but couldn’t he assemble his nuke in secret?
He could, but it would be so much more terrifying to build a nuke on your picnic table in your yard, within clear view of your neighbor’s kitchen window.
Yes. At least he could try. And if he is caught he will pay whatever price the law system hits him with. This is a non-argument because people try to get away with things “in secret” all the time, and this will continue to happen regardless of whether there is a state or not.
There also seems to be an assumption here that nuke parts will be readily available in a free market society. I think not. People will demand insurance contracts that include stipulations such as not selling nukes, or nuke parts. It won’t be in any insurance companies’ best interest not to include such stipulations, because they will lose business with the vast majority of the public.
Or maybe there will be. Maybe a bunch of crazy nuke owners will band together out in the desert somewhere. More power to them. 
It sounds like your conception of anarchy is such that in practice everyone will have to seek the protection of a private association. You also suggest that no security association would tolerate the individual pursuit or ownership of these powerful weapons. This sounds similar to the world we have now, in which big (albeit illegitimately oppressive) security associations (governments) generally prohibit the possession of these items by individuals and small groups (unless they are Iran, the Taliban, or other “rogue” or “terrorist-sponsoring” governments), and also by other security associations they believe are incompetent or threatening (e.g., Iran with its nuclear program).
So how can a free society protect itself? I.e., is there a way to provide security against these specific threats from individuals that respects general principles of liberty? You have a practical answer to the question of how people will protect themselves against massive threats, but it’s not an answer that respects any principles of freedom.
From my perspective the best answer so far has been the insurance scheme.
As long as it is fully voluntary on part of its participants, it is respectful of freedom.
Anyone ever heard arguments ideas about life insurance firms somehow being involved in security? It would obviously be in their best interest to protect you.
Yes, that is the thrust of Hoppe’s and the Tannehills’ books.
But these answers about how anarchy might protect itself seems to apply to a world that is 100% anarchic. What about today? There are anarchists in the US. They need security against the US. How is anarchy making that work? I don’t see it.
The topic is concerned with a free society, is it not? How are states going to fare any better against other states? They’re not, because they undermine their very legitimacy in the process. If they allow secession to the individual level, they’re no longer states. So either security against the US is impossible, in which case you may despair, or it’s somethign that needs to be worked on.
How free? If it were as free as you seem to imply, then there’d be no need for any security. It seems you’re assuming freedom rather than telling us how it’d be achieved or maintained. What measures can one take to maintain freedom or to gain freedom and not themseleves become agents of a freedom-repressing entity?
If we say we’re anarchists but are imprisoned by a world of states, then anarchy is not working for us. Is it because it’s yet to fully form? Are we choosing security over anarchy? If I choose to obey a state’s law that is contrary to anarchy, am I not a statist in that instance? If I’m unwilling to risk being fined or imprisoned or even killed, am I not choosing security over freedom?
P.S. I argue w/ lots of socialists and do so from an anarchist point of view. I ask these things for enlightenment. Thanks.
I think there is a difference between explosives and other weapons. Explosives have the ability to self detonate under certain circumstances like improper storage. So I can imagine a scenario where the neighbor is storing explosives in an unsafe manner that would warrant the other neighbors to take action. So you ask who decides whats unsafe, the answer is you make up your own mind and live with the consequences.
The truth is that security and safety is an individual responsibility and what constitutes a threat is not going to have universal agreement.
That’s really more a problem of land ownership, not a problem of weapons ownership.
As I responded to liberty student over here, this sort of answer is not constructive. If you think an anarchic society can resolve these questions without minarchy or tyranny please suggest how.
But I think I already did provide an answer. Restrictive, voluntary convenants could provide the kind of security you are asking about. I’m not suggesting that people would be forced to agree to such a covenant - on the contrary, I provided a counterexample of nuke lovers all lovingly nestled together and living on their own. In the end, the market and your personal values will decide whether you will agree to such restrictions - and restrictions of this type are likely to be demanded on an open market, don’t you think?
In the case where a nuke owner sets up shop on his own private land and absolutely refuses this sort of contract… well, that would change the taste in goods of the surrounding communities, raising the quantity demanded of anti-nuke security relative to other goods, and thus increasing the production of such security up to what market demands at a new, slightly higher price. Perhaps your objection is that this won’t be enough - but then how do you define enough? Will it be enough when all expenditures are on anti-nuke security? When nearly all? When some arbitrary percentage?
Perhaps you are asking how a free society can protect itself absolutely… but that’s a trick question. As has been said before, no society can protect itself abolsutely, and its unfair to hold any type of social order to an impossible standard.
dBooksta
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I almost laughed when I saw your commentary about my little list of detonator materials and the ease with which blasting caps can be made. Yes, you can build a detonator out of all of those things if you are looking to detonate C4, TNT, Dynamite, Nitroglycerine, or several other “high” explosives, all of which can be made at home out of materials available at your local hardware store. The device I am describing could commonly be referred to as a “blasting cap”. It is a very simple device to make, and gunpowder - which has a high burn rate when encapsulated such as in a bullet withing a firearm’s chamber, or packed into a carbon tube surrounded by plastic explosives - is a viable material, although I would personally prefer the use of the aluminum-based propellant commonly found in model rocket engines, as I believe that uses a thermite reaction - and guess what, no BATFE licensure on that. It is extremely easy to make explosives - low-tech and high-tech - and all of the detonating materials needed to set them off - blasting caps, strikers, fuses, what have you. Your assertion that “detonators capable of triggering high explosives are difficult and risky to make at home” is, quite frankly, totally unfounded. Detonators are, in reality, extremely simple devices which can - if you have half a knowledge of what you’re doing - readily and safely be constructed in your garage. Even grenades - concussion and fragmentation - can readily be remilled and reassembled (or made from scratch ifyou have the right tools) at home if you have even a basic knowledge of how the device works and what materials should be used.
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You assert only 1 realized act involving high explosives since bans on detonators and destructive devices. I stronly advice that you do some research on that before you continue making that statement. The results of your research will astound you. Not one, but dozens of attacks with explosives - “high tech” and “low tech” - have occurred in the United States since the passage of those laws. You have given non-evidence as you “empirical rebuttal.” That is not a rebuttal, that is opening your mouth and promptly inserting your foot.
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As for your truck bomb assertion: you have no empirical evidence showing that it would be just “some murdering psychopath.” They just grab the handiest weapon and go to town. The only people who take the time and effort necessary to construct an explosive device - truck bomb or otherwise - with the purpose of mass murder, are people who have a political or religious statement to make. Remove the necessity to make political - or religious - statements as such, and the incentive to go through all of that trouble disappears. This is especially true of the people who are going to go through all the trouble necessary to keep their explosive project hidden. Think about a truck bomb. You have to keep hidden:
- The rental or purchase of the truck
- The purchase of the explosve material
- The weaponizing (if applicable) of the explosive material - i.e. soaking fertilizer with fuel oil, et cetera
- Loading the explosive onto the truck
Do you have any idea the kind of logistical nightmare that would be? Keeping that hidden requires motives beyond just the normal run of the mill psychopath. It requires someone with a statement to make. Good luck finding that.
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Although I disagree with the assertion of another member that nukes are hard to build, I suggest that you go look at nukes from a real detailed perspective. Uranium and Plutonium are both extremely rare. That makes them extremely expensive. Furthermore, to get fission (nuclear explosion) requires either a symmetrical AND spherical detonation encompassing the whole of the material simultaneously (zero room for error), or it requires a byrillium reflector to deflect neutrons back into the device (such as with “gun type” devices). This means that the process either requires massive expertise with high explosives, or it requires a willingness to go all over the place for a lot of materials. Again, the only person who is going to go through the trouble necessary to do that is somebody who has a political statement to make. For a murdering psychopath to do his job, yet again, requires only a shotgun…it’s easier and more satisfying for most psychopaths.
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On your assertion that nuclear materials controls have worked, that would certainly explain the ever-expanding number of nuclear powers, especially those like Iran and North Korea which were supposed to be banned from acquiring nuclear materials. Regardless, your assertion that no nukes have gone off is non-proof. The issue is, why go through all of that trouble, when a belt-bomb in a shopping mall gets better results? There are much quicker, more effective ways for someone engaging in an asymmetrical war to fight than the use of nuclear weapons. Nukes are just not efficient. They are expensive, regardless of where you get materials, require either a lot of expertise or lots of extra materials to build, and there’s always the chance that if you made even a tiny mistake that it won’t go boom. People fighting an asymmetrical war are looking for something that is cheapy, easy to make, and reliable. Belt bombs and other methods fit that paradigm much better than a nuke.
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Have they cost us more than they benefitted us? Absolutely. The government still has tanks, and we still don’t have a SMAW in every home, or the high explosives necessary to use as field expediets. The government still has bunkers and fortresses, but we don’t have high explosives that would be necessary to take them out. The government has large amounts of troops, but the citizens still do not have access to concussion or fragmentation grenades that would be useful - if not necessary - in fighting a modern revolution. They have cost us something beyond value: our ability to overthrow our government should it overstep its bounds. Let’s count the cost of disarmed citizens: Hitler’s Germany, Red China (most prominently at Tienemen Square), Soviet Russia, the list goes on ad nauseum and even includes the United States at various times. These bans have costed us infinitely more than they have benefitted us, it will just be another generation or two - at absolute most - before the damage is fully realized. The only justification the State can offer in these bans is self-preservation. Self-preservation of the State, however, will always end up turning into tyranny by the State. The State must never be allowed to self-preserve. It is a grave error to allow it.
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As for with individuals, it depends on the circumstances and it depends on the nature of the contract(s) the maker of the explosive has entered into with others. By and large, however, the use of aggression against the person making the device would only be justified upon their presentation of a credible threat. For example, if my neigbor sent me a video showing all of the explosives he had and then said he was going to use it to bomb my house, I would - I daresay - be justified in kicking his door down and busting a cap in him…on the other hand, if I just found out he was making explosives then the act would be excessive, there was no credible threat.
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Oh, and by the way the statement of “just imagine if every shooting spree and bombing was instead a nuclear weapon” is nothing short of ignorant, and if it weren’t for the assertions you are making would be downright amusing. Again, you forget that there is no POINT to upping the ante that far. There is no benefit compared with the costs. The typical psychopath doesn’t go for the nuke because it’s a hassle. He’s got to wait for materials - and since most of the materials would be being snapped up pronto for nuclear power generation he’d have to wait for materials - go through the hassle of making the device, and then pray that he did it right. And oh, that’s right, he’s also got to make sure that his device actually has enough material to have critical mass! It’s a lot of hassle, and it’s easier if you want to blow people up just to do a truck bomb, a belt bomb, package bomb, or better yet just walk in with a handgun and empty the magazine.
CShrik, quick lesson in high energy materials: The distinction is “high” vs “low” explosives, not “high-tech” vs “low-tech.” A high explosive detonation is defined as a self-sustaining conversion of a stable non-gaseous compound into a gas at supersonic velocities (typical threshold cited for v/D is 1000 m/s). Lots of things “explode” without satisfying these properties, but unless they satisfy these properties they do not scale up in nearly as destructive a fashion. A high explosive may look quite low-tech: As you said, it’s just a blasting cap of sufficient quality shoved into a pile of otherwise benign nitrated material. AN-based explosives are easy to come by because AN is readily available in bulk, though some care must be taken to prevent it from hydrolyzing during storage. TNT, C4, RDX, and other military-grade explosives are not easy to make in quantity. Many of these substances will burn or deflagrate, but they need good blasting caps to actually detonate. Many people who try to make blasting caps at home end up losing fingers or creating unstable or unreliable detonators. Granted, it is possible to build stable and reliable high explosives at home, though not nearly as easy as walking down to an industrial supply center and buying them – if the government permitted that.
How difficult is it? You point out that there have been many explosive attacks in the United States. But again, the one successful domestic high explosive attack I am aware of is the Oklahoma City bombing. Even the World Trade Center bombing appears to have been an attempted high explosive that only deflagrated.
You assert that nobody antisocial enough to want to commit mass murder would take the time to assemble a high explosive – even if the components were not banned. Without going too far into dueling hypotheticals, do you believe that the unabomber, the weathermen, and all other domestic entities who launched low-explosive attacks would not have preferred a high explosive device if they could build one?
You assert that a nuclear device is too expensive and complex for anyone to pursue just so that they can commit mass destruction. Granted, the simplest gun-type nukes are expensive and complex, but not so much that if refined nuclear materials (which by the way, aren’t suitable for power generation) weren’t controlled there wouldn’t be pryomaniacs, psychopaths, or cults that wouldn’t pursue them with decent probabilities for success. And the consequences would be far out of proportion to those of even the most ambitious high explosive. (Note again that I am not referring to state actors, but to bans imposed by governments on those whom they govern.)
You also appear to assert that in the absence of religion and politics nobody – crazy or otherwise – would ever have a motive to undertake mass murder. I think that is naively optimistic.
You are missing the point of a free society. The next door neighbor with explosives isn’t everyone’s problem, it’s your problem. Answer your own question, you live in a free society and your next door neighbor is building a truck bomb, what are you going to do? What things could you have done to prevent the neighbor from moving into that location (think homoeowner associations, contracts)? How do you plan to solve the situation? Whatever answers you come up with will be things that will most likely also occur in a free society.
Your original answer was to have some agency force everyone to not buy these items that might make bombs. Ok, in a free society the burden of creating such an agency and then forcing everyone to obey you will be up to you, in which case society will no longer be free. It appears that you are happy to have government as long as you are the one making the decisions.
In a free society your personal safety is your problem and to the extent that others have the same problem then some sort of group action may occur.
One other point, you are using this hypothetical to say that free societies are worse off in these situations than government run societies. Even if I were to concede that point (which I am not) then you would need to address all of the other areas where a free society is clearly superior to government, such as the reduction in war, crime, genocide, theft, murder, increased economic prosperity, increased freedom of movement…so even with your false assumption that free societies will have greater instances of mass murder the overall effect of a free society would be better.
A neighbor decides to assemble a bomb on his property. You’re saying that the open market would respond to that by increasing production of security up to some equilibrium point. My point is that at some level (I have suggested high explosives and nuclear explosives) it is impossible to provide any security against a weapon. This is a binary situation: If the device isn’t detonated, nothing. If it is, then everything within a certain distance is dead. And no proportional retribution can possibly be meted out to the perpetrator after the fact. The only security is to move far away, but don’t I have a right to be secure in my life and property? This is the problem with asymmetric weapons. And this is why I suggest that there is no natural right to asymmetric weapons, and that therefore any individual or group is justified in using force to prevent the acquisition of such weapons.
It sounds like you’ve admitted that in a completely free world people are likely to institute minarchy. Indeed, it seems that most people will demand it given the threats posed by modern weaponry. So anarchy is a purely utopian theory.
In this case my original question becomes one of minarchy theory: What are the princples of minarchy, and how can we ensure that it stays as minimally invasive as possible while still satisfying the demands of the masses for reasonable protection of their lives and property?
Some people in any society will attempt to build explosives, yes that is true. You are assuming that in free societies nobody will care that the guy down the street might be building a truck bomb. Your own concern on this issue indicates otherwise as does the concern of everyone else. So in a free society people will not want people building truck bombs. So in a free society land use will be restricted by many people to prevent use of land for storage or production of these type of materials. Also, the people who sell these materials will tend to be cautious about to whom they sell these materials. There will be some people willing to sell to anybody. There will be the occasional nut who builds a truck bomb and kills people. In a free society people will have agencies that are hired to protect them. These agencies will pursue truck bomb builders after they attack and in some cases when the evidence indicates a planned attack then before the truck bomb builders attack.
Compared to your gvernment utopia…
Some people in any society will attempt to build explosives, yes that is true. In a government society people will not want people building truck bombs. So in a government society land use will be restricted by government to prevent use of land for storage or production of these type of materials. Also, the people who sell these materials will tend to be cautious about to whom they sell these materials as ordered by the government. There will be some people willing to sell to anybody. There will be the occasional nut who builds a truck bomb and kills people. In a government society people will have agencies to protect them. These agencies will pursue truck bomb builders after they attack and in some cases when the evidence indicates a planned attack then before the truck bomb builders attack.
Major differences…
Government creates all sorts of enemies and fan the nutjob flames with their constant desire to tell everyone what to do. Governments create enemies far and wide who then strike back at the people who have established the government (think 911).
Free societies have fewer reasons for people to go off the deep end. When people do go off the deep end their list of targets will be much smaller and much more local. It is really difficult to imagine a scenario where a person in a free society would have much reason to hijack planes and crash them into buildings in order to kill people that live 10,000 miles away whom they have never met or had contact with.
Yet, all of the examples you provided were a result of individuals or groups acting out against government action