Budding Anarchy

In Syria:

Even as war continues to rage in Syria, normal people in the country are doing their best to survive in places like the village of Korin. It has transformed into a kind of mini-republic and has WiFi on the town square.

Of course, the situation isn’t all roses.  The catastrophe that is life in this war-torn region is well described; I don’t mean to suggest that I am presenting a complete picture – either of the situation in Syria or of a fully-developed life without a state.  However, in this situation one will find governance forming in the absence of a state – along a line that conforms to the idea that both local culture and natural leaders will come to the fore.

In other words, non-state-enforced governance in a world occupied by humans.

Korin and the entire region surrounding it, with hundreds of towns and villages, have been living for almost four years in a state of anarchy.

It is almost as though someone had devised a wicked experiment to see what happens when everything that serves public order is suddenly removed. When police, courts and indeed the entire state simply disappears without a new one replacing it.

Anarchy in the worst sense and anarchy in the best sense.  Here I will offer some green shoots – how might a society form governance structures without the existence of a state?

If the war weren't still going on, one could almost have called it a peaceful summer.

Life in the village of Korin, with a population of about 11,000, is relatively peaceful except for those occasions when the villagers were met by an enemy (the Syrian air force as one example) that overwhelmingly out-gunned the residents.

Natural leaders develop…naturally:

Ajini used to be an English professor in the provincial capital but is now the village's chain-smoking éminence grise.

Without a state, all is not chaos:

Instead of simply crumbling, public order has merely contracted….For years now, the media has portrayed Syria as being entirely consumed by horror and destruction, by explosions and black-clad barbarians who behead their victims on camera. But there are countless places that -- like islands in a storm -- are doing all they can to survive the fighting.

Contrary to open borders, residents want to be careful about who comes and goes – a managed border:

Traveling from one town to the next "is today like crossing an international border," adds the Korin village council member who is responsible for ensuring the town's water supply.

Fear of the others grew automatically, he says, fear of those one doesn't know so well and who don't offer protection.

No police, no courts – yet there is relative calm:

The calm is astounding given the fact that it is simple for people to arm themselves. It is easier than ever to kill someone should one so desire…

Calm, even though it is easy to secure firearms.  Not “astounding,” if one considers the entire circumstance.

…and it has become virtually impossible to hold criminals accountable without risking a blood feud.

But criminals are held accountable; it is done in a tempered manner – a level of justice determined in order to avoid unending escalation.

Miscellaneous Debris

I have always wanted to find a way to use the title of this album as the title of a title of a post; well, here it is.  None of the following topics is significant enough to merit an individual post – but I want to clear my mental inbox.

When Life Really Stinks

Perhaps more than any other post, my recent post on the forced famine in Ukraine has really remained with me.  When thinking about people living in impossible situations (picture Iraq or Syria), I try to put myself in the position of a father sending his children off to school, not knowing if they will return safely; of a husband seeing his wife off to market, carrying the same burden of possible finality; of the breadwinner living in a place in which the economy has been destroyed.

The following – taken from the author of the book Bloodlands – has struck me and is what has stuck with me:

First weeks of 1933: with starvation raging through Ukraine, Stalin closed the borders of the republic such that the starving couldn’t flee, and closed the cities such that the starving couldn’t beg.  As of 14 January, citizens were required to carry internal passports.  The sale of long distance tickets to peasants was banned.

No food left to requisition, so none left to eat.  No way to flee.  Nothing left to do but die...in place.

In Soviet Ukraine in early 1933, the communist party activists who collected the grain left a deathly quiet behind them…Ukraine had gone mute.

The stillness: bodies barely able and eventually unable to move…yet alive…for a while longer; the body automatically consuming first its fat, then its muscle; fathers unable to do anything to provide or protect.

The lifelessness: there are no cats or dogs – all have been eaten; the birds have been scared away because to remain meant to be eaten; the livestock and chickens gone long before.

The silence: not a creature was stirring because there were no creatures left to stir; not a human was stirring because there was no energy to move – all energy was diverted to the body automatically consuming itself. 

Or consumed:

People in Ukraine never considered cannibalism to be acceptable.  Even at the height of the famine, villagers were outraged to find cannibals in their midst, so much so that they were spontaneously beaten or even burned to death.

The author wrote of the cannibalization by permission – the mother telling her children to make a meal of her remains after she dies.  He also wrote of the pre-meditated cannibalization – killing the infant in order to eat.

I think about people stuck in such impossible situations.  I always try to put myself into the frame of mind that says I must not make ethical judgments when impossible choices are the only ones offered.  This doesn’t mean condoning, it doesn’t mean to suggest what I might do in their place; it means accepting the impossibility of the situation.

But sometimes getting into this frame of mind is harder than at other times.  I can mentally get there with the first type mentioned; not the second.

Enough of that.

Why do they Hate Customers?

One-hundred percent of the people on earth are customers.  Well, except for those who live totally and completely off the grid and grow or kill everything they eat and make everything they wear from materials they find in nature, etc.  In other words I doubt there are more than three exceptions on the entire planet.  So, just say 100% for rounding.

I recently had some feedback, bashing Wal-Mart – the typical stuff: they aren’t fair to suppliers, they aren’t fair to employees, they are cut-throat with competitors. 

I will caveat my comment: Wal-Mart, like every major corporation, probably gains much more from corporatocracy (the relationship between large companies and the government) than it loses.  But this rambling isn’t about that.

It also isn’t about the employees, suppliers or competitors.  The employees and suppliers are not forced to work at Wal-Mart.  Full stop.  As to the competitors, they have no property right in customers.

Which gets to my point.  Add up all of Wal-Mart’s employees, suppliers and competitors – they have 1.3 million employees in the US, I have no idea how many employees of suppliers or competitors but let’s say all of it adds to 10 million people.  Out of a population of over 300 million customers.  Yes, I know, not all 300 million of them shop at Wal-Mart; however Wal-Mart directly has impacted the competitive nature of every other retailer.

Virtually every individual in the United States benefits from Wal-Mart.  Even if one grants that 10 million people suffer because of Wal-Mart (I do not), why are so many people desirous to take it out of the hide of the three hundred million who benefit?

There is no better democracy than the vote of the customers’ dollar.  There is no better freedom than the vote of the customers’ dollar.

So, I wonder: why do they hate customers?  I think it must be because they hate freedom.

Why the Fuss About National Borders?

Joe Biden: “That's [SIC] inviolate borders are honored…”

Biden is speaking here about Ukraine.  But this refrain is trotted out whenever it is convenient – not whenever borders are violated (after all, Biden is in the employ of the biggest border-violator in the world today), but whenever it is convenient to point out that borders have been violated.

Borders are an interesting thing.  In this context, they delineate the boundaries for the state’s right to exercise its monopoly of violence.  Often – unless delineated by a mountain range or body of water – there is nothing to distinguish one side of the border from the other.

At least in Europe this idea of the sanctity of national borders became institutionalized with the Treaty of Westphalia:

These treaties ended the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648) in the Holy Roman Empire, and the Eighty Years' War (1568–1648) between Spain and the Dutch Republic, with Spain formally recognizing the independence of the Dutch Republic.

The treaties did not restore peace throughout Europe, but they did create a basis for national self-determination.

The treaties resulted from the big diplomatic congress, thereby initiating a new system of political order in central Europe, later called Westphalian sovereignty, based upon the concept of co-existing sovereign states. Inter-state aggression was to be held in check by a balance of power. A prejudice was established against interference in another nation's domestic affairs. As European influence spread across the globe, these Westphalian principles, especially the concept of sovereign states, became central to international law and to the prevailing world order.

Westphalian sovereignty is…

…the principle of international law that each nation-state has sovereignty over its territory and domestic affairs, to the exclusion of all external powers, on the principle of non-interference in another country's domestic affairs, and that each state (no matter how large or small) is equal in international law.

One could consider this outcome either good or bad, I suppose.  On the good side, at least conceptually there was less for individuals to fear from external governments.  On the bad side, it marked the final end of the competing sovereignties that offered tremendous decentralization to the people of the European Middle Ages.  I vote for bad, myself.

Stand anywhere on the shore of Lake Constance (Bodensee); you cannot distinguish Germany, Switzerland, or Austria.  For most of the last two-thousand years, a resident of Friedrichshafen had far more in common with a resident of Romanshorn than he did with a resident of Köln or Berlin, for example.  Some would argue it is still true today.

Follow the Rhein River from the lake.  To your right – the north – is Germany; to your left – the south – Switzerland.  Well, unless you happen to be on the north side in the Swiss city of Schaffhausen, when being on the wrong side of the river contributed to Allied bombs falling on your head in 1944.

Such confusion about borders isn’t limited to Europe, of course.  Does Alaska (residents, geography, climate, resources) have more in common with Florida than it does with the Yukon of Canada (how did those Canadians get in the way?) or even Siberia?  To ask the question is to answer it.  Hawaii – could just as easily be Australian as American…let alone…Hawaiian!

Size does not seem to be a constraint or requirement.  It is too easy to trot out Switzerland as a small state that has remained relatively independent.  What of places like Singapore, Monaco, Vatican City, Malta, San Marino, Liechtenstein, Andorra, Luxembourg, Qatar, Brunei, Kuwait, and Bahrain?

It gets even better: even vast oceans do not stand in the way.  Take the case of Saint Pierre and Miquelon, in Canada…well, except it isn’t in Canada:

Saint Pierre and Miquelon (French: Collectivité territoriale de Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon), is a self-governing territorial overseas collectivity of France, situated in the northwestern Atlantic Ocean near Canada.  It is the only remnant of the former colonial empire of New France that remains under French control, with a population of 6,080 at the January 2011 census.

I will translate: it isn’t merely near Canada, it is 25 kilometers from Canada; correspondingly, it is almost 4,000 kilometers from the nearest point in France.

And it isn’t quite as self-governing as presented in the above brief description.  The inhabitants are French citizens; they speak French; they use the Euro for currency; they vote in French elections; they send elected legislators to the French National Assembly; France appoints a government representative for the territory – in charge of “national interests, law enforcement, public order and, under the conditions set by the statute of 1985, administrative control.”

France is responsible for defense of the islands; law enforcement is the responsibility of the French Gendarmerie Nationale, occupying two police stations.

Saint Pierre and Miquelon are not alone.  On this list are over sixty such territories – many of these thousands of miles from their so-called government.  What on earth is sacred about this, Joe Biden?

Consider this: if residents of Saint Pierre and Miquelon can be governed by France, why not by Ireland, Japan, or South Africa?  Or form a government amongst themselves?  Whose business is it anyway beside those who live in either Saint Pierre or Miquelon – wait a minute…you see, these are two separate islands.  Come to think of it, why can’t the residents of each island choose their own way?

Why not?

And then, why not each household on each island?  (That’s as far as I’m willing to go).

Borders change all the time – here are several dozen changes just in the last 100 years – Joe Biden’s demands notwithstanding.  If they are going to change anyway, why not smaller?  Why not more decentralized?  After all, this has been the trend for the last several decades – today there are something like 200 countries on the face of the earth, while just a few years ago the number was more like 150.

If Saint Pierre and Miquelon can be governed by France from 4,000 kilometers away, the islands can be governed by any other country on earth – or none.  And this is but one step removed from every household self-governing.  That would make for perhaps 1.5 billion little governing units!

It could work.

From Decadence to Dawn

A lesson from our past; a possibility for our future…

I am reading for a second time the book by Jacques Barzun, “From Dawn to Decadence: 1500 to the Present, 500 years of Western Cultural Life.”  I am scarcely qualified to describe the depth and breadth of this volume – some background of the book and author will have to suffice:

Highly regarded here and abroad for some thirty works of cultural history and criticism, master historian Jacques Barzun has now set down in one continuous narrative the sum of his discoveries and conclusions about the whole of Western culture since 1500.

This book does not represent a passing fancy, but a summary of a lifetime’s work; Barzun was over 90 years old when it was published in 2000. 

Over seven decades, Barzun wrote and edited more than forty books touching on an unusually broad range of subjects, including science and medicine, psychiatry from Robert Burton through William James to modern methods, and art, and classical music; he was one of the all-time authorities on Hector Berlioz.

At 84 years of age, he began writing his swan song, to which he devoted the better part of the 1990s. The resulting book of more than 800 pages, From Dawn to Decadence: 500 Years of Western Cultural Life, 1500 to the Present, reveals a vast erudition and brilliance undimmed by advanced age. Historians, literary critics, and popular reviewers all lauded From Dawn to Decadence as a sweeping and powerful survey of modern Western history…

I can only add: almost every sentence in the book bears witness to the depth of one who has studied a subject for seventy years. 

As mentioned, I am reading the book now for the second time – the first time being several years ago.  I feel much better prepared to at least somewhat understand minor portions of the topics about which Barzun writes.  I will likely write a few posts based on the book, and otherwise use some cites from the book here and there in my writing.

But first, I – like Barzun – will take a detour.  Despite the title and time range Barzun offers (he begins his story with Martin Luther), he devotes a few pages of the book to the Middle Ages, a period of history upon which I have written a good deal.  He indicates that history is not as neatly divided or defined as the labels we place upon times and places – Europe did not turn a distinct chapter at the moment Luther tacked his complaints on the church door.  Additionally, he offers that the popular perception of the Middle Ages is faulty; much of what is attributed to the modern age has its roots in this so-called dark period.

Certainly you have noticed that the title of this post has it backwards – this is not the title of Barzun’s master work, you shout.  You are correct.  And with the background work out of the way, I will get to the point. 

The Deadly Anarchism

Many people can be against the same thing, yet be for very different things as their preferred solution.  This is why the revolution is successful far more often than the aftermath.  I see examples of this in many on-line discussions and writings. For example: How many people complain about central banking, only to call for some other centralizing or non-market solution?

Charles Burris posted an interview / dialogue at the LRC blog: The Prime Directive. 

In the above edition of the BoilingFrogsPost.com Roundtable, James Corbett, Sibel Edmonds and Peter B. Collins welcome Andrew Gavin Marshall for a discussion of his recent podcast on ‘Anarchy, Socialism and Free Markets.’

This dialogue offers an interesting example of the point made in my opening sentence.  Marshall, apparently often good on power-elite analysis – and describing himself as an anarchist – in this discussion focusses on expanding upon his vision of anarchy.  We see similar causes of the problems in this world (at least superficially); we both use the term “anarchy” to describe at least some portion of our vision for a better world.  Yet, we might as well be speaking in two different languages.  Let me explain.

I listened to about 50 minutes of the 77 minute discussion; I offer my thoughts as these occurred to me while listening.  By the time I get through this, perhaps you will understand why I didn’t listen to the rest.

Marshall began the discussion speaking quite a bit about anarchy.  Yet, even 15 minutes in, it wasn’t completely clear to me just what he meant by the term (I am not terribly familiar with his work) – or maybe I initially just wasn’t taking him at his word (perhaps I was a little fooled by the fact that the interview was posted at LRC, albeit for a different purpose as suggested by Burris).

He spoke of society with no hierarchy of any kind; he referenced Bakunin as one of the great thinkers on anarchy. 

Mikhail Alexandrovich Bakunin; (30 May [O.S. 18 May] 1814 – 1 July 1876) was a Russian revolutionary anarchist, and founder of collectivist anarchism. He is considered among the most influential figures of anarchism, and one of the principal founders of the "social anarchist" tradition.

Bakunin's socialism was known as "collectivist anarchism", where "socially: it seeks the confirmation of political equality by economic equality. This is not the removal of natural individual differences, but equality in the social rights of every individual from birth; in particular, equal means of subsistence, support, education, and opportunity for every child, boy or girl, until maturity, and equal resources and facilities in adulthood to create his own well-being by his own labor."

Collectivist anarchism advocates the abolition of both the state and private ownership of the means of production. It instead envisions the means of production being owned collectively and controlled and managed by the producers themselves.

Knowing what I know about Bakunin (not a lot, but enough), I might have stopped listening at this point. 

Marshall offered as an example the “anarchy” that helped provide many solutions during disasters like Hurricane Katrina (although even such voluntary efforts required some form of order and hierarchy and private ownership of property).

When asked by Sibel Edmonds for successful longer term examples, Marshall pointed to the Spanish Civil War and the success of the anarchists in organizing life in the area of Barcelona.  I cannot imagine a more revealing answer.

The anarchists during the Spanish Civil War were murderers, as were the communists with whom they were aligned and the fascists against whom they fought.  The anarchists and communists took great pleasure in killing the clergy and nuns, and destroying and looting the physical structures of the church; they hunted and killed anyone who was a business owner, banker, or entrepreneur.  They also had a hierarchy (big surprise, I know).

The Official Drink of the Mises Institute?

I know economics as a science is to be politically and policy neutral.  Having said that, the overlap between Austrian economics and libertarian political theory is rather significant.

I also know that libertarians fit nowhere on the traditional republican – democrat political spectrum.

With that said, I find this of interest.  There is one drink that straddles the republican – democrat line of demarcation (yes, I know – not necessarily libertarian), and also sits well with those least likely to vote.

It seems Jägermeister comes closest to being the appropriate drink of choice for Austrians and libertarians everywhere.

I’m in.  Someone tell Mr. Rockwell!

Police Cause Crime

And the evidence can be found in the strangest of places….

Gilligan’s Island was a 1960s television comedy in the United States.  The show ran for three seasons; it had a fairly basic storyline:

The two-man crew of the charter boat S. S. Minnow and five passengers on a "three-hour tour" from Honolulu run into a tropical storm and are shipwrecked on an uncharted island somewhere in the Pacific Ocean.

The shipwrecked castaways want to leave the remote island, and various opportunities present themselves. They typically fail owing to some bumbling error committed by Gilligan [the first-mate of the S.S. Minnow] (with the exception of "The Big Gold Strike", where everyone except Gilligan is responsible for their failed escape). Sometimes this would result in his saving the others from some unforeseen flaw in their plan.

The castaways have made it through almost two-and-a-half seasons without government of any kind – they lived in a state of anarchy.  No president, no military, no police, no jails.  They managed their affairs as you might expect – amongst them.

With no one in command, they always found ways to work things out – even on the countless occasions that Gilligan cost them a chance at rescue, there were no calls for any significant punishment, imprisonment, three-strikes-you’re-out, or the death penalty.  Typical of the punishment doled out – Gilligan once had to write “SOS” 100 times. 

Despite numerous attacks by cannibals from neighboring islands, never once did they form a standing army.

Sadly, they decided this condition of peaceful anarchy had to end.

"Gilligan Goes Gung-Ho"

The castaways decide to establish law and order on the island, with the Skipper as the island Sheriff and Gilligan as his deputy.

More precisely, they already had law and order on the island; what they decided to do was to give a couple of their compatriots a badge (well, a starfish in this case). 

It seems a few of the castaways were playing with a gun, loaded with blanks.  When a shot rang out, a discussion was held between the Captain and one of the passengers – “the professor.”  The two of them decide that the firing of the blank was a sign – a sign that their island with all of seven inhabitants needed formal law and order.

Leave it to a captain (representing military order) and a professor (representing academia and the intellectual class) to come to, and agree to, such a decision.

In any case, they decide that Gilligan would be the deputy; just as in the real world, he takes his job a bit too seriously:

Unfortunately Deputy Gilligan takes his new responsibility too seriously, and, as a result, everyone ends up in jail...including, eventually, himself!

Well, that last detail never happens in the real world…but as to suddenly turning previously cordial and friendly compatriots into criminals?  This is what Gilligan the deputy, like his real world counterparts, does best.

Gilligan decides, one at a time, that each inhabitant of this previously self-governing community has violated some crime – actions that previously were either unnoticed or handled informally.  One by one, he throws them in jail (they never had need for a jail before, either – if you build it they will come).

All-in-all a humorous and cute portrayal of a real world nightmare – police causing crime.

The Libertarian Spectrum and Government

At LRC, Walter Block recently posted an interview he did with the NBC affiliate in Baton Rouge.  Subsequently he posted the background story – a video of apparently the entire, unedited interview.  As with anything Dr. Block writes or says, this longer video is well worth the time.

I will focus on one segment of the interview, where Dr. Block discusses the libertarian spectrum.  It is an interesting topic, especially to those of us who find our way into this political theory and struggle with where exactly in this scale we might find comfort.

I do not have a transcript of the interview, so what I attribute to Dr. Block is paraphrased.

He begins at the top, with what he describes as the most consistent libertarian position, being an anarcho-capitalist position.  As one of the pillars if not the pillar of libertarian theory is the non-aggression principle, Dr. Block points out that there cannot be government.  He places himself within this camp.

Next on the spectrum is the minarchist, one who believes that government exists solely for the purpose of protection of people and property.  Toward this end, appropriate government functions are limited to a defensive military, the police (but only for crimes of aggression), and courts.  He places Ayn Rand in this camp.

Third is described as a Constitutionalist – one who accepts government within a strict reading and understanding of the Constitution – which Dr. Block describes as not authorizing much more than a military, police, and court; but also including a post office and a few other offices.  He suggests that Ron Paul is an example of a libertarian with this position.

Finally he includes classical liberals – those with relatively good free market inclinations and favoring relatively smaller government.  In this context, he mentions Milton Friedman, Friedrich Hayek, and Rand Paul.

As one of the best thinkers in libertarian theory, it seems to me that if Walter Block can be open to such a broad spectrum under the umbrella of “libertarian,” perhaps the myriad internecine struggles within our community on the litmus tests might be seen as petty.  Although Rothbard makes clear that we should regularly remain open to debating such issues amongst us, as it helps both to clear up faulty thinking and to further develop the theory.

Rothbard’s Libertarian Roots

This is a fascinating video of Murray Rothbard speaking about his libertarian roots.  It is worth every minute of the 90 or so you will spend to watch it.

I offer a few comments….

The speech was given in 1981 at the Libertarian Party convention in Denver.  This was a nice time capsule – consider the progress that has been made since then.  Yet Rothbard goes back decades earlier regarding his gradual intellectual enlightenment – to a time when there may have been all of five libertarians actually known to each other.

I think about this in the context of criticisms toward Rothbard regarding certain political views.  How could he support so-and-so, etc.?  I won’t speak for Rothbard, but offer my view on this.

First and foremost, I care very little about such issues when it comes to people like Murray Rothbard (I would include Ron Paul and Lew Rockwell as well).  The work men like Rothbard have done to develop and expand libertarian and anarcho-capitalist thought as well as Austrian economics (to say nothing of his equally valuable work on revisionist history) is so supremely significant, that spending any energy on trying to split the hairs on seemingly controversial subjects is wasted.

I have written before regarding Ron Paul, and the same applies to Rothbard – he has done enough good to earn nine-lives worth of goodwill in my book.

Second: When Rothbard began his intellectual and philosophical journey, there was virtually no one to show him the way toward integrating libertarian, anarchism, and Austrian thought in an ethical and moral framework.  He looked at this from a sense of justice, not a sense of pragmatism – a free market and private property is best because it is just, not because it produces the best overall outcomes. 

He began with an almost clean sheet of paper on this.  That some steps or some conclusions might be seen in hindsight as mis-steps seems meaningless within the context of the vast fields he has both cleared and plowed. 

I hold views different than Rothbard holds on a few subjects.  This diminishes him not one iota in my mind.  Listen to the man in the speech, and consider that this was over 30 years ago and that he began his journey decades before this and that he integrated several disciplines into a consistent political and economic philosophy.

On to a couple of other comments made during the speech.  Paraphrasing Rothbard, he commented that many libertarians looked at the election of Nixon in 1968 with hope – that he was actually a libertarian in hiding.  He has to act this way to get elected, but his true libertarian colors will show once he wins.

Sadly, we hear this too often about many pseudo-libertarian candidates.  It is enough said that Ron Paul may be the only politician in the history of the national stage that consistently talked the talk and walked the walk of libertarian philosophy within a Constitutional context.

Finally, Rothbard makes the point in this 1981 speech that it was clear that the communist empire was breaking up – ten years before the event.  I guess he knew to bet on the laws of economics doing their slow but steady work.

But, to return to my main observation – the speech is a wonderful glimpse into the history of the libertarian movement as well as the key if not paramount role that Rothbard played in it.

We are all better off because he lived in this world.