It isn't all about property...

[inibo.livejournal.com]

(Well, actually it is, but we won't go there.)

On a previous thread I was said to be an exemplar of the libertarian obsession with property rights, my property rights in particular. Maybe, maybe not, but let's pretend it's not all about property for a bit. I'd like to quote one of my favorite bloggers, Will Grigg. This particular piece is about John Holdren. "Holdren is Barack Obama’s “Science Czar,” in which capacity he counsels the president regarding the role of science in public policy."

Now whether or not Grigg connects his dots the way he intended is one thing, but in the course of the piece he discusses the idea and proponents of compulsory population control. It is that I want to touch on.

“How can we reduce reproduction?” wrote Garrett Hardin in a 1970 Science magazine article entitled “Parenthood: Right or Privilege?” “Persuasion must be tried first…. Mild coercion may soon be accepted – for example, tax rewards for reproductive non-proliferation. But in the long run, a purely voluntary system selects for its own failure: noncooperators out-breed cooperators. So what restraints shall we employ? A policeman under every bed? Jail sentences? Compulsory abortion? Infanticide?... Memories of Nazi Germany rise and obscure our vision.”

I like Grigg's comment: "Oh, those dreadful Nazis: If only they hadn’t given totalitarian eugenics such a bad name..."

Hardin was one of many anti-natalist luminaries – the list included Kingsley Davis, Margaret Mead, Paul Ehrlich, and sundry Planned Parenthood leaders – who endorsed the 1971 manifesto The Case for Compulsory Birth Control by Edgar R. Chasteen. That book offered one-stop shopping for policy-makers seeking draconian population management methods.

So let me ask about the morality of this... I hesitate to call it philosophy... this idea that someone, somewhere can make a determination as to who is or isn't fit to reproduce. On no other grounds than a kind of visceral horror that people could not just conceive the idea, but promote it as good public policy, I would think anyone who wasn't completely dead inside would be thinking torches and pitchforks.

Nevertheless, it is not only promoted, but by academics who depend to a large extent on grants and subsidies from many and sundry levels of government.

Though I do not claim to speak for all libertarians or voluntarists I have to ask why progressives wouldn't be as appalled at this as they are about Tibet or, dare I say Iran or Darfur? Why does it take a "right-wing" Christian "extremist" like Grigg to to even ask the question?

The deeper question is, why would you want any entity to have the power to be able to implement such a policy whether or not it is on the agenda today or not?

Comments

[inibo.livejournal.com]

I think there are a lot of progressives that are appalled by such a thing

Well, the same way progressives only hear libertarians talk about property and guns, I only hear progressives talk about hate speech and gay marriage as though a government license to marry were something to be coveted rather than detested.

[squidb0i.livejournal.com]

And who, praytell, would enforce the rights of the social contract that is marriage if not government?

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

If it's a social contract then it's not in the government's purview, otherwise it would be a legal contract.

[squidb0i.livejournal.com]

What part of enforcement didn't you understand?

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

What part of social don't you understand?

To answer your stupid question, society enforces social contracts, police enforce legal contracts.

Society? Who is that?

[squidb0i.livejournal.com]

And by what mechanism do they do so?
How are suspects determined, detained, guilt proven?

Oh, wait, we fucking have that already.
It's called law enforcement and the justice system.

Unless you imagine bands of noble citizens unerringly rounding up bad guys and stringing them up from the nearest grizzled mesquite?

Re: Society? Who is that?

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

Are you really this clueless?

So you're admitting that you have no answer.

[squidb0i.livejournal.com]

I thought as much.

Re: Society? Who is that?

[jerseycajun.livejournal.com]

He's not talking about rounding up criminals. This thread was kicked off with the subject of marriage and whether or not the state should be involved in it.

This may be a difficult concept to grasp, but many social institutions do and often should exist outside and apart from the state and they have their own modes of enforcement involving shared social norms of that particular community.

A broken marriage contract within a particular community might be met with community disapproval and ostracization, for example.

However, if someone in the community decides to murder the offending party, then the state is involved because a basic human right has been violated.

Oh, so there's a state now?

[squidb0i.livejournal.com]

Involved in enforcing laws and rules?
Look at that.

Re: Oh, so there's a state now?

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

The state does not enforce social norms. Moron.

Contracts are not social norms.

[squidb0i.livejournal.com]

They are legal documents, with penalties for breaching them.

I'm still waiting for your explanation of how your fantasy world would work.

Re: Contracts are not social norms.

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

A social contract is not a legal contract.

How is this so difficult for you?

[squidb0i.livejournal.com]

Marriage is a legal contract.
Credit and property are merged.
Power of attorney is merged.

Yes, why is this so difficult for you?

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

It is also a social contract and was before the legal stuff was created. The legal powers can be removed and it would go back to being solely a social contract. And let's go back to your original question, who, praytell, would enforce the rights of the social contract that is marriage if not government? Not the legal contract, the social contract. The government does not enforce social contracts, it only enforces legal contracts.

Sort of.

[squidb0i.livejournal.com]

Yes, the simplest version of marriage is a social contract, but even at that level, there are commitments made, enforced by families, which leads to warring families in the case of breach.

Hardly a model one should hold up as exemplary, worthy of returning to, and therefore irrelevant.

We don't live in a tribal society, and won't unless there's some kind of major calamity, like zombies or nuclear war or if you market fundamentalists somehow take charge and break capitalism completely.

Re: Sort of.

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

Yes, the simplest version of marriage is a social contract, but even at that level, there are commitments made, enforced by families, which leads to warring families in the case of breach.

There you go.

Hardly a model one should hold up as exemplary, worthy of returning to, and therefore irrelevant.

Your use of the term "therefore" implies that you are trying to use a logical argument, when in fact you didn't. The conclusion of "irrelevant" does not follow from your claim of "not worthy of returning to". It is relevant since it is in effect today along with the legal contract, so there is nothing to "return to".

Re: Sort of.

[squidb0i.livejournal.com]

Blah blah circular blah.

You still don't outline how your special little utopia would actually operate.

You guys never do. It's part of why you're so fun to play with.

Re: Sort of.

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

The same way it worked for the hundreds of years before the government decided to stop blacks marrying whites and created the legal contract part.

That's not an answer.

[squidb0i.livejournal.com]

Try again.

Re: That's not an answer.

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it's not an answer.

Re: Oh, so there's a state now?

[jerseycajun.livejournal.com]

Yes, there is a state, and not being an anarchist myself, I acknowledge and advocate a particular and well defined role for the state to fill.

Also, the fact that a law or rule is written does not make it just or equitable.

Do you actually have anything of substance to say, or are we just going to play idiotic straw-men games for a dozen rounds like a couple of brain-dead political talk show hosts before going into our respective corners and sulk? Is that the direction you really want to go in, because you're making a strong argument for it out of avoidance.

That depends.

[squidb0i.livejournal.com]

Are you going to keep playing idiotic strawman games?
I find them tiring, myself. You can stop any time.

Re: That depends.

[jerseycajun.livejournal.com]

Let's see, we went from the point where I was talking about the difference between state institutions and social institutions and where the state should and should not be involved, to you reacting as awestruck that I acknowledged the state at all.

At the point at which you no longer seemed interested in responding to anything I was saying, wouldn't it be natural to wonder if one just wasn't be lead on for your personal amusement?