Book Release: Thinking Like A Libertarian: Selected Writings Of A Utilitarian-Libertarian

I just wanted to let my readers know that I have revised and organized some of my best posts and used them to compile a collection in book format. 

If you have a Kindle E-Reader, you can get the book here: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00HGZEFVW

If not, and you would like a free copy of the book, please leave a comment in the 'Comments' section of this post, and I will send you a copy of the book in pdf or epub format, whichever you request.

Thanks, and Happy Holidays!

Brian.

Free-Market Community Governance

            Community Governance under whose heading I include: roads, municipal infrastructure (water pipes, sewers, power lines, gas lines, etc…), zoning rules, aesthetic/architectural standards, parks and other public spaces, community events, etc… ‘Surely,’ the statist would say, ‘even libertarians must admit that Community Governance cannot be provided without government intervention. It is fraught with externalities, natural monopolies, and potential free-rider issues. Without some government coercion greasing the wheels, nothing would get done and everyone would be worse off.’ To this, I would respond that I by no means admit it, and that these things could be provided better by private individuals acting voluntarily than by coercive governments. In this post, I will explain how.

           

           Consider the case of hotels, apartments, office buildings, shopping malls, and condominiums: what do these things have in common? They are all ‘multi-tenant’ buildings that also have ‘common areas’ that are built and maintained by an organization that has the incentive and the means to do the job well. Hallways, swimming pools, central HVAC systems, lobbies, forums, etc… These common areas or common elements are typically not in ruins and dilapidated (except in some rent-controlled apartment buildings, but that’s another issue), because of the fact that the owner or manager of the building has an incentive (increased tenant satisfaction which leads to higher rents or property values) and the financial means (common area fees built-in to rent or collected as condominium fees) to keep these common areas and elements in good condition, and perhaps to improve on them or build more.  

            

           Now, take this multi-tenant/common area model, and imagine applying it to geographical communities separated by outdoor spaces rather than to just single building complexes. The occupants of individual residential and commercial buildings would constitute the ‘tenants’ in the ‘multi-tenant’ model, while what I described as Community Governance would constitute the ‘common areas/elements’ in that model.  Just as hotels do not need governments to build and maintain their swimming pools and HVAC systems for them, so communities organized under such a model wouldn’t need governments to intervene in Community Governance production or in urban infrastructure.

           

           Let us now consider how such communities could be established under a libertarian regime. Imagine that a property development company purchases a field on the outskirts of a city and decides that it would be profitable to make the land suitable for a mixed residential/commercial community. The developer knows that the only thing the government will do for his property is to provide basic law enforcement/police protection services, it will not involve itself in urban infrastructure or Community Governance in any significant way.  The developer will proceed to build some residential houses or multi-tenant residential complexes on some of the land, perhaps build some buildings destined to be commercial ones in the centre, connect everything with roads and urban infrastructure (sewers, water pipes, power lines, gas lines, telephone/internet cables), and perhaps build some public spaces such as squares or parks. This done, the developer now has three main options, which he will select, other things equal, based on the financial returns that they each offer. These options are:

1. Multi-Tenant Income Property: The developer either retains ownership of the land himself or sells the whole land package to a property management company. The property manager then leases out spots in residential and commercial buildings and maintains the common areas himself with some of the rent collected, doing so in order to maintain or increase the level of demand for his property and the rent that people are willing to pay. Hotels, apartments, shopping malls, office buildings, and industrial parks all employ this model currently, and it seems to work just fine, as long as tenants don’t mind or prefer leasing rather than owning property.

2. Condominium Arrangement: The developer subdivides parcels of the land but then binds them together in a contractual condominium arrangement. The condominium association would be given ownership of the common areas, the duty to maintain them, and the ability to levy condo fees from unit owners in order to pay for common areas and elements. This done, the developer would then sell units to those that wanted them, with the condominium arrangement and contract attached to the property, which would affect the market value of the property accordingly. The contract would probably provide for periodic elections for the Board of Directors of the condominium association, and once established, the Board would probably decide to hire a property management company to attend to the day-to-day operation of the common areas, elements, and services. This is the model used by condominium buildings around the world, and though the administration of the building might not be as smooth as under a multi-tenant income property arrangement, it is attractive for people who want to own property rather than lease it, but who also want to take advantage of the common area/element provisioning abilities of a collective arrangement.

(Note: Under the condominium arrangement and the multi-tenant income property arrangement, multi-tenant income buildings and condominium buildings could also exist, and they would just constitute a condominium arrangement within a condominium arrangement, a multi-tenant income arrangement within a multi-tenant income arrangement, etc…)

3. Free-Hold + Associations: The developer subdivides the land and sells each individual land parcel separately. Roads and the municipal infrastructure on them or underneath them cannot exactly be subdivided, so they are given to a newly-formed Road and Infrastructure Association to maintain. Membership in this association for land owners is mandatory, and fees can be levied for road and infrastructure maintenance (more detail on this below). If the developer built parks or other public spaces, he could either continue owning them himself and try to use them as income-generating properties (park admission fees, retaining ownership of commercial buildings on the public spaces and charging extra rent for to tenants of these buildings), or he could leave them to a Parks and Public Spaces Association, which would be funded by fees collected from members in the community who joined voluntarily. The maintenance of common areas would probably be choppier and more dependent on community spirit and voluntarism under this arrangement, but this arrangement would probably still be feasible in most cases, and would give people the full satisfaction of complete property ownership.   

            

           Whichever of these three options is chosen, the result is a market-based community development and maintenance process that requires no coercive government intervention beyond the provisioning of basic law enforcement services.

           

Some may now ask though: what is the point of this whole exercise? What makes these private land authorities (whether they be multi-tenant income landlords, condominium associations, or road and utility associations) any different from the municipal governments that already exist? While there are a few similarities between these private organizations and municipal governments, there are also some significant differences that distinguish private organizations for the better:

1. Smaller zones of authority=more competition:

In a free-market system, there often exist both economies and diseconomies of scale, pushing free-market organizations towards the optimal size for their type of organization. Though I don’t know for sure, I would guess that for the kinds of arrangements discussed above, the interplay of market forces would result in an average community size that covers a significantly smaller area than the average municipal government of today. This is because the larger private land organizations got, the less opportunity for differentiation of communities in the market there would be, and the harder the effective governance of these larger communities would get, particularly in the case of condominium arrangements.

I suspect that something like what we now consider as a semi-integrated ‘community’ within a larger urban area (the area around Yonge and Lawrence, Jane and Finch, Sheppard and Yonge, etc…), where the quality of public spaces/common elements have a real, noticeable, impact on the desirability of every tenant or owner’s property would prevail as the optimal size on a free-market. If so, this would mean something on the order of 60 or so self-governing communities within what is now governed by the City of Toronto. Many of these communities would be forced to compete with one another to attract tenants and residents, and the result would be a continuous tendency towards improvement in the quality of Community Governance.

2. Regulated by the profit motive rather than by the blunt hammer of elections:

           
         For any organization with authority over community affairs, whether private or governmental, there must be some way of holding them accountable to the residents of that community and making them responsive to the wishes of those residents. In the private sector, it is the profit motive that performs this function. In the case of a Multi-Tenant Income Property arrangement, this is obvious. The more the landlord of the community can make his community attractive to existing tenants and potential tenants, the higher rents he will be able to charge and, provided that the costs of making the community more attractive are less than the higher rents he will be able to charge as a result, the more profit he will net for himself. In a condominium arrangement, the stakeholders (the condo unit owners), have an interest in making their community attractive, both for their own current benefit as residents and for the sake of raising the market value of their property in case they want to sell their property or use it as collateral. Similar considerations apply to a Free Hold + Associations arrangement, although the process of keeping the community attractive might be a bit choppier and might be subject to free-rider problems in certain cases.

           

           For governments, on the other hand, it is popular elections that supposedly perform this regulatory function. However, governmental elections are too unfocused, deal with too many issues at once, offer too few options, occur too infrequently, and are too dependent on the personalities of politicians, in order to be effective, precise, and timely means of holding the government accountable to residents and making them responsive to the wishes of residents. Timely, precise, and incentive-heavy signals sent by the property markets via the profit motive are a much better means of making community organizations accountable and responsive.        

3. Once the transition period is over, joining these arrangements will be voluntary and not imposed on anyone:

            
           Once the transition period from the current statist system is over (discussed below), people will have to literally ‘buy-in’ to these private community organizations in order to be associated with them. People will weigh the quality of the community organization and the Community Governance, in addition to such factors as location and building quality, when deciding what property to buy. If they choose to buy or lease a property that is associated with a community organization, they will choose to associate themselves with that organization and choose to take on all that that entails (which can vary based on the specific contract) as part of the package deal for the property.

           

           If you still think that this should be defined as a government, then it would be a government where people actually would have to sign a real ‘social contract’ voluntarily in order to be under its rule. This is unlike the current governments, whose legitimizing ‘social contracts’ our ancestors supposedly agreed to somewhere in the mists of history, and which for some reason are still considered binding on us.

4. Different arrangements (multi-tenant income property, condominium, free hold + associations) to experiment with, rather than unitary one imposed by government:

            
           Under present arrangements, there is really no choice when it comes to the form of Community Governance: buildings will be owned separately and ‘common areas/elements’ will be provided by municipal governments out of the funds obtained from the unavoidable, coercive levy of taxation. Under free-market arrangements, people will be free to experiment with different methods of community organization. Perhaps some will prove superior and will win out over the others: perhaps multiple models will co-exist and cater to different groups of people. The coercive, uniform, statist method cannot tolerate this diversity, the flexible free-market is perfectly suited for it. How can we ever know which modes of community governance work better than others if the government never lets us try them out, instead simply imposing its own monopoly model on everyone?  

           

           I understand that the ideas and arrangements I am presenting will be unfamiliar and seem strange to many people, and many objections are bound to be raised to them. I will now take the opportunity to pre-emptively address some of the likely issues and objections that will be raised:

1. Transition Period:

            
           Some of the trickiest issues to solve are connected to the transition period. So far, the real estate markets and the actions of those involved in them have been guided by the supposition that it is the government’s responsibility to take care of urban infrastructure and other community governance issues. Municipal governments levy taxes as they will, and provide urban infrastructure as they will: in their private capacities, real estate owners were not really involved in the decision-making processes. How to get from this current, statist situation to the free-market arrangements described above without sacrificing the interests of current real estate owners?

            

            Well, I think that the first thing to sort out is ownership of the streets. It is obviously unfeasible for each owner of a subdivision to own, completely independently, the tiny stretch of road adjoining his property. What should be done is to (somewhat arbitrarily) divide urban areas into ‘neighbourhoods’ of moderate size, and then give every property owner in that neighbourhood shares in the ownership of the streets of that neighbourhood, based on the amount of street frontage of his property. The resulting corporation would be the Road and Infrastructure Association of that neighbourhood. This corporation would take ownership and thus decision-making rights over the streets of the neighbourhood, along with any municipal property on those streets and the real estate-based decision-making rights regarding any private infrastructure projects (such as telecom infrastructure) on the streets.

            

           For real estate owners in that neighbourhood, membership in the Association would be both automatic and mandatory. The Association would need funds to administer, maintain, and perhaps improve the roads and infrastructure, and would have the right to collect such funds either through levies of members or through charging road tolls or taking a cut of infrastructure rates. Membership would be mandatory for the simple reason that any property owner is going to be using the streets and the infrastructure, and it would be unfair if they could just access the benefits without paying their share of the costs. Though necessary due to the tricky transition period, forcing people to join community organizations is opposed to the spirit of my proposed reforms, and thus the powers of the Associations would have to be strictly limited to avoid abuse. Any funds collected would have to be through per-share levies of members or through uniform, level of service-based fees, no discriminatory pricing allowed. Also, the Associations could only collect the amount of funds necessary to do their job with regards to road and infrastructure, they would not be able to collect and use funds for other purposes, nor amass an unreasonably large reserve fund.

            

           With regards to the size and location of the somewhat arbitrarily determined ‘neighbourhoods’, they would certainly not be set in stone. Free hold property owners with ownership shares in a neighbourhood road corporation should be allowed to secede from that corporation under certain conditions. Firstly, they would need the agreement of every owner on an area of road the size of at least a standard city block in order to do anything. Secondly, to avoid the creation of a chaotic neighbourhood structure, any neighbourhood would have to be a minimum size, perhaps 5 by 5 standard city blocks or something like that. If everyone in such an area agreed to secede, they could start their own neighbourhood. Or, if city blocks were on the borders of adjoining neighbourhoods, they could choose to secede from their existing neighbourhood and just tack themselves on to the adjoining one, provided a majority of shareholders of the neighbourhood they wished to join agreed.  

            

           Now, this initial arrangement might seem clunky and inefficient, and it probably would be. A certain degree of this is inevitable in any transition arrangement, where the governments made a mess of things by not letting voluntarism structure the real estate market from the beginning. It will be nowhere near as simple and clear-cut as the developer and his field which we used as an example above.

            

           Nevertheless, this clunky initial arrangement still has the potential to evolve into the more sophisticated community forms discussed above. One thing property owners could do is pool their properties and the road ownership shares connected with them into a condominium arrangement. If more than 50% of the property owners in a neighbourhood agreed to do this, the condominium could take a controlling share in the Road and Infrastructure Association, and with condo fees levied from its members, could provide other Community Governance services as well. Similarly, property owners could sell their properties and the road ownership shares connected with them to a property management company, and then lease their former properties from the company, thus establishing a Multi-Tenant Income Property arrangement if more than 50% of the owners decided to sell.

It is true that there may be some hold-outs who refuse to agree to the condominium arrangement or to sell to the property management company. They would retain their membership in the Road and Infrastructure Association and continue paying the dues and fees associated with those services. They might, for a time, ‘free-ride’ for some of the services a condominium or Multi-Tenant Income Property organization might provide for the community. As time goes on though, and property is bought and sold, the significance of this ‘problem’ will probably be reduced as the condominium or landlord continues to try to buy up those properties. In any case, we can by no means condone the forcing of anyone into association with any condominium or landlord, as this would destroy the whole point of the reform, which is for voluntarism and free-market considerations to prevail as much as possible in the community organization market.   

2. Coordination Issues:

For most community organization purposes, it would seem that municipalities are currently too large. Nevertheless, in some areas of infrastructure coordination, these bigger units may be somewhat more suitable than smaller ones.

For instance, let’s say that an energy company has a power plant at the outskirts of Toronto. It wants to sell its power to consumers in Toronto. In order to do so, there needs to be infrastructure that can connect the power plant to the buildings of all the consumers that want to purchase the power. This will invariably mean power lines going through multiple different neighbourhoods, owned or organized by different organizations. What if some neighbourhood organizations are unreasonable and do not allow the power lines to cross their neighbourhood streets? (Let’s assume that these neighbourhoods get their power from another, competing company). Are the neighbourhoods that want the power from this company but who can’t get it because of the obstructionist outer neighbourhoods out of luck?

Firstly, something like this would only really be a problem, if then, in the transition period. Otherwise, if a power company is building a new power plant and intends to sell the power generated in this plant to the residents of Toronto, surely, before building the plant, it will ensure that it has the contractual right to build the requisite infrastructure through the relevant neighbourhoods. If they know that the neighbourhoods are by no means going to allow their infrastructure through, they will locate the power plant somewhere else where neighbourhoods are more accommodating. Secondly, if neighbourhoods really are just being unreasonable obstructionists, the government should be allowed to use their power of eminent domain, in these rare circumstances, to force the neighbourhoods to allow the power lines through, provided that they are compensated more than reasonably for the trouble.      

In some cases though, it’s not just a question of third party companies building connective infrastructure, but of an infrastructure service that really has to be provided in a coordinated manner city-wide. The most obvious example of this would be water and sewage. In Toronto, water is pumped out of Lake Ontario, purified, and then pumped into the homes of consumers. When the water the consumer uses goes down the drain, sewers take it to another water treatment plant, where the water is purified, and then put back into Lake Ontario. This circuit is really city-wide, and the relevant infrastructure really should be coordinated as such. Does this mean that we need the mega municipal governments after all?

No, and here’s why: Just as individual property owners can join together to form Road and Infrastructure Associations, so the various community organizations in a city (be they condominium associations, Road and Infrastructure Associations, or community landlords) could get together to form a Toronto Water and Sewage Association. They could take shares and decision-making rights in the association based on agreed-upon criteria, and then this association could be responsible for coordinating Toronto’s water and sewage services (it might run the water treatment plants, and perhaps lay down rules that the owners of community water and sewage systems must follow if they want to keep receiving the services). Community organizations would be incentivized to do this for the same reason that they are incentivized to provide good community services for their own neighbourhoods: because having a good sewage and water system would increase the property values and rents of the properties that they are concerned about. Neighbourhoods wouldn’t just compete against neighbourhoods, but cities would also compete against cities, and to do so effectively, sometimes the neighbourhood organizations of that city would have to cooperate to achieve a common end such as good water and sewage services.     

3. Land Monopoly Issues:

            
           Some readers will undoubtedly be concerned about a potential monopoly issue under this arrangement: what if one big property management company buys up an entire city and becomes an unaccountable monopolist who no longer cares about serving their clients well? In general, most people unjustifiably assume that the free-market is characterized by strong monopolistic tendencies. In actual fact, there is not much evidence for this belief. Most monopolies or near-monopolies have been the result of government decrees or interventions or have been protected and favoured by government interventions. In our particular case, I think that the diseconomies of scale would kick in and prevent any property management company from administering too many complex urban areas at once. For condominium arrangements, the diseconomies of scale would kick in even earlier, due to the participatory nature of condominium associations.

            

            If some readers’ hearts are not yet stilled though, I am willing to support a piece of (probably superfluous) legislation prohibiting any company or associated group of companies from owning more than 30% of the land in a municipal region (such as Toronto).

4. Unreasonable Regulations Issues:

            
           What if condominium associations or multi-tenant income property landlords insist on unreasonable rules and regulations? What if, for instance, some of them decide to fine gay residents, or fine people who don’t wear the mandated funny hats at all times, or fine property owners who don’t put a shrine to the Baby Jesus in their buildings?

            

           Firstly, it is highly unlikely that an organization that is interested in its property values will do so. Multi-tenant income property landlords, if they insist on silly regulations for their tenants, will create reduced demand for their properties, resulting in lower rents that people are willing to pay. In addition, tenants who don’t like the rules will be free to cease renting and find a new place. Similarly, condominium associations who insist on such rules will reduce the property values of all their constituents, which won’t be popular with them, and make their lives more onerous, which also won’t be popular. And, people can always sell their condominiums to people who don’t mind the silly rules and find another property where the rules are less silly.

            

           Again though, if people are still worried about unreasonable landlords and condominium associations, I don’t mind supporting some, largely superfluous, legislation in this case as well. The legislation could state that regulations made by condominium associations or by landlords can only apply to common areas/elements, to the external look of buildings, and to functional building features such as fire safety provisions. They may not apply to the interiors of tenants’/condo owners’ buildings (no regulations about what colour their furniture must be for instance) and they may not be aimed at the person of tenants or condo owners (no being fined based on personal characteristics such as sexual preference or based on the specifics of personal attire).

These general rules, plus the self-interest of condominium association leaders and multi-tenant income property landlords, will serve to minimize the issue of unreasonable rules and regulations, making it pale into comparison besides the same issue when applied to the current system of monopoly government community control.

So, there you have it, a discussion of private, free-market alternatives to the supposedly ‘vital’ government intervention in urban infrastructure and community affairs. So the next time you hear someone say that the free-market couldn’t possibly provide effective Community Governance, tell them that they shouldn’t be so sure, the free-market would probably overcome the government in this area too!

Policy Proposal: Individualized Forced Savings Plan (IFSP)

            I propose the following:

            

           That, in place of CPP/Social Security, Socialized Medicine/Medicare, and Employment Insurance, there be set up something I call an Individualized Forced Savings Plan (IFSP). Employed or self-employed individuals will be required to put 10% of their pre-tax income into their own IFSPs. Contributions will no longer be mandatory once there is enough money/assets in the IFSP to enable an individual to live modestly for about 10 years, let’s say the equivalent of $500,000 in today’s money. There will be nothing ‘collective’ about these plans, each individual will have their own plan and will manage it themselves. They may change the asset composition of their IFSPs at any time, with the proviso that no assets be used for personal consumption in any way, shape, or form (ie. no buying a luxurious mansion that you plan to live in yourself as an ‘investment’. If you want to invest in real estate, it must be a rental/income-generating property exclusively). The money in the IFSP can only be disinvested and used for consumption for the following purposes: 1. If the person becomes unemployed and needs to use the money to avoid poverty. 2. In case of medical emergency or in order to pay for catastrophic medical insurance insuring against such emergencies. 3. Genuinely career-focused educational investments for the person or their children. 4. Once the person retires and they are over the age of 65, they may use the money as they wish.

             

            The primary purpose of the IFSP is to act as a financial buffer, separating employed but unthrifty people from the minimal welfare social safety net that I expressed support for elsewhere (http://thinkingabouthumansociety.blogspot.ca/2013/03/issue-analysis-welfare-social-safety-net.html). With the IFSP in place, if an employed person loses their job, has a medical emergency, needs to invest in training for themselves or for their children, or gets to be too old to work, there will be a financial buffer, built up from contributions made during employment, that has to be used up before the person is eligible for the minimal social safety net. Not only will this reduce the welfare costs of the government, but it will also provide a certain degree of stability to the individual, as falling into the minimal social safety net would be quite disruptive to someone’s life. The minimal social safety net is supposed to be the last resort for desperate people, thus to have a buffer of forced savings between individuals and the net is a good thing to have.

            

           Another benefit of the IFSP is that, to the extent that people save in their IFSPs in the form of investment capital (which they will tend to do as long as their isn’t too much economic instability), there will be more capital available to businesses in the economy. This will lead to a generally more productive structure of production and to higher real wages for workers.

            

           Why an individualized plan and not a ‘collective’ one such as CPP/Social Security or Employment Insurance? The problem with these ‘collective’ plans is that they are not self-sustaining and they are too redistributive. These plans are typically not on a fully funded basis, but on a so-called ‘pay-as-you-go’ basis, where benefits come out of current contributions by other people to the plan, instead of out of an individualized pool of solid investment assets. The result is an unsustainable pyramid scheme which will become less and less financially viable as time goes on, as is happening with CPP/Social Security. In addition, with ‘pay-as-you-go’ plans, not much actual investment is going on, as there is no need to hold actual investment assets over long periods of time with this model as there is with an individualized, fully funded plan. Rather than saving for the future with investment assets, people are led by these plans to believe that they are covered. The result is less investment in the economy, meaning less capital available to businesses, meaning a less productive structure of production overall and lower real wages.    

            

           These plans are also too redistributive. Richer people pay far more than they receive from these plans, while poorer people receive far more than they pay. As with any egalitarian policy, the results are a relative crippling of the incentives to be productive and serve the consumers, and less saving and capital accumulation than would otherwise occur.

            

           Some libertarians will object that the government should not be in the business of telling people what they can and cannot do with their hard-earned income. I sympathize with this point, but given that I have already expressed support for a minimal social safety net, the IFSP needs to be in place as a buffer to avoid the abuse of the social safety net by profligate people. Of course, one could just say that this is a reason to scrap the minimal social safety net idea, but I think that the minimal social safety net plus the IFSP are, as far as government policies go, relatively benign, and could even lead to some good.          

An Egoist's Guide to Action

In social philosophy, there is probably no term more misunderstood than ‘egoism’.

In the language of formal economic theory, it can be said that every action is egoistic, if by egoistic we mean any action chosen by the individual because they expect that the benefits to themselves will outweigh the costs to themselves (which is the case for every action performed, by definition). Eating a hamburger or donating to charity, if performed by an actor, demonstrates that the actor expects to value the satisfaction derived from eating a hamburger or expects to value the satisfaction derived from donating to charity more than any other course of action, assuming resource and time requirements are equal, that they could have performed at the time.

If egoism is to have a substantive meaning in philosophy though, a discipline more concerned with evaluating the ends actors choose than economics, which is solely concerned with evaluating means and what ends they lead to, it must be defined more narrowly. The popular definition of an egoistic act is an act that is performed by an actor who doesn’t, or doesn’t ‘sufficiently’, evaluate the effect that that action will have on other humans when deciding whether to perform it or not. An altruistic act, on the other hand, according to the popular definition, is an act that is performed by an actor who does ‘sufficiently’ take into consideration the effects, positive or negative, that that action will have on other humans when deciding whether to perform it or not. Consuming beluga caviar by yourself would be a perfect example of an egoistic act, donating to charity concerned with helping others and which doesn’t redound at all to your material benefit would be a perfect example of an altruistic act.

            

           The problem with this definition of egoism is that it is too narrow. This is because, ironically, someone who only performed egoistic acts would fail lamentably at pursing their own self-interest, the advancement of which is supposed to be the goal of egoists. This is because men do not generally live as hermits, and their self-interest would generally not be advanced by living as hermits. Rather, most men live in society with others, something which enormously advances all of their self-interests. In order for this institution of society to be preserved and to operate beneficially, there can be no question of everyone always absolutely disregarding the effects that their actions will have on others in that society. The result would be a disintegration of whatever society that existed into a maelstrom of robbery, assault, murder, and chaos, something which serves no one’s self-interest.

            

           In order for people to advance their self-interests effectively, ‘societal’ and ‘indirect’ considerations must be considered, alongside the purely ‘selfish’ and ‘direct’ considerations contained in the popular definition of egoism, when evaluating the desirability of a course of action. I suggest five broad criteria for egoists living in society to consider when evaluating any course of action:

Selfish Considerations:

1. Direct effects on the actor, considered in isolation from ‘societal’ factors. Can be in the form of an immediate benefit (consumption) or a benefit to be reaped later (investment):

            

            To isolate this consideration, imagine for the moment that you are a hermit and that as long as you meet the cost, the benefit will just materialize without any social processes being involved. For a choice like deciding whether to eat a bowl of ice cream or not, these conditions are approximately true in reality, as the societal effects of your decision are fairly negligible. The main considerations are: how much will you enjoy the taste? How much is its money cost? How hungry are you? What will the long-term health effects be? How will you feel immediately after consuming the ice cream? Etc…

Societal Considerations

2. Sympathy Effects:

            

           As humans live together in society, especially in families or communities, they often become emotionally attached to one another and realize that others share many common, ‘human’ traits with them. The result is the development of feelings of sympathy between humans, defined as an emotional, empathetic link between two or more humans, a link that can vary widely in intensity. When bonds of sympathy are established between two people, if one perceives that the other is hurt, some of that hurt will be transferred onto the perceiver, while if one perceives that the other is happy, some of that happiness will be transferred onto the perceiver. The stronger the sympathetic bond, the more hurt or happiness is transferred. If an egoist who has developed bonds of sympathy with another wants to advance his self-interest effectively, he cannot ignore the effects that his actions will have on others. If he performs an action that hurts someone he cares about, part of that hurt will be transferred back to him through the bond of sympathy. This must be considered by any rational egoist who has the advancement of his self-interest in mind. Hurting yourself through hurting those you care about is not a good way of advancing your self-interest.

3. Fear of Retaliation or Hope for Recompense Effects:

            

           One of the first things that people living in societies together learn is that other humans are egos interested in their own well-being just as they are, and this fact must be taken into consideration when evaluating courses of action. Specifically, if an actor gratuitously hurts another person, he should take into account the possibility that the hurt person will retaliate and hurt the actor in return. On the other hand, if an actor gratuitously helps another person, he should take into account the possibility that the helped person will reciprocate the benefit and help the actor in return. Most people seem to have a natural, and societally beneficial, tendency to reciprocate both harms and benefits given by others. In many societies the retaliation/deterrent part is institutionalized and formalized by governments, acting through law enforcement agencies. These facts should not be ignored by rational egoists seeking to make decisions that will advance their self-interests.

4. Higher Probability that that Course of Action will Become a General Rule of Societal Action:

           

           Every time one member of society engages in an individually beneficial action that has bearings on the rules governing the social order, it becomes more probable that this kind of behavior will become a more general behavior amongst members of society. This is so due to the addition of the actor to the number of citizens engaging in that kind of action, and due to the possibility of imitation by other citizens who see that this kind of action can be beneficial to individuals. For example, if the actor is deciding whether or not to mug a man in the street and steal his wallet, he should consider what would happen if more and more people in society started doing that. Security of person and property would become less secure, which would result in a less productive, less prosperous, less peaceful, and more fearful society for everyone. The actor was looking to benefit himself materially with his action, but his material interests and other interests would be hurt if his action became generalized and performed by more and more people in society. Now, this effect is of course only a probabilistic effect (there is no guarantee that others will imitate the action), and should be discounted by the actor accordingly. Nevertheless, the reality of the effect remains, as demonstrated by phenomena such as the impoverishment caused by widespread interest group politicking, and must be taken into account by any rational egoist intent on advancing his self-interest.

5. Intellectual Consistency/Hypocrisy Effects:   

            

            I suspect that many people’s minds, like mine, crave consistency in thought. My mind would be distressed if, for example, my having engaged in a bodily assault of another person forced it to rationalize a position like: ‘bodily assault is good when I am doing the assaulting, but bad when other people are doing the assaulting, both because of the negative societal effects and because I might be the one assaulted.’ Moreover, if I tried to convince people that bodily assault was bad and that they shouldn’t do it, they would probably discount my opinion because of its obvious hypocrisy. How can someone who has assaulted someone preach that assault is bad and that you shouldn’t do it? Who would listen to the opinions of such a person on any social topic? For the sake of your inner peace of mind and to maintain your intellectual reputation, this effect must be considered before engaging in an action which, if speaking generally and universally, you would rationally condemn, such as bodily assault.

            To make this discussion more concrete and practical, I will now use my five criteria for rational egoistic decision-making to explain why, entirely on egoistic grounds, if I had the opportunity, I would not break into someone’s house and steal their precious jewellery:

1. Possessing precious jewellery, at the direct cost only of walking to the person’s house, breaking a window, finding the jewellery, and carrying it home, is certainly directly beneficial in a societally-isolated, selfish sense. I could exchange the jewellery for a lot of money and use it to invest in a better future for myself.

2. Even though I don’t know the owners directly, I would feel sympathetic pain from the proposed action. I would imagine what it would be like if I was in their shoes, and just lost something both emotionally and monetarily precious to me, and the sense of violation and anger that they would feel. The pain would certainly be lessened because in this case, I don’t know the owners personally, but it would still exist and be a significant factor in my decision-making, for I know that they are human and would just assume that they are average, relatively nice people who don’t deserve to be gratuitously harmed.              

3. Being a cautious person and lover of security, I would greatly fear societal or police retaliation for my proposed action. I would definitely not like to live in fear of being hauled away to jail at any moment.

4. As I mentioned already, if robbery became general, society would become a nastier and less productive arrangement. I would not like that one bit, and consequently, I would not like to contribute to making that eventuality more likely, nor if it occurred would I like knowing that I was part of the problem, not the solution.   

5. My social ideas are generally libertarian and robbery is anathema to libertarianism. My inner peace of mind would be seriously disturbed if my actions contradicted my social ideas, and no one would take me seriously if they knew that I was a robber who preached libertarianism. Not just with regards to social policy, but probably with regards to other intellectual issues as well, my opinions would be discounted as tainted with hypocrisy. All this would be seriously harmful to me.

 Conclusion: I must conclude that despite the tempting immediate material advantages, the disadvantages, in the form of societal considerations, significantly outweigh them, and I would not decide in favour of stealing the jewellery, unless perhaps I was starving to death or if the owners were known thieves or murderers themselves.

            

           Now, some may object that by including societal considerations in my analysis, by definition the analysis is no longer done from an egoistic perspective. This is why we must come to a better understanding of the definition of egoism. When egoist philosophers such as Max Stirner and James L. Walker use the term, they do not so much contrast egoism with altruism as is popularly done, but with idealism. In their view, an egoist is someone who acts based on values that flow naturally/spontaneously from their own bodies and minds. An idealist, on the other hand, is someone who acts based on the alleged absolute value of fixed ideals. These ideals are somewhat alien to the current individual, established either by an indoctrinator or as a piece of ossified past thought of the individual that he does not allow his mind to challenge rationally when circumstances have changed. Popular examples of such ideals include things like God, Universal Love, Equality, Family, Accumulation, Chastity, Law, and Property. These ideals become idols to which the individual is expected to, and often expects himself to, sacrifice his self-interest to. Rather than undertaking rational, egoistic calculations of actions as I did above with the jewellery stealing example, they adopt the sometimes useful, but sometimes harmful, shortcut of just inquiring whether an action fits in with one of their fixed ideals or not, and enthusiastically pursuing the action if it does, and impetuously rejecting it if it does not.

            

           To make the opposition between egoism and idealism clearer, I will offer some examples of how the conduct of an idealist might differ from that of an egoist:

1. The religious idealist might otherwise want to have sex before marriage, but if he thinks that his God does not approve of such actions, he might prevent himself from doing it. The rational egoist does what he calculates will be best for him, in the short and long-run, and as long as he takes proper precautionary measures against unwanted impregnations or STDs, he will probably choose to have sex before marriage when the right circumstances align, regardless of what people say a religious deity might think of his actions.

2. The rational egoist, when it comes to love and generous actions springing from that feeling, will probably save his love for those he is close to, admires, and/or cares about. The universal love idealist, on the other hand, thinking it his duty to adhere to the ideal of Universal Love, will push himself to try to love everyone equally, lavishing indiscriminate love on the peasant in Thailand he’s never met and on his own close friends and family alike. The idealist might think that his philanthropy must cover the whole world, and will spread it out accordingly, while the egoists will save his philanthropy for those he truly, spontaneously, and naturally cares about.

3. The egalitarian idealist will want to make all members of his society equal in socio-economic terms, in the name of his ideal of Equality. He will recommend harmful policies that will contribute to undermining the productivity of the society in which he lives in pursuit of this ideal. The rational egoist, on the other hand, if he is an employer for example, might choose to give his lowest paid workers a raise above the general market value of their services in order to make his employee’s salaries more equal, perhaps to increase their morale and perhaps out of sympathy. He will not go much further than something like this though, because he does not seek to sacrifice himself for the sake of the unattainable and destructive ideal of Equality.

4. The familial idealist will submit to many hardships in the name of Family, even if his particular family happens to be grasping and abusive. The rational egoist will seek to make his family happy, both out of sympathy for those close to him and, if family members had been good to him, to reciprocate those benefits received. If the family is rotten though, causing the egoist to feel little sympathy or need to reciprocate non-existent benefits dispensed, and/or if the family demands an unreasonable amount of sacrifice from the egoist, he will not unreasonably hurt himself as a sacrifice in the name of the idol of Family.

5. The miserly idealist is one who forgets that the purpose of amassing wealth is to consume or to allow those you love to consume, and instead just keeps amassing wealth in the name of the ideal of Accumulation. The rational egoist understands the value of wealth, and will make balanced and situation-specific decisions amongst devoting his wealth to consumption, investment (setting the stage for future consumption), or cash-holding to meet exigencies.       

6. The legalist idealist is one who thinks that everything that the government proclaims to be Law, they must unquestioningly obey. For example, let us assume that the actor is a small-business owner who could use some extra labor help with his business. A young man just out of high school offers to work for him. While the extra help would be useful, the business owner does not think that it would be worth $10.25 an hour (Ontario’s current minimum wage). The young man, however, really wants the job and is willing to work for $7 an hour. If the business owner is a legalist idealist, he will refuse and not hire the young man. After all, paying below the minimum wage is against ‘The Law’. If the business owner is a rational egoist, and the chances of their being found out by the authorities is small, he will probably gladly conspire with the young man so that he can work for $7 an hour. Both parties to the transaction benefit, and the main precedent that is set by the action is the mostly benign one of ignoring absurd laws of the government. 

            

7. The propertarian idealist is one who thinks that Private Property is sacred, and that to violate someone’s private property rights is always a grave sin. In all cases in which the issue comes up, the propertarian idealist will always choose to preserve the sanctity of Private Property, regardless of circumstances. Most knowledgeable egoists will maintain that respecting private property is good as a general rule, due to the many benefits to all that the institution provides. However, this will not prevent them from making occasional exceptions to that rule, in cases where the benefits seem to clearly outweigh the costs and where the exception is not likely to lead to a slippery slope, resulting in more and more violations of private property. For example, a rational egoist might support the principle that if a major, beneficial infrastructure project is being built but a stubborn hold-out is refusing to sell his small, but necessary, parcel of land at any reasonable price, the hold-out may be forced to sell at something like 1.5 times the current market value for similar parcels of land. The propertarian idealist, on the other hand, would never accept this exception to his ideal, and would prefer that the infrastructure project be built around the parcel, even if it means ludicrously costly detours.

            Thus, we have shown that if people became rational egoists, the disintegration of society would not result, as societal considerations must be considered alongside selfish considerations if the egoist is to pursue his self-interest at all effectively. We have also argued that consequently, the opposite of egoism is not altruism, as it is popularly supposed, but idealism. Idealism, if the ideal is a generally good one such as Family or Property, can sometimes serve just as an intellectual shortcut for those not wanting to constantly engage in egoistic calculations of courses of action. Even for good ideals though, and especially for bad, ludicrous, or questionable ones, this shortcut can sometimes lead to a lot of irrational decisions. Keeping the proper, egoistic foundations of decision-making in mind could help people to avoid more of these irrational decisions.    

           

    

             

           

The Important Distinction Between Political and Personal Morality

            Within the realm of morality we can distinguish two broad categories of moral tenets. The first are moral tenets, the general observance of which we believe would result in greater well-being for most members of society, and which we believe would best be enforced through physical coercion or the threat thereof, usually through the agency of a government. We may call these tenets of political morality. The second are moral tenets, the general observance of which we believe would result in greater societal well-being for most members of society, but which we believe would best not be enforced through physical coercion or the threat thereof, but rather instilled through persuasion and deterred through the disapprobation of other members of society. We may call these tenets of personal morality.

            

           Thus, the ethical thinker has two jobs to accomplish with regards to each moral tenet he favours. First, he must prove that the general observance of that moral tenet would result in greater well-being for most members of society. He must prove the utilitarian credentials of the tenet as a general rule in order to establish it as a legitimate moral tenet. Secondly, he must try to determine whether the moral tenet would best be enforced through physical coercion or the threat thereof, or whether this would be inexpedient and the tenet would best be operationalized through persuasion and disapprobation. He must determine whether the tenet should be classified as political or personal morality.

             

           As regular readers of this blog will know by now, I think that the general observance of the moral tenet of respect for private property and of general individual freedom from aggressive physical coercion in most regards, would result in significantly greater well-being for most members of society than a lack of this observance. I think that because of its relative clarity as an enforceable moral tenet and because of the serious danger to other individuals that can result from even a small number of people who don’t abide by this tenet of morality, this tenet is best enforced through physical coercion or the threat thereof. I would thus classify this tenet as a tenet of political morality, and as the pre-eminent one at that.

            

           Nevertheless, I by no means think that it is the only moral tenet that can be justified on utilitarian grounds. Others, such as general respect for and politeness towards others, familial solidarity, non-contractual reciprocity between friends, showing gratitude when another does favours for you, and more, I also consider sufficiently backed by utilitarian credentials to count as tenets of morality. But, as mentioned above, establishing something as a tenet of morality is only half the job. Because I don’t think that these tenets of morality either can or should be enforced through physical coercion or the threat thereof, I would classify them as tenets of personal morality. People who believe in these tenets should try to convince others to follow them, and can show disapprobation or can societally alienate those who refuse to follow these tenets, but they shouldn’t try to enforce these tenets through physical coercion or the threat thereof.

            

           Why shouldn’t they be enforced through physical coercion or the threat thereof? Why should private property rights and rights to individual freedom be enforced through physical force and tenets such as politeness, familial solidarity, etc… should not? For the remainder of this post, I will give various reasons why I think that political morality should by and large be confined to the tenets of respect for private property and individual freedom, and why many tenets of ‘conservative’ or ‘leftist’ morality discussed today are either not legitimate tenets of morality at all or should be classified as tenets of personal, not political, morality.

1. Many tenets of ‘conservative’ or ‘leftist’ morality fail the test of rough direct utility cost-benefit analyses:

            

           Consider the issue of gay marriage. American conservatives think that homosexuality is ‘unchristian’ and that they should not be allowed to pervert the ‘sacred’ meaning of marriage. Gay marriage is thus, according to conservatives, immoral. Gay people, on the other hand, typically argue that homosexuality is an individual characteristic, like race or gender, and possessing an individual characteristic shouldn’t bar people from getting officially married and enjoying the benefits thereof. Gay marriage thus has the exact same moral status as straight marriage.

            

           Let us now consider the utilitarian credentials of this conservative ‘tenet of morality’. Whether classed as a tenet of political or personal morality, even the cost-benefit analysis in terms of direct utility effects is probably unfavourable to this tenet. If gay marriage is outlawed or generally frowned upon, then gay people, about 10% of the North American population, are prevented or seriously discouraged from entering an important, voluntary, mutually beneficial bond with another, and prevented from enjoying the legal status thereof. This would probably result in a relatively serious hit to both people’s happiness, or utility. What is gained by the moral tenet? The presumably relatively minor benefit of homophobes being able to believe that they now live in a more ‘moral’ or more ‘Christian’ country, and deriving a small amount of utility from this belief. The tenet significantly harms gay people seeking to get married, in order to give homophobes a tiny, perceptual, benefit. By producing significantly more direct misery than direct happiness, this ‘moral tenet’ fails the very first utilitarian test that any moral tenet must go through, and thus must be rejected wholesale.

      

           A similar situation probably applies for such tenets of ‘conservative’ morality as hatred of pornography, no sex before marriage, women must be housewives, etc…

            

            It is not similar when we discuss the respect for private property tenet of morality. Here, all people who have claims to private property are clearly directly benefitted, while only those who would like to take away the property of others are directly harmed. At this superficial direct level, respect for private property does not yet come away with a resounding utilitarian victory, but it probably does still win a small one, given that most people experience more unhappiness from losing what they already have than they experience in happiness from gaining what they do not yet have, other things equal.

2. Even if they pass the direct utility test, it is less likely that it can be determined that tenets of ‘conservative’ or ‘leftist’ morality definitely have net benefits when enforced as general rules than it is for the tenet of respect for private property:

            

           Consider a country that could benefit from an increase in its population. In this country at this time, it is likely that the tenet of ‘conservative’ morality that contraception and abortion are evil might pass the direct utility test. Parents may have to put up with some unwanted children, but the rest of the population gains from the increase in the division of labour and rise in the general standard of living that this population increase will bring in its wake. With this, have we proved that this is a legitimate tenet of morality? We have not yet, because in order to have useful behavioural effects, codes of morality must be based on general, universal rules, not situational, particularistic ones. Contraception and abortion are evil, while having many offspring is good, when in an under-populated country, but contraception and abortion are good, while having many offspring is evil, when in an over-populated country. This formulation is highly unsatisfactory as a moral rule because it is too situational, and will not be accepted as a fixed standard for evaluating good and evil by the human mind. Rather, if we wish to have a tenet of morality on the issue, it either has to be: ‘Contraception and abortion are good’, or, ‘Contraception and abortion are evil’.

            

             If ‘Contraception and abortion are evil’ is accepted as a moral tenet by people living in an overpopulated country, and especially if accepted by poor people in an overpopulated country filled by poor people, the results are disastrous, whether accepted as a tenet of political or of personal morality. It is unclear whether accepting this tenet as a general, universal rule of morality will result in net benefits or net costs, it depends in what particular situations it is applied in most instances. In this case, it is likely that the tenet will have net costs, since people in under-populated countries will generally be encouraged by economic forces to have more children anyway even without the tenet, and the tenet will probably be applied most often and most disastrously in overpopulated countries by poor people who can least afford it.

            

           The same does not apply for the tenet of respect for private property. Here, it applies pretty well in the vast majority of situations, and the net benefits of adopting it are pretty enormous. All the incentives to produce for the consumers and to accumulate capital to increase the productivity of the economic system are activated, things that only respect for private property applied fairly consistently as a general rule can activate. These benefits are not really situational or particularistic, but fairly general and universal. Some minor exceptions might be cases of land monopoly, stubborn hold-outs blocking infrastructure projects, and people on the verge of death due to poverty, in which respecting private property does not have good results. In these cases though, whether some exceptions are made to the moral tenet or whether the negative results are put up with due to the vast positive benefits of the general rule, the general rule itself is pretty darn sound and should not be discarded or compromised lightly.

           

3. Even if they are legitimate moral tenets, many tenets of morality other than respect for private property tend, if deemed to be tenets of political morality, to set political precedents justifying more and more harmful violations of the tenet of respect for private property:

            

           Consider the tenet of morality of anti-discrimination. In its current popular form, it says that businesses, both when hiring employees and when choosing which customers to serve, should not discriminate based on the race, gender, or sexual orientation of potential employees or customers. This tenet is deemed by many to be important enough and clear enough to be enforced as a tenet of political morality, through ‘civil rights acts’ and other such policies. 

            

           Now, as a tenet of personal morality, and when applied reasonably, the tenet of anti-discrimination passes the utilitarian tests, both directly and as a general rule. Discrimination based on largely irrational criteria such as race, gender, and sexual orientation in business hiring and decision-making means that more able people will be passed over for the positions in which they can best serve the consumers based on such irrational criteria. This directly hurts the person discriminated against, the non-racist/sexist/homophobic stakeholders of the business, and indirectly hurts all of the world’s consumers, while only directly benefitting the racist/sexist/homophobic employer or owner. While the tenet can be pushed too far and applied in unreasonable ways (such as obliging ‘Hooters’ to hire ugly, disabled men as servers), if reasonably qualified the tenet can serve as a good general rule of personal morality.

            

           Why just as personal morality, why can’t we legitimately enforce anti-discrimination as a tenet of political morality? There are two main reasons why this would be ill-advised. Firstly, enforcing anti-discrimination, and others like it, as a tenet of political morality means violating the general rule of respect for private property. Owners of property are forced, through physical coercion or the threat thereof, to make choices that they would not otherwise have made with their property. This is something that is incompatible with a complete right of private property, which means the right to use the property as the owner sees fit, as long as it is not used to infringe the similar right of other property owners. If we accept both respect for private property and anti-discrimination as tenets of political morality, we have a conflict of tenets. 

            

            Secondly, tenets such as anti-discrimination, because they are only legitimate moral tenets when applied ‘reasonably’ rather than in all possible cases, can set some dangerous political precedents if enforced as a tenet of political morality. These tenets are somewhat ambiguous and situational, and power-hungry governments could take advantage of this by using prior precedents, based on the tenet, to justify the further extension of their power in more and more areas. This would result in further and further compromising the tenet of respect for private property. In this case, if you can’t discriminate in hiring or in customer choice, couldn’t the logic extend to preventing ‘discrimination’ in private club membership, friendships, and even in the choice of significant others or sexual partners? Would a certain percentage of inter-racial marriages be mandated based on quotas? Also, within hiring, couldn’t the anti-discrimination categories keep multiplying (race, gender, general beauty, income status, religion, able/disabled, etc…) until the freedom of the employer to hire the person they think is most suitable for the job is turned into a sham? Such extensions are less likely if the tenet remains one of personal morality, because then each individual can judge for themselves or can persuade others accordingly, when and in what ways to adhere to the tenet. When government gets involved, these kinds of tenets can be extended for reasons far different than reasonableness or advancing the ‘common good’, such as ambition for power over others or to please loud special-interest groups.

            

           This kind of reasoning can be applied to quite a few tenets of morality that are legitimate when they are tenets of personal morality only. Consider the tenet of morality that taking narcotic drugs that are harmful to the long-run health of the taker is bad. When governments try to turn this into a tenet of political morality, not only are laws based on such tenets largely unenforceable and mainly lead to an increase in criminal activity, but they also set dangerous political precedents. If narcotics can be prohibited because of their long-run health consequences, why not unhealthy foods? In fact, why not just force the populace to eat healthy foods and to do regular exercise, if concern for the long-run health of people is a legitimate basis for tenets of political morality? The further the logic of the tenet is extended as a tenet of political morality, the further from its utilitarian roots the tenet goes, and the more governments assume tyrannical powers and become contemptuous of the tenet of respecting private property rights.   

             

           Consider the tenet of morality that writing inflammatory, hateful things based on irrational criteria such as race or sexual orientation is wrong. All well and good if it remains a tenet of personal morality, but it becomes dangerous when made a tenet of political morality. If the government can censor hateful racist or homophobic writings, why not censor things that religious people find ‘offensive’ and ‘inflammatory’ too, such as atheistic tracts that say that religion is illogical? How bout politically ‘offensive’ and ‘inflammatory’ writings, shouldn’t they be censored too? The writings of libertarians are ‘offensive’ to people who believe in statism or egalitarianism, and are ‘inflammatory’ in calling the government incompetent and tyrannical. Perhaps these writings should be censored too? Holocaust denial is hateful and ignorant, the tenet would call for its censorship. But if so, how about those ‘ignorant’ and ‘fanatical’ Austrian economists who claim that Roosevelt’s New Deal did not solve the Great Depression, based solely on their ‘hate’ for governments? (I am speaking as a government censor here, not as myself obviously). The mighty sword of censorship is simply too dangerous to leave in the hands of government. People can and should self-censor based on their own moral senses, and perhaps in some cases based on the disapprobation of others. The tenet should remain one of personal, not political, morality.

            

           How about the tenet of respect for private property, surely it is liable to the same kinds of abuses when considered a tenet of political morality? In fact it is, but there are reasons why it is less serious for this tenet than for the foregoing. The most obvious source of abuse is the question: to what lengths can the government go to prevent invasions of private property rights or individual freedoms? After the September 11 attacks, the US government passed all kinds of laws, in the name of stopping further terrorist attacks, that were terribly invasive of the privacy of US citizens, and started all kinds of wars in the Middle East that were terribly detrimental to the persons and property of people living there. The end of stopping further terrorist attacks was sound, justified by the sound tenet of respect for private property and individual freedom, but the means adopted resulted in many governmental invasions of those very rights they were supposed to be protecting from terrorists. Whether good intentions or lust for power prompted the government’s action, the result was an unreasonable interpretation of the tenet of respect for private property.

            

           It was to combat the potential for such abuses that, in the Anglo-Saxon countries, such doctrines as the right to a fair trial by jury, innocent until proven guilty, and rigorous search warrant requirements, were developed. If governments were to take these seriously again, such abuses would occur less often. Also, when the benefits (protection of private property) and the costs (invasion of private property) are denominated in a similar ‘unit’, it is easier to find an objectively reasonable solutions than when the benefits (less employer discrimination, less drug addicts, less ‘hateful’ publications,  for instance) and the costs (invasion of private property) are denominated in different ‘units’.

            

           As a general rule, the number of tenets of political morality should be kept to a minimum. Unlike tenets of personal morality, it is a characteristic of tenets of political morality that they be universal across a given society, as those who do not follow these tenets are to be stopped or punished through governmental physical coercion or the threat thereof. People have a wide range of different tastes and preferences, and a moral tenet that seems perfectly reasonable to one person might seem entirely unreasonable and oppressive to another.

            

           The good thing about the tenet of respect for private property is that its aim is to enable people, as much as possible, to best fulfill whatever ends that they might choose to pursue. The fact that free-market prices are structured by consumer demand and that producers are rewarded to the extent that they sell to the consumers what they want is what enables everyone to pursue most of their subjective ends more effectively in a free-market society based on private property than in any other society. Virtually the only ends that the free-market society demands that individuals renounce are those based on aggressive violence and disrespect for the private property rights of others. In fact, the free-market society even provides things like combative sporting events and violent or ‘sneaky’ video games and movies to cater to those who see some desirable aspects in violence or theft. All it asks is that people do not actually, physically, attack their fellow citizens or steal or damage their property. Some who would have been more suited to a ‘Viking’s’ life of murder and plunder might be hurt by this, but for the vast majority there are only benefits. 

           

            For most other propositions that could be considered tenets of morality, the same does not hold. They are often controversial and the benefits are far from as clear as they are for the tenet of respect for private property. As a result, when one group of people tries to impose them as tenets of political morality on another group of people, violence can erupt or hatred can arise. In more religious ages, brutal ‘Wars of Religion’ were the worst manifestations of this phenomenon. In our more secular, democratic age, the primary manifestations are intense, unproductive political polarization, particularly seen in the US, with the ‘leftist’ proponents of ‘egalitarian’ tenets of political morality clashing with the ‘rightist’ proponents of ‘conservative’ tenets of political morality. Distracted by these seemingly irreconcilable clashes, many important political issues are left unexamined and bad government continues along its merry way. If it were just recognized that not all tenets of morality, no matter how firmly you believe in them, should be enforced as tenets of political morality but can profitably be left as tenets of personal morality, these negative effects would have been, and can still be in the future, largely avoided.