All that talk yesterday and still no one has addressed how coercion in our foreign policy is compatible with individualism. Why should we not be trading value for value, as judged by our individual reason, when it comes to foreign policy?
... That you ignored. You didn't explain your answers to the questions asked you, you just moved on.
So "all that talk" was meaningless, since you didn't actually "talk to" us as much as "talked at" us.
and still no one has addressed how coercion in our foreign policy is compatible with individualism.
Why should we? What about the post yesterday demanded that? You demand that? Well, we could discuss it - but you've got a lot of outstanding questions and problems with what you've said. That usually means your demanding ability is lessened, not increased. (Part of the problem with the P4u1it3s - they demand demand demand, but fail to explain the huge logical gaps in their logic.)
"coercion in our foreign policy" demonstrates your huge gaping bias there, as well.
But I'll first ask you this: demonstrate where no "coercion in any foreign policy" has worked.
Why should we not be trading value for value, as judged by our individual reason, when it comes to foreign policy?
Such as?
Take this "value for value" concept you have. Explain how it would work. Use concrete examples this time - because I'd like to know, how, for instance, the Israeli/Arab conflict could be solved through "Free market" principals. Or the Cold War. Or even, say, a mugging or burglary. The latter should be simple enough.
I suspect in concrete examples you'll find many problems - which is why you, as a MIT-educated scientist - should have no problem with doing it, since that's where you'll work out the real issues.
What you should find, is a concept of value/value is only usable if all parties are seeking the same thing and willing to trade value for value.
Often, they're not. Even more often, people misjudge values and costs. And even more often than that, previous decisions force decisions. That's both ego, and trust. For example: you've demonstrated very sloppy thinking, claiming Paul is "against robbery" (then admitting well, it's just different) and that he's a strict Constructionist - except when he's not. (Or in other words, every point you've offered to differentiate Paul you've retracted.)
So the trust between you and I when it comes to snap decisions and evaluations is, shall we say, not automatic. Any transaction you and I make as a result, where I have to trust your decision or evaluation, I'm going to rate higher in risk. You may well take offense at this, and now we have an "issue".
I once saw a study about criminals in prison. They took the "fruits of their crimes" and divided it by their stay in jail, factoring in some variables for "Shelter" and "food" and medical care and whatnot, and intentionally ignoring any part of the "Fruit" that had been confiscated as part of their arrest.
As I recall, the average "hourly wage" for a inmate was $.65/hr.
Obviously, this is far less than you'd make in even a minimum wage job. Yet we have prisons full of people who thought they'd never get caught, or they wanted to live the high life in the meantime.
And many of them are just fine with hurting you, or killing you and your loved ones so they can do that, even if it means they'll spend the rest of their life in jail if caught.
How do you "trade value for value" with someone like that?
And what if they're in charge of a nation-state?
We often do trade value for value, and sometimes even add a heaping helping of anti-Randian altruism on top.
For instance, the Japanese only gave us a tiny little bombing, and in return we gave them an ass whipping their grandchildren haven't forgotten. We just don't seem willing to go that extra mile anymore...
Don't forget that we also provide their military defense (stripped them of military capabilities so they couldn't repeat their aggression, but didn't leave them defenseless from others' aggression), and helped them rebuild after the war. In other words, after we kicked the living daylights out of them, we picked them back up out of the dirt and made them a friend.
Okay, let me take some of those statements from yesterday and see if I can put them together in some sort of order.
moke:"Ron Paul is a constitutionalist insofar as the constitution 90% matches his philosophy. In cases where there is disagreement, he follows his philosophy."
On this we all agree. It's that 10% difference where he goes his own way that gives us pause. For example:
moke:"It's not in my self interest to be robbed to pay for a war that I think is both counterproductive and unwinnable. People should be persuaded rather than forced to support war."
Yet this is precisely one of the few powers legitimately granted to the Federal Government by the Constitution:
"The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States;"
… "To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water; To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years; To provide and maintain a Navy;"
— U.S. Constitution, Article 1, Section 8
That authority is granted to Congress to make those decisions for the entire United States. Furthermore, the Constitution explicitly prohibits individual states from engaging in war on a piecemeal basis:
"No State shall, without the Consent of Congress, … or engage in War, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not admit of delay."
— U.S. Constitution, Article 1, Section 10
Perhaps you could explain why the Constitution is wrong about this. How, exactly, would it work to have the military not protect you, while protecting the rest of us who do want that protection and are willing to pay for it? Would a foreign military or guerilla force be free to bomb your house, but not your neighbor's house?
"Perhaps you could explain why the Constitution is wrong about this. How, exactly, would it work to have the military not protect you, while protecting the rest of us who do want that protection and are willing to pay for it? Would a foreign military or guerilla force be free to bomb your house, but not your neighbor's house?"
This has been explained by multiple authors, I'm not going to rehash their arguments. I happen to be a fan of Rothbard, so I'll direct you to his book "Power and Market", you can see his argument for "defense services on the free market" here: http://mises.org/story/2511
"Why should we? What about the post yesterday demanded that?"
then you get to some foreign policy midnight, and in stead of chiming, it barks and smears itself with poo.
I had no intention of discussing questions like: What are the relative merits of an excise tax vs an income tax? Is Ron Paul a hypocrite? etc... I only wanted to discuss foreign policy, and specifically why a blog dedicated to individualism has a problem with a politician who wants to move our foreign policy in that direction.
Yes there is a little bit of a logical leap there since I'm assuming that Ron Paul understands liberty and individualism, based on his influences, and will move our foreign policy in that direction. Now you have a point if you think Paul will not do that, but simply use coercion to enforce his views.
"Take this "value for value" concept you have. Explain how it would work. Use concrete examples this time - because I'd like to know, how, for instance, the Israeli/Arab conflict could be solved through "Free market" principals. Or the Cold War. Or even, say, a mugging or burglary. The latter should be simple enough."
This has been explained by multiple authors, I'm not going to rehash their arguments. I happen to be a fan of Rothbard, so I'll direct you to his book "Power and Market", you can see his argument for "defense services on the free market" here: http://mises.org/story/2511
That's the second time you said that. I'm interested in reading your own words. If you understand the concept clearly enough, you should be able to explain in quite succinctly.
Hmm, I detect a little extra cut and paste in those last couple of posts. Deflection, nonsensical ramblings, refusal to answer, followed by links, name and concept dropping without regard to justification (or even definition). I'd say that someone is finally selling genuine Marxy-bots! Score one for the Free Market!
Having said that, however, I do believe myself to be a libertarian (small l), a Constitutionalist (Capital C), an individualist and an independent (both small i). And lest anyone begin the debate, the answer is no, I have no facts at hand for a ready debate, nor specifics. However, I'll put forth a proposal...
A representative government whose members are selected by the people in their constituency...
... whose sole purpose is to maintain the security of the nation it represents...
... by executing the will of its citizens within (AND ONLY WITHIN) the framework of a written, limiting text...
... such text being primarily the law of the land, and organized in such a way as to limit the amount of power wielded by the officials, instead leaving the majority of power in the hands of the citizen (the INDIVIDUAL citizen, not some mob rule groupthink).
That sounds pretty good, right? Now compare it to what we have. Yeah, buzzkill. So maybe if Ron Paul were electable, we wouldn't need him. Unfortunately, we DO need him, and people like him. Hence, the position has become such that the people we need most are the people that cannot be elected. What we have managed (through over 200 years of constant rewriting and voting) to create is quite similar to what Douglas Adams described as the 'Shoe Event Horizon.' The main problem we have is the people in office, but in order to be successful in office, one has to strongly resemble the people that are the problem. It is rendered nearly impossible to change the inertia of the nation because these are the only people we can get in there...
"We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."
—John Adams
When there are sufficient people who want their reps to violate the Constitution, then it will be violated. Period. No amount of fancy talk can hide or change that. :(
Mostly I agree, but I have to make a distinction. When there is a vocal subgroup that wants their reps to violate the Constitution, and a sufficient number of people are apathetic enough to allow this subgroup to sway their vote, it will be violated. It doesn't actually take a majority, it takes a small group with a loud enough voice to convince people that just don't care. The fancy talk doesn't hide or change it, it puts lipstick on the pig. If the people don't care enough to know what a pig looks like, they'll put it in office.
I gave up on the whole thing years ago, when I was first a minarchist firebrand.
Me: 90% of the FedGov is unconstitutional.
Other Guy: what, so you just want to get rid of Social Security/Medicare/Dept. Edu/EPA/etc.
Me: Yes.
OG: You're crazy. *walks away*
Yeah, he's wrong, he can't defend his position at all, and is completely blind to the possibility that life would go on without the State. None of which matters, because he has a majority of the country with him and I don't.
Look, if you listed every Fed agency and dept on the ballot, with checkboxes for Keep and Disband, how many do you think would actually be disbanded? How many of these wouldn't have their bureaucrats immediatly hired by another agency to perform the same function roughly a week later? Once the FedGov tentacle is established then being against it means being against the Good Thing (tm) it is supposed to protect/defend/uphold. Being against the EPA means you want oil companies to pour crude into Sea World. Being against DeptEdu means you want children to be illiterate. Being against Social Security means you want Grandma to eat catfood.
Something was brought up the other day vis a vis the IRS. So POTUS can't disband it, obviously, but it are the staffing levels set by Congress? What if our hypothetical President Paul fired all but 10 of a bunch of FedGov agencies, moved them back to the Executive Office Building, and sold all the land and buildings the gov owns in DC? Is that unconstitutional? Leaving aside practical difficulties like union agreements, etc. Can the POTUS legally fire members of the executive branch?
Ed: "Perhaps you could explain why the Constitution is wrong about this.... moke: This has been explained by multiple authors, I'm not going to rehash their arguments.
It might have been explained by me or Ed. The question is still posed to you, and it's unanswered. Do you understand the explanations? If you did, you should be able to "rehash" their arguments. The default presumption, when someone cannot explain something (especially that they're claiming as a root/default) is that don't understand it. Einstein and his quote about understanding something and being able to explain it to a 6 year old fits in here quite nicely. (Even if he's a little bit wrong there.)
You keep pasting in statements, and when challenged, cannot or will not defend them.
I had no intention of discussing questions like: What are the relative merits of an excise tax vs an income tax?
Because you'll lose the discussion? That aside, the way to avoid them, then, is to clarify that you're only speaking of foreign policy. Bergstrom said that about his foreign policy, and I quoted him, but yes, the poo-smearing, in my opinion, is both foreign policy and domestic. It's a systemic rot in Paulian thinking, and it's why I don't support him. It's trivially easy to demonstrate with the domestic stuff that Paul isn't a new form of Politician, or even particularly honest.
Is Ron Paul a hypocrite? etc... I only wanted to discuss foreign policy, and specifically why a blog dedicated to individualism has a problem with a politician who wants to move our foreign policy in that direction.
That might have been your intention, and if you didn't mean to go into Constitutional issues, my apologies for dragging you into that. But you said:
Ron Paul is a constitutionalist insofar as the constitution 90% matches his philosophy. In cases where there is disagreement, he follows his philosophy. I'm sure we all agree with:
Tu ne cede malis sed contra audentior ito
So I have no problem with him as president abolishing the IRS. Why would you?
Well, that gets to the heart of the matter. A strict Constructionist, I could live with. Under your definition, Hell, Barry Obama gets to call himself a "Constitutionalist". I don't think that's what you really mean.
But a promise to abolish the IRS is foolish, reeks of haughty imperial behavior, and wouldn't work. Plus it's unConstitutional. I'm all for abolishing the IRS! But the President, by himself, can't do it. Period. Telling me it's what you want - You got my support. Promise me you'll do it by Jan 27 of your term - whackadoodle time.
Ron Paul understands liberty and individualism, based on his influences, and will move our foreign policy in that direction.
How?
How in the *hell* does that *work*?
Oh wait. You're not going to rehash .. Pretty warm so far? That was you were about to type?
Obviously, I don't think it works. Continually assuring me that Some Smart Person Said It Would, But You Can't Be Bothered To Explain It To Us Idiots isn't a good argument technique. It implies that you don't actually understand the material yourself. (You might, but it's not obvious, and the implication is otherwise.)
"The question is still posed to you, and it's unanswered. Do you understand the explanations? If you did, you should be able to "rehash" their arguments."
Defense services can be provided by the free market as any other good. Using coercion to secure these goods distorts the structure of production and individuals end up with a surplus or deficiency of these services. This is the same story as any other good. Mises argues that government intervention in the otherwise free market distorts production due to the inability to price capital goods, this argument was put forth in his 1920 book "Economic calculation in the Socialist Commonwealth", which is also notable for predicting the economic failure of communism/socialism. Hayek refines this argument in "Constitution of Liberty", decribing people acting in the free market as a sort of distributed computer. The computation power of the free market, people acting on price information and whatever local information they happen to possess, can far more efficiently allocate goods than any centralized socialist planning board. Mises/Hayek both make the utilitarian case for liberty, basically that life will be better under a free system because more wants will be satisfied by efficient production. Rothbard in contrast grounds his case for liberty in morality. In "Ethics of Liberty" he describes why nonaggression is the only logically consistent ethical system that is compatible with the facts of human existence. He then in "Man, Economy, and State" describes an economic system based on the ethical principle of nonaggression. Then in "Power and Market" he describes the effect of government intervention in the free market. The entire book is a refutation of statist objections to a free market system grounded in the ethical principle of nonaggression. Included in this book is a whole chapter dealing with objections to free market defense.
It would be hard for me to know which of the many objections to free market defense you might have, refuting all of them would take a book, and that book is already written. So that is my best rehash of the arguments for liberty and free markets, these arguments are applicable to any good, including defense. There's nothing wrong with the case made by Hayek/Mises, but I happen to like Rothbard the best. Much like Ayn Rand I don't think you can ignore philosophy and ethics when making the case for liberty.
Please do me a favor and at least read the "Defense services on the free market" piece before you raise any objections, it's quite likely your objection has been answered there.
If I recall correctly, some 200 years after Rome became an empire, the Pretorians killed the sitting Emperor and announced from atop the walls of Rome that the services of the Pretorians were for sale to the highest bidder. The man who would pay them the most money would become the ruler of Rome, as he would command the armed forces assigned with guarding the Eternal City. I believe the man who bought the purple was named Julianus. One could make a strong argument that the private security forces of an individual man held the City of Rome, and thusly the Empire.
I'd prefer not to worry about whether or not any individual private defense service has gained too much power in our fair land. Private contractors, when you're talking about soldiers, are mercenaries. Mercenary armies have never proven to be sufficiently loyal to the land they're being paid to defend.
If you were to make the argument that all necessary defense could be maintained by militias, I'd say you'd have an argument, but the precedent was set in the first half of the 19th Century, and that precedent stated that individual citizens don't like being forced to attend regular drills, and are more than willing to pay a little extra in taxes to maintain their defense. These are the people who were mandated by law to drill regularly in the militia, which is different from you or I who do not. They did it, and they didn't like it, and they chose an alternative.
But I don't suppose that's the argument you're making about defense. Perhaps you could enlighten me as to what other alternatives have been speculated upon as to a free market, modern, national, capable defense?
So POTUS can't disband it, obviously, but it are the staffing levels set by Congress?
I'm not sure of the technicalities, but the Civil Service positions are covered under a fair bit of law, caselaw, and precedent.
I have some rather.... disturbing stories of Civil Service employees who weren't fired or even severely disciplined. (Quasi-personal experience, was working on the network investigations.)
What if our hypothetical President Paul fired all but 10 of a bunch of FedGov agencies, moved them back to the Executive Office Building, and sold all the land and buildings the gov owns in DC?
IANAL, but I think so. The purchases are covered under specific Congressional allocations... I don't think the executive can unilaterally sell them. At the least, prior examples that I can think of were allocated via/through Congressional action, be it base closing, homesteading, the like.
Leaving aside practical difficulties like union agreements, etc. Can the POTUS legally fire members of the executive branch?
Not usually those who are "permanent employees". Political appointees, yes. Unless they're US attorneys and the President is named "Bush".
Defense services can be provided by the free market as any other good.
I suppose. But usually that's called "Thuggery". Or "Gang Warfare".
Using coercion to secure these goods
This is where I part ways with most economists who refuse to acknowledge that there *is* no market without coercion being threatened - and defended - against.
The computation power of the free market, people acting on price information and whatever local information they happen to possess, can far more efficiently allocate goods than any centralized socialist planning board.
How does this factor into policing? Or military? Or when the guys across the hill have a lot of gold and not a lot of guns (yet?)
Please do me a favor and at least read the "Defense services on the free market" piece before you raise any objections, it's quite likely your objection has been answered there.
Yup. Done. Even more raised. (I'd forgotten I read it a while back.)
It is true that there can be no absolute guarantee that a purely market society would not fall prey to organized criminality.
At least he understands that.
But this concept is far more workable than the truly Utopian idea of a strictly limited government, an idea that has never worked historically.
... It's worked better than his ideas historically. There are examples - bad ones, good ones, examples of how it could work and where it fails.
There's no example you can point to where individual liberty was actually higher under the system he's proposing.
There is no need to assume any such magical or miraculous change in human nature.
(Which neatly sidesteps that that is exactly what he's *done*.)
Of course, some of the private defense agencies will become criminal, just as some people become criminal now.
*sigh*. There goes the poo.
If you don't have a single criminal code, if everyone is allowed - and supposed to - make up their own criminal code and laws... then there is no society. The entire court system proposed is ludicrously unworkable. It's the sort of concept a 10 year old would come with - and another 10 year old can spot the flaws. There's no consensus on what is right and wrong, so you can HAVE NO CRIMINAL CODE. At best, it's someone's concept - and you have no idea who you might run across.
Hell, I consider it criminal to have a Ron Paul sticker on your car! That's it, you're under arrest!
The current legal system has many flaws, but most of them are the exact same uncertainty you're building the system on. The system is unclear, unexplained, and due to shift at any point, without notice or warning.
Yes, it's a piece of theory.
Theory and reality are only theoretically related. In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is.
"This is where I part ways with most economists who refuse to acknowledge that there *is* no market without coercion being threatened - and defended - against."
A similar doctrine holds that defense must be supplied by the State because of the unique status of defense as a necessary precondition of market activity, as a function without which a market economy could not exist. Yet this argument is a non sequitur that proves far too much. It was the fallacy of the classical economists to consider goods and services in terms of large classes; instead, modern economics demonstrates that services must be considered in terms of marginal units. For all actions on the market are marginal. If we begin to treat whole classes instead of marginal units, we can discover a great myriad of necessary, indispensable goods and services all of which might be considered as “preconditions” of market activity. Is not land room vital, or food for each participant, or clothing, or shelter? Can a market long exist without them? And what of paper, which has become a basic requisite of market activity in the complex modern economy? Must all these goods and services therefore be supplied by the State and the State only?
"How does this factor into policing? Or military? Or when the guys across the hill have a lot of gold and not a lot of guns (yet?) "
Because their argument is that a free market satiates wants better than central planning, this argument is as applicable to defense services as it is to haircuts. Might the person across the hill have ugly hair if we don't have central planning to ensure that everyone gets a good haircut? Sure, but that is not an argument against allowing haircuts to be provided by the free market.
"There's no example you can point to where individual liberty was actually higher under the system he's proposing. "
You're right, it's new, it's never been tried, that doesn't make it impossible. Many things once thought impossible now work quite well.
"If you don't have a single criminal code, if everyone is allowed - and supposed to - make up their own criminal code and laws... then there is no society."
The laissez-faireist also assumes that there must be a single compulsory monopoly of coercion and decision-making in society, that there must, for example, be one Supreme Court to hand down final and unquestioned decisions. But he fails to recognize that the world has lived quite well throughout its existence without a single, ultimate decision-maker over its whole inhabited surface. The Argentinian, for example, lives in a state of “anarchy,” of nongovernment, in relation to the citizen of Uruguay—or of Ceylon. And yet the private citizens of these and other countries live and trade together without getting into insoluble legal conflicts, despite the absence of a common governmental ruler. The Argentinian who believes he has been aggressed upon by a Ceylonese, for example, takes his grievance to an Argentinian court, and its decision is recognized by the Ceylonese courts—and vice versa if the Ceylonese is the aggrieved party. Although it is true that the separate nation-States have warred interminably against each other, the private citizens of the various countries, despite widely differing legal systems, have managed to live together in harmony without having a single government over them. If the citizens of northern Montana and of Saskatchewan across the border can live and trade together in harmony without a common government, so can the citizens of northern and of southern Montana. In short, the present-day boundaries of nations are purely historical and arbitrary, and there is no more need for a monopoly government over the citizens of one country than there is for one between the citizens of two different nations.
It is all the more curious, incidentally, that while laissez-faireists should by the logic of their position, be ardent believers in a single, unified world government, so that no one will live in a state of “anarchy” in relation to anyone else, they almost never are. And once one concedes that a single world government is not necessary, then where does one logically stop at the permissibility of separate states? If Canada and the United States can be separate nations without being denounced as being in a state of impermissible “anarchy,” why may not the South secede from the United States? New York State from the Union? New York City from the state? Why may not Manhattan secede? Each neighborhood? Each block? Each house? Each person? But, of course, if each person may secede from government, we have virtually arrived at the purely free society, where defense is supplied along with all other services by the free market and where the invasive State has ceased to exist.
The role of freely competitive judiciaries has, in fact, been far more important in the history of the West than is often recognized. The law merchant, admiralty law, and much of the common law began to be developed by privately competitive judges, who were sought out by litigants for their expertise in understanding the legal areas involved. The fairs of Champagne and the great marts of international trade in the Middle Ages enjoyed freely competitive courts, and people could patronize those that they deemed most accurate and efficient.
If a citizen of Argentina sues a citizen of Uruguay in an Argentinian court, and the Uruguayan loses, the most the Uruguayan will have to do to avoid any penalty is avoid going into Argentina. Courts do not have legal force across national boundaries. Which is a good thing. Courts de-linked from a government capable of exerting force have no power, and their rulings are irrelevant.
What am I supposed to do when I say his objections are probably already addressed in "Power and Market" and he goes and raises those exact objections. At least demonstrate you read and understood Rothbards argument, and you think it's wrong because...
Where he raises an original objection (2 of 4), it is answered by me personally.
as much as i disagree with ron paul on his rather naive foreign policy, i still say matters of foreign policy blundering are alot easier to correct after the fact than dismantling the ginormous apparatus of entrenched bureacracy. i say vote him and more like him in, if the shit should hit the fan then, it can be easily correcected by a war time consigliare'
"We got here because a majority of the population wanted to get here, don't ever forget that."
Way to endorse a worldview that endorses whatever the majority wants. You're not normally stupid Kevin. Did you really think this one through? I'm not even sure how this quote serves your goal of ridiculing Ron Paul.
Moke, The Argentinian, for example, lives in a state of “anarchy,” of nongovernment, in relation to the citizen of Uruguay—or of Ceylon. And yet the private citizens of these and other countries live and trade together without getting into insoluble legal conflicts, despite the absence of a common governmental ruler. The Argentinian who believes he has been aggressed upon by a Ceylonese, for example, takes his grievance to an Argentinian court, and its decision is recognized by the Ceylonese courts—and vice versa if the Ceylonese is the aggrieved party.
This is not an argument against states, but for them. Indeed, it touches quite closely on one of the state's competitive advantages, vs. other organizational forms. Because the state can coerce its subjects, it can credibly commit to agreements with other states—among them that its citizens will abide by agreed-on terms of trade.
Competitors to the state such as the Hanseatic League were unable to police their members, so that in the end no one would trust them to observe agreements.
For a private court or enforcement body to work, it would have to be able to coerce its subscribers to meet their obligations. As Robert Nozick makes clear, this would effectively mean that their powers must run uncomfortably close to those of modern states.
I think we may have come a bit far afield, as well. I'm starting to suspect that UJ just loves a good brawl. I don't think we are here to ridicule Ron Paul. That would be an attack, and we should probably try to stay above the level of our enemies when it comes to bitter diatribes and personal attacks. What moke and UJ got into is a debate, and a valid one at that, though it does grow a bit sarcastic as it ages (sharper, really, much like a good cheese). The original quote was an observation on Ron Paul, insofar as Kevin has reservations that prevent him fully backing Ron Paul. The merits of the situation were discussed, and theories called into question. Possibly it was a mistake on moke's part to get so defensive, but hey, I'd get defensive too, if my flaws were pointed out so succinctly. So lets bring it back around. Ron Paul has some interesting and worthy foundations, but there are too many discrepancies and oddities for many in this group to fully support him. However, I wish him luck and tacit support on those issues with which I agree with him.
Yeah, there is already a name for those: mercenaries. You're not talking about lightly equipped executive protection teams ala Blackwater, you're talking about FedEx with JDAMs. Now, if you honestly think it is a good idea for anyone with a large enough credit line to be able to call in airstrikes, then fine. I disagree, strongly. The statists, like any stopped clock, are right at least twice a day. Some thinga are in fact best left under government control, for good reasons.
In a private competitive-security world, not many would have the resources either to call in or to mount airstrikes. You need to be able to exploit scale for that sort of thing.
Kevin, that's a argument worthy of the Thimblewit.
It's impossible to say for certain, seeing as there's no way to rewind the clock, but I'd say Gates wouldn't have those resources either, absent a system designed to permit and reward scale. More to the point, it's intended to punish lack of scale -- one of the rent-enabling effects of the regulatory state, which we previously have been at great pains to point out.
Okay, that was a little harsh. I withdraw the characterization of the argument and apologize.
I'm beginning to wonder if the real underlying point the author of The Art of Not Being Governed is trying to make is that the way to live free from state interference is to be not worth the candle.
I'm sorry, I'm not up on the whole anarcho-capitalist thing, or whatever it is...
Is it axiomatic in this vision that huge corporations could not exist, because huge corporations exist because they are protected and nurtured by the State? Because I would take huge issue with that. Corporations that are failing but are politically useful to the State are propped up, as we see with GM, but Microsoft has been enormously successful in the face of the government attempting to destroy it. Maybe there wouldn't be the huge military-industrial complex there is today, but if there is a demand for anything, it will be supplied. There would be a demand for airstrikes in this imaginary world, and thus someone would form Airstrikes International, sell stock or bonds, buy UAVs, fit them with bombs, and start flying CAS missions for hire. Look at that French company that has a photorecon satellite. They do a booming business doing something under costs and for profit that the government does with massive support from taxpayers.
It's not that they couldn't exist, Britt, it's that it would be easier for smaller firms to compete with them. The State does nurture and protect large businesses, through the regulatory regime (compliance costs are fixed costs, and as such axiomatically fall disproportionately on smaller firms).
The rise of Airstrikes International would likely be met with the rise of AirDefense'R'Us, offering everything U-Grail for the budget-minded up to gold-plated Patriots for those with the wherewithal. ;)
Would it work? I dunno.
Was the 20th Century so great, on balance, that it's not worth thinking about trying another way? Uhhhhh....
Only pure idealistic idealogues who are narrow specialized in a technical field far divorced from sociological and historical reality could honestly think that private mercenary armies can provide INDIVIDUAL protection to some members of society, but not others, against an EXTRENAL military force.
As for the problems of many, many private armies wandering around offering service to teh highest bidders, let me recommend you Google a little dustup known as the Thirty Years War.
THEN we can maybe start to get into such hideous statist ideas such as "Unity of Command" (combined with "Unity of Effort"), "Economy of Force", etc. or the British principle of "Selection and Maintenance of the Aim". Here's a clue -- there's NINE of these little gems in US doctrine alone, and most nations have found, through trial and bloody error, that the same basic prinicples apply, whether they divide them into nine, combine a few, split more up, or even add a few extras like "Morale".
HISTORICAL EXAMPLE shows that when you deviate from these basic principles, you generally LOSE THE WAR and end up being conquered and occupied, unless your enemy is even dumber than you are.
HISTORICAL EXAMPLE also shows us that you ONLY get full adherence to these principles in a "top down" military heirarchy -- teh exact opposite of some vague cloud of independant contractors.
REALITY trumps PHILOSSOPHIC UTOPIC THEORY every time. Just like an actual physical test trumps calculation in engineering.
Here are some key passages from the Wikipedia entry on the Thirty Years' War:
"So great was the devastation brought about by the war that estimates put the reduction of population in the German states at about 15% to 30%. Some regions were affected much more than others. For example, Württemberg lost three-quarters of its population during the war. In the territory of Brandenburg, the losses had amounted to half, while in some areas an estimated two-thirds of the population died. The male population of the German states was reduced by almost half. The population of the Czech lands declined by a third due to war, disease, famine and the expulsion of Protestant Czechs. Much of the destruction of civilian lives and property was caused by the cruelty and greed of mercenary soldiers, many of whom were rich commanders and poor soldiers. Villages were especially easy prey to the marauding armies. Those that survived, like the small village of Drais near Mainz would take almost a hundred years to recover. The Swedish armies alone may have destroyed up to 2,000 castles, 18,000 villages and 1,500 towns in Germany, one-third of all German towns. The war caused serious dislocations to both the economies and populations of central Europe, but may have done no more than seriously exacerbate changes that had begun earlier."
…
"The edicts agreed upon during the signing of the Peace of Westphalia were instrumental in laying the foundations for what are even today considered the basic tenets of the sovereign nation-state. Aside from establishing fixed territorial boundaries for many of the countries involved in the ordeal (as well as for the newer ones created afterwards), the Peace of Westphalia changed the relationship of subjects to their rulers. In earlier times, people had tended to have overlapping political and religious loyalties. Now, it was agreed that the citizenry of a respective nation were subjected first and foremost to the laws and whims of their own respective government rather than to those of neighboring powers, be they religious or secular.
"The war also has a few more subtle consequences. The Thirty Years' War marked the last major religious war in mainland Europe, ending the large-scale religious bloodshed accompanying the Reformation, in 1648. There were other religious conflicts in the years to come, but no great wars. Also, the destruction caused by mercenary soldiers defied description (see Schwedentrunk). The war did much to end the age of mercenaries that had begun with the first Landsknechts, and ushered in the age of well-disciplined national armies."
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All that talk yesterday and still no one has addressed how coercion in our foreign policy is compatible with individualism. Why should we not be trading value for value, as judged by our individual reason, when it comes to foreign policy?
All that talk yesterday
... That you ignored. You didn't explain your answers to the questions asked you, you just moved on.
So "all that talk" was meaningless, since you didn't actually "talk to" us as much as "talked at" us.
and still no one has addressed how coercion in our foreign policy is compatible with individualism.
Why should we? What about the post yesterday demanded that?
You demand that? Well, we could discuss it - but you've got a lot of outstanding questions and problems with what you've said. That usually means your demanding ability is lessened, not increased. (Part of the problem with the P4u1it3s - they demand demand demand, but fail to explain the huge logical gaps in their logic.)
"coercion in our foreign policy" demonstrates your huge gaping bias there, as well.
But I'll first ask you this: demonstrate where no "coercion in any foreign policy" has worked.
Why should we not be trading value for value, as judged by our individual reason, when it comes to foreign policy?
Such as?
Take this "value for value" concept you have. Explain how it would work. Use concrete examples this time - because I'd like to know, how, for instance, the Israeli/Arab conflict could be solved through "Free market" principals. Or the Cold War. Or even, say, a mugging or burglary. The latter should be simple enough.
I suspect in concrete examples you'll find many problems - which is why you, as a MIT-educated scientist - should have no problem with doing it, since that's where you'll work out the real issues.
What you should find, is a concept of value/value is only usable if all parties are seeking the same thing and willing to trade value for value.
Often, they're not. Even more often, people misjudge values and costs. And even more often than that, previous decisions force decisions. That's both ego, and trust. For example: you've demonstrated very sloppy thinking, claiming Paul is "against robbery" (then admitting well, it's just different) and that he's a strict Constructionist - except when he's not. (Or in other words, every point you've offered to differentiate Paul you've retracted.)
So the trust between you and I when it comes to snap decisions and evaluations is, shall we say, not automatic. Any transaction you and I make as a result, where I have to trust your decision or evaluation, I'm going to rate higher in risk. You may well take offense at this, and now we have an "issue".
I once saw a study about criminals in prison. They took the "fruits of their crimes" and divided it by their stay in jail, factoring in some variables for "Shelter" and "food" and medical care and whatnot, and intentionally ignoring any part of the "Fruit" that had been confiscated as part of their arrest.
As I recall, the average "hourly wage" for a inmate was $.65/hr.
Obviously, this is far less than you'd make in even a minimum wage job. Yet we have prisons full of people who thought they'd never get caught, or they wanted to live the high life in the meantime.
And many of them are just fine with hurting you, or killing you and your loved ones so they can do that, even if it means they'll spend the rest of their life in jail if caught.
How do you "trade value for value" with someone like that?
And what if they're in charge of a nation-state?
We often do trade value for value, and sometimes even add a heaping helping of anti-Randian altruism on top.
For instance, the Japanese only gave us a tiny little bombing, and in return we gave them an ass whipping their grandchildren haven't forgotten. We just don't seem willing to go that extra mile anymore...
Don't forget that we also provide their military defense (stripped them of military capabilities so they couldn't repeat their aggression, but didn't leave them defenseless from others' aggression), and helped them rebuild after the war. In other words, after we kicked the living daylights out of them, we picked them back up out of the dirt and made them a friend.
Okay, let me take some of those statements from yesterday and see if I can put them together in some sort of order.
moke: "Ron Paul is a constitutionalist insofar as the constitution 90% matches his philosophy. In cases where there is disagreement, he follows his philosophy."
On this we all agree. It's that 10% difference where he goes his own way that gives us pause. For example:
moke: "It's not in my self interest to be robbed to pay for a war that I think is both counterproductive and unwinnable. People should be persuaded rather than forced to support war."
Yet this is precisely one of the few powers legitimately granted to the Federal Government by the Constitution:
"The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States;"
…
"To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water; To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years; To provide and maintain a Navy;"
— U.S. Constitution, Article 1, Section 8
That authority is granted to Congress to make those decisions for the entire United States. Furthermore, the Constitution explicitly prohibits individual states from engaging in war on a piecemeal basis:
"No State shall, without the Consent of Congress, … or engage in War, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not admit of delay."
— U.S. Constitution, Article 1, Section 10
Perhaps you could explain why the Constitution is wrong about this. How, exactly, would it work to have the military not protect you, while protecting the rest of us who do want that protection and are willing to pay for it? Would a foreign military or guerilla force be free to bomb your house, but not your neighbor's house?
"Perhaps you could explain why the Constitution is wrong about this. How, exactly, would it work to have the military not protect you, while protecting the rest of us who do want that protection and are willing to pay for it? Would a foreign military or guerilla force be free to bomb your house, but not your neighbor's house?"
This has been explained by multiple authors, I'm not going to rehash their arguments. I happen to be a fan of Rothbard, so I'll direct you to his book "Power and Market", you can see his argument for "defense services on the free market" here: http://mises.org/story/2511
That's not a valid link. How about a summary?
The URL is valid, don't know why the link is corrupted. just type the URL yourself or google "rothbard defense services on the free market"
You had something tacked on to the end of the link. Here's a working version:
http://mises.org/story/2511
I don't have a lot of time right now. How about a summary in your own words?
"Why should we? What about the post yesterday demanded that?"
then you get to some foreign policy midnight, and in stead of chiming, it barks and smears itself with poo.
I had no intention of discussing questions like: What are the relative merits of an excise tax vs an income tax? Is Ron Paul a hypocrite? etc... I only wanted to discuss foreign policy, and specifically why a blog dedicated to individualism has a problem with a politician who wants to move our foreign policy in that direction.
Yes there is a little bit of a logical leap there since I'm assuming that Ron Paul understands liberty and individualism, based on his influences, and will move our foreign policy in that direction. Now you have a point if you think Paul will not do that, but simply use coercion to enforce his views.
"Take this "value for value" concept you have. Explain how it would work. Use concrete examples this time - because I'd like to know, how, for instance, the Israeli/Arab conflict could be solved through "Free market" principals. Or the Cold War. Or even, say, a mugging or burglary. The latter should be simple enough."
This has been explained by multiple authors, I'm not going to rehash their arguments. I happen to be a fan of Rothbard, so I'll direct you to his book "Power and Market", you can see his argument for "defense services on the free market" here: http://mises.org/story/2511
That's the second time you said that. I'm interested in reading your own words. If you understand the concept clearly enough, you should be able to explain in quite succinctly.
Hmm, I detect a little extra cut and paste in those last couple of posts. Deflection, nonsensical ramblings, refusal to answer, followed by links, name and concept dropping without regard to justification (or even definition). I'd say that someone is finally selling genuine Marxy-bots! Score one for the Free Market!
Having said that, however, I do believe myself to be a libertarian (small l), a Constitutionalist (Capital C), an individualist and an independent (both small i). And lest anyone begin the debate, the answer is no, I have no facts at hand for a ready debate, nor specifics. However, I'll put forth a proposal...
A representative government whose members are selected by the people in their constituency...
... whose sole purpose is to maintain the security of the nation it represents...
... by executing the will of its citizens within (AND ONLY WITHIN) the framework of a written, limiting text...
... such text being primarily the law of the land, and organized in such a way as to limit the amount of power wielded by the officials, instead leaving the majority of power in the hands of the citizen (the INDIVIDUAL citizen, not some mob rule groupthink).
That sounds pretty good, right? Now compare it to what we have. Yeah, buzzkill. So maybe if Ron Paul were electable, we wouldn't need him. Unfortunately, we DO need him, and people like him. Hence, the position has become such that the people we need most are the people that cannot be elected. What we have managed (through over 200 years of constant rewriting and voting) to create is quite similar to what Douglas Adams described as the 'Shoe Event Horizon.' The main problem we have is the people in office, but in order to be successful in office, one has to strongly resemble the people that are the problem. It is rendered nearly impossible to change the inertia of the nation because these are the only people we can get in there...
...hence our dilemma...
Or to put it another way…
"We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."
—John Adams
When there are sufficient people who want their reps to violate the Constitution, then it will be violated. Period. No amount of fancy talk can hide or change that. :(
Mostly I agree, but I have to make a distinction. When there is a vocal subgroup that wants their reps to violate the Constitution, and a sufficient number of people are apathetic enough to allow this subgroup to sway their vote, it will be violated. It doesn't actually take a majority, it takes a small group with a loud enough voice to convince people that just don't care. The fancy talk doesn't hide or change it, it puts lipstick on the pig. If the people don't care enough to know what a pig looks like, they'll put it in office.
I gave up on the whole thing years ago, when I was first a minarchist firebrand.
Me: 90% of the FedGov is unconstitutional.
Other Guy: what, so you just want to get rid of Social Security/Medicare/Dept. Edu/EPA/etc.
Me: Yes.
OG: You're crazy. *walks away*
Yeah, he's wrong, he can't defend his position at all, and is completely blind to the possibility that life would go on without the State. None of which matters, because he has a majority of the country with him and I don't.
Look, if you listed every Fed agency and dept on the ballot, with checkboxes for Keep and Disband, how many do you think would actually be disbanded? How many of these wouldn't have their bureaucrats immediatly hired by another agency to perform the same function roughly a week later? Once the FedGov tentacle is established then being against it means being against the Good Thing (tm) it is supposed to protect/defend/uphold. Being against the EPA means you want oil companies to pour crude into Sea World. Being against DeptEdu means you want children to be illiterate. Being against Social Security means you want Grandma to eat catfood.
Something was brought up the other day vis a vis the IRS. So POTUS can't disband it, obviously, but it are the staffing levels set by Congress? What if our hypothetical President Paul fired all but 10 of a bunch of FedGov agencies, moved them back to the Executive Office Building, and sold all the land and buildings the gov owns in DC? Is that unconstitutional? Leaving aside practical difficulties like union agreements, etc. Can the POTUS legally fire members of the executive branch?
Ed: "Perhaps you could explain why the Constitution is wrong about this....
moke: This has been explained by multiple authors, I'm not going to rehash their arguments.
It might have been explained by me or Ed. The question is still posed to you, and it's unanswered. Do you understand the explanations? If you did, you should be able to "rehash" their arguments. The default presumption, when someone cannot explain something (especially that they're claiming as a root/default) is that don't understand it. Einstein and his quote about understanding something and being able to explain it to a 6 year old fits in here quite nicely. (Even if he's a little bit wrong there.)
You keep pasting in statements, and when challenged, cannot or will not defend them.
I had no intention of discussing questions like: What are the relative merits of an excise tax vs an income tax?
Because you'll lose the discussion? That aside, the way to avoid them, then, is to clarify that you're only speaking of foreign policy. Bergstrom said that about his foreign policy, and I quoted him, but yes, the poo-smearing, in my opinion, is both foreign policy and domestic. It's a systemic rot in Paulian thinking, and it's why I don't support him. It's trivially easy to demonstrate with the domestic stuff that Paul isn't a new form of Politician, or even particularly honest.
Is Ron Paul a hypocrite? etc... I only wanted to discuss foreign policy, and specifically why a blog dedicated to individualism has a problem with a politician who wants to move our foreign policy in that direction.
That might have been your intention, and if you didn't mean to go into Constitutional issues, my apologies for dragging you into that. But you said:
Ron Paul is a constitutionalist insofar as the constitution 90% matches his philosophy. In cases where there is disagreement, he follows his philosophy. I'm sure we all agree with:
Tu ne cede malis sed contra audentior ito
So I have no problem with him as president abolishing the IRS. Why would you?
Well, that gets to the heart of the matter. A strict Constructionist, I could live with. Under your definition, Hell, Barry Obama gets to call himself a "Constitutionalist". I don't think that's what you really mean.
But a promise to abolish the IRS is foolish, reeks of haughty imperial behavior, and wouldn't work. Plus it's unConstitutional. I'm all for abolishing the IRS! But the President, by himself, can't do it. Period. Telling me it's what you want - You got my support. Promise me you'll do it by Jan 27 of your term - whackadoodle time.
Ron Paul understands liberty and individualism, based on his influences, and will move our foreign policy in that direction.
How?
How in the *hell* does that *work*?
Oh wait. You're not going to rehash .. Pretty warm so far? That was you were about to type?
Obviously, I don't think it works. Continually assuring me that Some Smart Person Said It Would, But You Can't Be Bothered To Explain It To Us Idiots isn't a good argument technique. It implies that you don't actually understand the material yourself. (You might, but it's not obvious, and the implication is otherwise.)
"The question is still posed to you, and it's unanswered. Do you understand the explanations? If you did, you should be able to "rehash" their arguments."
Defense services can be provided by the free market as any other good. Using coercion to secure these goods distorts the structure of production and individuals end up with a surplus or deficiency of these services. This is the same story as any other good. Mises argues that government intervention in the otherwise free market distorts production due to the inability to price capital goods, this argument was put forth in his 1920 book "Economic calculation in the Socialist Commonwealth", which is also notable for predicting the economic failure of communism/socialism. Hayek refines this argument in "Constitution of Liberty", decribing people acting in the free market as a sort of distributed computer. The computation power of the free market, people acting on price information and whatever local information they happen to possess, can far more efficiently allocate goods than any centralized socialist planning board. Mises/Hayek both make the utilitarian case for liberty, basically that life will be better under a free system because more wants will be satisfied by efficient production. Rothbard in contrast grounds his case for liberty in morality. In "Ethics of Liberty" he describes why nonaggression is the only logically consistent ethical system that is compatible with the facts of human existence. He then in "Man, Economy, and State" describes an economic system based on the ethical principle of nonaggression. Then in "Power and Market" he describes the effect of government intervention in the free market. The entire book is a refutation of statist objections to a free market system grounded in the ethical principle of nonaggression. Included in this book is a whole chapter dealing with objections to free market defense.
It would be hard for me to know which of the many objections to free market defense you might have, refuting all of them would take a book, and that book is already written. So that is my best rehash of the arguments for liberty and free markets, these arguments are applicable to any good, including defense. There's nothing wrong with the case made by Hayek/Mises, but I happen to like Rothbard the best. Much like Ayn Rand I don't think you can ignore philosophy and ethics when making the case for liberty.
Please do me a favor and at least read the "Defense services on the free market" piece before you raise any objections, it's quite likely your objection has been answered there.
If I recall correctly, some 200 years after Rome became an empire, the Pretorians killed the sitting Emperor and announced from atop the walls of Rome that the services of the Pretorians were for sale to the highest bidder. The man who would pay them the most money would become the ruler of Rome, as he would command the armed forces assigned with guarding the Eternal City. I believe the man who bought the purple was named Julianus. One could make a strong argument that the private security forces of an individual man held the City of Rome, and thusly the Empire.
I'd prefer not to worry about whether or not any individual private defense service has gained too much power in our fair land. Private contractors, when you're talking about soldiers, are mercenaries. Mercenary armies have never proven to be sufficiently loyal to the land they're being paid to defend.
If you were to make the argument that all necessary defense could be maintained by militias, I'd say you'd have an argument, but the precedent was set in the first half of the 19th Century, and that precedent stated that individual citizens don't like being forced to attend regular drills, and are more than willing to pay a little extra in taxes to maintain their defense. These are the people who were mandated by law to drill regularly in the militia, which is different from you or I who do not. They did it, and they didn't like it, and they chose an alternative.
But I don't suppose that's the argument you're making about defense. Perhaps you could enlighten me as to what other alternatives have been speculated upon as to a free market, modern, national, capable defense?
Britt:
So POTUS can't disband it, obviously, but it are the staffing levels set by Congress?
I'm not sure of the technicalities, but the Civil Service positions are covered under a fair bit of law, caselaw, and precedent.
I have some rather.... disturbing stories of Civil Service employees who weren't fired or even severely disciplined. (Quasi-personal experience, was working on the network investigations.)
What if our hypothetical President Paul fired all but 10 of a bunch of FedGov agencies, moved them back to the Executive Office Building, and sold all the land and buildings the gov owns in DC?
IANAL, but I think so. The purchases are covered under specific Congressional allocations... I don't think the executive can unilaterally sell them. At the least, prior examples that I can think of were allocated via/through Congressional action, be it base closing, homesteading, the like.
Leaving aside practical difficulties like union agreements, etc. Can the POTUS legally fire members of the executive branch?
Not usually those who are "permanent employees". Political appointees, yes. Unless they're US attorneys and the President is named "Bush".
Defense services can be provided by the free market as any other good.
I suppose. But usually that's called "Thuggery". Or "Gang Warfare".
Using coercion to secure these goods
This is where I part ways with most economists who refuse to acknowledge that there *is* no market without coercion being threatened - and defended - against.
The computation power of the free market, people acting on price information and whatever local information they happen to possess, can far more efficiently allocate goods than any centralized socialist planning board.
How does this factor into policing? Or military? Or when the guys across the hill have a lot of gold and not a lot of guns (yet?)
Please do me a favor and at least read the "Defense services on the free market" piece before you raise any objections, it's quite likely your objection has been answered there.
Yup. Done. Even more raised. (I'd forgotten I read it a while back.)
It is true that there can be no absolute guarantee that a purely market society would not fall prey to organized criminality.
At least he understands that.
But this concept is far more workable than the truly Utopian idea of a strictly limited government, an idea that has never worked historically.
... It's worked better than his ideas historically. There are examples - bad ones, good ones, examples of how it could work and where it fails.
There's no example you can point to where individual liberty was actually higher under the system he's proposing.
There is no need to assume any such magical or miraculous change in human nature.
(Which neatly sidesteps that that is exactly what he's *done*.)
Of course, some of the private defense agencies will become criminal, just as some people become criminal now.
*sigh*. There goes the poo.
If you don't have a single criminal code, if everyone is allowed - and supposed to - make up their own criminal code and laws... then there is no society. The entire court system proposed is ludicrously unworkable. It's the sort of concept a 10 year old would come with - and another 10 year old can spot the flaws. There's no consensus on what is right and wrong, so you can HAVE NO CRIMINAL CODE. At best, it's someone's concept - and you have no idea who you might run across.
Hell, I consider it criminal to have a Ron Paul sticker on your car! That's it, you're under arrest!
The current legal system has many flaws, but most of them are the exact same uncertainty you're building the system on. The system is unclear, unexplained, and due to shift at any point, without notice or warning.
Yes, it's a piece of theory.
Theory and reality are only theoretically related.
In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is.
"This is where I part ways with most economists who refuse to acknowledge that there *is* no market without coercion being threatened - and defended - against."
A similar doctrine holds that defense must be supplied by the State because of the unique status of defense as a necessary precondition of market activity, as a function without which a market economy could not exist. Yet this argument is a non sequitur that proves far too much. It was the fallacy of the classical economists to consider goods and services in terms of large classes; instead, modern economics demonstrates that services must be considered in terms of marginal units. For all actions on the market are marginal. If we begin to treat whole classes instead of marginal units, we can discover a great myriad of necessary, indispensable goods and services all of which might be considered as “preconditions” of market activity. Is not land room vital, or food for each participant, or clothing, or shelter? Can a market long exist without them? And what of paper, which has become a basic requisite of market activity in the complex modern economy? Must all these goods and services therefore be supplied by the State and the State only?
"How does this factor into policing? Or military? Or when the guys across the hill have a lot of gold and not a lot of guns (yet?) "
Because their argument is that a free market satiates wants better than central planning, this argument is as applicable to defense services as it is to haircuts. Might the person across the hill have ugly hair if we don't have central planning to ensure that everyone gets a good haircut? Sure, but that is not an argument against allowing haircuts to be provided by the free market.
"There's no example you can point to where individual liberty was actually higher under the system he's proposing. "
You're right, it's new, it's never been tried, that doesn't make it impossible. Many things once thought impossible now work quite well.
"If you don't have a single criminal code, if everyone is allowed - and supposed to - make up their own criminal code and laws... then there is no society."
The laissez-faireist also assumes that there must be a single compulsory monopoly of coercion and decision-making in society, that there must, for example, be one Supreme Court to hand down final and unquestioned decisions. But he fails to recognize that the world has lived quite well throughout its existence without a single, ultimate decision-maker over its whole inhabited surface. The Argentinian, for example, lives in a state of “anarchy,” of nongovernment, in relation to the citizen of Uruguay—or of Ceylon. And yet the private citizens of these and other countries live and trade together without getting into insoluble legal conflicts, despite the absence of a common governmental ruler. The Argentinian who believes he has been aggressed upon by a Ceylonese, for example, takes his grievance to an Argentinian court, and its decision is recognized by the Ceylonese courts—and vice versa if the Ceylonese is the aggrieved party. Although it is true that the separate nation-States have warred interminably against each other, the private citizens of the various countries, despite widely differing legal systems, have managed to live together in harmony without having a single government over them. If the citizens of northern Montana and of Saskatchewan across the border can live and trade together in harmony without a common government, so can the citizens of northern and of southern Montana. In short, the present-day boundaries of nations are purely historical and arbitrary, and there is no more need for a monopoly government over the citizens of one country than there is for one between the citizens of two different nations.
It is all the more curious, incidentally, that while laissez-faireists should by the logic of their position, be ardent believers in a single, unified world government, so that no one will live in a state of “anarchy” in relation to anyone else, they almost never are. And once one concedes that a single world government is not necessary, then where does one logically stop at the permissibility of separate states? If Canada and the United States can be separate nations without being denounced as being in a state of impermissible “anarchy,” why may not the South secede from the United States? New York State from the Union? New York City from the state? Why may not Manhattan secede? Each neighborhood? Each block? Each house? Each person? But, of course, if each person may secede from government, we have virtually arrived at the purely free society, where defense is supplied along with all other services by the free market and where the invasive State has ceased to exist.
The role of freely competitive judiciaries has, in fact, been far more important in the history of the West than is often recognized. The law merchant, admiralty law, and much of the common law began to be developed by privately competitive judges, who were sought out by litigants for their expertise in understanding the legal areas involved. The fairs of Champagne and the great marts of international trade in the Middle Ages enjoyed freely competitive courts, and people could patronize those that they deemed most accurate and efficient.
If a citizen of Argentina sues a citizen of Uruguay in an Argentinian court, and the Uruguayan loses, the most the Uruguayan will have to do to avoid any penalty is avoid going into Argentina. Courts do not have legal force across national boundaries. Which is a good thing. Courts de-linked from a government capable of exerting force have no power, and their rulings are irrelevant.
Hm. His new strategy is apparently to just plagiarize.
What am I supposed to do when I say his objections are probably already addressed in "Power and Market" and he goes and raises those exact objections. At least demonstrate you read and understood Rothbards argument, and you think it's wrong because...
Where he raises an original objection (2 of 4), it is answered by me personally.
Well, what else is he going to do?
He's talking about a theoretical world with theoretical people, and any historical problems are just waved away.
Hell, based on that sort of argument, Communism is the obvious choice for world government!
as much as i disagree with ron paul on his rather naive foreign policy, i still say matters of foreign policy blundering are alot easier to correct after the fact than dismantling the ginormous apparatus of entrenched bureacracy. i say vote him and more like him in, if the shit should hit the fan then, it can be easily correcected by a war time consigliare'
At least demonstrate you read and understood Rothbards argument, and you think it's wrong because...
Ok, maybe you convinced me you're an MIT physicist.
Everybody else has actually *met* enough people to know why it's fundamentally flawed.
*makes wookiee noises*
"We got here because a majority of the population wanted to get here, don't ever forget that."
Way to endorse a worldview that endorses whatever the majority wants. You're not normally stupid Kevin. Did you really think this one through? I'm not even sure how this quote serves your goal of ridiculing Ron Paul.
There's a difference between endorsing reality and acknowledging it.
The difference between acknowledging it and ignoring it is even larger.
And there's a difference between accurately describing something and ridiculing it.
Moke,
The Argentinian, for example, lives in a state of “anarchy,” of nongovernment, in relation to the citizen of Uruguay—or of Ceylon. And yet the private citizens of these and other countries live and trade together without getting into insoluble legal conflicts, despite the absence of a common governmental ruler. The Argentinian who believes he has been aggressed upon by a Ceylonese, for example, takes his grievance to an Argentinian court, and its decision is recognized by the Ceylonese courts—and vice versa if the Ceylonese is the aggrieved party.
This is not an argument against states, but for them. Indeed, it touches quite closely on one of the state's competitive advantages, vs. other organizational forms. Because the state can coerce its subjects, it can credibly commit to agreements with other states—among them that its citizens will abide by agreed-on terms of trade.
Competitors to the state such as the Hanseatic League were unable to police their members, so that in the end no one would trust them to observe agreements.
For a private court or enforcement body to work, it would have to be able to coerce its subscribers to meet their obligations. As Robert Nozick makes clear, this would effectively mean that their powers must run uncomfortably close to those of modern states.
For the source of my discussion above of the Hanseatic League etc., see Hendrik Spruyt, The Sovereign State and its Competitors.
Thank you for actually adding something of value to the discussion. It looks like I won't leave here empty handed after all.
Bloody hell Echo suck!!! HTML is good.... embrace the HTML....
I think we may have come a bit far afield, as well. I'm starting to suspect that UJ just loves a good brawl. I don't think we are here to ridicule Ron Paul. That would be an attack, and we should probably try to stay above the level of our enemies when it comes to bitter diatribes and personal attacks. What moke and UJ got into is a debate, and a valid one at that, though it does grow a bit sarcastic as it ages (sharper, really, much like a good cheese). The original quote was an observation on Ron Paul, insofar as Kevin has reservations that prevent him fully backing Ron Paul. The merits of the situation were discussed, and theories called into question. Possibly it was a mistake on moke's part to get so defensive, but hey, I'd get defensive too, if my flaws were pointed out so succinctly. So lets bring it back around. Ron Paul has some interesting and worthy foundations, but there are too many discrepancies and oddities for many in this group to fully support him. However, I wish him luck and tacit support on those issues with which I agree with him.
"Defense services on the free market"
Yeah, there is already a name for those: mercenaries. You're not talking about lightly equipped executive protection teams ala Blackwater, you're talking about FedEx with JDAMs. Now, if you honestly think it is a good idea for anyone with a large enough credit line to be able to call in airstrikes, then fine. I disagree, strongly. The statists, like any stopped clock, are right at least twice a day. Some thinga are in fact best left under government control, for good reasons.
In a private competitive-security world, not many would have the resources either to call in or to mount airstrikes. You need to be able to exploit scale for that sort of thing.
So . . . you're saying that Bill Gates would rule Redmond, WA and the surrounding area?
Kevin, that's a argument worthy of the Thimblewit.
It's impossible to say for certain, seeing as there's no way to rewind the clock, but I'd say Gates wouldn't have those resources either, absent a system designed to permit and reward scale. More to the point, it's intended to punish lack of scale -- one of the rent-enabling effects of the regulatory state, which we previously have been at great pains to point out.
Okay, that was a little harsh. I withdraw the characterization of the argument and apologize.
I'm beginning to wonder if the real underlying point the author of The Art of Not Being Governed is trying to make is that the way to live free from state interference is to be not worth the candle.
I'm sorry, I'm not up on the whole anarcho-capitalist thing, or whatever it is...
Is it axiomatic in this vision that huge corporations could not exist, because huge corporations exist because they are protected and nurtured by the State? Because I would take huge issue with that. Corporations that are failing but are politically useful to the State are propped up, as we see with GM, but Microsoft has been enormously successful in the face of the government attempting to destroy it. Maybe there wouldn't be the huge military-industrial complex there is today, but if there is a demand for anything, it will be supplied. There would be a demand for airstrikes in this imaginary world, and thus someone would form Airstrikes International, sell stock or bonds, buy UAVs, fit them with bombs, and start flying CAS missions for hire. Look at that French company that has a photorecon satellite. They do a booming business doing something under costs and for profit that the government does with massive support from taxpayers.
It's not that they couldn't exist, Britt, it's that it would be easier for smaller firms to compete with them. The State does nurture and protect large businesses, through the regulatory regime (compliance costs are fixed costs, and as such axiomatically fall disproportionately on smaller firms).
The rise of Airstrikes International would likely be met with the rise of AirDefense'R'Us, offering everything U-Grail for the budget-minded up to gold-plated Patriots for those with the wherewithal. ;)
Would it work? I dunno.
Was the 20th Century so great, on balance, that it's not worth thinking about trying another way? Uhhhhh....
Wow,
Only pure idealistic idealogues who are narrow specialized in a technical field far divorced from sociological and historical reality could honestly think that private mercenary armies can provide INDIVIDUAL protection to some members of society, but not others, against an EXTRENAL military force.
As for the problems of many, many private armies wandering around offering service to teh highest bidders, let me recommend you Google a little dustup known as the Thirty Years War.
THEN we can maybe start to get into such hideous statist ideas such as "Unity of Command" (combined with "Unity of Effort"), "Economy of Force", etc. or the British principle of "Selection and Maintenance of the Aim". Here's a clue -- there's NINE of these little gems in US doctrine alone, and most nations have found, through trial and bloody error, that the same basic prinicples apply, whether they divide them into nine, combine a few, split more up, or even add a few extras like "Morale".
HISTORICAL EXAMPLE shows that when you deviate from these basic principles, you generally LOSE THE WAR and end up being conquered and occupied, unless your enemy is even dumber than you are.
HISTORICAL EXAMPLE also shows us that you ONLY get full adherence to these principles in a "top down" military heirarchy -- teh exact opposite of some vague cloud of independant contractors.
REALITY trumps PHILOSSOPHIC UTOPIC THEORY every time. Just like an actual physical test trumps calculation in engineering.
Here are some key passages from the Wikipedia entry on the Thirty Years' War:
"So great was the devastation brought about by the war that estimates put the reduction of population in the German states at about 15% to 30%. Some regions were affected much more than others. For example, Württemberg lost three-quarters of its population during the war. In the territory of Brandenburg, the losses had amounted to half, while in some areas an estimated two-thirds of the population died. The male population of the German states was reduced by almost half. The population of the Czech lands declined by a third due to war, disease, famine and the expulsion of Protestant Czechs. Much of the destruction of civilian lives and property was caused by the cruelty and greed of mercenary soldiers, many of whom were rich commanders and poor soldiers. Villages were especially easy prey to the marauding armies. Those that survived, like the small village of Drais near Mainz would take almost a hundred years to recover. The Swedish armies alone may have destroyed up to 2,000 castles, 18,000 villages and 1,500 towns in Germany, one-third of all German towns. The war caused serious dislocations to both the economies and populations of central Europe, but may have done no more than seriously exacerbate changes that had begun earlier."
…
"The edicts agreed upon during the signing of the Peace of Westphalia were instrumental in laying the foundations for what are even today considered the basic tenets of the sovereign nation-state. Aside from establishing fixed territorial boundaries for many of the countries involved in the ordeal (as well as for the newer ones created afterwards), the Peace of Westphalia changed the relationship of subjects to their rulers. In earlier times, people had tended to have overlapping political and religious loyalties. Now, it was agreed that the citizenry of a respective nation were subjected first and foremost to the laws and whims of their own respective government rather than to those of neighboring powers, be they religious or secular.
"The war also has a few more subtle consequences. The Thirty Years' War marked the last major religious war in mainland Europe, ending the large-scale religious bloodshed accompanying the Reformation, in 1648. There were other religious conflicts in the years to come, but no great wars. Also, the destruction caused by mercenary soldiers defied description (see Schwedentrunk). The war did much to end the age of mercenaries that had begun with the first Landsknechts, and ushered in the age of well-disciplined national armies."
Oops, I forgot to include the link to that Wiki page. Here it is:
Thirty Years' War
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