From: Rafal Smigrodzki (rafal@smigrodzki.org)
Date: Fri Mar 21 2003 - 10:05:41 MST
On Fri, 2003-03-21 at 09:01, Amara Graps wrote:
> >### Reading the "Machinery of freedom" it seems to me that David
> >Friedman wasn't able to come up with a plausible anarchist solution to
> >the problem of defense against organized external aggression, and he
> >admits it.
>
> yes, and...? I don't think that this is inconsistent with his
> political anarchocapitalist position. He has many places in his
> book where he points out difficulties (I've read the book too.)
>
> However, your comment, Rafal, doesn't connect with my comment
> that I don't think that there are ways to distinguish libertarians
> from anarchists, libertarians being the larger category.
### Yes, now I understand what you meant. Still, I would find it useful
if we could come up with a concise terminology differentiating the
various flavors of libertarianism. I am of the group who accept a
tax-supported government for provision of some types of mainly
second-order public goods (protection against massive, organized
violence, provision of some limited types of information, legal rules on
information disclosure and tort liability insurance), as well as being
the payor of last resort in merit-based charity. I wonder what that
should be called. Non-anarchist libertarian? Minarchist?
Libertarian-lite?
>
> Amara
>
> BTW, A central government.. of any kind.. provides a big fat target
> for any kind of aggression. If your society consists of a network
> of inconsequential nodes, then where do any possible aggressors
> attack? A network of nodes have little need of a defense against
> organized external aggression.
>
### The solution is simple - you go after every single little node,
relentlessly kill anybody in your way. Sooner, rather than later,
everybody alive will surrender and become cogs in your machine.
Vinge used an assumption to make his "Ungoverned" scenario plausible -
massively improved economic efficiency in the ungoverned areas compared
to the politically organized neighbors allowed even single citizens to
oppose an invasion (bobbling was a useful literary device, too). This
assumption might be true - indeed, I do believe that a well-organized
anarchy (sounds like an oxymoron, perhaps, but you know what I mean)
might the superior economic system. Still, for the anarchy to
successfully resist an invasion without developing a political
organization of its own (and becoming just another state) requires a
very significant edge in technology and it is not clear how it could be
achieved and maintained.
Rafal
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