Crime and Libertarianism

"the state is itself an inherently criminal organisation"

crime  Clear-minded and consistent ^*statists view all “crimes”, in the ^*political sense, as behaviour that flouts whatever the ^*state happens to currently command on pain of ^*punishment for disobedience. Muddled and inconsistent statists often view the same “crimes” as somehow also “offences against ^*society”. In ^*anarcho-^*libertarian terms, “crimes” will be behaviour that intentionally, foreseeably, or recklessly (thus going beyond non-criminal ^*torts) significantly ^*initiates impositions on the persons or ^*property of other people. Thus, spontaneous or ^*natural ^*law is the guide for private courts dealing with alleged crimes. And full ^*restitution will be due where crimes are committed. Moreover, all state ^*politics qua politics (rather than the process of ^*depoliticisation and the repeal of ^*aggressive state commands posing as “law”) is criminal, and the state is itself an inherently criminal ^*organisation (however widely it is generally believed to be ^*legitimate).

This gives rise to an interesting question. As all state property, including ^*money, is ultimately stolen or ^*extorted in some manner, is it a crime to receive or take any of it? On what one may ^*legitimately receive, see ^*hypocrisy. Here we look at what may be taken. Where the money or property is currently being used for a more or less libertarian purpose in some way, then we should usually regard it as de jure owned by those people who are using it (unless, for instance, they stole it from identifiable other people). Thus, it would initiate impositions on those users, for example, to take something from a state museum or hospital (unless one had some specific and legitimate claim to that thing). The property really needs to be given to the users in order to propertise the ^*resources fully.

However, where money or property is merely in the hands of the state, then the matter is very different. That does not belong to the state, so it cannot be theft to take it from the state. Unless some original victims (or their descendants) have identifiable claims, anyone may lawfully take that money or property. And where this is done without doing the state’s bidding, such as by working for the state, it also prevents the state from using those resources to pursue its own unlawful and ^*immoral ends. Consequently, it is a good deed to remove such resources from the state.

It might be thought that the problem with taking such state resources on an ad hoc basis is that ^*taxpayers will end up paying even more to make up the difference. We might observe that most taxpayers support ^*taxation and so it serves them right. However, increased taxation does not seem very likely because the state is often already taking as much as it can get away with at the time. And one might make the same invalid excuse for not taking money and resources from any other criminal gang.

See ^*age of consent; ^*assassination; ^*capital punishment; ^*civil disobedience; ^*law-breaking and liberty; ^*mental illness; ^*rule of law.

(This is an entry from A LIBERTARIAN DICTIONARY: Explaining a Philosophical Theory [draft currently being revised]. Asterisks indicate other entries.)