Short Title: “Examining Principles”
Long Title: “Why The Law of Equal Liberty is a better starting point for libertarian thought than The Zero Aggression Principle (a rough draft & exploration)”
One could use the Zero Aggression Principle (AKA Non-Aggression Principle) to determine acceptable action, but its language confuses issues and leads to harmful associations. The Law of Equal Liberty (AKA Formula of Equal Freedom), described by Herbert Spencer in the mid 19th century, seems a better way to formulate the requirements and boundaries of liberty.
The exact wording of the Zero Aggression Principle differs among its proponents, but L. Neil Smith describes it like this:
no one has the right, under any circumstances, to initiate force against another human being for any reason whatever
Admittedly, I have read very little of Herbert Spencer (whom Roderick Long often defends from defamation). Clarence Lee Swartz’s 1927 work What is Mutualism didn’t convince me to go mutualist, but it did make me more favorable toward Spencer’s formulation of liberty. On Page 21 of the Invisible Molotov version, Swartz bases liberty on Spencer’s formula, which he describes thusly:
That every man may claim the fullest liberty to do as he wills compatible with the possession of like liberty by every other man.
The Law of Equal Liberty is otherwise written as:
Every man has freedom to do all that he wills, provided he infringes not the equal freedom of every other man.
Here is why I think the Law of Equal Liberty (LEL) is more useful in acting for liberty than is the Zero Agression Principle (ZAP).
1) ZAP requires defining force in a way that does not mean physical force, but instead coercion. Pushing a person out of harm’s way does not violate his liberty if he does not want to be harmed. Shooting a terrorist who hasn’t hurt anyone yet but threatens to is likely acceptable because the terrorist is attempting to coerce – even though the first act of physical force would be by the person who shot him in defense. So saying that you oppose the initiation of force means you have some explaining to do. With the LEL it is clearer that you may do as you will to stop a person from doing something that is incompatible with the liberty of others.
2) ZAP must be stretched if it can apply to using force against those who have initiated force in the past, or have stated their intentions and shown the ability to initiate force. Does a state of “force initiation” exist once coercion has been used until restitution is made? I do not see this problem with LEL.
3) Using force against an individual who you haven’t seen use force but is a member of a deadly organization is agreeable to liberty and to individualism, but it would seem to violate ZAP. It is likely that many members of Nazi death squads didn’t personally shoot unarmed people (see Ordinary Men) but one could not expect a resistance fighter to make the distinction. An individual can choose to identify as a member of a harmful organization, and if he can be reasonably expected to know that the organization is a threat to others then force can be used against him.
4) Anti-segregationist sit-ins on private property and Bash Back disruptions of church services can be said to initiate force by occupying property that doesn’t belong to individuals who have initiated force. But the targets of these actions have violated liberty by joining with a system based on physical oppression. It is unreasonable to think that someone can help people murder then be immune from the consequences on his property as if it were “base” in a game. Thinking in this way requires drawing lines between what is and is not acceptable, but hard work is no excuse for failing to adopt good principles.
From a LEL standpoint, those who bolster oppression by creating spaces where some people are regarded as inferior to others (and therefore thought of as acceptable targets for violence) are assisting the violation of people’s liberty. One could call their activity aggression, but it again seems that you would need to redefine the way most people think of aggression, and I don’t see why this is necessary when a better principle exists.
5) The Law of Equal Liberty uses more positive language (“claim the fullest liberty to do as he wills”), while ZAP has more restrictive connotations (“no one has the right, under any circumstances”). The libertarian project can be thought of as the creation of a world in which liberty is maximized. The LEL is more compatible with this mentality.
6) The ZAP suggests a defensive posture resembling that of conservatism, but the LEL suggests equality.
Both 5 and 6 might contribute to the right-wing flavor that the American free-market libertarian movement often has. Those who start with the desire for ultimate freedom limited only by the equal freedom of others might be less attracted to ZAP than to LEL. Those who start with the desire to set the rules that must be dogmatically adhered to might be more attracted to ZAP than LEL.
The ZAP may also be responsible for the perception among free-market libertarians that all politics is about using force to restrict behavior. The ZAP addresses only the use of force, and therefore every discussion of upholding liberty becomes a question of using force. For example, authoritarianism in the workplace that does not use physical force can be said to prevent a person from doing as he wills (talking back to bosses, influencing the conditions of work, etc). The ZAP does not address this, but LEL would seem to imply the utility of some kind of proportional means of opposition (bolstering worker power through unionism, establishing competing business models, etc). Thus LEL promotes a more complete and realistic view of maximizing liberty.
The Zero Aggression Principle is seemingly more precise than the Law of Equal Liberty. But it is only precise once the definition of terms like “aggression” and “force” are agreed upon. The meaning of liberty, doing as one wills without infringing on the ability of others to do so, is implied in the Law of Equal Liberty.
I think it is useful to have principles that succinctly point the path to liberty. As noted in the lengthy title of the post, this is a rough draft and exploration. Feedback might result in revised versions.
November 17th, 2009 at 4:43 pm
The Law of Equal Liberty sounds identical to what I’ve been calling moral egalitarianism, which means everyone has identical rights to do what he wants and identical protection against the actions of everyone else. I’ve written about imaginary “sphere of liberty” surrounding everyone that allows us to do exactly what we want in our own sphere of liberty but, at the same time, restricts everyone’s actions to the boundaries surrounding others.
I think it could be said that ZAP is simply a corollary of LEL. I lean towards believing the LEL is the fundamental first principle of human interaction and that ZAP is a secondary but equally true principle.
Regarding pushing someone out of the way of an automobile in example 1: I would say the LEL normally forbids pushing people just as ZAP does, but both principles would allow this in order to save a life. The reason is basically that the person whose life is saved would not object. If they consent (even afterwards), then their liberty hasn’t been infringed/they haven’t been aggressed against. This example seems to make the principles equally valid.
Using the example of a person who is threatening violence against others but hasn’t followed through gets closer to a distinction, the way I see it. Threatening violence against innocent, non-aggressing people would not, I imagine, be allowed by LEL but could be construed as permissible under ZAP. Then again, you could extend the definition of “aggression” to mean “initiation of force or the threat thereof” and the terrorist is an aggressor against whom deadly force is justified.
Then there’s the issue of fraud. Fraud is not force or aggression or coercion. It is taking the property of others against their will, though. LEL takes care of this easily: fraud consists of an imbalance between one person’s ability to take and the other person’s protection of their property; any action that involves one person having the right to do something that another does not have is prohibited; anything done to someone’s person or property against his will is immoral, since it would imply asymmetrical rights. Again, you could extend the ZAP to be the “zero aggression or fraud principle,” but, as was the main point of your post, these amendments just highlight the shortcomings of ZAP as a first principle.
(Incidentally, the above considerations are the main reason I don’t shun voluntarism and why I think voluntariness goes hand-in-hand with moral egalitarianism or LEL. A lot of people strongly oppose voluntarism as the basis of morality, but the way I think of it, it means the same thing as the LEL.)
Some of the same problems inherent in ZAP (surrounding what “aggression” even means) also necessarily present themselves in discussions of LEL. Specifically, what does “liberty” even mean? Doing what you want, up to but not infringing upon the equal rights of others? That’s about how I would define it, as mentioned in my sphere of liberty explanation. But this gets awfully muddled when you talk about workplace conditions or voluntary associations. It gets too far into matters of preference and deviates from right vs. wrong. No, it isn’t wrong for people to unionize, talk back to their boss, or organize themselves into a new competing company, but it also isn’t wrong for them to be fired when they strike, make unreasonable demands, or slander the company in the press.
Consider two people working some blue-collar job like construction or manufacturing. They have the same boss, the same pay, the same hours, the same position, and the same conditions. Are Person A’s rights being violated but Person B’s aren’t, if Person A hates the job and the conditions but Person B doesn’t? Everything else would be equal and rightful, i.e., they could quit if they wanted, unionize, encourage all of the employees to come work for their new competing company, demand air conditioning, etc. To be a right, or to be a principle, it must apply equally to everyone at all times and all places. But someone’s tolerable conditions are someone else’s intolerable conditions.
I think encouraging unionization and more equity in the workplace is an extension of the libertarian mentality (part of “thick libertarianism”), but a lot of conditions and privileges are not rights. The ability to freely negotiate your job and pay: a right. Having air conditioning or a boss who treats you as an equal: a privilege.
You probably considered a lot of this already. I wasn’t planning on writing this much; I should write a post of my own.
November 18th, 2009 at 12:57 pm
While the ZAP sounds like a good principle, I contend that the wording of it presents problems, like requiring one to note the sense in which the word “force” is used. And the more a principle requires definitions to be extended, the less descriptive the principle becomes.
Again I think the meaning of liberty is implied in the LEL – to do all that one wills compatible with other peoples’ ability to do the same.
I don’t see why the LEL cannot be extended to the workplace so long as it is done with proportionality and mutuality in mind. Owning a company doesn’t mean you own the people in it. Ideally, agreements to work together would be done on a more equal basis than the employer-worker hierarchy. Providing sufficient consensual alternatives on a freed market (the demand for which would be created by a consistent libertarian consciousness) would certainly make this a less authoritarian relationship, as the worker would then be less dependent on anyone who fancied himself a boss. I don’t know how much I’d use the term “rights” in discussing workplace freedom though.
Incidentally the main reason I don’t call myself a voluntaryist is for similar reasons of semantics. Anarchy means without rulers, but defining what is truly voluntary requires greater explanation. I like to use the word “consensual” because it seems easier to see a difference between consent and acquiescence than between voluntary and involuntary.
Of course, people who describe themselves as voluntaryists or zero-aggression libertarians are usually good folks. I’m not trying to polarize here, but trying to constructively criticize and make my own thoughts more coherent.
November 23rd, 2009 at 6:27 pm
I like the slant and the exploration here a great deal. The problems you point to in items 2 and 3 have caused me to reach a “parting of the minds” with more than one zap-focused libertarian (see, for example, those responding to my Rumsfeld hypothetical a while back suggesting that a would-be assassin should be stopped). As others have pointed out, the ZAP is a great rule of thumb, but it ain’t the end of the ethics story by any means.
That second formulation of the LEL, by the way, comes awfully close to Crowley’s dictum from Liber AL: “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.” Somewhere, Bob Wilson did one of the great and sometimes confusing things he did with words, focusing on this statement (and its complement, “Love is the law, love under will”), and coming up with a sort of libertarianism as a result, and with “so that you not trespass against another” emerging almost as a reflective corollary. Good stuff, the location of which I’ve entirely forgotten!
December 2nd, 2009 at 5:28 pm
I should think about the assumptions or omissions regarding property when I revise this.
December 6th, 2009 at 11:18 pm
Also I should examine the ZAP as worded by Sam Konkin and Gary Chartier. Different formulations of LEL might also be worth examining.
December 16th, 2009 at 5:34 pm
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