The army1 comes up in discussions of a hypothetical future in two contexts. In the first, it appears as an argument for “public goods.” Like: “fine, you won’t have taxes, but there are ‘public goods’ that cannot be financed by any other means without taxes—the army, for instance.” The vivid image of a defenseless libertarian country being destroyed by evil, ugly, and not-too-bright neighbors is supposed to convince you of your error.
In the second context, the discussion concerns specifically the military-political dimension: how a war between “libertarians” and “statists” would unfold if they suddenly came to blows.
We will examine both cases, but first the following should be said. Generally speaking, the very idea of some “libertarian country in a hostile statist environment” proves, upon mature reflection, to be fantastic. Unlike statist ideologies like socialism, libertarianism is not a dogma or a set of fixed characteristics like mandatory “socialization of property” and the like.
Libertarianism explains “how things are,” not “how they should be.” The modality of “should” arises only when certain obvious matters—such as the results of parasitic structures’ activities, like the state—disrupt the normal functioning of “how things are.”
Therefore, unlike socialism and communism, apparently there is no point at which one can, consulting some booklet, declare the “construction of a libertarian society,” since any society in its foundation is essentially libertarian.
One can speak of the movement toward “libertarianism” in terms of getting rid of parasites and, above all, the state. With all the breadth of the field opening here for all kinds of fantasies, a “libertarian state” or “country”—meaning some territory homogeneous in the political sense—looks like the least real prospect.
A peaceful and promising scenario for libertarianism is the gradual privatization (more correctly, it seems to me, one should speak of denationalization) of state functions, not even as a result of conscious policy, but de facto, because the state will be unable to reach citizens in one activity or another (most likely due to its excessive weight). Libertarian practices will “grow through” the state in this way. Again, such a process will affect the major states, which will only be “libertarianized” to varying degrees—meaning the scenario of war between “libertarians” and “statists” looks very improbable.
Such a situation could only occur if certain libertarians “seized power” (won elections) and destroyed the state in some country. However, imagining that the state (and our libertarians, in this case, become the state) would voluntarily commit suicide is impossible. But the most fantastic element of this scenario is libertarians seizing power. They would no longer be libertarians; they would become something like the Spanish “anarchists” of the 1930s—some kind of political guinea pigs. Even if we imagine that something like this suddenly happened, then in the case of hypothetical war, we would still not get a situation of “libertarians against statists,” because the abolition of the state “from above” through its pretended suicide does not in any way make society libertarian. The state exists, first of all, in the minds and practices of people, and a country that has “abolished” the state by force does not thereby become the libertarian society to which the question “how will you defend yourself from evil neighbors without an army?” is addressed in these discussions.
In general, the conflict of “libertarians” with “statists” looks like complete fantasy. This circumstance should be kept in mind when you are invited to speculate within the framework of such a model. However, let us proceed to our two cases in which the army appears.
1. The First Case: The Army as a Public Good and an Argument for Taxation
1.1. A Little History
When we are told that something is an objective phenomenon (it’s a “public good,” sonny, there’s nothing to be done about it), the implication is that certain people or even “the market as a whole” searched and searched and found no solution. As if to say, “we tried this way and that way, it just doesn’t work out, only taxes remain, damn it.” However, in reality nothing like this ever happened. Usually the state simply appropriated what already existed in society on a voluntary basis—social insurance, for example—and only then declared it a “public good” to explain why it collects taxes for this purpose. But this practice does not even apply to the army. In its case, things always worked out the same way at all times. Only the ideological and organizational wrappings changed, and about this we will now speak.
The thing is, the army is the cause of the state, its beginning and foundation. Clarification is needed here, because, as experience shows, when one says that “the state is the result of military conquests,” people often picture an inadequate image in the form of marching columns of a regular army, or even tanks and airplanes. In reality, we are talking about a method that allows legalizing robbery and robbing some for the benefit of others. The idea of derzhavstvo (once we invented a special word to denote this method, to separate it from the group of people specifically extracting profit by this method) is as old as the world. Derzhavstvo is a method applied by some group of people, moving from raids on neighbors to institutionalized violence (regular tribute). That is, when I say “the state is the result of conquest,” I mean a situation that has probably repeated for ten thousand years. Some racketeer tribe defeats one or several neighboring tribes and imposes tribute on them. There you have it—a ready-made state (in school history textbooks this is usually called “united neighboring tribes,” and whoever did this is considered a great hero). As we see, the army is the main cause of success for the whole venture; without it, nothing will work in principle.
One should keep in mind that the state is an extremely unstable thing. First, the state usually ends with the death of the hero-“unifier.” A sustainable method of transferring personal power was never found. Second, usually the public, seeing the approach of the state, hurries to leave as far away as possible. Right now this process can be observed in the Amazon basin, where tribes are busy trying to rob each other, probably since they got there. The trouble, however, is that there is too much free space there and they won’t manage to establish a state.
Therefore, a more or less sustainable state will arise not on a fertile plain or in forest-steppe, but in an oasis in the desert, a mountain valley, a river basin surrounded by desert, or another place from which its victims simply have nowhere to flee. Historically, that is exactly how it happened.
In general, we must understand that the overwhelming majority of states existed for one or two generations due to unresolved inheritance issues, the public’s tendency to run as far away as possible at the first opportunity, and the eternal problem of “what to take from them and where to put it afterwards.” When people discuss the “benefits” of the state and that it is almost a synonym of civilization (as all school textbooks believe), they make a huge error. When saying “civilization” and “state,” they imagine Egyptians, Romans, and Greeks (in the case of the latter two, times are known when they were already Romans and Greeks but not yet a state). We judge states by those that left traces (champions on this list are gangsters of the “dry law” era—states fleeting in time of existence but leaving a significant mark on modern culture). But the absolute majority of states left no traces. They disappeared, the conquerors left muttering “again it didn’t work out…,” and the potential subjects simply continued their business. If we understand that the number of states on Earth in observable history should be counted in hundreds of thousands, everything falls into place.
For completeness of the picture, let us add that states arise not only as a result of direct aggression but also as a result of successful defense against it, victorious war (the Social War for Rome) or successful “borrowing of experience” from neighbors.
However, let us return to the army. As we see, territory is the key parameter of the state. Given the constant desire of the public to flee from the state as far as possible, “sovereign territory” should be as large as possible—as large as the army can control. Since then, the army has been rigidly tied to territory, wars are conducted in terms of territories, and “territorial sovereignty” is a hyper-fetish, any encroachment on which causes many to roll on the floor, tear their shirts, and foam at the mouth.
Feudalism was an excellent solution to the problem of territory expansion; it was essentially a regime of nested states, each with its own army. That is, having annexed some territory, one could plant a relative there, who, receiving tribute from it, becomes interested in guarding it. The relative is himself a state, while simultaneously being part of a larger state nesting doll.
All this time, the public that found itself in states entertained no illusions about the purpose of the army. Significantly, together with Rome’s transformation into a state—that is, into an empire—republican values in the form of civic virtue and service to the people disappeared. Ordinary people perceived the army and war as tools of suppression and aggression and as an absolutely alien activity for them. They tried, as much as possible, not to participate in what was happening. Moreover, I have come across mentions several times of how townspeople and even peasants demanded (and received) from barons and even monarchs compensation for trampled fields during little wars. That is, war is panśki vytriben’ky. And we have real life here.
Everything changed when, as a result of society’s development, “divine right” as a universal explanation of the state’s existence stopped working. It was replaced by the idea of “popular sovereignty” and the “nation-state.” Here appears our “public good,” not yet in the form of a claim to an objective economic law, but in the form of ideology. Napoleon torments Europe for almost twenty years, and Clausewitz explains why he succeeds—because now all the French are citizens and therefore “defense of the fatherland” became their duty.
The nation-state allows putting enormous masses of people under arms. Now service in the army transformed from business or feudal obligation into a “civic duty.” States adapted to new conditions. Having failed to maintain the state as an easily identifiable aristocracy in whose interest taxation is conducted, the state expanded to “all citizens.” This was the practical essence of the idea of nation and popular sovereignty. This is a method of transformation, adaptation of the state—and generally speaking, another topic. For those who haven’t read this blog and for those who may have forgotten, I specifically note that it is about a natural process of profit-seeking, not some conscious conspiracy. The adaptation of the state is an effect of the same series as, say, the discovery of new forms of enterprise organization.
In general, the “nation-state” and accompanying propaganda gave a wonderful result. If during the Jacobins’ and Napoleon’s time the freshly minted “citizens” were far from eager to serve in the army and regularly staged rebellions about it, then a hundred years later, in a much more freedom-loving country—the USA—military conscription was introduced without any rebellions, and for participation in a war that in no way threatened territorial integrity and sovereignty.
From a tool of suppression and aggression, the army suddenly became “national defense,” with only what changed being that now all male residents are obligated to serve in it. I am afraid of being wrong, but as it seems to me, this whole establishment became called “national” in the twentieth century. Before that, the “minister of defense” was honestly called the “war minister.”
1.2. National Defense as a “Public Good”
In order not to lead the conversation astray and not to break spears for the hundredth time about “public goods,” which of course do not exist, in our case one can do simpler—namely, show that the army does not even fall into the category of these very “public goods.”
Although practically in any economics textbook that mentions “public goods,” “national defense” comes first on the list, it seems that it simply never occurred to anyone to think about the validity of this statement. Apparently, it’s the same story here as with Coase and his lighthouses.
What does the circumstance mean that “national defense” is a “public good”? This means some completely objective state of affairs, some economic (not political or some other voluntaristically defined) phenomenon that dictates certain ways of solving the problem. In our case, this is the thesis: “the army protects everyone, therefore everyone should pay for it, otherwise the free rider effect arises and we become defenseless.” That is, whatever we do, we will have to pay taxes, because such are the laws of the reality surrounding us.
However, performing the simplest exercise—applying the characteristics of “public goods” (non-exclusion criterion; non-rivalry in consumption criterion; indivisibility criterion)—to the army, we see that it simply does not correspond to them. In this case, let us leave aside the fact of the absence of “public goods” as such in the reality surrounding us. Suppose they exist. But the army definitely does not belong to them.
A “public good” is, for example, the smell of perfume. You consume it even if you haven’t paid. That is, I pour a bottle of “Chypre” on myself, and everyone around enjoys it for free. This, as supporters of “public goods” believe, gives me grounds to demand money from those around me, “otherwise the good will not be produced.” Actually, the entire discussion of “public goods” reduces to the fact that consumption in this case is also individual, because it is obvious that not everyone likes “Chypre,” and it is not a fact that those who like it wanted it specifically here and specifically now. But! In any case, everyone who found themselves within the radius of the “Chypre’s” effect inhaled its magical smell.
It is precisely this “everyone” that creates the problem in the case of the army. Because in its case, there is no question of any “everyone.” No military doctrine seriously provides for the defense of the population (not to mention everyone) as the reason for the existence and purpose of armed forces. This is especially visible in the example of the ultimate weapon, like nuclear weapons. What did (do) military doctrines say on this matter? Here everything is absolutely clear.
The Soviet missile defense was supposed to cover the hero-city of Moscow, in which “the party and government” flourished. The American missile defense was supposed to cover strategic military objects. There is no question of any “population.”
Again, from the practice of wars follows an amazing conclusion. The closer the army came ideologically to the state of a “public good,” the more often it was called “national defense,” the greater were the losses of “personnel” and “civilian population,” not to mention destruction and resources thrown to the wind. The genre classic is two world wars, where “national defenses” defended themselves until they reached a state of humanitarian catastrophe and economic infarction. This somehow doesn’t look at all like “the result of a natural search for an optimal solution.”
To make clearer how the army differs from defense of everyone, I will give examples of such defense. For example, a fence, wall, or force field around the perimeter protects everyone who is inside. At the same time, everyone can evaluate their prospects of being protected in the case of a specific conflict, which is impossible when you are “protected” by an army. An armed-to-the-teeth population along the lines of the Swiss “army” also fits the defense of everyone—it protects itself. Various people’s militias assembled for the purpose of repelling aggression are also close to this state.
It turns out that the state army actually protects us randomly; defense is just a possible side effect of the real tasks it solves.
Moreover, “national defense” is such a “public good in reverse.” This is an amazing situation where people pay for “Chypre” who have never smelled and will never smell this very “Chypre.”
2. The Second Case of the Army’s Appearance in Lofty Conversations: The War Between Society and the State
2.1. War Between States: Rules of War
The existence of states, the state’s tender care for “territorial sovereignty,” and the existence of the state army gave rise to a certain type of war, which, due to the total spread of states in the world, seems self-evident and the only possible one.
It is precisely this self-evidence that prevents seeing the fact that wars between states are conducted according to certain rules, and these rules are dictated by the very nature of states and do not depend on their will. There are two such rules.
The first rule: The goal of war is the subsequent peace agreement with the enemy, even if its content is annexation. Generally speaking, war is conducted because on both sides there exists a state—that is, a ready-made apparatus of coercion. If you pursue the goal of annexation, then you need to defeat the enemy’s army, force the enemy government to abdicate (peace treaty), and the job is done—you are now the boss here, and the local residents may not even notice it, because they deal with an apparatus of violence that, if it changes at all, changes only in the sense of the persons composing it. In most cases, when the goal of annexation is not pursued, the peace treaty involves territorial or political concessions by the losing side.
The second rule: War lasts until one of the parties receives politically unacceptable damage. The content and magnitude of this damage is a matter of domestic political calculations. The state, with any “form of government,” is never homogeneous; various interests struggle within it, including regarding the current war. For some, a lost “general battle” will be a reason for capitulation; others want to resist to the end. Reality will be determined by their interaction. It should be noted in passing that hyper-militarists of recent times—German Nazis and Soviet communists—paid enormous attention to brainwashing and hysterical pumping up of patriotism. Thereby, they made the price of unacceptable damage for themselves maximally high, which, as they believed, would give them additional stability in war.
2.2. War Between the State and Non-State: The Rules Do Not Work
When we transfer these rules to the situation of war of a state with some society, we see that such a war, to put it mildly, greatly complicates the aggressor’s affairs. The English needed a couple of centuries to cope with Ireland; one of the reasons was precisely the absence of a state in its usual form among the Irish. You conclude a treaty with a king, and it turns out he only represents himself. How does one fight here? On the contrary, when the population is accustomed to the state and believes in it wholeheartedly, then things are simple. Take the same English, only now in India, where several thousand English ruled a country of many millions, in which the state had established itself very, very long ago, and actually this English rule did not even require any significant war.
With whom to negotiate? Who to consider the army? Who accepts surrender? Who guarantees fulfillment of surrender conditions? A state that has attacked a society will get, in the best case for it, guerrilla war; moreover, such a state will have to build a state on the occupied territories, which is extremely difficult, considering that the people living there, by the conditions of our problem, are accustomed to getting along without it and, most importantly, know how to do it—without it.
All other things being equal, war against society will cost more than war against another state; it will be protracted, and its result will always be uncertain due to the absence of a subject on the other side.
2.3. Infantile Citizens and Professional Defenders
But what should poor libertarians do if they have no army and they are attacked with a banana? Before answering, let us pay attention to the solution that is currently presented as the only possible one. The reason for the existence of “national defense,” we are told, is the fact that people are infantile and lazy. They will not care about security, and if money is not taken from them, we will all perish. The solution consists of the fact that with the money taken in the form of taxes, certain officials will take care of defense.
Let us first pay attention to the solution itself. Those who have “studied” the school history of the USSR (and thus of the Russian Empire) should well remember the phrase “Russia was not ready for war.” This phrase appeared so regularly that it etched itself into the brain and became a constant cause for jokes. But here’s what’s interesting. Even in the history of countries not claiming a special path—part of which, apparently, is constant unreadiness for war in which you participate—you will encounter this phrase with surprising regularity. It turns out they were all not ready for war.
Let us leave aside the bias of historians and the contentiousness of possible criteria of “readiness.” Let us talk about something else. Basically, it is about the fact that the organization of defense should be handled by salaried officials—all these general staffs and the like. Whatever their official work consists of, their main task is to satisfy those who pay their salary. In most cases, this activity does not coincide (and sometimes becomes directly opposite) with the official version. Workers of the bureaucratic and corporate frontlines know this well. Can such a way of organizing defense help in real matters? The answer is—it depends on luck. After all, there is some chance2 that both ministers and the general staff consist entirely of well-prepared and knowledgeable people. Although historical experience says that this chance is quite small.
For comparison, let us look at defense as a contract with a private army (armies). The army leadership is not officials and does not work for current reporting. Victory in war for them is a competitive advantage, an important item on their resume. If the army needs to stay in business, it always needs to be “ready for war” and win. As we see, comparison of a state-salaried army with a private army does not favor the former.
Now let us pay attention to the initial thesis about the “infantile nature” of people. However, first let us note that in a libertarian society, defense, like all other sides of life, ends up in the hands of the people themselves, and their decision to spend certain resources on defense depends on their preferences. As in the case of an apartment building, now they will take care of security themselves.
And here’s what’s interesting. In those cases when defense turned out to be the business of the people themselves, they coped well with the job. Urban militias3, for example, repeatedly beat the armies of barons. Even in the era of nation-states (and earlier), in situations when people considered the threat of foreign aggression dangerous for themselves, their loved ones, and their values, they went into the state army as volunteers or took up weapons themselves. Even in the last century, a common practice was to collect money “by subscription” for arming and equipping troops.
Thus, the popular concept of infantile nature does not withstand criticism. First, if we understand that the army is the foundation and beginning of the state, then the very idea that “national defense” in its current form is the result of a search for the best solution for protecting residents looks ridiculous. To the question “where have you seen an army financed by people voluntarily,” the correct answer is “who would let them.” Second, in those cases when people were indeed “allowed” to solve defense problems themselves, they coped with this task no worse than the state.
2.4. War Between Society and the State: More Details
Since we understand that self-defense becomes the business of the residents themselves, it is obvious that many ways of such defense can be invented. If we also understand that in a libertarian society there is no “unowned” property, then the incentives become more than obvious.
Our contemporary, in most cases, owns their apartment. Sometimes they also own a semi-virtual “legal entity” that they use to extract profit from certain “spaces,” as a rule, on lease rights. All other spaces that surround them—roads, city infrastructure, all these rivers, forests, and fields—belong to “nobody.” More precisely, they are managed by some spirit called “the state,” or more concrete figures by the name of “government.” When a contemporary hears that certain people propose to remove from sight both the spirit and the concrete figures, a void forms in their mind in the place of these immense spaces. And when they hear that there is no need for an army either, and everyone will take care of themselves (weapons, after all, will be distributed), then their mental vision presents a picture of little people sitting in their little apartments and clutching automatic Kalashnikovs with trembling hands. And around—unowned emptiness.
In reality, all territories and structures will belong to certain people. Obviously, these people should realize that bombs and shells fall not on “unowned” but on very tangible “mine.” Moreover, bombs and shells do not distinguish between property boundaries.
From our today’s point of view, two obvious solutions are clearly visible—citizens armed to the teeth, as in the case of the Swiss army, and hiring private armies. Most likely, it will be a combination of these solutions plus solutions currently unknown to us. Those hiring armies can be citizens, companies, and various associations of both. Similarly, arming oneself to the teeth, training and exercises can be part of neighborhood contracts, charters of territorial communities, etc. If there is a real threat from a scary, terrible, ugly, non-intelligent neighboring state, then one will not have to wait for such structures to appear.
There are two more points that influence the course of war under otherwise equal conditions. First, if we are talking about a libertarian society, then we need to understand that in it, labor productivity is much higher than in the state. Moreover, it has no losses from arbitrary distribution of resources characteristic of states, as well as costs for maintaining the state itself. That is, such a society is much richer than the state, which is an incentive for its members to defend it and gives them capabilities for this defense. If we allow the reality of hypothetical adjacency of “society” and “state,” then in this hypothesis, the residents of the state are poor guest workers coming to society for work.
Second, in such a war, the defending side well understands the goal, and the attacking side does not, due to the absence of a subject of defense. That is, the goal of libertarians is to end the war, for which they need to inflict politically unacceptable damage on the enemy. Is an army of the state type needed for this? Obviously, not necessarily. The thought immediately comes to mind that the “elite” of the aggressor state certainly has dealings with the libertarian society, has real estate there, educates their children there—in general, the situation of “us” and “the West” repeats. This gives possibilities for influencing the neighboring state, actually puts it in dependence on the libertarian society. And, unlike the current “West,” there is no need for Senate votes, “Magnitsky laws,” and other costly political decisions. Since reputation in a libertarian society plays a much more important role than in a state, private companies will act on their own initiative. And if it does come to armed aggression, then the task of inflicting politically unacceptable damage can be solved by several sabotage groups or a banal coup d’état.
Conclusions
Historically, the army is the foundation of the state, the method of its emergence, existence, and expansion. Modern “national defense” is not the result of conscious search or unconscious evolution of methods of national defense specifically—that is, searching for ways to protect people living on some territory from external aggression.
The army cannot even be considered a “public good,” since those who will receive no protection in case of conflict pay for it.
Accordingly, “taxation for defense” is not an inevitable and obligatory method of solving the problem.
Since in a libertarian society there is no territorial monopoly and no subject waging war, it turns out in an advantageous position in case of aggression from the state. The task of libertarians is to inflict politically unacceptable damage on the enemy; this task can be solved by various means.
Obviously, as long as states exist alongside libertarian communities, libertarians will bear costs associated with contracts with private armies, arming and preparing self-defense units, saboteurs, etc.
Bonus Tracks
Since in the conversation about the defense problems of a hypothetical libertarian territory from a neighboring state, the issue of private armies and security agencies always somehow comes up for some reason, in order to preempt unnecessary discussion, let us answer the two most common questions.
Private armies will fight each other. If we understand that under normal conditions a person prefers to stay alive rather than become dead, even if they are a military person, then it is clear that such opportunities are much greater in the case of a private army. War is an extremely expensive pleasure. In case of war, the agency risks its money and its reputation before potential clients and workers. The state risks nothing. Officials spend on war money forcibly taken from the population, and they are extremely rarely punished for committed crimes. Of course, clashes between private armies are possible; however, the motivation “to avoid war” is inherent here to all participants of the process, including the leadership.
Private armies (security agencies) will eventually turn into a state. Beyond Roderick Long’s argument about cartel instability, let us note that private armies would have to perform all those manipulations that states once performed—that is, they would not simply need to organize a stable cartel, they would eventually need to declare some territory “theirs,” create “their” legislative body, usurp the court, introduce taxation, and in time, their own “fiat money.” And all this against the backdrop of an armed public that, unlike today, is aware of what is happening. I have a clear feeling that the game is not worth the candle, especially considering that even if all agencies entered a cartel, a new agency can always be created.