WEBVTT NOTE The Myth of National Defense 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:18.000 Let me start with some of my famous humility. If you would have asked me until a week ago if I really must have one book only, which one should it be, I would have told you of course it should be My Democracy is a God that Failed. 2 00:00:18.000 --> 00:00:25.000 Today, if you would ask me, I would have to say, you have to have two books. 3 00:00:25.000 --> 00:00:41.000 So, The Myth of National Defense, and this is a book that I want to talk about a little bit because it just came out and is obviously of great relevance for this conference. 4 00:00:41.000 --> 00:00:59.400 Let me begin with a quotation from the Declaration of Independence, you know, the beginning about the inalienable rights to liberty and property and pursuit of happiness and so forth. 5 00:00:59.400 --> 00:01:10.400 And then Jefferson continues to say, governments are instituted among men deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed 6 00:01:10.400 --> 00:01:21.400 and that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it and to institute new government 7 00:01:21.400 --> 00:01:32.400 laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form as to them shall seem most likely to affect their safety and happiness. 8 00:01:32.400 --> 00:01:40.400 Prudence indeed will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes. 9 00:01:40.400 --> 00:01:48.400 And accordingly all experience has shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer while evils are sufferable 10 00:01:48.400 --> 00:01:53.400 The topic of the book is to think about these alternative methods. 11 00:01:53.400 --> 00:02:12.400 But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is in their right, it is in their duty to throw off such government and to provide new guards for their future security. 12 00:02:12.400 --> 00:02:20.400 The topic of the book is to think about these alternative possibilities that exist. 13 00:02:20.400 --> 00:02:37.400 Now, obviously, more than 200 years after the Declaration of Independence, it seems appropriate to raise the question whether government has in fact done what it was designed to do, that is, to protect us. 14 00:02:37.400 --> 00:02:51.400 or if experience has provided us with grounds to consider other possible and more effective ways to guard our own security. 15 00:02:51.400 --> 00:03:04.400 In fact, this question has of course even gained in importance because of the events of September 11. 16 00:03:04.400 --> 00:03:12.400 As I said, governments are supposed to protect us and they protect us, of course, also from terrorism. 17 00:03:12.400 --> 00:03:20.400 Yet what has the government's role been in this particular event, the attack on the World Trade Center? 18 00:03:20.400 --> 00:03:30.400 The US government commands a defense budget of $400 billion per year. 19 00:03:30.400 --> 00:03:39.400 That is a sum that equals the spending on defense of the next 24 countries in the world. 20 00:03:39.400 --> 00:03:48.400 And it employs a worldwide network of spies and informants. 21 00:03:48.400 --> 00:03:53.400 Unfortunately, not too many people could speak Iraqi, I guess. 22 00:03:53.400 --> 00:04:11.400 In any case, it was unable to prevent commercial airliners from being hijacked and used as missiles against civilian targets. 23 00:04:11.400 --> 00:04:20.400 In fact, the situation is even worse. Because the government did not only fail to prevent the disaster of September 11, 24 00:04:20.400 --> 00:04:28.900 2011, it actually contributed to the likelihood of such an event. In pursuing an interventionist 25 00:04:28.900 --> 00:04:37.800 foreign policy, taking the form of economic sanctions, of troops stationed in more than 26 00:04:37.800 --> 00:04:45.020 hundred countries, relentless bombings of various places, propping up despotic regimes 27 00:04:45.020 --> 00:05:02.020 all over the world, taking sides in irresolvable ethnic and territorial conflicts and otherwise attempting political and military management of whole areas around the globe. 28 00:05:02.020 --> 00:05:12.020 The government actually provided the very motivation for foreign terrorists and made the United States a prime target for these attacks. 29 00:05:12.020 --> 00:05:26.020 In addition, how was it possible that men armed with no more than box cutters could inflict the terrible damage that they did inflict? 30 00:05:26.020 --> 00:05:37.020 Now obviously this was only possible because the government prohibited airline pilots from protecting their own property by force of arms 31 00:05:37.020 --> 00:05:46.020 and thus rendering every commercial airline vulnerable and unprotected against potential hijackers. 32 00:05:46.020 --> 00:05:57.020 A pistol of $50 in the cockpit would have done what $400 billion were unable to do. 33 00:05:57.020 --> 00:06:03.020 And what has been the lesson from all of this? 34 00:06:03.020 --> 00:06:13.020 The lesson has been that the United States became even more aggressive after the events. 35 00:06:13.020 --> 00:06:23.020 The United States military overthrew first the Afghani government that was said to be harboring Osama bin Laden. 36 00:06:23.020 --> 00:06:32.020 And in the course of this thousands of innocent people were of course killed as collateral damage, a wonderful term. 37 00:06:32.020 --> 00:06:50.020 But up until this day Bin Laden has not been captured and in order to distract from this disaster of not being able to find him, they began a war against Iraq and lied us into it. 38 00:06:50.020 --> 00:07:18.020 The United States refused even to rule out the use of nuclear weapons in these types of endeavors and no doubt this policy helped to further increase the number of potential recruits into the ranks of people willing to use extreme violence against citizens of the United States. 39 00:07:18.020 --> 00:07:38.020 At the same time, domestically, the government used the crisis that it had brought about, which it helped to provoke, to further increase its own power at the expense of the people's liberty and property rights. 40 00:07:38.020 --> 00:07:45.020 Government spending, in particular on defense, was vastly increased. 41 00:07:45.020 --> 00:07:50.020 I should mention Walter took the line away from me. 42 00:07:50.020 --> 00:07:55.020 What do we need a Department for Home Defense for? 43 00:07:55.020 --> 00:08:00.020 I thought that was the task of the Defense Department. 44 00:08:00.020 --> 00:08:04.020 But an appropriate term for the Defense Department would be, of course, 45 00:08:04.020 --> 00:08:10.020 opposing it to homeland security would be a foreign insecurity department. 46 00:08:10.020 --> 00:08:21.020 Now, all of airport security was nationalized and all the rest of it, Patriot Act, you know all the stories. 47 00:08:21.020 --> 00:08:34.020 This gives us then obviously reason enough to provide a systematic explanation for these events. 48 00:08:34.020 --> 00:08:50.020 And this is what I want to provide in very truncated form, a systematic explanation for this complete failure of government to do what it is supposed to do, that is to protect us. 49 00:08:50.020 --> 00:09:04.020 Now, two of the most widely and dearly held propositions among political economists and political philosophers are the following. 50 00:09:04.020 --> 00:09:16.020 The first one, let's call it the first axiom, is every monopoly is bad from the point of view of consumers. 51 00:09:16.020 --> 00:09:31.020 Monopoly is understood here in its classical sense as an exclusive privilege granted to a single producer of a commodity or of a service. 52 00:09:31.020 --> 00:09:38.020 That is, the absence of free entry into specific lines of production. 53 00:09:38.020 --> 00:09:48.520 In other words, only one agency, Agency A, let's say, may produce a given good, let's say, the good X. 54 00:09:48.520 --> 00:09:59.420 And any such monopolist is bad from the point of view of consumers, because shielded from competitors, 55 00:09:59.420 --> 00:10:08.420 The price of his product, the price of X will tend to be higher than it would be if competition were in existence 56 00:10:08.420 --> 00:10:17.420 and the quality of the product X tends to be lower than it would be if there would be competition in this particular area. 57 00:10:17.420 --> 00:10:21.420 That's the first axiom. Monopoly is bad. 58 00:10:21.420 --> 00:10:27.420 Now the second axiom. The second axiom, again shared practically by all economists nowadays 59 00:10:27.420 --> 00:10:40.420 and political philosophers as well, is the production of security, protection must be undertaken and is a primary function of government. 60 00:10:40.420 --> 00:10:47.420 And here security is understood in the wide sense as it is adopted in the Declaration of Independence, 61 00:10:47.420 --> 00:10:58.420 meaning the protection of life, property, liberty and the pursuit of happiness from domestic violence and external enemies. 62 00:10:58.420 --> 00:11:08.420 In accordance with generally accepted terminology, then government is defined as a territorial monopoly of law and order. 63 00:11:08.420 --> 00:11:14.420 That is, government is the ultimate decision maker and enforcer in a certain territory. 64 00:11:14.420 --> 00:11:22.420 Now what you immediately recognize of course is that both of these propositions are clearly incompatible. 65 00:11:22.420 --> 00:11:30.420 First we say monopoly is lousy, bad for consumers, and then we say for that particular task of protecting us, 66 00:11:30.420 --> 00:11:37.420 which seems to be one of the most important tasks that can be done for us, there we need a monopolist. 67 00:11:37.420 --> 00:11:52.420 Curiously, most economists and most political philosophers see absolutely no problem with holding two views that are entirely incompatible, that cannot be reconciled with each other. 68 00:11:52.420 --> 00:12:18.420 And if you make them aware of this, the usual reaction is then to make exception to the first axiom, that is saying maybe not all monopolies are bad, but never ever even contemplating the idea that maybe something is wrong with the second axiom, that is that protection must be provided by a monopolist, by the government. 69 00:12:18.420 --> 00:12:28.420 The authors in the midst of national defense are more inclined to take the second position. 70 00:12:28.420 --> 00:12:39.420 That is to say, there might be something wrong with the claim that governments must be providing law and order and security. 71 00:12:39.420 --> 00:12:51.420 And they are more consistent because they have the general monopoly theory in the back of their mind which explains why a monopolist tends to be lousy. 72 00:12:51.420 --> 00:13:11.420 Now as far as empirical or historical evidence is concerned, the proponents of the orthodox view regarding the necessity of government face some obvious embarrassment. 73 00:13:11.420 --> 00:13:26.420 Because the recently ended 20th century was characterized by a level of human rights violations that is unparalleled in all of human history. 74 00:13:26.420 --> 00:13:32.420 There's been a book published by Mr. Rommel, there are lots of criticism that can be leveled against that book, 75 00:13:32.420 --> 00:13:43.420 in his book, where he points out that in the 20th century alone, governments were responsible for the deaths of 170 million people. 76 00:13:43.420 --> 00:13:51.420 Now, if you count all the criminal assaults that took place, you will probably not come up with a high number like this, 77 00:13:51.420 --> 00:13:57.420 even if you start from the beginning of mankind until the present. 78 00:13:57.420 --> 00:14:16.420 So the historical evidence appears to indicate that rather than protecting life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness of their own citizens, governments must be considered to be the greatest threat to human security. 79 00:14:16.420 --> 00:14:28.420 Now, proponents of the orthodox view that we attack in this book might be willing to compromise the first thesis. 80 00:14:28.420 --> 00:14:40.420 That is, the first thesis regarding the evil of monopoly in order to maintain the second thesis, the necessity of government to provide law and order. 81 00:14:40.420 --> 00:14:47.420 but they can obviously not entirely ignore the empirical evidence that has accumulated 82 00:14:47.420 --> 00:14:52.420 and if they take the empirical evidence that has accumulated into consideration 83 00:14:52.420 --> 00:15:03.420 then they are forced to somehow modify their thesis about governments are necessary in order to provide law and order 84 00:15:03.420 --> 00:15:10.420 And what they have done is by and large modifying the Caesars in the following way. 85 00:15:10.420 --> 00:15:18.420 One group says, experience shows that some states are aggressors and not protectors. 86 00:15:18.420 --> 00:15:25.420 Thus, one is not to discard the second Caesars altogether. 87 00:15:25.420 --> 00:15:40.420 Its further specification is required and we only claim that some states do protect and other types of states do engage in aggression. 88 00:15:40.420 --> 00:15:51.420 Now, what are the states that allegedly do not engage in aggression and are so to speak successful when it comes to protection? 89 00:15:51.420 --> 00:16:13.420 Numerous political scientists, including Mr. Rommel that I mentioned before, have tried to show through various statistical means that it is the absence of democratic government which explains the anomalies of the 20th century. 90 00:16:13.420 --> 00:16:23.420 They argue that admittedly democracies go to war against non-democratic regimes, but supposedly they do not fight each other. 91 00:16:23.420 --> 00:16:33.420 Democracies are, so to speak, peaceful vis-a-vis each other. And from that, in their view, it would seem to follow. 92 00:16:33.420 --> 00:16:41.420 And this thesis has in the meantime become, so to speak, the standard folklore of the neoconservatives. 93 00:16:41.420 --> 00:16:58.420 and conservatives. This would then imply that once the Wilsonian dream of making the world safe for democracy has been achieved, then eternal peace and security will be accomplished. 94 00:16:58.420 --> 00:17:26.420 Now, in a similar vein, some political economists such as James Buchanan and the School of Constitutional Economics, they have suggested that the admittedly miserable record of governments concerning the provision of internal and external security can be systematically improved by means of some constitutional reforms. 95 00:17:26.420 --> 00:17:35.420 We just write a different constitution than the one that we had or repair the existing one a little bit and then eternal peace will break out. 96 00:17:35.420 --> 00:17:50.420 Now, both of these explanations or both of these excuses are carefully scrutinized and rejected in that volume on the myth of national defense. 97 00:17:50.420 --> 00:18:17.420 As for the thesis of the peaceful nature of democracy, several contributors in the volume point out that in accordance with military historians such as J.F.C. Fuller and Michael Howard that this rests on a complete misinterpretation of history. 98 00:18:17.420 --> 00:18:33.420 Fuller in particular and also Michael Howard point out that whatever one might say about democratic wars, democratic wars because they are ideological wars. 99 00:18:33.420 --> 00:18:42.420 Not wars that deal with certain territorial issues and can be easily ended once the territorial issues have been settled. 100 00:18:42.420 --> 00:18:50.420 have been settled, but ideological wars similar in nature to religious wars tend to be uniquely brutal. 101 00:18:50.420 --> 00:18:59.420 You never know when to end the war because you never know when people have really converted, have accepted the right view. 102 00:18:59.420 --> 00:19:05.420 The only time that you can be absolutely sure that the conversion has taken place is by killing all the people off. 103 00:19:05.420 --> 00:19:15.420 And of course you know that they have converted to whatever, Islam, Christianity, Judaism, who knows what. 104 00:19:15.420 --> 00:19:33.420 In addition, this thesis that democracies are peaceful is contradicted quite obviously by the example of the American Civil War or the American War of Southern Independence. 105 00:19:33.420 --> 00:19:55.420 Here we have two democracies fighting a war against each other and fighting a war that was, up until that point, one of the most brutal encounters that we know of in human history, similar to the religious wars several hundred years before. 106 00:19:55.420 --> 00:20:07.420 Why do they ignore this? There is no clear-cut answer to this. It doesn't fit into their picture. Accordingly, they simply don't take it into account. 107 00:20:07.420 --> 00:20:21.420 The second error, which is also dealt with in greater detail in the book, is that the proponents of the thesis of the peaceful nature of democracies 108 00:20:21.420 --> 00:20:34.420 democracies typically support their claim by classifying traditional monarchies and modern dictatorships as both being autocratic and non-democratic regimes. 109 00:20:34.420 --> 00:20:41.420 That is, they confuse dictatorships and monarchies, think of both exactly the same type of thing. 110 00:20:41.420 --> 00:20:54.420 Yet historically, if one has to group, make any classifications at all, historically it is the case that democracy and dictatorship that should be grouped together. 111 00:20:54.420 --> 00:21:02.420 Traditional monarchies only resemble dictatorships in a very superficial way because they have one ruler. 112 00:21:02.420 --> 00:21:21.420 Instead, dictatorships are the regular outgrowth of mass democracy. Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Mao were all distinctly democratic rulers as compared to the former emperors of Russia, Germany and Austria. 113 00:21:21.420 --> 00:21:35.420 Lenin, Stalin, Hitler and Mao and almost all of their smaller followers in other places were outspoken in their hatred of everything monarchic and aristocratic. 114 00:21:35.420 --> 00:21:43.420 They knew that they owed their own rights to democratic mass politics. They were all plebs. 115 00:21:43.420 --> 00:21:50.420 Hitler would never have risen to any position in Germany if the Kaiser would have remained in place. 116 00:21:50.420 --> 00:22:05.420 They knew that they owed their rise to power to democracy and they engaged massively in elections, in referenda, in mass rallies, in mass media propagandas throughout their entire reign. 117 00:22:05.420 --> 00:22:14.420 They were popular politicians. On the other hand, and as for the proposal of constitutional reforms, 118 00:22:14.420 --> 00:22:26.420 There is reform in the constitution so that the government is curtailed in its activities, limiting state powers through constitution. 119 00:22:26.420 --> 00:22:34.420 Several contributors to the volume explain that any such attempt must be considered to be futile and ineffective 120 00:22:34.420 --> 00:22:48.420 if and insofar as the interpretation and the enforcement of such limitations is left to government itself or to one of its organs, such as the government controlled Supreme Court. 121 00:22:48.420 --> 00:22:59.420 The Supreme Court has an interest in interpreting the Constitution in such a way that the power of the government is continuously enlarged, that is in their own interest. 122 00:22:59.420 --> 00:23:16.420 Even if they sometimes might disagree with this law or that law, their overall interest is the power of the central government must be strengthened, because as the power of the central government is strengthened, my own power as a judge of the Supreme Court is also strengthened. 123 00:23:16.420 --> 00:23:21.420 I'll come back to this point in a few minutes. 124 00:23:21.420 --> 00:23:41.420 Now, more convincing to the contributors to this volume appears a third thesis that was advanced by Ludwig von Mises, which might be considered to be a mixture of the two previous ones, but it turns out to be an entirely different one. 125 00:23:41.420 --> 00:23:53.420 Mises asserts that in order to fulfill its primary function as a provider of law and order, a government must satisfy two conditions. 126 00:23:53.420 --> 00:23:58.420 It must be democratically elected, he claims. I think that's wrong, but nonetheless. 127 00:23:58.420 --> 00:24:07.420 And, which is a more important point in his argument, and it must be a government that permits unlimited secession in principle. 128 00:24:07.420 --> 00:24:33.420 What he says here is this, whenever the inhabitants of a particular territory, whether it be a single village, a whole district or a series of adjacent districts, make it known by a freely conducted plebiscite that they no longer wish to remain united to the state to which they belong at the time, their wishes are to be respected and complied with. 129 00:24:33.420 --> 00:24:41.420 This is the only feasible and effective way of preventing revolutions and international war. 130 00:24:41.420 --> 00:24:54.420 Now, one obvious attraction of this Mises thesis is that this thesis can roughly account for the events of the United States 19th century history. 131 00:24:54.420 --> 00:25:02.420 Until 1861, by and large, people took the right to the seat for granted. 132 00:25:02.420 --> 00:25:06.420 And because of this, the government was very mild, so to speak. 133 00:25:06.420 --> 00:25:14.420 After 1861, there was absolutely no doubt anymore that there did not exist a right to the session. 134 00:25:14.420 --> 00:25:21.420 Accordingly, the government became ever more brutal, ever more intrusive, ever more aggressive. 135 00:25:21.420 --> 00:25:42.420 aggressive. However, the question is, is this Caesars of Mises, so to speak, just an amendment, or is it really entirely different Caesars from the ones that Buchanan and Rommel and similar people propose? 136 00:25:42.420 --> 00:25:56.420 And I think it is fundamentally an entirely different thesis, because if there exists an unlimited right to the session, then we do no longer have a state in front of us. 137 00:25:56.420 --> 00:26:05.420 Then we have basically a club in front of us, and people are voluntary members of this club. 138 00:26:05.420 --> 00:26:12.420 If everybody can succeed and they don't succeed, then obviously they declare I'm a member of this club. 139 00:26:12.420 --> 00:26:20.420 On the other hand, if they can succeed, then this indicates clearly that this is not a state. 140 00:26:20.420 --> 00:26:23.420 A state would not let you succeed from it. 141 00:26:23.420 --> 00:26:35.420 So I think Mises's thesis is actually showing that governments are incapable of providing these services of law and order. 142 00:26:35.420 --> 00:26:50.420 Now, let me provide you with a definition of the state and then simply explain why all of these things that I described early on had to happen, had to be expected, so to speak. 143 00:26:50.420 --> 00:27:05.420 A state, the definition of a state that I propose is the standard definition. It corresponds closely to the 144 00:27:05.420 --> 00:27:15.420 definition also given by Thomas Hobbes and a large number of philosophers and political economists and it goes 145 00:27:15.420 --> 00:27:27.420 According to Hobbes, when people are in a state of nature, then they are constantly at each other's throats. 146 00:27:27.420 --> 00:27:34.420 One man is another man's wolf, is the statement that Hobbes gives. 147 00:27:34.420 --> 00:27:43.420 Each individual, so to speak, left to its own devices and provisions, would spend too little on its own defense. 148 00:27:43.420 --> 00:27:48.420 and hence permanent interpersonal warfare would result. 149 00:27:48.420 --> 00:27:55.420 Now, and the solution to this presumably intolerable situation, according to Hobbes and his followers, 150 00:27:55.420 --> 00:28:00.420 is then the institution of a state or a government. 151 00:28:00.420 --> 00:28:06.420 In order to institute peaceful cooperation or security among themselves, 152 00:28:06.420 --> 00:28:35.420 The State is not just another individual and the good that the State provides, that is of security, is not just another private good, instead the State is considered to be sovereign and has as such two unique powers. 153 00:28:35.420 --> 00:28:48.420 On the one hand, the state can insist that its subjects, A and B, do not seek protection from anyone except from the state itself. 154 00:28:48.420 --> 00:28:58.420 That is, the state is a compulsory territorial monopolist of protection and ultimate decision making. 155 00:28:58.420 --> 00:29:13.420 And on the other hand, the state can determine unilaterally, without unanimous consent, how much A and B its subjects must spend on their own security. 156 00:29:13.420 --> 00:29:21.420 That is, the state has the power to impose taxes in order to provide security collectively. 157 00:29:21.420 --> 00:29:31.420 Now, look at this Caesars. Based on this definition of a government, as I said, completely uncontroversial definition. 158 00:29:31.420 --> 00:29:44.420 Based on this definition of government as a compulsory territorial monopolist of protection and jurisdiction equipped with the power to tax without unanimous consent, 159 00:29:44.420 --> 00:29:57.420 The contributors to this volume, myself, argue that regardless of whether such a government is a monarchy, a democracy or a dictatorship, 160 00:29:57.420 --> 00:30:07.420 any notion of limiting its power and safeguarding individual life, liberty and property must be deemed illusory. 161 00:30:07.420 --> 00:30:19.420 Under monopolistic auspices, the price of justice and protection must continuously rise and its quality must continuously fall. 162 00:30:19.420 --> 00:30:30.420 A tax-funded protection agency, it is pointed out by several contributors, a tax-funded protection agency is a contradiction in terms. 163 00:30:30.420 --> 00:30:37.420 And in terms, it is an expropriating property protector. What would you think of a protector who came to you? 164 00:30:37.420 --> 00:30:46.420 I'll protect you, but first I take half of your property away from you and then I use this half of your property that I take away from you in order to protect the other half that you have. 165 00:30:46.420 --> 00:31:14.420 In fact, even if a state limited its activities exclusively to the protection of life, liberty and property, as a protective state a la Jefferson is supposed to do, even if it would just do this, the further question would immediately arise, how much security do I provide for the public? 166 00:31:14.420 --> 00:31:36.420 And motivated, as everyone else, by self-interest and as everybody else not liking to work, that is by disutility of labor, but equipped with a unique power to tax, we can predict that a government's answer will always be the same. 167 00:31:36.420 --> 00:32:00.420 is the same. That is to maximize expenditures on protection and conceivably all of a nation's wealth can be used for protective purposes and at the same time minimize the actual production of protective measures. 168 00:32:00.420 --> 00:32:06.420 Spend as much as you can and do as little as you can get away with. 169 00:32:06.420 --> 00:32:18.420 Furthermore, a monopoly of jurisdiction must lead to a deterioration in the quality of justice and protection. 170 00:32:18.420 --> 00:32:28.420 If one can appeal only to the state for justice and protection, justice and protection will be distorted in favor of government. 171 00:32:28.420 --> 00:32:48.420 Constitutions and Supreme Courts notwithstanding. After all, constitutions and supreme courts are state constitutions and state courts, and whatever limitations to government action they might contain is determined by agents of the very same institution. 172 00:32:48.420 --> 00:33:01.420 Accordingly, the definitions of life, liberty and property and their protection will continually be altered and the range of jurisdiction will be expanded to the state's advantage. 173 00:33:01.420 --> 00:33:17.420 Things are even worse. If you are the ultimate judge in every case of conflict, then you will likely even provoke and cause conflicts and decide it then afterwards in your own favor. 174 00:33:17.420 --> 00:33:22.420 I hit you on the head, you can only come to me to get justice. 175 00:33:22.420 --> 00:33:37.420 And then I say, but that was perfectly justified that I hit you on the head and I punish you now for coming forward and complaining about this. 176 00:33:37.420 --> 00:33:59.420 Now, the first person who provided a systematic explanation for the apparent failure of governments as security producers along the lines that I sketched here was the Belgian economist Gustave de Molinari who lived from 1818 to 1912. 177 00:33:59.420 --> 00:34:09.420 De Molinari was a prominent Belgian-born French economist, a student of Jean-Baptiste Say and a teacher of Wilfredo Pareto. 178 00:34:09.420 --> 00:34:21.420 For several decades he was the editor of the leading French economic journal, the Journal des Economistes, the professional journal of the French Economic Association in the 19th century. 179 00:34:21.420 --> 00:34:35.420 De Molinari's central argument was laid out in an article about the production of security, which was published in February 1849. 180 00:34:35.420 --> 00:34:45.420 And it is worthwhile to quote his argument because of his theoretical rigor and its seemingly visionary foresight. 181 00:34:45.420 --> 00:35:04.420 Molinari says, if there is one established, well established truth in political economy, it is this, that in all cases, for all commodities that serve to provide for the tangible or intangible needs of consumers, 182 00:35:04.420 --> 00:35:19.420 It is in the consumer's best interest that labor and trade remain free, because the freedom of labor and trade have as their necessary and permanent result the maximum production, maximum reduction of price. 183 00:35:19.420 --> 00:35:30.420 And this, that the interests of the consumers of any commodity whatsoever should always prevail over the interests of the producers. 184 00:35:30.420 --> 00:35:47.420 Now in pursuing these principles, one arrives at this rigorous conclusion, that the production of security should, in the interest of the consumers of this intangible commodity, remain subject to the law of free competition. 185 00:35:47.420 --> 00:36:02.420 Hence it follows that no government should have the right to prevent another government from going into competition with it or require consumers of security to come exclusively to it for this commodity. 186 00:36:02.420 --> 00:36:11.420 And then he concludes, either this is logically true or else the principles on which economic science is based are invalid. 187 00:36:11.420 --> 00:36:18.420 and then Molinari predicted what would happen if the production of security is monopolized 188 00:36:18.420 --> 00:36:25.420 and he said if on the contrary the consumer is not free to buy security wherever he pleases 189 00:36:25.420 --> 00:36:33.420 you force with see open up a large profession dedicated to arbitrariness and bad management 190 00:36:33.420 --> 00:36:53.420 Justice becomes slow and costly, the police vexatious, individual liberty is no longer respected, the price of security is abusively inflated and inequitably apportioned according to the power and influence of this or that class of consumers. 191 00:36:53.420 --> 00:37:06.420 Now nearly all contributors to this volume pay explicit tribute to Gustav de Molinari and the volume is also dedicated to Molinari because of this. 192 00:37:06.420 --> 00:37:18.420 If Molinari's explanation of the dismal performance of government as security provider by the nature of government as a compulsory territorial monopolist of law and order is accepted, 193 00:37:18.420 --> 00:37:45.420 are accepted, however, then the question of alternatives arises, and accordingly the bulk of the volume, the myth of national defense, consists of contributions to this quest for private and voluntary market-produced alternatives to the failed and fundamentally flawed system of government protection. 194 00:37:45.420 --> 00:37:48.420 The questions that are addressed in the book are, 195 00:37:48.420 --> 00:37:54.420 how could and would an alternative system of freely competing security producers work? 196 00:37:54.420 --> 00:37:58.420 Based on historical experience and an economic logic, 197 00:37:58.420 --> 00:38:07.420 how effective are private alternatives such as mercenaries, guerrillas, militias, partisans and privateers? 198 00:38:07.420 --> 00:38:15.420 What are the consequences of the free proliferation of weapons, in particular of nuclear arms? 199 00:38:15.420 --> 00:38:20.420 What is the role of ideology and public opinion in defense and war? 200 00:38:20.420 --> 00:38:25.420 What type of good is defense? A private good or a public good? 201 00:38:25.420 --> 00:38:32.420 Can protective defense be provided by freely competing and financed insurance agencies? 202 00:38:32.420 --> 00:38:40.420 How would the logic of competitive insurance protection differ from that of monopolistic state protection? 203 00:38:40.420 --> 00:38:47.420 How can the transition from a system of monopolistic to competitive security production be achieved? 204 00:38:47.420 --> 00:38:51.420 What is the role of secession in this process? 205 00:38:51.420 --> 00:39:00.420 How can state-free societies or natural orders possibly defend themselves against state attacks and invasions? 206 00:39:00.420 --> 00:39:15.420 These are the central questions addressed and as I believe answered in the present volume by an assembly of economists, philosophers, sociologists, historians and so forth. 207 00:39:15.420 --> 00:39:19.420 And now I insist that you buy the book. Thank you.