I was talking to a friend recently who's an anarcho-capitalist. Under this system, people are free to enter into contracts at will and social and business institutions are all completely private and entered into without any coercion. As a libertarian, I really wish this system would actually work, however I think it has some major flaws
My thesis is that humans, being highly social animals, prefer the company of others and in fact are genetically and culturally predisposed to seek out groups with leaders and hierarchy. We can even see primitive forms of this in many primates – so we know it dates back pretty far. If we apply this to anarchy, we'll find that people will forms groups as soon as they're placed into this circumstance. At first families and later in the form of tribes. These tribes would be led by a dominate individual or faction whether formally or ad hoc. Eventually, in order to protect themselves from other tribes they'd form alliances with other tribes and hence states (the Greeks called them leagues, like the Achaean League) would start to form.
So how does this relate to sovereignty? All groups of humans in this situation form their units by mutual consent and in doing so they give up a little sovereignty to receive some type of benefit derived from the group. Forming groups like this is really nothing more than trading personal sovereignty (the root of all sovereignty) for some benefits.
In tribes, it would be group protection from enemies, the ability to hunt larger game, helpers to build better dwellings and devices, etc. In modern society, we haven't been given the choice ourselves, but during the founding we did in fact give up some sovereignty for personal and group benefits. The United States is now used as a singular noun but before the Civil War people would've said “the United States are” - as a plural. Lincoln, by removing the right of secession (which was a horrible result from this war), gave the United States more group cohesion that would pave the way for the highly powerful Federal government we have today – with its benefits and downsides.
So why should we care about sovereignty? What is it anyway? Really, it's just a fancy way of saying the ability to carry out your will: freedom, as opposed to liberty (refer to my last post to see the difference). The amount of personal sovereignty is the degree to which you're able to carry out your will independently – it doesn't include positive liberties such as technology, social contracts, etc., however you can trade it for these things.
The issue for us all to define then is really to what extent we want to control our lives and to what extent do we what the advantages of these group benefits. There is no correct answer. Every society, and really every individual, will have their own answer to this question. Since humans are poor at predicting what we prefer before the fact, the real issue is the ability to trade back the benefits for personal sovereignty so you can try again. This way, if I find I don't want all the benefits, I can give them back with no harm done. Unfortunately, the system doesn't easily allow this. I can change or renounce my citizenship, but I can't prevent the country I live in from coercing me into following their rules.
There are two answers to this problem: federalism and secession. In federalism, we push the power down to the lowest possible level so that most group sovereignty (as derived from the citizenry) is retained at a local level which allows the smallest possible group (who should have the most similarities in preferences) to define the laws and hence coercion they're subject to. It also allows a lot of experimentation with the correct balance of personal and group power. This is how the United States was set up in the beginning – although it has severely decayed since.
Secession, on the other hand, allows a group of people to opt out of the higher powers all together. The issue with this is that when the higher power (such as the federal government) has more power than the group (say a state) that power has the ability to coerce the group regardless of their preferences – this is our current system.
I find it interesting that most people are completely opposed to both of the above techniques. It seems that most people prefer the benefits of the group over their personal sovereignty. I'm not sure why this is – maybe it dates back to primates again who lose benefits due to individuals leaving the group
This would happen in our society as well. For instance, if a state seceded and lowered their income tax to 5%, but with few government benefits, the rich would move there in droves if it was stable. The poor in the other states who rely on the benefits would find those budgets drying up due to a lack of tax revenue. It seems the right of secession doesn't allow much free-ridership – maybe this is why the leftists oppose it.
I'd really like to get everyone's thoughts on this as I'm always looking for where I'm wrong. Comments are very welcome!
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