Christian
Michel
Ought We To Obey The Laws Of Our
Country?
Should
we obey the laws of our country? A few
years ago, my reply to this question was easy-going: If it pleases you to obey the laws of your
country, if you believe that submitting to them makes you a better person, then
please do it.
Let
me simply say that as far as I am concerned, obeying laws brings me no
satisfaction at all. On the
contrary. I find the legislation of my
country and of the countries where I have resided to be arbitrary, stupid,
contradictory, humiliating to those they apply to, and singularly biased in
favour of those who make them.
But
still, I thought at the time, if it suits some people to be servile, then so be
it; all I ask of them is to leave me in peace.
Today, my point of view has changed.
Tolerance towards those who subject themselves to government
legislation no longer seems to me a morally defensible position. And it is the evolution in my thinking on
this topic that I would like to share with you this evening.
In
our daily lives, we are asked to bend ourselves to a variety of rules; I
propose to classify these rules into four categories:
Each
of these categories of rules fulfils a different function.
Morality
is like our own personal legislation. We
make choices according to our values and we even create a hierarchy of these
values. The desire for money or power
determines the activities of some people, while others find their vocation in
raising a family, in deepening their cultural roots, or in a spiritual quest…
We cannot make do without morality, even when it is heavy with obligations, for
we are conscious that our existence, like all systems, must be organised
according to rules. Without them, we would live a scattered, disorganised
existence, in the same way that too much rigidity in applying these rules would
cause us to miss the opportunities that life, in all its imagination, presents
to us.
A
long tradition of wisdom is passed on to us to enlighten the choices we make
throughout our lives. The family is the
first vehicle of this tradition, but religion and philosophy too play a
role. Dialogues between cultures have
enriched our understanding of morality (Judeo-Christianity with Greek
philosophy, Buddhism with Far-Eastern cultures …), and this cross-fertilisation
is accelerating. Before the 19th Century, only a handful of
Europeans had the opportunity to study under an Indian guru or Sufi master; few
people today remain untouched by the teachings of other traditions.
Morality
teaches us what the “good life” can be.
The Greeks called it eudemonia, and for Socrates and his
followers, this meant an “examined life”, wholly integrated in the City. Christians for their part speak to us of a
different kind of “good life”, one that involves a pilgrimage in this world
made in the glow of a love for Christ.
And even this pious life is not the one the Buddhists aspire to, free
from earthly chains and passions, and not the one proposed by the Humanists,
the Objectivists… (and none is the daily grind of stressed workers/consumers
led by the majority of our contemporaries).
All
great moralities present themselves as the True Way. If they didn’t, what would be its
attraction? Nevertheless, our modern
intelligentsia maintains that we must never hold any of our moral convictions
to be true, for this would amount to intolerance. Relativism is indeed the logical consequence
of the political paradigm of our age.
When everything is political, that is to say when certain individuals,
in the name of an institution called the state, enjoy the legal monopoly
to bind all basic social relations, when we need their authorisation to
complete a contract, to employ someone, to rent a property, or even to marry,
then controlling the state's machinery becomes vitally important. Ownership of the Truth is used to justify
this conquest of power. It seems that our contemporaries so fear the resurgence
of the atrocities perpetrated in the name of the Truth throughout History that
they end up committing an error in logic; for the danger is not, as they
suppose, that some will declare themselves owners of the Truth, but that the
political organisation will endow them with a monopoly on the Truth and
will forbid others from living in error.
Possessing the Truth only obliges me to reveal it to others, nothing
more; if others prefer to persist in their error and are prepared to endure the
consequences, who else is harmed besides themselves? And thus what could possibly justify coercing
them into acting against their belief?
It
cannot be otherwise. We cannot say that
our life is our own if the rules that give it meaning are imposed on us from
the outside. The search for eudemonia
requires our full personal commitment.
Those who do not act on their own will, but rather under the control of
others — in other words, without responsibility for their own actions — are neither
blamed nor rewarded. For it is not acting
that makes us a moral subject, but the freedom to act. This is why we would not prosecute a hostage
who transported terrorists in his car under threat of a gun; there is no doubt
that he helped these criminals, but it was not his intention. Likewise, the teetotaller in Mecca should be
less virtuous in the eye of Allah than his fellow Muslims in the land of the
infidels where temptation is constant.
The citizen who pays his taxes is neither generous nor caring; he is
robbed. The politics of a “moral order” therefore lead paradoxically to the
disappearance of virtue, as there can be no virtue without the freedom to
choose vice.
Moral
laws purport to be universal, but they apply only to those who accept
them. For moral laws are a gift; they
are offered to us, refined by a long tradition to guide us in our lives and, as
with all gifts, we are free to accept them or refuse them.
People
who profess the same moral convictions often form an association. An association enables its members to lead a
disciplined life amongst people who pursue the same projects and who can help
one another. Since there are few projects that we can manage on our own, there
exists a wide variety of associations to cover many interests, from families,
communities and cultural circles to business ventures and leisure clubs, trade
unions, humanitarian or partisan organisations, etc. A few more or less
structured associations have millions of members from around the world, such as
those formed by the main religions, large multinational corporations, the
Socialist International…, (and there would certainly be a good many others if
the forced division of human societies into states, and even into nation states,
had not hindered their development).
Each
of these associations decrees its own rules and regulations and, contrary to
moral rules, these association rules may be enforced.
Enforceable
rules are legitimate within an association, since they have been duly accepted
by all its members. Adhering to an
association, after all, is nothing more than approving its regulations.
Typically the applicant will sign the statutes, or an application form that
refers to them, or a letter of acceptance.
An association is a “web of contracts” between members themselves, and
between the association and the outside world.
These contracts, freely and voluntarily entered into, are as real and binding
as the mythical “social contract” is chimerical.[2]
An
association’s internal rules are only valid if application for membership is
made freely and voluntarily. Of course,
one could debate forever what “free and voluntary” consent actually means. If a bridegroom says “I Do”, is he
acquiescing to his marital obligations, or is he under the spell of the woman
he loves? Let us assume that the signature
of a person who is neither a child nor mentally deficient and not placed under
duress by the other party to the contract constitutes sufficient evidence of
consent, or else nothing does.[3]
Sanctions
taken by an association against members who do not fulfil their obligations are
therefore legitimate. Given that a bridge club does not make the same demands
on its members as a militia, applicants will ensure beforehand that any
eventual judgment against members will be given after due hearing of all
parties and that its sanctions will be reasonable and commensurate with the
fault committed. Journalists, lawyers and other societal observers will make it
their duty to warn the public against the unreasonable and dangerous practices
of some associations.
Members
of an association accept its regulatory constraints because it is the vehicle
they need to achieve their personal project. Actors want to put on plays,
fire-fighters want to put out fires; it is for this reason alone that they
subject themselves to the obligation of learning lines and keeping water pumps
in working order.[4]
Since
all associations are made up of members who join them voluntarily for the sole
purpose of implementing their projects, regulatory constraints may cease being
applicable in many cases; such as when the aim of the association is achieved
or becomes unattainable, or when a member declares that she no longer wishes to
be subjected to those rules. Of course,
seceding from an association can sometimes be costly, both in financial and
emotional terms, in proportion to the significance of the commitment made in
joining. A decision to marry, to embrace a religion, to sign an employment
contract, would not be serious commitments if breaking them was not a wrenching
experience. Each human being has the
ability both to submit to a set of regulations when an association can lead to
the success of a personal project and to resign when the project no longer
exists; and then the only rules that still apply to that person are those of
her morality and the Law. This ability
to commit oneself by contract is known simply as “freedom”.
3. Rights
Rights
are the basis of all human relations. In
an association, relations are limited to the co-operation needed to accomplish
a common project. But our lives are not
restricted to professional or associative activities alone. For instance, friendship and general
socialising are also important to most of us. [5]
In
addition, there are many individuals (some six billion, in fact) with whom we
will never establish an association (and might never even wish to); we will
only come into contact with them by chance.
They are the passers-by, the strangers, often people with traditions
very alien to our own. We have no
intention of pursuing a project with these people and of being bound to them by
contracts or regulations. For this
reason, when we do come across them, we need to rely on a rule that is already
in place, a rule valid for all human beings, and one which at least ensures
our safety during these uncertain encounters.
This
meta-rule is what we call rights. The intrinsic characteristics of this
meta-rule are now becoming clear to us:
Is
it possible to find such a meta-rule?
Certainly
the characteristics we have just defined should not in any way be confused with
the fanciful “human rights”, such as those proclaimed by the French Constituent
Assembly in 1789 and (even more preposterous) by the United Nations on 10
December, 1948. However, the authors of
these documents (or at least of the French one) did indeed identify two essential
elements. First, they understood that
there exists such a meta-rule prevailing over all internal regulations and
contracts, and over the laws edicted by the particular organisations that we
call states. Each of us must be
able to uphold our rights when they are violated by our country’s own
government. Second, the French Constituent jurists correctly perceived that
they were not themselves the authors of this meta-rule, they only “declared
it”. Rights are not the work of some creative legislator or some democratic
assembly; they have existed since the beginning of humanity (just as the laws
of physics or genetics existed before they were recognised by scientists and
ever more refined in relation to the advancement of the scientists’ knowledge
of the subject).
The
1789 Declaration is a tentative step towards the discovery of rights, but it
still betrays confusion between morality, internal rules and regulations, and rights. The freedom that the French Constituent
Assembly refers to is not that of individuals, it is the “freedom of the
people”, under the vigilant leadership of their guardians. We only have to read
a few articles of this seminal text to understand that it does not by any means
fulfil the criteria of universality and objectivity that we have posited above:
And
so on… It appears, therefore, that these “rights” so solemnly proclaimed may be
curtailed and even invalidated, as deemed appropriate by the legislator. In
clearer terms, each article of this majestic and universal Declaration recycles
Montesquieu’s pernicious definition that even Stalin himself would not have
rejected: “Freedom consists in doing everything that the legislation permits” [6],
and if the legislation does not permit it, tough luck !
The “rights” set out in
the United Nations Declaration of 1948 read even more like a letter to Father
Christmas written by someone with the mental age to send one. How can we take this seriously when an
assembly of diplomats, half of whom come from countries where people are dying
of famine and where ethnic minorities are rigorously persecuted, proclaim the
“right to a nationality”, the “right to social security”, and other “social
rights” such as the hilarious “right to holidays with pay”?
All
we may reasonably expect from possessing rights is the guarantee that we, as
human beings, individually or in an association, may pursue our projects. Now, in order for us to be able to pursue our
projects, it is at least necessary that no one else prevents us from doing so. In other words, the freedom of all people to
conduct their projects and their lives according to their own moral values is
guaranteed if nobody physically attacks somebody else or invades her property.
Non-aggression
by others is a necessary condition for obtaining the “good life” and for the
realisation of our projects; but it is not a sufficient condition. For example,
if our hierarchy of values is flawed in the first place, we can easily be
deceived. Many people have dedicated their lives to the quest for power and
pleasure, and discover too late that both are deceptive. But can an adult claim that her life is her
own if others are dictating her actions, even if all these others want is to
protect her from herself? Doesn't living
mean taking the risk to live? It is
obvious that the pursuit of our projects would be made easier (without being
guaranteed) by having access to certain material resources and assistance from
others. But if we had the right to
demand these resources from other people, then we would be interfering
with their lives by preventing them from pursuing their projects,
or in any case by getting in their way.
The criterion of universality would be violated since some people would
enjoy the benefits of others’ resources without their consent.[7]
On
the other hand, the character of universality is clearly respected by a rule
expressed in the negative form, such as:
“No-one will initiate physical aggression against any other person or
their property.” Any human being who is
not mentally impaired is fully capable of not assaulting another person.
Unlike the shopping list of pipe dreams called “human rights”, refraining from
physical aggression against another individual is a simple rule, intelligible
to people of all cultures, regardless of their standard of living.[8]
A
rule formulated thus: “No-one shall initiate physical aggression against
another person” recognises the right of the aggressed to legitimate self-defence.
Many people are restrained by their moral law from using violence, even to
defend themselves. But if we have a right, then we also have the ability
to renounce that right. However, if we ourselves can renounce our right
to a legitimate defence, can we accept that other people might be aggressed who
have not renounced their right, or more importantly, who are not in a position
to make this decision, such as children?
This is why rights, however much we would like it to, cannot prohibit
all violence, but only the initiation of physical violence. Rights allow
the use of self-defence without making it an obligation.
The
threat of using physical violence is already a violation of property
rights. If the person making the threat has neither the intention nor the means
to carry it out, we should respond with only a shrug of the shoulders. However, in general we have reason to believe
that the people threatening us may be serious; their intervention, therefore,
will cause us to change our projects against our will. The threat of physical
aggression is as illegitimate as is its execution.
The
commandment “No-one shall initiate physical aggression against any other
person or their property” is the enforceable obligation we
have towards all human beings, before entering into any association and agreeing
any specific contracts. It is a guarantee that all human beings are
entitled to, and it is the foundation upon which all human relationships may
rest. Now if we restate this commandment in the positive mode, we have the
formulation of a right: “Individuals
may do whatever they want with their property, and only with their property.”
Following
the liberal tradition, we have just declared the only human right. Based on the criteria of universality and
objectivity, there is a single human right, and it is that: “You may do
whatever you want with whatever you own, and only with what you own”. All other
would-be rights, declared here and there, fail in their specific application of
this fundamental right and, more often, they only serve to restrict or
invalidate it.
We
can dispense immediately with the objection that those who own nothing could do
nothing. For each human being possesses
at least one thing, the most precious one: the ability to modify that which
exists in order to put it to the service of others (an activity we call “the
economy”). Thus that which exists becomes more valuable. And all over the
world, people who already own property are on the look-out for men and women
whose expertise and hard work can add value to their property. This is why we
do not act only with what we own, but with what has been entrusted to us, so
much so that those who earn this trust enjoy more possibilities of action than
many property holders.
Associations
hold assets in their name, but in reality these assets are the common good of
their members. The ultimate purpose of an association is the sound management
of this common good. Humanity also possesses a common good; it is property
rights. Sound management of this
common good produces a certain type of order that we call either “Justice” or
“Peace”.
Peace
is the absence of physical violence, but it is not the blissful tranquillity of
the Garden of Eden. For not all projects
can be achieved simultaneously, it is part of our human condition and at the
root of endless dramas. Werther loves Charlotte, but does she not have the
right to marry another, even if it causes Werther’s suicide? When Octave Mouret opens his department store
The Ladies' Paradise, he drives the smaller shopkeepers out of the
market, but should customers not have the right to benefit from his novel ideas
and products? Innovation and competition
cause prices to fluctuate; this reflects the fact that we may own things
but never the value of things (values express desires, we may own the
thing, but how could we own the people’s desire for it?). The evolving order
established by property rights is therefore one of a living humanity and not of
a rigid structure; it is movements, tensions, an opening to the unexpected.
Ownership is not the right to keep something, but to act with it. Property
rights do not tell us how things must be, but how we can rightfully change
them. The function of rights is limited to creating spaces in which each
of us, safe from violence, can experiment with our convictions and our
relationships.
Not
everyone is peaceable. There will always be aggressors and swindlers who need
to pay for their crimes. Even when no deliberate aggression has been committed,
misunderstandings can still arise, and these must be arbitrated. This is why in
all human societies an institution of Justice is required.
Justice
consists in rendering “to each his own.” This was already the Romans’
definition.[9] Justice is therefore not a vague aspiration
towards an unattainable ideal. A society is just when all property rights
within it have been allocated solely by homesteading, by exchange or by gift. Since
property rights are easy to understand, and since respect for these can be
verified objectively (“has A trespassed on B’s property without B’s consent?”),
it is not unreasonable to want to establish a just society here and now. As
with every other human institution, this society will not be perfect. Justice
is not infallible. It could happen that a judge is deceived by some kind of
scheme. It is possible that parties would act in good faith in a complex
litigation by claiming ownership of that which really does not belong to
them. Nevertheless applying property
rights is a science, it is based on the analysis of objective elements. We know
therefore with absolute certainty the standard of a just world, where
the structures of injustice will have been identified and abolished, and where
each “will have their own”.
The
Psalmist sang: “Justice and Peace
embrace each other.” [10] They are sisters, indeed, since Peace is not
the absence of conflicts but the absence of the source of conflicts, and
there is no source of conflicts when all social relationships conform to
property rights, in other words when Justice prevails everywhere.[11]
However,
a society that conforms to Justice is not the gentle and warm society to which
we aspire. Rights can be imposed on us, and nothing that is imposed on us will
generate our happiness. The administration of Justice consists in enforcing
rights in all their severity, whatever feelings we may experience. The poor can
be wrong, the bastards of this world can be right, and the culprit can be my
brother… This is why morality commands us to practice other virtues, such as
compassion and generosity, which mitigate the inflexibility of Justice. It goes without saying that the voluntary and
responsible practice of these moral virtues cannot be confused in any way with
a policy of “social justice”, which is neither just (since it is arbitrary) nor
moral (since it is racketeering).
On
his island, Robinson Crusoe needs a morality.
Every day he is forced to confront issues about values and their
hierarchy, beginning with the most essential question: is it worth fighting for
my own survival? But also: What meaning
should I give to this life of solitude?
Is this a divine test? May I
masturbate? May I make animals suffer when I trap them? But Robinson does not
need rights. Rights have no meaning for him.
To
live implies acting upon Nature, transforming it, consuming it. Thus Robinson
establishes ties between himself and diverse elements of Nature: the pieces of
wood that he assembles to build a hut; the plot of land that he turns
over… This wood, this land, are no
longer what they were, they are no longer natural; they were taken out
of their original state to be put to use for Robinson’s project. And projects
have a different effect on Nature depending on the moral life of their creator;
whether this person is a vegetarian, a spendthrift, lazy, or frugal… Robinson,
like each one of us, imprints the mark of his moral conscience upon Nature.
Enter
Friday. The instant these two meet, rights are there, among them. Once Friday
steps onto the beach, rights delineate two spaces on the island: that of Robinson,
marked with his projects, and another, still untouched, that Friday can use for
himself. As Friday struggles to get
settled, Robinson might invite him to his place, share with him what he has,
but Friday has no right to any of Robinson’s resources. Hunger does not confer
any right. If that were the case, Friday could demand a meal, throw it into the
sea and, still hungry, exert his right to a new ration, and so on until Robinson’s
last but one meal, which Friday could then consume before departing full and
leaving just enough so that his host could not claim hunger in turn. It is not because this is an usual practice
of Third World satraps that it is legitimate.
On
the other hand, if Robinson promised his axe in exchange for three fish,
then as soon as Friday shows up with his catch, he is entitled to the axe. Robinson
and Friday have created rights, as we all do, as are born of every
contract and every promise. Politicians have an obsession with what they call a
“gap in the law.” Biotechnologies, the
Internet, intellectual property of software…, these would all be lost in some
legislative limbo from which a zealous government would have to extract them.
But there is no such thing as a “gap in the law”, it does not exist because property
rights are always present. Robinson’s little island, without democracy and
without a flag, is already governed by property rights. What politicians really
mean by this “gap in the law” is that there are still some human activities
that they have not yet regulated, in other words there are still areas of
freedom, and that is their obsession.
Rights
conform to morality, but it is an imperfect and incomplete stage of morality.
Property rights prohibit aggression, which is to say they prohibit the
commission of Evil; they does not command us to do good, however, and even less
how to do it. This is why a society structured by property rights, that
is a society of free human beings, is so disturbing to those who have not
developed a moral conscience.
Having
arrived at this stage of our reflections, we can now review the characteristics
of these three groups of rules: morality, contracts and internal rules of
associations, and property rights
At
the end of this review of the forms of morality, contracts and internal rules and
property rights, do we not notice something missing: what about legislation? We started our
discussion with the question: Should we obey the laws of our country? And now
we no longer see the need for these laws. Indeed, the various types of rules
that we have analysed already organise society very adequately. Property rights
bring us Justice and Peace; morality shows us how to behave towards other
people (especially the most defenceless) and towards nature; contracts and association
rules ensure co-operation and efficiency in the implementation of our projects,
whether they are community-based, cultural or professional … So where does legislation fit in? What purpose
does it serve?
Whereas
the areas of application of property rights, of association rules and contracts
and of morality are well defined, legislation mixes them up. Because
legislation does not spring spontaneously from the relations between human beings
and Nature (which is the source of morality and property rights), or from human
beings’ free will (which creates contracts and association rules), legislation
must impose itself by usurping the legitimacy of one type of rules in order to
make people accept the constraints of another type. For instance:
Many
loathsome ideologies crouch behind this confusion between legislation and other
rules of life in society. To confuse legislation with both regulations and
morality is totalitarianism.
To
confuse legislation with internal regulations, and to mobilise human society as
a single association for the purpose of attaining some great common ideal, is fascism.[12]
To
confuse legislation and morality, to want to obtain Good on earth through
political action (and not by the conversion of souls), is fundamentalism.[13]
Legislation
is more than redundant when it regurgitates property rights in particular
applications: We do not need a new
legislation to tell us “Do not kill” and “Do not steal”. (Of course, by
usurping the legislative function, politicians can create exceptions that work
in their favour: “Do not kill”, except for reasons of state; “Do not steal”,
unless you do so through taxation).
Legislation is more than humiliating when it denies the free will of
human beings: how much more contemptuous of adults’ capacity for judgment than
to prevent them from marrying, educating their children, taking a job, caring
for themselves, trading, publishing or reading… except according to
legislation?
But
legislation in addition exercises one precise function, and that is to
consolidate the mechanism of class exploitation. Marxists correctly revealed how legislation
protects the dominant class, which today is the state bureaucracy and its
protégés.[14] Marx's materialism blinded him to the real
stakes beyond class struggle: legislation
is the manifestation of Evil in the world.
Legislation is the supreme camouflage of the devil, for it
institutionalises Evil by giving it the appearance of Good.
There
can be no such thing as a beneficial legislation. It seemed reasonable to some people that if
they could not equal God’s work by recreating the laws of Nature, they could at
least outdo Nature by reengineering society.
Obviously, they took a wrong turn somewhere along the way. The only legitimate mission of those
governing society must necessarily cause them frustration in its lack of
ambition; for to govern implies giving up doing Good and be content to avoid
doing Evil, — do not assault, do not kill, do not steal. To govern means limiting the realm of
legislation and giving precedence to that which is not political: to morality
and rights, i.e. to wisdom and freedom.
I
should explain here what I mean when I say that legislation, by its very
nature, is the expression of Evil.
According to the classical definition, the state is the institution that
holds the monopoly of legal violence in a particular territory. Why a monopoly on violence, rather than the
prohibition of violence? And why should we think of this monopoly in terms
of territory? The idea that a person
must obey a government simply because he or she happened to be born in a
particular community on a particular land is the regime of serfdom. Isn't time to come out of the Middle
Ages? Our technology and economy are global,
but our philosophy still carries the values of the peasantry. The only government necessary is that of
associations, and it does not matter what form it takes — be it hereditary or
elective monarchy, a democracy, or picking leaders’ names out of a hat —
because only those who wish to belong to that association need to be bound by
its regulations. So there are two ways,
not one, of dealing with overbearing leaders, either they resign, or their
subjects resign.
The
ability to say “Without me!” transforms legislations into contracts and
internal rules, the state into an association of free human beings, and makes
the very notion of politics obsolete. An association is managed with an
objective that is external to itself, which is the aim of the association (to
put on plays, to put out fires…), and the measure of its effectiveness is the actual
realisation of this objective. In
contrast, the government of a state exercises power for its own sake (for what
could be the objective of a country, of France, of Norway?); and the
effectiveness of this state power is measured solely by its ability to reach
far and wide, without allowing a living soul to escape its grasp. [15]
The
only way to limit power is our ability to elude it. The right to secession (a consequence of
property rights) is not one of the people, but of individuals. In order to prevent absolutism, political
philosophy since the 17th century (with the exception of a few
responsible anarchists) has only proposed counter-powers, “checks and
balances”. But should one fight evil
with evil? Restricting power by using
power only leads to conflict. Unable to
wrest itself from this monist conception, political philosophy cannot imagine
what lies beyond politics: non-power.[16]
The
political paradigm inverts the relationship between human beings and
society. Instead of the human being
joining society in a display of confidence, and leaving it if this trust is
betrayed, political society seizes each of us as newborns and even if it does
not cause our death in some war, it leaves us to die only after it has
depersonalised us, regimented us, and taxed us.
Thus
political society is the essence of tragedy. Because secession is not
permitted, all political questions become narratives of victors and vanquished,
of robbers and their victims.
The
state, by its very nature, cannot avoid the confrontation between socialism and
capitalism, monarchy and democracy, religious fundamentalism and secularism… Each option excludes the other. It is the very purpose of legislation to turn
an association into a monopoly and to squash all of society’s projects except
those of the state. A society governed
by property rights welcomes the coexistence of different kinds of lifestyles,
communities and associations; all ends are acceptable provided that violence is
not the means of achieving them — whereas political society only admits to a
single end and only knows one way of achieving it: police violence, or the
threat of it.
Therefore
war is not the “continuation of politics through other means”, as Clausewitz
maintained. The means of politics are already the means of war. If war does not
break out, it is because one of the adversaries has surrendered before
fighting. Outlawing violence implies
dissolving public affairs into the private sphere.
Making
legislation is therefore the most harmful activity at the heart of society, an
activity devoted entirely to the search for power, without any opposing
argument other than: “If I don't take power over them, they'll take power over
me.” At this stage of humanity's
evolution, isn't it time to go beyond this primitive conception of human
relations? Why should I impose my
legislation on those who aspire to live in a different way? [17] If they wish to be communists, Moslems, or
capitalists, that’s fine by me. They can
do it among themselves. I only ask them
not to inflict their legislation on me.
Today, of course, they will not agree to this. It would be unbearable
for them; the anxiety caused by choosing servitude is too painful if others
have the right to live freely.
Living
under a state legislation is an education. It produces a certain type of human
beings who we call “citizens”. The
citizen is not engaged in dialogue, but in militancy. His integration into society is not
horizontal, like that of the market, where customers and suppliers trade
between themselves without any other mediation but property rights. The citizen’s society is hierarchical,
vertical. It is not organised by
agreements, but by orders. Each citizen
learns to appeal to the legislator (“we need laws against such and such…”), and
not to negotiate with his equals towards the resolution of problems. Submission is the citizen’s way to social
peace.[18] In this way, the ruling class of state
employees and their protégés consolidate their exploitation.
Command
undoubtedly comes easier than dialogue when you are a group of armed men in the
face of unarmed citizens. It is more
expedient to impose a solution, especially where it serves a personal interest,
than to leave people alone to experiment with the alternatives. From this comes another function of
legislation: it must never let it be known that another solution is better than
that imposed by the government. The
larger the political field becomes, for example through the co-ordination of
legislations between States, the more burdensome and extensive will be the
consequences. Agriculture, which was the
first common European program, is an economic and ecological disaster, and it does
not bode well for the success of the “Social Charter”.
Unscrupulous
individuals are attracted to the idea of political societies. The reason is
that through political societies, they can force everyone else to share the
cost of their preferences.[19]
This mechanism is obvious in the case
of direct payments. Civil servants,
farmers, and countless artists live shamelessly on stolen money. The effect is more subtle when the notion of
responsibility is removed, in other words when the difference between good and
evil is erased. For instance, giving to
the poor costs me the money I give.
There can be two reasons why I would give. Either I am virtuous and I feel enriched by
the joy of giving, and it doesn't matter at all to me whether or not the
skinflints know this same joy. Or I give
to the poor out of a sense of guilt or duty, which means that I don't derive
any pleasure from helping the poor, and I find it unbearable that I am alone in
sacrificing myself and that others are using their money to go away on
holiday. So I vote for the introduction
of taxes, and now with everyone obliged to support the poor, the notions of generosity
and greed are lost.
The
satanic process by which legislation clouds the perception of good and evil can
be found in the legislation controlling immigration. This is the theme of your conference, which I
have not yet covered, but I will address it here, for it will illustrate my
point on property rights and legislation.
The
predominant view is that in the absence of the state’s power, the most
prosperous countries would be invaded by all the world’s downtrodden. This is an inconsistency that its detractors
believe can be found in liberalism: We are opening up borders to merchandise
but not to human beings.[20]
But the anti-globalists have not
understood a few key facts about gravity.
For goods do not simply fall from the sky and place themselves in the
shops of Oslo and Paris. In order for
them to arrive, they first had to be desired by an importer or a consumer, who
valued them enough to have them transported.
Likewise, if I, a stranger, put my feet up at someone’s house, it is
because friendship, work, or perhaps talent, made it worthwhile for someone to
invite me.
But
the racist does not accept that a foreigner is invited by others. He doesn't want to employ him in his shop or
even serve him there, nor does he want his daughter marrying him… But losing customers and making his daughter
unhappy have a price. Hatred has a
price. Anything that is not in a just
relationship with Nature and with other people causes a loss of energy. Those,
on the other hand, who do find this just relationship, are efficient. Animals know it instinctively; humans
discover it through a long learning process (which economists call “the
market”). Putting up with higher costs
is the slap on the wrist that Nature gives us to show us that we are not in
harmony with her. But the racist does
not want to bear the cost of his hatred alone.
Nor do the politically powerful want to bear the cost of their
injustice. Together, they make laws that
spread the consequences of their injustice and hatred onto the whole of
society.
And
so, should we obey the laws of our country?
Let’s review the case one last time. Legislation is not only useless,
since property rights, morality, contracts and association rules already
organize society adequately. Legislation
not only causes a surge of pathological violence in the case of “bad laws” and
“bad regimes” (and it is not an accident that so many psychopaths become
legislators); but even when the political regime is generally considered to be
sound, legislation only disguises the action of Evil in the world. By pretending to satisfy legitimate
aspirations — the defence of human rights, of the poor, and of culture —,
legislation institutionalises pure violence and hypocrisy. When you have seen the true nature of this
violence, you can no longer advise: “Why
not obey the legislation of your country, if that suits you?” Co-operation with
violence, or even failing to oppose it, is not permissible.
Just
as there is not only one way of accomplishing Good, fighting Evil can take many
forms; our conscience whispers the one appropriate to our own personal
circumstances. Called to the resistance,
to what point are we ready to risk our well-being and that of our families in order
to live morally and outside the law?
Summoned to collaborate with Evil, how far will we seek power over
others by taking part in the political game?
Will we avert our eyes from state violence when receiving the proceeds
of tax plunders?
Most
acts of civil disobedience are not heroic. All they require is vigilance: do
not vote, do not co-operate with police against people who have not physically harmed
others, trick the tax collectors at every opportunity... For those of us who
have understood the mechanism of legal violence, our moral duty is to denounce
it, to point it out to others, and to make all around us aware of the presence
of Evil. This is the only duty required
of today’s Rebel.
For
what could violence do against violence?
Violence must not be fought on the barricades, but in the place where it
reigns — in the conscience of individuals.
It is only by becoming conscious of all that is violent in our relations
with others and with Nature that humanity becomes more humane. In order to wrest victory from Evil, we must
first expose it.
A shorter version of this text was presented at a joint conference of
Libertarian International and the
Fridemokratene, Oslo, 1 October 2000. This text has been published on www.liberalia.com
[1] I use the word “association” here more or
less in the sense that Hayek gives to the word “organisation”. Friedrich Hayek, Law, Legislation And
Liberty, Chicago University Press, 1973.
[2] A few more loosely defined communities such as
linguistic ones, or “high society”, exist without formal membership, but
neither do they bind their members to enforceable obligations. The Guermantes and their coterie could not
have prevented Swann’s marriage to Odette de Crécy. If this misalliance caused
Swann to be ostracized from the Faubourg Saint Germain, the rule applicable in
this case was not so much the virtual code of this aristocracy than any
individual’s right to admit someone, or not, into their own home.
[3] See my
What is Consent? on www.liberalia.com
[4] A political society forces us to support
projects that do not concern us, or even projects that we disapprove of. The
environmentalist is obliged to finance nuclear power stations; the pacifist, an
army; the Moslem, secular education in state schools; and so on.
[5] One could maintain that relations between
friends constitute a sort of association, with unwritten regulations to
determine the frequency and the nature of meetings, the exchange of gifts, what
is forbidden (you don't steal your friend's lover…), etc.
[6] Montesquieu, De l’esprit des lois, in
Œuvres complètes, Paris, Gallimard, coll. Pléiade, 1964.
[7] Therefore the situation
is different whereby Peter agrees to help Paul on condition that the favour is
returned, or because Peter is simply a good person, for in this case it is a
matter of an agreement between them, or in other words an association of two,
no matter how informal and temporary it may be.
[8] Contrary to other forms of aggression, such
as a verbal insult, an attack on physical integrity is objective and
verifiable. Certainly, some people
maintain that “words can kill”. We often
hear this stupidity uttered by the censors of anti-racist associations and
other guardians of political correctness. I would like to emphasise the serious
confusion that they maintain by claiming that injury, blasphemy, historical
narrative (even the most delirious), literature, and film can kill. For if “words = bullets”, then the person who
is insulted would be within his rights to respond to the words with
bullets. We would then see, perhaps a
little too late, which is more deadly, the pen or the rifle. Once again, rights recognise no other
aggression but physical.
[9] "Suum cuique tribuere”. Some take this to mean “to each his due”, which is ambiguous.