Nobody in the world has a monopoly on violence according to you since there are many States. Therefore France at war with Britain is not a statist conflict.. according to you.
Like the question about the “protection rackets”, that’s the same question that’s in the OP but in different form. I addressed that, but nobody is responding to the actual argument. Just shooting bullets in the air..
Nobody in the world has a monopoly on violence according to you since there are many States. Therefore France at war with Britain is not a statist conflict.. according to you.
Please define what you consider the state.
Pre-shogun Japan. Nobody had a monopoly on violence within a sovereign territory (a stateless society, as per Weber), yet warlordism was rampant.
It had been. It is not any more.
Why Japan now? What happen to China? You googled it and saw it was a statist conflict?
Ha, no. Just merely pointing out another example, one that I am much more familiar with.
But curiously, you’ve picked the one that you are less familiar with first.
First one that came to mind.
I’ve responded to that up thread; Absent of legitimacy for any coercive monopoly, there are financial constraints and natural barriers that would make any such attempt extremely difficult and highly unlikely. Nobody ever claimed it was impossible.
Besides logically derived ethical/moral norms?
Rising standards of living, and the develop of property rights that usually comes as a result of an increase in standards of living and leads to further rises in the standard of living. In my article on Afghanistan, I quote the following excerpt from: Marten, Kiberly, “Warlordism in Comparative Perspective.” International Security, Vol. 31, No. 3: Winter 2006/2007,
The economic surge across Europe at the turn of the first millennium created new opportunities for long distance trade. Merchants thus had an incentive to take political action to lower the transaction costs associated with doing business. The overlapping taxes and incompatible monetary systems of the feudal system gave them reason to escape to territory where they could conduct their business without interference from feudal lords. Merchants who were able to form or settle in self-regulating towns, where impersonal legal codes protected their property rights and set predictable tax rates, prospered. In turn, this prosperity gave them the power and means either to form their own armies for self-defense against warlord predation, or to bargain with kings who promised them protection and universal fair trade rules that extended over larger territories.
I wouldn’t rely on that very much. Otherwise, the “poor” and middle class in the Western Industrial States would have to be the strongest supporters of liberty. They’re obviously not. Even the rich support statism! Most people actually attribute their wealth to statism. This is a problem.
I agree that there is certainly economies of scale (empires inevitably fail for a reason), but if you define a state as “monopoly of force in a given geographic territory”, that could mean an area no larger than a city block. This is what I meant by “warlord”. Consider it akin to a brown dwarf; not quite a planet, not quite a star. Come to think of it, that reminds me of Marko’s post regarding slavery. Could one consider the slave/master relationship a state composed of only two?
John Catalan,
From the passage you posted, would it be reasonable to conclude that you think that states would naturally arise in the (apparently temporary) abscence of?
But it still exists.
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So you’re describing a hostage situation occurring in a given block or even house if you want to go smaller. Why is this somehow unique to the stateless society? Today, it is the State police that would respond to such a situation. In the stateless society, it would be private defense agencies.
I don’t necessarily rely on economy of scales by the way. If that was the case, we would have to fear the small local shop as oppose to Wall-mart for example.
In turn, this prosperity gave them the power and means either to form their own armies for self-defense against warlord predation, or to bargain with kings who promised them protection and universal fair trade rules that extended over larger territories
Great point. But I would attribute this less to rising living standards (as was pointed out above) and probably more to rising consciousness of personal liberty (which I would attribute to the rise in education).
Much like insurance companies, PDA would have to assess risk before agreeing to enter into a contract. Much like their public analogues (police), could it be possible that there would be some places the PDA’s would refuse to protect?
You’re asking a different question now.
Is it possible for somebody to choose to live outside the reach of cable TV or modern power utilities? Sure! But they do so at their own choosing.
In such a case, it would be most economically beneficial to be your own PDA. Right?
DD5,
Your paraphrasing is faulty. Choosing to decline service is not the same as being refused service.
I see. So you’re specifically talking about instances of some soft of deliberate discrimination? Like a PDA agency refusing to provide service to [say] a black man? Is that your question? And if so, what is the argument here exactly?