My Basic Guidelines

In order to be certain about anything in life one must have basic guidelines to refer to at anytime.

My objective is to improve my condition. Every other human being has this objective. I am not making any value judgments as to what I consider an improvement of one's condition. Everyone decides this for himself. It would be preposterous to arrogate oneself to proclaim to know what improves another man's condition.

One man might find ultimate bliss by living a life in asceticism, another one by making others happy, another one by seizing every minute of his mundane life and by indulging in the material pleasures that this world has to offer. I don't make value judgments about people's ends, I only want to analyze what means are most fit to attain the objective of ensuring that everyone can improve their condition to the fullest extent, viz attain their ends.

An improvement of condition ultimately requires a removal of a certain uneasiness. The reason why men act is in order to remove uneasiness. He who does not feel uncomfortable about anything would not act at all. He would not move, nor would there be any need to do so, he would live a life completely free from care.

He who goes out to play golf does so because he is bored. He who changes his position when lying in bed does so because he feels uncomfortable lying there in one position all the time. He who saves cash money might do so because he feels unsafe without a certain cash buffer.

My basic guidelines shall ensure the maximum satisfaction of individuals in society, viz continuous and maximized removal of uneasiness.

All human beings act in order to improve their condition which is ultimately achieved by removing uneasiness. In order to improve his condition, man needs to collaborate with other men. A man trying to live in a completely self sufficient manner would immediately die from starvation. Men need each other. Society evolves. Division of labor becomes man's primary means for attaining his ends. This is due to the inequality of men and the uneven distribution of resources all over the planet earth. Every man has different talents, thoughts, conditions to face, interests and desires. It is not my task to find out why that is the case. This is the anthropologists' and the theologists' domain. The same applies to the fact that men want to remove uneasiness and improve their condition. I don't claim to know what the ultimate reason for that is, nor is it my task to deal with that. I see as my only task to make value judgments as to which means are most fit to attain people's ends.

It is due to the inequality of men and the uneven distribution of resources than men need each other in order to improve their condition. Society evolves, not because society is the ultimate end, nor is it a being by itself. Society evolves and thrives precisely because every man wants to improve HIS own condition, it evolves because men are selfish.

The same applies to organizations. An organization is nothing but a certain number of men acting collaboratively in order to attain certain ends. However, these men only join an organization because they consider it the best means to attain their own selfish ends.

Peaceful exchange in society is based upon choices. One man exchanges something that he deems less valuable for something that he deems more valuable. The difference in perceived values is that person's profit. The same is true for the other party. Both individuals have to satisfy each other's demands in order to improve their condition. Both win. This scenario only works within a framework were people are free to make the respective choices and where people can maintain ownership of items that they acquired via peaceful exchange or by acquiring natural resources directly from their source. It is hence most desirable to ensure society can exist within the framework of free choice and private ownership.

For some reason, some economists have blithely asserted that items that are being exchanged in a barter economy have the same value. This is of course nonsense. He who deems one item's value equal to another item's value would not enter into a barter exchange. It would not make any sense. It would be a waste of his time. It is superfluous to delve into this in more detail. The Marxians have made the assertion that values are determined based upon the amount of work put into a product or a service. They have fallen prey to the illusion that value judgments are absolute. He who claims to be the absolute conveyor of true values may go ahead and do so. He may claim to have been enlightened by a divine power or by superhuman reasoning. His assertions and conclusions are useless for economics. Economics deals with human action. Human action is dependent upon individual value judgments.

The only way how one man can gain from another man's loss is by compulsion and coercion, or simply force. Examples would be theft, slavery, or murder.

Compulsion and coercion are acts against a man's individual value judgment. He would not accept the condition that he is forced into, if he was given the choice. He does not consider this an improvement of his condition. Hence, an act of compulsion and coercion, works against an improvement of one's condition and interrupts the continuous and maximized removal of uneasiness.

It is true that there are men who try and pursue coercive activities that are detrimental to the existence and the thriving of a peaceful society. In that sense, these men can be called unfit for society.

It shall hence be most desired for people who are fit for society to keep these men from pursuing such activities. (It is true that they will have to use compulsion and coercion in order to keep them from using the same against non-aggressors.)

My guidelines:

1. No Force: No individual (by individual I mean human being) shall at anytime be forced to do anything (unless it is in order to keep him/her from unrightfully forcing someone else to do something).

2 and 3 are in parentheses because they are merely rules that can be derived from #1, I am making them a basic guideline though because they manifest important economic rules:

(2. No Fraud: No individual shall at anytime present false circumstances in order to make another individual do something that he/she would not do if he was fully aware of the true circumstances (unless it is in order to keep him/her from unrightfully forcing someone else to do something.) This rule can actually be derived from rule # 1 because fraud is nothing else than theft and theft can only be conducted by applying force.

(3. Ownership: Based on rule #1 we can conclude that every individual shall be given ownership of and full decision authority over items that they find and that have not been claimed by other individuals yet. Ownership can only be transferred to someone else if the rightful owner of that item agrees to it. Applying force in order to change ownership would violate rule #1.)

Based on these simple guidelines, I want to derive the best possible way for a society to be structured. What type of society prevents violation of and promotes compliance with the ethics of liberty and at the same time achieves the objective of wide spread wealth and piece for everyone?

As Rothbard puts it:

"The fundamental axiom of libertarian theory is that no one may threaten or commit violence ("aggress") against another man's person or property. Violence may be employed only against the man who commits such violence; that is, only defensively against the aggressive violence of another. In short, no violence may be employed against a non-aggressor. Here is the fundamental rule from which can be deduced the entire corpus of libertarian theory."
(Rothbard, War, Peace, and the State)