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Libertarianism in a world of (nation) states
I especially hate the nation state. States are problematic enough, once you harness nationalism to them: cripes. But this leads us to some major problems and challenges around achieving a libertarian world. Of all the topics I’ve brought up so far, this, I imagine, is the one most people will have well defined views upon and may provide readings for. As always, I welcome such input because, frankly, I haven’t found treatments that I find compelling.
If we can jump ahead to the universally libertarian or anarchist world, that’s fine. I’m not saying there are no problems or dangers, but I can see how that might work. What I don’t see is how a libertarian or anarchist (if you’ll allow me to use the term naively) society is to survive in a world of nation states. We have seen time and again over the last century and a half how nation states can use nationalist furor to whip up jingoist and militarist dispositions to wage war on those perceived to constitute a threat to the state or the nation – rightly or wrongly. I don’t think there’ll be much disagreement on this, but here’s where my problem begins.
The economics of the nation (or any) state allows it to centrally accumulate resources that can be (and are) invested in the production of technologies of mass death: nuclear, biological, chemical weapons and many so-called conventional weapons now are immensely destructive. So, my question is, how are the decentralized protection agencies of the libertarian world supposed to compete with that – either for deterrence or actual defence? People like Hoppe talk about the multiple swarming of the decentred libertarian world responding to attack in a way that sounds all very quaintly 18th century. If they start carpet bombing us, I’m not quite sure how we’ll respond. Are our protection agencies going to have anti-aircraft guns and anti-missile missiles? Where are they going to get the money for this?
One answer might be a federalist pooling of resources. I can imagine something like that maybe working, but then decision-making structures will start emerging that many are going to condemn as nascent states – and maybe not without justification.
And, if your answer is that we’ll just fight an endless guerrilla war – boring!!! If the choice is living forever in the forest fighting the good guerrilla war or trying somehow to maintain some kind of control over a minimal protection state to guard our 90% freedom from aggressive, centralized, mechanized, states, I’d prefer to take my chances with the latter. But, perhaps there are better ideas. Please share if you have any.
And suggested readings are always appreciated.
From what I've seen personally Copernicus, there are plenty of people in the world who enjoy combat/being pit against other people. There are those who even thrive on it. And these are all my personal opinons with no supporting information outside of what I write(not that I'm trying to be deceitful or intellectually dishonest).
I've spent 4 years in the military, and I can tell you that the best tactical movements and strategies were created by those not in the government, but those contracted or working as a grunt. There were some incredibly smart people in the infantry who could take command of any situation and get the task done.
I'm not saying this in support of the military but in the idea that some people enjoy it. Units in the military compete in war games, physical competetions, and whatnot. I could see private security teams doing the same.
And what would keep these private security forces from forming agreements with other security forces? It would be in their interest to work together. I believe you'd see these security forces pulling together regionally. If security company A is pursueing a suspect in security company B's dominant location of operation, an agreement would make the suspect easier to catch. B would expect the same courtesy to be paid from A as well.
And yes Copernicus, there is currently an obscene ammount of money being allocated to military technology development. I worked on small arms, howitzers, and laser range finders in the army. While in Iraq, I solely orderd over $4,500,000 of parts just for my job on repairs which should have legitimately costed $30,000 max. Due to government contracts, there were petty problems I was not allowed to fix; a 5 cent red button missing off a handgrip? The contractor refuses to release those, so I'm forced to order a new $11,000 handgrip. Alu. handle with nylon rope missing? $750. Its just absurd ammounts of spending.
I think the coalitions formed between security forces could afford the research and at a much lower rate than the current.
Heres another thing to consider: If there is a legitimate threat of invasion, would it be reasonable for these protection forces to drasticly raise their cost of services and expect people to be able to pay? What if some can't afford the protection, does that mean its OK for the protection companies in that area to not protect that person(morally)?
This is a bit of a tagent, but I spend a lot of my time nowadays playing a space game thats a gaint sandbox. Theres 3 types of space in this game: High Security(Space where aggressive player action vs. other players is not tolerated and a nuetral faction known as CONCORD intervenes), Low Security (CONCORD will not intervene, but you lose security standings if you kill players in such systems, and a low enough status means you can't enter high security), and Null Security (completely player owned and controlled). Its an interesting study on human interaction. You end up with coalitions of alliances thousands of players large working together to defend their terrority, or you might just see a small 200-man alliance in certain spots. Either way, people decide to make friends with their neighbors, or they treat them as enemies and kill on sight; its all dependant on if there is something to be gained by the relationship. While there are clones you can jump into after being turned into a frozen corpse a space, thats not the case in the real world.
The point being that there is a gain in having a region-wide defense force formed by multiple security forces. And that region might be large, or it might be small.
Nich, I'm curious.
Since you were yourself military, how do you feel about the role of a PMC as it relates to liberty and protection?
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Jackie Fiest
Thanks for writing that Nick. It was great fun and interesting. You'll acknowledge that it was a kind of dedcutive-anecdotal approach which leaves a lot of my questions still hanging in the air. But I accept your points to that extent. As I said, how regions federally pool those resources without becoming states is still problematic in my mind. But your on the ground stories were most amusing. Thanks for sharing them. And, incidentally, I didn't think that your speculation about whether commerical protection agencies would exclude those who couldn't pay under conditions of heighten danger/expense was a tangent at all. It's quite a central concern in the discussion. Some people of course would opt for a state for precisely that danger. We can't just ignore those kind of hard questions. Thanks for bringing it up.