Archives for July 2011

I never agreed to be ruled by a state, yet philosophers and political scientists confidently speak of “the social contract” as though it’s something we voluntarily enter into. It’s a coercive fraud.

If a car dealer unilaterally parked a vehicle in your driveway and demanded that you started making payments for it — payments that he determined on a car that he chose for you — there’s little question that you would refuse.

“By what right do you make this choice for me?” you would ask. “What gives you the right to set the price and the terms? And why do you think I’m obligated to an arrangement I never agreed to?”

That’s exactly what states do, though. The idea of us all having a “social contract” with one another is supposed to make it legitimate and legal. It’s a justification that serves to keep you from demanding to be left alone.

I said something a couple of days ago about this so-called contract and I was planning to write something about it this week. But I just came across an article by Robert Higgs at the Independent Institute’s website that does a great job of showing what a sham this so-called contract is, so I’m going to ask that you read that instead. Would you sign this thing voluntarily?

Consent of the Governed?

Why do you hate people who disagree with you politically? Is it because you don’t want them to live in the way their ideas suggest? Or do you hate them because they want to force you to live by their rules?

You might protest that you don’t really hate your political opponents. OK. For the sake of argument, let’s grant the fiction that all of us here are kind-hearted and reasonable people. Let’s talk about other people. Why do you suppose liberals hate conservatives? Why do you suppose conservatives hate liberals? Why do you suppose everyone hates those weirdo fringe political groups? (I’m using “liberal” and “conservative” in their generally accepted public definitions here.)

There’s an underlying assumption in public debate today. The idea is that whatever rules the majority want, that’s the set of rules that should be imposed on everyone. What if we were free to live under different rules — whatever rules we chose for the people we chose to live with? What if the territory known as the United States, for instance, were more like a thousand little nations or cities or enclaves — whatever people voluntarily choose to make their property a part of?

That’s what some of us want. We want a thousand nations to bloom — instead of forcing everybody to live under the same set of rules that the monolithic majority choose.

My utopia isn’t the same as yours. There’s nothing wrong with that. I should be able to build my own or to live in someone else’s version of a perfect world. You should be able to do the same thing. There’s no reason for us to join with the shrieking talking heads and combatants on TV talk shows. We can choose to pursue something entirely different — where you and people who agree with you live your way.

It’s time to dream big about the future — and quit trying to force everyone to live life as we believe it ought to be lived.

Some people oppose the state because of the evil intentions of the people with power. I’m worried about something far worse and far more common. I’m worried about the unintended consequences of those with good intentions.

In the ’70s, pretty much everyone agreed that overpopulation was one of the top problems in the world, especially for fast-growing poor nations such as China. Trendy U.S. environmentalists such as Paul Ehrlich were saying alarming things about the inevitable mass starvation coming just any day now. In his book, “The Population Bomb,” Ehrlich made predictions which were staggeringly wrong, including this:

The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now. At this late date nothing can prevent a substantial increase in the world death rate….

Although Ehrlich and his apologists remain unrepentant about his repeated wrong predictions, one group of people who listened to the same argument and decided to act. The communist government of mainland China enacted a draconian law to slow down population growth — complete with propaganda posters such as the one above, exhorting the people to “implement the basic national policy.” (If you’d like to know more about “experts” such as Ehrlich and why their predictions, I recommend Dan Gardner’s book, “Future Babble: Why Expert Predictions Fail — and Why We Believe Them Anyway.”)

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