DemocracyThe God That Failed (49 page)

Such a theoretical transformation would have an immediate twofold effect. On the one hand, it would lead to a purification of the contemporary liberal movement. Social democrats in liberal clothes and many high-ranking liberal government functionaries would swiftly disassociate themselves from this new liberal movement. On the other hand, the transformation would lead to the systematic radicalization of the liberal movement. For those members of the movement who still hold on to the classic notion of universal human rights and the idea that self-ownership and private property rights precede all government and legislation, the transition from liberalism to private property anarchism is only a small intellectual step, especially in light of the obvious failure of democratic government to provide the only service that it was ever intended to provide (that of protection). Private property anarchism is simply consistent liberalism; liberalism thought through to its ultimate conclusion, or liberalism restored to its original intent.
²⁷
However, this small theoretical step has momentous practical implications.

²⁶
On Gustave de Molinari see his
The
Production
of
Security
(New York: Center for Libertarian Studies, 1977); David M. Hart, "Gustave de Molinari and the Anti-Statist Liberal Tradition," Parts I, II and III,
Journal
of
Libertarian
Studies
5, no. 3 (1981), 5, no. 4 (1981), and 6, no. 1 (1982); on Murray N. Rothbard see besides the works cited above also his
Man,
Economy,
and
State,
2 vols. (Auburn, Ala.: Ludwig von Mises Institute, 1993).

²⁷
An instructive example for the logical-theoretical affinity of classical liberalism and private property anarchism, i.e., radical libertarianism, is provided by Ludwig von Mises and his influence. Mises's best known students today are Friedrich A. Hayek and Murray N. Rothbard. The former became Mises's student in the 1920s,
before
Mises had fully worked out his own intellectual system, and would essentially become a moderate (right-wing) social democrat. (See on this assessment Hans-Hermann Hoppe, "F.A. Hayek on Government and Social Evolution: A Critique,"
Re
view
of
Austrian
Economics
7,
no. 1 [1994].) Rothbard on the other hand became Mises's student in the 1950s,
after
Mises had worked out his entire system in his
magnum
opus
Human
Action:
A
Treatise
on
Economics,
and would become
the
theoretician of anarcho-capitalism. Unshaken, Mises would maintain his original theoretical position as a minimum-state liberal. Yet, while distancing himself equally from Hayek's left-wing and Rothbard's right-wing deviationism, it is clear from Mises's review of Rothbard's first
magnum
opus,
Man,
Economy,
and
State,
in
The
New
Indi
vidualist
Review
2, no. 3 (Fall 1962) that it was Rothbard to whom he felt a greater theoretical affinity. More importantly, of the following generations of intellectuals
up to the present, few of those who fully absorbed the work of Mises
and
Hayek
and
Rothbard have remained true to the "original" Mises, and fewer still have become Hayekians, while the overwhelming majority has come to adopt Rothbard's revisions of the Misesian system as the logically consequent fulfillment of Mises's own original theoretical intent. See also note 30 below.

In taking this step, liberals would renounce their allegiance to the present system, denounce democratic government as illegitimate, and reclaim their right to self-protection. Politically, with this step they would return to the very beginnings of liberalism as a revolutionary creed. In denying the validity of all hereditary privileges, classical liberals would be placed in fundamental opposition to all established governments. Characteristically, liberalism's greatest political triumph —the American Revolution—was the outcome of a secessionist war.
²⁸
And in the
Declaration
of
Independence,
in justifying the actions of the American colonists, Jefferson affirmed that "governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed," to secure the right to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness"; and

that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.

Private property anarchists would only reaffirm the classic liberal right "to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security."

Of course, by itself the renewed radicalism of the liberal movement would be of little consequence (although as the American Revolution teaches, radicalism may well be popular). Instead, it is the inspiring vision of a fundamental alternative to the present system which flows from this new radicalism that will finally break the social democratic machine. Rather than supranati
onal political integration, world-government, constitutions, courts, banks, and money, global social democracy, and universal and ubiquitous multiculturalism, anarchist-liberals propose the decomposition of the nation state into its constituent heterogeneous parts. As their classic forebearers, new liberals do not seek to takeover any government. They ignore government. They only want to
be left alone by government, and secede from its jurisdiction to organize their own protection. Unlike their predecessors who merely sought to replace a larger government with a smaller one, however, new liberals pursue the logic of secession to its end. They propose unlimited secession, i.e., the unrestricted proliferation of independent free territories, until the state's range of jurisdiction finally withers away
²⁹
To this end—and in complete contrast to the statist projects of "European Integration" and a "New World Order"—they promote the vision of a world of tens of thousands of free countries, regions, and cantons, of hundreds of thousands of independent free cities—such as the present-day oddities of Monaco, Andorra, San Marino, Liechtenstein, (formerly) Hong Kong, and Singapore—and even more numerous free districts and neighborhoods, economically integrated through free trade (the smaller the territory, the greater the economic pressure of opting for free trade!) and an international gold-commodity money standard.

²⁸
On the radical liberal-libertarian ideological sources of the American revolution see Bernard Bailyn,
The
Ideological
Origins
of
the
American
Revolution
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1967); Murray N. Rothbard,
Conceived
in
Liberty,
4 vols. (New Rochelle, N.Y.: Arlington House, 1975-79).

If and when this alternative liberal vision gains prominence in public opinion, the end of the social democratic "End of History" will give rise to a liberal renaissance.

²⁹
Interestingly, just as Jefferson and the American
Declaration
of
Independence
 consider secession from a government's jurisdiction a basic human right, so Ludwig von Mises, the twentieth-century's foremost champion of liberalism, has been an outspoken proponent of the right to secede as implied in the most fundamental human right to self-determination. Thus he writes:

The right of self-determination in regard to the question of me
mbership in a state thus means: whenever the inhabitants of a p
articular territory, whether it be a single village, a whole district, or a series o
f adjacent districts, make it known, by a freely conducted pleb
iscite, that they no longer wish to remain united to a state... their wishes are to
be respected and complied with. This is the only feasible and effective way of preve
nting revolutions and civil and international wars If it were i
n any way possible to grant this right of self-determination to
every individual, it would have to be done. (Mises,
Liberalism,
pp. 109-10)

Essentially, with this statement Mises has already crossed the line separating classical liberalism and Rothbard's private property anarchism; for a government allowing unlimited secession is of course no longer a compulsory monopolist of law and order but a voluntary association. Thus notes Rothbard with regard to Mises' pronouncement, "[o]nce admit
any
right of secession whatever, and there is no logical stopping-point short of the right of
individual
secession, which logically entails anarchism, since then individuals may secede and patronize their own defense agencies, and the State has crumbled"
(The
Ethics
of
Liberty,
p. 182); see also idem,
Power
and
Market,
pp. 4-5, and idem, "The Laissez-Faire Radical: A Quest for the Historical Mises,"
Journal
of
Libertarian
Studies
5, no. 3 (1981).

12

On
Government
and
the
Private
Production
of
Defense

It
is
the
right
of
the
people
to
alter
or
abolish
it,
and
to
institute
new
govern
ment,
laying
its
foundation
on
such
principles,
and
organizing
its
powers
in
such
form,
as
to
them
shall
seem
most
likely
to
effect
their
safety
and
happiness.
(Declaration of Independence)

I

Among the most popular and consequential beliefs of our age is the belief in collective security. Nothing less significant than the legitimacy of the modern state rests on this belief.

I will demonstrate that the idea of collective security is a myth that provides no justification for the modern state, and that all security is and must be private. First off, I will present a two-step reconstruction of the myth of collective security, and at each step raise a few theoretical concerns.

The myth of collective security can also be called the Hobbesian myth. Thomas Hobbes, and countless political philosophers and economists after him, argued that in the state of nature, men would constantly be at each others' throats.
Homo
homini
lupus
est.
Put in modern jargon, in the state of nature a permanent 'underproduction' of security would prevail. Each individual, left to his own devices and provisions, would spend "too little" on his own defense, resulting in permanent interpersonal warfare. The solution to this presumably intolerable situation, according to Hobbes and his followers, is the establishment of a state. In order to institute peaceful cooperation among themselves, two individuals, A and B, require a third independent party, S, as ultimate judge and peacemaker. However, this third party, S, is not just another individual, and the good provided by S, that of of security, is not just another "private" good. Rather, S is a
sovereign
and has as such two unique powers. On the one hand, S can insist that his
subjects,
A and B, not seek protection from anyone but him; that is, S is a compulsory territorial monopolist of protection. On the other hand, S can determine unilaterally how much A
and B must spend on their own security; that is, S has the power to impose taxes in order to provide security "collectively."

There is little use in quarreling over whether man is as bad and wolf-like as Hobbes supposes or not, except to note that Hobbes's thesis obviously cannot mean that man is driven only and exclusively by aggressive instincts. If this were the case, mankind would have died out long ago. The fact that he did not demonstrates that man also possesses reason and is capable of constraining his natural impulses. The quarrel is only with the Hobbesian solution.
Given
man's nature as a
rational
animal, is the proposed solution to the problem of insecurity an
improve
ment?
Can the institution of a state reduce aggressive behavior and promote peaceful cooperation, and thus provide for better private security and protection? The difficulties with Hobbes's argument are obvious. For one, regardless of how bad men are, S—whether king, dictator, or elected president—is still one of them. Man's nature is not transformed upon becoming S. Yet how can there be better protection for A and B, if S must
tax
them in order to provide it? Is there not a contradiction within the very construction of S as an expropriating property protector? In fact, is this not exactly what is also—and more appropriately —referred to as a
protection
racket?
To be sure, S will make peace between A and B but only so that he himself can rob both of them more profitably. Surely S is better protected, but the more he is protected, the less A and B are protected from attacks by S. Collective security, it would seem, is not better private security. Rather, it is the private security of the state, S, achieved through the expropriation, i.e., the economic disarmament, of its subjects. Further, statists from Thomas Hobbes to James Buchanan have argued that a protective state s would come about as the result of some sort of "constitutional" contract.
¹
Yet who in his right mind would agree to a contract that allowed one's protector to determine unilaterally—and irrevocably—the sum that the protected must pay for his protection?
The
fact
is no one ever has!
²

¹
James M. Buchanan and Gordon Tullock,
The
Calculus
of
Consent
(Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1962); James M. Buchanan,
The
Limits
of
Liberty
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1975); for a critique see Murray N. Rothbard, "Buchanan and Tullock's
Calculus
of
Consent,"
in idem,
The
Logic
of
Action
Two
(Cheltenham, U.K.: Edward Elgar, 1995); idem, "The Myth of Neutral Taxation," ibid.; Hans-Hermann Hoppe,
The
Economics
and
Ethics
of
Private
Property
(Boston: Kluwer, 1993), chap. 1.

²
See on this in particular Lysander Spooner,
No
Treason:
The
Constitution
of
No
Authority
(Larkspur, Colo.: Pine Tree Press, 1966).