did not care about its recipients. If someone said, "Let's get rid of the welfare state," and everyone cheered and joined in, we might very well have some concern about the fate of the poor - the fact that everyone defends the welfare state means that the poor will be perfectly well taken care of in a free society.

Ah, the weariness of these ridiculous arguments! We do sometimes wish that people would become just a little bit smarter, so we could all eventually become free, but we are as trapped by the livestock's illusions as they are.

Exploitation

There are two classes of parasites on the productive classes - the poor and the political. In the old days, Marxists used to blather on about the exploitation of the poor by capitalists, which was utter nonsense. When the capitalists were "exploiting" the workers in the mid 19^th century, their real wages doubled - we democratic masters have had our real claws on them for the past 40 years, and real wages have not only stagnated and fallen, but educational standards have collapsed, incarceration rates have skyrocketed, living conditions have deteriorated - and the remaining social services we provide (bribes) are all going to collapse because we have sold everyone off piecemeal under the guise of "national debt" (because the real term - serfdom - is just too accurate to be accepted).

The old-style capitalists "exploited" the poor by paying them ever-higher wages - we exploit them by selling both them and their kids off to whoever will shove a thin dime in our direction - dropping a penny in the hollow plates of the poor, keeping eight cents for ourselves, and using the last penny as collateral to borrow ten more.

But the merchant class is very useful to us, in more ways than as tax cattle, tax collectors, and productive livestock - they also shield us from popular anger at the inevitable results of our predations. When we pay ourselves with the monopoly money (literally) of their futures, prices go up. Who does the public get angry at? Us? Ha ha, get real, we don't teach them a damn thing about real economics - no, they get angry at the checkout girl at the local convenience store for high prices - and of course we always promise to "investigate" the source of such shocking inflation. It's pretty easy to pretend to investigate a mirror.

The strange thing as well is that we educate their kids, and then they expect these lost souls to be somehow objective about us! Imagine if a kid went to a school run by a government Post Office - would you expect him to learn any form of critical thinking about the Post Office? Of course not - he would get endless lessons on how wonderful, benevolent and friendly Post Office workers were, and how before the Post Office became a government monopoly, private mail carriers stole checks from starving widows, abused their workers and overcharged their helpless customers. You wouldn't expect even a sliver of truth to fall through the cracks of propaganda, but all this - and more, since the Post Office can't start wars - is inflicted on the helpless kids held prisoner in state "schools." So people arrive at adulthood worshipping the State that stole from their parents, crushed their minds under forced indoctrination, sold them into serfdom for the rest of their lives, and programmed them for endless obedience.

Imagine if we said that Goldman Sachs should run all the government schools - just picture the howls of indignation that would arise, shrill shrieks of the dangers of bias, indoctrination and programming! Ah, but give the children to the State, and everyone smiles benignly, certain that objectivity, reason and a well-tempered love of children and learning will reign supreme.

Ahhh, it does turn the stomach so at times! Everyone knows that teachers don't give even half a rat's ass about the kids - and the test is so pitifully easy that everyone knows what it is. Just remind the teachers that kids don't benefit from having over two months off in the summer - and it's hell for parents as well of course - and cite the statistics about how well kids do when they're in school year round, and don't forget everything over the summer. How will the teachers react? Meh, to ask the question is to answer it.

Childhood <> Personhood

The key to tyranny is to treat kids as somewhere between pets and hobos. If a child never thinks of himself as a full person, he will never aspire to be more than a "citizen" - i.e. to be owned, and sold, and ordered around. (People take pride in being ‘citizens,' which is completely mad, since ‘citizenship' means that they have been granted the ‘right' to work, travel and live, which are all supposed to be ‘inalienable' anyway...)

For example - imagine, as Murray Rothbard once wrote, that the government should take over magazines and books, and limit readership by local geography, and hire, fire and control all writers, editors and reporters, and force people to pay for them even if they never read them - what an unholy outcry would arise! Cries of ‘censorship' and ‘tyranny' would echo in tinny indignation from bosom to heaving bosom! Ah, but inflict far worse controls on children - force them into local schools, control all the teachers and curriculum (even for ‘private' schools) and not only are the voices of protest silent, but are only raised against anyone who dares to suggest that the free minds of helpless children are far more important than the recreational reading tastes of adults...

You'll get a kick out of this one too - ok - use government power to force everyone to pay for the indoctrination of children, force the kids to sit in dusty, still rows, barely allowed to blink - and then drug the living crap out of them if they get bored and restless - and keep them trapped there, year after year - and then tell them that their masters won the war that set them free, against National Socialism and communism! Can you imagine telling children in an entirely communist environment - public schools - that communism is the enemy? Of course, they'll just write it down and regurgitate it whenever you want, because they're terrified of being drugged - and then you have to tell them, of course, that communist dictatorships used the lie called "mental illness" to drug anyone who didn't fit in and obey the rulers!

Freedom is for the adults - communism is for the children.

Science

We have a complicated relationship with science - we need it, for weapons and tax livestock management (imagine how hard it would be to collect taxes without computers) - so we need science to flourish, but we also need to control it. The way we do this is to continually program the population to view science as a productive but dangerous force that will destroy the world if not tightly controlled. This is utterly absurd, of course, since it was our control of science through the Manhattan Project that created weapons that actually could destroy the world, but then we just tell the sheeple that, yanno, worse things would have happened if we didn't make nukes, and they all baa and agree and eat the leftover grass we shovel into their troughs.

So we do this sort of "Sorcerer's Apprentice" thing, where science is great to begin with, but then grows and grows and gets out of control and needs to be shut down in an extremity of CGI adventure. Naturally, we're really talking about ourselves, the government itself, but no one wants to think about that, so they imagine that it's all about robots and computers and carbon footprints and machines that make hot dogs in the sky...

People will always choose a thousand fairy tales over one basic fact.

Except us, perhaps. Our understanding of - and immunity to - sentimentality is our greatest power. We are the lions who hunt with sentimental pictures of little kittens.

From Here...

At this point, it does pain me to tell you that you will soon have the rather unenviable task of informing the livestock that they are pretty much screwed.

There is no way in god's green earth that our system will last even another few years, which means that you will have dust off and start playing the good old ‘sacrifice violin.'

Now this traditional instrument may sound screechy and ridiculous to your ears but trust us, just keep playing and everyone will dance in a line for you.

Just tell them that biiiig hardships are coming, that we as a nation are being ‘tested,' and that we all need to ‘pull together' and shoulder our common burdens, and look out for the most vulnerable among us, and that to achieve a new dawn, sacrifices need to be made, and hint strongly that bad forces outside your control - or before your time - have robbed the people, and will be held accountable, but that we all need to look to the future, and remember that we as a people can do anything we set our minds and wills to, and we defeated the prior tyrannies etc etc etc.

For some reason, people always take a dark masochistic delight in struggling through trying times where they all have to "pull together" and "make sacrifices" and strive to achieve the best in tragic times and so on. Probably boredom and self-contempt for their own hypocrisy, but who knows, and who cares? The important thing is that government schools and all the endless lies about past wars and depressions - that the best in people comes out in the worst of times and so on - have all programmed citizens to react with dark and lascivious glee when we demand that they spend a generation eating shit for our mistakes.

Of course, people love to punish themselves for their own hypocrisies and various other sins, and Lord knows the average state-sucking slut voter has more than enough to feel guilty about, trying to wheedle something for nothing out of the government, the future, their own children for heaven's sake! So when sacrifice is called for, most people feel secretly relieved, since all these trials, tribulations and common burdens effectively squelch any substantial social, economic or political criticisms.

"Pull together" unleashes the most savage social censorship imaginable. During the coming time of crisis, if the young people justly point fingers at the greed and hypocrisy of their elders, they will be sternly told that we all have to pull together, and there's no point playing the "blame game" now. If the young point out that they were never allowed such a mealy-mouthed avoidance strategy when they were growing up, they will be told that they are quibbling and refusing to let go of the past and so on. Ha ha, imagine a teenager trying those strategies about failing to take out the garbage, and you will instantly see how much these cowardly redirects stink!

So - self-flagellation for past crimes and avoidance of just accusations from past victims - these motives will trigger such hellish attacks on freethinkers that only the truly crazed will continue to raise these issues... (If you want to know more about this phenomenon, just remember how few Europeans criticized the ruling classes for two World Wars in two generations, but rather took pride in ‘winning' a bloodbath that cost over 50 million lives - and contrast that with how they treat a waiter who forgets their food order.)

So the plan is always the same - we pillage, plunder and bribe - then demand sacrifices from our victims. To get the general idea, picture a rapist demanding a drive home from his victim.

Anyone who does not play along with this insanity will just be branded a malcontent, not a "team player" - and mocked and ostracized. Fortunately, we have bred our livestock to be so dependent on social approval that most everyone will find this unbearable, and slink back into the single file line to the graveyard, pushing their bewildered and resentful children ahead of them...

Conclusion

So remember - you're going to be taken care of, that's the first thing to really understand. You can't go broke, you can't go hungry, you can't lose your house, you can't really be fired, and people will pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to hear you speak every day for the rest of your life. You will get libraries named after you, receive multimillion dollar book deals, and a guaranteed gold-plated pension with free health care for the rest of your life.

You have absolutely nothing to worry about. You have the softest seat on the biggest lifeboat.

This is, to a large degree, the source of your weird confidence, which separates you from the herd, and which they imagine is why you are their leader.

The reality is that they have endless worries that you don't have, and so you can just join us, floating above the petty fears of the masses, serene and secure like the ancient gods we have always been.

So go out among the crowds and make pretty noises with your velvet throat. Distract these fools with your eloquence while we finish pillaging their pockets. Empty out the remainder of your soul driving the sheeple off a cliff - it may haunt the remnants of your integrity, but don't worry: we do still have that stamp just waiting for your smiling face.

By Stefan Molyneux, MA

Host, Freedomain

Introduction

While strolling through the sunny woods one day, you spy a man slithering through the undergrowth, heavily camouflaged and gripping a bow and arrow.

“What are you hunting?” you ask.

“Dragons!” hisses the man proudly.

You frown. “Dragons? But dragons don’t exist!”

The man nods emphatically. “I completely agree with you! There ain’t no such thing as dragons. And I’m a-gonna shoot me one!” He raises his bow and arrow, narrows his eyes and glares through the trees, hungry to target the non-existent.

At this point, you would surely take a series of slow and steady steps backwards, aiming to put some safer distance between you and a deranged man wielding a bow and arrow.

This is one of the many, many challenges of atheism.

“Atheism” is a terrible word on many levels.

The Oxford English Dictionary, Second Edition, defines atheism as:

“Disbelief in, or denial of, the existence of a god.”

To any modern, rational thinker, this is an entirely unsatisfactory definition – which is exactly what you expect from a word originally defined by theists.

First of all, the OED definition implies that there is something personal in the rational rejection of a god. “Denial” is a word associated with defensive rejections of reality, such as Holocaust denier, climate change denier – or the generic avoidance of unpalatable emotional truths: “He’s in denial about her drinking.”

Compare the above definition to this one:

“Atheism: The acceptance of the non-existence of imaginary entities such as Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and Bronze Age sky ghosts.”

The difference should be clear.

Also, why is the phrase “a god” used? If I say that supernatural beings such as leprechauns do not exist, why would anyone imagine that I only disbelieved in a single leprechaun named “Bob”?

Rational thinkers have nothing against any particular deity – any more than a mathematician dislikes in particular the proposition that two and two make five. If such a mathematician existed, and loudly proclaimed his opposition to that particular equation, and founded a society called “against two and two making five,” he would be considered beyond eccentric, and it would be generally understood that he had utterly failed to grasp the most basic principles of mathematics.

A thinker cannot logically differentiate the nonexistence of a deity from the nonexistence of any other thing which does not exist. Principles by definition apply in general, rather than in particular, just as a method of long division cannot only apply to one particular combination of numbers.

The criteria for existence versus nonexistence is a general standard, which applies equally to rocks, electricity, electrons, ghosts, dreams, square circles, concepts and unicorns. It cannot rationally focus its energies on only one entity – or even one category – otherwise it becomes mere prejudice, rather than the dispassionate application of a general principle.

Defining “atheism” as being “against the gods” is thus a misnomer, since it takes a merely accidental subset of a larger set of principles and turns it into an arbitrary principle itself. There is no such thing as being “against the existence of gods,” any more than there is such a thing as being “anti-leprechaun.” In fact, to say that you are against one leprechaun in particular is to imply that you believe in leprechauns overall, but find one of them in particular somehow offensive.

We cannot rationally be “against gods,” just as we cannot be “against” square circles, or hostile to the idea of gravity in the absence of mass, or offended by the idea that human beings can live unaided on the surface of the sun. These propositions are simply false, according to reason and evidence, and to create a second category of particular offense “against the gods” is irrational – and, fittingly enough, offensive, due to the implied prejudice.

Rational thinkers accept standards of existence that at least involve logical consistency – and with any luck, empirical evidence. It is the first standard that beliefs in gods fail and – as a result, there is little point looking for the second.

The word “atheist” also indicates that belief in gods is the standard, and atheism is the exception – just as “sane” is the standard, and “insane” is the exception. This is a mere scrap of sophistic propaganda, since all theists are almost complete atheists, in that they do not believe in the vast majority of man’s gods. The rejection of gods is the default position; the acceptance of a deity remains extremely rare, though not as rare as atheists would like.

The Existence of Gods

Two main errors are generally made when examining the existence of gods.

The first is to ignore the basic fact that gods cannot logically exist, and the second is to accept such logical impossibilities, but to create some imaginary realm where gods may exist. Broadly speaking, the first error is made by theists, who argue that gods do exist, and the second by agnostics, who argue that they may exist.

In the first instance, gods are viewed as similar to unicorns. If we define a unicorn as a horse with a horn on its head, we cannot logically say that such a creature can never exist. There may be such a being on some other planet, or in some undiscovered place in this world, or perhaps a mutation may arise at some point in the future which pushes a horn out of the forehead of a standard-issue horse.

The concept of a horse with a horn on its head is not logically self-contradictory – and thus such a being may exist, and it would be foolish to state otherwise.

In the same way, life forms based on silicon rather than carbon may exist somewhere in the universe – such beings are not logically self-contradictory, and so their existence cannot be rationally eliminated.

However, if I define a unicorn as a horse with a horn on its head that can fly through interstellar space, go backwards through time powered by its magical rainbow tail, and which existed prior to the universe – well, then we have moved into another category of assertion entirely.

A horse cannot live in space, since there is no oxygen, or air pressure, or water – and about a thousand other reasons. The properties and necessities of carbon-based life forms completely eliminate such a possibility.

A being which does not contradict the properties of existence may exist – a proposed being which does, may not.

Bertrand Russell argued for agnosticism by saying that there may be a little teapot orbiting somewhere in the solar system, but he considered it highly unlikely. This argument – with all due respect to Dr. Russell's genius – is incorrect. A teapot is not a self-contradictory entity. If I could communicate with Dr. Russell in his current state of nonexistence, I would ask him whether he would consider it possible that an eternal living horse was floating somewhere in deep space – and I respect his knowledge of biology enough to be sure that he would answer in the negative.

Gods are not like little teapots, or horses with horns, or very small Irishman with pots of gold – gods are entirely self-contradictory entities, the supernatural equivalent of square circles.

We do not have to hunt the entire universe to know that a square circle cannot exist, because it is a self-contradictory concept. We do not have to examine every rock on every planet to know that a rock cannot fall up and down at the same time. We do not have to count every object in the universe to know that two and two make four, not five. There is no possibility that self-contradictory entities can exist anywhere in the universe. We know that an object cannot be a teacup and an armchair and a horse with a horn at the same time. The Aristotelian laws of identity and non-contradiction deny us the luxury of believing that self-contradictory entities exist anywhere except in our own unreliable imaginations.

Why Are Gods Self-Contradictory?

At the very minimum, a god is defined as an eternal being which exists independent of material form and detectable energy, and which usually possesses the rather enviable attributes of omniscience and omnipotence.

First of all, we know from biology that even if an eternal being could exist, it would be the simplest being conceivable. An eternal being could never have evolved, since it does not die and reproduce, and therefore biological evolution could never have layered levels of increasing complexity over its initial simplicity. We all understand that the human eye did not pop into existence without any prior development; and the human eye is infinitely less complex than an omniscient and omnipotent god. Since gods are portrayed as the most complex beings imaginable, they may well be many things, but eternal cannot be one of them.

Secondly, we also know that consciousness is an effect of matter – specifically biological matter, in the form of a brain. Believing that consciousness can exist in the absence of matter is like believing that gravity can be present in the absence of mass, or that light can exist in the absence of a light source, or that electricity can exist in the absence of energy. Consciousness is an effect of matter, and thus to postulate the existence of consciousness without matter is to create an insurmountable paradox, which only proves the nonexistence of what is being proposed.

If you doubt this, try telling your friends that that no woman can bear your company – and that you have a girlfriend. Having a girlfriend is an effect of female company, just as consciousness is an effect of brain matter. Alternatively, try speaking to someone without making a sound or a movement. Speaking is an effect of movement, either in the vocal chords or somewhere else, and therefore it cannot exist in the absence of motion. (If someone insists that consciousness can exist without a brain, ask them to demonstrate the proposition without using his brain.)

Thirdly, omniscience cannot coexist with omnipotence, since if a god knows what will happen tomorrow, said god will be unable to change it without invalidating its knowledge. If this god retains the power to change what will happen tomorrow, then it cannot know with exact certainty what will happen tomorrow.

The usual response from theists – it is impossible to use the word ‘answer’ – is to place their god “outside of time,” but this is pure nonsense. When an entity is proven to be self-contradictory, creating a realm wherein self-contradictions are valid does not solve the problem. If you tell me that a square circle cannot exist, and I then create an imaginary realm called “square circles can exist,” we are not at an impasse; I have just abandoned reality, rationality and quite possibly my sanity.

Theists who try this particular con should at least be consistent, and not pay their taxes, and then, when said taxes are demanded, say to the tax collector that they have created a universe called “I paid my taxes,” and slam the door in his face. (Alternatively, if theists make a mistake on a history test, and claim that the American Revolution was in 1676, they should fight the resulting bad mark by claiming that their answer exists “outside of time.”)

The fourth objection to the existence of deities is that an object can only rationally be defined as existing when it can be detected in some manner, either directly, in the form of matter and/or energy, or indirectly, based upon its effects on the objects around it, such as a black hole.

That which can be detected is that which exists, as anyone who has tried walking through a glass door can painfully tell you. Such a door is deemed to be open – or nonexistent – when we can walk through it without detecting the glass with our soon-to-be-bloody nose. It would be epistemological madness to argue that an open door is synonymous with a closed door. If someone argues that existence is equal to nonexistence, challenge them to walk through a wall rather than an archway. (The fact that the wall might be an archway in another dimension will scarcely help their passage in this one.)

Differentiating between existence and nonexistence was something that my daughter was able to manage before she was 6 months old; we can only hope that modern philosophical thinkers are able to circle back and someday achieve her prodigious feats of knowledge.

A god – or at least any god that has been historically proposed or accepted – is that which cannot be detected by any material means, either directly or indirectly.

Ah, but what about the future? Might we find gods orbiting Betelgeuse in the 25^th century? Well, while it is true that at some point we may come across some seemingly magical being somewhere in the universe that may appear somewhat godlike to us, no one who has proposed the existence of gods in the past has ever met such a being, which we can tell because no test for existence has ever been proposed or accepted.

Since “god” means “that which is undetectable, either directly or indirectly,” then the statement “gods exist” rationally breaks down to:

“That which does not exist, exists.”

Thus not only is the concept of gods entirely self-contradictory, but even the proposition that they exist is self-contradictory.

Other Dimensions

Theists claim that gods exist, atheists accept that they do not; agnostics say that gods are unlikely, but not impossible.

How do they manage this?

Many agnostics understand that gods do not – and cannot – exist in physical reality, so they create “Dimension X,” and place the possibility of gods existing somewhere “out there.” Inevitably, when a rational thinker points out that this does not solve the problem, the agnostic replies with grating haughtiness that the rational thinker is being closed-minded, and sniffs that to claim the nonexistence of any particular entity is short-sighted and unimaginative. “Surely,” he says, “if you were to tell a medieval man that human beings would one day be able to talk instantaneously around the world, he would say that such a feat was utterly impossible – but he would be only exposing the limitations of his more primitive mind, not making any objective truth statement.”

In other words, any and all certainty is primitive superstition.

This wonderful piece of sophistry is a patently ridiculous form of ad hominem, which goes something like this:

“Just as Newtonian physics gave way to Einsteinian physics, and Einsteinian physics was in some ways surpassed by quantum mechanics, making absolute truth statements about all forms of future knowledge shows a deep ignorance of the flexible and progressive nature of the scientific method, and the endless potential for human thought.”

This is a very strange notion, in which the scientific method is used to pave the way not away from ghosts, demons and a generally haunted universe, but rather towards it. The science of medicine has attempted to escape the primitive foolishness of witch doctors and the superstitions of demonic possession – to say that true medicine leads us towards such primitive fantasies, rather than helping us escape them, entirely misunderstands the purpose of science, reason and medicine.

Of course it is true that Newtonian physics gave way to Einsteinian physics, and Einsteinian physics may well be surpassed by some other approach – to say so is boringly obvious. However, reason and evidence is a process, it is not any specific content. Science is a method, not a specific theory or proposition. It is only reason and evidence that reveals the superiority of more accurate and comprehensive theories. The scientific method rejects self-contradictory theories as either erroneous or inconclusive, just as mathematics rejects the results of any equation that starts with the proposition that two and two make five. Science has been man's most successful attempt to flee what Carl Sagan called “the demon haunted world” – science cannot be used to pave the way back to such primitive madness.

I suppose we can accept it as a compliment to science that agnostics and theists are using it to attempt to resurrect the primitive fantasies inherited from the infancy of our species, but the powerful electricity of modern thought cannot be used to resurrect the Frankenstein of superstitious falsehoods.

Let’s look at the “Dimension X” argument in more detail.

Concepts and Instances

A central tenet of rational thinking is to recognize that an instance is not a concept. A mathematical process such as multiplication is a concept that applies to any general arrangement of numbers; it cannot be called a concept if it only applies to one particular calculation. You need an “x” to have an equation; 16/4=4 is not an equation, but an instance, a particular application of a general process called division.

In the same way, alternate dimensions cannot be invented that only contain gods, but rather must be a general concept that encompasses everything. The true argument put forward by agnosticism is not that “Dimension X may contain gods,” but rather that “nothing true can be said about our reality, because another reality may exist where truth equals falsehood.” In other words, the agnostic position is that any positive statement must be instantly negated by the possibility of an “opposite dimension.”

This proposition falls apart at every conceivable level – and even at some that cannot be conceived!

First of all, saying that we cannot make any absolute positive claims about truth is itself an absolute positive claim about truth – i.e. that truth is impossible. If we say that certainty is impossible, then we have to instantly retract that statement, since we are making a certain statement. It very quickly becomes obvious that nothing of any merit or weight can ever be said if the truth is impossible.

In other words, when the agnostic says that we cannot make any absolute claims because the opposite might be true in another universe, the agnostic cannot put forward this claim, because the opposite might be true in another universe.

All con artists operate by affirming a general rule, and then creating an exception for themselves. A thief wants everyone to respect property rights except him; a counterfeiter wants everyone to accept the value of money except him – and a philosophical con man wants everyone to reject truth except for his own propositions.

Don't fall for it, not for a minute!

The moment an agnostic says, "Gods may exist in another dimension,” immediately identify the principle behind his statement, which is that no truth can be stated, and apply it to his own statement, thus rendering it invalid.

The Second Self-Contradiction

The moment that we say, “gods may exist in another universe,” we are instantly contradicting ourselves, because the word “gods” contains specific knowledge claims – intelligence, omnipotence, immateriality etc. – which cannot be applied to a dimension about which we know nothing! To analogize this, imagine that I tell you that I'm going to play you a video of incomprehensible static – and then I insist that I can clearly see the lyrics to “Woolly Bully” scrolling across the screen.

Only one of these claims can be true – if the video is incomprehensible static, then lyrics cannot scroll across the screen – if the lyrics are scrolling across the screen, the video cannot be incomprehensible.

In the same way, if I create Dimension X, and say that we can know nothing about its contents, I then cannot say that gods may exist there, because I am then saying that I know something about the unknowable contents of Dimension X.

I cannot say that I know nothing about a particular entity, but that I also know it is green and furry – only one of these statements can be true.

The moment that I say “gods may exist in another dimension,” I am making specific knowledge claims about the contents and processes of this other dimension – i.e. that certain entities with specific characteristics may meet the criteria of existence in another dimension of which I admit I know absolutely nothing at all.

The truth of the matter is that we can say absolutely nothing about this other dimension; even if we accept that it may exist, which is problematic enough. We cannot claim to have any knowledge about what may or may not constitute existence in this other realm, or what entities may be possible, or what laws of physics may operate, or anything of the sort. Even the existence of this other realm, let alone its contents, cannot be spoken of – all we can propose is that existence may be the same as nonexistence, and invent an imaginary place where this may be possible.

However, even this argument runs into insurmountable logical contradictions.

It would be ridiculous for me to mail you a letter arguing that mail never gets delivered. If I genuinely believe that mail never gets delivered, it would be illogical for me to write you a letter. If I do write you a letter, my argument that mail never gets delivered is instantly invalidated the moment that you receive it.

In the same way, all human communication relies on physical matter of some kind, either text on paper or on a screen, or sound waves in the ear, or touch for Braille, or some other form of physical manipulation. Silence is the absence of sound waves – or at least of a medium such as air or water to carry them. I cannot deny the existence of a medium while using that medium to carry my argument. I cannot rationally yell in your ear that sound does not exist, because I'm relying on the existence of sound to carry my argument.

In the same way, I cannot rationally put forward the argument that all language is meaningless, because I must use language to communicate my argument. If my proposition that language is meaningless is true, then using language to communicate that proposition would be ridiculous – if my argument that language has no meaning is heard and understood – to any degree – then it is automatically invalidated.

To rely on existence to communicate the possibility that existence equals nonexistence is equally foolish. The objective existence of air and air pressure and ears and life and minds is required to speak and hear the argument that existence may equal nonexistence. Furthermore, the rational and predictable properties of all that exists in order to communicate an argument are presumed to be objective, since any communication between human beings requires an acceptance of the objective properties of matter.

For example, if you tell me that gods exist, and I reply, “Yes, I agree that gods do not exist,” you will doubtless correct my erroneous feedback on your position. This is only possible if the words have at least some objective meaning, and sound waves do not magically mutate from voice to ears, and so on. For words to be formed, spoken and heard, both existence and nonexistence must be accepted, since all sound waves have peaks and valleys. Text as well must have the presence and absence of somewhat contrasting colours, otherwise only one colour is seen, which is not an argument.

All human communication thus relies on the difference between existence and nonexistence, presence and absence, and accepts as axiomatic the objective behavior of matter and energy, and at least tolerable objectivity in language.

When we understand all this, we understand that using strict and objective differences between existence and nonexistence – as well as accepting the objective behavior of matter and energy – to argue that there may be no differences between existence and nonexistence, and that matter and energy may exhibit no objective behavior, is exactly the same as sending a letter claiming that letters are never delivered.

Ah, but perhaps I have misunderstood something! Perhaps I am sending a letter telling you that letters are only sometimes not delivered, in which case my argument may be somewhat weakened, but it is not entirely self-contradictory. The agnostic, after all, does not claim that gods do exist in another universe, but rather only that they may exist.

However, this is looking at the wrong side of the agnostic argument. The agnostic is making the absolute claim that absolute claims are invalid. “You cannot say that gods do not exist, because they may exist in another dimension.” This is not a relativistic or sliding scale, but rather an absolute negation. “You cannot say,” is the equivalent of “mail is never delivered.” It is not the possibility of error that the agnostic is affirming, but rather the impossibility of absolute knowledge claims of any kind. This is an absolute statement that rejects absolutism, which of course renders it invalid.

Agnosticism is one of the rare examples of a truly cosmic fail.

Agnosticism and Principles

Let's look at another argument against agnosticism.

Perhaps you think I am overstating the case – but the agnostic argument is so pervasive, and so ridiculous, that I do not think we can drive enough stakes into its hollow heart.

The agnostic claim that no truth statement can be valid because of a possible opposite universe cannot only apply to gods, but rather must apply to every object in the universe – and every argument as well! Thus, when the agnostic says “gods may exist in another dimension,” the “opposite possibility principle” applies even to his own words, which can then be rationally reinterpreted, according to his own principles, as the exact opposite of what he is saying, i.e. “there can be no other dimensions, and gods cannot exist.” If the agnostic protests that this was not his meaning, he can be told that he cannot affirm his meaning in any way, because in this other dimension, his words may have the exact opposite meaning. It is the same principle that he is applying to the atheist, and so he cannot reasonably complain when it boomerangs back and knocks over the foolish house of cards he is pretending to build.

The moment that the agnostic asserts that it is impossible to state with certainty that gods cannot exist, due to this possible alternate dimension, then his statement is automatically invalidated as well, since in this alternate dimension, gods may not exist either, or his words may mean the opposite of what he thinks they mean in this dimension, and so on. No sane person can use this other dimension to affirm or deny any truth statement in this dimension – and so the agnostic merely takes himself out of the bounds of civilized and rational debate.

The moment an agnostic hears this argument, he will doubtless say, “But...”

However, I merely interrupt him to reply, “You cannot use the word ‘but,’ since the word ‘but’ might have the exact opposite meaning in some alternate dimension.”

I would continue this process with every word he spoke after that, until he either dropped his position, or my company, which would be a relief either way.

This is what I mean when I say that all con artists wish to create a general rule, with a magical exception for themselves – the agnostic wishes to cast universal doubt on truth statements, except all the ones that he happens to make.

Agnosticism and Consistency

Since agnosticism is fundamentally an epistemological position, it cannot be confined to the existence of gods, but rather must be fundamental to all forms of human knowledge.

However, I have yet to hear an agnostic argue that we must abolish prisons, since a criminal’s guilt can never be established with certainty, since in another dimension, he might not have committed the crime. In Western legal systems, crimes must be proven “beyond a reasonable doubt,” but in the agnostic formulation of truth, no such standard can ever be achieved.

This kind of exceptionalism is dully inevitable when dealing with religion. It never applies anywhere else.

To take another example, it is illegal to sell bogus cures for real illnesses – however, not only is Christianity’s “cure” utterly unproven, but even the “illness” itself – sin – is completely invented. Can we imagine a priest being hauled before a court for fraud, for selling a nonsense cure to an invented disease? If not, why not?

We also have laws against hate speech, or the incitement of hatred against particular groups. However, the Bible commands believers to kill gays, atheists, sorcerers, heretics, disobedient children and witches and just about everyone else who draws breath. A comic in Canada was recently hauled before the human rights commission for making a joke about homosexuals – can we imagine the printers and distributors of the Bible being charged in such a manner? If not, why not?

Gods and Non-Existence?

Even if we accept the opposite-planet Bizarro world of the agnostic position – and even if we accept that knowledge claims can be made about an unknowable realm, the agnostic position still falls flat.

There are only two possibilities for our future relationship with Dimension X – either we will never interact with it in any way, or we will find some way to penetrate its mysteries. In the first case, Dimension X will never be discovered, in which case it is merely “nonexistence” with a silly alias, and cannot be used to reject any knowledge claims. Since it remains a mere synonym for nonexistence, it cannot be used to reject nonexistence. In this case, an agnostic cannot say, “I reject that gods cannot exist by defining nonexistence as synonymous with existence – just calling it ‘Dimension X’ for funsies.”

Ah, but perhaps someday we will find a way to send a probe into Dimension X, and record some of its properties. In this case, we will be translating Dimension X into something that exists here, in our universe, just as a spectrograph translates light into waves. In other words, Dimension X will have to show up somewhere, somehow in our universe to confirm its existence, and can no longer be used as a synonym for nonexistence.

Alternatively, if Zeus is currently doing cartwheels in Dimension X, he might trip and stick his finger through the time-space continuum and poke a hole in our moon. In this case, we would have objective and empirical evidence for this event, which would constitute proof that something rather extraordinary had occurred.

In other words, the properties and characteristics of Dimension X will have to be translated into something that exists in this universe in order to confirm its existence and record its properties. If Dimension X never has any impact on our universe, then it is completely synonymous with nonexistence, and can never be used to reject nonexistence. Using the standard of nonexistence to reject nonexistence is entirely self-contradictory, the equivalent of saying “I reject the nonexistence of X by accepting that it does not exist, but using a different word.” If a surgeon said that a dead patient still lived because he used the word “gool” to mean “dead,” we would not accept his argument as particularly rational. The agnostic claim that gods cannot be said to not exist because one can use the phrase “dimension x” as a synonym for nonexistence is equally foolish and irrational.

Gods and the Supernatural

That which is self-contradictory cannot exist. Gods are self-contradictory entities. Therefore gods cannot exist.

What if a god is invented which does not possess self-contradictory characteristics?

Ah, then it is not a god.

We can imagine that 21st century man would appear godlike to our Stone Age ancestors – however, the sane among us do not believe that we have become gods due to our advanced technology.

In the same way, we may meet among the stars fantastically advanced beings – however they will not be gods, but rather just highly evolved life forms. We may meet telepathic beings who can travel through time and have made themselves immortal, but we will never meet carbon-based lifeforms that can live on the surface of the sun, or Oompa-Loompas who live in a square circle, are composed of both fire and ice, and can go North and South at the same time.

Thus it is axiomatic that gods cannot exist – if they are gods, then they cannot exist; if they exist, then they are not gods.

Accidental Knowledge?

Imagine that archaeologists come across some squiggly prehistoric cave painting that, when viewed at a certain angle, has vague similarities to the equation “E=mc²”.

Would this overthrow our entire sense of causality and the evolution of knowledge? Would we imagine that a primitive caveman largely incapable of language or mathematics had somehow discovered one of the most complex and challenging equations of modern physics?

Of course not.

We would smile at the strange coincidence, but would no more imagine a Stone Age genius physicist then we would grant a doctorate to the wind, should it happen to blow a series of sand dunes into a similar equation.

In other words, the effects of knowledge cannot exist prior to that knowledge. I could probably teach my infant daughter to scratch out “E=mc²,” but I would not imagine that she understood any of its reasoning, evidence or contents. A sick animal might break into a pharmacy and eat the pills that coincidently happened to treat its illness, but we would not call such an animal a pharmacist or a doctor.

Almost all of our conceptions of deities have come down to us from the past – and generally the pre-scientific past. When we consider the 10,000 or so gods that human beings have believed in at one time or another, we clearly understand that the development and depiction of these gods was not based on any scientific or rational understanding of the universe. Even if the impossible actually occurred, and some being were found somewhere in the universe that closely matched the description of some ancient deity, this would not be proof that such a god existed in the past, and was the source of that knowledge. Either this would be mere coincidence, or we would have to accept the reality that such a being visited our ancestors, who recorded his actual presence, which is not proof of the existence of a god, but rather a tourist.

Any historical knowledge claim about deities existed prior to any empirical evidence or proof, and thus remains in the realm of pure fantasy. Even if evidence were to accumulate at some point in the future, this does not grant prescience to the accidental imaginings of past ages. In other words, the hope that some theists and agnostics have that proofs for gods will be found in the future does not validate any existing claims about the natures and properties of deities. All prior and existing claims of knowledge about gods are false, regardless of what shows up in the future, in this or any other dimension.

Deities Before Time?

Some theists – and even agnostics – use the same “Dimension X” argument examined above, but place the alternate universe in a time before our own, rather than parallel to it in some manner.

This does not fundamentally change any of the arguments – either this universe before our own will never have any impact on us, in which case it is just another word for nonexistence, or it will, in which case it will be empirically measurable within our own universe, and subject to all the same laws of physics as everything else we examine. In other words, once it enters into our universe, it cannot contain self-contradictory properties, and therefore cannot be a god.

Quantum Physics

Quantum physics is the latest in a long line of scientific bags that people like to dump their crazy, pseudo-scientific ideas in to. The admitted strangeness and apparent self-contradictory behavior of subatomic particles is sometimes enlisted as yet another “alternate realm” wherein gods might exist.

The frank reality of quantum effects is that they have no impact whatsoever upon sense perception, since any and all quantum effects cancel each other out long before the aggregation of particles is perceptible by our unaided senses. This is why an electron may seem to be in two places at the same time, but a table never is.

Clearly, life cannot exist at a subatomic level, which is why we never think of a proton as alive, even if it is contained within a living being. Since a deity must be alive – at least in some sense of the word – it cannot exist at the subatomic level, since even the simplest form of life is a highly complex aggregation of cells and energy.

Furthermore, since the individual subatomic particles examined by quantum physics can never have any effect on objects perceivable by our senses, this invalidates all historical – i.e. prior to quantum physics – conceptions of deities. Finding ex post facto homes for gods in quantum physics, when all concepts of deities evolved prior to any knowledge of quantum physics – is a ridiculous and desperate attempt to rescue the irrational through an appeal to the scientific.

Harm to Children?

It has long been accepted by rational thinkers that religion occupies a magically aggressive place in the pantheon of human thought, remaining strangely impervious to the rational standards that have long since felled other superstitions.

As Richard Dawkins has pointed out, every religious person is virtually a complete atheist, in that he rejects the existence of every other God but the one he worships.

To understand this more clearly, imagine a mathematics tutor named Bob who refused to teach any strict methodology for solving problems.

If you were to hire Bob, and your child were to correctly answer the problem of 3x3, Bob would have to reply that it was impossible to say that three times three make nine, because in an alternate universe they might make the opposite of nine. Bob would further instruct your child not to answer any question with any certainty, and always to include this caveat with regards to any and all forms of knowledge. Bob would also say that none of his instructions – even that one – can be accepted as true, because they might be false in another universe.

Thus, when responding to a roll call at school, your son cannot say that he is present, because in another universe, he might be absent. Furthermore, he cannot actually go to school, because in another universe, the school might be located in the opposite direction from his house. He cannot go to bed, because in another universe, it might be an alligator. He cannot eat vegetables, because in another universe, they might be poison – and so on…

Surely we would view such a tutor as a sworn enemy to the mental health of our child, and would be horrified at the inevitable results of his bizarre philosophy, and would have to spend a good deal of time unravelling the Gordian knot of impossible contradictions he had tied our child’s mind into.

Principles which claim universality, but which cannot conceivably be universalized, are self-contradictory and false by definition.

Agnosticism and Religion

While agnosticism generally refrains from attacking specific positive claims about the nature of deities (other than to say that they may exist in another dimension defined as synonymous with nonexistence), religions are entirely founded on making positive and universal claims about the nature, intentions, personalities, morals and properties of deities.

An agnostic will say that an invisible man might live in the boarded-up house next door; a priest will tell you everything that the invisible man thinks and wants and is capable of.

Agnosticism and religion both require the substitution of socially-acceptable synonyms for falsehood in order to affirm their invalid positions.

Agnostics substitute “other dimensions” for “nonexistence,” while theists substitute “faith” for “falsehood.”

Why is faith false?

Well, as the Latin phrase has it – Credo quia absurdum (“I believe because it is absurd”). A square circle is an impossible entity, and therefore cannot exist. We do not have to hunt the entire universe from edge to edge to know that a square circle does not exist; it is not an act of will to accept that a square circle does not exist, it is simply a recognition of reality and the nature of existence.

A square circle is an absurd concept – or rather, to be more accurate, it is an anti-concept, in that it takes two valid but incompatible concepts and crashes them together to create a crazy mishmash of impossibility.

Take any property or ethic of the Christian God – to just pick on one absurd anti-concept – and the contradictory nature is clear.

-        “That which exists must have been created, but God, who exists, was never created.”

-        “God is all-knowing and all-powerful, which are both impossible.”

-        “God punishes a man for actions which are predetermined.”

-        “God punishes rebellious angels, although their rebellion was completely predetermined.”

-        “God claims to be morally perfect, although God fails the test of most of his 10 Commandments.”

-        Etc.

For any religion that involves prayer or supplication to be valid, the following steps must all be rationally validated and empirically proven:

1.     A deity must exist (call him “Jeb”).

2.     Jeb must have the interest and power to interfere in the universe.

3.     Jeb must have the interest and willingness to interfere in human affairs.

4.     Jeb must listen to prayers, rather than just read minds.

5.     Jeb must only listen to prayers from the members of a particular sect.

6.     Jeb must monitor and record good and bad behavior.

7.     Ideally, Jeb must punish the members of alternate sects, or those who pray in an incorrect or inconsistent fashion.

8.     Jeb must also not reward those who do not give money to his priests – and ideally, punish said folks.

As we can see, since even the existence of a deity is conceptually ridiculous, not even the first domino in this increasingly absurd row falls down.

In other words, the propositions of religion do not “require faith,” but rather are simply false – and as a result, since they command obedience and money, they are exploitative, abusive and destructive.

Religion as Child Abuse?

In his recent book “God Is Not Great,” Christopher Hitchens asked whether religion was child abuse, but in my view did not provide a very satisfactory answer. The question can be easily resolved through the philosophical approach of universalization.

It is generally accepted in society that children are mentally deficient – and in some ways, of course, they are, in language acquisition and the processing of consequences to actions and so on.

It is generally considered acceptable in a religious society to teach children that God will reward them for obedience to their elders, and punish them for disobedience.

However, we cannot put only children into the category of “mentally deficient,” since there are those with impaired mental faculties either due to a physical brain problem or injury, or due to age- or illness-related deterioration.

Let us take the example of mentally challenged individuals with Down’s syndrome.

Imagine that a home for such individuals existed, run by a man named Bob. Every morning, Bob reminds his bewildered and mentally challenged wards that the air is full of invisible demons who will attack their brains, eyes, teeth and tongues if they ever disobey one of Bob’s Commandments. Even if they are slow to obey, these demons will attack them in their dreams, and suck out their life essence, and spit it into a lake of fire, where it will burn for eternity. Every morning, they must get on their knees and plead for Bob's good opinion, otherwise he might butcher all of them by drowning them in toilets, as he did once before when he was offended…

We could go on and on, but I think that we all understand that this would be verbal and emotional abuse of the very worst and most destructive kind. The traumatized mentally challenged victims of such a nightmare environment would not be able to differentiate Bob's terrifying tales from actual reality, and would live in abject terror, and we would consider it a staggeringly evil abuse of power for Bob to verbally attack and mentally infect his victims in such a manner.

It's hard to imagine that we would judge the situation any differently if Bob ran a home for elderly adults with dementia, and terrified old ladies in the same manner. In either case, we would view Bob as a deranged sadist, lacking any shred of human compassion for his victims, and our hearts would go out to the suffering that he was inflicting through the vengeful power of his demonic language.

(As a minor tangent, this argument is exactly the same for spanking – would we accept it as morally valid to spank the elderly for their forgetfulness?)

Is religion child abuse?

Yes, if it is false. As it is.

Mentally challenged individuals with Down's Syndrome – as well as most elderly people – are nowhere near as vulnerable as children, since most of them have adults taking a significant interest in their long-term well-being.

However, when parents inflict demonic and terrifying tales of religious superstition on the tender, trusting and dependent minds of their children, who will intervene to save them?

Sadly, only real philosophers, for the rest of the intellectual classes are too busy inventing hiding places for the gods to intervene and save the children.

Power or Virtue? A Love Story

Almost all deities are objects of worship, but it is hard to know with any certainty exactly what is being worshiped. Certainly gods are very powerful – infinitely powerful, in most formulations – but I have never met a religious person who worships only the power of his God. No, it is always the virtue of God that is worshiped; the power is merely incidental.

However, the virtue of a deity is problematic on many levels.

If human beings only ever wanted to eat the food that was best for them, we would have no need for the science of nutrition. Our desire for fats and sugars drives the need for nutritional information and discipline, just as our desire for energy conservation drives the need for information about exercise. If we could all automatically do any mathematical calculation in our heads, we would not need to be taught mathematics, and so on.

All human disciplines thus arise to counter desires which run against our best long-term interests. The balancing of long and short-term interests is the very essence of wisdom – the short-term hit of a cigarette versus the long-term risk of lung cancer, the short-term emotional relief of verbal abuse versus the long-term harm to our relationships, to name just two examples.

The discipline of ethics is no different.

The need for virtue in humanity arises out of mortality, and weakness, and temptation, and relative powerlessness – none of which concerns God in any way. Would God need to be courageous, if He was all-powerful? It’s hard to see how. Would He need to remind himself to be honest, if He could suffer no negative consequences for his honesty? Would He find it challenging to resist the temptations of peer pressure? He is peerless, of course!

In many video games, there is a secret “god mode,” which allows players to stroll through the game without taking any damage from enemies, usually with infinite ammunition and pixel-shredding weapons. I can't imagine thinking that a player was really good if he completed a game in “God mode” – in fact, I can't imagine why he would bother. In the same vein, if Mike Tyson in his prime were to jump into a boxing ring with a five-year-old girl, and beat her senseless, it would be hard to admire his athletic prowess.

Can we admire the virtue of a being who has no need for virtue? That would be like admiring someone for not smoking, though he had never been exposed to cigarettes, or praising the sensible fish-based diet followed by a man marooned on a desert island.

Worshiping a God for His virtue is like admiring a man in a coma for refraining from alcoholism.

God and Virtue?

Even if we put all of this aside, the question still remains: how do we know that God is virtuous?

If we are at all interested in efficiency – and as mortal beings it must have some interest to us – the first place we look for virtue is consistency with stated principles. This does not automatically prove virtue, since those stated principles might be immoral – but it does mean that we can at least check for hypocrisy before venturing further.

Thus integrity is a necessary – but not sufficient – criterion for virtue.

If we want to lose weight, and go to a bookstore, and see 50 diet books on the shelf, how likely are we to choose the diet book written by a fat author? Would such a book not more properly belong in the comedy section? “Ah,” you may say, “but the fact that an author is fat does not automatically invalidate his diet.” That is certainly true, but so what? Life is short, decisions are endless, and we cannot investigate every conceivable claim. It is enough to know that a fat dietitian either is following his own diet, in which case it will be unlikely to help us lose weight, or he is promoting a diet that he himself does not follow, which calls his judgment into question, to say the least. Either way, we move on.

The same principle applies to ethics.

If a man constantly preaches the virtue of helping others in need, and then steps over a man bleeding to death in a gutter, we cannot reasonably praise his integrity. While we may agree with him that helping others in need is morally good, his actions inform us that he does not agree with his own moral arguments.

Most religions explicitly state that helping others in need is morally good – think of the parable of the Good Samaritan in the New Testament. However, since gods do not exist, and so cannot intervene, religions have the rather challenging task of explaining why their “moral” God does not help those in need. If it is immoral for travelers on the road to ignore a bleeding man, when it will cost them both time and resources to help him, is it not infinitely more immoral for God to refrain from helping, when it will cost God neither time nor resources, since He has an infinity of both?

We could go on ad nauseum with these examples, such as the genocidal habits of the Old Testament deity, contrasted with His commandment “Thou Shalt Not Kill,” but I'm sure you get the general point.

If we are wise, we do not take a man’s claim that he is virtuous at face value, but will ask first about the contents of his moral beliefs, and then about his practical consistency with those values. A man can only be considered virtuous when he has good values, and strives for and achieves reasonable consistency with those values. If he has bad values, clearly he cannot be virtuous, just as if he has good values but does not act on them.

Gods command men to fight evil, but gods allow evil in the world. Gods prohibit killing, but gods kill. Gods command their followers not to judge others, but gods judge. Gods punish the predetermined actions of people, which shows about as much maturity and wisdom as jailing a cell phone. Gods continually act in direct contradiction to their own stated moral values, which is a hallmark of great immorality.

A man raised by wolves who has no conception of ethics may be forgiven for stealing; a man who preaches respect for property is fully responsible if he steals, because he has already displayed his knowledge of ethics. We would not fault a waiter for failing to perform an emergency tracheotomy; a doctor would far more responsible, since he possesses the necessary knowledge to help.

Thus it is hard to understand exactly what is being worshiped when a God is being praised. Is it power? But power is morally neutral at best, and while it may elicit awe or deference, it cannot be morally worshiped in and of itself. Is it virtue? But we have only the God's word that He is virtuous, which is exactly what would we would expect from a hypocritical con artist bent on praising himself only to arouse admiration and obedience in us.

The whole question of virtue gets buried under the contradictory kaleidoscope of justifications for religion. Theists are faced with the impossible task of attempting to justify primitive and brutal superstitions according to modern moral and scientific sensibilities. The more intelligent among them know that this is impossible, so they create a bewildering miasma of contradictions, foggy stall tactics, bizarre combinations of moral relativism for adults (“this passage is metaphorical”) and abusive absolutism for children (“Jesus died for your sins!”).

The Costs of False Ethics

Our acceptance of these tactics – which would be laughed out of the room in any other human discipline – has come at a truly catastrophic cost to our moral development and understanding as a species.

Over the past 2,500 years, we have advanced in almost every human discipline – except ethics.

Despite our staggering advances in technology, medicine, physics, biology, engineering – and almost any other field you would care to name – our progress in moral philosophy has not changed since the days – and death – of Socrates.

We still have wars, and torture, and child abuse, and national debts, and the forced indoctrination of the young – and we cannot come to any moral standards that can be generally accepted by reasonably intelligent people the world over. We despise theft, and then accept taxes – we despise murder, and praise soldiers – we tell our children not to use force, and then we use government force to ‘educate’ them.

The original formulation of ethics was to create a set of rules, to encourage people to follow those rules – even if they did not understand them – and to punish transgressors with imprisonment and fines in the here and now, and eternal damnation in the hereafter.

The threat of secular retribution from the state, combined with the hope for internal guilt and self attack from religion, was the best that could be achieved when humanity was still convinced that the Earth was flat, trees had souls and the world rested on an infinity of giant turtles.

Nothing has changed in any fundamental way since the dawn of thought. We still encourage people to be “good” by following social standards and mostly arbitrary laws, and then violently attack them when they break the obviously arbitrary rules that have been invented.

To take a simple example, to kill a man in the street is a great moral crime; to kill a man on a battlefield is a great moral virtue. “No green costume” equals moral evil – “green costume” equals moral heroism. If one man tells you to murder, you get a jail cell – if another man tells you to murder, you get medals and a pension.

Alternatively, the initiation of force against a peaceful individual for the purpose of removing his property is clearly theft when done in a dark alley; the taxation policies of a great nation are, as the saying goes, “the price we pay to live in a civilized society.”

I cannot lock my neighbor in my basement for making too much noise, but I can call the police to lock him in jail if he grows certain vegetables in his basement, which has far less effect on me.

If I am poor, and I steal food, I go to jail – however, if I vote for politicians to forcibly transfer other people's wealth to me through the welfare state, I am an engaged citizen.

These are all paradoxes that every reasonably intelligent person has mulled over at one time or another, but they have remained essentially unchanged for thousands of years, and I would argue that this is largely due to religion.

A false answer – particularly when it is highly profitable to liars – is the ultimate barrier to progress in human thought. Religion is the worst possible answer to the question of ethics, since it is not an answer at all, but merely a threat based on falsehoods.

One of the reasons that medieval economics remained so primitive and unproductive was the Guild system, which required many years of poorly paid labor to learn even the most simple and menial of tasks. Those who had already passed through the system made more money individually than they would have if the system had been suddenly abandoned, and free competition had opened up. The older and wealthier members of society thus continued to block free competition from the young, and while they may have maintained their own income in the short run, they killed economic growth in the long run, which was to their own detriment, and the detriment of their children of course.

The threat was punishment from the state, the lie was that seven years of apprenticeship were necessary to become, say, a bricklayer – and so society stagnated at near starvation levels for almost a thousand years, until the shortage of labor that arose from the Black Death began to unravel the Guild system.

In the same way, the “moral teaching” of religion is only a threat – secular punishment from the state, eternal punishment from God – based on a series of lies, i.e. that gods exist, are moral, and must be obeyed.

The institutionalization and profitable exploitation of this system has effectively barred philosophers from examining morality from a rational and secular standpoint. Either philosophers are religious (or afraid of the religious), in which case they tend to avoid attacking fundamental moral problems, for fear of arousing attack – or philosophers are statists (or afraid of the government), in which case they tend to avoid attacking fundamental moral problems, for fear of arousing attack.

Those who work for churches would view any rational system of secular ethics as a direct threat to their income and position, the same goes for those who work for the state.

Thus “right-wingers” tend to be more in favor of a smaller state, but are very religious; “left-wingers” tend to be more skeptical of religion and secular in nature, but tend to be more in favor of a larger state.

“Choose your poison” seems to be our only approach to solving moral problems.

Any society which relies on false and contradictory morality – and all societies currently fall into this category –  must substitute aggression for argument in the instruction of children. A child who asks why a soldier gets a medal for killing in a war, when he would be thrown in jail in peacetime, can receive no sane and rational answer, for none exists. Parents, priests and teachers seem to be fundamentally averse to saying that they do not know the answer to this question, or any of the other hundreds of ethical questions posed by children.

Because we do not know the answer to these questions, we must threaten children in order to throw them off the scent, so to speak. This may be overt, or more subtle, through exasperated sighs, rolling one's eyes, and rolling out the tired old bromide that the child will understand when he gets older.

False moral principles are the foundation for the greatest edifices of human society – the state, the military, the police, the church, public schools and so on. Since these enormous and powerful institutions rest on ridiculous and indefensible moral contradictions, to persist in questioning these principles is to take an axe to the base of the tree of the world. The entire profit and sense of human society sits like an enormous inverted pyramid on a few shaky and trembling – and false – ethical axioms.

Our lack of progress in solving moral problems without using aggression is entirely attributable to the confusing infections of religiosity. Just as it took a secular mind to solve the problem of biological evolution, it will take a secular mind to solve the problem of secular, rational and scientific ethics. However, any theory that defers to religion must inevitably create a central vortex of wild irrationality that it must skip around, distorting and ruining the theory as a whole.

In the same way, any theory that defers to statism, taxation and war creates exactly the same vortex, since it cannot ban the initiation of force to solve social problems, yet it must ban the initiation of force to solve personal problems, and so mealy-mouthed madness can only follow from such dismal and initial compromises. “The initiation of force through taxation is moral, but the initiation of force through theft is immoral…” “The initiation of force in war is moral, the initiation of force without war is immoral…” “Public violence is good, private violence is bad…” etc.

This is why the modern coterie of secular atheists will never be able to solve the problem of ethics, since they remain wedded to the state – to the initiation of force – as a central moral axiom within society. Thus Sam Harris says that we need to solve the problem of war by creating a world government, while Richard Dawkins remains fundamentally unable to criticize the state, since he is fundamentally an employee of the state, while Christopher Hitchens is still recovering from his totalitarian Marxist impulses, and continues to praise the obviously unjust and immoral Iraq war (though in charity we can safely assume that results more from his family military history than any objective judgement).

It seems enormously difficult to overcome our own prejudices, and the historical errors that seem almost to have been embedded into our very DNA. It may be too much to ask for true originality in solving these problems, but we should at the very least ask for an avoidance of the false answers that have so repetitively failed for the past 2,500 years.

We may not yet know the right way to go, but we should at least stop going in the wrong direction.

Why Gods?

It is helpful, but not essential, for atheism to explain why the concept of gods is so widespread and prevalent among mankind. The 10,000 or so gods that lie scattered across the past and present cultures of our species must represent some form of universal content or meaning for this fantasy to be so widespread.

In general, religion has gone through four major phases – the first was animism, or the idea that every rock and leaf and tree was imbued with a spiritual force. In this approach, a farmer would profusely apologize to a rock before moving it out of the way of his plow. It is fairly easy to understand that this arose from a fundamental confusion between what is living and what is not, or what has consciousness, and what does not. A man who thinks that a rock deserves an apology lives in an extremely primitive state of mind, wherein the division between his own consciousness and inanimate matter has not yet been established. My 18 month old daughter is losing the habit of saying hello to the toilet, and her bath, and her toes, which gives you a sense of how primitive this phase is.

In the second phase of religion, the distinction between living and not living becomes established, and a multiplicity of deities that are specifically and thoroughly anthropomorphic take refuge somewhere above the clouds, or on the peak of a mountain, sucking up in their wake all of the projected consciousness that formerly resided in rocks and trees and rivers. This is a vast improvement in accuracy – not to mention sanity – in that the differentiation between conscious and unconscious becomes established in a much wider sphere.

In the third phase, the warring multiplicity of gods is in a sense hunted down, rounded up and herded into one big squirming bag of pseudo-monotheism. The former glorious ribaldry of the ancient Greek religions becomes diluted and caged into a tyrannical hierarchy of a single, inhuman and utterly abstract God. This phase contains a variety of insurmountable tensions, which inevitably fragment the new monotheism into an even more bizarre version of the older polytheism, such as the Holy Trinity and the thousands of saints.

In the fourth phase, religion becomes a set of more or less convincing fairy tales, wherein obedience to a complete text is not required, but followers can pick and choose what they like, according to their own personal preferences and tastes, and God is turned into a sort of ideological lapdog, which trails after the prejudices of the believer, imbuing his own personal bigotries with a vague glow of eternal approval.

In all these phases, there is a deep and consistent sense of a vast and powerful consciousness that lies outside the range of our conscious ego, which contains deep and mysterious elements of eternity; which existed before us, and will continue to exist after us, which informs and guides many if not most of our decisions, reveals its purposes and intentions through visions and dreams, frustrates our vices and supports our virtues, and responds indirectly and metaphorically to abasement and supplication.

It is scarcely a novel insight to point out that our minds are divided between our conscious ego and our subconscious. Our conscious ego needs little explanation; it is the self aware part of us that responds to willpower, focus, attention, and has direct access to the memories that we have accumulated in our lifetimes. It is a precise and astoundingly powerful tool that in a very real sense can be called the most mortal part of ourselves, since it grows and develops with us, and will certainly die with us, as will all of our personal memories.

However, there exists below consciousness, or surrounding consciousness, the subconscious, whose processing power dwarfs the puny efforts of our conscious mind, and which also contains an element of eternity within itself. Our conscious memories are specific to our own lives, as are our more conscious choices and plans. I may dream at night of something I experienced that day, but the capacity for the experience of dreaming is not something that I have chosen, but rather something that my subconscious mind has developed and inherited and refined over millions of years.

The subconscious mind, which controls everything from our heart rate to our breathing to the increasing uneasiness we experience when in a dangerous situation we have not yet noticed consciously, is like an eternal guardian angel – or avenging devil if we have done evil – which is constantly prodding us with interfering emotions and sensations, discouraging us with fear and guilt, spurring us on with desire and pleasure, lecturing us about our choices in nightly dreams, whipping us on with short-term lust while simultaneously cautioning us with fears about the long-term stability of our sexual partners – to name just a few.

When we think of religion, we think of a puny consciousness – that of man – embedded in an eternal, infinite and seemingly omniscient consciousness which never shows itself directly, but which takes an enormous interest in us, and evaluates our choices and preferences, and rewards us and punishes us, and responds in maddeningly oblique ways to our direct and painful supplications.

Gods are also experienced as existing before us, and living on after us, which directly relates to the quasi-eternal nature of the subconscious, which existed prior to our conscious mind and memories even in the individual, and which is the ancient foundation upon which the temple of our ego was built.

The mind of God is also considered to be vastly superior to that of man – is this not also an exact description of the subconscious, whose processing power has been estimated as 7,000 times that of the conscious mind?

Man is considered to be a creation of God, and God is a deep and eternal consciousness that has existed forever – is this not an exact description of the relationship between the conscious ego and the subconscious? As a species, and in our own lives, our ego evolves out of our subconscious, which is why we cannot remember our very early years. I have an arm which I can call my arm in a sense, but it is not really my arm, because it existed before I experienced an “I.” My arm preceded me, since it developed in the womb – and my ego had no part in its planning or creation, but rather my ego grew out of my body, many years later. My arm, my body and my subconscious existed before me, and certainly my body will exist after me, though my ego will not be around to watch it decompose.

Thus when we say that man is created by God, what we really mean is that the ego is created by the body, which precedes the ego both individually and collectively. My arm preceded my consciousness by years, and human arms in general preceded my particular arm by millions of years. It is in this sense that we are in fact created by an eternal pattern that precedes us, however primitively we may have anthropomorphized this basic truth.

The subconscious – like monotheism – also resists the imposition of a singular identity, no matter how fervently desired. The subconscious contains a vast multiplicity of alter egos, various aspects of the conscious mind designed to fit into whatever hierarchy wraps around us in the moment – as well as the multiple alter egos of those around us, those who raised us and taught us and, perhaps, harmed and abused us.

To take an obvious example, when I was a child I had a teacher who was a bully, and this teacher would immediately become servile when the principal came into the classroom – I have within my subconscious not only this teacher as an individual, but this teacher as a personality with multiple alter egos. I have my own alter egos, as well at the alter egos of thousands of other people I have met over the course of my life, which is why, since religion is merely a superstitious description of our subconscious, monotheism can never hold.

Things which do not work generally do not last, which is why few of us indulge in rain dances anymore when we really want a downpour. There is something in religion, though, which does work, despite its obvious falsehoods, and my argument is that what works is the act of asking a superior intelligence for guidance and wisdom. The simple fact is that people who pray often do experience a response, and the obvious and empirical answer is that they are asking for wisdom from their own subconscious, which responds in its usual oblique yet amazingly accurate fashion. A man who asks God for an answer is asking his subconscious for advice, and anyone who has spent any significant time on the couch of a good therapist, examining his dreams and his feelings and his impulses, sooner or later understands the power, fertility and objectivity of the subconscious – and once this is understood, the accuracy and utility of religion is revealed. The clarity and precision of the conscious mind requires no explanation, since we experience it countless times every day – the wisdom and astounding parallel processing power of the subconscious is largely only available to those who approach it on bended knee, with humility and patience and bottomless curiosity.

This is not to say, however, that religion is a form of self-knowledge, or that grandiose superstitions are somehow equivalent to humble introspection. It is certainly true that among those already predisposed to gentleness, virtue and courage, the impulses returned from the subconscious can truly aid them in achieving and maintaining these admirable virtues – but as we all know, these are not the only kinds of people in the world. I get many messages from religious people who tell me that although I am not a believer, their God loves me. While I certainly do appreciate these warm sentiments, I cannot afford to take them very seriously, because what would I say if they wrote to tell me that their God hated me for my unbelief, as the Bible says? If I accept irrational love, I cannot very well reject irrational hatred. There is an enormous difference between humbly consulting wise but hard to access aspects of myself, and believing that I am receiving divine commandments from a perfect and all-powerful intelligence outside myself.

The essence of self-knowledge is negotiation, the recognition that every aspect of the self has a valid seat at the table, and deserves to be heard, but that none shall rule. Some people think of this as a democracy of the self, but I think that is a tragically inaccurate and destructive way to look at it, because in a democracy, the government always has the final say, and enforces its will through the force of law. It is infinitely more accurate and healthy to say that what is required is a stateless state of mind, or the anarchy of the self, where all is negotiation, and no final arbiter can enforce decisions. The discomfort generated by refusing to promote an inner dictator – even temporarily – to a position of final authority can be extreme, particularly since we are raised in such horribly authoritarian structures – school, church, so often the family – yet it is necessary for us to progress as a species to a more peaceful world.

The closest current analogy to the anarchy of self is the voluntarism of free-market, without government, where wealth and authority may ebb and flow, but all is negotiation and peaceful interaction.

Religion supports the promotion of the subconscious to a position of ultimate and final authority, since it worships the subconscious as a God, which is extremely dangerous, since no aspect of the self should ever be a tyrant in the mind of a healthy man, just as no single muscle in the body should dominate all other muscles. We require a highly complex interplay of hundreds of muscles even to walk – when one muscle becomes dominant, we call that a cramp, and consider it an extremely uncomfortable situation that needs to be alleviated at once.

In more extreme cases, a man who prays to an imaginary being will hear voices in his head telling him what to do, and religion supports the idea that these voices come from a god, not a horribly damaged part of his own psyche, with all the resulting disasters that can occur from such a tragic misapprehension. It is true that the more gentle among the religious reject the theological validity of those who claim to hear voices coming from God, yet they are on a slippery slope when they take such a noble stand, since if they perceive their contemporaries to be mentally ill for hearing voices and believing in gods, what are they to make of those who wrote their holy texts? Few modern Christians would kneel before a man claiming to be the reincarnation of Jesus Christ, but rather would suggest that he would benefit from the services of a mental health practitioner – would they say the same to Jesus himself? Most Christians would say that Jesus performed miracles, but there is no evidence for this of course, other than the hearsay of other people who were doubtless equally mentally ill. If I said that Christians should worship a friend of mine because he performed miracles that only I could see, would they agree? It is impossible to imagine that they would.

The religious also believe that gods watch and judge us, and this seems entirely in accordance with the subconscious reality of a conscience. A conscience is nothing terribly complex; it is simply the extrapolation of our stated principles into universals, followed by the comparison of our actions to these universals. If I hit my daughter while telling her not to hit others, this basic contradiction – or perhaps more accurately revolting hypocrisy – is instantly noted and retained by my subconscious. I will as a result distinctly feel that there is something wrong with what I am doing, which will either propel me to examine my own hypocrisy, or redouble my attacks upon my daughter for her imagined transgressions.

If I act on impulse, and then invent endless ex post facto justifications for my actions, with reference to universal principles, then I become a bewildering, dangerous and annoying hypocrite to those around me. I cannot act with any integrity, because I have erected high and thorny walls between the various aspects of myself that need to come together so that I can act with reasonable consistency.

Unfortunately, philosophy emerged from religion in much the same way that mankind evolved from fetid swamp dwellers, with the result that principles were invented to excuse evil and elevate hypocrisy to the status of virtue. For instance, the Bible commands believers to refrain from murder, but the god considered to be all virtuous kills virtually the entire world in a fit of rage. This kind of staggering hypocrisy requires a vast amount of verbal fencing and befogging to avoid. Rationalizing the irrational was the original basis of philosophy, which is why to create a philosophy based on reason and evidence is such a radical project.

Agnosticism and Cowardice

I have often argued that agnostics are cowards, and I would like to make that case here.

First of all, I do not consider the position itself to be cowardly, but rather if superior and irrefutable strong atheist arguments are consistently rejected in favor of the mental fog of agnosticism, I consider that cowardly and enormously destructive.

We cannot be reasonably criticized for not adhering to knowledge we have yet to learn. Was an 18th-century physician negligent for failing to prescribe a cure that had not yet been invented? Of course not – but we would condemn a 21st-century physician for such malpractice. I would not criticize my 18 month old daughter for deliberately pouring juice on the carpet, an act I would consider wilfully aggressive on the part of an adult guest.

Thus if you are an agnostic, but have not yet heard the arguments in this book, please do not think that I am calling you a coward – if that even means anything to you – but after you have heard these arguments, if you cannot refute them, and still cling to your irrational position, then that is certainly the label I will apply to you, since you will have earned it.

The basic tenet of agnosticism is that no positive statements about truth can be made because some contradictory evidence may exist in this or some other universe. There is so much that is wrong with this position that it is hard to know even where to start, so let's start with something quite simple, and then work up to the more complex objections.

First of all, agnosticism is always and forever specific only to the existence of deities. I have never once heard an agnostic argue that we cannot call rape wrong because it might be right in some other universe. I recently had a debate on agnosticism with a staunch antigovernment libertarian, who argued that we could not say there were no gods because gods might exist in some other universe. I then asked him how he could assert that governments were immoral, because they might be moral in some other universe? He replied that governments have specific properties, which I did not particularly understand, and I replied that gods also have specific properties, which is why we use the word “gods” rather than “spoon,” or “aglet,” or “spork,” or “tine.” He did not respond to this, but I think the point is very clear. If the possible existence of alternate universes where truth equals falsehood invalidates any positive declaration of truth, then this applies universally, and not specifically only to gods. I have never heard an agnostic argue for the potential existence of Santa Claus in some other universe, or leprechauns, or square circles, or two and two making five. I have never seen a scientist rejecting the claim that the world is round because in another universe, it might be shaped like a banana.

We can all imagine how offensive it would be for a man to argue that we cannot call rape immoral, or attempt to prevent and punish it, because it might be virtuous in some other dimension – such a man would be obviously attempting to deal with his own psychological problems by creating some nonsensical and fogging philosophical junkyard of confusion. Have you ever heard an agnostic argue that child molesting priests should not be punished, or morally criticized, because child rape might be beneficial to kids in some other universe? We would view such ghastly equivocation as the sign of a bad conscience, and quite possibly a mental illness.

Agnosticism also faces the problem of the “null comparison.” In computer languages, variables can be created called “variants,” which can contain any type of data, from pictures to videos to numbers – the memory clipboard on your computer, used for copying and pasting just about anything, is an example of this. If you ask a computer to tell you whether the number two is equivalent to a “variant,” the computer will tell you that this cannot be done, because you cannot be sure that the variant is in fact a number. If I ask you whether the number two is equal to “X,” where “X” can be anything in the universe – or nothing at all – you will tell me that this fundamentally does not compute, and might wonder what kind of bizarre game I was up to.

“Is Susie an ‘X’?” There is no way to know – if “X” equals “female” then yes. If X. equals “asteroid” then the answer is quite likely no. The question as it stands cannot be answered. This does not mean that Susie can be anything – this does not mean that Susie might be an asteroid as well as a female human being as well as a magical unicorn, a square circle and the pot of gold at the end of a leprechaun’s rainbow.

You cannot compare anything to an unknown “X” – particularly something with known properties. The concept “deity” has specific properties, and cannot rationally be compared to some unknown alternate universe, about which we know nothing at all – the ultimate “X.”

Thus the statement that gods might exist in an alternate universe is completely invalid, and entirely self-contradictory, since we are claiming to have some knowledge of existence and the specific properties of gods in some alternate universe about which we fully admit we know absolutely nothing, not even whether it exists. (Even the statement “an alternate universe may exist” is completely invalid, because existence is a property of our universe, and since we know nothing about an alternate universe, we cannot use the term “existence” to refer to anything about it.)

Closing the Open Door

Imagine that you drive over to a friend’s house to pick him up to go to a movie. You knock on the door, and he opens it.

“Let's go,” you say.

He hesitates. “I can't go through that door,” he says.

“Why not?”

He purses his lips and shakes his head. “Because it might be closed in some alternate universe...”

Would you accept this as a rational and healthy statement on the part of your friend?

Of course not. You would try to get him some professional help. You would be particularly concerned that he opened the door in the first place – thus indicating specific knowledge about its status – and only then got all foggy about whether it was opened or closed.

But this is exactly the position of agnostics! They open the door of reason and evidence in order to nullify reason and evidence. They use a rational argument to say that reason is invalid. They create evidence out of thin air which is the opposite of existence and essentially say that no conclusions can be made because existence might equal the opposite of existence.

Why is this so cowardly?

If the agnostic position is valid, and if agnostics genuinely believe that no positive conclusions can ever be achieved and maintained, then surely they have far more important things to achieve in this world, relative to their values, then haggling over possible sky ghosts in another universe.

Surely agnostics should be virulently opposed to the existing justice system, which puts a man in jail for life based on a videotape of him stabbing his wife to death. This is a far more immediate reality than whether Zeus might exist in Dimension X – yet I have never heard an agnostic say that we should never send anyone to jail, because even if this man undoubtedly murdered his wife in this dimension, he might not have murdered her in another dimension, and so we cannot say for sure that he is guilty.

I have never heard an agnostic refuse to go to a funeral, arguing that the deceased might still be alive in another universe.

I have never heard an agnostic refuse medical treatment, on the grounds that he might be perfectly healthy in Dimension X, or that what cures him here might kill him “over there.”

I have never borrowed money from an agnostic, and have him accept my argument that I do not have to pay him back in this universe, since I might have already paid him back in another universe, and so he cannot say for sure that he has not been repaid.

I have never heard an agnostic tell a victim of abuse that she has no right to be upset, because in another universe, she might not have been abused, or abuse might be the opposite of abuse.

No, agnostics never ever advocate these or a hundred million other absurd, offensive and insane positions.

Why not?

Why would agnostics only apply this kaleidoscopic and fogging “alternate universe” theory to the most distant and incomprehensible of human conceptions – that of a deity – and not to the far more egregious, immediate and important concerns of human society?

The answer is obvious – because agnosticism would be revealed as absurd, offensive and ridiculous if it were applied even remotely consistently.

So the question still remains – why is the door left open only for gods, and nothing else?

The answer is equally obvious – because agnostics are cowards.

Agnosticism and Fear

The magic fog machine of agnosticism only pumps its noxious gases into the religious realm – it’s like a cloud that miraculously wraps itself only around priestly garments. The reason, of course, for the astounding specificity of the “alternate universe” argument is that religious people tend to get upset, offended, ostracizing and angry when told that God does not exist.

This has little to do with the non-existence of God, but rather triggers all the volatile emotions surrounding family, culture and community.

When a religious person is told that there is no God, what he hears is, “My parents lied to me.”

A man who is told that there is no God no longer sees in the mirror a being with a glowing soul, but a cramped sub-species of superstitiously (and surreptitiously) indoctrinated livestock – lied to, bullied and controlled for the sake of material money in the here and now. He is revealed not as a free man, basking in the glory of the divine, but a mere slave to the lies of the priests, fed crippling falsehoods and fattened for the feast.

People do not really believe in gods, that is a basic reality of life – they say that they believe in gods because they are afraid of being attacked by others for expressing doubt, or thought. Religions are the ultimate case of the emperor's new clothes, an old fairy tale where thieving weavers pretend to make a suit for the King, claiming that anyone who is unfit to his position will be unable to see it. Naturally, everyone pretends to see the suit, and marvels at its fine colors, until a boy on the street innocently asks why the King is walking around naked.

If you walk up to a man and tell him that his parents lied to him about everything that is true and good and right in the world, and sold his hide to thieving priests because they were afraid to stand up for truth and virtue, naturally he will be very, very upset.

Clearly, this is why agnostics do their n-dimensional somersaults – to avoid the anger, offense and potential retaliation from the religious.

I have no particular issue with people who do not want to step into the boxing ring of philosophy – not everyone is suited for these kinds of conflicts, and certainly battling superstition is not a strict moral requirement. It can be extraordinarily uncomfortable to experience the disorientation, bitter anger and caustic ostracism shooting up from the deep well of discontent when you shine down the light of reason and evidence. It is not for everyone, it is not necessary, and one can live a virtuous and happy life without taking on this kind of combat.

The world is filled with countless wrongs that I do nothing to prevent or avenge – I do nothing to feed starving children in North Korea, and while I am unhappy that they are starving, I recognize that I have chosen not to help them. I think that I am doing my own part to advance the cause of truth, reason, virtue, evidence and philosophy in the world, and I am very proud of my achievements in these areas, but of course there are millions of wrongs I do nothing about, and I recognize the reality of that, and do not seek to make excuses about my choices.

Imagine that immediately after I said that I was doing nothing to help the starving children of North Korea, I immediately said, “But there is no reason to believe that they are actually starving, because in some alternate universe, they might not be hungry at all!”

Would this not be a rather bewildering statement for me to make? Why on earth would I need to create an alternate universe in which North Korean children were not starving?

Again, the answer is blatantly obvious – I need to create an alternate universe where North Korean children are not starving because I am extremely uncomfortable with not feeding them.

If I were at peace with my decision, I would not need to create an alternate universe wherein that decision would be unnecessary. It does not require a high level of psychological sophistication to understand that if I am unfaithful to my wife, and then I obsess over an alternate universe wherein I remain faithful to my wife, that my obsession is driven by guilt and shame and a tortured desire to have chosen differently in the past. It also is not the summit of psychological insight to understand that I have a need to create an alternate universe wherein I am faithful to my wife because I am fairly sure that I will be unfaithful to her again in the future, and am preparing the way for another transgression.

I do not have conclusive empirical evidence for this, but I have certainly experienced it during my many years of debating these issues, with friends and strangers alike, but my strong belief is that agnostics are secular-minded people who come from religious parents. Deep down, they fear – and I would imagine not unreasonably – that their parents will choose God over them, if faced with such a choice. This is a truly tragic situation, which I have not had to face directly myself, and my heart goes out to people caught in this supernatural trap. Agnostics and theists are caught in the endless and stagnant merry-go-round of “let's agree to disagree.” Agnosticism is a way of fencing off a topic emotionally with a big cloudy fog bank upon which is inscribed the blurry letters, “Don't go there!”

The fact that agnostics only invoke alternate universes for gods indicates not that I think that agnostics are cowardly, but rather that they themselves are of this opinion.

I wish to reiterate that I do not think that it is cowardly to avoid confrontation with the religious – I can perfectly well understand why someone who has a reasonably good relationship with religious parents might wish to avoid confrontations about the nonexistence of gods. However, honesty is the first virtue, and the most important honesty is honesty with the self – if that is absent, everything that follows is false. The true reality for agnostics is that they do not wish to anger or upset religious people – I can understand that, but that needs to be admitted. Failing that admission, agnostics need to apply their “alternate universe” theories to everything, since it is a principle of epistemology, or fundamental knowledge.

To create a singular exception to a universal rule for that which makes you uncomfortable, rather than just admitting your discomfort, is dishonest and cowardly.

If an agnostic can honestly admit that he is afraid of confronting religious people, then he does not need to continue slithering through the foggy gymnastics of alternate universes and the certain knowledge of the uncertainty of knowledge.

Cowardice is the avoidance of honesty, not danger. A man who says he did not join an army because he was afraid of dying is being honest. A man who claims an imaginary illness – even to himself – is a liar, who is obviously uncomfortable with his own choices, and chooses to bewilder and confuse others rather than be honest at least with himself.

Agnosticism and Religion

Many agnostics will claim courage because they ridicule and attack organized religion. The fact that we cannot prove or disprove the existence of God, they say, has profound implications for human theology, rendering any specifics about gods or their properties utterly imaginary and foolish.

This, however, does not hold logically. The alternate universe theory, as discussed above, cannot be specific only to gods, but is a universal principle that applies to everything. When the agnostic says, “We cannot disprove the existence of gods,” he is really saying, “We cannot disprove the validity of any statement.”

This is the fundamental crux of the matter. Agnosticism cannot be a principle if it only applies to gods, and there is no logical reason why it should only apply to gods, and so no human statement or belief or perspective or prejudice or bigotry can ever be proven or disproven, according to agnosticism.

For an agnostic to say that organized religion is foolish runs entirely against the basic principles of agnosticism. If I believe that my God is an invisible spider that squats in my eardrum and whispers the truths of the universe only to me, how can this possibly be contradicted according to agnosticism? In an alternate universe, this could be exactly the case. The agnostic cannot say that this is definitively false, for the moment that definitive falsehoods can be identified, the alternate universe theory collapses.

This is what is so tragic about agnosticism: agnostics often think that they are undermining religious certainty, but the exact opposite is true. By saying that every conceivable human perspective could be valid in some alternate universe, agnostics raise rank subjectivism to the status of scientific objectivity, and madness to rational skepticism. An agnostic cannot say to a racist that he is wrong, because in some other universe, the despised race might in fact be inferior! This failure to identify and apply objective and consistent principles – the very essence of philosophy – not only drops any and all rational defenses against subjective bigotries, but rather spurs them on, and elevates them to the very heights of philosophical wisdom.

Finally, agnosticism is a snake that eats itself. If we say that no human statement of truth can ever be proven or disproven, what are we to make of that statement itself? Isn’t this just another example of one of the oldest philosophical piles of sophist nonsense, the statement: “Nothing is true.” Of course, if nothing is true, the statement that nothing is true is false, which is a self-detonating position.

In the same way that agnosticism creates this magical exception for the existence of gods, it must also by the very logic of its principles create a magic exception for its own arguments. The moment that we hear the word “except” in a philosophical statement, we know that we are in the presence of Grade A nonsense. “Nothing is true – except this statement!” Meh, that isn't even philosophy, that is just a Mobius strip fortune cookie.

In the same way, when agnostics affirm that no statement can be proven or disproven, are they creating a magical exception for that statement? If so, on what basis do they create this magical exception? If not, then do they recognize the ridiculousness of their position?

The Misuses of History

When you are inventing a new idea, using the word that describes its exact opposite is a very bad idea. If I want to sell a dessert, I do not describe it as an appetizer, a mountain or a virus. If I want to sell a map, I do not describe it as a mystery novel, or switch North with South, East with West.

A man who wants to sell you something new, while describing it as something very old, is very likely a con man, looking to pass off a new table as an antique, or a cheap replica as the original.

Agnosticism is a relatively modern phenomenon; avoiding the question of God's existence is nothing new, of course, but agnosticism attempts to hook into a lot of science, particularly quantum physics, string theory and other multidimensional theoretical models.

This is little more than a transparent and obvious con.

Historically, the word “God” has never meant, “things that may exist in other dimensions of the multiverse, as described by modern physics.” “God” has never referred to some unknowable X factor,  Schrödinger's cat, the unified field theory, the cosmic craps player so derided by Einstein, or any of the other trappings of modern science.

No, let's not empty the word “God” of its true and original meaning, which was a cosmic and spiritual father who created the universe, breathed life into mankind, burns the wicked and saves the innocent, and so on. This meaty and monstrous superman, this thunderbolt-hurling patriarch of our dim and brutal histories, this frustrated and enraged slaughterer of rebels and sceptics – this fearful and omnipotent beast should not be reduced to some pale and conceptual ghost hiding out in the dim theoretical alleys between the atoms.

Using the word “God” to refer to some theoretical possibility of mind-bending modern physics is to take a word steeped in the superstitious blood of our earliest collective histories, and attempt to propel it like some time-bending slingshot forward into the future – an exercise in futility, since this old and very brittle word cracks and collapses in the face of such insane velocity.

When it was first discovered that the world was round and not flat, the word “flat” was not enlisted to describe the newly discovered roundness. When ancient mathematicians first invented the concept “zero,” they did not attempt to reuse the number one to describe it – for the simple and obvious reason that if you attempt to use the same word to describe something very different, you will spend the rest of your life trying to slice and dice peoples comprehension of your meaning. “Wait, do you mean the word ‘one’ to mean the old number one, or the new symbol for zero?”

It is so obviously inefficient to use the same word for opposite things – or even different things – that we should be immediately suspicious when this problem arises. A man who proposes calling his wife his mother, and his mother his wife, is complicating not only his relationships, but also his psyche. A cab driver who tries to start using the word “uptown” to mean “downtown” will simply annoy his customers and lose his job.

The passionate, visceral, crazed and dangerous deities of the ancient world were called “gods.” The word refers to Stone Age superstitions, not modern theoretical definitions of physics. “God” refers to not only a pre-scientific period, but an anti-scientific and anti-rationalist stage of our development, if development is even the right word. To the Egyptians of 6,000 years ago, the gods were living beings that you prayed to, feared, obeyed, and slaughtered virgins for. They joined you in war, contemplated healing you in sickness, cursed your enemies and strengthened your offspring. They did not hide in some possible alternate universe, waiting for almost 6,000 years for some scribbles on a mathematicians paper to reveal their potential hiding place.

We do not see agnostics attempting to rehabilitate the phrase “human sacrifice” by referring to it as a synonym for benevolence, because the strangeness, irrationality and quite frankly psychological problems that would be revealed by such a goal would be far too obvious.

Agnostics do not strenuously advocate for the legalization of rape, arguing that it might be moral in some other universe – yet they strenuously oppose atheists who deny the existence of God. This is a most strange position to see – surely if evil might equal good in some other universe, then violently banning evil in this universe is utterly unjust! If certainty is impossible in this universe, then surely we should start by opposing violently enforced certainties – such as physical self-defense – rather than merely strongly worded opinions, such as the fact that gods do not exist.

Yet oddly enough agnostics slither right past violently enforced views such as the evils of rape, murder, theft, parking in a handicapped zone, the non-payment of property taxes, failing to come to a proper stop at a stop sign, speeding and everything else. All these legally enforced perspectives are utterly ignored, although they are inflicted with infinitely greater absolutism than a mere philosophical argument – and the agnostic reaches with open fingers for the throat of the mere atheist!

In other words, the violent enforcement of certain perspectives is perfectly acceptable to the agnostic, but mere arguments for other perspectives must be aggressively and endlessly opposed.

This is why I call agnosticism cowardice.

And if you are still an agnostic, after reading and failing to rebut these arguments, you have well earned the label.

Conclusion

The first virtue is always honesty, and the first honesty is always with the self.

I do not for a moment imagine that agnostics have reached their conclusions by dispassionately looking at the available arguments and evidence. Agnosticism – like determinism and other forms of self-detonating superstition, arises from a fear of social attack, and a staunch denial of self-knowledge.

If you do not have the stomach to encourage the potentially rational, expose the irrational and condemn the anti-rational, you have nothing to be ashamed of. I feel queasy at the sight of blood; I’d make a terrible surgeon – but I know and accept this fact, so I don’t need to recast my queasiness as other-dimensional courage.

If you are afraid of sticking your neck out in this highly unprofitable realm, that’s completely fine. If you’re scared of how others may react to the truth, that’s natural, normal and healthy. Just – accept that. We don’t all have to be good at everything. Leave this heavy lifting to others. I don’t drill my own cavities, and you can leave the perilous advancement of reason to the philosophers.

All that we ask is that you get out of the way.

By Stefan Molyneux, MA

Host, Freedomain

Introduction

It’s hard to know whether a word can ever be rehabilitated – or whether the attempt should even be made.

Words are weapons, and can be used like any tools, for good or ill. We are all aware of the clichéd uses of such terms as “terrorists” versus “freedom fighters” etc. An atheist can be called an “unbeliever”; a theist can be called “superstitious.” A man of conviction can be called an “extremist”; a man of moderation “cowardly.” A free spirit can be called a libertine or a hedonist; a cautious introvert can be labeled a stodgy prude.

Words are also weapons of judgment – primarily moral judgment. We can say that a man can be “freed” of sin if he accepts Jesus; we can also say that he can be “freed” of irrationality if he does not. A patriot will say that a soldier “serves” his country; others may take him to task for his blind obedience. Acts considered “murderous” in peacetime are hailed as “noble” in war, and so on.

Some words can never be rehabilitated – and neither should they be. Nazi, evil, incest, abuse, rape, murder – these are all words which describe the blackest impulses of the human soul, and can never be turned to a good end. Edmund may say in King Lear, “Evil, be thou my good!” but we know that he is not speaking paradoxically; he is merely saying “that which others call evil – my self-interest – is good for me.”

The word “anarchy” may be almost beyond redemption – any attempt to find goodness in it could well be utterly futile – or worse; the philosophical equivalent of the clichéd scene in hospital dramas where the surgeon blindly refuses to give up on a clearly dead patient.

Perhaps I’m engaged in just such a fool’s quest in this little book. Perhaps the word “anarchy” has been so abused throughout its long history, so thrown into the pit of incontestable human iniquity that it can never be untangled from the evils that supposedly surround it.

What images spring to mind when you hear the word “anarchy”? Surely it evokes mad riots of violence and lawlessness – a post-apocalyptic Darwinian free-for-all where the strong and evil dominate the meek and reasonable. Or perhaps you view it as a mad political agenda, a thin ideological cover for murderous desires and cravings for assassinations, where wild-eyed, mustachioed men with thick hair and thicker accents roll cartoon bombs under the ornate carriages of slowly-waving monarchs. Or perhaps you view “anarchy” as more of a philosophical specter; the haunted and angry mutterings of over-caffeinated and seemingly-eternal grad students; a nihilistic surrender to all that is seductive and evil in human nature, a hurling off the cliff of self-restraint, and a savage plunge into the mad magic of the moment, without rules, without plans, without a future…

If your teenage son were to come home to you one sunny afternoon and tell you that he had become an anarchist, you would likely feel a strong urge to check his bag for black hair dye, fresh nose rings, clumpy mascara and dirty needles. His announcement would very likely cause a certain trapdoor to open under your heart, where you may fear that it might fall forever. The heavy syllables of words like “intervention,” “medication,” “boot camp,” and “intensive therapy” would probably accompany the thudding of your quickened pulse.

All this may well be true, of course – I may be thumping the chest of a broken patient long since destined for the morgue, but certain… insights, you could say, or perhaps correlations, continue to trouble me immensely, and I cannot shake the fear that it is not anarchy that lies on the table, clinging to life – but rather, the truth.

I will take a paragraph or two to try and communicate what troubles me so much about the possible injustice of throwing the word “anarchy” into the pit of evil – if I have not convinced you by the end of the next page that something very unjust may be afoot, then I will have to continue my task of resurrection with others, because I do not for a moment imagine that I would ever convince you to call something good that is in fact evil.

And neither would I want to.

Now the actual meaning of the word “anarchy” is (from the OED):

1. Absence of government; a state of lawlessness due to the absence or inefficiency of the supreme power; political disorder.
2. A theoretical social state in which there is no governing person or body of persons, but each individual has absolute liberty
   (without implication of disorder).

Thus we can see that the word “anarchy” represents two central meanings: an absence of both government and social order, and an absence of government with no implication of social disorder.

Without a government…

What does that mean in practice?

Well, clearly there are two kinds of leaders in this world – those who lead by incentive, and those who lead by force. Those who lead by incentive will offer you a salary to come and work for them; those who lead by force will throw you in jail if you do not pick up a gun and fight for them.

Those who lead by incentive will try to get you to voluntarily send your children to their schools by keeping their prices reasonable, their classes stimulating, and demonstrating proven and objective success.

Those who lead by force will simply tell you that if you do not pay the property taxes to fund their schools, you will be thrown in jail.

Clearly, this is the difference between voluntarism and violence.

The word “anarchy” does not mean “no rules.” It does not mean “kill others for fun.” It does not mean “no organization.”

It simply means: “without a political leader.”

The difference, of course, between politics and every other area of life is that in politics, if you do not obey the government, you are thrown in jail. If you try to defend yourself against the people who come to throw you in jail, they will shoot you.

So – what does the word “anarchy” really mean?

It simply means a way of interacting with others without threatening them with violence if they do not obey.

It simply means “without political violence.”

The difference between this word and words like “murder” and “rape” is that we do not mix murder and rape with the exact opposite actions in our life, and consider the results normal, moral and healthy. We do not strangle a man in the morning, then help a woman across the street in the afternoon, and call ourselves “good.”

The true evils that we all accept – rape, assault, murder, theft – are never considered a core and necessary part of the life of a good person. An accused murderer does not get to walk free by pointing out that he spent all but five seconds of his life not killing someone.

With those acknowledged evils, one single transgression changes the moral character of an entire life. You would never be able to think of a friend who is convicted of rape in the same way again.

However – this is not the case with “anarchy” – it does not fit into that category of “evil” at all.

When we think of a society without political violence – without governments – these specters of chaos and brutality always arise for us, immediately and, it would seem, irrevocably.

However, it only takes a moment of thought to realize that we live the vast majority of our actual lives in complete and total anarchy – and call such anarchy “morally good.”

Everyday Anarchy

For instance, take dating, marriage and family.

In any reasonably free society, these activities do not fall in the realm of political coercion. No government agency chooses who you are to marry and have children with, and punishes you with jail for disobeying their rulings. Voluntarism, incentive, mutual advantage – dare we say “advertising”? – all run the free market of love, sex and marriage.

What about your career? Did a government official call you up at the end of high school and inform you that you were to become a doctor, a lawyer, a factory worker, a waiter, an actor, a programmer – or a philosopher? Of course not. You were left free to choose the career that best matched your interests, abilities and initiative.

What about your major financial decisions? Each month, does a government agent come to your house and tell you exactly how much you should save, how much you should spend, whether you can afford that new couch or old painting? Did you have to apply to the government to buy a new car, a new house, a plasma television or a toothbrush?

No, in all the areas mentioned above – love, marriage, family, career, finances – we all make our major decisions in the complete absence of direct political coercion.

Thus – if anarchy is such an all-consuming, universal evil, why is it the default – and virtuous – freedom that we demand in order to achieve just liberty in our daily lives?

If the government told you tomorrow that it was going to choose for you where to live, how to earn your keep, and who to marry – would you fall to your knees and thank the heavens that you have been saved from such terrible anarchy – the anarchy of making your own decisions in the absence of direct political coercion?

Of course not – quite the opposite – you would be horrified, and would oppose such an encroaching dictatorship with all your might.

This is what I mean when I say that we consider anarchy to be an irreducible evil – and also an irreducible good. It is both feared and despised – and considered necessary and virtuous.

If you were told that tomorrow you would wake up and there would be no government, you would doubtless fear the specter of “anarchy.”

If you were told tomorrow that you would have to apply for a government permit to have children, you would doubtless fear the specter of “dictatorship,” and long for the days of “anarchy,” when you could decide such things without the intervention of political coercion.

Thus we can see that we human beings are deeply, almost ferociously ambivalent about “anarchy.” We desperately desire it in our personal lives, and just as desperately fear it politically.

Another way of putting this is that we love the anarchy we live, and yet fear the anarchy we imagine.

One more point, and then you can decide whether my patient is beyond hope or not.

It has been pointed out that a totalitarian dictatorship is characterized by the almost complete absence of rules. When Solzhenitsyn was arrested, he had no idea what he was really being charged with, and when he was given his 10-year sentence, there was no court of appeal, or any legal proceedings whatsoever. He had displeased someone in power, and so it was off to the gulags with him!

When we examine countries where government power is at its greatest, we see situations of extreme instability, and a marked absence of objective rules or standards. The tinpot dictatorships of third world countries are regions arbitrarily and violently ruled by gangs of sociopathic thugs.

Closer to home, for most of us, is the example of inner-city government-run schools, ringed by metal detectors, and saturated with brutality, violence, sexual harassment, and bullying. The surrounding neighborhoods are also under the tight control of the state, which runs welfare programs, public housing, the roads, the police, the buses, the hospitals, the sewers, the water, the electricity and just about everything else in sight. These sorts of neighborhoods have moved beyond democratic socialism, and actually lie closer to dictatorial communism.

Similarly, when we think of these inner cities as a whole, we can also understand that the majority of the endemic violence results from the drug trade, which directly resulted from government bans on the manufacture and sale of certain kinds of drugs. Treating drug addiction rather than arresting addicts would, it is estimated, reduce criminal activity by up to 80%.

Here, again, where there is a concentration of political power, we see violence, mayhem, shootings, stabbings, rapes and all the attendant despair and nihilism – everything that “anarchism” is endlessly accused of!

What about prisons, where political power is surely at its greatest? Prisons seethe with rapes, murders, stabbings and assaults – not to mention drug addiction. Sadistic guards beat on sadistic prisoners, to the point where the only difference at times seems to be the costumes. Here we have a “society” that seems like a parody of “anarchy” – a nihilistic and ugly universe usually described by the word “anarchy” which actually results from a maximization of political power, or the exact opposite of “anarchy.”

Now, we certainly could argue that yes, it may be true that an excess of political power breeds anarchy – but that a deficiency of political power breeds anarchy as well! Perhaps “order” is a sort of Aristotelian mean, which lies somewhere between the chaos of a complete absence of political coercion, and the chaos of an excess of political coercion.

However, we utterly reject that approach in the other areas mentioned above – love, marriage, finances, career etc. We understand that any intrusion of political coercion into these realms would be a complete disaster for our freedoms. We do not say, with regards to marriage, “Well, we wouldn’t want the government choosing everyone’s spouse – but neither do we want the government having no involvement in choosing people spouses! The correct amount of government coercion lies somewhere in the middle.”

No, we specifically and unequivocally reject the intrusion of political coercion into such personal aspects of our lives.

Thus once more we must at least recognize the basic paradox that we desperately need and desire the reality of anarchy in our personal lives – and yet desperately hate and fear the idea of anarchy in our political environment.

We love the anarchy we live. We fear the anarchy we imagine – the anarchy we are taught to fear.

Until we can discuss the realities of our ambivalence towards this kind of voluntarism, we shall remain fundamentally stuck as a species – like any individual who wallpapers over his ambivalence, we shall spend our lives in distracted and oscillating avoidance, to the detriment of our own present, and our children’s future.

This is why I cannot just let this patient die. I still feel a heartbeat – and a strong one too!

Ambivalence and Bigotry

It is a truism – and I for one think a valid one – that the simple mind sees everything in black or white. Wisdom, on the other hand, involves being willing to suffer the doubts and complexities of ambivalence.

The dark-minded bigot says that all blacks are perfidious; the light-minded bigot says that all blacks are victims. The misogynist says that all women are corrupt; the feminist often says that all women are saints.

Exploring the complexities and contradictions of life with an open-minded fairness – neither with the imposition of premature judgment, nor the withholding of judgment once the evidence is in – is the mark of the scientist, the philosopher – of a rational mind.

The fundamentalists among us ascribe all mysteries to the “will of God” – which answers nothing at all, since when examined, the “will of God” turns out to be just another mystery; it is like saying that the location of my lost keys is “the place where my keys are not lost” – it adds nothing to the equation other than a teeth-gritting tautology. Mystery equals mystery. Anyone with more than half a brain can do little more than roll his eyes.

The immaturity of jumping to premature and useless conclusions is matched on the other hand only by the shallow and frightened fogs of modern – or perhaps I should say post-modern – relativism, where no conclusions are ever valid, no absolute statements are ever just – except that one of course – and everything is exploration, typically blindfolded, and without a compass. There is no destination, no guidepost, no sense of progress, no building to a greater goal – it is the endless dissection of cultural cadavers without even a definition of health or purpose, which thus comes perilously close to looking like fetishistic sadism.

The simple truth is that some black men are good, and some black men are bad, and most black men are a mixture, just as we all are. Some women are treacherous; some women are saints. “Blackness” or “gender” is an utterly useless metric when it comes to evaluating a person morally; it is about as helpful as trying to use an iPod to determine which way is north. The phrase “sexual penetration” does not tell us whether the act is consensual or not – saying that sexual penetration is always evil is as useless as saying that it is always good.

In the same way, some anarchism is good (notably that which we treasure so much in our personal lives) and some anarchism is bad (notably our fears of violent chaos, bomb-throwing and large mustaches). As a word, however, “anarchism” does nothing to help us evaluate these situations. Applying foolish black-and-white thinking to complex and ambiguous situations is just another species of bigotry

Claiming that “anarchism” is both rank political evil and the greatest treasure in our personal lives is a contradiction well worth examining, if we wish to gain some measure of mature wisdom about the essential questions of truth, virtue and the moral challenges of social organization.

Anarchy and History

Our clichéd vision of the typical anarchist tends to see him emerging shortly before World War I, which is very interesting when you think about it. The stereotypical anarchist is portrayed as a feverish failure, who uses his political ideology as a self-righteous cover for his lust for violence. He claims he wishes to free the world from tyranny, when in fact all he wants to do is to break bones and take lives.

We typically view this anarchist as a form of terrorist, which is generally defined as someone committed to the use of violence to achieve political ends, and place both in the same category as those who attempt a military coup against an existing government.

However, when you break it down logically, it seems almost impossible to provide a definition of terrorism which does not also include political leaders, or at least the political process itself.

The act of war is itself an attempt to achieve political ends through the use of violence – the annexation of property, the capturing of a new tax base, or the overthrow of a foreign government – and it always requires a government that is willing and able to increase the use of violence against its own citizens, through tax increases and/or the military draft. Even defending a country against invasion inevitably requires an escalation of the use of force against domestic citizens.

Thus how can we easily divide those outside the political process who use violence to achieve their goals from those within the political process who use violence to achieve their goals? It remains a daunting task, to say the least.

What is fascinating about the mythology of the “evil anarchists” – and mythology it is – is that even if we accept the stereotype, the disparity in body counts between the anarchists and their enemies remains staggeringly misrepresented, to say the least.

Anarchists in the period before the First World War killed perhaps a dozen or a score of people, almost all of them state heads or their representatives.

On the other hand, state heads or their representatives caused the deaths of over 10 million people through the First World War.

If we value human life – as any reasonable and moral person must – then fearing anarchists rather than political leaders is like fearing spontaneous combustion rather than heart disease. In the category of “causing deaths,” a single government leader outranks all anarchists tens of thousands of times.

Does this seem like a surprising perspective to you? Ah, well that is what happens when you look at the facts of the world rather than the stories of the victors.

Another example would be an objective examination of murder and violence in 19^th-century America. The typical story about the “Wild West” is that it was a land populated by thieves, brigands and murderers, where only the “thin blue line” of the lone local sheriffs stood between the helpless townspeople and the endless predations of swarthy and unshaven villains.

If we look at the simple facts, though, and contrast the declining 19^th century US murder rates with the 600,000 murders committed in the span of a few years by the government-run Civil War, we can see that the sheriffs were not particularly dedicated to protecting the helpless townspeople, but rather delivering their money, their lives and their children to the state through the brutal enforcement of taxation and military enslavement.

When we look at an institution such as slavery, we can see that it survived, fundamentally, on two central pillars – patronizing and fear-mongering mythologies, and the shifting of the costs of enforcement to others.

What justifications were put forward, for instance, for the enslavement of blacks? Well, the “white man’s burden,” or the need to “Christianize” and civilize these savage heathens – this was the condescension – and also because if the slaves were turned free, plantations would be burned to the ground, pale-throated women would be savagely violated, and all the endless torments of violence and destruction would be wreaked upon society – this was the fear-mongering mythology!

Slavery as an institution could not conceivably survive economically if the slave owners had to pay for the actual expense of slavery themselves. Shifting the costs of the capture, imprisonment and return of slaves to the general taxpayer was the only way that slavery could remain profitable. The use of the political coercion required to make slavery profitable, of course, generates a great demand for mythological “cover-ups,” or ideological distractions from the violence at the core of the institution. Thus violence always requires intellectualization, which is why governments always want to fund higher education and subsidize intellectuals. We shall get to more of this later.

Even outside war, in the 20^th century alone, more than 270 million people were murdered by their governments. Compared to the few dozen murders committed by anarchists, it is hard to see how the fantasy of the “evil anarchist” could possibly be sustained when we compare the tiny pile of anarchist bodies to the virtual Everest of the dead heaped by governments in one century alone.

Surely if we are concerned about violence, murder, theft and rape, we should focus on those who commit the most evils – political leaders – rather than those who oppose them, even misguidedly. If we accept that political leaders murder mankind by the hundreds of millions, then we may even be tempted to have a shred of sympathy for these “evil anarchists,” just as we would for a man who shoots down a rampaging mass murderer.

Anarchy and Ambivalence

The truth of the matter is that, as I stated above, it is clear that we have a love/hate relationship with anarchy. We yearn for it, and we fear it, in almost equal measure.

We love personal anarchy, and fear political anarchy. We desperately resist any encroachment or limitation upon our personal anarchy – and fear, mock and attack any suggestion that political anarchy could be of value.

But – how can it be possible that anarchy is both the greatest good and the greatest evil simultaneously? Surely that would make a mockery of reason, virtue and basic common sense.

Now we shall turn to a possible way of unraveling this contradiction.

Politics and Self-Interest

Truth is so often the first casualty of self-interest. In the realm of advertising, we can see this very clearly – the company that sells an anti-aging cream uses fear and insecurity to drive demand for its product. “Your beauty is measured by the elasticity of your skin, not the virtue of your soul,” they say, “and no one will find you attractive if you do not look young!”

This is a rather shallow exploitation of insecurity; clearly what is really being sold is a definition of “beauty” that does not require the challenging task of achieving and maintaining virtue. In the short run, it is far easier, after all, to rub overpriced cream on your face than it is to start down the path of genuine wisdom and integrity.

In this way, we can see that the self-interest of the advertiser and the consumer are both being served in the exchange, at the expense of the truth. We all know that we shall become old and ugly – and also that this fate need not rob us of love, but rather that we can receive and give more love in our dotage than we did in our youth, if we live with virtue, compassion and generosity.

However, there is far less money to be made in philosophy than there is in vanity – which is another way of saying that people will pay good money to avoid the demands of virtue – and so the mutual exploitation of shallow avoidance is a cornerstone of any modern economy.

In the same way, being told that “anarchism” is just bad, bad, bad helps us avoid the anxiety and ambivalence we in fact feel about that which we both fear and love at the same time. Our educational and political leaders “sell” us relief from ambivalence and uncomfortable exploration – inevitably, at the expense of truth – and so far, we have been relatively eager consumers.

Self-Interest and Exploitation

The CEOs of large companies receive enormous salaries for their services. Let us imagine a scenario wherein a small number of new companies grow despite having no senior managers – and appear to be making above-average profits to boot!

In this scenario, when business leadership is revealed as potentially counterproductive to profitability – or at least, unrelated to profitability – it is easy to see that the self-interest of business leaders is immediately and perhaps permanently threatened.

In addition, picture all the other groups and people whose interests would be harmed in such a scenario. Business schools would see their enrollment numbers drop precipitously; the lawyers, accountants and decorators who served these business leaders would see the demand for their services dropping; the private schools that catered to the families of the rich would be hard hit, at least for a time. Elite magazines, business shows, conventions, life coaches, haberdashers, tailors and all other sorts of other people would feel the sting of the transition, to put it mildly.

We can easily imagine that the first few companies to see increased profitability as a result of ditching their senior managers would be roundly condemned and mocked by the entrenched managers in similar companies. These companies would be accused of “cooking the books,” of exploiting a mere statistical anomaly or fluke, of having secret managers, of producing shoddy goods, of “stuffing the pipe” with premature sales, of actually running at a loss, and so on.

Their imminent demise would be gleefully predicted by most if not all self-interested onlookers. The CEOs of existing companies would avoid doing business with them, and would doubtless combine a patronizing “benevolence” (“Yes, you do see these trends emerge once every few years – they bubble up, falter, and die out, and investors end up poorer but wiser”) with fairly-open fear-mongering (“I’m not sure that it is a good career move to work at these sort of companies; I would consider it a rather black mark on the resume of any job-seeker…”) and so on.

Should these new companies continue to grow, doubtless the existing business executives would get in touch with their political friends, seeking for a political “solution” on behalf of the “consumers” they wished to “protect.”

Entrenched groups will always move to protect their own self-interest – this is not a bad thing, it is simply a fact of human nature. It is thus important to understand that what is called unproductive, negative, “extreme” or dangerous may indeed be so, but it is always worth looking at the motives of those who invest the time and energy to create and propagate such labels. Why are they so interested?

The Robber Barons

We can also find examples of this in the phenomenon of the “Robber Barons” in late 19^th century America. The story goes that these amoral predatory monopolists were fleecing a helpless public, and so had to be restrained through the force of government anti-monopoly legislation.

If this story were really true, the first thing that we would expect is a 1-2 punch of evidence showing how prices were rising where these “monopolies” flourished – and also that it was these helpless and enraged consumers who thumped the ears of their legislators and demanded protection from the monopolists.

Of course, it would be purely absurd to imagine that this was the case, and it turns out to be a complete falsehood.

If an unjust price increase of 10%-20% was imposed upon ground beef, the net loss to the average consumer would be no more than a few pennies a week. It is incomprehensible to imagine any consumer – or group of consumers – combining their time and effort to pursue complex and lengthy legislation for the sake of opposing a tiny price increase. The cost/benefit ratio would be absurdly out of balance, since it would doubtless cost most of these consumers far more in time and money to pursue such action than they could conceivably save by reducing such an unjust price increase.

Are you pursuing legal action against Exxon for higher gas prices?

Of course not.

Thus to find the real culprits, we must first look at any group which can justify the pursuit of such complex and uncertain legislation; the purchasing of legislators, the writing of articles and other efforts spent to influence the media, the desperate pursuit of a highly risky venture – who could possibly justify such a mad investment?

The answer is obvious, and contains all the information we need to know to disprove the claims put forward.

The groups most harmed by these supposed-monopolists were, of course, their direct competitors. Thus we would expect that the primary – if not sole – sponsors of this legislation would not be the outraged consumers, but rather the companies competing with these “Robber Barons.”

Clearly, if these monopolists were unjustly increasing prices, this would be an endless invitation for these competitors – or even outside entrepreneurs – to undercut their prices.

Ah, but perhaps these Robber Barons were achieving their monopolies through preferential political favors such as forcibly keeping competitors from entering the market.

Well, we know for certain that this could not be the case. If these Robber Barons actually did own the legislature, then their competitors would be highly unlikely to take the step of attempting to influence the legislature, because they would know it was a fight they could not win. If these “monopolists” were gaining massive and unjust profits through political favors, then their competitors who were shut out of such a lucrative system would be completely unable to funnel as much money to the legislators. Furthermore, those making the laws would be exposed to blackmail for past deals if they “switched sides” so to speak.

Thus without examining a single historical fact, we can very easily determine what actually happened, which was that:

1. The monopolists were not actually raising prices, but were lowering them, which we know because their competitors did not take
   the economic route of undercutting on price, but rather the political route of using the force of the state to cripple these “monopolists.”
   
   
2. The monopolists were not gaining market share or unjust profits through political means, because the legislatures
   were still available for sale.
   
   
3. The consumers were entirely happy with the existing arrangement, which we know because the competitors had
   nothing to offer that the consumers would prefer to the existing state of things.
   

This hypothesis is amply borne out by the accurate historical evidence. Where these “Robber Barons” dominated the market, the prices of the goods they produced went down, sometimes considerably – in the case of using refrigerated railcars to store meat, a price drop of 30% was achieved in the span of a few months.

Clearly, this did not harm the interests of the consumer – but it did harm the self-interest of those attempting to compete with these highly-efficient businesses. Sadly – though, with the temptation of the government ever-present, inevitably it seems – these competitors preferred to take the political route of attacking their successful rivals through the power of the state rather than attempting to innovate themselves in turn and compete more successfully in the free market.

What about the argument that the Robber Barons used violence to create their monopolies, by threatening or killing competing workers?

Well, even if we accept this argument as true, it serves the anarchistic argument far more than the statist position.

If you hired a security guard who continually fell asleep on the job, and permitted the facility he guarded to be robbed over and over again, year after year, what would your reaction be? Would you wake him up and promote him to the rank of global manager of a highly complex security company? Would his rank incompetence at a simple task make him your ideal candidate for an enormously complex job?

Of course not.

If a government is so amoral and incompetent that it permits the murder of innocent citizens by the Robber Barons, then clearly it cannot conceivably be competent and moral enough to protect citizens from the complex economic predations of the same Robber Barons. A group that cannot perform a simple function cannot conceivably perform a far more complex function.

Over a hundred years later, we can still see how effective this propaganda really is. The specters of these “Robber Barons” still inhabit the imaginary haunted houses of our history. The role of government in controlling exploitive monopolies remains unquestioned – and how many people know the basic facts of the situation, principally that it was not the consumers who opposed these companies, but their competitors?

When we look at political “solutions” to pressing “problems,” we see the same pattern over and over again. Government-run education was not instituted because parents were dissatisfied with private schools, or because children were not educated, or anything like that – but rather because the teachers wanted the job security, and cultural and religious busybodies wanted to get their hands on the tender minds of children. The “New Deal” in the 1930s was not instituted because the free market made people poor, but rather because government mismanagement of the money supply destroyed almost a quarter of the wealth of the United States.

Time and time again, we see that it is not freedom that leads to political control and an increase in state violence, but rather prior increases in political control and state violence.

The government does not expand its control because freedom does not work; freedom does not work because the government expands its control.

Thus we can see that freedom – or voluntarism, or anarchy – does not create problems that governments are required to “solve.” Rather, propagandists lie about what the government is up to (“protecting consumers” really means “using violence to protect the profits of inefficient businesses”) and the resulting expansions of political coercion and control breeds more problems, which are always ascribed to freedom.

Anarchy and Political Leaders

Clearly, there exists an entire class of people who gain immense profit, prestige and power from the existence of the government. It is equally true that, as a collective, these people have enormous control and influence over the minds of children, since it is that same government that educates virtually every child for six or more hours a day, five days a week, for almost a decade and a half of their formative years.

To analogize this situation, can we imagine that we would be at all surprised that children who came out of 14 years of religious indoctrination would in general believe in the existence and virtue of God? Would we be at all surprised if the strong arguments for atheism were left off a curriculum expressly designed by the priests, who directly profit from the maintenance of religious belief? In fact, we would fully expect such children to be actively trained in the rejection of arguments for atheism – inoculated against it, so to speak, so that they would react with scorn or hostility to such arguments.

We may as well hold our breath waiting for the next commercial from General Motors talking about the shortcomings of their own cars, and the virtues of their competitors’ vehicles. Or perhaps we should wait for a full-color spread from McDonald’s depicting detailed pictures of clogged arteries?

If so, we will wait in vain.

Similarly, when the government trains the children, how do we expect the government to portray itself? Would we expect government-paid teachers to talk openly about the root of state power, which is the initiation of the use of force against legally-disarmed citizens? Would we expect them to openly and honestly talk about the source of their income, which is the property taxes that are forcibly extracted from their students’ parents?

Would we expect these same teachers to talk about how government power grows through the endless pressure and greed of special interest groups, who wish to offload the costs of the violent enforcement of their greed on the taxpayers that they in fact prey upon?

Of course not.

This is not because these teachers are evil, but rather because people respond to incentives. If the basic truths of history, logic, ethics and reality are inconvenient to those in power – as they inevitably are – those paid by those in power will almost never talk about them. We would not expect a Stalinist-era teacher to speak of the glories of capitalism; we would not expect an Antebellum teacher to teach the children of slave-owners about the evils of slavery; we would not expect an instructor at West Point to talk about the evils and corruption of the military-industrial complex, any more than we would expect the Vatican to voluntarily initiate a discussion of child abuse by Catholic priests.

We can view these basic facts without bottomless rancor, but with a gentle, almost kindly sympathy towards the inevitable trickle-down and corrupting effects of violent power.

It is no doubt a dizzying perspective to begin to examine the dark, dank and foggy jungle of propaganda with the simple light of truth, but that is what an anarchist is really all about.

An anarchist accepts the simple and basic reality that every single human being fundamentally values free choice in his or her own personal life.

An anarchist accepts the simple and basic reality that he who pays the piper always calls the tune – and that arguments against the virtue and efficacy of political power will never be disseminated in an educational system paid for by political power.

An anarchist accepts the simple and basic reality that human beings at best have an ambivalent relationship with voluntarism – and that human beings habitually avoid the discomfort of ambivalence, and so don’t want to talk about anarchism any more then they want to bring up their doubts about religion during a Christian wedding ceremony.

The barriers to a reasonable understanding of the anarchistic perspective are emotionally volatile, socially isolating and almost endless. The reasonable anarchist accepts these basic facts – since facts are what anarchy is all about – and if he is truly wise, falls at least a little in love with the difficulties of his task.

We should love the difficulties we face, because if it were easy to free the world, the fact that the world is so far from being free would be completely incomprehensible…

Anarchy and the “Problem of the Commons”

Ask almost any professional economist what the role of government is, and he will generally reply that it is to regulate or solve the “problem of the commons,” and to make up for “market failures,” or the provision of public goods such as roads and water delivery that the free market cannot achieve on its own.

To anyone who works from historical evidence and even a basic smattering of first principles, this answer is, to be frank, outlandishly unfounded.

The “problem of the commons” is the idea that if farmers share common ground for grazing their sheep, that each farmer has a personal incentive for overgrazing, which will harm everyone in general. Thus the immediate self-interest of each individual leads to a collective stripping of the land.

It only takes a moment’s thought to realize that the government is the worst possible solution for this problem – if indeed it is a problem.

The problem of the commons recognizes that where collective ownership exists, individual exploitation will inevitably result, since there is no incentive for the long-term maintenance of the productivity of whatever is collectively owned. A farmer takes good care of his own fields, because he wants to profit from their utilization in the future. In fact, ownership tends to accrue to those individuals who can make the most productive future use of an asset, since they are the ones able to bid the most when it comes up for sale. If I can make $10,000 a year more out of a patch of land than you can, then I will be willing to bid more for it, and thus will end up owning it.

Thus where there is no stake in future profitability – as in the case of publicly-owned resources – those resources inevitably tend to be pillaged and destroyed.

This is the situation that highly intelligent, well-educated people – with perfectly straight faces – say should be solved through the creation of a government.

Why is this such a bizarre solution?

Well, a government – and particularly the public treasury – is the ultimate publicly-owned good. If publicly-owned goods are always pillaged and exploited, then how is the creation of the largest and most violent publicly-owned good supposed to solve that problem? It’s like saying that exposure to sunlight can be dangerous for a person’s health, and so the solution to that problem is to throw people into the sun.

The fact that people can repeat these absurdities with perfectly straight faces is testament to the power of propaganda and self-interest.

In the same way, we are told that free-market monopolies are dangerous and exploitive. Companies that wish to voluntarily do business with us, and must appeal to our self-interest, to mutual advantage, are considered grave threats to our personal freedoms.

And – the solution that is proposed by almost everyone to the “problem” of voluntary economic interaction?

Well, since voluntary and peaceful “monopolies” are so terribly evil, the solution that is always proposed is to create an involuntary, coercive, and violent monopoly in the form of a government.

Thus voluntary and peaceful “monopolies” are a great evil – but the involuntary and violent monopoly of the state is the greatest good!?

Can you see why I began this book talking about our complicated and ambivalent relationship to voluntarism, or anarchy?

We see this same pattern repeating itself in the realm of education. Whenever an anarchist talks about a stateless society, he is inevitably informed that in a free society, poor children will not get educated.

Where does this opinion come from? Does it come from a steadfast dedication to reason and evidence, an adherence to well-documented facts? Do those who hold this opinion have certain evidence that, prior to public education, the children of the poor were not being educated? Do they genuinely believe that the children of the poor are being well-educated now? Do they seriously believe that anarchists do not care about the education of the poor? Do they believe that they are the only people who care about the education of the poor?

Of course not. This is a mere knee-jerk propagandistic reaction, like hearing a Soviet-era Red Guard boy mumbling about the necessity of the workers controlling the means of production. It is not based upon evidence, but upon prejudice.

If the “problem of the commons” and the predations of monopolies are such dire threats, then surely institutionalizing these problems and surrounding them with the endless violence of police, military and prisons would be the exact opposite of a rational solution!

Of course, the problem of the commons is only a problem because the land is collectively owned; move it to private ownership, and all is well. Thus the solution to the problem of public ownership is clearly more private ownership, not more public ownership.

Ah, say the statists, but that is just a metaphor – what about fish in the ocean, pollution in the rivers, roads in the city and the defense of the realm?

Well the simple answer to that – from an anarchist perspective at least – is that if people are not intelligent and reasonable enough to negotiate solutions to these problems in a productive and sustainable manner, then surely they are also not intelligent or reasonable enough to vote for political leaders, or participate in any government whatsoever.

Of course, there are endless historical examples of private roads and railways, private fisheries, social and economic ostracism as an effective punishment for over-use or pollution of shared resources – the endless inventiveness of our species should surely by now never fail to amaze!

The statist looks at a problem and always sees a gun as the only solution – the force of the state, the brutality of law, violence and punishment. The anarchist – the endless entrepreneur of social organization – always looks at a problem and sees an opportunity for peaceful, innovative, charitable or profitable problem-solving.

The statist looks at a population and sees an irrational and selfish horde that needs to be endlessly herded around at gunpoint – and yet looks at those who run the government as selfless, benevolent and saintly. Yet these same statists always look at this irrational and dangerous population and say: “You must have the right to choose your political leaders!”

It is truly an unsustainable and irrational set of positions.

An anarchist – like any good economist or scientist – is more than happy to look at a problem and say, “I do not know the solution” – and be perfectly happy not imposing a solution through force.

Darwin looked at the question, “Where did life come from?” and only came up with his famous answer because he was willing to admit that he did not know – but that existing religious “answers” were invalid. Theologians, on the other hand, claim to “answer” the same question with: “God made life,” which as mentioned above, on closer examination, always turns out to be an exact synonym for: “I do not know.” To say, “God did it,” is to say that some unknowable being performed some incomprehensible action in a completely mysterious manner for some never-to-be-discovered end.

In other words: “I haven’t a clue.”

In the same way, when faced with challenges of social organization such as collective self-defense, roads, pollution and so on, the anarchist is perfectly content to say, “I do not know how this problem will be solved.” As a corollary, however, the anarchist is also perfectly certain that the pseudo-answer of “the government will do it” is a total non-answer – in fact, it is an anti-answer, in that it provides the illusion of an answer where one does not in fact exist. To an anarchist, saying “the government will solve the problem,” has as much credibility as telling a biologist – usually with grating condescension – “God created life.” In both cases, the problem of infinite regression is blindly ignored – if that which exists must have been created by a God, the God which exists must have been created by another God, and so on. In the same way, if human beings are in general too irrational and selfish to work out the challenges of social organization in a productive and positive manner, then they are far too irrational and selfish to be given the monopolistic violence of state power, or vote for their leaders.

Asking an anarchist how every conceivable existing public function could be re-created in a stateless society is directly analogous to asking an economist what the economy will look like down to the last detail 50 years from now. What will be invented? How will interplanetary contracts be enforced? Exactly how will time travel affect the price of a rental car? What megahertz will computers be running at? What will operating systems be able to do? And so on and so on.

This is all a kind of elaborate game designed to, fundamentally, stall and humiliate any economist who falls for it. A certain amount of theorizing is always fun, of course, but the truth is not determined by accurate long-term predictions of the unknowable. Asking Albert Einstein in 1910 where the atomic bomb will be dropped in the future is not a credible question – and the fact that he is unable to answer it in no way invalidates the theory of relativity.

In the same way, we can imagine that abolitionists would have been asked exactly how society would look 20 years after the slaves were freed. How many of them would have jobs? What would the average number of kids per family be? Who would be working the plantations?

Though these questions may sound absurd to many people, when you propose even the vague possibility of a society without a government, you are almost inevitably maneuvered into the position of fighting a many-headed hydra of exactly such questions: “How will the roads be provided in the absence of a government?” “How will the poor be educated?” “How will a stateless society defend itself?” “How can people without a government deal with violent criminals?”

In 25 years of talking about just these subjects, I have almost never – even after credibly answering every question that comes my way – had someone sit back, sigh and say, “Gee, I guess it really could work!”

No, inevitably, what happens is that they come up with some situation that I cannot answer immediately, or in a way that satisfies them, and then they sit back and say in triumph, “You see? Society just cannot work without a government!”

What is actually quite funny about this situation is that by taking this approach, people think that they are opposing the idea of anarchy, when in fact they are completely supporting it.

One simple and basic fact of life is that no individual – or group of individuals – can ever be wise or knowledgeable enough to run society.

Our core fantasy of “government” is that in some remote and sunlit chamber, with lacquered mahogany tables, deep leather chairs and sleepless men and women, there exists a group who are so wise, so benevolent, so omniscient and so incorruptible that we should turn over to them the education of our children, the preservation of our elderly, the salvation of the poor, the provision of vital services, the healing of the sick, the defense of the realm and of property, the administration of justice, the punishment of criminals, and the regulation of virtually every aspect of a massive, infinitely complex and ever-changing social and economic system. These living man-gods have such perfect knowledge and perfect wisdom that we should hand them weapons of mass destruction, and the endless power to tax, imprison and print money – and nothing but good, plenty and virtue will result.

And then, of course, we say that the huddled and bleating masses, who could never achieve such wisdom and virtue, not even in their wildest dreams, should all get together and vote to surrender half their income, their children, their elderly and the future itself to these man-gods.

Of course, we never do get to actually see and converse with these deities. When we do actually listen to politicians, all we hear are pious sentiments, endless evasions, pompous speeches and all of the emotionally manipulative tricks of a bed-ridden and abusive parent.

Are these the demi-gods whose only mission is the care, nurturing and education of our precious children’s minds?

Perhaps we can speak to the experts who advise them, the men behind the throne, the shadowy puppet-masters of pure wisdom and virtue? Can they come forward and reveal to us the magnificence of their knowledge? Why no, these men and women also will not speak to us, or if they do, they turn out to be even more disappointing than their political masters, who at least can make stirring if empty phrases ring out across a crowded hall.

And so, if we like, we can wander these halls of Justice, Truth and Virtue forever, opening doors and asking questions, without ever once meeting this plenary council of moral superheroes. We can shuffle in ever-growing disappointment through the messy offices of these mere mortals, and recognize in them a dusty mirror of ourselves – no more, certainly, and often far less.

Anarchy is the simple recognition that no man, woman, or group thereof is ever wise enough to come up with the best possible way to run other people’s lives. Just as no one else should be able to enforce on you his choice of a marriage partner, or compel you to follow a career of his choosing, no one else should be able to enforce his preferences for social organization upon you.

Thus when the anarchist is expected to answer every possible question regarding how society will be organized in the absence of a government, any failure to perfectly answer even one of them completely validates the anarchist’s position.

If we recognize that no individual has the capacity to run society (“dictatorship”), and we recognize that no group of elites has the capacity to run society (“aristocracy”), we are then forced to defend the moral and practical absurdity of “democracy.”

Anarchy and Democracy

It may be considered a mad enough exercise to attempt to rescue the word “anarchy” – however, to smear the word “democracy” seems almost beyond folly. Fewer words have received more reverence in the modern Western world. Democracy is in its essence the idea that we all run society. We choose individuals to represent our wishes, and the majority then gets to impose its wishes upon everyone else, subject ideally to the limitations of certain basic inalienable rights.

The irrational aspect of this is very hard to see, because of the endless amount of propaganda that supports democracy (though only in democracies, which is telling), but it is impossible to ignore once it becomes evident.

Democracy is based on the idea that the majority possesses sufficient wisdom to both know how society should be run, and to stay within the bounds of basic moral rules. The voters are considered to be generally able to judge the economic, foreign policy, educational, charitable, monetary, health care, military et al policies proposed by politicians. These voters then wisely choose between this buffet of various policy proposals, and the majority chooses wisely enough that whatever is then enacted is in fact a wise policy – and their chosen leader then actually enacts what he or she promised in advance, and the leader’s buffet of proposals is entirely wise, and no part of it requires moral compromise. Also, the majority is virtuous enough to respect the rights of the minority, even though they dominate them politically. Few of us would support the idea of a democracy where the majority could vote to put the minority to death, say, or steal all their property.

In addition, for even the idea of a democracy to work, the minority must be considered wise and virtuous enough to accept the decisions of the majority.

In short, democracy is predicated on the premises that:

A.    The majority of voters are wise and virtuous enough to judge an incredibly wide variety of complex proposals by politicians.

B.    The majority of voters are wise and virtuous enough to refrain from the desire to impose their will arbitrarily upon the minority,
but instead will respect certain universal moral ideals.

C.       The minority of voters who are overruled by the majority are wise and virtuous enough to accept being overruled, 
and will patiently await the next election in order to try to have their say once more, and will abide by the universal moral ideals of the society.

This, of course, is a complete contradiction. If society is so stuffed to the gills with wise, brilliant, virtuous and patient souls, who all respect universal moral ideals and are willing to put aside their own particular preferences for the sake of the common good, what on earth do we need a government for?

Whenever this question is raised, the shining image of the “noble citizenry” mysteriously vanishes, and all sorts of specters are raised in their place. “Well, without a government, everyone would be at each other’s throats, there would be no roads, the poor would be uneducated, the old and sick would die in the streets etc. etc. etc.”

This is a blatant and massive contradiction, and it is highly informative that it is nowhere part of anyone’s discourse in the modern world.

Democracy is valid because just about everyone is wise and moral, we are told. When we accept this, and question the need for a government, the story suddenly reverses, and we are told that we need a government because just about everyone is amoral and selfish.

Do you see how we have an ambivalent relationship not just with anarchism, but with democracy itself?

In the same way, whenever an anarchist talks about a stateless society, he is immediately expected to produce evidence that every single poor person in the future will be well taken care of by voluntary charity.

Again, this involves a rank contradiction, which involves democracy.

The welfare state, old-age pensions, and “free” education for the poor are all considered in a democracy to be valid reflections of the virtuous will of the people – these government programs were offered up by politicians, and voluntarily accepted by the majority who voted for them, and also voluntarily accepted by the minority who have agreed to obey the will of the majority!

In other words, the majority of society is perfectly willing to give up an enormous chunk of its income in order to help the sick, the old and the poor – and we know this because those programs were voted for and created by democratic governments!

Ah, says the anarchist, then we already know that the majority of people will be perfectly willing to help the sick, the old and the poor in a stateless society – democracy provides empirical and incontrovertible evidence of this simple fact!

Again, when this basic argument is put forward, the myth of the noble citizenry evaporates once more!

“Oh no, without the government forcing people to be charitable, no one would lift a finger to help the poor, people are so selfish, they don’t care etc. etc. etc.”

This paradox cannot be unraveled this side of insanity. If a democratic government must force a selfish and unwilling populace to help the poor, then government programs do not reflect the will of the people, and democracy is a lie, and we must get rid of it – or at least stop pretending to vote.

If democracy is not a lie, then existing government programs accurately represent the will of the majority, and thus the poor, the sick and the old will have nothing to fear from a stateless society – and will, for many reasons, be far better taken care of by private charity than government programs.

Now it is certainly easy to just shrug off the contradictions above and it say that somewhere, somehow, there just must be a good answer to these objections.

Although this can be a pleasant thing to do in the short run, it is not something I have ever had much luck doing in the long term. These contradictions come back and nag at me – and I am actually very glad that they have done so, since I think that the progress of human thought utterly depends upon us taking nothing for granted.

The first virtue is always honesty, and we should be honest enough to admit when we do not have reasonable answers to these reasonable objections. This does not mean that we must immediately come up with new “answers,” but rather just sit with the questions for a while, ponder them, look for weaknesses or contradictions in our objections – and only when we are satisfied that the objections are valid should we begin looking for rational and empirical answers to even some of the oldest and most commonly-accepted “solutions.”

This process of ceasing to believe in non-answers is fundamental to science, to philosophy – and is the first step towards anarchism, or the acceptance that violence is never a valid solution to non-violent problems.

Anarchy and Violence

One of the truly tragic misunderstandings about anarchism is the degree to which anarchism is associated with violence.

Violence, as commonly defined, is the initiation of the use of force. (The word “initiation” is required to differentiate the category of self-defense.)

Since the word “ambivalent” seems to be the theme for this book, it is important to understand that those who advocate or support the existence of a government have themselves a highly ambivalent relationship to violence.

To understand what I mean by this, it is first essential to recognize that taxation – the foundation of any statist system – falls entirely under the category of “the initiation of the use of force.”

Governments claim the right to tax citizens – which is, when you look at it empirically, one group of individuals claiming the moral right to initiate the use of force against other individuals.

Now, you may believe for all the reasons in the world that this is justified, moral, essential, practical and so on – but all this really means is that you have an ambivalent relationship to the use of force. On the one hand, you doubtless condemn as vile the initiation of the use of force in terms of common theft, assault, murder, rape and so on.

Indeed, it is the addition of violence that makes specific acts evil rather than neutral, or good. Sex plus violence equals rape. Property transfer plus violence equals theft. Remove violence from property transfer, and you have trade, or charity, or borrowing, or inheritance.

 However, when it comes to the use of violence to transfer property from “citizens” to “government,” these moral rules are not just neutralized, but actively reversed.

We view it as a moral good to resist a crime if possible – not an absolute necessity, but certainly a forgivable if not laudable action. However, to resist the forcible extraction of your property by the government is considered ignoble, and wrong.

Please note that I am not attempting to convince you of the anarchist position in this (or any other) section of this book. I consider it far too immense a task to change your mind about this in such a short work – and besides, if you are troubled by logical contradictions, I might rob you of the considerable intellectual thrill and excitement of exploring these ideas for yourself.

Thus in a democracy, we have a highly ambivalent relationship to violence itself. We both fear and hate violence when it is enacted by private citizens in pursuit of personal – and generally considered negative – goals. However, we praise violence when it is enacted by public citizens in pursuit of collective – and generally considered positive – goals.

For instance, if a poor man robs a richer man at gunpoint, we may feel a certain sympathy for the desperation of the act, but still we will pursue legal sanctions against the mugger. We recognize that relative poverty is no excuse for robbery, both due to the intrinsic immorality of theft, and also because if we allow the poor to rob the less poor, we generally feel that social breakdown would be the inevitable result. The work ethic of the poor would be diminished – as would that of the less poor, and society would in general dissolve into warring factions, to the economic and social detriment of all.

However, when we institutionalize this very same principle in the form of the welfare state, it is considered to be a noble and virtuous good to use force to take money from the more wealthy, and hand it over to the less wealthy.

Again, this book is not designed to be any sort of airtight argument against the welfare state – rather, it is designed to highlight the enormous moral contradictions in – and our fundamental ambivalence towards – the use of violence to achieve preferred ends.

Anarchy and War

I may have been doomed to this particular perspective from a very early age. I grew up in England in the 1970s, when the shadow cast by the Second World War still fell long across the mental landscape. I read war comics, saw war movies, heard details of epic battles, and sat silent during rather uncomfortable family gatherings where the British on my father’s side attempted to make small talk with the Germans on my mother’s.

I could not help but think, even when I was six or seven years old, that should my paternal uncle leap across the table and strangle my maternal uncle, this would be viewed as an immoral horror by everyone involved, and he would doubtless go to jail, probably for the rest of his life.

On the other hand, should they be placed in costume, and arrayed across a battlefield according to the whims of other men in costume, such a murder would be hailed as a noble sacrifice, and medals may be passed out, and pensions provided, and tickertape parades possibly ensue.

Thus, even in those long-ago days of soft white tablecloths and gently clinking cutlery, I mentally chewed on the problem that murder equals evil, and also that murder equals good. Murder equals jail, and murder equals medals.

When I was a little older, after “The Godfather” came out, endless slews of gangster movies sprayed their red gore across the silver screens. In these stories, certain tribal “virtues” such as loyalty, dedication and obeying orders, were portrayed as relatively noble, even as these butchers plied their bloody trade in slow motion, generally to the strains of classical music, and came to grimly spattered ends on bare concrete.

This paradox, too, stayed with me: “Murdering a man because another man orders you to – and pays you to – is a vile and irredeemable evil.”

Then, of course, another war movie would come out, with the exact opposite moral message: “Murdering a man because another man orders you to – and pays you to – is a virtuous and courageous good.”

I do remember bringing these contradictions up from time to time with the adults around me, only to be met with condescending irritation, often followed by a demand as to whether I would in fact prefer to be speaking German at present.

As I got older, and learned a little more about the world, these contradictions did not exactly resolve themselves, but rather were added to incessantly. We fought the Second World War to oppose National Socialism, I was told, as I munched on awful soy burgers, shivered in the cold and was told I could not bathe because the nationalized state unions were crippling the British economy.

I was told that I had to be terribly afraid of the selfish impulses of my fellow citizens – and also that I had to respect their wisdom when they chose a leader. I was told that the purpose of my education was to allow me to think for myself, but when I made decisions that those in authority disagreed with, I was scorned and humiliated, and my reasoning was never examined.

I was told that I should not use violence to solve my problems, but when I climbed a wall that apparently I was not supposed to, I was taken to the Headmaster’s office, where he assaulted me with a cane.

I was told that the British people were the wisest, most courageous and most virtuous group on the planet – and also that I was not to disobey those in authority.

When I was taught mathematics and science, I was punished for thinking irrationally – and then, when I asked sensible questions about the existence of God, I was punished for attempting to think rationally.

I was mocked as cowardly whenever I succumbed to peer pressure – and also mocked for my lack of interest in cheering our local sports team.

When I proposed thoughts that those in authority disagreed with, they demanded that I provide evidence; when I asked that they provide evidence for their beliefs, I was punished for insubordination.

This is nothing peculiar to me – all children go through these sorts of mental meat grinders – but I could not help but think, as I grew up, that what passed for “thinking” in society was more or less an endless series of manipulations designed to serve those in power.

What troubled me most emotionally was not the nonsense and contradictions that surrounded me, but rather the indisputable fact that they seemed completely invisible to everyone. Well, that’s not quite true. It is more accurate to say that these contradictions were visible exactly to the degree that they were avoided. Everyone walked through a minefield, claiming that it was not a minefield, but unerringly avoiding the mines nonetheless.

It became very clear to me quite quickly that I lived in a kind of negative intellectual and moral universe. The ethical questions most worth examining were those that were the most mocked, derided and attacked. What was virtuous was so often what was considered the most vile – and what was the most vile was often considered the most virtuous.

When I was 11, I went to the Ontario Science Center, which had an interesting and challenging exhibit where you attempted to trace the outline of a star by looking in a mirror. I have always remembered this exhibit, and just now I realize why – because this was my direct experience when attempting to map the ethics and virtues proclaimed by those around me – particularly those in authority.

Nowhere were these contradictions more pronounced than in the question of war.

It took me quite a long time to realize this, because the spectacle, fire and blood of war is so distracting, but the true violence of war does not occur on the battlefield, but in the homeland.

The carnage of conflict is only an effect of the core violence which supports war, which is the military enslavement of domestic citizens through the draft – and even more importantly, the direct theft of their money which pays for the war.

Without the money to fund a war – and pay the soldiers, whether they are drafted or not – war is impossible. The actual violence of the battlefield is a mere effect of the threatened violence at home. If citizens could not be forced to pay for the war – either in the present in the form of taxes, or in the future through deficit financing – then the carnage of the battlefield could never possibly occur.

I have read many books and articles on the root of war – whether it is nationalism, economic forces, faulty philosophical premises, class conflict and so on – none of which addressed the central issue, which is how war is paid for. This is like advancing merely psychological explanations as to why people play the lottery, without ever once mentioning their interest in the prize money. Why do people become doctors? Is it because they have a psychological need to present themselves as godlike healers, or because they are pleasing their mother and father, or because they are themselves secretly wounded, or because they possess an altruistic desire to heal the sick? These may be all interesting theories to pursue, but they are mere effects of the basic fact that doctors are highly paid for what they do.

Certainly psychological or sociological theories may explain why a particular person chooses to become a doctor rather than pursue some other high-paying occupation – but surely we should at least start with the fact that if doctors were not paid, almost no one would become a doctor. For instance, if a magic pill were invented tomorrow that ensured perfect health forever, there would be no more doctors – because no one would pay for the unnecessary service. Thus the first cause of doctors is – payment.

In the same way, we can endlessly theorize about the psychological, sociological or economic causes of war, but if we never talk about the simple fact that the first cause of war is domestic theft and military enslavement, then everything that follows remains mere abstract and airless intellectual quibbling, more designed to hide the truth than reveal it.

We can only point guns at foreign enemies because we first point guns at domestic citizens.

Without taxation, there can be no war.

Without governments, there can be no taxation.

Thus governments are the first cause of war.

The truth of the matter, I believe, is that deep down we know that if we pull out this one single thread – that coercion against citizens is the root of war – we know that many other threads will also come unraveled.

If we recognize the violence that is at the root of war – domestic violence, not foreign violence – then we stare at the core and ugly truth at the root of our society, and most of our collective moral aspirations.

The core and ugly truth at the root of our society is that we really, really like using violence to get things done. In fact, it is more than a mere aesthetic or personal preference – we define the use of violence as a moral necessity within our society.

How should we educate children? Why, we must force their parents – and everyone else – to pay for their education at gunpoint!

How should we help the poor? Why, we must force others in society to pay for their support at gunpoint!

How should we heal the sick? Why, we must force everyone to pay for their medical care at gunpoint!

Now, it may be the case that we have exhausted all other possibilities and ways of dealing with these complex and challenging problems, and that we have been forced to fall back on coercion, punishment and control as regretful necessities, and we are constantly looking for ways to reduce the use of violence in our solutions for these problems.

However, that is not the case, either empirically or rationally.

The education of poor children, the succor of the impoverished and the healing of the sick all occurred through private charities and voluntary associations long before statist agencies displaced them. This is exactly what you would expect, given the general modern support for these state programs, because everyone is so concerned with these genuinely needy groups.

Where violence is considered to be a regrettable but necessary solution to a problem, those in authority do not shy away from talking openly about it. When I was a child in England in the 1970s, I was repeatedly told with pride by my elders about their courageous use of violence against the Axis powers in World War II. No one tried to give me the impression that the Nazis were defeated by cunning negotiation and psychological tricks. The endless slaughterhouses of both the First and Second World Wars were not kept hidden from me, but rather the violence was praised as a regrettable but moral necessity.

American children are told about the nuclear attacks on Nagasaki and Hiroshima – the slaughter and radiation poisoning of hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilians is not kept a secret; it is not bypassed, ignored or repressed in the telling of the tale.

Even when the war in question was itself questionable, such as the war in Vietnam, no one shies away from the true nature of the conflict, which was endless genocidal murder.

I do not for a moment believe that all of these genocides and slaughters were morally justifiable – or even practically required – but mine is certainly a minority opinion, and since the majority believes that these murders were both morally justified and practically required, they feel fully comfortable openly discussing the violence that they consider unavoidable.

However, this is not the case when we talk about statist solutions to the problems of charity and ill health. You could spend an entire academic career in these fields, and read endless books and articles on the subject, and never once come across any reference to the fact that these solutions are funded through violence. Just so you can understand how strange this really is, imagine spending 40 years as a professional war historian, and never once coming across the idea that war involves violence. Would we not consider that a rather egregious evasion of a rather basic fact?

This is a rather volatile comparison I know, but we saw the same phenomenon occurring in Soviet Russia. Almost no reference was made to the gulags in official state literature, particularly that literature intended to be consumed overseas. The tens of millions of concentration camp inmates showed up nowhere in the general or academic narrative of the Soviet Union – when the book “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich” finally appeared, even this relatively mild account of a day in the life of a prison camp inmate was greeted with shock, derision, horror and rage by those charged with defending that narrative.

It cannot really be the case that when society is genuinely proud of something, the truth is kept mysteriously hidden from view. Can we imagine fans of the New York Yankees actively working to repress the fact that their team won the World Series? Can we imagine the Communist leaders of China suppressing news that their athletes had won gold medals in the Olympics? Can we imagine a police department feverishly working to censor the facts about a large reduction in the crime rate?

Of course not. Where we are genuinely proud of an achievement, we do not refrain from talking about its causes. An Olympic athlete will speak with pride about the years of endless dawn training sessions; a successful entrepreneur will not hide the decades of hard work it took to succeed; a woman who has successfully struggled to lose weight is unlikely to wear a fat suit when she goes to her high school reunion.

However, when a core reality conflicts with a mythological narrative, academics, intellectuals and other cultural leaders are well-compensated for their ability to completely ignore that core reality – and usually savagely attack and mock anyone who brings it up.

Anarchy and Protection

One core reality that anarchists focus on – which surely is at least worthy of discussion – is that governments claim to serve and protect their citizens. When I was a child, and questioned the ethics of World War II, I was asked if I would prefer to be speaking German. In other words, the brave men and women of the Allied forces spent their lives and blood defending me from foreign marauders who would have enslaved me. This approach reinforces the basic story that the government was trying to protect its citizens.

In the same way, when I question the use of violence in the supplying of education, people always tell me that in the absence of that violence – even if they admit to its existence – the poor would remain uneducated. This approach reinforces the basic story that the purpose of state violence in this realm is to educate the children.

You can see the same pattern just about everywhere else. When I talk about the violence of the war on drugs, I am told that without such a war, society would degenerate into nihilistic addiction and violence – thus the purpose of the war on drugs is to keep people off drugs, and their neighbours safe from violence. When I talk about the base and coercive predation of Social Security, I am told that without it, the old would starve in the streets – thus reinforcing the narrative that the purpose of Social Security is to provide an income for the old, without which they would starve.

When we examine the narrative that the state exists to protect its citizens, we can clearly see that if we unearth the basic reality of the violence of taxation, a malevolent contradiction emerges.

It is very hard for me to tell you that I am only interested in protecting you, if I attack you first. If I roll up to you in a black van, jam a hood over your head, throw you in the back of my van, tie you up and toss you in my basement, would you reasonably accept as my explanation for this savagery that I only wished to keep you from harm?

Surely you would reply that if I was really interested in keeping you from harm, why on earth would I kidnap you and lock you up in a little room? Surely, if I initiate the use of force against you, it is somewhat irrational (to say the least) for me to tell you that I am only acting to protect you from the use of force.

This is a central reason why the aggression that governments initiate against their own citizens in order to extract the cash and cannon fodder for war is never talked about. It is hard to sustain the thesis that governments exist to protect their citizens if the first threat to citizens is always their own government.

If I have to rob you in order to pay for “protecting” your property from theft, at the very least I have created an insurmountable logical contradiction, if not a highly ambivalent moral situation.

In general, where coercion is a regrettable but necessary means of achieving a moral good, that coercion is not hidden from general view. In police dramas, the violence of the cops is not hidden. In war movies, shells, bullets and limbs fly across the screen with wanton abandon.

However, the coercion at the root of war and state social programs remains forever unspoken, unacknowledged, repressed, hidden from view; it is mad, shameful and imprudent to speak of it.

A hunter who proudly displays a dead deer on the hood of his car, and puts the antlers up in his basement, and barbecues the venison for his friends, can be considered somewhat proud – or at least not ashamed – of his hobby.

A hunter who uses a silencer, shoots a deer in the middle of the night, and carefully buries the body, leaving no trace, cannot be considered at all proud – and is in fact utterly ashamed – of his hobby.

Thus, when an anarchist looks at society, he sees a desperate shame regarding the use of violence to achieve social ends such as the military, health care, and education. Any anarchist who has even a passing interest in psychology – and I certainly put myself in this category – understands that this kind of unspoken shame is utterly toxic, both to an individual and to a society.

Thus it inevitably falls to anarchists to perform the unpleasant task of digging up the “body in the backyard,” or pointing out the widespread, prevalent and ever-increasing use of violence to achieve moral goals within society. “Is this right?” asks the anarchist – fully aware of the hostile and resentful glances he receives from those around him. “How can violence be both the greatest evil and the greatest good?” “If the violence that we use to achieve our supposedly moral ends is in fact justified and good, why is it that we are so ashamed to speak of it?”

To be an anarchist, to say the very least, requires a strong hide when it comes to social hostility and disapproval.

When people have genuinely exhausted all other possibilities, they tend not to be ashamed of their eventual solution. Even if we take the surface narrative of the Second World War at face value, the victors were able to express just pride because the narrative included the significant caveat that there was no other possible response to the aggression of the German, Italian and Japanese fascists.

Parents tend to be pretty open about hitting their children if they genuinely believe that no rational or moral alternatives exist to the use of violence. If hitting a child is the only way to teach her to be a good, productive and rational adult, then not hitting her is obviously a form of lax parenting, if not outright abuse. Hitting your daughter thus becomes a form of moral responsibility, and thus a positive good, much like yanking her back from running into traffic and ensuring that she eats her vegetables.

Such a parent, of course, reacts with outrage and indignation if you suggest to him that there are more productive alternatives to violence when it comes to raising children – for the obvious reason that if those alternatives exist, his violence turns from a positive good to a moral evil.

This is the situation that an anarchist faces when he talks about nonviolent alternatives to existing coercive “solutions.” If there is a nonviolent way to help the poor, heal the sick, educate the children, protect property, build roads, defend a geographical area, mediate disputes, punish criminals and so on – then the state turns from a regretfully necessary institution to an outright criminal monopoly.

This is a rather large and jagged pill for people to swallow, for any number of psychological, personal, professional and philosophical reasons.

Anarchy and Morality

Another paradox that anarchy brings into uncomfortable view is the contradiction between coercion and morality.

We all in general recognize and accept the principle that where there is no choice, there can be no morality. If a man is told to commit some evil while he has a gun pressed to his head, we would have a hard time categorizing him as evil – particularly compared to the man who is pressing the gun to his head.

If we accept the Aristotelian view that the purpose of life is happiness, and we accept the Socratic view that virtue brings happiness, then when we deny choice to people, we deny them the capacity for virtue, and thus for happiness.

There is great pleasure in helping others – I would certainly argue that it is one of the greatest pleasures, outside of love itself, which encompasses it. Helping others, though, is a highly complex business, which requires detailed personal attention, rigorous standards, a combination of encouragement, sternness, enthusiasm, sympathy and discipline – to name just a few!

Using coercion to drive charity is like using kidnapping to create love. Not only does the use of coercion through state programs deny choice to those wishing to help the poor – and thus the joy of achievement, and the motivation of happiness – but it corrupts and destroys the complex interchange required to elevate a human soul from its meager surroundings and its own low expectations.

If we believe that violence is a valid way to achieve moral ends – of helping the poor for instance – then there are two other approaches which would be far more logically consistent than the forced theft and transfer of taxation.

If violence is the only valid way to create economic “equality,” then surely it would make far more sense to simply allow those below a certain level of income to steal the difference from others. If we understand that state welfare agencies skim an enormous amount of money off the top – they represent a truly savage expense – then we can easily eliminate this overhead, and have a far more rational system besides, simply by eliminating the middleman and allowing the poor to steal from the middle and upper classes.

If the prospect of this solution fills you with horror, that is important to understand. If you feel that this proposal would degenerate into armed gangs of the poor rampaging through wealthier neighborhoods, then you are really saying that the poor are poor because they lack restraint and judgment, and will pillage others and undermine the economic success and general security of society in order to satisfy their own immediate appetites, without thought for the future.

If this is the case – if the poor really are such a shortsighted and savage band – then it is clear that they do not have the judgment and self-control to vote in democratic elections – which are essentially about the forcible transfer of income. If the poor only care about satisfying their immediate appetites, without a care for the long term, then they should not be at all involved in the coercive redistribution of wealth in society as a whole.

Ah, but what if taking the right to vote away from the poor fills you with outrage? Very well, then we can assume that the poor are rational, and able and willing to defer gratification. If a man is wise enough to vote on the use of force, then he is certainly wise enough to use that force himself.

Indeed, the barriers to using force personally are far higher than voting for the use of force in a democratic system. If you have to pick up a gun and go and collect your just property from richer people, that is quite a high “barrier to entry.” If, on the other hand, you simply have to scribble on the ballot once every few years, and then sit back and wait for your check to arrive, surely that will drive the escalation of violence in society far more rapidly.

If you still feel that this solution would be disastrous, because the poor would act with bad judgment, then you face a related issue, which is the quality of the education that the poor have received.

Anarchy and Education

If the poor lack wisdom, knowledge and good judgment, but they have been educated by the government for almost 15 years straight, then surely if we believe that the poor can be educated, we must then blame the government for failing to educate them. Since the poor cannot afford private schools, they must surrender their children to government schools, which have a complete and coercive monopoly over their education.

Now, either the poor have the capacity for wisdom and efficacy, or they do not. If the poor do have the capacity for wisdom, then the government is fully culpable for failing to cultivate it through education. If the poor do not have the capacity for wisdom, then the government is fully culpable for wasting massive resources in a futile attempt to educate them – and also, they cannot justly be allowed to vote.

Again, although I know that this must be uncomfortable or annoying to read through, I am willing myself to refrain from providing the clear and moral anarchistic solutions to these seemingly intractable problems. There is no point trying to give society a pill if society does not even think that it is sick. If your appendix is inflamed, and I offer to remove it for you, you will doubtless cry out your gratitude – if I run up to you on the street, however, and offer to remove an appendage that you believe to be both necessary and healthy, you would be highly inclined to charge me with assault.

Given that anarchism represents a near complete break with political society – although, as described above, a highly moral and rational expansion of personal society – it remains in no way attractive if nothing is seen to be particularly wrong with political society.

Churchill once famously remarked: “Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.” Anarchists believe this to be true, but would add that no form of government is better than no government at all!

This is not to say that democracy is not a better form of government than tyranny. It certainly is – my problem is that we have in the West achieved democracy over the past few hundred years, and now seem to be eternally content to rest on our laurels, so to speak.

I spent almost 15 years as a software entrepreneur, which may have colored my perspective on this issue to some degree. The software field reinvents itself almost from the ground up every year or two, it seems, which demands a constant commitment to dynamism, continual learning, and the abandonment of prior conceptions. The swift currents of perpetual change quickly sweep the inert away.

Thus I fully appreciate the significant step forward represented by democracy – but the mere fact that a thing is “better” in no way indicates that it is “best.”

When medieval surgeons realized that a patient had a better chance of surviving gangrene if they hacked off a limb, this could surely be called a better solution – but it could scarcely be called the best possible solution. Recognizing that prevention is always better than a cure does not mean that all cures are equally good.

I have no doubt whatsoever that the first caveman to figure out how to start a fire shared his knowledge with his tribe, and they all sat in a cave, with their feet pointed towards the flickering flames, warm in the midst of a winter chill for the first time, and grunted at each other: “Well, it can’t possibly get any better than this!”

No doubt when, a thousand years later, someone figured out that it was easier to capture and domesticate a cow rather than to continually hunt game, everyone sat back in front of their fire, their bellies full of milk, and grunted at each other: “Well, it can’t possibly get any better than this!”

These things are genuine improvements, to be sure, and we should not ever fail to appreciate the progress that we make – but neither should we automatically and endlessly assume that every step forward is the final and most perfect step, and that nothing can ever conceivably be improved in the future.

Democracy is considered to be superior to tyranny – and rightly so I believe – because to some degree it imitates the feedback mechanisms of the free market. Politicians, it is said, must provide goods and services to citizens, who provide feedback through voting.

It would seem to be logical to continue to extend that which makes democracy work further and further. If I find that, as a doctor, I infect fewer of my patients when I wash one little finger, then surely it would make sense to start washing other parts of my hand as well.

Really, this is what my approach to anarchism is fundamentally about. If voluntarism and feedback – a quasi-“market” – is what makes democracy superior, then surely we should work as hard as possible to extend voluntarism and feedback – particularly since we have the example of real markets, which work spectacularly well.

Anarchy and Reform

There is a great fear among people – or a great desire, to be more accurate – with regards to abandoning this system, when the perception exists that it can be reformed instead.

Democracy is messy, it is said – politicians pander to special interests, court voters with “free” goodies, manipulate the currency to avoid directly increasing taxes, create endless and intractable problems in the realms of education, welfare, incarceration and so on – but let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater! If you have good ideas for improving the system, you should get involved, not sit back in your armchair and criticize everything in sight! One of the rare privileges of a living in a democracy is that anyone can get involved in the political process, from running for a local school board to prime minister or president of the entire country! Letter-writing campaigns, grassroots activism, blogs, associations, clubs – you name it, there are countless ways to get involved in the political process.

Given the degree of feedback available to the average citizen of a democracy, it makes little sense to agitate for changing the system as a whole. Since the system is so flexible and responsive, it is impossible to imagine that it can be replaced with any system that is more flexible – thus the practical ideal for anyone interested in social change is to bring his ideas to the “marketplace” of democracy, see who he can get on board, and implement his vision within the system – peacefully, politically, democratically.

This is a truly wonderful fairy tale, which has only the slight disadvantage of having nothing to do with democracy whatsoever.

When we think of a truly free market – otherwise known as the “free market” – we understand that we do not have to work for years and years, and give up thousands of hours and tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars, to satisfy our wishes. If I want to shop for vegetarian food, say, I do not have to spend years lobbying the local supermarket, or joining some sort of somewhat ineffective advisory Board, and pounding lawn signs, and writing letters, and cajoling everyone in the neighborhood – all I have to do is go and buy some vegetarian food, locally or over the Internet if I prefer.

If I want to date a particular woman, I do not have to lobby everyone in a 10 block radius, get them to sign a petition, make stirring speeches about my worthiness as a boyfriend, devote years of my life attempting to get collective approval for asking her out. All I have to do is walk up to her, ask her out and see if she says “yes.”

If I want to be a doctor, I do not have to spend years lobbying every doctor in the country to get a majority approval for my application. Neither do I have to pursue this process when I want to move, drive a car, buy a book, plan for my retirement, change countries, learn a language, buy a computer, choose to have a child, go on a diet, start an exercise program, go into therapy, give to a charity and so on.

Thus it is clear that individuals are “allowed” to make major and essential life decisions without consulting the majority. The vast majority of our lives is explicitly anti-democratic, insofar as we vehemently reserve the right to make our own decisions – and our own mistakes – without subjecting them to the scrutiny and authority of others. Why is it that we are “allowed” to choose who to marry, whether to have children, and how to raise them – but we are violently not allowed to openly choose where they go to school? Why is every decision that leads up to the decision of how to educate a child is completely free, personal, and anti-democratic – but the moment that the child needs an education, a completely opposite methodology is enforced upon the family? Why is the free anarchy of personal decisions – in direct opposition to coercive authority – such a moral imperative for every decision which leads up to the need for a child’s education – but then, free anarchic choice becomes the greatest imaginable evil, and coercive authority must be substituted in its place?

There is a particularly cynical side of me – which is not to say that the cynicism is necessarily misplaced – which would argue that the reason that there is no direct interference in having children is because that way people will have more kids, which the state needs to grow into taxpayers, in the same way that a dairy farmer needs his cows to breed. Those who profit from political power always need new taxpayers, but they certainly do not want independently critical and rational taxpayers, since that is fundamentally the opposite of being a taxpayer. Thus they do not interfere with having children, only with the education of children – just as a goose farmer will not interfere with egg laying, but will certainly clip the wings of any geese he wishes to keep alive and profit from.

Anarchy and Exceptions

At this point, you may be thinking that there are good reasons why political coercion is substituted for personal anarchy in particular situations. Perhaps there is some rule of thumb or principle which separates the two which, if it can be discovered, will lay this mystery bare.

If I break up with a girlfriend, for instance, I do not owe her anything legally. If I marry her, however, I do. When I take a new job, I may be subject to a probationary period of a few months, when I can be fired – or quit – with impunity. We can think of many examples of such situations – the major difference, however, is that these are all voluntary and contractual situations.

The justification for a government – particularly a democratic government – is really founded upon the idea of a “social contract.” Because we happen to be born in a particular geographical location, we “owe” the government our allegiance, time, energy and money for the rest of our lives, or as long as we stay. This “contract” is open to renegotiation, insofar as we can decide to alter the government by getting involved in the political process – or, we can leave the country, just as we can leave a marriage or place of employment. This argument – which goes back to Socrates – is based upon an implied contract that remains in force as long as we ourselves remain within the geographical area ruled over by the government.

However, this idea of the “social contract” fails such an elemental test that it is only testament to the power of propaganda that it has lasted as a credible narrative for over 2,000 years.

Children cannot enter into contracts – and adults cannot have contracts imposed upon them against their will. Thus being born in a particular location does not create any contract, since it takes a lunatic or a Catholic to believe that obligations accrue to a newborn squalling baby.

Thus children cannot be subjected to – or be responsible for – any form of implicit social contract.

Adults, on the other hand, must be able to choose which contracts they enter into – if they cannot, there is no differentiation between imposing a contract on a child, and imposing a contract on an adult. I cannot say that implicit contracts are invalid for children, but then they magically become automatically valid when the child turns 18, and bind the adult thereby.

It is important also to remember that there is fundamentally no such thing as “the state.” When you write a check to pay your taxes, it is made out to an abstract quasi-corporate entity, but it is cashed and spent by real life human beings. Thus the reality of the social contract is that it “rotates” between and among newly elected political leaders, as well as permanent civil servants, appointed judges, and the odd consultant or two. This coalescing kaleidoscope of people who cash your check and spend your money is really who you have your social contract with. (This can occur in the free market as well, of course – when you take out a loan to buy a house, your contract is with the bank, not your loan officer, and does not follow him when he changes jobs.)

However, to say that the same man can be bound by a unilaterally-imposed contract represented by an ever-shifting coalition of individuals, in a system that was set up hundreds of years before he was born, without his prior choice – since he did not choose where he was born – or explicit current approval, is a perfectly ludicrous statement.

We can generally accept as unjust any standard of justice that would disqualify itself. When we are shopping, we would scarcely call it a “sale” if prices had been jacked up 30%. We would not clip a “coupon” that added a dollar to the price of whatever we were buying – in fact, we would not call this a coupon at all!

If we examine the concept of the “social contract,” which is claimed as a core justification for the existence of a government, it is more than reasonable to ask whether the social contract would justly enforce the social contract itself! In other words, if the government is morally justified because of the ethical validity of an implicit and unilaterally imposed contract, will the government defend implicit and unilaterally imposed contracts? If I start up a car dealership and automatically “sell” a car to everyone in a 10 block radius, and then send them a bill for the car they have “bought” – and send them the car as well, and bind their children for eternity in such a deal as well – would the government enforce such a “contract”?

I think that we all know the answer to that question…

If I attempted to bring a social contract to an agency that claims as its justification the existence and validity of the exact same social contract, it would laugh in my face and call me insane.

Are you beginning to get a clear idea of the kind of moral and logical contradictions that a statist system is based upon?

Many times throughout human history, certain societies have come to the valid conclusion that an institution can no longer be reformed, but must instead be abolished. The most notable example is slavery, but we can think of others as well, such as the unity of church and state, oligarchical aristocracy, military dictatorships, human or animal sacrifices to the gods, rape as a valid spoil of war, torture, pedophilia, wife abuse and so on. This does not mean of course that all of these practices and institutions have faded from the world, but it does mean that in many civilized societies, the essential debate is over, and was not settled with the idea of “reforming” institutions such as slavery. The origin of the phrase “rule of thumb” came from an attempt to reform the beating of wives, and restrict it to beating your wife with a stick no wider than your thumb. This practice was not reformed, but rather abolished.

However well-intentioned these reforms may have been, we can at best only call them ethical in terms of halting steps towards the final goal, which is the elimination of the concept of wife beating as a moral norm at all. In the same way, some reformers attempted to get slave owners to beat their slaves less, or at least less severely, but with the hindsight of history and our further moral development, we can see that slavery was not fundamentally an institution that could ever be reformed, but rather had to be utterly abolished. We can find encouragement in such “reforms” only to the degree that they reduced suffering in the present, while hopefully spurring on the goal of abolishing slavery.

Any moralist who said that getting rid of slavery would be a criminal and moral disaster of the first order, but instead encouraged slaves to attempt to work within the system, or counseled slave owners to voluntarily take on the goal of treating their slaves with less brutality, could scarcely be called a moralist, at least by modern standards. Instead, we would term such a “reformer” as a very handy apologist for the existing brutality of the system. By pretending that the evils inherent in slavery could be mitigated or eliminated through voluntary internal reform, these “moralists” actually slowed or stalled the progress towards abolition in many areas. By holding out the false hope that an evil institution could be turned to goodness, these sophists blunted the power of the argument from morality, which is that slavery is an inherent evil, and thus cannot be reformed.

The finger-wagging admonition, “Rape more gently,” is oxymoronic. Rape is the opposite of gentle, the opposite of moral.

This is how many anarchists view the proposition that the existing system of political violence should be reformed somehow from within, rather than fundamentally opposed on moral terms, as an absolute evil, based on coercion and brutality, particularly towards children – with the inevitable consequence that its only salvation can come from being utterly abolished.

Anarchism and Political Realities

Along with the anarchistic moral arguments against the use of force to solve problems come many well-developed economic arguments against the long-term stability of any democratic political system.

To take just one example, let’s look at the problem of unequal incentives.

In the United States, thousands of sugar producers receive massive state subsidies and coercive protection from foreign competitors – benefits which have been in place, for the most part, since the close of the war of 1812. Although $1.2 billion was spent in 2005 subsidizing sugar production, the majority of the money goes to a few dozen growers.

These sugar subsidies cost the US economy billions of dollars annually, while netting major sugar producers millions of dollars a year each. The average American consumer would have to fight for years, spend untold hours and dollars attempting to overturn the subsidies in Congress – to save, what? A few dollars a year apiece? None but a lunatic would attempt it.

On the other hand, of course, these sugar growers will spend whatever time and money it takes to preserve their massive influx of cash. It is not that hard to figure out who will present stronger “incentives” – to say the least – to Congress. It is not that hard to figure out just who will donate as much as humanly possible to a Congressman’s run. It is embarrassingly easy to figure out who will keep calling the congressman at 2 a.m. with dire threats should he dare to question the value of the subsidies, and promises of money if he refrains.

Politicians, like so many of us, take the rational path of least resistance. A congressman will receive no thanks for killing these subsidies and returning a few unproven and ignored dollars to his average constituent’s pocket – such a “benefit” would scarcely even be noticed. However, the sugar growers would raise bloody hell to the very skies, as would all their employees, their hangers on, the professionals they employ, and anyone else who benefits from the concentration of illicit wealth that they enjoy.

Furthermore, should the subsidies be somehow cut, and the price of a candy bar dropped a nickel, all that would happen is that some other politician would impose a tax of, say, about a nickel on candy bars – to save the children’s teeth, of course – thus generating more cash for him to hand out and utterly nullifying any benefit to the consumer. Would any rational politician pursue a policy that would enrage his supporters, strengthen his enemies and win no new friends?

Of course not.

Thus it is clear to see that while no incentive exists to do the right thing, every conceivable incentive exists to do the wrong thing. In the case of sugar subsidies, the “sting” to the consumer is only a few dollars a year – multiply this, however, thousands and thousands of times over, for each special interest group, and we can see how the taxpayer will inevitably die a death not by beheading, but rather by the tiny bites of 10,000 mosquitoes, each feeding its young by feasting on a droplet of his blood.

No democratic government has ever survived without taking a monopoly control over the currency. The reason for this is simple – politicians need to buy votes, but that illusion is hard to sustain if those you give money to have to pay that money back within a few years in the form of higher taxes. Taxpayers would get wise to this sort of game very quickly, and so politicians need to find other ways to fog and befuddle taxpayers. Deficit financing is one way – give money to people in the present, then stick the bill to their children at some undefined point in the future, when you’re no longer around – perfect!

Another great way of pretending to give people money is to inflate their currency by printing more money. This way, you can give a man a hundred dollars today, and just reduce the purchasing power of his dollar by 5% next year by printing more. Not one person in a thousand will have any idea what’s really going on, and besides, you always have the business community to blame for “gouging” the consumer.

Another “solution” is to promise public-sector unions large increases in salary, which only really take effect toward the end of your office, so that the next administration gets stuck with the real bill. Also, you can sign perpetual contracts giving them plenty of medical and retirement benefits, the majority of which will only kick in when they get older, long after you are gone.

Alternatively, you can sell long-term bonds that give you the cash right now, while sticking future taxpayers in 10, 20 or 30 years with the bill for repaying your principle, and accumulated interest.

One other option is to start licensing everything in sight – building permits, hot dog stand permits, dog licenses and so on – thus grabbing a lot of cash up front, and leaving your successors to deal with the diminished tax base from lower economic activity in the future.

Or you can buy the votes of apartment-dwellers with “rent control” – leaving the next few administrations to deal with the inevitable resulting apartment shortage.

This list can go on and on – it is a list as old as the Roman and Greek democracies – but the essential point is that democracy is always and forever utterly unsustainable.

A basic fact of economics is that people respond to incentives – the incentives in any statist society – democratic, fascist, communist, socialist, you name it – are always so unbalanced as to turn the public treasury into a kind of blood mad shark-driven feeding frenzy.

Well, say the defenders of democracy, but the people can always choose to vote in other people who will fix the system!

One of the wonderful aspects of working from first principles, and taking our evidence from the real world, is that we don’t have to believe pious nonsense anymore. Except directly after significant wars, when they need to re-grow their decimated tax bases, democratic governments simply never ever get smaller.

The logic of this remains depressingly simple, and just as depressingly inevitable.

A central question that any voter who claims to wish to be informed must ask is: why is this man’s name on the ballot?

The standard answer is that he has a vision to fix the neighborhood, the city, or the country, and so he has nobly dedicated his life to public service, and needs your vote so that he can begin fixing the problem. He is a pragmatic idealist who knows that compromises must be made, but who can still make tangible improvements in your life.

Of course, this is all pure nonsense, as we can well see from the fact that things in a democracy always get worse, not better. Standards of living decline, national debt explodes, household debt increases, educational achievements plummet, poverty rates increase, incarceration rates increase, unfunded liabilities skyrocket – and yet, election after election, the sheep run to the polls and feverishly scribble their hopes on to the ballots, certain that this time, everything will turn around! (For those reading this in the future, we are currently right in the middle of “Obama-mania.”)

The question remains – why is this man on the ballot?

We all know that it takes an enormous amount of money and influence to run for any kind of substantial office. The central question is, then: why do people give money to a candidate?

I’m not talking about a national presidential campaign, where obviously people give a lot of money to the candidate in the hopes of giving him power to achieve some sort of shared goals and so on.

No, I mean: where does the money to get started even come from?

Why would pharmaceutical companies, aerospace companies, engineering companies, manufacturing companies, farmers, and public-sector unions and so on give money and support to a candidate?

Clearly, these groups are not handing out cash for purely idealistic reasons, since they are in the business of making money, at least for their members. Thus they must be giving money to potential candidates in return for political favors down the road – preferential treatment, tax breaks, tariff restrictions on competitors, government contracts etc.

In other words, any candidate that you get to vote for must have already been bought and paid for by others.

Does this sound like an odd and cynical assertion? Perhaps – but it is very easy to figure out if a candidate has been bought and paid for.

Candidates will always talk in stirring tones about “sacrifice” and so on, but you surely must have noticed by now that no candidate ever talks specifically about the spending that he is going to cut. You never hear him say that he is going to balance the budget by cutting the spending of X, Y or Z. Everything is either couched in abstract terms, or specific promises to specific groups. (At the moment, the current fetish – in leftist circles – is to pretend that 47 million Americans can get “free” healthcare if the government lowers the tax breaks on a few billionaires.)

In other words, if you don’t see anyone else’s head on the chopping block, that is because it is your head on the chopping block.

Of course, if the government really wanted to help the economy at the expense of some very rich people, it would simply annul the national debt – in effect, declare bankruptcy, and start all over again.

Why does it not do this? Why does it never even approach this topic? We have seen price controls on a variety of goods and services over the past few generations – why not simply place a moratorium on paying interest on the national debt, at least for the time being?

Well, the simple answer is that the government simply cannot survive without a constant infusion of loans, largely from foreign lenders.

This is a bit of a clue for you as to how important your vote really is, and how concerned your leaders are about your personal and particular issues – relative to, say, those of foreign lenders.

Ah, you might argue, but why would a pharmaceutical company, say, give money to a potential candidate, since no deal can possibly be put down in writing, and that potential candidate might well take the money, and then just not take the calls from that pharmaceutical company when he or she gets into power?

Well, this is a distinct possibility, of course, but it has a relatively simple solution.

When a candidate is interested in taking a run at any reasonably high office, he goes around to various places and asks for money.

When you ask someone for a few thousand dollars, naturally, his first question is going to be: “What are you going to do for me in return?”

Early on in any particular political race, there are quite a number of candidates. Anyone who wants to donate money to a political candidate in the hopes of gaining political favors down the road is only going to do so if he believes that the candidate will fulfill the unwritten obligation – the “anti-social contract,” if you like.

In politics, as in business, credibility is efficiency. Those who have built up reputations for keeping their promises end up being able to do business on a handshake, which keeps their costs down considerably. No new person entering a field will have the credibility or track record to be able to achieve this enviable efficiency, and so will have to earn it over the course of many years.

Thus we know for certain that when a company gives money to a political candidate, in the expectation of return favors in the future, that political candidate already has an excellent track record of doing just that. This kind of information will have been passed around certain communities – “Joe X is a man of his word!” – just as the reliability of a drug dealer and the quality of his product is passed around in certain other communities.

Thus we know that any candidate who receives significant funding from special interest groups is a man who has consistently proven his “integrity to corruptibility” in the past – for if he has no track record, or an inconsistent track record, no one will give him money to get started.

(Just as a side note, this is a very interesting example of exactly why anarchism will work – we do not need the state to enforce contracts, since the state itself functions on implicit contracts that can never be legally enforced.)

In other words, whenever you see a name on the ballot, you can be completely certain that that name represents a man who has already been bought and paid for over the course of many years, and that those who have paid for him do not have, let us say, your best interests at heart.

But we can go one step further.

Since all the money that moves around in a political system must come from somewhere – the millions of dollars that are given to the sugar farmers must come from taxpayers – we can be sure that just about every benefit that special interest groups seek to gain comes at your expense. Pharmaceutical companies want an extension on their patents so they can charge you more money. Domestic steel companies want to increase barriers against imported steel so they can charge you more money. If a government union wants additional benefits, that will cost you. If the police want to expand the war on drugs, that will cost you security, safety and money.

Whoever strives to benefit from the public purse has their hand groping towards your pocket.

Thus it is perfectly fair and reasonable to remind you that every name that you see on the ballot is diametrically opposed to your particular and personal interests, since they have been paid for by people who want to rob you blind.

Another aspect of “democricide” is the inevitable and constant escalation of public spending necessary to achieve or maintain political power.

Let us take the example of a mayor running for his second term. When he was running for his first term, sewage treatment workers donated $20,000 to his campaign, and in return he granted them a 10% raise. Now that he is running for his second term, and cannot give them another 10% raise, they have no reason to donate to his campaign. Thus he either has to offer the sewage treatment workers some other benefit, or he has to create some new program or benefit which he can dangle in front of some new group, in order to secure their donations. This is why political candidates always announce new spending when they throw their hats into the ring – the new spending is the rather unsubtle promise of benefits which will be granted to those who donate to his campaign. A new stadium, a new convention center, a new bridge, a new arts program, new housing projects, highway expansions and so on – all of these inevitably and permanently raise the “high water mark” of governmental spending, and are an absolute requirement of running for office.

Now, our aforementioned sewage treatment workers would of course prefer a permanent 10% raise rather than a one-time cash bonus. Thus they will always try to negotiate a permanent contract rather than continue to be at the mercy of the will and whim of their political masters.

As this process continues, the proportion of non-discretionary spending in any political budget grows and grows. This is another reason why new spending initiatives must always be created in order to secure new donations. Money cannot be shifted from one area to another, because it has permanently been earmarked for a particular group in return for a one-time political contribution in the past.

If the mayor who is running for his second term decides to attempt to roll back the 10% raise, in order to free up money which he can then offer to someone else in return for campaign contributions, he would be committing political suicide. He would be breaking a freely-signed contract, sticking it to the working man, and provoking a very smelly strike – but for his own particular self-interest, the effects would be even worse.

Remember, people will donate to a political campaign based on an implicit contract of future rewards from the public treasury. If a candidate attempts to “roll back” benefits that he has distributed previously in return for donations, not only will he incur the wrath of the existing special-interest group, but he will be revealed as a man who breaks his implicit and unenforceable “contracts.” Since this candidate can no longer be relied upon to give public money back to those who donate to his campaign, he will find that his campaign donations dry up almost immediately, and his political career comes to an abrupt end.

Of course, ex-politicians are highly prized as lobbyists as well, but if this mayor breaks faith with a donator, he will no longer be valuable in that capacity either, and will forego significant income in his post-political career.

Finally, any political candidate who has channeled public money to past donators faces the problem of blackmail. If he attempts to cross any of his prior supporters, mysterious leaks to the press will start to emerge, talking about the sleazy backroom deals that got him in power – thus also effectively ending his political career. All the other candidates will piously deride his cynical corruption, while of course making their own sleazy backroom deals in turn.

(It is highly instructive to note that two well-known fictional portrayals of the political campaign process – “The West Wing” and “The Wire” – repeatedly portray the candidate begging for money, but never once show why he receives it – the motives of his donors. The reason for this is simple: they wish to portray an idealistic politician, and so they cannot possibly reveal the reasons why people are giving him money. If the fictional story were to follow the inevitable “laws” of democracy, the storyline would be abruptly truncated, or the lead character would be revealed as far less sympathetic. The candidate would ask for money, and then the potential donor would indicate the favor he wanted in return. Then, the candidate would either refuse, thus ending his campaign for lack of funds – or he would agree, thus ending any real sympathy we have for him. This basic truth – like so many in a statist society – can never be discussed, even on a show like “The Wire,” which has little problem revealing corruption everywhere else. A policeman can be shown breaking a child’s fingers, but the true nature of the political process must be forever hidden…)

Thus we can see that – at least at the level of economics – democracy is a sort of slow-motion suicide, in which you are told that it is the highest civic virtue to approve of those who want to rob you.

I do not want this book to become a critique of democracy – but rather, as I have said before, my goal is simply to help you to understand the myriad contradictions involved in any logical or moral defense of a state-run society.

If you do not even know that society is sick, you will never be interested in a cure.

The Social Challenges of Anarchism

In the interests of efficiency – both yours and mine – I have decided to keep this book as short as possible. If I have not shown you at least some the logical and moral problems with our existing way of organizing society by now, I doubt that I shall ever be able to.

If we accept that perhaps some of the criticisms of statism presented in this little book are at least potentially somewhat valid, one essential question remains.

If you can easily understand the above simple and effective criticisms – compared to, say, the mathematics behind the theory of relativity – then the question must be asked:

“Why have you never heard of these criticisms?”

This question packs more of a punch than you may realize.

If I put forward the charge that our society is currently organized along the principles of violence, control and brutal punishment, but you have never heard this argument before, despite the eager talents of tens of thousands of well-paid intellectuals, professors, pundits, journalists, writers and so on, then there must be some reason – or series of reasons – why such a universal silence remains in place.

The standards of proof for startling new theories must be raised exactly to the degree that those new theories are easy to understand. New theories that are very hard to understand are easier to accept as potentially true, simply because of their difficulty. New theories that are very easy to understand, however, face a far higher hurdle, since they must explain why they have not been understood, discussed or disseminated before.

In this final section, I will talk about why I think anarchism is almost never openly discussed – and is in fact constantly scorned, feared and derided – and I will present what I think is an interesting paradox, which is that the degree to which anarchism remains undiscussed is exactly the degree to which anarchism will undoubtedly work.

Anarchism and Academia

Let’s have a look at academia, focusing on the Arts, where anarchism could be a potential topic – areas such as Political Science, Economics, History, Philosophy, Sociology etc.

It is true that a few intellectuals have had successful careers while expressing sympathy for anarchism – on the left, we have the example of Noam Chomsky; in the libertarian camp, we have the example of Murray Rothbard. However, the vast majority of academics simply roll their eyes if and when the subject of anarchism as a viable alternative to a violence-based society ever arises.

To understand this, the first thing that we need to recognize about academia is that, since it is highly subsidized by governments, demand vastly outstrips supply. In other words, there are far more people who want to become academics then there are jobs in academia.

Normally what would occur in this situation – were academia actually part of the free market – is that wages and perks would decline to the point where equilibrium would be reached.

At the moment, academics get several months off during the summer, do not labor under oppressive course loads, are virtually impossible to fire once they reach tenure, get to spend their days reading, writing and discussing ideas (which many of us would consider a hobby), travel with expenses paid to conferences, receive high levels of social respect, get paid sabbatical leaves, a full array of highly lucrative benefits, and can choose comfortable retirements or continued involvement in academia, as they see fit – and often make salaries in the six figures to boot!

Given the number of non-monetary benefits involved in being an academic, in a free market situation, wages would fall precipitously, or job requirements would rise. However, since academics – particularly in the US – basically work under the protection of a highly subsidized union, this does not occur.

Since the job itself is so innately desired by so many people, what results is a “sellers market,” in which dozens of qualified candidates jostle for each individual job. Like Angelina Jolie in a nightclub, those with the most to offer can be enormously picky.

Also, since academics cannot be fired, if a department head hires an unpleasant, troublesome, difficult or just unnerving person, he will have to live with that decision for the next 30-odd years. If divorce became impossible, people would be much more careful about choosing compatible spouses.

This is one simple and basic explanation for the exaggerated politeness and conviviality in the world of academia. People who are cantankerous, or who ask uncomfortable questions, or who reason from first principles and thus eliminate endless debating, or whose positions place into question the value and ethics of those around them, simply do not get hired.

In a free market situation, original and challenging thinking would be of great interest to students, who would doubtless pay a premium to be mentally stimulated in such a way. However, since the majority of funding in academia comes from governments, students have virtually no influence over the hiring of professors.

Let us imagine the progress of a wannabe anarchist graduate student.

In his undergraduate classes, he will annoy the professors and irritate his fellow students by asking uncomfortable questions that they cannot answer. If he talks about the violence that is at the root of state funding, he will also be open to the charge of rank hypocrisy – which I can assure you will be lavishly supplied – since he is accepting state money in the form of a subsidized university education.

His implicit criticism of his professors – that they are funded and secured through violence – will be highly annoying to them. Although this anarchist may grind his discontented way through an undergraduate degree, he will find it very hard to get any kinds of letters of reference from his professors to gain entrance into graduate school. If a professor talks about the applicant’s anarchism in his letter of recommendation, anyone evaluating such a letter will be utterly bewildered as to why such a recommendation is being made – thus devaluing any such letters from said professor in the future.

If the professor who recommends an anarchist finds that his future recommendations fall on more skeptical eyes, then the word will very quickly spread that taking this professor’s course, and getting a letter of recommendation from him, is the kiss of death for any academic aspirant.

Thus this professor will find enrollment in his courses mysteriously declining, which will not be helpful to his career, to say the least.

If the professor does not mention the grad student applicant’s anarchism, his fate becomes even worse, since even more time will be wasted interviewing an applicant that no one actually wants. Those on the receiving end of such a letter of recommendation will find it impossible to believe that the professor did not know that the student’s anarchism was a factor, and so will view his letter as a bizarre form of passive aggression, and will be that much less likely to view any future recommendations even remotely positively.

Thus an academic who writes a letter of recommendation for a student whose views will be disconcerting or discomfiting to others is undermining his value to his future students for no clear benefit whatsoever. We can safely assume that an academic who has reached the rank of professor – even prior to tenure – is not a man blind to his own long-term self-interest.

Even if this anarchist were to somehow get through to a Masters program, the same problems would exist, although they would be even worse than his undergraduate degree. Those who are in a Masters program – particularly in the Arts – are mostly there with the specific goal of securing a position in academia. In other words, they are not there for the relentless pursuit of inviolate truth, but rather to ingratiate themselves with their professors, do the kind of research that will get them noticed, and gain the kind of approval from those above them that will give them a boost up the next rung of the ladder.

Thus, when the anarchist begins talking about his theories, he will face either passive or aggressive hostility from those around him, who will view him as an irritating and counterproductive time-waster. Whether or not his theories are true is actually beside the point – the reality is that his theories actively interfere with the pursuit of academic success, which is why people are in the classroom in the first place.

Also, since the anarchist claims the power to see through the universal veneer of proclaimed self-interest to the core motivations beneath – yet does not see the core motivations of those around him in graduate school – he will also be seen to be obstinately blind. “You should believe the truth,” he will say, without seeing that these academic aspirants are not there for the truth, but rather to get a job in academia. In other words, he is avoiding the truth as much as they are.

Furthermore, by continually reminding people that the existing society in general – and academics in particular – is funded through violence, the anarchist is actively offending and insulting everyone around him. There are very few people who can absorb the moral charge of blindness to evil and corruption and come back with open-mindedness and curiosity.

If the anarchist is right, then the professors are corrupt, and the academic aspirants should really abandon their fields and go into the private sector, or become self-employed, or something along those lines. However, these people have already invested years of their lives and hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost income in pursuit of a position in academia. They obviously do not want a position in the free market, since they are in a graduate arts degree program – and should they leave that program, a good portion of the entire value that they have accumulated will vanish.

We could examine this process for much longer, but let us end with this point.

Let us imagine that a tenured academic reads this book and agrees with at least the potential validity of some of the arguments it contains. He does not have to really worry about getting fired, so why would he not begin to raise these questions with his colleagues?

Well, because these views will discredit him with his colleagues, display what they would consider “poor judgment,” (and in some ways they would not be wrong!) and this would have a highly deleterious effect on his ability to get published, speak at conferences, attract students, and enjoy a convivial and collegial work environment with his peers.

He will thus harm his own pleasure, career and interests, without changing anyone’s mind about anarchism – so why would he pursue such a course?

When an environment is corrupt, rational self-interest is automatically and irredeemably corrupted as well. We can see this easily in the realm of politics, but it is harder to see in the realm of academia.

Before I started this section, I said that I would present an interesting paradox, which is that the degree to which anarchism remains undiscussed is exactly the degree to which anarchism will undoubtedly work.

Anarchism is fundamentally predicated on the basic reality that violence is not required to organize society. Violence in the form of self-defense is acceptable, of course, but the initiation of the use of force is not only morally evil, but counterproductive from a pragmatic standpoint as well.

Anarchism – at least as I approach it – is not a form of relentless pacifism which rejects any coercive responses to violence. My formulation of an anarchistic society is one which has perfectly powerful and capable mechanisms for dealing with violent crime, in the absence of a centralized group of criminals called the state. In fact, an anarchistic society will undoubtedly deal with the problems of violent crime in a far more proactive and beneficial manner than our existing systems, which in fact do far more to provoke violence and criminality than they do to reduce or oppose it.

Anarchists recognize the power of implicit and voluntary social contract, and the power of both positive incentives such as pay and career success, as well as negative incentives such as social disapproval, economic exclusion and outright ostracism.

Thus in a very interesting way, the more that anarchism is excluded from the social discourse, the greater belief anarchists can have in the practicality of their own solutions.

In the realm of academia, obviously there is no central coercive committee that will shoot or imprison anyone who brings up anarchism in a positive light – there is no “state” in the realm of the university, yet the “rules” are universally respected and enforced, spontaneously, without planning, without coordination – and without violence!

This irony becomes even greater in the realm of politics, where the implicit “contracts” of political backroom deals are universally enforced through a process of positive selection for corruption, in that those who do not “pay back” their contributors with public money are automatically excluded from the system.

Thus both academia and the state itself work on anarchistic principles, which is the spontaneous self-organization and enforcement of unwritten rules without relying on violence.

A truly stateless society, where such rules could be made explicit and openly contractual, would function even more effectively.

In other words, if anarchism were openly talked about in state-funded academia, it would be very likely that anarchism would never work in practice.

If the unenforceable corruption of democracy did not “work” so well, that would be a significant blow against the practical efficacy of anarchism.

Academics and Voluntarism

Academics face an enormous challenge – particularly in economics – which is the charge of rank hypocrisy.

Economists are nearly universal in their support for free trade, yet of course most economists work in state-funded or state-supported institutions such as universities, the World Bank, the IMF and so on – and in academia in particular, take shelter behind enormously high barriers to entry in the form of institutionalized protectionism, and shield themselves from market forces through tenure.

Economists have a number of sophisticated responses to the question why, if voluntarism and free markets are so good, do they specifically exclude themselves from the push and pull of the free market?

First of all, academics will argue, the truth of a proposition is not determined by the integrity of the proposer (if Hitler says that two plus two is four, we cannot reasonably oppose him by saying that he is evil). Secondly, many academics will say that they have merely inherited the system from prior academics, and that they held these free-market views before they achieved tenure. Thirdly, they can argue that they do face possible unemployment, however unlikely, should their department close, and so on.

These are all very interesting arguments, and are worthy of our attention I think, but are fundamentally irrelevant to the question of academia.

It is a common defense of hypocritical intellectuals to say that their arguments cannot be judged by their own contradictory behaviour, but must be viewed on their own merits – but this argument does become rather tiresome after a while.

To see what I mean, let us imagine a man named Bob who claims that his sole professional goal in life is motivating others to lose weight by following his diet. He continually proclaims that it is very important to be slim, and that only his diet will make you slim – but strangely enough, Bob himself remains morbidly obese!

It is certainly true that we cannot absolutely judge the efficacy and value of Bob’s diet solely by how much he weighs – but we can empirically judge whether or not Bob believes in the efficacy and value of his own diet.

Life is short, and the more rapidly we can make accurate decisions, the better off we are.

Imagine that, this afternoon, a disheveled and smelly man stops you on the street and offers his services as a financial advisor, but says that he cannot take your phone calls because after he declared personal bankruptcy, he has been forced to live in his car. It is certainly logically true that we cannot empirically use his situation to judge the value of his financial advice – but we can know for sure the following: either he has followed his own financial advice, which has clearly resulted in a disaster, or he has not, which means that he does not believe that it is either valuable or true.

Thus, based on the principles of mere efficiency, you would never hire such a vagrant as your trusted financial adviser – partly also due to the basic fact that he seems completely oblivious to the effect that his approach has on his credibility. Does he not recognize how you will view him, based on his presentation? If he does not realize how he appears to you, this also indicates his near-complete disconnect from reality.

In the same way, if I show up for a job interview wearing only a pair of underpants, two clothes-pins and a colander I would like to apologize for any trauma caused by this image., it is clearly true that my choice of dress cannot be objectively used to judge the quality of my professional knowledge – but it certainly is the case that my judgment as a whole can be somewhat called into question, to say the least.

If you do not follow your own advice, I cannot ipso facto use that to judge your advice as incorrect, but I certainly can judge that you believe your advice to be incorrect, and make a completely rational decision about its value thereby.

Academics claim that their teachings are designed to have some effect in the outside world. No medical school teaches Klingon anatomy, because such “knowledge” would have no effect in the world.

Economists teach ideas so that better solutions can be implemented in the real world, which we know because they constantly complain that governments ignore their economic advice. In other words, they are frustrated because politicians constantly choose personal career goals over objectively valuable actions and decisions.

If I am trying to sell a diet book, and I am morbidly obese, obviously that totally undermines my credibility. What is the best way, then, for me to increase my credibility? Is it for me to endlessly complain that other people just don’t seem to believe in my diet?

Of course not.

The simple solution is for me to apply my efforts to that which I actually have control over – my own eating – and stop nagging other people to do what I obviously do not want to do.

This way, I can actually gain even more credibility than I would have had if I had been naturally slim to begin with. Since most people who want to diet are overweight, surely a man who loses a lot of weight – and keeps it off – by following his own diet has even more credibility!

What does this translate to in the realm of academics?

Well, almost all economists accept that free trade is the best way to organize economic interactions – thus they have the enormous collective advantage of already sharing common ideals, which is scarcely the case with politicians and other groups that economists criticize for failing to implement free trade.

If economists believe that free market voluntarism is the best way to organize interactions – and clearly they have far more control over their own profession than they do over governments – then they should work as hard as they can to apply those principles to their own profession. To lose their own excess weight, so to speak, rather than endlessly nag other people to follow the diet that they themselves reject.

Thus rather than lecture about the virtues and values of a voluntary free-market – with the clear goal of changing the behavior of others – economists should get together and change their own profession to reflect the values that they expect others to follow.

This way, they can do all the research, keep careful notes and publish papers describing the process of getting an organization to reform itself according to the commonly-accepted values of its members. The pitfalls and challenges of achieving such a noble end would be well worth documenting, as a guide and help to others.

Furthermore, since economists all believe that free trade improves quality and productivity, they could as a group measure the quality and productivity of the economics profession before and after the introduction of free trade and voluntarism. This would be an enormously valuable body of research, and would empirically support the case for going through the challenges of undoing protectionism within a profession.

Since academics very much want to have an effect on the outside world, by far the best way of achieving that goal is to reform their own profession to reflect the values that they already profess and hold as a group. They can then bring their own experience – not to mention integrity – to bear on the far greater challenges of helping governments and other organizations reform themselves.

It is quite fascinating that economists – to my limited knowledge at least – have produced virtually endless studies on the negative effects of protectionism in every conceivable field except their own.

If economists do take on the challenge of reforming their own profession according to their own commonly-held values, either such a revolution will succeed, or it will not.

If the revolution succeeds, academics would have the theoretical understanding, empirical evidence and professional credibility to bring their case for free trade to others, with a far greater chance of being successful.

If the revolution does not succeed, then clearly economists would have to give up the pretense that their arguments could ever have any effect on the outside world, and could begin the process of dismantling their own profession, since it would be revealed as little more than a fraud – the “selling” of a diet that was impossible to follow.

If economists cannot achieve conformity to their values within their own profession, where they share very similar methodologies, have the same goals, and speak the same language, then clearly asking other professions – with far greater obstacles – to reform themselves is ridiculously hypocritical, and fundamentally false.

I am sure that economists have far too much personal and professional integrity to take money for “snake oil” solutions that can never be implemented.

Thus I eagerly look forward to these economists taking their own advice, and reforming their own profession, where they have real control, in order to show other people that it can be done – and how it should be done – and to, as a group, truly achieve the goals that they so nobly profess as their main motivation.

What do you think the odds of this occurring are?

This is why you have never heard of anarchism.

Anarchy and Socializing

Human beings are so constituted – and I in no way think that this is a bad thing of course – to be exquisitely good at negotiating cost/benefit scenarios. This ability is fundamental to all forms of organic life, in that those who are unsuccessful at calculating these scenarios are quickly weeded out of the gene pool – but human beings possess this ability at a staggeringly brilliant conceptual level.

If you have gotten this far in this book, I can tell at least a few things about you. Obviously, you are curious and open-minded, and largely un-offended by original arguments, as long as they at least strive for rationality. I strongly doubt that you are in academia – or if you are, I fully expect lengthy, obtuse and condescending attacks on my arguments to appear in my inbox, or on your blog, within a few hours.

Potential academics have in my experience been irredeemably hostile to what I do because it puts them in an exquisitely tortuous position (this is particularly the case with my book “Universally Preferable Behavior: A Rational Proof of Secular Ethics”).

Wannabe academics have to believe that they are motivated by the pursuit of truth, not of tenure. Given that they have to ingratiate themselves with their academic masters, they must also believe that their professors are motivated by the pursuit of truth as well, not of power, salary and tenure. We can honorably submit ourselves to a moral teacher; we cannot honorably submit ourselves to an amoral teacher.

If academics is about the pursuit of truth, then my particular contributions to the field should at least garner some interest, if only because of the success I have had with laypeople. However, a wannabe grad student will face extreme anxiety at even the thought of bringing some of my work to the attention of his professors, because he knows what their reaction will be – scorn, dismissal, cynical laughter or genial bewilderment – and also that by bringing my work to his professors, he will be undermining the forward progress of his academic career.

Thus what I do is tortuous, particularly to graduate students, because it reveals to them the basic reality of academia, which is that it is not largely to do with the pursuit of truth, but rather is about the currying of influence and favor, and the pursuit of career goals – inevitably, at the expense of the truth itself.

When this is revealed, the long barren stretch of half a decade or more required to pursue and achieve a Ph.D. becomes a desert that truly feels too broad to cross. The anxiety and despair that my work evokes creates fear and hostility – and it is far easier to take that out on me then to question or criticize the academic system or the professors whose approval these moral heroes depend upon.

Furthermore, questioning the moral roots of the system they are embedded in will simply get them ejected from that system (just as anarchistic theory would predict) and will in no way reform that system, or change anyone’s mind within it, or improve the quality of teaching. Thus those who remain will inevitably tell themselves the comforting lie that the system is flawed, granted, but that leaving it would be to abandon one’s post, so to speak, and so the practical and moral thing to do is to struggle through, and improve the quality of teaching as best one can in the future.

Of course, this is all utterly impossible, but it is a tantalizing mythology that does help the average grad student sleep at night.

The reason that I’m talking about these kinds of calculations is that we all face this choice in life when we are presented with a startling and unforeseen argument that we cannot dismantle. Our truly brilliant ability to process cost/benefit scenarios immediately kicks out a series of syllogisms such as the following:

·      Anarchist arguments are valid BUT…

·      I will never have any influence on the elimination of the state in my lifetime;

·      I will alienate, frustrate and bewilder those around me by bringing these arguments up;

·      I will not have any influence on the thinking of those around me;

·      If people have to choose between the truth that I bring and their own illusions, they will ditch both me
and the truth without as much as a backward glance.

·      Thus I will have alienated myself from those around me, for the sake of a goal I can never achieve.

These sorts of calculations flash rapidly through our minds, resulting in an irritation towards the arguments that can never be directly expressed, and fear of any further examination of the truth of one’s social and professional relations.

Society is really an ecosystem of agreed-upon premises or arguments, usually based on tradition. Those who accept the “truth” of these arguments find their practical course through the existing social infrastructure enormously eased; they do not ask people to really think, they do not discomfort others with uncomfortable truths, and thus what passes for discourse in the world resembles more two mirrors facing each other – a narrow infinity of empty reflection, if you will pardon the metaphor.

When a new idea attempts to enter into the intellectual bloodstream of society, so to speak, those who have placed their bets on the continuance of the existing belief structure react as any biological defense system would, with a combination of attack and isolation.

When you get an infection, your immune system will first attempt to kill off the bacteria; if it is unable to do that, it will attempt to isolate it, forming a hard shell or cyst around the infection.

In a similar way, when a new idea “infects” the existing ecosystem of social thinking, intellectuals will first attempt to ignore it, but then will attempt to “kill it off” using a wide variety of emotionally manipulative tricks, such as scorn, eye-rolling, cynical laughter, aggression, insults, condescension, ad hominem attacks and so on.

If these aggressive tactics do not work for some reason, then the fallback position is a rigid attempt to “isolate” those who support the new paradigm.

These tactics are so staggeringly effective that hundreds or thousands of years can pass between significant new intellectual movements and achievements. The last great leaps forward in Western thinking, it could be argued, occurred around the time of the Enlightenment, several hundred years ago, when the new ideas of the free market, and the power and validity of the scientific method emerged. (“Democracy” and the “separation of church and state” were not new concepts, but were inherited from the expanding interest in Roman jurisprudence that occurred after the 14th century through the rise of cities, and the subsequent necessity for more comprehensive and detailed civic laws.) Since then, there have been some dramatic increases in personal liberties – notably, the non-enforcement of slavery and the expansion of property rights for women, but in the 20th century, most of the “new” developments in human thinking tended to be tribal throwbacks, irrational in theory and evil in practice, such as fascism, communism, socialism, collectivism and so on.

Society “survives” by accepting a fairly rigid set of unquestionable axioms. If people start poking around at the root of those axioms, they are first ignored, then attacked, then isolated. Individuals have almost no ability to overturn these core axioms within their own lifetimes – and thus it takes a somewhat “irrational” dedication to truth and reason to take this course.

This is also something that I know about you…

Socrates described himself as a “gadfly” that buzzed around annoying those in society through his persistent questioning – but he himself was bothered by an internal “gadfly” which constantly nagged at him with these same problems.

Given the extraordinarily high degree of discomfort that is generated by questioning social axioms, I know for sure that you are also possessed by one of these internal “Socratic daemons” which will not let you rest in the face of irrationality, or remain content with pseudo-answers to essential questions.

Now that I have opened up at least the possibility of these answers up in your mind, I know that you will keep returning to them, almost involuntarily, turning them over, looking for weaknesses – because of a kind of obsession that you have, or a mania for consistency with reason and evidence.

There are very few of us who, in some sort of Rawlsian scenario, would get on bended knee before birth and demand to be granted this kind of obsessive compulsive dedication to philosophical truth. Given the high degree of social inconvenience, the resulting anxiety, hostility and isolation, and the near-certainty that we shall not live to see the truth we know accepted at large, it would seem to be almost a form of masochism to reopen arguments which everyone else accepts as both proven and moral. We might as well be a police detective questioning a case with 200 eyewitnesses, a confession, and a smoking gun. Just as this detective would be viewed as annoying, irrational and strange…

Well, I’m sure that you get the picture, because you live in this picture.

Thus in attempting to answer the question as to why these ideas, though rational and relatively simple to understand, remain unspoken and unexamined, we can see that any purely practical calculation of the costs and benefits of bringing these issues up, either in academics, or in one’s own personal social circle, would lead any reasonable person to avoid these thoughts for the same reason that we would give a hissing cobra a wide berth.

Of course, the reason that society does progress at all is because all thinking men and women pay at least a surface lip-service to the principles of reason and evidence.

The corruption and falsification of social discourse that inevitably results from state-funded intellectualism represents an enormously powerful and seemingly-overwhelming “front” that can forever keep a rational examination of core premises at bay.

Unfortunately for the academics – though fortunately for us – the rise of the Internet has to at least some degree diminished the threat of isolation, so that those of us dedicated to “truth at all costs” can never be fully isolated from social interaction, even if we must be satisfied with the arm’s-length intimacy of digital relationships.

Whereas in the past I would have had to endure a crippling and futile isolation from those around me, which would have very likely broken my spirit and my desire for “truth at all costs,” I can now converse freely with like-minded people at any time, day or night.

The cost of “the truth at all costs” has thus come down considerably, making it a far more attractive pursuit.

Anarchism and Integrity

Without a doubt, there is no conceivable way to make the case that you should examine or explore anarchy in order to achieve anarchistic goals at a political level. That would be like asking Francis Bacon, the founder of the modern scientific method, to pursue his ideas in order to secure funding for a particle accelerator.

When I was younger, I studied acting and playwriting for two years at the National Theater School in Montréal, Canada. On our very first day, we eager thespians were told that if we could be happy doing anything other than acting, we should do that other thing. Acting is such an irrational career to pursue that no sane calculation of the costs and benefits would ever lead anyone in that direction.

In the same way, if you can be happy and content without examining the core assumptions held by those around you, I would strongly suggest that you never bring the contents of this book up with anyone, and look at what is written about here as a mere unorthodox intellectual exercise, like examining the gameplay that might result from alternate chess rules.

If it is the case, however, that you have a passion for the truth – or, as it more often feels, that the truth has an unwavering passion for you – then the discontentedness and alienation that you have always felt can be profitably alleviated through an exploration of philosophical truth.

Once we begin to cross-examine our own core beliefs – the prejudices that we have inherited from history – we will inevitably face the feigned indifference, open hostility and condescending scorn from those around us, particularly those who claim to have an expertise in the matters we explore.

This can all be painful and bewildering, it is true – on the other hand, however, once we develop a truly deep and intimate relationship with the truth – and thus, really, with our own selves – we will find ourselves almost involuntarily looking back upon our own prior relationships and truly seeing for the first time the shallowness and evasion that characterized our interactions. We can never be closer to others than we are to ourselves, and we can never be closer to ourselves than we are to the truth – the truth leads us to personal authenticity; authenticity leads us to intimacy, which is the greatest joy in human relations.

Thus while it is true that while many shallow people will pass from our lives when we pursue the “truth at all costs,” it is equally true that across the desert of isolation lies a small village – it is not yet a city, nor even a town – full of honest and passionate souls, where love and friendship can flower free of hypocrisy, selfishness and avoidance, where curious and joyful self-expression flow easily, where the joy of honesty and the fundamental relaxation of easy self-criticism unifies our happy tribe in our pursuit and achievement of the truth.

The road to this village is dry, and long, and stony, and hard.

I truly hope that you will join us.

Preface

Any author who gives his work away faces the unique challenge of convincing people who have not invested their money in buying it that it is worth investing their time to read it.

Samuel Johnson once wrote: “No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money,” which makes my task even harder, since either Mr. Johnson was a blockhead, or I am.

I do think that there are some circumstances under which releasing a work for free does not necessarily imply that it is worth exactly what readers pay for it. Those proposing radical new approaches to age-old problems – the addition of new thought to the human canon – will not find it particularly easy to get people to pay good money for such mad claims. If I am writing a book on Christianity, then I can sell it to Christians; if I am writing a book on libertarianism, then I can sell it to libertarians; if I am writing a book on politics, I can sell it to the deluded…

If I am writing a book for the future, for a truly free society that is yet to be, who do I sell it to? I cannot even tell in particular detail what this new society might look like, or be able to achieve – save that I am sure that they have not yet found a way to send gold backward through time, and deposit it on my doorstep.

Although improbable, it is not completely impossible that you might find something radical, thrilling and new in this book – despite its cover price. The best way to spread new ideas is to make them as available and accessible as possible, which is why I give everything away, and rely – not without reason – on the generosity of my readers and listeners.

Despite our universal abhorrence, evils continue to plague the world, without respite. We fear and hate war, yet war continues. Our souls revolt against unjust imprisonment and torture, yet such injustices continue. We feel powerless in the face of endless tax increases – and with good reason. We feel agonizing compassion for those who are caught up in the endless bloody nets of tribal conflicts, condemned to mute horror and blank-eyed starvation. The plight of the enslaved weighs down our hearts with the rusty chains of useless sympathy. We would do almost anything to free the world from such monstrous evils – yet we feel so helpless! We all want a free and wonderful world, and yet feel utterly paralyzed before these monsters who commit such universal crimes…

Violence, injustice and brutal control are truly the malignant cancers of our species. Philosophers have chided and reasoned in vain for thousands of years. Governments have been instituted to serve and protect the people – yet always escape the flimsy walls of their paper prisons and spread their choking powers across society, darkening hope and the future.

In this book, I do my part to put an end to these evils.

I know exactly how all these horrors can be ended.

I am fully aware of the outlandishness of this claim. I am fully aware that you have every right to be perfectly skeptical and cynical about the contents of this book. I would not blame you at all if you laughed in my face, spat at my feet – did anything that you pleased – as long as I could get you to turn just one more page.

Because – what if it were possible?

What if it were possible to live in a world free of the terror and genocide of war? What if it were possible to live in a world without unjust imprisonment, institutionalized rape, and the endless subjugation of the helpless and arming of the vicious and evil?

What if you held in your hands a small blueprint that could lead to just such a world? A world of peace and plenty – of compassion, voluntarism, virtue and true liberty?

Isn’t that what we all really dream of?

Isn’t that the world that we wish with all our hearts that our children could inherit?

Isn’t that the world that we would like to take even a few steps towards?

Give this book a few minutes, I beg you.

We can get there.

My next book – “Achieving Anarchy” – will show us how.

Why do we examine the destination before mapping the journey?

Nietzsche said, “He who has a why… can bear with almost any how.”

Before we discuss how to get to freedom, why must know why a stateless society is so essential.

This book will show you what real freedom looks like.

Part 1: Methodology

Introduction

The inevitable – and highly intelligent – questions that arose in response to my last book “Everyday Anarchy” mostly centered on the question of how a stateless society could self-organize in practical terms.

Naturally, these sorts of questions are a fascinating and endless kind of intellectual delight. Much as Alice mused as she fell down the hole at the beginning of Lewis Carroll’s famous book, we intellectuals are tempted to design the future down to the last detail. We try to respond to every conceivable objection with yet another essay on how roads can be delivered in the absence of a government, or how international treaties can work in the absence of law courts, or how children can be protected in the absence of the police, or how national defense can be secured in the absence of a State army, and how the poor can receive an education in the absence of public schools, and how and why doctors will help the impoverished sick without being forced to, and so on.

I have always argued that these answers – though intellectually stimulating and enjoyably debatable – will never convince those who wish to avoid the morality and practicality of nonviolent solutions to the problems of social organization.

For instance, in my last book, as well as a recent video, I provided a proof for anarchy, which relied on the reality of non-contractual special-interest group relationships with up-and-coming politicians. A large number of people wrote to me in response, saying either that such special interest relationships did not exist – surely a laughable proposition, given the 30,000 plus lobbyists registered in Washington, DC alone – or that if I wanted anarchy, and democracy was a great proof of the practical functionality of anarchy, then surely I should be happy with democracy!

There seems to be no end to the foolish statements that can be uttered by those afraid of the truth. The truth, as Socrates gave his life to show, remains highly threatening to entrenched interests and has a very personal and volatile effect on our immediate relationships.

In reality, it is not so much a stateless society that we fear, but rather a family-less and friendless society where we rock gently, hugging our useless truths to our chests; solitary, ostracized, alone, rejected, scorned, derided. The truth is a desert island, we fear, and so as evolutionarily social animals, we join our corrupt circles in mocking and attacking the truth, and resent those who tell the truth, for revealing the corruption that formerly was only visible unconsciously – which is to say, largely invisible.

It is important to understand up front that this book will contain truths that will likely be highly threatening to you – and certainly to those around you. The world, viewed philosophically, remains a series of slave camps, where citizens – tax livestock – labor under the chains of illusion in the service of their masters. As I talked about in my book, “Real-Time Relationships,” the predations of the rulers survive on the horizontal attacks of the slaves. Because we savage each other, we remain ruled by savages.

Thus, you may find that as you read this book, you experience a rising frustration and irritation with its contents – and possibly with me as well, if experience is any guide.

I certainly do sympathize with these emotions, and truly understand their cause, but I would strongly urge you to refrain from sending me angry e-mails – for your sake, not mine. It is, as you know, highly unjust to attack a truth teller for the discomfort he causes.

It is not my fault that you have been lied to your whole life long.

Furthermore, the lies exist whether or not you hear the truth – from me, or from anyone else.

Limitations

It is impossible for any single man – or group of men – to ever design or predict all the details of any society. In order for you to get the most out of this book, I will make a few suggestions which may be helpful.

First of all, if you approach this book with the idea that you’re going to find every possible gap in an argument, or nook and cranny where uncertainty may reside, then this book will be a complete waste of time, and will raise your blood pressure for absolutely no purpose whatsoever.

When Adam Smith formulated the arguments for the free market in the late 18th century, it was not considered a requirement that he predict the stock price of IBM in 1961. He began working with a number of observable and empirical principles, and proved them with rational arguments and well-known examples.

The validity of the “invisible hand” was not dependent upon Adam Smith predicting and describing in detail the invention of, say, the Internet. The methods that free men and women invent and use to solve social problems cannot reasonably be predicted in advance, and finding every conceivable fault with any and all such possible predictions is arguing against a mere theoretical possibility, which is both futile and ridiculous.

That having been said, it is still worth reviewing some possible solutions to social organization that do not involve the monopolistic violence of the State. When Enlightenment thinkers attacked and undermined the exploitive illusions of religion, they were not able to provide a valid and scientific system of ethics to replace the mad moral commandments of historical superstition. It certainly is valuable to disprove existing “truths,” but if we do not come up with at least plausible alternatives, these falsehoods inevitably tend to morph and reemerge in a different form. Thus did the death of religion give rise to totalitarianism – just another worship of an abstract and irrational moral absolute; the “State” rather than a “god.” The unjust aristocratic privileges of the minority that the Founding Fathers so railed against simply morphed into the unjust privileges of the majority in the form of “mob rule” democracy – which then morphed back into the unjust aristocratic privileges of the minority in the form of a political ruling class.

Men and societies all need rules to live by, and if existing rules get knocked down, they simply rise again in another form if rational replacements are not provided. Exposing a lie simply breeds different lies, unless the truth is also advanced.

I have set myself a number of goals in the writing of this book that I wanted to mention up front, so you could understand the approach that I am taking – the strengths and weaknesses of what I am up to, as it were.

First, I promise to refrain from exhausting your patience by trying to come up with every conceivable solution to every conceivable problem. Not only would this end up being grindingly boring, but it would also indicate a strange kind of intellectual insecurity, and an unwillingness to give you the respect of accepting that you can very easily think for yourself about the solutions to the problems discussed in this book. My aim is to give you a framework for thinking about these issues, rather than have you sit passively as I explicate the widest variety of solutions to all conceivable problems.

In other words, my purpose in this book is to teach you to be a mathematician, not show you how good a mathematician I am.

Teaching you how to solve problems is far more respectful than giving you solutions. I have always said that everyone is a genius, and everyone is a philosopher. You do not need me to spell out how a stateless society can work in every detail, but rather to give you a framework which you can use to work out your own answers, and satisfy yourself how well a truly free society will work.

When Francis Bacon was putting forward the scientific method in the 16th century, it was not necessary for him to solve every conceivable scientific problem in order to prove the value of his methodology. It certainly was useful for him to show how his methodology had solved a number of vexing problems, and that it pointed the way to answers in a number of other areas, but of course if Bacon had been able to solve every conceivable scientific problem that could ever possibly arise, there would be precious little need for his scientific method at all, since we would just consult his writings whenever we had a scientific problem that we could not solve.

In the same way, as a philosopher I am interested in teaching people how to think in a new way, rather than giving them explicit answers to every conceivable problem. My approach to rational and scientific ethics – Universally Preferable Behavior (UPB) – is to provide people a framework for evaluating moral propositions, rather than to give them an utterly finalized system of ethics. If such a system of ethics ever could be developed – which seems highly unlikely, given the inevitably-changing conditions of life, society and technology – then no one would ever have to think about ethics ever again, and philosophy would fall into the abyss reserved for dead religions and defunct ideologies, interesting only as yet another example of a temporary historical illusion, like the worship of Zeus or Mussolini or Paris Hilton.

The scientific method certainly did – and does – provide an objective methodology for gaining valid knowledge and understanding of the physical world, just as UPB provides an objective methodology for separating truth from falsehood when it comes to evaluating moral propositions, and the free market provides an objective methodology for determining value in the provision of goods and services, through the mechanism of price.

The value of the scientific method only truly becomes apparent when we abandon religious or superstitious revelation as a valid source of “truth.” We only refer to a compass when we become uncertain of our direction. We only begin to develop science when we start to doubt religion. We only begin to accept the validity of the free market when we doubt the ethics and practicality of coercive central planning. On a more personal level, we only begin to change our approach to relationships when we at last begin to suspect that we ourselves may be the source of our problems.

Much like a river, alternative tributaries only arise when the original flow is blocked. The development of new paradigms in thought is in general more provoked than plotted, and erupts from a rising exasperation with the falsehoods of existing “solutions.” This spike in emotion can sometimes arise with extraordinary rapidity, from a slow build to a sudden explosion – and it is my belief that this is where we are poised in the present when it comes to an examination of the use of violence in solving social problems.

As a vivid, living value, the nation-state as an object of worship and a source of practical and moral solutions is as dead as King Tutankhamun. No one truly believes anymore that the State can solve the problems of poverty, of mis-education, of war, of ill health, of security for the aged and so on. Governments are now viewed with extraordinary suspicion and cynicism. It is true that many people still believe that the idea of government can somehow be rescued, but there is an extraordinary level of exasperation, frustration and anxiety with our existing methods of solving social problems. When someone says that we need yet another government program to “solve” all the problems created or exacerbated by previous government programs, most people now view this approach as an eye-rolling non-answer.

Of course, we still hear a lot about government “solutions” in the media, academia, and the arts, but most people now understand – at least emotionally – that this bleating arises from special interest groups that are either threatened or protected by the State – the automatic reaction of “increase regulation!” When a problem arises, this demand no longer comes from the people, but rather from those parties that will benefit from increased regulation.

The rise of the Internet has also rocked the mainstream paradigm of “government as virtue.” In particular, the US-led invasion of Iraq has contributed to a final collapse in belief about the virtue of statist solutions to complex problems. It is easier to believe the lies of the past, since we were not there when they were told – it is harder to believe in the lies of the present, since we can see them unraveling before our very eyes.

Thus, our belief that the government can solve problems is collapsing on two fronts – first, we now understand that the government cannot solve problems – and second, and more importantly, we can see that the government is not giving up any of its control over the problems it so obviously cannot solve.

This last point is worth expanding upon, since it is so important, and so often overlooked.

If the government claims to take our money in order to solve the problem of poverty, for instance, but the government clearly does not solve the problem of poverty, but rather in fact tends to make it worse, what then do we begin to understand when the government continues to take our money?

If I take your money telling you that I will ship you an iPod, what realization do you come to when I neither ship you the iPod nor return your money?

Surely you understand that I only promised you the iPod in order to steal your money.

In the same way, the government did not increase our taxes in order to solve the problem of poverty, but rather claimed that it wanted to solve the problem of poverty in order to increase our taxes. This is the only way to explain the basic fact that the problem of poverty has not been solved – and in fact is worse now – but the government continues to increase our taxes.

We are all beginning to understand – at least at an unconscious level – that the government lies to us about helping others in order to take our money.

The Answer?

If religion is not the answer, and the State is not the answer, then what is?

Well, when a particular “answer” has proven so universally disastrous, the first place to look is the opposite of that answer.

If “no property rights” (communism) is disastrous, then “property rights” (free markets) are most likely to be beneficial.

If faith is disastrous, then science is most likely to be beneficial.

If superstition is disastrous, than reason and evidence are most likely to be beneficial.

If violence is disastrous, then peace and negotiation are most likely to be beneficial.

If the State is disastrous, then anarchism is most likely to be beneficial.

It is this last statement that tends to be the most challenging for people.

Many of us can accept a world without gods and devils, without heaven and hell, without original sin and imaginary redemption – but we cannot accept, or even imagine, a world without governments.

Many of us can picture a world with a minimum government – with a State concerned only with law courts, police and the military – but we cannot picture a world without a government at all.

A Christian can accept a world where 9,999 gods are ridiculous and false illusions, but that his God – the God of the Old Testament – is a true, real and living deity. A Christian remains an atheist with regards to almost every god, but becomes an utter theist with regards to his own deity. Getting rid of almost all gods is utterly sensible – getting rid of that one final God is utterly incomprehensible.

In the same way, Libertarians, Objectivists and other minarchists feel that getting rid of 99% of existing government functions is utterly moral – but getting rid of that last 1% is utterly immoral!

We do not accept these reservations in other areas of our lives, which is enough to make us suspicious of the true motives behind such statements. A woman who is beaten up only once a month lives 99.99% of her life violence-free, but we would not consider her beatings acceptable on that ground. It would be even more ridiculous to say that a woman should not be beaten every day, but that it would be utterly immoral to also suggest that she should not be beaten at all.

If I claim that it is moral to reduce State violence, can I claim that it is utterly immoral to eliminate such violence completely? Can I dedicate my life to reducing the incidence of cancer, but then claim that eliminating cancer completely would be utterly immoral? Can I reasonably set up a charity to reduce poverty, but then claim in my mission statement that the elimination of poverty would be a dire evil?

Of course not – I would be viewed as an irrational lunatic at best for making such statements.

Those who claim that a reduction of violence is a moral ideal, but who then also claim that the elimination of violence would be a moral evil, must at least recognize, if they wish to retain any credibility, that they are proposing an entirely foolish contradiction.

By “violence” here, I do not mean that anarchism will completely eliminate human violence – the violence that I am talking about here is the morally “justified” and institutionalized initiation of force that is the foundation of State power. (I am not going to go into a lengthy discussion here about the nature of the State, or the moral reasoning against the initiation of violence, since I have dealt with those topics at length in my podcasts, and in other books. Suffice to say that the State is by definition a group of individuals who claim the right to initiate the use of force against legally-disarmed citizens in a specific geographical region.)

Thus, I think it is reasonable for us to take the approach that if it were possible to run society without a government, this would be a massive net positive.

When we have governments, we inevitably get wars, politically motivated and unjust laws, the incarceration of nonviolent “criminals,” the over-printing of money and the resulting inflation, the enslavement of future generations through immoral deficits, the mis-education of the young, rampant vote buying, endless tax increases, arms sales around the world, unjust subsidies to specific industries, economic and practical inefficiencies of every conceivable kind, the creation of permanent underclasses through welfare and illegal immigration, vast increases in the power and violence of organized crime through restrictions on drugs, prostitution and gambling – the list of State crimes is virtually endless.

When we choose to justify governments, we inevitably choose to justify the crimes of those in power. Choosing government is also choosing war, genocide, enslavement, financial, moral and educational corruption, propaganda, the spread of violence and so on.

You can never get one without the other. Imagining otherwise is like imagining that you can choose to justify the Mafia without also justifying the violence that it uses to maintain its power. We may as well imagine that we can support the troops without simultaneously supporting the murders they commit.

Given the number of bloody and genocidal crimes that orbit the power of the State, surely we can at least be open to the possibility that society can be organized far more effectively and morally without such an evil power at its center. If it turns out that society can run without a State – even haltingly, even imperfectly – then surely we should accept such practical imperfections for the sake of avoiding such rampant and bottomless crimes against humanity. Surely, even if anarchy were proven to produce fewer and worse roads, we could accept some mildly inconvenient and bumpy rides for the sake of releasing billions of people from direct or indirect enslavement to their political masters.

To analogize this, imagine that someone in the 19th century proved that cotton would be 10% rougher if slavery were abolished. Would it be moral or reasonable for people to say, “Well, it is certainly true that slavery is a great evil, but I still prefer it to slightly less comfortable cotton!”?

No, we would view such monstrous selfishness as staggeringly corrupt. The moral hypocrisy of claiming to be against slavery, but refusing to actually oppose slavery for fear of even the mildest practical inconvenience, would be an ethical evil that would be hard to comprehend.

Thus, when people dismiss the possibility of anarchy out of hand by saying, “Oh, but how would roads be provided?” what they are really saying is that they support war, genocide, tax enslavement and the incarceration and rape of the innocent, because they themselves cannot imagine how roads might be provided in the absence of violence. “People should be murdered, raped and imprisoned because I am concerned that the roads I use might be slightly less convenient.” Can anyone look at the moral horror of this statement without feeling a bottomless and existential nausea?

Now, imagine that the reality of the situation is that roads will be provided far more efficiently and productively in a stateless society?

If that is the case, then the practical considerations turn out to be the complete opposite of the truth – that we are accepting murder, genocide and rape for the sake of bad roads, rather than good roads!

This kind of net loss provides the moral and rational core of the arguments in favor of a stateless society. While it is certainly true that some people will end up losing out under anarchy, it is the evil and corrupt who will lose the most, just as priests lose out in an atheistic society, much to the relief of children everywhere. The true reality of an anarchic society is that the moral goals of every reasonable human being – the alleviation of poverty, the provision of “public services,” the education of the young, the protection of children, the old and the infirm, will actually be created and provided in a positive, productive, gentle and moral manner.

The great lie of the statist society is that the helpless and dependent are protected, when in fact they are trapped and exploited.

The great lie of the statist society is that the ignorant are educated, when in fact they are made even more ignorant.

The great truth of the anarchic society is that the helpless are protected, the ignorant are educated, the sick are treated – and that roads are built, and are better.

To gain the beauty and virtue of anarchism, we sacrifice nothing but our illusions.

Surely, we should actually want to help people, rather than just pretend that we are doing so.

Surely, we should not sacrifice the peace of the world to our fears of imperfect roads.

The Argument from Apocalypse

Of course, people do not say that we should not live in a free society because the roads might be imperfect. The endless argument against anarchism is the “Argument from Apocalypse.” (AFA)

The AFA is not an argument at all, of course, but rather relies on rampant fear mongering, and an argument from intimidation.

Basically, the argument goes something like this:

“We’re all gonna DIEEEEEEE!”

It would actually be nice if it were slightly more sophisticated than that, but the reality is that it is not.

The basic argument is that if we accept proposition “X,” civilized society will collapse, children will die in the streets, the old will end up eating each other, and the world will dissolve into an endless and apocalyptic war of all against all.

This is not an argument at all, since it relies on fear and intimidation. Darwin faced exactly the same “objections” when he first published his theory of evolution. “If we accept that we are descended from apes, everybody will abandon morality, society will collapse, war of all against all etc etc etc.”

Abolitionists faced the same argument when suggesting that slavery should be abolished; atheists face the same silly objections when disproving the existence of God; philosophers have been put to death for suggesting that ethics should be based on something other than superstition; scientists are accused of the same evils whenever some new development threatens people’s existing prejudices – it is all the most rampant nonsense, which survives only because of its endless effectiveness.

The AFA remains effective because of a basic logical fallacy which has doubtless been around since the dawn of speech: “Belief ‘X’ would result in immorality or destruction, and so only a fool or an evil man would advocate ‘X’.”

Since very few people wish to appear either foolish or evil, they tend to back down in the face of this argument, or take the imprudent path – which I have trod many a time – of attempting to disprove the AFA.

“Anarchism results in evil!” cometh the cry – and anarchists around the world endlessly respond with: “No it won’t!” – thus losing the argument before it even begins.

The only thing that is relevant in any intellectual argument is whether it is true or not. Refusing to examine the validity and consistency of a mathematical argument because you fear that accepting its conclusions will result in endless evil is simply surrendering to superstitious fear-mongering, and abandoning your rationality. Propositions cannot be evil – mathematics cannot be evil – statism cannot be evil – error cannot be evil – and the truth is not virtuous!

A proposition cannot strangle a baby; an argument cannot rape a nun, and a theory of anarchism cannot turn people into shrunken-headed zombies in hot pursuit of Will Smith.

A theory of anarchism can only be true or false, valid or invalid, logical or illogical.

If someone deploys the AFA, it proves nothing except that he has no good arguments, and that the proposition in front of him is emotionally unsettling in some way. In other words, all that the AFA proves is intellectual idiocy and emotional immaturity. It is the philosophical equivalent of arguing against the proposition that “ice cream contains milk,” by saying, “I once had a dream that an ice cream monster was trying to eat me!” It is the kind of non sequitur we would expect from a very young child, which would only indicate an utter incomprehension of the proposed statement.

People who are threatened by ideas should at least have the honesty to say, “I am threatened by this idea,” rather than pretend that the idea is somehow objectively threatening to the human race as a whole. If I am afraid of short men, I should be honest about my fears and say, “I am afraid of short men,” rather than vehemently argue that short men will somehow destroy the world!

However, prejudice against anarchists – much like prejudice against atheists – is one of the last remaining acceptable bigotries in the world. We cannot judge any group negatively – except a group that relies on reason, evidence and nonviolence.

Thus, it will not do us any good to run screaming from the idea of a stateless society, imagining all kinds of demonic horrors. If we allow fear-mongering to not only inform, but rather define and direct our thinking, then we are left without the ability to think at all, but instead must sit clutching the skirts of those who tell us tall and terrifying tales.

We cannot judge the truth of an idea by our fears of its effect.

Arguments for or against the existence of gods are not validated by our fears of – or desires for – a godless universe. We cannot oppose a theory of gravity by saying that it is unpleasant to fall down stairs; neither can we oppose a new theory by demanding prior historical examples. The entire point of a new theory is that it is unprecedented; the first man to invent a jet aircraft could scarcely submit examples of jet aircraft flying in the past.

Another common objection to anarchic theories is that they are not embraced or validated by professional intellectuals, philosophers and academics.

This is very true, and, as I explained in great detail in my book, “Everyday Anarchy,” I think we can view this as a positive, rather than a negative.

Still, is it reasonable for me to ask you to reject the near-universal consensus of highly intelligent people – professors, pundits, columnists, academics and so on – simply because they happen to disagree with or ignore the propositions that I am putting forward here? Surely we have all heard of a number of scam artists – particularly on the Internet – who sell snake oil solutions to genuine ailments, preying upon the weak, the desperate and the gullible. Is it reasonable to ask everyone to completely abandon respect for scholarship and professionalism, to turf experts for the sake of their own preferred opinions? Is this not our fear of what the Internet will do to social consensus? Can we not find on the Wild West of the Web articles claiming that smoking is good for you, that space aliens were responsible for 9/11, that exercise is dangerous, fluoride will kill you and eating fat will make you lose weight?

How can we be sure that a theory of anarchism is not just another one of these crackpot ideas that rails against the universal consensus of experts in the field, attempting to dislodge sober scholarship with wild-eyed speculation? Perhaps this book is just a form of elaborate trickery, a playing out of some wretched and buried psychological trauma, designed to separate you from your friends and family by infecting you with strange and illicit ideas – and taking your money to boot, since Freedomain relies on voluntary donations!

Of course, these are all excellent questions to ask, and I for one would be highly unlikely to pit my own judgment against that of, say, my doctor or my accountant. One of the main reasons that we need specialists is because enormous swaths of human knowledge remain buried under entirely counterintuitive paradigms. Who would have thought that making your gums bleed – at least at first – with floss would lead to oral health? Exercise often feels bad, and eating pie always feels very good, and so we need experts to remind us of the long-term effects of such activities, compared to the short-term incentives and disincentives. We prefer to spend money in the moment rather than save it for a rainy day; a surgeon might make us feel very unwell in order to prevent or cure an illness that we may not have even felt yet; a friend might strive to impress upon us the emotional problems of a highly attractive sexual partner; and the dark satisfactions of discharging anger towards a spouse in the present might create for us a very unpleasant future indeed.

In all these areas, we rely on the objectivity and expertise of those around us, who possess the training and knowledge to steer us against our immediate desires, or who are not subject to our own immediate desires – as in the case of our friends – and so can often see things more clearly.

What about the famous idea that deep study tends to lead to moderation? A little learning is a dangerous thing, it is often said – and with good reason. If we are ignorant of the effects of early childhood experiences and the long-term effects on the psychology of the personality, it is far easier to look at criminals as simply “bad guys.” If we are ignorant of the basic truth that history is almost always a tale told by those in power in order to justify and support their own “virtue,” then we shall inevitably be genuinely shocked when we come across the long-lost truths of the vanquished, or the foreign – or the dead.

Thus, should we not look for moderation in our responses to complex questions? The problem of health is complex, requiring a wide variety of inputs from nutritionists, physical trainers, doctors, psychologists and so on – most of whom will counsel a form of Aristotelian moderation. Too little exercise leads to brittle bones and flab; too much exercise leads to injury. Too little food leads to a lack of energy; too much food leads to excess weight. An over-focus on the desires and needs of others leads to codependency; too little focus leads to selfish narcissism. Parents must often attempt to strike a balance between discipline and indulgence; the needs of the many must be balanced with the needs of the few, even in just the business arena; the sacrifice of our own short-term happiness for the sake of the longer-term happiness of another we love is all part and parcel of having a wise, flourishing and positive set of personal and professional relationships.

Given all this complexity, does the answer of “just get rid of the government!” not strike us as overly simplistic? My mother used to talk about three spheres within society – business, government and labor – and the need to find a balance between them. “The endless challenge in society is finding a way to stimulate business growth – but not at the expense of labor – so that there is enough tax revenue for government to provide effective social services.”

This kind of juggling act strikes us as eminently mature in many ways, and recognizes that, just as there is good and bad in every individual, so there is good and bad in every group. You can find bad and corrupt people in the realm of politics, labor and business, if you want – but stretching this basic reality into an outright condemnation of any group seems explicitly prejudicial. A man who has been robbed by a Chinese acrobat would scarcely be justified in demanding that the world be utterly rid of Chinese acrobats. One swallow does not a summer make; nor do bad politicians invalidate the value of government as a whole.

Furthermore, isn’t it rather childish to suggest that we rid ourselves of an institution that is so open and responsive to our feedback? We live in a democracy, for heaven’s sake – why throw the baby out with the bathwater, when we can get involved and change the system? If we do not like a particular company’s business practices, we do not have to throw out “capitalism” as a whole – we can inform others about their odious practices, organize boycotts and so on. Surely the communicative power of the Internet has removed significant barriers to freedom of self-expression and the exchange of information, to the point where we no longer need to sit back when an institution fails to serve us, but rather we can very quickly and effectively work to bring about change in our political system.

It also seems very alarming for us to take the enormous risk of getting rid of a government. Such a radical step has never been taken before as part of a conscious philosophical program. Governments have collapsed, of course – and we can only look at the example of Somalia to see the infighting and warlords that can arise from such a situation – and governments have been taken over, either internally or externally – but there is no example in history of consciously dismantling a State without any goal of replacing it. Does it seem sensible to go directly against the entire collective history of our species, and throw out an essential human institution that has been around as long as we have? Other radical “reorganizations” of human society have resulted in endless slaughter, chaos, war, and the staggering disorientation of children raised without families, of rampant polygamy, communal “ownership” and so on. It does seem to be a particular curse of our species that every generation or two, some new idea comes along which aims to overthrow the entire history of human interaction, and replace the controlled hurly-burly of a State-managed free market with something like fascism, socialism or communism. Then, some other wild-eyed rebel comes along and decries that, “family is dictatorship,” and attempts to undermine and destroy that most essential component of social life, the nuclear family. Then someone else comes along and says, “Property is theft!” and the cycle just seems to start all over again.

The basics of human society – of human life itself – seem to be that families are good, that private property is important, that the greed of the free market cannot provide all possible goods and services, that some form of centralized regulation and law-making seems to be essential, that there is good and bad in everyone, but there are some very good people, and some very bad people, and that the good people need a government to protect them from the bad people.

I confess that it must be quite exasperating for people to hear some of the basics that are so commonly accepted as truths opened up once more for a new examination. Perhaps it feels somewhat akin to a biologist being lectured to by a creationist during a long intercontinental flight, or a math teacher being cornered by a hyper-intense student strung out on caffeine who insists that numbers are just an illusion, man!

Scientists do not consistently reopen the basic methodology of the scientific method; economists are not continually overturning the essentials of their own profession – that human desires are limitless, but all resources are limited – and doctors do not continually debate the value of the Hippocratic Oath.

Surely, we can say, some basic aspects of human life can be accepted as given, so that we can have a firm foundation to build our edifices of thought upon. There are certain kinds of philosophers who will continually re-open the question of metaphysics and epistemology, and demand to know how we know that we are not living in the dream of an existential demon, and that everything is a managed illusion, and that we may in fact be a brain in a tank in a form of Matrix! These sorts of “thinkers” do bring up intellectually stimulating questions, to be sure, but there are very few of us who do not inevitably shrug our shoulders after failing to penetrate this veil of ignorance, and shake off the burden of these unanswerable questions, certain that we still have a life to live in the real world, and that to sit and forever ponder these unanswerable questions would be to sink into a form of hyper-intellectual coma.

Finally, let us suppose that it would be a good thing to get rid of the government – well, it might also be nice if we could fly, breathe underwater and sneeze gold! An essential component of rational prioritization is to recognize and separate the possible from the impossible. It may indeed be the case that we live in the dream of a demon, but so what? What possible difference could it make to our daily life if this were, or were not, the case? If it is utterly impossible to get rid of the government – at least in our own lifetime – then isn’t it just a kind of narcissistic self-indulgence to continue to play around with the idea as if it ever could be implemented? We could also theorize that spending a solid week in zero gravity could be an excellent cure for lung cancer, but that would scarcely help the people suffering in our own lifetime. Surely, those of us with the intellectual abilities to traverse such endless abstractions should use our abilities for a more tangible and immediate good, rather than perform the intellectual equivalent of inventing the inner workings of Klingon biology.

We certainly do have the right to be skeptical about those who take their intellectual powers and run off in hot pursuit of the impossible – what could possibly be their motivation? Why would anyone want to get involved in a series of ideas that can never be achieved, that are alienating and frustrating to discuss, that eject these thinkers from anywhere close to the mainstream of social thought – and which create endless awkward silences at dinner parties, sweaty-palmed avoidances in one’s early dating life, endless impossibilities in educational environments, teeth-grinding frustration when reading the newspaper or watching a movie, a reputation for eccentric and strangely intense thinking patterns, habitual eye-rolling from friends, a suspicious intellectual monomania that people kind of have to steer around if they wish to avoid “setting you off” – and, last but not least, some fairly endless challenges when it comes to raising your children, and filling them full of ideas that will doubtless set them approximately one solar system’s league away from their peers.

It seems like an entirely generous estimate to imagine that more than one in 100 people will ever be interested in learning more about anarchism – and perhaps one out of a thousand will avidly pursue the course of thought and become full-fledged anarchists. What are the odds that these incredibly rare creatures will just happen to be scattered around the budding anarchist’s social, familial and educational spheres?

Statistically, anarchism is a surefire recipe for social and familial isolation. After the virus of anarchism infects you, the possibility of infecting others remains very low – thus, you must either retreat to some sort of mental cave, or live a psychologically-perilous form of double life, biting your tongue and averting your eyes whenever the topic of politics, economics or the State comes up.

Given all these dire social consequences – combined with the fact that anarchism will never be implemented in our lifetime – how can we possibly understand the pursuit and acceptance of these wild ideas as anything other than a kind of intellectual shell around a hyper-tender personality, designed to alienate, frustrate and drive people away, perhaps as a result of a tortuous history of parental rejection?

Other than a strange and perverse kind of emotional masochism, what could conceivably motivate someone to take such a mad, vain, futile and unachievable intellectual course?

Surely, even if anarchism is sane, anarchists are not.

It is certainly true that there are many strange people in this world who believe many strange things – and that some of those strange people believe in anarchism. Stalin was both an evil sociopath and an atheist; Hitler was a murderous racist who also knew how to tie his shoes – this does not tell us anything about atheists or people who know how to tie their shoes as a whole.

A Merely Personal Confession…

I can say for myself – and I only mean this for myself – that although the truth often does press down like the weight of a cathedral on my sometimes-sloping shoulders, and though it does lower a dark and rippled glass between myself and the companions and family of my youth, and though it startles and scatters shocked glances in the faces of those around me, and although it renders the present unstable and the future uncertain – even with all that the truth demands and imposes upon me, I would not let you tear it from my heart with any power at your command.

The truth was not something that I set out to pursue. I dabbled in ideas when I was a child, just as I dabbled in playing certain instruments and painting in watercolor – never once dreaming that it would be anything other than a mildly diverting hobby. Looking back on it now, many decades later, it reminds me of one of those horror stories which depicts the disastrous consequences that result from “delving too deep” into the earth. Some sort of unholy beast arises from the depths and lays waste to the surface world – a beast that has lain dormant for hundreds or thousands of years is suddenly disturbed, and awakes with a sky-splitting roar, and a savage and unquenchable hunger for destruction.

During that shock of initial eruption, when the ideas that we started out merely playing with suddenly seem to take on a life of their own, like the escalating spells of Mickey Mouse, we do recoil in horror and leap back as if laser-scoped by a trigger-happy sniper, but we quickly learn the lesson of all horror stories, which is that the monsters are never outside our head.

The truth is an angry, demanding and liberating coach, who drags us kicking and screaming up a sharp and broken mountainside, and then sets us down gently to marvel in breathless wonder at the most beautiful view that can ever be conceived. As our complaints roll emptily down to disappear into the fogs of our past, in a bare ripple of white smoke, our eyes stream with tears in mute gratitude at what we have been able to behold.

Such happy and driven fools often look quite mad to those around them. The truth is a drug that renders the motives of those who pursue it incomprehensible and strangely disturbing to everyone else. The ferocity of truth’s beauty is utterly beyond addictive; there is a passion and almost desperation to regain and reenter the perfection of consistent reason and the beauty of the clicking matchup between thought and observation. It keeps us awake even when we are exhausted; it strikes us with fits of passion even when we must be both silent and still; it obscures mere faces and opens up real minds; it peels away all the petty shallowness of the world and reveals all the glories and horrors of true depth.

And that makes it all worth it. The pursuit of truth only seems like masochism to those who have not tasted its joys. If your personal pleasures tend to center around social acceptance, then you unconsciously know – or perhaps consciously – that the pursuit of philosophical truth and wisdom will strip away that which gives you the most happiness in the moment. In a very real sense, you are huddling at the oasis of small-minded social pleasures, and cannot see beyond the desert that surrounds you, to a wider and greater world.

Unfortunately, there are very few philosophers who will help you to let go of this illusion. Most philosophers will talk endlessly about the beauty of the world beyond the desert, but will not confidently lead people away from the oasis they cling to. “You really should come with me,” they say, “because this oasis is pretty bad, you know, and there is this wonderful world beyond the desert that we should all go to!” And they tug at everyone’s trousers and endlessly cajole everyone to start marching across the desert to this wonderful new world – which baffles and irritates everyone in sight.

“If this new world is so wonderful, and it is supposed to set you so free, then why does the sum total of your freedom appear to be nothing more than your endless insistence that we all follow you out into the desert? If our world is actually so small, petty and unsatisfying, then why do you spend your time here, rather than in this new world that gives you such endless pleasure and freedom? Because we must tell you directly that it appears to us that you are also afraid of this desert, and you do not wish to cross it alone, and so you are desperate to find people who will come with you, because you do not in fact believe in this wonderful new world of happiness and freedom. If you had cancer, and you had discovered a cure for it, you would not refrain from taking that cure until you had convinced everyone else with cancer to take it. Rather, you would take the cure, and document everything with as much detail as possible, so that you could better make the case to others that they should take your cure. But, this is not what you are doing. You say that you have a cure for unhappiness called “wisdom,” but this “cure” seems to require that everyone else take it at the same time. You do not appear to be willing to lead by example, but instead seem to be enslaved by a compulsive need to get everyone else to take this red pill at the same time that you do. Your pursuit of wisdom has clearly not given you the freedom, happiness and peace of mind that you claim it does – that you portray as a benefit in order to sell it to others. The world is full of people who will try to sell you ‘cures’ that they will not take themselves, and there is no good reason to believe that your claim that philosophical wisdom leads to happiness is any different!”

This basic paradox enslaves everyone at the oasis. The anarchist or philosopher, it turns out, is only tortured by his vision of the world beyond the desert – and in fact is only reinforcing everyone’s belief in the necessity of social conformity for the achievement and maintenance of happiness. In this way, the philosopher is actually turning everyone against the pursuit of wisdom, for the sake of his own social anxieties. He is actually portraying philosophy as that which tortures you with a vision that you cannot achieve, but that you must continually harass others to pursue.

Finally, since the philosopher seems utterly unable to even perceive this basic paradox – let alone solve it – how much credibility are those around him going to grant his ability to perceive, pursue and capture the truth? If I claim to be a wonderful mathematician, and go on and on about the glories of exploring numbers, but all that anyone ever sees is my continual frustration at the fact that no one else seems to be very interested in math – and my complete inability to balance my checkbook, or even notice that it doesn’t add up – then will I not be perceived as a kind of arrant fool, motivated by heaven knows what?

The “desert” metaphor is somewhat limited, since when we leave the oasis and cross the desert, we pass completely out of view. However, when we pursue the truth from our love of truth, and shrug off those who do not wish to join us, we do arise as a beacon in our social world, a sort of lighthouse that can help guide the few who are capable of being seized by such a love of truth that they are willing to give up the immediate creature and social comforts of living in a world of lies.

Those of us who cross the desert first can be deemed the most courageous in a way, but I must confess that in fact my journey felt less like a fish who braves leaving the water for the shore than a fish that is caught by the hook of philosophy and yanked unceremoniously from the depths. The future pulled me forward – against my will at times – and it was with great regret that I left almost everyone behind. I was not convinced of the glories of the world beyond the desert, but rather feared that the desert would go on forever, and that actually I might go mad. Fortunately to say the least, this did not happen, and I did discover the world beyond the desert, and all the beauties and truths that it contains.

By the time that my particular journey had slowed to at least a walking pace, I felt very little desire to go back to the oasis and try and get my former companions to join me in this new world. Once we have made the wrenching transition from ignorance to wisdom, we genuinely understand and appreciate the difficulty of the process, and would no more imagine dragging our former companions across this desert than we would choose a random person on the street to join us in an ascent of Everest.

At the end of my last book, I talked about a small village inhabited by those of us who have made it across this desert. I believe that it is our job, if we choose it, to make this little village as hospitable and inviting as possible for those few hardy, thirsty souls that we can see struggling out of the shimmering heat of the sand dunes. Creating a place where truth is welcome is the first goal for us pioneers. We know that we cannot return to the half life that we had before; we know that it would be selfish to continue on and on in the path of wisdom without creating some markers and resting places for those who are following us; and we know that the incredible advances in communication technology have for the first time in history allowed the path across the desert to be mapped and visible.

Never before has it been so relatively inviting to pursue the path of truth and wisdom. The destination is no longer the Socratic cup of hemlock, or Nietzsche’s madness, or Rand’s later cultishness, or the dry death of academic conformity – but rather a gathering place – a forum, I would say – where we can exchange ideas and experiences, and support each other, and learn how to best defend ourselves against those who would do us harm, and build our new homes – virtual though they may be for many – in the company of others, rather than alone, which has so often been the case in the past.

As we make our new homes more comfortable and inviting, we will in fact begin to draw more and more people across the desert, because they will see that there is a destination that can be achieved, and they will get more than a glimpse of the life that can be lived beyond lies. No sailor can navigate by the stars if the night is overcast – or if only one star is visible. As more and more stars wink into view, the navigation becomes easier and easier.

If you are tempted to pursue the freedom of truth and wisdom – or, to be more accurate, if the skyhook of truth and wisdom snatches you into some unsuspected stratosphere – then the choice has to some degree been made for you. To hang suspended between the worlds of conformity and wisdom is to live in a kind of null zone, where you gain neither the satisfactions of conformity nor the joys of wisdom.

It can be truly hard to leave those behind who cannot or will not join you on this journey, and the only consolation that I have been able to offer myself – and which I offer to you now – is that there could be nothing better to do with our lives than to create a world where we do not have to choose between wisdom and companions, between virtue and society – where a unity with truth will not mean a disunity with those around us.

A Few Principles…

Rather than repeat them every time I make an argument, I wanted to put a few principles out up front, before we begin.

First and foremost, although I am an anarchist, I am not a utopian. There is no social system which will utterly eliminate evil. In a stateless society, there will still be rape, theft, murder and abuse. To be fair, just and reasonable, we must compare a stateless society not to some standard of otherworldly perfection, but rather to the world as it already is. The moral argument for a stateless society includes the reality that it will eliminate a large amount of institutionalized violence and abuse, not that it will result in a perfectly peaceful world, which of course is impossible. Anarchy can be viewed as a cure for cancer and heart disease, not a prescription for endlessly perfect health. It would be unreasonable to oppose a cure for cancer because such a cure did not eliminate all other possible diseases – in the same way, we cannot reasonably oppose a stateless society because some people are bad, and a free society will not make them good.

Secondly, I am not proposing any Manichaean view of human nature in this book. I do not believe that human beings are either innately good, or innately evil. I take a very conservative and majority view, which is that human beings respond to incentives, which also happens to be the basis for the discipline of economics. Human beings are not innately corrupt, but they will inevitably be corrupted by power. Most people will respond to situations and circumstances in a way that maximizes their advantage, not explicitly at the expense of others, though that can happen of course, but we are biological as well as moral beings, and there are very few people who will sacrifice the safety and security of their family in order to follow some abstract moral principle. When human beings are forced to choose between virtue and necessity, they will in general choose necessity, and will then rework their definition of virtue to justify their own actions.

That having been said, it seems very clear that human beings are driven to a very large and deep degree by virtue. A man can almost never be convinced to do what he defines as evil – but if that evil can be redefined as a good, men will almost inevitably praise or perform it. Very few men would agree to murder for payment – but very few men will condemn soldiers as murderers.

Very few people would openly say that they oppose rape, but support the rapists – however, when the same moral equation is redefined as a good, just about everyone says that they oppose the war, but support the troops.

This is one of the lessons that I explicitly take from our existing ruling class, which is that the power of propaganda to redefine evil as good is a fundamental mechanism for controlling people and making them do what you want. Before any government can truly expand, it first needs to take control of the money supply, in order to bribe citizens, and the educational system, in order to indoctrinate children. A large percentage of the army’s communications budget is dedicated to propaganda, and I assume that these people know more than a little about how to best spend money to control the minds of others.

Thus, I do understand that the reason that the debate about a stateless society is so volatile and aggressive is because anarchists are fundamentally attempting to reclaim the definition of virtue in society – and since society as a collective is largely defined by generally-accepted definitions of virtue, the anarchist approach to ethics is an attempt to fundamentally rewrite society as a whole.

Prior attempts to do this have almost always resulted in disaster, because they have always relied on gaining control of the government and using its power to impose some new version of ethics on a disarmed citizenry. The anarchist approach is particularly unsettling because we say that initiating violence to solve social problems is a great evil – perhaps the greatest evil – and so we steadfastly reject and refuse political solutions.

In the current world of governments, not only is political violence used to solve ethical problems, but also the use of such violence is itself considered virtuous and wise. Thus anarchists are entirely above the existing debate, because we are not trying to grab the gun and point it in the direction that we approve of, but rather are pointing out that violence cannot be used to achieve a positive good within society. Thus not only are existing solutions immoral, but the entire methodology for solving problems is based on a moral evil – the initiation of the use of force.

This is a fundamental rewrite of society, and people are right to be concerned and skeptical about the anarchist approach. It is the most fundamental transition that can be imagined – it is the difference between asking how slaves can be treated better, and stating that slavery is an irredeemable moral evil. It is the difference between asking what transgressions children should be beaten for, and stating that beating children is always and forever immoral.

Using the past to justify the future…

An objection to anarchism that I hear fairly often is that human beings are not so constituted as to be able to productively and intelligently rule themselves.

This objection rests on such a fundamental error that it is worth dealing with up front, since it will show up time and again in the upcoming arguments for anarchism.

We can all understand that it would be completely irrational to say that slaves cannot be freed, because they lack initiative and education. We all perfectly understand that slaves are barred from education, and punished for taking initiative. It is like saying that a totalitarian economy cannot be privatized because all of the workers are lazy – it is clear that this “laziness” actually arises out of a totalitarian economy, rather than any innate habits of the workers. Nutritionists might as well say that fat people cannot lose weight, because they are fat. The entire purpose of an expert is to help undo the habits that ignorance and a lack of opportunity has bred, and substitute more rational and positive behaviors in their place.

It is certainly true that people who come out of a statist educational system tend to be functionally retarded in many ways – they do not understand law, they do not understand politics, they do not understand economics, they do not understand philosophy, they have very likely never taken a course in logic – or even been offered one – they do not understand the scientific method, and they fundamentally do not know how to think or debate from first principles.

These are just the natural and disgusting results of the existing system – to say that men cannot be free because they lack the habits that freedom would have inculcated is a completely circular argument – it is like saying that newborn chicks of geese that have had their wings clipped can never fly, or that the daughter of a Chinese woman who suffered through foot binding will be born with bound feet.

Rejecting the virtues of the future for the sake of the evils of the past creates a closed-loop system that we can never escape. When anarchism comes to pass, there will doubtless be challenging and wrenching transitions for many people – but so what? This is actually an argument for anarchism, rather than against it. The harder that it is to transition out of a violent statist society, the more it is necessary to do so, and to prevent it from ever reemerging again. We do not say that heroin is less dangerous because it is so hard to quit, or so addictive – this is a central reason why heroin should not be taken in the first place! Constantly increasing our dosage of heroin because it is hard to quit would scarcely be a rational response to the problem of deadly addiction. The harder it is to quit, the more we should try to quit it, and the more we should strive to avoid re-addiction.

You are not the only kind person on the planet…

Another point that I would like to make up front is that there always seems to be a strange disconnect or isolation in people’s concerns about the helpless and dependent in society.

For instance, whenever I talk about getting rid of public schools, the response inevitably comes back – automatically, it would seem, just like any other good propaganda – that it would be terrible, because poor children would not be educated.

There is a strange kind of unthinking narcissism in this response, which always irritates me, much though I understand it. First of all, it is rather insulting to be told that you are trying to design a system which would deny education to poor children. To be placed into the general category of “yuppie capitalist scum” is never particularly ennobling.

A person will raise this objection with an absolutely straight face, as if he is the only person in the world who cares about the education of poor children. I know that this is the result of pure indoctrination, because it is so illogical.

If we accept the premise that very few people care about the education of the poor, then we should be utterly opposed to majority-rule democracy, for the obvious reason that if only a tiny minority of people care about the education of the poor, then there will never be enough of them to influence a democracy, and thus the poor will never be educated.

However, those who approve of democracy and accept that democracy will provide the poor with education inevitably accept that a significant majority of people care enough about the poor to agitate for a political solution, and pay the taxes that fund public education.

Thus, any democrat who cares about the poor automatically accepts the reality that a significant majority of people are both willing and able to help and fund the education of the poor.

If people are willing to agitate for and pay the taxes to support a State-run solution to the problem of education, then the State solution is a mere reflection of their desires and willingness to sacrifice their own self-interest for the sake of educating the poor.

If I pay for a cure for an ailment that I have, and I find out that that cure actually makes me worse, do I give up on trying to find a cure? Of course not. It was my desire to find a cure that drove me to the false solution in the first place – when I accept that that solution is false, I am then free to pursue another solution. (In fact, until I accept that my first “cure” actually makes me worse, I will continue to waste my time and resources.)

The democratic “solution” to the problem of educating the poor is the existence of public schools – if we get rid of that solution, then the majority’s desire to help educate the poor will simply take on another form – and a far more effective form, that much is guaranteed.

“Ah,” say the democrats, “but without being forced to pay for public schools, no one will surrender the money to voluntarily fund the education of poor children.”

Well, this is only an admission that democracy is a complete and total lie – that public schools do not represent the will of the majority, but rather the whims of a violent minority. Thus votes do not matter at all, and are not counted, and do not influence public policy in the least, and thus we should get rid of this ridiculous overhead of democracy and get right back to a good old Platonic system of minority dictatorship.

This proposal, of course, is greeted with outright horror, and protestations that democracy must be kept because it is the best system, because public policy does reflect the will of the majority.

In which case we need have no fear that the poor will not be educated in a free society, since the majority of people very much want that to happen anyway.

Exactly the same argument applies to a large number of other statist “solutions” to existing problems, such as:

• Old-age pensions;
• Unemployment insurance;
• Health care for the impoverished;
• Welfare, etc.

If these State programs represent the desires and will of the majority, then removing the government will not remove the reality of this kind of charity, since government policies reflect the majority’s existing desire to help these people.

If these programs do not represent the desires and will of the majority, then democracy is a complete lie, and we should stop interfering with our leader’s universal benevolence with our distracting and wasteful “voting.”

We will get into this in more detail as we go forward, but I wanted to put the argument out up front, just to address the ridiculous objection that removing a democratic State also removes the benevolence that drives its policies.

A fundamental anarchic argument is that a democratic State uses the genuine benevolence of the majority to expand its own power, and exacerbates poverty, ignorance and sickness in order to justify and continue the expansion of that power.

This is not the first time that the benevolence of good people has been used to control them.

We only need to think of the example of organized religion to understand that…

One final point, and then we shall begin really rolling up our sleeves and having some fun figuring out how a free society can truly work.

Although the ideas of anarchy can be alarming, it is important to remember that anarchy is not an untried and untested system. As I talked about in my last book, anarchy is the foundation of how we organize our own personal lives, and it is also the root of how the government manages to survive, at least for as long as it does, despite its corrupt and evil nature.

Prior approaches to re-writing social ethics failed because they did not evolve out of what works in our personal lives. We fully accept that theories of physics cannot contradict that which is directly observable within our own lives; that which describes a falling planet cannot contradict our direct perception of a falling brick.

Indeed, since we would so strenuously resist the incursion of State power into our own personal and practical “anarchy,” it can be easier to understand how statism is a violent and artificial solution, not anarchy.

If we look at something like communism, we can see that it represented a radical reversal of what actually works in our own personal lives. We retain and trade property constantly in our own lives. Stripping us of the right to own and trade property is an entirely artificial “oppositional solution,” which is why it had to be imposed through endless violence, murder and imprisonment.

In the same way, when we look at something like religion, we can see that it represents a radical reversal of what we actually believe to be true in our own personal lives. Children do not need threats, bribes and propaganda to believe that the sun will rise tomorrow, that gravity works and concrete is hard on the knees. They do not need to be bullied in order to learn language, or grow physically and mentally, or ask endless questions and explore their environment.

However, to believe that some ancient and fantastical Jewish zombie died for their “sins,” and that they are trailed and judged by an omnipresent and invisible ghost, and that they need to eat and drink symbolic flesh and blood to commune with some universal and incorporeal mind – well, that takes an enormous amount of propaganda, bribery and bullying. Religion is an entirely artificial “oppositional solution” to the question of existence and ethics. It must be repetitively and aggressively inflicted on children, because it scarcely comes naturally to them at all.

Anarchy, however, does not fall into this category.

For instance, when you face a problem at work, I can’t imagine that you ever sit your team down and say:

“I’ve come up with the perfect solution to our problem – what we’re going to do, see, is pick two of us, give them guns, and then those two are going to force the rest of us to do whatever they want for the next few years, and then we are going to perhaps pick two other people who will get those guns, and then they’ll be able to force us to do whatever they want us to do for the next few years, and then we’ll start all over again…”

I have yet to see a business book with anything close to the title of: “Creating A Violent Internal Monopoly To Solve Your Customer Service Woes!”

In the same way, if you face problems in your relationship, you may go to a marriage counselor, but I have never heard of any couple going to the Mafia, and saying: “We can’t quite agree on how we should be spending our money, so we’re going to buy you guys a bunch of guns and bombs, and we want you to tell us what to do, and if we disobey your orders, we want you to kidnap us and throw us in some dank and horrible cell, where we can only hope to be raped by other people!”

If you are looking for a job, I do not imagine that you will kidnap someone and force him to hire you. If you want a girlfriend, or a boyfriend, I cannot believe that you will chloroform and kidnap someone you are attracted to, like the protagonist in John Fowles’s “The Collector.”

If you are having trouble parenting, it does not seem at all likely that you will hire someone to kidnap you if you parent in a way that he disagrees with for some reason.

This list can of course go on and on, but the basic reality is that we never look for statist solutions to problems that we face in our own lives. We never create a localized monopoly, arm it and give it the right to take half our income at gunpoint, and then force us to obey its whims.

Statism and Isolation

There is something about statism, some aspect of it, which profoundly isolates us from our fellow citizens. We turn from animated problem-solvers to mindless defenders of the status quo. As an example, I offer up the inevitable response I receive when I provide an anarchic solution to an existing State function. When I say that theoretical entities called Dispute Resolution Organizations (DROs) could enforce contracts and protect property, the immediate response is that these DROs will inevitably evolve into a single monopoly that will end up recreating the State that they were supposed to replace.

Or, when I talk about private roads, I inevitably hear the argument that someone could just build a road in a ring around your land and charge you a million dollars every time you wanted to cross it.

Or, when I talk about private defense agencies that can be used to protect a geographical region from invasion, I am promptly informed that those private agencies will simply turn their guns on their subscribers, take them over, and create a new State.

Or, when I discuss the power of economic ostracism as a tool for maintaining order and conformity to basic social and economic rules, I am immediately told that people will be “marked for exclusion” unless they pay hefty bribes to whatever agencies control such information.

It is the same story, over and over – an anarchic solution is provided, and an immediate “disaster scenario” is put forward without thought, without reflection, and without curiosity.

Of course, I am not bothered by the fact that people are critical of a new and volatile theory – I think that is an essential process for any new idea.

What does concern me is the fundamental lack of reciprocity in the minds of the people who thoughtlessly reject creative solutions to trenchant problems.

I don’t mean reciprocity with regards to me – though that is surely lacking as well – but rather with regards to any form of authority or influence in general.

For instance, if people in a geographical region want to contract with an agency or group of agencies for the sake of collective defense, what is the greatest fear that will be first and foremost in their minds?

Naturally, it will be that some defense agency will take their money, buy a bunch of weapons, and promptly enslave them.

How does a free society solve this problem? Well, if there is a market need or demand for collective defense, a number of firms will vie for the business, since it will be so lucrative in the long term. The economic efficiency of having a majority of subscribers would drive the price of such defense down – however, the more people that you enroll in such a contract, the greater everyone’s fear will be that this defense agency will attempt to become a government of some kind.

Thus no entrepreneur will be able to sell this service in the most economically efficient manner if he does not directly and credibly address the fear that he will attempt to create a new government.

We are so used to being on the one-sided receiving end of dictatorial edicts from those in power – whether they are parents, teachers, or government officials, that the very idea that someone is going to have to woo our trust is almost incomprehensible. “If I am afraid of something that someone wants to sell me, then it is up to that person to calm my fears if he wants my business” – this is so far from our existing ways of dealing with statist authority that we might as well be inventing a new planet.

It is so important to understand that when we are talking about a free society – and I will tell you later how this habit is so essential for your happiness even if anarchism never comes to pass – we are essentially talking about two sides of a negotiation table.

When it comes to government as it is – and all that government ever could be – we are never really talking about two sides of the table. You get a letter in the mail informing you that your property taxes are going to increase 5% – there is no negotiation; no one offers you an alternative; your opinion is not consulted beforehand, and your approval is not required afterwards, because if you do not pay the increased tax, you will, after a fairly lengthy sequence of letters and phone calls, end up without a house.

It is certainly true that your local cable company may also send you a notice that they’re going to increase their charges by 5%, but that is still a negotiation! You can switch to satellite, or give up on cable and rent DVDs of movies or television shows, or reduce some of the extra features that you have, or just decide to get rid of your television and read and talk instead.

None of these options are available with the government – with the government, you either pay them, give up your house, go to jail, or move to some other country, where the exact same process will start all over again.

Can you imagine getting this letter from your cable company?

Dear Valued Customer:

Your cable bill is now increasing 5% per month. You cannot cancel your cable. Ever. You cannot reduce your bill in any way. If you turn off your cable, your bill will remain exactly the same. If you rip your cable out of the wall, your bill will remain exactly the same, with the exception that we will charge you for the damage. Your children will be unable to cancel your cable contract.

Also, please note that we will be reducing our delivery of channels by approximately 1 every month. As we deliver fewer channels, you can anticipate that your bill will sharply increase.

If you do not pay your bill on time, the ownership of your house will revert to us, and we will lock you in an undisclosed location, where you will be forced to do tech support, and where we will be unable to protect you from assault and rape.

If you attempt to defend yourself when we come to take your house, we are fully authorized to gun you down.

Sincerely,

The Statist Cable Company

We would consider this kind of letter to be utterly criminal – and we would be outraged at the dictatorial one-sidedness of the letter, as well as the threats of violence it contained.

Unfortunately, this is exactly the kind of communication that we get from our governments all the time – and in many ways, it is not unrelated to the kind of non-negotiated dictums that we received from our teachers when we were children.

Thus, when a philosopher of anarchy proposes private solutions to public services, we automatically and almost unconsciously feel that we are back on the receiving end of one-sided and dictatorial commandments, and fear this multiplicity of small “quasi-governments,” and imagine that instead of receiving a few such ugly letters a year, we shall get perhaps dozens per month.

However, if you do not understand that anarchism is always and forever a two-sided negotiation, then you will remain forever untempted by its rational and empirical pleasures, and continue to confuse coercion with voluntarism, which is about the most fundamental error that can be made in moral understanding.

If you feel the need for collective defense, but you are afraid that whoever you contract with for such defense will end up ruling over you, you can just sit back, put your feet up on the desk, clasp your hands behind your head, and just see who comes along with an offer that satisfies you.

Once you grasp this fundamental shift in thinking – in understanding – then you can “flip over” to the other side of the table and use your real creative mojo to start solving the problem.

In this way, you can ask yourself, “If I really wanted to sell collective defense services to a group, how could I best address and alleviate their fears that I would turn into some kind of local dictator?”

What do you think? If you could personally make $10 million a year by solving this problem, what would you come up with? How would you address and alleviate people’s fears that you would take their money, go buy an army, and rule over them?

There are as many creative and productive answers as there are people interested in the problem – here’s one that occurs to me, just off the top of my head…

I would deposit $5 million in a third-party bank account, and offer it as free payment to anyone who could prove that I was not fulfilling my contract with my customers to the letter. I would publish my accounts and inventory as widely as possible, and give free access to anyone who wanted to come by and inspect my business and its holdings.

In this way, people could rest assured that I was not amassing some secret army of black helicopters and men in robot suits.

“Ah,” you may say, “but what if no one wanted to come forward and perform these kinds of inspections?”

Again, that is easy to solve. I would just pay an organization $1 million a year to audit my business – and promise them that if they ever found me accumulating any kind of secret army or weaponry, then I would then pay them the $5 million in the third party bank account. In this way, external audits would be certain to be performed, and those auditors would have every incentive to turn over every filing cabinet in search of a miniature robot army.

“Ah,” you may say, “but what if you were secretly paying this auditing organization $2 million a year to only pretend to audit your business?”

Well, here we are starting to get into some very strange economic territory, which would be utterly unsustainable in a free market, because my company would then be out $5 million up front, be paying $1 million for an auditing company, and then a further $2 million to produce fake audits – such a company would never be able to offer competitive rates relative to a company that operated on the up and up.

But even if this were possible, it would still be an easy problem to solve, by simply paying five companies to perform audits if necessary – paying $5 million a year out of a profit of $10 million a year still leaves you $5 million ahead!

“Ah, but what if..?”

We all know that this game can go on for forever and a day – the mindset that I strongly urge you to try and get yourself into, however, is that you do not have to contract with anyone who is not willing to satisfy your desires!

Relative Risk

What happens if no entrepreneur is able to offer you a deal that successfully calms your fears?

Why, then you do not have to take any deal at all.

“Ah,” you may then say, “but then I am leaving myself open to the risk of foreign invasion!”

Well, that is very true, but clearly, if you reject all offers from entrepreneurs who want to protect you, because you feel that their protection carries too much risk, then clearly you prefer the risk of invasion to the risk of protection.

With that in mind, you may well choose one entrepreneur’s scheme – not because it is risk-free, but rather because it is less risky than the risk of invasion.

If you wish to be presented with a risk-free choice, then unfortunately you wish to be presented with a different kind of universe than the one we inhabit, since risk is an inevitable and natural part of life.

With that in mind, let us turn to one of the first great objections to the idea of a stateless society, which is collective defense, to provide an example of the methodologies we will use in this book.

Collective Defense: An Example of Methodology

Ideally, invasions should be prevented rather than repelled, just as illnesses should be prevented rather than cured.

The strongest conceivable case for anarchism is that a stateless society would by its very nature prevent invasion, rather than merely possess the ability to violently repel it.

So first, before we figure out how to repel an invasion, let us look at what an invasion is actually designed to achieve.

Why Invade?

Let us imagine a land where there are two farms, owned by Bob and Jim respectively. Bob is a rapacious and nasty fellow, who wishes to expand his farm and make more money.

To the east of Bob is Jim’s farm, which is tidy, efficient, and productive, with a wide variety of cows and chickens and neatly-planted fields.

To the west of Bob is an untamed wilderness full of bears and wolves and coyotes and mosquitoes and swamps and all other sorts of unpleasant and dangerous things.

From the standpoint of mere practical considerations, how can Bob most efficiently expand his farm and increase his income?

Surely it would be to invest in a few guns, head east, and take over Jim’s farm. For a very small investment, Bob ends up with a functioning and productive farm, ready to provide him with milk, eggs and crops.

On the other hand, Bob could choose to go west, into the untamed wilderness, and try to cull a number of dangerous predators, drain the swamps, hack down and uproot all the embedded trees and bushes. After a year or two of backbreaking labor, he may have carved out a few additional acres for himself – an investment that would scarcely seem worth it.

If Bob wants to expand, and cares little about ethics, he will “invade” Jim’s farm and take it over, because he will be taking command of an already-existing system of exploitation and production.

Thus, we can see that the act of invading a neighboring territory is primarily motivated by the desire to take over an existing productive system. If that productive system is not in place, then the motivation for invasion evaporates. A car thief will never “steal” a rusted old jalopy that is sitting up on bricks in an abandoned lot, but rather will attempt to steal a car that is in good condition.

This analysis of the costs and benefits of invasion is essential to understanding how a stateless society actually works to prevent invasion, rather than merely repel it.

When one country invades another country, the primary goal is to take over the existing system of government, and thus collect the taxes from the existing citizens. In the same way that Bob will only invade Jim’s farm in order to take over his domesticated animals, one government will only invade another country in order to take over the government of that country, and so become the new tax collector. If no tax collection system is in place, then there is no productive resource for the invading country to take over.

Furthermore, to take a silly example, we can easily understand that Bob will only invade Jim’s farm if he knows that Jim’s cows and chickens are not armed and dangerous. To adjust the metaphor a little closer to reality, imagine that Jim has a number of workers on his farm who are all ex-military, well-armed, and will fight to the death to protect that farm. The disincentive for invasion thus becomes considerably stronger.

In the same way, domestic governments generally keep their citizens relatively disarmed, in order to more effectively tax them, just as farmers clip the wings of their geese and chickens in order to more efficiently collect their eggs and meat.

Thus the cost-benefit analysis of invasion only comes out on the plus side if the benefits are clear and easy to attain – an existing tax collection system – and if the costs of invasion are relatively small – a largely disarmed citizenry.

In a very real sense, therefore, a stateless society cannot be invaded, because there is really nothing to invade. There are no government buildings to inhabit, no existing government to displace, no tax collection system in place to take over and profit from – and, furthermore, there is no clear certainty about the degree of armaments that each citizen possesses (don’t worry, we will get into gun control later…).

An invading country can be very certain that, if it breaks through another government’s military defenses, it will then not face any significant resistance from the existing citizenry. A statist society can be considered akin to an egg – if you break through the shell, there is no second line of defense inside. Invading governments are well aware of the existing laws against the proliferation of weapons in the country they are invading – thus they are guaranteed to be facing a virtually disarmed citizenry, as long as they can break through the military defenses.

Invading Anarchy

Let us imagine that France becomes a stateless society, but that Germany and Poland do not. Let us go with the cliché and imagine that Germany has a strong desire to expand militarily. The German leader then looks at a map, and tries to figure out whether he should go east into Poland, or west into France.

If he goes east into Poland, then he will, if he can break through the Polish military defenses, be able to feast upon the existing tax base, and face an almost completely disarmed citizenry. He will be able to use the existing Polish tax collectors and tax collection system to enrich his own government, because the Poles are already controlled and “domesticated,” so to speak.

In other words, he only has one enemy to overcome and destroy, which is the Polish government’s military. If he can overcome that single line of defense, he gains control over billions of dollars of existing tax revenues every single year – and a ready-made army and its equipment.

On the other hand, if he thinks of going west into France, he faces some daunting obstacles indeed.

There are no particular laws about the domestic ownership of weapons in a stateless society, so he has no idea whatsoever which citizens have which weapons, and he certainly cannot count on having a legally-disarmed citizenry to prey on after defeating a single army.

Secondly, let us say that his army rolls across the border into France – what is their objective? If France still had a government, then clearly his goal would be to take Paris, displace the existing government, and take over the existing tax collection system.

However, where is his army supposed to go once it crosses the border? There is no capital in a stateless society, no seat of government, no existing system of tax collection and citizen control, no centralized authority that can be seized and taken over. In the above example of the two farms and the wilderness, this is the equivalent not of Bob taking over Jim’s farm, but rather of Bob heading into the wilderness and facing coyotes, bears, swamps and mosquitoes – there is no single enemy, no existing resources to take over, and nothing in particular to “seize.”

But let us say that the German leadership is completely retarded, and decides to head west into France anyway – and let us also suppose, to make the case as strong as possible, that everyone in France has decided to forego any kind of collective self-defense.

What is the German army going to do in France? Are they going to go door to door, knocking on people’s houses and demanding their silverware? Even if this were possible, and actually achieved, all that would happen is that the silverware would be shipped back to Germany, thus putting German silverware manufacturers out of business. When German manufacturers go out of business, they lay people off, thus destroying tax revenue for the German government.

The German army cannot reasonably ship French houses to Germany – perhaps they will seize French cars and French electronics and ship them to Germany instead.

And what is the German government supposed to do with thousands of French cars and iPods? Are they supposed to sell these objects to their own citizens at vastly reduced prices? I imagine that certain German citizens would be relatively happy with that, but again, all that would happen is that German manufacturers of cars and electronics would be put out of business, thus again sharply reducing the German government’s tax income, resulting in a net loss.

Furthermore, by destroying domestic industries for the sake of a one-time transfer of French goods, the German government would be crippling its own future income, since domestic manufacturing represents a permanent source of tax revenue – this would be a perfect example of killing the goose that lays the golden egg.

Well, perhaps what the German government could do is seize French citizens and ship them to Germany as slave labor. What would be the result of that?

Unfortunately, this would not work either, at least not for long, because slave labor cannot be taxed, and slave labor would displace existing German labor, which is taxable. Thus again the German government would be permanently reducing its own income, which it would not do.

Another reason that Germany might invade another country would be to seize control of the wealth of the government – the ability to print money, and the ownership of a large amount of physical assets, such as buildings, cars, gold, manufacturing plants and so on.

However, nothing remains unowned in a stateless society, except that which has no value, or cannot be owned, such as air. There are no “public assets” to seize, and there are no state-owned printing presses which can be used to create currency, and thus transfer capital to Germany. There are no endless vaults of government gold to rob, no single aggregation of military assets to seize.

Furthermore, if we go up to a thief and say to him, “Do you want to rob a house?” what is his first question likely to be?

“Hell I don’t know – what’s in it?”

A thief will always want to know the benefits of robbing a house – he is fully aware of the risks and costs, of course, and must weigh them against the rewards. He will never scale up the outside of some public housing welfare tenement in order to snag an old television and a tape deck. The more knowledgeable he is of the value of a home’s contents, the better he is able to assess the value of breaking into it.

The German leadership, when deciding which country to invade, will know down to almost the last dollar the tax revenues being collected by the Polish government, as well as the value of the public assets they will seize if they invade. The “payoff” can be very easily assessed.

On the other hand, if they look west, into the French stateless society, how will they know what they are actually going to get? There are no published figures for the net wealth of the society as a whole, there is no tax revenue to collect, and there are no public assets which can be easily valued ahead of time. There is no way to judge the cost effectiveness of the invasion.

Invading a statist society is like grabbing the cages of a large number of trapped chickens – you get all of the eggs in perpetuity. Invading a stateless society is like taking a sprint at a flock of seagulls – all they do is scatter, and you get nothing, except perhaps some crap on your forehead.

Thus it is completely impossible that the German leadership would think it a good idea to head west into France rather than east into Poland.

We could leave the case here, and be perfectly satisfied in our responses, but I am always willing to go the extra mile and accept the worst conceivable case.

Let us say that some mad German who was beaten with bagfuls of French textbooks when he was a child ends up running the government, and cares nothing at all about the costs and benefits of invading France, but rather just wishes to take it over in order to – I don’t know, burn all the textbooks or something like that.

We will get into the nature and content of private agencies in the next chapter, but let us just say that there are a number of these private defense agencies that are paid to defend France against just such an invading madman.

Well, if I were setting up some sort of private military defense agency, the first thing I would do is try to figure out how I could most effectively protect my subscribers, for the least possible cost.

The first thing that I would note is that nuclear weapons have been the single most effective deterrent to invasion that has ever been invented. Not one single nuclear power has ever been invaded, or threatened with invasion – and so, in a very real sense, there is no bigger “bang for the buck” in terms of defense than a few well-placed nuclear weapons.

If we assume that a million subscribers are willing to pay for a few nuclear weapons as a deterrent to invasion, and that those nuclear weapons cost about $30 million to purchase and maintain every year, then we are talking about $30 a year per subscriber – or less than a dime a day.

The defense agencies only make money if an invasion does not occur, just as health insurance companies only make money when you are not sick, but rather well.

Thus the question that I would be most keen to answer if I were running a defense agency is: “How can I best prevent an invasion?”

Let us assume that the French stateless society is a beacon of liberation in a sea of aggressive and statist nations. The French defense agencies would work day and night to ensure that the costs of invasion were as high as possible, and the benefits as low as possible. Were I running one of these agencies, I would think of solutions along the lines of the following…

Deactivated Money

If I were concerned that my subscribers might be robbed by an invading army, I would offer reduced rates to those willing to allow their electronic money to be secured so that it could not be spent without their own thumb print, or something like that. (Naturally, any system can be hacked, and people can be kidnapped along with their money, but the purpose here is not to prevent all possible workarounds, but rather to simply reduce the material benefits of invading France.)

Similarly, I might offer reduced defense rates to manufacturers that would be willing to allow a small GPS device to be installed in the guts of their machinery, so that if it was removed to another country, it would no longer work. This device could also be included in cars and other items of value, so that they would either have to be used in France, or they could not be used at all.

Given that the control of bridges is a primary military objective, in order to facilitate the movement of troops and vehicles, I would also encourage the installation of particular devices in domestic cars and trucks, which would automatically keep access to bridges open. Thus invading armies would find their access to these bridges much harder, which would again slow down the speed of their invasion.

Furthermore, if invasion seemed imminent, I would arm and train as many citizens as possible. Any invading army would face a quite different challenge in a stateless society. If Germany invades Poland, how many citizens would risk their lives fighting against just another government? Whether a Polish leader taxes you, or a German one, makes relatively little difference – which is why your average citizen does not care much about who runs the local Mafia. Citizens of a stateless society, however, would be resisting an attempt to inflict taxation and a government upon them, and so would be far more willing to fight the kind of endlessly-draining insurgencies that we see so often in the annals of occupation.

These are just a few admittedly off-the-cuff ideas, but it is relatively easy to see how the benefits of invading France could be significantly diminished or even eliminated, while the costs of invading France could be significantly increased or made prohibitive.

The objection could be raised that some lunatic group could simply detonate a nuclear bomb somewhere inside France, for some insane or nefarious motive – but that is not an argument against private defense agencies, and for a statist society, but rather quite the reverse.

The “nuclear madman” argument is not solved by the existence of a government, since no government can protect against this eventuality – however, a free society would be far less likely to be the target of such an attack, since it would have a defensive military policy only, and not an aggressive and interventionist foreign policy, and thus would be infinitely less likely to provoke such a mad and genocidal retaliation. Switzerland, for instance, faces no real danger of having airplanes flown into buildings.

It is my belief that over time, the need for these proactive and defensive strategies would diminish, since the only thing that would really ever be needed is a few nuclear weapons as a deterrent – and even the need for these would diminish over time, since either the world itself would become stateless, thus eliminating the danger of war, or the statist societies would continue to attack each other only, for the reasons mentioned above, and the need to continually defend a stateless society would diminish.

Finally, let’s look at some of the illusions that we have about statist “protection” in history, as a demonstration of how we can critically evaluate an example of a statist function.

Statist National “Defense”: A Critical Example

Briefly put, “national defense” is the need for a government to protect citizens from aggression by other governments.

This is an interesting paradox, even beyond the obvious one of using a “government” to protect us from “governments.” If you were able to run a magic survey throughout history, which government do you think people would be most frightened of and enslaved by? Would it be (a), their local State or Lord, or (b), some State or Lord in some other country? What about ancient Rome – would it be the local rulers, who forced young Romans into military service for 20 years or more, or the Carthaginians? What about England in the Middle Ages? Were the peasants more alarmed by the crushing taxation and strangling mobility restrictions imposed by their local Lord, or was the King of France their primary concern? Let us stop in Russia during the 18th century, and ask the serfs: “Are you more frightened of the Tsar’s soldiers, or the German Kaiser?” Let us go to a US citizen of today, and demand to know: “Are you more frightened of foreign invaders taking over Washington, or of the fact that if you don’t pay half your income in taxes, your own government will throw you in jail?”

Of course, we have to look at the Second World War, which has had more propaganda thrown at it than any other single conflict. Didn’t the British government save the country from Germany? That is an interesting question. The British government got into WWI, helped impose the brutal Treaty of Versailles, then contributed to the boom-and-bust cycle of the 1920s, which destroyed the German middle class and aided Hitler’s rise to power. During the 1930s, the British government supported the growing aggression of Hitler through subsidies, loans and mealy-mouthed appeasement. Then, when everything had failed, it threw the bodies of thousands of young men at the German air force in the Battle of Britain. Finally, it caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands more British citizens by defending Africa and invading France, rather than let Nazism collapse on its own – as it was bound to do, just as every tyranny has done throughout history. Can it really be said, then, that the British government protected its citizens throughout the first half of the 20th century? Millions killed, families shattered, the economy destroyed, half of Europe lost to Stalin, and China to Mao… Can we consider that a great success? I think not. Only States win wars – never citizens.

The fact of the matter is that we do not face threats to our lives and property from foreign governments, but rather from our own. The State will tell us that it must exist, at the very least, to protect us from foreign governments, but that is morally equivalent to the local Mafia don telling us that we have to pay him 50% of our income so that he can protect us from the Mafia in Paraguay. Are we given the choice to buy a gun and defend ourselves? Of course not. Who endangers us more – the local Mafia guy, or some guy in Paraguay we have never met that our local Mafia guy says just might want a piece of us? I know which chance I would take.

There is a tried-and-true method for resisting foreign occupation which does not require any government – which we can see being played out in our daily news. During the recent invasion, the US completely destroyed the Iraqi government, and now has total control over the people and infrastructure. And what is happening? They are being attacked and harried until they will just have to get out of the country – just as they had to do in Korea and Vietnam, and just as the USSR had to do in Afghanistan. The Iraqi insurgents do not have a government at all – any more than the Afghani fighters did in the 1980s.

Let’s look at the Iraqi conflict in a slightly different light. America was attacked on 9/11 because the American government had troops in Saudi Arabia, and because it caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis through the Iraqi bombing campaign of the 1990s. Given that the US government provoked the attacks, how well were the innocent victims of 9/11 protected by their government? Even if we do not count the physical casualties of the war, given the massive national debt being run up to pay for the Iraq war, how well is the property of American citizens being protected? How much power would Bush have to wage war if he did not have the power to steal almost half the wealth of the entire country? The government does not need taxes in order to wage war; it wages war because it already has the power of taxation – and it uses the war to raise taxes, either on the current citizens through increases and inflation, or on future citizens through deficits.

This simple fact helps explain why there were almost no wars in Western Europe from the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815 to the start of World War One in 1914. This was largely because governments could not afford wars – but then they all got their very own Central Banks and were able to pave the bloody path to the Great War with printed money and deficit financing. World War One resulted from an increase in State power – and in turn swelled State power, and set the stage for the next war. Thus, the idea that we need to give governments the power to tax us in order to protect us is ludicrous – because it is taxation that gives governments the power to wage war.

For pacifist countries, this “war” may be a war on poverty, or illiteracy, or drugs, or for universal health care, or whatever. It does not matter. The moment a government takes the power – and moral “right” – to forcibly take money from citizens, the stage is set for the ever-growing power of the State.

The question then arises – how does a citizen keep his property and person safe? The first answer that I would give is another question, which is:

Which sector does more to protect you and your property – the public or the private?

Let’s look at the security mechanisms the private sector has introduced in just the past few decades:

• ATMs/credit cards (less need to carry cash);
• Cell phones (can always call for help);
• Call display (virtually eliminates harassing phone calls);
• Sophisticated home security systems;
• ID tracking tags;
• Credit card numeric security;
• Pepper spray;
• GPS;
• Security cameras;
• Anti-shoplifting devices;
• Secure online transactions;
• And much more…

What has the public sector done? Well, they shoot harmless drug users and seize their property. They will shoot you too, if you don’t pay the massive tax increases they demand. The police are virtually useless in property crimes – and many violent criminals are turned loose because the courts are too slow, or are put in “house arrest” because the prisons are too full of non-violent offenders.

So, who has most helped you secure your person and property over the past few decades? Your government, or your friendly local entrepreneurs? Those who have stepped in to protect you, or those who have doubled your taxes while letting criminals walk free? Have capitalist companies enraged foreigners to the point of terrorism? Of course not – the 9/11 terrorists attacked the World Trade Center (to protest the financing of the US government), the Pentagon, and the White House. They didn’t go for a Ford motor plant or a Apple store – and why would they? No one kills for iPhones. They kill to protest military power, which rests on public financing.

In summation, then, it makes about as much sense to rely on governments for security as it does to rely on the Mafia for “protection.” The Mafia is really just protecting you from itself, as are all governments. Any man who comes up to you and says: “I need to threaten your person and steal your property in order to protect your person and property,” is obviously either deranged, or not particularly interested, to say the least, in protecting your person and property. As long as we keep falling for the same old lies, we will forever be robbed blind for the sake of our supposed property rights, and sent to wage war against internal or external “enemies” so that those in power can further pick the pockets of those we leave behind.

Part 2: Reasoning

Introduction: The Six Questions

When considering statist objections to anarchic solutions, the six questions below are most useful.

1. Does the government actually solve the problem in question?

People often say that government courts “solve” the problem of injustice. However, these courts can take many years to render a verdict – and cost the plaintiff and defendant hundreds of thousands of dollars or more. Government courts are also used to harass and intimidate, creating a “chilling effect” for unpopular opinions or groups. Thus I find it essential to question the embedded premises of statism:

• Do State armies actually defend citizens?
• Does State policing actually protect private property?
• Does State welfare actually solve the problem of poverty?
• Does the war on drugs actually solve the problem of addiction and crime?
• Do State prisons actually rehabilitate prisoners and reduce crime?

It can be very tempting to fall into the trap of thinking that the existing statist approach is actually a solution – but I try to avoid taking that for granted, since it is so rarely the case.

2. Can the criticism of the anarchic solution be equally applied to the statist solution?

One of the most common objections to a stateless society is the fear that a political monopoly could somehow emerge from a free market of competing justice agencies. In other words, anarchism is rejected because it contains the mere possibility of political monopoly. However, if political monopoly is such a terrible evil, then a statist society – which is founded on just such a political monopoly – must be rejected even more firmly, just as we would always choose the mere possibility of cancer over actually having cancer.

3. Is anarchy accepted as a core value in nonpolitical spheres?

In my last book, “Everyday Anarchy,” I pointed out the numerous spheres in society where anarchy is both valued and defended, such as dating, career choices, education and so on. If anarchy is dismissed as “bad” overall, then it also must be “bad” in these other spheres as well. Unless the person criticizing anarchy is willing to advocate for a Ministry of Dating, the value of anarchy in certain spheres must at least be recognized. Thus anarchy cannot be rejected as an overall negative – and its admitted value and productivity must at least be accepted as potentially valuable in other spheres as well.

4. Would the person advocating statism perform State functions himself?

Most of us recognize and accept the right to use violence in an extremity of self-defense. Those who support statism recognize that, in this realm, State police merely formalize a right that everyone already has, namely the right of self-defense. A policeman can use force to protect a citizen from being attacked, just as that citizen can use force himself. However, if someone argues that it is moral to use force to take money from people to pay for public schools, would he be willing to use this force himself? Would he be willing to go door to door with a gun to extract money for public schools? Would he be willing to extend this right to everyone in society? If not, then he has created two opposing ethical categories – the State police, to whom this use of violence is moral – and everyone else, to whom this use of violence is immoral. How can these opposing moral categories be justified?

5. Can something be both voluntary and coercive at the same time?

Everyone recognizes that an act cannot be both “rape” and “lovemaking” simultaneously. Rape requires force, because the victim is unwilling; lovemaking does not. Because no action can be both voluntary and coercive at the same time, statists cannot appeal to the principle of “voluntarism” when defending the violence of the State. Statists cannot say that we “agree” to be taxed, and then say that taxation must be coercive. If we agree to taxation, the coercion is unnecessary – if we do not agree to taxation, then we are coerced against our will.

6. Does political organization change human nature?

If people care enough about the poor to vote for state welfare programs, then they will care enough about the poor to fund private charities. If people care enough about the uneducated to vote for state schools, they will care enough to donate to private schools. Removing the State does not fundamentally alter human nature. The benevolence and wisdom that democracy relies on will not be magically transformed into cold selfishness the moment that the State ends. Statism relies on maturity and benevolence on the part of the voters, the politicians, and government workers. If this maturity and benevolence is not present, the State is a mere brutal tyranny, and must be abolished. If the majority of people are mature and benevolent – as I believe – then the State is an unnecessary overhead, and far too prone to violent injustices to be allowed to continue. In other words, people cannot be called “virtuous” only when it serves the statist argument, and then “selfish” when it does not.

There are a number of other principles, which are more specific to particular circumstances, but the six described above will show up repeatedly.

We will now take a quick tour through an overview of anarchism, and sketch in broad strokes the beginnings of our solutions to the horrors of worldwide violence.

Anarchism – Frequently Asked Questions

Isn’t Anarchism ‘Bad’?

Unfortunately, the term has been degraded through mythology to mean “a world without rules” – usually garbed in post-apocalyptic outerwear and riding a well-armed motorbike. This is nonsense, of course. “Anarchy” is merely the logically consistent application of the moral premise that the initiation of the use of force is wrong. If violence is a bad way to solve problems, then the government is by definition immoral, since “government” always means a group of individuals who claim the right to initiate violence against everyone else, in the form of taxation, regulations etc.

But if there is no government, how can the inevitable conflicts in human society be resolved?

The most important thing in philosophy is to consistently question the premises of propositions. For instance, embedded in the above question is the premise that conflicts within human society are currently being resolved by governments. This is pure nonsense. Governments are agencies of force – governments do not persuade, governments do not reason, governments do not motivate, governments do not encourage, governments do not resolve disputes. Governments have no more power to create morality then rape has to create love. A gun is only useful in self-defense; it cannot be used to create virtue.

For somebody who is an anarchist, you sure do sound like a politician! Wasn’t that just a complete dodge of the question?

Excellent catch! Here is as good a place as any to introduce you to the concept of Dispute Resolution Organizations (DROs). This concept cannot answer every conceivable question you might have about dispute resolutions within a stateless society, but rather is a framework for understanding the methodology of dispute resolution – just as the scientific method cannot answer every possible question about the natural world, but rather points towards a methodology that allows those questions to be answered in a rational manner.

DROs are companies that specialize in insuring contracts between individuals, and resolving any disputes that might arise. For instance, if I borrow $1,000 from you, I may have to pay $10 to a DRO to insure my loan. If I fail to pay you back your money, the DRO will pay you instead. Obviously, as my credit rating improves, the cost of insuring my contracts will decline.

The DRO theory can be as complex as any other free market theory – and a lot of intellectual effort has gone into resolving how particular transactions might occur, such as multimillion dollar international contracts. Credible DRO theories have also been advanced that solve problems ranging from abortion to child abuse to murder to pollution. For more on DRO theory and practice, please see “The Stateless Society: An Examination of Alternatives” below.

But what about the roads?

The most important thing to understand about anarchism is that it is a moral theory which cannot logically be judged by consequences alone. For instance, the abolition of slavery was a moral imperative, because slavery as an institution is innately evil. The abolition of slavery was not conditional upon the provision of jobs for every freed slave. In a similar manner, anarchic theory does not have to explain how every conceivable social, legal or economic transaction could occur in the absence of a coercive government. What is important to understand is that the initiation of the use of force is a moral evil. With that in mind, we can approach the problem of roads more clearly.

First of all, roads are currently funded through the initiation of force. If you do not pay the taxes which support road construction, you will get a stern letter from the government, followed by a court date, followed by policemen coming to your house if you do not appear and submit to the court’s judgment. If you use force to defend yourself against the policemen who are breaking into your home, you will very likely be shot down.

The roads, in other words, are built at the point of a gun. The use of violence is the central issue, not what might potentially happen in the absence of violence.

That having been said, roads will be built by housing developers, mall builders, those constructing schools and towns – just as they were before governments took them over in the 19^th century. For more on this, please see the section on “Roads” below.

Okay – here’s a scenario for you: a guy builds a road that completely encircles a suburban neighborhood, and then charges $1 million for anyone to cross that road. Isn’t he holding everyone who lives in that neighborhood hostage?

This is fundamentally impossible. First of all, no one is going to buy a house in a neighborhood unless they are contractually guaranteed access to roads. Thus it will be impossible for anyone to completely encircle the neighborhood. Secondly, even if it were possible, it would be a highly risky investment. Can you imagine going to investors with a business plan that said: “I’m going to try to buy all the land that surrounds the neighborhood, and then charge exorbitant rates for anyone to cross that land.” No sane investor would give you the money for such a plan. The risk of failure would be too great, and no DRO would enforce any contract that was so destructive, unpopular and economically unfeasible. DROs, unlike governments, must be appealing to the general population. If a DRO got involved with the encircling and imprisonment of a neighborhood, it would become so unpopular that it would lose far more business than it could potentially gain.

All right, smarty-pants – what about this: the company that supplies water to a neighborhood suddenly decides to increase its rates Tenfold – people are going to be forced to pay the exorbitant price, right?

First of all, if you are so concerned about people paying increasingly exorbitant prices for services, then it scarcely seems logical to propose the government as the solution to that problem! Taxes have risen immensely over the past 30 years, while services have declined.

However, even if we accept the premise of the problem, it is easily solved in a stateless society. First of all, no one will buy a house in a neighborhood without a contractual obligation that requires the supply of water at reasonable rates. Secondly, if the water company starts charging exorbitant prices, another company will simply move in and supply water in another form – in barrels, bottles or whatever. Thus, raising prices permanently costs the water company its customers – and makes every potential customer back away, for fear that the same predation will happen to them. Investors will quickly realize that the water company is shooting itself in the foot, and will align themselves with other shareholders, resulting in a takeover of the price-gouging water company, and a reduction in rates, accompanied by rank apologies and base groveling. Given that this result will be known in advance, no CEO would be allowed to pursue such a self-destructive course. Only governments that can be manipulated by corporations to prevent competition truly endanger consumers.

Okay – what if two DROs have different rules – isn’t that just going to result in endless civil war?

First of all, it is unlikely that DROs would have wildly different rules, because that would be economically inefficient. Cell phone companies use similar protocols, so that they can interoperate with each other. Railroad companies tend to use the same gauge, so that trains can travel as widely as possible. Internet service providers exchange data with other service providers, passing e-mails and other data back and forth. Like evolution, the free market is more about cooperation than pure competition. If a DRO wants to create a new rule, that rule will be fairly useless unless other DROs are willing to cooperate with it – just as a new e-mail program is fairly useless unless it uses existing protocols. This need for interoperability with other DROs will inevitably keep the number of new rules to the most economically efficient minimum. Customers will prefer DROs with broader reciprocity agreements, just as they prefer credit cards that are valid in a large number of locations.

New rules will also add to the costs for DRO subscribers – and if it costs them more money than it saves, the DRO will lose business.

But – won’t the most successful DRO just arm itself, violently eliminate all the other DROs, and emerge as a new government?

First of all, if the potential emergence of a new government at some point in the future is of great concern, then surely the elimination of existing governments in the present is a worthy goal. If we have cancer, we go through chemotherapy to eliminate it in the present, even though we may get cancer again at some point in the future.

Secondly, unlike governments, DROs are not violent institutions. DROs will be primarily populated by white-collar workers: accountants, mediators, executives and so on. DROs are about as likely to become paramilitary organizations as your average accounting firm is likely to become an elite squad of ninja death warriors. Given the current existence of governments that possess nuclear weapons, I for one am willing to take that risk.

Thirdly, if a DRO tries to turn itself into a government, the other DROs will certainly act to prevent it. DROs would simply refuse to cooperate with any DRO that refused to submit to “arms inspections.” Furthermore, DRO customers would also not take very kindly to their DRO becoming an armed institution – and their rates would certainly skyrocket, because their DRO would have to provide its regular services, as well as pay for all those black helicopters and RPGs. Any DRO that was paying for goods or services that its customers did not want – i.e. an army – would very quickly go out of business, because it would not be competitive in terms of rates. For more on this, please see “War, Profit and the State” below.

Are There Any Examples Of Anarchic Societies Being Successful In The Past?

There are, but that is not the essential question. Again, the essential aspect of anarchic theory is the moral rule banning the initiation of the use of force. Anarchists advocate a stateless society because governments are evil. When slavery was abolished for the first time in human history, there was no prior example of a successful slave–free society — if that had been a requirement, then slavery would be with us still.

That having been said, I can confidently point towards a nonviolent society that you’re intimately aware of – you. I am guessing that you do not use violence directly to achieve your aims. It seems likely to me that you did not hold your employer hostage until you got your job; I also doubt that you keep your spouse locked in the basement, or that you threaten to shoot your “friends” if they do not join you on the dance floor. In other words, you are the perfect example of a stateless society. All of your personal relationships are voluntary, and do not involve the use of force. You are an anarchic microcosm – to see how a stateless society works, all you have to do is look in the mirror.

How can a society without a government pay for national defense?

Many people, when first hearing the concept of a stateless society, cannot imagine how collective defense could possibly be paid for in the absence of taxation. I have already briefly discussed this above – here are some more details.

This is an important question to ask, but there is a way of answering it that also answers many other questions about collective action.

In any society, there are four possibilities that can occur in the realm of collective defense. The first is that no one wants to pay for collective defense. The second is that only a minority of people want to pay for collective defense; the third is that the majority of people want to pay for collective defense; and the fourth is that everyone wants to pay for collective defense.

Let’s compare how these four possibilities play out in a state-based democracy:

1. No one wants to pay for collective defense. In this case, voters will universally reject any politician who proposes collective defense of any kind.
2. Only a minority of people want to pay for collective defense. In this case, no politician who proposes paying for collective defense will ever get into office, because he will never secure a majority of the votes.
3. The majority of people want to pay for collective defense. In this case, pro-defense politicians will be voted into office, and spend tax money on defense.
4. Everyone wants to pay for collective defense. This achieves the same outcome as number three.

Thus, all other things being equal, a democracy produces almost the same outcome as a stateless society – with the important exception of #2. If only a minority of people want to pay for defense, they cannot do so in a democracy, but can do so in a stateless society.

In a stateless society, if the majority of people are interested in paying for collective defense, it will be paid for. The addition of the government to the interaction is entirely superfluous – the equivalent of creating a Ministry devoted to communicating the pleasures of candy to children, or sex to teenagers.

However, the possibility exists that people are willing to pay for collective defense only if they know that everyone else is paying for it as well. This argument fails on multiple levels, both empirical and rational.

1. People tip waiters and give to charity, even though they know that some people never do.
2. There is no reason why, in a stateless society, people should not have full knowledge of who has donated to collective defense. Agencies providing collective defense could easily issue a “donor card,” which certain shops or employers might ask to see before doing business. Names of donors could also be put on a website, easily searchable, creating social pressures to donate.
3. When the money required for collective defense is stripped from taxpayers at the point of a gun, a basic moral tenet – and rational criterion – is violated. Citizens institute collective defense in order to protect their property – it makes no sense whatsoever to create an agency to protect property rights and then invest that agency with the power to violate property rights at will.
4. When collective defense is paid for by the initiation of the use of force, there is no rational ceiling to costs, and no incentive for efficiency – thus ensuring that costs will escalate to the point where they become unsustainable, causing a collapse of the economic system and leaving the country vulnerable.

What about education?

The question of education follows the same pattern as the question of collective defense outlined above. However, there are certain additional pieces of information that can strengthen the case for a free market in education.

First of all, it is important understand that State education was not imposed because children were not being educated. Prior to the institution of government-run education, the functional literacy rate of the average American was over 90% – far better than it is now, after hundreds of billions of dollars have been spent “educating” children. Before the government forcefully took over the schools, there was almost no violence in schools, there were no school shootings, no violent gangs, no assaults on teachers – and it did not take more than two decades and hundreds of thousands of dollars to produce a reasonably-educated adult. Most of the intellectual giants of the 18^th and 19^th centuries – the Founding Fathers included – did not even finish high school, let alone go to college.

Government education in America was instituted as a means of cultural control, due to rising tribal fears about the growing number of non-Protestants in society – the “immigrant issue” of the time.

There are a number of core reasons that government education cripples children’s minds; for the sake of brevity, we will deal with only one here.

It is reasonable to assume that the majority of parents want to give their children a good education – and this education must necessarily include the teaching of values, or the relationship between personal ethics and real-world choices. In any multicultural society, however, a common curriculum cannot include any fundamental values, for fear of offending various groups. Thus values must be stripped from education, turning its focus to rote memorization, bland technical skills (geometry, sports, wood shop), and neutral and propagandistic views of society and politics (“Democracy is good!” “Respect multiculturalism!” “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle!”). This effectively kills the energetic curiosity of the young, turns school into a mind-numbing series of empty exercises, creates frustration among those needing stimulation, and engenders deep disrespect for the educational system – and its teachers – who remain institutionally indifferent to the welfare of the students. Combine this hostility and frustration with the easy money available through drug sales – and the possibility of surviving on welfare – and entire generations of youths become mentally crippled. The costs of this are beyond calculation, since the damage goes far beyond economics.

Yes, but how will poor children get an education if it is not paid for through taxes?

This reminds me of the old Soviet cartoon – two old women are standing in an endless line-up to buy bread. One says to the other: “What a terribly long line!” The other replies: “Yes, but just imagine – in the capitalist countries, the government doesn’t even distribute the bread!”

Whenever I argue for a stateless society, I say: “The government should not provide ‘X’.” The response always comes back: “But how will ‘X’ then be provided?”

As mentioned above, the answer is simple: “Since everybody is concerned that ‘X’ will not be provided, ‘X’ will naturally be provided by those who are concerned by its absence.” In other words, since everyone is concerned that poor children might not get an education because it costs too much, those children will be provided an education as a direct result of everyone’s concern.

Look, either you will help poor children get an education, through charity or volunteering, or you will not. If you will help poor children get an education, you do not have to worry about the issue. If you will do nothing to help poor children get an education, it is pure hypocrisy to raise it as an issue that you claim to be concerned about.

That having been said, there are a number of ways that a free society can provide education that is far superior to the mess being inflicted on children now.

First of all, poor children are not currently getting any sort of decent education. The perceived risks of a stateless society cannot be rationally compared to a perfect situation in the here-and-now. Those most concerned with the education of the poor should be the ones most clamouring for the abolishment of the existing system. The educational statistics for poor children are absolutely appalling – and this should raise the urgency of finding a solution. It is one thing to say, “You should never cross a road against the lights, even if there is no traffic.” It is quite another thing to say, “You should never cross a road against the lights, even if you are being chased by a lion!” Those who oppose a stateless society always ignore the existence of the lion, thus adding their intellectual inertia to the weight of the status quo.

Secondly, much like the question of collective defense, the cost of education will be far lower in a free society. The $10,000-$15,000 a year currently being spent per-pupil in public schools is ridiculously overinflated. Year-round accelerated education would help the child graduate several years earlier – and with tangible job skills to boot! The resulting increase in earnings would more than pay for the education – and many companies would scramble to offer loans to such children, knowing that they would be paid off soon after graduation. Thus education would be more beneficial – and, since there would be no war on drugs or automatic “welfare” in a free society, fewer self-destructive options would be available.

As for higher education, it is either recreational or vocational. If it is recreational, then it is about as necessary as a hobby, and cannot be considered a necessity. If it is vocational, such as medicine, then additional earnings will more than pay for the costs of the education. Businesses need accountants – thus those businesses will be more than happy to fund the college expenses of talented youngsters in return for a work commitment after graduation. (This is how my father received his doctorate.)

Talented but poor children will be sought after by schools, both for the benevolence they can show by subsidizing them, and also because high-quality graduates raise the prestige of a school, enabling it to increase fees.

In a stateless society, a tiny minority of poor children may slip through the cracks – but that is far better than the current situation, where most poor children slip through the cracks. The fact that some non-smokers will get lung cancer does not mean that we should encourage people to smoke. A stateless society is not a utopia, it is merely a utopia compared to a government society.

Now, we shall really begin to make the case for anarchism by examining the question of whether the government is a valid moral entity.

Disproving the State: Four Arguments Against Government

Two objections constantly tend to recur whenever the subject of dissolving the State arises. The first is that a free society is only possible if people are perfectly good or rational. In other words, citizens need a centralized State because there are evil people in the world.

The first and most obvious problem with this position is that if evil people exist in society, they will also exist within the State – and be far more dangerous thereby. Citizens are able to protect themselves against evil individuals, but stand no chance against an aggressive State armed to the teeth with police and military might. Thus, the argument that we need the State because evil people exist is false. If evil people exist, the State must be dismantled, since evil people will be drawn to use its power for their own ends – and, unlike private thugs, evil people in government have the police and military to inflict their whims on a helpless and largely disarmed population.

Logically, there are four possibilities as to the mixture of good and evil people in the world:

1. That all men are moral;
2. That all men are immoral;
3. That the majority of men are moral, and a minority immoral;
4. That the majority of men are immoral, and a minority moral.

(A perfect balance of good and evil is statistically impossible.)

In the first case, (all men are moral), the State is obviously unnecessary, since evil does not exist.

In the second case, (all men are immoral), the State cannot be permitted to exist for one simple reason. The State, it is generally argued, must exist because there are evil people in the world who desire to inflict harm, and who can only be restrained through fear of State retribution (police, prisons etc). A corollary of this argument is that the less retribution these people fear, the more evil they will do. However, the State itself is not subject to any force, but is a law unto itself. Even in Western democracies, how many policemen and politicians go to jail? Thus if evil people wish to do harm but are only restrained by force, then society can never permit a State to exist, because evil people will immediately take control of that State, in order to do evil and avoid retribution. In a society of pure evil, then, the only hope for stability would be a state of nature, where a general arming and fear of retribution would blunt the evil intents of disparate groups.

The third possibility is that most people are evil, and only a few are good. If this is the case, then the State also cannot be permitted to exist, since the majority of those in control of the State will be evil, and will rule over the good minority. Democracy in particular cannot be permitted to exist, since the minority of good people would be subjugated to the democratic will of the evil majority. Evil people, who wish to do harm without fear of retribution, would inevitably take control of the State, and use its power to do their evil free of that fear. Good people act morally because they love virtue and peace of mind, not because they fear retribution – and thus, unlike evil people, they have little to gain by controlling the State. And so it is certain that the State will be controlled by a majority of evil people who will rule over all, to the detriment of all moral people.

The fourth option is that most people are good, and only a few are evil. This possibility is subject to the same problems outlined above, notably that evil people will always want to gain control over the State, in order to shield themselves from retaliation. This option changes the appearance of democracy, of course: because the majority of people are good, evil power-seekers must lie to them in order to gain power, and then, after achieving public office, will immediately break faith and pursue their own corrupt agendas, enforcing their wills with the police and military. (This is the current situation in democracies, of course.) Thus the State remains the greatest prize to the most evil men, who will quickly gain control over its awesome power – to the detriment of all good souls – and so the State cannot be permitted to exist in this scenario either.

It is clear, then, that there is no situation under which a State can logically or morally be allowed to exist. The only possible justification for the existence of a State would be if the majority of men are evil, but all the power of the State is always controlled by a minority of good men. This situation, while interesting theoretically, breaks down logically because:

1. The evil majority would quickly outvote the minority or overpower them through a coup;
2. Because there is no way to ensure that only good people would always run the State; and,
3. There is absolutely no example of this having ever occurred in any of the dark annals of the brutal history of the State.

The logical error always made in the defense of the State is to imagine that any collective moral judgments being applied to any group of people is not also being applied to the group which rules over them. If 50% of citizens are evil, then at least 50% of the people ruling over them are also evil (and probably more, since evil people are always drawn to power). Thus the existence of evil can never justify the existence of the State. If there is no evil, the State is unnecessary. If evil exists, the State is far too dangerous to be allowed existence.

Why is this error always made? There are a number of reasons, which can only be touched on here. The first is that the State introduces itself to children in the form of public school teachers who are considered moral authorities. Thus is the association of morality and authority with the State first made, and is reinforced through years of repetition. The second is that the State never teaches children about the root of its power – force – but instead pretends that it is just another social institution, like a business or a church or a charity. The third is that the prevalence of religion has always blinded men to the evils of the State – which is why the State has always been so interested in furthering the interests of churches. In the religious world-view, absolute power is synonymous with perfect goodness, in the form of a deity. In the real political world of men, however, increasing power always means increasing evil. With religion, also, all that happens must be for the good – thus, fighting encroaching political power is fighting the will of the deity. There are many more reasons, of course, but these are among the deepest.

I mentioned at the beginning of this section that people generally make two errors when confronted with the idea of dissolving the State. The first is believing that the State is necessary because evil people exist. The second is the belief that, in the absence of a State, any social institutions which arise will inevitably take the place of the State. Thus, Dispute Resolution Organizations (DROs), insurance companies and private security forces are all considered potential cancers which will swell and overwhelm the body politic.

This view arises from the same error outlined above. If all social institutions are constantly trying to grow in power and enforce their wills on others, then by that very argument a centralized State cannot be allowed to exist. If it is an iron law that groups always try to gain power over other groups and individuals, then that power-lust will not end if one of them wins, but will spread across society until slavery is the norm.

It is also very hard to understand the logic and intelligence of the argument that, in order to protect us from a group that might overpower us, we should support a group that has already overpowered us. It is similar to the statist argument about private monopolies – that citizens should create a State monopoly because they are afraid of a private monopoly.

Once we begin to reason away the fogs of propaganda, it does not take keen vision to see through such nonsense.

Anarchy, Violence and the State

Does more government equal less violence?

Another common objection to a stateless society is that violence will inevitably increase in the absence of a centralized State. This is a very interesting objection, and seems to arise from people who have imbibed a large amount of propaganda about the nature and function of the State. It seems hard to imagine that this conclusion could ever be reached by reasoning from first principles, as we will see below.

There are several circumstances under which the use of violence will either increase, or decrease – and they tend to correspond with the basic principles of economics. For instance, people tend to respond to incentives, and tend to be drawn to circumstances under which they can gain the most resources by expending the least effort. Thus in the lottery system, people respond to the incentive of the million dollar payout by expending minimal resources in the purchase of a ticket.

There are several circumstances under which violence will tend to increase, rather than decrease – and interestingly enough, a centralized State creates and exacerbates all such circumstances.

Principle 1: Risk

Economically speaking, risk is the great balancer of reward. If a horse is less likely to win a race, the gambling payout must be higher in order to induce people to bet on it. By their very nature, speculative investments must potentially produce greater rewards than blue-chip stocks. Similarly, white-collar criminals generally face less physical risk than muggers. A stick-up man may inadvertently run up against a judo expert, and find the tables turned very quickly – while a hacker siphoning off funds electronically faces no such risk. In general, those interested in stealing property will always gravitate toward situations where the risks of retaliation are lower.

If force or the threat thereof is required for the theft – as in the case of taxes – one of the greatest ways of reducing the possibilities of retaliation is through the principle of overwhelming force. If five enormous muggers circle a 98 pound man and demand his wallet, the possibilities of retaliation are far lower than if the 98 pound man approaches five enormous men and demands that they surrender their wallets.

Clearly, the existence of a centralized State creates such an enormous disparity of power that resistance against government predations is, in all practicality, impossible. A man can either stand up to or move away from the Mafia, but can do almost nothing to oppose expansions of State power.

Thus, we can see that the existence of a centralized State creates the following problems with regards to violence:

1. The use of violence tends to increase when the risks of using that violence decrease;
2. The risks of initiating violence tend to decrease as the disparity of power increases;
3. There is no greater disparity of power than that between a citizen and his government;
4. Therefore there is no better way to increase the use of violence than to create a centralized political state.

Principle 2: Proximity

Using violence is a brutal and horrible task for most people. Most people are not physically or mentally equipped to use violence, either due to a lack of physical strength, a lack of martial knowledge, or an absence of sociopathic tendencies. However, the government has enormous, relatively efficient and well-distributed systems in place to initiate the use of force against largely disarmed citizens. Thus, those who wish to gain the fruits of violence can do so by tapping into the government’s network of enforcers, without ever having to directly witness or deploy violence themselves.

It can generally be said that the use of violence tends to increase as the visibility and proximity of violence decreases. In other words, if you can get other people to do your dirty work, more dirty work will tend to get done. If everyone who wished to gain the fruits of State violence had to hold their own guns to everyone’s heads, almost all of them would end up refraining from such direct and dangerous brutality.

Thus in the realm of proximity as well, the existence of a centralized State tends to both distance and hide the reality of violence from those who wish to pluck the fruits of violence – thus ensuring that the use of violence will tend to increase.

Principle 3: Externalization of Costs

In a stateless society, it is impossible to “outsource” violence to the police or the military, since they are not funded through collective coercion. When there is a government, however, those who wish to gain the fruits of violence – i.e. tax revenues, the regulation of competitors, the blocking of imports and so on – can lobby the government to enforce such beneficial restrictions on the free trade and choices of others. They will have to pay for this lobbying effort, but they will not have to directly fund the police and the military and the court system and the prison guards in order to force people to obey their whims. This “externalization of costs” is an essential ingredient in the expansion of the use of violence.

For instance, imagine you are a steel manufacturer who wants to block the imports of steel from other countries – how expensive would it be to build your own navy, your own radar system, your own Coast Guard, hire your own inspectors and so on? How would you convince all the shippers and dock owners and transporters to inspect every container on your behalf? Would you pay them? Would you threaten them? And even if you found it economically advantageous to do all that, could you guarantee that none of your competitors would do the same? Would it still be economically advantageous if you ended up getting into an arms race with all of your fellow manufacturers? And what if your customers found out that you were using your own private militia to block the imports of steel – might they not take offense at your use of violence and boycott you? No, in the absence of a centralized State that you can offload all the enforcement costs to, it is going to be far cheaper for you to compete openly than develop your own private, overwhelming and universal army.

Thus, in any situation where the costs of using violence can be externalized to some centralized agency, the use of that violence will always tend to increase. Offloading the costs of violence to taxpayers will always make violence profitable to specific agencies – whether private or public. And so, once again, we can see that the existence of the State will always tend to increase the use of violence.

Principle 4: Deferment

How much do you think you would spend if you knew that you would be long-dead when the bill came due? This is, of course, the basic principle of deficit financing – the deferment of payments to the next generation – which is perhaps the most insidious form of taxation. Forcibly transferring property from those who have not even been born yet is perhaps the greatest “externalization” of costs that can be imagined! Naturally, the risks of retaliation from the unborn are utterly nonexistent – and neither is any direct violence performed against them. Thus the principle of “deferment” is perhaps one of the greatest ways in which the existence of a centralized State increases the use of violence.

Principle 5: Propaganda

It is well known in totalitarian regimes that in order to get people to accept the use of violence, that violence must always be reframed in a noble light. Government violence can never be referred to as merely the use of brute force for the material gain of politicians and bureaucrats – it must always represent the manifestation of core social or cultural values, such as caring for the poor, the sick, the old, or the indigent. The violence must always be tucked away from direct view, and the effects of violence elevated to sentimental heights of soaring rhetoric. Furthermore, the effects of the withdrawal of violence must always be portrayed as catastrophic and evil. Thus the elimination of the welfare state would cause mass starvation; the elimination of medical subsidies would cause mass death; the elimination of the war on drugs would cause massive addictions and social collapse – and the elimination of the State itself would directly create a post-apocalyptic cyberpunk nightmare world of brutal and endlessly warring gangs.

Propaganda is different from advertising in that all that advertising can ever do is get you to try a product for the first time – if the quality of the product does not meet your needs or expectations, then you will simply never buy that product again. Propaganda, on the other hand, is quite different. Advertising appeals to choice and self-interest; propaganda uses rhetoric to morally justify the absence of choice and self-interest. Advertising can only stimulate a one-time demand; propaganda permanently suppresses rationality. Advertising generally uses the argument from effect (you will be better off); propaganda always uses the argument from morality (you are evil for doubting).

The private funding of propaganda is never economically viable, since the amount of time and energy required to instill propaganda in the mind of the average person is far too great to justify its cost. In a voluntary system like the free market, paying for year after year of propaganda (which can only result in a “first time” purchase of a good or service) is never worth it. Propaganda is only “worth it” when it can be used to keep people passive within a coercive system like State taxation or regulation. For instance, here in Canada, socialized medicine is always called a “core Canadian value,” and can be subject to no rational, moral or economic analysis. (Of course, if it really were a “core Canadian value,” we would scarcely need the State to enforce it!) Because the existing system is so terrible, it takes years of State propaganda – primarily directed at children – to overcome people’s actual experiences of the endless disasters of socialized medicine. Propaganda is always required where people would never voluntarily choose the situation that the propaganda is praising. Thus we need endless propaganda extolling the virtues of the welfare state, the war on drugs and socialized medicine, while the virtues of eating chocolate cake are left for us to discover and maintain on our own.

Government propaganda is primarily aimed at children through State schools, and usually takes the form of an absence of topics. The coercive nature of the State is never mentioned, of course, and neither are the financial benefits which accrue to those who control the State. Children do hear endlessly about how the State protects the environment, feeds the poor and heals the sick. This propaganda blinds people to the true nature of State violence – thus ensuring that State violence can increase with relatively little or no opposition.

Parents are forced to pay for the propaganda of public schools through taxation. Thus a ghastly situation is created wherein the taxpayers are forced to pay for their own indoctrination – and the indoctrination of their children. This “externalization of cost” is perhaps the greatest tool that the government uses to ensure that increasing State violence will be subject to little or no opposition or rational analysis. No corporation or private agency could possibly profit from a 14-year program of indoctrinating children – the State, however, by inflicting the costs of indoctrination onto parents, creates a situation where the slaves are forced to pay for their own manacles. And as we all know, when slaves don’t resist, owning slaves becomes economically far more viable.

For the above reasons, it is clear that the existence of a centralized State vastly increases both the profits and the prevalence of violence. The fact that the violence is masked by obedience in no way diminishes the brutality of coercion. All moralists interested in one of the greatest topics of ethics – the reduction or elimination of violence – would do well to understand the depth and degree to which the existence of a centralized State promotes, exacerbates – and profits from – violence. Private violence is a negative but manageable situation – however, as we can see from countless examples throughout history, public violence always escalates until civil society becomes seriously threatened. Because the State so directly profits from violence, eliminating the State can in no way increase the use of violence within society. Quite the contrary – since private agencies do not profit from violence, eliminating the State will, to a degree unprecedented in human history, eliminate violence as well.

War, Profit and the State

It has often been said that war is the health of the State – but the argument could also be made that the reverse is more true: that the State is the health of war. In other words, that war – the greatest of all human evils – is impossible without the State.

The great Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises was once asked what the central defining characteristic of the free market was – i.e. since every economy is more or less a mixture of freedom and State compulsion, what institution truly separated a free market from a controlled economy – and he replied that it was the existence of a stock market. Through a stock market, entrepreneurs can achieve the externalization of risk, or the partial transfer of potential losses from themselves to investors. In the absence of this capacity, business growth is almost impossible.

In other words, when risk is reduced, demand increases. The stagnation of economies in the absence of a stock market is testament to the unwillingness of individuals to take on all the risks of an economic endeavour themselves, even if this were possible. When risk becomes sharable, new possibilities emerge that were not present before – the Industrial Revolution being perhaps the most dramatic example.

Sadly, one of those possibilities – in all its horror, corruption, brutality and genocide – is war. In this section, I will endeavour to show that, in its capacity to reduce the costs and risks of violence, the State is, in effect, the stock market of war.

All economists know the “fallacy of the broken window,” which is that the stimulation of demand caused by a vandal breaking a window does not add to economic growth, but rather subtracts from it, since the money spent replacing the window is deducted from other possible purchases. This is self-evident to all of us – we don’t try to increase our incomes by driving our cars off cliffs or burning down our houses. Although it might please car manufacturers and home builders, it neither pleases us, nor the people who would have had access to the new car and house if we did not need them for ourselves. Destruction always diverts resources and so bids up prices, which costs everyone.

(In fact, breaking a $100 window removes more than $100 from the economy, since all the time spent returning the window to its original state – calling the window repairman, deciding on the replacement, cleaning up the shards of glass, etc – is also subtracted from the economy as a whole.)

There will always be accidents, of course, and so repairs are a legitimate aspect of any free market. However, war can never be said to be an accident, is never part of the free market, and yet is commonly believed to be good for the economy – and must be, for at least some people, since it is pursued so often. How can these opposites be reconciled? How can destruction be economically advantageous, when it is so obviously bad for the economy as a whole?

We can imagine an unethical window repairman who smashes windows in order to raise demand for his business. This would certainly help his income – and yet we see that this course is almost never pursued in real life in the free market. Why not?

One obvious answer could be that business managers are afraid of going to jail – and that certainly is a risk, but not a very great one. Arsonists are notoriously hard to catch, for instance, and there are so many hard-to-trace sabotages that can be undertaken. Poison can be added to the water supply that would incriminate a water supplier, which would take months to resolve – at which point the trail would be long cold. Foreign hackers could be paid to infiltrate competitor’s networks, or mount denial-of-service attacks on their web sites – sure doom for those who sell over the Internet.

Not convinced? Well, what about eBay? If you have a competitor who is taking away your business, why not just get a hundred of your closest friends to give him a bad rating, and watch his reputation – and business – dry up and blow away?

All of the above practices are very rare in the free market, for three main reasons. The first is that they are costly; the second is that they increase risks, and the third is the fear of retaliation.

The Cost of Destruction

If you want to hire an arsonist to torch the factory of your competitor, you have to become an expert in underworld negotiations. You might pay an arsonist and watch him take off to Hawaii instead of setting the fire. You also face the risk that your arsonist will take your offer to your competitor and ask for more money to not set the fire – or, worse, return the favor and torch your factory! It will certainly cost money to start down the road of vandalism, and there is no guarantee that your investment will pay off in the way you want.

There are other tertiary costs to pursuing a path of “competition by destruction.” You can only target one competitor at a time, which is only partially helpful, since most businesses face many competitors simultaneously – some local, and some overseas and probably out of reach. Even if you are successful in destroying your competitor, you have opened a “hole” in the market, which will just invite others to come in – and perhaps compete even more fiercely with you. When it comes to competition, in most cases it is better to stay with “the devil you know.” It wouldn’t make much sense to knock out a small software competitor, for instance, and end up giving Microsoft a good reason to enter the market.

Also, if you are a business owner, competition is very good for you. Just as a sports team gets lazy and unskilled if it never plays a competent opponent, businesses without competition get unproductive, lazy and inefficient – a sure invitation to others to come in and compete. Successful businesses need competition to stay fit. Resistance breeds strength.

Also, what happens if you do manage to successfully sabotage your opponents? If you do it well, no one has any idea that you are behind the sudden spate of arson. What happens to your insurance costs? They go through the roof – if you can even get any! Furthermore, you will not be able to meet all the new demand right away, thus ensuring that clients will find alternatives, which will likely remain outside your control. Thus you have increased your costs, created incentives for potential customers to find alternatives and alarmed your employees – creating a dangerous situation where competitors are highly motivated to enter your field just when you are the most vulnerable to competition! Overall, not a very bright idea!

The Risks of Destruction

Let us say you decide to pay a man named Stan to torch your competitor’s factory – well, the basic reality of the transaction is that Stan, as a professional arsonist, knows how to work the situation to his advantage far better than you do, since you are, ahem, new to the field. Stan knows that no matter what he does, you cannot go to the police for protection. What if he tapes your conversations and then blackmails you? Then your exercise in amoral competition suddenly becomes a lifelong nightmare of expense, guilt, fear and rage.

As mentioned above, what if Stan decides to go to your competitor and reveal your plans? Surely your competitor would pay good money for that information, since he could then go to the police and destroy you legally even more completely than you were hoping to destroy him illegally. A basic fact of criminal activity is that once the gloves come off, the results become very hard to predict indeed!

What if Stan goes to your competitor and says: “For $25,000, I was supposed to torch this place – for $30,000 I can just turn around and set quite a different fire!” This pendulum bidding war can turn into a desperately stressful money-loser for everyone concerned (except Stan, of course).

And who is to say that Stan is even a “legitimate” arsonist? What if he is an undercover agent of some kind? What if he has been sent by someone else in order to get some dirt on you? What if it turns out to be blackmail, or a set-up by your competitor? How would you know? Again – it is all very risky!

The Risks of Personal Retaliation

Let us say that all of the above works out just the way you want it and Stan actually torches your competitor Bill’s factory – what might happen then? You have just created a bitter enemy who suspects foul play, knows that you have a good motive for torching his factory, and has nothing to lose. He might complain about you to the police, hire private investigators and put an ad in every local paper offering a cash reward of a million dollars for information leading to proof of your participation – so he can sue you and recover far more than a million dollars!

Either your new enemy will find out actionable information, and then go to the police, or he will find out unactionable information – hints, not proof – in which case he may choose to retaliate against you. Since you’ve been able to do it in a way that cannot be proven – and he now knows how – you have just educated a bitter and angry man on how to torch a factory and escape detection. Are you going to sleep safe in your bed? Are you sure that he’s going to target only your factory?

What does all this look like in terms of economic calculation? Have a look at a sample table below showing the costs and benefits of competition through arson. If we assign arson a cost of $50k, with a 50% probability of success, and a resulting economic benefit of $1m, we see a net benefit of $450k (50% of $1m – $50k in costs). So far so good. But if we include a 10% risk of blackmail, a 20% chance of retaliation, a 25% chance of increased competition – all reasonable numbers – and finally $100k in increased insurance and security costs – we can see that the economic benefits are erased very quickly (see below).

Action	Cost	Probability	Economic Effect	Net Benefits (benefit / risk – cost)
Arson	-$50k	50%	$1 mill	$450k
Blackmail	-$250k	10%	-$250k	-$25k
Retaliation	-$1 mill	20%	-$1 mill	-$200k
Increased Competition	-$500k	25%	-$500k	-$125k
Increased Costs  (insurance, security)	-$100k	100%	-$100k	-$100k
			Net Effect	$0

(Note that the above table only shows the economic calculations – these do not include the emotional factors of guilt, fear and worry, which are of great significance but hard to quantify. This is important because even if the above numbers were less disagreeable, the emotional barrier would still have to be overcome.)

As the above conservative example shows, it is not really worth it to attempt economic gain through the destruction of property – and that is exactly how it should be. We want people to be good, of course, but we also want strong economic incentives for virtue as well, to shore up the uncertain integrity of free will!

How does this relate to war and the State? Very closely, in fact – but with very opposite effects.

The Economics of War

The economics of war are, at bottom, very simple, and contain three major players: those who decide on war, those who profit from war, and those who pay for war. Those who decide on war are the politicians, those who profit from it are those who supply military materials or are paid for military skills, and those who pay for war are the taxpayers. (The first and second groups, of course, overlap.)

In other words, a corporation which profits from supplying arms to the military is paid through a predation on citizens through State taxation – and under no other circumstances could the transaction exist, since the risks associated with destruction outlined above are equal to or greater than any profits that could be made.

Certainly if those who decided on war also paid for it, there would be no such thing as war, since war follows the same economic incentives and costs outlined above.

However, those who decide on war do not pay for it – that unpleasant task is relegated to the taxpayers (both current, in the form of direct taxes and inflation, and future, in the form of national debts).

Let us see how the above analysis of the costs of destruction changes when the State enters the equation.

The Costs of Military Destruction

If you want to start a war, you need a very expensive military – which must also be trained and maintained when there is no war. There is simply no way to recover the costs of that military by invading another country – otherwise, the free market would directly fund armies and invasions, which it never does. Or, if you would prefer another way of looking at it, you can only invade another country by destroying large portions of it, killing many of its citizens, and then fighting endless insurgencies. Given the costs of invasions and occupations – always in the hundreds of millions or billions of dollars – what profits could conceivably be extracted from the bombed-out country you are occupying? That would be like asking a thief to make money by fire-bombing a house he wanted to steal from, and then staying and keeping the occupants hostage. Madness! Thieves don’t operate that way – and neither would war, without the presence of the State and the money of the taxpayers.

Since the taxpayer’s money pays for the war, the costs of destruction for those who start the war are very low – how much does George Bush personally pay for the Iraq invasion? While it is true that those who profit from the war also pay the taxes needed to support the war effort, the amount they pay in taxes is far less than they receive in profits – again, facts we know because there are always people willing and eager to supply the military.

The Risks of Annihilation

Those who decide on war and those who profit from war only start wars when there is no real risk of personal destruction. This is a simple historical fact, which can be gleaned from the reality that no nuclear power has ever declared war on another nuclear power. The US gave the USSR money and wheat, and yet invaded Grenada, Haiti and Iraq. (In fact, one of the central reasons it was possible to know in advance that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction capable of hitting the US was that US leaders were willing to invade it.)

Avoiding the risk of destruction was the reason that the USSR and the US (to take two obvious examples) fought “proxy wars” in out-of-the-way places like Afghanistan, Vietnam and Korea. As we shall see below, the fact that the risk of destruction is shifted to taxpayers (and taxpayer-funded soldiers) considerably changes the economic equation.

The Risks of Military Retaliation

The “risk of retaliation” in economic calculations regarding war should not be taken as a general risk, but rather a specific one – i.e. specific to those who either decide on war or profit from it. For example, Roosevelt knew that blockading Japan in the early 1940s carried a grave risk of retaliation – but only against distant and unknown US personnel in the Pacific, not against his friends and family in Washington. (In fact, the blockading was specifically escalated with the aim of provoking retaliation, in order to bring the US into WWII.)

If other people are exposed to the risk of retaliation, the risk becomes a moot point from an amoral economic standpoint. If I smoke, but some unknown stranger might get lung cancer, my decision to continue smoking will certainly be affected!

Externalizing Military Risk

The power of the State to so fundamentally shift the costs and benefits of violence is one of the most central facts of warfare – and the core reason for its continued existence. As we can see from the above table regarding arson, if the person who decides to profit through destruction faces the consequences himself, he has almost no economic incentive to do so. However, if he can shift the risks and losses to others – but retain the benefit himself – the economic landscape changes completely! Sadly, it then it becomes profitable, say, to tax citizens to pay for 800 US military bases around the world, as long as strangers in New York bear the brunt of the inevitable retaliation. It also becomes profitable to send uneducated youngsters to Iraq to bear the brunt of the insurgency.

Externalizing Emotional Discomfort

The fact that the State shifts the burden of risk and payment to the taxpayers and soldiers is very important in emotional terms. If the “arson” example could be tweaked to provide a profit – say, by reducing the risks of blackmail or retaliation – the other risks would still accrue to the man contemplating such violence. Such risks would cause emotional discomfort in all but the most rare and sociopathic personalities – and the generation of negative stimuli such as fear, guilt and worry would still require more profit than the model can reasonably generate.

Thus the fact that the State externalizes almost all the risks and costs of destruction is a further positive motivation to those who would use the power of State violence for their own ends. Once you throw in endless pro-war propaganda (also called “war-nography”), the emotional benefits of starting and leading wars funded by others can become a definitive positive – which ensures that wars will continue until the State collapses, or the world dies.

In Other Words, The State Is War

If the above is understood, then the hostility of anarchists towards the State should now be at least a little clearer. In the anarchist view, the State is a fundamental moral evil not only because it uses violence to achieve its ends, but also because it is the only social agency capable of making war economically advantageous to those with the power to declare it and profit from it. In other words, it is only through the governmental power of taxation that war can be subsidized to the point where it becomes profitable to certain sections of society. Destruction can only ever be profitable because the costs and risks of violence are shifted to the taxpayers, while the benefits accrue to the few who directly control or influence the State.

This violent distortion of costs, incentives and rewards cannot be controlled or alleviated, since an artificial imbalance of economic incentives will always self-perpetuate and escalate (at least, until the inevitable bankruptcy of the public purse). Or, to put it another way, as long as the State exists, we shall always live with the terror of war. To oppose war is to oppose the State. They can neither be examined in isolation nor opposed separately, since – much more than metaphorically – the State and war are two sides of the same bloody coin.

A Successful Operation (a dead patient!)

Most libertarians have, at one time or another, been challenged by the problem of public property, or how the market can best protect and allocate goods “owned” in common such as fish in the sea, roads, airwaves and so on. An old economics parable sums up the problem nicely – let’s briefly review it before taking a strong swing at solving the problem of public property.

The issue is well described by a parable called the problem of the commons (POTC), which goes something like this: a group of sheep-owning farmers own land in a ring around a common area. They each benefit individually from letting their sheep graze on the common land, since that frees up some of their own farmland for other uses. However, if they all let their sheep graze on the commons, they all suffer, since the land will be stripped bare, and so they will end up watching their sheep starve, since their own land has all been turned to other uses. In many circles, this is considered an incontrovertible coup de grace for the absolute right of private property – and the free market in general – insofar as it “proves” that individual self-interest, rationally pursued, can result in economic catastrophe. Due to the POTC, it is argued, the property rights of the individual must be curtailed for the sake of the “greater good.” Thus regulation and government ownership must be instituted to control the excesses of individual self-interest for the sake of long-term stability, blah blah blah.

There is one significant difficulty with the POTC, however, which is that it fails to prove that government regulation or public ownership is necessary, or that turning the POTC over to the State solves the problem in any way. In fact, it is easy to prove that even if the POTC is a real dilemma, the worst possible way of solving it is to create government regulations or public ownership.

Problem #1: Public Ownership

The simplest rebuttal to the POTC, of course, is to point out that the problem faced by the farmers is not an excess of private property, but a deficiency. If we imagine the farms surrounding the commons to be doughnut-shaped, then clearly the POTC is best solved by simply extending the ownership of the farms to the very center, like pizza slices (yes, these metaphors are making me hungry as well!). If private property is thus extended to include the commons, farmers no longer face the problem of everyone wanting to exploit un-owned resources. Everyone can then use their extra land to feed their sheep, and everyone is content. (Alternatively, a woman can come along, buy up the commons and start charging grazing fees. To ensure the longevity of her resource, she will naturally take care to avoid overgrazing.)

However, let us accept that under some circumstances the POTC is real, and cannot be overcome through the extension of private property rights. What solutions can then be brought to bear on the problem?

Solutions to social problems always fall into one of two categories: voluntary or coercive. Voluntary solutions to the POTC abound throughout history – the most notable being the kinds of social arrangements made by fishermen. When a number of fishing communities dot a lake, villagers develop complex and effective measures to ensure that the lake is not over-fished. Any display of wealth is frowned upon, since it is clear that wealth can only come from over-fishing. Communal leaders meet to figure out how much each village can catch – and it is very hard to hide your catch in a small village. Furthermore, the problem of not knowing exactly how much fish is being taken by others – as well as natural annual variations in fish stocks – lead to significant underestimation of allowable catches, which ensures that sustainability is always achieved. Left-leaning economists might be baffled by the POTC, but there is scant recorded historical evidence of illiterates in fishing villages regularly starving to death due to over-fishing (unless their village leaders were left-leaning economists perhaps).

The POTC is yet another manifestation of that old bugbear: the blind insistence that man is a being whose sole motivation is immediate financial considerations. (Economists who believe this and who also have children are most baffling in this regard!) “Ahhh,” says the miserly farmer of this ‘instant gratification’ fairy tale, “I will graze my sheep by night and callously denude the commons, so I can grow a dozen extra turnips!” But what good will his extra turnips do him if no one in the village will talk to him, or when no one will help him build a barn, or when he gets sick and needs people to care for his sheep? No, even miserly farmers are far better obeying the rules and forgetting about their extra turnips – since they will lose far more than they gain by circumventing social norms. Communities have weapons of ostracism and contempt that far outweigh immediate economic calculations.

(Has this changed in the Internet age? Surely we are far less constrained by social norms than we used to be! Not at all – now, with tools ranging from credit reports, web searches and easy access to prior employers, conformity to basic decency is more important than ever.)

Problem #2: The State as a ‘Common’

However, let us assume that none of the above rebuttals to the POTC holds firm, and in certain circumstances there is simply no way to extend property rights to, or exercise social control over, resources which cannot be owned – what then? Do we turn such a thorny and complex problem to the tender mercies of the State to solve?

One of the most interesting aspects of using the State to solve the POTC is that the State itself is subject to the problem of the commons.

Since the State is an entity wherein property is owned in “common,” the problem of selfish exploitation leading to general destruction applies as surely to State “property” as it does to the common land ringed by greedy and short-sighted farmers. Just as farmers can destroy the commons while pursuing their individual self-interest, so can politicians, bureaucrats, lobbyists and other assorted State toadies and courtiers destroy the economy as a whole in pursuit of their own selfish economic and political goals.

The POTC argues that, due to “common ownership,” long-term prosperity is sacrificed for the sake of short-term advantage. Because no one defends and maintains property that can be utilized by all, that property is pillaged into oblivion. And – the State is supposed to solve this problem? How? That is exactly how the State operates!

Let’s look at some examples of how the State pillages the future for the sake of greed in the here-and-now:

• deficit financing;
• inflationary monetary expansion;
• government bonds, which future generations must pay out;
• spending the money taken in through social security, which future generations must pay for;
• offensive “defense” spending, which future citizens will pay for through increased risk of domestic attacks;
• massive educational failures, which have immensely deleterious effects on future productivity and happiness;
• the granting of special powers, rights and benefits to lobbyists such as unions, public sector employees and large corporations, which results in higher prices and deficits (the cost to the US economy for union laws alone is calculated at $50 trillion dollars over the past 50 years);
• the failure to adequately maintain public infrastructure such as roads, schools, bridges, the water supply and so on, which passes enormous liabilities onto the next generation;
• massive spending on the war on drugs, which increases crime in the future;
• the pollution of public lands and other fixed assets, which saves money in the short run while ruining value in the long run;
• …and goodness knows how much more!

From the above examples, it is easy to see that the POTC applies to the State to a far greater degree than any other social agency or individual. If we recall our group of greedy farmers, we can easily see that they have a strong incentive to avoid or solve the POTC, since it is they themselves who will suffer from the despoiling of un-owned lands. However, in the case of the State, those who prey upon and despoil the public purse will never themselves face the direct consequences of their pillaging. Thus their incentive to prevent, solve or even alleviate the problem is virtually non-existent.

Furthermore, even if the farmers do end up destroying the un-owned lands, they can at least get together and voluntarily work to find a better solution in the future. Once the government takes over a problem, however, control passes almost completely from the private sphere to the public sphere of enforcement, corruption and politics. Once firmly planted in the realm of the State, not only is the problem of public ownership made incalculably worse, but it cannot ever be resolved, since the predation of the public purse is now defended by all the armed might of the State military. Consequences evaporate, competition is eliminated, and a mad free-for-all grab-fest simply escalates until the public purse is drained dry and the State collapses. (This is what happened in the Soviet Union; in the 1980s, as it became clear that communism was unsustainable, Kremlin insiders simply pillaged the public treasury until the State went bankrupt.)

Thus the idea of turning to the State to solve the POTC is akin to the old medical joke about the operation being a complete success, with the minor exception that the patient died. If the POTC is a significant issue in the private sector, then turning it over to the government makes it staggeringly worse – turning it from a mildly challenging problem of economics into a suicidal expansion of State power and violence. If the problem of the commons is not a significant issue, then surely we do not need the State to solve it at all.

Either way, there is no compelling evidence or argument to be made for the value, morality or efficacy of turning problems of public ownership over to the armed might of the State. Both logically and ethically, it is the equivalent of treating a mild headache with a guillotine.

If the State is an evil, corrupt and destructive solution to the problems of social organization, what alternatives can anarchism offer?

Dispute Resolution Organizations

An essential aspect of economic life is the ability to enforce contracts and resolve intractable disputes. How can a stateless society provide these functions in the absence of a government?

The first thing to understand about contracts is that they are a form of insurance, insofar as they attempt to minimize the risks of noncompliance. If I enter into a five-year mortgage agreement with a bank, I will attempt to minimize my risks by requiring that the bank give me a fixed interest rate for the time period of the contract. My bank, on the other hand, will minimize its risk by retaining ownership of my house as collateral, in case I do not pay the mortgage.

In a world without risk, contracts would be unnecessary, and everyone would do business on a handshake. However, there are people who are dishonest, scatterbrained, manipulative and false, and so we need contracts which basically spell out the penalties for noncompliance to particular requirements.

In modern statist societies, contracts are generally enforced not through the court system, but rather through the threat of the court system. I was in business for many years, at an executive level, and I never once heard of a contract being successfully enforced through the state court system, although I did on occasion hear litigious threats – which is quite different. The threat was not so much, “I am going to use the court to enforce this contract,” but rather, “I am going to use the threat of taking you to court in order to enforce this contract.” The prospect of expensive and time-consuming legal action was always enough to force a resolution of some kind. No actual court compulsion was ever required.

It is quite easy to see that when a process that is designed to mediate disputes becomes itself a threat which causes disputes to be mediated privately, it has largely failed in its intent. State court systems have become like the quasi-private car insurance companies – the threats and inconvenience of using them has caused most people to settle their disputes privately, rather than involve themselves in something that they are forced to pay for, but can almost never use.

This bodes very well for anarchic solutions to contract disputes.

In a stateless society, entrepreneurs will be very willing and eager to provide creative solutions to the problems of contractual noncompliance. As a nonviolent solution, the profits will be maximized if noncompliance can be prevented, rather than merely addressed after the fact.

To take a simple example, let us pretend that you are a loans officer at a bank, and I come in requesting $10,000. Naturally, you will be very happy to lend me the money if I will pay back both the principal and interest on time, since that is how you make your profit. However, such a guarantee is completely impossible, since even if I have the money and the intent to pay you back, I could get hit by a bus while on my way to do so, leaving you perhaps $10,000 in the hole.

What questions will you need to answer in order to assess the risk? You will want to know two things in particular:

1. Have I consistently paid back loans in the past?
2. Do I have any collateral for the loan?

These two pieces of information are somewhat related. If I have consistently paid back loans in the past, then your need for collateral will be diminished. The more collateral that I am able to provide for the loan, the less it is necessary for me to have a good credit history.

The reason that a good credit history is so necessary is not just to establish my credit worthiness, but also to help the bank assess how much I have currently invested into my good reputation. If I have taken out loans for hundreds of thousands of dollars in the past, and repaid them on time, then it scarcely seems likely that I would have gone through all of that just to steal $10,000.

If we say that my good credit rating saves me two percentage points on my interest payments, and that I will need a further $500,000 of loans over the course of my life, then my good credit rating will be saving me at a bare minimum tens of thousands of dollars. Thus, I would end up losing money if I took out a $10,000 loan and did not pay it back, since the cash benefit would not cover the losses I would incur through the destruction of my credit rating. Physical “collateral” is thus less required, since I have the very real “collateral” of a good credit rating.

These kinds of economic calculations occur regularly in a statist society, and would not vanish like the morning mist in a stateless society.

However, there are certain kinds of loans that some financial institutions would be willing to make, despite the high level of risk involved. Young people just starting out – who have no family to provide collateral – would be in a higher risk category, as would those who had failed to make loan payments in the past. As we can see from late-night television commercials for cars, no credit history – or even a bad credit history – does not make one permanently ineligible for loans.

There are two main ways to manage risk in any complex situation – hedging, and insurance. The “hedging” approach is to bet both for and against a particular outcome. In the world of currency trading, this means betting a certain amount that the dollar will go up, and another amount that the dollar will go down. In the world of horse racing, it means betting on more than one horse. This is also why people diversify their stock portfolios.

The “insurance” approach tends to be used where hedging is impossible. When I was an executive in the software world, my employees would often take out insurance in case I got sick or died. It was relatively impossible to “hedge” this risk, because keeping “backup employees” in a basement is not particularly cost-efficient, let alone moral. Life insurance is another example of this.

These strategies are already well-established in the current quasi-free market. However, in one-to-one contracts, state courts retain their monopoly. If I am an employee, I have a one-to-one contract with my employer; I cannot “hedge” the risks involved in this contract, and currently neither can I buy insurance to mitigate the risk that my employer will go out of business, while still owing me pay and expenses.

In the absence of a government, the need for the rational mitigation of risk in contracts would still be there, and entrepreneurs will inevitably provide creative and intelligent solutions to address this.

Breaking Contract

Let us take a relatively small example of how contract disputes can be resolved in a stateless society.

Let us say that I pay you $15,000 to landscape my garden, but you never show up to do the work. Ideally, I would like my $15,000 back, as well as another few thousand dollars for my inconvenience. In a stateless society, when we first put pen to paper on a contract, we can choose an impartial third party to mediate any dispute. If a conflict should arise that we cannot solve ourselves, we contractually agree in advance to abide by the decision of this Dispute Resolution Organization (DRO).

Since I am not an expert in pursuing people and getting money from them, if I had any doubts about your motives, capacity and honesty, I would simply pay this DRO a fee to recompense me if the deal goes awry. If you run off without doing the work, I simply submit my claim to the DRO, who then pays me $20,000.

When I first apply for this insurance, the DRO will charge me a certain amount of money, based on their evaluation of the risk I am taking by doing business with you. If you have cheated your last ten customers, the DRO will simply not insure the contract, thus implicitly informing me of the risk that I am taking. If you have a spotty record, then the DRO may charge me a few thousand dollars to insure your work – again, giving me a pretty good sense of how reliable you are.

On the other hand, if you have been in business for 30 years, and have never once cheated a customer, or received a complaint, then the DRO is simply insuring against delays caused by sudden madness or unexpected death. It may only charge me $50 for this eventuality.

This form of contract insurance is a very powerful positive incentive for honest dealings in business. The cost of insuring a contract is directly added to the cost of doing business, and so if it can be kept as low as humanly possible, the financial benefits to both parties are clear.

The cost of insuring a contract can be kept even lower if you are willing to provide collateral upfront. What this means is that if you cheat me out of the $15,000, and the DRO has to pay me $20,000, you promise to pay the DRO $25,000. If you cheat me, the DRO can then take this money directly out of your bank account.

In this way, contracts can be enforced without resorting to violence, or lengthy and incredibly expensive court battles. The risks of entering into contracts are clearly communicated up front, and honest people will be directly rewarded through lower enforcement costs, just as non-smokers are directly rewarded through lower life insurance costs.

Non-Payment

Suppose I have contracted with a DRO to pay restitution if I cannot fulfill my business obligations in some way, and end up owing them $100,000. What happens if I cannot pay, or simply refuse to pay?

Currently, the State will use violence against me if I do not pay. While this may be a satisfying form of medieval vengeance gratification, it scarcely helps me cough up $100,000 that the DRO actually wants from me. In a stateless society, what options are available for the DRO to get its money?

In any modern economy, individuals are bound by dozens of obligations and contracts, from apartment leases to gym memberships to credit cards contracts to insurance agreements. The costs of doing business with people who are known to honor their contracts is far lower, which is why it seems highly likely that a stateless society produce both DROs, and Contract Rating Agencies (CRAs).

CRAs would be independent entities that would objectively evaluate an individual’s contract compliance. If I become known as a man who regularly breaks his contracts, it will become more and more difficult for me to efficiently operate in a complex economy. This form of economic ostracism is an immensely powerful – and nonviolent – tool for promoting compliance to social norms and moral rules.

If an individual egregiously violates social norms – and we shall get to the issue of violent crime below – then one incredibly effective option that society has is to simply cease doing any form of business with such an individual.

If I cheat my DRO – or another individual – out of an enormous sum of money, the CRA could simply revoke my contract rating completely.

DROs would very likely have provisions which would simply state that they would not enforce any contract with anyone whose contract rating was revoked. In other words, if I run a hotel, and an “outcast” wants to rent a room, I will be immediately aware of this, since I will enter his credit card, and be promptly informed that no contract will be honored with this individual. In other words, if he sets fire to my hotel, steals or destroys property, or harasses another guest, then my DRO will not help me at all. Will I be likely to want to rent a room to this fellow, or will I tell him that, sadly, the hotel is full?

In the same way, grocery stores, taxicabs, bus companies, electricity providers, banks, restaurants and other such organizations will be very unlikely to want to do business with such an outcast, since they will have no protection if he misbehaves.

Economic interactions, of course, are purely voluntary, and no man can be morally forced to do business with another man. People who cheat and steal and lie will be highly visible in a stateless society, and will find that other people will turn away from them more often than not, unless they change their ways, and provide restitution for their prior wrongs.

An outcast can get his contract rating restored if he is willing to repay those he has wronged. If he gets a job and allows his wages to be garnished until his debts are paid off, his contract rating can be restored, at least to the minimum level required for him to hold a job and rent an apartment. A DRO, which is always interested in preventing recurrence, rather than dealing with consequences, may also reduce his burden if he is willing to attend psychological and credit counseling education.

In this way, contracts can be enforced without resorting to violence – the tool of economic and social ostracism is the most powerful method for dealing with those who repeatedly violate moral and social rules. We do not need to throw people into economically unproductive “debtor’s prisons” or send men with guns to kidnap and incarcerate them – all we need to do is publish their crimes for all to see, and let the natural justice of society take care of the rest.

Ah, but what if an “outcast” has been treated unjustly, and is being blackmailed by a DRO or CRA?

Well, remember that anarchism is always a two-sided negotiation. In order to get people to sign up to your DRO or CRA, what checks and balances would you put in your contracts to calm their fears in this regard?

The Stateless Society: An Examination of Alternatives

Let us turn to a more detailed examination of how private agencies could work in a free society.

Remember, these are only possible ideas about how such agencies could work – I’m sure that you have many of your own, which may be vastly superior to mine. The purpose of this section is not to create some sort of finalized blueprint for a stateless society, but to show how the various incentives and methodologies of freedom can create powerful and productive solutions to complex social problems, in a way that will forever elude a statist society.

We will start with a few articles that I originally published in 2005, which go over my theory of Dispute Resolution Organizations – DROs. More details about this approach are available in my podcast series as well.

If the Twentieth Century proved anything, it is that the single greatest danger to human life is the centralized political State, which murdered more than 200 million souls. Modern States are the last and greatest remaining predators. It is clear that the danger has not abated with the demise of communism and fascism. All Western democracies currently face vast and accelerating escalations of State power and centralized control over economic and civic life. In almost all Western democracies, the State chooses:

• where children go to school, and how they will be educated;
• the interest rate citizens can borrow at;
• the value of currency;
• how employees can be hired and fired;
• how more than 50% of their citizen’s time and money are disposed of;
• who a citizen may choose as a doctor;
• what kinds of medical procedures can be received – and when;
• when to go to war;
• who can live in the country;
• …just to touch on a few.

Most of these amazing intrusions into personal liberty have occurred over the past 90 years, since the introduction of the income tax. They have been accepted by a population helpless to challenge the expansion of State power – and yet, even though most citizens have received endless pro-State propaganda in government schools, a growing rebellion is brewing. The endless and increasing State predations are now so intrusive that they have effectively arrested the forward momentum of society, which now hangs before a fall. Children are poorly educated, young people are unable to get ahead, couples with children fall ever-further into debt, and the elderly are finding their medical systems collapsing under the weight of their growing needs. And none of this takes into account the ever-growing State debts.

These early years of the twenty-first century are thus the end of an era, a collapse of mythology comparable to the fall of communism, monarchy, or political Christianity. The idea that the State is even capable of solving social problems is now viewed with great skepticism – which foretells the imminent end, since as soon as skepticism is applied to the State, the State falls, since it fails at everything except expansion, and so can only survive on propaganda.

Yet while most people are comfortable with the idea of reducing the size and power of the State, they become distinctly uncomfortable with the idea of getting rid of it completely. To use a medical analogy, if the State is a cancer, they prefer medicating it into remission, rather than eliminating it completely.

This can never work. If history has proven anything, it is the simple fact that States always expand until they destroy society. Because the State uses violence to achieve its ends, and there is no rational end to the expansion of violence, States grow until they destroy the host civilization through the corruption of money, contracts, civility and liberty. As such, the cancerous metaphor is not misplaced. People who believe that the State can somehow be contained have not accepted the fact that no State in history has ever been contained.

Even the rare reductions are merely temporary. The United States was founded on the principle of limited government; it took little more than a few decades for the State to break the bonds of the Constitution, implement the income tax, take control the money supply, and begin its catastrophic expansion. There is no example in history of a State being permanently reduced in size. All that happens during a tax or civil revolt is that the State retrenches, figures out what it did wrong, and begins its expansion again – or provokes a war, which silences all but fringe dissenters.

Given these well-known historical facts, why do people continue believe that such a deadly predator can be tamed? Surely it can only be because they consider a slow strangulation in the grip of an expanding State somehow better than the “quick death” of a society bereft of a State.

Why do most people believe that a coercive and monopolistic social agency is required for society to function? There are a number of answers to this question, but they tend to revolve around four central points:

1. Dispute resolution;
2. Collective services;
3. Pollution, and;
4. Crime.

We will tackle the first three in this section, and the last one in the next.

Dispute Resolution

It is quite amazing that people still believe that the State somehow facilitates the resolution of disputes, given the fact that modern courts are out of the reach of all but the most wealthy and patient. In my experience, to take a dispute with a stockbroker to the court system would have cost more than a quarter of a million dollars and from five to ten years – however, a private mediator settled the matter within a few months for very little money. In the realm of marital dissolution, private mediators are commonplace. Unions use grievance processes, and a plethora of specialists in dispute resolution have sprung up to fill in the void left by a ridiculously lengthy, expensive and incompetent State court system.

Thus it cannot be that people actually believe that the State is required for dispute resolution, since the court apparatus is unavailable to the vast majority of the population, who resolve their disputes either privately or through agreed-upon mediators.

Collective Services

Roads, sewage, water and electricity and so on are all cited as reasons why a State must exist. How roads could be privately paid for remains such an impenetrable mystery that most people are willing to support the State – and so ensure the continual undermining of civil society – rather than concede that this problem is solvable. There are many ways to pay for roads, such as electronic or cash tolls, GPS charges, roads maintained by the businesses they lead to, or communal organizations and so on. The problem that a water company might build plumbing to a community, and then charge exorbitant fees for supplying it, is equally easy to counter, as mentioned above. None of these problems touch the central rationale for a State. They are all ex post facto justifications made to avoid the need for critical examination or, heaven forbid, a support of anarchism.

It is completely contradictory to argue that voluntary free-market relations are “bad” – and that the only way to combat them is to impose a compulsory monopoly on the market. If voluntary interactions are bad, how can coercive monopolies be better?

State provision of public services inevitably leads to the following:

• The granting of favorable contracts to political allies;
• Tax-subsidized costs leading to over-use, and intergenerational debt;
• A lack of renewal investment in infrastructure leading to expensive deterioration;
• A growth in coercive pro-union legislation, which spreads inefficiencies to other industries;
• A lack of innovation and exploration of alternatives to existing systems of production and distribution, and;
• A dangerous social dependence on a single provider.

…and many more such inefficiencies, problems and predations.

Due to countless examples of free market solutions to the problem of “carrier costs,” this argument no longer holds the kind of water is used to, so people must turn elsewhere to justify the continued existence of the State.

Pollution

This is perhaps the greatest problem faced by free market theorists. It is worth spending a little time on outlining the worst possible scenario, to see how a voluntary system could solve it. However, it is important to first dispel the notion that the State currently deals effectively with pollution. Firstly, the most polluted land on the planet is State-owned, because States do not profit from retaining the value of their property. Secondly, the distribution of mineral, lumber and drilling rights is directly skewed towards bribery and corruption, because States never sell the land, but rather just the resource rights. A lumber company cannot buy woodlands from the State, just harvesting rights. Thus the State gets a renewable source of income, and can further coerce lumber companies by enforcing re-seeding. This, of course, tends to promote bribery, corruption and the creation of “fly-by-night” lumber companies which strip the land bare, but vanish when it comes time to re-seed. Selling State land to a private company easily solves this problem, because a company that was willing to re-seed would reap the greatest long-term profits from the woodland, and therefore would be able to bid the most for the land.

Also, it should be remembered that, in the realm of air pollution, States created the problem in the first place. In England, when industrial smokestacks first began belching fumes into the orchards of apple farmers, the farmers took the factory-owners to court, citing the common-law tradition of restitution for property damage. Sadly, however, the capitalists had gotten to the State courts first, and had more money to bribe with, employed more voting workers, and contributed more tax revenue than the farmers – and so the farmer’s cases were thrown out of court. The judge argued that the “common good” of the factories trumped the “private need” of the farmers. The free market did not fail to solve the problem of air pollution – it was forcibly prevented from doing so because the State was corrupted.

However, it is a sticking point, so it is worth examining in detail how the free market might solve the problem of air pollution. One egregious example often cited is a group of houses downwind from a new factory which is busy night and day coating them in soot.

Now, when a man buys a new house, isn’t it important to him to ensure that he will not be coated with someone else’s refuse? The need for a clean and safe environment is so strong that it is a clear invitation for enterprising entrepreneurs to sweat bullets figuring out how to provide it.

If a group of homeowners is afraid of pollution, the first thing they will do is buy pollution insurance, which is a natural response to a situation where costs cannot be predicted but consequences are dire.

Let us say that a homeowner named John buys pollution insurance which pays him two million dollars if the air in or around his house becomes polluted. In other words, as long as John’s air remains clean, his insurance company makes money.

One day, a plot of land up-wind of John’s house comes up for sale. Naturally, his insurance company would be very interested in this, and would monitor the sale. If the purchaser is some private school, all is well (assuming John has not bought noise pollution insurance). If, however, the insurance company discovers that Sally’s House of Polluting Paint Production is interested in purchasing the plot of land, it will likely spring into action, taking one of the following courses:

• Buying the land itself, then selling it to a non-polluting buyer;
• Getting assurances from Sally that her company will not pollute;
• Paying Sally to enter into a non-polluting contract.

If, however, someone at the insurance company is asleep at the wheel, and Sally buys the land and puts up her polluting factory, what happens then?

Well, then the insurance company is on the hook for $2M to John (assuming for the moment that only John bought pollution insurance). Thus, it can afford to pay Sally up to $2M to reduce her pollution and still be cash-positive. This payment could take many forms, from the installation of pollution-control equipment to a buy-out to a subsidy for under-production and so on.

If the $2M is not enough to solve the problem, then the insurance company pays John the $2M and he goes and buys a new house in an unpolluted neighbourhood. However, this scenario is highly unlikely, since the insurance company would be unlikely to insure only one single person in a neighbourhood against air pollution.

So, that is the view from John’s air-pollution insurance company. What about the view from Sally’s House of Polluting Paint Production? She, also, must be covered by a DRO in order to buy land, borrow money and hire employees. How does that DRO view her tendency to pollute?

Pollution brings damage claims against Sally, because pollution is by definition damage to persons or property. Thus Sally’s DRO would take a dim view of her pollution, since it would be on the hook for any damage her factory causes. In fact, it would be most unlikely that Sally’s DRO would insure her against damages unless she were able to prove that she would be able to operate her factory without harming the property of those around her. And without a DRO, of course, she would be unable to start her factory, borrow money, hire employees etc.

It is important to remember that DROs, much like cell phone companies, only prosper if they cooperate. Sally’s DRO only makes money if Sally does not pollute. John’s insurer also only makes money if Sally does not pollute. Thus the two companies share a common goal, which fosters cooperation.

Finally, even if John is not insured against air pollution, he can use his and/or Sally’s DRO to gain restitution for the damage her pollution is causing to his property. Both Sally and John’s DROs would have reciprocity agreements, since John wants to be protected against Sally’s actions, and Sally wants to be protected against John’s actions. Because of this desire for mutual protection, they would choose DROs which had the widest reciprocity agreements.

Thus, in a truly free market, there are many levels and agencies actively working against pollution. John’s insurer will be actively scanning the surroundings looking for polluters it can forestall. Sally will be unable to build her paint factory without proving that she will not pollute. Mutual or independent DROs will resolve any disputes regarding property damage caused by Sally’s pollution.

There are other benefits as well, which are almost unsolvable in the current system. Imagine that Sally’s smokestacks are so high that her air pollution sails over John’s house and lands on Reginald’s house, a hundred miles away. Reginald then complains to his DRO/insurer that his property is being damaged. His DRO will examine the air contents and wind currents, then trace the pollution back to its source and resolve the dispute with Sally’s DRO. If the air pollution is particularly complicated, then Reginald’s DRO will place non-volatile compounds into Sally’s smokestacks and follow them to where they land. This can be used in a situation where a number of different factories may be contributing pollutants.

The problem of inter-country air pollution may seem to be a sticky one, but it is easily solvable – even if we accept that countries will still exist. Obviously, a Canadian living along the Canada/US border, for instance, will not choose a DRO which refuses to cover air pollution emanating from the US. Thus the DRO will have to have reciprocity agreements with the DROs across the border. If the US DROs refuse to have reciprocity agreements with the Canadian DROs – inconceivable, since the pollution can go both ways – then the Canadian DRO will simply start a US branch and compete.

The difference is that international DROs actually profit from cooperation, in a way that governments do not. For instance, a State government on the Canada/US border has little motivation to impose pollution costs on local factories, as long as the pollution generally goes north. For DRO’s, quite the opposite would be true.

There are so many benefits to the concept of State-less DRO’s that they could easily fill volumes. A few can be touched on here, to further highlight the value of the idea.

In a condominium building, ownership is conditional upon certain rules. Even though a man “owns” the property, he cannot throw all-night parties, or keep five large dogs, or operate a brothel. Without the coercive blanket of a central State, the opportunities for a wide variety of communities arise, which will largely eliminate the current social conflicts about the direction of society as a whole.

For instance, some people like guns to be available, while others prefer them to be unavailable. Currently, a battle rages for control of the State so that one group can enforce its will on the other. That’s unnecessary. With DRO’s, communities can be formed in which guns are either permitted, or not permitted. Marijuana can be approved or forbidden. Half your income can be deducted for various social schemes, or you can keep it all for yourself. Sunday shopping can be allowed, or disallowed. It is completely up to the individual to choose what kind of society he or she wants to live in. The ownership of property in such communities is conditional on following certain rules, and if those rules prove onerous or unpleasant, the owner can sell and move at any time. Another plus is that all these “societies” exist as little laboratories, and can prove or disprove various theories about gun ownership, drug legalization and so on, thus contributing to people’s knowledge about the best rules for communities.

One or two problems exist, however, which cannot be spirited away. A person who decides to live “off the grid” – or exist without any DRO representation – can theoretically get away with a lot. However, that is also true in the existing statist system. If a man currently decides to become homeless, he can more or less commit crimes at will – but he also gives up all beneficial and enforceable forms of social cooperation. Thus although DROs may not solve the problem of utter lawlessness, neither does the current system, so all is equal.

Interpersonal Crimes

Crimes against persons, such as murder and rape, are generally considered separate and distinct from those against property. However, this is a fairly modern distinction. In the European system of common law, crimes against persons were often punished through the confiscation of property. A rape cost the rapist such-and-such amount, a murder five times as much, and so on. This sort of arrangement is generally preferred by victims, who currently not only suffer from physical violation – but must also pay taxes to incarcerate the criminal. A woman who is raped would usually rather receive a quarter of a million dollars than pay a thousand dollars annually to cage her rapist, which adds insult to injury. Thus, crimes against persons and crimes against property are not as distinct as they may seem, since both commonly require property as restitution. A man who rapes a woman, then, incurs a debt to her of some hundreds of thousands of dollars, and must pay it or be ejected from all the economic benefits of society.

Finally, one other advantage can be termed the “Scrabble-Challenge Benefit.” In Scrabble, an accuser loses his turn if he challenges another player’s word and the challenge fails. Given the costs of resolving disputes, DROs would be very careful to ensure that those bringing false accusations would be punished through their own premiums, their contract ratings and by also assuming the entire cost of the dispute. This would greatly reduce the number of frivolous lawsuits, to the great benefit of all.

On a personal note, it has been my experience that, in talking over these matters for the last twenty-odd years, people honestly claim that they cannot conceive of a society without a centralized and coercive State. To which I feel compelled to ask them: exactly how many lawsuits have you pursued in your own life? I have yet to find even one person who has prosecuted a lawsuit through to conclusion. I also ask them whether they maintain their jobs through threats or blackmail. None. Do they keep their spouses chained in the basement? Not a one. Are their friends forced to spend time with them? Do they steal from the grocery store? Nope.

In other words, I say, it is clear that, although you say that you cannot imagine a society without a coercive State, you have only to look in the mirror to see how such a world might work. Everyone who is in your life is there by choice. Everyone you deal with on a personal or professional relationship interacts with you on a voluntary basis. You don’t use violence in your own life at all. If you are unsatisfied with a product, you return it. If you stop desiring a lover, you part. If you dislike a job, you quit. You force no one – and yet you say that society cannot exist without force. It is very hard to understand. People then reply that they do not need to use coercion because the State is there to protect them. I then ask them if they know how impossible it is to actually use the court system. They agree, of course, because they know it takes many years and a small fortune to approach even the vague possibility of justice. I also ask them if they are themselves burning to knock over an old woman and snatch her purse, but fear the police too greatly. Of course not. They just think that everyone else is. Well, after twenty years of conversations, I can tell you all: it’s not the case. Most people, given the correct incentives, act entirely honourably.

Of course, evil people exist. There are cold, sociopathic monsters in our midst. It is precisely because of the human capacity for evil that a centralized State always undermines society. Due to our capacity for sadism, our only hope is to decentralize authority, so that the evil among us can never rise to a station greater than that of excluded, hunted criminals. To create a State and give it the power of life and death does not solve the problem of human evil. It merely transforms the shallow desire for easy property to the bottomless lust for political power.

The idea that society can – and must – exist without a centralized State is the greatest lesson that the grisly years of the Twentieth Century can teach us. Our own society cannot escape the general doom of history, the inevitable destiny of social collapse as the State eats its own inhabitants. Our choice is not between the State and the free market, but between death and life. Whatever the risks of dissolving the central State, they are far less than the certain destruction of allowing it to escalate, as it inevitably will. Like a cancer patient facing certain demise, we must reach for whatever medicine shows the most promise, and not wait until it is too late.

The Stateless Society and Violent Crime

You might well now be thinking: how can a stateless society deal with violent criminals?

This challenging question can be answered using three approaches. The first is to examine how such criminals are dealt with at present; the second is to divide violent crimes into crimes of motive and crimes of passion, and the third is to show how a stateless society would deal with both categories of crime far better than any existing system.

The first question is: how are violent criminals dealt with at present? The honest answer, to any unbiased observer, is surely: they are encouraged.

A basic fact of life is that people respond to incentives. The better that crime pays, the more people will become criminals. Certain well-known habits – drugs, gambling, and prostitution in particular – are non-violent in nature, but highly desired by certain segments of the population. If these non-violent behaviors are criminalized, the profit gained by providing these services rises. Criminalizing voluntary interactions destroys all stabilizing social forces (contracts, open activity, knowledge-sharing and mediation), and so violence becomes the norm for dispute resolution.

Furthermore, wherever a law creates an environment where most criminals make more money than the police, the police simply become bribed into compliance. By increasing the profits of non-violent activities, the State ensures the corruption of the police and judicial system – thus making it both safer and more profitable to operate outside the law. It can take dozens of arrests to actually face trial – and many trials to gain a conviction. Policemen now spend about a third of their time filling out paperwork – and 90% of their time chasing non-violent criminals. Entire sections of certain cities are run by gangs of thugs, and the jails are overflowing with harmless low-level peons sent to jail as make-work for the judicial system – thus constantly increasing law-enforcement costs. Peaceful citizens are also legally disarmed through gun control laws. In this manner, the modern State literally creates, protects and profits from violent criminals.

Thus the standard to compare the stateless society’s response to violent crime is not some perfect world where thugs are effectively dealt with, but rather the current mess where violence is both encouraged and protected.

Before we turn to how a stateless society deals with crime, however, it is essential to remember that the stateless society automatically eliminates the greatest violence faced by almost all of us – the State that threatens us with guns if we don’t hand over our money – and our lives, should it decide to declare war. Thus it cannot be said that the existing system is one which minimizes violence. Quite the contrary – the honest population is violently enslaved by the State, and the dishonest provided with cash incentives and protection.

State violence – in its many forms – has been growing in Western societies over the past fifty years, as regulation, tariffs and taxation have all risen exponentially. National debts are an obvious form of intergenerational theft. Support of foreign governments also increases violence, since these governments use subsidies to buy arms and further terrorize their own populations. The arms market is also funded and controlled by governments. The list of State crimes can go on and on, but one last gulag is worth mentioning – all the millions of poor souls kidnapped and held hostage in prisons for non-violent “crimes.”

Since existing States terrorize, enslave and incarcerate literally billions of citizens, it is hard to understand how they can be seen as effectively working against violence in any form.

How does a stateless society deal with violence? First, it is important to differentiate the use of force into crimes of motive and crimes of passion. Crimes of motive are open to correction through changing incentives; any system which reduces the profits of property crimes – while increasing the profits of honest labor – will reduce these crimes. In the last part of this section, we will see how the stateless society achieves this better than any other option.

Crimes of motive can be diminished by making crime a low-profit activity relative to working for a living. Crime entails labor, and if most people could make more money working honestly for the same amount of labor, there will be far fewer criminals.

As you have read above, in a stateless society, Dispute Resolution Organizations (DROs) flourish through the creation of voluntary contracts between interested parties, and all property is private. How does this affect violent crime?

Let’s look at “break and enter.” If I own a house, I will probably take out insurance against theft. Obviously, my insurance company benefits most from preventing theft, and so will encourage me to get an alarm system and so on, just as occurs now.

This situation is more or less analogous to what happens now – with the not-inconsequential adjustment that, since DROs handle policing as well as restitution, their motives for preventing theft or rendering stolen property useless is far higher than it is now. As such, much more investment in prevention would be worthwhile, such as creating “voice activated” appliances which only work for their owners.

However, the stateless society goes much, much further in preventing crime – specifically, by identifying those who are going to become criminals, and preventing that transition. In this situation, the stateless society is far more effective than any State system.

In a stateless society, contracts with DROs are required to maintain any sort of economic life – without DRO representation, citizens are unable to get a job, hire employees, rent a car, buy a house or send their children to school. Any DRO will naturally ensure that its contracts include penalties for violent crimes – so if you steal a car, your DRO has the right to use force or ostracism against you to get the car back – and probably retrieve financial penalties to boot.

How does this work in practice? Let’s take a test case. Say that you wake up one morning and decide to become a thief. Well, the first thing you have to do is cancel your coverage with your DRO, so that your DRO has less incentive against you when you steal, since you are no longer a customer. DROs would have clauses allowing you to cancel your coverage, just as insurance companies have now. Thus you would have to notify your DRO that you were dropping coverage. No problem, you’re off their list.

However, DROs as a whole really need to keep track of people who have opted out of the entire DRO system, since those people have clearly signaled their intention to go rogue and live “off the grid.” Thus if you cancel your DRO insurance, your name goes into a database available to all DROs. If you sign up with another DRO, no problem, your name is taken out. However, if you do not sign up with any other DRO, red flags pop up all over the system.

What happens then? Remember – there is no public property in a stateless society. If you’ve gone rogue, where are you going to go? You can’t take a bus – bus companies will not take rogues, because their DRO will require that they take only DRO-covered passengers, in case of injury or altercation. Want to fill up on gas? No luck, for the same reason. You can try hitchhiking, of course, which might work, but what happens when you get to your destination and try to rent a motel room? No DRO card, no luck. Want to sleep in the park? Parks are privately owned, so keep moving. Getting hungry? No groceries, no restaurants – no food! What are you going to do?

So, really, what incentive is there to turn to a life of crime? Working for a living – and being protected by a DRO – pays really well. Going off the grid and becoming a rogue pits the entire weight of the combined DRO system against you – and, even if you do manage to survive and steal something, it has probably been voice-encoded or protected in some other manner against unauthorized use.

Let’s suppose that you somehow bypass all of that, and do manage to steal, where are you going to sell your stolen goods? You’re not protected by a DRO, so who will buy from you, knowing they have no recourse if something goes wrong? And besides, anyone who interacts with you may be dropped from the DRO system too, and face all the attendant difficulties.

Will there be underground markets? Perhaps – but where would they operate? People need a place to live, cars to rent, clothes to buy, groceries to eat. No DRO means no participation in economic life.

As well, prostitution, gambling and drugs will not be “illegal” in a stateless society – and the elimination of the war on drugs alone would, it has been estimated, eliminate 80% of violent crime. There are no import duties or restrictions, so smuggling becomes completely pointless. Currency would be private, as we will see below, so counterfeiting will be much harder.

Plus, no taxation – the take-home pay for an honest worker is far higher in a stateless society!

Fewer opportunities, lower profits – and greater incentives to do an honest day’s work – there is no better way to steer those who respond to incentives alone away from a life of crime.

Thus it is fair to say that any stateless society will do a far better job of protecting its citizens against crimes of motive – what, then, about crimes of passion?

Crimes of Passion

Crimes of passion are harder to prevent – but also present far less of a threat to those outside of the circle in which they occur.

Let’s say that a man kills his wife. They are both covered by DROs, of course, and their DRO contracts would include specific prohibitions against murder. Thus, the man would be subject to all the sanctions involved in his contract – probably confined labor and rehabilitation until a certain financial penalty was paid off, since DROs would be responsible for paying such penalties to any next of kin.

Fine, you say, but what if either the man or woman was not covered by a DRO? Well, where would they live? No one would rent them an apartment. If they own their house free and clear, who would sell them food? Or gas, water or electricity? Who would employ them? What bank would accept their money?

Let’s say that only the murderous husband – planning to kill his wife – opted out of his DRO system without telling her. The first thing that his wife’s DRO would do is inform her of her husband’s action – and the ill intent it may represent – and help her relocate if desired. If she decided against relocation, her DRO would promptly drop her, since by deciding to live in close proximity with a rogue man, she was exposing herself to an untenable amount of danger (and so the DRO to a high risk for financial loss). Now, both the husband and wife have chosen to live without DROs, in a state of nature, and thus face all the insurmountable problems of getting food, shelter, money and so on.

Thus, murderers would be subject to the punishments of their DRO restrictions, or would signal their intent by dropping DRO coverage beforehand, when intervention would be possible.

Let’s look at something slightly more complicated – stalking. A woman becomes obsessed with a man, and starts calling him at all hours and following him around. Perhaps boils a bunny or two. If the man has bought insurance against stalking, his DRO will leap into action. It will call the woman’s DRO, which then says to her: stop stalking this man or we’ll drop you. And how does her DRO know whether she has really given up her stalking? Well, the man stops reporting it. And if there is a dispute, she just wears an ankle bracelet for a while to make sure. And remember – since there is no public property, she can be ordered off sidewalks, streets and parks.

(If the man has not bought insurance against stalking, no problem – it will just be more expensive to buy with a “pre-existing condition.”)

Although they may seem unfamiliar to you, DROs are not a new concept – they are as ancient as civilization itself, but have been shouldered aside by the constant escalation of State power over the last century or so. In the past, undesired social behaviour was punished through ostracism, and risks ameliorated through voluntary “friendly societies.” A man who left his wife and children – or a woman who got pregnant out of wedlock – was no longer welcome in decent society. DROs take these concepts one step further, by making all the information formerly known by the local community available to the world as whole, just like credit reports. (If you prefer your information to be kept more private, DROs will doubtless offer this option.)

There are really no limits to the benefits that DROs can confer upon a free society – insurance could be created for such things as:

• a man’s wife giving birth to a child that is not his own;
• a daughter getting pregnant out of wedlock;
• fertility problems for a married couple;
• …and much more.

All of the above insurance policies would require DROs to take active steps to prevent such behaviors – the mind boggles at all the preventative steps that could be taken! The important thing to remember is that all such contracts are voluntary, and so do not violate the moral absolute of non-violence.

In conclusion – how does the stateless society deal with violent criminals? Brilliantly! In a stateless society, there are fewer criminals, more prevention, greater sanctions – and instant forewarning of those aiming at a life of crime by their withdrawal from the DRO system. More incentives to work, fewer incentives for a life of crime, no place to hide for rogues, and general social rejection of those who decide to operate outside of the civilized world of contracts, mutual protection and general security. And remember – governments in the 20^th century caused more than 200 million deaths – are we really that worried about private hold-ups and jewelry thefts in the face of those kinds of numbers?

There is no system that will replace faulty men with perfect angels, but the stateless society, by rewarding goodness and punishing evil, will at least ensure that all devils are visible – instead of cloaking them in the current deadly fog of power, politics and propaganda.

These Cages Are Only for Beasts…

As mentioned above, DROs are private insurance companies whose sole purpose is to mediate disputes between individuals. If you and I sign a contract, we both agree beforehand to submit any disputes we cannot resolve to the arbitration of a particular DRO. Furthermore, we may choose to allow the DRO to take action if either of us fails to abide by its decision, such as property seizure or financial penalties.

So far so good. However, a problem arises if I have no DRO contract, and turn to a life of theft, murder and arson. How can that be dealt with? Above, I suggested that DROs would simply band together to deny goods, services and contracts to violent criminals.

Some readers may be concerned about the power that DROs have in a stateless society. When describing how a stateless society could deal with murderers, we are reviewing an extreme situation, not everyday economic and social relations. A doctor might say: if a patient has an infected leg, and you have no antibiotics, amputate the leg. This does not mean that he advocates cutting off limbs in less serious circumstances. When I say that DROs will track violent criminals and try to deny them goods and services, I do not mean that DROs would be able to do this to just anyone. First of all, customer choice would make this impossible. A store owner can ban anyone he likes – but he cannot do so arbitrarily, or he will go out of business. Similarly, if people see a DRO acting unjustly or punitively, it will quickly find itself without customers.

The most important thing to remember is that DRO contracts are perfectly voluntary – and that hundreds of DROs will be constantly clamoring for our business. If we are afraid that they will turn into a myriad of quasi-police states, they have to address those fears if want they us as customers.

How will they do that? Why, through contractual obligations, of course! In order to sign us up, DROs will have to offer us instant contractual release – and lucrative cash rewards – if they ever harass us or treat us arbitrarily. As a matter of course, DRO contracts will include a provision to submit any conflicts with customers to a separate DRO of the customers’ choosing. All this is standard fare in the reduction of contractual risk.

In other words, every person who says, “DROs will turn into dangerous fascistic organizations,” represents a fantastic business opportunity to anyone who can address that concern in a positive manner. If you dislike the idea of DROs, just ask yourself: is there any way that my concerns could be alleviated? Are there any contractual provisions that might tempt me into a relationship with a DRO? If so, the magic of the free market will provide them. Some DROs will offer to pay you a million dollars if they treat you unjustly – and you can choose the DRO that makes that decision! Other DROs will band together and form a review board which regularly searches their warehouses for illicit arms and armies. DROs will fund “watchdog” organizations which regularly rate DRO integrity.

If none of the above appeals to you, then the DRO system is clearly not for you – but then neither is the current State system, which is already one-sided, repressive and dictatorial. And remember – in a free society such as I describe, you can always choose to live without a DRO, of course, or pay for its services as needed (as I mention in “The Stateless Society”) – as long as you do not start stealing and killing.

For those who still think DROs will become governments, I invite you to take a look at a real-world example of a DRO – one of the world’s largest “employers.” Currently, over 300,000 people rely on it for a significant portion of their income. Most of what they sell is so inexpensive that lawsuits are not cost-effective, and transactions regularly cross incompatible legal borders – in other words, they operate in a stateless society. So how does eBay resolve disputes? Simply through dialogue and the dissemination of information (see http://pages.ebay.com/help/tp/unpaid-item-process.html). If I do not pay for something I receive, I get a strike against me. If I do not ship something that I was paid for, I also get a strike. Everyone I deal with can also rate my products, service and support. If I am rated poorly, I have to sell my goods for less since, everything else being equal, people prefer dealing with a better-rated vendor (or buyer). If enough people rate me poorly, I will go out of business, because the risk of dealing with me becomes too great. There are no police or courts or violence involved here – thefts are simply dealt with through communication and information sharing.

Thus eBay is an example of the largest DRO around – are we really afraid that it is going to turn into a quasi-government? Do any of us truly lie awake wondering whether the eBay SWAT team is going to break down our doors and drag us away to some offshore J2EE coding gulag?

Any system can be abused – which is why governments are so abhorrent – and so checks and balances are essential to any proposed form of social organization. That’s the beauty of the DRO approach. Those who dislike, mistrust or fear DROs do not have to have anything to do with them, and can rely on handshakes, reputation and trust – or start their own DRO. Those whose scope prohibits such approaches – multi-million dollar contracts or long-term leases come to mind – can turn to DROs. Those who are afraid of DROs becoming mini-States can set up watchdog agencies and monitor them (paid for by others who share such fears, perhaps).

In short, either the majority of human beings can cooperate for mutual advantage, or they cannot. If they can, a stateless society will work – especially since millions of minds far better than mine will be constantly searching for the best solutions. If they cannot, then no society will ever work, and we are doomed to slavery and savagery by nature.

Therefore, I stand by my thesis in “Caging the Beasts” above – if you mug, rape or kill, I will support any social action that thwarts your capacity to survive in society. I want to see you hounded into the wilderness, refused hotel rooms and groceries – and I want your face plastered everywhere, so that the innocent can stay safe by keeping you at bay. I abhor the thug as much as I abhor the State – and it is because such thugs exist that the State cannot be suffered to continue, since the State always disarms honest citizens and encourages, promotes and protects the thugs.

(For more details about DROs and how disputes can be resolved in a stateless society, you can subscribe to: https://feeds.freedomain.com/freedomain-radio-anarchism.xml.)

Stateless Dictatorships: How a Free Society Prevents the Re-emergence of a Government

By far the most common objection to the idea of a stateless society is the belief that one or more private Dispute Resolution Organizations (DROs) would overpower all the others and create a new government. This belief is erroneous at every level, but has a kind of rugged persistence that is almost admirable.

Here is the general objection:

In a society without a government, whatever agencies arise to help resolve disputes will inevitably turn into a replacement government. These agencies may initially start as competitors in a free market, but as time goes by, one will arise to dominate all the others economically, and will then wage war against its competitors, and end up imposing a new State upon the population. The instability and violence that this “DRO civil war” will inflict upon the population is far worse than any existing democratic State structure. Thus, a stateless society is far too risky an experiment, since we will just end up with a government again anyway!

This objection to an anarchic social structure is considered self-evident, and thus is never presented with actual proof. Naturally, since the discussion of a stateless society involves a future theoretical situation, empirical examples cannot apply.

However, like all propositions involving human motivation, the “replacement state” hypothesis can be subjected to logical examination.

Premises

The basis of the “replacement state” hypothesis is the premise that people prefer to maximize their income with the lowest possible expenditure of energy. The motivation for a DRO to use force is that, by eliminating all competition and taking military control of a geographical region, a DRO can make much more money than through free market competition, and that it is worth it to invest resources in military conflict in order to secure the permanent revenue source of a new tax base.

We can fully accept this premise, as long as it is applied consistently to all human beings in a stateless society. To make the “replacement state” case even stronger, we will also assume that no moral scruples could conceivably get in the way of any decision-making. By reducing the “drive to dominate” to a mere calculation of economic efficiency, we can eliminate any possible ethical brakes on the situation.

Starting Point

Let us start with a stateless society, wherein citizens can voluntarily choose to contract with a DRO for the sake of property protection and dispute resolution. Each citizen also has the right to break his contract with his DRO.

There are essentially three possible ways that a DRO could gain military control of an entire region:

1. By secretly amassing an army, and then suddenly unleashing it upon all competitors;
2. By openly amassing an army, and then doing the same thing;
3. By posing as a voluntary “Defense DRO,” amassing arms supposedly for the legitimate defense of citizens, and then turning those arms against the citizens and instituting itself as a new government.

There is one additional possibility, which is that a private citizen can try to assemble his own army.

Let’s deal with each of these in turn.

The Secret Army

In this scenario, let’s say that a DRO manager called “Bob” decides that he is tired of dealing with customers on a voluntary basis. He decides he is going to spend company money buying enormous amounts of armaments and training an army. (For the moment, let us assume that Bob can make this decision entirely on his own, and does not need to submit to any sort of Board, bank or investor review.)

Let us assume that Bob’s DRO has annual revenues of $500 million a year, and profits of $50 million a year.

The most immediate challenge that Bob is going to face is: how on earth am I going to pay for an army? Given that, in a free society, there is no way of knowing exactly how many citizens are armed – or what kinds of weapons they have – it would be necessary to err on the side of caution and assemble a fairly prodigious and overwhelming army to gain control of an entire region, otherwise Bob’s investment would be entirely lost in a military defeat. Such armies are scarcely cheap. For the purposes of this argument, let’s say that it is going to cost $500 million over five years for Bob to assemble his army – surely a lowball estimate. How is he going to get the money to pay for this?

Raising Rates

The most obvious way for Bob to raise the extra $500 million is to charge his customers more. The $500 million Bob needs represents more than 10 years of his DROs annual profits of $50 million a year (reinvesting the $50m for 5 years at 10% yields $805.26m). Thus, in order to pay for his army within five years, Bob is going to have to more than double his prices. Since we have already assumed that it is Bob’s greed that makes him want to create a new government – and that this greed is common to all citizens within the society – we can also assume that his customers share his motivation. Thus, just as Bob wants to have an army so that he can maximize his income, his customers just as surely do not want Bob to have an army, for exactly the same reasons. The moment that Bob informs his customers that he will now be charging them more than double for exactly the same services, he will lose all his customers, and go out of business. Sadly, no army for Bob.

Full Disclosure

Perhaps, though, Bob recognizes this danger, and plans to keep his customers by telling them that he is raising their rates in order to fund an army. “Help me buy an army by paying me double your current rates,” he tells them, “and I will share the plunder I’ll get when I take over such-and-such a neighborhood!” Even if we assume that Bob’s customers believe him, and are willing to fund such a mad scheme, Bob’s secret is now out, and society as a whole – including all the other DROs – have been informed of Bob’s nefarious intentions. Clearly, all the other DROs will immediately cease doing business with Bob’s DRO. Since a central value of any DRO is its ability to interact with other DROs – just as a core value of a cell phone company is its ability to interact with other cell phone companies – Bob’s DRO will thus be crippled. In other words, Bob will be more than doubling his rates for many years – while providing a far inferior service – for a highly uncertain and dangerous “profit.”

In addition, Bob’s bank would immediately cease doing business with him, rendering him unable to pay his employees, his office rental, or his bills. Bob’s electricity company will cease supplying electricity, he will find his taps strangely dry, his phones will be cut off, and many other misfortunes will arise as a result of his stated desire to become a new dictator. It is hard to imagine him lasting five days, let alone retaining all of his paying customers at double the rates for the five years required to build his army!

Even if all the above problems could somehow be overcome, it is hard to imagine that Bob’s customers would be happy to arm Bob in the hopes of sharing in his plunder. Unlike the government, which can tax at will, DROs must actually protect their customer’s property in order to retain their business. Given that those who contract with DROs are those with the most interest in protecting their property, it makes little sense that they would fund Bob’s DRO army, since they would have no actual control with that army once it was created, and thus no way of enforcing any “plunder contract” created beforehand. In a free society, people would not try to “protect” their property by funding a powerful army that could then take it away from them at will. That sort of madness requires the existence of a government!

Alternative Funding

Perhaps Bob will try to fund his army in other ways. He may try and borrow the money, but his bank will only lend him the money if he comes up with a credible and measurable business plan. If Bob’s business plan openly states his desire to create an army, his bank would cease supporting him in any way, shape or form, since the bank would only stand to lose if such an army were created. If Bob took the money from the bank by submitting a fraudulent business plan, the bank would be aware of this almost immediately, and would take the remainder of the money back – and impose stiff penalties on Bob to boot! Again, no army for Bob.

What if Bob tried to pay for his army by reducing the dividends he was paying to shareholders? Naturally, the shareholders would resent this, and would either have him thrown out, or would simply sell their shares and invest their money elsewhere, thus crippling Bob’s DRO. Perhaps Bob would try paying his employees less, but that would only drive his employees into the arms of other DROs – also destroying his business.

It is safe to say that it is practically impossible for Bob to get the money to pay for his army – and even if he got such money, his business would never survive such a dangerous transgression of social and economic norms.

There are other dangers, however, which are well worth examining.

Defense DROs

The most likely threat would seem to come from “Defense DROs,” since those agencies would already have weapons and personnel that might be used against the general population. However, this would be very difficult for two main reasons. First, “Defense DROs” would require investment and banking relationships in order to grow and flourish. Given that investors and banks would not want to fund an army that could steal their property, they would be certain to insert myriad “failsafe” mechanisms into their “Defense DRO” contracts. They would make sure that all arms purchases were tracked, that all monies were accounted for, and that no secret armies were being assembled.

“Defense DROs” would also be subject to the same kinds of funding problems as Bob’s DRO. Let’s say that Dave is the head of a “Defense DRO,” and wakes up one day seized by the desire to assemble his own army and pillage society.

First of all, citizens would never contract with any “Defense DRO” that would not submit to regular audits of its weapons and accounts to ensure that no secret armies were being created. If Dave decides to bypass this contractual obligation, and start secretly funding his own army, how is he going to pay for it? The moment he raises his rates without increasing his services, his customers will know exactly what he’s up to, and withdraw their support. Bye-bye army. Dave’s funding would also be subject to all the other problems raised above.

It can thus be seen that there is no viable way for any DRO to pay for a secret army without destroying its business in the process. Armies are only really possible when the government can force taxpayers to subsidize them.

Independently Wealthy?

Perhaps, instead of Bob or Dave, we have a privately wealthy individual named Bill, a multibillionaire who decides to raise an army and institute himself as a new dictator. Due to his immense wealth, he is not dependent on any customers, employees, or shareholders. Let us say that he can pay for an army out of his own pocket, immediately.

Bill’s challenge, of course, is that in a free society, he cannot exactly pick up a complete army at his local Wal-Mart. Armies are fundamentally uneconomical, expensive overhead at best, and thus it seems likely that geographical defense in a free society would be limited to a couple of dozen nuclear weapons, to deter any potential invader. Thus even if he could get a hold of one, buying a nuke would not help Bill very much, since he would be unable to use it to overwhelm all of the other “Defense DROs.”

What about more conventional weapons? Part of the service that “Defense DROs” would offer to subscribers would be a guarantee that they would do everything in their power to prevent the rise of an independent army – either of their own making, or of anyone else’s. Thus arms manufacturers would have to provide rigorous accounts of everything they were making and selling, to be sure that they weren’t selling arms to some secret army, probably in the foothills of Montana. If people were really worried about the possibility of someone creating a private army, they would only do business with “Defense DROs” that guaranteed that they bought their arms from open and legitimate arms dealers – subject to independent verification, of course.

Thus when Bill came along trying to buy $500 million worth of weapons, and hire an army of tens of thousands of soldiers, one question would be: where on earth would they come from? Arms manufacturers would not be sitting on $500 million of inventory, due to the limited demand for such products, and the costs of making and storing them. Thus the arms manufacturers would have to really crank up their production, which could not be hidden from the general population, or the Defense DROs that such extra production would directly threaten. In order to make all the extra armaments, manufacturers would have to borrow money to expand production. Where would they get this extra money from? Their banks would surely not fund such a dangerous endeavor, and would immediately notify any Defense DROs it had contracts with, and drop the rogue arms manufacturer as a customer. Defense DROs and general customers would also never do business with such a dangerous arms manufacturer ever again, thus driving it out of business.

No manufacturer would ever expand production for a “one time” purchase, any more than you would buy a car to make a single trip. Also – why would an arms manufacturer sell deadly weapons to a private individual, knowing that this individual would be able to use those arms to steal more weapons from the manufacturer?

Secondly, even if Bill could somehow get his hands on the necessary weapons, where would these tens of thousands of new troops come from? In a stateless society, the military would not be exactly the same kind of “in demand” career that it is today. In order to assemble an army of tens of thousands of men, Bill would have to advertise, recruit, pay them, train them, etc. This would be impossible to hide. Since it would be completely obvious that Bill was assembling an army, what could people in society conceivably do to stop him?

First of all, if this were a potential risk, his bank would have a clause in its service agreement giving it the right to refuse to honor any payments clearly designed to fund a private army. Secondly, no DRO would do business with Bill – or his soldiers – the moment that it became apparent what he was up to. This would mean that none of Bill’s soldiers would have any guarantees that they would get paid, grocery stores would not sell them food, electricity companies would cut them off, gas stations would not sell them gas, etc. When society as a whole wants to stop doing business with you, it becomes very hard to get by.

The Question of Profit

Remember, we began this section with the premise that someone would want an army in order to make money. Let us see if this can be achieved, even if all the above obstacles can somehow be overcome.

Let us say that our first friend “Bob” can somehow get his army – the question is: can he make that army pay?

Remember, it cost Bob $500 million over five years to assemble his army – let us say that it costs another $1 billion over the next five years to subdue a reasonably-sized region, due to the loss of life and equipment involved in combat. What kinds of financial returns can Bob expect?

If you know that Bob’s army is going to be at your house in two weeks, and there is no way to stop it, you would just pull a “scorched-earth Russian defense” and leave, right? You would take everything of value with you, and perhaps destroy everything that you could not bring. Thus, what would Bob’s army end up getting control of? Not much.

However, let us imagine that Bob’s army could somehow seize assets that would be worth something. How much would they have to steal in order to make a profit?

First, let us look at the alternatives, or the opportunity costs of Bob’s army.

Bob has to invest $100 million each year over five years to assemble his army – what does that cost him overall?

If Bob invested the $100 million back into his DRO instead, he will likely get 10% ROI. In five years of compound returns, that translates to $832.61m.

Then, Bob has to invest another billion dollars over the next five years invading a series of neighborhoods. How much does that really cost him? $1,665.22m, or $1 billion invested at 10% over five years. But that’s not all – the $832.61m above would also have gained 10% per year over the remaining 5 years, resulting in a total of $1,340.93m.

Thus Bob’s five years of preparation and five years of military rampaging have cost him over $3 billion. Given the enormous risks involved in such an endeavor, investors would likely demand at least a 20:1 pay off – similar to the software field. Thus Bob would have to steal well over $60 billion, given that he would likely want to keep some money for himself.

Where would this $60 billion come from? The burned-out houses? The abandoned cars? It is hard to imagine that anything Bob got his hands on would be worth very much at all.

(The evidence of history tends to support this conclusion. Economically, imperialism is a disaster for everyone except those intimately connected to the coercive power of the State.)

Also, Bob has wrecked an economy that was enabling him to generate a 10% annual return on his investments – even if he steals billions of dollars, it would still be less than he would have received over the course of his life if he had just re-invested his money! Reinvestment also carries with it the considerable advantage of not exposing Bob to the risk of death through assassination or war.

What if Bob wanted to spring a surprise attack on citizens and start taxing them? Again, all the other DROs would stand to lose all their customers in such an event, and so would take all necessary steps to prevent it from occurring. They would have to provide innovative “checks and balances” solutions to potential customers in order to win them as clients, ensuring their collective vigilance against such surprise attacks. Furthermore, given that there are no borders in a stateless society, those that Bob’s army encircled would just abscond in the middle of the night, fleeing his predations.

However, even if all of the above problems can be somehow overcome, and the creation of a rogue army in a free society could become both possible and profitable, the solution to this danger is simple. Any “Defense DRO” would simply buy the trust of its clients by promising to pay them a fine in excess of any potential military profits if that DRO was ever discovered to be assembling an army. As mentioned above, DROs would simply put millions of dollars in trust, payable to any customer that could find evidence proving that a rogue army was being created. Prob