@Graham: TRIPLE-like!!!
You are a gentleman and a scholar - you do an immense service to liberty with your excellent voice-talent.
Also, people should look into indiegogo and kickstarter for funding liberty-related projects… Thomasz Kaye (aka ‘bitbutter’) has used this technique to bring us George Ought to Help, Edgar the Exploiter and - soon - Give Me Your Ball.
Two liberty-related project ideas I have and would like to see someone pick up (but do not have time right now to develop myself) are:
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An “Open-Source Social Order” Wiki - this would be a wiki dedicated to documenting ways that people have successfully set up arrangements of all types between themselves. Ride-share, rent sub-letting, meetings and organizations (in fact, I would like Robert’s Rules of Order to be the first page in the Wiki, as it captures the essence of the whole idea), performance bonds, private arbitration methods (for example, religious or just friend-based interventions, etc.) and so on. The basic idea is to document social-order ideas and their outcomes as a way to use the power of the Internet and “copy/paste” remixing (see here and here) to accelerate the spread of the basic building-blocks of ideological self-sufficiency (that is, the capacity of people to organize their own affairs, not protectionism or anti-division-of-labor) and government-independence. Another name idea I had is “Society Without Permission.”
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A digital hawala-style monetary system… basically, using judge.me and possibly a digital token like Bitcoin in order to create a system for transferring money over long distances. For legal reasons, I think the best route would be silver and gold bullion coins (i.e. not national monetary coins or any national fiat money).
The key thing that liberty-strategy has missed is: how to internalize at least some of the benefits of free society without resort to coercive measures like taxation or other political means. We don’t need to internalize all the benefits, either. We only need to internalize enough of them to make such society “profitable”, that is, self-sustaining.
In line with his discussion of making the scarce abundant, I think the single most valuable and monopolized resource of all is… us! Other people. This is why project #1 above is so important. We need to learn how to work with each other without having to go to the government for permission to do so. Want to drive? Get permission. Want to sell lemonade? Get permission. Etc. Note that the vast majority of trade activities do not involve activity that would require permission in a free society (i.e. the use of someone’s private property)… most of it is just talking to people and finding out what they need or want to get rid of and then arranging the sale. The sale itself might occur in one’s home. Look at Craigslist, for example.
But one prerequisite to doing this without permission is having the capacity to do so. If you are going to have a society where people can form organizations as they see fit… you have to have a population where there is widespread knowledge of how to do so. That’s project #1.
And the single most important economic good in terms of enabling such social organization is money. But secure storage and cost-effective transmission of money from place to place is very, very difficult to do without - you got it - going to the government for permission to do so. This is project #2. A hawala-style system is not super-fast and it’s not super cheap, but it is not prohibitively slow or expensive, either. And it is nuclear bomb-proof. Countries under the most tyrannical governments on earth are precisely the areas where the hawala system is most effective and durable.
Anyway, awesome work Graham. I’m heartened every time I listen to you!
Clayton -
Sounds interesting. I’ll see if there isn’t a .pdf somewhere to be found.
I’m not sure what you men by that regular troops pre-Napoleon were not see as real troops? You mean they were pressed into service and seen as rabble to be controlled and spent? Oftentimes that was true but all of history pre-Napoleon is a long time so we should be cautious of too many generalizations.
For example Russia remained pre-napoleonic for sometime after the demise of Napoleon and fielded an appropriately pre-napolenic army made up of peasants pressed into service for life. This conscription was extremely unpopular with the peasants and anybody who ended up forced into the army must had felt himself as having been victimized. Yet it is remarkable what level of unit cohesion and professional pride units made up of such people went on to achieve. Most every contemporary observer who wrote about the battles of the Napoleonic wars took time to note the extraordinary fire discipline of the Russians. Their regiments just plain didn’t break. In fact as we know, Russia with its pre-napoleonic army defeated France with its modern, levee en masse, citizen army. It turned out that when the going got really, really rough the freshly minted citizen-soldier with his thoughts on the bakery he had left behind in Boulogne just didn’t care about military honor, the glory of his regiment and that kind of fare. Not nearly as much as the Russian lifer, probably a 10 or s 20 year veteran or the army, who had never known civilian life in adulthood and to whom his regimental colors were just about the only thing he had in life. We may think about them whatever we want, but fact is these people in field or in battle did not see themselves as victims, they saw themselves as fish in water. In fact we known great part of the reason why the Russians decided to put themselves in Napoleon’s path at Borodino, which really didn’t make sense strategically, was to appease the troops who were infuriated they were constantly retreating before the enemy and wanted to have a giant confrontation where tens of thousands of them would be blown to pieces and die painful deaths. You may say they were brainwashed, they were certainly being exploited and manipulated, but they weren’t being compelled and controlled with force nearly to the extent we may imagine. It’s rather interesting too because in a sense the Russian pre-napoleonic army may have been more like armies of our time than was the army of Revolutionary France. I note most significant military powers have moved away from the mass mobilization armies of the kind that fought WWII, and went (back) to the professional soldier-specialist armies.
Well that specifically is just a technical point. Ultimately wars are about control of territory. The goal being for you to establish your mastery of space, and not allow for it to pass on to your competitor. Armies in the field would always try to maneuver to outflank the enemy to take it from the rear and to be in position to direct their attack toward the enemy where it was the weakest. A fort was nothing, but a position where it was impossible for the enemy to improve his position through clever maneuver. A pre-napoleonic soldier, just like the napoleonic soldier did a lot of marching as opposing forces maneuver to try to gain an advantageous position against the other, and then maybe once or twice per campaign he fought in tight formation in a brief high-intensity set-piece battle where potential for maneuver was temporarily greatly reduced, but where again the basic strategy was to extend over the enemy’s flank and be in position to direct fire against him from his flank or even the rear. The basic idea was you would form up in as wide formation as you dared. You tried to be wider than your opponent and therefore able to wrap around him on one of his flanks and decimate him there.
The only thing which has changed is technology. With far more potent weapons, far better communications, and far better transport the ability to restrict enemy movement has been greatly enhanced. With greater firepower just a few soldiers can potentially prevent the movement of a great many troops. Compare the potency of a well-stocked machinegun team, with that of three guys with flinstocks. (In 1941 there was an engagement in which a single Soviet Kliment Voroshilov heavy tank held up the advance of a entire German division for an entire day.) Also with better communications and transportation dispersal of your troops over a wide front is far less problematic since you are able to shift troops and deliver reserves to where they are needed quickly. Basically what has happened is that armies are now able to deploy in extraordinarily wide “formations” that can span over hundreds, even thousands of miles. In fact they are able to make themselves so wide as to take up the entire state border and make themselves impossible to outflank. Holding the front is in fact hugely advantageous as it restricts the movement of the enemy and his potential to maneuver on you and to go around your flank. Nowadays to functionally “outflank” the enemy you must first somewhere go through it. Thus the development of spearhead strategies to breach the enemies defenses at a certain point then pour a large concentration of forces into the breach. Then it is a matter for the defender to bring his reserves in time to contain the enemy spearhead (eg by threatening encirclement) before it does serious damage and to restore a static battlefield where the ability of the enemy to maneuver is again restricted. For example in WWI in the west it was the case the armies could always dispatch reserves (by rail) to where they were needed much faster than the enemy could advance (on foot) to exploit in earnest the breeches in the front. With some basic balance of military potential a positional stalemate ensued. (It wasn’t a stalemate in the east where there distances were greater and the rail network more primitive.) In WWII however an advance being made by road on motor vehicles could not always be countered in time. Giving rise to potential to, given a few enemy blunders and good fortune on your side, to neutralize a million-man army such as the French in a matter of weeks.
It may depend on time and place. If you look at something like the Battle of Moscow it was certainly a mass affair and pretty egalitarian too (in the pertinent sense). If you asked who did 90% of the work there, the answer would probably be 70% of the people who took part. Also it is the case you do not know what is going to have the most effect. You must try many things, the more you try the more likely something is going to work spectacularly. Maybe the people calling in JDAM strikes were crucial in Iraq (which was an easy war from American POV), but had they failed, as they probably have before in some other setting, somebody else would have had to step up. (Well no, ideally the Iraqis would have won, but you know what I mean.)
Revolutionary France. The classical Prussian army was made up of criminals, empressed Polish serfs, kidnapped foreigners and captured enemy troops. OK, I am exaggerating a bit, but observers of the time note the rank and file was heavily Slavic. Prussian society of course was largely German-speaking. After Prussia fielding this army was soundly defeated by Napoleon in 1806 it begun reforming along French lines. Actually Mises writes about this in Omnipotent Government (great work of history).
Well if you are a government engaged in a total war you do want to maximize the use of your resources. You want to exploit your millions of regulars for as much gain as you can squeeze from them. Esspecially if you are engaged in a life and death struggle (eg Hitler vs Stalin). You would not send them on some half-BS job. You want them where they will have the most impact and ideally for everyone to be as elite as possible (subject to how long you can afford to train them).
It is different nowadays with “dirty little wars” and atomic weapons and one power global hegemony, but I don’t think it really applies to WWI and II.
Just found this. Thumbs up for Penn only - not for any of these other tools.
The Onion:# American Citizens Split On DOJ Memo Authorizing Government To Kill Them
WASHINGTON—Following the release of a secret Department of Justice memo this week that outlines the administration’s legal justification for killing U.S. citizens, a new Pew Research Center poll has revealed that a majority of Americans are torn over whether they support the government’s right to kill them anywhere at any time without due process. “On the one hand, I get it—it’s important for the government to be able to murder me and any of my friends or family members whenever they please for reputed national security reasons. But on the other hand, it would kind of be nice to stay alive and have, maybe, a trial, actual evidence—stuff like that,” said visibly conflicted 39-year-old Nashua, NH resident Rebecca Sawyer, who, like millions of other Americans, is split over whether secret federal agents should be allowed to target and assassinate her anywhere on U.S. soil. “I wouldn’t mind if federal officials blew up other citizens and claimed it was in the name of my safety. But it’s just that when it comes to me, I guess I’d rather not be slaughtered by my own elected officials on charges that never have to be validated by any accountable authority. This is tough.” While most Americans expressed conflicted feelings regarding the memo, the poll also found that 28 percent of citizens were unequivocally in favor of being obliterated at any point, for any reason, in a massive airstrike.
This is practically socialistic in nature. Surprising, as PolicyMic has put out several articles that have been overwhelmingly in support of Paul.
Watching governments twist in the wind over taxes and spending is somehow so extremely fulfilling, comeuppance and all that. Bismarckian politics running its inevitable course, and now slamming into the brickwall of reality. This is simply a pleasure to read, enjoy 
http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/2013-02-13/draconian-cash-controls-are-coming-france
"To get to the deficit target, the government had raised a slew of taxes to extract another €32 billion this year from households and businesses that are already gasping for air. Now “absolute priority” must be on bringing down spending, admonished Didier Migaud, First President of the Cour des Comptes, when he presented the report.
But spending cuts—whether corporate welfare projects or social programs—would be highly unpopular."
Anytime I see hot bitches like that being all cunty and indignant as if they know what they’re talking about it makes me want to make a misogynistic joke about how this is why they’re supposed to be in the kitchen instead of on tv…or that she can say whatever she wants if she takes that top off.
Does that make me sexist?
???
Talk about ruining a good song…
Los Angeles On High Alert As LAPD Back On Regular Duty
“LOS ANGELES—Los Angeles residents are reportedly on edge today following reports that hundreds of armed and extremely dangerous Los Angeles Police Department officers are resuming regular patrolling duties after the conclusion of Tuesday’s manhunt for rogue ex-cop Christopher Dorner. “I mean, just knowing they’re out there is terrifying—how can I feel safe when these maniacs are on the loose in my neighborhood?” said a visibly rattled Ashley Stillson, 38…”
I was kinda disappointed when I saw it was The Onion.
Just got Man, Economy, and State in the mail…who needs a weight-lifting set when you could just buy yourself two copies of Rothbard’s magnum opus?
Atheism Destroyed with One Question
Like Bernie Sanders and Dennis Kucinich and Alan Grayson before her, Elizabeth Warren (of economic illiteracy fame) proves even socialists can be useful sometimes.
Solid proof that modern-day “progressives” adhere to what Mises said with regards to socialists being unhappy when socialists get in power who are not their friends.
“200,000 square meters (49 acres) of windows shattered by the shock wave from a meteor that exploded over Russia’s Chelyabinsk region.”
Has Krugman remarked on how lucky they are yet?