Political Theory

Re: War: anarcho-capitalist vs centrally-controlled inflationist

ladyattis — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 20:06:07 GMT

Stranger:
In war, the objectives define the weapons, not the other way around. This is why tanks, fighter-bombers and nuclear weapons are useless against non-state fighting organizations, for example.

War after the state will look much more medieval, consisting mostly of raids, short sieges and random massacres. (Like this battle.)

QFT/E.

Re: War: anarcho-capitalist vs centrally-controlled inflationist

Stranger — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 19:49:42 GMT

ladyattis:

Similarly, an ANCAP society would be an animal that is very much independent from territorial claims and concerns, rather it would live or die by its brains and social bonds. If you can eliminate the brains, then it's helpless. If you can eliminate its bonds, it ceases to exist. But all other factors in terms of war, such as fronts and territories have no applicability to it.

In war, the objectives define the weapons, not the other way around. This is why tanks, fighter-bombers and nuclear weapons are useless against non-state fighting organizations, for example.

War after the state will look much more medieval, consisting mostly of raids, short sieges and random massacres. (Like this battle.)

Re: War: anarcho-capitalist vs centrally-controlled inflationist

ladyattis — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 19:38:33 GMT

I suspect that such an ancap society wouldn't even come under the same concepts as utilized in theories of warfare and here's why. Consider how companies setup their infrastructure the world. They need capital and customers. Capital is a complex component holding things like buildings, factories, employees, contractors, and resources (which this component is also complex as it covers a wide array of items onto itself...). Customers are just about anyone that can enjoy the use of a company's product/service, so it can be B2B, B2P, and etc.

Anyways, my point in this illustration is that a company in this example may require at minimum some land to occupy as obviously people and products (or services) need space to be utilized, but the important feature is that it can be any land that fulfill the requirement for the company's purposes. That means a company can literally have its product produced many ways that don't result in a centralized infrastructure. To steal a phrase from RAH in his novel Friday, "Where is IBM?" And that question is very important because a company has no real territory, nor does it need territory. It simply needs capital and customers, all other factors can be described as accidents of its own history.

Thus to attack IBM or any other company requires assassins as it's the brains of the company operations that count (as it does for a military strangely enough). Attacking a single building full of accounts on IBM/company payroll won't hurt it where it counts, it will count it as a loss of operating in a hostile environment and move on. But if you kill off its key engineers or managers, then you can cripple it or have it relent in its operations (forcing it into receivership and liquidation).

Similarly, an ANCAP society would be an animal that is very much independent from territorial claims and concerns, rather it would live or die by its brains and social bonds. If you can eliminate the brains, then it's helpless. If you can eliminate its bonds, it ceases to exist. But all other factors in terms of war, such as fronts and territories have no applicability to it.

Re: War: anarcho-capitalist vs centrally-controlled inflationist

E. R. Olovetto — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 18:48:25 GMT

laminustacitus:

E. R. Olovetto:
You've basically restated your same proposition, that all understanding in the social sciences relies on the same methodology as the natural sciences. Your scientism is committed to this category error.

Honestly, this comment shows that you have absolutely no idea what I am talking about. Accuse my of scientism as much as you want, you obviously don't understand what scientism is if you are accusing me of it as well, but it just goes to show you can't make a coherent point against me (the irony is that topics like this are just as much of an abuse of reason as scientism is).

Furthermore, you are absolutely abusing praxeology by stating that inquiries about the future institutional structure of society is open to aprioristic speculation. In fact, I did address the Mises quote, contrary to what you've stated here:

E. R. Olovetto:
Do you have anything to say about what Mises wrote?

I did so here:

laminustacitus:
In fact, that "lets wait and see" approach is all that you can soundly advocate due to the fact that inquiry about the nature of society's institutional structure (and this is truly what the original post is about) is firmly outside of the realm of priori speculation, and only experience can reveal any knowledge about such a question. In order to utilize reason, we must accept its limits, and we must accept the fact that truly no man has knowledge (only hypotheses) about how a anarcho-capitalist society would take shape thus rendering any aprioristic answers to the question posted an abuse of pure reason.

In fact, I am absolutely sure that Mises would have agreed with me here, and this was a very important point that Hayek, who wrote The Counter-Revolution of Science, made about the abuse of reason. The future state of society is an empirical problem (for instance, do you really think that praxeology will reveal, for instance, the end of the war in Afghanistan, and what would be its results?), and hence experience is the only means to gain knowledge about it - speculation can be made, but at the end of the day such speculation is nothing but a hypothesis that must be tested against experience.

Next time you respond, Olovetto, I hope you actually know what you are talking about rather than vomiting up some talking-points against empiricism. Maybe you should even read Kant's discussion in The Critique of Pure Reason about the proper sphere of aprioristic investigation (after all Mises is very much a Kantian in his economic methodology), or read Hayek's writings about how speculation like this is an absolute betrayal of reason.

ha ha ha ha

I have little time to really consider what you wrote but let me just ask you how you feel about the following. I will try to get back to you tonight. (trying to avoid a snowstorm and have to drive a few hours)

We can observe empirical regularities (laws) between variables.
Hypothetical explanatory generalizations are constructed from which the empirically observed laws can be deduced (and thus "explained")
Since competing hypotheses can be framed, each explaining the body of empirical laws, this "coherence" or consistent explanation is not enough. To validate the hypotheses, other deductions must be made from them, which must be "testable" by empirical observation.
From teh construction and testing of hypotheses, a wider and wider body of generalizations is developed. These can be discarded if further tests invalidate them, or be replaced by new explanations covering an even wider range of phenomena.

I just want to make sure we are on the same page here. I want you to address my previous point too because you seem very lost. Do you understand the difference between prediction and forecasting?

Re: War: anarcho-capitalist vs centrally-controlled inflationist

Stranger — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 04:55:13 GMT

The very essence of war, as opposed to simple massacre, is the uncertainty of the outcome. If the outcome of a conflict is known in advance, it is not a war.

The fact is that it cannot be determined if hypothetical anarcho-capitalists could with certainty defeat the state, but that is not an argument against anarcho-capitalism - quite the opposite, it is a proof of the legitimate war-fighting and protective abilities of the anarcho-capitalists that the state could not massacre them with impunity.

Re: War: anarcho-capitalist vs centrally-controlled inflationist

Jesse — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 04:47:36 GMT

Excellent. Speaking of eye-openers, have you read Walter Block's Defending the Undefendable? It's a little bit off the subject of this thread, but he goes into detail on pollution issues, slums, and many other things. It's available in the literature section, in both audio and .pdf format. I highly recommend it.

Re: War: anarcho-capitalist vs centrally-controlled inflationist

tfr000 — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 18:05:31 GMT

Jesse:
Read Hoppe.

Done. Fascinating. A bit of an eye-opener, actually. I now understand why slums exist and what an anarcho-capatalist protection against pollution might be (something for which libertarian doctrine never seemed to have a real answer).

Re: War: anarcho-capitalist vs centrally-controlled inflationist

laminustacitus — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 17:18:18 GMT

E. R. Olovetto:
You've basically restated your same proposition, that all understanding in the social sciences relies on the same methodology as the natural sciences. Your scientism is committed to this category error.

Honestly, this comment shows that you have absolutely no idea what I am talking about. Accuse my of scientism as much as you want, you obviously don't understand what scientism is if you are accusing me of it as well, but it just goes to show you can't make a coherent point against me (the irony is that topics like this are just as much of an abuse of reason as scientism is).

Furthermore, you are absolutely abusing praxeology by stating that inquiries about the future institutional structure of society is open to aprioristic speculation. In fact, I did address the Mises quote, contrary to what you've stated here:

E. R. Olovetto:
Do you have anything to say about what Mises wrote?

I did so here:

laminustacitus:
In fact, that "lets wait and see" approach is all that you can soundly advocate due to the fact that inquiry about the nature of society's institutional structure (and this is truly what the original post is about) is firmly outside of the realm of priori speculation, and only experience can reveal any knowledge about such a question. In order to utilize reason, we must accept its limits, and we must accept the fact that truly no man has knowledge (only hypotheses) about how a anarcho-capitalist society would take shape thus rendering any aprioristic answers to the question posted an abuse of pure reason.

In fact, I am absolutely sure that Mises would have agreed with me here, and this was a very important point that Hayek, who wrote The Counter-Revolution of Science, made about the abuse of reason. The future state of society is an empirical problem (for instance, do you really think that praxeology will reveal, for instance, the end of the war in Afghanistan, and what would be its results?), and hence experience is the only means to gain knowledge about it - speculation can be made, but at the end of the day such speculation is nothing but a hypothesis that must be tested against experience.

Next time you respond, Olovetto, I hope you actually know what you are talking about rather than vomiting up some talking-points against empiricism. Maybe you should even read Kant's discussion in The Critique of Pure Reason about the proper sphere of aprioristic investigation (after all Mises is very much a Kantian in his economic methodology), or read Hayek's writings about how speculation like this is an absolute betrayal of reason.

Re: War: anarcho-capitalist vs centrally-controlled inflationist

mikachusetts — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 22:11:38 GMT

ClaytonB:

mikachusetts:

If the question is just "how will you defend against the entire Russian army nuking your neighborhood to take the gold mine underneath your houses," then I would say that there is nothing we can really do.

I disagree with this. A natural social order is not incompatible with defense from even large-scale attacks.

Clayton -

You are right about compatibility. I guess what I really wanted to say is that there is no guarantee that any "country" could defend itself. If a region was made up of people like me, we would probably give up very quickly and kill ourselves. A region made up of determined people like Clayton, who fund defense organizations, have economic bargaining chips, etc. might fare very well in a warfare situation.

Re: War: anarcho-capitalist vs centrally-controlled inflationist

Clayton — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 21:44:19 GMT

mikachusetts:

If the question is just "how will you defend against the entire Russian army nuking your neighborhood to take the gold mine underneath your houses," then I would say that there is nothing we can really do.

I disagree with this. A natural social order is not incompatible with defense from even large-scale attacks.

Clayton -

Re: War: anarcho-capitalist vs centrally-controlled inflationist

mikachusetts — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 20:25:19 GMT

tfr000:

Suppose an anarcho-capitalist (or minarchist, for that matter) country found itself in a war against a centrally planned, inflationist state. How would it go about defending itself?

What's an anarcho-capitalist country anyway? Is this short hand for "all people within x geographical territory?" And the war is against every single person and property owner in that territory?

I understand the intent of the question, but I think part of the problem lies with viewing the free society as a country. If the question is just "how will you defend against the entire Russian army nuking your neighborhood to take the gold mine underneath your houses," then I would say that there is nothing we can really do.

Re: War: anarcho-capitalist vs centrally-controlled inflationist

Clayton — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 19:01:11 GMT

AndrewR:

I re-iterate my point that an an-cap society would only be as 'good' as the individuals who comprised it. Whether they succeed, or fail, is dependant on the circumstances, terrain, available resources, quality of leadership and overall goal; how committed are they really to defending this society?

An an-cap society would have certain advantages over the centrally-planned enemy, the greatest asset being the decentralisation of command, of course.

War is not really a case of "A has this; B has that, so therefore A will win." War is typically fluid after the fighting has begun, as by then, plans are constantly changed to deal with things intelligence didn't know about, equipment jamming, vehicles breaking down, mutiny in the ranks, fatigue, defections…

What is much more likely is that an an-cap society would be subverted from within by enemy agents, using either violence or subtlety. The society would have to be the ultimate exclusive club and restrict entry to those who were either personally known by someone already on the inside, or who had something to offer – those looking for a free lunch need not apply.

The fundamental distinction is that, within a typical 20th century, Western nation, the character of defense is inherently collectivist. The public, by-and-large, thinks of defense in collectivist terms... the nation as tribe-writ-large. In a hypothetical anarcho-capitalistic society, defense would be of property (assets), not boundaries (except insofar as these boundaries delimit property) or ideological visions. I could imagine a large, multi-billion dollar manufacturing plant - insured to the nth degree against destruction by armed aggressors - surrounded by a community of residential homes not only because there are jobs there but because of the expectation of homeowners that they can "free ride" off the defense of the plant by simply locating near it. In the event of an armed invasion, the occupants would pack what they had time to gather and flee (a bit like fleeing a hurricane or other natural disaster), leaving the defense of their homes and property in the hands of the corporate defense company retained by the defense insurance corporation to protect the manufacturing plant. A few crazies might even stay behind with their guns to protect their property and maybe get a piece of the action (or die). Of course, that's just in my imagination.

Clayton -

Re: War: anarcho-capitalist vs centrally-controlled inflationist

AndrewR — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 10:10:13 GMT

I re-iterate my point that an an-cap society would only be as 'good' as the individuals who comprised it. Whether they succeed, or fail, is dependant on the circumstances, terrain, available resources, quality of leadership and overall goal; how committed are they really to defending this society?

An an-cap society would have certain advantages over the centrally-planned enemy, the greatest asset being the decentralisation of command, of course.

War is not really a case of "A has this; B has that, so therefore A will win." War is typically fluid after the fighting has begun, as by then, plans are constantly changed to deal with things intelligence didn't know about, equipment jamming, vehicles breaking down, mutiny in the ranks, fatigue, defections…

What is much more likely is that an an-cap society would be subverted from within by enemy agents, using either violence or subtlety. The society would have to be the ultimate exclusive club and restrict entry to those who were either personally known by someone already on the inside, or who had something to offer – those looking for a free lunch need not apply.

Re: War: anarcho-capitalist vs centrally-controlled inflationist

Jesse — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 09:18:55 GMT

tfr000:

How would it go about defending itself?

Read Hoppe.

Re: War: anarcho-capitalist vs centrally-controlled inflationist

Caley McKibbin — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 09:00:33 GMT

Armies and field battles are strictly a phenomenon of territorial warfare.

Suppose that you have a fancy camo uniform, an M1A2 MBT and you declare war on me. Ok. I surrender. Your tank now occupies my driveway. Now what? At some point you have to get out of the tank and go home to your wife and kids and sleep and shop in the grocery store.

The only real danger of armies is that they have a suicidal believe in obedience. As Napolean said, "A man does not have himself killed for a halfpence a day of for a petty distinction." You can't reward a man for dying today with a paycheck tomorrow. No professional soldier is a threat to anyone except insofar as he is inclined to commit suicide for no purpose other than the valuation of simple obedience above all else in the world.

What specific purpose pertaining to the annexation of Somalia could an Ethopian soldier plausibly have? One can hardly imagine such a thing.