Government by Pirates

Miscellaneous Current Events
1

Somali Pirates

As a Fledgling Government

by John Higgins April 22, 2009

Hypothesis: The Somali pirates represent the birth pangs of a new Somali government.

Evidence: Their actions are in no way different from those of governments. They have claimed maritime territory and assumed the right to guard it.

The proposition that, as a whole, they are vicious, lawless robbers seeking profit at the expense of others is both true and unfair. Allow me to elaborate.

They are, of course, operating outside of any recognized legal system, and they seek profit at the expense of others – but so do governments which we consider legitimate, so that argument fails on its face.

They are, in fact, structured and not entirely without their own “code.”

They have never killed a hostage. They will not hijack the same ship twice. Many of them actually see themselves as guards of Somali territory, bringing in money to provide for the reconstruction of their devastated nation – Robin Hoods stealing from the prosperous to provide for the impoverished.

I will not defend that idea. I am simply establishing the premise that they are as justified as existing governments; and for the same reasons.

This is a remarkable thing.

Based on this hypothesis, we can predict several things:

  • The pirates will not go away; even if they are attacked, they fill an economic void that will need to be filled.
  • They will organize and systems will develop.
  • They will become more sophisticated – technologically, systematically, and culturally.
  • They will become bolder and, in time, may even establish rudimentary armies and police forces.

I see great opportunity in this, too. Imagine what the right incentives employed in the right way could do – this government is at its most malleable stage.

Finance and education, applied properly, could persuade the people of Somalia to adopt never-before-tried approaches to government. Aided by Western investment, order and prosperity could be brought to this desert wasteland like never before and entire new vistas opened for people the world over.

If you have ever said, “This idea is great but there’s no way it would ever be accepted,” I propose you think again. We have been given a tremendous opportunity: a new frontier to try new ideas. You owe it to yourself; if you think you have an economically and socially viable idea that can bring prosperity and liberty to Somalia, find the people who can make it happen. Find the financiers, the contractors, whatever it takes. My humble suggestion is that protective services for both Somalis and ships traveling through Somali waters will be essential and quite profitable.

It may be that nothing comes of it, but as they say: “Nothing ventured, nothing gained.”

These opportunities are rare, coming only a few times in human history.

Consider the possibilities.

John Higgins is a libertarian theorist primarily concerned with issues of practical liberty in the present time. His writings may be periodically seen at http://sinreg.blogspot.com.

Find this article at: http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig10/higgins1.html

2

You’re trying to prove way too much. Putatively at least, we receive a service from government in exchange for taxes, and the consensus of the majority is that the government is better than any alternative at this point. The Somalian pirates just practice naked extortion.

I don’t, and since your enthusiasm appears limited to hortatory pleas for action by others, it would appear that neither do you.

3

I was only posting Higgins’ essay. I think we could surmise he was presenting a tongue-in-cheek analogy, to wit:

The Somali Pirates are referred to by statists as “pirates and thieves”; whereas “governments”, doing the same except on much larger scales and in much more vicious manners (consider “torture” and “collateral damage” for starters) like to call themselves “congressmen, senators, generals and presidents…”

Ah, to be young and enamored with state.

4

I heard that they described what they (the pirates) did as “taxing” at one point, when the pirating first started getting media coverage.

5

Street thugs should say the same thing. Then they’d get media coverage too.

And mises.org posters would meekly pony up.

6

Wrong. If the government were simply charging per service, those who didn’t utilize the government wouldn’t be taxed. The government takes money whether or not you accept to receive their services, with threat of force. That’s blatant extortion.

Are you saying that the Somali pirates could declare they are offering some sort of service and this would make them exempt from charges of extortion?

7

If they actually offered a service in exchange, yes. The government provides roads, law enforcement, dispute resolution, defense, social safety net, etc., in exchange for the taxes it collects. Now, we can all agree that it provides these things in a very bad way, and we can all agree that net tax producers are paying the freight for the democratic majority, but lumping Somali pirates and democratic government together is a ridiculous conflation.

8

I posted this in a similar thread. The pirates are providing a service - protection - for exchange of taxed passage (read the article and notice the excerpt I posted in italics). Nobody knows what the whole story is, but this is what’s happening thus far:

States have been depleting traditional fishing spots for over a decade now in Somalia, thus, States have been violating the property rights of traditional fishermen (thus they have historical precedence by Natural Law, not the States). Yet, also States have been dumping toxic waste in their waters as well. So much for the States following the law.

Here’s a link to the data:

http://seeker401.wordpress.com/2009/04/10/somalia-the-mafia-the-nuclear-waste-dump-zone/

The toxic dumping has been from nuclear waste to mercury, etc… and has been coming from European, America, and Asian States. And incidently the Italian mafia is linked to some of these disposals as they are being paid by States to dump there, which actually has lead up to the piracy now seen on the news. Here’s a quote from the article:

"As a result of this, a group of enterprising Somalis leaving at the port of Eyl , a haven for piracy, approached the Italian mafias in Rome and explained their annoyance over the dumping of toxic wastes on their waters..

The group of Somalis then requested the Italian mafias to protect their waters and start collecting revenue from vessels plying the route. The Italian Mafias accepted to help their former protectorate by stopping the irresponsible dumping of toxics wastes on one condition, which was to seize any vessel travelling on the Somali waters and demand a ransom. Hence the beginning of a flourishing piracy business at the port of Eyl where NATO forces even fear to go…"

Meanwhile the mafia being helped by the States are thereby an extension of the States benefiting from the States coercive power. But also the States themselves have been active in allowing this happen too. Also, unfortunately, the States converging upon Somalia might also be interested in the oil there, but the oil part might be presumptuous, we’ll see.

9

So if the pirates were to open up a shoreside lemonade stand and offer “free” lemonade, it would be illigitimate to claim that the pirates were “extortionists” since they’d be merely capturing and randsoming the ships’ crews for failing to pay they’re lemonade tax?

10

No. Such an exchange does not have any degree of reciprocity.

11

I doubt those claims would withstand serious scrutiny. Also, these ships are being seized in the high seas, not Somalian territorial waters.

12

African nations have a habit of claiming to own water hunderds of miles out.

13

That’s some thin statism.

14

That’s crazy. Don’t they know the UN makes the rules?

Savages. [;)]

15

Do you even understand the issue being discussed? I’m not advocating statism. I’m pointing out that the participants in the respective transactions acknowledge a degree of reciprocity in, say, paying fees to dock in a nation-state’s port that is not present when you’re paying ransom to avoid being shot in the head.

16

Maybe. But there are plenty of “services” we pay for without being asked, and that which we don’t want at all. I can’t see how for example, the drug war, is not analogous.

17

I acknowledge that the cops in my city have the authority/capacity to beat and kill me, boss me around, and break down my door. Thus, I pay my taxes. But it’s a far cry from being a voluntary transaction, which is why I called your position, “thin” statism.

18

Has this thread become abstract? Or are we discussing the pirates off Somalia still?

"Maurizio Dematteis with the Italian environmental umbrella Ligambiente 2001 said there were already more than 600,000 tonnes of radioactive waste on the floor of the Atlantic ocean along the coast of the western Sahara.

He also said there were three enormous illegal dumps - among the largest in the world - in Somalia, where workers handle the radioactive waste without any kind of safeguard or protective gear - not even gloves.

The workers do not know what they are handling, and if one of them dies, the family is persuaded to keep quiet with a small bit of cash, the activist added."

19

And more from that same link I gave above which posted its’ article from various links such as CNN and this one from the Huffington Post:

"This is the context in which the men we are calling “pirates” have emerged. Everyone agrees they were ordinary Somalian fishermen who at first took speedboats to try to dissuade the dumpers and trawlers, or at least wage a ‘tax’ on them. They call themselves the Volunteer Coastguard of Somalia - and it’s not hard to see why. In a surreal telephone interview, one of the pirate leaders, Sugule Ali, said their motive was “to stop illegal fishing and dumping in our waters… We don’t consider ourselves sea bandits. We consider sea bandits [to be] those who illegally fish and dump in our seas and dump waste in our seas and carry weapons in our seas.” William Scott would understand those words.

No, this doesn’t make hostage-taking justifiable, and yes, some are clearly just gangsters - especially those who have held up World Food Programme supplies. But the “pirates” have the overwhelming support of the local population for a reason. The independent Somalian news-site WardherNews conducted the best research we have into what ordinary Somalis are thinking - and it found 70 percent “strongly supported the piracy as a form of national defence of the country’s territorial waters.” During the revolutionary war in America, George Washington and America’s founding fathers paid pirates to protect America’s territorial waters, because they had no navy or coastguard of their own. Most Americans supported them. Is this so different?"

20

What are the Geiger counter readings?