MABB v6.6.6

The reason why I decided to give some serious time to this is because I think the Anti War article by Stefen Molyneux clearly represents Chaohinon’s current thought.



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It is almost as if Chaohinon himself could have written this. I am familiar with the Anti-War website, and I appreciate their efforts a great deal. Infact, several years ago it was through Anti-War that I learnt quite a few things about the world today and it has been an influence on me.



That aside, I think that while this article carries a progressive strain in the sense that it wants to see an end to war, it is very misguided and many of the conclusions and assumptions made in it are childish.



Let's begin.

It has been often said that war is the health of the state – but the argument could also be made that the reverse is more true: that the state is the health of war. In other words, that war – the greatest of all human evils – is impossible without the state.

The author begins by stating clearly that war is impossible without the state.



‘War’ and ‘state’ are complex concepts and cannot be reduced to such simplicity.



A) ‘State’ is a ruling apparatus for a nation. It comprises of administrative departments, ministries, a tax collection function, judicial system, army, vice squad force, spy agency, a diplomatic function etc. For example, governments can change while leaving the state apparatus more or less intact.



The state then did not always exist. It is not to be confused with authority. There can be authority in tribal communities for example, but it cannot be called a state.



Yet, some tribes war against each other.



B) Some armed movements can and do become states within states. A modern day example is the war between the Taliban and balochistan. The Taliban has an army, its own justice system, it levies taxes on the captured communities, etc. But for guerrilla warfare, which can eventually lead to the formation of a state within a state, you don’t need to first be a state to wage war. You can start with a few dozen armed individuals, gain a few victories, then administrate the captured areas and become a sort of state within a state.



So not all armed movements waging a war begin from the standpoint of a ‘state’. You cannot call the point where you’ve just landed from a boat on an island with only a few dozen armed individuals, a ‘state’.



C) Not all countries in the world ruled by a state apparatus are incessantly engaged in warfare. Some are indeed peaceful. Cuba for example. The answer therefore lies deeper, and requires an exploration of concrete conditions which compell some countries to wage wars against others.



Undoubtedly, an aggressive, expansionist foreign policy and continous warring can lead to the militarization of a society and the curtailment of domestic freedoms (as under Fascism), but we should adopt a more nuanced approach by acknowledging that there are different forms of state and therefore the behavior of each will vary according to definite conditions.



Undoubtedly, the state has an army for the purpose of military action. But to suggest that simply having a state means that a country definitely will go about attacking other countries is erroneous. Ever since Cuba adopted socialist principles, it has never waged war on another country.



These are the reasons why I think it is erroneous to suggest that war is impossible without a state.

The great Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises was once asked what the central defining characteristic of the free market was – i.e., since every economy is more or less a mixture of freedom and state compulsion, what institution truly separated a free market from a controlled economy? He replied that it was the existence of a stock market.



Through a stock market, entrepreneurs can achieve the externalization of risk, or the transfer of potential losses from themselves to investors. In the absence of this capacity, business growth is almost impossible.



In other words, when risk is reduced, demand increases. The stagnation of economies in the absence of a stock market is testament to the unwillingness of individuals to take on all the risks of an economic endeavor themselves. When risk becomes shareable, new possibilities emerge that were not possible before – the Industrial Revolution being perhaps the most dramatic example.



Sadly, one of those possibilities – in all its horror, corruption, brutality, and genocide – is war. In this essay, I will endeavor to show that, in its capacity to reduce the costs and risks of violence, the power of the state is the root cause of war.

Honestly this is such a muddle that I don’t know where to start.



The author throughout his entire piece constantly lauds risk taking to the skies. What is the point of that? A capitalist is a expected to be capitalist, not a gambler in the casino.



Capitalism as it is today did not drop out of the sky the way Adam and Eve did as shown in Christianity. Viewing things in a time bubble leads to the most warped view. The stock market is an institution that came into being to meet the increasing needs of capital. To raise LARGE sums of capital. It is the direct result of the development of capitalism. On one hand the author belongs to an ideological trend that lambastes the state for curtailment of freedoms, on the other he objects when capitalists do actually exercise freedom to raise large sums of capital through the stock exchange. He objects that the capitalists are doing exactly what their blood tells them to do: multiply capital.



The author furthermore objects to the evasion of risk on the part of entrepreneurs and the transference of it to investors.



First this ‘transference of risk’ does not safeguard the entrepreneur in the event that his business goes bottom up. He and his reputation will be ruined in the event of failure, and all company assets will be up for grabs by lenders and shareholders.



Second, if the entrepreneur does indeed take on all the risk himself instead transferring it on others, he very obviously becomes an investor himself. If the entrepreneur gives up all ownership to an investor, then does not that investor himself become an entrepreneur?



I feel this argument from the author on ‘externalization of risk' is quite empty.



I also sense that the author does not know much about how the Industrial Revolution occurred. I think that topic deserves a separate thread of its own.

All of the above practices (of sabotage - Imran), while occasionally partaken of, are very rare in the free market, for three main reasons. The first is that they are costly; the second is that they increase risks, and the third is the fear of retaliation.

I’ve taken the liberty of not posting the preceding paragraphs. The author first lists some dry scenarios of sabotage that are barely relevant. He cites three factors that make war waging rare in a free market (and he does it without citing real, actual examples ofcourse). These are: the cost of destruction, the risk of destruction and retaliation from destruction.



The paragraphs that immediately follow are based on largely fictitious scenarios constructed from the imagination of the author, as well as being based on strange assumptions and a general lack of context, and therefore have not been replied to. We instead move to the part where the author attempts to prove through lengthy examples that somehow sabotage through war, its costs, dangers of risk and retaliation will not happen in a ‘stateless free market’.

The economics of war are, at bottom, very simple, and contain three major players: those who decide on war, those who profit from war, and those who pay for war. Those who decide on war are the politicians, those who profit from it are those who supply military materials or are paid for military skills, and those who pay for war are the taxpayers. (The first and second groups, of course, overlap.)

No it is not as simple as that. Not only politicians and ‘those who supply materials or are paid for military skills’ benefit as I will show soon enough.

In other words, a corporation that profits from supplying arms to the military is paid through state taxation – and under no other circumstances could the transaction exist, since the risks associated with destruction (as outlined in the table above) are equal to or greater than any profit that could be made.



Now if those who decided on war also paid for it, there would be no such thing as war, since war follows the same economic incentives and costs outlined above. However, those who decide on war do not pay for it – that unpleasant task is relegated to the taxpayers (both current, in the form of direct taxes, and future, in the form of national debt). The risk of war is delegated to the front-line soldiers, of course, but those soldiers would not be in the line of fire if they weren't paid and armed by state taxation.

Are all wars waged without public support? The author is trying to make it seem as if tax payers don’t play any role in backing a government’s war effort.



Tax payers DO decide on war and pay for it. If their support was so inconsequential the government wouldn’t drum up the media to get them on board. If tax payer support was so inconsequential their votes wouldn't be sought after. Tax payers are aware to varying extents of the foreign policy of those they are voting into power.



I’m not suggesting that the state is free from blame, far from it. I'm showing that the above lines in bold are aimlessly put forward, that the factors which enable a state’s warring activity are much more complex, that at the end of the day, the state is just a tool, a means to achieve an end.



The author is also making silly assumptions about economic incentives about which he really does not have a clue. This is generally a recurring mistake by many capitalist economists who assume that everyone is rational all the time and fully informed.

Let's see how the above analysis of the costs of destruction change when the state enters the equation.



The Cost of Destruction



If you want to start a war, you need a very expensive military – which must also be maintained when there is no war. How can that vast expense be paid for? Invasion? No. There is simply no way to recover the costs of that military by invading another country – otherwise, the free market would directly and voluntarily fund armies and occupations, which it never does. Trade benefits free-market businesses; invasions do not.



To understand this from a different angle, you can only invade another country by destroying large portions of it, killing many of its citizens, and then fighting endless insurgencies. Given the costs of invasions and occupations – always in the hundreds of millions or billions of dollars – what profit could conceivably be gained from the bombed-out country you are occupying? That would be like asking a thief to make money by fire-bombing the house he wanted to rob – and then staying and holding the occupants hostage! Nonsense. Theft doesn't operate that way – and neither would war, without the presence of the state and the economic distortion of forced taxation.



To those aiming to profit from war, the costs of destruction can be reduced to almost nothing by forcing the taxpayers to pay those costs. While it's true that those who profit from a war also pay taxes needed to support the war effort, they pay to an equal degree as all their competitors, and the amount they pay in taxes is far less than they receive in profits – again, facts we know because there are always people willing and eager to supply the military.



Thus are the costs of destruction eliminated through the power of state taxation – and the first central barrier against the prosecution of war is removed.

In his grand effort to paint capitalists as the victims and the state as the real evil that turns ‘good’ capitalists into ‘evil-doers’, the author presents an example of the unprofitability of the state waging a destruction causing war, the war-chest of which is funded by taxpayers, something that will be avoided in a free market without a state.



The author very naively proclaims:

“There is simply no way to recover the costs of that military by invading another country”

The author has clearly never heard of colonization.



Yes my friends. Colonization is in fact a very profitable outcome of war for giant companies. The profit making can last hundreds of years! For as long as your colony lasts you can milk it for what it's worth and no Anti-War appeals to the good morals of capitalists will make them switch course away from the blood sucking.



Yes the big companies can exploit the lucrative opportunities posed by the colonies for as long as they please. Until ofcourse the façade of benevolence, sugar coated with claims about doing good things in the name of globalization, is shattered by the national consciousness of the native expressed in his rising up against the violence of the spokesman of the multinational corporations (A spokesman that speaks in the language of bullets and bombs) and the taking over all the enterprises and industries which were in the occupier’s hands.



The author continues:

“otherwise the free market would directly and voluntarily fund armies and occupations, which it never does.”

What never happens is the author citing real world examples to back up his point, of the ‘free market’ never funding armies and occupations.



We know however that the whole history of capitalism ever since Industrialization gave it that unprecendented boost in growth, has been one of constant warfare. I would be interested to see precisely which ‘stateless free market’ the author is talking about for illustrating that “it never funds armies and occupations”.



More naivety from the author:

“Given the costs of invasions and occupations – always in the hundreds of millions or billions of dollars – what profit could conceivably be gained from the bombed-out country you are occupying?”

At a glance, the profits and benefits to be gained by innocent well-meaning capitalists coerced into backing the war are in the following areas:



a) The arms industry for manufacturing those guns, bombs, armor, tanks, helicopters, jets, and cutting edge technology.



b) The construction companies that receive preferential contracts for ‘rebuilding’the destroyed country.



c) The steel companies that will supply the raw materials for the guns, tanks, armamements, as well as for the infrastructure and buildings for construction in the occupied country etc.



d) The cement companies that will supply the cement for the construction companies that will rebuild the destroyed country.



e) Fuel companies that now have unrestricted access to resources that were previously national property.



f) Cheap unrestricted oil supply to the victor country. The benefits are even seen by ordinary people – these poor ‘over-taxed’ ordinary people who helped vote in the monsters that declared the war.



g) Numerous other investors who will buy up (thanks to privatization) enterprises and resources that were once national property. The economic annexation of another country.



h) Banks and financial instituitions.

- All the above mentioned groups that have a stake in the war will require capital (for the above mentioned investments) in the form of loans, upon which interest will be paid to the banks. Banks will profit.

- All the above mentioned groups will need a place to store capital acquired thanks to profits derived from the occupied country. This will also contribute directly to the swelling up of the banks’ cash reserves - for lending to other companies in perhaps the domestic economy, stimulating further growth in the victor country.



i) Numerous other enterprises and aspects of the economy such as truckers and shipping companies that are going to move around raw materials, supply etc, consumer goods companies that suddenly have markets open to them, etc.



j) Long term strategic advantage through control of scarce resources.





If Britain waged war on other countries and colonized a large part of the world, then the people of Britain themselves did indeed see the benefits of the resources extracted from the colonies and the exploited labor. Enough to offset an increase in taxation. The British worker lived incomparibly better than the laborer of the occupied country.



Bishop Maury of France, in his defence of it, summed up colonization rather well:



‘If you were to lose each year more than 200 million livres that you now get from your colonies; if you had not the exclusive trade with your colonies to feed your manufactures, to maintain your navy, to keep your agriculture going, to repay for your imports, to provide for your luxury needs, to advantageously balance your trade with Europe and Asia, then I say it clearly, the kingdom would be irretrievably lost.’



Bishop Maury (of France) : Argument against France’s ending the slave trade and giving freedom to its slave colonies. Presented in the French National Assembly, 1791.





To complete my refutation of the “Cost of war would be too great in a free market” argument, I want to mention that the author has forgotten completely about ‘war reparations’ that are imposed for recovering the ‘immediate’ cost of the war. I hope a more detailed explanation about what war reparations are for will not be required.



This whole analysis of the costs of destruction is a miserable one. It is in fact very profitable for the capitalists to be engaged in such war activity as I have shown. Since capitalism is profit driven by its very nature, and is immersed in an ever-lasting pursuit of increasing capital, war makes perfect sense. No Anti-War appeals to the good morals of the capitalists will make them switch course. The capitalists WILL use the state to wage war, and they prefer it that way. This is the natural outcome of capitalism and the state today represents their collective will as a class.



The author admits in the beginning of the article that operating without a stock exchange or perhaps without the state, the capitalist economy will stagnate. It is strange then that the author is unable to comprehend that it this very economic stagnation that pushes the capitalists to utilize the state to redraw the boundaries of the share of the world market through war. He in a sense is criticizing the weapon, not the criminal. Capitalists need the state to wage war to achieve their aims of attaining a greater share of the of the world market.

The Risk of Destruction



Those who decide on war and those who profit from war only do so when there is no real risk of destruction. This is a simple historical fact, which can be gleaned from the fact that no nuclear power has ever declared war on another nuclear power. The U.S. gave the USSR money and wheat, yet invaded Grenada, Haiti, and Iraq. (In fact, one of the central reasons it was possible to know in advance that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction capable of hitting the U.S. was that Washington politicians were willing to invade it.)



Avoiding the risk of destruction was the reason that the USSR and the U.S. (to take two obvious examples) fought "proxy wars" in out-of-the-way places like Afghanistan, Vietnam, and Korea. As we shall see below, the fact that the risk of destruction is shifted to taxpayers (and taxpayer-funded soldiers) completely reverses the economic equation, turning a net loss into a net profit – and creating a whole new industry of death.



Thus are the risks of destruction eliminated through the power of the state – and the second central barrier against the prosecution of war is removed.

As I showed in the very beginning, wars don’t only happen when there is a state. Therefore, minimization of risk of war is not something exclusive to the state. Minimization of fallout from waging war can also apply to a drug gang, a guerilla army, and even a tribe.



Secondly, it is incorrect to say that wars only happen when little risk is involved. It is precisely because wars are a high risk affair that meticulous planning for the ‘before war’, ‘during war’, and ‘after war’ stages is conducted.



Yes, the aggressor views the consequences of a war before waging it. If the odds are in his favor, if the risk is minimal he will wage war. Yes a company will conduct meticulous research, view the consequences, analyze all the factors, before launching a new product in light of competition.



As said before, the capitalist is not a gambler at the casino and it is silly to expect him to be.

The Risk of Retaliation



The risk of retaliation in economic calculations regarding war should not be taken as a general risk, but rather a specific one – i.e., specific to those who either decide on war or profit from it. The entire military-industrial complex survives and flourishes on the simple fact that profit accrues to the willing few, while the costs of destruction and the risks of retaliation are forced on the unwilling many. Since other people are exposed to the risk of retaliation, the risks of war become almost irrelevant from an amoral economic standpoint. If I receive the pleasures of smoking, but you take the risk of lung cancer, my decision about whether to continue smoking will certainly be affected!

In bold point, where he says says “profits accrue to the willing few”, the author has described not only the entire military-industrial complex, but all of capitalism. He unfortunately lacks the honesty to admit it clearly. And furthermore this point is an unnecessary repetition of the previous, the “risk of destruction”.





The paragraphs preceeding the following have not been replied to since there isn’t anything to disagree with there.

The State Is War



If the above is understood, then the hostility of anarcho-capitalists toward the state should now be a little clearer. In the anarcho-capitalist view, the state is a fundamental moral evil not only because it uses violence to achieve its ends, but also because it is the only social agency capable of making war economically advantageous to those with the power to declare it and profit from it. It is only through the governmental power of taxation that war can be subsidized to the point where it becomes profitable to certain minorities. Destruction can only ever be profitable when the costs and risks of violence are shifted to the taxpayers, while the benefits accrue to the few who directly control or influence the state.



Why Not Just Reform the State?



As long is the state exists, this violent distortion of costs, incentives, and rewards can never be controlled or alleviated, since an artificial imbalance of economic incentives will always self-perpetuate and escalate (at least, until the inevitable bankruptcy of the public purse). As long as the state exists, mankind shall always live with the terror of war. One cannot oppose war without opposing the state. They can neither be examined in isolation nor combated separately, since – much more than metaphorically – the state and war are two sides of the same bloody coin.

I insist for the reasons I have provided, that the abolition of the state requires first the abolition of capitalism, for capitalism provides the impulse for warmongering, and the state is only the tool with which the capitalists wage wars for a greater share of the world market.



Getting rid of the knife from the incurable murderer may not stop him from murdering others. He will just use his hands next time to strangle the victim. Theoretically it is the same with capitalists as regards the state.

There is a 'comment on article' button for that article. I'm pondering whether it should be sent to him.

they might or might not read it. you certainly have nothing to lose.

Imran, can you explain to me why communist countries go to war then?

[quote name="ManOfSteel"]There is a 'comment on article' button for that article. I'm pondering whether it should be sent to him.



[/quote]



Do eet.

[quote name="Chaohinon"][/quote]

His face almost looks like that old animated gif of Imran from way back.

[quote name="Redd"]Imran, can you explain to me why communist countries go to war then?[/quote]



Which ones are are you talking about specifically?



Do bear in mind that I am not against ALL war. For example I think the guerilla war Castro fought was right. The civil war Mao led against Chiang Kai Shek was right.The Great Patriotic War against Nazi Germany was right. The Vietnamese war of resistance against America was right. The Soviet Union's coming to aid the communists in Afghanistan was right.

I'll have something more substantiative up tomorrow, but I feel I should mention that I do not identify as an anarcho-capitalist. The very act of tacking the hyphen on is antithetical to what anarchism is. Anarchism is opposed to all hierarchies, whether they be in the workplace, family, or politics; and given that nowhere in history has capitalism not been embedded in the state, it cannot be conflated with the free market.

what do you identify yourself as?

Currently, I have a pretty big boner for the ideas espoused by Kevin Carson. My worldview is a hybridization of syndicalism, non-political unionizing, free market libertarianism, and strong opposition to the traditional nuclear family.



Anarchism is anarchism, though. Opposition to all coercive hierarchies.

I ought to criticize that too.

If Bill O'Reilly was red, he'd be you

Bill O Reilly doesn't give his guests a chance to speak.

So I'm your guest? Now you're just being a capitalist oppressor. Who says this is your property?

Im hungry.

[quote name="ManOfSteel"]

Honestly this is such a muddle that I don’t know where to start.



The author throughout his entire piece constantly lauds risk taking to the skies. What is the point of that? A capitalist is a expected to be capitalist, not a gambler in the casino.



Capitalism as it is today did not drop out of the sky the way Adam and Eve did as shown in Christianity. Viewing things in a time bubble leads to the most warped view. The stock market is an institution that came into being to meet the increasing needs of capital. To raise LARGE sums of capital. It is the direct result of the development of capitalism. On one hand the author belongs to an ideological trend that lambastes the state for curtailment of freedoms, on the other he objects when capitalists do actually exercise freedom to raise large sums of capital through the stock exchange. He objects that the capitalists are doing exactly what their blood tells them to do: multiply capital.



The author furthermore objects to the evasion of risk on the part of entrepreneurs and the transference of it to investors.



First this ‘transference of risk’ does not safeguard the entrepreneur in the event that his business goes bottom up. He and his reputation will be ruined in the event of failure, and all company assets will be up for grabs by lenders and shareholders.



Second, if the entrepreneur does indeed take on all the risk himself instead transferring it on others, he very obviously becomes an investor himself. If the entrepreneur gives up all ownership to an investor, then does not that investor himself become an entrepreneur?



I feel this argument from the author on ‘externalization of risk' is quite empty.



I also sense that the author does not know much about how the Industrial Revolution occurred. I think that topic deserves a separate thread of its own.

[/quote]



it isn't empty. to view things in a time bubble: in the beginning, one invested as a silent partner with a commodity producer. their competitor defeated them and ended their company and reputation.



fast-forward to today's vast stock market. a man invests his capital into an entrepreneur's production and the business fails. however, the investor intuits this ahead of time, as does the entrepreneur, who also becomes an investor himself as he sells his company to a new entrepreneur.



the stock market as it is today, provides not only externalisation of risk for the investor, but also for the entrepreneur. the stock market, or "investment" sharing, provides the opportunity for not so importantly the growth of economy, but the resilience within the economy, on behalf of the investor and producer. the fall of a producer becomes a hope and a strategy for another investor...immediately.

[quote name="TAM TAM"]Im hungry.[/quote]



You are always hungry!

[quote name="ManOfSteel"]
[quote name="Redd"]Imran, can you explain to me why communist countries go to war then?[/quote]



Which ones are are you talking about specifically?



Do bear in mind that I am not against ALL war. For example I think the guerilla war Castro fought was right. The civil war Mao led against Chiang Kai Shek was right.The Great Patriotic War against Nazi Germany was right. The Vietnamese war of resistance against America was right. The Soviet Union's coming to aid the communists in Afghanistan was right.[/quote]

You have a twisted sense of history.



[quote name="Chaohinon"]and strong opposition to the traditional nuclear family.[/quote]

With the way things are now, hopefully this will happen and humanity can end, some survive, and start over.

[quote name="ManOfSteel"]
[quote name="Redd"]Imran, can you explain to me why communist countries go to war then?[/quote]



Which ones are are you talking about specifically?



Do bear in mind that I am not against ALL war. For example I think the guerilla war Castro fought was right. The civil war Mao led against Chiang Kai Shek was right.The Great Patriotic War against Nazi Germany was right. The Vietnamese war of resistance against America was right. The Soviet Union's coming to aid the communists in Afghanistan was right.[/quote]



Tell me how the Winter War was justifiable.

Also I'd like your reasons as to why all of these other wars/revolutions were justified.



Edit: @ UGK:

Yeah, humanity can start over again and make the same fucking mistakes as before.