Auberon Herbert

This article is about the British philosopher Auberon Herbert (1838-1906). For the British landowner (1922-1974), see Auberon Herbert (landowner)

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Auberon Herbert (1838-1906) was a writer, theorist, philosopher, and member of the British parliament. He promoted a libertarian philosophy and took the ideas of Herbert Spencer a stage further by advocating voluntary-funded "government" that only uses force only in defense of individual liberty and property. He is known as the originator of Voluntaryism.

Government, he argued, should never initiate force but be "strictly limited to its legitimate duties in defense of self-ownership and individual rights", and to be consistent in not initiating force they should maintain themselves only through "voluntary taxation." He stressed that "we are governmentalists . . . formally constituted by the nation, employing in this matter of force the majority method" --however, using this force only in a defensive mode. He strongly opposed the idea that initiation of force may somehow become legitimate merely by constituting a majority, reasoning that "If we are self-owners (and it is absurd, it is doing violence to reason,2 to suppose that we are not), neither an individual, nor a majority, nor a government can have rights of ownership in other men."

However, Herbert always maintained that the "state" and "government" would exist within his system to define private property and what constitutes aggression:

"We agree that there must be a central agency to deal with crime - an agency that defends the liberty of all men, and employs force against the uses of force; but my central agency rests upon voluntary support, whilst Mr. Levy's central agency rests on compulsory support."

Herbert says that in "voluntaryism the state employs force only to repel force—to protect the person and the property of the individual against force and fraud; under voluntaryism the state would defend the rights of liberty, never aggress upon them."

A collection of Herbert's work, The Right and Wrong of Compulsion by the State and Other Essays, was published by Liberty Classics in 1978.

Herbert and Anarcho-capitalism

Since the development of anarcho-capitalism in the 1950s, supporters of that ideology have argued that Herbert's ideas (Voluntaryism), in the words of anarcho-capitalist Hans-Hermann Hoppe, "develops the Spencerian idea of equal freedom to its logically consistent anarcho-capitalist end." [1]

They point to the fact that Herbert is adamant about opposing all initiation of force, including in the form of taxation:

"I deny that A and B can go to C and force him to form a State and extract from him certain payments and services in the name of such State; and I go on to maintain that if you act in this manner, you at once justify State-Socialism. The only difference between the tax-compelling Individualist and the State-Socialist is that whilst they both have vested ownership of C in A and B, the tax-compelling Individualist proposes to use the powers of ownership in a very limited fashion, the Socialist in a very complete fashion. I object to the ownership in any fashion." (Mack, 1978)

Anarchists, however, note that this fails to address the issue of which body decides what is and is not legitimate property and defense. They also point to the fact that Herbert recognised the need for a "central agency rest[ing] upon voluntary support" which would be "formally constituted by the nation, employing in this matter of force the majority method." Anarchists note that Herbert did not demand the abolition of the state but rather sought one based on voluntary taxation, arguing that in his system, while "the state should compel no services and exact no payments by force," it "should be free to conduct many useful undertakings . . . in competition with all voluntary agencies . . . in dependence on voluntary payments." Anarcho-capitalists do not define "state" in this manner. For example, Murray Rothbard defines "state" as "regularized institution of aggressive coercion" that has a "a compulsory monopoly of defense services over its territorial jurisdiction." Rothbard advocates competing defense agencies, whereas Herbert advocates a single agency. Anarchists note that this shows how far anarcho-capitalism is from anarchism.

Herbert, in other words, did not foresee the end of either the state or government in his system, according to his definition of state and government. Rather individuals would live under a single government as their common defender of liberty and property within a given territory. Though Herbert supports "government," Hoppe (as well as individualist anarchist Benjamin Tucker) hold that it is not incompatible with anarchism.

Herbert and Anarchism

Herbert's ideas were sometimes labelled as anarchist by others during his lifetime. In an announcement of Herbert's death in Liberty (vol. 15, no. 6, p. 16), for example, Benjamin Tucker said: "Auberon Herbert is dead. He was a true anarchist in everything but name. How much better (and how much rarer) to be an anarchist in everything but name than to be an anarchist in name only!" Tucker praised Herbert's work as "a magnificent assault on the majority idea, a searching exposure of the inherent evil of State systems, and a glorious assertion of the inestimable benefits of voluntary action and free competition..." while admonishing him for his support of profit in trade (but believes, unlike Herbert himself, that Herbert's system would result in an economy without profit). [2] Erick Mack says that Herbert felt that people who "like Tucker, favored the free establishment of defensive associations and juridical institutions were simply making a verbal error in calling themselves "anarchists"."

Accordingly, Herbert explicitly rejected the label "anarchist" for his ideas. He believed that anarchists provide no centralized mechanism for dealing with crime and argued that "to leave every group to make its own arrangements for the repression of ordinary crime... merely decentralizes government to the furthest point..." And so "[a]s long as there is ordinary crime, as long as there are aggressions by one man upon the life and property of another man, and as long as the mass of men are resolved to defend life and property, there cannot be anarchy or no government" --the lack of government is impossible given this aspect of human nature. The issue was clear in his eyes:

"By the necessity of things, we are obliged to choose between regularly constituted government, generally accepted by all citizens for the protection of the individual, and irregularly constituted government, irregularly accepted, and taking its shape just according to the pattern of each group. Neither in the one case nor in the other case is government got rid of."

Herbert believed that defense and punishment for crime cannot reasonably left to the individual, for this allows each person to be both a "judge and policeman" and that this would be "pandemonium." He thought that people should "not direct our attacks — as the anarchists do — against all government, against government in itself" but "only against the overgrown, the exaggerated, the insolent, unreasonable and indefensible forms of government, which are found everywhere today."

Though Herbert says he supports "government," Tucker still considered him an anarchist. Social sciences scholar, Richard Sylvan, points out that "a variety of political arrangements and organization, including governments of certain sorts, are entirely compatible with anarchy." Rather, anarchists oppose the state or "coercive government."Tucker also supports private defense of law and order. Herbert says he supports a "central agency" for specifying and dealing with crime based on a government "formally constituted by the nation, employing in this matter of force the majority method"

Other individualist anarchists noted a key flaw in Herbert's ideology, namely economic inequality. In an article called "Private Property and Freedom," Victor Yarros, while not denying that Herbert's philosophy was anarchistic, argued that Herbert:

"believes in allowing people to retain all their possessions, no matter how unjustly and basely acquired, while getting them, so to speak, to swear off stealing and usurping and to promise to behave well in the future. We, on the other hand, while insisting on the principle of private property, in wealth honestly obtained under the reign of liberty, do not think it either unjust or unwise to dispossess the landlords who have monopolized natural wealth by force and fraud. We hold that the poor and disinherited toilers would be justified in expropriating, not alone the landlords, who notoriously have no equitable titles to their lands, but all the financial lords and rulers, all the millionaires and very wealthy individuals. . . . Almost all possessors of great wealth enjoy neither what they nor their ancestors rightfully acquired (and if Mr. Herbert wishes to challenge the correctness of this statement, we are ready to go with him into a full discussion of the subject). . . . If he holds that the landlords are justly entitled to their lands, let him make a defense of the landlords or an attack on our unjust proposal."

Herbert did not reply.

This criticism was echoed by communist-anarchists. They noted that Herbert's kind of state would not use force of any kind, "except for purposes of restraining force." This would justify using force against workers to defend the authority of the capitalist or landowner. As such, anarchists argue that anarcho-capitalist claims that Herbert was an anarchist simply show how far they are from the anarchist tradition. As Peter Kropotkin put it:

"The modern Individualism initiated by Herbert Spencer is, like the critical theory of Proudhon, a powerful indictment against the dangers and wrongs of government, but its practical solution of the social problem is miserable -- so miserable as to lead us to inquire if the talk of 'No force' be merely an excuse for supporting landlord and capitalist domination."

See also

• Voluntaryism
• Anarcho-capitalism
• Individualist anarchism
• Anarchism and anarcho-capitalism

External links

• Auberon Herbert and his Work by Benjamin Tucker
• Voluntaryism: The Political Thought of Auberon Herbert by Erick Mack

• ESSAY X: THE PRINCIPLES OF VOLUNTARYISM AND FREE LIFE (THE RIGHT AND WRONG OF COMPULSION BY THE STATE, AND OTHER ESSAYS) by Auberon Herbert

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