Economics: Private Production of Defense - Murphy, Hoppe, and (gasp) Samples from Dan Carlin

[Fife]

Using World War I to Prove the Incompetence of State Militaries

Bob uses some samples from Dan Carlin’s amazing podcast, Hardcore History, to illustrate the flaws with State-provided military services. Bob concludes that minarchists have nothing to fear, and they should embrace the full vision of a voluntary society with no institutional coercion.

Bob Murphy Lectures on Private Military Defense


The Private Production of Defense

Hans Hoppe takes on the most difficult subject in economic and political theory: the provision of security. He argues that the service is better provided by free markets than government, while addressing a hundred counter-arguments. Here we have an important updating of an argument rarely made even in the libertarian tradition.

"Without the erroneous public perception and judgment of the state as just and necessary and without the public’s voluntary cooperation, even the seemingly most powerful government would implode and its powers evaporate. Thus liberated, we would regain our right to self-defense and be able to turn to freed and unregulated insurance agencies for efficient professional assistance in all matters of protection and conflict resolution." —Hans-Hermann Hoppe

https://mises-media.s3.amazonaws.com/Th ... ense_3.pdf

Among the most popular and consequential beliefs of our age is the belief in collective security. Nothing less significant than the legitimacy of the modern state rests on this belief. I will demonstrate that the idea of collective security is a myth that provides no justification for the modern state, and that all security is and must be private. Yet, before coming to the conclusion let me begin with the problem. First, I will present a two-step reconstruction of the myth of collective security, and at each step raise a few theoretical concerns.


The myth of collective security can also be called the Hobbesian myth.

[brewster]

Are there any examples provided proving private mercenaries forces actually work? Seems pretty hardcore Libertarian in that the wealthy hire security and everyone else is on their own to defend themselves. Nasty brutish and short indeed.

[Fife]

Thank you for your service.

[Montegriffo]

At least with a return the Raubritter, we might get some nice new castles.

[Fife]

Think locally, act locally. London, and especially Brussels, ain't gonna do shit for your country ass.

[Montegriffo]

That's where you're wrong though. Farmers are going to be hit hard by the loss of income from the countryside stewardship scheme (payments based on environmentally sound practices like hedgerow retention, wildlife corridors and 4 meter untilled borders around fields to encourage insect populations).
Especially small traditionally run farms like this one. The farmer even gets a payout from having a rare orchid growing in the meadow where I squat my truck. Rural areas also receive a lot of money from EU redevelopment funds.
A lot of this goes unnoticed by the so-called defenders of British culture who are so desperate to leave the EU.

[Speaker to Animals]

The hilarious joke of a "libertarian army" aside, a centralized state military is really best suited to fighting other centralized state militaries. It's terrible at dealing with insurgencies, for example, unless you turn into pagan Romans with stealth bombers and just kill everybody. The entire might of the US armed forces is not really able to defeat the Taliban, which is really just a coalition of militia groups. I mean.. that shouldn't be any surprise because we were the original Taliban against the British expeditionary forces.

The problem, of course, with the idea of a minarchist armed force is the same thing that happened to the anarchists who fought for the Spanish republican government. Voluntarist military service -- as a concept -- is a fucking farce.