Has anyone read this essay? I myself find it very unsatisfying. Does anyone see the flaws and inadequacies of this discussion of externalities? I’m unsure why Hoppe put it in there. I’m still in the middle of reading it but here are a few things that I’m unsure about:
His rebuttal to the Malthusian, implying that the fact that the Malthusian had not considered suicide as an immediate solution to his fear of overpopulation, is completely lacking any depth.
Surely it is not contradictory to be worried about overpopulation and not immediately think of suicide? If I were truly worried I may attempt to start a business or campaign to persuade people not to have kids to much greater effect than simply ending my own life?
Also in the section on Externalities he makes the correct point that payment through taxation is not consistent with total protection and is logically absurd. However using the North American block against Russia as an example of private provision in the presence of ‘spill over’ is again completely lacking in rigour. The US could easily exclude protection of Canada and Mexico in its protection of its “own citizens”
I was hoping to give the book to a neo con friend of mine but the mere presence of this essay makes me think twice. I hope it gets better.
If it’s lacking in rigour, it isn’t Block’s fault as that is an example of an externality given by proponents of the theory (e.g. the US’s defences deter attacks on neighboring countries.)
I`ve skimmed through it now and I can say I understand next to nothing of what he is saying.
The ironic thing about it (for me) is that it is in a section of a book titled Private Security Production: Practical Applications. How is that practical application when he could as well be speaking Martian?
We are Poland and Germany has 1,5 million troops on our border ready to invade tommorow. We tried guerrilla war 60 years ago, but it cost 3 million Poles and 3 million Polish Jews their lives so this time we`d like to just repell the invasion if possible. How do we defend ourselves through private security production? How many divisions can we call upon? Illustrate that sort of thing for me. That is a practical application I can understand!
What are the specific flaws and inadequacies you find in Block’s discussion of the topic?
I think Block’s argument here only works against those who think overpopulation is a current and immediate problem, for those who believe that it will someday be a problem, I can see your objection as sensible. But, if you think overpopulation is a problem right this instant, it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to go talking to people about how many children they should have, rather, you should lower the population immediately by one.
That’s precisely Block’s point. The externality argument rests on assuming that we cannot exclude from these goods. If we can exclude, then it falls apart. But, also, Block’s point was that, assuming spill over effects exist and free riding is possible, it does not make sense that any country would create a military, as they would just be waiting around for someone else to so they could free ride, according to the logic of the externality argument. Again, the externality objection rests on the idea that no one will actually provide the “public good” because they will all just be waiting to free ride.
Maybe I’m totally incorrect in my history here, but I’m pretty certain that Poland had a state-provided military defense force during and before the Nazi invasion. Further, I’m pretty sure that market alternatives were not allowed. So, my question to you is, how does that historical incident show anything besides that state defense does not work?
It seems illogical because someone will provide it, because they find it is more beneficial. Also, he neglects things like negotiation, or a creative service.
I dont know what you are talking about, mate. I didnt say that historical incident shows anything.
I said that I would have expected of an essay having to do with “practical application of private security” to be a little more, well practical. Something like showing how a hypothetical anarchist Poland would in practice defend herself against a hypothetical statist Germany.
I don’t think its a good idea to ask how do we create a army that mimics state armies. how to provide for the Assassination of political leaders, how to organize guerrilla militias, how to begin organized civil disobedience, all seem better options to me.
what of the inability for the invading state army to utilize centralized mechanism in a anarchic society? there is no existing structure that can be centrally controlled in Libertopia.
I suppose I took this: “We tried guerrilla war 60 years ago, but it cost 3 million Poles and 3 million Polish Jews their lives so this time we`d like to just repell the invasion if possible.” to be an attack on several of the suggestions for private defense, which rest on the use of guerilla tactics. I was pointing out that just because a statist military failed at guerilla warfare does not mean that a private force created for that specific purpose would have the same result.
That will come very useful if they want us to surrender to them. What if they want us all dead instead however?
How are the Armenian secessionist guerrilas doing lately in Eastern Anatolia? Oh wait I forget, there are no Armenian guerrilas in Anatolia. The Ottoman Empire took care of that problem a hundred years by killing any Armenian old or young, male or female in territories under their control.
How is an assasination of political leaders, a guerrilla militia or a civil disobedience protect the civilian population from mass reprisals of the ocuppier? Can they protect it from hundreds, thousands of potential My Lai style massacres? Of course not, because none of them can hold territory.
All the unconventional defence ways seem to forget states only follow Geneva convention when they are fighting another state. They do not follow customs of war when fighting a people instead of a state and will always in the end resort to brutality against non-combatants. Readiness to wage guerrila war is a great deterant, but it is not neccesarily enough. Only a conventional army with tanks, artillery, jets and so on can stop the invasion right at the border.
the point of guerrilla warfare is not so much to win, if you can that is great, it is to not lose. It is to bleed the enemy dry or resources. if the enemy state is invading because they are motivated by economic reasons… the incentive to steal… then this raises the costs for them. If you make the costs of going to war with libertopia > the value of that which they can violently expropriate from you then they are either going to pull out or not invade at all. Assassination I might add is one cost that is EXTREMELY high. They WANT you to target their minions on the field. They are pawns. But if you kill the leaders in their centralized nightmare…If you force them to put THEIR lives on the line, then you have another story. This is essentially why minutemen ‘unscrupulously’ targeted officers in the American secession.
Saying a statist military failed at guerilla warfare is something of an oxymoron. Armia Krajowa was a resistance movement not a statist military. I assure you it was not tax funded. Yes probably AK would have been even more effective if Poland had prepeared for a guerrila struggle, but it ultimatley would not have mattered much.
The definition of a guerrila force is a force that does not seek to control territory. It can set up “liberated territories” in areas where the ocuppier does not have a presence or only a weak one, but it must always retreat from that territory at the face of superior firepower of the invader should they move to recapture those “liberated territories” in order to preserve strength and ability to re-emerge elsewere thus retaining initiative. Military history of the WWII Yugoslav partisans in particular reads like an endless list of retreats from old liberated territories into new ones at the face of German offensives. Warsaw uprising was an example of an attempt of a guerrila force to actualy wage a conventional battle. In it the AK planned to take Warsaw and stand its ground repelling attempts of recapture instead of just fighting delaying actions. Considering they lacked heavy weapons the outcome was all too predictable.
You don`t have to tell me guerrila war is effective. I know it is effective. But first and foremost it is very, very costly. 2 miles from my home is a mass grave and a monument to 80 killed “hostages”, civilians rounded up in 1944 and gunned down in reprisal killings for a few occupying soldiers slain by partisan resistance. I would rather not be paying that sort of price if it can be avoided.
This does sound pretty good, but its primary value is stil deterant value (since killing say a president or a general is in reality fairly meaningless, as there will always be another candidate ready to step up). But no deterant is going to be 100% percent efficient. They might underestimate your ability to carry out the assasination, have unfounded faith in their secutiry measures or be ideologicaly driven to the point where they actualy are willing to take personal risk. So why not combine it with some sort of an army capable of conventional war that is compatible with liberty?
I suppose I should have clarified, though you got what I was saying. I didn’t mean, “The Polish Army failed at guerrilla warfare”, ,rather, I meant, “The statist system of defense failed at guerrilla warfare”. That is to say, it wasn’t as if there were defense agencies already trained and prepared in that and they failed, but rather, out of desperation, the people who had been forced to rely on the State for defense used guerrilla warfare.
I think you can see that better trained, equipped, and funded guerrilla forces have had much more success. The Viet Cong, the mujaheddin, the American revolutionaries, and so on.
Fine and well. You would want to sign on with a defense company / insurance agency which decided that a more traditional form of defense was the way to go. Ultimately, it’s about choice with regards to market anarchism. If you think one way of doing things is better than another, then that choice is available to you and you can put your money into that.
I much agree. Protections are never 100%. But protection is far more beneficial for saving lives. Its sort of like wearing a condom in order to prevent yourself from haivng to face the effects and use the treatments. heh.
I largely think that a conventional war is so cost prohibitive that a libertaqrian society cannot wage one. Is this a bad thing? No. I think most definetly not. A standing army is the bane of liberty and I think it a happy consequence of freedom that men cannot amass such a thing in abscence of accepted organized theft. At least in no degree as exists now.
I think if thrown to the fires, a libertarian community would likely resort to the most cost/time efficient means of defense. Militias arent exactly cost prohibitive. Every man is responsible for his own equipment and training is set up in the same way. I think professional military consultants might provide a good mix of the not for proft and profit center, providing the professionalism that militias seem to lack. Private elites seem a much better option. Professional soldiers trained to strike in a strategic manner much like the Seals or Green Baret or some such elite group who uses not numbers or overwhelming force but speed, stealth, and superior fighting skill to create havoc and then get the hell out. Again a mixing of these groups of professionals with volunteer militia who train themselves in geurilla trianing might be a optimal combination of numbers and professionalism that maintains cost efficiency.
Again though I think it is worth pointing out that a program of civil disobedience is also effective. The french were never REALLY conquered. Their government gave up but to the credit of the French, the people never did. Many countries refused to cooperate with the Nazis, they fought from inside, hid there activities and made the occupation of a total pain in the ass. Non violent resistance combined with refusals to cooperate. Only non violent resistance brought down the British in India.
The state cannot MAKE you comply. You can never CONTROL a mans body (so far), you can only threaten him. Men must choose to act in accordance with the threatening criminals. I am not daming a man for doing so, but deciding ‘I refuse’ in mass leaves your overlord essentially powerless. I remember reading about a group of slaves from a specific tribe in Africa during Americas slave trade days. This tribe valued its freedom so much that they absolutely refused to cooperate with anyone who ‘purchased’ them. They could be beaten, starved, whiped, even killed, but they would never do as they were instructed. Demand for these people was cut to zero. Tyranny has no use for those who will not bow to threats. And this tribe was left alone from there on. They simply were no good as slaves because they simply refused to act as slaves.
I’m not too sure why it’s given as an example. The US government/defense dept. does not bear the cost of assembling and maintaining the army and so the argument doesn’t apply surely?
If I personally arranged a security company to keep my street safe either all by myself or by a group of us then that would be an example of private provision of a public good, precisely because the cost fell on the minority and the benefit on the whole street.
In ‘national defense’ the cost is borne by the tax payer and the benefit is enjoyed by the tax payers and their neighbours.
But the defense department do not personally bear the cost of the army, and it is also used for attack which is why it is assembled in the first place.