Classical liberal scholar, Randy Barnett has a long and excellent post (which I came across via Instapundit) spelling out some of the contradictions that occur when libertarians, be they minarchists, anarchists or more ‘pragmatic’ types, get into arguments about events like the war in Iraq (I have been called a lot of names, but hey, I can deal with branded a warmonger and a sappy peacenic, as has happened).
In particular, he notes something that some of us at Samizdata have observed many times, which is that for a certain kind of isolationist libertarian, they almost endow foreign, sovereign governments with the sort of respect that they never have for their own states. Barnett calls this the “Westphalian” attitude (derived from the Treaty of Westphalia in the 17th Century which recognised sovereign state’s boundaries in Europe at the end of the 30 Years’ War). Barnett ends up by making a point that I would make, which is that judging the rightness or wrongness of certain wars cannot be done by simple recourse to a sort of Rothbardian non-initiation-of-force principle, even though that principle is mighty useful as a sort of discussion point (Rothbard is a hero of mine, notwithstanding certain problems I have with his specific views). Judging, for example, whether regime or thug X poses country Y an existential threat, and what to do about it, cannot be done simply by parroting a few principles. One has to judge the facts of the situation and ask questions such as, “is this war prudent”? or “Will it make threats to us worse rather than better?”, or “What are the balance of risks?”. Prudence, as the Greeks knew, is a virtue, although it seems at times a little unfashionable to point that out. With the benefit of hindsight, prudence might have led us to take a rather different view of what to do about Saddam, assuming we had to do anything other than deter him by threatening to nuke him out of existence (but then, that shows that acting in strict self defence can come at the cost of killing millions of innocent people, which is not exactly libertarian. Does this mean “strict” libertarians must be pacifists?).
Anyway, Barnett’s essay is first class. For the more straightforward anti-war line out of the libertarian tradition, Gene Healy of the CATO Institute still has what I think is the best essay on the subject. It reads pretty well in the light of events. Both articles are pretty long so brew up plenty of coffee first.
Of course one can totally reject Rothbard’s a priori approach to warfare (a use of the Austrian school method in economics to a different type of human knowledge), whilst still thinking that the judgement to go into Iraq in 2003 was a mistake.
As for Murry Rothbard himself:
I agree that he was a great man. However, when considering him as an historian (as opposed to as an economist) it would have better if he had not sometimes gone with what he wanted to be true (rather than what actually happened).
History is a messy business – trying to divide it into clear cut good guys and bad guys only works some of the time.
These criteria are blank checks that could have been cashed for all of the United States’ recent wars of empire. The problem is that when a nation takes an interventionist stance all over the world, any and all action independent of their own power coalition can be construed by them as an existential threat, and will be if such a construction helps support the political power structure.
How any ‘libertarian’ can still support a big government program that was sold with lies and has failed is beyond me.
If (actually, we did) people opposing the war had predicted we’d still be there and there’d be this amount of violence and chaos, samizadatistas would have screamed bloody murder – Iraq in its current state would have been considered a failure w/o years of moving the goalposts as the ‘democracy’ we were supposed to install didn’t materialize.
We were lied into the war, and the result will be a civil war that kills more than Saddam was followed by another dictator. Thanks, guys.
The blood is on your hands, Perry.
I just hit the Healy link. It’s from 2003. Before every failure between the start of the war and now (Abu Ghraib, etc). Samizdata’s “best essay on the subject” is one that doesn’t involve learning from the past 4 years.
That tells you all you need to know about supporters of the war.
Oh brother. In that case the blood of all of Saddam’s victims are on yours. I never cared about democracy in Iraq and I am pretty luke warm on it in Britain for that matter. Next.
Oh and I also do not think Rothbard was a great man. His views on WW2 were preposterous.
The Bush lied meme is bullshit and I’m calling you on it. There is no evidence that the elements of a lie — a KNOWN UNTRUTH were present in the “selling” of the Iraq war. Just repeating it over and over does not make it so.
There is video documentation that politicians on all sides believed the now-seen to be wrong statements about Saddam’s WMDs, association with terrorism and etc. Again to believe that they were all lying is to be a conspiracist with a magical faith in the government’s ability to keep a secret when a multitude of people with different agendas all know the truth.
And frankly if Bush had told us that 4 years into this war we’d have lost less than 4000 American lives the anti-war crowd would have howled with laughter — remember the “hundreds of thousands” of American dead predicted by the Times?
That being said, I’m against continuing this war because frankly we are not willing to win it.
Yup and that is the only reason I could ever stop supporting it too. If it turns out the US and UK have simply forgotten how to win insurgency wars then the whole thing does needs a serious rethink. not to mention getting back in touch with some lessons learned long ago about the required ruthlessness needed in wars. As it is I say just partition the damn place into three, declare victory and get out. Two out of three ain’t bad.
There is no denying that is a danger. But then as the build up to WW2 proved, so is doing nothing. The time to stop Hitler with the minimum cost in blood and treasure was in 1936 when he was just a potential threat, well before he posed a real threat in 1939… yet this approach can also lead to sticking one’s nose into the wrong places for the wrong reasons too, no doubt about it.
The United States has not faught a “war for Empire” since 1898 (and even then the President of the time had to be pushed into it).
However, Rothbardians have been taught to believe that all wars the United States fights are a priori “wars for Empire” (either for an American Empire or for the evil British Empire). Ludwig Von Mises (from whom Rothbard learnt the methods of economics that he then, mistakenly, tried to war and just about everything else) had a view similar to Perry concening Rothbard’s position of World War II (and other matters) – although Mises did not tend to go in for such mild language.
As for “lies” about the judgement to go into Iraq in 2003 (which I also opposed – although that seems to shock people when I tell them so).
It turns out that it was (for example) Mr and Mrs Wilson who were telling lies about Niger – as Saddam did want to buy uranium from there for his atomic bomb program.
Perhaps people think that President Bush should have waited till Saddam actually had atomic bombs before doing anything, or perhaps they think he should have waited till Saddam used them, or perhaps they think that he should only have acted if Saddam had used atomic bombs or other weapons of mass destuction on the United States itself (all three positions can be taken).
However, the judgement was made to attack before large supplies of such things as chemical weapons were in the hands of Saddam. Although it was thought that he already had quite a bit of stuff.
As it turned out he had less than was feared – but there is no point in attacking after a foe had built up his forces.
Of course the legal basis for the war had nothing to do with the above (unless one is a U.N. fan – and I am not).
The legal basis for war was the repeated violations of the cease fire agreement by Saddam since 1991.
Congress voted for regime change back in 1998 (under President Clinton) and both the Senate and the House of Representatives voted to use force against Saddam when President Bush asked them to (there were no “lies” involved).
In the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland the Queen approved military action (on the advise of her ministers) and the House of Commons voted its support (which it had not normally been asked to do before).
End of argument.
The judgement to go to go into Iraq in 2003 may have been mistaken (very mistaken) but it was not based on “lies” and nor was it “illegal”.
The United States has not faught a “war for Empire” since 1898 (and even then the President of the time had to be pushed into it).
However, Rothbardians have been taught to believe that all wars the United States fights are a priori “wars for Empire” (either for an American Empire or for the evil British Empire
One needn’t be a Rothbardian to connect recent US wars with empire-building. An empire can be a sphere of influence enforced by the military for the economic gain of the country doing the influencing. The US has a history of fighting wars to ensure that the world situation is more rather than less friendly towards it’s interests. This cannot be confused with self-defense, which is reactive rather than pre-emptive.
On top of this, I have no reason to trust any of the parties involved, so it only makes sense to doubt them on the necessity of this particular war no matter what the principles involved might be.
I have read the CATO Gene Healy paper. He lost me when he says that because Al Qaeda and Saddam were “natural enemies” alliance was unlikely…when history is full of contra-natura alliances, he just have to look to USA.
Attack against Saddam was a no-brainer, the resources he had from the state, that could be feed -it could be just money- to terrorist groups now that USA was fighting with Al-Qaeda.
People forget that Islamits had almost a 15 years advantage of resources building. From endoctrinated people to colectting supplies.
I still want to know what threat Iraq posed. If they were just going to sit over there and hate us, I think we would have survived. Even if they had some weapons, they would have to actually be able to use them against us to be considered a threat. I don’t think they would have been able to maintain supply lines for any significant war with America. Of course, if the war lasted only 20 minutes, as was likely, supply lines are less of an issue, but of Saddam knew that he would be defeated in 20 minutes, he would be unlikely to attack in the first place, so before attacking, he would have to assume he would need supply lines.
Has anybody seen “The Mouse that Roared?”
War is the biggest ‘big’ government project there is.
The main threat from Iraq was not so much from Saddam himself, as from what would follow when he died. And not so much directly against the Europe and the US, as in the consequences both direct and indirect for the region.
Saddam was more interested in extending his power locally – more absolute power over his own nation, and regional influence over his neighbours. Those neighbours would of course have responded, leading to a general escalation. He would not, of course, have challenged the US directly, but would instead work by pushing the boundaries. Grab a little bit here, ignore the rules a little bit there, and dare anyone to make a fuss over so trivial a matter. Stir up a little trouble as a bargaining chip, and ask for concessions from the state department in exchange for stopping it. Push a little harder elsewhere, and demand a little more. Not like Hitler, but more like the Mafia – the main goal of extortion and blackmail is to not use what you’ve got hurt the victim. The NBC simply puts you in a stronger bargaining position.
That sounds sort of OK to the less moral sort of American – bad luck for the Iraqis, but doing deals with dictators is a game the Americans have played before. Except that Saddam had a tendency to misjudge the risks and stake everything on big gambles – some of his past attempts to push the boundaries have gone entirely too far. And he was also old and ill – so what comes after? His two sons were psychopaths, his population on the edge of rebellion, and his neighbours nervous. You can be sure the succession would not have gone smoothly.
Throughout the cold war, the West’s approach to finding an overflowing cesspool has been to build a little wall around it. And when it brims again, to raise the wall, or to find the least full pit in the neighbourhood and use that to mitigate the problem.
It’s one thing I can understand about the complaints over US foreign policy. They interfere, but never in a way to actually solve the problem – only to stabilise it and stop it overflowing right now.
It builds up a pressure of nastiness. In the long run, everyone can see the disaster coming, but nobody is willing to pay the price of pulling on the waders and going in there with a shovel; not if they can put it off until after the next election. No individual event is sufficient to justify a war to clean things up – the dictators see to that – only the accumulation of events.
The combination of 9-11 and the left-over UN resolutions gave us an opportunity in Iraq, to clear up just one of the messes that our foreign policy of appeasement and proxy is accumulating around the world. And now that we have ‘broken the crust’ on the Jihadist brew, people are of course complaining about the stink.
And now, we are near to being defeated by the smell – driven back with the job half done, and the remaining pile starting to ooze. The idea that we could be defeated and our mighty armies humbled by such a little thing seems laughable, except that it seems to be true. Sayyid Qutb was right – we’re weak and decadent cowards, braggarts who posture and bluster but who won’t stand and fight. Who run away crying at the first sign of blood. And that’s how they see they will win. Not by charging in on horseback, which we know well how to deal with, but by oozing their way round the leaky barriers we build, and driving us back out of disgust and fear of confrontation.
Strength is of no use if you will not use it and everybody knows you won’t. Lack of will to see things through is weakness. Lack of foresight to act for the long run and not just your immediate interests is blindness. Tolerating the accumulation of walled in filth leads to moral sickness.
The West is weak, blind, and sick, and it’s going to lose. It thinks it’s strong, because of all the money and guns, but a bunch of frothing idiots in a desert someplace has just brought you to your knees, and now you’re trying to figure out how to run away without people seeing you crying. Not because they are strong, but because your will is weak.
The enemy is fighting a war without governments (so it is possible, you see). You have to fight back the same way – the government-led military buys you time, but you have to fight the cultural war. Individual people speaking up for what they believe in. Fighting with words and willpower. Not guns, but cartoons. Not invasions, but media coverage of their atrocities. Not by only ever attacking our own illegitimate governments, but by attacking their even more illegitimate ones. If you don’t like state control, then you must surely agree that Saddam’s police state desperately needed to be overthrown? Does it really matter to you that it is merely ‘some foreign brown people’ being oppressed, and not you? Does ‘nationality’ really mean so much? All men (and women) are created equal, and deserve liberty.
If we will not fight for others’ liberty, who will fight for ours?
You ask what threat a poor little country like Iraq could be. But the resistance they and the Jihadists have been able to offer has bent your entire world out of shape. Your entire foreign policy has been turned around 180 degrees again. Like Judo, they have used your own strength against you, and you have defeated yourself. Ask President Bush a question about Iraq or Islam, and see the look on his face – that’s the threat the Islamists pose.
There are two claims anti-war libertarians (and Ron Paul) make that are outright absurd:
1. The war in Iraq is “immoral and illegal”.
How can the overthrowing and hanging of a megalomaniac, murderous tyrant, who is responsible for 2 regional wars and 1 million deaths – be immoral is beyond my comprehension. I cannot imagine a more just and moral war.
1. Saddam posed NO THREAT (capitals in the original) to the USA. No threat at all.
Well, Saddam wasn’t going to invade the USA, that is true. As to acts of terrorism – he was deeply involved in that, but let’s say they were not directly aimed at the US (maybe). So no threat ? That’s a very narrow definition of threat. By this definition – Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany also posed no threat – they were not going to invade the US – were not capable of it.
The US has interests abroad – the main one is to promote stability and prevent the spread of malign regimes (like nazism, communism, etc.). It is to promote freedom, democracy, prosperity, trade and peace. In the Middle East – it is also to ensure the stability needed to for the production and flow of oil to world markets.
If some libertarians believe that it is possible for the US to retreat beyond it’s protective oceans and disengage from the rest of the world – that belief seems absurd to me – if not in principle – then at least in fact.
As to the principle of prudence – yes, that applies. Not every interest can be defended; sometimes the price required is too high. The exact circumstances of every case need to be evaluated (as Randy Barnett states). On that basis the war in Iraq can be reasonably criticized.
But the claims made by some libertarians – “immoral war” and “NO THREAT” – are absurd.
1. The invasion of Iraq was clearly illegal. It was a violation of international law (Article 53 of the U.N. Charter). The U.S. signed it. It prohibits an invasion of a sovereign nation unless provoked.
The immoral part was not killing Saddam. The immoral part was kililng the 100,000+ people before you could get to Saddam.
2. Saddam really did not pose any threat to the U.S. After the first Gulf War, his power was significantly reduced. Also bear in mind that the U.S. already had a no fly zone over 2/3 of his country before the invasion. Saddam was well contained using that strategy.
So what? The UN feels the rulers of sovereign nations should not be disturbed when slaughtering and torturing within their own borders. Very impressive and a great boon to Ba’athist Socialism’s apologists.
As for anyone who fought to keep Saddam in power, killing them was money well spent and the sensible/lucky ones just downed tools and deserted at the first opportunity, which was of course also the moral thing to do when forced to fight on behalf of a tyrant.
In the US, state laws vary, but here in Virginia, Tazers are illegal for private citizens, although all law enforcement personnel carry them.
However, our state has concealed carry firearm permits on a ‘ shall issue’ rule, so tazers for citizens aren’t really in high demand………..
PoliticalCritic,
Whether the invasion of Iraq was illegal is a trickier proposition than you propose.
Article 53 offers an alternative – authorisation by the Security Council – and UNSC resolution 1441 combined with Saddam’s failure to comply by the deadline, combined with the Security Council’s decision not to withdraw the resolution at the subsequent debate, technically provides such an authorisation.
Article 39 requires the UNSC to identify threats to peace, which they did in the case of Iraq. (Whether rightly or wrongly – that was re-stated in res. 1441.)
Article 1 requires that they take effective collective measures to prevent or remove such threats, and article 2 part 5 forbids any interference with that process.
Articles 40, 41, and 42 list the stages through which the UN’s effective action takes place: ask them nicely, apply sanctions, and if sanctions “would be inadequate or have proved to be inadequate” then military action to bring about compliance.
Resolution 1441 was carefully designed. It recalled that the UNSC had identified Iraq’s proliferation as a threat to peace (as required in article 39), that resolutions 678 authorised “all necessary means” for implementing previous resolutions, that these imposed obligations on Iraq which they had not met, that the ceasefire was based on Iraq meeting them, that they were determined to ensure full and immediate compliance. The UNSC decided, in operational paragraph 2 “to afford Iraq, by this resolution, a final opportunity to comply” and in paragraphs 3 to 5 set time limits for the various stages of compliance. These were not met, and subsequent events have confirmed they were not met.
The phrase “final opportunity to comply” is unambiguous. It doesn’t mean “final but one” or “maybe we’ll discuss it for a bit longer” or “don’t worry mate, you’ll get another chance”. It means “final”.
And since the UN is obliged to deal effectively with the threats it identifies (meaning that “trying” isn’t enough), and since the measures in articles 40 and 41 are now permanently excluded by said finality, the UN is legally obliged, by its own charter, to use military force in accordance with article 42 to bring about compliance. It has no choice, any more than any government can choose to disregard its own laws. It’s only alternative would be to change the law by rescinding the resolution. It was given the opportunity, it didn’t do so, therefore the law stands – and anyone who subsequently stands in the way of its implementation is committing a clear breach of international law.
A UNSC resolution that makes military action legally compulsory is by implication an authorisation from that body to use force. And so the conditions for article 53 are met.
On the whole, I regard the UN as thoroughly corrupted and morally bankrupt, and have little respect for its machinations. Oil deals made with Saddam, Paris Club loans, embarassment over decades of weapons sales, and oil-for-food corruption were the forces behind Russia, China, and France’s support for this putrid little dictator. And personally, if it came to a choice between the morally right course and following UN procedures, I’d be one of those telling the UN where to put its resolutions.
But in this case, the US did in fact follow the procedure to the letter. (I suspect partly at Tony Blair’s request.) And our people consulted the international lawyers to check the legality before going ahead. Certainly, I think they would have a pretty good case in court, and if I didn’t think the UN courts were all bent I’d be absolutely confident of them winning. That doesn’t matter to the UN corruptocrats and anti-Western leftist media, of course, who can sell their lies by dint of repeated assertion. It’s just one more added to a very long list. But you may be sure they’ll only say it, they’ll never actually bring it to court in case that should reveal too much.
Sorry to go on at length about it. But these statements need to be challenged every now and then, otherwise they become more firmly entrenched as “common knowledge”. I admit that ultimately my railing will make little difference against the might of the Ministry of Truth – at best we might get a footnote that it is ‘still sometimes disputed’ or something. I can hope.
As everyone knows, “history is written by the historians.”
That is a very good point to make. The “Saddam was a secular ruler who would have no use for jihadis” meme is pure rubbish; he was prepared to join tactically with such people and it is an utter lie that he did not support, or offer shelter to, terrorists.
.
The problem is how long could such a containment policy endure. It cost the western powers quite a lot of money to sustain those no-fly zones. The RAF and USAF had to station aircraft in the region. To do so meant pissing off the local jihadis who resented – at least that is what they said – the presence of non-muslim combat folk, including women, in the region. The operation of the sanctions vs Iraq were also proving increasingy unworkable.
The problem is that sooner or later, the containment policy would have collapsed, or become so attenuated that it would not have prevented Saddam/Saddam’s sons from attacking the Kurds and the Shiites, and secondly, would not have prevented a significant buildup of weaponry in Iraq.
And spare us crap about international law. As the Randy Barnett article makes clear – please read it – it is a bit odd for libertarians to cite a law that requires one to recognise the legitimacy of states like Iraq or North Korea.
There comes a point, as Barnett says, when libertarians treat the sovereign status of violent, dictatorial nations with the sort of respect that they would never apply to a more democratic, liberal one. I find this weird, to say the least.
Anyway, if one is going to argue about legality, Saddam breached the terms of the 1991 ceasefire on numerous occasions and repeatedly flouted the various UN weapons inspection requirements. We had all the legal justification necessary.
Not quite, “SomeoneElse”: Healy makes various claims that I regard as questionable that were questionable when he wrote them, not just with the benefit of hindsight. He claims that Saddam had no real serious links to terror: untrue. He claims that Saddam was deterrable, but gives no evidence of that. In fact, Saddam’s invasion of Kuwait/Iran/use of chemical weapons against the Kurds/Scud attacks on Israel suggest a degree of recklessness.
Healy was correct on many points, not least the costs and risks of the war, but his predictions contain several flaws. No cigar, I am afraid.
I’m an unashamed Westphalian. I don’t think that debars one from occasionally supporting wars, but it demands criteria for doing so much stronger than we are accustomed to in a Wilsonian world. I don’t think it prohibits participation in international agreements, but I think that it means we should only assent to those that offer ethically neutral rules of the road, or contribute to the worldwide freedom of indivduals to choose between states, and trade-in those they don’t like living in.
To be otherwise strikes me as on the slippery slope to a normative international law and world government: nowhere to run. That’s a matter of individual prudence quite apart from, but parallel to the anti-war presumption embedded in the Westphalian approach.
My style of libertarianism is a paradoxically universalist revolt against universal standards: the guarantee that I may live as I choose demands that you may live as you choose too, or we are compelled to fight for one way or the other to prevail. Accepting each other’s liberty is our mutual safeguard against conflict.
Precisely the same goes at a different scale between states: an undertaking not to interfere with one another’s internal affairs is a strategy for minimising war. (The Westphalian conception arose, after all, from the experience of a century of devastating continent-wide war in the name of imposing common internal standards.) It is not a moral position on the conduct of those affairs. It is deliberate meta-moral refusal to take one.
I don’t think we are obliged by that as individuals or collectively to avoid offering opinions about or seeking to influence the internal affairs of other states. But it does forbid states in general from trying to compel other states to behave in particular ways merely in order to enforce a universal standard.
Since everyone seems to want to relate this discussion to the Iraq war, I should point out:
1. My sort of Westphalianism doesn’t automatically rule out aggressive war; but,
2. It does regard both two of the justifications offered for it (“Saddam was bad,” and “We had a right under international law to do it”), and the principal point argued by opponents (“It was illegal”), as respectively inadequate, nonsense, and vacuous.
Westphalian principles surely don’t accept one state invading another. Yet Saddam invaded two neighboring countries, and bombed two more. Wasn’t the removal of Saddam in strict compliance with Westphalian principles ?
Westphalianism does not only extend to respecting one another’s liberty, but also to respecting one another’s oppression. “That I may live as I choose demands that you may live as you choose too.” Does it also demand that “you must live as your masters choose for you”, so long as it does not impinge upon me and my freedom? Strict Westphalianism would say so.
The phrase “ethically neutral” has an uncomfortable feeling to it – it gives off hints of moral relativism. (If that wasn’t what you meant by it, my apologies.) Perhaps you would like to expand on the sort of issues that you don’t regard as ethically neutral, and would therefore be willing to intervene internationally on?
The method of the power-hungry bastard is and always has been to create doubt.
In order to create doubt this time, they make claims about the legality of the war.
Legality being introduced by the ‘good guys’ in 1946, this means that when we oppose their argument, we are perceived to be siding with the ‘bad guys’.
Also implied is that the ‘bad guys’ are Bush and company(but not Blair-he is too useful and so he is made into a useful idiot- of both sides).
Naturally, not all or even very few of the people espousing these views are power-hungry; they are merely so used to immolating themselves at the feet of their real masters, that they automate the creation of self-doubt in themselves and then seek moral redemption via carrying the message to others around them.
Pa,
I used “ethically neutral” in connection with what I think are legitimate matters for accepting the rule of (implicitly universal or near universal) international institutions: practical rules for postal services, maritime or air travel conventions, and monitoring of infectious disease, were the sort of things I had in mind.
That I may live as I choose demands that you may live as you choose too.” Does it also demand that “you must live as your masters choose for you”, so long as it does not impinge upon me and my freedom?
No. What it means is that the state I live in may not in general try to alter the way the state you live in is run by force. Neither of us owes a duty to the other to support the state in which either finds himself. We may each rebel and help each other rebel.
Jacob,
Wasn’t the removal of Saddam in strict compliance with Westphalian principles ?
No. It might be justified within them. (I think it was, but I am inclined to suspect that the muddled Wilsonian idealism of the attackers, is responsible for the subsequent strategic disaster, why it would in the factual circumstances be better had it never taken place.) But it wouldn’t be in compliance with Westphalian principles in that sense, since they possibly permit but don’t mandate wars.
The allies expelling Iraq from Kuwait, and suppressing its Scuds; and Iran in defending itself (with little help from the ‘international community’) after being attacked by Saddam in 1980, were both upholding the Westphalian order. Repelling an invader doesn’t necessarily require destroying him, though a sovereign who starts a war risks that.
Ah. I see what you mean. Not neutral “common denominator” ethics, but matters on which ethics do not generally bear. (Although the campaigns against polio vaccinations may be a counter-example.) Understood.
I’m not sure I follow the distinction you’re making regarding state support/rebellion, but I can sort of see in a general way. If I understand rightly, you don’t follow the Westphalian model of sovereignty in that one can aid rebels in another state on an individual basis – but that you oppose the use of states to render such aid, even if it is the only realistic prospect of such a rebellion succeeding. Fair enough.
That brings to mind individuals like Osama aiding Islamist rebels living in the West to overthrow their governments. I guess you would oppose them for their ends and methods, but not on the grounds that they are attacking your nation per se. I have to say, I can’t think of any examples going the other way. Even human rights organisations don’t generally work by helping rebellion. Liberation conducted by the West is not noticably a private enterprise.
It’s an interesting view, for which I thank you. I’ll have to think about that.
But anti-war libertarians, as far as I remember, also opposed the first gulf war of ’91. (The US was not threatened).
Now they pretend to uphold the Westphalian principle, back then they probably found other ad-hoc arguments.
They aversion to war is understandable, but their arguments aren’t coherent.
Kenneth M. Pollack, Bill Clinton Middle East Advisor and member of Brookings Institution (A democratic leaning think thank)
The Threatening Storm: the Case for Invading Iraq
(i am sure no one saw his book in European Book Stores…)
To know the situation at war start read his speech followed by questions from the floor. It can be read here :
http://www.cfr.org/publication/5212/threatening_storm.html?breadcrumb=%2Fbios%2F317%2Flisa_anderson
Lucklucky: what is your point, that Dems are hypocrites? Tell us something we don’t know. The fact is that Clinton did not invade Iraq. Personally I am not sure (as he was out of office before 9/11), but think some here would say that he was wise.
He did what he learned when he was young: “make love not war”…
His policy in general was: speak much, do little… and he spoke with great talent… Was he wise ? there were dumber Presidents than Cinton.
Guy Herbert warned me sometime ago not to mention such terms as “legal” as people then start thinking of the antics of the United Nations Organization (which they think of as “international law”).
Actually there is a long use of such terms as “the law of nations” concerning the right of a nation to go return to fighting if another breaks as cease fire agreement (as Saddam did, again and again), perhaps Guy is correct and people are so messed up by moderns notions that any use of words that might imploy the existance of “international law” (in the modern sense of the U.N.O. and various other world government want-to-be “courts” and treaties) is best avoided.
Matt Swartz seeks to define the word “empire” to cover just about anything.
Although a certain Scottish historian also does this, it is still bullshit (see the Yale Philosopher Harry Frankfurt’s essay “On Bullshit” for just how common the use of bullshit by highly educated and intelligent people is).
Any war that is conducted to make the world “better” (as defined by those fighting the war) in either an economic or a noneconomic way is a “war for empire”.
Sure – and I am six feet, two inches tall and have an full head of hair.
Martin says that war is the ultimate big government project.
It is a big government government project Martin, but you are out of date about it being the biggest.
Even in the United States the entitlement programs alone (Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid,………) are bigger than the entire military budget – and have been for decades.
As for the United Kingdom of Great Britian and Northern Ireland (and other Western nations) the Welfare State has been bigger than the military all my life (and I was born a very long time ago) – war or no war.
Rich Paul asks “what threat was Saddam”.
Errr funding terrorism (including groups that held him to be a very poor excuse for a Muslim) for decades (for example trying to have George Herbert Walker Bush killed), an atomic bomb program that also went back decades (for example the Israeli attack on his leading bomb plant back in 1980 – which has knock on effects to this day, with the Iranians burying their plants underground to make them harder to destroy).
And so on and so on.
Of course that does not make the judgement to go into Iraq in 2003 the correct one.
For example, President George Walker Bush said (in 2001 – to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld)
that there should be no war to remove Saddam till the Afghan operation was finished (to avoid loss of concentration on one objective at a time) – yet the war was launched while both the Taliban and A.Q. (the organizations overlap of course) were still operating (they still are). Launching another job whilst the first one had not been finished is odd (especially as it contradicted the position of President Bush in 2001).
Also President Clinton and Congress had ordered the C.I.A. (and so on) to overthrow Saddam as far back as 1998.
A logical question to ask (before launching the 2003 operation) would be “as you have failed to do your job since 1998 (indeed really since 1991 – concerning the removal of Saddam), why should we believe any intelligence you produce concerning the current state of Saddam’s weapons programs?”
Iran is a present cause of concern.
The C.I.A. (and so on) has either not tried or has failed to help local people eliminate the anti Western government there (a government made up of people who would NOT just be satisfied with the extermination of Israel before the “what the Iranians do does not matter to us in the United States” people start speaking up), BUT this also indicates (at least to me) that intelligence information about the country can not be trusted.
In short we must assume that any effort to overthrow the Iranian regime by conventional warfare would NOT be supported by the local population (standard worst case planning), and therefore such an effort should NOT be launched.
Even if the majority of the local population did support such an intervention this would not matter if the minority who opposed it were well armed and fanatical (which I believe them to be).
David Hume was wrong – all governments do not rest on the at least tacit support of the majority. Constant killing and other abuse can enable a minority to hold down a majority – even if that majority is supported by an external intervention.
“But we can not eliminate the Iranian nuke program without a conventional invasion to overthrow the regime”
If so then we can NOT eliminate the Iranian nuke program (period).
“But that means that New York and Washington D.C. will be destroyed by terrorists one day”.
So they may, but that does not alter the above.
One should not launch a large scale invasion on the wishful thinking that the local population will rise up and support it.
Once one has started a war one has to win it (otherwise Muslims all over the world, including the United States, will mostly be convinced that God is on the side of the radical interpretation of Islam) – but that does not mean that it is a good idea to launch such operations in the first place.
Or to add more operations before there has been victory in the existing ones.
If the C.I.A. (and so on) can not support the locals in Iran to get rid of the regime themselves then either the C.I.A. is useless (which I have long believed) or the Iranians opposed to the regime are fairly useless (which I also believe) – or both.
If direct attacks can get rid of the Iranian nuke program – then fine, I am certainly not one to let “international law” influence my thinking (any more than I would the wishes of the God Pookong).
But if attacks will not work then such attacks should not be launched – attacks to “make a statement” are part of “gesture politics” which should be avoided.
“But this means that London, New York, Washington D.C. are going to get nuked one day soon”.
As I said, so they may.
But the horrible prospect does not alter anything.
A plan (conventional military or civilian intelligence) must be WORKABLE.
An operation launched on the basis of “we must DO SOMETHING” is worse than useless.
In the specfic context of the Iranian nuke progam:
“Show me how your plan will do the job”
If the reply contains such statements as “make a statement”, or “will strengthen our hand in diplomacy” (and so on) then the military or civilian person making the statements should be politely shown the door.
Diplomacy is a job creation scheme for upper class people, and as I am not upper class no one is going to give me one of these jobs – so I am not interested in it.
And military action should not be about “making statements” (or other such).
Miltary operations should achieve specific military objectives (in this case the destruction of the Iranian nuke program).
If they can not achieve specific military objectives then they should not be launched.
And the military objective should be an objective of POLICY.
Not stuff like “take this hill” (when the hill is going to be given back the enemy after a while) – “take this hill” must be a way of achieving the objective, a tactic in achieveing the policy mission (not just some blood soaked game).
My point is that you read him.
His point is that War was innevitable sooner or later, in Clinton Administration that was the prevalecent opinion. He tells a couple factors for that.
I see.
Wasn’t Saddam Hussein the guy that offered Suicide Dowries to terrorists attacking Israel?
Martyrdom, plus financial security?
Kind of proves that the regime incorporated Islamic Terrorism.
Pietr: I am afraid this argument does not work with many of the Iraq war opposers, as they don’t care if Israel is attacked.
Israel is perfectly capable of defending itself, and does not need America holding its hand constantly.
Rothbard’s point was not that making those judgments is simple; but simply that neither you nor Blair nor Bush has the right to make them for other people.
Try this alternate rendition on for size to see how close to classical socialism your pronouncement above sounds to me:
You seemingly (to me) want government to have the right to involve me in war for my own good. Leftists want government to have that, too, but they also want the state to have the right to involve me in social engineering for my own good. Perhaps you will understand when I say I see only a difference in quantity, not quality, in the degree of control you want over my life vs. what the average socialist wants.
Something all this talk of Wesphalianism misses is that going to war is an aggression of a state against its own citizens. Just like any government program (and more than most), it costs money, raises taxes, and restricts civil liberties.
I doubt this war’s legitimacy is going to be firmly established from a historical viewpoint. And such a view is perhaps of declining relevance. What matters is that America has no appetite for continuing its current form.
And Paul, may I ask, what were the odds of Saddam securing uranium from Niger, even if he had tried? It is a French mine and is controlled, mostly, by the French gov’t.
Was COGEMA to be bought off, or something? Where can we find this?
Michiganny,
I agree with your first paragraph.
I don’t know what the odds are – it depends whether they could find anyone sufficiently corrupt working at the mine. However, all Iraq was doing was making enquiries, and according to Joe Wilson’s story, they were told “no” by Niger. (Although they’re hardly going to admit otherwise to the Americans.)
But the point of the statement is not to claim there was a risk of him getting the Uranium, but to point out that he wouldn’t even be seeking it if he didn’t have illegitimate nuclear ambitions. It’s what it says about Saddam’s intentions that mattered – not his capability.
(This is quite common in the debate about pre-war intelligence – a point made only to indicate intent was often read as an attempt to show capability and criticised as such. The argument being made was often too subtle for the media to follow.)
Saddam already had a big pile of enriched Uranium, anyway. But the UN knew about it and it was being watched – which is why he wanted to see if he could find other sources. As we understand it, it was Saddam’s intention to wait until the sanctions collapsed before restarting his nuclear programmes, but of course he would want to get it up to speed as soon as possible.
It was the French that supplied Iraq the first nuclear reactor at Osiriak, that was bombed by Israel in 1981. The French knew perfectly well what Saddam needed a reactor for. They kept their ties with him.
Saddam gave the French fat oil developing contracts.
The French then vetoed a UN role in the Iraq war.
“Someoneelse”:
There may be people in that camp, but all supporters of the liberation don’t feel that way. I said going in that I thought it was a twenty-year exercise. My principle reservation has always been that I worry the citizens of coalition countries (and especially the U.S.) won’t have the fortitude to see it through.
Many of the pro-war arguments I’m hearing from pro-war libertarians seem really odd to me.
Basic libertarian principles to me are:
It is not ok to steal
It is not ok to kill unless self defense
It is not ok to destroy other peoples property
Owning another human being is immoral
Sadly, every one of these principles is 100% violated in war.
Taxes must be collected (stolen) to fund the military
Many innocent people die in war. It doesn’t matter that it was “mistake” that a “smart” bomb was dropped on that hospital, the people are still dead. Anytime a war is waged innocents will die no matter how hard you try (or tell your people you tried). In order to wage war you must be willing to concede that your needs/wants are more important than those who will almost certainly die. What’s worse, you won’t even be doing the killing yourself, that horrible act will be forced on the conscience of some 19 year old who has to pull the trigger or push that button.
Collateral damage? Feh What’s a building or two for victory? Ever watch some youtube.com or break.com videos of air strikes being called in on sniper positions? It isn’t just the building that the sniper is in that gets leveled, it’s everything around it too. It appalls me that soldiers blow up entire city blocks to kill a couple of the enemy. Some people have lost everything that they own just because it’s easier to blow it all up instead of the alternatives. Well, easier for the soldiers, not on the people who’s homes and businesses are now rubble.
Also, how many people besides the enemy are in those buildings anyway? How many Mothers are cradling their children in those ramshackle apartments because they hear gunfire outside? I guess they’ll figure that out when the rubble is cleared away.
And how about that all-volunteer army? You know, the one where you volunteer for 2, 4, or 6 years, but if they want to keep you longer then there is nothing you can do about it. Ask some of those people on their 5th and 6th Iraq tour how “voluntary” military service is.
So how is all of this justified by the pro-war libertarian? What “greater good” must be a stake in order to violate every principle we are supposed to hold dear?
Then your position is an anarchist one, since anything a state does, including launch prosecutions of felons, requires tax to pay for courts, police, prosecutors, jails, etc. Unless you are going to say that we can deal with such things via anarchism, ie, vigilantism, etc.
Well, yes. I guess I just take that non-aggression stuff seriously. But I don’t understand the “unless” in the next sentence:
I start from the premise that aggression is wrong as well as counterproductive to living as a civilized human. I somehow fail to see how -creating- aggression to ‘deal with’ aggression lowers the world’s stock of aggression. I certainly don’t see how enabling the state as an aggressor helps me personally. Besides what the state does to me here at home, it’s gone and painted a bullseye on my forehead for any peeved (rightly or wrongly) activist/terrorist/freedom fighter who (stupidly and wrongly) associates me with the state.
Whether anarchist systems can ‘deal with’ the things you want dealt with is immaterial. The fact is that statist aggression isn’t very effective at ‘dealing with’ those things, and the attempts made to use it as a tool always produce more of the thing they are trying to ‘deal with’ (aggression).
You fail to see it and in 99% of the sort of situations one might envisage, I’d agree. But Susan, consider what you would do if there was a regime right next to your own (not thousands of miles off, but say, a few miles); it is led by a thug who has used WMDs on his own folk, invaded neighbours, brutalised and killed millions, etc. He makes menaces to your regime, kidnaps your nationals, etc. At some stage, the old non-agression princinple that you (and I) hold dear has to give way to simple self-preservation. This is not a cut-and-dried calculation; it depends on circumstances.
That is the problem I have with how these arguments play out; non-agression is indeed how states should play, and the costs of state action, both intended and unintended, are large; but that does not weigh against all actions, and simple self-preservation suggests that it cannot be a total bar to acting if no plausible alternative is on the table.
That is really the sort of point that Barnett makes in his essay.
Quenton,
Those are all good points, so far as they go. But you can’t just apply them to our side. Saddam stole, killed, destroyed, and ruled as absolute dictator. And what are you going to do about it? Until we came those hospitals were only for his toadies, those buildings were still knocked down and marshes drained, those people still killed or imprisoned and tortured and mutilated, and mothers still hugged their children in terror when the secret police came to drag someone away.
If you wage peace, you must accept that those are the consequences. While it is easy to do so from your comfortable liberal democracy – that horrible act is no less horrible for you not doing the killing and torturing yourself. And it isn’t just about those rebellious dissidents that the dictator is targeting, the entire society around them suffers, and many lose everything they have in the process. Living in perpetual fear is a corrosive influence that flavours every facet of the human experience, even if you never yourself come to the authorities’ attention.
Tens of millions of people, suffering because of your decision not to go to their aid.
I share your puzzlement, in that I cannot understand how a libertarian would not think liberty worth fighting for, and maybe even risking death for. How a libertarian could argue self-defence only if their own state is directly attacked, while decrying the very concept of state nationalism. How a libertarian would not value other people’s liberty highly, would not be interested in liberty’s spread, would not understand that their own liberty, such as it is, was bought with the blood and tears of others who laid down their lives that we might be free. A libertarian who cares nothing for any liberty but their own.
That sacrifice is what the army of today believes in too, and why they re-enlist voluntarily. The people I talk to who have been out there speak of the good they are achieving. The efforts they go to and the risks they take to minimise the damage done to the innocent. About how it is difficult, but nevertheless a thing worth doing – indeed, essential that it be done. How they can succeed, if only we do not lose our nerve and run at the last minute.
I do not like taxes either, but I consider those taxes well spent.
What is the greater good that justifies ‘violating our principles’? Freedom. Ours. Theirs. Everyone’s.
Nal Komerex, Khesterex.
Some of us libertarians are not evangelicals. We wish seekers of liberty well, but do not believe in acting like wowsers and imposing our ways on others by force. The fact too is that the majority of Iraqis, being Shiites, naturally gravitate towards Iran, and do not want western style liberty.
And ‘libertarians’ that seem to think war is the best way of spreading liberty need to read Richard Cobden. He never said war was the panacea.
Martin,
Yes, of course. It’s quite apparent that a lot of libertarians hold such views (and I will defend their right to express them), and I’m not even saying they’re necessarily wrong. It’s just that I don’t understand them, and don’t see how the arguments can be applied to our relatively liberal governments and not in greater degree to the more outrageously repressive ones. Unless the argument is the same, but that we’re not supposed to actually do anything effective about any of them?
I can certainly appreciate arguments about the means and methods, and those who would argue that there are better ways of spreading freedom than war. Free trade, the internet, open knowledge, music and movies, McDonald’s, and all that. The culture war, if you like. You still have to make a case that those methods will work in places like Iraq and North Korea, but I can understand it because in other circumstances I believe in that too. But I can’t understand people who say it’s none of our business, or that they somehow have a “right” to live in a repressive society that we should not interfere with, or that us having to pay slightly higher taxes is a worse evil than a foreigner having to live in a totalitarian police state.
If you want to propose a better method and can convince me that it will work, fine. But until then, I’ll accept the good in lieu of the perfect.
It’s not that I don’t care about other people’s liberties. I want everyone to be free. If I could snap my fingers and every person on this planet would be freed of whatever tyrant oppresses them I would. The real issue I have is not whether or not others should posses freedom, but how that goal can be obtained.
I believe it to be near-impossible to attain this goal by outside military force alone as we are supposedly attempting in Iraq. I say “supposedly” because the whole ordeal is not an enterprise that is controlled by the American or British people; it is controlled solely by the US government. You know, that same government that is tripping over itself to deprive American citizens of their rights and freedoms here at home. Why would anyone trust these same people to bring freedom to anyone else?
Fighting for someone else’s freedom who will not or can not attain freedom on their own is a worthless endeavor. Now that the Iraqi’s are “free” we are now told that they need a constant influx of money, arms, and support all in order to remain free. All paid for from our purses I might add.
If it is true that they need all of this assistance from us then in what sense are they free? They are now just government owned slaves who supposedly can’t have a functioning government without Uncle Sam being ever present. It’s like one giant nation of welfare recipients. I don’t support government welfare payments and I know most people here do not either. So why then would we want a situation on an international scale that we don’t even endorse among our own countrymen?
I contend that free trade will open the doors of freedom to oppressed people more readily than bombing their infrastructure back to the stone age and then putting them all on welfare. Over and over we try embargoes followed by bombing runs to “spread freedom” and then wonder why people don’t take kindly to what we’re offering.
Trade is working wonders in China. People who formerly were no better off than the North Koreans have had their eyes opened to what lay beyond China’s borders and they clamor for more and more of it every day. North Koreans, on the other hand, have little such clamoring for freedom. How could they? They’ve never been exposed to what it has to offer. They’ve never met an American, European, or even a fellow Korean from below the 38th parallel.
Trade embargoes do nothing but increase hatred of the people enforcing the embargo. I seriously doubt that anyone in Cuba is happier because they can’t get American imports. Instead of cruisers we need to be sending cargo freighters. Nothing will erode support for brutal dictators faster than showing their people that other countries are more prosperous and have more freedom than they do. And as for trade embargoes “punishing” those dictators, keep in mind that Castro just recently was able to receive successful medical care from abroad for a condition that would kill a large number of the people that had it in even the most advanced western nations. Boy, talk about punishment!
Why not end this madness? Soldiers and civilians won’t die. It won’t cost the taxpayers one dime either. In fact, everyone gets more money in their pockets from the increase in trade! I don’t hate Cubans, Or Koreans, or Zimbabweans. I don’t want them dead, I want them free. I want them to have access to everything I do and more.
I don’t have freedom because France invaded my country and set up a puppet government. I have freedom because Americans got pissed off at government enforced inequality and decided to do some housecleaning and then asked for some help. My forefathers then set about trading with everyone who would open their ports to them. They became the most favored destination for discontents looking for freedom in the world because of this policy.
If the Iraqi’s want freedom they need to step up and grab it for themselves. Freedom doesn’t come from a government handout, it comes from the people. We need to leave. Yes, many will possibly die in the immediate aftermath. Perhaps they will get a government worse than Saddam. Perhaps they will get one even better than what Thomas Jefferson envisioned. I don’t know which way the coin will fall, but I do know that keeping them all on welfare will almost certainly lead to the former. It always does.
Liberating all the heathen using the army and marines would cost a pretty penny. Iraq has already cost $500 billion. All these overseas wars would also wipe out anything resembling liberty at home as well. The troops, resources, and money required would demand a command economy and conscription, and a massive propaganda machine would be needed as well. So, any libertarian that is hot for more wars of liberation, is actually a socialist, even if he doesn’t know it.
Quenton,
Communism and Islam are selling different products and can make different claims about their accomplishments. Communism claims to improve human life during its natural span. Islam claims to improve life after death. Communism can be demonstrated to fail in its stated goals. Islam cannot. The Islamic terrorists – soldiers, leaders and financiers – are very disproportionately made up of the biggest beneficiaries of our huge amount of trade with the Mideast. In the Mideast, a very strong case can be made that trade is making the problem far worse.
As someone who grew very slowly as a child and often got beat up by playground bullies, I hear in your words those of my teachers when they told me it was my fault, that I should have stayed away from them. This is an interesting opinion from someone that purports to believe in personal liberty.
There is no such thing as unilateral ‘free’ trade. European states and some others have continuously traded with despots in defiance of law and moral conscience. All unilateral ‘free’ trade does is empower the totalitarian state. Dictators can take the product of ‘their’ people and exchange it for the latest and best tools of repression.
Whether we should come to the aid of people like these may be a legal question, but it is never a moral one.
‘All unilateral ‘free’ trade does is empower the totalitarian state’
That is the kind of balderdash you hear from the left-wing anti-globalisation mob. In fact your whole post sounded like pretty standard leftist anti-trade blather.
Quenton,
Yes, you’re quite right. Military force on its own doesn’t buy freedom. The local people have to work hard to build it. What the military force buys you is the opportunity to try. Force is not a solution, but it can sometimes change the problem to one easier to solve.
We have to rely on the Iraqis wanting freedom, and most of them it appears do. So far, anyway. We need to hold off their enemies long enough for them to hold them off themselves, and then it’s up to them.
They’ve made tremendous progress so far – far more than most of the press is reporting. (It was eight years before Germany had a functioning government after WWII if I remember correctly.) But it’s an enormous job, and more than anything what they need is time, and perhaps a bit of positive thinking.
But without that military force, they would never have had the opportunity. One warlord/dictator would have been replaced by another, and we would be no further on. Opening up free trade from our side doesn’t help unless you can get the dictator to open it up too. Embargos aimed at making rulers unpopular only work on rulers who rely on popularity to stay in power, which tend to be the more democratic ones. What do you do if Saddam says all foreign contracts have to go through him? Anyway, the Iraqis already knew that other people lived better. There was no lack of desire on his people’s part to get rid of him. Only capability.
Mich asks me how Saddam would have got uranium with French people control and sanctions in operation.
France (as is pointed out by people above) was involved in all sorts of stuff. And as for “sanctions” they were falling apart – as sanctions normally do (by the way Joseph Wilson lied and lied before the Senate – but will he or Mrs Wilson, who also lied, spend a day in jail? Do not hold your breath).
Mich also seems to have missed the point that I thought (and still think) the 2003 operation to be a bad idea. But as I have said this many times and it has never sunk into his mind, I think I will leave him dropping food and meds into the Sudan – where it will be stolen by the bad guys who will go on rapeing and killing as normal.
Quenton says that one can not spread liberty by government wars and that people can only get it for themsleves.
In which case Europe would either be under the National Sociaists or the Soviets, and Asia would be under the Imperial Japanese (who were very different from the Japanese of today).
As for the Americans overturning British rule – forget about that (contrary to what Quenton says) without aid from the French government (and other governments).
These things have to be judged case by case – they are matters of judgement not a priori principles.
Neither the Rothbard “Uncle Sam is always in the wrong” priniciple, OR the neoconservative “let us go and free the world” principle.
HOWEVER I agree with Quenton that if a people (or a very large minority of them) are going to use extreme violence to prevent the growth of civil institutions in a country things are going to be very difficult (to put it mildly).
For example, if tens of millions of Germans had believed in National Socialism as a religion (rather than as a set of political ideas that they rejected when they were seen to fail) then West Germany would not have worked out as it did.
This is what I tried to explain about Iraq (some years ago) – both the clan nature of the population, and the nature of Islam.
But I just got “racist”, “racist”, “racist” tossed at me all day long – so I gave up.
Susan Hogarth makes the anarchist case – and I have more sympathy with that than might be expected.
However, I reject it.
Just as if one waits till one’s own house is attacked by invaders one looses the war, so if one waits till all other countries fall one looses the war.
It was not just anarchists it was isolationist conservative who were mistaken in World War II (or in the Cold War), if the United States had not aided other nations (at least by money and supplies) it would not have been an eternal island of liberty in a sea of tyranny – the vast natural resources and population of the world would have allowed the totalitarians to destroy the United States as well (if you wait till you have no potential allies left before you fight, you have waited too long).
“But economic law shows that socialism does not work – it will collapse”.
An ememy power does not have to be fully socialist to be both very nasty (murder millions and so on) and hostile.
Also we must be careful about “does not work” and “will collapse”.
Socialism can never equal the living standards of civil (voluntary) interaction – but that is not quite the same thing as instant economic collapse with everyone eating each other.
Also socialism can copy the prices of capital goods in less socialist lands. Of course this will not work perfectly (the old semi joke of “socialism will work because we will leave New Zealand nonsocialist and copy all the prices there” would not have worked too well), but it will work for awhile.
Also, in the modern world, totalitarian powers are not up against fully free areas (or even close to free areas).
The United States in the 1930’s was less statist than National Socialist Germany or Soviet Russia (and its taxes and government spending were far lower than the modern United States) but it was hardly a “free society”.
A totalitarian power that dominated the world (which ever one had come out on top) would not have had much trouble in outproducing a United States operating under “New Deal” conditions.
And this (vastly) greater economic strength (at least for a few years or decades) would have allowed this totalitarian power to crush the United States – and everyone in it.
“But the people would have resisted – as they did at Kings Mountain during the Revolutionary War”.
A little militia group would have found the S.S. or the Red Army a tougher task than King George’s men.
I hope I will not have to go into such things as the myth that the “partisans” defeated the German army (rather than the Red Army with American supply help defeating them).
When militia groups go up against a well trained and led, and RUTHLESS, regular army those militia groups die.
Adam Smith may have been wrong about many things – but he was right about that.
“But the people would have resisted – as they did at Kings Mountain during the Revolutionary War”.
If you look at History 99% of coups and revolts only occur when a regime is starting to show weakness and internal corruption starts to desagregate it. Communism felt not in 1970 but in 1989 for a reason. And that reason is the will or not to shot. In my country the Dictator was already dead and the “replacement” was an University professor…
Ghandi existed because the England of 1950’s wasnt the England of Sepoys revolt.
The world is full of Ghandis corpses.
Quite so lucklady.