Propertarianism, Voluntaryism and Freedom

I'd like to once again clarify my own views, put in contrast to some views that I have rejected. Hopefully this may help illuminate exactly what is at stake in the conflicts that take place within libertarianism and anarchism.

Propertarianism

One of the major issues at stake is how one treats the concept of property. I use the term propertarianism to refer to libertarian ideologies that tend to treat property as a primary value, as an absolute, or as some sort of starting point or the basis for defining everything. For example, Murray Rothbard's declaration that all rights are property rights is an example of a form of propertarianism. More generally, propertarians tends to view freedom as reducible to a question of property and have a deontological view of property rights.

I reject propertarianism. To be clear, rejecting propertarianism does not necessarily mean that one rejects property or property rights outright. In my case, what it means is that freedom is not reducible to property because life and liberty are prior concepts, and that property rights are not absolute in that they may have contextual side-constraints. I reject any framing of the question which assumes that we must either be pro-property or anti-property in some absolute sense, and I do not think that freedom and property can be absolutely equated.

There are reasons for this. There are contexts in which a default defense of property amounts to a rationalization for infringing on someone's freedom or unnecessarily taking their life. I don't think that ownership legitimately grants absolute authority, regardless of how it is acquired. I think that ownership alone may be necessary but insufficient for legitimacy. I think that freedom is more fundamentally a matter of the concrete interpersonal relations of individuals, while property is a secondary question in relation to it.

In my understanding, property in the most general and disambiguated sense is a multi-faceted concept that cannot reasonably be simplified or reduced to a particular aspect or manifestation of it. It depends on the context. In one context, property could be linked to freedom. In another context, property could be linked to aggression and tyranny. Propertarianism attempts to reduce property to its positive aspects while ignoring or denying its negative aspects, and in the process it may end up effectively legitimizing the negative aspects, even if some propertarians do not explicitly intend to rationalize or endorse infringing on anyone's freedom.

If freedom entails not unnecessarily being coerced or bossed around on the basis of other people's whims and not being physically aggressed against in a clearly non-defensive context, then propertarianism has tension with freedom to the extent that this can be justified in its framework. To take this to the institutional and territorial level, if a territorial monopoly on ultimate decision-making power and force is a state and a propertarian framework establishes a standard for legitimacy in which a qualitatively identical institution can be justified depending on nothing more than property acquisition norms, then propertarianism can logically entail and consequently lead to a state. Hence, anti-statists have a reason to be skeptical of propertarianism.

A purely deontological or absolutist conception of property rights also leads to blatant absurdities on practical grounds, particularly because it commits the propertarian to dismiss all life-boat scenarios out of hand or simply default to whatever a property owner decides as an answer. From the point of view of the person in a sticky situation, this implies that they have a moral obligation to let themselves die or at least suffer a significant amount of unecessary harm in the name of respecting property. Hence, property is effectively placed above life. This gives one consequentialist grounds for rejecting propertarianism.

At each step of the way so far, we have pointed out various ways in which property can conflict with both freedom and life. I think that it is important to emphasize that to the extent that one wants to uphold the value of freedom and life in these contexts, one has necessarily placed limits on the concept of property and its practical applications. On the flip side, to the extent that one upholds a propertarian theory one is committed to some sort of negation of freedom and life. I think that there are well-meaning propertarians who hold positions that are a bit fuzzy on these matters, so I wouldn't want to lump them in with a more extreme position. However, I think they have reason for cognitive dissonance.

These questions can invoke a lot of hostility among libertarians and anarchists. Some propertarians are absolutist to the point where the more nuanced positions that I have hinted at are considered to be diametrically opposed to everything they favor and as a total negation of property. I believe that this is false because it is based on a misleading framing of the question that smuggles in the assumption of certain absolute dichotomies. Those propertarians who think that the choice is essentially between their position and communism, or who act as if any alternative position necessarily equates to statism, are being dogmatic and making non-sequitors.

This should constitute a decent overview of the problems that I have with propertarianism. While I don't necessarily condemn property and property rights outright, I do not consider property to be the right framework to conceptualize everything in. I view these concepts as inherently being contingent and necessary but insufficient. There are great dangers to focusing so much or so narrowly on property that all common sense and decency goes out the window and the pretense of freedom begins to become suspect. It would be wise not to think in such simplistic and axiomatic terms about the question of property.

Voluntaryism

I use the term voluntaryism to refer to libertarian ideologies that tend to treat the notion of voluntary interaction as a primary value, as an absolute, or as some sort of starting point or basis for defining everything -- in a way that does not particularly disambiguate what constitutes "voluntary" and "involuntary" relations. Generally, voluntaryism is presented in a way that makes it seem more pluralistic than propertarianism, as a sort of all-inclusive umbrella "so long as it's voluntary". I am using the term voluntaryism to refer to views that tend to consider the question of interpersonal relations as being reducible to a question of voluntary-ness, beyond which point "anything goes" or is "just a preference".

To be sure, I think that some ideas going by the name of "voluntaryism" are actually hardly distinguishable from propertarianism because the concept of "voluntary" and "involuntary" are disambiguated in explicitly propertarian terms, which can make it rather misleading. But as I am using the term here, it involves at least the intent of being more pluralistic than that. Voluntaryism contrasts with propertarianism insofar as propertarians act as if their particular models are the only ones that can possibly be compatible with freedom, while voluntaryists function on the pretext that essentially all norms other than "is it voluntary or not?" are compatible with freedom.

As I have already hinted at, I think that voluntaryism suffers from ambiguity. There are a multitude of normative concepts of exactly what is and isn't voluntary, so a meta-debate is almost inevitably begged. What one voluntaryist considers voluntary may be considered involuntary by another depending on normative assumptions, so it seems hard to think that the concept of voluntaryism can be separate from such questions. I think that voluntaryism collapses into meaninglessness if it is taken at face value, divorced from any particular norm. This kind of pluralism is just nihilism by another name, a nihilism that clings to one norm: noone's views can apply to anyone else. To put it another way, it is a form of nihilism that at least puts on the front of valueing tolerance as some sort of end in and of itself.

Perhaps the closest that voluntaryist pluralism can come to providing a neutral definition of "voluntary" that isn't packaged with additional norms is a definition that effectively reduces to "agreement". But it is hard to see how this is particularly useful. The very nature of any society contains various degrees of disagreement. A stalinist, a monarchist, or a neo-nazi aren't going to agree with libertarians and anarchists, but surely libertarians and anarchists aren't inherently imposing an "involuntary" relationship by opposing those ideas and systems. A murderer may disagree with being defended against or shunned, or they may disagree with the idea that they've done something wrong, but surely their rights aren't violated by this. Something is very fishy about this.

Some voluntaryists essentially do take a meta-view that is inclusive towards all norms and systems. Monarchy, democracy, capitalism, socialism, nationalism, whatever it may be, is fine and dandy with them "so long as it's voluntary" (or contingent on these systems isolating into enclaves or tribes). The problem is that this completely collapses the notion of "voluntary" and "involuntary". At best, it means that each system is voluntary relative to other systems, but a given system inside of this framework could be internally involuntary. Indeed, one could have a totalitarian dictatorship, and it would be okay by these standards so long as it does not cross over into the nation next door.

To be fair, not all those who call themselves voluntaryists take it to this level. Rather, what they are more likely to promote is effectively what's been called "thin libertarianism", the view that freedom or libertarianism is purely reducible to something like the non-aggression principle, beyond which point everything is a matter of subjective personal preferences. That is, it's the idea that non-aggression (which is almost always defined through the lens of some kind of property norm) is sufficient to produce a free society. Thick libertarians, such as myself, disagree with this on the grounds that this is insufficient (although perhaps necessary), that additional considerations matter.

So in this sense "voluntaryism is more or less the same thing as thin libertarianism. A big part of the problem with thin libertarianism is that it seems obvious that political outcomes are in some way dependant on cultural atmospheres and that not all cultural atmospheres are equally good breeding grounds for the goals of political freedom. Hence, this sort of total cultural and moral relativism can be a dangerous attitude to attempt to start a free society with. It is arguable that certain cultural and moral norms are likely to lead to aggression and statism, while others are a healthy precondition for realizing libertarian goals. Without getting into the details of the normative debate, I don't think it should particularly be hard to see the general point being made about this.

Some voluntaryists may be tempted to engage in a non-sequitor in reaction to such objections by accusing the critic of necessarily supporting aggression or "involuntary" relations. This is based a false framing of the discussion and it also likely involves the voluntaryist having hidden or unspoken normative assumptions. The fact of the matter is that noone has a concept of non-aggression or "voluntary" that is completely detached from particular normative premises, and in this sense "thin libertarianism" is inherently misleading, I.E. it is a front of value neutrality or a hypocritically applied relativity.

This should function as a sufficient general overview of my problems with voluntaryism. While I do think that pluralism is an important value, I don't think that it is an acontextual value or some sort of absolute. There are good reasons for being concerned about people being too open-ended with their pluralism, taken to the point of rationalizing blatant contradictions and leaving the door wide open for any old authoritarian ideology and system. And it is wise not to focus so much or so narrowly on "political justice" that a good deal of the social questions that effect people in their everyday lives are dismissed as irrelevant, while being naive about the preconditions necessary for practical achievement of political goals.

Conclusion

For the most part, this was a reiteration and clarification of positions that I've already taken ad naseum elsewhere and talked about in older posts. The two ideological tendencies that I've critisized can be viewed as representive of two extremes in a more general conflict between ideas that are too closed and absolute on one hand and ideas that are too open and ambiguous on the other hand. I would suggest that the most coherant positions can be found somewhere in between such extremes. What I've said here only scratches the surface of a multitude of much more particular discussions that could be had, but I think that I've set up the general foundation for such a discussion.