I don’t know if the person whose post prompted this one will read it, but here goes. I feel the need to clarify my position anyway.
William J. Beck III over at www.two-four.net happened to read some of my exchange with Chris Sciabarra on anarchy and dualism. (See my posts here, here, and here.) For the most part I agree with what he wrote in his post (here), but there are two things about his post to which I wish to respond. First, is his assumption that in a libertarian-anarchist society all previously “governmental” functions would be run like businesses. Second, is his understandable confusion about what Chris and I mean by dualism and why it is dangerous.
1) I think the assumption that in a libertarian-anarchist society all previously “governmental” functions would be run like businesses is too hasty and most probably mistaken. It is conceivable that there might be many services that might be better provided or only provided by non-business institutions, perhaps in some cases instead of but also quite possibly alongside businesses. Take, for instance, unemployment “insurance.” Now, strictly speaking unemployment is not insurable. (See here (mp3 audio file) for why.) However, institutions like the family, the extended family, fraternal societies (like America had in the 19th century; see here), clubs, churches, neighborhood communities, and so forth, could provide support for the temporarily and unexpectedly unemployed while having the close proximity and knowledge of time and place necessary to prevent or minimize abuse of the service. Similarly for other services. Even security production need not be exclusively provided by businesses. In no way, however, do we need the State to provide all of these services and, indeed, it invariably does a poor job of providing them (not to speak of the other accompanying negatives).
2) I don’t have the time to provide a full explanation of what Chris and I mean by dualism and why we think it is problematic. A brief quote from Chris’s book Total Freedom: Toward a Dialectical Libertarianism will perhaps suffice: “Emerging out of the strict-atomist emphasis on analytical isolation, dualism is an orientation toward analysis by separation of a system’s components into two spheres. The dualist identifies two mutually exclusive, externally related spheres. These spheres are expressions of two distinct principles, which the dualist often sees as irreducible and in logical opposition to one another. However, while dualists share with atomists a commitment to external relations, they share with organicists a tendency toward systematization, albeit one that depends entirely upon the classification of all factors along two fundamental axes of inquiry.” (166-167; emphasis in original) We’re primarily concerned with methodology and the errors to which a flawed methodology can lead. The most pervasive dualist metaphysic is the notorious mind-body dichotomy, but dualism has resulted in a vast number of other false dichotomies: fact-value, analytic-synthetic, impositionist-reflectionist, altruist-egoist, anarchist-statist, State vs. Market. Often dualists hold one sphere to be superior to the other and project an eventual and necessary monist resolution as, for instance, the Market absorbs all of the functions of the parasitical State in an anarcho-capitalist society. Often both sides of these dichotomies contain some kernel of truth. One of the most noteworthy aspects of Rand’s philosophy is her largely successful attempt at transcending many of these false dichotomies.
Addendum: Chris has chimed in with a post of his own in response to mine. In it he expands somewhat on what I have said here. The only thing I would disagree with him on is his belief that “the anarchist resolution is not dialectical.” I say it depends on what kind of anarchist you are whether one’s “anarchist resolution” is dialectical or dualist. A Rothbardian anarcho-capitalist may indeed be a dualist, but libertarian anarchism as I have described it does not seem to be dualistic; indeed, it seems positively dialectical!
Update (08/21): Billy Beck responds to our posts, clarifying his position as well and taking me to task on my attempt to salvage the word ‘government’ from ordinary and corrupted usage. It seems he was using business terminology for market and non-market exchanges, transactions, and cooperation, much like Rand’s Trader Principle and her general talk of exchanging values. Okay, it seems we have no disagreement there. To head off any misunderstandings, I am a capitalist in the Randian, Misesian, and Rothbardian sense of that word. I’m also very much an Aristotelian/Randian natural rights theorist, and not a utilitarian. The crux of the issue seems to come down to my attempt to salvage the word ‘government’ from traditional identification with State politics. In short, the issue is primarily terminological and definitional. That’s fine. I don’t need to use the word ‘government’ and I may eventually decide that it isn’t worth salvaging. However, I can’t help but wonder why the terms ‘government’ and ‘governmental’ can’t be used to refer to a vast interconnected, overlapping web of polycentric legal, security, insurance, surety, assurance, and other institutions. Did not Thomas Jefferson talk about the “blessings of self-government“?
