Apparently Mexico is becoming a frontline of agorist effort as the black market Private Defense Agencies Gulf and Zeta compete against even the national government. Mexico may be the first country that has moved from the first stage of the agorist plan(covert black market economic activity) to Konkin’s second phase of the agorist plan - overt black market activity blatantly challenging the government’s reign. Now this is a good sign, as the competition between the enterprises leads to lower prices for the consumers and a competitive race to enhance their service packages. As seen from this news piece, even innovative tanks have been employed in their struggle against the government.
Perhaps this transition is possible due to the exceptional profit opportunity of the drug industry, allowing for large scale capital accumulation that the state gets nothing off. Or perhaps it is an example of the state misjudging usefulness of perceived ethical anti drug policy over profit opportunity of taking part in it. Maybe it shows a failure of democracy, where public opinion guides the state to enforce unprofitable policies that lead to struggle over its very existance.
What else could they be? They have their “muscle” branches that offer security services to stabilise commerce, an effective business model. Though the civilian population does not purchase the services from them, perhaps because the government is still somewhat dominant and more recognised.
Over 34,000 have died in the last 4 years from drug related violence in Mexico. I don’t see how thats a defensive number. And the government did not kill all those people.
Hey - no one said anarchy was going to follow the dogma of rothbardian libertarianism to a T. In real life, there are imperfections, and as a result, not strict compliance to rothbardian principles. Thats how business works.
These drug cartels are not in a state of anarchy and are not aiming to achieve a state of anarchy. They are trying to build and maintain power by any means possible. If they could put their own men in office, they would, and would remain as brutal as necessary.
I have no idea what any of this has to do with Rothbard. All I’m saying is that by any standard which holds traditional liberal values, whats happening in Mexico is bad. It is not a move towards freedom, and to apply labels like “agorism” to it is either a fundamental misunderstanding or a joke about left libs obsession with activism.
“Hey - no one said anarchy was going to follow the dogma of rothbardian libertarianism to a T. In real life, there are imperfections, and as a result, not strict compliance to rothbardian principles. Thats how business works.”
Nice slur. Pity you don’t know what you’re talking about.
Neat anology but both of these groups (the ‘PDAs’ and the Government) rely on each other.
Without the government., the ‘PDAs’ would not be able to accumulate capital so rapidly since the free market cost of an ounce of cocaine is likely well under USD$100. Without the ‘PDAs’, the government. would have to ‘target’ another boogeyman to justify its takings from the private sector for security.
I would assume that most of the thousands of ‘drug’ killings were not without reason. An acquanitence in central america, took nine rounds in front of his wife and son from a Zeta hitman. Rumor has it that he misplaced /lost/stole 80 kilos! This hitman was caught and sent back to Mexico a few months prior to the hit but evidently was clear to go through on the second time around.
Yes, the PDAs are not currently in a state of anarchy. Thats the point of agorism. To turn a state into anarchy, and in the current phase II in mexico the state still is significant, although weakened. Because PDAs are organisations that exercise power, their activities in that regard make sense. Remember, each individual PDA tried to achieve power. It it the market system that keeps them balanced and competitive.
Sure, once government loses its control, the business models of PDAs will change. No doubt about that. However in the current situation, they do what they can to make money. In the current climate, the most profitable venue of use of PDA servs, the drug commerce, so thats what it is used for.
I still think you’re joking, but I can’t tell. It seems like you’re saying that any organization that exercises power qualifies as a private defense agency, and that such organizations are attempting to abolish the state.
So like, eco-terrorists are actually PDA’s, the Weathermen were actually a PDA, and actually any government that overthrows another government is a PDA.
IS your beef with drug providers because of cartelization(The truth of which is that there is very little of it), or that they are drug providers in general and you have some kind of moral beef with drugs?
Whats wrong with a drug producer doublign as a PDA? Would it be any different if Walmart doubled as a PDA?
Maybe it’s the wanton killing, kidnapping and extortion?
If these guys are the accomplishment of agorism, the congratulations; you’ve just witnessed its failure first-hand. They behave just like the modern state, except in a more brutal and violent way.
They aren’t PDAs in the slightest sense. An actual PDA would rely on gaining a profit by protecting individuals and limting property damage. The Zetas, etc make profit by killing people on behalf of drug cartels, not by protecting people.
You kill to protect. Its that simple. The bad guys wont let you pat their head and promise they wont do bad stuff any more, no. You got to give them a good clobbering to prevent future mishaps. Hence the use of violence - somewhat obscuring the role of judicator, but administering justice nonetheless.
Except the Zetas kill innocent bystanders just as happily and have no responsibilities towards justice, protecting innocents, etc beyond supporting the drug cartels that employ them.
By that logic, Microsoft buying a private army to kill off the competition in the Silicon Valley, followed by their footsoldiers attacking the Feds and marching through San Francisco would be the first step towards an Agorist society. Actually, going by that logic, all we need to do to bring about the free world would be to rename the “government” a “corporation” and the “military” a “private defence organization”.
Last time I checked the stats, the majority of homicides in Canada are committed by police in the line of duty. It’s plausible, even likely, that most of that number is fighting between drug dealers and government agents.
These changes are a step in the right direction in my book; a step toward a greater balance of power.
My issue is that the drug gangs are not private defense agencies. Even if I granted that they provide some level of protection to the people in their region, it wouldn’t be sufficient to call them a PDA because governments do that, the mafia does that, and neighborhood watch groups do that. But I don’t think that they do provide protection services to their community, I think they kill a lot of people (both innocent and wrongdoers) and they probably cause a good deal of harm.
There is nothing wrong with either of those things. There would be something wrong with calling Walmart a PDA on the grounds that it has security guards or sells handguns or participates in community crime watch groups, which is exactly what the OP is suggesting.
Even if most of the fighting is between deals and government agents, how many innocent deaths need to occur before it is unnacceptable? Just 1% of that death toll is 340 people. Do you think less than one percent of those deaths were innocent? I don’t.
I really just have a hard time believing that this is beneficial to anyone besides the drug cartels and the governments waging the war on drugs. Its not going to lead in the direction of drug liberalization in America, and its not going to help the people caught in the crossfire.
Except these groups do not just “kill to protect”; they actively perform assassinations, kidnappings and extortion for profit. I like Snow Crash as much as anyone but this is beyond the pale IMO.