Brazilian Anarcho-capitalism
Good link from Jesse Walker at Hit & Run showing how private militias have developed in Brazil to protect the poor, since the state has failed to deliver in this regard. Quoting:
Startling transformations like Roquete Pinto’s are increasingly visible across Rio, as for-profit “militias” made up of active and former police officers, private security guards, off-duty prison guards and firefighters evict drug gangs from slums where violence used to be out of control….
In this city of 6 million people, one of the world’s most violent, “the police provide security for the rich” and “the militias are the security of the poor,” said Marina Maggessi, a congresswoman and a former senior drug-control official. She has mixed feelings about the militias, saying they represent the “collapse of the state.”
First gaining strength in 2003 as an alternative to ineffective, often corrupt police, the illegal security forces have mushroomed since late last year and now control about 90 of Rio’s 600 “favelas,” Maggessi said. Success in slums like Roquete Pinto, meanwhile, fuels their expansion into others.
I of course do not have the “mixed feelings” Ms. Maggessi expresses.
It’s common for leftist critics of anarcho-capitalism to object the poor would be left out to dry. Yet it’s an equally common observation, perhaps by some of those same critics, that the state favors the rich and politically connected over the poor. These two points seem to contradict: if the state does such a bad job protecting the poor, why would would it be so bad to remove it from the equation? A critic could resolve the contradiction by arguing that even if the state does a bad job protecting the poor, protection would be even worse, or non-existent, under anarcho-capitalism. Yet Jesse Walker’s example shows that not only can private protection develop in the slums, it can do for profit. The market works for the poor just as it does for the rich.
Another misconception about anarcho-capitalism is that protection organizations would just go to war against each other until one emerged as ruler. Quoting from the original article:
The surprise is that the gangs aren’t fighting to hold their turf. In the few known cases where they did, militia gunfire turned them back.
Voluntary militias and defense firms do not (usually) go to war against each other because of simple economics: warfare will drive up costs and damage a firm’s reputation, making it less attractive to customers relative to its competitors. The hard problem for anarchism is the start-up problem: how to initiate a situation where such a peaceful equilibrium exists. If the market develops with too few competitors there is potential for a cartel or monopoly to form. A related and even bigger problem is how to start up when the state is still going strong — obviously the case in Brazil. It will be interesting to see how things unfold there.
Technorati Tags: crime, libertarianism
Mass Murderers, a Dime a Dozen
April 16 was only a slightly extraordinary for me, as there was a power failure at my office when I arrived (big spring nor’easter in New England). For more than two dozen families in Virginia I’m sure it was the worst day of their lives.
In trying to gauge my reaction I find myself with an odd sense of apathy. I’ve barely read anything about it, other than noticing the initial reports. Everyone’s talking about it, making me think myself odd for not wanting to know. But I have a sense of having been down this road before: the incessant analyzing, condemning, and deploring the actions of a madman, at least until the next one comes along.
Though I know little about this particular case, it seems to me a central goal of such a crime is to make oneself the center of attention, to make oneself significant after a life of insignificance. In lieu of doing something creative that inspires other people, do something to shock and horrify. Perhaps, in one twisted sense, a killing spree is a form of creativity, insofar as it creates a very visible change from one state to another. But it is so not original.
I was shocked after Columbine, very shocked after 9/11, utterly revolted after Daniel Pearl, but seemingly after Pearl’s murder I’m no longer surprised by the extent to which human beings will brutalize one another.
After Columbine I became very interested in the lives of Eric Harris and Dylan Kleibold — I still remember their names (less sure about the spelling). I wondered what made them tick, what made them want to go out in an orgy of bloodshed. I could even relate to their feelings of alienation at school, though I could never condone their response. I was angry at them, but also, in large part, bemused.
Then came 9/11, and I was pretty damned angry about that, too, but I still wanted to understand the mindset of the hijackers, to imagine what they were doing and thinking in the hours leading up to a terrorist attack.
Then came Daniel Pearl’s murder (I was going to write, aptly, senseless murder, but it is just too cliche). Despite being revolted by the crime, I remember not caring very much at all who did it, or why.
The killers are all pretty much the same, all having some demented, half-baked rationalization for killing innocents, or not even bothering with the rationalization but just taking their anger out on the easiest targets available. Since I’m a news junkie I’m sure it won’t be long before I come across reports and analysis explaining the motivations of this particular lunatic, but for the moment I’ll relish in the bliss of ignorance, neither knowing nor caring about him.
It makes me wonder, in not caring, if I should worry I’m becoming cold just like killers are, dehumanizing them as a class, but the difference is judgment: I judge them, in observing their actions as individuals; they don’t judge, but kill anyone in a category they hate, or anyone at all.
So fuck ‘em. Fuck this killer, and fuck the next one. They’re all about the same.
Technorati Tags: mass murder, crime, Virginia Tech
Liberty & Equality
Catallarchy » Another reason why libertarianism won’t happen
Interesting post by Patri Friedman on Catallarchy, citing experimental research suggesting people may be wired to resent inequality, and will choose to reduce incomes of the more affluent and raise incomes of the less affluent. Friedman and the commenters lament this means it will be more difficult, though hopefully not impossible, to move to a libertarian society. I see misplaced priorities at play.
Libertarians are mistaken to associate their philosophy with pure capitalism. Given the choice between state planning and laissez faire capitalism, libertarians choose laissez faire capitalism, and there are sound theoretical and empirical reasons for this choice. Yet it could be a mistake to assume that a libertarian society must be simply a copy of modern western societies, minus the welfare state, military-industrial complex and other trappings of a mixed economy. Perhaps there are non-governmental, but also non-capitalist (i.e. not for profit) institutions that would develop (or need to develop) once we delete the state.
Libertarians acknowledge there could be charities in a libertarian society, but this often seems an afterthought, with the market seen as the driving force of social organization. Perhaps, instead, we should focus more on theorizing various social, religious, or extended-family types of organizations that would spring up on a large scale to provide some level of mutual aid and assistance for the indigent or disabled, or more broadly to pool resources among like-minded people.
Perhaps we should incorporate a variant of the Potlatch feasts seen in tribal communities of the Pacific Northwest, where high status is achieved not by accumulating wealth but by giving it away. Or perhaps we can learn from the hreppur, a mutual aid organization practiced in anarchistic medieval Iceland. According to this piece by Birgir T. Runolfsson Solvason:
[...] the Hreppur was composed of a minimum of twenty farms, and had a five member commission. Among other duties, each Hreppur was responsible for seeing that orphans and the poor within its area were fed and housed. It did this by assigning these persons to member farms, which took turns in providing for them. How long each farm had to provide for the person was determined by the wealth of the farm.
The Hreppur also served as a property insurance agency. It assisted in case of destruction wrought by fire and diseases of livestock. If a farm’s kitchen burned down, the other farmers in the Hreppur would pitch in to build a new one. If both kitchen and living quarters burned, then half of each was paid for. In case of disease, if more than a quarter of the livestock died, the other farmers would assist either by contributing money or livestock.
This describes geographically-based organization (a cluster of farms), though geography is only one possible organizing principle. People who who today would be social democrats could form their own clubs, regardless of geography, to pool resources in aid of the poor.
I attribute the general irrelevance of libertarianism today in large part to our unwillingness to address egalitarianism. We may rightly oppose state-enforced egalitarianism but that doesn’t mean we have to dispense with the concept altogether. While I don’t think people, in general, are egalitarian enough to support socialism or communism, they do seem to mistrust inequality enough that they continue supporting state redistribution of wealth. Libertarians need to provide a non-coercive alternative to shed our reputation as being too “atomistic.”
Technorati Tags: libertarianism, philosophy, welfare
Spelling Flames are Lame…
…but I really hate when people make this mistake:
Intellegent Gun Law Passed in Texas « The Libertarian
The content of the post is encouraging, at least, pointing to a story that says Texas is becoming more liberal about allowing people to use lethal force in self defense (“liberal” in the proper sense of the term).
“The right to defend oneself from an imminent act of harm should not only be clearly defined in Texas law, but is intuitive to human nature,” [Governor] Perry said on his Web site.
Now you’re talking.
Anything Goes Here
Much as I’ve enjoyed some of the technical articles at O’Reilly.com, Tim O’Reilly’s idea for a blogger code of ethics strikes me as a really dumb one. In fact his initial “draft” proposal generated so much criticism he had to backpedal (which is what I’ve linked to), but unfortunately he did not give it up.
A “blogger code” cannot work because a blog is fundamentally about individual expression, so each blogger will interpret the code in his or her own way, rendering the code meaningless. The code idea is intended to provide some measure of standardization, analogous to the Creative Commons copyright license, but since bloggers will have varying interpretations it won’t help them avoid having to set a policy.
The analogy to intellectual property is inapt because people vary infinitely in how they will react to certain words and expressions, but vary much less in how they want to protect their work. Intellectual property licenses lend themselves to standardization; “acceptable speech” does not.
O’Reilly backpedaled and asserted there should be “modular axioms,” designated with icons, instead of a blanket code of conduct. While that is a slight improvement, it fails to recognize the difference between words and actions: a blogger can put an icon in the sidebar, but that icon has no meaning whatsoever unless the blogger enforces it exactly as described — and more likely than not, bloggers will still vary in their interpretations of what is acceptable and what is not.
For the code to work, then, bloggers must cede their independence to the central code-making authority. A blogger cannot be allowed to stain the good reputation of the code by failing to adequately enforce the rules (either not enforcing them, or enforcing them selectively). It is this possibility that has agitated so many people about the code — the possibility of a schism on the web with a cartel of “approved” dominant bloggers setting the standard for what people are allowed to say.
I haven’t felt the urge to blog in a while, but reading O’Reilly’s post irritated me to no end. It’s written in a bland and bureaucratic style, like a corporate press release or CEO pseudo-blog (er, maybe that’s what it is?). He says, “I’m not a big fan of political correctness,” but he is promoting political correctness, orthodoxy and conformity in a major way.
I’m all for civility, but sometimes you just gotta say “fuck that.”
Technorati Tags: code of conduct, O’Reilly
Intelligent Design Bites Me with its God-Created Teeth
I, of course, break its neck with my Darwin-created hands (er, that’s a joke). Somehow I got to arguing with a guy who takes a middle ground, purportedly moderate view between the extremists of evolution and creationism, which to him means supporting intelligent design, rejecting evolution. From what I have seen so far, intelligent design is full of logical and factual errors, but it is just clever enough that someone who wants to reject evolution can easily do so.
Technorati Tags: intelligent design, evolution
