WEBVTT NOTE 25. On Relations Between States 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:05.000 Chapter 25 On Relations Between States 2 00:00:05.000 --> 00:00:17.000 Each state has an assumed monopoly of force over a given territorial area, the areas varying in size in accordance with different historical conditions. 3 00:00:17.000 --> 00:00:32.000 Foreign policy, or foreign relations, may be defined as the relationship between any particular state, A, and other states, B, C, D, and the inhabitants living under those states. 4 00:00:32.000 --> 00:00:40.000 In the ideal moral world, no states would exist, and hence, of course, no foreign policy could exist. 5 00:00:40.000 --> 00:00:50.000 Given the existence of states, however, are there any moral principles that libertarianism can direct as criteria for foreign policy? 6 00:00:50.000 --> 00:00:58.000 The answer is broadly the same as in the libertarian moral criteria directed toward the domestic policy of states, 7 00:00:58.000 --> 00:01:07.000 namely to reduce the degree of coercion exercised by states over individual persons as much as possible. 8 00:01:07.000 --> 00:01:26.000 Before considering interstate actions, let us return for a moment to the pure libertarian stateless world where individuals and their hired private protection agencies strictly confine their use of violence to the defense of person and property against violence. 9 00:01:26.000 --> 00:01:32.600 Suppose that, in this world, Jones finds that he or his property is being 10 00:01:32.600 --> 00:01:38.240 aggressed against by Smith. It is legitimate, as we have seen, for Jones to 11 00:01:38.240 --> 00:01:44.720 repel this invasion by the use of defensive violence. But now, we must ask, is 12 00:01:44.720 --> 00:01:49.100 it within the right of Jones to commit aggressive violence against innocent 13 00:01:49.100 --> 00:01:53.640 third parties in the course of his legitimate defense against Smith? 14 00:01:53.640 --> 00:02:01.640 Clearly, the answer must be no, for the rule prohibiting violence against the persons or 15 00:02:01.640 --> 00:02:05.240 property of innocent men is absolute. 16 00:02:05.240 --> 00:02:12.000 It holds, regardless of the subjective motives for the aggression, it is wrong and criminal 17 00:02:12.000 --> 00:02:18.520 to violate the property or person of another, even if one is a Robin Hood, or is starving, 18 00:02:18.520 --> 00:02:22.840 or is defending oneself against a third man's attack. 19 00:02:22.840 --> 00:02:30.160 We may understand and sympathize with the motives in many of these cases and extreme situations. 20 00:02:30.160 --> 00:02:36.400 We or rather the victim or his heirs may later mitigate the guilt if the criminal comes to 21 00:02:36.400 --> 00:02:38.680 trial for punishment. 22 00:02:38.680 --> 00:02:44.840 But we cannot evade the judgment that this aggression is still a criminal act and one 23 00:02:44.840 --> 00:02:50.980 which the victim has every right to repel by violence if necessary. 24 00:02:50.980 --> 00:02:58.720 In short, A aggresses against B because C is threatening or aggressing against A. We 25 00:02:58.720 --> 00:03:04.920 may understand C's higher culpability in this whole procedure, but we still label this 26 00:03:04.920 --> 00:03:13.300 aggression by A as a criminal act, which B has every right to repel by violence. 27 00:03:13.300 --> 00:03:19.740 To be more concrete, if Jones finds that his property is being stolen by Smith, Jones has 28 00:03:19.740 --> 00:03:26.120 has the right to repel him and try to catch him, but Jones has no right to repel him by 29 00:03:26.120 --> 00:03:32.340 bombing a building and murdering innocent people, or to catch him by spraying machine 30 00:03:32.340 --> 00:03:35.700 gun fire into an innocent crowd. 31 00:03:35.700 --> 00:03:42.520 If he does this, he is as much or more a criminal aggressor as Smith is. 32 00:03:42.520 --> 00:03:48.000 The same criteria hold if Smith and Jones each have men on his side. 33 00:03:48.000 --> 00:03:55.680 That is, if war breaks out between Smith and his henchmen and Jones and his bodyguards. 34 00:03:55.680 --> 00:04:01.260 If Smith and a group of henchmen aggress against Jones and Jones and his bodyguards 35 00:04:01.260 --> 00:04:08.400 pursue the Smith gang to their lair, we may cheer Jones on in his endeavor, and we and 36 00:04:08.400 --> 00:04:14.600 others in society interested in repelling aggression may contribute financially or personally 37 00:04:14.600 --> 00:04:22.740 to Jones Cause, but Jones and his men have no right, any more than does Smith, to aggress 38 00:04:22.740 --> 00:04:29.840 against anyone else in the course of their just war, to steal others' property in order 39 00:04:29.840 --> 00:04:36.480 to finance their pursuit, to conscript others into their posse by use of violence, or to 40 00:04:36.480 --> 00:04:41.640 kill others in the course of their struggle to capture the Smith forces. 41 00:04:41.640 --> 00:04:47.840 If Jones and his men should do any of these things, they become criminals as fully as 42 00:04:47.840 --> 00:04:55.040 Smith, and they too become subject to whatever sanctions are meted out against criminality. 43 00:04:55.040 --> 00:05:01.360 In fact, if Smith's crime was theft, and Jones should use conscription to catch him, or should 44 00:05:01.360 --> 00:05:08.440 kill innocent people in the pursuit, then Jones becomes more of a criminal than Smith. 45 00:05:08.440 --> 00:05:17.000 For such crimes against another person as enslavement and murder are surely far worse than theft. 46 00:05:17.000 --> 00:05:22.480 Suppose that Jones, in the course of his just war against the ravages of Smith, should kill 47 00:05:22.480 --> 00:05:24.440 some innocent people. 48 00:05:24.440 --> 00:05:29.240 And suppose that he should declaim, in defense of this murder, that he was simply acting 49 00:05:29.240 --> 00:05:33.720 on the slogan, give me liberty or give me death. 50 00:05:33.720 --> 00:05:38.180 The absurdity of this defense should be evident at once. 51 00:05:38.180 --> 00:05:43.380 For the issue is not whether Jones was willing to risk death personally in his defensive 52 00:05:43.380 --> 00:05:45.780 struggle against Smith. 53 00:05:45.780 --> 00:05:51.840 The issue is whether he was willing to kill other innocent people in pursuit of his legitimate 54 00:05:51.840 --> 00:05:53.520 end. 55 00:05:53.520 --> 00:06:00.460 For Jones was in truth acting on the completely indefensible slogan, give me liberty or give 56 00:06:00.460 --> 00:06:02.940 them death. 57 00:06:02.940 --> 00:06:07.460 Surely a far less noble battle cry. 58 00:06:07.460 --> 00:06:15.400 More than, even a just defensive war is only proper when the exercise of violence is rigorously 59 00:06:15.400 --> 00:06:19.500 limited to the individual criminals themselves. 60 00:06:19.500 --> 00:06:27.420 We may judge for ourselves how many wars or conflicts in history have met this criterion. 61 00:06:27.420 --> 00:06:32.140 It has often been maintained, and especially by conservatives, that the development of 62 00:06:32.140 --> 00:06:40.140 Of course, one answer to this is that when the degree is the number of human lives, the difference is a very big one. 63 00:06:40.140 --> 00:06:48.140 But a particularly libertarian reply is that while the bow and arrow, and even the rifle, can be pinpointed, 64 00:06:48.140 --> 00:06:54.140 The difference is that when the degree is the number of human lives, the difference is a very big one. 65 00:06:54.140 --> 00:07:02.140 But a particularly libertarian reply is that while the bow and arrow and even the rifle can be pinpointed, 66 00:07:02.140 --> 00:07:10.140 if the will be there, against actual criminals, modern nuclear weapons cannot. 67 00:07:10.140 --> 00:07:13.140 Here is a crucial difference in kind. 68 00:07:13.140 --> 00:07:18.320 Of course, the bow and arrow could be used for aggressive purposes, but it could also 69 00:07:18.320 --> 00:07:23.360 be pinpointed to use only against aggressors. 70 00:07:23.360 --> 00:07:28.980 Nuclear weapons, even conventional aerial bombs, cannot be. 71 00:07:28.980 --> 00:07:34.980 These weapons are ipso facto engines of indiscriminate mass destruction. 72 00:07:34.980 --> 00:07:40.300 The only exception would be the extremely rare case where a mass of people who were 73 00:07:40.300 --> 00:07:45.680 all criminals inhabited a vast geographical area. 74 00:07:45.680 --> 00:07:51.960 We must therefore conclude that the use of nuclear or similar weapons or the threat thereof 75 00:07:51.960 --> 00:07:58.980 is a crime against humanity for which there can be no justification. 76 00:07:58.980 --> 00:08:05.020 This is why the old cliché no longer holds that it is not the arms but the will to use 77 00:08:05.020 --> 00:08:09.960 them that is significant in judging matters of war and peace. 78 00:08:09.960 --> 00:08:17.240 For it is precisely the characteristic of modern weapons that they cannot be used selectively, 79 00:08:17.240 --> 00:08:20.200 cannot be used in a libertarian manner. 80 00:08:20.200 --> 00:08:27.040 Therefore, their very existence must be condemned, and nuclear disarmament becomes a good to 81 00:08:27.040 --> 00:08:29.840 be pursued for its own sake. 82 00:08:29.840 --> 00:08:35.920 Indeed, of all the aspects of liberty, such disarmament becomes the highest political 83 00:08:35.920 --> 00:08:40.360 are all good that can be pursued in the modern world. 84 00:08:40.360 --> 00:08:46.680 For just as murder is a more heinous crime against another man than larceny, so mass 85 00:08:46.680 --> 00:08:52.800 murder, indeed murder so widespread as to threaten human civilization and human survival 86 00:08:52.800 --> 00:08:58.560 itself, is the worst crime that any man could possibly commit. 87 00:08:58.560 --> 00:09:02.120 And that crime is now all too possible. 88 00:09:02.120 --> 00:09:08.840 Or are libertarians going to wax properly indignant about price controls or the income tax, and 89 00:09:08.840 --> 00:09:17.220 yet shrug their shoulders at, or even positively advocate, the ultimate crime of mass murder? 90 00:09:17.220 --> 00:09:22.760 If nuclear warfare is totally illegitimate even for individuals defending themselves 91 00:09:22.760 --> 00:09:30.280 against criminal assault, how much more so is nuclear or even conventional warfare between 92 00:09:30.280 --> 00:09:35.760 Let us now bring the state into our discussion. 93 00:09:35.760 --> 00:09:42.260 Since each state arrogates to itself a monopoly of violence over a territorial area, so long 94 00:09:42.260 --> 00:09:49.800 as its depredations and extortions go unresisted, there is said to be peace within the area, 95 00:09:49.800 --> 00:09:55.780 since the only violence is continuing and one way, directed by the state downward against 96 00:09:55.780 --> 00:09:57.920 its people. 97 00:09:57.920 --> 00:10:03.420 Open conflict within the area only breaks out in the case of revolutions, in which 98 00:10:03.420 --> 00:10:08.140 people resist the use of state power against them. 99 00:10:08.140 --> 00:10:13.800 Both the quiet case of the state unresisted and the case of an open revolution may be 100 00:10:13.800 --> 00:10:21.680 termed vertical violence, violence of the state against its public, or vice versa. 101 00:10:21.680 --> 00:10:27.320 In the existing world, each land area is ruled over by a state organization, with a number 102 00:10:27.320 --> 00:10:34.320 The number of states scattered over the earth, each with a monopoly of violence over its own territory. 103 00:10:34.320 --> 00:10:45.320 No super-state exists with a monopoly of violence over the entire world, and so a state of anarchy exists between the several states. 104 00:10:45.320 --> 00:10:51.320 It is curious and inconsistent that conservative advocates of limited government denounce as 105 00:10:51.320 --> 00:10:57.680 has absurd any proposal for eliminating a monopoly of violence over a given territory, 106 00:10:57.680 --> 00:11:04.080 thus leaving private individuals without an overlord, and yet are equally insistent on 107 00:11:04.080 --> 00:11:11.040 leaving nation-states without an overlord to settle disputes between them. 108 00:11:11.040 --> 00:11:18.000 And so, except for revolutions, which occur only sporadically, the open violence and two-sided 109 00:11:18.000 --> 00:11:25.140 Conflict in the world takes place between two or more states, that is, what is called 110 00:11:25.140 --> 00:11:30.120 international war or horizontal violence. 111 00:11:30.120 --> 00:11:35.780 Now there are crucial and vital differences between interstate warfare on the one hand 112 00:11:35.780 --> 00:11:42.900 and revolutions against the state or conflicts between private individuals on the other. 113 00:11:42.900 --> 00:11:48.940 In a revolution, the conflict takes place within the same geographical area. 114 00:11:48.940 --> 00:11:55.100 Both the minions of the state and the revolutionaries inhabit the same territory. 115 00:11:55.100 --> 00:12:01.060 Interstate warfare, on the other hand, takes place between two groups, each having a monopoly 116 00:12:01.060 --> 00:12:04.180 over its own geographical area. 117 00:12:04.180 --> 00:12:09.540 That is, it takes place between inhabitants of different territories. 118 00:12:09.540 --> 00:12:13.620 From this difference flow several important consequences. 119 00:12:13.620 --> 00:12:15.420 1. 120 00:12:15.420 --> 00:12:21.220 In interstate war, the scope for the use of modern weapons of mass destruction is far 121 00:12:21.220 --> 00:12:22.580 greater. 122 00:12:22.580 --> 00:12:29.500 For if the escalation of weaponry in an intra-territorial conflict becomes too great, each side will 123 00:12:29.500 --> 00:12:34.260 blow itself up with the weapons directed against the other. 124 00:12:34.260 --> 00:12:42.260 Neither a revolutionary group nor a state combating revolution, for example, can use nuclear weapons against the other. 125 00:12:42.260 --> 00:12:48.260 But on the other hand, when the warring parties inhabit different territorial areas, 126 00:12:48.260 --> 00:12:56.260 the scope for modern weaponry becomes enormous, and the entire arsenal of mass devastation can come into play. 127 00:12:56.260 --> 00:13:15.260 A second corollary consequence, two, is that while it is possible for revolutionaries to pinpoint their targets and confine them to their state enemies, and thus avoid aggressing against innocent people, pinpointing is far less possible in an interstate war. 128 00:13:15.260 --> 00:13:23.260 This is true even with older weapons, and of course with modern weapons there can be no pinpointing whatever. 129 00:13:23.260 --> 00:13:32.260 Furthermore, three, since each state can mobilize all the people and resources in its territory, 130 00:13:32.260 --> 00:13:38.980 the other state comes to regard all the citizens of the opposing country as at least temporarily 131 00:13:38.980 --> 00:13:45.060 its enemies, and to treat them accordingly by extending the war to them. 132 00:13:45.060 --> 00:13:51.540 Thus all of the consequences of interterritorial war make it almost inevitable that interstate 133 00:13:51.540 --> 00:13:57.060 Interstate war will involve aggression by each side against the innocent civilians, 134 00:13:57.060 --> 00:14:00.380 the private individuals of the other. 135 00:14:00.380 --> 00:14:06.400 This inevitability becomes absolute with modern weapons of mass destruction. 136 00:14:06.400 --> 00:14:13.520 If one distinct attribute of interstate war is interterritoriality, another unique attribute 137 00:14:13.520 --> 00:14:19.900 stems from the fact that each state lives by taxation over its subjects. 138 00:14:19.900 --> 00:14:25.740 Any war against another state, therefore, involves the increase and extension of taxation 139 00:14:25.740 --> 00:14:29.700 aggression against its own people. 140 00:14:29.700 --> 00:14:36.340 Conflicts between private individuals can be and usually are voluntarily waged and financed 141 00:14:36.340 --> 00:14:39.780 by the parties concerned. 142 00:14:39.780 --> 00:14:45.300 Revolutions can be and often are financed and fought by voluntary contributions of the 143 00:14:45.300 --> 00:14:46.980 public. 144 00:14:46.980 --> 00:14:53.420 But state wars can only be waged through aggression against the taxpayer. 145 00:14:53.420 --> 00:14:59.900 All state wars, therefore, involve increased aggression against the state's own taxpayers. 146 00:14:59.900 --> 00:15:07.620 And almost all state wars, all in modern warfare, involve the maximum aggression, murder, against 147 00:15:07.620 --> 00:15:12.100 the innocent civilians ruled by the enemy state. 148 00:15:12.100 --> 00:15:18.400 On the other hand, revolutions are often financed voluntarily and may pinpoint their violence 149 00:15:18.400 --> 00:15:25.860 to the state rulers, and private conflicts may confine their violence to the actual criminals. 150 00:15:25.860 --> 00:15:31.540 We must therefore conclude that while some revolutions and some private conflicts may 151 00:15:31.540 --> 00:15:38.940 be legitimate, state wars are always to be condemned. 152 00:15:38.940 --> 00:15:42.380 Some libertarians might object as follows. 153 00:15:42.380 --> 00:15:48.020 While we too deplore the use of taxation for warfare and the state's monopoly of defense 154 00:15:48.020 --> 00:15:54.420 service, we have to recognize that these conditions exist, and while they do, we must support 155 00:15:54.420 --> 00:15:58.160 the state in just wars of defense. 156 00:15:58.160 --> 00:16:02.380 In the light of our discussion above, the reply would go as follows. 157 00:16:02.380 --> 00:16:08.300 Yes, states exist, and as long as they do, the libertarian attitude toward the state 158 00:16:08.300 --> 00:16:15.560 should be to say to it in effect, all right, you exist, but so long as you do, at least 159 00:16:15.560 --> 00:16:20.680 confine your activities to the area which you monopolize. 160 00:16:20.680 --> 00:16:26.620 In short, the libertarian is interested in reducing as much as possible the area of state 161 00:16:26.620 --> 00:16:32.660 aggression against all private individuals, foreign and domestic. 162 00:16:32.660 --> 00:16:38.280 The only way to do this in international affairs is for the people of each country to pressure 163 00:16:38.280 --> 00:16:52.280 They pressure their own state to confine its activities to the area which it monopolizes, and not to aggress against other state monopolists, particularly the people ruled by other states. 164 00:16:53.280 --> 00:17:03.280 In short, the objective of the libertarian is to confine any existing state to as small a degree of invasion of person and property as possible. 165 00:17:03.280 --> 00:17:07.280 And this means the total avoidance of war. 166 00:17:07.280 --> 00:17:14.280 The people under each state should pressure their respective states not to attack one another, 167 00:17:14.280 --> 00:17:23.280 and if a conflict should break out, to negotiate a peace or declare a ceasefire as quickly as physically possible. 168 00:17:23.280 --> 00:17:36.280 Suppose further that we have that rarity, an unusually clear-cut case in which the state is actually trying to defend the property of one of its citizens. 169 00:17:36.280 --> 00:17:47.280 A citizen of country A travels or invests in country B, and then state B aggresses against his person or confiscates his property. 170 00:17:47.280 --> 00:18:01.280 Surely, our libertarian critic might argue, here is a clear-cut case where State A should threaten or commit war against State B in order to defend the property of its citizen. 171 00:18:01.280 --> 00:18:08.280 Since the argument runs, the State has taken upon itself the monopoly of defense of its citizens. 172 00:18:08.280 --> 00:18:18.280 It then has the obligation to go to war on behalf of any citizen, and libertarians must support such a war as a just one. 173 00:18:18.280 --> 00:18:28.280 But the point again is that each state has a monopoly of violence and therefore of defense only over its territorial area. 174 00:18:28.280 --> 00:18:36.280 It has no such monopoly. In fact, it has no power at all over any other geographical area. 175 00:18:36.280 --> 00:19:06.200 Therefore, if an inhabitant of country A should move to or invest in country B, the libertarian must argue that he thereby takes his chances with the state monopolist of country B, and that it would be immoral and criminal for state A to tax people in country A and to kill numerous innocents in country B in order to defend the property of the traveler or investor. 176 00:19:06.200 --> 00:19:11.400 There is another consideration which applies rather to domestic defense within a state's 177 00:19:11.400 --> 00:19:13.120 territory. 178 00:19:13.120 --> 00:19:19.120 The less the state can successfully defend the inhabitants of its area against attack 179 00:19:19.120 --> 00:19:25.800 by non-state criminals, the more these inhabitants may come to learn the inefficiency of state 180 00:19:25.800 --> 00:19:32.320 operations and the more they will turn to non-state methods of defense. 181 00:19:32.320 --> 00:19:39.160 by the State to defend, therefore, may have educative value for the public. 182 00:19:39.160 --> 00:19:45.160 It should also be pointed out that there is no defense against nuclear weapons, the only 183 00:19:45.160 --> 00:19:51.360 current defense being the threat of mutually assured destruction, and therefore that the 184 00:19:51.360 --> 00:20:00.000 State cannot fulfill any sort of international defense function so long as these weapons exist. 185 00:20:00.000 --> 00:20:06.620 The libertarian objective, then, should be, regardless of the specific causes of any conflict, 186 00:20:06.620 --> 00:20:13.800 to pressure states not to launch wars against other states, and, should a war break out, 187 00:20:13.800 --> 00:20:19.840 to pressure them to sue for peace and negotiate a ceasefire and a peace treaty as quickly 188 00:20:19.840 --> 00:20:22.700 as physically possible. 189 00:20:22.700 --> 00:20:27.600 This objective, incidentally, was enshrined in the old-fashioned international law of 190 00:20:27.600 --> 00:20:34.460 in the 18th and 19th centuries, that is, the ideal that no state aggress against the territory 191 00:20:34.460 --> 00:20:41.360 of another, which is now called the peaceful coexistence of states. 192 00:20:41.360 --> 00:20:47.960 Suppose however that despite libertarian opposition, war has begun and the warring states are not 193 00:20:47.960 --> 00:20:50.440 negotiating a peace. 194 00:20:50.440 --> 00:20:53.280 What then should be the libertarian position? 195 00:20:53.280 --> 00:21:00.520 Clearly, to reduce the scope of assault against innocent civilians as much as possible. 196 00:21:00.520 --> 00:21:06.980 Old-fashioned international law had two excellent devices for this purpose, the laws of war 197 00:21:06.980 --> 00:21:11.520 and the laws of neutrality, or neutrals rights. 198 00:21:11.520 --> 00:21:17.220 The laws of neutrality were designed to keep any war that breaks out strictly confined 199 00:21:17.220 --> 00:21:24.060 to the warring states themselves without aggression against the states or particularly the peoples 200 00:21:24.060 --> 00:21:26.220 of the other nations. 201 00:21:26.220 --> 00:21:31.900 Hence the importance of such ancient and now forgotten American principles as freedom of 202 00:21:31.900 --> 00:21:38.680 the seas or severe limitations upon the rights of warring states to repress neutral trade 203 00:21:38.680 --> 00:21:41.180 with the enemy country. 204 00:21:41.180 --> 00:21:47.100 In short, the libertarian position is to induce the warring states to observe fully the 205 00:21:47.100 --> 00:21:50.820 and the Rights of Neutral Citizens. 206 00:21:50.820 --> 00:21:56.340 For their part, the laws of war were designed to limit as much as possible the invasion 207 00:21:56.340 --> 00:22:02.820 by warring states of the rights of the civilians of the respective warring countries. 208 00:22:02.820 --> 00:22:09.180 As the British jurist F. J. P. Veale put it, the fundamental principle of this code was 209 00:22:09.180 --> 00:22:15.500 that hostilities between civilized peoples must be limited to the armed forces actually 210 00:22:15.500 --> 00:22:33.500 It drew a distinction between combatants and non-combatants by laying down that the sole business of the combatants is to fight each other, and consequently that non-combatants must be excluded from the scope of military operations. 211 00:22:33.500 --> 00:22:46.500 In condemning all wars regardless of motive, the libertarian knows that there may well be varying degrees of guilt among states for any specific war. 212 00:22:46.500 --> 00:22:53.500 But his overriding consideration is the condemnation of any state participation in war. 213 00:22:53.500 --> 00:23:01.500 Hence his policy is that of exerting pressure on all states not to start or engage in a war, 214 00:23:01.500 --> 00:23:07.840 to stop one that has begun, and to reduce the scope of any persisting war in injuring 215 00:23:07.840 --> 00:23:12.700 civilians of either side or no side. 216 00:23:12.700 --> 00:23:17.980 One corollary of the libertarian policy of peaceful coexistence and non-intervention 217 00:23:17.980 --> 00:23:25.060 between states is the rigorous abstention from any foreign aid, aid from one state to 218 00:23:25.060 --> 00:23:26.600 another. 219 00:23:26.600 --> 00:23:33.920 For any aid given by State A to State B, 1. increases the tax aggression against the people 220 00:23:33.920 --> 00:23:43.000 of Country A, and 2. aggravates the suppression by State B of its own people. 221 00:23:43.000 --> 00:23:48.760 Let us see how libertarian theory applies to the problem of imperialism, which may be 222 00:23:48.760 --> 00:23:54.680 defined as the aggression of State A over the people of Country B, and the subsequent 223 00:23:54.680 --> 00:24:05.680 and Maintenance of this Foreign Rule. This rule could either be directly over Country B or indirectly through a subsidiary client State B. 224 00:24:05.680 --> 00:24:16.680 Revolution by the people of B against the imperial rule of A, either directly or against client State B, is certainly legitimate, 225 00:24:16.680 --> 00:24:22.680 provided again that the revolutionary fire be directed only against the rulers. 226 00:24:22.680 --> 00:24:38.680 It has often been maintained by conservatives, and even by some libertarians, that Western imperialism over undeveloped countries should be supported as more watchful of property rights than any successor native government might be. 227 00:24:38.680 --> 00:24:53.680 But first, judging what might follow the status quo is purely speculative, whereas the oppression of existing imperial rule over the people of country B is all too real and culpable. 228 00:24:53.680 --> 00:25:08.680 And secondly, this analysis neglects the injuries of imperialism suffered by the Western taxpayer, who is molted and burdened to pay for the wars of conquest and then for the maintenance of the imperial bureaucracy. 229 00:25:08.680 --> 00:25:14.680 On this latter ground alone, the libertarian must condemn imperialism. 230 00:25:14.680 --> 00:25:20.680 Two further empirical points may be made about Western imperialism. 231 00:25:20.680 --> 00:25:26.680 First, the property rights respected were largely those of the Europeans. 232 00:25:26.680 --> 00:25:32.680 The native population often found their best lands stolen from them by the imperialists, 233 00:25:32.680 --> 00:25:40.680 and their labor coerced by violence into working mines or landed estates acquired by this theft. 234 00:25:40.680 --> 00:25:46.680 Second, another myth holds that the gunboat diplomacy of the turn of the 20th century 235 00:25:46.680 --> 00:25:52.680 was, after all, a defense of the property rights of Western investors in backward countries. 236 00:25:52.680 --> 00:26:00.680 But apart from our above strictures against going beyond any given state's monopolized land area, 237 00:26:00.680 --> 00:26:08.680 it is generally overlooked that the bulk of gunboat actions were in defense not of private investments, 238 00:26:08.680 --> 00:26:12.680 but of Western holders of native government bonds. 239 00:26:12.680 --> 00:26:18.840 The western powers coerced the native governments into increasing tax aggression upon their own 240 00:26:18.840 --> 00:26:26.680 people in order to pay off foreign bondholders. This was no action on behalf of private property, 241 00:26:26.680 --> 00:26:27.880 quite the contrary. 242 00:26:30.520 --> 00:26:36.680 Does opposition to all interstate war mean that the libertarian can never countenance change of 243 00:26:36.680 --> 00:26:43.120 of Geographical Boundaries? That he is consigning the world to a freezing of unjust territorial 244 00:26:43.120 --> 00:26:50.400 regimes? Certainly not. Suppose, for example, that the hypothetical state of Walldavia has 245 00:26:50.400 --> 00:26:57.160 attacked Ruritania and annexed the western part of the country. The western Ruritanians 246 00:26:57.160 --> 00:27:03.360 now long to be reunited with their Ruritanian brethren, perhaps because they wish to use 247 00:27:03.360 --> 00:27:06.960 Is there Ruritanian language undisturbed? 248 00:27:06.960 --> 00:27:09.400 How is this to be achieved? 249 00:27:09.400 --> 00:27:14.480 There is, of course, the root of peaceful negotiations between the two powers. 250 00:27:14.480 --> 00:27:19.000 But suppose that the Waldavian imperialists prove adamant. 251 00:27:19.000 --> 00:27:24.880 Or libertarian Waldavians can put pressure on their state to abandon its conquest in 252 00:27:24.880 --> 00:27:27.080 the name of justice. 253 00:27:27.080 --> 00:27:30.240 But suppose that this too does not work. 254 00:27:30.240 --> 00:27:31.800 What then? 255 00:27:31.800 --> 00:27:37.840 We must still maintain the illegitimacy of the Ruritanian states mounting a war against 256 00:27:37.840 --> 00:27:39.440 Valdavia. 257 00:27:39.440 --> 00:27:46.280 The legitimate routes to geographical change are, one, revolutionary uprisings by the oppressed 258 00:27:46.280 --> 00:27:54.480 Western Ruritanian people, and, two, aid by private Ruritanian groups, or, for that matter, 259 00:27:54.480 --> 00:28:00.080 by friends of the Ruritanian cause in other countries, to the Western rebels, either in 260 00:28:00.080 --> 00:28:10.880 Finally, we must allude to the domestic tyranny that is the inevitable accompaniment of interstate 261 00:28:10.880 --> 00:28:17.200 war, a tyranny that usually lingers long after the war is over. 262 00:28:17.200 --> 00:28:22.080 Randolph Bourne realized that war is the health of the state. 263 00:28:22.080 --> 00:28:28.560 It is in war that the state really comes into its own, swelling in power, in number, in 264 00:28:28.560 --> 00:28:33.560 in absolute dominion over the economy and the society. 265 00:28:33.560 --> 00:28:44.560 The root myth that enables the state to wax fat off war is the canard that war is a defense by the state of its subjects. 266 00:28:44.560 --> 00:28:47.560 The facts are precisely the reverse. 267 00:28:47.560 --> 00:28:53.560 For if war is the health of the state, it is also its greatest danger. 268 00:28:53.560 --> 00:28:58.560 A state can only die by defeat in war or by revolution. 269 00:28:58.560 --> 00:29:06.560 In war, therefore, the state frantically mobilizes the people to fight for it against another state, 270 00:29:06.560 --> 00:29:10.560 under the pretext that it is fighting for them. 271 00:29:10.560 --> 00:29:14.560 Society becomes militarized and statized. 272 00:29:14.560 --> 00:29:18.560 It becomes a herd seeking to kill its alleged enemies, 273 00:29:18.560 --> 00:29:35.800 Society becomes an armed camp with the values and the morale, as Albert J. Nock once phrased 274 00:29:35.800 --> 00:29:38.800 of an Army on the March.