By Bradley Thomas
Perhaps the most common question faced by advocates of a stateless society behind “who will build the roads?” is concern about warlords taking over.
Without a centralized state to establish order, their argument goes, society will devolve into roving bands of warlords battling for supremacy until the wealthiest, most well-armed group takes over and exercises monopolistic authoritarian rule over the rest of us.
First off, it is an odd defense of the state by saying the worst thing a stateless society would result in is the creation of a state.
More importantly, there is little reason to believe a society in which security, defense and justice were provided via voluntary agreements would be characterized by uncontrolled warlords and roving gangs of murderous thugs inflicting pain in an unchecked manner.
Actual ‘Checks and Balances’
One of the clearest refutations of the ‘warlord’ theory can be found in the 1970 book “The Market for Liberty,” written by Morris and Linda Tannehill.
For starters, in a free society security and defense agencies would of course need to rely on voluntary customers for their success. Such companies that engaged in violent aggression against other agencies would quickly lose favor with customers, as well as prompt a majority of its workforce to quit out of disgust.
“In a laissez-faire society, a defense company which committed aggression, unless it acted speedily to rectify the injustices, would be left with no customers, associates, or employees except for undesirables,” wrote the Tannehills.
Without paying customers, the would-be warlord would have to resort to theft in order to finance his ambitions. Of course, the potential victims would be defended by their chosen security agencies, severely limiting the scope of the warlord’s efforts. Having to fight against numerous competing agencies would prove to be very costly in both money and life, making it very difficult for a single entity to arise to dominate the rest.
Moreover, comparisons to mafia-like organizations taking over in a stateless society overlook the fact that the mafia’s typical source of revenue comes from black market activities.
The financial premium placed on prohibited goods and services like drugs and gambling comes from the very fact that they are indeed prohibited by the state. Drug and gambling traffickers demand a risk premium for their behavior. This prohibition also means that those attracted to engage in such black market activities are “men who dare to ignore prohibitions and who are willing to resort to violence in order to do business without getting caught,” the Tannehill’s noted. State prohibitions are what create mafia organizations. In a free market, no such black markets would emerge since all voluntary, peaceful exchanges would be allowed.
And for those security agencies that do decide to go “rogue” and initiate violence against innocents or their competitors, a free society would have plenty of other mechanisms with which to defang the offending organizations.
As Robert Murphy wrote in his 2005 article “But Wouldn’t Warlords Take Over?”:
“Once private judges had ruled against a particular rogue agency, the private banks could freeze its assets (up to the amount of fines levied by the arbitrators). In addition, the private utility companies could shut down electricity and water to the agency’s headquarters, in accordance with standard provisions in their contracts.”
In sum, a structure of social organization based on private property and voluntary arrangements provides real ‘checks and balances’ of power, unlike a monopolistic state.
First Gain a Monopoly Legitimately, Then Turn Warlord?
With concerns about “rogue” security agencies accruing power in a free society dispatched with, what about the possibility of a respectable agency honestly and efficiently achieving a monopolistic position, only to then begin dominating society as a violent warlord?
In their book, the Tannehills capably address this notion. For starters, they direct the reader to ask “What obstacles would a would-be tyrant (or group of tyrants) have to overcome in order to gain control of a free society?”
To achieve monopoly status, our would-be warlord would need to become “the most efficient and excellent entrepreneur in his field; and he would have to continue this excellence, even after he had gained monopoly status, to prevent other large businesses from diversifying into his field to reap the benefits of higher profit margins.”
The threat of competition would prevent him from charging “his customers high prices in order to amass a fortune to buy weapons and hire soldiers to further his schemes of conquest.”
Again, the competitive nature of a free, voluntarist society would provide checks and balances.
Indeed, the moment the monopolist begins to reveal his tyrannical ambitions through his actions, decent-minded customers would leave in droves. In a free society “a market relationship is a free relationship, and if a customer doesn’t like a company’s service or mistrusts its goals, he is free to take his business elsewhere, or to start his own competitive company, or to do without the service altogether and just provide for himself,” the Tannehills noted.
Moreover, the warlord would find it difficult to maintain a workforce of employees willing to inflict violence against innocent citizens, like we have found to be the case with government soldiers in Nazi Germany or Communist countries.
As the Tannehills explained, in a free, stateless society the people “aren’t imbued with the citizens’ spirit of patriotic fervor and obedience and are, thus, much harder to lure into foolish collectivistic endeavors (such as ‘national unity’).
“Free men aren’t in the habit of leaping like fools and sheep to ‘defend the Flag’ or to ‘sacrifice for the Cause.’ In these vitally important respects, the free-market system differs fundamentally and completely from a government system of any sort,” they concluded.
Conclusion
Murray Rothbard once wrote, “In my view, the anarchist society is one which maximizes the tendencies for the good and the cooperative, while it minimizes both the opportunity and the moral legitimacy of the evil and the criminal.”
In a society dominated by the state, the power to tax along with the monopoly on the use of aggression provides ample opportunity for evil actors to carry out atrocities under a moral veil of “democracy.”
The notion of “checks and balances” within the state is a mirage, as different branches of the government have little incentive, and have proven incapable, of actually limiting the size and scope of the state’s powers.
A free, stateless society, however, organizes itself based upon voluntary, peaceful agreements. Mutually agreed upon cooperation dominates social arrangements, and market forces along with free people exercising their consciences provide legitimate, and just, checks and balances to any would-be warlord.
Reprinted with permission from erasethestate.com.