Timothy C. May wrote:
At 6:05 PM -0500 4/4/97, Mark M. wrote:
I don't know any anarchists who oppose ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ contract law or argue that anyone has this right. The cryptography employee ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ who releases trade secrets or sabotages products is violating the company's property rights; whether it is moral or not is irrelevant. Again, I don't think you will find any anarchists who would dispute this. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ *
{* TCM's emphasis}
Count me as one who thinks things are not this easy. Ultimately, all decisions to obey or ignore or sabotage contractual relationships is a personal one.
I agree. Obviously Mark doesn't know enough anarchists. Pardon me for beating my Hitler analogies to death, but when Hitler was Fuhrer, the trains ran on time. I have no problem with those who supported him for this reason. However, as his administrative policies began to increasingly infringe on the lives of others, it was up to each participant in his ruling party to decide for themselves what was an acceptable level of power/control over the citizens, and what was not. My own rule of thumb is to consider whether I would consider laws or regulations affecting the behavior and rights of others to be an infringement if they were applied to my own behavior and rights.
This issue has come up before. One name for the debate is "lifeboat ethics." Suppose Alice has a contract not to trespass against the property of others in the marina she belongs to. One night she falls off her boat as she's leaving the marina. She can either _honor_ her contract, and drown. Or she can grab onto Bob's boat and pull herself to safety, even though she's just without any doubt vioated her contract.
As I mentioned a few days ago, there are _some_ anarchists, notably Murray Rothbard, who argued that Alice must choose death over violation of a contract. Most anarchists I know think him crazy.
I fully support Rothbard's right to choose death, but do not consider him as having any say in Alice's decision.
Cryptography professionals have the *ability* to follow their consciences, but that does not excuse them from punishment resulting in infringing on their employer's rights or violating the terms of their employment.
I've never argued that those who get caught breaking a contract shouldn't face the consequences--providing others in the society honor the contract!
This begs the question of who is to decide whether or not society is honoring their part of the contract. Arguing that society/civilization is doing a fairly decent job "for the most part" does not negate the fact that if an individual is taking it up the ass, he or she will not be inclined to take it sitting down. Native Americans are the prime example of a group who were subjected to severe penalties for failing to "honor the contract" while their oppressors felt free to dishonor the contract at will by virtue of superior firepower. Individuals have the freedom to sabatoge systems which they see as injust and oppressive. To suggest that the average person will abuse that right, and thus has no conscience, is to suggest that the average person has less right than corporations to decide what is right and wrong. It is my own belief that fears surrounding employees making morally based decisions of this nature are a result of the knowledge that many corporate entities fall short of meeting even rudimentary standards of moral values. TruthMonger