From: starr@genie.slhs.udel.edu (Tim Starr)
Subject: Re: Open letter to the libertarian right
Organization: UDel, School of Life & Health Sciences
Date: Wed, 7 Oct 1992 07:47:10 GMT

In article <ISBELL.92Oct5090106@panther.ai.mit.edu> isbell@ai.mit.edu (Charles L Isbell) writes:
}|No, just maing a simple mistake.  Only a legal positivist would say that a
}|"social contract" must precede fraud proceedings.  Good libertarians are
}|legal naturalists.  Fraud is what it is regardless of whether you or I
}|agree about it, and proceedings against offenders are justified regardless
}|of whether they think they've done anything wrong or not.
}
}Is this an axiom?  More specifically, are breaking written contracts =
}fraud = a crime an axiom?  Contracts are, after all, like money:
}pieces of paper that society agrees has some kind of value.  Without
}the consensus that 1) they mean something and 2) that meaning can be
}backed up by the coercive force of a govt (thru its police and
}courts), it is just a piece of paper with writing on it.

Axiomatic?  I don't know.  But you've got contracts wrong.  Contract is
informed consent to terms, independent of any instrument, such as writing on
paper, which may be (but needn't be) used to record it.

There's a methodological difference here.  Methodological individualism puts
it that if two parties consent to terms on an informed basis, they've
contracted, and this is a social relation, thus the contract has social
recognition.  This is entirely separate and distinct from whether or not
the contract is enforcable.

}In short, to have meaning *and* to be able to bring to bear the
}coercive force of the threat of death (as is the utlimate threat
}whenever the govt compels you to do something) there must be a social
}contract.

No, there must be social institutions.  One of the main principles of
libertarian thought is the concept of spontaneous order.  A classic example
is a footpath that's been worn through a grassy field.  This is the result
of human action, but not of human design.  The path was worn by the feet of
many pedestrians, but none of them agreed with any other to walk it.  There's
no informed consent to terms involved.

Common law is such a spontaneous order.  It's the result of cultural
evolution, not of the will of any legislator(s).

The way the concept of social contract is classically used is to denote an
explicit agreement that parties agree to on an informed basis.  Perhaps this
isn't the way you use it, in which case the term must be clarified so that
your meaning will be known to us.  My point is that there is no such contract,
except in the sense of there being social institutions or conventions which
people tend to accept.

BTW - money ain't paper, either.

}If one is going to argue that the amendments to the constitution and,
}indeed, the constitution itself are not valid because "I never signed
}it" then it seems clear to me that one must accept the argument that
}contracts are meaningless because I never signed the contract that
}said that contracts are legal.  Further, this is an infinite argument,
}regressing back forever.  In practice, and I suspect in theory, there
}must be some consensus or "social contract" (for lack of a better
}term) for any piece of paper, any govt, any law to have broad meaning.
}These contracts may be changed and tinkered with, but they are
}probably never "signed."

My position isn't that the US Constitution is (completely) invalid, but that
its validity doesn't rest upon any informed consent to terms by any of the
parties subject to it.

My position is that (some) natural rights are recognized by the amendments
to the U.S. Constitution.

My foundation is in natural law, not the will of the masses.  Suppose the
minds of many change, capriciously, as they are wont to do.  Does this mean
that if they all breach their contracts with me that my contract is or was
invalid?  Or are they at fault?  I take the second position.


Tim Starr - Renaissance Now! - Think Universally, Act Selfishly
starr@genie.slhs.udel.edu

"True greatness consists in the use of a powerful understanding to enlighten
oneself and others." - Voltaire
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian