Freedom from War: The privatisation of nation defence
[The following article was contributed by pete6256. I can say it reflects my sentiments on the issue almost exactly. Thanks again for writing this Pete.]
The idea of private citizens forming themselves into military units and corporations having access to military equipment, for many conjures up images of a dystopian future where McDonald’s and Burger King compete with tanks rather than on the popularity of their burgers, and Toy’s R’ Us preserves their market share with machine guns rather than water pistols.
But consider our current system where access to military grade weaponry is the exclusive preserve of central governments. If a government wishes to instigate an armed conflict, they assess the capability of the opposition and decide where and how to attack the targeted territory. They attack government and civilian infrastructure, seize strategic resources and try to find the best way to subjugate and enslave the population. Military occupation is never cheap and only way to sustain the enormous cost is through the financial extortion of the population – i.e taxation. Conversely, the defence of a country consists of a few leaders at the top who centrally control the national armed forces, deciding which property is to be safeguarded and which lives are to be protected (no doubt their own).
In an Anarcho-Capitalistic society, arms would be free to be traded and accessed by private firms. Without a centralised government authority to expropriate resources from the population and a large standing army to unleash as it saw fit, an Anarcho-Capitalist society would never and could never threaten life or violate property abroad. In addition to which, a private firm which must survive as a commercial enterprise would far less likely to threaten life or attack property due to the multitude of negative repercussions this would have. Aggressive arbitary actions by a private company would not only bring them into direct conflict with another private defence company, but would have a hugely detrimental impact on their own reputation – and therefore their business. Also, unlike a government army, their employees are private individuals who are free to decide for themselves about the morality and justification of their actions.
Like any private firm, the only way they will have access to a sustainable source of income is by entering into voluntary contracts with anyone who feels the need to employ their services. In a period of peace, where any military or terrorist threat is small, the military industry would be correspondingly small because few companies would consider it necessary to employ their services so the industry would shrink. However, in a period of relative tension, the industry would expand to accommodate the heightened security atmosphere. Anybody who owned tunnel, port, factory, airport, housing estate, national park etc and feared a possible attack would be free to decide who to outsource their defence requirements to, in the same way that the owner of a bridge would decide who to outsource their maintenance to. Due to the creative and competitive nature of the free-market, money and resources would naturally gravitate to those companies with the best reputations and which offered the most effective and comprehensive defence at the best price. As in any free-market economy, companies with mutual interests – such as other defence companies or private security firms, intelligence, logistics, transport, utilities etc. would be free to form partnerships where it maybe expedient, in order to defend a particular industry or locality.
Consequently, any domestic or foreign aggressor in an Anarcho-Capitalist society, would be met with a bewildering number of enemies. Each with access to the best resources, possessing their own doctrine and each constantly looking for ever more innovative ways to fulfil their defence obligations to their clients. The robust and de-centralised nature of the opposition would make the sustained subjugation of the civilian population in an Anarcho-Capitalist society, impossible.
January 22nd, 2010 at 3:58 pm
Interesting; something I wrote about myself (albeit taking a different tack)
January 22nd, 2010 at 4:57 pm
Interesting idea, but would you not need at least a token national standing army to act as a check against undesirable ‘warlord’ type behaviour?
Otherwise what’s to stop the whole system degenerating into turf wars and inter-corporation civil war?
January 22nd, 2010 at 7:02 pm
It’s simply not true that “an Anarcho-Capitalist society would never and could never threaten life or violate property abroad” – they could and indeed have been private invasions of other countries.
1. You say that it is impossible because there would be no “centralised government authority to expropriate resources from the population and a large standing army to unleash as it saw fit,” but private enterprise is very successful at raising capital, funding and organising large projects.
2. You also say that a private organisation wouldn’t invade foreign territory because it would have “a hugely detrimental impact on their own reputation – and therefore their business”. Well, that depends on what the company’s business is.
3. As for the idea that a private company would find it impossible to wage war because it relies on “private individuals who are free to decide for themselves about the morality and justification of their actions” – unfortunately we know full well that there are people who will do these things for a share of the loot.
There have been plenty of examples of operations privately formed, funded and organised specifically to carry out a foreign invasion. A few that spring to mind are:
a) the 2004 Mark Thatcher / Mann attempted invasion of Equatorial Guinea;
b) the 1981 attempted coup in Dominica, by a private American organisation;
c) going back further, the East India Company – later nationalised, but initially a private company that used armed force to conquer foreign territory
None of this means that it’s a bad idea (indeed there’s a strong argument that the Equatorial Guinea coup would have been a net benefit to that country’s inhabitants), but it just isn’t true that it is impossible for private invasions to be launched from an Anarcho-Capitalist society.
January 22nd, 2010 at 7:29 pm
Crazy, and ill thought out fantasy. Mankind is aggressive, and conflict is inevitable. Also, imagine is your average sociopath(Hitler/Stalin/PolPot) got hold of his own private outfit. In your thesis every other outfit would be too scared to fight(for fear of being sued, reconstruction,etc), thus bringing global domination for your sociopath. I think you should study history a bit more, and stay off the John Lennon.
January 22nd, 2010 at 10:57 pm
It’s because mankind is capable of being aggressive and because man kind can be greedy and act selfishly that you cannot give one group of people a monopoly on the use of force and the exclusive power to rob from the populace under the name of taxation. If you allow a military to be run through theft they will have no incentive to actually provide a service to the people (protection) and will instead overextend their reach into areas nobody really wants to pay for, like invading countries on the other sides of the world.
If you doubt that people don’t want to pay for things like that, ask yourself why the military isn’t funded voluntarily. Most people get *nothing* from aggressive wars. They lose; both in taxes, and in new enemies abroad. It’s only with taxation that you can get tragedies on a massive scale like Vietnam, Nazi Germany and Iraq/Afghanistan. It’s the same as why it’s only with taxation you can have these terrible crappy inner-city schools which pump out 16 year olds who still can’t read or write properly. If people were paying for the schools themselves they would immediately withdraw funding when they realised how terribly their kids were getting educated. But you can’t withdraw funding when it’s stolen from you by the state.
All the article is claiming is that voluntarily funded armies would be more responsible and accountable to the people they claim to defend than an army that simply steals the money from you. Is that really such a controversial claim?
January 22nd, 2010 at 11:18 pm
@Steve the profit motive; War Is Unprofitable. Companies in dispute would likely arbitrate (in the first quarter of the 20th century a fair few national disputes were sorted out like that too).
@Richard 1. yes, private enterprise is very good at raising capital, but for profitable enterprises. War Is Unprofitable. Nation-states go to war because war can be very profitable for a minority elite, if there’s a load of taxpayers to pick up the tab.
2. That’s true. But let’s be honest, as a private company owner, would you trade with someone known to violate contracts and agress on others territory?
3. a) and b) failed, and would likely have been unprofitable even if successful, and even so, anarcho-capitalism doesn’t insure against psychopaths. c) is a stupid example. yes, the HEIC was technically private, but it had a state-granted monopoly, guaranteed by the Royal Navy (which the British taxpayer picked up the tab for)
January 23rd, 2010 at 8:23 am
Moon-howling lunacy, every single word.
January 23rd, 2010 at 1:07 pm
You’re full of it. You really are.
War is profitable. Right now, we’ve got two wars going on demand from the corporations. It’s pitifully easy to see why. Blow up the infrastructure, buildings and incite choas and then charge the population to put it right. That’s where the thousands of contractors come in. Where does Iraq get the cash to pay these contractors? From IMF loans, with the condidition that Iraq can be annexed by Western corporations and through selling thier oil. It’s classic racketeering.
We’re already far too close to anarcho-capitalism as it is and people are suffering as a result. The level of hell that will be unleashed when corporations are given ultimate power I dread to imagine.
In the past, the Luddites were hanged and picket lines were shot at and even bombed from the air by companies like Pinkerton. I have no wish to see a new generation of Henry Frick’s appear.
This world has enough food and products and technology to benefit and support everyone, but as long as corporations are given power over the working class, it will continue to be denied.
Even as an anarchist myself, I consider anarcho-capitalism to be THE most sick, barbaric and evil of ideoligies that the ruling classes have ever spewed up, while fascism comes only second. I suggest you take a good long look at the parts of the world that have embraced neo-liberalism, either by choice, or through co-ersision of an IMF loan and see the disaster that it means for the millions of people who live under it.
January 23rd, 2010 at 3:58 pm
Rachel: The army (including the “private” black water type orgnisations) and the contractors are all paid for by the state. The state is not paying these bills out of legitimately aquired profits, it is paying them from taxes. Have you heard the saying “War is the health of the state”? Basically war is the greatest way the state has ever discovered to transfer wealth from the public to the government and it’s friends (the contractors, weapons companies etc.)
War is not profitable if it has to be funded voluntarily! It’s easy to confuse the distinction of private and what we have now, but it all comes down to how the armies are funded. Look at the IRA in Ireland. Privately funded defence by the northern Irish to try to resist the British. Now I’m not in favour of everything the IRA did, but they had millions of pounds of donations from various individuals, but can you imagine them waging a war in Iraq? Sending thousands of troops to the UK? No! When people voluntarily fund things, the militias and army’s operate far more defensively and certainly don’t go around starting new wars.
If you’re an anarchist but not an anarcho-capitalist I assume you don’t believe in private property?
January 23rd, 2010 at 7:41 pm
Sconzey,
Point 1:
War is not necessarily unprofitable; Equatorial Guinea is rich in natural resources, and the coup might have been profitable if it had succeeded.
I agree that most wars are unprofitable, so we would have fewer, smaller wars in an anarcho-capitalist society. But the evidence suggests that we would still have some.
Yes, the Equatorial Guinea and Dominica coups failed (the Dominica one seems to have been a bit of a farce), but Equatorial Guinea only failed because a third country’s government (Zimbabwe) got involved; on its own it might well have succeeded.
But even if private wars are unlikely to succeed or be profitable, one will still happen if enough private investors and private military companies believe that it will be. And enough people, with more knowledge than either you or I, thought that Equatorial Guinea could be profitable.
Point 2:
Invading another country isn’t violating a contract (unless of course you have contracted not to invade it).
No, I probably wouldn’t trade with a company that invades another’s territory, but then I don’t run an arms company or a mercenary army. The operations I mentioned did find private companies willing to trade with them, and private individuals willing to invest in them.
Point 3:
See above re failure.
Don’t be rude without checking your facts; the HEIC isn’t as “stupid” an example as you think. Yes it had a government monopoly, but it would probably have happened anyway – its monopoly was removed on at least one occasion, but rival companies never really succeeded.
As for it being “guaranteed by the Royal Navy”, for over 200 years it wasn’t – indeed the Royal Navy probably wasn’t capable of doing so at that time. The HEIC armed its own ships and even had its own navy (the Bombay Marine), which wasn’t incorporated, into the Royal Navy until 1830. It also (as is better known) had its own private army. During the crucial expansionist period of the HEIC (from its foundation in 1600 to its private army’s victory at the Battle of Plassey in 1757) it had to fight its own battles on its own, with its own resources.
January 23rd, 2010 at 7:50 pm
Rachel,
Private companies are making profits from our current wars, but that doesn’t mean that the wars itself are profitable. In fact they are loss-making, and have to be massively subsidised by the taxpayer.
Although (see above) I think that some wars would still happen under a private system, I can’t imagine that either the Afghan or Iraq wars would have been regarded as commercially viable propositions:
- Afghanistan has the poppy fields, but its terrain would be far too expensive to control.
- Iraq has oil, but Iraq’s army was too large to have made invasion profitable without government subsidy.
January 23rd, 2010 at 7:50 pm
Oh dear, sorry for huge posts.
January 23rd, 2010 at 8:18 pm
To illustrate Richard’s last point about Iraq: America has the largest military empire in the history of man kind. Its military budget is (as far as I know) larger than all the other countries in the world combined. And yet it still cannot secure Iraq. It can secure certain areas for periods of time, but it cannot keep the country ‘under control’ whilst it lacks ideological support from the people. This is the effectiveness of private defence in action and why it would be so hard for any private army to make a profit trying to go into an area that doesn’t belong to them and make that area profitable. If the people around do not see the occupation as legitimate they will make it futile. Another example is Vietnam. War is extremely expensive. And you simply could not have the sorts of massive wars the 20th century was characterised by (millions of innocent lives lost) without a state with the power to tax and subsidise the killing.
January 23rd, 2010 at 10:27 pm
Richard, I do apologise for my rudeness, I thought I was in possession of the facts — clearly not — and I bow to your superior knowledge. :P You know of a good book on the subject? Primary sources are preferred. :P
Anyway: as the HEIC eventually imploded under the cost of managing her colonies, I think we can safely say this is the exception which proves the rule.
Even assuming the EG coup succeeded, I have my doubts that the conspirators would have been able to recoup their investment costs, and even so it would have been at the expense of the population through taxation, effectively making this a State-backed war (although the backing was ex-post)
The original hypothesis should probably be restated as: in a free market war is unprofitable.
January 24th, 2010 at 12:56 am
Who told you the USA could not secure Iraq? even with the help of France Saddam spectacularly lost,since then it eventually was a great success, huge turnouts in free elections more schoolkids in schools than ever before, more services than ever etc, etc . I has send shockwaves of democracy through the islamic world, swathes of the population proudly proclaiming to be Iraqi first and islamic second-in public. This was despite the leader of the USA having to fight the socialists in the senate and the totally corrupt media and the pathetic job the worst government in UK history managed whilst selling out to the quislings in europe.
Someone has to make money on every war (read the “unseen hand” ) not usually the warring factions but there will be a financial winner, the House of Orange made a fortune from Lennin.
January 24th, 2010 at 2:06 am
Haha you made my point for me. The US could topple the STATE army in like 2 weeks flat, but almost years later they are unable to secure the COUNTRY against the people resisting the occupation (private individuals not taxing anybody).
January 24th, 2010 at 2:51 am
Sconzey,
Apology accepted; sorry for having been snarky.
I agree that any profit from the Equatorial Guinea coup would have to come from an EG government, put in place by the coup leaders. That could be through taxation, or by granting oil rights on favourable terms.
Therefore yes, the profit would have ultimately come through government action – but not government action by the coup leaders’ home country. Therefore such a coup could still arise from an Anarcho-Capitalist society – and the statement I was questioning was that Anarcho-Capitalism “would never and could never threaten life or violate property abroad”.
January 24th, 2010 at 3:07 am
I’m thinking about your comment that “in a free market war is unprofitable”.
Technically I think you must be right, because by the point the attackers make money the attacked society would no longer be a free market. But that wouldn’t be much comfort to those attacked!
We then get into questions of how effectively an Anarcho-Capitalist society could defend itself from an attack by a mercenary company raised in another Anarcho-Capitalist society, but that’s a different issue.
January 24th, 2010 at 3:46 am
Rather uncomfortably, it wasn’t India that finished off the East India Company, but the UK government confiscating its assets (Government of India Act 1858; although it had been subject to increasing statutory control from 1784, and a rump company survived until 1874).
It succesfully defeated the Indian Rebellion, but was defeated by the political reaction at home.
That suggests that the only thing that could stop aggression was the confiscation of a private company’s assets, which as free market supporters we’re generally against.
However the world was a very different place back then, and I wouldn’t claim it is a very strong example for today.
January 24th, 2010 at 1:24 pm
I’m totally unfamiliar with the East India Company. What was the situation with the natives in India? did they have the same kind of technology to defend themselves (eg guns)? Because I remember reading Jared Diamond’s excellent Gun’s Germs and Steel and it seems to me that a private company that had developed in the west would easily be able to conquer a society which was living with primitive tools. I mean you can’t fight guns with bows and arrows. But *today* I don’t see how free market war can be profitable.
January 24th, 2010 at 5:09 pm
What if you haven’t got any money?
What happens then? Would a private military corporation be interested in protecting you? The answer is probably not.
“The Seven Samurai” is an example of a private military organization at work. Would they care unless they were being paid to save the village? I doubt it. Their reaction to the farmers at the end of the film is interesting, as is the farmers’ towards them.
This is another such example of a story that seems to be heading in that direction as well: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Boys_(comics)
There is another, real life example of note. It is called the mafia. They are are a private military organization in their way. Happy to provide protection for people who can’t go to the police, usually for money, but often in return for hidden favours, a eventual share in your business because they like your money and want to know where it comes from, and which demands obedience by all via Omerta. They will protect your activities from others and work for cash.
They don’t do “pro bono” work either. That seems to come only from the military as we know it. If the answer is to keep a large military force hanging around “just in case.” Then what is the point?
Do you want such people in your life? Maybe you need someone to stop them….Like a government that at least pays lip service to the idea of justice for everyone and not just to those who can pay. Somalia has lots of private military contractors. They are called “warlords”, but in truth, what they provide is protection, for money. There is even a free market in them, in that if you don’t like a particular band of people, hire a different one. The part where you get rid of the current lot on your own is the tricky bit.
But like I said. What if you haven’t got any money? Public funding is needed. Other than that, you’re on your own. Good luck with keeping your son asshole or your daughter’s hymen intact.
January 24th, 2010 at 8:07 pm
misesuk,
It’s a few years since I read the books – I was intending to write an atricle on the benefits of private coups, linking the East India Company to the Thatcher/Mann Equatorial Guinea attempt, but it was too difficult.
One reason for abandoning the article was that the story was very complex – the East India Company lasted for almost 275 years (1600 to 1874), changing its nature over time from a genuinely private enterprise to the largest ever government quango.
I was more interested in the political / economic side than the military issues, but I think the Indians were at least as well armed as the Company’s soldiers (most of whom were local Indian recruits anyway), and the Indians often had alliances with the French or Dutch which gave them a source of modern weaponry.
At the crucial Battle of Plassey the Company would have been out-gunned by the Bengalis, but a combination of lack of expertise in the Bengali troops (they let their gunpowder get wet when it rained) and treachery (the Company bribed one of the Bengali commanders to keep his troops out of the fight) allowed the British to win.
The first point would be just as relevant today, given the copmlexity of modern weaponry – even if I had an F22 fighter aircraft, I would be completely unable to defend myself with it.
The second point could also be relevant if an anarcho-capitalist society was trying to defend itself – to what extent would all its members fight, and would they even all fight on the same side? Didn’t a lot of Americans fight voluntarily for the British in the War of Independence?
January 24th, 2010 at 9:06 pm
All the article is claiming is that voluntarily funded armies would be more responsible and accountable to the people they claim to defend than an army that simply steals the money from you. Is that really such a controversial claim?
It is a completely unbelieveable claim! A private army will not be ‘voluntarily’ funded, for it will use its military power to steal what it cannot raise by consent. An anarcho-capitalist state would be a warlord state, with no effective government, and controlled by a handful of warlords with powerful private armies. There would be no rule of law and citizens would have to choose which warlord they offered fealty to. A terrifying prospect.
January 24th, 2010 at 9:50 pm
Richard, I was under the impression that the administrative costs of HEIC’s colonies grew too large, and the company was in financial troubles way before the 1784 India Act, lobbying for tax-exemption of their tea trade in 1773. Anyway, you got any good advice on primary sources?
Re: EG, as the Coalition learned in Iraq, it’s one thing to topple a country’s leadership by force, it’s quite another to govern it well enough to turn a profit.
In an (ancap) free market of course, EG would have been much more fragmented politically so one coup would not have been enough to sieze the country. In an ancap society, the best way to organise “National” Defense is through an insurance-like method. Competing mercenary companies maintain large armies, and an annual subscription ensures their assistance in a time of need. In such a scenario, the siezure of a single region by a Mann/Thatcher sized force, or the “hostile takeover” of a single local PDA, and you’ve got the entire equivalent military might of a country the size of the US — pour encourager les autres.
If one of these large companies turned upon their customers, and attempted to set up a private feifdom, two or three others are on hand, just itching to tear apart a competitor and sieze their assets. The situation is kept in check because if one of them acts illegitimately, the others will fall upon him. If any part of the company survives, it will struggle to do business with anyone except criminals and outlaws.
January 24th, 2010 at 11:06 pm
Sconzey,
You may be right on the administrative costs; one of the difficulties I found when reading up on it was trying to disentangle the actual costs of running India from the external costs, such as the massive bribes they were having to pay the British government to avoid nationalisation.
There’s an Indian called Chowdhuri who has written a book on the financial history of the HEIC, but it’s ridiculously expensive (£200 expensive), and I’ve not had a spare month to sit in a reference library reading it!
I’ll hunt out my notes and find the titles of the books I was using; as I said, it’s a few years ago I was looking at it, and I never got anything into a fit state to publish.
January 24th, 2010 at 11:38 pm
Sconzey,
Agreed that running a country to make a profit is the more difficult part. I suppose there would be several factors:
a) the cheaper it is to invade, the quicker you can turn a profit;
b) I should think tyrannies would be easier (the inhabitants are already cowed, and might not even mind so much), which supports the view that there would be fewer wars in an Anarcho-Capitalist society;
c) you’ve got more chance of making a profit if there is wealth or resources that can be plundered quickly.
I’ve read your article, and liked it. I also agree with what you say above about competing insurance-based defence companies (which also makes sense of your previous comments about mercenary companies not wanting to lose their reputation – but I still don’t think it rules out rogue companies being formed specifically for attack).
But I still think that private invasions would be possible, and someone would try it, because of the possibility of negotiation once you’ve successfully invaded. Even with several powerful mercenary companies ready to fulfil their insurance contracts and throw you out, it’s going to make a hell of a mess of the country you’re fighting over. If you’re quick enough, you may be able to negotiate with the inhabitants terms which would allow you to stay in power – either over the whole country on low-tribute terms, or to keep part of the country in return for withdrawing from the rest.
Equatorial Guinea is a good example of this; all you need is the oilfields (which are mainly offshore) – the rest of the country could be a negotiating counter to persuade the population to call off the insurance companies’ mercenary armies.
January 24th, 2010 at 11:50 pm
If free market armies were really going around just stealing what they couldn’t get voluntarily there would be a HUUUUUUUGE gap in the market for anybody to start an ethical defence company. Everybody would immediately withdraw funding from these crazy corrupt companies and give to the well run, ethical company. I mean is this a genuine objection?
January 25th, 2010 at 10:43 am
If free market armies were really going around just stealing what they couldn’t get voluntarily there would be a HUUUUUUUGE gap in the market for anybody to start an ethical defence company. Everybody would immediately withdraw funding from these crazy corrupt companies and give to the well run, ethical company. I mean is this a genuine objection?
And these corrupt defence companies would just let their customers walk away, would they? Of course not. What happens when you stop paying ‘protection’ to a gangster? He says, ‘fair enough, I’ve been beaten in fair competition’? No, he breaks your legs and goes after the rival firm who is trying to poach his customers. What would stop that scenario being played out in the anarcho-capitalist society, where there is no universal rule of law and no central authority to enforce it?
January 25th, 2010 at 2:39 pm
@misesuk Richard and I agree — that’s exactly what would happen, and the ethical company would achieve market dominance, although it would be terribly messy for those poor customers caught in the middle
@Stephen What would stop that scenario being played out in the liberal democratic society, where there is no universal rule of law and no central authority to enforce it? owait…
To give a slightly better answer: No, of course the evil gangsters wouldn’t just let their customers walk away. The ethical company would most likely have to use force to “liberate” their new customers. One could argue this is roughly analogous to South Ossetia’s seccession from Georgia. The SO govt agreed some deal with Russia, who in this case behaved as their PDA. What’s different is that in an ancap society such a deal would be done out in the open, and if Georgia were behaving rationally, they would offer SO a better deal than they were getting with Russia (in terms of taxes, benefits etc.) to try to entice them back.
January 25th, 2010 at 3:25 pm
Misesuk,
I think you, Sconzey and I are all agreed that on the general principles.
However I don’t believe that wars would never start in an anarcho-capitalist society. I suspect that it would still be possible to have a profitable, private war if you got in quickly and negotiated (with demands that were lower than the likely collateral damage caused by kicking you out).
Moreover, even if a private war wouldn’t actually be profitable, it only needs enough people to think that it might be in order to try.
So I don’t agree with the initial contention that there would not be any wars in an anarcho-capitalist society, but I do agree that they would be fewer and smaller than they are now.
January 25th, 2010 at 3:35 pm
@Stephen What would stop that scenario being played out in the liberal democratic society, where there is no universal rule of law and no central authority to enforce it? owait
Well there is a rule of law, despite Labour’s assiduous attempts to undermine it. And we are not a remotely a warlord society. And where law and order has broken down, such as in sink estates with high deprivation, the decent people there are arging for a greater police presence to stomp on the criminals, not for policing by armed gangs. I have plenty of complaints against the way our present society is run but I certainly wouldn’t swap it for what’s on offer here!
To give a slightly better answer: No, of course the evil gangsters wouldn’t just let their customers walk away. The ethical company would most likely have to use force to “liberate” their new customers
So we have two rival police forces making war on each other, one of which claims to be ‘ethical’ and the other, which is transparently not. That sounds like civil war to me. You guys claim to be capitalists, right? Well businesses thrive where there is political stability and they close down and leave when there isn’t. Having private security forces fighting each other, with no central authority to stop them, sounds to me like a very unstable society, and a very bad one to do business in, unless you are an arms dealer.
As for you analogy with Russia, Georgia and South Ossetia, I know very little about that dispute, so have little to add.
January 25th, 2010 at 3:37 pm
Here’s an interesting question.
We’d been thinking mainly of under-developed, resource-rich countries being attacked. But what about developed, industrialised countries in an anarcho-capitalist society?
What if a rogue company invaded Hong Kong, or New York, or London, and announced that it would allow life to carry on as normal except that a 0.5% annual property tax would be paid as tribute to the invaders.
Yes, we’d have been paying insurance premiums to various ethical private military companies, who would be preparing to rescue us. But wouldn’t the collateral costs of doing so (in loss of life and destruction of property) be greater than the tribute demanded?
Would this be possible? Would people just pay it? After all, it’s a lot less than a government would demand.
January 25th, 2010 at 3:55 pm
Stephen,
I don’t think we would have constant civil war.
It wouldn’t be “two rival police forces”, but lots of private military companies, operating on an insurance basis, who would be doing nothing for most of the time. If one ‘went rogue’, or a rogue company was founded to invade somewhere, the others would fulfil their insurance pledges and the rogue one would be massively outnumbered.
Therefore although I think there would still be a few hostile attacks, they would be rare because the risks would be huge.
January 25th, 2010 at 3:57 pm
Stephem,
As for sink estates where law and order have broken down, remember the Guardian Angels? That was a private (voluntary) defence force working in sink estates; mostly in the US, but they did operate in London for a while. I may be wrong, but I thought the people were generally positive towards them, but the police thought that they were being shown up and resented them.
January 25th, 2010 at 4:21 pm
It wouldn’t be “two rival police forces”, but lots of private military companies, operating on an insurance basis, who would be doing nothing for most of the time. If one ‘went rogue’, or a rogue company was founded to invade somewhere, the others would fulfil their insurance pledges and the rogue one would be massively outnumbered
It is possible that such a system could settle down into periods of stability. What you describe resembles medieval England – there were periods of peace when the barons were able to coexist. But then, that system still required the central authority of the King to mediate between rival barons and to hold the line against civil war breaking out. But it is just as likely that it could resemble Somalia. For an ordinary person in such a society, if they could not afford the ‘insurance pledges’, then they would have no effective protection of the law. That strikes at the fundamental liberty – protection of the law whoever you are. The rich would be untouchable, as they would buy the protection of a private police force. And what of the rule of law? With no central authority, who is to say what the law is?
January 25th, 2010 at 4:23 pm
As for sink estates where law and order have broken down, remember the Guardian Angels? That was a private (voluntary) defence force working in sink estates; mostly in the US, but they did operate in London for a while. I may be wrong, but I thought the people were generally positive towards them, but the police thought that they were being shown up and resented them
True, but the Guardian Angels weren’t seeking to replace the police but to augment it.
January 25th, 2010 at 4:36 pm
Yes, we’d have been paying insurance premiums to various ethical private military companies, who would be preparing to rescue us
Have you never dealt with an insurance company? As soon as the citizens of that country made a claim against their ‘ethical private military company’, it would look for small print to wriggle out of liability – sorry but you are not covered if there is an air assault. By the time you claim has been approved, the invaders are sitting behind impregnable fortifications! Really, I don’t know how anyone can entertain such lunacy.
January 25th, 2010 at 4:51 pm
Stephen, the poor don’t get the same access to the law under the current system.
Somalia is, according to some, much better off now than it ever was under statism.
Also, what are your thoughts on this video, as it pertains to your fear of constant civil war between protection agencies?
Regarding the burden of proof. You say charity is not a good enough answer to who takes care of the disadvantaged. I posit the thousands of charities that exist today, despite the state claiming it’ll take care of everybody. As well as the anecdotal evidence that everybody I talk to about ancap ideas always brings up the poor and the sick, which suggests helping those people is a universal human concern (look at the outpouring of private charity over the Haiti disaster, and these aren’t even people in our communities). So if there is good evidence that people do care, and that charities do look after people, I think the burden of proof IS on you if you’re claiming we NEED violent redistribution of wealth to take care of people. But I recognise that for practical purposes, society is going to demand these answers from us, so I guess what I said was maybe a bit flippant.
January 25th, 2010 at 7:13 pm
Stephen,
I thought we were talking about armies, not police. In other words an invasion of a country (or similarly large group), not a gang terrorising an estate.
Mind you, I’d like one of the libertarians to explain just how this would work. Would it be some form of national insurance policy (and if so, how would it be decided on and paid for?), or would it be individuals, with those who didn’t pay benefiting as free riders? Or would it be compulsory to have a policy but free to choose your provider?
Obviously if policies were with different providers, they could form a coalition to take any necessary action.
January 25th, 2010 at 7:18 pm
Stephen,
It wouldn’t be like medieval England, because the Barons could call on compulsory armed service; private companies can’t.
They would therefore have to get money to pay their troops, which would either be voluntary or enforced contributions.
The question then is whether the good would generally drive out the bad – would honest insurance companies predominate, or rogue “protection racket” type operations.
In a genuinely free market, I would expect the good to predominate. I do think that rogues would crop up occasionally, but far less than your medieval analogy suggests.
January 26th, 2010 at 12:21 am
an AnCap society would have no government to take over, and no clearly defined borders. Therefore trying to occupy an ancap society is much harder for an invading army as there is no centralised state to defeat and supplant.
To make a profit taking over such a society you must literally go door to door trying to tax people, and when the ideology of the people is that this is unjust and all the people are armed, it becomes almost impossible (look at the difficulty America has securing Iraq. Or how well Somalia has resisted attempts to impose a state upon it, despite being a poor third world country, and America pumping millions of dollars into it’s favoured warlords in the area to try to do just that.
So there would be no need for a gigantic standing army like we see today, more likely there would be local militias, that might even be voluntarily staffed by the men of the local community. you would probably see large companies investing in decent sized defence of their property. And then you might see small private armies popping up, funded by those who are worried about threat of attack. Of course if a private company can get a few nukes, that’ll pretty much destroy all incentive for anybody to invade permanently and will cost only a few million a year to maintain (I imagine).
I know there will be people commenting “OMFG A PRIVATE COMPANY WITH A NUKE” but people are going to be very wary of funding such a company unless they spell out exactly why they are going to be responsible and how they will be audited by any third party who wants to etc. The nuclear genie is out of the bottle anyway, and in my opinion it’s just another example of why we need to get rid of the state. While the state exists I am very afraid that the inevitable result is nuclear annihilation, sooner or (preferably) later, just due to the nature of how they operate.
January 26th, 2010 at 4:31 am
Stephen. I confess, I was having a little fun at your expense with my quip; the current system in each country is effectively as if one company got too big for it’s boots and took over, while on an international scale there is no police force nor enforcable rules. So in the worst case scenario war would be no more common than it is today.
January 26th, 2010 at 5:17 am
Wow, I haven’t seen it summed up in that way before. That’s perfect.
January 26th, 2010 at 1:52 pm
@misesuk: There are some great legitimate uses for nuclear explosions, and frankly, I’m far more comfortable with Mars or Pepsico having the Bomb, than China or North Korea.
January 26th, 2010 at 8:17 pm
One of the central points I was trying to get across was that everything that government does is based on the it’s monopoly of the use of force. This monopoly is the supreme source of all government power, it’s how it expropriates wealth from people, ensures we conform to it’s laws and forces it’s will on others in the form of military action.
I’m not saying that in an Anarcho-Capitalist there would be no violence ever, but with no one singular power having a monopoly on force it is infinately harder for any one person or group of people, to exert their will over the rest of us. In other words that power is spread out to private companies and individuals.
January 26th, 2010 at 11:34 pm
Stephen, the poor don’t get the same access to the law under the current system
True. Which is why I would support a substantial increase in the legal aid budget.
Somalia is, according to some, much better off now than it ever was under statism
What is ‘statism’? There are all sorts of governments – and some are better than others. I am sceptical of government but I consider it to be an absolute necessity to preserve the rule of law and to ensure that everyone has the protection of the law. I find anarcho-libertarian arguments in this area to be completely unconvincing.
Also, what are your thoughts on this video, as it pertains to your fear of constant civil war between protection agencies?
I don’t think the old west is a particularly good example. The absence of law certainly advantaged the rich in the ‘wars of incorporation’ in the late 19th Century. Sure, I have a romantic yen to wear my Colt Peacemaker at my hip but I don’t want to live in a society where that is necessary. Shooting it on a Sunday morning at Bisley is quite sufficient for me!
Regarding the burden of proof. You say charity is not a good enough answer to who takes care of the disadvantaged
Well it doesn’t answer the question of what happens when the charities can’t cope, or when some people don’t receive help.
I posit the thousands of charities that exist today, despite the state claiming it’ll take care of everybody
Does the state say this? I wasn’t aware that it made any such claim. And destitute children find themselves sleeping rough every day in Britain, despite all those charities.
As well as the anecdotal evidence that everybody I talk to about ancap ideas always brings up the poor and the sick, which suggests helping those people is a universal human concern
In which case, I find the anarcho-capitalist resistance to paying taxes to support such people, even more perplexing.
(look at the outpouring of private charity over the Haiti disaster, and these aren’t even people in our communities)
But that’s the thing about charitable giving – it responds to the big thing in the news. Less popular or less visible worthy causes may struggle to get funding. And even with Haiti, donation fatigue will set in well before the need has gone away. I don’t mean to disparage charitable giving, which is entirely laudable, but it should be in addition to the safety net provided by the state. It should not replace it.
So if there is good evidence that people do care, and that charities do look after people, I think the burden of proof IS on you if you’re claiming we NEED violent redistribution of wealth to take care of people
I don’t dispute that people have charitabe urges but they are not consistent or constant. What of the unpopular but worthy causes? As for your hyperbole about ‘violence’, well you freely choose to live in a country that operates income tax, as most do. I believe that there are principalities in Arabia that have no such tax. Nothing is stopping you from emigrating if you find the burden intolerable.
But I recognise that for practical purposes, society is going to demand these answers from us, so I guess what I said was maybe a bit flippant
Fair enough :)
January 26th, 2010 at 11:41 pm
Sconzey
Stephen. I confess, I was having a little fun at your expense with my quip; the current system in each country is effectively as if one company got too big for it’s boots and took over, while on an international scale there is no police force nor enforcable rules. So in the worst case scenario war would be no more common than it is today
I think that’s quite a perceptive analogy. In the international situation, we have one superpower throwing its weight around without any effective control. The Great Powers today are no more moral that Attila the Hun. I would hate to see that situation replaced in my town!
January 26th, 2010 at 11:52 pm
Peter6256
One of the central points I was trying to get across was that everything that government does is based on the it’s monopoly of the use of force. This monopoly is the supreme source of all government power, it’s how it expropriates wealth from people, ensures we conform to it’s laws and forces it’s will on others in the form of military action
True, which is why government must be controlled by separation of powers and an enforcible constitution to protect essential rights and the rule of law. I see government rather like nuclear power – powerful and potentially dangerous but very useful if controlled effectively.
I’m not saying that in an Anarcho-Capitalist there would be no violence ever, but with no one singular power having a monopoly on force it is infinately harder for any one person or group of people, to exert their will over the rest of us. In other words that power is spread out to private companies and individuals
On the contrary, I think it would be much easier for powerful and unscrupulous people to gain power by force. The natural condition for capitalism is to tend towards monopoly. I have been reading about the coercive and extra-legal methods used by DuPont in the late 19th Century to impose a near monopoly on gunpowder manufacture. That and other notorious cases lead to the first anti-trust laws in the US. I have little doubt that in an anarcho-capitalist society, monopolies would flourish, and unimpeded by any law, would ruthlessly crush any nascent competitor. I think it is pretty naive for libertarians to dismiss this possibility.
January 27th, 2010 at 12:55 am
Statism is a catch all for any government system I guess. Somalia is (or at least was, and still is in some parts) better off now in anarchy than it was when it had a shitty government. Did you read the wiki I sent you? It shows how complex businesses like telecommunications have thrived in their stateless society, and the video I linked to earlier shows how they have protection under the law too. (I would argue better protection, than under the monopoly system now).
“I don’t think the old west is a particularly good example. The absence of law certainly advantaged the rich in the ‘wars of incorporation’ in the late 19th Century. Sure, I have a romantic yen to wear my Colt Peacemaker at my hip but I don’t want to live in a society where that is necessary. Shooting it on a Sunday morning at Bisley is quite sufficient for me!”
You don’t think the video shows your fears of increasingly large militaries and defence agencies descending into civil war, making it impossible for capitalism to thrive is unfounded?
Does the state say this? I wasn’t aware that it made any such claim. And destitute children find themselves sleeping rough every day in Britain, despite all those charities.
The state claims it will take care of all sick people (the nhs) all housing for those in need, all social work for disadvantaged or abused children, all welfare for those who can’t find a job… Surely you’re not disagreeing with this??? There are tons of private charities in every city who provide shelter for children (or anyone) on the street. Some people don’t want to help themselves, some people choose to stay on the street, or some people are just angry drunks who refuse to get off the drink, in which case I don’t think anybody has a moral obligation to help them if they refuse to help themselves (though if you disagree, you can start your own charity for assholes in a free society).
In which case, I find the anarcho-capitalist resistance to paying taxes to support such people, even more perplexing.
Because we oppose taxes on principle. Theft is still theft if it’s for a “good cause”. I might not want to put my taxes into the government’s INCREDIBLY BADLY RUN welfare system, I might prefer to keep that money and give it to a private welfare charity, or maybe I’d like to spend it on a different charity of my choosing. Whenever the government takes money by force and puts it into X it is, by necessity stopping it being used for Y. For somebody who claims a distrust of government, you seem awfully willing to accept that they know better how to spend other people’s money, than we know how to spend it ourselves.
I don’t dispute that people have charitabe urges but they are not consistent or constant. What of the unpopular but worthy causes? As for your hyperbole about ‘violence’, well you freely choose to live in a country that operates income tax, as most do. I believe that there are principalities in Arabia that have no such tax. Nothing is stopping you from emigrating if you find the burden intolerable.
Unpopular but worthy causes = You think you (or the government you personally approve of?) know how to spend other people’s money better than they do. Well that’s very nice. But it’s the philosophy of a dictator. I have an unpopular but (in my opinion) worthy cause; that we dismantle all government. Would it therefore be okay for me to take money from you by force?
The “love it or leave it” argument is one that’s thrown out a lot. I don’t believe the government legitimately owns the land it claims, I think it took it by force, and therefore I don’t feel like uprooting my life right now to make some point. Especially as the most of the rest of the world is equally statist or worse than this country. That said, if things do get much worse, it might be worth thinking about. But I wouldn’t be doing it because I think I’m obligated to “leave if you don’t like it” rather I’d be leaving because I might think there is no hope of changing the system and I want to get out before it goes completely totalitarian.
January 27th, 2010 at 10:27 am
Because we oppose taxes on principle. Theft is still theft if it’s for a “good cause”. I might not want to put my taxes into the government’s INCREDIBLY BADLY RUN welfare system
Then vote for a government that will implement by your lights a better run benefit system.
Unpopular but worthy causes = You think you (or the government you personally approve of?)
Please don’t twist my words. I am sure you have sufficient imagination to understand that leaving care to private charity will mean that some people who need assistance will not receive it.
Especially as the most of the rest of the world is equally statist or worse than this country
Then I guess you’re up shit creek.
But I wouldn’t be doing it because I think I’m obligated to “leave if you don’t like it” rather I’d be leaving because I might think there is no hope of changing the system and I want to get out before it goes completely totalitarian
Well considering you think income taxation is ‘totalitarian’ there can’t be many societies in the world that are by your lights not totalitarian. Since libertarians seem mostly uninterested in convincing others that they are right, I see little likelihood that things will change.
January 27th, 2010 at 2:39 pm
@Stephen so what is the essential difference between the US throwing it’s weight around on the world stage, and the US throwing it’s weight around in the US? What makes the latter legitimate, and the former not?
January 27th, 2010 at 3:29 pm
Please don’t twist my words. I am sure you have sufficient imagination to understand that leaving care to private charity will mean that some people who need assistance will not receive it.
There are absurd numbers of people today who need assistance and don’t get it. In a private system more people who really need care would receive it and the people who today are just gaming the system would receive far less. Who “needs” care is kind of an arbitrary thing anyway, which is why free people should decide themselves voluntarily. The government often “decides” that the local community needs a new art center of something. As if people are too stupid to appreciate art without the government forcibly redistributing wealth.
Since libertarians seem mostly uninterested in convincing others that they are right, I see little likelihood that things will change.
That’s not very charitable considering how much time people have put into writing out replies for you despite the fact that it seems you are not exactly open minded on these issues.
January 27th, 2010 at 8:30 pm
One aspect of libertarianism that needs to be taken into consideration is risk. I am very much in favor of a libertarian society but, considering the risk of it all going wrong, would think twice before trading places. Despite the fact that I disapprove of the vast majority of government policy and coercion, I, like many others, have a content life. I think what put many people off this idea is the threat of things similar to the above mentioned worst-case scenarios including civil war, starvation of the poor and needy, and ultimately the risk of the emergence of a totalitarian dictatorship.
I am aware that without actually attempting it, it seems practically impossible for many of these things to actually happened but you can never know. They didn’t expect communism to turn out as bad as it was.
With even the slightest chance of an unpredicted bad outcome, it is very difficult to want to give up this flawed yet relatively comfortable life.
January 27th, 2010 at 11:17 pm
Yeah, I agree with the sentiments here. That’s why I like what they’re doing up in New Hampshire with the Free State Project. I think setting a small example somewhere might be the spark that sets things in motion. In the near future, however, I see people’s comfortable lives being shaken up because I forsee the entire system is soon to collapse, hopefully from that wreckage pockets of anarchy can spring up, and if not that, smaller governments and a populace ready to embrace free market ideals (this is less preferable of course because it seems to be the pattern of human history and cyclical in nature. It would be better to have permanent peace).
January 27th, 2010 at 11:43 pm
There are absurd numbers of people today who need assistance and don’t get it. In a private system more people who really need care would receive it and the people who today are just gaming the system would receive far less
And your evidence for this is …? In fact we have the era prior to the welfare state to give us a clue to how things might pan out and it’s not a pretty picture.
Who “needs” care is kind of an arbitrary thing anyway, which is why free people should decide themselves voluntarily
They can decide for themselves. We still have elections in this country.
The government often “decides” that the local community needs a new art center of something. As if people are too stupid to appreciate art without the government forcibly redistributing wealth
If people fundamentally disagree with the funding decisions of their government, they can vote it out, can’t they?
That’s not very charitable considering how much time people have put into writing out replies for you despite the fact that it seems you are not exactly open minded on these issues
OK, sorry, that was uncalled for.
January 27th, 2010 at 11:47 pm
@Stephen so what is the essential difference between the US throwing it’s weight around on the world stage, and the US throwing it’s weight around in the US? What makes the latter legitimate, and the former not?
Well I am certainly not going to defend every domestic action of the US federal government. The Patroit Act, the RealID proposals, the suspension of habeas corpus at Gitmo and the rest are appalling. But the US government is answerable to its electorate. The point of about the international situation is that nation states cannot be held to account if they are sufficiently rich and powerful.
January 28th, 2010 at 12:00 am
Despite the fact that I disapprove of the vast majority of government policy and coercion, I, like many others, have a content life. I think what put many people off this idea is the threat of things similar to the above mentioned worst-case scenarios including civil war, starvation of the poor and needy, and ultimately the risk of the emergence of a totalitarian dictatorship
I despise Labour and its authoritarian approach to law and order. As a legal firearms owner I am tied hand and foot by gun control and have to lodge my handguns at a secure site for the privilege and being able to still possess them. BUT … I find libertarian ideology to be distasteful. I suppose I am a liberal – I believe in a well regulated government, not no government at all, which I think would be an utter calamity. If I have to be ‘robbed’ of taxes to provide that stability then so be it. I think it fair exchange. The ultimate freedom is the rule of law and you cannot have that without a central authority to administer it. The problem with the present government is that it has created law for no good reason, because it is weak and it thinks that by creating laws it appears strong and decisive. But I find the prospect of a robber baron society even more alarming than rule by New Labour.
January 28th, 2010 at 9:54 am
Stephen raises an interesting point about the need for a central authority to regulate laws. Without state regulation what is stopping a protection company creating its own laws that benefit its clients but marginalize a minority of non-clients?
January 28th, 2010 at 3:51 pm
Ed, in the current situation, the monopoly provider of laws CONSTANTLY creates its own laws that benefit its ‘clients’ (politically connected friends). Just look at all the subsidies, and lobbied-for regulations that benefit the big corporations or the protection from firing the unions get etc.
In the free market, dispute resolution would be much more fair across the board because any company that was making up arbitary laws would be seen as illegitimate and although it might get business from those it directly benefits theoretically, for practical reasons it wouldn’t happen, because those companies (who constantly need to contract with other companies) would find it hard dealing with other people in society because they wouldn’t make deals with them because they’re essentially saying “We refuse to arbitrate our disputes fairly. Instead we’ll just go with company X who has essentially gone rogue.”
Compare to the current situation where everybody is expected to abide by state laws under the threat of force, and everybody is forced to pay for the legislature and the courts, even though they do a terrible job.
January 29th, 2010 at 3:41 pm
Sounds lke fucking Somalia, hardly a recommendation.
March 12th, 2010 at 9:27 pm
Social comments and analytics for this post…
This post was mentioned on Twitter by wendy712: See also Anarchy & the Law http://bit.ly/9sMnSd RT @libertyideals Privatising armies, freedom from war #libertarian http://bit.ly/bRt4vS…
April 4th, 2010 at 5:40 am
[...] there are many scholarly essays, books and lectures that refute this point convincingly, but let’s pretend, for the sake of [...]