 Defence via the profit economy. In the literature of market anarchism the most commonly offered solution to the problem of domestic security is the Private Protection Agency. I shall assume general familiarity with this theory. For more details see for example David Friedman's Machinery of Freedom, Murray Rothbard's For a New Liberty and Bruce Benson's Enterprise of Law. In this context the most obvious solution to the problem of national security is simply to have the protection agencies, or some of them or a consortium of them, offer to sell protection against foreign invaders as well as domestic criminals. Some market anarchists like David Friedman are sympathetic to this solution but pessimistic about its viability. The difficulty is that national security poses a much greater public goods problem than domestic security because it is much harder to exclude non-contributors from the benefits of national security and if non-contributors can't be excluded there's no incentive to contribute and so the agencies selling this protection can't gain enough revenue to make it worth their while. In previous issues I have explained why I do not regard the public goods problem as a terribly serious difficulty. See my The Nature of Law Part 1, Law and Order Without Government and Funding Public Goods, Six Solutions. So I won't say much about it here. There are other problems associated with a profit economy solution. A united military defence seems to require some degree of centralisation in order to be effective and there is the danger that a consortium of protection agencies selling national security might evolve into a government as the Anglo-Saxon monarchs in the Middle Ages, thanks to the pressure of constant Viking invasions were able to evolve from military entrepreneurs providing national defence in exchange for voluntary contributions to domestic dictators with the power to tax and legislate. This danger might be especially pressing if the consortium soldiers are more loyal to the consortium than to the clients. Political authors from Livy to Machiavelli have warned against the use of foreign mercenaries rather than citizen soldiers because it is easier for a government to turn foreign mercenaries against its own citizens. A vivid example of this was seen during the Polish government's attempt to crack down on the Solidarity Movement in the 1980s. When a crowd had to be crushed and beaten the government used Russian troops because they feared Polish troops might be divided in their loyalties. This perhaps gives us some reason to view with alarm the increasing use of multinational UN forces by Western governments. But the problem is perhaps not insuperable. A consortium of defence agencies would lack the mantle of legitimacy and authority available to a king or government which would make a power grab more difficult. Moreover the citizens of a free nation would presumably be armed and the freedom of any people against an encroaching government rests in the final analysis on their possession of arms and their willingness to use them. Hence governments bent on consolidating their power have generally followed Cardinal Richelieu's advice to the French monarchs, disarm the people, disband local militias and monopolise access to weapons in the hands of a central government. But Machiavelli advised the opposite, since he saw an armed populace as an integral part of national defence. Thus like such earlier political thinkers as Xenophon, he would have regarded today's advocates of gun control as unwisely weakening their nation's security against invasion. In any case whether a government or would-be government can succeed in disarming the people ultimately depends on the vigilance of the people themselves and for this I know no automatic formula, defence via the charity economy. People donate money all the time to causes they care about and the more prosperous they are the more they donate. Unless libertarian economics is hopelessly wrong, in which case we might as well give up now, people in a free nation would be extremely prosperous and they would presumably care about national security. So we can predict that a great deal of money could be collected for purposes of national defence by charity alone. Since as mentioned above the financial needs of a truly defensive national defence are relatively modest, charity could easily be a major source of defence funds. Let me mention two problems that occur to me. First is the matter of determining the appropriate recipient of these donations. How could such a recipient be prevented from misusing the weapons it purchases? In essence this is simply the problem of a consortium turning into a government which was discussed above. The subject of how to prevent libertarian anarchy from evolving into government again and perhaps a worse government than the one the anarchist system displaced is a vitally important issue but one too vast to consider in depth here. The second related difficulty is this. As I mentioned in Funding Public Goods 6 solutions, large companies will have a motive, namely good publicity, to donate large sums to national defence, just as they now improve their image by donating to environmental causes etc. That's the good news. But the bad news seemingly is that these contributions might enable such companies to skew national security decisions in their favour. Analogous to large corporations like United Fruit, United Brands, getting the US military to intervene to promote corporate interests in Guatemala, or oil companies getting the CIA to boost Mosadek in Iran. For detail see Jonathan Quitney's Endless Enemies. But I think this will be much less of a problem in a market anarchist society than it is today. Government magnifies the influence of the rich, because government decision makers do not own the money they control and so are willing to spend a larger sum to promote corporate interests than they actually receive from those interests in the way of bribes and campaign contributions. Private protection agencies costs would be internalised and so the corporate class would be deprived of this crucial lever. This would not make it utterly ineffective, for my worries on this score see my article Can we escape the ruling class? But it would significantly decrease its power. Defence via the labour economy. An armed populace. I think both the profit economy and the charity economy are viable as providers of defence services. There are admittedly problems about trusting the providers of those services but I think those problems may be soluble. But to the extent that it is dangerous to delegate the power of national defence perhaps a significant degree of self-help should be an important ingredient in any national security package. As mentioned above, an armed populace is the ultimate safeguard of a nation's liberties against threats both foreign and domestic. A possible drawback to a heavy reliance on armed civilian-based defence is that it cannot take effect until the enemy has already entered the country at which point it might seem that the cause is hopeless. But Machiavelli in his Discourses on Livy argues persuasively that it is better to meet the enemy on your own home ground rather than his if he adds you have an armed populace. If your populace is not armed, he warns, you should engage the enemy as far from your own soil as possible. I have often heard it said that it takes roughly three times as many troops to invade a country as to defend it. The defender knows the territory better, does not face hostile locals and has a much shorter and so less vulnerable supply line. Many military theorists have argued that the south might have won the Civil War if they had stayed put and relied on sniping and guerrilla warfare against the invader instead of marching forward to meet the northern troops on equal terms in regular battle away. The armed citizenry of Switzerland has long posed a powerful deterrent against potential invaders, enabling that country to maintain peace and freedom for what in comparative terms is an amazingly long time. Of course having your country surrounded by Alps doesn't hurt. An armed populace then may be a viable defence, but recall the lesson of Alexander. A lesson armed defence is organised and invader can simply pick off individual armed neighbourhoods one at a time. What is needed then is some kind of citizens militia. But a militia called up and directed by a centralised government poses difficulties we've mentioned already. The key remember is organisation without centralisation. The best kind of militia then might be one organised along the following lines. Begin with the number of local neighbourhood militias run by their members on a democratic basis, the military equivalent of the mutual aid societies discussed in previous issues of formulations. The number of these local militias get together to form a county militia which in turn combines with others to form a statewide militia and so forth. So the ultimate national militia would be organised as an association of associations the French anarchist Proudhon's formula for what should replace the state with power and authority running from bottom to top rather than top to bottom. As for manpower, although many militias have traditionally relied on conscription this seems unnecessary. If a nation is genuinely under attack as opposed to engaging in foreign interventions there is never a shortage of volunteers and where the populace is used to bearing and handling arms the training period required for new recruits would be shorter. Members of each militia would elect their commanding officers as American soldiers did during the Revolutionary War and so on up to the commander in chief of the national militia. This bottom-up approach, replacing the top-down approach of a traditional military would make it much more difficult for the supreme military leader to seize power. Such a militia might well be able to achieve the goal of organisation without centralisation. This model might have to be changed somewhat in order to be adapted to a minicist rather than an anarchist society. We would need to think about whether or not to make the commander in chief of the militia subordinate to the libertarian government. Both the yes and no seem to pose dangers. I welcome suggestions on this topic. Defence via the labour economy, non-violent resistance. Another form of organised self-help against an invader is the strategy of non-violent resistance. This may sound impractical, yet sustained and widespread non-violent resistance ultimately drove the British out of India, the French and Belgians out of the Ruhr, the Puchists out of power in Weimar Germany and racial segregation out of the United States. Non-violent resistance, the secession of the plebs, was also used effectively in ancient Rome by the plebians against the senate. And non-violent resistance by war protesters in this country played an important role in ending the Vietnam War. Non-violent resistance also had a significant impact against the British in the early phase of the American Revolution and more recently against totalitarian governments during the fall of communism. Non-violent resistance often fails, of course, as the blood of Tiananmen should remind us. But violent resistance often fails too. It's worth considering whether, to what extent and under what circumstances non-violent resistance could be an effective tool of national defence. Many theorists of non-violent resistance, for example Tolstoy Gandhi Lefebvre, advocate it primarily on ethical grounds because they view the use of violence as immoral, even in self-defence. I do not share this view. For my reason, see my article Punishment vs Restitution, a formulation. But a recent article by Brian Kaplan, the literature of non-violent resistance and civilian-based defence, the superiority of non-violent resistance on purely strategic grounds. The ability of the government to use violence greatly exceeds that of the rebels. Indeed, violent rebellion often strengthens oppressive regimes which compulsibly claim that rebel violence necessitates repression. Government's comparative advantage lies in violent action. The comparative advantage of the people, in contrast, lies in their ability to deny their cooperation without which it is nearly impossible for government to persist. Consider the deadliness to a government of tax strikes, boycotts, general strikes and widespread refusal to obey the law. While these tactics are non-violent, their universal and unyielding use should terrify any government. Non-violence has other advantages as well. Because it seems less dangerous and radical than violence, it more easily wins broad public support. The costs of participation are lower, so more people are likely to participate. Traditional non-competence, like children, women and the old, can effectively participate in non-violent struggle. It is more likely to convert opponents and produce internal disagreement within the ruling class. It generally leads to far fewer casualties and material losses than violence. And since it is more decentralised than violent action, it is less likely to give rise to an even more oppressive state if it succeeds. To those who object that an oppressive government can simply mow down such defenceless dissenters, making non-violent resistance impractical, Kaplan replies that ideology and consent, whether grudging or enthusiastic, rather than brute force are the ultimate basis of political power. If a large enough segment of the population refuses to comply with the government, it will lose its ability to rule. Merely the threat of non-compliance is often serious enough to provoke the government to address grievances. Moreover, when governments use violence against protesters who are clearly committed to non-violence, they undermine their ideological foundations and often make uncontested rule even more difficult. The very fact that the protesters remain committed to non-violence, even as the government turns to oppression to combat them, tends to win over previously neutral groups and inspire and involve other members of persecuted groups. Jean Sharp refers to this as political jiu-jitsu, jiu-jitsu being a style of martial art that uses an opponent's aggressiveness and ferocity against him. Insofar as it succeeds, it usually does so by converting opponents, making repression too costly to maintain and threatening the variability of the government to maintain power. The rise of Christianity might be a good example of what Kaplan is talking about. Through their non-violent resistance to persecution, the tiny sect won the sympathy and admiration of many Romans and ultimately secured their conversion. Unfortunately after the Christians gained power, their attachment to non-violence waned. Kaplan extends the idea of non-violent resistance to the arena of national defence. Non-violence are not limited to standard military ones. Rather it is merely necessary to make occupation so difficult that the costs of conquest exceed the benefits. Massive tax resistance, boycotts, incitement of desertion and strikes might accomplish this. And if a would-be conqueror realised that non-violent techniques might make the costs of occupation skyrocket, he might be deterred from trying. Non-violent resistance to foreign invasion is a surprisingly strong history of success and Kaplan cites many fascinating examples. He also notes that non-violent resistance has sometimes been effective, at least in a limited way, even against the most brutal and totalitarian of invaders. The nations which non-violently resisted national-socialist racial persecutions, for example Norway, Denmark and Belgium, saved almost all of their Jews, while Jews in other Nazi controlled nations were vastly more likely to be placed in concentration camps and killed. But he stresses that non-violent resistance could be far more effective through organisation. Since most non-violence has historically been sporadic and unorganised, it might be possible to increase its effectiveness through training and strategic and tactical planning. What would happen if countries spent as much energy preparing for a non-violent struggle as they do for a military struggle? Among possible strategies for increasing the effectiveness of non-violent resistance, Kaplan suggests general education and training in the techniques of non-violence, as well as a West Point for training specialists, the widespread dissemination of publishing and broadcasting equipment to prevent invaders from seizing all of the means of communication and local stockpiles to ease the pain of a general strike. Kaplan's main source for the ideas he discusses is Gene Sharp, who has devoted his career to investigating how the techniques of non-violent resistance might be applied to the problem of national defence. Among the works by Sharp cited by Kaplan are The Politics of Non-Violent Action Exploring Non-Violent Resistance Gandhi as a Political Strategist Social Power and Political Freedom Making Europe Unconquerable National Security through Civilian-Based Defence and Civilian-Based Defence, a post-military weapons system. Kaplan also cites dozens of other works on the subject. I shall simply mention two of the ones that sounded most interesting. Civilian Resistance as a National Defence by Adam Roberts and War Without Weapons by Anders Boesrup and Andrew Mack. I have not read any of these books, but I intend to. I can also recommend two delightful science fiction novels that illustrate these ideas. Eric Frank Russell's The Great Explosion and James Hogan's Voyage from Yesteryear. In The Great Explosion, a very funny and satirical book, bureaucrats and military brass from Earth attempt to re-establish Earth's control over the planet Gand. A world of anarcho-pacifists who successfully apply the techniques of non-violent resistance to frustrate and or win over the would-be invaders. In Voyage from Yesteryear, a less satirical, more realistic work, the basic plot is the same, except that the anarchist planet, now Chiron, not Gand, is not pacifist and its inhabitants are willing and able to use violence to defend their freedom. They do not rely on violence alone, however, but successfully blend violent with non-violent techniques to frustrate and or win over the invaders with the same result as in Russell's book. On a rather different note, Verna Vinge's novel Across Real Time tells the story of a government whose invasion of an anarchist society fails because rich crackpots holed up in the anarchist wilderness turn out to have been stockpiling privately owned nuclear weapons. Different strokes for different folks, I guess. All three books are well worth reading. I am, I suspect, somewhat less optimistic than Brian Kaplan is about the effectiveness of a purely non-violent approach to national defence. I am still inclined to rely on an armed populace, private protection agencies, and an organised but decentralised militia. For a more cautious assessment than Kaplan's of the effectiveness of non-violent techniques, see Ted Gallon Carpenter's resistance tactics, a review of strategic non-violent conflict, the dynamics of people power in the 20th century by Peter Ackerman and Christopher Krugler. Kaplan's suggestions deserve our serious consideration. Perhaps the best solution would be one that, rather than either rejecting non-violence altogether or relying on non-violence alone, managed to integrate aspects of non-violent resistance into a violent if necessary militia framework, thus following the example of Chiron rather than of Ghand. In any case, I strongly endorse Kaplan's closing plea for further research by libertarians into this area. Despite their distrust of state power and interventionist foreign policy, classical liberals have had a difficult time envisioning specific alternatives to violence to combat tyranny. The literature of non-violent resistance is filled with penetrating insights in this area, and while classical liberals frequently long for alternatives to both electoral politics and violence, specific suggestions have been sparse. These are merely a few gaps that the non-violence literature may fill. On a more aesthetic note, many of the historical examples of non-violence are beautiful illustrations of the power of voluntary institutions to supplement or replace the role of the state. Who will defend against the defenders? On surveying the options then, I would argue that as libertarians we have reason to place confidence, albeit cautious confidence, in a three-pronged strategy for defending our free nation should we be fortunate enough to get one. First prong, a regular high-tech military defence supported by paying customers and charitable contributions alike. Second prong, an armed citizenry organised into a decentralised militia. Third prong, organised non-violent resistance. These prongs might well be combined into a single fearful scimitar, a militia collecting Jews from its combatant members and contributions from non-combatants or non-members coordinating violent and non-violent resistance through one and the same democratic structure. This would be an impressive military force, I think, and it makes me wonder what will protect other nations from us. As I read more and more ancient and medieval history, I come to realise that anarchic, decentralised, egalitarian, individualistic societies are not necessarily peaceful societies. The Celtic and Viking societies we admire so much as libertarian models were among the most effective raiders and conquerors in history. What is to prevent our free nation from itself becoming a threat to the security of other nations and thus ultimately a threat to its own security as those nations are provoked into attacking us? This worry might be reinforced by reading Machiavelli's Discourses on Livy, a book I have already cited several times now and a much more interesting and important book, I think, than is more famous or notorious work, The Prince. The Discourses on Livy is not a libertarian book by any means, but it contains much for libertarians to ponder. What strikes a libertarian in reading it is the odd way in which Machiavelli manages to combine the political insight and perspicacity of an Isabel Patterson with the economic insight of a log. Machiavelli argues that a free nation is the greatest possible threat to the freedom of other nations. Free nations are more prosperous and thus better armed. They are more politically stable and thus harder to defeat through treachery. There is higher morale among their citizens, thus making them better soldiers. Equal opportunity and free competition among citizens tend to reward and thus to foster what Machiavelli calls virtue, by which he means not virtue in our sense, but a combination of self-discipline, boldness and ingenuity, which are nice things to have in your own nation, but can be dangerous traits in a vigorous and aggressive nation next door. And the high standard of living enjoyed by free nations leads to an increase in population, thus creating a pressure to expand into the territory of their neighbours. Machiavelli cites Roman Athens as instances. See also the account of Athens in Thucydides, history of the Peloponnesian War. Today Machiavelli might add the United States. Of course there are counter examples, Switzerland for instance, and despite Machiavelli's brilliance he seems to have little understanding of the free market. His notion of a free society thus does not appear to include the concept of free trade, which 19th century classical liberals favoured in part because of its tendency to create ties of mutual dependence that discouraged war. Still it is true that freedom, together with the technological progress that freedom brings in its train has the effect of increasing people's options. And one goal one can better pursue when one's options have increased is the decreasing of one's neighbour's options. But maybe the solution is that the free nation's neighbours had better become free nations themselves.