Comments on: How Not Metaphorical Is “Countries as Clubs”?

By: Towards YouTopia: Must All Public Good Providers Remain Earthbound? « Let A Thousand Nations Bloom

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 10:25:40 +0000

[...] once compared taxation to paying membership dues at a club. Steven Pinker gave him shit for it, and deservedly so. After all, if you don’t pay your taxes “men with guns will put you in jail.” But what if [...]

By: Pedro

Pedro — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 01:36:43 +0000

Except you're not born on the Club premises. Are there no rights that arise from simply coming into existence in a place? Must you depart if you don't like the local customs?

By: TStockmann

TStockmann — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 16:12:41 +0000

“My complaint is that none of them say much at all about the justification of the principles that determine who becomes a citizen — becomes a legitimate part “owner” of the huge plot from which others may be excluded — and who does not.”

Like any other organization, it is determined by the wishes of current owners, based on any reasons they feel sufficient, whether or not you recognize them as “principles.” Of course you can engage in as much rhetoric as you may wish to shift that decision. Why is there any difficulty here?

By: mk

mk — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 16:11:52 +0000

But the point, I think, is: how does the club metaphor loosen our intuitions about membership rules? After all, many people have straightforward intuitions that a club is free to create membership rules that exclude whoever they want. Of course then you get into a civil rights issue and we start saying things like "except along lines of race, gender, sexual orientation, etc...."

Is your aim to take those exceptions and transform them into a justice-based account of why clubs can exclude certain types of people but not other types, and then use that as a springboard to consider the same questions about country membership?

Is it true that our immigration policy doesn't live up to the spirit of our current restrictions on club membership policy? Is there a disconnect there?

Not knowing much about either immigration or club membership laws I'm wondering more specifically what direction your analogy points us in. Or are you posing the analogy in advance of knowing what that direction is?

By: Michael Drake

Michael Drake — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 13:31:50 +0000

I don't understand DP-SP's objection. If you stop paying your membership dues, the club can have men with guns forcibly eject you from the premises. (I guess it all turns on whether one prefers exile to jail…)

By: libfree

libfree — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 02:54:42 +0000

I'm certainly not part of a Randian fringe, but I do support the fair tax and abolition from the income tax. I see lots of bumpet stickers. Maybe the fringe is quite large.