Imagine the tiny country of Consentia. There was only 500,000 inhabitants in Consentia, but it was wealthy, free, and pluralistic. Still, none of its members had signed the proposed Constitution of Consent. This enforceable multilateral agreement would have committed each Consentian to uphold the law and realize a fully consent-based order. But up to “the arrival,” Consentia had no such social contract. Instead, they trusted each other and newcomers to respect their values.
Why wouldn’t they? said the Consentians. Things are good.
One year, four groups began to arrive at Consentia’s borders. From the West came the Corvians, who believed in radical wealth redistribution and the abolition of private property. From the East came the Maelites, who believed in a strict religious fundamentalism set out by a prophet who thought unbelievers must submit to the faith or perish. From the North came the Aethrans, who held that all corporations should be subordinated to firm state control. From the South came the Grimhold, a mix of criminal gangs and poor families, mostly the latter.
Because they have shared and practiced the virtue of ahimsa, the Consentians had created an enviable society. Yet the tolerant, peaceful people of Consentia had decided that anyone who came to their little country should be let in. But through the years, millions of Corvians and Maelites arrived, overwhelming their numbers. The newcomers kept their heads down at first, but eventually the Corvians and Maelites formed a coalition to strip out the Consentian way of life.
Consentia descended into darkness.
Skyhooks and Systems
Orthodox liberals think it’s never appropriate to coerce or compel the innocent. Internal to a system of association, following the Law of Consent, I agree. We practice the virtue of non-violence as we are able. We make consent the foundation of law to the degree possible. Orthodox liberals, though, operate in a kind of intellectual vacuum, or use a “skyhook” as Daniel Dennett called it.
Dennett contrasts skyhooks with “cranes”—explanatory mechanisms that build up from below through gradual, step-by-step processes. A crane in Dennett’s metaphor does real work by lifting heavy explanatory loads through the mechanical advantage of foundation and leverage, as well as incremental progress that depends on these. A skyhook, by contrast, would be a miraculous solution that appears to work but explains nothing because it invokes something that needs even more explanation.
Such is often the nature of classical liberal principles, but these are two-dimensional principles operating in a three-dimensional world.
In a system of association where members explicitly sign on to the Law of Consent, they agree to adopt certain enforceable rules, which stand on cultural, even ideological norms, such as a commitment to non-violence and religious toleration. Therefore, if any member violates such rules, she violates a real social contract, prompting other members to compel her to compensate the victims.
Prior to contractual membership in any system of association, one has made no such explicit agreement to respect the rules and norms. Therefore, she has no formal obligation to her fellow members. Before signing a real social contract that proscribes certain behaviors, there is a fundamental asymmetry between her and the signatories.
Suppose the Law of Consent is not a contract but a mere hope. No membrane is there to ensure the system’s sustainability and integrity. In that case, the system will lose its features and value because a system is little more than its members’ willingness to follow the protocols.
That is why a society based on the Law of Consent cannot lack a membrane.
A membrane is a construction superior to a boundary because it lets healthy material into a system and ejects unhealthy material, such as waste. Something similar must be said about people. If a liberal system lets in too many people with illiberal values and commitments, then the system will mutate. Such a mutation threatens the system’s organic unity.
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A society that requires excessive unity and conformity is oppressive. A society with too many differences and too much diversity is disorderly and ripe for conflict. Organic unity ensures that diversity and unity remain in balance and are mutually constraining. (Here, we return to the integration of freedom and order.)
Organic unity, as the philosopher Robert Nozick sets out above, puts limits on pluralism. In other words, absent any unifying commitments, such as solidarity around the Law of Consent, excess diversity pulls the system apart, which means matters degenerate into chaos. This is why those whose core values and political objectives are, say, intersectionality and socialism, must put the Law of Consent first. Otherwise, defectors become a cancer to a consent-based system.
Both groups vie for political control of the system to transform it around their fundamental conceptions of the good. The paradox of pluralism is that we can maximize differences until a person or group is willing to cross that line, threatening violence to make others conform to their values.
Criminals, Chaos Agents, and Centralists are willing to crumple up the Law of Consent and toss it on liberalism’s pyre. Same with the Corvians and Maelites.
In a past article, I ranted about my distaste for activists and authoritarians. I didn’t mention that an activist is often an authoritarian-in-waiting.
Non-signatories to a Constitution of Consent, for example, are neither guilty nor innocent per se. They are, as it were, Schroedinger’s Citizens. That is why orthodox liberals—even so-called “anarchists”—invite chaos or concentrated power when they hold the view that unchecked movement into a system is a principle that ought never be questioned.
Alas, Consentia, even with a Constitution of Consent, is a skyhook of sorts, too. Until we can lock arms in solidarity, express our values, find some space, live our lives, and keep a protective membrane around our budding social order, there will be nowhere to put a crane.
E pluribus unum. Ex uno plures.
Max Borders is senior advisor to the Advocates. He is author of The Social Singularity and other books. You can find more of his writing at Underthrow.
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