Let’s say for the sake of argument that a libertarian/ anarchist society is possible, would work, and would in fact be the utopia that many people imagine it would be. Unfortunately, it shares a land border with Authoritaria, a militarily top-heavy police state that decides to put an end to the “chaos” in Libertaria. The Authoritarian armed forces mass at the border and invade. How does a libertarian society defend itself? In most of the fictional examples I’ve read, the Libertarians either are protected geographically (they’re an island, or protected by mountains, desert, etc.), they just happen to possess superior technology that gives them the advantage, or the Authoritarian troops defect after they take the Libertarian example to heart. But let’s say it really does come down to armed force. I had always heard that a disciplined regimented army can defeat an armed mob ten times it’s size. How could swarms of armed volunteers defeat an indoctrinated and unified army, especially one supplied by the taxed labor of Authoritaria?
Well, the one libertarian I’ve seen speak on the subject, our own Liberal, says that the idea that a government of a libhertarian state is necessarily “small” is false – that it’s as large as it needs to be to ensure no one is harmed by coercion, force, or fraud. A Libertaria next door to a militaristic Authoritaria would of necessity have large armed forces to protect its citiens from the Authoritarians. Plant it 5,000 miles out in the ocean with no threats, and such armed forces would not be needed.
The principle is not violated: government limited to what is actually needed. In this case, however, what is needed may be quite extensive.
Recent history suggests that ain’t necessarily so. Iraq ain’t going so well for us, neither is Afghanistan. The Russians didn’t do well in Afghanistan either.
Libertarians and anarchists sound a little similar to most people but they are almost opposites philosophically speaking. I don’t know what the anarchists would do but libertarians believe in a strong military as well as strong law enforcement. Property rights are a core part of libertarian philosophy and have to be protected by any means necessary.
My understanding of Libertopia is that supplying armed forces are one of the very, very few legitimate functions of government. There’s no real reason to suppose that Libertopia necessarily has a weaker armed forces than Authoritaria.
In fairness, Iraq is about 150 times the size of the military force we have there.
I figure the individualist citizens of Libertopia will act in their individual self-interest and there’d be widespread collaborations with the invading army as each tries to secure his own property in exchange for helping to round up others to toil in the sugar-mines.
Anarchia is certainly not going to be utopian, at least not my vision of it. But my own private Anarchia would not defend itself against invasion by Authoritaria at all. Passive resistance is the only tool it would use to resist invaders. Yes, this might mean every Anarchia citizen will be ground under the treads of Authoritarian tanks. That’s the price you pay for principles.
But the invasion was simple, easy and short. Now sure, guerrillas can bleed the enemy slowly, but that’s after the foe has come in, taken what he wants from your industry and banks, raped the women, and shot the men.
Read PJ O’Rourke’s tale of what the Iraqi’s left behind them in Kuwait.
That’s the price you pay for pacifism. Those of us who do not feel that sticking your head in the sand is more moral than harming criminals and evil-doers if necessary to stop them preying on innocent people do not face that problem.
I’m curious: suppose you have the wonderful country of Libertopia. Also suppose that, there’s somehow a class or group in Libertopia who aren’t happy with the current system, and many of them and their institutions actively collaborate with the invading army. Could be an urban underclass, could be a region of the country.
Is it acceptable for the libertarian state to collectively attack them or punish them if it would help in the war effort in defense of Property?
We actually do have an example of what an anarchist society would do. CNT during the Spanish Civil War. It formed militias and fought valiantly against the trained military forces of Franco’s fascist state while implementing its vision of a more just society.
They lost.
This is a key point. Libertarianism doesn’t necessitate no standing army, it speaks for minimalistic government and lack of coercion. Since we’re supposing that it’s a successful libertarian utopia, then we also have to assume they’ve come up with some sort of satisfactory means of funding necessary government functions, or at least functions that the Libertarians all agree are necessary. Defense is, AFAICT, a necessary funtion and one of the few things that makes some form of government necessary at all. You wouldn’t have a draft to boost the miltaries numbers, but chances are there would be plenty of people willing to serve and the military would pay a fair salary that would encourage that.
Another point that I think is important is that of homefield advantage. The Libertarian army be more familiar with the land and be able to take heavy advantage of guerilla tactics like we’ve recently seen in places like Iraq and Afghanistan. These sorts of tactics do wonders to cut down a numerical advantage of an enemy. Beyond that, undoubtedly the invaded liberatarians would likely rally to a cause of defense of their nation, not just because invasions tend to do that (again, as witnessed in situations like Iraq), but because that is diametrically opposed to one of the fundamentals of libertarianism in property rights.
Moreover, as it goes with any sort of invasion, the Libertarians have an advantage in their goal as well. They aren’t trying to invade the Authoritarian’s homeland or make them surrender, they’re just trying to defend their homes; meanwhile, the authoritarians have to successfully squash the resistance and topple the government. The latter is a far more difficult goal to achieve and, thus, would generally require a strictly superior military.
Thus, I’d think that while Libertaria very likely may indeed have a smaller standing army than an Authoritaria with an equal population, I think that the homefield advantage and difference in goals along with what would likely be a fairly substantial militia would likely be enough to offset most or all of that difference. So, unless there’s a substantial difference in population, technology, and/or resources, I would tend to think that Libertaria would stand a pretty decent chance of successfully defending itself from invasion.
You know, Libertania was, classically, actually quite heavily armed. I refer to the pirate island, of course. Small metric ton of weapons there.
There’s a difference between rational, longterm self-interest and whatever you’re talking about. The invading army would represent a system not respectful of individual rights, so would not be trusted to honor such an agreement.
Back to the sugar mines!
Pacifism’s a principle.
No-one said anything about sticking one’s head in the sand. I specifically mentioned passive resistance.
On a side note - does this hypothetical specify that Libertopia doesn’t have nukes?
IMHO passive resistance doesn’t work against an “uncivilized” foe. If your opponent only cares about winning/staying in power they’ll just shoot your passive protesters and be done with it. The cases I know where it did work was because it specifically played on the revulsion against their own brutal violence on the part of the opponent’s population.
But that presupposes that every citizen of Libertopia has access to perfect information, including no inclination whatsoever toward convenient self-delusion. Heck, I’m sure many of the collaborators in France told themselves that playing along with the Germans was in France’s best immediate interests, to try to hold down the number of reprisals. The transition between immediate interest and long-term interest isn’t firmly-defined.
I see no reason to assume the Libertopians are uniformly wise, nor that they have any particular regard for each other (nor, for that matter, that the invading army is absolutely untrustworthy), so I figure collaboration is inevitable. In fact, assuming the Libertopians would universally rise and resist conveniently forgets that the reason that they are Libertopians in the first place is that they don’t subscribe to group mentality. It’s only in Ayn-Randian fantasy that rugged individualists are all ruggedly individual in exactly the same way with exactly the same (correct) responses to adversity. Heck, in Randworld all rugged individualists even have the same (correct) taste in music.
For discussion’s sake, how are we defining libertarian vs. anarchist?
They are two completely different things as I suggested above and they aren’t even related. I am going to have to simplify an amazing amount to keep this brief. Libertarianism comes from the “right” side of the political spectrum and the core traits are about individual rights and property rights. There is still a strong government but it is limited to whatever is absolutely needed. Military and law enforcement fall under that category.
Anarchists believe in, well, anarchy. That is an off-shoot of communism in which people self-organize in some way for the greater good. I don’t know if they would even have a military or law enforcement at all. They just have faith that humanity will make it work without much external pressure or they simply don’t care about such things.