Force As Commodity

Randians vs. Anarchy

The objectivist actor Mark Pellegrino Tweeted the following about a stateless society.

1) Anarchist’s all freak out about monopoly force and think the way to solve the ‘monopoly’ is to ‘marketize’ it. Thing is force IS monopoly. Always. Even if only two people are attempting to impose his will Uber the other (force). One prevails. IOW’s a monopoly.

2) markets are the absence of force. You can’t marketize subordination to your will. That’s precisely what is absent from a market. Force is not a commodity. It is an act that must be defined, marginalized and delegates of reasons anarchists don’t seem to get. … [A]sserting your will over another is not a market commodity and should be subject to objective processes... that’s why we delegate retaliatory five to gov... to promote reason over whim in all conflict resolution.

Being the most disagreeable person on Earth I couldn’t help but Tweet a whole thread about the fallacies involved in his reasoning. Twitter, however, is not a platform that allows for meaningful philosophical argumentation so I decided to write a short essay addressing this common objection. And indeed, it is far too common, for every objectivist I've ever talked to repeats it almost verbatim.

So let us take the arguments as they were put forward by Mr. Pellegrino and analyze them properly. Admittedly, as these are Tweets, we shouldn’t treat this above formulation as the best and most accurate way of presenting the case, but it captures the central thesis that Objectivists repeat many times over. First, we will deal with the second, then the first objection.

Economic goods

Ayn Rand never ceased to emphasize the crucial importance of defining the terms we use. As she put it:

Definitions are the guardians of rationality, the first line of defense against the chaos of mental disintegration.

Curiously enough, however, when her followers repeat this argument which states that “force is not a commodity,” they never venture to define what they mean by a commodity. Yet only by a precise definition can we determine the truth or falsehood of the proposition at hand.

First and foremost let us assume that by “commodity” Mr. Pellegrino meant an “economic good” as opposed to a homogeneous supply of raw materials and semi-processed products. What then defines an economic good? The answer was put forward by the great founder of the Austrian school of economics, Carl Menger in his Principles of Economics:

If a thing is to become a good, or in other words, if it is to acquire goods‐​character, all four of the following prerequisites must be simultaneously present:

1. A human need.

2. Such properties as render the thing capable of being brought into causal connection with the satisfaction of this need.

3. Human knowledge of this causal connection.

4. Command of the thing sufficient to direct it to the satisfaction of the need.

Menger furthermore divides the category of goods into two classes:

All goods can, I think, be divided into the two classes of material goods (including all forces of nature insofar as they are goods) and of useful human actions (and inactions), the most important of which are labor services.

He emphasizes that we are not merely talking about labor services in the more strict, legal sense of the word, but any human action which meets the aforementioned four prerequisites:

there is a whole series of actions, and even of mere inactions, which cannot be called labor services but which are nevertheless decidedly useful to certain persons, for who they may even have considerable economic value.

We may then apply this straightforward definition to the concept of “force.” Instead of dealing with such an abstract term, let us take a simple and isolated practical example.

Imagine Robinson Crusoe, alone on his island. One day he finds that a group of cannibals landed ashore and began to make preparations to sacrifice and consume a captive. Let us assume for the sake of the analysis that the victim notices Crusoe lurking in the undergrowth and calls for his help by yelling and violently shaking his cage. Crusoe decides to intervene, ambushes the cannibals, kills one, and chases the others away. As they flee in terror, the captive bows in gratitude before his savior. Let us see if we can call this act of heroism an economic good from the perspective of the freed captive, Friday.

1. Was there a human need on the part of Friday for such an act of force? Judging by the expression of his gratitude, we may safely say yes.

2. Was the intervention of Crusoe a useful action in relation to the satisfaction of this need? Indeed it was.

3. Can we ascertain that Friday was in possession of the knowledge of the causal relationship between such an act of force and his need to be saved? We shouldn’t hesitate to say yes.

4. Did the situation allow for the performance of the action in question in a way that it would satisfy the need? No question about it.

We can see that the use of force in our example meets all the prerequisites to be categorized as an economic good, namely a useful human action.

The holistic concept of force and the marginal units of defense

It is quite obvious then that the use of force at least in certain cases is an economic good. It is so obvious indeed that we may begin to doubt that Mr. Pellegrino would ever deny it. Perhaps what he meant by “commodity” was that the person who values the use of force as an economic good cannot pay for it, or in other words, it cannot be bought and sold on the market. But it simply will not do. There is nothing that would forbid Friday to repay his savior by staying by his side as his aide. We can’t help but draw the obvious logical conclusion that the use of force is a marketable economic good.

The problem that lies at the heart of this argument - whether it is put forward by Mr. Pellegrino or by any other follower of Rand - is that they invariably use holistic concepts and categories. They talk about “force” and the “market” which leads them to intellectual confusion from which they cannot find their way out. As Murray N. Rothbard noted in his Power and Market, answering to a slightly different objection against a stateless society:

A similar doctrine holds that defense must be supplied by the State because of the unique status of defense as a necessary precondition of market activity, as a function without which a market economy could not exist. Yet this argument is a non sequitur that proves far too much. It was the fallacy of the classical economists to consider goods and services in terms of large classes; instead, modern economics demonstrates that services must be considered in terms of marginal units. For all actions on the market are marginal.

If we begin to treat whole classes instead of marginal units, we can discover a great myriad of necessary, indispensable goods and services all of which might be considered as "preconditions" of market activity. Is not land room vital, or food for each participant, or clothing, or shelter? Can a market long exist without them? And what of paper, which has become a basic requisite of market activity in the complex modern economy? Must all these goods and services therefore be supplied by the State and the State only?

It is common to explain the fallacy of classical economics through the so-called diamond-value paradox. Adam Smith pondered the following question: how can it be that water - this exceedingly important and useful thing, without which no life can exist - is sold much cheaper on the market than diamonds - which is a good of highly limited usage?

The crucial fallacy underlying the question is that it treats water and diamond as whole categories instead of looking at marginal units. But no economic actor ever confronts the whole category of "water" as such or "diamond" as such; everyone confronts certain units of water or diamond.

The fallacy of Randians is that they do not think on the margins; rather, they consider abstract categories such as "force." Nobody sells "force"; one hires a man to guard a private park. Someone had his shop looted in the middle of the night and he is willing to pay good money for guards who make sure this won't happen again; at the same time a pair of brothers, capable, tall, and well built, are looking for a job in the neighborhood. The head of a family is afraid of burglary so he gathers the residents of his street to hold a meeting and organize the defense of their street by setting guards at the two ends. The owner of a shopping mall would like to protect the cars parking in the garage against violent attacks so he installs surveillance cameras. The supply of and the demand for defense manifests itself in such marginal units by actual people. The grandiose categories of "market" and "force" only lead us back into the fallacies from which economic science successfully rid itself at the end of the 19th century. If you start thinking on the margins in this issue, you realize that units of defense services are being bought and sold all the time right now.

Perhaps it would be best to rid ourselves of thinking about "the market" altogether, and instead start thinking of individuals entering into voluntary contracts. This way it becomes immediately obvious that two actors can enter into a contractual agreement with regards to paying for the use of force; one can offer his service of using physical violence against those who attempt to invade the private property of the other for a fee, and the other can accept or reject such a proposal.

It is a praxeological absurdity to claim that force isn't an economic good or a commodity. To claim that “asserting your will over another is not a market commodity” is bizarre and absurd; it becomes a market commodity the moment a man hires someone to assert his will over a third person.¹

Objectivists deny the “commodity nature of force” because they know that admitting it means having to apply the same economic laws on the use of force as on any other commodity. But this is an intellectually dishonest way of reasoning.

Force is monopoly?

We have made a case at the very least worth considering with regards to one of the arguments presented above, but more objections against anarchy remain. Mr. Pellegrino asserts that

Force IS monopoly. Always. Even if only two people are attempting to impose his will [over] the other (force). One prevails. [In other words] a monopoly.

Once again we find ourselves with an unfortunate lack of definitions. To determine whether force is monopoly - and whether the anarchists are mistaken therefore to believe that a monopoly on force can ever be abolished - one must define monopoly.

Two definitions present themselves: a monopolist either an exclusive seller of any given good or - with the words of Ludwig von Mises - “a monopoly is a grant of special privilege by the State, reserving a certain area of production to one particular individual or group.” None of them apply to the concept of force as such.²

Let us trace the logical mistake in Mr. Pellegrino’s chain of reasoning. We first have to remember that the purchase of defensive services involves three parties: the buyer, the seller, and the subject of violence. Mr. Pellegrino strangely implies that the transaction is between the seller and the subject of violence, while in fact, the transaction is between the buyer and the seller.

Let us take an example. Let us say that I went on a vacation for a month and my house was occupied by squatters while I was away. I am but a meek intellectual and I need the help of strong brutes to physically remove the pests from my property, so I begin searching. I stumble upon the services of Hippie Removal Company, the Bum Control Company, and the Superior Home Cleaning Company. I hire the Bum Control Company and they successfully remove the invaders from my home. Doing so, they use force against the squatters, and indeed, the enforcers impose their will over the bums until one prevails. But it is an egregious transgression against reason to imply that the economic transaction happens between the bums and the bum removers and that the Bum Control Company somehow enjoys a monopoly over squatter removal services because they forcefully remove the squatters from my home after I choose them to do so from a list of competing providers. Indeed, such flawed reasoning exposes the poverty of statist arguments. It is glaringly obvious that the use of force is not the same as the purchase of the use of force. In a genuinely bruh moment Mr. Pellegrino simply failed to understand what the concept of “monopoly on force” entails. It does not refer to the concept of violence itself. It means that those who desire and demand enforcement and defensive services are forbidden to choose from competing providers and are forced to use the services of one single monopoly - the state police.

This truly bizarre mistake only serves to emphasize that Ayn Rand was indeed right. Definitions are truly the first line of defense against the chaos of mental disintegration. Unfortunately, Mr. Pellegrino might have failed to defend himself from such a fate. Such sloppy reasoning in which definitions are omitted and the term “monopoly” - an economic concept relating to the production of goods - is equivocated and applied in a realm outside of the realm of economics - the actual act of using force against someone - is a tragic sight indeed.

Capitalism or socialism

At the end of the day, the true question that needs to be addressed is simply the following: does it serve the interest of the consumer if he can voluntarily decide who to purchase a service from, or does it serve him better if he is taxed and is forced to fund a centrally chosen monopolistic producer? Which will yield him a better and cheaper selection of goods and services: a compulsorily funded State monopoly or voluntarily funded competing firms? Capitalism or socialism?

The answer is obvious: voluntary customer choice forces the producers to supply the best and cheapest products. This is true when it comes to the production of shoes just as much as the production of defense. “Either this is logical and true, or else the principles on which economic science is based are invalid.”

1. Note that this may even include those interactions that we would deem aggressive and criminal from a libertarian perspective; economic analysis is value-free, the concepts and laws of economics apply to those transactions that might be called immoral from a normative perspective just as much as to sales of bread or shoes. Behind this attempt to exclude the use of force from economic analysis and the category of commodities lies an attempt to go beyond wertfrei economics. But economics must be separated from morality. Even a human being may be a commodity if he is traded as a slave; the fact that he shouldn’t be a slave should have no bearing on the economic analysis of slave trade, and such a normative claim can in no way prescribe to economics what may or may not be categorized as an economic good or a commodity.

2. Indeed there has never been and there will never be a “monopoly on force.” A government does not and cannot wield a “monopoly on force” for the obvious reason that it is simply physically incapable of preventing private individuals from using force. The definition of the State as a “monopoly on force” may be useful rhetorically but philosophically it is highly imprecise.