ravells: I was not aware that the terms 'legitimacy' and 'oppression' were terms of political art which had a universal meaning. Those terms have been coopted and misused by the nodern newspeak - along with the term
liberal in US that used to mean the same as
libertarian does now rather than
socialist.
I am using those terms in the meaning that the generation of the Founding Fathers used them. Oppression is synonymous with coercion. When someone imposes on you an obligation against your will, you are coerced.
The only obligations the members of society have inherently is not to agress against other people's body and property and to honor contracts.
People have pre-existing "natural" or "God-given" rights. As for legitimacy, the legitimate role of the government is to maintain the pre-existing law, not to be above the law. An entity that is not above the law cannot create laws. Calling legislation "laws" may fool some people but it does not make the powers legitimate - they are still usurped.
I would describe a 'legitimate government' as one which is recognised by the majority of its people I advanced an argument why majority cannot posess any legitimate powers over other people that they did not posess individually. A majority has no rights to coerce minority join in any activity of the majority.
Unless you want to make case that raw power of majority over minority makes legitimacy, you have to come up with some justification for the source of the majority's extra legitimate powers.
All kinds of societies would have been legitimate if the majority was a factor:
- a society in which majority approves of slavery over minority
- a society in which majority approves of confiscation and genocide
- a gang rape - where the rapists hold democratic vote with the victim; they can even claim that they are doing a favor to the victim
US people have no jurisdiction whatsoever over the people of Great Britain or Canada - even though we enjoy clear majority. We cannot tax or regulate brits or canadians. We can defend if attacked or come to defence though.
In whatever agreement US forms with Britain or Canada - even forming a common government - the power of such government/treaty to regulate brits comes from brits and the power to regulate americans comes from americans - voluntarily delegated - since before the treaty neither side had legitimate powers to control or regulate the other side.
Oppression is undue hardship caused by one person, or body of people on another. Opressive conduct by a government is generally not legitimate, but sometimes it may be. Slaves on the Southern plantations had better life-expectancy, child mortality and procreation rate not only compared to their kin still living in Africa but apparently even compared to the average white folk. That does not negate the fact that slavery is oppressive.
North Koreans have kidnapped several foreigners and kept them in captivity - albeit in nice conditions that would probably not qualify as "undue hardship". That was also done in the name of majority and for the benefit of the NK people. That does not make their actions non-oppressive.
I do not agree with your line of thought that people can only legitimately delegate their individual rights or powers to their government and that anything the government does outwith those boundaries is acting in excess of its mandate. There are no other legitimate powers in nature but the individual powers. If you do not agree with it - that's your prerogative, it just means you approve of violating people's rights by force, usurping them. That works in practice but has no legitimacy.
Were that to be the case then governments would not have any mandate to legislate for corporate actions in any way at all, because corporations are not individuals. The legal concept of "corporation" is an illegitimate creation of a state in the first place. Corporations are just groups of individuals that have entered into voluntary contactual relationships with each other and collectively enter into contracts with other people. If they call themselves a "corporation" - it's their business.
All the restrictions on individuals apply to the groups of individuals. No privileges can be legitimately granted to the groups of people to the detriment of the rest of the population.
The state has a legitimate power to enforce the contracts - whether incured by a person or a group of people that call themsleves a corporation.
A corporation would be prevented from infringing on people's persons and property and from violating its contracts. That's all the regulation one needs and all that is legitimate.
If a single person has to abide by a polution law, so does a corporation.
You listed a number of (what I presume to be inalienable) rights that individuals possess. How did you come up with that list? What legitimises it? That is a huge question, so I will only be able to answer it briefly and incompletely.
It is a major premice that a person owns his body and the property that he has created or received as a gift or in legitimate exchange.
One of the justifications is that nobody has a better claim on ownership of those anyway.
The only rights a person posesses ingerently are
negative rights - rights not to be agressed against. "Rights" is a very bad word anyway, very confusing. Rights of some people are nothing more than obligations of other people to honor whatever the original person is entitled to. (So advancing freedon by giving anyone more "rights" than the original negative rights to body and property is impossible, since it inflicts obligations on other people and thus makes them less free).
Only the rights to own one's body and property are
compossible - can be exercised by everyone without coming into conflict.
So we are talking about obligations here. As I've mentioned any obligations imposed without concent are coerecion = oppression = aggression.
Except for the obligations not to violate other people's body and property - which means obligations not to aggress/coerce/oppress.
How come the members of the society are saddled with such obligations to begin with?
Simple. If a person refuses an obligation not to agress against others, he cannot claim a right not to be aggressed against. Such person becomes an outlaw. He is not a part of teh society. Nobody is obligated to honor the sanctity of his body and property. Such people - for example invading marauders from outside or criminals - would not live for very long.
Another obligation which can be considered a separate one even though it's the same is an obligation to honor contracts. Taking someone's property by fraud is considered an agression. A person who violates contracts/obligations cannot claim that he is entitled to protection from aggression because he is obligated not to aggress himself. His obligations are not honored since he is known to violate them. Simple.
So when a person is protecting his property or body or is trying to recover property stolen from him through fraud, he is acting within his rights. A person can invite anyone on his property to help protect it, etc. or hire someone to do so - in short delegate his legitimate powers. So he can also delegate them to the state.
Ripsnort: I'd say Miko reads alots, then forms opinions, tailors articles so that they sound like he thought of them. I have never presented those views as if I though of them personally. I refer to Mises and Founding Fathers and many others all the time.
Here is the thread I posted in March 2003:
The rifle is taken care off... where I listed $300 worth of books I've just bought - that time.
I also recommend books to people. I often quote and post links. I believe that am open with my sources. Often I refer to something that I believe is a common knowlege and someone comes up never having heard of it - but that is hardly my fault in such varied audience.
In defence of the science developed by other people I advance arguments of my own manufacture adopted to the contemporary examples and to the audience as best as I can. Just like I do when talking about computer science, biology, mathematics, etc.
I am a populariser, so what? As they say, if you do not make your own fire, you can still light the world by reflecting that made by others into dark places.
So far nobody has accused me of claiming to invent biology or math or computers but only that idiot Dago accuses me of pretending to invent economics or political philosophy.
miko
