The Market for Liberty
HUGE: Javier Milei's reforms gain approval in Argentina, plus Tolstoy's peaceful anarchy and the looming threat of liberty in our time...
“La omnipotencia del Estado es la negación de la libertad individual.”
(“The omnipotence of the State is the denial of individual freedom.”)
~ Juan Bautista Alberdi (1810 –1884)
Joel Bowman, with today’s Note From the End of the World...
Welcome back to another Sunday Sesh, that time of the week when we pause for a moment, in the eye of the hurricane, and wonder at the wild and whirling forces around us.
More good news for the cause of liberty this week, dear reader. Back in our adopted home of Argentina, Javier Milei’s administration was able to pass its monumental “Ley de Bases” reform bill. The bill is modeled on one of the republic’s founding documents, by the above-quoted Juan Batista Alberdi (about whom we’ve written here.)
After months of intense negotiations, the bill was approved by the Argentine senate thanks to a tie-breaking (37-36) vote from Vice President Victoria Villarruel, who had this to say in a short speech before casting the deciding vote…
“Today, there are two Argentinas. A violent Argentina that sets a car on fire, throws rocks and debates the exercise of democracy, and another Argentina with workers waiting with great pain and sacrifice for the change that they voted for.”
~ Argentine Vice President, Victoria Villarruel, before casting the deciding vote on the Ley de Bases last week
Milei had delayed his trip to the G7 gabfest in Italy, in order to allow Sra. Villarruel to preside over the senate hearing (if not, she would have been obliged to assume executive duties at home during his absence and would have missed the opportunity).
A “Radical Agenda”
Predictably, Marxist “defenders of democracy” were on hand to torch cars, intimidate elected members of congress and generally throw their toys out of the crib. Such a tolerant, freedom-loving bunch...
Naturally, the toadies in the mainstream press lined up... on the side of violence, destruction of private property and intimidation!
Milei's radical agenda advances in Argentina's Senate as protesters clash with police ~ squealed Euronews
Approval gives initial victory to Javier Milei, who has set out agenda of radical economic deregulation ~ whined The Guardian
Protests erupt in Buenos Aires over President Milei's bid for more powers ~ bleated Reuters
But wait, what is Milei’s “radical agenda,” exactly? What is this authoritarian tyrant’s “bid for more power”?
Would that all be in reference to the sitting president, who garnered the single largest majority of free votes since Argentina returned to democracy 40+ years ago, and who was able to convince, through adult negotiation and mature discourse, a fair majority of the nation’s legislative body to vote in favor of his reforms, the very reforms that poll after poll shows the overwhelming majority of Argentine citizens actually favor?
Note to zurdos: Maybe “democracy” doesn’t mean what you think it means.
Liberty in Our Time?
We’ll have a full breakdown of what’s in the Ley de Bases, and what’s likely in store for Argentina given this historic move, next week.
Meanwhile, we’ve been riffing on that eternal theme of Man vs. State all week, with essays on “spiritual anarchist” Leo Tolstoy and musings on everything from Rousseau’s (implied) Social Contract and Hobbes’s cynical worldview.
As usual, our dear readers had plenty to say in the comments section. (Check them out – and join in! – under the articles themselves, archived below for your convenience.)
One frequent question we get when discussing the concept of anarchy is its practicality.
“Yes, yes,” our learned interlocutor will begin, “that’s all well and good in theory... But what about when it comes to practice? How does one account for the ultimate variable... human behavior? Are there not enough bad actors among us to spoil the whole project? Don’t we need the state, to...
Keep Halloween creeps from putting razor blades in candied apples...
Stop greedy capitalists polluting our waterways...
Ensure there are “safety nets” for the infirm, the addled, the down and out...
Keep Ellen Degeneres off the television...
“Etc., etc., etc. ...”
Indeed, there are as many worthy causes and good intentions as there are pavers on the road to perdition.
But anarchy does not promise – or even propose – utopia... only freedom. And that includes freedom for individuals (and voluntary associations thereof) to make dumb decisions, provided they also accept the consequences of their own actions. (SorryNotSorry, Wall Street banksters. No bailouts for you!)
One useful text we’ve been proud to promote over the years on this subject is a little pamphlet authored by Morris and Linda Tannehill, titled The Market for Liberty: Is Government Really Necessary?
In fact, we wrote the forward to an updated edition of the work, published by Laissez-Faire Books, a few years back. Given the recent discussion of anarchy, and the rise of the world’s first self-described “anarcho-capitalist” president, Sr. Javier Milei, we thought a pithy review of the work might be worth your consideration. Please enjoy...
The Market for Liberty
A review by Joel Bowman
It is at times useful to imagine how a truly laissez-faire society, one entirely emancipated from the shackles of state coercion, might exist and operate. Morris and Linda Tannehill examine this very idea in, The Market for Liberty: Is Government Really Necessary?
Market for Liberty imagines a totally free society; one with no government intrusion whatsoever; one in which the free market is left to respond to the myriad demands of individuals, without recourse to institutionalized coercion - implied or actual. Is such a stateless existence even possible, much less preferable? Or, as so many contend, is it merely an academically contrived utopia?
Morris and Linda Tannehill address all the usual fears and tremblings that the specter of a truly non-governmental – i.e. anarchist – society conjures up.
Whenever there arises in conversation the mere suggestion of a totally free, laissez-faire market, the possibility that human beings might even be able to survive (much less thrive) without the safety net of State control, apologists for "benevolent government" invariably step atop their soapboxes and ask:
“Yes, but who will provide education for the masses, if not the public schools?” or “Who will care for the sick and weak, if not the public hospitals?”
Indeed, these are questions that deserve thoughtful, honest answers. But these questions also assume realities that are not in evidence.
They suppose that “the public” (i.e., the State) actually has money to “provide” these services, rather than, as is actually the case, first having to expropriate (steal) it from private, productive individuals. Furthermore, the fallacy of benign governmental control relies on the idea that governments can provide essential services more reliably and cost-effectively than the private sector.
In other words, the government's obligation to provide essential services is considered more reliable and effective than the private sector's opportunity to provide essential services. Admittedly, this debate does not lend itself to easy, black and white conclusions. But as the Tannehill's argue persuasively, the free market provides solutions that governments would never dream of.
The Advantage of Freedom
“The big advantage of any action of the free market,” contend the Tannehills, “is that errors and injustices are self-correcting. Because competition creates a need for excellence on the part of each business, a free-market institution must correct its errors in order to survive. Government, on the other hand, survives not by excellence, but by coercion; so an error or flaw in a governmental institution can (and usually will) perpetuate itself almost indefinitely, with its errors being 'corrected' by further errors. Private enterprise must, therefore, always be superior to government in any field.”
It is perhaps worth mentioning here that corporations acting in collusion with the state – sometimes referred to as ‘corporatism’ or ‘crony capitalism’ – does NOT constitute ‘private enterprises’ as the Tannehill's define them. They are simply entities that have co-opted the government’s “gun-for- hire” to do their dirty work for them. Think Wall Street “bailout” recipients and their army of D.C. lobbyists... Big Pharma inbred private-public family during the whole covid fiasco. Indeed, any institution at all that seeks unfair protection or promotion from the state.]
The lines on the battlefield between the comfort of State control and the liberty of anarchy are familiar to all. The State is a protector, one side argues. The State is a prison guard, the other side asserts. And so the familiar discussion begins, rife with... hypotheticals, conjecture and imagined disasters...
“How,” the former is heard to question, “might common disputes find resolution without the currently preferred monopoly of the state's courts?”
“What about private monopolies that would ruthlessly jack up prices and bleed us working class proletariats to death?
“By what means might a laissez-faire society offer protection from foreign aggressors?
“How might the personal liberties underpinning the whole system be protected if it were not for the tireless work of the state's police and its myriad other law enforcement agencies?
“Indeed, the statist continues, how would ‘the law’ itself even come into being, and in what shape would it find application, in the absence of the all-knowing, all-powerful state?
The Tannehills address these anxieties thoroughly and logically. “Freedom is not only as moral as governmental slavery is immoral,” they write, “it is as practical as government is impractical.”
Discussions criticizing the state’s myriad shortcomings and follies are many. The Tannehill's Market for Liberty takes the extra step in providing viable, concrete solutions to state-sponsored dilemmas. The Free Market, they argue, can correct the State’s tendency toward costly excesses, and can do so peacefully and voluntarily, simply by following price signals from the market itself.
Market for Liberty is, for all intents and purposes, a very real, practical solution set to those most commonly presented excuses for acquiescing to governmental authority. The government is not merely a “necessary evil,” the Tannehills argue. “It is necessarily evil.”
Of course, Market for Liberty does not project a utopia in which acts of violence simply disappear and where every individual immediately sets off on an uninterrupted path to nirvana. Rather, the authors illustrate how individuals acting in their own self-interest, coming together to engage in mutually-beneficial exchanges, are thus incentivized to act with honesty and integrity.
“The history of governments always has been, and always will be, written in blood, fire and tears,” the Tannehills assert. In Market for Liberty, they show how freedom is not only an alternative to the State, but a far superior one worth, at the very least, our immediate and undivided attention.
And now for this past week’s Notes…
And what do you reckon, dear reader…?
Are we liable to see liberty in our time? How is the Greatest Political Experiment of Our Age proceeding… in your backyard?
Notes from your end of the world are always welcome in the comments section, below…
In a few minutes we’re heading to the airport on the next leg of our little sojourn around Southeast Asia. We’ll write again… from the city known colloquially as “Krung Thep.”
Whatever you’re up to this weekend, we hope you’re living your best life.
Stay tuned for more Notes From the End of the World…
Cheers,
Joel Bowman
P.S. It’s happening, dear reader. And it’s happening right now...
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State media outlets… government propaganda mills… bloviating presstitutes in the mainstream press… all are falling out of favor with common sense readers, who are turning to independent sources – like these humble Notes – for their information and ideas.
As such, we are especially grateful for the generous support of our dear members, who understand the importance of promoting free markets… free minds… and free people.
If you are not yet a member but would like to support the work we are doing here, please consider joining our growing community of critical thinkers, free market advocates and spiritual anarchists today.
The evolution is here. Join us today and share the news.
It will take the US equivalent of Milei to take steps to achieve Jefferson's assertion; that is, the government which governs best governs least.
With one of every six workers in the US now employed by a government -- local, state or Federal -- that's a lot of people who produce no wealth; only regulations, fees and fines. An understanding of basic economics will help too.
For example, in the city where I live -- long controlled by the Democratic Party -- citizens complain that there's not enough tax extracted from the business sector. This reality requires homeowners to fill the void by paying ever higher property tax.
Yet when I and others urge the city to (a) reduce citizens' tax burden by reducing the costs of its services by (b) divesting itself of its businesses (e, g., bike share, bus service, property management, recreational facilities, etc.) -- none of which are profitable; all which require subsidies from taxpayers -- by (c) converting them into privately-owned, tax paying enterprises, the concept is treated as if someone dropped a turd in the punch bowl.
We have too many wealth-takers. What we desperately need are more wealth-makers
Thanks for the recommendation. I can't wait to read Market for Liberty.
Also I love this description it is why anarchy is such a hard sell. "But anarchy does not promise – or even propose – utopia... only freedom."
We promise responsibility and offer only the reward of freedom. This acceptance of responsibility is not not a trade most are willing to take when the other option is no responsibility in exchange for compliance.
Luckily a small minority is heading the right direction.