The Libertarian Dilemma

by Joseph S. Bommarito

Dilemmas Confronting Libertarians, Anarcho-Capitalists, Austro-Economists, Market Anarchists, Anti-Statists, Min-Archists, Anarchists, Classical Liberals, Non-Left Liberals, and Other Labelled and Unlabelled Types Who Oppose the Authoritarian State.

The Primary Dilemma

Question: How does one get along in modern society without compromising one’s principles by participating in the authoritarian State?

Answer: You can’t.

Unless you’re willing to pack it all in and grub out a life in the boondocks somewhere in Alaska, which is mostly State-owned property. You do not yet need travel papers to get there . . . unless you fly, in which case you need picture ID at a minimum. Or unless you drive through Canada, in which case you’d better carry a passport in addition to your driver’s license, and remember to leave the guns behind. I was wrong; you need travel papers. 

The mother of all dilemmas is that the State is omnipresent, like the old cartoon character, Savoir Faire: “He’s here, he’s there, he’s everywhere. So beware.” 

One can better avoid the State if one begins at birth. To be more accurate, one’s parent’s can avoid the State on one’s behalf. It means not getting a Social Security Number for the newborn and forgoing the dependent income tax deduction for all time. How many new parents can afford to do that? Ask mom if she is willing to trade in food, clothing, and shelter for her child in exchange for the libertarian ideal. Safer to get between a tigress and her cubs. 

There is the problem of what to do later in life. In the U.S., as in the People’s Republic of China, one uses that little nine-digit number to go to school, go to college, get a job, open a bank account, get health insurance, etc., etc., etc. Unlike living in the PRC, it isn’t needed to change residence from one city to another, but it follows one anyway. 

Changing an address means changing a driver’s license to avoid being fined or incarcerated, and the SSN is tied to the driver’s license in most states. But the still undocumented child is safe, as long as the parent takes on home schooling (difficult, if not illegal, in some states), teaches the young’un a trade he can barter with fringe-existence hovel-dwellers for life’s little necessities, and grubstake him to that shack in Alaska. 

Author Claire Wolfe gives examples of State-avoidance that sound doable. She suggests, for example, not having a bank account and thereby not creating a paper trail of payments. For someone who can take on the higher expense of money orders, or who can forgo interest earnings, or who can just not owe anything, this might work. But employers are increasingly requiring employees to have accounts in order to be paid through electronic fund transfers. It’s the coming thing and don’t you know, the FedGov loves it. Easier to track everyone’s business. 

I just submitted a news article to a local paper. I’m going to get paid. The editor asked for my SSN in order to process my check. I’m going to give it to him because, aside from a little pension from my last job, that is my only income. I’m not about to turn it down for a principle that I’ve violated in the same manner for the past fifty years, ever since I got my SSN at the tender age of sixteen. I do avoid giving it out whenever possible, even to the extent of refusing to divulge it in some cases, but it’s already out there. And so, I participate in the State’s system.

I’ve been bought off by need. I’m a hostage to fortune, especially when fortune consists of the three necessities: food, shelter, and clothing. And transportation . . . . And health care . . . . And books . . . . And writing materials . . . . 

Painted into a Corner

Another libertarian dilemma is generated from a basic principle of libertarianism: the non-aggression axiom. If you’re a member of the Libertarian Party you signed an agreement to abide by it. “We hold that all individuals . . . have the right to live in whatever manner they choose, so long as they do not forcibly interfere with the equal right of others . . . .” 

The key words are “forcibly interfere.” Rand forbid we should do that! And I admit to adopting this principle, not as a convenient guideline, but as the moral code that it is. As moral codes go, it’s a good one. In fact, if you leave out the first four of the Ten Commandments, you’ve got them all covered in the non-aggression axiom. Don’t lie; don’t hurt anyone; don’t take anyone’s property. There are some words about coveting in the Big Ten, but I never really understood that, despite being a recovering Catholic. 

Writer L. Neil Smith states the axiom as: “A libertarian is a person who believes that no one has the right, under any circumstances, to initiate force against another human being, or to advocate or delegate its initiation . . . .” Smith and his adherents refer to this as the Non-Aggression Principle, or NAP. “Initiation” is the key word and the principle does not constrain the right of an individual to defend himself from force initiated by another.

Many libertarian (et al) web sites devote much effort and space to denouncing the ever-increasing initiation of force by the State. One site gives a “jack-booted thug of the month” award. Examples of initiations of force by the State are legion, beginning with the income tax. Since things are so bad, and the State is initiating force against us left and right, by Left and Right, when do we start with this self-defense stuff?

- Donald Scott was gunned down in his home during a notorious property-seizure raid in which no drugs were found.

- Vicky Weaver was gunned down while holding a baby.

- Eighty-some religious loonies and their kids were incinerated in Waco “to protect the children.”

- ________ (fill in the blank with your favorite State-initiated atrocity).

- Libertarians (me too) whine incessantly about being forced to comply with some State perversion or other “at the point of a gun.”

- Plus, we’re being initiated out of our incomes, our property, and our liberties.

Don’t these constitute initiation of force by the State, which we may rightly  defend ourselves against? Apparently not.

Since we so morally and uprightly subscribe to the non-aggression axiom, we cannot initiate force against the perpetrators of those acts. We can think of a hundred reasons why that would violate the non-aggression axiom.

We’ve painted ourselves into a nice, comfortable, safe, non-initiatory corner.