One of the arguments I hear against why defense agencies would be shy to go to war would be because its costly and would be bad for business.
Surely the same applies to the mafia and other gangs, yet gang violence is high.
I believe this is born out of the fact that gangs sell their products and services in a territorial monopoly, and that each gang can really only increase its revenue stream through turf wars. I can understand why a business would want a territorial monopoly, but why are gangs successful in implementing them? Why is it so crucial to their success, that they kill over it? Why can’t they find a less costly way of dealing with their issues?
here is another level of increased violence because if one gang were to steal a bunch of drugs from another, the victimized gang couldn’t go to the police. They exist entirely in the underground.
Wouldn’t it make sense for these gangs to seek a form of private, third-party arbitration in order to reduce violence, cost, and to keep the cops off their backs?
I can see why gangs would go away if all the products and services they provided were legalized, and how above ground businessmen would outcompete them.
But why would gangs also go away if instead of moving their products ‘above ground,’ if ALL products and services went ‘underground’ (in the sense that there wouldn’t be a supreme arbiter under anarchy)?
Am I missing something that is painfully obvious? I feel like I must be.
Perhaps part of the answer has to do with fact that third party arbitration would be hard for gangs to find and use reliably, since such arbitration would be illegal. It may actually just be cheaper for gangs to resolve their disputes with violence — given how expendable and how cheap their labor force is.
It creates barriers to entry. A turf is not so much maintained horizontally against similar organisations as it is maintained vertically against small time, independent sellers springing up.
Also note that a turf war does not necessarily entail one set of sellers displacing another set of sellers. It can instead result in the one set of sellers coming to recognise a different boss.
First we have to consider the shape or form that gangs could possibly take in a stateless society… Organised crime profits enormously from the prohibition of various products on the ‘legitimate’ market. If there weren’t a state legislating what one can and cannot sell to willing buyers, then those industries would have the same access to DRO’s as anyone else, and they wouldn’t be monopolised by violent thugs.
If you take away the trade in black market goods and services, all you’ve got left in organised crime is extortion, counterfeiting, intimidation and murder conducted with a geographic territory. When dressed up in the right rhetoric, aren’t those the “vital services” that states are supposed to monopolise? When you take away their trade in illegal goods, gangs are just miniture, neophyte states without the propaganda camps that makes everyone loyal to them in society at large. They are to states what cults are to religions.
The thing is, if everyone has free access to the same weapons that the gangs do, and if we assume that anything von Mises wrote about human action is correct, then gangs are never really going to be a problem, because they won’t be a prosperous career path in the long term. If what you fear is domination by a gang, then the last thing you would want to do is give them legitimacy as a state.
State is an example of a successful gang (or mafia). All gangs want to rule over other gangs - hence, to become a master gang - a state. It might be a blind assertion, but when you look at the facts… It seems very good explanation. To me, at least.
P.S. why mafia doesn’t become a state? Because they fail miserably at indoctrinating people. They don’t have public schools etc. They can’t convince you that their protection racket is “legitimate”. State convinced the majority. It’s enough for a success.
Not the best analogy, I admit. Hats are usually considered as protection, rather than as just another thing falling to your head (as I meant it). My point is that not all dominions are the same. Assuming that something must fall down and smack you in the head, perhaps a preference for sponges or turds over bricks may not be an absurd one.
Assuming that something must fall down and smack you in the head
This sounds like the statist myth that government is a necessary evil, which is absurd. All of the legitimate services a government happens to provide, could be provided privately, without first stealing to pay for them.
Government is more like a felt hat with the band lined with some drug that stunts growth and a tag on it that says, “Please hit me in the head with a brick”, but it comes in a box labeled “football helmet, protects from bricks”.
Here’s another reason, besides ending Prohibition, that gangs would have less sway in a free society: The 4th amendment is unlibertarian. Security forces would still be open to prosecution themselves for unlawful entry, but if necessary evidence to convict a criminal is found, it can’t be excluded from court.
Read this by Kinsella, especially the full article linked at the bottom.
I am reluctant to start another one of these discussions right now. Not much time, and I don’t think I’ll write or read anything I haven’t already. Basically, my point is that there’s something about power (defense, security, enforcement) that separates it from other services and goods. For some reason (human action? self-interest? ability to affect all other markets and subjective valuations of agents due to acquired force?), and as mentioned in the OP, the power “market” quickly converges to territorial monopolies – one way or another – as ample empirical evidence also confirms. That was my analogy for “something must fall down and smack you in the head”, as I believe this convergence is inevitable. Mises seems to have shared this view, as well.
So yes, a world in which nothing smacks you in the head is ideal, but if we assume that such state is unrealistic, then we can only discuss preferences between sponges, turds, bricks, and such.
Wouldn’t it make sense for these gangs to seek a form of private, third-party arbitration
I think I’ve heard of things like this, in the Italian mafia for example. The reason third-party arbitration can’t work reliably, either for gangs or private businesses, is because if side A is twice as powerful as side B and three times as powerful as the arbitrator C, why would side A abide by a judgement against itself? At least some of the time, it wouldn’t, because C cannot enforce its decision. Also, A could possibly intimidate C into ruling in A’s favor, since A is more powerful than the arbitrator C.
That’s the benefit of a state, according to Thomas Hobbes; it can make arbitration binding, or real, because if the most powerful entity is the arbitrator, then it’s decisions can actually be enforced, which is preferable to no arbitration, where A would always win because it is more powerful, or where A and B would resort to violence between each other to settle their disputes, as in a gang war.
There are problems with Hobbes’s argument, to be sure (what if A and B capture the state?), but I do think Hobbes has a valid point about how arbitration is impossible in a free market and is best provided as a public good, because a less powerful entity cannot arbitrate between more powerful entities, with any reliability at least. A free market in arbitration would just mean the more powerful parties winning more often, or simply ignoring demands for arbitration.
Imagine Judge Judy from TV trying to arbitrate between BP and a Gulf fisherman. Ii would be an unlikely triumph if Judy Judy could even get a representative from BP to show up, much less abide by the ruling.
It isn’t valid to assume this. Civilization is what, roughly 6,000 years old? People lived in unorganized bands of hunting groups for much longer than this. This looks like the same tired fallacy, appeal to tradition, employed by the other anti-capitalists and state apologists here.
The reason third-party arbitration can’t work reliably
Reality defies this statement. Even under state systems, there is a massive arbitration industry. The rest of this nonsense is dealt with in Long’s 10 objections.
Look. For anarchy to function the way its supposed to you need at least some market participants to have a bare bones level of economic understanding. People who realize that there are alternatives to killing or enslaving your neighbor that might be more lucrative. It is self interest that is supposed to check non-aggressive society, and this only works if participants have the freaking brainpower to observe this.
Gangs are the society’s LCD. They are the abused and outcast sociopaths. If they could just realize that its better for all gangs in the long term to choose nonviolent dispute resolutions, it would all go away. But they don’t. If you put a bunch of them on an island and said “be an anarchy” they’d just do what they’re doing now. If you said “be a state”, they’d probably be responsible for the next 7-8 nuclear holocausts. It is no indictment against any system that it fails when mentally challenged barbarians on crack can’t figure out how to work it.
Now why can societies even function if they have such destructive members? Well states can simply outlaw their behaviour. The vast majority of people aren’t like this, so its very easy to oppress and exile this small percentage of the population. It isn’t glamorous and it works sort of. In principle, anarcho capitalist socieites could ostrasize this group as well, but its likely that people who understand economics will realize that in spite of the incredibly prehistoric worldviews some humans have, they are still capital. You can use them. You don’t have to convince them that voluntary cooperation is the economically best way for them to operate, you can freaking show them. Their opportunities in the peaceful market will be much better than muggings on the street.
The reason this doesn’t happen now is because the psychopaths have no competition so their wages are artifically high. Let Pharma.inc enter the drug market, destroy their profits, and watch what happens. They’ll have an economic incentive to interact peacefully with human beings, or they’ll have to buckle down and get their operations more economically efficient, which means no more gang wars. If you look at other black markets that aren’t as lucrative, like pirated DVDs, the dudes don’t shoot eachother. There’s so much competition in the market the profits are low and can’t offset massive aggressive spending.
As for the objections to do with balance of power on society, see this piece. Statists are typically afraid that the strongest will just dominate everyone else, but its not even in their economic interest to do so. The only way you can make slavery profitable is if you convince the people its necessary through propoganda, which is what the state does. If the government had to actually physically oppress its citizens, the cost would outweigh the benefits so much as to render the whole venture pointless.
I’ll be writing something soon on the concept of manumission vis-a-vis the state. I have some interesting ideas (to me).
I totally disagree Seiben. I do agree that some black markets should be legalized. The entire problem is that crime is always the most lucrative profession. If its possible to make a ten thousand as a security guard, it’s possible to make a million as a hit man; if it’s possible to make 1 million being a stock broker, it’s possible to make 10 million being a crooked stock broker. People who would otherwise be working at McDonalds end up instead in street gangs, because street gangs pay better than McDonalds. People with more advantages end up running Enron scams or Bernie Madoff Ponzi schemes, because they pay far better than honest business they’d have otherwise, at least if they don’t get caught, and many do not get caught. The motivation is rational economic self-interest.
The main reason people turn to crime and even violence is because it makes economic sense - not in a general sense, but for them individually.
Crime benefits the individual or gang but harms the greater community around them. The question is, how does the community set standards to make those kinds of actions not-ok and then effectively stop or deter them, so as not to be victimized?
A pure pursuit of individual interest is what causes crime; a pursuit of the community interest is what deters, prevents and can fight crime.
…How? Walmarts only going to lose business and go broke if it mugs its customers. Security is an in demand commodity. Both for its own sake and for economic reasons.
Probably economically. Security is usually pretty economic. Its main goal is to make crime uneconomic.
When I move into my new apartment complex, I’m going to go buy a big dog bowl that says “REX” and put it outside my door.$5. I don’t have a dog. I don’t think anyone will break in.