Fifteen glorious years without a central government in Somalia! It was typically described as a “power vacuum,” as if the absence of a taxing, regulating, coercing junta is an unnatural state of affairs, one that cannot and should not last. Well, now this “vacuum” is being filled, with an Islamic militia claiming to be in control of the capital of Mogadishu.
But US officials may rue the day they hoped for a new government in this country. The dictator Mohammed Siad Barre fell in 1991. US troops went in with the idea that they would restore order, but thank goodness they did not. Bill Clinton’s idea fell into shambles after 18 soldiers were killed by warlords. That seems like a low number in light of the Iraq disaster, but to Clinton’s credit, he pulled out. FULL ARTICLE
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Paul:”…there is no theoretical reason why free markets cannot provide defense and justice even better than the state can.”
You’re absolutely right! There is no theoretical reason why anarchism won’t work, but a whole boatloat of practical reasons! If it works so well, why ain’t there an anarchist state around anywhere? You just lost your last one to flea bitten pack of ignorant Islamists! If anarchism can’t protect its people against the likes of them, how can you tell me it can provide better defense than a state? I want to see it work somewhere, anywhere, before I sign on the dotted line. I wouldn’t even buy a vacuum cleaner without seeing it work, let alone a new society.
You’re sense of moral superiority doesn’t move me. I’ll already explained elsewhere why I don’t agree with your trumped up system of ethics. Anarchism gives you a tin ear for ethics. The logical outcome of your system is evident to all when anarchists write idiotic statements such as there is no difference between President Bush and Hitler because they’re both murderers.
Much, much more goes into determining the success or failure of a society than its political system. Other factors include everything from topography and climate to the average IQ level of the population to the relationship a society maintains with other societies. Economic science provides us with enough well-established insights that we can know with reasonable certainty that state-dominated economies tend to collapse under their own weight in the long run.
But this doesn’t mean that a society with little or no government will prosper, either. Nor is social stability and peace dependent entirely on the adoption of one or another particular set of economic arrangements. I reject this kind of narrow determinism and universalism. “Anarchy” can either be Somalia or Bermuda, depending on all sorts of factors.
Roger,
“You’re absolutely right! There is no theoretical reason why anarchism won’t work, but a whole boatloat of practical reasons!”
Sorry Roger. You have hit upon a classic false dichotomy between theory and practice in praxeology. In praxeology, just as Rothbard pointed out is the case in the study of economics, “all arguments are theoretical” (Rothbard, MES). But because praxeology deals with human action in the real world, “these theoretical arguments are by their very nature “practical” ones as well.” In praxeological questions, what is true theoretically is true in practice. Cool huh? So if there is no theoretical reason why anarchy won’t work, there IS NO reason why anarchy won’t work. Period.
Equally important, if praxeology shows that the state must be or must become despotic, then in practice it will be and must be despotic. And in practice, we never fail to see this confirmed. Funny that, don’t you think?
“If it works so well, why ain’t there an anarchist state around anywhere?”
In the days of kings before democracies came about, how powerful would such an argument be, given hind-sight? How would or should fare such logic to refute the possibility of democracies? The fact is, it is important that enough people believe in such a concept, before it can be tried and implemented. Can people ride a bike? Yes they can; but they must believe they can first, and then they must try. No alternate approach to human achievement has yet been devised.
“You just lost your last one to flea bitten pack of ignorant Islamists! If anarchism can’t protect its people against the likes of them, how can you tell me it can provide better defense than a state? I want to see it work somewhere, anywhere, before I sign on the dotted line. I wouldn’t even buy a vacuum cleaner without seeing it work, let alone a new society.”
My understanding is one gang of Washington backed criminals is fighting another gang of criminals for political power. How far their influence spreads depends on how legitimate people will consider their would-be leaders and how well armed the people are.
“You’re sense of moral superiority doesn’t move me. I’ll already explained elsewhere why I don’t agree with your trumped up system of ethics. Anarchism gives you a tin ear for ethics. The logical outcome of your system is evident to all when anarchists write idiotic statements such as there is no difference between President Bush and Hitler because they’re both murderers.”
Well of course Bush and Hitler are different. The Nazis were in no position to write history favorable to Hitler. But history will quite likely write Bush up in glowing terms, just like Roosevelt and Lincoln were. That can make all the difference in the world.
Paul:
“In praxeological questions, what is true theoretically is true in practice. Cool huh? So if there is no theoretical reason why anarchy won’t work, there IS NO reason why anarchy won’t work. Period.”
It’s incredibly difficult to keep from laughing at that one.
Your outright rejection of empirical testing is equivalent to navigating a ship across an ocean by dead reckoning alone… and never fixing your position along the way to verify that you’re on track.
In my opinion, this is where some Austrians miss the mark… just because you can logically derive a conclusion from other conclusions, themselves logically derived from earlier conclusions, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t take a peek at the real world once in a while to see if you’re still anywhere near the right track.
Right now, their unwillingness to hold their precious theory up to the harsh light of reality is leading the anarcho-capitalist fringe further and further off the map.
Apologies for switching metaphors here, but a theory that isn’t tested is as useless as a toilet that doesn’t flush… Neither is good for shit.
An example for you…
Theory: Humans act to achieve their desired ends.
Theory: Government power restricts free human action.
Logical Conclusion: Government interferes with people’s ability to achieve their desired ends.
Logical Conclusion: Government reduces human happiness.
Logical Conclusion: Without a government, people will be happy.
Fact: Somalia has been without a government since 1991.
Logical Conclusion: Somalians are happy.
Inconvenient Fact: Somalians are not happy.
Theory: “In praxeological questions, what is true theoretically is true in practice.”
Logical Conclusion: Somalians are wrong… They really are happy, but they just don’t know it.
You might consider a remedial course in logic. Your “logical conclusions” in re happiness don’t follow, therefore your conclusion that there’s something wrong with praxeology doesn’t follow, either.
Paul:”The Nazis were in no position to write history favorable to Hitler. But history will quite likely write Bush up in glowing terms, just like Roosevelt and Lincoln were. That can make all the difference in the world.”
This makes my point about where anarchist thinking leads its lemmings. You’re actually trying to defend Hitler. Anarchism causes you to surrender all common sense to system of flawed logic.
Uh… Peter,
I was giving an example of flawed logic. Thank you for noticing.
My point was that it’s good epistemological practice to check your beliefs against reality from time to time. If you find that reality differs from your “logical conclusion”, you should recheck your logic or look more critically at your theoretical foundation, rather than ignore reality (which the anarchists here seem to be doing).
Anarcho-capitalist theory predicts that without a government, people should be more prosperous. Unfortunately for the theory, Somalia is without a government, but is remains impoverished and miserable. Rather than question the validity of the sacred theory, the folks here are disputing the way the real-world works. “Somalia isn’t in a REAL state of anarchy, because of the warlords”. “Somalia would be prosperous, but the US and the UN interfered.”, “Somalia has a good phone network, so it’s not REALLY impoverished and miserable”.
As an analogy… Marxist theory predicts that goods should trade at the cost of their raw materials and the labour consumed in their production. Unfortunately goods seldom trade at this price, trading typically at some higher price. Rather than question the validity of the sacred “Labour Theory of Value”, Marx decided that the world was wrong, and that evil capitalists were unjustly exploiting workers and capturing the surplus value of their labour.
Marxist theory further predicts that the USSR should have been prosperous. Unfortunately, after 70 years of trying, when it it didn’t deliver the promised prosperity, the claims were the same: “The USSR wasn’t an example of REAL Marxist practices”. “The USSR would have been prosperous but NATO and the UN interfered.”, or “The USSR had an advanced military and world-class athletes, so it wasn’t REALLY impoverished and miserable”…
Sound familiar?
Russ,
I think part of the flaw in your analysis is that you don’t know the facts on the ground over there. Here’s a good article on it:
http://mises.org/daily/2066
Further, there is a world bank report out there somewhere (i read it a while ago, it may still be findable on google) that shows how much better the economy in Somalia is now vs under its previous state, AND how in many ways it is superior to surrounding nation states.
Another problem you have is identifying the current problems as ones caused by anarchy, instead of ones caused by statism. The currently evolving mess there is DIRECTLY caused by U.S. and other outsiders’ interference, as these outsiders desire the formation of a nation state for their own purposes. So, the fighting currently going on there can properly be traced back to statism, and not anarchy.
Russ,
“Theory: Humans act to achieve their desired ends.
“Theory: Government power restricts free human action.
“Logical Conclusion: Government interferes with people’s ability to achieve their desired ends.
“Logical Conclusion: Government reduces human happiness.
“Logical Conclusion: Without a government, people will be happy.
The last conclusion does not logically follow from the sequence above. I can see the problem some people have with the Austrian approach. Their own grip on logic itself is quite tenuous; therefore they generally lack confidence in its application. They regularly reach illogical conclusions themselves based on faulty reasoning and therefore assume the Austrians must ultimately do so as well and so they tend to want to jettison logical thought altogether in favor of a study of empirical evidence.
The problem is that history and evidence in the realm of human action must always be interpreted under the lens of a correct and previously understood praxeological model. When a person steps on a rock and moves it, only the model of means and ends allows one to recognize if this was a purposeful act in itself, or incidental on the walk down the road to the store. Merely watching events with no model conveys no insight into what men are really trying to do.
If a praxeological model or conclusion is derived deductively, which it must be, only a logically deductive analysis can show it is flawed. No amount of empirical evidence can do this. Therefore, if you wish to show that anarchy is logically flawed and therefore impossible, as Roger already concedes can’t be done, then go ahead and show us those flaws. We’re all ears. However pointing to history or current conditions cannot do this.
Roger,
“You’re actually trying to defend Hitler. Anarchism causes you to surrender all common sense to system of flawed logic.”
Hmmm. I may be guilty of being a very poor communicator; in fact I must be if you can draw this conclusion from what little I said in respect to Hitler, which was this:
“The Nazis were in no position to write history favorable to Hitler.”
So let me elaborate on my meaning. Hitler was your typical murderous tyrant. I am against murderous tyrants. I am against them regardless of how favorably, or unfavorably history writes them up. That means, just because mainstream history says someone was a great and benevolent dictator, does not mean that I believe he was either great or benevolent. And if mainstream history accurately reflects that a dictator was a mass murderer, I can guess this much: his side lost.
Paul,
I’m not as skeptical about history as you are. Stalin won WWII along with us, but most historians recognize that he murdered far more people than did Hitler. The same is true of Mao.
But I’ve read posts from anarchists that have essentially stated that there’s no difference between Bush and Hitler or Stalin because all were heads of state and all sent people to war and war is murder by another name. All were thieves because all taxation is theft. Are you saying you don’t agree with those anarchists?
“I can see the problem some people have with the Austrian approach. Their own grip on logic itself is quite tenuous; therefore they generally lack confidence in its application. They regularly reach illogical conclusions themselves based on faulty reasoning and therefore assume the Austrians must ultimately do so as well and so they tend to want to jettison logical thought altogether in favor of a study of empirical evidence.”
Who said I wanted to jettison logic altogether? Do me the favour of not putting words in my mouth.
What I’m saying that you should honestly and objectively check the results of your logical deductions against the real world that they’re supposed to describe. What you’re doing is assuming that the world looks like what your theory says it should, without ever bothering to take a look.
“If a praxeological model or conclusion is derived deductively, which it must be, only a logically deductive analysis can show it is flawed. No amount of empirical evidence can do this.”
Please see what I said above about theories that cannot be tested and toilets that cannot be flushed.
Russ,
I agree with you that checking my theories against reality seems only common sense. But Austrians fought a long war with empericists and threw out the baby with the bath water. They’ll never admit the nose of empirical investigation inside the tent, and that weakens a great school of economics.
Faculty Lounge. Mid-Afternoon.
A physics professor is sitting on a sofa, reading. Enter second physicist.
Physicist 2: Hey, how’s it going?
Physicist 1: (Looks up from journal) Not bad, haven’t seen you in a while.
Physicist 2: I’ve been busy developing a new theory.
Physicist 1: Really? Tell me about it!
Physicist 2: Well, I’ve done all the paperwork and I’m convinced that I’ve found a new particle!
Physicist 1: Wow! That’s huge. What kind?
Physicist 2: Well, it’s massive, has no spin, it can only exist outside of an electro-magnetic field, and most remarkably, it should be stable.
Physicist 1: A massive, zero-spin particle, that’s STABLE? I don’t believe it… what sort of half-life?
Physicist 2: You should believe it. I can prove it logically, and the half-life should be decades, likely even centuries.
Physicist 1: Well, logical proofs are great, but if you can’t test it and get reproducible results in the lab, your theory isn’t going to be worth much.
Physicist 2: Well, if you want real-world proof, I believe that a team in Africa generated the particle recently. In fact, my theory states that if you assemble the necessary sub-particles in a space free of an electro-magnetic field, the stable particle must come into existence. And the African team assembled the necessary conditions, so you see, the stable particle exists.
Physicist 1: Not exactly, the conditions you specify were there alright, but the resulting particle had negative-spin, and it wasn’t stable.
Physicist 2: What? Are you sure?
Physicist 1: Yes, the results have been public for a long time.
Physicist 2: Oh, I hadn’t seen those. Well, then the conditions must not have been correct.
Physicist 1: Um, yes they were. They assembled the neccessary sub-particles and removed the last remnants of any electromagnetic field.
Physicist 2: Well, there must have been some external factors that interfered. Because my theory can’t be wrong.
Physicist 1: What? Why are you so sure that your theory can’t be wrong.
Physicist 2: Because I derived it logically.
Physicist 1: Right… you mentioned that. Do you actually have any evidence that this particle has ever existed? Ever?
Physicist 2: Well, of course! There was this one time, long ago, in Pennsylvania that the particle was created and documented. I’ve got the research paper right here, (rummages through briefcase, pulls out folder) Here, see for yourself!
Physicist 1: (Reads abstract) Interesting,… they did produce a massive, zero-spin particle. Hmmm… (flips through a few pages) But the half-life wasn’t nearly what you say it should have been. I wouldn’t call it a stable particle. In fact, it looks like it spontaneously self-annihilates.
Physicist 2: Well, that was because of interactions with other particles, but see, that example proves that it exists.
Physicist 1: No, not really, you’ve only shown me a massive, zero-spin, particle that’s unstable. That’s hardly news. You told me that this particle was stable.
Physicist 2: Regardless, I you want to show me that my theory is logically flawed, and therefore impossible. No amount of empirical evidence can do this; you’re going to have to use another logically deductive analysis.
Physicist 1: What? How did the burden of proof suddenly become mine? You tell me that you’ve proven that there’s a massive, zero-spin, stable particle, that exists only in spaces without electro-magentic fields, and your only supporting argument is that it must exist because it hasn’t been logically disproven, and you won’t look at the physical evidence to the contrary?
Physicist 2: Exactly!
Physicist 1: Right… Well, then… nice talking to you again, I’ve got to get going back to… uh… work. Take care.
Physicist 1 promptly exits lounge.
Russ,
Once you’ve developed AlternaWorld (TM) where you can run experiments on actual human beings to demonstrate your theories, then turn back the clock and alter a single variable and run it forward again, you can start talking about comparing empirical results in the manner phsyicists (actually, they are a bad example for you to use, high level physics is more often deductive than empirical – better stick to other physical sciences like chemistry) do.
Trying to work with empirical data when you have no ability to control variables when you repeat your experiment violates pretty much every scientific principle out there. You can’t pinpoint any single variable change as important – you simply just don’t know which one was, or whether it was a synergy of a few, or many.
Empiricism is nice when you can control all the variables in running your experiments. It is nearly useless when you can’t. This is true no matter what subject you are talking about. If an honest physicist ran two experiments, changing two variables between the two, he would tell you he can draw no valid conclusions from those experiments. Which stands in stark contrast to economists, who run “experiments” where they change literally millions of variables, and then try to tell you they have acquired empirical knowledge from the “experiments”. It’s simply a lie.
Roger,
“Stalin won WWII along with us, but most historians recognize that he murdered far more people than did Hitler.”
Very true. It’s hard to sweep double digits millions of murders under the carpet even for leftist historians. But who does the public think of when they think of the great satanic evil doer of all time? Stalin? Mao? Ever wonder why it’s Hitler who claims this spot in the people’s minds. Ever wonder why Roosevelt was so friendly to “Uncle Joe”, the man who murdered more people than Hitler? Does it ever make you go “hmmm” about how the west chooses its allies and why? My take: morality and ethics does not play a role. It’s quite the contrary, and this is necessarily so.
“But I’ve read posts from anarchists that have essentially stated that there’s no difference between Bush and Hitler or Stalin because all were heads of state and all sent people to war and war is murder by another name.”
I think their similarities are more brutally striking than their differences, but there is not a doubt that there are some differences. To my knowledge, Bush has not been shown to have directly ordered the assassination or murder of any Americans. I would not be surprised if we find out 9/11 was another Pearl Harbor, but that’s another great discussion for another time. Stalin, though, went out of his way to do just that and murdered millions living in the territory that he terrorized. So I like Bush better than Stalin on that count. But Bush has sent many US soldiers to their certain and unnecessary deaths. Under what category do we put this? Murder? Many call that strong language. But if I shoot a cannon into a busy movie theatre, and people die, what is that? Would murder be strong language? On the other hand, Bush is directly responsible for the deaths of thousands of civilian Iraqi lives (collateral damage). This includes women, children, people just trying to live their lives. Here’s a question: how many American women and children did Stalin or Hitler kill? Chalk one big one up for Bush on the Mr. Nasty side. They say a rose by any other name would smell as sweet. But even if one does not subscribe to this philosophy, Bush comes out smelling pretty nasty.
“All were thieves because all taxation is theft. Are you saying you don’t agree with those anarchists?”
Of course taxation is theft. You still don’t buy into that?
Russ,
“Physicist 1 promptly exits lounge.”
I’m sincere when I say that was funny. I did laugh hard. And I get where you are coming from. The problem is, as quasibill explained very well, praxeology and the physical sciences must be dealt with differently. Particles and energy don’t act, people do. There are no means-ends motives behind material behavior that we can analyze and reason about and deduce over. Therefore we must and luckily we can perform repeatable experiments to generate general theories about matter. But in human action, it is radically different. We can’t perform the repeatable experiments, but in compensation, we do understand the nature of human action. Based on this we can deduce a great many things about it. This is why the study of human action in ethics and economics can lead us to undeniable and necessarily true conclusions that simply can’t be proven wrong by experimentation, yet are confirmed true in real life, in many instances daily. Therefore, it is true that only logic can show a conclusion derived in praxeology to be incorrect.
But, but, but… I have charts! I have all these charts, Paul! Sure the people of the village are starving, but… the Plan hasn’t been tried yet in all the other continents yet, so just you wait! Science doesn’t lie!
(just kidding)
Paul:” But Bush has sent many US soldiers to their certain and unnecessary deaths. Under what category do we put this? Murder?”
That’s what I thought. Your own words testify to the corrosive effects of anarchism. You no longer can tell the difference between good and evil.
I actually like the philosophy of anarchism and think it would be a good system to live under. But the canyon of logic between that and declaring everyone involved with any kind of government a thief and a murderer is too wide for anarchists to jump, even with their super powers of logic. But that’s typical of anarchism, huge leaps in logic, redefining terms to suit their needs, vast over generalizations.
Is Somalia better off now than 10 years ago? How about before the fall of the state? Since war is a drain on capital, especially when that war is in your own backyard, wouldn’t you have to factor that into any analysis of its current condition? Isn’t that part of the analysis then subject to disagreement?
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