Response to – Rand Paul, Racism, Rome, and EVE Online
by Albert Gallatin
Not quite libertarian... Yet.
In response to sami’S blog “Connected Ideas: Libertarianism, Rand Paul, Racism, Rome, and EVE Online” I reply as follows:
Hello Sami’S,
You wrote an very interesting post, but I think you missed the main points of libertarianism… freedom for all men, regardless of race, creed, or religion as opposed to what we see today, rule by the elite class.
I cold be wrong here, but I think what Rand Paul was attempting to communicate was the principle of property rights.
Libertarians believe that all rights stem from property rights, first and foremost beginning with your sovereign right over your body. What you choose to ingest, what you choose to wear, and who you choose to share your body with, etc., these are your own business, not the states.
This idea of property rights naturally flows to other things you poses, such as you home or business. In the libertarian view, you (as opposed to the state) should have absolute right to control what you own. In the case of businesses, it is the business owners right to discriminate. While this may sound shocking, it is the only morally acceptable alternative, as the alternative places a uncaring, unwise bureaucrat in charge of unwise practices for your business and your future, which, is paid for by an immoral tax system.
The argument from the libertarian side is not that racism is good, it is that that those businesses that discriminate will eventually go out of business or only draw a limited crowed that doesn’t mind segregation. While libertarians would ultimately like to believe that eventually people will come around to absurdity of segregation, we certainly wouldn’t ask the government to enforce our beliefs on others (through the credible threat of violence and immoral taxation – again via the credible threat of violence). Therefore forcing a business to integrate was an unjust and a violation of personal property rights and personal civil rights through the coercion of the state.
Is it realistic to believe that racism can be completely eliminated by the free market? No, certainly not. But look at reality and ask yourself – “but has forced integration via the coercive state and abridging of property rights eliminated racism?” No, it hasn’t, and what the state has provided, is – without a doubt, nothing that the free market couldn’t provide without the abrogation of property rights via the credible threat of violence by the state.
What the state gave us was not a fair trade. In effect, we have traded our property rights and personal civil liberties for government control, and we still do not have the end of the ignorance of racism. If you have been to the south (as I have) you are undoubtedly painfully aware, that there is still both overt and covert segregation.
Nor can, or will the government through coercive means, ever be able to eliminate racism through violations of personal liberties, as racism can only be overcome by peaceful change over time through voluntary exchange and agreements.
While I would agree with your assessment that EVE is a fun game – primarily because people get to do things in the game that you can’t or are not allowed to do in real life, this is part of the psychological draw to video games; escapism and fantasy. But to suggest that EVE Online is a libertarian utopia of unrestrained libertarian free markets is a bit of a stretch, and fallacious argument to say the least. Yet, ceding that EVE Online is more Libertarian in nature than America, I believe that this more libertarian EVE universe actually disproves your belief that EVE is “basically an ongoing counter-argument to libertarianism.”
While EVE Online allows the players more freedoms and lower taxes than current day America, it is not much more free market than America is today. Which is to say, EVE is certainly NOT an unrestrained free market environment, and what we are debating now is simply a matter of degrees of freedom.
EVE, much like America and the rest of the globe, has adopted a mercantilist system and relies on this mercantilism to provide for the state (in EVE’s case “Concord”).
Even so, a capsuleer (a pilot of a spacecraft in EVE Online) is allowed to come and go, forming voluntary alliances with those organizations that he sees fit. He is never forced against his will to fight for a corporation (a capsuleer can’t be drafted), nor work for wages (or pay wages for that matter) that do not agree with his goals. Furthermore, this voluntary interaction between individuals requires no government oversight.
Is there violence and discrimination in EVE Online? Certainly, but even in EVE, where life is cheap (more on that below), wars are very limited… because if there is a war, it is costly… stick with me here… and because corporations can not force (a.k.a. “draft”) the capsuleers to fight wars for them, or even more importantly – printing their own money, or taxing more their corporation members to pay for the war… wars end rather quickly. Saving millions of lives through the free market system.
The same argument can’t be made for any current state sanctioned war.
And even with all the violence, this violence could be drastically curbed if CCCP quit offering cheap and simply allowed the private sector to offer insurance in EVE. This simple move would lead to a rapid and drastic draw down of violence, especially once you see that war is no longer profitable for you via the insurance fraud that most corporations rely on in EVE (sound familiar?).
You see, there simply is no better solution than total freedom.
The above is no small issue to be glossed over, because it is this one issue alone that allows bad people to continue to do bad and bully their way through the universe (not to mention that CCCP slants the game to encourage conflict). It is through this spawning of clones and the lack of the free market in insurance (raising premiums) that EVE either intentionally or unintentionally facilitates bad behavior through the low cost of death/destruction. This concept introduces what economists call a “moral hazard” which is in full swing in both Real Life as well as in EVE Online. In the EVE universe this means that one can casually throw ones life and ships away, because there are more where that one came from, an unlimited resource of fresh bodies and ships all paid for by an artificial monopoly.
Furthermore, you make the statement of “(EVE is) a dystopian hell where money is power, life is cheap, ordinary people don’t matter (player characters are not ordinary people, but they ruin – or take – the lives of many of them), and might makes right. Got a problem with someone else? The only way to settle it is often violence, and there’s always collateral damage.”
How does EVE in that regard differ from our own society? Is money in America and the world not power? Don’t the big businesses in bed with government (mercantilism) in America cause heartache through the legislation that is passed to force people to do as they are told?
Isn’t every law passed ultimately enforced either with violence or the credible threat of violence? Have you seen the videos of organic farmers markets being raided by gun toting thugs with badges, either federal, state, or local? Don’t deceive yourself, the laws you advocate implicate you in the deaths of non-violent offenders. That’s your fault.
It’s this idea that Libertarians and Rand Paul stand against. Don’t fool yourself, it’s not Republican vs. Democrat, it’s both of them vs. us.
Therefore I must point out that contrary to your arguments, in EVE we can find proof positive that (even in such a chaotic and unrealistic environment) libertarian principles will, and ultimately are proven right.
Why?
Because even in this artificial environment with a low death penalty, we can see that continual wars and genocide are impossible to sustain. Unlike the governments throughout our earths history players in EVE can and do make decisions to leave oppressive corporations, thereby removing both physical and financial support to a corporation that can not infinitely sustain war, which is a stark contrast to our real world where people can not escape their corporation (of the state) nor withdraw support physically or monetarily.
This, dear sami’S, is the real historical imperative: Humanity is, and will always gravitate to decentralization of power and more freedom. 7,000 years of recorded human history clearly points the way… Freedom is inevitable, because at it’s depths, the human soul longs to be free of coercion.
