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A Society of Criminals Ben O'Neill

Recently, a friend of mine complained about a spate of burglaries that had occurred near her newly boughthome. A house down the street from hers had been burgled in the weeks before, and her next-door neighborhad been burgled not long afterward. In the latter case, the thieves had made off with a large-screen plasma

television set and a laptop computer, apparently having walked out of the house with them in broad daylight.

My friend was evidently disgusted by this thievery as well she should be and seemed to have difficultycomprehending how the people responsible could bring themselves to break into a home and take what didnot belong to them. "How dare they!" she said. "What makes them think they have the right to do this?"

That is a fair question. What does make them think they have a right to do this? Well, perhaps theyknowtheyhave no right to do this, but they do it anyway because their desire for the unearned has more weight to themthan their respect for the property rights of others. Perhaps they rationalized their crime on the basis of somepurported need, brought about no doubt by having been "marginalized" by society.

On the attitude of these particular thieves we can only speculate. But more generally, we may ask, why is itthat a criminal feels comfortable taking property that he has not earned?

After hearing my friend's story, I reassured her that the burglars who had plundered her neighbors (there hadto have been more than one of them to carry the large TV set) had no right to take this property that did notbelong to them, and that she was right to be angry. However, being always on the lookout to spreadlibertarian good cheer, I also made it a point to inform her that the burglars' conduct was not fundamentallyany different from the conduct of most people in our society, who routinely advocate or acquiesce to thetaking of property that is not theirs.

But surely not! Surely only a scoundrel of the lowest order could believe that they are entitled to steal the

property of others! No "law-abiding" member of the public would accept such a thing! Would they?

Well, let's see: Suppose a person makes the judicious insight that some people don't have as much moneyas other people, and it would be nice if they had more money than they do. To remedy this problem theypropose that a group of kind-hearted benefactors create an agency whose job is to forcibly take otherpeople's money without their permission (i.e., steal it), and give some of it to those they deem to be "inneed." The group would use the rest of the funds to stir up the recipients' sense of entitlement to this stolenmoney, fund propaganda that tells the world what a great job their agency is doing, and gradually build anice, profitable little business empire for the staff in charge, who make out like bandits earning far beyondwhat they could in other jobs, all the while being lauded for their "public service."

Are people outraged? Do they call the police to report this criminal racket? Do they flood the offices of theirelected representatives with calls and letters, demanding that this abominable agency be shut down? No,they don't. In fact, quite the opposite occurs: people fall over one another to voice their support for thissystem, being careful to drown any critiques of its excesses in reassurances that they really do "care" for "thepoor" and that they are not "free-market extremists."

The litany of examples of widespread criminality and the widespread support for or at least acquiescenceto its programs is far too long to do justice to it here. But in this environment, it is hardly surprising thatburglars feel few qualms about taking property that does not belong to them. The reason for their sentimentis probably very similar to the reason that the vast majority of people in our society feel entitled to theproperty of others: we live in a society of criminals.

But how could this be right? Don't most people comply with the law? Don't they fill in their tax returns and

their driver's license applications like good little "law-abiding" citizens? Don't they comply with laborregulations, environmental regulations, tax rules, and all the other things that their elected representativestell them to do?

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Well, yes to the extent that it is possible to comply with this enormous and often vague or contradictorylitany of rules, most people generally do. But this is not compliance with law; it is compliance with legislation.It is merely compliance with the edicts of the powers that be.In fact, the only rules of conduct that can properly be called "laws" are the rules of natural law thoseobjective rules of conduct that are necessitated as morally proper by the nature of man.[1]These rulesconsist essentially of the nonaggression principle and the rules of homesteading and trade of property thatunderlie the libertarian theory of justice. In his discussion of natural law, the great legal theorist Lysander

Spooner set out the conditions of this law:These conditions are simply these: viz., first, that each man shall do, towards every other, allthat justice requires him to do; as, for example, that he shall pay his debts, that he shall returnborrowed or stolen property to its owner, and that he shall make reparation for any injury he mayhave done to the person or property of another. The second condition is, that each man shallabstain from doing to another, anything which justice forbids him to do; as, for example, that heshall abstain from committing theft, robbery, arson, murder, or any other crime against theperson or property of another.[2]

How then, do people do when assessed in their conduct against this law against the law? They do not dowell. In fact, when assessed in this manner, the vast majority of people are supportive of criminal acts.

People are often surprised by the mentality of "common criminals" (i.e., criminals of the recognized-as-criminals variety) because they think that these criminals' sense of entitlement for the unearned and

disregard for the rights of others is a relatively scarce defect. But it is not. In fact, the vast majority ofmembers of the public feel perfectly entitled to the property of others. They demand that the property ofothers be taken away through the tax system and other "public policies," or forcibly interfered with through"regulation" as a matter of routine.

Even if they are not net beneficiaries in this system, even if they fork out much more in taxes than they everget back from the racket, they are nonetheless likely to support many "public policies" that amount, inpractice, to burglary or to other trespasses against person and property.

And how do they see those people who disagree with this entitlement mentality, who disagree with this lustfor coercion and this mass criminality? Well those people are just downright uncharitable! They have no

social conscience! They are dangerous ideologues and impractical extremists!

Heaven forbid that they should ever exert more than a marginal influence on "public policy." Sure, suchextremists may have a point here or there about certain excesses of the welfare state. They might get us toreign in some of the problems when the politicians and bureaucrats get really out of hand, but most of thetime they just go too far! No taxes? No regulations? Inviolable property rights? Why, that is madness!

But in fact, it is not madness at all. For the only difference between the recognized-as-a-criminal burglar andthe not-recognized-as-a-criminal member of the public is that the burglar does his own dirty work. He doesnot obtain his television sets, stereos and jewelry through that form of theft called "public policy." Instead ofrecruiting his local politicians and bureaucrats to steal your property for his own use, he saves them the

trouble and goes and gets it himself.

In doing so, he is not able to fall back on rationalizations for his crimes on the grounds of democraticprocess, political mandates, and other statist notions. He may of course have his own rationalizations, butthey are far more half-hearted than the zealous lust for the unearned that is exhibited in the political realm bylobbyists, politicians, and statist media commentators. In any case, it is hardly surprising that he feels entitledto take property that does not belong to him. This is the leastof his differences with ordinary, "law-abiding"members of society.

The most common rationalization for those crimes committed under "public policies" is the notion that thesepolicies are the "will of the people" expressed through their elected representatives. But even if someaggregated expression of will could indeed be established by this process and this is extremely dubious there can be no such thing as the capacity of a group of people to change the content of law or vote awaythe rights of people. Here we can again turn to Spooner, who notes that

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if justice be a natural principle, then it is necessarily an immutable one; and can no more bechanged by any power inferior to that which established it than can the law of gravitation,the laws of light, the principles of mathematics, or any other natural law or principle whatever;and all attempts or assumptions, on the part of any man or body of men whether callingthemselves governments, or by any other name to set up their own commands, wills,pleasure, or discretion, in the place of justice, as a rule of conduct for any human being, are asmuch an absurdity, an usurpation, and a tyranny, as would be their attempts to set up their own

commands, wills, pleasure, or discretion, in the place of any and all the physical, mental, andmoral laws of the universe.[3]

What then do I mean when I say that we live in a society of criminals? I mean simply that the vast majority ofpeople in our society are supportive of criminal acts committed against others. These so-called law-abidingcitizens support robbery, assault, trespass, and sometimes even murder when these crimes are disguised inthe respectable cloak of "public policy." The scorn with which they view common criminals is truly laughablewhen one examines the mass criminality that they dosupport.

Of course, this is not to say that all members of the public are the moral equivalents of burglars and othercriminals. Their moral culpability may be diminished to some degree because they are bamboozled by statistpropaganda, which encourages them to see themselves as entitled to "a say" in how others use theirproperty.

There may indeed be some members of the public who have not realized the connection between coercionand "public policy" and who are completely unaware that there are any parallels between these policies andthe actions of "common criminals." If this is an honest error, then it is an error of knowledge, not morality.However, it can scarcely be said that this error of knowledge is widespread in most cases, members of thepublic are well aware of the coercive nature of the policies they support. Moreover, it is no caveat to theirwrongdoing that they did not go out and take the loot themselves as would a common criminal that it wasmerely "given" to them by their benevolent political masters. For it is this very bulk of members of the publicwho support the "redistribution" that is occurring.[4]

The attitude of the public toward the "common criminal" begs an obvious question. What possible reason doyou have to complain of the actions of these criminals when you support or even advocate criminal actionson so much larger a scale?

There is a lesson in all of this for libertarians. If we are to successfully present our views to a large audience,we must learn from the fact that ordinary people routinely support robbery and other crimes committed by thestate, but stand aghast when they observe the same crimes being committed by "common criminals" (whoare actually the more uncommon kind). Advocates for a society of law must endeavor to draw attention to thecontradiction inherent in this attitude.

We must draw attention to the parallels between the "public policies" of the state and the acts of "commoncriminals." We must learn to present statist policies to the public for what they are criminality writ large.And we must learn to convince people that their support for these policies is support for crime.

In doing this, it is not enough to talk about free-market this and deregulation that. To do so is to fight thebattle on the statists' turf, by presenting the issue as a clash of competing "public policies." But the actualbattle, the realissue at the root of the political debates, is not about choosing between this policy or that itis about choosing between committing crimes and not committing crimes.

In fact, what is called "the free market" is just the absence of socially sanctioned theft, assault, robbery, etc.,in the context of the relevant market. What is called "deregulation" is actually just the removal of policiesallowing socially sanctioned trespasses against person and property. What is called "decentralization ofpower" is actually just the breaking down of one big criminal agency into lots of smaller competing criminalagencies, with the goal of ultimately making them small enough and competitive enough (with each other) forus to escape from their clutches altogether.

At root, the libertarian position is very simple and must be communicated in this way. It holds that people

should not be allowed to commit crimes against one another. All of the talk about free markets versus marketintervention, capitalism versus socialism, regulation versus deregulation, and so on, is just a disguised way

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of presenting the basic dichotomy between a society of criminalsand a society of law. This is the essence ofthe battle.

A battle between the free market and its antipodes, when presented in the garb of political philosophy, is anesoteric battle. It is a battle that can be perverted and misrepresented. A straightforward battle betweencriminality and law is easier to understand and far more powerful. Libertarians should not shy away frompresenting "policy issues" in terms of their actual meaning in terms of criminality versus law.

Many have been cowed into avoiding this approach by the idea that this "strong language" will put people off,or make libertarians seem unreasonable. But it is precisely this confrontation with the basic fact thatlibertarianism supports a society of law that is the most powerful weapon for its advocates. There isnothing wrong with telling people that taxation is robbery, that regulation is trespass, that drug laws areassault and robbery, that politicians are criminals, and that the state is a monstrous criminal agency.

Ben O'Neill is a lecturer in statistics at the University of New South Wales (ADFA) in Canberra, Australia. Hehas formerly practiced as a lawyer and as a political adviser in Canberra. He is a Templeton Fellow at theIndependent Institute, where he won first prize in the 2009 Sir John Templeton Fellowship essay contest.Send him mail. See Ben O'Neill'sarticle archives.Comment on the blog.

You can subscribe to future articles by Ben O'Neill via thisRSS feed.Notes

[1] A good definition of natural law is put forward by Edwin Patterson, who defines it asPrinciples of human conduct that are discoverable by "reason" from the basic inclinations of human nature,and that are absolute, immutable and of universal validity for all times and places. This is the basicconception of scholastic natural law and most natural law philosophers. (Patterson, E.W.(1953) Jurisprudence: Men and Ideas of the Law. Foundation Press: Brooklyn, p. 333.)The present author does not see the need to put quotation marks around the word "reason" in this definition,but nevertheless, if reason is itself understood as an objective concept then this definition captures theessence of natural law. The idea ofnatural lawis opposed to the doctrine of legal positivism. The latterdoctrine holds that laws are made by human beings and that the validity of laws has no necessaryconnection to ethics. Interested readers can find extensive discussion of natural law and the deontologicalbasis for libertarian theory in Rothbard, M.N. (1998) The Ethics of Liberty. New York University Press: New

York.[2] Spooner, L. (1992) The Lysander Spooner Reader. Fox and Wilkes: San Franc isco, p. 11.[3]Ibid., Spooner (1992) p. 16.[4] In case there is any hint of a suggestion to the contrary, it is worth pointing out that choosingto take money and other property from the government, through whatever criminal redistribution schemes itoffers, is not morally wrong, so long as one opposes the coercion that is occurring (and which would occureven if someone else was the beneficiary). Indeed, it is positively beneficialto take all the money that onecan from the government, since this is the very criminal agency whose power one should be attempting todiminish.

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