From: Wei Dai (weidai@weidai.com)
Date: Mon Mar 24 2003 - 15:41:46 MST
On Sat, Mar 22, 2003 at 12:25:41PM -0500, matus wrote:
> The Private Production of Defense
> by Prof. Hans-Hermann Hoppe
> http://www.libertarianstudies.org/journals/jls/pdfs/14_1/12hoppe.pdf
> http://www.mises.net/journals/scholar/Hoppe.pdf
Doesn't seem very plausible to me. Here are some quotes from it:
> Yet what about defense against a state? How would insurers
> protect us from state aggression?
> ...
> In the case of a successful attack and invasion, these
> insurers would be faced with massive indemnification payments.
> ...
> Other things being equal, the risk of an attack-and hence the price of
> defense insurance-would be higher in locations adjacent or in close
> proximity to state territories than in places far away from any state.
The obvious strategy for a belligerent state interested in taking over an
area protected by insurance companies is to pre-announce an attack a year
ahead of time (or whatever period long enough for most insurance policies
to expire). Insurance rates for the targeted area would go way up, causing
most people in that area to be unable to afford insurance. This would
cause the insurance companies to raise their rates even further, or to
decline to renew policies in the targeted areas at any price. The state
can then move in largely unopposed.
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