Wilton Alston on why he doesn’t care….

Posted on by

Over at Lew Rockwell, Wilton Alston ponders the under-rated virtues of not caring:

“…consider again what the term ‘market’ can refer to. Once we descend from the academic world of idealized types to the real world of human experience in which action is always subject to some form of regulation, the only useful conception of the market would be one that referred to the realm of human activity free from political regulation. This would mean that the market is correctly understood not as the realm of unregulated voluntary transactions, but as the realm of voluntary transactions subject to the regulation of ethics, custom, and spontaneously evolved law.”

~ John Hasnas, “The Privatization Depoliticization of Law“

I have concluded something very important recently. (OK, so maybe not very important, but mildly interesting anyway!) I just don’t care about a lot of stuff that used to really excite me. For instance, I don’t care:

  • That Karl Rove resigned;
  • That Alberto Gonzales resigned;
  • That they haven’t caught Osama bin Laden yet;
  • Who gets selected for the Supreme Court;
  • If George Bush (or any other President) gets impeached;
  • Who gets elected President of the United States.

(Disclaimer: I think Ron Paul is a fine human being and a man of honor. I can say that without ever meeting him, due specifically to his great commentary on LRC and the type of principled people who rally to his support. I sincerely hope that his candidacy provides a platform from which a thousand ships of libertarian truth are launched. I actually get a rush of pride when I see him “school” losers like Jailiani about, well, anything. That said, I still don’t care about the presidency itself.)

Now, where were we?

Why don’t I care about the things I list? I could take each of these separately, and I will embellish on a few of my reasons, but basically it comes down to this. I’m an anarchist.

Sometimes we like to refine this description with terms like anarcho-capitalist, and that’s accurate as well, but let us be clear. I don’t want a better government; I want no coercive political government. I don’t want a more efficient TSA; I want no (publicly funded) TSA. I don’t want a better FDA; I want no FDA. I don’t want policemen who only stop every third brother caught DWB (driving while black); I want to be able to switch providers when the security service “hired” with my tax money wastes it while simultaneously shooting at people like me. Before anyone jumps to a conclusion and pulls a muscle, let me clear something else up. Does all this mean that I want no rules in my life? Why of course not.

As Hasnas lays out in marvelous detail in the paper linked above, civilization has always existed with rules or laws, as some may designate them. A peaceful life and the pleasant interactions between human beings have always been and will always be based upon some understanding of what is ethical and what is not. Furthermore, some of these rules will not be derived from consent. I’m cool with that. Ostrowski’s wonderful working paper provides what I think is the most useful definition of self-government with:

Self-government – no state with final authority; each person governs himself or herself; disputes among people are resolved by private courts and arbitrators; resort to private courts is encouraged by self-interest, social pressure, boycott, ostracism and market forces such as the denial of insurance and of access to real estate to those with a history of improper self-help.

When I say anarchy, this definition describes what it is that I mean. Furthermore, I’d assert that this is what most anarchists mean. But anyway, what all this leads up to is my reasons for not caring about any of the listed items.Why I Don’t Care That Rove ResignedRove was a worker. He is, at best, a symptom. Let’s assume, for a minute, that he’s the best in the history of time at what he does. Let us further assume that “what he does” is get people elected to public office. I already said I don’t want public offices. Public office – like the State generally – allows evil to find flower. It allows an individual to off-load the costs of any personal desire onto those he almost never has to face while they simultaneously pay for his acts. He plays; they pay. Until we can fire all of them, having one here and there quit of their own accord, and likely just slither to some other cold, dank cavern under the public trough, is applying a Band-Aid to an arterial gusher.Why I Don’t Care That Gonzales ResignedGonzales is simply the latest in a long, long, long line of lying, make-up-the-law-as-we-go people who Bush apparently has on speed dial. How many comically unqualified people of, at best, questionable morals does Bush have in his trick bag? (Bootsy Collins used to sing about having a “ghostly haberdashery” from which his funk would spring. Bush has a ghastly haberdashery. You can fill in the rest.) At what point do we stop thinking, “Okay, that’s as low as he can go”? In the limbo game of cronyism, George W. Bush is a Jedi master! I can virtually assure you that if anyone can find someone whose behavior will have us waxing nostalgic about the “good old days” when we only had to worry about Abu Ghraib and Gitmo, it is this president.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *