Panarchists

Max Borders, you may recall, wrote the interesting series on the Thousand Nations website, describing panarchy without using the word. Well now he has stepped up to a challenge to debate innovations in governance on that site (and be sure to read the excellent comment by our own Adam Knott), only now he has planted himself firmly in the panarchist camp.

Some interesting emails received recently at Panarchy South Jersey.

SALUTE! I couldnt agree more on everything I have read thus far. Im at work and cant read everything at the moment but will when at lunch as well from home – from what I see so far, EXCELLENT! [Tony Watson]

Great website about Panarchy. FYI, INalienable rights are provided by man (aka civil rights) – UNalienable rights are provided by our Creator. “When the founders of our country began to suffer from injustices perpetrated by their own rulers in England, they stood up and declared their independence, pledging their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor. And more than this, they turned away from familiar forms of government and established their own, knowing that, as human beings, they had that INALIENABLE right. Government, after all, gets its right to govern by the consent of the people.” Obviously we want the latter. [Shari Peterson]

I did some research on Shari’s contention that there is a genuine difference in meaning between “inalienable” and “unalienable”, but I could not find anything definitive or authoritative to back it up. Black’s Law Dictionary has entries for both terms, and does reference a case where “inalienable” would mean a right that could not be alienated without that person’s consent, yet at the same time equates the words. Jefferson’s early versions of the Declaration of Independence, where this word appears, used “inalienable”, but the final published version used “unalienable”. Anyone want to weigh in on this esoteric point? As Shari says, we surely insist that this right to choose cannot be taken from us, though that is exactly what has happened.

Is not this the fast that I choose:
to loose the bonds of wickedness,
to undo the thongs of the yoke,
to let the oppressed go free,
and to break every yoke?
[Isaiah 58:6 RSV]

Throughout scripture one comes across ideas like these from the Book of the Prophet Isaiah. “Free the prisoners.” But surely they are not talking about convicted criminals, those who kill and steal. No, these frequent exhortations to free the prisoners refer to those in bondage to unjust governments. I will not say that this is all that these exhortations refer to, because there are many ways that a person may be oppressed and bound. But clearly they also, and perhaps most of all, refer to systems of government, even republics, which do not properly recognize the fullness of freedom that belongs to each and every human being. Panarchy, by seeking to make government personal and not territorial, breaks the yoke, frees the oppressed, looses the bonds of monopolistic governments everywhere.

There is, once again, a great deal of talk in the US these days about secession. The US originated, after all, in a secessionist movement from England, and many states made secession a specific option when ratifying the US Constitution. Many southern states attempted to secede in the 1860s, though this effort failed. But with the inexorable rise of massive government, the call for the states to secede has risen again. The interesting question for me is, if secession comes about, will it be one or two states, or will it be a mass movement where the entire federal government under the US Constitution is ripped out to the studs?

As a panarchist, of course, my preference is “none of the above”. All the usual talk of secession is of territorial secession. The advantage of territorial secession is that you do end up with smaller government. The downsides, as I see them, are twofold.

The first downside of territorial secession, as opposed to personal secession (panarchy), is that, in the end, you still have a territorial monopoly of coercion, so, to a great extent, nothing substantial has changed. The real evil of government is that it represents an elite who exercise power over others who happen to live in that territory. Elections merely rotate the members of the elite, but never destroy the monopoly of power. The power is exercised on the inhabitants of the territory with or without their consent. Elections only legitimize the evil. Personal secession, on the other hand, gets rid of the evil by, once and for all, getting rid of the monopoly of power based on territory. That is a substantial good.

The second downside of territorial secession is moral. A successful secession comes about through the efforts of a segment of the population who desire it. This may be a majority, or a non-symmetrically powerful minority, but it is never unanimous. There will always be those who prefer the status quo. A successful territorial secession takes that from them, and that is wrong. Personal secession, in contrast, never forgets the individual person, and respects their right to differ from the majority.

Asserting the right to secede is good. Territorial secession in certain circumstances may certainly be better than the forceful suppression of the right to secede. But, all other things being equal, personal secession is far better in every way than territorial secession. Panarchy, by ending the territorial monopoly of coercion, ends the need for any future secession, personal or territorial.

I hope to clarify here my intentions in writing my previous blog entry.

My first point was to show how far all legislatures are today from panarchy. The proposal, as I said, was not panarchy, but perhaps something in between what we have now and what we all should have.

Current legislatures are territorial at their root. My proposal was to keep the current territorial elections simply to limit the pool of candidates, and to have a second ongoing election by each person for their Personal Legislator, thus adding the non-territorial aspect, to a degree. By ongoing, I mean that each person could change their Personal Legislator at any time. In the US we currently have three businesses called credit agencies (Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion), which basically maintain the same database of every person in America who has a credit card or mortgage. By sending them identifying information about yourself, you are able to obtain from them credit reports, basically all the information they maintain on you regarding your credit-worthiness. Having already identified the vast majority of voters in the US, and having a method for identifying each person, they could easily work jointly or in turn to process the second vote, allowing each of the people in their database to choose a Personal Legislator. Certainly the means could be made electronic, so that the voting could be done anytime, anywhere, by texting or email or whatever. The day-by-day changes of Personal Legislator tallies (the identities of voters would be as secret as any secret ballot) could be used to give the legislators real time (almost) feedback from their constituency, while the annual tally on a certain day would determine each Personal Legislator’s number for the coming year as regards their control of the budget.

In the current system, legislators use two elements in their calculus for determining how to vote. The first is, how will this vote effect my ability to raise cash for my next election. The second is, how will this vote effect my ability to get a majority of votes in my next election. As a Personal Legislator, they do not need to worry about their next election, either in raising cash for it (making them less dependent on lobbyists), or in gaining a simple majority of votes from their home districts. Rather, they are most intent on pleasing those who have made them their Personal Legislator, and on getting even more people to do so. This change is therefore in the direction of panarchy in that it is non-territorial (to a degree) and more attuned to actual people than to special interests.

How is my proposal NOT panarchy. It is not panarchy because the legislature is still part of a territorial monopoly of coercion, even though on a certain level there is more personal choice involved in the process. The government is still one-per-territory, and it still feels entitled to tax. This is a long way from the free market in governments that panarchy represents.

So, why did I present this proposal? My intention was mostly to educate the casual visitor to this site, to help them understand from an example the impact that non-territoriality could have on the political process. We will have real panarchy in government some day, because more and more people will demand their freedom from serfdom (slavery by virtue of where we live; our current status vis-a-vis government). A system of Personal Legislators will probably not be the way it eventually happens, though it would certainly be a move in the right direction.

What I am about to propose here is not technically panarchy, but a move towards panarchy. It is an attempt to move toward personal government, while at the same time attempting to address some of the inadequacies of legislatures everywhere, with specific regard to the legislatures of the US state and federal governments.

Every legislature, at least those generally referred to as the “lower” house or chamber, such as the US House of Representatives, is comprised of members from districts. Each district has an election, from which emerges one winner. Once elected, they tend to ignore the people who elected them, or so it often seems, being much more responsive to lobbyists of special interests. Part of this comes from the fact that they often wish to get reelected, which costs lots of money, which is where the lobbyists and their deep-pocketed supporters come in. Clout in such a legislature generally comes largely from seniority. As for your having any clout with the legislator from your district, that generally is limited to calling or writing him, perhaps with a threat of voting for someone else next time. You will certainly get a polite letter back, clearly boilerplate, with his opposing view, and why it is ever-so-much better than yours, and that’s the end of that. Your preferred candidate may have been one of those who lost in the election. But even if your guy won, he may only represent your views and values to a limited degree. Very likely, however, there is a legislator from another district with whom you share a great many more values.

Wouldn’t it be great then to make their legislator, the one you really agree with, YOUR legislator, your PERSONAL legislator. This is what I am suggesting. In addition to the election by district, we should also have a second election for each legislature, where you choose your personal legislator, the one that really represents what you think. You could make your choice known at any time (many methods would work here, so I won’t go into that now). Then, on a certain day each year, the votes are tallied so that each legislator finds out how many people have chosen him as their personal legislator. What good is this, you ask? The real value comes in this: that each legislator who gets at least one percent of the total votes cast in this second election, gets to determine how that percentage of the budget for the year is spent on various programs. So, not only do they vote up or down on each bill brought before the legislature, but they work with other supporters of bills, allocating funds according to their values, as well as the values of those citizens who voted for them in the second election. Since each such personal legislator must have at least one percent of the votes from the second election, there can be at most one hundred such legislators in any particular legislature. These super legislators, by virtue of the value they have in the eyes of the electorate, are excused from the next cycle of elections, assuming that they retain that percentage in the final year of their term. One thing this does is make them less dependent on constantly raising money for elections, which means they can be less beholden to the lobbyists and special interests, and far more beholden to the people whose vote for them can change at any moment. Unlike those facing election in their districts (because they did not get or keep at least one percent of the votes), they are not concerned with merely winning a plurality of votes. Rather, they are always looking to get a greater share of those votes, thus raising their own prestige and power in the legislature. But to do this, they must provide something that government has been woefully poor at providing thus far: value. Yes, they get to spend the taxpayers money. But they will not keep the votes that allow them to do that unless the electorate sees results from the programs they support.

One last thing. If the legislator manages to not spend the entire amount allotted to him in a given year, he may refund 50% of what is left over back to those who had voted for him (as of the cutoff date), giving them one more reason to be happy they chose him as their personal legislator!

All right, my fellow panarchists! I’ve laid this out for you. Now its your turn. Let’s get some comments submitted here, especially if you see some weaknesses in this proposal.

You never know what will pop up on your Google alert “panarchy” radar.
This morning the surprise comes from the blog of John Paul Mitchell called “Freedom Arizona”. Here’s what his “About” page says about him:

He’s a Doctorate student at the University of Sedona, possesses a Master’s degree in Pastoral Counseling Psychology, and [is] the author of the book, No More Taxes. He’s also the founder and lead instructor for LuminaryLife, a company that offers life-enhancing products and services.

Apparently, he was also running for governor of that great state, but no longer. In his blog entry “Dear Arizona”, dated 1/12/2010, he explains it this way:

I shall withdraw myself from functioning in the government driven system of fiscal slavery, upholding the essence of the voluntaryism and panarchy philosophies in my daily life.

So, little did we know that a fellow warrior (if one may call a non-violent person struggling to see panarchy realized in the political realm a warrior), yes, that one of our own was running for governor of Arizona.

Here’s to you, John Paul Mitchell: may we all see panarchy in our times!

Our own Adam Knott will be presenting two papers at the Prague Conference on Political Economy, March 19-21, 2010.

The first paper is entitled “The Practice of Panarchism”. About this paper, Adam says,

“In this paper, I will first review a remarkable panarchist essay written this year by Max Borders. Then, building upon this essay, and upon my previous writings on panarchism, I will put forth my ideas on how the beginnings of panarchist society can emerge in our lifetime.”

The second paper, entitled “Ludwig von Mises and the Rational Basis for a Science of Ethics”, has this description:

“It has been claimed that Ludwig von Mises gave up the idea of a rational foundation of ethics. While this claim is true when ethics is considered a discipline that tries to provide a systematic rational for a specific set of values, this claim is not true when ethics is considered a science that studies human actions of an ethical nature; actions such as helping someone, lying to someone, coercing someone, etc. Mises, in laying the foundation of a general science of human action (praxeology), laid the foundation of a science that studies not only “economic” action–action related to market transactions–but a science that studies all forms of action, including “ethical” actions–those actions directly aimed toward another person.”

For further information: http://pcpe.libinst.cz/pcpe10/participants.php?id=39

[This article originally appeared on Panarchy South Jersey]

What is a serf? A serf is a kind of slave, someone who works for another involuntarily. I am a serf. When I moved to Cherry Hill a few years ago, I was expected (forced, actually) to pay taxes to the township, the public school system, and the fire district. I wasn’t invited to, or asked to. As a resident of the township, I was expected to, no questions asked, or else. In return, I was provided services of various types from the town and the fire district, and I got to pay for the education of other people’s children. I also got to vote for members of the town council, and to vote on tax increases for the schools and fire district. Not once did any one I voted for make it to town council. Not once did the vote for school and fire budgets go the way I desired. I’m not alone in this situation. In the last election for town council, four Democrats were elected, and zero Republicans. This has been the way elections go here, at least since I arrived in this town. But the elections are rather close. The highest vote-getter among the Democrats got 10,597, while among the Republicans the highest count was 9,506, a difference of only 1,091, or just over 10%. That means that nearly half those people who bothered to vote in that election have no one representing them on the council, and haven’t for many years. We are without a voice there. But, because we live here, we must work to pay the taxes. That is modern serfdom. For most of my fellow serfs, life here is not odious. But we are still serfs. For a person raised on the idea that we Americans are a free people, the realization that I am really a serf chafes a bit.

There is a solution to this sad situation, one that would be not terribly disruptive to my fellow serfs, but would lift the stigma of serfdom from my own neck, and from the necks of those who feel equally unfree by our state in life.

Just in the last year I came across the concept called panarchy. Panarchy is not a form of government, but a philosophy that changes the way we look at the role of government in society. Governments everywhere in the world today are basically the same. They are monolithic and monopolistic. While they may have two or more active political parties involved, they are still territorial monopolies that claim jurisdiction over all people within their territories. Decisions made by congresses, executives, and bureaucrats in these governments are unary, that is, they always involve imposing a single way of doing things on all the inhabitants of the territory. If I disagree with any of these decisions, I can complain, and I can threaten to vote for someone who agrees with me (and a lot of good these two things have done me). If I really disagree, I can skip town or leave the country. What I cannot do is remain in the place where I am and redirect my taxes away from that which I disgree with, and place them with people who would use them to do something far closer to what I actually want done with them. The more I think of this situation, the more absurd it seems to me.

I don’t want to stop paying taxes. I want to be able to direct my taxes to groups that will do with them things I personally agree with. Don’t you?

Now you may be among the 10,597 people in this town that are more or less happy with how your taxes are being spent. But perhaps you are among the 9,506 who, like me, are more than a little unhappy about how some of your taxes are being spent.

I think it is time that we unhappy serfs figure out how to become more happy. I think it is time for the unhappy serfs to develop a new way for taxes to be gathered and dispersed, so that every serf has a government they can believe in, no matter where they live. In fact, I think that we clever if unhappy serfs can actually find a way to disconnect the fact of where we live from the deterministic distribution of our taxes, eventually leading to the breaking of the final shackle of serfdomhood.

Who is with me?

I am an individualist in a certain sense. I believe completely in the dignity of every individual human person. I believe in the right of every human person to self-determination, the ability to make the important decisions in life that effect them. I believe in the right of each person to choose their religion, or choose to have no religion. I believe in the right of each person to choose their government at every level of society, or to choose to be represented by no government at all (if they are able to suffer the consequences). I believe that the human right of sovereignty resides first in the human person, and only then may come to exist in all social groups to which they belong, which have sovereignty solely in reference to that of the humans by which they are comprised.

I am an individualist (in the first sense) and not a collectivist, because no group of persons has rights that may alienate my human rights from me. This is not to say that I may not default on certain rights by my actions. Any time I act in violation of the rights of another, I lose my rights in proportion to the harm that my actions cause. If I take the life of another in any circumstance other than self-defense, I forfeit my own right to live. If I take or damage that which is owned by another, to that extent I forfeit the right of ownership without penalty. But beyond this, no person or group of people has any right over me.

I am not an individualist (in the second sense) that I am entirely independent of other human beings, because, as a human being, I am by nature social. Society, that group of people with whom I interact in some way or another, obliges me in ways both negative and positive.

Negatively, as a member of society it is understood that my doing harm to another’s person or property will not be tolerated by society without consequences to myself. What I have taken from another, society has the right to force me to return or make good on, and I have the right, as a member of society, to expect the same justice for any loses I suffer at the hands of another. Negative obligations are dealt with by laws that recognize human rights to life and property, but which are restrained from imposing penalties for any human activity that does no harm to another.

On the positive side, society has every right to expect of its members some level of empathy for others. Yet these expectations cannot be enforced by laws and sanctions, because these obligations are moral and not legal.

As a child, I was entirely dependent on others for my very survival, and, if I live long enough, it is quite likely that I will once again be entirely dependent on the good will of others for my continued survival. For some, their condition of weakness may require life-long attention to their physical needs by others. Individualists, in the sense of one who does not acknowledge any moral obligations as a member of society, refuse to accept moral obligations as such. But as one who is not an individualist in this sense, and as a member of human society, I recognize that I am morally obliged to have an empathetic response to the needs of others.

To collectivists, it seems right that all persons who are strong should be legally as well as morally obliged to contribute in some way to the care of the weak. Individualists (as opposed to collectivists), on the other hand, recognize that human weakness does not only include physical weakness, but moral weakness as well, and that a certain level of tolerance of moral weakness is called for, since force is not useful in encouraging a morally weak person to develop empathy for others. Collectivism as such is contrary to human nature, since it tries to enforce by legal means obligations that are moral. They take the view that humans can be forced (in fact, should be forced) to do the right thing morally. This is a simplistic approach to human society, and counter-productive. Moral obligations exist, but forcing people to do the morally right thing, while superficially having the appearance of doing good, does harm instead. Using force against people who do harm to others is consistent with human nature, and is therefore helpful. Using force on people to get them to do the “right thing” is to assume a right that is not consistent with human nature, and is therefore destructive.

Panarchy is the right of each person to choose their own government. By creating, as it were, a free market in government, we will move closer and closer to a society where legal rights relate to human rights, and moral obligations are not subject to coercion.