Violence Breeds Violence

More and more through science we are confirming the Buddha’s teachings on karma. In an article last month at Wired.com, kindness was shown to breed further acts of kindness.

Experimenters created a game where “selfishness made more sense than cooperation,” however, “acts of giving were tripled over the course of the experiment by other subjects who were directly or indirectly influenced to contribute more.” Here is a visual representation of those effects:

Understanding karma, I believe this multiplying effect should also hold true for acts of violence, coercion, or threat. If we treat people poorly, they are likely to treat us poorly in return. Therefore, evidence seems to show that we should follow the good ol’ golden rule: Treat others as you would like to be treated.

The Non-Aggression Principle

As I understand it, the Buddhist moral notion of karma is congruent with libertarian-anarchist ethic of the non-aggression principle – which states that all initiation of physical force, the threat of such, or fraud upon persons is inherently illegitimate.

Although Buddha obviously cannot comment on the political theories past his time, I think if he understood our current understanding of government he would see that it is in strict violation of this principle.

Libertarian anarchists consider non-voluntary taxes (a process used to fund almost any government that has ever existed) to be a form of initiated aggression. Therefore, no matter the well-intentioned goals of politicians, the very means of government is seen as immoral. In Ayn Rands words, “Force and mind are opposite; morality ends where a gun begins.”

I think Buddha too would agree that you cannot create a moral society through the immorality of government coercion. Only free choice builds moral fiber. Even when people are forced to pay for others health care, housing, or food, they are in the process of becoming slaves, not saints. Not only is this a morally illegitimate way of building the society we want, it is impossible. In Buddhism the means don’t justify the ends: the means determine the ends.

Lead By Example, Not By Force

Karma teaches reciprocity. Only by being the change we wish to see in the world can we make a positive difference. We don’t create society by stepping into a voting booth once a year, we create society through our day-to-day actions and how we treat others. We lead by example; and when we do this, we inspire people’s hearts and minds to do the same.

An individual’s freedom is a prerequisite for all moral behavior. You cannot force or threat others to be good, you can only guide them through example and reason. People too can be guided the wrong way through example and reason. Morality is always and everywhere a battle of ideas. It starts in our minds and it spreads through our actions.

Government: Old Idea, Bad Idea, or Both?

The need to govern others is an ancient idea: master and servant, leader and follower, boss and worker are all distinctions buried in our unconscious. It is not just an old idea, but an idea we often take for granted. Modern America condemns it’s history with slavery but doesn’t yet see the the shapes and forms it takes through the veil of democratic government; in which, even Thomas Jefferson considered “mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine.” Today this is sometimes referred to as tyranny of the majority. To learn more I recommend Hans Hermann Hoppe’s great book, “Democracy: The God That Failed: The Economics and Politics of Monarchy, Democracy, and Natural Order.”

Schools somewhat condition us to accept government; democracy being the glorified system of “fairness.” Many people I know find it hard to even imagine a peaceful society without any form of government. Instead they hear “anarchy” and imagine Molotov cocktails being thrown through windows – complete chaos and rebellion. But the truth is humans self-organize all of the time without the help of government bureaucracy. Even children can put together community baseball games without authoritarian oversight. The Austrian economist Friedrich A. Hayek would probably draw a parallel between this kind of social behavior and the “spontaneous order” of a laissez-faire economy.

My point is that the absence of government is not equal to a state of disorder. Humans organize voluntarily (out of their own free will) all of the time; of all people, Buddhists should recognize this inherent interconnectedness between individuals. So we shouldn’t need government to command our actions like some sort of ant colony – our ability to get along with others is a built into our humanity.

Am I suggesting that anarchy is a utopia? It may sound like it, but I assure you that I am not. How can you expect a perfect society from imperfect individuals? You can’t. It’s not realistic. But it is realistic to believe that humans can coexist peacefully without big brother government. Sure, there will still be crime and evils in the world and we will have to deal with those accordingly. But government may not be the answer to poverty, drug abuse, or even murder. Perhaps before looking to our paternal state for all the solutions to society we should take a deep gaze into ourselves; and see how we as individuals are personally responsible for the world around us.

Cognitive liberty is the concept that an individual has absolute sovereignty over their state of consciousness as long as it does not infringe on the rights of another. This includes the use of meditation, prayer, and psychoactive drugs, as well as the right to not be force-fed any psychoactive drug against one’s will.

Currently, cognitive liberty is not a very much respected philosophy in American politics. Most psychoactive drugs like cannabis, psilocybin mushrooms, LSD, and mescaline are considered illegal to possess and consume. Similarly, we see young children all throughout the nation being force-fed certain psychoactive drugs (the “good kinds”) in name of “normal thinking” and “normal behavior.”

As a libertarian, I feel cognitive liberty is a necessary component to any free society. I have written numerous times about my disdain for the War On Drugs and specifically the failure that is marijuana prohibition.

I am also against our tendency as a society to administer psychoactive drugs so carelessly and with so little respect for the free choice of young people and the mentally ill. It is an awful thing to offer a drug to any person without appropriately informing them on what the drug is supposed to do or how it might make them feel. We should also explain to children very clearly that they have a choice whether or not to continue taking the drug if they don’t like its effects. It often happens where a child’s personal interest is put secondary or even overlooked completely.

Let it be known that I do think there are cases where someone needs to be given a drug against their will (maybe if they are unconscious or completely delusional and incoherent). But these situations are limited, and I think it is safe to say that society and government has overstepped its boundaries on more than a couple fronts when it comes to this issue.

Who really has the authority to tell a conscious and thinking being what they can and cannot put into their body or how they should experience reality? I don’t consider it justified for any free society to draw such arbitrary distinctions between what is “good” or “bad” for an individual if that individual is exercising their own rational free choice. People have different values and interests in life – this is the same dimension of diversity that characterizes all of nature and what has made evolution possible.

The act of consuming drugs is a victimless crime, and it does not justify people getting locked up in prison or having a criminal record that inhibits them from ever getting a good job or building a bright future. Drugs have been present in every society known to man and it is time we respect their place in the structure of our humanity. It is one thing to advise others against the use of certain drugs, and it is another to try to banish their existence or ignore it entirely.

I am perfectly comfortable acknowledging the fact that some drugs have negative consequences while still promoting the freedom for others to use these same drugs. For one thing, negative consequences are a part of all decisions we make – it does not mean we sacrifice our freedom to make those decisions. To borrow from something I wrote in a recent article about government spending,

“Just because half of American marriages end in a divorce doesn’t mean we want the government to make decisions on who we should marry. Life is filled with mistakes; it is how we learn, and it is a part of freedom.”

If you really want to help those who are dependent on drugs – or if you really want to make a long lasting change in any individual’s behavior – then you need to appeal to that person’s reason. You can not rule a rationally thinking person by force. And yes, even a drug addict has his or her own mode of rational thought in accordance with their own values and interests.

When people value something strong enough, they find a way to go against government restrictions in order to satisfy that want. This is why prohibition always leads to a black market for goods that society finds valuable.

When will people recognize that others value these drugs? When will we learn to tolerate these differences? If we really want to make a positive change than we need to re-think freedom and re-think the way we influence others if we want to continue living in a free society. If we don’t accept the notion of cognitive liberty, if we sacrifice those fundamental principles of self-ownership and freedom of thought, then in what ways are we really free anymore?

To learn more please visit The Center For Cognitive Liberty & Ethics, which includes notable members like visionary artist Alex Grey, libertarian psychiatrist Thomas Szasz, and psychedelic researcher Ralph Metzner (who used to work with Timothy Leary).

The main question you need to ask whenever you hear about an outcome of “government spending” is: Instead of what?! The cost of any economic decision is never simply “What were the outcomes?” but also ‘What were the potential outcomes?” – what was the opportunity cost? What could have been achieved if I invested my time and capital differently?

Today President Obama announced that 1 million jobs were saved due to the $787 billion dollar stimulus plan he initiated earlier this year. I ask, “Instead of what?”

At first glance this may sound like a great headline for Obama, but only if you make an all-too-often economic fallacy about the nature of government spending. When we are on the receiving end, it is all too easy to forget that governments do not have their own source of wealth; they only absorb wealth from their citizens through taxes and monetary inflation. In this sense there is no such thing as government spending, only redistribution. As argued by many intellectuals throughout the past century, this kind of economic planning often comes with disastrous effects. Yet politicians refuse to listen, often only citing Keynesian economists – who justify increased government spending even when it is in contradiction with the most basic laws of the free market.

In this article I will argue that almost all government spending “for the sake of the economy” – no matter the intentions – is bad. I will argue that it doesn’t matter which way the money flows; it is the principle of the action that hurts the economy and undermines the intelligence of the market. And in the end we all lose out as a result of government meddling in the economy.

Government spending vs. Market spending

I find the best way to frame the battle between markets and governments is as follows,

When individuals are given the chance to keep their earnings (private property) and spend it as they see fit (voluntary contracts) – does this lead to better outcomes than when governments decide where money should be spent?

ARGUMENT 1: Fallacy Of Intentions (The Belief In A “Benevolent Government”)

One argument in favor of government is what I call the fallacy of intentions. This is the general belief that a benevolent government can provide for society better than self-interested individuals.

The underlying premise is that individuals are greedy and we can not expect greed to serve the general welfare of the people. As John Maynard Keynes once said, “Capitalism is the astounding belief that the most wickedest of men will do the most wickedest of things for the greatest good of everyone.”

But this is a fallacy. Governments, like markets, are also a conglomeration of individual humans; humans that have the same potential for greed as anyone else. One of my favorite rebuttals to this fallacy is a quote by Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises, in which he states:

“If one rejects laissez faire on account of mans fallibility and moral weakness, one must for the same reasons also reject every kind of government action.”

A Keynesian might then counter this point by arguing that in a democracy – since the people elect their representatives – greed could therefore be limited.

But certainly “greedy individuals” are just as capable of organizing campaigns and becoming elected officials as “benevolent individuals”? America is already a great example of how money seems to be the best predictor of government power.

However we cannot blame this on capitalism, we can only blame government for not following its original constitutional foundation. This is why it is my belief that a constitutional republic, one which concentrates government power closest towards the individual, is one that best serves a free society. A constitution is necessary in order to define the purpose of government and to limit it from breaking these restrictions.

ARGUMENT 2: The Intelligence Of Governments Versus Markets.

Another argument in favor of government is that government can better allocate resources than the free market can. It is believed that under laissez-faire capitalism self-interested individuals will only act in a way that maximizes profit for themselves and consequently not provide for the needs of others.

However, economic activity is not a zero-sum game; everyone reaps benefits from voluntary trade. If individuals didn’t see benefit in an action they simply wouldn’t do it. As Adam Smith once famously wrote in his influential book “The Wealth of Nations” (1776):

“It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own self-interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantages.”

Adam Smith later named these market forces the invisible hand. Ludwig von Mises claimed that Smith believed that the invisible hand was that of God. He did not mean this as a criticism, since he held that secular reasoning leads to similar conclusions.

Mises’ contrasted the invisible hand of the market with central economic planning, claiming the the latter was not only undesirable but impossible. In his theory of the “economic calculation problem” which was later expounded by Nobel laureate Friedrich Hayek, Mises argues that governments cannot possibly have the knowledge to know what is good for the economy. Mises believed that only the voluntary actions of consenting adults could properly allocate resources throughout the market. Hayek expanded on this idea by stating the efficient exchange and use of resources can be maintained only through the price mechanisms possible through free markets.

When governments legislate price and wage limits, the market is inhibited from reacting properly when changes occur in supply and demand. Due to the uncertainty of the economy, government can not possibly have enough knowledge to benefit society through massive spending. In fact, they almost always undermine a “natural market” solution from taking place. The more you give individuals a chance to act freely the better each individual’s needs will be met.

Of course the market isn’t perfect or Utopian. Individuals do not always make the right decisions for themselves and economies will fall into recessions during bad economic times. But this is true for any aspect of life. Just because half of American marriages end in a divorce doesn’t mean we want the government to make decisions on who we should marry. Life is filled with mistakes; it is how we learn, and it is a part of freedom.

So, yes, it sounds nice when we hear that Obama created X amount of jobs or saved Y. But how would this solution compare to a market solution? How do we know Obama is “creating” or “saving” jobs that really serve the American people? Yes, governments can help the unemployment rate by starting wars, or even by having everyone build pyramids, but is this really signs of a growing economy? Is this really an efficient allocation of resources? When Obama and Bush “bailout” companies that the market has already chosen to fail, then they are only delaying the inevitable destruction of these jobs. The people have already chosen another product. People losing jobs is a necessary function of a healthy market.

Note on GDP as a measure of economic growth

Like unemployment rates, GDP is another statistic that can be easily manipulated by government. The government reported this week that the economy grew 3.5 percent from July through September. But since government spending is a part of GDP, no wonder the “economy grew” with all this stimulus spending.

For many of us who already understand the unintended consequences of the “War On Drugs” this video covers most of the main arguments; however, it puts it in a way that I think almost any rational thinking person could understand.