How an Anarchist Society Would Provide National Defense | Jeff Hummel

[PeaceRequiresAnarchy]

Too be honest it would likely look a lot like Switzerland.

Regional Cantons that effectively manage their own local militias with a heavily armed general populace.

There's a reason why Hitler ASKED the Swiss to march through.

I'm not sure what exactly a free market anarchist society would look like, but if people wanted to organize their own local militias I agree that would act as a major deterrence.

[Danan]

There is also a great illustrated video about David Friedman's "The Machinery of Freedom", narrated by himself:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTYkd...yer_detailpage

I especially like that he comes more from a consequentialist point of view. Especially when it comes to defense and justice most people don't care for the moral foundations of your proposed system, they just want to know which one serves their interests best and can't see a good market solution. He shows why private justice and security might be superior with a positive analysis.

[PeaceRequiresAnarchy]

There is also a great illustrated video about David Friedman's "The Machinery of Freedom", narrated by himself:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTYkd...yer_detailpage

I especially like that he comes more from a consequentialist point of view. Especially when it comes to defense and justice most people don't care for the moral foundations of your proposed system, they just want to know which one serves their interests best and can't see a good market solution. He shows why private justice and security might be superior with a positive analysis.

Yes, that video is a great summary of what an anarcho-capitalist system of private justice might look like.

Personally I am not a consequentialist myself. I would be a libertarian for ethical reasons even if the market solutions to problems weren't as efficient from a consequentialist perspective. However, I completely agree that it helps to persuade people to adopt pro-liberty views if you give them the consequentialist arguments and show them that the consequences of abolishing aggressive government would not be chaos, but instead would likely be a much more organized, peaceful, just, and prosperous society than what we have now.

After I read David Friedman's book "The Machinery of Freedom" I wrote a brief blog post about his consequentialist/utilitarian approach: https://peacerequiresanarchy.wordpre...id-d-friedman/

I highlighted what I believe is the main issue with putting consequences ahead of libertarian principle by highlighting that even Friedman falters:

What will I do if, when all other functions of our government have been abolished, I conclude that there is no effective way to defend against aggressive foreign governments save by national defense financed by taxes—financed, in other words, by money taken by force from the taxpayers?

In such a situation I would not try to abolish that last vestige of government. I do not like paying taxes, but I would rather pay them to Washington than to Moscow—the rates are lower. I would still regard the government as a criminal organization, but one which was, by a freak of fate, temporarily useful. [The Machinery of Freedom, page 75]

In what way did Friedman falter? Murray Rothbard explains in For a New Liberty, as I discussed in my blog post on Rothbard's book: http://peacerequiresanarchy.wordpres...hbard/#justice

To say that a utilitarian cannot be "trusted" to maintain libertarian principle in every specific application may sound harsh, but it puts the case fairly. A notable contemporary example is the free-market economist Professor Milton Friedman who, like his classical economist forebears, holds to freedom as against State intervention as a general tendency, but in practice allows a myriad of damaging exceptions, exceptions which serve to vitiate the principle almost completely, notably in the fields of police and military affairs, education, taxation, welfare, "neighborhood effects," antitrust laws, and money and banking. [For a New Liberty, pages 31-32]

I believe that David Friedman's quote that I gave above is an example of what Rothbard was talking about here. (Although note that Friedman is not completely a utilitarian, although he does make some utilitarian arguments in his book.)