The only way to prevent the initiation of violence is by a countervailing source of violence—preferably, by a constitutional state under the rule of law. But this solution itself is problematic, for reasons that have to do with the tendency of free governments to come under the sway of people who are not good at using force. Consider how Pareto frames the issue:
Suppose a certain country has a governing class, A, that assimilates the best elements, as regards intelligence, in the whole population. In that case the subject class, B, is largely stripped of such elements and can have little or no hope of ever overcoming the class A so long as it is a battle of wits. If intelligence were to be combined with force, the dominion of the A’s would be perpetual… But such a happy combination occurs only for a few individuals. In the majority of cases people who rely on their wits are or become less fitted to use violence, and vice versa. So concentration in class A of the individuals most adept at chicanery leads to a concentration in class B of the individuals most adept at violence; and if that process is long continued, the equilibrium [of society] tends to be come unstable, because the A’s are long in cunning but short in the courage to use force and in the force itself; whereas the B’s have the force and the courage to use it, but are short in the skill required for exploiting those advantages. But if they chance to find leaders who have the skill—and history shows that such leadership is usually supplied by dissatisfied A’s—they have all they need for driving the A’s from power. Of just that development history affords countless examples from remotest times all the way down to the present. [§2190]
Now Pareto wrote that passage nearly a hundred years ago, before the advent of tanks and tear gas and other such devices that make is very much easier to control violent crowds. So one could argue that Pareto’s framing of the issue no longer applies to contemporary domestic politics. But even if it no longer applies domestically, there is still the issue of foreign aggression, which remains as serious as ever:
These considerations must to some extent be applied to international relations. If the combination-instincts are reinforced in a given country beyond a certain limit, as compared with the instincts of group-persistence, that country may be easily vanquished in war by another country in which the change in relative proportions has not occurred…. People who lose the habit of applying force, who acquire the habit of considering policy from a commercial standpoint and of judging it only in terms of profit and loss, can readily be induced to purchase peace; and it may well be that such a transaction taken by itself is a good one, for war might have cost more money than the price of peace. Yet experience shows that in the long run, and taken in connexion with the things that inevitably go with it, such practice leads a country to ruin. [§2179]
In other words, a commercial society, a society dominated by people who live by their wits and have become increasingly habituated by market forces to think almost exclusively in terms of profit and loss, becomes, over time, less fit for using force to defend the country and prevent the “initiation of force” by foreign aggressors.
Consider, in this respect, the threat posed to the United States by Iran. It may be thought Iran, a country governed by zealous yet primitive Islamic clerics, could not possibly pose any serious threat to America. Not necessarily so, however. There are reports of the Iranians attempting to shoot scud missile from ships in the Caspian Sea. Why would they be doing such a thing? The speculation is that they are rehearsing an Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) attack against the United States. Such an attack would cripple, if not destroy, America’s electronic infrastructure. According to Dr. William Graham, the former White House science adviser under President Ronald Reagan, “70 to 90 percent of the population would not be sustainable after [an EMP] attack.”
Why is it that the United States is so vulnerable? At least part of the reason is that people have acquired “the habit of considering policy from a commercial standpoint and of judging it only in terms of profit and loss.” The U.S. electronic infrastructure could be hardened to withstand EMP attacks; such hardening, however, would cost billions of dollars and require massive government interference, in the form oversight, of the commercial electronic infrastructure. In other words, defending a nation against EMP weapons is not compatible with the small government, laissez-faire, anti-tax ideals embalmed within the Objectivist politics. Nor is it compatible with the ruling elite generated within nations dominated by a market-based economy, where Pareto’s “combination instincts” dominate the ruling elite at the expense of group-persistence sentiments, and men of courage and force are marginalized by lawyers, bureaucrats, capitalists and entrepreneurs.
Objectivists do have an answer to Iran: they want to pre-emptively nuke it so it can't threaten the U.S. with an EMP or anything else. And anyway, there are countless ways an enemy could deal a crippling blow. Why not mention chemical attack? Biological attack? Nuclear attack? Computer attack? Missile attack? Because of course, if you mentioned all the ways that an enemy could attack the U.S. given its inherent vulnerabilities, it would be apparent that spending trillions on every conceivable defense as a precaution, as opposed to simply eliminating the enemy's capacity to do harm, is ridiculous. Objectivist orthodoxy has nothing to do with it.
ReplyDeleteThis is the fundamental problem with politicians such as Ron Paul, who supports Objectivist polices and philosophy is there lack of understanding about the nature of war. Paul have stated in several interviews that if he is ever elect to the presidency that he would pull out all US troops from all foreign bases.
ReplyDeleteHe also stated: "There's nobody in this world that could possibly attack us today... I mean, we could defend this country with a few good submarines. If anybody dared touch us we could wipe any country off of the face of the earth within hours. And here we are, so intimidated and so insecure and we're acting like such bullies that we have to attack third-world nations that have no military and have no weapon."
The fatal flaw in his and objectivist thinking is assuming that America's enemies think like Americans do. Of course, no foreign enemy of America is going to launch a direct attack on the U.S. because it is suicide. The nation's enemies would carry out an indirect attack on the United States.
In The Art of War, Sun Tzu said: "All warfare is based on deception. Hence, when we are able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must appear inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near."
Unfortunately, Paul and others objectivists don't realizes that foreign enemies would used deception (which is non-rational) to attack the United States, then again, I doubt Ayn Rand or many of her followers ever read Sun Tzu or even understand the nature of war.
Anon69 said: Objectivists do have an answer to Iran: they want to pre-emptively nuke it so it can't threaten the U.S. with an EMP or anything else.
ReplyDeleteNoooo, not the initiation of force!
Greg,
ReplyDeleteYou might be too quick to deem entrepreneurs lacking in courage or force. I don't think a typical Alaskan crab fisherman, for example, would be sheepish about standing his ground. In fact, I would say entrepreneurs by and large are habitually persistent and unwilling to back down from very many obstacles. I would probably bet on a random cross-section of entrepreneurs versus, say, a random cross-section of grocery store employees.
Anon69: "Objectivists do have an answer to Iran: they want to pre-emptively nuke it so it can't threaten the U.S."
ReplyDeleteWhile Objectivists deserve credit for at least recognizing the threat Iran poses, nuking Iran would not guarantee that the U.S. would be safe, since such an action would isolate the U.S. from the rest of the world and justify a possible attack from Russia and China, who would be arguing that the U.S. is dangerous and needs to be destroyed.
"Because of course, if you mentioned all the ways that an enemy could attack the U.S. given its inherent vulnerabilities, it would be apparent that spending trillions on every conceivable defense as a precaution, as opposed to simply eliminating the enemy's capacity to do harm, is ridiculous."
Are you sure that that is not just a rationalization? Civil defense against WMDs is only expensive if you calculate like one of these businessmen that Pareto and Schumpeter warn us about. It's simply a matter of having one's priorities straight. After all, if your nation doesn't survive, all other concerns are entirely pointless. And given how wealthy the U.S. is, it wouldn't be that expensive to have sensible civil defense measures against major threats, including even large-scale nuclear war.
Jay,
ReplyDeleteWhile there are exceptions (as Schumpeter admits), the question whether there are enough exceptions to matter. I'm sure Alaskan crab fishermen (or Eureka crab fishermen, who fish here locally where I live) are exceptions, as are many small businessmen. But is that enough to really count for anything? Probably not. What about the economic elites, particularly the Wall Street financiers and the tech entrepreneurs from Silicon vallley? Why has there been little in the way of serious civil defense in this country? Where does one find a lobbying organization such as Entrepreneurs for Civil Defense? I happen to be associated with an organization that is trying to raise money to support efforts to educate Americans about (among other things) civil defense issues, and it is pretty hard going stirring up any interest at all among economic elites, even though they have the most to lose in the event of an attack.
In other words, a commercial society, a society dominated by people who live by their wits and have become increasingly habituated by market forces to think almost exclusively in terms of profit and loss, becomes, over time, less fit for using force to defend the country and prevent the “initiation of force” by foreign aggressors.
ReplyDeleteThe empirical evidence for this theorizing is what exactly? Does history show us repeated invasion and subjugation of countries with freer markets, such as the US, UK, Australia and Canada, by militaristic non-market countries, such as Cuba, Iraq, North Korea and the Soviet Union? I don't remember that from history class. Last I noticed, the major failures of "free market" countries in war have been in efforts to prop up governments in other, not-so-free countries. That's not exactly classic self-defense. Is there real-world evidence in favor of the contention that free-market countries can't protect themselves from foreign aggression, or is it all just speculation about harm that might be done in the future?
International Relations does not work that way.
ReplyDeleteFirst, there is no such thing as a nation deciding to go to war. The President of a place decides to go to war, or at most the Congress of a place decides to go to war. Everybody doesn't go vote to declare war against some other country. If that was true, fewer wars would happen.
Because of this, there are all sorts of motivations for going to war that don't fit into what theory would dictate would cause nations to go to war. A President might want to look tough in front of the people on election day, A congressman might want pork for his district, a diplomat might not have been able to get the enemy to listen to her threats because she was a blonde.
There are all sorts of motives that compel armed conflict that have nothing to do with whether 'the people' are in the 'habit' of employing force, a little to do with actual national security, and a lot to do with how a politician can benefit, either pecuniariarily or otherwise.
The empirical evidence for this theorizing is what exactly? Does history show us repeated invasion and subjugation of countries with freer markets, such as the US, UK, Australia and Canada, by militaristic non-market countries, such as Cuba, Iraq, North Korea and the Soviet Union? I don't remember that from history class. Last I noticed, the major failures of "free market" countries in war have been in efforts to prop up governments in other, not-so-free countries. That's not exactly classic self-defense. Is there real-world evidence in favor of the contention that free-market countries can't protect themselves from foreign aggression, or is it all just speculation about harm that might be done in the future?
ReplyDeleteI think your criticism misses the point, though I agree with part of the thrust of it, that Greg's ideas might be a bit hard (to put it mildly) to ground in experience.
That you are less able or more reluctant to use force, either to attack or in self-defense does not mean that you cannot use it at all, or you will not use it in certain circumstances, and it does not imply that you will be subjugated by those who are more willing to use it, but less able to do so.
Moreover, there is also the issue of having a standing military. Does that affect how Greg's idea is to be applied empirically? In general, I'm not impressed by this particular post (part 21), but maybe I'm missing something in the bigger picture.
"The empirical evidence for this theorizing is what exactly? Does history show us repeated invasion and subjugation of countries with freer markets."
ReplyDeleteThis issue is not so much free markets versus less free markets, but commercial societies (or merchant orientated societies) versus less merchant-oriented societies. And through history, societies that were more merchant orientated were non infrequently defeated by nations less merchant orientated. This is a point particularly emphasized by Italien social thinkers like Pareto and Mosca, because they believe that is what happened to Italy during the Italian Renaissance. (They also believed it happened in the ancient world to Athens.)
Now the larger point is whether commercial societies, over time, tend to under-rate the threats that their less commercial (and therefore less wealthy, less tech savy) enemies pose them, and whether over the long-run that may end up being their downfall. If you present the example of the United States during the 20th century, it may seem to refute the general tenor of Pareto's arguments. In the United States, we have a commercial society that appears to be the powerful (by a large measure) country in the world. But one can't refute Pareto on the basis of one country in one century. We need to first find out how much longer the United States can defend itself from its enemies. If the United States is able to defend itself from all its enemies while remaining a commercial society for another century or longer, then we will have better grounds for questioning Pareto's strictures. But if the United States is destroyed as a commercial society (through EMP or nuclear attack that destroys its fragile infrastructure), then Pareto will have received a particularly noteworthy vindication.
The problem with using the ancient Greek or Italian city-states as examples is that all of the above, on either side of their conflicts, were economically more similar to one another than to any to modern industrial society. For most of history, all non-nomadic societies were fundamentally agrarian, with a strong majority of both population and economic output being from agriculture. We might today label them as "commercial" or "militaristic" based on other social factors, but in terms of overall production, two agrarian city-states of similar size and geography would be not be that different from one another. Modern industrial states have much greater variation in economic capacity, and thus in their ability to sustain themselves in war. This suggests that Pareto's theory might have an unsound basis.
ReplyDeleteBut hey, we have this great method for vetting theories: We look for examples beyond those originally used to formulate the theory, to see if they confirm it or not. Pareto wrote a century ago, and the absence confirming events since that time counts as evidence against the theory. On the other hand, repeating and elaborating on speculations of events that have not happened, that does not count as evidence for the theory.
"But hey, we have this great method for vetting theories: We look for examples beyond those originally used to formulate the theory, to see if they confirm it or not."
ReplyDeleteIt's actually a bit more complicated than that when dealing with social causation. In the first place, we're often dealing with generalizations and tendencies, not with strict uniformities; and secondly, we ourselves confronted with multiple causation, so that trying to determine the individual elements that lead to the success or failure of a given society is very difficult. It is not enough merely to test the theories; the inherent plausiblity of each element itself must be judged as well. Now the notion that the type of individual both prone to use force and expert at using it will tend not to go into trade, along with the complimentary notion that an army tend not to be made from the most intelligent individuals in society, are eminently plausible, and, indeed, supported by what we know about social classes in history. European aristocrats (essentially a warrior class) for many centuries disdained trade as beneath them. As commerce grew in the Middle Ages, the number one problem for the emerging bourgeois class was defending themselves from robber barons that wished to plunder them. There is every reason to believe that this conflict will always exist at some level, and if it has been suppressed in favor of the trading classes, that is only because some kind of palliative has developed against it. Mosca believed that the institution of the modern standing army was just such a palliative. But it may be true that, in the case of the United States, the biggest factor in allowing commercial interests to take root and flourish without fear of being plundered by foreign mauraders is the two large oceans that separated the United States from any of the other major powers of the world, making the U.S. largely immune to such an attack. Unfortunately, modern technology has greatly reduced the effectiveness of those oceans as defensive barriers. Yet there doesn't seem be much concern in America to take all (or even most of) the steps necessary to defend the country from the very serious threats that either have or will emerge against it.
"On the other hand, repeating and elaborating on speculations of events that have not happened, that does not count as evidence for the theory."
This strikes me as rather short-sighted. What use is a theory unless it helps us anticipate possible dangers we may confront in the future? All attempts to plan for the future involve a certain element of speculation based on theories which, at best, can have only partial justification in history. Military plans involving WMDs must contain a large element of speculation, since WMDs have never been deployed on a mass scale. Yet, provided this speculative element is based on the best knowledge at are disposal, combined with speculations which take account of all the variables that human intelligence and think of, it can prove a very useful guide to forming contingency plans (or making us realize possible threats to a nation's survival).