Gus writes:

Non-profits often pad the salaries of their top people, especially big ones. Padded salaries come from shifting resources away from other purposes, like that sheriff in Marion County. Just because something is a nonprofit does not mean those in charge are not greedy. Consider the Komen Foundation and others like it. There is nothing sacred about nonprofits. Some are great and some are corrupt. In addition, where will the non-profits get the money they need? Someone has to pay for them. We are more likely to contribute to causes that support positive goods than ones that incarcerate bad guys.

Gus makes a good point about non-profits here, but there would be competition between non-profit prisons to offer the most humane conditions. I’ve already stated that clients of defense associations would pay for prison expenses. As for people preferring to donate to positive goods rather than the improsinment of bad guys, I’d point out that the humane treatment of bad guys is a positive value. There is also the possibility of error in judging guilt and the positive value of helping innocent people get freed or have comfortable conditions while serving their sentences.

In public prisons in democratic countries if people are incarcerated they retain the rights of citizenship including being able to see an attorney. Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird tells the story of why that matters. In that case the accused ended up with court appointed attorneys. This is something that beggars the imagination happening in a libertarian anarchy. Ron Paul did not even help his most important fund raiser pay his medical bills, and libertarians as a whole raised only 10% of the total needed. His survivors were left with a huge debt. If libertarians cannot help their own people who have rendered them great services, why expect them to help the accused who often are guilty?

Defense associations could provide for competent attorneys in the absence of the ability to hire one. This would be paid for by th clients of said defense associations. As for the lack of charitable giving by libertarians, is that a consequence of libertarian ideology or a reflection of personal characteristics of existing libertarians unrelated to their ideology? I argue it’s the former. The libertarian, Jacob G. Hornberger points out that Americans gave 150 billion dollars to chairty in a year I’ve forgotten. If more of them became libertarian, I see no reason why they wouldn’t retain this charitable sensibility. Steven Horowitz has written about the importance of mutual and so have others like Kevin Carson. There is clearly libertarian support for charitable giving.

Some libertarians such as the one I quote above then shift the ground to ‘restitutive justice.’ I agree that when possible restitutive justice is a good thing and vastly superior to incarceration. We need much more of it. Nevertheless it needs to be enforced with the threat of less desirable punishment if the person does not provide restitution. Further some crimes have little chance for restitution, such as murder. If you claim, as some libertarians do, that they should pay “weregeld” or some other medieval notion, we need to remember that back then the fine for killing the equivalent of a Koch brother was vastly more than for killing a peasant. It would be the same in a libertarian society where ‘the market’ is the final evaluator of worth. Indeed, this happened in the Triangle Shirtwaist fire during a time in our history that libertarians generally praise as superior to our own for ‘freedom’.

House arrest is an alternative to prison for murderers. It has similiarties but isn’t exactly the same. In a left-libertarian market anarchy, there would also be a strong civil society alongside a freed market. The market would not of necessity be the final arbiter of worth.

Gradually this spread of kind of thinking far beyond libertarian circles has encouraged even supporters of public services to think about them in private terms in which citizens become consumers. But whereas the term :citizen” applies to everyone equally, the term “consumer” is the opposite. Everyone is a consumer, but not at all equal even as an ideal. The results are hideous when the logic of consumers and of privatization is applied outside its appropriate sphere.

I am not sure why a consumer is not equal, but a citizen is. There is often differential access to power in statist societies and all citizens are not equal. Is it because there is a difference in money between consumers? There is a difference in power between citizens even with formal equality before the law. Why can’t someone be a citizen and a consumer too?

For libertarians one public value is determining what constitutes property rights. Until they are determined the vaunted libertarian market cannot exist much past the point of barter. Libertarianism is parasitical on government in this respect. It depends on it for the market to work but then claims that government is what keeps the market from working even better.

This assumes that property rights can’t be defined by private defense associations which are community based and thus have equal input. They would only be private in the sense of being non-state or non-government.

Democracy is complicated and never perfect, but it is a vastly more rational way to address problems of public concern than libertarian boilerplate about ‘stateless’ societies existing beyond the level of a village.

Democracy and anarchy are not of necessity mutually exclsuive. As for stateless societies beyond the village level, there are examples like Medieval Iceland that were beyond said level.

In said piece; Gus says:

Privatization of prisons creates corporations with a vested interest in maintaining current crimes as illegal even when there is no just reason for doing so, because it guarantees keeping their cells filled and their profits high. They also have a vested interest in criminalizing additional behavior. They demonstrably use some of their profits to support friendly legislators and lobby for legislation they desire. And their political favors are returned.

We agree on this point. This would be less of a problem in a left-libertarian market anarchist society, because there would be no monopoly state or government to influence. The corporations would have to successfully bribe and get favors from a variety of defense associations. It would require more resources and effort. There would also be countervailing pressure from non-bought defense associations. If in fact said corporations would still exist without state or government favoritism. I doubt they would, because there would be no subsides, regulatory protectionism, tariff walls, and monopolistic state power backing them up.

At the same time since prison inmates are not their customers they have an incentive to spend the absolute minimum allowed on them, so as to keep the most for themselves. My old friend Scott B. observed he had “ learned why the Sheriff of Marion County, Indiana was the highest paid government official in the state. Sheriffs get to keep the difference between the fixed per prisoner allocation and the cost of running the jail.” He became opulent employing modern business management in government agencies.

The next step in this logic will be to force inmates to work at minimum wages to pay their way (so as to ‘help taxpayers’) and charge them for their incarceration. Thus market logic will re-establish slavery in the US. And libertarians will call it freedom and the magic of the market.

In a left-libertarian market anarchist society, prisoners would be able to choose what prison they want to go to. Prisons would compete by offering humane conditions. The clients of defense associations would be paying for prison upkeep, so there would be no forced labor by prisoners to pay their expenses. I can’t speak for other libertarians, but I wouldn’t refer to the slavery mentioned above as freedom.

Setting aside the escape clause of “principled libertarians,” which plays the same role as “real Christians” does for aggressive evangelicals, we end up with an anarchist argument that somehow things will be different without a ‘state.’

What pray tell is a ‘non-state operated’ prison? The writer writes as if such things exist. The closest analogue I can imagine as currently existing are either the private prisons I am discussing or kidnappers incarcerating their prey until ransom is paid. Such people are simply free lance anarcho capitalist entrepreneurs if they claim their victim is being held until restitution for alleged crimes against others. Like seizing Dick Cheney. Much as I think he should spend the rest of his life in jail, that is a very bad precedent as any sane person should recognize.

Principled libertarianism is designed to make sure that people actually representative of genuine libertarian ideology have their arguments addressed. A Nazi could otherwise claim to be libertarian and have libertarian ideas. As for non-state operated prisons, Gus is partially correct to note that “private” prison corporations represent them. I only say partially, because they receive taxpayer dollars and benefit from government or state legislation defining what a crime is. It does show that such things can partially exist, but it’s not the ideal model. The kidnappers example is faulty, because no anarcho-capitalist I know of would advocate that you could forcibly imprison someone without any trial and objective establishment of guilt. What is the difference between a defense association doing this and a government agent doing it? I’d also add that just because something hasn’t existed yet; that doesn’t mean it can’t exist. Democracy was once only an idea and yet is widespread today.

By definition a prison forcibly incarcerates a person against his or her will as punishment for a crime he or she allegedly committed. This means there had to be a system to apprehend a person against their will, take them to some process where their guilt or innocence could be determined, and if found guilty, incarcerated. Otherwise the existence of a ‘prison’ as a legitimate part of society makes no sense at all.

I agree with Gus on this one. I support competing defense associations with prison, judicial, and police services. They would constitute the enforcement arm of a left-libertarian market anarchist legal system.

Porque los políticos no trabajan para el pueblo. Como dice Thomas Knapp del Center for a Stateless Society, “los políticos y los soldados trabajan para la clase política (y forman parte de ella). Su tarea es transferir tanta riqueza como sea posible de vuestros bolsillos a las cuentas bancarias de esa clase”.

Si es así, están cumpliendo bastante bien su tarea. Los especuladores de la guerra en Raytheon han visto cómo los precios de sus acciones aumentan anticipando la guerra siria. Como informó el Boston Herald el 31 de agosto: “Las acciones del fabricante basado en Waltham de los misiles crucero Tomahawk que se espera que se utilicen en cualquier ataque a Siria, subieron la semana pasada a su nivel más alto en las últimas 52 semanas, a 77,93 dólares por acción, y se han mantenido cerca de ese nivel, cerrando ayer a 75,41 dólares”.

Funcionarios como John Kerry argumentan que esta guerra es una especie de respuesta humanitaria a atrocidades del régimen de Asad. Pero las corporaciones que se beneficiarán no son humanitarias. Al contrario, han estado involucradas en algunas de las más grotescas violaciones de los derechos humanos de nuestros tiempos.

Por ejemplo, los especuladores de la guerra se benefician del trabajo esclavo. Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, Boeing, y BAE Systems usan mano de obra en las prisiones para fabricar equipamiento militar. Con frecuencia obligan a los presos a trabajar en condiciones miserables y cuando reciben una paga se trata de salarios muy bajos, como 23 centavos por hora. Como dice William Hartung: “No hay mayor restricción de los derechos de un trabajador que estar recluido en una prisión”. Las ganancias con el trabajo carcelario crean un incentivo para mantener repletas las prisiones, lo que puede ser parte del motivo por el cual EE.UU. tiene la mayor población carcelaria del mundo. La mayor parte de los prisioneros en EE.UU. son delincuentes no violentos, y en su mayoría son gente de color. El racismo y la injusticia de la esclavitud persisten, y los especuladores de la guerra se benefician. Los especuladores de la guerra también se benefician de las violaciones de los derechos humanos en las fronteras de EE.UU. Sus productos se utilizan para violar la privacidad mediante la vigilancia general de la frontera. Son utilizados por agentes de la Patrulla Fronteriza que asesinan a trabajadores migrantes y desintegran comunidades indígenas como la Nación Tohono O’oodham. Esta agresiva seguridad en las fronteras ayuda a los empleadores a explotar y abusar de los trabajadores indocumentados. Con la amenaza de deportación y una frontera militarizada, se les disuade de quejarse por robo de salarios, violencia sexual y otros abusos por parte de sus empleadores. Una vez más los especuladores de la guerra posibilitan la explotación, la violencia y el abuso. Y además existen las guerras de las que se benefician en todo el mundo. General Atomics se beneficia fabricando los drones Predator [aviones sin tripulación] que matan inocentes en Pakistán y Yemen. Una lista interminable de corporaciones se benefició de la invasión y ocupación de Irak. Como la amenazante guerra en Siria, esa invasión fue justificada en gran parte mediante pretextos humanitarios. No obstante, en lugar de “liberar” a los iraquíes, esa invasión los trató brutalmente. El gobierno de EE.UU. asesinó a inocentes, torturó a los prisioneros y utilizó ilegalmente fósforo blanco, un arma química, para matar iraquíes. Los especuladores de la guerra estadounidenses ganaron una fortuna en una guerra en la cual el gobierno de EE.UU. cruzó la misma “línea roja” que ahora acusan a Asad de cruzar.

Como escribió Emma Goldman hace décadas: “nadie, sea individuo o gobierno, involucrado en la esclavización y explotación en el país, puede tener la integridad o el deseo de liberar gente en otros países”. Según ese estándar, no debemos confiar en el Gobierno de EE.UU. o en los especuladores de la guerra para que “liberen” a nadie en Siria.

Artículo original publicado por Nathan Goodman el 03 de septiembre 2013.

Traducido para Rebelión por Germán Leyens.

Because politicians don’t work for the people. As Thomas Knapp of the Center for a Stateless Society puts it, “politicians and soldiers work for (and constitute part of) the political class. Their job is to transfer as much wealth as possible from your pockets to that class’s bank accounts.”

In that case, they’re doing their job quite well. The war profiteers at Raytheon have seen their stock prices soar in anticipation of the Syrian war. As the Boston Herald reported on August 31st, “The Waltham-based manufacturer of the Tomahawk cruise missiles, expected to be used in any strike on Syria, saw its stock hit a 52-week high last week at $77.93 per share, and has stayed near that high, closing yesterday at $75.41.”

Officials like John Kerry argue that this war is somehow a humanitarian response to atrocities by the Assad regime. But the corporations that stand to profit are no humanitarians. To the contrary, they have been involved in some of the most grotesque human rights violations of our time.

For example, war profiteers profit off slave labor. Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, Boeing, and BAE Systems all use prison labor to manufacture military equipment. Prisoners are often forced to labor under sweatshop style conditions, and when they are paid they often receive meager wages like 23 cents an hour. As William Hartung puts it, “There’s no greater restriction on a worker’s rights than being stuck in prison.” Profiting off prison labor creates an incentive to keep prisons full, which may be part of why America has the largest prison population on Earth. Most of America’s prisoners are non-violent offenders, and the majority are people of color. The racism and injustice of slavery remains, and war profiteers benefit from it.

War profiteers also benefit from human rights violations at America’s borders. Their products are used to violate privacy through pervasive surveillance at the border. They are wielded by Border Patrol agents who murder migrant workers and break indigenous communities like the  Tohono O’oodham Nation apart. This aggressive border security helps bosses exploit and abuse undocumented workers. With the threat of deportation and a militarized border hanging over their head, they are deterred from reporting wage theft, sexual violence, and other abuses by their employers. So once again war profiteers enable exploitation, violence and abuse.

Then there’s the warfare they profit from worldwide. General Atomics profits by making Predator drones that kill innocents in Pakistan and Yemen. A litany of corporations profited from the invasion and occupation of Iraq. Like the impending war in Syria, this invasion was justified largely under humanitarian pretenses. Yet rather than “liberate” Iraqis, this invasion brutalized them. The US government murdered innocents, tortured prisoners, and illegally used white phosphorus, a chemical weapon, to kill Iraqis. American war profiteers made a killing from a war in which the US government crossed the very same “red line” they accuse Assad of crossing.

As Emma Goldman wrote decades ago, “no one, be it individual or government, engaged in enslaving and exploiting at home, could have the integrity or the desire to free people in other lands.”  By this standard, we must not trust the US government or the war profiteers to “free” anyone in Syria.

Translations for this article:

• Spanish, Especuladores de la guerra, esclavitud y la hipocresía del imperialismo.

While Marquardt is praised by establishment liberal organizations like Human Rights Campaign and Equality Utah for supporting LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender) rights, her company profits from the disproportionate caging and abuse of LGBT people, especially transgender women.

As I’ve written previously, LGBT youth are disproportionately likely to be homeless, putting them at increased risk of criminalization. Furthermore, the poverty inflicted on members of the LGBT community through employment and housing discrimination increases their risk of incarceration. Transgender people have their risk of incarceration further exacerbated by being profiled for “prostitution” charges and sometimes even locked up for using public restrooms. There is also homophobic and transphobic discrimination in America’s immigration system, leading LGBT immigrants to be disproportionately sent to immigration detention centers, which MTC profits from.

Once locked in prison or an immigration detention center, LGBT inmates face horrific abuses. A 2007 study found that “[s]exual assault is 13 times more prevalent among transgender inmates, with 59 percent reporting being sexually assaulted.” The same study found that 67% of LGBT inmates reported being sexually assaulted. That’s 15 times the rate for their straight and cisgender counterparts.

Transgender inmates are also often placed in solitary confinement due to their gender identity. Voices across the political spectrum recognize solitary confinement as a form of torture. Yes, Jane Marquardt, a leading Democrat and “LGBT rights activist,” profits from the torture of transgender people.

There have also been abuses unique to facilities Marquardt’s company operated. An investigative report by PBS’s FRONTLINE found that MTC’s Willacy Detention Center was a site of rampant sexual abuse, and that guards were covering it up. When activists from the Prison Divestment Campaign told Jane Marquardt in a cordial meeting that this had happened in her facilities, she looked shocked and said “That would be terrible if that were happening in our facilities!” When we told her it was and handed her a copy of FRONTLINE’s report, she changed the subject.

MTC has not just been corrupt in their operation of prisons, but in their political donations. They donate money to politicians whom they expect will open new for-profit prisons. Furthermore, they donated to supporters of Arizona’s infamous anti-immigrant bill SB 1070, which would send new unwilling immigrant customers to their cages.

When activists called out Marquardt for profiting from human rights abuses, Democrats were appalled not at Jane’s profiteering, but that anyone would be so rude as to shout about it. Yet the Democratic Party claims to stand for immigrants, the poor, people of color, and the LGBT community, all of which are groups that Jane Marquardt’s company cages and abuses for profit.

People who care about equality and human rights should see this as a wake up call. They should abandon the Democratic Party, and instead resist the corrupt system that enables Jane Marquardt to profit by caging human beings.