Everywhere, even among the least enlightened tribes, one encounters a government, so universal and urgent is the need for security provided by government. Everywhere, men resign themselves to the most extreme sacrifices rather than do without government and hence security, without realizing that in so doing, they misjudge their alternatives.
The Production of Security
by Gustave de Molinari (1819-1912)
Preface (1977)
by Murray N. Rothbard
{ 27 comments }
De Molinari has something very right, Free Government is a much better term than “Anarcho-Capitalism”. The latter takes two words that have a terrible connotation in the public opinion and makes an even more terrifying word.
Linguistics matters. Free Government Forever!!
I’m fascinated by how one would phase such a system in. So far I only can see the possiblilty of it as an extension of all these little secession projects. You know. The setting up of thousands of little principalities. From there I could see how competitive security could develop and thrive. But I’d be skeptical of it happening otherwise.
I’d be interested in what people have to say here. Because I’m no anarcho-capitalist but would like to be if I could see the viability of it. I suppose the idea is to read all of Hoppe’s stuff.
Economist,
Ditto! Anarcho-capitalist is one of the ugliest, most counterproductive terms I’ve ever come across, and it frustrates me no end that otherwise good people stubbornly continue to identify with it. “I’m an anarcho-capitalist…no wait, let me explain!”
How much easier to say that you are for free government, adding that while the state is a form of government, it is not the only form. Indeed, as Thoreau asked in his conclusion to Civil Disobedience, “Is a democracy, such as we know it, the last improvement possible in government? Is it not possible to take a step further towards recognizing and organizing the rights of man?”
It is, if only our present form of government would let us try.
“Free Government”? Granted anarcho-capitalism is a mouthful, but in an AC system the production and enforcement of laws wouldn’t be free. Individuals would get to pay for the amount and levels that they wanted to be secure. Private government might sound like an oxymoron, but at least it sounds more reasonable than free government.
My point, I guess, is that just about anything’s better than anarch-capitalism, not just because anarchy scares people but because capitalism was coined as a pejorative by Karl Marx and is now identified with the crony capitalism of the corporate state. Why else would Venezuela and Bolivia be moving so far to the left?
Free government, private government, market government; any are preferable to the above.
How about “Self-Government”?
Self-government! What a concept! If only we could try it!
When in a forum where I know peoples opinions have been pre-poisoned against anarcho-capitalist phrases, I just point out that I’m in favor of voluntary interaction.
That’s a simple phrase that embodies everything.
As far as “how to bring this about”, that’s part of the problem right there. Not only is someone always going to say that there “must” be coercion in order to “get some things done”, there are lots and lots of people convinced that they have to have coercion in order to be safe from the aggression of their neighbors. That’s why people fear voluntary interaction, once they grasp that it was a stealth phrase for anarcho-capitalism.
Self-government evokes either democracy or that everyone is on their own against everyone else. Free government is symmetric with free speech and thus evokes freedom, while retaining the notion of law. Note that free government does not imply the abolition of existing nation states, only the abolition of their territorial monopoly. As such it isn’t as terrifying a concept as anarchy.
It is too bad logic such as this from Gustave de Molinari had not been around to reach the hearts and minds of such individuals as Jefferson, Madison, Franklin, and Washington before the writing of the Constitution.
Here are some quotes that appeal to me:
“It offends reason to believe that a well established natural law can admit of exceptions. A natural law must hold everywhere and always, or be invalid.
“But, if this is the case, the production of security should not be removed from the jurisdiction of free competition; and if it is removed, society as a whole suffers a loss.
“Either this is logical and true, or else the principles on which economic science is based are invalid.
“It thus has been demonstrated a priori, to those of us who have faith in the principles of economic science, that the exception indicated above is not justified, and that the production of security, like anything else, should be subject to the law of free competition.
“Political economy has disapproved equally of monopoly and communism in the various branches of human activity, wherever it has found them. Is it not then strange and unreasonable that it accepts them in the security industry?”
A great article by one of the greats!
On “anarcho-capitalism” naming controversy, i say,
Use whatever title you like as you describe and justify the ideas behind anarcho-capitalism. By the time the idea of anarcho-capitalism sinks in and appeals to someone, the title anarcho-captialism will have a very powerful and true ring in their ear. Its ugliness will be half its appeal.
We had a nice word once, liberal, and someone stole it. I say go with ugly if it is accurate. Only those who love what it means will care to use it. Just stand up and justify your view, and let those who respect your argument come to terms with the term.
“It is, if only our present form of government would let us try.”
I don’t know about that.
I like the article. I like the idea. I can see the end process. I agree with everything Molinari says in the excerpt. But without multiple mini-secessions I just can’t see the phase-in.
Surely that IS the phase-in. Multiple small secessions and partial secessions all over the world and we would have it I’m sure.
My bet’s on secessions too.
GMB and Roy,
Mine was a vague allusion to the irony of an “indivisible” nation that was founded on the exact opposite principle. And since the central government will only recognize that principle in defeat, that is what we await, mindful that the government won’t go gentle into that good night.
But go it must, and go it will. Just follow the money as it goes up in flames.
Mini-secessions don’t lead to Free Government, they are Free Government. The right to secede from an oppressive government implies the right to choose your source of protection. Once we succeed in having this right recognized as a fundamental human right, it’s done.
Now you’ve lost me Dave. You indicate that you are some sort of Utopian Eschaologist. So you really belong over with the communists. We want to get this all done without mass slaughter.
Secession is the only peaceful threat against tyranny. Unfortunately, governments have proven over time that they respect nothing other than violent revolution.
The “governments” believe they own the land, and secession is not possible because that would be stealing. See what happens if you don’t pay your rents on time.
The secession of Killington, VT, is an excellent case in point. The people of Killington said enough was enough, and voted to secede from VT. The VT government simply ignored it. There was no furor, no lobbying, no effort or concern. The tax collectors continued to receive their rents from Killington because both the payers and collectors knew that non payment of the rents is the only meaningful act, and would mean violent response from the VT government.
Until or unless the individuals of a region, big or small, stand up in arms and say No, and kill those who come in arms to oppose them, secession will remain a fantasy of few who long for liberty.
AAAAAHHHHHHHH Et Tu Curt?
We are being invaded by communists!
Et me, too. If the only path to secession is through violence, then let there be violence. But I’m still hoping for one peaceful split to set a precedent. Maybe after Cheney wins in ’08.
One wonders where all those communists went after the fall of the Soviet Union.
Et ego. I don’t know that actually shooting people is necessary – you probably lose once the shooting starts – but the willingness to do so certainly is. Si vis pacem para bellum, as Flavius Vegetius put it.
I could cite the War of Northern Aggression as a case in point. The issue is legitimacy. The established governments believe they are legitimate. When one tries to secede, they call it “tax evasion” and other such things because the governments still see themselves as legitimate.
Just in case you haven’t noticed, people are arrested by armed soldiers of the established governments for such things. Just because some of them are called “police” or “state troopers” doesn’t change their role as “policy by another means.”
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want anyone to have to die just to resign themselves from a “social contract” they never signed. But the words of the Continental colonel in the South Carolina assembly at the start of Mel Gibson’s _The Patriot_ come to mind:
“I was at Bunker Hill. Three times the Redcoats charged, we killed over 700 of them at point blank range, and they still took the ground. -That- is the measure of their resolve.”
If a town will send their soldiers to impound and imprison someone for a mere couple hundred dollars in owed taxes, what of an entire county or state that refuses to pay?
But the Southerners blew it didn’t they? They did what you are likely to do. We on this thread seem to be unanimous in wanting a lot of little principalites to spur competitive government and perhaps leading to no government.
But bringing this threat of violence into it???? So your aim will be truer? These statist wimps can’t aim? Is that the thesis.
I can see what a strong case for the South Mises.org makes. But I don’t think the South made a good enough case for themselves. They ought to have been arming to the teeth but continuing negotiations. I think they held the North in contempt.
The CSA was just another coercive state and we shouldn’t try to defend it or to romanticize the war as the “War of Northern Aggression against Southern Independence” or anything of the sort. The real tragedy for our cause is that the war revoked the right of secession implied by Jefferson in the declaration of independence.
The right of secession is not implied in the Declaration of Independence; it is clearly stated.
That said, however, and the “Civil War” notwithstanding, one needs to recall that the Soviet Union collapsed without a shot fired. And while we can expect martial law down the road, as the US government tries desperately to hold onto power, in the end it will not be able to do so. It’s already bankrupt, after all, and holding on by a thread even now.
If there is anthing to Darwinism and/or Social Darwinism then people will choose the system which they think will best permit their children to produce grandchildren.
Or, on the other hand, are we already past “The Darwinian Interlude” but just don’t know it yet:
http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/05/03/issue/magaphone.asp
It’s a strange world we live in and getting stranger all the time.
Comments on this entry are closed.