Fri 14 Jul 2006
News of the latest flare-ups between nation-states, & my own readings of discussions about anarchy prompted the following:
How would a stateless society defend itself from outside violence?
Psychopolitik 2.0
Random Thoughts from a Big, Angry Negro
July 15th, 2006 at 5:00 pm
Anarchists would not have a society. Each individual would be responsible for their own safety. Warlords would reign.
A stateless society, at this state in human evolution, is a doomed society.
Wouldn’t anarchists expect violence as a condition of their existence?
July 18th, 2006 at 1:25 pm
Wacko Lib doesn’t know what he’s talking about. First, this is demonstrated by the lack of any supporting material for his assertions. Secondly, there’s a word for “warlords reigning” — “statism”.
As it happens, Wacko Lib is regurgitating something he has always heard from the establishment — that security is supposedly of necessity a product of government. That assertion has been demonstrated to be severely, gravely flawed.
There are several works that outline how the production of security (among other things) in a market anarchist society would likely work. I recommend, in particular, Murray Rothbard’s “For a New Liberty“. Great further development of some of the particulars can be found in Bob Murphy’s “Chaos Theory: Two Essays on Market Anarchy“. The basics, though, were originally outlined pretty well in Gustave de Molinari’s 1849 classic “The Production of Security“. Most specifically, and rather shortly, this particular topic is directly addressed by Bob Murphy’s “But wouldn’t warlords take over?”
Although I already mentioned that the word for the reign of warlords is “statism” and not “anarchy”, I should hasten to add that there’s also a word for people who presume to critique that which they know nothing about — “idiot”.
July 18th, 2006 at 8:23 pm
These are not new issues. Anarchist forces have performed competently in conventional and guerrilla wars (see http://www.nestormakhno.info/english/10anniv.htm) and anarchist and other non-state forces should perform better in network-centric warfare.
July 18th, 2006 at 8:32 pm
As an addendum: I don’t think warfare is the best way to defend anarchism from statism. Peace is anarchism’s strength while war is statism’s strength; but it is important that anarchism can match statism on statism’s own terms.
July 18th, 2006 at 9:00 pm
Brad: that Bob Murphy bit reminds me of an arguement I had with someone about the whole “warlords” thing awhile back on another blog. Some anti-libertarian troll said something along the lines of “yes, look at that lib paradise Somalia” & when I called him on deliberately neglecting culture in the equation (lack of respect for basic human rights will create a hellhole whether there’s government there or not) he made a joke insinuating that since I wasn’t a statist I surely must be a white supremecist…
I swear, some people are simply dumber than shit.
July 19th, 2006 at 3:25 pm
Re defense in an anarchist society, I wrote a piece about this a while back:
http://libertariannation.org/a/f22l3.html
Re nonviolent strategies for defense, see this piece by Bryan Caplan:
http://www.theihs.org/libertyguide/hsr/hsr.php/25.html
Re Somalia, economist Ben Powell has an article (not yet published) showing that Somalia during its stateless period has been much more peaceful and prosperous than other African nations with similar backgrounds but having states. until it’s available, in the meantime see this quote –
http://www.mises.org/story/2066
– from the CIA Factbook, of all places:
“Despite the seeming anarchy, Somalia’s service sector has managed to survive and grow. Telecommunication firms provide wireless services in most major cities and offer the lowest international call rates on the continent. In the absence of a formal banking sector, money exchange services have sprouted throughout the country, handling between $500 million and $1 billion in remittances annually. Mogadishu’s main market offers a variety of goods from food to the newest electronic gadgets. Hotels continue to operate, and militias provide security.”