More Q&A about A/C

Q :
"Turning to more substantial matters, Rothbard's key error seems to me to lie in taking the proposition that states exert a monopoly of coercion to be an empirical fact, when in actuality it is a mere definitional truth - what we mean by 'state' is something like "agency which more or less successfully enforces a monopoly of coercion over a given territory". Rothbard begins, as it were with the true premises that coercion is bad; he goes on to observe that states are the things that do most of it; and he concludes that if we changed our societies by removing the elements in them called "states" we would be much better off."

A :


This is ridiculous. Rothbard’s “key error”, we are told, is that he takes “the proposition that states exert a monopoly of coercion to be an empirical fact, when in actuality it is a mere definitional truth”? If it is a definitional truth, how can it not also be an empirical fact? The last time I checked, if something is true by definition, then every time I test it empirically I will find it to still be so. How is this an “error”, much less a “key” one? Sampson’s key error is that he believes (apparently, since he calls himself a libertarian) that coercion and monopolies are bad, except of course, monopolies on coercion! Indeed, two wrongs must make a right!


Q :
"
This is rather like saying: "Potholes in roads are a bad thing; a pothole is essentially defined by the boundary between the metal of the road and the space inside the hole; so we ought to dig away the edges which create the potholes, and we'd end up with better roads." In reality, we'd end up with bigger potholes."


A :
It is most certainly NOT rather like saying that at all. Only by using a ridiculously useless definition of “pothole” can he even attempt to employ this ridiculous analogy. A pothole is not “essentially defined by the boundary between the metal of the road and the space inside the hole”—the pothole is essentially defined by the [censored] hole. We get rid of potholes, defect in the rode, by completely filling in the hole and doing away with them, not by mostly filling in the bottom so the hole isn’t quite so deep. In fact, I have no Earthly idea why he even brought this silly imagery up, because it bears absolutely no relation to his last paragraph. Something that is “rather like” his last paragraph would go like this:

"“Bob’s key error, seems to me to lie in taking the proposition that murderers murder to be an empirical fact, when in actuality it is a mere definitional truth - what we mean by 'murderer' is something like "a person who murders". Bob begins, as it were with the true premises that murder is bad; he goes on to observe that murderers are the things that do most of it; and he concludes that if we changed our societies by removing the elements in them called "murderers" we would be much better off.”"


We can see how absolutely nonsensical and mentally masturbatory his entire paragraph and the following pothole canard actually are.

Q :

"What would happen in practice, if the institution called the "state" were magically to disappear from Great Britain tonight? What would happen would be that, within a few days, various individuals with a taste for bullying their fellow men (and all of us have some of this in our personality) would start coercing their neighbours in ways which the state apparatus had previously made impossible or at least imprudent; small bullies would acknowledge the suzerainty of bigger bullies, and quite soon the territory of Britain would he systematically parcelled up into a set of states, in each of which the degree of coercion of the average inhabitant would, at a guess, be very much higher than it is at present."


A :



The ridiculousness mounts. This gentleman calls himself a libertarian? For surely he can see that if we privatized meat inspections we would all immediately die of ptomaine, and if we privatized the mails we would never hear from Mummy and Daddy again, and that if we had private insurance and healthcare and education and food and clothing and consumer electronics and bakeries and prostitutes and candy shops and porno stores we would have none, right? This is a libertarian?

But let’s take a look anyway. First, he asks “What would happen . . . if the institution called the “state” were magically to disappear . . . tonight?” This is akin to debating the pros and cons of slab versus crawl-space foundations with the owner of a home with a crawl-space and asking him, “What would happen if the foundation of your house were magically to disappear tonight?” Well quite clearly, the house would collapse. Also quite clearly, this doesn’t have a bloody [censored] thing to do with which style of foundation is better.

The entire hypothetical is ridiculous and specious. Societies adapt to the conditions they are embedded within. When the State tells people that they don’t have to have the personal responsibility to educate their own children, eventually you get millions of children sent off to centrally planned Soviet-style indoctrination camps to be turned into gibbering idiots. When the State tells people that they don’t have to have the personal responsibility to provide for their own security, they don’t. The people who believe in the goodness and omnipotence of the Government fairies do not invest in their own security, and hence they become victims of crime. They do not invest in their children’s education, and hence they become idiots. They do not invest in their own retirements, and hence they become poor in their old age. They are tricked into behaving irresponsibly.

The converse is also true. Sensible people do spend on their own security. They install deadbolts and alarm systems, they buy a dog and a handgun, they contract with a security company to monitor their alarm, they install exterior lights, they purchase a safe, they purchase insurance, they move to a gated community. People tend to spend on security in proportion to the value of their property and the level of risk or threat. And it is this personal responsibility and investment that keeps society in order. It is not the police. The idea is patently absurd. Studies have asked actual prisoners, in actual prisons, what factors could deter them from committing crimes, and it wasn’t fear of the police, the courts, jail or prison. All of those are too far off in the future, and too unlikely because of the general level of incompetence and scarcity of police resources, to have any real deterent effect on a high time preference person like a criminal. What deters criminals are: the fear of being SHOT by a victim, dogs, alarms, etc. Personal responsibility deters criminals, protects life, liberty, and property, and it keeps order.

Again, when government tells people that they don’t have to provide for their own security, they are tricked into spending less on that security, crime is then incentivized and goes up, making people less secure. Meanwhile, government services can never have enough resources to take responsibility for all the people they have tricked into behaving irresponsibly. NEVER. This is why ALL government services are “chronically underfunded.”

When hurricane Katrina hit and there was rampant looting in the New Orleans, it wasn’t because the police weren’t there—they were. They were in on the looting. The looting took place because the property owners left. There have been many cases where the entire police force of a city has gone on strike. Did pandemonium ensue? Hardly. Nothing changed. So we can see empirically that when the police are off the job, crime does not go up. But when homeowners cease to provide for their own security, crime skyrockets.

Now, you tell me. If all of the police suddenly vanished tomorrow, do you think chaos would ensue? Hardly.