So an increase in attacks on us is inevitable when we attack? Well, before 9/11 we intervened on behalf of Osama’s comerades in the Balkans and declined to invade despite repeated al Qaeda attacks on us. After 9/11 we’ve invaded two countries (one of which had nothing to do with it) and done plenty to piss them off, but there have been no more attacks on U.S territory. The “cycle of violence” theory has little evidence behind it, it’s just pap. Being an utter bastard has a good track record in suppressing opposition, which is why revolutions typically occur when the ruling regime loosens its grip on power. Call it morally wrong if you choose, but don’t allow your ethics to cloud your understanding of how the world around you actually works.

Don’t make yourself look like an idiot by claiming Osama was a “US client”. You can read in al Zawahiri’s “Knights Under the Prophet’s Banner” what really went on with the “Afghan Arabs” during the war with the Soviets in Afghanistan. The C.I.A and I.S.I had plenty of local Afghans to do our dity work and the the Arabs that left home to fight there received enough support from other Muslims that they didn’t need to work with the Great Satan. Everybody who was actually involved in these dealings and actually knows what happened has repeatedly denied the claims that there were links between the two groups. The people who claim there is such a link have no actual evidence or knowledge of what they claim, but just a falsehood that has been repeated so often gullible people have taken to believe it is true.

Impressive article. Thanks for boiling down the range of libertarian positions. One conclusion I drew from the article is that reason alone isn’t enough to settle disputes among libertarians because the outcomes of the reasoning process are affected by the weight each person gives to different assumptions and analogies. Since a great deal of reasoning is done through analogies, the choice of analogy is critical to the argument and altering small details can dramatically change the conclusion.

Everyone will quibble with parts of the article, so here’s mine:
“Since a libertarian polity’s quarrel is with enemy regimes, not enemy peoples, it should adopt a strategy of covert operations and assassinations — as a substitute for, not a supplement to, conventional warfare.”

History has shown this approach to be very inneffective. Can you count how many times people tried to assassinate Hitler, Mao, Castro or Hussein? Hussein tried to assassinate the first Prez Bush. But I guess no matter how often it fails (can anyone recall a success) libertarians will always defend it.

As for the post by ‘TGGP’ I believe Col. Bo Gritz
who trained Osama and others out in Sandy Valley,
Nevada which is south of Pahrump (where Art Bell
used to live and broadcast his Coast to Coast show) would have a word or two otherwise. Col.
Bo Gritz ran on the Populist ticket vback in the
early 1990′s and I for one was one of his volunteers. I heard him talk on radio, and in person. But enough about this so called ‘Pap’,
talk to the Col.

“Thomas More mentions the strategy of covert operations …”

Interesting. I haven’t read it, so could you summrize what he says?

“All too often pro-war positions are dismissed…”

Agreed! Many seem to think that the “all government is illegal so the war is immoral” argument should be the beginning and end of discussion.

To Manuel: You say “There are potentially further grievances that would not be corrected: perhaps psychological issues, lost income, scars.” I’m not sure what you mean in saying these “wouldn’t be corrected.” If you mean that on my view NO compensation is awarded for them, that’s not true; compensation can be awarded for any damage you’ve suffered, including psychological etc. If you mean that on my view no COMPLETE compensation is awarded for that, well, that’s because there are some damages for which no complete compensation CAN be offered; that’s a flaw in reality, not in my theory.

My point is that what CAN be offered shouldn’t be determined apriori, since this limits what the victim can ask in terms of compensatory damages beyond simply repairing the damaged property. For example, the court might recognize that this person is traumatized and order that some monetary damage be awarded. We both know that the suffering of the victim is subjective and that utilities cannot be compared, but the courts would necessarily make a ruling and these options (and not only money, perhaps there are other things available) should be kept open by default.

The flaw in reality that you mention is that the victim can never really be made whole again. This is true. But then, should we not try as much as possible to come close? Otherwise, we give the benefit of the doubt to the criminal, who gets away with a lot more.

On Assassination: One of the reasons that assassinations tend to fail is that they are done on the sly. Not just quietly, but covertly, because of not wanting the attempt to be traced back to the funding group. The attacks on Castro are a perfect example.

In comparison, the fast attack on Muammar al-Gaddafi (thank you, Wikipedia) in Tripoli was denounced repeatedly as an assassination attempt, but it certainly didn’t have any of the subtlety of trying to smuggle in a briefcase with a bomb in it.

But this is a perfect place to mention Jim Bell’s emotionally satisfying Assassination Politics, which overcomes the incentive problem with the usual flair of capitalism by making success be what pays rather than a salary for trying. Exactly like bounty hunting.

Assassination attempts, in my opinion, fail because they are not ongoing. People fail, and then give up. The point of making it a deliberate policy of “David vs. Goliath” defense, that is “aim for the head”, is to mobilize the inventiveness of everyone involved to solve the problem.

The novel _David’s Sling_ even went so far as to posit A.I. guided kinetic weapons dropped from orbit. No explosive, so little or no collateral damage. Just a smoking hole where the target used to be.

My objection was really only about there being restitution only, as opposed to retribution. These are just convenient names for general punishment. A victim, for example, should be allowed to possibly replace the value or item stolen with a punch or a beating.

Mr. Long – It isn’t only our interventions that create these problems. Other governments bear a significant share of the blame, as do impossible economic systems.

At least your article seems far more balanced in approach than some recent libertarian anti-war articles: Frankly, we could post Ahmadinejad’s speech to the UN right up here on Mises.org and there would be no disagreement with some libertarians on the face of it, and perhaps cheering over at lewrockwell.com. The reality of what Ahmadinejad wants of course, is anything but libetarian.

Here’s his speech, btw:

http://www.un.org/webcast/ga/61/pdfs/iran-e.pdf

If we properly balance the centralization of power toward big states by reservation of powers to small states, don’t you find it alarming that libertarians are, by argument, against any sort of belonging to any state — and that might be (in the end) used as a launching pad for a one-world government despite the wishes of libertarians?

I had never heard of Bo Gritz before, but a quick check with Wikipedia gives me the impression that he’s a conspiracy theorist nut. There is no evidence that Osama has ever even set foot in the United States.

Why do I trust Zawahiri more than the British foreign secretary? Zawahiri was actually there. If Cook actually cited some evidence he’d be more than just another ignorant repeater of an urban legend. But he didn’t and he isn’t.

Causation can be hard to establish (some philosophers even doubted there is such a thing), but while correlation is not causality I prefer to see a demonstration of at least that (marginal changes with respect to time, not noticing snapshot coincidences) before believing causation. Something like this. Keeping the subject on Israel, if attacks on them had decreased after Oslo, I’d be more willing to trust the wisdom of doves. As it is they increased substantially. Say that wrong is wrong regardless, or that their response is “disproportionate” (I suspect that the western way of war has been so succesful because of its aim for total victory in a consequential battle and disregard for proportion), but don’t tell me crap about it without anything to back it up other than the “circle of violence” cliche. Even if today Germany and Japan retaliated for our massive bombing and occupation of them, I still wouldn’t take your claim too seriously considering the huge time lag.

I was getting a sense of deja vu writing now, and then I remembered it was because I wrote similar things when the topic came up here at the Mises Blog before.

Mr. Long writes: “From a libertarian point of view, an interventionist foreign policy is a dead end.”

I would say, rather, that from a libertarian point of view, ANY foreign policy is a dead end for the simple reason that foreign policy, per se, is the exclusive domain of the state, the minimum definition of which is a territorial monopoly on the use of force.
And since such a monopoly cannot be morally justified, it follows that the state is inherently immoral. So, then, are its every act, especially since its acts can only be funded through the confiscation of wealth — i.e., through taxation — which is accordingly theft. Thus is every state constantly engaged in a kind of cold war with society, whether it’s engaged in a hot war or not.

Furthermore, given that (hot) war is defined as “armed conflict in which two or more nations, states, factions, or peoples fight each other,” and given that the world is made up entirely of nation-states, it follows that war is the exclusive domain of the state and is accordingly unjustifiable. Which is to say that there is no such thing as a just war; there is just war.

Thus, the only way to end war is to end the state, which every individual is morally justified to defend himself against, doing so by whatever means he deems necessary, including the guerilla tactics otherwise known as “terrorism”. Better, however, that all individuals simply withdraw their support of the state by engaging in the civil disobedience that Thoreau recommended, with the understanding that the state is, in reality, the “lone woman” that he said it is.

JIMB,

I don’t claim to speak for Long, but I don’t treat either side differently. I treat them equally before my moral judgment. One side (your “other side”) has people that intentionally violate rights. They are evil, and I condemn them for it.

The other side (to you, “our” side), at the very least knowingly violates rights of innocent people – hence the euphemism “collateral damage”. Since I actually believe that the definitions of murder developed under the common law are very just definitions, that makes “our” side a 3rd degree murderer. Not as evil perhaps as the 1st degree murderer on the other side, but then again, not exactly someone I want to commend.

In the end, modern war by a state is just wealth re-distribution and social planning on a higher scale. The state steals the value of innocent lives in order to produce some dubious social goal like “security” or “stability”, at the same time it is stealing money from its own citizens to finance these wars. Of course, those who have positioned themselves to be connected to the war spending end up making out like bandits, while the rest of the country (if not world) suffers through deprivation.

Any serious libertarian would decry such social engineering wealth re-distribution. To support such ventures merely makes one another stripe of socialist, happy to make others pay for what he values…

David – Here’s the problem if I’m not mistaken: libertarianism has not considered the restraining influence on the centralization of power by the existence of states themselves. What if libertarianism would result in dismantling smaller states so that a world-state will arise?

Wouldn’t you argue that dismantling the smaller states in the Union would give the Federal Government more power? Why not the same for a world state?

In addition:

1- libertarianism proposes no force-using authority
2- but authority will occur because it is necessary for lawful society (to the extent that those in society will not commit violence, those willing to dishonor contracts and commit violence are disproportionately favored, i.e. evil gains)
3- dismantlement of the current authority will then cause the rising of a new authority
4- IMO, libertarianism has not considered the implications in point #3.

As much as I tend to enjoy Professor Long’s articles, this one left me uninspired.
First, why use “she” as opposed to the more universal “he”? Are we all warm-n-fuzzy and gender neutral now?
Second, Dr. Long sallies forth to his conclusion like some mario brother character in a video game. One minute we are examining wherefrom concrete rights, and then – poof – we conclude “libertarianism supports a right to use force in self-defense.” Really? Later we happily jump from “we can use force” to “but it has to be proportionate” without a hint of any justification for the latter (or how this proporitionality is be measured and by whom). (Manuel Lora points this out in his post, and Dr. Long’s response is arguably correct, but he gives us no reason why his answer must be correct.)
Third, reasoning by analogy is always a dead-end because it is dependent upon commonly accept ground principles. In the artcile there is no “praxeological” reason to support the conclusion reached by Dr. Long (Hoppe’s argumentation ethic provides this answer, but the article skips this potential source). Some say put on velvet gloves and gently nudge the trespasser of the property; others say a little more force is okay; and still others say that a body bag is always an appropriate means of disposing unwanted trash, etc. What conclusions will be reach by examining examples #1, 2 and 3?
Finally, Dr. Long does not address a very important issue that has been raised before in this blog in response to a post by Lora(http://blog.mises.org/archives/005449.asp#comments): Who exactly will we turn to to arbitrate or judge disputes arising from putative violations of rights (however defined)? The answer cannot be juries or judges or any agent of the State. It also cannot be the village elder or some other quasi-state substitute. Why? Because the critical issue of consent exists. (And for those of you who argue “oh, insurance companies will take care of it…” my humble response would be “what if I withdraw consent after the act that gave rise to dispute but before judgment is entered?”) Examining the question of wherefrom the right to evaluate/judge, etc, others actions should shed some light on this issue; otherwise, in the end it will always come down to force.
And so it goes with warfare.
As Dr. Long points out very clearly (and convincingly), we can’t delegate to the State that which we don’t have as individuals. So the answer to the war question must be found there.

Brian – I am using Rothbard’s work(s) as the definition for “libertarian” — it is true that it is anarcho-libertarian, but I don’t think the decision to argue it from that view is arbitrary.

Can you briefly describe a coherent practical society using the broader definition of libertarianism that you’ve noted? (I assume you’d want to include how the enforcing authority remains limited, how such an authority can forcibly prevent, if at all, damaging non-violent acts – such as lying under oath or drunk driving, etc.)

Philosophers have been trying since at least Aristotle to create a system of ethics based on reason alone, and have generally failed. Dostoevsky, Camus, Sartre and many modern philosophers have concluded that without God, no morals can exist. So libertarians shouldn’t feel badly that they have difficulty accomplishing something at which greater minds failed.

Here’s the problem with a totally reason-based ethic: You can only claim that violators of the ethic are unreasonable, not that they are immoral or unethical. Such judgements assume a position of authority over others when an ethic created by one group of humans has no authority over another group who has their own ethical system.

As for enforcing the ethic, you only have the right to dismiss the violator from your society, for the ethic is merely a means to resolve conflict within a community of like-minded people. You have no right to punish, especially with capital punishment, a violator or to take revenge upon one, because your ethic confers no authority upon you to do so.

The lack of authority to punish violators is the main reason modern philosophers concluded that real ethics can’t exist without God. Only God has authority over all humans. If we can show that a particular moral principle is rooted in God’s will, then we can claim that the ethic extends to all people and we can claim the authority to enforce it.

David – Thanks.

Consider, society A is a moral upstanding territory and society B isn’t. Suppose further that since B isn’t moral, evil people gain power and (they are evil, remember) and they quickly use force to spread more evil. I submit it is a matter of time before B attempts to invade A.

Why? Because evil cannot exist except at the behest (confications of the property and production) of the good. Evil is destructive, against the natural order – in fact it is a rebellion against the natural order (very Biblical, btw). That means, even starting from a good moral standpoint, a strong defense will be necessary against evil – both within and without, not a disaggregated and undisciplined approach to the use of force. A strong “national defense” is as essential as an internal moral ethic.

However, it’s worse than that. Since the greatest spoils will come to those using violence first, evil will likely offer a share of the spoils for conversion by people in society A.

So I think immorality should be argued and fought against with all vehemence because what is at stake always and ultimately is who is to use power, with an eye as to whether we are becoming (in our attempt at ideal justice) bad people. In a sense I see anarcho-libertarianism (and some other forms of libertarianism) yielding huge benefits to evil – and evil won’t stay non-violent.

Thoughts?

Roger – I think modern philosophers have decided (arbitarily) that the method of science leads to “truth” and “objectivity” (something that doesn’t live up to it’s own standard as it cannot be confirmed by science, btw) but other things don’t.

But because scientific thinking involves unthinking participants with immediate effects while moral ethics involves thinking participants and more distant effects doesn’t mean the cause and effect isn’t real for moral choices.

Add that to the very real issue that as corrupt humans, we cannot have the right attitude toward sin or immorality.

So the idea that there isn’t a universal morality I think is false – as we in America are painfully finding out (alternative marriages, etc.)

Roderick Long:

1. Practically speaking (since the state is all-pervasive today), war is entirely state-based, whether within or among them, and thus cannot be justified, while self-defense AGAINST the state is ALWAYS justified, as the state is inherently aggressive.

2. If libel and slander do not constitute aggression, then let me exercise my right of free speech by letting everyone know that you are a wife-beating, child-molesting, c**ksucker who has embezzled large sums of money from your employer in order to fund al Qaeda and…

As a Deist myself, I am fully aware that we CANNOT Know God’s or (goddess/god, Kami’s, etc) will. We MUST work from reason.

I do like one aspect from the Wicca/Witchcraft path, that being the last line of their rede:

“An ye harm none, do as ye will”

Damn fine starting point for Libertarians.

Qoute from Mr. Long: “That’s what courts are for, no?”

What court presides over wars?

‘You can’t serve papers on a rat.’

Professor Long, thank you for an interesting article. I need to spend more time digesting it, but please allow me to make two comments.

First, it seems to me that your essay could benefit from adding a discussion of the libertarian awareness of very gross rent-seeking that may influence both a decision to go to war and the effectiveness which a war may be conducted. Many defense contractors are doing quite well on the interminable war on terror, and there is a political and social elite that is certainly profitting, despite the grave cost to our long-term interests and the effect on our Treasury.

Although voters seem to be coming to their senses, the Republicans achieved clear political gains from bringing us to war, and continue to persuade many that the Democrats cannot be trusted to defend America.

Second, from a theoretical standpoint, if we see international relations as a sort of free-for-all in a Hobbesian state of nature, that seems to me akin to the discussion of homesteading; viz., the matter of conflicts between individuals over acquiring and defending resources.

This parallel seems to be particularly relevant in the context of conflicts over international petroleum resources, with respect to which these two 70s issues of The Libertarian Forum make interesting reading.

Your further comments on these points would be appreciated.

Respectfully,

TT

David:”Indeed, is there a greater cause for murder and mayhem than the unreason of religious faith?”

Yes there is. Atheist Marxists murdered an estimated 100 million people in the 20th century in the, Nazi Germany, the USSR, China, and Cambodia.

Roderick:”That would come as news to Sartre, who was both an atheist and a moral theorist.”

And Camus pointed out his hypocrasy, but Sartre couldn’t live within his own system.

“To be unreasonable is to reject the authority of reason.” That’s an innovation! Where did reason get its authority? You may be thinking of natural law theory in which philosophers believed that we could determine God’s will through reason, in which case God lends His authority to man via reason. But reason without God has no authority over man because it comes from other men.

“But most modern philosophers do not believe any such thing.” So. Then maybe they’re hypocrites like Sartre. It’s not unusual for philosophers to say they believe one thing and do something else. Francis Schaeffer made a career pointing that out to them.

“As Thomas Aquinas noted., showing that God willed something wouldn’t give it any authority unless we also showed that God’s will was reasonable (a problem theologians traditionally solved by identifying God with reason personified).”

Historically, theologians have identified reason, God and morals as one and the same. God’s will and reason would never conflict by definition. Morality issues from the character of God. They have believed that we could use reason to determine God’s will because we are created in His image and so have the capacity to reason like Him, although that capacity is severely limited and flawed in comparison. That’s why revelation was so necessary.

Peter, I haven’t read the Pope’s speech on reason and religion but would like to. Is it on the internet? No, I’m not a Muslim. I’m Baptist.

incidentally, the counterargument to anarchic libertarianism which the paper doesn’t address is that it works only under a common moral ethic anyway – because evil doesn’t remain non-violent, so the institution of an agreed but properly limited-in-scope ethic is not just an arbitrary choice, but necessary

JIMB, what do you mean by a “common moral ethic”? In particular what do you mean by ‘common’? If by common you mean shared by a group of people that choose to associate with each other that I agree completely. A common set of norms is required for a society to maintain itself. However, if you mean that everyone, even non-members of the society, must agree on a common set of rules, then I would have to disagree because I don’t even think that is possible.

You keep coming back to the concern that evil will always exist and will not play by the rules. But why is this a problem? How this an argument against anarchy? This is a problem with nature, not anarchy. Why can’t societies defend themselves against evil without coercively obtaining the assitance of non-members?

To David White: “Practically speaking (since the state is all-pervasive today), war is entirely state-based, whether within or among them.” a) I was interested in analysing the issue of warfare as such, not just as confined to our particular, hopefully temporary, period of universal statism. b) And even in the present context, it makes sense to ask whether or not we should lend strategic support a state’s actions (e.g. calling the police if you’re attacked, even though you’re against a governmental monopoly of protection).

“If libel and slander do not constitute aggression, then let me exercise my right of free speech by letting everyone know that you are a wife-beating, child-molesting, c**ksucker who has embezzled large sums of money from your employer in order to fund al Qaeda and…” Certainly you have every right to do so. Doing so may violate various moral obligations, but not the legitimately enforceable ones. (Of course in a society without libel and slander laws, people would tend to take such accusations with a much bigger grain of salt.)

To JIMB: “You’ve no reason to believe your mind unless God made your mind to fit with reality.” But you have to use (and therefore trust) your mind first in order to understand and accept that argument. So if you didn’t already have any good reason to trust your mind, that argument couldn’t give you any such reason, being no stronger than the reasoning on which it’s based. That’s why the authority of reason cannot derive from anything external to reason.

“I think we should follow Hayek’s arguments concerning tacit knowledge and tradition.” Fine, but remember that for Hayek the fact that something has survived counts in its favour only to the extent that its survival is the outcome of competition. If no competition among ways of doing things is allowed, then the case for tradition is greatly weakened. (Mill likewise makes this point here and here.)

“the counterargument to anarchic libertarianism which the paper doesn’t address is that it works only under a common moral ethic anyway – because evil doesn’t remain non-violent, so the institution of an agreed but properly limited-in-scope ethic is not just an arbitrary choice, but necessary.” No system, anarchic or statist, can work unless there’s a fair degree of moral consensus in society, at least at the general level of most people most of the time endorsing cooperation over aggression in most cases. But given one and the same set of people with their mixtures of good and evil, different legal/constitutional arrangements will produce different outcomes because the incentives are different. What anarchist theory claims is that for any given mixture of good and evil in a population, the incentives of an anarchist set-up will tend to produce safer outcomes than those of any rival set-up.

To Keith: “What court presides over wars?” Whichever court is most able to. Which court that is and how able it will be depends on circumstances. Anarchist theory suggests courts will have an easier time achieving such ability under anarchy than in a statist set-up, but even under statism it happens.

To Brian Drum: Thanks for the plug. I don’t think what I said about self-applying rules, though, rules out the existence of some general moral principles applicable to all cultures.

To TokyoTom: Quite true about rent-seeking. That’s part of what I meant when I said the bit about: “Under a government, the people who make the decision to go to war are not the same people as those who bear the greatest burden of the costs of the war; and so governments are much more likely than private individuals to engage in aggression. Thus it’s a mistake to model a nation-state as if it were a single individual weighing costs against benefits. It’s more like a split personality, where the dominant personality reaps the benefits but somehow manages to make the repressed personality bear the costs.”

To Roger M.: “Camus pointed out his hypocrasy, but Sartre couldn’t live within his own system.” But what grounds have you for claiming Sartre was hypocritical?

“But reason without God has no authority over man because it comes from other men.” The authority of reason doesn’t come from other people, or from anything outside reason. There can’t be any authority beyond reason, because, as noted above, any argument one gives for recognising some external authority as the basis of reason’s authority presupposes the authority of reason to begin with (otherwise one would have no reason to accept the argument). Hence reason’s authority is axiomatic; one can’t deny it without implicitly presupposing it.

“Historically, theologians have identified reason, God and morals as one and the same.” Exactly. They recognised that they couldn’t coherently treat God as a final authority unless they identified God with reason. Thus they implicitly admitted reason’s necessary status as a final authority.