The Problem of Political Authority: An Examination of the Right to Coerce and the Duty to Obey

Michael Huemer starts his thinking in political authority in a good, but uncommon, spot: by asking whether the very idea of political authority has anything to be said for it. Most political philosophy either bypasses the entire question of whether political authority is justified (by asking what government is best), or by asking where political authority comes from (assuming that there is such thing as political authority). Huemer's question: is there any good argument for the idea that some have the right to rule over or coerce others? His answer: no good reason exists to justify the idea of political authority.Here's the question in a nutshell: is there anything government (of any kind) does that wouldn't be judged morally wrong if done by private actors? (For instance, can I decide that some of your property is mine because I decided to keep you safe, or promise to spend the money to do good for others, or because most of your community decided that way?) Huemer rehearses several commonly heard justifications of why government actors have the right too coerce (where privvate actors don't): namely, real social contracts, hypothetical social contracts, democratic legitimacy, and utilitarian legitimacy.The idea that government literally began as a social contract is clearly wanting: not only do we have no record of any such social contracts ever taking place (yes, even in the United States), but real contracts have no power to bind anyone but the signers. Hypothetical contracts suffer from (a) the fact that they are completely hypothetical and depict people under very ideal (and dubious) conditions, and (b) suffer from some of the problems of postulating a real social contract (was anyone ever free to opt out or not sign without very difficult consequences, etc?). Appeal to good consequences as a justification for political legitimacy is strange because, among other things, it overlooks many of the bad consequences of government (or dubious ones, like distributing tax money to farmers via subsidies or banks via 'bailouts'), and assumes that these good things have to be done by government (in order for good consequences to justify x, you have to show that nothing but x can generate those consequences). Lastly, democratic authority suffers from such flaws as (like social contract theory) idealizing constituents (immpartial deliberators) and the results democracy often generates (lest we forget, many unjust and grossly non-egalitarian laws and regimes have been the product of democracy). Democratic theories of political authority also have to convincingly argue why it is that "has the consent of the majority of voters" implies "is appropriate to coerce onto those who morally object." (One can clearly see this by thought experiment: imagine that my fiends and I are fighting with a rival group, and we all vote that you should be thrown into the ring first. Why, you may ask, does that justify them coercing you into the ring when I am not voluntartily part of your group to begin with?)Of course, assuming the reader buys Huemer's arguments (and they are very solid), what then? Does that mean no authority exists and disorder reigns? Yes to the first part, and no to the second part. The later part of Huemer's book argues a positive case for "anarcho-capitalism" or "market anarchism." Essentially, things like police protection, "national" security, and help for the poor can be more effectively administered via a voluntary "pay for service" market system. Huemer's arguments, quite often, rest on the quite solid idea that any problem that markets will generate (potential for justice to go to the 'highest bidder,' for "protection companies" to become corrupt or to cheat customers, etc) are much more likely to exist in governments, largely because of governments' monopoly status. (If a private arbitrator becomes corrupt, taking bribes in exchange for favorable rulings, they have the chance of going out of business because of people's refusal to use them. Corrupt government judges literally have no competition and people HAVE to use them.) For Huemer, markets may have problems, but they have far fewer problems that monopoly governments, and competition often breeds innovation, cost efficiency, and consumer choice.This section, unfortunately, is where I do have a few problems with Huemer's arguments. I'll give a few examples. First, every time Huemer (or other anarchists) say "well, that problem x exists just as much in governments," I am a bit uneasy. Why? Because if the goal is to prove to me that anarchism is MORE just, MORE efficient and MORE fair than governments, the fact that the same problem exists in both anarchy and government rule doesn't get there at all. For instance, I am concerned that markets will leave justice to the highest bidder. You point out that governments do that too. Okay, but if we both agree that "justice to the highest bidder" is bad, then should we prefer a system where (anarchy) that policy is pretty explicit, or one (government rule) where the idea (even if it doesn't work in practice) is "the same level of justice for all?"Two other concerns with Huemer's case. First, he admits that if we are postulating an anarchist society, we really have no idea how x (security, justice system, aid to the poor) will be delivered. After all, the market will generate the plans it generates - the plans that people create and support. But, that also opens a fairly large potential for an anarchist order to be quite a bit worse than governments, too. Even if political authority doesn't have good reasons behind it, could it be that at the end of the day, improving the devil you know may be better strategy than jumping into the great unknown? Second, Huemer's final chapter is an optimistic argument as to why anarchy is achievable; if people gradually start to realize that political authority rests on faulty arguments, they may start reducing the size of governments ("outsourcing" some of them to industry, as already happens), and gradually realizing that political authority is not necessary. However, an earlier chapter spends time rehearsing the plethora of data showing that people almost naturally defer to authority. My concern is that, however justified an anarchic order is, do these two chapters ultimately contradict each other?In the end, I took off only one star for the book; despite my disagreements, this book is a VERY interesting and well-argued case for something that isn't often argued. We often think as if government authority is just a given, and the only question is how we decide who gets to coerce who. But the problem of coercion is a very serious one, and coercion should only be employed if there is really solid reason to justify it. In The Problem of Political Authority, Michael Huemer levels a mighty challenge to the idea of political authority and what could take place in its stead. This book should not be missed by anyone interested in political philosophy.

Michael Huemer has delivered the most persuasive and comprehensive refutation of the supposed legitimacy of the state. This book should revolutionize libertarian argumentation.Lysander Spooner provided the arguments that originally persuaded me that the state was illegitimate in principle. He did it most succinctly in his essay _No Treason VI: The Constitution of No Authority_ . Spooner started by observing that the state did things which everyone would recognize as crimes if performed by any non-state agent, and then went on to show that the state had no valid contract with most individuals that could overcome this objection. Spooner was specifically refuting the notion that the U.S. Constitution had any moral authority, but the argument clearly had general application to any state.This is also the core of Huemer's argument, but Huemer strengthens the argument in two crucial ways: First he lays a stronger foundation and then he systematically addresses and refutes all the most popular attempts to justify state authority.Huemer shores up the foundation of the argument by adopting weaker, less sweeping premises - this is one of his crucial insights. Rights-based libertarians typically argue from moral premises like the Non-Aggression Principle (NAP) which is usually held to mean that aggression is never justified. That was also essentially Spooner's position. As Huemer has said, "The problem with this view is that it's false." It's easy to imagine unusual situations where aggression is justified and even a single counter-example refutes a supposed principle. But you don't even need to agree with Huemer on that point: Even if you think the NAP is correct or salvageable you will still strengthen your argument by starting from a weaker premise, like "Aggression is unjustified in normal circumstances". Doing this leads to stronger arguments because the weaker premises are less controversial. Many reject the NAP as a general principle because they can think of situations where they don't believe it applies, but few of them think it is justified to forcefully interfere with the life, liberty, or property of another in normal circumstances. And you can't reasonably expect someone to be persuaded by an argument if they don't accept it's premises. A weaker premise is more easily accepted and harder to deny.Almost everyone agrees that no private individual would be justified in compelling others to pay for services they had not agreed to pay for, in normal circumstances. The burden of argument is thus shifted to defenders to of supposed legitimate state authority - they must now demonstrate why the situation with respect to the state is different and how it overcomes the normal presumption that such behavior is unjustified.Huemer then persuasively demonstrates they can't do it. It is typically held that the state may legitimately do things that private individuals may not, because the state has legitimate authority, which entails a right for the state to compel and a duty for the individual to obey. Huemer shows that authority is in principle "content independent" at least to some degree, meaning that the right to compel and the duty to obey are supposed to apply even when the state is wrong. For instance, you are supposedly obliged to pay your taxes even if the state is charging you too much for services rendered, and the state is supposedly entitled to collect.Where is the justification for such presumed authority? Huemer addresses all the most popular arguments for justifying it: Explicit, implicit or hypothetical social contract, argument from democracy, argument from equality, consequentialist arguments, rule consequentialism, and arguments from fairness. Huemer methodically demonstrates how all of these arguments fail to justify political authority.The final argument to justify authority is that, without some such authority, society would be highly unstable and would likely descend into violent chaos. Huemer takes this objection seriously and devotes the latter half of the book to showing that the balance of evidence strongly supports the conclusion that the conditions of society would improve under anarcho-capitalism, not deteriorate. In this, he builds on arguments presented by David Friedman in _The Machinery of Freedom_, among other sources.This is a radical book that doesn't seem at all radical as you step through it. While Lysander Spooner strongly engaged his reader's emotions when appealing to moral sentiments, Huemer diligently eschews any appeal to strong emotion. Huemer may clinically observe that certain things the state does are outrageous, but he never appeals to outrage. With Huemer, all you get is patient, dispassionate reasoning and that makes this book seem far less radical than it is. Huemer persuasively reaches radical conclusions from uncontroversial premises, buttressing his argument with appropriate empirical evidence along the way.The book is written in clear language that a layman should have little trouble understanding. No part of his argument is complicated or difficult to understand. There is much more of value in this book, I've only sketched out the framework of his case against the state.Buy this book if you're interested in the best arguments for liberty.

Easy to follow and logical disputation of other people's right to tell you what to do.

terrible binding, half the pages are loose

In my opinion, this is the best book to introduce people to libertarian ideas. Although I was already sold on libertarianism before reading, it left no doubt in my mind that philosophical anarchism is correct, and that an anarchic social order isn't as far fetched as is usually thought. The first part of the book deals with pretty much every possible justification for the state, including the notorious social contract theory. Reading through this will arm libertarians with very strong arguments to deploy against statists in internet discourse. My only nitpick would be that Huemer sometimes spends too much time on a certain topic when his point is already well made (like on Christiano's defense of democracy). Nonetheless, I strongly recommend picking this up.

El libro es excelente, con algunos argumentos más que discutibles, pero eso no implica que deba desmerecerse el trabajo de Huemer. Sin duda ya es un clásico del libertarismo contemporáneo. La mala puntuación viene dada por la edición en tapa blanda. La mayoría de editoriales académicas acostumbran a vender ediciones en tapa dura por precios desorbitados. Las que deciden sacar ediciones en tapa blanda rebajan el precio sustantivamente, y aún así es bastante elevado. Lo mínimo que se puede esperar por este precio es que la edición sea excelente. No es el caso. Tapa blanda que no sobrevive en buenas condiciones una primera lectura y un margen inexistente que obliga a doblar el libro por la mitad para poder leer las frases completamente. Por hacer una idea del producto físicamente, es idéntico a las ediciones de Akal que giran en torno a 10€, con un tamaño ligeramente superior, y una sangría deplorable. Una lástima.

Cuestionar el concepto de la legitimidad del Estado( lo que respalda su autoridad o derecho a coercionar que da a sus sujetos el deber de obeceder) es una tarea difícil. Es probablemente el meme más arraigado en la sociedad contemporánea, y poca gente se plantea una cuestión tan directa. ¿Cómo no va a tener autoridad un policía o un juez? En este libro, Michael Huemer destroza sistemáticamente toda teoría que tratan de dar justificación a la autoridad estatal y plantea cómo puede llegarse a una situación mejor. Totalmente recomendado.