the following is posted in reply to an interesting debate with
The Angry Exile which originally started at
The Passenger. both were kind enough to give me the time of day and, unusually for my involvement in blog comment forums, i managed not to upset anyone and it didnt descend into a closed minded slanging match so thanks all round!
My apologies - ive only just found your reply post. Thanks for such an engaging reply. Nice to not be debating with some socialist troll for once!
Im sure this debate has been conducted thousands of times by individuals far more able than myself (Sedgwick’s link is a perfect example). I tend to avoid even reading such discussions as being just too thorny. Im quite happy to admit that there are practical problems with the ideal of anarchy and that as as yet noone seems to have answered them satisfactorily enough to put the argument beyond question.
There seems to be common ground based on this blogging environment that we can ground this discussion in. We all want liberty and we all agree that the model of human organisation known as the state doesnt seem to allow/give freedom too well. I think it would be safe to say round here that we might all agree that the anglo rightist concept of negative 'freedom from' is preferable to the more 'progressive' leftist positive 'freedom to' that necessitates a coercive power to 'give' rights etc.
On the problem of the re-emergence of coercive power. It is almost certainly the most significant obstacle to a voluntary society. Such regression is not only a threat to anarchy – minarchy, libertarianism, classical liberalism, laissez faire, small government, call-it-what-you-will individual freedom is constantly at risk of authoritarian tendencies in human nature.
Jefferson was acutely aware of this and, as you say, his fellow signatories crafted their independence primarily to check the necessary evil of government against the natural liberty of the individual. American history is no different to the growth of the state across the globe in that successive governments used crises to expand coercive power at the expense of liberty. European and US history are full of problem-reaction-solution patterns of state power tipping the balance away from individual freedom. Income tax to fight Napoleon etc, we all know the examples.
So, to say that anarchism is weakened by the possibility that a state may emerge, although valid, isn’t a completely damning criticism. Minarchy already has the state that is feared may emerge under anarchy.
I appreciate your point regarding the conditioned dependence of the statist masses. There is little appetite for individual freedom in the western world at this point in history. Someone once said to me that expecting spontaneous libertopia in 2012 would be like expecting a secular society in the 14th century. Me virtually waving a copy of Friedman's Machinery of freedom across various online forums is no more effective than the C14th serf waving Darwin's Origin of Species at a thronging crowd of pilgrims. There is virtually no cultural awareness and that wont change in a hundred years. I used to hope that following an unforeseen and near instantaneous and irreversible collapse of the UK state a perfect freemarket education and social sphere would spring ready formed from the unshackled populace that would change this cultural inertia overnight into a population of freedom loving coercion resisting libertarians. This is properly utopian and would not happen. I am certain that given the chance britons in 2011 would rush to rebuild HMRC, the nhs and in all probability ASH aswell.
To risk indulging in 'templated anarchism' and rehashing the tired old dogma youve heard a thousand times - the ancap theory of competing protection agencies and restitutional justice offers the most hopeful possibility for the prevention of coercion/rise of a state.
An inherently defensive social attitude along with prevalent armament is desirable but not necessary. No-one has to cough up for an F18 – just subscribe to a protection agency that does. Or even a protection agency that itself subscribes to a freemarket airforce. It sounds ott but remember your holiday insurance may already cover helicopter medevac when you only really want it for a spanish wheelchair – you voluntarily agree to the tiny extra charge shared across many customers because the opportunity costs are very low and there is always the possibility you might be trapped down a ravine.
There doesnt need to be a gun cabinet in every home so long as there is one at the community gatehouse.
In terms of coercion from within the ancap society for example, one regional protection agency tries to amass the means to coercively subjugate its customers into tax paying slaves and expand into other areas. It would have to increase premiums and its customers would simply switch to a cheaper less meglomaniacal firm. Competing firms would be interested in courting new customers and could decide to intervene and protect even the remaining customers of the evil firm.
As you say, the chances of power hungry bastards inevitably increases along with population. But those bastards will always face the struggle of convincing individuals to support them in a completely internalised business model. Back in the real world military forces are able to seize power internally (junta/coup) and externally (invasion) because, in business terms their costs are externalised. European monarchs were able to invade each other because they werent footing the bill. They externalised costs of their risk taking with coercive taxation and the added benefit of a coercively conscripted military. Any wannabe coercive bastard in ancap libertopia would have to convince investors to voluntarily contribute to his war chest.
Now I realise that such capitalist military adventurism has occurred – thatcher jnr's foray into africa springs to mind but this leads me to my next point. Invading a state is relatively easy. You simply grab the central hub of monopoly power mechanisms such as the legislature, military, police etc and because the population is already under their coercive power youre done. An anarchist region would be by definition completely decentralised and have a plurality of such services. The economies of certain services may make them comparable to current national state monopolies but the invading force would still face more work than otherwise. So the opportunity costs of coercing an anarchist society are, I hope, impossibly unattractive to the would-be statist.
Exile's example of the invasion of australia is interesting because it is as good a real world example of an anarchist region being coercively subjugated by statists as you could imagine. Its even a naturally defended island thousands of miles from anywhere so the aboriginal anarchists (am I right in guessing this is what you were referring to?) have got something in their favour. I dont usually resort to the pro anarchy argument that relies on technological advance. It usually goes something like 'we dont need statist money now we have the internet and paypal and blue tooth etc etc'. Any argument for anarchy should not dependent on technological conditions. However the aborigines were clearly at a disadvantage. Ancap protection agencies would be as technologically armed as the market desired. They perhaps could be better funded than current state militaries and would not necessarily be limited by international conventions but again I am digressing into futurology. If the local market was concerned they may be coercively subjugated by the neighbouring protection agency they might insist their protection agency was at least capable of defending against that level of threat. Then again it may be cheaper to simply institute some voluntary legal agreements of mutually beneficial peace.
The main strength of ancap security theories is the idea seen in medieval Iceland (if youve not heard this one before you know its going to be good with an intro like that). Legal grievances were considered property and could be traded if the victim could not afford to pursue restitution. The new owner of the grievance could pursue the offender for the original restitution plus the costs of pursuit. So this idea translated to C21st western ancap society would see protection agencies competing to protect the little guy – they could claim his damages plus the expense of intially buying the dispute and pursuing it. It would therefore be in the offender's interest to minimise pursuit costs. In terms of armed conflict for a wrongdoer to engage in a shootout would be far more costly than simply admitting the offence upfront. In medieval iceland this was effective upto and including large scale tribal disagreements. Like any business enterprise if additonal resources/investment were required the grievance and future profits could be shared across new supporters. So long the offenders did not comprise 50% or more of the parties involved it was economically preferable to defend justice.
This ever ready potential alliance of profit seeking allies could be seen as very similar to the voluntarily funded break glass night watch state. If Bournemouth were invaded it would be in the economic interests of Southampton Security Co. to offer assistance. Service subscribers in Southampton should be glad that their service were preemptively protecting southampton and the occupants of Bournemouth should be glad enough of the protection of their freedom to share the costs with Southampton. Competitors in Portsmouth and the Isle of Wight would also want in on this business opportunity and the market would determine the appropriate level of repsonse. It may be that salisbury protective services and Plymouth Life Insurance are involved or even Security South East airforce turn up.(obviously does not necessarily have to arranged on such geographic lines at all).
I would prefer the simplicity of the minarchist solution. It doesnt rely on faith in an unproven idea and has the entire of history to back up the reliability of the nation state model. But I just find the possibility of authoritarian growth far too inevitable. The idea of competing states within a republican framework is good. Competition would keep taxes low, decentralisation and localism are usually good checks against central authority and the model allows a plurality of voluntary systems. The US tried this but ultimately the system of checks and balances is a closed system. You raise the issue of interpretation of constitutional limitations – who interprets these – the state itself. However well intended the supposed separation of the supreme court and all the other branches of state power are in the US, it is still the state itself that interprets and thus sets its own limits. The number of constitutional amendments and de facto workarounds are testament to this inevitable growth of coercive authority at the expense of individual freedom.
