The many facets of justice
From mises.org:
Salmieri agrees with anarcho-capitalists that “organizing a society around the principle of individual rights requires ‘the barring of physical force from social relationships’ so that individuals may deal with one another ‘only by means of reason, by discussion, persuasion and voluntary uncoerced agreement’”.
This sentence was written by David Gordon, a senior fellow at the Ludwig von Mises Institute, a PhD, author of three books on political economy, and editor of two periodicals.
Gordon is agreeing with Gregory Salmieri who is a PhD, a specialist in ethics, a Fellow in Philosophy at the Anthem Foundation, and author of a dozen academic articles.
They are in the intellectual elite and they agree on nonsense. My goal here is not to bring down Gordon, Salmieri, or their associates. This sort of error is everywhere. This type of nonsense is typical in all camps of radical politics, and it is only less common in orthodox politics because they skip over such questions.
The passage sounds nice. Barring physical force is great. Voluntary persuasion is great. Uncoerced agreement is great. So, what is the problem? It’s a tautology dressed up as profundity. I challenge Gordon, Salmieri, and you reader for a counter-example of a society that doesn’t
… bar physical force from social relationships so that individuals may deal with one another only by means of reason, by discussion, persuasion and voluntary uncoerced agreement.
Let’s consider a society that tolerates spousal abuse. If you think that is a counter-example to barring physical force from social relationships then let’s contrast it with someone forcefully defending themselves from attempted spousal rape. If a society permits fighting off spousal rape is it a counter-example to barring physical force from social relationships? Certainly not. Why? Because we understand that attempted rape is an offense that one can defend against with force. Now, how do we go from our example to excusing spousal abuse? All we have to do is load more actions into the category of offenses for which force is an allowed response.
We can create a hypothetical society where not filling the gas tank is an offense that permits a forceful response from a spouse. If the spouse abuser agrees to barring physical force from social relationships then it can’t mean much.
To define ‘coercion’ is to define ‘voluntary’ is to define ‘barring physical force from social relationships’. These are all different facets of the same thing.
I usually call this thing ‘justice’. The different facets of justice include: offenses, law, property, enforcement, aggression, consent, coercion, voluntary, rights, for ancaps the NAP, and now ‘barring physical force from social relationships’.
To define one is to define the rest.
Let me take a moment to drop a profound tautology:
The purpose of law is to direct enforcement to limit aggression, making it more difficult to commit offenses so that people may enjoy their property.
It sounds great and it means nothing. Perhaps I am now part of the philosophical elite.