20 posts tagged “history”

Um. How shall I say this?

I might as well repeat: "Down with Democracy."

Mr. John Zmirak is right:

Well, then. Now we know. It’s nice to know what percentage of my fellow citizens of New Hampshire actually value peace and freedom: Around 10%.  That may be the same ratio as prevails across the nation. Not terribly encouraging. It will make me a little more careful leaving my laundry in the dryer in Nashua.

It reminds me of the utter futility of “democracy” which trumpets one’s right to “participate” in a system that confiscates 30-50% of the individual’s wealth, so that 51% (duly led by the likes of Nurse Ratched and the Manchurian Candidate) can squander it. Hans Hermann Hoppe’s title, ”Democracy: The God that Failed” sounds more apt by the day.

Thank heavens we were “freed” from systems which enshrined a hereditary monarch--however inbred, who only had claim to 2% of one’s wealth, and would never dream of imposing conscription. We are so much freer, and more virtuous now.

My grandfather left Austria-Hungary in 1917 rather than fight for the Kaiser.  Thanks a lot, Grandpa.

Never was I naïve enough to believe that Dr. Ron Paul, the great man and hero that he is, would get the nomination of the Republican Party, but, I must say, I am still disappointed that he did not do a bit better number-wise and rank-wise. I would be lying if I said otherwise.

Yes, I know it is not over. The primary still goes on. There is the chance, even if small, that he might place comparatively higher in the upcoming states.

In the overall picture of things, nonetheless, it is difficult to say that "Freedom is Popular." Make that not so popular. The mass of the public might enjoy a man with good, (somewhat) highbrow rhetoric on the virtues of individual freedom, free markets and capitalism, and some mysterious thing called "limited government." The trouble is, is this is where it ends with them. As long as it is equivalent to the fake and empty talk and promises of a Reagan-like character men like it. If it goes beyond that backed-up with actual devotion to such rhetoric, then we are speaking of something different.

Hogs on a farm come to mind. The farmer rattles the bucket a little. The hogs run to the trough for a dinner of slop. Something not fit for human consumption, but they love it and eat it like you wouldn't believe. Day after day they get their slop. All happy and fat. Rolling in the mud. Thinking they were in hog heaven. Then, one day, all happy and fat and unaware, they are to be taken to get slaughtered. To make bacon, ham, pork chops, and so forth.

Besides, let us all be honest, the Republican Party (and their supposed "opposition" party in D.C.) will never be reformed away from corruption and ideological bankruptcy. Not even Ron Paul and the Revolution movement can change this (meaning directly----more on this later). It has always been rotten to the core. Any exceptions are just anomalies. That is all. So has the federal---actually, make that national (it is not "federal," as it was designed to be)---government. It too has been rotten.

Make that from day one. Congress use to be viewed, as John Adams put it, as a "meeting place of ambassadors" for the independent, sovereign states. The so-called Federalists (actually, due to the ever changing nature of words in the political world they would be best described as anti-Federalists) wanted a centralized state. Alexander Hamilton and James Madison this was particularly true. The early stages of the Philadelphia Convention were heavily tilted in the nationalist direction. The Virginia Plan was trying to push a national government, and according to the notes of James Madison, "consisting of a supreme judicial, legislative, and executive." The meaning of "supreme" meant that the federal government would have say if a conflict arose between a state and the national government. Naturally this is something that would not sell-well with the public, thus the convention was done in secret.

As we know, this group failed. A national government was not implemented. Instead what was implemented was a limited, federal government with a Bill of Rights designed to protect the rights of the independent states and people. However, as we can see, the push for this centralized government was not white and pure as the snow. There were far more sinister forces at work than most people realize. In fact, most people do not even realize or know that there was a time without a Constitution. On Independence Day people act as if it is a day in celebration of a nation-state. On the contrary, the Treaty of Paris was not directed to a nation-State----it did not exist----but to the 13 separate states. You might as well say 13 nation-states.

While compromise happened, i.e., the dreams of a national government were put on hold, a coup d'état still happened. It didn't take too long for this centralization of governmental power to increase on the momentum. (And, hey, why want a Constitution when the Articles of Confederation were better?) Time travel back to today and it can be easily seen that what exists is a national government, and one that would even pass (by far) the dreams of the nationalists at the Philadelphia Convention. It would probably (hopefully) scare them. (It would scare the Jeffersonians!)

The impetus driving power for the Washington political parties and the entire national government (or state governments, for that matter) to just turn 180 degrees and move in the other direction is too strong, nor possible given the structure and incentives of statism. There is too much power and special interest groups invested in the status quo. Too much dependence on the current system to be changed internally.

Thinking that it will change in such a way is like saying that the laws of gravity will inverse tomorrow.

Voting has never made anyone free. Thinking that voting will someday make us all free is a sign of a man who is not paying attention and who is only kidding himself. I fully agree with the following statement: If voting really made a difference, then it would be illegal. As far as I am concerned, voting "rights" only show us how un-free we really all are.

But back to the Ron Paul Revolution... Am I completely disappointed, or something of this effect? No, not at all. This Paleo Blog entry should not suggest that. Overall it has been triumph! Because of the spreading of ideas.

I am still amazed and thrilled at the grassroots. God bless them all, and God bless Dr. Paul. (I am not sure how this man does it. He is a saint.) The Revolution has won in spreading some good ideas. Hopefully they have made, and will continue to make, some dent in the fabric of public opinion. That is why I support him and why everyone should. Dr. Paul is a natural (non-establishment) aristocrat.

Plus I am relatively more hopeful long-term than before because of the Revolution.

So what I mean when I said that "not even Ron Paul and the Revolution movement can change" the nature of statism and the political system, I mean that in a direct way. Indirectly it can and (I very much hope) it is. Enough people that realize the nature of statism can end it. Without public support it would just blow away. And every system----stateless, monarchical, democratic, dictatorial, etc.----depends on public support, even if it is just passive support.

All empires crumble in the long-run. As long as there are people, like Dr. Paul, out there, it is possible that the masses will realize why and what direction to take. A major economic crisis (even catastrophic ones) can result in, at least temporarily, a more despotic government emerging, as the ignorant and power-seeking erroneously fault the free market for the dilemma. Then again, if the voices of gentlemen like Dr. Paul are heard, the public might wise-up and move in a more liberty direction. Ideas are vital.

“The Real Aggressor” by Murray N. Rothbard

“To take up arms against one set of socialists is not the way to stop socialism — indeed it is bound to increase socialism as all modern wars have done.”

The late, great Murray Rothbard wrote in this astute 1954 essay about how many conservatives have a “schizophrenic pursuit of both liberty and collectivism.” They adopt an “international-collectivistic approach” in foreign policy. It is why they call for and support collective organizations such as NATO. As Mr. Libertarian explicated, these individuals have “a faith in world government, supposedly restricted to the enforcement of so-called world law” to freeze the international order that currently exists. Moreover, these conservatives in the Cold War did not understand that the real "battle" was ideological in nature. Not just the subset ideology of communism but the superset it belongs to; statism.

“The battle can only be waged in the realm of ideas and reason. Man shall only tighten his chains — and those holding other men — if he takes up arms simply against one foreign statist faction. Even if Russia and China both were to be wiped out tomorrow, Communism would continue to exist (just as it did before 1917) so long as people continue to give credence to its collectivist tenets. . . .

“But some conservatives are failing to recognize that the enemy is statism, rather than simply Communism. And the fundamental reason, obviously, is that there is still an inadequate understanding of the very nature of the State.”

The very (false) notion, he wrote, that the State should only have "limited" power to protect citizens from aggression is from not understanding the nature of the State or seeing the necessary consequences of this view.

Rothbard then sets down the principles that should be applied to international politics and war. He also gives a path that the United States government should take for a path to freedom, i.e., to adopt "a foreign policy of freedom."

See Also:  "War, Peace, and the State" by Rothbard

Mr. Rockwell writes that, "pro-liberty conservatives, let alone libertarians, have always dissented from the Lincoln Religion."

DiLorenzo chimes in. He also links to a article by conservative Frank Meyer on The Totalitarian Lincoln.

Here is Mr. Casey Khan on "Of Lincolnian & Unionist Idolatry." And Rockwell again on "Ignoramuses Against Ron Paul."

Thank God that Paul is running. It makes this election all so much fun. Fun, but also fun in the sense that a liberty message is being spread...How can you beat that? The establishment does not know how to deal with a man of honesty, integrity, principle, and Jeffersonianism.

What man but Ron Paul will talk about the consequences of interventionism, both domestically and internationally? Who else is armed to the teeth intellectually in defense of peace? And who else is going to talk about the Federal Reserve? Or speak the truth about empire? Or the facts about blowback----what increases the incentives for the development of terrorism around the world (which has shown to the empirically actuate)?

A man who stands his ground by telling the truth, when pressed by the attack media even though it has nothing to do with politics today, about the "Civil War"? A complete distraction. A non-issue. What man but Ron Paul?

If you just stumbled into The Paleo Blog for the first time and find this shocking, do not worry. I am the product of government "education" too. Watch DiLorenzo's speech (linked above). You might also want to check out his article archive at LRC here, many of which are on Lincoln. His book The Real Lincoln is very educating. Lincoln Unmasked is his second book on this subject.

Mr. Horton, of AntiWar.com Radio, talks with Mr. Jim Powell, author of Wilson’s War: How Woodrow Wilson’s Great Blunder Led to Hitler, Lenin, Stalin and World War II, on how

American intervention, not a lack thereof, that created the circumstances which led to the Second World War and the unbroken chain of U.S. intervention overseas from Woodrow Wilson’s breaking of the stalemate of 1917.

Listen Here [MP3].

The Old Right is correct. It is a gross distortion to say that the United States government (empire) has followed a non-interventionist foreign policy up to the point of World War II. What is moreover ironic, when put into the context of neoconservative ideology and policy of today, is that the Wilsonian legacy of spreading democracy, the sacrosanct form of government claimed to be better than an aristocratic republic or monarchical government, is what bred the likes of Hitler. Constant perpetual war and interventionism has gone hand-in-hand.

Of course, demagogues like Sen. McCain will not speak of this. In the last Republican presidential primary "debate," McCain compared Rep. Ron Paul's anti-war stance on the Iraq War to the rise of Hitler. In a nutshell: If you are against the Iraq War, then you are pro-Hitler. This cannot be anything but a joke. Saying that Saddam Hussein was the Hitler of the Middle East can only be described as a fairy tale. He posed no threat and had no desire to pose a threat to the U.S. (See "McCain's Mangled Metaphor" by Justin Raimondo.)

See Also: This entry has a sub-note on how the U.S. was in a kind of "cold war" with Japan. Oh, did I tell you that I dislike democracy? Bad [mp3] enough that we have it here.

------
One More Note: It has now become the fashion for neoconservative pundits to talk about the "grand" new achievements due to the surge in Iraq. Looking deeper, however, reveals that this is a myopic view. They do not mention that this year has been a bloody year for the troops. Neither do they mention that the relative calming down in areas of Iraq is the result of Shi'ites getting rid of the Sunnis out of places like Baghdad. They wanted "peace," well they are getting ethnic cleansing.

This is another entry to The Paleo Blog which will give partial summaries, or highlight points of interest, of a few articles originating from the Journal of Libertarian Studies. (Subscribe to the journal here.) I encourage you all to download the articles, read them, and study them.

Some of my own comments have been added in parentheses.

Here are the articles we will be looking at:

• “Private Police: A Note” by Patrick Tinsley
• “Order Without Law: Where will Anarchists Keep the Madmen?” by John D. Sheed
• “Anarchism and the Public Goods Issue: Law, Courts, and the Police” by David Osterfeld
• “An American Experiment in Anarcho-Capitalism: The Not So Wild, Wild West” by Terry L. Anderson and P. J. Hill

Frank Chodorov, of the Old-Right, in his terrific book Out of Step spoke of his love of Westerns. One thing only touched upon in these Westerns was the fact that it was private enterprise that brought law and order to the land. Capitalism built the West. He wrote that:

"Incidentally, the factual books on the West underline a fact that the script writers only touch upon: namely, that the West was cleaned up----meaning rid of outlawry----not by officialdom but by private enterprise. The public enforcement agent, even as today, was more interested in keeping his job that in doing it. He was quite averse to risking his life for the good of the community, at the going wage. Far more effective in brining some sort of order to the West was the fact that every man carried his own government with him----in his holster. That was private enterprise with a vengeance.

"Supplementing the private gun were the Pinkerton operative and the railroad police----private enterprise. It was they who did what government is supposed to have some competency at doing, namely, the protection of life and property. Then, even as now, those who had something of value to protect were more likely to entrust the job to a professional policeman than to a political policeman. Which brings up a thought: would not the persons and the property of the citizens of New York be more secure if entrusted to a private police force? And would not the job be done at less cost to the citizenry?"

We will be exploring this below...

“Private Police: A Note” by Patrick Tinsley
Download PDF Here.

Tinsley wrote a short and sweet article. Its shortness is not a weakness, though. There are many good things to learn from it. Here they are (as I understand them)...

Those who say the police can’t be private see “enforcement of law” as “a unique and singular commodity.” But this, he writes, is not true. The author then goes through all the different ways a store secures itself from potential robbery. These methods do not “rely exclusively----or even primarily----on the majesty of the state’s enforcement of that law for its own security.”

Take a jewelry store:

it takes out an insurance policy on its gems, which are kept under a locked glass display case, which can only be opened by an employee, who is under the ever-vigilant eye of video monitoring equipment, and who watches the customers with the aid of convex mirrors, and keeps the store’s cash in a locked vault, which is in a back room, which is in turn locked at closing time, and the store’s alarm activated as the employees leave and the armed night watchmen arrive.

Security, then, is not completely in the hands of the State. Plus it is a ‘something’ that is dividable. It has marginal units.

If private police were to come into being in society, one might wonder how this would affect the poor.

The poor generally rent. They seek to rent from landlords who offer good amenities and keep the place well-maintained. Landlords would also have to have security on their minds as well. To maintain their property they will have to secure it and go to an agent to watch over it. “[O]r else,” Tinsley writes, “he will be quickly out of his property and even quicker out of his tenants.”

When such poor (or non-poor) folks are not at home, they are on other property. Businesses want a secure area. They want their customer to be safe and they want their property to be safe. Just as we get “free” usage of their private restrooms, we would get “free” security/protection at their location. Likewise, private roads, like other businesses, want to attract customers and keep their property safe. Thus, the poor would get “free” security on roads as well. That is, they would not necessarily have to pay (relatively speaking) for their own security at such locations. Loosely speaking, they will be “participants in the so-called free rider problem,” the author notes.

Today we already enjoy the security of being at a shopping mall. We certainly feel safer there than on public property!

To illuminate the difference between the public and the private enforcement of law, simply imagine the rate of criminal activity at Central Park as prevailing at, say, Macy’s.

A third point the article goes into is how a victim of crime “could be rewarded by the (private) courts a claim for damages in an amount which corresponds to the gravity of the crime. Such a claim would be transferable property.” They can sell (part of) that claim to a private agent. This is similar to how lawyers can agree to help a poor man: In a contractual agreement, claims awarded to the plaintiff partially go to the lawyer, so that the poor customer does not have to pay a large up-front bill. Etc.

Another major concern is corruption (as if the State solves that!). It is argued that since market or capitalistic organizations work “within the parameters implied by profit-making, [they] would be susceptible to bribery and corruption.” He replies that this reaction “is manifest in ... a fundamental failure to comprehend the workings of a free market.”

To begin with, a competitive free market of private police companies cannot (versus States) force people to become clients. Agents would have to convince people to become their customers for good protection and good & fair relationships.

It is also likely, Tinsley says, that to ensure this they would insure their customers properties. (That is, they would become insurance agencies.) Thus, they have an incentive to protect those properties, almost as if it were their own.

This is the opposite of the State public police. He writes:

In fact, it is the public police that stands to profit from look-the-other-way law enforcement. After all, arriving at its funding, as it does, from (coerced) tax revenues, the public police will not endure economic hardship if and when it fails to arrest the onslaught of crime. Therefore, it pay for its officers to accept bribes from the perpetrators of crime, offering in exchange clemency.

So we see that bribery is relatively more likely under statist conditions. This point from Patrick Tinsley, for me, has good perception on the State’s collectivism and inferiority to the market. It creates conditions in which manifest corruption and inefficiencies. Now, no one is saying that problems cannot arrive in the free market. (They will.) Problems arise in life. That should be clear to anyone reading this. But problems are exponentially increased as State power takes control over more areas of society. We must understand that society is not a homogeneous robot. It cannot just be programmed and controlled at will without (bad, very bad) consequences.

“Order Without Law: Where Will Anarchists Keep the Madmen?” by John D. Sneed
Download PDF Here.

With true abolition, man and society will be free from the destructive chain of the State. The monopoly of “protection” (so-called protection) would no longer exist in a society without a State. Then the question comes up of how madmen will be dealt with. John Sneed succeeds in answering that question very well.

In anarcho-capitalism, man would be able to purchase “protection services according to his own tastes and preference,” says Sneed. Man will balance his desire for protection services relative to other goods and services on the free market. Some men are more “risk-averse” and will demand much more security and others much less. Like all other industries, it is through specialization in the division of labor which would create a market for the production of security. Demand and technological limitations and/or requirements would help determine the size of companies that offered this service. They would have to, to the best of the defense companies and man’s abilities, provide their service paralleling the market conditions of free acting men (and, consequently, family households, communities and so on).

(Instead of public cops spending much of their finite resources on victimless “crimes,” private cops would have to use their resources on genuine crimes in compliance with the rules of the property owners. More importantly, their finite services would no longer be arbitrary. Where, for example, should the cops be? Should they be patrolling this street or that? Should they stay put at one location or move around, and how exactly? There is no pricing mechanism to determine this. They do not have to comply with actual demand from the public---a public filled with various private property owners with different needs. It is equivalent to food socialism, which results in starvation due to uneconomic allocations. Also, given that their funding is through taxation, neglectance is to be expected. They can get away with less work because they know they have a constant supply of money. In direct comparison a private police agency’s money is through voluntarism. If they had such an attitude, they can be out competed by another agency. Their attitude, in a free society, must result in one that would be seeking to serve customers as best possible. In brief: the disutility of labor applies always, and so you want market conditions because it will lessen man’s disutility, so to speak.)

As a business, the goal of such defense companies would be to “minimize non-productive strife and maximize profit.” [emphasis mine] (The customers, of course, want the lowest cost and the best protection. This is what these companies will have to compete over.) This implies that they want peace between all of their subscribing customers because conflicts that happen between them would be handled by said company. These companies would then work out a “code” in dealing with such cases.

Conflicts can, of course, happen between men of different defense companies. If defense company 1 seeks to arrest or detain man A because, they believe, he in someway violated the property or person of one of their clients, then what would be the response if man A belongs to defense company 2?

Companies would have to anticipate such problems, he says. He reasons that companies would have an interest in complying with such demands from another company (or resolving them in some way). There is little interest in warring it out.

(It should be said that if public opinion is against war-making between agencies, then war-like activity will be decreased. All social systems require public support; otherwise the given social system would collapse. Under statist conditions, it should be expected that war-like activity would be greater for many reasons. This is not to mention that its entire basis is in war-like activity, i.e., coercion of “its” subjects. Tax money is collectivized and State activity is considered “legal.” Money to defense agents, on the other hand, is voluntary. Since war-like activity in a free society would be considered illegal, this would logically affect man to be more conservative with his money. He would have to think on the margin. Relatively speaking, then, agents will tend to be less war-like than States. See chapter one of The Economics and Ethics of Private Property by Hans Hoppe.)

There are several reasons for not warring it out, Sneed writes. (1) Other companies dealings with it would become more and more mute. They would likely refuse to hand over or try to resolve conflict in which an aggressor appears to be part of their company. Thus, the given company would become increasingly “powerless to protect its clients against the opposing companies’ clients.” He continues: “[O]r will be forced into a violent confrontation with other companies.” Publication of such company to the public would make themselves isolated moreover. The risk-averse customers would leave. (2) Criminals, due to the “unstable nature of their ‘trade’,” tend to migrate. Companies would have an incentive to share their information about criminals to each other to minimize costs and maximize profits. It is bad relationships between companies which would eliminate this. [Think of casinos sharing information in regards to those who can count cards.] (3) Such action by a company would attract criminals, and such a company would then become entangled in greater numbers of conflicts leading to its dissolve in bankruptcy.

(A company that did not comply in resolving the conflict would be seen as harboring criminals! People became clients to the given defense company for defense. They would likely question their continued customer relationship. Also, if the person in question is really a criminal, then that criminal is more likely than other clients to aggress against persons in said company. The company, then, would just be shooting itself in the foot. That is, it would be inviting conflict to occur with its own clients. This would be a good policy if the company desired failing.)

Now, if the company feels its client is really innocent, it still has an interest in working with the other company to resolve the situation in a fair manner. Beyond interests in cooperation, with competition, he writes, “refusal will entail risks of a higher order than any risk or loss they might suffer as a result of the guilt of their client.”

Anticipation of such conflicts will generally lead to formal procedures agreed to by most companies in a given area concerning the limits of reciprocal powers of arrest. Similar “treaties” will develop to define procedure in several other areas as well, assuming that the companies possess some small degree of foresight, an assumption implicitly denied by most critics of anarchism.

The author continues: “A profit-maximizing arresting company would usually demand bail which would allow it to make a satisfactory settlement to the victim or his heirs, cover all costs incurred in the case, and provide it with a satisfactory profit.”

Impartiality would be improved. Clients, knowing that they might be accused of wrong doing, would want to find a company that would be efficient at defending them from accusations. Companies, then, would have to employ efficient private investigators. This would lessen convictions of innocent men.

To skip ahead to another topic in Sneed’s article, let’s say the accused is found guilty. Now what? He would pay his debt. If he could not pay, then what? It would depend on the case and the criminal in question. The author answers: “They could allow the convict to work out his judgment at his previous occupation, under varying degrees of security and supervision ranging from probationary to work-release schemes.”

This has several advantages, he says. One being that it would reward good behavior by the convict, monetarily. It would also be in the interest with the agent because costs would go down.

“Anarchism and the Public Goods Issue: Law, Courts, and the Police” by David Osterfeld
Download PDF Here.

A persistent confusion with genuine hard-core libertarianism with many people is that they see it as against all law or enforcement thereof. Condemnations against the anarchy of lawlessness or chaos are, no doubt, justified. As Osterfeld writes in this article, these attacks would be justified against libertarianism if it were not for the fact that “one finds [in] anarchist literature continual references to ‘natural law,’ ‘objective’ law, ‘common law,’ ...” Libertarians are not against law but legislation, the author writes. Thus, the thing to address is if law is possible without legislation. The answer to this first question is yes.

The concept and idea of legislation is a relatively new one. Law (e.g., classical Roman civil law and English common law) was to discover and find; not to impose or create by thin air. Call this good-style conservatism in action, if you will. Common law actually came out via spontaneous order. By no accident, Osterfeld writes, was it largely libertarian.

Circuit judges, pre-Norman England, would travel “from town to town, hold court as they were.” “Individuals,” the author writes, “would submit disputes to these judges, and it was from the growing corpus of these individual judicial decisions that a body of laws, common for the whole realm, gradually emerged.” Cases brought to the judge involved two parties. After all, it is these two sets which are required for crime; unlike a "crime" one commits against oneself----he does not go to a judge(!). With the settling of disputes, the cases will naturally fall into individual property rights. That is where (aggressive) conflict can occur. The tendency, therefore, will be of a libertarian nature.

These decisions were used as the basis to judge future ones (“stare decisis”). Stare decisis gave “certainty to the law, i.e., it made possible a true rule of law.” While there was a static feature to such development of law, it also was able to adapt to various and changing circumstances. There is continuity to such law. Symmetrically, an anarcho-capitalist system could be able to deal with unforeseen and unique circumstances too. Air pollution being an example. Fundamentally, the issue is a property and trespassing issue. (Something, by the way, the great minarchist Ron Paul has been pointing to.)

But does this law contra legislation still need a statist framework?

Osterfeld notes that law “does not operate in a social vacuum.” Any social system requires support (even if it is passive) from the public. It depends on its “horizontal” support between men in the given system. This dependence is greater than “vertically” structured law enforcement. No system can be maintained---even the current one---without support.

What, specifically, would be the process by which laws would be judged and enforced in anarchy? In the absence of government there would be no tax-supported and coercively imposed “protection service.” No one would have to purchase protection if he did not desire it. Yet, law is obviously a good highly valued by most, if not all, of us. In the wake of abolition of the government monopoly in this area it is likely that, just as in other industries, companies would quickly form to supply defense or protection services to those who want them...

In such competitive conditions there is the inclination to promote “economies of standardization” due to the high costs of too much “conflicting legal codes.” So while different subscribers to different companies will vary in laws, arbitration between them would promote a unification of law and resolution procedure. (Vigilante justice then would be limited in the free market. The companies would have an incentive to eliminate uncertainty.)

He also argues in the article that the absence of public property would reinforce law in the protection of private property. Don’t forget laws concerning the usage of public property would be gone.

This does not, however, mean that “everyone, even nonlibertarians, would be forced to live an unrestrained lifestyle.” “Bilateral law” would develop. It would apply only to those who have voluntarily entered into such relations.

(Now “bilateral law” might require, in many areas, to enter into convent relationships, housing associations, or some such things. In many cases, of course, this would mean people would have to assimilate to more traditional norms of the community.So one better start civilizing oneself with the normal standards of the community. If not, then one would find themselves unwelcome and find themselves living isolated and on the edge of society. Actually, this “bilateral law” probably would be required for most. That is because many people would want to enter into these types of relationships to avoid bad neighbors that, for example, leave trash on their [own respected] property, thus lowering the property values of the area. Also worthy of mention is that this gives much reason for traditional or paleo-conservatives, of the social and cultural variety like myself, to become anarcho-capitalists.Thomas Woods comes to mind. So does Joseph Sobran. See The Paleo Blog’s “Culture, Literature, and Private Communities” and “A Moral Imagination to a Diabolic Imagination.”)

Another error that is often made is that since such law requires one to “enter into it” (so to speak), everyone would be able not to enter any law, resulting in chaos or a “lawless” situation. However, Osterfeld writes, “This freedom presupposes a framework binding on all individuals prohibiting everyone from interfering with the autonomous domains of others, i.e., from initiating violence.”

He then gives focus to how conflicts would be resolved. Now if two parties are part of the same agent, the dispute would be resolved there. Contractual agreements would work out those details. Such contracts are voluntary and would be in competition with other contracts from other companies. The same market superiority would be at play.

Then the question comes up about two different agents. Two different people from two different agents can come into conflict. Then what? As the author argues, it is very likely that both agents would reach the same conclusion: “This is probably not as unlikely as it might seem at first, since no court company could stay in business by rendering biased decisions in order to protect the illicit activities of its clientele.”

Third-party arbitration services would develop. To fight against corruption (e.g., bribery), in advance parties can agree to go to appeal courts. And how would they stay in business? Again, by providing the service they are in business for, i.e., neutral and fair service in deputes.

Here is David Osterfeld in more length:

It is important to realize that this position is not predicated on the naïve belief that all, or even most men, are good or desire justice. It is based, rather, on the simple but realistic proposition that no one desires to be swindled. A might wish to sign a piece of land from B, a transaction that would include an agreement to take any further dispute concerning the land to an agent A knew would favor him. B would desire to have any dispute taken to a company that would favor him. Since, obviously, neither would agree to the other’s terms, the transaction could be consummated only if both agreed to submit to a natural agency. This means that the greater a judge’s reputation for honesty, the more cases he will have submitted to him. And, of course, the more cases submitted to him, the more money he will earn.

An outlaw agent would have problems. It would have to deal with law-abiding ones. Employees working for one would be increasingly costly, as they are pushed off the market. Thus, costs would go up to pay such workers. “Aggression would become less and less profitable and thus less attractive because the higher costs to the aggressor company would compel it to raise its premiums.” [emphasis mine]

Another important point, which is self-evident but easy to overlook, the article makes is from David Friedman (son of the late Milton Friedman). As long as people value their life and property, as most do!, and do not want to be robbed or murdered, they will spend their greater resources to that end versus the small minority of truly evil (criminal) people. Victims of theft out number aggressors, and consequently there is more money in defense than in aggression. Plus, after all, a victim alone values his property and is willing to pay more for protection thereof greater than a crook.

Beyond some of this, the article also addresses the criticism from philosopher Robert Nozick.

“An American Experiment in Anarcho-Capitalism: The Not So Wild, Wild West” by Terry L. Anderson and P. J. Hill
Download PDF Here.

Anderson and Hill write in their JLS article that the American Old West, while not one-hundred percent “anarchistic,” was close enough to show the “viability of property rights in the absence of a formal state.” Popular myths, popularized by Hollywood entertainment and fictional literature, have portrayed the Old West as a place of great chaos and perpetual violence. However, crime records and historian research seems to suggest otherwise. For instance, “Only two towns, Ellsworth in 1873 and Doge City in 1876, ever had five killings in any one year.” Or take Abilene, considered one of the most “wild” cow towns, they cite that “nobody was killed in 1869 or 1870.” “In fact,” they continue in their citation quote of another author, “nobody was killed until the advent of officers of the law, employed to prevent killings.” They refer to sources which show that the crime statistics show no higher crimes in the Old West relative to other areas of the country. Overall, the authors document, the West was not as “Wild” as most think. In fact, overall it was more peaceful.

In polemics about the feasibility of anarcho-capitalism, the Old West provides insights into the potentiality of a stateless society. The Old West appears to conflict with many of the critics’ views of how private security or law enforcement agents would run. Chaos did not dominate; neither did “war” between private agents. Competition kept enterprise in-check and the competing agents did not just come together to form some semi-State. In addition, some critics claim that market anarchy could not get off the the ground floor because, they believe, the question of property rights and how they are derived must come from the top-down or are simply undefinable. This too, while more, as the authors of the article argue, “conceptual than empirical," did not seem to be a problem either with the Old West. There was what is called a “schelling point,” where people had shared views on the “rights to use and control property.” As will be partially summarized in this blog entry, the truth of the matter is that property rights were often seen as “paramount” to society.

Private individuals and enterprises came together in formation to produce law, security, and the protection of private property. War-like conflict was at a minimal between different agencies. It was evident that such conflicts were counterproductive and not in their interests. They saw that it was far less costly to resolve conflicts through private arbitration and courts. The not so Wild, Wild West saw the formation of claims associations, cattlemens’ associations, mining camp law, and plains law for wagon trains. While the article goes into much more detail than I will here, I'll lightly cover a few things here...

Squatters, or frontier settlers, claiming land did so without government/State oversight. So “land clubs” or “claims associations” were formed, according to the article. Different claim associations formed different constitutions and procedures. Anderson and Hill write:

Each claims association adopted its own constitution and by-laws, elected officers for the operation of the organization, established rules for adjudicating disputes, and established the procedure for the registration and protection of claims. . . . The constitution specified the procedure whereby property rights in land would be defined as well as the procedure for arbitrating claims disputes.

Enforcement of decisions sometimes did require (protective) violence, but other methods were used. Open discrimination, isolation, and refusal to trade-with a given offender was used within the subscribers to the association. Another reason these associations were formed was in common defense from any outside aggression.

Cattlemens’ associations were also formed in the Old West. “Frontier law” formed. The authors cite that within two years of settlement of said land “small groups of owners were organizing themselves into protective associations and hiring stock detectives.” These associations were started and developed in much the same way as the claims associations, but were “more violent than the trade sanctions specified by the claims associations. These private protection agencies were quite clearly a market response to existing demands for enforcement of rights.”

Major economies of scale did not seem to exist in either enforcement or crime. Although there are numerous records of gunslingers making themselves available fore hire, we find no record of these gunslingers discovering that it was even more profitable to band together and form a super-defense agency that sold protection and rode roughshod over private property rights. Some of the individuals did drift in and out of a life of crime and sometimes did form loose criminal associations. However, these associations did not seem to be encouraged by the market form of peace keeping, and in fact, seemed to be dealt with more quickly and more severely under private protective associations than under government organization.

The Pinkerton Agency (as mentioned above by Chodorov) and Wells Fargo were “large private organizations,” but “these agencies seemed to serve mainly as adjuncts to government...”

The authors of the article then moves on to mining camps. Finding gold in California in 1848 brought a rush of men. Again, there was no real presence of government; not “not within five hundred miles.” Various companies organized different ways with different rules as it relates to the workers. Voluntary contracts governed the taking care of “the sick and unfortunate, rules for personal conduct including the use of alcoholic spirits, and fines which could be imposed for misconduct, to mention a few.”

“While the mining camps did not have private courts where individuals could take their disputes and pay for arbitration, they did develop a system of justice through the miners’ courts.”

Finally, and they say maybe “the best example of private property anarchy,” deals with the wagon trains. In this section of the article, Anderson and Hill explain that “the wagon trains as they moved across the plains,” were in areas that were “unorganized, unpatrolled, and beyond the jurisdiction of the United States law.” “Plains law” developed with different groups forming different constitutions laying out the rules during their travel.

When crimes against property or person did occur, the judicial system which was specified in the contracts was brought into play. “The rules of a traveling company organized at Kanesville, Iowa, provided: ‘Resolved, that in case of any dispute arising between any members of the Company, they shall be referred to three arbiters, one chosen by each party, and one by the two chosen, whose decision shall be final.’” The methods of settling disputes varied among the companies, but in nearly all cases some means of arbitration were specified to insure “that the rights of each emigrant are protected and enforced.”

For more details, of course, you will have to check out the article.

Hmm... Do I need to re-think Thanksgiving? Cut me some slack, I am the product of government "education." I will (metaphorically speaking) put this into my pipe, smoke it, and ponder.

Read "The Anti-Independence Day" by Ryan McMaken.

From the very bottom of my bleeding (illiberal?) heart, I hope you all had a wonderful, beautiful and delicious Thanksgiving holiday with your family. On a daily basis, not just on Thanksgiving Day, we should all try to reflect and be thankful for God, our life, family, friends, Church, community, many of our cultural traditions, our ancestors, and free-market capitalism and its principles. We should be thankful for all of these things, and more, and cherish them. Be thankful for them, cherish them, love them. Do that by enriching yourself physically or materialistically (within reason) and spiritually. Do this with God, yourself, and other people.

I am reminded of a poem, read by a very recently past-away radio talk show host, John Dayl - requiescat in pace. It is called "Mom's Advice: Imagine, Attempt, Explore, Celebrate, Treasure." The author wrote it to her daughter. I believe the author's name is Mary Jane Cronin, but please forgive me if I got the last name wrong.

 . . . Unfortunately, I seem not able to upload the mp3 of it to Vox. I'm not sure why, because it appears to fit all of the requisites of an audio upload to this community blog site. (I'll try again. The delivery by the late John Dayl was very elegant.) So it appears I will have to transcribe it:

Speak Softly, with Conviction.
Walk in No One's Shadow.
Laugh Loudly and Often.
Light Candles. Find Your Spiritual Self.
Fear Nothing.
Walk Quietly with Purpose.
Enjoy a Few Vices.
Observe All. Discover the Wonder.
Be Kind and Forgive All Things.
Eat Wisely and Sometimes Indulge.
Know Pleasure and Accept Pain.
Be Curious and Imaginative.
Be Charitable to the Less Fortunate.
Respect Others, Always.
Speak to God Each Day.
Spoil Yourself with Kindness and Love.
Make Angels in the New Snow.
Expose Yourself to the Summer Sun.
Warm Yourself in Front of a Fire.
Weep with Joy. Weep in Sorrow.
Be Busy, But Save Up Quiet Time.
Always Save room for Dessert.
Study Others and Learn From Them.
Wear Glasses, But See More without Them.
Seek Wealth Elsewhere than Money.
Lose Yourself in Thoughts. And Then Put Them Into Action.
Pledge Yourself to Love Wisely.
Eat from Paper Plates And Fine China.
Be Controversial, But Predictable.
Never Be Bored, Look for More.
Have an Affair with Your One True Love.
Wish on the Stars on the Full Moon.
Learn to Tease and Laugh at Yourself.
Luxuriate In the Ordinary and Tolerate Luxury.
Smoke a Cigar, Just Once.
Blush when Embarrassed. And Yell When Necessary.
Welcome the Night as you have the Dawn.
Be Patient with Life. And Nurture You.
Enjoy Being a Woman, My Child.

But, back to the holiday Thanksgiving.

As will be linked in the above blog entry, it appears there is more than meets the eye concerning this holiday. It seems there is a not-so-good (surprise!) connection it has with being a nationally mandated government holiday by despotic presidents to suit their own purposes. While I cannot endorse a Lincolnian vision of a nation-state or so-called "unity" by the gun, I am as of yet not completely convinced to abandon it. It is a tradition apart and detached. At least it has been for me, and my family. (Although, Mr. McMaken's article makes an interesting point on what makes a holiday true, universal, and eternal.) Let's just not attach statism to it, if that is possible. On the other hand, I see nothing wrong with being thankful (or perhaps celebrating that thankfulness) for nationality and things of this nature. Nationality does not necessarily imply State.* It does give people a bond. You can say, for example, that the North and South have their own nationalities and that these nationalities are more genuine than combining North and South together, but either way there is a bond between peoples.

*(To quote Murray Rothbard: “The ‘nation,’ of course, is not the same thing as the state, a difference earlier libertarians and classical liberals such as Ludwig von Mises and Albert Jay Nock understood full well. Contemporary libertarians often assume, mistakenly, that individuals are bound to each other only by the nexus of market exchange. They forget that everyone is necessarily born in a family, a language, and a culture....”)

But be this as it may, one thing 'they' will not teach our kids in government cesspool prisons (a.k.a. public schools) is how it was private property and capitalism that saved the Pilgrims from lives filled with misery and starvation. If we all want a good lesson to go with Thanksgiving, then why not this?

When the very first settlers came to America, instead of making a life through private ownership and production, they implemented a system of communism or socialism. There was communal ownership of property, including land. The land was very fertile. Lots of animals to kill and eat. Lots of plants. Lots of fish. Fruit. And so forth. All 104 settlers to Jamestown did not arrive in America in the dead of winter. There were ample amounts of resources just waiting for them. But in only half a year 66 of them were dead. When Virginia Company brought in 500 more people, after another half a year 440 of them were dead because of starvation and disease.

Sir Thomas Dale, from the British government, saw the problem. It was the communal ownership. It was the collectivism. The men and families that were there were not unable, nor was the land barren. Conditions, because of the socialist incentives, became so bad that men started to free-ride on the ownership collectivism. He therefore introduced private property. And, guess what? The colony started to prosper. All of that misery, and for what? Not understanding the evils of statism and its subsets.

By the same token, the people of Plymouth had the same initial troubles. There too was in place a collectivist society. Death and starvation was the norm. When the people there embraced private property, like Jamestown, they then saw their living standards enlarge significantly.

As the politicians----both Republican and Democrat alike----talk about how they have all of these "great" ideas (collectivist, by nature) to "solve" all of the ills of society or to make it "better," maybe we all should look to this lesson.

Reference: How Capitalism Saved America: The Untold History of Our Country, From the Pilgrims to the Present by Thomas J. DiLorenzo.

Here are some Thanksgiving related articles:

• The Great Thanksgiving Hoax by Richard J. Maybury
• Property and the First Thanksgiving by Gary Galles
• The Trouble With Liberals by Jacob G. Hornberger
  
• Celebrating Individualist Private Property–Based Production Day by Jim Cox
  
• The Government Demands That You Be Thankful by William L. Anderson
• War On Holidays Is War on America by Sam Francis
  
• The Grinch Who Moved Thanksgiving by Bill Kauffman
  
• Thanksgiving or Mourning in Seattle? by Gary North
• Thanksgiving and Marginal Utility by Gary North
• Giving Thanks to Family, Friends and the Market by Anthony Gregory

[I have a habit for going a bit on a tangent, but sometimes for the good. In this free-riding entry I go over a few of the lessons that really should have been seen as it relates to 9/11/01 and where we are today. I also explain the logic behind the rise of fascism, from the frame of reference of the State, and how that applies to today's department of homeland "security." I also briefly talk about the democratization of war. I am sure there are several articles and blog entires online on 9/11, my focus might be somewhat more unique in the areas I chose to focus and zero-in on.]

“It is in war that the State really comes into its own: swelling in power, in number, in pride, in absolute dominion over the economy and the society. Society becomes a herd, seeking to kill its alleged enemies, rooting out and suppressing all dissent from the official war effort, happily betraying truth for the supposed public interest. Society becomes an armed camp, with the values and the morale – as Albert Jay Nock once phrased it – of an 'army on the march.'”
--- Murray N. Rothbard; War, Peace, and the State

***

Six years later, where are we today?

For one thing, it does not feel that it has been that long. The government and its ever-willing media make the tragic affair feel like it was merely two or perhaps three years ago. They exploit the event as much as possible for their gain, to further encroach on the liberties of the American people, and not to mention to further encroach on the liberties of other peoples of the world. Sept 11 was nothing more, for the government, than a pretext to thrust the agenda of neoconservative global hegemony, the expansion of the warfare-welfare state, and the domestic police state.

Robert Higgs is the author of Crisis and Leviathan: Critical Episodes in the Growth of American Government. War really is the Health of the State, as Randolph Bourne said in an uncompleted essay. History has never failed to show otherwise, as people like Dr. Higgs have shown.. It is in times of crisis and war that State power explodes. Since democratic government is all about rallying people to its causes under the illusion that “‘we’ the people” are the government, the State will do its best to meliorate its hold of power in times when people are most likely to rally together.

Many of men often talk about a so-termed “New World Order” or a “World Government,” but I exhort to those individuals that this is not entirely accurate. The powers that be see they, themselves, as the global controllers of the United States (Empire). They see themselves as the power holders. It is not as if they want to hand over power to the United Nations, unless they themselves control it. Ditto goes for the idea of a “North American Union.” Even if it be they in charge, this should not diminish any of our views of what that would mean and entail, to those truly concerned about freedom. Clearly this is of a most dangerous scenario, because it is a growth function of democratic government to mass centralize in this fashion----to centralize in a way that no classical monarchy could ever.

This is not just some cooked up rhetoric about neoconservatism and those that subscribe to this ideological creed, though. Mr. James Bovard makes the point in his excellent latest book, Attention Deficit Democracy, that the parallels of speech and written word to dictators like Benito Mussolini and neoconservative Bill Kristol, who the late Sam Francis called the “neoconservative sex god,” is very clear and vivid. There need be no dramatic hyperbole. Kristol, for example, in 1996 spoke of how the U.S. should exploit its "military supremacy and moral confidence" to achieve "benevolent global hegemony." (What is "benevolent" about that, I am unsure.) Or take William Buckley, who has called for (his very words) "a totalitarian bureaucracy within our shores" to fight the Soviet Union-------only this attitude or view did not end after the Cold War.. Today, like it or not, this is what conservatism means in the modern world.

Security and Transportation

Government’s supposed job, which people say needs a monopoly over a geographical territory (but, interestingly and paradoxically, it is suggested by nearly everyone that there not need be a monopoly over the entire world, contra their logic that would suggest that), is of “protection.” Of course, government failed miserably on 9-11. It monopolized security in regards to airports and airliners. Its control gutted airliners to look after their own interests. Interests of which they have a direct and immediate concern about, unlike government which only has an indirect and secondary (at best!) concern about. They were not allowed to do the things they would have otherwise been allowed to do. Government’s banning of the airliners possessing a gun for protection is a clear example. There is a direct concern for private enterprise to protect their paying customers and to continue to do that for new potential customers. They have to respond to the free market and guard against the possibility of losses; chief among them would be the possibility of hijacking. Instead, government took this transportation industry off the gird of the market, so to speak. Failure was not punished, as in what happens to a free market enterprise that fails, but instead the State was rewarded with more power and control. Imagine, from this, the incentive system that the State has! It is of no accident that so-called government provided “services” are the areas of life that are the worst.

One of the lessons that should have been figured out with the events of Sept 11th, 2001 is that government provided “security” is not security at all! What should have been demanded is that the government get out of the business altogether.  All that has been “gained” with government getting even more involved in security is airport authoritarianism.

This does not only go for the governmental operations in the area of transportation and the security thereof. The State’s myopia fills all of the diverse departments that are supposed to “protect” us. All of them did not accomplish the task and made us all the more vulnerable. Instead of being deprived of funding, they were only expanded. Even new departments were created to add to the mess after 9/11. Departments, that for all obviousness, are nothing but pork. Today’s so-called conservatives, one thought, are supposed to condemn such government projects. The matter is entirely different, of course, and they gladly cheer on the most extravagant (in ugliness) of government programs.

Homeland “Security”

As Dr. Thomas DiLorenzo writes in “The Fatherland Protection Racket,” the pork projects that fill the department of Homeland “Security” are so visibly pork that one wonders why there is hardly the outrage against this department that there ought to be. Believing that this department “protects” us is delusional. (More on this later.)

The Rise and Reason of Fascism

Individuals qua government officials who seek power via political contra economic means, motivated by the same basic interests and desires as all other men, while at the same time under the identical economic laws and limitations, understand that the best way to facilitate government power is not through socialism. Socialism’s bankruptcy only produces bankrupt states. The former Soviet Union, while internally aggressive and oppressive to the people under it, had only consequently weak hosts to live parasitically on. This explains why, relatively speaking, the former Soviet Union was never as imperialistic or aggressive, outside of “its” territory, as the United States, which is (relatively) internally less aggressive or classically liberal. Such states, as the U.S., will therefore tend to turn into empires. The record only bears this out for today’s empire (the U.S.) and ones past.

Thus, with the above acknowledged, such political individuals will try to “harness” the abundance of wealth that is created under the “engine” of society, i.e. of capitalism. This will generally turn capitalism, under statist conditions, into fascism (i.e., anti-capitalism). In such a case, the alliance between big government and big business is amplified and enlarged. Mythical attacks in which left-liberals have against capitalism for being nothing more than fascism is utterly nonsense then, because there is a clear and definitive difference between the political versus the economic means for an individual to obtain wealth: one of taking (stealing and coercion, i.e. political) or mobbing out competition (closing the door for competition via coercive regulations, i.e. political) and the other of producing wealth (production and voluntarism, i.e. economic). Fascism is the only natural course for Leviathan Statism. One has to actually abolish the idea of coercive and monopolistic “protection” and socialist (state provided) “law and order” to get rid of the natural flow of statism and accordingly its flow to the rise of fascism.

(People will take the easier or shortest route, after all. The man that is offered $X dollars by the government will take it. The man that is offered to regulate his competitor out of business will have the urge and strong desire to take it. There is no polylogism or polyeconomic analysis for men directly working in government, either. No wishful thinking by even non-Austrian analysis can change that.)

This explains the reason of the existence of such departments as Homeland “Security” and why they are heavily protected against those who call for it to be destroyed. It also applies as well to the entire military-industrial complex.

Homeland “Security” Continued

What has the “Fatherland Protection Racket” brought? Far from protection, it is another racket of fascism. To quote DiLorenzo:

As for the pork, a few examples will give you the flavor of how out-of-control it has become:
* Boeing was given a five-year, $1.37 billion contract to equip U.S. airports with "bomb screening devices" that experts say are "laughingly ineffective."
* Northrop Grumman "landed a $350 million contract to construct a DHS data network.
* "First-responder training facilities are springing up like toadstools after a rainstorm. The Nevada Test Site . . . which trains 3,000 fire fighters, paramedics, and policemen annually, is slated to quintuple that number as the DHS money rolls in."