Juristocracy, the new political system for full freedom that I have developed, has some explicitly stated intellectual foundations. These are:

1. Objectivism, the philosophy of Ayn Rand (particularly her Ethics and Politics); and
2. The defence of laissez-faire capitalism presented by Ludwig von Mises in his books The Theory of Money and Credit, and most especially Human Action, his comprehensive treatise on capitalism, which throughout includes expositions of the (always) negative consequences of various forms of interventionism.

Note that in the exposition of Juristocracy, both the complete monograph, as well as the succinct summary, I do not include these works parenthetically in a an afterward reading list. The three seminal essays by Rand defining her ethics and politics, and Human Action, are cited as foundational and necessary to the exposition of Juristocracy.

This insistence on my part may invite some criticism:

• Why should a political system even require “foundations”? Doesn’t the system just describe the essentials needed to proceed to a constitution and implementation?
• How can one reconcile a political system based explicitly on a foundational philosophy, with the freedom of thought and expression a free society must have? Do those “foundations” imply philosophical “establishment” of an ideology?
• What about people who don’t agree with Rand, or don’t practice her philosophy? Would these foundations jeopardize promoting Juristocracy? Would it jeopardize obtaining “consent” from those who may agree with freedom, but not Rand?

These are all excellent questions. Let’s address them in order.

Why a “foundation”?

One of Ayn Rand’s greatest legacies, apart from her philosophy, was her masterful “philosophic detection.” This process is explicitly dramatized in her entertaining speech given to cadets at West Point, called “Philosophy: Who Needs It?” In that address, Rand doesn’t try to sell the cadets on her philosophy, she explicitly sets out to sell them on the importance and power of philosophy as such.

“The assignment I gave myself for tonight is not to sell you on my philosophy, but on philosophy as such. I have, however, been speaking implicitly of my philosophy in every sentence—since none of us and no statement can escape from philosophical premises.”

What she shows in many of her essays (particularly the ones on the major events of her time) and novels, is the power of basic ideas to shape the values of the individual (whether they know it or not) and to move events and shape history.

With respect to social systems, including and especially capitalism, she demonstrates over and over, by way of events along with the ideas (expressed, or too often assumed) that led to those events, how a society’s culture and its politics are driven by fundamental philosophic ideas, to-date often terrible ones.

She demonstrated how Enlightenment ideals of reason, freedom, and happiness of the individual led to the American Revolution, and were explicitly cited in the Declaration of Independence, then further influenced the Constitution.

But the economic system of that era—relatively free capitalism—and what should have logically been the American system going forward, did not last. Through stages, slowly at first, then with alarming alacrity starting in the early twentieth century, the system was attacked from all corners, never defended on moral terms, and finally succumbed to pressure-group warfare and power-lust, leaving us with the monstrously regulated welfare state of today.

Rand argued that what was missing from capitalism was a moral defense. The problem, she showed, was that contemporary explicit codes of morality were all based at their roots on the premise of altruism, the idea of self-sacrifice for the sake of others. Even if in practice, people engaged in their production and trade on the implicit premise of their self-interest, morality did not sanctify this practice, and either merely tolerated it at best, or more typically condemned it. (How often today do you hear businesses or entrepreneurs condemned for being “selfish”, rather than being motivated for the welfare of their customers, workers, and society as a whole?)

Capitalism, conversely, is logically based on self-interest: the self-interest of every party involved in any trade, from a simple retail purchase, to contracts of employment, to making long-term plans for the growth of a company. Rand argued that only a moral defense, based on a rational morality of self-interest, could be the justification in logic and reality for capitalism. She further argued that it was her morality—the ethics of Objectivism—that needed to be that foundation.

Rand showed that morality is the greatest fundamental driving force in any person’s life. Likewise, it is the ideas of morality that are used to evaluate the actions, organizations, and institutions around us, right on up to our entire social and economic system. She shows that the typically utilitarian ideas that have been used to argue for capitalism are insufficient to forestall the attacks wielded by moral charges. In short: if “selfishness” i.e. “self-interest” (rational or not, it doesn’t matter) drives capitalism, and selfishness is evil, then capitalism is evil. Period.

Note that today, the Marxist-leftist enemies of capitalism are fervent moral idealists; by contrast, the defenders are all apologetic utilitarians. Who is winning?

Rand has proven that a morality of rational self-interest accepted as an ideal—thus explicitly ejecting altruism—is not just a desirable, but a necessary foundation of capitalism. Without that foundation, capitalism cannot survive the contradiction between its very axiom—mutual trade to mutual benefit— and the morality of altruism, in whatever form, whether Christian morality, Marxist, or any other.

This is the reason why Juristocracy, a political system of freedom, especially economic freedom, with laissez-faire capitalism as a fundamental pillar is, of necessity, explicitly founded upon Rand’s moral philosophy of rational-self-interest.

On the economic side, a foundation is also necessary. Let me provide a comparison, using a religious figure, Jesus. (I’m not personally a religious person, but I think this comparison is apt.)

So in the Christian teachings, Jesus was sent by God to bring God’s message of goodness and love to earth. Jesus by all accounts, led an exemplary life, traveled widely, spread God’s words, did many good deeds, forgave sinners of their sins and excouraged them to repent, and so on. Well how did man, and even one of his closest apostles treat him? They crucified him.

This is capitalism. Capitalism has done more good for more people than any other system in history. It has lifted millions, now billions, out of poverty and miserable short lives; and provided even the poorest person with access to marvels and riches not even imaginable in ages past. Even for those unable to look after themselves, it has provided so much plenty, and engendered so much kindness and benevolence, that many if not most people give money—alms—to help these unfortunates.

And how has mankind repaid capitalism? By denouncing it, as Jesus was denounced, and although not dead yet, attacking and paralyzing it at every turn, while blaming the growing list of negative side-effects of those interventions, on the free aspects of capitalism.

An entire intellectual industry arose since the earliest days of industrial capitalism and trade (in Europe) denouncing and smearing it. Some of these have coalesced into entire systems of economic thought, such as Marxism and Keynesianism. There is a near infinitude of false claims made both about capitalism, as well as the mongrel contemporary Frankenstein of some freedom combined with vast catalogs of intervention, regulation, prohibition, and expropriation.

In his book, Human Action, Ludwig von Mises systematically addresses every branch of economics, such as Prices, Money, Interest, Labor, Production, and more, showing how they work harmoniously as parts of a free whole. He then also shows the consequence of various prevalent interventions in each area. A good example, is the shortages of a good that necessarily follows if a price control is placed upon it; for example rental shortages following rent controls, unemployment following minimum wages, commodity shortages when the government slaps a maximum price on them, etc.

Mises literally proved that pure communism, with a fully centrally planned processes of production, was impossible. The disastrous economic system in the Soviet Union was a perfect example of what he proved in theory. (In fact, the Polish Communists apparently were so impressed by his arguments, that they realized that a mixed economy was the best they could achieve, and this might help explain why even under the Soviets, and now since, Poland has been more inclined towards economic freedom than its other post-Soviet states.)

Experience has demonstrated that in addition to needing a moral defense, capitalism needs a systematic economic defense, both a positive one explaining how every aspect of it operates, to the benefit of all participants, as well as a negative one, showing the deleterious impact of interventions of all types.

A foundational philosophy vs. freedom of thought and expression

First, a quick note: I am typically hesitant to use phrases like “freedom of religion” or “freedom of the press”. These formulations are unnecessarily narrow, and might lead to the idea, for example, that there is “freedom of religion” but not necessarily freedom of non-religious belief systems. Or the idea that the “press” is free, but maybe not every other possible means of expression. Freedom of thought means you are free to hold or believe any idea you want, in any department of ideas, including religion. Freedom of expression means you are free to communicate any ideas you want, via any medium, from person-to-person up to global broadcast, including religious ideas, and including the press.

A fully free society has full freedoms of thought and expression. These are core values and needs of freedom. One obvious and historically frequent way a government can interfere with these rights is via censorship: the use of government coercion to suppress certain viewpoints and punish those holding or promulgated prohibited ideas.

But another lesser considered but just as important way a government can interfere in free thought and expression, is by itself promulgating certain views, or even mandating things like a state religion, such as in theocracies, or even today in Britain, which has a state sanctioned church whose highest leader is the country’s monarch.

So, does Juristocracy “promulgate” (an ideology), or interfere with free expression by being based on a particular moral and political philosophy?

It does not, and I will explain why, and what are the divisions of ideas and operations involved, to insure this remains the case.

As explained in the first section, Juristocracy is as a matter of fact necessarily based on a specific ideology. It is not possible to formulate and defend the system, without reference to the facts and ideas intellectually and morally necessary to do so.

But the fact that the system requires a specific philosophic system for its definition, does not imply that those ideas need or should be part of the implementation of Juristocracy in a specific country. There is Separation of Philosophy (or Church) and State.

Each of the institutions that should exist under Juristocracy is described in the Constitution, along with its purpose. Many of the required or allowed agencies already exist, and are well understood, particularly police forces, courts, prisons, and things like land title registries, and so on. None of those have any authority to promote specific ideologies, beyond generally accepted ideas like “justice”, “probable cause”, and so forth.

Legislatures are restricted from creating any bills except those for a specific purpose related to protecting rights. So there may be a requirement that all bills have a preamble stating what are those rights and of whom. But there should be no specific reference to Rand’s philosophy.

In fact, I’m having a hard time imagining how the intellectual base documents, such as the three cited essays of Ayn Rand, would be concretely relevant to any particular valid government agency or operation.

In this area, I would contrast with the ongoing initiatives by Christians to have elements of their religion embodied in ways such as the Ten Commandments displayed in government buildings. That is exactly an example of the abuse of freedom that is forbidden to a proper government. It is literally forbidden to the current American government, by the “establishment” clause; but groups continue to try to insist these religious references are not actually “establishment”. Well I would certainly argue they are, because they are implicit claims that the government endorses a specific set of religious beliefs, over others.

In any case, the Constitutional guarantee of the freedoms of thought and expression, along with the Annex (adjunct) prohibition of “establishment” by the government, serve as constant standards by which bills and operation of agencies must follow, and which are of course bases to challenge alleged infringing bills or actions.

Will the founding use of Rand’s ideas alienate non-Objectivists, such as libertarians and liberty conservatives?

(Note: this section does not include anarchists. I have written elsewhere about this, but briefly, anarchists are not allowed to become members of Juristocracy chapters, nor to become citizens under Juristocracy (but of course their individual, property, and civil rights are fully protected.) They are not potential allies.

This is a more difficult question to answer. Rand demonstrated the need to defend capitalism (and full freedom) on the basis of a moral philosophy necessary for that defense. Her philosophy provides that necessary defense. That necessity and her role in fulfilling it exists regardless whether some groups know that, or agree with the specific foundation provided.

In particular, Christian Conservatives (real, liberty conservatives) seem to believe, as best I can tell, that Christianity serves as the basis for individual rights, and thus everything that proceeds from that, including both political and economic freedom.

A person does not need to believe in Ayn Rand’s ideas to recognize the objective value of liberty and economic freedom. And I should emphasize that being a Christian does not prevent membership in Juristocracy chapters, or becoming a citizen (although they must otherwise meet the criteria for both.) Likewise, I have met libertarians who endorse freedom but who either don’t subscribe to, or have not examined Ayn Rand’s ideas. And again, those facts alone don’t exclude participation in and promotion of Juristocracy.

Those things said, anyone who does want to formally participate in Juristocracy, must agree not to misrepresent it, for example, by saying or implying that Christianity or some other religious or philosophic sect is the basis for Juristocracy. Juristocracy chapters are expected to remain secular in their operations. For example, even if an entire chapter happened to be Christians, they are not allowed to for example open or close meetings with Christian prayers.

The members of Juristocracy are united in achieving a formidable, monumental, but visionary goal: achieving a free society based on the political system of Juristocracy. Not something sorta similar. Not Juristocracy, but with a mixed economy. Not Juristocracy, but with taxes. Not Juristocracy, but “For God’s sake the government still needs to own and operate the roads!”

But as long as people with differing personal beliefs, can come together to achieve a specific concrete goal, regardless the effort, then I believe all these people should be able to work together. The secret, as with any coalition, is joint agreement of the goal, and a mutual pledge not to try to insert particular, partisan agendas into the endeavor.

I frankly predict that in practice though, this is going to be difficult for many Christian Conservatives. The reason is that Juristocracy has a defined and non-negotiable position on abortion and personhood. I have personally been willing to accept some degree of compromise, such as in the second, and third trimester, but I just haven’t seen the possible utility in that. Christians, including liberty Christians, have been relentless in the United States in trying to get abortion fully criminalized. Many of their intermediate measures, such as “heartbeat” and “viability” standards are just waypoints to the final goal. Since Juristocracy membership or citizenship require a pledge of allegiance to all of Juristocracy, not a curated subset, I am skeptical Christian Conservatives would agree.

I think though that many self-described “libertarians” may skew far more secular. If I find over time that there is fairly widespread opposition to full abortion freedom, I would be willing to have debates on whether some second and third trimester restrictions would be both pragmatically acceptable, as well as being morally acceptable. It should be noted, that Rand in her essay on this subject, was mostly focused on the first trimester, and seemed to suggest she did not have a categorical opinion on later stages. I remember reading later of a close intellectual acquaintance who had discussed and debated the issue with her at length, and persuaded her to a view more like my own (and the currently official view).

In any case, I do strongly believe that it is quite important to have the end goal of the drive for Juristocracy to be concretely defined, with only non-critical implementation details to be decided. The reason, is that if it is not concretely defined, this will absolutely lead to partisan battles once implementation grows close, each trying to vie for control, to impose their agenda on everyone.

Conclusion

A founding set of supporting ideas is necessary to justify freedom, and shape its implementation. The disaster that has been the history of capitalism without a necessary supporting intellectual foundation, speaks for itself. It would be useless to try to describe a “new” political system as a concrete-bound set of attributes evolved from existing systems. For example, it was the moral necessity for voluntary financing that actually led to the breakthrough discovery of its critical role in limiting improper government growth. It is also what enabled the discovery of the need for voluntary, conditional citizenship, which would be difficult to morally support under a system funded by taxation and similar coercive measures.

It has been demonstrated though, that the intellectual need to to base a political system of freedom and full capitalism upon correct philosophic foundations, in no way implies that the operational agencies and actions of such a free government would be improperly promoting those underlying ideas, and thus impinging on the freedoms of thought and expression of those under the government’s jurisdiction. More concretely: a Juristocracy government would neither be promoting Ayn Rand’s philosophy of Objectivism, nor interfering in the freedoms of citizens to hold and promote other ideologies or religions.

Agreement with or practice of Ayn Rand’s philosophy of Objectivism is not a requirement for membership in a Juristocracy chapter nor of citizenship. However contradictions are shown to arise in at least one prominent liberty-leaning group, that would probably lead its members to reject some of the provisions of Juristocracy, particularly relating to abortion and personhood, but possibly other areas too, such as marriage freedom. While a coalition with such people to promote Juristocracy is likely impossible, it may be possible to form coalitions to achieve specific concrete measures that are commensurable with Juristocracy.