News Item: Rothbard on the morality of voting
(Category: Wendy)
Posted by Wendy McElroy
Wednesday 17 June 2009 - 06:17:18
Excerpted from a letter from Murray Rothbard to me, dated October 1982, in which he offers a counter to the Voluntaryist contention that voting is immoral.
To get on to voting, yes I believe that any legislator who votes for a tax or an aggressive law is illicitly participating in a criminal enterprise, but no I don't believe that the citizen voter necessarily does so. There's votes and there's votes. One problem with your view is that, in an important sense, it is not anti-statist enough. There is no real sense that we are all of us, willy-nilly, enmeshed in State coercion. Take George's [George Smith's] phrase, "The institution (the State) taints the individuals who work within it." but dammit we're all working within the monstrous matrix that the State has placed around us. I don't mean to be frivolous or kamikaze but we do all walk or drive on State roads, fly on State-regulated airlines, shop at state-licensed stores, etc. We are not responsible for creating the State; it is there, we are within it, and our task is how to get this damn thing off out back. But I can easily carry your argument one step further: driving on government roads participates in State subsidy, it sanctions the State, etc. Using government mails does the same, etc. The state will not disappear if we ignore it (Spies, Konkin), non-violent civil disobedient is hopeless and has never worked, even unworkable laws must be repealed via political action, etc.
George writes as if citizen voting is constitutive, that is, that everytime we vote in an election this creates and constitutes the State. It is almost as if the State would not exist if we didn't go out and vote. Nonsense! The State is there, and it gives us this area of partial choice with which to work. Even is everyone (except those running for office to work and their retainers) failed to vote, the State would keep rolling on.
There is one case, I believe, where a vote was constitutive in the United States: the vote for or against the Constitution. (Unfortunately, of course, the vote was not on the Constitution itself--it would have been beaten--but on delegates to state ratifying conventions.) Even though we did not have anarchism before, we had a much milder State, and anyone voting for the Constitution participated in the criminal act of setting up, instituting, a stronger government. Those who voted against the Constitution, on the other hand, were great.
Apart from that, I maintain that there have been no constitutive votes by citizens which should be considered criminal or illicit.
Furthermore, trying to push back voting by the legislator to voting by the citizen as criminal, gets into more difficulties. For how can, for example, Mr.Z who votes for a Libertarian candidate who loses be held responsible in any way for the criminal votes of a Democrat or Republican? Mr. Z tried his best to stop them. Which means, at least, pace Hummel that voting for a Libertarian candidate is perfectly moral so long as the LP candidate loses, since a losing candidate has no opportunity to do harm. But suppose that, by a fluke, an LP candidate wins. Then, it seems to me that there is no problem so long as the LP officeholder votes or acts purely libertarian--that is, votes against the budget, votes against all invasive laws, or if an executive, refuses to enforce aggrssive laws and taxes, etc. But if an LP officeholder can be a moral and licit officeholder, then so can the guy who votes for him, and the entire argument in principle against an LP or voting for the LP or holding office as an LPer falls to the ground. But what if, finally, the LP officeholder sells out, and votes statist? Then he of course is a criminal aggressor. But how about the guy who voted for him? I think not. Surely the most we can accuse him of is error, of failing to detect the betrayal of promises that would occur in the future. Surely not an indictable offense.
Finally, I acknowledge full well that political anarchism is definitively breaking with the glorious anarchist tradition, especially the individualist-anarchist one. Well, so be it. As a rationalist, while I think tradition is important, I can't let it be my guiding star.
This news item is from WendyMcElroy.com
( http://www.wendymcelroy.com/news.php?extend.2524 )
(Category: Wendy)
Posted by Wendy McElroy
Wednesday 17 June 2009 - 06:17:18
Excerpted from a letter from Murray Rothbard to me, dated October 1982, in which he offers a counter to the Voluntaryist contention that voting is immoral.
To get on to voting, yes I believe that any legislator who votes for a tax or an aggressive law is illicitly participating in a criminal enterprise, but no I don't believe that the citizen voter necessarily does so. There's votes and there's votes. One problem with your view is that, in an important sense, it is not anti-statist enough. There is no real sense that we are all of us, willy-nilly, enmeshed in State coercion. Take George's [George Smith's] phrase, "The institution (the State) taints the individuals who work within it." but dammit we're all working within the monstrous matrix that the State has placed around us. I don't mean to be frivolous or kamikaze but we do all walk or drive on State roads, fly on State-regulated airlines, shop at state-licensed stores, etc. We are not responsible for creating the State; it is there, we are within it, and our task is how to get this damn thing off out back. But I can easily carry your argument one step further: driving on government roads participates in State subsidy, it sanctions the State, etc. Using government mails does the same, etc. The state will not disappear if we ignore it (Spies, Konkin), non-violent civil disobedient is hopeless and has never worked, even unworkable laws must be repealed via political action, etc.
George writes as if citizen voting is constitutive, that is, that everytime we vote in an election this creates and constitutes the State. It is almost as if the State would not exist if we didn't go out and vote. Nonsense! The State is there, and it gives us this area of partial choice with which to work. Even is everyone (except those running for office to work and their retainers) failed to vote, the State would keep rolling on.
There is one case, I believe, where a vote was constitutive in the United States: the vote for or against the Constitution. (Unfortunately, of course, the vote was not on the Constitution itself--it would have been beaten--but on delegates to state ratifying conventions.) Even though we did not have anarchism before, we had a much milder State, and anyone voting for the Constitution participated in the criminal act of setting up, instituting, a stronger government. Those who voted against the Constitution, on the other hand, were great.
Apart from that, I maintain that there have been no constitutive votes by citizens which should be considered criminal or illicit.
Furthermore, trying to push back voting by the legislator to voting by the citizen as criminal, gets into more difficulties. For how can, for example, Mr.Z who votes for a Libertarian candidate who loses be held responsible in any way for the criminal votes of a Democrat or Republican? Mr. Z tried his best to stop them. Which means, at least, pace Hummel that voting for a Libertarian candidate is perfectly moral so long as the LP candidate loses, since a losing candidate has no opportunity to do harm. But suppose that, by a fluke, an LP candidate wins. Then, it seems to me that there is no problem so long as the LP officeholder votes or acts purely libertarian--that is, votes against the budget, votes against all invasive laws, or if an executive, refuses to enforce aggrssive laws and taxes, etc. But if an LP officeholder can be a moral and licit officeholder, then so can the guy who votes for him, and the entire argument in principle against an LP or voting for the LP or holding office as an LPer falls to the ground. But what if, finally, the LP officeholder sells out, and votes statist? Then he of course is a criminal aggressor. But how about the guy who voted for him? I think not. Surely the most we can accuse him of is error, of failing to detect the betrayal of promises that would occur in the future. Surely not an indictable offense.
Finally, I acknowledge full well that political anarchism is definitively breaking with the glorious anarchist tradition, especially the individualist-anarchist one. Well, so be it. As a rationalist, while I think tradition is important, I can't let it be my guiding star.
This news item is from WendyMcElroy.com
( http://www.wendymcelroy.com/news.php?extend.2524 )