Should we obey the laws of our country? A few years ago, my reply to this question was easy-going: If it pleases you to obey the laws of your country, if you believe that submitting to them makes you a better person, then please do it.

Let me simply say that as far as I am concerned, obeying laws brings me no satisfaction at all. On the contrary. I find the legislation of my country and of the countries where I have resided to be arbitrary, stupid, contradictory, humiliating to those they apply to, and singularly biased in favour of those who make them.

But still, I thought at the time, if it suits some people to be servile, then so be it; all I ask of them is to leave me in peace. Today, my point of view has changed. Tolerance towards those who subject themselves to government legislation no longer seems to me a morally defensible position. And it is the evolution in my thinking on this topic that I would like to share with you.

In our daily lives, we are asked to bend ourselves to a variety of rules; I propose to classify these rules into four categories:

1. Morality, as brought to us by ancient philosophies, religions, and traditions
2. Contracts, which create obligations between the parties involved, and those particular types of contracts that are the internal rules of different associations,[1] in the membership of which we spend the greater part of our lives, whether it be in a company, a sports club, a trade union, or an ethnic community
3. There are also rights, and especially property rights in one’s body and in what one acquires through the work of this body and creativity of the mind, through trade and exchange. These rights are the foundation upon which all morality and legitimate contracts stand.
4. And finally, the legislation of different countries.

Each of these categories of rules fulfils a different function.

1. Morality

Morality is like our own personal legislation. We make choices according to our values and we even create a hierarchy of these values. The desire for money or power determines the activities of some people, while others find their vocation in raising a family, in deepening their cultural roots, or in a spiritual quest… We cannot make do without morality, even when it is heavy with obligations, for we are conscious that our existence, like all systems, must be organised according to rules. Without them, we would live a scattered, disorganised existence, in the same way that too much rigidity in applying these rules would cause us to miss the opportunities that life, in all its imagination, presents to us.

A long tradition of wisdom is passed on to us to enlighten the choices we make throughout our lives. The family is the first vehicle of this tradition, but religion and philosophy too play a role. Dialogues between cultures have enriched our understanding of morality (Judeo-Christianity with Greek philosophy, Buddhism with Far-Eastern cultures …), and this cross-fertilisation is accelerating. Before the 19^th Century, only a handful of Europeans had the opportunity to study under an Indian guru or Sufi master; few people today remain untouched by the teachings of other traditions.

Morality teaches us what the “good life” can be. The Greeks called it eudemonia, and for Socrates and his followers, this meant an “examined life”, wholly integrated in the City. Christians for their part speak to us of a different kind of “good life”, one that involves a pilgrimage in this world made in the glow of a love for Christ. And even this pious life is not the one the Buddhists aspire to, free from earthly chains and passions, and not the one proposed by the Humanists, the Objectivists… (and none is the daily grind of stressed workers/consumers led by the majority of our contemporaries).

The Truth Grants No Rights

All great moralities present themselves as the True Way. If they didn’t, what would be its attraction? Nevertheless, our modern intelligentsia maintains that we must never hold any of our moral convictions to be true, for this would amount to intolerance. Relativism is indeed the logical consequence of the political paradigm of our age. When everything is political, that is to say when certain individuals, in the name of an institution called the state, enjoy the legal monopoly to bind all basic social relations, when we need their authorisation to complete a contract, to employ someone, to rent a property, or even to marry, then controlling the state’s machinery becomes vitally important. Ownership of the Truth is used to justify this conquest of power. It seems that our contemporaries so fear the resurgence of the atrocities perpetrated in the name of the Truth throughout History that they end up committing an error in logic; for the danger is not, as they suppose, that some will declare themselves owners of the Truth, but that the political organisation will endow them with a monopoly on the Truth and will forbid others from living in error. Possessing the Truth only obliges me to reveal it to others, nothing more; if others prefer to persist in their error and are prepared to endure the consequences, who else is harmed besides themselves? And thus what could possibly justify coercing them into acting against their belief?

It cannot be otherwise. We cannot say that our life is our own if the rules that give it meaning are imposed on us from the outside. The search for eudemonia requires our full personal commitment. Those who do not act on their own will, but rather under the control of others — in other words, without responsibility for their own actions — are neither blamed nor rewarded. For it is not acting that makes us a moral subject, but the freedom to act. This is why we would not prosecute a hostage who transported terrorists in his car under threat of a gun; there is no doubt that he helped these criminals, but it was not his intention. Likewise, the teetotaler in Mecca should be less virtuous in the eye of Allah than his fellow Muslims in the land of the infidels where temptation is constant. The citizen who pays his taxes is neither generous nor caring; he is robbed. The politics of a “moral order” therefore lead paradoxically to the disappearance of virtue, as there can be no virtue without the freedom to choose vice.

Moral laws purport to be universal, but they apply only to those who accept them. For moral laws are a gift; they are offered to us, refined by a long tradition to guide us in our lives and, as with all gifts, we are free to accept them or refuse them.

2. Contracts and Internal Rules

People who profess the same moral convictions often form an association. An association enables its members to lead a disciplined life amongst people who pursue the same projects and who can help one another. Since there are few projects that we can manage on our own, there exists a wide variety of associations to cover many interests, from families, communities and cultural circles to business ventures and leisure clubs, trade unions, humanitarian or partisan organisations, etc. A few more or less structured associations have millions of members from around the world, such as those formed by the main religions, large multinational corporations, the Socialist International…, (and there would certainly be a good many others if the forced division of human societies into states, and even into nation states, had not hindered their development).

Each of these associations decrees its own rules and regulations and, contrary to moral rules, these association rules may be enforced.

Enforceable rules are legitimate within an association, since they have been duly accepted by all its members. Adhering to an association, after all, is nothing more than approving its regulations. Typically the applicant will sign the statutes, or an application form that refers to them, or a letter of acceptance. An association is a “web of contracts” between members themselves, and between the association and the outside world. These contracts, freely and voluntarily entered into, are as real and binding as the mythical “social contract” is chimerical.[2]

An association’s internal rules are only valid if application for membership is made freely and voluntarily. Of course, one could debate forever what “free and voluntary” consent actually means. If a bridegroom says “I Do”, is he acquiescing to his marital obligations, or is he under the spell of the woman he loves? Let us assume that the signature of a person who is neither a child nor mentally deficient constitutes sufficient evidence of consent, or else nothing does.

Sanctions taken by an association against members who do not fulfil their obligations are therefore legitimate. Given that a bridge club does not make the same demands on its members as a militia, applicants will ensure beforehand that any eventual judgment against members will be given after due hearing of all parties and that its sanctions will be reasonable and commensurate with the fault committed. Journalists, lawyers and other societal observers will make it their duty to warn the public against the unreasonable and dangerous practices of some associations.

Members of an association accept its regulatory constraints because it is the vehicle they need to achieve their personal project. Actors want to put on plays, fire-fighters want to put out fires; it is for this reason alone that they subject themselves to the obligation of learning lines and keeping water pumps in working order.[3]

Since all associations are made up of members who join them voluntarily for the sole purpose of implementing their projects, regulatory constraints may be lifted in many cases; such as when the aim of the association is achieved or becomes unattainable, or when a member declares that she no longer wishes to be subjected to those rules. Of course, seceding from an association can sometimes be costly, both in financial and emotional terms, in proportion to the significance of the commitment made in joining. A decision to marry, to embrace a religion, to sign an employment contract, would not be serious commitments if breaking them was not a wrenching experience. Each human being has the ability both to submit to a set of regulations when an association can lead to the success of a personal project and to resign when the project no longer exists; and then the only rules that still apply to that person are those of her morality and the Law. This ability to commit oneself by contract is known simply as “freedom”.

3. Rights

Rights are the basis of all human relations. In an association, relations are limited to the co-operation needed to accomplish a common project. But our lives are not restricted to professional or associative activities alone. For instance, friendship and general socialising are also important to most of us.[4]

In addition, there are many individuals (some six billion, in fact) with whom we will never establish an association (and might never even wish to); we will only come into contact with them by chance. They are the passers-by, the strangers, often people with traditions very alien to our own. We have no intention of pursuing a project with these people and of being bound to them by contracts or regulations. For this reason, when we do come across them, we need to rely on a rule that is already in place, a rule valid for all human beings, and one which at least ensures our safety during these uncertain encounters.

This meta-rule is what we call rights. The intrinsic characteristics of this meta-rule is now becoming clear to us:

• Rights must be universal, applicable to all human beings
• In order that they are universally accepted, all judgments made according to rights must refer to objective criteria, which are known in advance and are verifiable, and which make rights independent of culture and history, and of the degree of economic development of the people.

Is it possible to find such a meta-rule?

“Human Rights”

Certainly the characteristics we have just defined should not in any way be confused with the fanciful “human rights”, such as those proclaimed by the French Constituent Assembly in 1789 and (even more preposterous) by the United Nations on 10 December, 1948. However, the authors of these documents (or at least of the French one) did indeed identify two essential elements. First, they understood that there exists such a meta-rule prevailing over all internal regulations and contracts, including those of the particular organisations that we call states. Each of us must be able to uphold our rights when they are violated by our country’s own government. Second, the French Constituent jurists correctly perceived that they were not themselves the authors of this meta-rule, they only “declared it”. Rights are not the work of some creative legislator or some democratic assembly; they have existed since the beginning of humanity (just as the laws of physics or genetics existed before they were recognised by scientists and ever more refined in relation to the advancement of the scientists’ knowledge of the subject).

The 1789 Declaration is a tentative step towards the discovery of rights, but it still betrays confusion between morality, internal rules and regulations, and rights. The freedom that the French Constituent Assembly refers to is not that of individuals, it is the “freedom of the people”, under the vigilant leadership of their guardians. We only have to read a few articles of this seminal text to understand that it does not by any means fulfil the criteria of universality and objectivity that we have posited above:

• Article 10: “No one shall be disquieted on account of his opinions, including his religious views [so far so good, but] provided their manifestation does not disturb the public order established by legislation.”
• Article 11:“… Every citizen may, accordingly, speak, write, and print with freedom [so far so good, but] but shall be responsible for such abuses of this freedom as shall be defined by legislation”
• Article 17: "Since property is an inviolable and sacred right, nobody may be deprived of it [so far so good, but] except when public necessity, legally established, clearly requires it…"

And so on… It appears, therefore, that these “rights” so solemnly proclaimed may be curtailed and even invalidated, as deemed appropriate by the legislator. In clearer terms, each article of this majestic and universal Declaration recycles Montesquieu’s pernicious definition that even Stalin himself would not have rejected: “Freedom consists in doing everything that the legislation permits”[5], and if the legislation does not permit it, tough luck !

The “rights” set out in the United Nations Declaration of 1948 read even more like a letter to Father Christmas written by someone with the mental age to send one. How can we take this seriously when an assembly of diplomats, half of whom come from countries where people are dying of famine and where ethnic minorities are rigorously persecuted, proclaim the “right to a nationality”, the “right to social security”, and other “social rights” such as the hilarious “right to holidays with pay”?

The Non-Aggression Principle

All we may reasonably expect from possessing rights is the guarantee that we, as human beings, individually or in an association, may pursue our projects. Now, in order for us to be able to pursue our projects, it is at least necessary that no one else prevents us from doing so. In other words, the freedom of all people to conduct their projects and their lives according to their own moral values is guaranteed if nobody physically attacks somebody else or invades her property.

Non-aggression by others is a necessary condition for obtaining the “good life” and for the realisation of our projects; but it is not a sufficient condition. For example, if our hierarchy of values is flawed in the first place, we can easily be deceived. Many people have dedicated their lives to the quest for power and pleasure, and discover too late that both are deceptive. But can an adult claim that her life is her own if others are dictating her actions, even if all these others want is to protect her from herself? Doesn’t living mean taking the risk to live? It is obvious that the pursuit of our projects would be made easier (without being guaranteed) by having access to certain material resources and assistance from others. But if we had the right to demand these resources from other people, then we would be intervening in their lives by preventing them from pursuing their projects, or in any case by getting in their way. The criterion of universality would be violated since some people would enjoy the benefits of others’ resources without their consent.[6]

On the other hand, the character of universality is clearly respected by a rule expressed in the negative form, such as: “No-one will initiate physical aggression against any other person or their property.” Any human being who is not mentally impaired is fully capable of not assaulting another person. Unlike the shopping list of pipe dreams called “human rights”, refraining from physical aggression against another individual is a simple rule, intelligible to people of all cultures, regardless of their standard of living.[7]

A rule formulated thus: “No-one shall initiate physical aggression against another person” recognises the right of the aggressed to legitimate self-defence. Many people are restrained by their moral law from using violence, even to defend themselves. But if we have a right, then we also have the ability to renounce that right. However, if we ourselves can renounce our right to a legitimate defence, can we accept that other people might be aggressed who have not renounced their right, or more importantly, who are not in a position to make this decision, such as children? This is why rights, however much we would like it to, cannot prohibit all violence, but only the initiation of physical violence. Rights allow the use of self-defence without making it an obligation.

The threat of using physical violence is already a violation of property rights. If the person making the threat has neither the intention nor the means to carry it out, we should respond with only a shrug of the shoulders. However, in general we have reason to believe that the people threatening us may be serious; their intervention, therefore, will cause us to change our projects against our will. The threat of physical aggression is as illegitimate as is its execution.

The Only Human Right

The commandment “No-one shall initiate physical aggression against any other person or their property” is the only human right. It is a guarantee that all human beings are entitled to, and it is the foundation upon which all human relationships may rest. Now if we restate this commandment in the positive mode, we have the formulation of a right: “Individuals may do whatever they want with their property, and only with their property.”

Following the liberal tradition, we have just declared the only human right. Based on the criteria of universality and objectivity, there is a single human right, and it is that: “You may do whatever you want with whatever you own, and only with what you own”. All other would-be rights, declared here and there, fail in their specific application of this fundamental right and, more often, they only serve to restrict or invalidate it.

We can dispense immediately with the objection that those who own nothing could do nothing. For each human being possesses at least one thing, the most precious one: the ability to modify that which exists in order to put it to the service of others (an activity we call “the economy”). Thus that which exists becomes more valuable. And all over the world, people who already own property are on the look-out for men and women whose expertise and hard work can add value to their property. This is why we do not act only with what we own, but with what has been entrusted to us, so much so that those who earn this trust enjoy more possibilities of action than many property holders.

Justice and Peace

Associations hold assets in their name, but in reality these assets are the common good of their members. The ultimate purpose of an association is the sound management of this common good. Humanity also possesses a common good; it is the Law. Sound management of this common good produces a certain type of order that we call either “Justice” or “Peace”.

Peace is the absence of physical violence, but it is not the blissful tranquility of the Garden of Eden. For not all projects can be achieved simultaneously, it is part of our human condition and at the root of endless dramas. Werther loves Charlotte, but does she not have the right to marry another, even if it causes Werther’s suicide? When Octave Mouret opens his department store The Ladies’ Paradise, he drives the smaller shopkeepers out of the market, but should customers not have the right to benefit from his novel ideas and products? Innovation and competition cause prices to fluctuate; this reflects the fact that we may own things but never the value of things (values express desires, we may own the thing, but how could we own the people’s desire for it?). The evolving order established by property rights is therefore one of a living humanity and not of a rigid structure; it is movements, tensions, an opening to the unexpected. Ownership is not the right to keep something, but to act with it. Property rights do not tell us how things must be, but how we can rightfully change them. The function of rights is limited to creating spaces in which each of us, safe from violence, can experiment with our convictions and our relationships.

Not everyone is peaceable. There will always be aggressors and swindlers who need to pay for their crimes. Even when no deliberate aggression has been committed, misunderstandings can still arise, and these must be arbitrated. This is why in all human societies an institution of Justice is required.

Justice consists in rendering “to each his own.” This was already the Romans’ definition.[8] Justice is therefore not a vague aspiration towards an unattainable ideal. A society is just when all property rights within it have been allocated solely by homesteading, by exchange or by gift. Since property rights are easy to understand, and since respect for these can be verified objectively (“has A trespassed on B’s property without B’s consent?”), it is not unreasonable to want to establish a just society here and now. As with every other human institution, this society will not be perfect. Justice is not infallible. It could happen that a judge is deceived by some kind of scheme. It is possible that parties would act in good faith in a complex litigation by claiming ownership of that which really does not belong to them. Nevertheless applying property rights is a science, it is based on the analysis of objective elements. We know therefore with absolute certainty the standard of a just world, where the structures of injustice will have been identified and abolished, and where each “will have their own”.

The Psalmist sang: “Justice and Peace embrace each other.” [9] They are sisters, indeed, since Peace is not the absence of conflicts but the absence of the source of conflicts, and there is no source of conflicts when all social relationships conform to property rights, in other words when Justice prevails everywhere.[10]

However, a society that conforms to Justice is not the gentle and warm society to which we aspire. Rights can be imposed on us, and nothing that is imposed on us will generate our happiness. The administration of Justice consists in enforcing rights in all their severity, whatever feelings we may experience. The poor can be wrong, the bastards of this world can be right, and the culprit can be my brother… This is why morality commands us to practice other virtues, such as compassion and generosity, which mitigate the inflexibility of Justice. It goes without saying that the voluntary and responsible practice of these moral virtues cannot be confused in any way with a policy of “social justice”, which is neither just (since it is arbitrary) nor moral (since it is racketeering).

Morality And The Law

On his island, Robinson Crusoe needs a morality. Every day he is forced to confront issues about values and their hierarchy, beginning with the most essential question: is it worth fighting for my own survival? But also: What meaning should I give to this life of solitude? Is this a divine test? May I masturbate? May I make animals suffer when I trap them? But Robinson does not need rights. Rights have no meaning for him.

To live implies acting upon Nature, transforming it, consuming it. Thus Robinson establishes ties between himself and diverse elements of Nature: the pieces of wood that he assembles to build a hut; the plot of land that he turns over… This wood, this land, are no longer what they were, they are no longer natural;they were taken out of their original state to be put to use for Robinson’s project. And projects have a different effect on Nature depending on the moral life of their creator; whether this person is a vegetarian, a spendthrift,lazy, or frugal… Robinson, like each one of us, imprints the mark of his moral conscience upon Nature.

Enter Friday. The instant these two meet, rights are there, among them. Once Friday steps onto the beach, rights delineate two spaces on the island: that of Robinson, marked with his projects, and another,still untouched, that Friday can use for himself. As Friday struggles to get settled, Robinson might invite him to his place, share with him what he has, but Friday has no right to any of Robinson’s resources. Hunger does not confer any right. If that were the case, Friday could demand a meal, throw it into the sea and, still hungry, exert his right to a new ration, and so on until Robinson’s last but one meal, which Friday could then consume before departing full and leaving just enough so that his host could not claim hunger in turn. It is not because this is an usual practice of Third World satraps that it is legitimate.

On the other hand, if Robinson promised his axe in exchange for three fish, then as soon as Friday shows up with his catch,he is entitled to the axe. Robinson and Friday have created rights, as we all do, as are born of every contract and every promise. Politicians have an obsession with what they call a “gap in the law.” Biotechnologies, the Internet, intellectual property of software…, these would all be lost in some legislative limbo from which a zealous government would have to extract them. But there is no such thing as a “gap in the law”, it does not exist because property rights are always present. Robinson’s little island, without democracy and without a flag, is already governed by property rights. What politicians really mean by this “gap in the law” is that there are still some human activities that they have not yet regulated, in other words there are still areas of freedom, and that is their obsession.

Rights conform to morality, but it is an imperfect and incomplete stage of morality. Property rights prohibit aggression, which is to say they prohibit the commission of Evil; they does not command us to do good, however, and even less how to do it. This is why a society structured by property rights, that is a society of free human beings, is so disturbing to those who have not developed a moral conscience.

Morality, Association Rules, Property Rights

Having arrived at this stage of our reflections, we can now review the characteristics of these three groups of rules: morality, contracts and internal rules of associations, and property rights

• Morality guides us in our personal development, it is I-language
  
  Contracts and internal rules integrate us in associations, it is We-language
  Property rights are impersonal, they are It-language
• Morality shapes our projects that will develop our full human potential
  Contracts and internal rules of associations aim for co-operation and efficiency in the implementation of these projects.
  Property rights delineate the spaces in which projects of both individuals and associations can coexist.
• Morality and internal rules of associations, even when these associations claim universality (such as religions, socialism, etc.), only apply to those who seek their discipline for themselves.
  Property rights are universal.
• Morality and internal rules of associations (churches, corporations, football clubs) are prescriptive; they tell us what to do. Property rights only oblige not to do (not to physically aggress another person), which is within the capacity of all human beings.
• Obligations borne of moral traditions and contracts and associations derive their legitimacy from being formally accepted.
  Property rights do not need acceptance; the prohibition of aggression is a consequence of the social nature of human beings.

4. Legislation

At the end of this review of the forms of morality, contracts and internal rules and property rights, do we not notice something missing: what about legislation? We started our discussion with the question: Should we obey the laws of our country? And now we no longer see the need for these laws. Indeed,the various types of rules that we have analysed already organise society very adequately. Property rights bring us Justice and Peace; morality shows us how to behave towards other people (especially the most defenceless) and towards nature; contracts and association rules ensure co-operation and efficiency in the implementation of our projects, whether they are community-based, cultural or professional … So where does legislation fit in? What purpose does it serve?

Whereas the areas of application of property rights, of association rules and contracts and of morality are well defined, legislation mixes them up. Because legislation does not spring spontaneously from the relations between human beings and Nature (which is the source of morality and property rights), or from human beings’ free will (which creates contracts and association rules), legislation must impose itself by usurping the legitimacy of one type of rules in order to make people accept the constraints of another type. For instance:

• We have seen that property rights are universal. Legislation too is meant to apply to everyone, at least within a national jurisdiction. But property rights do not compel anyone to do anything, they only permit. Legislation forces us to act. This is why the universality of property rights is legitimate, and that of legislation is not.

• In any society however, there are rules that compel; these are contracts and internal rules of associations. But contracts and association rules are formally approved by the parties involved. Legislation is not. It takes a rather intellectually corrupt mind to assert that legislation expresses “the collective will of the people.” If “collective” is not “unanimous”, whose will is this “collective” one?
• Legislation is supposed to shape society for the Good, and politicians give different meanings to that Good: being the most pious, or the most powerful, or the most prosperous. “Social justice” seems to be the most popular these days. But it is morality, not legislation, that leads us towards Good; and by making morality compulsory, legislation creates only the appearance of Good. This Pharisaic hypocrisy is held by all traditions to be the most contemptible of moral perversions.

Many loathsome ideologies crouch behind this confusion between legislation and other rules of life in society. To confuse legislation with both regulations and morality is totalitarianism.

To confuse legislation with internal regulations, and to mobilise human society as a single association for the purpose of attaining some great common ideal, is fascism.[11]

To confuse legislation and morality, to want to obtain Good on earth through political action (and not by the conversion of souls), is fundamentalism.[12]

Legislation is more than redundant when it regurgitates property rights in particular applications: We do not need a new legislation to tell us“Do not kill” and “Do not steal”. (Of course, by usurping the legislative function, politicians can create exceptions that work in their favour: “Do not kill”, except for reasons of state; “Do not steal”, unless you do so through taxation). Legislation is more than humiliating when it denies the free will of human beings: how much more contemptuous of adults’ capacity for judgment than to prevent them from marrying, educating their children, taking a job, caring for themselves,trading, publishing or reading… except according to legislation?

But legislation in addition exercises one precise function, and that is to consolidate the mechanism of class exploitation. Marxists correctly revealed how legislation protects the dominant class, which today is the state bureaucracy and its protégés.[13] Marx’s materialism blinded him to the real stakes beyond class struggle: legislation is the manifestation of Evil in the world. Legislation is the supreme camouflage of the devil, for it institutionalises Evil by giving it the appearance of Good.

There can be no such thing as a beneficial legislation. It seemed reasonable to some people that if they could not equal God’s work by recreating the laws of Nature, they could at least outdo Nature by reengineering society. Obviously, they took a wrong turn somewhere along the way. The only legitimate mission of those governing society must necessarily cause them frustration in its lack of ambition; for to govern implies giving up doing Good and be content to avoid doing Evil, — do not assault, do not kill, do not steal. To govern means limiting the realm of legislation and giving precedence to that which is not political: to morality and property rights, i.e. to wisdom and freedom.

The Political Model

I should explain here what I mean when Isay that legislation, by its very nature, is the expression of Evil. According to the classical definition, the state is the institution that holds the monopoly on violence in a particular territory. Why should we think of this monopoly in terms of territory? The idea that a person must obey a government simply because he or she happened to be born in a particular community on a particular land is the regime of serfdom. Isn’t time to come out of the Middle Ages? Our technology and economy are global, but our philosophy still carries the values of the peasantry. The only government necessary is that of associations, and it does not matter what form it takes — be it hereditary or elective monarchy, a democracy, or picking leaders’ names out of a hat ­—because only those who wish to belong to that association need to be bound by its regulations. So there are two ways,not one, of dealing with overbearing leaders, either they resign, or their subjects resign.

The ability to say “Without me!” transforms legislations into contracts and internal rules, the state into an association of free human beings, and makes the very notion of politics obsolete. An association is managed with an objective that is external to itself, which is the aim of the association (to put on plays, to put out fires…), and the measure of its effectiveness is the actual realisation of this objective. In contrast, the government of a state exercises power for its own sake (for what could be the objective of a country,of France, of Norway?); and the effectiveness of this state power is measured solely by its ability to reach far and wide, without allowing a living soul to escape its grasp. [14]

The only way to limit power is our ability to elude it. The right to secession (a consequence of property rights) is not one of the people, but of individuals. In order to prevent absolutism, political philosophy since the 17^th century (with the exception of a few responsible anarchists) has only proposed counter-powers,“checks and balances”. But should one fight evil with evil? Restricting power by using power only leads to conflict. Unable to wrest itself from this monist conception, political philosophy cannot imagine what lies beyond politics: non-power.[15]

The political paradigm inverts the relationship between human beings and society. Instead of the human being joining society in a display of confidence,and leaving it if this trust is betrayed, political society seizes each of us as newborns and even if it does not cause our death in some war, it leaves us to die only after it has depersonalised us, regimented us, and taxed us.

Thus political society is the essence of tragedy. We can no more escape it than we can the judgments of the gods. Because secession is not permitted, all political questions become matters of life and death, a narrative of victors and vanquished, of robbers and their victims.

The state, by its very nature, cannot avoid the confrontation between socialism and capitalism, monarchy and democracy,religious fundamentalism and secularism… Each option excludes the other. It is the very purpose of legislation to turn an association into a monopoly and to squash all of society’s projects except those of the state. A society governed by property rights welcomes the coexistence of different kinds of lifestyles, communities and associations;all ends are acceptable provided that violence is not the means of achieving them — whereas political society only admits to a single end and only knows one way of achieving it: police violence, or the threat of it.

Therefore war is not the “continuation of politics through other means”, as Clausewitz maintained. The means of politics are already the means of war. If war does not break out, it is because one of the adversaries has surrendered before fighting. Outlawing violence implies dissolving public affairs into the private sphere.

Making legislation is therefore the most harmful activity at the heart of society, an activity devoted entirely to the search for power, without any opposing argument other than: “If I don’t take power over them, they’ll take power over me.” At this stage of humanity’s evolution, isn’t it time to go beyond this primitive conception of human relations? Why should I impose my legislation on those who aspire to live in different way? [16] If they wish to be communists, Moslems, or capitalists, that’s fine by me. They can do it among themselves. I only ask them not to inflict their legislation on me. Today, of course, they will not agree to this. It would be unbearable for them; the anxiety caused by choosing servitude is too painful if others have the right to live freely.

Citizenship

Living under a state legislation is an education. It produces a certain type of human beings who we call“citizens”. The citizen is not engaged in dialogue, but in militancy. His integration into society is not horizontal, like that of the market, where customers and suppliers trade between themselves without any other mediation but property rights. The citizen’s society is hierarchical, vertical. It is not organised by agreements, but by orders. Each citizen learns to appeal to the legislator (“we need laws against such and such…”), and not to negotiate with his equals towards the resolution of problems. Submission is the citizen’sway to social peace.[17] In this way, the ruling class of state employees and their protégés consolidate their exploitation.

Command undoubtedly comes easier than dialogue when you are a group of armed men in the face of unarmed citizens. It is more expedient to impose a solution, especially where it serves a personal interest, than to leave people alone to experiment with the alternatives. From this comes another function of legislation: it must never let it be known that another solution is better than that imposed by the government. The larger the political field becomes, for example through the co-ordination of legislations between States, the more burdensome and extensive will be the consequences. Agriculture, which was the first common European program, is an economic and ecological disaster, and it does not bode well for the success of the “Social Charter”.

Unscrupulous individuals are attracted to the idea of political societies. The reason is that through political societies, they can force everyone else to share the cost of their preferences.[18] This mechanism is obvious in the case of direct payments. Civil servants,farmers, and countless artists live shamelessly on stolen money. The effect is more subtle when the notion of responsibility is removed, in other words when the difference between good an devil is erased. For instance, giving to the poor costs me the money I give. There can be two reasons why I would give. Either I am virtuous and I feel enriched by the joy of giving, and it doesn’t matter at all to me whether or not the skinflints know this same joy. Or I give to the poor out of a sense of guilt or duty, which means that I don’t derive any pleasure from helping the poor, and I find it unbearable that I am alone in sacrificing myself and that others are using their money to go away on holiday. So I vote for the introduction of taxes, and now with everyone obliged to give, the notions of generosity and greed are lost.

Immigration

The satanic process by which legislation clouds the perception of good and evil can be found in the legislation controlling immigration. This is the theme of your conference, which I have not yet covered, but I will address it here, for it will illustrate my point on property rights and legislation.

The predominant view is that in the absence of the state’s power, the most prosperous countries would be invaded by all the world’s downtrodden. This is an inconsistency that its detractors believe can be found in liberalism: We are opening up borders to merchandise but not to human beings.[19] But the anti-globalists have not understood a few key facts about gravity. For goods do not simply fall from the sky and place themselves in the shops of Oslo and Paris. In order for them to arrive, they first had to be desired by an importer or a consumer, who valued them enough to have them transported. Likewise, if I, a stranger, put my feet up at someone’s house, it is because friendship, work, or perhaps talent, made it worthwhile for someone to invite me.

But the racist does not accept that a foreigner is invited by others. He doesn’t want to employ him in his shop or even serve him there, nor does he want his daughter marrying him… But losing customers and making his daughter unhappy have a price. Hatred has a price. Anything that is not in a just relationship with Nature and with other people causes a loss of energy. Those, on the other hand, who find this just relationship are efficient. Animals know it instinctively, humans discover it through a long learning process (which economists call “the market”). Putting up with higher costs is the slap on the wrist that Nature gives us to show us that we are not in harmony with her. But the racist does not want to bear the cost of his hatred alone. Nor do the politically powerful want to bear the cost of their injustice. Together, they make laws that spread the consequences of their injustice and hatred onto the whole of society.

And so…?

And so, should we obey the laws of our country? Let’s review the case one last time. Legislation is not only useless, since property rights, morality, contracts and association rules already organize society adequately. Legislation not only causes a surge of pathological violence in the case of “bad laws” and “bad regimes” (and it is not an accident that so many psychopaths become legislators); but even when the political regime is generally considered to be sound, legislation only disguises the action of Evil in the world. By pretending to satisfy legitimate aspirations — the defence of human rights, of the poor, and of culture —, legislation institutionalises pure violence and hypocrisy. When you have seen the true nature of this violence, you can no longer advise: “Why not obey the legislation of your country, if that suits you?”. Co-operation with violence, or even failing to oppose it, is not permissible.

Just as there is not only one way of accomplishing Good, fighting Evil can take many forms; our conscience whispers the one appropriate to our own personal circumstances. Called to the resistance, to what point are we ready to risk our well-being and that of our families in order to live morally and outside the law? Summoned to collaborate with Evil, how far will we seek power over others by participating to the political game? Will we avert our eyes from state violence when receiving the proceeds of tax plunders?

Most acts of civil disobedience are not heroic. All they require is vigilance: do not vote, do not co-operate with police against people who have not harmed others, trick the tax collectors at every opportunity… For those of us who have understood the mechanism of legal violence, our moral duty is to denounce it, to point it out to others, and to make all around us aware of the presence of Evil. This is the only duty required of today’s Rebel.

For what could violence do against violence? Violence must not be fought on the barricades, but in the place where it reigns — in the conscience of individuals. It is only by becoming conscious of all that is violent in our relations with others and with Nature that humanity becomes more humane. In order to wrest victory from Evil, we must first expose it.

A shorter version of this text has been published on www.liberalia.com

Born and educated in Paris, Christian Michel started a financial company in Geneva which grew rapidly offering protection to individuals worldwide against unfair taxation and bureaucratic encroachments. Having sold his company, he now lives in London where he lectures and advises several non-profit organisations. Christian Michel is president of Libertarian International and a director of ISIL and the Libertarian Alliance.

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