Limits Of Voluntarism & A Kind of Trinity of Morality
Voluntarism is based on the simple principle that you need consent from both parties for a transaction to take place. You need consent for two people to have legal sex. You need consent for a contract to be binding. You need consent for a bank to be able to randomly take a chunk of money out of your bank account. The maximalist voluntarist denies the legitimacy of any non-consensual behaviour. Some even argue that taxation is theft! Are they easy to prove to be wrong?
Without consent you are most likely breaking property rights and laws. The inviolable law for libertarians being the Non Aggression Principle (NAP).
Many voluntarist and libertarians adhere to Austrian economics, as prescribed by the likes of Hayek, Mises, Rothbard, Hoppe etc. But not all do, or not all do completely. Libertarianism is a broad church. Some adherents are just very prudent and individualist whilst others would be happy to have a voluntary community that shunned and contracted away minority groups like blacks or gays.
Whilst this is completely voluntary, is it a moral behaviour? Some would argue that minority groups do better in their own communities. This certainly wouldn’t be the case for gays, since they emerge from any community: white, black, asian, muslim — so excluding them from their own family and community would not help them do better. Its not even obvious that it would be better for racial groups, as some countries have been successful at multiculturalism and generally speaking it leads to more free trade of culture including art, food and technologies. Even if you are convinced that I.Q is related to racial groups and that whites are smarter than blacks on average (and Jews and Gays smarter than whites on average) then you wont have any good NBA or NFL teams in your Hoppean white supremacist paradise. Nor will you have geniuses like Neil DeGrasse Tyson or Sam Harris (cos secular Jews are not white?).
Taxation is not necessarily theft as it can be done purely voluntarily, by a voluntary group of members volunteering and contracting themselves to pay tax for the benefit of the society. The tax is theft guys will say that is not forced taxation so it’s not tax, but that’s a matter of semantics. You are forcing yourself to be moral because you know it serves the greater common interest, even if its against your own immediate interests: but yes you also have the choice to not be moral under a voluntary taxation system. Whilst some of these people would be happy just to pay no tax themselves or have tax be voluntary, others seem to think it would be preferable for noone to pay tax. Fair enough if thats your opinion, but to force it on someone else would violate the NAP.
The truth of the world is that some level of moral altruism is better than an anarchist world of dog eat dog that has no idea of altruism. Some amount of voluntary taxation is most definitely more moral than no taxation at all. Without any taxation there would be no property rights or police to protect them. My opinion is the most moral taxation system is Georgist based on Land Value Tax as pioneered and championed by Henry George as correcting a tax injustice with respect to land monopolies, and can also be done in a Geolibertarian voluntary way as demonstrated in the tweets immediately below.. but i detract.
1/ In #Ancapistan those with the most guns rule which is the same as with government they say is illegitimate, but with war the same. Government naturally evolves from anarchy. The point is to limit it to it's core duties. And to fund it efficiently as championed by #HenryGeorge.
2/ #Georgism done purely voluntarily is maximal #geolibertarian. Those that dont want to pay #LVT for a moral just society dont have to, but they dont get access to public services (roads, public water, police etc) as they are owned by the government. Everyone is #freetochoose.
So given that NAP is an inviolable law to voluntarists, is it the only law necessary to be moral or are there any limits to this philosophy? What about lying? Or refraining from giving the whole truth?
If i tell you my house is worth a million dollars but really its only probably worth around 100K but you don’t have good knowledge of housing markets, so you pay the million, this is a voluntary transaction, but has it realised a true price?
If i tell you BitConnect is the next Bitcoin but its actually a Ponzi scheme, this is a voluntary transaction, but has it stopped harm from happening? (Bitcoin is not a Ponzi scheme btw, its just a currency, but perhaps the Austrians and Keynes were right about Fractional Reserve Banking being one?).
If i don’t even lie but i refrain to give you some knowledge, this is also voluntary. If I’m a doctor who doesn’t tell you you have a tumour in your head, this is voluntary, but is it moral? No-one is forced to impart knowledge to someone. A teacher isn’t forced to give his best lessons to a student he dislikes and a doctor … wait, a doctor makes an oath..
Certain people in society swear to a duty of care, and to First Do No Harm / Hippocratic Oath.
If the voluntarist does that which will first, do no harm, then he probably wont kick his son out onto the streets with no money or food just because under his community contract his son violates the illegality of being gay and has thus become a trespasser onto his property. The doctor gives their best care possible, regardless of the individual because they care for the patient and would like the best care if they themselves needed care. They have empathy and exhibit altruistic behaviour above and beyond the terms of contract.
Which leads to the other simple rule which the voluntary system inherently lacks to mention, the Golden Rule.
If the voluntarist does that which he would like to be done to him then this is a more moral philosophy to life, which can include voluntarily paying tax.
If i tell you that my house is probably only worth 100–200k then have we reached a fair price given that i know that its not likely the market will ever pay anywhere near a million? What if there is no way of knowing what the market will pay as the Austrians assert, which makes sense, but isnt it also true that land value accrue where economic activity and investment does, around cities?
Is it fairer to take the million? How about 10 million from a mentally deficient person? Or your son or daughter as inheritance for near free? It seems that who you are transacting with seems to sometimes effect the value of the transaction and so does where the land is located. But if you worked hard to make your house worth more then you justly deserve to reap the reward. If society worked hard to reap the reward for you via rise in land values, then perhaps they justly should treat that part of the value increase as a basis for taxation? Or perhaps they should give you the choice to pay tax or not on your income? Not all value is created equally.
If i tell you that BitConnect is a Ponzi scheme is it in my self interest if i’m trying to make money from the Ponzi scheme even if i know myself it is a Ponzi scheme? So is there any incentive in the voluntary self interest system that prevents fraud in one’s self interest? Not really. I read somewhere a libertarian’s argument that people should be considered not as a means to an ends, but this is just a moral argument in addition to voluntarism, not inherent to the economic philosophy, because if it serves ones interest, then it is a benefit to the individual. This is not stressed in the literature.
It seems to me that in terms of incentivising a moral society, the voluntary individualist philosophy based on voluntary trade of information/knowledge (which can be asymmetrical) seems to have some limitations to being moral. People can trade nuclear weapons willy nilly, but it doesn't make it responsible or moral.
What if a depressed suicidal teenager contracted someone to murder them? Is allowing this good voluntary economic trade or immoral? Ok, perhaps it can be argued that it breaks the Non Aggression Principle (despite being voluntary) but what if the teen just buys suicide pills? Perhaps the government is right for wanting at least some basic level of Know Your Customer rules in place for cryptocurrency transacting? Or perhaps its completely up to the suicidal teen whether he knows best about whether to end his own life or not?
How can a philosophy of individualism not consider the individual that your transacting with and only consider them as a means to an end? In a free market of trading currencies this is not an issue as there is relative symmetry and understanding to agreed upon knowledge that the trade is “as is” but with the example of selling suicide drugs to a depressed teenager, the knowledge and power is asymmetrical, and with great power comes great responsibility. Or is the value of a human life only up to the valuator?
Another rule that we learn when we grow up is that you don’t get to do everything you want to do in life, and you sometimes need or ought to do that which you don’t want to do especially when there is good reason to do it. But still, perhaps you shouldn’t be forced to do it, but perhaps you should be shunned if you don’t.
Of course, Im not saying that you should violate the NAP to achieve one of the other moral rules, but if you are only considering the NAP without considering the other rules or rather with neglect of the other rules, then you have probably been indoctrinated into single minded thinking. And libertarians are generally too smart for that. Thus, i think for libertarians and governments alike, a kind of Trinity of Morality could be useful to determine morality and justice.
