Memage

I just came across a very interesting story, courtesy of Strike the Root, which relates to a recent anarchist questions post. It’s worth considering because it highlights the justification for regulations before the days of “It’s for the children!” became the rallying cry—and it highlights the danger of relying on tradition or religion as a means of getting some relief from gov’s depredations.

I recently let slip that my view of the pro-freedom community as “family” had started to change. I hesitate to say more at this point, because my thinking is still in process, but other conversations here have started to weave a tapestry into which I feel somewhat comfortable with thinking out loud. And I’ve no doubt that sharing my half-spun, somewhat woolly threads will allow further exploration, to all our benefit.

Before we slip into the garden glade, I want to make it clear that this line of thinking was not my original idea: a cherished friend dropped the idea-seed into my mind, and it’s been working in there ever since. It’s my understanding that my friend prefers a measure of anonymity, so I shan’t be pointing to direct sources of this individual’s ... besides, the seed came in private conversation. Anyway, my mystery friend deserves all the credit for the idea, and I will take all the responsibility for my usual bumbling, rambling presentation of it.

Yeah, yeah ... I know what I said about that phrase nigh on a year ago. Today I’m addressing that phrase again from a rather different context. And, I also admit with more than a little embarrassment, I thought I’d written on this a long time ago, as I had promised to upon my return from my adventure teaching at a couple of Liberty English Camps in ‘07 ...

Just the headline alone was enough to start my head shaking: U.N.’s Ban questions faith in “magic” of markets. Here are the first three paragraphs for additional context:

The global financial crisis endangers efforts to reduce world poverty and demands a new approach with less "uncritical faith in the 'magic' of markets," U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said on Tuesday.

The financial turmoil roiling world markets put at risk the achievement of the U.N.-agreed Millennium Development Goals set in 2000 to halve global poverty by 2015, Ban said in his opening address at the United Nations General Assembly.

"The global financial crisis endangers all our work -- financing for development, social spending in rich nations and poor, the Millennium Development Goals," he told world leaders gathered in New York for the annual meeting.

Ban is also quoted toward the end of the article (not really worth reading beyond the quotes included here) as saying, “We must think about how the world economic system should evolve to more fully reflect the changing realities of our time.”

Both of these statements reveal a deep ignorance of markets and how they work, and the typical hubris of politicrats everywhere: for anything to work, they must have their fingerprints all over it. Markets are not magic. When unfettered by regulations, they can seem magical because of their fluidity, and the speed at which they can work. Think of eBay, back in the day before they got control–happy—a person who wanted to buy something could search there for a seller, and if he found what he wanted, he’d put a bid on it. If his was the highest bid, he bought the item. A seller could set a minimum price for his item in order not to lose money or to guarantee a minimal profit, but because of competition from others selling identical or similar things, if his minimum was too high he risked losing buyers. Freedom and transparency mean markets work smoothly and fast, when buyer and seller connect in good faith; thus it can seem like magic, especially to those who haven’t thought about the processes.

But markets are delicate things. Interference of any sort can set in motion all sorts of consequences, which sometimes compound. Absent a clearing of these problems, they continue to compound and possibly expand until the market seizes up—as we have seen over the past year.

What can mess with a market? Attempts at cheating can temporarily screw one up. Once that attempt becomes known, however, not only is the game up for the cheater, he now has a damaged reputation that will haunt him in future endeavors. As long as information is available to those in the marketplace, cheating will eventually be discovered somehow.

Rules that tip the market in one way or the other, or allow participants to hide aspects of their activities, can completely skew markets. And thus it is that when politicians try to help ensure fair markets, they inevitably destroy the “magic” of a free market. The free market—which isn’t really a structured system at all; it is simply an aggregate view of individual transactions—morphs into a structured system. And that system begins to favor some at the expense of others. Or it allows cheating. Or it discourages advances. Or any of a number of other things can happen that ultimately hurt, rather than help. This is why any and all interference ends up going wrong; but in their zeal to do good (or at least give the appearance of doing something), all would-be leaders fail to see that the best way to help is to do nothing at all.

Planning is a good thing, especially when flexibility is an integral part of the plan. But one cannot plan and control markets nor the aggregate world market. Ban’s last comment, quoted above, neatly encapsulates the shortsighted hubris of central planners everywhere: there is no way to direct a market without interfering in it. More importantly, the only “reality of our time”—or of any time—is that change is the only constant. And as a constant, it can vary wildly. (Heh.)

This is why agorism is the solution to today’s problem, and indeed every problem of market interference. Agorism is a free, voluntary marketplace of exchange. No, it isn’t perfect; there will be attempts to manipulate it somehow, and natural market changes as technology advances, fashions and tastes change, etc. mean that market sectors will die out—but new ones will spring to life. There’s always risk, but there is also always opportunity. I would much rather take my chances in a free market than any manipulated one.

Yesterday—along with probably everyone else who’s been paying any attention to the financial industry lately—I ranted a bit about the outrageous plan Strong-Dollar Paulson and Helicopter Bernanke are trying to push through Congress. I also took a bit of a mordant humor break and browsed LOLFed ... but the situation is serious, and requires thoughtful consideration and careful planning.

This semi-rant has been building for some time, as I’ve wandered around the web and seen all manner of definitions and musings about what rights are and where they come from and how they should be identified, protected, enforced, etc. Fie to all, I say.

Over the years, several friends and Family members have encouraged me to read The Economist, ostensibly for the clear-headed and somewhat pro-market views. Yet every time I’ve browsed their site, I’ve come away disappointed. Not today.

Yes, I continue to dwell on the “Is all fun profitable?” idea. It occurs to me that part of the reason I have difficulty with responses like Brad Spangler’s is that it’s based on something that may be ineffable for as long as humans exist: a way to objectively define, quantify, and calculate relationships among concepts including “profit”, “fun”, “cost”, “risk”, and “happiness”. I could go off on many tangents from that observation—and I may still, in future ramblings—but for today, I will simply say that I am unconvinced that an economics-based analysis is always the best course.

I am soooo tired of reading pro-freedom commentary that begins, “After the revolution, I’ll [insert idea/plan here]”. Seems to me that kind of attitude is a perfect recipe for a lot of talking, and little, if any, actual doing.

It’s come to this at last. Governments around the world are calling for national ID (NID) cards, or for increasing the security measures on existing cards. The justification, of course, is the current war on terrorism. Ask “Cui bono?” (Who benefits?) of 9-11 and the answer looks increasingly like “Authoritarians everywhere.”

And I do mean everywhere. NID hype is playing loudest in the United States and Britain, yet other countries are working hard to join the goose-stepping. For example, Malaysia has recently instituted compulsory NIDs for citizens age twelve and up. The cards have computer chips which store copies of the subject’s fingerprints. Other places are considering similar moves.

NIDs—especially “smart cards” that can carry a great deal of encoded information—are viewed as the solution to many “problems” the Thought Police have. They can be used to: verify identity via biometric information; reveal banking, health, voting, and similar records; and track travel and purchases, for starters. Because of the presence of biometric information—supposedly unique body information, such as a fingerprint or retinal scan—these cards are touted as strong security against would-be terrorists. According to various polls, Americans are increasingly willing to accept a NID, primarily because they think that it will increase security.

Sovereign individuals ought to consider this NID movement as the most dangerous threat to liberty on the planet. (The enumeration-and-tracking fervor isn’t limited to the national scale; UN officials have heard a proposal for a global unique identifying number for each person in the world.) The more people can be tracked, monitored, and checked, the easier they are to control. The easier they are to control, the less free they are.

Particularly insidious are the so-called “voluntary IDs”. While originally used for apparently benign purposes (such as getting social welfare benefits in some Scandinavian countries), it’s usually an easy matter to expand their use, and the information required of the subjects. It’s also easy to take something that’s widely accepted on a voluntary basis and quietly make it mandatory. A clear case of function creep is the American Social Security Number; old cards stated that the number “is not to be used for identification purposes”. (The law says these ID uses are illegal too, not that the Department of Justice cares.) Anyone who’s tried to get a driver's license, passport, or even see a doctor without giving the number knows how antiquated that notion is. Many businesses won’t do business with someone who doesn’t give a number.

The databases collected by various interests are often sold, in whole or part (in America, this can include birth, marital, and driving records, banking information, medical records, credit card usage, and buying habits at stores with “discount” cards, such as supermarkets). If all these databases—plus whatever the Thought Police require on the card—use the NID number, it won’t take much to build a formidable dossier on anyone, without that individual’s knowledge or consent. The potential for misuse by petty bureaucrats becomes even greater, particularly against those who are viewed as unfriendly to their interests. And what might law enforcement officers with a license to destroy lives in pursuit of “state security” do? In the US, true patriots—and just about anyone who questions the war and any action relating to it—have already been given notice that they’re potential Thought Police targets.

Given the dire consequences, both of submitting to a NID and of refusing to be numbered, the choice to be made isn’t an easy one. Nor should it be made lightly. Let’s consider the pros and cons of each choice. First, the negatives:
1. If you submit to the NID, you are in the system, in the database, and along for the ride wherever the Thought Police and busybody bureaucrats decide to take you. Your every non-cash purchase may be trackable, along with all bank transactions. Your travel will certainly be monitored, and you could be required to register with the local Gestapo every time you move (it happens in many countries, and has been suggested in the US). Your medical records could be opened up to potential employers as well as LEOs who check your papers. Anyone who sees your number could access all kinds of sensitive information about you, without your knowledge or consent. It’s possible that inept busybodies—or malicious Thought Police types—could wipe you out of existence, or otherwise wreak havoc with your records, and therefore your life. If certain demographic information were included, you could be discriminated against. Much of your life will be open to The State, and your business will be conducted at their pleasure, not your need or desire. Your pro-freedom friends may call you a sellout, and you yourself may begin to question your adherence to your principles.

2. If you forego the NID, you’ll be outside the system, and depending on how diligently the state tracks and punishes those outside, your life may be better or worse than those inside. Already, getting meaningful employment without papers is all but impossible in many places, including the US. You may be severely limited in any aspect of living a normal life: no dealing with checks, credit cards, or anything but cash; no home mortgage or rental agreement; no driving; no flying; no medical care; and no respect from the mainstream community for holding fast to your principles. Indeed, if function creep proceeds so that a NID is required for every activity or transaction, you’ll not be able to set foot inside “civilization”. That may seem like a benefit, rather than a negative; but being outside isn’t always easy. While you are outside, many of your choices and opportunities are constrained by the very fact that you are free. You may become depressed if you choose to focus on this aspect of the situation. You may become a pariah, or worse, in your family or community. You yourself may begin to question the wisdom of your choice, as its challenges wear you down. You can be targeted by the state for “crimes” real or imagined. You can be separated from those you love. You can be killed.

Now, the positives:
1. Being in the system makes you much more able to transact business. This includes pursuing other pro-freedom strategies. Having papers gives you some degree of protection, so you can conduct whatever smash-the-state business you wish with fewer concerns about being an immediate target. Using the system against itself is a monkey-wrenching choice available mainly to those within the system; it’s an activity that can bring success and amusement. While in the system, you can help those who remain outside in a variety of ways. You can help them to do things they otherwise couldn’t. You can employ them, barter with them, support the grey market they rely on, or be a stop on the freedom underground railroad. With a little creativity and effort, many more possibilities offer themselves. Some offer little risk, others more. They all help you be true to your principles while appearing to go along.

2. Not being a cog in the immense state machine means that you do not support it in any way. The immense freedom that one feels as a result is amazing. The feeling of living in accordance with one’s principles is liberating, exhilarating. Knowing that you’re following the path that’s best for human nature can make many of the challenges of being outside worth bearing. You may become an inspiration to others, and may encourage others to follow the refusenik course. This will further weaken the state, helping us all to be freer of its poisonous influences. (If word of your non-cooperation gets around, you certainly will be an inspiration to others. It’s a difficult choice to make, but one very worthwhile if you’re committed to it and enter it realistically.)

I know from personal experience how lonely such a crusade can seem, particularly if you live in a statist haven and it seems you’re the only one who values freedom. I also know from personal experience that you aren’t alone. Part of the reason the thugs can institute wholesale destruction of liberty is the fear they instill. That fear is based on their willingness to back up their threats with force. Ruby Ridge, Michael New, Shirley Allen, Peter McWilliams, Elián González, Waco ... these are just a few examples.

Gandhi: the original refusenik?

I used the term refusenik earlier. If you aren’t familiar with it, refuseniks were the Soviet Jews who wanted to leave the USSR, but who were repeatedly denied permission. Because they wanted to leave, they were hassled in numerous ways, often for years. But they refused to go along with the Soviet system, enduring its worst until they died or were permitted to leave. They refused to cooperate.

If you think about it, Gandhi was perhaps the first well known refusenik. In both South Africa and India, he refused to cooperate with the tyranny of each state over its own citizens. His methods involved fighting back, to be sure, but in ways that were always calculated to show his opponent at its worst. (The movie Gandhi, starring Ben Kingsley, is an excellent introduction to the subject.) He did not initiate force, nor did he ever advocate the initiation of force by Indians. His path was that of non-cooperation.

In South Africa, where all “colored” individuals were required to carry identity papers and live as second-class citizens, Gandhi refused to carry the paper, and organized many Indians living there to join in. In India, he spoke out against British imperialism and through non-cooperation, brought about the end of British rule. One example from the movie is particularly compelling: salt manufacture and sale were heavily regulated, such that the British had a lock on both. In defiance of the law, Gandhi went to the sea and made salt. The British chose to ignore this action, but later decided to take action when hundreds of Indians followed Gandhi’s lead. In one scene, authorities loyal to Britain and Gandhi’s followers face off outside a salt-making company. The authorities beat off the Indians as they approach its gates. The Indians peacefully accept the blows, and keep coming. Some of the wounded rejoin the march, only to be beaten again. That demonstration encapsulated the essence of tyranny, and is widely regarded as the beginning of the end of British rule in India.

A difference in protests between the situations in India and the Soviet Union is that of organization. Gandhi became a symbol“and a lightning rod”for his cause. Millions of Indians came to join Gandhi’s cause, making their strength obvious. There is no comparable figure for the Soviet Jews who became the refuseniks. They acted individually, or in small groups. However, the results are essentially the same. With the world watching peaceable individuals who just wanted to be left alone to live their lives, and the tyrannical responses of the governments to them, tyranny backed off.

Making your choice

Let’s face it: the stakes are high. No matter how benign the stated purpose, no matter how trivial the information required by your local flavor of Thought Police, any NID is a privacy and security threat. With the ease of creating and altering computer records today, it would be a relatively simple matter for function creep to make that innocuous number the bane of your existence. It’s a shorter slide than any of us would like to consider from a NID to a Soviet or Nazi-style society. Your current situation may be tolerable, but how certain can you be that it will last? Do you really want the opposition forces who’ve just come to power to know you voted against them? Do you want your local sheriff to know how many and what kinds of guns you own? Do you think it’s anyone’s business what kinds of videos you like to watch?

Not cooperating will be uncomfortable, inconvenient, and ultimately, dangerous for many. But remember: sixty years ago, European Jews went along with Nazi requirements for papers. Then they went along with the yellow Star of David armbands. Then they went along with being herded into Jewish sectors. Then they went to the concentration camps—and into the gas chambers.

Life is full of difficult choices, and this time is no exception. But we do have a choice. In or out. Private protestor or active refusenik. I encourage everyone who values freedom to find some way of not cooperating with whatever identification or numbering scheme your local Thought Police have, or are working on. As Gandhi, the Soviet refuseniks, and others have showed, non-cooperation works.

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) grabs headlines regularly as it goes after—in law courts and the court of popular opinion—individuals who share files online using peer-to-peer (P2P) networks. By targeting pirates, as file-swappers are called, RIAA hopes to make such sharing so socially unacceptable that it eventually withers away. The fact that file-swapping is illegal under copyright law sure doesn’t seem to be persuasive.

One reason why legality isn’t persuasive is that pirates don’t view their activities in the same light as RIAA does. Most share files not because they’re trying to profit from them, nor claim credit for them, but simply to share them with others who want them. To pirates, file sharing is like loaning out a book, or recording a favorite TV show on video to watch at one’s convenience. It’s “fair use”, they claim. But is it really fair use when the scale changes from one or two people sharing information, to thousands of people sharing information? What about those who created that content, usually with the expectation of customers paying for access to it? Don’t creators have rights over the distribution of the works they create?

Shift of scene: a woman is working late at home, when she realizes she left a vital file on her office computer. Since they’re networked, it should be no big deal to download the file. Her attempt fails. Thinking it’s a glitch in the file, she tries to download the software she used to create the file. That also fails.

Welcome to “digital rights management” (DRM). In part due to piracy concerns, software companies are controlling the use of digital files, through various mechanisms that restrict access, file use, modification, and printing, among other things. The new Microsoft Office suite uses DRM. Whether “locking” files is an answer to unauthorized copying is unclear. Critics of this approach claim that the technology can be used to lock individuals in to brands of hardware and software, and force them to remain locked in. It gives the seller unprecedented control over an individual’s computer and the files he creates. What about the people who need flexibility in creating and using files among machines and applications? Shouldn’t the owner of a computer be able to use his machine the way he wants to?

These scenarios highlight just a few of the many complexities surrounding intellectual property issues: creator rights and user rights inevitably collide. Teasing out the details, and the market principles underlying them, is torturous.

Even so, many have waded into the murky waters. Stephan Kinsella wrote a thoughtful analysis [essay no longer available] of various approaches, and concluded lawyers are too financially invested to be unbiased. Douglas Clement examined a controversial economic analysis that rejects the need for copyright and patent protection, and labeled the theory “a formidable attack” on the validity of intellectual property concepts. Roderick Long and John deLaubenfels engaged in an interesting exchange of essays debating this issue, while a popular discussion forum wrestled with the question of music piracy and crashed repeatedly due to high interest.

David Freddoso claims that allowing unfettered copying will “destroy civilization” [essay no longer available]. But many of the artistic works prized today were created without the protectionism offered under copyright, patent, or trademark law. As mentioned earlier, most P2P sharing can be viewed as large-scale fair use, while in places like China pirated content is packaged and sold as legitimate material. Are there attempts to bring the perpetrators to justice? Arguments like RIAA’s would be much more convincing if those pirates, not college students, were their targets. Unchecked, the control offered by DRM would create real market monopolies, and a digital divide far higher than the access-based one, as individuals are both locked into and out of software, systems, and hardware choices.

Ilana Mercer disparages copyright protections as “nonsense on stilts”. The realities of easy file-sharing and the continuing ability of people to crack security systems necessitate acknowledging that current legal systems are inadequate to deal with the challenges they bring.

Artistic creations may not be the same as physical property—in many respects they aren't property—but there must be a market willing to exchange value for the value artists create in order for them to have incentives to create. Direct sales between artists and consumers are blossoming on the internet in large part because of the flexibility of the free market; it provides an easy way to bypass record company bureaucracy and desire for control. Other voluntary means, such as donor-funded projects (like JPFO’s documentary film Innocents Betrayed) or a private patronage system (which still exists, but on a much smaller scale than existed during the Renaissance) are two other possibilities that avoid much of the conflict between creator and user rights that exists today.

However, solutions that work for the artistic world will likely not work well for other industries struggling with copyright and patent issues, such as the pharmaceutical industry. In both areas, onerous regulations help create conflict between creator and user, and highlight the need for private solutions rather than regulatory ones to the challenges illuminated by new technologies. State intervention, whether by RIAA’s attacks or DRM’s looming techno-totalitarianism, will only serve to widen the chasm between market players.

Anyone who’s been paying attention to the economic news has seen this announcement coming from a long way out: Vallejo, California, Officials Vote for Bankruptcy. If that is the start of a trend—and there’s good reason to think it might be—I think it could be a “making lemonade” opportunity for voluntaryists.

Once more I find myself to be well outside the norm of USSA culture. And as usual, I view that as a good thing. However, to the degree that my assessment is accurate, it’s a dismal commentary on our society.

Strike the Root has published an article titled Vulgar Anti-Corporatism. As readers of Kevin Carson’s excellent Mutualist Blog would immediately suspect from the title, the idea is a riff on Carson’s “vulgar libertarian watch” concept. However, Hogeye Bill’s article wasn’t at all persuasive to me.

I recently stumbled across a quotation I’d written on a slip of paper some time ago. I didn’t record any reference along with it, so I don’t know where I encountered this statement by Ferdinand Protzman on love. Since reading it, it’s occupied a fair amount of space in my mind ... but I can’t really compose a well-crafted summation of my responses to it.

Anyone who cares to share their responses is welcome to do so in the comments. I’ll join in, as I can: much of my day will be spent in the kitchen, making truffles and caramels. Here’s the quote:

Love can alter people’s lives in positive ways .... It can also break their hearts, crush their spirits, and kill them.

One thing that occurred to me is that we never know where our loving someone might go; even when love starts out as a positive thing, it can lead to enormous pain.