 So while the screen is warming up I guess it's a good time to just say that it's wonderful to gather again with the Property and Freedom Society after last year's hiatus unfortunate yet it's great to be once again in a place where we can have honest intellectual dialogue and pursue that uncompromising intellectual radicalism that makes the Property and Freedom Society so unique. I remember my first time attending here being interested in Professor Hoppa's work and hearing his opening remarks where he said it's so important for us to gather and have a bit of an oasis to get away from a world that seems to be going mad. That was in 2012 so look at us now how much more urgent is it that we start to expand the ideas of bringing about a private law society and use that intellectual rigor to test these ideas and to propagate them. So I've set forth for myself three objectives to talk about Japan's first samurai because it was a revolt against monopoly justice. In order to do this we'll look at Japan's geopolitical situation and how the political formation took place in ancient Japan as well as what's considered classical Japan. Some of you that might be familiar with the later samurai period maybe you've seen James Clavel's Shogun read the books, seen some more popular movies out there and you get this idea of the Shogun as a military dictator. A lot of that didn't happen until much later and so the samurai actually began as private contractors as we'll see and in that there are some lessons in terms of what to avoid and what to move towards or incorporate when you look at production of security in a private law society. As I said the first samurai was actually a rebellion against that monopoly justice that belief in the divine right to rule and the centralization of political authority and there are lessons there that we can look at and we'll take those lessons and expand upon them to see what we can perhaps use in our further pursuit of a private law society. So we'll start with Japan's geographic position as most of you probably already know that Japan is in northeast Asia or the northwest Pacific Ocean and it consists of over 6,800 volcanic islands the four main of which on the north is Hokkaido and the long central island of Honshu. Shikoku is located on the inland sea and then Kyushu on the southwest and then the Ryukyu islands run from the southern tip of Kyushu all the way down to Taiwan and this is considered the first island chain that happens to be a zone of containment for China. So it comes as no surprise that there's been tremendous intercourse and exchange between China and Japan over the centuries. In fact the earliest recorded documentation about Japan comes from China it wasn't very flattering it said and it's around the 200s it said that Japan is an island of Queens organized to preside over a nation of tattooed midgets that are prone to strong drink and blackened teeth. Not too very flattering to say the least however there's always been that separation between the mainland of Asia and Japan. As you can see the most near tip of southern Korea is what is the closest to Japan and there's theories that of course the land bridge at one time allowed for that migration that leads to the Asian population. However it turns out that there were also people of more Caucasian features that were already in the land that presumed came down from the north. Yet the state formation of what's known as ancient Japan or early Japan spreads from the southern tip of Kyushu most likely coming from Korea and spreading eastward and to the north. The formation of the state changed location several times as the various polities and various conflicts arose to create what we consider to be an early state. And there was exchange still between southern Korea which was under obviously Chinese influence yet the Japanese also engaged in conflict on the side of what's known as Shilla in southern Korea which was also divided among a number of different kingdoms as well. And it's there that they came to realize the importance of cavalry in terms of battle and so the Japanese came away from that experience of supporting and losing to the Chinese in their assistance to that ancient kingdom of Shilla to understand that they needed to also incorporate cavalry into their military to then better help them in their conquest for the rest of the territory and their battles with the Emishi or the more Caucasian what we might consider the natives there. Yet as I stated earlier the term Shogun didn't become synonymous with a military dictator until much later in Japanese history. At the time of the formation of the Yamato state the term Shogun was more about a contracted individual that would raise a military force and go about this pacification process to gather more land to incorporate more taxable territory into the Yamato state. And so you had these various military contractors that were sanctioned and given status for temporary campaigns to go and capture more land. And this occurred over several centuries. Yet what makes Japan so unique I think is the geographic situation internal as well as relative to the Asian mainland. If you look at the amount of arable land which is indicated in green versus mountainous territories you can also see that there's not a lot in which the people can live in and sustain themselves through agriculture. And as I indicated earlier the importance of cavalry the ability to graze and raise horses that were suitable for military conquest was very limited to certain areas. And as you would imagine it is only natural then that that place on the southeastern tip or corner of Honshu what is known as the Kanto plain would inevitably become a center of power. And in fact that's the location where the capital is today Tokyo. So the Yamato state might have started in the southwest but it naturally migrated further to the east. Now the Kanto plain also was known as the east but there's another name Musashi which literally translated means the storehouse of warriors. So the best warriors because they had the best cavalry the best horses and also the most arable land which meant that they had the most wealth that wealth concentration was in the east. And in that situation a concentration of power stayed with the Yamato state but all the warriors came from the east. And the Heian period of what we consider classical Japan came at a point where most of the settlement to the north was already taken care of they had done their battles they had learned their lessons they realized the importance of cavalry and they also learned to put a curve into their swords to make it more effective they learned that from the emishi of the north as well. Yet there were less contracts to give out less military posts to offer and therefore there were less lands to distribute because they were not gaining too much from conquest anymore. So it leads to what I call the rulers dilemma which is in order to maintain what's known as a plenipotentiary position or central planner you have to be able to steal from some people and give to others in order to buy support. So we see in the Heian era that that wasn't really available because again they weren't capturing too much land. Couple that with the natural cycle and flow of climate change and the imposition of famines due to harsh conditions that were just seasonal and cyclical. There was actually less land being cultivated. So they offered more incentives by providing tax-free or reduced taxes for specific terms and they offered more titles of mobility which we can consider rank inflation providing more ranks more titles yet having less actual goods less actual tax proceeds to redistribute and the peasants that were sometimes incorporated into the armies were really good at evading taxes and including the tax to serve alongside those cavalry. So there was a situation where there was less and less available goods to redistribute less loot as you will and so in the capital there were too many princes too many people with titles too many mouths to feed from the public treasure treasury and in that the solution that they came up with was to distribute them out to reclaim land that was no longer being cultivated to set up estates and to man the district and provincial offices yet when they got out into those hinterlands they found out that the only way that they could really get things done to affect policy was to use the local warrior bands that had already formed out in those territories. So if the central court wanted to get something done they sent it to a provincial district headquarters provincial or district headquarters and then they would try to carry that out but again due to local conditions and those pockets as you saw earlier those islands within Japan of arable land can have their own distinct character their own distinct relationships and to get anything done the power actually had to be subcontracted to those local alliances that were already in place and again those were military alliances based on self-protection and networks that helped each other out for their own mutual security. So the central state the Yamato court had to work through those local bands in order to affect policy change and that's why we can consider the samurai to initially be security contractors. The central state tried to mimic the Tang dynasty from China's model of national conscription which was very heavily based on infantry but as we learned it's the cavalry that really got things done in terms of military force and so affecting policy wasn't very conducive with a primarily conscripted infantry force. So they naturally developed this what's known in Japanese as the kondeisei in 792 it's roughly translated as the stalwart fellows network system. The central court recognized that they weren't going to be able to get things done using their bureaucracy so they actually just adopted the kondeisei the stalwart fellows system of policy enforcement. The emperor because it was believed at the time that it was descended from heaven and had the divine right to rule and that court may remain the central authority that could issue various grants various titles various contracts and also the edicts how much taxing was going to be collected. So that the emperor maintained that ceremonial position to conduct their sacred rituals yet the developing of the actual networks to get things done proceeded down through the court nobles that then developed their estates out in the hinterlands and again it was based on reduced taxes and the ability to bring into one's own house those different lands. So there was this pull towards a horizontal network where people out in the land that want out in the hinterlands that wanted to avoid taxes avoid some of the onerous regulations and being conscripted would align themselves to an estate that had a direct relation to a court noble and the court nobles of course enjoyed having their own private military contractors as well to support them. The military contractors would have to do tours of duty and perform services in the capital as well as border security and at the time there was a belief that the Tang dynasty was going to invade so there was a lot of fortification on the western flank but the invasion never came. Yet at the same time those vertical patrons would horizontal networks in the states and tours of duty the vertical patrons in the court would provide legal cover for those networks that are out in the hinterland. So you see this patronage system developing as well as the the strengthening of the networks that are out in the provinces and the districts. Within that situation there was one particular excess prince that was just so happened to be in the Kanto Plain very wealthy because they had so much land with which to raise horses as well as wet rice farming and a variety of other agricultural endeavors. Yet he went to go perform his service in the capital and while he was performing his tour of duty his uncles expropriated some of the land that was his to inherit. Now those uncles also wanted him to raise rank and to come back with some sort of title of nobility because you would earn yourself a reduction in tax liability. That leads to greater favor and the ability to attract more into that horizontal network. Yet when he came back he also married one of his distant cousins and at the time also there was matrilineal inheritance which meant that some of the land of his in-laws would be granted to his wife. Unfortunately Taira No Masakado didn't earn very much rank and he wasn't very much of a catch. He wasn't much of a prize in terms of a husband because he wasn't going to bring any more tax deferred land or more rank or prestige. So there was a dispute with the uncles over existing land grants and there was a dispute over the inheritance and that led to a skirmish in 935. He was successful in repelling that attack because he was well skilled in the art of war and immediately after he won those skirmishes he went to prove his case in the capital. As a matter of fact over the course of a number of years he was attacked and deferred to the court in order to justify his actions and he did that three times. In fact the court sided with him in terms of his land grants and his claims. Yet when there was a change in provincial leadership because again the court in the central state is giving out those positions and ranks in the provincial headquarters, change of personality changed the way that the court looked at those claims. And so when his land holdings were reversed or looked at differently because of the regime uncertainty involved because of personality changes that led to him simply saying alright enough is enough. I'll just go ahead and be my own emperor over here on the east. You people on the other side of that mountain chain can go deal with yourselves and I'll take care of things over here. So he attacked all the provincial headquarters, set them afire and laid waste to a number of different estates that were at odds with his claims, the ones that were held by his uncles. Yet at the same time he also appealed to one of his patrons back in the court and tried to make himself at least appear to be noble in his endeavors. But it's the first time that one of those warriors out in the provinces was to say that authority is illegitimate and I'm going to run things over here for myself. Unfortunately the court was able to play one warrior band off of another and issued a bounty for his head and the legitimate belief in the divine right to rule on the part of the emperor rallied as well as rallied to the cause a number of different rivals. And so Taira Namasakado was dead within six months of his revolt rather. His head was sent to the capital to be put on display and it is said that his eyes never closed, that they could hear him laughing. And then at some point that head disappeared and mysteriously made its way back to the Kanto Plain and it landed in what is now known as Ote Machi in downtown Tokyo, which just so happens to be a financial district and located very close to the headquarters of the Bank of Japan. And many business people in that area go and pay respect to his location of his head, the location where his head is supposedly buried is known as the Kubizuka. So he's looked at as a local hero and he's a source of inspiration for those in the financial district that are looking for fortune and looking to make their own way in the world. But when we look at what we can take from this incident and look at it through the lens of praxeology because so many other people that examine this incident come up with different ways of describing why this conflict came to a head, there's one historian that tried to claim that this was a matter of interest-specific rivalry, which is just a simply way of saying that people try to establish a pecking order amongst themselves. But fortunately because we have the tools of praxeological analysis, we can understand that all conflicts are based on control over resources and it's because of the scarcity of resources that lead to these conflicts and without the adequacy of clear property rights conflicts will inevitably arise. And so what we can look to attenuate trying to move forward and build a private law society is of course the understanding of tenuous property rights are a source of conflict. And when regime uncertainty and the arbitrariness of those property titles leads to those conflicts, there is no such thing as justice. Justice is simply having just conduct in human relationships. In Masakado's case, clear title and not having your land confiscated when you go to perform some service in the capital or a tour of duty somewhere else and come back and have your land confiscated by your uncles led to the conflict. It's not just inter-specific rivalry, it's not just about pecking order, it's about control of resources. And believing that there's a divine right to rule in some capital, in some person, in some group of persons is also one of the things that needs to be dispelled so that we can get down to the business of assigning clear property titles and respecting those borders. We can also understand that there's always the ruler's dilemma as long as there's somebody that is trying to hold that plenipotentiary position, that central planning authority, they're going to need to steal from some in order to make other people better off. This is explained by a number of different theorists, including Anthony de Jasse and his book, The State, and then his follow on article, The Maximizing State. In order to make some people better off and buy their support, you have to make some people worse off. And so this ruler's dilemma of having to take and redistribute will always exist as long as there is that sense of rulers. So a private law society cannot entertain any central planners, so as to avoid that ruler's dilemma. Now also understand that there will always be divide and rule tactics as long as there is political persuasion. This is one of the problems of political authority. The idea of making rivals pit against one another and promising them rewards, official recognition and things along those lines will always create that conflict. And there will always be somebody to stand up and look at taking someone else's property if they can get away with it. So the task for a private law society is to be able to attenuate those problems without overreacting. You see, Masakado went and tore down the provincial headquarters. Yet he was also trying to justify his actions with the central court. So he was in one camp or two camps at the same time and found himself squeezed between them both, trying to set out on his own, yet also trying to appeal to justify his actions with that central court. Didn't work out for him. So being able to mitigate these problems that we know will arise in any political situation, while at the same time avoiding overreaction remains a task for those of us that are looking to advance a private law society. So what do we do? We can accentuate local identity. Japan's geography was conducive to a local identity because of the massive terrain features that separated those pockets of civilization. And understanding that there are geographic benefits to having massive terrain or significant terrain features between political entities creates that buffer space. It's harder to impose one's will when there's a geographic buffer between. But to keep things local is one of those elements to have local wealth, local networks and local ability to resist and to enforce property rights. It's going to require having armed and trained networks. I would submit that having an armed network to resist the encroachments of others is indispensable no matter whether we're talking about a minimal state or an absolute private law society. You can outsource some of your security, but at some point you also have to be able to resist the will of any of these corporations that might become overbearing and alter the deal. Yet the way to modulate and to keep focused on what's important is to make sure the importance of private property becomes that central organizing factor. And so even the US Army understands that property means peace. I was able to find this book by a retired lawyer that worked for the Army, retired as a Lieutenant Colonel, became a PhD in international relations and now works for the Army War College putting out books and just so happens that he wrote some things that are very similar to what we're advocating here as well. Comprehensive precise and transparent expression of real property is a necessary precondition of peace. Places outside the lines of formal property necessarily slump toward possession by force. So in the absence of property norms, there will be conflict. Even the Army recognizes this. If by success of a society we mean improvement in freedom, material prosperity and social peace, a trio which together might fairly be called human flourishing, then construction of formal liberal property regimes and land use systems is as important as holding elections. So property, even the Army admits more important than democracy. I really appreciate Richard Mayberry's formulation of a property centric common law. And it's something that I'd like to see propagated throughout the property and freedom society as well as beyond. When we talk about a common law that everybody can agree with, don't hurt people, don't take their stuff. How do you formulate that in law? Do all you have agreed to do? And this is the basis of contract law. Do not encroach upon other people or their property. And with this, we have the basis of criminal law premised upon restitution through torts. And if this becomes the organizing factor, we have the ability to actually bring it into effect. I always come back to this particular chapter within Professor Hoppe's book, The Defense of Minimal States and Free Societies. I believe we would see some rough combination of militias and insurance companies or market providers. And those would not be as mutually exclusive as we think. So Joe Stromberg's formulation is pretty good. Now that rough combination is the question that needs to be worked on, developed, and would probably be varied depending upon localities. Those that have more time than money would probably do more self service in a militia. Those that have more money than time would likely provide more funding to a market based provider or an insurance company. And those jurisdictions would likely be in flux to be constantly changing depending upon people's preferences, people's alliances, and based on property values and a variety of other factors. We come to this understanding that good militia is the foundation of all states. And by here we can incorporate this statement as being applicable to minimal states and private law societies, free societies as well. But where there is lacking any militia, there can be no good law. Nor else that is good. Because again, I would submit that having those armed trained bands, call it militia if we must, is necessary not only to prevent or dissuade encroachment by overarching states, but also the growth of companies that would near monopoly status and be able to alter the contracts is what we're seeing a lot today and with a number of companies that are out there. So I believe that a private law society must embrace the M word and as an American, we are fortunate to have at least a written constitution that we can use as a baseline to show where the deviations happen, of course, where the violations of that contract or operating charter are happening. Yet we also have a few elements within that constitution that we can fall back on. And I know that there's a number of people that like to look at the Second Amendment as being the right to keep and bear arms. Yet I would say that the more important aspect is the armed trained bands that are so important to the maintenance of a free society. And so when we look at the Second Amendment, rather than looking at the last half and ignoring the first half, we can look at the Second Amendment as the basis of a institutional framework for enforcing private law. Well regulated militia are necessary to the security of a free state. We emphasize that necessary piece rather than the arms piece, the arms will take care of themselves as I'll show you in a second. But if you go through the entire United States Constitution, you'll see the word necessary a number of times, but it's never in regard to an institution or an office. The president is not necessary. The Congress is not necessary. The only institution that's necessary is the militia. And it's necessary to the security of a free state vis-a-vis the member states to the general government. Those militia by definition are organized armed and disciplined. So just these guys that are running around out in the woods, those are not well regulated militia. Those are not the militia that are found in the Constitution. And again, it's not about the arms, it's about the organization and the discipline. Individual discipline, I would submit, those that organize and are disciplined would likely be more resistant, more hesitant to the fear that's necessary for divide and rule. Those that understand how to use arms and understand the importance of their network for their own security, as well as the security that prevents encroachment will also be more resistant to those types of overreactions or those types of provocations that lead to a justification for further invasion. And then the reason that those armed trained bands exist within the framework of this Republican Constitution is to execute the laws. So when we look at the right to keep and bear arms in isolation, you lose all of this. What's important is that in order for the central government, the federal government to execute its laws within the states and within the provinces, localities, by right, by way of the charter known as the Constitution, they should be executing law by way of those local organizations, those local institutions. And then the arms, you get into these ideas of what type of arms, how many bullets can you put in the magazine. All of that is superficial. And that is exactly where the conversation unfortunately has devolved to these squabbles about statistics and crime in the cities and things along those lines. And so they come up with these justifications for further encroachment upon the right to keep and bear arms, these licensing schemes and things along those lines. If you look at the function of the militia, execute the laws, repel invasions and suppress insurrections, whatever arms are suitable to those tasks are exactly what the people themselves need to have access to. And so by keeping the conversation focused on the right to keep and bear arms rather than the purpose, start with why? Why do we have these armed trained bands, locally organized? It's to execute the laws, it's to keep those laws good, as Machiavelli says, and to keep all else good as well. So my message is to embrace the M word. It's been vilified. And obviously, anytime something bad happens overseas, the rise of militias in Libya or Syria or what have you, of course, that's another one of these divide and rule tactics that tries to obfuscate the real issues at hand. Any free society is going to need to have the ability to repel invasions, including immigration issues. And there's another aspect that I've been thinking about recently as well that we've learned from social biology and things along those lines and evolutionary biology that, of course, social cooperation is necessary. Those groups that participate in activities to help each other out thrive and flourish. Yet in order to do that, there needs to be an element of self selection of hygiene. And that is also one of the things that you can think about with a local militia except someone from the outside, they have to be able to trust one another, they need to be able to communicate well, they need to be able to have shared values in a sense of kinship of some kind. And so would you want this outsider who wants to move in a member of your militia? Would you want to be on the firing line with that individual? I think asking those questions would then lead to that self selection process that keeps groups oriented on their mutual flourishing. And so so many different aspects of maintaining a free society are solved or at least addressed when you think about in terms of how are we going to organize for our security without completely outsourcing it to someone that might be able to alter the terms of the contract. When we look at Japan, it's one of the most polite societies. And I believe that starting in 792 all the way till the end of the samurai period of 1868, it was warrior leadership that stalwart fellows, those local armed trained bands were the source of law, the source of law enforcement and even being able to reject for at least a short time that central authority. That warrior leadership and those warrior values are what lead to a polite society that we see in Japan today. And so we might be familiar with the term more guns less crime and armed society as a polite society because manners are good when one may have to back up their actions with their lives. So I just like to close by saying I appreciate your time and I appreciate your consideration and indeed, a free society is available, but it requires participation. It requires the ability to protect yourself and to protect those that you love. And I believe that will be true no matter what the future brings. And hopefully, in a private law society. Thank you.