Wandering into the back streets of anarcho-capitalism, for the first time recently, I started out with the naive idea that there would only be one form of it. Sort of like when you discover jazz, perhaps as a teenager, with the misguided impression that there’ll only be one musical format dominating all late-night jazz events. Well, Professor Hoppe steered me straight on that feeble notion, when he blasted his trumpet towards me in Democracy: The God that Failed. Staggering out into dawn’s clear light, after a full whiskey flagon of Hoppe’s invective, I needed a few days to recover from the mentally-induced hangover. Where before I’d been a happy-go-lucky wanderer, breezing through this vale of socialism we call the United Kingdom, Hoppe turned me into a paranoid Cassandra seeing the evils of the state under virtually every rock and anti-social nuisance order.
Is car parking costing too much in Henley town centre? The parasitical agents of the state in South Oxfordshire District Council are exploiting their monopoly position as coercive public roads owner and enforcers of parking law to rob honest individuals who wish merely to trade with one another in local shops. Is graffiti starting to cover the local road signs? This marks the disintegrating failure of state government, in the guise of that dangerous idiot David Blunkett, to provide decent law and security services thereby causing degenerative failure because of the hopeless government monopoly provision of both. Plus, the forced integration, into the great democratic vote bank, of hundreds of thousands of economic migrants in search of welfare has destabilised the UK’s fragile network of societal links. Arrrrggggghhhhh!!!! I can’t take it any more.
Hoppe’s book is enough to drive you towards Abba Gold albums, to lie in a darkened room with a wet flannel over your face thinking of bearded portly men strumming exotic star-shaped guitars, to briefly escape the logic of its conclusions about every decivilising aspect of modern state-dominated life. Is there an alternative? The worst thing about Hoppe, however, is that I feel he is right. Damn his free-trade cotton socks! All of the problems in modern Britain can be analyzed down to the problem of government. Take the transport system, please, take it somewhere else. Then take the schools, the hospitals, the welfare system, and the appalling state of law and order, which would be laughable except for the increasing number of people being knifed, tortured, and shot almost at will by lowlife scum exploiting the dwindling numbers of police, particularly in rural areas, as our boys in blue concentrate on harassing soft-target drivers rather than harassing hard-target criminals. Throw in the postal system, the fire service, and the abject state of British farming, and you’re just about there, though I’m sure you can think of hundreds of other areas possessing this common thread of mediocrity and uselessness. All are subject, of course, to the coercive whim of democratic government and its need to retain monopolistic parasitical power.
To maintain its subterfuge that the state is a necessary requirement of human life, the government must buy off its intellectual client groups, most of whom in the UK read the Guardian. These include teachers, university lecturers, doctors, and journalists at the BBC, who in grateful supplication worship at the font of government proclaiming all of its alleged wondrous benefits. So, to misquote Lenin, we finally know whom the guardians are guarding; their friends in the government.
If you combine this comfortably-funded middle-class mass of government-loving bloodsuckers along with all the other welfare-dependent voters, such as the subsidy-junkie farmers, you’ve got Hoppe’s permanent democratic majority you need to stay in perpetual power, until either war or revolution destroys your state to replace it with another variant of the same thing, or your civil service can grow it into a greater slough of despond. Empire down the pan? Grow a European Union.
Obviously, you need to construct a cosmetic ‘change-in-power’, every now again, between the various classes of collectivist, such as those in the Labour, the Social Democratic, or the Conservative parties, to fool the people that they’ve been given a choice. But in reality, if you fail to vote for one lizard, the other lizard always gets in. So Hoppe asks the question: Why don’t we just start trying to live without lizards? How can this mirage of governmental choice be a good thing anyway when political parties compete not to provide us with ‘goods’, but compete to provide us instead with ‘bads’, such as slightly higher or slightly lower tax rates? How about no taxes at all?
Steady. Don’t frighten the horses.
Add to this a rigid state control of the education process which brainwashes the rest of us feeble-minded taxpayers into accepting the mantra that even if the government isn’t always good, it is always necessary, and that anarchism is a punk-rock fuelled Mad Max-style fantastical insanity, where the average life-span will be about 3.92 nano-seconds before each of us is hit by an explosive bullet fired from a nutcase-manned mobile mini-gun.
It is this control of education which is the state’s most precious jewel, manned 24×7 by its most partisan supporters. Until we wrest these schools and universities from their cold dead hands, the state, and all of its benefactors, such as the 659 parliamentary MPs here in the UK, more than were needed to run an empire, and heaven knows how many leeches over there in Washington, will continue to maintain their easy lunch-filled and holiday-filled lives, inside an iron grip of state.
But iron rusts. And one day we will be free of them. Or at least Professor Hoppe hopes so via a gradual oxidation process where as many of us as possible disengage ourselves from the state; for instance, by refusing to vote in its elections or by avoiding its rapacious tax demands. Along with the subversive creation of micro-states, the Professor hopes to evolve a system whereby the state really does wither away, as Trotsky once so charmingly believed, to leave us with a myriad world of privately owned city-states, along the lines of the ancient Greek model, or perhaps a worldwide libertarian alliance of Tolkienesque shire-states, where Sarumanian government ruffians and parasites, along with all of their intrusive taxes, rules and regulations, are driven out to leave us with family and clan-based freedom, where the highest form of government is a familial aristocracy, led perhaps by figures such as the Master of Buckland or the Took of Tookland. Or heaven help us, even Mayor Sam Gamgee, whose only governmental role will be to eat an enormous lunch once every four years. Oh, and we’ll make him pay for it, too, unlike those trough-munchers in Westminster and inside the Washington Beltway.
But I just don’t get the feeling that Hoppe’s plan is going to work out. It feels inherently unstable. Yes, we can keep physically excluding communists, as they arise in each new generation, and perhaps even coercive democrats, but surely it would make immediate sense for them to journey straight towards the welcoming embrace of whichever socialist Mordor arises in response to our exclusions, to then try to destroy us by whatever means comes into their disposal. Democracy and the rule of the mob may be an evil, but it appears to retain stability, even if one may disagree with it. There are just too many people on this Earth who are embittered failures in their miserable lives, who hate seeing the success of others. Jealously, that most potent ingredient of the anti-capitalistic mentality, is a force capable of destroying the world, as it so nearly did in the Cuban missile crisis, and it continually eats away at us in all of its other collective forms, such as Islamofascism or the New Left’s environmentalism. To remove democracy we need to destroy jealousy. And as long as Tom Cruise continues to shack up with Penelope Cruz, jealousy will continue to march in this world. At least it shall in the one small corner of South Oxfordshire.
And who are we, anyway, to ban private democracy on private property? Karl Popper’s long dreamed of open society surely allows us to witness the creation of private democratic communes. If fifty homosexuals wish to jointly purchase an island, and wish to live there together under local democratic rule, without trying to impose their democratic and sexual lifestyle on the rest of us, who are we to stop them? Although Hoppe’s analysis of the current problem of world government may be one hundred per cent accurate, I think his family-based solutions are a little too unstable to survive, except perhaps in pure virgin territories which may occur in humanity’s distant space-bound future. And even in this undiscovered future we can imagine the rise of a Dune-like system of aristocratic families, where the temptation to create planetary-wide states under monopolised taxation, security, and jurisdiction programs, under a single Harkonnen-like family, and an overarching Emperor, will become all too great to resist if we place family-based covenantal powers into the binding hands of a spontaneously-arising elite.
So this begs two questions. Is there a quicker way towards creating a more stable anarcho-capitalist future? And am I finally going to say something about David Friedman? Oh, go on then.
In ‘The Machinery of Freedom‘, Friedman adopts a second route towards an anarcho-capitalist future, by creating transitional libertarian policies capable of being put to democratic voters in party-political elections. In short, he follows Mao Tse-Tung’s philosophy, that the march towards anarcho-capitalism begins with tiny but quickly accumulating steps.
Now let me put my cards on the table. I am by instinctive inclination, as you may already have noticed, a proto-Hoppeian-Rothbardian-Miseian, of the Austrian school. If it wrong for the state to be involved in education, it is wrong for the state to be involved in education. Full stop. But does this hard-line attitude actually get us anywhere? Friedman disagrees. He argues that it may be unrealistic for us to throw off decades, nay millennia, of accumulative statist history, in a single bound, and that we may have to be more gradualist in our attempts to wither it away. So, wracked with the contradictions of being a Hoppeian who holds that Hoppeianism appears mechanically unstable, I opened up Mr Friedman’s Magnum Opus with as unbiased and fresh a mind as I could manage, while drinking a particularly nice cup of tea.
His preface to the first edition kicks us off wonderfully, going straight down the defence’s throat:
I believe, as many say they believe, that everyone has the right to run his own life – to go to hell in his own fashion. I conclude, as do many on the left, that all censorship should be done away with. Also that all laws against drugs – marijuana, heroin, or Dr. Quack’s cancer cure – should be repealed. Also laws requiring cars to have seat belts. The right to control my life does not mean the right to have anything I want free; I can do that only by making someone else pay for what I get. Like any good right winger, I oppose welfare programs that support the poor with money taken by force from the taxpayers. I also oppose tariffs, subsidies, loan guarantees, urban renewal, agricultural price supports – in short, all of the much more numerous programs that support the not-poor – often the rich – with money taken by force from the taxpayers – often the poor.
Say hallelujah, brother!
The final point is a recurring theme of the book. The ‘Welfare State’ is often described by socialists as a way, albeit a particularly inefficient one, of supporting the poor, whereas in fact it often ends up being a way of supporting the rich; witness the recent Conservative Party demands, here in the UK, that university education should continue to be subsidised by the taxpayer, most of whom never go to university. Witness also the huge cost of the welfare state, in the UK, where most of the cost ends up as profitable salary cheques paid to affluent university-educated Guardian readers for their various comfortable roles ensconced within the warm body politic of the Leviathan.
Who would suffer from the abolition of the welfare state? It sure as hell wouldn’t be the poor. Give them back all the taxes they’re currently forced to pay to support the Guardian reading enemy class, and within days you’d have beggars on the street brandishing signs like this:
Home in Cornwall, Child Nanny, Soho Restaurant, and Two Audi Estate Cars to Support – Please give generously or we’ll lock you in a room containing an art installation of Polly Toynbee articles
These people know the true edge of evil.
Later in the book Friedman made me think, for the first time, about the usual socialist dogma that people must be forced to pay taxes, in a democratic society, for the good of society. Friedman poses the knotty question, ‘What makes you think people who won’t hand money over voluntarily will ever vote in a government to make them hand it over?’ Go on socialist, if you’re reading this, answer that one on a postcard for me.
Friedman then jumps straight into a defence of property, as is proper in a libertarian treatise. He uses an excellent example of broadcast media versus printed media. With terrestrial broadcast media the state takes it upon itself to own the airwaves, renting them out to its favoured clients. These clients know a cash-cow when they see one, so they strive to avoid upsetting the government’s regulator rather than serving their customers. What we end up with is a narrow range of homogenised options, on terrestrial television, with little to choose between on each channel, with even the much-vaunted public service mandate of the BBC delivering us tripe like ‘Eastenders’ and programs starring Pauline Quirke. In other words, the democratic mass of the population is served to the level of the lowest common denominator, with each individual rarely feeling that a particular government-approved channel covers all of his or her interests.
Compare this with the printed media, which has far less government intervention, where there’s a magazine title for virtually every interest under the sun, from Atlas Shrugged fans to Zoological Zebra breeders, regardless of whether the government, or the rest of us, approve. I don’t know if there’s a group of people out there who like looking at pictures of blue-spotted heffa-lumps, but if there is, I’m confident there’s a magazine title being readied for them as we speak.
This brings us to a minor weakness of Mr Friedman’s book, in that it first came out in 1973. Although ‘The Machinery of Freedom’ has been updated several times since, and although its basic ideas have stood up over time, the emergence of satellite broadcasting might’ve made this a more interesting discussion, with its magazine-like programming and the excellent way it has induced the decline of statist institutions like the BBC, but again, the original discussion points stand up so this is only a tiny quibble.
And so the book continues, in its first part, with many carefully thought through ideas challenging the status quo of the state, and making us realise why it fails in so many of the areas it controls, for instance in government insurance pensions, where the rich benefit at the expense of the poor, because the rich live longer, and start contributing later, often after completing their subsidised university courses. We also see exactly why government-driven monopoly destroys choice and increases waste, particularly when a private interest group, such as the American Medical Association, uses governmental controls by proxy to benefit their own members to the detriment of the general consumer, for instance by creating the vastly over-priced and over-regulated American medical system.
I particularly liked the section on the three ways of getting other people to do what you want. These are love, trade, and force. I can persuade you to give me something gratis, because it goes to a cause you believe in, such as the Andy Duncan Needs Chocolate Campaign, or I can trade with you and exchange some of my lovely paper money for your chocolate, or I can point a gun to your favourite avian pet and say, “Hand over the chocolate, sunshine, or the budgie gets it.” Much in the same way, of course, that tax authorities do it with self-assessment forms: ‘Fail to fill in this form correctly, sunshine, and we’ll send you to jail.’ Charming, don’t you think? Who’d have thought these people were paid with our own money?
Socialists criticise us and say we libertarians only use the ‘selfish’ method of trade. Well, it does keep us all fed, and it does keep them all in marijuana, but in a truly free society private charities will prosper.
The Beatles, one of Earth’s wealthiest rock bands, used to say that all you needed was love, but I think they were only halfway there. What you don’t need is coercion. And with the removal of forced taxation to fund all of those Guardian readers’ second homes in Cornwall, the chance for love to work its magic will be all that much greater, as there’ll be so much more productive wealth to spread around. So to all of you socialist hippies out there, yes, you, Cherie Blair, come over to the light side. Throw those tax-enforcing jail sentences away.
Friedman then adds several chapters on why collectivism is less efficient than the free market, in the same excellent primer fashion as Henry Hazlitt’s ‘Economics in One Lesson‘.
[BTW, just an aside. Have you ever noticed how even socialists, deep down, feel really uneasy about taking taxes off people? They have to work themselves up about it, and then come out with all sorts of Marxist nonsense saying ‘The Rich’ stole it off ‘The Poor’ in the first place, by means of capitalist exploitation, and that just like Robin Hood, all they’re really doing is redressing the balance by stealing it back. Why most of the loot then ends up in the hands of affluent Guardian readers like Cherie Blair is beyond me, but there you go. Personally I love Robin Hood because he didn’t steal off the rich and give to the poor, as the song said. Instead, he took large tax rebates off government officers, like the Sheriff of Nottingham, albeit without their permission, and then handed these tax thefts of gold straight back to their rightful owners. Just like that Norwegian fella did in ‘Atlas Shrugged’, you know, the only one Dagny Taggart didn’t actually get round to sleeping with.]
We then come to IMHO the most important part of Mr Friedman’s book, its second section, entitled the ‘Libertarian Grab Bag or How to Sell the State in Small Pieces’. To be fair to the author, he tells us in his introduction to the book that he thinks government interference in the schools, in any form, is wrong, but that he thinks we’ll only be able to get them out via compromise. Part II therefore opens up with the chapter ‘Sell the Schools’, which tries to persuade us that instead of running the schools, the government should merely fund them, via the oft-debated voucher system.
The idea of school vouchers has a long history starting with Friedman Senior back in the 1960s, when the older Friedman also suggested negative income taxes. Way back then vouchers seemed a pipe-dream for an impossible land filled with tangerine men wearing looking glass ties. Even Keith Joseph, the frizzle-haired Thatcherite ‘extremist’ of the 1970s thought vouchers were too radical. But time has moved on, and conservative parties around the world are finally getting used to the idea, persuaded in part, I’m sure, by ‘The Machinery of Freedom’. I do worry, however, that vouchers will get twisted around somehow by government, just as Gordon Brown perverted the ideas on negative income tax into income tax credits, thus trying to turn the entire UK population into welfare bums.
The school vouchers plan is followed by a discussion of how to free the universities by opening up a market-driven system. I work, personally, in the vigorous IT training market, and out there we will teach anyone anything they want to learn, so long as they’re prepared to pay for it. It saddens me when I hear students say, as happens regularly, that they’ve learned more in one of my four-day private sector courses than they did in an entire term of public sector computer science at University. Obviously I’ll accept that they’re saying this just to make the sad fat bloke at the front feel happier, but my fellow trainers regularly hear this too, and they really do know what they’re talking about. Now, it can be amazing what you can do in four days, in the private sector, but why is it taking state-run universities more than a whole term to match it, easily breaking the old rule of thumb that the state is usually one-third as effective as private industry? Friedman explains, and then works up a policy to make them far more responsive and efficient.
We then get to the emotive subject of immigration, where Friedman proposes unrestricted immigration into the USA to give oppressed people around the world a chance for a better life, and to give America a new burst of life. If it was good enough for most of America’s forbearers, why is it so wrong now? If America can’t do this, says Friedman, it should consider shipping back the Statue of Liberty to France.
Strong stuff, and I’m sure Professor Hoppe would have a thing or two to say about such ‘forced integration’, but hey, if you folks over there are going to start opening your borders up again, to white Europeans, please keep at least one berth free, for one comfortably-sprung fat bloke, slightly shop-soiled. I think you know who I’m talking about.
The rest of the section truly is a grab-bag of ideas for withering the state out of our lives, including an interesting discussion on how a privately-funded mission to the Moon would’ve taken off later, but then given us much better long-term benefits. I’ll let you work through these ideas yourselves, when you read the book, but Friedman rounds off this grab-bag section with an excellent parting shot:
In the ideal socialist state power will not attract power freaks. People who make decisions will show no slightest bias towards their own interests. There will be no way for a clever man to bend the institutions to serve his own ends. And the rivers will run uphill.
Well said, sir.
And so begins Part III, on anarchism, containing far more alignment with the Austrians. For those who wish to explore anarcho-capitalism, you’ll take a long time to find a better summation of the topic. It’s all here; the Police, the Courts, the Law, and the non-existence of a ruling class. What I was particularly interested in though was the stability of the anarcho-capitalist state, and the really hard question of military security. Both subjects get their own chapter. Excellent.
Friedman tackles the two primary objections to anarchist stability. First, that society would be taken over by Mafia-style gangs running protection rackets, the second, that these gangs would merge together to create a new government. Or as Michael Corleone once said, and I paraphrase, ‘Do you really think senators don’t have people killed? Now who’s being unrealistic?’
The answer to the both objections, explained far more cohesively in the book, is that under anarchism virtually all of the activities of the current Mafia gangs would be legal, and that they would, in their own terms, really be ‘legitimate’ businesses, but this time up against real competition. And if they did try to impose themselves coercively, people would turn to other protective agencies who would cost less, who would be more efficient, and who would drive the mafia protection agencies out via the market process of competition.
Friedman surmises that there would be thousands of such protection agencies, and that it would be impossible for them to try to arrange a ‘government’ between them, as they would either be undercut by new rivals, or collapse internally due to all of the usual cartel-collapsing reasons. In the final analysis however, all of the protection agencies together would comprise a large fraction of the armed power of the nation, even in a nation with every homeowner possessing firearms, so they could in theory take over that nation. But Friedman asks if this is the case, why hasn’t the US Army done it yet? Because, he says, US Army soldiers know it would be a ‘wrong’ thing to do, just as armed workers within the protection agencies would know it would be a ‘wrong’ thing to do. And far less profitable, too. And far more dangerous, to boot.
Which brings us to the thorny subject of national defence, or as you Americans insist on spelling it, ‘defense’. Friedman brings up all the usual objections, plus a few more often avoided by other capitalist anarchists:
It is all very well to fantasize about fighting the invader village by village, commune by commune, or corporation by corporation, according to the dreamer’s particular brand of anarchy. A serious invader would inform each unit that if it resisted or failed to pay tribute, it would be destroyed by a nuclear weapon. After the invader proved that he meant business, the citizens of the surviving communities would be eager to create the institutions, voluntary or otherwise, necessary to give the invader what he wanted.
Friedman suggests several schemes for national defence, including insurance and a national defence charity, but in the end says it will take time to work out:
In such a situation I would not try to abolish that last vestige of government. I do not like paying taxes, but I would rather pay them to Washington than to Moscow – the rates are lower [written in 1973]. I would still regard the government as a criminal organization, but one which was, by a freak of fate, temporarily useful. It would be like a gang of bandits, who, while occasionally robbing the villages in their territory, served to keep off other and more rapacious gangs. I do not approve of any government, but I will tolerate one so long as the only other choice is another, worse government.
Sort of like New Labour and the Conservatives then.
Meanwhile, I would do my best to develop voluntary institutions that might eventually take over the business of defense. That is precisely what I meant when I said, near the beginning of this book, that I thought all government functions were divided into two classes – those we could do away with today and those we hope to be able to do away with tomorrow.
At least he’s honest about it, refusing to duck the question.
The fourth part of the book is then a post-1973 postscript to the rest, with chapters on private money, the enforcement of anarchist law – an oxymoronic topic to tickle the most jaded palate with – and how to promote libertarianism, including a brief piece on the Libertarian Party and how it should remain purely ideological without caring about election results. It should care, instead, on getting its message across in the same way the Socialist Party of America eventually got most of its radical 1928 policies affirmed into law by the US government, in later decades, including the minimum wage law and social security insurance, without ever controlling a US territory bigger than Milwaukee.
So, Mr Spock, is this a book worth buying? Affirmative, Captain. It is broken down throughout into bite-sized chunks, which even an intellectual orang-utan such as myself is capable of absorbing without the necessity of mind-expanding drugs, and if you need a brief guide to Anarcho-Capitalism, you really won’t go far wrong with this well-written gem. The second section you’ll have to make your own mind up about, but at least you’ll have a good foundation. And then, Ha Ha Jim lad, you’ll be ready for Rothbard!
So, finally, is David Friedman a radical capitalist or a utilitarian apologist? In my opinion he’s a radical capitalist who’s just trying his best to get us to a libertarian future as quickly as possible. And what could possibly be better than that? I think I’m still in the Rothbard camp, but I do admire Friedman’s honesty about rogue socialist states dropping nuclear weapons on Philadelphia, and the possible consequential need to retain a really minimalist state in the meantime, purely for national defence, until this anarchist circle can finally be squared. There is therefore only one further thing to say about Mr Friedman. May the seed of his loins be fruitful in the belly of his woman. Boomshanka.
I agree with incrementalism but I reckon Mr Friedman is being overly cautious and perhaps not quite imaginative enough.
For example: school vouchers might incrementally privatise schools, but – as you can see with the current Labour lot – they can as easily be rolled back as implemented. And they also tend to spread the contagion of government-think to private schools, in the same way as state-controlled standard exams do. A more radical and IMO effective solution is to bypass the school system entirely and promote home or amateur-community schooling.
This is not an isolated example. I opine that it’s always better to sell a bypass to state provision rather than a privatised version thereof. It slips past people’s blindly-automatic negative responses. Also it allows positive advocacy of something good (home school, neighborhood watch, charity, etc) rather than gloomy, ungrateful-seeming attacks on the status quo.
I think Hoppe’s whole notion that in a ‘natural’ non-state coerced state of affair, racial and other forms of social integration would not happen as property owners assert their affinity and dis-affinity is… complete bollocks and simply not born out by the observational evidence on the streets of London, unless there is some Ministry of Mandatory Miscegenation that I am unaware of.
Hoppe is 50% genius and 50% atavistic pre-extended society blood-and-soil drivel. You correctly identify many of the problem with Hoppe’s thesis… ultimately it is unworkable… but just as important a flaw, I think he is just plain wrong that a majority of people would even want what he thinks would be the ‘natural’ state of affairs, which makes me wonder just how natural a state of affairs a Hoppe utopia would actually be. Hoppe is what Virginia Postrel calls a ‘stasist’, not economically , but socially. He cannot see that laissez-faire economics are far more likely to lead not to neo-tribalism, but to cosmopolitanism.
Andy – first off, thank you for a well researched and thoughtfully constructed piece. Your review appears to be so thorough I’m debating whether I need to buy the book. In terms of response, the depth of the piece makes it difficult to give more than impressions rather than point by point discussion. But here goes.
My cards on the table – the yoke of the state rests uneasily on my shoulders, too, and I laughed out loud at your rightful condemnation of the Guardian readers. But I’m one of those who believe government is necessary. I acknowledge your dismissal of my view as the outcome of brainwashing, but I’m confident that I’m sufficiently aware of my own thought processes to have arrived at that conclusion through the independent application of my own critical faculties.
You mention your unease at Hoppe’s analysis, and describe that unease (sagaciously, I thought) as a sense of instability. The problem I have is that is exactly the criticism that can be leveled at any system that isn’t underpinned by the transfer of some measure of personal liberty to a third party (i.e. a state).
There are many systems we can construct that would serve as valid frameworks for regulating our affairs. But they all rely, somewhere in their construction, in the statement “If (such and such comes to pass) then (utopia ensues)”. The debate therefore focuses on the likelihood of such and such coming to pass, and – crucially – the consequences of it not in relation to the existing state of affairs.
Your analysis picks out many of the components of the things that would have to come to pass. You expertly extract Friedman’s squeamishness at abandoning the state completely. The question is: is that enough?
I don’t think so. I must admit, I haven’t got a very clear picture in my mind of what living in one of these stateless communities would feel like (I’m getting unhelpful images of people in floaty white garments and poncy bound leggings like those chaps in Mad Max).
It makes my blood boil to pay taxes through the nose for a misbegotten government to squander it on purposes of which I do not approve. But my anger and distress are as nothing compared to that which I would feel if I – or worse, my son – were shot by one of our neighbour’s in one of Friedman’s grim, armed communities. That is the unacceptable consequence of the conditions for success failing to come to pass.
Given those conditions are many and complex, the likelihood of success is unacceptably low. The state of affairs that would ensue if the attempt failed would be (considerably) worse than those that prevail. And so it will remain a theory to me. If it ever was likely to materialise, I would depart these shores. Cowardice? Is it cowardice not to step in front of a moving vehicle?
My final concern – where would you buy haemorrhoid cream in an anarcho-capitalist state? The finest political construct in the world is as nothing to those who have faced the misery of a pain in the bum if he can’t rely on the presence of a pharmacy (and a manufacturer, and a road upon which to transport the emollient, and some research to offer the slender hope of a cure).
My tongue-in-cheek (s?) question disguises a serious point. When Hayek talked, in Road to Serfdom, about the capitalist system containing the seeds of its own destruction, he had an eye on the Socialists. But the point is valid here – we take the benefits of our existing system and discount them as the starting point for discussing its alternatives, rather than objectively contrasting the alternatives as an objective whole.
As we found ourselves in our fortified enclave, lacking the ability to reliably generate light and heat, unable to join and insufficiently close to a community that could, fending off the predations of a mafia that the market had rendered unprofitable to tackle in our neck of the woods and nursing our sore bums, some of the things we take for granted in our rotten system might start to impinge on our consciousness rather more forcefully …
My final concern – where would you buy haemorrhoid cream in an anarcho-capitalist state?
You would buy it at the nearest pharmacy, which in a non-state regulated environment would probably be far more numerous than they are at the moment. Next question?
richard writes:
Your review appears to be so thorough I’m debating whether I need to buy the book.
No, you must buy the book, if you want to delve into Mr Friedman’s excellent ideas, eloquently expressed and delivered with minimal fuss and, even better, minimal words.
I have only extracted several of its flavours, particularly where I thought they came up against the contrasting thoughts of Professor Hoppe, just to give the review some direction.
There are far more ideas and thoughts left in the book, which only me rewriting (ie. copying) in full would be able to cover adequately.
…I’m debating whether I need to buy the book.
…
…one of Friedman’s grim, armed communities.
How can you know that Friedman’s communities are grim and armed if, as you appear to suggest, you haven’t yet read his book?
Perry,
There IS a mandatory Ministry of Miscegenation. You can see it in action any Saturday morning on the Beeb or ITV. Its speciality is mind control of the very young.
It is interesting to see a thread which connects Hoppe-enthusiasts and Marxists: that is that it is possible to educate away (or brainwash) human nature. There are plenty of reasons to oppose socialism but one of its most sinister characteristics is its utopianism: the notion that once society is re-engineered and people are correctly “re-educated” the socialist utopia will arrive. If you convince yourself that such an utopia is achievable and necessary it won’t be long before you start killing those who show little enthusiasm for the utopia.
It is a dangerous delusion to assume that widespread tolerance for “Statism” is a result of “brainwashing” and that a counter-brainwashing initiative would be desirable or successful. Statism survives due to inertia and conservatism, not positive enthusiasm.
Likewise: it is an absurd, paranoid fantasy to assume that children’s tv (ferchrissakes!) brainwashes children away from some supposedly “natural” desire for racial segregation. Perry is quite right, the logic of free, open societies is cosmopolitanism. Neo-tribalism occurs when “group rights” are awarded precedence over individual freedom – a position inconsistent with Libertarianism.
Guessedworker: miscegenation is a crazy concept. I can’t comprehend how you or anyone else could possibly hang onto it. Since when have the Brits not been a “mongrel race”?
Next question? Hmmm. If you reduced state regulation … and kept everything else the same … then number of pharmacies might go up.
Sounds like one of those If…then things, the validity of which rather depends on “and kept everything else the same”.
What if everything else didn’t stay the same? How would the pharmacy be stocked? Would the resources necessary to research the product, procure and transport the raw materials, and manufacture and distribute the product be within the grasp of one of these communities? If not, in what way would the effort to achieve the intercommunity cooperation necessary to provide these facilities be distinguishable from the functions of government?
My response should not be read as an argument for central planning, collectivism or any of those horrors. But part of the “and kept everything else the same” that your reply implicitly relies on are the whole categories of infrastructure that are outwith the resource of sub-nation scale communities.
Sure they can provide their own fire brigades and schools. But Kibbutzes don’t build motorways, energy distribution systems or CAT scanners. Neither, I suspect, would anything other than a government. Without them your cheerful assumption of regulation-free proliferation of services looks a bit counter-intuitive and Friedland’s desire to have a little bit of government starts to look more like a desire to be a little bit pregnant.
“Ah, but you haven’t read the book”. While I haven’t read the book, I am aware of it, and Mr Friedman isn’t the only person to have speculated on the properties of societies constructed on the principles of private property and minimal government. In particular, I am aware of the criticism often levelled at Friedman, that he doesn’t go into the boring nitty gritty of how all the theories would fit together in practice. Yet, it is the boring nitty gritty failing to fit together in practice that is going to make my life shit, and I’m never terribly well disposed to “it’ll be alright on the night” classes of argument when we are talking about my quality of life.
So please forgive my curiousity and skepticism.
(I’m trying to order the book, BTW, but there is a 4 week delay on it at Amazon!)
There are many serious flaws in the work of both Hoppe and Friedman jr. and the secondary literature on them in not extensive compared to figures like Hayek, Mises and Friedman snr.
On immigration, Hoppe wildly overstates his case, but it is true that much immigration is indeed subsidised in one way or another by the state, miscegnation is also probably higher than would actually occur in a pure free market. There is no overt state pro miscegnation bureau but there are prohibitions on discrimination and rules compelling ‘equal opportunities’ policies. I want these subsidies to immigration and prohibitions on discrimination stopped of course, not because I oppose miscegnation but because I am in favour of freedom. Perry is right that the effect of libertarian free enterprise will lead to cosmopolitanism and social toleration in the bigger cities, but there will also be more ethinically and culturally homogeneous communities thriving as well. Which people prefer to live in will be a matter of choice and this is all to the good.
The recently revealed fact that Guessedworker spends much of his time absorbed in watching children’s television will come as no surprise to those who have read any of his comments.
“My final concern – where would you buy haemorrhoid cream in an anarcho-capitalist state? The finest political construct in the world is as nothing to those who have faced the misery of a pain in the bum if he can’t rely on the presence of a pharmacy (and a manufacturer, and a road upon which to transport the emollient, and some research to offer the slender hope of a cure). ”
Research would come from researchers, who hope to profit by making something that fits your needs like nothing else ever has. (Would we need patents to ensure that they do indeed profit?)
Manufacturers would manufacture in hopes of making a profit.
As Dr. Emmett Brown said, “Roads? Where we’re going, we won’t need roads”. Drop the regulatory state and you’ll see personal aircraft profilerate.
While I haven’t read the book…
But proceeded to criticise a theoretical society which Friedman didn’t describe.
Richard’s remarks make little sence to me, almost like someone has removed part of what was presumably written and just published a fragment. Removing the regulatory state would only make market forces less able to provide for market needs if there were no other regulating forces available, such as private security and polycentric law… i.e. if regulatory statism was replaced not by either anarchy or minarchy but by chaos. Thus unless that is predicated, the remarks do not really mean anything. Clearly modern market economies, such as are allowed to exist, are not the product of states but rather happen in spite of them. After all, markets predate states by rather a long time.
richard,
Andy – first off, thank you for a well researched and thoughtfully constructed piece. Your review appears to be so thorough I’m debating whether I need to buy the book. In terms of response, the depth of the piece makes it difficult to give more than impressions rather than point by point discussion. But here goes.
No, if you really want to convince yourself that you disagree with Friedman, you ought to buy the book and see for yourself.
My cards on the table – the yoke of the state rests uneasily on my shoulders, too, and I laughed out loud at your rightful condemnation of the Guardian readers. But I’m one of those who believe government is necessary. I acknowledge your dismissal of my view as the outcome of brainwashing, but I’m confident that I’m sufficiently aware of my own thought processes to have arrived at that conclusion through the independent application of my own critical faculties.
No doubt, everyone thinks that at any given point in their lives. Yet, everyone also grows and learns things they were not aware of just moments ago. Critical faculties must be applied repeatedly to both arrive at, and continually reaffirm, conclusions.
You mention your unease at Hoppe’s analysis, and describe that unease (sagaciously, I thought) as a sense of instability. The problem I have is that is exactly the criticism that can be leveled at any system that isn’t underpinned by the transfer of some measure of personal liberty to a third party (i.e. a state).
Third party != state. Why must it? Already, it is apparent that you really ought to read the book. Friedman’s argument is not third party systems are unnecessary for conflict resolution and mediation.
There are many systems we can construct that would serve as valid frameworks for regulating our affairs. But they all rely, somewhere in their construction, in the statement “If (such and such comes to pass) then (utopia ensues)”. The debate therefore focuses on the likelihood of such and such coming to pass, and – crucially – the consequences of it not in relation to the existing state of affairs.
Again, Friedman does not argue for utopia. He is very skeptical of his own ideas throughout the book.
Yet, there is nothing wrong with arguing for a better society. Sure, socialists were dead wrong in their vision of utopia. But that is a testament to their flawed philosophy, not an indictment of all people seeking a better society. If it were, there would be no reason for this blog, or for us to even be having this discussion. The classical liberals and American Founders were also ‘utopian’ during their day, and what they accomplished advanced human civilization more than the prior million years of mankind’s history. Simply doing away with the King was as radical an idea then as doing away with the state is today.
The same questions were asked – “Without a king, who shall make the law of the land?” “Who shall rule?” “Surely men need a higher authority to prevent a constant state of war of man against man!”
I don’t think so. I must admit, I haven’t got a very clear picture in my mind of what living in one of these stateless communities would feel like (I’m getting unhelpful images of people in floaty white garments and poncy bound leggings like those chaps in Mad Max).
I’m not sure what ‘communities’ you are referring to, but it doesn’t sound like anything in Friedman’s book.
It makes my blood boil to pay taxes through the nose for a misbegotten government to squander it on purposes of which I do not approve. But my anger and distress are as nothing compared to that which I would feel if I – or worse, my son – were shot by one of our neighbour’s in one of Friedman’s grim, armed communities. That is the unacceptable consequence of the conditions for success failing to come to pass.
Again, what ‘grim, armed communities’ are you talking about?
You know what makes my blood boil? Seeing the jackbooted mafia thugs who enjoy a monopoly on the use of force terrorize children in these so called centers of learning. Seeing these same thugs make laws that have no bearing on reality. Seeing these same thugs given absolute power which gives them no incentive to be just.
Can we not do better? Shouldn’t we at least try?
Given those conditions are many and complex, the likelihood of success is unacceptably low. The state of affairs that would ensue if the attempt failed would be (considerably) worse than those that prevail. And so it will remain a theory to me. If it ever was likely to materialise, I would depart these shores. Cowardice? Is it cowardice not to step in front of a moving vehicle?
Maybe you are in the process of being run over right now, and the state of affairs that Friedman talks about is your escape.
My final concern – where would you buy haemorrhoid cream in an anarcho-capitalist state? The finest political construct in the world is as nothing to those who have faced the misery of a pain in the bum if he can’t rely on the presence of a pharmacy (and a manufacturer, and a road upon which to transport the emollient, and some research to offer the slender hope of a cure).
True of false-
1) Without the Dept of Commerce, there would be no commerce.
2) Without the Dept of Education, there would be no education.
3) Without the Dept of Food, there would be no food.
4) Without the Dept of Haemorrhoid Cream, there would be no haemorrhoid cream.
As we found ourselves in our fortified enclave, lacking the ability to reliably generate light and heat, unable to join and insufficiently close to a community that could, fending off the predations of a mafia that the market had rendered unprofitable to tackle in our neck of the woods and nursing our sore bums, some of the things we take for granted in our rotten system might start to impinge on our consciousness rather more forcefully …
Fortified enclave without light of heat? Again, just what the heck are you talking about? Surely, nothing Friedman has ever talked about. You are making the same mistake socialists do – assuming that without the state, there would be no society. Society and state are not the same. There is a night-and-day difference between voluntary associations and involuntary associations. Getting rid of involuntary associations does not reduce us to cavemen. If it did, The Enlightenment would have been the end of Western culture. Friedman just wants us to take the logical consequences of individualist philosophy and ‘go all the way’. The status-quo is often viewed as preferable simply due to inertia; it exists, it’s semi-comfortable, it’s here and now. Friedman might be wrong, but if humanity is ever forward-looking, it must continually explore better ways of organizing society.
But proceeded to criticise a theoretical society which Friedman didn’t describe.
… and while I wait for it (the book, not the society) to arrive, declare my uninformed state and engage in stimulating debate with those who have by way of mental preparation.
And, of course, this isn’t String Theory. The practical challenges that any society that wishes to defend private property but dispense with government have to solve are sufficiently general that the topic can be usefully debated without reference to any particular tract.
Andy D might wish to host that debate and inform it with further thoughts from Friedman’s book, or he may wish quite legitimately to confine the debate to this specific book, in which case I bid you a respectful farewell …
Frank and others,
Studio-based children’s TV programming has been subject to blatent social engineering all the years that my wife and I have been blessed with children of CBBC- and CITV-watching age. The policy of both broadcasters is the same in this area. It isn’t accidental. It reflects not the actual balance of the various races in the country but the racio-political convictions of those in the broadcast media. Would you really expect anything else of our beloved liberal-left?
This is not to say, Frank, that children are brain-washed by their output. It says that the intention is to brainwash them or, at least, to advance the glorious day of that one-world of equal people. It is of a piece with but actually one step beyond the accusatory use of the “r” word and the imposition of PC attitudes on the white adult population. It ought, in my humble opinion, to be an issue of abiding concern to all libertarians because it is about limiting freedom of thought.
Julian,
We are NOT a mongrel race. You are a recipient of an idea received directly from the cultural marxist tendency. Go root around at Gene Expression. You might find that we English are no more mixed than other European peoples (some of whom, like the Danes, Jutes, Engles and Saxons, cannot be meaningfully distinguished by genetics). The left’s regular use of the mongrel strategem is intended to reduce perceptions of racial difference. The idea is to make us more accepting of peoples who are, in fact, utterly different to ourselves. Resist it – don’t regurgitate it, old man.
Guessedworker,
Why do television pictures of the races getting along together upset you? Or do you not think that it is really possible?
Friedman like his father is a conservative: slow change is best. Feel your way, muddle through. After years as a radical on the left and right I have to agree.
The era of the regulatory state is over. What is wanted is an informational state. If the state did anything it ought to be more like Consumer Reports than the Soviet Union to totally mix the metaphors.
Paul,
In your BNW how would cosmopolitanism differ from present-day London or Paris? If, God forbid, it was indeed higher than now and yet there were more freely-chosen racially homogenous areas elsewhere, would that not suggest White Flight? I think it might, in which case one must ask which freedoms would be advanced and which withdrawn in Coulamworld?
Paul,
If I didn’t make myself clear enough for you I am sorry. My complaint here is of the socially-engineering left. I take it you would agree that presenting false and leading imagery to impressionable minds for political purposes is despicable.
Guessedworker,
Like elitists every where you believe the masses can’t sort out what they want on their own.
The fact that there are fewer and fewer protesters as time goes on and that Bush and America have significant if not majority British support says otherwise.
Also the fact that I have gine from anarcho-communism to anarcho-capitalism shows that people can be moved by arguments and events.
Which is why I don’t care much for Hoppe and his racialist theories. Right or left I never cared too much for that school of thought. Proving that there may be ideas that trancend politics. Democracy, whiskey, sexy. Works for me now as it did then.
Guessedworker: If I read you right children’s TV presenters should be employed to reflect the actual “balance” of races and not according to other criteria. So I guess you would support a quota system to achieve this?
I wonder if you really believe that the mass of “white” British share your desire for racial segregation. Has everybody been brainwashed, do they simply exhibit “False Consciousness” and need to be re-educated?. “Freedom of thought” has a nice Orwellian ring to it. Don’t you really mean “Freedom to think like Guessedworker”?
It seems that despite the excellent work being done by many libertarian organisations to inform people of the ideas of Hayek, Rand, Von Mises etc etc when people are first exposed to the ideas of a stateless, or minarchist, society they immediately think that this means there will be no law, no industry, no trade and so on.
I have had many frustrating conversations with friends who seem unable to comprehend that reducing the size and scope of government does not mean no law enforcement, defence or security.
Far from the terrifying vision Richard seems to have of streets evrywhere controlled by armed gangs (which is already a reality in many places) we are talking about a place that is safer for everyone.
We are going to have to try harder to get the message across that libertarianism, in whatever your pet form, will mean fairer law, more trade, more wealth and much more security and individual freedom.
[Jonathan – we cross posted. Apologies]
Relax. I don’t want to convince myself I disagree with Mr Friedman. I want to ensure that there is at least some prospect of the legitimate doubts I have about abandoning government being addressed before I invest the effort in reading his work. Please.
Critical faculties must be applied repeatedly to both arrive at, and continually reaffirm, conclusions. Hey ho. That would be why I’m here.
Third party != state. My bad. I mean’t “e.g.” Of course he has an argument. The Communists have an argument. The trick is finding one that doesn’t violate every principle of intuition in its beholder.
Yet, there is nothing wrong with arguing for a better society. All of what you say is absolutely true, and very well put. None of what you say I can relate to that which preceded it.
what ‘grim, armed communities’ are you talking about? etc
That grim, armed community.
Maybe you are in the process of being run over right now, and the state of affairs that Friedman talks about is your escape.
You don’t know me, other than through two postings on an internet site. People who know me would not describe me as run over. Believe me.
True or false, commerce, education, food, etc.
What an unfortunate choice of examples, Jonathan. A couple of years ago a few folks in my country decided they didn’t like the tax they were paying on petrol, took the law into their own hands and blockaded the roads. Within three days there was no petrol at my local station, there were no teachers at my kids school, and there were no fresh vegetables in my store. There had been a fleeting interruption in one aspect of our society, and commerce, education and food were all starting to visibly degrade.
Your statements are true. Another true statement, however, is 4) Without stability, there can be none of the above. My point is not concerned with the tax levels, the police intervention or any of that. It is that our system is so deeply intertwingled that even small disturbances in one part of it now generate catastrophic instabilities throughout the whole of it. This situation will only intensify.
It is against this context that Friedman proposes legitimising the mafia, setting autonomous protective agencies against them and arming every household. I am unable to escape the conclusion that our society will be unable to withstand the resulting instability and that loss of services that we currently take for granted will be a fact of life.
You are making the same mistake socialists do – assuming that without the state, there would be no society etc.
Well, no. I believe I am capable of differentiating between state and society. However, I believe that societies can function more smoothly when they are underpinned by certain types of infrastructure. I believe that infrastructure is extremely resource intensive and not readily mappable onto population centres. I believe the best way to provide that infrastructure is through pooled resourcing and, however you describe it, some sort of sovereign power to allocate it. I believe the frustration we experience in the way that task is currently executed could be exceeded only by subjecting it to the forces of individualism.
Jonathan, I can quite easily see how a fit, intelligent and confident person could accept the challenge of accepting the logical consequences of individualist philosophy, ‘go all the way’, and thrive – I could. But we also share our society with the unfit, the unintelligent and the unconfident. I feel I have a responsibility to them, and arming them and giving them the phone number of one of the thousand private protection agencies doesn’t feel to me like a great way of fulfilling that responsibility.
M.Simon,
The masses sorting out what they want in the area of race relations could be the one thing we all ernestly want to avoid. Libertarians are right about so many things. But in the one area of race they are, more often than not, wilfully unrealistic. Open borders produce displacement. Displacement produces resentment, resentment backlash and so on. At least Hoppe tried to face up to that.
Thusfar,various levels of legal and moral coersion have been applied to the white native population to keep it in check and to advance an unwanted multicultural agenda. Do you really and truly know what they will do if they are given absolute freedom to choose? Well, I can’t be sure. I don’t think anyone can. This is a classic Pandora’s Box – and remains so whether incrementalism is employed or not because the tectonics of race are not susceptible to micro-management by mere mortals.
Paul’s illusory alternative to Pandora is a tolerant if not actually bohemian cosmopolitanism that he extrapolates from the cafe society of interesting and educated people he sees around him today. These people are about 5% of the population, I should imagine, and have absolutely nothing to do with the belly of the nation.
Of course I don’t have an answer to the problem. It seems appropriate, though, to “stop digging” immigration-wise and to try to listen to people’s truth rather than make it illegal or immoral.
To tell the truth, I was always less than impressed with the anarcho-capitalist pie-in-the-sky platform, at least as it is presented on this website. Is there any other website that I should also be reading?
I consider myself a classical liberal. I would like less government involvement in my life and wallet. I think that going back to where things were before the Great War (in terms of government expenditure as percentage of GNP, say) would be an improvement which I don’t think I will see in my lifetime.
The problem that I see is: a majority of the population are OK with being taxed, say, 30% of their salaries in exchange for all the touchy-feely goodness the government provides. What are you anarcho-libertarians going to do about it? You seem to be really good at scoffing, but I don’t think that is going to be good enough.
Finally, you will note that the political movements that are left standing right now are utopia-free: conservatives/US Republicans, socialdemocrats/Labor/US Democrats, liberals.
For some 19th Century source material on American anarcho-capitalism (in theory and practice), see this section of The Memory Hole, particularly the pieces by Josiah Warren and Lysander Spooner.
Some pretty radical shit is in there, much of it (private money and such) not having been practical to implement pre-Internet; one of the dirty little open secrets of modern cryptography is that it could be used to build radically non-statist financial systems and markets, and be used to support free market, competitive legal systems with strongly verifiable digital contracts.
For an incrementalist approach to alternative, competive law, think of using a digital, online alternative binding arbitration service for any disputes in a contract. This has already started happening, with good results, in certain sectors of the insurance industry in some jurisdictions, with better satisfaction ratings by claimants, insurance companies, and policy holder defendants. This specific gradualist approach seems more likely to go down well in Common Law nations.
But my point is that it is, in some quarters, slowly happening.
richard writes:
Andy D might wish to host that debate and inform it with further thoughts from Friedman’s book, or he may wish quite legitimately to confine the debate to this specific book, …
It’s not my right to confine discussions to anything at all. That right belongs to the private owner of this site.
Buy the book, and read it. David Friedman’s purpose in writing the book was to spread the ideas of libertarianism. My purpose in writing a review of it was to try to give it a boost in sales, to spread its excellent ideas of libertarianism.
And you will not spend a better amount of cash this year, unless of course you’ve got a first class flight ticket, to Sydney, and a ticket to the game on Saturday! 🙂
Hi Frank,
Well, I would certainly accept the argument that television should attempt to reflect society at large. But that’s a long step from employment quotas, as I am sure you know really. My point, in any case, was that minorities are grossly over-represented in studio-based childrens’ programming … that this is absolutely intentional (television is a 100% designed environment) … and that the objective is social engineering.
As for your second paragraph, Frank, I’ve just answered that in the conclusion to my previous comment: we should listen to people’s truth and not make it illegal or immoral.
Thank you, anyway, for giving me the opportunity to restate this view.
It is against this context that Friedman proposes legitimising the mafia, setting autonomous protective agencies against them and arming every household.
Thus, again showing that you still haven’t read the book.
You (mis)quoted:
Mafia gangs would be legal
The correct quote is:
…under anarchism virtually all of the activities of the current Mafia gangs would be legal
Friedman does not propose “legitimising the mafia”. He proposes legitimising trade in drugs, prostitution etc. – illegal trades that in today’s world make the mafia possible.
The protection agencies Friedman describes sign contracts with each other, which anticipate that a client of one agency may commit a crime against the client of another. These contracts stipulate that the resulting disputes will be resolved by an independent arbitrator – a private court. The contract between the protection agency and its client states that the agency is not obliged to protect its client from legitimate punishments for crimes the client may commit.
Such contracts arise because the protection agencies are businesses trying to make a profit and arbitration is a less costly way of resolving disputes than violence.
Not exactly a “grim, armed community”.
You also (mis)quoted:
in a nation with every homeowner possessing firearms
The correct quote is:
In the final analysis however, all of the protection agencies together would comprise a large fraction of the armed power of the nation, even in a nation with every homeowner possessing firearms, so they could in theory take over that nation.
Friedman doesn’t propose “arming every household” either. The reference to armed homeowners is merely a remark to reinforce the point that the possibility that a those protection agencies form a threat to the stability of society is a question which needs to be answered.
If you want to argue with Friedman’s answer to that question, then read the book. You’re currently attacking a straw man constructed from out-of-context quotes from a review of the book.
…illegal trades that in today’s world make the mafia possible.
For clarity, I think I should have rephrased this to “…trades, whose illegality in today’s world…”
David Friedman has webbed sample chapters of The Machinery of Freedom on his website, along with other book chapters (& one or two entire books of his) and various articles. Those who are waiting for their Amazon order to arrive might be interested.
BTW, is it a UKism to refer to him as “Mr.” Friedman despite his being a Ph.D. and a tenured professor? (Like the UK “Mr./Dr.” split between surgeons/medical doctors?)
You’re currently attacking a straw man constructed from out-of-context quotes from a review of the book.
I am indeed. And when I read the book I will have a number of questions in my mind, and many more prompted by your post:
These contracts stipulate that the resulting disputes… By “disputes”, I assume you mean things like me being shot. (I won’t provoke you by enquiring whether the probability of that happening will go up or down in a world of cheap, plentiful psychoactive substances).
will be resolved by an independent arbitrator If, as I understand, every institution is profit driven (there being no tax with which to fund third party functions), what will “independent” mean? How will the arbitrator be selected? Will I get a K-Mart arbitrator or Neiman Marcus one? How will the arbitrator reconcile the inevitable conflict between applying “the law” (however that is manufactured in this world) in a particular case, and maximising his profit from it?
not obliged to protect its client from legitimate punishments “Legitimate”? What, as in “authorized, sanctioned by, or in accordance with the law”? And who is going to set the law? Businesses set their strategies on the basis of maximising profit – is that the basis upon which these profit making agencies will make the law? What punishment? If killing a man is cheaper than incarcerating him, and profit is the driver, will capital punishment be universally reinstated?
protection agencies are businesses trying to make a profit and arbitration is a less costly way My granny has $10 a week surplus after paying her bills – she needs a “no costly” way – like the one she already has. Being shot by an incompetent police force is bad enough. Being shot by one because it is the end of the quarter, profits are down, and the likeness was “close enough in the half dark” appals.
etc. etc. etc. Oh my, such tedious nitty gritty.
I’ll read it. 😉
By “disputes”, I assume you mean things like me being shot.
No. Being shot is the crime you have suffered. The resulting dispute is over whether the criminal, who is likely to deny it, really did it, and, if so, what the legitimate punishment is.
If, as I understand, every institution is profit driven (there being no tax with which to fund third party functions), what will “independent” mean? How will the arbitrator be selected?
The arbitrator will be selected before the crime is commited by the contracts which anticipate the crimes before hand: protection agency A signs a contract with protection agency B which has a clause stating “In the event that a customer of agency A accuses a customer of agency B of committing a crime, the accused shall be tried by court C…”
How will the arbitrator reconcile the inevitable conflict between applying “the law” (however that is manufactured in this world) in a particular case, and maximising his profit from it?
The arbitrator is selected by the protection agencies before the crime is committed. If it already has a reputation for delivering unjust judgments it will lose business to a competitor – the protection angecies’ clients will tend to avoid those agencies which use courts which they perceive to be unjust.
“Legitimate”? What, as in “authorized, sanctioned by, or in accordance with the law”?
Yes.
And who is going to set the law?
The arbitration agencies.
Businesses set their strategies on the basis of maximising profit – is that the basis upon which these profit making agencies will make the law?
Yes, but note that the agencies which make the law are the arbitrators, not the protection agencies.
Since agencies are trying to make a profit by selling services that potential clients want to buy, the law will tend to reflect the preferences of the clients.
What punishment? If killing a man is cheaper than incarcerating him, and profit is the driver, will capital punishment be universally reinstated?
Perhaps, but I have no way of knowing. If some people regard the risk of wrongful execution as too great, then they will be prepared to pay a premium to agencies which use non-death penalty courts. Profitability isn’t determined by costs alone – it’s also determined by the price that customers are willing to pay.
…she needs a “no costly” way – like the one she already has.
A “no costly” way does not exist. The one she already has is not “no costly” – she’s been paying for it through her taxes all her life.
BTW, is it a UKism to refer to him as “Mr.” Friedman despite his being a Ph.D. and a tenured professor? (Like the UK “Mr./Dr.” split between surgeons/medical doctors?)
No. I think it’s usually done because they are unaware that the person has a Ph.D.
Guessedworker:
“Well, I would certainly accept the argument that television should attempt to reflect society at large. But that’s a long step from employment quotas, as I am sure you know really.
Actually, what I “know” is it is a very short step indeed. You might be surprised to discover that your belief that tv should “reflect society at large” is shared by most advocates of Affirmative Action. It rather reminds me of (then) Mayor Dinkins’ “gorgeous mosaic”.
“My point, in any case, was that minorities are grossly over-represented in studio-based childrens’ programming … that this is absolutely intentional (television is a 100% designed environment) … and that the objective is social engineering.”
Leaving aside the BBC for the moment as it is government run, what you are saying is that ITV shouldn’t have the freedom to employ whichever childrens tv presenters they like but should attempt instead to reflect society’s racial mix. I can’t see the libertarian point in this.
Certain “minorities” may be over-represented in kids’ tv, so what? You are happy to draw conspiratorial conclusions about this area and assume desires for social-engineering but when it comes to other areas of over- or under-representation you insist it is solely due to genes.
As for your second paragraph, Frank, I’ve just answered that in the conclusion to my previous comment: we should listen to people’s truth and not make it illegal or immoral.”
Or we should listen to your truth? My point is that you mischaracterise the “native” population and infer that they share your own views. That is quite a big jump. If your hypothesis was correct the BNP would be the largest party in England. The irony is that one of the signal characteristics of English culture is its relative tolerance when compared to other European countries. There is no British Le Pen.
protection agency A signs a contract with protection agency B which has a clause stating …
“In the event that an individual that isn’t a customer of any protection agency accuses a customer of agency B of committing a crime, the accused shall be” … what, exactly? Prosecuted by a charitable foundation, like the ones that currently dole out substandard health care to the medically underinsured in the US? Maybe we’ll come back to poor old granny in a second. And I’d be fascinated to see what sort of pre-agreement will exist between the “EZE-soo” Protection Agency vs. the Mellon-Carnegie Protection Agency, wouldn’t you?
The arbitrator is selected by the protection agencies So since the quality of the protection agency is determined by the client’s wealth, and the arbitration service is determined by the protection agency, the arbitration service is determined by the client’s wealth? Uhuh.
If it already has a reputation for delivering unjust judgments it will lose business to a competitor … and its prices will fall into a range that some can now afford. So the agencies that the poor can afford will include disproportionately those that have reputations for delivering unjust judgements? And now we’ve decoupled law making from notions of morality and placed it in service of profit, what mechanism exists to prevent the Arbitration Industry colluding to maximise yields from arbitration services in the way, say, that the movie industry colludes to maximise yields from DVD’s?
the protection angecies’ clients will tend to avoid those agencies which use courts which they perceive to be unjust.
cf.
“the protection angecies’ clients [that have a choice] will tend to avoid those agencies which use courts which they perceive to be unjust.”
the agencies which make the law are the arbitrators … the law will tend to reflect the preferences of the clients
Well, we’ve already established that there will be a proportion of society who have no protection agency and therefore no means of signalling their preference to the market, another proportion who can only access the inferior end and who’s means of signalling is corresponsdingly inferior. So the law will most perfectly reflect the preferences of the rich clients?
Perhaps, but I have no way of knowing. No, Andy, you don’t. And this is the essence of the problem. It’s OK to explore the limits of capitalism in the commercial domain through trial and error. Junk bond trading, cartels, insider dealing – who cares, its only money.
But consider the sorts of signals be that we will have to use to judge the efficiency of our new system. “Woops – execution rates soaring”, “Hey – look at all these folks with no protection – (slaps forehead) – who’d a thought!!” and “Wow, these Mafia guys have really sewn up the Protection Agency business”, etc. etc.
This is a difference in kind, not in degree. Our current method of providing an individual with legal representation is far from perfect. But under this system there are entire categories of people for whom there would be no access, and that is an intolerable position. to advocate
So the law will most perfectly reflect the preferences of the rich clients?
I think this quote summarises most of the points you made above.
Friedman’s answer to this point is taken from Icelandic medieval law, in which prosecutions were conducted privately. Under that system, most punishments consisted of compensation payed from the criminal to the victim. Furthermore compensation claims were transferable property.
Thus, say you’re the victim of a crime and would be due compensation of £10,000. Prosecution costs are £5000. You can sell your claim to a protection agency for anything up to £5000, who then prosecute on your behalf. You don’t need to be rich to get justice under that system.
…what mechanism exists to prevent the Arbitration Industry colluding to maximise yields from arbitration services in the way, say, that the movie industry colludes to maximise yields from DVD’s?
The potential for collusion depends on the number of firms – with a few large firms, collusion is possible, with many small firms, cartels are undercut by non-cartel members.
Industries dominated by a few large firms occur when there are large economies of scale, and tend to be the exception rather than the rule. If that applies to the protection industry then that would be a circumstance where we could see government re-emerging.
Perhaps, but I have no way of knowing. No, Andy, you don’t.
Your habit of lifting quotes out of context again. I have no way of knowing if people will prefer to use protection agencies which use courts which use the death penalty.
It’s OK to explore the limits of capitalism in the commercial domain through trial and error. Junk bond trading, cartels, insider dealing – who cares, its only money.
But consider the sorts of signals be that we will have to use to judge the efficiency of our new system. “Woops – execution rates soaring”, “Hey – look at all these folks with no protection – (slaps forehead) – who’d a thought!!” and “Wow, these Mafia guys have really sewn up the Protection Agency business”, etc. etc.
Seems remarkably similar to the sorts of signals that we already use to judge the efficiency of our present system.
Our current method of providing an individual with legal representation is far from perfect. But under this system there are entire categories of people for whom there would be no access, and that is an intolerable position to advocate.
You haven’t demonstrated that there would be.
Consider that under the present system, there isn’t much of a political issue about whether the market provides enough food, clothes or TVs to the poor. It’s the goods provided by government to the poor, and the middle classes for that matter – schools, hospitals, protection from crime – that cause the real political rows.
Frank,
Well, I said I accept the notion of “reflection”. I didn’t say that I espouse it as a vital point of principle! However, it is surely hard to marshall a coherent argument against it and, personally, I wouldn’t bother to try. I don’t know what you are trying to wring out of this line of enquiry.
You are right that I do not distinguish between the Beeb and the independent companies. But if you can assure me the independents steadfastly advertise for editors, personnel staff, line managers etc in the Torygraph I will happily do so. Meanwhile, though, I cling to the obstinate belief that the Guardian is the benefiary of said advertising. I also hold as a fundamental truth that the liberal left will always take every opportunity to proselytise its beliefs and preferences. Now, you can call that a conspiracy if you wish, but I did not. Indeed, I would specifically avoid making that charge about the programme of the left. It is a broad church united around the belief that suffering through inequality must be removed. Its members are not all Habermasians or Gramscians or even Boasians. But the church’s mission has nonetheless to a remarkable degree become the levelling of white hegemony – especially since the demise of classical marxism, and well before that in academic circles.
I hope this helps you to understand where I am arguing from. If you are in any doubt do please check out Sean Gabb’s two recent Free Life Commentaries on the subject. The second (Secret Policemen) is especially close to my own reading of the situation.
As regards the BNP, it is a roadblock and nothing else. Its deserved ill-repute and the shameful antics of some of its members prevent good people from developing and expressing their thoughts no less effectively than do the “r” word and PC itself.
These three factors, and not English tolerance, explain why we have held no debate on race and why the meaning of it in the longer-term for the white population is not commonly understood.
On tolerance, by the by, would you as an Irishman(I take it you’re Irish) allow me to get away with claiming that we English are a uniquely polite lot? Certainly, a Wimbledon tennis crowd used to be very polite once. But you could muster a sound, Dalrympian argument to the effect that the national temperament is altogether more brutish nowourdays. You could, indeed, argue that the Irish have long memories of another side to our national character that wasn’t polite at all.
I am not displeased that we are thought of as tolerant. But the cost of a bien pensant glow shouldn’t be mortgaged to our childrens’ future. That’s what I care about most. You don’t have to. You can attack me if you so wish. But I am bound to speak MY truth, Frank, while my people are bound to silence.
What I’m “trying to wring out of this line of inquiry” is your inconsistent attitude towards freedom of association. There is no difference between your complaint of an over-representation of minorities on children’s tv and the position of an affirmative action advocate. You may claim not to hold “reflection of society” as a vital point of principle yet you use this principle to bemoan the presence of minority childrens’ tv presenters.
My next point is that you are quite prepared to construct an elaborate hypothetical edifice which apparently seeks to “level white hegemony” to explain this over-representation yet would resist a similarly implausible argument proffered to explain other phenomenons of racial over-representation. Which is your preferred explanation for the over-representation of black footballers? social-engineering, environment or genes? Perhaps you are not aware of this inconsistency in your thinking or perhaps you have constructed an adequate post-rationalisation. I would hope that this would be somewhat more convincing than your explanation of the derisory support for the BNP given your hypothesis about the “real” feelings of the “natives”.
The last point is that you presume to speak for all “native” British. I am quite happy to offer my personal opinion of English culture as relatively tolerant – remember that this is when compared it to other European countries – but I wouldn’t presume to claim my compatriots would share this view.
“Your” people are not bound to silence, the reason for this “silence” is that few people share your view, hard as it may be to accept that.
You can sell your claim to a protection agency for anything up to £5000, who then prosecute on your behalf. You don’t need to be rich to get justice under that system.
I can think of few societies more constrasting to mine than that of a tiny, financially homogenous population on a small island in the 14th century, in which everyone was formally related to everyone else. My mind is boggled with the implications for non-transferrability. And I’ll need Friedman to explain how, if I am defending myself and have neither any money nor any claim, I could encourage a protection agency to defend me.
Industries dominated by a few large firms occur when there are large economies of scale, and tend to be the exception rather than the rule.
A limited but desired commodity creates the monopoly situation that all suppliers hanker for and customers fear. Unfortunately, the legal system is the one in which this effect is greatest. As Charles Handy points out in “The Hungry Spirit”, “Who, when their life or liberty are at stake, would not pay all that they could afford for the best lawyer in town? The old equation, which relates price to quality of goods delivered then breaks down. Even if we only get 10% more from paying three times as much, we will take the more expensive option if we can afford it, becayse we want that extra 10%, whatever it costs”.
I expect the industry would be characterised by a small number of elite agencies in a general population of lesser ones. This would serve both to polarise the quality of service available, and provide the conditions for those elite agencies and arbitration bodies colluding to generate laws that maximise revenue rather than justice.
Seems remarkably similar to the sorts of signals that we already use to judge the efficiency of our present system.
Agreed, but my point is that this domain (life and liberty) is less well suited to trial and error than the business domain from which the market mechanism is being transferred from. Out of context or not, your admirably frank admission of ignorance on certain points is more signficant than ignorance, say, about the probability of a Michael Milken arising in the financial world.
Out of interest, what in your view would limit the personal liberty equivalent of a corporate raider – someone with heaps of money and no scruples mounting hostile speculative prosecutions on the more poorly defended citizens through shell prosecution and arbitration agencies?
And I’ll need Friedman to explain how, if I am defending myself and have neither any money nor any claim, I could encourage a protection agency to defend me.
If you don’t have a claim, then you haven’t been the victim of a crime, so there isn’t a problem.
A limited but desired commodity creates the monopoly situation that all suppliers hanker for and customers fear.
No. A natural monopoly occurs when there are significant economies of scale, so that a firm with larger output can always undercut a firm with smaller output. This has got nothing to do with how scarce a commodity is, nor how much it is desired.
I can’t think of any reason why protection services should be scarce. Nor can I think of what fixed costs might make the industry a natural monopoly in a market of millions of people.
Agreed, but my point is that this domain (life and liberty) is less well suited to trial and error than the business domain from which the market mechanism is being transferred from.
But what system of law would not involve trial and error? You seem to be setting a criterion which no system could satisfy – unless it’s somehow desirable that judges never recognise past mistakes and no law is ever changed.
Out of context or not, your admirably frank admission of ignorance on certain points is more signficant than ignorance…
I’m curious, significant in what way?
Out of interest, what in your view would limit the personal liberty equivalent of a corporate raider – someone with heaps of money and no scruples mounting hostile speculative prosecutions on the more poorly defended citizens through shell prosecution and arbitration agencies?
Malicious prosecution would be a crime or tort, and so would create a counter claim. Lawyers could be hired on the basis that they would receive a cut of the damages for malicious prosecution.
Furthermore, I think the targets of malicious prosecution would be rich rather than poor people – they have more assets to seize. That seems to be the case in the present world.
If you don’t have a claim, then you haven’t been the victim of a crime, so there isn’t a problem.
You could launch a speculative prosecution against me now for the murder of your brother. You are very rich and I am very poor and, although I have the option to counter claim your malicious prosecution, I have not the means to hire the lawyers of the quality that you can. My lawyer recognises this, calculates the opportunity cost of defending me and declines my invitation to so. I haven’t been the victim of a crime, I don’t have a claim, yet I have a problem.
No. A natural monopoly occurs when there are significant economies of scale,
Yes. That is one cause. However, the monopoly the best barristers in London enjoy is not caused by economy of scale. It is the result of having the very best minds, and the tendency for those who can to pay disproportionately for those minds. When my life is at stake, I’m hardly interested in whether an alternative firm can undercut the best guy’s fee.
But what system of law would not involve trial and error?
Agreed, but you will admit the difference between continuous variation and discontinuous variation? While the original premise of this thread was making rapid change through a rapid series of small steps, the smallest increment of change in this system – abandoning the executive, judiciary and legislator – is far too big a trial, and the errors associated with the inevitable unintended consequences too great.
I’m curious, significant in what way?
The difference in significance between getting it wrong and an institution losing a million, and getting it wrong and a person losing their life. That way.
Furthermore, I think the targets of malicious prosecution would be rich rather than poor people – they have more assets to seize.
While my assets are relatively small, there are millions of people like me. Using the spam business model, a suitably ruthless and well funded individual would mount multiple parallel prosecutions using the proceeds from the successful cases to fund the smaller costs of those few successful counterclaims his targets’ inferior defences could mount. The prosecutors and arbitrators business is a volume based one, the CEOs know a revenue stream when they see one, and their shareholders would fire them if they didn’t, so they’re delighted of course, and indeed collude through apropriate adjustment of the laws to facilitate this (and other) types of activity.
Prosecution spam. You heard it here first.
You could launch a speculative prosecution against me now for the murder of your brother. You are very rich and I am very poor…
But what’s the point in launching a speculative prosecution if you are very poor. You don’t have many assets to seize, and I, being very rich have little need for your money.
I’d only be interested in prosecuting you if I was sure you really did murder my brother – as a deterrent to possible future murderers of members of my family.
However, the monopoly the best barristers in London enjoy is not caused by economy of scale.
I don’t believe London barristers do enjoy a real monopoly – but insofar as there are restricted practices, they are imposed by state licensing.
A natural monopoly is the only type of monopoly of any real relevance in anarcho-capitalism, there being no government to impose a state monopoly.
Agreed, but you will admit the difference between continuous variation and discontinuous variation? While the original premise of this thread was making rapid change through a rapid series of small steps, the smallest increment of change in this system – abandoning the executive, judiciary and legislator – is far too big a trial, and the errors associated with the inevitable unintended consequences too great.
No. You’ve got the wrong end of the stick.
I’ve been describing how the institutions would look once they’d been operating for many years and people had got used to them. I agree that it wouldn’t be desirable to make the change in one go.
Friedman advocates gradual, not rapid change. As far as abandoning the legislature etc. goes, it needn’t be done until the relevant private institutions have been set up and are operating in parallel with the government ones, with most people using the private institutions. It wouldn’t be such a big step in those circumstances.
The difference in significance between getting it wrong and an institution losing a million, and getting it wrong and a person losing their life. That way.
I don’t think I follow you. You seem to be demanding that mistakes never cause any deaths. I don’t think any society could meet that demand.
While my assets are relatively small, there are millions of people like me. Using the spam business model…
No. The analogy with spam doesn’t work. Spam exploits vast economies of scale – sending a million emails isn’t much more costly than sending one.
Economies of scale like that will not exist in prosecuting a million people – you would have to hire a million times the number of lawyers’ hours, pay a million times the court fees, process a million times the amount of paper work as you would with one.
Prosecutors will prefer to concentrate on those cases that the have a reasonable chance of winning, and those will tend to be the cases where the accused really is guilty.
Frank,
Your intent is plain enough and somewhat unfriendly, but I will treat you kindly all the same.
You, my friend, ARE certainly consistent. You consistently look beyond my point – the impact of broadly cultural marxist philosophy in this blessed isle – and at your own, unique interpretation. That you then set about discrediting as best you can.
Well, let’s get it straight one more time. My complaint about studio-based childrens’ television concerns the political intent of the programme makers. You’ve moved it on to employment policy, which is a different matter even if you can’t see it.
In your next point you deign to inform me about my views on the hitherto undiscussed subject of black footballers. What kind of straw man are you building here? Why, in any case, should I consider there to be a linkage between the left and professional football? Frank, you are falling victim to your own negativity.
Next, I can’t see why you find the lack of electoral appeal of the BNP meaningful. For pete’s sake, just accept the fact that no one supports a national socialist party, and bloody good job, too.
Your last great leap into the unknown is to claim that I am trying to speak for my people. I wrote, of course, only that I feel a duty to express my opinion while wider debate is morally and practically impossible (and, actually, has been so since The Rivers of Blood). Go back and read what I said again.
Your debating technique is a tad undisciplined, old man. You start from the knock-em-dead conclusion and build backwards from there, via any number of misunderstandings, intentional or otherwise. It’s a gas but then I don’t take it too seriously. Anyhow, I’m signing off this thread now. Better luck next time.
What scares me is that you would think that the people that read samizdata would “get it”. I read richard’s posts and I wonder if it’s possible to reverse the statist trends all over the world without a complete collapse. To many people are indoctrinated with the idea that civilisation=socialism. The propaganda is just so deep it’s so hard to get people to think any other way. Just the mention of firearms gets a knee jerk reaction about “grim” armed communities. This is just anti gun propaganda.
Andy
I suspect we are reaching the limits of the type conversation we can have in this limited format. However, some last observations:
The root of my argument is that you propose decoupling law making and justice from morality and social consensus, and recoupling it to the market and profit. A market is only a mechanism, not a philosophy. That mechanism has limits, and unintended consequences occur when those limits are exceeded.
You are taking that mechanism out of the commercial domain, where the cost of failure is acceptable, and applying it to a domain in which the cost of failure is unacceptable. The unintended consequences are many and grave.
Many of your statements are true, when made of rational, honest people. I have no doubt, for example, that you would only be interested in prosecuting me if you were sure I really did murder your brother. However, there are a sufficient numbers of people who would be prepared to prosecute me if there was the slimmest possibility of making a buck for me to be certain that is not a reliable limiting principle.
I have no reason to doubt that if you were rich you would find my money unattractive. Yet there are sufficient numbers of Mafia bosses and CEOs in today’s society for whom there is never enough money, for me to be certain that that is not a reliable limiting principle.
Your arguments to demonstrate how the system cannot be manipulated unacceptably by the unscrupulous are (so far) unconvincing. Your arguments for how the system can be made accessible to the weak, the old and the disabled are absent.
I don’t believe London barristers do enjoy a real monopoly Fair enough. I hope neither of us are ever prosecuted for murder and wonder why we are paying 3 times more for a guy who’s only 3% better…
Economies of scale like that will not exist in prosecuting a million people – you would have to hire a million times the number of lawyers’ hours
I am no Michael Milken yet I bet can think of half a dozen strategies for bucking a moral-free justice system. The precedents in today’s markets are depressing. And there are many Michael Milkens. I really need to read this book now since, as you point out, to attack part of the theory is to construct a straw man. I will do so with an open mind.
Brennen
Too many people are indoctrinated with the idea that civilisation=socialism. The propaganda is just so deep it’s so hard to get people to think any other way.
Well, be careful. I also believe quite strongly that living in a communist country would be next door to hell. Why, when I believe strongly in something you also believe in, am I exercising my critical faculties, yet when it is something you don’t, I am simply indoctrinated?
All brainwashed people think a certain way. Not all people who think a certain way are brainwashed.
Just the mention of firearms gets a knee jerk reaction about “grim” armed communities. This is just anti gun propaganda.
Well, no. It’s just the product of observing some of the delightful people with whom I share my community and their antics behind the wheel of a car, and imagining what those antics would be like if they were behind the stock of a deer rifle.
Then again. Perhaps proximity to a firearm has some uniquely civilising effect on the previously delinquent of which I am unfamiliar. That’s the trouble with indoctrination.
I suspect we are reaching the limits of the type conversation we can have in this limited format.
I’d rather resist the temptation to continue, but …
The root of my argument is that you propose decoupling law making and justice from morality and social consensus, and recoupling it to the market and profit.
This takes us into the realm of public choice theory. On what basis in the present system, or any system, is law making and justice coupled to morality and social consensus and decoupled from market and profit?
In the present system, most voters are ignorant of the issues affected by the election. Government policies are, to a large extent determined by squabbling between interest groups who have a large stake in the outcome – hardly morality and social consensus.
A market is only a mechanism, not a philosophy.
I don’t see the point of this remark. You may like to use philosophy to work out what you think would be the desirable features of a society, but when it comes to achieving those features you have to start talking about mechanisms. Democracy is only a mechanism, not a philosophy.
However, there are a sufficient numbers of people who would be prepared to prosecute me if there was the slimmest possibility of making a buck for me to be certain that is not a reliable limiting principle.
I rather doubt it. To prosecute you, they have to pay costs. If the probability of success is slim, then they’re not going to do it. Nobody’s going to pay costs of £5000 in exchange for a 1% probability of getting £20,000.
Your arguments for how the system can be made accessible to the weak, the old and the disabled are absent.
Nonsense. I already stated that crimes create claims for compensation which can be sold.
I hope neither of us are ever prosecuted for murder and wonder why we are paying 3 times more for a guy who’s only 3% better…
More the fool you. I’d pay 1/3 the price for a guy who’s only 3% worse.
I am no Michael Milken yet I bet can think of half a dozen strategies for bucking a moral-free justice system.
The first strategy you suggest didn’t work.
But besides, the system Friedman proposes is no more “moral-free” than our present one. Our present laws are still made by people looking out for their self-interest, even if some of the rewards come in a non-pecuniary form – job security and status for civil servants, for example.
The point of Friedman’s system is that if you are not satisfied with the protection you’re getting, you can shop around elsewhere. Under the present system you have to emigrate. Under Friedman’s system you can emigrate without moving home.
Then again. Perhaps proximity to a firearm has some uniquely civilising effect on the previously delinquent of which I am unfamiliar. That’s the trouble with indoctrination.
Correct on all accounts. I have lived in places where there was indeed a gun (or six) in every house and I must say that I felt a great deal safer in those places (one of which was Croatia in 1993) than I do living in London today.
Perhaps proximity to a firearm has some uniquely civilising effect on the previously delinquent of which I am unfamiliar.
I don’t think the argument is that it’s the delinquent’s possession of a firearm which civilises him. He’s civilised by other people’s possesion of firearms.
But this discussion is now in danger of wasting too much of my time…
And here is a nice little picture of me and Nikki for guessedworker, rather than a long screed on what I think…
Perry,
I’m done with Frank but I’ll come back for you.
Your “long screed” of 28.03.02 was interesting. I believe that you misapprehend two important points.
First multiculturalism is not in itself an attempt to dismantle an Anglospheric, free-market capitalist society. Forget about that. The left has. Neither is multiculturalism a state imposed policy to prevent assimilation, though I can see how one might arrive at both conclusions. Capitalism and assimilation are not the point. Equality is the point … equality as the means AND the end.
I will repeat what I said to Frank. The surviving theology of the left can be summed up in six words: Suffering through inequality must be removed. This is the unifying aim of the left, and the gate through which the values of the Frankfurt School and the techniques of Antonio Gramsci have passed into the political life, first, of the left in general and, second, the nation as a whole. Sean Gabb is far more eloquent on this subject that I am, and I commend his FLC, The Secret Policemen.
The second misappehension is much thornier – the nature of the English and the nature and assimibility of Third World immigrants. So, the nature of the English …
Your libertarian rainbow somewhat overly relies upon personal experience of London’s streets, a future-world of which you approve. But London was cosmopolitan when I worked there twenty-five years ago. It is a world city like New York or Paris. A particularly high percentage of immigrants go there. Do you need me to describe the picture as I walk along the streets of Bridgenorth or Downham Market, Trowbridge or Thirsk? The world of the English that I walk through is not failing and doomed because it doesn’t have enough rumbustuously ambitious Third Worlders. Neither is it Hoppe’s stodgy, archaic Ein Volk. It is, in fact, the seat of the most adventurous and inventive people in history (a laurel which sits equally upon the Scots, Welsh and Irish). There is a massive loss of nerve inherent in the conclusion that we cannot compete without increasingly ceding our homeland (for which you admit to no feeling) to strangers. This, anyway, is the course presently set by the liberal-left and will produce a rural, white minority in the next fifty to one hundred years.
So, what chance assimibility? Would Third World immigrants to post-white England need to assimilate? And assimilate with what? Just the commercial culture? If you mean full assimilation, ie blood-mixing, you are commending the eradication of the white race.
These are great issues. If you choose to debate them can you do it with English gentility, please?
If the probability of success is slim, then they’re not going to do it. Nobody’s going to pay costs of £5000 in exchange for a 1% probability of getting £20,000.
With the lawyer of the quality they could afford and my inability to afford a lawyer, the probability could easily exceed 25%. This is exactly the mechanism that would underpin the multiple hostile prosecution business model and one of the many trivial scams that could be employed.
Nonsense. I already stated that crimes create claims for compensation which can be sold.
I can understand this point and I have a high IQ. My grandmother won’t understand it, neither will a cretin. In the present system, there is a mechanism for assisting those who are unable to help themselves. Yet in this one, there won’t. Can a system that can’t be understood by someone really be considered to be accessible by them? My point remains, I think, unanswered.
More the fool you. I’d pay 1/3 the price for a guy who’s only 3% worse.
Excellent! I hope you’re up against me, since my success and your failure will be determined by that margin, not by either absolute. You can celebrate the health of your savings account from chokey (assuming it wasn’t a more terminal fate I was pressing for) so there is something for everyone, I suppose.
For my part, I’ve found you patience admirable and the discussion fascinating. I remain unconvinced, but that is the consequence of an implausible theory, not your powers of advocacy.
regards
I don’t think the argument is that it’s the delinquent’s possession of a firearm which civilises him. He’s civilised by other people’s possesion of firearms.
My grandmother is unable to wield a firearm. Yet under your proposal, the delinquent climbing through her front window now has one (he needs to, of course, in case I’m waiting for him with mine).
I’d be genuinely curious to learn what civilising forces are imagined to be at work in this situation, and what assumptions they rely upon.
[I mention my grandmother a lot. I trust you recognise it as a poetic device for representing any member of society who lacks the strength or capacity to defend themselves – I don’t actually have one!]
With the lawyer of the quality they could afford and my inability to afford a lawyer, the probability could easily exceed 25%.
Unless the case is a reasonable one, I doubt it.
My grandmother won’t understand it, neither will a cretin. In the present system, there is a mechanism for assisting those who are unable to help themselves. Yet in this one, there won’t.
I’m reminded of a Question Time debate where they were discussing the NHS. Stephen Twigg whined “Who’s going to look after my grandmother if there’s no NHS”. Janet Daley, sitting next to him, replied “You are!”
A small proportion of people without protection will exist under any system – they exist under the present system. The vast numbers which you seem to fear is a conclusion you have made without a supporting argument.
I hope you’re up against me, since my success and your failure will be determined by that margin, not by either absolute.
I don’t think so. I rather doubt a 3% difference in the quality of the lawyers would be sufficient to win an unreasonable case.
For my part, I’ve found you patience admirable and the discussion fascinating. I remain unconvinced, but that is the consequence of an implausible theory, not your powers of advocacy.
Arguing is one of my hobbies. Unfortunately, I don’t find blog comment boxes particularly congenial to complex arguments.
Read the book – it’s more detailed than what’s been summarised here. Friedman answers most of the obvious objections to his ideas. If you still find it implausible, or you think of other objections, you can always email him.
Unless the case is a reasonable one, I doubt it.
Since the test of “reasonable” now means “profitable to the shareholders of the prosecution and arbitration companies”, this is a failure to compare like with like.
I’m reminded of a Question Time debate where they were discussing the NHS. Stephen Twigg whined “Who’s going to look after my grandmother if there’s no NHS”. Janet Daley, sitting next to him, replied “You are!”
I’ve been shot by a delinquent villager who didn’t understand the civilising intention of my shotgun. Poor granny.
The vast numbers which you seem to fear is a conclusion you have made without a supporting argument.
USA == supporting argument.
guessedworker:
I care nothing for any ‘race’, just people, so why on earth should I care about ‘blood mixing’? What inherent value does race have? It has none as idiots and geniuses come in all shapes, sizes and colours.
If my great grandchildren are all blond haired, blue eyed little ‘Aryans’ like me, well that is fine… and if they are dark skinned, brown eyed and dusky of skin because someone fell in love with someone else from a different race… well that is just fine by me too. Should I object if a child of mine wanted to marry a Jewish physicist or a Japanese artist or a Kenyan doctor or an Indian mathamatician? I cannot for the life of me see why it should bother me unless I felt that they as individuals were not worthy of my off-spring’s affections for some reason of character… but that of course is another issue entirely.
I am rather more confident that the core values underpinning the Anglospheric culture from which liberty and cosmopolitanism springs, is the ‘dominant’ world culture and will eventually have out over the alternatives. For me, that is really all that matters.
Since the test of “reasonable” now means “profitable to the shareholders of the prosecution and arbitration companies”, this is a failure to compare like with like.
No. Reasonable means that there is evidence you committed the crime you are accused of. A court which has a reputation for taking on unreasonable cases will lose business, as the people accused of crimes will refuse to recognise the legitimacy of the court.
USA == supporting argument.
No it’s not.
The USA is not an anarho-capitalist society. Police and courts are still a government monopoly. It is not evidence of what things would be like when police and courts are private businesses.
Richard: I will break my own rule of depreciating long comments…
you seem to have little understanding of the role of civil society. As I minarchist I cannot argue for the completely stateless position, but my views are in fact quite similar to Andy Wood on most of the points he has made.
The fact is that people do not want ‘Granny’ to be at risk because people do not want disorder. Chaos is in fact quite a fragile state of affairs and only persists through active effort (such as when the state wishes it to, like in various parts of Africa). If you have a functioning civil society, then it is not dog eat dog regardless of how pervasive or invisible the state is. If people do not transgress against other because it is illegal, then when the state’s ability to enforce its laws weakens, people will increasingly transgress against others. Don’t believe me? Try walking through Peckham at night on a regular basis and then tell me what you think. However if most people do not transgress against others because they think that is wrong (which is to say they take a moral view), then the waxing and waning of the state is likely to have far less baleful effects on the rate at which people will transgress. Yet this desirable condition is predicated upon having not a functioning state but a functioning society… but alas, you simply cannot legislate morality and civil virtues into people and if you could, I would be a socialist now rather than a libertarian (or ‘social individualist’ which I rather prefer). If you could just use politics to instil morality and virtue, well, rebuilding Iraq would be a simple matter. Unfortunately, after decades of Ba’athist Socialism, Iraqi civil society does not really exist and that is going to lead to all manner of problems that will take generations to fix themselves.
When I was in Croatia & Herzegovina during the most recent war there, I often visited areas where there was, in effect, no state, at least in any meaningful sense… as in the state, in the shape of a few guys in a truck, turned up to a frontline village, asked who was in charge, then dished out a few rifles, light machineguns and some crates of ammo (if they were lucky, a few RPGs and Ambrust with instruction leaflets in case some Yugoslav Army regulars turned up with tanks) and the drove off, not to be seen again for quite a while, leaving the locals to fend for themselves, often for very long periods of time… militias were overwhelmingly organised on the most local level imaginable. A man I knew called Boroslav Beslic was a local florist and he commanded the abortive initial Croatia defence of Petrinja against Serbian regulars with an ad hoc militia.
This is what civil society looks like too.
The point I am making is that people where armed to the teeth and ‘Granny’ often did indeed have a Kalashnikov. The main reason for this was of course to defend themselves against Cetnics but this also had the effect of greatly reducing crime in many areas, and reducing violent crime to damn near zero. The chance of getting shot dead (or at least getting into a gunfight) if you break into a house has a ameliorating effect on all but the most dimmest of would-be criminals. I am not suggesting the war in the Balkans circa 1992 were ideal social situations by any means but social situations is most certainly what they were (and what is more, it had quite a radicalising effect on my personal philosophies and understanding of the importance of society over state).
No system can produce stability unless there is a functional extended (i.e. greater than familial) civil society to underpin it, and you simply cannot replace that underpinning with a state and not expect monstrous result in the end. States are not moral entities, they are political entities, and thus to expect the laws of a state to represent morality in more than the most passing fashion is foolishness. You need only look at the state of modern law to see that.
A court which has a reputation for taking on unreasonable cases will lose business, as the people accused of crimes will refuse to recognise the legitimacy of the court.
So – if I shoot your brother and you prosecute me, it will be sufficient for me to refuse to recognise the legitimacy of your court? How will we determine when it is legitimate to fail to recognise the legitimacy of a court, and when it won’t? Clearly the arbitrator can’t decide as it has a vested interest. Another arbitrator? appointed how? Can I refuse to recognise its legitimacy?
And will a court which has a reputation for failing to find in favour of the rich run the risk of losing the disproportionately lucrative business of the rich? Why, in a market driven system, would the rich not then collude to marginalise those courts that did not find in their favour in order to maximise the probability of a favourable outcome from the general population of arbitrators?
A small proportion of people without protection will exist under any system – they exist under the present system. The vast numbers which you seem to fear is a conclusion you have made without a supporting argument.
The default position of the existing system is to include everyone and exclude on the basis of wealth. The default position of the new system would be to exclude everyone and include on the basis of wealth. Given the distribution of wealth in any given society is always a tiny percentage at the top end and a very long tail, is it not self evident that this will result in a greater number of excluded people at the poor end?
To conclude otherwise feels like an “it’ll be alright on the night” argument. Dislike those.
Perry (in fact, chaps, I’m going to have a hard time keeping up with two extremely detailed and provocative debates, and I have a life to lead outside of these pages, so forgive my lack of thoroughness)
A thoughtful post.
The chance of getting shot dead (or at least getting into a gunfight) if you break into a house has a ameliorating effect on all but the most dimmest of would-be criminals.
The sneaky problem is that bright criminals represent the minority of all criminals. And the corollary of your proposition – that the chance of getting shot dead has a brutalising effect on all but the brightest of would-be criminals – is the very reason why increasing the availability of arms in a society increases the likelyhood of violence in that society..
In what way would arming those girls who were shot outside the nightclub last New Year have reduced the likelyhood of their deaths? They were killed in cross fire, not targetted fire. The mechanism you propose for suppressing criminal acts – honest citizens starting a gunfight – would generate more cross fire, the very sort that killed them. And the sums of money in organised crime are so large that honest citizens carrying guns won’t deter them – it will cause them to buy semi-automatics, shoot even more indiscriminately and create more crossfire.
I am fortunate not to live in the US, am exposed to effectively no risk of being shot, and enjoy the freedom of not having to live the limited life that constantly having to guard against that possibility would require.
The only way I could preserve that position, were we to arm our citizens, would be to accept the responsibility of being constantly vigilant, and of shooting someone. I have gained nothing that I want, and lost a freedom that I currently enjoy.
Changes are supposed to increase the quality of our lives. That would reduce mine, and I simply don’t want to live that way.
Well, Perry, what can I say? I suppose you know that your lack of care for your own people places you in a very small minority indeed.
In any case, I question whether Anglospheric culture can survive the racial dessication of the people who produced it. If the victory you foresee over other world cultures takes more than 50 to 100 years – and it must – it will have had to transmogrify into Idem paper. To put that the other way around, the beneficiary peoples would have to be interchangeable with the benefactors.
Now, that would be a profoundly environmentalist outcome, Perry. It would allow for next to no genetic determinism, indeed no human bio-diversity at all. And you may know where I stand on human bio-diversity.
On the other hand OBL might win and we’ll all be facing Mecca some tome soon. I’ll never feel comfortable with my arse stuck in the air, though. Have a good Conference.
Yes you have been indoctrinated richard. You spout the wrongheaded nonsence of the left. You mention “grim” armed societies when in fact far more people are killed in auto accidents. I bet you would never call this society a “grim automobile” society. The first thing the left do is put it in your head that government=society. People make society and they do it in SPITE of the government getting in the way. I of course believe there must be rule of law and property rights and all that but mostly what the government is is a huge protection racket.
Richard,
This isn’t my argument but I’ve been following it with interest while biting Perry’s ankles – and getting bitten. But I would like to make a quick comment about guns in the UK.
The old adage: it’s people, not guns, that kill holds true in all circumstances. But one can add: it’s people of low intelligence. The average IQ of our prison population is 85. I don’t know the average for gun criminals but to judge by Operation Trident many if not most are black drug traders. The average black IQ in America is also 85 but perhaps 90 here because of the filtering effect of immigration (I’m afraid I don’t buy the influence of environment upon intelligence). I would guess, therefore, that the average IQ of black gun users in the UK is in the 70 to 80 range.
This low level of intelligence does not bode well for Perry’s deterrence argument in terms of currently armed criminals giving up guns. They carry them, anyway, because their criminals competitors are armed. An armed populace is simply irrelavent to them.
However, other criminals who carry a knife or gun to threaten burglary victims, for example, might indeed think twice – providing they have sufficient intelligence to do so. I do not believe that these people would convert to gun usage as an equaliser against the armed householder.
Consequently, I conclude that an armed populace would be beneficial but the benefit would be fairly small.
So – if I shoot your brother and you prosecute me, it will be sufficient
for me to refuse to recognise the legitimacy of your court? How will we
determine when it is legitimate to fail to recognise the legitimacy of a
court, and when it won’t? Clearly the arbitrator can’t decide as it has
a vested interest. Another arbitrator? appointed how? Can I refuse to
recognise its legitimacy?
If the court has a reputation for making unreasonable judgements –
such as finding innocent people guilty – there shouldn’t be much of a
problem for you to refuse to recognise the legitimacy of the court. You
could hire a protection agency buy selling inchoate compensation claims
for malicious prosecution etc.
If the court has a reputation for making reasonable judgements, it’s now
very much in your interest to accept a trial, since otherwise the
dispute is likely to be settled by force with the odds stacked very
much against you. I have you tried in your absence and if you’re found
guilty my protection agency will hunt you down to mete out the
punishment.
You, on the other hand, are going to have a difficult job hiring a
protection agency. Suppose there are a hundred such agencies. Ninety-
nine of them settle their disputes by arbitration. The hundredth refuses
to recognise murder as a crime and has a policy of protecting its
clients from any punishments for murder. The ninety-nine agencies settle
ninety-nine percent of their disputes – their disputes with each other –
peacefully and one percent of their disputes – their disputes with the
rogue agency – by force. The hundredth agency settles all its disputes
by force. It’s the rogue agency which faces the higher costs and will go
out of business.
And will a court which has a reputation for failing to find in favour of
the rich run the risk of losing the disproportionately lucrative
business of the rich? Why, in a market driven system, would the rich not
then collude to marginalise those courts that did not find in their
favour in order to maximise the probability of a favourable outcome from
the general population of arbitrators?
“The rich” are a class of people whose common trait is that they have a
lot of money. There is no common interest which makes such collusion
likely. The collusion we see in the present world does not take the form
of the rich versus the poor. Take the U.S steel tarriffs, for instance.
The beneficiaries of the collusion which produced them are those owning
and working in the steel industry – many of whom will be rich and many
poor. The victims are mostly American consumers of steel – car buyers etc
– many of whom will be rich and many poor.
The default position of the existing system is to include everyone and
exclude on the basis of wealth. The default position of the new system
would be to exclude everyone and include on the basis of wealth. Given
the distribution of wealth in any given society is always a tiny
percentage at the top end and a very long tail, is it not self evident
that this will result in a greater number of excluded people at the poor
end?
It’s not self evident at all. Try applying the same argument to the
production of food.
“The default position of the communist system (I’m not aware of any
other system that nationalised the production of food – if you know of
any then try substituting your own) is to include everyone and
exclude on the basis of wealth. The default position of the market system
would be to exclude everyone and include on the basis of wealth. Given
the distribution of wealth in any given society is always a tiny
percentage at the top end and a very long tail, is it not self evident
that this will result in a greater number of excluded people at the poor
end?”
Your argument implies that famines should be more frequent when food is
produced by the market, but mitigated when food is produced by the
state.
It hasn’t worked out that way. Can you explain why?
To conclude otherwise feels like an “it’ll be alright on the night”
argument. Dislike those.
It’s certainly not an “it’ll be alright on the night” argument.
I’m reminded of a Question Time debate where they were discussing the NHS. Stephen Twigg whined “Who’s going to look after my grandmother if there’s no NHS”. Janet Daley, sitting next to him, replied “You are!”
I’ve been shot by a delinquent villager who didn’t understand the civilising intention of my shotgun. Poor granny.
I’ve been looking back up this discussion, and I think I’ve realised what you meant here. I ignored it the first time because I thought you were being flippant.
Being responsible for your granny’s protection does not mean you have to personally guard her house with a shotgun. It means that you pay her bills to the agency which protects her by providing insurance, locks, burglar alarms and bobbies on the beat.
The division of labour is available for protection as it is for replacing hips and making cars. There’s no need for you to worry about the inadequacy of your own skills as a marksman.
What a load of low-brow adolescent rubbish. What’s the average age around here? 14?
The Enlightenment project of creating rational, self-governing individuals failed miserably. You are all illustrations of this unavoidable fact. The Kantian and utilitarian ontologies of being and principles of human nature are complete fabrications. Ayn Rand is a low-brow fuckwit.
Read Hobbes, Hume, Freud and Elias.
If you have your way you will bring unimaginable chaos violence upon us all. Better to exercize a small measure of violence – or at least restriction – on anarcho-capitalists to prevent that occurring.
Arming people to reduce violence, indeed. You seem to know nothing about history at all, and you seem happy to remain ignorant lest knowledge deflates your adolescent libertarian fantasies.
Idiots. If you don’t already live in the violent and stupid USA, go there immediately.