WEBVTT NOTE American Revolution and the Spectre of Anarchy: The Hamilton-Seabury and Price-Lind Debates 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:09.000 So, the American Revolution wasn't a conflict about anarchism. Neither side was pro-anarchist. 2 00:00:09.000 --> 00:00:17.000 But the issue of anarchism keeps coming up or being raised or bubbling to the surface in a lot of the debates over the American Revolution. 3 00:00:17.000 --> 00:00:26.000 One famous example is in Parliament, Burke gives this speech, in his famous speech on conciliation with the colonies. 4 00:00:26.000 --> 00:00:27.000 and the colonies. 5 00:00:27.000 --> 00:00:32.160 Burke says, you know, lately during the revolution, obviously the English government isn't working 6 00:00:32.160 --> 00:00:35.760 in the colonies anymore and the new colonial governments don't really have it act together 7 00:00:35.760 --> 00:00:36.760 yet. 8 00:00:36.760 --> 00:00:41.560 So really for the last year or so, the colonies have been in a state of anarchy and yet apart 9 00:00:41.560 --> 00:00:47.180 from fighting us, it's all been relatively peaceful and orderly and therefore we should 10 00:00:47.180 --> 00:00:51.480 try and make peace with the colonies as quickly as possible before they come to realize that 11 00:00:51.480 --> 00:00:53.840 they don't need government at all. 12 00:00:53.840 --> 00:00:58.000 Now given that it's Burke, I'm not sure how much of that was serious, how much of that 13 00:00:58.000 --> 00:01:04.520 was tongue-in-cheek, probably some of each, just as I think sort of his earlier youthful, 14 00:01:04.520 --> 00:01:08.840 his own youthful defense of anarchism I think was partly serious and partly tongue-in-cheek 15 00:01:08.840 --> 00:01:13.240 and I have a footnote where I tell you what to read on that issue. 16 00:01:13.240 --> 00:01:19.040 But I'm not going to be talking about Burke, I'm going to be talking about these two debates 17 00:01:19.040 --> 00:01:22.480 What Happened in the American Revolution? 18 00:01:22.480 --> 00:01:31.480 One in 1774 between Samuel Seabury, who was an Episcopal minister in the colonies, a loyalist 19 00:01:31.480 --> 00:01:37.580 defender of the British Crown, and a teenage Alexander Hamilton on the other side defending 20 00:01:37.580 --> 00:01:39.140 the American Revolution. 21 00:01:39.140 --> 00:01:43.580 And the other debate is going to be two years later in 1776 on the other side of the Atlantic. 22 00:01:43.580 --> 00:01:54.780 We have a debate between Richard Price, who was a dissenting clergyman and a radical philosopher 23 00:01:54.780 --> 00:01:56.140 defending the American Revolution. 24 00:01:56.140 --> 00:01:59.920 This is the famous Richard Price, whose later defense of the French Revolution prompted 25 00:01:59.920 --> 00:02:07.340 Burke to write his attack on the French Revolution and his attack on Price, which in turn encouraged 26 00:02:07.340 --> 00:02:13.460 people like Thomas Paine and Mary Wollstonecraft and so forth to attack Burke and so created 27 00:02:13.460 --> 00:02:34.460 much for the printers, and on the other side of that debate is John Lind, who was a follower of Bentham, who was critical, like Bentham, critical of natural rights, and also critical of American Revolution, although not all utilitarian critics of natural rights were critical of American Revolution, but he was. 28 00:02:34.460 --> 00:02:37.460 Okay, so starting off with Hamilton and Seabury. 29 00:02:37.460 --> 00:02:42.460 Now you might initially think that in a debate between Samuel Seabury and Alexander Hamilton, 30 00:02:42.460 --> 00:02:44.460 there's not going to be much for a libertarian to like. 31 00:02:44.460 --> 00:02:50.460 On the one side, we've got Alexander Hamilton, who tends to be libertarian's least favorite founding father. 32 00:02:50.460 --> 00:02:55.460 On the other hand, we've got Samuel Seabury, an opponent of the American Revolution, 33 00:02:55.460 --> 00:02:58.460 which is, you know, the one war that libertarians like. 34 00:02:58.460 --> 00:03:04.700 So, you know, I think, all right, it was just the two bad guys fighting each other and in 35 00:03:04.700 --> 00:03:09.380 certain respects, it is two bad guys fighting each other, but each of them makes a number 36 00:03:09.380 --> 00:03:11.340 of good libertarian points against the other. 37 00:03:11.340 --> 00:03:16.100 In fact, I can argue that the two of them add up to, you know, one complete libertarian 38 00:03:16.100 --> 00:03:22.540 and one complete status if you sort of mix and match the relevant bits of them. 39 00:03:22.540 --> 00:03:31.780 So starting with what Seabury said in his pamphlet debate with Hamilton, the main concern 40 00:03:31.780 --> 00:03:40.380 that's driving Seabury is that the Continental Congress had passed these measures restricting 41 00:03:40.380 --> 00:03:49.300 trade with Britain, saying from now on we shouldn't be importing tea and stuff from 42 00:03:49.300 --> 00:03:58.460 from Britain, and Seabury's worried that this is going to be a restriction on free trade. 43 00:03:58.460 --> 00:04:03.400 And so Seabury raises what sound like, at least when he has this hat on, sound like 44 00:04:03.400 --> 00:04:06.060 libertarian objections to what the Continental Congress is doing. 45 00:04:06.060 --> 00:04:11.420 So here's an excerpt. 46 00:04:11.420 --> 00:04:18.640 Here when he says you, he's talking to, for those of you who have a paper, I'm starting 47 00:04:18.640 --> 00:04:35.680 Will you submit to this slavish regulation? You must, our sovereign lords and masters, 48 00:04:35.680 --> 00:04:39.880 the high and mighty delegates in Grand Continental Congress assembled, have ordered and directed 49 00:04:39.880 --> 00:04:43.400 it. They have directed the committees and respective colonies to inspect the conduct 50 00:04:43.400 --> 00:04:47.820 of the inhabitants and see whether they violate the association, whether they drink any tea 51 00:04:47.820 --> 00:04:52.460 or wine with their families after the 1st of March, or where any British or Irish manufacturers etc. etc. 52 00:04:52.460 --> 00:04:58.140 If they do, their names are to be published in the Gazette, that they may be publicly known and universally condemned 53 00:04:58.140 --> 00:05:04.460 as foes to the, it should be rights of British America, not the tithes of British America, 54 00:05:04.460 --> 00:05:10.220 but I suppose they would have been against the importation of tithes as well, and enemies of American liberty. 55 00:05:10.220 --> 00:05:15.180 And then the parties of the said association will respectively break off all dealings with him or her. 56 00:05:15.180 --> 00:05:28.180 In plain English, they shall be considered as outlaws, unworthy of the protection of civil society and delivered over to the vengeance of a lawless, outrageous mob to be tarred, feathered, hanged, drawn, quartered and burnt over our American freedom. 57 00:05:28.180 --> 00:05:36.180 You can see there's a little ambiguity here as to whether these measures that Congress is imposing were meant to be enforceable or not. 58 00:05:36.180 --> 00:05:49.500 Will you be instrumental in bringing the most abject slavery on yourselves? 59 00:05:49.500 --> 00:05:50.780 Will you choose such committees? 60 00:05:50.780 --> 00:05:51.780 Will you submit to them? 61 00:05:51.780 --> 00:05:55.660 Should they be chosen by the weak, foolish, turbulent part of the country people? 62 00:05:55.660 --> 00:05:58.180 Do as you please, but by him that made me, I will not. 63 00:05:58.180 --> 00:06:02.940 No, if I must be enslaved, let it be by a king at least, and not by a parcel of upstart 64 00:06:02.940 --> 00:06:03.940 lawless committeemen. 65 00:06:03.940 --> 00:06:08.440 If I must be devoured, let me be devoured by the jaws of a lion and not gnawed to death 66 00:06:08.440 --> 00:06:10.440 by rats and vermin. 67 00:06:10.440 --> 00:06:15.420 How these guys were good writers. 68 00:06:15.420 --> 00:06:19.540 And a little later he says, you know, tell them you are Englishmen and you will maintain 69 00:06:19.540 --> 00:06:23.980 your rights and privileges and will eat and drink and wear whatever the public laws of 70 00:06:23.980 --> 00:06:24.980 your country permit. 71 00:06:24.980 --> 00:06:29.260 Notice that sort of the libertarian ring falters a little bit in that last part, you know, 72 00:06:29.260 --> 00:06:36.780 I can eat and drink or wear whatever the laws of my country permit, without asking leave 73 00:06:36.780 --> 00:06:41.860 of any illegal tyrannical congress or committee on earth. 74 00:06:41.860 --> 00:06:47.140 And it goes on, there's more good rhetoric, you know, if you want, you can let these people 75 00:06:47.140 --> 00:06:51.380 in to examine their tea canisters and molasses jugs and your wives and daughters' petticoats 76 00:06:51.380 --> 00:06:55.260 bow and cringe and tremble and quake, but I repeat, by heaven I will not, know my house 77 00:06:55.260 --> 00:07:08.620 Do as you please, but should any pragmatical committee gentleman come to my house and give 78 00:07:08.620 --> 00:07:12.980 himself airs, I shall show him the door, and if he does not soon take himself away, a good 79 00:07:12.980 --> 00:07:15.800 hickory cudgel shall teach him better manners. 80 00:07:15.800 --> 00:07:20.060 The first committee man that comes to rob me of my tea or my wine or molasses shall feel 81 00:07:20.060 --> 00:07:24.220 the weight of my arm, and should you, and this time you as Hamilton, should you be the 82 00:07:24.220 --> 00:07:28.320 However lightly you may think of it, a stroke of my cudgel would make you real, notwithstanding 83 00:07:28.320 --> 00:07:32.580 the thickness of your skull. 84 00:07:32.580 --> 00:07:37.560 So this is his main objection to the Continental Congress, is that it's violating rights of 85 00:07:37.560 --> 00:07:46.300 trade, rights of trade that the colonists have as Englishmen, have under English law. 86 00:07:46.300 --> 00:07:52.140 So despite sort of the natural rights flavor to this passage, but the actual rights that 87 00:07:52.140 --> 00:08:05.260 Now, another objection that Seabury raises is that the Continental Congress doesn't actually 88 00:08:05.260 --> 00:08:06.260 rest on consent. 89 00:08:06.260 --> 00:08:11.740 Now, as we'll see, Seabury is not really a big fan of government by consent, but he knows 90 00:08:11.740 --> 00:08:15.940 that these guys he's arguing with are, and that their objection to parliament is that 91 00:08:15.940 --> 00:08:20.600 Americans don't have representation in parliament, therefore government of parliament over the 92 00:08:20.600 --> 00:08:23.400 in the Colonies is not my consent. 93 00:08:23.400 --> 00:08:26.400 And he keeps stressing, well, first of all, 94 00:08:26.400 --> 00:08:28.400 how many people actually voted for these people 95 00:08:28.400 --> 00:08:30.120 in the Continental Congress? 96 00:08:30.120 --> 00:08:31.280 A lot of us are just out in the country. 97 00:08:31.280 --> 00:08:32.880 You suddenly hear, hey, there's some Continental Congress 98 00:08:32.880 --> 00:08:34.760 that's established, and there are various people 99 00:08:34.760 --> 00:08:36.880 who are involved in the know, and they voted for it. 100 00:08:36.880 --> 00:08:39.400 Most of us, we just heard about these guys. 101 00:08:39.400 --> 00:08:43.120 Not one in 100 people voted for it. 102 00:08:43.120 --> 00:08:45.320 And second, and again, this is sort of a lock-in point 103 00:08:45.320 --> 00:08:48.800 he's making, even if they are our representatives, 104 00:08:50.600 --> 00:09:08.000 Truly their power isn't absolute, you know, as we'll see, it's not clear whether you can say this in complete consistency, but truly their power isn't absolute. If it's a delegated power, well, under the Lockean understanding, which Seabury is sort of adopting here, you know, as a kind of devil's advocate, 105 00:09:08.000 --> 00:09:24.000 Well, not that he was an advocate exactly, but he's saying even if you grant these locking principles, it seems as though they wouldn't support the Continental Congress because the Continental Congress is going beyond any authority we could have plausibly delegated to it by interfering with trade. 106 00:09:24.000 --> 00:09:35.440 However, you know, so that's all the libertarian side of Seabury, but as we've already seen 107 00:09:35.440 --> 00:09:41.480 the hints, ultimately he bases on the rights that, these rights that he's so concerned 108 00:09:41.480 --> 00:09:46.400 about, he bases on English law rather than on natural law, which means that if English 109 00:09:46.400 --> 00:09:50.920 law were to impose these same horrible things that he thinks would be slavery when opposed 110 00:09:50.920 --> 00:09:54.040 by the Continental Congress, says the British Parliament wouldn't impose them. It's not 111 00:09:54.040 --> 00:09:59.680 clear that you can have any argument against their doing so, since for his conception of 112 00:09:59.680 --> 00:10:02.880 liberty is the freedom to eat and drink and wear whatever the public laws of your country 113 00:10:02.880 --> 00:10:13.880 permit. And he goes on to say that the authority of Britain over the colonies is absolute. 114 00:10:13.880 --> 00:10:17.840 The British colonies make a part of the British Empire. As parts of the body, they must be 115 00:10:17.840 --> 00:10:21.880 be subject to the general laws of the body, the talk of a colony independent of the mother 116 00:10:21.880 --> 00:10:25.880 country is no better sense than talk of a limb independent of the body, in every government 117 00:10:25.880 --> 00:10:32.680 there must be a supreme absolute authority lodged somewhere, and therefore the colonists 118 00:10:32.680 --> 00:10:37.960 rights derive not from nature but from the indulgence or grant of the parent state. 119 00:10:37.960 --> 00:10:41.640 So that although it sounded nice when that line about preferring to be devoured by the 120 00:10:41.640 --> 00:10:46.900 jaws of the lion rather than by the rats and vermin, turns out he really thinks you shouldn't 121 00:10:46.900 --> 00:10:54.900 It's not just that it's cooler to be eaten by a lion than by rats, it's just that the lion has a right to eat you and the rats don't, that's the difference. 122 00:10:54.900 --> 00:11:01.900 It's the English lion, and really American rats. 123 00:11:01.900 --> 00:11:08.900 Then, Seabury complains about Hamilton's constant use of natural rights language, and Seabury says, 124 00:11:08.900 --> 00:11:13.860 says, a man in a state of nature may be considered as perfectly free from all restraints of law 125 00:11:13.860 --> 00:11:18.140 and government, and then the weak must submit to the strong, from such a state I confess 126 00:11:18.140 --> 00:11:21.900 I have a violent aversion. I think the form of government we lately enjoy is a much more 127 00:11:21.900 --> 00:11:25.580 eligible state to live in. So he's saying, all right, you're talking about natural rights, 128 00:11:25.580 --> 00:11:28.140 the rights we have in a state of nature. Well, everyone knows state of nature is a Hobgian 129 00:11:28.140 --> 00:11:39.100 in the jungle. We don't want that, and that's what you're advocating. 130 00:11:39.100 --> 00:11:44.740 So now we've got Hamilton, and again we're going to see that there's a lot of libertarian 131 00:11:44.740 --> 00:11:50.660 content in what Hamilton's saying, although in some ways Hamilton is most libertarian, 132 00:11:50.660 --> 00:11:55.780 but you will, I think, see seeds of trouble to come in some of the things Hamilton says. 133 00:11:55.780 --> 00:12:02.100 But initially, Hamilton reacts to Seabury's attack on natural rights the way libertarians 134 00:12:02.100 --> 00:12:03.780 always react to that sort of thing. 135 00:12:03.780 --> 00:12:06.960 He gets snarky and offers his opponent a reading list. 136 00:12:06.960 --> 00:12:11.660 So there's a slide from Hamilton, through ignorance of natural rights in this enlightened 137 00:12:11.660 --> 00:12:16.140 age cannot be admitted as a sufficient excuse for you, yet it ought in some measure to extenuate 138 00:12:16.140 --> 00:12:17.140 your guilt. 139 00:12:17.140 --> 00:12:20.820 If you will follow my advice, there still may be hopes of your reformation. 140 00:12:20.820 --> 00:12:23.500 Apply yourself without delay to the study of the law of nature. 141 00:12:23.500 --> 00:12:27.860 I would recommend your perusal grotesque, Pufendorf, Locke, Montesquieu and Berlimacchi. 142 00:12:27.860 --> 00:12:30.960 I might mention other excellent writers on this subject, but if you attend diligently 143 00:12:30.960 --> 00:12:34.940 to these, you will not require any others. 144 00:12:34.940 --> 00:12:40.260 And then he goes on to give a fairly standard Lockean criticism. 145 00:12:40.260 --> 00:12:43.120 He says, first of all, you know, you say in a state of nature there are no restraints 146 00:12:43.120 --> 00:12:48.460 of law and government, wrong, unless you're an atheist like Hobbes, and Hamilton assumes 147 00:12:48.460 --> 00:12:52.360 Hobbes was an atheist, unless you're an atheist like Hobbes you must think that there's always 148 00:12:52.360 --> 00:12:57.160 Because the law of God, as revealed through the law of nature, we can infer God's intentions 149 00:12:57.160 --> 00:12:59.280 from the way that he's made us. 150 00:12:59.280 --> 00:13:05.720 And so, of course, there are moral restrictions on what we can do to each other even in a 151 00:13:05.720 --> 00:13:06.720 state of nature. 152 00:13:06.720 --> 00:13:10.040 It's as if you keep swearing by him who made you, you know, you must not really be an atheist 153 00:13:10.040 --> 00:13:13.760 so you ought to buy this. 154 00:13:13.760 --> 00:13:20.220 And it has this famous line, the sacred rights of mankind are not to be rummaged for among 155 00:13:20.220 --> 00:13:49.220 and then he goes on to say in a state of nature, so no one had the right to impose any orders on anyone else in a state of nature but when you decide to get together and form a government, government has to rest on consent. 156 00:13:49.220 --> 00:13:54.120 The only distinction between freedom and slavery, says Hamilton, is this. 157 00:13:54.120 --> 00:13:58.920 Under freedom, a man is governed by the laws to which he is given his consent, 158 00:13:58.920 --> 00:14:01.620 either in person or by his representative. 159 00:14:01.620 --> 00:14:03.720 Under slavery, he is governed by the will of another. 160 00:14:03.720 --> 00:14:05.120 So that's the difference. 161 00:14:05.120 --> 00:14:09.820 And because Americans don't have the right of representation in parliament, 162 00:14:09.820 --> 00:14:11.720 we are not free. 163 00:14:11.720 --> 00:14:13.320 We are slaves. 164 00:14:13.320 --> 00:14:18.020 Now, of course, any libertarian is going to ask, 165 00:14:18.020 --> 00:14:25.520 Well, just merely having representation in parliament, what exactly does being governed by your consent mean? 166 00:14:25.520 --> 00:14:31.020 Does it mean by the individual's consent? Or does it mean some kind of collective consent or majoritarian consent? 167 00:14:31.020 --> 00:14:36.520 If the majority consents to something and I'm in the minority, does that really count as consent? What are we talking about here? 168 00:14:36.520 --> 00:14:41.520 Locke had attempted to address this problem, at least on a standard reading of Locke, 169 00:14:41.520 --> 00:14:47.520 Locke attempts to address this by saying you need unanimous consent to establish civil society 170 00:14:47.520 --> 00:14:52.800 Once you establish it, then within civil society, majority consent is good enough for the rest of it. 171 00:14:52.800 --> 00:14:59.600 You join a society and you agree to be bounded by majority rule and other stuff, but the initial consent has to be unanimous. 172 00:14:59.600 --> 00:15:06.000 But Hamilton doesn't say anything like that, so you can wonder about that. 173 00:15:06.000 --> 00:15:17.560 Anyway, even if we grant that being represented in the Continental Congress makes that a legitimate 174 00:15:17.560 --> 00:15:23.520 authority over you, of course there's a further question of are people really legitimately 175 00:15:23.520 --> 00:15:25.440 represented in the Congress? 176 00:15:25.440 --> 00:15:30.220 Hamilton pretty much ignores Seabury's worry that most people never had a chance to vote 177 00:15:30.220 --> 00:15:32.520 for that Congress. 178 00:15:32.520 --> 00:15:37.680 What about Seabury's other objection, which is this Congress is imposing stuff that goes 179 00:15:37.680 --> 00:15:44.280 beyond any power we would or should have delegated by interfering with free trade? 180 00:15:44.280 --> 00:15:51.240 Here Hamilton begins to sound a bit more like the Hamilton we all know and love with a characteristically 181 00:15:51.240 --> 00:15:54.360 sweeping interpretation of what the government's authority is. 182 00:15:54.360 --> 00:15:59.120 He says, when the political salvation of any community is depending, it is incumbent upon 183 00:15:59.120 --> 00:16:04.200 on those who are set up as its guardians to embrace such measures as justice, vigor and 184 00:16:04.200 --> 00:16:08.640 a probability of success to amend them, recommend them. 185 00:16:08.640 --> 00:16:14.200 So in other words, we've got this problem of dealing with Britain, the best solution 186 00:16:14.200 --> 00:16:19.760 we've come up with is not to trade with them and so therefore we have the right to require 187 00:16:19.760 --> 00:16:20.760 that. 188 00:16:20.760 --> 00:16:27.400 And he goes on to argue that in civil society you have not just a duty to refrain from injuring 189 00:16:27.400 --> 00:16:37.900 In a civil society, it is the duty of each particular branch to promote not only the 190 00:16:37.900 --> 00:16:41.740 good of the whole community, but the good of every other particular branch. If one part 191 00:16:41.740 --> 00:16:45.980 endeavors to revile the rights of another, the rest ought to assist in preventing injury. 192 00:16:45.980 --> 00:16:50.300 Where they do not but remain neutral, they are deficient in their duty and may be regarded 193 00:16:50.300 --> 00:16:51.980 in some measures accomplices. 194 00:16:51.980 --> 00:16:54.820 So in other words, if you go on trading with Britain, when Britain is imposing this nasty 195 00:16:54.820 --> 00:17:19.820 So we have threatened with absolute slavery from Britain. It has been proved that resistance by means of remonstrance and petition would not be efficacious. Restriction on our trade is the only peaceable method in our power to avoid the impending mischief. It follows therefore that such a restriction is necessary. 196 00:17:19.820 --> 00:17:28.260 Now again, you might wonder how you can really justify this on natural rights grounds. You 197 00:17:28.260 --> 00:17:33.460 really justify not only agreement to sort of submit your contracts to disputes and so 198 00:17:33.460 --> 00:17:42.180 forth, but actually you have an enforceable duty to come to the assistance of society. 199 00:17:42.180 --> 00:17:48.340 There's also something a bit imperious about the tone with which Hamilton criticizes Seabury's 200 00:17:48.340 --> 00:17:58.980 It was hardly to be expected that any man could be so presumptuous as openly to controvert 201 00:17:58.980 --> 00:18:03.820 the equity, wisdom, and authority of the measures adopted by the Congress, an assembly truly 202 00:18:03.820 --> 00:18:07.740 respectable in every account, whether we consider the characters of the men who composed it, 203 00:18:07.740 --> 00:18:13.580 the number and dignity of their constituents, or the important ends for which they are appointed. 204 00:18:13.580 --> 00:18:20.940 How dare you criticize things, and Seabury says fairly enough, hey, you know, I thought 205 00:18:20.940 --> 00:18:25.660 we were Englishmen, I thought we had the right to express our opinions about the government. 206 00:18:25.660 --> 00:18:33.060 So Hamilton raises good objections to the rule of Britain over America, Seabury raises 207 00:18:33.060 --> 00:18:37.820 some good objections to the rule of Congress over America, put them together, and it seems 208 00:18:37.820 --> 00:18:42.860 as though neither government had any legitimate authority. 209 00:18:42.860 --> 00:18:51.020 Okay, in the Price-Lynn debate, Price starts off by distinguishing a whole bunch of different 210 00:18:51.020 --> 00:18:55.580 kinds of liberty. There's religious liberty and moral liberty and so forth in terms of 211 00:18:55.580 --> 00:19:03.300 what it's liberty to, and then argues that liberty means being free from arbitrary constraint 212 00:19:03.300 --> 00:19:09.260 by other people. But in Price, we find the systematic ambiguity as to whether it's individual 213 00:19:09.260 --> 00:19:18.260 He talks about the majority and says that you're free so long as the majority of people are not subject to some external will. 214 00:19:18.260 --> 00:19:25.260 On the other hand, he says things like, every man is his own legislator, which makes it sound as though some kind of individual consent is needed. 215 00:19:25.260 --> 00:19:35.260 So Price seems like he's generally a libertarian-minded guy, but there are ambiguities here, which Lind quickly exploits. 216 00:19:35.260 --> 00:19:46.260 And Lin says, look, we shouldn't define liberty by what it's a liberty to, we should define it by what kind of constraint it's free from. 217 00:19:46.260 --> 00:19:53.260 So, are you free from physical coercion, are you free from some other kind of threat, and so forth, and he talks about it in those terms, and all that seems fine. 218 00:19:53.260 --> 00:20:03.260 But then Lin says, well, complete freedom is impossible, because it would mean my freedom, then I would have the freedom to enslave you. 219 00:20:03.260 --> 00:20:33.260 Now, in a way, that doesn't seem like a fair criticism of Price, because Price says the only restrictions that freedom allows are restrictions that come from other people's freedom, so it doesn't seem like he's got that problem, but then Linda raises what seems like a better objection, which is, look, either, you know, suppose either consent has to be unanimous or else it can just be the majority, and if it's just the majority, then what happens to the minority? 220 00:20:33.260 --> 00:20:37.300 seems as though by your definition they're not free and then it has to be 221 00:20:37.300 --> 00:20:42.940 unanimous then either you get sort of a deadlock where no one can do anything 222 00:20:42.940 --> 00:20:45.980 without anyone else's consent or else people are free to go their own way and 223 00:20:45.980 --> 00:20:49.180 people are free to go their own way that's anarchy as inconsistent with any 224 00:20:49.180 --> 00:20:51.940 government whatever you're not an anarchist price so you know what's the 225 00:20:51.940 --> 00:20:57.140 deal and he also says look the very notion of government implies some kind 226 00:20:57.140 --> 00:21:00.020 of asymmetry and rights between those who govern and those who are governed 227 00:21:00.020 --> 00:21:08.020 And therefore, this notion of equal liberty that you would defend is inconsistent with any kind of government at all. 228 00:21:08.020 --> 00:21:11.020 And again, that would be crazy anarchy. 229 00:21:11.020 --> 00:21:26.020 So, even though Price's principles are generally more libertarian than Lindt's, Lindt does point to what seems like a plausible identification of an inconsistency in Price. 230 00:21:26.020 --> 00:21:36.020 It's not clear that price can really defend, on the one hand, these principles, on the other hand, having a monopoly state, as opposed to anarchy. 231 00:21:36.020 --> 00:21:45.020 So I think that although these people were not anarchists, on either side, I think that it's no coincidence that right after the American Revolution, 232 00:21:45.020 --> 00:21:53.020 you suddenly find more and more anarchist theories suddenly popping up, where there hadn't been that many before, suddenly you get one anarchist and another showing up. 233 00:21:53.020 --> 00:21:57.260 showing up, and I think it's because a lot of these debates help sort of bring the issue 234 00:21:57.260 --> 00:22:00.940 to the surface by suggesting, you know, if we really adopt, take seriously these liberal 235 00:22:00.940 --> 00:22:04.500 republican principles that people are going for, it seems as though you take them to the 236 00:22:04.500 --> 00:22:08.660 logical extreme, it seems to question the legitimacy of the state as such. 237 00:22:08.660 --> 00:22:09.660 Okay? 238 00:22:10.660 --> 00:22:12.660 Thank you very much.