From the White-PillBox: Part 30
Whatever social problems may arise in a free society, they pale in comparison to statism's ultra-magnified problems.
When we describe a free society, it is common for people to predict a host of problems that would arise.
From there we often become embroiled in discussions explaining how we think problems would be handled. More often than not, this is a distraction - and a trap we fall into.
This is because problems will exist in any arrangement of human society; utopia is not an option.
But statism is worse. By its nature, it compounds problems. And from there new problems ripple out, escalating further in an endless cycle.
The White Pill is how remarkably small social problems will be, absent the State. And how powerful an argument this can be.
Problems under statism, contrasted with a free society
The essential nature of the State
From the very outset, any State action (taxes, regulations, etc.) violates consent. This is true for each and every action the State takes. It would not be a State at all, if it did not violate consent to get what it wants, every step of the way.
It is safe to say that a permanent condition of consent violation qualifies as a problem.
The essential nature of a free society
In a free society, the number of actions that may legitimately violate consent are exactly zero 1.
This is quite a contrast with the State. It is an understatement to say it: the State’s permanent condition of consent violation presents a unimaginably large social problem; in a stateless society, this problem is absent.
Distortion of problems under the State
Common sense suggests that if a problem exists, we would like to see it lessened or eliminated. But the State has no incentive to apply common sense. It needs problems to exist, to justify its existence. So it must take normal human problems and exacerbate them; then on top of that, it must add new problems. And it must strive for all problems to persist.
For example, the State causes price inflation by increasing the supply of money (the latter is true inflation). It blames price inflation on various scapegoats, but never itself as the root cause. This enables the State to continue increasing the money supply, while also keeping attention away from itself. And with plenty of scapegoats, it has a ready supply of villains to demonize for other problems.
In the meantime, the problem itself is never solved.
Distortion of problems in a free society
Common sense prevails in a free society because there is a strong incentive for it: it aligns with what people expect. Acting against common sense is not sustainable. The person themself will tend to suffer for it; his associates may counsel or criticize him; others may disassociate from him. In any case, foolish actions make things worse, while common sense actions generally work in one’s favor.
All this means that when problems arise, the natural advantage of common sense would favor solving them, or at least reducing their effects. The scope of problems would be clearer and far less distorted, given the incentive to identify and solve them.
And of course, without a State, many problems (such as price inflation) would never appear in the first place, or would exist at a fraction of their severity.
Escalation of problems under the State
Because the State is incentivized to cause problems, and to never truly solve them, it also serves the State when problems escalate. Here we have yet another perverse result of the State. The State can justify itself as the solver of problems - problems it magnifies and compounds, and which it causes to ripple out to still more problems.
We should never lose sight of how this dynamic causes additional pain and suffering. Whatever problems may exist simply by virtue of human nature, the State expands them utterly out of proportion. And this says nothing of problems that exist directly as a result of the State…problems that would not exist at all, but for the State.
It is like an avalanche. The wreckage increases as it combines into an ever greater destructive force with each passing moment.
Escalation of problems in a free society
In a free society, there is no State to magnify human suffering. True, the human condition can never be completely free of pain. But it would always tend to be local and temporary, and once it starts, there are incentives to end it quickly. Should problems snowball, the incentives to solve them would magnify in kind.
An example: child abuse
Under statism
Typically the State has a mechanism purported to handle child abuse.
State indoctrination trains us to stop right there and think no further: the government handles this problem, so the rest of us can rest easy.
So immediately we have de-incentivized virtually the entire population from dealing with child abuse. This is in itself a problem, because it creates a single point of failure. And it encourages the culture to shun personal responsibility.
And it is worse. The State (the single point of failure) has no incentive to solve the child abuse problem. State agencies must justify their budgets to survive. If child abuse declines, the agency’s budget is likely to be reduced. They need child abuse to continue.
It is still worse. The State’s own laws (family law, in this example) are typically vague, ill-defined, and inconsistent. What law enforcement can and cannot do, is ill-suited to the actual problem of child abuse. The law can be weak…leaving children at risk of continued abuse. The law can be heavy-handed…wrecking innocent families by finding abuse where none exists. When a child is removed from a genuinely abusive environment, they are often merely shifted into another unhealthy environment.
The State is also culpable in the actual abuse. Seemingly unrelated State activities worsen the problem.
For example, drug prohibition creates a cycle of substance dependency and crime 2. Children of drug addicts often live in a constant state of fear and abuse, as a result.
Another example is the military. The unnatural environment that service people are subjected to can produce psychological problems. Sadly these problems can make victims of their families, and in particular the children. To make matters worse, the State under-reports the problem of child abuse in military families.
And then there are welfare programs. Some incentivize mothers to have more children; some incentivize fatherless households (these are but a few of the perverse results of State welfare). In all these cases, the family dynamic is distorted or undermined. When the family is weakened, its most vulnerable members are at the greatest risk.
Under statism, child abuse is clearly exacerbated almost beyond imagination.
In a free society
Things are quite different without a State.
Literally all of the unnatural dynamics mentioned above (that exacerbate child abuse under statism) simply do not exist in a free society.
What is left in a stateless society is the raw problem itself: the fact that child abuse would happen. Even if such a society had no mechanisms whatsoever to deal with it, things would not be as bad as they are today. That is because the only parties motivated toward child abuse are the abusers; there is no State to artificially and exponentially expand the problem.
But a free society would likely have methods to deal with child abuse.
First of all (and also as a general principle), without a State to indoctrinate us, there is less cause to ignore a problem. There is no one “in charge of social problems”. Which means, essentially, there is no one but us to deal with social problems.
One informal method of dealing with child abuse might be this: any person could step in to remove a child from an abusive situation. Assuming they are justified by sufficient evidence, they would have little fear of a court ruling against them. The private adjudicator is incentivized to rule according to both common sense and self-ownership norms. If they ruled to permit abuse of children, they would not likely attract future customers. Moreover, if the intervening adult turned out to be in the wrong, the innocent parent would have just cause to sue for significant damages. This would tend to insure interventions are justified.
Most important for children is this: every child’s safety would be potentially overseen by any adult. To say the least, this would be a significant improvement for children as compared to their condition under statism.
A free society would also likely evolve formal mechanisms to deal with child abuse. For example, an insurance company, medical organization, or security agency may devote a business unit to identifying and intervening in child abuse cases. This could be a free public service that produces enormous goodwill and public approbation for the overall business. A subsequent reduction in child abuse would be a feather in their cap, unlike a State agency that is motivated to see child abuse continue.
It is indeed a sad and unfortunate White Pill that we can point to the State, contrast it with a free society, and see the stark difference in dealing with the very real problem of child abuse.
Conclusion
The State is a “problem machine”. Its very design causes and exacerbates human problems. Its bad outcomes create ripple effects that lead to still more problems.
But a free society has no State - which means it does not have a fully funded, all-encompassing, planet-wide problem machine.
So we have yet another White Pill, in our ability to counter the claims of potential problems in a free society. It takes little imagination to see that some problems - the ones that arise from the nature of man - will be mildly experienced, as compared to statism.
And other problems - the ones that only arise due to the State - won’t even exist.
There are edge cases, where there would be plausible reasons to debate whether an action violates consent or not, or whether an action that seems to violate consent is justified. A good example of this would be if someone fell into an extremely deranged mental state that endangers them or others. Temporary forcible restraint could be the only option. We should keep in mind that such “lifeboat” scenarios are by definition abnormal. They certainly deserve attention from the perspective of consent, and indeed can be instructive. But they are not representative of the vast majority of normal human interactions.
To be clear, the crime I refer to is aggression against person and property, not the prohibition of drugs itself.