Question for anarchists - How would you handle national defense?

[Madison320]

The first time I heard the concept of anarcho-capitalism was about 20 years ago. I thought it sounded like a good idea at first. Eventually I decided it had some serious structural flaws and could never work. I've had long debates online with anarchists mainly focusing on resolving disputes. I never brought up national defense, I thought that was too obvious. Anyway I don't want to get into the "court system" side of the debate, been there, done that. I'm curious about the national defense side of the argument. So the questions for you anarchists out there, how would you provide for national defense?

By the way, I'm a libertarian, just not an anarchist.

 

[RiseAgainst]

The first time I heard the concept of anarcho-capitalism was about 20 years ago. I thought it sounded like a good idea at first. Eventually I decided it had some serious structural flaws and could never work. I've had long debates online with anarchists mainly focusing on resolving disputes. I never brought up national defense, I thought that was too obvious. Anyway I don't want to get into the "court system" side of the debate, been there, done that. I'm curious about the national defense side of the argument. So the questions for you anarchists out there, how would you provide for national defense?

By the way, I'm a libertarian, just not an anarchist.

What is "National Defense"?

If you mean simple defense of private property against would be attackers, you would accomplish this the same as you would in defending your home from a robber. Through voluntary individual action, either through contract with an agency of your choice, or through voluntary cooperation (i.e. militias).

If you mean some type of standing military, you completely miss the concept of individual liberty and that of the nation state. For starters, an 'invader' must have something to gain for the expense of his invasion. In a 'nation state' which commands a monopoly over a terrirory and it's resources, the gain is obvious, to either usurp or greatly influence that monopoly over the resources. In a completely decentralized situation, where INDIVIDUALS or at most voluntary communities control their fratctional and justly acquired portion of resources with no overarching monopolistic territorial control aperatus, there is simply no gain. Say that Invader A was able to take over block A1 of Washington D.C. in a decentralized scenario. Great, good for them. They have now gained block A1's resources. However, the other 99.99999999999999% of the decentralized territory remain out of their control. It is a scenario likeable to infinite energy, wherein energy output received will ALWAYS be less than energy input. Likewise, in a completely decentralized scenario there is simply no payoff, the investment in 'invasion' will always be greater than any return that could be realized.

And of course, if you are of the belief that "national defense" requires pre-emptively intervening in the affairs of another region to increase your interests, you are the invader and might as well be casting your vote for Rick 'Nuke em All' Santorum.

 

[Lucille]

Rothbard covers it in For a New Liberty.

 

[otherone]

Ask the Native Americans how it worked out for them.

 

[RiseAgainst]

Rothbard covers it in For a New Liberty.

There is also Hans Hoppe's The Myth of National Defense

 

[UMULAS]

Ummm yeah, no offense but Anarchy is just dumb all together. I mean if there is an organization, or state that's is going to invade with military force, how is a place with Anarchy going to survive. Look at the Native Americans, if they united together, they were able to fight off the Colonists.

 

[RiseAgainst]

Ummm yeah, no offense but Anarchy is just dumb all together. I mean if there is an organization, or state that's is going to invade with military force, how is a place with Anarchy going to survive. Look at the Native Americans, if they united together, they were able to fight off the Colonists.

Thinking is hard, obeying is easy.

 

[Madison320]

What is "National Defense"?


If you mean some type of standing military, you completely miss the concept of individual liberty and that of the nation state. For starters, an 'invader' must have something to gain for the expense of his invasion. In a 'nation state' which commands a monopoly over a terrirory and it's resources, the gain is obvious, to either usurp or greatly influence that monopoly over the resources. In a completely decentralized situation, where INDIVIDUALS or at most voluntary communities control their fratctional and justly acquired portion of resources with no overarching monopolistic territorial control aperatus, there is simply no gain. Say that Invader A was able to take over block A1 of Washington D.C. in a decentralized scenario. Great, good for them. They have now gained block A1's resources. However, the other 99.99999999999999% of the decentralized territory remain out of their control. It is a scenario likeable to infinite energy, wherein energy output received will ALWAYS be less than energy input. Likewise, in a completely decentralized scenario there is simply no payoff, the investment in 'invasion' will always be greater than any return that could be realized.

Invader A would quickly and easily take over much more than Block A. Claims that the "investment" will always be greater than the return ignores thousands of years of invasions, not to mention any crime of theft on a smaller scale.

This has been tried before. Ever heard of Minerva? Oops!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micronation

"The Republic of Minerva was set up in 1972 as a libertarian new-country project by Nevada businessman Michael Oliver. Oliver's group conducted dredging operations at the Minerva Reefs, a shoal located in the Pacific Ocean south of Fiji. They succeeded in creating a small artificial island, but their efforts at securing international recognition met with little success, and near-neighbour Tonga sent a military force to the area and annexed it."


Please don't try to pin Rick Santorum's idea of "defense" on me.


As for the other responses I prefer reading your own words, not being referred to a book.

 

[pcosmar]

As for the other responses I prefer reading your own words, not being referred to a book.

An armed population is the very best defense. A very well armed population.

Ask the Russians about attacking Afghanistan..

or observe the abject failure of the US doing the same stupid thing.

Now think of a country the size of the US if there was NO arms control and folks could have anything they wanted.
That is defense.

 

[MooCowzRock]

What is "National Defense"?

If you mean simple defense of private property against would be attackers, you would accomplish this the same as you would in defending your home from a robber. Through voluntary individual action, either through contract with an agency of your choice, or through voluntary cooperation (i.e. militias).

If you mean some type of standing military, you completely miss the concept of individual liberty and that of the nation state. For starters, an 'invader' must have something to gain for the expense of his invasion. In a 'nation state' which commands a monopoly over a terrirory and it's resources, the gain is obvious, to either usurp or greatly influence that monopoly over the resources. In a completely decentralized situation, where INDIVIDUALS or at most voluntary communities control their fratctional and justly acquired portion of resources with no overarching monopolistic territorial control aperatus, there is simply no gain. Say that Invader A was able to take over block A1 of Washington D.C. in a decentralized scenario. Great, good for them. They have now gained block A1's resources. However, the other 99.99999999999999% of the decentralized territory remain out of their control. It is a scenario likeable to infinite energy, wherein energy output received will ALWAYS be less than energy input. Likewise, in a completely decentralized scenario there is simply no payoff, the investment in 'invasion' will always be greater than any return that could be realized.

And of course, if you are of the belief that "national defense" requires pre-emptively intervening in the affairs of another region to increase your interests, you are the invader and might as well be casting your vote for Rick 'Nuke em All' Santorum.

What? You are absolutely denying ten thousand years of recorded human history if you are claiming that taking over another country provides no pay-off. There are resources, there is money, there are people to exploit, there is land, etc, etc, etc. If America decided to carpet bomb all of Kuwait, take it over, and steal all of Kuwait's oil reserves and begin producing, they have benefited. How would individual people in Kuwait be able to defend against a better prepared and large military that use force?

The answer is that they cant, and that is the proof that anarchism fails as a reasonable goal for society. You could argue we have anarchy right now. You have absolute freedom to do what you wish to do, but under anarchy, there is no expectation that you will not receive violent consequences for not doing it. In anarchy, the majority or the most powerful take power and impose their will on others, and the individuals have no power to stop it other than to convince those in control to be reasonable, or work together and force each other to work against those that wish to do worse harm than your current government does. Anarchy leads to government.

What is anarchy's response to a military invasion? It is either to try and fight them off as individuals(which considering the fact that we don't have any major anarchist areas in the world right now except in relatively remote or unstable areas, proves pretty much doesnt work), let themselves get taken over and exploited, or join together, agree on imposing a justifiable and relatively small amount of violence and force on each other to create a standing army of their own, recognize common borders, and defend their "country."

 

[Madison320]

An armed population is the very best defense. A very well armed population.

Ask the Russians about attacking Afghanistan..

or observe the abject failure of the US doing the same stupid thing.

Now think of a country the size of the US if there was NO arms control and folks could have anything they wanted.
That is defense.

Do you really want to live in a country where you're constantly under attack, whether it's successful or not?

I think the problem with anarchists is that they take government protection for granted. "Hey, nobody's attacked us for years! Why do we need a military?"

Keep in mind I'm all for limited government. 99.9% of the time I'm arguing for less government.

 

[UMULAS]

Thinking is hard, obeying is easy.

Look, many communists and anarchists read a lot and think a lot, why? So that way they can try to perfect themselves on their ideology. Anarchism is just another ideology that would work if

: There would be no enemies
: No one would sin
: There is infinite resources
: Everyone lives happily together

Just like Anarchism, Socialism, Fascism, Communism, and 100+ ideologies, they only work in one's mind.

And you saying I don't think is very weak since I did think about the consequences of Anarchy; call me crazy, but I love policeman, fireman, regulated food, highways, public schools and much more. Though I lean into libertarianism, I still believe that we should have a state.

 

[Madison320]

It is either to try and fight them off as individuals(which considering the fact that we don't have any major anarchist areas in the world right now except in relatively remote or unstable areas, proves pretty much doesnt work)

That's pretty much the bottom line isn't it? You can argue all day about theory but in the end the fact that anarchies don't exist settles the argument. Anarchist "theory" has been tested and failed over and over in the real world.

 

[onlyrp]

Anarchists don't believe in nations, borders, or government, so there would be nothing "national".

 

[Domalais]

Likewise, in a completely decentralized scenario there is simply no payoff, the investment in 'invasion' will always be greater than any return that could be realized.

If that was true, nations would never have been established. The land would have been 'too expensive' to take control of in the first place in its natural, decentralized state.


Your hypothesis is the exact opposite of all of recorded history.

 

[TheTexan]

That's pretty much the bottom line isn't it? You can argue all day about theory but in the end the fact that anarchies don't exist settles the argument. Anarchist "theory" has been tested and failed over and over in the real world.

Government "theory" has been tested and failed over and over in the real world. Just because it exists doesn't mean it's a success.

Government grows out of human nature to control people. I believe while an anarchy is the ideal, any anarchy or any society will always end up in tyranny. Every time. However, this takes a great deal of time. It took the United States about 150 years before it started really crossing the tyranny threshold.

However, this only means that any new governments we create, should start out with as little government as possible [none, preferably], and we hold on to this as long as we can.

 

[onlyrp]

If that was true, nations would never have been established. The land would have been 'too expensive' to take control of in the first place in its natural, decentralized state.


Your hypothesis is the exact opposite of all of recorded history.

you think you were going to be embarassing him by telling him "nations would never be here"? Anarchists know this, and they don't care.

 

[onlyrp]

Government "theory" has been tested and failed over and over in the real world. Just because it exists doesn't mean it's a success.

Government grows out of human nature to control people. I believe while an anarchy is the ideal, any anarchy or any society will always end up in tyranny. Every time. However, this takes a great deal of time. It took the United States about 150 years before it started really crossing the tyranny threshold.

However, this only means that any new governments we create, should start out with as little government as possible [none, preferably], and we hold on to this as long as we can.

you're assuming the market and the demography does not demand more government.

 

[Domalais]

Ask the Russians about attacking Afghanistan..

Terrible example. Afghanistan is an example of what small, well organized groups (not individuals) can do with the economic and military support of another state.

or observe the abject failure of the US doing the same stupid thing.

While the leadership of the Taliban hides under the protection of another state. Not to mention economic and military support from a multitude of state and non-state actors.

 

[TheTexan]

Terrible example. Afghanistan is an example of what small, well organized groups (not individuals) can do with the economic and military support of another state.

You've got this idea that anarchists can't form significantly large organizations. Simply not true.