I was listening to a podcast where one participant mentioned the phrase, "necessary, but not sufficient," in his justification for capitalism, and I realized that phrase was key to many disputes which arise from dissident positions.
I know the very word capitalism immediately triggers an array of preconceptions and prejudices. That is a complicated subject for another post, but a brief explanation seems in order. The topic at hand is laissez-faire capitalism where government does not grant special privileges to favored market actors. This is in direct contrast to the modern system commonly called capitalism where governments grant the legal status of "corporation" to businesses, followed by burdens like taxes, regulation, and a central bank monetary system along with privileges like "intellectual property" protections, subsidies, bailouts, sweetheart contracts, financial protections for shareholders and bureaucrats, and so forth. My point is that core idea of "necessary, but not sufficient," because it covers a range of subjects.
Individual liberty to create and exchange is necessary, but not sufficient, for a free and prosperous society. Of course people can be ignorant, fallible, vicious, and coercive. It is my recognition of this fact that forms part of my argument against giving anyone political power, because such debased people are most drawn to it, and those who intend virtue will inevitably be corrupted by the incentive structures of power.
Private property as defined by homesteading and voluntary exchange and in contrast to political grants or plunder is necessary, but not sufficient, for a free society. This does not preclude communes, mutualism, or any other form of voluntary, consenting, cooperative action. In contrast, I would argue it is the only framework that can allow for it. I also do not deny we are living in the aftermath of thousands of years of imperialism, genocide, colonialism, and other forms of plunder. Government today is often presented by left-wing authoritarians as a means to redress those grievances and reverse those prior injustices. However, any political system as we know it means relying on a territorial monopoly in violence perpetuating further coercion and plunder.
The non-aggression principle states that no one has the authority or right to initiate coercive force against peaceable people. This is necessary, but not sufficient, for virtuous cooperative human interaction. It is a baseline, or perhaps a go/no-go gauge, to further analysis. It does not preclude violence in defense of self or property, but neither does it justify shooting a kid for stealing a candy bar. Government is advertised especially by right-wing authoritarians as a collective means to exercise self-defense against both local criminals and foreign powers while ignoring the trespasses inherent in such government action.
Whenever I make an argument against some aspect of mainstream political thought, there almost inevitably follows a string of whataboutism. One common form of this is an apparent assumption that if I am arguing for something like the non-aggression principle, free market economics, broadly Lockean concepts of property rights, or the like, I need to explain how this solves every possible real or imagined problem in society, Conversely, if I argue against some commonly-accepted concept like democracy, government welfare, intellectual property laws, or licensing, I am asked to erect on the spot some centrally-planned solution I would administer in its place. It is necessary, but not sufficient, to challenge the status quo
I do not deny we live in a world of difficult choices and circumstances. I deny that anyone, including me, has all the answers. It is necessary, but not sufficient, to have open discourse and a multitude of experiments to find which solutions work for different groups. After all, there are doubtless many who will disagree with me on necessity and sufficiency, but if we can stop trying to seize power over each other and live together in peace, we can put our ideas into practice under a voluntary framework and see what actually works for real people in the real world going forward. I can only say for certain that no one in the political class can offer a good solution, and the differences between individuals can only result in a tug-of-war over such central power to coerce and plunder, resulting in destruction regardless of their stated intentions.
