 Let me begin then by quoting a passage that I have quoted several times here before. The quote from Ross Bard, my teacher and mentor. He said at some article, libertarianism is logically consistent with almost any attitude toward culture, society, religion or moral principle. In strict logic libertarian political doctrine can be severed from all other considerations. Logically one can be and indeed most libertarians in fact are hedonists, libertines, immoralists, militant enemies of religion in general and Christianity in particular and still be consistent adherent of libertarian politics. In fact in strict logic one can be a consistent devotee of property rights politically and be a butcher, a scamster, a petty crook and a racketeer in practice as all too many libertarians turn out to be. Strictly logically one can do all these things but psychologically, sociologically and in practice it simply doesn't work this way. Now a considerable part of my writings in recent years has been concerned with this very last half sentence of this quote of Ross Bard's and its implications. Central to the libertarian doctrine are the ideas of private property, of original appropriation and its transfer and the corresponding principle of non-aggression. And indeed it can be safely stated that recognition of these ideas and principles is a necessary requirement of human society, of people living together and cooperating with one another in peace. Just as certainty or just as certainly however recognition and adherence to these ideas and principles is not sufficient to make for conviviality that is for friendly, neighborly and communal relations among men. For this, as Edmund Berg emphasized, manners are actually more important than any law. More specifically than manners typically associated with so-called bourgeois morality of responsibility, conscientiousness, truthfulness, honesty and chivalry, respect and helpfulness, foresight, courage, self-discipline, moderation and reliability. There is no need to say much more on this subject since I have extensively written on it elsewhere except to add this, with my view regarding the utmost importance of bourgeois morality to be combined with libertarian law to make for convivial living. I will nearly attained the position of one of the most prominent contemporary right or realistic libertarians and as such became a favorite enemy not just of leftists and greens in general but especially and in particular also of the so-called left progressive or bleeding hard libertarians. That is of those folks who propagate such liberating messages as anything peaceful goes. Any lifestyle, the more abnormal it is, the better including one might wonder such peaceful activities as pedophilia, necrophilia and incest. Restend the other motto, respect no authority, not of fathers, not of mothers nor anyone better or superior to oneself. And the next liberating message, live and let live. That is never discriminate for any reason against anyone or exclude anyone for any conceivable reason whatsoever. No, this is what many libertarians indeed believe and I must say addressing here also my little audience. I do little word games with Sophie. They are called opera jokes and they go like water is very dry and the air is very wet. Ice cream is very hot and fire is very cold. And then Sophie said, no, that's not true. So that's my opinion to these liberating messages. Now while such liberators love to denounce me as a traitor to libertarianism as a homophobe, xenophobe, a racist, a closet fascist and a crypto Nazi, you know all the litany of this sort of stuff. To their great dismay, a large and growing contingent of libertarian mind that people have in the meantime come to recognize that it is actually they who have brought the libertarian doctrine into increasing disrepute and that only a radical break with them and a rightward turn to realism can restore libertarianism to intellectual respectability. Which brings me to the topic of this speech. This rightward turn to realism has also led me to a reassessment of intellectual history and a reevaluation of its various protagonists. More specifically, it has drawn my attention to the work of Karl Ludwig von Halle and the discovery of Halle as a precursor of right-right wing libertarianism. The effect of the most radical form of it that is of a private law society. I shall not say anything about the biography of Karl Ludwig von Halle. If you look at Wikipedia, you find it immediately is very short because he's not considered to be an important person anymore. So you don't have to have a large entry. Let me only say this, that Halle was born in 1768 and died in 1854. He comes from a prominent family in Bern, from a noble family. He left Switzerland, in Bern in particular, in 1798 when Napoleon invaded Switzerland and went to various places in Germany. He also spent some time in Vienna in 1806. He returned to Bern because then the Napoleonic stuff was all over. In 1820, he converted to Catholicism which caused some sort of scandal in Bern because Bern was very much a Protestant place. He went then to Paris, worked in various diplomatic functions and positions. In 1830, when in France the July revolution broke out, then he left France and returned to Zollertorn, which is a Catholic place in Switzerland. That's all I want to say about his biography. As I said, you can easily look it up. Halle was once famous, but today elicits hardly more than antiquarian interests. He is occasionally still mentioned and claimed by conservative writers as one of their own, but generally dismissed even by them as an ultra-reactionary that is long since outdated by the development of modern political philosophy and the realities of the modern state. And indeed, Halle was not just an outspoken opponent of the French Revolution and of Napoleon. He considered them the ultimate catastrophic outcome of fundamentally wrong ideas propagated and spread by political philosophers since about the 17th century. In his view, after some highly promising beginnings with Hugo Grosius, who was charged by Halle with only a few minor confusions, Halle diagnosed by and large nothing but intellectual decline, starting to mention here only the most prominent and still well-known people, starting with Hobbes, continuing through Locke, Pufendorf, and culminating with Montesquieu, Rousseau, and also Kant. Not Kant, the epistemologist, but Kant, the political philosopher. He considered them all as confused and dangerous ideologues with their notion of a social contract. And I will come to the idea of the social contract and what's wrong with it in a little while. Dismissed then by most of his contemporaries and practically all moderns as an arch enemy of the glorious Enlightenment project. Indeed, Halle typically referred to the Enlightenment philosophers depreciatingly as sophists. Halle came under additional fire also by the great Hegel. Hegel presented Halle as an unabashed advocate of accrued power naturalism. That is of arbitrary rule by the powerful and mighty. Completely false and deceptively is this because in Halle's main work there's a long chapter on the very limitations of power and a following chapter on the right of resistance and in particular the right to self-defense and self-justice that must appear to contemporary ears nothing short of revolutionary. Pretty much the same idea that David Durr presented here at the very end how he solves this problem. Before this background relating to the history of ideas I shall now attempt to present Halle as a radical libertarian. That is to the best of my knowledge this has never been done before. In general, although his own work is massive in volume the literature on Halle especially since the second half of the 20th century is rather slim. It mostly comes from conservative sides and as most conservative thought is typically weak on analytical rigor and in any case completely unfamiliar with modern libertarianism at least that is my impression serving the literature a bit. Libertarians on the other hand have systematically neglected Halle owing most likely to his reputation as a reactionary conservative with a notable pre-delection for princely or monarchical rule which is also has been an asma for a long time until my democracy book. Now while at first then my attempt at a reconstruction of Halle as a radical libertarian is hopefully not the last in fact I hope that my little speech here will entice other right-minded libertarians to likewise take a closer look at Halle notwithstanding the fact that Halle's prose is often somewhat tiresome, laborious and long-winded. I should mention that many of his works in the 19th century were also translated into French, Italian, Spanish and so forth so it's by no means the only Germans that can study him. So I hope for more people just doing this especially since my own concern here is exclusive with the first volume of Halle's main six-volume treaties presenting only the most basic principle of his social philosophy and being rather brief and sketchy even in this task. Now encountering Halle's central thesis for the very first time that the existence of states is in accordance with natural law and divine law that states are necessary and universal social institutions that they are manifestations of an unchanging human nature and that they have as such always existed and will always exist many contemporary libertarians and especially of course the most radical one will initially be taken aback. Doesn't this sound rather statist and how can one nonetheless claim Halle to be a libertarian? But this puzzle is immediately resolved however once it is realized that Halle's definition of a state differs fundamentally from the modern Weberian definition of the state as a territorial monopolist of violence and ultimate decision-making. Or more precisely Halle categorically distinguishes between a natural state as part of a natural social order and an artificial state that is the alleged outcome of a so-called social contract that stands in systematic violation against divine law. And now you will see the difference in a few minutes. Now according to Halle, natural states arise spontaneously or organically that is naturally out of the inexorable fact of human inequality out of the fact that there are strong and weak, wise and foolish, diligent and lazy, acquisitive and dull, rich and resourceful and poor and dependent people. The inevitable result of these inequalities is a hierarchical, vertical structure of each and every human society with a more or less complex mutually beneficial system of dependencies and servitudes on the one hand and corresponding freedoms and liberties on the other. Of course Halle is not familiar with the Ricardian law of association which provides a proof of how a superior, better or more productive person and an inferior, less productive and less talented person can nonetheless cooperate with each other to their mutual benefit. But he has this insight quite clear. He says that both benefit from their mutual cooperation and he anticipates this fundamental insight of Ricardo. He recognizes the natural tendency of the weak to seek help and assistance from the stronger and of the foolish and dull to consult and ask the wiser for knowledge and advice. And yet he also sees the benefits provided to the strong and the wise by their inferior or subordinate vows, vessels, servants, clients, pupils and students. And he concludes from this observation that there exists a natural tendency in all of human society for what he calls the mighty to rule the weak to their mutual advantage. Now according to Halle the mutual advantages or non-injurious character of the natural vertical or hierarchical structure of each and every human society is best exemplified by the institution of a family which also provides the prototype of what he calls then a natural state. Each family member, father, mother and child is subject to the same universal law and entitled to the same rights belonging to every human person to be free from aggression by another person. Halle terms this law the absolute private law. Their association is voluntary. You see in the institution of the family all ingredients of a society. There is a vertical structure. There is contract division of labor and there is cooperation. There are customary elements involved in it. And there is love involved in it as far as children are concerned for instance. So the association is voluntary and mutual beneficial although never altogether contractual but most definitely in the case of all children of course plain natural or customary and affected also by an element of love. The equality of father, mother and child in terms of absolute private law and the voluntary character of their relationships does not imply that they are also equals in regard to what Halle terms social private law which he considers the least worked out but most important part of private law. Rather the father was a mother in metrolineal societies. He mentions that explicitly. He's not when we talk about the father. The mother can do the same thing. So the father or the mother as the owner of the common household enjoy of course more liberties regarding household matters than the children do. The father is the head of the household whereas mother and children are typically dependents. No one at least at the dawn of human civilizations ranks above the father as the head of the household. He is the household's sovereign and sovereignty I'll come to that a little bit later and sovereignty or sovereign rule according to Halle that is a defining characteristic of a state. So the family is so to speak the first example of what a state is like. To be sure even as a sovereign ruler of his household the father cannot justifiably do whatever he pleases. Apart from abstaining from aggression against other family members he is bound by social private law to honor certain contractual or customary obligations vis-a-vis the mother and the child different as they may be in both cases and the neglect of these duties vis-a-vis his dependents would release these from their service obligations toward him. On the other hand however any neglect of duties on the part of mother or child would entitle the father more far reaching and consequential to exclude or expel them from his household whereby he would assert his sovereignty that he exercises over his household. Now whether as a result of natural developments or the result of the sovereign's abuse of power and the dependents exercise of the right of resistance then this if you will original position of a natural vertical order exemplified by a family is bound to change and change again over time continuously bringing about new and more complex types of dependencies and corresponding liberties expanding while restricting the range of a sovereign's rule and making erstwhile sovereigns lose their sovereignty and former dependents become sovereigns. The children and subsequently their children for instance may leave the parental household and strike out on their own presumably they thereby gain liberties that they previously did not enjoy but they may settle on land owned by their fathers keep working in their fathers business or otherwise keep relying on their ongoing assistance. Hence even if the children's liberties may have significantly increased they are not sovereigns regarding their newly founded separate households but remain as renters or employees a sovereign's dependents. By the same token the sovereign as a result of this development gains a greater number of dependents all the while his direct control of each of them is successively diminished by the interposition of a steadily growing number of intermediate authorities and their respective liberties or alternatively the children strike out on their own and establish another separate household completely independent of the original one. Thus a new sovereign head of a household is created which is in Hala's estimation another state with its own dependents standing in a purely extra social relationship with other sovereigns. Thus his relationship with other sovereigns is regulated then exclusive by absolute private law or synonymously with this by the law of nations or in the libertarian lingo by the non-aggression principle. As well just as established sovereigns or states may increase their number of dependents or new sovereigns may come into existence so established states may also lose their erstwhile dependents in that these break away from them break their ties with their former rulers and become independent or attach themselves to another sovereign or they may lose their former sovereignty altogether and become instead dependents by going broke and being taken over by another sovereign or some former upstart dependent for instance. Now the picture of a natural social order emerging from Hala's writings then is this relations between people can be of two types extra social relations and social relations extra social relations exist between people who have nothing to do with each other who stand side by side independent of each other as equals as one man to another man either in peaceful coexistence or else at war with each other yet while much attention has been paid by political philosophers to such relations as they exist for instance between various independent kings states or nations but also between one individual Hans in Germany and another individual Franz in Austria who have otherwise nothing to do with each other these extra social relations are certainly part of a natural social order but they are neither the original nor the primary or dominant and most characteristic or most interesting part of a natural order rather extra social relations only emerge out of prior social relations in the case families break away then only out of prior social relations can extra social relations emerge it is through the separation of these originally socially connected individuals into different households or families then that extra social relations between people come into existence thus in every social order exceeding the size of a single family then people stand or find themselves always in both extra social relations and social relations to other people now as far as social relations are concerned then they all have their natural origin in some mutual benefit arising or expected to arise from them or rather the inability of satisfying certain needs or attaining certain comforts in isolation and without the cooperation with others and there exist three types of social relations that a person may enter for one, people can be associated with each other as equals such as brothers or sisters or as members of a club with a common interest or common interest groups according to Halla however this is the empirically least frequent type or form of social relations far more common instead is it for people to enter into a social relation with others either as a master or a ruler or else as a servant or dependent the examples that he offers are plentiful the father or the mother versus the child there is a landlord versus a tenant there is an employer versus the employee there is a producer versus the consumer there is a general versus the officer there is the officer versus the soldier the master versus the apprentice the teacher versus the student the doctor versus the patient the restaurant the patron and the benefactor versus the beneficiary and the beggar and so forth there is always an unequal role that they play some so to speak the superior the other is the inferior regarding these various forms of rulership and dependency of superior and inferior status Halla emphasizes again and again the natural mutually advantageous character the various rulers did not impose their rulership on their corresponding dependence nor did the various dependence elevate and appoint their corresponding rulers to their superior position the rulers did not receive their status as rulers from the ruled but they had it and occupied it on account of their own talents and achievements nor did any of the various dependence lose any of their freedoms or liberties on account of their dependency but they were dependence either by nature such as the case with children or on account of their own voluntary choice so as to satisfy needs or wants that would be otherwise unattainable as Halla sums it up the inferiors do not give anything to their superior and he in turn does not take anything away from them but they help and use each other both acting within their own respective rights equal regarding their inborn natural rights and unequal in regard to their acquired rights do they both exercise their right for freedom in accordance with their own free will and to the best of their abilities now of course Halla is fully aware of the fact that every relationship between ruler and ruled can be dissolved if it is no longer mutually beneficial the consumer may turn to become a producer the soldier can turn into a general the student can become another teacher the patient can become a doctor and so forth as well a former consumer may become a producer and the producer become a consumer the soldier can become a general and the general can become a soldier the student can become a teacher and the teacher can become a student the patient can become a doctor and the doctor can become a patient but what never changes owing to the natural inequality of all men is a distinction between rulers and superiors and ruled or inferiors and the fact that in each and every type of social relationship it is always the ruler who contributes most to social wellbeing and is a promoter of social advancement as well Halla points out two more interrelated features characteristic of a natural social order which of great importance for its internal stability for one he notes that practically no one no ruler and no ruled are exclusively ruler or ruled and the person is familiar with and has learned to exercise both of these rules that is both of the rules of ruler and of the ruled if only in different contexts or under different circumstances the ruling father may also be a dependent tenant the ruling head of a football club and may be also a dependent employee may also be a ruling employer a doctor or a lawyer a patient or a client and a ruling teacher of students the officer may rule his soldiers and at the same time he may be ruled by a general who is in turn subject to the rule of his landlord so all people learn to act in both rules sometimes superior in a certain interaction sometimes they are the inferior secondly and notwithstanding this intricate inter-mixture of the roles of ruler and ruled however there is in every sizable society also a natural tendency towards social stratification that is the emergence of a ruling upper class of people enjoying greater liberties and comforts having lower class of people with lesser liberties and greater dependencies naturally with all social relations being mutually beneficial there exist upward and downward mobility but the stratification in upper and lower social classes itself is to be taken as a natural constant on the one end of the extreme who are heads of households and at the same time major landowners owners of farms, factories and firms of mansions and rental properties people who employ hundreds or even thousands of employees of advisors, teachers, lawyers, doctors managers, security guards, cooks, maids and servants and on the other extreme there are day laborers vagabonds, beggars or the recipients of arms and in between these two extremes and there exist countless gradations ceaseless fluctuations regarding the social status of different people and the corresponding extent of liberties or dependencies enjoyed or willingly sought and accepted by them now of course Hala does not deny that hierarchical order can be skewed or distorted by violence, conquest and usurpation and at the conclusion of my talk I will discuss the reasons and Hala thinks of them as fundamentally intellectual errors that are the source of any lasting and enduring rather than merely temporary distortions and he recognizes that these distortions have become particularly frequent and dramatic in recent times however the natural state of affairs according to Hala is ruled off and by the Mahdi era he calls Mahdi as not only just physical power just the superior people that is to say the top and the higher ranks of the social hierarchy that is the members of the upper class are typically occupied and made up of the best and most accomplished people that is those endowed with the greatest talents and the highest achievements and it is precisely their status as better more talented, more accomplished and more successful that persuades and leads the lesser talented the less accomplished people the less successful people to attach themselves to these more successful people as their dependents because to attach oneself to attach oneself instead to be a dependent and ruled by someone who is considered to be inferior or of lesser accomplishment is simply unnatural and any such relationship in Hala's view should if it ever comes into existence and would almost invariably lead to strife, resistance or rebellion in distinct contrast a person's voluntary dependency comes most naturally and easy the higher the rank or status of one's ruler because the greater and more accomplished the ruler the better and more securely can once satisfy one's own ends and needs thus in peacetime for instance writes Hala when one's central concern is to live and live comfortably people naturally turn to the wealthiest and most noble of people for assistance during war on the other hand when people's main concern is to be protected from aggression and destruction they will naturally subject themselves to the rule of the bravest and most cunning of people and occasionally, rarely enough when big questions rise to the rank of contentious social issues that is fundamental questions regarding right or wrong, true and false people will look out for the wisest of people and voluntarily subject themselves to the authority indeed notes Hala the natural law or principle that the superior will rule and exercise authority over the inferior and the inferior recognizes and accepts such relationship as natural and a matter of course holds also in this field of games and sports fame, honor, trophies and prizes are invariably bestowed or rewarded to the winner, to the champions while the losers however reluctantly and maybe enviously cannot but help to accept their defeat as well this very law or principle of social stratification as Hala emphasizes over and over again provides at the same time the best assurance of social stability and protection against social strife and unrest, the stability of every society that is the peaceful, tranquil and convivial association of men is always threatened from two sides on the one hand by the envy of the have-nots, visa-visals who have something and on the other hand by the abuse of power by the powerful yet envy by the have-nots even if it cannot never be entirely eradicated, this envy is minimized or moderated to the very extent that the position of the have rests on superior talent or achievement, indeed the greater and more apparent the superiority of the have, the less and more attenuated the have-nots envy or resentment becomes and as far as the abuse of power by the mighty is concerned, this too can never be entirely ruled out of course but the more their position of power rests on their superior talent and achievement and their authority and status is voluntarily acknowledged and accepted by others the less reason is therefore powerful to abuse, offend or injure anyone to the contrary the more reason for them to act noble, to be generous, visa-visal less powerful and powerless so as to maintain and secure their position now before the backdrop of these considerations regarding the natural rule of the mighty over the weak and the stratification of people into upper and lower social classes and the central importance in particular of the members of the former class for the maintenance of social stability and so forth, Hala then proceeds with his exposition of his doctrine of the natural state now from the very outset it should be recorded that Hala's understanding and definition of a natural state is entirely different from what the moderns have come to understand and mean by the term Hala's concept of the state corresponds to its pre-modern usage that is the meaning it had throughout most of the middle ages hence his label by contemporaries as an alter a reactionary that is attached to him the natural physical basis of all states according to Hala is land that is the ownership of contiguous or discontiguous pieces of ground land the owner and hence the ruler of this land may be an individual person that is a prince, a king, an emperor, a czar a sultan, a shah, a khan or whatever it is and the state is hence referred to as a princely state or else the owner is an association or cooperation of several individuals like of senators such as in Rome of doges such as in Venice or Eidgenossen or confederates such as in Switzerland and the state is this state is then referred to as a republican state or a republic in any case however whether ruled by a prince or by some cooperative every state and every state ruler is subject to the same private law as any other lesser property owner and person the difference between a state and the ruler of a state and other people and their property as Hala repeatedly emphasizes is not a categorical one but merely one of degree a princess direct rule extends only to his own property just as in the case of every other person and his property and as I will show shortly it is only in regard to this self administration of one's own property that there exists a somewhat little difference between a prince and everyone else only with regard to how you can deal with your own property give a small difference between prince I'll come to this in a second in any case as a private law subject a prince does not rule over other people and their property except in so far as these have voluntarily attached themselves to the prince and entered into some sort of relationship with him to better satisfy their own needs hence in distinct contrast to the modern state a prince may not unilaterally pass legislative decrees or impose taxes on other people and their property rather whatever dependencies or servitudes there may exist vis-a-vis a prince they vary from one dependent to another I have certain relationships with that guy you have different types of relationships with that guy he can tell you this but he cannot tell me this he can to me tell me this and you can tell you something else because we have different types of contractual relationships with him rather whatever dependencies or servitudes there may exist vis-a-vis the prince then vary from one dependent to another and in any case they are all voluntarily accepted and may be dissolved once they are no longer mutually beneficial and Hala adds some illuminating terminological observations to further clarify the status of a prince as a mere private law subject he says the most appropriate way to refer to the status of a prince or king then is to identify him simply as a head of a particular household such as the head of the house of the bourbonen of the house of Habsburg of the house of Hohenzollern or the house of Wittelsbach this is just family properties that they have appropriate and already slightly misleading is it to refer to them instead as a king of France or the king of Austria Prussia or Bavaria because this insinuates falsely in Hala's view that they are something like the owners of all of France of all of Austria all of Bavaria and so forth and completely misguided is it to call them the government of France, Austria, Prussia or Bavaria as if they were merely the employees of the French, Austrian, Prussian and Bavarian population they rule over no one in this sense they only have their own property princes or in the case of republics senators, doges and so forth because of these upper social classes of course but it is not the size of their land holdings or the number of their people the number of directly or indirectly dependence on them that makes them a state indeed there may exist people who own more land, who employ more people and whose income and wealth exceeds that of the prince senator or doge and yet who do not qualify as heads of a state as a matter of fact as also already mentioned before at the fictitious beginning of mankind of a single family unit as a prototype of a state as that demonstrates mere size according to Hala got essentially nothing to do with the question what a social relationship or position qualifies as a state in fact and especially noteworthy Hala even expresses a strong preference for a multiplicity of small principalities or republics very much along the lines of my own call for Europe of thousands of Liechtenstein rather than one unified EU for instance against the possibility of abuse on the part of the powerful so what then according to Hala is it that distinguishes the head or the heads of a state whether big or small from all other persons and their property it is not as I have already mentioned that a prince or an association of senators would never stand or find himself in a position of inferiority no one in society based on division of labor is exempt from the sobering experience of being sometimes the dumber one, the one who needs advice or so even the greatest of kings need doctors and counselors and must bow to their superior authority for instance rather summed up in just one word what makes for a head of state is just as I mentioned before sovereignty, he who is entirely free to make decisions regarding his person and his property because there is no one person ranking above him to whom he owes any justification and is subject to no one else's authority either by virtue of customs or contract and who can accordingly do or not do with his property whatever he pleases without having to answer to anyone except to God and the eternal law, that's how I formalize it he only he qualifies as a head of state and by contrast then everyone who is someone else's dependent or whose property is subject to some sort of servitude such as every vessel lessee, employee, tenant, renter, debtor for instance does not qualify as a state regardless of how big, mighty, wealthy or influential he otherwise might be as Hala admits and indeed repeatedly emphasizes however dependence comes in degrees and the difference between a sovereign and a dependent is by no means a difference like the difference between day and night a dependency might be so light as to be hardly noticeable a dependent may be even command more resources than a sovereign ruler and their different rank or status may boil down to no more than a difference in prominence and prestige now from Hala's definition of a head of state as a private law subject distinguished from every other person merely by the sovereignty of his rule over his own property then follows his categorical rejection of the by now dominant alternative definition of a state as a protection agency and a provider of justice for Hala states as states are essentially nothing else than a private enterprise and as such they have no common function or common purpose it is not to say that they have no purpose every social institution and relationship does have a purpose but they have no common purpose but rather a variety or a multitude of different private persons because they are just nothing else but private firms so to speak and this holds for states as well the purpose and function of a state then is to afford and allow its head a good social life according to his own varying and changing conception of what constitutes a good and nice life most emphatically however states cannot be defined as protection agencies or justice providers according to Hala because the task and the right to protect one's own person and property that is to act according to the principles of natural law as laid down by God applies equally to everyone and to all social institutions and to all social relations and hence cannot be considered unique to states everyone can defend himself everyone is in charge of providing justice to promote and defend justice is equally at the same time also the ineliable right and obligation even of the lowliest of persons that ties back to what I said before about his view about self-justice and self-defense everyone has the same right when it comes to self-defense and providing justice as anybody else also now this brings me then to the concluding section of my speech now at this point the subtitle of Halas Magnum Opus may be record as it's called a theory of natural social order contrasted to the chimera of the artificial civil state now what I have so far presented is the first positive part of this work that is what Hala considers the natural outcome of people living together everywhere and at all times this natural order is not claimed to be perfect of course nothing in human affairs is perfect but it is the best possible arrangement to preserve all natural human liberties to best satisfy everyone's needs changing circumstances and of course like all human institutions it is subject to the possibility of abuse but within this framework it is also the best provision for the means and provides the means and measures to prevent, to combat, to avoid or to evade any such abuse now as should be completely obvious by now however Hala's natural social order and natural state has nothing whatsoever to do with modern society and the modern state that we are all only too familiar with, the modern state and the modern society cannot even be considered as an example and a consequence of Hala's state turned rogue rather the modern state and society which Hala writing some 200 years ago terms the artificial state of the modern artificial civil society and recognizes as in the making by then already since the 17th century this modern state is something entirely different beast, entirely of a completely different nature the successive transformation and the ultimate replacement of the natural order and natural state and one artificial one is the result in Hala's view of a fundamental intellectual error relentlessly promoted in various slightly different but always essentially identical versions by countless social contract theories to this day indeed the result in Hala's view of an intellectual error and a faulty theory of the grandest proportion a theory that Hala remarks so patently false from beginning to end as to be almost laughable a chimera so devoid of common sense and detached from the reality that only an intellectual, a sophist in Hala's terminology could invent it and yet a theory that would literally turn the world upside down that would transform lowly servants into rulers of princes and children into masters of their parents and that would be destructive of all of human liberties and the theory as summarized by Hala this social contract theory you have all heard it boils down to four propositions first one originally in the state of nature mankind had lived outside of any social relations that is in exclusively extra social relations side by side with each other and in a state of complete freedom and equality second proposition however in this state of affairs the natural human rights and liberties were not secure third statement hence people associated with each other and delegated the power to arrange for and assure general all around protection and security to one or several people among them and the fourth proposition through this institution of the state then it comes to God as a result of a contract the freedom of each individual would be better and more securely safeguarded and protected than before so following Hala I shall now my final test take up each of these propositions in turn and demonstrate in all due brevity the utter absurdity of the entire doctrine and its manifold internal contradictions and the disastrous consequences following from its acceptance the first proposition that we all lived in extra social relationships and premise of the theory must already be rejected as mere fiction or fake without any factual basis whatsoever never has anything like a state of nature as depicted by social contract theorist existed anywhere never has anyone ever lived entirely outside of social relations if he did we would not even need a language as a means of communication and if we do use a language this proves the existence of social relationships with others indeed as has already been mentioned social relations as exemplified by the institution of the family precede extra social relations which can only come about by the breakaway of people from their original social institution of a family no one has ever lived throughout his entire life in a state of affairs characterized by complete freedom and equality rather from the very outset the state of human nature is characterized by unequal liberties and inequalities by rulers and ruled by masters and dependents children and mothers and children such inequalities are not the result or outcome of previous contracts or agreements or require contracts or agreements for their explanation or their justification a father does not become a father because the kid signed a contract with the father said I make you a contract and vice versa to the contrary these inequalities precede or contracts and agreements and provide the natural basis and justification for all mutually beneficial agreed upon and contracted upon social relations and associations now the analysis of the second proposition does not fare much better even critics of the social contract theory often slide by almost uncommented however as Halarist perceptively points out it too gets things completely upside down and puts a card before the horse true enough the potential danger coming from some person C or the fear of an attack by C may help A and B tie together form a coalition but the association of A and B is not based on insecurity or fear rather it is a result of mutual trust or even love between A and B A and B do not fear each other or believe their rights to be endangered or infringed upon by their association but to the very contrary A and B love each other and associate for this reason fear and mistrust are reasons not to associate but to distance and to separate oneself from others to assert instead as Hobbes does for instance that social relations emerge out of a state of affairs of universal fear out of a war of all against all a bellum or contra onness is simply absurd as well contra all social contract theories as in particular the natural and mutual attraction and association of the sexist demonstrates once again human cooperation based on trust and love precedes all conflict and war and human cooperation is always possible always available and capable again not only but as satisfactorily as humanly possible of dealing also with such extraordinary extra or antisocial events such as war and conflict and so forth which brings me to the third proposition and with that to the very height of absurdity and it is here with Halla's criticism of this thesis in particular where any still lingering about the status of the author of a massive work concerned with the restoration of the theory of the state that is a title of his main work should finally be laid to rest and Halla's status as a radical libertarian in modern lingo as an anarcho capitalist would be firmly cemented because here 200 years ago Halla advances practically every single argument also leveled against the legitimacy of the modern state by contemporary libertarianism and libertarians in the tradition of Rosepart to begin with it is noted that there exists no record whatsoever as anything resembling a contract as imagined by social contract theories has ever been concluded anywhere and Halla immediately cuts to the heart of the matter as to why this is so and why any such contract is simply inconceivable in the state of nature he writes everyone for his protection and security could rely on his own powers and means of self-defense or he could choose someone more powerful than himself and equipped with more or better means of protection and attach himself at a mutually agreed upon terms to such a person as a vessel or servant and he could terminate and leave any such association and return to defensive self-sufficiency or attach himself to another presumably better protector why then Halla wonders would anyone consider it an improvement if he could no longer choose his own protector and mode of protection but such a decision were made instead by others the so-called people how is that supposed to be freedom he asks more specifically the mention of the people provides the keyword for an entire barrage of embarrassing follow-up questions who are these people who supposedly delegate their powers to the state and its heads so as to then assure all of their security and protection is it everyone who can breeze and if not why not is it the entire world population that makes up the people or are there different people and how then to draw the border lines and determine who does and does not belong to this people or that people and what about the fact that there are constantly people dying and being born a contract can bind only those who actually concluded it and hence must not the contract be continuously renewed and redesigned then whenever a newborn enters the scene moreover why would the head of a household or a prince for instance agree that the children or his servants should have an equal say in the selection of their joint ruler or overlord and if they didn't have such a say would this not imply that some previously harmonious mutually beneficial relationship between parents and children for instance or between a prince and his servants would thereby become increasingly infected with tension and strife likewise regardless of who is considered and counted as a member of the people it is inconceivable that all of them unanimously would agree on who should be their overlord and if that is not the case which can be taken as a certainty how can this contract still be considered binding also on those disagreeing or dissenting and does this not imply then that the entire complex network of harmonious relations characteristic of a natural social order will be distorted or destroyed and be replaced by a system of rival or even hostile parties and partisanship affecting and infecting every nuke and cranny of the social fabric still the questions do not stop whoever is appointed by one party of the people as their supreme protector of all parties then that may impose his will on everyone supporters and dissenters alike how far reaching are his competences what constraints any are put on his actions are people still allowed to protect and defend themselves against injurious or wrongful actions by others may people still bear arms or build fortresses may a father still smack his son for gross misconduct may an employer still dismiss his employee for negligent behavior may a landlord still expel a delinquent tenant from his property or ban others from entry or must everyone disarm and any and all of these potential conflicts come under the purview of the state surely there is no unanimous answer to be expected to these questions however what can be asserted with certainty is that the interposition of the state in any of such matters is an infringement of natural law a violation of private property rights and an arbitrary restriction of human liberty that is the very opposite of the alleged purpose of the institution of the state last but not least there remains still one more unanswerable question to reveal once more the total muddle and confusion of the social contract theory whoever is appointed by the part by some part not all there is no unanimity whoever is appointed by a part of the people to be supposedly the entire all peoples employee and the security provider and protector for all of them this person or this group of person they need resources to do so he needs manpower, material goods and it is his employer the employer of the leaders of the state are the people it is his employers, the people who must provide the leaders of the state with all that with some means to do the job but how much money, personnel and protective gear is necessary to do the job among the people is supposed to contribute what part of the total surely it is impossible to ever reach a unanimous agreement on this question certainly the head of the state to whom all powers had allegedly been delegated would ask for ever more resources arguing that the more resources he had at his disposal the more security he could provide but why would anyone who had not voluntarily chosen this person as his protector who deemed himself capable of providing for his own security and who regarded his alleged protectors as less than impartial as a partisan or even as a dangerous foe why would he hand over any of his money or other property to him so as to be wasted or even used to oppress him and rob him of ever more of his own property harmonious relations and voluntary services and payments would be replaced by coercion, serfdom and taxes and coercion, serfdom and taxes then would be used for ever more future coercion, serfdom and taxes the Bellum Omnium Contra Omnus then that did not exist in the state of nature it is actually only brought about by the artificial state and it is continuously incited and promoted by the state so as to steadily expand its own powers at the expense of the increasing loss of all private liberties and this horrendous state of affairs then that we owe to the propaganda the relentless intellectual claptrap of the social contract series this is what we are supposed to consider the new and improved human freedom and liberty, what a cruel joke thank you very much